Corporate bodies possess a power of handing down a traditionary knowledge of events in a far greater degree than individuals. The Christian Church consisted of a set of communities which had not only an individual, but also the strongest corporate life. Although it contained no priesthood, properly so called, the cohesion of these communities, placed as they were in the midst of a hostile population, in Jewish or Gentile [pg 485] cities, was of the strongest character, and in proportion to their smallness, the action of each individual member would be important. Each separate Church therefore formed a corporation as opposed to the Jewish and heathen world by which it was surrounded; and each separate unit felt himself animated by a similar life, which dictated to him the necessity of conquering or perishing. From this arose an intense desire of making new converts and of increasing the number of the faithful. How was this to be accomplished? An organization was necessary. Each of the communities had one which was suitable to its need. One of its most important functions must have been to instruct new converts in its principles, and to keep actively burning the zeal of its original members. But as the existence of the community was founded on an adhesion to a person, the course of instruction must have consisted to a considerable extent of details of the actions and teaching of Jesus. “How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard?” was a pertinent question of St. Paul, “or how shall they hear without a preacher?” No society has ever existed in the world which has had an equal inducement to hand down accurately the events of its founder's life, or had equal facilities for detecting any attempt to substitute a fictitious account of him for the true one.
It follows therefore that at the period in question it would have been simply impossible that a fictitious or legendary account of the life of Jesus should have taken the place of the one which these Churches had accepted at the time when they first came into existence. I have already proved that the Epistles of St. Paul put it beyond the possibility of question that an account of the chief facts in the ministry of Jesus formed the [pg 486] foundation of the religious life of the Churches at the time when he wrote them, and that it had done so from the first. The difficulty therefore of introducing an entirely new version of it must have been insurmountable. A doubtful fact or two might have become incorporated, but while the religious life of the community was thus strong, it would have been utterly impossible to give a new colouring to the whole.
But further: this difficulty must have been greatly increased by the wide separation of such Churches as those of Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Jerusalem, and others, from one another. Each Church must have had an account of its own of the chief facts of our Lord's ministry. If one of them could have been induced to accept a new set of facts, there would have been the greatest difficulty in persuading the others to follow its example. Daily experience teaches us how very slow religious bodies are in changing the fundamental articles of their belief. However much the sentiments of individuals may have changed, the original confessions of faith are retained with the utmost tenacity, even after they have ceased to embody the religious life of the community. What confessions of faith are to modern Churches, the chief facts of the ministry of our Lord must have been to the primitive one; the only difference being that these latter lived with a far greater tenacity in the minds of the early Christians than the former have in modern Churches. If therefore a single Church could have been induced to accept a new version of its Founder's life, the separation of these different communities from one another, would have placed an insuperable barrier in the way of imposing such an account on the other Churches. The inquiry must have at once arisen, Whence has this Church [pg 487] derived its new Gospel, thus fundamentally different from that which has from the first formed the basis of our religious life?
It is clear therefore that even if we accept the latest date which had been assigned to the publication of the Synoptic Gospels, their authors must have been in possession of abundance of materials for setting forth an account of the ministry of Jesus, which would have been correct in all its great outlines; and that even if they had been so minded it would have been impossible for them to have succeeded in palming off a previously unknown set of facts in place of those which had hitherto formed the groundwork of the life of the different Churches. We have seen also that when St. Paul wrote his Epistles, the different Churches were in possession of an outline of the ministry of Jesus Christ which contained within it, as a matter of the highest importance, the most remarkable miraculous fact which is recorded in the Gospels. Is it to be believed that this was the only one; or, is it possible that a set of miraculous narratives could have succeeded in taking the place of the account of His life and teaching which was in possession of the Churches, within the interval of time which separates St. Paul's Epistles from the publication of the first of the Synoptic Gospels?
