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 "the Elder John "), he tells the circumstances under which Matthew wrote his Oracles and Mark his Oracles of the Lord.1 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).2 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 Cf. p. 21.

2 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 applic. able 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

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—which is the meaning of the word "instructed" in Luke i. 4. We have another trace of such systematic instruction in the expression used in Acts ii. 42: They" (the converts) "continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching."

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 recognised course of instruction had doubtless gained currency in the Church, corresponding to St. Peter's definition of the period in 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 "" (Acts i. 22). With this agree the specimens of apostolic preaching contained in the Book of Acts (iv. 19, 20; x. 36-43; xiii. 23-31), 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 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 Taught by word of mouth by dint of repetition.

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 (i. 1-4). It is evident that he is alluding to other documents than the Gospels we possess, both because he speaks of them as 66 many,' ," in a tone scarcely consistent with the respect due to apostolic records, 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."

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 -an outline that 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