Greek in which it is written. And a careful study of another passage in Matthew leads to a doubt as to whether Matt. 9:31 was originally a part of the account of the healing of the two blind men. On page xxxvm, there is an account of Jesus healing two blind men (Matthew says two, Mark and Luke say one), which seems to be another version of the account on page 8. Below the phrases and sentences common to the two versions are given.

The

Matthew seems to have told this story twice in his book. last account-in all three of the Gospels-is much the same as that in the 9th. chapter, except that it does not contain either F or verse 31. Thus it would appear that neither verse 30 nor 31 originally belonged with the account of the healing of the blind men, and that the charge F was once a part of the story of the daughter of Jairus, as Mark has it, and that verse 31 is a possible interpolation. And if verse 31 be omitted from the 9th. chapter, and the quotation from Isaiah from the 12th., F and G in each are brought together, and they are quite parallel.

The relation existing between Matthew's 12th. chapter and Mark's 3rd. may be seen by an inspection of the third column on page 8 and the first on page 9. The principal differences between them are: the quotation from Isaiah in Matthew; the additional matter in B in Mark; and, also in Mark, C, E, and verses 20 and 21. Matthew's G contains considerable that is not in Mark's G; but with reference to this the following parallelism may prove interesting.

It would seem that there must be some connection between the devil in Matthew's 9th. and 12th. chapters, in x, and the unclean spirits in Mark's 3rd. chapter, in s. If the chapters are modified copies of some common original manuscript, C, E, and verses 20 and 21,

being additions to it, the relationship is quite manifest.

Passing on to the fifth column (the second on page 9), we have B, Cand Fagain, the C and the F being reversed. The F here is a part of the account of the healing of the leper. Now, if Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, including verse 1 of the 8th. chapter, be omitted from this column-and the fact that the book of Mark contains no portica of this celebrated sermon, nor any mention of it, is one not to be lost sight of the B and the F are brought into precisely the same relation toward the B and the F in Mark's 3rd. chapter that the H and the F in Matthew's 9th. chapter bear to the H and the F in the first column. There may be those who will question the fact that B in Mark and B in Matthew are parallel passages; but Luke's 6th. chapter serves as a connecting link between them. All the accounts in this 6th. chapter are the_same_as_those in Mark's 3rd. chapter, though differently arranged. And B, in both Matthew and Luke, is followed by the sermon, D. See page X.

B

Then, too, we have in Mark and Matthew the following.

Following one of these passages is the choosing of the twelve disciples; following the other is the Sermon on the Mount: as though one of them had been transferred from one position to another, the passage C not having been transferred with it. The supposition accords well with the relation existing between the B's and the F's in the two columns. It also accords well with the fact that Matthew in his account of the choosing of the twelve, in the 10th. chapter, does not say that it was upon a mountain. Nor was Luke's sermon preached upon a mountain. The truth would appear to be that the passage C was not the beginning of either of these accounts when they were first written. The following parallelism may be instructive.

These phrases are followed by, and are parts of, different accounts, like the two passages marked with a C in the fourth and fifth columns. And like them they seem to indicate that the accounts now following them did not from the first occupy the positions they now have, but that one of them at least was brought from somewhere else to its present place. The facts harmonize with the supposition that the account of the healing of the two blind men did not originally belong in the 9th. chapter where Matthew has given it. The passages following columns one and two are given on page XXIV. Matthew 13:53, on that page, contains the phrase, "he departed thence," like Mark 6: 1, like Matthew 9:27. Surely the position of these phrases, and their verbal coincidence, is not a matter of accident. There are too many like them scattered through the Gospels.

And what is there to be learned of the origin, genuineness and authenticity of the Gospels from pages 8 and 9? There is this. These stories have been told by men who knew nothing whatsoever of Jesus. Mark and Matthew, had they known anything of him, would not have told two stories of him (the raising from the dead of the daughter of Jairus, and the giving of sight to two blind men) with the one passage, F, forming a part of each. It is not possible to excuse the error by trying to make light of it as a simple "mistake"; the proximity of the phrase in Matthew to the end of the other account is too significant. If Jesus did not charge the parents of the girl that "no man should know this," how are we to know that he raised her from the dead? or if he did not charge the two blind men that "no man know it," how are we to know that "their eyes were opened?"

It does not seem possible that one man could have written both the following passages as two incidents in the life of Jesus. Their nearness to the accounts G following, and hence their relation to each other, seems to show a common origin; and the difference between them points to the conclusion that they were written by men who knew nothing of the facts.

