Hort's Lecture on Ignatius and Polycarp

     

Fenton John Anthony Hort

      In 1890, Fenton John Anthony Hort (half of the Westcott-Hort duo) delivered a series of six lectures on ante-Nicene fathers.  They were published in 1895, a few years after his death.  What follows here, with slight adjustments, is the second lecture in the series.

LECTURE II:  IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP

            Last week we had for our subject the two earliest Christian Fathers belonging to the Roman Church, Clement of Rome the writer of the Epistle sent by the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, and Hermas the writer of the book of Visions, Commandments, and Parables which takes the name ‘The Shepherd’ from the prominent part played in it by the Angel of Repentance, who appeared to Hermas in the guise of a shepherd. Today we proceed to the others of the Fathers commonly called Apostolic, who have special claims to be remembered. These are Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna.

            The names of these cities remind us at once that we are passing into very different worlds from that world which immediately surrounded Clement and Hermas; and one at least of the two Eastern Fathers, Ignatius, is singularly unlike his two brethren of the West.  Ignatius was Bishop of the Christian Church at Antioch.  Beyond this bare fact we know nothing of his life and work before the last journey to which his letters belong. We can see from the letters that he had been condemned to death as a Christian at Antioch and sent off under a guard of ten soldiers to suffer death at Rome.  The course taken was, in part at least, through Asia Minor and then through Macedonia.  Arrived at Smyrna, he was welcomed not only by the church of the city and its bishop Polycarp, but also by the delegates of the churches of three other cities lying along what we should now call the loop line of road which he had not traversed, and especially the church of the great capital, Ephesus.  

            During this short stay at Smyrna he wrote three letters (which have been preserved) to these three churches which he had been obliged to pass unvisited, and a fourth of a different character to the Church of Rome, the goal of his journey, the place where he expected and desired to suffer martyrdom.  We next find him at Alexandria Troas, the seaport from which he was to sail for Europe.  There he had the happiness of being overtaken by two deacons from the neighborhood of his own Antioch, and receiving news of the cessation of the persecution which had caused his own condemnation.  There also he wrote three more letters, to the Church of Smyrna which he had just left, to Polycarp its bishop, and to the Church of Philadelphia which he had been allowed to visit on his way to Smyrna.  

            Thus the seven letters are made up, which are now in our hands.  Of the European part of his course we have traces in Polycarp’s Epistle, to which we shall come just now.  The Church of Philippi received him warmly, and at his request sent a letter of greeting to the Church of Antioch through Polycarp, as he had asked those other churches to do to which he had written after receiving the good tidings from Syria.  The Philippian Christians at the same time took the opportunity to ask Polycarp for copies of any letters of Ignatius in his possession.  Of what followed we know nothing beyond the bare fact that Ignatius suffered martyrdom at Rome.

            Two different narratives exist professing to describe his martyrdom, but they are fabrications of late date.  It is morally certain that the manner of death would be by the fangs of wild beasts, and that the place of it would be the vast Flavian amphitheater which for many centuries has been called the Colosseum.  Any one who may have the good fortune to visit Rome and stand within the ruins of that wonderful pile will do well to think of Ignatius, and the testimony which he bore. The time of Ignatius’ martyrdom is known on less clear evidence than could be wished.  The probabilities however are in favor of about a.d. 110, the time fixed by Lightfoot in general terms.

             We must now turn to the substance of the letters themselves.  It is impossible not to shrink in some degree from any attempt to analyze them, as almost a cold-blooded thing to do. Nothing in early Christian literature is at all like them; nothing else has the same intensely personal character.  It may be that their peculiarity is in part owing to difference of race:  we seem to hear a Syrian speaking to us, not a Greek, much less a Roman, though Ignatius is a Roman name.  But a strong personal individuality is there too.  Utterly unlike as they likewise are in other ways to all the apostolic Epistles, they have here and there a certain affinity of spirit to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the most individual of all St. Paul’s Epistles.  

            The thought that underlies every word is the thought that the writer is a man sentenced to death, to death for the name of his Lord.  The thought brings with it a sense of keen and yet utterly humble exultation.  As he passes through the cities of Asia, his constant impulse is towards close fellowship between himself and the various churches in their midst, and again between these and his own church of Antioch.  By word and by letter he is constantly striving to make them sharers in his own fervor of martyrdom, and to make himself a sharer in all that concerned their welfare.

            Here and there we find warnings against doctrinal errors to the influence of which these Asiatic churches were exposed, apparently of two types only:  one, the early form of what is commonly called Docetism, the tendency so to dwell on our Lord’s Divine nature as to regard His body as a mere unreal appearance; the other the subordination of the Christian faith to Judaism, somewhat as in the days of St. Paul.  This latter evil was specially rife at Philadelphia, where the Judaizers seem to have raised opposition against Ignatius himself as he passed through.

            But a larger part of the letters is taken up with practical exhortations, especially to unity of spirit, unity of worship, unity of organization.  Even at this early time the churches evidently had many members who had become careless about Christian fellowship, and neglectful of the means by which alone it could be preserved in warmth and vigor.  To take one significant example, it would seem that many of the Asiatic Christians had got into a habit of celebrating the Holy Communion in a loose and haphazard way, meeting together in little private knots of people, rather than in the central congregation as members of one great body.  In this as in all matters Ignatius endeavored to revive and strengthen internal and external fellowship by exhorting the members of the Church to gather dutifully round its duly appointed officers who were organized in a compact body of three orders, the bishop at the head, the presbytery or college of elders who formed his council, and the deacons or servants (diakonoi) who were chiefly occupied in the arrangements for the relief of the poorer members of the Church. Ignatius’ language on these subjects, sometimes startling enough at best, becomes at least more intelligible when this practical purpose of his is remembered. [See Lightfoot, Philippians, pp. 234 foll. and elsewhere.]

            Having a keen sense of the immediate evil, he eagerly has recourse to that external remedy which lay immediately ready to his hand. But it is poor work attempting to describe the words of a man like Ignatius. A few extracts will give a truer impression of him.  We will begin with one of the elaborate salutations which head his letters, that to the Philadelphians:

            “Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the church of God the Father and of Jesus Christ, which is in Philadelphia of Asia, which hath found mercy and is firmly established in the concord of God and rejoiceth in the passion of our Lord and in His resurrection without wavering, being fully assured in all mercy; which church I salute in the blood of Jesus Christ, that is eternal and abiding joy; more especially if they be at one with the bishop and the presbyters who are with him, and with the deacons that have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus Christ, whom after His own will He confirmed and established by His Holy Spirit.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. II., Sect, i., p. 559.]  

