GOSPELS

GOSPELS

The Passion (see above,

can be

found here for only one or two points, not only peculiar

to

Jn.

but

to his purpose.

They

are connected with Christ’s last utterances

on the Cross, and with what followed them.

I

.

The words Eli, Eli, etc. recorded by

Mk. and

are said to have been misunderstood by bystanders

at the time. Lk. omits them, and even

Mk.

and Mt.

are at variance

the

In the corresponding

passage Jn. has simply

I thirst.’

Of course the first impulse is to take this,

as

the bystanders

took it in a purely literal meaning and to say that it has no

Mk. and Mt.

in the Fourth Gospel

words

‘

bread

are hardly

used

in

literal

when the

bring him food he replies that (434) hi‘s

is to do

the will of the Father and accomplish his work. This suggests
that in Christ’s last utterance the same spiritual standard must

maintained, so that, in effect, it was the expression of a

‘thirst’ for that final acconiplishment of God’s

him to say ‘it is finished,’ and then to

down the

barrier of the flesh and to enter into unfettered communion with
the Father

(cp

What Mk. and

express in the form of (apparent)

complaint,

Lk. entirely omits (perhaps because

of its difficulty), Jn. ,appears to express in the form

of

the highest spiritual aspiration.

Not that he excludes

the .physical meaning, but (as always throughout the
Gospel) he includes

a spiritual meaning-that the

Son

of God, who is

in the bosom

of the Father,’ endured

for

our sakes to feel, for

a

brief space,

as

if,

i n

a certain

sense, he were not there,

‘so

that he ‘thirsted’ for the

presence of God.

2.

The spontaneousness

of Christ’s death was not

clearly expressed by the two earliest
inserts, as uttered by Jesus, the first half of the
that, to this day, terminates

a pious Jew’s confession on

his death-bed

(Ps.

31

5).

Yet even this was liable to the

Jewish objection that it implied,

as

utterer,’ not

a

Redeemer, but’ one

need of redemption.

No, such

objection applied to the tradition preserved by

I

Pet.

2

23

perhaps gave himself up

as

a

sacrifice’

;

cp Gal.

220 Eph.

But he

represents Jesus not

as

saying

this,

as doing it

:

his spirit.’ See above,

3. The rending of the

is omitted by

partly

perhaps because, in his

view

(

I

) Christ’s body is the

’Temple, and the veil

is

flesh, so that the piercing

of his side by the soldier’s

true

and essential ‘rending of the veil,’ but partly because

( 2 )

Jn. may have considered the Synoptic tradition

erroneous.

Death under

crucifixion did

not generally ensue till after two or three

;

Mk.

mentions

‘surprise’ (omitted

a t

the speedy death

of

Jesus. Unbelievers, explaining

resurrection as a

might

‘Pilate

well be sur-

prised,” for death could not happen so soon.

steps in to

say that it

did

happen, and to spiritualise the circumstances.

The

(see C

ROSS

, 6), was performed, he says, on

the twocriminals

;

this

would have violated

the ordinance about the Paschal

Lamb

[Ex.

was averted

from Jesus hy his death, and the death was attested hy the
piercing of his side ; and thus two Scriptures were fulfilled.

It

is more probable that the Synoptic account of ‘the rending

of the veil should have sprung from a misunderstanding of the

‘piercing of the side’ than vice versa. In the earliest days of

the Church, when it became customary to speak of Christ’s flesh

water ‘food ‘eat

drink

feed,’ and

‘

thirst

This word Jn. adopts.

here explains many difficulties.

Mk.

supposes

to be addressed by the man with

the vinegar to the bystanders,

supposes

to he

addressed

the bystanders to the man. See

E

LI

,

Aramaic

(or in D Hebrew) is confused in all the MSS.

Pseudo-Peter

interpret; the, words ‘ M y Power, my Power, why

thou

forsaken me? Justin (Tryph.

125)

translates

Ev.

X.

8494’

Robinson on

the word in the

by

and

E

word

in

(where M S S might have

seems to

have been, in the corrected edition used

Mt.

retained

(in the form

hut with

(from

as

object. This expresses

somewhat more of voluntariness.

Lk. (23 46) goes farther.

Retaining

in the sense of ‘breathing his last,’ he

adds an expiession of trust on the part of Jesus.

1807

as

veil (Heh.

10

it would be natural to describe

the

piercing of his

as

‘rending of the veil.’

It is said

(Joel’s

that the Jews believed the veil of the

Temple to have been literally rent, shortly before the capture

of

the City. This may have helped to literalise the veil-tradition.
Christians would say to Jews

you speak of, did not

happen in the siege, or a t least

did not happen only then

;

the

veil was

rent when

Lord was

by you.’

Also,

against the Synoptists, there is this consideration, that the

‘rending of the veil if it had occurred would probably have

been kept a

the priests (who

would know of it)

and,’ if it was ever revealed by any of them, would probably
revealed by zealous converts apt to make. exaggerations and find
coincidences.

4.

The piercing of Christ’s side

us to

central thought of the Fonrth Gospel and the Epistle,
namely, the love of God revealed in the Blood of Christ
the Paschal Lamb.

T h e

E

istle to the Hebrews

recognises that

old

way to

was through (Lev. 146) ‘blood ‘water

scarlet

wool,’ and ‘hyssop,’ but asserts that the

way

(Heb. 10

the blood of Jesus.’

The Epistle of Barnabas

(11

however, will not give up the old Levitical elements : it

even adds the Levitical ‘wood which it discerns in

Cross

and though not

difficulty, it brings in

notion

of the Cross

as

a

‘tree,

I n the

ospels, the ‘scarlet cloak’ represents the ‘scarlet wool,’ and

the cross the wood

;

hut the blood that came from the mere

piercing of the hands, or perhaps the hands and

might

well seem insufficient to express the purifying blood of

;

and there was nothing a t

all

to’ indicate the water.

An early tradition inserted in Lk. (2244) endeavoured to supply
the

of sprinkling’ by relating how ‘drops

as

of blood

streamed from Jesus in his agony; hut still there was no
mention of water.

Yet not only did the Levitical requirements

mention ‘running water hut Zech. 131 predicted the opening
of a fountain against

and uncleanness for

I t is in

the

of

Christ’s side that

a

revelation of the

which flows the purifying stream of baptism.

.

(2) the human soul

presented

the blood

human body,

repre-

sented

Physically, that these details should have been seen

the

eye of a disciple kept probably a t some distance from the cross

a crowd of hostile spectators and soldiers, must he, if not

impossible a t least disputable.

But, whatever

facts

may have been seen, the essence of the narrative is a spiritual
fact.

A revelation is vouchsafed to the beloved disciple. His

eyes are opened to discern the Fountain of

It

may have

I n the Synoptists, the feet, too, are pierced, but not in

Jn.

and Pseudo-Peter.

tradition, omitting the word ‘blood,’

seeing in it

a

fulfil-

ment of

Ps.

22 14

‘

poured ont like water.

This symbolism seems to be in accordance with

describing ‘ashes and water’

as

origin of

genera-

tion

;

and

purification of the body

with water as preparatory

the purification of the soul with

blood. But Jn. may be also alluding to the ‘mixed cup’ of the
Eucharist, which contained wine mixed with water. Irenaeus
says that (5

the Ebionites (who denied Christ’s

nature

used water alone in the Eucharist) ‘not receiving the

combination of God and man into their

rejected the mix-

ing of the heavenly wine,‘ and did not

God into

mingling (non recipientes Denm ad commistionem

:

in other words he declares their rejection of the divine natnre in
Christ to he analogous to their rejection of the wine in the
Eucharist. According to this view, the wine in the Eucharist,
and the blood of Christ on the cross, would represent Christ’s

nature.

But whatever reference Jn. may have had to

Ebionitism, or to a rising Docetism that rejected Christ’s human
nature, it seems probable that his main object is to hear witness
for the

to Christ’s human nature as

completely

real-in

and

soul

well as spirit.

Applied to the

Eucharist, the Johannine view would recognise the

in the

the soul

spirit in the water and blood.

With thee is the

of

in thy

light shall we see light’-a passage closely connected with
key-passage in the Gospel (14): ‘The

was

of

and cp Rev.

:

will give unto

that is athirst of the

fountain

of

Also cp Rev.

:

of water of life

. . .

proceeding out of the throne of God and

the Lamb.’ I t was a saying, older

Fourth Gospel, that

(Barn.

The kingdom

Jesus is on the tree’ (or Cross,

: cp Justin,

I

41,

73,

‘The Lord hath

reigned from the tree’). So, in Jn., the Cross-heing the place

Christ is

up’

and where God is

In Barn. 11

as

in Rev. 222 (imitating the

the tree

of life whose leaves will heal the nations, and it is planted

by

side ofthe river of living water. But there were varieties

1808

4

Cp Ps. 369 :

the throne of God.
astoral picture of Ezek. 477

the Cross

is

also

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

been given to some one

to

see literally the piercing of the side

and to hand down to the church of Ephesus a historical fact
obscured in previous traditions.

But the spiritual meaning of

the act is not to be regarded or

from the materialistic

or historical

The whole of the context is spiritual

thought and mystically symbolical in expression.

First

there is

threefold mention of

‘

accomplishment.

Then as

there were

‘signs’ wrought by Christ during his

so

now there are, perhaps, seven

accomplishments

of

OT

type or

that accompany, or follow, his

I n

the last of these, the

striking of all (prospective as well as

retrospective

backward to prophecy hut also forward

to the

of the Gentiles, to’ the christianising of the

Roman Empire, and to the metamorphosis of blind ersecution

into awe-struck adoration), the soldiers of ‘this

coming

to break the bones’ of the Paschal Lamb, are not only diverted

from their purpose,

but as it were forced to ‘look on him whom

they pierced.

Thus, amid mysticism and

as it began,

ends the Johannine life of Christ. Viewed

as history, it

must be dispassionately analysed

so

as to separate, as far

The Exterhal Evidence

as to the authorship and

the Gospels consists of,

I.

Statements,

Quotations.

I.

S

T

A

T

E

M

E

N

TS

.

Written Gospels are neither mentioned nor implied

in the N T Epistles, nor in that of. Cleniens
nor, probably, in that of Barnabas, nor in the

i.

T

HE

T

HIRD

implies

( a )

that

‘many’ Gospels were current, and perhaps

that

their diversity was

t o obscure

‘the certainty concerning the

things wherein

’

the Christian catechu-

men

was

instructed

:

that whereas the apostles

delivered

,

taught

them

‘many’ ‘drew up

a

e . ,

wrote.

This

points to a time when the apostles had passed away,
leaving the

open to the historians.

qualification

not that he had consulted an apostle

and obtained his

but that he had

(1

3 )

‘traced

the course of

all

things accurately from the first.’ The

particular defects implied in existing

‘

narratives

that they were not accurate,’ and not

chronological

order.

Papias, a bishop of Phrygian Hierapolis in the

of tradition, and Barnabas himself quotes a saying that sug-
gested the thought of the

as

a Vine front which the

juice, or blood, is dropping

:

12)

‘When a tree

bow

down and rise

and when blood shall drop from a

This view is developed in the later Johannine vision.

water and the blood

the Cross, or rather from Christ

on the Cross.

I t may be objected that the author lays stress upon ‘seeing’

(19

35

:

H e that hath seen hath borne witness ’). The very stress

however, indicates that seeing’. hasaspiritnal signification, as
(149)

‘ H e that

seen me hath seen the

‘we

his glory

;

and elsewhere

Jn. Space does not allow

the exposition of the Philonian and Johannine uses of expres-
sions relating to sight and vision, which would demonstrate this
conclusion. But it may be assumed that, whenever
senses aye used

are always

used

in

a

Handling’ in

I

Jn. 1

I

no exception to this invariable rule; see above (on the

‘handling in Ignatius),

29.

(

I

)

The

the ‘bone not

(5)

the ‘looking’ on him whom they pierced,’ are all

definitely mentioned in the OT, and (6) the ‘delivering of the
spirit’ may be regarded

a fulfilment of

31 5 ; but there is

no verbal allusion either to Zech.

or to Ps. 2214. We

cannot therefore assert that ‘seven’ is here in the author’s
mind.

the structure of the whole Gospel makes it probable.

3

And he that hath seen hath

and

witness is true

and he

knoweth that

he saith true.

On the assumption (so Westcott and Alford) that

is the

a repeated

the sentence

isstrangely tautological. But may not Jn. intend

to mean

Christ? The passage is the keynote to the, Epistle, and in the
Epistle (see Westc. on

I

Jn. 26)

is always used

(cp especially

I

Jn.

417).

I t

characteristic of

Jn. that he should use the

so that a superficial reader

should render it in one way and a spiritual reader

another.

I n any case, the threefold form of the attestation appears
deliberately adapted to the context describing the Three
Witnesses.

See Rev. 22

17.

as possible, fact from not-fact.

No criticism, however.

ought to prevent us from recognising
its historicalvalue in correcting

sions derived from the Synoptic Gospels, and the epic
power and dramatic irony

which

brings

on the

stage the characters and classes whereby the

will

of

God

is

being continuously fulfilled,

so

that we

ourselves

learning from Pilate to ‘behold the man,’ and discern-
ing with Caiaphas that ‘ i t is expedient that one man
should die and not that the whole people should
perish.’ It often raises

us above details of which the

certitude will probably never be

into

a

region where we apprehend the nature and existence

of

a Word of Life, essentially the same in heaven and on
earth, human yet divine, the incarnation of the concord

of

the spiritual

Yet, while

no Gospel

so

high, none stands more firmly, more pi

below.

EVIDENCE.

first half of the second century, wrote five books of

of the Lord’s Logia.’

( a )

His

was probably a ‘setting forth’

of the Logia, though it might include interpretation

as

By ‘Logia (oracles),’ he

meant the Words

also In-

cluding the Acts) of Christ

as

being

oracularly’ applicable to the

of man. This title was already in use to denote,

their oracular aspect, the Scriptures of the OT, and

here transfers it to what he regards as the

oracles of

Eus.

iii. 39

I

(al.

Schwegl.

Lightfoot

proves that Eusebius,

not

uses

to mean ‘inter re

in L X X and

means

‘interpret ). In Judg.

7

(AL

setting

forth is

‘interpretation. Heretics

are called by

(Pref.

I

,

and i. 3

6)

bad setters

(or

of things well

they

sometimes= “forge

“make false entries

the

besides

perverting’

For example, the Valentinians are said to

I

)

transgress the order and connection of the Scriptures,’ ‘trans-

posing and

and making anything out

of anything

As

instance, they

asserted that the anguish of Sophia was indicated

the words

‘And what

I

shall say

I

know not,’ which Irenxus

regarded as a heretical

or ‘exposition,’ of Jn.

Similarly

(Polyc. Phil. 7 ) does not refer

to

(Lightf. ad

‘perverse interpretations,’ but to

tricks ‘artful treatment,’ in ‘setting

as

well as

The

of oracles in Lucian

deal

with both

(‘setting forth‘), and

(‘solution’)

:

the panto-

mime makes his meaning so clear as to need

ii.

‘no one to set it forth

words.‘

Aristotles

ad

Alex.

I

)

is perhaps a short

of

facts, as compared

a

long narrative.

is

called by

’the setter forth of the will of

Zeus,’ not because he

but because he

the

Oracles

Incourseof time, however, both among

and

Greeks, no new ‘oracles’ were forthcom-

ing. Then the exegetes had to confine himself to explaining the
old oracles ;

and so by degrees

and

assumed

their modern

prevailed in the days of

Eusebius. This explains why the Alexandrine scribe altered

into

in

7

I t cannot he denied that a collection of the Lord‘s Logia

might contain nothing but his words, like the Oxyrhynchus
papyrus:

I t is tnie that Philo applies the term Logion even

to a

statement in the Pentateuch

Phi. 1538

10 9 ;

Phi.

quoting Gen.

in the passage where (2163

he speaks of ‘all things

written in the

hooks‘ as ‘oracles

he proceeds

to

say that they were oracularly delivered through Moses, and

then divides them into three

according as they are uttered

(

I

)

in the person of God,

by question and answer, (3) in the

person of Moses, under

and control from God. This

separates them, it would seem, from historical statements made
by the historians themselves, in the books of Kings, Chronicles,
Esther, etc. In

the Words

of the Lord, regarded either as

t o

Dt.339 Ps.11967 [sing.]

or as sure promises of

deliverance

Ps. 1 2 7 1831 10519

In

N T

the

living oracles (Acts 38) are those delivered from Mount Sinai,

apparently referred to in

Rom.

3

and in the only two other

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

Papias’

and

i s

as follows:

(Eus.

iii. 39

r o i l

r o i l

instances (Heb.

5

I

Pet. 4

it means the moral precepts, or

Law, of Christ. In the only two instances given in Otto’s index

t o

Justin it means

(I

32)

OT

‘prophecy

17-18)

prophetid denunciation of woe (where the

Logia against

the Pharisees are coupled with the prophetic Logia of OT).
Eusebins perhaps expresses his view of the meaning of Logia (as

when

24

Matthew and John were the only apostles that left memorials

of the Lord‘s

a word that in sing. sometimes meant

‘life’ (Epict.

but in

‘discourses’ (Epict.

24

etc.). Although the term Logia might include actions,
circumstances, it is extremely doubtful whether Papias would
have given the name, for example, to Mk.

‘And King

Herod heard it, for his name had become

;

and he said

John the Baptist is risen from the dead etc.

We must there!

fore he content to be uncertain how far,

all, Papias embodied

history in his ‘setting forth’ of the Logia, as distinct from

‘interpretations’ and traditions which he may have added to

t h e m

Papias calls them

rather than

for obvious

is

from

in that the

former pften means ‘God whilst the latter means ‘the Lord
(Jesus).

might have meant ‘Oracles

of

the O T (as in Iren. Pref.

I

)

.

be clear but lengthy.

being applied

t o the Lords Day as

from the Sabbath, was exactly the

fit

word to distinguish the oracles

of

the Law

of

Christ from the

oracles of the Law of Moses.

But it may also

mean ‘mentioned.’ I n

the

mean ‘remembered.‘

Papias elsewhere will be our

guide here-’ I n 68

Papias uses it twice; and

Lightf.

(SR

renders

fiist

then ‘relate.

That the same word should

he used in two consecutive sentences to mean quite different

things is in itself, highly improbable. still, more when Papias
might

used

for

The meaning ‘re-

peat

’

‘

trach from memory,’ which is absolutely necessary in the

secohd, is highly probable also in the first. When a convert
been taught the Logia, his business was (Heb.

5

to ‘repeat

them to others. Hence, in

68,

Papias contrasts himself, as

‘learning well and teaching

well’ the traditions of

the Elders,’ with

heretics who

‘

taught

alien

commandnients‘ and not those of the Lord.

Iren. 18

I

of

the

teaching their dogma of the decad

with gen.).

Eusebius

describes the Synoptists a s

accus.), co-ordinately with Jn. as

I t

be urged that, in the LXX,

‘call to

mind.

There is close connection, however, between ‘calling t o

mind’

13 3, the deliverance of the Passover) and

‘commemorating.

The two words are the active and causative

forms of the same Hebrew verb

and

renders both

(‘remember’ and ‘make

by the Greek

and

in Ps.

I

Macc. 12

speaks of ‘remember-.

friends in prayers, sacrifices, etc. (cp

and

Macc. 9

(Tisch.),

‘I

would have

your good

will,’ means,

‘ I

would have acknowledged or recorded it

some act.‘
means. ‘remember them in act.

So

Heb. 137.

Similarly, in NT,

2

IO,

‘

the poor

them

had the rule over yon, which spake‘unto you the

word

of

God,’ would,

itself, imply what actually follows,

their faith.’

So

the Ephesians are bidden to (Acts 20

31

35)

‘call

to mind’ Paul’s life among them, and also

words

of the Lord Jesus.’ Col.

418,

my bonds’ (following

43,

u s

God

open

unto

a door for

the word, to speak the mystery of Christ for which

I

am

i n bonds’), probably includes,

in

I

Macc. 12

and

as

in later Christian writers,

remember my bonds (in your

prayers).’

(For the connection between ‘praying’ and

‘re-

membering

’

see

I

Tbess. 13.) I n Mt. 16

g,

is

probably

corruption of Mk.

So

far, in NT, with this exception,

takes the gen. or

:

but

in

I

Thess.

(best taken

the

is.

‘remind one another of’

.

.

.

.

implying mention’),

Tim. 2 8

following 2

the things

thou

commit to faithful men, who will be able to teach others),

and preceding

2

1 4

these

in

almost certainly means ‘make mention of, or teach, Jesus
Christ.’

We see, therefore, in the Pauline Epistles, a com-

mencement of the later tendency to pass from the active to the
causative meaning of the Hebrew

from mere ‘remembering to some

practical way

,in

preaching.

The ambiguity of the word has probably caused Clem. Alex.

(following, but misunderstanding and modifying, Papias)

describe Mark as (Eus.

146) ‘remembering

Peter’s words.

Iren.

3 3

roil

must mean ‘Paul

mention of

117

seems to mean ‘a commemoration

made.

This (which is a very rare construction, if it occurs a t all,

NT) appears to differ from

and

mean ‘whateveroriginated from Christ,

yip

roil

I n the light of what follows-about the

between (

I

)

Peter, who ‘adapted his discourses to the needs of the occasion,
making no classified collection of the Lord‘s Logia,’ and
Matthew, who ‘compiled the Logia-he seems to mean that
Peter neither confined himself to the Logia, nor attempted to
group or classify them (as Matthew in the Sermon on the
Mount), but taught all that related to Christ’s life, ‘whether

without distinguishing between his words

and his deeds.

H e ‘committed

no

misfake’). This

must be the meaning, as the verb is invariably so used in

N T

and

almost alwpys (if not always) in OT. Cp especially Acts

25

Cor.

7

thou

not commit

a

I

Cor.

36.

Lucian

ed. Holden,

Xen. Cyr.

140.

Papias is defending Mark against the very

natural objection that he did not do the apostle justice in writing
down oral and casual (or a t all events e x tempore,
teaching, unchanged, in a permanent book. The style that suits
the former is often unsuitable to the latter.

Lightfoot

163)

in calling this (‘he did no wrong’) a ‘mistranslation’ of the

author of

must be thinking of the sense, not of the Greek.

But, thus interpreted, it makes excellent sense.

appears

to

be used by Papias as an emphatic

form of

(used above in the sense ‘repeat, or teach

from memory’) and to mean ‘repeat

memory.‘ Cp

another passage, generally admitted to be from Papias, in
v. 33 3

‘As

the Elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord,

memory (Lat.

where there can be

little doubt, that

Latin points to a Greek original

or

And a precisely parallel use occurs in

the description given by

himself of the way in which

Polycarp, the

of John and of the

HE

v. 20

used not only to ‘relate

his intercourse with them,

but

t o

repeat

front

their

Justin goes a step

takes

to mean something distinct from traching. Influenced

b y his

that the

were not about the

apostles

the apostles, he appeals to those

(I

33)

recorded

all that concerned our

Saviour Jesus Christ, have

it.’ And pubsequent

passages show that he meant ‘recorded

in

There is

no doubt that he was in error. But his error strengthens the
evidence that

in Papias means something

than ‘remember.’ I n Lucian, 2

8,

to ‘relate exactly,

or

in detail, some special instances’;

3

it is contrasted with ‘disorderly

and

seems to mean ‘repeating what one has thought out

(id.

3

it describes one who not only knew the exact facts but also

‘repeated from memory (or? registered in memory) the exact

words

So

8

introducing one of the sculptor’s sayings.

As, therefore, Irenaeus describes Polycarp, one of John’s dis-

ciples, as

‘

repeatinq exactly from memory ‘John’s doctrine abcut

(Eus.

