II. torical characters are merely symbols of the age in which they CHAP. live, ideal personifications, as it were, of the imagination, without any actual or personal existence. Thus the elder Herod (Weisse is speaking of the massacre of the innocents) is the symbol, the representation of worldly power. And so the tyrant of the Jews is sublimated into an allegory. Weisse, however, in his own sense, distinctly asserts the divinity of the religion and of our Lord himself. I mention this book for several reasons, first, because, although it is written in a tone of bold, and, with us it would seem, presumptuous speculation, and ends, in my opinion, in a kind of unsatisfactory mysticism, it contains much profound and extremely beautiful thought. Secondly, because in its system of interpretation it seems to me to bear a remarkable resemblance to that of Philo and the better part of the Alexandrian school, it is to the New Testament, what they were to the Old. Lastly, to show that the German mind itself has been startled by the conclusions, to which the stern and remorseless logic of Strauss has pushed on the historical criticism of rationalism; and that, even where there is no tendency to return to the old system of religious interpretation, there is not merely strong discontent with the new, but a manifest yearning for a loftier and more consistent harmony between the religion of the Gospels and true philosophy, than has yet been effected by any of the remarkable writers, who have attempted this reconciliation. CHAP. APPENDIX II. ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. THE question concerning the origin of the three first Gospels, both before and subsequent to the publication of Bishop Marsh's Michaelis, has assumed every possible form; and, it may be safely asserted, that no one victorious theory has gained any thing like a general assent among the learned. Every conceivable hypothesis has found its advocates; the priority of each of the Evangelists has been maintained with erudition and ingenuity; each has been considered the primary authority, which has been copied by the others. But the hypothesis of one or more common sources, from which all three derived their materials (the view supported with so much ingenuity and erudition by the Bishop of Peterborough), has in its turn shared the common fate. This inexhaustible question, though less actively agitated, still continues to occupy the attention of biblical critics in Germany. I cannot help suspecting, that the best solution of this intricate problem lies near the surface.* The incidents of the Saviour's life and death, the contents of the Gospels, necessarily formed a considerable part of the oral teaching, or, if not of the oral teaching, of oral communication, among the first propagators of Christianity.† These incidents would be * It would be difficult to point + I have considered the objections doubt in its primitive form a very few simple articles, would it not necessarily awaken curiosity as to the historic facts, and would not that curiosity demand, as it were, to be satisfied? The more belief warmed into piety, the more insatiably would it require, and the more would the teacher be disposed, to gratify this awakened interest and eagerness for information on every point that related to the Redeemer. The formal public teaching no doubt confined itself to the enforcement of the creed, and to combating Jewish or hea then objections, and confuting Judaism or idolatry. But in private intercourse, when the minds of both instructor or hearer were ex II. repeated and dwelt upon with different degrees of frequency CHAP. and perhaps distinctness, according to their relative importance. While, on the one hand, from the number of teachers, scattered at least through Palestine, and probably in many other parts of the Roman empire, many varieties of expression, much of that unintentional difference of colouring which every narrative receives by frequent repetition, would unavoidably arise; on the other, there would be a kind of sanctity attributed to the precise expressions of the apostles, if recollected, which would insure on many points a similarity, a perfect identity, of language. We cannot suppose but that these incidents and events in the life of Christ, these parables and doctrines delivered by himself, thus orally communicated in the course of public teaching and in private, received with such zealous avidity, treasured as of such inestimable importance, would be perpetually written down, if not as yet in continuous narratives, in numerous and accumulating fragments, by the Christian community, or some one or more distinguished members of it. They would record, as far as possible, the ipsissima verba of the primitive teacher, especially if an apostle or a personal follower of Jesus. But these records would still be liable to some inaccuracy, from misapprehension or infirmity of memory; and to some discrepancy, from the inevitable variations of language in oral instruction or communication frequently repeated, and that often by different teachers. Each community or church, each intelligent Christian would thus possess a more or less imperfect Gospel, which he would preserve with jealous care, and increase with zealous activity, till it should be superseded by some more regular and complete narrative, the authenticity and authority of which