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THE STUDY OF THE
i
GOSPELS
BY
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EIGHTH IMPRESSION
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PREFACE
THIS little book has grown out of a series of
lectures, of which the first three were delivered
from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey in Advent,
1900, and the remainder in the Divinity School
at Cambridge in the following year. I have
availed myself of the present opportunity to
revise and supplement what I originally said,
but I have been unwilling to abandon the
easier style and more direct address which be-
long to the lecture as compared with the formal
manual.
The method of the book is neither syste-
matic nor controversial. My object has been
to present in plain language such results of
my own study as may serve as a guide to the
studies of others. I specially hope to be
of use to those whose sacred calling demands
that they shall be perpetually reading and ex-
vi Preface
pounding the Gospel, but who have neither the
time nor the training needed for an independent
study of the minuter details of criticism. Ac-
cordingly, if what I here offer is disappointing
to the severer student, I must plead that I
have had him only indirectly in view. I am
aware that to him I shall often be raising
questions, where to others I seem to be answer-
ing them. Yet I trust that he will feel that,
if I have sometimes spoken with assurance where
I could not present the whole of the evidence
which convinced me, I have never sought to
foreclose inquiry, but have always everywhere
maintained the rights of a reverent criticism.
I am fully conscious of the insufficiency of
what I have written, but I offer it in the
hope that it will lead others to study the
Gospel history with renewed care, and, in view
of modern questionings, to tread where the
ground is firmest.
J. A. R.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY,
F, ofSt Peter, 1902.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE ORIGIN, DATE, AND AUTHORSHIP OP THR
SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
Growth of a New Testament canon It originates
with the sacredness of the Gospels as con-
taining words and deeds of Christ Our
eridence of the facts about Christ and of
the purport of His teaching not solely de-
pendent on the Gospels The continuous
witness of the Christian society Approxi-
mate dates of the Gospels The expression
' according to ' points to a tradition of
authorship The Third Gospel written by
St Luke shortly after 70 A.D. The term
'synoptic' The Second Gospel used in the
composition of the First and Third Written
between 60 and 65 A.D., or earlier, probably
by St Mark The First Gospel assigned by
tradition to St Matthew Its date and
authorship must be left at present uncertain
Tii
viii Contents
PAOB
Remarks on Dr. Harnack's view of the
dates of the Gospels, and on the subordinate
importance of this inquiry .... 1
CHAPTER II
THE USB OF ST MARK'S GOSPEL BY ST MATTHEW
AND ST LUKE
That St Mark's Gospel lay before St Matthew and
St Luke is the best working hypothesis An
illustrative incident In ancient times new
books were made out of old without acknow-
ledgment Changes in detail made by later
evangelists The limited scope of St Mark's
Gospel The need of supplementing it led to
various changes Interesting details which
were not reproduced The value of this
earliest picture of Christ .... 23
NOTE A. A further Comparison between St Mark
and hig Successors 40
NOTE B. On the Title ' The Son of Man' . . 49
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT SERMON IN ST MATTHEW AND
ST LUKB
A non-Marcan Greek document used by St Matthew
and St Luke Not to be called Logia, a name
which introduces confusion St Mark's reti-
Contents ix
MM
cence as to Christ's teaching Tke contrast
of St Matthew's Gospel The Great Sermon
The parallel sermon in St Luke St Matthew
has expanded the sermon by inserting other
groups of teaching Examples of his method
The earliest form of the sermon St Mat-
thew's main additions The value of each
form of the sermon . .... 67
CHAPTER IV
THB USB OF THE NON-MARCAN DOCUMBNT BY
Sx MATTHEW AND ST LUKE
St Matthew's method of grouping teachings and
combining parallel narratives St Luke's
method of using documents by turns The
non-Marcan document to be reconstructed
mainly on the basis of St Luke Its scope
and characteristics The style of its narrative
portions Its startling use of paradox in
teaching Frequently softened by St Matthew
St Matthew's interest in the past influences
his narrative The needs of the living present
lead him to avoid possible misconceptions
His interest in the existing Christian society
The comparative value of his narrative to
the historian The interpretation of the
Gospel to each new age .... 86
NOTB C. A Comment on Mall, xi 25-30 . 103
CHAPTER I
THE ORIGIN, DATE, AND AUTHORSHIP OF
THE SYNOPTIC GOSPEU3
CHRISTIANITY started upon her mission to the
world with a book in her hand. That book
was not the New Testament, or any part of
it. Not a word of it had then been written,
nor could it at that time have seemed likely
that any new writings could ever stand on an
equality with the sacred book, long before com-
pleted, which Christianity had inherited from
Judaism. The scriptures to which the apostles
appealed were the Old Testament scriptures.
These held a unique position among the writ-
ings of the world. They contained the revela-
tion of God to the chosen people of God, the
revelation of His nature, and of His will for
men. The apostles were taught by Christ that
these scriptures pointed to Him as the fulfilment
of their prophetic message; and thus on His
authority they became the sacred book of the
Christian Church.
A
2 The Study of the Gospels
Their dignity remained for a long time quite
unapproachable. 'It is written, 1 and 'the
scripture saith,' were the formulae by which
they were cited. How it ever became possible
that any other writings should attain the same
level, and be cited by the same formulae of dis-
tinction and authority in other words, how the
canon of scripture could have become enlarged
so as to include twenty-seven new books is
one of the most interesting problems of early
Christian history.
There is no doubt that the process began with
the Gospels, and with them primarily as con-
taining the words of Christ. What the Lord
had said was at least equally authoritative with
the words of the Old Testament scriptures. Had
He not used language which implied this in say-
ing, 'It was said to them of old time . . . but
I say unto you ' ? Accordingly, books which
recorded utterances of the Lord, if they were
accepted as genuine records, would soon win their
way to a position of importance.
It is, however, to be noted that the writers of
our Gospels appear to have no conception that
thev are adding new books to the Bible. Their
J
motives are fairly obvious. One is recording,
Origin, Date, and Authorship 3
apparently for the first time, the story of Christ's
appearance in Galilee, His wonderful power, His
unfailing sympathy, His freedom from conven-
tional bondages, His popularity with the people,
His rejection by their religious leaders, His
crucifixion and His resurrection from the dead.
He does not tell us why he took his pen in
hand. That is St Mark's Gospel. Another is
making a careful combination of other accounts
already existing, and supplementing them from
his own resources, and all the while labouring
to shew by passages of the Old Testament the
relation of Jesus to the past as the long- promised
Messiah of the Jews. That is St Matthew's
Gospel. A third, St Luke, has undertaken a
historical narrative of Christian beginnings for
the instruction of a prominent Gentile convert.
This he expressly tells us ; and his Gospel forms
the first of two volumes of a treatise which is
never brought to its formal close. The fourth
evangelist is no mere recorder or historian, but
an interpreter, who tells us how he sees the
Christ-life as he looks back upon it across the
spiritual experiences of half a century. He
indeed, in his peculiar position, cannot have
been quite unconscious that he was leaving
4 The Study of the Gospels
a permanent legacy of instruction to the
Church.
These four were not the only records which
found currency in early times. In an age of
literary activity both among Jews and Greeks
it would have been strange indeed if 'many'
had not * taken in hand to draw up a narrative *
of those astonishing events. Some of these efforts
quickly perished ; some were used up by one or
other of our evangelists, and thus were super-
seded. Others again were of later origin, and
were not independent of our Gospels ; but what
new material they offered seemed to be untrust-
worthy and invented for a purpose. The
fragments of them which have chanced to come
down to us fully bear out the adverse judgment
which the general mind of the Church passed on
them.
These four survived because they were worthy
to survive. One of them indeed was well-nigh
lost, just because its material was to be found
almost completely embodied in two of the others,
which were written on a larger scale. It must
have seemed small and thin, lacking in complete-
ness, and practically unnecessary. It was so
seldom transcribed that at one period there seems
Origin, Date, and Authorship 5
to have been only one available copy of it, and
that h&d lost its final leaf. All our copies of
St Mark are descended from one which broke off
abruptly in the middle of a sentence * for they
feared . . .' A new ending was written, per-
haps early in the second century, but not all
our manuscripts contain it : indeed, some of them
have a much shorter ending, which has no better
claim to be original. It is only in recent times
that we have come to see how greatly we should
have been losers if the whole book had perished.
For centuries it was practically disregarded, and
it was a long time before any one thought it
worth while to write a commentary upon it.
It is our own age, with its spirit of critical
investigation, which has learned to thank the
wonderful providence which preserved to us
these priceless ' first impressions ' of the life of
Christ the rugged phrases and the vivid touches
which subsequent evangelists softened or removed.
While apostles lived and could still be ap-
pealed to, and while other eye-witnesses could
tell stories of the first days, the written Gospels
could not reach the supreme position which
they afterwards attained, when they had come
by lapse of time to be the securest existing
6 The Study of the Gospels
evidence of what Christ did and said. As the
years passed their value steadily increased ; and
side by side with them were read again and
again the letters which certain apostles had
written to the churches. When the Christians
assembled for the Eucharist, passages were read
aloud from these writings as well as from the
Old Testament. 'The Lord and the Apostles'
as represented by the Gospels and the Epistles
became the ultimate court of appeal. The
Acts, from its close connection with the Third
Gospel, and the Apocalypse as a prophetic work
bearing the sanction of St John's name, shared
in the rise of the Gospels and Epistles to exclu-
sive reverence ; while a certain number of other
books, like the Epistle of Clement and the
'Shepherd' of Hernias, fought hard, but in
vain, to be included in what finally became the
canon of New Testament scriptures. Church
decrees did not create the canon; they only
registered at length the completion of the long
process by which the instinct of the Church
under the divine guidance had come to recognise
certain books as the indispensable documents of
the faith, and they decided for or against the
few candidates whose claims were still in dispute.
Origin, Date, and Authorship 7
We have thus very briefly indicated the way in
which the common instinct of the Church recog-
nised in the four Gospels indispensable documents
of the Christian faith. But it needs to be per-
petually repeated that our evidence of the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of the
general aim and purport of His teaching, does
not depend upon the Gospels alone. If there
were no narratives which told the full story of
the great events, we should still gather the most
important facts from the references which St
Paul makes to them in his letters, and from other
early writings which were quite independent of
our written Gospels. Even if our Lord, who
so far as we know wrote nothing Himself, had
charged His disciples also to commit nothing to
writing, and if as a consequence there had never
been any written New Testament at all, the main
facts would still have been handed down from
generation to generation in the Christian society,
whose very life was bound up with them. These
facts were necessarily taught to all candidates
for baptism, and they were summed up from the
earliest times in a baptismal creed. And indeed
the one method by which our Lord expressly
desired that He should be kept in remembrance
8 Hie Study of the Gospels
would by itself have handed down across the
centuries, by a perpetually repeated act, the
story of His death together with its amazing
sequel. These great facts depend on no mere
book-evidence. They are proclaimed to all the
world by the continuous existence of a living
society which is founded upon them.
The tradition of the Church is in itself irre-
fragable evidence ; for no man can give a tenable
explanation of the existence of the Church, if
he denies that these facts were in the earliest
times believed to have actually happened. And
no man can explain why any particular celebra-
tion of the Eucharist takes place at all, if it be
not because from the very beginning Christ was
believed to have done a similar act on the even-
ing before He was crucified. Each new celebration
is thus a fresh link in the long unbroken chain
which connects us with the days of Jesus Christ.
It is true that the Church's tradition might
in details have become exceedingly obscure or
sadly deficient, or gradually overlaid with pious
imaginings, if no safeguard had been provided.
The fact that this tradition was written down
in great fulness so near to the date of the events
is the safeguard which is required. For the
Origin, Date, and Authorship 9
tradition is perpetually undergoing a process
of correction by standard, as the Gospels are
continually read as the supreme authorities for
it. The first question, then, with which we
shall deal is this : How soon was the tradition
thus fixed by a committal to writing? or, in
other words, What are the approximate dates
at which our four Gospels were written ?
Before we attempt an answer, I would again
lay stress on the way in which this question has
arisen. The great facts of our Saviour's life,
death and resurrection do not depend for their
evidence primarily upon the Gospels. The
outline of the facts is preserved to the world
in the continuous tradition of the Christian
society, which would assuredly have handed
them down from father to son, even if not a
single book of Gospel narrative had been written.
What the books do is to fill in the outline by
giving us early recorded memories of the words
and deeds of Christ, thus preserving details
which otherwise must have been lost, and afford-
ing us a standard by which our conception of the
facts may be constantly checked and corrected.
The determination of the dates of the books
therefore does not directly affect the security of
10 The Study of the Gospels
the great facts on which Christian belief rests.
We can approach the question without anxiety
or apprehension on this score. It is an important
question truly, but we must not mistake the
character of its importance.
We begin by asking what means we have of
arriving at the approximate dates of the Gospels.
If we could at once assume that they were written
by the four writers whose names they bear, we
should readily arrive at an answer : they would
all fall easily within the limits of the first
century. Two of them, we should say, were
written by apostles, and two by intimate com-
panions of apostles. But this assumption we
are not free to make. The titles of the books
were not prefixed by the writers themselves,
who never mention their own names : they are
derived from the tradition of the Church-^a
tradition which needs to be tested.
It is sometimes said that the formula 'accord-
ing to, 1 in the title, for example, 'The Gospel
according to Matthew,' was not intended to
imply that St Matthew was the writer of that
Gospel, but only that this book contains the
Gospel as he was accustomed to declare it. That
is a view which I cannot accept. In the earliest
Origin, Date, and Authorship 11
sense in which the word was used there could be
only one Gospel the Gospel, or good news, which
was revealed in the life, death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. To speak of four Gospels would
have seemed ridiculous until a later period, when
any record of the life of Christ had come to be
called * a Gospel.' What the titles intended to
express was the one Gospel according to the
presentation of it by different writers. In our
oldest manuscripts the four Gospels are regarded
as a whole, and treated as though they had one
general title, The Gospel; for the separate books
are simply headed by what were supposed to be
their author's names 'according to Matthew,'
'according to Mark,' and so forth. These uni-
form titles belong to the period when the four
books were collected to form one whole; they
certainly do not proceed from the authors them-
selves : and as certainly, in my view, they were
intended by those who prefixed them to imply
authorship.
The tradition of the names of the authors
comes to us from a very early time : say, the
middle of the second century at latest. It would
be uncritical to abandon an early and continuous
tradition of this kind, unless good reason could
12 The Study of the Gospels
be given for doing so. In trying to test the
tradition by the evidence of the books themselves
we shall do well to begin with St Luke^ Gospel.
For this is the first volume of a larger work, of
which the Acts of the Apostles forms a second
volume. It is an exceptional advantage to have
so large a body of material to deal with in seek-
ing for indications of date and authorship. And
as a matter of fact we find that, when the history
which this writer narrates reaches a certain point
in the life of St Paul, he begins to say, We did
this and that, intimating his own presence at
the scenes which he records. A careful study of
this part of the book shews, to my mind un-
doubtedly, that the writer of what are called
the ' We sections ' is the same as the writer of
the whole work, including the Gospel. His style
is too clearly marked to leave us in doubt on
this point. Thus we have the important fact
that our third Gospel was written by a fellow-
traveller of St Paul. 1 And so we are getting
1 I would adyise those who desire to see the question
argued in a scholarly and simple way to rea'd a little book
on The Authenticity of St Luke's Gospel by the late Bishop
of Bath and Wells, Lord Arthur Hervey (published by
S.P.C.K.). It is a good example of the treatment of an
argument of this kind.
Origin, Date, and Authorship 13
at a date. For he brings St Paul's story down
to the end of the two years of his Roman im-
prisonment, which is placed in the spring of 63
by Bp Lightfoot and four or five years earlier by
Dr Harnack. I think that it is almost certain
that the writer contemplated a third volume,
for he ends off the second very abruptly, and in
a way that is in strong contrast with his formal
preface ; so that we have no right to conclude
that the whole work was written by the year 63.
I should incline to put it shortly after 70 ; I
am not convinced that it need fall quite so late
as between 78 and 93, the limits proposed by Dr
Harnack.
Thus at the outset we have discovered firm
ground; and taking our stand here we are able
to look back to an earlier period. St Luke for I
do not hesitate to identify him with the companion
of St Paul of whom we have been speaking
mentions in the preface to his, whole work that
he has had predecessors who have already written
records of the early days. We should have
known that, .even if he had not told it us: for
when we set St Luke's Gospel side by side with
St Matthew's and St Mark's, we find that a great
many incidents which he relates are related by
one or [both of the others ; that often the inci-
dents follow one another in the same order ; and
that the actual language used in describing them
is frequently the same. The fact that they have
so much common matter has led to their being
often arranged for purposes of study in a synopsis
or common view; and, consequently, in modern
times they have been given the name of the
synoptic Gospels to distinguish them from St
John's Gospel, which will not easily fit into the
same scheme. What is called the problem of the
synoptic Gospels (or, more shortly, the synoptic
problem) is the difficult question how we are to
account for their being so like each other, and
yet presenting a vast number of exceedingly
minute differences, besides offering some varia-
tions of order and many passages narrated by
one only, or two only, of the three.
We shall return to this problem at a later
stage ; but I should wish to say a little at once
as to the results of a prolonged study of it.
Almost every section of St Mark is found either
in St Matthew or in St Luke, or in both of them.
The order of St Mark's incidents is, with hardly
an exception, preserved either in one or in both ;
that is to say, where St Matthew deserts it St
Origin, Date, and Authorship 15
Luke keeps it, and vice versa. And the phrase-
ology of St Mark is often preserved by both, and
still more often by one where the other has
changed it. The most natural explanation of
this would be that both St Matthew and St Luke
used the work of St Mark, adding to it new
matter and often modifying its language, which
is rugged and sometimes obscure. If this ex-
planation be not accepted, the next in probability
is that all three used some document which is
now lost, and that, whereas the others often
deviated from it, St Mark reproduced it with
extraordinary fidelity. For myself, I am con-
vinced, after much investigation, that the former
is the true explanation, and that our St Mark
was used by St Matthew and by St Luke.
If this be admitted we have a means of arriving
at the date of St Mark's Gospel as well. For it
must have been already written when St Luke
set about his work. Thus it was certainly written
while some of the apostles were still living, and
probably before the fall of Jerusalem in the year
70. Dr Harnack, who admits, as an ascertained
result of criticism, that St Mark was used by
St Luke, gives as its probable date the years
between 65 and 70. This date obviously mak^
16 The Study of the Gospels
it possible that the book should have been written
by the author whose name it bears according
to the second -century tradition. Can we justify
that tradition still further? I believe that we
can. The tradition does not confine itself to the
title, c according to St Mark.' It takes a definite
form. St Mark is said to have been the * inter-
preter' of St Peter, and to have written his
Gospel in Rome from information derived from
that apostle. 1 Now it is exceedingly probable
that St Peter could not write or preach, even if
he could speak at all, in any language but his
mother tongue, the Aramaic of Galilee, a local
dialect akin to Hebrew. When he wrote or
preached to Greek-speaking people he would use
Mark or some other disciple as his interpreter.
It is very natural to suppose that St Mark might,
with his special opportunities, desire to record in
writing St Peter's recollections of the life of
Christ. The Gospel which bears St Mark's name
is clearly intended for non-Jewish readers: for
1 The fragments of Papias, to which reference is made
here and below, may be read in Lightfoot's Apostolic
Fathen (smaller edition : the texts with translations).
They are fully discussed by Lightfoot in his Essays on
Supernatural Religion. The various traditions regarding
St Mark are investigated by Dr Swete in his Commentary
on St Mark't Qotpd.
Origin, Date, and Authorship 17
again and again he explains Jewish customs and
Jewish words in a way that would be needless for
Jews, but quite necessary for Roman readers.
There are points of detail which further corro-
borate the view, and we may feel satisfied in
accepting St Mark's authorship as practically
certain, and the year 65 as a probable date. 1
When we come to speak of St Matthew, we
have no such helps as we have had for St Luke
and St Mark. It may be taken as certain that
he used St Mark, and also that he did not use
St Luke, nor was used by him. It is true that
second-century tradition assigns a Gospel to him;
but whereas the details of that tradition helped
us in regard to St Mark, they introduce a serious
difficulty in regard to St Matthew. For the
tradition to give the words of Papias, who is
said to have been a disciple of St John states
that ' Matthew composed the oracles of the Lord
in the Hebrew tongue,' meaning probably his
native Aramaic. But it is certain that our
St Matthew is not a Greek translation of an
Aramaic or Hebrew book. This is shewn, among
1 It may indeed be placed tome years earlier than thii, if
we assume that it was written during St Pater's lifetime,
and that St Peter suffere'" 1 as tradition asserts, during the
Neronian persecution.
I
18 The Study of the Gospels
other proofs, by the fact that he embodies whole sen-
tences of the Greek St Mark, as well as of a second
Greek document which was also used by St Luke.
Our St Matthew is demonstrably composed in
the main out of two Greek books, and there is
no ground for thinking that any part of the
narrative ever existed in any other language.
Therefore, we conclude either that Papias made
a mistake in saying that St Matthew wrote in
Hebrew, or that if he wrote in Hebrew his work
has perished without leaving a trace behind it.