            Writing to the Ephesians he says,

            “I know who I am and to whom I write.  I am a convict, ye have received mercy; I am in peril, ye are established.  Ye are the high-road of those that are on their way to die unto God.  Ye are associates in the mysteries with Paul, who was sanctified, who obtained a good report, who is worthy of all felicitation; in whose footsteps I would fain be found treading, when I shall attain unto God; who in every letter maketh mention of you in Christ Jesus.

            “Do your diligence therefore to meet together more frequently for thanksgiving to God and for His glory.  For when ye meet together frequently, the powers of Satan are cast down; and his mischief cometh to nought in the concord of your faith. There is nothing better than peace, in which all warfare of things in heaven and things on earth is abolished.

            “None of these things is hidden from you, if ye be perfect in your faith and love toward Jesus Christ, for these are the beginning and end of life — faith is the beginning and love is the end — and the two being found in unity are God, while all things else follow in their train unto true nobility.  No man professing faith sinneth, and no man possessing love hateth. ‘The tree is manifest from its fruit’; so they that profess to be Christ’s shall be seen through their actions.  For the Work is not a thing of profession now, but is seen then when one is found in the power of faith unto the end.

            “It is better to keep silence and to be, than to talk and not to be. It is a fine thing to teach, if the speaker practice. Now there is one teacher, who ‘spoke and it came to pass’; yea and even the things which He spoke in silence are worthy of the Father. He that truly possesses the word of Jesus, is able also to hearken unto His silence, that he may be perfect; that through his speech he may act and through his silence he may be known.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. II., Sect, i., p. 543.]

            And again a little earlier,

            “And pray ye also without ceasing for the rest of mankind (for there is in them a hope of repentance) that they may find God.  Therefore permit them to take lessons at least from your works.  Against their outbursts of wrath be ye meek; against their proud words be ye humble; against their railings set ye your prayers; against their errors be ye steadfast in the faith; against their fierceness be ye gentle.  And be not zealous to imitate them by requital.  Let us show ourselves their brothers by our forbearance; but let us be zealous to be imitators of the Lord, vying with each other – who shall suffer the greater wrong, who shall be defrauded, who shall be set at nought; that no herb of the devil be found in you: but in all purity and temperance abide ye in Christ Jesus, with your flesh and with your spirit.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II, Vol. II., Sect, i., p. 543.]

             For a comprehensive passage on unity we may take this from the Epistle to the Magnesians:

            “Seeing then that in the aforementioned persons I beheld your whole people in faith and embraced them, I advise you, be ye zealous to do all things in godly concord, the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons also who are most dear to me, having been entrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the worlds and appeared at the end of time. Therefore do ye all study conformity to God and pay reverence one to another, and let no man regard his neighbor after the flesh, but love ye one another in Christ Jesus always.  Let there be nothing among you which shall have power to divide you, but be ye united with the bishop and with them that preside over you as an ensample and a lesson of incorruptibility.

            “Therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father, [being united with Him,] either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters.  And attempt not to think anything right for yourselves apart from others; but let there be one prayer in common, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy unblameable, which is Jesus Christ, than whom there is nothing better.  Hasten to come together all of you, as to one temple, even God; as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from One Father and is with One and departed unto One.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. II., Sect, i., p. 547.]

            These passages are from letters to churches, the six Asiatic churches to which he wrote.  We may take also a few words from the beginning of his one letter to a single man, Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna:

            “Ignatius who is also Theophorus, unto Polycarp, who is bishop of the Church of the Smyrnasans, or rather whose Bishop is God the Father and Jesus Christ, abundant greeting.  Welcoming thy godly mind which is grounded as it were on an immovable rock, I give exceeding glory that it hath been vouchsafed me to see thy blameless face, whereof I would fain have joy in God. I exhort thee in the grace wherewith thou art clothed to press forward in thy course and to exhort all men that they may be saved. Vindicate thine office in all diligence of flesh and of spirit.  Have a care for union, than which there is nothing better.  Bear all men, as the Lord also bears thee.  Suffer all men in love, as also thou doest.  Give thyself to unceasing prayers.  Ask for larger wisdom than thou hast.  Be watchful, and keep thy spirit from slumbering.  Speak to each man severally after the manner of God.  Bear the maladies of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is much toil, there is much gain.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. II., Sect, i., p. 567.]

            I have kept till last the Epistle to the Romans, which is of different character from the rest.  This was the church which was to receive him last; at Rome he was to die.  To the Roman Christians he pours forth his inmost thoughts about his martyrdom.  The exhortation which he has to address to them is chiefly that they will do nothing to hinder him in attaining this object of his desire.  It is probable enough that among them were to be found persons of much influence with the emperor, who might thus have been able to save his life.  But this is what he most anxiously deprecates. It must be confessed that much of the language here used about martyrdom is out of harmony with the teaching of the Lord and His Apostles. Taken up by men of a lower type of mind and character, it led but too naturally to the mere frenzy of self-destruction, under the name of martyrdom, against which some of the wiser Fathers had afterwards to protest.  But reverence is due even to the extravagances of such a lofty soul as that of Ignatius.

            “Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, unto her that hath found mercy in the bountifulness of the Father Most High and of Jesus Christ His only Son; to the Church that is beloved and enlightened through the will of Him who willed all things that are, by faith and love towards Jesus Christ our God; even unto her that hath the presidency in the country of the region of the Romans, being worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of felicitation, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy in purity, and having the presidency of love, walking in the law of Christ and bearing the Father’s name ; which Church also I salute in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of the Father; unto them that in flesh and spirit are united unto His every commandment, being filled with the grace of God without wavering, and filtered clear from every foreign stain; abundant greeting in Jesus Christ our God in blamelessness.

            “Forasmuch as in answer to my prayer to God it hath been granted to me to see your godly countenances, so that I have obtained even more than I asked; for wearing bonds in Christ Jesus I hope to salute you, if it be the Divine will that I should be counted worthy to reach unto the end; for the beginning verily is well ordered, if so be I shall attain unto the goal, that I may receive mine inheritance without hindrance.  For I dread your very love, lest it do me an injury: for it is easy for you to do what ye will, but for me it is difficult to attain unto God, unless ye shall spare me.

