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that purpose; but that both this hypothesis and that of Herder are destitute of any real foundation, will (we think) appear from the following considerations:

1. In the first place,-not to dwell on the total silence of antiquity respecting the assumed existence of these verbal gospels, it is utterly incredible that so long a time should elapse, as both Herder and Gieseler suppose, before any Gospel was committed to writing; because every Christian, who had once heard so important a relation, must have wished to write down at least the principal materials of it, had it been only to assist his own memory. Besides, a mere oral narrative, after it had gone through so many different mouths, in the course of so many years, must at length have acquired such a variety of forms, that it must have ceased to deserve the title of a common Gospel (as Herder termed it); and therefore the supposition that our first three Gospels were moulded in one form is difficult to reconcile with the opinion of a mere oral gospel, which must necessarily have assumed a variety of forms. Further, the suppositions of these writers respecting the length of time which they imagine must have elapsed before any Gospel was committed to writing is contradicted by the evidence, both external and internal, for the early date of Matthew's Hebrew Gospel, which has already been stated in pp. 296, 297 of this volume.

2. Although we should concede to Dr. Gieseler, that the evangelical history was so well known to the first Christians, that they had no occasion for written documents until after the expiration of many years; that the first Christians, more occupied with the cultivation of Christian virtues than with theological science, paid less attention to the words of the Gospels than to the facts and lessons contained in the evangelical history;—that they restricted the appellation of Ip or Scripture to the Old Testament;-that the books of the New Testament were not yet collected together, and that they designated its precepts and instructions by the formula of Xporos, Christ has said it:-although these points should be conceded, yet does it necessarily follow that they undervalued or disregarded written documents? that they preferred oral tradition to them, and that they did not generally make use of our four Gospels until the middle of the second century? By no means. Such a conclusion appears to us to be contradicted by the nature of things, since the writings of the apostles must have been held in at least equal estimation with that tradition, by which the subjects of their preaching were preserved; since the heathens, who were converted to the Christian faith, could with difficulty have recourse to oral tradition, and would eagerly avail themselves of written documents as soon as they could obtain them, that is to say, early in the second 3. Much stress has been laid by Dr. Gieseler on the small number of quotations from the Gospels in the writings of the fathers, previously to the middle of the second century. But this paucity of quotations is sufficiently accounted for by the small number of Christian writers whose works have been transmitted to us, by their preference of practical piety to science and theory, and by the persecutions to which the church of Christ was exposed: so that there is no necessity for concluding that the Gospels were at that time but little known. Such of those quotations as refer to the Kapuy or preaching of the apostles do not necessarily imply a reference to oral tradition; and they may equally be understood of written documents.

century.

V. Since, then, the four hypotheses, with their several modifications, above discussed, are insufficient to account for the harmony, both of words and of thought, which appear in the first three Gospels, should it be asked how are we to account for such coincidences? We reply that they may be sufficiently explained without having recourse to either of these hypotheses, and in a manner that cannot but satisfy every serious and inquiring reader.

the most remarkable coincidences of both language and "It is admitted on all hands," says Bishop Gleig, "that thought, that occur in the first three Gospels, are found in those places in which the several writers record our Lord's doctrines and miracles; and it will likewise be admitted, that of a variety of things seen or heard by any man at the same instant of time, those which made the deepest impression are distinctly remembered long after all traces of the others have been effaced from the memory. It will also be allowed, that of a number of people witnessing the same remarkable event, some will be most forcibly impressed by one circumstance, and others by a circumstance which, though equally connected with the principal event, is, considered by itself, perfectly different. The miracles of our blessed Lord were events so astonishing, that they must have made, on the minds of all who witnessed them, impressions too deep to be ever effaced; though the circumstances attending each miracle must have affected the different spectators very differently, so as to have made impressions, some of them equally indelible with the miracle itself, on the mind of one man; whilst by another, whose mind was completely occupied by the principal event itself, these very circumstances may have been hardly observed at all, and of course been soon forgotten.

66

"That this is a matter of fact which occurs daily, every man may convince himself by trying to recollect all the par ticulars of an event which powerfully arrested his attention many years ago. He will find that his recollection of the event itself, and of many of the circumstances which attended it, is as vivid and distinct at this day as it was a month after the event occurred; whilst of many other circumstances, which he is satisfied must have accompanied it, he has but a very confused and indistinct recollection, and of some, no recollection at all. If the same man take the trouble to inquire of any friend who was present with him when he witnessed the event in question, he will probably find that his friend's recollection of the principal event is as vivid and distinct as his own; that his friend recollects likewise many of the accompanying circumstances which were either not observed by himself, or have now wholly escaped from his memory; and that of the minuter circumstances, of which he has the most distinct recollection, his friend remembers hardly one. That such is the nature of that intellectual 4. Gieseler has further urged, in behalf of his hypothesis, our power by which we retain the remembrance of past events, 1 total ignorance of the precise time when, and of the occasion on which, our Gospels were admitted as canonical by the whole know from experience; and if there be any man who has church. But the profound and universal veneration in which never yet made such experiments on himself, let him make these Gospels were held from and after the middle of the second them immediately, and I am under no apprehension, that, if century, that is to say, from the very time when there was a they be fairly made, the result will not be as I have always greater number of Christian writers and books,-evidently demon- found it. Let it be remembered, too, as a universal fact, or strates that their authority was by no means new, but had been of a law of human nature, as certainly as gravitation is a law some continuance. The very nature, too, of our Gospels leads to of corporeal nature, that in proportion as the impression made the same result. In every one of them there is so evidently dis-on the mind by the principal object in any interesting scene cernible a special design with reference to the circumstances under which they were written, and to the churches which became the depositories of them, that we cannot imagine that they could have been addressed to a few individuals only, and that they should have been forgotten by the mass of believers for nearly half a

century.