In the latter case we may account for the title
by the general belief on the one hand that St
Matthew had written a Gospel, and the existence
on the other hand of a nameless Gospel, which
came to be attributed to him when his Hebrew
Gospel had fallen out of knowledge. 1
I do not think, therefore, that we can prove
the tradition that our first Gospel was written
by St Matthew. If indeed a sufficiently early date
could be established for the book, then we might
1 It is conceivable that the non-Marcan Greek document
which Sfc Matthew and St Luke used in common was
originally written in Aramaic. If so, its authorship might
be assigned to the apostle Matthew, and thus we might
account to some extent for the statements of Papias. But
it must be remembered that this is a purelj conjectural
hypothesis,
Origin, Date, and Authorship 19
accept the tradition of its authorship in spite of the
puzzling statement about its having been written in
Hebrew. But what is its probable date ? I do not
know a harder question in the whole of New Testa-
ment criticism. Dr Harnack says ' probably 70-
75,' but with the important reservation, * except
certain later additions.' If, however, the Gospel
must be regarded as a whole as, I think, it must be
there is no doubt that he would assign it to a
later date. I do not feel that I am entitled at
present to express a definite opinion on this
difficult question, and therefore I must content
myself with leaving the authorship and date alike
uncertain. 1 But I would remind you that such
a verdict of non liquet does not affect the status
of the book in the New Testament. It nowhere
claims to have been written by an eye-witness, or
by an apostle, or by any particular person at
all. It does not ask to be believed because of
its authorship. It stands on its merits ; it was
accepted by the general consciousness of the
Church as a true record and placed among the
1 For the sake of brevity and clearness, however, I shall
frequently use the expression ' St Matthew ' to designate
the writer of our first Gospel. It will be understood that I
do not thereby imply that the writer was the apostle of that
name.
20 The Study of the Gospels
canonical books. The heart and mind of the
Church in all ages has confirmed this early
verdict: indeed it was no churchman but M.
Renan who said that it had exerted a greater
influence than any other book in the world.
The date and authorship of St John's Gospel
will come up for consideration later on. But I
may say at this point that there has been some
modification of late in the attack which has
been made on the Gospel; and that Dr Har-
nack, in his Chronology, from which I have
already been quoting, would give as the limits
of its date * not after 110, and not before 80. 1
As far as time-limits go, therefore, it may
have been written by the apostle St John; but
Dr Harnack prefers to think, for reasons which
do not commend themselves to many, that it
was more probably written by another person of
the same name John the presbyter, or elder, of
Ephesus. Most of us will be satisfied to accept
the earlier date which this scholar allows us, and
to retain the unbroken tradition of its apostolic
authorship.
Two remarks may be made before we leave
this part of our inquiry. (1) I have quoted Dr
Harnack's views of the dates of the Gospels for
Origin, Date, and Authorship 21
two reasons : first, because he has quite recently
published a valuable work on the Chronology
of Early Christian Literature, and has given
carefully considered judgments, which his ability
and learning specially entitle him to pronounce ;
and, secondly, because he does not start from
the point of view of the Church tradition, but
has rather been working his way back from the
revolutionary positions of the school which domi-
nated German theology some thirty years ago,
and to which our own Lightfoot and Hort dealt
mortal blows. If he approximates to the older
views, it is because a larger study of the whole
of the documents of early Christian literature
has convinced him that negation had gone too
far. He would not, I think, wish to be claimed
as an orthodox divine in the English sense ; but
in sending me his Chronology he wrote that
he hoped that as to its main positions we should
find ourselves in agreement, and that differences
would henceforward appear in the interpretation
of the books rather than in the problems of their
date and authenticity. 1
1 The meaning of the latter part of this statement has
since been made clear by the publication of his fascinating
lectures now translated into English under the title What it
Chrittianity t
22 The Study of the Gospels
(2) The other remark which I would make
is this : Satisfactory as the results of our inquiry
on the whole appear to be, I should not wish it
to be thought that the points we have been dis-
cussing are vital to the Christian faith. I should
not ask a man who had serious doubts of the
truth of Christianity to enter upon a literary
inquiry as to the date and authorship of the
Gospels. I should say : Leave that untouched
for the present. Read the books themselves,
wholly irrespective of when or by whom they
were written, or even of their accuracy in detail.
Take the picture of Christ as drawn by the
vigorous hand which wrote our second Gospel.
Read it as a whole : let the story grow upon you :
watch that powerful, sympathetic, original Char-
acter : ask how the simple, unliterary author
came by his story, if it was not that the story
was a direct transcript from the life. If a new
Power was then manifested in the world, revealing
a new ideal of human goodness, saving men every-
where and only refusing to save Himself, must you
not yearn to welcome the belief that this Power
was not finally vanquished by death, but still
lives to save men to the uttermost ?
CHAPTER II
THE USE OF ST MARK'S GOSPEL BY
ST MATTHEW AND ST LUKE
THE view that St Mark's Gospel lay before St
Matthew and St Luke, and that they embodied
the main part of it with considerable modifica-
tions of detail, would require for its justification
a more elaborate discussion than could be entered
upon here. I recognise that this view is not free
from difficulties ; but I can confidently commend
it as a working hypothesis, which will be found
exceedingly instructive to the student who em-
ploys it in his comparative investigation of the
synoptic narratives. It will be well, therefore,
to indicate by an example the general character
of the argument on which it is based.
Let us take for examination a particular inci-
dent which is common to the three Gospels
namely, the question put to our Lord in the
temple with regard to His authority. 1 Our first
task is to set the three narratives in parallel
1 Matt, xxi 23-27 ; Mark xi 27-33; Luke xx 1-S.
23
24 The Study of the Gospels
columns, writing them in short sentences so as
better to catch the eye. 1
And here a word must be interposed as to
differences of reading, which, even though minute
in themselves, gain an importance in an inquiry
of this kind. We are so accustomed to printed
books that we are apt to forget that until the
last five hundred years it was not possible to put
out an edition of a thousand copies of a book all
exactly alike. Indeed you could not get two
copies which were exactly alike. It is perhaps
a humiliating fact, but none the less it is a fact,
that no one, however trained and experienced,
can copy exactly what he sees before him for any
number of pages together. He is practically
certain, however careful he may be, to introduce
some changes. In early times this mere human
inability to be accurate necessarily affected the
text of the Gospels. But other causes were at
work which greatly increased the probability of
variation. The owner of a book sometimes wrote
in the margin some little addition or supposed
improvement, and the copyist in his turn, think-
1 The student will find this preliminary work admirably
done for him in Mr Wright's Synopsis of the Gospels in
Greek; but he will gain much by the experience of con-
structing a synopsis of some passages for himself.
The Influence of St Mark 25
ing it was something that had been left out of
the text by mistake, put it into his new copy.
Moreover, in the case of the Gospels the parallel
texts were in the scribe's mind, and unconsciously
or consciously he would write a passage in St
Mark as he had already written it in St Matthew;
sometimes, no doubt, he would definitely try to
make the two accounts harmonise in points of
language. In recent times the science of textual
criticism has sprung up, and we have been enabled
not only to go back to very early manuscripts,
but also to group our manuscripts in families and
trace the origin of many of these * various read-
ings, 1 as they are called. The results of this
laborious and difficult work are best represented
in the edition of the New Testament in Greek
issued by Westcott and Hort. For the English
reader the more important changes will be found
in the Revised Version, which for the purpose of
minute comparison is preferable to the Authorised
Version.
Having, then, the three narratives written out
in parallel columns, in accordance with the most
accurate text at our disposal, we underline in the
middle column (St Mark) such words as are also
found in both the side columns. At once we see
26 The Study of the Gospels
that what we have underlined may, but for a few
gaps, be read by itself as a continuous and in-
telligible narrative ; and we feel certain that these
three accounts cannot be independent of each
other; for no three writers would by sheer
coincidence have used so many words in common.
It might, indeed, be said that the actual words
spoken by our Lord, or by His adversaries, were
treasured in most faithful memories. But this
will not help us to explain the likeness of the
narrative in which these words are set. Look,
for example, at the phrase which describes the
effect of Christ's question upon His opponents:
* they reasoned with themselves, saying.' Why
did not one of the writers say, 'they were
troubled,' or 'they were perplexed,' or 'they
took counsel together'? Why do they all use
the verb ' reasoned ' and the participle ' saying ' ?
Indeed we may further ask why they all agree
in inserting a description of the inner feelings
or private discussions of the antagonists at all ;
why no one of them passes straight to the
answer which was ultimately made. We see
then that this remarkable similarity is not con-
fined to the spoken words, but extends to the
narrative framework in which the words are set.
The Influence of St Mark 27
We may now take a further step. If St
Matthew and St Luke both agree to preserve
so much of what we see in St Mark, it is likely
that St Matthew has preserved some things
besides which St Xuke has dropped, and that
St Luke has preserved others which St Matthew
has dropped. Accordingly we go on to under-
line such words of St Mark as are found either
in St Matthew alone or in St Luke alone. We
now find that we have underlined almost the
whole of St Mark's narrative. A few scraps only
remain unattested, such as the words ' again to
Jerusalem,' 'to do these things' (which is a
repetition of words used already), and ' answer
me ' (an interjected phrase not necessary to the
sense). I think that the impression gained by
any one who will take the trouble to do what I
have suggested will certainly be that St Mark's
Gospel lay before the other two evangelists, and
that they used it very freely, and between them
embodied almost the whole of it. Of course we
must not generalise from a single passage. The
inquiry must be pursued throughout the whole of
the Gospel, and we must not neglect the com-
paratively few words which St Matthew and St
Luke have in common, but which are not found
28 The Study of the Gospels
in St Mark's narrative of the same incident. It
is such words that lend countenance to the alter-
native theory that all three evangelists were using
another document which is now lost. That is a
hypothesis which is very attractive, and for some
time I thought that it offered the best explana-
tion : but further study convinced me that it
was cumbersome and unnecessary, and that it
introduced difficulties greater than those which
it promised to solve.
We have thus seen something of the process of
the embodiment of St Mark by the two subse-
quent writers. It is not a slavish copying, but
an intelligent and discriminating appropriation.
If a modern writer were to act thus we should
give it the harsh name of plagiarism. We allow
the appropriation of matter, but not of words,
unless indeed there is some sign, such as inverted
commas, to indicate the writer's obligation to his
predecessor. But in the age with which we are
dealing such appropriation was considered per-
fectly legitimate. Books were made out of
books. No such thing as property in words
was thought of, no notion of copyright existed.
If a thing was well said, that was a reason for
saying it again in the same way ; if it could be
The Influence of St Mark 29
improved, then by all means it should be modi-
fied, as much of the old being kept as seemed
desirable to the new writer. Among the Jews
we find that this method of making new books
out of old ones had been practised from the
earliest times ; the Book of Genesis, for example,
is undoubtedly made up to a large extent out of
pre-existing documents. And the same method
was in vogue in the first and second centuries of
our era, both among Jews and Christians. The
Didache, or Teaching of the Apostles, which was
brought to light about twenty years ago, has
embodied an earlier book called The Two Ways,
and has itself been reproduced in a modified form
at a later period.
Let us next take a few examples of the changes
which it was felt desirable by the later evan-
gelists to make in St Mark's narrative. In Mark
ii 26 we read in reference to David's taking the
sacred shew-bread for his hungry men that he
entered into the house of God ' when Abiathar
was high priest.' As a matter of fact we read in
1 Sam. xxi that Ahimelech, the father of Abiathar,
was the high priest who gave David the shew-
bread and was put to death by Saul for doing
BO. As giving a date to the incident the men-
30 The Study of the Gospels
tion of the better-known Abiathar might be
thought sufficiently accurate ; but the expression
was at least open to objection, and it is interest-
ing to see that it is simply dropped by St Mat-
thew and St Luke, although they agree in giving
the words which immediately precede and those
which immediately follow. It has been suggested
that a confusion between Ahimelech and Abia-
thar was of earlier date than the writing of the
Gospels ; but it is at any rate plain that it was
well not to reproduce a statement which was in
obvious contradiction to the Old Testament
narrative. That is an instance of the removal
of words which seemed to involve an historical
inaccuracy. We may now note a case of ap-
parent geographical inexactness. St Mark calls
the little sheet of water which he has made so
sacredly familiar to us all, * the sea of Galilee,'
and very often he simply calls it * the sea ' (comp.
Josh, xii 3). So also does St Matthew. But not
so St Luke, who knew the sea and its terrors too
well; he, with his noted accuracy of expression,
changes ' the sea ' of St Mark into ' the lake.'
But it is time to pass from details to a broader
survey. With the exception of three or four in-
cidents the whole matter of St Mark's Gospel is
The Influence of St Mark 31
to be found either in both or in one at least of
the other evangelists. And the order in which
his incidents are arranged is always attested by
one or by the other. It is clear that they were
anxious to lose nothing of his work which they
could find room to embody ; but, on the othei
hand, they must have recognised in it a serious
deficiency, which they on their part were in a
position to supply.
For the scope of St Mark's Gospel was limited.
In the earliest days the all-important things
would seem to be those which concerned our
Lord's ministry and His death and resurrection.
These were the things which it was necessary,
as we read in the first chapter of the Acts, that
the newly elected apostle should be able to wit-
ness to from personal knowledge : he must be one,
St Peter says, of those ' which have companied
with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went
in and out among us, beginning from the bap-
tism of John, unto that same day that He
was taken up from us.' This corresponds closely
with the general scope of St Mark's Gospel. Its
opening words are, ' The beginning of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ,' and its first narrative is * the
baptism of John.' And, again, this period
32 TJie Study of the Gospels
corresponded to St Peter's experience, which may
possibly also help to account for the limitation
of this Gospel to Galilee with just one week
in Jerusalem at the close.
We can readily understand that this limita-
tion offered in itself (even apart from the scanti-
ness of St Mark's record of our Lord's teaching,
which we shall consider later on) a sufficient
reason for the writing of other and fuller nar-
ratives. It was clearly to be desired that some-
thing should be recorded of the genealogy of
our Lord, of the wonderful early days, and of
the Holy Family. And St Luke in particular
was much more interested in Jerusalem, and
would wish to tell more of what took place there.
He had set himself to gather information as a
historian. St Mark was to him only one source ;
he had another, as we shall see, which was also
in writing; and much he doubtless gained from
oral inquiry. He had accordingly to fit in a
great deal of new matter. A substantial part
of this came at the outset before the Baptist's
preaching ; and so it did not disturb the Marcan
order, for it was all introductory. But later on
he felt bound to make some rearrangement, so as
to give reasonable positions to his fresh incidents
The Influence of St Mark 33
and to his fuller records of teaching. The
amount of new matter introduced had a further
effect ; it made it necessary for him to clip and
pare the old, so far as that could be done without
serious loss. And so the redundancy of St Mark,
who is exceedingly repetitive, was pruned by the
hand of one who was an artist in style ; and in
the process many little details fell away, as well as
complete incidents, and even in one case a whole
group of incidents. For it was necessary that
the writer should put forth his work in volumes of
a manageable size. His Gospel and the Acts
are almost identical in bulk, and each reaches
what appears to have been the recognised limit
for a volume.
The writer of St Matthew's Gospel treated the
same problem somewhat differently. He too felt
the need of beginning earlier ; and he too had
much new matter, especially in the way of dis-
courses. As to order, he had a method of his
own, which was to bring like to like, to group
incidents and teachings of a similar nature.
Thus we have a group of parables, another of
conflicts with the Pharisees, and several groups
of teachings, of which the most noted is placed
at the forefront of the Galilean ministry as form-
34 The Study of the Gospels
ing the Sermon on the Mount. He therefore
took parts of St Mark's Gospel where he wanted
them ; and he has in consequence some notable
repetitions. But he too found it necessary to
abbreviate St Mark's narratives, and he does so
with a freer hand than St Luke ; as, for example,
by compressing a story into a short compass,
whereas St Luke preferred to omit it altogether
rather than cut it down (comp. e.g. Mark xi 12-14,
20-24, the withering of the fig tree, with Matt.
xxi 18-22). There were other causes which led
each of these writers to modify the language of
St Mark ; for each in his own way was a master
of style, which St Mark certainly was not ; and
each had a clear purpose before him, which guided
the selection and presentation of the materials at
his disposal. 1
Before leaving this part of our subject, I would
call attention to two small personal notices which
occur in St Mark, but are not reproduced by St
Matthew or St Luke. One of these is the state-
ment that at our Lord's arrest, when ' all forsook
Him and fled,' a young man attempted to follow
Him, and when they laid hold of him left his
1 See further, in illustration of the foregoing paragraphs,
Note A, on St Mark and his successore.
The Influence of St Marie 35
garment in their hands and fled. The other
evangelists do not retain this little incident. It
was quite unimportant to the history ; it led to
nothing; it ended at once in a hasty retreat.
How came St Mark to record it ? We have the
explanation at once if we adopt the suggestion
that the nameless young man was St Mark him-
self. I know nothing against this view ; and in
favour of it may be pleaded the statement which
we read in the Acts, that Mary the mother of
Mark had a house in Jerusalem and was one of
the early believers.
The other notice to which I have referred is a
statement in regard to Simon of Cyrene that
strange figure from Africa, the dark and suffer-
ing continent, who in a kind of mysterious pro-
phecy is compelled to bear the cross of the
world's Redeemer. St Mark alone tells us that
he was ' the father of Alexander and Rufus.'
Possibly the later evangelists had no knowledge
of these two brothers, and saw no kind of value
in retaining their names. But they must have
been known to St Mark, and probably to those
for whom his Gospel was primarily written. Is
it a mere coincidence that when St Paul writes
to the Roman Christians, long before he ever
36 The Study of the Gospels
visited Rome, he sends a greeting to a man
named Rufus and to his mother, who had met
the apostle somewhere and had shewed him no or-
dinary kindness ? t Salute,' he says, ' Rufus . . .
and his mother and mine ' (Rom. xvi 13). It is
not an idle fancy to suppose that St Mark, in
writing the story of Simon's bearing the cross,
added for the sake of Roman Christians this little
touch of personal interest; and, if so, she who
was a second mother to St Paul would seem to
have been the widow of the man who carried the
cross after Jesus.
I hope that in the light of what I have very
briefly said you will be encouraged to read
St Mark's Gospel with a fresh interest as the
work of a single hand which paints with broad
strokes and bright colours the earliest picture
we possess of the Saviour of the world. I would
have you not only study parts of it in detail,
but also read it rapidly through as a whole;
trying to read it as you would read a new story
which you had never heard of before ; watching
closely the prelude to the story, the first appear-
ance of the young prophet from Nazareth, what
He says and what He does, the effect produced
on the people and then presently on their leaders,
The Influence of St Mark 37
the bright welcome passing gradually into sus-
picion, the causes of the offence which He gave,
the development of the political situation, and
above all the unique character which little by
little is unveiled to us until it reaches its climax
in voluntary death. You will note how St
John the Baptist first appears on the scene with
a call to national repentance and a promise that
one stronger than he is coming after him. You
will see Jesus coming from Nazareth and promis-
ing to fulfil all expectations, offering to men
good news from God. You will observe how He
fulfils John's sign. He is strong to draw men
after Him by a word, strong to cast out the
evil spirit who interrupts His teaching, strong
to heal all manner of diseases, strong to resist
the first outburst of popularity which threatens
to divert Him from His chosen course. And
then you will mark how this strength is linked
with a tender sympathy; how He touches the
leper ; how He gets into touch, as we say, with
the paralysed young man before He will heal his
disease ; how He draws to Himself the outcast
tax-gatherers who are ' not in society,' pleading,
when He is rebuked, that they are sick and that
He is their doctor. You will see how gently
38 The Study of the Gospels
He deals with those to whom such actions give
legitimate offence, how He understands and
makes allowance for their natural prejudice.
And, at the same time, you will observe how
His strength and His sympathy are matched
by His unwonted liberty from conventional re-
strictions ; how really revolutionary He is, how
He claims that customs are meant to serve men
rather than to rule them, and how all the while
He is making us look to Himself as a new
fount of authority, though He puts forward at
first no distinct claim to be the expected
Messiah. You will specially observe that on
several important occasions He speaks of Himself
by a new title as 'the Son of Man,' as truly
human and, at the same time, representing all
men. 1 And you will find that He expects His
followers to live a life like His own, a life of
continuous service, seeking no private ends but
perpetually giving itself to supply all human
needs which cross its path ; a life which finds its
fitting close on Calvary, and is truly summed
up in the mocking epigram hurled at Him as
He hangs upon the cross, 'He saved others:
Himself He cannot save.'
1 See Note B, on the title ' The Son of Man.'
The Influence of St Mark 39
So you will read ; and as you read you will
worship. The homage of your whole being will
go out towards a life which seems both ' human
and divine, the highest, holiest manhood.' You
will not understand how God and man are
blended here; but you will feel that you must
worship, and that it cannot be wrong to worship ;
for nothing so divine has anywhere been seen
in nature or in human life. You will say with
the amazed Roman officer who stood on guard
at the foot of the cross, * Truly this man was the
Son of God.'
Such a picture could never have been drawn
by any human imagination. It is inexplicable
altogether, if it be not a direct transcript from
the life. The Christ of the Gospel is His own
evidence. It must have been so, we say as we
lay down the book, or it could not have been
written so. It was so, and it is so: for He is
not dead, but He is risen, and is alive and with
us now. * Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and
to-day and for ever.'
NOTE A
A further Comparison between St Mark and
his Successors
ST MAM'S Gospel is characterised throughout by
a certain fulness of expression which is combined
with extreme simplicity. The fulness has nothing
of turgidity about it ; it is not in the least due
to fine writing; it is mainly produced by repeti-
tion both of ideas and also of words. The story
is told as it would be in conversation ; dialogue
plays a large part in it, and the utterances of
speakers are introduced in the plainest way, gene-
rally by ' he saith ' and * they say,' with no further
distinction of the interlocutors. Emphasis is
gained by the repetition of an idea in a slightly
heightened form and by the frequent use of con-
trast. Indeed, repetition seems to be welcomed
for its own sake. Two phrases are used where
one would suffice to earn." on the narrative, but
the second generally adds some fresh detail.
Much could be dispensed with if there were cause
for parsimony, but nothing is really otiose. So
long as the story is plainly told, the words in
which it is couched seem to be little regarded.
Two examples of the repetitive character of the
narrative may be given by way of illustration :
(1) * Many publicans and sinners sat down to
V.:, A
41
fed Hm. And tike aeribea
rang that &
oMLaidto,
How
be seen at once br a
Mattbe* or St Lake at
42 The Study of the Gospels
trivial in comparison with recorded sayings of
Christ.
