a
THE MAKING OF THE GOSPELS
THE MAKING OF
THE GOSPELS
SIX LECTURES DELIVERED DURING
LENT, 1905, IN MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL
BY THE REV. J. J. SCOTT, M.A.
CANON OF MANCHESTER
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1905
PREFACE
ONE of the duties of the Fellows of the ancient
College of Christ in Manchester is the Religious
Education of the people. In discharge of this
duty I undertook the delivery of the following
lectures on the Friday evenings in Lent this year.
My object was to put before my audience the
results of Biblical Criticism, so far as they are
accepted by our best English scholars. The
authorities I have mainly followed are Bishops
Lightfoot and Westcott, Dr Salmon, the present
Dean of Westminster, Professor Sanday, Pro-
fessor Swete, Professor Ramsay, DrPlummer, Pro-
fessor Burkitt, and Mr Kenyon. These lectures
are to a great extent an expansion of the Intro-
duction to my Life of Christ published by Mr
Murray. To that Introduction I must refer rny
readers for the detailed references to my
vii
viii PREFACE
authorities. For the inferred connection of S.
Luke and S. John I am myself responsible : for
the suggested proof of inspiration at the close of
the first lecture I am indebted to a paper by Pro-
fessor Burkitt in the Journal of Theological Studies,
1904. The one great principle that has guided
me in these lectures is the relation between the
Higher Criticism and Textual Criticism. The
Higher Criticism is to a certain extent a specula-
tive science ; and it must necessarily be largely
influenced by the point of view, the training,
and the bias of the individual critic. Textual
Criticism, on the other hand, is a comparatively
exact science, and its conclusions are reached
independently of any influence of the subject
matter of the books under consideration ; it is
concerned only with their literary history. Hence
it follows that the conclusions of Textual
Criticism override and correct those of the
Higher Criticism. And it is the ascertained
results of Textual Criticism that have brought
about the general agreement as to the date of
the sacred writings which now obtains among
scholars of such very different schools.
It will be obvious that these lectures are
PREFACE ix
published as delivered ; I have had no oppor-
tunity of re-writing them.
That they may strengthen the faith of some
of the faithful, and enable them to live more
fully the life of the dutiful, is the hope and
prayer of the writer.
J. J. S.
THE CHAPTER HOUSE,
MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL,
October 6, 1905.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES, AND WHAT THEY
TEACH Us . . . .1
II. How THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN . . 20
III. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK : ITS
SOURCE, OBJECT, AND CHARACTERISTICS . 37
IV. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW : ITS
SOURCES AND AIMS . . . .53
V. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE : ITS
SOURCES AND CHARACTERISTICS . . 70
VI. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN : ITS
AUTHOR, METHOD, AND MESSAGE . . 90
THE MAKING OF THE GOSPELS
THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES, AND
WHAT THEY TEACH US
IT has pleased Almighty God that part of
His revelation should be communicated to us
through the medium of a book. This book
we call the New Testament of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. This New Testament
consists of twenty-seven separate writings
by at least eight different authors. One
section of the New Testament contains four
biographies of our Lord. This section we call
the Gospels.
God has given us these Gospels in the form
of a book, and therefore He intended us to
exercise our faculties upon them, as upon any
other historical book. That is, God intended us
to criticise them, and to learn about them all
that the science of criticism could unfold to us
A
2 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
of their history, their composition, their date, and
their authorship.
So long as such criticism is fair and impartial
we have nothing to fear from it, for it is only
seeking after the truth. Of course even the
honest seeker after truth may make mistakes.
There is nothing in this world free from the
possibility of error. Of course, too, in some
points the conclusions of the critic can be only
tentative, and fresh discoveries may take place
which will require the revision of the critical
conclusions already accepted.
But taken as a whole no fresh discoveries are
likely to upset the results which are now gener-
ally accepted by the best English authorities on
New Testament criticism. There are many
details which we should like to know. There
are also many points further to which we should
like to extend our knowledge. But so far
as it goes, our knowledge, the knowledge that
modern criticism of the Gospels has unfolded to
us, appears to be sound, reliable, and permanent.
There is another reason why we can afford to
fearlessly welcome the New Testament critic.
The New Testament, infinitely valuable as it is,
is not the only record of Christianity. For we
are now taught by Dr Harnack that the Apostles'
Creed substantially dates from A.D. 150, and
Professor Kattenbusch of Giessen puts the date
earlier still, about A.D. 100. While the very
fact that through all the ages the central Service
WRITTEN IN GREEK 3
of the Christian Church has been the memorial
of her Lord's death, is a proof in itself that the
Church believed both that the Lord who died
was more than man, and that the dead Christ
had risen again. Our Faith has a great mass of
cumulative evidence to support it, and therefore
we can afford to inquire quite fearlessly into the
truth about every part of it.
Before proceeding to deal with the books of
the New Testament, it is necessary to say a word
or two about the language in which they were
written. In the form in which we have them
now they were all written in Greek. At the
time that our Lord came into the world, in the
providence of God, the world was bilingual,
the people all spoke Greek as well as their own
native language. You will understand this at
once from a single illustration. Latin was the
native language of Rome, yet S. Paul wrote his
Epistle to the Romans in Greek. So in the
Holy Land the native language was Aramaic.
Aramaic is sometimes called Hebrew in the
Acts, but as a matter of fact Hebrew, Aramaic,
and Syriac are all different dialects. Hebrew,
strictly speaking, was a dead language in the
time of our Lord, and was only used for Divine
Worship, as the Roman Catholics use Latin to-
day. The living language was Aramaic in
Palestine, and Syriac in the valley of the
Euphrates. Thus our Lord and His Disciples
spoke both Aramaic and Greek, and our Lord
4 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
knew Hebrew also. Probably when our Lord
was in the country districts and among country
people, He would speak Aramaic ; when He
was in the towns of Galilee or in Jerusalem, He
probably spoke Greek. Hence since the Roman
world was so bilingual it was quite natural that
the New Testament writers should write in
Greek, for by that means they rendered their
writings intelligible practically to everybody.
New Testament Criticism is really the com-
bined result of labours in two very different
fields of inquiry.
One branch of this work goes by the name of
Textual Criticism.
The other goes by the less explanatory name
of The Higher Criticism.
The primary object of the Textual Critic
was originally to try and ascertain the exact
words of the Greek New Testament ; but of
late he has extended his field of labour, and has
brought his exact science to bear upon the
literary history of the New Testament.
The Higher Criticism deals with the ques-
tions of the authorship, date, origin, composition,
and historical character of the writings that come
under its investigation.
In these lectures I will endeavour to avoid
technical terms as far as possible ; but there
are three words which come up from time to
time and which it is necessary to explain :
these words are, authentic, genuine, canonical.
THE OLDEST GREEK TEXT 5
Authentic a writing is said to be authentic
when it is a reliable authority, and its history is
regarded as true in fact.
Genuine a writing is said to be genuine
when it was written by the reputed author and
has practically come to us as it left the author's
hands.
Canonical a writing is said to be canonical
when it is included in the Canon of Scripture, i.e.
in the Bible, and we accept its contents because
the Church has included it in the Canon of
Scripture.
We can now proceed to discuss the evidence
for the Gospels afforded us by the four oldest
Bibles.
1. The first of these is the oldest Greek Bible.
The original object of Textual Criticism was to
ascertain the correct text, i.e. the very words of
the authors of the New Testament books. For
1400 years these books had been transmitted by
writing. " Now it is a fact that no one, however
trained and experienced, can copy exactly what
he sees before him for many pages together.
However careful he may be, he is practically
certain to introduce some changes. This human
inability to be accurate necessarily affected the
text of the Gospels," 1 and in each successive copy
the variations would increase both in degree and
1 See the Dean of Westminster's Study of the Gospels,
p. 24.
6 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
kind. Consequently the later copies of the
Gospels were liable to those kinds of errors
which are common to all such copied works.
In the sixteenth century the text of the New
Testament was to a certain extent fixed by the
invention of printing. But the printers and
translators of our Authorised Version were
dependent upon late MSS., which contained
many such errors.
Since then the discoveries of many ancient
MSS. have enabled Textual Critics to eliminate
most of these errors.
When a MS. was copied in one of the ancient
libraries, as soon as ever it was finished, it was
gone carefully over by a corrector. At later
periods other correctors compared it with other
more ancient MSS., and corrected it by them.
Experts are able to recognise the handwriting of
these various correctors and to form a judgment
upon the quality of the copy from which the
corrections were made.
Now the two eldest extant Greek Bibles are
two that were written on vellum in the fourth
century. The reason why no Bibles older than
the fourth century exist is because in the perse-
cution of Diocletian, A.D. 303-310, all copies of
the Scriptures were ordered to be given up to be
burnt in public before the magistrates. When
the Emperor Constantine won his great victory,
with the Cross on his standards, in A.D. 312, of
course the persecution was at an end ; but the
THIRD CENTURY GREEK TEXT 7
Church was left terribly short of Bibles, and in
A.D. 331 the Emperor commissioned Eusebius,
Bishop of Csesarea, to get him fifty new Bibles
copied for the principal churches in the Empire.
Some experts think that either one or both of
our two oldest Greek Bibles were among these
fifty. However that may be, these Bibles were
written in the fourth century, and the older of
them probably in the earlier part of it.
Now if you have followed what I said about
the correction of copies, you will see that by
carefully noting the corrector's work it is possible
to get at the readings of the archetype or original
from which the MS. was copied. And therefore
it is possible for us to ascertain what were the
contents of this earlier copy. That must take
us back to somewhere about the middle of the
third century i.e. between A.D. 250-300.
This is practically the Text of the Eevised
Version of the English Bible and of the Edition
of the Greek Testament, jointly edited by Bishop
Westcott and Dr Hort.
In both these books we find the text of the
Gospels as it was in the latter part of the third
century, i.e. the copyist's errors of 1250 years
have been eliminated from it.
This is the first of the four ancient Bibles I
want to make use of the Third Century Greek
Bible, we will call it.
The remaining three Bibles are versions, i.e.
they are not written in Greek, but they are
8 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
translations into other languages ; as a matter of
fact, into Latin and Syriac. Now in many
respects, of course, a version is an infinitely less
valuable aid than an original MS. ; but on some
occasions they can give vital assistance. For
instance, in the question of contents, it is as easy
to tell if a whole passage is omitted by a version
as by a Greek MS. ; and sometimes a version can
lead us to a correct decision in the choice of a
word. Take an illustration in verse 21 of the Te
Deum. The Latin Te Deum reads-
" Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari."
(or, munerari).
Numerari means "to be numbered," mun-
erari means "to be rewarded." In Latin the
difference is between num and mun, a differ-
ence so slight in appearance that it would be
difficult to be quite sure in many cases which the
scribe meant. But in English there can be no
doubt. The English translator read numerari,
for he translated the sentence, " Make them to
be numbered with Thy saints in glory ever-
lasting." If he had read munerari, he would
have translated the verse, "Make them to be
rewarded with Thy saints in (or with) glory
everlasting." Thus the English translation makes
it quite clear that in the translator's day, in the
year 1549, this verse was a part of the Te Deum,
and that it was understood to mean, " Make them
to be numbered with thy saints," etc.
OLD LATIN VERSION 9
From this illustration you will be able to
understand that the evidence of the versions in
many respects is of quite as much value as the
evidence of Greek MSS. ; and that is especially
so with regard to the contents of the Gospels,
which is the particular point that I am going to
use them for now.
2. The first version I wish to speak about is
the Old Latin Version. It is called the Old
Latin Version to distinguish it from the Fourth
Century Version, which was translated by
S. Jerome, and which is called the Latin Vulgate,
and which is still the Authorised Version of the
Roman Church.
The Old Latin Version was made not for
dwellers at Rome, but for the inhabitants of the
Western Provinces of the Empire. Three
editions of it exist one made for Africa, one for
Europe, and one for north Italy. The Italian
edition has evidently been revised, and its rough-
nesses of expression have been toned down.
The African edition is rough and somewhat
free. It was used by two great theological
writers, Tertullian about A.D. 200, andS. Cyprian,
Bishop of Carthage, A.D. 248-258. Some Latin
MSS. of this Bible have recently been very care-
fully studied and compared with the writings of
S. Cyprian. S. Cyprian was a very diligent and
accurate quoter, and his works are well pre-
served in many ancient MSS. The result of the
B
10 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
comparison is that three of the Old Latin MSS.
can be identified with the African text, four of
the MSS. represent the Italian text, while the
remaining thirty-one represent an original
European text older than the Italian. None of
the MSS. contain the whole of the New
Testament.
Now I need not dwell upon the particular
details of these separate versions.
The important points to realise are that the
identification of the versions with the quotations
help us on the one hand to ascertain the contents
of the quoters' Bibles, and on the other to fix
the date of the versions.
Now as to the date, the African Bible was
used by Tertullian about A.D. 200. But the
Old Latin Version can be traced back even
earlier.
At Carthage, on 17th July 180, a group of
Christians, twelve in number, who are usually
called the Scillitan martyrs, were executed.
They came from a town in Numidia, which
Bishop Lightfoot calls Scilla. They apparently
had in their possession a copy of the Gospels
and of the Epistles of S. Paul. And these must
have been in Latin.
In A.D. 177, the well-known persecution of
the churches of Vienne and Lyons took place.
An account of this persecution, written by the
persecuted churches to their brethren in Asia
and the East, is preserved in the Ecclesiastical
T ATI ANTS DIATESSARON 11
History of Eusebius. The present Dean of
Westminster has shown that though the letter is
written in Greek yet the New Testament used
by the author was the Old Latin, not a Greek,
New Testament, and an Old Latin edition akin
to the editions used by Tertullian and S.
Cyprian.
So we find the Old Latin Version in use in
A.D. 200 by Tertullian, in A.D. 180 by the Scillitan
martyrs, in A.D. 177 by the churches of Vienne
and Lyons.
Hence we deduce the fact that the trans-
lation must have been made some years
earlier.
And Mr Kenyon, the Assistant Keeper of
MSS. at the British Museum, who is one of the
great authorities on this question, says it was
originally made in the second century, perhaps
not very far from A.D. 150.
If, then, for the sake of using round numbers
we date the Old Latin Version A.D. 150, we
cannot be very far out : and therefore for
convenience in the rest of this lecture I shall
treat that as the date, though I do not mean
thereby to say that it could not have been A.D.
145 or A.D. 155.
3. The third Bible that I am going to describe
is a very remarkable and very valuable book,
and yet strictly speaking it is not a Bible at all,
though for many years it was used as its Bible
12 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
by a great Oriental Church. It is called the
Diatessaron, and is a life of Christ made up out
of the narratives of the four Gospels, combining
them into a single story. It was the work of one
Tatian, a native of the Euphrates Valley. Tatian
went to Rome and studied there under Justin
Martyr. Tatian left Rome about A.D. 172 or
173, and returned to Edessa, and his Diatessaron
must have been made either just before he left
Rome, or just after his return to Edessa most
probably just before he left Rome. So that its
date would be about A.D. 170. The Diatessaron
had a curious history ; at the time it was written
it was so popular that it was universally used
in place of the four Gospels by Syriac-speaking
people. This use appears to have lasted nearly
200 years, till Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa, in
A.D. 411 succeeded in procuring a new Syriac
translation of the Gospels, which we call the
Peshitta, and getting this new translation every-
where substituted for the Diatessaron. 1 Thus the
Diatessaron went completely out of use, and the
copies of it were probably destroyed. No Syriac
copy is at present known to exist ; and until com-
paratively recently the Diatessaron was only
known through the quotations made from it by
the Syrian Fathers. Since A.D. 1719 there has
been in the Vatican Library at Rome an Arabic
MS. of the Diatessaron, quite unknown and
1 See Prof. Buvkitt's Early Eastern Christianity, Lecture
II.
TATIAN'S DIATESSARON 13
forgotten ; this was seen by a Coptic Bishop,
and he at once said he had seen one like
it in Egypt. In A.D. 1886 this second copy
arrived, as a present, in Home, and the
Diatessaron was published in A.D. 1888 in Arabic
with a Latin translation, and in A.D. 1894 an
English translation was published.
Tatian is known to have written five other
works besides the Diatessaron, including a
book on some obscure portions of the Old
Testament and a collection of the Epistles of
S. Paul.
Bishop Lightfoot puts Tatian's writings
between A.D. 150 and A.D. 170, and they cannot
well have extended over much more time.
