appeal to them with the less scruple, forasmuch as the same sincerity which I ascribe to them, and which is quite sufficient for my purpose, is allowed by the learned and the candid. Dr. Lardner-After suggesting in no very confident language, that even the smaller epistles may have been tampered with by the Arians, or the Orthodox, or both, he adds, I do not affirm that there are in them any considerable alterations or corruptions. If no considerable corruptions or alterations, certainly none respecting a point of such importance as the original nature of Christ."

This is curious indeed. What then could Dr. Lardner mean by these epistles having been tampered with by the Arians, the Orthodox, or both? If they interpolated them at all, it would certainly be to introduce into them passages favourable to their opinions concerning the divinity or pre-existence of Christ. How would it be worth their while, as Arians or Orthodox, to interpolate them for any other purpose? If a farmer, hearing of some depredation on his property committed by foxes, should say, My corn may have been plundered, but as the mischief has been done by foxes, my geese and my poultry are safe; what would be said of his reasoning? Yet of the same nature is yours in this

case.

in

These foxes have not refrained from their prey more sacred inclosures than those of Ignatius:-Sir Isaac Newton, among others, has clearly proved that the orthodox, as they are commonly called, have in this way tampered with the New Testament itself; having made interpolations favourable to the doctrine of the trinity, especially the famous passage concerning the three that bear record in heaven, in the first

epistle of John. This I should imagine you yourself will acknowledge; and can you think they would spare the epistles of Ignatius, which were much more in their power?

Jortin says, "Though the shorter epistles are on many accounts preferable to the larger, yet I will not affirm that they have undergone no alteration at all." Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 361.

For my own part, I scruple not to say, that there never were more evident marks of interpolation in any writings than are to be found in these genuine epistles, as they are called, of Ignatius; though I am willing to allow, on reconsidering them, that, exclusive of manifest interpolation, there may be a ground-work of antiquity in them. The famous passage in Josephus concerning Christ is not a more evident interpolation than many in these epistles of Ignatius, which you quote with so much confidence.

You yourself may believe that every word now found in these epistles was actually written by Ignatius; but if they have been tampered with, or have undergone alterations, how can you quote them with so much confidence, as if the argument must necessarily have the same weight with all persons? Notwithstanding this you say, p. 34, "I will therefore still appeal to these epistles as sufficiently sincere to be decisive in the point in dispute. Nor shall I think myself obliged to go into the proof of their authenticity till you have given a satisfactory reply to every part of Bishop Pearson's elaborate defence, a work which I suspect you have not yet looked through." And I, Sir, shall save myself that trouble till you shall have replied to every part of Larroque's answer to this work of Pearson;

N

a work which I suspect you have not looked into. I will however favour you with a sight of it, if you will gratify me with the perusal of the works of Zwicker, which, by your account, you have carefully read, though I have not yet been able to procure them. I am, &c.

LETTER III.

Of the Nazarenes and Ebionites.

REV. SIR,

You still insist, p. 38, upon the high orthodoxy of

those whom the christian fathers call Nazarenes, Epiphanius," you say, p. 38, "confesses that the Nazarenes held the catholic doctrine concerning the nature of our Lord;" whereas I have maintained that though, according to him and some other ancient writers, there was some difference between them and the Ebionites, they still agreed in asserting the proper humanity of Christ. The γνωμη which distinguished the Ebionites, you say, p. 41, was something that they had borrowed, not from the Nawpaio, the christian Nazarenes, but the Nasareans, a sect of Jews only.

I still abide by my assertion," you say, p. 176, "that the name of Nazarenes was never heard of in the church, that is, among christians themselves, before the final destruction of Jerusalem by Adrian; when it became the specific name of the Judaizers, who at that time separated from the church at Jerusalem, and settled in the North of Galilee: the

name was taken from the country in which they settled."