            “For I would not have you to be men-pleasers, but to please God, as indeed ye do please Him.  For neither shall I myself ever find an opportunity such as this to attain unto God, nor can ye, if ye be silent, win the credit of any nobler work.  For if ye be silent and leave me alone, I am a word of God; but if ye desire my flesh, then shall I be again a mere cry.  Nay grant me nothing more than that I be poured out a libation to God, while there is still an altar ready; that forming yourselves into a chorus in love ye may sing to the Father in Jesus Christ, for that God hath vouchsafed that the bishop from Syria should be found in the West, having summoned him from the East.  It is good to set from the world unto God, that I may rise unto Him.”

            “I write to all the churches, and I bid all men know, that of my own free will I die for God, unless ye should hinder me.  Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God.  I am God’s wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread [of Christ].  Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my sepulcher and may leave no part of my body behind, so that I may not, when I am fallen asleep, be burdensome to anyone.  Then shall I be truly a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world shall not so much as see my body.  Supplicate the Lord for me, that through these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to God.  I do not enjoin you, as Peter and Paul did.  They were apostles, I am a convict; they were free, but I am a slave this very hour.  Yet if I shall suffer, then am I a Freedman of Jesus Christ, and I shall rise free in Him.  Now I am learning in my bonds to put away every desire.

            “Remember in your prayers the church which is in Syria, which hath God for its shepherd in my stead.  Jesus Christ alone shall be its bishop.  He and your love.  But for myself I am ashamed to be called one of them; for neither am I worthy, being the very last of them and an untimely birth, but I have found mercy that I should be some one; if so be I shall attain unto God. My spirit salutes you, and the love of the churches which received me in the name of Jesus Christ, not as a mere wayfarer; for even those churches which did not He on my route after the flesh went before me from city to city.

            “Now I write these things unto you from Smyrna by the hand of the Ephesians who are worthy of all felicitation. And Crocus also, a name very dear to me, is with me, with many others besides.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. II, Sect, i., pp. 555. foll.]

            Polycarp, we have seen, was the chief person with whom Ignatius was brought in contact on his journey as a condemned prisoner through Asia Minor. There are other proper names in tolerable abundance in the Ignatian letters: but they belong to men now forgotten, and even in that day none of them can have had the prominence of Polycarp.  His own one extant writing belongs to this very time; i.e. it was written after Ignatius had not only left Asia Minor but Philippi also, but when as yet no tidings had come from Italy as to what had befallen him at Rome.  This writing is a letter to the Philippians in answer to that which they had written on Ignatius’ departure.  To it were appended copies of the letters written by Ignatius to Smyrna and other churches, and these copies are probably the source of our present collection.  The letter itself has no such vivid personal interest as those of Ignatius.  The good Polycarp was a much more commonplace person.

            But apart from its connection with Ignatius, his letter has a great value of its own, partly as showing what manner of thoughts on Christian faith and practice the bishop of a great Asiatic city cherished at that early date, partly also as showing what writings of the Apostles he possessed and revered and drew upon (and that copiously) to give point and authority to what he had to say. The letter is for the most part made up of brotherly admonition, partly to the Philippian church at large, partly to its deacons, partly to its elders. There is no mention of any bishop, any more than there is in Ignatius’ epistle to the Romans.  Apparently this concentration of church government had not yet at this time spread from Asia into Europe.  We may take a short chapter from near the beginning (after the Salutation), and another from near the end:

            “I rejoiced with you greatly in our Lord Jesus Christ, for that ye received the followers of the true love and escorted them on their way, as befitted you – those men encircled in saintly

bonds which are the diadems of them that be truly chosen of God and our Lord; and that the steadfast root of your faith which was famed from primitive times abides until now and bears fruit unto our Lord Jesus Christ, who endured to face even death for our sins, ‘whom God raised, having loosed the pangs of Hades; on whom, though ye saw Him not, ye believe with joy unutterable and full of glory’; unto which joy many desire to enter in; forasmuch as ye know that it is ‘by grace ye are saved, not of works,’ but by the will of God through Jesus Christ.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. II., Sect, ii., p. 1051.]

            “For I am persuaded that ye are well trained in the sacred writings, and nothing is hidden from you.  But to myself this is not granted.  Only, as it is said in the scriptures, ‘Be ye angry and sin not,’ and ‘Let not the sun set on your wrath.’  Blessed is he that remembers this; and I trust that this is in you.  Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal High Priest Himself, the God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth, and in all gentleness and in all avoidance of wrath and in forbearance and long suffering and in patient endurance and purity; and may He grant unto you a lot and portion among His saints, and to us with you, and to all that are under heaven, who shall believe on our Lord and God Jesus Christ and on His Father ‘that raised Him from the dead.  Pray for all the saints.’  Pray also ‘for kings and powers and princes,’ and ‘for them that persecute and hate you,’ and for ‘the enemies of the cross,’ that your fruit may be ‘manifest among all men,’ that ye may be perfect in Him.” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. II. Sect, ii., p. 1055.]

            This meeting with Ignatius must have come somewhere towards the middle of Polycarp’s long life.  His importance for us depends in no small degree on that longevity of his.  As Dr. Lightfoot has expounded with peculiar force, he bridges the long and comparatively obscure period between the close of the apostolic age and the great writers of the latter part of the second century.  Born somewhere about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, he lived in early life near St. John and it may be one or two more of the Twelve.  Of this converse in early youth he used to rejoice to tell in his later years.  This we learn from a striking passage from a letter of Irenaeus which has happily been preserved.

            “I can tell,” he wrote, “the very place in which the blessed Paul used to sit when he discoursed, Polycarp and his goings out and his comings in, and the stamp of his life, and his bodily appearance, and the discourses which he held towards the congregation, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words.  And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord and about His acts of power and about His teaching, Polycarp, as having received them from eyewitnesses of the life and Word would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures.” [From Lightfoot, I. 429.   Eusebius, v. 20.]