206) ‘the mighty works

and

of the Lord, so Papias appears to be describing

Mark, Peter’s ‘interpreter,’ first as ‘repeating from memory

and then as

exactly from memory

the doctrine of Peter about Christ’s discourses

or actions, and as

committing to writing what he

(Mark) had thus ‘repeated.

Lightfoot translates

here

‘re-

membered.

And the word has this meaning in a few phrases

such

as

‘bear a grudge against,’ etc.

(

I

)

there is no notion

here of ‘grudge’;

the

usage, and

the context,

favour the meaning ‘recount

(4)

besides the above-mentioned

passage from Irenreus, and

that from Justin (meaning

apparently ‘record

a t all events something more than

‘remember’),

also (6) Justin’s frequent appeal to

as ‘written records.’ These considerations, together

with the kindred use of

above mentioned, are con-

clusive in favour of the decision

here means

‘recount‘ or ‘repeat from memory.

There is a considerable

probability that the word was in regular use to denote the
Memoirs or Anecdotes

the apostles, first ‘repeated’ by

their immediateinterpreters or pupils then committed to writing

some of them

the form of Gospels ; and lastly accepted

Justin as Memoirs written by the apostles

Christ. Yet

he seems to have retained the old title.

As Xenophon’s

mean Memoirs

would naturally mean ‘Memoirs

about the apostles,’ and about Christ’s teaching through them.

appears to retain an old title but to give it a wrong

(V.

Perhaps the use of

was influenced by the use

of the Hebrew

This, meaning originally ‘repeat from

memory,’ came to mean ‘teach the oral Law,’ whence came the
word ‘Mishna the doctrine of the oral Law.

Is

with the co-ordinate

for

1812

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

The

order to appreciate

the negative as well as the positive value

the evidence

of Papias, we must briefly consider the purpose of

Eusebius, who has preserved it.

Eusebius promises

( H E

3 3 )

to record

(

I

)

the

tions of ecclesiastical writers from disputed books,’

t h e y have said about

the

cal

Scriptures

and

uncanonical as

well

His promise to include the latter we

have reason to believe that he faithfully keeps.

But

he gives no extracts from Papias about Lk. and Jn.

It may be reasonably inferred that Papias

was silent

about them. The silence

have proceeded from

either

of

two

causes

:

(

I

)

Jn. and

Lk.

may not have

been recognised by Papias as on an equality with Mk.

and Mt.

though recognising them as authoritative,

Papias may have had nothing to say about them.

( d )

The silence

of Papias on Lk. and

latter of the alternatives just

mentioned is highly improbable.

Papias dwells on the defect of ‘order, or arrangement

in Mk who he says never even contemplated an ‘orderly

of

Logia. Now Lk. avowed it

as

one of

his objects to write ‘in (chronological) order

and

‘order’ differs not only from that of

Mt. but also from that of

It is hard to believe, then, that

would ‘have nothing

ahout Lk., if he recognised Lk. Again, as regards Jn.,

would

not Papias have naturally added what the Muratorian

Fragment says-that this want of order was corrected by Jn.

who wrote

o r d e r

o r d i n e m ) ‘ ?

The Muratorian Frag-

ment, Clement of Alexandria, and the anonymous tradition pre-
served

Eusehius

24

all have

s o m e t h i n g

to tell us ahout the original authorship of the ‘spiritual

Gospel of John the disciple of the Lord; and what they say
testifies to the interest taken in its origin

those ecclesiastical

writers who were among the first to recognise it as

Is it likely that

if he acknowledged it to be the work

of the

last

of the apostles, knew

it

t h a t

he

worth

These considerations point to the conclusion that Lk.

and Jn. were not recognised by Papias as on a level

with

Mk.

and

If Papias did not recognise Lk. and Jn. as authorita-

tive, it would

likely that

probably

H E

24

it had been for some time taught

orally, and though traditions from it may have been in
use in Proconsular Asia--was not yet circulated in
writing, or, if circulated, not yet acknowledged as apos-
tolic, when Papias wrote his

Consequently

the date of the

Exposition becomes of great importance.

The

Date

of Papias’s Exposition.-There is

no

evi-

dence

of

importance bearing on it beyond

Eus. HE

.

62

mere variety? Or as indicating a shorter statement? or as
plyinganydoubt?

15

denote distinctions of historical certainty (see below, 80).

Lightfoot, who assumes that Papias must have said some-

thing about

thinks it probable that

the

torian writer borrowed from Papias ‘his contrast between

secondary evidence of Mk. and the primary evidence of Jn.

But,

in

that case, how is it that

was

t o

w h a t e v e r

was

s a i d

by ecclesiastical

about

books-whilst

what was said bv later writers.

omits what was said by the

of all?

This might be regarded as almost certain hut for one con-

sideration. Eusehius has a contempt for Papias.

Forced by

his antiquity to devote a great deal of space

him, he does it

with terms of disparagement, and (iii. 39
himself to what is indispensable

Want of space,

and contempt for his author, may have induced him to break the
promise he made just before, and to omit what Papias may have
said about Lk. and Jn. reserving it till he came to later ecclesi-

astical writers who

from Papias.

This is highly

improbable. Eusehius is a most careful and conscientious writer.
Though, for example, on one occasion he gives in his own words

a

tradition about Mk. at an early period in his history, and adds

I

j)

has quoted this story, and ,

.

.

Papias attests

it,’ this does not prevent him from giving the testimony of Papias
in full, in its chronological order.

1813

.

Was Papias

a

hearer of John

?

-Was Eusebius right in denying, or

in asserting, that Papias was

a hearer of John

Here, and in what follows, we must distinguish the statements

of Eusehius from his inferences. The former are almost always
accurate the latter are sometimes erroneous (though by giving
us the grounds for them he enables us to avoid

Even

the inferences of Eusebius are probably more trustworthy here
than the statements of

Now Eusebius rejects the

definite statement of the latter that Papias was a ‘hearer of
John,’

on the ground that Papias himself makes no such claim

in his preface, where he naturally, and almost inevitably, would
have made it, if he could. H e gives us the preface to speak for
itself.

H e adds facts and extracts from the work of Papias,

the whole of which was apparently before him. These convey
no indication that Papias ‘heard‘ John.

That

fluenced by the natural tendency of early Christian contro-
versialists to exaggerate the continuity of Christian tradition,

and by the fact that Papias lived in Polycarp’s time and reported

said-hastily declared Papias to be ‘a hearer of

John,

,

is more probable than that Eusehius, subsequently

reviewing all the evidence, was mistaken in denying it.

The probable conclusion

is that Papias was

not

a

hearer

of

John.‘

and 3. Was Papias ‘ a hearer of Aristion and of

John the elder’

?

And were they disciples

of

the

Lord

?

Eusehius affirms that Papias did hear them, and he gives

his reasons thus

:

H e (Papias) confesses that he has

received the words of the apostles on the
one hand from those who had followed

them ;

of Aristion

and of the Elder John he says he was him-

self a hearer.’ The context indicates that

Eusebius is drawing this inference merely from the ‘distinc-
tion” that Papias makes between the past and the present,-

‘

What

Andrew, etc.,

and the things that

r e )

Aristion and the Elder John say

though

the two last were still living so that Papias had probably
consulted them

.

and the

habitual conscientiousness

leads him

perhaps the slightness of his grounds) to

qualify his inference in the following sentence-‘At

events

making

mention

them by name in his

treatise he sets down their traditions.

H e does not add ‘and

Papias ’states that he received them from their own lips,’ and
he appears to have no evidence beyond what he himself puts

before us.

But the

of tense from ‘said’ to ‘say’ is

Aristion and

Origen,

2 13 ;

It

is equi-

Probably ‘taught from memory,’ or ‘repeated.’ See note

and 898

;

and Eus.

etc.

valent to Papias’s

above,

65,

n.

Papias

(I)

forth

the

Logia,

‘interpreted

then,, and

(3)

arranged

along with them

traditions.

4

These bracketed words are perhaps

to

be omitted.

See

See above,

65

n.

(3)

below.

he says that Luke

4 6 )

‘diligently followed

the

Paul).’ but shows the source of

.

.

.

.

. .

.

.

...

.

his error

13,

H e also

(cp

4 6

with

36

I

)

takes

(the word)

to

mean

(the Word). These are such errors as

the most honest

impartial historian might make.

This could be proved

a

collection of Irenaeus‘s mistakes.

And a comparison of the

remarks

m a d e

Eusehius

about other

writers with

silence

quoting

would indicate that, although he would by no

means

call the latter (as he calls Papias) ‘ a man of very little

understanding,’ he nevertheless thinks less highly of his power
of weighing evidence than of his (v. 20 3) orthodoxy and high
standard of carefulness in copying MSS.

7

Eus.

39

5

:

1814

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

(Lightf.

‘probably for the sake

of

variety

so

that .nothing can be inferred from it ; and the mere

that

Papias ‘sets, down their traditions’ and ‘mentions their names”

.by no means proves that he obtained his information from

from ‘those who had followed them.’

We conclnde that

( u )

Papias is not

to have

been, and that

(so

far, as we can judge from Eusebius’s

production, of inadequate, and omission of adequate,
evidence) he probably was not, a hearer of Aristion
and John the Elder..

3. Again, the

disciples,

the Lord’ can

.hardly have followed ‘Aristion, etc.,’ in the

used

by Eusebius., For he regards Arktion

a5

living ,at the

time when Papias wrote.,

But that ‘disciples of the

Lord’ should be living when Papias ‘was

his

investigations (Lightfoot;

150

n.

)

would involve a

chronological difficulty.

Eusehius would ‘probably have felt,

apparently

Papias as, born .too late to have. been a

‘hearer of

Moreover if Papias was

hearer of a n y

‘disciple of the Lord this

contradict the spirit of

inference that’ Papias drew his ‘information about the

apostles merely from their ‘pupils.’ Aristion

the Elder

John, if ‘disciples of the Lord,’ could not be called ‘pupils’

of

the apostles.. This internal evidence’ that Eusebius did not
find the words ‘disciples etc.’ after ‘Aristion etc.’ is
by

(I)

their absence

version,

the

of

in several Greek MSS, and of

by Rufinns,

the extreme harshness of

‘disciples of the Lord,

the repetition of ‘disciples of the Lord as though they were

fhree

and

(4)

ease

the

can be

a s an

.

Elders.’-It remains to

consider who are the Elders from whom

Papias obtained his information.

There is no evidence to show that apostles were called ‘Elders.’

Yet

Papias’s. words-seeming to amount to this, If pupils of

the Elders came,

I

used to ask about the

of

Elders

Andrew, Peter,

a t first sight, to

‘apostles’ with

Elders.

T h e truth appears to be that, in the days of Papias, the latter

title was given to

ordained by the

of the Lord.

The next

of Elders was not yet

called ‘the

but rather

of lor those who had

The

most

probable conclusions, then, are that

(

I

)

Papias was not

a bearer of John

( 2

and

3)

whether he

was, or was not,

a

hearer of

and the Elder John,

the two latter were not ‘disciples of the Lord’

( 4 )

the

Elders from whom

he obtained

his

information were

not apostles

but

Elders appointed by John or other

apostles

and he supplemented this by information

from their followers and successors.

5.

Papias’s list of the apostles.-Why does Papias

mention, as the

about

he made investigations, Andrew, Peter,
Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew?

and whv in this order

An answer is

gested by the context in the extract quoted above

Note that in the same sentence

is varied with

So

Eusebius (quoted above, 66) varies

with

where there

is

hut

a

shade of difference in meaning.

Eusehius might naturally

that Papias-who tells

that he regularly cross-examined any who could tell him ‘what

said’-would have questioned John himself had he

alive and accessible to questioning. Denying that he

a

‘hearer,’ he probably implies that he was too late to be one.

3

See

4th

3

245.

Papias. probably wrote

‘the

of the Lord

. . .

and Aristion and John

disciples.

‘Their

(in

.was

changed into

and

replaced by

(For the frequency of

etc., confused with

see Otto on. Justin,

p.

Prof. W. E

Bacon has suggested that

was corrupted into

before the time of Ensehius, This is very likely; cp

4

24

B

but

A

This

of Elders is confirmed by the following

in passages where he is probably

(Lightf.

SR

quoting) the substance, if not the very words,

of Papias, speaks of the, doctrine as that o f , (v. 5

I

3F

the

Elders, the

the

33

‘the Elders who

have

If these are the words

of

Papias, the

that he uses ‘Elders’ there to mean
makes it probable that

it in the same sense here, and

that they represented

“Most people,’ says Papias, took pleasure in

the books he may have, included

treatises,

that of Basilides ‘but

hot

exclude

Christian apocrypha and disputed books, and various

For example, though

had made

of the

Logia, it was variously ‘interpreted ; and this affords a very good

reason for the desire of Papias to ascertain ‘what Matthew said,’
in order

to

throw light on what Matthew

or was supposed

have written. Again the

E

istle of James

Eusebius

25)

not as

as

‘disputed,’ was probably

the days of Papias and we can understand that its

existence may well have caused him to add his name to thq
apostolic list:
in whose name a gospel

perhaps

‘his behalf

Ephesus

his last years) may

been recently

as a tradition

and this ‘would

not only for

the inclusion of

but also for its position between

that of James and Matthew. Apocryphal works were, early
current

names

(Eus.

25)

‘Andrew, Peter (whom

Papias himself mentions as the originator of Mk.), and Thomas

as,

Matthias). The inclusion of Philip (whose

Eusebius does

mention) may be explained

by his having

in Hierapolis, where Papias was

As regards Aristion, Ensebins

39

us

that Papias

inserted some of

‘accounts

of the words of

the Lord

and there is some slight

for regarding him as

author of

At

the fact that he wrote

of

of the Lord

not found in Mk.

or Mt., or else why should Eusehius
would make it desirable to ascertain what Aristion was in the
habit of ‘saying.’, Lastly the two disputed Epistles of .John
(the Second a n d Third)&

by ‘the Elder,’ and may

have been naturally

to the Elder John.

And Papias

iii. 39

from the First

may on this as well as on other

hare made

the

of

the Elder a

subject of investigation.

,

versions of

books.

Between ‘Matthew’ and ‘.James’ comes ‘John

Thus, though

may be,

.probably are, other

causes, ‘unknown to

us,,

for Papias’s selection

a n d

drift of evidence,, external and

indicates,

as one ,important cause, the

arising from

‘Christian literatore, and

the special importance of

had been

between

‘oral tradition,’ and

‘written narrative’), and

(a)

(not

or

and

.and

all imply that though the narrative had been

related

them; Papias did

it

them, but from

others who handed

down and warranted its genuineness.

This has an important hearing on

date of Papias. The

words

following on

. .

most naturally mean that

Philip and his daughters

a t

was

same (people).’ (They can hardly mean

‘that Papias was ‘born

the time

the same

his

We are .not to infer that Papias

mentioned John, or any one as the author. Had he

so,

would probably have said, as he does

(Eus.

v. 8

He

also’

the

Epistle

John,

quotations from it and likewise from

the First of Peter.

From (

I

)

this

and

the early

custom ofquoting without names, we may reasonably infer that
Papias did

not

‘mention’ John’s Epistle. It is shown elsewhere

(see

JOHN,

E

PI

ST

L

E

S O

F

)

that some so-called quotations from the

First Epistle are probably mere quotations from floating Johan-
nine traditions.

Why does

was

not bound to tell

of

quotations from canonical books-take up space

telling us

that Papias quoted from (ni.

‘the

Epistle of John’?

The answer

is

to be found partly

in

completion of

Eusebins’s sentence and from that of Peter likewise

partly

in, the similar statement ahout

87)

Irenreus.

It

I

S

simply

a

quiet way of saying

‘You

see Papias and Irenreus do not

quote from the

and Third Epistles of John, nor from

the Second Epistle of Peter.’ These were

works’ and

is

against them the

front

silence.

Cp with this the

leading part assigned to Andrew by the Muratorian Fragment
(see below, 78) in originating the Fourth Gospel.

1816

3

For example, he places Andrew first.

other Gospel) Papias is silent, and we conclude that he
knew neither, or ranked neither with Mk. or Mt.

But

the date at which he was investigating and writing
(about

A.

D

.)

and his quotations from

I

Jn

(which was certainly written by the same hand as the
Gospel) combine

to

it probable that

must have

been known to him, at least

parts, as a tradition.

W e are led to conclude that he was writing at the time
when Jn. was attaining, but had

yet attained,

recognition as an apostolic Gospel

There were also current (as Lk. tells

us), ‘many

narratives of Christ’s life, and (as Papias says) many
diffuse writings, possibly including Gnostic gospels, and
so called Apostolic Acts, Revelations, and Epistles.
These appear to have prejudiced Papias against books,’
and to have

him to go back as near as possible

to the fountain-head.

His attitude is

so

well described

by the following words

of

Irenaeus that we can imagine

Papias himself using them

:

(Iren.

v. 20

) All these

(heretics) are of much later date than the

to

the

apostles

the

churches

.

. .

Those

who desert the teaching of the Church impugn the
knowledge of

the

holy

Elders.’ To these

then, or

‘holy

to

by

the

made it his first object to go

But

we learn from Clement of Rome (ch.

44) that, as early as

95

A.

some of

the

Elders

appointed

by the

and even some of those ‘(appointed) in the next
generation

by men of note,’ had died

It is

improbable that John, during his last years of disability,
appointed any Elders and it is reasonable to suppose
that by

A

.D.

most of the Johannine Elders would

have passed away.

Hence, though Papias did his

best to obtain information from them, he was glad

to

glean what he could from the

those

who had

followed

them’), his question to an Elder’s

pupil always being, ‘What said John (or

or that

Disciple of the Lord) by

the Elder (whom you

followed

” ) was appointed?’ In particular, having

regard to the apocryphal literature circulated in the
names of Andrew, Peter, Thomas, to the traditions
current in Hierapolis about Philip, and to the better
attested but

literature circulated in the

of James and John, to the great diversity of the inter-
pretations

’

of the Logia compiled by Matthew, and to the

objections brought against Peter’s teaching

as recorded

by Mark-he made these Disciples of the Lord the
special object of his investigations

It

of course,

possible, that Jn may have been

as

canonical

other churches

it was acknowledged

supposition

that

the early and familiar recognition

of

an ‘interpreter’ as a natural companion of

apostle. In the

(Eus.

393)

‘interpretations‘ that Papias inserted in

Ex-

position,

he may have included his own or other Greek

as

well as explanations, of the Logia. From

and from Ign.

we see

how large a part of apostolic and presbyteric teaching would

consist of ‘interpretations’ of O T

a

Christian sense, and these

might sometimes be ‘interpreted’ from the Hebrew. Soon,
however, the word would he confined

to

‘

explaining, obscurities in the Greek Logia. For the

thus

used, see Orig.

58, and quotations from Irenaeus given

by those disciples of the Lord

were reported,

truly or falsely, to have left

writings also.

6. Papias’s relation to

this point,

bius affords the following indirect evidence.

H e first

Polycarpas

the

to

the bishopric

Smyrna

the

eye-witnesses and ministers

of

the

time

flourished Papias (he,

too,

relation

of Hierapolis) and the world-famed

Ignatius,’ second

in succession,

to

Peter in the bishopric of

Then he

4-15)

describes the Epistles’of Ignatius

and Polycarp. Next he mentions

37

I

)

Quadratus and the.

daughters

as

being among those who ‘occupied the

first rank in the

to the apostles adding that

has

confined his mention of these

such as have left

extant records of apostolic teaching.

Then after

going back

to

Clement of Rome to protest

spurious

works attributed

he continues

I

have (already).

mentioned the

of Ignatius and

:

of Papias five,

hooks are extant

.

and he deals

his works

detail, denying t h k

a “ hearer’ of the apostle‘s, which

i s

equivalent to denying that he was

of those

the first rank

in the succession to the apostles.

‘Some time after this, (iv.

comes Polycarp’s

to Rome and martyrdom.

All

this harmonises with the supposition that Papias was so much
younger than, Ignatius

that he could not be

reckoned

in their

‘

rank of succession but that

was’

obliged to

t his name

theirs

account of the import-

ance of his

‘

records,’ which

compiled

death

of

the aged Polycarp.

His

habit’of speaking (in his

Exposition)

in the name of ‘the Elders that have seen John’ may have led

to the

that Papias was

‘a

of

John and companion’of Polycarp.,’,

Evidence

Reviewing the evidence, ‘we are led to the ,following.

negative and

positive conclusions.

Papias was not

a [bearer of John,’

nor

a companion

nor

did he

any disciple of the Lord.

He was not in

the same rank of succession as

and Philip’s

daughters. Thedaughtersdwelt in Papias’snative city and
died (Lightfoot,

about

A

D

.

Papias

records

narrative handed down

them but

(apparently) as coming

them. These facts

suggest for Papias’s birth a date about

85

D.

When he

reached early manhood

A.

D

.

) the last of the apostles,

if

living, was probablyincapacitated by old age for

teaching. The Johannine Gospel, though preached orally
a t Ephesus, was not yet published. Being probably

SR

of

Pagan origin, and (Eus.

given

to

literalise Jewish metaphor, Papias may have

been perplexed by a comparison of Hebrew with Greek

interpretations

of Christian traditions.

He found

current the Commandments (Eus.

3 9 3 )

‘given from

the Lord .to the ,Faith’ but he desired to add to these

from the doctrine of the apostles, as repeated by

the Elders whom they had appointed, and by the,
successors of those Elders.

H e also mentions

(

I

) the,

teaching of the apostle Peter, first repeated,‘ and then.

written,’ by his interpreter’ Mark, including the Acts

well as the Words of Jesus, and making no attempt

at classifying the Lords Oracles

a compilation

by the apostle Matthew, in Hebrew, of ‘the Lord’s
Oracles certainly including Christ’s discourses and
probably giving some account of Christ’s life. But this,
instead of being circulated in Greek (as Peter’s teaching
had been) by one authoritative interpreter,’ had received
many

About Lk. or Jn. (or any

Polycarp and Ignatius have phrases that suggest the

authority of antiquity. Papias has none. Several

MSS,

very

naturally, interpolate a compliment to Papias’s learning.

I f we may judge from the order of the extracts, Papias

This

i s

slightly confirmed by the fact

that in the former extract Papias uses the longer title

in the latter, the shorter

natural abbreviation

when one repeats a title a second time.

3

The ‘interpreter’

on

and

on

I

Cor. 1427) was the recognised attendant of the reader and

teacher

the Jewish schools. When a Jewish apostle

the

author of the Apocalypse which is composed

most barbarous

Greek) preached, or

t o

Greek congregations, an ‘inter-

preter’ may often have been in request. W e have seen that

Mark was called the ‘interpreter’ of Peter.

It was an early

belief

38)

that Luke or Clement of Rome ‘interpreted’

the Epistle to the Hebrews from Paul’s Hebrew

into Greek-a

59

1817

above

n.

The hesitation, of

to

accept Jn. may have been

all

the greater because (if we accept the theory that
his fifth book is quoting Papias in support of

he

appears

to

have accepted the Apocalypse as John’s on

authority of (Iren. v. 301) ‘those who saw John face to face,
and

to have

to

John in support of

very materialistic views of the Millennium. A historian who
believed (with

that

the Apocalypse was written

the

aged apostle about 96

A

.D.

might well hesitate

t o

receive a work

published, as coming from the same pen, a few years afterwards,
yet differing from the former in language so completely as almost
to he in another dialect,

also

absolutely differing from

Mk.

and from the ‘interpreters of

Mt.’

in its representation of the

Words of the Lord.

The teaching (Iren.

the vines each with

branches,

ascribed to the Lord by the elders who saw John

according

helps us to understand how even Papias

Ens.)

might feel unable

t o

believe that

the expositor

of

this teaching was the author of the Fourth

Gospel.

