GOSPELS
GOSPELS
( a ) From the statement of Papias given above in 5
65, Schleiermacher in 1832 first drew the inference
120. The Logia !hat the apostle Matthew had made
as a 8ource for in Aramaic a collection only of the
Mt. and Lk. sayings of Jesus. Whether this is
what Papias really meant is question-
able, for undoubtedly he was acquainted with the
canonical Mt. and had every occasion to express
himself with regard to this hook as well as with regard
to h4k. If he was speaking of Mt., then he was as
much in error as to its original language as he was
as to its author (see § 149);this, however, is con-
ceivable enough. That by his logia Papias intended
the whole gospel of Mt., although this contains not
discourses merely but narratives as well, is not by any
means impossible (see 65, n. 3). In Greek, logia,
it is true, means only things said (Acts738, the angel
which spake ; Rom. 32 ‘ oracles,’ etc. ) ; but if Papias
took fhe word as a translation of Heb. dibhi-Z (3737)-
which he may readily have done, on his assumption of
a Semitic original-then for him it meant ‘events ’ in
general.’
( b ) The actual state of the case in Mt. and Lk., how-
ever, furnishes justification for the hypothesis to which
scholars have been led by the words of Papias, even
though perhaps only by a false interpretation of them.
A great number, especially of the sayings of Jesus
which are absent from Mk., are found in Mt. and Lk.
in such a way that they must be assumed to have come
from a common source. If these passages were found
in absolute agreement in both gospels it would be
possible to believe that Lk. had taken them over.from
Mt., or Mt. from ‘Lk. ; but in addition to close general
agreement the passages exhibit quite characteristic
divergences.
(c) I n point of fact the controverted question as to
whether it is Mt. or Lk. who has preserved them in their
more original form must be answered by saying that in
many cases it is- the one, in many other cases the other.
Secondary in Lk for exam le are : 1 2 4 as against Mt. 10 2s
(benotafraidoftheA;whichkilfth;body) 1113asagainst Mt.711
(prayer for the Holy Spirit), Lk. 1142 a i against Mt. 2323 (the
generalisation ‘every herb ’ 6 u h6xauov) or 1144 the mis-
understanding that the Pdarisees are like‘ se&lchris because
they ‘appear not,’ and not because, as in Mt. 23 27J, they are
outwardly beautiful but inwardly noisome. I n Lk. 627-36”
Mt. 5 38-48 Lk. makes love of one’s enemy the chief considera-
tion and introduces it accordinglyat the beginning inn. 17. H e
betrays his dependence, however, by repeating it in er. 35 because
in the parallel passage Mt. 544(or in Mt.’s source), it is met with
in that position. Cp f&ther, B 127 a. On the other hand Lk.’s
renresentation in 1326 (we did eat and drink) fits better with the
P w i s h cpnditions in which Jesus lived thandoes Mt. 7 2 2 (Lord
ord d d we not prophesy?). I n Lk. 2021 the Hebraisti:
expdssion ‘respect the person’ ( A ~ ~ , ~ ~ rvpE6 uL wv m u : lit. ‘accept
the face ’)is retained, whilst in Mk. 12 14=Mt. 22 16 the phraseis
changed. On Lk. 8 6 (other fell on the rock) see 5 116 e end on
1130 8 140 a. I n the Lord’s Prayer the text of Mt. w!;ere Lk.
has &rallels is distinctly the more original ; on the other hand
the clauses which are not found in Lk. may have been intrni
duced afterwards (see 5 IS and the maxim in 8 145 c ; also
LORD’S PRAYER).
A similar conclusion-the existence of a source used
in common by Mt. and Lk. but different from Mk.-is
121. Doublets indicated by the doublets, that is to
and theory of say the utterances which either Mt. or
Lk., or both, give, in two separate
two sources. places.2
( a ) In the majority of cases it can be observed that
in Mt. the one doublet has a parallel in Mk. and the
other in Lk. I n these cases it is almost invariably found
1 I n what follows, we use the word ‘logia’ (because it has
become conventional) in both senses (‘sayings’ alone, and ‘say-
ings and narratives’) throughout, even if the authors to whom
we have occasion to refer, prefer another word. This is specially
desirable when they simply say ‘the source,’ fnr we must allow
for the possibility of several sources for the synoptic gospels.
2 In Mk. there are only two passages that can be called
doublets9gg (‘if any man would be first ’) and 1043f: (‘who.
soever would become great ’) on which see $ 128 Lf] ; for 9 I
(‘ there be some here’) and 1310 (‘gospel first preached’) can
hardly be so classed. For doublets cp Hawkins 64.87, Wernle
111-113(in neither is the enumeration complete).
1853
.
that in the parallel with Mk. not only the occasion but
also the text is in agreement with Mk., and in the parallel
with Lk. occasion and text are in agreement with Lk.
Similarly, Lk., wherever there is a doublet, is found t o
agree in the one case with Mk. and in the other with Mt.
If it must be conceded that in many cases the agreement
of text is not very manifest, this is easily accounted for
by the consideration that the evangelist (Mt. or Lk.)
in writing the text the second time would naturally
recall the previous occasion on which it had been given1
The passages, however, in which the observation made
above holds good are many enough.$ To account for
them without the theory of two sources would, even
apart from these special agreements, be extraordinarily
difficult,-indeed possible only where an epigrammatic
saying fits not only the place assigned to it in what is
assumed to be the one and only source, but also the
other situation into which the evangelist without follow-
ing any source will have placed it.
In some places indeed this would seem to be what we must
suppose to have actually happened, as we are unable to point to
two different sources. So Lk.l411=1814(‘he whoexaltethhim-
self shall be abased’) ; or the quotation from Hos. 66 (mercy n o t
sacrifice) in Mt.9r3=127 (which, moreover ‘is not very ap-
propriate in either case). It must be with dhiberate intention
that the preaching with which, according to Mk. 115 (the time ;
repent)=Mt.417, Jesus began his ministry is in Mt.32 already
assigned to the Baptist ; or the binding and loosing ($ 136) to
Peter. On the other hand, the answer ‘ I know you not’ which
follows the invocation ‘Lord, Lord’ in Mt.1zzf: (many will
say) and 25 I I ~ (five
: virgins) is associated with a different narra-
tive in the two cases and cannot therefore, properly, he regarded
as an independent doublet; so also with the threatening with
fire (312=1330).
But, in other cases, such a repetition of a saying, on
the part of an evangelist, without authority for it in
some source in each case, is all the more improbable
because Lk. often, and frequently also Mt. (see, e.$.,
5 128 [f,g], or the omission of Mk. 8 38 =Lk. 9 26 after
Mt. 1626 on account of Mt. 1033). avoids introducing for
the second time a saying previously given, even when
the parallel has it, and thus a doublet might have been
expected as in the cases adduced at the beginning of
this section.
Were this not so, we should expect that Lk., haring
before him ex hypothesi the same sources as Mt., would
in every case, or nearly every case, have‘had a doublet
wherever Mt. had one ; and vice versa As a matter of
fact only three or four sayings are doublets in Mt. as
well as in Lk. ; on the other hand, although the
derivation of a passage from the logia is not always free
from doubt, we are entitled to reckon that Lk. has seven
doublets peculiar to himself, and Mt. twiceas many.
(6) W e are led to the same inference-that two
sources were employed-by those passages common to
the three Gospels in which Mt. and Lk. have in common
certain little insertions not to be found in Mk. ; as, for
example, Mt. 1 8 6 , f (millstone)=Lk. 171J as compared
with Mk. 942, or Mt. 311 f: (baptize with water)=Lk.
316f: as compared with Mk. 1 7 J , at the close of which
passage both even have in common the words ‘ and with
fire ’ KC^ r u p l ) . Another very manifest transition from
one source to another is seen in the parable of the mustard
seed. This is given in the form of a narrative only in
Lk. 1318f. ; in Mk. 430-32, on the other hand, in the
form of a general statement. Now, Mt. 1331f: has in
1 For example Lk. 11 33 (lamp under bushel) agrees much
more closely with 8 16 (under bed) than with its proper parallel
in Mt. 5 1 5 ; but Lk. 816 agrees just as closely with its proper
parallel in Mk.421 as it does with Lk.1133. C p further,
especially, Mk. e 35 (save life, lose it)=Mt.16 25=Lk. 9 24 from
which the other two parallels, Mt. 1039=Lk. 17 33, are distin-
guised in common only by the use of ai instead of 66.
2 Eg. M t . 1 3 1 ~(whosoever hath)=Mk.425 (withLk.8186);
Mt.2529(unto everyone thathath)=Lk.I926 orMt.lSg=Mk.
1011. Mt. 532 (divorce)=Lk. 1618 or Mt.’193o=Mk. 1031 ;
Mk. io16 (last. first)=Lk. 1310. or’ Mt. 2121=Mk. 1121 : Mt.
17 20 (faith‘as mustaid seed)=*Lk. 17 6 or Mt. 21 zz= Mkrll24 ;
Mt. 7 7f: (ask) = Lk. 11g or Lk.’8 17 = Mk. 4 22 ; Lk. 12 2
(covered up revXaIed)=Mt.i026 or Lk.926=Mk.838; Lk.129
(denieth, d;nied)=Mt. 1033, ortLk.923=Mk. 834=Mt. 1624;
Lk. 1427 (bear cross)=Mt.-lO3B.
I854
 GOSPELS
the one half narrative, in the other general state-
ment.
In short, the so-called theory of two sources,-that is
of the employment by Mt. and Lk. of Mk. (or original
Mk.) on the one hand, and of the logia on the other-
ranks among those results of gospel criticism which
have met with most general acceptance.
If the original Mk. was more extensive than the
canonical, possibly it contained things which, on
122. of another assumption, Mt. and Lk.
might he supposed to have taken
materia' from from the logia. In particular has
logia* this been asserted of the centurion of
Capernaum (Mt. 85-13 = Lk. 71-10), of the detailed
accoiint of the temptation (Mt. 41-11=Lk. 41-13), and
also of the Baptist's message (Mt. 112-19 = Lk. 7 t8-35)'
the logia being held to have been merely a collection of
discourses. At present it is almost universally con-
ceded that in any such collection the occasions of the
discourses included must also have been stated in nar-
rative form. This once granted, it is no longer possible
to deny that, in certain circumstances, even narratives
of some length may have been admitted, if only they
led up to some definite utterance of Jesus. B. Weiss
($5 125d, 126c), and, after him, Resch (I I I ~ )have , (c) All the more pressingly are we confronted with
even carried this thesis so far as to maintain that the
logia formed a complete gospel with approximately as
many narratives as discourses.
A definite separation of the portions derived from the
logia might be expected to result from linguistic investi-
gation. B. Weiss has in point of fact sought with
great care to determine the linguistic character of the
logia ; hut his argument is exposed to an unavoidable
source of error, namely this, that the vocabulary of the
logia can be held to have been definitely determined
only when we have already, conjecturally, assigned
,certain definite passages to this source. I n so far as
this provisional assignment has been at fault, the
resultant vocabulary will also have to be modified.
Such a vocabnlary can never be accepted otherwise
than conditionally-for this reason, besides the reasons
indicated above, that it would be necessary first to de-
termine whether it is Mt. or Lk. that has preserved the
logia most faithfully. The task, moreover, is rendered
,doubly difficult, by the fact that Mt. and Lk. by no
means adopt their sources without modification ; they
alter freely and follow their own manner of speaking
instead of that of their source, or allow themselves to
be influenced by Mk. even in pieces borrowed from the
logia ; and vice versa.
It is specially interesting to notice that Titius, a disciple of B.
Weiss, expressly acknowledges the unprovahleness of his
master's hypothesis as a wh$e. He calls it 'an equation with
many unknown quantities. Nevertheless he thinks he can
prove it 'quite irrefragably' if it he restricted to the discourses.
This has theappearance of sounder method, for greater unanimity
prevails as to the extent of the discourses which belonged to
the logia (Wernle, 91 187). At the same time, even when this
restriction has been made, the difficulties that hare been urged
hold good, and all the more so since Titius at the outset assigns
too large an extent to the logia and also, what is more serious,
in his verbal statistics makes a number of assumptions of a kind
that are quite usual but also quite unjustifiable. It was there-
fore an exceedingly hold step when (amongst others) B. Weiss
(Das Murcus-evangeliuw-z,1872), Wendt (Die LehreJesr, First
Part, 1886), Resch (Die L o ~ u ~ ~1898) s u and
, Blair (Ajostolic
Gospel, 1896) printed the logia, or a source similar to them
uerhatim. Hawkins (88-92) came to the conclusion that b;
linguistic methods no trustworthy separation of the logia-
portions could he made. See further § 126 c.
(u) The divergences between Mt. and Lk. in the
. -
Dassages common to the two but not shared bv Mk.
123. p (I IZO a) are often so great that it be-
Sfor ial comes
ecLk, a question whether both have
been drawing.
u from one and the same
source. If it be assumed that they were, then one or
other of them, or both, must have treated the source
with a drastic freedom that does not accord well with the
verbal fidelity to their source elsewhere shown by them
(I 115a). It is the Ebionitic passages, chiefly, that
1855
GOSPELS
come into consideration ,here. According to § 110,
Lk. derived them from some source. Now, this source
must have had many matters in common with the
logia ; e.g., pre-eminently, the beatitudes, as also Lk.
6356 (lend, hoping for nothing again); 1141 ('give for
alms') ; 1 2 3 3 ('sell ... and give alms'). In § 110
it has further been shown to he probable that it was
not Lk. himself who was enamoured of Ebionitic ideas.
All the more must they already have found a place in
the edition of the logia which he had before him.
( b ) The hypothesis of a special source for Lk. must
not, however, be stretched to the extent of assuming
that everything Lk. has from the logia had come to
him only in Ebionitic form. Much of his logia material
is free from all Ebionitic tendency, yet it is not likely
that the Ebionitic editor who often imported his ideas
into the text so strongly would have left other passages
wholly untouched. Slight traces of an Ebionitic colour-
ing perhaps can be detected in Lk. 1433a ( I whosoever
renounceth not all'), 213(bring in the poor) (cp 13 ;
bid the poor), 6 36 ( ' merciful, ' O I K T I ~ ~ O V E E:) 18 zz ( ' sell
all,' ~ V T C &;) 19 8 (half of my goods). But that Lk. had
access to, and made use of, the unrevised logia also
can hardly be denied.
the question whether the Ebionitic source of Lk. con-
tained also those passages which are peculiar to Lk.
This is at once probable as regards the parables
ennmerated in 110. I n fact, for the parable of the
Rich Man and Lazarus, at least in its Ebionitic shape
(z'.e., 1619-26 without the appendix vv. 27-31 ; see
~ o g b )it, is possible to conjecture an original form of
a purely ethical nature which characterised the Rich
Man as godless and Lazarus as pious, and thus had a
place (along with the beatitudes) among the logia, and
may have come from the mouth of Jesus. On the other
hand, such pieces as the parable of the Prodigal Son
(1511-3z), of the Pharisee and the Publican (189-14),of
the unprofitable servants (177-10), on account of their
wholly different theological complexion, cannot possibly
be attributed to the same Ebionitic source. For this
reason alone, if for no other, it becomes impossible to
suppose that Lk. had a special source for his account
of the journey of Jesus through Samaria (9 51-18 14) ;
this narrative, too, has some things in common with
Mk., others with Mt. W e are thus led to the con-
clusion, so far as Lk. is concerned, that he had various
other sources besides Mk. (or original Mk.)-a con-
clusion that is, moreover, in harmony with his own
preface.
( u ) Short Narratives. -Going much beyond the
results embodied in the foregoing section (§ 123),
124, Minor Schleiermacher, as early as 1817, assumed
a series of quite short notes on detailed
Sources. events which, founding (incorrectly) on
Lk. 1I (sees 153,n. z ) , he called 'narratives' ( 8 q y ~ u a s ) .
On the analogy of OT cr s i n this might be called the
' fragment-hypothesis.' That ow present gospels should.
have been directly compiled from such fragmentary
sources, as Schleiermacher supposed, is not conceivable,
when the degree in which they coincide in matter and
arrangement is considered (I 116 a). As subsidiary
sources, however, or as steps in the transition fi-om
merely oral tradition to consecutive written narrative,
1 The two forms in which these are found admit of explanation
most easily if we assume that 'in spirit' (T@ r v d p a n ; Mt. 5 3)
and 'righteousness ' (T+ G r ~ a ~ o u u ' v q vMt. ; 56) were originally
absent. The Ebionitic source-and, with it, Lk,-has in this
case preserved the tenor of the words with the greater fidelity ;
hut Mt., by his insertions, has better preserved the religious and
ethical meaning in which unquestionably Jesus spoke the words
-perhaps also by the addition of unambiguously moral utter-
ances such as 58f: (pure in heart, peacemakers) which with
equal certainty can be attributed to Jesus, and 6 4 7 (mourn
merciful). Both these are wanting in Lk., although they ar;
capable of being used in an Ebionitic sense if he had chosen to
take ' meek ' ( r r p a f k ) in the sense of Ps. 37 g I I zz zg, and ' merci-
ful ' (;h+msp) in that of Lk. 1141.
2 [Cp HEXATEUCH, f 3.1
1856
 GOSPELS
the possibility of such brief notes can by no means be
disregarded (see 5 129 d ) . Still, to show that they ex-
isted is by no means easy.
(6) The ' Zittb Apoca&pse. '-Nevertheless, the belief
is continually gaining ground that into Mt. 24, into
Mk. 13, and (only with greater alterations) into Lk. 21
a work often called the 'Little Apocalypse' has been
introduced.
The evidence of this is found in the first instance in
the want of connection.
'These things' (TaGra) in Mt. 2433 (=Mk. 1329=Lk. 21 31),
coming as the phrase does after 71.31, mnst refer to the end
of the world; yet originally it must have meant the pre-
monitory signs of the approaching end, for it is said that when
the beholders see al! 'these things,' then they are to know
that tlie endis 'nigh. ThereforeMr. 2432J(=Mk. 1328J=
Lk. 21 29-31) is not in its proper place here. On the other hand
Mt. 2434 comes appropriately enough after 2431. Mt. 242;
#(= Mk. 13 24), speaking as it does of a ' tribulation,' does not come
in well after the discourse about false Messiahs and false prophets
in Mt. 2423-28 (=Mk. 13zr-z3)-the parallel to which in Lk. is
actually found in another chapter (17 23 f:f.'tbut would be ap-
propriate after Mt. 24 15-22 (=Mk. 13 14-20=Lk. 2120.~4) where
GOB,DELS
older than the Christian must be regarded as irre-
fragable.
The Synaptical Problem is so complicated that but
few students, if any, will now be found who believe a
h;zE$,,
125.
solution possible by means of any one
of the hypotheses described above with-
out other aids. The need for combining
several of them is felt more and more.
Most frequently, we find the borrowing-hypothesis com-
bined with the sources-hypothesis in one form or another,
and, over and above, an oral tradition prior to all written
sources assumed. Instead of attempted detailed accounts,
we subjoin graphic representations of some combina-
tions which are not too complicated and which bring into
characteristic prominence the variety that exists among
the leading hypotheses.
( a ) Hilgenfeld combines with the borrowing-hypo-
thesis the further assumption of a writtell
'0s~. neb.
original gospel in two successive stages,
Hebrew and Greek (so also Holsten, only W7 At. (Oh)

\
the connection is excellent. Mt, 249-14 (=Mk. 1396-;3=Lk. with omission of the first stage), nlt
21 12-19) occurs also in Mt. 1017-22, in a form which, as suiting (6) The simplest form of the two-source-
Jewish circumstances better (10 17, 'in their synagogues they will
scourge you'), must be regarded as the more original ; it is to hypothesis was argued for M[
be regarded as out of place in chap. 24. On the other hand, by Weisse in 1838 ; in \
'the abomination of desolation,' Mt. 2415 (=hlk. 1314), comes 1856, however, heassumed Lh
fittingly after 7171. 6-8 (=Mk. 137-9a=Lk. Zl9-11). As for 71. 5
an original Mk.along with a. Hikenfeld-

i,xr
(=Mk. 136=Lk. 2186), it belongs, so far as itssubstance at least
IS concerned, to the passage, m. 23-28, which we have already Mt
seen isoutofplacehere. lJ71.1d((=Mk. 131f:=Lk. 215J)do original Mk. alongside of the
not fit well with v. 15 (= Mk. 13 14) where only a desecration, Z. Weisse
not a destruction, of the temple is thought of (otherwise in Lk. (in 1838). logia was postulated as a source ( u ) in
21 20-'when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed'-on which simple form by Holtzmann down to
see 153). Regarded as a unity, accordingly, the passage 1878. The borrowing-hypothesis
would consist of Mt. 246.8 15-22 29-31 34=Mk. 137-9a 14-20 24- in its purest state-the theory,
2730. As adiscourse of Jesus it is prefaced by v. 36 (=Mk. namely, that one canonical gospel
134=Lk. 21 ?)-an introduction which anticipates v. go-and if
you will hyv. j(=Mk.135=Lk.218a), and it is brought to a had been used in the preparation
close in v. 35 ( = Mk. 1331=Lk. 21 33). Of t h e Mh Mt Lk
In contents, however, the passage is quite alien from 0t h er - c (a). Holtzmann
Jesus' teaching as recorded elsewhere, whilst on the was thus (before 1878).
.other hand it is closely related to other apocalypses. source superseded ( 5 118).
It will, accordingly, not be unsafe to assume that an ( p ) As a more complicated
apocalypse which originally had a separate existence form we single out that of
has here been put into the mouth of Jesus and mixed up Lipsins (as described by Feine,
with utterances that actually came from him. The Lh ' /Pi", '85, p. I$). Inaddition
most appropriate occasion for a prophecy concerning cm). ~ i ~ ~ to i ~Holtzmann's
~ . scheme he
a n abomination about to be set up in the temple assumed a borrowing from
(24 15) would be the expressed intention of the emperor canonical Mk. by Lk., and
Caligula-which in 40 A.D. threw the whole Jewish also an Ebionitic redaction
world into the greatest excitement-to cause a statue of of the logia (5 123).
himself to be erected there.l The origin of this apoca- ( d ) B. Weiss reverts al-
lypse will best be placed somewhere between this date most to the hypothesis of
and'the destruction of Jerusalem, which is not yet pre- an original gospel. He
supposed in Mt. 24 15. Whether it was composed by a postulates for the logia
Jew or by a Christian is an unimportant question (see, (which he therefore prefers
however, 5 145 [f]). to call the
( c ) Anonymozls GospeZs.-Of other minor sources that
have been conjectured mention may here be made
of the so-called anonymous gospel found by Scholten a
in Mt.37-1012 43-rra 85-10 13 19-22 927-34 112-rg,-in ratives as discourses (§I 122, 126 c).
.other words, in the main, the passages mentioned at ( e ) Simons essentially simplified the
the beginning of 5 122,-and of the book which is held Lh theory of two
to be cited by Lk. (1149) under the title of 'Wisdom' e. Simons. pos- ,o t i g/ i g ./~ k ~ g [ a
tulating by(what
sources
m(Uo@la,55 19 150).
( d )Buddhistic sozlwes. -Seydel ( EvangeSum zo?zYew, all the hypotheses hitherto enu-
1882; BuddhnZegende, '84; (2), '97) has not actually merated had avoided doing) a M~
attempted to draw up a gospel derived from Buddhistic borrowing by Lk. from Mt.
material ; but the parallels he has adduced from the (5 127).
life of Buddha are in many places very striking, at least (f)Holtzmann from 1878
so far as the story of the childhood of Jesus is con- combined this last with the Lh
cerned,3 and his proof that the Buddhistic sources are hypothesis of an original Mk. f: Holtzmann (1878).
1 Tac. Hisf. 5 9 ; Philo,Leg. 30-43; Jos.B/ii. 10; AnLxviii. (5 119 a).
8 2.9. See I SRAEL $ 96. (g) The latest form of the two-source-theory is ihat
2 Das iiZtesie Edangeliunz, I. end, p. sox
3 To the virgin-hirth (Mt. 1IS), the annunciation to Mary
propounded by Wernle. Whether Mt. and Lk. severally
(1 zof:), the star (2 1-10), the gifts (2 II), Simeon (Lk. 225-39). 1 Only the parable of the Wicked Servant (Mt. 2445.51) and,
the incident at twelve years of age (Lk. 2 41-50), must be added indirectly, the narrative of the end of the betrayer (Mt. 27 3-10)
also the presentation in the temple; and here it is worthy of are affected by the resemblance to the story of Ahikar; cp J. 15.
remark that such a presentation was not actually required either Harris The S f o r y ofAhikar 6of: 'Did Juda; ieally commit
by the passage (Ex.13 2 12 15) cited in Lk. (2 22-24) or yet by suicid;?' in Amer. Journ. &
T h h . , zgw, pp. 490-513 ; and
t h e o&er passages Nu. 3 46 18 15 Ex.22 29. see ACHIACHARUS, I.

