fabulous and incredible, and would not, by any sober-minded reader, be for a moment accepted as historical. There is no other testimony.” It would be useless to combat, and I therefore boldly ignore these attacks on the authenticity of the text, and proceed with my history. The names of the twelve are as follows—Simon, surnamed Peter; Andrew, his brother; James and John, the sons of Zebedee; Andrew, Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; James, the son of Alphteus; Simon, the Canaanite; Judas Iscariot; and a twelfth, as to whose name there is some uncertainty; it was either Lebbæus, Thaddæus, or Judas. It is in Matthew alone (x, 3) that the name of Lebbæus is mentioned thus—“Lebbæus, whose surname was Thaddæus.” We are told, on this point, by able Biblicists, that the early MSS have not the words “whose surname was Thaddæus,” and that these words have probably been inserted to reconcile the gospel according to Matthew with that attributed to Mark. How good must have been the old fathers who sought to improve upon the Holy Ghost by making clear that which inspiration had left doubtful! In the English version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by our Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between Matthew and Mark is completed by omitting the words “Lebbæus whose surname was,” leaving only the name “Thad-dæus” in Matthew’s text. This omission must be correct, being by the authority of an infallible church, and Dr. Newman shows us that when the church pronounces all doubt is damnable. If Matthew x, 3, and Mark iii, 18, be passed as reconciled, although the first calls the twelfth disciple Lebbæus, and the second gives him the name Thaddæus, there is yet the difficulty that in Luke vi, 16, corroborated by John xiv, 22, there is a disciple spoken of as “Judas, not Iscariot.” “Judas, _the brother_ of James.” Commentators have endeavored to clear away this last difficulty by declaring that Thaddæus is a Syriac word, having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been answered by the objection that if Matthew’s Gospel uses Thaddæus in lieu of Judas, then he ought to speak of Thaddæus Iscariot, which he does not; and it is further objected also that while there are some grounds for suggesting a Hebrew original for the gospel attributed to Matthew, there is not the slightest pretence for alleging that Matthew wrote in Syriac. It is to be hoped that the unbelieving reader will not stumble on the threshold of his study because of a little uncertainty as to a name. What is in a name? The Jewish name which we read as Jesus is really Joshua, but the name to which we are most accustomed seems the one we should adhere to.