паит, "Jesus began to preach;" and he does not speak of his rejection at Nazareth till long after, viz. xiii. 57. And that this was the same rejection with that of which Luke speaks, [iv. 24,] is as evident as a thing of this nature can well be; because they are attended with several of the same eircumstances. In both, the people are offended at the meanness of his parentage, and in both he replies that a prophet is not esteemed "in his own country.' Matthew says expressly, [xiii. 58,] that "he did not many mighty works there," and Luke does not mention any.

Mark (vi. 1) is as express in placing the visit to Nazareth, and his rejection there, attended also with the same remarkable circumstances, long after his preaching at Capernaum. Now as all these evangelists are equally express, is not the testimony of two preferable to that of one, and that one the least likely to be exactly informed of the fact?

As to the two visits to Nazareth, which your Lordship supposes, and two rejections there, I must say that I see no evidence whatever for it. For it can never be probable that two visits to the same place should have been attended with the same circumstances. Even Epiphanius, who makes so many visits to Nazareth, supposes only one rejection there.

All the difference your Lordship pretends to find between the two supposed journeys, is, that "on the first visit," mentioned by Luke, you say "it seems probable that Jesus wrought no miracle ;" whereas on the second, mentioned by Matthew [xiii. 58] and Mark [vi. 5] "he did not many mighty works there," only laying his hands on a few sick persons, and healing them. But, my Lord, Luke does not say expressly, that he wrought no miracle at all. You can

only infer from his account, that he did nothing so extraordinary as he had done at Capernaum, which is not inconsistent with his curing a few sick persons, which Mark evidently speaks of as a thing that was inconsiderable.

If, my Lord, a variation so very trifling as this will authorize us to suppose a repetition of any transaction in the Gospel history, I will venture to say, there is no incident in the whole compass of it that must not be doubled, if it has been related by two evangelists, and trippled if related by three. No history can bear to be treated in this manner, and retain its credibility. It has been in this way, viz. by contending for the most minute agreement in the different accounts of

Reply, pp. 69. 70. (P.)

the same thing, that much injury has been done to the evidence of Christianity already.

I am, if possible, still less satisfied with your Lordship's reply to my principal argument for the visit to Capernaum preceding that to Nazareth, viz. from the reference to miracles performed at Capernaum while our Lord was at Nazareth, in Luke iv. 23: "Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum do also here in thy country," which I think clearly implies, that he had wrought many extraordinary miracles there.

To this your Lordship says, "This is a difficulty which well deserves our attention, as Christian critics. I have thus, (Notes on my Harmony,) endeavoured to obviate it: "Ora may solely refer to the miracle recorded John iv. 46-54, the scene of which was Capernaum: as 'Ora, Luke viii. 39, refers only to a single transaction.' I add, and as relwv, John v. 20, refers only to the healing of the man who had been infirm for thirty-eight years."*

How this solution of the difficulty may strike other persons I cannot tell. To me it seems very unnatural. A single miracle, the scene of which was at Capernaum, when Jesus himself had not been there, applies but very imperfectly, to say the best, to things that he had done in Capernaum. In these circumstances, I should rather expect that the reference would have been to the things he had done in Jerusalem, or Judea.

Besides, Luke does not assert it as a point of chronology, of which he had taken pains to be particularly well informed, that the visit to Nazareth preceded that to Capernaum. He only says, [iv. 30, 31,] that "he, passing through the midst of them," (the people of Nazareth,)" went his way, and came down to Capernaum." And Matthew and Mark, as I observed before, are equally express in noting a great number of events, which they relate as taking place between the visit to Capernaum and that to Nazareth; so that all the difference is, that Matthew and Mark make it, to be much longer after our Lord departed from Capernaum and went to Nazareth, than Luke does from his leaving Nazareth to go to Capernaum.

With respect to the time of the day when our Lord entered Capernaum, on which your Lordship makes an observation, † I am ready to acknowledge, that from Luke's account [v. 5] only, it would be most natural to conclude that Jesus met Peter and Andrew in the morning, immediately after they had "toiled all night." I doubt not Luke himself ↑ Ibid. p. 82. (P.)

Reply, pp. 76. 77. (P.)

thought so. But his account of this transaction is so different from that of the other evangelists, that many commen. tators have thought them to be quite distinct from one another, and to relate to incidents that happened at different times. I think it most probable that Luke was not so well informed of some of the circumstances of this transaction.

SECTION XIV.

Of the Harmony of the Gospels according to the Ancients, especially Eusebius and Epiphanius, and some of the Moderns who have most nearly followed them.

It would, I doubt not, be a great satisfaction to your Lordship, as well as to myself, to trace the whole progress of harmonizing the Gospels from the earliest times. But this, I apprehend, it will not be possible for us to do completely. It may be of some use, however, to collect a few hints to this purpose, from the works of such of the early fathers as have bestowed the most pains upon the subject, as Eusebius and Epiphanius. As for the Harmonies of Ammonius and Tatian, it is very doubtful whether the works which go under their names be theirs, and if they be, it is generally acknowledged they are much altered and interpolated. Such as they are, I must content myself with referring our readers to Lardner's Credibility, * for an account of them, having never had an opportunity of consulting them myself.

