Section I

various views of the origin of the four gospels

A definite historical tradition concerning the origin of the four Gospels is in existence, and has already been the subject of our discussion. This tradition explains the most essential peculiarities of the four Gospels; viz., that Matthew keeps so closely to the Hebrew national consciousness; that Mark is not so exact about the chronological sequence of his statements; that Luke has so much that is catholic, and consistent with the point of view of Gentile Christianity; and, lastly, that John furnishes us with so few of the circumstances communicated by the other three, because his intention was to supply what they had omitted.

The modern scientific consideration of the Gospels finds this tradition insufficient to explain the remarkable phenomenon exhibited by the relation of the four Gospels to each other, viz., that, on the one hand, they present a unity as complete as if they were but one work; and, on the other, as much diversity as if neither were aware of the existence of the other.

Various explanations have been given, especially in the work of Gieseler: Historisch-kritischer Versuch über die Entstehung und die frühesten Schicksale der schriftlichen Evangelien (p. 30, &c.).¹

The first attempt at explaining this phenomenon insists upon regarding one writing as the primitive Gospel, the matter of which is said to be the basis of each separate synoptical Gospel. Some have considered that this primitive basis was formed by the original Gospel of Matthew, others by the so-called Gospel of the Hebrews, and others again by an original Aramæan Gospel. Eichhorn considers that compilations from this primitive Gospel originated the three first Gospels. Such an origin of the Gospels is, however, so artificial and far-fetched, that it can scarcely be understood how it was possible that the critic could recognize such a monstrosity of compilation in the first models of the free and beautiful originality of the New Testament, the hideous mask of a literary corpse in these firstlings of a specifically new literary life.² The Gospels are equally regarded as still-born, compiled productions without originality, when either the Gospel of Matthew, or that of Mark, or that of Luke, is looked upon as the basis on which the others were formed. But this dead fabrication system has been applied not merely to the relation of the second and third Gospels to the supposed first, but also to the relation of the third to the supposed second. According to such suppositions, the second Evangelist made use of the work of the first, and the third of the works of the second and first, in compiling his own. Concerning the order, however, in which this paralytic authorship took place, as many hypotheses have been formed as the transposition of the names Matthew, Mark, and Luke would furnish; e.g., Matthew, Luke, Mark; Mark, Matthew, Luke, &c. This is the permutation system.³ To get at the secret by means of permutation, criticism has formed a kaleidoscope of all the existing possibilities, and then shaken this kaleidoscope again and again, thus producing every possible combination in this one lifeless kind of view. Operations of this kind might perhaps compete in rigidity, insipidity, and misconception of the living originality of the said writings, with any of the performances of a talmudic-rabbinical style of treatment. A more striking instance of the tendency to construct the fairest mystery of unity in variety, and variety in unity, the mystery of the most glorious vitality, not merely out of the deepest, but also out of the most pitiable kind of death, has seldom paraded itself in learned pomp before the world.

The view which attributes the separate or remaining Gospels to lesser evangelical writings or essays, representing single incidents in the life of Christ, or to memoirs, may be regarded as the corresponding vital counterpart to that dead assumption of a primitive Gospel which would degrade them into external compilations.⁴ Such a view entirely corresponds with the idea of the solemn remembrance in which this life was preserved. But the same difficulties to which the former hypothesis gave rise, are experienced when these memoirs are regarded as primitive records, which the Evangelists regarded and treated as diplomatically certain and authoritative, and not as assisting and completing the living and independent tradition of the Gospel.

Both assumptions agree in the one point of giving a written foundation to the synoptic Gospels, and are opposed to the view which accepts an oral Gospel tradition, as a new and different explanation of the phenomenon in question. Nothing is more certain, than that the Gospel facts must have been preserved in a most powerful tradition. The Christian Church at first found its daily edification, nay, its heaven, in this tradition. But the view of its development assumes, in the field of criticism, the character of regarding this tradition as the exclusive basis of the Gospels. It is in the maintenance of this exclusiveness that this view also becomes hypothesis, and betrays its hypothetical character by running into opposite extremes. On the one hand arises the view, that tradition was gradually formed into a verbally fixed, oral Gospel, and that it thus gradually assumed a liturgical character. Here then tradition appears in its highest form, as a crystallization.⁵ On the other hand appears the notion which represents Gospel tradition as the obscure stream of excited, heathenish popular imagination, which, carrying along with it a stratum of Gospel facts, or even of primitive fictions, deposited them as half or wholly ‘washed-down legends,’ like water-rolled pebbles against the dams of the written Gospels.⁶

The latest hypothesis, which regards the Gospels as productions of the Evangelists, whose minds are said to have expressed in naive fiction the consciousness of the Church, need only be mentioned for the sake of completeness.⁷