5. Lastly, although the hypothesis of an oral traditionary document should be necessary, in order to solve all the difficulties which are alleged to exist, respecting the sources of the first three Gospels, yet we must take into consideration the real difficulties which it substitutes in place of those pretended difficulties. We must conceive how such oral tradition, which was diffused from Rome to Babylon, continued without the slightest alteration, amidst the great number of new converts, who were daily occupied in studying them, and in transmitting them to others. We must imagine in what manner such tradition continued sufficiently uniform; so that persons, who committed some fragments of it to writing one, for instance, at Jerusalem, and another at Rome,—should in the same narrative frequently make use of the same phrases and even the same words. And, finally, we must reconcile the hypothesis with the authenticity of our Gospels (which has been both historically and critically proved); and prevent the followers of this system from deducing thence the evidently false conclusion, which some German neologians have not been slow in forming, viz. that our Gospels were supposititious productions posterior to the time of the evangelists.

1 Bp. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. iii. part 2. p. 204.

is strong, those produced by the less important circumstances are weak, and therefore liable to be soon effaced, or, if retained at all, retained faintly and confusedly; and that when the impression made by the principal object is exceedingly strong, so as to fill the mind completely, the unimportant circumstances make no impression whatever, as has been a hundred times proved by the hackneyed instance of a man absorbed in thought not hearing the sound of a clock when striking the hour beside him. If these facts be admitted (and I cannot suppose that any reflecting man will call them in question), it will not be necessary to have recourse to hypotheses, to account either for that degree of harmony which prevails among the first three evangelists, when recording the miracles of our blessed Lord, or for the discrepancy which is found in what they say of the order in which those miracles were performed, or of the less important circumstances accompanying the performance. In every one of them the principal object was our Lord himself, whose powerful voice the winds and waves, and even the devils, obeyed. The power displayed by him on such occasions must have made so deep an impression on the minds of all the spectators as never to be effaced: but whether one or two demoniacs were restored to a sound mind in the land of the Gadarenes;

would all have agreed in relating the same thing in the same manner, as much as they must have done, if they had copied from each other. If, in order to avoid this difficulty, it be supposed that they did not all adhere to their document, but that occasionally some one (or more) of them gave a different representation of some fact, either from his own knowledge, or from information derived from another source (as the supposed document 2, &c.), this appears to sap the very foundation of the evidence; for in this case, what becomes of the authority of the primary document? And, how can all three evangelists be said to have derived from it alone all the matter which they have in common? In whatever light, then, we view the subject, we cannot see how any modification of the general supposition, that the three evangelists, in the composition of their Gospels, used only one document, can satisfactorily explain all the examples of verbal disagreement which occur in the Gospels. We conclude, therefore, that no hypothesis which is built upon this foundation can be the true one.f

IV. The THIRD hypothesis, which has been offered, to account for the verbal similarities and disagreements in the first three Gospels, is that of A PLURALITY OF DOCUMENTS. Of this hypothesis there have been two modifications:-one by the late Rev. Mr. Veysie, the other by Professor Schleiermacher.

1. Mr. Veysie gives the following description of his hypo

thesis:2

"The apostles, both in their public preaching and in their private conversations, were doubtless accustomed frequently to instruct and improve their hearers by the recítal of some action or discourse of our blessed Saviour. And many pious Christians, unwilling to trust to memory alone for the preservation of these valuable communications respecting their Redeemer, were induced to commit to writing the preaching of the apostles while it was fresh in their memory. And thus at a very early period, before any of our canonical Gospels were written, believers were in possession of many narratives of detached parts of the history of Jesus;-drawn up, some in the Hebrew language, and others in the Greek. Of the Hebrew narratives, the most important was soon translated into Greek, for the benefit of the Greek Christians, to whom they were unintelligible in the original, and vice versa."