            But from that midpoint of Polycarp’s life formed by the passing of Ignatius we are able not only to look back to his youth but also forward to his extreme old age.  Somewhere about the middle of the second century he made a journey to Rome to take counsel with Anicetus the Bishop (for by that time episcopacy was regularly established at Rome) about various matters of Church usage, but especially about the time of celebrating the Paschal festival, as to which the Churches of Asia Minor differed from those of the West.  They remained in perfect amity, though the differences of usage continued, and Anicetus paid Polycarp the honor of setting him in his own place to preside over the Eucharistic service at Rome.

            Not long after the old man’s return, something like forty-five years after Ignatius’ death for conscience sake, he too in his turn was called to give his life in bearing witness to the truth.  A probably genuine narrative of his martyrdom still survives, being a letter from the Church of Smyrna to one or more Churches in Phrygia.

            Every one, I suppose, has somewhere or other read the answer which he is recorded to have made when the magistrate, anxious to spare him, besought him to revile the Christ, and so obtain release.  “Fourscore and six years have I been his servant; and how can I blaspheme my King that saved me.”  Let us read also his last words when he had been tied to the stake, true last words of a true Father of the Church:

            “So they did not nail him, but tied him.  Then he, placing his hands behind him, and being bound to the stake, like a noble ram out of a great flock for an offering, a burnt sacrifice made ready and acceptable to God, looking up to heaven said, ‘O Lord God Almighty, the Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of Thee, the God of angels and powers and of all creation and of the whole race of the righteous, who live in Thy presence; I bless Thee for that Thou hast granted me this day and hour, that I might receive a portion amongst the number of martyrs in the cup of [Thy] Christ unto resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and body, in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit. May I be received among these in Thy presence this day, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as Thou didst prepare and reveal it beforehand, and hast accomplished it, Thou that art the faithful and true God.  For this cause, yea and for all things, I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal and heavenly High-priest, Thy beloved Son, through whom with Him and the Holy Spirit be glory both now [and ever] and for the ages to come. Amen.’” [From Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II., Vol. ii., Sect, ii., p. 1064.]

Hort's Lecture on Clement of Rome and Hermas

 

Fenton John Anthony Hort
(1828-1892)

          In 1890, Fenton John Anthony Hort (half of the Westcott-Hort duo) delivered a series of six lectures on ante-Nicene fathers.  They were published in 1895, a few years after his death.  What follows here, with slight adjustments, is the first lecture in the series.

LECTURE I:  CLEMENT OF ROME AND HERMAS

            The lectures which I hope to deliver this term are intended to have for their subject “Some early Fathers of the Church.”  In this description of the proposed subject the word  “Fathers” means simply what it means in common usage, the Christian writers of the early Christian centuries.  In one literal sense they might be called Fathers, viz. as being the parents of the Christian thought and belief and life of later centuries, which, however modified and altered by the inward and outward changes arising in the course of time, retain always down to the present day important features inherited from the peculiar circumstances of the centuries which followed the Apostolic age.

            But, although it is important to remember that our own thoughts, and the thoughts of all

Christians everywhere, have been in a great measure thus shaped for us by the thoughts of the early Fathers, it is not on account of this fact that we call them Fathers, but rather in gratitude and veneration for them as the patriarchs of Christendom, speaking to us still out of that early dawn of the Christian period of history, and often speaking to us out of the fiery trial of persecution.  But it would be a misuse of this legitimate reverence to treat the words of the Fathers as oracles appointed to dictate to us what we ought to believe.  If we read their words with an open and teachable mind, we shall often find there abundant help and instruction, but the responsibility will always lie upon us of weighing and testing what we read, to the best of our power.  We must not be surprised if we sometimes find much dross, for each age has its own limitations and vagaries, and, besides these, each man in each age has his own limitations and vagaries, some more, some less.

            Again it is not really possible to measure the comparative worth of the Fathers, one with another, merely by their comparative antiquity. There is no doubt a peculiar freshness in the best writings of quite the earliest time, the only time which can with any propriety share with the Apostolic Age the much misused and slippery epithet “primitive.”  But the greatest of the Fathers belong to later times, and different later times, when in doctrine and in institutions and in various other things pertaining to Christian life, great and unavoidable changes had taken place, changes that were on the whole for good and belonging to healthy growth, but also by no means free from loss, from injurious onesidedness, and from corruption.  In what we call the age of the Fathers there was anything rather than a uniform state of things.  Movement was at that time more rapid than probably at any later time of Christian history.

            There are several comparatively distinct subjects which might properly enough be lectured about or written about in connection with the Fathers. They might serve as a thread for speaking about Church History generally, or about the History of doctrine, of course in either case within the limits of their own time. Or again they might, with more obvious fitness, be taken as the heads of the corresponding history of Christian literature. The time at our disposal will not however allow us to follow any of these lines, unless it be incidentally and to a small extent.  I wish rather to do what I can towards putting before you the leading Fathers of the earliest centuries as living men, the children of a particular time, and to give some account of the purpose and character of their chief works, illustrated by translated extracts which may help towards the formation of individual impressions that may remain associated with their respective names.  

            It is well to keep in mind throughout that only a small part of the actual Christian literature of the early centuries is now preserved to us.  Not only many books, but all the books of many authors, have completely perished. Of others we possess only scanty fragments.  On the other hand, when we observe the neglect or even dislike with which the Ante-Nicene Christian literature, with very limited exceptions, was regarded by most of the Christian theologians of later days, we can hardly be too thankful that so much has been preserved; and moreover that what has been preserved has so representative a character, that is, supplies us with substantial and important examples of different times, different schools, and different churches.  Again it is a striking and encouraging fact that so many lost works, or lost portions of works, belonging to this period have come to light within the last forty years.  Nor is there any reason to believe that we have come to the end of discoveries of this kind.

            The Fathers of whom I propose to speak today belong to the small group to which it has been usual for above two hundred years to give the rather unmeaning name Apostolic Fathers, that is, preeminently Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp. In the opinion of many the earliest extant Christian writing outside the New Testament is the remarkable little manual of Christian morals and ecclesiastical instruction calling itself the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, now familiarly known as the Didache, which was discovered and published a few years ago. It may however be considerably later, and at all events it lies too near the edge of our subject to need more than this passing word of notice.