18.57 1858
 GOSPELS
used one or more subsidiary sources he leaves an open
question. With regard to the logia he assumes that
before they were used by Mt. and Lk. they had under-
gone additions, transpositions, and alterations-yet not
to too great an extent-at the hands of a transcriber
or possessor. The copy which Mt. used had been
worked over in a Judaistic spirit ($ m g e ) , that used
by Lk. was somewhat shorter. Mk. was acquainted
with the logia, but did not use them; he merely took
them for granted as already known and on that account
introduced all the fewer discourses (against this see
Loqic
g. Wernle.
5 148). Our present Mk. is different from that used
by Mt. and Lk. but only by corruption of the text,
not by editing.
It is the agreement between Mt. and Lk. as compared
with Mk. that tries any hypothesis most severely, and
126. Confronts- it is with reference to this point that
all the most important modifications
tion of in the various theories have been
hypotheses. made. W e proceed to test the lead-
ing hypotheses by its means--always on the presupposi-
tion that neither Mt. was acquainted with Lk., nor Lk.
with Mt.
(a)The hypothesis of an original Mk. is in a general
way very well fitted to explain the agreement in question
in so far as canonical Mk. is secondary to Mt. and Lk.
Bat if, on the other hand, our Mk. has elements of
gyeater originality, as we have seen to be the case with
mzny of his exact details, then one will feel inclined, in
accordance with 3, to suppose that it was a younger
copy of Mk. that Mt. and Lk. had access to. In actual
fact, however, sometimes the one condition holds good,
sometimes the other. It is in this textual question, over
and above the question already (0 118) spoken of as to
its extent, that the difficulty of the original-Mk. -hypo-
thesis in its present form lies.
(6) If certain passages which are found in Mk.
occurred also in the logia, then Mt. and Lk. may have
derived their representation, in so far as it differs from
Mk., from the logia, provided that the logia was unknown
to Mk. That there were passages common to Mk. (an
original Mk. is not required when we approach the
question as we do here) and the logia is at least
shown by the doublets, and is by no means excluded
even where there are no doublets (see 5 121 6 and
Wernle, 208J). One, however, can hardly help think-
ing that the great degree of verbal coincidence which
nevertheless is seen between Mk. on the one hand and
Mt. and Lk. on the other comes from oral tradition. Thus
a very high degree of confidence in the fixity of the oral
narrative type ($ 115) is required, and this marks one of
the extreme limits to which such hypotheses can be
carried without losing themselves in what wholly eludes
investigation. But, moreover, the logia must be con-
ceived of as a complete gospel if we are to suppose that
it contained all the sections in which Mt. and Lk. are
in agreement against Mk. Hawkins (pp. 172-176)
reckons that out of 58 sections which almost in their
whole extent are common to the three evangelists there
are only 7 where Mt. and Lk. are not in agreement
against Mk., and in 21 of the remaining 51 he finds
agreements which are particularly marked and by no
possibility admit of explanation as being due to
chance.
(c) According to B. Weiss not only Mt. and Lk. but
,1859
GOSPELS
also Mk. made use of the logia ; Mk., over and above,
drew upon the oral communications of Peter and was
again in his turn used by Mt. and Lk. This hypothesis
has the advantage of accounting for the secondary
passages of Mk. as due to a more faithful reproduction
of the logia by Mt. and Lk., and the fresher colours of Mk.
as due to the reminiscences of Peter. It still remains
surprising, doubtless, that Mt. and Lk. should have
omitted so many of these vivid touches if they lay
before them in Mk. The supposition that they did
not regard Mk. as of equal importance with the logia is
not in itself inherently impossible; but it does not
carry us far, for they elsewhere take a great deal from
Mk. Still more remarkable is it that Mk. should have
omitted so much from the logia. The suggested ex-
planation that in writing down the reminiscences of
Peter he regarded the logia as only of secondary value
is, in view of the number of passages which according
to Weiss he took from them, still more improbable
almost than that already mentioned.
As regards the coincidences between Mt. and Lk.
against Mk., a very simple explanation seems to be
found for them in the hypothesis of Weiss, viz. that
Mt. and Lk. drew upon the logia with greater fidelity
than Mk. did. .This, however, can of course be
claimed by Weiss only for those sections which he
actually derives from the logia. Yet for one portion of
the sections in which such coincidences occur (see
above, 6 ) he finds himself compelled by his principles to
regard Mk., not the logia, as the source of Mt. and Lk.
In this way, of the 240 coincidences enumerated by
Hawkins, some so-no inconsiderable number-remain
unaccounted for. Nor can we overlook the iniprob-
ability that the logia, as conceived of by Weiss, should
have contained, as he himself confesses, no account of
the passion.
In so f<aras the various hvuotheses referred to in the
,l
preceding section are found to be in-
12,. sufficient, in the same degree are we
by Lk. from compelled to admit that Llc. must
Mt. (or vice
versa). have been acquainted with Mt. (or
~ vice versa).
(a) Each of the two assumptions-partlywithout any
thorough investigation and partly under the influence of
a ’ tendency’ criticism-long found support ; but the
(a
second 157, Ai. c) has at present few to uphold it. T h e
other has for the first time been taken up in a thorough-
going manner with use of literary critical methods by
Simons ($125e).
We begin with arguments of minor weight.
(a) Out of the selection of specially strong evidences in sup-
port of it given in Hawkins (174x) we have already (# 1196)
ointed out that Mt. 13 11 Lk. 8 IO (as against Mk. 4 11) and
R t. 2668 Lk. 2264 (as against Mk. 1465) admit of another ex-
planation. Similarly, the ‘Bethphage and Bethany’ of Lk.
19 29 may be sufficiently explained by assuming that originally
only the first word stood in the text (as in Mt. 21 I ) or only the
second (as in Mk. 11I), and that it was a copyist who, of his^
own proper motion, introduced the name he found lacking.
Possibly we ought to trace to the source of Mt., rather than to
the canonical Mt., such material divergences as we fiiid in Mt.
21 17 Lk. 21 37 (that Jesus s p e d the night outside of Jerusalem
a statement not found in Mk. 1119) ; in Mt. 21 23 Lk. 20 I (tha;
Jesus taught in the temple, as against Mk. 1127 ‘he was walking
in the temple’); in Mt. 2650 Lk. 2248 (that Jesus spoke to the
betrayer in the garden-a statement not found in Mk. 1445); in
Mt. 288 Lk. 249 (that the women reported to the disciples the
angel’smessage, whereas according to Mk. 168 they said nothing
to any one ; on this last point however, see 5 138 e). Similarly,
the representation, the impodibility of which has already been
referred to in 5 108 (by which the Baptist is made to address the
penitent crowds flocking to his baptism as a generation of vipers)
is either due to an infelicitous juxtaposition of Mt. 3 5 (where it is
said that the multitudes went out to him) and Mt. 3 7 (where
the words in question are addressed to the Pharisees and Sad-
ducees); or it may be due to use of Mt.’s source. Lk. appears
to be dependent at once on Mk. and on Mt. (or Mt.’s source)
when in 4 2-13 he represents the temptation in the wilderness
bothas happening during the forty days (as in Mk. 113), and also
as happening after their expiry (as in Mt. 42-11).
(6)Greater importance belongs to the verbal agreements. In
Mt.917 Lk.537 ‘spilled’ ( i r X e k 8 a L ) is used of the wine
‘perish’ (&r6Mucb’aL) only of the bottles; in Mk. 222 ‘perish’
1860
 GOSPELS
(&rrdhhvdaL)is used of both. I n Mt. 9 20 Lk. 8 44 the woman
touches the hem of the garment of Jesus in Mk. 5 27 simply the
garment. I n Mt. 14 I Lk. 9 7 Herod Aitipas is correctly called
tetrarch, in Mk. 614 zz 25-27 and also in Mt.149 inexactly
‘king’ (pamhclic). Mt. 19 29 Lk. 18 30 have ‘manyfold’ (Irohha-
IrAaoiova), Mk. 10 30 ‘a hundredfold’ (iKaTovraIrhaolova). In
Mt. 26 75 Lk. 22 62 it is said of Peter ‘he went out and wept
bitterly’(I&.88v 2&u L A ~ U U Wm K p & ) ; in Mk. 1472 ‘he began
to weep’ (dmj3ah8v iKhaLfv). In Mt.2759f: Lk. 2353 it is
said of Joseph of Arimathea ‘he wrapped it in a linen cloth . . .
.. .. .
and laid ’ (Iv~rlih~&v ab.& oiv8dvr . E & ~ K w ) in Mk. 15 46
‘he wound him in a linen cloth and laid’ (Zvdhqu~vrfj
urv86vc kai ~ar&‘qrsv; 1 W H &JKEV). Mt. 28 I Lk. 23 54 have,
as against Mk. 162, ‘it began to dawn’ (&i+dumiv)-though
indeed, in a different connection. In Mt. 28 3 Lk. 244, asagains;
Mk. 16 5, the countenanceof the angel, or the apparel of the two
A material divergence from Mk., but at the same time an
approach to coincidence of expression is seen in Lk. 2370, where
the answer of Jesus to the high pries;is given in this form : ‘Ye
say that I am.’ The first two words are a paraphrase of the ‘thou
hast said’ (d&as) of Mt. 26 64 ; the remainder of the sentence
is a repetition of the paraphrase in Mk. (R 119~). For another
material divergence from Mk. see Lk. 1117 = Mt. 12 25 as against
Mk. 323 (Jesus knowing the thoughts of his enemies).
( ) Specially important are cases in which a casual expression
of ht. is laid hold of. So, for example, in Lk. 9 34 (‘ while he
said these things ’) as compared with Mt. 17 5 (‘while be was yet
speaking’), and as against Mk.97. Similarly Lk. (4 16-30) was
able to find a justification for his erroneous d e m e n t , that Jesus
had come forward in the synagogue a t Nazareth at the very
begiilning of his public activity (cp $9 39, 109 h), in Mt. 4 13,
where it is said that Jesus before coming to Capernaum left
Nazareth (in Lk. 431 he comes to Capernaum from Nazareth).
The scribe’s question as to the greatest of the commandments is
described not by Mk. (12 28) but only by Mt. (22 35) as having
been asked for the purpose of ‘tempting’ Jesus. According to
Lk. 10 25 the questioner asks what he must do to inherit eternal
life. Nevertheless he too is represented as having sought to
‘ tempt’ Jesus. Lk. 16 17 would be specially convincing on the
present point if here a sentence had been taken over from the
latest hand of Mt. (5 Is). But the original text of Lk. probably
said the opposite (see 5 128e). On the other hand, we really
have a sentence by the latest hand in Mt. 7 2 8 with which Lk. 7 I
betrays connection, for with the formula ‘When Jesus had
ended all these words,’ Mt. concludes his &eat speech-composl-
tions not only here, hut also in four other places (11 I 13 53 19 I
26 I). Moreover, Lk. also shares with Mt. the statement that
the multitude heard the preceding discourse, though this is con-
tradicted by the introduction to it in Lk. 6 20 as well as in Mt.
51. Mk. says in 1218 correctly ‘There came unto him Sad-
ducees, O ~ T L ~ &dyvpvmv,
FS who [alis well known] say that there
is no resurrection : Mt. 22 23 infelicitously reproduces this as
‘there came unto him Sadducees saying (Adyovres) that ’ etc.
Lk. 2027 seeks to improve this: ‘There came to him c e r t k of
the Sadducees, they which say ( 0 ; & v T ~ h d ~ o v T that
f s ) there is no
resurrection, and they asked him, saying. The articiple ought
to have been in the genitive (rGv a v A q d v r w v f In the nom.
(02 &VTL~&TSS) we seem to have an echo of Mt.’s ‘saying’
(h&,om&). Lk. rightly inserts the article missing in Mt. Thq
reference, however, must he to the Sadducees, not to ‘ certain
(TLV&). The formula, ‘ while he was saying these things ’ (see
above, Lk. 9 34), is met with also in Lk. 11 37, where Jacohsen
would derive it from Mt. 12 46 as also he would derive the state-
ment in Lk. 12 I, ,‘When the myriads of the multitude were.
gathered together insomuch that they trode one upon another
(which indeed does not fit well with what immediately follows :
‘he began to say to his disciples’) from Mt. 132. Jacobsenl
considers that when he wrote these passages Lk. had reached, in
taking what he has taken from Mt., exactly the neighbourhood
of the two Mt. passages just cited (1246 13 2). This, however,
cannot he made evident.
(6) On general grounds, on the other hand, the
dependence of Lk. on Mt. (and, equally so, the con-
verse) is very improbable. In each of the two evan-
gelists much material is absent which the other has,
while yet no possible reason can be assigned for the
omission. Nay, more, the representations given in the
two are often in violent contradiction. Even agree-
ments in the order, in so far as not coming from Mk.,
almost always can be accounted for as derived from a
second source-the logia. Simons has, therefore, in
agreement with Holtzmann, put forward his hypothesis
only in the form that Lk. regarded Mt. as a subsidiary
source merely, perhaps, in fact, only knew it by frequent
hearing, without giving to it any commanding import-
1 Uniersuch a. d. synopf. Rvang., 1883, SI$
~861
GOSPELS
ance. This is in very deed quite conceivable, if only he
knew the logia, and was in a position to observe how
freely Mt. had dealt with that material.
(c) Soltau sought to improve the hypothesis of Lk.‘s
dependence on Mt. by the assumption that it was with
the penultimate form of Mt. that Lk. was acquainted.
That Mt. 1J was still absent from Mt. when Lk. used
it is an old conjecture. The pieces from the middle cf
the gospel which Soltau reserves for the canonical Mt.
are of very opposite character (to it he reckons even the
highly legalistic saying in 5 1 S J and the strongly anti-
Judaistic one in 2 2 6 J ) and are attributed by him lo
very various motives. This indicates a great difficulty
in his hypothesis. Nevertheless the suggestion is always
worth considering that OT citations of the latest hand
which are adduced to prove the Messiahship of Jesus
(I IO^), and perhaps some other portions besides, did
not yet lie before Lk. That there is no reason to shrink
from a hypothesis of this kind, see § rzg.
Let us now proceed to consider whether the possible
origin from still earlier written sources of those con-
128. Sources of secutive books which were the last to
precede our present gospels can be
souTces*
raised above the level of mere con-
jecture. This of course can be done, if at all, only at
a few points. T o show that it has not unfrequetitly
been affirmed, even though no very thoroughgoing con-
sequences were drawn from the affirmation, we shall
begin by giving three examples well known in the litera-
ture of the subject.
(a) Johannes Weiss (on Lk. 5 17,in Meyer’s Comnzenfar)says
that the exemplar of Mk. used by Lk. underwent, after it had been
so made use of, another revision, which we have in our Mk. and
that it had been previously made use of by Mt. before p a k g
into the hands of Lk. Here and in the following paragraphs
(a-g) let A, B, and C he necessarily different hands, and Aa,
Ah, Ac, on the other hand, be such portions as may perhaps
he due to one and the same hand but perhaps also procecd
from different hands ; similarly also with Ba, B1, Bc, etc. ; tben
the view of Weiss can be stated as follows. A is a written
source on the healing of the paralytic without mention of the
circumstance that he was let down through the roof. This
source was drawn upon, on the one hand by Mt., on the other
by B who introduced the new circumstance just mentioned. B
was drawn upon on the one hand by Lk on the other by Mk.
It is in this way h t at the same iime Jo&mnes Weiss explains
also how Mt. and Lk. coincide in many details as against
Mk. B thus takes the position which original Mk. has in the
usual nomenclature not however-and this is the important
point-being the oldbst writing, but being itself in turn dependent
on a source. For our own part we cannot regard this view
as being sufficiently firmly based, since it has been shown in
1166 that it is Mt. who has greatly curtailed the narrative of
$e death of Herod ; it is therefore conceivable also that in the
passage before u s he should have left out the detail about the
roof also his interest being merely in the miracle itself as prov-
ing the Messiahship of Jesus, not in any special detail of it
such as this (cp Hawkins 127-1zg;
. . and also Wernle, 156f: for
~~
similar passages).
(6) Wpods, 86-88, assumes for the narrative of the Mission of
the disciples two sources -one (which we shall call A) relating
to that of the twelve the bther (B) to that of the seventy.1 Mk.
67-11 and Lk.91-5’drew only from A. A and B were both
drawn upon by a third document (C) which was used in Lk.
10 1-12 as the sole source, hut in Mt. 10 1-16 along with A. I t
will create no difficulties if we recognise in A an original Mk.
(according to Woods ‘ the Marcan tradition ’), in B the logia.
Whilst. howevw. mrh critics as Bernard Weiss and Holtzmann
&,Geed tha;-Mtr&d LkI 10 were drawn direct from the logia
(as Lk. 9 was from Mk., or original Mk.), Woods has found it
necessary to interpolate an intermediate stage ( C ) in which both
these soirces were already fused. One might even feel inclined
to go a step further. Lk. in 107 f: would certainly not have
given the injunction to ‘eat such things as are set before you,’
first in speaking of a house, and then in speaking of a city, un-
less the one form had come from one source, the other from
another. I t happens, however, that neither of the two forms is
found either in Mk. or in Lk. 9. Lk. 10 therefore apart from
the Mk. source (A), which is made use df, for exaAple, in 10 I
(id %a, ‘two and two’), would seem to have had two other
sources. In any case Woods’ observation in correct that
Mt. has fused together all the sources that can be discoveked in
Mk. or in Lk. Whilst passing over the rest of Lk. 108, Wt.
introduces the ‘city‘ into 10 11 at the place where Mk. 6 IO
1 The main point is not affected if it be assumed that B also
dealt uzith the mission of the twelve, and that the seventy were
first introduced by Lk. (5 109 a).
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 GOSPELS
a n d Lk. 9 4 speak of the ‘house’ ; the ‘house’ he introduces
into 10 r z in the parallel to Lk. 10 5 which is absent from Mk. and
Lk. 9. In 10 Q Mt. has ‘silver ’ (dpyvpov) with Lk. 9 3 (dpylipruv),
and also ‘ br& ’ (xdr6v) as weli (with Mk. G 8). Similarly,
with Mk. and Lk. ‘J he has ‘twelve’ in 10 I , though he had not
hitherto given the number of the twelve and has to enumerate
them for the first time in 102-4. The injunction laid on the
missionaries in 10 9 to ‘acquire’ (Ksrjuqu8f) no money is to he
explained from 108 as meaning that they are forbidden to take
any reward for their teachlng or healing on their journey
(‘freely ye have received, freely give ’), whereas in 10 IO (‘no
the way,’ pG ~ ’ p a v61s 6 8 6 ~ we
) are to interpret it as a
on against taking anything with them when they set
horne(asinMk.Gg=Lk.93).
(c) Loman ( Th. T,’69, pp; 577-585) traces back to one original
parable those of the Tares in the Wheat in Mt. 1324-30 and of
the Seed growing secretly in Mk. 426-29. However different
they may he apparently, he urges, and however possible it
might he to show that even such w:rds in which they agree as
‘man ‘spring up,’ ‘fruit ’ ‘blade corn,’ ‘harvest’(8v@pwrros,
phaukv, mprrhs, x6pros, &OS, 6’&pds) belon ed to two quite
distinct parables, a common original form is getrayed by the
word ‘ sleep ’ (mSRiSav). Mk. would never have introduced
any touch so self-evident as that of the man sleeping and rising
night and day had there not lain before him something in which
the sleep was spoken of. By the addition that the man awoke
again daily the original meaning of the sleep is obscured.
If the two parables cannot he supposed to be of independent
origin, it is at the same time only with great violence that we
could derive Mk.’s from Mt. or Mt.’s from Mk. M.t.’s lacks
the quality of a trne original in so far as it is not an incident of
ordinary life that any one should sow tares in another’s field-
and the other parables of Jesus are conspicuously taken from
affairs of every day. Mk.’s lacks the character of an original in
so far as its fundamental idea-that the kingdom of God comes
to its realization without the intervention of God or of the
Messiah (in other words, the precept of Zaisser a Z b , Zaisser
f a i v e ) i? quite a modern one, directly inconsistent with the
conceptions of Jesus as disclosed elsewhere in the gospels.
Loman therefore supposes that Mt. 13 24 26 27 alone stood in a
source A : after the seed had been sown, the tares grew up with
i t and the servants asked their master whence these came. The
auswer he takes from Mk. 4 28, hut in the form : ‘the earth
brings forth the tares of itself,’ With this the parable ended.
That such a saying would be eminently appopriate in the
mouth of Jesus he proves very aptly by Mt. 15 19 (out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts). An anti-Pauline form of the
parable, however B a took Paul as the sower of the false
doctrine which $as sdpposed to he denoted by the tares. I t
therefore introduced Mt. 13 25 saying that the enemy (on this
designation for Paul see 0 IIZC) had sowii the tares, and
it also, for the conclusion of the parable in A, substituted
Mt. 13 zm-the master’s answer that the tares were sown
by the enemy. Bb then added Mt. 13 ~86-3o-signifying that
nevertheless no attempt should be ,made to extirpnte the false
doctrine of Paulinism, that it should be left to the Final Judg-
ment. The polemic against Paul here is thus milder than that
of Paul against his Judaistic adversaries in z Cor. 1113’15 ;
Gal. 1sf.’, 5 12. Canonical Mk., further, was acquainted
with A and Ba. I n order to avoid the anti-Pauline meaning
of Bn he left out the whole figure of the enemy (dxt’pds) and
consequently also the tares. H e had therefore to take the
answer of the master from A, not however of course in the form
that the tares sprang up of themselves, hut in the form that i t
was the good seed that did so. This last very modern idea
accordingly did not find expression here out of the inde-
pendent conviction of an ancient author hut arose from the
difficulty in which Mk. found himself. The sleep of the master
lost its original significance when the daily waking was added.
From 42 it is clear that Mk. had also B6 hefore him, for he
speaks o? the harvest. Canonical Mt. expressly says in the
interpretation of the parable attributed to Jesus (13 39) that the
enemy is the devil. Either, therefore, he no longer perceives
the anti-Pauline tendency of Ba, or like Mk. he deliberately
seeks to avoid it, though he takes a quite different way to do so.
There remains a possibility that he may have understood the
Pauline doctrine to he meant by the false teaching introduced
by the devil ; but it is equally possible that he was thinking of
somz form of heresy.
This hypothesis of Loman combines with a literary criticism
which has far its object the elucidation of the mutual relations
of the various texts, also a tendency-criticism which postulates
a n anti-Pauline tendency in Ba. Even should one he unable to
adopt the latter criticism, it is not necessary on that account to
reject the former ; it is open to any one to suppose that the
‘enemy’ (&@pbsddpwnas) may have been a t the outset some
form (as already indicated) of heresy.
(d) To the three examples given above we purpose
to add a few others which, so far as we are aware, have
not been previously employed in this connection.
In Lk. 161-9 the Unjust Steward is commended.
H e accordingly must be inteiided in the commendatory
clause (v. 100) which follows-‘ H e that is faithful in
a very little is faithful also in much’-not in the
words of censure ( 3 . 106) ’he that is unrighteous in a
1863
GOSPELS
very little is unrighteous also in much.’ And yet in
1 6 8 he is called ‘the unrighteous steward.’ In
16 TI we read further ‘ If ye then ( 0 8 v ) have not been
faithful in the unrighteous mammon ’ and so forth. By
the very little’ in which one is to show fidelity we
must accordingly understand Mammon. Where then
are we to look for the steward’s fidelity as regards
Mammon? According to the parable, in this-that he
gave it away. Unfaithfulness accordingly would
manifest itself if one were to keep Mammon to oneself.
The steward, however, did not keep Mammon to himself
and yet was called ‘unrighteous’ (which of course is
not to be distinguished from ‘unfaithful‘). W e see
accordingly that the terminology in 16 TO-12is in direct
opposition to that of the parable itself. Further, the
contrast in the parable is not in the least between
fidelity and its opposite. What the steward is com-
mended for is his cleverness ; the opposite to this would
be want of cleverness. Thus vu. 10-12 are an appendix
to the parable by another hand. Taken by themselvLs
their meaning would be simply an exhortation to fidelity
in money matters. Here, however, they are brought
into connection with the parable of the steward, whose
relation to Mammon is represented as one of fidelity.
Their fundamental idea accordingly is just as exactly
Ebionitic as that of the parable itself. Thus two
Ebionitic hands can be distinguished, and distinct from
both is that of Lk. himself who has added yet another
transformation of the meaning,-in a. 1 4 J , where he
declares the parable to have been directed against the
Pharisees and their covetousness.
( e ) According to Q 112 b d we may tale it that the
final redaction of Mt. was made in a sense that was
friendly to the Gentiles and thus attached no value to
compliance with the precepts of the Mosaic law.
Unless then Mt. 5 18$ be a marginal gloss (see § 112 c ) ,
it must have been introduced not b y the last, but by
the pennltimate hand, and its context comes from a
source of an antepenultimate hand.
5 18 itself rests upon, Mt. 2434.L or the source in which this
originally stood. The close of 5 18 ‘till all things he accom-
plished ‘ does not amalgamate easil; with the beginning of the
verse i@ll heaven and earth pass away [onejot or one tittle shall
in no)wise pass away]. Moreover, it is difficult to see why the
law should cease to have validity the moment it is fulfilled in its
entirety. But the closing sentence in 2434 is perfectly intelli-
gible : ‘This.gener$tion shall not pass away till all these things
he accomplished.’ All these things’means here the premonitory
signs of the end. 24 35 proceeds :‘Heaven :nd earth shall pass
away; hut my words shall not pass away. Marcion has the
same thought in his redaction of Lk. 16 17 : ‘ I t is easier that
heaven and earth shpuld pass away than that one tittle should
fall from my words. For this, canonical Lk. has ‘than for one
tittle of the law to fall.’ But this can hardly have been what
Lk. intended to say, for this verse stands between two verses
which accentuate ,with the greatest possible emphasis the
abolition of the law. The conjecture of Lipsius therefore is
very attractive-that Lk. wrote ‘than for one tittle of my law to
fall’ (4 TOG vdpou pov &w Kepaiav xereiv). Here on account
of his antipathy to the idea of law, Marcion subdtituted (hut
without altering the sense) ‘words‘ for ‘law’ (4 7i)v h6yov p w
piav mpaiav a w e i u ) . But a very old transcriber of Lk. took
the word ‘my’ (pov) for a wrong repetition of the second syllable
of ‘law’(v6pou); he therefore omitted it and thereby changed
the meaning of the sentence to its opposite. This nomistic mean-
ing is reproduced in Mt. 5 1 8 f :
One sees how many the intermediate steps must have
been before these two verses cou!cI have received their
present form. Still, as already said, 5 183may possibly
be a marginal gloss.
(f)In Mk. 933-42 and parallels (Mt. 18 1-6 Lk. 946-50),
very diverse things are brought into combination. First,
the account of the disciples disputing with one another
IS to precedence ( 9 3 3 J ), then the story of Jesus p!acing
a little child in their midst with the exhortation to receive
