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HOW TO UNDERSTAND
THE GOSPELS
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THE GOSPELS
BY
ANTHONY C. DEANE,
Vicar of All Saints', Ennismore Gardens,
and Hon. Canon of Worcester Cathedral
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HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FIRST EDITION
I-D
CONTENTS
I. THE BIRTH OF THE GOSPELS 1
II. THE SOURCES OF THE GOSPELS 24
III. MARK : THE INTERPRETER OF PETER 43
IV. MARK : THE GALILEAN MINISTRY
AND PASSION WEEK 59
V. MATTHEW : THE GOSPEL OF THE
MESSIAH 86
VI. MATTHEW : THE TEACHER AND HIS
TEACHING 100
vn. LUKE: THE CHURCH AND THE
ROMAN CITIZEN 127
vm. LUKE: THE BIRTH, LIFE, AND
RESURRECTION 142
IX. JOHN : THE GOSPEL AND ITS
AUTHOR 169
X. JOHN : THE GOSPEL AND ITS
AUTHENTICITY 187
HOW TO UNDERSTAND
THE GOSPELS
CHAPTER ONE
The Birth of the Gospels
THE four canonical Gospels are the greatest
books in the world. Perhaps we realize
this most easily if we imagine ourselves de-
prived of them. Suppose that these four had
shared the fate of the "many" known to St.
Luke, and that every copy of them had per-
ished. Eagerly we should scrutinize the re-
maining New Testament books, in the vain
hope of deducing from them the work, the
words, the character of Jesus Christ. We
should learn, indeed, that He was betrayed,
instituted the eucharist on the night of be-
trayal, was crucified, rose from the dead, was
seen of many witnesses. Beyond these bare
statements we should know practically noth-
ing. Of the Ascension alone we should possess
an account, supplied by a few sentences in the
Acts. That our Lord had brought a new super-
natural power into the world would be evident
from the amazing growth of the Church. But
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
our guesses concerning the nature of that
power, and of the way in which it became
operative, must have gone hopelessly astray.
Lacking the Gospels, who could have imagined
such deeds and such teaching as are described
in their pages? Whether or no we count our-
selves Christians, we cannot escape the influ-
ence of the Gospel ideal upon thought and
conduct. And, as Christians, while we might
still have without the Gospels a Lord to rever-
ence, we should not have a Friend to love.
The four little books can be given us in per-
haps a hundred and fifty pages of print. They
can be read from start to finish in a few hours.
Yet they have shaped history to a degree al-
most impossible to exaggerate. As the Bible
is incomparably the greatest collection of writ-
ings, so are the Gospels the supreme treasure
of the Bible,
That seems obvious. Yet in the greatness
of these books there are elements which we
are very apt to overlook, or to take as a mat-
ter of course. Their chief glory;, beyond doubt,
lies in the pre-eminence of their theme. What-
ever their form, pages which describe the life
on earth of our divine Master must be unique
[2]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
in value and interest. When, however, this has
been admitted, the marvel of the Gospels as
literature ought not to be forgotten. Their
writers were not conscious artistSi Their
simple aim, as one of them defined it in his
preface, was to arrange and set down in order
the facts they had received from a number of
original eye-witnesses. Yet they succeeded in
handling their material with a skill and sure-
ness of touch that must amaze every literary
craftsman. The episodes they describe are pic-
tured with convincing vividness, and are never
overloaded with detail. Lifelike portraits are
achieved in a few words. Most wonderful,
when we remember that these are oriental writ-
ings, must seem their brevity, their reticences,
their restraint^ Often they have to record what
transcends all normal experience* yet there is
no hint of exaggeration or of fulsome com-
ment. They state what Jesus said and did* Sd
far as is necessary, they indicate in a phrase or
two the effect of His deeds and words upon the
people. And that is all. The Gospels date
from an age when religious writing was almost
invariably prolix and diffuse. They come from
orientals, who with any unusual experience to
[3]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
relate, loved to set it forth at vast length, and
with wearisome insistence upon its unique
character. But the evangelists are masters of
clarity and precision. They handle their mate-
rial with consummate skill. They can dis-
tinguish the essential from the unimportant.
They know not 'only what to put in but what
to leave out. In oriental writings of that date
how easily there might have been at least here
and there a sentence that jarred, a fault of
taste, a phrase dissonantly out of tune with
the rest! From beginning to end, there is no
such flaw in the Gospels. Is it superstitious
to believe that the evangelists were helped by
a power more than human, were given an "in-
spiration of selection" 1 ? That, it must be ad-
mitted, is an old-fashioned view. Yet to
readers of a trained literary sense it will seem
easier and more reasonable to account for the
Gospels in this way than to find any other ade-
quate explanation of what these evangelists
were able to do.
II
Their supreme feat was their portraiture of
Jesus Christ. Here, too, our familiarity with
[4]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
what they did must not blind us to its amaz-
ing character. The evangelists had no pat-
terns as their guide. There were no contempo-
rary biographies or memoirs which they could
take as models. They were creating a new
kind of literature. The difficulties of their task
were immense. Not the least of them must
have been the embarrassing wealth of their ma-
terial. If all the deeds attributed to Jesus by
earlier records or spoken tradition were to be
set down, "I suppose," remarked one evan-
gelist, "that even the world itself could not
contain the books that should be written."
From the mass of incidents they had to select
the most important, those that typified most
clearly the teaching and character of the Mas-
ter. From accounts varying in detail they had
to choose the most authentic. If they were to
write honestly, they must record deeds and
words which had astounded those who first saw
and heard them, and the full meaning of which
could not be clear to the evangelists them-
selves. Either they must sacrifice something
of candour, or they must show the Apostles
at times in none too favourable a light. All
such difficulties, however, were small in com-
[5]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
parison with their chief task. By means of
simple narrative they had somehow to reveal
to their readers the matchless character and
personality of Jesus Christ. Every other pur-
pose of their work was subordinate to that aim,
an aim so tremendous that it might have filled
the greatest literary genius with despair.
And they succeeded. The influence of their
Gospels on the world's history and the tribute
of the simplest reader alike attest their success.
Whatever else may be said of the Gospels, this
is their supreme triumph. They set for ever a
superb portrait of Jesus Christ before the
world. It is a portrait which has compelled
the homage of mankind. All the resources of
literary genius could not have achieved the feat
so well as did the makers of the four Gospels.
The more we examine the difficulties of their
task, the more remarkable will appear their
success. They had so to describe the unique
personality of Jesus Christ that His full and
complete humanity should be evident. Yet
this they had to do while making equally plain
the grounds of their conviction that He was
the divine Son of God. They had to leave the
reader sure that He was both sorely tempted
[6]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
and morally perfect. They had to give an
impression of His charm and of His, strength,
of His power of withering invective, of the
tenderness which drew little children to Him,
of His unerring insight into character, of His
matchless sympathy. They had to show Him
scorned, solitary, homeless, yet quietly assert-
ing claims that, coming from any teacher
merely human, would have been insufferably
arrogant.
If one evangelist had contrived in his few
chapters to draw a convincing picture of our
Lord, the fact would have been notable. But
that all four should have succeeded, and that
their four pictures should be in essential agree-
ment, is far more wonderful. No doubt
Matthew and Luke borrowed from Mark, or
from earlier documents incorporated in Mark.
No doubt, too, the style of the Fourth Gospel,
its balance of emphasis, and the character of
the teaching it attributes to Jesus, are sharply
different from those of the earlier three. The
Fourth Gospel surveys the work of the Master
from another point of view. Again, there are
evident differences between the three synop-
tists. The special aim and personal bias of the
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Matthew editor and Luke cause them to ar-
range and modify with some freedom the ma-
terial they have taken over from Mark. More
striking, in consequence, is the truth that the
portrait of Jesus Christ Himself is essentially
the same in all four Gospels. Where one sup-
plies what is lacking in the others, it is a detail
perfectly congruous with those already known.
We are never made to feel, for instance, that
the Jesus of Luke is other than the Jesus of
Mark. The teaching chronicled by John is
different, but the Teacher is the same. That
each of the evangelists gives us clearly a con-
vincing portrait, and that the portrait of all
is essentially one, must seem a fact the more
impressive the more we ponder it. If pri-
marily the Gospels are great because of their
unique theme, they are great also because they
are without parallel as literature.
That greatness becomes more apparent when
we contrast the four with the numerous
"apocryphal gospels" written from the middle
of the second century onwards. Some of these
combined authentic history from the canonical
Gospels with legends. Some were fabricated
to support a special theory. Thus there were
[8]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
people anxious to believe that our Lord could
suffer no real pain, and the so-called "Gospel
of Peter" was written to give colour to this
view. The largest fragment of it we possess
was dug up in Egypt in 1886. It contains a
description of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
Jesus, we are told, did not die, but was mirac-
ulously "taken up" from the Cross. In manu-
scripts now at Hereford and the British
Museum is an account of the Birth of Christ
which also may come, as the Provost of Eton
has recently argued with great cogency, 1 from
this "Gospel of Peter." At the time of trie
birth a bright light is seen which gradually
takes the form of an infant. The child has
no weight, and his eyes dazzle those who look
at them. A number of other apocryphal gos-
pels record fantastic stories of the birth and
boyhood of Jesus. He makes twelve sparrows
of clay, which come to life and fly when He
claps his hands. 2 A boy who runs up against
Him falls dead. 3 A youth has been changed
by witchcraft into a mule; when Mary places
1 Latin Infancy Gospels. Edited by M. R. James. {Cam-
bridge University Press, 1927.)
y * Gospel of Thomas.
[9]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Jesus on the mule's back it disappears, and the
young man stands in its place. 1 When Mary
with her Child enters an Egyptian temple, the
idols bow down. 2 These are but a few from
a vast number of such stories. Their at-
mosphere is like that of the Arabian Nights.
Worthless as they are in themselves, they help
us to realize the kind of thing which appealed
to the readers of that age. And the difference
between them and the four canonical Gospels
is exceedingly impressive. It heightens our
immense gratitude to the evangelists, who did
not merely put together Gospels, but kept them
free from every trace of fantasy. As we ex-
amine their sober pages, we feel that their
witness is true. The ultimate message of our
religion comes to us in a perfect setting, and
the Gospels, wonderful in what they relate, are
wonderful also in their manner of relating it.
They are indeed the greatest books in the
world.
Ill
Here, then, they are, preserved for us
through eighteen centuries. As a help to un-
1 Arabic Gospel of the Childhood,
* Gospel of pseudo-Matthew.
[10]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
derstanding them, we need to ask the same
questions as would occur to us before reading
any other documents of extreme antiquity. At
what time, and in what circumstances, came
they to be written? What do we know for
certain of their authorship and their authors'?
For what readers were they first designed?
How is it that they are four, that one was not
thought sufficient, or that one of them did not
supersede the other three? In what relation
of time and trustworthiness do they stand to
one another? Are the divergences between
them fundamental, and do they invalidate
their trustworthiness? Is each the work of a
single author or a compilation? Are the Gos-
pels as we possess them the Gospels as they
were originally written, or as they were sub"
sequently edited? Successive generations of
scholars have toiled patiently to answer such
questions. If some points are still, and seem
likely to remain, in dispute, there are many in
regard to which definite conclusions have been
reached. And their importance is hardly
realized as yet by the general Bible-reading
public. If the study of them is necessarily
technical, the results arrived at have much
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
more than a merely literary or antiquarian in-
terest. We are helping ourselves to read the
Gospels intelligently, and the precise force of
their spiritual message will be plainer, if we
put ourselves so far as possible in the position
of their first readers. By doing that we shall
avoid misinterpretations that are far too com-
mon. Indeed, any study which adds to the
interest and perception with which we examine
these unique writings must be evidently worth
while.
We begin, then, by trying to realize the con-
ditions in which the earliest Gospels took
shape. Probably that was not until many
years after the Ascension. During the life on
earth of our Lord some of His disciples may
have noted for themselves accounts of His
words and deeds, and such notes may have
been utilized later when a "Gospel," as we
now use that term, was to be written. That
is, however, no more than a possibility; we are
quite without evidence about it. What seems
certain is that all the letters of St. Paul are
earlier in date than any of our four Gospels.
In the first years of Christianity there would be
no need for a detailed account in writing of
[12]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
our Lord's ministry. For one thing, vivid
memories could be obtained in talk with those
who had been eyewitnesses of His work.
When Christians came together, one or another
would relate what he himself had seen Jesus
do, would pass on the teaching he himself had
heard. And, for another thing, it seemed su-
perfluous at that time to put together a writ-
ten Gospel in order that it might be handed
on to later generations. The Christians of that
age believed there would be no later genera-
tions. "This generation shall not pass till all
these things be fulfilled," they misinterpreted
as a promise of the Lord's return within their
lifetime. Even when, about twenty-two years
after the Ascension, I Thessalonians in all
probability the earliest of the New Testament
books was written, that belief coloured
deeply the thought of the Church.
But year followed year, and it became evi-
dent that the end was not to be yet. The num-
ber still surviving of those who had been
eyewitnesses of Christ's ministry rapidly dimin-
ished. Soon none would be left. Clearly it
was desirable that their first-hand testimony
[13]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
should be collated and set down in writing.
Otherwise some of the true tradition might be
forgotten, while unauthentic stories or inaccu-
rate recollections of what others had told might
be mingled with it. Again, so long as the re-
turn of Jesus Christ, and with it the end of
this world, were supposed to be imminent, the
affairs of this life, its relationships and prob-
lems of conduct, seemed of little importance.
But they became acutely pressing again when
it grew certain that one Christian generation
after another must still play its part on earth.
Hitherto Christian doctrine, as we see from
the Acts and St. Paul's letters, had almost
limited itself to setting forth the death, resur-
rection, and return of our Lord. Now, how-
ever, came a natural wish to know more of His
teaching. Here were the problems of earthly
life; how had He viewed them? What coun-
sel had He given? How had He Himself
lived and done before the Crucifixion? A writ-
ten Gospel, a story of His life, and a sum-
mary of His practical instructions about
conduct, became an obvious need. And accord-
ingly it was a need which at this stage, St.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Luke tells us, many writers attempted to sup-
IV
By this time, too roughly, about thirty
years after the Ascension the Christian
Church had not only increased vastly in num-
bers but undergone an essential change in
character. There are still people who imagine
vaguely that the Church came into being, or
at least was given definite shape, in conse-
quence of what was written in the Gospels.
So it may be not quite superfluous to remind
ourselves that this is to reverse the true order.
The Church had been in existence for a whole
generation before the earliest of our Gospels
was written. It was the Church which brought
the Gospels into existence, not the Gospels
which brought the Church. And recent
changes and developments within the Church
accentuated the need which the Gospels were
written to satisfy.
For Christianity in its first days (and this
fact, too, seems seldom understood by the gen-
eral reader) was a form of Judaism. The first
Christians were Jews by religion as well as by
[15]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
race. They did not renounce Judaism when
they accepted Jesus as the Messiah. All that
they did was to identify the Messiah, in the
promise of whose coming every Jew believed,
with Him. Those Jews who thus thought of
Jesus of Nazareth formed a kind of guild
within the Jewish Church. They used bap-
tism as the sign of admission into this guild.
They held their guild meetings in private
houses for prayer and the eucharist the sol-
emn "breaking of the bread." But as yet they
had no thought of any severance from their
national religion. As a matter of course, they
had their sons circumcised, they took part in
the Temple services, they upheld strict obedi-
ence to the Law as the essential of righteous-
ness. As yet they could not imagine that God
would have direct relationship except with His
chosen people. Yet their belief in Jesus as
the Christ made the fraternal spirit among this
Jerusalem guild very strong. It led them to
make an experiment of communal ownership.
Before long, that experiment proved a disas-
trous failure, but its beginning was bright
enough. The last sentences of Acts II picture
the life of the guild : "Day by day, continuing
[16]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and
breaking bread at home, they did take their
food with gladness and singleness of heart,
praising God, and having favour with all the
people. And the Lord added to them day by
day those that were being saved."
"Having favour with all the people" needs
qualification. The Sadducees were hostile, be-
cause this new sect made much of the doctrine
of resurrection, a doctrine which the Sadducees
bitterly opposed, as having no place in the
original Law. The opening of Acts IV records
how "the Sadducees came upon" Peter and
John, "being sore troubled because they taught
the people and proclaimed in Jesus the resur-
rection from the dead." But the small and
aristocratic sect of the Sadducees was doubt-
less not included among "the people" of St.
Luke's sentence. The general body of Jews
did believe in a resurrection, and they had no
quarrel with their fellow- Jews who had joined
the Christian guild. So long as these duly up-
held the Law and the traditions, the addition
to their creed seemed of little importance. To
accept Jesus as the promised Messiah was a
strange error, yet, in itself, a harmless error.
[17]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
This attitude, however, did not long per-
sist. It was changed abruptly by the teaching
of Stephen, which implied that the new faith
must supersede the Law, and that the Law
itself had served only as a step towards fuller
revelation. This was an affront not to the
Sadducees only, but to the Pharisees, and in-
deed to the whole creed of Judaism, which
accounted the Law as the final revelation.
Stephen was promptly condemned to death.
All who accepted Jesus as Messiah, since they
did not dissociate themselves from Stephen's
views, were persecuted. In consequence, they
fled from Jerusalem and were scattered
throughout Judsea and Samaria. Afterwards
they went farther afield. And, as a result,
Christianity made new converts in new regions.
Yet the old conflict of ideals was not ended.
To understand its severity is to get the key to
the Acts and many of St. PauFs letters. We
shall observe, for instance, with what difficulty
St. Peter came over to the new view that Chris-
tianity was to be a world-religion, and a re-
ligion independent of Judaism. We shall see
how immense was the task of St. Paul in per-
suading his converts that Gentiles need not be
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
circumcised as Jewish proselytes in order to
belong to the Church. Gradually the view
for which he stood prevailed. Christianity be-
came an independent religion, not a mere cult
within Judaism. The work begun by the dis-
ciples of Stephen was developed by St. Paul
and his companions. From Jerusalem the doc-
trine was carried through Palestine, from Pal-
estine through Asia Minor, from Asia Minor
to Greece and Rome. Its headquarters, from
which missions were sent out, soon became
Antioch in Syria, instead of Jerusalem. And
the new wide appeal of Christianity was typi-
fied by the fact that such a city as Antioch be-
came, in a sense, its centre. Here Jewish,
Greek, and Oriental elements mingled. It was
a city, to borrow Dr. A. E. J. Rawlinson's
description, 1 "in whose streets and colonnades
and bazaars a bewildering variety of human
types Greek, Syrian, Anatolian, Chaldaean,
Arabian, Jew met and jostled and talked and
gesticulated and bargained and exchanged
ideas in the vulgar colloquial Greek which, as
a result of the conquests of Alexander and by
the policy of his successors, had become the
1 In his Bampton Lectures, 1926.
[19]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
common medium of intercourse in the Levant."
This picture helps us to understand why the
colloquial Greek of that age the koine, as it
was called was, instead of Aramaic, the lan-
guage in which our Gospels were written.
Aramaic was still the spoken language of the
Palestinian Jews. But they knew Greek also,
and Greek was understood, as Aramaic was not,
by the mass of people elsewhere. Indeed, it
seemed a providential thing that, at the time
when the Gospels were to be written, a lan-
guage familiar to men of a vast number of
races, an almost international language, should
have been available for the writers.
In such conditions, then, the first three of
our Gospels were put together for the Church.
Perhaps that phrase should be recast if it is not
to mislead; they were made for local branches
of the Church. These were not abstract com-
positions thrown, so to speak, into the air; each
was undertaken to suit the needs of one par-
ticular set of people or, in the instance of the
third Gospel, possibly even for the needs of
one particular person at a special time. We
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
must use our imaginations to realize the cir-
cumstances of that age, when travel was slow
and hazardous, when it was impossible to mul-
tiply rapidly copies of a document, when a
Gospel must laboriously be written, letter by
letter, on a roll of papyrus some thirty feet
long.
The organization of the Church was as yet
of the simplest kind. Each local branch was
virtually a self-contained unit. In towns which
St. Paul or another missioner had visited
Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, Rome,
and very many more a branch of the Church
had been formed. In course of time a certain
number of migrants from other places would
be added to it. Any Christian who came to
live in the place, or, as a trader, was there
temporarily on business, would attach himself
to the local church. Sometimes he would bring
a gift or a message from another church. He
would describe its ways and its services, and
thus there would be an interchange of ideas.
The members would meet regularly on the first
day of the week. As there were as yet no Chris-
tian church buildings, they would gather in
any large house available for the purpose. To
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
watch the men and women who entered must
have convinced the most casual onlooker that
this new religion had a unifying power without
parallel. Among the Christian community
were people of many races, who in their earlier
days had belonged to many different religions.
Jew and Gentile came together, members of
various professions and callings, rich and poor,
learned and illiterate, the slave-owner and the
slave.
At their meeting on the first day of the week
the eucharist would be celebrated, followed
often by a common meal. Set prayers would
be used, and often extracts from the Old Testa-
ment. Churches which had received a letter
from St. Paul would cause a portion of it to
be read aloud for practical instruction; as yet
there was no idea, of course, of ranking the
epistles as "scripture." But they were written
in order that their messages might be made
public at gatherings of the church addressed.
Thus, the so-called "Epistle to the Ephesians"
was really a circular letter sent to the Church
in each of the chief towns in Asia; it got its
name later because the copy of this circular
[22]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
letter that was sent to Ephesus happened to
be the copy that survived.
And at meetings of the local Churches every-
where there would be a keen eagerness, we may
be sure, to learn all that could be told of what
Jesus Christ had done and taught. Those who
had received in past years any trustworthy
tradition from eyewitnesses would declare it.
But stronger and stronger became the feeling
that, both for themselves, and still more for
the sake of those to come after, some definite
book of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, based upon
the best evidence, and collated with any frag-
mentary records already in existence, should
be provided for the use of the local Church.
Local circumstances would naturally affect its
shape. Thus a branch of the Church with
many Jewish members would welcome details
to illustrate how the deeds of Jesus corre-
sponded with those which prophecy had as-
signed to the Messiah. But such points would
have little interest for another branch of the
Church elsewhere, whose members were Gen-
tiles.
So the Gospels came to be written.
[23]
CHAPTER TWO
The Sources of the Gospels
EVEN if he knew nothing of technical schol-
arship or Biblical "criticism," every care-
ful reader of the Gospels would be impressed
by two facts: one, that the Fourth Gospel is
very different from the first three; the other,
that the first three are very alike. Differences,
plainly, there are. Each gives us some inci-
dents not recorded by either of the other two,
and each has its own characteristics of style
and treatment. That is what we should ex-
pect in three books by three authors. What
we should not expect is to find in three sep-
arate Gospels long passages identical in their
wording, or so nearly identical that the re-
semblance cannot be due to chance. It would
have seemed likely enough that actual sayings
of Christ should have been treasured in the
memory of those who heard him, and passed
on with careful precision to those who came
after. It would have seemed reasonable that
[24]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
main facts of crucial importance should have
been told and retold in virtually the same
words. Verbal memory was far stronger in
ages before the invention of printing had ren-
dered it less essential, and the training of the
verbal memory formed a chief part of He-
brew education. Inability to understand a say-
ing was no bar to remembering what had been
said. Indeed, as a modern commentator l has
observed, it had the opposite effect. The
Apostles and first teachers were "sometimes
stronger in memory than in understanding.
They remembered what perplexed them, be-
cause it perplexed them; and they reported it
faithfully."
That there was hi the earliest days a spoken
tradition of what our Lord had done and said
seems certain. By this fact scholars of a past
generation accounted for the verbal identities
in the first three Gospels. Each evangelist,
they supposed, had reproduced the spoken
tradition in writing. But further study showed
this explanation to be inadequate. It is not
only in describing the main facts, or in re-
porting the words of Christ, that these iden-
1 Dr. Plummer, in his St. Matthew, p. 10.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
tities occur. They extend frequently to small
details in the narrative, which could hardly
have been crystallized into one precise form
of words. These identities, or close resem-
blances, when describing details are so numer-
ous that we must believe the earliest of the
three Gospels to have been utilized by the
authors of the other two, or that all three had
some written sources in common before them
as they worked. A modern analogy, suggested
by Dr. Streeter, may be used to illustrate the
point. We look, let us suppose, at an account
of the same football match in three different
newspapers. The main facts i. ., the result,
the number of goals, the names of the men
who scored them will be the same in all ac-
counts. Yet the detailed description of the
play, if it be written by three independent re-
porters, will be worded quite differently in the
three newspapers. If, on the contrary, we find
the match described in almost identical lan-
guage, with only slight omissions and varia-
tions, by each newspaper, we know that each
has obtained its material from a common source
a report supplied by a news-agency and
[26]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
that the variations are due to the newspaper
sub-editors.
That is a crude and prosaic illustration, yet
it serves to describe the impression left with
the student who examines carefully our first
three Gospels. In each is something of the
evangelist's own, each supplies something
found in none of the others. Sometimes, as in
the Gospel of Mark, it may have been derived
from the writer's personal experience. Some-
times it may have been obtained from a record,
spoken or written, to which none of the other
Evangelists had access. Apart, however, from
this original element in each Gospel, there is
also in each a large proportion which has been
taken from sources common to them all. Some-
times the author seems to have transcribed an
earlier document without change; more often,
while following it in the main, he has abridged
it here and there, or altered its wording, or
interpolated an explanation.
