Слике страница
PDF
ePub

have been; but when a man's moral character is arraigned, as mine very materially is, in this publication, he certainly has a right to the name of his accuser, if he can come at it. Indeed, no man of honour will advance such a charge against another without, at the same time, giving his own name. Also, in referring to my former acquaintance with Mr. Badcock, I reveal no secret, for I believe it is as generally known as Mr. Badcock himself is.

I shall select from this Review the most plausible, and the most confident of all the charges, as a specimen of the rest; and let any impartial person, of competent knowledge of the subject, judge between us.

SECTION I.

Of the Omission of the Sentence in Justin Martyr.

I HAD observed that Justin Martyr treats the Unitarians of his age with great tenderness, at the same time that he treats those whom he calls heretics, with much asperity; saying, as the Reviewer quotes from me, "There are two passages in this writer, in which he speaks of heretics with great indignation;-but in both the passages he has evidently a view to the Gnostics only. He particularly mentions the Marcionites, the Valentinians, the Basilideans, and the Saturninians.* He says, they blasphemed the Maker of the world, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:' that they denied the resurrection, and maintained, that after death the soul went immediately to Heaven.'—Had he considered the Unitarians, with whom he appears to have been well acquainted, as heretics, would he not have mentioned or alluded to their tenets also in those passages in which he speaks, and pretty largely, of the Christian heretics in general? It is impossible, I should think, to read those passages as they stand in the original, introduced as a fulfilment of our Saviour's prophecy, that there should be false Christs and false prophets, who should deceive. many; and not be satisfied that, like the apostle John,

* “Kai aλλo1 aλλ ovoμatı (— and others under another name') follows in the original, though unnoticed in Dr. P.'s translation. At the same time, we must observe, that Dr. P. has misquoted the name of the last-mentioned sect, by copying from the Latin version, instead of the original Greek, where it is aтopriλiavo, Saturniliani." [Mon. Rev. LXX. p. 61, Note.]

This I suppose was meant to insinuate that I do not, perhaps that I cannot, read Greek. It would, however, have been pedantry to use the term Saturnilus, Saturninus being much more common both with the ancients and moderns. (P.)

Justin Martyr had no idea of there being any heretics in the Christian church in his time, besides the Gnostics."*

[ocr errors]

On this the Reviewer remarks as follows: "As Justin is much connected with our controversy with Dr. Priestley, we hope Dr. Horsley will excuse us for anticipating a remark which we are persuaded he would of necessity make on this passage. The remark might be extended much farther, with a long retinue of exclamations,' but our limits oblige us to be as brief as possible. In general, then, we make no scruple of asserting, in the most direct and unqualified language, (for Dr. Priestley desires us to use no ceremony,) that in the above representation of Justin's sentiments, we meet with the most flagrant and unaccountable mutilation of a plain passage, that the disingenuity of a controvertist, who is determined to 'keep it up,' per fas et nefas, ever presented us with. We beg the reader to turn back to Dr. Priestley's quotation from Justin, and compare his translation with the original. He (i. e. Justin) says, They blaspheme the Maker of the world, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Now, this is so put, as to convey to the English reader, or the unlearned, (for whom Dr. Priestley appears chiefly to write; but how came he to forget that he was writing to Dr. Horsley?) that the translation is so managed as to convey no idea of distinction in Justin's mind, between the Maker of the world, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For the sake both of the learned and unlearned, we will transcribe the original passage, and annex to it a literal translation : Αλλοι γαρ κατ' αλλον τροπον βλασφημείν τον ποιητην των όλων ΚΑΙ ΤΟΝ ὑπ' αυτε προφητευομενον ελευσεσ θαι ΧΡΙΣΤΟΝ και τον Θεον Αβρααμ, και Ισαακ, και Ιακωβ, διδάσκεσιν, didaσxeo, i. e. Others, upon another plan, teach (their followers) to blaspheme the Maker of the universe, AND HIM who was before spoken of as coming from him, even he who was the CHRIST, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Now, to prove even beyond the possibility of dispute or evasion, that by the God of Abraham, &c., Justin meant Christ, (to say nothing of the independent evidence arising from the passage,) we refer the reader to his celebrated Apology to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, (Thirlby's ed. pp. 93, 94,) in which this expression is not only applied to Christ allusively, but even vindicated as his own appropriate and distinct character. After quoting the passage, Exod. iii. 2, &c., at full, Justin says, These words

[ocr errors]

* Mon. Rev. LXX. p. 61. (P.) See supra, p. 65; Appendix, No. IV.

were uttered purposely with a design to prove that the Son of God, and his Messenger, is Jesus Christ; who was the pre-existent Logos; and who sometimes appeared in the form of fire, sometimes in the similitude of angels, &c. &c.' Immediately after he blames, in very severe language, the 'senseless Jews' (avonto Iedaios) for affirming that these words were spoken by the Maker of the universe. Would he not have said the same of an Ebionite, who, like these infatuated Jews, must, on the principles of his own creed, have denied the application of these words to Christ? (See also the Dial. with Trypho, pp. 300, 408, and elsewhere.)