such in his name ( 9 3 6 J ) ; next, the exhortation (938-40)
not to forbid other miracle-workers ; further, the promise
1941) that even a cup of water given to a follower of
Christ shall by no means lose its reward; and lastly
( 9 4 ~ ) the
, threatening against those who cause any of
the little ones that believe in Christ to stumble.
1864
 GOSPELS
The dispute ahout precedence is answered according to Mk.
(v. 35) by the saying of Jesus ‘ If a?y man would be first, he
shall be last of all and minister)of all. This is not found in Lk.
except in the pl&e (22 26) where it occurs as a parallel to Mk.
1043f: Besidesgiringit in thesameparallel toMk. lO43f:(Mt.
ZOz6f:), Mt. has it again, only in a quite different place (23 1 1 ) ;
and yet neither Mt. nor Lk. would have omitted it in the parallel
to our present passage Mk. 9 35, had they found it there. For
indeed it is very apprdpriate to the matter, whilst the mention
of the child by no means serves to settle the dispute, for the
child is not brought forward as an example of humility hut as a
person to he ‘received,’ and not for the sake of his attributPs as
a child but for the sake of the ‘Name of Christ.’ Mt. felt this
want of connection and in order to represent the child as an
example he says in’ v. I that the disciples did not discuss the
question among themselves hut referred it to Jesus who ansuered
by placiiig the little child in their midst. Between this act and
the exhortation based upon it he inserts further his third verse,
‘ Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall
in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. This he borrows from
Mk. 10 15, as is made unmistakably clear by the fact that in the
parallel to this passage, viz., in Mt. 19 13-15, he omits it, so as
to avoid a douhlet. Mt. 183 is also in substance a very fitting
settlement of the dispute between the disciples, and would not
have heen passed over by Lk. had it lain before him. The ex-
hortation to receive such a child is in Mt. 185 in the same
degree inappropriate to the context. Mt. therefore interpolates
between the two distinct thoughts his fourth verse : ‘Whoso-
ever shall humble himself like this little child, the same shall he
greatest in the kingdom of heaven. But even this insertion
does not fill the hiatus between v. 3 and v. 5.
The exhortation in Mt. 185 to receive the little child is
immediately followed (v. 6) by the antifhesis, But whoso shall
cause one of these little ones to stumble. This fits well enough
on the assumption that children are intended by the ‘little ones.’
In Mk. and Lk., however, the two thoughts are separated very
unnaturally by the account of the miracle-worker ‘ who followeth
not with us,’ and in Mk., too (941), by the promise of a reward
for the cup of cold water-a promise which Mt. (1042) gives
in a quite different connection, and there, moreover, using
the expression ‘ these little ones,’ by whom, however, he nnder-
stands (differently from 186) grown-up persons of low estate.
T o this promise there is appended in Mk. 942 the threatening
against him who shall cause one of these little ones to stumble,
quite fittihgly-only, however, on the assumption that by ‘these
little ones’ we are to understand grown-up people of low estate,
uot children, as in Mt.
Let us now endeavour to trace, genetically, the origin
and growth of this remarkably complicated passage.
In a source A were combined only those two parts which
are common to all three gospels-to wit, the statement
of the dispute among the disciples and of the placing of
a child in the midst with the exhortation to receive him.
But no connection between them had been as yet
established. This (primitive) form is found with least
alteration in Lk. 946-48n; in Mk. it is represented by
933f: 36f:. in Mt. by 181$ 5. Bn added to it the
promise of reward for the cup of water to a disciple
(Mk. 941). Bb further added the threatening against
him who shall cause a little one to stumble (Mk. 9421.l
C interpolated the story of the miracle-worker who
followed not with the disciples. Its distinctive character
forbids the obvious course of assigning it to Bc. Now,
in Mk., only 938 39n 40 answers to the form of the story
in Lk. 949J The form of the whole pericope which
arose through addition of this piece (without Mk. 939b),
thus takes the place which in the usual nomenclature is
given to original Mk. Bot on this occasion ‘original
Mk.’ has had not one literary predecessor merely, but
two, or, should Bn be separated from Bb, three; and
these write not, it is to be noted, independently of each
other ; the one was continually making use of the other.
Canonical Mt. rests upon A + B (or at least B6, but
1 Since Mt. 18 offers parallels only to what we have attrihuted
to A+B6 one might be inclined rather to attribute to Ea the
addition bf Mk. 942 and to B6 that of Mk. 941. If this were
done it would have to be presupposed (what was left open, above,
under a) that Ba and B6 mean two different authors. We
should then have the advantage of being able to suppose that
Mt. was acquainted with Ba, hut not with Bb. A t the same
time, however, we should have to attribute Mk. 941 in that case
rather to C, for on the previously mentioned presupposition it
must remain equally possible that Ba and B6 together mean
only one author. The hypothesis would, therefore, only become
more complicated. Further, it is not probable that Mk. 9 42
should have been introduced earlier than 941. I t is simpler,
therefore, to suppose that Mt. knew BafB6-in other words
Mk. 941 as well as Mk. 942, but that he dropped 941 hecaus;
he had himself already reproduced the same thought in 10 42
(cp 5 m u ) .
1865
GOSPELS
surely also Ba : see last footnote). Mt. then, as stztcd
above, changed the introduction in v. I , and added his
own w. 3 f:, so as to bring into mutual connection the
dispute about precedence and the precept about receiving
the child. Mt.’s zi. 6, through its direct contiguity with
v. 5 (instead of with 1042 which here ought to have been
repeated as parallel to Mk. 941), underwent a change of
meaning, to the effect that children, not grown-up
persons, were meant. L k . rests on A + C. He added
9486, ‘ he that is least among you all, the same is great.‘
This does not, indeed, come in appropriately after the
precept about receiving a child ; it would have found a
place with greater fitness before this precept and after
the statement of the disciples’ dispute, in other words
between v. 47a and v. 47b-i.e., at the very point where
Mk. v. 35 introduces the same thought. Mk. rests
upon A+Bn+Bb+C. He adds on the one hand his
v. 398, which Lk. would certainly not have passed over
had he known it, and on the other hand his v. 35,
containing so excellent a settlement of the precedence-
dispute. Neither Mt. nor Lk. was acquainted with the
verse or (as already said) they would not have omitted
it or introduced something like it at a later place, as
in Lk. v. 486.
It is certainly worthy of notice that M k . , by the in-
sertion of w. 35, has produced the only doublet which he
has (5 121 a , n. I ). The circumstance that Jesus calls the
disciples to him in v. 35 whilst in w. 33f: he has already
been questioning them, points also to the conclusion that
the passage is composed from various pieces.
(9)The successive contents of Mk. 4 1-34 and parallels
(Mt. 131-35 ; Lk. 84-18) cannot possibly have been set
down in any one gospel in their present order at one
writing. Let us examine them. After the parable of
the Sower, Jesus is alone with his disciples (Mk. 4ro=
Mt. 131o=Lk. 89) ; so also when he explains the par-
able ( w v . 13-20=Mt. 13 18-23= Lk. 8 11-15). Nor is any
hint given of his again addressing himself to the
people ; yet we read in Mk. 4335 that he spoke openly
to the people in parables (so also Mt. 1 3 3 4 ) , .and
that he gave his explanations to the disciples in private.
There is ground, therefore, for supposing that in one
source, A, there stood an uninterrupted series of parables,
viz., all those which have parallels in Mt. (Mk. 41-9
26-29 30-32-in an older form as regards 26-29 ; see
above, c) ; also the conclusion v. 33$ Bn, on the
strength of the concluding statement that when they
were alone Jesus expounded all things to his dis-
ciples, introduced Mk. 4 IO 13 14-20 ; Bb the yerses 21-25
to the effect that one ought not to keep hack know-
ledge once gained of the meaning of a parable, but
ought to spread it freely. C introduced 411f: These
verses to the effect that the parables were interded
to conceal the meaning they contained from the people
are in contradiction alike to v. 33f: and to vv. 21-25,
and are, moreover, impossible in the mouth of Jesus.
What pleasure could he have had in his teaching if
he had to believe his God-given task to be that of
hiding from the people the truths of salvation? It
is, therefore, utterly futile to make out forced con-
nection between Mk. 410 and Mk. 4 I I $ , by inter-
preting to the effect that Jesus, when asked as to the
meaning of the parables, in the first place, said, by
way of introduction to his answer, that to the disciples it
was given to apprehend the meaning, and then went on
to tell them what it was. Moreover, Mk. 413 does not
fit in with this connection. The verse is clearly a
question in which Jesus expresses his astonishment at
the small understanding of the disciples : ‘ How? you
1 I n I l k . 4 I O the disciples ask concerning ‘the parables.’ T h e
plural carries us back to what is said in Mk. 42 that Jesus spoke
several. The sense, therefore, can very well he that which Lk.
(8 9) expresses more clearly though with reference to one parable
only: they asked about the meaning of these parables. Were
it the intention of Mk. to say like Mt. (13 IO) that they asked
about the urjose of the parables then we must suppose that
only Lk. {as rightly preserved thk thought of the source Ba.
1366
 GOSPELS
do not understand this parable; how then shall you
know all the parables?’ This astonishment again is
out of place if Jesus in v. I I J has found nothing to be
surprised at in the circumstance that the disciples needed
to have the meaning first of all imparted to them. The
question is appropriate, therefore, only as a direct reply
to v. IO, and furnishes a aery good occasion for Jesus to
decide to give them the interpretation (cp, further,
129 b, n.). Here also, as under (f), C takes the position
which elsewhere is appropriate to original Mk., and here
also there are two or three antecedent literary stages. D
inserted the parableoftheleaven (Mt. 1333=Lk.l320J).
Each of the three canonical gospels then rests upon
A + B u + B d + C ; l Mt., too, upon D. Mk. did not
change the extent of vv. 10-13 (perhaps it was he who left
out the yvrjvar from o. IT ; cp RV with AV), on the other
hand he gave to vv. ZIJ a form which suits the applica-
tion here made of the saying better than does that of Mt.
and Lk. (see § 1.19u). Mt. and Lk., on the other hand,
in order to be able to retain from C, Mk. 411$, deleted
the surprised question of Jesus in Mk. 413 (from Ba),
because it was inappropriate after this insertion.
Moreover, Mt. has also so altered the question of the
disciples (who in Mk. 410 and Lk. 8 9 ask as to the
meaning of the parable) as to make it suit the answer
which was first brought in from C : ‘ t o you it is given
to understand the parables, but to the multitude it is not
given.’ It now runs in Mt. (13 IO) : ‘ Why speakest thou
to them in parables?’ But such a form of the question
cannot have been the original one-for this reason, if
for no other, that according to it, Jesus would have had
no occasion to expound the parable to the disciples.
Further, Mt. has in 1312 introduced a saying which in
B6 at first came after the interpretation of the first par-
able. W e further see that he must have found difficulty
in the assertion that the purpose (!vu, Mk. 412) of the
parables was to conceal the meaning they contained.
H e substitutes therefore : ‘ For this cause do I speak to
them in parables bemuse ( 8 n )they see not and hear
not.’ H e thus puts in the foreground the defective
understanding of the multitude as a fact with which
Jesus must reckon. By what follows, however (v. 14$),
taken from Isaiah, he gives it clearly to be seen that he
had before him an exemplar in which their not being
understood was alleged as the ,aurpose of the parables
(see the ‘ lest perchance,’ u?f T O T E , in 1315). Finally
perhaps it was Mt. himself who added the interpretation
of the parable of the Tares (not immediately after the
parable, but at the end of the whole section that is
parallel to Mk.41-34; cp 5 I I ~ U ) ,and also the other
parables 1336-52 ; possibly also v. 35.
Still it is also permissible to suppose that only Mk. 4 1.9 33f-
stood in A but this makes little change in our construction as a
whole ; it bnly becomes necessary in that case to postulate that
Bc added Mk. 4 26-32.
On the other hand, the mutual relation of sources can become
still somewhat more complicated if Lomau’s hypothesis regarding
vu. 26-29 (see above c) be combined with what has just been
elahorated about M i . 4 1-34. Yet it is possible to do this without
multiplying the number of sources. We therefore refrain from
introducing the hypothesis in question, all the more because it
might, as being of the nature of tendency-criticism, call forth
special objections.
( h ) Finally, it has to be pointed out that even the
doublets might be used to give probability to the com-
posite character of the logia. In 5 121 u they have heen
employed to show that Mt. and Lk. alike draw from
two sources. For the most part these were, on the one
hand Mk. (or original Mk. ), and on the other the logia.
Only, it happens by no means infrequently that both
places in which Mt. has the same saying are generally
traced to the logia. What would seem to follow for
this would be that the writer of the logia himself made
1 AsregardsBb-Le Mk.421.25-it ispossible tosupposethat
Lk. (S 18) may have or;l?ltted z. q b because he already had it in
6 38, and that Mt. may have omitted all these verses hecause he
also had them all elsewhere in one place or another ( 5 15 1026
7 2 6 33)-the last, in particular, in the very pericope with which
we are now dealing (13 12).
1867
OSPELS
use of two sources. Now, we are not inclined to carry
back Mt. 716=20 to two sources from which the logia
drew, but prefer to regard the repetition as an express
and deliberate accentuation of the statement upon which
stress is here laid. But we do in all seriousness adduce
Mt.101~=1124 (‘more tolerable for Sodom’), 717:
1233 (the tree and its fruits), as well as the utterances of
John which are also afterwards put into the mouth of
Jesus (37=2333, ‘ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye
escape’ ; 310=7 19, ‘every tree that bringeth not forth
good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire‘).
What has been said above as to sources of sources has
far-reaching consequences.
(u)If it holds good even partially, then most of the
._ -
hypotheses hitherto Dut forward as to the origin of the
gospels can no longer be maintained.
129. Inferences For, in that case, in original Mk., or
for gospel- the logia, or whatever be the name
criticism. given to the sources immediately pre-
ceding our canonical gospels, we are no longer dealing
with the earliest written compositions each produced
by a writer working independently without written
sources, and the canonical authors were not dependent
(as used to be supposed) on these writers alone, but
had at their disposal also the sonrces of these sources.
It is no longer possible to control them in every detail.
to ask what exemplar they had and why they made this,
that, or the other change. On the other hand, the
thesis that an ancient-seeming saying if it occurs in a
writing that can be shown to be relatively young can have
no claim to an early origin, must be wholly given up.
(6) The first impression one derives from the new
situation thns created is, that by it the solution of the
synoptical problem which appeared after so much toil
to have been brought so near, seems suddenly removed
again to an immeasurable distance. For science, how-
ever, it is not altogether amiss if from time to time it is
compelled to dispense with the lights it had previously
considered clear enough, and to accustom itself to a new
investigation of its objects in the dark. Possibly it may
then find that it has got rid of certain false appearances
under which things had formerly been viewed. In this
particular instance, it finds itself no longer under com-
pulsion to assign a given passage to no other source
than either to the logia, or to original Mk., or to some
other of the few sources with which it had hitherto
been accustomed to deal. The great danger of any
hypothesis lies in this, that it sets up a number of quite
general propositions on the basis of a limited number
of observations, and then has to find these propositions
justified, come what may.’
(c) On the other hand, signs have for some consider-
able time not been wanting that scholars were on the
way to recognition of the new situation just described.
It is not only Scholten and Wittichen who have postu-
lated a tolerably complicated genealogy for the gospels,
with Proto-, Deutero-, Trito-Mk., and the like ; even
those critics also who are confident in the adequacy of
the usual hypotheses are often found reckoning with the
possibility -or even probability - that writings like
original Mk., or the logia, whether in the course of
transcription, or at the hands of individual owners, may
have received additions or alterations whenever any one
believed himself to be acquainted with a better tradition
upon any point. The possibility is taken into account,
in like manner, that canonical Mk. in particular does
not lie before us in the form in which it lay before those
who came immediately after him ; possible corruptions
1 Let one example suffice. Mk.41g-the verse which was
found so helpful in $ rz8g-is regarded by Feine and others as
an addition by canonical Mk., because it is in point of fact in-
consistent with 411x,and these two verses, since they occur
in all three go3pels must he ascribed to the ‘ source -that is to
say, to the only soirce with which one allows oneself to reckon
whether we $11 it with Feine, ‘original Mk.,’ or, with B:
Weiss ‘ logia. If one could only tell how it was that canonical
Mk. &me to add this verse !
1868
 GOSPELS
of the text,l glosses and the like, have to be consfdered.
Another element in the reckoning is that already our
oldest MSS of the gospels have latent in them many
examples of transference from the text of one gospel
into that of another, examples similar to those which
we can quite distinctly observe in many instances when
the T R is confronted with these same witnesses.
It may be that an older form of Mk., or of original
Mk., or of the logia, whose differences from our
present gospels are so limited in range and so little
intended, can hardly, strictly speaking, deserve the
name of a special source, the general contents and
arrangement being so much alike ; yet the effect, in its
bearing on the character of the text in its details, is pre-
cisely the same as if we actually were to assume such a
source. For in particular cases it is not possible for
us to rely upon a text as lying before us or as capable
of being more or less easily reconstructed, and so to judge
of the changes that have been made by the canonical
evangelists ; we have to reckon with an immense range
of possibilities and thus security of judgment is lost.
Lastly, scholars are also beginning to remember that the
evangelists did not need to draw their material from books alone,
but that from youth up they were acquainted with it from oral
narration and could easily commit it to writing precisely in this
form in either case-whether they had it before them in no
written form, or whether they had it in different written form.
I n this matter again we are beginning to be on our guard against
the error of supposing that in the synoptical problem we have
to reckon merely with given quantities, or with such as can he
easily ascertained.
(d) From the point just reached to the recognition of
sources of sources differing not only in text but also in
extent, order, and tendency is always, it is true, a real
step. Yet. the distinction is after all but a. fluid one. By
mere additions it is possible to give a writing a tendency,
which without these does not exist in it ($5 109 6, 110,
112). It is essentially by the introduction of additional
touches that, as we have seen in 5 128 a-g,the highly-
complicated production, the disentanglement of which
now causes so much difficulty, was produced out of a
simple combination of related, or at least not mutually
inconsistent, pericopes. And each intermediate stage in
the process at one time had currency as a gospel writing
and served as a basis for further developments. But if
this consideration is taken seriously, it becomes in-
creasingly impossible to hold-what any one occupying
the standpoint of c would wish to hold in spite of every
concession to the actual state of the facts-namely, that
the man to whom, whether by tradition or by the voice
of some scholar, the authorship of the latest recognisable
form of such a pre-canonical writing is ascribed, can
also be regarded as the author of the earliest of these
forms. Of the man who has made such manifest
changes in the few places that still allow us to follow
him in the process, it will be only safe to assume that
he treated other passages also in the same way, only
that we no longer have the means of detecting it. In
that case, however, and still more certainly where there is
individual ‘ tendency,’ his writing must be regarded as
a new work in so far as in this class of literature ‘ new-
ness’ can be spoken of a t all ; it cannot be treated as
merely another form of its predecessor. From
this point of view we shall be able to give its full
force to Lk.’s prologue, according to which many authors
had already nndertaken in an independent way to draw
up in writing (this is the force of the expression
dva.rdEaaOar, cp 5 153,n. 2) an account of the life of
Jesus. But Schleiermacher’s view of the ‘ narratives ’
( 6 r ~ y ? $ x t s(5
) 124 a ) also in this way comes to its rights ;
for doubtless there must have been quite short notes also
as well as narratives of a more comprehensive character
($5 37, 64, 8 5 ) , and yet these also can have had their
influence on the subsequent form of individual pericopes.
The reconstruction of original Mk. and of the logia, of
1 Forexample, that Lk. accordingto97(‘itwassaidbysome’),
still read in Mt. 6 14 ;heydinstead of &yw(the present readine),
while Mt. already, on account of this last reading, regarded Mk.
6 16 as a mere repetition and therefore left it out.
1869
GOSPELS
their arrangement and even of their very words-to
which so much acuteness has been devoted-loses
greatly in interest as soon as these writings are regarded,
not as the earliest, but only as intermediate steps. In
the same measure does one gain insight into the diffi-
culty of the problem, and the lesson of caution in dealing
with it. For further reasons for the view here taken of
the situation see $5 148J, 153.
( e ) On the other hand, however, certain difficulties
become easier to deal with. W e can now, for example,
offer an explanation of the passage in M t . 2 3 2 3 a , so
friendly to the Pharisees, and of all the Jewish-particu-
laristic passages in 5 1 1 2 a, d, which it is impossible to
ascribe to Jesus, and also even, whatever the inter-
mediate stages may have been, of the legalistic Mt. 5 18J
( 5 128 e ) ; they are attributable to a Judaistic redaction
which the logia underwent before they were made use
of, and (according to 5 1126) altered to an opposite
sense, by Mt. The character of the original logia
becomes in this way more uniform and more in accord-
ance with the free attitude of Jesus towards the law, and
one can understand better how it was that this attitude
of his was successfully transmitted, whereas all record
of it might very easily have dropped out of sight had the
first transmitter already been so Judaistically minded.
By way of appendix the question of late so keenly
discussed-viz., as to the influence which the undeniable
130. Semitic fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic may have
had upon the formation of the gospels-
original. may here be appropriately considered.
( a ) If Papias was right in his assertion regarding Mt.
(see 5 65), this influence would have been very great.,
But our gospels were from the first written in Greek
-even the genealogy in Mt. 1I - 1 7 , ~ as well as that in
Lk. 323-38, which contains (v. 36) the name of CAINAN
(y. v.,z),met with only in the LXX. In fact, even in what
we find reason for tracing back t o the logia, the quota-
tions are, at least in a quite preponderating number of
cases, taken from the LXX (cp especially 4 4 where the
original in Dt. 8 3 supplies no basis for ,%j,uun). It is
precisely the author of canonical Mt. who oftenest
gives the quotations from the Hebrew (Hawkins, 123-
127),and who could not have given such quotations as,.
e.g., 2 15 23 817 27gf. after the LXX at all ; but the.
allegation that his book is a translation from a Semitic.
original breaks down on the fact that it also nevertheless
follows the LXX, and that, too, exactly in passages.
which would not have been available had the Hebrew
original been followed.
Only the mistranslation ‘virgin ‘ (rrapodvos, cp M ARY [MOTHER
OF JESUS]) made it possible to adduce (in Mt. 12 2 s ) Is. 7 14;
o ~ l the
y omission of the second member to ‘in the desert’ (w
7 cp4fiy) in the Hebrew parallelism in Is. 403 (@)made it pos-
sible to bring these words, in Mt. 33, into relation with what
precedes instead of with what follows and thus to find in the
words a prediction of one crying in the wilderness, though in
Isaiah the crier is of course not in the wilderness where no one
could have heard him but in the midst of the e h e d Israelites
in Babylon. In Ps. 8 <it is only the LXX that speaks of ‘ praise
in the sense in which Mt. 21 16 finds it here. Further Hosanna’
(&yaw&)in 219 with the dative is regarded as a cry of devotion
- Praise.’ ‘V1vat’-which is not reconcilable with the true
understanding of the original passage (see H OSANNA ; cp Dal-
man, WorteJesrC, 1180-182). ’ ! ”
( b ) The lanwane of Mk. Hebraizes still niore stronelv Y I
t h i n does tharof-Mt. Nevertheless, the combinations
of Allen (Bzpos., 1900,1436-443) do not prove that the
evangelist wrote Aramaic, but only that he wrote a kind
of Jewish Greek that he had derived from a reading of
the LXX. Lk. also has Hebraisms, not only in chaps.
I$ but elsewhere as well, and not only where he is
dependent on Mk. or Mt. but also where he had no
exemplar before him (as, for example, often ‘and it
came to pass,’ K a t 2-yyivero ; see Hawkins, 30), and yet
no one holds Lk.’s writing to be a translation of a
Semitic original. Is. 403 (Mk. 13) could not possibly
be cited in an Aramaic writing (see above, a).
1 See Allen, Ex). T,’99, pp. 135-137. Against his further
assertion that the genealogy was constructed by the author
of the entire Gospel, see, however, M ARV (M OTHER OF JESUS).
1870
 GOSPELS
Just as little can the very small number of variants-partly
Lucan in character-in D and old Latin translations, which
Blass (Phil. of Gospels, ‘98. pp. 190-218) does not regard as
traceable to transcribers, he held to show that the entire gospel
of Mk. was written in Aramaic and translated into Greek in
different ways, or even-as Blass formulates the hypothesis-
that Luke the companion of Paul, himself before he wrote the
third gospel, revised and published a bad Greek translation of
the Aramaic Mk on which account it was that afterwards he
omitted much of‘lt from his own book, not wishing to exceed
the ordinary limits of a papyrus roll. Elsewhere (see ACTS,
$3 17) it has been shown with what independence the text has