I am really astonished that you should have the assurance to assert all this, so directly contrary to every thing that appears on the face of ecclesiastical history, and which must have been borrowed from your imagination only, as I shall easily prove. I cannot raise Epiphanius himself from the dead to solve the question concerning his opinion, nor do I wish to disturb the good father's repose; but, though dead, he speaks sufficiently plain for my purpose in the following passage:

"Wherefore the blessed John coming, and finding men employed about the humanity of Christ, and the Ebionites being in an error about the earthly genealogy of Christ, deduced from Abraham, carried by Luke as high as Adam, and finding the Cerinthians and Merinthians maintaining that he was a mere man, born by natural generation of both the sexes, and also the Nazarenes, and many other heresies; as coming last, (for he was the fourth to write a gospel,) began as it were to call back the wanderers, and those who were employed about the humanity of Christ; and seeing some of them going into rough paths, leaving the strait and true path, cries, Whither are you going, whither are you walking, who tread a rough and dangerous path, leading to a precipice? It is not so. The God, the logos, which was begotten by the Father from all eternity, is not from Mary only. He is not from the time of Joseph, he is not from the time of Salathiel and Zerobabel, and David, and Abraham, and Jacob, and Noah, and Adam; but in the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God.

The was, and the was, and the was, do not admit of his having ever not been*."

Perhaps you will say that this testimony of Epiphanius is forged by me, as you charge me with respect to the same writer, p. 13. I therefore beg that you would examine the passage yourself. You will find my reference to it sufficiently exact.

After reading this passage, can any person entertain a doubt but that, in the opinion of Epiphanius at least, (and weak as he was in some things, he stands uncontradicted in this by any authority whatever, and his account is confirmed by the most respectable ones in all antiquity,) the Nazarenes were not only a sect of Jewish christians in the time of the apostles, but, together with the Ebionites, a very formidable sect, and that this sect held the doctrine of the simple humanity of Christ? Did he not, as appears by this passage, consider the Nazarenes as standing in need of being taught the pre-existence and divinity of Christ, as well

* Διο και ὁ Ιωαννης ελθων ὁ μακαριος, και εύρων τους ανθρώπους ησχολημένους περι την κατω Χριστου παρουσιαν, και των Εβιωναίων πλανηθέντων δια την ενσαρχον Χριστου γενεαλογίαν, απο Αβρααμ καταγόμενην, και Λουκα αναγομένην αχρι του Αδαμ' εύρων δε τους Κηρίνθιανους και Μηρινθιανους εκ παρατρίβης αυτον λεγοντας είναι ψιλον ανθρωπον, και τους Ναζωραίους, και άλλας πολλας αἱρέσεις, ὡς κατοπιν ελθων, τεταρτος γαρ ούτος ευαγγελίζεται, αρχεται ανα καλείσθαι, ὡς ειπειν, τους πλανηθέντας, και ησχολημένους περί την κατω Χριστου παρουσιαν, και λεγειν αυτοις (ως κατοπιν βαίνων, και δρων τινας εις τραχειας όδους κεκλικοτας και αφέντας την ευθειαν και αληθινην, ὡς ειπειν) Ποι φερεσθε, ποι βαδίζετε, οἱ την τραχειαν ἶδον και σκανδαλώδη και εις χάσμα φερουσαν βαδίζοντες ; ανακαμ ψατε. Ουκ εστιν ούτως, ουκ εστιν απο Μαριας μονον ὁ Θεὸς λογος, ο εκ πατρος ανωθεν γεγεννημενος, ουκ εστιν από των χρονων Ιωσηφ του ταυτης ὁρμαστού, ουκ εστιν απο των χρονων Σαλαθιήλ, και Ζοροβαβηλ, και Δαβίδ, και Αβρααμ, και Ιακωβ, και Νωε, και Αδαμ, αλλα εν αρχῇ ἦν ὁ λογος, και ὁ λογος ην προς τον θεον, και θεος ην ὁ λογος. το δε ην, και ην, και ην, ουκ ὑποδέχεται του μη είναι ποτέ. Hær. 69. sect. xxiii. Epiphanii Opera, vol. i, edit. Paris. 1622, p. 746, 747.