From these detached narratives Mr. Veysie is of opinion that the first three canonical Gospels were principally compiled. Of the authors of these Gospels, he thinks that as Matthew alone was an eye-witness, he alone could write from personal knowledge of the facts which he recorded; and that even he did not judge it expedient to draw exclusively from his own stores, but blended with these detached narratives such additional facts and discourses as the Holy Spirit brought to his remembrance. Mark, our author further thinks, had no knowledge of Matthew's Gospel; and having collected materials for a Gospel, he added to them numerous explanations in order to adapt them to the use of the Gentile converts, together with various circumstances, the knowledge of which he probably acquired from Peter. And he is of opinion also, that Luke compiled his Gospel from similar detached narratives, many of which were the same as had been used by the other evangelists, though some of them had been drawn up by different persons, and perhaps from the preaching of other apostles; and that Luke, being diligent in his inquiries and researches, was enabled to add greatly to the number. Matthew, Mr. V. thinks, wrote in Hebrew, and the other two evangelists in Greek. "But Mark being a plain unlettered man, and but meanly skilled in the Greek language, was, for the most part, satisfied with the very words of his Greek documents, and with giving a literal version of such as he translated from the Hebrew. Whereas Luke, being a greater master of the Greek language, was more attentive to the diction, and frequently expressed the meaning of his documents in more pure words, and a more elegant form. Only he adhered more closely to the very expression of his documents, when he came to insert quotations from the Old Testament, or to recite discourses and conversations, and especially the discourses of our blessed Saviour. Both Mark and Luke adhered to the arrangement which they found in those documents which contained more facts than one. The documents themselves they arranged in chronological order. All the evangelists connected the documents one with another, each for himself and in his own way." Our author also conjectures that Matthew's Gospel was translated into Greek some time after the two 2 Ibid. p. 97.

1 Veysie's Examination, p. 56.
Examination of Mr. Marsh's Hypothesis, pp. 98, 99.

other Gospels were in circulation; that the translator made great use of them, frequently copying their very words where they suited his purpose; that, however, he made most use of Mark's Gospel, having recourse to that of Luke only when he could derive no assistance from the other; and that where he had no doubt, or perceived no difficulty, he frequently translated for himself, without looking for assistance from either Mark or Luke.4

ference to that of Bishop Marsh. That it accounts for all the Such is the hypothesis proposed by Mr. Veysie in prephenomena, which have, in Germany, been supposed to involve so many difficulties, we have no inclination to controvert; for, as he observes of his lordship's hypothesis, "being framed by a man of genius and learning, principally with a view to explain the phenomena which the author had observed, it may reasonably be expected to answer, in every point of importance, the purpose for which it was intended." We are even ready to grant, that it answers this purpose more completely than that of the learned translator of Michaelis, of which, therefore, it may be considered as an improvement; but to improve requires not the same effort of genius as to invent. Both, however, are mere hypotheses, or rather complications of various hypotheses, which he who rejects them cannot by argument or testimony be compelled to admit; while both appear to us to detract much from the authority which has hitherto been allowed to the first three Gospels.

To this author's detached narratives the same objections seem to lie which he has so forcibly urged against the very existence of Bishop Marsh's documents, and which have been already stated. Some of these narratives must have been of considerable length; for some of the examples of verbal agreement, which they have occasioned between Matthew and Mark, are very long and remarkable. They must likewise have been deemed of great importance, since they were translated from Hebrew into Greek for the benefit of the Greek Christians; and appear, indeed, from this account of them, to have furnished the whole matter of Mark's Gospel, except the explanation of some Jewish customs and names, and some circumstances acquired from Peter. Such narratives as these are exactly Bishop Marsh's documents, and one of them his document & an entire Gospel, of which not even the memory survived the apostolic age. 2. The hypothesis of Professor Schleiermacher, who is one of the most distinguished classical scholars in Germany, is developed in his "Critical Essays on the Gospel of Saint Luke." He supposes that there existed, at a very early period, detached narratives of remarkable incidents in the life of Jesus Christ, of his miracles, and discourses; which were collected by different individuals with various objects. From these minor collections Dr. Schleiermacher conceives that the works now called Gospels might be framed; and he is of opinion that Saint Luke formed his Gospel by the mere juxta-position of these separate narratives, without any alteration whatever on the part of the compiler, except the addition of copulative particles. The result of the examination which he institutes in support of his hypothesis is, that the evangelist "is neither an independent writer, nor has made a compilation from works which extended over the whole life of Jesus;" and that "he is, from beginning to end, no more than a compiler and arranger of what he found in existence, and which he allows to pass unaltered through his hands."

The only difference between this hypothesis and that of Mr. Veysie is, that the latter supposes the first Christians to have made memoranda of what they heard in the public preaching and private conversation of the apostles; while, according to Professor Schleiermacher, the memoranda of the Christians were collected by various persons, as chance or inclination directed them. On the continent, his hypothesis has been attacked by Fritsch, Plank, and Gersdorf; and in this country it has been examined and refuted at great length by the learned author of the critique upon his essay in the British Critic and Quarterly Theo

4 Examination of Mr. Marsh's Hypothesis, pp. 100, 101.

5 British Critic, vol. xxxiv. (O. S.) p. 114. An hypothesis similar to that of Mr. Veysie was offered by a learned writer in the Eclectic Review (vol. viii. part i. pp. 423, 424.); but as it is liable to the same objections as Mr. V.'s, this brief notice of it may suffice.

6A Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, by Dr. Frederick Schleiermacher, with an Introduction by the translator, containing an account of the controversy respecting the origin of the first three Gospels since Bishop Marsh's Dissertation. London, 1825. 8vo. The original German work was published at Berlin, in 1817.

