in case the original copies of the Gospels had been dealt with in the manner that Eichhorn has stated. Well has he said, that they would have been as unlike, as the Arabic copies of the Arabian Nights' Entertainment, or the Mss. of the Gesta Romanorum.' He might have gone still further. From the frequency with which they have been copied, and from the nature of the case where so much of the miraculous is exhibited, they would have been, it is nearly certain, much more discrepant than the copies of those fictions.

It would be doing injustice to this weighty argument not to exhibit the remarks which the author makes upon it.

The argument which has been employed, seems easy to be comprehended; and at the same time conclusive of the fact, that all our present copies of each of the Gospels are to be traced back to one original manuscript, in multiplying the copies of which, no such liberties can have been taken by transcribers, as are supposed in the hypothesis under consideration. The argument seems, likewise, very obvious; yet its force and bearing appear to have been overlooked in framing that hypothesis. The fact does not seem to have been distinctly adverted to, that the transcriber or possessor of a manuscript, making such alterations as the hypothesis supposes, could introduce them only into a single copy, and into such others as might be transcribed from it; and that he could not, properly speaking, add to or corrupt the work itself. His copy would have no influence upon contemporary copies; and in the case of the Gospels, we may say, upon numerous contemporary copies, in which the true text might be preserved, or into which different alterations might be introduced. It is quite otherwise, since the invention of printing. He who now introduces a corruption into the printed edition of a work, introduces it into all the copies of that edition; if it be the only edition, into all the copies of that work; and in many cases, into a great majority of the copies which are extant, or which are most accessible. All these copies will agree in presenting us with the same changes or interpolations. He may properly be said to corrupt the work itself. . . . . The power of an ancient copier to alter the text of a work was very different from that of a modern editor; yet it would seem, that they must have been confounded in the hypothesis under consideration; unless some further account is to be given of the manner, in which the text of our present Gospels has been formed and perpetuated; p. 33 seq.

In the Notes which have relation to the integrity and uniformity of the text of the Gospels, are some very interesting and useful remarks and illustrations. But I shall have occasion to advert again and separately to them, in the sequel.

Eichhorn, whose mind could not but be apprehensive of the substantial uniformity of the Gospel-text, the world over, and who could not resist the feeling that some plausible account, at least, of this extraordinary phenomenon should be given, has suggested that in process of time, i. e. as he thinks, near the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, the Church, out of the many Gospels which were extant, selected four which had the greatest marks of credibility, and the necessary completeness for common use."

The answer to this by Mr. Norton, is complete and absolutely overwhelming. After indulging so much in extracts as I have already done, and must hereafter do, I shall refrain from presenting it at length before the reader in the words of the author. Suffice it to say, that he has strikingly exhibited the facts, that the church was at that period not a regularly organized body having extended ecclesiastical jurisdiction. There were no general councils; no acknowledged single or complex head; no religion established and regulated by civil law;-in a word, no appointed and generally acknowledged authority of any kind, either to sanction or condemn books for the whole church. Besides all this, the churches were in a state of persecution; they were separated from each other by distance, by diversity of habits, manners, customs and language; and the eastern churches, moreover, had been excommunicated by the western, i. e. by Victor of Rome, before the period in question, so that great asperity of feeling existed in various respects between them. Under circumstances like these; and also, I may add, when editorial criticism on Mss. and editions was a thing unpractised to any considerable extent, and in some respects novel and strange; the supposition of Eichhorn is an absurdity-an utter and palpable absurdity. It has not the shadow of a fact to rest upon, and is altogether a fancy, like a multitude of others which he has thrown out upon the world, generated purely in his own fancy-loving brain.

I cannot forbear, however, from giving the reader the closing paragraph of this prostrating assault upon Eichhorn's position.. It runs thus:

But we may even put out of view all the preceding considerations. "The Church," it is said, "about the end of the second, and the beginning of the third century, first labored to procure the general reception of the four Gospels in the Church." By the Church, must be meant the great body of Christians. The general reception of

the Gospels was founded upon the belief, real or pretended, of their being the genuine works of those to whom they were ascribed. The statement, therefore, resolves itself into the following dilemma. Either the great body of Christians determined to believe what they knew to be false; or they determined to profess to believe it. The first proposition is an absurdity in terms; the last is a moral absurdity; p. 40 seq.

On p. 42 seq. the reader will find a long and interesting Note, which contains an examination of some additional positions of Eichhorn's in the second edition of his Introduction to the New Testament, and which are in themselves substantial contradiction of his opinion as stated in the preceding paragraphs. Yet although he has, in this new edition, represented the present copies of our Gospels as coming in tacitly and without opposition during the period between A. D. 150 and 175, and this by virtue of weight and authority given to them in consequence of their titles, (i. e. The Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, etc.), yet in another part of this second edition he has left the passages that have been quoted and examined above, just as they were in the first edition of his work. This, on the part of Eichhorn, is presuming a great deal, either on the good nature of the public toward him, or on their stupidity; for stupid they must indeed be, in case they should not perceive that his two positions are quite at variance with each other.

