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expressed the meaning of his documents in more pure words, and a more elegant form. Only he adhered more closely to the very expression of his documents, when he came to insert quotations from the Old Testament, or to recite discourses and conversations, and especially the discourses of our blessed Saviour. Both Saint Mark and Saint Luke adhered to the arrangement which they found in those documents which contained more facts than one. The documents themselves they arranged in chronological order. All the evangelists connected the documents one with another, each for himself and in his own way." Our author also conjectures that Saint Matthew's Gospel was translated into Greek some time after the two other Gospels were in circulation; that the translator made great use of them, frequently copying their very words where they suited his purpose; that, however, he made most use of Saint Mark's Gospel, having recourse to that of Saint Luke only when he could derive no assistance from the other and that where he had no doubt, or perceived no difficulty, he frequently translated for himself, without looking for assistance from either Saint Mark or Saint Luke.2

Such is the hypothesis proposed by Mr. Veysie in preference to that of Bishop Marsh. That it accounts for all the phenomena, which have, in Germany, been supposed to involve so many difficulties, we have no inclination to controvert; for, as he observes of his lordship's hypothesis, "being framed by a man of genius and learning, principally with a view to explain the phenomena which the author had observed, it may reasonably be expected to answer, in every point of importance, the purpose for which it was intended." We are even ready to grant, that it answers this purpose more completely than that of the learned translator of Michaelis, of which therefore it may be considered as an improvement; but to improve requires not the same effort of genins as to invent. Both, however, are mere hypotheses, or rather complications of various hypotheses, which he who rejects them cannot by argument or testimony be compelled to admit; while both appear to us to detract much from the authority which has hitherto been allowed to the first three Gospels.

To this author's detached narratives the same objections seem to lie which he has so forcibly urged against the very existence of Bishop Marsh's documents, and which have been already stated. Some of these narratives must have been of considerable length; for, some of the examples of verbal agreement, which they have occasioned between Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, are very long and remarkable. They must likewise have been deemed of great importance, since they were translated from Hebrew into Greek, for the benefit of the Greek Christians; and appear indeed, from this account of them, to have furnished the whole matter of Saint Mark's Gospel, except the explanation of some Jewish customs and names, and some circumstances acquired from Saint Peter. Such narratives as these are exactly Bishop Marsh's documents, and one of them his

1 Veysie's Examination, pp. 98, 99.

2 Ibid. pp. 100, 101.

document, an entire Gospel, of which not even the memory survived the apostolic age.1

V. Since, then, the three hypotheses above discussed are insufficient to account for the harmony, both of words and of thought, which appear in the first three Gospels, should it be asked how are we to account for such coincidences? We reply that they may be sufficiently explained without having recourse to either of these hypotheses, and in a manner that cannot but satisfy every serious and inquiring reader.

"It is admitted on all hands," says Bishop Gleig, "that the most remarkable coincidences of both language and thought that occur in the three first Gospels, are found in those places in which the several writers recorded our Lord's doctrines and miracles; and it will likewise be admitted, that of a variety of things seen or heard by any man at the same instant of time, those which made the deepest impression are distinctly remembered long after all traces of the others have been effaced from the memory. It will also be allowed, I think, that of a number of people witnessing the same remarkable event, some will be most forcibly impressed by one circumstance, and others by a circumstance which, though equally connected with the principal event, is considered by itself perfectly different. The miracles of our blessed Lord were events so astonishing, that they must have made, on the minds of all who witnessed them, impressions too deep to be ever effaced; though the circumstances attending each miracle must have affected the different spectators very differently, so as to have made impressions, some of them equally indelible with the miracle itself, on the mind of one man; whilst by another, whose mind was completely occupied by the principal event itself, these very circumstances may have been hardly observed at all, and of course been soon forgotten.

