The few who
had a knowledge of the Hebrew, as Justin Martyr, Origen, and Epiphanius,
wrote in a language which hears no resemblance to that of the New
Testament. The Nazarenes, who understood Hebrew, used chiefly, perhaps
almost entirely, the Gospel of Saint Matthew, and therefore cannot be
suspected of forging the rest of the sacred writings. The argument, at
any rate, proves the antiquity of these books; that they belonged to the
age of the apostles; that they could be composed, indeed, in no other.*
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* See this argument stated more at large in Michaelis's Introduction,
(Marsh's translation,) vol. i. c. ii. sect. 10, from which these
observations are taken.
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III. Why should we question the genuineness of these books? Is it for
that they contain accounts of supernatural events? I apprehend that
this, at the bottom, is the real, though secret, cause of our hesitation
about them: for had the writings inscribed with the names of Matthew and
John related nothing but ordinary history, there would have been no
more doubt whether these writings were theirs than there is concerning
the acknowledged works of Josephus or Philo; that is, there would have
been no doubt at all.
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