has proved that this hypothesis is no longer tenable,1 and Michaelis has acquiesced in the result of his inquiries. The following observations are chiefly abridged from both these writers. The assertion, that Mark abridged the Gospel of Matthew, contradicts the unanimous voice of antiquity, which states that Mark wrote his Gospel under the inspection and dictation of Peter; and, although there is a coincidence between these two evangelists, yet it does not thence necessarily follow that he abridged the Gospel of Matthew. For, in the first place, he frequently deviates from Matthew in the order of time, or in the arrangement of his facts, and likewise adds many things of which Matthew has taken no notice whatever. Now, as Matthew was an apostle, and eye-witness of the facts which he related, Mark could not have desired better authority; if, therefore, he had Saint Matthew's Gospel before him when he wrote his own, he would scarcely have adopted a different arrangement, or have inserted facts which he could not have found in his original author. Again, although there are several parts of Saint Matthew's Gospel which an evangelist, who wrote chiefly for the use of the Romans, might not improperly omit such as the genealogy--the healing of the centurion's servant at Capernaum - Christ's argument to John's disciples, to prove that he was the Messiah—the sermon on the mount - some prophecies from the Old Testament - and the narrative of the death of Judas Iscariot; yet, on the other hand, there are several relations in Saint Matthew's Gospel, for the omission of which it is very difficult to assign a reason, and which therefore lead to the conclusion that this Gospel was not used by Saint Mark. - See particularly the discourses and parables related in Matt. viii. 18-22. ; x. 15—22. ; xi. 20-30.; xii. 33-45.; xiii. 139.; xviii. 10—35.; xix. 10-12. ; xx. 16.; and xxii. 1—14.4 Lastly, Saint Mark's imperfect description of Christ's transactions with the apostles, after his resurrection, affords the strongest proof that he was totally unacquainted with the contents of Saint Matthew's Gospel. The latter evangelist has given us a very circumstantial description of Christ's conversation with his apostles on a mountain in Galilee yet the former, though he had before related Christ's promise that he would go before them into Galilee, has, in the last chapter of his Gospel, no account whatever of Christ's appearance in Galilee. Now, if he had read Saint Matthew's Gospel, this important event could not have been unknown to him, and consequently he would not have neglected to record it. Michaelis further observes, that if Saint Mark had had Saint Matthew's Gospel before him, he would have avoided every appearance 1 The title of this tract is Marcus non Epitomator Matthæi. It was reprinted by Pott and Ruperti in the first volume of their Sylloge Commentationum Theologicarum, Helmstadt, 1800. 8vo. 2 Koppe has given thirteen instances. See Pott's Sylloge, pp. 55-57. 3 Koppe has given twenty-three instances of these additions. Ibid. pp. 59-64. 4 Koppe has specified several other omissions in the Gospel of Saint Mark, which we have not room to enumerate. See Pott's Sylloge, pp. 49-53. of contradiction to the accounts given by an apostle and an eyewitness. His account of the call of Levi, under the very same circumstance as Saint Matthew mentions his own call, is at least a variation from Saint Matthew's description; and this very variation would have been avoided, if Saint Mark had had access to Saint Matthew's Gospel. The same may be observed of Mark x. 46., where only one blind man is mentioned, whereas Saint Matthew, in the parallel passage, mentions two. In Saint Mark's account of Saint Peter's denial of Christ, the very same woman, who addressed Saint Peter the first time, addressed him likewise the second time, whereas, according to Saint Matthew, he was addressed by a different person: for Saint Mark (xiv. 69.) uses the expression audioxn, the maid, which, without a violation of grammar, can be construed only of the same maid who had been mentioned immediately before, whereas Saint Matthew (xxvi. 71.) has aλλn, another maid1 Now, in whatever manner harmonists may reconcile these examples, there will always remain a difference between the two accounts, which would have been avoided, if Saint Mark had copied from Saint Matthew. But what shall we say of instances, in which there is no mode of reconciliation? If we compare Mark iv. 35. and i. 35. with Matt. viii. 28-34., we shall find not only a difference in the arrangement of the facts, but such a determination of time, as renders a reconciliation impracticable. For, according to Saint Matthew, on the day after the sermon on the mount, Christ entered into a ship, and crossed the lake of Gennesareth, where he underwent a violent tempest: but, according to Saint Mark, this event took place on the day after the sermon in parables; and, on the day which followed that on which the sermon on the mount was delivered, Christ went, not to the seaside, but to a desert place, whence he passed through the towns and villages of Galilee. Another instance, in which we shall find it equally impracticable to reconcile the two evangelists, is Mark xi. 28. compared with