Again, it is important to observe, in discussing
the fate of these ' picturesque details, 1 that a very
large number of them describe emotions, or acts
expressive of emotion, on the part of the Lord
and His disciples. Thus, in the case of the Lord,
anger, compassion, complacence, are each recorded
three times : grief, agony, surprise, vehemence,
each once. And of actions we have 'looking
around ' five times, * looking upon ' twice, ' look-
ing up 1 once, ' turning ' thrice, 'groaning' twice,
'embracing in the arms 1 twice, 'falling down'
once. But when we come to compare the parallel
passages in St Matthew and St Luke, we find that
all the more painful emotions disappear, with one
exception (the agony). Anger, grief, groaning,
vehemence are gone; compassion remains twice
in St Matthew, complacence (if it may be so
termed) once in both; and in a few instances
a substituted word seems to indicate the pre-
vious existence of something which has been
removed.
There clearly must be a reason why the more
painful emotions are less represented in the other
Gospels. The frequent suppression of the record
of emotions in general might be due to a desire
to abbreviate, which would lead to the oblitera-
tion of features not essential to the story. But
that this particular class of emotions should
entirely disappear is probably the result of a
kind of reverence which belonged to a slightly
later stage of reflection, when certain traits might
Note A 43
even seem to be derogatory to the dignity of the
sacred Character.
This is borne out by the analysis of similar
details in regard to the disciples. Perplexity (5
times), amazement (4), fear (4), anger (1), hard-
ness of heart (1), drowsiness (1), are all recorded
with more or less frequency in St Mark. But in
the other evangelists we find the same tendency
to eliminate as before. It may be due, here
again, partly to a desire to abbreviate, but yet
more to the development of a corresponding
reverence for the character of the apostles.
When, however, we come to examine parallel
notices in regard to ' the multitudes, 1 who listened
to our Lord's teaching and witnessed His miracles,
there is small trace of any such omission. The
wonderment of the multitudes was an important
element in the history, and at least twice in St
Luke we find that the phrases of St Mark are
heightened. In the case of our Lord's adver-
saries, indeed, so far from finding any omission of
the details of their emotions and actions, we even
seem to discover a general tendency both in St
Matthew and in St Luke to expand and emphasise
the notices of hostility.
No one who has not collected all the instances,
of which I have given but a rapid summary, and
tabulated them side by side with their parallels
in the other Gospels, would readily believe how
large an amount of alteration of St Mark by the
other evangelists can be at once accounted for
by the process which I have just described. For
the excision of the details in question leads in
44 The Study of the Gospels
many places not merely to the loss of a word,
but to the dropping of a whole clause or to its
complete recasting. And this, after all, is but
one small cause that might reasonably be con-
sidered to have induced change in the narrative
as written by St Mark. It may be well here to
note some other points which might strike a
subsequent writer as calling for modification.
I have already referred to the narrowness of
scope of St Mark's narrative regarded as a
whole. 1 The need of some account of the
genealogy and birth of the Christ, and of His
early days, would be quickly felt, as also the
need of a further record of His work in the
sacred city of Jerusalem. Above all, some
further examples of the Lord's teaching would
be required. In St Mark the personality of the
great Prophet is everything. Teaching is sub-
ordinated to action. Again and- again we are
told that He taught, and the effects of His
teaching are noted. But what did He teach?
We are given a few parables out of many, a
number of striking sayings, often very difficult ;
but we learn little of His lessons about life, and
almost nothing of the aims and issues of His
work as the Son of Man. Later evangelists
must have counted this a serious defect ; and
they would be the more eager to supply it, if
there lay at hand ample materials in another
document in which teachings held a more pro-
minent place. These considerations suffice to
explain the amplification and to some extent
1 See above, pp. 31 f.
Note A 45
also the dislocation of St Mark's narrative, when
it came to be embodied by St Matthew and St Luke.
With regard to the modification of the style
of those passages which they incorporated directly
from St Mark, we quickly discover that both St
Matthew and St Luke were, in comparison with
their predecessor, literary artists of no mean
fower. Of St Luke this is universally granted :
believe it to be true only in a less degree of
St Matthew, though his methods are very dif-
ferent, and he is less ready to take offence at
mere points of style.
It has been pointed out recently, in connexion
with books of the New Testament, that in ancient
times there were recognised limits which were
imposed by material conditions upon the length
of writings. Both St Matthew and St Luke had
so much to add, that it was likely that they
would exercise a certain economy in embodying
earlier materials. In the case of St Mark's Gos-
pel, not much could be wisely omitted altogether.
But the superabundance of description could be
cut down, the perpetual repetition might be
avoided, and space might thus be gained for
fresh matter without exceeding the ordinary
compass of a volume. 1
1 The three longest books of the New Testament are
almost identical in length. Measuring by the pages of
Westcott and Hort's edition, we find Matt. = 70, Luke = 72,
Acts = 70. St Luke, having reached what Origen might have
called the atrrdp/ojs Trepiypa(p-fi of a volume (contra Celt, iii ad
fin., iv ad fin.), ends his Gospel with a participial clause, at
a point where there was a brief resting-place in the history.
His second volume he similarly closes within a like compass
at another natural resting-place the two years' imprison-
46 The Study of the Gospels
As the new writers, then, were not mere
copyists, it was likely that many other pecu-
liarities of St Mark's style would disappear
before their revising touch. The extreme sim-
plicity of construction, for example, which added
clause to clause with an ever-recurring ' and,' was
certain to give way to a more graceful, if not a
more effective, method of narration. So again
the 190 short relative clauses, which frequently
take the place of substantives or participles, or
which add nothing but a little emphasis, were
destined to a severe reduction in passing under
the censorship of any writer who thought in
Greek and not, as St Mark probably did, in
Aramaic.
Apart from points of style, of which many
more examples might easily be given, 1 there were
various details which seemed to call for correction.
Here and there the very simplicity of the nar-
rative, or its curtness, made it at least ambiguous,
if not unintelligible; as in the words (xi 3) 6
avrov 'ec'av eei KOI evdvs
ment of St Paul ending even more abruptly with an
adverb. It is difficult to think that he did not contemplate
adding a third volume of similar compass, and ending with
a peroration, in the style of his preface, which would have
brought his whole work to a formal close.
1 Of St Mark's 64 instances of 1W, which he used with
Semitic freedom, St Matthew retains 17, St Luke 14 ;
and almost every substitute for it involves further alteration
of the sentence which contained it. Of St Mark's 150
historic presents, St Luke retains but one, St Matthew 21,
in 9 instances prefixing rbre. This alone accounts for a
vast amount of change. (Some of these figures may re-
quire modification, but I think that they are substantially
correct.)
Note A 47
irakiv <u8e, where each of the clauses is capable
of two interpretations ; and in the strange utter-
ance regarding Elias (ix 12, 13). Elsewhere
actual mistakes were to be rectified, as at the
outset (i 2) where the words of Malachi are
cited as from Isaiah, and in ii 26 ' the high-
priesthood of Abiathar.'
At other points there were expressions which
were open to serious misunderstanding, and which
a sense of reverence might remove : as in the
several places where it is said that our Lord
* could not ' do this or that ; 1 or, as we have
already seen, where anger is attributed to Him.
Under the same head fall those miracles in which
cures are effected with reluctance or with ap-
parent difficulty.
St Mark's Gospel is most readily accounted
for as the product of two factors; the narrative
of a Galilean eye-witness, and the interpretation
of that narrative in a Greek form for Roman
readers. Tradition points to St Peter, the
Galilean fisherman, as the source of the narrative,
and to St Mark, his interpreter at Rome, as the
writer of the book. Everything in the scope and
style of the work is in harmony with this view
of its origin.
We have nothing to tell us that St Peter was
with our Lord in several of the visits to Jerusalem
which are described so fully by St John. In any
case his home in every sense was Galilee ; he was
at home there, as he was not at home in Jerusalem.
Again, underneath the whole of the phraseology
1 Mark i 45, vi 5 (contrast Matt, xiii 58), vii 24.
48 The Study of the Gospels
lies a Semitic element; it often protrudes itself
to such an extent as to make us believe that, if
the writer was not actually translating a Semitic
narrative, he must have thought in a Semitic
language, though he wrote in Greek; and he
delights to retain Aramaic words at points of
special interest, though he is always careful to
follow them by a literal translation. 1 His Jewish
mind, too, does full justice to incidents which
primarily interested only a Jew ; but here again
he is copious in explanation, never losing sight of
the needs of those for whom he is writing. It
was natural that other narratives should come
to be compiled later on under other conditions,
and for other readers. Apart from the modifica-
tions which we have considered as in any case
to be expected, others would result from the
temperament of the author and from the require-
ments of those whom he addressed. Thus a man
well read in the ancient scriptures might feel
1 See Mark iii 17 Boanerges, which is Sons of thunder ; v
41, Talitha cdm, which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say
unto thee, arise ; vii 11, Corban, which is Gift ; vii 34,
Ephphatha, which is Be opened ; x 46, the son of Timaeus,
BartimcRus ; xiv 36, Abba, Father ; xv 22, the place Golgotha,
which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull ; xv 34, El6t,
EUi, lamd sabachthdni ? which is, being interpreted, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? The parallels in the
other evangelists should be traced in Wright's Synopsis, It
will be found that the Aramaic words disappear, except in
the last two instances, where St Matthew retains them.
A similar study should be made of St Mark's Latin words :
Kp6.pa.TTOi>, ii 4, 9, 11, 12, vi 55 ; fj.6Siov, iv 21 ; \eyiuv, v 9 ;
ffirfKov\d.TUp, vi 27; e<rrifc, vii 4; Sijvdpiov, vi 37, xii 15,
xiv 5 ; Koop&vrrjy, xii 42 ; tppayeXhovv, xv 15 ; Tpairdipiov, XT
16 ; Kfrrvpluv, xv 39, 44, 45.
Note A 49
called to write a Gospel for Greek-speaking Jewish
converts. He would dwell on the fulfilment of
prophecy, and would colour his writings with
Old Testament allusions. Another might write for
Gentile converts, addressing himself to educated
Greeks. Mere Jewish custom would have little
interest for his readers, except where it gave
the necessary historical colouring. Teachings,
in particular, which dealt with Jewish matters
primarily, would give way to others of more
general interest. Two such evangelists, very
differently constituted and very differently placed,
but each with a sense of style and with an ad-
ditional supply of materials, are before us in the
writers of our first and third Gospels.
NOTE B
On the Title ' The Son of Man"
THE title * the Son of Man ' occurs in every one
of the strata of evangelic record which we have
learned to distinguish namely,
(1) StMark;
(2) The non-Marcan document ;
(3) Additional matter peculiar to St Luke;
(4) Additional matter peculiar to St Matthew ;
(5) St John.
The table which follows will show at a glance
its distribution in the synoptic Gospels.
D
50
The Study of the Gospels
.K'n** M M M M M M M M MM
13 : {
fc
O
o
CO
P
i- <N e5 * i t- od o> o r-3 ci co
-
1
'4
Note B
51
LATTHEW.
'xxiv 42
'xxvi 50
'xxviii 7
g afc3?s
5 U M M H H
"^ .2.2 M M H
r*>
d
3
eo M
eo-*t~
;=.::>
H H H
g^aJ^
tS^iNra >
>.S M'S'B
|
S
xxi 36 To stand before the Son of Man
xxii 48 Judas, betrayest thou
xxiv 7 Remember how He spake .
MATTHEW.
xvi 13 Whom say men . . .
xvi 28 Coming in His kingdom
xix 28 On the throne of His glory
xxiv 30 Shall appear the sign of
xxvi 2 Ye know that after two days
N<NC5
ei5coeo
H
H
-i
3
S
H
<0
GO
w
9
O
f
3
H
s
1
j
1
H
M
W
"3
j
1
S
H
1
1
03
a
rf
t ^-i
O
""3
^
H
'o
*
,
J4
M
M
a '
>-t
a
S
R
o
3
5
PH
LUKE.
To see one of the da
Shall He find faith?
To seek and to save
MATTHEW.
Cities of Israel
Soweth the good se<
Come in His glory .
An asterisk prefixed DC
1
8*S
S33w
*
1-1
|fs
M ""a
H H
^s
"S
CO ^ O
CO CO CO
c5 co co
52 The Study of the Gospels
One or two instructive facts appear at once
from an examination of this table :
(a) In St Mark the title is used eight times
in passages which foretell the Passion or the
Resurrection. In the non-Marcan document it
is never so used ; this document seems to contain
no explicit prophecies of this kind.
(&) The two passages in which the ' coming
with clouds' is mentioned belong likewise to
St Mark. These again are explicit prophecies.
They are of special interest as being the only
passages which directly connect the title with
Dan. vii 13 ff. It is to be noted that they
belong to the latest period of the ministry.
(c) The earliest of the passages in St Mark
are two which bring out with special clearness
the representative character of the title.
In order to study the meaning of the title, it
is necessary to trace the usage of two other
titles, 'the Son of David' and 'the Son of God.'
And to do this satisfactorily we must note all
the principal references which our Lord makes to
His own person. It will suffice for the present
to confine our attention to St Mark's Gospel.
1. We begin with the words spoken to our
Lord at His Baptism (i 11) : ' Thou art My
Son, the Beloved; in Thee I am well-pleased'
(5*u et o vlo<i fJiov 6 ayaTrrjTOf, ev crol evSo/cya-a).
I have given this literal translation in order to
bring out the allusions to two passages of the
Old Testament. The first clause is obviously
Messianic : it at once recalls Ps. ii 7 f., ' The Lord
Note B 53
hath said unto me, Tliou art My Son; this day
have I begotten thee. Ask of Me, and I shall
give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 1
The remainder recalls Isa. xlii 1, 'Behold My
servant, whom I uphold ; Mine elect, in whom
My soul delighteth : I have put My Spirit upon
him ; he shall bring forth judgment to the
Gentiles. 1 It is interesting to note that though
neither the Hebrew nor the LXX has ' Beloved *
in this passage, it does occur in St Matthew's
quotation of the text (xii 18), 'ISoii 6 7rcu<? JJLOV bv
? / f > / A * C* ' f I ' 1
rjpertaq,, o aycnnjTo*; pov ov evco/crja-ev ij 'y' v X l i P v '
In the light of these Old Testament parallels
we must regard the title * the Son of God 1 in this
connexion as properly Messianic ; and we are not
now concerned with its strictly theological import.
It suggested primarily ' the king set upon the
holy hill of Sion 1 of the previous verse of the
Psalm, and ' the servant of Jehovah * spoken of
in the book of Isaiah. Thus not triumph only,
but suffering also may have come into view when
the divine proclamation was pondered in the
desert. We might conjecture, even if we did
not otherwise know, that the temptation which
followed, and which is so briefly recorded by
St Mark, would connect itself in some way with
the divine announcement of the Messianic sonship
(compare Matt, and Luke, * If Thou be the Son
of God ').
2. The demoniac in the synagogue of Caper-
1 By P, curious mistake of the Latin translator we find
diJectus for eUciw in the Targum on Isa. xlii 1 (Le Jay and
Walton).
54 The Study of the Gospels
naum cries (i 24) : * I know Thee, who Thou
art, the holy one of God ' (o 01740? rov 6eov).
That this also must have been recognised as a
Messianic title appears from John vi 69. Our
Lord checks the confession as 'coming inoppor-
tunely, and from unholy lips 1 (Swete, ad loc.\
Compare i 34, 'He suffered not the devils to
speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ '
(where, however, some important MSS. omit
XpKrrov eli/at). Compare also v 7, when the
Gerasene demoniac cries : ' What have I to do
with Thee, Jesus, Son of God most high ? '
3. When He is rejected ' in His own country,'
He is content to speak of Himself as * a prophet, 1
who fails, according to the proverb, to get His
due in His own home (vi 4). The conjectures
as to His personality mentioned in vi 14 ff.
include John the Baptist, Elijah, and 'a prophet
as one of the prophets,' but not the Messiah.
On the journey northward, however, He directly
calls the attention of the twelve to Himself and
His mission ; and after they have enumerated
the conjectures of the people already referred to,
Peter replies on behalf of the disciples, ' Thou
art the Christ 1 (viii 29). Silence is thereupon
enjoined. We need not infer that then for the
first time His Messiahship had been recognised
by His disciples ; but rather that He would make
sure that they had grasped this lesson before He
led them on to a more difficult one.
4. Now follows the mysterious announcement
(viii 31) that 'the Son of Man (an expression
which has been used twice before, ii 10, 28) must
Note B 55
suffer and be killed and rise again.' Peter, at
least, recognises that He speaks of Himself.
The words which follow are directed to more
than the immediate circle of disciples ; they
proclaim a general law of suffering and death
for those who will follow Him. But they also
speak of a time when ' the Son of Man ' will
come * in the glory of His Father with the holy
angels/ This is the first time that St Mark uses
the word * Father ' in reference to God. God
is the Father of the Son of Man. So that the
Son of Man is declared to be also the Son of
God. The Messianic significance of the whole
teaching is enforced by the promise that some
of those who hear shall see before they die ' the
kingdom of God having come in power. 1
5. The Transfiguration reaffirms the divine
proclamation of the Messianic sonship given to
the Lord Himself at the Baptism, and makes it
authoritatively known to the disciples (ix 7) :
* This is My Son, the Beloved : hear Him '
(Ouro? ecrnv 6 vios fj,ov 6 dycnrrjTos). They are
bidden to observe silence until * the Son of Man
is risen from the dead ' an expression which
they cannot understand, and which presently
leads to a declaration that the sufferings of ' the
Son of Man ' are foretold in the Scriptures.
6. A consciousness of divine mission is ex-
pressed in the words (ix 37): 'Whosoever re-
ceiveth Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that
sent Me.' Presently follows the saying, ' For
there is no one who shall do a miracle in My
name, and shall be able lightly to speak evil
56 The Study of the Gospels
of Me.' A comment on the ' name ' may be
gathered from the succeeding saying : ' Who-
soever shall give you to drink a cup of water
in the name that ye are Christ's' (ev ovopart
OTI XPUTTOV eVre). This is the first place in which
%pio-T05 is found on our Lord's lips in St Mark.
7. In reply to the rich man's form of address,
A&daica\e ayade, our Lord says, TL /ie X^yet?
ayaOov ; ouSei? ayaOos t fJ<r) 6*5 6 0eo? (x 18).
He challenges the apparently unconsidered epi-
thet. The man had come as to a human teacher,
and our Lord took him on his own ground. It
may be noted that to St Matthew the words
seemed open to misunderstanding, and that he
has sought to bring out the general teaching of
the passage in another way (xix 16 f.) : JtSaoveaXe,
ri dyadbv Troi^ao) ; . . . T pe eptDTas nepl rov
dyaQov', eZ? ecrrlv 6 dyaOos.
8. In reply to James and John, our Lord indi-
cates a subordination of His Messianic kingship
to Another who is not expressly mentioned
(x 40) : TO Be KaQlacn, e/c Segiwv pov ff eg
evcovv/j,Q)v OVK (TTIV ejj.ov Sovvai, dXX,' ol? 77x04-
/jiaa-rai. Then follows a declaration of the
principle of service in the life of 'the Son of
Man ' (x 45).
9. Twice the blind man near Jericho invokes
1 the Son of David ' (x 47 f.). Christ does not
comment on this form of address, which presently
is exchanged for 'Pa/3/Sowe/. But we note that
the appeal to the Messiahship has been publicly
made, and in response He has * opened the blind
eyes.'
Note B 57
10. The next incident shews Him claiming the
Messianic position, not by words, but by signifi-
cant action. The disciples and others recognise
the meaning of the action, and cry, 'flaawd'
Ev\o<yr)(Jivo<; 6 e'p^o/tevo? eV ovopaTi Kvpiov' Ei*\.o-
yrjfMevi) i) ep-^o/Jievr) /SacriXeia rov Trarpos rjn-wv
AaveiS ' 'fiffavv^ ev rot? vtyiarots (xi 9 f.). The
cleansing of the temple is a further assertion of this
claim. When His authority is challenged, He im-
plicitly claims that it is not inferior to that of the
Baptist ; and by a parable He indirectly points
to Himself as higher than a servant commissioned
to bear a message as no less than the wo?
dyaTrrjTOs of the lord of the vineyard. Then by
way of enforcing His claim He quotes the saying
about ' the stone which the builders rejected '
(xii 10).
11. Later on He asks a question which seems
to challenge the current conception of the Messiah
(xii 35 f.) : * How say the scribes that the Christ
is the son of David ? . . . David himself calleth
Him Lord, and whence is He his son ? '
12. In private He warns the disciples against
some who will come in His name and say, * I am
He' (xiii 6); against others who will say, 'Lo,
here is the Christ : lo, there ' ; and generally
against -^rev^o-^pia-TOi, and -^evSoTrpo^iJTai (vv.
21 f.) He promises that after a time of great
affliction men ' shall see the Son of Man coming '
as He was represented in Daniel's vision (v. 26).
But of the day and the hour not even ' the Son '
(here contrasted with the angels) knoweth, but
only ' the Father ' (v. 32).
58 The Study of the Gospels
13. At the Last Supper He declares that ' the
Son of Man goeth as it is written concerning
Him,' but that this does not affect the responsi-
bility of those who cause His sufferings (xiv 21).
Then in full view of death He gives to His dis-
ciples His ' Body ' and His * Blood of the Cove-
nant, which is poured forth on behalf of many ' ;
and declares that He will next drink wine ' in the
kingdom of God 1 (vv. 22 ff.).
14. In the Garden He prays (xiv 35 f.) 'that,
if it is possible, the hour may pass from Him.'
The divine sonship is the ground at once of prayer
and of submission; 'Abba, Father, all things
are possible to Thee: take away this cup from
Me : yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt.'
The words subsequently addressed to Simon Peter
are not to be so limited as though they could have
no reference to the Lord's own human experience :
TO fiev irvevpa irpodv^ov, 77 Se crdpj; aaOevtfs.
15. In answer to the direct question of the
high priest, 2i> el o ^pia-ros o vlbs rov evXoyrjrov ;
' Jesus said, I am ' (xiv 61 f.) ' The Son of the
Blessed ' was the accepted paraphrase of ' the Son
of God,' and this in turn was a recognised title
of the Messiah. Our Lord expressly accepts it ;
but He goes on at once to speak of ' the Son of
Man' who shall be seen 'sitting on the right
hand of power and coming with the clouds of
heaven.' ' Ye have heard the blasphemy,' is the
high priest's reply (v . 64). ' The blasphemy in
this case is the claim to Messianic honours and
powers, which is assumed to be groundless ' (Swete,
ad loc.).
