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other two only one bears the name of an apostle of eminence (John). This is, so far, a confirmation of their genuineness; for if they had been forgeries claiming an authority to which they were not entitled, they would have been pretty sure to claim it in the highest form. The same circumstance shows that the apostles generally did not regard it as a duty to record their testimony in writing.

In the discharge of their commission as preachers of the Gospel, they doubtless followed the practice which was common in the East of trusting to memory rather than to written documents; and as the Church extended, and they were no longer able to minister personally to the wants of their converts or of those who required to have the Gospel preached to them, it would become their duty to train evangelists and catechists to assist them in the work. In preaching to the heathen, it would only be the leading facts of Christ's life that would require to be proclaimed, but in the instruction of those who had already accepted the message of salvation it would be necessary to go more into detail, and set Christ before them as a guide and pattern in their daily life. This instruction was doubtless given in an oral form, the scholars repeating the lesson again and again after their teachers.1

The history of Christ's life and teaching was thus originally set forth not in the form of a chronological narrative but rather as a series of lessons imparted by the apostles and their fellow-labourers as occasion required, or "to meet the needs of their hearers," as one of the early Church Fathers (Papias) says, referring to Peter's style of preaching. During the twelve years or more that elapsed before the dispersion of the apostles from Jerusalem, a

traces of acquaintance with our Gospels, and has also some uncanonical matter in common with Tatian and Justin. It occasionally betrays sympathy with the Docetic heresy (cf. p. 261), for which (as Eusebius tells us) it was condemned by Serapion, bishop of Antioch, in the end of the second century; at the same time it is anti-Jewish. Its composition can

not have been much earlier nor much later than 150 A.D. To support some heresy was the purpose of many of the apocryphal writings.

1 This is the meaning of κατηχήθης ("instructed") in Luke i. 4=taught by word of mouth by dint of repetition. Cf. Acts ii. 42: "They continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching."

recognised course of instruction had doubtless gained currency in the Church, corresponding to St. Peter's definition of the period of the life of Christ which was the proper subject for apostolic testimony" Beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that he (Jesus) was received up from us." 1 With this agree specimens of apostolic preaching contained in the Book of Acts,2 as well as the allusions which the apostles make in their epistles to the Gospel preached by them and the knowledge of Christ's life acquired by their converts. A close examination of such passages makes it evident that, while Christ Jesus

1 Acts i. 22.

2 Acts x. 36-43 (Peter's Address at Cæsarea): "The word which he sent unto the children of Israel, preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all)-that saying ye yourselves know, which was published throughout all Judæa, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; even Jesus of Nazareth, how that God anointed him with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom also they slew, hanging him on a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and gave him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he

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rose from the dead. And he charged us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is he which is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To him bear all the prophets witness, that through his name every one that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins"; xiii. 23-31 (Paul at Antioch): 'Of this man's seed hath God according to promise brought unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus; when John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was fulfilling his course, he said, What suppose ye that I am? I am not he. But behold, there cometh one after me, the shoes of whose feet I am not worthy to unloose. Brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and those among you that fear

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when they had fulfilled all things that were written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead : and he was seen for many days of them that came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses unto the people"; cf. iv. 19, 20: But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye: for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard."

46

31 Cor. ii. 2: "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." I Cor. XV. I-4 "Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved; I make known, I say, in what words I preached it unto you, if ye hold it fast, except ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures. I Cor. xi. 23-27: "For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had

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was the constant theme of the apostles' preaching, they dwelt chiefly on the great facts that formed the consummation of His ministry - His sufferings, death, and resurrection; and we may regard it as an evidence of the faithfulness with which our Gospels reflect the earliest preaching and teaching of the apostles that they give such prominence to the closing scenes of our Lord's history. We have another token of their authenticity in the fact that they narrate events not in the light shed upon them by the subsequent teaching of the Spirit, but as they were actually regarded by the disciples at the time of their occurrence, long before the publication of the Gospels.