Tatian left Rome in A.D. 172, and the Diatessaron
probably was written at Rome, though its date is
uncertain. But we cannot be far wrong if we
fix the date about A.D. 170.
The two important points that I wish to
impress upon you are, (i) its date, about A.D. 170 ;
and (ii) its contents. For the use I am going to
make of it, a knowledge of its contents is all-
important ; and therefore I wish to remind you
that the Diatessaron as known to us merely from
the quotations of the Syrian Fathers is of little
use for my purpose as compared with the
complete Diatessaron, even though that be only
preserved in an Arabic version. For from the
point of view of its contents the Arabic Version
is as valuable as the Syriac original.
14 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
4. The fourth Bible is the Old Syriac. This
has a long and complicated history. Too long and
too complicated to be discussed here. Only the
four Gospels remain. The curious thing about
it is this. The Old Syriac Gospels were cer-
tainly in the hands of scholars. But they do
not appear to have been used in church. In
church the Diatessaron seems to have been read
till the end of the fourth century, when it was
forbidden by anthority, and replaced by the
Peshitta. 1
This Old Syriac Version is not later than A.D.
200, and may be earlier. Whether it was earlier
or later than the Diatessaron is still a matter of
dispute among Syriac scholars.
These four old Bibles, with their dates,
are :
1. The Old Greek Text as it existed between
A.D. 250-300.
2. The Old Latin Version, made about A.D.
150.
3. The Diatessaron of Tatian, made about A.D.
170.
4. The Old Syriac Version, made not later
than A.D. 200.
Now we are going to ask these four Bibles
what they can tell us about the Gospels.
The first thing they tell us is that the Gospels
1 See Prof. Burkitt's Early Eastern Christianity, Lecture
II.
VARIATIONS IN THE OLD BIBLES 15
are not quite the same in all of them. If you
look in your Revised Version of the English New
Testament, you will find there is a group of
passages scattered all through the Gospels,
against each of which is written, " Some ancient
authorities omit this." If you could read the
ancient Bibles you would find that these passages
include some that have never got into our English
Bible at all, such as the story of a light appearing
at the baptism of our Lord, which some ancient
Bibles insert in S. Matthew's account of our
Lord's baptism. Whereas others, such as the
story of the woman taken in adultery in S. John's
Gospel, and the stories in S. Luke's Gospel of
the sweat like great drops of blood, and our
Lord's prayer for His murderers, etc., are familiar
to readers of the English Bible. Before we go
any further, let us understand what we mean by
calling these passages interpolations. We do
not mean that they are not true I believe that
they are true : we do not mean that they are not
part of the canonical Gospels, for they are : but
we mean that they were not part of the Gospel
in which they occur, as it was first published, and
that they probably were not inserted by the
authors of the Gospel. The source of these
interpolations is the school of Christian teachers
which S. John founded at Ephesus.
These interpolations occur in the second and
third of the four Bibles referred to, but they do
not occur in the first and fourth.
16 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
These interpolations are of great value in
helping us to fix the date of the Gospels.
Textual Criticism has succeeded in proving that
they all come from a single copy. This copy was
originally annotated by these passages. They
were put in the margin ; some as explanations,
some as parallel illustrations, and some as
additional pieces of information. Then a scribe
who had to copy the annotated book copied the
notes into the text, mistaking them for correc-
tions. Thus the interpolated copy came into
regular use in some places, and, at all events at
Eome, came to be regarded as the best copy, the
copy from which to make others. Now all this
must have taken some years. If you calculate it
out, you will see that it means that the volume of
the Gospels must have come into existence about
A.D. 100, or at any rate not much later. And the
single Gospels must have been written before
that.
How long before that? This is the next
question.
Again modern knowledge helps us to an
answer. When we turn to S. Mark's Gospel we
find it has lost its original ending. Quite
recently a clue has been discovered which leads
us to a fair surmise as to what the original ending
was.
But Textual Criticism has been at work, and
proved that when the four Gospels were put into
a single volume, only one copy of S. Mark's
DATES OF THE GOSPELS 17
Gospel could at the moment be found, and that
one had lost its last leaf.
And why was that ? Scholars have set to
work to answer that question. And they have
found the answer. S. Mark's Gospel, the earliest
of all the Gospels, went out of use because the
Jewish Christians preferred S. Matthew's Gospel,
and the Gentile Christians preferred S. Luke's
Gospel : for both these Gospels contained what
S. Mark's did not ; both contained an account of
our Lord's birth, and both contained a number
of parables and discourses. We find as a matter
of fact that not only did S. Mark's Gospel go out
of use in the churches, but that it was hardly
ever quoted by Christian writers and theologians
before Irenseus, i.e. before it took its place in the
volume of the Fourfold Gospel.
Already we have determined that these four
Gospels were put together before A.D. 120, or
perhaps between A.D. 100 and A.D. 120.
Now we have to go back farther ; we have to
put the dates of the three Gospels so far back that
time can be allowed for S. Matthew and S. Luke
to supersede S. Mark, and for all copies of his
Gospel but one to be lost.
Scholars of all kinds have been thus driven
to a general agreement about these dates and
they put the first three Gospels between A.D. 60
and A.D. 80. I suggest to you A.D. 63 or there-
abouts for S. Mark, and A.D. 70 for S. Matthew
and S. Luke, and A.D. 96 for S. John.
c
18 THE FOUR OLDEST BIBLES
M
But what is far more important than the
actual dates is this. It is now absolutely certain
that all the four Gospels were written within the
possible lifetime of the men whose names they
bear.
One question more we will raise. Textual
Criticism has shown us what a near escape S.
Mark's Gospel had from being lost. It had
almost ceased to be used, both in church and by
theologians. How came it to be included in the
volume of the Four Gospels ? This Gospel, most
precious to us, was reckoned of no value then.
How was it the Catholic Church was wiser than
her preachers, wiser than her theologians, wiser
than her members ? How was it she included
this nearly lost and mutilated Gospel in her
fourfold volume ? There seems to me only one
answer possible : she was inspired to preserve
what human agents had all cast aside. 1
And if the Church was inspired to preserve
the four Gospels, does it not stand to reason
also that the writers of the Gospels were inspired
to frame their records as they did, and each to
preserve what he has preserved of our Lord's
sayings and doings ?
So, then, the four oldest Bibles teach
us two very important things about the
Gospels :
(i) That they were written within the period
1 See Prof. Burkitt's Journal of Theological Studies for
April 1904.
INSPIRATION 19
when the men who are reputed to have been
their authors could have written them ; and
(ii) That the Church was inspired to include
them, all four, in her volume of the Gospels,
and that the authors were inspired what to
include in the contents of their several
works.
II
HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
WE believe the Gospels to be inspired. In every
inspired writing there are two elements, the
human and the Divine. I believe that the
Inspiration of the Gospels means that the writers
were taught what sayings and events they were to
record, how to view them and present them to
their readers, and how to interpret them. Thus
the effect of the Divine element was to quicken,
not to destroy the human element. And our
investigation is solely connected with the working
of the human element.
The volume of the Four Gospels contains the
works of four different writers. Those writers
are reputed to be S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke,
and S. John.
When we compare their writings, we find that
there is a certain similarity between the first three,
while the fourth is a complete contrast to the
rest.
The contrast is in the scenery, the narrative,
THE SYNOPTISTS 21
and the portraiture of the Christ. The scene in
S. John is principally at Jerusalem, in the others
it is in Galilee ; in S. John the narrative is all
in chronological order, and he only records one
event, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, which
is recorded by the other three, while the portrait
of the Christ is quite different to that given by
the other three. In S. Matthew the narrative is
certainly not chronological ; and one portrait of
the Christ is common to all the first three
Evangelists, and it is the portrait of the Son of
Man.
The first three Gospels are for convenience
commonly spoken of together as the Synoptic
Gospels, because they present a general view or
synopsis of the same series of events, and their
writers are spoken of as the Synoptists.
It is with the Synoptic Gospels that I propose
to deal mainly in this lecture, for S. John's Gospel
can be dealt with later.
The very first and most cursory glance at the
Synoptic Gospels shows that they have a great
deal in common. If you take up a Harmony of
the Gospels you will see that S. Matthew embodies
in his Gospel nearly the whole of the subject
matter of S. Mark, and S. Luke includes about
four-fifths of S. Mark. I do not mean that they
actually quote it. That we shall have to investi-
gate presently. But I mean that practically all
that is in S. Mark's Gospel is included in S.
Matthew's ; and four-fifths of S. Mark's Gospel
22 HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
is included in S. Luke's. But S. Matthew and
S. Luke are much longer than S. Mark. And
all this material from S. Mark forms rather more
than half of S. Matthew's Gospel, and rather less
than two-fifths of S. Luke's Gospel.
Then we notice that of the remaining matter
there is a certain amount common to S. Matthew
and S. Luke an amount equal to about a quarter
of the whole ; a little more than a quarter in the
case of S. Matthew, and a little less than a quarter
in the case of S. Luke while the orginal matter
in S. Matthew is only about one-fifth and in S.
Luke about two-fifths of their respective Gospels.
All these facts are open to anybody to
discover ; and the problem before us is, Can we
find any explanation of these facts which is
consistent with our belief that the Evangelists
wrote under the guidance of God the Holy
Ghost ?
Let us consider first the common material in
all the three Synoptic Gospels. Of course, the
comparison really has to be made in Greek ; but
I am going to use one or two examples in English
where the English words exactly represent the
Greek.
Now if we take the miracle of the sick of the
palsy, there are verbal variations in each of the
Evangelists ; but when the words our Lord
addressed to the Pharisees are reached, all the
accounts are the same.
S. Mark says : " Whether is it easier to say
THE SYNOPTIC NARRATIVES 23
to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee,
or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk ?
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,
take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine
house."
If we look carefully at the different narratives,
we shall find that both S. Matthew and S. Luke
make verbal alterations in the story ; for instance,
S. Mark calls the bed by a curious Macedonian
word, which S. Matthew changes into a couch,
and S. Luke into a little couch or pallet : but
when we come to the words of our Lord's address
to the Pharisees, we find they are practically the
same, and the little parenthesis " (he saith to the
sick of the palsy) " is exactly the same and in the
same place, and the words which follow are
practically the same. Then we feel that S.
Matthew and S. Luke must have had a written
copy of S. Mark lying before them. It would be
impossible otherwise that the unimportant words
should all be so exactly reproduced.
If we follow the common narratives in other
similar passages, we shall find still the same
result.
There are some passages, indeed, where the
result is quite different. For instance, each of
the Synoptists gives an account of the Transfigur-
ation ; but the variations of the separate narrative
are not merely verbal. S. Mark says our Lord's
24 HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
garments were whiter than any fuller on earth
could whiten them ; S. Matthew says they were
white as the light, meaning the sunlight ; while
S. Luke says they were flashing forth like
lightning. Here the differences are not merely
the different choice of epithets, but they represent
different ideas which were impressed upon
different onlookers ; and this is borne out by the
whole of each of the narratives, so that we are
driven to the conclusion that each of the
Evangelists represents the story obtained from a
different eyewitness. S. Mark records, of course,
S. Peter's impression ; S. Luke records S. John's ;
and S. Matthew that of S. James.
It is commonly said of S. Mark that he gives
in a few words a considerable number of details
which serve to bring the scene very vividly before
his readers' eyes. This is quite true, but it also
serves to provide a considerable amount of repeti-
tion in the story ; words and phrases are repeated
which might have been dispensed with.
S. Matthew and S. Luke prune these narra-
tives of S. Mark very considerably. I will give
you a short illustration. The account of the
healing of St Peter's mother-in-law.
Here is S. Mark's account : " And forthwith,
when they were come out of the synagogue, they
entered into the house of Simon and Andrew,
with James and John. But Simon's wife's mother
lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.
And he came and took her by the hand, and
S. MARK'S GOSPEL WRITTEN FIRST 25
lifted her up ; and immediately the fever left her,
and she ministered unto them."
S. Matthew writes : " And when Jesus was
come unto Peter's house, he saw his wife's
mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched
her hand and the fever left her, and she arose and
ministered unto them."
S. Luke writes : " And he arose out of the
synagogue and entered into Simon's house. And
Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great
fever, and they brought him for her. And he
stood over her and rebuked the fever ; and it
left her; and immediately she arose and
ministered unto them."
Now, of this page, S. Mark's account takes
7 lines, S. Matthew's 4, S. Luke's 6. In the
Greek narrative, S. Mark uses 44 words, S.
Matthew 30, S. Luke 30.
This shows how the other Evangelists prune
S. Mark's narrative ; but it is not a very complete
illustration, because, taken over the whole of
S. Mark's matter, S. Luke cuts it down twice as
much as S. Matthew. For S. Matthew cuts it
down by one-eighth, and S. Luke cuts it down
by a quarter.
Hence it follows that the first thing we learn
about the making of the Synoptic Gospels is
that S. Mark wrote his Gospel before the other
two Evangelists ; and that, while not slavishly
copying him, or even always making use of his
account, S. Matthew and S Luke wrote with
P
26 HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
S. Mark's Gospel before them. And as they
made use of his narrative, they sometimes
abbreviated it, sometimes adapted it, and some-
times substituted the narrative of a first-hand
eyewitness for it. Still all the while the founda-
tion of their record of our Lord's ministry is the
narrative of S. Mark.
When we study the matter common to
S. Matthew and S. Luke which does not occur
in S. Mark, and which amounts to about a
quarter of their work, we find it includes some
parables, portions of the two great sermons, short
sayings and discourses, and among others the
following accounts, S. John the Baptist's
treatment of the Pharisees and Sadducees who
came to His baptism ; our Lord's temptation ; the
healing of the centurion's servant ; our Lord's
replies to two would-be disciples, " The foxes
have holes and the birds of the air their nests,
but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His
head," and, " Let the dead bury their dead " ; the
casting out of a dumb devil, and of a blind and
dumb devil ; the message from John in prison, to
ask if Jesus were "He that should come," or
were they to look for another, and our Lord's
reply, and subsequent address to the people
about John ; the thanksgiving to His Father for
hiding His revelation from the wise and unfolding
it to children ; the dinner with the Pharisee with
unwashed hands ; and the lament over Jerusalem.
Now it is not certain by any means that all
A LOST GOSPEL 27
these came from the same source. And in
particular, though it is now generally thought that
the Sermon on the Mount in S. Matthew's
Gospel and the Sermon on a level place in S.
Luke's Gospel are two reports of the same sermon,
yet it is possible that the same sermon was
preached twice during our Lord's missionary
progresses through Galilee, and that the two
accounts represent reports of two different
occasions and not two different reports of one
sermon. On the other hand, the correct descrip-
tion of the scene of S. Luke's sermon is " on a
level place," and not as in Authorised Version " on
the plain"; and S. Matthew's "mountain" only
means " on the high land," so that the people may
well have been gathered on a level place on the
rising ground where He could sit a little above
them : in which case both the Evangelists describe
the same sermon. So on this question we must
keep an open mind. There is not really sufficient
evidence to enable us to decide absolutely, one
way or another.
But generally it is believed that S. Matthew
and S. Luke made use of a Gospel or fragment
of a Gospel that is now lost. But S. Matthew
and S. Luke use it very differently. S. Matthew's
Gospel is not in chronological order, and he takes
his S. Mark and his other document and fits the
portions of the other documents into his S. Mark,
so that parallel passages and similar incidents
are grouped together. When we turn to S. Luke
28 HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
the result is quite different ; he has apparently had
the same S. Mark and the same other document
before him, but he has pieced them together so
as to form a continuous and accurate narrative,
with the events all in their proper order.
We now come to speak of the passages peculiar
to each of the three Gospels. When we take
S. Mark's Gospel up and carefully examine it, we
find that there are only four passages which are
peculiar to S. Mark, in the sense of being wholly
unrepresented in any other Gospel (I exclude of
course the opening verse) ; these four passages
are : The parable of the seed growing secretly ;
the miracles of the healing of a deaf and dumb
man, and of the healing of the blind man, at
Bethsaida ; and the story of the young man in a
linen garment who followed our Lord after He
was arrested in Gethsemane.
All the rest of S. Mark's Gospel is incor-
porated in some form or other in the Gospels of
S. Matthew*and S. Luke.
Here it is necessary to draw your attention to
a matter that has recently been more prominently
brought into notice. In ancient times there were
recognised limits which were practically imposed
upon the size of books by material conditions.
The Gospels of S. Matthew and S. Luke, and
the Acts, all appear to have reached those limits.
