Years in Caesarea in Close Relations with the Church There," 1
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HELVIDIAN VERSUS EPIPHANIAN HYPOTHESIS 163 years in Caesarea in close relations with the Church there," 1 . so that he had every opportunity of obtaining the most accurate information; and the probability is that the Gospel and the early part of the Acts were, so to speak, written on the Spot. w. SHERLOCK. THE HELVIDIAN VERSUS THE EPIPHANIAN HYPOTHESIS. IN my former article, which appeared in the July Number, I considered this question in the light of what may be gathered from Scripture. In my edition of St. James I had summed up the results ()f my earlier investigation of the subject in the words (p. xxxvi.) : " Even if the language of the Gospels had been entirely neutral in this matter, it would surely have been a piece of high presumption on our part to assume that God's providence must always follow the lines suggested by our notions of what is seemly ; but when every conceivable barrier has been placed in the way of this interpretation . can we characterize it otherwise than as a contumacious setting up of an artificial tradition above the written word, if we insist upon it that brother must mean not brother, but either cousin or one who is no blood-relation at all, that first-born does not imply other children subsequently -born, that the limit fixed to separation does not imply subsequent union ? '' My critic in the Ohurch Quarterly (vol. lxvi, p. 81) meets this statement with .the argumentum ad verecundiam : " When such a sweeping condemnation includes names pre-eminent for the furtherance of our Biblical knowledge, such as Lightfoot, Westcott, and Hort, the present Bishop of Birmingham, and Canon Liddon, the charge becomes little short of ludicrous." It is hardly necessary for me 1 Sir W. Ramsay, paper reed before the Victoria lniltitute. 164: HELVIDIAN VERSUS EPIPHANIAN HYPOTHESIS to say that my argument was impersonal. I had no idea. of throwing scorn on great names, whether among those who are still living, or those who have passed away. I was simply pointing out the responsibility of one who acknow ledged the facts, but refused to draw the necessary con clusion from them. Of the five names mentioned, the three which stand first were names of men well known to me ; Lightfoot, and especially Hort, were among my oldest and dearest friends. It was mainly from them, and from another friend of an earlier generation, Professor John Grote, 1 that I imbibed the principles enshrined in two famous maxims of antiquity : Amicus PW,w, seil magis amica veritas, and Non tam aucroritates in dis'[>'Uiando qun.m rationis momenta qooerenda sunt. Quin etiam obstat pterumque eis qui discere volunt aucwritas eorum qui se <locere profitentur ,· desinunt enim suum iud.icium adhibere, id habent ratum quod ab eo quem probant iudicatum vident. It is just when the force of public opinion is going most strongly in one direction, that the man who believes it to be mistaken is most bound to give his reasons for that particular aspect of the truth, the defence. of which he feels to have been committed to his own charge. Whether he is right or wrong, it can only serve the cause of truth and help to bring about its ultimate triumph, if he does his best to give their due weight to the arguments which have led him to adopt the conclut3ion he advocates. For myself, I can sincerely say that the further consideration of the question has not only confirmed me in the opinion formed more than sixteen years ago, but that I believe Bishop Lightfoot would have come to the same conclusion if the same considerations had been laid before him. My critic, whom, as being entirely unknown to me, I 1 See his Exploratio Philoaophi.ca, especially the admirable chapter on the Right a.nd Duty of Prive.ta Judgment, contained in vol. ii. pp. 271-83. HELVIDIAN VERSUS EPIPHANIAN HYPOTHESIS 165 have denoted by the letter X, assumes that Westcott and Hort favoured the Epiphanian view. I do not remember that I ever heard either of them express an opinion upon the subject ; certainly the references adduced by X are anything but conclusive. He says this preference is im plied, in the case of Hort, by a phrase which occurs in Judaistic Christianity, p. 148: "He who was known as the Lord's brother." But surely this can only imply a wish to avoid all disputable matter : every one would assent to such a description of St. James. Westcott, in his note on the words "His brethren" in John ii. 12, hesitatingly accepts Lightfoot's conclusion in words which do not suggest any special investigation on his own