1818

GOSPELS

in Hierapolis

but,

so

far

as

Papias guides

us,

led

to

the conclusion that, in

A . D . ,

Lk. a n d

Jn. were not yet acknowledged a s o n

a

level with

a n d M t . , by the first Christian historian who gives

us

a n y account

of

the Gospels.

iii. J

U S T I N

M

A R T Y R

. - Justin M a r t y r (Lightfoot,

BE

87,

A

.D.),

whilst quoting the

Gospels under various titles, makes s o m e

incidental but very important statements about their
composition.

,

( a )

Justin’s

titles

the

Gospels

a r e adapted

to

his

readers. I n the

Apology

addressed

he generally

uses the term, ‘Memoirs

the Apostles

but in the Dialogue

with the Jew, Trypho he gradually subordinates Memoirs and

at

last resorts to the jewish authoritative form ‘it is

Like Lk. and Jn. (and perhaps Papias),

in a less

degree, he avoids the term

In the Dialogue, it is

Trypho, not Justin, who first

it

IO

,

‘the so-

called

Gospel,

Justin, replying, calls it

the

‘teaching

by our Saviour.’ I n

I

Apol.

he does not use the word till toward the close, and then seem-
ingly as a concession to popular language

‘

Memoirs

.

.

.

which are

called

Gospels. The Memoirs

(apart from ‘Gospels’) he generally quotes for the

facts

of

Christ’s life ; but

sayings

are also quoted from them, twice from

Mt., and twice from Lk. (One of the latter

agrees

with

D.)

Christ’s words, when introduced by ‘he

said,

always agree with Mt. they are called

when Jesus is predicting his sufferings, but

18)

when denunciatory and when coupled with prophetic

utterances.

‘

Teachings

from Christ himself’

(I

Apol.

refer to chastity and Christian love, and are from

Mt. and

Lk. ;

I

53

speaks of Gentiles, ‘men of everyrace

persuaded by the

Teaching

tliat came from

apostles.’ This quotation (as well as

Tryph.

and

IO

cp also

35)

indicates

moral

precepts, such as are in the

and

the Logia of Behnesa.

But

I

Apol.

33, quoting Lk. with a

clause from Mt., and describing the authors of the Memoirs as
having ‘taught’ the Annunciation and

Apol.

66, stating that

those who are to receive the

first accept ‘what

is

taught

by us,’ indicate a catechetical ‘teaching’ of facts,

different from the

Moreover, in

2

8

‘what

Christ taught’ or Christ’s ‘Teachings

refer partly

to his predictions, partly to the punishment of the wicked in
fire. Crescens is charged with

not having ‘read’ them,

so

that they must have been a hook, or part of one.

Indications

o f

as a

Gospel.-In

a

few

instances Justin appeals, as it ‘were beyond

76.

His

Lk.,

the Memoirs, to those who composdd them;
or

else he introduces a personal quasi-protest

of

authenticity,

‘ I

assert,’

‘ I

have learned,’ etc.

(i.)

I

33

‘ A s those who recorded

all things

our Saviour Jesus Christ have taught,’

intro-

duces

Annunciation to the Virgin (with a clause taken

I

Apol. 66 ‘For

the apostles,

the Memoirs

by them,’ which are called Gospels,

delivered

that Jesus had thus ordained6 to them ‘introduces

in a condensed form,

of the

of

Eucharist, including the words, D o this in remembrance of
m e ’ not found in Mk. or Mt., and regarded

W H as

an ’interpolation from

I

Cor. 11

;

88,

fire was

in the Jordan.

.

and

.

. .

that

The

Shepherd

of Hermas is quoted once as

‘

Scripture by

Irenaens and frequently as a divine revelation by
Yet the

Fragment decides that it is not to be read

in the churches.

Now the

and the Muratorian

Fragment probably both originate from Rome, and the
torian writer shows familiarity with the authorship and recent
date of the book. The more distant Fathers, Irenaens and

accept

i t ; the author, who writes on the spot,

rejects

Similarly we shall find Justin Martyr in the middle

of the second century making Ephesus the scene of a
-and speaking of John as

‘a

man among us

( r a p

abstaining in a marked nianner from quoting Jn.,

while freely quoting the Synoptists and occasionally using
Johannine traditions.

These he regards, not as Memoirs

the apostles and

their doctrine, hut as Memoirs about Christ composed by the

apostles

(

I

33

quoted in

I

63 (‘Jesus

. . .

himself

said’)

with

in

(‘it

in the Gospel

that he said ’).

Whenever

is

mentioned, the

is

in

(which Justin may prefer to

as being the

Gospel best known to the Jew Trypho).

4

Tryph.

35,

and

I

Apol.

‘the

prayer of the word that was from Christ’ over the Eucharist.

These

(Tryph.

are from Mt., supplemented hy

Lk. (as in D ) in such a way as

suggest that Justin used a

rough harmony of Mt. and Lk., or a correction of the former by
the latter.

middle; cp

and 40,

7

The rhythm

demands

Ephraem (43) comments

See note above, 65.

1819

GOSPELS

the Holy Spirit

as

a

hovered on him

has

written

his apostles

(the apostles I mean), of this our Christ

if the text were

correct, would exhibit Justin stating a non -canonical event
(the ‘fire’) as a fact on his own authority and the canonical
event

a5

on the authority of the ‘apostles’

(iv.)

Tryph.

For in the Memoirs which

assert

have

his apostles

and

who followed

them,’

introduces ‘it is written that sweat

as

were drons. streamed down from him while

passage found’

some MSS of Lk.

but

W H as not genuine3 (and found in no other Gospel);

(v.)

‘As

we have learned

through the Memoirs,‘

anies the words

a

man through the Virgin (from

combined w t h

and is followed by

(vi.)

‘as

also from the Memoirs

we

have learned this

too intro-

ducing an utterance of Christ on the Cross peculiar

2346.

All these passages reveal Justin a s quoting with

a

special emphasis

a

later version

of

L k . , in-

cluding interpolated passages- as though protesting t h a t
L k .

is

on

a

level with the Memoirs, a n d

was

composed

by

have

seen

1814.

n.

that.

in

is the

,

.

regular word for

a

pupil a n d successor.’

Now Eusebius

4

6)

misunderstands

( L k .

‘memoirs.’

m e a n i n g t h a t L u k e h a d been

a

‘pupil

of

a l l

(the

a n d Justin might

do

the same.

This enables

us

to answer

the question,

How

(in Justin’s opinion) was L u k e taught

the

Miraculous Conception

?

Justin’s view is that Christ

(

I

Apol.

67

a n d c p

after

his

resurrection,

‘ a p p e a r e d t o his apostles a n d disciples a n d taught

t h e m ’ everything relating t o himself

3 t o

the

K i n g d o m of

T h i s teaching’ would, therefore,

apply

( I

Apol,

33)

t o the Nativity a n d other mysteries,

as

well

as

t o m o r a l precepts, a n d Luke,

as

being

‘ a

pupil

of

all the apostles,’ would receive it.

As regards

the form

of

transmission, Justin begins with a n a m b i g u -

ous expression

(I

Apol.

which

m a y m e a n

(

I

)

‘remembered,’ o r

’repeated from

memory.’ Adopting the latter meaning, he uses it, not
(as‘ Papias

did) of

the successors of the apostles, but of

the apostles themselves.

he gradually inclines,

a n d finally commits himself, t o the theory that this

repetition was not oral merely, but also in writing.

H e n c e he allows himself to say ‘ t h e

apostles

wrote,’

on the ‘fire’ as part of the story. Both here and in

103

Justin has This day have

I

begotten thee (as

D

in Lk. 3

he had a text differing from

which

very well have included, the ‘fire’ as ‘written by the apostles,
equally with the

The reading, ‘this day,’ etc., is now

found only in some versions of Lk.,

in

103

Justin

follows

(not

order in the Temptation.

Some have inferred that, in

apostles

must include

‘John,’ because

by including

and

can the plural

be justified. Such an argument ignores

a passage

also

Justin

to

neither

in

In

and

left a loop-hole for supposing

that the apostles might not have

written

but

simply

taught

them. But

Justin commits himself

to

the

statement that they ‘ w r o t e .

(see that and kindred words used by Justin

[

I

26

63

Apol.

I

to mean ‘the

of

a

the very

act disclaimed

and

Mark

Remembering that this ‘assertion

of Justin’s is preceded (a few lines before) by ‘the Memoirs

the

(mentioning the words, ‘This day have

I

begotten thee,’ found now only in a

of Lk.), we are led to

infer that he is protesting against the statement of Papias or
against similar statements made

others. Justin says, in

effect ‘The apostles

write

books,’ and then half

himself: Or, at all events,

fhey and

wrote

them.’

3

The interpolated Lk.

‘drops

4

Lk.’

course means the third Gospel as

have

it.’

The author need not be, and probably is not

the beloved

physician,’ the companion of Paul. The

the Preface

of the Gospel may

revised, re-edited, or re-written it,

and may he a different person from the Pauline Luke.

Thesewords

come

a t

conclusion

of

the Apology,

before Justin’s first

appeal to the Romans to accept the Faith and they show that

the

the Christian Faith,

which Christ,

after his resurrection, was supposed to have taught to the
apostles, and which Justin has set before the Romans in his
treatise.

has it somewhat differently

1820

GOSPEL8

GOSPELS

though he uses but

one strictly apostolic Gospel (that of

Mt.

Having these views about the apostolic

consensus

of the Memoirs, and having a preference for

record of the Nativity and the Passion, Justin may

naturally have recoiled from

as being a new work,

breaking this

both

style and thought, and

especially nnfavourable to the authority of Lk.

iv.

F

RAGMENT

.

-

Muratorian

thus-

.

.

tamen

et ita

Tertium

secundum

Lucan.

.

.

The six words ap-

parently referring to Mk. (on which supposition
there is nothing extant about Mt.) appear to mean
that Mark was present at only some of Peter’s

Luke’s disadvantages are dwelt on

:

it was

not till after the Ascension that Paul took him as

a

companion he ‘compiled in his own name, on [his
own] judgment,

he had not seen the

Lord in the flesh’ he [set down facts] as far as he
could ascertain them.’ On the other hand, the Fourth
Gospel was written by John, (one) of the disciples,’ at
the exhortation of his fellow-disciples and his bishops.’
After a three days’ fast ‘ i t was revealed to Andrew,

ii.

‘To

John

Peter was the

delivered

by the Lord after

tion. These delivered it to the rest of the apostles, and the
rest to the Seventy.

Does Justin recognise Mk. as a distinct Gospel? see Tryph.

1 0 6 ,

(Mk. 3.17

alone). Here

Qv

would mean (we set aside the in-

terpretation

‘

Memoirs of Jesus ’) ‘Peter‘s Memoirs

’

indicating

(

I

)

either that Justin accepted Mk. as,

by

Peter, or

that he here, inconsistently, would render the

phrase, Memoirs about Peter.’ (But

70

is re-

peatedly confounded with

The passage is either tediously lengthy, or it distinguishes

between what Christ said and what he

‘ H e said that he

changed Peter’s name’

this is in Mt.

and nowhere

else.

‘It is

the Memoirs [that he changed the

name]’

;

the triple tradition

3

Mt. 10 Lk.

G

This distinction would indicate that Justin was here quoting

the

Memoirs of Peter

Mk.) in support of the Logia of Mt.

(a view somewhat confirmed by the fact that, when Justin intro-
duces quotations with ‘(Jesus) says he quotes from Mt.).

This would indicate that

wrote after Peter’s death.

Otherwise Peter could have supplied him with the substance of
the discourses a t which

latter was not present.

Papias also

implies that Mark could not correct what he had
reference to Peter.

says

1

I

)

that Mark wrote after

the ‘decease

of Peter (but see 79).

3

‘Nomine

ex

conscripsit. Dominum tamen

ipse

in

E x

express an original

‘from hearing,’ not ‘from sight.

(See Westc.

Canon

Lightf.

But, in that case, should we

expect) ‘enim’ instead of

H e wrote not as an

had not seen the Lord’?

a

Gospel ‘in

one’s own name’ was

innovation. Luke did it

[his

(ex

1 3

‘it seemed good to

m e .

How objectionable this may have seemed to some, is

shown by the

(Lk. 1 3 codex

et

e t

(sic)

The Muratorian writer contrasts this later

the origin of the Fourth Gospel, which the Evangelist

wrote down‘

not ‘conscripsit

wrote from

knowledge, not from

his own name as

the

a divine

‘revelatum

.

. .

u t

. . .

Iohannes

cuncta describeret.’ If this explanation is correct

may have dropped after ‘suo’ (‘Nomine suo sua

or

‘opinio may

used absolutely meaning

notion.

would imply a contrast between the bold-

ness of Luke’s innovation and the limitations of

Andrew is hare called an

Jphn

a

‘disciple.’

Papias calls ‘Andrew, Peter,’ etc., disciples.

The

identifying

‘apostles’ with ‘prophets,’ and specifying

rules for them, which if broken, stamp an ‘apostle’ as a ‘false

prophet ’-suggests a

and place in which an ‘apostle’ was

little more than a

It became a tradition to call

John

disciple’ (as Paul is peculiarly

apostle’).

crates of Ephesus, a t the close of the

cent., after mentioning

(Eus.

Philip

was of the Twelve

goes on

to

speak of

‘

John, who lay on the bosom of the Lord without

any mention of apostleship. This may he

by (

I

)

uncertainty whether John (like Nathanael) was one of the Twelve,,

a feeling that

was a higher title than ‘apostle

or (3) a desire to describe the author of the Gospel as he
scribed himself;

and (3) are the most probable;

1821

(one)

of the apostles, that, whilst all

John

should write all things in his own name.’

The writer admits that ‘different catholic truths

are taught’ in the Four Gospels ; but he protests

there

‘one Catholic Spirit

ac

dictating the facts of

Nativity Passion Resurrection,

intercourse of the Lord with the

and

two Advents

‘What wonder then if John so persistently

sets

forth each point in his

saying with reference to himself,

“What we have seen with our eyes and heard-with (our)

and our hands

these things we have written?

For thus he professes himself to be not only a seer but also a

nay and a writer (too) of all the wonderful works of the

Lord in order

( p e r

ordinem).’ I n these words the writer meets

objections probably urged against the Fourth Gospel. Though
differing in facts and style from the Synoptists, it was pervaded,
he says, by the same ‘one Catholic Spirit.’

written

name of’ John, it had been revised and attested by the

Disciples a n d Elders a t Ephesus and this

a

special

so that

it

be said to come direct from

Christ, and to represent, even better than the earliest Gospels,
his exact teaching.

This theory of special inspiration was well calculated

to facilitate the diffusion of

a Gospel that seemed t o

supply just those things that were wanting in the
Synoptists :-a certainty not to be found in the various
interpretations of Mt.,

a fulness of

to which

Mk. did not pretend, and-in contrast with

authority of a disciple, an eye-witness, and ear-witness,
who also wrote in order.’

.

v.

(about

185

A

.

D . )

emphasises the

unity of the Gospel as coming

11)

from inspired

apostles (who first preached it and then

‘handed it down

to

us

in

Scriptures

’),

but touches also on thesubject of distinctive

authorship.

H e omits the various interpretations

of

Mt. mentioned by Papias, and the disadvantages of Lk.
mentioned by the Muratorian writer. Mark is ‘the

disciple and interpreter of Peter

Luke the companion

of Paul

:

thus he implies that their gospels

were, in effect, apostolic.

H e places Mt. before Mk. as the

Fragment

appears to have done. Jn. is placed after

thus

:

‘Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also

lay on his breast, he too published the Gospel

e.)

while living in Ephesus

of Asia.’ Else-

where (iii.

he says that John directed his Gospel

against Cerinthus and the

Matthew, he says

1

I

).

published his Gospel in Hebrew while Peter

Paul in Rome were preaching and founding the

Church’ : after their

decease (or departure,

but Lat.

death’),’ Mark (is known to have)

handed down (perf.

in writing what Peter

was in the habit of preaching

Luke

‘

set

down

in a book what Paul was in the habit

of preaching

(

Lightf.

S R

189,

the word

represents

read,

‘

Had the

original been

or

we should expect

or

Our writer has in view Ezek. 15-12,

the ‘four living creatures’

Gospels) dominated

one

world-wide or catholic

‘spirit.’

develops this but hardly improves

there are

118)

‘four zones’

winds

spiritus,

capable of

meaning

catholic spirits”),’ so there must be

Gospels

to

the lion (John), ox (Luke), man (Matthew)

eagle

in Rev.

47.

Irenreus seems to have felt bound

keep the order

of Rev. and yet to place John first but the

result is so strained that Jerome carried posterity with him
assigning

eagle to John and the lion to Mark.

3

used of a single letter (see Lightf.

SR

a very free quotation from

I

Jn.

not merely one of the exoteric spectators of the mighty

works of Jesus, h u t one of those privileged to

or ‘hear

from (cp the Talmudic ‘receive from’)

to

be a

disciple, and a transmitter of tradition.

‘Seer’

might

not imply admission to the inner circle which ’was taught b y
Christ, according to Mk.,

his life, and, according to

Justin and

(see 77

after his Resurrection.

Why does not the writer

that

too,

wrote ‘in

(chronological) order

Does he imply that Luke had

failed?

There is no early testimony to any simultaneous presence of

the two apostles in Rome except a t the time of their martyrdom
(see Eus.

258,

quoting Dionysius of Corinth,

This

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

vi.

of

Alexandria

(circa

gives

(Eus.

a tradition of the earliest

elders

that

‘those portions of the Gospels which

contain the genealogies

were written first.’

Clement adds a tradition about Mk. apparently on the

authority of the same Elders,

that

‘publicly

preached the word in Rome and uttered

the Gospel

in the spirit

his numerous hearers besought

write out what the apostle had said ;

and that Peter,

i o

. . .

of this. neither hindered nor

stimulated him?

.

Eusebius. however. earlier

his

two other tradi-

Peter’s hearers. Then he adds (6)

‘But

they

say

that the apostle, learning the accomplishment
from a revelation

the Spirit, was pleased with their

sanctioned the work for reading in

for) the churches :-

Clement in

his

has

quoted

the

history

and his account is confirmed also

the

of

called Papias-and further, that Peter

.

. .

Now

is not in Clement’s or Papias’s account and

differs from the spirit of

Perhaps Eusebius, while dis-

tinguishing fact from doubtful tradition (‘they say’), has

inserted a parenthesis, corrective of the latter,

to

the effect that

h a s

and true] history,’ and that

Clement’s view (namely, that Peter

was

merely the origin, but

mot

the suggester, supervisor or authoriser of the work) was

supported

substance

If so Eusebius instead of

committing himself to the view that

Mk., pre-

pares the reader for finding it contradicted

Concerning

Clement says that

(Eus. vi.

‘John, last of all, reflecting that

earthly aspect

had been set forth in the Gospels, at the

instigation of his pupils

by

a

special

of

s p i r i t

composed

a spiritual gospel.’

M

T

.

for Mark

he was not

in

OF

THE

E

VIDENCE

AS

T O

M

K

.

AND

The

Fragment

appears to be apologetic

he was

onlv at some discourses

Both imply that ‘Peter was dead. when

wrote,

that the latter could not have the apostle’s supervision.

Irenaeus, though stating ‘that Mark wrote after Peter’s

departure (which probably meant death

’), gives no

indication that he did’ not adequately represent the

apostle;. and it i s doubtful whether he did not mis-

interpret the word

departure.’

Clement says that

Peter lived to know what had been done by Mark, yet

s o

far retains the apologetic

as

to add that Peter neither

hindered nor incited the composition. Another tradition
(apparently later) says that Peter was informed by the

Spirit

of

the accomplishment of the book, and authorised

favours the rendering ‘decease’ for

which has this meaning

i n Philo 2 388 Lk.

Pet.

v. 136 (Letter

the

Yet the inference from Acts2830 (referred to in Iren.

would be that

I

)

‘the former

composed while Paul was living. Perhaps Irenaeus may be

setting down an old tradition correctly which he and subsequent

to

mean ‘departure (from Rome)’-inter-

preted

in its literary sense, means (not ‘include‘ hut)

‘contain as

‘have as their contents :

Diod. Sic.

1 4

‘have

their contents);

cp Eus.

24

The common phrase

etc.

Macc. 15

Macc. 11

means

‘

was

substance as follows.’ C p Hippol.

‘(my)

its

“On, the essence of the All.”’

Hence,

meant a section

and the meaning here is,

‘

the sections t h a t

have the genealogies as their contents.’ To place Lk. before
Mk. would be inconsistent with all early tradition.

The tradition that Peter ‘knew‘ of the composition of the

Gospel ‘through the Spirit

probably arose

from Clement’s

confused with

See

The Muratorian fragment describes a ‘revelation’

to

those

who urged John to write; Clement, a

impulse’ given

t o

ohn himself.

regards Mt. there

practically no evidence (under the

head of Statements beyond that which

been quoted above

from Papias

65).

5

See above, $65.

1823

for public use.

Lastly Origen, unsurpassed by early

Christian writers for honesty and intellect, says
25

from tradition that Mark wrote

as

P e t e r

rug-

(&

a.

The investigation

may stop here. Later writers have

n o

further evidence,

and can but exemplify the tendency

of

tradition, even

among honest and able men, to exaggerate or to mini-

in the

interests of a good cause.

viii.

S

UMMARY O

F

E

VIDENCE

AS

TO

AND

Papias

Mk. and

Mt. as

did

not thus recognise Lk.

or

Jn., though

traditions

on

were

known to him.

Justin Martyr

regarding

the Synoptic Gospels as Memoirs written by the apostles
from the teaching

of

Christ, and showing

a preference

for Lk. (in an interpolated form), affords no trace of

a

recognition

Gospel like Jn. outside the stream of

the

( 3 ) The Muratorian fragment

(? 170

A.

D

.),

welcoming the Fourth Gospel

as supplying the

deficiencies of the Three, meets any objection that might
be raised against

divergence

the Synoptists

( a )

by an account of a special revelation to

in

accordance with which this Gospel was written in a kind
of joint authorship, though in John’s name, and

by

a

protest that the

Four Gospels are animated by

Spirit.

,

(4)

has no trace of the theory of

revision or joint authorship

of

Jn.

H e compares the

four Gospels with the four winds or the four living

creatures of prophecy,

as

being divinely. ordained in

number.

Clement

no mention

of

a revela-

tion’ to Andrew or to any other of John’s friends, but
says that John himself received

a

‘divine impulse’ to

write the

From the time of Irenaeus the

Gospel met with almost universal acceptance.‘

This may have been a misunderstanding

such ex-

pression as

accordance with Peter’s teaching.

But Origen’s

words

mean the latter.

For alleged quotations of Justin from Jn. see

3

Traces of the tradition in this form are retained by

philus

and Tatian (see

Eusebius

after recording

an anonymous tradition (‘they say,’

‘he says’) that John supplemented the Synoptists by request of

friends says expressly in his own person (cp

24

and

‘us’

16

that John “began his theology

from the beginning, since that had been reserved f o r

him

by

Spirit

owing to his superiority

[ t o

the other evangelists].’

appears to be the Eusebian way of expressing

a word that might seem to him to savour of Montanism.

An important exception has been recently brought to light.

See Rendel Harris.

Hermas in

Cambridee.

43-57.

Eusebius

extracts from a Dialogue

Montanist) written by Gaius

25

6

‘an orthodox writer

vi.

20

3

‘

of very great learning

who wrote during the bishopric of Zephyrinus

A

.D.),

and whom passages from his writings indicate as resident in or
near Rome. In one of these extracts, Gaius attacks

28

the notion

of

an earthly

of Christ after the Resurrection,

as well as the notion of

and ‘wedding festivities‘ i n ’

Jerusalem, all of which e attributes

t o

Cerinthus. Such an

attack, even if it assailed the Johannine Apocalypse, would

Now Ebed-Jesu, a t the

of the fourteenth century, recorded

Hippolytus

wrote a treatise called Heads against Gaius, and Dionysius
Bar Salibi quotes from this treatise (along with replies from
Hippolytus) objections raised by Gaius not only to the Apo-

calypse,

but also

t o

the

Gospel. An inscription on the

chair of Hippolytus

shows that this bishop had before

that date written a treatise ‘ I n defence of

the

Gospel according

John and

the

and it is argued with great force

that this treatise, or an epitome of it, was the ‘Heads against
Gaius.’

