The Title-Deeds of Christianity
The Birth of the Christian Religion. By Alfred Loisy. Translated by L. P. Jacks, with a preface by Gilbert Murray. (Allen and Unwin. 18s.) Ir is a little difficult to understand the appearance of this translation of one of the later works of M. Alfred Loisy at the present date and under the distinguished patronage of Dr. L. P. Jacks and Dr. Gilbert Murray. It is indeed misleading to have it issued with no indication of the date of the work translated, which is omitted from the list of M. Loisy's works prefixed to the title-page. There is nothing to warn the unwary reader that he has not got before him an up-to-date work of the distinguished scholar whose name it bears. Actually the date of publication of La Naissance du Christianisme is 1933, and it is in effect the summary and final fruit of a number of volumes published during the first quarter of the century. These dates are important, since they precede the publication of a dis- covery which in effect blows the bottom out of M. Loisy's recon- struction of the foundation literature of Christianity. This is the papyrus fragment of the Fourth Gospel now in the John Rylands Library at Manchester, published by Mr. C. H. Roberts in 1935, and assigned by the leading papyrologists in this country and in Germany to the first half of the second century. It is very small, only about Six square inches, containing portions of John xviii, 31-38, but though "'tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door, 'tis enough, 'twill serve " ; for if this Gospel was circulating in Egypt about A.D. 120-140, its origin at Ephesus is thrown so far back towards the beginning of the century as to leave no difficulty in accepting the traditional date of about A.D. 85-95. It is, moreover, reinforced by another discovery of 1935, the fragments of an unknown Gospel in the British Museum, containing two episodes manifestly based on the Synoptic Gospels and one equally manifestly reflecting the lan- guage of the Fourth Gospel. These also are assigned by papyrologists on palaeographical grounds to the first half of the second century.
These discoveries, dated as they are on objective and not theo- logical grounds, are fatal to the assignment of all the books of the New Testament to the second century. M. Loisy was in fact the last representative (except the Bishop of Birmingham) of the school of extreme scepticism which in this country reached its climax in the works of W. R. Casselis (Supernatural Religion,' 1874) and van Manen and Schmiedel (Encyclopaedia Biblica, 1899-1903), but which most scholars have long ago abandoned. It is indeed hard to understand how so first-rate a scholar as Dr. Murray can accept M. Loisy's assertions as " the most masterly of all the attempts to understand and describe in accordance with the normal canons of human history " the movement which we know as Christianity. M. Loisy's representations of what must have happened are at least as dogmatic as those whose contrary picture is disallowed because they are theologians. They consist generally of unproved assertions, and one can easily imagine other scholars, equally untrammelled by the evidence of the actual documents, producing reconstructions quite different and equally devoid of foundation.
We are told, dogmatically and without proof, that " the Gospels are not historical documents, but catechisms for use in common worship " ; that the Acts contain legend and myth rather than history ; that the Epistles " have been edited in the same spirit as
the Gospels, and with lficelihood hardly greater of being the work of the authors to whom they are attributed." The Gospels were originally anonymous writings, edited and retouched in the second century. The birth-stories are mythical fiction • Mark's story of the empty tomb was invented by him • ' the First Gospel was written about A.D. 125 ; the Third and Acts before (but not much before) A.D. 140 ; all three are late compilations. Acts is artificially garbled, the story of the Resurrection being added for controversial purposes. The first edition of the Fourth Gospel was produced about A.D. 125- 140, the second (in which Chapter /CO was added) about A.D. 150-160. In the Crucifixion story we have a liturgical drama, not a record of accurate memories. All the details of the Passion are fictitious ; so also are the post-Resurrection narratives. The Acts narrative is wholly unreliable. And so on, and so on ; and while we know the names of the many non-orthodox writers of this period, no trace remains of the names of those who in this short compass of years produced all the books which we know as the New Testament. Neither Justin nor Ignatius not Polycarp nor Irenaeus nor Eusebius shows any trace of acquaintance with this intense literary activity on which the Christian record was built up.
This is the climax of the school of destructive criticism which flourished about the beginning of the century. Its whole basis is destroyed by the appearance of the Ryland's papyrus of St. John, which involves throwing back the Synoptic Gospels well into the first century. A saner criticism, always maintained in this country by Lightfoot and such successors as Salmon, Sanday, Gore and many others, has come into its rights again ; and it is a little difficult to understand why the extravagances of an earlier generation should
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