It is for this reason among others no doubt that
S. Matthew and S. Luke had to prune S. Mark's
narrative.
UNITY OF THE GOSPELS 29
The original matter in S. Matthew, i.e. the
events and utterances recorded only by S.
Matthew, are about one-fifth of the whole.
They include a genealogy, an account of the
events connected with our Lord's birth, a large
portion of the Sermon on the Mount, and portions
of some other discourses, nine out of fifteen par-
ables, three out of twenty miracles ; some details
of the Passion and Crucifixion, including the set-
ting of the guard over the sepulchre ; and S.
Matthew's account of the Resurrection.
The original matter in S. Luke is about two-
fifths of the whole, i.e. the events and utter-
ances recorded by S. Luke alone. It includes a
long narrative of the birth of S. John the Baptist ;
of the birth, early life, and childhood of our Lord ;
a genealogy ; some special details connected with
our Lord's Passion and Crucifixion, the Words
from the Cross, and His burial ; S. Luke's account
of the Resurrection ; together with an account of
six out of twenty miracles, and sixteen out of
twenty-three parables.
A question arises here which deserves some
notice. Are the Gospels as we have them to-day
as they left the hands of their authors ? You will
sometimes see an "advanced critic," as such men
are called, state that the Gospels belong to this
or that date with the exception of certain later
additions, w T hich the aforesaid advanced critic
then specifies. You will generally find that the
passages specified as later additions are those
30 HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
which clash with the preconceived opinions, or
doctrinal views, or individual prejudices of the
critic. But you may feel a doubt as to whether
the critic may not possibly be right. The answer
I should give you is this. We know the literary
history of the books back to A.D. 150. Textual
Criticism has been able to trace all the earlier
interpolations as I have already shown. It is
all but impossible that there should have been
any serious additions or omissions in the text
which the science of Textual Criticism has been
unable to detect and account for. And there-
fore I believe that, with the exception of the
interpolations, we possess our Gospels in the
form in which they left their authors' hands.
I want now to say a word or two about the
interpolations. The most important that occur
in our English Bible are the sayings of our Lord
about discerning the weather, in Matt. xvi. 2, 3 ;
the story of the bloody sweat in Gethsemane,
Luke xxii. 43, 44 ; and of our Lord's prayer
for His murderers, Luke xxiii. 34 ; and of the
woman taken in adultery, John vii. 53 to viii. 11.
Bishop Lightfoot conjectured that the source of
this last was Papias' Five Books of the Expositions
of the Oracles of our Lord. And now that it is
known that these other stories all belong to a single
series, they are pretty generally attributed to the
same source. With one exception, they are all
probably true narratives. That one exception is
the story of the angel troubling the water in the
THE SYNOPTISTS 1 TESTIMONY 31
Pool of Bethesda, which is obviously a non-
scientific explanation of the action of an inter-
mittent pool. Papias was either a pupil of S.
John, or a pupil of a pupil of S. John ; and S.
John had founded a school at Ephesus, and
gathered round him a body of Christian teachers.
When we study some of these interpolations it is
tolerably obvious that S. John must have been
the source. For instance, only three of the
disciples could have seen the sweat like great
drops of blood Peter, James, and John. S.
Peter did not mention it ; S. James died, before
the Gospels were written, in A.D. 44 ; there is only
S. John left. Similarly, in the prayer for our
Lord's murderers, only S. John was probably
near enough to hear what the Lord said. There-
fore all the circumstances point to this same
origin of the interpolations, and if so, guarantee
their truthfulness.
There is one very common error that we
must guard against. The Synoptic Gospels,
except in one case, only furnish us with the
testimony of a single witness. When S. Matthew
and S. Luke embody S. Mark in their Gospels,
the testimony is of value as the testimony of
S. Mark alone. Therefore it is the testimony of
only one witness. Similarly, where they quote
the lost Gospel or fragment of a Gospel, the
evidence is only the evidence of the author of
that fragment.
This is very important for us to remember,
32 HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
especially when we have to deal with opponents.
The very worst thing a Christian can do is to
overstate his side of the case ; because the
onlooker thinks if this or that portion of the
evidence can be broken down, probably the rest
could be dealt with in like manner by an opponent
having sufficient knowledge. Therefore, speaking
in general terms, the joint testimony of all the Syn-
optists is only the testimony of a single witness.
There is one important exception to this, and
that is the story of the Resurrection. In this
case we have the original detailed accounts of
S. Mark and S. John. S. Matthew tells us in
addition about the soldiers at the sepulchre.
S. Luke tells about the journey to Emmaus.
The author of the last twelve verses of S. Mark
gives an account all his own, and quite different
from that of S. Luke and S. John, of the journey
to Emmaus, and the appearance afterwards in the
upper room. S. John alone tells us about the
appearance on the first Sunday after Easter, and
at the Sea of Tiberias. S. Matthew alone tells
about the appearance to the body of disciples in
Galilee. S. Luke and the author of the last
twelve verses of S. Mark alone tell us about the
Ascension, and in different records. While S.
Paul, in 1 Cor. xv. 4-8, gives us yet another
account of the Resurrection. So, then, we get
separate accounts of events connected with the
Resurrection from each of the four Evangelists,
from the author of the last twelve verses of
THE PORTRAIT OF THE CHRIST 33
S. Mark, and from S. Paul. Thus the testimony
to the Resurrection is the evidence of six separate
witnesses.
There is one other point of considerable
importance ; that is, the portraiture of the
Christ. It is not infrequently asserted that the
four Gospels give us four portraits of the Christ;
and that statement has been used as a weapon
against the credibility of the Gospels. The
statement itself, as you will have perceived
already, is untrue to the facts.
The Gospels of S. Matthew and S. Mark are
made up in the main of S. Mark's history, with
additional discourses, and a few additional events
of our Lord's ministry ; the special matter which
is not S. Mark's is very small. The Temptation,
the visit of S. John the Baptist's messengers, and
two miracles, is all that is in the common
document used by S. Matthew and S. Luke.
Three miracles come from S. Matthew's special
sources ; and the accounts of the first miraculous
draught of fishes, of the visit to Martha and
Mary, of the mission of the seventy, and of the
journeyings towards Jerusalem between the
Transfiguration and the Passion, are all that
could affect us in S. Luke. None of these make
any change in the character of our Lord during
His ministry as it is given in S. Mark's Gospel,
or in the portions of S. Mark's Gospel embodied
respectively in the Gospels of S. Matthew and
S. Luke.
E
34 HOW THE GOSPELS AVERE WRITTEN
Hence it follows that the portrait of our Lord
given by the Synoptic Evangelists is one and the
same. It is the portrait furnished originally in
S. Mark's Gospel. And that means that it is the
portrait of a single individual, and that individual
is S. Peter.
There is one other portrait given in the
Gospels, and that is by S. John. It is frequently
urged that one or other of these portraits are
untrue, because they appear so dissimilar ; and
those who insist upon these contrasts and press
them against the credibility of the Gospels,
frequently say that the portrait given by the
Synoptists, because it is given by three, has
more testimony in its favour than that given by
S. John.
If I have made myself clear, you will see
that the portrait given by the Synoptists and
S. John respectively both rest exactly upon the
same authority, the authority of one of the two
most intimate of our Lord's Apostles.
The portrait given by the Synoptists has just
as much authority as that given by S. John,
since it is the portrait given by S. Peter; and
the portrait given by S. John must at least have
an equal authority with that furnished by
S. Peter.
When we consider the marvellous character-
istic differences between these two men : S.
Peter is " quick in action, even to rashness ; bold
in word, even to presumption ; eager to realise to
S. PETER AND S. JOHN 35
the full, blessings of which he only half perceived
the import ; unable to wait in calm assurance on
the will of the Master ; full of impatient energy,
which seems to be ever striving after the issues
of things " all telling of a zeal and courage which
are unbounded, but which are followed, until he
has been converted, by a swift and complete
reaction. S. John's is quite a different character :
the inner life flows on with a deep and still
course, only occasionally flashing out into some
jealousy of his Lord, some defence of the Truth.
S. John is "the ideal of the thoughtful Christian :
relentless against evil, patient with the doubting " ;
loving to the full his Master, his Master's family,
and his Master's work. 1
These two men, so different, were yet partners ;
partners first of all in one of the great fishery
firms on the Sea of Galilee S. Peter was the
working, self-made man who had risen to his
position ; S. John was the son of the capitalist
who found the money, who lived a comparatively
easy life, and had the entree to all the best
society of the capital.
Partners in earthly labour and success at
first, we find them afterwards partners in the
closest discipleship of our Lord; and later
partners unjealous, loyal, loving partners in
the foundation and guidance of the infant Church.
Partners they appear in the Gospels in the
1 See Westcott's Introduction to the Study of the Gospels,
chap. x.
36 HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN
portraying of the life and character of the Christ
for all generations of His followers.
Two most different men. Yet in all the four
Gospels we have only two portraits of the Christ,
one by S. Peter, and one by S. John. That these
two portraits should be the same would be quite
contrary to our experience, when we compare
two ordinary biographies of the same indi-
vidual written by different authors. When the
writers themselves have characters so diverse,
and have passed through experiences so varied,
and have occupied conditions of life so opposed
as S. Peter and S. John, the impressions made on
them by the Christ, and the result of those
impressions as they describe them to their hearers,
will be as widely different as possible.
But, further, when the subject of those bio-
graphies is the Incarnate Son of God, it seems to
me more probable than otherwise, that of two
inspired writers one should be inspired to deal
with the Human side, and the other with the
Divine side, of so complex a life and character.
Ill
THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO S. MARK :
ITS SOURCE, OBJECT, AND CHAR-
ACTERISTICS
IN discussing the Gospel according to S. Mark,
it will be necessary for us, first of all, to glance
at S. Mark's history. Of this, part is given in
the New Testament, part is inferred from the
New Testament, and part is furnished us by
tradition, i.e. by the writings of early Christian
teachers.
S. Mark, or John Mark as his name is in full,
was the son of Mary, a member of the Church at
Jerusalem, and a person of some means and
position in the Church, and also a householder in
the city. It was to her house S. Peter went
when he had been miraculously released from
Herod's prison.
When Barnabas and Saul visited Jerusalem
to bear the alms of the Church of Antioch, Mark
was in the city, and he returned with them to
37
38 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
Antioch, which perhaps was natural, as Barnabas
was his cousin.
When those two started forth on their first
missionary journey they took Mark with them as
their minister, i.e., as we should say, as their
chaplain, to baptise for them. At Perga in
Pamphylia, S. Mark left the two Apostles and
returned to Jerusalem. Why he left them we
are not told ; except that his desertion told
heavily against him in S. Paul's mind, and for a
long time S. Paul resented it. On the other
hand, it is quite clear from the after history that
S. Barnabas was not inclined to blame him so
heavily, and even S. Paul was willing to allow
him to join in their work at Antioch. Dr Bigg
suggests that his leaving was the result of his
alarm at the difference between S. Paul's teaching
and that to which he had been accustome'd,
especially in regard to the liberty allowed to the
Gentiles. 1 When the second missionary journey
was begun, S. Barnabas and S. Paul separated
because S. Paul was not willing to take S. Mark
with him, and S. Barnabas would not agree
to his being left behind. This was probably
A.D. 49.
Ten years later, we find S. Mark in Kome
with S. Paul during his first imprisonment. Five
years later again, we find S. Paul sending for
S. Mark to come to him in Rome ; and a little
later, we find him attending upon S. Peter there.
1 See Bigg on The Epistles of S. Peter, Introduction, 7.
S. PETER'S INTERPRETER 39
All this is told to us in so many words in the
Acts, the Epistles of S. Paul to the Colossians
and Timothy, and the first Epistle of S. Peter.
New Testament scholars, or at least many of
them, have inferred from the notices in the New
Testament, two other probable facts about S.
Mark one, that he was the young man who
followed our Lord after His arrest in the Garden
of Gethsemane, and who, when an attempt was
made to arrest him also, fled away naked, leaving
his linen garment in the hands of the Jewish
officers ; and the other, that he was the son of
the man in whose house the Last Supper was
eaten. I think probably both these inferences
are correct.
Tradition tells us in addition that S. Mark
was S. Peter's " interpreter " at Rome, and that
he was the author of a Gospel which contained
the substance of S. Peter's teaching. J This tradi-
tion is double, and comes to us froin two distinct
sources ; one of these sources says that the
Gospel was written after S. Peter's death ; the
other that S. Peter knew, permitted, and approved
of the writing of the Gospel, and therefore that
it was before his death. S. Peter probably died
at Eome about A.D. 64.
Several other rather interesting questions are
involved, including the discussion of the meaning
of the phrase, " S. Peter's interpreter." Bishop
Lightfoot thought that it meant S. Mark trans-
lated S. Peter's sermons into Latin for the
40 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
benefit of some of his Roman hearers ; Dr Swete
thinks it means that S. Peter narrated his story
of the Gospel in Aramaic, and S. Mark wrote it
down in Greek. For our purpose to-night, the
matter is of only secondary importance, and it is
not unlikely that both facts are true, which-
ever the phrase applies to.
When all is taken account of, it seems
tolerably certain that S. Peter is the authority
for the main part of S. Mark's Gospel.
Tradition has identified S. Mark with the
city of Alexandria, where it is said he laboured
and died ; and where his body rested, until at the
time of the Moslem invasion it was transported
for safety to Venice.
When we pass from tradition and come to
examine S. Mark's Gospel after the methods of
modern criticism, we find that the narrative
divides into four main sections : an account of the
ministry in Galilee (i. 14 to ix. 50) ; an account of
the Judaean and Persean journeys which followed
that ministry (x. 1-52) ; an account of the last
week at Jerusalem (xi. 1 to xvi. 8) ; and the last
twelve verses.
Modern scholarship is practically agreed that
the last twelve verses are an addition borrowed
from another source than the rest of the Gospel
and added to replace the account of the Resurrec-
tion which had been lost by the destruction of
the last leaf of the original. It is also agreed
that they give a true story of the Resurrection,
THE LOST LAST LEAF 41
and that they have been accepted by the Church.
Therefore in technical phrase they are authentic
and canonical, but not genuine, i.e. not written by
S. Mark himself. There are two things connected
with them I want you to notice. The first of
these is that we have now obtained a clue to the
original ending. In 1892, in a tomb in Akmim
in Egypt, there was discovered a fragment of
the Apocryphal Gospel of S. Peter. The Gospel
of S. Peter is a second-century writing which
was largely used by the Docetse, a heretical sect,
who taught that the visible body of Christ and
His sufferings were not real, but were only
appearances. This fragment, which contains
the Passion story from the washing of Pilate's
hands to the Resurrection, is obviously made up
from our four Gospels ; and competent scholars
tell us that there are certain indications of the use
of S. Mark's Gospel in the account of the visit of
the women to the sepulchre on Easter Day
morning ; and after this the narrative goes on to
tell us what the women did and what happened
afterwards, and in doing so it mentions one of
the Apostles, "Levi, the son of Alphseus," in
terms which are only used by S. Mark. Thus
we conclude this Gospel, so far as it goes at
present, not only follows S. Mark up to xvi. 8,
in his story of the Resurrection, but goes on
following him afterwards. Mark xvi. 8 ends,
"for they (the women) were afraid." The
Apocryphal Gospel goes on "for they were
F
42 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
afraid, and fled. Now it was the last day of the
unleavened bread, and many went forth, returning
to their homes, as the feast was ended." Then
it describes a return to Galilee by some of the
Apostles, parallel to that recorded by S.
Matthew. So here we have a clue to the con-
tents of the lost leaf of S. Mark. It contained
an account of the Eesurrection somewhat like
that of S. Matthew, and including a visit to
Galilee.
The second thing I want you to notice is this.
In 1891 an Armenian MS. of the Gospels was
discovered, in which there is a break before the
last twelve verses of S. Mark, and there is in-
serted a rubric by the original scribe, which says,
"of the Presbyter Ariston." 1 That means that
these last twelve verses were the work of the
Presbyter Ariston, a separate account of the
Eesurrection of our Lord written by him, and
afterwards used by the Church to replace the
lost last leaf of S. Mark's Gospel. This Ariston
is generally allowed to be the Aristion mentioned
by Papias as one of the school of S. John at
Ephesus ; and further, Papias tells us that
Aristion or Ariston not only was a personal
disciple of our Lord, but that he taught orally of
Him, and also compiled a written series of
narratives of His sayings and doings ; so then we
infer that these last twelve verses of S. Mark
come to us, like the interpolations in the Inter-
1 See Pi-of. Swete's Commentary on S. Mark, p. 111.
ITS NARRATIVE 43
polated Bible, from the school of S. John at
Ephesus.