What, then, are the relations between the
first three Gospels'? The Fourth clearly stands
apart, both in time and character. We will
postpone the questions which arise concerning
[27]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
it until we come to the chapters dealing spec-
ially with this Gospel of John. But the other
three are connected, and have much the same
standpoint. A name implying this common
point of view has been given them, and they
are termed the "synoptic" Gospels. In what
degree are they interdependent? Which is the
earliest 1 ? From which have the others in part
been copied 1 ? What other common sources of
information can we detect in them*? How are
we to account for the identities and the differ-
ences in their narratives'?
II
Questions of this kind constitute what is
known as "the synoptic problem." Immense
pains have been spent upon it, and the litera-
ture on the subject, mostly technical in char-
acter, is voluminous. The general reader may
feel that such researches, fascinating as they
may seem to experts, do not much interest him,
and that he need not trouble about them in
order to understand and profit by the Gospels.
Up to a point, of course, that is quite true. He
cannot fairly be asked to concern himself with
[28]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the minute processes of technical scholarship.
On the other hand, he will find it well worth
while to know something of the results. Not
only have they a good deal of human interest,
but they supply a real help to reading the
Gospels intelligently.
A good many people, too, are haunted by a
rather vague idea that "modern criticism" has
in some way weakened the authority of the
Gospels and made them less credible. Noth-
ing can allay that fear so effectively as to know
what the results of criticism really are. No
other writings in the world have been scrutin-
ized so minutely. Every sentence, almost
every word, in them has been considered from
every point of view. The tests of literature,
archaeology, and comparative religion have
been applied to them. They have been ap-
proached, from one extreme, by champions of
an impossible theory of literal inspiration, and,
from the other, by opponents eager to discredit
beliefs they are already determined to reject.
From such ordeals the Gospels have emerged
triumphantly. No one can pretend that all the
"critical problems" have been solved, or indeed
[29]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
are capable of solution. We may feel that
some of the theories advanced concerning them
are far more convincing and satisfactory than
others, yet theories, not proven facts, all must
remain. Again, there are seeming discrepancies
in the different Gospels for which, with our
limited knowledge, we cannot account. There
are occasional phrases the precise force of which
is still uncertain. Yet modern research, and
particularly the vastly improved acquaintance
with Greek of the New Testament period,
brought by the discovery and study of papyri,
has definitely cleared up many points which,
even half a century ago, seemed hopelessly ob-
scure. And the main fact is that all this crit-
ical work, all this added knowledge, all this
minute investigation of the Gospels, have
strengthened, not diminished, their general
trustworthiness as historical documents.
"Modern criticism" has made it more, not less,
reasonable to believe in that Person and work
of Jesus Christ which the Gospels were written
to set forth.
From these general considerations let us turn
back to the "synoptic problem." As I have
said, the general reader cannot be expected to
[3]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
trouble himself with the details of the immense
literature that has been written about it, or
with the processes by which scholars have
reached their conclusions. Yet to know the re-
sults themselves is well worth his while. As
he observes the likenesses and differences in
the first three Gospels, the reader will naturally
want to know how these are explained by the
best authorities. If that information can be
given him in a short and simple form, certainly
it should help him to understand the Gospels.
Ill
The "oral tradition" theory the theory
that, before they were written, the Gospel
stories were told in a fixed form of words, that
much of this form was incorporated afterwards
in the written Gospels, and that their frequent
identity of wording is thus explained has
already been mentioned, with some of the rea-
sons for which it was found unconvincing. It
was superseded by what was known as "the
two-document theory," and this held the field
until quite recently.
Briefly summarized, the two-document
theory about the synoptic Gospels was as fol-
[31]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
lows. Mark 1 is/ the earliest of the Gospels.
The authors of Hatthew and Luke had Mark
before them when they wrote^ and made ex-
tensive use of it. In fact, of the 660 verses
in Mark, no fewer than 610, it is said, have
been used by St. Matthew, or St. Luke, or both.
But then students observed that there is also
much material in both Matthew and Luke
which is absent from Mark. In the main, this
material is composed of "sayings" of Christ,
whereas Mark is more concerned to record 'His
deeds than His words. The accounts of these
discourses in Matthew and Luke are so much
alike that they seem to have been derived from
the same document. Therefore the critics took
it as proved that such a document, a collection
of our Lord's words, must have existed, though
no copy of it survives. This document they
named "Q." Further, there was, of course,
in both Matthew and Luke some original mat-
ter, information peculiar to the one evangelist.
In broad outline, then, and omitting subsidiary
1 For the sake of clearness throughout, the prefix "St." ;s
placed before the name of an evangelist when the refer-
ence is to the man, but not when it is to his book. Thu|,
"St. Luke" means the evangelist; "Luke" the Gospel he
wrote.
[32]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
developments, the theory held that when Mat-
thew and Luke were to be written, the material
that each evangelist had was (a) special in-
formation of his own, and (b) two documents
St. Mark's Gospel, and "Q." Such was the
"two-document" synoptic theory.
It was accepted, either in this form or, with
minor variations, by the great majority of
scholars in England and America until 1924.
In that year a new theory was propounded by
Dr. B. H.. Streeter of Oxford. He himself had
previously held the "two-document" theory.
But, as the result of immense study, he-lhad
ultimately found himself obliged to replace it
by a "four-document" theory. He still be-
lieved that Mark and "Q" had been used by
St. Matthew and St. Luke. Close examina-
tion of these two later Gospels, however, had
enabled him to identify in them the use of two
other documents. In Matthew he detected the
use of an early Judaistic account of Christ's
teaching, which he names "M." St. Luke, Dr.
Streeter believes, rewrote the present Gospel
from an earlier form of it, which in turn he
had amplified from a first sketch. That first
sketch he calls "L." According to the "four-
[33]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
document" hypothesis, therefore, St. Matthew
used Mark, "Q," and "M"; St. Luke used
Mark, "Q," and "L." No such bald state-
ment, however, can give any just idea of the
laborious analysis which Dr. Streeter has made,,
of the subtleties of his reconstructions, or the
wealth of detail by which he seeks to uphold
them. Of permanent value, wholly apart from
his theories, is his emphasis of the truth that
each Gospel was originally local in character,
adapted for the use of a local branch of the
Church.
Dr. Streeter' s "four-document" hypothesis
has gained a large measure of acceptance among
English-speaking scholars. In Germany, since
the War, attempts have been made to analyze
the contents of the Gospel by a new method
or, to speak more precisely, by a method only
employed hitherto in the study of folklore.
This method returns, in some degree, to the
"oral tradition" theory. It holds that there
were current in the first days of the Church
traditions of our Lord's teaching grouped ac-
cording to subject and form; one group of His
apocalyptic sayings, another of His practical
exhortations, and so forth, and that these
[34]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
groups of sayings, originally collected for oral
teaching, are the main material of the written
Gospels. The critics of this school seem as yet
to be considerably at variance among them-
selves, and their views have not gained many
adherents outside Germany. It is rather
strange, however, that Dr. Streeter ignores
them 'entirely.
The weakness of the formgeschichlitcJie
method of criticism is the rather impossibly
rigid rules of form which it endeavours to lay
down. That weakness is avoided by the
"multiple document" theory. 1 Both the "two-
document" theory and the "four-document"
hypothesis developed from it are open to far
weightier objections than Dr. Streeter allows
his readers to suppose. Both are based upon
the supposition that St. Matthew and St. Luke
used "Q" and Mark. But the very existence
of "Q," we must remember, is purely a hy-
pothesis. As Dr. Torm remarks, "The more
the critics insist on C Q' as a large independent
source, the more surprising is it that it is al-
1 One of its principal exponents, Professor Torm, of .
Copenhagen, gave an admirable summary of it in the
Church Quarterly, July, 1927.
[35]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
together lost." And, to take a far weightier
point, while we emphasize the apparent quota-
tions from Mark in Matthew and Luke, what
are we to make of the omissions'? Of a long-
connected group of narratives, found in Mark
vi. 45-viii. 26, nothing is found in Luke.
Dr. Streeter's attempt to explain this is that
St. Luke had "a mutilated copy of Mark" be-
fore him. Other ingenious yet unconvincing
attempts have been made to account for the
omission of other shorter passages. The real
difficulty, however, which neither the "two-
document" critics nor Dr. Streeter frankly rec-
ognize, lies in the fact that there are a very
large number of details, often vivid and life-
like details, given by St. Mark, and omitted
by both St. Matthew and St. Luke. Had they
been left out by one or the other of these
evangelists, writing with Mark before him, we
might have wondered at the reason. But we
have far more cause to be surprised when, sup-
posing them both to be copying from Mark,
both St. Matthew and St. Luke omit the same
details. That by mere chance they should
have left out precisely the same things Pro-
[36]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
fessor Torm gives more than twenty examples
does, indeed, seem incredible.
One attempted explanation is that "Mark,"
as we have it, is not the original Gospel of
Mark, the document which St. Matthew and
St. Luke copied, but a later and enlarged edi-
tion. That explanation Breaks down, because
the details omitted by St. Matthew and St.
Luke are eminently characteristic of Mark, and
cannot be later interpolations.
IV
From all this tangle of intricate and subtle
conjectures, is there any escape to a simpler
explanation which will meet the facts'? The
answer seems to be that there is, if we can be
bold enough to get clear away from that "two-
document theory" which for so long held the
field, and also from the "four-document
theory" into which Dr. Streeter's ingenuity has
amplified it. Also, not without a sense of re-
lief, we can get rid of "Q," that mysteriously
vanished document. The theories of the critics
brought it into hypothetical being; if we can
replace those theories, we can escape the need
of imagining "Q."
[37]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
As it happens, one of the synoptists does
describe the "sources" from which his own
Gospel was compiled. We have that account
in the first four verses of Luke. St. Luke states
that already "many" people have set their
hands to writing down the established facts of
the Christian record. He and the others have
received traditions (spoken or written) from
those who had been actual eyewitnesses of our
Lord's ministry. Therefore, having carefully
examined and collated all these earlier nar-
ratives and traditions, he has resolved to ar-
rarige them methodically in a Gospel of his
own. Here, therefore, are St. Luke's materials :
(a) written Gospels, whole or fragmentary;
(b) through them, and probably apart from
them as well, the evidence of eyewitnesses; to
which we doubtless must add (c) information
which St. Luke had collected independently
for himself.
This account of his materials and his use of
them comes, let us remember, from St. Luke.
It is not a modern theory. We may .well be-
lieve that the method of one of the synoptists
was, more or less, the method of the other two,
and that they also were acquainted with some
[38]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
-of the "many" written narratives mentioned by
St. Luke. Individual versions would vary,
each would have some which the other two
had not; each would make his own choice of
material, and when the document used hap-
pened to be in Aramaic, two or three evan-
gelists would not use precisely the same Greek
words when translating it. We are no longer
driven to suppose that St. Matthew and St.
Luke borrowed directly from Mark a theory
which, as we have seen, involves great diffi-
culties. A close similarity, or identity in two
Gospels means that in this passage both writers
were utilizing the same earlier document.
Again, to quote Professor Torm, "We reach
the most natural explanation of the fact that
Mark vi. 45-viii. 26 is not found in Luke by
supposing that this passage, originally consti-
tuting a small independent group of accounts,
dropped into the hands of two of the evan-
gelists, but not of St. Luke." Instead, then,
of believing, as do the supporters both of the
"two-document" and "four-document" hy-
potheses, that the chief sources of Matthew and
Luke are Mark and a conjectured document
called "Q," those preferring the "multiple-
[39]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
document" hypothesis believe that Mark,
Matthew, and Luke alike were based on some
of those "many" earlier Gospels, or fragments
of Gospels, to which St. Luke refers in his
preface.
Time only can show whether the "multiple-
document" theory (linked, possibly, with the
less extravagant of the "form" theories now
popular among German scholars) will be ac-
cepted as the best solution of the "synoptic
problem." But it would be disingenuous to
conceal from the reader that, at the present
time, it is the "four-document" hypothesis,
supported as it is by the brilliant scholarship
of Dr. Streeter, which secures the adherence of
most English-speaking scholars.
Though it is only in the barest outlines that
I have tried to sketch the "synoptic problem"
and the chief of its attempted solutions, some
of my readers may feel that, so far as they are
concerned, the whole business is tedious and
unprofitable. "Surely it is unnecessary," they
will say, "that we should concern ourselves
with the technical controversies of academic
[40]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
experts. Surely we need not pay attention to
such matters in order to understand the Gos-
pels, in order to appreciate rightly their spir-
itual teaching or their literary charm. Again,
if we are to believe that the evangelists were
inspired, is not all this talk about 'sources' be-
side the point 1 ?" One can understand such
remonstrances, and, in a degree, sympathize
with them. Yet I still dare to hope that, in
retrospect, the reader will admit this rather
dull chapter to have been well worth while.
For to know something of the kind of way in
which the Gospels were put together clears
away at once a whole host of difficulties which
otherwise we should encounter, one by one, as
we read their narratives. Remembering the
composite nature of the Gospels, we shall not
be perplexed by what seem like small errors or
inconsistencies. The real marvel is that they
should be so few. Again, all educated people
have heard of the "synoptic problem," yet
often speak of criticism in almost total ig-
norance of its real results. It will be a gain
if, without going into linguistic and other de-
tails, they can have some idea of the principal
lines modem criticism has taken and the prin-
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
cipal theories it holds. As to inspiration, we
may ponder again St. Luke's preface. It shows
that an inspired writer thought care and re-
search essential in order to secure accuracy.
But from all such preliminary thoughts and
studies we will turn now to the Gospels them-
selves. In the Bible Matthew stands first,
possibly because its frequent references to the
Prophets seemed to make it a link between the
Old Testament and the New. There is, how-
ever, practical unanimity among scholars in
believing Mark to be the earliest of our Gos-
pels. With Mark, accordingly, we will begin.
I hope that the reader will keep an open copy
of the Bible or at least, of the New Testa-
ment beside him; all that my book can try
to do is to help him to read the Gospels for
himself with fuller understanding.
So, in all reverence, we turn to these, the
greatest writings in the world.
[42]
CHAPTER THREE
Mark: The Interpreter of Peter
IN THE first century the meeting of the local
Church in Rome must have been extraordi-
narily varied and picturesque. On the further
side of the Tiber there had long been a Jewish
colony. It began when Pompey brought a
batch of prisoners from Jerusalem in 69 B.C.
They showed the characteristics of their race.
Within four or five years they had become a
free community, to whose growing numbers
and great influence Cicero referred. Jews from
Rome were in Jerusalem on the day of Pente-
cost. They may have become converts to
Christianity and have spread the new faith on
their return. Certainly when, about twenty-
five years later, St. Paul wrote his letter to
the Church in Rome, it had been in existence
for a considerable time and had, as his lan-
guage shows, a wide repute. He is careful to
express his reluctance even to seem to "build
upon another man's foundation" ; a phrase ac-
[43]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
cording well with the ancient tradition that
the real pioneer of the Church in Rome was
St. Peter. His name, and the Lord's phrase
about basing the Church on that rock, give an
obvious aptness to St. Paul's sentence. St.
Paul's imprisonment in Rome proved to be, as
he said, "for the furtherance of the Gospel"
there, and he brought into its brotherhood per-
sons so dissimilar as a fugitive slave and mem-
bers of the Praetorian Guard. But there is no
ground for doubting the widespread and well-
supported belief that St. Peter spent his last
years continuously in Rome, and presided over
the Christian Church in that city.
How strange a spectacle that society must
have presented when it met each first day of
the week! Here Roman citizens of aristo-
cratic families mingled with slaves; here Gen-
tiles knelt beside Jews. Nowhere was the uni-
fying power of this new creed, in which "bond
and free, circumcision and uncircumcision"
were merged, shown more effectively and pic-
torially than in the capital of the Roman Em-
pire. So they met, and, sacrament and prayers
ended, gathered, with an eagerness we can well
imagine, around St. Peter. When he spoke,
[44]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
they were listening to one who had been in
close companionship with the Lord, one who
could tell what he himself had heard and seen,
to whom the Master had appeared after the
Resurrection. How anxious their questions,
how close their attention ! And how often they
must have said among themselves : "Ought not
one of us to put down in writing these marvel-
lous reminiscences which we hear? Then we
could get them into due sequence, and study
them at leisure, and use them when we are
trying to make new converts, and hand them
on to those who shall follow us."
Many may have made that suggestion. It
was John Mark who carried it out. The af-
fectionate intimacy between him and the aged
Apostle is shown in the First Epistle of Peter,
where the younger man is described as "Mark,
my son." Papias, who wrote what he had been
told by a contemporary of St. Mark, and him-
self is quoted by Eusebius, the first Church
historian, states that "Mark, having become
Peter's interpreter," set down all that the
Apostle remembered of what Christ had said
or done. But these memories were not then
in chronological order. They were written
[45]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
down as spoken, except that it was the work of
the "interpreter" to write them in Greek.
Mark could not originate them, "for he,"
Papias adds, "neither heard the Lord nor fol-
lowed Him; but later was with Peter, who
suited his teaching to his hearers' needs, not as
describing our Lord's sayings in strict se-
quence." Papias or, rather, the earlier au-
thority he quotes goes on to emphasize the
extreme care and accuracy with which St. Mark
wrote down what he had heard. This, among
the earliest of Christian traditions, is confirmed
by other second-century writers.
One of them, Irenaeus, says it was after St.
Peter's death that "Mark, the disciple and in-
terpreter of Peter handed down to us in writ-
ing the things that Peter preached." But we
need not trouble ourselves, as some commenta-
tors have done, over the supposed discrepancy
between what Papias says was done in St.
Peter's lifetime and what Irenaeus says was
done after his death. The two sentences de-
scribe different stages. Look again at Papias's
account. How true to life it is! St. Peter
did not deliver by instalments a systematic
Gospel. He drew from his store of memories
[46]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
what his hearers wanted. "Let us hear again
about the Crucifixion," they would say on one
day; perhaps on the next: "let us hear how
you were first called to discipleship." So St.
Peter gave them, not a serial narrative con-
tinued from day to day, but, as an old man
will, detached memories as they came back to
him, or as his hearers' questions or comments
prompted. And close beside him, noting it all,
was John Mark, who thus gradually compiled
a manuscript he might have headed "stray rec-
ollections of an Apostle." That was the first
stage.
The second came after St. Peter's death.
Then John Mark resolved to put together a
Gospel. There were many reasons why he
should wish now to do this. A new genera-
tion was growing up. Few were left of those
who actually had witnessed the Master's work
on earth. Evangelists who preached Chris-
tianity needed an authentic record of its his-
toric facts. Congregations which met for wor-
ship could hear St. Peter no more, but what
he had spoken could be arranged in order and
read to them. As a pretence for the persecu-
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
tion which Nero had set afoot in Rome, many
gross falsehoods were circulated concerning the
Founder of Christianity. They could be re-
futed best by a trustworthy narrative of His
ministry. And there were some Christians who
mistakenly thought they could emphasize His
divinity by denying His full humanity. The
Gospel shows St. Mark's evident anxiety to
prove the real manhood of the divine Master.
II
What were the materials out of which the
evangelist could make his book? First, there
was the record he had made of St. Peter's
reminiscences. Then there were other short
documents, which, or other versions of which,
were utilized later by the writers of Matthew
and Luke. And, by no means least, he had per-
sonal recollections of his own upon which to
draw, for, as we shall see, there is good reason
to think that he had been in Jerusalem through
the week of our Lord's Passion, and *had been
an eyewitness of its events. Yet for this time
also he would have obtained much information
from St. Peter, whose spoken reminiscences of
[48]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
it must have contained many details which only
one of the Twelve could supply.
The work of comparing, revising, and ar-
ranging all this material cannot have been
light, and for all the evangelists to decide what
should be omitted to include all the narra-
tives about our Lord was, as the writer of the
Fourth Gospel remarked, quite impossible
must have needed anxious consideration. The
"dates" of the Gospels cannot be given with
precision; there has been, and probably always
will be, differing opinions among scholars con-
cerning them. If, however, St. Mark did not
write his book until after St. Peter's death, as
Irenaeus states, in all probability it was not
written before the year 64. For that is the
year when Nero began the persecution which
brought about, as tradition affirms, St. Peter's
martyrdom. On the other hand, the Gospel
seems earlier than the fall of Jerusalem in the
year 70. A note in chapter xiii., verse 14, looks
as if it were written when the fall of the city
was imminent, although we cannot be sure that
this note was not interpolated by some copyist.
"Somewhere between 64 and 70 A.D." is per-
[49]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
haps as near as we can go in trying to fix the
"date" of Mark, and even then we are short
of anything like certainty.
But discussions about the "date" of a Gos-
pel are often misleading to the general reader.
Even skilled critics seem apt to forget how
limited a meaning the word can have. In
modern conditions, the year printed on the title
page of a new book may be considerably dis-
tant from the time when the contents were first
put down on paper. It does show, however,
when the book was published, and thereby
made available for any readers who chose to
buy it. There was no counterpart to that stage
in the history of the Gospels. They were not
"published." They were designed in the first
instance for the use of a small group of peo-
ple in one place. St. Luke, indeed, seems to
have written his for a single reader, Theophilus.
Thus the "date" of a Gospel cannot mean the
time when it came before the world, but only
the time when the writing out of the original,
letter by letter, on a roll of papyrus was fin-
ished. Indefinitely later, the document might
be used for reading aloud at meetings of the
[50]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
local church. Afterwards a day might come
when some traveller who wished to make this
Gospel known to his own local church would
employ a scribe to copy it. That is the only
sort of "publication" a Gospel could have;
that is the kind of way in which first it be-
came known outside the place of its origin.
If the original roll of papyrus (a very fragile
thing) were mutilated before any transcription
had been made, then all the copies of it would
be imperfect.
The last point has a special significance in
the instance of St. Mark's book. Either he
left it unfinished through death, illness, or im-
prisonment, or else part of the roll on which
he set down is Gospel was torn away before
any copy of it had been made. For, as it has
come down to us, Mark breaks off abruptly,
with an unfinished sentence, at the eighth verse
of the final chapter. 1 The twelve verses in our
English Bible that follow are no true part of
St. Mark's work. As a marginal note in the
Revised Version states, they are not found in
1 Of course the division into "chapters" and "verses" was
made long afterwards, for the sake of convenience in refer-
ence; there were no such divisions in the early MSS.
[51],
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the oldest manuscripts of the Gospel that have
survived. 1 They represent one of a number of
endings written by unknown hands in early
days in order to fill the gap and round off the
story left unfinished by St. Mark. ' Dr.
Streeter suggests that, as this was pre-eminently
the "Gospel of Peter," stories of resurrection-
appearances to St. Peter would naturally find
a place in it, and that chapter xxi. of the
Fourth Gospel, evidently added as a supple-
ment to that work, was based upon the "lost"
ending of Mark. But this is, of course, merely
a conjecture. Against the theory of a damaged
MS. two points must be weighed : ( i ) the dam-
age must have been done before any copy had
been taken, and, had it been done in St. Peter's
lifetime, he would have written anew the de-
stroyed portion; (2) a papyrus was rolled with
the beginning outwards, so that the first chap-
ter would be more likely to suffer accidental
injury than the last. On the whole, therefore,
it seems more probable that St. Mark, like
many another author, died with his 'work un-
finished. Anyhow, what we may take as quite
certain is that the ending given in our Bibles,
1 They are of the fourth or fifth century.
[52]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
after verse 8 of chapter xvi., did not form
part of the original Gospel.
Ill
As we take a preliminary glance through the
Gospel itself we may notice how its character
seems to confirm those traditions about its
sources and aims which we have been exam-
ining.
We observed the belief of the early Church
that St. Mark found his chief source in the
Memoirs of St. Peter. Now, as we look
through the pages of his book, we shall see
that he makes the call of St. Peter to disciple-
ship almost his starting-point. There is not a
word about the birth or youth of our Lord.
The first verse is probably an editorial note
by a copyist. The next two comprise a quota-
tion from Isaiah. Then, in a most meagre
fashion, all the stories of the Baptist's preach-
ing, of our Lord's baptism, and of the tempta-
tion in. the wilderness, are compressed into
twelve short verses ! But after that comes the
call of St. Peter, and the detailed narrative
begins. We are told about Simon Peter's
home, and his mother-in-law; the disciples are
[53]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
described as "Simon and they that were with
him." (i. 36.) The language is often that
of an eyewitness when only the Twelve were
with the Master. How unintentionally, too,
the touching humility of the aged Apostle is
revealed! He suppresses the high eulogy he
received from Christ, "Blessed art thou, Si-
mon," recorded in the Matthaean Gospel. But
he insists that the scathing rebuke, "Get thee
behind me, Satan," shall be made known to his
hearers and St. Mark could be sure of his
wish that it should reappear in the written Gos-
pel also.
