Barnabas should not know it; (2,)

used the argument, that, knowing it, he should not give Christ the credit of it, - from common honesty, from reverence for the great Master, — and, above all, - from the immensely greater weight the argument would have from Christ's own lips. The argument is by Barnabas conveyed in somewhat different language from that in the gospel, but the fact of his using it at great length without giving Christ any credit as the originator of it, is to me incontrovertible evidence, not only that he knew nothing of "Matthew," but that he, and neither Christ nor the author of "Matthew," was the original inventor of this false argument. False, because founded on a misapprehension of the text. The wording of the text without doubt signifies "my lord king David," for whom, according to the poet, (probably Asaph or the "chief musician,") the Lord Yehovah will make a "footstool" of his enemies, and who shall "strike through kings" and "judge" "the heathen," filling "the places" with their "dead bodies," and wounding their "heads over many countries," (5, 6). All this is most inapplicable to Christ, is no prophecy of him, – but obviously the prediction by one of David's semi-barbarous courtiers, of the future bloody glories of the great Hebrew conqueror, "my lord" the king, - David himself. This erroneous reading, it is pleasant to know, was no mistake of the Christ's, but that of the over-zeal of "Barnabas," an early disciple, who was ransacking the old Scriptures for texts to support the dogma of Christ's divinity. From this early work of "Barnabas" the argument was afterwards borrowed by the compiler of "Matthew," and placed, for higher authority, in the mouth of the great Teacher himself.

I give "Barnabas's" argument in full: 2

"Then that which Moses, as a prophet, said to Jesus the son of

The argument is also repeated (in "Peter's " mouth) by the author of "Acts," (ii. 34,) supposed to be Silas, Barnabas's and Paul's pupil.

2 Translation by author of "Supernatural Religion."

Nave," [Joshua the son of Nun,]"when he gave him that name, was solely for the purpose that all the people might hear that the Father would reveal all things regarding his Son to the son of Nave. This name being given to him when he was sent to spy out the land, Moses said: Take a book in thy hands and write what the Lord saith, that the Son of God will in the last days cut off by the roots all the house of Amalek.' Behold again, Jesus is not the Son of Man, but the Son of God. manifested in the type and in the flesh. Since therefore in the future they were to say that Christ is the son of David, fearing and perceiving clearly the error of the wicked, David himself prophesied The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' And again, thus speaks Isaiah:'The Lord said to Christ my Lord, whose right hand I have held that the nations may obey him, and I will break in pieces the strength of kings.' Behold how David calleth him Lord, and the Son of God."

I

It is painful to see that this primitive writer, — supposed by the early church to be Barnabas the (so-called) "apostle," and the associate of Paul, - does not hesitate, -in support of his dogma of the Godhood of Christ, not only to pervert the meaning, but actually in the most barefaced manner to falsify the text of the ancient Scrip tures, by intruding, in his quotations, the words "Son of God" and "Christ," which do not exist in the passages quoted from Exodus, (xvii. 14,) and Isaiah. But the history of the dogma is full of such perversions.

I See Ps. cx. I.

The

2 Marcion showed long ago, that the word translated "virgin" in Isaiah, (vii. 14,) should be rendered "young woman" merely, and that it referred to Isaiah's own wife the "prophetess," (viii. 3). For exposing this and other early perversions of Scripture the learned and pious Marcion was declared a "heretic." It is moreover clear from the text of Isaiah, that "Immanuel" was that prophet's own son, (by the prophetess,) a child to whom this worthy visionary had the fancy of giving various symbolic names, and who received this epithet, - ("God with us,")—and that of Maher-shalal-hash-baz, etc., to "typify" various things, more especially the expected aid of God to Jerusalem, and the destruction of her rival Damascus, (vii. 16, viii. 4, 18, xvii. 1, etc.,) an event, however, which never took place, - the latter city continuing a great and prosperous one to this day. Isaiah's "man of sorrows," "acquainted with grief," "the servant of God," etc., refer either to Hezekiah in his troubles, or to the prophet himself, according to the connection. There are numerous references to an expected deliverer-king or Messiah, (ix. 7, xi. 10, lv. 4, etc.,) but these all tell either of a king of David's race, in which case Hezekiah is plainly alluded to, or else,- (those of the later period,) — distinctly name Cyrus, the deliverer of "the people" from Babylonish captivity, as the Messiah. None have

