cred canon. And therefore, when the late Arian advocate' brings in one of his party, challenging the divine authority of this gospel, because but a translation, he might have remembered it is such a translation as has all the advantages of an original; as being translated while the apostles were yet in being to supervise and ratify it, and whose authority has always been held sacred and inviolable by the whole church of God. But the plain truth of the case is, St. Matthew is a back-friend to the antitrinitarian cause, as recording that express command, Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' Which words must needs be supposititious, and added by some ignorant hand, for no other reason but because they make against them. Nay, the whole gospel we see must be discarded, rather than stand in the way of a dear and beloved opinion. 2 8. After the Greek translation was entertained, the Hebrew copy was chiefly owned and used by the Nazaræi, a middle sect of men between Jews and Christians: with the Christians they believed in Christ, and embraced his religion; with the Jews they adhered to the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law: and hence this gospel came to be styled the Gospel according to the Hebrews,' and the Gospel of the Nazarenes.' By them it was, by degrees, interpolated; several passages of the evangelical history, which they had heard either from the apostles or those who had familiarly conversed with them, being inserted, which the ancient fa ' 1 Sand. Interpret. Paradox. ad Matth. xxviii. 19. VOL. II. L thers frequently refer to in their writings; as by the Ebionites it was mutilated, and many things cut off, for the same reason for which the followers of Cerinthus, though making use of the greatest part of it, rejected the rest, because it made so much against them. This Hebrew copy (though whether exactly the same as it was written by St. Matthew, I will not say) was found, among other books, in the treasury of the Jews at Tiberias, by Joseph a Jew, and after his conversion, a man of great honour and esteem in the time of Constantine: another, St. Jerome assures us,3 was kept in the library at Cæsarea in his time; and another by the Nazarenes at Borca, from whom he had the liberty to transcribe it, and which he afterwards translated both into Greek and Latin; with this particular observation, that in quoting the text of the Old Testament, the evangelist immediately follows the Hebrew, without taking notice of the translation of the Septuagint. A copy also of this gospel was, anno 485, dug up and found in the grave of Barnabas in Cyprus, transcribed with his own hand.* But these copies are long since perished; and for those that have been since published to the world, both by Tile and Munster, were there no other argument, they too openly betray themselves, by their barbarous and improper style, not to be the genuine issue of that less corrupt and better age. Epiph. Hæres. 40, p. 64, id Hær. 27, p. 54. 2 Epiph. ib. Hæres. xxx. p. 60, vid. p. 61. 3 De Script. Eccl. in Matth. 4 Theodor. Lect. Collectan. lib. ii. non longe ab init. p. 184. 147 ST. THOMAS. It was customary with the Jews, when travelling into foreign countries, or familiarly conversing with the Greeks and Romans, to assume to themselves a Greek or a Latin name, of great affinity, and sometimes of the very same signification with that of their own country. Thus our Lord was called Christ, answering to his Hebrew title, Mashiach, or the anointed; Simon, styled Peter, according to that of Cephas, which our Lord put upon him; Tabitha, called Dorcas, both signifying a goat: thus our St. Thomas, according to the Syriac importance of his name, had the title of Didymus, which signifies a twin; Thomas which is called Didymus. Accordingly the Syriac version renders it Thauma, which is called Thama; that is, a twin the not understanding whereof imposed upon Nonnus the Greek paraphrast, who makes him ävòpa diúvvμov, to have had two distinct names, διώνυμος ἔννεπε Θωμᾶς, "Ον Δίδυμον καλέεσι 1 Nonn. Panop. in Joan. c. 11. it being but the same name expressed in different languages. The history of the gospel takes no particular notice either of the country or kindred of this apostle. That he was a Jew is certain, and in all probability a Galilean. He was born (if we may believe Symeon Metaphrastes') of very mean parents, who brought him up to the trade of fishing; but withal took care to give him a more useful education, instructing him in the knowledge of the Scriptures, whereby he learned wisely to govern his life and manners. He was together with the rest called to the apostleship; and not long after gave an eminent instance of his hearty willingness to undergo the saddest fate that might attend them. For when the rest of the apostles dissuaded our Saviour from going into Judæa, (whither he was now resolved for the raising his dear Lazarus, lately dead,) lest the Jews should stone him, as but a little before they had attempted it, St. Thomas desires them not to hinder Christ's journey thither, though it might cost their lives: 'Let us also go, that we may die with him;'2 probably concluding, that instead of raising Lazarus from the dead, they themselves should be sent with him to their own graves. So that he made up in pious affections what he seemed to want in the quickness and acumen of his understanding, not readily apprehending some of our Lord's discourses, nor over-forward to believe more than himself had seen. When the holy Jesus, a little before his fatal sufferings, had been speaking to them of the joys of heaven, and had told them that he was going to prepare, that they might fol 1 Apud Sur. ad diem 21 Decemb. n. 2. low him, that they knew both the place whither he was going, and the way thither; our apostle replied, that they knew not whither he went, and much less the way that led to it.' To which our Lord returns this short but satisfactory answer, that he was the true living way, the Person whom the Father had sent into the world to show men the paths of eternal life; and that they could not miss of heaven, if they did but keep to that way which he had prescribed and chalked out before them. 2. Our Lord being dead, it is evident how much the apostles were distracted between hopes and fears concerning his resurrection, not yet fully satisfied about it; which engaged him the sooner to hasten his appearance, that by the sensible manifestations of himself he might put the case beyond all possibilities of dispute. The very day whereon he arose he came into the house where they were, while for fear of the Jews the doors were yet fast shut about them, and gave them sufficient assurance that he was really risen from the dead.2 At this meeting St. Thomas was absent, having probably never recovered their company since their last dispersion in the garden, when every one's fears prompted him to consult his own safety. At his return, they told him that their Lord had appeared to them; but he obstinately refused to give credit to what they said, or to believe that it was he; presuming it rather a phantasm or mere apparition, unless he might see the very prints of the nails, and feel the wounds in his hands and sides. A strange piece of infidelity! Was this any more than what Moses and the prophets had long since 1 John, xiv. 5. 2 John, xx. 19. |