We have omitted to notice in the Tübingen hypoth eses an extraordinary inconsistency, which, if it be not a mistake, and we do not see how it can be, must be fatal to the whole system. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians are admitted by these writers as undoubtedly genuine, and therefore as belonging to a period not later than from 60 to 75; yet they are represented as a great advance upon the first and third Gospels, and therefore subsequent to them in point of time. But (Christian Examiner for Sept., 1851, p. 170), according to these same Tubingen critics, the Gospel according to the Hebrews" was exclusively used by the Ebionite Christians till the middle of the second century, after which period it fell into disrepute, as containing the opinion of heretics. While it flourished, we have no certain proof that any other Gospels existed; on their appearance, it slowly retired from view." That is, the Gospels did not make their appearance till about the year 150; but the Epistles, which indicate a great advance on their speculations and which therefore must have been subsequent to them, are undoubtedly genuine, and therefore could not have been later than the third quarter of the first century. This is one of the chronological absurdities by which these new theories are hopelessly embarrassed." We come now to the only remaining hypothesis that we propose to consider. It is this, that with the exception of the fourth Gospel, which was undoubtedly the product of a single person, and that the Apostle John, the Gospels were not the products of individual minds, but grew up, under the general oversight of different Christian communities, by the incorporation from time to time of such new facts and historical documents as might come to their knowledge. This hypothesis does not directly impeach their veracity or their general accuracy, but only their genuineness. This, we suppose, is substantially the view taken by Schleiermacher, and perhaps by Neander and his school. Its attitude towards the Gospels is a reverent one. It admits the Christian miracles, and looks upon the Christian records, not as mythical, but as historical documents. We have not been able to turn to any one work in which the reasons for this hypothesis are clearly set forth. A general statement of the theory and of the arguments in its support may be found in the first article of the Christian Examiner for May, 1853, to which we shall refer several times in the course of our remarks. We have stated our reasons for believing in the genuineness of the Gospels. How is the force of that reasoning set aside by the supporters of this hypothesis? Not by historical testimony; for not a word from any author of the first three centuries is adduced against it. What evidence, then, is there, that the first three Gospels were not drawn up, each by a single writer, but "came into existence by a conglomeration of testimonies around certain narratives of individual authority, which formed their nuclei"? Generally, when a book comes to us bearing the name of an author, especially when we can trace it back, as we do these writings, with the same name attached to it always from the earliest ages, we take it for granted that the title is a true one, unless there is something in the book itself or in external historical testimony to cast suspicion upon it. The usual way of preparing short narratives like these is, and from the time whereof the memory of man knoweth not to the contrary has been, for some one responsible man to do the work. So universal has this practice been, and so extremely rare are the exceptions, that, without some decided evidence to the contrary, we take it for granted, and have a right to take it for granted, in any particular case, that the book is really the work of him to whom it has always been ascribed. What, then, is the evidence in this case that should lead us to depart from the usual course? It is drawn, as far as we can see, from the writings themselves and from the circumstances of the case. We have seldom, however, found it more difficult to see the precise force of any reasoning. "So long," it is said, "as any persons were alive who could give authentic testimony of Christ, it is not reasonable to suppose that Christians would refuse to receive such testimony; and receiving it, they would naturally incorporate it with such narratives as they already had, if they had any." This is very true, but these conditions are met by what we suppose to have been the facts in the case, that the Gospels were prepared one after another, each by a single author, and each, after the first, con * Christian Examiner for May, 1853, p. 363. t Ibid. p. 363. taining some of the materials already employed, and adding what further of importance was known to the writer. But the principal evidence for the accretion theory is said to come from the character of the books, which, we are told,* "is such as, when carefully examined, and indeed in some measure on a cursory perusal, to show that they are digested collectanea, and that the hands which digested them were not hands of Apostles." Of course, all carefully prepared books of history and biography, when they pass beyond what the writer has himself seen, are "digested collectanea," and in this particular instance nobody claims that "the hands which digested" two of the three books were "hands of Apostles." But if it be meant to assert, that either of these Gospels, from a comparison of its separate parts among themselves, or that all three of the Gospels, by a comparison with one another, show that each was the work of more hands than one, then we must express our dissent, and say that we can find in them no such indications. On the contrary, in Mr. Smith's "Dissertation on the Gospels," where the corresponding passages