Note B 59
16. Pilate's question takes a different form,
though to Jewish ears its meaning was the same :
' Art Thou the King of the Jews ? ' Our Lord's
reply is, * Thou sayest,' and no further response is
given (xv 2). The title 'King of the Jews'
occurs five times (vo. 2, 9, 12, 18, 26) in con-
nexion with the Roman governor and soldiery;
whereas the high priests say (v. 32) ' the Christ,
the King of Israel.'
17. St Mark gives the words of but one cry
from the Cross the first verse of the twenty-
second Psalm ; though he mentions the uttering
of another cry at the moment of death (xv 34,
37).
18. The language of the centurion (xv 39) is
not to be connected with the Messianic title o vibs
rov 6eov. It was the natural expression of a
Roman's recognition of more than human great-
ness in the sufferer : 'A\r]6w<; OVTOS 6 avOpayjros
v<o? 0eov rjv t that is to say, ' This man was divine.'
The dignity of the sufferer's bearing, together
with what seemed the sympathy of nature with
His suffering, is sufficient to explain the cen-
turion's words. So through Gentile lips at the
close we learn something more of the meaning of
a title, which might have remained for Jews a
Messianic phrase and nothing more. Not office,
but nature a divine relation and not merely a
divine commission lies at the root of the title
6 W09 TOV 0OV.
We may now sum up what we have learned
from St Mark's narrative.
60 The Study of the Gospels
(a) The Son of God. The divine sonship pro-
claimed at the Baptism is primarily Messianic, and
the terms of its proclamation recall at once the
Davidic kingship and the prophetic figure of
' the servant of Jehovah.' In the Messianic sense
the demoniacs acknowledge this divine sonship ;
and it is authoritatively proclaimed to the prin-
cipal disciples at the Transfiguration. * The Son
of Man ' is in one passage spoken of as standing
in the relation of Son to God ' His Father.' ' The
Son' is once spoken of in relation to 'the Father,'
each term being used absolutely. The high priest
draws from our Lord the assertion of the Mes-
sianic sonship, and then pronounces His claim to
be blasphemous. The centurion at the Cross
confesses a divine sonship in general terms and
with no Messianic reference.
(b) The Son of David. The blind man at
Jericho invokes our Lord's aid by this title, and
is not refused. 'The kingdom of our father
David ' occurs in the acclamation of the disciples
at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But our
Lord raises a question as to the propriety of the
title ' the Son of David,' as used by the scribes.
(c) The Son of Man. Do we gain from our
inquiry any light as to the sense in which our
Lord employed the title ' the Son of Man ' ?
1. In view of the postponement of the public
assertion of the Messianic claim, it is clear that
our Lord did not intend by His public use of
this title to convey the idea that He Himself
was the Messiah.
2. To those only who already recognised His
Note B 61
Messiahship did He give the teaching of the
sufferings to befall 'the Son of Man. 1 In like
manner His assertion of the Messiahship before
the high priest preceded His proclamation of the
glory of ' the Son of Man. 1
3. Thus the title ' the Son of Man ' seems to
lie in our Lord's mind close to the Messianic
title, 'the Son of God.' Each title appears to
have contained for Him a higher meaning than
it had for others.
For the title ' the Son of God, 1 as a designation
of the Messiah, meant to the Jewish mind no
more than the embodiment in a single repre-
sentative individual of the divine sonship of the
people of Israel. It was in this sense that the
Messiah was 'the Son of God. 1 But our Lord
shews a consciousness of a deeper meaning of
divine sonship; as, for example, in the ascend-
ing series contained in the words, ' None knoweth,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father. 1
Likewise the expression ' the Son of Man 1
contained a lower and a higher possibility of
meaning. To the ordinary Jewish ear it signi-
fied simply 'the man, 1 or absolutely 'Man. 1
This sense brings out at least a part of the mean-
ing, and indeed an essential part, of some of
the earlier sayings which contain the expression.
But when it is set beside another popular desig-
nation of the Messiah, ' the Son of David, 1 the
significance of the new term springs into light.
The title ' the Son of David 1 involved an obvious
limitation: it confined His representative char-
62 The Study of the Gospels
acter to the people of Israel. 'The Son of
Man,' on the contrary, is the one possible and
in the circumstances the natural designation of
the Christ of Humanity.
It is not, then, unreasonable to suppose that,
in view of the current designations of Messiah
as ' the Son of God ' and ' the Son of David,'
our Lord should have determined to accept the
one, as true in the highest sense as well as in its
ordinary interpretation ; and practically to reject
the other as involving a misleading limitation,
substituting for it the wider designation, 'the
Son of Man ' a term which for the uninstructed
would be not altogether meaningless, but yet a
parable of which the full interpretation could
only be given by Himself.
We thus bring" the term ' the Son of Man '
into relation with the two terms to which it
presents an obvious contrast ' the Son of God,'
' the Son of David.' The title ' the Son of Man '
stands out sharply over against the title 'the
Son of God,' when the latter is lifted to the
height of its meaning; and serves to emphasise
the perfect humanity side by side with the
perfect divinity of our Lord. And, again, the
title ' the Son of Man ' supersedes the title ' the
Son of David,' and expresses our Lord's repre-
sentative relation to the whole human race.
By adopting this line we avoid the necessity
of laying stress on the isolated phrase of the
vision of Daniel, which is naturally enough
pressed into service when the title 'the Son of
Man' has on other grounds been adopted, but
Note B 63
which by reason of its vagueness (' one like uiito
a son of man 1 ) hardly offers a sufficient ex-
planation of the definite designation, 'the Son
of Man.'
We may now take three of the most striking
passages which belong to the group in which the
expression 'the Son of Man' is not connected
either with the coming sufferings or with the
future glory of Christ, and in which the essential
meaning of the term must explain its presence.
(1) The earliest instance which St Mark gives
is in ii 10. The scribes have challenged His
action in declaring the forgiveness of sins : ' Who
can forgive sins but God only ? ' We can con-
ceive that, had He been willing to proclaim His
Messianic position, He might have replied that
' the Son of God ' had authority so to act in His
Father's name. Indeed, the passage has commonly
been taken as though this were actually the title
used, or as though a claim of divinity were im-
plicitly put forward. It is in striking contrast to
this that we read the words, ' that ye may know
that the Son of Man hath authority to forgive
sins upon the earth.' It was no claim of divinity,
no claim even of Messiahship, which was thus put
forward. It is not as ' the Son of God,' but as
* the Son of Man ' that He claims thus to act.
To us the force of this claim is apparent, when
we have seen that the title denotes a relation to
humanity as such. But what meaning can He
have intended to convey to those who heard Him
speak ? They must at least have gathered that
64 The Study of the Gospels
He claimed (and supported His claim by an act
of miraculous healing) that the proposition of the
scribes was untrue, and that not God only, but in
certain cases man also, could forgive sins. The
exact meaning of the definite title they might
miss : what they would learn to their astonish-
ment was that there could be a case in which a
' son of man ' could exercise this power.
(2) The next example in St Mark is in ii 28.
The Lord replies to a charge of allowing His
disciples to transgress a rabbinical precept con-
cerning the Sabbath. He does not, as He might
have done, denounce the frivolity of the minute
regulations with which the Rabbis had overlaid
the simple command of the Decalogue. He goes
to the heart of the matter, and justifies the liberty
taken by His disciples by the liberty accorded by
David to his men under the pressure of hunger.
Had He wished to assert His Messiahship, He
might have gone on to claim as 'the SOH of
David' a right to act as David acted. The
answer would have been complete.
But He will neither assert His Messiahship nor
yet rest content with the precedent He has quoted,
even though it contains an important principle.
He goes on to proclaim that principle in the widest
terms. He speaks not as ' the Son of David,' but
as the Son of Man.' ' The Sabbath,' He says,
* was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath: so that the Son of Man is lord even
of the Sabbath.'
Here again the precise significance of the words
* the Son of Man ' may have been a mystery to
Note B 65
them ; but the general sense of the reply cannot
have been otherwise than plain : man is not to be
made the slave of that which was ordained to
serve him.
(3) Our third instance is from the non-Marcan
document, Luke ix 58, Matt, viii 20. In reply
to one who had said, ' I will follow Thee whither-
soever Thou goest,' our Lord declares that ' foxes
have holes and birds of the air have nests, but
the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.'
If we substitute for a moment the first personal
pronoun, so as to read, ' but I have not where to
lay My head,' we feel how grievously the force of
the saying is diminished. The point of the words
lies in the contrast between the lower animals
and man.
On the other hand, the meaning rises into
clearer light when we remind ourselves of the
words of the eighth Psalm :
What is man that thou art mindful of him ?
Or the son of man that thou visitest him ?
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works
of thy hands ;
The beasts of the field, the birds of the air. . . .
So that the saying contains the paradox that
he who should rule is inferior to the creatures of
his dominion. To the would-be disciple this
would at least be clear for that ' son of man ' who
was speaking to him. To us He speaks as 'the
Son of Man,' who in His representative character
descends to bear the burden of the race.
66 The Study of the Gospels
These three examples guide us to the explana-
tion of the fact, so remarkable in itself, that our
Lord should have chosen again and again to use
the third person in speaking of Himself. It is
important to notice that He never does so except
with the object of introducing this particular
expression. 1 There is no indication whatever
that He preferred an indirect method of alluding
to Himself. In these three* instances the first
person could not be substituted without weaken-
ing, if not destroying, the meaning of the sayings.
In other words, the use of the designation 'the
Son of Man 1 is always of the nature of an argu-
ment. The statement would in each case remain
true if the first person were substituted ; but its
scope would be limited, or its appropriateness
would disappear.
It may be safely said that wherever the words
* the Son of Man ' can be securely traced back to
our Lord's own utterance, and are not the editorial
insertion of St Matthew or St Luke, the full
meaning of the passage will only appear when
this expression receives its proper value. Where
He predicts His sufferings He reminds us that
it is as 'the Son of Man' that He will suffer;
where He foretells His glory, He foretells it as
the glory of 'the Son of Man.' Wherever He
uses the term He speaks not for Himself alone,
but for ' man,' whom He has ' taken upon Him-
self, to deliver him.'
1 Except perhaps in such passages as refer to 'the Son*
absolutely.
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT SERMON IN ST MATTHEW
AND ST LUKE
WE have been proceeding on the hypothesis that
our St Mark lay before the writers of the first
and third Gospels, and that between them they
embodied almost the whole of it, modifying its
language at many points, and adding largely to
it from other sources of information. We have
accepted this as offering a better working theory
than the alternative hypothesis that each of the
three writers was using a document which is
now lost. That indeed is a perfectly reasonable
theory in itself. We can understand that a
document of which almost every portion had
been embodied hi completer works should appear
to have lost its value, and accordingly should
no longer be copied. In fact, as we have already
said, our St Mark itself ran some risk of perish-
ing from this very cause. I now propose to say
something of a document which has, as a matter
of fact, completely disappeared, and can only be
68 The Study of the Gospels
reconstructed by critical methods from the Gospels
of St Matthew and St Luke.
You may gain some general idea of the scope
of this document by underlining in St Luke's
Gospel all those portions which are to be found
in St Matthew, but are not to be found in St
Mark. Fragments of this matter may require a
different explanation, but the main body of it,
whether discourse or narrative, appears to be
derived from a Greek document which is now
entirely lost. A minute study of small points
of language and style suggests that a number
of the passages which thus come before us pro-
ceed from the same author, and this is the reason
why I speak of one document, and not of two or
more ; but the whole of this subject requires
a much fuller investigation than it has yet
received.
I would here put in a warning, which is sorely
needed, against the confusion introduced by the
attempt to give this lost document a name. It
is true that the characteristic feature which dis-
tinguishes it from St Mark's Gospel is that it
contains a very large amount of discourse and
a comparatively small amount of narrative. Now
Papias, as we have already seen, writing in the
The Great Sermon 69
first half of the second century, says that
* Matthew composed the oracles of the Lord in
the Hebrew tongue'; and the word which he
uses for 'oracles' is logia, the primary meaning
of which is ' sayings.' But it is the word which
St Paul uses in Rom. iii 2, when he says of the
Jews that 'to them were committed the oracles
of God'; and in the technical meaning of in-
spired scriptures it is found in both Jewish
and Christian writers. We need have no hesi-
tation in saying that when Papias spoke of
'the oracles of the Lord' he meant simply
'the scriptures about the Lord,' or, in other
words, the Gospel. But because logia originally
meant 'sayings,' and because in St Matthew's
Gospel we have a large amount of teaching
uttered by our Lord, many persons have hastily
concluded that Papias knew of a book of logia
or sayings of the Lord, which consisted of dis-
courses, and from which the writer of our first
Gospel largely drew. That, however, is a guess
and, I think, a bad guess based on the mis-
understanding of the usage of a Greek word.
We have no evidence that there ever was a book
entitled Logia, and to apply this name to the
document which we are considering is to beg
70 The Study of the Gospels
the question and prejudice our study. We must
be content to speak of our lost document as
the non-Marcan Greek document which was
used by St Matthew and St Luke. Logia is
a question-begging name: I could wish that we
might hear no more of it in this connexion.
It is time to return from this troublesome
but necessary digression. Nothing is more strik-
ing in regard to the earlier part of St Mark's
Gospel than his reticence as to our Lord's teach-
ing. We are told what He did, and we are
told what He said in brief conversations which
arose out of the remarkable things which He
did ; but we are not told in what His teaching
consisted. It would seem as though at the
outset He was stimulating hope, drawing men's
eyes to Himself as the centre of their expecta-
tions, promising to supply all needs and fulfill-
ing His promise by marvellous works of healing,
but not systematically expounding a new law
of life. After the ministry in Galilee has pro-
ceeded for some time we read of vast multitudes
gathering by the shore of the lake, and we are
told that He taught them many things. But
our anxiety to know what His teaching was is
still disappointed. A few parables from nature
The Great Sermon 71
and from human life are given us; but we are
expressly told that they were not explained to
the multitude; and the explanation of one of
them, given to the disciples in private, only
points to the different effects of His teaching
on different kinds of hearers : we have not yet
learned what that teaching was. But when we
turn to the Galilean ministry in St Matthew
we find a startling contrast : we have three
long chapters of systematic discourse before we
get the details of a single miracle. Moreover,
when we examine this discourse, we find still
further cause for surprise. In St Mark's Gospel
we can trace the gradual development of the
situation which leads to the ultimate denuncia-
tion of the Pharisees: but our Lord is very
gentle with them at the outset ; He treats them
with sympathy, and tries to explain to them the
reasons which move Him to do the things which
cause them not unnatural offence. The dis-
course in St Matthew, however, suggests that
a breach with the Pharisees has already taken
place and that they are finally alienated and
condemned. ' Except your righteousness exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
72 The Study of the Gospels
heaven:' that is a terrible indictment of the
leaders of religious life; it must have seemed a
paradox to those who heard it first. And a
little later on we have yet greater severity, when
the methods of Pharisaic righteousness are de-
nounced, and in their almsgiving, their prayers,
and their fasting, they are declared to be world-
lings and hypocrites.
We are thus being prepared for the suggestion
that St Matthew, who, as I have said before,
delights to group his materials according to
subject, has chosen to prefix to his narrative of
the Galilean ministry a mass of teaching, part
of which, at any rate, clearly belongs to a later
period of the story. It may well be that as he
read St Mark's Gospel he felt the lack of precise
statement as to our Lord's teaching of which we
have spoken, and thought it left the way open
to a serious misunderstanding of our Lord's
mission; and accordingly desired to let a clear
exposition of the character of the teaching pre-
cede the rupture with the recognised teachers of
the day. And this is the more likely as he
plainly was writing for Jewish readers, and was
anxious to shew the true relation of our Lord
to the past, and to indicate that while His teach-
The Great Sermon 73
ing was progressive it was not revolutionary in
the bad sense of that word; that He came to
fulfil, not to destroy ; that evolution rather than
revolution was the underlying principle of His
mission. However this may be, we face the fact
that St Matthew does introduce a mass of teach-
ing before he draws the portrait of our Lord in
His daily life. For a parallel to this method we
may turn to St Luke's Gospel, where in the fourth
chapter we read of a discourse at Nazareth in
which our Lord claims at the outset of His work
to be anointed of God as a prophet of blessing.
We are not given the sermon, but only the text,
and then the remarkable words of practical appli-
cation which led to His hasty and heartless
rejection.
But for a parallel to the actual words of St
Matthew's great sermon we must look later on
in St Luke. In his sixth chapter we find a
discourse, almost the whole of which is to be
discovered in St Matthew's Sermon on the Mount.
Let us very briefly analyse this discourse (Luke
vi 20-49). It begins with four beatitudes fol-
lowed by four woes. These are not beatitudes
of character as in St Matthew, but of condition
the poor, the hungry, the sad, and the outcast
74 The Study of the Gospels
are blessed : similarly the woes are pronounced on
the rich, the full, the merry, and the popular.
Then we have the law of love introduced by the
words, 'But I say unto you that hear.' It is
contrasted with the lower standard of ordinary
morals, and enforced by the example of God
Himself, who is kind to the thankless and wicked :
'Be merciful as your Father is merciful, and judge
not and ye shall not be judged.' Then we have
a few lines which do not appear in the Sermon
on the Mount, but are partly found in Matt, xv
(the blind leader) and in Matt, x (the disciple
not above the master). Then follow the mote
and the beam, the good tree and the bad, the
good and evil treasures; and the discourse ends
with the warning 'Why call ye Me, Lord,
Lord ? ' and the parable of the good builder and
the bad.
It hardly seems reasonable to doubt that this
discourse is the same as that of which St Matthew
gives us a greatly expanded account in chaps, v-vii.
Moreover, the setting of the discourse presents
marked similarities. In each case vast multitudes
have gathered away from the town in the hill
district. In St Luke the close of the discourse
is marked by the words, ' When He had fulfilled
The Great Sermon 75
all these sayings in the ears of the people, He
entered into Capernaum ' ; in St Matthew by the
words, 'And it came to pass when Jesus had
finished these words.' This is a formula which
is characteristic of St Matthew's Gospel, and re-
curs in xi 1, xiii 53, xix 1, xxvi 1, at the close of
great groups of teaching : its wording may be in
part derived from Deut. xxxi 1, 24 (LXX). What
is still more remarkable, the narrative sequel
is in each case the same, when we have made
allowance for a small insertion in St Matthew.
For in St Luke the entry into Capernaum after
the sermon is immediately followed by the healing
of the centurion's slave, an incident not recorded
by St Mark ; and in St Matthew we find exactly
the same order, when we remove the healing of
the leper, which he has taken over from St Mark
in spite of its belonging to quite a different
position in that Gospel.
We shall assume for the purposes of study that
St Luke gives us the main outline of the sermon
which was delivered on this occasion, and that St
Matthew has for a special purpose worked into it
other groups of teaching, partly peculiar to him,
and partly to be found in quite different contexts
in St Luke's Gospel. If we adopt the opposite
76 The Study of the Gospels
hypothesis and assume that St Matthew records
one actual discourse, then we are thrown into the
utmost perplexity in regard to St Luke ; for many
of these great teachings are attributed by him to
distinct occasions, so that he would appear guilty
of serious mistakes, if as a matter of fact they
were all parts of a great sermon delivered at one
time, and that time the very outset of the Gali-
lean ministry. It is obviously more reasonable
to suppose that St Matthew, whose habit it is to
group incidents and teachings of a like character,
has drawn together for a special purpose a number
of utterances, the original occasions of which are
to be sought for in St Luke.
We must confine our attention now to a few
notable examples of the way in which St Matthew
has dealt with the original discourse- He main-
tains the great principle of its structure, which
makes it the model of a true sermon. It opens
with hope, it proceeds to requirement, and it
closes with warning. The beatitudes appear in
St Matthew in a modified and enlarged form,
and without the corresponding woes. We cannot
tell what source, if any, he drew upon in making
changes of this kind; we can but observe the
facts. There are seven beatitudes, not of con-
The Great Sermon 77
dition, but of character ; not ' the poor ' and not
* the hungry,' but ' the poor in spirit ' and ' they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness' are
pronounced blessed. There is one blessing of
condition, that namely which, as in St Luke, is
pronounced upon sufferers for the truth. 1 The
function of the disciples in the world as its salt
and its light is not described in St Luke's sermon;
but this language has some parallels in other
parts of his Gospel and in St Mark. Then comes
the proclamation that the new life shall not fall
short of the old, but shall in every way surpass
it. The watchword of the rest of this chapter is
4 more.' The old is taken up into the new, inter-
preted and extended, fulfilled but not destroyed.
This section is not in St Luke. But in the middle
of it (Matt, v 25, 26) we find a passage which St
Luke gives in his twelfth chapter (vv. 58, 59)
about agreeing with an adversary quickly. It
has an external similarity to the command to be
reconciled with the offended brother (Matt, v 23,
24), and this may account for its insertion by St
1 This beatitude is given first in a general form, and
then, as in St Luke, as directly addressed to the disciples.
In the general form it includes the word 'righteousness,'
which occurs seven times in Matthew, never in Mark, and
only once in Luke (i 75).
78 The Study of the Gospels
Matthew at this point ; but it breaks the natural
flow of the discourse, which contrasts the old pre-
cepts and the new. The climax of this passage is
the law of love, enforced by the heavenly Father's
treatment of the evil and the good, the just and
the unjust. If we pass over, for the moment, the
whole of the sixth chapter and read the beginning
of chap, vii immediately after the end of chap, v, we
connect this passage, as it is closely connected in
St Luke, with the command not to judge that
is, not to attempt with our inferior powers of
sight to mark out men for different treatment as
we think them good or bad.