"That this is a matter of fact which occurs daily, every man may convince himself by trying to recollect all the particulars of an event which powerfully arrested his attention many years ago. He will find that his recollection of the event itself, and of many of the circumstances which attended it, is as vivid and distinct at this day as it was a month after the event occurred; whilst of many other circumstances, which he is satisfied must have accompanied it, he has but a very confused and indistinct recollection, and of some, no recollection at all. If the same man take the trouble to inquire of any friend who was present with him when he witnessed the event in question, he will probably find that his friend's recollection of the principal event is as vivid and distinct as his own; that his friend recollects likewise many of the accompanying circumstances which were either not observed by himself, or have now wholly escaped from his memory; and that of the minuter circumstances, of which

1 British Critic, vol. xxxiv. (O. S.) p. 114. An hypothesis similar to that of Mr. Veysie's was started by a learned writer in the Eclectic Review (vol. viii part i. pp. 423, 424,); but as it is liable to the same objection as Mr. V.'s this brief notice of it may suffice.

he has the most distinct recollection, his friend remembers hardly one. That such is the nature of that intellectual power by which we retain the remembrance of past events I know from experience; and if there be any man who has never yet made such experiments on himself, let him make them immediately, and I am under no apprehension, that if they be fairly made, the result will not be as I have always found it. Let it be remembered too, as a universal fact, or a law of human nature as certainly as gravitation is a law of corporeal nature, that in proportion as the impression made on the mind by the principal object in any interesting scene is strong, those produced by the less important circumstances are weak, and therefore liable to be soon effaced, or if retained at all, retained faintly and confusedly; and that when the impression made by the principal object is exceedingly strong, so as to fill the mind completely, the unimportant circumstances make no impression whatever, as has been a hundred times proved by the hackneyed instance of a man absorbed in thought not hearing the sound of a clock when striking the hour beside him. If these facts be admitted (and I cannot suppose that any reflecting man will call them in question), it will not, I think, be necessary to have recourse to hypotheses, to account either for that degree of harmony which prevails among the three first evangelists, when recording the miracles of our blessed Lord, or for the discrepancy which is found in what they say of the order in which those miracles were performed, or of the less important circumstances accompanying the performance. In every one of them the principal object was our Lord himself, whose powerful voice the winds and waves, and even the devils, obeyed. The power displayed by him on such occasions must have made so deep an impression on the minds of all the spectators as never to be effaced: but whether one or two demoniacs were restored to a sound mind in the land of the Gadarenes; whether one or two blind men miraculously received their sight in the neighbourhood of Jericho; and whether that miracle was performed at one end of the town or at the other, are circumstances which, when compared with the miracles themselves, are of so little importance, as may easily be supposed to have made but a slight impression on the minds of even some of the most attentive observers, whose whole attention had been directed to the principal object, and by whom these circumstances would be soon forgotten, or, if remembered at all, remembered confusedly. To the order of time in which the miracles were performed, the evangelists appear to have paid very little regard, but to have recorded them, as Boswell records many of the sayings of Johnson, without marking their dates; or as Xenophon has recorded the memorabilia of Socrates in a work which has been, in this respect, compared to the Gospels."

With respect to the doctrines of our Lord, it should be recollected that the sacred historians are labouring to report with accuracy the speeches and discourses of another; in which case even common historians would endeavour to preserve the exact sense, and, as far

1 Bishop Gleig's edition of Stackhouse's History of the Bible, vol. iii. p. 104.

as their memory would serve them, the same words. "In seeking to do this," says the late eminently learned Bishop of London, "it is not to be wondered at, that two or three writers should often fall upon verbal agreement: nor, on the contrary, if they write independently, that they should often miss of it, because their memory would often fail them. With regard to the sacred writers, it is natural to suppose them studious of this very circumstance; and we have also reason to think, that they had assistance from above to the same effect; and yet it is not necesssary to suppose that either their natural faculty, or the extraordinary assistance vouchsafed them, or both, should have brought them to a perfect identity throughout; because it was not necessary for the purposes of Providence, and because it would have affected their character of original independent witnesses. Let me add, that these discourses, before they were committed to writing by the evangelists, must have been often repeated amongst the apostles in teaching others, and in calling them to remembrance among themselves. Saint Matthew had probably often heard and known how his fellow-labourers recollected the same discourses which he had selected for his own preaching and writing. We know not how much intercourse they had with each other, but probably a great deal before they finally dispersed themselves. Saint Mark and Saint Luke had the same opportunities, even if they were not original eye-witnesses. I admit, then, of a common document; but that document

was no other than the PREACHING OF OUR BLESSED LORD HIMSELF.