It would seem that before our Gospels were composed; attempts had been made by private persons to draw up a connected history of the Saviour's life, or at least of His ministry. Such attempts are referred to by St. Luke in the preface to his Gospel.1 It is evident that he is alluding to other documents than the Gospels we possess, both because he speaks of the writers as "many," in a tone scarcely consistent with the respect due to apostolic records,

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given thanks, he brake it, and said,
This is my body, which is for you: this
do in remembrance of me. In like
manner also the cup, after supper, say-
ing, This cup is the new covenant in my
blood: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in
remembrance of me. For as often as
ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye
proclaim the Lord's death till he come.
Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread
or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and the
blood of the Lord." Gal. iii. 1:
Jesus Christ was openly set forth cruci-
fied?" Eph. iv. 20, 21: "But ye did
not so learn Christ; if so be that ye
heard him, and were taught in him, even
as truth is in Jesus." 1 Peter i. 18-21:
"knowing that ye were redeemed, not
with corruptible things, with silver or
gold, from your vain manner of life
handed down from your fathers; but
with precious blood, as of a lamb with-
out blemish and without spot, even the
blood of Christ: who was foreknown
indeed before the foundation of the

"

world, but was manifested at the end
of the times for your sake, who through
him are believers in God, which raised
him from the dead, and gave him glory;
so that your faith and hope might be in
God."
I John iv. 2, 6: Hereby know
ye the Spirit of God: every spirit which
confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh is of God:... We are of God:
he that knoweth God heareth us; he
who is not of God heareth us not. By
this we know the spirit of truth, and
the spirit of error," &c.

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1 Luke i. 1-4: Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus; that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed."

and because a comparison of the four Gospels leads to the conclusion that he could not have had any of the three others before him when he drew up his narrative. Whatever part the previously-existing documents referred to by Luke may have had in determining the shape in which the oral Gospel was finally to be recorded, all of them were ultimately superseded by our present Gospels, in whose preservation and triumph we may see an illustration, in the highest sense, of " the survival of the fittest."

4. Their Diversity.

On a comparison of the several Gospels, a marked difference is at once apparent between the fourth and the three preceding ones. The latter are called synoptical, because they give in one common view the same general outline of the ministry of Christ. This outline is almost entirely confined to His ministry in Galilee, and includes only one visit to Jerusalem; whereas the fourth Gospel gives an account of no less than five visits to the capital, and lays the scene of the ministry chiefly in Judæa. A still more important distinction between them, with regard to the nature of their contents, has been briefly expressed by designating the synoptical Gospels as the bodily Gospels, and St. John's as the spiritual Gospel-by which it is meant that the former relate chiefly to outward events connected with the Saviour's visible presence, reported for the most part without note or comment, while the latter is designed to represent the ideal and heavenly side of His personality and work. Akin to this distinction is the fact that the first three Gospels report Christ's addresses to the multitude, consisting largely of parables, while the fourth Gospel contains discourses of a more sublime character, frequently expressed in the language of allegory and addressed to the inner circle of His followers.

When we enter into a closer examination of the three synoptic Gospels and compare them with one another,

we find an amount of similarity in detail, extending even to minute expressions and the connection of individual incidents, combined with a diversity of diction, arrangement, and contents, which it has hitherto baffled the ingenuity of critics to explain fully.1 A general idea of their mutual relations may be gathered from the following comparison. If the contents of each Gospel be reckoned 100, the relative proportion of those things in which a Gospel agrees with one or other of its fellows to those things in which it stands alone would be as follows:

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It is found that the coincidences in language are much fewer than they are in substance-which is only what might have been expected, if the several accounts are derived from independent witnesses. Reckoning the material coincidences in St. Matthew to be 58 as above, the verbal coincidences would only amount to 16 or 17; in St. Mark the former would be 93 as compared with 17 of the latter; in St. Luke 41 as compared with IO. It further appears that by far the greater number of these verbal coincidences are met with in the report of our Lord's discourses and other sayings, a circumstance which confirms us in the belief that the Gospel was handed down for a number of years in an oral form, as the preachers and

1 Numberless theories have been advanced since the time of Augustine, who argued that Mark was the pedisequus et abbreviator ("follower and abbreviator") of Matthew, down to the present time, when critical opinion is taking the form, not so much of a theory of direct mutual dependence of the synoptics upon one another, as of their dependence on some pre-existing document or documents, or on a stereotyped oral Gospel. The former of these two solutions, adopted by J. D. Michaelis in the beginning of last century, and connected by Lessing

(1778), with the idea of an Aramaic original (which might be identical with the Gospel according to the Hebrews), has led many critics to entertain the idea of a double Greek source, designated as the Ur-Marcus and the Ur-Matthäus (the latter being perhaps the Logia mentioned by Papias), although there is a difference of opinion as to which of the two had the priority. The Oral-Gospel theory, which was advocated by Gieseler early in this century, and has recently been more fully expounded by Westcott, has also a wide circle of adherents.

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