Let us pass to another feature of this Gospel
which must impress us at once when we turn
over its pages. It seems to allot a quite dis-
proportionate quantity of its space to the story
of our Lord's passion. St. Mark has to record
the ministry of three years. Yet he assigns
more than a third of his total space to describ-
ing the events of one week. Of course we have
to remember that his book is incomplete. We
cannot tell to what length he carried ft, or pro-
posed to carry it. Yet, even when we take
this into account, the contrast between the
brevity of the earlier narratives and the detail
[54]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
with which the story of Holy Week is told
seems remarkable. We can understand it, how-
ever, if we accept the ancient tradition that for
this part of his Gospel the writer was able to
draw upon his personal knowledge. Why does
he record the incident of the "certain young
man" i. ., a young man whose name he could
give if he chose that fled naked from the Gar-
den of Gethsemane'? In itself, it seems point-
less. But its introduction is intelligible enough
if that "certain young man" were, as tradition
affirms, the evangelist himself.
Another feature of the Gospel becomes evi-
dent at a first glance through its pages. It
was intended for non-Jewish readers. Aramaic
terms are interpreted. Jewish customs and
seasons are explained, and only for Gentiles
could such explanations be necessary. Again,
the writer evidently is far more anxious to
record what Jesus Christ did than what He
said. The Sermon on the Mount is not in-
cluded, or any such discourses as are found in
the Fourth Gospel. There are only eight para-
bles, as contrasted with twenty in Matthew
and twenty-five in Luke. The Romans were
far more interested in deeds than in words.
[55]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
The allegorical, mystical, and spiritual teach-
ing would appeal enormously to Eastern peo-
ple, but not to Western, and so the contents of
St. Mark's Gospel accord with the tradition
of its Roman origin. The best means, St.
Mark felt, of countering the slanders about
Christianity which Nero, had circulated was to
set down a simple, truthful, and vivid account
of Christianity's Founder, to show what kind
of life He lived and what His deeds were dur-
ing the years of His public ministry. He
would dwell specially on the last week, in order
to show that the charge of treason against
Rome was entirely unfounded, and that it was
altogether the spite of the religious leaders in
Jerusalem which brought Jesus to the Cross.
St. Mark's style fits his theme. Even in a
translation we can realize that it is simple,
straightforward, and brisk. It has movement
and colour. A Greek word variously rendered
"forthwith," "immediately," and "straight-
way" is used more than forty times. And St.
Peter's memory was stored with^many little
details, lacking in the other Gospels, which are
faithfully reproduced in Mark. When, to take
one example from many, the five thousand peo-
[56]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
pie are fed, Mark tells us that they sat down
in ranks upon the green grass. In a way the
English version cannot quite reproduce, that
sentence gives us the vivid impression left on
an eyewitness of the scene. "Green" serves to
fix the season; only in the springtime was the
soil of the plain green with growth. And the
word rendered "ranks" means literally a herb-
garden. There, then, is the picture: the wide
expanse clothed in its springtime green, and
the multitude ranged in orderly rows upon it,
looking like vast beds of herbs planted in lines
at equal intervals. It is a picturesque simile
such as no one inventing the story could have
used. It is a vivid little bit of word-painting
from memory, given by St. Peter to the evan-
gelist, and by him included in his Gospel.
IV
Now we can take up this Gospel to read it
through, understanding what kind of book it
is: a chronicle chiefly of our Lord's life and
deeds, with outlines of His teaching, through
the three years of His ministry; a book de-
rived principally from the reminiscences of St.
Peter, but amplified by extracts from other
[57]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
documents and, towards the close, by the
writer's own experiences; a book written at
Rome, and designed for non-Jewish readers in
the Western world. To keep those points in
mind will enable us to read Mark with far
more understanding and appreciation than
otherwise would be possible.
[58]
CHAPTER FOUR
Mark: The Galilean Ministry and
Passion Week
IN A far greater degree than any of the other
evangelists, St. Mark arranged his Gospel
according to a definite plan. He divided it into
two main sections, linked by a brief summary
of intervening events, and prefaced by an in-
troduction. "I must begin," we may imagine
him to have said, "with some mention of John's
ministry and our Lord's baptism and tempta-
tion. I have little information about that time,
and none about any work the Master did in
Jerusalem before going north to Galilee. But
once the Galilan ministry is reached, I have
plenty of material in my notes of Simon
Peter's teaching. So, from the first day of his
discipleship, I shall be able to give a fairly
full account of what happened. One digres-
sion I must allow myself, because I want to
insert the story of the Baptist's death. Other-
wise I shall carry forward the narrative with-
[59]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
out interruption. I am fairly confident that
I have managed to arrange the events in their
right chronological order. That will enable
me to show clearly the different stages of the
work in Galilee, and the causes which forced
our Lord to change His methods. Another
main section of my book will deal with the
week of the Crucifixion. This I can describe
in detail from day to day, for I have my own
recollections of it, as well as Simon Peter's.
But between the two main sections, between
the departure from Galilee and the final entry
into Jerusalem, I have to interpose some ac-
count of a period about which my information
is scanty. I do know that during it our Lord
preached in Judaea and Peraea. And I have
documents which describe events which seem
to belong to this period. From them I can take
a few of the most important, without trying to
indicate the precise time or place at which they
occurred. However, this intermediate part of
my Gospel shall be quite short-, in order that I
may have ample space for the story of the
Crucifixion week. And then I shall describe
the Resurrection" and here we can imagine
St. Mark's design no further. For, as has been
[60]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
said above, we do not know at what length he
proposed to tell the story of the Resurrection.
What we do know is that his account of it, as
we now have his Gospel, is broken off almost
at the beginning.
At this point I will ask my reader to turn
to St. Mark's Gospel. (I hope he possesses a
Bible printed in good legible type, the pages of
which lie open easily.) Let us look at the
different sections in Mark. The Introduction
consists of the first fifteen verses of chapter i.
Then the first main section, describing the Gali-
Isean ministry, extends from i. 16 to the end
of chapter ix. There follows the short inter-
mediate section, chapter x. Its first verse de-
scribes a period extending probably through
some months. Then we have very short ac-
counts of about half-a-dozen incidents that
happened at various times and at unnamed
places within that period. With verse 32 the
final journey to Jerusalem begins. So we come
to the other main section of the book from
xi. i to xvi. 8 . Here we have a day-by-day
journal from Palm Sunday to Good Friday,
filling no fewer than five chapters, xi.-xv.
Finally, St. Mark's account of the Resurrection
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
begins with chapter xvi., is cut short after
eight verses, and verses 9-20 are the work of
another hand.
II
The Introduction gives us one graphic de-
tail that we do not get from any other source.
When our Lord at the time of the temptation
was in the wilderness, "he was with the wild
beasts," it says. Otherwise the introductory
fifteen verses need not detain us. The events
of which they speak are put before us far bet-
ter in the other Gospels. So we will pass on
at once to the first main section the story of
Christ's ministry in Galilee. Most people will
find it useful, I think, if at this point they will
re-read that section: chapter i. 16 to the end
of chapter ix. I should like them to read it,
for the purpose I have in mind, attentively in-
deed, yet rapidly, going through the whole sec-:
tion at one sitting. I would have them read
it, on this occasion, without pause to meditate
on any passage that seems specially suggestive,
or to elucidate any that seems difficult. To
these a return can be made afterwards; a few
such points will be dealt with in the rest of
[62]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
this chapter. But what I want now is that
the reader, by going quickly through the whole
story in this way, should allow the cumulative
effect of it all to make its full impression upon
him. The wonderful effect of the whole never
reaches us so long as we read a long and con-
nected part of a book in small snippets.
Now, if I may assume the reader to have
made this experiment, he will feel afresh, I
think, the terse vigour of St. Mark's style, and
his skill in showing how each stage of our
Lord's work in Galilee was the natural out-
come of the one before it. First, He teaches
as a rabbi in the synagogues, and with immense
success. His fame spreads, and increasing
crowds throng to hear Him. His words, and
His deeds of healing, create an amazement that
St. Mark pictures most vividly. "What is this*?
A new teaching!" (i. 27, R. V.) is the word
that runs around the synagogue at Capernaum.
As yet there is no hint of opposition, even
though he heals on the sabbath. On the con-
trary, He is welcomed everywhere in the syna-
gogues; "and He went into their synagogues
throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting
out devils." (i. 39.) That is the first stage.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
It does not last long. Soon the local re-
ligious leaders grow jealous of His immense
hold on the people, while His doctrine and
deeds seemed at variance with all their tradi-
tions. Notice how subtly St. Mark indicates
the growth of this opposition. When first we
hear of it, the scribes "reason in their hearts"
(ii. 6) against Jesus, but do not venture to
speak their thoughts aloud. Next, while they
are still afraid to challenge Him directly, they
make their criticism through the disciples,
(ii. 16.) Then they criticize the disciples to
Him. (ii. 18, 24.) After this they watch
Him in the synagogue, to see if He will heal
on the sabbath, "that they might accuse Him."
(iii. 2.) Having drawn upon themselves His
angry rebuke, they combine with "the Hero-
dians" (iii. 6) an ecclesiastical-political alli-
ance in trying to find means of destroying
Him.
But it was not altogether of their own accord
that the scribes in Galilee turned against our
Lord. A powerful influence from the south
was brought to bear upon them. Observe hbw
skilfully, and incidentally, as it were, St. Mark
indicates this. He does not tell us at length
[64]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
that reports about the dangerous new teacher
were carried to Jerusalem, and that the Tem-
ple authorities, greatly perturbed, determined
to send some of their scribes to Galilee in order
to denounce the heretic and neutralize any in-
fluence He had gained. Yet all that is implicit
in his narrative when he tells how "the scribes
which came down from Jerusalem said, He
hath Beelzebub." (iii. 22.)
What followed? Two results: first, that
the hostility of the religious leaders closed the
synagogues to Jesus. Therefore He has hence-
forth to give His teaching in the open air, and
does that mostly on the shore of the Sea of
Galilee. And He orders "a little boat to wait
on him." (iii. 9.) Partly that enabled Him
to escape the actual pressure of the crowd, but
it had another advantage also. For the other
result arising from the political hostility shown
by Herod and his followers was that life in
Galilee became increasingly dangerous for our
Lord. If there were a menace of arrest, He
and the disciples could escape in the boat to
the other side of the lake, where the jurisdic-
tion of Herod Antipas did not run.
The synagogue-preaching was the first stage
[65]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of the Galilean ministry; the open-air preach-
ing the second. But the latter seemed unsatis-
factory if the message were to be rightly under-
stood and perpetuated; a very small propor-
tion of the "seed," as Christ said, fell on "good
ground." So the third stage was reached. In-
stead of trying to teach many people a little,
the Master sets Himself to teach a few thor-
oughly, in order that afterwards they may be
able to transmit what they have heard. In-
creasingly He withdraws himself from the
multitudes, and, when He does meet them,
speaks to them in parables, the inner meaning
of which is explained to the disciples alone.
Towards the end, when Jesus passes through
Galilee, "he would not that any man should
know it." (ix. 30.) Only when He has fin-
ished the Galilean ministry "multitudes come
together unto him again; and, as he was wont,
he taught them again." (x. i.)
Now the way in which St. Mark makes these
stages reveal themselves to the careful reader,
the deft touches by which he indicates them,
the feeling he gives that each follows in in-
evitable sequence on the one before it, the man-
ner in which he compresses and subordinates
[66]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
details that do not directly help forward his
narrative all this seems a triumph of literary
art. There has .always been a tendency to un-
derrate Mark in comparison with the other
Gospels, because it seems so succinct and mat-
ter-of-fact. In truth, here is the art which
conceals artifice. Each Gospel has its own
special merits; each contributes something to us
which the others lack. But neither of the other
synoptic Gospels can rival Mark as a narrative.
In Matthew the materials are grouped accord-
ing to subject rather than set forth in chron-
ological order. Luke is rich in treasures that
we find in no other Gospel. Its author excelled
as a descriptive writer, and in his Acts, after
the first few chapters, he had direct informa-
tion and personal knowledge which enabled
him to write a connected narrative without
difficulty. It was otherwise with his Gospel.
Probably he had far more documents to work
from than were at St. Mark's disposal. The
difficulty of collating them and assigning each
of the various events described by them to its
right place and time, must have been great.
And St. Luke had not, like St. Mark, intimate
memories of St. Peter's discourses to guide him.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Great, too, as were his own gifts, he had not
that genius for setting down facts in their
right order which distinguished St. Mark. That
he did not attempt to arrange them "in order"
his preface bears witness. But he failed where
St. Mark succeeded. When, as happens often,
the chronology of Luke differs from that of
Mark, we may be fairly sure that the order in
Mark is the right one.
Even when there is no doubt concerning
chronological sequence, the writer of history
knows how hard is the task of handling the
material in precisely the right way, of deciding
what to omit, of writing so that the chief
points, without undue emphasis, make them-
selves clear. He knows also that, in propor-
tion as he succeeds, what he has done with such
skill will seem to the casual reader a simple
piece of straightforward narrative, requiring no
skill at all. That, until we trouble to look
closely, is the kind of effect produced on us
by Mark. But if anyone with a literary sense,
and, in particular, anyone who has ever tried
to write history, will examine with care r the
story of the Galilean ministry as St. Mark
wrote it, will notice the effects he gains, and
[68]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the means by which he gains them, he will be
deeply impressed, I am confident, by the tech-
nical skill of this work.
Ill
Let us look at it a little more closely. Ob-
viously, even if St. Mark had known what had
happened on each day, he could not find space
to record it all. Sometimes he must compress
weeks or months into a sentence. Yet, that
we may realize what the working-life of Jesus
in Galilee was like, now and again he will
spare space to describing a day in full. He
does that at the very start. That we may be-
gin with a clear idea of the ministry, he takes
its opening day, a sabbath at Capernaum, and
tells us all that happened in it. (The narrative
begins at chapter i. 21.) Jesus enters the syn-
agogue at the accustomed hour of public wor-
ship usually 9 A.M. After the prayers and
the readings from the Law and the Prophets,
the ruler of the synagogue turns to Jesus, as
a visiting rabbi, and invites Him to speak. St.
Mark does not pause even to summarize the ser-
mon; that is alien to his purpose, as it would
be a digression weakening the special effect he
[69]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
wants to produce. What he does record is the
astonishment it stirs in its hearers. Suddenly
there is a disturbance in the synagogue. A man
stricken with mania struggles and screams.
QjCj
Jesus heals him, and the wonder of the gather-
ing in the synagogue increases. They go to
their homes, some in Capernaum, some in the
neighbouring villages, full of excitement, and
spreading everywhere the news of what they
have heard and seen. By this time it is almost
noon. Jesus, with Peter and Andrew, James
and John, depart to their house for the mid-
day meal. They find the household in dismay.
Peter's mother-in-law has been stricken sud-
denly with fever. "Straightway," they tell
Jesus. He goes to her room, takes her hand in
His, and heals her. She is not merely brought
to convalescence; so immediate and complete
is the cure that she rises from the bed in her
usual health and "ministers to them," seeing
to the delayed meal. The afternoon is spent
in the enjoined sabbath-day quiet. But the
sabbath ends at 6 P.M.. No sooner is it over,
than "all the city was gathered together at the
door," bringing "all that were sick and them
that were possessed with devils." Into the
[70]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
shrill excited tumult of that Eastern crowd,
amid the groans of the sick, the cries of the
possessed, Jesus steps forth, and heals, and
teaches.
After such a morning and evening a long
night's rest must have been needed. Yet Jesus
could not forgo that solitary open-air commun-
ing with His Father which was the mainstay
of His life and work. So "in the morning, a
great while before day, he rose up and went
out, and departed into a desert place, and
there prayed." It must have been Simon
Peter who heard Him go, and, long years after-
wards, told of that time in the hearing of St.
Mark. At the outset of his Gospel, then, the
evangelist gives us this wonderful picture of a
day in the life of Jesus the first day of His
public ministry, which so many others were
like. Having given us one complete day to
illustrate the synagogue-preaching period, St.
Mark later adds a companion picture, of a
complete day in the period of open-air preach-
ing. The reader will find it in chapter vi.
30-55. The Twelve, returning from their mis-
sion, find Jesus at work on the seashore. There
is a Jhuge crowd, of so many with eager ques-
[71]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
tions, so many waiting to be healed, "that they
had no leisure so much as to eat." He plans
to go with his disciples "apart into a desert
place" on the other side of the lake. They
embark for this purpose. But there is little
wind, and the crossing is slow so slow that
the people, seeing what -He intends, can hurry
round by land to the other side and get there
first. When the boat touches shore, instead of
the solitude on which He had counted, Jesus
finds the same crowd that He had left behind !
Instead of showing annoyance, He "had com-
passion on them," and, having taught through
the morning and had no leisure for food, again
"He began to teach them many things," until
the day is "far spent." Then He uses His
power to feed them. The disciples are sent
back in the boat. Alone at last, "He departed
into the mountain to pray." The night falls,
but it is the time of the Paschal full moon.
Presently He sees the disciples still on the lake,
and "distressed in rowing, for the wind was
contrary." And so "about the fourth watch of
the night he cometh to them" that is, about
3 A.M. Such is the record of another day's
work.
[72]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Notice an example of St. Mark's dexterity
of arrangement. In chapter vi. 7-13 we hear
how our Lord sends forth the Twelve. Their
work is summarized in a couple of sentences.
We hear no more of them until their return.
If, however, that return were described in the
next sentence, the interval of time would be
difficult to realize. Accordingly, having men-
tioned the departure of the Twelve, St. Mark
chooses this point at which to insert the story
of the Baptist's death. So our thoughts are
taken to another theme, and it is with the de-
sired feeling of time having passed that we
hear, sixteen verses farther on, of the apostles'
return, when they told Him "all things, what-
soever they had done and whatsoever they had
taught."
Enough has been said, I hope, to indicate the
subtle skill in the writing of this Gospel, which
at first glance may seem a wholly artless chron-
icle of events. And, indeed, it is only when
we look closely at its construction that we be-
gin to understand the book. There are no
signposts on the road such as a modern writer
would put up for our guidance. We do not
find verses 21-36 of the first chapter intro-
[73]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
duced by the words: "here is an account of one
day's ministry in Capernaum," or, later on, a
sentence pointing out that at this stage our
Lord changed His methods. We are left to
note these things for ourselves. It follows,
therefore, that rightly to appreciate Mark, we
must read it with alert attention.
IV
One of the most valuable characteristics of
the book is its pellucid candour. St. Mark is
not afraid to attribute human emotions and
limitations to our Lord; He feels grief, anger,
surprise, amazement, fatigue; He asks ques-
tions for information; at times He is unable
to accomplish what He willed. Such phrases,
remarkable in themselves, become yet more
striking when we find that all of them are
either toned down or omitted entirely in the
parallel passages of the Matthaean Gospel.
The compiler of that Gospel was obviously
afraid that such sayings might be misunder-
stood, and be used to impugn our Lord's di-
vinity. Thus again the question recorded in
Mark, "Why callest thou me good?' is most
significantly transmuted by Matthew into
[74]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
"Why askest thou me concerning that which
is good?" (Mk. x. 18; Mt. xix. 17); where
we cannot doubt that Mark gives us the true
form. The real emphasis in it, of course, falls
upon the adjective, not the pronoun; not "why
callest thou me good?" but "why callest thou
me 'good"?" It is the story of a man in a
hurry, who comes "running" to Jesus and asks,
"Good teacher, what am I to do to gain eternal
life*?" "First measure your words," is the
answer. "You call me 'good.' You use that
word lightly; what meaning has it for you?
What is your standard of goodness what your
ideal? The divine one of perfection, for God
only is truly 'good,' or the human conventional
standard of your day? Begin by adjusting
your moral values, by pausing to think what
'goodness' means." The writer of Matthew,
however, fearing that the saying might be mis-
interpreted as, indeed, it has been often
was afraid to record it with the candour of
St. Mark.
Yet, for all its frank and eager insistence on
our Lord's humanity, Mark insists no less that,
in a unique sense, He is cp|ipfe< It emphasizes
His supernatural powers^i^.ves us the story
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
duced by the words : "here is an account of one
day's ministry in Capernaum," or, later on, a
sentence pointing out that at this stage our
Lord changed His methods. We are left to
note these things for ourselves. It follows,
therefore, that rightly to appreciate Mark, we
must read it with alert attention.
IV
One of the most valuable characteristics of
the book is its pellucid candour. St. Mark is
not afraid to attribute human emotions and
limitations to our Lord; He feels grief, anger,
surprise, amazement, fatigue; He asks ques-
tions for information; at times He is unable
to accomplish what He willed. Such phrases,
remarkable in themselves, become yet more
striking when we find that all of them are
either toned down or omitted entirely in the
parallel passages of the Matthaean Gospel.
The compiler of that Gospel was obviously
afraid that such sayings might be misunder-
stood, and be used to impugn our Lord's di-
vinity. Thus again the question recorded in
Mark, "Why callest thou me good?" is most
significantly transmuted by Matthew into
[74]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
"Why askest thou me concerning that which
is good?" (Mk. x. 18; Mt. xix. 17); where
we cannot doubt that Mark gives us the true
form. The real emphasis in it, of course, falls
upon the adjective, not the pronoun; not "why
callest thou me good*?" but "why callest thou
me 'good"?" It is the story of a man in a
hurry, who comes "running" to Jesus and asks,
"Good teacher, what am I to do to gain eternal
life 1 ?" "First measure your words," is the
answer. "You call me 'good.' You use that
word lightly; what meaning has it for you?
What is your standard of goodness what your
ideal*? The divine one of perfection, for God
only is truly 'good,' or the human conventional
standard of your day? Begin by adjusting
your moral values, by pausing to think what
'goodness' means." The writer of Matthew,
however, fearing that the saying might be mis-
interpreted as, indeed, it has been often
was afraid to record it with the candour of
St. Mark.
Yet, for all its frank and eager insistence on
our Lord's humanity, Mark insists no less that,
in a unique sense, He is divine. It emphasizes
His supernatural powers. It gives us the story
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of the Transfiguration. And it records the de-
cisive answer of our Lord Himself: "Again
the high priest asked him, and saith unto him,
Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
And Jesus said, I am." (xiv. 62.) It is worth
while to notice that in this, the earliest of our
Gospels, the claim of Jesus to be the divine
Messiah is made quite explicitly, as implicitly
also it is the basis upon which His unique "au-
thority," both as a teacher and a healer, is
based.
Special emphasis in the story of His Gali-
lean work is laid upon His authority over
evil spirits, which He banishes from their vic-
tims. "Preaching and casting out devils" is
a phrase in which St. Mark summarizes His
work. (i. 39.) So, too, when the Apostles
were sent forth "they cast out many devils."
(vi. 13.) The belief that many forms of ill-
ness were due to evil spirits was held by all
the people among whom our Lord lived. That
many of such maladies were in truth due to
quite other causes is indubitable. That there
were no genuine cases of demoniacal posses-
sion or, indeed, that no such cases exist to-
day is an assertion |:o which few medical men
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
who have worked among primitive races would
care to commit themselves. But the important
point for us to remember as we read the Gos-
pels is that our Lord spoke and worked in
accordance with the thought of His day. Dr.
Headlam has put this admirably : 1
Our Lord's language is completely in accordance with
the religious and scientific ideas of His contempo-
raries. He acts recognizing fully what both the on-
lookers and those whom He cured would think. It is
obvious that nothing else would have been possible
on His part. Let us ask those who feel troubled by
this, what particular theory our Lord should have
substituted for that current in His time. Do they think
that He ought to have talked in the scienific and
medical language of the present day? It is obvious
that to have done so would have conveyed no mean-
ing to anyone who heard Him, deprived Him of
power and influence, made His actions vain and in-
effectual. The one condition of being able 'to exer-
cise His ministry as a man teaching men w&s that I^e
should do it in accordance with the thought and
ideas of the dayf i." ' '
ff
Dr. Headlam writes this with special refer-
ence to the belief in evil spirits "current in our
Lord's age. But it is true of many other be-
liefs of that time; beliefs which Jesus Christ,,
1 In his Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ, p. 187.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
having taken our nature upon Him, adopted
or shared. A great number of the difficulties
people feel as they read the Gospels will van-
ish if they keep this truth in mind. To under-
stand the Gospels, we have continually to re-
member for whom they were written, and what
were the ideas and knowledge of those people
to whom the words of Jesus were spoken.
V
From the story of the work in Galilee we
must turn to the other main section of Mark.
The last journey to Jerusalem begins at verse
32 of the intermediate chapter, x. Its first
words are unutterably impressive. In one sen-
tence they give us a picture we get in no other
Gospel. To appreciate it, we must remember
what had happened. Despite its wonderful
incidental results, our Lord's mission so far
had failed in regard to its great purpose. He
had meant to work through the national
church of his country. That plan had been
begun with every prospect of success. But
after a while, and with steadily increasing^bit-
terness, the leaders of the church had set them-
selves to oppose Him. Then He had taken to
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the method of itinerant preaching among the
people, and then to that of concentrating His
instruction upon the Twelve. Now even Gali-
lee, though its people were His enthusiastic
followers, had become territory where He was
in constant danger of arrest, owing to Herod's
hostility. In fact, it was the popular devotion
to Jesus which alarmed Herod and his advisers,
who lived in fear of a political revolt and an
attempt to make a king of this new leader.