But the sixth chapter, when looked at by itself,
presents some points of peculiar interest. It
deals with two great topics: first, the positive
duties of the practical religious life, and secondly,
the liberation of the religious life from the
anxieties which threaten to render it impossible.
In regard to these two topics two great restrain-
ing and ruling thoughts are suggested : first, the
Father's reward, and secondly, the Father's care.
These are the correctives to the perpetual intru-
sion of the world, which strikes at religion by
offering itself as the rewarder of religious actions,
and again by seeking to crowd religion out by
The Great Sermon 79
means of the anxieties which attend both riches
and poverty.
With the first only of these sections can we
deal at any length. I wish you to observe the
exact parallelism and perfect balance of the little
sermon which is here preserved to us, and which
I cannot but think must at one time have had
a separate existence of its own. Righteousness,
which is here used as a general term to describe
the great practical actions by which religion
manifests itself, falls under three heads alms,
prayer, and fasting. These three concern the
soul in its relation to its neighbour, to God, and
to itself; as it looks around, above, and within.
Service of others, communion with God, dis-
cipline of self into the typical manifestations
of all of these the world tries to creep, asserting
for itself the position of ' rewarder ' which belongs
to God alone (comp. Heb. xi 6). If you read con-
secutively Matt, vi 1-6 and 16-18, substituting
the word ' righteousness ' for ' alms ' in v. 1,
according to the true text, you observe at once
the balance and the symmetry. In each case
the world's reward is contrasted with the Father's
reward. By omitting vv. 7-15 we have restored
the little discourse to its integrity, which had
80 The Study of the Gospels
been broken because the writer of St Matthew's
Gospel could not be content with speaking of
prayer and not giving us its true model and
warning us against another false spirit which
renders prayer unfruitful. He has added (1)
the Lord's Prayer, and (2) a particular justifica-
tion of one of its clauses. The first of these
additions is found in St Luke's Gospel (xi 2 ff.)
in a wholly different context, as the answer to
a request of the disciples ; the second corresponds
in great part to Mark xi 25 f., from which it seems
to have been brought into this connexion.
Nearly the whole of the second part of the
sixth chapter, which deals with the relation of
the religious life to worldly cares, is found in
Luke xii, where it stands in connexion with the
request to divide the inheritance and the parable
of the rich fool. Into the seventh chapter we
cannot enter now; but when we similarly com-
pare and contrast it with the sermon in Luke vi,
many points of interest and instruction are re-
vealed.
To sum up and reconstruct : a common nar-
rative seems to have lain before St Matthew and
St Luke, containing the record of a sermon
delivered in presence of a large crowd somewhere
The Great Sermon 81
on the high ground above the lake. It com-
menced with beatitudes, probably followed by
woes. It proclaimed a new law of universal love ;
appealing to the example of the mercifulness of
the divine Father in His treatment of just and
unjust alike ; and forbidding men to judge one
another and to attempt distinctions in their treat-
ment of man and man l ; for the judge may have
a beam of timber in his eye, while the judged has
only a tiny speck. It concluded with a warning
that the fruit was the proof of the tree, and that
professions of loyalty were vain without obedi-
ence ; and it emphasised the warning by the
parable of the two builders. Thus the discourse
was brought to a formal close ' the sayings
were finished' and the entry into Capernaum
was immediately followed by the healing of the
centurion's slave.
The most substantial additions which the
writer of St Matthew's Gospel made were the
elaborate expansion of the old law in chap, v, and
the insertion of the whole of chap, vi, the first part
of which deals with the three great precepts of
practical righteousness, the second with the rela-
1 So ' merer rejoiceth against judgment ' (James ii 13).
F
82 The Study of the Gospels
tion of the disciples to worldly cares. Probably
the first section of chap, vi had once a separate
existence as a whole in itself, if we leave out
of account certain apparent additions. The
general principle was laid down that righteous-
ness done to be seen of men will not be rewarded
by the Father. This principle was applied to
alms-giving, prayer, and fasting. Of each of
these there is a false and a true. 'Be not as
the hypocrites ; they have their reward : conceal
thy good deed : the Father which seeth in secret
will reward thee. 1 In each of the three instances
the same phrases occur : the symmetry is only
broken by the interpolation, which follows the
precept concerning prayer, of a fresh warning
not to be like the heathen vainly babbling, fol-
lowed by the Lord's Prayer as the true formula,
and a few words by way of emphasising the
clause about forgiveness. The little discourse,
the symmetry of which we have thus restored,
might well have seemed suitable to be placed im-
mediately after the expansion of the old law in
chap, v ; for it reasserts the contrast between the
old life and the new, although the terms used
are of a very different character. In chap, v the
old is treated as divine teaching, and the new as
The Great Sermon 83
only its interpretation and fulfilment ; but in
chap, vi the old is regarded from the standpoint
of its present practice, and those who represent it
in actual life are denounced as hypocrites : in this
respect it stands in the sharpest contrast with
the new as it is to be practised by the sons of
the Father.
I have been endeavouring to treat one por-
tion of that lost Greek document which appears
to lie behind the Gospels of St Matthew and
St Luke in those places where they are in close
agreement, and where St Mark's Gospel offers
us nothing to explain that agreement. I have
sought to indicate a method of study by which
you may be able further to reconstruct this
lost document for yourselves. I shall return to
the subject later on, but here I must say a
word as to the general result of our examina-
tion of the portion of St Matthew's Gospel
with which we have had occasion to deal. We
are accustomed to regard the Sermon on the
Mount as an integral discourse, the stateliest
and at the same time the profoundest exposi-
tion of the principles of the religious life which
can anywhere be found in the whole range of
literature. And we are right in so doing. The
84 The Study of the Gospels
evangelist has, we believe, been divinely guided
in his selection and arrangement of these great
sections, and in his presentation of them as
a systematic exposition of the teaching of our
Lord. We cannot fail to be instructed by the
most careful study of the whole as he has given
it to us. Our present inquiry, however, has
been a historical and literary inquiry. We
have sought to learn the history of the ele-
ments which he has combined for us. We
have therefore been compelled to analyse. And
our analysis has this at least to justify it, that
it reveals to us clear traces of an earlier record,
lying behind St Matthew and St Luke, and
nearer to the actual moment (who shall say
how much nearer?) when our Lord spoke in
human flesh to men. Such an inquiry, rever-
ently made, cannot lessen, but must rather in-
crease, our regard for the final form in which
the divine Spirit fixed these great utterances
for the permanent instruction of the Church.
It is in this final form that they lay claim to
the allegiance of our lives. In this form they
appeal to us with the irrefragable sanction of
their own inherent power, which reaches our
hearts and commands our consciences. In this
The Great Sermon 85
form they come to us with the whole autho-
rity of the universal Church, which through
the centuries has recognised them as the stan-
dard of her teaching and the rule of her
children's lives.
CHAPTER IV
THE USE OF THE NON-MARCAN DOCUMENT
BY ST MATTHEW AND ST LUKE
WE have seen something of the method which
St Matthew has adopted in dealing with the
documents which lay before him. His Sermon
on the Mount gathers together sayings which
in St Luke's Gospel are scattered over chaps, vi,
xi, xii, xiii, and xvi, and are assigned in several
cases to definite occasions on which we feel sure
that they must have originally been spoken.
Just the same phenomenon meets us in St
Matthew's long account of the Charge to the
Twelve Apostles. Here St Mark's brief charge
is combined with St Luke's parallel account of
the Charge to the Seventy, and with other sayings
to disciples which are to be found in Mark xiii
and in Luke vi, xii, xiii, xiv, and xvii. The
whole of this composite charge is closed by
St Matthew with a formula similar to that with
which he closes the Sermon on the Mount: 'it
came to pass, when Jesus had finished command-
so
The Non-Mar can Document 87
ing His twelve disciples, He departed thence.'
A like formula closes the group of parables
in chap, xiii, and recurs in xix 1 and xxvi 1.
It is quite clear, therefore, that St Matthew
has broken up the order in which incidents
and teachings stood in the documents before him,
and that it is to St Luke that we must turn
if we are to recover with any probability the
original order of the non-Marcan source.
What then is St Luke's general method in
the use and combination of his documents ? Let
us look first at his use of St Mark. In the main
part of his book we find that he introduces it
in great masses, keeping its order with very rare
exceptions. Thus Luke iv 31 to vi 19 gives us
62 verses from St Mark, with only 11 inserted
from another source. Then from vi 20 to viii
3 we find 83 verses with nothing of St Mark.
After this come 103 verses from St Mark, viz.,
Luke viii 4 to ix 50 ; and then 351 verses with
nothing from St Mark, viz., Luke ix 51 to
xviii 14. At xviii 15 St Mark is taken up
again almost at the old point, and is kept to
for 29 verses. The latter part of the book shews
greater mixture ; but yet from xix 45 to xxii 14
we again have 103 verses, practically unbroken,
88 The Study of the Gospels
from St Mark. 1 It is plain that in dealing with
St Mark's Gospel he for the most part adopted
great masses of it, preserving its order, though
making considerable omissions and largely modi-
fying its language. But if he dealt thus with
one of his documents, there is a presumption
in favour of his having dealt so with another.
On this hypothesis, which of course needs careful
testing, we might fairly suppose that such masses
as vi 20 to viii 3, and ix 51 to xviii 14, repre-
sent in the main the non-Marcan document
which was used by St Luke and St Matthew.
If we look at the former of these two masses,
which consists of 83 verses, we find that it is
composed of the sermon, the healing of the cen-
turion's servant, the raising of the widow's son
at Nain, the coming of John's messengers and
our Lord's sayings about John, the anointing by
a woman in Simon's house, and a brief notice of
ministering women. Now the sermon and the
centurion's servant (40 verses) were undoubtedly in
the non-Marcan document, and so was the whole
passage (18 verses) about John the Baptist : that is
1 We may present these figures summarily thus, beginning
with Luke iv 31, and enclosing in brackets all that is not
from St Mark : 14 (11) 47 (83) 103 (351) 29 ... 103.
The Non-Mar can Document 89
to say, 58 verses out of 83. What of the remaining
25 verses? It is curious that they all illustrate
our Lord's tender relations to women. They thus
harmonise with that sympathetic character which
belongs pre-eminently to St Luke's Gospel. They
are parallel to the stories which shew our Lord's
interest in the Samaritans, and to those which
exemplify His depreciation of the rich. It may
be that St Luke gathered these stories from
various sources; but it is not impossible that
they may have formed a part of the document
which said Woe to the rich, and pronounced
blessings on the outcast and the poor.
If, however, we would reconstruct the non-
Marcan document with security up to a certain
point, we must leave these tempting guesses, and
studiously collect all those passages of St Luke
which are definitely attested by parallels from
St Matthew alone. Even with this limitation we
shall soon find a large document growing in our
hands. Thus chap, x yields us 19 verses, chap, xi
43 verses, chap, xii 36 verses : a total of 98 out of
190, or rather more than half of the contents of
these three chapters. And this includes such im-
portant sections as the instructions to disciples,
the Lord's Prayer and the promises which follow
90 The Study of the Gospels
it, the controversy about Beelzebub, the woes
pronounced on Pharisees, and the precepts against
anxiety about material needs.
When we turn from such details to consider
the general scope of the document, we may ob-
serve that it began with a record of the preaching
of the Baptist, that it gave a full account of our
Lord's temptation, and that, while it contained
a large amount of discourse, it also gave narra-
tives of miraculous healing, such as the cure of
the centurion's servant. We can trace it, though
not with the same certainty, into the last scenes
of our Lord's life, and it is not unlikely that it
may have given to St Luke his peculiar narrative
of the institution of the Eucharist. The failure
of our evidence towards the close is due to the
fact that as St Matthew proceeds with his Gospel
he becomes more retentive of St Mark's order.
He dismembers completely the first third of St
Mark : but after the great grouping of parables
in chap, xiii his delight in rearrangement has ex-
hausted itself, and from that point to the end he
embodies the whole of the remainder of St Mark
with but four omissions, and does not change his
order, although he makes a large number of in-
sertions at various points of the narrative. In
The Non-Marcan Document 91
the final scenes he follows St Mark closely right
up to the Burial, altering his phraseology indeed
as before, but making few additions. The result is
that, whereas St Luke's account often differs widely
from St Mark, St Matthew offers us, generally
speaking, no parallels which can enable us to say
for certain that the non-Marcan document con-
tained a narrative of the Crucifixion. It remains
possible indeed that St Luke drew from it his
very different narratives of the closing scenes;
but at present, at any rate, we are not in a
position to offer substantial evidence that this
was so.
When from our attempt at reconstructing this
lost document we pass on to describe its chief
characteristics, our task is not an easy one. In
the case of the other document, St Mark's
Gospel, we have the whole book lying open
before us, and many of its characteristics appear
at once when we observe what kind of phrases
St Matthew and St Luke have felt it desirable
to modify or omit. Thus we see how many little
details it gives, insignificant in themselves, but
full of interest to those who in modern times
desire to draw a vivid picture of Christ and His
surroundings. We see too how often it records
92 The Study of the Gospels
strong expressions of emotion, the anger and the
sighs of Christ, the ignorance and wayward-
ness of His disciples ; the very Aramaic words
which fell on great occasions from His lips ; or,
again, the things 'He could nof do, and the
apparent difficulty with which some of His
miracles were wrought. But if St Mark's Gospel
had perished,'and we were left to a reconstruction
of it by the aid of the parallels in St Matthew
and St Luke, most of these traits would have
entirely escaped us.
We see then that in the case of the lost non-
Marcan document we must be content with a few
broad characteristics. Of its narrative portions
we have but one absolutely sure example, the
healing of the centurion's servant, and there St
Matthew appears to have greatly abbreviated the
story. 1 But we have enough there and elsewhere
to shew that the same general simplicity of narra-
tion prevailed as in St Mark, conversational in
form and yet wonderfully succinct, depicting our
Lord just as He is depicted in St Mark, as ready
to relieve all distress and specially rewarding the
faith of those who come to Him. In the teach-
1 Several other passages involve more or less of narrative,
as, for example, the coming of John's messengers.
The Non-Marcan Document 93
ing which this document ascribes to our Lord we
may note a startling use of paradox, which is
sometimes softened by St Matthew. The great
sermon begins at once by reversing all the
ordinary canons of happiness and misery. The
poor, not the rich ; the hungry, not the full ; the
sad, not the merry; the ill-treated, not the
favoured, are truly to be congratulated. Love
is to be lavished on those who hate : no blow is
to be returned : every beggar is to be relieved :
mercy is not to discriminate between man and
man : the reward of forgiving will be forgiveness,
the reward of good measure will be good measure
in return. This is assuredly doctrine that points
to a complete reconstitution of human life, to a
condition of things in which, as the same docu-
ment tells us elsewhere, 'the first shall be last,
and the last shall be first.' The preachers of this
new state of things 'the kingdom of God'
upon earth were to be as homeless as the great
Teacher Himself; they were to have no money,
and yet no anxiety: one was to be pre-eminent
rather than another only in proportion to his
fulfilment of the lowliest services. They were to
be lambs in the midst of wolves : loving all men,
they were to be hated by all. They must expect
94 The Study of the Gospels
to die, as their Master would die. But 'the
kingdom' would come: indeed it was already
there, growing silently like a mustard seed,
spreading with the secrecy of leaven. Mean-
while the world was sadly out of joint; and,
mainly, because blind men were being led about
by blind men. The religious leaders of the
people were like tombs, decorated receptacles of
dead bones : their estimate of what was impor-
tant was exactly contrary to truth ; while they
carefully strained out a gnat, they thought
nothing of swallowing a camel. They had locked
up 'the kingdom of God,' and hidden the key.
Accordingly, an awful conflict was impending.
He was come, as the Baptist had foretold, to
baptize with fire : to cast fire on the earth, before
He could give the promised peace. For the
moment, however, His works and words com-
bined to proclaim that life was taking the place
of death, and that humble men might hope in
Him : ' the blind receive their sight, the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised, the poor have good news
brought to them; and blessed is he who is not
scandalised by Me.'
Almost every element of this description finds
The Non-Mar can Document 95
some parallel in the Gospel of St Mark ; certainly
there is nothing in that Gospel which is out of
harmony with it : and of course every element of
it is found both in St Matthew and in St Luke,
for it is from matter common to both of them
that our picture has been drawn. If it seems a
startling picture, it is only because in these two
Gospels its elements are blended with other
elements. We have tried to separate them, and
so to recover something of the impression which
the message of Christ made on some unknown
disciple, who was one of the first to put in
writing what he knew of the Lord.
Of this early record St Luke has preserved to
us the most satisfactory presentation. We should
like to be able to add to those fragments of it
which the parallels in St Matthew attest the
many stories which St Luke alone gives us, but
which are in the completest harmony with the
picture which we have just drawn : stories full
of irony regarding the aims and standards of
men ; stories against the folly and false security
of the rich, and stories that promise blessings
to the poor and the despised, to the outcast
publican and the heretic Samaritan, and to the
weak women, good or bad, who came to His
96 The Study of the Gospels
feet and ministered to His comfort. They are
all of a piece with the rest, and if the possibility
remains that St Luke drew them from other
sources, they still attest by their intrinsic fitness
and by their harmony with their contexts St
Luke's peculiar sympathy with the spirit of that
early document. It is the same temper of mind
which makes him linger with such evident delight
on the story of the Holy Family, that peaceful
prelude to his stirring narrative, which yet con-
tains the prophecies of a great upheaval of the
fall of the proud and the exaltation of the
humble, of the hungry filled and the rich sent
empty away.
St Matthew, or whoever may have been the
writer of our first Gospel, treated this early
record with less favour. His sympathies were
of another kind. He does not display the uni-
versality which is so marked a feature of St
Luke, the disciple of St Paul, a traveller in
many lands, a physician by profession, and per-
haps a Gentile by birth. On the contrary, his
special interests lay first in the literal fulfilment
of Old Testament prophecy by Jesus as the
Messiah; and secondly, in the new Christian
Church, which had succeeded to the task of
The Non-Mar can Document 97
representing 'the kingdom of heaven' upon
earth. He begins his Gospel with a genealogy
of Jesus as the Christ, 'son of David, son of
Abraham.' His wonderful birth fulfils a pro-
phecy. He is greeted by Eastern sages as king
of the Jews, and the world-power in Jerusalem
trembles because the birth at Bethlehem fulfils
another prophecy. Hence follow the flight to
Egypt, the murder of the innocents, and the
return to Nazareth, not Bethlehem: each of
which events fulfils a further prophecy. After
this introduction we learn that John prepares the
way of the Christ, in accordance with prophecy ;
and that, while he recognises the superiority of
Jesus, yet he baptizes Him, 'to fulfil,' not pro-
phecy this time, but 'all righteousness.' Soon
after this Jesus takes leave of Nazareth and
dwells in Capernaum, to fulfil another prophecy.
Thus St Matthew has been justifying in advance
the saying of the sermon which follows : ' Think
not that I came to overthrow the law or the
prophets : I came not to overthrow, but to ful-
fil ' to fulfil all prophecy as well as ' all right-
eousness.'
The mental attitude of the writer is revealed
by the reiteration of the phrase, 'Now all this was
98 - The Study of the Gospels
done that what was spoken by the prophet might
be fulfilled,' So strong is this conviction that
he sometimes tells his story under the influence
of the wording of the prophecy: as when he
introduces a second ass to correspond with 'the
ass and the colt the foal of an ass,' of which
the parallelism of Hebrew poetry had spoken
(xxi 2-5) ; and when he interprets the ' myrrhed
wine' of St Mark as 'wine mingled with gall'
in view of the sixty-ninth Psalm (Matt, xxvii
34, Mark xv 23; comp. Ps. Ixix 21). In like
manner he interprets our Lord's reference to
'the sign of Jonah,' not simply by the repent-
ance of the Ninevites which followed Jonah's
preaching, but also by the parallel which Jonah's
strange story offers to the burial and resurrection
of Christ (Matt, xii 40 f. ; Luke xi 30 ff.).
If the influence of the past was so strong
upon him as to colour his narrative of events
and to modify his representation of our Lord's
own words, we need not be surprised if we find
a like influence exerted by the life of the Chris-
tian society in which he moved. This influence
of the living present appears to offer an expla-
nation of the way in which he has dealt with
the materials that lay before him, and especially
The Non-Marcan Document 99
with the non-Marcan document. If we cannot
safely assert that his grouping of teachings was
directly designed to meet the needs of the
Christian assembly when gathered for worship,
we are certainly left with the impression that
he lived in a settled community, which required
a systematisation of the scattered teachings of
their Master and an interpretation of some of
the more startling and paradoxical of His say-
ings. Thus in his Gospel the mere states of
poverty and hunger are no longer spoken of as
blessed conditions: they are spiritualised first,
and then blessed. 'The poor in spirit, 1 'they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness,' and
other characters such as 'the meek' and 'the
peaceable' these it is that the Lord means to
commend. He is at pains to show that Christ
is no mere revolutionary; on the contrary, He
changes by fulfilling the old. He asks for 'more
righteousness,' not less : and he requires that
the 'righteousness' shall be unworldly in its
motive, and fulfilled with reference to the
heavenly Father only : it is the Father's ' king-
dom' and 'His righteousness' which alone is
to be sought.
The avoidance of possible misconception is
100 The Study of the Gospels
no doubt the cause of the striking modification
hy which St Mark's report of our Lord's saying,
' Why callest thou Me good ? there is none good
save one, that is God, 1 appears as, ' Why askest
thou Me concerning the good ? He that is good
is one' (Matt, xix 17; Mark x 18). So, too,
it is an attempt to reach the real meaning
and to make explicit what he believed to be
implied, when in two separate places he inserts
an excepting clause into the brief pronounce-
ment as to divorce and subsequent marriage
(Matt, xix 9, comp. Mark x 11 ; Matt, v 32,
comp. Luke xvi 18).