MATTHEW 9: 27-30.

And as Jesus passed by from thence,
two blind men followed him,
......And their eyes were opened.
And Jesus......charged them, saying,
See that no man know it.

MATTHEW 12: 15-16.

And Jesus......withdrew from thence:
and many followed him;
and he healed them all,
and charged them that

they should not make him known.

There is no telling whether it was "two blind men" who followed Jesus, or whether it was "many," or whether it was "his disciples" as in Mark 6:1. These writers evidently did not know. The capital letter B should perhaps have been set in the margin opposite all three of these passages.

And so it is with "the mountain" in the three passages marked with the letter C on page 9. "Mark" did not say that the twelve disciples were chosen upon a mountain, nor "Matthew" that Jesus preached upon a mountain, from any knowledge they had of what transpired. These events took place upon a mountain because the passage C was a part of the paragraph B which these men copied in blind stumbling ignorance from a source they could not make out or understand. The Gospels are not the works of eyewitnesses, or of followers or disciples of Jesus. The stories seem to have passed through many hands and so much altered that there is no telling how much truth there is in them.

Luke's account of the healing of the daughter of Jairus, and Mark's and Luke's account of the healing of the leper, contain the charge F that they should not make him known. See q page IX, and c page v. Thus it is three times in Matthew, three times in Mark, and twice in Luke; and all the eight are strangely related to each other by their position. Jesus, according to the Gospel narratives, at no other times ever charged any one not to make him known, except once as in d page XXXI, and the fact is significant; it adds weight to the supposition that all these passages had a common origin. There are, however, two accounts in Mark containing a similar charge, and a remarkable feature to them is that they are the only accounts of note in that book not having parallel accounts in either Matthew or Luke. One of them, Mark 7:32-36, is of the healing of a deaf and dumb man ( G ), and the other, Mark 8:22-26, is of the healing of a blind man (Matthew 9:27-30). (See Mark 8: 26 in the Authorized Version.) There is food for reflection in these facts.

THE THREE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

SHOWING THE RELATION WHICH THESE BOOKS

BEAR TO ONE ANOTHER, AND ALL THAT

THAT RELATION SIGNIFIES.

THE Gospels in this book have been divided into some twelve or fifteen sections, each section having characteristics of one kind or another peculiar to itself. Some of them are not markedly different from others. Some are short or unimportant.

Some are rather subdivisions of others. But there are nine of them so notably different from each other that they have been_designated with the capital letters of the alphabet from A to I. These letters will be found in the upper right hand corners of the pages.

There is another feature to the arrangement of the Gospels in this book toward which attention is directed. The passages are confined exclusively to the left hand pages, except where they are given on the right hand pages for purposes of comparison. At the tops of many of the columns will be found the abbreviation Pre., at the bottoms Fol. These stand for the English words preceding and following, and mean that the passage just before or just after, as the case may be, is to be found on the preceding left hand page or the following left hand page. The passage pages are paged with Roman numerals.

Where

Every passage of a miraculous nature will be marked in the margin with a star: and every reference to the disciples with a dagger. any of the disciples, except Peter, are mentioned by name the margin will contain two daggers. The name of Peter is excepted because it appears mostly in passages having parallel passages in the other Gospels; whereas the other disciples are mentioned, with two or three marked exceptions, only in passages which are in but one or two of the Gospels. An illustration is found on page 9. Turning back to that page, it will be remembered that the passage E in Mark's 3rd chapter appears to have been inserted in between F and G, and it contains the names of the twelve disciples.

If

Three kinds of type are used. Where an account is in all three of the first three Gospels, it is set in ordinary Roman type. If it is in two of them and wanting in the third, it is given in a half italic. it is in but one of the Gospels only, it is set in a full round italic. Beginning at the top of the next page, and covering three pages, is that section which has been designated as I. That common to the three Gospels is lettered a, b, c, d and e; a, b, c and d, are at or near the top of the page; e is at the bottom. In addition to these passages, Matthew and Mark have in common, f-g, and Matthew and Luke have, h-k. Luke has peculiar to itself: verses 1-2; 5-6, and 10-15. And Mark has two short passages. Pages I and III are much the same. There is that common to the three Gospels, then that common to Matthew and Mark, and then that common to Matthew and Luke. And let it be borne in mind, that, in this section, there is nothing in common between Mark and Luke except the passage h on page ш; and this will be considered again further along.