            We begin then with Clement of Rome. The little that is really known about him will be best found in Dr. Lightfoot’s admirable edition, and still more in the Appendix which he published eight years later, in which he has carefully sifted the mass of ancient legend and modern speculation which has gathered round Clement’s name. Some pages of his Philippians are also worth reading in the same connection.  The apparent time when the Epistle was written and the apparent personal position of Clement are both remarkable.  Some thirty years had passed, what is counted a generation, since the persecution of Nero, some twenty-five years since the fall of Jerusalem, the greatest as well as most awful of events for all Christians. For the Empire, after all the frightful turmoil which had followed the death of Nero, a happier time had already begun with the accession of Vespasian, a period Dr. Merivale says “distinguished by the general prosperity of the administration, the tranquil obedience of the people, and (with a single exception) by the virtue and public spirit of the rulers.” 

            Vespasian’s son Titus had succeeded, and then his other son Domitian, his reign being the one exception to the comparative brightness of the series of eight.  Always capricious and suspicious, the emperor showed these qualities in an extreme form about the years a.d. 95, 96, the last of his life. Among his victims were his own first cousin and niece’s husband, Flavius Clemens, the father of the two reputed heirs to the empire. This Clemens was executed, and his wife exiled, both apparently as having become Christians. The Clement who wrote our Epistle was, it would seem, a freedman or freedman’s son in their household, and had in this manner received his name. Everything in his letter shows that he must have been long a Christian himself, so that his mind would naturally be saturated, as we find it, with the language and ideas of the Old Testament, the only Scriptures, properly so called, for Christians at this early time, even if he was not previously, as is possible, a Jew of the Dispersion. 

            His precise position in the Roman Church is difficult to ascertain. Two or three generations later, when the early constitution of the European Churches had been forgotten, he was placed in the series of early Bishops of Rome. But, as Dr. Lightfoot has shown (Phil. p. 218, ed. 8), it is difficult to reconcile his holding such an office with the language of the Epistle itself, or with other indications as to the constitution of the Church of Rome at a somewhat later time. But he must certainly have been a man of importance and influence in the Church to be entrusted with the duty of writing such an Epistle, even if he was not the Clement to whom the book of Hermas’ Visions (to which we shall come shortly) was to be sent for sending on to the cities away from Rome, that task, it is said, having been entrusted to him.

            The Epistle itself starts with a salutation resembling those of the Apostolic Epistles, beginning “The Church of God which sojourns at Rome to the Church of God which sojourns at Corinth.”  The first words of the letter itself show the state of things at Rome.  “Because of the sudden and quickly succeeding misfortunes and calamities happening to us, brethren, we deem that we have been somewhat slow in giving attention to the matters that are in dispute among you.”  [From Lightfoot, Clement of Rome, Appendix, p. 346.]  Thus the Epistle was written during or soon after the persecution which fell on the Roman Christians in those last months of Domitian’s reign, the first persecution of which we have any knowledge after the persecution of Nero and the immediately following time of confusion.

            The purpose of this the first extant writing of a Christian Father is the promotion of peace, the restoration of a divided and disorderly Christian community to the concord and order implied in the very idea of Church-membership.  At the outset the Roman Church commends warmly the previous temper and conduct shown by the Corinthian Church, and then especially those ways of theirs to which the present state of things stood in the strongest contrast.   In place of all this had now come what is called (i) a vile and unholy sedition (or quarrel, statis), kindled by a few headlong and self-willed persons to a pitch of madness which had brought their honorable name into disgrace. It had arisen, we read further on, from contumacy shown against some of the elders of the Church, who had been thrust aside without having deserved it (44, 47, 57, etc.). This conduct is traced back (3 fin.) to “an unrighteous and impious jealousy” (zhlos), a jealousy of which examples are given as leading to great crimes and misfortunes in the times of the Old Testament, and now again as leading to the martyr deaths of Peter and Paul and many others of those who are called “elect.” 

            These admonitions the Roman Church then takes up as addressed equally to themselves:  “we are in the same arena, and the same contest awaits us.”  “Let us hearken (9) to His majestic and glorious purpose, and coming as suppliants of His mercy and graciousness let us fall down [before Him] and turn to His compassions, abandoning the laboring that is vain and the strife and the jealousy that leads to death.”  Then follow examples of those “who have ministered perfectly to God’s majestic glory” by obedience or faith or in other like ways, beginning with Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, the words of the Old Testament being copiously cited as well as the lives of its holy men.

            “The humility therefore and the submissiveness of so many and so great men, who have thus obtained a good report, hath through obedience made better not only us but also the generations which were before us, even them that received His oracles in fear and truth.  Seeing then that we have been partakers of many great and glorious doings, let us hasten to return unto the goal of peace which hath been handed down to us from the beginning, and let us look steadfastly unto the Father and Maker of the whole world, and cleave unto His splendid and excellent gifts of peace and benefits.  Let us behold Him in our mind, and let us look with the eyes of our soul unto His long-suffering will. Let us note how free from anger He is towards all His creatures.

             “The heavens are moved by His direction and obey Him in peace.  Day and night accomplish the course assigned to them by Him, without hindrance one to another.  Moreover, the inscrutable depths of the abysses and the unutterable statutes of the nether regions are constrained by the same ordinances.  The basin of the boundless sea, gathered together by His workmanship into its reservoirs, passes not the barriers wherewith it is surrounded; but even as He ordered it, so it does. For He said, ‘So far shalt thou come, and thy waves shall be broken within thee.’  The ocean which is impassable for men, and the worlds beyond it, are directed by the same ordinances of the Master.  The seasons of spring and summer and autumn and winter give way in succession one to another in peace.  The winds in their several quarters at their proper season fulfill their ministry without disturbance; and the ever-flowing fountains, created for enjoyment and health, without fail give their breasts which sustain the life of men.  Yea, the smallest of living things come together in concord and peace. All these things the great Creator and Master of the universe ordered to be in peace and concord, doing good unto all things, but far beyond the rest unto us who have taken refuge in His compassionate mercies through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the majesty for ever and ever.  Amen.” [From Lightfoot, Clement of Rome, Appendix, pp. 355 foll.]

            Then follows a series of chapters of religious exhortation in the same lofty strain, ending with texts thus introduced.