I conclude, therefore, that the original narratives must have attributed a number of miracles to Jesus Christ; that the accounts of them must have been handed down to the time when our opponents allow that the Gospels were published, and that by this means they have been incorporated into them. Not only has the alleged late date of the publication of the Gospels been urged as a reason for discrediting them as reports of historical facts, but also the uncertainty of their [pg 488] authorship. It will not fall within the scope of this work to examine the value of the testimony by which each Gospel has been assigned to its respective author. It will be sufficient here to observe that it is as strong as that by which the authorship of any other ancient writing is ascertained. The internal character of two of these Gospels fully agrees with the traditionary account. Although the assertions of the early Fathers vary as to the precise relation in which Mark stood to Peter, the ancient traditions are unanimous in connecting him in some way or other with the Apostle. The phenomena of this Gospel are precisely such as we should expect if this was the case. In nearly every case where we can ascertain, either from this or from one of the other Gospels, that Peter was an eye-witness of an event recorded in it, St. Mark gives precisely such a description of it as we might expect would be given by a man of the peculiar temperament of Simon Peter. We know, both from the Acts of the Apostles and from the Epistles of St. Paul, that St. Luke was a companion of that Apostle. The peculiarities of the Gospel that bears his name are precisely such as we should have expected if its author was a companion of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. There is also every reason for believing that Luke was not an eye-witness of the ministry of Jesus. The author of the Gospel affirms that he was not an eye-witness. In conformity with this the Gospel bears the most distinctive marks of compilation. So far the internal structure of these two Gospels entirely agrees with the external testimony as to their authorship. We know also on the authority of the early Fathers that Matthew composed a Gospel in the Hebrew language which was designed for the use of Jewish Christians. Now whoever is the [pg 489] author of the present Greek Gospel which bears his name, it is distinguished by precisely the same characteristics as those which are described as appertaining to the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew, that is to say, that the proportion which the discourses bear to the narrative portions of it is very large; and its contents make it evident that it was chiefly designed for the use of Christians of the Jewish race. If therefore our present Gospel was not set forth by the Apostle himself in Greek, both the external testimony and the internal evidence prove that it is a representation of its contents sufficiently accurate for all the practical purposes of history.
But the question as to the names of the persons who actually set forth our Gospels has been made of far more importance than it deserves, both by the defenders and the opponents of Christianity. The all important point is, are they faithful accounts of the primitive traditions of the Church respecting the chief events of its Founder's ministry; and were they composed within that period of time, when the recollections of it must have been so fresh as to render it impossible to substitute a body of fictitious and legendary narratives in place of those which had been handed down in the Church from the beginning? Unless we know enough about an author from external sources of information, to enable us to form a definite opinion as to his judgment and means of information, our mere knowledge of his name will help us little. The information which ecclesiastical tradition affords us respecting the authors of the Synoptic Gospels is little beyond that which is contained in the New Testament itself, and is insufficient to enable us to form a judgment respecting their character. That judgment must be formed [pg 490] exclusively from the writings themselves, and can only be arrived at after a careful examination of their contents.
It will be urged that if our present Greek Matthew could be shown to have been the work of the Apostle, we should then have the testimony of an eye-witness of the ministry of Jesus; and if we have no certain evidence that it was composed by him, then none of the events recorded in the Synoptics rest on autoptic testimony. The truth of this position I entirely deny. The real question is, do the events recorded in them faithfully represent the traditions of the Church? Have we evidence that the traditions which were current when these Gospels were composed, are accurate representations of the accounts of the ministry of Jesus, which were handed down by our Lord's original disciples? If so, they must rest on autoptic testimony, as they could only have been derived from our Lord's companions. The mere knowing the name of one of them, unless we knew a great deal about his judgment and discretion, is of far less importance than the assurance that we are in possession of the general testimony of the entire body. Nor does it necessarily follow that any one follower of Jesus, even an Apostle, was in constant attendance on His person. We know from the Gospels themselves that this was not always the case. If such a person had narrated events which occurred during his absence, he must have been indebted for his knowledge of them to the testimony of others. If therefore the present Greek Matthew could be proved to be the work of the Apostle, still it by no means follows that he was an eye-witness of every one of the events recorded in it. If, however, it was set forth in its present form by some other hand, I fully admit that [pg 491] neither of the Synoptics was composed by an Apostle. But this is a wholly different point from the consideration whether they do or do not embody the testimony of the eye-witnesses of the ministry of Jesus Christ. This does not depend on our knowledge of the names of their respective authors, but whether we have good evidence that they faithfully embody the primitive apostolical traditions.
A careful perusal of the Synoptics will convince the reader that neither of them professes to embody a set of personal reminiscences. On the contrary, they bear the strongest indications of being a collection of apostolic traditions. Of this I shall offer distinctive proof in the next chapter. The only Gospel which embodies such personal reminiscences as indicate the authorship of an eye-witness is that of St. John. But the indications of the presence of an individual personality in St. Matthew's Gospel are almost entirely wanting. In its general structure it forms a striking contrast to that of John. Supposing it to have been composed by the Apostle, he has entirely hidden his individuality in his narrative.
The question, therefore, really turns on the conclusion at which we are able to arrive as to whether the Synoptic Gospels are faithful representations of the primitive apostolic traditions. I have proved that even at the latest date to which opponents assign their publication, they must have been written within the period when all the requisite materials existed for composing a substantially correct account of all the leading facts; that such a traditionary account was certainly handed down in the Church; that it formed the ground-work of its existence; that it must have been derived from apostolic men, who had ample means of knowing [pg 492] the facts; that the Church possessed the means of transmitting them accurately, such as were never possessed by any other Society; and that it was under the necessity of doing so as the condition of its life; and that while this account remained fresh in the recollections both of the community and of its individual members, it would have been impossible to foist on them a fictitious story. I shall now proceed to inquire how far the phenomena of the Gospels tend to establish these positions.