Long before, He had been ostracized from the
synagogues. His Gospel of a spiritual king-
dom had been misunderstood even by His
friends. There was no great national religious
movement, such as He had desired, which
would lead up to His acceptance as the Mes-
siah. What could He do 1 ? He could retire
into the country east of Galilee and continue
to teach and heal there in safety. Yet this
would not forward His supreme aim. Or He
could publicly enter Jerusalem at the time of
the coming Passover, in a way that would as-
sert His claim to be the Christ. Jerusalem was
the home of His bitterest enemies. To take
this step must mean His death. But by His
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
death He might establish His Kingdom, as He
had failed to do by His life.
To face those tremendous issues, Jesus had
gone apart to meditate. His disciples, with
other Galilseans, are on the road to Jerusalem
for the Passover. Suddenly Jesus appears and
places Himself at their head. His resolve is
fixed. His decision has been made. There is
a new look on His face which fills those who
see Him with wonder and awe. That is the
picture which Mark brings before us. "And
they were in the way, going up to Jerusalem,
and Jesus was going before, them; and they
were amazed, and they that followed were
afraid." We may well be grateful that thus
St. Peter's memory of this supreme moment
should have been enshrined for us in the Gos-
pel of St. Mark.
The five chapters that follow give us the
day-by-day account of Holy Week: Sunday
(xi. 1-1 1) ; Monday (xi. 12-19) Tuesday (xi.
20 xiii. 37) ; Wednesday (xiv. l-l l) ; Thurs-
day (xiv. 12-52) and Friday (xiv. 53 xv.
47). Again I would urge the reader to go
through these five chapters at a sitting, with-
out lingering on details, in order to realize
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
their full effect. Then, in a way impossible if
We take but a little at a time, we become con-
scious of the dignity, the restraint, the vivid
detail, the quiet yet overwhelming force of
this narrative. If, in one sense, it is mag-
nificently simple, in another it is simply mag-
nificent. It carries conviction. Its numerous
little lifelike touches and its candour make us
sure that these chapters are based upon ac-
counts given by those who saw what here is
described. Beyond all else, and above all range
of human imagination, stands out the figure of
Jesus Christ as He deals with all manner of
people and questions, as He ministers to His
disciples, as He prays, and suffers, and dies.
There are, of course, some discrepancies in
the accounts of the different Gospels. We
should have far more reason to doubt their
general trustworthiness if we found what
would seem like a contrived agreement on every
minute point. Again, elaborate attempts have
been made to explain away the fact that in
xi. 35-37 our Lord bases an argument on the
assumption that Psalm 1 10 is the work of
David, whereas in all probability it belongs
to a much later age. But as Jesus used the
[81]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
medical knowledge of His own time, so He
adopted the Biblical scholarship of that period.
His acceptance of them then does not bind His
followers to accept them to-day. The same
thought will help us when we meet, in another
Gospel, His use of the story of Jonah.
A small point in xiv. 41 is worth noticing,
because it may serve to illustrate the fresh
light thrown on the New Testament within re-
cent years by the discovery of papyri. These
have revealed the fact that Greek of the kind
used in the writing of the Gospels was the
common language of the time. Thus, though
St. Mark wrote at Rome, far more of his
readers there would know Greek than Latin.
The papyri that have been unearthed are let-
ters, inscriptions, business documents of many
kinds, and so forth. Very many words occur
in them that were previously thought to be un-
known outside the New Testament, and thus
we often get new ideas as to the real meaning
of such words.
Now let us look at xiv. 41 of Mark. It
contains a sentence spoken by our Lord as the
traitor Judas entered Gethsemane. In our
English Bible we read "it is enough; the hour
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed
into the hands of sinners." Now what is the
force of the word it is one word in Greek
here translated "it is enough" ? The numerous
receipts that have been found among the papyri
show that it was the word used on them, as
the equivalent, so to speak, of our "paid."
Literally it means "he has it in full"; that is,
"he has received his payment." This suggests
a rendering of the sentence in Mark far more
significant than the rather pointless "it is
enough." Our Lord is speaking of Judas.
"He has accepted the bribe; the hour is come;
behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the
hands of sinners."
As we read the account of our Lord's trials
and condemnation, we should have in mind
their various stages, not air of which are men-
tioned in Mark. We shall remember them
more easily if we tabulate them, thus:
A The ecclesiastical trial, on the charge of blas-
phemy.
(1) Jesus is taken to the house of Annas.
(2) He is tried by the Sanhedrin, under the presi-
dency of Caiaphas, and declared guilty. But
the proceedings were technically irregular, b-
[83]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
cause the Law decreed that formal meetings
of the Sanhendrin could only be held between
dawn and sunset. Therefore
(3) At dawn the Sanhedrin meets formally and
passes sentence of death. But it has no power
to execute this. On the other hand, the
Roman governor would not listen to a charge
of blasphemy. So there follows :
B. The civil trial, on the charges of sedition and
treason:
(1) Before Pilate.
(2) Pilate tries to remit the case to Herod.
(3) Final trial before Pilate, and sentence of
death passed by him.
After the Wednesday night there was no
rest for the divine Sufferer before the tomb.
VI
We have seen that the last twelve verses of
chapter xvi. represent an attempt, of the sec-
ond century, to complete the unfinished or mu-
tilated Gospel. Another and shorter ending,
of about the same date, is found in some MSS.
It runs thus :
And all that had been commanded they reported
briefly to the companions of Peter. And afterwards
Jesus Himself appeared to them, and from the east
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
to the west sent out by means of them the holy and
incorruptible message of eternal salvation.
As we close this book, let me make a final
suggestion. The reader has followed the plan,
I assume, of going straight through the two
main sections, and then has looked at them,
with the preface, intermediate chapter, and
epilogue, in some detail. Now, after a few
days' interval, so that he may return to it with
an unwearied mind, let him set aside a quiet
hour for reading through, at a sitting, the whole
of Mark from beginning to end. That will
help to fix in his memory the points he has
noted. But, more than that, it will give him
a new impression of the book as a whole. The
Gospel of St. Mark will mean more to him
than ever it did previously. It will glow with
fresh beauty, interest, and significance. It will
become a book that, in a new sense, he under-
stands; a book the treasures of which he can
now count as his own.
[85]
CHAPTER FIVE
Matthew: The Gospel of the Messiah
THE title of each Gospel, as we find it in
the New Testament to-day, does not come
to us from the original document. It was pre-
fixed by some copyist and, in its earliest form,
consisted of two Greek words only: "accord-
ingto Matthew" or Mark, or Luke, or
John. To describe a letter from St. Paul as
"Paul's Epistle to" this or the other church
would have seemed quite legitimate at that
period, but no one would have spoken of
"Matthew's Gospel." The idea of the copyist
who wrote "according to Matthew" at the head
of his papyrus was that there could be one
Gospel only, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The
book he was about to transcribe contained the
setting forth of that one Gospel according to
an individual tradition. Before long, "accord-
ing to" was understood as ascribing authorship
to the name which followed. At first, however,
it did not imply necessarily that the book in
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
its completed form was written by the teacher
named, though it did imply that his teaching
was contained in it.
A rough analogy may make the distinction
clearer. Let us suppose that some modem
writer wished to popularize Macaulay's view
of English History, and that he put together
a book for the purpose. We should expect its
main feature to be long passages transcribed
from Macaulay, supplemented by quotations
from other historians, and perhaps from re-
searches of the compiler himself. Having com-
pleted his book, obviously he could not label it
on the cover "Macaulay's History of Eng-
land." Yet he might very well entitle it "Eng-
lish History according to Macaulay." In the
same kind of way, "according to Matthew" did
not strictly mean "here follows a book written
by Matthew," but "here follows the Gospel of
Jesus Christ according to Matthew's present-
ment of it." The reference is to the originator
of the tradition, not necessarily to its recorder.
Of course they may be the same. No later
hand seems to have edited Mark or Luke; here
we have two Gospel traditions written down
in their ultimate form by the men whose names
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
they bear. The Fourth Gospel, on the con-
trary, seems to be explicitly compiled by an
editor from earlier written memoirs of a dis-
ciple. "This," says the editor in speaking of
him, "is the disciple which beareth witness of
these things and wrote these things, and we
know that his witness is true." (John xxi. 24.)
Thus the book we are now to examine is the
Gospel "according to the Matthaean tradition,"
and the two conclusions about it which almost
all modern scholars accept is, first, that it is
not written by St. Matthew, and, secondly, that
it contains much which St. Matthew wrote.
II
Perhaps these statements need elucidation.
Let us consider them in turn. Why is it most
unlikely that the Gospel, as we possess it, was
written by St. Matthew himself 1 ? Through
many centuries, indeed up to a time compara-
tively recent, his authorship of it was accepted
without question. As we shall see, however,
the belief arose from a misunderstanding for
which it is easy to account. And we have
ample cause for calling the Gospel Matthaean,
for feeling confident that it embodies St.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Matthew's tradition, even if we cannot think
that the book as it now stands was his work.
Whoever the author, one fact about his method
is clear. When he described the events of our
Lord's ministry, as distinguished from reports
of His teaching, this writer did not do so in
his own words. Instead, he borrowed the nar-
rative that had been given already in Mark. 1
Sometimes he reproduced the sentences exactly
as they stood. More often he treated them
with great freedom, altering and rearranging
them, and omitting phrases he thought inju-
dicious. But that his narrative-sections are
copied and not original is beyond question.
Now, is it likely, is it even conceivable, that
1 Here, as on later pages, I speak of Matthew or Luke
"copying Mark," because the brevity of the phrase is con-
renient, and also because it is really applicable, whether
(as most critics think) they had before them the actual
Gospel of Mark, or (as I incline to believe) they copied,
not from the Gospel, but from the earlier "Memoirs of St.
Peter," which Mark wrote down and afterwards repro-
duced in his Gospel. These Memoirs would be eagerly
sought after by the early Church, and copied often. If
they were only to be found in Mark's Gospel, that Gospel
would have had a great vogue. In point of fact, it met
with a neglect that has puzzled students. But Mark him-
self had no great status. His Gospel as such would Dot
be prized highly if his "Memoirs of Peter" had already been
circulated in a separate form.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
St. Matthew, being one of the Twelve, wish-
ing to describe the ministry he had witnessed
day by day, would not describe in his own
words what he had seen, but would be content
to reproduce a ready-made account from an-
other man's book 1 ?
Take another point. Mark, embodying the
Memoirs of St. Peter, reproduces many pas-
sages which describe quite frankly the misun-
derstandings and the failures of the Apostles.
This splendid candour obviously dismayed the
writer of Matthew. Therefore whenever in
his copying he came upon such a sentence, either
he toned it down or omitted it entirely. Thus,
in place of "they disputed one with another,
who was the greatest" and the rebuke which
follows (Mark ix. 34), we find "the disciples
came unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest
in the kingdom of heaven*?" (Matt, xviii. i.)
Instead of "they understood not the saying,
and were afraid to ask him" (Mark ix. 32) we
have "they were exceeding sorry." (Matt,
xvii. 23.) Among the sentences appearing in
Mark, but deleted from the corresponding pas-
sages in Matthew, are "their heart was hard-
ened," "they questioned among themselves
[90]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
what the rising from the dead should mean,"
"they wist not what to answer him," and a
good many others. Thinking them derogatory
to the repute of the Twelve, the writer of
Matthew expunged them from his Gospel.
This practice of his is familiar, of course, to
all commentators, and is duly noticed by them.
But I do not know that any of them has con-
sidered its bearing upon the question of au-
thorship. Supposing that St. Matthew, being
one of the Twelve, had been willing to take
over for his own work St. Peter's record of
facts, I cannot believe that he would have tam-
pered with it for the sake of putting himself
and his fellow-Apostles in a more favourable
light. But I can easily believe these altera-
tions and omissions to have been made by a
later disciple, if it were he who compiled the
Matthaean Gospel. He would do it because he
was jealous for the honour of the Apostles in
the Church, and thought that honour would be
diminished by, as it seemed to him, St. Peter's
most injudicious candour. This seems another
reason for thinking that the Gospel, in its pres-
ent shape, was not written by St. Matthew the
Apostle.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
But if he did not write it, what part had he
in it, and how came his name to be linked with
it? The answer is supplied by Papias, that
second-century bishop who, as we have seen
already, is quoted by the historian Eusebius.
Papias affirmed that St. Matthew wrote down
in Hebrew the "logia," or Discourses, of our
Lord. By "Hebrew" Papias doubtless meant
"Aramaic," which was the vernacular in which
most, if not all, of the Discourses had been
spoken. Now the Discourses, of which the
Sermon on the Mount is a notable example,
form a very important part of the Matthaean
Gospel. None of the other synoptic Gospels
record them with anything like the same com-
pleteness. So we can easily see how the belief
would arise that the reference of Papias was
to the Gospel, and that he definitely named St.
Matthew as the Gospel's writer. That belief
would be more readily encouraged because the
theory that it came from an Apostle would in-
vest the book with special authority. "This
book is full of the Discourses; Papias tells us
that St. Matthew wrote down the Discourses;
therefore he must mean that St. Matthew wrote
this Gospel." That was the line of reasoning,
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
and, in an uncritical age, it was speedily ac-
cepted.
Yet it was mistaken. It ignored the fact
that Papias, and the other early witnesses
quoted by Eusebius, carefully state that St.
Matthew wrote in Hebrew. But Matthew is
written in Greek, and always was so written.
Its narrative sections could not have been writ-
ten in Greek, translated into Hebrew or
Aramaic, translated back again into Greek, and
still have kept just the same Greek wording
that is found in Mark. It is possible, of course,
that St. Matthew did write a complete Aramaic
Gospel which has disappeared. But there is
no evidence for that view. It is most unlikely
that such a book written by such a man would
have been allowed to pass completely out of
sight. And Papias and the others do not af-
firm that St. Matthew made a Gospel. All
that he did put down, according to them, was
our Lord's Discourses.
That collection of Discourses, then, the com-
piler of the Matthaean Gospel took over, trans-
lated into Greek, and made them the most
prominent part of his book. Because in this
way so much of its value was due to St. Mat-
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE QOSPELS
thew's work, and because it enshrined his tradi-
tion, there was entire fitness jin heading it at
a later time with the words "according to
Matthew." Then, as we have seen already,
the compiler utilized, with his own character-
istic modifications, the Memoirs of St. Peter,
either in their original form, or as reproduced
in Mark. Thirdly, he had some independent
sources of information.' Thus his account of
our Lord's birth seems to have been derived
from St. Joseph. Dr. Streeter conjectures a
document he calls "M," originating from Jeru-
salem and coloured by the teaching of St.
James, as another source' of Matthew. But,
without concerning himself with such intricate
if interesting hypotheses, the reader will be on
fairly sure ground if he believes the Gospel to
be derived mainly from (a) the Discourses,
(b) the Petrine Memoirs, and (c) private
sources of information.
Ill
In order to read Matthew intelligently, we
must keep in mind its point of view. We have
noted already its main characteristic. Unlike
Mark, which was intended for a Gentile pub-
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
lie, Matthew was composed solely to meet the
needs of the Jews. Its purpose was to show
them Jesus as their King and promised Mes-
siah. We can imagine the questions a Jew
would ask when he was invited to accept Jesus
of Nazareth as the Christ. Was He of the
lineage of David? Could it be shown that His
deeds accorded with those foretold of the Mes-
siah by the prophets'? Was He a conservative
or a liberal in the ecclesiastical controversies
of His day? Had He upheld the Law? He
had taught as a Rabbi; what was His teach-
ing? How had He interpreted the traditions
of the elders? In particular, what were His
views about the chief duties of religion, such
as prayer, fasting and almsgiving? Apocalyp-
tic writings, penned after the age of prophecy
had closed, encouraged the people to expect
the setting up of a divine Kingdom; had Jesus
proclaimed that Kingdom? They had pictured
a Day of Judgment, when God's chosen people
would be vindicated and their enemies con-
sumed. Had Jesus revived that hope?
Such were questions a religious Jew would
ask. Such were the questions Matthew was
[95]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
written to answer. And it was not intended
only to convince doubters, but to strengthen
the faith of Jews who already belonged to the
Christian Church. It linked our Lord's life and
teaching with the Scriptures they had been
taught to venerate. And it combined, in a way
that at times seems to us perplexing, the old
belief in the exclusive privileges of the Jew
with the new belief in a church where there
was neither circumcision nor uncircumcision.
Some of the sayings are so reported as to have
a distinctly Judaistic tinge: "I was not sent
but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" ;
"do not even the Gentiles the same*?"; "after
all these things do the Gentiles seek" ; "Go not
into any way of the Gentiles" ; with other sen-
tences that seem to imply that Christianity is
wholly Jewish. But in sharp contrast with
these, we find such sayings as "Many shall
come from the east and the west, and shall sit
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in
the kingdom of heaven"; "the kingdom of God
shall be taken away from you and shall be
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof"; "go ye therefore and make disciples
of all the nations." These apparent diver-
[96]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
gences may be present because the compiler has
utilized a variety of sources coloured by differ-
ent views. There can be no doubt, however,
which strain of teaching was the more con-
sonant with the ultimate intention of our Lord.
To understand the Matthew Gospel, then,
we must always keep in mind the fact that it
was intended, not for the world in general, but
for Jewish readers. Its most probable date
seems to be immediately before or shortly after
the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70. On the
whole, the latter seems the more likely. But
the whole of this period must have been one
of intense strain and doubt for the Jew. The
Holy Gity was menaced if not already over-
thrown. That Second Coming, which the early
Christian Church had looked for eagerly and
confidently, was still delayed. Was the belief
in Jesus as the Christ, after all, an Illusion?
The old question of the Baptist, "art Thou He
that should come, or do we look for another*?"
recurred with a new intensity. To meet that
question, to allay those fears, the Gospel of
Matthew was written. Its author's endeavour
was to show that the life of Jesus was in such
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
precise accord with what had been foretold of
the Messiah that all doubts must be laid aside.
We may feel that a book thus framed to meet
the special needs of Jews in the first century
cannot be the Gospel best suited to the needs
of Gentile readers in the twentieth. And we
may admit frankly that, if we judge it from
a purely modern standpoint, the book has some
evident flaws. We have noticed already how
its writer's fears about the possible results of
St. Peter's frankness led him to omit some pas-
sages and to transform others. The latter, at
least, of these devices is hard to justify. Again,
he seems to stress overmuch the predictive ele-
ment in prophecy, while the way in which oc-
casionally he adapts a prophetic text in order
to equip an event with its prediction must seem
more ingenious than ingenuous. Perversions
of this type seem unjustifiable if we regard
them in the light of our own literary ethics.
But that is just what we have no right to do.
Undoubtedly the compiler of Matthew altered
and edited the documents he cited in order to
make them accord with his ideas of fitness.
Yet he would do that with a perfectly clear
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
conscience, for he. was but following the ac-
cepted practice of his time.
Indeed, there is a true sense in which the
value of this Gospel is enhanced by the very
characteristics that seem most open to criti-
cism. Just in proportion as it is essentially
Jewish in atmosphere, it does for us what can
be done by neither of the other synoptic Gos-
pels. Mark is a Gentile book. Luke is a Gen-
tile book. But our Lord spent His earthly
life as a Jew, in a Jewish setting. Therefore
it is Matthew, an essentially Jewish Gospel,
which helps us best to realize that setting. Far
more clearly than any other it reveals the re-
ligious background of our Lord's time, the creed
and limitations of those by whom He was sur-
rounded, the strength of the rabbinic tradition
against which [e had to contend, His own
work as a Jewish religious teacher, and the
professional jealousy which brought about His
death. Remembering, too, that the book en-
riching our knowledge in these ways is also the
book which alone preserves for us in a com-
plete form the Sermon on the Mount and the
Lord's Prayer, certainly we shall not be likely
to underrate the Gospel of Matthew.
[99]
CHAPTER SIX
Matthew: The Teacher and His
Teaching
EVEN a glance through the pages of the first
two Gospels will show a striking point
of difference between them. In effect, it is a
difference of method due to a difference of
purpose. We may attempt to state it concisely
by saying that the aim of Mark is to tell a
story, of Matthew to paint a picture. St.
Mark's story, through no fault of his, is in-
complete. There are periods in the ministry of
our Lord concerning which he has little in-
formation. Then, in place of a consecutive
narrative, his book becomes a record of de-
tached incidents. He is sure that they are
authentic, but his sources do not enable him
to specify the exact time or place of their oc-
currence. When, on the other hand, his ma-
terial is adequate, as it is for his descriptions
of the Galilsean ministry and the last week in
Jerusalem, he brings the scenes before us in
[100]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
accurate sequence.- He is anxious to tell us
not merely what happened, but when it hap-
pened. In fact, through this period, he is writ-
ing the story of our Lord's life.
The Matthaean editor follows quite another
plan. The outline account of the main facts
he is content to borrow from Mark, reinforc-
ing it by information from independent sources.
Within this framework he arranges deeds and
words, not according to their order of time but
their congruity of subject. It is easy to imag-
ine him at work. He is, let us say, transcrib-
ing a parable. While he does that, he recalls
another, rather similar in its moral. Down,
therefore, it goes, immediately after the first.
The one may have been spoken in Capernaum;
the other two years later in Jerusalem. That
does not trouble the compiler. Unlike St.
Mark, he is not attempting to write history.
For chronological order, he cares very little.
What he does care for is to set out our Lord's
teaching in the clearest possible way. He shifts
and transposes events into whatever sequence
he thinks will best help his readers to grasp
the teaching, and to gain a clear picture of the
Divine Teacher, the Messiah of Israel.
[101]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
It is very important, therefore, that we
should be prepared to find this system of group-
ing, if we are to read Matthew intelligently.
If we try to take it as a consecutive history,
while having in our minds a fairly clear recol-
lection of the Mark Gospel, we shall be hope-
lessly perplexed. We shall find repeatedly the
same event described in both Gospels, but as
happening, apparently, at quite different times.
Elaborate efforts to "reconcile" the chronology
of the two books have proved unconvincing.
And well they might, the truth being that, ex-
cept in outline, Matthew is not chronological
at all.
Apart, too, from this aim of making his pic-
ture vivid by massed details, probably the
compiler had a further reason for grouping.
His book would be used for the instruction of
Christian converts. Such teaching was given
by the catechetical method, and it seems likely
that the writer was himself a catechist. What
he had to provide, then, was, as we should say,
a book suitable for the use of study-circles.
But these were study-circles learning by the
oral method only; it was impossible to equip
each member of the class with a manuscript
[102]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
copy of the Gospel. That would be in the
hands of the teacher alone. He would expound
it, and repeat its most important passages until
his hearers had memorized them. This they
would be able to do with a rapidity that would
astonish us. The training and development of
the memory formed an essential part of Jewish
education, and in early ages, before the inven-
tion of printing made reliance on it needless,
verbal memory was much stronger than it is
among civilized nations to-day.
Naturally, the writer would frame his Gos-
pel with a view to the use it was to fulfill. He
would so arrange its principal sections as to
make the learning of them by heart as easy
as possible. That may go far to explain his
fondness for grouping. Consider, for instance,
a number of sayings on kindred subjects
spoken at various times during the three years'
ministry. If they are all brought together and
given consecutively, they will be memorized
far more easily than if they appear at inter-
vals, with long stretches of narrative between
them.
Another device which Matthew seems to em-
ploy very often as an aid to memory is that
03 ]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of numbers. He puts together sayings or
events in groups of three, five, or seven. In
the Introduction to his Commentary on Mat-
thew Dr. Plummer, who examined this char-
acteristic closely, gave no fewer than thirty-
eight "triplets" from the Gospel. That seems
too large a number to be the result of acci-
dent. By way" of example, let us take those
found in a single chapter (xxiii). In it we
have: Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites feasts,
synagogues, market-places (6) ; teacher, father,
master (8-10); Temple and gold, altar and
gift, heaven and throne (16-22); tithing of
mint, dill, and cummin contrasted with judg-
ment, mercy, and faith (23); tithing, strain-
ing, cleansing (23-26) ; prophets, wise men,
scribes (34). The argument that the very
numerous "triplets" in Matthew are inten-
tional and a part of its scheme appears much
stronger when we observe that, as Dr. Plum-
mer pointed out, they are frequently absent
from the corresponding passages in Mark and
Luke. Often those Evangelists have two or
four words where Matthew has the three. Thus
Luke has "judgment and the love of God" in-
stead of "judgment, mercy and faith" ; he has
[104]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
"heart, soul, strength and mind" where Mat-
thew has "heart, soul, and mind."
Without insisting too much, however, on this
detail of the scheme, we shall feel that the
compiler of Matthew succeeded in his general
purpose. His artificial rearrangement of his
materials, if it lessened the value of the book
as history, gave it both colour and precision.
We should still find it much easier to learn by
heart a chapter of Matthew than a chapter of
Mark. This specially is true of the Discourses,
which fill no less than three-quarters of the
whole Gospel. Every reader wishing to
strengthen his acquaintance with the most char-
acteristic and valuable feature of the Mat-
thaean Gospel should read the five great Dis-
courses, each at a sitting. They are (i) the
Sermon on the Mount (chaps, v., vi., and vii.) ;
(2) the address on discipleship (x. 5 to end) ;
(3) the collection of parables (xiii. 3-53) ; (4)
lessons of humility, renunciation, and forgive-
ness (xviii.), and (5) the apocalyptic 'dis-
course (xxiv. 4~xxv. to end). It is charac-
teristic, again, of the compiler's orderly method
that he rounds off each of these Discourses with
the same formula, "when Jesus had finished,"
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
(vii. 28, xi. i, xiii. 53, xix. 1, xxvi. i.) He
will have no such ambiguity as occurs more
than once in the Fourth Gospel, when it is
difficult to be sure at what point our Lord's
words end and the evangelist's comment begins.