As illustrating his interest in the existing
Christian society we note that he is the only
evangelist who records the words of our Lord in
which express reference is made to the Ecclesia ;
that he modifies and slightly expands the words
of the institution of the Eucharist ; and that he
alone gives the full formula of Baptism, for which
there is no clear evidence in the rest of the New
Testament. He manifests more concern than
the other evangelists for forgiveness within the
Christian brotherhood, and he recognises more
fully the troubles of persecution, as for example
in the beatitude pronounced on those ( who have
The Non-Marcan Document 101
been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, 1 and
in the requirement of prayer for persecutors.
If we ask to what extent the consideration of
such modifications ought to affect our view of
the historicity of St Matthew's record, we must
be careful at once to draw a distinction. It is
one thing gratefully to accept the authorised
interpretation of our Lord's meaning and in-
tention in sayings which had been preserved in
an obscure or a paradoxical form. It is another
thing to explore with the eye of the historical
investigator, who seeks to trace the earliest
sources and to apply the ordinary tests of literary
criticism. The historian feels most secure when
he has discovered the most nearly contemporary
record, when the matter of one source receives
confirmation from another, or when he knows
that he is dealing with a narrator who gives
evidence of the spirit of historical investigation.
He will therefore prefer St Mark and the re-
constructed non-Marcan document; and he will
prefer St Luke, as an accurate writer who made
it his business to collect and sift information.
He cannot feel a like certainty from the his-
torical point of view in dealing with statements
which are only attested by the unknown writer
102 The Study of the Gospels
of the first Gospel. He is bound to consider
how far they may have been coloured and modi-
fied by his peculiar interest in the Old Testament,
and by his life and surroundings in the early
Christian Church.
That the Gospel speaks its one message in
various tones ; that it needs to be interpreted
as the fulfilment of the past and as a guide to
the present this is a spiritual lesson for each
new age, and it is a lesson which underlies the
difficulties and inconsistencies which meet us in
the criticism of St Matthew's Gospel. It is well
that we should begin to learn it here : we shall
need it again and again.
NOTE C
A Comment on Matt, xi 25-30
THE following study of an important passage,
the first part of which is undoubtedly derived
from the non-Marcan document, will help to
illustrate what has been already said, and at the
same time offer some fresh points of interest.
'Ev Kivq> TO) Kaipy diroKpiOels 6 '
'E^o/jLoXoyovfjLat <roi, irdrep Kvpie rov ovpavov KOI
T?)<? 7779, on wpv^ras ravra CLTTO aofy&v KOI <rvve-
ruv, Kal a7TKa\.vifra<i avra Hpr/Off* vat, o Trarijp,
on OVTCOS evSoKia ejevero efATrpoaOev <rov. Udvra
fioi, Trape^oOtj VTTO rov 7rarpo<i /xov, Kal ovSel?
eTTiyivcao-Kei, rov vibv ei fir) 6 Trarijp, ovBe rov
irarepa rt? 7TLyiv(i)(TKt el firj 6 vios real <a
eav (3ov\,ijrai, 6 uio9 aTroKoXv^ai. Aevre
/ie irdvr<; ol KOTnwvres Kal Tre<j>opria'/J,voi,
avaTravaa) vyu.a?. apare rov vydv /j,ov (>
Kal fJidOere air* eaov, on Trpats elfu Kal
rfj KapSia, Kal evprfffere dvajravaiv rai?
' 6 jap ^765 ftov 'Xprjorrof Kal TO <j)opriov
\a<f>pov eeriv.
1. We begin by observing that the words
'E%ouo\oyov/j,at, . . . aTTOAcaXityat, which consti-
tute more than half the passage, are found in
103
104 The Study of the Gospels
Luke x 21 f. There is but a small variation of
language at the close, where St Luke writes, KOI
ovSels yivaxrtcei rt? e<rnv 6 vios el /AT) o Trarijp, Kal
T/9 <TTIV 6 irarrjp el fir) o m'o9 KOI $ av fiovXyrai
6 vibs cnroKakir^rai,. 1 It would be possible, as we
have seen, to account for a close correspondence
of this kind in one of two ways : either by sup-
posing that one of these evangelists M r as copying
from the work of the other, or by assuming a
lost Greek document which they were both using.
The former explanation is shewn by a general
study of the two Gospels to be highly impro-
bable ; and we fall back on the other, which
is justified by the examination of many other
parallel passages. That the document lay before
the two evangelists in Greek is clear from the
exact agreement of so many words in succession
in both Gospels. This does not, of course, pre-
clude us from supposing that the words may first
of all have been written down in Aramaic ; but
we have no kind of proof that this was the case.
It is, however, exceedingly probable on several
grounds that they were originally spoken in the
Aramaic of Galilee. 2
2. Before we examine these words in detail, we
must note the phrases by which each evangelist
introduces them. St Matthew says, 'Ev e/ceivm
1 St Luke also has drljcpvf at for St Matthew's txpv\f/at.
1 Professor Dalman's important book on The Wordt of
Jesus is now published in English by T. & T. Clark, Edin-
burgh, price 7s. 6d. net. It is by far the best study that has
appeared of the language spoken by our Lord and Hia
disciples.
Note C 105
TO) Kaipw aTroicpiOels 6 'I^croO? eiTrcv. St Luke
has the remarkable sentence, 'Ev ai/Ty rf) &pa
t)yd\\id<raTO ro5 irvev^iari, TW dyi<n teal elfrev.
We have already observed that St Matthew
frequently takes teachings out of their context
in order to group them with similar teachings.
We are therefore generally safe in preferring
St Luke's description of the occasion on which
notable sayings were uttered. Accordingly, we
ask in the present instance in what context St
Luke places this passage.
The seventy disciples had returned from their
mission with exultant joy. Our Lord had allowed
them the experience of a complete success : * Lord,
even the devils are subject to us in Thy name.'
It was no news that they brought Him : He had
witnessed their victory in spirit; He had seen
Satan's fall. After a promise of further powers,
He adds a warning : * Rejoice not in this, that
the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that
your names are written in heaven/ Then by a
sudden transition He turns in a kind of sacred
ecstasy from earth to heaven : ' In that hour He
rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said : I thank
Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth . . .'
Certain points of language may here be noted :
(i.) ' In the Holy Spirit ' is the reading which
has by far the best attestation ; not * in spirit,'
which is found in the Received Text and followed
in our Authorised Version.
(ii.) 'H<ya\\id<raro. Compare the language of
,, v T/, '. . \ > ,.,. f % jTr
the Magnificat, Kai rfjaX\iaaev TO irvev/J,a /MOV
eVl T$ 0eS r<f a<orrjpi pov. We cannot in Eng-
106 The Study of the Gospels
lish conveniently mark the distinction between
this verb and 'xaipeiv, which is used in the
previous verse ; * exulted ' does not quite give the
sense, which, indeed, is well represented by * re-
joiced.'
(iii.) 'Ev avrfj 777 &pa. In classical Greek this
would mean 'at the very hour' (whereas ev rp
avrfj &pa means ' at the same hour '). But here
auro? is used, as it is in modern Greek, as a
demonstrative pronoun, and we must translate
* in that hour.' Compare Luke x 7, ev avrrj 8e rfi
oUla /severe, ' and in that house remain ' ; and
xii 12, where ev avrfj TT) &pa is substituted by St
Luke for ev eKetvg rfj &pa of St Mark, which St
Matthew has retained. 1
3. We come now to consider the saying itself.
"'E^o^io\o^ovfiai, has a twofold sense : (a) ' to con-
fess,' (&) ' to acknowledge with gratitude or
praise.' In this latter sense it is the regular
rendering in the Greek version of the Psalms of
iTfin (the Hiphil of H^). Here then it means
not ' I confess to Thee,' but ' I thank ' or ' praise
Thee that,' &c.
Ildrep Kvpie rov ovpavov ical rfjs 7^5. ' Heaven '
has been twice mentioned in the context (Luke x
18, 20) ; and we may further compare ver. 15
(= Matt, xi 23). The work which the disciples
have been doing on earth has its counterpart in
the fall of Satan from heaven : and, again, they
are not to rejoice at the success of their work on
1 Compare ayr% &pat in Evang. Petri, 5, and Clem. Horn.
xz 16.
Note C 107
earth, but in the place that is assigned to them
in heaven. Thus the vagueness of the following
ravra finds a partial explanation : the things of
heaven are veiled from some and unveiled to
others upon earth.
*E/fpvi}ra<; . . . cnreKdXvtya*;. This is a good
example of the quite indefinite use of the aorist.
It merely suggests the past, without fixing our
attention on any one point in it. If we render
1 Thou didst hide . . . Thou didst reveal,' we
destroy this indefiniteness, and our minds are set
to search for some specially appropriate moment
to which reference may be made. The familiar
rendering, ' Thou hast hid . . . Thou hast re-
vealed, 1 expresses the sense of the Greek far more
closely, although we are using what we call a
' perfect.' The fact needs to be recognised that our
simple past and our perfect tense do not exactly
coincide in meaning with the Greek aorist and
perfect respectively. The translation of the
aorist into English must be determined partly
by the context and partly by considerations of
euphony. These remarks apply equally to the
following verbs fyevero and TrapeSoBij.
'O Trarijp is here used as a vocative : compare
'.4/S/3a, o irarrip. The use of the nominative with
the article for the vocative is frequent in the New
Testament.
"Ori OVTWS evBo/cla eyevero efiirpoffOiv crov. If we
translated these words literally, ' for so it was (or
came to be) good pleasure before Thee,' we should
feel that the sentence was not English. So neither,
as it stands in the original, can it be called Greek.
108 The Study of the Gospels
It is obviously a literal rendering of an Aramaic
original. Here, then, as often in the Gospel, we
feel our way behind the Greek back to an earlier
stage. The noun evSo/cla occurs again in the
Gospel only in the angels' song, Luke ii 14 ; but
the verb is found in Luke xii 32, where again
the thought is of the Father's supreme will :
evS6Kr)(Tv 6 Trarrjp vfiwv Bovvai vpiv rrjv fiaa-iXeiav.
Compare also the passages in which it is used
in reference to our Lord Himself: at the Bap-
tism, Mark i 11 ( = Matt. iii 17, Luke iii 22),
where it is in allusion to Isaiah xlii 1 (quoted in
Matt, xii 18) ; and at the Transfiguration, Matt,
xvii 5 only. The corresponding Hebrew noun
ji^l is rendered in the Psalms often by et/So/c/a,
and often by 0\r)/j,a, as in Ps. xl 8, * I delight
to do Thy will, O God.'
Thus the entry of these weak and unlettered
disciples upon the spiritual work of the kingdom
of God is hailed by the Lord as the beginning of
the fulfilment of the Father's will. He delights
in the divine choice which has appropriated these
mere ' children ' as the instruments of His pur-
pose, and has made them acquainted with the
powers of the spiritual world. Note the strong
contrast which gives effect to this thought. We
should have thought it more;natural to say, 'that,
although Thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent, Thou hast revealed them to
babes.' But the contrast has a close parallel in
the preceding words, * Rejoice not that . . , but
that,' where we should have said, 'Rejoice not
so much that ... as that.'
Note C 109
4. The next words are not, indeed, addressed to
the Father, yet neither are they spoken directly
to the disciples, but rather as a solemn medita-
tion in their hearing. They go beyond any other
passage of the synoptic Gospels in their revelation
of the unique relation of Christ to the Father.
The occasion was exceptional : in the transport
of His spirit He speaks in a mysterious mono-
logue, to which perhaps the closest parallel is
John xii 27, when the request of the Greeks,
prophetic in its import, had strangely moved
Him.
'All things have been delivered unto Me by
My Father.' That is the explanation of this
revelation 'unto babes.' Through Me to them,
because He wills it, and I will it : compare OVTG><J
evSoKia ejevero enTrpo<r6ev <rov with <p av /SovXrjrat
6 wo?, and note the correspondence of aTre/caXin^ra?
and ajroKoXv^ai.
'The Father' and 'the Son' alone have
knowledge knowledge of each other. If ' the
Father' communicates any share of knowledge
to men, He does it through 'the Son.' Observe
that the titles are used absolutely. We are
familiar with this use from St John's Gospel.
But it occurs but once again in the synoptic
Gospels, namely, in Mark xiii 32 (= Matt,
xxiv 36): "rrepl Se rfj<; rj^ipa^ eVeiVi?? r) TT}? wpa<j
ouSels olSev, ovSe ol efyyeXot ev ovpavw ovSe 6 i/t'o9,
el fir) o Trarijp. ' The Son ' here holds a position
above the angels and next to ' the Father.' It is
an important fact, to be borne in mind in con-
nexion with the Christology of St John's Gospel,
110 The Study of the Gospels
that this special mode of speech is attested once
for St Mark, and once also for the non-Marcan
document. We could hardly have stronger
evidence, from the historical point of view, that
our Lord Himself did thus speak of Himself
absolutely as ' the Son.' It is not necessary to
explain how unique is the claim which is put for-
ward by this language.
5. St Luke has ouSet? yivaxr/cei rfa eariv o wo?,
whereas St Matthew has oi/Sels eTnyivaxTtcei TOV
vlov. The meaning is the same ; for, in spite of
high authority to the contrary, it appears on a
careful examination of the usage of the words
that 7rtsyiv<aa-Kiv and eVi/yz/eocrt? do not signify
a * full ' or * further knowledge.' The force of
the preposition seems to be to give direction, so
to speak, as in eVt/3A,e7mz/, not to suggest addition,.
'E7ri<yiv<a(rKtv is often used with an accusative of
the person recognised, as in Acts iv 13: 'They
took knowledge of them, that they had been with
Jesus.' In the present passage, therefore, eVt-
ryivoMTKeiv may have offered itself to St Matthew
as an exact Greek equivalent for what is perhaps
the more Semitic phrase yivctxriceiv r/9 earrtv.
6. St Luke closes the incident as follows :
'And He turned Him unto the disciples, and
said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the
things that ye see : for I tell you, that many
prophets and kings have desired to see those
things which ye see, and have not seen them;
and to hear those things which ye hear, and have
Note C 111
not heard them.' St Matthew inserts this saying
immediately before the explanation of the Parable
of the Sower (xiii 1 6 f.). There is no sufficient
reason for supposing that St Luke has not pre-
served its original position. It is in full harmony
with what has gone before. St Matthew would
seem to have displaced it in order to make room
for a very remarkable saying which does not
occur at all in St Luke's Gospel, but which
nevertheless may have stood in the non-Marcan
document.
7. It is necessary at this point to take a some-
what more extended view of the context in each
Gospel.
The order in St Luke is as follows: After a
long section (viii 4-ix 50) drawn from St Mark's
Gospel, a new beginning is made in ix 51 with
the journey to Jerusalem, and there is no further
extract from St Mark until we reach xviii 15.
The following summary indicates the nature of
the earlier part of this non-Marcan section :
LUKE
be 51-56 Rejection by Samaritans.
57-60 'Foxes have holes' ) = Matt, viii
' Let the dead bury their dead ' J 19 S.
61, 62 The ploughman looking- back,
x 1-12 Mission of seventy disciples = Matt ix 37 f., xl ff.
13-15 Woes on Chorazin, &c. =Matt. xi 21 ff.
16 'He that heareth you' =Matt x 40.
17-20 Return of seventy.
21,22 ' I thank Thee, Father' =Matt xi 25 f.
23,24 'Blessed are the eyes' =Matt. xiii 10L
The order in St Matthew offers us an example
112 The Study of the Gospels
of his grouping of similar sayings. Thus in ix 35-
x 42 he has combined the charge to the twelve
(Mark vi 7 ff.) with the charge to the seventy,
which St Luke gives separately ; and he has
woven in many sayings which are found scattered
in St Mark and St Luke. He closes this col-
lection of sayings with the words : ' And it came
to pass, when Jesus had finished commanding His
twelve disciples, He departed thence to teach and
to preach in their cities' (xi 1). Then follows
the question of the Baptist and our Lord's com-
ment on the Baptist's work (xi 2-19), which
occurs at a much earlier point in St Luke
(vii 18-35). Next comes the woes on Chorazin,
&c. (= Luke x 13 ff.); then the passage which
we have been considering, 'I thank Thee, Father'
( = Luke x 21, 22); and then the words which we
have still to examine, ' Come unto Me. 1 After
this St Matthew draws again upon St Mark's
Gospel for the controversy about the Sabbath
(Mutt, xii 1-15 = Mark ii 23 ff., iii 1 ff.).
8. Accordingly, we see that we cannot lay much
stress on the order of passages in St Matthew's
Gospel. If the words 'Come unto Me' had stood
in the non-Marcan document immediately after
the great passage which we have just considered,
it is not easy to suggest a reason for their omission
by St Luke. They may have stood in another
part of that document in connexion with some
incident which St Luke had no occasion to re-
cord.
And yet we may observe a spiritual appropri-
Note C 113
ateness which justifies the position in which we
find them in St Matthew. The universality of
the invitation stands in notable contrast to the
apparent exclusiveness of the words which pre-
cede it. Is it so, indeed, that the wise and prudent
cannot by searching find out God ? and is * the
Son,' who alone has knowledge of 'the Father,'
removed by so infinite a distance from common
men? These sublime sayings might crush us in
despair at the impotence of man in his effort to
rise to a knowledge of God. ' He that sitteth on
high,' we might be tempted to say, ' laugheth us
to scorn. He dismisses the wisest with contempt,
as more ignorant than babes. And the Son, who
alone knows Him, and to whom all things are
entrusted by the Father, only reveals Him to
whom He will.' Yet the great Teacher will not
discourage ; He has a lesson for all, and He bids
all who are conscious of need come and learn it
of Him.
9. We may next observe that in these words,
even more plainly than in the preceding, we can
discern the Aramaic original which underlies
them, and can appeal to it to throw light on
their interpretation. Two points deserve our
attention :
(a) Evpij<rT6 avdirav<Tiv rat? i/ry^at? vfi5)v.
That this is a Hebraistic expression is clear from
its actual occurrence in Jer. vi 16 : ' Thus saith
the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask
for the old paths, where is the good way, and
walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your
H
114 The Study of the Gospels
souls.' * If the expression were originally Greek,
we should be justified in laying stress on the
word ' soul.' In this case, however, we must re-
member that a Semitic language has no word for
'self,' and naturally says 'his soul' where we
should say 'himself.' Thus, for example, when
the Syriac has to render 'a kingdom divided
against itself,' in Mark iii 24, it says ' a kingdom
divided against its soul.' 2 Accordingly, when we
read the phrase ' unto your souls ' in the Syriac
version, we feel at once that its most natural
meaning is ' unto yourselves.' We shall presently
see how this helps to bring out the force of the
passage.
(6) /cdryo) dvcnravcra) u/za<? . . . pdOere CLTT e^oC,
on Trpav? el/Jii . . . Kal evprjaere avdiravcriv rat?
tyvxais v/j,>v. Here in the Greek the root which
signifies ' rest ' is twice employed, first in the verb,
and secondly in the noun. But when we read the
passage in the Syriac version, which represents a
sister dialect of the Aramaic of Galilee, we find
the root which signifies 'rest' occurring three
1 The LXX has evpfaere ayvifffJibv (or, aytao-fjibv) rats \f/vxa.a
vpwv. The Hebrew noun is yijOO, and the Chaldee para-
phrase has rVO, which is the noun used in the Syriac
version of Matt, xi 29.
for
Satan cast out Satan,
pare also olcos tvl olicov, in Luke xi 17, for ' a house against
itself.' It is even possible that this may give the clue to the
strange saying, ' Let the dead bury their dead ; ' that is, per-
haps, ' Let the dead bury themselves ' (for it was hardly pos-
sible here to say 'their souls'), the meaning being. Let
impossibilities happen, your duty is clear,
Note C 115
times; for the adjective derived from this root
has the meaning of 'quiet' or 'meek' in dis-
position, and it is here represented by Trpavs in
the Greek. 1 A new light falls on the familiar
words when we read them thus: 'Come unto
Me . . . and I will give you rest (ariikJi'kon)
... for I am meek (riikh, " restful ") and lowly
in heart ; and ye shall find rest (rfyakha) for your-
selves.' That we may serve Him ' with a quiet
mind' is the gift of One who, above all others,
was ' quiet and lowly in His heart.' So we seem
to get back behind the Greek translation to the
very words of the Aramaic dialect as they must
have fallen from the Lord's own lips. 2
10. In reviewing the whole passage as it stands
1 The same root, differently vocalised, gives the proper
name Noah: see Gen. v 29, 'He called his name Noah
(Hi), saying, This same shall comfort ua'.
a Another instance in which we can recognise the Aramaic
element which lies just beneath the surface of the Greek is
found in a passage which, as we have seen, St Matthew brings
into close juxtaposition with this (Matt, xi 17 = Luke vii 32).
Our Lord is speaking of the inconsistency of the people in
refusing John the Baptist as too austere, and Himself as
wanting in rigour and strictness. What are they like 1
They are like pouting children on the village green, who will
neither play at weddings nor at funerals : ' We piped unto
you, and ye did not dance; we mourned, and ye did not
lament.' When we read these words in the Syriac version,
we see that, as so often in the old Hebrew prophets, the form
of the thought has been determined by a paronomasia or
play upon words. Between the word for ' dance ' and the
word for 'lament' there is but the difference of a single
letter; in pronunciation there is but the change of the
position of the vowels (raceedton . . . arcedlon). Indeed, the
difference is only between two voices of the same verb, which
had come to be used in such divergent senses.
116 The Study of the Gospels
in St Matthew's Gospel (xi 25-30), we note that
the first and second portions of it have two char-
acteristics in common. One of these we have
dwelt on at some length, namely, the Semitic
idiom which underlies the Greek and helps to its
interpretation. The other is the transcendent
claim which is put forward by our Lord. He is
' the Son,' to whom ' the Father ' has committed
everything, who alone has knowledge of the
Father, and can bestow that knowledge upon
men. The tone of the tender saying which
follows is not less majestical. No other teacher
ever made such an offer as this : ' Come unto Me,
all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest.' Not only does He claim to be
able to satisfy the deepest needs of men ; but with
a supreme knowledge of our human nature He
offers not the rest of inactivity, but the rest of a
calm service, the harmony of life which comes
from obedience to the heavenly Father's will. He
Himself in a true human experience had ' learned
obedience ' and found rest, that He might say to
others, l Take My yoke and learn from Me, and
find My rest for yourselves.' It is the divine love
in human form that speaks to us here ; the Son
who knows the Father, and rejoices in the Father's
will, and, standing as a man among men, com-
mends the doing of it out of the fulness of His
own experience as the secret of rest, the yoke that
is easy and the burden that is light.