passage in Exodus is simply commemorative of the defeat of "Amalek" by "Foshua," (told us in v. 13)-(14) And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." The passage from Isaiah, (xlv. 1,) is :— "Thus saith the Lord to his anointed," [that is, "to the Messiah," "to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut," etc. This refers throughout to the taking of Babylon and the restoration of the Jews to Palestine by Cyrus the second deliverer or Messiah. The prevalent doctrine of re-appearances, incarnations or avatars, is, however, some excuse for the bold mis-quotations of "Barnabas." The followers of Christ were at this time, as has been said, and as their favorite name for their Master, kuries, shows, - looking upon Cyrus and Christ as the same personage.

To go with any completeness over the ground which has been so thoroughly tilled by others, the question of the date of the Gospels, is not my intention; I have however given the reader very good reasons for believing that the earliest period that can be assigned them is from A.D. 150 to A.D. 180. It is a matter of course that into histories so far from contemporaneous with the events which they narrate, and written among a people mostly unlearned and poor, in a period of high religious excitement and enthusiasm, much error must have crept.'

The

any thing in common with Christ's history, except the general resemblance between the woes of Hezekiah and Isaiah, and his. It is uncertain whether or no Isaiah thought of the hoped-for deliverer as partly Divine in nature. The quasi-Divine titles given the Messiah prove nothing, as most Hebrew names were compounded with those of God.

Even were the gospels contemporaneous records, their authority as histories would be much injured by the very free handling and "correction" they underwent in the medieval period. The "Chronicle" of Bishop Victor Tununensis, an African Bishop of the sixth century, says: "When Messala was consul," [A.D. 506,] “at Constantinople, by order of the emperor Anastasius, the holy gospels, being written

"Gospel according to the Hebrews," the chief historical authority of the early Christians for the greater part of a century before our gospels were published, in the few fragments of it that have been preserved, generally differs in important circumstances of its accounts of particular events, from our gospels:- what these differences are, we shall see as we review those works. We have no reason to suppose that this early gospel contradicted even the very remarkable statement of Irenæus, given, he says, on no less authority than that of "John" the apostle himself, through Polycarp his disciple and the early Asian church generally, that Christ did not die, under Pilate, at 30 to 33 years of age, but survived "to sanctify old-age," and lived to the age of fifty years!-of which statement I shall speak further.

by illiterate evangelists, are censured and corrected" The famous Lanfranc, when head of the monks of St. Maur, A D. 1050, undertook a further "correction.” Beausobre quotes from his life by these monks, that, "having found the books of Scripture much corrupted by those who had copied them, he applied himself to correct them, and also the books of the holy fathers, according to the orthodox faith,” (secundum fidem orthodoxam)!

This recorded and criminal tampering with the text, doubtless, is responsible for but a small part of the injury it has sustained. What may it not have suffered from nameless, but "orthodox," transcribers in past ages, since A.D. 150?

CHAPTER XV.

LIFE AND TEACHING OF YAISHOOA CONTINUED.-YAISHOOA'S PARENTAGE, ETC. - HIS GENEALOGY AND BRETHREN.

THE parentage and descent of the Christ, the master mind and light of western religion, are involved in much obscurity. We find in the Gospels the assertion that he was the child of one Mary, an espoused but unmarried virgin or young woman of the above mentioned village of Nazareth; and, (they go on to inform us,) was begotten in a miraculous manner, upon this "virgin," by God through the "Holy Ghost." Two of the Gospels, "Matthew" and "Luke," in what we must call, on their statement of the facts, a very supererogatory manner, give the genealogy of one "Joseph" a carpenter, to whom this "virgin espoused, as if it had been that of Christ."

was

The early Gospel quoted by Justin, the Apomnemoneumata, as we have seen, deduced the genealogy of Christ from David through his mother "Mary," which was doubtless the original form of that genealogy; for the pedigree of "Joseph," who was not Christ's father, (according to our gospels,) could reflect no credit on Christ, nor make him a descendant of David. The object of the Marian genealogy was of course to convince Jewish readers that Christ's birth was, in accordance with the prophecies of the Messiah, in the line of David. But the writer of the "Epistle of Barnabas," in his earnest support of the divine parentage of Christ, declares it to be "wicked" to

This doubtless indicates the truth, that the human husband of "Mary" was really Christ's father.