The general argument in favour of the integrity of the New Testament Mss. and Codices down to the present time, as exhibited in the preceding pages, may be applied, as Mr. Norton supposes, in its full strength, to the Mss. in circulation near the end of the second century. In order to shew how difficult it would have been to bring about any considerable changes in copies of the Gospels at that day, Mr. Norton endeavours to calculate, as near as may be, how many copies of these, at the least estimation of their numbers, must have been in circulation.

Our present Gospels, it is conceded, were in common use among Christians about the end of the second century. The number of manuscripts then in existence bore some proportion to the number of Christians, and this, to the whole population of the Roman empire. The population of the Roman empire in the time of the Antonines is estimated by Gibbon at about one hundred and twenty millions; and, probably, it had not decreased at the period of which we are speaking. With regard to the proportion of Christians, the same writer observes: "The most favourable calculation will not permit

us to imagine, that more than a twentieth part of the subjects of the empire had enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross before the important conversion of Constantine." If not more than a twentieth part of the empire was Christian at the end of the third century, just after which the conversion of Constantine took place, we can hardly estimate more than a fortieth part of it as Christian at the end of the second century; p. 45 seq.

The author then adduces several passages, and very striking ones they are, from Pliny and Tertullian, which shew that the estimate of one fortieth part for Christians, falls, in all probability, very far short of the truth. He accepts it however, because he chooses to come much within the bounds that may be thought just and proper, rather than hazard any thing by going a step beyond them. He then proceeds:

"The fortieth part of one hundred and twenty millions, the estimated population of the empire, is three millions. There were Christians without the bounds of the empire, but I am willing to include those also in the number supposed. At the end of the second century, then, there were three millions of believers, using our present Gospels, regarding them with the highest reverence, and anxious to obtain copies of them. Few possessions could have been more highly valued by a Christian than a copy of those books, which contained the history of the religion for which he was exposing himself to the severest sacrifices. Their cost, if he were able to defray it, must have been but a very trifling consideration. But a common copy of the Gospels was not a book of any great bulk or expense. I shall not, therefore, I think, be charged with over estimating, if I suppose that there was one copy of the Gospels for every fifty Christians. Scattered over the world as they were, if the proportion of them to the heathens was no greater than has been assumed, fifty Christians would often be as many as were to be found in any one place, and often more; but we cannot suppose that there were many collections of Christians without a copy of the Gospels. Origen, upon quoting a passage from the New Testament, says that it is written not in any rare books, read only by a few studious persons; but in those in the most common use.” ́ In truth, there can be little doubt, that copies of the Gospels were owned by a large portion of Christians who had the means of procuring them; and in supposing only one copy of these books for every fifty Christians, the estimate is probably much within the truth. This proportion, however, will give us sixty thousand copies of the Gospels for three millions of Christians; pp. 49-52.

To forestall the objection here, that the copies of the Gospels could not have been so numerous, because of the high price VOL. XI. No. 30.

36

of Mss. in ancient times, the author has given us in a Note, some matter of curious interest respecting the price of ancient books. Martial, in his Epigrams, has stated the price of his 13th book, which contains 272 verses, to have been four sestertii; or, if this should be thought too much, two sestertii, which would still leave a profit, as he says, to the bookseller. The last named sum amounts to about seven cents of our money. With such facts in view, one can scarcely refrain from believing, that the estimate of 60,000 copies of the Gospels as being in circulation at the close of the second century, is far-very far-within the bounds of truth. Other facts adduced by the author cast still more light on the subject, and render it altogether probable, in my apprehension, that if he had doubled, or even trebled, the number of copies, he would still have been within the bounds of truth and soberness.

Now as Irenaeus, about 180, asserts the general reception and acknowledged authority among Christians of the four Gospels, in language as strong and as unlimited as would be employed at the present moment, it must follow of course, as Mr. Norton justly concludes, that these Gospels had been a long time in circulation, in order to be so widely diffused and universally received.

In Chapter II. Mr. Norton proceeds to adduce other considerations, which serve to confirm the position which he has taken. He shows, in the first place, that "it would have been inconsistent with the common sentiments and practice of mankind, for transcribers to make such alterations and additions as have been imagined, in the sacred books which they were copying." Such practices do not appear in the works of Thucydides, Tacitus, and other historians. But the Gospels, in addition to the usual motives for care in transcription, present the highly important and influential ones which are drawn from their being deemed sacred. They were the basis of the Christian religion, inasmuch as the words and deeds of Jesus, recorded in them, must be the foundation of this religion. It would have been deemed sacrilegious, therefore, to have purposely mutilated or disfigured these records in any way whatever.

To illustrate and confirm this, Mr. Norton brings passages from Papias, Justin Martyr, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and others, which are quite to his purpose, and fully exhibit the common sentiments of Christians at that time, in respect to preserving the integrity of