Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

even that is not strictly the same. The character of the womanthe description of the host-the sayings uttered-the time-are all different." To this I reply that none of the differences alluded to by Mr Alford contradict the accounts in the other Gospels.

With regard to the time and place, Mr Alford admits that "the exact time and place are indeterminate;" but if so, no argument can be founded on the discrepancy. I suppose that Luke received an independent account of the transaction, with no date, and has introduced it as illustrative of the pharisaical want of charity of Simon, "one of the Pharisees," vii. 36, whose rejection of the counsel of God, and Christ's remarks thereupon, he had just narrated.

With regard to the character of the woman, we must not form our opinion altogether on the harsh judgment of a Pharisee. She was once a sinner, now she was a penitent-she had now chosen that good part which should not be taken away from her; but surely it does not follow that she had never been a sinner. No one doubts but that the account given by John of the unction relates to the same event as that narrated by Matthew and Mark, although even here there is a discrepancy as to date; now Luke's account agrees perfectly with his, in what was evidently the most striking feature in the scene-the intense emotion which led her to wipe his feet with her hair. This must have been a remarkable circumstance, for John makes use of it to designate Mary-"It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair," xi. 2. But compare this with Luke's account, vii. 38, where we are told that the woman "began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment."

Believing, therefore, that the events are the same, I can see a perfectly good reason for St Luke's omission, and look upon it as an additional proof that the events are the same, but given from independent sources.

In some cases, therefore, we can see reason for the omissions. I cannot help, however, thinking that one reason why St Luke did not include more of the Gospel of Matthew in his was, that it

was meant to a certain extent to be supplementary to it; that he meant to write a life of our Lord, which of itself would be sufficient to satisfy Theophilus of the certainty of the things wherein he had been instructed, but which, at the same time, would not render the labours of Matthew superfluous.

With regard to the differences in the arrangement of the order of the accounts of particular events, I would merely observe that there are several modes in which such accounts may be arranged. They may be arranged either according to the order of time, or of place, or of subject; such variations in arrangement we find in all historical accounts of the same events-and to this very obvious cause we may in many cases ascribe the differences of arrangement in the different Gospels. Take, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount. Luke, adopting the chronological order, specifies the particular occasions upon which this series of discourses was delivered; whilst Matthew's arrangement, according to the subject, does not require such a specification; and in omitting to notice the particular occasions of our Lord's addresses, he acts in accordance to the plan upon which he wrote his Gospel, of condensing the narrative, but giving very fully the words of our Lord. In order to understand why he did not think it necessary to specify each occasion on which they were spoken, we must figure to ourselves the local position of Capernaum. A fishing village, consisting either of a single row of houses or narrow street, situated close upon the margin of the Lake of Tiberias, with a mountain rising immediately behind,* affording no space for addressing an

* This account of the topographical position of Capernaum agrees with that of the place now called Tell Hum, which is generally supposed to be its site. Dr Robinson, in his Biblical researches, thinks it farther to the south of Khan Yah, grounding his opinion on a passage in the account of the visit of Arculfus to the Holy Land, which is given by Adamnanus, Abbot of Iona, in his "Liber de Locis Sanctis," (Mabillon, "Acta sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti," sæc. iii. pt. ii. p. 468.) When Arculfus visited the Holy Land, in the seventh century, Capernaum still retained its name. He describes it as extending for a considerable length from east to west, " on an extremely narrow space" on the margin of the lake, between a mountain on the north and the lake to the south, “angusto inter montem et stagnum coarctato spatio per illam maritimam oram longo tranmite protenditur, montem ab aquilonali plaga lacum vero ab australi habens, ab occasum in ortum." This description agrees with Tell Hum, but not with Khan Yah, which has the lake to the east.

assembled multitude except upon the mountain (rò őpos), or from a boat in the lake. To say, therefore, that our Lord went "up to the mountain" (avéen eis rò opos, Mat., v. 1; Luke, ix. 28), or "went out to the mountain" (égeλbéiv êis rò õpos, Luke, vi. 12), was equivalent to saying that he went to the usual place of addressing the people.

Now, nothing is more common than to record discourses delivered at different times in continuous order, without marking each particular occasion upon which the different portions of such addresses were delivered. I have at this moment lying before. me two works, one of which, Schleiermacher's Introduction to the New Testament, has no divisions of place or time, although originally delivered in a series of lectures. In the other, Niebuhr's Lectures on the History of Rome, there are lectures delivered in different years incorporated into one, the editor (Dr Schmitz) observing "This combination of two courses of lectures into one, though it does not always preserve the exact form and order in which Niebuhr related the history, yet does not contain a single word which was not actually uttered by him."-Vol. i. p. 5. I may add that, in the narrative of the ordinary course of events, strict chronological order is of much greater importance than it is in the case of miracles, which are not the necessary consequence of preceding events.

