Chapter 2

THE GOSPELS

[Sidenote: Their Name.]

The modern English word "Gospel" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word _Godspell_, which means "God story," the story about the life of God in human flesh. It does not, therefore, exactly correspond with the Greek name _euaggelion_, which means "good tidings." In the earliest times the Greek name meant the good tidings proclaimed by our Lord about the Kingdom of God which He had come to establish. And, as our Lord Himself rules over this kingdom, the tidings about the kingdom included tidings about Himself. So Christ Himself says, "for My sake and the gospel's" (Mark viii. 35). After the Ascension of our Lord and the disappearance of His visible presence, the _euaggelion_ came to mean the good tidings about Christ, rather than the good tidings brought by Christ (see 1 Cor. ix. 14 and 2 Cor. iv. 4). So St. Paul generally means by _euaggelion_ the good news, coming from God, of salvation freely given to man through Christ. When he speaks of "My gospel" (Rom. ii. 16), he means "my explanation of the gospel;" and when he says, "I had been intrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision" (Gal. ii. 7), he means that he had been appointed by God to preach the good tidings to the Gentiles, with special emphasis on the points most necessary for their instruction.

The word _euaggellon_, in the sense of a written gospel, is first found in the ancient Christian manual called the _Didaché_, or _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, in ch. xv.: "Reprove one {10} another, not in anger but in peace, as ye have it in the gospel." This book was probably composed about A.D. 100. The word seems to have been still more definitely applied to a written account of the life of Christ in the time of the great heretic Marcion, A.D. 140. The plural word _euaggelia_, signifying the Four Gospels, is first found in a writing of Justin Martyr,[1] about A.D. 152. It is important to notice that he also calls them "Memoirs of the Apostles," and that he refers to them collectively as "the Gospel," inasmuch as they were, in reference to their distinctive value as records of Christ, one book.

[Sidenote: Their Genuineness.]

The first three Gospels do not contain the name of the writers in any connection which can be used to prove conclusively that they were written by the men whose names they bear. On the other hand, the fourth Gospel in a concluding passage (John xxi. 24) contains an obvious claim to have been written by that intimate friend of Jesus to whom the Church has always attributed it. But the titles, "according to Matthew," "according to Mark," "according to Luke," rest on excellent authority. And they imply that each book contains the good news brought by Christ and recorded in the teaching of the evangelist specified. These titles must, _at the very least_, signify that the Christians who first gave these titles to these books, meant that each Gospel was connected with one particular person who lived in the apostolic age, and that it contained nothing contrary to what that person taught. The titles, taken by themselves, are therefore compatible with the theory that the first three Gospels were perhaps written by friends or disciples of the men whose names they bear. But we shall afterwards see that there is overwhelming evidence to show that the connection between each book and the specified person is much closer than that theory would suggest.

Speaking of the four Gospels generally, we may first observe that it is impossible to place any one of them as late as A.D. 100, {11} and that the first three Gospels must have been written long before that date. This is shown by the internal evidence, of which proof will be given in detail in the chapters dealing with the separate Gospels. The external evidence of the use of all the four Gospels by Christians, and to some extent by non-Christians, supports the internal evidence. Let us begin by noting facts which are part of undoubted history, and then work back to facts of earlier date. It is now undisputed that between the years 170 and 200 after Christ our four Gospels were known and regarded as genuine products of the apostolic age. St. Irenaeus, who became Bishop of Lyons in France in A.D. 177, and was the pupil of Polycarp, who had actually been a disciple of St. John, uses and quotes the four Gospels. He shows that various semi-Christian sects appeal severally to one of the four Gospels as supporting their peculiar views, but that the Christian Church accepts all four. He lays great stress on the fact that the teaching of the Church has always been the same, and he was personally acquainted with the state of Christianity in Asia Minor, Rome, and France. His evidence must therefore be considered as carrying great weight. Equally important is the evidence of Tatian. This remarkable Syrian wrote a harmony of the Gospels near A.D. 160. Allusions to this harmony, called the _Diatessaron_, were known to exist in several ancient writers, but until recently it was strenuously maintained by sceptical writers that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that the Diatessaron was composed of our present Gospels. It was suggested that it might have been drawn from other Gospels more or less resembling those which we now possess. This idea has now been dispelled. A great Syrian father, Ephraim, who died in 373, wrote a commentary on the Diatessaron. This was preserved in an Armenian translation which was made known to the world in 1876. The discovery proved that the Diatessaron had been drawn from our four Gospels. In 1886 an Arabic version of the Diatessaron itself was found, and it {12} proved conclusively that Tatian's Diatessaron was simply a combination of our four canonical Gospels. About the same date as Tatian, a famous Gnostic writer named Heracleon wrote commentaries on Luke and John, and it can also be shown that he was acquainted with Matt. There can therefore be no doubt that all our four Gospels were well known by A.D. 170.