Schleiermacher, p. 313. British Critic and Theol. Rev. vol. ii. p. 354.

logical Review; of whose observations the following is an abstract:

1. This hypothesis is in itself extremely improbable, and not reconcilable with certain facts deducible from the study of the style and language of St. Luke's Gospel.

or of explanation), like Martial's Epigrams, some good, some indifferent, and more bad, into a book."i

(2.) This hypothesis is not reconcilable with certain facts deducible from a study of the style and language of St. Luke's Gospel.

The validity of this objection is supported by the learned re viewer, who has cited very numerous instances of the evangelist's style and language, compared with those occurring in the Acts of the Apostles, for which the reader is necessarily referred to the journal already cited.2 It must suffice to state in this place, that the passages adduced clearly show that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are throughout the production of the same author; peculiar words and phrases, which are rarely or never used by the other evangelists, being used through various parts of the Gospel and Acts; while a large number of these peculiar words and phrases are derivable from one source the Septuagint; and, what is very curious, a large number of words not used by the other writers of the New Testament are common to St. Luke and to St. Paul, whose companion the evangelist was for many years. "If," therefore, the reviewer forcibly argues, "a peculiar phraseology runs through two works, if much of that peculiar phraseology is constantly referable to one known source, and if much of it is also to be found in the works of a person for many years the constant companion of the reputed author of these works, there is very strong reason for believing the common opinion to be the correct one. Chance can hardly have done so much-can hardly have distinguished the greater part of above forty narratives (according to Professor Schleiermacher) by the use of the same peculiar phraseology-can hardly have produced a striking connection between their style and that of the intimate friend of their compiler."3 In a note, the reviewer states the following to be the result of a pretty laborious examination of the New Testament: "There are in St. Luke as many words peculiar to him as in the three other evangelists together. In the Acts very far more. In St. Paul as many nearly as in the rest of the New Testament. In inquiring into the words peculiar to one of the Gospels and Acts, we find more than three times as many in St. Luke as in either of the others. With respect to words peculiar to one of the Gospels and St. Paul, there are nearly three times as many in St. Luke as in St. Matthew, and more than three times as many as in St. Mark or St. John. Of such words there are also in the Acts about five times as many as in either Matthew, Mark, or John. And there are about as many words common to St. Luke, the Acts, and St. Paul, and peculiar to these books, as there are words peculiar to St. Luke and St. Paul alone."4

2. Further, the principles, on which Professor Schleiermacher conducted the examination of St. Luke's Gospel, do not bear him out in the hypothesis which he has framed.

(1.) For, in applying the test of probability, Professor Schleiermacher assumes, in an unwarrantable manner, the right of supplying, from his own fancy, all the circumstances and details of every nar ration which he finds in the Gospel; and then he explains the whole transaction by means of the very details he has furnished.

