was the first distinctly controversial writer which the Church produced; and the great facts of the Gospel history were obviously as well known to him as they are to ourselves. There are no traces in his writings of an acquaintance with anything peculiar either to St. John or St. Mark; but there are extracts in abundance often identical with and generally nearly resembling passages in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Thus at first sight it would be difficult to doubt that with these two Gospels at least he was intimately familiar; and yet in all his citations there is this peculiarity that Justin Martyr never speaks of either of the evangelists by name; he quotes or seems to quote invariably from something which he calls ἀπομνημονευματα τῶν ̓Αποστόλων, οι 'Memorials of the Apostles.' It is no usual habit of his to describe his authorities vaguely; when he quotes the Apocalypse he names St. John; when he refers to a prophet he specifies Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Daniel. Why, unless there was some particular reason for it, should he use so singular an expression whenever he alludes to the sacred history of the New Testament? why, if he knew the names of the evangelists, did he never mention them even by accident? Nor is this the only singularity in Justin Martyr's quotations; there are first those slight differences between them and the texts of the Gospels which appear between the Gospels themselves; when we compare an extract in Justin with the parallel passage in St. Matthew we find often that it differs from St. Matthew just as St. Matthew differs from St. Luke, or both from St. Mark. Great verbal similaritymany paragraphs agreeing word for word, and then others where there is an alteration of expression, tense, order, or arrangement.

Again, just as in the midst of the general resemblance between the Synoptical Gospels, each evangelist has something of his own which is not to be found in the others, so in these Memorials of the Apostles there are facts unknown to either of

the evangelists. In the account extracted by Justin from the Me

These and other peculiarities in Justin may be explained if we suppose him to have been quoting from memory. The evangelical text might not as yet have acquired its verbal sanctity; and as a native of Palestine he might well have been acquainted with other traditions which lay outside the written word. The silence as to names however remains unexplained; and as the facts actually stand there is the same kind of proof, and no more, that Justin Martyr was acquainted with St. Matthew and St. Luke as there is that one of these evangelists made extracts from the other, or both from St. Mark. So long as one set of commentators decline to recognize the truth of this relation between the Gospels, there will be others who with as much justice will dispute the relation of Justin to them. He too might have used another Gospel which though like them was not identical with them.

Immediately after Justin Martyr's death about the year 170 appeared Tatian's Diatessaron, a work which as its title implies was a harmony of four Gospels, and most likely of the four; yet again not exactly as we have them. Tatian's harmony, like so many others of the early evangelical histories, was silent on the miraculous birth, and commenced only with the public ministration. The text was in other places different, so much so that

Theodoret accuses Tatian of having mutilated the Gospels; but of this Theodoret had probably no better means of judging than we have. The Diatessaron has been long lost, and the name is the only clue to its composition.

Of far more importance than either Justin or Tatian are such writings as remain of the immediate successors of the apostles, Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Ignatius: it is asserted confidently that in these there are quotations from the Gospels so exact that they cannot be mistaken.

We will examine them one by one. In an epistle of Barnabas there is one passage-it is the only one of the kind to be found in him-agreeing word for word with the Synoptical Gospels, 'I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.' It is one of the many passages in which the Greek of the three evangelists is exactly the same; it was to be found also in Justin's 'Memorials;' and there can be no doubt that Barnabas either knew those Gospels or else the common source -if common source there was-from which the evangelists borrowed. More than this such a quotation does not enable us to say; and till some satisfactory explanation has been offered of the agreement between the evangelists the argument can advance no further. On the other hand Barnabas like St. Paul had other sources from which he drew his knowledge of our Lord's words. He too ascribes words to Him which are not recorded by the evangelists. οὕτω φῆσιν Ἰήσους οἱ θέλοντές με ἰδεῖν καὶ ἅψασθαί μου τῆς βασιλείας ὀφείλουσι θλιβέντες καὶ πάθοντες λαβεῖν με. The thought is everywhere in the Gospels, the words nowhere, nor anything like them.

Both Ignatius and Polycarp appear to quote the Gospels, yet with them also there is the same uncertainty; while Ignatius quotes as genuine an expression which so far as we know was peculiar to a translation of the Gospel of the Ebionites -Handle me and see, for I am not a spirit without body. ὅτι οὔκ εἰμι δαιμόνιον ἀσώματον.

St. Clement's quotations are still

And again:

و وو

'The Lord 'said, "Ye shall be as sheep in the midst of wolves." Peter answered and said unto him, "Will the wolves then tear the sheep?" Jesus said unto Peter, "The sheep need not fear the wolves after they (the sheep) be dead; and fear not ye those who kill you and can do nothing to you; but fear Him who after you be dead hath power over soul and body to cast them into hell-fire."

In these words we seem to have the lost link in a passage which appears in a different connexion in St. Matthew and St. Luke. It may be said, as with Justin Martyr, that St. Clement was quoting from memory in the sense rather than in the letter; although even so it is difficult to suppose that he could have invented an interlocution of St. Peter. Yet no such hypothesis will explain the most strange words which follow :

'The Lord being asked when His kingdom should come said, "When two shall be one, and that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female neither male nor female."

It is needless to say how remote are such expressions as these from any which have come down to us through the evangelists; but they were no inventions of Clement. The passage reappears later in Clement of Alexandria, who found it in something which he called the Gospel of the Egyptians.

