Frauds and Follies of the Fathers: A Review of the Worth of Their Testimony to the Four Gospels — John Shaqi
Frauds and Follies of the Fathers: A Review of the Worth of Their Testimony to the Four GospelsWheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Religion
Frauds and Follies of the Fathers: A Review of the Worth of Their Testimony to the Four Gospels
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Christianity -- Controversial literature; Fathers of the church
The title of the thirty-first chapter of Eusebius's twelfth book of
"Evangelical Preparation," is a caution. It reads "That falsehood, may
be employed by way of medicine for those who need it." He ascribes to
Porphyry (a learned Pagan who had written against Christianity, but
whose works were destroyed by order of Theodosius) a forgery of his own
time, called "The Philosophy of Oracles," and then cites it as evidence
for Christianity. He gives a forged passage ascribed to Phlegon, where
that Pagan is made to speak of the darkness which happened at the death
of Jesus. If such a passage had been in existence it would have been
mentioned by Origen, who refers to Phlegon, but who in his comment on
Matthew xxvii., 45, concludes we must not be too positive that he spoke
of this darkness in Matthew. He also makes Thallus, another heathen,
bear testimony to the eclipse of the sun--another forgery.
At the very outset of his "Ecclesiastical History," he knocks us over
with a pretended correspondence which passed between Jesus, who, Jerome
says, knew not how to write, and Abgarus, king of Edessa.
This correspondence, wherein Jesus is made to cite the words of the
Gospel of John, written probably a hundred years after, long did duty
among Christian evidences, but is now given up by every critic of note
as a forgery. Addison was one of the last to quote it as genuine.
As it would occupy too much space to follow this Father through all his
misstatements, we shall confine our attention to his misrepresentations
of Josephus. One of the most notorious of these is the account of the
death of Herod Agrippa, grandson of the monster who is supposed to
have ordered the slaughter of all the male children in the inland town
"Bethlehem, and the coasts thereof," on account of an obscure prophecy.
In the 12th chapter of Acts it is stated that Herod, as the people
were calling him a god, was smitten by an angel and was eaten by worms.
Josephus says: "Agrippa, casting his eyes upward, saw an owl, sitting
upon a rope, overhead." Eusebius, in order to make Josephus agree with
the Acts of the Apostles, in transcribing the text of Josephus, struck
out about the owl and substituted an angel. Lardner says: "I know
not what good apology can be made for this." Nor do we, unless that
one-winged fowl is just as good as any other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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