            “This is the way, dearly-beloved, wherein we found our salvation, even Jesus Christ the High-priest of our offerings, the Guardian and Helper of our weakness. Through Him let us look steadfastly unto the heights of the heavens; through Him we behold as in a mirror His faultless and most excellent visage; through Him the eyes of our hearts were opened; through Him our foolish and darkened mind springeth up unto the light; through Him the Master willeth that we should taste of the immortal knowledge; ‘Who being the brightness of His majesty is so much greater than angels, as He hath inherited a more excellent name.’ For so it is written, ‘Who maketh His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire’; but of His Son the Master said thus: ‘Thou art my Son; I this day have begotten Thee.  Ask of me, and I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Thy possession.’ And again He saith unto Him, ‘Sit thou on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet.’ Who then are these enemies – They that are wicked and resist His will.” [From Lightfoot, Clement of Rome, Appendix, p. 364.]

             The original subject of the Epistle returns in a fresh exposition of the necessity and Divine-ness of order:

            “The great without the small cannot exist, neither the small without the great” (according to the wise Greek proverb).  “All the members breathe together and join in one [common] subjection that the whole body may be saved.”  This spirit of order is traced in the Mosaic legislation, and in the office and work of the apostles who received the Gospel for us from Jesus Christ, even as He was sent forth from God.  The details of what is said about the appointments of elders or men having oversight by the Apostles would need more time to discuss than we can give.  Again and again the original evil state of things at Corinth is touched on, and then always there is a return to the setting forth of the right spirit which would make such scandals impossible.  In these later chapters there is special insistence on love as, so to speak, the deepest root of the matter, as it had been set forth by St. Paul in writing to that same Corinthian Church.  The demand which it makes for self-suppression and self-surrender is illustrated by examples both from among God’s saints of old and from among heathens who sacrificed themselves for their fellow-citizens.

            “These things have they done and will do, that live as citizens of that commonwealth of God for belonging to which there is no regret” (54).

            As the end of the Epistle draws near, the Romans by the mouth of Clement declare themselves now guiltless of the sin of the Corinthian malcontents, should it be persevered in ; and break forth in a prayer equally memorable for its own sake and for the large borrowings from it which arc found in various later Greek liturgies. It begins with asking that we may hope on Thy Name, etc.  “Grant unto us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Thy Name which is the primal source of all creation, and open the eyes of our hearts, that we may know Thee, who alone abidest Highest in the highest. Holy in the holy; who layest low the insolence of the proud, who scatterest the imaginings of nations; who settest the lowly on high, and bringest the lofty low; who makest rich and makest poor; who killest and makest alive; who alone art the Benefactor of spirits and the God of all flesh; who ‘lookest into the abysses,’who scannest the works of man; the Succour of them that are in peril, the ‘Savior of them that are in despair’ ; the Creator and Overseer of every spirit ; who multipliest the nations upon earth, and hast chosen out from all men those that love Thee through Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, through whom Thou didst instruct us, didst sanctify us, didst honor us.  We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succour. Save those among us who are in tribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show Thyself unto the needy; heal the ungodly; convert the wanderers of Thy people; feed the hungry; release our prisoners; raise up the weak, comfort the faint-hearted.  Let all the Gentiles know that Thou art God alone and Jesus Christ is Thy Son and we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture.” [From Lightfoot, Clement of Rome, Appendix, p. 376.]

            The prayer for the Christian community presently expands into universality (“Give concord and peace both to us and to all that inhabit the earth”); and then, in the true spirit of St. Paul and St. Peter, specially makes supplication for the rulers of the Roman empire, “Thou through Thine operations didst make manifest the everlasting fabric of the world.  Thou, Lord, didst create the earth. Thou that art faithful throughout all generations, righteous in Thy judgments, marvelous in strength and excellence, Thou that art wise in creating and prudent in establishing that which Thou hast made, that art good in the things which are seen and faithful with them that trust on Thee, pitiful and compassionate, forgive us our iniquities and our unrighteousness and our transgressions and shortcomings.  Lay not to our account every sin of Thy servants and Thine handmaids, but cleanse us with the cleansing of Thy truth, and guide our steps to walk in holiness and righteousness and singleness of heart and to do such things as are good and well-pleasing in Thy sight and in the sight of our rulers.  Yea, Lord, make Thy face to shine upon us in peace for our good, that we may be sheltered by Thy mighty hand and delivered from every sin by Thine uplifted arm.  And deliver us from them that hate us wrongfully.  Give concord and peace to us and to all that dwell on the earth, as Thou gavest to our fathers, when they called on Thee in faith and truth with holiness, that we may be saved, while we render obedience to Thine almighty and most excellent Name, and to our rulers and governors upon the earth.

            “Thou, Lord and Master, hast given them the power of sovereignty through Thine excellent and unspeakable might, that we knowing the glory and honor which Thou hast given them may submit ourselves unto them, in nothing resisting Thy will.  Grant unto them therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, that they may administer the government which Thou hast given them without failure.  For Thou, O heavenly Master, King of the ages, givest to the sons of men glory and honor and power over all things that are upon the earth.  Do Thou, Lord, direct their counsel according to that which is good and well-pleasing in Thy sight, that, administering in peace and gentleness with godliness the power which Thou hast given them, they may obtain Thy favor.  O Thou, who alone art able to do these thins and things far more exceeding good than these for us, we praise Thee through the High-priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ, through whom be the glory and the majesty unto Thee both now and for all generations and for ever and ever.  Amen.” [from Lightfoot, Clement of Rome, Appendix, pp. 377 foll.]

            The Epistle closes with a few more quiet sentences on its principal theme, and with the commendation of two members of the Roman Church sent as bearers of the letter, “faithful and prudent men, that from youth to old age have walked blamelessly among us, who shall also be witnesses between you and us.”

            The unaffected loftiness of this Epistle of Clement of Rome, and its position at the head of post-biblical Christian literature, have been a temptation to give it a somewhat disproportionate amount of time. What is called the second Epistle of Clement, really an anonymous homily, a generation or two later in date, may be left alone, though important for the history of doctrine.  It is rather eccentric in character, though less so than the early Epistle which bears the name of Barnabas. Whoever may be the author of that Epistle, he was certainly not the Barnabas of the New Testament; and though full of points of interest to advanced students, the Epistle is one which for our purpose may be passed over with little loss.