(1.) The hypothesis is in itself extremely improbable. "That a person employed in writing an historical work should use such existing narratives as he could depend on, is undoubtedly both probable and rational. That he should make up his history of such fragmentary materials has this clear objection to it, that the writer, wanting narratives of every period, cannot possibly be nice in his selection, but must take such as he can find, and where he can meet with none of high authority, must of necessity be satisfied with others of less. That this must be the consequence of so composing an history is, we think, quite clear on mere reasonable grounds; and that it is practically true Professor Schleiermacher, at least, cannot deny, for he himself states that St. Luke has introduced incorrect, unfounded, and almost fabulous narratives into his Gospel. But, we would ask, is an author to be supposed totally without perception of this obvious objection; or, in other words, is it to be supposed that he willingly produces a less valuable and authentic history where he could produce one more so? We must be allowed to think that if this is true of a common history, it is still more so of such a history as a gospel-the history of a new religion and its founder. Whatever may be thought of the knowledge or powers of its historian, thus much all will allow, that he thought Christianity true, that is to say, he thought himself employed in giving an account of a revelation from God, the whole value of which depends on its being true."-Now, "a person so employed would assuredly feel a deep responsibility attaching to him, and an earnest desire to obtain the very best and most authentic accounts of the weighty matters of which he was treating. And if the truth of these remarks be admitted, their force can only be evaded by saying either that St. Luke had not the power of obtaining better materials, or had no discrimination, no power of judging which were better and which worse. Now with respect | to the first of these alternatives, without at all inquiring whether he was or was not himself a witness to any of our Lord's miracles, it cannot be denied, with any show of argument, that he lived at the time of the transactions of which he treated, nor that he had ready access to those most capable of giving him exact and accurate accounts of all that passed in our Lord's life. We have positive evidence of his having been for a long time the companion of St. Paul, and of his having gone with him to Jerusalem, when that apostle was seized, and his long imprisonment, previous to his voyage to Rome, commenced. At the close of that imprisonment he was at hand, and accompanied St. Paul to Rome. Where he spent the intermediate time, certainly is not positively mentioned, but from his being with St. Paul at the commencement and the close of his imprisonment, and from his having come to Jerusalem as his companion and friend, we think it most probable that he was not far distant during its continuance; at all events, it is especially mentioned that at Jerusalem he went with St. Paul to St. James, when all the elders were present. It is therefore indisputable, that he had every opportunity of acquiring the best information respecting our Lord, from his apostles and other eye-wit-of Matthew, and our Lord's discourse with the scribes and pharinesses of his life and actions. What, then, we would ask, could be the temptation to a person under St. Luke's circumstances, to prefer written narratives, circulating with an authenticity at least loosely established (and, in fact, according to Professor Schleiermacher, often worthless), to the oral testimony of the most competent witnesses; the dead words of dead writing to the living voices of living men who had been the constant attendants of our Lord, and must daily have given Luke, at least, sufficient testimony that they were led by the Spirit of God? They who adopt this hypothesis are surely bound to give some account of the motives which But the doctors of the law would scarcely have stayed without could induce a person situated like St. Luke, led either by inclination till the splendid repast was at an end, for they were sure enough of or a sense of duty to become the historian of the faith he had learned finding Christ and his disciples at the usual time of public business and accepted, and influenced by the feelings by which he and the next day, and this conversation could scarcely follow immediately every honest Christian undertaking such a work must have been after the banquet. Had this history, therefore, been related in a influenced, to prefer imperfect to perfect testimony, and a set of continuous thread with the former, we should have found them floating narratives of doubtful character to the certain evidence connected either in this manner, Still they were minded, after this, of eye-witnesses. Professor Schleiermacher, who cannot argue again to question his disciples, for that the day before he had sat that the evangelist would take pains to procure only authenticated at meat with them at the house of a publican, with many other publinarratives (because he has stated his belief that many erroneous cans and sinners: or thus, And he went hence to a great feast which ones have found their way into this Gospel), takes the other alter- a publican had made for him, and from this the scribes and pharisees native to which we have alluded, and frequently says that the took occasion afresh, &c. Ours, however, sounds quite like an innicety and exactness which we, who are a critical generation,' dependent narrative which premises the circumstances necessary require, were unknown to former ages, which were easily satisfied to be known, without concerning itself about any further connecwith a less rigid scrupulousness as to accuracy, and that St. Luke tion. The phrase xaì μera raura is much too vague to seek in it might, therefore, be contented with materials really imperfect. a view to any precise reference to the preceding passage.' But to us this appears a poor answer to the difficulty; for there is "From this specimen our readers will see somewhat of the nano question here as to any research, any abstruse reasoning, any ture of Professor Schleiermacher's proceedings. He supposes that difficult inquiry. The question to be considered is simply this we are able to judge accurately of the writer's aim in a particular whether an honest and sincere man undertaking to write the his-narrative; that we know enough of the circumstances of the event tory of events of no trivial importance, but concerning the eternal he relates, to judge whether it is probable that the doctors of the welfare of mankind, and living with those who had been present law would wait for Christ till he had finished a visit to a given and personally engaged in the most remarkable of them, would person presumed to be objectionable to them; that we can decide apply to these competent witnesses for information, or would deem whether these habits were so strongly rooted, that even the unusual it a wiser and a better plan to collect a set of doubtful narratives of these events, written by doubtful authors, till he had obtained some sort of account of all that interested him, and then to string his Collectanea together (without a word of addition, of correction,

Five examples are adduced by the reviewer of Dr. Schleiermacher, in illustration of this remark: one of which will be sufficient to confirm it. "In commenting on the fifth chapter of the Gospel (p. 81.) he tells us, that the narrative (ver. 27-39.) of the calling sees, was not written in connection with the narrative (ver. 17-26.) of the cure of the paralytic, which also contains a conversation of the same parties, for the following reasons: According to Professor Schleiermacher, the conversation of Christ and the pharisees is evidently the main point of the second narrative.' That is, the call of St. Matthew is not so. That is only mentioned because the conversation would not have been intelligible without the fact that Christ and his disciples had partaken of a repast at the publican's house.

1. British Critic, vol. ii. pp. 354-356.
Ibid. vol. ii. p. 357.
Ibid. pp. 365-368.

2 Ibid. pp. 358-364, Ibid. p. 357. note.

his narrative."

excitement of a teacher come to oppose their law would not induce gospel or preaching, the written Gospels of Matthew, Mark, them to any change, but would compel them to wait till the usual and Luke, were regulated. Hence arose their similarity; hours of business for an interview with him; whether in a small but it is useless, Herder further asserts, to examine the place they could not have met with him instantly on his leaving words used in our first three Gospels, for this very reason, the house, without derogating from their dignity; and again, that we can pronounce with some certainty as to the method by which that they proceeded not from a written document, but from the writer would connect the preceding and succeeding parts of a mere oral gospel or preaching: and, accordingly, in his opinion, whoever attempts by an analysis of our first three Gospels to discover the contents of a supposed common document, can never succeed in the undertaking. who conceived the existence of an oral or traditional gospel, 2. The hypothesis of Herder was adopted by ECKERMANN, in which the discourses of Jesus were preserved; and he imagined that Matthew wrote the principal parts of it in the Aramaan dialect. Hence he accounted for the similarity in the first three Gospels, by supposing that Mark and Luke collected the materials of their Gospels at Jerusalem; which existing in this oral gospel could not but exhibit a striking resemblance to that of Matthew. So improbable, however, did this hypothesis appear in itself, at the time it was announced, that it was generally disapproved, and was at length exploded as a mere fiction; and Eckermann himself is stated to have subsequently abandoned it, and to have embraced the ancient opinion respecting the first three Gospels.8 revived and modified by Dr. J. C. GIESELER in the following 3. More recently, the hypothesis of Herder has been