Eusebius.

vi.

the

robahly commend him to Eusebius.

(seven or

in number)

had

into hi5

not

include the ‘Defence of the Gospel of John, and

calypse’; and it is possible that his ‘Heads against Gaius

attacked some other- work of Gaius unknown

to

Eusebius

not the Dialogue against Proclus. But the fact seems
a

fact so strange that learned critics have described it

‘im-

possible’-

that a

of

the

Roman

by

Eusebius as

a n d orthodox,’ attacked the

Fourth

at

the beginning of

third century.

The almost

complete

of his book and of his literary

so

complete that Bishop Lightfoot, till recently, maintained that

he was a fictitious character in the Dialogue against Proclus
which (he affirmed) was written by Hippolytus-shows
difficult

it is

modern critics to

that at, and shortly

1824

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

Q

UOTATIONS

.

quotes nothing that

is found in

Gospels (Lk.

22, part of

19 and 20 being set aside as an

interpolation) except the saying about
(

I

Tim. 5

the labourer worthy of

his

hire’

(cp

Mt.

‘food,’ Lk.

‘hire’). But this is also found in the

131

food’).

Other sayings of Paul are akin to sayings in the

( a )

Rom.

‘Abhor that which is

evil

to

that which is

good

. . .

not

suffering yourselves to be carried away

with the

humble

Did.

3

Flee from all

evil

and from all

of

. .

.

Thy

shall not

to

the

but thou shalt

conversant

with the just and

(

T

.),’

where parts of the original might

apparently refer either to things or to

(6) Thess.

IO

If any will not

work

neither let him

Did.

12

3

. .

let him

work

and [on these terms] let him

eat.

Paul and

Did. probably used an antecedent tradition.

Rom.

Be not overcome by evil,’ closely resembles

Pseudo-Clement’s

13

‘

Let not evil overcome

us

but the latter could not have borrowed from Paul,

whom he bitterly attacks.

JAMES.-The Epistle of James, which is of un-

certain date.

Dermeated with doctrine similar to that

of the Sermon on the

It con-

tains more and closer parallels, how-

ever, to the

and Barnabas.

The passage that is closest to Mt. is that which forbids swear-

ing by earth, heaven or any other oath (Mt. 534.37 James5

but Mt. says

he “Yea, yea,”.’ James (RV)

says ‘Let your

yea” be

yea.”‘ The meanings are quite

different. The former

‘Say

and nothing more

than

the, latter

Let your

yea”

be also a

“ y e a ” of

action.

I n

latter form it is

and

ad

a

common Rabbinical precept (apparently alluded

to in Cor. 117).

As it

is

also thus quoted by Justin and

it was probably found in some versions of Mt

and therefore the Epistle may be quoting from Mt. But
cannot

regarded as proved.

In its denunciations of ‘the

rich,’ the Epistle resembles Lk. 624, but not so

as

to indicate

borrowing.

iii. A

PPARENT

QUOT

A

T

I

ON

S

. -Passages apparently

auoted from the

the

of Paul and

James, have been shown
to be found in sources other, and prob-
ably earlier, than the Gospels.

There were probably many manuals of Christ’s moral teaching

which the Sermon on the Mount is one) as well as of his

predictions concerning the last day probably, too, collections

of

bearing on the Messiah and perhaps accounts

of the Passion showing how these prdphecies were fulfilled.

,These, together with the ‘narratives’ of his life mentioned by

Lk. 1

I

,

and the various interpretations of

mentioned

Papias, necessarily left their impress on the earliest Christian

writers even after the

Gospels were recognised

as

canonical,

and still more before that time.

Hence, it is

to

infer

(without further consideration of circumstances)

‘

Barnabas

quoted

or

quoted

or ‘Justin

quoted Jn. because of similarity, or even

the quota-

tions.

For example, i t has recently been inferred that the

Vision

must be later than is usually supposed

because it

2

4)

quoted Dan. 6

from the version

But Heh. 11

33

appears to quote the same

Moreover, Rev. 9

12 7 1 3 7,

resemble

version.

It appears therefore, that Theodot. incorporated in

version an

one

by

the

authors

and

Rev.

(see

Rendel

Harris’s

in

Arcadia,

25).

O

F

Logia of

after, the first appearance of the Fourth Gospel, it may have
been regarded with suspicion

orthodox, educated, and con-

servative Christians, such as Justin in the middle of the second
century,

Gaius at the beginning of the third.

a saying found in the Talmud

(Taylor,

24).

Cp

I

Thess.

5

‘It

677

only reversing

order. he also

quotes Barnabas

should

cleave

them that fear the

Lord.’

the use of

( a )

Isaac offered on the altar

cp with

( a ) Did.

4

4 7 5

I

,

Barn:

(6) Barn. 1

(c)

4 3 ,

Barn. 7 3 (Heb. 11

om. altar ’).

Behnesa (Oxyrhynchus fragment) are an example

of

such a manual as has been described

They are a fragment of what

seems to have been a very ancient

above.

edition of a ‘Sermon on the Mount.’

The extreme

antiquity

of

the

(probably not later than

zoo A .

D

. )

and the frequent allusions to it (or to doctrine similar
to it) in

combine to show the antiquity of

the subject matter.

But a still stronger proof is found

in the nature of two of the sayings.

Justin, when

using such a phrase as Sabbatise the sabbath,’ avoids
the danger of literalism by saying
true sabbath,’ the sabbath of God,’ etc. and Clem.
Alex. is even more cautious.

( M a g n .

bids

his readers

not sabbatise but live in accordance with

the Lords Day.’ No one, therefore, but Jesus (who
did not shrink from utterances seemingly inconsistent)
appears likely to have originated such

a

saying. The

same argument applies to the last words in the same
Logion

Unless

. .

.

,

ye shall not

see

the

F a t h e r ’ ) .

The phrase see

God

is in

Sermon but see the

Father occurs only in Jn.

H e that hath seen me

hath seen

Father,’

a rebuke to Philip’s expectation

of a materialistic

seeing the Father.’ These

and many other considerations indicate that the Logia
are genuine sayings of Jesus, ignored or suppressed
because of the dangerous tendency of some of them,
and the obscurity of others.

The Logia testify

to the antiquity

of ( a )

passages in the

Sermon on the Mount,

(6) the proverb about ‘a prophet in his

own country’ (favouring

versions of these sayings). They

also show traces of Johannine

They use a Hebraism

(‘the sons of men’) found only

Mk.328, and apparently

corrupted in the later Gospels. Another Hebraism is probably
latent in the phrase ‘fast (accus.)

the

‘fast during the [present]

age’

(the Hebrew for

and

‘age’ being the same).

The meaning is, ‘fast

to

the six

days of the flesh

:

the

of the

v.

Of Rome (about

9 A.

D.

)

has

( a )

5 7 6 1 4 7 2

Lk.

636-3831)

which, when compared

with

(Phil

2 ) and

shows pretty

that

writers had

in

some other tradition than that of the Synoptists.

The subject is kindness and mercy.

besides

throwing the Synoptic tradition into a terse antithetical form,
adds

The word

occurs nowhere in

except

I

Cor. 1 3 4. Here,

and

the context

uses it thrice, and also

;

see

under Pauline influence. This points to his

of some

tradition

of Christ’s teaching about kind-

ness and mercy.

I t has mis-

understood

’

in the narrow Jewish sense

of

almsgiving,‘ so that, instead of Blessed are the

merciful

for

they shall

mercy,’ it has (1 5) Blessed is he that

according

t o the commandment,

for

he is exempt (from punish-

ment a t the Day of Judgment).

Against such a Judaising

version the broad Pauline

would express a useful

Thesaying

is

introduced with

Dr.

J.

B. Mayor pointed out that

(556)

has

(not alleged as yet from any other Greek

author). For similarities of thought, cp

876,

It

is characteristic of

to use sayings that are

inconsistent.

Hence

( a )

’seeing the Father‘ is Johannine

spite of or because of Jn. 14

So

also is

(6) ‘thirst used

spiritual

(see Jn. 4

6 35

7

37

and the

beautiful saying imputed to Jesus [Resch

Origen,

I

thirsted for them that

Adh (c) Jesus, describing;

himself as (Jn.

passim)

‘coming to ‘being in,’ etc. the world

(Log.

‘ I

stood in the midst of

the impossibility

that the true disciple can ever be ‘alone’

(e)

the

impediment presented by ‘knowledge

to the art

of spiritual healing (Jn. 27).

Log.

27-29,

‘raise the stone

. .

.

cleave the

to

mean that any single disciple-while doing his Master’s work

‘

raising up stones to be children of Abraham, and by cutting

down and ‘cleaving the

tree of

conventional

Law that ‘cumbered the ground’-would have his Master with
him (cp Jer.

I

am

with

thee

.

.

.

I have set

. .

.

thee to

pluck

and to

break down

. . .

and to

to plant ’).

I f so, it is parallel to the

of the Baptist recorded by

Mt. 3

IO

Lk. 3 9 about the stones and the tree (see

vol.

no.

I

Rom. 11

is equiva-

lent to

quotes this

1826

The

explains the reason.

Cp Eph. 4

32,

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

manual of the Words of the Lord.

Elsewhere

the same chapter in which

he quotes ‘cleave to the holy,’ and is followed by
both apparently quoting from some version of the Lord’s Words
-combines Mk. 9 4 2

and

Mt. ; and again Clem.

Alex. (561) agrees with him.

has Remember the

words of Jesus our Lord, how he said, Woe

that man.

It

were well for him if he had not

been born, rather than

that he should cause to

one of my elect. I t were better

for him that a mill-stone were put round him and that he were
sunk in the sea, than that he should pervert

one of

my elect.’

has the same, substituting

and ‘saith

the Lord’ for ‘remember

.

. .

saith.

The reduplication of statement has a Hebraic sound, and it is

probable (both because of

preface, and because of

the apparent borrowing from Logia

the same chapter) that the

two authors are here as above, quoting independently, from an
ancient tradition of

Words of the

condenses Is. 29 13 similarly to Mk.

7 6

Mt.

158

omitting the bracketed words in the following quotation
the L X X

:

Q

(Clem.

omitting

(Clem.

The bracketed words

the antithesis and Justin

omits them (allusively) in

27 and 8 0

Yet in

78 he quotes the passage

quite differently, omitting

with

of

but

so

that

the latter part preserves the antithesis. These facts and the

markablevariations inthetext of the
indicate that

maybe herequotingfromsome Christian

manual of prophecy used also by other authors.

whq

frequently quotes it, is said by Lightf.

to

‘follow

For, in the only passage

where he resembles

has

Now

is the reading of

in Mt.

158

(adopted by

also in

Probably therefore

is following Mt. 1 5 3

(or some ancient

of

has elsewhere

for

and similarly

D

has

for

in

“Also

has

The facts are conclusive negatively.

The passage does nol prove that

is quoting frcm

No further quotations of importance are alleged.

The conclusion is, that

(

I

)

is certainly

proved to have quoted from

our Gospels

in

( a )

and

(6)

he is probably quoting from Logia not now ex-

tant

;

( 3 ) in

(c)

he may be quoting from our Gospels,

but quite as probably from a Manual

(or some Oral

Tradition) of prophecy in Christian use.

vi. DIDACHE.-The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles

a

document. The earlier

But this is not likely.

part

(1-6),

consisting of the Doctrine of

the Two Ways, inculcates precepts of the

Lord, without appeal to his ‘words,’ or Gospel

the

latter part appeals to both. The Gospel meant is prob-
ably Mt. The additionof adoxology to

prayer,

and the mention of

the Lord‘s

indicate for

the latter portion

a date toward, or after, the close of

the first century. There is no indication that Lk. was
known to the writer, apart from supplements

or

passage twice

:

once

embodying in his own remarks (with-

out

Lk. 633;

once

with the preface ‘saith

the Lord,’ quoting

almost exactly as

The variation may indicate that,

in the latter instance, he is borrowing from some earlier tradition
from which

also borrowed (as above, in the saying

about

to them that are holy ’). Similarly

when he asserts (377) that the Scripture says,

My

son, be not

a liar, for lying leadeth to theft,’ is probably not giving the name

‘Scripture’ to Hermas

3)

‘They therefore who

. . .

have defiled the

the Lord and become

of him,’ but is quoting (what Hermas

trying to

spiritualise)

Did.

3

5

‘ M y

be not a liar, since

leadeth to

theft,’

or

book on which

Did. 3 5 is based.

The words ‘better

.

. .

horn’ occur only

our Lord’s

utterance about

a t the Last Supper.

I t seems very

unlikely that

even though he combines

passages

in a very arbitrary way, would apply such words to quite a
different matter, and that

would follow him.

authority

of

some collection of the Logia seems needed to explain

it, and to justify the two authors.

‘The Lord’s Day’ occurs in the Apocalypse (1

IO

),

which-

a t all events sn far

%?

concerns the passage including the term-

was probably written (as Irenaeus asserted) in, or a little before,
96

A

.D.

tions of Mt. in the Two

So far as this little

book is concerned, the Gospel to which it refers might
consist

of

a version

of

the Sermon on the Mount and

the- Precepts

to

the Twelve. On the Second Advent,

the writer mentions

(166-8)

‘the Signs of the Truth’

with such apparent independence of Mt.

as to

make it

doubtful whether, in the context, the resemblances to
Mt. indicate quotations from Mt.

Of all the promises or blessings in

Mt. 5

the earlier part

of the

inserts

Did.37

meek, since

earth

is based

Mt. 5

5

is) on

Ps.

37

Did.

is he

giveth in accordance with

the commandment refers to the commandment’ which the
writer has just

(Mt.

5

42

Lk. 6

Give to every one that

asketh thee, and ask not again.’ But the Hebrew for ‘give
alms’ is often represented by

and ‘alms’ by

(cp A

LMS

),

so

that ‘blessed is he that giveth’ might be, in N T

Greek,

(or

as

Mt.

5 7).

It

should be noted that Lk. omits both these

vii. BARNABAS.-The Epistle

of

Barnabas assigned

by Lightfoot

( B E

to

but by others

placed later.

(

I

)

Synoptic

i n

Barnadas.- (a)

This Epistle

is alleged to quote Mt. 2214 as Scripture

:

manv called but few chosen.”

‘Let

us give

lest,

as

it is

w r i t t e n ,

we be found

T h e application of the title

‘

Scripture to

N T

before the end

of the first century, if here intended, would be unique.
there are several reasons for doubting the intention. (

I

)

In other

allusions to Synoptic tradition, the author does not quote as from

Scripture.’

H e twice quotes Enoch, either as

5 )

ture, or with

is written ’(4 3): ‘The last stumbling-block hath

drawn nigh concerning which

it

is

written as

“ F o r tn this end hath the Lord cut

the times

. . .

Now (3) these two passages agree with the one under discussion
in treating of the ‘last days,’ on which subject ‘Enoch’ was an
authority. Also, (4) in the last-mentioned passage, whereas he
might have quoted Mk.

Mt.

2422

(if known to him as

canonical) about the ‘cutting short of the

not only

quotes Enoch instead and treats it as ‘Scripture,’ but also
appears to add words not now extant in Enoch

For to

end etc.).

(6) The book of Enoch as we have it, is a com-

posite work and is likely to have

many forms. (7)

If it

for N T (or, a t

anticipated) the phrases

‘

of unrighteousness

‘Gehenna,’ ‘the New J

the Son of Man

the throne of his glory ‘it

had

good for him if he had not been

is

natural supposition that it may have contained the saying
question.

These considerations make

probable that the

author

is either quoting the words from a version of

Enoch,

or confusing some tradition of the Words of

Christ

with a version of Enoch, and make either of

these suppositions

much more

probable than that

he is quoting from Mt. as Scripture.’

(6)

and

(c)

In Barn.

Christ is said to have chosen as

his apostles men exceeding in lawlessness

O

U

F)

beyond

all sin, that he might show that

came

not

t o

righteous

sinners.’

There is nothing to show quotation, but

words

Mt.

Lk. inserts ‘tore

or from some document or tradition, used by Mk.

Among

several quotations

(74

11 12

I

)

-Barn.

refers to the New Creation of man thus (613): The Lord saith,

Did.

I

though a t first sight suggesting Lk. 12 35 is

an

’allusion to Mt. 25

I

amplified by an

(to

‘loins girt’ in

the first Passover) which became

current in the Church

(

I

Pet.

Eph. 6 14). The latter part

more like a blending of Mk. 13

and

Mt.

44,

than like

Lk. 12

omission

all the blessings pronounced on positive

virtue (‘meekness, ‘peacemaking ‘purity,’ and ‘mercy’ [or

‘almsgiving’]) is perhaps dictated b y some doctrinal considera-

tion. The same cause may explain why, in his parallel to Mt.
548,

he

he preferred a tradition that

gave (Lk.

6 36)

pitiful’ (possibly a synonym, for a

poetic

or

form of

corruption of

(for which the Hatch-Redpath Concordance

wrongly gives

occurs thrice in Dan.

The Latin substitutes ‘Daniel’ for ‘Enoch’and takes the

words ‘for to this,’ etc., as comin from Barnabas.

4

Charles

pp.

who traces its influence in

almost every book of

and

in Heb. 4 (Enoch

9

5,

‘All

things are naked and open in thy sight, and thou

all things and nothing can hide itself from thee’),

some

suppose to have been written by Earnabas.

I t has also In-

fluenced Irenaeus, Justin and other early writers. The tradition
of Papias about the

branches comes, directly

indirectly, from Enoch

10

1828

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

Behold

make the last as the first.’ This may possibly he

akin

Synoptic (Mk.

‘The last shall

be

cp Mt.

will give unto this last even as unto

thee.

(d)

In

and

the author probably, but not

certainly, assigns to Jesus words not in our Gospels.

H e

regards the Ascension as taking place on the

day of the Resurrection.‘

Anticipations of

in Barnadas.-The special

points of interest in this epistle are that

(

I

)

it was written

(Lightf.

BE 91) ‘before the Fourth

Gospel

the latter resembles it in

many points

: - ( a )

(Barn.

the juxtaposition of baptism and the brazen serpent,’
and the parallel between the serpent and Christ

( b )

(66) the application of Ps.

to the casting lots over

Christ’s vesture

(c)

the ‘piercing

of Christ

( d )

(11 the connection between

the Cross and Water, followed by a connection between
the Cross and Blood

( e )

(11

Whosoever shall eat

of

these

forever.”

This means,

Whosoever,”

saith he,

shall

hear

these things when they are spoken

and shall

shall

f u r ever.”

It will be seen

below

that many of the so-called ‘imitations

of Jn. by Justin’ might be called, less inaccurately,

imitations

of

Barnabas.‘

S

I

M

ON

M

AGUS

. - The

Great

of

Simon Magus (Lightf.

BE

‘probably composed some-

where about the

of the first century, perhaps

before the Gospel of John was written, or at
least circulated ’) twice uses the phrase (Hippol.
6

14)

‘remain alone in potentiality

and once

‘but if a tree abide alone

to denote, as in

that

which remsins barren and which will perish with the world
because it is not made fruitful by being ‘likened to the (divine)

of the

Simon’s doctrine of three divine beings

‘there are three that stand,’ his allegorising of the

Pentateuch in connection with the regeneration of man, the

general tone of his materialism, and the wide scope of his influ-
ence, make it probable that Jn. had Simon in view when he

Gospel.

ix.

(before

mentions a

Gospel ’-which he compares with the

Law’ and the

Prophets in such

a

way as to

that it was

5,

8,

He quotes short sentences found in Mt.

H e

See

...

7.

(once

a phrase peculiar to Mk.

9 4 3 ) .

never quotes

and

Herein he appears to anticipate Jn.

J

Rev.

Cp

63

‘ H e that

my word

and

him

sent me hath eternal

‘If an

eat of this bread, he shall

ever,’

that

The similarity is striking

;

still it would be a mistake to say

Jn.

from Barnabas.’

Barnabas borrowing from

Ezekiel, has previously been alluding

to

the

who

calls the land

Jacob (Ezek. 206) ‘praised’

var.

Hebr. glory’), continuing as follows (11

IO

),

Next

what saith he? “and there was a river winding from the

right, and there went up from it fair trees and whoso

e a t

mer.”’ The

words are not in

Ezekiel but they were (doubtless) in the writer’s version of
Ezekiel or in some Christian Manual of prophecy containing

extracts from Ezek. 47

from which also

comes probably Rev. 22

(‘a river of water of life,’ etc.).

The tradition, then, was common to the Church a t the close

of the first century, and

may be quite independent of

Barnabas.

and the crucified Jesus as the fruit of the tree (cp Lightf.

Ignat. Smym.

I

)

planted

the

side of the baptismal stream.

The former regards the ‘fountain for sin and uncleanness’ as
flowing out of Jesus himself but

of Jesus on the Cross,

his throne’ to which he is

up.

4

Jn. applies the phrase to a grain of wheat, Simon

to

a

tree.

It looks as though Simon had misunderstood Christ’s doctrine
in such a way as to induce Jn.

emphasise it. The union of

the ‘grain‘ with the earth is intelligible the union of a ‘tree
with

influences affords a far less natural and forcible

metaphor. The Logion of Behnesa indicates that Jesus may
have taught a systematic doctrine about ‘abiding alone.’

Tatian‘

(‘ If it [the soul] live alone

it inclines downward to matter, dying with the flesh but if it
has obtained union

with

divine Spirit, it is no

longer without an ally’) is closer to Simon than to Jn.

index contains several

‘resemblances to

Lk.

One of these is

of this life’) resembling

spoken

you are spirit and are

The latter generally regards the Cross

a ‘tree

1829

The Gospel

9,

7)

is said to contain the Passion

or Resurrection and also

5

)

the flesh and ‘(personal)

presence

of

brings Christ before us as

in the flesh. But when he

of the Incarnation.

does

not appeal to the Gospel, but speaks in his own

describ-

ing, for example,

the

in the east in ’language

incompatible with any sober acceptance of

account, and

actually saying almost in the language of Simon Magus that
the Logos

8)

‘came forth f r o m Silence’-a

expression, hardly

for any one who devoutly accepted

the Fourth

The Ignatia; passages commonly alleged

to

prove

Ignatius recognised Jn. as a Gospel simply prove that he knew
the substance of some traditions incorporated in

(a)

7,

The Spirit

. . .

it

and whither

it

goeth,

and

the things that are secret

is

closer in

thought (though not in word) to

than to

38. I t is

a

tradition from Gen. 168, quoted by Philo 1576 (and

‘Conviction therefore.

to the

soul.

saith unto

her

Whence

thou

thou

Ignatius

is dloser to Philo than to

‘the

door of the

Father,’ may be traced to

48 and back to Ps. 118

it being a natural tradition that the ‘gate of righteousness’

is ‘the a t e in Christ,’ and that this leads to ‘life’ and to ‘the

Lastly such variations as (c)

7

bread of God’

(only once in Jn

17

I

,

etc. ‘prince of

this

age,’ and

(e)

Magn. 5

living

is not in us’-instead of the

familiar bread of

‘prince of

this

His

is not

in us’-would be

Impossible, if the

Gospel were

familiar to the author as a gospel, hut quite natural if he had a
recent acquaintance with the substance of it as a recent doctrine.

The conclusions are that Ignatius

(

I

)

recognised Mt.

and probably Mk. as

a

written gospel,

did not

recognise Lk. or

Jn.

The latter

is confirmed by the

fact that

29, 30)

in order to demonstrate the reality

of the Resurrection, he appeals, not to Lk. or Jn., but
to an apocryphal tradition. The gospel of Ignatins
does not appear to have contained

account of the

Incarnation as we have it.