been dealt with in D and its allied MSS. Least of all can
Blass’s hypothesis seek support in the contention that Lk.
shows little verbal coincidence with Mk. This fact (so far as it
is a fact) can of course he sufficiently explained by the linguistic
character of Mk which Lk. regarded as admitting of improve-
ment. Whethey Mk.’s linguistic imperfections are due to
translation from the Aramaic is a quite separate question.
Finally, there are no grounds for the conjecture of Blass that
the Aramaic original document dealing with the earliest his-
tory of the church in Jerusalem which is held to have heeu used
by Lk. in Actsl-12 (on this pbint, see ACTS, 8 17 [n.],col. 56)
was written hy Mark, and that he will on this account havewritten
the gospel also in Aramaic-notwithstanding that, according to
Papias, he was Peter’s interpreter and that he has so many Latin
words (8 108).
(c) A written source still older than the logia or Mk.
(or original Mk. : sce 5 148, end) may have been
written in Aramaic. A writing in Hebrew (I 117) is
not wholly impossible but certainly quite improbable.
There seems to have been a Hebrew original in the
case of the Psalms of Solomon (see APOCALYPTIC,
§ 83). But here the ruling pattern may have been
that of the O T psalms, and perhaps also in Pompey’s
time Hebrew was somewhat more generally in use than
it came to be IOO years afterwards. It is not very
helpful to suggest that people would have been
naturally inclined to treat of the sacred subjects of
the gospel history in the sacred language. The masses
did not understand Hebrew (see A RAMAIC , § 5 ) , and
yet gospel writings, unless they were to miss the purpose
for which they were written, had to be adapted to the
intel!igence even of the least instructed.
(d)The gain from recourse to the theory of such an
original is in the first place this, that certain Greek
expressions will then admit of explanation as being
errors of translation. Once made, such errors could
very well pass on without change from one Greek
writing to a second and to a third. But it will be at
once obvious that such an explanation can have im-
portance only in regard to particular passages, not in
regard to the origin of the gospels as complete books.
Nor even for this purpose is it necessary to aim at retrans-
lation of whole sentences a process which will always offer
room for new error; all h a t will be required will he that we
should discover the individual words or expressions from which
the error can possibly have arisen.1 As a n instance we may
point to Wellhausen’s137 (Lk.1141), which may equally as well
mean ‘purify’as ‘give alms,’ d d i ~I h q p o d w l v ; the sense will
then he the same as in Lk.1139, and in the parallel Mt. 2 3 2 5 3 ,
and thus the character given to the passage in 8 110 will be
changed.
( e ) Another advantage will be that the consideration
of an Aramaic or Hebrew original will aid in determining
as to the meaning and use of important or difficult
words and ideas in the NT. A very familiar example
occurs in the inn which Jerome found in the gospel of
the Hebrews for 6mobutos in Mt. 611, and which is
assuredly right (see Wined8), § 16, 3 6 ; and cp LORD’S
P RAYER). But it must be said that the recent recourse
had to Aramaic in this field of research has already had
some very infelicitous results.
Thus Lietzmann 2 Wellhansen 3 and others assert that Jesus
used the word ‘ sob of Man’ oniy in the sense of man ’ gener-
~ l l y(cp $3, 116d,n.), hut did not apply it to himself in that of
Messiah ; in this last sense, they maintain, it was only taken
by the evangelists from the Apocalyptic literature, and so came
1 Cp Wellh. in Nachr. d. Gesellsck. d. Wissensch. zu
Gd’ifinqen, ’95, pp. I T f: ; Arnold Meyer, Jcsu Muitersprazhe,
‘96 ’ Nestle PhiZo2oR;ca sacra, ’96.
9’Der &enschensohu 96‘ also Theol. Ar6eifm aus dew
Rheinischen iuissensch.$re&en,erein neue Folge Hft. 2 , ’99.
3 IJGP) 381 ; and Skizzetz u. Yorarbbiten, 6, ’99, bp. 194-215.
1871
GOSPELS
to be introduced into the gospel history.1 But Dalman in his
turn (p. 159)disputes the geuuineiiess of the words ‘not the son
but only the Father’ (RZk.1332; cp Mt.2436), on the ground
that in the time of Jesus these expressions were not customary
without additions such as ‘my [son],’ ‘of God ’ ‘ m y [Father].
As if the meaning they express could not possihy, nevertheless
have come from Jesus, and only the form of expression bed&
to the later use assumed by Dalman (cp 8 139).
111. C REDIBILITY OF THE S YNOPTICS.
T h e investigation of the mutual relationships between
the synoptic gospels has in itself a scientific interest
and can therefore be carried on with
13f. Funds- interest even by the student for whom
mental
the credibility of the gospels is a matter
considerations*df comparative indifference. Still, in
the end the answer to this question is the goal of every
research in this field. The question is often, however,
still handled quite unscientifically. Thus, many still
think themselves entitled to accept as historically true
everything written in the gospels which cannot be
shown by explicit testimony to be false. Others pay
deference at least to the opinion that a narrative gains
in credibility if found in all three gospels (as if in such
a case all were not drawing from one source) ; and
with very few exceptions all critics fall into the very
grave error of immediately accepting a thing as true as
soon as they have found themselves able to trace it to n
‘ source.’
Once we have freed ourselves from the dominion of
such fallacies it cannot but seem unfortunate that the
decision as to the credibility of the gospel narratives
should be made to depend upon the determination of
a problem so difficult and perhaps insoluble as the
synaptical is. It would accordingly be a very im-
portant gain if we could find some means of making it
in some measure at least independent of this. Such
means have already been hinted a t above (5s 27, n. I ,
and 34, n. 2).
The examination of the credibility must from the
beginning be set about from two opposite points of
view. On the one hand, we must set on one side every-
thing which for any reason arising either from the
substance or from considerations of literary criticism
has to be regarded as doubtful or as wrong; on the
other hand, one must make search for all such data, as
from the nature of their contents cannot possibly on
any account be regarded as inventions.
When a profane historian finds before him a historical
document which testifies to the worship of a hero un-
known to other sources, he attaches first and fore-
most importance to those features which cannot be
deduced merely from the fact of this worship, and he
does so on the simple and sufficient ground that they
woiild not be found in this source unless the author had
met with them as fixed data of tradition. The same
fundamental principle may safely be applied in the case
of the gospels, for they also are all of them written by
worshippers of Jesus. W e now have accordingly the
advantage-which cannot be appreciated too highly-
of being in a position to recognise something as being
worthy of belief even without being able to say, or even
being called on to inquire, whether it comes from
original Mk., from logia, from oral tradition, or from
any other quarter that may be alleged. The relative
priority becomes a matter of indifference, because the
absolute priority-that is, the origin in real tradition-
is certain. In such points the question as to credi-
bility becomes independent of the synoptical question.
Here the clearest cases are those in which only one
evangelist, or two, have data of this class, and the
second, or third, or both, are found to have talcen
occasion to alter these in the interests of the reverence
due to Jesus.
If we discover any such points-even if only a few-
1 See on the other side Schmiedel, Prof. Monatskefie, ’98,
pp. 252.267 29r.308 ; Muirhead, Ex#. T,Nov. ’99, pp. 62-65 ;
Dalman, Worte J e w , 1I ~ I - Z I ~ .
1872
 GOSPELS
they guarantee not only their own contents, but also
much more. For in that case one may also hold as
credible d l else which agrees in character with these,
and is in other respects not open to suspicion. Iiideecl
the thoroughly disinterested historian must recognise it
as his duty to investigate the grounds for this so great
reverence for himself which Jesus was able to call forth ;
and he will then, first and foremost, find himself led to
recognise as true the two great facts that Jesus had
compassion for the multitude and that he preached with
power, not as the scribes (Mt. 936 729). Let us, then,
proceed to test in the two ways indicated some of the
leading points in the synoptic gospels.
The chronological framework must be classed among
the most untrustworthy elemerits in the gospels. Not
132. Chrono- only are the data often quite vague-a
defect for which we conld not blame the
fr&g%'rk. evangelists if they had no precise in-
formation; often also it is impossible
to have any confidence, when Mt. so frequently says
'then' (&E), ~i
'on that day' (& ~ K E I Y ~+p!pq), or the
like, or when Mk. says ' straightway' (EljSds), that the
event really followed on what immediately precedes it
in the narrative. Were we to take the evangelists
literally, an enormous number of events would have
to be compressed within the limits of certain days (cg.,
Mt. 12 15-1352), and there would be only a very
moderate number of days of the public ministry of Jesus
with regard to which any events are recorded at all. Of
the six time-determinations in Lk. 3 I f.-manifestly
brought together with great care-only the first three
can be regarded as free from exception. Philip ruled
over Trachonitis and other territories, but only over a
sniall portion of Iturzea. The office of high priest was
never filled by two persons at the same time; it is
Caiaphas who ought to have been named, whilst Annas
held the office from 6 to 15 A. D. On LYSANIAS see that
article. The statement about the census of Quirinius
in 21 f: is quite erroneous (see CEIRONOLOGY, 5 9 3 ,
QUIRINIUS, also above, 1 22, last footnote). But the
data are often even in direct contradiction to each other.
In'Mt. 8-12 especially, matters stand in a quite different
chronological connection from that which they have in
Mk. and Lk. (J 116 a). Or the mother and brethren of
Jesus come, in Mk. 331 and Mt. 1246, after the discourse
about Beelzebub, in Lk. 819 after the great parable-
discourse (see further $ 18, begin.).
The case is no better with the order of the narratives.
( a ) A large number of sayings of Jesus have been placed
'133. Order of together by Mt. in five longer dis-
the narrative. courses which on each occasion he
closes with the formula referred to in
$ 127 (a, 7 ) . Among these are included, for example,
a series of seven woes upon the Pharisees, 2313-36, a
series of seven parables, 131-52, and a series of six
theses in correction of the law (521-48; § 34, n. I ;
Hawkins, 131-135). Lk. has arranged in two similar
large groups-the so-called small and large interpola-
tions, 620-83 and 951-1814-material partly the same
as, and partly different from, that of Mt.
The greater interpolation-the narrative of what is known as
the Samaritanjourney-can make n o claim to historicity. In the
midst of it we find (101 and 17) the mission of the seventy and
their return, (1331) the warning against the plots of Herod
kntipas, who ruled over Galilee only, not Samaria,(141) a feast
in the house of a Pharisee, who can hardly have lived in
Samaria, and (17 11) the statement that Jesus was on the
borders of Galilee and Samaria, which yet he had already
passed (951) in his journey to Jerusalem.
(a) But even outside of these compiled discourses the
order of narration is often such as to suggest the sus-
picion that it has been determined by the nature of
the contents. The rubbing of the ears of corn and
the healing of the man with the withered hand (Mk.
223-36) are related the one immediately after the
other, only because both occurrences showed Jesus in
conflict with the law of the Sabbath. Or are we to
believe that the .two or three men-the whole number
1873
GOSPELS
recorded in the gospels (Mt. 819-22 Lk. 95,-62)-who;
asked of Jesus to be admitted to the number of his
disciples, all presented themselves at one and the same
moment-viz., when he was about to take ship across
the Sea of Galilee, or, according to Lk., at one and
the same point in the journey through Samaria? Coni-
pare, further, the wholly different order in which the
events in Mt. 8-12 (9 116a) are given as compared with
Mk. and LE., with the result that ( e . 8 .) the choice of the
apostles comes to be placed immediately before their
sending-out ( l O 2 - 4 ) , and the series of miracles before
the arrival of the messengers from the Baptist (1 137 a).
(c) In many cases it is not so much for the sake of
the order, but simply for the sake of a word, that
certain sayings of Jesus are brought into contiguity with
others ; thus, Mk. 942-48 are brought together only by
the idea of ' stumbling-block' ( U K ~ Y ~ ~ @ W ZIV. ) , 48.
and 49a only by that of fire, w. 496 and 50 only by that
of salt, Lk. 1133-36 only by that of light, 13243 only b y
that of the door. But what is said with regard to.
these things is in each case quite different, and he does
no honour to Jesus who believes himself in duty bound
to prove that the Master gave forth in one breath utter-
ances so utterly disconnected.
( d ) In other places there is manifest lack of clear
appreciation of the situation. The prohibition-which
certainly comes from Jesus himself and is no mere in-
vention of the evangelists-against making known a
deed of healing wrought by him, a prohibition still
found in Mt. 84 930, wbuld be utterly futile if, previously
(4233) and simultaneously (935),Jesus had healed whole
crowds of sick persons. In 1 2 16 the prohibition is !aid
even upon a great multitude of persons healed at one and
the same time. But we find the same thing also in the
parallel Mk. 3 12 and even in 1 3 4 = Lk. 4 41 ; and here
also follows the same prohibition laid upon individuals
(Mk.144=Lk.514 Mk.826).
( e ) In Mk. one is very willingly disposed to recognise
a n appropriate arrangement of the events of the public
ministry of Jesus as a whole. It is certainly the fact
that his first chapter gives the impression that the public
activity of Jesus may actually have begun in the manner
here related. But so far as the rest of the gospel is
concerned, little confidence can be placed even in Mlc.'s
order. In saying this, we lay no stress on the assertion
of Papias (see § 65) that he set down the deeds and
words of Jesus without order ; for Papias may very well
have been judging of that order with Mt. as his standard.
Nor can we accept the view of B. Weiss, that Mk. in-
tended by his frequent use of the imperfect to convey
that he is narrating not individual deeds of Jesus but
only the sort of things that he was in the habit of doing,
as for example in 42.l The whole sum, however, of
separate events in Galilee (miracles, discourses, and the
like) has so comparatively little that is characteristic,
and their order-for a writer who wrote only for the
glorification of Jesus and not for a laboriously exact
account of his biography-was of so comparatively
little importance, that it would not be safe for us to rely
on them with any. confidence whatever. In one point
Mk. has a superiority over Mt. and Lk. ; in 7 24 31 h e
records a journey of Jesus to Tyre and Sidon, in other
words, a long distance abroad. So also the journey t o
Czesarea Philippi recorded by him ( 8 2 7 ) in common
with Mt. (1613) signifies for him a noteworthy epoch
in the public life of Jesus ($ 135). See further 145g.
The alleged situations in which the recorded ntter-
ances of Tesus were spoken can by no means be implicitly
Wjs the Lord's Prayer
134. Occ~sionsaccepted.
of utterances given in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt.
of Jesus. 69-13), or at the special request of the
disciules (Lk. 111 - 4 ) ? Did Tesus de-
liver the Sermon on ;he Mount to his disciples (Mt. 5 I
1 As against this view of B. Weiss see Feiny, JPT,'87, pp.
45-57, 77,; 88, pp. .+os$; Holtzmann, ibid., 78, pp. 168.171,
with W e d s reply, pp. 583-585.
1874
 GOSPELS
Lk.6 2 0 ) ~or was it heard by the multitudes (Mt. 7 2 8 Lk.
71),?For a whole series of utterances of Jesus Lk. has
assigned occasions of which Mk. and Mt. know nothing
(e.g., 918 1129 37f: 1241 1323 1415 1 5 151f: 175 37
19 11). Even where an utterance of Jesus recurs more
than once in the gospels-and we may be certain that
he repeated himself much oftener than is recorded (5
145 a)-they yet afford us not the slightest guarantee
that the repetition took place precisely at the point at
which they place it.
The saqing about the light under a bushel is found in three
different connections. In Mk. 4 21 and Lk. 8 16 t h e light is t h e
interpretation of the parables Jesus had spoken (see $ 119a)-
manifestly a very special application of a thought of very much
wider scope. In Lk. 11 33 the saying comes after the sentence
which affirms that in the person of Jesus a greater than Jonah is
present; here, then, the light can only be Jesus himself. In
this connection. however. it is imuossihle to carrv throuzh the
most obvious meaning of the saylng that one ou&t not’to put
the light under a bushel. Moreover we find in 11 34 a saying
added only on account of the verbal suggestion (8 13gc+that
the light of the body is the eye. Once more, then, it is not
likely that the saying belongs to this place. In Mt. 5 14-16 two
different representations are combined. the disciples are ex-
korted to let their light shine, the city sei on the hill on the other
hand shines of itself. By the liqht the disciples are here meant
hut the opening words, ‘ye are the light of the world,’ can easil;
have been framed on the model of the preceding sentence, ye
are the salt of the earth,’ and that, too, for the first time by Mt.,
for the two sentences can hardly have stood together in one
source since in Mk. and in Lk. they are given in two quite dis-
tinct places. Thus in no one passage have we any security that
we are in possession of the originalconnection of the saying, and it
would be just as conceivable that it may have been spoken by
Jesus when one of his followers, concerned about his safety, had
besought him, as Peter on one occasion (Mt. 16 22) did, to spare
himself and not expose himself to danger-in fact very much as
i n Jn. 94J, only without the specifically Johannine meaning of
the word. See, further, Hawkins, 129-137; Wernle, Z I O J
In the case of an eye-witness the recollection of an
event associates itself readily with that of a definite
135. Places place, but for those who are not eye-
and persons. witnesses this has much less interest. I n
Lk. 9 18 Peter’s confession is not made at
Czsarea Philippi ; indeed, the evangelist knows nothing
about a journey thither at all (5 116a. end). The
leper was cleansed according to Mt. 8 ~ f after . Jesus had
finished his Sermon on the Mount, but according to
Lk. (512) a considerable time before that, when Jesus
was ‘in one of the cities,’ similarly as in Mk. 140.
On the return from his first journey abroad (to Tyre and
Sidon) esus, according to Mk. ‘I 31, arrives at the eastern shore
of the 8, of Galilee according to Mt. 15 zg (if we are to take
the most obvious meaning of the words), at the western. After
the feeding of the 4000 both evangelists agree in saying that he
crossed the lake ; hut according to Mk. 8 IO the crossing is to the
west shore according to Mt. 15 39 it is to the east. Then follows
a new crdssing, after which the apprehension ahout want of
bread arises in Mk. 8 13j: on the eastern shore, in Mt. 16 5 on the
western. The two routes coalesce according to Mk. 827 Mt.
1G 13 only when Cresarea is reached-unless we are to assume
that Mt., in what precedes, means the same localities as Mk.
and has only expressed himself misleadingly (cp 5 TIZ a).
As for persons-neither the names of the women at
the cross (see CLOPAS,5 z)nor even the names of the
twelve disciples (Mt. 102-4 Mk. 316-19 Lk. 6 14-16) are
given in two places alike (see APOSTLE). On the
divergence between Mt. 99 on the one hand and Mk. 2 14
and Lk. 527 on the other, see LEVIand MATTHEW.
Several of the reported sayings of Jesus clearly bear
the impress of a time which he did not live to see. T h e
136. Conditions precept ahout taking up one’s cross
belonging to a and following Jesus (Mt. 1038 1624)
is certainly not to be explained by
later time. pointing out that the sight of con-
demned persons carrying their crosses to the place of
execution was a familiar one ; for in that spectacle the
most important element of all was wanting-that of
innocence. The words in question cannot have taken
their present shape till after the death of Jesus. Ex-
hortations as to how to behave in times of persecution
(Mk. 139-13) he can hardly have found it necessary to
give so early, for, however numerous his followers may
have been, he formed in his lifetime no definite com-
munity outside the bonds of the Jewish religion, and
GOSPELS
still less a church. It was therefore also in the lifetime
of Jesus hardly possible that his followers should be
expelled from the synagogue in the manner spoken of in
Lk. 622, and still less so that they should be expelled on
account of the name of ‘ Christian’ (see CHRISTIAN, 5 I ).
The graduated order of procedure against an erring
brother (Mt. 1815-17) is much more easily explained
when transplanted to a later time. In the mouth of
Jesus it is, at all events, intelligible only if by ecclesia
( P K K ~ V U ~ we
) understand not the Christian but the
Jewish local community. But also the authority con-
ferred in the verse immediately following (18 IS),
‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven,’ could never have been given by Jesus
either to the apostles or, what the context leaves open,
t o his followers in general, still less to Peter to whom it
is limited in 1619 (cp BINDING A N D LOOSING). Still
more 1618 is open to serious question, quite apart from
other reasons, on account of the word eccksia, and
because the verse is wanting in Tatian’s Diatessaron.
Into the discourse on the occasion of the mission of the
disciples special precepts have been introduced, of a sort
which canonlyowe their origin to later missionarypractice
taught by painful experience (e.g., Mt. 10 I I 13). The
baptismal precept to baptize in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Mt. 28 19) is questionable,
not only because, according to the older accounts, the
risen Jesus was only seen, not heard (5 138 d),but also
because, according to the N T throughout, baptism was
only in. the name of Jesus (Rom. 6 3 Gal. 327 Acts 238
816 1048 195 1Cor.611 113; even in EIermas also;
Vis.iii. 7 3). The Trinitarian formula is met with first
in Justin (ApoZ. 161) and in the Didachk (71). So also,
if Jesus had enjoined the mission to the Gentiles on the
original apostles, as is stated in Mt. 2819, it would be a
practical impossibility to understand, how they, or their
followers, could have withstood Paul so hotly upon this
very point.
It would clearly be wrong, in an investigation such as
the present, to start from any such postulate or axiom
137. The as that ‘miracles’ are impossible. At
the same time, on the other hand, some
miracle- doubt as to the accuracy of the accounts
narratives.
cannot fail to arise in the mind even of
the stoutest believer in miracles when he observes snch
points as the following :-(a) How contradictory they
are. In Mk. 1 3 2 34 aZZ the sick were brought to Jesus
and he healed some; in [/ Mt. 8 16 they brought many and
he healed alZ; in 11 Lk. 440 they brought aZZ and he healed
aZZ, as also in Mt. 424. In Mk. 3 7 3 I O a great multi-
tude followed him and he healed many; in // Mt. 1215
many followed and he healed a A According to this the
view of the evangelist must have been that he was
followed exclusively by sick persons. According to
what is said in 8 133 d not only the early date but the
historicity altogether of those healings en masse must be
held to be doubtful. Before the feeding of
the 5000, in Mk. (634) Jesus teaches the multitude ; in
Mt. (1414) he heals their sick; in Lk. (911) he does
both. At the beginning of his journey to Jerusalem,
according to Mk. ( ~ O I ) , Jesus teaches the multitude;
according to Mt. (192) he heah them. According to
Lk. (721) Jesus heals a number of sick-posscssed
and blind-in the presence of the messengers of the
Baptist, and immediately before this he raises the
widow’s son at Nain (711-17) ; Mt. knows nothing of
this, and Mk. as little (the message of the Baptist is
wholly wanting in Mk.). But on the other hand Mt.
records as before this date not only the healing of a
leper (81-4)and of a paralytic (91-8), as does Mk. 140-
2 IZ = Lk. 5 12-26, hut also the raising of the daughter of
Jairus (918-26),and the healing of two blind men (927-
31), and of a dumb man possessed with a devil ( K W @ S :
93~-34)-healings which in Lk. are all brought in as
having been wrought after the message of the Baptist
1876
 GOSPELS
(840-56 1835-43 1114-16). Thus each of the two evan-
gelists secured that the messengers of the Baptist should
be able to hear of miracles of most various kinds as
wrought by Jesus (Mt. 115=Lk. 7.2) ; but each has
done so in a djfferent way. After the cleansing of the
temple, Jesus, according to Mt. (2114), heals blind
and lame there; of this Mk. and Lk. know nothing.
Similarly in 2852f. he alone reports the resurrection of
many dead persons on the death of Jesus. On the
other hand, Mt. (2617-20) describes the preparation of
the Passover meal without presupposing any super-
natural knowledge on the part of Jesus as is done in
Mk. (1412-17) and Lk. (227-14). Lk. alone knows not
only of the miracles reported in 711-17 21, but also of
the healing of the woman with the spirit of infirmity, of
the man with the dropsy, of the ten lepers, and of the
high priest’s servant’s ear, as also of the fact of
Peter’s miraculous draft (1310-17 141-6 1711-1g 22 505
51-11). In the last two cases the silence of Mt. and
Mk. is all the more significant as they give a quite
precise account of the very occurrences in the midst
of which a miracle, according to Lk., was wrought,
and in Gethsemane all the apostles, and at the call
of Peter at least he and some others, were present
(Mk. 1447=Mt. 2651-54; Mk. 116-2o=Mt. 418-22 ; cp
§ 32, n. 5 , 42). Only Mk., again, knows of the
healing of a blind man in two successive stages, by
application of spittle and by laying on of hands (822-26).
Instead of the one man, deaf and with an impediment
in his speech, who is healed by Jesus in Mk. (732-37) by
the same means, inllMt. 1530f. a wholemultitude oflame,
blind, and dumb are healed. At Gerasa Mk. (52) and Lk.
(827) make mention of one demoniac, Mt. (828) of two,
and that too (v. 29) with clear divergence from 11 Mk.
57=Lk.828, and dependence on the words of the
demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum (Mk. 1 2 4 =
Lk. 4 34), all mention of which has been wholly omitted
by Mt. At Jericho Mk. (1046) mentions one blind man
as Jesus was leaving the‘’city, Lk. 1 8 3 5 one as he was
entering, Mt. 2029f. two as he was leaving. The man
who in Lk. 1 1 1 4 is dumb is also blind in Mt. 1 2 ~ 2 . ~even where there is not the slightest shadow of aversion
According to Mk. 5 23 the daughter of Jairus is a t the
point of death, according to Lk. 842 she is a-dying ; in
Mt. 9 18 the father’s statement runs, ‘ my daughter is
even now dead,’ whilst in Mk. 535 and Lk. 849 this
announcement is brought to Jesus only after the healing
of the woman with the issue of blood which has been
wrought in the interval. T o the number 5000 as well
as to the 4000 of those a h o were miraculously fed Mt.
adds in each case (1421 1538) ‘besides women and
children.’ In Mk. 1120 the fig tree is found to be
withered away on the morning after the curse has been
