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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



its ministers wait on their ministering 

 with a due sense of the sacredness of 

 their calling. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Gospel Criticism and Historical Christi- 

 anity. By the Rev. Orello Cone, D. D. 

 Futnanis. Price, $1.75. 



Never before was greater interest taken 

 in religious problems. The Bible is the 

 storm-center of modern philosophical, scien- 

 tific, and historical discussions. The ques- 

 tions raised are of fundamental importance. 

 They do not affect minor details only, but 

 the very essence of the faith. The Bible used 

 to be considered a book sui generis, whose 

 statements must not be doubted and criti- 

 cised, but must be accepted without ques- 

 tion. Now it is asked : Who wrote the 

 Scriptures ? When were they written ? 

 Are they true ? Manifestly, until these 

 questions are answered it is wholly imper- 

 tinent to ask us to accept these writings as 

 inspired authorities. Nor are we willing to 

 take the mere word of the Church on this 

 subject, for the Church has made so many 

 mistakes that its guidance can not be blind- 

 ly accepted. We must be given facts and 

 reasons upon which to rest our faith, and oo 

 biblical criticism has arisen. It is a mod- 

 ern product not more than a hundred years 

 old but, like the other modern sciences, 

 it is most important. It does not aim to de- 

 stroy religion or the Bible, but rather to 

 free them from superstition, and make them 

 more credible, attractive, and influential. 

 This is certainly the object of the book un- 

 der review. Dr. Cone is well known as 

 the President of Buchtel College, Akron, 

 Ohio, and brings to the study of his subject 

 a ripe scholarship, a chastened judgment, 

 and a reverent spirit. He gives us the re- 

 sults of the best German criticism of the 

 Scriptures in a most readable form. First 

 of all, in a criticism of the text of the Gos- 

 pels, he shows that "these writings were 

 exposed to the fortune which has attended 

 all the literary productions of ancient times ; 

 that the autographs were early lost , that 

 the text was corrupted and interpolated ; 

 that a considerable time elapsed between 

 their composition and the appearance of 

 careful and accurate quotations of them, 



during which the changes to which the text 

 was subjected are indeterminable ; that, 

 however, alterations, corruptions, and inter- 

 polations have not, in all probability, mate- 

 rially affected their essential, historical con- 

 tents that is, their accounts of the great 

 teachings of Jesus and their representation 

 of his life and character." One of the most 

 important chapters is the second, which dis- 

 cusses the canon of the New Testament. 

 Our author finds no evidence in the writings 

 of the earliest Christian fathers Clement 

 of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Polycarp, 

 Papias, Justin Martyr, and others to justi- 

 fy the conclusion that the Gospels were con- 

 sidered by them as of exclusive authority. 

 On the contrary, these writings, " after hav- 

 ing remained unnamed and undistinguished 

 in the mass of early Christian literature for 

 about a hundred years, are found to have 

 made their way by the beginning of the third 

 century to a general recognition in the 

 Church as exclusive historical sources of the 

 life and teachings of Jesus." This conclu- 

 sion is of immense importance, especially 

 when it is remembered that the canon was 

 not established by a careful critical exami- 

 nation of testimonies, but the Gospels were 

 accepted simply on the evidence of a very 

 uncertain tradition. In the third chapter, 

 Dr. Cone deals with "the synoptic problem." 

 The question is, Why do the first three Gos- 

 pels contain so much matter that is exactly 

 the same in all of them, while each of them, 

 nevertheless, has much that is peculiar to 

 itself ? Several hypotheses have been 

 framed to solve the problem : (1) It is held 

 that the later writers copied from the earlier ; 

 (2) all drew from a common written source, 

 or an original Gospel ; (3) a fixed oral tra- 

 dition was the primitive source. Our author 

 thinks there are insuperable objections to 

 all these theories. The eminent German 

 critic Schleiermacher sought to explain the 

 synoptic phenomena by the assumption of 

 several sources, embracing only parts of the 

 history, which were variously combined by 

 the three writers of the Gospels. Mark and 

 the Aramaic Logia of Jesus, which Matthew 

 is said to have written, were among these 

 sources. Hence our present Gospels of 

 Matthew and Luke were largely derived 

 from these sources. . Dr. Cone adopts this 

 view. He says : " The logia source written 