Between A.D. 130 and 170 our Gospels were also in use. The most important evidence is furnished by Justin Martyr, who was born near Samaria, and lectured in Rome about A.D. 152. He says "the apostles handed down in the Memoirs made by them, which are called Gospels;" he shows that these Memoirs were used in Christian worship, and he says that "they were compiled by Christ's apostles and those who companied with them." This exactly agrees with the fact that the first and the fourth of our Gospels are attributed by the tradition of the Church to apostles, while the second and the third are attributed to companions of the apostles. The quotations which Justin makes show that these Memoirs were our four Gospels. It has been thought that Justin perhaps used some apocryphal Gospel in addition to our Gospels, but there is no sufficient proof of this. We may explain that he uses the term "Memoirs" in order to make himself intelligible to non-Christian readers who would not understand the word "Gospel."

The _Shepherd_ of Hermas, which was written at Rome, probably about A.D. 140, but perhaps earlier, uses expressions which imply an acquaintance with all our Gospels, though none of them are directly quoted. Moreover, the _Shepherd_, in depicting the Christian Church as seated on a bench with four feet, probably refers to the four Gospels. This would be in agreement with the allegorical style of the book, and it gains support from the language of Origen and Irenaeus.

The testimony rendered to the authenticity of the Gospels by the heretics who flourished between A.D. 130 and 170 is of importance. At the beginning of this period, Basilides, the {13} great Gnostic of Alexandria, who tried to replace Christianity by a semi-Christian Pantheism, appears to have used Matt., Luke, and John. The fact that they contain nothing which really supports his peculiar tenets, forms an argument which shows that the genuineness of these documents was then too well established for it to be worth his while to dispute it. Marcion, whose teaching was half Gnostic and half Catholic, endeavoured to revive what he imagined to be the Christianity of St. Paul, whom he regarded as the only true apostle. He believed that Judaism was the work of an inferior god, and he therefore rejected the whole of the Old Testament, and retained only the Gospel written by St. Luke, the friend of St. Paul, and ten of St. Paul's Epistles. Modern writers have sometimes urged that Marcion's list of New Testament books proves that all other parts of the New Testament were regarded as doubtful about A.D. 140. But it is quite evident that Marcion, unlike those Gnostics who adapted uncongenial books to their own systems by means of allegorical explanations, cut out the books and verses which would not correspond with his own dogma. In spite of his pretended fidelity to St. Paul, he mutilated not only St. Luke's Gospel, but even the Epistle to the Galatians. So whereas it is certain that he used our Luke, there is no indication to show that he did not admit that the other Gospels were really the work of the writers whose names they bear.

In the period between A.D. 98, when the death of St. John probably took place, and A.D. 130, we find several signs of acquaintance with the Gospels. About A.D. 130, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, wrote a book called _Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord_. It may be regarded as almost certain that the word "Oracles" signifies written Gospels, just as in the New Testament the word signifies the written documents of the Old Testament. He mentions Gospels written by St. Matthew and St. Mark, and we know from Eusebius that he made use of 1 John. It is deeply to be regretted that we only have {14} a few remaining fragments of the writings of this early bishop, who was acquainted with men who knew our Lord's disciples. In the letters of St. Ignatius, the martyred Bishop of Antioch, A.D. 110, we find signs of acquaintance with Matt. and John. The Epistle written by St. Polycarp to the Philippians soon after the death of St. Ignatius contains quotations from Matt. and Luke, and the quotations in it from 1 John almost certainly imply the authenticity of St. John's Gospel, as it is impossible to attribute the Epistles to any writer except the writer of the Gospel. The _Didaché_, about A.D. 100, shows acquaintance with Matt. and Luke, and contains early Eucharistic prayers of which the language closely resembles the language of St. John. The Epistle of Barnabas, probably about A.D. 98, contains what is probably the oldest remaining quotation from a book of the New Testament. It says, "It is written, Many called, but few chosen," which appears to be a quotation from Matt. xxii. 14. The Epistle of St. Clement of Rome, written to the Christians of Corinth about A.D. 95, is full of the phraseology of St. Paul's Epistles, but contains nothing that can be called a direct quotation from our Gospels. But it does contain what are possibly traces of the first three Gospels, though these passages are perhaps quoted from an oral Gospel employed in the instruction of catechumens.

We must conclude that, considering what a large amount of early Christian literature has perished, the external evidence for the authenticity of our Gospels is remarkably strong. They are genuine writings of the apostolic age, and were received by men whose lifetime overlapped the lifetime of some of the apostles. In the early Christian literature which remains, there is much which lends support to the authenticity of the Gospels, and nothing which injures a belief in that authenticity. And there are strong reasons for thinking that in the early Christian literature which has perished, there was much which would have made a belief in their authenticity quite inevitable.

It would be an aid to modern study if we could be certain {15} when and where the four Gospels were put together in one canon. In the 4th and 5th centuries it was believed by some Christians that the collection had been made at Ephesus by St. John himself, and that he had prefixed the names of the writers to the Gospels when he published his own Gospel. It is at present impossible to discover how far this supposed fact is legendary or not, but modern criticism has done something to corroborate the idea that the Gospels were really collected first in Asia Minor, and if St. John did not make the collection himself, it was probably made by his disciples soon after his death.