The deficiency in

account of the Resurrection he supplies from apocryphal

Though he does not acknowledge Jn. as

a

gospel, he accepts

a rudimentary Logos-doctrine, and

has an acquaintance (but not

a

familiarity) with Johan-

nine thought.

X.

A.D.

see

87)

has

similar to those in the Sermon on the Mount

. -

(Phil

and to the words of the Lord

Mk.

Mt.

The former may be from

a version of

but the latter indicates that, like Ignatius, he knew
the gospel of Mk. and Mt.

( a )

His omission (Phil.

2)

of

‘in the spirit,’ in quoting

Mt.

53,

‘poor

in

the

spirit,’

resembles Lk.

620, but may only indicate

that Polycarp and Lk. herein agreed in adopting the
same version or interpretation of the

Logia.

(6)

7 )

‘Every one that confesseth

not

that

Jesus

Christ has

come

in

is

Antichrist,’ resembles

I

Jn.

4 3 ,

every

spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God and this
is the [spirit] of the Antichrist’

but it much more

resembles

Jn.

7

.

.

.

they that confess not that

Lk. 8

pleasures of life ’). But the phrase had been made

popular by

383)

Of

the two marked as ‘quotations,’ one

14

tree i s

manifest from its fruit is more

Mt.

12 33 From the fruit

the tree is known’) than like Lk.

(‘Each tree is known from

fruit ’) the other

3

‘

Take handle me, and see

that

I

am not a bodiless demon has been

to be not from

Lk. (see

.

Cp

Cor.

‘his bodily

presence.

The statement that

as a martyr, he will be ‘God‘s

Logos,’ but otherwise a mere ‘sound is based on a distinction
common from Aristotle downwards ;

similarly

distinguishes between

‘sound’ and ‘name.’ Such

a play on ‘Logos’ would be possible while the Logos doctrine
was plastic ;

scarcely possible (because scarcely reverent) for one

who had received as apostolic the Logos-doctrine of Jn.

3

See Hegesippus (Eus.

‘What is the door of Jesus

to which James replies apparently that ‘the Saviour is the door

cp Epb. 2

18

Rev. 38 Hebr.

(saying

Christ ‘raised

up seems

incongruous with

account of the descent of an angel to

roll away the stone, but agrees better with Pseudo-Peter who
says (9) that ‘the stone rolled away

of

itself;’ implying,

perhaps, that Christ caused it to roll away

arose by his

own power

(so

that the angels descended merely to carry

up

t o

heaven). The more orthodox account is that of Paul, and

I

Pet.

quoted by Polycarp Phil. 2 ‘believing

on

him who

raised

our

Christ

the head.’

1830

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

Jesus

Christ cometh in

This is the deceiver

and the

Antichrist.’

Now

Epistle,

so that if Eusebius believed it to be a quotation, he
would be

bound

to

attention

to

But he makes

no mention of it, though he tells us that Polycarp

(iv.

quoted

I

Pet.

It is probable, therefore, that

he regarded the words, not as a quotation, but as a
use of Johannine traditions in vogue during the conflict
against Docetism.

The conclusion, so far as any can be drawn from

so

short a letter, is, that Polycarp knew Mk. and Mt. but
not

or Jn., though he used

a

Johannine tradition

embodied in a disputed epistle.’

xi.

30

A.

D.

)

is probably

(Lightf.

BE

67)

recorded by Irenaeus (v. 361 to have

preserved a tradition of

a saying of the

Lord, ‘ I n the region

of my

Cp Jn.

‘

In my Father’s house

are many

The context indicates that Papias had one meaning and Jn.

Papias (taking the word as used

x. 31 7

encampment,’

‘

halting-place’) means

are many

stages

on the

the New Jerusalem Paradise

and Heaven. This explains why Papias has ‘in the region,’
while Jn. has ‘in the house.‘)

means ‘stages’ in the

Apocalypse and

(pp.

1003,

645,

794) who also (p. 797) speaks of the

a t

‘the three numbers in the Gospel.

The

three numbers are explained by Papias as the ‘thirty,’ ‘sixty,’

and hundred of the Parable of the Sower.

The conclusion is that Papias is not quoting and misin-

terpreting

,but quoting, and interpreting in accordance

with tradition, a Logion (illustrating the Synoptic Parable
of the Sower) of which Jn. gives

a

And this leads to the inference that,

if Papias had Jn. in

his mind,

did

not

recognise

it

as a n

xii.

to

in its

former portion (Lightf.

A

.

D

.),

while accepting a Logos-

doctrine accepts it (ch. ?) in a non-Johannine

96.

Epistle

form

Lightf. on Col.

: hut phrases in

ch.

10

indicate a familiarity, if not with

as a

a t all events with lohannine

doctrine and

of

The latter portion (Lightf.

A

.

D

.)

short though it is, yet

contains (ch. 11) an apparent allusion to

1629 Now speakest

thou clearly

which makes it highly probable that

the author had read

The late date, however, makes this

testimony of little importance.

xiii. HERMAS.-The Shepherd of Hermas

contains no traces of recognised authoritative Johannine

thought. The alleged similarities of language

96.

Hermas.

may generally be traced to common tradition
based on

the Rock and the

Gate,

the Son a Fellow-counsellorwith the Father in creation

(cp Ecclus.

with

Is.

96);

56) ‘showed them the paths

of

has no connection with Jn.

2

27.

T h e Logos-doctrine (cp

I

‘That Spirit is the Son of God

and see

56) is

so

strikingly unlike that of Jn. that the

would seem either

not

,

o r

t o

as

See

66

ahove.

Eusehius’s omission here is the more

noteworthy because (though not bound to do it) he tells us that

Papias

and

Much more would he feel

bound to tell us that Polvcaro. earlier than either of them.
quoted Goth

and

so

short an epistle, Polycarp’s only extant work.

could it have escaped him

Besides the instances above-mentioned,

Index

mentions, as a ‘resemblance’

to

Jn.,

‘that your fruit

may

manifest among all.

n. 1 5 has ‘that

may

I

Tim.

bas

thy progress may be manifest

t o

the notions of ‘fruit’ and

are both Pauline

(cp

622 ‘your fruit’).

has (69)

to describe a saint’s citizenship

in

tke

of the Father. The primary meaning of

is ‘ a t a man’s

‘ a t his home’ is

only a secondary meaning:

Cp the

Enoch (Charles 61

For in the world to

come

. . .

there are many mansions prepared for

good for

the good, evil for the evil, many without number.

This may

be one of several instances where the language of Euoch appears
in the doctrine of Jesus.

5

No

many early authors (such as Tatian and Theo-

though accepting Jn., may have retained for a long

time traces of an older Logos-doctrine-sometimes more like
that of Philo. But Hermas

hevond anv hounds consistent

with acceptance of Jn. in

v. 6

Spirit which pre-

existed, which created all the creation, was caused

God to

dwell in flesh

which he desired [it to dwell]. That

therefore

. . .

along with the Holy Spirit, he chose as a partner.’

1831

A

.

D

.)

fre-

quently alleged to have quoted from Jn

but (owing to the

culty of

between quotations

97.

Basilides.

from Basilides and quotations from his

followers, and the fact that Hippolytus and

differ from

in their expositions of his

doctrine) the only ground for the allegations is in an extract

expressly quoting the

hook of his

which teaches that all suffering proves the sufferer

to have sinned:

.

Against this doctrine-not

any means

peculiar to

protests when it states that

the

man who was born

was not horn so because he had

sinned. With that protest before him Basilides could hardly
have accepted Jn., in its entirety, as

So far

as it goes, then, the evidence indicates that

Basilides did not accept Jn. as an authoritative gospel.

xv. MARCION.-Marcion is mentioned by Justin Martyr

after the

two very early

heretics Simon Magus and Menander, as

even now teaching and

as having-gained followers in

every race.

This implies that Marcionism had been flourishing for several

years, and points to

A

.

D

.

as the date for Marcion’s

gospel. Rejecting the O T and the God therein assumed, he
was forced if he adopted any of the four gospels to make many
changes

in

‘

I

have not

to

the

law hut

he

‘fulfil’ and ‘destroy.

His

gospel is shown

extracts to agree largely with Lk. hut to

omit many passages peculiar to Lk. H e did not call it by
name,

may have regarded it as hut one of many ‘interpreta-

tions’ of the Logia of Mt. more authoritative than most and
better adapted than our Mt. to express his anti-Jewish
The omissions and alterations that he would have had to make in
Jn. are trifling as compared with those which he was forced to
introduce into Lk., and Marcion’s alleged Pauline predilections
hardly afford a satisfactory reason for his not selecting Jn.

The conclusion is that,

A

.

D

.,

Lk. had

come into prominence

as a

recognised gospel in Marcion’s

region, but that Jn. was not yet equally prominent.

xvi. VALENTINUS.

A.

D

.

)

use our gospels.

says that his followers freely used the Fourth.

99.

Hippolytus (635) gives as from

himself, a quotation

‘All that

are come before me are thieves and robbers.‘ But Tatian has

thrice a somewhat similar allusion (calling it on one occasion a
saying of ‘the most

’)(chaps. 12 14 18) referring

to demons ’ who have been

of deity and

‘taken

men captive.’

As has been shown above

57 n.),

it is

probably the Synoptic tradition about the contrast between the

ideal ruler and the

of this world, thrown into a Johannine

form, which found its way into Christian tradition before Jn.
was generally recognised as authoritative.

xvii. S

UMMARY

OF

T

HE

E

VIDENCE BEFORE

J

USTIN

.

-Thus, up to the middle of the second century, though

there are traces of Johannine thought
and tradition, and

tions to the Johannine Logos-doctrine,

some

writers

Barnabas and Simon) we find rather what

Jn. develops, or what

Jn.

attacks, than anything that

imitates Jn., and in others

Polycarp, Ignatius, and

Papias) mere war-cries

of

the time, or phrases of a

doctrine still in flux, or apocalyptic traditions of which
Jn. gives

a

more spiritual and perhaps a truer version.

There is nothing to prove, or even suggest, that Jn. was

’

recognised as a gospel.’ Many

of

these writers, how-

ever, are known to

by extracts

so short and slight that

inference from them is very unsafe it is otherwise with
the writer next to be considered.

xviii. JUSTIN.-Justin Martyr

A.

D

.)

has been

found above

(

I

) quoting freelyfrom Mt. and Lk.

sometimes appearing to use a harmony

of the two (3) adopting

Lk.

by preference

as

to the Miraculous Conception and the Passion

( 4 )

quoting (apparent) interpolations in Lk.

and

(5)

showing

a

disposition to maintain the claims of Lk. as

a new but authoritative version of the Memoirs of the
apostles. The instances given

75-77)

to prove these

conclusions will suffice to show Justin’s attitude ‘toward
the Synoptists. It remains to consider his attitude toward
Jn. as deducible from alleged quotations, or types,
borrowed from it abstentions from quotation

agree-

ments, or disagreements, with

doctrine or statement.

1832

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

(I)

Minor apparent

potations.

( a )

Tryph.

are called and are the true children of

we should he

the children of God

(so)

we are.

Both Justin and Jn. are alluding,

(I)

Jewish tradition

ahout God‘s ‘calling’ Isaac to

thereby causing him to

(Gen.

Isaac shall thy

seed

be

Rom.417

the things that are not

as

though they were

[is

to

the tradition that Isaac was ‘called’ from

the dead (Heb. 11

‘that God was

t o

raise [him] from the

to be compared with Josephus’s comment on the sacrifice

of Isaac

[Ant.

‘that God was able to bring men into

abundance of the things that are not

and to

take away the things that are’); partly (3) to Philonian traditions
ahout God‘s creative ‘call’ (Philo 2 367 ‘ H e calleth the things
that are

so

that they are

: Philo

2

; and

(4)

to a

Stoic phrase

I

a m and

I

a m called’

(Philo 1

E

‘they both

and were

divine’

i6.

‘Heracles was

to he the son of

and he was [so] ’).

So, here Justin first

shows that God was to (Jer. 3127 and

Is.

19

up a

seed’ to Israel ; then asserts that he

this people Israel

and declared it his inheritance: lastly, in answer to Trypho’s

‘Are you

Israel?’ he replies, ‘We both are called and

are the children of

(6) Apol. 6 reason and

is

a n allusion not to Jn.

‘spirit and truth,’ but t o what Justin

has just said about the temper of

‘in

reason,

reasonableness,’ and is a play on the word Logos. (c)

17, ‘the

ess and righteous [one], sent [as]

light from

God to

a

recognition of Christ as (Is. 426

Lk.

232;

Enoch

‘light to lighten,’ not only

Gentiles,’

the world ; and an allusion to Jewish traditions

2

226) based on Ps.433

out

thy

thy

I

60

If ye

.

. .

ye

he saved’), treating

of the

serpent, differs so much from Num. 21

(‘that

every one that is bitten, when he

it,

that it is

urged (Lightf.

BE

87)

that the writer had in his mind Jn.

3

that whosoever

may in him have eternal

But Barn. (12 7 ‘let him hope and

. . .

and immediately

he

saved’)

from Num.

is

closer to Bqrnahas than

to

Jn and a p ears to be

the

former or some kindred

accuses the Jews

of cancelling

73)

‘

H e shall reign from the tree in Ps.

96

and some might infer that he borrowed this thought from

Jn.,

regards the Cross as a

on which Jesus is ‘lifted

up’

‘exalted.’ But see Barn. 85: the

reign of Jesus

tree.

The close and numerous resemblances between

Barnabas and Justin in respect

of

prophecies and types

prove that Justin followed either Barnabas or some
tradition used by Barnabas, and

g o some way towards

proving that, if he knew Jn., he preferred Barnabas.

61,

For

in the name

of

God, the

and Lord of the

Universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, they then

receive the washing with water. For indeed Christ
said,

Except ye be begotten again ye

not

enter into the

kingdom

of

the

heavens.

Now that

is

absolutely impossible for those once born to re-enter
the wombs of those that bare them is evident to

all.’

Jn.

‘Except a man be begotten from

he

cannot

kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto

The antithesis was naturally common after the

of Nero.

It

may he illustrated by Mt. 22 14 Many are called

few

chosen,’ hut also by Epict.

‘When we see a

trimming, we are wont to say

H e is not a Jew but pretends.

But when he takes on

the condition of

and

chosen(&

the elect ”), then

he

is

called

a

:

where ‘is

. .

.

and is called’ seems parallel to Justin’;

Except y e

begotten again.

called and is.’

Justin

(Tryjh.

‘theonlyspotless

man

and then repeating the phrase

‘man

says that he was ‘sent

into the world.

Cp Wisd.

IO

‘Send

her forth from the holy heavens,

send

from

the throne of thy glory

’

where ‘her refers to Wisdom

7

25) ‘the pure

of the glory

the

the

of the

Both Jn. and Justin

adapt Jewish tradition to the Incarnation ; hut Jn. (1246

I

am

a

into the world.’ 3

soeaks of the

as

‘the

of it as ‘sent.’-(The

rendering ‘spotless light’ is an error ; nor is there a play on the
double meaning of

‘man ‘and ‘light.’) For the construc-

tion (‘sent [as] ’) cp

I

Jn. 4

IO

For other passages in Justin and Barnabas resembling one

aiiother, and found also in Jn., see the connection of the Cross
or ‘tree’

with water (mentioned ahove.

and

in

I

Pet.

1 3 (RV)

again.’

5

The evidence from

use

of the word

him, How can

a man be begotten when he

is

old?

Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb
and be begotten? Jesus answered

. .

.

Except

a

man

begotten of water and (the)

he cannot

enter into

the kingdom

of

God.’

Justin is here meeting heathen misrepresentations of the two

sacraments, hy showing that they are

on Christ’s com-

mand and on reason and that the heathen themselves have
imitated them.

As’to the

he gives (

I

) Christ’s

Words of Institution.

the Pagan

since he gives the

imitation later (62 64) he is

giving here what he regards as the

of Institution

(for he gives no others).‘

That they are derived from Jn. is

improbable for many reasons.

(

I

) Justin’s tradition is thrown

into the form of an indirect precept thou shalt be baptized or
thou shalt not enter’);

is a statement of a law.

Justin

omits the two elements mentioned in

full form of the

nine utterance-viz. ‘water’ and ‘spirit.’

Justin, though

familiar with the

of

to

mean ‘from above,’ and

though he once

uses

here has

(4)

That Justin agrees with Jn. in connecting

the doctrine of regeneration with words about the impossibility
ofre-entering the womb, is not indeed a n accidental coincidence
a n y more than the somewhat similar connection in an

of

Simon

Ma

us

‘How then and in what

manner doth

shape

(in

the

to which

Simon

‘Admit that Paradise

is

and that

this is true

Scripture will teach thee,’ afterwards entering

into minute materialistic details about ‘the

It is a

connection so natural in controversy that it is easy to understand
that

it became a commonplace in Christian doctrine.3

( 3 )

Other

Tryph.

105,

That

this [man] was

only-hegotten of the Father of the Universe

having become

from him in a special’way Word and Power

4)

and

the

as we

learned

the Memoirs

I

have shown

ahove.’

Lightfoot

(BE

,

omitting the

words

infers that Justin

as

Memoirs for

‘special’ antemundane birth. But the words

omits indicate that Justin refers to

where he ‘shows

this

from

Memoirs, as an inference from peter’s confession.

This resort to the Memoirs to prove what they cannot prove
hut Jn. could prove, indicates that Justin did

not

authoritative;

( 6 ) Justin, against

is

to

have

As to

( 3

19

and from Philo

482

443 498

(and cp Menander

in Eus. 326 and Simon Magus in Hippol.

and from

Epict.

is ir-

resistibly in favour of the rendering ‘from above.

may

mean ‘again but only where the

context

t o

that

meaning,

does in Artemidorus (see Grimm’s Lexicon), who

says that a man who dreams of being born

over again

will have

a

son, because having a son is, as it were, a second

Justin himself never uses

the word to

mean ‘again,’ hut (

I

)

‘fromahove,’ ofthe Incarnation,

r a i

and also probably (against

Tryjh. 63

. . .

with

or

Tryph.

24,

‘from of old.’ If Justin were here

quoting Jn., he would he

a

phrase

that

he

himself

uses.

Justin’s words, In’the name of the Father,’ etc., show that

he

the formulary of

Mt.

28

as binding

in

practice.

the

recogiiises (but does not quote) it.

Justin nowhere

quotes

f o r

the f a c t s

of

Christ’s

but only

If it be urged that Jn. states the doctrine in two forms, and

that Justin may have preferred the

(‘begotten from

above’), then

‘from above’ into ‘again,’ he has

altered

which occurs only in

second

form.

It may be worth noting that Barnabas (168) as well a s

Simon Magus, introduces his explanation of

(which

he bases on the metaphor of a temple) with a ‘How?’ (Cp

In these two authors

is rhetorical, in Jn. it is not; hut the usage perhaps

traditional way of stating and answering a perplex-

ing question.

Barnabas (like

I

Pet. 1 3 23) regards the

‘

be-

as

‘again’ (not ‘from above’),

:.$

ace does not permit of showing the

doctrine, which tacitly protests that

‘second birth’ is not the question. The question is ‘Is it from

or (like some of the second births of

mysteries)

‘from

4

cp

I

22,

. . .

Jn. would not apply the verb

to the Logos except in Connection with (1

74)

‘flesh’.

frequently draws a marked distinction between the

of

:he

Logos

of man or matter (1

I

6

8

58).

The words,

the only-hegotten,’ etc., may be those

of

commenting on what he has quoted from Justin.

Eusebius (4

quoting, from Justin, this extract, stops

And Lk. omits the

t o

n.

can these things be?’)

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

written (Iren. iv.

‘ I should not

believed

.

. .

only-begotten Son came to us.

. . .

This Lightfoot (BE

asserts

to

be based on Jn.

But, besides the objection

many authorities as W

H,

read in Jn. 1

‘God for ‘Son,

this assertion

that Jn. must have invented this applica-

tion of ‘only-begotten,’ whereas in fact it followed

f r o m

the Logos-passage

Wisd.

describing the Wisdom

of God as containing a Spirit

might be

gested by

Ps.

‘Deliver my

the sword, mine

from

power of the dog.

Now in the Apologies

and Dialogue Justin (so far as Otto’s Index shows) never uses

the word ‘only-hegotten’ except in

referred to

above (a) where he supported it by Ps. 22 and professed to
have

shown’ it, the ‘showing’

really a

inference from the Memoirs. All this

far from indicating a

borrowing from Jn., proves that,

he

to

base any statement on

(c) T r y j h . 88 has simply

the Synoptic tradition of

Baptist, developed as in Acts

(with a tradition of Justin’s own

twice

repeated in connection with the Baptist

with

ada trd from Is.); and

57, as to the

instead

alluding to Jn.

is a ,quotation from

Ps. 78

25

with an allusion to Ps.

(cp Cor. 10 3 and also Wisd.

representing a stage of tradition earlier than Jn. ;

69,

‘those who were from birth and according to the

flesh defective [in vision]

is alleged

to

refer to the healing of the man ‘blind

from

mentioned

only by

But Justin speaks of these people in the

plural, Jn.

32

states that the

unique, unheard

‘from

the

the world.

Justin was probably

quoting from some tradition earlier than Jn.

;

hut in any case

this instance tends to show that, if he knew Jn., he did not

regard it as authoritative.3

Other alleged quotations, if examined, might be

shown, even more conspicuously than those treated
above, to fail to prove that Justin recognised Jn. as an
authoritative gospel.

(4)

Quotation.-It is generally

recognised that the Synoptists do not teach, whereas Jn.

and Justin do teach, Christ’s pre-existence,
the feeding on Christ’s flesh and blood

(as

in those precise words), the

application of the term

to Christ, and

the Logos-doctrine. When, therefore, we find Justin
either not appealing to any authority in behalf of these
doctrines, or appealing to pointless passages in the
Synoptists instead

of

pointed .passages in Jn.. it is

a

legitimate inference that Justin did not recognise Jn.

as

on

a level with the

( a )

I

66 ‘ W e have been taught that the food

.

. .

both the flesh

the blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.

I n support of this, instead of quoting Jn. 654 along with the

Synoptic words of Institution Justin quotes ‘the interpolated

Lk. 22

;

( 6 )

Tryph.

105,

(see 101 [a]); (c)

48,

the belief in Christ’s pre-existence is based on what is

short before ‘but the only-begotten’;

the part omitted by

Eusebius contains words common in Irenaeus hut not in Justin
and (3) has

two

allusions

to

Epistle: ( t o which

;

(4)

elsewhere Justin never uses

apart from prophecy that justifies it.

On the other hand,

Justin might quote, to a Christian, authorities that he would

not quote to a Jew, to whom everything needed to be proved.

(In the words omitted by Eusehius [‘.

.

.

nos plasmavit

. .

.

venit a d nos

. . .

est

mea

ad eum fides

. . .

utraque Deo

nobis praebente’] the intrusion of the sing. [‘mea’] would be

strange, whether Justin or Irenaeus were the writer; but

may have been misread as

On

the whole,

.the words are probably not Justin’s.

Acts

Justin

Acts

Justin

Not, however, by

BE.

After quoting

Is.

85

the

deaf lame,

dumb,’ Justin asserts the healing of

Clearly

includes if it is not restricted to, those who

Inhisearlier work

scribe

appears to have corrected

into

(I

Apol.

2 2

I t

looks

as though Justin interpreted

in the’

but

literally

the Dialogue, some old tradition about Christ: acts

of healing. Hence the strange addition ‘in the flesh.

H e

seems to ,mean ‘not, as some say,

but

defective.

On this point

I

Apol.

46 is a key-passage, ‘We were taught

Christ is the

God,

and we

that

h e is the Word wherein every race of men participated.

The

doctrine of the First-born is authoritative leaching,’ the Logos
doctrine is the indication

the writer. On

the rare occasions

when Justin asserts (Tryph.

that he has ‘shown’ that

Johannine doctrine is in the Memoirs, his ‘showing,’ when

analysed, amounts to

‘we have

supported by references to

OT

. .

