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PRODUCTION NOTES: A Reply to Dr Lightfoot's Essays by Walter R. Cassels (4-Sep-1826 to 10-Jun-1907) Originally published anonymously in 1889. Transcribed by the Freethought Archives < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

A REPLY TO DR LIGHTFOOT'S ESSAYS

BY THE AUTHOR OF "SUPERNATURAL RELIGION"

LONDON 1889

INTRODUCTION.

I sincerely rejoice that Dr. Lightfoot has recovered from his recent illness. Of this restoration the vigorous energy of his preface to his republication of the Essays on _Supernatural Religion_ affords decided evidence, and I hope that no refutation of this inference at least may be possible, however little we may agree on other points.

It was natural that Dr. Lightfoot should not be averse to preserving the more serious part of these Essays, the preparation of which cost him so much time and trouble; and the republication of this portion of his reply to my volumes, giving as it does the most eloquent and attractive statement of the ecclesiastical case, must be welcome to many. I cannot but think that it has been an error of judgment and of temper, however, to have rescued from an ephemeral state of existence and conferred literary permanence on much in his present volume, which is mere personal attack on his adversary and a deliberate attempt to discredit a writer with whom he pretends to enter into serious argument. A material part of the volume is composed of such matter. I cannot congratulate him on the spirit which he has displayed. Personally I am profoundly indifferent to such attempts at detraction, and it is with heretical amusement that I contemplate the large part which purely individual and irrelevant criticism is made to play in stuffing out the proportions of orthodox argument. In the first moment of irritation, I can well understand that hard hitting, even below the belt, might be indulged in against my work by an exasperated theologian--for even a bishop is a man,--but that such attacks should not only be perpetuated, but repeated after years of calm reflection, is at once an error and a compliment for which I was not prepared. Anything to prevent readers from taking up _Supernatural Religion_: any misrepresentation to prejudice them against its statements. Elaborate literary abuse against the author is substituted for the effective arguments against his reasoning which are unhappily wanting. In the later editions of my work, I removed everything

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays by Cassels
• 2: Lightfoot again reproaches me with my anonymity
• 3: Endnote 1 1 The function of the critic
• 4: I shall speak of Tischendorf presently
• 5: Except Tischendorf and perhaps Professor Hofstede de Groot
• 6: Lightfoot has made such eager use
• 7: Was derived from the presbyters of Papias
• 8: And correcting the version of Volkmar
• 9: Lightfoot seems to have indulged in this article
• 10: Westcott's statements regarding Basilides
• 11: Lightfoot evidently highly values the testimony of Luthardt
• 12: Lightfoot has mistaken and misstated the whole case
• 13: Contradicted by the words of Papias himself
• 14: The sole object of my quotation from Stephanus Gobarus
• 15: Lightfoot characterises as their main arguments
• 16: The Hebraic character of the fourth Gospel
• 17: The identification of Sychar and Shechem
• 18: Considers that the old town of Sichem is meant
• 19: So large and generally known a town as Sikhem
• 20: Lightfoot had studied Mill a little more closely
• 21: As the chief witnesses for miracles
• 22: Although miracles may be antecedently incredible
• 23: Equally ignorant and superstitious
• 24: Lightfoot regarding the SILENCE OF EUSEBIUS
• 25: Simply as complete as it well could be Hegesippus
• 26: Because Eusebius does not record them
• 27: And he illustrates this by the case of Irenaeus
• 28: That Hegesippus did not say anything about them
• 29: After Nerva succeeded Domitian
• 30: Eusebius would have recorded it
• 31: To follow Professor Lightfoot and Dr
• 32: He still maintains the priority of the Curetonian version
• 33: And consider emanating from Ignatius
• 34: Chemnitz does nothing more than the Magdeburg Centuriators
• 35: Illas esse genuinas Ignatii epistolas
• 36: Lightfoot's criticisms are made
• 37: He says that Thiersch uses the Curetonian as genuine
• 38: In the so called Ignatian Epistles
• 39: In the different Recensions in which we possess them
• 40: Without doubt suppose a genuine substratum
• 41: Not less than of Merx and Denzinger and Zahn
• 42: While assuming the priority of the Curetonian letters
• 43: As exhibited in the Medicean MS
• 44: Edited by Valentinus Pacaeus in 1557
• 45: Westcott has scrutinised this work with great minuteness
• 46: Westcott remarks Such an array of authorities
• 47: Bischoff von Antiochien Trajan
• 48: In Folge der durch das Erdbeben vom 13
• 49: And the other four declare for the martyrdom in Antioch
• 50: There is no history of Ignatius
• 51: Ignatius suffered zu ungewoehnliches gewesen sein
• 52: War and Trajan's visit to Antioch
• 53: Westcott must excuse my retorting that
• 54: 102 1 Lucian narrates that this Peregrinus Proteus
• 55: The Ignatian Epistles and Martyrology
• 56: He was not condemned ad bestias
• 57: And here we come for the first time to John Malalas
• 58: Is no valid argument against Malalas
• 59: There are three martyrologies which
• 60: Has decided that Statius Quadratus was proconsul in A
• 61: The testimony of the second Gospel is
• 62: The whole value of the statement of Papias is lost
• 63: Lightfoot is full of resources
• 64: ' as an 'oracle' Greek logion
• 65: We have no information whatever from Papias
• 66: Melito of sardis claudius apollinaris polycrates
• 67: Of the Gospels was actually written
• 68: Although parts of the quotation
• 69: And to anyone who has studied the three synoptics
• 70: Does anyone doubt that Melito of Sardis
• 71: Or 'the testimony borne by Zacharias
• 72: As Hilgenfeld had already observed
• 73: Lightfoot betrays that he has not understood the argument
• 74: And called it Diatessaron
• 75: And further that Bar Salibi speaks of a third
• 76: In the alleged Diatessaron of Ephraem
• 77: Also ascribes the original work to Tatian
• 78: Neither to Tatian nor to Ammonius
• 79: Quid hac dignatione felicius
• 80: A stream of miraculous pretension
• 81: Ignorance and superstition created miracles
• 82: Thus the allegation of miracles is discredited
• 83: Which cannot be regarded as sober and credible history
• 84: The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus
• 85: Promulgated by God himself incarnate in human form
• 86: Not to its supernatural dogmas
• 87: Rather the mirage with its pleasant illusion
• 88: Must our moral consciousness adapt itself
• 89: Lightfoot makes use of my second edition
• 90: Westcott gives the above reference
• 91: Lightfoot will find the passage to which I refer
• 92: 34 2 La Geographie du Tulmud
• 93: I have introduced numbers for facility of reference
• 94: Lightfoot refers to Pearson's Vindiciae Ignat
• 95: Otherwise the Vossian Epistles come together
• 96: Baronius makes the anniversary of the martyrdom 1st February
• 97: I have italicised a few phrases
• 98: 147 3 The Diatessaron of Tatian
• 99: Diatessaron of Elias of Salamia
• 100: Eusebius on Tatian's Diatessaron
• 101: On Diatessaron of Ammonius
• 102: Tatian's Diatessaron see Diatessaron Theodoret