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writers , who believed the story , your assertion is true , though your U > gic is not very conclusive .
But if by fathers you mean all early Christian writers ^ whether orthodox or otherwise , your assertion is false , and you know , or ought to know it , to be false .
As to the testimony of the opposers of Christianity , it is in this case of no consequence , whatever . They were not very likely to take much pains to distinguish genuine
from supposititious scriptures ; and least of all to discard a story which furnished them , as is well known with so many plausible topics for ridicule and banter * .
The Reviewer adds , " asa fact by no means unimportant as an accessory proof , that no objections were ever stated against the accounts in Matthew and Luke , in the early centuries , during the
heat of religious contentions , when all parties sought to defend themselves and to assail their opponents by arguments of all kinds , industriously drawn from every quarter . " p . 32 I .
I was quite at a loss to account for this strange , and unqualified assertion , when the writer himself admits that the accounts of the miraculous conception were denied both by the Ebionites and Marcionites , till it occurred to me that all which the learned Re * , viewer could mean must be , that
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the authenticity of vfcese histories was never called in question by any of those sects which , however they might differ upon other points , were agreed in ibeir belief of the miraculous conception : which no doubt is a notable
discovery , and Ci a most important accessory proof . " The Reviewer then sums up with an air of tri - umph his c * body of evidence of the genuineness of the narratives . " 1 . * All the manuscripts which now exist contain them / ' Agreed . 2 . C 6 All the versions contain
them / ' Agreed . 3 . " All the ancient Christian writers refer to them as undoubtedly genuine . " Agreed , provided that by Christian writers you mean those only who believe in the miraculous
conQeption . 4 . " None of the earlier opponents of the Christian faith entertained the slightest doubt of them . " Agreed , but they were utterly incompetent to
judge , and treated the story with the utmost contempt , 5 . " None of the early sects into which Christians were divided , entertained the slightest doubt of them . " This assertion is either
an identical proposition , or a palpable falsehood . Since then the Reviewer has not succeeded in proving that the Editors of the I , V . ought to have ex ^ tended the limit of their concessions let us next inquire into the
* Of the ill use which may be made of this narrative of the miraculous conception of Christ , we have a remarkable instance in the last Supplement to the Critical Review , a work which is conducted with great ability , and upon the most liberal principles . In a learned work of Professor Paulus , reviewed in this Supplement , it appears that Che author strenuously contends for the genuineness of the disputed chapters . After which he explains aytay all the miraculous part of the narrative , and insinuates that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Joseph of Arimathea by Mary ^ born in adultery , at which gross and capital offence of his espoused wife , Joseph , her husband , and the reputed father of Jesus , was bribed to-connive . Such abomn noble representations can only be made by the enem . ie $ of Christianity , with 3 de * sign to expose it $ q contempt and < JerisiQnT
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» r 418 The Quarterly Review and the Improved Version .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1809, page 418, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1739/page/4/
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