It seems to be sufficiently acknowledged, that the earliest general opinion concerning our Lord's ministry was that of its being confined to one year; but of the manner in which any person who held that opinion distributed the particular events of the Gospel history we have no knowledge. However, that a proper distribution of them on this plan is very easy and obvious, I hope I have sufficiently shewn in my own arrangement of them, within the same limits. That confusion and embarrassment have been the consequence of extending the ministry of Christ beyond the term above-mentioned, I think I have also sufficiently shewn. And it will be no less apparent to us in the very first attempts to explain the history of Christ upon this plan, if we consider the hints

* Part ii. (P.) Works, ii. pp. 137 138, 417-480. Lardner seems disposed "to digest the history of the public life of John the Baptist and our Saviour" in the manner of the Harmony attributed to Tatian, according to which "our Lord's ministry―lasted about two years and a half." Ibid. pp. 424, 425.

that have been given by Eusebius and Epiphanius, the only writers among the ancients who appear to have given much attention to the subject.

The Harmony of Tatian, the disciple of Justin Martyr, is said by Chemnitius to have comprised the whole history of the Gospel from the baptism to the suffering of Christ within one year† but according to Dr. Lardner, it included the space of two years. ‡

Leaving this uncertain, the next opinion on the subject is that of Irenæus, in which I believe he always was, and ever will be, quite singular; viz. that Christ, beginning at thirty years of age, preached till he was forty or fifty. All that we know of his arrangement is, that he made the feast mentioned John v. 1, to be a passover, in which also, according to Dr. Lardner, § he was not generally followed. But it seems, though on what authority does not appear, (that it was from the reading of Taoya in John vi. 4, is by no means certain or probable,) to have been afterwards generally believed, that our Lord's ministry extended to two years. We have no hints, however, given us of the arrangement of the events of the Gospel history according to this plan till after the time of Eusebius, who concluded, but from no good reason that appears, that our Lord's preaching extended to three years and a half.

He says it may be collected from John's Gospel; but he does not specify the passovers mentioned in that Gospel; and that the passover in John vi. 4, was not one of them, is, I think, probable, for the reason alleged before.

His argument from external historical considerations is deemed by Dr. Lardner, and must be by every body, extremely weak and inconclusive. || Because Luke says that Christ preached in the high-priesthoods of Annas and Caiaphas, he concluded that he must have begun in that of Annas, and have ended in that of Caiaphas; and because, according to Josephus, the high-priesthoods of Ishmael and Eleazar came between them, he, without any authority from Josephus, supposed that they all held this office an entire year. must consequently have supposed that Christ died in the first year of the high-priesthood of Caiaphas. But according to Josephus this must have been pretty early in the govern

• Martin Chemnitz, a Lutheran Divine. See supra, p. 143, Note §.

+ Prolegomena [to Harmonia Evangelorum], p. 9. (P.)

And a half, or three passovers. See supra p. 191, Note.

Works, IV. p. 318; V. p. 331.

"Absurd and groundless." Works, IV. p. 246.

¶ Antiq. L. xviii. C. ii. Sect. ii.

He

ment of Valerius Gratus, and considerably before the time of Pontius Pilate, evidently contrary to the Gospel history. Notwithstanding this, he reckons the years of Tiberius from the death of Augustus; so that his fifteenth year was A. D. 28. Consequently John, according to him, beginning to baptize in that year, he must have concluded that Christ suffered A. D. 32, which was probably the fifth or sixth of Pilate.

Eusebius supposes that presently after his baptism, our Lord began to preach, and called the twelve apostles; and that presently after this event John was beheaded. * And yet, notwithstanding the rapid succession of these events, he preached so privately and inoffensively, as to have done nothing that is recorded by the three first evangelists for two years and a half, all which two years he elsewhere says was before the imprisonment of John. Whereas, by the clear testimony of all the evangelists, our Lord did not choose the twelve apostles till a considerable time after the imprisonment of John, and in the midst of the most active part of his ministry.

That an opinion so weakly and inconsistently supported should become the prevailing one, and continue so to this day, is not a little extraordinary. And, indeed, notwithstanding the great reputation of Eusebius, especially as an historian, and though his opinion concerning the whole time of our Lord's ministry be now generally received, it was by no means the case with those who immediately followed him. For we find the opinion of the two years and a half's duration of Christ's ministry in, I believe, all that we properly call the fathers who succeeded him, especially in Epiphanius.

From this writer, in his account of the Alogi, who believed that the whole of Christ's ministry was confined to little more than one entire year, we learn more distinctly what were the ideas of Christians of his age concerning the manner in which our Lord passed his time before that year, the events of which, as they all agree, are related by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, viz. in preaching without any opposition, so that nothing is related by these three evangelists but the laborious and contentious part of his ministry.

His general positions are, that Christ was born on the eighth of the Ides (that is, the sixth) of January, in the 42d year of Augustus (reckoning from the death of Julius Cæsar), that is, two years before the vulgar Christian æra; that he

* Hist. L. i. C. x. xi. (P.)