‘proclaimed

the

and taught

him

(Christ).

this Westcott (Ju.

says that the Synoptists

anywhere declare his pre-existence,’ apparently inferring

that Justin must have Jn. in mind, though he never quotes
But the italicised words (cp

8

IO

)

simply indicate the

general continuity

what

taught as the Logos,

through

and what he taught as Jesus

in

When Justin ‘shows‘ the pre-existence of Christ from a

par.

it is from the Memoirs, but in a most unsatis-

factory manner (see last footnote). ( d ) Tryph.

86 says that ‘the

rod in

OT

is a type of the Cross, and that Moses, ‘by means of

this, saw water

the

f r o m

103)

applies to Christ Ps. 22

like water.

These words seem absolutely to demand some reference to that
stream (if he knew of it) which the author of the Fourth Gospel
alone records himself to have ‘seen’ flowing from Christ on the
Cross. Yet Justin (ib.

instead of quoting Jn., quotes the

interpolated Lk. 2244, omitting

mention of

so

that the quotation accords with the Psalmist’s ‘poured out like
water.’

(e)

97 follows Barnabas

applying part

of

Ps.

22

18

to

the ‘casting of lots for Christ’s garments. But

goes farther, by quoting the whole

which mentions

’dividing’ as well.

also quotes the whole verse, but goes

farther still, seeing in

it two

distinct

acts. It is

highly improbable that, if Justin had known, as apostolic, this
warrant for a

fulfilment of prophecy he would have

omitted to refer to it.

But he neither

to it, nor even

recognises two

says that the Vine is

God‘s people, planted and pruned for its good by Christ, without
reference to

15

describes himself as pruning

the Church that the fruitful branches may bring forth more fruit.

I

Apol. 63, ‘The Jews are justly charged

. . .

by, Christ

himself, with Knowing

neither the Father

nor

the

Son.

This

ought to refer to

‘charges’ as Jn. 8

‘Ye neither Know

me

nor

Father.

Yet Justin quotes

it nothing but an

ancientversionof Mt.1127 Lk.

but

or

in Mt. and Lk.] the Father, save the

3

nor the

save the Father, and those to whom the Son will

reveal [him]

which is merely a general statement of the con-

ditions of

(h)

‘The well-known lamb

that was,

to be roasted whole

was

a type of the Cross.

Jn. alone describes the rovidential inter-

position by which ‘not a bone was broken’ of

the Paschal

lamb. Yet Justin, instead of referring to this, refers t o ’ the
roasting of the two lambs on two spits, one across the other,
which typified the Cross

!

( 5 ) Inconsistencies with

mostly concern Justin’s

views of the origin

of

Christ, and the

Logos

-

doctrine

;

but they also affect

his views of God, and of theology

Justin’s view is that

6)

God has

no

‘name’;

is

that the

came

declare the Father’s ‘name‘ and to kee

them

that ‘name.

The notion of a Trinity in a Unity of

or love, is

from Justin. Generally Justin shrinks from

the phrase ‘begotten of God.’ According to him it is the Logos,
or the

who

(

‘the new

(26.

the Church, his

also

Elsewhere he allows

himself to say that God has begotten from himself
a

kind of Logos-power

Yet when he

eaks of the Father as begetting the Son, he always inserts

his

or

‘coming forth by the power and

counsel’

of God, or, speaking of

birth of Jesus

he

uses the middle

‘cause

to

be begotten.

In his

Justin’s may be the earlier form, to which

‘of blood’

may be a later addition. But in any case the argument remains
that whereas Jn. fulfils Justin’s requirements exactly, and the
interpolated Lk. does not, Justin quotes the latter and not the
former.

I t may be replied that Justin understanding the nature of

Hebrew poetry, perceived that ohly

one action was

;

but

53

and ‘ass’

though

by the other Evangelists. The real explanation is that

represents a later and more developed tradition than that

generally.

adopted by Justin.

‘ N o one knoweth the Son save the Father,’ but quoted

as

by Justin again

and by

Origen, and

Thus according to Justin the Church (Ecclesia) and Man

(Anthro

are both

by Logos.

the Valentinians

taught

Anthropos and Ecclesia were the children of Logos

and Zoe.

If

means ‘containing Logos,’

means

‘a

Power containing Logos.’ What is this ‘Power’? Surely

‘Thought

Hence Justin implies that the Father

begot ‘Thoiight

as the

or Beginning and that

in

this

or

there was

But

is formal

heretical-doctrine

Cp Jn. 1 1 3 ‘were begotten of God where Irenaens and

other

insert

voluntate

and apply it not

t o

Tertullian (De

Chr. 19)

accuses

1836

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

anxiety to emphasise the supremacy and ineffability of the

Father, he speaks of one (meaning the Logos) who is (Tryph.
56)

not

God and Lord,

under the

Maker of the universe

;

(

I

32, and

The first Power,

to

the Father of all.

This conveys the

notion that the Logos is hut one of many subordinate Powers.

Also the multiplicity of names given to the Logos

56

Wisdom, Angel Day East Sword

(1

that

of Jn. ; and when Justin quotes Dan.

to lay stress on the

‘as’in

Christ

76)

the word

seems anti-Johanniue, and bordering

Docetism.

(6)

evidence

appears,

then, that

(

I

)

when Justin seems to be alluding to Jn.,

he is really alluding to

OT or Barnabas,

or some Christian tradition different from
Jn. and often earlier than Jn.

when

.Justin teaches what is practically the doctrine of the

Fourth Gospel, he supports it, not by what can easily
be found in the Fourth, but by what can hardly,
any show of reason, be found in the Three; ( 3 )

as

regards Logos-doctrine, his views are alien from Jn.
These three distinct lines of evidence converge to the

conclusion that Justin either did not know Jn., or,

as

is

more probable, knew it but regarded it with suspicion,
partly because it contradicted

his favourite Gospel,

partly because it was beginning to be freely used by his

the Valentinians.

(4) It may also he fairly

added that literary evidence may have weighed with

him.

He

seldom

(as

many early Christian

writers do)

from

apocryphal

The title he gives

to the Gospels

Memoirs of the Apostles shows the

value he set on what seemed to him the very words of
Christ noted down by the apostles.

Accepting the

.Apocalypse as

of

theapostle John,

he

naturally have rejected the claim of the Gospel

to proceed from the same author.

This may account for

:a

good many otherwise strange phenomena in Justin’s

writings.

H e could not help accepting much of the

Johannine doctrine, but he expressed it,

as far

as possible,

in non-Johannine language; and, where he could, he
went back to earlier tradition for it, such as he found,

-for example, in the Epistle of Barnabas.

xix.

gives evidence

A.D.

) of

special value because, being a pupil of the recently

ceased Justin who does

not

quote Jn., he

wrote an

which apparently

does

Jn.,

Johannine tradition

and, later, after

he had become an Encratite heretic, he composed

a

Harmony of the Four Gospels, thereby accepting the

Fourth as on

a

level with the Three.

His

Apology

may throw light on the date, and perhaps on the
reasons, of acceptance.

The alleged

BE

quotations in the

Apology are the

-following: (a)

4)

‘God is a spirit, not one that

matter

This is

His

simply

of

Apology.

699) that God is ‘a spirit,’ but ‘one that interpene-

trates

being

(and

Orig.

13)

this, you see, is the

meaning of the saying

The darkness

not

the

;

for the soul did not itself

preserve

the spirit, but was reserved

by it, and

the

It

is doubtful

whether

says that

(I

Jn. 15) ‘God is light and in him

the

of

substituting

‘were

The fact appears to be that, whereas preceding writers had

laid stress on being

again,’

laid stress on the nature

of

birth describing it as (1 13) ‘from

3)

‘from

Many

offence at this, as suggesting that

is of the same

as

Christ’s incarnation (which

indeed may have been

meaning). Therefore, in the first

passage where

states the doctrine (re-stated in the Epistle too

often to be changed), some ventured to change it.

18

By a n act of

will

he brought us forth.

This

thegeneral mistranslation

3)

‘from

though

it must mean ‘again.’

1

H e uses it is true a corrupt text of the L X X and refers to the

Acts

but

never quotes Enoch

does),

the Gospels of the Hebrews, Egyptians etc. Eusebius, who

bestows such praise on

Justin’s

18

I)

.‘cultivated intellect.

no darkness’-would accept the latter half of this antithesis.

Paul’s saying that Christ (Phil. 3

‘comprehends

or

‘catches

(for its

human soul is very different

saying that

the light ‘comprehends’ the

Also

-which applies to any saying, and not specially to Scripture-
combines with the naturalness of such a

‘

saying’ in Christian

controversy to make it probable that Tatian is quoting a common
tradition, and not Jn.

;

Renounce demons and

follow the only God. All things

by him

the Father), and without him hath

not

heen

made

anything ; cp Jn. (1

All things were made

him

the Logos), and without him was not made

anything.’ The two sayings are quite distinct in meaning but
the

likeness makes it certain that Tatian must have known

Jn., though he has either misinterpreted it

altered it (possibly

to avoid polytheistic inferences).

( a )

Truces

of

as a recent

interpretation.’ Though

the

teems with subtleties (alien from Jn.) about matter

and the Logos and shows no recognition of the Johanniue view of
the spiritual

of the Father and the Son, yet the above-

mentioned allusions or quotations-occurring as they do in a
very short treatise that contains hardly a single allusion to the
Synoptists-indicate that Tatian attached considerable import-
ance to a

of

stating

the Christian

such as he

found in Johannine tradition or writing. Such passages
5) God

the beginning : but the beginning,

w e

have

re-

ceived

is a Logos

indicate what may

be called an attempt to

on

Word was in the beginning,’ so that we

hardly call them recognitions of Jn. as an authoritative

gospel.

the following passage

perhaps in the same

direction.

Supporting his theory

evil springs from the

inferior of

kinds of spirits,’ Tatian says

These

things it is possible to understand

detail for, one who does

not in empty conceit reject

most

interpretations which, i n

having been

in

for

have made those who give heed to them acceptable to God

Now the only passage in N T that definitely and

fully recognises Tatian’s ‘two kinds of spirits’-bidding the
reader ‘not believe every spirit,’ giving him a test by which he
may ‘know the spirit of God’ and discern ‘the spirit of truth
and the spirit of error’-is

I

Jn. 4

I t seems probable, then,

that Tatian is here referring to the Johannine Epistle and Gospel
which are obviously connected and are generally supposed
have been published together.

The word

interpretations was applied by Papias to the various
versions of Matthew’s Logia. Mark was called Peter’s
interpreter,’

so that Mk. itself might be called an in-

terpretation

’

of apostolic tradition.

There is evidence

to show that the Johannine Gospel was long preached
orally before being published and Tatian’s words seem
to hint at

a

deferred publication

in course of time

hav-

ing

in writing’). If it was interpreted

by an Elder

of Ephesus, such

as John the Elder,

be

to Tatian

as an ‘interpretation.

Also, the

clause about rejecting implies that some had rejected,
or were disposed

to reject, the work in question-and

this with contempt. Justin may not have gone so far
this. Tatian’s respect for

the admirable Justin

is quite consistent with the hypothesis that he already
dissented from his former master’s cautious avoidance

of

Jn., especially if Tatian himself did not

yet rank

it with the Synoptists.

(6) The

gives

little help beyond the

assurance that, when it was composed, Tatian ranked

As handed down

Arabic, it differs, both in text and in

arrangement, from the text commented

on by Ephraem and both

of

these differ from the text

commented on by

This would fit in with

a good many facts.

Jn. with the Synoptists.

Cp perhaps

‘If

some were

t o

God,’ yet Israel received a revelation, ‘having

been comprehended’ (read

for

grasped and drawn towards God, because God

to

his own

being.

In N T

is not used to introduce Scripture except

when (Lk. 2 24 Acts 2

16

13

accompanied

some

in the Law

in the Prophets!’ etc.

not

thus

it must be) rendered ‘said

spoken etc. (cp

Rom. 4

18

‘according to that which

been

to

Abraham-not ‘according to that which hath been said

in Scripture).

3

A

complete collation of Aphraates Ephraem and the Latin

version of the Arabic shows that

are not

than three

or

four passages-and these of little importance-where these

three alleged representatives

of

Tatian’s work agree against the

modern text (as represented by

WH):

Mk. 923 Mt.

1838

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

This indicates-what ‘of itself is highly probable-that a t a

very earlyperiod the

was revised in the interests of

orthodoxy so as to leave few traces of the author’s Encratite and

other

What may be the correct inferences

from Theodoret’s account of Tatian’s excisions and of ‘the mis-
chief of the composition and what ought to be inferred from
Eusebius’s

( H E

statement ahout

the work, are

that do not affect Tatian’s recognition

of

All agree that before the end of his

ahout

recognised the Four Gospels as bbing of

special authority, although his notions of authority may not

have prevented him from handling them with considerable
freedom.

As

regards the date

of

recognition, Tatian’s

adds

little to our knowledge, for

the time of its composition (about

A

.D.),

Irenreus regarded four gospels’ as no less essential1

four than the ‘four zones of the

that in Gaul the

must have been recoenised much earlier. But the im-

portance of Tatian’s testimony following on Justin’s is that the
two appear to fix the

in sceptical

teacher favouring Lk. but rejecting Jn whilst his pupil at first

apparently took up Jn. as a ‘divine ’interpretation’ specially
adapted for a

appeal to the Greeks, and before long

placed it in a

of the Four Gospels.

From this date investigation is rendered needless by

the practically unanimous acceptance of the canonical
Gospels.

E. A.

-HISTORICAL AND SYNTHETICAL.

What remains

of the present article will be devoted

to

a brief statement and discussion of the principal

hypotheses which have been at various times put for-
ward

as

tentative solutions

of the Synoptical problem.

On the fourth gospel see J

OHN

, S

O

N

O

F

Z

EBEDEE

.

I. T

ENDENCY

IN

THE

The question of tendency deserves the first place, for

the more tendency can he seen to have been at work in

the composition of the Synoptic gospels,
the less room is left for the action of

.

merely

influences and the like.

of one kind or another

in the Synoptists are conceded even by

the most conservative scholars.

Thus they find

that Mt. wrote for Jewish Christians, or for

to

prove to them from the

O T the Messiahship of Jesus

this appears from

numerous

O T quotations, often

even prefaced with the words, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken

:

1 etc. ).

Jerusalem is spoken of as simply the holy city

( 4

5

27

Much space is given to the polemic against the

Pharisees and Scribes.

The contrast to Mt.

sented by Lk.

is

striking.

Here many speeches, which

according to Mt. were directed against the Pharisees,
are addressed to the nation in general (Lk.
639

43

as against Mt.

38

15

15-20).

In Lk.

3

7

(contrast with Mt.

37)

we have the (surely impossible)

story that the Baptist addressed the masses who desired
to receive his baptism as

a generation of vipers

a,

a).

The fact,

too,

that Lk.

carries the genealogy

Jesus back to Adam points to the conclusion that, in

writing, he has Gentile Christians, or Gentiles, in his
mind.

The same inference can be made for Mk.,

who is at pains to explain Jewish words or customs

34

and byfrequently

Latin

words

( 5 6

27

74

39)

and forms of expression

( 3

6

5

23

1465

1515)

and even explaining Greek by Latin phrases

1516)

shows that he was addressing readers who

spoke Latin. Again, from the relatively small number
of discourses of Jesus reported by Mk. we may perhaps
conclude that he attaches less importance to the teaching
than to the person of Jesus.

It

is

the person that he

desires to glorify.

Further, each evangelist

in his

own way is influenced

by, and seeks

his narrative to serve, the apologetic

interest.

To meet particular objections, such as those

preserved by Celsus (cp Mt.

28

we find, for ex-

ample, an assertion

so questionable as that of Mt.

(the watching and sealing of the tomb, of which

the other evangelists know nothing), or that of the
bribing of the watchers (Mt. 28 11-15-

a charge which,

if actually made and believed, would certainly have
involved their death cp Acts

Once more,

Dr. Rendel Harris says

on

‘Bar

Salibi seems to intimate that Tatian gave no harmonised
of the Resurrection. Every reader of Ephrem’s text,

current

in the Armenian will have been struck by the poverty of the
Commentary at this part of the Gospel.’ But there is no

‘poverty’ now in the Arabic

In

particular (see

for Greekapeaking Jews. I t

ought to be added however, that Gentile Christians also were
interested, or at

of being interested, in the evi-

dences of Christianity derived from the O T prophecies.

tendency appears also in another direction, the political

the desire to make the Roman authority

as

little

responsible as possible for the death of Jesus

(Mk.

15

1-14

Mt.

27

1-23

and very specially Mt.

27

24

most

strongly of all in Lk.

23

1-23,

where Pilate even invokes

the judgment of Herod,

an

of which there is

no hint in

Mk.

or Mt.

The very widely accepted view, that Lk. is of

a

§

43

§

specifically

character, can be

maintained only in a very limited

The mission to the Gentiles is

brought into very distinct prominence by the evangelist

not only in his own narrative but also in report-

ing the words of Jesus.

By Jesus, partly in express utterances

partly in the

choosing and sending forth of the seventy (10

I

)

whose numher

corresponds to that of the heathen nations

in Gen.

10,

partly in his interest in the Samaritans who were not re-

garded hy the Jews as compatriots

who i; the Third Gospel

are, to all appearance, the

of the Gentiles. The

word ‘stranger’

used to designate

the cleansed Samaritan leper (Lk.

17

IS

),

is the

tech-

used for all Gentiles in the well-known inscription marking

the limits in the temple precincts which non-Jews were pro-
hibited from passing, under penalty of

Lk. has no

parallels to Mt.

7

6

(pearls before swine),

10

Go not into any

way of the Gentiles

23

15 24

(‘not sent but unto

.

. .

house

of Israel’). I n

(‘even sinners love those that love

them’) the persons spoken of with depreciation are not, as in

Mt. 546

f

ublicans and heathens but sinners. In Lk. 5

(call of

the mission to the

is hardly mistakable

32,

last footnote)

:

the other boat which is summoned (5

7)

to

aid Peter in landing the multitude of fish, is that of

and his

companions, whilst James and John (according to 5

IO

)

figure as

the comrades of Peter and the astonishment and apprehension
they share with him

signify that until now they had not

grasped thedivine

of an extended mission. That they

nevertheless took part in the mission to the Gentiles at the
divine command (5 5 , ‘ a t thy word

cp

‘repentance

.

.

.

in

nnto all the nations’) is in entire agreement with the

representation in Acts 10 (see Acts,

4).

The reverse side is seen in the rejection

of the

Jewish nation, in great measure, or indeed, if the words
be taken literally, ‘altogether.

Cp

saved?

. . .

Strive to enter

.

. .

last

. . .

first and first

. .

.

last ’),

(‘cut it down’), where the Jewish

nation is intended by the fig-tree (see

4

(Nazareth

The rejection of Jesus in his native city means

that he met with

no

recognition in his native

the word

native place’

being ambiguous.

The mention of

works

in

(4

23)

where according to

Lk., Jesus had not yet been (he reaches

for

first time in

makes it evident that the narrative has purposely been

given the earlier place

the narrator, though not in agreement

with his sources, as a sort of programme expressive of the relation
of Jesus to the Jews

a s

a whole

39,

127

a,

y).

I n an entire group of parables the whole point lies in

the rejection of the Jews and the call of the Gentiles to
salvation.

Thus the Gentiles are indicated by the third class of those

invited to the royal supper-those compelled to come in from the
highways and hedges (14

; cp

Again,

(25

See

T

EMPLE

.

Exceptions such

as

199 (‘daughter’

or ‘son’

of

Abraham) 133 (‘reign over house of Jacob for ever ’), 54 holpen
Israel

servant

salvation unto his people’) 2 326

of

thy

Israel’), 38 (‘redemption of

which doubtless come from the author’s sources, do not invalidate
the above observation-all the less because they agree with what
has already been

under

A

CTS

,

4.

840

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

14-30)

ethical parable of the talents receives in

19

(‘far country ‘receive kingdom’), 14 (‘citizens

him ’), 27

(‘these

‘slay them’), additions which give

it

a

wholly different complexion. Here, the nobleman who goes

into a far country and whose people, for declining his rule, are in
the end put to death, was suggested by the well-known story of

Archelaus son of Herod the Great (see

8)

but in the

intended

of the parable the

him.

self and the ‘far’ country into which he travels is the region of
the Gentiles; cp the similar use of ‘far’

in 15 73

(:prodigal’), Acts239 (‘promise to all

. . .

afar off’)

2221

send thee [Paul] far hence unto Gentiles’), Eph. 2

were far off’),

17

(same).

Even Lazarus who in Lk.

comes into

poor and as

must,

the

addition in

be regarded as representing the Gentiles

the rich man and his brethren being characterised in the word:

‘fhey have Moses and the prophets’ as representing the Jews.

Cp also

Against the work-righteousness of the Mosaic law

we have the saying about the unprofitable servant

7-10),

and the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican

with regard to which, however, there is no

reason to doubt that it was spoken by Jesus.

( d )

In

we have

a specifically Pauline expression

-the designation of the Publican as ‘justified’

another in

8

lest they believe and be

saved

: cp

I

Cor.

1

‘to save them that believe’) also

188 the claim that

should return he would be entitled’to find

faith

on the earth lastly the formula, thy

faith has saved thee

dusts

ae) :

7

(woman

house),

(Samaritan leper),

848

(woman with issue),

(blind

The same

formula, however, occurs also in Mk.

534

(woman with

issue),

Mt.

(woman with issue).

It is therefore not specifically peculiar to Lk.

and

moreover a careful survey of all the passages cited does

not show that Lk. has appropriated any specific doctrine

of

Paul, but only that he has made his own in all their

generality the gains of the great apostle’s
dom from the law, and the assurance that salvation is
open to all.

The same conclusion

is

reached by examination of another

parable-which also certainly was spoken by Jesus-that of the
Prodigal Son who is taken back into favour by the father with-
out anything being said of any sacrifice on his behalf such as
Paul would certainly have regarded as necessary. The woman
who was a sinner (Lk. 747

jo)

is saved not

of her faith

alone but quite as much by reason of her love-just as Abraham
and Rahab are in

I

Clem. Rom. 10

I

.

Over against what has just been pointed

out we must

set those ideas which Lk. has in common with what is

usually called the Ebionitic side

of

primitive

( a )

The poor

are blessed because of their poverty,

the rich condemned because of their riches

6

j

Blessed

. . .

,

Woe unto

. .

rich man

and Lazarus

cp Jas.

let brother

of

low

degree

glory,

God

. . .

choose poor,

5 6

ye have killed

. . .

the righteous one

Clem. Hom.

possessions are

in all cases sin loss of them

any way

is a taking

away of sins

(6)

Beneficence wins salvation (Lk.

give for alms

. . .

all things are clean [but see

130

635,

do good and

lend;

make friends by mammon

cp Ecclus.

330,

alms an atonement

Tob.

1 2 8

Clem. Rom.

16

4,

Clem.

ad

beneficence the ground of

salvation,

(c)

God is to be

stormed by earnest importunate prayer

1 8 ,

because

of

importunity’

18

judge and widow). Such thoughts,

however, do not

through the entire texture of Lk.

they are confined to definite portions, among which the

Other coincidences are seen also in

8

(‘eat such things as

are set before

11

46 (‘yourselves touch not the burdens’),

20

386

(‘all live unto him

when compared with

I

Cor. 10 27

(‘whatsoever

is

set

eat’) Gal. 6

bear own

burden’),

die, the

Lord’s’).

Cp

Hawkins, 160

.

also (but with caution), Evans,

Paul

the

author

Third

Gospel, 1884.