And further, the result of this is great gain
to the Christian Church, for thereby we get an
additional and independent testimony to the
Resurrection of our Lord. The testimony of the
original S. Mark might not improbably be found
to be the same as that of S. Matthew. The
testimonies of S. Luke and S. John are both
independent. This additional testimony secures
that in the four Gospels we have at least four
independent witnesses to record the reality of the
Resurrection.
Now we will leave the last twelve verses and
turn to the remaining three divisions. Each of
those divisions has characteristics of its own.
But one thing is practically certain. Textual
Criticism has failed to detect any gaps or varia-
tions in them. Therefore we may consider it
certain that the rest of the book is as it was
originally published.
In the first great division, the narrative of
the Galilean ministry (i. 14 to ix. 50), the writer
while not intending to produce a set book, is yet
writing in chronological order, or in what he
regarded as being, in the main, the sequence of
events. The teaching of our Lord is seen to pass
through a succession of stages in order : it is a
fourfold order ; He preaches to the congregation
in the synagogue ; He preaches to the crowd in
the open air, on the high land or seashore as the
44 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
case may be ; when they proved themselves
incapable of receiving spiritual thought, He
teaches in parables ; finally, He reveals to a chosen
few the mysteries of His kingdom.
And besides this, S. Mark shows us a plan
of our Lord's work. It begins with the evangel-
isation of the Lake side ; then passes into the rest
of Galilee, when he is obliged from time to time
to withdraw from the Lake district. I shall have
to return to this again.
The second section, the brief summary of the
Judsean and Persean work, is obviously inserted
to connect the Galilean ministry with the
Passion ; it is short, and furnishes no notes of
time and comparatively few of place.
The third section, the story of the Passion, is
full of detail. The account of this one week
occupies nearly two-fifths of the whole Gospel.
This section is evidently the work of the same
author as the first section ; but it has additional
information, apparently from other sources,
including a written source, as is suggested for
instance by the occurrence of the phrase, " he that
readeth" instead of "he that heareth," "let him
understand."
Now, it is clear that behind the Evangelist
there stands an eyewitness, to whom the whole
narrative was most intensely real, so real that in
his narrative he frequently notes the look and
feeling of our Lord, and gives special details with
regard to persons, time, and place. For instance,
ITS DETAILS 45
he tells us that the house at Capernaum was the
joint property of Simon and Andrew (i. 29) ; that
it was at Capernaum that the sick of the palsy
was healed (ii. 1) ; that on one occasion a small
boat was provided to follow our Lord along the
shore, in case He needed protection from the
multitude (iii. 9) ; that in the storm at sea our
Lord was asleep, in the stern of the vessel, out
of the way of the working of the ship, and
probably sufficiently elevated to be safe from the
wash of the waves (iv. 37, 38) ; that at the
Feeding of the Five Thousand, our Lord had
compassion on the people because they were
as shepherdless sheep that when they were
arranged on the grass, they looked like beds of
flowers in a garden that our Lord made the
two fishes as well as the bread go round them
I might multiply these instances indefinitely.
Bishop Westcott, in his Introduction to the Study
of the Gospels, gives a list of more than a hundred
of them.
But we can go a little further. Special details
like these occur in the narratives of the Healing
of Jairus' daughter (v. 37-43), of the Transfigura-
tion (ix. 2-13), of the Agony in the Garden (xiv.
33-42), of the Denial by S. Peter (xiv. 54, 66-72).
Now in the first three of these cases the eye-
witness must have been one of the first three of
the Apostles, for they alone were present ; in the
fourth case, only S. Peter and S. John could
46 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
possibly have been present. And S. John gives
an account of S. Peter's Fall in his Gospel which
is not the same as that given by S. Mark.
So we are led to the conclusion that the eye-
witness may probably have been S. Peter him-
self : and this is what ancient tradition steadily
says, that S. Mark's Gospel is the summary of
S. Peter's preaching.
In the last main section, there is, as I have
already pointed out, distinct evidence of other
sources of information. The story of the young
man who fled away naked from Gethesemane is
not unlikely to be S. Mark's own history ; and if
his house be the place where the Last Supper
was held, which is, to say the very least, not
improbable, it is quite clear that S. Mark himself
must have had some memories, some very vivid
memories, of the last week of our Lord's
life. And already I have pointed out to you
that in this part of the Gospel there are indica-
tions that S. Mark made use of a written
record of our Lord's discourses.
So far as the sources of S. Mark's Gospel
so then, we learn that it divides into four sections
i
two main sections, a short connecting chapter,
and an appendix. In the two main sections
certainly, and perhaps in the connecting chapter
also, S. Mark derived his information from
an eyewitness ; and of all possible eyewitnesses,
S. Peter's seems to satisfy best the necessary
conditions. Hence, so far as the main body of
ITS OBJECT 47
the Gospel goes, the traditional account that
S. Mark's Gospel is the record of S. Peter's
narrative is probably correct ; while the last
twelve verses appear to have been derived from
another eyewitness, a member of the school of
S. John, and therefore to be equally reliable.
The object of S. Mark's Gospel is to furnish
a portrait of our Lord and His work ; and if, as
seems probable, it was written at Eome, the
accomplishing of that object would be as vivid
and terse as possible.
S. Mark begins by describing how the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is that He is the
the long-promised Messiah of the Jews and the
beloved Son of God.
He narrates the Mission of the Baptist, th
Baptism of our Lord, and His Temptation in the
wilderness.
Then he describes our Lord's ministry in\
terms which make him appear an absolute 1
contrast to John the Baptist.
John the Baptist worked in the wilderness, did
no miracles, preached only to those who came to
him : our Lord worked in the densest population
of the Holy Land ; was profuse, at all events for
the first half of His ministry, with His miracles of
mercy ; sought out men to be His disciples, and
called them to follow Him. The contrast puzzled
the Jews, and even for a time His own disciples ;
and yet it revealed our Lord.
S. Mark works out all this in His simple
48 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
personal narrative, but in so doing he makes the
stages quite clear. He tells, first of all, of a
period during which Jesus had not broken with
the Jews, but taught freely in their synagogues.
He describes how our Lord's personal friends
gather round Him, but as yet were unorganised.
The religious world of Galilee had not yet made
up its mind. A time came when this mutual
hesitancy was bound to cease. The crucial dispute
was a matter in connection with the observance
of the Sabbath : Jesus looked on His opponents
with anger, and was grieved at the hardening of
their hearts : they were equally horrified at Him,
and went out to obtain allies, and conspire to
destroy Him : here we have our Lord's definite
breach with Galilean Judaism. 1 Immediately
after this our Lord begins to teach on the seashore
and elsewhere outside the synagogue ; and He
"appoints Twelve that they might be with Him,
and that He might send them forth to preach."
Here is the separation from Judaism : here is the
birth of the Church : henceforward His definite
instructions are mainly addressed to His
followers, while He discourses to the public
largely in parables.
Thus S. Mark exhibits our Lord's life and
mission, while he depicts Him as man, and at
the same time as something more than man.
:< No Gospel (says Dr Swete) brings into clearer
1 See Prof. Burkitt's paper, S. Mark's Account of the Birth
oj the Church,
PASSAGES PECULIAR TO S. MARK 49
light the perfect humanity of the Lord." On the
other hand, He claims an authority, He has
powers, He manifests knowledge, which are all
supernatural. And he is shown to us "as the
supreme Son of Man, and the Only Son of God,"
" perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable
soul and human flesh subsisting."
When we pass on to consider the character-
istics of S. Mark's Gospel, there is one element
which has been ruled out by modern critics.
Bishop Westcott's theory as to the source of the
common matter in the first three Gospels was
that there existed a common oral Gospel or
Catechism, which was taught to all the Christian
converts, and that the Synoptic Evangelists
worked from this, and selected or omitted such
passages and details as suited them. Of course
in such case the insertions or omissions would
have a distinct bearing upon and would give a
distinct colouring to the characteristics of the
Gospel.
I explained to you in my last lecture that
scholars were now of the opinion that the like-
ness between the Synoptic Gospels was due to
the fact that S. Matthew and S. Luke wrote with
S. Mark's Gospel before them, and embodied
in their Gospels such portions of S. Mark's
Gospel as they deemed suitable for their purpose.
Of course this modifies the value of the
passages peculiar to S. Mark. It was not his
choosing them that made them peculiar to his
G
50 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
narrative ; it was that the others did not choose
them.
These passages of the original Gospel of S.
Mark, i.e. excluding the last twelve verses, are
only four in number. But they are all very
remarkable. They are :-
The Parable of the Seed growing secretly, as
it is commonly called (iv. 26-29) ; which lays
down the mysteriousness and secrecy of the
development of Spiritual life.
The healing of the deaf and dumb Gentile by
two separate actions (vii. 31-37); the ears were
bored, the tongue was touched ; which shows
how God may, if He will, use instruments. The
healing of the blind man whose sight was gradually
restored (viii. 22-26) ; showing our Lord as the
author and finisher of the healing.
The story of the young man (not improbably
S. Mark himself) who followed Jesus from
Gethsemane for a while, and then fled away
naked, to avoid arrest (xiv. 51-52).
There are two or three other points which
should be noticed in connection with S. Mark's
Gospel, if we are to get a true idea of its character.
The first and most obvious of these is its brevity.
S. Matthew's Gospel and S. Luke's Gospel are
each considerably longer. S. Mark's Gospel is
two-thirds of S. Matthew's, and three-fifths of
S. Luke's. And this brevity is not altogether
due to the omission by S. Mark of any record of
our Lord's birth and childhood. The narrative
ITS CHARACTERISTICS 51
of our Lord's ministry is very nearly the same
length in S. Matthew's Gospel as in S. Luke's,
and in each of them the narrative is about half
as long again as S. Mark's.
The next thing we must notice is the cause of
this brevity. It is due to two causes : terseness
of narration, and the compression and omission
of discourses and parables.
Yet in spite of this terseness there is hardly
a single incident in the narrative to which S.
Mark does not contribute some special feature.
His narrative is the narrative of an eyewitness,
upon whose memory each event is photographed
in detail.
The narrative, moreover, is "addressed to the
vigorous intelligence of Roman hearers " - it
records deeds, not words ; actions rather than
discourses.
It shows us by its details, the true humanity
and divinity of our Lord ; it shows us in the
selection of the events recorded, that whether
He works directly or indirectly, our Lord yet
overcomes for God the powers of evil, the
wickednesses and diseases of His people, and the
tumultuous passions of men.
" In substance and style and treatment, the
Gospel of S. Mark is essentially a transcript from
life."
" The course and issue of facts are imaged in
it with the clearest outline." l
1 See Westcott's Introduction, rbap. vii.
52 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK
The narrative is equally disconnected from the
symbolism of the Old Testament and from the
deeper reasonings of the New Testament. 1
It is a vivid and simple record, stamped with
the most distinct impress of independence and
originality.
The teaching which was originally addressed
to the practical Roman is still pregnant with
instruction for us to-day.
To the business man this Gospel speaks in
terse, vivid, convincing tones, with a clear
message.
There is a Gospel Jesus Christ has all the
completeness of manhood, and yet is God, our
Saviour and our King.
1 See Westcott's Introduction) chap. vii.
IV
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MAT-
THEW : ITS SOURCES AND AIMS
AT the present moment we know less about the
Gospel according to S. Matthew than about any
of the other Gospels. This is partly due to the
fact that we know less about S. Matthew than
about any other Evangelist, and partly to the fact
that at present we are quite unable to connect
the existing Gospel with the traditional account
of it.
Tradition affirms that S, Matthew wrote
his Gospel in Judaea while S. Peter and S. Paul
were founding the Church at Rome, for the use
of Jewish converts, and in their national language.
And that he did so because, having formerly
preached to the Hebrews, he was now going
away to preach to others. And this tradition is
steady and uniform.
Of S. Matthew himself we know next to
nothing. S. Mark calls him Levi, the son of
53
54 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
Alpheeus ; lie was a customs officer at Capernaum,
apparently in the service of King Herod. He
was immediately obedient to our Lord's call, and
he at least forsook all when he followed Jesus,
for his post must have been instantly filled up,
and in no sense could have been kept open for
him, nor could he have returned to it from time
to time as did the fishermen. For the rest, all
we know of him is that the lately discovered
fragment of the Gospel of S. Peter, which is
believed to be derived from the original and lost
ending to S. Mark's Gospel, tells us he was
among the disciples who went to meet our Lord
in Galilee after the Resurrection.
Of his Gospel we know less even than this.
We are told that he wrote his Gospel in
Hebrew ; but of such an Hebrew Gospel no
trace has ever been found. The Greek Gospel
that goes by his name is certainly not a transla-
tion from an Aramaic original. And yet all
the early writers quote it as if it were the
original.
The whole position of S. Matthew's Gospel
is most difficult. It is the Gospel whose literary
history we are least able to trace. And yet it
was quoted in the second century as the work of
S. Matthew ; and of the Synoptic Gospels it was
by far the most popular. I have calculated the
admitted quotations in the Christian writers of
the second century, and allowing for propor-
tionate length, I find the quotations from S.
S. MATTHEW AND S. MARK 55
Matthew's Gospel to be twice as many as those
from the Gospels of S. Mark and S. Luke
together.
Now if we leave the traditional history for a
time, and apply modern methods and knowledge
to the elucidation of the problem, we find that
S. Matthew's Gospel contains two large sections
drawn from other written sources. The largest
of these sections is drawn from S. Mark. Very
nearly the whole of S. Mark's Gospel 96 per
cent, of it, to be quite accurate is embodied in
S. Matthew's Gospel. And this section forms
more than half of S. Matthew's Gospel. I
showed you in a previous lecture that modern
scholars have come to the conclusion that the
Greek S. Matthew wrote with S. Mark's Gospel
open before him.
Now this does not mean that he slavishly
copied from it ; for he did not. But it does
mean that he embodied very nearly the whole of
the subject matter of S. Mark in his own book.
How did he treat S. Mark's work ? Sometimes
he had a version of the story of his own, which
he substituted for S. Mark's. This is the case,
for instance, in the account of our Lord's Baptism,
where S. Matthew alone gives the account of the
conversation between the Baptist and our Lord
before His Baptism : " But John forbad Him,
saying, I have need to be baptised of Thee, and
comest Thou to me ? And Jesus answering
said unto him, Suffer it to be so now ; for thus it
56 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he
suffered Him." Again, I think he had a different
account of the Transfiguration.
Sometimes the Greek S. Matthew quotes
S. Mark's account and cuts it down ; here is an
instance : S. Mark says, " And again He entered
into Capernaum after some days ; and it was
noised that he was in the house. And straight-
way many were gathered together, insomuch
that there was no room to receive them, no, not
so much as about the door ; and he preached the
word unto them." All this S. Matthew cuts
down to one verse : " And he entered into a ship,
and passed over, and came to His own city."
On the other hand, sometimes he expands
S. Mark's narrative ; for instance, S. Mark says,
" And he went round about the villages teach-
ing." S. Matthew's version is: "And Jesus
went about all the cities and villages, teaching
in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of
the kingdom, and healing every sickness and
every disease among the people."
Then very frequently to the simple historical
narrative he adds a note, suggesting that this or
that act of our Lord is a fulfilment of an Old
Testament prophecy, which he quotes.
Perhaps I may be allowed to give a word of
warning here about those prophecies : the Jews
did not quote as we do. Sometimes they quoted
their ancient Scriptures literally, and with a full
reference to their original meaning ; sometimes
S. MATTHEWS OTHER SOURCES 57
they quoted the substance of a passage only ;
sometimes a merely verbal quotation is made use
of, without any reference to the context or
primary meaning of the original.
So, you see, though S. Matthew uses nearly
the whole of S. Mark's Gospel and embodies it
in his own, he does not merely copy it out ; he
works it all carefully in, sometimes expanding
it, sometimes pruning it, and sometimes even
substituting for it another alternative narrative
of which he may be in possession, which in his
judgment gives a better account of any particular
incident.
The other large section in S. Matthew's
Gospel that is generally regarded as drawn from
a written source is that which is common to S.
