New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-01-09

HIS ANNorATIoNs CONrRAsTED WITH
THOSE OF EARLIER EDITORS

sor OF Modern History In Dublin University
Vol. III. PIP. XIV. $40. Macmillan co.
Those who are familiar with the previous an
notated and castigated editions Of THE Deciine
and Fall" will have their admiration OF the au-
thor increased rather than diminished by the
perusal Of Mr.. Bury's volumes. How dexterously
Gibbon handled cases Of uncertainty can haroiy
be imagined except by one who gives Gays anu
nights to some controverted theme where GID
bons paragraph forms the basis OF whole oody
Of later literature. Even when he seems merely
ingenious and sophstical he has complete grasp
OF all the facts accessible to him. and his down.
right errors estimated by the standard OF MS
own time are wonderfully few.
The sharpest scrutiny to which he has been
subjected was occasioned by the chapters IN
Mr. Bury's present volume on the development
of Christianity. His way OF putting things is GER
tainly a cause Of irritation; but his defence on
that score is that he is read. while most MS
torians Of hiG time forgotten. AS TO the
things apart from his way OF putting them thcy
stand as rule just as he wrote them Almost
the frsi OF Mr.. Burys animadversions relates
10 the Nazarenes The correction. or rather ad-
dition that he makes is real but Gibbon couiu
accept it without changing the drift Of his nara
tive THE Nazarenes" wrote Gibbon retired
from the ruins Of Jerusalem TO the little town OF
Pel,a beyond the Jordan. where the ancient
church languished above sixty years in solitude
and obscurity" Mr.. Bury finds that they LETT
Jerusalem before its capture and that as re-
Iigious body they still exist under the name OF
Mandaeans in Southern Babylonia- But Gibbon
did not mean to put limit to their existence for
a little further on he described them as not only
retaining their habitation at Pella, but as
spreading to the villages around Damascus and
forming a small church uhe Beraeans) at
<k. Late rfl
were called Ebionites. not merely because they
were poor in property, but poor in mental re-
sources Here Mr.. Bury points out that they
called themselves Ebionites because of the pow
erty of their condition. and that the Church
Fathers subsequently applied the word to their
understanding. He makes the distinction which
Gibbon ignored between the early Ebionites who
were Nazarenes and the later gnostic Ebionites
Gibbon quite forgot his irony in discussing
the Book of Revelations. The reason was that
the Church itself confessed lack Of confidence
in the book. He seriously. not ironically.
surprised at the reverence for the Apocalypse
which had grown up in later times. This feel
ing in the Greek Church he attributed to the
alleged writings of Dionysius. the Areopagite.
in the Latin Church to the influence Of the
Council of Trent, and among Protestants to the
desire for any kind Of controversial weapon
that could be used against Rome. Mr.. Bury
leaves the case against the book about where
Gibbon put it. for he denies that anything In 1t
can he cited to show that ii was written by the
Apostle John. and contents himself with the
general date as fixed by Mommsen. somewhat
late in the reign Of Domitian. On the other
hand. Gibbon laid aside his sceptcism in speak
ing Of Matthew. and upheld the assertion OF the
Church Fathers that this Apostle wrote in He
brew. Where Mr.. Bury corrects him is in his
assertion that the Greek Gospel according to
Matthew is a translation of the Hebrew 'logia'
from Matthew's own pen. The '1oga" were
used in It, says Mr.. Bury. end was Mark,
(which is generally believed now to be the
earliest Of the four Gospels" Luckily for Glib
bon. he could. for the most part. ignore the
task of New Testament criticism. But the
episcopacy came directly in his way. and his
method Of accounting for its origin was that Of
the nationalist rather than that Of the textual
critic. Considerations Of public order and tran
guilty led the Christians to create per-
pctual magistracy. in which the bishop was
gradually differentiated from the presbyters,
and finally set in authority over them.
Gibbon appealed to the words OF Jerome and
Eutychus proof Of his theory, and he natural
ly disputed the genuineness of the acts and epis-
ties of Ignatus: for. as Mr.. Bury says. If Igna-
titus suffered under Trajan. and the epistles
cribed TO him genuine 1t would follow that
episcopal government fully organized in
some churches in the East at the beginning Of the
second century. for those documents assume the
institution" But modern discussion and investi-
cation have not settled the points which Gibbon
left untouched or in doubt. The salient feature
of Mr. Bury's summary of NJ Reville's opinions
In Les Origines de pEpiscopat' is that hardly
any two Of the early churches had institutions
iko Ia
words bishop and presbyter never to have been
synonymous anywhere. whereupon Mr. Bury
marks that neither Reville nor anybody else has
accounted for the fact that the two words
actually used as synonymous In Acts and In the
Epistle to Titus Mr.. Bury does not solve this
difficulty though he finally decides that the
Ignatian Epistles genuine. AS a number Of
the German critics are against him in this, it is
still safe to quote Gibbon. who. when he came to
figures put the origin of the episcopacy before
the close Of the first century on the authority Of
the Apocalypse. though citing the letters of
Clement negative evidence on the other side
Mr.. Bury's only remark on this point is that the
second letter attributed TO Clement Is spurious.
While Clement thus go:s down point or two
and Ignatius wavers in the balance other au-
thors rise to prominence In ways unexpected.
Everybody has heard the tale Of Balaam and
Josaphat: some perhaps. have read the book in
one form or another. 1t has now title to
fame for besides being paraphrase Of the life
Of Gautama. 1t is known to contain the substance
of one of the famous pleas for Christianity that
was long supposed to have been lost. That miss
ing treatise or speech struck Gibbons fancy be-
cause it's author was. as he said. Athenan
philosopher with the historic name Of Aristdes
He had no knowledge Of its character beyond
remark Of Eusebus. the church historian. and
he did not usually accept Eusebius as authority
even for an adjective without scrutiny. but he
was glad to repeat in this case that the apology
was eloquent. In effect this little work of Aris-
tides has been recovered in Syriac paraphrase
in a fragment of an Armenian version and
finally loosely copied in the argumentative chap
Lana bat Tb..a A ..iu