CHAPTER V
THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SYNOPTIC
NARRATIVES AND ST JOHN'S GOSPEL
WHEN we come fresh from the study of the
synoptic Gospels and read again the opening
chapter of the fourth Gospel, we are at once
struck by the sense of a remarkable contrast.
It will be well to endeavour to analyse this con-
trast and observe its more important elements.
The writer does not at the outset give us any
suggestion that he is about to record the earthly
life of Christ. He begins as the book of Genesis
begins, ' In the beginning.' This similarity is
no mere coincidence. For he too will speak of
the creation of the world. The old Hebrew
writer had told how God by an utterance, by
His Jiat, had created all things : * God said, Let
there be ... and there was.' So the Hebrew
Psalmists had understood and summed up the
story of creation : * He spake the word and
they were made : He commanded and they were
created; 1 'By the word of the Lord were the
117
118 The Study of the Gospels
heavens made : . . . He spake and it was done ;
He commanded, and it stood fast.' 1 It is in
striking harmony with this that our writer
begins : ' In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. . . . All things through Him were made.'
We feel this difference, indeed, that the Word
of God is here presented as a Being standing in
a relation to God and sharing the nature of
God ; and the lesson is emphatically repeated :
' the same was in the beginning with God.' So too
the lesson of His activity in creation is repeated :
' and apart from Him was not anything made.'
But how remote do these theological state-
ments appear from a Gospel narrative of the
life of Christ, such as the three which we have
hitherto been studying. We should expect that
sentences like these would introduce a treatise
like the Epistle to the Hebrews. Indeed we
might more easily suppose that a Gospel narra-
tive would follow the great prelude of that book :
'In many portions and in many methods in
olden time God spake to our fathers in the
prophets, and at the end of these days He hath
spoken to us in a Son.'
1 Psalm cxlviii 5 ; xxxiii 6, 9.
The Fourth Gospel 119
Here then at once is an element of contrast.
The opening of the fourth Gospel leads us to
expect a dogmatic treatise. It stands in sharp
contrast with the openings we know already :
'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ':
'Forasmuch as many have undertaken to draw
up a narrative 1 : or, again and with how dif-
ferent an allusion to the book of Genesis
'Biblos geneseos, The genealogy of Jesus Christ,
son of David, son of Abraham. 1
Our surprise is not lessened as we read on.
Great abstract conceptions are presented in rapid
succession : life, light, witness, flesh, glory, grace,
truth. Each of these in turn is set in some
relation to the Word who was in the beginning
with God. For a moment, indeed, we seem to
touch the solid earth, when in the sixth verse we
read : ' There came a man, sent from God ; his
name was John. 1 But we get only a passing
characterisation of him : ' he came for witness,
to witness concerning the light ... he was not
the light, but to witness concerning the light. 1
And then we are taken back to the region of
abstractions, which we had hardly left: 'that
was the true light, which lighteth every man,
coming into the world . He was in the world,
120 The Study of the Gospels
and the world through Him was made, and the
world knew Him not.' What has this to do,
we might ask, did we not know the sequel so
familiarly what has all this to do with the life
of Jesus Christ ?
And when we learn the answer to our question,
our surprise rises yet higher. * In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God . . . and the Word was
made flesh.' 'He lodged in us, and we beheld
His glory.' In all our study of the synoptic
Gospels we have never met with language which
even remotely approaches this. Yet as we hear
it, and as we ponder again the facts we know in
the light of it, we feel that we are being given
the explanation of even the most amazing of
those facts. Are we then to have an inspired
comment on the contents of the earlier Gospels ?
So it might seem ; for suddenly there reappears
the name of John. He comes speaking words
which are partially familiar: 'John witnesseth
concerning Him, and hath cried saying he it is
that said it He that cometh after me hath come
to be in front of me; for He was before me.'
But presently we are lifted again into the higher
region the highest of all : ' God hath no man
The Fourth Gospel 121
ever seen : One who is only-begotten and is God,
He hath declared Him.'
Then, for a third time, and with equal sudden-
ness, John is appealed to: 'This is the witness
of John, when the Jews sent to him from Jeru-
salem priests and Levites to ask him, Who art
thou? And he confessed, and denied not, and
he confessed, I am not the Christ.' We are
back on the earth indeed ; but the scene is un-
familiar, and the voices are strange. We hear
not a word of John's preaching of repentance,
or even of his baptism. This is no comment on
the facts we know : it is a new story altogether.
And, what is most remarkable, it assumes that
we know without being told who John is, and
what he has done that it should be needful for
him to ' confess and deny not, and confess, I am
not the Christ.' As the narrative advances this
assumption of previous knowledge is maintained.
Though his baptism is not described, John is
made to refer to it in words that we are familiar
with, * I baptize with water? Twice this phrase
of baptizing with water occurs, and we are left
to supply for ourselves the contrast of another
kind of baptism. So again, John's baptism of
Jesus is not narrated ; but John declares, * I have
122 The Study of the Gospels
seen the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven,
and it abode on Him ' ; and he adds that he had
been divinely warned that He on whom the Spirit
should so descend and abide, 'He it is who
baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.' In these
words a gap is filled, and the other baptism is
incidentally explained. And then we have a
statement which once more takes us beyond what
we had known of John : * I have borne witness
that this is the Son of God.' When to this we
add John's declaration, 'Behold, the Lamb of
God, that taketh away the sin of the world,' we
feel that, whatever follows, we can hardly be sur-
prised again.
Indeed, though the remainder of this chapter
is entirely new, the most noteworthy features of
its narrative have parallels and precedents in
what has gone before. If one figure after another
comes on the scene without an introduction, as
though the names were perfectly familiar
Andrew, Simon, Philip, even the unknown
Nathanael ('Philip findeth Nathanael') this
was the way in which John's name was suddenly
presented to us. If a wholly new story of the
beginnings of discipleship is offered us, this is
not more startling than the wholly new story of
The Fourth Gospel
John's disclaimer of Messiahship. Even the most
puzzling feature of all, the early recognitions
and confident confessions, 'We have found the
Messiah,' Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God,
Thou art the king of Israel,' are less surprising
than John's description of our Lord, which com-
bined in a single phrase the symbolism of the
Mosaic ritual and the prophetic vision of the
sin-bearing servant of Jehovah 'the Lamb of
God, that taketh away the sin of the world.'
Here then is a fair sample of the difficulty
which this Gospel from beginning to end presents
to those who come to it fresh from the study of
the synoptic narratives. The whole atmorphere
seems different. Instead of a simple chronicle,
which tells a plain tale and will not point its
moral, we are lifted at once to the contemplation
of eternal truths ; and the narrative is entirely
concerned with the illustration of these truths,
with the progress of their proclamation, and with
the gradual determination of men's attitude to-
wards them. The end is seen from the beginning :
' His own received Him not.' Yet some * received
Him ' and ' believed on His name.' For such as
these this book is written. Its object is expressly
declared at the close: that its readers, who are
throughout assumed to be of those who have
124 The Study of the Gospels
received and have believed, 'may believe . . .
and believing may have life in His name. 1 It is
not altogether a new story: it is an old story
newly told. At every point a familiar know-
ledge is presupposed, not only of its general drift,
but of the chief persons who figure in it, and
of many leading incidents, such as the Baptist's
imprisonment and the institution of the Eucharist
incidents never related, yet vital to the narra-
tive, which could not itself be understood unless
they were known. It is a story retold after its inner
meaning has been revealed: retold to proclaim
that meaning. Out of a wealth of incidents the
writer chooses those which serve to illustrate the
truth he sees. It concerns him not at all whether
they have been related before or no : some things
he tells us which we already know in detail:
others, and these form the majority both of inci-
dents and of discourses, have only in the light of
the fullest truth discovered their significance,
and have only at last come to claim their place
as necessary constituents of a complete record of
the Gospel.
The chief elements of the contrast then appear
to be these :
(1) Instead of a plain narrative setting forth
The Fourth Gospel 125
facts or summarily recording discourses, and for-
bearing almost entirely from comment, we have
a view of our Lord's life as it were from within,
which puts it in relation to the whole history of
human experience, and presents it as the mani-
festation to men of a divine Father through a
divine Son, who has entered into humanity in
order to lift men into fellowship with God. The
life is itself a revelation : the story of the life is
the drama of the progressive acceptance or rejec-
tion of the revelation.
(2) While the other Gospels offer a narrative
intelligible to readers who may be quite un-
acquainted beforehand with the general story,
the fourth Gospel assumes from the outset and
to the close that those who read it will be familiar
with the chief characters and incidents of the
history, and will welcome the disclosure of its
inner meaning. Accordingly the book contains
much that is new and unexpected ; while on the
other hand much of what we already know dis-
appears from sight. We are watching, so to
speak, a new drama with the old characters and
the well-known issue.
(3) Not only do the old characters appear in new
situations the scene, for example, being laid
126 The Study of the Gospels
mostly in Jerusalem instead of Galilee ; but the
utterances of all the speakers seem to bear another
impress. There is on the one hand a tone of
perpetual inquiry, and on the other hand a con-
tinual revelation of mysterious truths. There
are long conversations in which our Lord ex-
pounds the meaning and issues of His mission,
and His own relation to the Father who has
sent Him. What men think of Him is seen to
be the measure of their spiritual characters :
each in turn who comes near to Him finds him-
self exposed to the light and judged. The great
conceptions of the prologue, always excepting
the one word Logos, recur as the leading terms
of our Lord's own discourses life and light and
witness and truth and glory. At times it is
not possible to say whether the Lord Himself
is speaking, or whether the evangelist is com-
menting on what He has said. The style and
diction of speaker and narrator are indistin-
guishable; and they are notably different from
the manner in which Christ speaks in the synoptic
Gospels.
This threefold contrast, then, meets us theo-
logical interpretation, not bare narrative ; typical
scenes chosen for their spiritual significance, not
The Fourth Gospel 127
a complete and self-contained historical record;
full discourses on transcendent themes, not groups
of pregnant sayings, maxims, paradoxes. It is
this contrast which makes us feel that we have
entered another region altogether from that of
the chroniclers of our Lord's deeds and words;
a region of prophetic revelation, in which we
are made to gaze upon the eternal realities which
underlie the transitory shapes of human experi-
ence, and manifest themselves through signs
and through speech in the life of the Word made
flesh. And it is just this contrast, considered
broadly and apart from particular anomalies and
discrepancies of detail, which constitutes the real
problem of the fourth Gospel. No Gospel
comes to us with stronger external evidence of
its acceptance by the Church. No Gospel offers
literary tokens which point more clearly to com-
position by a particular author. No Gospel
inspires the readers with a deeper sense of its
spiritual truth : and yet in the case of no Gospel
has controversy in modern times been so unceas-
ing and so strenuous.
It is not right to isolate one of the elements
of the contrast, and to speak as though the pro-
clamation of the mysterious character of our
128 The Study of the Gospels
Lord's person were the real stumbling-block in
the way of the reception of this Gospel. Its
emphatic declaration of the divinity of Christ
has doubtless whetted the edge of controversy,
and has sometimes, it may be, determined the
position of opponents or defenders. But there
are many who are heartily devoted to that
central truth, and yet cannot easily persuade
themselves that the fourth Gospel offers them
history quite in the sense that the other Gospels
do, cannot think that Christ spoke exactly as
He is here represented as speaking, and con-
sequently cannot feel assured that this is the
record of an eye-witness, or, in other words, the
writing of the apostle St John.
I do not myself see how a controversy of
this kind can be closed. The contrast of which
we have spoken cannot be removed : it is
heightened rather than diminished as we follow
it into details. Every careful student of the
Gospels is compelled to recognise it; and the
time comes when he must put to himself afresh,
as if it had never been asked before, the
question, Can this Gospel, with its advanced
Christology, its reconstructed story, its apparent
transference of the matured thought of the
The Fourth Gospel 129
author to the lips of the speakers in his narra-
tive can it be brought into historical harmony
with the other three ? can it be a record written
by one who moved among the scenes which the
other three describe ? can it be the work of an
apostle narrating actual recollections ? And such
a student on a first impression will almost cer-
tainly incline towards a negative answer. For
he will have grown up from childhood with a
general picture in his mind of the life of Christ,
composed without distinction from all the four
Gospels together ; he will unconsciously have
read into the other Gospels much that is peculiar
to St John; he will have gained, in fact, just
that complete portraiture which through the
fourfold Gospel the divine providence has de-
signed to convey to the mind of the Church.
Then he will have begun as a student to investi-
gate the sources of his traditional knowledge ; he
will have discriminated between portion and por-
tion of the evangelic narrative; he will have
observed not only the distinctive differences, but
the general harmony of tone and method in the
separate elements and in the final composition of
the synoptic narratives ; he will have gained a
new and captivating conception of the develop-
130 The Study of the Gospels
ment of the Gospel story a conception resting
fundamentally on the order of incidents in St
Mark, and revealing a natural progress of the
gradual self-manifestation of the Christ by deeds
earlier than by words ; he will have watched the
growth of this narrative without serious disturb-
ance of its original framework in the hands of
two subsequent evangelists who had much to add,
and who wrote with very different aims. And
then at last, with this carefully defined concep-
tion in his mind, he will turn to the Gospel of
St John. The contrast will the more impress
him in proportion to the pains with which he
has previously worked, and the success with which
he has trained his imagination to exclude from
view any elements external to the texts with
which he has been dealing. He will find, if I
mistake not, that he is faced by two alternatives :
he must either deny the strictly historical char-
acter of the new details furnished by the fourth
Gospel ; or else he must bring himself to recognise
that the completeness of the conception which has
captivated him is an illusory completeness ; that he
has hitherto viewed from one standpoint only a life
which now proves to be larger and more complex
than he had supposed ; that, in fact, this life had
The Fourth Gospel 131
revealed itself only to a mature reflection and a
loving insight to one who had not only seen and
heard, but had pondered and recalled, until at
last he was inspired to proclaim new elements of
its fulness without seeking to harmonise them with
the true but limited perceptions of an earlier time.
And this second alternative is not easy: to
some it will seem impossible. For some minds
are impressed by discrepancy, and are distrustful
of the suggestion of underlying harmonies. They
cannot acquiesce in insufficient explanations, and
they cannot rest while serious difficulties are un-
explained. They will cut the knot which they
cannot untie. They will incline to reject the
apostolic authorship of the fourth Gospel in
the interest of the historical truth of the other
three.
And still the fourth Gospel remains. Its
internal evidence cries aloud that only an apostle
could have written so : its external evidence is
not weakened but strengthened by the discovery
of new fragments from the earliest literature:
and it makes its abiding appeal to the Christian
consciousness as an inspired record of eternal
truth which can brook no imputation of a falsified
origin.
132 The Study of the Gospels
Let me sum up what I have ventured to say in
large measure out of a personal experience, by
quoting the words of one who will longest be
remembered as the interpreter of St John to our
age 1 :
' The conception of the Lord which is brought
to the study of any Gospel includes elements
which are derived from all. Contrasts are
already reconciled. . So it was with the early
Church. No teacher found the Fourth Gospel
at variance with the other three, though they
recognised its complementary character. Then
follows in many cases an exaggerated estimate
of the importance of the differences which are
apprehended upon a careful comparison of the
books. Fresh results impress us more in pro-
portion as they are unexpected, and at variance
with our preconceived opinions. Still later per-
haps that comprehensive conception of the subject
of the Gospel is regained by labour and thought,
from which, as a tradition, the study began ; and
it is felt that a true and intelligible unity under-
lies external differences, which are now viewed in
their proper position with regard to the records
and to the subject. 11
1 Westcott, Tht Ootpd of St John, p. Ixxrii.
CHAPTER VI
CONSIDERATIONS BEARING ON THE AUTHOR-
SHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
I HAVE dwelt at some length upon the contrast
between the Synoptists and St John, because I
think it is well that we should recognise that the
difficulty which it raises is one which inevitably
meets the student who endeavours to bring the
simplest principles of historical criticism to bear
upon the narratives of our Lord's life. It is
unjust to assume that those who question the
authenticity of the Gospel according to St John
are primarily impelled to do so by a theological
prepossession. The truths of the pre-existence of
Christ, of His relation to the Father, of His
creative activity, of His incarnation, and of His
glorified life, were committed to writing by St
Paul some twenty years or more before the date
of the fourth Gospel. They do not stand or fall
with the acceptance or rejection of its Johannine
authorship. It is accordingly quite possible to
accept these truths on the testimony of St Paul,
188
134 The Study of the Gospels
supported by the continuous witness of the
Christian Church, and yet to feel that the dis-
crepancy between the synoptic narratives and the
fourth Gospel is such as to place the apostolic
authorship of the latter in serious doubt.
I propose in what follows to say something on
each of the three elements of contrast which we
have distinguished and have partially illustrated ;
but I shall speak first and in fullest detail upon
the second of them, as it is the least complicated
by dogmatic considerations and concerns chiefly
the development of the history. I must, how-
ever, make one further remark of a general kind.
We have spoken, in accordance with current
usage, of the contrast between the Synoptists and
St John. But it ought to be borne in mind that
by the careful historian the synoptic narratives
are not to be taken as a single whole, but must
be analysed into their constituent parts. Thus,
as we have seen, they contain two pictures of our
Lord's ministry : one conveyed chiefly through
His deeds, the Marcan picture of a Galilean
ministry ; the other conveyed chiefly through His
spoken words, the non-Marcan picture in which
there is little to guide us as to locality. The
latter is of necessity more blurred than the
The Fourth Gospel 135
former, because it only survives in its embodi-
ment in the composite works of the later evange-
lists ; whereas for the former we have not only a
similar embodiment in these works, but also the
original document in its living freshness. Yet
even so we can see that the two pictures had
their characteristic differences; and it is with
each of them in turn, and not with the two as
blended in the first and third Gospels, that the
contrast with the picture given us in the fourth
Gospel ought to be made. Moreover, the literary
critic will endeavour to form some conception of
the general character of the additions made
respectively by the authors of the first and
third Gospels out of other sources which may
have been at their command, and so gain further
points of comparison. This is a task which still
waits to be undertaken. The kind of help which
may be derived from it will receive some illustra-
tion as we proceed.
The first point of detail which I would notice
is the recognition and confession of the Messiah-
ship. I think that it will hardly be questioned
that from the time of His baptism at any rate
our Lord's Messiahship was clearly present to His
136 The Study of the Gospels
own consciousness. 'Thou art My Son, the
Beloved in whom I am well pleased,' was an
utterance which naturally recalled the language
of psalmist and prophet ' the king ' set on the
holy hill of Zion (Ps. ii 6, 7), and 'the servant'
on whom Jehovah would put His Spirit (Isa.
xlii 1 f., comp. Matt, xii 18). Yet St Mark,
who is our ultimate authority for these words,
depicts our Lord, not indeed as disclaiming the
titles ' the holy one of God,' ' the Christ,' ' the
Son of God ' (all of which had the one significa-
tion of Messianic office), but yet as silencing the
evil spirits who inopportunely proclaimed them.
And when at the close of the Galilean ministry
St Peter in answer to our Lord's direct question
says, 'Thou art the Christ,' the disciples are
charged to tell no man concerning Him. Not
till He comes to Jerusalem in the last week does
He by significant actions publicly present Him-
self as Messiah, accept the acclamations of the
disciples and the multitude, and at the last, in
response to the urgency of the high priest's
question, ' Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the
Blessed ? ' openly answer ' I am,' and go forth to
execution by the Roman authorities as claiming
to be the king of the Jews.
The Fourth Gospel 137
Such is the view of the gradual development
of the history which we bring with us as we
approach the fourth Gospel. Here at the outset
the Baptist speaks of Jesus as * the Lamb of God '
and as the Son of God ' ; Andrew says, We
have found the Messiah ' ; Philip says, * We have
found Him of whom Moses in the law wrote,
and the prophets ' ; Nathanael says, ' Rabbi, Thou
art the Son of God, Thou art the king of
Israel.' Soon after comes the significant act of
the cleansing of the temple, with the significant
words 'My Father's house': and presently to
the woman of Samaria, who says, * I know that
Messias cometh,' He replies, * I; that speak unto
thee am He.' No contrast can possibly be more
startling than this; and we are constrained to
ask, Can both these representations be histori-
cally true ? or is one the simple and natural
story of the facts, and the other the poetic crea-
tion of an ideal life of Christ ?
Before we attempt to answer this question let
us look at another even more obvious difference
between the synoptic Gospels and St John. The
whole record of our Lord's life as given by the
Synoptists is very brief: so brief, indeed, that
138 The Study of the Gospels
to some of the early fathers it appeared that
His ministry lasted only one year, 'the accept-
able year of the Lord.' There is nothing in
the first three Gospels which directly contra-
dicts this view. The general scheme of St
Mark's narrative is in the main accepted by
the other two. St Matthew's displacements are
chiefly due to the combination of scattered
teachings into formal groups. St Luke's largest
additions come together in a great mass at
the close of the Galilean ministry and in con-
nexion with the journey to Jerusalem : they
do not demand any considerable extension of
time limits.
This first scheme was exceedingly simple: a
period of activity in Galilee, broken once or
twice by northern journey ings : after that a
journey to Jerusalem, a last week full of in-
cident, and then the end. The impression is
produced that Jerusalem was but once visited
by our Lord, who went there to die. St Luke,
indeed, in his introductory narratives tells of
the presentation of Christ in the temple in
infancy and of a brief visit in boyhood; but
apart from this he too takes Him to Jerusalem
only at the close.
The Fourth Gospel 139
When we turn to St John's Gospel we find
that the limits of time are greatly extended.