(2.) He gratuitously assumes the existence of the most incredible stupidity and ignorance on the part of the sacred writers, whenever he can get rid of any difficulty by such an hypothesis. "For example, he states it (p. 92.) as his belief, that there was no solemn calling of the apostles, and that St. Luke did not mean to state any such calling. But he allows that St. Mark does, in the most decided manner. And how does he reconcile this with his denial of the fact? Simply by supposing that St. Mark saw this passage in St. Luke, and misunderstood it! There are two monstrous improbabilities to be got over in this statement; for we would ask, first, whether it is credible that St. Mark did not know whether there was a solemn calling of the apostles or not? and, secondly, what possible reason there is for supposing that he was more likely to misunderstand St. Luke than ourselves."2 (3.) Not only does Professor Schleiermacher allow himself the most extraordinary license in conjuring up feelings, intentions, motives, and circumstances; but in many instances these conjectures are as unhappy, and the motives and circumstances conjectured [are] as forced and as improbable as it is possible to imagine.

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He forms a theory as to the way in which a particular occur rence took place, and then imagines circumstances to suit it." Thus,3 Professor Schleiermacher observes, that Luke (viii. 22.) does not tell us the object of our Lord and his disciples in going on the sea; and he wishes to show that they went out without any particular object, and not with the intention of making a journey. The easiest way of conceiving the whole óccurrence is to imagine that the disciples had gone out in the boat to fish, and that Jesus accompanied them; for why should he always have let the time so spent be lost for their instruction and the exertion of his whole influence on them?' &c. He appears to have forgotten that St. Matthew mentions a circumstance rather adverse to Jesus being employed in teaching his disciples on this occasion-namely, that he was asleep. (Matt. viii. 24.)"4"

manner:

The evangelical history, previously to being committed to writing, was for a long time transmitted from mouth to mouth with respectful fidelity: thus it became the object of oral tradition, but a pure tradition, and carefully preserved. As the first Christians came out of the Jewish church, and were familiarly acquainted with that tradition, they had neither desire nor occasion for possessing a written history of their Master. But when the Gospel was propagated in distant places, and reckoned among its followers wise men who had been converted from paganism, their literary habits and their (4.) Lastly, the details conjecturally supplied by Professor Schleier- previous ignorance of the history of Christianity caused them macher are not only improbable, but do great injustice to the character to wish for written books; and the first Gospels were aeof Jesus Christ, considered not as a divine Being, but as a heavenly cordingly published. In this way, Luke wrote for Theeteacher, and are quite inappropriate to such a character. "It may not be very easy to say what would be the exact line Philus. But the evangelists only transcribed accurately the of conduct pursued by such a teacher, or how far he might enter most important portions of the oral tradition, selecting from into the common detail of life; but surely nothing can be less rea- it such particulars as were best suited to the place, time, and sonable than to reduce every action and every movement to the particular design, on account of which they wrote. Drawing ordinary level of ordinary life, and to contend that every thing from the same source, they have frequently said the same which cannot be so reduced is improbable. But this is the level things; but, writing under different circumstances, they have to which Professor Schleiermacher seeks to reduce all the transac- often differed from each other. Further, oral tradition was tions of the life of Jesus; this is the test by which he tries them; held in higher authority by the church than written Gospels, and these are the grounds on which he passes sentence of impro-and was also more frequently consulted and cited. By de bability on so many of them. Now let any man look at the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and believing (if after such examination he can) that its author was a mere man, yet under that belief let him say whether, in a system so opposed to the spirit of the time in which it was propagated, so abstract from the world, so pure, so holy, so simple it may be, and yet so sublime, he does not find ample reason for concluding that its author must on very many occasions have entirely avoided and renounced all the common routine of life, and dedicated himself to thought, retirement, and prayer. Jesus, we are told, passed the night on the Mount in prayer. Is there any thing in any way improbable in this, if he were a mere man, believing himself sent by God to instruct and reform mankind? It is mockery to put the question if he were really a heavenly teacher. Yet Professor Schleiermacher chooses to account for this by supposing (without a trace of it in the history) that he must have been at a festival; that he was returning to his abode with a caravan, and from the bustle of the inn, which he disliked, was driven out to pass the night in the air! All this, it seems, is easier than the simple fact, that he, who was, or at all events believed himself to be, a heavenly teacher, desired to strengthen himself for his office by solitude and prayer."5

V. The last hypothesis, which remains to be noticed, is that which supposes the first three Gospels to be derived not from any written Gospel, but from ORAL TRADITION FROM THE APOSTLES AND OTHER DISCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST.