II
The Discourses, then, probably written down
by St. Matthew, and certainly translated,
edited, and arranged by the compiler of .the
Matthaean Gospel, form the largest and most
important part of the book. The compiler was
far more interested in them than in the narra-
tive of our Lord's life,- and frequently he ab-
breviated his other material in order to give
the Discourses at length. More clearly than
any of the others, this evangelist shows us
Jesus Christ the Teacher.
That was the guise in which He appeared
to His fellow-countrymen during the years of
His public work. At its outset He "preached"
for a short time, reiterating the message of the
Baptist. Occasionally afterwards, as in the
lament over Jerusalem, His words must have
recalled to their hearers the language of the
prophets. But it was as a "Rabbi," a religious
[106]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
teacher, that He was known and addressed,
alike by friends and enemies. As its equiva-
lent, the Greek word meaning "teacher" is used
of Him repeatedly in the Gospels; the Greek
word which means "preacher" is not once ap-
plied to Him. That the ambiguous word
"Master" should have been adopted by the
English translators in place of "Teacher" is
most unfortunate. Only in the margin of the
Revised Version does "or, Teacher" appear as
an alternative rendering. This undoubtedly
has helped to conceal from English readers the
fact which the evangelists in general, and the
editor of Matthew in particular, were anxious
to make clear the fact that Jesus lived and
worked as a Teacher during most of His min-
istry.
The Jewish readers for whom the Mat-
thaean Gospel was designed would recognize
this fact at once. It would be shown, by nu-
merous little details, the force of which is apt
to be hidden from us. For example, there
seems little point to us in the statement that
Jesus "sat down," as in the verse prefacing
the Sermon on the Mount. But it had ample
point for a Jew. He knew that the ritual
[107]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
custom of a rabbi was to stand for prayer and
reading, and to sit down for teaching. When
a rabbi seated himself in public, it was a sign
that he proposed to give instruction. Again,
while anyone might instruct about morals,
rabbis alone might expound the Law and the
Tradition, giving directions about such mat-
ters as sabbath-observance. Not for a moment
would the people have listened to a man pre-
suming to handle such themes unless they had
taken him for a rabbi. Thus we can under-
stand the immense astonishment of those who
heard Jesus. He seemed to be a rabbi, He
spoke as one "having authority" to interpret
the Law, "yet not as their Scribes" taught were
the interpretations He gave! Only in the last
week at Jerusalem, however, was His "author-
ity" challenged.
So this Gospel helps us to realize an aspect
of our Lord's life which, evident to early
readers, has subsequently been obscured. It
shows how, humanly speaking, He "rose from
the ranks," beginning as an artisan, and becom-
ing a recognized Teacher. That, perhaps, had
been His ambition from early days, and there-
fore, because of its significance for His future,
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
just one episode of His boyhood is recorded.
St. Luke shows how in early boyhood already
He wanted to be with the rabbis, how eagerly
He listened to their expositions. His Mother
pondered these things in her heart, as mothers
will, but there can have seemed little chance
that the boyish wish would be realized. We
can only guess at the self-denial, the hardly
won hours of study amid the work of an artisan
that made possible its fulfilment. And how
true to human nature is the story of that day
when He returned to teach as a rabbi in the
synagogue of Nazareth! Elsewhere He was
honoured, but here "Is not this the work-
man?" His fellow-townsmen exclaimed, and
were offended at Him. Matthew, in charac-
teristic fashion, changes "the workman" into
"the son of the workman," and tones down
other phrases in the same story. We cannot
doubt that Mark's is the true version.
"Workman," or, more precisely, "builder,"
seems a better rendering of the Greek word
than the "carpenter" of our English Bible.
The word, tekton^ does not occur elsewhere in
the New Testament, but St. Paul describes
himself as an archi-tekton (whence our "archi-
[109]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
tect"), which is translated "master-builder."
Tekton was used often, but not exclusively, of
workers in wood. 1 In late Greek it was used
of a sculptor. And in Palestine the same man,
when engaged in building, was often both car-
penter and mason. 2 Certainly we shall find a
new aptness in many of our Lord's sayings and
illustrations if we may suppose that He worked
as a builder before beginning His ministry as
a rabbi. He knew the importance of a good
foundation, the difference between houses on
rock and on sand. He Himself would build
His Church upon the rock. He knew the folly
of the man who set out to build a tower with-
out having obtained a precise estimate. To
Him, as an expert, a disciple turned for an
opinion on the great stones and buildings of
the Temple. Finally, .among the sayings at-
tributed to Jesus in the Oxyrhynchus papyri
* "It is worth while to remember that tekton is wider than
Carpenter.' " Moulton-Milligan, Vocabulary of New Testa-
ment Greek, p. 82. But cf. pp. 628, 639.
'Even though tekton be rendered faber tignarius, ,the
definition of Gaius (Dig. 50, 16, 235), "Fabros tignarios
dicimus non eos duntaxat qui tigna dolarent, sed omnes qui
eedificarent" should be remembered. An excellent article
on the whole subject, by Professor F. Granger, appeared
in the Expositor, June, 1920.
[no]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
is the sentence: "Raise the stone and there
thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood and there
am I." The early date of these papyri, the
fact that most of the sentences they quote are
paralleled in the Gospels, and the very striking
character of this particular utterance, seem to
favour the possibility that it may be authentic.
At first sight, however, it appears to have a
pantheistic meaning, difficult to reconcile with
our Lord's recorded doctrine. But the view
of His early years which we have been con-
sidering may give the saying another and more
literal significance. "Raise the stone and there
thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood and there
am I" are these the words of one who has
been both mason and carpenter, one who, in
our everyday phrase, has put Himself into His
work?
Ill
It is upon Jesus no longer the artisan but the
teacher that the Matthaean Gospel fixes our
gaze. Teaching as a rabbi, it would follow
that He employed the rabbinic methods of
teaching. If He did so, we can be the surer
that the record of His words is trustworthy.
[ml
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Once more, let us remind ourselves that the
Jews used different words for "teaching" and
"preaching" because they denoted quite dif-
ferent things. Preaching implied a connected
discourse of some length. When Jesus
preached (as He did in the apocalyptic dis-
course of xxiv xxv.), we cannot expect a ver-
batim report of all He said. The memory
would not retain it or a Gospel contain it. Of
the long discourses what we have must be an
impression rather than a transcript, though
doubtless the more striking phrases are set down
as they were spoken. It is likely enough that
St. Matthew, whose profession had accustomed
him to the daily use of the pen, would commit
his recollections to writing at an early date,
and the trained memory of the Jew could
achieve a fidelity of reproduction of which
modern hearers would be incapable. Even so,
however, we cannot have a full account of the
preaching, or one in which misunderstanding
may not occasionally have coloured a sentence.
It is otherwise with the teaching, and of this
the Matthaean Gospel is mainly composed.
What, for instance, we term "the Sermon on
the Mount" was not, as we employ the word,
[112]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
a sermon at all. It is made up throughout of
teaching, not preaching. The method of the
Jewish religious teachers was to compress into
a few succinct and pointed sentences the ex-
pression of any truth they deemed of special
importance. Then the teacher would repeat
the sentences many times with his disciples,
until they knew them by heart. There is every
reason to suppose that Jesus utilized this ac-
customed method of teaching by repetition.
The pointed, gnomic sentences of which the
Sermon on the Mount consists are exactly
suited for this purpose. Again, the use of
teaching by parable was common among the
rabbis; a lesson so taught would easily be mem-
orized. Here, too, our Lord found in vogue
a practice exactly suited to His purpose. Hour
by hour He would sit and teach, until they
who listened had His sayings firmly in their
memories.
This makes it reasonable to believe that the
Gospels preserve for us (with the change only
of Aramaic into Greek) what Jesus actually
said when He taught. Of the teaching, as dis-
tinct from the preaching, the reports given by
the evangelists do not read like summaries.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
We seem to have complete sentences, each of
which leads logically to the next. Yet a dis-
course which, as we gather from the narrative,
took a considerable time for its delivery, can
often be read through by us in a few minutes.
The fact is explained, however, if our Lord
followed the teaching-method of His day, re-
peating many times the same aphorisms and
parables, causing His pupils to recite with Him
His chief rules of conduct. Thus taught, they
would be able afterwards to reproduce in writ-
ing the very words they had heard. When we
read the teaching in the Gospels, we feel that
we too are listening to the authentic words of
Christ. No human being could have shaped
mere reminiscences of His doctrine into this
perfect form. If we can bring to our reading
not merely technical scholarship but an alert
literary sense, we must feel that the Gospel
record of the discourses is accurate. But we
have no longer to postulate some supernatural
feat of memory in order to account for this
accuracy.
We can only guess at the toil which the Mas-
ter must have given, in those hardly won hours
of solitude, to framing His message. He had
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
to condense its essence into a few sentences.
He had to enshrine profound truths in phrases
easily remembered by simple folk. We detract
from His greatness as a teacher if we suppose
Him to have taught without long forethought.
We "multiply miracles beyond necessity" if
we imagine those matchless parables of His to
be mere improvisations. No; our Lord knew
the true joy of the teacher as He held the
attention of the listeners by some carefully
planned lesson, as they recited with Him the
Beatitudes or His Prayer. He knew the joy
of the creative artist as He thought out, in
all its exquisite detail, the story of the Prodigal
Son.
IV
It is, then, its picture of our Lord as the
teacher, and the detail in which it records His
teaching, that chiefly give this Gospel its im-
mense and enduring value. But there is also
much else in it both of historic interest and
practical instruction. In order to understand
the book as a whole, however, the reader must
keep in mind its primary object of convincing
Jewish readers that our Lord was the Messiah,
["5]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the King for whose advent they had been
taught to look. That purpose dominates the
book from beginning to end. The genealogy
with which it opens is intended to show that
Jesus is of the royal line, is legally descended
from David. The story of the Magi is sym-
bolical of homage to a King. Ten parables,
given in this Gospel alone, are all parables of
the divine Kingdom. At the very end of the
Gospel the Risen Lord declares that "all au-
thority hath been given unto Me in heaven
and on earth." The book is pre-eminently the
Gospel of the Kingdom.
Naturally enough, few modern readers trou-
ble themselves to scrutinize the genealogy
which prefaces the work. Yet it is worth look-
ing at, as a curious example of the manner in
which the compiler arranges his material with
a view to its being easily memorized. The
purpose of the genealogy is to show our Lord's
descent from Da vid, and "David" therefore is
the keyword. As in other early alphabets, each
Hebrew letter denoted a number. There are
three letters in the Hebrew word "David," and
the sum of the figures of which they are the
equivalents is fourteen. Accordingly, the
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
table is artificially divided into three groups,
and the appended note states, "So all the gen-
erations from Abraham unto David are four-
teen generations; and from David unto the
carrying away to Babylon fourteen generations ;
and from the carrying away to Babylon unto
the Christ fourteen generations." In point of
fact, one name is missing from the third group,
as it contains thirteen only. Reference to the
Old Testament shows that there should have
been eighteen names in the second group. In-
deed, errors abound in the list. They would
not seriously perturb its author. He had
achieved his purpose, which was to provide a
table of descent connecting our Lord with
David, and to put it into a form which could
be remembered.
The story of the Birth, as given in Matthew,
seems, as we have noted already, to be derived
from St. Joseph. Indeed, its information, if
authentic, could hardly have come from any
other source. And that it is authentic will
probably be the feeling of most readers who
study it without prepossessions. There is
about it a straightforward simplicity, an ap-
parent desire to set down the salient facts
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
without a word of unnecessary comment or de-
tail, that place it in striking contrast with
stories of the miraculous Birth found in the
apocryphal Gospels, abounding with fantastic
portents. It will be better to postpone further
consideration of the subject until we are look-
ing at the account of it in Luke. The fact
that we have not one narrative only of the
Virgin Birth but two, derived obviously from
quite independent sources, has its own evident
significance. In order to understand the Mat-
thew narrative and to appreciate the action of
St. Joseph, we ought to remember that be-
trothal was, among the Jews, a formal and
legal act. As Deuteronomy xxii. 23, 24 shows,
unfaithfulness in a maiden after betrothal was
punishable by the same capital penalty as un-
faithfulness in a wife after marriage.
From the point of view of historical evi-
dence, the inclusion of an episode in Luke is
far more weighty than its appearance in
Matthew. For St. Luke was a careful his-
torian who, as he tells us, was at pains to ex-
amine his materials critically, and to shape
them into an accurate account. The editor of
Matthew, on the contrary, was not a historian
[H8]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
in this sense. He had fulfilled his purpose
when he had painted his picture of Jesus as the
Messiah, the f ulfiller of prophecy, and had pre-
served for us those records of His teaching
which St. Matthew had written in Aramaic.
That, the main part of his book, is invaluable.
In addition to it, and the outline adapted from
the Mark-sources, he gives us occasionally
some piece of a tradition which has nothing
like the same authority. As instances, we may
take two stories which, in themselves are,
puzzling. Both occur in Matthew only, and
I think we may be relieved to find them only
in this, the least historical of the Gospels.
One (xvii. 24-27) is of the way the Temple
tax was paid. "Go thou to the sea," Peter is
commanded, "and cast a hook and take up the
fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast
opened his mouth, thou shalt find a shekel;
that take, and give unto them for me and thee."
That command may have been given as the
Matthaean Gospel records it; obviously, no
final proof is possible. But many of us must
have felt rather disquieted by this story. It
seems just the kind of miracle that Jesus did
not work a miracle for His own gain, and a
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
miracle to obtain a few shillings that could
have been provided in a normal way. It reads
much more like the conventional tale of magic
than a Gospel miracle. None of the other
Gospels mention it, not even Mark a fact
the more striking when we remember that Mark
is based on the Memoirs of Peter. Even so
conservative a critic as Dr. Plummer suggests
that the words used by our Lord may have
been misunderstood or modified in tradition.
" 'In the fish that thou shalt catch thou shalt
find what will pay for me and thee' might
mean that the fish would sell for as much; and
this would easily take the form which Matthew
records."
The other is a strange portent immediately
after the Crucifixion described by Matthew
only. All three Gospels state that the veil of
the Temple was rent. Matthew adds that
there was an earthquake, "and the tombs were
opened, and many bodies of the saints that had
fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth
out of the tombs after his resurrection they en-
tered into the holy city and appeared unto
many." This very perplexing statement is not
even intelligible as it stands, for it describes
[120]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
this rising from the tombs as happening (a) at
the time of the Crucifixion, and (b) after our
Lord's Resurrection. We may feel sure that
someone inserted the words "after his Resur-
rection" without noticing the confusion they
caused, but anxious that Christ's priority as
"the first-fruits of them that slept" should be
preserved. Apart, however, from that detail,
what can we make of the fact that St. Peter
and St. Mark knew nothing of an event so
stupendous? For that they should have known
of it, yet left it unrecorded is unthinkable. St.
Luke, again, either never met the story or
deemed it unhistorical, and therefore unworthy
a place in his Gospel. Anxious though St.
Paul is to convince the Corinthians that the
dead will be raised, he does not believe that
already the bodies of "the saints" have come
out of their tombs and have been seen by many
in Jerusalem. In short, there seems ample
ground for concluding that the editor of Mat-
thew, who did not scrutinize and examine his
material like St. Luke and had not the first-
hand evidence which came to St. Mark from
St. Peter, has here allowed a legend to find a
place in his narrative. I think that very many
[121]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
readers will be glad that this view can be
taken, not as an arbitrary escape from a dif-
ficulty, but as a reasoned conclusion with real
evidence to justify it.
But the most mysterious passages in Mat-
thew are, beyond doubt, the great "apocalyptic"
discourse of our Lord recorded in chapters xxiv,
and xxv. Much of it is found in Mark and
Luke also, but Matthew's is by far the fullest
version. Strikingly enough, there is none of
this apocalyptic in the Fourth Gospel ; here it
is to the coming of the Holy Spirit, not to the
return of Christ, that the disciples are to look
forward. In the synoptic Gospels, and in
Matthew particularly, predictions of an ulti-
mate day of judgment are mingled with pre-
dictions about the siege arid destruction of
Jerusalem. That the words recorded as spoken
by our Lord deal with both these themes, not
one only, seems incontestable. Some of the
sentences refer in a most explicit way to the
attack on Jerusalem, but others cannot pos-
sibly, as they stand, be limited to that event.
It is a world- judgment, with the return of
Jesus in glory, that these foretell. That the
Church in its first years expected that final rc-
[122]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
turn and judgment to be almost immediate is
a fact of historical certainty. We find it quite
clearly, for example, in St. Paul's first letter
to the Thessalonian Church. The belief can-
not have been derived from the Gospels in their
present form, because I Thessalonians is earlier
in date than Mark. On the other hand, the
writers of the Gospels may have been influ-
enced by the existing belief. That would make
them tend, almost unconsciously, to interpret
general sayings of our Lord in a particular
way, and to give some words a stress and
special application which were not in the mind
of their Speaker.
Apart from mere surmise, however, we ought
to remember, when reading the apocalyptic dis-
course in Matthew, how greatly the religious
Jews had been influenced by earlier apocalyptic
writings. In mysterious and poetic language
they had made familiar many ideas which re-
cur in the Gospels. When, for instance, we
examine the Book of Enoch, the latest parts
of which seem to have been written at least
half a century before the Birth of Christ, and
compare its picture of a judgment-day with
that given in Matthew, we shall be impressed
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
by the resemblance. Here is a part of the
Matthaean picture (xxv. 31 &c.) :
But when the Son of man shall come in his glory,
and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the
throne of his glory: and before him shall be gath-
ered all the nations: and he shall separate them one
from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep
from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right
hand and the goats fen the left. . . . And these shall
go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous
into eternal life.
And here an extract from the Book of Enoch :
And the Lord of Spirits seated hirh on the throne of
his glory . . . and there shall stand up in that day
all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and
those who hold the earth, and they shall see and rec-
ognize how he sits on the throne of his glory, and
righteousness is judged before him. . . . And one por-
tion shall look on the other, and they shall be terri-
fied, and they shall be downcast of countenance, and
pain shall seize them when they see that Son of man
sitting on the throne of his glory. And he will deliver
them to the angels for punishment, to execute judg-
ment on them because they have oppressed his people
and his elect. . . . And the righteous and the elect
shall be saved in that day, and they shall never
thenceforward see the face of shiners and the un-
righteous, and the Lord of spirits will abide over
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
them, and with that Son of man shall they eat and
lie down and rise up for ever and ever.
Did our Lord borrow the poetic imagery of
apocalyptic, with which His hearers were fa-
miliar, for His own teaching 1 ? Or did the
writer assimilate and group the memories of
this discourse so as to bring them into line with
apocalyptic? That also, when we remember
his treatment of prophecy, seems possible.
Obviously, all such points must remain uncer-
tain. What is clear, however, and what it is
important to remember, is the affinity between
earlier apocalyptic writings and the teaching
of our Lord, according to the Matthaean Gos-
pel, about the Last Judgment. If we have that
, in mindj we shall not repeat the common error
of interpreting the mystic language of Orien-
tal symbolism as though it were literal prose.
The general teaching is clear enough, but our
desire for precise knowledge, our tendency to
say that this must mean exactly that, our at-
tempts to fix "the day and the hour," despite
explicit warning, must always be futile. It is
not at all points that we shall ever be able to
understand the Gospels, and we should admit
the fact frankly. Such a book as Matthew,
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
wholly designed for Jewish readers in the first
century, must contain allusions and modes of
expression to which we have lost the key. But
there is a more profound reason also for the
limitations of our knowledge. Much already
we are allowed to know, and more will be re-
vealed by future thought and research. Yet,
because He is more than man, the Jesus of
history must ever remain for us in some degree
the Jesus of mystery too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Luke: The Church and the Roman
Citizen
IF WE were to be deprived of all but one
Gospel, what would our choice among them
be? There are many people to whom, espe-
cially as old age steals on, the Fourth Gospel
appeals beyond any other. Problems of its
origin do not perturb them; in its compelling
influence they find all the proof they need of
its authenticity. Its tranquil charm and deep
spiritual insight give it a unique place in their
affection. Among younger readers, probably
most would give the first place to Luke. Of
the three synoptic Gospels, indeed, one may be-
lieve that an almost unanimous verdict would
adjudge Luke to be the most beautiful. Here
it is we find the beloved Christmas picture of
the herald angels, of the shepherds at the man-
ger; it is this which gives us our Benedictus,
Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis. We should
have no parables of the Good Samaritan and
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the Prodigal Son, no picture of the walk on
Easter evening to Emmaus, if we had no Luke.
Apart, too, from details, the book as a whole
has a charm of style not to be found in Mark
or Matthew. Mark is a concise and vivid rec-
ord of the essential facts, an historical record
to which its early date and its direct link with
St. Peter lend extreme importance. Matthew
is the characteristic work of a Jewish scribe.
But Luke has an individual note, a range of
sympathy, a joyous appreciation of what is
noble, that specially endears it to us. Perhaps
Renan was not far wrong when he termed St.
Luke's Gospel "the most beautiful book in the
world."
Its author was a physician, an educated man
writing for educated readers. We have ob-
served that each Gospel was written at a special
time to supply some definite need. It is not
difficult to identify the circumstances which
caused St. Luke to take his pen in hand. j._A_
stage in the growth of the Christian Church
had been reached when it began to draw re-
cruits from the aristocracy of the Roman Em-
pire. Neither the somewhat crude writing of
Mark nor the Judaistic exposition of Matthew
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
would satisfy readers of this class. As Dr.
Streeter has said, 1 "Once Christianity began to
reach members of the high aristocracy, there
would arise a new and insistent demand for a
Life of Christ which would not only jar less
on the literary taste of educated circles, but
would also make it clearer than does Mark
that Christ was, and knew Himself to be, no
mere Jewish Messiah, but a World-saviour, the
founder of a world religion. The Third Gos-
pel is an attempt, and an extraordinarily suc-
cessful one, to meet this demand."
Side by side with this purpose must be set
another. Those members of the upper classes
who thought Christianity a mere Jewish super-
stition would not feel bound to oppose it ac-
tively so long as the great majority of its ad-
herents were drawn from the proletariat. They
would view it with disdain. But their ani-
mosity against it would become far more vio-
lent when some of their own friends and
relations became its converts. Already there
was a vague belief that the Church was a
treasonable society, which held secret meetings
in order to plot against the State. The Founder
1 The Four Gospels, p. 537. t
[12 9 ]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of this sect, it was said, had been crucified by
the procurator of Judaea for inciting His fel-
low-countrymen to refuse tribute to Caesar.
Nero, for his own purposes, had encouraged
the belief in Rome that the Christians were a
league of criminals. Plainly, it was most im-
portant to refute slanders of that kind. In 80
A.D., which seems,, the most probable date of
St. Luke's Gospel in its complete form, Nero
had been dead for twelve years. The reign of
Domitian, with its cult of emperor-worship
and resulting persecution of the Church, was
still ten years ahead. Meanwhile, whatever
the official attitude, the Christian community
seems to have been little molested. What at-
tacks there were came merely from local offi-
cials. On the other hand, a number of aris-
tocrats were joining the Church, and a much
larger number were making interested en-
quiries about it. What was the true story of
its origin 1 ? How had its Founder lived and
taught? Was it merely a form of Judaism?
Was it tinged with treason to Rome? The de-
mand for definite information on such points
was reasonable enough, and St. Luke set him-
self the task of supplying it.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
His first concern was" to write accurate his-
tory. He was anxious that Theophilus, and
many another like him, should be reassured
about the historical basis of Christianity. His
work should be one to which they could turn
with the knowledge that the author had been
at great pains in examining and sifting his ma-
terials, and had satisfied himself as to the
trustworthiness of all that he included in it.
His preface emphasizes the trouble he has
taken to make his book trustworthy. He has
far more sources of information to draw upon
than had St. Mark. He is far more critical in
choosing from this material than was the editor
of Matthew. Something has been said in chap-
ter ii. (p. 38) of the sources at his disposal.
He feels he has utilized them in a way to
justify the claim that he has set down every-
thing "accurately" and "in order." The sec-
ond of these terms is, in point of fact, less
well deserved than the first. St. Mark had
written some fifteen years earlier, and had the
Memoirs of St. Peter to guide him on points
of chronology. St. Luke's task in this respect
was made the more difficult by the large num-
ber of written documents and other witnesses
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
he consulted. He could, and did, secure trusty
worthy accounts of what happened, but to de-
termine the precise point in the ministry at
which each happened was far more difficult.
He tried his best to arrange them in due se-
quence, but with only partial success.
Yet the exact occasion of an event matters
far less than that.the account of the event it-
self should be trustworthy, and the minute
scrutiny to which both the Third Gospel and
Acts has been subjected within recent years
have vindicated St. Luke's accuracy as an his-
torian. Primarily, then, he wrote his Gospel
in order that educated Roman citizens should
have in their hands a Life of Christ on the
strict veracity of which they could rely.
