The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself by Michael Ferrebee Sadler
page 43 of 209 (20%)
page 43 of 209 (20%)
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To this end he reproduces the precepts respecting chastity, respecting love to all, and communicating to the needy--being kind and merciful--not caring much for material things--being patient and truthful--and above all, being sincere. He did not reproduce the precepts respecting prayer, simply because immoral men among the heathen worshipped their gods as devoutly as moral men did. He did not reproduce the Lord's prayer, because he would not consider that it belonged to the heathen, or the promises that God would hear prayer, simply because these would belong to Christians only. Again, he evidently altered and curtailed what the heathen would not understand, as for instance, in quoting our Lord's saying respecting "anger," he quoted it very shortly, because to have quoted at length the gradations of punishment for being "angry without a cause," for "calling a brother Raca" and "fool," would have been almost unintelligible to those unacquainted with Jewish customs. The author of "Supernatural Religion" repudiates the idea that Justin, in any of these quotations, makes use of our present Gospels. He examines these [so-called] quotations seriatim at considerable length, for the purpose of showing that Justin's variations from our present Gospels imply another source of information. He considers (and in this I cannot agree with him, though I shall, for argument's sake, yield the point) that-- "The hypothesis that these quotations are from the canonical gospels requires the acceptance of the fact that Justin, with singular care, collected from distant and scattered portions of these gospels a |
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