1. This hypothesis was first suggested by HERDER about thirty years since. He agrees with Eichhorn in assuming a common Hebrew or Chaldee Gospel; but he differs from him in most other respects, by supposing this common document to be a mere verbal gospel, which consisted only in the preaching (npox) of the first teachers of Christianity; and which, he says, had been verbally propagated for thirty years, when the substance of it was committed to writing in three different Gospels. According to the form of this oral

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grees those Gospels, which followed it with great fidelity, became possessed of the same respect, and finally supplanted it. The heretics contributed much to this result. They, indeed, first introduced into the church a spirit of argumentation and dispute, and they were the first persons who devoted their attention in an especial manner to the theoretical part of religion. In no long time, from the love of discussion and the pride of knowledge, they composed gospels for themselves, also derived from oral tradition, but mutilated and altered. The true Christians, who had hitherto been occupied in loving and in doing good, rather than in reasoning upon religion, and who had been accustomed to derive their requisite knowledge from oral tradition, were obliged, in defence of their faith, to have recourse to their Gospels, which were the authentic works of the disciples of Jesus. Then they accustomed themselves to read them, to meditate upon them, and also to quote them, in order that they might be armed against the heretics and their falsified histories. Thus, gradually and silently, without any decree or decision of a council, our four Gospels universally displaced oral tradition. In the middle of the second century, they were acknowledged by the whole church, and since that time they have constantly and universally possessed canonical authority.

Such are the prominent features of Gieseler's system. That it solves all the phenomena and difficulties which its author imagines to exist in the first three Gospels, we may readily concede; because, being framed for the purpose of explaining those phenomena, may be expected to answer

Bp. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. iii. part 2. p. 203., where Herder's Christ

liche Schriften (Christian Writings), vol. iii. pp. 303-416. are quoted.
Kuinöel, Comment. in Lib. Hist. Nov. Test. vol. i. p. 5.
Dr. Wait's Translation of Hug's Introduction, vol. i. Pref. pp. v. vi.
8 Pareau, de Mythica Interpretatione, p 190.

9. This notice of Gieseler's hypothesis is abridged from Cellerier's Introduction au Nouv. Test. pp. 260-267., who cites Dr. G.'s Historisch-Kritischer Versuch über die Entstehung und die frühesten schicksale der schriftlichen Evangelien. (Historico-Critical Essay on the Origin and early Fates of the written Gospels.) Minden, 1818.

that purpose; but that both this hypothesis and that of Herder are destitute of any real foundation, will (we think) appear from the following considerations:

1. In the first place,-not to dwell on the total silence of antiquity respecting the assumed existence of these verbal gospels, it is utterly incredible that so long a time should elapse, as both Herder and Gieseler suppose, before any Gospel was committed to writing; because every Christian, who had once heard so important a relation, must have wished to write down at least the principal materials of it, had it been only to assist his own memory. Besides, a mere oral narrative, after it had gone through so many different mouths, in the course of so many years, must at length have acquired such a variety of forms, that it must have ceased to deserve the title of a common Gospel (as Herder termed it); and therefore the supposition that our first three Gospels were moulded in one form is difficult to reconcile with the opinion of a mere oral gospel, which must necessarily have assumed a variety of forms. Further, the suppositions of these writers respecting the length of time which they imagine must have elapsed before any Gospel was committed to writing is contradicted by the evidence, both external and internal, for the early date of Matthew's Hebrew Gospel, which has already been stated in pp. 296, 297 of this volume.

2. Although we should concede to Dr. Gieseler, that the evangelical history was so well known to the first Christians, that they had no occasion for written documents until after the expiration of many years; that the first Christians, more occupied with the cultivation of Christian virtues than with theological science, paid less attention to the words of the Gospels than to the facts and lessons contained in the evangelical history-that they restricted the appellation of pae or Scripture to the Old Testament;-that the books of the New Testament were not yet collected together, and that they designated its precepts and instructions by the formula of Xporos, Christ has said it: although these points should be conceded, yet does it necessarily follow that they undervalued or disregarded written documents? that they preferred oral tradition to them, and that they did not generally make use of our four Gospels until the middle of the second century? By no means. Such a conclusion appears to us to be contradicted by the nature of things, since the writings of the apostles must have been held in at least equal estimation with that tradition, by which the subjects of their preaching were preserved; since the heathens, who were converted to the Christian faith, could with difficulty have recourse to oral tradition, and would eagerly avail themselves of written documents as soon as they could obtain them, that is to say, early in the second 3. Much stress has been laid by Dr. Gieseler on the small number of quotations from the Gospels in the writings of the fathers, previously to the middle of the second century. But this paucity of quotations is sufficiently accounted for by the small number of Christian writers whose works have been transmitted to us, by their preference of practical piety to science and theory, and by the persecutions to which the church of Christ was exposed: so that there is no necessity for concluding that the Gospels were at that time but little known. Such of those quotations as refer to the Kapuy or preaching of the apostles do not necessarily imply a reference to oral tradition; and they may equally be understood of written documents.

century.