With this purpose he combined another.
What he wrote was to serve not only as a his-
tory of the Christian religion but a defence of
it. Both the Gospel and Acts are planned to
refute the allegation that Christianity is a
merely Jewish creed, and that from the first it
was condemned by the officials of Rome. St.
Luke does this most effectively by showing that
our Lord addressed His message to Jew and
Gentile alike, that it was a Jewish crowd which
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
clamoured for His death, a Roman procurator
who affirmed "ye have brought unto me this
man as one that perverteth the people (*. e.,
incites them against Caesar), and, behold, I,
having examined him before you, found no
fault in this man." More fully than any other
evangelist he records Pilate's repeated protesta-
tions of our Lord's innocence.
Then the reader should notice with what
skill St. Luke carries out the same purpose in
his second volume. He shows how the attacks
on St. Paul came not from Rome but from
the Jews, how one Roman court after another
of Gallic, of Felix, of Festus found him
innocent; how well disposed to him were vari-
ous Roman officials, from Sergius Paulus on-
wards; how his transhipment to Rome came
not from any condemnation by a Roman trib-
unal but from his own action: "this man might
have been set at liberty if he had not appealed
unto Caesar." And at the end, with this clue
to his purpose, we shall see that the last words
of the book are no tame casual sentence, but
a triumphant climax. "If this Christian
teacher had been regarded as a dangerous
[133]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
traitor by the authorities at Rome, what would
have happened upon his arrival there $ He
would have been allowed to utter no word of
his mischievous doctrine. He would have been
flung into prison. His trial and execution
would have followed swiftly. Such must have
been the sequel if this theory were true that
in the first days Home condemned Christianity
as treasonable. But what, in point of fact,
did happen? He abode two whole years in
his own hired dwelling, and received all that
went in unto him, preaching the kingdom of
God and teaching the things concerning the
Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, no man
forbidding him." Those are the last words of
Acts, and they are the culmination of the argu-
ment implicit through St. Luke's two volumes.
To keep in mind that purpose of St. Luke, and
to notice the subtle skill with which he accom-
plishes it, is a considerable help towards un-
derstanding his writings.
II
Who was the "Theophilus" to whom both
Gospel and Acts were dedicated 1 ? That is a
[134]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
question we cannot answer with any confidence.
Thepphilus may have been a real name, but
also, and perhaps more probably, it may have
been a pseudonym veiling, for the sake of
prudence, the identity of some Roman aris-
tocrat. Whoever this "Theophilus" (meaning
literally, "lover of God") may have been, we
may safely assume that he belonged to the
aristocracy, the special class of readers for
whom the Third Gospel was designed.
Another point of interest in the dedicatory
preface the first four verses of the first chap-
ter lies in the fact that it is written in "clas-
sical" Greek. Its style is an imitation of those
stately opening sentences with which historians
in long previous ages had begun their chron-
icles. The remainder of the book is written
in the colloquial Greek of its own time, though,
except when St. Luke is merely transcribing
other documents, in a better style than the other
Gospels. But the construction of these prefa-
tory sentences is formal and archaic. An im-
perfect analogy from modern literature may
be used to illustrate the point. Among Mr.
Kipling's earliest works was a small collection
[135]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of stories called In Black and White. The
stories are phrased in modern colloquial Eng-
lish. They are accompanied by a dedication,
filling two pages, addressed to "My Most
Deare Father," which opens thus :
When I was in your House and we went abroade
together, in the outskirtes of the Gitie, among the
Gentoo Wrestlours> you had poynted me how in all
Empryzes he gooing forth flang backe alwaies a Word
to hym that had instruct him in his Crafte . . .
and so forth. The reader perceives at once
that, while the stories are done in the English
of the nineteenth century, this dedicatory let-
ter is an imitation of the English of the six-
teenth century. That is comparable to the
difference between the preface and main body
of the Third Gospel. A literary artifice of that
kind would have no point for any but edu-
cated readers, and its use is a further proof
that for educated readers St v Luke designed his
work.
It has been suggested and I think the evi-
dence for this view is very strong that Luke,
as we now have it, is, to adopt modern phrase-
ology, a "revised and enlarged edition," and
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
that, after his original draft was finished, St.
Luke acquired additional information which he
wished to include in his book. Beyond any-
thing else in importance, among the fresh
knowledge he had gained was the story of the
Birth and Infancy. Therefore he now inserted
it immediately after his preface, and it occu-
pies the remainder of chapter i. and the whole
of chapter ii. Originally, if this view be cor-
rect, the Gospel itself, after the preface, began
with what is now chapter iii. in our version:
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and
Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip
tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priest-
hood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came
unto John ...
Certainly this, with its full and careful fixing
of the period, does seem the kind of sentence
with which an historian would begin his nar-
rative, does read as though it had been de-
signed as, apart from the preface, the first ofi
his book. Of the Gospel of the Infancy some-
thing more will be said in my next chapter.
[137]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Here we are considering only the main outlines
and general character of the book.
HI
What are the chief impressions it makes
upon us, as we look again through its pages'?
We see at once that it contains a great number
of parables, but we ought to note also that of
the total, which is twenty-three, no fewer than
eighteen are not recorded in any other Gospel.
That helps us to estimate our debt to St. Luke,
and it shows again what rich sources of in-
formation he had, in addition to those that had
been used already in Mark and Matthew. Even
when an incident recorded by him has been
described by another evangelist, we shall find
that St. Luke often adds some phrase or detail
that makes the picture more vivid and com-
plete. As one small instance out of many we
may take the beginning of the story about the
call of the fishermen-disciples : Mark and
Matthew both mention only that Jesus was
standing by the lake; Luke (v. i) has: "Now it
came to pass, while the multitude pressed upon
him and heard the word of God that he was
standing by the lake," etc. A late tradition
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
affirmed that St. Luke was a painter, as well
as a physician. We can neither prove nor dis-
prove this statement, but at least no one who
reads the Third Gospel and Acts with care can
doubt that St. Luke was a most skilful painter
in words.
Perhaps his work as a doctor in foetid, orien-
tal cities had helped to, give him his keen sym-
pathy with the poor. This is very evident in
his Gospel. In recording the Master's words,
St. Luke always chooses the tradition which
lays most stress upon the moral dangers of
wealth. Indeed, the contrasts in this respect
between the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are
very striking. Matthew's "give to him that
asketh of thee" becomes "give to every one that
asketh"; the Matthaean beatitude "Blessed are
the poor in spirit" is "blessed are ye poor" in
Luke, with the addition "woe unto you that
are rich !" Matthew gives "sell that thou hast"
as the Master's teaching; Luke intensifies the
saying into "sell all that thou hast." And in
Luke alone we find the parables of the unjust
steward, of the foolish rich man, of Dives and
Lazarus.
Perhaps it was again his medical work, com-
[139]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
bined with his freedom, as a Gentile, from
Jewish sex-prejudice, which accounted for an-
other well-marked feature of his Gospel. This
is the place given in it to women; the first sign
of the wholly new status in the world which
was to be brought to women by Christianity.
We feel that St. Luke is pre-eminently the right
evangelist to relate the story of the Birth from
the Mother's point of view. And he indi-
vidualizes women, as no other evangelist does.
He alone gives the names of the women who
accompanied and ministered to our Lord. He
alone gives us the domestic episode of Martha
and Mary, that lifelike study of two contrast-
ing feminine characters. How convincingly,
yet in how few words, it is set before us ! The
raising of the widow's son at Nain is a miracle
recorded only in this Gospel. And that poign-
ant detail of the Crucifixion stOry, the picture
of the weeping "daughters of Jerusalem who
follow Jesus to Calvary, is one we should have
missed had it not been for this Gospel of Luke.
Because in earlier years St. Luke was the
close friend and travel-comrade of St. Paul,
many scholars have attempted to identify in
his Gospel the influence of the Pauline theol-
[140] -
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
ogy. All, or almost all, the parallels they try
to establish seem quite fanciful. On one great
principle, however, there is close accord be-
tween St. Paul the Hebrew of Hebrews who
became the Apostle of the Gentiles, and St.
Luke the Evangelist eager to show that Jesus
Christ was a light to lighten the Gentiles as
well as the glory of Israel. The love of the
Heavenly Father for all men, and for each in-
dividual sinner who repents; the mission of the
Son as the Saviour of all the world these are
the truths with which St. Luke's heart is full;
this is the message he wished his Gospel to
bring to its readers. It does that still. We
cannot turn its pages without being impressed
by its charm, its humanity, its happiness. This
is the kind of book which brings health to the
soul in an age like ours. Its author is still a
physician, and still beloved.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Luke: The Birth, Life, and Resurrection
PROBABLY it is even more true of Luke than
of Mark or, Matthew that here is a book
we must read by fairly long sections at a time
if we are to appreciate rightly its full power
and charm. To do this is made easier by the
well-marked divisions into which this Gospel
falls. The first, as we have seen already, is
the "Infancy" narrative of chapters i. and ii.
There is a special reason for studying them
with alert attention. For nowadays the doc-
trine of our Lord's Virgin Birth is the theme
of frequent discussion, and of discussion, espe-
cially in the popular press, that is not always
well informed. Yet the evidence bearing on
the question is accessible enough, and, very
plainly, the issue is not one which interests
technical scholars alone. Every one of us
must be deeply concerned to know whether the
statement of the creed that our Lord was born
of a Virgin is, or is not, one that we can rea-
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
sonably accept. Absolute proof, either posi-
tive or negative, must be impossible, and it
would be futile to contend that the historical
evidence for the Virgin Birth is as strong as
the evidence for the Resurrection. Yet we are
bound to ask whether or no we are fairly en-
titled to retain the belief. We are bound to
ask, as we finish the first two chapters of Luke,
whether what we have read is fact or fiction.
One or the other it must be. There is no mid-
dle term. Either our Lord's Birth was of the
supernatural kind which St. Luke describes, or
it was not.
St. Luke's own opinion is clear enough. As
we read these chapters, the impression they give
us is that the writer feels certain about the
truth of his narrative. An historian, who was
also a medical man, would not have immedi-
ately followed a preface guaranteeing his care-
ful accuracy with the story of the Virgin Birth
unless he had for it what seemed to him ab-
solutely convincing evidence. We feel, too,
how desperate an attempt to invalidate the
story is that which depicts it as a pagan myth
taken over by Christianity. We recall the in-
tense dread of, and hostility to, paganism
[H3]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
shown by St. Paul and the Church of the first
century. We remember St. Luke's close asso*
elation with St. Paul. We think again of his
preface. And we must feel that to be asked
to believe that immediately after it this edu-
cated Christian historian began his Life of
Jesus with an adaptation of a pagan myth is
to be asked to believe the incredible.
Another point that will strike us as we read
this narrative carefully is that, whatever the
immediate source from which St. Luke derived
it, it must have come originally, if it be true,
from the Mother of our Lord. Some of its de-
tails could have been known to her only. We
shall observe also that while the Luke story
and the Matthew story are from different
sources, the one from Mary's standpoint, the
other from Joseph's, and while there is a con-
sequent difference in the events which each se-
lects for narration, there is yet no real incon-
sistency between them. Each tells part of the
story of the Birth, but neither part contradicts
the other. Another point brought home to us
by a careful reading of J St. Luke's first two
chapters is that this Gentile writer has obtained
much of them from a Jewish source. They
[144]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
abound with Jewish turns of speech. The
Benedictus, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis are
hymns written according to the rules of He-
brew poetry. We must not forget, indeed, that
some scholars have attributed the Hebrew (or
Aramaic) turns of speech in these chapters to
the skilled literary craftmanship of St. Luke.
Dr. Armitage Robinson, for example, has
said: 1
I see no reason for thinking that he used any pre-
existing document at this point; he was probably
putting the story into writing for the first time, as
the result of his own enquiries; and his style is mod-
elled on the old Hebrew stories, which he was familiar
with through the Greek translation of the Old Testa-
ment.
In fact, as in his preface he imitated classical
Greek, so in his account of the Nativity he imi-
tated scriptural Hebrew. But it seems more
likely that he was working upon and reshaping
with his accustomed skill some Aramaic docu-
ment. When we find, for instance, such ritual
details of the Purification as:
'*
When the days of their purification according to the
law of Moses were fulfilled they brought him up to
* Some Thoughts on the Incarnation, p. 39.
[H5]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Jerusalem to present him to the Lord . . . and to
offer, a sacrifice according to that which is said in
the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves or two
young pigeons,
most readers will feel inclined to agree with
Dr. Sanday 1 that this "is very unlike St.
Luke, the disciple of St. Paul, the great op-
ponent of everything legal, and very unlike the
date 75-80 A.D., when the Christian Church had
long given up Jewish usages."
We must not pause longer over such details,
interesting though they are. Let us sum up
the impressions which, I suggest, we shall have
derived from a careful reading of the opening
chapters in the Third Gospel. We shall feel
assured that St. Luke gives us the story of the
Virgin Birth not as a pious speculation, but
as an historic fact, about the truth of which he
has satisfied himself. We shall value the re-
straint and simple beauty of the writing. We
1 Critical Questions, p. 135. I take the quotation from
the late Dr. J. H. Bernard's Studia Sacra, which contains a
paper on the Virgin Birth. Without undervaluing the work
of Dr. Knowling, or Bishop Gore's treatment of the sub-
ject in his Dissertations, and 1 again more recently in the
S. P. C. K. Commentary, I still do not hesitate to commend
Dr. Bernard's paper in his Studia Sacra as by far the most
lucid and convincing statement of the "conservative" view.
[146]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
shall recognize that much of it, if it be au-
thentic, can have come from no one but the
Mother of our Lord. We shall be convinced
that St. Luke utilized, in part at least, .some
earlier Aramaic document. We shall note that
the story of the Virgin Birth is told independ-
ently and confirmed by the Matthaean Gospel.
And then, if we look beyond the New Testa-
ment period, we shall find that in. the year no
A.D., as a letter of Ignatius shows, the truth of
the Virgin Birth was regarded as certain, as
being on a parity with the truth of the Cruci-
fixion.
Against such evidence is urged the absence
of any explicit reference to the doctrine in the
.remaining two Gospels, the Acts, and the
Epistles. I have said "explicit" reference, be-
cause various critics have held that in the
Fourth Gospel and the Pauline letters are im-
plicit allusions to the doctrine, and that even
Mark is so phrased as not to be at variance with
it. But there is no need to rely on such sur-
mises. We can well understand why the Vir-
gin Birth was kept secret during the early
years; even when it was published, some op-
ponents of Christianity tried to give it a scan-
[147]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
dalous interpretation. We have seen how
much' there is to be said for the suggestion,
supported by Dr. Streeter, that St. Luke him-
self was unacquainted with the story when he
prepared the first draft of his Gospel, and that
its present first two chapters were added by him
subsequently. Thus the story of the Birth may
well have been unknown to St. Peter and St.
Paul. The author of the Fourth Gospel did
know of it, in all probability, for he used St.
Luke's Gospel. But his concern was to record
those things which had come within the per-
sonal experience of St. John, those things which
he had seen and known. Indeed, the argu-
ment of silence cuts, both ways, for would he
have kept silence had he heard the story and
known it to be false? We recall again the
unhesitating statement of the doctrine among
the Ephesians by Ignatius early in the second
century. As Dr. Bernard remarks: 1
The Christianity of Ephesus owed much both to St.
Paul and to St. John, and it is incredible that the
Virgin Birth should have been a received dogma in
that city so early as the year no if it had not been
1 Stiidia Sacra, p. 193.
[148] .
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
congruous with the well-remembered teaching of these
great Apostles.
Such is the historic evidence for the Virgin
Birth; obviously incomplete, yet good so far
as it goes and unweakened by any substantial
rebutting evidence. But the real battle-ground
of the modern controversy lies elsewhere.
Probably few people reject the doctrine because
they are dissatisfied with the historical evi-
dence, but a good many are dissatisfied with
the evidence because antecedently they have
found themselves unable to accept the doctrine.
If we can credit nothing that is "supernatural,"
nothing that transcends normal human experi-
ence, plainly, we cannot believe in the Virgin
Birth. But this attitude must invalidate belief
in the Resurrection also, and in the sinlessness
of our Lord. In fact, what we believe about
Jesus is the fundamental issue. If He were
merely human, not merely the first two chap-
ters of Luke but the whole scheme of the Chris-
tian faith becomes incredible. If, in a unique
sense, He were divine, then the historic tradi-
tion that His mode of entrance into this world
was unique is not one to which reason need
[149]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
demur. The point has been admirably stated
by Dr. Headlam: 1
To sum up, then, the evidence for the Virgin Birth
is slight in quantity, but it takes us back to an early
stage in Christian teaching. There is little or no evi-
dence against it. The evidence would not be strong
enough to justify our belief in it if it were an iso-
lated event apart from the rest of the Gospel nar-
rative. But if we' have convinced ourselves of the
truth of the Resurrection, of the Divine character of
our Lord's teaching, of the more than human char-
acter of His life, then the further account of His
Birth harmonizes with that, and the .whole presents
itself to us as a record supernatural unnatural, if
you look at the world from the naturalistic point of
view but not unnatural if you look at the world from
the point of view of the doctrine of the Incarnation,
from the point of view of the whole Christian scheme.
There is no need to apologize, I hope, for
having dealt with this subject at some little
length, for it arises directly out of the first
two chapters in Luke, and the controversy over
it has disquieted many people anxious to under-
stand the Gospels rightly. A full considera-
tion of it would need, of course, far more than
1 Jesus Christ in History and Faith, p. 179.
[15] -
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
these few pages, but I have tried to set forth
the chief points that must be taken into ac-
count. Just one more may be added as we
pass from the subject. It is that the burden of
proof must lie on those who urge us to aban-
don, not on those who retain, a belief in the
Virgin Birth of Christ. If a friend of mine
finds himself unable to accept the supernatural
element in the Gospels, clearly he is compelled
to reject the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, to-
gether with much else. That is, so to speak,
his affair, and it is not for me to judge him.
But that personal disability of his has no weight
as an argument with other people. "The Vir-
gin Birth," I am entitled to say to him, "is
recorded independently as a fact by two of
the Gospels. From at least the beginning of
the second century, it has been believed by
every branch of the Christian Church. It seems
consonant with all that the Bible teaches of our
Lord's nature, of His Incarnation and Resur-
rection. You cannot expect me to discard what
has been an integral part of the Christian creed
for eighteen centuries unless you can adduce
some overwhelming evidence to justify such a
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
a step." That request cannot be met. There
is no such evidence at all.
II
"The Gospel of the Infancy" in Luke is fol-
lowed by another short section, consisting of
chapters iii.-iv. 13. Its theme is the prepara-
tion for our Lord's ministry : the work of John,
the Baptism, and the Temptation. Mark has
only the briefest mention of these events;
Luke's source for his information about them
seems to resemble that used in Matthew, yet
it varies in details. The Temptations are given
in a different order, and only in Luke do we
find the Baptist's counsel to the multitude, the
publicans, and the soldiers. Then in chapter
iii. there is a genealogy of our Lord, widely
different from that given in Matthew. Apart
from lesser points, Matthew, the Gospel of the
Messiah, traces our Lord's descent from Abra-
ham; Luke, the Gospel of the world-Saviour,
traces it from Adam. We may be surprised to
find the genealogy in the third chapter of Luke ;
the more natural place for it would seem to
be at the beginning of the Gospel, as in Mat-
thew. But its position here rather strengthens
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the view that our chapter iii. in Luke was orig-
inally chapter L, and that the present chapters
i. and ii. were a later addition.
Then follows, as in the two other synoptic
Gospels, an account of the ministry in Galilee,
iv. I4~ix. 50. All three virtually imply an
earlier ministry in Judaea, but only the Fourth
Gospel gives any account of it. The Galilsean
ministry, as we saw in an earlier chapter, forms
one of St. Mark's two main themes, filling al-
most nine chapters in his Gospel. St. Luke
abridges considerably the sources used in Mark
and Matthew, and rewrites their material in a
more literary form. Yet often two of them,
and occasionally all three, have a passage in
virtually the same words. As an example, the
reader may look at the accounts of the healing
of a paralytic in Capernaum: Mark ii. 1-12;
Matthew ix. 1-8; and Luke v. 17-26. In each
Gospel is "But that ye may know that the Son
of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (he
saith to the sick of the palsy), I say unto thee,
Arise," etc. Thus, in each of the three Gospels
precisely the same parenthetic explanation is
inserted in the middle of the saying of Jesus.
This seems convincing proof either that Mat-
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
thew and Luke are copied from Mark, or that
all three are copied from some one earlier docu-
ment.
Certainly the common assumption that St.
Luke as he wrote had before him the Mark
Gospel in its present form does not become
easier to credit as we look closely at the two
books. If he had the second Gospel to consult,
why does he omit so many details of a kind
that would interest his readers? The story of
the Syro-Phoenician woman is one that would
appeal specially to the Gentiles for whom St.
Luke was writing, but, though it is reproduced
in Matthew, it is absent from Luke, together
with everything else between Mark vi. 45 and
viii. 26. The attempts to explain this great
omission are unsatisfying. When St. Luke be-
gins again to narrate incidents found in Mark
also, it is at a point when St. Peter figures
prominently in the narrative. This suggests
another possibility. Was his "source" not our
Gospel of Mark, but earlier Memoirs of Peter
which Mark had written before incorporating
them in a Gospel"? That is no more than a
conjecture; yet the supposed direct use of the
Mark Gospel by St. Luke is also only an hy-
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
pothesis. I doubt if we can go with confidence
beyond the cautious statement of Dr. Plum-
mer 1 that Luke has "two main sources : ( i ) the
narrative of events, which he shares with Mat-
thew and Mark, and (2) the collection of dis-
courses, which he shares with Matthew.
I hope the reader will not think such points
dry and technical, of a kind to interest expert
students only. If we want really to understand
the Gospels, we shall find it a great help not
merely to read with care each of them in turn,
but to compare each with the others. At a first
glance, there might seem little to delay us in
the section of Luke we are now considering,
because by far the greater part of what it tells
us about the Galilaean ministry has been told
already in Mark or Matthew or both. Yet,
in a way, it is just such a section as this which
reveals most of St. Luke's individuality. If we
take the trouble to scrutinize his version with
care, to notice the changes he makes from other
versions, what details he omits and what he
adds from his private information, what are
the events and sayings he seems to regard as
the most important, we come to appreciate far
1 International Critical Commentaries: St. Luke, p. xxir.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
better than before his point of view and his
special gifts as a writer.
In this section, too, we shall find (ch. vi. 17
to end) the sermon "on a level place" which
is at once so like and so unlike the Matthaean
"Sermon on the Mount." Is it another version
of the same discourse, or is it a quite different
one*? That is hard to decide. On the one
hand, we may be sure that our Lord often re-
peated the same teaching to different audiences.
On the other hand, the Matthaean "sermon"
does seem to be lengthened by many sayings
spoken at various times, which the editor of
Matthew, following his frequent plan, has
"grouped." We shall notice that a large pro-
portion of the sayings given consecutively in
chapters v., vi., and vii. of Matthew are scat-
tered about at intervals over six chapters of
Luke.
It is very interesting to compare the two
versions of the Lord's Prayer given us by Mat-
thew and Luke. Either St. Luke or the source
he copied has abridged the form given in Mat-
thew, and also altered some of the words. There
are 57 Greek words in the Lord's Prayer as
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Matthew gives it; of these 57, Luke uses 25,
omits 22, and replaces the remaining 10 by
other words. Are the two versions copied from
different documents? We might assume this,
but for one fact. In both the Luke and Mat-
thew versions of the Lord's Prayer there is a
word the word translated "daily" in our
English form which occurs nowhere else. It
is not found in the New Testament, or in an-
cient Greek literature, or in the papyri. It
seems to have been coined for this single use,
in order to represent some Aramaic term. As
it appears in this one place only, the only clue
we have to its meaning is its derivation, and
this is uncertain. It is an adjective attached
to "bread," and its most probable significance
seems to be bread "for the time about to come"
i.e., "to-morrow." If so, the clause is not
only, or indeed chiefly, a petition for our bodily
needs, but for freedom from mental worry,
from being "anxious for the morrow." That
we may be spared that anxiety, we ask, not
riches, but that we may have in store enough
bread for to-morrow's need. Literally trans-
lated, the complete Prayer may be rendered:
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Our Father in heaven !
As in heaven, so on earth
Thy Name be reverenced,
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy Will be done.
Our bread for to-morrow give us to-day,
And forgive us our debts, for we forgive our debtors,
And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from
the evil one.'
There is good reason for believing that the
longer version of the Prayer, preserved by
Matthew, is correct, but that the account in
Luke of the occasion when it was given in
answer to a disciple's request is accurate. Of
course it is possible, and indeed probable, that
this was only one of many times that our Lord
repeated the Prayer in the course of His travels
and teaching.