Matt. xxi. 23. In both places the Jewish priests propose this question to Christ, εν ποια εξουσία ταυτα ποιεις ; alluding to his expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple. But, according to what Saint Mark had previously related in the same chapter, this question was proposed on the third day of Christ's entry into Jerusa 1 The whole difficulty, in reconciling this apparent discrepancy between the two evangelists, "has arisen from the vain expectation that they must always agree with each other in the most minute and trivial particulars; as if the credibility of our religion rested on such agreement, or any reasonable scheme of inspiration required this exact correspondency. The solution, which Michaelis afterwards offered in his Anmerkungen, affords all the satisfaction which a candid mind can desire. After stating that Matthew had said another maid,' Mark 'the maid,' and Luke, another man' (érepos), he observes, the whole contradiction vanishes at once, if we only attend to John, the quiet spectator of all which passed. For he writes (xviii. 25.) They said unto him, Wast thou not also one of his disciples? Whence it appears that there were several who spake on this occasion, and that all which is said by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, may very easily be true. There might probably be more than the three who are named; but the maid, who had in a former instance recognised Peter, appears to have made the deepest impression on his mind; and hence, in dictating this Gospel to Mark, he might have said the maid." Bishop Middleton's Doctrine of the Greek Article, p. 285. lem: according to Saint Matthew, it was proposed on the second. If Saint Mark had copied from Saint Matthew, this difference in their accounts would hardly have taken place.1 Since, then, it is evident that Saint Mark did not copy from the Gospel of Saint Matthew, the question recurs, how are we to reconcile the striking coincidences between them, which confessedly exist both in style, words, and things? Koppe, and after him Michaelis, endeavoured to account for the examples of verbal harmony in the three first Gospels, by the supposition that in those examples the evangelists retained the words which had been used in more antient Gospels, such as those mentioned by Saint Luke in his preface.2 But there does not appear to be any necessity for resorting to such an hypothesis: for, in the first place, it contradicts the accounts given from the early Christian writers above cited; and, secondly, it may be accounted for from other causes. Saint Peter was, equally with Saint Matthew, an eye-witness of our Lord's miracles, and had also heard his discourses, and on some occasions was admitted to be a spectator of transactions to which all the other disciples were not admitted. Both were Hebrews, though they wrote in Hellenistic Greek. Saint Peter would therefore naturally recite in his preaching the same events and discourses which Matthew recorded in his Gospel; and the same circumstance might be mentioned in the same manner by men, who sought not after "excellency of speech," but whose minds retained the remembrance of facts or conversations which strongly impressed them, even without taking into consideration the idea of supernatural guidance.3 VIII. Simplicity and conciseness are the characteristics of Saint Mark's Gospel, which, considering the copiousness and majesty of its subject, the variety of great actions it relates, and the surprising circumstances that attended them, together with the numerous and important doctrines and precepts which it contains, is the shortest and clearest, the most marvellous, and at the same time the most satisfactory history in the whole world. 1 Michaelis, vol. iii. p. 220. Koppe (ut supra, pp. 57–59.) has given several additional examples of seeming contradictions between the two evangelists, proving that Mark could not have copied from Matthew. On the subject above discussed, the reader will find much important information in Jones's Vindication of the former part of Saint Matthew's Gospel from Mr. Whiston's Charge of Dislocations, pp. 47-86., printed at the end of his third volume on the Canon; and also in the Latin thesis of Bartus van Willes, entitled Specimen Hermeneuticum de iis, quæ ab uno Marco sunt narrata, aut copiosius et explicatius, ab eo, quam a cæteris Evangelistes exposita. 8vo. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1811. 2 Pott's Sylloge Comment. vol. i. pp. 65-69. Michaelis, vol. iii. p. 214, 215. 3 Pritii, Introd. ad Lectionem Nov. Test. p. 179 Bishop Tomline's Elements of Christ. Theol. vol. i. p. 319. SECTION IV. ON THE GOSPEL BY SAINT LUKE. I. Author.-II. Genuineness and authenticity of Saint Luke's Gospel, particularly of the first two chapters and of chapter viii. 27-39.-III. Date, and where written.-IV. For whom written.-V. Occasion and scope of this Gospel.