4. Gieseler has further urged, in behalf of his hypothesis, our total ignorance of the precise time when, and of the occasion on which, our Gospels were admitted as canonical by the whole church. But the profound and universal veneration in which these Gospels were held from and after the middle of the second century, that is to say, from the very time when there was a greater number of Christian writers and books,-evidently demonstrates that their authority was by no means new, but had been of some continuance. The very nature, too, of our Gospels leads to the same result. In every one of them there is so evidently discernible a special design with reference to the circumstances under which they were written, and to the churches which became the depositories of them, that we cannot imagine that they could have been addressed to a few individuals only, and that they should have been forgotten by the mass of believers for nearly half a

century.

5. Lastly, although the hypothesis of an oral traditionary document should be necessary, in order to solve all the difficulties which are alleged to exist, respecting the sources of the first three Gospels, yet we must take into consideration the real difficulties which it substitutes in place of those pretended difficulties. We must conceive how such oral tradition, which was diffused from Rome to Babylon, continued without the slightest alteration, amidst the great number of new converts, who were daily occupied in studying them, and in transmitting them to others. We must imagine in what manner such tradition continued sufficiently uniform; so that persons, who committed some fragments of it to writing,one, for instance, at Jerusalem, and another at Rome, should in the same narrative frequently make use of the same phrases and even the same words. And, finally, we must reconcile the hypothesis with the authenticity of our Gospels (which has been both historically and critically proved); and prevent the followers of this system from deducing thence the evidently false conclusion, which some German neologians have not been slow in forming, viz. that our Gospels were supposititious productions posterior to the time of the evangelists.

1 Bp. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. iii. part 2. p. 204.

V. Since, then, the four hypotheses, with their several modifications, above discussed, are insufficient to account for the harmony, both of words and of thought, which appear in the first three Gospels, should it be asked how are we to account for such coincidences? We reply that they may be sufficiently explained without having recourse to either of these hypotheses, and in a manner that cannot but satisfy every serious and inquiring reader.

the most remarkable coincidences of both language and "It is admitted on all hands," says Bishop Gleig, "that thought, that occur in the first three Gospels, are found in those places in which the several writers record our Lord's doctrines and miracles; and it will likewise be admitted, that of a variety of things seen or heard by any man at the same instant of time, those which made the deepest impression are distinctly remembered long after all traces of the others have been effaced from the memory. It will also be allowed, that of a number of people witnessing the same remarkable event, some will be most forcibly impressed by one circumstance, and others by a circumstance which, though equally connected with the principal event, is, considered by itself, perfectly different. The miracles of our blessed Lord were events so astonishing, that they must have made, on the minds of all who witnessed them, impressions too deep to be ever effaced; though the circumstances attending each miracle must have affected the different spectators very differently, so as to have made impressions, some of them equally indelible with the miracle itself, on the mind of one man; whilst by another, whose mind was completely occupied by the principal event itself, these very circumstances may have been hardly observed at all, and of course been soon forgotten.

"That this is a matter of fact which occurs daily, every man may convince himself by trying to recollect all the par ticulars of an event which powerfully arrested his attention many years ago. He will find that his recollection of the event itself, and of many of the circumstances which attended it, is as vivid and distinct at this day as it was a month after the event occurred; whilst of many other circumstances, which he is satisfied must have accompanied it, he has but a very confused and indistinct recollection, and of some, no recollection at all. If the same man take the trouble to inquire of any friend who was present with him when he witnessed the event in question, he will probably find that his friend's recollection of the principal event is as vivid and distinct as his own; that his friend recollects likewise many of the accompanying circumstances which were either not observed by himself, or have now wholly escaped from his memory; and that of the minuter circumstances, of which he has the most distinct recollection, his friend remembers hardly one. That such is the nature of that intellectual power by which we retain the remembrance of past events, 1 know from experience; and if there be any man who has never yet made such experiments on himself, let him make them immediately, and I am under no apprehension, that, if they be fairly made, the result will not be as I have always found it. Let it be remembered, too, as a universal fact, or a law of human nature, as certainly as gravitation is a law of corporeal nature, that in proportion as the impression made on the mind by the principal object in any interesting scene is strong, those produced by the less important circumstances are weak, and therefore liable to be soon effaced, or, if retained at all, retained faintly and confusedly; and that when the impression made by the principal object is exceedingly strong, so as to fill the mind completely, the unimportant circumstances make no impression whatever, as has been a hundred times proved by the hackneyed instance of a man absorbed in thought not hearing the sound of a clock when striking the hour beside him. If these facts be admitted (and I cannot suppose that any reflecting man will call them in question), it will not be necessary to have recourse to hypotheses, to account either for that degree of harmony which prevails among the first three evangelists, when recording the miracles of our blessed Lord, or for the discrepancy which is found in what they say of the order in which those miracles were performed, or of the less important circumstances accompanying the performance. In every one of them the principal object was our Lord himself, whose powerful voice the winds and waves, and even the devils, obeyed. The power displayed by him on such occasions must have made so deep an impression on the minds of all the spectators as never to be effaced: but whether one or two demoniacs were restored to a sound mind in the land of the Gadarenes;

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