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observation, I shall here give the reader some short account of Apelles and his doctrines.

He was a disciple of the famous heretic Marcion, and became famous about the year of Christ 180. He wrote many impious tracts against the sacred scriptures, rejected both the law and the prophets, maintained there was one principle of all things, who was the good God, from whom proceeded the evil god, who made all things. He denied the resurrection of the dead, and published a collection of revelations, which he received from a noted strumpet, whose name was Philumene, of which both Tertullian and Eusebius give us an account, as do Origend, Epiphaniuse, and Austin of the other particulars f.

No. V. The Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles. CONCERNING this apocryphal piece, unquestionably very ancient, we have an account given us;

1. By Origen 8.

Ecclesia quatuor habet Evangelia, hæreses plurima; e quibus quoddam scribitur secundum Ægyptios, aliud juxta duodecim Apostolos-Legimus, ne quid ignorare videremur, &c.

The church receives four Gospels, the heretics have very many; such as that according to the Egyptians, that according to the twelve Apostles - These we read, lest we should be thought ignorant.

2. By Ambrose h.

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Many have endeavoured to write Gospels, which the catholic church hath not approved, but hath determined to make choice of four only. There is indeed a Gospel spread up and down, said to be written by the twelve Apostles. Basilides wrote another called by his name— -These we read, that they may not be read; we read them, that we may not

in Apell. See also Dr. Cave's Hist. Liter. and Spanheim Hist. Christ. Secul. II. c. 6.

8 Homil. in Luc. i. 1. in init.

h Comment. in Luc. in init.

legimus, non ut teneamus, sed repudiemus, et ut sciamus qualia sint in quibus magnifici isti cor exultent suum.

seem ignorant; we read them, not that we receive, but reject them, and may know what those things are, of which the heretics make such boasting.

3. By Jerome, in the passage just now producedi. He reckons the Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles among those which occasioned heresies in the church, and which were wrote by men destitute of the Spirit and grace of God, without a due regard to truth.

4. By the same, in his Dialogues against the Pelagiansk, introducing Atticus disputing against the opinion, That the baptized could not fall into sin, and at length citing this Gospel to that purpose, in the following words: In Evangelio juxta Hebræos, quod Chaldaico Syroque sermone, sed Hebraicis literis scriptum est, quo utuntur usque hodie Nazareni, secundum apostolos, sive, ut plerique autumant, juxta Matthæum, quod in Cæsariensi bibliotheca habetur; narrat historia, &c.

In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldee and Syriac language, but in Hebrew letters, which the Nazarenes to this day use [and is called the Gospel] according to the [twelve] Apostles, or, as most think, according to Matthew, and which is in the library of Cæsarea; there is the following history, &c.

I omit here producing the fragments of this Gospel, and making any critical remarks upon it, because I shall have a more convenient place of doing this, when I come to discourse concerning the Gospel according to the Nazarenes, which appears very evidently, by this passage of Jerome, to have been the very same with this Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles.

i See above, No. IV.

* Lib. 3. Epist. 17. in init.

CHAP. VIII.

An account of the Gospel of Barnabas, mentioned by pope Gelasius. Two supposed Fragments. Large Fragments of an Italian Gospel under the name of Barnabas, now in the possession of prince Eugene. It appears evidently a late Mahometan imposture.

B.

No. VI. The Gospel of Barnabas.

THIS book does not appear to have fallen within the cognizance of any of the Christian writers of the first four centuries; only it is thus mentioned in the famous Decree of pope Gelasius I. above produced, No. III. The Gospel under the name of Barnabas is apocryphal. There are not, I believe, any fragments of it extant, at least not within my time, unless that be supposed to be one, which we find in Clemens Alexandrinus1, who having cited these words of the psalmist, (Psalm cxviii. 19, 20.) Open to me the gates of righteousness, and I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter: he adds, "Barnabas expounding this saying of the prophet, thus 66 reasons:

Although there are many gates opened, righteousness is that gate, which is in Christ, at which all they that enter shall be blessed.