part : "Most probably the sons of Joseph by a former marriage. See an exhaustive essay by Dr. Lightfoot, Galatians, Essay 2." It is just the language I should myself have used after reading the essay, had I not been compelled to go more fully into the subject in preparing my edition of St. James. I proceed now to consider what light we may gather from tradition upon this subject. X asserts that " but for the intrusion of St. Jerome's theory in the latter part of the fourth century, the value of the traditional belief could hardly have been called in question." "But the original tradition, which did no more than assert that the brethren were sons of Joseph by a former wife, should be carefully distinguished from the Epiphanian presentation of it " (p. 92). In a note he says : " Professor Mayor begins by putting the origin of the Epiphanian theory towards the close of the second century, and recognizes a tradition on the point from then, ' till it was unceremoniously driven out of the field by Jerome.' Yet in his next paragraph he says : 'Historical tradition, therefore, on this subject there was properly none when Jerome wrote, any more than there is now.' " 166 HELVIDIAN VERSUS EPIPHANIAN HYPOTHESIS The guarded language of the last sentence is sufficient to show that a contrast is intended between tradition in the loose sense, and historical tradition strictly speaking. And this contrast would have been more apparent if X had given the exact words of the prior quotation, " we have seen that, Bo far aB we can Bpeak of a tradition on the B'Uhject, it was in favour of the Epiphanian theory, etc." This distinction is more clearly marked in the fuller dis cussion contained in p. xxviii. of my edition of St. James. It is said there that, "in our investigation of any so-called tradition, it is of the utmost importance to be on our guard against mistaking manufactured or literary tradition, like that which has grown up round the scenes of many of Scott's romances, for the actual recollection of fact, handed down orally from father to son, or ·crystallized in literature at some stage of its progress." I shall now endeavour to show, in opposition to X, not that Hegesippus has not recorded many valuable traditions -I believe he has-but that there was no original historical tradition to the effect that the Brethren were sons of Joseph by a former marriage. The belief rests on two pillars, sentiment and apocryphal fiction, the latter being itself an offshoot of the pre-existing sentiment. This appears from the language used by Jerome and Basil in the fourth century, by Origen in the third, by Clement of .Alex andria at the end of the second; nay, it may be inferred from what is said by Epiphanius himself. In his Comment. in Matth. xii 49, Jerome speaks with scorn of the upholders of the Epiphanian view, as "following the ravings of the apocryphal writings, and inventing qua1Ulam Melcham vel E8cam muliercu'lam, as Joseph's first wife. Similarly, in his answer to Helvidius (c. 17) he con trasts the appeal to later authorities with the appeal to Scripture, in the words V erum nugaB terimUB et f onte HELVIDIAN VERSUS EPIPHANIAN HYPOTHESIS 167 veritatis omisso opinionum rivulos consectamur. He pleads also sentiment in favour of his own view, as extending the range of virginity to Joseph as well aa to Mary. On the other hand, Basil the Great is reckoned among Epiphaii.ians by Lightfoot, because he quotes a story about Zacharias which seems to be taken from the Protevangelium, where this view is strongly maintained. In the same passage, while announcing his own belief in the perpetual virginity, " since the lovers of Christ cannot bear to hear that the mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin," Basil, neverthe less, allows that it is not a necessary article of Christian belief. Origen, however, is the writer who brings out the two sides most strongly in his Comment. in M atth, tom. x. 17 (Lomm. iii. p. 45). "Some persons, on the ground of the tradition contained in the Gospel according to Peter or the book of James (the Protevangelium) affirm that the brothers of Jesus were Joseph's sons by a former wife. Those who hold this view wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end, in order that her body, once chosen for so high a purpose, might not be degraded to lower use after the Holy Spirit had come upon her . and I thillk it reasonable that, as Jesus was the firstfruit of purity among men, so Mary should be among women." 1 Here it is to be observed that Origen does not say this opinion is held by all, or most, or by the orthodox ; it is simply held by some.