We have mention of three passovers instead of
only one. We find the Lord successively in
Galilee, where He turns the water into wine;
in Jerusalem, cleansing the temple and convers-
ing with Nicodemus ; in Samaria, at Jacob's well ;
in Galilee again, healing the nobleman's son;
in Jerusalem, healing the impotent man; in
Galilee, feeding the five thousand; in Jerusa-
lem at the close of the feast of tabernacles and
then at the winter feast of the dedication : after
this across the Jordan, and back at Bethany
for the raising of Lazarus; then in the city of
Ephraim near the desert, and back in Bethany
and Jerusalem for the closing scenes. The im-
pression produced is of a ministry centering in
Jerusalem, with occasional visits to Galilee and
elsewhere. Here again then we are met with
a contrast which demands that we should either
dismiss the fourth Gospel from serious histori-
cal consideration, or else largely remodel the
general framework which we had constructed
from the reading of the synoptic Gospels.
Now when we reflect upon the import of
our Lord's mission, we begin to see that it is
140 The Study of the Gospels
exceedingly unlikely that He should have made
no appeal to Jerusalem, the centre of the
national religion, until the last week of His
life. Whatever may be the cause of the limi-
tation of St Mark's narrative, we cannot but
welcome the intimation that it is extraordi-
narily incomplete. It is a Galilean story, and
it breaks off with a promise that the risen
Lord will reappear in Galilee. It is as Gali-
lean as St Peter, whose speech bewrayed him.
It revels in the enthusiasm of the Galilean
crowds, and notes that the beginnings of dis-
affection are due to scribes and Pharisees who
come down from Jerusalem. Its last story of
healing is near Jericho: there is no miracle at
Jerusalem, save only the significant withering
of the fig-tree outside the doomed city : even
the high priest's servant is not healed in St
Mark. We are not here concerned with the
reason of this limitation and this reticence: we
only note the fact.
But this limited narrative formed the basis, as
we have said, of the Gospels of St Luke and St
Matthew. Their authors do not give us the im-
pression that they were eye-witnesses, or writers
who depended chiefly on the stories of eye-wit-
The Fourth Gospel 141
nesses. They depended primarily on documents.
They accepted the clear scheme which they found
in St Mark. They made indeed large additions,
mainly of a didactic character, from another
document which lay before them both. But they
maintained the general outline which St Mark
had furnished. Hence they too present in the
main the Galilean picture. This is true even
of St Luke, though his interest in Jerusalem
is manifest and he places all the appearances
after the resurrection, where St Mark fails him,
in its immediate neighbourhood. The many in-
cidents which he adds on the way to Jerusalem
are without precise geographical or chronological
indications.
Accordingly we have one authority, and not
three, for this limitation to Galilee. Neither of
the later evangelists appears to have been in a
position to deal independently with questions
of time and locality. St Mark has led the way,
and they follow him. It is important, however,
to observe that the other document which they
both employed contained significant allusions to
a wider activity. Even the Galilean ministry
included notable incidents of which St Mark tells
us nothing. For in the non-Marcan document
142
we find a woe pronounced on Chorazin and Beth-
saida as among the cities in which ' mighty works
were done 1 (Matt, xi 21, Luke x 13). And
what is still more to our immediate purpose,
the same document contained a suggestion of
repeated visits to Jerusalem : for how else could
our Lord have uttered the lament, * O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy
children together . . . but ye would not ' (Matt
xxiii 37, Luke xiii 34) ?
Thus we find our a priori argument for a wider
ministry than St Mark records, and an extension
of the period with which his narrative seems to
be satisfied, confirmed by the evidence of the non-
Marcan document used by St Matthew and St
Luke. We must widen the Marcan scheme : we
must, it appears, find some place for visits to
Jerusalem.
Having thus seen reason to enlarge our horizon
and to demand a considerable extension of the
framework of St Mark, we may return to the
problem which was suggested by the early re-
cognition of the Messiahship in the opening
chapters of St John. We are now prepared to
understand that a ministry in Judaea may have
The Fourth Gospel 143
been carried on simultaneously with the Galilean
ministry to which our attention has hitherto been
confined. Some sixty miles separated Capernaum
from Jerusalem, and the crow would fly across
the hostile territory of the Samaritans. Geo-
graphical position therefore, together with the
consequent local difference of customs, dialect,
and religious sentiment, would be enough to
keep the two ministries distinct. Two methods
might well be pursued among populations so
severed and so diverse. And that the two
methods could be concurrently worked out was
rendered the easier by a peculiarity of Jewish
religious life, which brought the more strictly
pious worshipper once or twice or even thrice a
year to the central sanctuary of Jerusalem. It is
not therefore difficult to think of Jesus as the
Galilean prophet who might be expected to
reappear at regular intervals in the sacred city,
carrying forward a mission there, intermittent
yet steadily progressive, in the face of religious
opponents who dominated Jerusalem as they
could not dominate distant Galilee.
This is, I think, what we might reasonably
expect. Our wonder, indeed, is that St Mark
gives us no express statement that it was so.
144 The Study of the Gospels
But he is concerned with the development in
Galilee; and it is enough for him to note how
that was affected not by the occasional dis-
appearances of Jesus at the festival seasons a
fact which might be taken for granted and was
not essential to his story but by the occasional
appearances of scribes and Pharisees, 'who had
come down,' as he says, 'from Jerusalem,' and
who gradually succeeded in undermining the
popularity which our Lord's beneficent ministry
had won in the minds of the Galilean peasantry.
When, now, we turn to St John, we are struck
by the fact that the whole scheme of his book
is based on the recurrence of Jewish festivals.
It is as we have supposed : Jesus is found in
Jerusalem at the feasts. Nor is it any longer
surprising to learn that a Judsean ministry is
in progress, with its own peculiar development,
marked by a speedier antagonism and by frequent
discussion of our Lord's personal claims.
To the simple and ignorant folk of Galilee
Jesus might appeal as the wonderful healer and
teacher, as a great prophet, 'as one of the pro-
phets,' and for a while as nothing more. He
could endeavour to win men to trust Him for
what they found Him to be, to listen to His
The Fourth Gospel 145
message of the heavenly Father's care, to come
to Him for rest. It was different in Jerusalem,
the centre of rabbinic influence, the home of
religious controversy, the meeting-place of ecclesi-
astical politicians as well as of those earnest
souls whom St Luke describes in the phrase * all
them that looked for the redemption of Jerusa-
lem' (ii 38). In such an atmosphere 'Who
art thou?' was a question which could not be
postponed. To the emissaries of the Pharisees
from Jerusalem John the Baptist might well
find it necessary to affirm with vehemence, * I am
not the Christ.' Is it likely that Jesus would
escape a similar scrutiny ?
I leave this point of discussion with two further
remarks.
(1) St Mark does not really justify our first
impression that the disciples themselves were
in ignorance of our Lord's Messiahship during
the chief part of the Galilean ministry. The
stress which seems to be laid on St Peter's con-
fession near Cassarea Philippi is not due to St
Mark's narrative, but to the subsequent additions
by St Matthew, whose grouping of incidents is
not based on chronology, but on similarity of
topics. We are quite free to believe that the
I
146
disciples knew of His claim to Messiahship,
though they must have been perpetually puzzled
by His refusal to assert it in ways that accorded
with popular expectation.
(2) That St John should take a peculiar
interest in Jerusalem, and especially in the feasts,
is in harmony with some incidental notices re-
garding him. For we are told that he was known
to the high priest, and had influence of a kind
that gave him access that would have been denied
to others. Moreover, he was in a position to
provide a home for the Mother of the Lord ; and
that this would be in or near Jerusalem is made
probable by the fact that he resided there for
some time after Pentecost. Further, the lapse
of years and the destruction of the sacred city
would be likely to fix the attention of a later
evangelist on Jerusalem, if he were a surviving
disciple who was in a position to record what had
happened there.
I have dealt only with two specimens of the
historical contrast which meets us in St John's
Gospel. I think it is important to deal with
this kind of difficulty by itself, quite apart from
the questions of the difference in the teaching
The Fourth Gospel 147
ascribed to our Lord in this Gospel, and of the
view which its author takes of our Lord's mys-
terious personality. As we see how obvious and
striking the historical contrast must always ap-
pear, however much it may be susceptible of
explanation when we look beneath the surface,
we are in a position to ask ourselves a question
of considerable interest. Is it probable that a
writer who made it his task, as some have sup-
posed, to introduce a new conception of Christ,
which was radically different from the Synoptists'
conception of Him, would have ventured to com-
mend his doctrine to the Church in a narrative
which bore so few points of resemblance to the
narratives which were already current ? Would
he not, on the contrary, have taken the utmost
pains to preserve the familiar outlines, and to
work his new conception in and out of the ac-
cepted scheme ? As a fact, the writer of the new
Gospel seems to be absolutely reckless of con-
sequences, trusting wholly to the force of truth
to commend his work to his readers. 'He has
seen, 1 he declares ; ' seen and borne witness ; ' and
there are others to add, ' We know that his wit-
ness is true.'
If we could conceive of an isolated disciple, who
148 The Study of the Gospels
had long meditated on scenes of his youth, and
at last in old age had gathered round him a band
of eager learners who reverenced him as the one
eye-witness left, the one man who still could say,
* I have seen, I have heard, I have handled the
Christ ; ' if we could imagine their contrasting
the wealth of his knowledge with the comparative
scantiness of any written records, and demanding
from him ere he passed away that he should tell
the story as he knew it from first to last : then
we should have conditions in which the construc-
tion of such a book as we possess would be not
inconceivable.
The old disciple needs no documents, to com-
pile as others might compile a laboured history.
The whole is present in his memory, shaped by
years of reflection, illuminated by the experience
of a lifetime. He knows the Christ far better
now than he knew Him in Galilee or Jerusalem
half a century before. He knows who and what
He is, as he hardly guessed then. And the fuller
knowledge has revealed the inward significance of
events as none knew it, save the Master, at the
time. He cannot speak or write as if he were a
young man wondering from day to day whether
this were the Christ. He cannot even speak as
The Fourth Gospel 149
Peter may have spoken to Mark some thirty years
before, when Jerusalem still stood and the end of
an age had not come. He can no longer sever
between the fact and the truth revealed by the
fact: interpretation is blended with event. He
knows that he has the mind of Christ. He will
say what he now sees in the light of a life of
discipleship.
What should we rightly expect in a record
formed under conditions like these ? Not history
in the lower sense of a contemporary narrative
of events as they appeared to the youthful on-
looker: not an exact reproduction of the very
words spoken by Christ or to Christ. And yet
truth the truth of history, the meaning of the
whole story as the divine Spirit had revealed it
to the writer, and as he had long grown accus-
tomed to explain it to others. In detail we
should expect much of the extraordinary fidelity
of an old man's recollection of the incidents of
early life. In particular, the characters of those
who figured in his scenes would be unmistak-
ably drawn. But conversations would be affected
by the personality of their recorder; and the
sequence of particular incidents might be some-
times past recall. We should look for a true
150 The Study of the Gospels
picture: we should not expect a photographic
reproduction of the past.
To what extent does the history of St John's
life offer the conditions which we have described
above? He figures more prominently in the
synoptic narratives than any other disciple except
St Peter. He is mentioned alone in connexion
with the rebuke of one who cast out devils in
the name of Jesus, but was not a formal disciple.
He and his brother James desired to call down
fire from heaven on the Samaritans who would
not receive their Master. He and James sought
the first places in the kingdom, and declared
themselves ready for any sacrifice. These two
brothers, like Peter, received a special name from
Christ, which is most naturally taken as denoting
vehemence of disposition. Boanerges was under-
stood to mean ' sons of thunder.' Peter and John
are singled out for special service in the prepara-
tion for the Last Supper. St Luke names them
constantly together in the opening chapters of
the Acts: and it is in harmony with this that
St Paul expressly mentions St John as one of the
' pillars ' in the Church at Jerusalem.
Omitting the evidence of writings which have
been attributed to St John's own hand, we pass
The Fourth Gospel 151
outside the limits of the New Testament. The
prevailing tradition of the Church is that which
is preserved by Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp
of Smyrna, who in turn had been acquainted
with St John. It is to the effect that the apostle
lived to a great age, and died at Ephesus in the
closing years of the century. A single voice is
raised in contradiction of this tradition. It is a
supposed statement of Papias in his second book
of Expositions, preserved in two late chroniclers,
to the effect that 'John the Divine and James
his brother were put to death by the Jews.'
Papias himself of course could not have used the
epithet * the Divine ' (o #60X0709). If he merely
said 'John and James,' it is probable that he
referred to the Baptist, and that a false identi-
fication with the apostle was made in later times.
This is Dr Zahn's explanation. Lightfoot and
Harnack offer a less simple solution, but agree
in dismissing the notice as of no historical value.
Irenaeus and Eusebius knew the work of Papias,
and yet maintained with no shadow of a doubt
the universal tradition of St John's peaceful
death in old age. It may further be noted that,
whoever may be regarded as the author of the
last chapter of the fourth Gospel, it is clear
152 The Study of the Gospels
that he believed that St John * tarried ' after the
rest of the apostolic band had passed away.
We have then in the securest tradition of
the apostle's later life just those conditions
which appear to be suggested by the phe-
nomena of the Gospel itself: an old man,
disciplined by long labour and suffering, sur-
rounded by devoted scholars, recording before
he passes from them his final conception of
the life of the Christ, as he looked back upon
it in the light of fifty years of Christian expe-
rience.
To expect that after such an interval his
memory would reproduce the past with the ex-
actness of despatches written at the time, would
be to postulate a miraculous interference with
the ordinary laws which govern human memo-
ries. We have no ground for supposing that
the divine inspiration, which we recognise no-
where more plainly than in this Gospel, should
so far disturb the normal condition of the
human instrument which it employed. Yet at
the same time we shall do well to bear in
mind that these are not merely an old man's
recollections, such as we sometimes listen to,
when he is recalling out of the past scenes
The Fourth Gospel 153
which have for many years been wholly unre-
membered. They are not memories which have
lain dormant for half a century, to wake like
the sleepers of Ephesus, unchanged as they fell
asleep. They are living memories, never long
absent from heart and mind : memories which
in a sense have grown with the man's growth,
and have ripened from the seed into the fruit.
All that he has known of life has clustered
round them, and helped to interpret them.
They have been used again and again to
illustrate the truths by which he has lived:
they have become the vehicle of his con-
stant exposition of these truths. Accordingly
they are memories dominated by principles,
and valued in proportion as they express
those principles. The spiritual is seen to utter
itself in terms of the material : the heavenly
lesson is everywhere revealed in the earthly
fact.
If, then, we would understand the narrative
we must be familiarised with the conceptions
which it is framed to set forth. Accordingly
we begin to see the significance of the opening
exposition of the eternal realities which underlie
the external world and the history of man : and
K 2
154 The Study of the Gospels
we learn to value the abstract summary of the
purpose of Christ's mission upon earth. The
great ideas here presented are those which rule
the narrative which follows. Here is the whole
truth : the rest is illustration. This is the
light in which he has come to see the Christ,
and in which he desires that He should for
ever be seen by others.
There are many difficulties of detail into
which, in this rapid survey, it has been impos-
sible to enter: of some of them I can offer no
explanation that appears to me adequate. But
I believe that in the general consideration of
the apostle's position, as I have endeavoured
to describe it, lies the ultimate justification of
the Johannine authorship, and the true appre-
hension of the message of this Gospel. For
a writer so trained and circumstanced the old
standpoint is irrecoverably lost. The stages of
transformation and transfiguration cannot be
retraced. The growth has been so silent that
there is no consciousnness of change. The Lord
is from the beginning what He is at the end.
The glory has shone out, and the whole of the
past is illuminated by it. The Christ is no
The Fourth Gospel 155
longer ' known after the flesh ' : the old limita-
tions once transcended cannot be reimposed. A
glorious vision results. A drama is enacted
in which every incident tells, or it would not
be there. The record moves not on the lines
of the ordinary succession of events so much as
on a pathway of ideas : life is manifested under
the symbols of water and of bread ; truth under
the symbol of light. Miracles are signs, and
words are the instrument of judgment.
For all its contrast its conflict, if you will
with the synoptic narratives, this Gospel gives a
picture of the character and the claims of Christ
which is in the completest harmony with what
we have learned from them. Let me recall for a
moment our discrimination of the synoptic sources,
and the result to which it seemed to point in re-
gard to the representation of Christ and His teach-
ing. The Christ of St Mark was found to be the
same as the Christ of the non-Marcan document,
although the colours in which He is drawn are
characteristically different. There is the same
tender helpfulness, and the same flaming severity:
the same humility of service, and the same un-
bounded claim.
We should indeed have a cause of anxiety if it
156 The Study of the Gospels
appeared, for example, that the unique title, ' the
Son of Man,' proved on a discrimination of docu-
ments to have been absent from either of the
fundamental sources of the synoptic history. But
we find it in its fulness of meaning in both alike.
We find it again, and in just the same use, in St
John. And if St John for his part not only
speaks of 'the Son of God 1 in the Messianic
sense of the term, but also again and again de-
clares the relation of ' the Son ' to ' the Father,'
using the terms absolutely as though there could
never be a doubt of their meaning; this is a
manner of expression which has a parallel both
in St Mark and in the non-Marcan document.
For in the one we have a single passage (Mark
xiii 32) in which ' the Son ' is spoken of as above
the angels and in dependence upon ' the Father ' ;
and in the other an equally isolated reference
(Matt, xi 27, Luke x 22) to the knowledge of
'the Son' by 'the Father, 1 and of 'the Father'
by ' the Son.'
The Christ is the same whether in the ' yester-
day ' of the Synoptists, or in the ' to-day ' of St
John. But the light of to-day is a higher light
than that of yesterday. We would not willingly
give up for any other form of narrative a Gospel
The Fourth Gospel 157
which reveals to us what the Christ grew to be in
the mind of one who had leaned on His bosom in
youth, had cherished a perpetual recollection of
Him throughout long years of toil and suffering
for His name, and at the close wrote as in his
Master's very presence his testimony to what his
Master had been and for ever should be the
Light and the Life of men.
NOTE D
On some Books of Reference and Methods
of Study
THE necessary materials for beginning a syste-
matic study of the synoptic Gospels are few and
easily obtained.
1. The New Testament in Greek, edited by
Westcott and Hort. This is the most scientifically
constructed text which we possess. It is well to
reserve the question of various readings; but
when the time comes to consider them, Tischen-
dorfs New Testament (eighth edition) is indis-
pensable, as giving the fullest apparatus.
2. Synopsis of the Gospels in Greek, by A.
Wright. This is exceedingly valuable. It pre-
sents the parallel passages in a clear manner to
the eye, and thus saves much labour.
3. Concordance to the New Testament in Greek,
by Moulton and Geden. This Concordance is
based on the text of Westcott and Hort, and
accordingly supersedes Bruder^s Concordance.
For a few of the smaller words (prepositions,
&c.), Bruder is still of use, as giving the passages
in full where the new Concordance gives only the
references to them.
ua
Note D 159
The student will find it of great advantage to
mark a copy of the Greek text as follows :
(a) Underline in red ink all words and parts of
words in St Matthew and St Luke wfcich occur
in the corresponding places in St Mark.
(b) Underline in red in St Mark all words and
parts of words which occur in the corresponding
places in either St Matthew or St Luke. It is
not in practice worth while to distinguish between
those which come in St Matthew only and those
which come in St Luke only.
(c) Underline in blue ink all words and parts
of words in St Matthew and St Luke which are
common to these two Gospels in parallel passages
which do not come from St Mark.
By means of (a) we see at a glance the modifi-
cations introduced into Marcan narratives by St
Matthew and St Luke, and so by constant read-
ing we familiarise ourselves with the methods
they adopted in dealing with the document
which lay before them.
By means of (6) we can observe what portions
of St Mark's narrative were not embodied by
either of the later evangelists. These form a
very instructive study, enabling us to note his
most striking peculiarities. We also learn how
much we should have lost had his original work
not been preserved. (Indeed, we could not have
reconstructed it from St Matthew and St Luke,
even in the roughest way, because we could not
have distinguished at all between it and the lost
non-Marcan document.)
By means of (c) we get a general idea of the
160 The Study of the Gospels
character and contents of the assumed non-
Marcan document. An exact idea cannot of
course be obtained of this document in this
manner ; for doubtless St Matthew has preserved
portions of it which St Luke has omitted, and
vice versa: and in particular passages we are
often left in doubt as to whether St Matthew or
St Luke has preserved the original wording the
more carefully. The portions underlined in blue,
however, form the certain basis of any critical
reconstruction of this document.
A further important preliminary is to write in
the margin of each Gospel the references to the
parallel passages in the other two.
For this preparatory work the Synopsis will be
found exceedingly useful. But the underlining
should not be done in the Synopsis itself, but
in a copy of the Greek text of Westcott and
Hort. The task is laborious; but every part of
the process is full of instruction, and the result
of this merely mechanical work is to throw a most
valuable light upon the synoptic narratives.
There are two other books which I can con-
fidently recommend to the student. One is Dr
Swete's Commentary on St Mark, which should
be constantly at hand. The other is the Horce
SynopticcB of Sir John Hawkins, which contains
useful tables of words and phrases, and is both
suggestive and trustworthy as a guide to detailed
study.
For St John's Gospel Bishop Westcotfs Com-
Note D 161
mentary is indispensable. The student who
desires to see the negative view in regard to the
authenticity of this Gospel ably stated should
read Dr Schmiedel's article, John the son of
Zebedee, in the Encyclopaedia Biblica. I should
recommend him then to read the lectures on St
John's Gospel in Bishop Lightfoot's volume of
Biblical Essays, and after that to study the
introduction to Bishop Westcott's Commentary.
If he will then turn again to Dr Schmiedel's
article he will find himself better able to judge
of the present position of the problem. For my-
self I may say that I find at present less difficulty
on literary grounds in accepting than in rejecting
the Johannine authorship. This I have probably
made plain in what I have said above, although
I have not attempted to do more than suggest
some considerations as to the spirit and the
method in which the problem should be ap-
proached.
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