[Sidenote: Their Diversity.]

If we compare the four Gospels together, it is as plain as daylight that there is a marked difference between the first three Gospels on the one hand and the fourth Gospel on the other hand. The first three Gospels are usually called the _Synoptic Gospels_, because they give us one _synopsis_ or common view of our Lord's work. To a great extent they record the same events and the same discourses, and in many passages they express themselves in almost identical words. The account which they give of our Lord's work is mostly confined to His ministry in Galilee, the birthplace of our religion, and it includes only one visit to Jerusalem. But St. John's Gospel differs widely in language from the other Gospels, and also gives an account of no less than five visits to Jerusalem, and chiefly describes the scenes connected with our Lord's ministry in Judaea. Whereas our first three Gospels can be appropriately printed in three parallel columns, the greater part of St. John's Gospel cannot be appropriately placed by the side of the other three. Another most important difference is that St. John's Gospel is marked by a tone and teaching which are seldom to be found in the Synoptic Gospels. The difference was well expressed by Clement of Alexandria, who calls the Synoptic Gospels _bodily_ and St. John's Gospel _spiritual_; and by Theodore of Mopsuestia, who says that St. John declared that "doubtless it was not right to omit {16} the facts told with regard to the sojourn of Christ in the flesh, but neither was it right to omit the words relating to His Divinity." For the Synoptic Gospels relate the outward events connected with our Lord's ministry, while St. John records the discourses and works which reveal our Lord's heavenly origin and divine authority. Again, the Synoptic Gospels report Christ's addresses to simple Galilean people, addresses consisting largely of _parables_; while St. John reports discourses, frequently expressed in the language of _allegory_, and uttered to the Jews of Jerusalem or to His own intimate disciples.

[Sidenote: The Synoptic problem.]

The Synoptic problem consists in the difficulties raised by the fact that the Synoptic Gospels show both a remarkable similarity and a remarkable dissimilarity. It is just because the similarity is often so astonishing that we find it all the more difficult to explain the dissimilarity when it exists. A study of the Synoptic problem is valuable for the Christian student, inasmuch as it directs our attention to the sources employed by the evangelists, and thus leads us nearer to the actual events connected with the rise of Christianity.

The RESEMBLANCES between the Synoptic Gospels may be observed in the following points:--

(a) _A common plan._--The general view of the course of events is almost identical. St. Matthew and St. Luke give separate accounts of the infancy of our Lord, but they then join with St. Mark in their account of St. John the Baptist, the baptism and temptation of Christ, and the beginning of His ministry. Later all three direct their attention mainly to Christ's work in Galilee, while St. John describes much that took place in Judaea and Samaria. They pass rapidly over some considerable space of time until they come to the last week of His life, where all three give a detailed account.

(b) _A common selection of facts._--By far the larger number of both events and discourses are found in all three Gospels. If anything is recorded in Mark it is generally to be found in {17} Matt. and Luke, and almost always in either Matt. or Luke. If the whole number of incidents in the Synoptic Gospels be reckoned as eighty-eight, the distribution of the incidents shared by at least two Gospels is as follows:--

In all three Gospels . . . . . . . 42 In Mark and Matt. . . . . . . . . 12 In Mark and Luke . . . . . . . . . 5 In Matt. and Luke . . . . . . . . 12

If we add the above together, we realize that seventy-one incidents out of a total of eighty-eight are to be found in more than one Gospel. Of the remaining seventeen incidents, three are peculiar to Mark, five to Matt., and nine to Luke.

(c) _Similar groups of incidents._--Not only is there a common selection of facts, but detached events which happened at different times are sometimes grouped together in the same way in all of the Synoptic Gospels or in two of the three. Thus in all three we find together the cure of the paralytic, the call of Levi, and the question of fasting (Matt. ix. 1-17; Mark ii. 1-22; Luke v. 17-39); so also the plucking of the ears of corn and the cure of the withered hand--events separated by at least a week (Matt. xii. 1-21; Mark ii. 23-iii. 6; Luke vi. 1-11). Thus also the death of John the Baptist is introduced both in Matt. xiv. 3 and in Mark vi. 17 to explain the fear felt by Herod Antipas that he had risen from the dead. In fact, when a parallel passage is found in all three Synoptic Gospels, it is never immediately followed in _both_ Matt. and Luke by a whole separate incident which is not in Mark.[2] There is a general tendency in Matt. and Luke to narrate the same facts as Mark in the order of Mark. And therefore it is difficult to think that the original basis of the Synoptic Gospels, whether written or unwritten, did not coincide closely with Mark in the order of events.

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(d) _Similarity of language._--The Synoptic Gospels often agree verbally. And this agreement is not merely found in the reports of the sayings of our Lord, but even in the narrative of events. It extends even to rare Greek words and phrases. The clauses are often remarkably similar. Sometimes quotations from the Old Testament are found in two or three Gospels with the same variations from the original. Matt. iii. 3, Mark i. 3, and Luke iii. 4 have the same quotation from Isa.