pronounced ; according to Mt. 21 19 it withered away
immediately. Whilst in Mk. 1IO$ it is Jesus who sees
the heaven opened and the spirit descending and hears
the voice, so that one is able, if so disposed, to take the
whole passage as describing an inward mental experi-
ence, with regard to which the disciples had derived
their knowledge from himself alone, Mt. 316f. repre-
sents the opening of the heavens as a n objective occur-
rence and gives the voice in the third person and thus
not as for the hearing of Jesus alone, whilst according to
Lk. 3213 the Spirit even descends ‘in bodily shape.’
As for the narratives of the nativity and childhood see
M ARY (MOTHER OF J ESUS ) and N ATIVITY . We pass
over the numerous other minor differencesin the accounts
of miracles in the gospels, in order to touch upon :-
( d ) Two cases in which even one strongly predisposed
1 I t must be granted that in Mt. 932-34 ~ ~ 4 means
6 s a dumb,
and in 115 a deaf erson. But the two infirmities so often go
together that thi; %iiTerence of meaning cannot be held to in-
validate the statement in the text, which in all other respects is
absolutely exact.
2 These two passages must be regarded as parallel because in
each there follows this detailed examination of the criticism that actual fact the disciples had already dispersed at
Jesus cast out demons by Beelzebub (Mt. 12 24-32=Lk. 1115-23).
A second parallel to Lk. 1114 is Mt. 9 32-34, which agrees in
its details with Lk. more exactly.
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GOSPELS
to believe in miracles would find it difficult to 5ccept a
narrative of this kind on account of the time to which
it is assigned. (a)Lk. 2344f. expressly, and Mk. 1533
Mt. 2745 also to all appearance, allege an eclipse of the
sun, a celestial phenomenon which, however, is pos-
sible only at the period of New Moon-Le., shortly
before the 1st of Nisan-and cannot happen on the
15th or 14th of a month. To save for the narrative some
relic of credibility the suggestion has even been made
that it is in fact an eclipse of the moon that is re-
corded. But in offering this explanation it was for-
gotten, not only that at midday such an occurrence
would not produce darkness, but also that the shadow
of the earth falling upon the moon is visible only from
the side of the earth that is turned away from the sun,
in other words, during the night, not in the middle of
the day from 12 to 3.
( p ) As for the fig tree (Mk. 1112-14 20-25 Mt. 21 18-22),
it is certainly the fact that its fruits begin to form before
the leaves unfold-approximately about Easter - tide.
But at this early stage they are still exceedingly small
and quite uneatable. The first ripe figs are gathered
in the end of June, most of the rest in August, and
some not till so late as February. Some do not reach
their development at all in the year of their formation,
but only in the following spring. Fruits of this last-
named class might therefore have been found by Jesus
on the tree ; but they are in no sense a characteristic mark
of a good tree ; the characteristic of such a tree is its
young freshly-produced figs. But with figs of this last
kind Jesus could not have satisfied his hunger ; the nar-
rative would have been possible a t any time from June to
February ; but, placed at Easter, it is not so ; and yet it
belongs so definitely to the Easter season that it would be
indeed abold thing to saythat itis true initselfbutwrongly
dated. The only really pertinent remark is that of Mk.
(1113) : it was not the season of figs. This is so contrary,
however, to the whole of the rest of the narrative that
Scholten thought himself justified. in setting it down as
a marginal note by a foreign hand (I 119 b ) . Thus,
to miracles as such, there is nothing to surprise us when
these two narratives are declared to be unhistorical.
See FIG TREE.
(6) Taken as a whole the facts brought forward in
the immediately preceding paragraphs show only too
clearly with what lack of concern for historical precision
the evangelists write. The conclusion is inevitable that
even the one evangelist whose story in any particular
case involves less of the supernatural than that of the
others, is still very far from being entitled on that
account to claim implicit acceptance of his narrative.
Just in the same degree in which those who came after
him have gone beyond him, it is easily conceivable that
he himself may have gone beyond those who went
before him.
With reference to the resurrection of Jesus ( a ) the
most credible statement in the Synoptics is that of Mt.
--- _. __
(and Mk.) that the first appearances
R ~ ~ ~ ; rwere ~ oin nGalilee. The appearance in
Jerusalem to the two women (Mt. 28 gf.)
of Jesus. is almost universallv given up-not
_ I
only because of the silence of all the other accounts, but
also because in it Jesus only repeats the direction which
the women had already received through the angel. If
the disciples had seen Jesus in Jerusalem as Lk. states,
it would be absolutely incomprehensible how Mk. and
Mt. came to require them to repair to Galilee before
they could receive a manifestation of Jesus. The con-
verse on the other hand is very easy to understand;
Lk. found it inconceivable that the disciples who,
according to him, were still in Jerusalem, should have
been unable to see Jesus until they went to Galilee. In
Gethsemane (Mk. 1450 Mt. 2656); this Lk. very signi-
ficantly omits. Even Peter, after he had perceived,
1878
 GOSPELS
when r e denied his Master, the dangers he incurred,
will hardly have exposed himself to these, gratuitously,
any longer. At the cross only women, not disciples,
were present. Whither these last had betaken them-
selves we are not told. But it is not difficult to con-
jecture that they had gone to their native Galilee. The
angelic command, therefore, that they should make this
their rendezvous, may reasonably he taken as a veiled
indication that they had already gone thither. The
presupposition made both by Mk. and by Mt. that they
were still in Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection is
accordingly erroneous. It was this error of theirs that
led Lk. to his still more erroneous inversion of the actual
state of the facts.
(6) The second element in the synoptics that may he
accepted with confidence is the statement that it was
Peter who received the first manifestation of his risen
master. All the more surprising is it that it is only Lk.
who tells us so, and that only in passing (2434). It is
the chief point in the statement of Paul, I Cor. 15 1-11.
This passage must be regarded as the earliest acconnt
of the appearances of the risen Jesus ; unquestionably
it goes back to the communications made by Peter
during the fifteen days’ visit of Paul, three years after
the conversion of the latter (Gal. 118).
(c) Not only is it a mark of inadequacy in the gospels
that they have nothing to say about the greater number
of the manifestations here recorded ; it also becomes
necessary to withhold belief from what they actually do
relate in addition. Paul would certainly not have left
it out had he known it ; the duty of bringing forward
all the available evidence in support of the truth of the
resurrection of Jesus as against the Corinthian doubters
was of the most stringent kind.
( d ) Thus, on the one hand, the statements that
Jesus was touched, and that he ate (Lk. 2439-43), are seen
to be incredible. But these are precisely the statements
which make it possible to understand why the evangelists
should pass over the mere appearing of Jesus (Oq507)to
which the statements of Paul are confined, inasmuch as
they believed they could offer proofs of a more palpable
character.
I n criticism it was a great error to believe that by the expres-
sion ‘was seen’ (&+6q) Paul was characterizing the appearances
as unreal. I t is indeed true that in the N T this expression with
one exception (Acts 726) is applied to visions ; but, unless he be
a thoroughly modern person well versed in philosophy and
science, the visionary IS under a psychological necessity to
regard as real the things which he sees in vision even though he
distinguishes between them and the objects of ordinary sight.
T h e only thing that would prevent him from doing so would be
if the vision offered that which according to his ideas was utterly
impossible. But in the case before us this is far from being so.
I n the N T the resurrection of a man-e.g., of the Baptist or of
Elijah- is supposed to be thoroughly possible (Mk. 6 14-16=
Mt.14z=Lk.O7f:Mk.Q11 Mt.1710 1114).
What the expression ‘was seen’ (6q507) proves is,
accordingly, rather this-that in no description of any
appearances of the risen Lord did Paul perceive any-
thing by which they were distinguished from his own, re-
ceived at Damascus. With reference to this he uses the
sameexpression ; he therefore characterizes it as a ‘vision’
(drrmafa),and, as he still distinguishes from this the
‘ revelation ’ (~ToKLLXU$LS) in z Cor. 12 I , we shall have
to take the word literally and interpret it as denoting
seeing, not hearing. I cannot have been the close intended by the author,
( e ) The statements as to the empty sepulchre are to
be rejected; Paul is silent regarding ‘them, and his
silence is very strongly reinforced by Mk. 1 6 8 which
says the women told no one anything of what they had
seen. This failure to carry out the angel’s bidding is
quite unthinkable, and one readily understands why Mt.
and Lk. should say the opposite, though this is probably
the most violent change they have anywhere made on
their exemplar. (The word ‘fear,’ C$@OS, in Mt. 288
shows that he had before him the ‘ were afraid,’ Pq50-
POOVTO,of Mk. ) The statement of Mk. is intelligible
only if we take him to mean that the whole statement as
to the empty sepulchre is now being promulgated for the
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GOSPELS
first time by the publication of his gospel. He cannot.
intend to say that the women held their peace for a
short time only, for the general belief is that Jesus.
appeared very soon after his resurrection, and every
delay on the part of the women would have put back
the time at which the disciples could arrive in Galilee-
and behold the promised appearing of the Lord. If-
Mk. is understood in the sense we have indicated, then
in him we have a virtual admission, veiled indeed, yet
clear, that all Statements as to the empty sepulchre-
were innovations of a later time.
(f)Nor, as against this, will it avail to urge the-
inherent likelihood that the sepulchre must without fail
have been visited.
Here the assumption is that forthwith on the resurrection day
the tidings of the empty sepulchre became known in Jerusalem.
But this supposition has been shown to he groundless. Yet even
had the tidings been brought forthwith to the Christians in
Jerusalem, and even if they had thereupon at once visited the
sepulchre, their evidence would not have proved more than did
that of the women. Only an examination by opponents could
have claimed greater weight. But it is hardly likely that the
tidings reached their ears forthwith. Yet, even had this
happened and the sepulchre been found empty the fact would
have been capable of heing explained by thim as due to a
removal of the body. The (unhistorical) statement of Mt. as to
setting a watch over the sepulchre (5 108) had in fact just this
very purpose in view-to exclude the possibility of any such
removal. But after the visit of the women the watch was not
continued even in Mt. Further it has to be borne in mind that^
according to Jewish belief a body did not remain iecognisable-
for more than three days (see JOHR, S ON OF ZEBEDEE F 20 u).
H a d a body, therefore, really been found, it would do‘longer
have been possible to identify it as the body of Jesus.
This comes yet more strongly into view if we picture-
to ourselves the order of events in the way in which, in
all probability, they actually happened. The first belief
in the resurrection of Jesus arose through the appearances.
in Galilee on the third day after his death, or later.
T h e disciples believed in them and therefore felt them-
selves under no necessity to assure themselves by ex-
amination of the sepulchre. Even if the tidings of the.
Galilzean appearances had Geen brought to Jerusalem
forthwith, not even so would they have given occasion
for such an examination. It was unnecessary: the-
followers of Jesus believed them without further evi-
dence ; his enemies laughed them to scorn. One knew
that the emptiness of the sepulchre after so long a
time could prove aiiything just as little as could the
production of a no longer identifiable body. It is
unnecessary to enter more fully into the almost incred-
ible variations in the accounts of what happened at
the sepulchre, after what has already been said (see, for-
enumeration, § 27).
(g)The conclusion of Mk. (169-20)is admittedly not.
genuine (see W. and H., Appendix, and above, § 4,
n. 2). Still less can the shorter conclusion printed by W.
and H. lay claim to genuineness. Should it he found that
thelonger, in accordance with an Armenian superscription
found by Conybeare (Ez$os., ’93 8, pp. 241-z54),was.
written by the presbyterAristion-the name in the inscrip-
tion i s Ariston,-then a very unfavourable light would
be shed upon this ’ disciple of the Lord,’ as Papias calls.
him. Almost the entire section is a compilation, partly-
even from the fourth gospel and Acts. At the same time-
the words ‘ for they were afraid’ (Qq5oPoGv70 ydp, 168)*
especially seeing that appearances in Galilee are an-
nounced (167). The suggestion that the author was.
interrupted as he was finishing is a mere makeshift.
It cannot be urged in support of it that in Mt. and
Lk. no traces of the conjectured genuine conclusion of‘
Mk. are to he found. W e could not be sure.
whether at least Mt. has not drawn from it, especi-
ally as he coincides entirely with Mk. 1 6 6 f . But.
deliberate divergence from the (supposed) conclu
sion of Mk. would also be very intelligible, for Mt.
and Lk. have already, as against Mk. 168, said the-
opposite of what lay hefore them in their exemplar..
The fact that the last leaf of a book is always the most
1880
 1 GOSPELS
liable to get lost can suffice to explain how the close of
Mk. should have disappeared without leaving any trace.
Yet a deliberate removal of it is also conceivable,-if
it did not answer the demands which had already come
to be set lip in the time of Mt. and Lk. Nothing can
be conjectured with any certainty, except that it
described an appearance of Jesus to the disciples. The
fact that Peter is also individually named in 1 6 7 may
perhaps be held to indicate that the conclusion con-
tained also an appearance to Peter alone.
The foregoing sections may have sometimes seemed
to raise a doubt whether any credible elements were to
139. Absolutely be found in the gospels at all ; all the
credible , moreemphatically thereforemust stress
be laid on the existence of passages of
passages.
(a)About Je;lus the kind indicated in 131. Refer-
ingeneral. ence has already been made to Mk.
10 17 f: ‘ Whv callest thou me good ?
none is good save Gzd dnly ’): as also to Mt. 6 3 1 J
(that blasphemy against the son of man can be forgiven),’
and to Mk. 321 (that his relations held him to be beside
himself; cp 1166 d). To these, two others may now
be added : Mk. 1332 (‘of that day and of that hour
knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither
the Son but the Father ’ ; the words ‘ neither the Son ’
(01366 b ulbr) are absent from Mt. in many MSS and
the whole verse from Lk. ; cp 130e);and Mk.1534
Mt. 2746 (‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
m e ? ‘-an utterance which Lk. has wholly omitted).
These five passages, along with the four which will
be spoken of in 5 140, might be called the foundation-
pillars for a truly scientific life of Jesus. Should the
idea suggest itself that they have been sought out with
partial intent, as proofs of the human as against the
divine character of Jesus, the fact at all events cannot
be set aside that they exist in the Bible and demand
OUT attention. In reality, however, they prove not only
that in the person of Jesus we have to do with a com-
pletely human being, and that the divine is to be sought
in him only in the form in which it is capable of being
found in a m a n ; they also prove that he really did
exist, and that the gospels contain at least some absolutely
trustworthy facts concerning him. If passages of this
kind were wholly wanting in them it would be impos-
sible to prove to a sceptic that any historical value
whatever was to be assigned to the gospels ; he would
be in a position to declare the picture of Jesus contained
in them to be purely a work of phantasy, and could
remove the person of Jesus from the field of history,-
all the more when the meagreness of the historical
testimony regarding him, whether in canonical writings
outside of the gospels, or in profane writers snch as
Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, is considered.
( a ) According to Mk. 812 Jesus emphatically declined
to work a ‘sign ’ (uqpeio~)before the eyes of his con-
140. (a) On the temporaries ; ‘ there shall no sign be
miracles of given unto this generation. ’ In Mt.
1239 164 and Lk. 1129 this saying is
Jesus’ given in the enlarged form, ‘there
shall no sign be given to this generation but the sign
of Jonah (the prophet).’ Unless here the meaning
intended be the exact contrary of what is said in Mk.,
the ‘sign of Jonah’ cannot be really a ‘sign,’ but
rather the opposite of one.
To illustrate how notwithstanding i t was possible for Jesus
to express himself SA, let us put an i&aginary parallel case. A
conqueror, without receiving any provocation, invades a country.
I t s inhabitants send an embassy t o ask of him what justification
he can show for his aggression. He gives the answer: You
ask me what I can allege in justification? I shall give you no
other justification than that which my sword gives. The
situation in the gospel is quite similar.
The one thing which Jesus has hitherto done, and,
if he refuses to work signs ( u ~ p e i a )the
, one thing which
1 Lk. also as well as Mk. has his share in the weakening of
this sentence the verse he gives immediately before it heing
(12 9), ‘he thdt denieth me in the presence of men shall he denied
i n the presence of the angels of God.’
61 1881
GOSPELS
he can continue to do, is to preach. The main activity
of Jonah also in like manner consisted in preaching.
By the sign of Jonah accordingly is meant the opposite
of a sign-viz., preaching like that of Jonah. This is
shown also by the immediate sequel: ‘ t h e men of
Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah.’ Next
follows the example of the Queen of Sheba who came
to hear the preaching of Solomon (Mt. 1241f:=Lk.
1131.f. ).
It is only in Mt. (1240) that this good connection is brolcen by
the interpretation that the sign of Jonah means his three days’
sojourn in the belly of the whale and that by this is signified
the three days’ sojourn of Jesus in’the heart of the earth. But
even apart from its breaking the connection this verse which
rests only on misunderstanding of the ambi&ouous utterance in
Lk.1130, is quite unsuitable ; for a ‘sign’ of course makes its
impression only when it can be seen. T h e people of Nineveh
could not observe the emergence of Jonah from the place o f his
sojourn, nor indeed is it even stated that he told them of it ; all
that is said is that he preached to them.
(6) According to Mk.65f: Jesus was able to do no
mighty work (save healing a few sick folk) in Kazareth
and marvelled at the unbelief of its people. This then
is the reason why he was unable. Mt. 1 3 5 8 is a
manifest weakening of this : ‘ he did not many mighty
works there because of their unbelief. ‘
(c) In Mk. 8 14-21 the disciples, in the crossing of the
Lake, which has been touched on in 135, are re-
presented as having forgotten to take bread with them.
Jesus says : ‘Take heed, beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and of Herod’ (in Mt. 166 : ‘of the Pharisees
and Sadducees ’). This exhortation the disciples take
as a reproach on them for their forgetfulness. Unt
Jesus rebukes them for their little understanding, and
reminds them of the feeding of the 5000 and of the
4000. The conclusion is given fully only by Mt.
(1611$), but unquestionablyin the sense of Mk., ‘ How
IS it that ye do not perceive that I sp&e not to you
concerning bread? ... then understood they how that
he bade them beware of the teaching of the Pharisees
and Sadducees.’ Both evangelists have previously
related the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 as facts.
If Jesus reminds them of this, the consequence must of
course be that they should think of material loaves as
being what they are to beware of. In reality, however,
the deduction is quite the opposite. This is possible
only on one assumption-if the feeding of the 5000 and
the 4000 was not a historical occurrence, but a parable
having this as its point that the bread with which one
man in the wilderness was able to feed a vast multitude
signifies the teaching with which he satisfied their souls.
On this view the closing statement of the narrative first
finds its full explanation; more bread remains over
than was present at the beginning; truth is not con-
sumed when it is communicated to others, but only
serves to awaken in them ever new thoughts and an
ever-growing power to satisfy in their turn the spiritual
hunger of others. It is exceedingly surprising, yet at
the same time evidence of a reproduction of earlier
materials, that Mk. and Mt. should give the present
narrative at all-a narrative which in their understand-
ing of the miracle of the feeding is so meaningless.
Mt. has made some attempt, albeit a somewhat feeble one, t o
bring the two narratives into harmony. With him Jesus (16 8) re-
proaches the disciples for their little faith. Similarly Mk. a t a n
earlier place ( 6 5 2 ) ) the wording of which recalls that of the
present passage alludes to the miracle of the loaves and implies
that the disciplis ought to have learned from it implicit faith in
the supernatural power of Jesus even in the storm. All the
more important is i t to notice that in the passage of Mk.now
before us (6 14-21) Jesus blames them, in the only fitting (and
therefore the only original) way, for their little undersianding ;
and Mt. by taking up this reproach in It? g I I shows that the
other, that of unbelief, is not the original one.
(dj In Mt. 11 5 Lk. 7 2 2 Jesus sends an answer to the
Baptist that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and
the poor have the gospel preached to them. As has
been shown above (3 137a ) , both evangelists have seen
to it that all the miracles. mentioned have taken place,
either at an earlier date, or before the eyes of the
1882
 GOSPELS
Baptist’s messengers. All the more remarkable there-
fore is it that the list should close with what is not a
miracle a t all. It would be impossible to counteract
the preceding enumeration more effectually than by the
simple insertion of this final clause. The evangelists
therefore cannot have added it of their own proper
motion. Neither could Jesus have neutralised the
force of his own words-if we assume niiracles to be
intended- in such an extraordinary way. On the
other hand the clause in question fits admirably, if
Jesus was speaking not of the physically but of the
spiritually blind, lame, leprous, deaf, dead. This is
the meaning, too, which these words actually have in
the O T passages, Is. 3.551: 611, which lie at the root
of this, and it also fits very well the continuation in Mt.
116 Lk. 723, which reads, ‘Blessed is he who is not
offended in me’ ( L e . , in my unpretentious simplicity).
Here, therefore, we have a case, as remarkable as it is
assured, in which a saying of Jesus, though completely
misunderstood, has been-in its essence at least-
incorporated with verbal accuracy in the gospels.
Jesus, then, declined to work signs (qpekc),and that,
too, on principle.
. . Mk. 8 IZ (and parallels) is not a
141. Inference saying of a kind ;hat he ‘could have
&s to signs., uttered one day and broken the next ;
moreover he exuresslv saw that no
. I ,
sign should be given to ‘ this [whole] generation,’ because
as a whole it was wicked and rebellious against God.
Now, the word sZmeion does not denote any kind of
wonder, but only a wonder of the kind which serves the
end of showing the power of him who works it-as, in
the present case, the Messiahship of Jesus. But, so
far as the reported miracles of Jesus have this end,
they are, if this saying of his is to be accepted, no
longer to be taken to be credible; either they never
happened at all or (at least), if historical, they were
not miraculous.
This applies very conspicuously to the withering of the fig-tree.
Apart from the motive mentioned in 5 137 6, p, this particular
miracle is rejected by many theologians on the ground that such
a deed having no manifest saving purpose, appears to them un-
worth; of his character. The same principle will apply also at
least to the stilling of the storm and the walking upon the
water, and likewise to the stater in the fish‘s mouth even
though, strangely enough, it is not expressly said an;where
that this miracle was actually carried out.
( a )As for the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000, so also
for the withering of the fig-tree, we still possess a clue to
of the way in wrhich the narrative arose
142.
miraculous out of a parable. The narrative in
narratives in question is not found in Lk., and this
fip”at!ve is, doubtless correctly, explained from
- . the sumosition that Lk. considered his
speecn’ Darabfe- (136-0) of the fie-tree - or
rather the unspocen sequei to the parable, ttat the tree
had at last to be cut down after all-as identical with
the narrative. By the fig-tree, in this view, was meant
the nation of Israel, and that which we have seen to be
impossible if the story is taken as a relation of actual
fact (§ 137 6, p) becomes very effective as soon as the
symbolical interpretation is adopted. At the close of
his ministry, at his last passover festival, Jesus utters his
curse upon the nation that has borne no fruit. Figu-
rative forms of expression, which could give rise to the
story of the feeding, are also to be found in Mt.
56 : ‘blessed are they that hunger,’ for they shall be
filled,’ and the verse which in Mk. (634) stands before
the miraculous narrative, to the effect that Jesus taught
the multitude, embodies in reality the substance of that
narrative. For Peter’s draught of fishes, cp Mk.
1 1 7 and Mt. 1347-50. It is not difficult to con-
jecture expressions made use of by Jesus out of which
the narrative of the walking on the water and the still-
ing of the tempest could be framed, somewhat after the
analogy of Mk. 1122-24 and Lk. 176 : ‘ if ye have faith as
a grain of mustard seed, then shall ye be able to com-
1 On the earliest text see 5 123 a,n.
1883
GOSPELS
mand the storm and it will obey, and ye shall be able
to walk unharmed upon the troubled sea (of life).’
Indeed even the words which actually stand in the
passages last cited might have given occasion to the
formation of miraculous narratives. ‘ If ye shall say in
faith to this mountain, Re thou cast into the sea, or to
the sycomore tree, Be thou transplanted into the sea, so
shall it be done.’ But literalism of this sort even in
those days had its limits.
(6) The same explanation is capable of being applied
also where deeds or words attributed to Jesus himself are
not concerned. It is very easily conceivable that a
preacher on the death of Jesus may have said, purely
figuratively, that then was the veil of the temple rent in
twain (Mk. 1 5 3 8 = Mt. 2751 = Lk. 2 3 4 5 ) . What he
meant to say was that by the death of Jesus the
ancient separation between God and his people was
done away. By a misunderstanding, this saying could
easily be taken up as statement of a literal physical fact.
