'gaps', so to speak, which all three Gospels leave, especially in the earlier part of our Lord's life, would be almost sure to be filled in with details more or less apocryphal and conflicting the general result being to fix a stigma of untruthfulness upon histories which it was above all things necessary should be above suspicion.

Thus we cannot study the plan of S. Matthew's Gospel, however cursorily, without being made to realize the full force of the reason which S. Luke gives in his preface for writing in "order," and with the avowed object that his reader might be assured of "the truthfulness of the Gospels" in which Theophilus was already instructed.

It is to S. Luke and S. Mark accordingly that we must turn continually to understand the meaning of S. Matthew's method of dealing with his subject. Once possessed from those sources of the true order of events, our minds will be free to do full justice to the motives which determine the particular position assigned by S. Matthew to each event, or group of events, which he records.

Under these circumstances, it will probably be sufficient to present in a tabular form the general arrangement of the more unchronological sections of S. Matthew's Gospel, leaving the reader to supply for himself the reasons by which the departures from chronological order are obviously dictated.

TABLE

S.

THE

SHEWING THE ARRANGEMENT OF MATTHEW'S GOSPEL READ IN LIGHT OF THE ORDER' OF EVENTS GIVEN BY S. MARK AND S. LUKE.

Events prior to the Imprisonment of John the Baptist. i.-iv. II Summary of events of 18 months, including special notice of the residence at Capernaum and the call of the four Disciples, and a prolonged course of teaching and working of miracles; such summary and special notices being necessary to prevent the misconception to which S. Matthew's plan of writing would be likely to give rise

Sermon on the Mount

iv. 12-25 v. 1-vii. 29

Epiphanies of Mercy and Power, i.e. a series sometimes of single incidents, sometimes of groups of incidents, illustrating (1) Christ's divine mercy and power, and (2) the general character of His Ministry; these incidents being selected from those which occurred during the two years which preceded, and the 12 months which followed, the Sermon on the Mount; events really separated by long intervals of time being thus constantly brought into close juxtaposition. viii. I—ix. 34 Summary giving general character of Christ's Ministry Combined account (a) of the first choice of the Twelve, (b) of

ix. 35

the commission given to them a year afterwards, and (c) of many directions given to them at an altogether later date. ix. 36-x. 42 Summary giving general character of Christ's Personal

Ministry, after the Disciples had been sent on an independent

Incidents, which took place at widely different times, but which served to illustrate the UNBELIEF and impenitence of the People and the opposition of the Pharisees, culminating in the charge that Christ's Miracles were due to Satanic agency. xi. 2-xii. 45 The UNBELIEF of Christ's Mother and Brethren

The UNBELIEF of the People preventing their understand

ing Christ's teaching by Parables

THE UNBELIEF OF THE PEOPLE OF NAZARETH
JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DEATH

xii. 46-50

xiii. I-52

xiii. 53-58

xiv. 1- 12

THE MINISTRY TO THE HEATHEN introduced by discourse on meats not defiling, and concluded by the Feeding of the

THE TRANSFIGURATION, with events immediately PRECEDING and following it

XV. J-39

xvi. 1-xvii. 23 CHRIST, AS GOD not chargeable with Temple dues. . xvii. 24-27 GALILEAN MINISTRY CLOSED by instructions and exhortations addressed to the Disciples at Capernaum .

xviii. 1-35

SUMMARY of events which took place between the last discourse at Capernaum, i.e. just before the Feast of Tabernacles, and the last Journey to Jerusalem immediately before the Passover

The last Journey to Jerusalem

xix. 1-2 xix. 3-xx. 34

From the last entry into Jerusalem to the final commission given to the Disciples

xxi. I-xxviii. 19

If the reader will be at the trouble of imagining how an Historian, wishing to deal at once both with the life and the teaching of some great political leader, would be most likely to set about his task, he will probably admit that he could not possibly frame his plan of writing on any more effective model than that which is suggested by the above outline of the general plan and scope of S. Matthew's Gospel. And if such be the case, it follows that, a strict adherence to an actual historical order of events being manifestly inconsistent with the plan on which S. Matthew wrote, all transpositions of his text required in any attempt to shew what that order really was, provided only they are exactly regulated by the order vouched for by other Evangelists, are neither "arbitrary," nor in the slightest degree inconsistent with his absolute accuracy.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CHRONOLOGICAL PROBLEM PRESENTED BY THE GOSPELS.

Proposition in enumeration of proofs of displacement.

That the correctness of the principles of construction, which suggest and require the particular transposition contended for, is testified by the fact, that, when applied to the general arrangement of the Four Gospels, they shew them to be in perfect accord, and thus produce the result which Harmonists have so long striven after but have confessedly failed to arrive at.

THE above proposition opens the whole question as to the value and correctness of the method adopted, and the result shewn, in the annexed arrangement of the Gospels as compared with the methods and results with which a great number of "Harmonies" have made us familiar. In other words, it requires us to shew that in spite of all previous and acknowledged failures in dealing with the chronological problem presented by the Gospels, it is yet possible to arrive at a solution, the correctness of which shall be selfevident and unimpeachable.

The Problem may be stated as follows:

Find an historical order of events, which shall be perfectly consistent with the narratives of each of the Gospels, and which shall not require a single arbitrary or

conjectural transposition of the text of either of them, i.e. any transposition which would imply an absence of exact accuracy in the writer, and which is not demonstrably due either to a copyist's or reviser's error, or to causes liable and likely to occur in all narratives, which at greater or less length, and from a more or less different point of view, traverse the same ground and deal with the same

events.

By this definition it is admitted that any result arrived at by the aid of arbitrary and conjectural transpositions of the text, however many or few these may be, is not a solution of the Problem at all, inasmuch as it involves a violation of its terms, and the destruction of the only standard of accuracy to which appeal as to the correctness of the solution can lie, viz. the existing text of the Gospels themselves, and at once reduces any such solution, to what Strauss has defined as a series of "historical conjectures"; the mere variety of such conjectures, to say nothing of the extent to which they mutually contradict and confuse each other, making it impossible that any weight should properly attach to any of them, or that they should command any general acceptance.

That a certain number of transpositions, or to speak more exactly, of 'literary adjustments,' must be made in order to bring the several narratives into accord, is of course a necessity inherent in the nature of the Problem. The distinction, which the reader is asked to bear in mind, lies between transpositions which are arbitrary, i.e. inconsistent with the exact accuracy of the text, and mere adjustments of the text required on purely literary grounds; the former being obviously inadmissible, whilst the discovery of the