he might be disposed to admit. The evangelists who, like St. Luke, might determine to write in order, either to an individual like Theophilus, to some single church, or to the whole body of Christians, "those things which were most surely believed among them," would naturally have access to, would consult, and avail themselves of many of those private or more public collections. All the three, or any two, might find many coincidences of expression, (if indeed clusively full of these subjects, would not the development of the history, in more or less detail, be a necessary and unavoidable conse- CHAP. some expressions had not already become conventional and established, or even consecrated forms of language, with regard to certain incidents,) which they would transfer into their own narrative; on the other hand, incidents would be more or less fully developed, or be entirely omitted in some, while retained in others. Of all points on which discrepancies would be likely to arise, there would be none so variable as the chronological order and consecutive series of events. The primitive teacher, or communicator, of the history of the life and death of Jesus, would often follow a doctrinal rather than an historical connection; and this would, in many instances, be perpetuated by those who should endeavour to preserve in writing that precious information communicated to them by the preacher. Hence the discrepancies and variations in order and arrangement, more especially, as it may be said without irreverence, these rude and simple historians, looking more to religious impression than to historic precision, may have undervalued the importance of rigid chronological narrative. Thus, instead of one or two primary, either received or unauthoritative, sources of the Gospels, I should conceive that there would be many, almost as many as there were Christian communities, all in themselves imperfect, but contributing more or less to the more regular and complete narratives extant in our Gospels. The general necessity, particularly as the apostles and first followers were gradually withdrawn from the scene, would demand a more full and accurate narrative; and these confessedly imperfect collections would fall into disuse, directly that the want was supplied by regular gospels, composed by persons either considered as divinely commissioned, or at least as authoritative and trustworthy writers. The almost universal acceptance of these Gospels is the guarantee for their general conformity with these oral, traditional, and written records of the different communities, from which if they had greatly differed, they would probably have been rejected; while the same conformity sufficiently accounts for the greater or less fulness, the variation in the selection of incidents, the silence on some points, or the introduction of others, in one Gospel alone. Whether or not either of the evangelists saw the work of the other, they made constant use of the same or similar sources of information, not merely from the personal knowledge of the evangelists, but likewise from the general oral teaching and oral communications of the apostles and first preachers of Christianity, thus irregularly and incompletely, but honestly and faithfully, registered by the hearers. Under this view, for my own part, I seem rationally to avoid all embarrassment with the difficulties of the subject. I am not surprised at exact coincidences of thought or language, though followed by, or accompanied with, equally remarkable deviations and discrepancies. I perceive why one is brief and the other full; why one omits, while another details, minute circumstances. I can account for much apparent and some real discrepancy. I think that I discern, to my own satisfaction, sufficient cause for diversity in the collocation of different incidents: in short, admitting these simple principles, there flows a natural harmony from the whole, which blends. and re-unites all the apparent discords which appear to disturb the minds of others. There is one point which strikes me forcibly in all these minute and elaborate arguments, raised from every word and letter of the Gospels, which prevail throughout the whole of the modern German criticism. It is, that following out their rigid juridical examination, the most extreme rationalists are (unknowingly) influenced by the theory of the strict inspiration of the evangelists. Weisse himself has drawn very ably a distinction between juridical and historical truth, that is, the sort of legal truth which we should require in a court of justice, and that which we may expect from ordinary history. But in his own investigations he appears to me constantly to lose sight of this important distinction; no cross-examination in an English court of law was ever so severe as that to which every word and shade of expression in the evangelists is submitted. Now this may be just in those who admit a rigid verbal inspiration; but those who reject it, and consider the evangelists merely as ordinary historians, have no right to require more than ordinary historic accuracy. The evangelists were, either, I. Divinely inspired in their language and expressions as well as in the facts and doctrines which they relate. On this theory the inquirer may reasonably endeavour to harmonise discrepancies; but if he fails, he must submit in devout re CHAP. II. |