So also, if another preacher said, using figurative
language, that at the death of Jesus the graves had
opened (Mt. 2 7 5 2 ) , or that darkness (of sorrow) had
spread over all the earth (Mk. 1533=Mt. 2745=Lk.
2344). c p also $ 26, n.
( a ) In the present connection we need not do more
than allude verv briefly to what bv Strauss was regarded Y
143. Influence as almost the only source of origin for
of OT passages. such miraculous narratives as had no
real foundation in fact - namelv. ,,
passages of the OT. These may very well have con-
tributed to the shaping of such narratives, even though
we do not assume that they originated them. For the
raisings of the dead cp I K. 1 7 17-24 2 I<. 417-37 ; for
the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, cp Ex. 16 1-18
Nu. 11 4-9 z K. 4 4 2 4 4 ; for the walking upon the water
Ps. 77 20 [19] Is. 43 16 Job 9 8 ; for the stilling os the storm,
Ps. 107 23-32 ; for the healing of the withered hand
I K. 136 ; for the healing of the dumb man, Wisd. 1021.
( a ) Apart from the miracles, there is one OT
passage which has very clearly influenced the form of
the gospel narrative in Mt. 21 7. It is impossible to
deny Mt.’s representation here to be that Jesns rode into
Jerusalem upon two asses. Even if one chooses to
interpret the words as meaning that he sat upon the
garments and not upon the animals the sense is suh-
stantially the same, for the garments were laid upon the
asses. The misunderstanding rests only upon a too
literal interpretation of the prophecy in Zech. 9 g, which
is not shared by Mk. and Lk. So also the number
thirty (unmentioned in Mk. 1411 Lk. 2 2 5 ) given to the
sum received by Judas, as also the casting away of the
money into the teniple (Mt. 2615 2 7 5 ) , would seem to
come not from tradition but from the passage in Zechariah
(11 I . $ ) expressly cited in Mt. 97 g f . Upon
Bethlehem, as the birthplace of Jesus, the virgin birth,
the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the massacre of the
innocents, see M ARY [MOTHER OF JESUS] and
NATIVITY.
According to Mk. 65f: (see $ 140 A ) we are to under-
stand that Jesus healed where he found faith. This
144. Miracles power is so strongly attested throughout
the first and second centuries that, in
of healing. view of the spiritual greatness of Jesus
and the imposing character 0-f his personality, it Gould
be indeed difficult to deny it to him. Even the Phari-
sees do not deny his miracles of healing, though they
trace them to a compact with Beelzebub (Mk. 322 Mt.
9 3 4 1224 Lk. 1115). According to Mt. l 2 2 7 = L k . 1119
the disciples of the Pharisees also wrought such miracles ;
the man who followed not with the disciples of Jesus cast
out devils (Mk. 9@-40=Lk. 949f:) ; the same is said of
those whom in Mt. 7 zzf: Jesus rejects in his final judg-
ment. Paul asserts that a like power was possessed by
himself ( 2 Cor. 12 12 Rom. 15~ g ) and , by other Christians
( I Cor. 128-11 28) ; Justin mentions castings-out of devils
(ApoZ. 26 D i d . 30, 35, 39, 76, 85) ; so also Tertnllian
1884
 GOSPELS
(ApoL 23), Irenaeus ( 2 3 1 3 Eus. HE 57), and Quadratus
(Eus. HEiv. 32).l
That Jesus demanded faith is frequently stated (Mk.
Q q f .Mt. 928), as also that he was approached with
faith (Mk.25 = Mt. 92 = Lk. 5 2 0 ; Mt. 810 = Lk. 5 9 ;
Mt. 1 5 2 7 f : =Mk. 728 f,; see 109 d), and that he
prayed.
Many of the accounts contain particulars that could hardly
have been introduced at will merely for effect. Thus in Mk. 5 7-10
the devil does not leave the demoniac of Gerasa at the first
adjuration ; Jesus must first, just like a modern alienist, enter
with the man into a conversation in which he elicits from him
what his hallucinations are. In Mk. 914.29 all the symptoms
shown by the boy, except the falling into the fire, can he
paralleled from the descriptions of epilepsy in ancient medical
writers (Krenkel, Beitr. zurAuf/zellung derG6sch. u. d. Bmefe
d. PauQs, 'go, pp. 50-63).
Of course we must endeavour to ascertain how
many, and still more what sorts of cures were effected by
Jesus. It is quite permissible for us to regard as
historical only those of the class which even at the
present day physicians are able to effect by psychical
methods,-as, more especially, cures of mental maladies.
It is highly significant that, in a discourse of Peter
(Acts1038), the whole activity of Jesus is summed
up in this that he went about doing good and healing
all those that were oppressed of the devil. By this
expression only demoniacs are intended. Cp also Lk.
1332. It is not at all difficult to understand how the
contemporaries of Jesus, after seeing some wonderful
deed or deeds wrought by him which they regarded
as miracles, should have credited him with every other
kind of miraculous power without distinguishing, as the
modern mind does, between those maladies which are
amenable to psychical influences and those which are not.
It is also necessary to bear in mind that the cure may
often have been only temporary. If there was a relapse,
people did not infer any deficiency in the miraculous
efficacy of the healer ; they accounted for it simply by
the return of the demon who had been cast out. On
this point Mt. 12 43-45 is very characteristic. Perhaps
also Lk. 82 may be cited in this connection, if the seven
devils were cast out of Mary Magdalene not simul-
taneously but on separate occasions.
Most obscure of all are the two accounts found only in Mk.
(7 32-35 8 22-26) according to which Jesus mgde use of saliva to
effect a cure. krecisely in these two cases it is extraordinarily
difficult to believe in a cure whether by this or by psychical
methods.
( a ) Even if the public ministry of Jesus had lasted for a
few months onlv. ,,he must have uttered a thousandfold
more than all that has been recorded
145. Conclusion in the gospels. His longest discourse
as t o discourses would, if delivered in the form in
of Jesus.
which it has come down to us, not
have taken more than some five minutes in the delivery.
However self-evident, this has been constantly over-
looked by the critics. They are constantly assuming
that we possess the several words of Jesus that
have been reported approximately in the same ful-
ness with which they were spoken. For the parables
perhaps (apart, of course, from the manipulations
pointed out above, in 109 b, 1 1 2 b, 128 c d)this may
be to a certain extent true. Of other utterances, we
have traced in Mt. 115 = Lk. 7 2 2 and Mk. 8 14-21 = Mt.
165-12 (I 140cd) one or two which must have been
preserved almost wer6atim. In what remains, however,
it can hardly be sufficiently emphasised that we possess
only an excessively meagre prdcis of what Jesus said,
namely, only so much as not only made an immediate
impression when first heard, but also continued to survive
the ordeal of frequent repetition (for much of it possessed
too little interest for those who had not been actual ear-
witnesses). In this process not only was an extra-
ordinary number of utterances completely lost ; but a
1 As for Josephus cp BJ ii. 8 6 vii. 6 3 Ant. iii. 113 viii. 2 5
and c. Ap. 1 3 1 ; for h n y , NHSO 2 ; for Lucian, PltilWs. 16 f:
According to Tacitus (Hist. 4 81), Vespasian effected several
wonderful cures (cp above, col. 1456).
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GOSPELS
large number of the sayings of Jesus now received for
the first time that consecutive and pointed form which
made them seem worthy of further repetition. Without
doubt Jesus must very often have repeated himself;
but what he assuredly often repeated in many variations
has been preserved to us only in a single form. One
may perhaps venture to compare the process with that
of a photographer who prints from many negatives of
the same individual on the same paper. There is pro-
duced in this way an ' average ' likeness which when
viewed from some distance seems satisfactory enough,
but when it is more closely viewed the vagueness of its
contours is at once discovered.
( a ) The context in which we now find the sayings of
Jesus must never (from what has been said in $. 134) be
taken as a trustworthy guide in determining what the
original meaning may have been. In every case the
context tells us only what the evangelists, or their pre-
decessors, found it to mean ; indeed in many cases it is
impossible to believe that even for them the place where
they introduce the saying is intended to convey any hint
as to the meaning. A source like the logia laid
naturally very little stress upon this point. The greater
number of the utterances of Jesus are like erratic blocks.
All that one sees with perfect clearness is that they d o
not originally belong to the place where they are now
found. What their original position was is unknown.
The observer has to rest satisfied if in spite of its removal
to a new site the real nature and quality of the stone
can be made out ; and this is happily very often the
case.
On the other hand a wholly mistaken line is taken when for
example, the attemp; is niade to base consequences on any iuch
assumptio: as that Jesus was apt to give forth parahles or say-
ings in pairs. The parable of the leaven which in Mt. 1331-33
and Lk. 1318-21immediately follows on that ofthe mustard-seed
is still wanting in Mk. 4 30-32. In Lk.'s source as well as in Mk.'s
the sayings about the salt and about the light were still separate
(not connected as we now see them in Mt. 5 13.16). Equally
fiitile are discussions as to the order in which Jesus may have
spoken the beatitudes. If any one were to try to repeat the
beatitudes after hearing thein once he would not he sure of re-
taining the original order. We cannot expect more of those who
heard Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount not only is it needless
to ask whether it was heard by the disciples alone or by the
multitude as well (5 134); it is equally needless to ask whether it
was intended for the one or for the other. I t is a conglomer-
ate. Little of what is found in Mt. 5-7 recurs in Lk. 6 20.49. On
Mt. 5 13-16 see $ 134, on 5 17-48 see $ 145 g. In chap. 6 sa really
good connection is found only within each of the following
groups:-61-6 with 16-18; 625-34; 71-5; 77-11; not between
these groups reciprocally, nor yet between them and the other
sayings contained in these chapters. Nay, there is not the least
ground for supposing, because they are three in number, that
Jesus enumerated immediately in succession those things in
which according to Mt. 61-6 16-18 hypocrisy is to be avoided
quite apart from the fact that the enumeration is disturbed and
broken by vv. 7-15.
(6) Words of such pre-eminent importance as the
Lord's Prayer or the words of institution of the
Eucharist, or the description of a scene so unforgettable
as that in which the sign is given by which the betrayer
is made known (Mk. 1418-20 ; Mt. 2621-23 ; Lk. 2221)
are given in a very conflicting manner. Of the words
uttered on the cross, Mk. and Mt. have only one, which
in turn is omitted by Lk., who, however, gives three
others. In this last case, however, one may be sure
that Mk. and Mt. are in the right (I 139); and to the
three previous ones one may safely apply the maxim
that additions are more likely than omissions ; omissions
would in fact be difficult to account for (I 120 c). Mk.
1422-24 accordingly, with omission of ' take ' (Xdpem),
may be regarded as the relatively (not absolutely) oldest
form of the words of institution of the Eucharist.
(Against the deletion of Lk. 22 196 20 see Schmiedel
in Hand-cornmentar on I Cor. 1 1 3 4 . )
( d ) While in the case of the Eucharistic words only
Lk. is dependent on Paul, Mt. and still more Mk. avoid-
ing his novelties, Paul in I Cor. 7 1 0 3 , as against all the
synoptists, exhibits the earlier form of the prohibition of
divorce. This we infer from the fact that it is he who
gives the strictest form of the prohibition. Subsequent
1886
 GOSPELS
relaxations in view of the difficulty in working the
severer form, are intelligible, increases of stringency are
not ; especially would these be unintelligible in the case
of Paul, who actually finds himself constrained ( I Cor.
7 IS) on his own responsibility to introduce a relaxation
,of the law. Even the Epistle of James, although it
.already omits (512) Jerusalem as an object by which
one can swear (I I ~ o )gives
, an older form of the precept
.against swearing than is found in Mt. 5 37 ; namely, Let
your yea be a (simple) yea, and your nay a (simple)
nay.
( e ) As for the substance of the sayings of Jesus, it has
:already been pointed out in §§ 109 6, 111, 112 b, 136
how little credence we can attach to the historicity of
the sayings attributed to Jesus about the call of the
Gentiles, the baptismal formula, the later conditions of
t h e primitive church, and the postponement of his
parusia. Here it may be added that in Mk. 1 4 9 a say-
ing which certainly was originally the closing remark
.of a preacher on the anointing at Bethany is given
.as a word of Jesus. In Mt. (2663) it is still further
.altered by the addition : ' Wheresoever this gospel shall
be preached, that also which this woman hath done shall
be spoken of.' As regards a passage of such great im-
eortance as Mk. 10.+s=Mt. 2028 ( ' t o give his life a
'ransom for many'), judgment can be given only in
accordance with the following considerations. It can
be accepted as genuine if Jesus spoke of his life as a
.ransom in no other sense than that in which he did so
a t the last supper-ie., as an offering not for sin but
for the immunity of his followers, after the manner of the
Passover lamb in Egypt, or for ratification of their cove-
.nant with God as in Gen. 151017 Jer. 3418 Ex.241-8,
.and if he did so at a date not too long before his death.
Otherwise the doubt will have to be expressed, that the
sentence comes from the Pauline theology. In any case
it is noteworthy that it is absent from 1) Lk. 2227.
That Jesus had in view the possibility of his death some con-
.siderable time before it came upon him is ngt unlikely. But
the very precise predictions of it with their various details are
open to the suspicion that they took shape at a later date in
.accordance with the facts of history, and least of all is it credible
that Jesus should have put forth such a prediction directly after
Peter's confession Mk. 831 Mt. 1Gz1 Lk. 16 22. This confession
must have been one of the supreme moments in the joyous con-
sciousness of Jesus-the discovery that he was finding recog-
nition as the Messiah and was winning his battle. Suffering
.and death are the very opposite of all that is looked for in the
Jewish Messiah, and of what Jesus at that moment could have
looked forward to for himself.
(f)P , m the eschatological discourses disappears
~everythmgspecifically apocalyptic concerning the signs
of his parusia, if the separation of the ' little Apocalypse '
as made in 1246 is correct. This does not, however,
by any means imply the elimination of all eschatological
utterances whatsoever. On the contrary, there still
remain to be attributed to Jesus the words in Mt. 1627.:
'262964 (ultimately also 1 0 2 3 1 9 ~ 8 f :; see r r z d ) In
which he prophesies his return with the clouds of heaven,
and the like. This is in fact quite intelligible, and even
necessary, if he held himself to be the Messiah ; in such
.acase it would have been impossible for him to believe
that God would allow him and his work to go to ruin
through the persecutions of his enemies. The failure of
these prophecies to come to fulfilment ought in no case
t o lead to any attempt to make out that they were not
uttered by Jesus, or to interpret then] in such a sense
.ascauses their inconsistency with the facts to disappear.
As has been shown in 111, 112 e, 113, the evangelists
found that much trouble was required in order to tone
down this inconsistency ; they had not the least occasion,
therefore, to invent such predictions or to heighten them ;
the prophecies must have lain before them as quite fixed
elements of tradition.
Another question is whether Jesus foretold the destruction of
the temple as in Mk. 13 z Mt. 24 2 Lk. 21 6. If the little Apoca-
lynse' (Mk. 13 14 Mt. 24 15) or Rev. 11 I f: 13 is from a Christian
hand the answer can hardly be affirmative, for a Christian writer
could hardlv have Dresumed the continued existence of the
temple in contradicdon to Jesus' own prophecy. Both these
1887
GOSPELS
pieces, however, may be Jewish ; and Jesus could have foreseen
the destruction of Jerusalem even without supernatural know-
ledge. I n no case, however, ought we to lay weight on the
circumstance that he connects it with the end of the world for
this arises from the fusion of the (certainly vacillating) tradition
regarding his own words with the 'little Apocalypse' (§ 1246).
Therefore, also, we must refuse to entertain the conjecture that
in reality he prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem only, and
that his alleged prediction of the end of the world rests on a
misunderstanding of the disciples. According to the same
mode of reasoning, he cannot have prophesied his resurrection
alone without adding a prediction of his second coming from
heaven ; for this, according to the general and most ancient belief,
which makes no mention ofan ascension also (1 Cor. 1 5 4-12 Bom.
834Eph.1~025,': Acts232-35 Heb.13 1 0 1 ~ 1 2[1320 ~ Rev.
1181 I Pet. 3 1922 Eph. 4 9 3 ) , carried him direct to heaven ; but
there was quite as general a belief that as Messiah his work of
setting up the kingdom of God upon earth required his presence
here.
Of all these predictions it is possible to deny that they
were uttered by him only if it be at the same time denied
that he held himself to be the Messiah. But in that
case it will be impossible to explain how the disciples,
who had been thrown into the utmost depths of despond-
ency by his death, nevertheless came to be able to believe
in his resurrection. Those theologians who go so far as
to remove all the utterances of Jesus to the effect that
he was the Messiah, hardly continue to hold that the
belief in his resurrection rests on anything more real than
the visions or the disciples which arose out of their sub-
jective mental condition. All psychology, however,
affirms that visions arise only when that which is seen
in the concrete has previously taken firm and living hold
on the soul of the visionary. The belief is therefore
inevitable that the disciples had already, in the lifetime
of Jesus, held him to be the Messiah. They could not,
however, have done so without acquainting him with
this beliaf of theirs ; and if he had denied it, it is im-
possible to,understand how their respect for his authentic
declaration should have permitted them to go on believ-
ing the opposite. As regards the date of his second
coming, the statements in Mt. 1 6 2 8 (that it would be
before the then living generation had passed away) and
in 2664 (that it would be immediately, d?r' d p r r ) have a
like claim to probability. Whatever he may have said
as to this, it is most certain that he also declared
that ' none knoweth of that day or of that hour ' (Mk.
13 32 Mt. 2436).
(9)It would be quite out of place to look in the
gospels for direct statements as to any development in
Jesus during the period of his public activity. The
latest date at which reverence for him would have allowed
a conception of anything of the kind to be assigned is that
of his temptation (Mt. 41-11 Lk. 41-13) before his ministry
began. It could only be from unconscious touches of
theirs that we could be led to conjecture any develop-
ment later than this. Yet such a conjecture we may
venture to make, for example, as regards Jesus' freedom of
attitude towards the Mosaic law. What he says in Mt.
521J about murder, or in 527f: about adultery, may
be easy enough to reconcile with his declaration that he
is not come to destroy the law ( 5 1 7 ) ; but the case is
otherwise with the sayings immediately following, upon
divorce ( 5 3 ~ f . 1 9 r - g ) , upon swearing (533-37), upon
retaliation (538-42), upon love of one's enemy (543-48), as
also upon the laws about foods (Mk. f 1-23= Mt. 15 1-20),
and about the Sabbath (Mk. 223.36 and parallels). If
the first-mentioned conservative saying (517) is to be
held genuine, we must assign it to the first period of the
public activity of Jesus. It is in fact quite credible that
Jesus, who unquestionably was a pious Jew, at first saw
in the Mosaic law the unalterable will of his Father, and
regarded the errors of the Pharisees as consisting only
in a too external apprehension of it. But it is equally
intelligible that in the course of his controversy with them
he should have become convinced how many precepts
the law in point of fact embodied which were antagonistic
to the spirit of religion as it had revealed itself to him.
It was one of his greatest achievements that he sacrificed
the letter of the law to this and not this to the letter of
1888
 GOSPELS
the law; but we may be sure that it cost him many a
hard struggle.
( h ) Another point in regard to which we may venture
to conjecture some development in Jesus during his
public life is his Messiahship. As late as on the occasion
of Peter’s confession we find him commanding his dis-
ciples to keep this a secret (Mk. 830 Mt. 1620 Lk. 921).
With this it agrees that in Mk., before this date, he
applies thd designation ‘ Son of Man ’ to himself only
twice’ (21028). In Mt., on the contrary, he does so
very often, and, besides, the significance of Peter’s con-
fession is completely destroyed by 1433, where already
all the apostles have been made to declare him to be the
Son‘of God. In Mt., accordingly, this trace of develop-
ment in Jesus’ thinking is obliterated.
(i) It is when the purely religious-ethical utterances
of Jesus come under consideration that we are most
advantageously placed. Here especially applies the
maxim laid down in 5 131 (end) that we may accept as
credible everything that harmonises with the idea of
Jesus which has been derived from what we have called
the ‘ foundation pillars ’ (§ 139J ) and is not otherwise
open to fatal objection. Even though such utterances
may have been liable to Ebionitic heightening, and
already, as showing traces of this, cannot lay claim to
literal accuracy-even though they may have been
unconsciously modified into accord with conditions of
the Christian community that arose only at a later
date-even though they may have undergone some
distortion of their meaning through transference to a
connection that does not belong to them-the spirit
which speaks in them is quite unmistakable. Here
we have a wide field of the wholly credible in which to
expatiate, and it would be of unmixed advantage for
theology were it to concentrate its strength upon the
examination of these sayings, and not attach so much
importance to the minute investigation of the other less
important details of the gospel history.
Iv. AUTHORS AND DATES OF THE GOSPELS AND
THEIR MOST IMPORTANT SOURCES.
EuangeZion means originally (and still continues to do
- -
so in z S. 4 10)the reward civen for a uiece of good news.
146. Title of fn late classical Greek the good news
the gospels, Itself, for which the LXX has the fem.
(edayyehla)in z S. l82027. For religious.
tidings we have the verb (edayyehi&dac) in Is. 611,
cited in Lk. 418. The N T has the substantive also in
this sense. It was a serious error on Origen’s part when
tap. Eus. HE vi. 256) he took the Gospel of Lk. to be
meant where Paul speaks of my Gospel ’ (Rom. 2 16
z Tim. 28). In the DiduchC154 also, evungeZz’on still
signifies the substance of the gospel history without
reference to the book in which it was written ; so too in
82, ’ the Lord says in his gospel ’ ; so too in Irenaeus
when he describes the gospel as fourfold (iii. ll11[8]) i
so too even in the Muratorian fragment (1. P : evungeZm
ZiJer). But here we already find also (1. 17) euungeZ-
ovum Zz’Jri; similarly Justin (I 76) speaks of the
~nzemo~u~iZiu of the apostles which are called gospels,’
and Claudius Apollinaris says in the Chron. Pusch.
U T U U ~ ~ & - L V8 0 ~ d~b edayy&a (cp J O H N , SON OF
ZEBEDEE, 42, 54), ‘the gospels seem to contradict one
another.’ Thus it was not till the middle of the second
century that the nord came to signify a book, and, evcn
after that, till the end of the second century, it continued
to bear its original meaning as well. The titles ‘ Gospel
according to Matthew,’ ‘ to Mark,’ etc., accordingly do
not, linguistically considered, mean ‘ the written Gospel
of Matthew,’ etc. ; still less, however, ‘written Gospel
based on communications by Matthew,’ as if theverytitles
1 We firmly hold that by this name he means to designate
himself as the Messiah-and that too even in Mk. 2 IO 28, although
these are the two places in which there is most justification for
the attempt to make it mean ‘man‘ in general. Cp $+ 13oe;
also SON OF MAN.
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GOSPELS
conveyed that Matthew, Mark, and the others were-not
the authors, but only the guarantors for the contents of
the hooks. The inscription means simply ‘Gospel
history in the form in which Matthew put it into
writing.‘ In Mk. 1 1 the expression ‘ t h e Gospel of
Jesus Christ’ seems already to designate a book ; but
at the same time it teaches us that the writer of these
words cannot have set down as title to the whole book
the words ‘ Gospel according to Mark ’ (edayy~hrovK a d
b l d p ~ o v ) . Thus also in Mt. and Lk. etc. the titles ( d a y -
yihrov K U T ~M., KUT& A . ) do not come from the authors.
In fact the writings bore no superscription at a1l.l Every
one who possessed any book of this sort will have called it
‘the gospel ’ ( ~ edayyCXcou),just
b as in the case of Marcion
the gospel of Lk. which he caused to be used in his
congregations was called simply ‘ gospel ’ (dayyihmv).
The additions with ‘ according to ’ ( K U T ~became ) neces-
sary at a later date when people began to possess several
such books either separately or bound together in one
volume. If, therefore, it should prove not to be the
case that our gospels were severally written by Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, the statements that they were do not
arise from falsification on the part of the actual authors,
but only from error on the part of the church fathers,
such as Papias or the person upon whom he relied.
Besides the statements of Papias (6I 5 ) , at most those
only of the church fathers of the close of the second and
147, Statements the beginning of the third century
chup,”l
iftehers. referred to in 75-82 can come into
consideration here. How small, how-
ever. is the confidence that can be
placed in the authors of these will at once be evident
when it is remembered that Irenaeus (and similarly
Tertullian, udv. Marc. 4 z ) declares Luke to have com-
mitted to writing the Gospel preached by Paul. The
details of the life of Jesus had so little interest for
Paul that, for example, in z Cor. 8 9 in order to induce
the Corinthians to contribute liberally to the collection
for the poor in Palestine he is able to adduce no other
feature in Jesus as a pattern than the fact of his having
become man. As his explicit declarations in z Cor. 5 16
I Cor. 123 Gal. 31 tell us, he preached extremely little
to his congregations about the earthly life of Jesus. The
whole attribution to Paul of the gospel of Lk., which,
according to Origen, the apostle.even refers to in Roni.
216 as ‘my Gospel’ (§ 146),is only an expedient which
the church fathers adopted to enable them to assign a
quasi-apostolic origin to the work of one who was not
himself an apostle.
For this reason suspicion attaches also to the state-
ment that the gospel of Mk. rested upon communica-
tions of Peter (a 148), especially as it is accompanied
with an elaborate apology for Mark’s undertaking.
The statements of the church fathers, moreover, are
not in the least consistent among themselves. Accord-
ing to Irenaeus, Matthew wrote his gospel while Peter
and Paul were preaching in Rome-thus somewhere in