-VI. Synopsis of its contents - VII. Observations on this Gospel. I. CONCERNING this evangelist, we have but little certain information from what is recorded in the Scriptures, as well as from the circumstances related by the early Christian writers, the following particulars have been obtained. According to Eusebius, Saint Luke was a native of Antioch, by profession a physician, and for the most part a companion of the apostle Paul. The report, first announced by Nicephorus Callisti, a writer of the fourteenth century, that he was a painter, is now justly exploded, as being destitute of foundation, and countenanced by no antient writers. From his attending Saint Paul in his travels, and also from the testimony of some of the early fathers, Basnage, Fabricius, and Dr. Lardner have been led to conclude, that this evangelist was a Jew, and Origen, Epiphanius, and others have supposed that he was one of the seventy disciples; but this is contradicted by Luke's own declaration that he was not an eye-witness of our Saviour's actions. Michaelis is of opinion that he was a Gentile, on the authority of Saint Paul's expressions in Col. iv. 10, 11. 14. The most probable conjecture is that of Bolten, adopted by Kuinöel, viz. that Saint Luke was descended from Gentile parents, and in his youth had embraced Judaism, from which he was converted to Christianity. The Hebraic-Greek style of writing observable in his writings, and especially the accurate knowledge of the Jewish religion, rites, ceremonies, and usages, every where discernible both in his Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, sufficiently evince that their author was a Jew; while his intimate knowledge of the Greek language, displayed in the preface to his Gospel, which is composed in elegant Greek, and his Greek name Aouxas, evidently show that he was descended from Gentile parents. This conjecture is further supported by a passage in the Acts, and by another in the Epistle to the Colossians. In the former (Acts xxi. 27.) it is related that the Asiatic Jews stirred up the people, because Paul had introduced Gentiles into the temple, and in the following verse it is added, that they had before seen with him in the city, Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple. No mention is here made of Luke, though he was with the apostle. Compare Acts xxi. 15. 17., where Luke speaks of himself among the companions of Paul. Hence we infer that he was reckoned among the Jews, one of whom he might be accounted, if he had become a proselyte from Gentilism to the Jewish religion. In the Epistle to the Colossians (iv. 11. 14.), after Paul had written the salutations of Aristarchus, Marcus, and of Jesus surnamed Justus, he adds, "who are of the circumcision. These only," he continues, 66 are my fellow-workers (meaning those of the circumcision) unto the kingdom of God." Then in the fourteenth verse, he adds, "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, salute you." As the apostle in this passage opposes them to the Christians who had been converted from Judaism, it is evident that Luke was descended from Gentile parents. The first time that this evangelist is mentioned in the New Testament, is in his own history of the Acts of the Apostles. We there find him (Acts xvi. 10, 11.) with Saint Paul at Troas; thence he attended him to Jerusalem; continued with him in his troubles in Judæa; and sailed in the same ship with him, when he was sent a prisoner from Cæsarea to Rome, where he staid with him during his two years' confinement. As none of the antient fathers have mentioned his suffering martyrdom, it is probable that he died a natural death.1 II. The genuineness and authenticity of Saint Luke's Gospel, and of his history of the Acts of the Apostles, are confirmed by the unanimous testimonies of the antient writers. The Gospel is alluded to by the apostolical fathers, Barnabas,2 Clement of Rome,3 Hermas, and Polycarp.5 In the following century it is repeatedly cited by Justin Martyr, by the martyrs of Lyons, and by Irenæus. Tertullian, at the commencement of the third century, asserted against Marcion the genuineness and integrity of the copies of Saint Luke's Gospel, which were admitted to be canonical by himself and Christians in general, and for this he appealed to various apostolical churches. Origen,10 a few years after, mentions the Gospels in the order in which they are now generally received; the third of which, he says, "is that according to Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, published for the sake of the Gentile converts." These testimonies are confirmed by Eusebius, the Pseudo-Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, and a host of later writers; whose evidence, being collected by the accurate and laborious Dr. Lardner," it is not necessary here to state. Notwithstanding this unbroken chain of testimony to the genuineness and authenticity of Saint Luke's Gospel, an attempt has of late 1 Lardner's Supplement to his Credibility, chap. viii. Works, 8vo. vol. viii. pp. 105-107.; 4to. vol iii. pp. 187, 188. P. 285. 2 Lardner, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 15.; 4to. vol. i. 6 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 120. ; 4to. vol. i. p. 344. 7 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 150.; 4to. vol. i. p. 361. 8 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 159, 160.; 4to. vol. i. p. 366. 9 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 258. ; 4to. vol. i. p. 420. 10 Ibid. 8vo vol. ii. 466.; p. 4to. vol. i. P. 532. 11 Lardner 8vo. vol. viii. pp. 107–112.'; 4to. vol. iii. pp. 188—191. |