The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-08-19
Ee aaaieita nai1u Eagles Sunday oris august H.

| script of the New Testament now known
| from the time in which 1t was wrltteh
| The oldest is that in the Vatican hprary
| at Rome, and dates from the fourth
| century. 1t has been in that library from
| the fifteenth century at least, but Is
| not complete, ending in the middle OF the
| Epistle to the Hebrews. Another man
uscrtpt of about the same age was found
| in the Convent of st. Catharine on Mt
| Sinai in 1874, by Dr. Tischendorf and is
now in the Royal library at Leipzig and
at St. Petersburg. each library having
| some part of it.
The British Museum possesses the Co
| dex A1exandrinus, given to Charles I. by
Cyril Lucar. Patriarch of Alexandria, in
1927. It dates no earlier than the fifth
century. With these, the oldest manu-
scripts Of the New Testament, all diff
fering more or less from one another,
removed so many hundred years from
the time when the Apostles lived, 1t is
not difficult TO understand that any orig
inal manuscript in the handwriting, say,
of st. Luke, or st. Paul, would be be-
yond all valuation Scholars have been
discussing endlessly ABOUT the date at
which the Gospels were written and
who wrote them Even some of the
Epistles are Of uncertain authorship.
and when we come to other books in
tiles are all at sea
1t is pretty generally agreed. for in
stance, that St. Luke wrote the wit
nesses.
The remnants of the writings of the
earlier Apostles will then be found, IL
found they are, in fragmentary shape,
but they will be all the more valuable
on that very account, for they will be
the unstudied testimony of eye-witnesses
to the deeds of Jesus and the words
which they heard Him utter. 1t is even
possible that some of the early Christians
fleeing from Palestine in the days i'm
mediately succeeding the crucifixion came
to Damascus and settled there, for Paul
found some in that city, and it is very
probable that they brought with them
their treasured manuscript accounts of
the life Of which they had been the
Acts of the Apostles, but this is based
upon the more or less questionable
grounds Of fancied resemblances in style
to the Gospel of St Luke, and no one
can state absolutely that it was written
by him in the precise from in which we
now have It. The Gospel according to
Matthew, for instance, is supposed to
have been written originally in Hebrew,
because of a statement mhde by one Of
the early Church fathers, but no scrap
of this original has ever seen the light
in modern times.
VIII this be found in Damascus, or
will other documents Of even greater
Importance be brought to light? Shall
we find the original account of st. Paul's
conversion, which took place near here?
Many scholars are of the opinion that in
no instance have We the Gospels in their
original form, as they came from the
hands of Matthew. Mark, Luke and John.
The Logia found in Egypt two years ago
are nearer to the originals, as they will
one day be discovered, and there is no
more likely place in which to look for
them than in Damascus, where the great
est of the Apostles had the scales drop
from his eyes"
1t must not be forgotten that these
simple followers of Jesus before His
cruciixion thought that the end of the
world was at hand, and if they put
down His words it was not with any
idea of future Bible to be formed Of
their recollections, but for their own de-
light in rehearsing the words that had
dropped from the lips of Jesus. After
His death, when the end did not cor.
was the period at which the writing be-
gan if at all, and such a mind as that
of Paul, with its philosophic training, laid
the foundation for the theology of Chris
tianity.
There is everything to favor the sug
gestion that these treasures were de-
posted in the great Christian Basilica,
the first Christian church of that district
and that no matter what else was lost
during the troublous days of siege and
conquest these documents remained safe
and sound in the archieves of the church
to be later included in the library Of the
Mohammedans when they changed the
church into mosque. The results OF
this search will be watched with ex-
IRENE interest by the whole of Christen-
dom, for if the original documents of
the New Testament are indeed diseov-
cred fresh insight into the times and
life of Jesus cannot fail to follow.
AND RETURN-s1S.65
G. A. r. ENCAMPMENT, CHICAGO,
ILL, AUG. 27 TO SEPT. !.
For the above occasio the Santa Fe