Ill
Following the story of the work in Galilee,
comes a section of the Gospel we should read
with special care, both because of its extreme
beauty and because nearly all its contents are
found in Luke alone. It extends from chap-
ter ix. 51 to chapter xix. 28. It enables us to
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
realize that the Master's final journey from
Galilee to Jerusalem must have extended over
a month or two a fact not disclosed by Mark
or Matthew. Some critics have discerned in
this section signs of a feminine point of view,
of a sympathy with the Samaritans, and of
an acquaintance with Herod's court. These
features have led them to suggest that St. Luke
CJtx
was indebted for his information to one of the
faithful women who accompanied our Lord.
And of these the most probable seems Joanna,
the wife of one of Herod's officials. Yet, in-
teresting as it may be, a conjecture of that kind
is not very important. Whatever the source
of St. Luke's information, the use made of
it is altogether his own. No part of his writ-
ings shows his skill more convincingly. It is
worth while to read through these chapters as
if we were doing so for the first time. How-
ever well we know them, I think we shall be
impressed more than ever by St. Luke's quick
sympathy, his deft portraiture, his unerring
eye for the essential points of a story. Every
one remembers, for instance, the domestic vi-
gnette of Martha and Mary at Bethany. The
contrast- between the sisters is quoted contin-
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
ually, has become one of the most familiar
things in literature. But how many people
realize that the whole of the story, from start
to finish, fills no more than five verses in our
English Bible, that St. Luke manages in his
Greek to tell it all in precisely ninety-seven
words'? Into ten verses, again, he is able to
condense the vivid story and character-sketch
of Zacchaeus. These are amazing feats, as
every man of letters will agree.
No less wonderful is the skill with which
the "atmosphere" is managed in that section
of the Gospel we are now considering. There
is sunshine as well as shadow in these chap-
ters; rejoicing crowds, and happy intimate
friendships, and little children brought for the
Teacher's blessing. Yet always in the back-
ground is the impending tragedy of the Pas-
sion, and we are made to feel its awful and
inexorable approach. All this part of the Gos-
pel may be termed rightly a triumph of literary
craftsmanship. But we need accept no me-
chanical theory of inspiration if we add that
the man who wrote these chapters was taught
by the Spirit of God!
The next section of the Gospel, describing
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the last days of teaching in Jerusalem, ex-
tends from chapter xix. 29 to the end of chap-
ter xxi. Then we have St. Luke's account of
the Passion in chapters xxii. and xxiii., and of
the Resurrection and Ascension in the final
chapter, xxiv. These five-and-a-half chapters
best produce their full cumulative effect if we
read them at one time. Accordingly the reader
who follows the scheme suggested here will
study the whole of Luke in four instalments:
(i) the Preface and Gospel of the Infancy
i., ii.); (2) the Galilaean ministry (iii.-ix.
5) (3) tne ministry on the way to Jerusalem
(ix. 5i-xix. 28), and (4) the last days, Pas-
sion, and Resurrection (xix. 29~xxiv.).
In the account of the last week in Jerusalem
we may notice that Luke, like Matthew, shows
no knowledge of Mark's careful chronology,
which tells us what events happened on each
day of Holy Week. 1 Luke gives us no notes
of time, but changes the order of events very
considerably. And it is clear that this evan-
gelist had some independent sources of informa-
1 Professor Torm's comment is: "this circumstance is by
itself sufficient to raise serious doubt whether Matthew and
Luke have had our present Mark before them." Church
Quarterly Review, July, 1927.
[161]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
tion for his story of the Passion. Were it not
for St. Luke, for instance, we should be with-
out the story of the penitent thief. The other
writers tell us only that the men who were
crucified with our Lord reproached Him. But
St. Luke relates how the one rebuked the other,
and prayed "Jesus, remember me when thou
comest in thy kingdom." As St. Augustine
observed, some saw Jesus raise the dead, yet
did not believe; the robber sees Him dying,
yet believes. And the reply, emphasized by
its "verily I say unto thee," seems to many
of us one of the most precious sentences in the
New Testament. "To-day shalt thou be with
me in Paradise" is an explicit pledge that con-
sciousness and personality persist through
death. Not "thy spirit" merely, but "thou,"
the man himself, "shalt be with me." Few of
us would willingly be bereft of that saying,
and it is due to St. Luke alone that its comfort
is ours.
IV
He has independent sources of information,
again, for his narrative of the Resurrection-
appearances. Indeed, the apparent diver-
[162]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
gences of the Gospels at this point are striking.
They have been, and are still, the theme of
intricate discussion. Attempts to harmonize
the different versions are often ingenious and
sometimes plausible, but this is the most that
can be said for them. The points they try to
establish do not really admit either of proof
or disproof, simply because the records are
fragmentary, and we have not sufficient knowl-
edge of the facts to justify a decided conclu-
sion. On the other hand, it is fair to remark
that discrepancies in detail do not invalidate
the testimony of all the accounts to the one
fact of overwhelming importance that of the
Resurrection itself. We can feel that the dif-
ferences in the Gospels arise mainly from their
incompleteness, while no discrepancies would
have been allowed to appear if the story had
been fabricated. Those are points we are fairly
entitled to make. But we must not pretend
that there are not two distinct traditions in
the Gospels about the Resurrection appear-
ances of our Lord.
It is the "Jerusalem-tradition" that we find
in Luke. If this Gospel (with Acts) were our
only source of information, we should suppose
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
that the risen Master showed Himself in or
near Jerusalem and nowhere else. Also we
should gather that His disciples were told not
to leave Jerusalem, and remained there accord-
ingly between Easter and Pentecost. When,
however, we turn back to Mark and Matthew,
we get a quite different impression. We learn
that before His Passion our Lord said : "After
I am raised up, 1 will go before you into Gali-
lee" (Mark xiv. 28; Matt. xxvi. 32); a say-
ing omitted in Luke. Then, in the dawn of
Easter Day, the message of the angel to the
women is: "Tell his disciples and Peter, He
goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye
see him, as he said unto you." (Mark, xvi. 7 ;
Matt, xxviii. 7.) Half-way through the next
sentence the original Gospel of Mark is broken
off, but in Matthew (xxviii. 16) we are told
that "the eleven disciples went into Galilee,
unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed
them. And when they saw him, they wor-
shipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus
came to them and spake unto them" . . .
Here, then, in Mark and Matthew we have the
"Galilsean tradition," in seeming variance
with the "Jerusalem tradition" of Luke. But
[164] .
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Luke is supported by John, which describes
appearances in Jerusalem to the disciples on
Easter Day and a week later. Yet in the
appendix added subsequently to this Gospel
(ch. xxi.) we do find an account of an appear-
ance in Galilee.
Such then, briefly stated, is the problem. St.
Luke seems to know nothing of Resurrection
appearances to the disciples in Galilee ; the edi-
tor of Matthew seems to know nothing of ap-
pearances anywhere else. The existence of the
"Jerusalem tradition" and of the "Galilsean
tradition" is indubitable. When this is fully
admitted, however, we have the right to add
that the existence of the two traditions does
not necessarily prove that one or the other
must be false. Rather we may think that both
are true. The Galilaean appearances are not
disproved if no account of them happens to be
among St. Luke's materials. Again, no one
evangelist could record all he had heard, as
the writer of the Fourth Gospel pathetically
insists. He had to make a choice, and to omit
much. In St. Luke's final chapter, verses 44-
50 evidently are much condensed. It looks as
though the writer found that the Emmaus story
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
had taken more space than he anticipated, so
that at its finish he was almost at the end of
his roll of papyrus. We should note also the
list of Resurrection-appearances given by St.
Paul in I Cor. xv. Its early date gives it great
evidential value. The Apostle cites it as one
of the traditions he "received," presumably
about the time of his conversion. That takes
us back to a time within six years of the Resur-
rection itself. St. Paul mentions the appear-
ance to Peter, mentioned by St. Luke also; a
"Jerusalem" appearance, and the appearance
to "above five hundred brethren at once," which
must have been a "Galilsean" appearance for
there were not that number of Christian breth-
ren in Jerusalem before Pentecost.
Further than this we need not try to go.
Attempts to explain every detail, or to con-
struct a kind of chronological table for the
forty days between the Resurrection and As-
cension are futile. We have not enough knowl-
edge of the facts to justify such pious imag-
inative efforts. What we can say is that the
stories of the Jerusalem appearances, and of
the Emmaus scene in particular, ring true. It
is reasonable also to think that the Apostles,
[166]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
taught by the Risen Master what their new
life-work was to be, would need to return to
Galilee for a short time in order to wind up
their affairs, and that other manifestations of
the Lord were given them there before they
came back to Jerusalem. That the two tradi-r
tions create a prima facie difficulty should be
frankly admitted. Yet when it is examined
without prejudice, the difficulty is not of a
kind which demands the rejection of either
tradition, or of any incident related in the
Gospels. It is due merely to the incomplete-
ness of our information. If we want sufficient
historical evidence in the Gospels to support
our religious belief in the Resurrection, we
shall find it. If we require a detailed and or-
derly account of everything that happened in
the last forty days of our Lord's earthly life,
we shall not find it, for it is not there.
Certainly none of us could wish that St.
Luke, in order to say something about Gali-
Isean appearances, should have abridged that
most beautiful narrative of the Emmaus jour-
ney which is the last and possibly the greatest
treasure of his Gospel. From what source did
he get it? As we read it carefully, as we no-
[167]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
tice its vivid and lifelike details, we cannot
help feeling, I think, that it is the record of
a personal experience. And as St. Luke is
careful to name one of the two pilgrims, while
the other is unidentified, the belief that the
evangelist got this account from Cleopas him-
self seems one we may accept. That matters
little. What does matter is the beauty of the
tale, its quiet .power, the conviction it brings
that it goes far beyond the range of human
invention. The summarized account of the
final charge and the Ascension follows; of these
St. Luke was to say more in his later volume.
But the story of the travellers on the road to
Emmaus may well serve us as the epilogue
to his Gospel. As we close it, I think we shall
echo the pilgrims' words: "Did not our heart
burn within us, while he talked with us in the
way*?" Nor, as life goes on, are we likely to
forget our gratitude to St. Luke for writing
down:
"Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day
is far spent." And he went in to abide with them.
[168]
CHAPTER NINE
John: The Gospel and Its Author
A HE passes from the first three Gospels to
the Fourth, every reader must be con-
scious of its essential difference. To some ex-
tent, as we have seen, each of the synoptic
Gospels is individual in its purpose, contents,
and style. But the point of view and atmos-
phere of this Fourth Gospel seem strikingly
unlike those which are common to the others.
The contrast is so great that it becomes evident
even at a casual glance through the book.
Closer study will show the reader that there
are also remarkable points of likeness, and
he may even come to share Dr. Scott Holland's
belief that "the Fourth Gospel, far from being
in collision with the other three, is absolutely
essential for their interpretation." 1 Yet the
great and obvious difference remains, and has
caused the Fourth Gospel in modern times to
be the most discussed book in the Bible.
1 Creeds and Critics, p. 86. i
[ 169]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
The discussion, to.o, is one of & kind which
the general reader cannot afford to disregard.
Details indeed there are which, though they
have caused, and continue to cause, voluminous
controversy, need not affect the profit and en-
joyment with which most of us read the Fourth
Gospel. Whether 90 or 105 A.D. is its more
probable "date"; whether it is essentially
Hellenistic or 'Semitic in character; whether or
no the philosophy of its prologue has any af-
finity with that of Philo these, and a number
of other such questions, the general reader may
leave to technical experts. The question of
"authorship" is more important, especially if
that word ~be given its right meaning. Yet it
is still secondary* Were we driven to believe
that we owe the book not to the son of Zebedee,
but to another "John," or to an unknown dis-
ciple who somehow was present at the Last
Supper, we might regret the overthrow of the
older view, yet the historic and spiritual values
of the book would remain unimpaired. Again,
the great difficulties personally, I do not think
"overwhelming" too strong a term against
taking the Fourth Gospel and the Book of
Revelation as the work of the same writer need
[170]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
not in any way perturb us. It is an interest-
ing problem to investigate for people with suf-
ficient leisure and technical equipment. But
the decision, whichever way it be, is not of
fundamental importance.
On the other hand, the main point raised
by the modem controversy over the Fourth
Gospel is of an importance quite fundamental.
It is not of a kind that the general reader can
view with unconcern, or leave scholars to fight
out among themselves. It must affect his whole
estimate of the Fourth Gospel. Indeed, the
question propounded is whether or no he can
justly regard this work as a "Gospel" at all,
for that term is one which seems incongruous
to describe a work of pious imagination. A
considerable number of writers would endorse
Canon Streeter's statement 1 that the Fourth
Gospel "belongs neither to history nor to biog-
raphy, but to the library of devotion." An-
other critic believes that at the end of the first
century the need was felt of such a re-inter-
pretation of the life of Christ in the light of
Christian experience. Others suggest that it
may most fitly be termed an allegory. In a
1 The Four Gospels, p. 365.
[171]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
paper contributed to Cambridge Biblical Es-
.says, Dr. Inge says that "the whole book is
a free composition by the writer himself," and
that "the discourses" i. e., the teaching at-
tributed to our Lord "bear primarily on the
conditions of Christian life in A.D. loo." It
would be easy to add other judgments of the
same kind; it would be no less easy to match
them by the opinions of critics, no less emi-
nent, who take a precisely opposite view.
Enough has been said, however, to indicate
the nature and the seriousness of the problem
involved. This Fourth Gospel comes to us
in the guise of history. It was accepted as
historically true from the second century on-
wards. It affirms that Jesus Christ in the
course of His life on earth did certain things
and spoke certain words. Either He did and
said those things, in which case the Fourth
Gospel is the record of fact, or He did not, in
which case it is a work of fiction. The latter
alternative does not imply, of course, that its
author wrote with any idea of deception. But
the difference in the value of his book is im-
measurable. Instead of preserving for us the
words of Jesus Christ, it contains merely (in
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Dr. Inge's candid phrase) "free composition by
the writer himself" the kind of things he
imagined our Lord might have said. He is not
merely interpreting or expanding, but invent-
ing. And, as Dr. Bernard remarks, 1 "It is one
thing to spiritualize history; it is quite another
to put forth as history a narrative which is not
based on fact."
When, therefore, we try to picture to our-
selves the historic Christ and to study His
teaching as a whole, may we use the material
provided by the Fourth Gospel, or must we
limit ourselves to the synoptic writings? Is
this book what, until modern times, the Chris-
tian Church always supposed it to be, or is it
merely a beautiful meditation or allegory? If
so, we may value it as we value the Imitation
of Christ or The Pilgrim's Progress, yet that is
to place it on a level very different from a
book recording, not what some devout soul in-
vented, but what Jesus Christ actually said
and did. Such is the enormously important
question which confronts us. We are bound
to face it. We must try to arrive at an an-
swer. The general reader need not imagine
1 Commentary on St. John, vol. i., p. Ixxxvi.
[173]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
that he is incompetent to do so because his
scholastic equipment is small. A knowledge of
human nature and psychology, an alert feeling
for literature, and, above all, a devout mind
are qualities quite as likely to help us as merely
academic learning. The way to form a real
opinion about the character of the book is to
read it again and again.
And this we must try to do without prepos-
sessions. It is futile to pretend that the tradi-
tional view is free from difficulties, or that it
must necessarily be right just because it is
the traditional view. On the other hand, we
ought not to be misled by the unjustifiable at-
titude of some modernists, who imply that none
but the opinions they themselves hold are now
possible for any person of intelligence. Some
of them are apt to show a temper of unhappy
intellectual arrogance, and to ignore, instead
of trying to answer, evidence against their
theories adduced by scholars of a competence
at least equal to their own. This pose of hav-
ing said the final word on the Johannine prob-
lem is not taken by all the radical critics. Yet
it is too common, and has rather misled the
general public. We must remember also that
[174]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the historic worth of this Gospel is often dis-
paraged because it cannot be reconciled with
a certain type of modernist Christology. As
Dr. Sanday observed long ago, "If a writer
starts with a semi-Arian conception of Chris-
tianity, he is bound at all costs to rule out the
Fourth Gospel, not only as a dogmatic author-
ity, but as a record of historical fact."
II
We should try, then, to examine the Fourth
Gospel without prepossessions. Two questions
have to be considered: those of its authorship
and its authenticity. The latter, obviously, is
by far the more important.
When we speak of "authorship," we should
be careful to use that word in its right sense.
To say that this book seems to be the Gospel
of St. John the son of Zebedee is not neces-
sarily to say that all the writing and arrange-
ment of the book, as we now have it, were
done by him. A modern analogy may help
to explain the point. Two of the most valua-
ble commentaries on my bookshelves, published
at an interval of twenty years, are those on
this Gospel by Archbishop Bernard (1928)
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
and by Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott (1908).
Dr. Bernard passed away in 1927, and there-
fore his book, as the title-page states, was
"edited by" Dr. McNeile; yet it is Dr. Ber-
nard's commentary. The other instance is still
more to the point. From his early years Bishop
Westcott planned a full commentary on the
Greek text of the Fourth Gospel. He was
already at work upon it in 1859. But he was
hindered from the completion of his task by
requests for other books, among them a short
commentary on the English version of John.
Afterwards he returned to his larger enterprise.
He accomplished much of it between 1883 and
1887. In 1890 he became Bishop of Dur-
ham; after that, he could only give fragments
of time to his great commentary, and it was
incomplete when he died in 1901. Afterwards
one of his sons set to work upon the material
bequeathed to him. Of the twenty-one chap-
ters in the Gospel, the Bishop had re-annotated
ten fully and three partially. For the rest,
his son could use (a) the 1882 commentary on
the English text, and (b) a large mass of dis-
connected notes. Using all these, he was able,
seven years after his father's death, tp bring
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
out the splendid commentary in two volumes.
Now it. was the son who, in a literal sense, was
the writer of this book. He made it; he pieced
together the materials, both chapters ready for
press and rough notes; he filled the gaps<
Without him the book would not have existed.
Yet, most properly, we term Bishop Wescott
the "author," and his name only appears on
the cover, for the whole substance of the book
is his. It appeared seven years after his death,
let us observe, and some of the notes first
printed in 1908 had been put on paper forty
years earlier.
That was the way in which a commentary
on the Fourth Gospel came into being, and pos-
sibly that is not unlike the way, allowing for
vastly different conditions, in which the Fourth
Gospel itself was shaped. Beyond question, it
had an editor as well as an author. Editorial
notes are inserted in it, of which the most im-
portant comes at the close (xxi. 24). We
should notice its wording carefully. There
had been three references in the Gospel to an
unnamed disciple "whom Jesus loved." The
editorial note has two purposes: first, to let us
know that from the reminiscences and written
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
memoirs of this disciple the Gospel has been
compiled; secondly, to give a certificate, prob-
ably on behalf of the elders of the Church at
Ephesus, of his veracity:
This is the disciple which beareth witness of these
things, and wrote these things : and we know that his
witness is true.
Such is the account contained in the Gospel
itself of the way in which it was fashioned.
An anonymous editor put it together, from
what a beloved disciple of Christ had said and
written down. The disciple must have been
a very old man by this time; but another edi-
torial note (xix. 35) implies that he was still
living. Yet those written notes of his, utilized
in making the Gospel, might have been set
down long years previously; his records of what
the Master said might have been committed to
writing within a short time, even within a few
hours, of the discourse itself.
Who, then, was this "beloved disciple"?
He must have been an Apostle. He reclined
next to our Lord at the Last Supper. He was
one of the seven to whom the resurrection-ap-
pearance by the sea of Galilee was given. He
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
survived to old age, and this fact gave rise tq
a misunderstanding which chapter xxi. was
written to correct. All these points are con-
sistent with the early and continuous tradition
that he was St. John the Apostle, and there
was no rival tradition at all. It seems sig-
nificant that he is not mentioned by name in
this Gospel. That is most difficult to explain
unless he appears instead as "the disciple whom
Jesus loved" for a total lack of reference to
him would be incredible. But, it has been
asked, does not this argue against St. John's
authorship of the book? Would he have used
so exalted a term as this as his way of describ-
ing himself? There is undoubtedly some sub-
stance in that difficulty for those who think
that St. John was the actual writer of the
Gospel in its final shape. . But if (as those be-
lieve whose views I share) it was compiled
from his writings and reminiscences and edited
by another hand, I can well think that the
Apostle charged the editor not to mention him
by name. Yet the editor had to describe him
somehow, and, having learned that "he whom
Jesus loved" had been the proud title accorded
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
to John by his companions, would use that
mode of identifying him in the Gospel.
What is beyond controversy is that by the
end of the second century this book was defi-
nitely accepted as a Gospel, equal in authority
with the other three. Those who attack its
authenticity point out how vastly different it
is from the others in tone, character, and con-
tents. That is quite true, but as an argument
its weight seems to be rather on the other side.
Would a work so markedly different have been
allowed to rank with the others as a Gospel
unless it had the compelling authority of an
Apostle behind it"?
Ill
Such are a few of the many points that arise
when the authorship of the Fourth Gospel is
discussed. There seems no adequate reason for
doubting that it is compiled and edited from
the reminiscences and writings of the "beloved
disciple," and if we are to reject the unanimous
tradition of the Church * that the beloved dis-
1 Attempts have been made in modern times to show that
John the son of Zebedee did not survive to old age in
Ephesus, but was martyred early in Palestine, and there-
fore could not have been the author of the Gospel This
[180]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
ciple was John the son of Zebedee, we have
to find some one else to take his place, and
some one of such authority that his records
were given the supreme rank of a Gospel. Dr.
Bernard favours the theory that "the writer
who compiled the Gospel on the Apostle's au-
thority" was also called John, so that "we may
find here a plausible explanation for some con-
fusion of him in later times with his greater
namesake." 1 Yet, as we have seen when we
were considering the analogous instance of
Matthew, the fact that afterwards the Fourth
Gospel was headed "according to John" does
not necessarily imply a belief that he was its
actual writer. "Matthew" was justly so
called, though another than St. Matthew wrote
it, because it enshrines the records of our Lord's
discourses which St. Matthew made. And "ac-
cording to St. John," in the same way, need
view, however, is opposed to all early tradition, and the
chief argument adduced for it is what an eighth -century
compiler says that a fourth-century historian says that a
second-century bishop affirmed. It is evidence of a kind
that no one would take seriously unless, on quite other
grounds, he had decided against the traditional authorship
of the Gospel. Dr. Bernard has disposed of it most ef-
fectively in his commentary, (i, xxxvii-xlv.)
1 Commentary, i, Ixx.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
not mean that St. John wrote it though
through long centuries the title was interpreted
in that sense -but that it contains what St.
John wrote. I do not think we press the edi-
torial phrase, "the disciple which beareth wit-
ness of these things, and wrote these things"
too far if we take it to imply that the beloved
disciple supplemented the written records he
had made long before with verbal reminiscences
which he was still uttering in his extreme old
age. The distinction of tenses seems to sup-
port that interpretation, which is true to life
and human nature.
To determine the precise shares of author
and editor in the completed work is impossi-
ble. But the problem of its style is interest-
ing. The style is consistent throughout this
Gospel; it is identical with the style of "the
First Epistle of John"; it is very unlike the
style of "the Revelation." Assuming the mat-
ter of the Gospel to come from St. John, is
its manner his own or his editor's*? Dr. Ber-
nard takes the latter view. Therefore, as the
Gospel and First Epistle are identical in style,
he has to attribute the Epistle, not to St. John,
but to the editor of the Gospel, whose name
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
is also supposed to have been John. Frankly,
this strikes me as incredible. The Epistle be-
gins:
That which was from the beginning, that which we
have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes,
that which we beheld, and our hands handled, con-
cerning the Word of life . . . that which we have
seen and heard, declare we unto you . . .
Does not such language imply that the writer
had been an eyewitness of our Lord's min-
istry? And the whole letter with its tender
concern for the "little children" of a new gen-
eration, full-grown men and women though
they be, its slow, ruminative tone, its repeti-
tions and reiterations seems of the kind a
very old man would write, or dictate. That
is to say, it is such a letter as we should expect
St. John to write, and by no means such as
we should expect a young follower of his to
address to his own contemporaries. Then we
must remember that the Gospel, according to
its own statement, contains what the beloved
disciple "wrote," as well as the verbal "wit-
ness" he gave his editor. It seems more prob-
able that his pupil would assimilate the style
of his own editorial notes to that of his mas-
[183]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
ter than that he would rewrite the documents
handed to him by that master in a style of his
own.
Behind this question lies another, far more
intriguing. Let us suppose, as I think we have
substantial reason for doing, that the idiom
of the Fourth Gospel is the idiom of St. John
mainly his own, partly that of a disciple
copying him. How far did St. John, in turn,
mould his own style on that of his Divine Mas-
ter? The language in which His teaching is
reported so closely resembles that of St. John's
interpretation and comments that often we are
puzzled to know where the one ends and the
other begins. Therefore even those who be-
lieve that the discourses have an historic back-
ground incline to think that their form is St.
John's, that he set forth the substance of the
teaching in his own idiom. Yet may not the
reverse process possibly be true^ Given the
beloved disciple's special intimacy with his
Master, given his spiritual sensitiveness and
his deep devotion, is it not psychologically
probable that (almost without knowing it) he
acquired the habit of copying the Master in his
way of speaking about religious truths'? If!
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
so, It is not the discourses which are assimilated
to the style of St. John, but the style of St.
John which is assimilated to the discourses.
