FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

New Zealand Tablet, 24 February 1921, Page 33

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

[A weekly Instruction for Young and Old,] V 1 I.—Historical Authority of the New Testament, 53. The historical books of the New Testament are the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, The perfect authority of these books depends on three conditions — authenticity, integrity, and veracity. (1) Authenticity. —A book is called authentic when it is really the work of the author whose name it bears, or to whom it is attributed. Are the books of the New Testament authentic? Were the four Gospels written by the Evangelists, whose names they bear ? Does the hook of the Acts of the Apostles come from the pen of St. Luke, as ! is affirmed by Catholics? Our adversaries deny it; they pretend that these books were composed by writers of a later date. We say, on the contrary, that their authenticity cannot admit of a doubt. It is proved by four arguments —prescription or legitimate possession, impossibility of the contrary, marks of authenticity, and testimony. (a) The Universal Church has been in possession of these books ever since their origin, and has always held them to be authentic; and though her cleverest and most furious enemies have tried to prove the contrary, they have never, during the course of so many centuries, been able to do so. Hence this possession of the Church must be considered legitimate and founded on truth.

(b) To say that these books have been invented by impostors, and falsely attributed to the Evangelists, is not only gratuitous, but an impossible hypothesis. The invention of them could not have been produced during the lifetime of the Apostles, because those would have protested against them; nor yet after their death— that is to say, after the first century of our era —because these books men already existed, and were spread throughout Christendom like the Christians themselves.

(c) The Gospels bear the marks of their author's hands. The language in which they were composed ; the style; the constant allusions to the Scriptures, to the manners and geographical circumstances of the Jews; the facts and words which are reported with a precision of detail which can only be given by an eye-witnessall these things show that their authors were Israelites who were contemporaries and disciples of Jesus.

(d) The Gospels and Evangelists are .quoted by the earliest Fathers, such as St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius, St. Clement of Rome, who was a disciple of St. Peter. Moreover, the heretics of the first ages, the pagan philosophers who were hostile to the Church, .such as Lucian, Celsus, and Jul I "an the Apostate, admit the authenticity of the Gospels. "Paul has nowhere dared to give to Jesus the name of God," says Julian; "neither have Matthew, Luke, nor Mark; John only has done it iiriiis simplicity." \ (2) Integrity.— books of the New Testament have not undergone any substantial interpolation or alteration, (a) because such corruption has always* been impossible, and (b) it is positively evident that it never has taken place.

•r (a) Impossibility.— All corruption would have been impossible during the lifetime of the Apostles, and under their eyes. They would have protested against it, and not have suffered it. It was also impossible after their death, as it would be now, because of the dissemination of copies and the vigilance of the bishops-. \ : . (b) It is proved that the New Testament has in fact remained intact; proofs of this are furnished by the writings and commentaries of the Fathers, who quote nearly all the New Testament; by the ancient versions, which are in perfect harmony with the actual text; by the old manuscripts of the New Testament which have come down to us, some of which date from the fourth century, and which present the same text with some unimportant variations. (3) Veracity.— The historians of the New Testament are truthful, veracious, and worthy of belief in the highest We have proof of this in the person of the authors, in the nature of the facts which they report, in the form of their recital, in the confidence which they have inspired from the . beginning. (a) The authors are men who were neither deceived nor deceivers, and who moreover could not, if they would, have deceived. In fact, they were contemporary with' and witnesses of, events which they relate. Calm of mind and slow of belief, they were men: without excitement or enthusiasm; .full of religion and.probity, they had a horror of imposture, and" shed their blood to witness the'truth of what they have written, **l»v4-\fv \- K d-t ■:,.-,. f , : ,.- : - g (b) The history which they- write is composed of a series of public and important events, which „could easily have been proved to be false, and which contemporaries would have rejected? as* unworthy impostures if ? their truthfulness

had ■ not' been evident .-"Moreover;- these ? same ■■■- events * are so wonderful, the doctrine and discourses relating to them so sublime, so astonishing, so unheard of until then, that even men of the greatest genius could not have invented them.* .'. -

(c) The manner in which' the Evangelists relate all these great things bears in itself the stamp of truth. they differ from each other, but' do not contradict each other: their candor and simplicity are remarkable. Such is . always the testimony of truthful persons who all relate, the same events, each one according to his own style. . , ,", (d) Is there a single, monument of history; to which such a- degree of veracity has always been attributed? (a) The Gospels, as soon as they appeared, were respected as the faithful expression of the great things of. which the first,-readers had themselves partly been witnesses; (b). it was on the faith of ( the Evangelists, ,as on that ;of the Apostles, that their contemporaries, Jews and Gentiles, embraced the religion of Jesus Christ, though it was new, and only offered to the corrupt society ~of the times mysteries to believe, a severe morality to practise,, and. persecutions to undergo. The learned and unlearned received as. the pure truth all that is contained in the Gospels, and scaled their belief with their blood.

Therefore the books of the New Testament are of perfect veracity, integrity, and authenticity therefore they possess the highest degree of authority that can be exacted of history.

* "Shall we say," the infidel J. J. . Rousseau asks, "that the history of the Gospel has been invented at pleasure. No people invent thus. It would be more inconceivable that several men had conjointly fabricated this book than'- that a single person could have furnished the subject. Jewish authors could never have taken" such a tone. And the Gospel has in it characters so great, so striking, and so perfectly inimitable, that he who could invent them would he still greater than his heroes" Emile, torn, iii.; vide Feller, n. 243 et suiv.).