Matthew and S. Luke. Dr Armitage Eobinson,
the present Dean of Westminster, calls it the
non-Marcan document. This document is said
to include the accounts of the visits of the
Pharisees and Sadducees to the Mission of S.
John the Baptist ; the message of inquiry sent
by the imprisoned Baptist to our Lord, "Art
thou He that should come, or do we look for
another ? " ; the miracle of the healing of the
centurion's servant ; the interview with inquirers,
in which he said to one, " Foxes have holes, and
the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of
Man hath not where to lay His head," and to
another, " Let the dead bury their dead " ; the
assertion by the Pharisees that He cast out
H
58 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
devils by the power of Beelzebub ; the first lament
over Jerusalem ; a considerable number of dis-
courses, sayings, and parables ; and perhaps the
Great Sermon, and the Story of the Temptation.
I say perhaps these last two, because it is
possible the variations between S. Matthew and
S. Luke in the narrative of the Temptation may
point to each having received the story from
sources peculiar to himself ; while a considerable
number of writers are not willing to admit that
the Great Sermons in S. Matthew's Gospel and
in S. Luke's are the same. It is quite possible they
are not. Our Lord undertook several missions
(as we call them) while He was in Galilee, and
it may quite well be the case that He twice
preached the subject matter of these two
sermons. On the other hand, S. Matthew says
it was preached on a mount, S. Luke says it was
preached not " on a plain " but " on a level
place," which may mean a level place on the
mount or high land. And all the other
differences are quite in harmony with S.
Matthew's treatment of other common matter;
so that most scholars are inclined to regard the
two reports as two reports of the same Great
Sermon.
When we come to compare S. Matthew's
report with that of S. Luke, we notice two
very important differences ; one is the difference
of position in the Gospel narrative, the other is
the fact that the sermon in S. Matthew contains
THE GREAT SERMON 59
materials drawn from apparently other sermons
in S. Luke. When I come to speak of S. Luke,
I hope to be able to show that S. Luke intended
to write history, and that wherever we have been
able to test him, S. Luke has always been proved
to be absolutely correct. Therefore now I am
going to assume what I am going to give reasons
for in my next lecture that when S. Luke differs
from S. Mark and S. Matthew, he is correct in
order and in contents. This does not imply that
the others made mistakes, but that they wrote
with an aim which had less to do with chrono-
logical order or exact contents.
S. Matthew's account of the Great Sermon is
an illustration of this. 1 Dealing first with the
order. S. Matthew puts the Sermon at the end
of chapter iv., immediately following a mission-
ary journey through Galilee, which succeeds the
second call of Simon and Andrew and James and
John. If you read the Sermon through, you
will see that before He uttered it, our Lord must
have broken with the Scribes and Pharisees ;
for in it He once attacks them by name, and all
through the latter part of it He obviously applies
to them the term "hypocrites." Now if we turn
to S. Mark's Gospel we find that the rupture took
place after He had healed the withered hand of a
man in the synagogue at Capernaum on a certain
Sabbath day. That incident, and the rupture
1 See the Dean of Westminster's Study of the Gospels,
chap. iii.
60 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
that followed, and the immediately consequent
organisation of our Lord's disciples into a church,
are all recorded by each of the Synoptic
Evangelists. S. Mark and S. Luke each place
these incidents in their proper historical setting,
and S. Luke gives the Great Sermon as our Lord's
appeal to the general multitudes to thenceforward
follow Him. S. Matthew, on the other hand,
postpones the account of these incidents to the
twelfth chapter, and gives the Sermon in connec-
tion with the opening of our Lord's mission work
in Galilee. I think you will see at once from
this that the order in which events are narrated
by S. Matthew is not a chronological order.
When we come to investigate the contents of
the Great Sermon in S. Matthew, we find that to
the Sermon as apparently originally delivered
S. Matthew has added portions of others of our
Lord's discourses, which S. Luke gives as having
been uttered on different occasions. Now, if
there were time, it would be easy to set before
you what a stately and model discourse this
magnificent Sermon is. But there is not time
for it now ; and to do so would also divert your
attention from the point which I desire to press
upon you at this moment. Our investigations
go to show that this great Sermon is not merely
a single discourse, but is a complete summary of
all our Lord's preaching to the multitudes. Or
in other words, S. Matthew has been inspired to
take the reports of our Lord's discourses and
ITS ORIGINAL MATTER 61
weave them into a systematic exposition of our
Lord's teaching.
If we were to follow out the other passages
in S. Matthew's Gospel which are derived from
this non-Marcan document, we should find that
the same holds true, and thus we are led to the
conclusion that the order of events as recorded
in S. Matthew's Gospel is a sequence not of
time but of idea.
Now, this document from which S. Luke and
S. Matthew both quote is either a lost Gospel or a
lost fragment of a Gospel. When we recall what
was said in the last lecture how nearly S. Mark's
Gospel was lost to us ; that there was a time
when only one copy could be found, and that
copy a mutilated one it is easy to realise that
yet another Gospel may have been both muti-
lated and lost.
We have spoken of the two written docu-
ments of which S. Matthew made use our S.
Mark's Gospel, and this last document. I said
that the amount of material which S. Matthew
has embodied from our S. Mark's Gospel is
rather more than half of his Gospel ; the amount
that he has incorporated from this lost document
is rather more than a quarter ; so that, so far as
the sources go, we have accounted for about
four-fifths of S. Matthew's Gospel.
The remaining fifth is peculiar to S. Matthew ;
it includes his Genealogy and his account of the
early life of our Lord, some sixty verses of the
62 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
Great Sermon, three miracles, ten parables, the
description of the Last Judgment, the account of
the sealing of the sepulchre and the setting a
watch, and the account of what happened to
the soldiers at the sepulchre on the Resurrec-
tion morning.
Now, up to the present time, it is quite
impossible with any certainty to say whence
these portions of the Gospel came. All we can
say is that any portion of this material, or all of
it, may have come from S. Matthew's own recol-
lections. For out of the three miracles, two
were worked almost immediately after S.
Matthew's call, while the third was worked
after the Transfiguration, upon the occasion of
the return of our Lord and His disciples to
Capernaum. Of the parables, four form part of
the group of parables of the Kingdom, which
were spoken to all the disciples ; the Unmerciful
Servant, and the Labourers in the Vineyard, were
both addressed to the disciples ; the Two Sons,
and the Marriage of the King's Son, were
addressed to the Jews in the Temple on the
Tuesday before Easter ; while the Ten Virgins,
the Talents, and the discourse about the Last
Judgment were addressed to the disciples on the
evening of the same great day, while they sat on
the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem. (I
call this Tuesday in Holy Week a great day, not
only because of the important and critical part it
played in the Divine Tragedy, but also because
NOT TRANSLATED FROM THE ARAMAIC 63
to the account of it is devoted about one-fifth.
of S. Matthew's Gospel.)
Therefore, when we sum up the sources of S.
Matthew's Gospel, all we can say is that eleven-
twentieths, or rather more than a half, is taken,
at least in substance, from S. Mark's Gospel ;
rather more than a quarter of it comes from the
lost Gospel or fragment of a Gospel with which
S. Luke also was acquainted : while about one-
fifth of it is original matter, all of which may
have been within S. Matthew's own cognisance.
But this analysis disposes of the tradition
that our S. Matthew is a translation of an
Aramaic Gospel by S. Matthew now lost. Yet
that tradition is balanced by the fact that all the
ancient writers quote our Greek S. Matthew as
the Gospel according to S. Matthew, and that
with them it was the most popular of the
Synoptic Gospels, and by them it was placed
first of the four Gospels in the Canon, first in
order in the Bible.
The actual solution of this problem remains
at present unknown, but a tentative solution has
been suggested by some very great scholars
which appears satisfactory as far as it goes, and
is so far not contradictory to any ascertained
facts, and it is this. S. Matthew wrote his
original Gospel in Aramaic ; when it became
necessary to put it into Greek, he or his trans-
lator, instead of translating it, substituted for
the Aramaic the corresponding passages in S,
64 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
Mark and the lost Greek fragments, and filled
up the close either by rewriting it in Greek or
from some other source. I give you this for
what it is worth. All we can say about it at
present is that it is a possible solution of the
problem. But we have much still to learn
about S. Matthew's Gospel.
When we turn from its sources to its aims,
the Gospel of S. Matthew becomes quite clear.
There can be no question as to its aims.
The Gospel begins with a Genealogy which
traces out the pedigree of our Lord as the heir
to the ancient throne of the Jewish Kings.
Then it describes our Lord's miraculous birth,
and shows how Joseph is made acquainted with
all the circumstances of the case, so that he
should not be led to regard it as a transgres-
sion of the righteousness of the Law. This
must have been derived in the first instance
from Joseph. Then follow the visit of the Wise
Men, and the treachery of Herod : the King of
the Jews is acknowledged and paid homage to
on the one hand by the representatives of the
Gentiles ; on the other, His life is attempted by
the Idumsean usurper. Then the Evangelist
begins his record of S. John the Baptist's
ministry, and even here his narrative is a con-
trast to that of S. Luke ; for while S. Luke
speaks of the Baptist's influence on the multitude,
on the publicans, and on the soldiers, S. Matthew
speaks of his effect upon the Pharisees and
ITS AIM AND SCOPE 65
Sadducees, upon the religious parties of the
Jews, who boasted themselves that they were
Abraham's children. Again, when the Tempta-
tion of our Lord is recorded, S. Matthew
arranges his narrative so that the climax of the
Temptation appears to be the conditional offer
of the Messianic Kingdom. And so the narra-
tive is given all the way through ; the dominant
thought is the Kingdom of the Messiah. Each
act, each word of our Saviour, is represented as
a step towards the taking possession of that
Kingdom ; and every stage is paralleled by some
prophetic utterance which it is stated our Lord
then and there fulfilled. Moreover, these
prophetic utterances have a character of their
own. They are cited as only a Jew could cite
them. Some are quoted quite independently of
the context, and show only a verbal similarity ;
some we should accept in our modern view as
prophecies, others appear to us as little more
than chance coincidences ; but our Evangelist
regards them all equally as designed foreshadow-
ings, and quotes them as finding their true fulfil-
ment in the events he records.
Thus, from a general glance at the Gospel it
is clear that the traditional view of its aim and
scope are correct, and are amply verified by an
examination of its contents. The Gospel was
written for Jews, to exhibit our Lord as the long-
promised Messiah, and show how in Him are ful-
filled all the ancient prophecies current in Israel.
i
66 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
When we turn from this general glance to
consider the special passages peculiar to S.
Matthew, our already formed estimate of the
object and contents is confirmed.
The Genealogy and S. Matthew's story of
our Lord's Infancy I have spoken of already, and
the Genealogy I shall have to refer to again
presently.
For the rest of the three miracles, the
first 1 is quoted obviously because the patients
appeal to our Lord as the Messiah, the Son of
David ; the second 2 appears to be recorded
because, while the multitudes are inclined to
accept Him as Messiah, saying, It was never so
seen in Israel, the Pharisees, in order to destroy
the budding faith of the chosen people, deliberately
assert, " He casteth out devils through the prince
of the devils." While the third 3 miracle is the
finding of a coin in the fish's mouth : this coin
was the Temple tribute, and our Lord's paying it
was a definite proof of His claim to be a true
Israelite, a faithful member of God's chosen
people, in spite of the fact that He had already
been excommunicated by the Galilean Pharisees.
Thus we see that each of these three miracles
points in the same direction, and that the three
taken together show Him to us God's Messiah,
accessible to the cry of His own people, conquer-
1 Two Blind Men (ix. 27-31).
2 The Dumb Devil exorcised (ix. 32-34).
3 The Stater in the Fish (xvii. 24).
THE GENEALOGY 67
ing the devil in them, and claiming to be a loyal
member of their Church.
When we turn to the special parables, I
believe the same is true of them also. Time
does not admit of working these out in detail ;
there are ten of them. But it is quite easy to
see how in some of them this great truth, that
Jesus is the Messiah though He was rejected by
His own people, is worked out. The parables
of the Two Sons, of the Labourers in the Vine-
yard, and of the Marriage of the King's Son,
quite clearly refer to this. And I think the
others do the same, especially when we note the
distinction which our Lord makes by saying in
some cases that the Kingdom is like unto certain
things, in others that it is likened, i.e. that it has
been made like ; meaning in the former case that
the Kingdom as God designed it, is so ; and in the
latter case, that owing to the outward influences
to which it has been subject, it has become
different in its present condition to the original
idea of it which existed in the mind of God. 1
But here come in for consideration two very
important passages, the Genealogy, and the Story
of the Resurrection. In both these passages, as
Dr Zahn points out, there is a distinctly apolo-
getic element.
In the genealogy of S. Matthew four women
are mentioned. One of these was a Gentile ;
the other three were women who had broken the
1 See Westcott's Introduction, chap. vii.
68 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
Seventh Commandment. Why are their names
inserted ? Dr Zahn answers, Because of the
Jewish slanders about the Virgin Mary. The
presence of these women among the ancestors of
the Israelite Kings did not vitiate the line of
heirs to the Messianic throne : and if this were
so, which no Jew could deny, our Lord's claim to
the throne would not be invalidated even if the
Blessed Virgin had been what the Jewish
slanders asserted. This is a very important
point. For, so far as I know, it is the first reason-
able explanation of the presence of these names
in the genealogy ; and in the second place, it
makes it clear that before A.D. 70 the story of
the miraculous birth of our Lord had been taught
to the Jewish Christians, that their opponents
had met it by certain attacks upon the character
of the Virgin Mary, and that our Evangelist had
shown that false though such slanders were, they
were futile as well as false, and did not destroy
our Lord's Messianic claim. Or, to put the matter
in other words, they tell us that the Virgin birth
of our Lord, which some people have lately
denied and treated as a later addition to the
Gospel, had been taught from the very beginning
in the Christian Church, had even then found
objectors objectors whose objections had been
discussed and replied to and dismissed as futile
before the Destruction of Jerusalem.
Similarly, the account of the Sealing of the
Stone at the Holy Sepulchre and the setting
ITS APOLOGETIC CHARACTER 69
of a watch, together with the account of how
the Jews bribed the soldiers and the Governor
to allow their tale of a theft of the Body from
the Tomb to pass current, is inserted to refute
Jewish slanders and that such slanders existed
is no slight testimony to the reality of our
Lord's Eesurrection.
Thus we see that S. Matthew's Gospel
though we cannot yet define S. Matthew's own
exact share in its composition is a Gospel
probably written before the Destruction of Jeru-
salem was regarded by the earliest Christian
writers with the greatest favour was placed
first in the volume of the Four Gospels, though
not written first was quoted more often than
any of the other Synoptic Gospels and was
written for Jews to prove that Jesus was the
Jewish Messiah, and on behalf of the Jewish
Christians to show how little the Jewish slanders
about Him, His mother, and His disciples,
availed to shake either His claim to the
Messianic throne, or the testimony to the
reality and historic truth of His Resurrection.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE :
ITS SOURCES AND CHARACTERISTICS
S. LUKE is generally recognised to be the author
of the Third Gospel and of the Acts. He is
supposed to have been a Gentile and an edu-
cated man, " the beloved physician " of S. Paul
and " the brother whose praise~is~in the Gospel."
But nothing is really known ^FTns~Tii story
except what can be gathered from his own
writings.
In the Acts he sometimes writes in the first
person plural, "we." And this is generally
accepted as meaning that at such times and
places he was present himself. If the ordinary
text of the New Testament be taken, this in-
volves his joining S. Paul on his second Mission-
ary Journey at Troas, and going with him to
Philippi and then leaving him. It has been
conjectured that Luke was a European and
a Philippian. On the other hand, there is an
70
S. LUKE ACCOMPANIES S. PAUL 71
ancient tradition which is embodied in a curious
interpolation in Acts xi. 28, in Codex Bezse,
which makes Luke a Christian, and at Antioch
in A.D. 43, 44. But the variations of Codex
Bezae, which are many and quaint, have not
yet been sufficiently worked at to enable us to
say what real authority they possess and how
far they can be relied upon. So all we can say
for certain is that S. Luke joined S. Paul at
Troas, and was left at Philippi on the second
Missionary Journey. On S. Paul's third
Missionary Journey, after the disturbance at
Ephesus, when S. Paul reached Philippi S. Luke
rejoined him there (after an interval of five or
six years), and accompanied him on his fifth
visit to Jerusalem, A.D. 56, and thence to Rome.