Here, no doubt, we are in the realm of mere
conjecture. But, personally, when I read such
teaching as is given in John xiv., with its slow,
tranquil, and most beautiful cadences, such, I
cannot help feeling, must have been the kind
of way hi which our Lord spoke. And when
elsewhere in the Gospel I find that the author's
narrative and comments, if on a lower plane,
yet are in a diction not unlike that he attributes
to our Lord, they seem natural enough if they
come from a disciple who was the readiest of
learners. One of the arguments used against
the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gos-
pel is the alleged difficulty of attributing such
a work to a Galilaean fishing-boat proprietor.
At best, the argument is not worth much. It is
akin to the plea that a Stratford peasant could
not have written Hamlet. One might reply
that, after all, exceptional people sometimes
appear in the world, and these exceptional peo-
ple have a way of doing exceptional things.
But in the instance of the beloved disciple
something further may be added. There need
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
be no cause for surprise if a Gospel unique and
distinct in its beauty were written by a dis-
ciple who, beyond any other, knew what was
the power of God's Spirit; who, beyond any
other, derived all he knew from his knowledge
of the mind of Christ.
[186]
CHAPTER TEN
John: The Gospel and Its Authenticity
ArtONG the world's greatest writings there
are some, and Luke is of the number,
which reveal much of their beauty and charm
at the first attentive reading we give them.
There are others, and the Gospel of John is
pre-eminent among them, which yield their
chief treasures only if we are willing to return
to them again and again. It is true that no
one with any literary perception can even dip
into this Fourth Gospel without feeling some-
thing of its fascination* Yet at first he may
be misled easily by its effortless style, its con-
sistently serene atmosphere, its lucidity of
phrase. Almost it may seem to him a simple
book. Yet if he will read it through and
through, steeping himself in its contents, pon-
dering its statements and their half-hidden im-
plications, and comparing what it has to tell
him with what he learns from other parts of
the New Testament, these chapters will stir
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
in him an increasing amazement. Apart even
from any theological prepossessions, he will,
as a man of letters, begin to revere the Fourth
Gospel as one of the supreme triumphs of lit-
erature. He will perceive the magnitude of
the task which its author undertook, and his
triumphant success in doing it.
There is the divine and transcendent Christ
portrayed for us in St. Paul's writings and the
Epistle to the Hebrews. There is the Jesus
of Nazareth at work among the people of Gali-
lee brought vividly before us by the first three
Gospels. They, it is true, proclaim Him to be
divine also, as the Epistles do not fail to pro-
claim His perfect humanity. None the less,
we needs must be aware of a difference of em-
phasis, and a resultant contrast between the
portraits. That difficulty is ended, that con-
trast fades away, as we study the Fourth Gos-
pel. Here is the Master living and working
among his simple-hearted companions, who en-
tered into their daily needs, who could talk
with and befriend with equal readiness a
woman of Samaria or a Nicodemus, ruler in
Israel. Mostly we see Him in a different set-
ting of place, and mostly hear Him speaking
[188]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of different themes, yet throughout we feel that
the portrait in all four Gospels is consistent;
the same Personality stands forth in all. But
with this feeling co-exists another. As we come
to know the Jesus Christ revealed to us in the
Fourth Gospel we realize that the loftiest lan-
guage of adoration applied to Him in the
Epistles is not misplaced. The Jesus Christ
of St. Mark's Gospel is seen to be convinc-
ingly one with the Jesus Christ of Pauline
theology. And the evangelist who, in a book
so apparently simple, achieved that unifying
interpretation for us accomplished one of the
greatest feats that literature can show.
Again, as the reader ponders the sayings at-
tributed to our Lord in this Gospel, he becomes
more and more aware of the profound thought
underlying their pellucid form. The things
said go deep; the implications from them go
deeper still. If these are the veritable words
of the Son of God, they add immensely to our
knowledge of His mind, and there is no part
of our life which they must not influence. If
they are merely the inventions of some anony-
mous writer at Ephesus, our approach to them
must be very different and their value is im-
[189]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
measurably lower. And therefore the question
of the authenticity of this Gospel is of the
utmost importance to us all. That is why
every one, and not technical students only,
must try to form some conclusion about it.
We shall best qualify ourselves for this by
reading through the book from end to end with
an alert mind, and noticing the impressions it
makes upon us.
As we set about this, it is useful to have
before us a general plan of the book. The best
short analysis of it I know was provided by the
late Mr. J. E. Symes in his Evolution of the
New Testament? and this, with some slight
modifications, I will reproduce here :
Chapter I. 1-18. Prologue.
I. 19-! V. 54. The Lord reveals Himself to indi-
viduals to the Baptist, Nathanael, disciples at
Cana, Nicodemus, the woman of Samaria, a noble-
man.
V-VII. He reveals himself as the giver of a new
Law, as a Healer and Feeder of the multitude.
Oposition begins from kinsmen and Pharisees.
VIII. 12-X. 42. Opposition grows. Jesus reveals
Himself as Light of the World, Good Shepherd,
Son of God. The Jews therefore try to stone Him.
1 Murray, 1921.
[190]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
XL Opposition still increases. Jesus reveals Him-
self as the Resurrection and the Life. Raising of
Lazarus.
XII. Greeks desire to see Him. Jews plot His
death. The end of His public revelation of Him-
self.
XIII.-XVII. The private revelation of Himself to
the disciples in deeds, words, and prayer.
XVIII.-XX. The Trial, Death, and Resurrection.
XXL Epilogue.
Other commentators supply longer and more
detailed analyses of the Gospel. But this suf-
fices to bring out its main theme, the progres-
sive self -revelation of our Lord. We should
notice how dominant in it are the two words
"Light" and "Life." While, too, we have de-
duced from the previous Gospels the special
purpose which each was written to fulfil, the
author of the Fourth Gospel himself states ex-
plicitly the aim of his book. It was written,
he says (xx. 31), "that ye may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye may have life in his name." His
choice from a wealth of material was guided by
this purpose; he has chosen for record those
events and words and "signs" which most
clearly attest our Lord's divinity.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
II
A few notes on the contents may be added.
The Prologue, some scholars have suggested,
is really a hymn, written, like the canticles in
Luke, in the form of Hebrew poetry. Dr.
Bernard has developed that idea, and suggests
that in the hymn certain prose notes and ex-
planations have been interpolated by the edi-
tor. These notes occupy verses 6-9, 12, 13,
15-17 of chapter i. Then the hymn itself, ar-
ranged in the parallel form of Hebrew verse,
will read in English :
In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God,
And the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
In Him was life,
And the life was the light of men.
f
And the light shineth in darkness;
And the darkness apprehended it not.
He was in the world,
And the world was made by Him,
And the world knew Him not.
[ 192]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
He came unto His own,
And His own received Him not.
And the Word became flesh,
And dwelt among us,
And we beheld His glory,
Glory as of the only-begotten from the Father,
Full of grace and truth.
No man hath seen God at any time ;
The only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father,
He hath declared Him.
At the beginning of the first Epistle of John
there are evident references to this hymn. It
need not have been written by St. John; more
probably it is quoted by him as a prologue to
his Gospel, just as a modern writer will often
quote a poem, or some stanza from it, on a
flyleaf of his book or as a heading to a chapter.
It seems significant that "Word" (logos) is no-
where used of Christ in the Gospel itself.
That begins, after the Prologue, as if the
author's first idea had been to give a day-by-
day account of our Lord's ministry, based on
a diary kept at the time. We have an account
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of a day, then (verse 29) "on the morrow";
verse 35 "again on the morrow" ; verse 43 "on
the morrow," and ii. i, "on the third day."
At least that seems to prove (unless we are
reading fiction) that these narratives are based
on written memoranda made somewhere about
the year 30, and are not reminiscences first
committed to writing about the year 90 the
approximate date of the Gospel. No one
would profess to remember after an interval of
sixty years not merely what events happened,
but which happened on which day.
The conversation with Nicodemus in the
third chapter is an example of an account in
which it is difficult to know precisely where
the words attributed to Christ end, and the
author's exposition of them begins. On the
whole, verse 16 seems to be this point, as the
paragraphing in our Revised Version indicates;
yet we cannot be sure. But how vividly the
earlier sentences make us realize the interview
the cloaked Nicodemus stealing into" the room
lit only by an oil-lamp; the hint of condescen-
sion in "We we of the Sanhedrin admit
thy claim to be a religious teacher" changing
into the sheer bewilderment of "How can these
[194]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
things be 1 ?" and the night- wind sighing in the
trees. Even finer, as literature, is the inter-
view with the Woman of Samaria in the next
chapter. There is not a flaw in the psychology
of her portrait. If it be imaginary, how con-
summate an artist was he who drew it! We
should remark also that this evangelist, whose
aim as he states it is to show that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, tells us in this chapter
that He was "wearied with his journey" is
not afraid, as the editor of Matthew was
afraid, of words revealing the complete hu-
manity of our Lord.
We may feel a sense of loss in learning that
vii. 53 viii. 11, the story of "the woman
taken in adultery," forms no real part of this
Gospel. It is absent from all the oldest MSS.,
it is queried in many later ones where it is
admitted, and the vocabulary and style are
markedly different from those of the genuine
Gospel. They resemble far more closely those
of the synoptic writers. Yet, though it has no
right place in John, we need not regard the
story as spurious. It has inherent signs of
truth, reference is made to it in a number of
early writings, and we may accept it as a gen-
[195]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
uine piece of some independent tradition. In
its present position, however, it is misplaced.
It is impossible so much as to mention here
all the passages in the later chapters of the
Fourth Gospel which abound with beauty. In
particular, no hasty sketch could do justice to
the three chapters (xiv.-xvi.) of discourses on
the eve of the Passion, or to the marvellous
prayer which follows (xvii.) They are among
the supreme treasures of Christendom. As we
read them, we may notice the suggestion, en-
dorsed and developed by Dr. Bernard, that the
present arrangement of their text does not
represent the original order, and that more
probably they should stand thus: xiii. 1-30;
xv.; xvi.; xiii. 31-38; xiv.; xvii. In the same
way, many scholars hold that, earlier in the
book, chapters v. and vi. have been transposed.
No MSS. support these conjectures, yet pos-
sibly the original editor of the Gospel may have
failed to arrange in their right sequence the
materials given him by St. John. If we try
the experiment of reading the debated chapters
as placed by Dr. Bernard, we shall agree, I
think, that the change seems to give us a more
orderly and logical scheme of narrative and
[196]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
thought. On the other hand, I doubt if logical
orderliness of that kind seemed so important
to St. John as it does to modern critics. He
was not, like St. Luke, trying to write a manual
of history. He was an extremely old man, -
putting together his reminiscences of a period
sixty years earlier; using bits of a diary he had
kept then, scattered notes of special discourses
he had heard, existing Gospels written by
others, and memories which he gave his editor
as they came back to him; wandering a little
at times from narrative to his own thoughts,
adding afterwards at a later stage some say-
ing or incident he had forgotten when describ-
ing the stage of the ministry when it occurred;
unable to supply an exact chronology, except
when his tattered diaries came to his assist-
ance, and not at all concerned about logical
arrangement so long as he could leave behind
him a portrait of the Master he loved and
adored that, I think, is the impression which
this Fourth Gospel gives us of its author.
It seems beyond question that, as first de-
signed, the book was meant to end with chap-
ter xx., the climax of which is that wonderful
scene when the most resolute of sceptics has
[197]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
to cry "my Lord and my God," and the last
verse of which is a summary of the whole
book's purpose. Then, most fortunately for
us, a misunderstanding of the Risen Lord's
saying about the future of the beloved disciple
caused chapter xxi., full of beauty and psy-
chological truth, to be appended as an Epi-
logue.
Ill
We have read again, let us assume, the
Fourth Gospel. While the cumulative impres-
sion of it all is still vivid, let us return to
the question of the book's authenticity. To
put the issue plainly, have we been reading
fact or fiction*? Is it, in the main, a record
of fact, or is it a work of imagination? We
cannot allow the stark reality and urgency
of that question to be masked by well-sound-
ing phrases like "an idealized portrait of
Christ," or "a spiritualized interpretation of
His teaching." They do not tell us what we
want to know. Those conversations with Nic-
odemus and the Woman of Samaria which we
have been considering; did they happen, or did
they not? That scene when Thomas wor-
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
shipped his Lord and his God; is it merely
a piece of picturesque imagination"? "I and
the Father are one" ; "he that believeth in Me
shall never die"; are these the words of Jesus
Christ or the invention of some one at Ephesus 1 ?
Not scholars only, but every one must be enor-
mously concerned to know the truth about that.
On the one hand, the Christian Church from
the second century accepted the Gospel as au-
thentic. On the other hand* its authenticity
is dismissed as incredible by a number of
prominent scholars to-day, although many re-
main its convinced upholders.
Into the more technical points at issue be-
tween them it would be impossible to enter in
a volume of this kind. 1 But the main points
1 The literature on the subject is immense. But the reader
who wishes to acquaint himself with first-rate statements,
in a moderate compass, of the Johannine problem in its
more technical aspects, may be strongly counselled to read:
(i) Part III. (pp. 361-481) of Dr. Streeter's The Four
Gospels (Macmillan) ; a most able presentment of the
"modernist" view, and (2) pp. 62-147 of The Son of
Zebedee (S. P. C. K,), by the Rev. H. P. V. Nunn, uphold-
ing the "traditional" view. The Archbishop of York (Dr.
Temple) contributes a preface in which he describes it as
"an impressive study." Mr. Nunn sets himself to answer
Dr. Streeter, and does so in a style always trenchant, and
at times, perhaps, rather truculent. Yet no one should ac-
cept Dr. Streeter's conclusions, or even his premises, until
[199]
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
are not technical. They are, that is to say, of
a nature upon which the general reader, espe-
cially if he has an alert literary sense, is as com-
petent to form an opinion as the academic ex-
pert. Neither he nor any one else can, from
the nature of the case, arrive at a certain and
irrefutable conclusion. Were that possible,
the controversy would be at an end. What
he can do, however, and what for every reason
he must try to do, is to determine for himself
whether the balance of probability is on the
side of the traditional or the modernist's view.
(It is convenient to use those terms, but many
scholars support the "modernist" view of the
Fourth Gospel without holding the doctrinal
opinions with which "modernism" is commonly
identified.)
What, then, is the modernist case against
the traditional view of the Fourth Gospel^ It
is based mainly upon the very remarkable dif-
ferences between this and the three synoptic
Gospels. "They are so numerous and great,"
argues the modernist, "that John clearly be-
longs to a different class of literature from
he has considered how they stand the test of Mr. Nunn's
searching and scholarly examination.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Those three have
a historical basis and are authentic. John,
written long afterwards, is not. In fact, the
synoptic and Johannine traditions are so in-
compatible that you cannot accept them both.
The synoptics represent our Lord's ministry as
extending over one, or possibly two, years, and
as being carried out in Galilee. John makes it
extend over three years, and gives us Jeru-
salem and the neighbourhood as its scene.
Characters prominent in the Fourth Gospel are
unmentioned by the other three. It is incon-
ceivable that all the synoptists should have said
not a word about a miracle so amazing as the
raising of Lazarus, had that story an historic
foundation. On the other hand, John leaves
unrecorded some of the chief events in our
Lord's earthly life, such as the Virgin Birth,
the Temptation, and the Transfiguration. But
the supreme contrast is in the conflicting ac-
counts of our Lord Himself and His teaching.
In the first three Gospels He teaches by means
of parables, using them to convey lessons of
practical conduct and to set forth His doctrine
of the Kingdom of God. It is quite a differ-
ent Teacher whom we find in the Fourth Gos-
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
pel. Here there is not one parable, but mys-
tical discourses on the Son's eternal relation-
ship with the Father, and, instead of a Master
who forbids His disciples to disclose His Mes-
siahship, one who emphasizes and proclaims it
continually. There is no equivalent here to
the Sermon on the Mount. The addresses in
the Upper Room are of a length which could
not have been memorized. Indeed, only one
style is used in the Fourth Gospel, whether the
speaker be our Lord Himself or Nicodemus or
Pilate; obviously, this style must be the writer's
own. And that style belongs to the close of
the first century. The author does not really
give Christ's teaching but (to quote Canon
Streeter) what he 'would have taught had He
been dealing with the problems confronting the
Church at the time the Gospel was written.'
In short, the book is not history, but a devout
fantasy, a religious prose-poem."
Such, in outline, is the modernist's case.
How does the traditionalist reply? He might
begin by referring his opponent to the text of
the Gospel. "You ask us to consider this a
work of pious imagination. But at least it
professes to be history; twice there is a solemn
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
asseveration of its veracity. If your view be
accurate, you have to postulate that the real
writer invented, first, the 'beloved disciple' to
figure as the author, then invented an editor,
to append a fictitious note most solemnly de-
claring that the beloved disciple was the au-
thor, and that his witness was true. No doubt
there are, as you say, conspicuous differences
between this Gospel and the other three. Yet
you exaggerate the difficulty they cause. On
the point of chronology, most scholars now ad-
mit that when John differs from the synoptic
Gospels as it does concerning the day of the
Crucifixion John is probably right and the
synoptics in error. As to place, if the three
describe a ministry in Galilee and the Fourth
a ministry in Jerusalem, it does not follow that
either has gone astray. In fact, there is much
in the synoptic Gospels which cannot be ex-
plained unless, in addition to the Galilaean
ministry they record, there was also a Jeru-
salem ministry about which their writers had
no detailed information. 'How often would
I have gathered thy children together' it is
in Matthew and Luke that we find this lament
over Jerusalem. Could we need clearer evi-
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
dence that our Lord had spoken His message
often, though vainly, in that city*?
"As, therefore, the first three Gospels deal
mainly with the Galilaean, the Fourth with
the Jerusalem ministry, is it surprising that
many personages appearing in the one narra-
tive should not be found in the other"? Again,
let us try to picture in the light of common
sense what choice of material a writer in St.
John's position would be likely to make. He
was putting together his Gospel for a Church
which possessed three already. Would it be
rational to fill it with accounts of scenes and
reports of teaching which had been included
in one or more of the earlier works'? Would
he not rather, of set purpose, omit most of
these, intrinsically important as they might be,
in order to have space for words and deeds
which none of his predecessors had described"?
"But you point out, and with justice, that
the teaching attributed to our Lord by the first
three Gospels on the one hand and the Fourth
on the other is not merely different teaching
but a different kind of teaching. That is, I
admit, a substantial difficulty. Yet it is fair
to reply that there were not only different kinds
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
of teaching, but different kinds of listeners.
To most the practical instructions and the at-
tractive parables would appeal greatly, while
the more mystical discourses would seem well-
nigh meaningless. But St. John was a man
of profound spiritual intuition and discern-
ment. He would note down and cherish
the profounder truths uttered by the Master;
truths clad in a form which would convey
nothing to St. Peter; which would never find
their way through that Apostle into the Gos-
pel of Mark and the synoptic tradition. As
for the assertion that St. John has but one
idiom for all his speakers, that, often as it has
been repeated by the modernists, is quite un-
justified. It ignores an immensely striking
fact, mentioned in the article on this Gospel
in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, (ii. 719.)
Its writer points out that the author of the
Fourth Gospel puts into the lips of our Lord
no fewer than 145 words which he never uses
in his own person. Again, there are 500 words
which are freely used by him in his own por-
tions of the Gospel, or in the utterances of other
speakers in it, not one of which does he ever
attribute to our Lord. Is not that immensely
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
significant? Apart from all other considera-
tions, does it not seem incredible that some one
should have fabricated the narrative, fabricated
the discourses attributed to Christ, and have
managed to preserve consistently so subtle a
difference of idiom between them? Who was
this superb imaginative artist, this consummate
literary craftsman? How is it that his name
is unknown, that his very existence was never
suspected until it had to be assumed, in modern
times, simply to justify your theories?
"No; the differences between the first three
Gospels and the Fourth, great as they are, cer-
tainly are not greater than we might expect
when we bear in mind that the Fourth Gospel
was written by a man of very different tem-
perament, and much more spiritual insight,
that he wrote at a later time and would be
eager to relate what had not been told by the
other evangelists, and that he wrote with the
special purpose of emphasizing the truth of our
Lord's divinity."
IV
Such, then, though again in outline only, is
the kind of reply which the traditionalist would
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
make to the modernist. How are we to decide
between them? ' ^
Well, let us consider again the kind of im-
pression the book made upon us as we read it.
For my own part, speaking as one. whose busi-
ness it has been through a great many years
to examine and appraise literature, both his-
torical and imaginative, I feel that this Gos-
pel rings true. Occasionally there are details
which seem open to question. But, speaking
generally, I find it impossible to think that
any one devised out of his own imagination
the incidents which it records. Even the most
marvellous (such as the raising of Lazarus)
are accompanied by small incidental touches
which it would be natural for an eye-w$t-
ness to remember, but which it would tax the
powers of the greatest writer of fiction to
invent. Again, the more closely I examine the
discourses attributed to our Lord, especially
those in chapters xiv.-xvi., the more impossi-
ble I feel it to be that any human being fab-
ricated such matchless sayings. That they
should have been recorded with anything like
- verbal exactness is a point of obvious difficulty.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
Such an explanation, for instance, as Profes-
sor Swete gave seems to me far from adequate :
It is not, I think, unreasonable to suppose that words
spoken on the last night of the Lord's life ... pro-
duced an impression that could not be effaced; that
at the end of a long life one who was present found
almost the very words still ringing in his ears. 1
The length of the discourses, and the interval
of sixty years which, according to this theory,
intervened between the hearing and the writing
down of the words have to be taken into ac-
count. A more plausible suggestion, I venture
to think, is one I made some years ago in an
earlier book of mine. According to this Gos-
pel, on the day of the Crucifixion the beloved
disciple was entrusted with the care of the
Lord's Mother, and led her from the Cross to
his own home. Picture them together on that
evening. How would he comfort her? What
would be a more natural, indeed a more in-
evitable, way of attempting that than to let
her hear what her Son had said only twenty-
four hours earlier in the Upper Room? "Let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be
afraid ... I go to prepare a place for you
1 Preface to The Last Discourse and Prayer.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
. . . Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
unto you" . . . were there ever words of com-
fort to match those spoken in the Upper Room?
And so the disciple would tell the Mother of
them, and write them down for her while they
were yet fresh in his memory. That record
could be most carefully preserved, and then,
sixty years later, the disciple would incorporate
it in his Gospel.
Obviously, this is no more than a conjec-
ture, but it still seems to me a not unreason-
able way of accounting for what certainly
needs explanation.
. While, however, the traditional view of the
Fourth Gospel has its difficulties, they may
seem slight indeed by contrast with those which
the modernist view involves. We have to as-
sume some unknown disciple at Ephesus with
a literary genius equal to Shakespeare's. We
have to believe that, being a devout disciple,
he invented out of his own head story after
story about the Son of God, attributing to Him
deeds He had never done, picturing scenes in
which He never figured, and putting into His
mouth words of the most tremendous import
which, in point of fact, He never spoke. Did
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
the writer wish his work to be regarded simply
as a pious meditation or allegory, and not as a
record of fact? On the contrary, he appended
to it pretending, to make the deception more
effective, that it came from another hand a
most solemn affirmation that the witness of
the book was true. Then he allowed it to go
forth to the Church as a Gospel. Is that psy-
chologically credible? But the marvels do not
end here. Unlike as it was to the existing
three, the Church accepted this book as a Gos-
pel, and as derived from St. John the Apostle.
It is a vast mistake to suppose that the Church
of the first centuries was uncritical. The right
of various books among them, ii. Peter, Jude,
and the Revelation to be included in the New
Testament was keenly debated. But, outside
one small and obscure sect, which (like some;
modern critics) was led to reject the Fourth
Gospel because of antecedent objections to its
Christology, this work was universally recog-
nized as a Gospel, and as the Gospel of St.
John. Is that likely to have happened, if the
work were really nothing but a devotional
meditation written by an unknown hand?
With these questions before us, we go back
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
once more to the book itself; we turn its pages;
we ponder what we read in them; beyond all,
we watch Jesus Christ as we find Him shown
to us, and listen to the serene and ineffable
wisdom of His words. As we do that, I be-
lieve that an intuition, worth more perhaps
than any mere logical process, will lead us to
a definite view about the author of this book.
We may or we may not be convinced that the
"beloved disciple" is one with St. John the
Apostle. That, relatively, is unimportant.
But our spiritual faculties, and not our intel-
lects alone, will convince us, even if we doubt
the identity of the author, concerning the au-
thenticity of what he wrote. As we close his
book, we shalLecho the words about him which
some one set down long ago, and say "we know
that his witness is true."
Here, at the close, I look back on this study
of the Gospels, to realize how much it has left
unsaid, in how slight a fashion it deals with its
majestic theme. Yet there is comfort in the
hope that it may move some readers to return,
with some trifle of added interest or knowledge,
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE GOSPELS
to the Gospels themselves. There is no treas-
ure in the world like them. There is nothing
else which so illuminates life, and death, and
what lies beyond death. Yet the real meaning
of the Gospels will not be disclosed to us if our
interest in them be intellectual only. To look
through them to the living Christ they reveal,
to try resolutely to attune our own lives with
the ideals they present that is the way, that,
in a true sense, is the only way, to understand
the Gospels.
THE END
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'New YORK.
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UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
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