the sixties,-while according to a tradition in Eusebius
( H E iii. 246) he wrote it before his departure from
Palestine into foreign parts, that is to say, much earlier.
Again, according to Irenaeus, Mark wrote after the
death of Peter and Paul, while according to Clement of
Alexandria, Peter lived to see the completion of Mark’s
gospel. Nay, more,-the two statements as to Peter’s
attitude to this gospel which Eusebius ( H E ii. 152 and
vi. 1 4 6 J ) takes from Clement (§ So) are in conflict with
each other, quite apart from the question whether
Clement did not also regard the Gospels that had
genealogies as older than those which had not. In
short, all that can be said to be certain is this, that it is
vain to look to the church fathers for trustworthy in-
formation on the subject of the origin of the gospels.
1 BLShos yeu&mos in Mt. 1 I could, at a subsequent date, be
rerarded as such after the analogy of Gen. 2 4 ; after that of
Ggn. 5 I it originally referred only to the genealogy of Jesus,
Mt. 11-17.
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 GOSPELS
According to Papias (see 65), and also his authority,
the second gospel was written by M ARK ( q . ~ . ) . Mark
148. author is known to us from Acts 1212 135.
There is also an inclination to identify
of Mk, him with the young man who left
his garment in the hands of his pursuers in the garden
of Gethsemane (Mk. 1451f. ). This conjecture. how-
ever, has no value, of course, in the wdy of proof
either that the young man was Mark, or that he was the
author of the second gospel ; he need only be one of the
chief vouchers for its contents. In what Papias says the
important point is not so much the statement that Mark
wrote the gospel as the further statement that Peter
supplied its contents orally. If the student interprets
the narratives of the feeding of the five thousand and
of the four thousand, of the stilling of the storm, of the
walking upon the water, of the withering of the fig-tree,
and so forth, in the manner that has been indicated in
preceding sections of this article ($5 137, 140-143),
then the supposition that the gospel is essentially a re-
petition of oral communications by Peter, will at once
fall to the ground. Rut even apart from this, the
compass of the entire work is far too short.
It is hardly felicitous to say inreply to this that Mk. repeatsso
few of the words of Jesus because he was aware that the others
(s
were already known through the logia 125g). Why, in that
case, then, does he fill some seven of his sixteen chapters with
these? As for what Mk. tells lis ahout Peter personally it
certainly is true that the statements concerning him in w&ch
Mt. is richer than Mk. (his walking upon the water, 1428-33 ;
the promise given him, 16 17-19 : the stater in the fish's mouth,
17 24-27) can make no claim to historicity. But the statements
in,which e. Wernle (p. 197) recognises the leading position of
Peter (<e fgds it necessary to add also 'and of the sons of
Zehedee'), are found with trifling exceptions in Mt. and Lk.
also. Only Mk. 136 13 3 16 7 are wanting in both the others ;
Mk. 3 76 537 is wanting also in Mt. only, and Mk. 1433 37 in
Lk. only. Peter's leading position in the gospel, in any case
corresponds to the actuality. But precisely for this reason the
statements regarding it are all the less conclusively shown to be
derived from Peter personally.
Whether it was original Mk. that arose in the manner
described by Papias will be differently judged according
to the various opinions that are held regarding that
writing. No answer to a question of this sort, however,
can be of any real service to gospel criticism, for we no
longer possess original Mk. Should Mark have written
in Aramaic then he cannot be held to have been the
author of canonical Mk., which is certainly not a
translation (see 1306), nor yet, in view of the LXX
quotations which have passed over into all three gospels;
can he be held to have been the author of original Mk.,
but only to have been the author of the source from
w-hich the last-named writer drew.
The employment of various sources (amongst others, of
Mk., or original Mk. ), the characteristic difference of the
149. Author quotations from the LXX and the original
(8 130a), the indefiniteness of the deter-
Of IYIt* and minations of time and place (§§ 132,
the logia' 135), the incredibilities of the contents
(5s 108, 137), the introduction of later conditions
(5 136), as also the artificial arrangement (I 133a),
and so forth, have long since led to the conclusion that
for the authorship of the First Gospel the apostle
Matthew must be given up.
All the more strenuously is the effort made to
preserve for Matthew the anthorship of the logia.
From the contents it is clear that one must assign to
the logia many things which no ear-witness can have
heard from the mouth of Jesus. This is the case
even if only discourses (for examples, see 136
and also 150) are sought in the logia, or if it is
assumed that the legalistic and Jewish-particularistic
passages were first introduced in the course of a revision
(I 129e). If one derives most of the narratives also
from the logia, the considerations against their apostolic
origin already adduced in 148 became still more
cogent. That the apostle Matthew should liave been
the author of a still older writing is not excluded. On
this supposition the statement of Papias-that he wrote
x89r
GOSPELS
in Aramaic-becomes also possible, which cannot be
said of the logia according to § 130a. Rut there
remains this dificulty, that according to the prologue
of Lk. no eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus took pen in
hand-none at least appear to have produced any
writing which Lk. would have called a ' narrative'
(Wrvacs) (I 153, n. 2).
In Mt. 521 f. the Jewish judicial procedure is still
presupposed ; in 523f. the sacrificial system ; and in
535 Jerusalem is referred to as still a city
"O' Date while in Jas. 5 12 the swearing by Jerusalem
Of logia'
is significantly omitted ; it was certainly
no longer in existence then. While it is not practicable
to prove by means of these passages that Mt. was com-
posed before 70 A. D . (see § 'SI), they strongly tend to
establish that earlier date for the logia.
Mt. 23 35 is in the highest degree remarkable. Zachariah the
son of Berechiah is the well-known prophet of the O T who did
not suffer martyrdom. Hut, according to 2 Ch.'24mJ,
Zechariah the son of Jehoiada did so suffer. This was about 750
B.C., so that he certainly cannot be called the last martyr, and
least of all can he be so called merely because Chronicles is the
last book in the OT. From Josephus (By iv. 5 4, $343) we learn
that in theyear68A.D. Zechariah thesonofBaruch(Niese:&xrr,
,3apov~ov,@aprwrarov)was put to death ;Y p C q r+ k p i . The
conjecture is a very obvious one that the author had thk event
in his mind. If it be correct, the date of composition will
have to be placed considerably later than 68 A.D., as the writer
could not, very shortly after this event, easily have confounded
this Zechariah with some other who had lived before, or in, the
time of Jesus. I t must not he overlooked, however that accord-
ing to (1 Lk. 1149-51 the source of this narrative is ;he Sojhia of
God, that is to say, according to the most probable conjecture,
a hook distinct from the logia which either bore on its title the
words 'Wisdom of God ' or introduced the Wisdom of God as
speaking. It is doubtful therefore whether the passage is to be
assigned to the logia.
For the earliest instance in which a passage is quoted
which now is to be found in our canonical Mt. (Epistle
161. Date of of Barnabas) see 89. It is not per-
canonical Mt. missible to infer a date earlier than 7 0
A . D . either from the ' straightway '
( F ~ O C W E ) which Mt. 2 4 2 9 has retained from the 'little
Apocalypse' (see 111 , 1246) or from the other in-
dicia adduced in § 150. In Mt. 2 2 7 the. destruction
of Jerusalem is clearly presupposed as already past
(see 1 1 2 6 ) . The church-conditions also, as well
a s the postponement of the parusia (see §§ 136,
I I Z ~ ) point
, to a later date. It is not practicable
to separate these passages as later interpolations,
and thus gain for the Gospel as a whole the earlier
date. They are much too numerous, and many
of them -- as, for example, precisely 226f. - much
too closely implicated with a tendency which pervades
the entire work ( 5 I I Z ab). On the other hand, it is quite
open to us to regard some of them as interpolations :
for example, 16 17-19, or the baptismal formula 28 19, or
the appearance of Jesus to the women 2 8 9 J , or also
chaps. If: Substantially, these are the leading pas-
sages on account of which many are disposed to bring
down the date of the entire gospel as late as to 130 A. D .
T h e fact that it was used, as well as Mk. and Lk.,
by the author of the Fourth Gospel would not
forbid this late date (see J OHN , S ON OF Z EBEDEE ,
5s 49-52). Probably, however, its main contents must
have been in existence at an earlier period if they were
known to Lk. (§§ 127, 153) and even the most of chaps.
1J is presupposed to have been in existence if it can be
shown that in 119 A . D . a final addition was introduced
into it. This has been suggested as regards the story of
the Magi : a Syriac writing, ascribed to Eusebius of
Caesarea, which was published by William Wright in
the 3ournaZ of Sacred Literature, 1866, pp. 1 1 7 8
and discussed by Nestle1 and Hilgenfeld in Z W T , '93,1,
pp. 435-438, and'95, pp. 447-451, makes the statement,
which can hardly have been invented, that this narrative,
committed to writing in the interior of Persia, was in
1 The heading of the whole tractate is, according to Nestle,
Betrefend den Stern : zeigend, wie und durch was die Mapier
den Stern erkannten und dass Joseph Maria nicht als sein
Weib nahm.
1892
 GOSPELS
;1r9 A . D . , during the episcopate of Xystus of Rome,
made search for, discovered, andwritten in the languageof
those who were interested in it (that is to say, in Greek).
As regards canonical Mk. we possess a datum for
fixing its date only if we assume it to have been the
152. Date of book that was used by Mt. and Lk.
canonical Mk. ff ,ye find ourselves unable to do this
it is open to us to suppose that it may
have received its final form later than &It. and Lk. It
is not, however, justifiable to find a proof of this in
the fact that in 11 it designates the public appear-
ance of the Baptist as the beginning of the gospel of
Jesus. Some scholars have detected here a silent polemic
against those gospels which begin with the narratives
relating to the nativity of Jesus. The significant avoid-
anceof the ‘straightway’ (~68EI~s)of Mt. 2429inMk. 1324
(5 113) certainly points clearly to the period after the
destruction of Jerusalem. On Mk. 169-20, see § 1388.
If Luke, the companion of Paul, cannot have been
the author of Acts (see ACTS, $8 9 IS), neither can he have
been the author of the Third Gospel.
and163. Author
date of Lk, That both works are from the same
pen may be regarded as quite certain.
The weightiest evidences of the employment of
Josephus by Lk. axe seen in Acts (see ACTS, 16) ; yet
tolerably many are found in the gospel also. I n that
case the year 100 A.D. will be the superior, and some-
where about 110 A.D. the inferior, limit of the date of
its composition, since there must have been a considerable
interval between the production of the gospel and that
of Acts. The very precise description of the destruction
of Jerusalem in Lk. 1943f. 2111 20-24 is in full accord
with history and, in language, with Josephus. It cannot
exactly be pronounced absolutely impossible that it
should nevertheless have been written before 70 A . D . ,
for a lively imagination acquainted with the localities
could hardly have presented them very differently.
Only, the prediction of the ‘ little Apocalypse ’ (5 124b )
which is still rightly interpreted in Mt. and Mk. in ac-
cordance with Daniel (see D ANIEL, ii.) as referring to
the setting up of a foreign image in the temple has been
made by Lk., wrongly yet very skilfully, in accordance
with the expression +fipwars,’ to refer to the destruction
of Jerusalem (2120): Upon this event, he says, will
follow (v. 24) the times of the Gentiles (5 111) during
which Jerusalem is to be trodden under foot. Not till
after these times are the signs in heaven to appear and
the Son of Man to come with clouds (vv. 25-27), and
not till this point does he promise to the followers of
Christ their redemption and the coming of the Kingdom
of God (vv. 28 31). Had Lk. written before the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem we might have expected him to have
thought of this event as connected with the second
coming of Jesus. That instead of this he should re-
present the judgment day (v. z z ) and the beginning of
the kingdom of God as being separated by so long an
interval is, ascomparedwith all prophecyand apocalyptic,
something quite new and admits of only one explanation
-that the destruction of Jerusalem could at the time
of writing be no longer regarded as a recent event.
In his prologue Lk. distinguishes himself not only
from the eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus but also from
the many who before him had written comprehensive
gospels,2 and from the number of these, he again seems
to exclude the eye-witnesses.
1 DDM y?y+in Dan. 12 I I (cp 9 27 1131) is simply a veiled ex-
pression for Dpg $p= ‘Lord ofheaven’-Le., Zeus, whose altar
(or statue?) was erected upon the altar of burnt-offering in
December 168 B.C. (I Macc. 154 59). The Syriac Bible actually
gives ] * ~ w$ p l in 2 Macc. 6 2 in connection with this event as a
rendering of the Greek word Zeus. Thus Daniel had not desola-
tion in his mind in the least. See A BOMINATION OF D ESOLATION .
Further information as to similar veiled designations of heathen
deities is given in Wineris), $5, n. 56.
2 The verb dva&&xub’aL (EV ‘set forth in order’) denotes
(hotpinitself,andbecause, bythe words ‘alsotome’ [ ~ B p o i l Lk.
, this, and not a mere statement about a particular occurrence,
applies it also to his own performance)the composition of a com-
1893
GOSPELS
Lk. makes a quite clear division : the eye-witnesses have
handed down (rrapCGouav), and that by word of mouth otherwis:
no purpose would have been served by adding to ‘eyelwitnesses
(ah6aTaL) the further predicate ‘ministers of the word ’ ( h q p p h a ‘
705 h6yov); others have composed gospel writings; and Lk.
seeks to excel these last by accurate research (or by taking u p
the narrative from an earlier point) and by correct arrangement.
That he himself had direct intercourse with eyewitnesses is
therefore not very probable, and it is not at all expressed by the
word (1c), ‘they delivered them unto us which from the begin-
ning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word,’ for immedi-
ately before he speaks of ‘the things which have been fulfilled
among us,’ a phrase by which he obviously cannot mean himself
and his contemporaries, hut only Christendom generally ;
similarly therefore in w. 2. Cp $0 37 64.
The discussion of the dates of the gospel yields, it
will be seen, but few definite results. W e have deliber-
164. Conclusion. ately refrained from making use of
certain arguments which could be
more or less easily applied otherwise. All the more
would we emphasise the proposition, that our uncertainty
on the chronological question by no means carries with
it any uncertainty in the judgment we are to form of the
gospels themselves. The chronological question is in
this instance a very subordinate one. Indeed, even if
our gospels could be shown to have been written from
50 A . D . onwards, or even earlier, we should not be
under any necessity to withdraw our conclusions as to
their contents ; we should, on the contrary, only haye
to say that the indubitable transformation in the original
tradition had taken place much more rapidly than onc
might have been ready to suppose. The credibility of
the gospel history cannot be established by an earlier
dating of the gospels themselves in any higher degree
than that in which it has already been shown to ,exist,
especially as we know that even in the lifetime of Jesus
miracles of every sort were attributed to him in the most
confident manner. But as the transformation has de-
parted so far from the genuine tradition, it is only in the
interest of a better understanding and of a more reason-
able appreciation of the process that one should claim
for its working out a, considerable period of time.
By way of appendix a few words must be said here on
the question, postponed from A POCRYPHA (126, I ) to
166i. The gospel this place, as to whether the gospel of
of the Hebrews. the Hebrews is to be reckoned among
the sources of the svnootics. Accord-
~~
, L
ing to the church fathers this gospel was the Hebrew or
Aramaic form of canonical Mt. If this were correct,
it would not ,have been necessary for Jerome to
make .a separate translation of it. According to
Nicholson (The Gospel according CO the Hebrews, ‘79)
it was a later Hebrew edition of the gospel of Mt.,
issued after the Greek had already been published by
Matthew himself. Since Lessing’s time (5 117) it has
often .been regarded-especially in the Tiibingen school
-as one of the sources, or even as the most ancient, or
even as the only, source of our synoptics. Handmann,
again (Hedraer-evangeZiiumin Texte Q. Lintersuch. 5 3,
‘88), identifies it with the logia. That it may have been,
in some older form, one of the sources of the Synoptics
cannot be contradicted ; but neither can it be proved,
for we no longer possess the older form. Among the
fragments preserved to us there are ,only a few which
are not open to challenge on the score of their late date.
Many on the other hand are unquestionably late legends :
e.g., James, the brother of Jesus, swore at the last
supper (where according to our evangelists he cannot
even have been present) to eat nothing till he should
have beheld Jesus after his resurrection ; Jesus accord-
ingly appeared in the first instance to him, brought
bread, broke it, and gave it to him. Or, again, at the
death of Jesus the superliminare or lintel of the temple
was broken. Or, Jesus is reported to have said : ‘ even
prehensive work in accordance with literary aims. A L < ~ U W
(AV ‘declaration,’RV ‘narrative’) accordingly must also mean
without pretension to literary art (cp ss 124a 1.94.
1894
 GOSPELS
now has my mother, the Holy Spirit, seized me by one
of my hairs and borne me to the great mountain Tabor ' :
and more of the like.
It is almost universally conceded that the fragments
of the so-called gospel of the Ebionites can claim
antiquity in a much less degree still than can the gospel
of the Hebrews to which it is related.
(n) Other uncnnonicnl gospel-fragnzents.-The so-
called logia of Jesus found at Oxyrhynchus, first pub-
lished by Grenfell and Hunt.
These contain besides an (almost) verbatim repetition of
Lk. 6 42, sentenc;s which go far beyond the Johannine theology,
156. other and have absolutely nothing analogous to
them in the canonical gospels. I t would be
UXlCaXlOXliCal a great error to see in them a portion of the
gospel logia of Mt. But the hypothesis also, that
they are excerpts from the gospel of the
Egyptians, has its strongest support only in
the fact that according to accounts this gospel itself was
of an equally mixed character. Moreover the identification
cannot he made ont, were it only for this realon-that we cannot
know whether these seven or eight sayings were excerpted
wholly from one hook or whether they were compiled from a
variety of sources. FLr. in fact, the principle on which such a
heterogeneous variety of sayings has been brought together is
quite obscure to us (cp $ 86).
(6) pdcoby (Bin neues Evnnge~ienfrngment, 1900)
has published a Coptic fragment which, amongst other
things, touches upon the scene in Gethsemane.
I n character this is the same mixture of Synoptic and
Johannine or even supra-Jobannine ideas as has been observed
in the Oxyrhynchus logia. Its derivation from the gospel
of the Egyptians is just as questionable as is that of those
logia. I f then we read in it-what, according to the con-
nection, it can hardly he doubted, notwithstanding the frag-
mentary character of the piece, we ought to read- that
Jesus,used the words 'The spirit is willing, hut the flesh is
weak, with reference' to himself and not with reference to
the disciples, and if we should feel inclined to regard this a s
the more original application,l we must not do so merely on
account of the source in which we find it.
(6) The case is quite similar with the gospel accord-
ing to Peter (see P ETER).
( d ) The fragment, first published by Bickell in the
Ztschr. f: Knth. Theol., 1885, pp. 498-504, which has
been dealt with by (amongst others) Harnack (Texte
ZI. Untersuch. 54, pp. 481-497) and Resch (i6. 102;
PP. 28-34. 322-3271:
This fragment contains in a somewhat divergent form the
predictionof Jesus that all his disciples would he offended in
him and that Peter would deny him, mentioning also that the
cock crowed twice ; it agrees most strongly with Mk. 14 26-30
but also with Mt. 2631 by the words 'in this night ' since
these words in Mk. do not occur in v. 27 hut only in' v. 30.
That we have here before us a pre-canonical form of the text
cannot be proved with certainty from the divergences in in-
dividual words. A stronger argument is supplied hy the fact that
i n the present fragment v. 28 of Mk. ( = v . 32 of 'Mt.).is
wanting-a verse which has long been recognised as disturbing
the connectio,n : '-4fter I am risen again I will go before you
into Galilee. At the same time, we must not forget thatit
may have been omitted preciselyfor this reason, if weare dealing
with a free excerpt. Neither does this fragment, then, supply
tis with an irrefragable proof.for the existence of written sources
for our gospels.
( e ) The so-called dicta Jesu ngrnphn, that is to say,
sayings of his which are not met with in the gospels,
have been collected with great care by Kesch in l k x k
u. Untersuch. 54, '89.
Resch's judgment of these his readiness to recognise genuine
sayings of Jesus preserved e;en in the latest church fathers and
his employment of these for his Hebrew original gospel ({1!7)
have, however, met with very just criticism in the same series
(142) a t the hands of Ropes (Die Spriiche Jesu, die i n den
hanonixhen EvanreZien nicht zi'6erliefeert sind '96). At the
same time Ropes higself in accepting so many as fLurteensayings
as probably genuine has perhaps gone too far. A somewhat
richer selection, but without pronouncing any judgment as to
their genuineness, is given by Nestle in Novi Testamentisup-
plementum, '96, pp. 89-92 where hesides a collation of Codex
D, the extra-canonical frlgments) as a whole will he found very
conveniently brought together.
Literature. -A. In German. -For facility of refer-
ence we group the present selection from the German
157. Literature, literature on the Synoprical problem
partly according to the methods they
1 I t is so applied in the Roman Missal and Breviary (see
Office for Palm Sunday).
1895
GOSPELS
employ, and partly according to the views they main-
tain.
i. Mainly tendency-criticism.-(a) Mt., ,Lk., Mk. : Baur,
Krit. Uniers. u6er die Ranon. livung., 47 ; Muucusevas-
gelium, '51. Keim Gesch. Jesu von Nasara i. (4-103 ('67) ;
A W ~dem Urchristentunz, i. 2a-45, 221-226 c78).'
(6) Mt., Mk., Lk. : Hilgenfeld, Marcusmangelizcm., '50 ; Die
Evangelien, '54 ; ZW7' from '58 onwards. Holsten, Die drei
urspriinglichen Evangelien, '83 ; Die synopt. EvangeLien, '85 ;
cp $ 125a.
(c) itfk Lk Mt. : Bruno Bauer, K&ik der mung. Gesch.
de? Syi&iRe;, '41J ; Krifik der Evangelien, '50-'52. Vylk-
mar, Die Evangelien oder Marcus und die Synopsis, 70;
Marcus unddie Synopse der Evan,q-eZien, '76 ;Jesus Nuzurenus,
'82. Schulze, Euangelientafel, '61, (2) '86.
ii. Mainly, or entirely literary criticism.-(a) Mk Lk.
Mt. : Wilke, der Urma&elist, '38. Pfleiderer, Urct&te$
tum, '87.
(6) Schleiermacher U6er die Schnj%vz des Lukas, '17 ;
Stud. u. Krit., 1832: pp. 735.768 (= Werke eur TheoZogie, ii.
1.220, 361.392); cp 5s 120, 124a.
(c) Theory of two sources (Mk. and the logia): Weisse,
Evangel. Gesch., '38 ;'EvangeZienfrage, '56 (but see 1256).
Wernle, Die synopt. Frage, '99.
(d)Original gospel of Philip, with the logia: Ewald, Die 3
rrsten Evanzelien, '50, (2) '71 ;JBW, 1848-'65.
(e) Original Mk. with the logia: Holtzmann, Die synopt.
BvangeZien, '63 ; JPT, 1878, pp. 145-188, 328.382, 533-568;
Theol. jahresbericht, from '81. ,Cp $ 125cf: Weizsacker
Untevs. &er die evangel. Gesch., 64 ; Das apostol. Zeitaltw'
'86 (2) '92. Johannes Weiss St. u. KY., 1890, pp. 555-56;
(' Geelzebulrede'); 18gr, pp. z b g - p r (I Parabelrede') ; 1892, pp.
246-270 (' Wiederkunftsrede '); in Meyer's Komm. zu ( M k .
%nu')Lk., (9 '92. Beyschlag, St. n. Kr., 1881, pp. 565-636;
1883, 5.34-602 ; cp $ 118. . Feine, /PT,'85-'88 ; Etne vorkuno-
nische Uberliefemng des Lk., '91.
Apostolic source=the logia : Bernhard Weiss, St. 7c. KY.,
1861, pp. zg-100, 646.713; 1883, 571-594; ID:, 1864, pp. 49-
1 4 0 ; 1865, 319.376. JPT,1878, pp. 569-592 Marcusman-
gelium, 72 ; Matthausevangelium, '76 ; in MeGer's Komm. zu
Mi (7: '83, (9)'98 ; zu Mk. und Lk.,(7)'85, (8)(Mk. only), '92.
Titi& rn Theol. Stud. fiir Bemh. Weiss, 284-331 ('97); also
separately under the title, Das Verhaltniss der Hervenworte
im Marcusez,angeliu?nzu den Logia des Mat.?h&us. C p above,
$8 122, 125d, 126c.
(g) Theory of two sources with borrowing from Mt. by Lk.
(0 127) : Simon?, Hat der dritt0 Evangelist den kanonischen
Mt. benutzt? 8 0 ' Stockmeyer 'Quellen des Lk.-Evang.' in
Theol. Zeifsclhr. i u s der Schwhiz, 1884, pp. 117-149; Wendt
Lehre /est*, i., '86. Soltau, EineLucke der synopt. Pbvschuni
'99 ; 2eitschr.f: neutest. Wissensch., 1900, 219-248. Combined
with hypothesis of an original Mk.: Jacohsen, Unters. *bey die
synopt. Evangelien, ' 8 3 ; ZWT, 1886, pp. 152-179; Ia8a, pp.
129-158.
(h) More complicated hypotheses (0 1 2 9 4 : Wittichen JOT,
1866,pp. 427-482; ZWT, 1873, pp. 499-522; JPT, 1879, I;p. 165-
1 8 2 ; 1881, pp. 366-375, 713-720; 1891,. pp 481-519; Le6en
Fu, '76. Scholten, Het o d s t e evangelze, 6 8 (Germ. transl.,
69 : das dlteste Evangelium) ; Het paulinisch evangelie, '70 ;
Is de derde m:zngeZist de schrijver van het boek der handeel-
ingen, '73 (German translation of both, 'Bo; under title das
#uulinische Evangelium).
B. In English.-It may be well to notice that the
efforts of recent English students have been mainly
devoted to collecting and arranging the material for the
solution of the critical problems under consideration, as
a preliminary to the critical hypotheses which may,
unforced, suggest themselves in the future.
(a) Books helpful to students :-Rushbrooke's Synopticon
('ao), and Ahbott and Rushbrooke's Coininon Tradition of the
Synojtic Gospeis ('84); A. Wright, Synop& of the Gospels ('96)
and St. Luke's Gospel('w); Sir J. ,Hawkins, Hove Synopticce
('99); F. H.Woods in Studia Bidlzca, 2 5 9 8 ('go).
(,9) Special treatises, etc. :-A. Wright, The Composition of
the Gospels ('go), and Some New Testa*nent Puo6lernr ('98)'
Badham, The Fovlnation ofthe GospeZs ('92, ed. 2) ; St. Mark':
Indebtedness io St. Matthew ('97); E. A. Abbott, Clue: A
Guide to Hebrew Scripture ('goo) and The Courections of
Mark Irnm).
.->--,-
~~
( y ) Important articles :-E. A. Abb'ott art. 'Gospels' in Ency.
?yit.PJ '79: W. Sanday in ExPositor tor '91, '92, '93, and art.
Gospels' in Smith's D B R , '93 ; V. H. Stanton, art. 'Gospels'
in Hastings' DB, vol. 2 , '99; LI. J. M. Behb, art. 'Luke,' i6id.
1900; S. D. F.Salmond art. ' Mark,' ibid. 1900; J. V. Bartlett,
zrt. 'Matthew.' i6id. I&. W. C. Allen in Exp.T, 'gg and
IO00
,~ Ivol. 11).
I
(6) The following hooks hear upon the subject :-Westcott
Introduction t o the Study ofthe Gosjels ('60 ; (8) '94) ; Salmon'
Zntrod. t o N T ('85) ; Plummer, Comrrtentaly on St. Luke ('96):
P. w. s.
1896
 GOSPELS GO8PELS

