SECTION II

the four gospels as primitive records of the life of Christ

The four Gospels, in the form in which we have them, may with perfect justice be pronounced to be credible historical and primitive records of the life of Jesus. They are literary representations presenting us with purely objective testimony; they are the products of a perfect, and therefore infinitely tranquil enthusiasm, in entire unison with the object which excited it. No secondary motive is found here to create a discord or awaken suspicion. Their form is the result of that entire surrender to the manifestations of the perfect image of God which was one with the most powerful subjective appropriation of the same. The purity with which they reflect, as instruments, the rich and glorious reality of the life of Christ, imparts to their moral aspect a nobility which must ever enhance their credibility. With princely magnanimity do they exhibit the essential, while they touch but very slightly upon the non-essential. They calculate upon receptive, like-minded readers, who can sympathize in their homage to what is heavenly and essential. Their very inaccuracies in non-essentials enhance the sublimity and trust-worthiness of their announcements. They seem to have been incapable of anticipating that critics might form their inaccuracies into a plea against the credibility of their evangelical testimony. Many a friend of the Gospel may have felt vexed that the Evangelists have not shown more lawyer-like exactness, for the sake of such observers as would take kings and emperors for beggars, if they met them in homely garments. But they themselves seem to have been, in this respect, very proud, or rather very free from care; and their carelessness may well be regarded as their noblest credential. They addressed themselves to the sincere minds of their fellow-believers, with a plain testimony according to their own views and most assured convictions, and delivered the treasure to them; on the other hand, they gave, by their sublime negligence and with a bold generosity, a portion also to that lawyer-like glance which is ever searching into statements to find erroneous views and contradictions. But how well does that portion of history which they describe as its central point fit in with universal history! This very fragment completes general history, clears up its obscurity, disentangles its intricacies, explains the curse resting on the world, and reveals its destiny. Thus these books are the most peculiar, the most universal of documents. They form also one-half of the New Testament, fitting into the other half like the severed halves of an apple. Christianity, moreover, recognises in them her primitive sacred records. By all these relations they are continually receiving fresh authentication, as well as by the relation in which they stand to each other.

With respect to this mutual relation, the manner in which they corroborate each other recalls the poet’s words:

‘Kennst du das Haus, auf Saülen ruht sein Dach.’¹

In our days an effort has been made to support the assumption that these four evangelic testimonies must of necessity cancel, or at least mutually weaken, each other. The contrary is, however, evident, viz., that by their mutual relations they attain the stability of an immovable edifice. For the relation between their discrepancies and accordances is so unique, that we are again and again forced to view them as four independent testimonies to one and the same thing; and, consequently, to each other. The wonderful nature of this connection, and its preservative effect, have not yet been sufficiently appreciated. It may be compared to the resisting force of a forest when maintaining itself against the storm. A tree standing alone is easily bent and broken by the wind, while a tree in the midst of a wood is kept upright by the common strength of the whole group. Thus do the four Gospels support each other in the sheltering neighbourhood of the other books of the Bible. Ordinary criticism offers the best proof of this fact. If a critic, for example, would attack the Gospel of St John, he tries to obtain help in this enterprise by acknowledging the authenticity of the three first Gospels. Thus, however, the Gospel of St John is but confirmed by means of its inward relation with the acknowledged books. At another time, the attack starts from the assumption that the Gospel of St John is the genuine record of the Gospel history, and the discrepancies between this and the synoptic Gospels are made grounds of suspicion against the latter. But even in this case, the effect of coincidence is too powerful: if St John is genuine, their matter is, in all essential points, authenticated. Again, St Matthew and St Luke are taken up, to the prejudice of St Mark. But the latter is so firmly rooted in matters common to all, that any peculiarity is but the greater proof of the independence of his testimony. If, on the contrary, St Mark’s is made the primitive Gospel at the expense of the other two, these each present peculiarities, and at the same time furnish complementary matter of sufficient importance to establish their respective originality, while by the matter which they have in common with St Mark, their authenticity is abundantly corroborated. These general remarks obtrude themselves on our notice when we contemplate the Gospels in their mutual relations as primitive records of the life of Jesus in presence of modern criticism. Criticism may try their authenticity, and in this way raise doubts requiring to be entered into in a thoroughly circumstantial and scientific manner; it may find a multitude of difficulties in separate passages, especially in the discrepancies between the Gospels; but when it tries to overthrow any one Gospel, as a whole, by means of another, it misconceives their strong and mysterious connection, and does but prepare its own defeat. The unity and conclusiveness of the Gospels are of so divine and intrinsic a nature, that all uncandid criticism must be discomfited in its misconception of this essential glory; while they are so human in their external form, and in their peculiarities, that they seem themselves to invite us to test their statements by the light of fair and candid criticism. Thus are they ready to answer all kinds of criticism; and their cause is so pure and sublime, that it can but gain by every fresh inquiry. Nay, it is their property to give birth to true criticism, and to condemn false criticism to the death it deserves.

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Notes

The four Gospels seem like a delicate web of truth stretched out to catch all unfair criticism. They entangle all such criticism in its own inconsistencies. Or we may compare them to a wondrous grove of trees forming an enchanted forest, in which the unclean spirit of profane criticism gets lost and entangled, and wanders about restless and perplexed, unable to find its way. This magic power is exercised by the four Gospels, because the single history of the life of the Lord Jesus, which they furnish, is presented under the different aspects of four widely differing and typically significant individual views. This fourfold reflection of the one light of the world, when viewed askance, presents a thousand dazzling reflected lights, completely confusing the vision, while a direct view of the four reflections shows but one light. In this respect it may be affirmed, that the mutual relation of the four Gospels more excites and evokes the criticism of the human mind than anything else, and at the same time becomes itself the criticism of all false criticism. Who would undertake to harmonize the results of modern criticism? A harmony which should seek to bring these critics into accordance with each other, would find a thousand times more difficulties than those harmonies which seek to reconcile the discrepancies between the several Gospels. The well-known lines, referring to the government of the celestial powers, may with a slight variation be applied to the four Gospels:-

‘Ihr führt die Kritik ins Leben ein,

Und lasst die Arme schuldig werden;

Dann überlasst ihr sie der Pein

Denn jede Schuld rächt sich auf Erden.’

1) Comp. Irenæus, c. Hæres., lib. iii. c. 11.