He was the great prototype. In looking up to him, the author of their faith and mission, and to the very words in which he was wont to dictate to them (which not only yet sounded in their ears, but were also recalled by the aid of his Holy Spirit promised for that very purpose), they have given us three Gospels, often agreeing in words, though not without much diversification, and always in sense.

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To this powerful reasoning we can add nothing: protracted as this discussion has unavoidably been, the importance of its subjects must be the author's apology for the length at which the preceding questions have been treated; because the admission of either the copying or documentary hypothesis is not only detrimental to the character of the sacred writers, but also diminishes the value and importance of their testimony, and further tends to sap the inspiration of the New Testament. 66 They seem to think more justly," said that eminent critic Le Clerc," who say that the three first evangelists were unacquainted with each other's design: thus greater weight accrues to their testimony. When witnesses agree, who have previously concerted together, they are suspected but those witnesses are justly credited who testify the same thing separately, and without knowing what others have said."3

1 John xiv. 26.

2"Remarks on Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament," p. 32. et seq. See also Bishop Gleig's edition of Stackhouse, vol. viii. pp. 105-112., and Mr. Archdeacon Nares's Veracity of the Evangelists demonstrated, pp. 33-36.168-182. 3 Pheriponi (i. e. Johannis Le Clerc) Animadversiones in Augustin. de Consensu Evangeliorum, cited by Dr. Lardner, Works, 8vo. vol. v. p. 93.; 4to. vol. ii. p. 584.

SECTION VI.

ON THE GOSPEL BY SAINT JOHN.

I. Author.-II. Date.-III. Genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel. IV. Its occasion and design. Account of the tenets of Cerinthus. Analysis of its contents.-V. Saint John's Gospel, a supplement to the other three. VI. Observations on its style.

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I. SAINT JOHN, the evangelist and apostle, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of the town of Bethsaida, on the sea of Galilee, and the younger brother of James the elder. His mother's name was Salome. Zebedee, though a fisherman, appears to have been in good circumstances: for the evangelical history informs us that he was the owner of a vessel, and had hired servants. (Mark i. 20.) And therefore we have no reason to imagine that his children were altogether illiterate, as some critics have imagined them to have been, from a misinterpretation of Acts iv. 13., where the terms aygappara and dira, in our version rendered unlearned and ignorant men, simply denote persons in private stations of life, who were neither rabbis nor magistrates, and such as had not studied in the schools of the Pharisees, and consequently were ignorant of the rabbinical learning and traditions of the Jews. John and his brother James were, doubtless, well acquainted with the Scriptures of the Old Testament, having not only read them, but heard them publicly explained in the synagogues; and, in common with the other Jews, they entertained the expectation of the Messiah, and that his kingdom would be a temporal one. It is not impossible, though it cannot be affirmed with certainty, that Saint John had been a disciple of John the Baptist, before he became a disciple of Christ. At least, the circumstantial account, which he has given in ch. i. 37-41. of the two disciples who followed Christ, might induce us to suppose that he was one of the two. It is, however, certain that he had both seen and heard our Saviour, and had witnessed some of his miracles, particularly that performed at Cana in Galilee. (ii. 1-11.) Saint John has not recorded his own call to the apostleship; but we learn from the other three evangelists that it took place when he and James were fishing upon the sea of Galilee.1 And Saint Mark, in enumerating the twelve apostles (iii. 17.), when he mentions James and John, says that our Lord "surnamed them Boanerges, which is, sons of thunder," from which appellation we are not to suppose that they were of particularly fierce and ungovernable tempers (as Dr. Cave

1 Matt. iv. 21, 22. Mark i. 19, 20. Luke v. 1-10. Lampe has marked what he thinks are three degrees in the call of Saint John to be a follower of Christ, viz. 1. His call to the discipleship (John i. 37--42.), after which he continued to follow nis business for a short time; 2. His call to be one of the immediate companions of Christ (Matt. iv. 21, 22.); and, 3. His call to the apostleship, when the surname of Boanerges was given to him and his brother. Lampe, Comment. in Evangelium Johannis Prolegom. cap. ii. pp. 17-21.

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