SOME OF T H E PASSAGES REFERRED TO I N T H E PRECEDING ARTICLE.

The n u d e r s io the right of the Gospel citations indicate the section ( o rfoutnote) a?id c o h m n respective&.

MATTHEW. M ARK. LUKE.

MILTTHEW. 2246, B 119,
28 2 3a, $ I I Z > 1844
11, n. I, 1890 $ 128, 1870
11-17. S 110, 1870
817-20, n. I, 1774
822-26, B 137, 7877
6 IAA. 1884

9 14129, 6 i44,' 1685

923J, 8 144, 1885
9 33-42, 9 128, 1864

2749, n. I, 1807
2751, 5 142, 1884
27 42. S 26. 1782

28 11-15, 5 108, 1839

28 I C
"I
6 27. 1782
28 r6, 9,' i 7 j o
28 17, 5 25,1781
28 19, 8 136, 1876
28 19$, 8 112, 1842

1536,
- -,,
n. I, 1807
1538, $ 142, 1884
16 1.8, 8 27, 1783
166-8, B 138, 1880
9 99 1769
I8 12-14, 5 19, 1777 i:i;
16 9.20,
5 138, 1879
n. 3, 1767
18 15-17, § 136, 1876
1928. 8. 112. 1812 B 138, 1880
LUKE.

1771 5 39, '791

1897 1898