of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the corresponding passages of Matthew and Luke, are placed side by side and critically compared, we find the evidence greatly preponderating towards another theory, and opposed to that which we had been accustomed to hold on the subject. There is, as Mr. Smith has shown, internal evidence, not indeed of the strongest kind, but decidedly going to confirm the intimations given by Papias, Irenæus, and Tertullian, that the second Gospel was either written in substance by Peter in Hebrew, and translated by Mark, with slight additions of his own, or, as seems to us more probable, written down by Mark from the lips of Peter in the Hebrew of that day, and afterwards translated by him, with slight additions and explanations, into Greek, and then, though these points are more obscurely made out, that Matthew, in preparing his Gospel, made use of Mark in Hebrew, and that Luke, in addition to other original and published materials within his reach, had access to Mark's Gospel in Hebrew and to Matthew's in Greek. The variations in language, VOL. LVI. * Ibid. p. 366. 8 when obviously the same account from the same author is given, are such as might obviously be made in two independent translations of the same words, with such abbreviations, explanations, additions, or changes in the arrangement of words and incidents, as two writers, having other sources of information at hand, and different objects in view, would be likely to make under such circumstances. The influence of Peter in the second Gospel is shown by local and personal references and allusions, and by a peculiar minuteness in unimportant details, of which numerous examples are pointed out, but which must be examined, each in its place and in the original language, in order that their full force may be perceived. In the first Gospel, the marks of authorship are perhaps quite as distinct, while the hand of a more practised writer is indicated in the third Gospel, not only by a more easy and graceful use of language, but by greater precision and skill in the arrangement of topics and of subordinate incidents. We have no room to present the argument in detail, but must content ourselves with referring to the work itself. But how can we account for such different reports of the Saviour's words, and such different statements of facts, as we find in the different Gospels, if they had been written by Apostles and their companions? Here is a tangible point, and we only regret that we find so few instances specified under it, though the length of the article to which we refer would hardly allow any extended reasoning. We shall, however, under the dif ferent heads which follow, bring up what seem to us the strongest cases of inconsistency that we know of in the Gospels. In order that apparent discrepancies should have any weight in deciding the question before us, it must, in the first place, be certain that they are contradictions, and, secondly, such contradictions as honest writers in what is supposed to have been their position could not have made. For example, the different accounts of the opening words of the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. v. 3, "Blessed the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," and Luke vi. 20, "Blessed the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," are not contradictory, but only show such variations as we should expect, especially when we remember that neither of the Evangelists gives the Saviour's words in the language the which he spoke. Again, if Matthew and Mark represent Jesus as healing the blind when he was leaving Jericho, and Luke as he was approaching it, there is undoubtedly a contradiction, but in a matter so unimportant that it casts no imputation on the veracity or the substantial accuracy of the writers. The inconsistency has been explained by the attempt to show that the word in Luke xviii. 35 rendered " was come nigh means also "was nigh," so that the passage may read, "while he was yet nigh." On the other hand, if the first three Evangelists assert, as they unquestionably do, that Jesus and his disciples ate the paschal supper evening before the crucifixion, and John in his Gospel, as some suppose, asserts that the supper which they ate on that evening was not the passover, and that the time for eating the paschal supper did not come till the following evening, then here is a palpable contradiction, and on a subject so obvious and so important, that it could not well have been made by the men who are supposed to have written the Gospels. But does John make any such assertion as is here ascribed to him? In his account of the Last Supper, it is plain that he does not. His Gospel is supplementary to the others. It is so here, and as they have described this as the paschal supper, he does not mention a single circumstance inconsistent with that, but rather in a manner which implies it, confines himself to other exceedingly instructive and interesting particulars. But does he not afterwards say, that the feast of the passover was not eaten till the following evening? For, in his account of the transactions of the next morning, he says, xviii. 28, "They themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover." Again, xix. 14, " And it was the preparation of the passover." The whole controversy turns on the meaning of the word náoxa, which is here rendered passover, but which sometimes means the paschal lamb (Mark xiv. 12, Luke xxii. 7); sometimes the paschal supper (Matt. xxvi. 19); and sometimes the whole paschal festival, or feast of unleavened bread, which began with the paschal supper and continued seven days (Luke xxii. 1, "the feast of unleavened bread, which is called the passover"). Hence the feast on any one of those days might be called rò náoxa, or "the passover feast"; and as the Sabbath after the |