I shall now offer a few remarks on the objections, drawn from the positive evidence furnished by the evangelists, to the hypothesis that they made use of each other's writings. In doing so I again refer to the arguments of Mr Alford, the latest writer who maintains that none of the evangelists made use of the writings of their predecessors-a view which is also taken by Dr Davidson in his learned and elaborate Introduction to the New Testament. The question, as Mr Alford truly observes, "can only be solved by a careful examination of their (the Gospels') contents." He thus states the cases where the evangelists may be supposed to have made use of other Gospels:

"Either (a) they found those other Gospels insufficient, and were anxious to supply what was wanting; or (3) they believed them to be erroneous, and

purposed to correct what was inaccurate; or (y) they wished to adapt their contents to a different class of readers, incorporating at the same time whatever additional matter they possessed; or (8), receiving them as authentic, they borrowed from them such parts as they purposed to relate in common with them."*

The last two suppositions are so far true, but they do not meet the whole case. St Matthew wrote for the Jews-hence his constant allusions to Jewish Scriptures and the fulfilment of prophecy. St Luke wrote for Theophilus, who was not a Jew—hence he does not allude to them.

Mr Alford goes on to say, that

"Our supposition (8) is, that, receiving the Gospel or Gospels before them as authentic, the evangelists borrowed from them such parts as they purposed to narrate in common with them. But this does not represent the matter of fact. In no one case does any evangelist borrow from another any considerable part even of a single narrative; for such borrowing would imply verbal coincidence, unless in the case of Hebraistic idiom or other assignable peculiarity. It is inconceivable that one writer, borrowing from another in good faith and with approval, should alter his diction so capriciously as, on this hypothesis, we find the text of the parallel sections of our Gospels altered. Let the question be answered by ordinary considerations of probability, and let any passage common to the three evangelists be put to the test. The phenomena presented will be much as follows:-First, we shall have three, five, or more words identical; then as many wholly distinct; then two clauses or more expressed in the same words, but differing in order; then a clause contained in one or two, and not in the third; then several words identical; then a clause not wholly distinct, but apparently inconsistent; and so forth."+

In answer to these remarks, I would observe that Mr Alford has not exhausted the possibilities of the case. He has not met a case similar to the very common one of which the histories of Napier, Suchet, and Alison are an example. Yet there is not a single phenomenon adduced in proof that the evangelists made no use of the works of their predecessors, but what may be met with in these modern contemporary historians, in cases where we know that they did make use of the works of their predecessors. In the

* Proleg., p. 3.

+ Ib, p. 4.

first place, borrowing from another author does not necessarily infer verbal coincidence-because the language of the authors may be different; or even where it is the same, the one author may abridge the other, or improve his diction. There is, for instance, a much greater amount of verbal coincidence between Luke and Matthew than between Alison and Napier, yet who can doubt but that Alison made use of Napier "in good faith and with approval?"

The objections made by Dr Davidson to the supposition that any of the evangelists made use of the works of their predecessors, do not differ greatly from those of Mr Alford, and therefore do not require to be answered in detail. He states his objection to the hypothesis that Luke made use of the preceding Gospels thus

"The form of it which supposes Luke to have made use of Matthew and Mark cannot be adopted, till it can be shown that he has in all cases rectified the sequence where it is unchronological in them; that he has repeated things with improvements in the way of addition, explanation, or definiteness, or that he has uniformly refrained from repeating various particulars in the evangelical history, where there could be no visible rectification. We believe that it is impossible to prove any of these points, and are, therefore, constrained to admit that he wrote independently."-Vol. i. p. 396.

There is no question respecting the historical independence of St Luke, for it is no impeachment of his independence to suppose that he made use of the original writings of eyewitnesses, such as I consider the works of both the preceding evangelists to be; it is not to correct, but to avail himself of their writings, that St Luke makes use of them. Dr Davidson adds :

"We cannot, indeed, seriously persuade ourselves that any one who sits down with an unbiassed mind, and looks at the Gospels arranged in harmony, will embrace the hypothesis. Diversity in arrangement and matter, but especially in style, is so intermingled with correspondence, the discrepancies so interlace the agreements in every possible variety, that it is hard to believe the assumption that any one copied from another, or from two, or that he revised them, or that he intended to supplement them in a particular method. The individuality of each writer can scarcely be lost sight of, in the midst of

« ForrigeFortsæt »