Apparently S. Luke stayed at Rome till the
end of S. Paul's first imprisonment, which ended
A.D. 61. Then we hear nothing more of him
till A.D. 64 or 65, when he is again with S. Paul
at Rome during his second imprisonment and
trial. Thus we know for certain that S. Luke
was at Jerusalem in A.D. 56, and perhaps be-
tween A.D. 61 and 64, and after S. Paul's death ;
or he may have gone to Ephesus later on,
whither the centre of Christianity was removed
by the settlement of S. John, when the Jewish
War and the Destruction of Jerusalem made
residence there no longer possible for the
Christian community. Now it is tolerably
certain that our Lord died A.D. 30, and that He
72 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
was about 35 or 36 years of age when He died ;
the Virgin Mary would therefore be somewhere
about -50, or perhaps a little more, when He
died. Then, before S. Luke's known visit to
Jerusalem she would, if alive, be between 76
and 80. It is improbable she lived so long ; and
therefore it is improbable S. Luke ever met the
Virgin herself. On the other hand, it is more
than probable that some of the ministering
women and some of the Virgin's intimate friends
survived her, and that S. Luke met them and
learnt from them the story of the miraculous
birth and early life of our Lord. Professor
Sanday thinks he has been able to identify S.
Luke's informant with Joanna, the wife of Chuza,
Herod's steward.
It is practically certain that ^.__Liike_was^a
Gentile, and that He had never seen our Lord.
Therefore he cannot have been, as some have
supposed, either one of the Seventy, or one of
the two whom our Lord joined on the walk to
Emmaus on the evening of Easter Day.
The first four verses of S. Luke's Gospel
are his preface. And in them he tells us how
he set himself to gather information, as an
historian, from those who were " e^e_witnesses,
and ministers of the word " eyewitnesses who
could vouch for the truth of what they had seen,
and ministers of the word who had learnt by
experience what were the portions of our Lord's
life and sayings which were most worth record-
HIS VERACITY 73
ing as efficacious for saving souls. 1 And he
claims acceptance for his Gospel because of
the care, thoroughness, and accuracy of his
work. Moreover, he says he has arranged and
written his work "in order," and I think those
are certainly right who understand him to mean
in chronological order.
Now comes the very important question,
Can S. Luke be trusted? He mentions some
matters that are not recorded elsewhere. He
mentions three matters also that are recorded
by Josephus, and his accounts of these varies
from those of Josephus ; which is likely to be
right ?
I am going to try and discuss this question
with you, so that you may see how the con-
clusions are reached.
Here are some of the difficulties :
1. S. Luke ii. 1. "It came to pass in those
days, that a decree went forth from Csesar
Augustus that all the world should be taxed :
this taxing first took place when Quirinius was
Governor of Syria." Now Quirinius is known to
have been Governor of Syria A.D. 6-9 ; and a
census or taxing did take place in A.D. 8. But
S. Matthew says our Lord was born before the
death of Herod, and Herod died B.C. 4.
2. Acts v. 34. Gamaliel speaks of the
rebellion of Theudas. Gamaliel spoke in A.D.
37, or before : Josephus says the rebellion took
1 See Dr Plummer's Commentary on S. Luke.
K
74 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
place A.D. 45 or 46, eight or nine years after
Gamaliel spoke.
3. Then again, in speaking of Philippi being
a very important place, he calls it the chief
city of this part of Macedonia ; and he uses for
"part," a Greek word, which Dr Hort, writing in
1881, says, " This word never (in Greek literature)
denotes simply a region, province, or any
geographical division : when used of land, as of
anything else, it means a portion or share."
4. Then again, S. Luke calls the magistrates
of Thessalonica politarchs, and the Governor of
Malta " the Primus " : of these titles the latter is
unknown in Greek literature, and the other is so
rare that some very great scholars say it does
not occur.
Now let us examine these cases. In the
two last these two unique titles have been found,
not in books but in ancient inscriptions, which
prove that S. Luke was absolutely accurate.
In the third case, the case of Philippi, since
Dr Hort's death a quantity of coins have been
found in the Fayoum in Egypt, where there was
a great Macedonian colony, and on these coins
the word used by S. Luke for "a part " is used
for a division of the country, showing that S.
Luke again was strictly correct.
About Theudas we know nothing. But
Josephus wrote two books, the Wars of the
Jews, and the Antiquities of the Jews, and he
constantly repeats himself in the two books with
THE CENSUS 75
statements that contradict one another ; so that it
is easy to show that he is both careless and
inaccurate, and therefore no conclusion hostile
to S. Luke ought to be based on a single un-
supported statement of Josephus.
About Quirinius and the taxing when our
Lord was born, we can tell something, if not
everything. A house was taken down a few
years ago in Venice, and on the back of one of
the stones was an inscription to the memory of
a soldier who died or was killed while serving
under Quirinius in Syria, in the war against the
Homonadenses, a warlike mountain tribe on
the frontier ; so Quirinius was in Syria before
A.D. 6. Then again, certain recent discoveries
among the Egyptian papyri show that there were
periodic household census papers for the
provinces of the Roman Empire, and that one
would be due about the time S. Luke mentions.
Then again, Quirinius was a very great Roman
noble and an especially great general, and in the
records we have of his life there are admitted
traces, apart from the stone I have referred to,
that he was in some high office in Syria before
A.D. 6. So, then, though we cannot yet prove all
S. Luke says about the census or taxing under
Quirinius, we can already prove that there
probably was a census, and that Quirinius was
in some command in Syria about that time.
Thus in every case where we have been able
to test S. Luke, he proves to be minutely correct ;
76 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
hence it is not unfair to argue that he may safely
be trusted where no other historian covers the
ground, or even as against a writer like
Josephus, who can be proved by comparisons
from his own works to be frequently inaccurate.
We have arrived, then, at the conclusion that
S. Luke is a painstaking, accurate, and reliable
historian. It remains for us to investigate the
sources of his information.
When we come to examine his book carefully
we find that, as he tells us in his preface, S. Luke
made use of many sources of information. Among
these are, of course, S. Mark's Gospel, and the lost
document common to S. Matthew and S. Mark.
In addition, there is the narrative of the
early life of our Lord, which must have come in
the first instance from the Virgin Mary ; there
is the long section about the journeyings towards
Jerusalem ; and all through there are distinct
traces of another source. Finally, there are the
interpolations.
I need not dwell very long on S. Luke's
treatment of the information he derives from
S. Mark's Gospel. It occupies rather less than
two-fifths of his Gospel ; l it consists of rather
more than four-fifths of S. Mark's Gospel. 2
Therefore it is evident that S. Luke has com-
pressed this information into about half the space
it occupies in S. Mark's Gospel. He also makes
corrections in it and additions to it, additions of
1 38 per cent. 2 83 per cent.
THE LOST GOSPEL 77
detail and explanation. The one really important
section which is common to S. Mark and S.
Matthew, and which S. Luke omits, is the journey
undertaken, between the Feeding of the Five
Thousand and the Transfiguration, into the
Gentile and heathen district of Tyre, Sidon, and
Decapolis, and including the Feeding of the
Four Thousand Gentiles. This is at first sight
a very remarkable omission ; perhaps we may
account for it by the fact that S. Luke, himself
a Gentile, and writing in the main for Gentiles,
would feel it unnecessary to show that our Lord
was interested in them, regarded them as related
to Himself, and would welcome them into His
Kingdom.
In discussing S. Matthew's Gospel in the last
lecture, I spoke about the relation of both those
Evangelists to the common document, the lost
Gospel or fragment of a Gospel which both make
use of, and which includes the Great Sermon. I
then pointed out to you that while in S. Matthew's
Gospel the Great Sermon was all drawn together
and worked up into a representative summary of
our Lord's teaching, in S. Luke's Gospel the
fragmentary discourses were all in their proper
historical setting, distinct from the Sermon on
the level place. If we had to reconstruct this
fragment, we should find it included the Tempta-
tion, the Great Sermon, the Healing of the Cen-
turion's Servant, the visit of John the Baptist's
messengers, and some of the later events of
78 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
our Lord's life : but we should be unable to say
whether the story of the Raising of the Widow's
Son at Nain belonged to it or no ; for though this
passage occurs in S. Luke's Gospel immediately
after the Healing of the Centurion's Servant, it
is quite possible that it did not occur in the
lost document, but that S. Luke derived it from
some other source, and yet knew that to be
its historical setting, and consequently placed it
there, and quite correctly.
After the Transfiguration there follows
another great section, which is generally called
the Journeyings towards Jerusalem. This
section divides into three parts, each part
commencing with the statement that He is
journeying towards Jerusalem. A careful study
will show that each of these parts represents a
stage in the progress, and that the phrase with
which they open, " And it came to pass, when the
time was come that He should be received up,
He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem," l
covers the whole period up to the Passion ; and
the iteration, "And he went through the cities
and villages journeying towards Jerusalem " ; 2
and again, "And it came to pass as he went to
Jerusalem, that He passed through the midst of
Samaria and Galilee," 8 only marks a different
stage in the Way of the Cross.
There are two or three things in this threefold
progress I want you to notice.
1 Luke ix. 51. 2 Luke xiii. 22. 3 Luke xvii. 11.
THE JOURNEYINGS TO JERUSALEM 79
In the first stage He is actually at Jerusalem
part of the time, for He is staying with Martha
and Mary at Bethany ; l and also the parable of
the Good Samaritan occurs in this stage, and if
our Lord followed His usual practice, it must
have been spoken on or within view of the road
from Jerusalem to Jericho.
Similarly, the story of how Pilate treated the
Galileans, and of the accident at Siloam, 2 imply
that our Lord was in Jerusalem or its immediate
neighbourhood.
In the second stage the inferences of locality
are less clear.
But in the third stage our Lord is said to go
"through Samaria and Galilee" towards Jerusa-
lem. Now Samaria was between Galilee and
Jerusalem ; and yet the Evangelist says our
Lord went "through Samaria and Galilee." I
am quite aware of course that some good scholars
want to translate (as the margin of the Revised
Version translates) " he passed between Samaria
and Galilee," but that does not really make the
matter any clearer. Whereas if you will pay
attention to the incidental notices that tell us He
was in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and
then compare them with the account given by
S. John of our Lord's movements at the same
period, you will see that it all becomes fairly
intelligible.
For S. Luke's first stage includes the events
1 Luke x. 38. 2 Luke xiii. 1.
80 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
recorded in S. John vii., viii., ix., x. 8. Luke's
second stage includes the events recorded in S.
John xi. And therefore, for the last stage He
starts from the city Ephraim in Judsea, north-east
of Jerusalem, and journeys first northwards
through Samaria and Galilee to meet the cara-
van of Galilean pilgrims, where they cross the
Jordan into Persea, on their way up to the
final Passover, and then accompanies them to
Jerusalem.
The remainder of the Gospel is peculiar to
S. Luke. This includes his narrative of our
Lord's birth, his genealogy, his account of our
Lord's baptism, and perhaps of the Transfigura-
tion, and some of the incidents of the Passion.
With regard to the narrative of the Birth and
Early Life of our Lord, there can be no question
as to the source from which this came. It must
have come in the first instance from the Virgin
Mary. The accounts of the Vision of Zacharias
would be told to her when she went to visit
Elisabeth ; all the rest was within her own
cognisance, and S. Luke expressly tells us, Mary
" His mother kept all these sayings in her heart."
When we turn to the genealogy there is again
a difference. Just as S. Matthew appears to
give us the history of the birth and early life of
our Lord as derived from Joseph, while as S.
Luke gives it to us as derived from the Virgin
Mary ; so in the case of the genealogies, while
S. Matthew gives us the list of the heirs to the
THE NARRATIVE OF THE INFANCY 81
Throne of David and traces the line back to
Abraham, so as to exhibit our Lord as the heir
of all the promises, S. Luke apparently gives us
the list of his natural forefathers, and traces the
line back through David and Abraham to Adam
and up to God. As Bishop Westcott puts it,
" In the one we see a royal Infant born by a
legal title to a glorious inheritance ; and in the
other a ministering Saviour who bears the
natural sum of human sorrow." Then the
position of the genealogies in their respective
Gospels is full of significance ; in S. Matthew it
comes before the Nativity of our Lord, and
prepares us for the announcement of His birth
as King of Israel ; in S. Luke it comes after
our Lord's baptism, and before He begins His
ministry, showing us as it were that the Virgin-
born and Spirit-gifted Christ is the second Adam,
and is as much a special manifestation of the
Divine power as was the creation of the first
Adam.
As I have already pointed out, the history of
our Lord's birth and infancy must have been
derived from the Virgin Mary, and probably
through some of her women friends at Jerusalem ;
and possibly, as Dr Sanday seems to think he can
prove, from Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's
steward.
In the accounts of the baptism of S. John
the Baptist, it is clear that S. Matthew and S.
Luke derive their information from two separate
L
82 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
sources ; for while S. Matthew describes
the effect of S. John's preaching upon the
Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious parties of
the Jews, S. Luke gives its effect upon the
general public, the people, the publicans, and
the soldiers. And when the baptism of our
Lord is reached, S. Luke is careful to tell us
that it was "after all the people had been
baptised," i.e. when John was alone, that Jesus
came to be baptised ; which explains the fact
implied in S. John's Gospel that the Voice from
heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the
form of a dove, were only known to the Baptist.
There are a group of two or three very
interesting details later on to which I desire to
draw your attention, as giving a clue to one of the
sources of S. Luke's information.
In the Transfiguration, S. Luke gives us two
pieces of information which are peculiar to
himself: one is the subject of the conversation
between Moses and Elias and our Lord, namely,
His "exodus," which He was to accomplish at
Jerusalem ; the other is, that the disciples, and
Peter especially, were heavy with sleep, and that
it was only when Moses and Elijah were leaving
that S. Peter, still half dazed, made his proposal
to erect the three tabernacles. Only three of the
Apostles were there, Peter, James, and John.
Peter's account is to be found in S. Mark ;
James was beheaded by Herod in A.D. 44, some
years before S. Luke visited the Holy City.
THE NARRATIVE OF THE CRUCIFIXION 83
Hence it follows that S. Luke's informant here
was probably S. John.
Again, in the story of the way to Calvary, S.
Luke alone tells us of the sympathy of the women
of Jerusalem, and what our Lord said to them ;
this may have come from either of two sources,
either our Lord's women friends or S. John.
But when we come to the Crucifixion itself,
we find the original S. Luke alone recording the
mockery by the soldiers, the scene with the
penitent robber, and the final commendatory
prayer : these could only have been preserved by
one of those who stood close by the Cross they
were at most five, The Virgin, Mary Magdalene,
two other women, and S. John therefore the
narrative might have come either from the other
women or S. John ; but S. Luke expressly tells
us that "all His acquaintance and the women
that followed him from Galilee stood afar off
beholding these things " : therefore I am inclined
to think that the story of the mockery by the
soldiers and the scene with the crucified robbers
must have come from S. John. On the other
hand, the last final commendatory prayer, "Father,
into Thy hands I commend My spirit," is just the
very last words, the hopefulness and peace of
which would sink deep into the Virgin's heart,
and therefore perhaps they may have come
through her friends to the Evangelist.
Before we quite pass away from the sources
of this Gospel, it may be worth while to notice
84 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
that two of the most important " interpolations "
occur in this Gospel, the story of the sweat like
great drops of blood, and our Lord's prayer for
His murderers. Now in the case of the first,
only Peter, James, and John went with our
Lord into the recesses of the Garden of
Gethsemane. This narrative must therefore
have come from one of them, and S. Peter did
not apparently furnish it to S. Mark, and there-
fore I think it must have come from S. James
or S. John ; in the case, however, of the prayer,
"Father, forgive them," S. John was the only
Apostle within reach; hence I think we may
conclude that the internal evidence is in favour
of these interpolations having come to us from
S. John through one of his pupils in his school
at Ephesus.
To sum up briefly, we conclude that S. Luke
set to work to write his Gospel as a history,
that he derived his information from the best
sources at his disposal, and that those sources
included S. Mark's Gospel, a fragment of a lost
document which was also known to S. Matthew,
and information specially derived from the
friends of the Virgin, S. John, and perhaps
others.
The question of the integrity of S. Luke's
Gospel is one that I should answer by means
of the tests of Texual Criticism; but it has
been discussed of late years from other points
of view, and given in favour of the orthodox
S. LUKE AND S. PAUL 85
view. So that we may safely conclude that,
with the exception of the interpolations, to
which reference has already been made, and
which date from the beginning of the second
century, we possess S. Luke's Gospel practically
as it was published by the author.