It cannot but be an enigma to subsequent ages, that in an age which prided itself upon highly esteeming what was original in subjective and individual life, it could ever have come to pass, that the origin of the Gospels should be regarded as an enigma-an obscure and difficult enigma. For it is owing to the very circumstance that the vital originality of the separate Gospels has been ignored in the most unworthy manner, that this difficulty has become so great and unsolvable. The actual factor was misconceived, through misconception of the peculiarity of the Evangelists; how, indeed, could it be possible to comprehend the mutual relation of the Gospels, when this was not duly estimated? It is true that the former doctrine of inspiration had laid the foundation of this depreciation of the personal in the Gospels. As the too high demands of a former harmony brought forth the rationalistic tendency, so did the former degradation of the Evangelists produce the whole series of views, which regarded them as mere mechanical transcribers. But her own poverty and helplessness carried criticism even farther than the results of this misconception prescribed. Even the factors granted were not treated in an historical manner, when it was supposed that the hypothesis of a written basis to the Gospels must overthrow the tradition-hypothesis; and, on the other hand, that the latter could not exist in the presence of the former. For want of transposition into the scene, and of submissively accepting the appearance of the gospel-spirit in the Gospels, they have been alternately regarded as the production of one or other of a series of pale spectral forms; and it has been insisted, that they originated in either literary compilation or a liturgical rhapsodical hymn, or the plastic formative presentiment, or finally the fixed idea of a species of poetry, which was said to have no consciousness of its artistic doings. Gospels formed in such a manner, would indeed have been far below that glowing, living, solemn remembrance which animated the apostolic Church and its Evangelists.

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Notes

Gieseler in his above-named work, p. 35, &c., dismisses the hypothesis which would make one Gospel the basis of the others in the following words: ‘Besides the absence of all historical grounds, these hypotheses may also be met in the following manner. (1.) It is not evident what motive could have induced the later Evangelist, if he were acquainted with the work of an able predecessor, instead of circulating the same, with the addition of a supplement if he thought it necessary, to have brought it out under his own name, after a very unimportant revision, at least with respect to its contents. (2.) In whatever order the Gospels may be arranged, there always remains in the earlier, much which the later have omitted; yet they could not have considered this incorrect, and it would be difficult to prove that just these passages were those that were unsuitable for all classes of readers. (3.) How contrary is the work of revision which must be accepted, to the spirit of an age which produced but few authors! Here the later Evangelist gives whole narratives and isolated sentences an entirely different position; he must therefore have turned over his predecessor’s work, selecting first from one place, then from another. In one place he begins by transcribing verbally, and then exchanges words and thoughts; at another time he omits thoughts; and finally changes expressions for their synonyms without alteration of thoughts. And yet, with all this affectation, these writings bear so distinct an impress of unassuming simplicity, that even their enemies recognize it. (4.) This hypothesis is especially refuted by the remark, that, let the order of the Evangelists be what it will, we are always forced to concede that, in many cases, the later Evangelist not only exchanges the clearer statement of his predecessor for a more defective and inaccurate one, but often apparently, though not actually, contradicts his authority, and that in a manner which must be intentional, since inaccuracy is insufficient to explain it.’

1) Lately also in the copious work of Ebrard, Gospel History, p. 21.

2) See Ebrard, p. 21. [See also a very thorough examination of this hypothesis by Andrews Norton, Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, vol. i, p. 60, and Note D.—Ep.

3) See Ebrard, p. 22; [or Marsh’s Michaelis, vol. iii.; Davidson's Introd., vol. i. 382 arid 387 ; Reuss, Geschichte d. h. Schriften, p. 164.—ED.]

4) To this belongs Schleiermacher’s view of the origin of Luke’s Gospel, founded on the preface thereto.

5) Compare Gieseler, Historisch-kritisch Versuch, &c., p. 53, &c. The notion of a stereotyped oral tradition was formed especially by Kaiser. Gieseler’s view is a more lively one. [Westcott very ably advocates a ‘ definite oral Gospel,’ which was gradually formed, not by popular tradition, but by apostolic preaching ; he does not, however, absolutely exclude the use of written documents, although inclining to do so. Norton (i. p. 284) maintains that ‘the oral narratives of the apostles were the common archetype’ of the Gospels. Davidson (i. 405 ff.) is of the same opinion, and does not al from Westcott even in the degree that the latter seems to imagine (p. 189).—ED.]

6) So Strauss. Weisse has appropriated the expression, washed-down legend, although he shows some repugnance to the washing river, the myth-forming tradition. See his Evangelische Geschichte, p. 7, &c.

7) See Kritik der evang. Geschichte, by Bruno Bauer.