            After Clement of Rome we come to Hermas of Rome. We need not trouble ourselves about his precise date, which is much disputed.  At earliest he was a contemporary of Clement, at latest half a century later. He was a brother, possibly an elder brother, of Pius, who was bishop of Rome about the middle of the second century. He was evidently a layman, apparently engaged in commercial pursuits. By birth, according to his first words, he was a slave. His book, which from an early time was called The Shepherd, was read in various churches in the first centuries; and the Latin translation, which till lately was the only form known of it, had a certain popularity in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, so that it is even found in or after the Old Testament in several manuscripts of the Latin Bible. It has often been compared to the Pilgrim’s Progress, and with good reason.

            It contains in an imaginative form the thoughts and broodings of a simple-minded devout man, on whom the evil that he feels within him and sees around him lies as a heavy burden, more especially the evil which he cannot help recognizing within the Church itself, the holy society of God’s own chosen people.  ‘Repentance’ is perhaps the idea that he cherishes most.  He is entirely free from bitterness or arrogance; and the messages which he delivers he delivers not as from himself but as entrusted to him by one or other kind of Divine messenger.

            The first part of the book consists of five Visions. In the first he receives a rebuke for a sinful thought of his own; and then presently for his tolerating the misdeeds of his children, which had brought loss upon him. The speaker in the latter part of this vision is an aged lady in bright apparel, sitting on a seat of snow-white wool; who in the second vision is revealed to him to be not, as he supposed, the Sibyl, but the Church.  The third vision, a very striking one, is chiefly of a tower in process of building upon the waters, made of squared shining stones, i.e. again the Church, built of men (living stones, as St. Peter would say) who fit rightly into their place, other stones being partially or wholly cast away.  In the fourth vision a great monster from whose mouth proceed fiery locusts is seen and interpreted to be the great tribulation, which is approaching to try the faint-hearted and double-minded that they may be purified for God’s use.

            The fifth vision in a manner includes the rest (above three-fourths) of the book. It begins thus:  “When I had been praying in my house, and had seated myself on the bed, there came in a certain man of glorious appearance, in the guise of a shepherd, clothed in a white (goat’s) skin, and having a wallet on his shoulders and a staff in his hand. And he greeted me, and I returned his greeting. And straightway he sat down beside me and saith to me, ‘I have been sent by the angel of highest dignity, that I may dwell with thee the remaining days of thy life’.”  The shepherd presently bids him write down the commandments and the parables which he would declare to him.  He is then described as the Shepherd, the angel of repentance.  Thenceforth he reappears several times, almost to the end of the book.

            Then come twelve Commandments, as they are called. The first is a short one, “First of all believe that God is One, He who created and frames all things, and made all things out of what is not, [bringing them] into being, and containeth all things, but alone is uncontained.  Trust Him therefore and fear Him, and fearing practice self-restraint. Keep these things, and thou shalt cast from thyself all wickedness, and put on every virtue of righteousness, and shalt live to God, if thou keepest this commandment.”

            The subjects of the other commandments are truthfulness, chastity, long-suffering, the ways and the angels of good and of evil, right and wrong fear, right and wrong abstinence, the need of faith for prayer, the evil of a gloomy spirit, the true and the false prophet, good and evil desire.

            After the twelve Commandments come ten (or more strictly nine) Parables or Similitudes.  They are almost wholly taken from country scenes and agricultural or pastoral occupations, specially from vines and other trees. Perhaps the most interesting is the eighth.  The angel shows Hermas “a great willow-tree, overshadowing plains and mountains, and under the shade of the willow had come all that have been called by the Name of the Lord.”  This mighty tree which overshadowed plains and mountains and all the earth, is explained to be the Law of God which was given “to go forth into all the world : and this law is the Son of God proclaimed unto the ends of the earth ; and the peoples that are under the shade are they that heard the proclamation and believed on Him.”  These last words refer to the next incident of the parable:

            “There stood an angel of the Lord glorious exceedingly, in height above the willow tree, holding a great reaping-hook, and he cut down branch after branch from the willow, and gave to the people that were overshadowed by the willow.  And after that all had received their twigs, the angel laid aside his reaping-hook, and the tree was sound just as I had seen it before.”  Presently the angel asks back the twigs, and receives them one by one, some withered and gnawed as by a moth, others withered only, others half withered, others half withered and cracked, and so on in various gradations to those which were wholly green and clothed with fresh shoots and fruit. Those who had held these last were crowned with palm-leaves. This is perhaps the most remarkable example of the just and truthful habit of mind which leads Hermas in various places to mark the various gradations in which good and evil are actually mixed in the hearts and lives of men.  The Shepherd invites Hermas to join in planting the other twigs, which in various degrees had lost their greenness, if perchance some of them might live when they have been duly watered : for, said the Shepherd, “He that created this tree willeth that all should live who have received branches from this tree.”

            With these words we may part company from Hermas.

Who's Making Your Bible?

David Trobisch

          When the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece was published in 2012, it was soon followed by A User’s Guide to the Nestle-Aland 28 Greek New Testament, released in September of 2013.  The author of this introduction to NA28 is David Trobisch, who in 2011 became a member of the editorial committee entrusted with the preparation of future editions of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.  

          Trobisch’s User’s Guide to NA28 has been met with some concerns among evangelicals; Dan Wallace, for example, noted that Trobisch “got some facts wrong,” and recommended the removal of an entire chapter.  I too have some concerns.  

          One might expect all of the compilers of Novum Testamentum Graece to be Christians, since future compilations of this text will likely be the basis for future translations of the New Testament used in Christian congregations.  However, Trobisch is a fellow of The Jesus Project, an undertaking of a group called the Center for Inquiry.  His fellow-members include Frank Zindler (an atheist who is also a Jesus Mythicist, that is, he denies that Jesus ever existed), Paul Kurtz (President of the International Academy of Humanism), James Crossley (an atheist), James Tabor (perhaps best-known for his theory that the Talpiot Tomb is the tomb of Jesus), Robert M. Price (Jesus Seminar member, and also a Jesus Mythicist), and Richard Carrier (another Jesus Mythicist).    

          At the website of the Center for Inquiry, the organization is defined:  “A world-wide movement of humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, and atheists.”  And its members’ mission is plainly stated:  “To foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.”  The website also states that it is a priority of the Center for Inquiry “to oppose and supplant the mythological narratives of the past, and the dogmas of the present.”  