Πολλῶν πυλῶν ἀνεῳγυιῶν, ἡ δικαιοσύνη αὕτη ἐστὶν, ἡ ἐν Χριστῷ, ἐν ᾗ μακάριοι πάντες οἱ εἰσελθόντες. This passage, attributed by Clemens Alexandrinus to Barnabas, is indeed in the first Epistle of Clemens Romanus to the Corinthians, §. 48. and therefore Dr. Grabe m supposes, that Clemens Alexandrinus was mistaken in citing it out of Barnabas, because it is not in the Epistle which goes under his name; which is indeed probable enough, not only because the passage is exactly the same in Clement's Epistle, but because it does not appear that any Gospel under the name of Barnabas was known in the world, either in the time of Clemens Alexandrinus, or a long time afterwards.

The learned Dr. Grabe, out of an ancient manuscript, has indeed produced a saying attributed there to Barnabas, which Spicileg. Patr. tom. 1. p. 303.

1 Stromat. 1. 6. p. 646.

m

he supposes to have been taken out of the Gospel of Barnabas, mentioned by pope Gelasius". The fragment is this, as he has given it us out of the thirty-ninth Baroccian manuscript in the Bodleian :

Βαρνάβας ὁ ἀπόστολος ἔφη, Εν ἀμίλλαις πονηραῖς ἀθλιώτερος ὁ νικήσας, διότι ἐπέρχεται πλέον ἔχων τῆς ἁμαρτίας.

Barnabas the apostle saith, He who prevails in unlawful contests, is so much the more unhappy, because he goes away having more sin.

Whether or no this passage is really a fragment of the ancient apocryphal Gospel under the name of Barnabas, seems to me very uncertain. The author of the manuscript (which is a common-place book made after the modern alphabetical manner) does not mention the name of any Gospel from whence he took it; nor has the doctor, who produces it, given any reasons to support his conjecture, and therefore we may as fairly conclude it to have been taken from the Epistle under the name of Barnabas, as from the Gospel; and though it be not now to be found in any part of that Epistle, yet I cannot see why it may not be supposed to have been in that part of it which is lost, since it is certain we have it now not complete": and I am the rather apt to imagine this, because we cannot discover any intimations or citations of this Gospel in the ancient writers, whereas the Epistle was well known, and frequently referred to.

I can scarce tell, whether it be worth while to observe, that Mr. Toland, in his late trifling book, which he calls Nazarenus, finding it very much to his purpose, endeavours to confirm the aforesaid conjecture of Dr. Graber. He tells us, that in an Italian manuscript, which he saw in Holland, and which is now in the library of prince Eugene, entitled, The true Gospel of Jesus, called Christ, a new Prophet sent by God to the world, according to the relation of Barnabas the Apostle. In this, I say, he tells us, he found the passage (just above produced out of the Baroccian manuscript) almost in terms, and the sense evidently there in more than one place. It is not my business to make here any remarks concerning this pre

" Spicileg. Patr. tom. I. p. 302, 303. See Dr. Mangey's Remarks on Mr.

VOL. I.

Toland's Nazarenus, c. 4. p. 22.

P Nazaren. c. 2. p. 8. and c. 7. p. 20.

L

tended Gospel of Barnabas; it is enough to observe, that it is a very late and notorious Mahometan imposture, as appears sufficiently by the scraps of it which Mr. Toland has produced, and more fully by the large citations out of it, which are given us by La Monnoy 9, who had by baron Hohendorf, prince Eugene's adjutant-general, the sight of the manuscript; and as he seems to have given a more just and full account of it than Mr. Toland, so I verily believe he had more opportunity to do it. It is probable the curiosity of some readers may be such, as to desire these fragments in our language, for whose sake, though it be a digression from my proposed method, I shall insert them here, as I find them in either of the forementioned authors.

The title is, as above,

"The true Gospel of Jesus, called Christ, a new Prophet sent "by God to the world, according to the relation of Barnabas "the apostles."

The first words of the book are these:

"Barnabas, an apostle of Jesus of Nazareth, called Christ, "to all those who dwell upon the earth, wisheth peace and "consolation t.

"He declares he was commanded to write this Gospel; "represents himself as one of the apostles, very familiar with "Jesus Christ and the Virgin, better instructed than Paul "concerning the design of circumcision, and the usage of "meats, either allowed or forbid to the faithful.

"He asserts, the infernal torments of the Mahometans shall "not be everlasting.

"Jesus Christ is never called any more than a prophet ". "It informs us, that the very moment the Jews were pre"paring to go and take Christ in the garden of Olives, he was "taken up into the third heavens, by the ministry of the four

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