We pass on now to consider its character-
istics. Ancient tradition held that it was written
under the influence of S. Paul, and that it re-
presented the Gospel as S. Paul preached it ;
this to some extent is undoubtedly true, for S.
Paul was the "illuminator" of S. Luke, and
enlightened him as to the essential character of
the Gospel, impressing upon him its universality
and its freedom. But S. Luke was a Greek,
and S. Paul was a Jew ; and this comes out
quite clearly in the way they look at different
things, for instance, in their view of the relations
of women to the Church.
As we study the Gospel, we are struck first
of all with its comprehensiveness. It is compre-
hensive in two senses ; for (1) it gives a full,
complete, comprehensive picture, a biography of
Jesus Christ ; and (2) it is also comprehensive
in its universality. This is seen from the special
events and utterances recorded by S. Luke.
For instance, S. Luke records seventeen
miracles ; out of these seventeen, five are
peculiar to S. Luke. These five are, the raising
of the widow's son at Nain ; the healing of the
woman with a spirit of infirmity in a synagogue
86 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
on a Sabbath ; the healing, also on the Sabbath, of
the uninvited guest with the dropsy, at the dinner
in the Pharisee's house ; the healing of the ten
lepers ; and the healing of the ear of Malchus,
the servant of the High Priest. Now it is quite
clear that in three of these cases our Lord acted
of His own accord without being asked ; and
in two of them the persons healed were in a
sense not among His friends, and perhaps
Gentiles. Here at once we get a view of the
freedom of His grace. Similarly with regard
to the parables : there are twenty-three parables
in S. Luke's Gospel ; of these, seventeen are
peculiar to S. Luke. These seventeen include
the Good Samaritan, the Great Supper, the Lost
Piece of Money, the Prodigal Son, the Rich
Man and Lazarus, the Unprofitable Servants,
the Pharisee and Publican ; in all these, at
least, stress ;is laid on the freedom and univer-
sality of the Gospel as opposed to the exclusive-
ness of Jewish prejudice.
Then again, S. Luke's Gospel is in an especial
sense the Gospel for women. The Jews looked
down upon women ; they thanked God in their
public service that they had not been made
women ; the women were banished behind a
screen in a synagogue, and were not admitted
to the Court of Israel in the Temple ; while
custom did not allow a Jewish teacher of repute,
without loss of caste, to be seen speaking to a
woman in the street, not even to his own wife.
ITS CHARACTERISTICS 87
To S. Luke woman is ennobled for ever, because
she has been the instrument of the Incarnation
of God. He mentions the women on every
occasion, and dwells lovingly upon their relations
with our Lord and His with them. Besides
the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene, and the
Mother of Zebedee's children, S. Luke mentions
Elisabeth the mother of S. John the Baptist,
Anna the prophetess, Joanna the wife of Chuza
(Herod's steward), Susanna one of the ministering
women, and Martha and her sister Mary of
Bethany ; also he tells of the widow at Nam,
the nameless sinner in the house of Simon the
Pharisee, the woman with the issue of blood,
the widow who put her two mites into the
treasury of the Temple, the daughters of
Jerusalem, and the women at the sepulchre.
Then again, S. Luke lays great stress on
Prayer. Like the other Evangelists, he mentions
our Lord praying in Gethsemane : but in addition
S. Luke tells us He prayed at His baptism, 1
before his conflict with the Jewish authorities
in the synagogues of Galilee, 2 before choosing
and ordaining the Twelve Apostles, 3 before the
first announcement of His Passion, 4 at the
Transfiguration, 5 before teaching the Lord's
Prayer, 6 on behalf of S. Peter, 7 and on the
Cross. 8 It is S. Luke also who preserves for
us the three parables about Prayer, the Friend
1 iii. 21. 3 vi. 12. 5 ix. 29. 7 xxii. 32.
2 v. 16. 4 ix. 18. 6 xi. 1. s xxiii. 46.
88 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE
at Midnight, 1 the Unjust Judge, 2 and the
Pharisee and the Publican ; 3 and also the two
solemn charges to the disciples, "Watch ye at
every season, making supplication that ye may
prevail," 4 and in Gethsemane, " Watch and pray,
that ye enter not into temptation." 5
S. Luke gives prominence also to the corre-
sponding duty of Praise and Thanksgiving. He
alone preserves four of the great hymns of the
Church the Gloria in excelsis, the Magnificat,
the Benedictus, and the Nunc Dimittis. And in
thirteen other passages he speaks of God being
praised and glorified, generally by those who had
received special benefits.
The anti- Christian critics have been disposed
to describe the different Gospels as opposed to
one another, and as representing the contro-
versial views of rival and hostile teachers. Such
a description has been practically shown to be
untrue, both by the results of Textual Criticism
and the other points dealt with in these lectures.
But it is well for us to remember that the two
outstanding figures of the Church of the first
century were essentially S. Peter and S. John.
S. Paul has become more prominent than S.
Peter in the later Church, mainly on account of
his numerous letters ; but S. Peter was unques-
tionably, as our Lord designed him to be, the
stay of the infant Church. Any real opposition
1 xi. 5. 3 xviii. 11. 5 xxii. 40.
2 xviii. 1. 4 xxi. 36.
PRESENTATION OF THE CHRIST 89
between S. Peter and S. Paul as to the facts of
the Gospel or the great main issues involved
therein was impossible, as is clearly shown by
the fact that S. Mark, the admitted Evangelist of
S. Peter, was summoned by S. Paul himself 1 to
attend him during his passage through the Valley
of the Shadow of Death, because "he is profit-
able to him for ministering."
If we need to describe from this point of view
the mutual relations of the Synoptic Gospels, it
would be most correct to say that S. Mark
presents the neutral Gospel, the message of good
tidings as proclaimed to all, while S. Matthew
and S. Luke in their respective Gospels present
the same Redeeming Lord respectively to the
Jews who waited for the Hope of Israel and the
revealing of God's Chosen King, and to the
Gentiles who were yearning for a second Adam to
re-create and save all mankind.
1 2 Tim. iv. 11.
VI
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN :
ITS AUTHOR, METHOD, AND
MESSAGE
"THE genuineness of S. John's Gospel," says
Bishop Lightfoot, " is the centre of the position
of those who uphold the historical truth of the
record of our Lord Jesus Christ given us in the
New Testament."
This Gospel is attacked by two classes of
assailants : those who are called Rationalists, who
deny the miraculous element in Christianity ; and
those who are called Unitarians, who deny the
distinctive character of Christian doctrine the
fact that we believe our Lord Jesus to be both
God and Man, equal to and one with the Father
as touching His Godhead.
Hence it follows that it is necessary to meet
our assailants on the question of the genuineness
of the Gospels.
The principal assailants of S. John are divided
into two classes : those who date the Gospel very
late, and those who, while they accept the
90
JOHN THE ELDER 91
traditional date, do not believe it to be the
work of the Apostle. Of the former, Prof.
Schmiedel of Zurich is the latest exponent ; of
the latter, Prof. Harnack of Berlin. Now with
regard to Prof. Schmeidel, he dates the Gospel
about A.D. 130. Our reply at once is that
Textual Criticism makes a date so late as that
impossible, as you will remember, if you recall
what I said in my first lecture. Prof. Harnack
puts the date about the same time that we do,
but thinks another John, not the Apostle, was
the author. Now this supposition of a second
John is not altogether baseless. Papias, who
was either a pupil of S. John the Apostle, or a
pupil of a pupil of his, is said in one passage
quoted by Eusebius to speak of a second John,
"John the Elder." This raises a difficult ques-
tion. Is "John the Elder" the same as "John
the Apostle " ? Very great names are to be
found saying No, including Bishop Lightfoot and
Bishop Westcott ; equally great names say Yes,
they are two titles for the same person. I con-
fess that for once I disagree with Drs Lightfoot
and Westcott. But you will see that this doubt
makes it necessary to prove that S. John the
Apostle was the Evangelist.
There are two lines of proof ; one is called
External Testimony, and the other Internal
Testimony. The one means, What do other
people say ? The other means, What does the
book itself say ?
92 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
Let us deal with the External Evidence first.
It consists of notices, references, and quotations.
In his Biblical Essays, Bishop Lightfoot gives
a summary of it, and shows that in all parts of
the Church - - Asia Minor, Gaul, Antioch,
Palestine, Alexandria, Rome, Africa, Syria-
and, with one insignificant exception, among all
heretical writers, S. John has been recognised as
the author of the Fourth Gospel from the very
earliest times, i.e., from the days of his own
pupils, and of those who were the pupils of his
friends and contemporaries. The contrary view
that S. John was not the author, and that the
Fourth Gospel was written towards the middle
or in the latter half of the second century, was
first propounded about A.D. 1820. Bishop Light-
foot gives a list of the principal exponents of this
view, and remarks after doing so : " In reviewing
this list of writers, one cannot fail to be struck
with two facts, (i) the variety of their opinions ;
(ii) their gradual retrogression from the extreme
position taken up at first." Of course, Textual
Criticism has negatived the suggestion that this
Gospel was written in the middle or end of the
second century. Consequently Prof. Harnack
finds himself fixing the date between A.D. 80 and
110, though he ascribes the Gospel to an author
other than the Apostle. The orthodox defenders
of the Gospel give the date as between A.D. 96
and 100.
Thus we see that there is a continuous belief
THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE 93
from the beginning that this Gospel is the work
of the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee.
When we come to discuss the Internal
Evidence, I hope you will examine the matter for
yourselves. The argument I am going to put
before you convinces Bishop Lightfoot, Bishop
Westcott, and all the great English scholars of
first rank ; but on the other hand, Prof.
Schmiedel and Prof. Harnack regard it as
proving the exact opposite. With regard to
Prof. Schmiedel, so far as I have been able
to follow his writings, he is entirely handicapped
by his refusal to believe in anything outside
ordinary experience. But of this argument I
think you can judge quite as well as a Swiss
or German professor.
I am going to try and show from the Gospel
itself,
(i) That the author must have been a
Jew.
(ii) That he must have been a Jew of
Palestine.
(iii) That he must have been an eyewitness
of what he relates.
(iv) That he must have been one of the
Twelve Apostles.
(v) That he was the Apostle S. John.
Now, of course, I cannot do this at full
length ; it would occupy all the time of this
lecture so to do ; but I am going to give you
specimens of the proofs.
94 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
(i) The author of the Fourth Gospel was a
Jew.
(a) He writes Greek as a Hebrew Jew
would write Greek. Take an instance : in
Hebrew, the word "and" does duty both for
"and" and "but." Here are some instances
" They (the Scriptures) are they which testify
of Me, and ye will not come to Me"; 1 "Did
not Moses give you the law, and none of you
keepeth the law " ; 2 " Then sought they to take
Him, and no man laid hold of him." 3 Again, he
knows the meaning of all the Hebrew words, and
explains them Kephas, Gabbatha, Golgotha,
Messias, Habboni, Siloam, Thomas. In his
quotations from the Old Testament he frequently
quotes from the Hebrew, and translates for
himself, instead of quoting from the LXX, the
ordinary Greek Version.
(b) He is quite familiar with Jewish opinions
and points of view. He knows all about the
Messiah, about the Prophet 4 like unto Moses,
about the hostility 5 between the Jews and
Samaritans, about the practice of the Jewish
teachers never to speak to a woman in public, 6
about the Jewish schools ; 7 about their contempt
for the Dispersion, "Will he go unto the dis-
persed among the Gentiles and teach the
1 v. 40. 4 i. 21 to vii. 40.
2 vii. 19. 5 iv. 9, 20 to viii. 48.
3 vii. 30. 6 iv. 27.
T vii. 15.
WRITTEN BY A PALESTINIAN JEW 95
Gentiles ? " l About their estimate of Abraham
and the prophets.
(c) He is quite familiar with their usages and
customs about baptism, 2 about the Jewish
feasts ; for instance, he knows all about the
length and ritual of the Feast of Tabernacles,
and which was the Great Day of the Feast ; 3
about the fact that they considered it lawful to
circumcise a man on the Sabbath day, 4 etc.
(d) He knows all about the Jewish imagery
and the line of Jewish theological thought.
"Salvation is of the Jews." 5 Moses wrote of
Christ, 6 the brazen serpent, 7 the paschal lamb, 8
the pillar of fire and cloud, 9 etc.
Hence we conclude that the author must
have been a Jew.
(ii) But he must also have been a Jew of
Palestine. He knows all about his geography ;
and this is very remarkable, because he is writing
more than twenty years after the Jewish wars
and after the Destruction of Jerusalem, and he
is writing in a far-off foreign country. For
instance, he knows of two Bethanys, one near
Jerusalem and one beyond Jordan ; he knows all
about Nazareth, and Cana, and Aenon with its
many waters, and Sychar in Samaria near
Jacob's Well, and Ephraim near the Wilderness.
He knows the old Jerusalem thoroughly :
1 vii. 35. 4 vii. 22. < iii. 14.
2 i. 25 to iii. 22, 23. 5 iv. 22. xix. 36.
3 vii. 37. 6 v. 46. 9 viii . 12,
96 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
Bethesda by the Sheepgate, with its five
porches ; Siloam, Solomon's Porch, the Treasury
in the Temple, the building of the Temple by
Herod, and all about the watercourses at
Jerusalem, and the topography of the Mount of
Olives. Similarly, he knows all about the
Jewish sects, the relations at the time of
the Pharisees and Sadducees. For instance,
Joseplms l tells us that the Sadducees were few
in number, and of the highest rank ; and that the
Pharisees, who Avere the popular leaders, could
force the Sadducees to do what they pleased.
In the Fourth Gospel the Pharisees always take
the lead, except once, and that once was on a
question on which our Lord and the Pharisees
agreed as against the Sadducees. That once is
when the Sadducees plot to put Lazarus to
death because he is a living witness to the fact
of the resurrection of the dead. 2
Other proofs could be given on this point,
but I have told you enough to show how the
conclusion is reached that the author of the
Fourth Gospel must have been a Palestinian
Jew.
(iii) I propose now to show that he must
have been an eyewitness of what he relates.
The writer exhibits a minuteness of detail as
regards time, place, persons, and incidents, yet
all is perfectly natural, and the sequence of
events is vivid and entirely inartificial. For
1 Lightfoot, p. 27. 2 xii. 10.
WRITTEN BY .N EYEWITNESS 97
instance, the chronology of our Lord's life can be
gathered from S. John's Gospel alone. The
general history marches steadily forward, and its
sequences are denned by a first Passover in
chap, ii., an undefined feast (probably the
Feast of Tabernacles) in chap, v., a second
Passover in chap, vi., a second Feast of
Tabernacles in chap, vii., the Feast of Dedica-
tion in chap, x., and the final Passover in chap,
xii. and following chapters.
The detailed times are just as carefully noted.
A careful account is given of our Lord's first
week of His ministry ; x the very days are
marked out. The FIRST day, S. John the
Baptist gives his reply to the commission of
inquiry sent from Jerusalem. The SECOND day,
He points Jesus out to His own disciples. The
THIRD day, He sends Andrew and John to Jesus,
and Andrew and John finally each bring their
own brothers Simon and James. The FOURTH
day, Jesus finds Philip for Himself, and Philip
brings Nathanael. The events of the FIFTH and
SIXTH days are not recorded. But on the
SEVENTH day, Jesus and these six disciples are at
Cana at the Wedding Feast, and there He works
His first miracle. Equally careful details are
given of the last week of the ministry. The
detailed times concern not merely the days but
the hours, and the approximate time : it was the
tenth hour when the first two disciples followed
1 i. 29 toil. 11.
N
98 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
Jesus ; l it was the sixth hour when Jesus rested
at Jacob's Well ; 2 it was the seventh hour when
the nobleman whose son was sick met Him at
Cana ; 3 it was night when Judas left the Last
Supper. 4
Equally detailed and correct are the notices
of locality. S. Luke tells us about our Lord's
visit to Martha and Mary, and that they lived at
a certain village. S. John tells us that village
was Bethany, and how far Bethany is from
Jerusalem.
Similarly, the notices of persons are equally
detailed. Sayings, instead of being left vaguely
general, are attributed to the speakers by name.
One illustration will suffice, from the Feeding of
the Five Thousand. In the accounts of the
Synoptists no names of speakers are mentioned,
but in the Fourth Gospel we are told that it was
Philip who said, " Two hundred pennyworth of
bread is not sufficient " ; and that it was Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother, who told Jesus, " There
is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and
two small fishes."