It is necessary here to give a note of warning

the

usage of the Tiibingen school, which simply made Ebionitism
identical with uncompromising Judaism.

parable of the Unjust Steward, the Rich

M a n

and

Lazarus, the Importunate Friend and the Unjust Judge,

may be specially mentioned

end). Indeed, the

writer does not seem to have accepted them in their

full

extent, for by his appendix to the Rich Man and Lazarus

question

of

sending warning) he has given the

parable quite another meaning

6)

similarly

in

the case of the Unjust Steward by the appendix

16

(little and much, one’s own and another’s)

d )

and even in the last parable mentioned above, atten-
tion is directed from the Judge’s unrighteousness by the

addition of

18

8

6

(

faith on earth?

In Lk. great care is taken to warn readers against

expecting the coming of the kingdom as imminent

(219,

immediately;

‘before

all these things

until times

of

Gentiles fulfilled

‘not with

observation

1 9

parable because

supposed kingdom immediately

’).

The

‘

straightway

preserved in Mt.

has disappeared in Lk.

(2125)

;

sa also

the statement in Mt.

that

the days preceding the end shall be shortened for the
elect’s sake, and

(2269)

the announcement of the speedy

appearance of the Son of Man coming on the

clouds of heaven (Mt.

26

64).

The idea in Lk.

(21

that the premonitory signs

of the end cannot appear

!

until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled rests upon

the belief of Paul that before Christ’s parusia the gospel
must first be preached to all nations (Rom.

11

25

See, more fully;

(a)

Just as in Lk. Ebionitic and Pauline ideas are found

in juxtaposition and contrast,

so in Mt. are universalism

and Jewish particularism

(15

24,

lost

sheep of Israel

twelve thrones

not into way of Gentiles;

cities of Israel, as against

from

east and west

21

two sons wicked husband-

I.‘”.

men

;

royal marriage

;

teach all nations;

2414,

preached

whole world

2 6 13,

wheresoever

preached in whole world), legal conservatism and free-
dom from the law

not destroy but fulfil;

what they bid you d o ;

pray

not on

a

Sabbath ;-as against

532 1 9 8 ,

divorce;

534,

swear not

39,

resist not;

new patch, new wine;

Sou of Man lord of Sabbath).

(6) On further

is manifest, in the case

of

two parables especially, that the rejection of the Jews

and the call of the Gentiles to salvation

was

introduced

only as an after-thought.

the case of the royal supper, those first invited, after reject-

ing the invitation and slaying the messengers, are conquered
war and their city burnt

(Mt.

but in the original form of

the parable their place was in the king’s own city.

.

After the

military expedition the preparations for the supper remain just
as they had been (224

others’

too

in 226

bas a strange look coming after 22 5 they went their ways ’).
The insertion points unmistakably to the destruction

Jeru-

salem in 70

A

.D.

as a punishment for the

of Jesus and

his apostles, and serves to indicate the whole nation of the Jews
as signified by those first invited. Had this been the original
intention of the parable, it mould not he easy to understand why

Lk.

should have enumerated three classes of invited

persons of whom of course only the third can signify the Gentiles.
But conversely it would be equally incomprehensible how Mt.
could have reduced the number of the classes to two had three
classes been already mentioned in the original form of the
parable as in Lk. Since there the heathen are the third class, if

omitted that class he was obliged to transfer

explanation

to

the second class, which he could do only by inserting

These remarks do not in any way contradict the fact that in

Acts community of goods is an ideal with the author

;

for the

idea of

O

F

G

OODS

is indeed related to the

Ebionitic ideas of the Third

but is not identical with

then,. Further, it must not be

that, though with Lk.

this community was indeed an ideal for the past it is quite
another question how far he wished to see it

his own

time.

The whole journey of Jesus into foreign territory (Mk.

woman came out from the borders of Tyre and Sidon to.

meet Jesus.

Far-reaching consequences follow from this sea

1842

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

The two forms of the parable are in no case

independent of each other, for of the three excuses of the first
invited two agree very closely in Mt. and Lk. We must there-

fore assume that the parable in its original form-in which we
can, without any difficulty, attribute

it to Jesus-distinguished

only two classes of invited guests, as is now done in

but

that these were intended to denote, not the Jews as a whole and
the Gentiles

as

a whole, as in

hut the esteemed and despised

classes respectively, among the Jews themselves, as in Lk. Each
of the

evangelists, therefore, has judged it necessary to bring

some reference to the Gentile world into the words of Jesus

which, as originally uttered, did not look beyond the Jewish

nation, but each has carried out his object in a quite independent

manner

end).

With regard to the parable of the

wicked husbandmen we are expressly told in Mt. 21 45, as well
as

in Mk. 12

and Lk. 20

that the hearers understood it as

referring to the chief priests

Pharisees.

Clearly therefore,

it is a later addition when Mt. (21 43) tells us that

Kingdom

God shall he given to a

nation

bringing forth the fruits thereof

-that is, to the Gentiles. Moreover had it been genuine this
verse would have found its

place before, not After,

(‘Did ye neverread.

.

On the other hand

Mt.

20

has been left unchanged. The fact that here

classes of labourers in the vineyard are distinguished

is

to show that the reference

he to the Jews as a whole on

t h e one side and to the Gentiles on the other. The distinction

of two classes within the Jewish nation without any reference to
the Gentiles, which has been shown above to have originally
underlain the parable of the royal wedding has heen expressly
preserved in the

of the Two

(Mt. 21 28-32), as

also in that of the Pharisee and the Publican in Lk. (18 9-14).

In two places

in Mt. some critics have even de-

tected

a polemic against the apostle Paul.

(a)

In

Whosoever shall break

.

. .

and teach

.

.

shall be called the least (Paul having called himself

i n

I

Cor.

the least of the apostles,

in

(the enemy,’

who sows tares among the wheat).

‘Enemy’

with

or without

is,

in

Recognitions and Homilies, a constant designation

for Simon Magus by whom is

Paul (see S

IMON

M

AGUS

).

Perhaps Paul

in Gal. 4

16

(‘am

I

become your enemy?

is already alluding to the term ‘enemy’

as

having been

.applied to him by his

opponents. At the same time

however, it must not he overlooked that the First Evangelist

self does not share this view of the ‘enemy’

:

according to

enemy is the devil it is only the author

the evangelist’s source, therefore, that can have been following

a n anti-Pauline tendency here (cp

As for Mt. 5

heaven and earth pass

. . .

shall be called great in the

kingdom of heaven it is almost universally recognised that these
verses interrupt the connection,’ and it therefore remains a

that they were not written by the author of the gospel

placed on the margin by a later hand (see

e).

As regards the remaining legal and Jewish par-

ticularist passages in Mt. (see above,

a,

a),

on the other

hand, it

is not probable that they were first introduced

after those of

a

universalistic character.

They are neither so few as to admit of being regarded merely

as

isolated and

indeoendent

nor vet

.

Moses’ seat

all

.

.

.

yon, do), and (with special facility)

‘neither

Sabbath’

in

admit of re-

moval without injury to the connection ;

hut not 15 24 (‘ unto

lost sheep’),

(children’s bread), or 19

(twelve thrones).

But precisely the ‘neither on a Sabbath’

is

quite certainly original if it comes from the ‘little Apoca-

lypse’

As for the substance, we can more easily

refer back to Jesus those utterances in which salvation

is

re-

stricted to Israel.

far as the principles of Jesus are con-

cerned, they most assuredly contain within themselves no such
limitation.

Purity of heart, compassionateness, the childlike

spirit, can he shown by the Gentile as by the Jew. The outlook
of Jesus, however, seems still to have directed itself but little
towards the Gentiles. H e felt himself to be primarily a child

(‘For

I

.

.

.

exce t your righteousness’) would

serve

a s

giving the grounds

5

(one jot or one tittle)

only if the Pharisees were open to the charge of denying validity
t o the minor precepts of the law.

On the other hand

would serve admirably as a ground for 5 17 (not to

but

t o

fulfil) if by the word ‘fulfil’

Jesus wished to give

t o

the law a fuller and more perfect meaning, far beyond the

mere letter. Were 5

actually the ground

(ydp) for 5

the

of ‘fulfil‘

could only be that Jesus desired

in his

to follow the law down to its minutest details, and

enjoined the same in others also. But this disagrees not only
with 5

but also with 5

21-48

(‘Ye have heard’);

227

(‘Sabbath for man’);

7

1-23

(washing, corban); 10

(divorce),

a

word, contradicts the whole attitude of Jesus towards

Mosaic

law.

of his own people and even as regards these the task he had in
band was a

one. Mt.

(lost

26

(children’s

bread) as his first word to the Canaanitish woman (not as
his last) is by no means incredible. H e may very well
actually bidden his disciples restrict their preaching to the Jews

5f:

23)

on account of the nearness of the end of the world.

Mt. 19

(twelve

is perhaps only a somewhat modi-

fied form of one of his own utterances, even if assuredly it was
not spoken by way of answer to so mercenary a question as that
of 19

27

(‘what shall we have?’). In the

of Jesus perhaps

difficult saying to understand will be the expression of

friendliness to the Pharisees in

Mt.

23

(Moses’ seat), to

which the words of 16

(‘beware of the doctrine of the

Pharisees ’), 23 4 (heavy burdens), 11

(‘my yoke

i s

easy ’)

are so directly contrary.

See, however, in general,

At all events

it

is necessary to assume that the last redactor (who was
friendly to the Gentiles)-in other words, the canonical
Mt. -dealt much more gently with his particularistic
source than Lk. did with his.

( e )

In spite of the ‘straightway’

of

Mt.

is not altogether exempt from the tendency we have
already seen in

Lk.

to postpone the date of the parusia

cp

(my lord tarrieth),

25

5

(the bridegroom tarries),

25

(after a long time).

Of the three Synoptics Mk. is characterised‘least by

definite tendencies. The traces of

which some

critics have found in Mk. are of the
slightest. For example,

time is

fulfilled’

. . .

‘believe in gospel’: Gal.

44,

fulness

of

time’

through

faith

’),

9396

Cor.

(

I

Cor.

are remini-

scences of Paul but they are not Pauline ideas. The
mission to the Gentiles finds its place in

13

IO

(‘gospel.

.

.

unto all nations

’),

(‘ wheresoever the gospel’) cp

also all the nations

in

11

17

(house

of prayer for all the nations), unless indeed this be
merely a filling out of the citation from the

LXX. Some

aversion to Jewish particularism may be seen in the
toning down’of the answer of Jesus to the woman of
Canaan

children first inserted) as compared

with the form in Mt.

Mk. also, like the others,

seeks to postpone the date

of the parusia. Instead of

the ‘straightway’

of Mt.

he has

( 1 3 2 4 )

‘ i n those days,’ and

in

9 1 he does not, like Mt.

say there be some standing here that shall ‘see the Son
of Man coming

his Kingdom,’ but only that they shall

On the whole, then, it would seem that such tendencies

as

have been spoken

of manifest themselves only in

a

...

few parts of the three gospels.

A

see the Kingdom of God come with power.‘

warning must be given against

seeking to find too confidently any

tendencies in the way in which the

original apostles arementionedwhetheras implying praise
or blame.

It

would be in accordance with the general character of Lk.

if some aversion to the original apostles were held to underlie
the censure of James and John for their proposal to call down
fire from heaven upon the inhospitable

village (Lk.

9

and it would he in accordance with the opposite char-

acter

if it made no mention of

hardness of heart with

which the original apostles are charged in Mk. 6

52

8

But

Mt. is precisely the one gospel which chronicles Peter’s faint-
heartedness on the water and Mt. as well as Mk. has the speech
in which Jesus

him as ‘Satan’ (Mt.

16

Mk.

On the other side, it is precisely in Lk.

32)

that

we find the passage which, along with

could be in-

scribed in golden letters on the Church of

Peter in Rome.

In another matter (should we be inclined to see here

any tendency’ at all)-the enhancement of the miracles
of Jesus in number and character-all the evangelists
have a share

Thus,

of

the tendencies

we have discussed are followed, not in the interest

of

a

party, but

in that

of

the church which was ever more and

more approximating catholicism in character.

But,

further, the tendencies affect only

a

limited portion

of

the

gospel material, and by far the larger part of this material
does not admit of explanation by their means.

In the

sections referred to there are but two instances in which
it has been claimed by the present writer that ideas have
been clothed in narrative dress-those

of Peter’s draught

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

of fishes a n d

of

t h e tares a m o n g t h e wheat

t h e other

places in

this

b e alleged a r e b u t few

142,

a n d C

LEOPAS

), a n d even in these

t h e symbolical

meaning b o r n e

by

t h e narrative arises almost always

from a n originally figurative manner of speaking being
mistakenlynnderstood

as

literal expression

of a

fact, not

from deliberate a n d conscious invention for

purposes

of

edification.

A

TTEMPTS

T O

SOLVE THE

PROBLEM

BY

L

ITERARY

CRITICISM.

In

considering the attempts t o solve t h e Synoptical

problem b y literary criticism we begin most conveniently

with what, in appearance a t least, is t h e

hypothesis

:

t h a t of

a

primitive

gospel h a n d e d down solely

by

oral tradi-

tion.

By

continual narrating of t h e gospel

history, i t is held, there came a t last t o b e formed

a

fixed type of narrative,

in

Aramaic.

U p o n this each

evangelist drew directly without a n y acquaintance with
t h e written work of a n y other.

( a )

T h i s hypothesis is a n

I t spares

t h e critic

all

necessity for a n answer t o t h e question

wherefore i t

was

t h a t o n e evangelist wrote in this manner

a n d another in that- although t h e question presses for,

and

very often admits,

a

solution.

If t h e Synoptical

o r a l narrative

was

really

so

firmly fixed

as

t o secure

repetition of entire verses in three authors

writing independently of o n e another, t h e n t h e varia-
tions between t h e three become all t h e more mysterious,
o r else

all

t h e

manifestly d u e t o tendency.

T h i n k

only of t h e variations in t h e Lord‘s Prayer, in t h e words
of institution of t h e Eucharist, i n t h e accounts of t h e
resurrection

of

Jesus.

T h e coincidence appears, how-

ever, n o t only

in

t h e discourses

of

Jesus, where it would,

comparatively speaking, b e intelligible, b u t also

in

n a r r a -

tive, i n quite indifferent turns

of

expression in which t h e

s a m e writers often also diverge very widely.

.The doubly augmented form of the

in

Mt.

6

I

O

cannot indeed be adduced as an

example, for the

augment is met with also not only in

Mk. 25

but often elsewhere outside the

NT

in the

case of this verb

7).

compare, for example

how Mt. 27

in the

before Pilate, and Lk. 23

has no parallel), in the hearing before Herod,

the

middle aorist-met with in Mk. 1461 in the hearing before the

hut very rarely elsewhere in the NT-‘he answered

nothing

though immediately afterwards

(Mt.

27

14)

we have the

Mk. also in the

parallel passage (15

5)

having this form

;

or the ‘Lord, Lord

in the vocative of Lk. 6 46, retained from Mt.

7

his source), though in

modified form of the sentence

why call ye me’

only the accusative

would be appropriate. In one pair of parallels

(Mt.

2661 Mk.

1458) the words of Jesus are reported as being

t o

the effect that

lie would build the (new) temple ‘in the course of three days

in another

‘in

three

days’

or

Mk. 11

(cleans-

ing the temple) coincides in the first half word for word with
Lk

in the second almost word for word with Mt. 2 1

Further examples are

abundantly in Hawkins,

42-52

or

D e r

How far this agreement goes, in the discourses of Jesns, can be
observed, for example, in Mt.

Mt.

Mt

Lk

Mt.

11

or,

for instances of coinci-

dence between all three evangelists Mt. 23

6

12

2046;

Between

Mt.

and Mk. this close

agreement is met with elsewhere mainly in the

OT

quotations

IO,

and in

Mt.

of agreement between Mk.

Lk. Mk.

he taken as examples. Instances of deliberate divergence in the
midst of the closest verbal agreement can he pointed

t o

in Lk.

(cast

devils) as against Mt.

or in Lk. 11

give good gifts) as against Mt.

7

c).

The artificiality

and improbability which are seen

t o

be necessarily inherent in

the hvnothesis under discussion as soon as one tries

to

it

in

come very clearly

t o

light

in

Arthur

the Four

(‘go),

A Synopsis

the

in

Greek

t o

Luke

Veit, the most recent German advocate of the hypothesis (Die

Consult further, Wernle, Die

81

’97) has even found himself driven

to

the assumption that Jesus

his teaching

t o

his

disciples catechetically, in the form of continually repeated
questionand answer, as was the custom with the Rahhis.

T o

m a n y this hypothesis commends itself

as

an

I t dispenses with t h e necessity of

assuming t h a t original documents from which o u r
gospels h a d been drawn- writings of
have p e r i s h e d ; also with t h e necessity of supposing
t h a t evangelists h a d deliberately- in other words, with
tendency- altered t h e written text of their predecessors
t h a t lay before them.

But such advantages a r e only

a p p a r e n t , not r e a l ; t h e variations a r e present, a n d
they d o not admit of explanation

as

d u e to mere

accident.

Nevertheless, inadequate though t h e

hypothesis b e

as a

complete explanation of t h e pheno-

m e n a displayed b y o u r present gospels- and of course
we have been here dealing with it in its purity

and as

unassisted

by

a n y other assumption- it is a t the

same

time equally certain t h a t it contains a n essential element
of truth.

Unquestionably t h e formation of

a

gospel

narrative was oral in its beginning.

T h e opposite

theory t h a t

a

creative writer freely composed t h e entire

material without a n y previous oral currency ( R r u u o
Bauer, Volkmar) m a y b e regarded

as

n o longer in t h e

field.

further, t h e propagation of t h e gospel

story

by

oral tradition continued to b e carried o n for

a

considerable time even after t h e first written docu-

ments

had

taken shape, a n d t h u s was capable

of

exerting a n influence even u p o n gospels of

a

com-

paratively l a t e d a t e

end).

T h e next hypothesis t o r e l y upon very simple means

is

t h a t t h e evangelist who wrote second in order m a d e

use of the work

of

t h e first, a n d t h e

third used t h e work of o n e o r both

of

his predecessors.

To

g r a s p this hypo-

thesis in its purity

we

must put aside

all

idea

of

a n y

o t h e r written sources t h a n t h e canonical, a n d must
keep o u t of account

as

far a s possible t h e idea of a n y

o r a l sources.

Of

the six imaginable orders,

Lk., Mt. Mk.,

Lk Mk

been abandoned.

A

also he regarded as no longer

the field. I t

specially on the

that Mk. often makes use of

two expressions for the same thing, for which in the parallel
passages only one is found in Mt. and the other in Lk. But

this phenomenon admits equally well of another possible ex-
planation-that the diffuseness observable in Mk. ($ 4) gave

Mt.

and

opportunity for

Hawkins

also

Wernle,

Woods

a t

T h r e e orders still continue t o b e seriously a r g u e d

f o r : M t . Mk. Lk.

Mk. Mt.

Lk.

;

Mk. Lk. Mt.

In

spite of t h e fact t h a t every assertion, n o matter how
evident,

as

t o t h e priority of o n e evangelist a n d t h e

posteriority of another in a n y given passage will b e
found t o have been

t h e other way

by

quite

a

number of scholars of

we nevertheless

h o p e t o gain

a

large measure

of

assent for the following

propositions

:-

At the same time even when these are assumed as sub-

sidiary to the

the remarks we have

t o

make will

still apply of course at all points where borrowing as between
the three evangelists comes into the question.

The hypothesis of

called the

hypothesis, hut not happily, for evidently Mk. or Lk., if either
had been the third

to

write, could also have combined the data

sn plied

his two predecessors.

In the passage most frequently cited (Mk. 132) it

even

necessary, after at even,’ to add, when the sun did set for
according

to

Mk. it was the Sabbath day and before

it

would have been unlawful

to

bring any sick. Yet Lk.

could omit the first of the two clauses without loss, and Mt.

as with him the events did not

on the Sabbath,

could drop the second.

4

Probably the most conspicuous example in point here is

‘the carpenter’

of

Mk.

6 3 as against the carpenter’s

S

O

U

’

of Mt. 13 55,

or

of Joseph’

of Lk. 422. On the one side it is held that Mt. and

Lk. are here secondary, because they shrink from calling Jesus
an

;

on the other, the secondary place is given

to

Mk.

because he shrinks from calling Jesus the son of Joseph.

1846

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

stylistic changes h e makes while retaining individual
words.

L e t

a

single example suffice.

( a )

A

very strong a r g u m e n t for the priority of Mk.

is

the fact that, with the exception of some thirty

verses, his entire material reappears both in Mt. a n d in

o r a t least in o n e or other of them, a n d t h a t

what is even m o r e important- in both, or a t least in one,
in the s a m e order

as

in Mk.

T h e absence of the thirty

verses admits of

a

satisfactory explanation

whilst o n the other h a n d t h e absence from Mk. of

so

m u c h matter contained in Mt. a n d Lk. would be un-
accountable.

F o r details

as

t o this, a n d especially also

for the explanation of the m a r k e d divergencies in t h e
order of Mt.

8-12,

we refer the reader

to

W o o d s ,

63-78

a n d Wernle,

F o r o n e e x a m p l e , see

(speaking

in parables) comes before Mt.

(treasure, pearls,

etc.

)

instead of after it.

I n

15

above

this section of. Mk. is derived from a

tradition whicd

he did not wish to include in his gospel.

Reasons for the omis-

sion in Lk. are in fact conceivable ; for example, the discussion
of the ceremonial law in

1-23

(washing, corhan etc.), it may

have been thought, had little interest for

Christian

readers, or in the narrative of the Canaaiiitish woman Jesus
may have seemed too Jewish

;

in other sections the omission

is less easily explained.

Others have accordingly conjectured

that in the copy of Mk. which lay before Lk., 6 45-8

were

accidentally wanting. This suggestion cannot be set aside by
showing that in Lk. 11

38

(Jesus not first washed) 12

I

(beware of

leaven) we have echoes of Mk.

7

(disciples’ unwashed hands)

8

(beware of leaven) for Lk. may have derived these from

other sources. The mbst important point is that a t
(Whom do the multitude- say that I am?), where after omission
of

Lk. again begins to follow

Mk., he gives an

introduction which embodies distinct reminiscences of the
beginning of the portion omitted, 6 45-47 (praying alone,

:

If, therefore, the section

of Mk. was wanting in

copy, that

must a t least have

contained

three first verses or the single words just cited

must a t least have been still legiblk in it. Through the immediate
sequence of Peter’s confession (Mk. 8

9

18-21)

on

the

feeding of the five thousand (Mk.

9

it has

also come ahout that Lk.

the scene of the confession

to the locality of the feeding, that is, to Bethsaida (so accord-
ing to

9

;

somewhat otherwise, Mk. 6

instead of placing

it a t

(Mk. 8 27

;

cp

Mt. is secondary t o Mk.

T o Mk.

there is no parallel in Lk.

In Mt. 14 5 Herod wishes to put the Baptist to death, and is

restrained only

fear of the people.

Mk. 6

f

on the

contrary, it is Herodias who wishes

death of

whilst

Herod hears him gladly. With this it agrees that in Mk. 6

26

sorry because he is bound by his oath to order the

execution.

But the same sorrow is ascribed to him also in

Mt.

In

Mk.

the Baptist is

by his disciples;

in

Mk.

6

30

the disciples of Jesus return from their missionary

journey and report the miracles they have wrought.

T h e

connection of the two verses is quite casual the account of the
Baptist’s end being episodical.

But in ’Mt. 14

it is the

disciples of John who not only bury their master but also
their report to Jesus-the report, namely, of this burial. T h e
report

the disciples of Jesus of their own return would, in

fact, come in too late here, as they were sent

as early a s

1 0 5

and their presence with Jesus again has been already

presupposed in 12

I

; hut in 14

Mt. would not have had the

least occasion to mention a report

the disciples of John to

Jesus had it not been that the report of Jesus’ own disciples
had been mentioned in Mk. 630.

