was so ignorant of Latin, can we trust his translation? and what guarantee have we that he has not paraphrased and expanded the original? The force of these remarks is peculiarly felt in dealing with the paragraph which gives the date. The Pastor of Hermas was not well known to the Western Church, and it was not highly esteemed. It was regarded as inspired by the Eastern, and read in the Eastern Churches. We have seen, moreover, that it was extremely unlikely that Hermas was a real personage. It would be, therefore, far more probable that we have here an interpolation, or addition by a member of the Roman or African Church, probably by the translator, made expressly for the purpose of serving as proof that the Pastor of Hennas was not inspired. The paragraph itself bears unquestionable mark of tampering,"(1) &c. It would take us too far were we to discuss the various statements of the fragment as indications of date, and the matter is not of sufficient importance. It contains nothing involving an earlier date than the third century.
The facts of the case may be briefly summed up as follows, so far as our object is concerned. The third Synoptic is mentioned by a totally unknown writer, at an unknown, but certainly not early, date, in all probability during the third century, in a fragment which we possess in a very corrupt version very far from free from suspicion of interpolation in the precise part from which the early date is inferred. The Gospel is attributed to Luke, who was not one of the followers of Jesus, and of whom it is expressly said that "he himself had not seen the Lord in the flesh," but wrote "as he deemed best (ex opinione)," and followed his history as he was able (et
idem prout assequi potuit).(1) If the fragment of Muratori, therefore, even came within our limits as to date, its evidence would be of no value, for, instead of establishing the trustworthiness and absolute accuracy of the narrative of the third Synoptic, it distinctly tends to discredit it, inasmuch as it declares it to be the composition of one who undeniably was not an eye-witness of the miracles reported, but collected his materials, long after, as best he could.(2)
4.
We may now briefly sum up the results of our examination of the evidence for the synoptic Gospels. After having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any of those Gospels, with the exception of the third, during the first century and a half after the death of Jesus. Only once during the whole of that period do we find even a tradition that any of our Evangelists composed a Gospel at all, and that tradition, so far from favouring our Synoptics, is fatal to the claims of the first and second. Papias, about the middle of
1 The passage is freely rendered thus by Canon Westcott:
"The Gospel of St. Luke, it is then said, stands third in
order [in the Canon], having been written by 'Luke the
physician,' the companion of St. Paul, who, not being
himself an eye-witness, based his narrative on such
information as he could obtain, beginning from tho birth of
John." On the Canon, p. 187.
2 We do not propose, to consider the Ophites and Peratici,
obscure Gnostic sects towards the end of the second century.
There is no direct evidence regarding them, and the
testimony of writers in the third century, like Hippolytus,
is of no value for the Gospels.
the second century, on the occasion to which we refer, records that Matthew composed the Discourses of the Lord in the Hebrew tongue, a statement which totally excludes the claim of our Greek Gospel to apostolic origin. Mark, he said, wrote down from the casual preaching of Peter the sayings and doings of Jesus, but without orderly arrangement, as he was not himself a follower of the Master, and merely recorded what fell from the Apostle. This description, likewise, shows that our actual second Gospel could not, in its present form, have been the work of Mark. There is no other reference during the period to any writing of Matthew or Mark, and no mention at all of any work ascribed to Luke. The identification of Marcion's Gospel with our third Synoptic proves the existence of that work before A.D. 140, but no evidence is thus obtained either as to the author or the character of his work, but on the contrary the testimony of the great heresiarch is so far unfavourable to that Gospel, as it involves a charge against it, of being interpolated and debased by Jewish elements. The freedom with which Marcion expurgated and altered it clearly shows that he did not regard it either as a sacred or canonical work. Any argument for the mere existence of our Synoptics based upou their supposed rejection by heretical leaders and sects has the inevitable disadvantage, that the very testimony which would show their existence would oppose their authenticity. There is no evidence of their use by heretical leaders, however, and no direct reference to them by any writer, heretical or orthodox, whom we have examined. It is unnecessary to add that no reason whatever has been shown for accepting the testimony of these Gospels as sufficient to establish the reality of