Again, it is to the author of the Fourth
Gospel that we are indebted for a number of
details which, though in some cases unimportant
in themselves, add greatly to the life-like
character of his portraiture of events. For
instance, it is this Evangelist who tells us about
1 i. 39. 3 iv. 52.
2 iv. 6. 4 xiii. 30.
WRITTEN BY ONE OF THE TWELVE 99
the bag in which our Lord and His disciples
kept their common fund, 1 about the sop which
was given to Judas, 2 about the three languages of
the title on the Cross, 3 about the four parts 4 into
which our Lord's tunic and cloak were divided,
about the weight of the myrrh and aloes used
for the embalming ; 5 about the shape which the
head napkin had retained 6 after the pressure of
the head had been removed by His E-esurrection,
and how it had rolled aside in consequence.
Do not these instances assuredly prove that
the narrative of the Fourth Gospel is the work
of an eyewitness ?
(iv) Next we have to show that this eye-
witness must have been one of the Twelve
Apostles.
A very few words will suffice under this
head. For he knows the thoughts of the
disciples ; as for instance, at the first cleansing of
the Temple, "when His disciples remembered
that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up." 7 And again, that at the well of
Sychar " His disciples marvelled that He talked
with the woman." 8 There are at least eleven
such notices in the Gospel. Again, he knows
what was spoken in private by the disciples to
1 xii. 6. 2 xiii. 26.
3 xix. 20. The statement about the languages of the
title on the Cross, in S. Luke's Gospel, is an interpolation.
4 xix. 23. 6 xx. 7. 8 iv. 27.
5 xix. 39. 7 ii. 17.
100 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
our Lord ; as for instance, at Jacob's Well,
"And in the meanwhile His disciples prayed
Him, saying, Master, eat " ; l also what they said
privately among themselves, as for instance,
on this same occasion, " Therefore said the
disciples one to another, Hath any man brought
Him ought to eat." 2 Again, he is familiar with
the places whither our Lord and His disciples
commonly resorted ; as for instance, he tells us of
Gethsemane, "Jesus ofttimes resorted thither
with His disciples." 3 And, finally, he was present
at the Last Supper and in all that followed.
None but one of the Twelve could have been
thus present.
(v) Which of the Twelve was he ?
He was one of the first six mentioned in
chap. i. : Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael,
"the other disciple," and the other disciple's
brother. He was one of the two who obtained
entrance to the High Priest's Palace : those two
were Peter and the other disciple. Peter died
thirty years before this Gospel was written ;
moreover, from the way he is spoken of, he is
clearly not the writer. The author never names
himself, but he tells us he accompanied Peter to
the sepulchre on Easter Day : he must surely be
one of the favoured three, Peter or James or
John. James died fifty years before the Gospel
was written. Moreover, S. Peter had one
continuous companion from the Eesurrection
1 iv. 31. - iv. 33. 3 xviii. 2.
S. JOHN AND THE SYNOPTISTS 101
onwards, and that was S. John. So we conclude
the writer was S. John. My argument here is
only a very brief and compressed sketch of the
long and detailed argument which you can read
for yourselves either in Bishop Lightfoot's
Biblical Studies, or in Bishop Westcott's Intro-
duction to his Commentary on this Gospel.
I come now to speak of its method. The
Fourth Gospel is quite different to the other
three. The author writes not so much as an
historian but as an interpreter, unfolding the full
significance of each event, and carefully calling
attention to its effect upon disciples and upon
opponents, upon faith and upon disbelief.
Before we go further we must notice the
relation between S. John and the Synoptists.
The traditional account is that the three other
Gospels were brought to S. John for his formal
recognition, and that he gave it, and then
delivered his own to complete the set. That
may be correct or it may not ; but it almost
certainly has an element of truth in it. For the
other Gospels were written twenty or thirty
years earlier than S. John, and he must have
been acquainted with them. Moreover, the
omissions and many of the statements in his
Gospel make it quite evident that he was as
thoroughly well acquainted with our Lord's work
in Galilee as the Synoptic Evangelists were with
his work in Judsea.
Next we must note the touching points of the
102 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
chronology. The Synoptists give us an account
of our Lord's baptism ; S. John gives us an account
of the call of the first disciples after His return
from the Temptation, which was followed by a
short visit to Galilee and a return to Jerusalem
for the Feast of the Passover : that Feast of the
Passover took place on 30th March, A.D. 28.
The next point of contact is the Feeding of the
Five Thousand : this took place in Galilee, when
the Passover of the following year was nigh :
the Passover was on 18th April, in A.D. 29.
The third point of contact is the final Passover,
the Passover of the Crucifixion : this was on
Friday, 7th April, A.D. 30. 1
Now we can trace out S. John's method.
He begins with a prologue, which describes the
eternal nature, relations, and work of our Lord ;
he then shows how our Lord worked unseen in
the worlds of nature and of men ; and so he
leads up to our Lord's manifestation in human
form at the Incarnation, "and the Word was
made flesh, and tabernacled amongst us, and we
beheld His glory " -i.e., the glory of His God-
head.
Then S. John begins upon our Lord's
Ministry. He begins upon it at once ; he says
nothing at all about the early life or preparation,
though he must have known all about them ;
for he had charge of the Virgin Mary for years,
and he had been a disciple of S. John the Baptist :
1 See the Introduction to my Life of Christ, p. 25.
ITS ACCOUNT OF THE MINISTRY 103
yet he omits all about them, and starts off at
once with our Lord's Ministry.
This Ministry he carefully divides into
sections, and in each case he gives specimens of
our Lord's work, not a complete narrative.
In the first section, 1 he describes the beginning
of things the beginning of discipleship, the
beginning of miracles, the beginning of His claim
to be recognised by working the promised sign,
the first cleansing of the Temple at the Passover
of A.D. 28.
In the next section, 2 the Evangelist describes
how our Lord gathered His following, in Judaea,
like Nicodemus, in Samaria, and in Galilee.
In the third section, 3 he shows how our Lord
after a time asked for a decision on His claims
-in Jerusalem, at the end of September, when
He healed the impotent man on the Sabbath
day at the Pool of Bethesda, and thus claimed
the right to work on the Sabbath, i.e., to be God.
For the Jews taught that only God might work
on the Sabbath : or, as they put it, " Why does
not God keep the Sabbath? He does. May
not a man wander through his own house on the
Sabbath ? The House of God is the whole
realm above and the whole realm below." 4 This
discussion was adjourned, so to speak. Our
Lord went back to Galilee, and after six months
work, raised the question there by the Feeding of
1 i. 19 and ii. 2 iii., iv. 3 v., vi.
4 See Westcott's Gospel of S. John, p. 84.
104 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
the Five Thousand. Was or was He not the
Prophet like unto Moses, the Messiah ?
In the fourth section, 1 six months later again,
at the end of 29th September, our Lord is at
Jerusalem again, and claims to be the antitype of
the two Great Lights at the Feast of Tabernacles,
i.e., to be the Shechinah, the manifestation of
the Presence of God. He remains in and about
Jerusalem until the Feast of Dedication, 2 20-28th
December, when He made clay on the Sabbath
day and healed the man born blind : and thus, by
claiming the right to work on the Sabbath,
reiterated His claim to the Godhead. Then
again He retires out of reach.
In the fifth section, 3 by the raising of
Lazarus He claims to be the Lord of life, " In
Him was Life," i.e., in Him all life existed.
The sixth section 4 describes the final conflict
the last ministry of love to His disciples, and
the last conflict with his enemies, issuing in the
final triumph of the Resurrection. 5
Thus we see how, starting from the statement
that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us, S. John shows our Lord to us by giving us
glimpses of His Godhead from time to time as
they are manifested through His Incarnate Life.
S. John's method of using his materials is
quite different to that of the other Evangelists.
Let us take the case of our Lord's miracles.
1 vii v viii. 3 xi. 5 xviii.-xxi.
2 ix., x. 4 xii.-xvii.
ITS RECORD OF MIRACLES 105
The Synoptists tell us that a very large number
were not specifically recorded. " And He healed
many that were sick," etc., is a note that is
not infrequent in the Synoptic narratives. In
the Four Gospels thirty-three miracles are
recorded in detail ; of these, S. Matthew records
twenty-one, S. Mark eighteen, S. Luke nineteen,
while S. John only records eight, and of the
eight, six are peculiar to his Gospel. The two
that occur elsewhere are the Feeding of the
Five Thousand (which is the one event of our
Lord's Ministry that is recorded by all the four
Evangelists) and the walking on the sea (which
is recorded by S. Matthew and S. Mark, as well
as by S. John). The remainder are, the water
turned into wine, the healing of the nobleman's
son, the healing of the impotent man at Bethesda
on the Sabbath, of the man born blind (also on
the Sabbath), the raising of Lazarus, and the
multitude of fishes. Perhaps it is worth noticing
that seven occur during our Lord's Ministry, and
the eighth occurs after the Resurrection : accord-
ing to early belief, seven was the figure of a
completed creation, a fulfilled life ; and eight
was the figure of the Resurrection, or new birth.
Further, S. John's use of the miracles is different
to that of the Synoptists. He regards them as
signs, i.e., as the embodiment of truths revealed
through action instead of being uttered by words.
To take two easy examples : at the close of the
first miracle, the turning of the water into wine,
o
106 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
S. John writes, " This beginning of miracles did
Jesus, and manifested forth His glory," i.e., the
glory of the Godhead in this act was revealed,
shining through the tabernacle of His Humanity,
for this miracle was an act of creation ; into the
water He created a new additional element to
transform it into wine. Similarly, in the raising
of Lazarus, our Lord is revealed as the All-
Sovereign Life, who can at His will make alive
what is lifeless or restore life which has fled.
Again, S. John's method with regard to our
Lord's teaching is equally unique. In the
Synoptic Gospels there are preserved thirty of
our Lord's parables. S. Matthew records
fifteen of them, S. Mark four of them, and S.
Luke twenty-three of them. But S. John does
not record a single parable. He does record,
it is true, four allegories, the Shepherd, the Door,
the Good Shepherd, and the True Vine ; but
the very fact that he records these allegories
and no parables, is characteristic of him. For
" an allegory differs from a parable as a trans-
parency might differ from a painting on canvas.
In the parable, the narrative has a body and
substance, so to call it, of its own ; it has a
value which is independent of its interpretation ;
it often lends itself to more interpretations than
one. In the allegory, the narrative suggests its
one obvious interpretation step by step ; narrative
and interpretation are practically inseparable ;
it is impossible to look steadily at the picture
ITS CHARACTERISTICS 107
presented to the mind's eye by the allegory
without perceiving the real persons and events
to which it refers, moving almost without
disguise behind it." 1
Now this is exactly what characterises all
the teaching of our Lord in S. John's Gospel.
It is all direct a clear, direct challenge to the
hearers. It is quite contrary to the elusive
parabolic teaching in the Synoptic Gospels,
which appears to have been intended to tell
the people as much as possible, and yet to
avoid compelling them to come to a direct
decision to accept or reject our Lord.
Another interesting point is worthy of notice.
S. John is the only Evangelist who records one
of our Lord's own prayers. The others tell
us from time to time that He prayed, and they
preserve for us the form of prayer He taught
His disciples. But S. John alone preserves for
us in his seventeenth chapter the actual words
of a prayer prayed by our Lord Himself.
There is one other point to which your
attention must be drawn. The Fourth Gospel
has a kind of conversational character about it.
It is quite obvious that it was^ delivered orally,
and either taken down or written out immediately
afterwards. Through the main part of the
narrative you find parenthetical additions and
conversational comments clearing up mistakes
and giving explanations that had been asked.
1 Dr Liddon, Easter Sermons, p. 312.
108 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
Here are a few instances. "John was not
yet cast into prison." l " He (Andrew) was the
first to find his brother." 2 "Annas was father-
in-law to Caiaphas, who was High Priest of that
year." 3 "This was now the third time that
Jesus manifested Himself." 4 "The saying
therefore went abroad among the brethren, that
that disciple should not die. Yet Jesus said not
unto him, He shall not die ; but, If I will that
he tarry till I come, what is that to thee." 5
While, finally, at the close of the Gospel there
is an iterated appeal to his congregation. " He
knoweth that he saith true, that ye might
believe." 6 "These things are written that ye
might believe." 7
If there were an amanuensis and it is
extremely probable, for S. John must have been
over eighty when he wrote, and perhaps over
ninety we cannot say for certain who it was. A
note to one MS. states that it was Papias, and
this I think is regarded as more possible now
than formerly.
Another point demands notice. Any care-
ful reader of the Fourth Gospel must have
noticed that the Gospel apparently ended
originally at the close of chap, xx., and that
chap. xxi. has all the appearance of an
appendix ; also, that the two last verses of
1 iii. 24. 3 xviii- 13- 5 xxi 23.
2 i. 41. 4 xxi. 14. 6 xix. 35,
7 xx. 31.
THE LAST CHAPTER 109
chap. xxi. can hardly have been written by the
Evangelist.
Bishop Lightfoot carefully investigated both
these points. With regard to the former, he
comes to the conclusion that chap. xxi. is an
afterthought (this was recognised as far back
as the time of Tertullian, i.e., about A.D. 200),
but it was an afterthought on the part of the
original author, and this he proves by a careful
and detailed examination of the language and
style. But as the addition occurs in every
known MS., and as there is no trace of its ever
having been wanting from any copies, the
inference is that this postscript was added by
the Evangelist himself before the Gospel was
published.
The twenty-fourth verse of the last chapter
is a confirmation or attestation of the truth of
the narrative on the part of S. John's friends
and disciples. This verse is : " This (i.e., the
disciple of whom Jesus said, if I will that he
tarry, etc.) is the disciple which testifieth of
these things, and wrote these things ; and we
know that his testimony is true." This also
occurs in every known copy, and there is no
trace of the Gospel ever having appeared with-
out it. Hence it follows that this attestation
by the Elders of the Ephesian Church must also
have been added before the publication of the
Gospel.
The last verse of the Gospel is what is called
o 2
110 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
a scholium or comment. It also must have been
there when the Gospel was published. It is
probably either the work of S. John himself or
of one of his immediate disciples. It runs, you
will remember : " And there are also many other
things which Jesus did, the which, if they should
be written every one, I suppose that even the
world itself could not contain the books that
should be written."
The last point to which I have to draw your
attention is the message of S. John's Gospel.
S. John himself tells us what was his object :
" These are written that ye might believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that,
believing, ye might have life through His Name."
You will observe the object of the Gospel is
twofold : to give a full revelation of our Lord,
and to get his hearers to appropriate that
revelation.
The revelation of Jesus is also twofold : He is
the Christ ; He is the Son of God. He is the
Christ, the Long Promised Messiah, the Ideal
Man, the King, the Prophet, the Priest of the
human race. He comes to us not merely as the
leading figure in the great scene of the historic
past ; but also, as He Himself puts it, as a living
present, who can make Himself one with us
to-day, and with whom we can unite ourselves
if we will. Thus He touches and unites to Him-
self both mankind as a whole and each member
of the race as an individual, on the one hand.
THE OBJECT OF THE GOSPELS 111
On the other hand, He is the Son of God, He is
with God, He is God Himself, coeternal with
the Father, and the instrument by means of
which the Godhead deals with the world and
with mankind.
The reception of this revelation is also two-
fold : we must learn it, test it, make certain of
its truth, accept it, believe it ; and then, believing
it, we must live it, live it by that Life which is the
Light of men.
And, therefore, if these Lectures have been
of any use to you, I trust they may have helped
you to understand that, so far as the Gospels are
concerned, all the best modern learning goes to
strengthen their historic character. There are
endless problems connected with them that are
both interesting and curious. A number of
tentative solutions are sure to be propounded.
Some of them may probably be very startling.
But none can be correct that clashes with the
literary history of the books as ascertained by
Textual Criticism. And when the true correct
solution is reached, it will of necessity be found to
strengthen not to invalidate the historic character
of the life of Jesus Christ.
In conclusion, therefore, I would impress
upon you the great fact so carefully impressed
upon his hearers by the author of the Fourth
Gospel.
The object of the Gospels is to teach you that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and to
112 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. JOHN
persuade you to believe and live that eternal
truth.
And the more you apprehend that truth, the
greater will be your power of realising the
historic value of that Life whose records are
enshrined in the Gospels.
May the Lord grant you, each and all, to
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ;
and believing, to have life through His Name.
PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH
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