I n

the

answer of Jesus to thequestion, ‘Good Master what shall

I

do

that

I

may inherit eternal life?’ is ‘Why

thou me good?

None

good, save God only.’ I n Mt. 19

the question

: Master, what good thing shall

I

do that

I

have

eternal life?’ and the first part of the answer correspqnds

:

Why

askest thou me concerning that which is good?

Very in-

appropriate then is the second part :

‘

One (masc.) there is

who is the

Had not Mt. here had before him

such a text as that

and Lk. he would certainly, following

his own line of thought, have proceeded ‘one

is the

qood

all the more because the immediate con-

tinuation also

the exhortation to keep the command-

ments, would have suited so admirably.

The question of

Mt. 1 9 3 contains the words ‘for every cause’

merely because Mt. wishes to introduce ‘fornication

as an exception (u.

But in this form the question

would have had no ‘temptation’ in it, for an authority so
great

Schammai had already laid down restrictions

on

the freedom of divorce.

On

the were amazed

of

Mt. 1223 as coming from the ‘is

himself’

of

Mk. 3

see 8, middle, and

A

C

T

S

,

i.

On

the first journey

of Jesus’into foreign parts, see

a ,

cp further

a ,

and

e

also Wernle,

secondary character in relation t o Mk. is

shown with extraordinary frequency, especially in t h e

According to

‘the

of other things’ enter

the man and choke the word of God.

This ‘entering in

does not suit the figure for the explanation of

which it

is

used-the figure, namely, of thorns choking the

ood seed.

Lk.

accordingly avoids the expression

‘entering in,’ yet does not fail to bring in the word (‘going

using it now, however, of men who in their

(RV

‘as they go on their way’) are choked

cares and

riches and lusts as if

thorns. The participle had in fact laid

such hold

on

his memory as he read his model, that it came a t

once to his pen though in a new connection.

Many other

examples will be found in Wernle,

; Krenkel,

35-49 (‘94).

.

One can also make use of the collections

in Hawkins, 53-61, though he himself prefers to infer from
them ‘oral. transmission.‘

But in order

to

furnish also from

Lk.

an instance of a materially important and clearly intended

if not quite deliberate distortion of an expression in his
into a very different

as has already been done in the

case of Mt. (19

12 23

; see above, b), and will be done in

that of Mk.

see

a‘),

we point to his

with the word ‘Galilee’ (Lk. 246 ‘when he was yet in Galilee
as compared with Mk. 16 7 ‘goeth before you into Galilee’;
Mt.

7 ;

see

beginning).

( d )

W h i l e the preceding paragraphs seem t o speak

for t h e order Mk. Mt. Lk. ( o r

Lk. M t . ) we must

nevertheless g o o n also t o say that Mk. is secondary t o
Mt.

O n

(children first),

( ‘ i n those

days after t h a t tribulation

’), 9

I

(some not taste of

d e a t h ) , see above,

113.

I n the parable of the wicked husbandmen Mk. mentions, on

each occasion only one messenger as

been

hut

finally,

5,

quite unnecessary and even disturbing manner

says that there were yet many others (in agreement with

Mt. 21 35).

Mt. says (12

32)

that blasphemy against the

son of man shall be forgiven and only that against the Holy

Spirit shall not be

immediately before

31)

that every sin and blasphemy shall he forgiven to men, hut
blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.

In

place of

these two sentences Mk. has only one (3

; all their sins

shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies
only not those against the Holy Spirit. Thus he has retained
the word ‘Son of Man,’ but made it plural and thereby set
aside the sense which seemed offensive from the point of view
of a worshipper of Jesus,

that blasphemy against Jesus

can be

Cp, further, the examples in

If

what has just been advanced

is

correct, it shows

t h a t the borrowing-hypothesis, unless with t h e assistance
of other assumptions, is unworkable, if only for t h e

The attempt has often been made to invert the relationship

of the two passages and make out that Mt. 1 2 31 is taken from

Mk. 3

and that Mt. 12 32 says the same thing and comes

from

or rather from

source.

I t

argued

that the

expression

‘Son of Man’ meaning any

man whatever, as in Ps. 8

5,

is rendered

justice

ad

in Mk. by the plural, but in

source

erroneously applied to Jesus.

But since

Son of Man

is the only, or almost the only, Aramaic expression for the
idea ‘man,’ it is impossible that the first writers of Greek in
primitive Christendom should not have had occasion, a thousand
times over, to render it by ‘man‘

All the more

inconceivable is it that precisely here they should have under-
stood Jesus alone to be meant by it, if such

an interpretation

had not been absolutely certain. I n their worship of Jesus it
must have appeared to them in itself the greatest possible
blasphemy to say that blasphemy against Jesus could he
forgiven

It is precisely Mk. who has allowed himself

to he influenced by this consideration. H e alone it is, further
who in 3

adds the remark that the reason why Jesus spoke

blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was because they had spoken
of himself as possessed by an unclean spirit

(322).

But the

accusation in 3

is not, as Mk. makes it appear, a blasphemy

against the Holy Spirit, hut rather a blasphemy against the

person of Jesus.

Thus the saying to the effect that one

blasphemy can be forgiven, another not, does not a t all fit
the context in the form it receives in

Mk., and 3 3 0 is only an

unsuccessful attempt on the part of Mk. to justify his addition.
Mk. in so doing presupposes that Jesus had identified himself
with the Holy Spirit. But the opposite view, that of Mt. and
Lk., that he distinguished between himself and the Holy Spirit
can have come only from Jesus himself. Moreover, it is to he
observed that in Lk. this .saying of Jesus stands in quite a
different place

IO

)

from that of the accusation

by

Beelzebub, etc.), which according to Mk. (3

and Mt.

(12 24-32)

furnished the occasion for it.

Now, precisely here

Lk. is drawing from the same source as Mt.

30).

I n that common source, therefore, the two por-

tions referred to were not yet in connection with each other
for in that case Lk. would certainly not have separated
here. We can attach all the less importance to their connection
in Mk. if even their connection in Mt., though

so

much more

is not original.

1848

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

reason that it is compelled in o n e a n d t h e s a m e breath

t o say contrary things a s to the relative priority of Mt.
a n d Mk.

Nevertheless it

is

impossible to doubt that

the evangelists did borrow from one another

the only

question

is

whether here it is only our present gospels,

.or not also other written sources, that have been m a d e

use of.

F o r this reason we have hitherto refrained

from expressing

t o the effect that Mt. ( o r L k .

)

was

dependent

on

M k . ( o r

vice versa),

contenting

ourselves with saying t h a t the o n e was

t o t h e

other we a r e thus led to consideration of the hypothesis
of

a

written source o r sources.

( e )

Before passing from the borrowing-hypothesis,

however,

it

will be well t o illustrate by

a

definite

example the various linguistic changes t o which refer-
ence has been m a d e in the preceding paragraphs ( a

t o

d).

W e select for this purpose the parable of the

Sower a n d

interpretation it receives.

T h e circum-

stantiality a n d diffuseness of

Mk.

appear in

4 1

( t h e

thrice repeated sea

a n d the pleonasm

b y

t h e sea,

on

the l a n d ’ ) , in

( ‘ h e taught them ,

.

.

a n d said unto them in his t e a c h i n g ’ ) ,

( t h e repeated

a n d ’

times- and because it h a d not

’-

twice), 4 7 ( ‘ a n d it yielded

no

f r u i t ’ ) ,

( ‘ o t h e r s a r e

they t h a t a r e sown a m o n g thorns

these a r e they t h a t

.

.

a n infelicitous m a n n e r of expression is

in

these a r e they where.’

I t

is

L k . who h a s d o n e most t o

s m o o t h

a n d t u r n it into idiomatic Greek.

For

sentences Lk. substitutes participial

constructions (Lk.

or a gen. abs. (Lk.

4

I

) ;

also he substitutes better Greek words (Lk. 88

a

instead of Mk. 48

8

of Mk. 415; Lk.

of Mk. 4 ;

Lk. 8

for

of

Mk.

4

17

Lk. 8

for

of

Lk. 8

is

In Lk. 8

14

he drops the Hebraism [cares] of the world

; he

prepositional phrases in Lk.84 ‘of every city’

and ‘by a parable

and in Lk.

inserts the relative clause ‘which, when they have heard

.

.

immediately after the antecedent ‘Those upon

the

instead of at the end of its

sentence as in Mk. 4

dependence upon Mk. is shown

the ‘good ground’

of

notwith-

standing the substitution of a different adjective

in Lk.

similarlybyhis

(418 ‘on

to,‘

and his

in Lk.

4 r g

‘choke

in spite of the ‘amid

for

‘into’

substitution of a different verb for ‘choke’

for

in Lk.

47.

I n

v.

Lk. reverts to the construction

of

Mk.

which -he had

avoided in

H e is not felicitous in his sub-

stitution of ‘rock’

(86)

for

‘

stony

for

the

hare rock nothing can grow a t all.

Mt.

(13

1-23)

also smooths a n d

Mt.

(v.

the second ‘sea’

of Mk.41 and

lace of the third adopts a turn of expression with ‘beach

In

6

he makes use of the gen. abs. in

substitutes other connectives

for

and for

The

‘make fruit’

cp Gen.

he alters to

‘give fruit

At the

time Mt. 13

23

shows

his dependence on Mk. by retaining ‘make

alongside

of ‘produce fruit’,

and in

(just as Lk.

two of Mk.

turns of expression

of Mk. 47 and

as in

4

or in

26

the sing. crowd

c p Mk. 4

I

) ,

although immediately before

he

has used his favourite

form ‘crowds

(6

That Jesus was sitting Mt. has already

(u.

and he has therefore to repeat the expres-

sion in

from Mk. 4 after Jesus has entered the boat. In

v. rg

Mt. has an infelicitous alteration to the effect that by the

first

sowing are intended those who do not understand

word,

whereas we should think rather of those who easily allow them-
selves to be again robbed of it.

T h o u g h , from what h a s been said, Mk. appears

to

have lain before both Mt. a n d Lk. it is not possible

to

assign to him the priority a t all points.

behold’ in 4 3

is

superfluous and

disturbing; in 45 Mk. (and with

Mt.135) introduces an

amplification of the description which has the effect of

for the explanation of the parable ; it is absent

in Lk. (86).

The O T expression

of the heaven’ which all three

evangelists give in the parable of the mustard seed (Mk. 4

32

Mt. 13

3 2

Lk. 13 rg)

i n

the present case been preserved only

by Lk. (8

as

also the

fruit’

of 88.

On

the relation

of

dependence a s between Mt.

a n d Lk. see

If the contention a t the close

of

is

correct, the borrowing-hypothesis when taken

hearken’ before

without regard t o the limitations demanded b y

1276) leads t o insuperable contradictions here also

as

the question of the interdependence of Mk. a n d Mt.

T h e hypothesis- especially associated with the n a m e

of E i c h h o r n (from

one

Aramaic gospel, in

which

a s far back a s 1778

recognised the ‘Gospel of the

ebrews,’

is

in m a n y points open to the

s a m e ob‘ections a s that of a n oral original,

only with the difference that it explains the

agreements in our gospels better, their divergences in
t h e s a m e proportion worse.

Even the fnrther a s s u m p -

tion of various translations into Greek with addition of
new material a t each translation

is

far from supplying

t h e needed explanation of the divergences, for it

is

not

by a n y means the literary f o r m alone t h a t differs t h e
matter also, even t h e representation of the s a m e matter,
varies widely.

T h e s a m e thing has to b e said of the

hypothesis recently

forth anew b y Resch

(Die

who has even sought to restore t o their

presumed original Hebrew (not A r a m a i c ) form the
sayings of Jesus, along with

a

great number

of

narra-

tives, including

a

history of the passion, the resurrec-

tion, a n d the ascension of Jesus (thus even going beyond

B.

Weiss, see 126

e n d ) , a n d moreover maintains that

this original gospel was already known to Paul.

T h e

hypothesis of a n original written gospel contains

a

kernel of truth, only in

so

far a s it is certainly undeni-

a b l e that some o n e writer must have g o n e before t h e
others in committing t o writing the gospel tradition.
But the fact of his having been first did not by a n y
m e a n s necessarily secure for him exclusive, o r even
preponderating, influence over those who c a m e after
h i m

his

production may have been promptly followed

b y equally important writings f r o m other pens.

A special form of the hypothesis of an original written gospel

is

that set forth above in

according to which the

Triple Tradition was written

and often ambiguous

form, somewhat after the manner of a discussion on the Mishna

or of a modern telegram, and was variously expanded and
supplemented by the several evangelists.

T h e agreement of Mt. a n d Lk. against

if the two

former were not acquainted with each other, leads t o

t h e hypothesis t h a t each of

h a d

before him

a

Mk.

in one a n d the s a m e

form though different from that which

w e

now

possess

this was used both by Mt. a n d

whilst the canonical Mk. diverges from it. T h e superior
a g e of t h e form of Mk. postulated by this hypothesis
would gain in probability

if

the canonical Mk. were found

to

be secondary t o Mt. a n d Lk. (see

e ,

for t h e other view see

3,

a n d , with

t o it,

w h a t is said in

Hawkins

App.

B)

reckons some

instances

of

agreement of Mt. a n d

against Mk.

E a c h individual case m a y b e unim-

p o r t a n t a n d might in other circumstances admit of t h e

explanation

of his own proper motion chose

t h e

alteration of the canonical text of Mk. a s Mt.

h a d

but their large number forbids such a n explanation

here.

A

S

for the extent of the original Mk. now conjectured,

t h e

with which the hypothesis can be m a d e t o

work

is

increased if with Beyschlag we suppose it t o

h a v e been nearly equal t o the canonical

Mk.

in

particular, it then becomes difficult t o understand why

a

new book differing

so

little f r o m the old should have

been produced a t all.

If, a g a i n , the original book is

held

( s o

H o l t z m a n n ) t o have been longer than t h e

canonical

it becomes possible to assign t o it

a

con-

siderable number of paragraphs (now preserved t o us
only in

a n d

Lk.)

not

so

easily explained a s derived

from

a n d

other sources

If finally

we

of

the original

Mk.

(so

Weizsacker) a s

shorter, then the additions of canonical Mk. t h a t
can be

to a r e merely the verses (some thirty

or

so)

peculiar t o him, together with such individual

expressions

as

have

no

parallels either in Mt. o r

in

1850

,

126 a ) .

GOSPELS

GOSPELS

individual expressions a r e partly for t h e

sake

of

m o r e g r a p h i c description

(1

7

bowing down,

14

s h e b r a k e

the

c r u s e ’

see also

a n d t h e like), partly they give greater precision b y

giving n a m e s

(2

14

3

1 0

46

15

40

16

I

)

o r n u m b e r s

6 3 7

cp

on

t h e whole of this h e a d Hawkins,

W e r n l e ,

45-47,

They

d o n o t give

o n e

the

impression, however, of being interpolations

of later d a t e t h a n t h e

rest

of

t h e work, a n d they c a n

m o r e easily

be

supposed t o h a v e been d r o p p e d b y t h e

writers who c a m e after M k .

as

hardly interesting e n o u g h

( W e r n l e ,

or

fitted t o c a u s e offence

(so

for

example 6 4

Jesus

had

no

honour a m o n g

his o w n

kin

a n d i n his own house,

and that

they even

said,

‘ H e

is beside himself,’

see

131).

T h e entire

verses,

or

narratives,

on

the

o t h e r h a n d , which

are

peculiar t o Mk. a r e m u c h too inconsiderable t o m a k e
i t likely t h a t

a

new book should h a v e been j u d g e d

necessary

for

their incorporation

here

too their

omission b y Mt. a n d

Lk.

a d m i t s of s o m e

or

it is possible

to

find traces of them

in

Mt. a n d

If t h e original Mk. is conceived

of as

having b e e n

materially shorter t h a n t h e canonical M k . ,

the

point

a t which this comes into consideration i s when t h e
origin

of the

latter

rather

t h a n when t h a t

of

M t .

a n d L k . is being discussed, for

we

h a v e

no

m e a n s

of determining with precision t h e extent of t h e sup-
posed original Mk.

Particularly unpromising of

useful result m u s t

be

a n y a t t e m p t (such

as

t h a t

m a d e , for example,

Scholten)

to

construct a n ori-

ginal Mk. t h a t shall

be

devoid of miracle.

If

Jesus d i d a n y t h i n g t h a t seemed

to

m e n wonderful it

would naturally b e reported a s i n

the

fullest sense

miraculous

on

t h e very d a y

on

which it occurred.

In

Acts

t h e eye-witness- that h e w a s

an

eye-witness

is

n o t doubted- relates t h a t Eutychus

was

taken

up

d e a d , t h o u g h h e also knows a n d tells

us

that

P a u l

had

s a i d

the

y o u n g m a n ’ s life w a s still

in

him.

If

L k . was acquainted with Mt., o r Mt. with L k . ,

the

n e e d for

a n

M k . which

has

been spoken of

the

preceding

section seems

to

disappear

;

i n

point

of

fact H o l t z m a n n when

he

acouaintance with Mt.

PT,

‘78,

’78,

553)

seemed

f o r

a

time t o a b a n d o n t h e hypothesis of

an

original Mk.

T h e hypothesis nevertheless continues t o b e re-

c o m m e n d e d b y

a

n u m b e r

of

secondary traits in canonical

Mk. which d o not indeed, like those mentioned i n

prove

dependence

of

Mk.

on

Mt.

or

on

Lk.

b u t still render it inconceivable t h a t

the

canonical Mk.

could

have

been t h e work which served Mt.

or

Lk. a s

a

source.

Of

course there c o m e into consideration h e r e

those places also

in

which Mt.

and

Lk. show n o agree-

ment

against Mk.

To

this category belong such additions as ‘made with hands

and made without hands

(Mk.

14

Mt. 26

not

Lk.), a s also the sense-disturbing

parenthesis

9

Mt. 17

;

not in Lk ) ‘And how is it

written

.

.

.

set at nought?’

. . .

the remark, based on Roman Law (Mk. 10

after

19

Lk. omit), that the woman also can put away her

husband, and (1

Mt. 3 3 Lk. 3

the quotation from Malachi

wrongly

to Isaiah. Conversely in 14

62

the ‘hence-

forth’ (&’

which Mt. (26 64) has, is omitted.

’/

27a

(children first)

9

I

(some standing

13

(in those days

after that tribulation, see

5

have’ been recast; and in

1462

’ I

ani’

is an elucidation of the obscure ‘thou

sayest

of Mt. 2664. In 4

the sayings about

the lamp and about the hidden thing which must he brought
to light are, by the introduction of ‘in order that’

adapted to the object for which they are here intended,-

namely, t o say that if

one

to have found out

Mk.

(stages

of

growth) finds

its parallel in Mt.

(tares) (see

5

Mk.

(deaf and dumb) in

Mt. 15

(multitudes

Mk.

(answereth

and saith

. . .

how hard) in Mt. 1924 (and again

I

say

.

.

,

easier for camel)

.

the

amazed

of Mt. 12 23

arises from the

‘

beside himself’

of Mk.

(see

5

8

middle, and

the touching of the eyes of the blind

(Mt. 20 34

from Mk.

8 23 (spat

on

his eyes,

1851

meaning

of

any parable he is not to keep his discovery a

secret. but this application of the two sayings is certainly
not

original

(see,

134).

In Mk.

when the

statement that Jesus appointed the twelve

is

repeated, the

designation of Simon as the first apostle is omitted, only his

surnamed Peter is mentioned. In

the expression

‘they which are accounted to rule

instead of the simple ‘rulers’

of Mt. 2025-is

a

mitigating reflection of the same kind as is frequently met with
also in Lk. (the closest parallel in

‘that which he

he hath’).

Mk. 12 34 the statement that ‘no man

after that durst ask him any question’ is introduced at a quite
inappropriate point (namely immediately after the commenda-
tion of the discreet scribe)

is met with in its right place in

Mt. 22 46 immediately after the discomfiture of the Pharisees by
the telling answers of Jesus to their ‘tempting‘ questions.

In

Mk. 11

we find ‘the father who is in heaven

the only instance in Mk. of an expression which

is

in

Cp also 9

3).

(6)

I t is o p e n

to

us, no

d o u b t , t o t r y t o account f o r

these secondary passages b y assuming

that

after

the

canonical Mk. h a d been used b y Mt.

and

i t w a s

altered b y copyists.

The additions in Mk. 14 (‘made

hands do not, in

point of fact reappear in

(‘railed a t him, saying’); Mk.

9

(‘how

it written,

falls into place after 9

(‘Elijah

is come

and perhaps was originally a marginal note on this

verse

an early reader. 1 (quot. from Mal.) or even 1

from

have often before now been

to have been

at

later date-especially 1

since

3

comes

from Isaiah while

on the

comes from Mal. 3

I

and

moreover coincides

in spite of original Heh. and LXX,

with Mt. 11

7

27

(5

4,

n.

I

).

Should we be prepared to go

and agree to treat as the work of a later hand everything

that could

any possibility be so explained we should regard

also the end of Mk. 12 (‘and many

some,

and

in

and the mention of the

of

in 3’32 (against

31,

as having been introduced

a n

old reader (3

in anticipation of

35

‘whosoever shall

etc.); so also

(‘whereon

man

yet sat‘) and even

11 13

(‘for it was not the season of

;

see

‘And

gospel’s’

8

35

may also he an addition; the words

the other hand, after

‘prophesy’

in Mk.

the words which

and Lk. (2264) agree in giving, who is he that smote

thee,’ may have dropped out

3,

perhaps also

know’

after

given’ in Mk. 4

; is

both

(13

and in Lk. (E

on

the other hand, can have

into

2664

from

divergent oral tradition, the existence of which alongside of
written sources must always be taken into

especially

when dealing with such important utterances of Jesus

( c )

On

t h e o t h e r h a n d , there

are

m a n y places

to

which this explanation (later alteration

of

canonical

M k . )

does

n o t a d m i t of being applied.

(‘children first’)

(some standing by),

(in those

days after that

(lamp),

(accounted to

are much too well conceived to allow of our resolving them into
marginal glosses; so also Mk. 330 (‘because they said’)

and the weakening

the statement in

as compared with

Mt. 268 (that ‘some but not ‘the disciples,’ complained of
waste of the

That the cock crowed

a t Peter’s

of Jesus is stated not only in

but also in

vu.

68

7 2 ;

and even if the statement must be traced to a misunder-

standing (as in

5

14)

the misunderstanding must be imputed to

the author not to a

who would hardly be so very care-

ful as to insert his note in three separate places. We should
not be justified in setting down Mk.

(fire not quenched

;

salted with fire ;

salt is good) as a later addition simply because

in this passage sayings are strung together without any
connection with each other ; for the same phenomenon can he
observed elsewhere in the gospels

(d)

I t avails little t o seek

to find

in Codex

D

a n d t h e

allied

an

older text of Mk.

as

compared with

which t h e present

h a s been corrupted

by

tran-

scribers.

In

the first place,

D

rarely presents different readings in

those places where

and Lk. offer a better text than canonical

Mk. Moreover, when, for example,

Mk.

D

has the ‘to

know’

the absence of which was noted above, this may

be due quite as well to insertion from

or Lk., or even to anti-

cipation of the ‘how shall ye know?’

of 4

In

D

there are manifold traces of a very independent mind.

this

reason we cannot be perfectly confident that

D’s

reading

16,

was clothed in a camel’s skin’

is the

original one, although the expression in

Mk. is

cult : ‘John was clothed with camel’s hair.
may be a deliberate rectification of the text quite as

as that

adopted in

34,

‘ h e had his raiment of camel’s hair. For the

same reason it would not he safe to lay stress on the fact that
for Mk.

D has only these words : ‘Rut

I

say unto you,

the Son of Man is Lord also of

Sabbath

or that Mk. 9 35

(if any man would he first) is

(cp

5

18

for

sake’ make it superfluous.

Cp Hawkins

Henceforth

The ‘camel’s skin