"Dr. Priestley somewhere speaks of Dr. Horsley's disin genuity in concealment; can he point out any thing like this? He somewhere says, that the Monthly Reviewer writes in a specious and imposing manner. We ask, in our turn, who translates so? Can he cast the stone who hath (to all appearance purposely) left out a whole member of a sentence; and that too, a most essential one; and by artfully dropping the middle part of it, hath entirely misapplied the conclusion? We are afraid that his very Vindicator cannot excuse him, even on the score of what he calls the Doctor's rapid glances.' But rapid glances, though they suit a poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, do not well agree with the sober and steady observation of an historian."†

This is the whole of Mr. Badcock's remark on the passage and I think it is hardly possible for the heat of controversy to carry any man farther than this. The whole of it, however, is answered at once, by observing, that it is to no sort of purpose who it was that Justin meant by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (which Mr. Badcock may find in my own History, and which no person who knows any thing of Justin can be ignorant of,) but who it was that the heretics he is speaking of meant by the person so described, and whom they meant to blaspheme; and this, certainly, was not Jesus Christ, but another being, the supposed maker of the world, the author of the Jewish dispensation, and the introducer of much evil, which, they said, Christ was sent

This is an exaggeration of my language. What I said was, not perfectly inge nuous, which, when the passage is consulted, no person can say was harsh or improper. See Letters, &c. [supra, p. 54, ad fin.]. Whereas Dr. Horsley has charged me with several instances of gross disingenuity, and all of them manifestly unjust. Among other things, he charged me with wilfully misquoting the common English translation of the Bible. A thing so gross as this, would certainly have been censured in an impartial review. This, however, Mr. Badcock did not censure. (P.)

† Mon. Rev. LXX. pp. 61, 62.

See Vol. V. p. 31.

to rectify. They were, therefore, the Gnostics only, and not Unitarian Christians that he was reflecting upon, or alluding to; and this is the only circumstance on which my inference was founded.

The omission Mr. Badcock speaks of, was made merely to shorten a long Greek quotation, without leaving out any thing that could affect the sense. That by the año Justin could not mean any other kind of people besides those he had spoken of before, is evident from his using the particle yap, for. In this connexion, I maintain, that αλλοι γαρ κατ' αλλον TроTOV, &c., can bear no other sense than, for some of them (viz. of those mentioned, or alluded to before, and also mentioned by name immediately afterwards) blaspheme the Maker of the world, &c., in one way, and others in another; and will by no means bear to be translated as Mr. Badcock does, others upon another plan, &c. For this I am willing to appeal to any person who has the least pretensions to a knowledge of the Greek idiom. Had Justin said anno de, but, instead of anλ yap, for, there would have been some slight colour for Mr. Badcock's construction of the passage; but at present there is not a shadow of pretence, either from the phraseology, or the general sense of the passage, in his

favour.

That Mr. Badcock should not have been able to understand the Greek of Justin is the more extraordinary, as the idiom of the Latin tongue is the very same with that of the Greek in this respect. If he will only look into Ainsworth's Dictionary, he will see "Alius alio modo," (Cicero,) rendered" one after one sort, another after another."

If Mr. Badcock really thinks that these blasphemers of the Maker of the world were persons who blasphemed Jesus Christ, by lowering him to the condition of a man, and not the Gnostics, of whom there were many distinctions, as Justin had just observed, (and who, therefore, blasphemed him, some in one way, and some in another,) he is as ignorant of ecclesiastical history as he appears to be of Greek. I will venture to say, he has not, as he pretends, anticipated Dr. Horsley in this criticism, and I am willing to appeal to Dr. Horsley himself for it. If the decision be in my favour, (of which there can be no doubt,) I shall require of Mr. Badcock an acknowledgment as public as his offence, and as full as it is heinous.

Writing in the circumstances in which I do, and inviting criticism from all quarters, if I had had no principle of integrity at all, I certainly should not have concealed any thing

that I must have known my adversary could not possibly overlook. The omission,* therefore, could not, at most, have been any thing more than either an inadvertence, or have arisen from a misunderstanding of the passage and its importance, which a generous adversary would have treated with tenderness.

To shew more distinctly the nature of this omission, on which Mr. Badcock has declaimed so copiously, I shall translate the whole passage, distinguishing the words omitted; by which it will be seen, that I could not mean any thing by the omission, but to save myself the trouble of writing so much Greek. Mr. Badcock has also made several omissions, I presume for the same reason, in the extract from my letters.†

"There are, and have been, many persons who, pretending to be Christians, have taught to say and to do atheistical and blasphemous things, and they are denominated by us from the names of the persons whose doctrines they hold, (for some of them blaspheme the Maker of the universe, and him who was by him foretold to come as the Christ, and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,‡ in one way, and others in another,) with whom we have no communication; knowing them to be atheistical, wicked, and impious persons; who, instead of reverencing Jesus, confess him in name only. They call themselves Christians, in the same manner as those among the Heathens inscribe the name of God on the works of their own hands, and defile themselves with wicked and atheistical rites. Some of them are called Marcionites, some Valentinians, some Basilideans, some Saturninians, and others go by other names, each from their peculiar tenets; in the same manner as those who addict themselves to philosophy are denominated from the founders of their respective sects. And, as I have said, Jesus, knowing what would come to pass after his death,

* See the first of the additional paragraphs, at the end of the Remarks. + Supra, p. 128. See Mon. Rev. LXX. p. 58.

It is really something extraordinary, that this opinion of Justin Martyr's, that Christ was the medium of all the divine communications to mankind under the Old Testament dispensation, should have been so readily received, and have spread so generally as it did, when it not only has no countenance from Scripture, but is expressly contradicted by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in Heb. i. 1: God, who, at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers, by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." Again, (ii, 2. 3,) "If the word spoken by angels was stedfast,-how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?"— What can be more evident than that the writer of this epistle had no idea of God having spoken to mankind by his Son before the time of the Gospel? (P.) See Vol. XIV. p. 847.

« ПретходнаНастави »