          Somehow I suspect that the phrase “dogmas of the present” encompasses the historical doctrines of the Christian church.  One of the research-programs of the Center for Inquiry mentioned at the website is the Council for Secular Humanism.  It is rather surprising to learn that a member of that organization, which is clearly dedicated to erode and marginalize the cultural influence of Christianity, is also an advisor for the American Bible Society, and the curator of the Museum of the Bible which is scheduled to open in Washington, D.C. in late 2017.

          An article by David Trobisch appeared in Volume 28 of the secular humanist magazine Free Inquiry (from Dec 2007/Jan 2008).  His article is mentioned on the cover and it is accessible online (via this link).  In that article, Trobisch expresses some unusual interpretations of some parts of the New Testament.  He proposes, for example, that John 21:24 was written with all four Gospels in mind:  “This sentence does not refer to only one author and one manuscript; instead, it talks about “books” in the plural. The reader of John will have just finished reading the fourth account of “things that Jesus did.”  A modern rendition of this sentence may sound like:  “If everything Jesus did was written down, I suppose that the world could not contain all the books that would have to be published.  Four books are plenty!” The last sentence of John does not refer only to the Gospel according to John; it refers to the Gospel collection as a whole.”

           Trobisch also states, “The New Testament was published by Polycarp of Smyrna between 166 and 168 C. E.”  As corroborating evidence, he points to Second Timothy 4:9-20 and proposes that this passage “may contain the names of the publisher and forger of this letter.”  He focuses on the two names in these verses (without mentioning the four names in verse 21) that do not appear elsewhere in the New Testament:  Crescens and Carpus.  The name “Carpus,” Trobisch proposes, “could easily be interpreted as referring to Bishop Polycarp.”  

          He then goes on to propose that the reference to Crescens in Second Timothy 4:9 was added as an acknowledgement of the role of Polycarp’s secretary (mentioned in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians which introduced the Letters of Ignatius).  “Although this argument cannot carry the burden of proof,” Trobisch concludes, “it is a nice example of corroborating evidence.”

          That theory is not merely weak.  It’s quackery.  And it is not the only highly dubious theory of the origins of New Testament books that Trobisch has promoted.  In a speech delivered in 2015, he referred to the text about Jesus promoted by the second-century heretic Marcion as “the oldest Gospel,” and began his speech with the claim that “Scholars now know of a Gospel-book that is probably older than the Gospels that are part of the New Testament.”  Trobisch also claimed that the author of the Gospel of Luke used Josephus as a source.        

          One can harbor all kinds of unusual beliefs and still be a competent textual critic.  However, Trobisch apparently believes that the Gospel of Luke post-dates the works of Josephus, and that the earliest text of the four canonical Gospels descends from the 150’s-160’s.  That position, it seems to me, is very likely to have an impact on some text-critical decisions, just as different solutions to the Synoptic Problem yield different implications about some textual variants in the Gospels. 

          Trobisch has also written that the opening sentences of Acts refer, not to the closing verses of Luke, but instead to the closing verses of John – implying that the composition of Acts post-dates the collection of the four canonical Gospels.  He has also written, “Historically speaking Paul probably did not heal.”  Trobisch’s doubts about Paul’s healing-miracles might not affect Trobisch’s text-critical work.  But does anyone think that if a textual critic believes, as Trobisch seems to, that Acts was written in the middle of the second century, this will have no impact on his text-critical decisions pertaining to the text of Acts?

          And does anyone think that it does not matter that Trobisch believes (as he has recently written) that “scribes and editors felt free to revise the Greek text during the fourteen centuries of its manuscript transmission,” rather than the normal view that a scribes’ primary ambition was to make an accurate copy of the text of his exemplar?  Do any specialists besides Trobisch believe that a typical copyist “felt free” to revise the text of the Gospels?  There were indeed some reckless copyists, but to present them as if they were typical is like saying that human beings have six digits on each hand.

          In addition to the objection that Trobisch brings some strange ideas to the compilation-committee’s table, there is a pastoral concern here.  I have never met David Trobisch but from what I have read and watched, the religion to which he subscribes is very different from the Christianity which is taught in the New Testament.  It seems to be a baptized “social gospel” philosophy which does not remotely affirm – and which directly opposes – the statement of faith of the National Association of Evangelicals, which, among other things, affirms the infallibility of the Bible, Christ’s virgin birth, His bodily resurrection, His deity, His future return, the final judgment, and salvation through the work of the Holy Spirit in personal spiritual rebirth.  

          Yet very many evangelical leaders who consider those things to be essentials of the faith – people such as D. A. Carson, James White, Craig Evans, Bill Mounce, and Steve Green – seem perfectly fine when the task of compiling the text of the Greek New Testament is entrusted to someone who denies every one of those tenets of Christianity.  At least, I have not heard much protest from them so far.  Most evangelical preachers probably would not share their pulpits with hyper-liberals and atheists.  Why, then, do they seem perfectly content to have a hyper-liberal edit the book on the pulpit?  

          It may be that our wise evangelical leaders have reckoned that just because a fox is a fox, that is no reason why a fox cannot be a skillful guardian of the chicken coop.  Nothing but bias, they might insist, would elicit a suspicion that an unbeliever might – whether purposefully or unconsciously – render the base-text of the New Testament unstable, or introduce readings into the text which have very little manuscript-support (or even none).  “It would be a gross employment of the genetic fallacy,” someone might insist, “if Christian translators deliberately avoided using a base-text compiled by someone ideologically opposed to Bible-believing Christianity.” 

          Against such politically correct wisdom I protest in the name of common sense.  The gold of the king of Sodom was as solid as the next man’s; yet Abraham (in Genesis 14:21-24) refused to receive any of it.  There is a principle being illustrated there that should not be ignored. 

          Second Corinthians 6:14 says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness?  And what fellowship does light have with darkness?”  Paul stresses this theme emphatically for several verses:  “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” and so forth.  He utilizes two stirring passages from the Old Testament in his call to the church:  “Come out from among them.”  And what co-operation can there be between Christ-centered churches, and members of the Center for Inquiry?  No one can serve two masters.  Paul’s warning against being yoked together with unbelievers is often unheeded in today’s society.  Still, one might think that in the enterprise of compiling the text of the Greek New Testament, this principle should not be ignored when alternatives are readily available.