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CAXOX R. 13. GIRDLESTOXE, M.A.^ ON 



considered nearest to the original) the portions which have 

 been added between the days of the Apostles and the days of 

 Justin Martyr. 



In answer to such speculations the late Professor Smyth, 

 formerly Professor of History in Cambridge, points out in his 

 work on Christian evidences that the miracles are narrated 

 naturally and circumstantially, not in grandiloquent style, not 

 argumentatively, not apologetically. They were read in public 

 from very early times, and wholesale alterations could not have 

 been introduced without observation. 



It is a curious thingj that accretionists relv much on the 

 inconsistencies to be found in the Gospels. But do they 

 suppose that those ingenious persons who foisted in the miracles 

 also foisted in the inconsisteucies in the accounts of the miracles ? 

 This would seem rather a suicidal course. 



We frankly acknowledge that " legendary accretions " came 

 into existence very early in the histor}^ of the churches. Our 

 gospels, however, were evidently too scrupulously watched over 

 to allow of their being tampered with, and accordingly the 

 writers of the accretions had to make new gospels, or, as they 

 are usually called, Apocryphal Gospels. The series commenced 

 in the second century and ran on for some hundreds of years. 

 They are compounded from imagination rather than from 

 tradition and w^ere intended either to teach error, or to satisfy 

 curiosity on certain subjects. In Mr. Harris Cowper's preface 

 to his edition of the Apocryphal Gospels, he says, " before I 

 undertook this work I never realised so completely as I do now 

 the impassable character of the gulf which separates the 

 genuine gospels from these. . . . All who read them with 

 any attention will see that they are fictions not histories ; 

 not traditions even so much as legends. They are all 

 spurious ; they all seek to supplement or develop the writings 

 of the New Testament, and all that we have are of more 

 recent date than any of the canonical books." 



In the edition which forms part of the Ante-Nicene library 

 there are versions of twenty-two of these so-called gospels, but 

 none of them profess to give an account of the Lord's ministry ; 

 they are occupied with matters relating to His birth and youth, 

 or to His descent into Hades. The editor says of them, " they 

 leave on our minds a profound sense of the immeasurable 

 superiority and the unapproachable simplicity and majesty of 

 the canonical writings." 



What is the class of miracles which they narrate ? They 

 are the same kind that we read in fairy stories and folk-lore, 



