CHAPTER II

THE GOSPELS

THEIR Name and Nature. At the head of the

New Testament stand the four Gospels. This position has been fitly assigned to them, because, although by no means the earliest written of the New Testament Books, they contain a record of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ which forms the corner-stone of the whole fabric-Christianity being essentially a historical religion, basing its doctrines not on fancy but on fact. The name gospel, which is the Saxon equivalent for a word in the original meaning "good tidings," was originally applied to Christ's preaching (Matt. iv. 23; Mark i. 15), and that of the apostles (1 Cor. ix. 16). In course of time it came to be applied also to the books containing a record of the great facts and truths which formed the substance of that preaching. One of the earliest writers to use the word in this sense is Justin Martyr, who wrote about the middle of the second century. He frequently refers to Memoirs composed by the apostles and their companions, to which he applies the name of "Gospels"; and he informs us that they were read along with the writings of the prophets at the meetings for Christian worship each Lord's Day.

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1 Basilides (125 A.D.), quoted by Hippolytus, cites John i. as "said in the Gospels," but some think, without much reason, that the words are to be referred to one of Basilides' school merely. Another instance has been found in the newly-discovered Apology of Aristides, dating probably from the early part of the second century.

Their Authenticity.—That the Memoirs to which Justin refers are the same as the Gospels which we now possess may be inferred from the circumstance that almost all the facts concerning Christ's life which he mentions in about 200 scattered passages of his writings are found in one or other of the four Gospels, while in all the express quotations-seven in number-which he makes from the Memoirs the words quoted are also to be found in our Gospels. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that about twenty years later (170 A.D.) a disciple of Justin named Tatian, a well-informed and far-travelled man, drew up in the Syriac language a sort of harmony of the four Gospels (called Diatessaron), which had a very large circulation in the East. An Arabic trans

lation of this work and a Syriac commentary on it have recently been discovered, from which it is evident that the four Gospels on which Tatian's work was founded were identical with ours. In the Muratorian Fragment, also, there is a list of New Testament books, which most critics assign to about 170 A.D., where the Gospels of Luke and John are mentioned as third and fourth, the other two being apparently mentioned in a part of the MS. now lost. If further corroboration be needed, we have it in the universally-admitted fact that fifteen years later (185 A.D.) the four Gospels which we possess were circulated in all parts of Christendomin Europe, Asia, and Africa—in thousands of copies for the use of the innumerable Christians who heard them read at their weekly meetings for worship.

For these reasons it seems to admit of no doubt that Justin Martyr's Gospels were the same as ours; and it is easy to trace them back through a series of still earlier writers to the testimony of the apostles. We know that Marcion the Gnostic1 (140 A.D.) built his system

1 The Gnostics (who derived their name from a Greek word meaning knowledge) claimed a deeper insight into the mysteries of religion than was possessed by the ordinary believer. But they always professed to be indebted for this knowledge to their fuller comprehension of the meaning of Scripture. Hence the frequency of their appeals to the New Testament writings.

largely on the Gospel of Luke, of which he published a mutilated edition known as Marcion's Luke. In contrast with Marcion, Tertullian places Valentinus, another Gnostic (140-160 A.D.), as one who used the canon in its entirety. A prominent witness is Papias (Bishop of Hierapolis), who wrote an Exposition of the Oracles of Our Lord about 135 A.D., when he was an old man. Among other things which he had gathered from personal intercourse with friends of the apostles and with two disciples of the Lord (one of whom was John), he tells the circumstances under which Matthew wrote his Oracles and Mark his Oracles of the Lord. Still earlier, we find many quotations more or less exact from our Gospels in the lately-discovered "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" (dating from the end of the first or the early part of the second century) in the language of Basilides (125 A.D.), who wrote twenty-four books on "the Gospel," and in the short extant writings of Polycarp (a disciple of the Apostle John, martyred 155 A.D.), of Hermas and "Barnabas" (early in the second century), and of Clement of Rome (close of first century).1 They are also found in all MSS. of the Syriac and Old Latin Versions-both of which are known to have existed in the second century. To this we may add that in the undisputed epistles of Paul, written within a generation after our Lord's death, there are numberless allusions to Christ's history, teaching, and example, which harmonise with the facts recorded in the four Gospels.

In these circumstances we may challenge those who throw doubt on the credibility of the Gospels to show at what period it was even possible for forgery or falsification to be perpetrated, and perpetrated so successfully as to impose upon all branches of the Church, leaving its

1 The extant Christian writings of the first century (other than the New Testament) are extremely meagre, while the writings of the second century till near its close are mainly defences of Christianity (Apologies) addressed to unbelievers, with fewer quotations from the New Testament than if they had been intended for members of the Church. But the substance, and even the language, of our Gospels is woven into the earliest Christian writings that have come down to us.

members and teachers utterly unconscious of the deception that had been practised on them—and this, in matters affecting the most vital interests of the Church's faith, regarding which the apostles had been testifying ever since the day of Pentecost on which they began to preach in the name of their Risen Master.

Of the estimation in which the Gospels were held we may judge from the words of Irenæus, a disciple of Polycarp, who, towards the close of the second century, speaks of the written Gospel as "the foundation and pillar of our faith"; and says regarding the Scriptures— which he defines to be the writings both of prophet and evangelist" the Scriptures, being spoken by the Word and Spirit of God, are perfect."1

Their Origin.-For many years, probably for more than a generation, after the death of Christ, there does not appear to have been any authorised record of His life and teaching in the Church. The charge which the apostles had received from their Master was to preach the Gospel, and the promise of the Spirit had been expressly connected with the bearing of oral testimony (Matt. x. 19, 20). As they had received nothing in writing from their Master's hands, it was not likely they would see any necessity for a written Word so long as they were able to fulfil their commission to preach the Gospel, especially as they were looking for a speedy return of their Lord, and had no idea that so many centuries were to elapse before the great event should take place. The preaching of the Gospel was enough to tax their energies to the utmost; and the task of committing to writing was not more alien to the customs of their nation than it would be uncongenial to their own habits as uneducated Galilæans. Hence we can readily understand how it was that the Old Testament Scriptures, to which the apostles constantly appealed for proof that Jesus was the Messiah, continued to be for many years

1 The genuineness of the fourth Gospel is specially dealt with in chap. vi., where additional evidence will be found specially applicable to that Gospel.

the only inspired writings acknowledged by the Christian Church. A New Testament in our sense of the term was something which the apostles never dreamt of; and it is not to the design of man, but to the inscrutable influence of the divine Spirit and the overruling working of divine Providence, that we owe the composition of our Gospels before the apostles and other eyewitnesses of the Saviour's ministry had passed away. Drawn up

without concert and without the formal sanction of the Church, they contain in a simple form, suitable for all ages and for all classes, several independent records of Christ's life and teaching, of which it may be said with truth that they are better authenticated and more nearly contemporaneous with the events than almost any other record we possess in connection with any period of ancient history. Their dignity and truthfulness are only rendered the more conspicuous by the worthlessness and folly of the apocryphal gospels invented at a later period, which were designed not so much to meet the spiritual wants of the Church as to gratify an idle curiosity.

It is a remarkable fact that two of our Gospels do not claim to have been written by apostles, but only by companions of apostles; and that of the other two only one bears the name of an apostle of eminence. 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 also 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