It will be urged that because St. Clement quoted other authorities beside the evangelists, it does not follow that he did not know and quote from them. If the citation of a passage which appears in almost the same words in another book is not to be accepted as a proof of an acquaintance with that book, we make it impossible, it may be said, to prove from quotations at all the fact of any book's existence. But this is not the case; if 'a Father in relating an event which is told variously in the Synoptical Gospels had followed one of them minutely in its verbal peculiarities, it would go far to prove that he was acquainted with that one; if the same thing was observed in all his quotations the proof would amount to demonstration. If he agreed minutely in one place with one Gospel, minutely in a second with another, minutely in a third with another, there would be reason to believe that he was acquainted with them all; but when he merely relates what they also relate in language which approaches theirs and yet differs from it, as they also resemble yet differ from one another, we do not escape from the circle of uncertainty, and we conclude either that the early Fathers made quotations with a looseness irreconcileable with the idea that the language of the Gospels possessed any verbal sacredness to them, or that there were in their times other narratives of our Lord's life standing in the same relation to the three Gospels as St. Matthew stands to St. Mark and St. Luke.

Thus the problem returns upon us; and it might almost seem as if the explanation was laid purposely beyond our reach. We are driven back upon internal criticism; and we have to ask again what account is to be given of that element common to the Synoptical Gospels, common also to those other Gospels of which we find traces so distinctthose verbal resemblances, too close to be the effect of accident-those differences which forbid the supposition that the evangelists copied one another. So many are those common passages that if all which

is peculiar to each evangelist by himself were dropped, if those words and those actions only were retained which either all three or two at least share together, the figure of our Lord from His baptism to His ascension would remain with scarcely impaired majesty.

One hypothesis, and so far as we can see one only, would make the mystery intelligible, that immediately on the close of our Lord's life some original sketch of it was drawn up by the congregation, which gradually grew and gathered round it whatever his mother, his relations, or his disciples afterwards individually might contribute. This primary history would thus not be the work of any one mind or man; it would be the joint work of the Church, and thus might well be called Memorials of the Apostles;' and would naturally be quoted without the name of either one of them being specially attached to it. As Christianity spread over the world and separate Churches were founded by particular apostles, copies would be multiplied, and copies of those copies, and unchecked by the presence (before the invention of printing impossible) of any authoritative text, changes would creep in, passages would be left out which did not suit the peculiar views of this or that sect; others Iwould be added as this or that apostle recollected something which our Lord had said that bore on questions raised in the development of the creed. Two great divisions would form themselves between the Jewish and the Gentile Churches; there would be a Hebrew Gospel and a Greek Gospel, and the Hebrew would be translated into Greek, as Papias says St. Matthew's Gospel Eventually the confusion would become intolerable; and among the conflicting stories the Church would have been called on to make its formal choice.

was.

This fact at least is certain from St. Luke's words, that at the time when he was writing many different narratives did actually exist. The hypothesis of a common origin for them has as yet found little favour with English theologians; yet

rather perhaps because it would be inconvenient for certain peculiar forms of English thought than because it has not probability on its side. That the Synoptical Gospels should have been a natural growth rather than the special and independent work of three separate writers, would be unfavourable to a divinity which has built itself up upon particular texts, and has been more concerned with doctrinal polemics than with the broader basements of historic truth. Yet the text theory suffers equally from the mode in which the first Fathers treated the Gospels, if it were these Gospels indeed which they used. They at least could have attributed no importance to words and phrases; while again, as we said before, a narrative dating from the cradle of Christianity, with the testimony in its favour of such broad and deep reception, would, however wanting in some details, be an evidence of the truth of the main facts of the Gospel history very much stronger than that of three books composed we know not when, and the origin of which it is impossible to trace, which it is impossible to regard as independent, and the writers of which in any other view of them must be assumed to have borrowed from each other.

But the object of this article is not to press either this or any other theory; it is but to ask from those who are able to give it an answer to the most serious of questions. The truth of the Gospel history is now more widely doubted in Europe than at any time since the conversion of Constantine. Every thinking person who has been brought up a Christian and desires to remain a Christian, yet who knows anything of what is passing in the world, is looking to be told on what evidence the New Testament claims to be received. The state of opinion proves of itself that the arguments hitherto offered produce no conviction. Every other miraculous his

tory is discredited as legend, however exalted the authority on which it seems to be rested. We crave to have good reason shown us for maintaining still the one great exception. Hard worked in other professions, and snatching with difficulty sufficient leisure to learn how complicated is the problem, the laity can but turn to those for assistance who are set apart and maintained as their theological trustees. We can but hope and pray that some one may be found to give us an edition of the Gospels in which the difficulties will neither be slurred over with convenient neglect or noticed with affected indifference. It may or may not be a road to a bishopric; it may or may not win the favour of the religious world; but it will earn at least the respectful gratitude of those who cannot trifle with holy things, and who believe that true religion is the service of truth.

The last words were scarcely written when an advertisement appeared, the importance of which can scarcely be overestimated. A commentary is announced on the Old and New Testaments, to be composed with a view to what are called the 'misrepresentations' of modern criticism. It is to be brought out under the direction of the heads of the Church, and is the nearest approach to an official act in these great matters which they have ventured for two hundred years. It is not for us to anticipate the result. The word misrepresentations' is unfortunate; we should have augured better for the work if instead of it had been written the sincere perplexities of honest minds.' But the execution may be better than the promise; if these perplexities are encountered honourably and successfully, the Church may recover its supremacy over the intellect of the country; if otherwise, the archbishop who has taken the command will have steered the vessel direct upon the rocks.

VOL. LXIX. NO. CCCCIX.

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