INTRODUCTION. Contents. CHAP. VI.-The Fourfold System adopted by Jesus of Naza- CHAP. VII.-A Repetition of similar Facts and Narratives, a CHAP. VIII.—The Scheme, containing the Consecutive Order (Chapter and Verse) of each of the Four Gospels, and lv Chapter i. The Principles upon which the Four Gospels have been Analyzed and Combined. THE chronological principle upon which the four Gospels have been analyzed is peculiar to this work. In its development however there is much ground in common with others. All agree that the mission of Jesus of Nazareth was a fact known in whole or in part to many of His contemporaries, both friends and foes, and that among these are the original authors of the four Gospels whatever might be their names. Some who interpret the Gospels by the help of "trajection," hold the four books to be the original composition of four individuals. Others, who refer the books to the region of mythicism, admit that there was an original nucleus or germ of historical truth to which they say the myths were attached. All again agree that the account at first delivered, whether oral or in writing, was not doubted or disputed, but was constantly referred to even by heretics. Further, it is partially admitted by all, but wholly proved by this work, THAT EACH EVANGELIST BY NOTES OF TIME AND PARTICLES OF TRANSITION INTENDS THE READER TO BELIEVE THAT HE HAS FOLLOWED THE TRUE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS, HOWEVER FRAGMENTARY MAY BE THE RECORD. Lastly, it is acknowledged that the four Evangelists wrote under circumstances more or less independent of each other, a point well confirmed and ratified in the course of this analysis. Upon these premises the four Evangelists have been carefully analyzed in the language in which they were originally published, and as stated in the Preface, one narrative' has been framed by interweaving them with each other, and scrupulously preserving to each writer the sequence of his own record. In the combined narrative there is an integrity and a gradual development of doctrine, greatly 1 1 To have come out unscathed from this, the severest and most critical of experiments, is proof of the strict integrity of the writers, as well as of the genuineness of their writings. For what can be a severer test of the veracity of four men than to call upon each to write an independent account of the fact with which they all profess to be fully acquainted? It is most difficult in ordinary life to find any two witnesses who so exactly agree in a long detail of evidence that their two accounts furnish one consistent whole. Much less can a consistent detailed account be obtained from the evidence of four witnesses. No one can read the Gospels without perceiving that in many cases the doctrinal statements draw some portion of their meaning and significance from the incidents associated with illustrated by the correct order of the circumstances which led to the enunciation of doctrine. There is also a disappearance of the peculiarities of each of the four Authors, who it is admitted are very dissimilar in the circumstances of their lives, in their habits of thought, degrees of scholarship, the special objects of their respective histories, and in the fragments of the general narrative which they have selected and recorded 3. them in the narrative. But in fragmentary records it is obvious that doctrinal statements are sometimes preceded by incidents out of which they did not arise. Whenever therefore, by the combination of the four writings, incidents which illustrate doctrine have been replaced in their relative order, the combined record has an advantage not to be found in the individual Gospels. It is plain also that the amalgamation of doctrinal statements themselves from two or more Gospels, if true, must convey a fulness of sense which one account did not supply. For example, the isolated statements of doctrine in St. John, however expressive in themselves, receive new light when associated with the incidents out of which they arose, and which a due attention to the chronology of the other Gospels brings into juxtaposition with these doctrinal statements. During the perusal of the work it will be seen that the combined record exhibits a successive development of doctrine according as Jesus thought fit by degrees to open the door of His kingdom. A gradual manifestation of the character of the Messiah Himself can be traced from the hour of the Incarnation of the Son of God to the day of the Ascension of the Son of Man. St. Matthew wrote in the first instance for his own nation, and probably in his own dialect, at an early period, whilst as yet his mind was Galilæan, and his tone of thought but little modified by travel or intercourse with other nations. But after his missionary labours were extended, a version of his Gospel, So great indeed is the variety in all these particulars, that many sound scholars have doubted whether any principles of interpretation could bring their writings into perfect harmony. It must however be observed, that such a result, in which there remains no seeming discrepancy, has been arrived at without the help of " trajection " possibly enlarged (it is generally believed), was issued in Greek, not without many of the original peculiarities of style and thought. St. Mark, possibly one of the seventy, according to the generally received opinion (as well as the evidence of his own writings), wrote, as St. Peter had taught, in Churches founded on the basis of the synagogue among people acquainted with the Greek language; consequently there are fewer peculiarities of dialect and idiom. St. Luke, for the use of Churches founded by St. Paul, gave a more extended history, from the birth of Jesus of Nazareth to the Ascension of the "Lord and Christ," in a style more polished and scholastic, and with little reference to Jewish customs and habits. St. John, after living for many years among men trained in the Greek philosophy, selected and recited some of the more argumentative discourses of Jesus, and set forth His allusions to the deeper and sacramental mysteries of the Gospels. The mind accustomed to feel after God, if haply it might find Him "in the philosophy of Socrates and Plato," dwelt with delight on the "mystery of God manifested in the flesh," and discerned the means provided for spiritual intercourse and union with the Eternal. Trajection, which implies the arbitrary rearrangement of any portions of a Gospel according to each commentator's fancy, overturns the primary principle of the present analysis. It assumes that similar narratives are identical, because they are similar, without regard to the chronological order of the writers. |