many places a very close verbal agreement, not one of those sections which in St Mark's Gospel occupy different places from those which they occupy in St Matthew's, exhibits a single instance of verbal agreement. Thus, beside sections v. and xi. there are not less than five successive sections in St Mark's Gospelnamely, sections xv. xvi. xvii. xviii. xix., throughout all of which there is not a single instance of verbal agreement in any one sentence, though in sect. xiv., which immediately precedes, and in sect. xx., which immediately follows, we meet with examples of verbal agreement-especially in sect. xiv., where there is a very remarkable one. The five sections, xv.-xix., include that portion of St Mark's Gospel which begins with ch. iv. 35, and ends with ch. vi. 29.”* It is always satisfactory to deal with particular examples instead of general statements. Bishop Marsh has cited seven sections of St Mark's Gospel (xiv.-xx.), but which, in fact, form but one passage of the Gospel-(chap. iv. 1 to vi. 44).

In this passage we find both verbal and translational agreements. Besides, Matthew, although in part of it he uses the original of Mark's Gospel, adds important matter of his own; and in other parts, such as the storm on the lake, his account is independent.

Mr Alford, in his valuable edition of the New Testament, in arguing against the supposition that the present text of our Gospels could have been derived from pre-existing documents, dwells upon the difficulties arising from "the more important discrepancies of insertion, omission, and arrangement." And as similar objections are urged by Dr Davidson, and other modern commentators, I shall examine each of these objections in detail.

I apprehend that there can be no difficulty respecting the insertions, which, according to my view, can only have been made by Matthew and Luke; but Matthew, himself an eyewitness, must, when he made use of the writings of other apostles, have from his own knowledge been able to add information which he thought of sufficient importance to be inserted in his narrative. St Luke, although not himself an eyewitness, had personal intercourse with those who were, and had "carefully investigated everything from the beginning,” “ παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς.”

Dissertation on the Origin of the Three First Gospels, p. 168.

The argument drawn from omissions cannot, from the nature of the case, receive so ready and satisfactory an answer as that from the insertions, simply because the data which would afford the desired information are in the former case generally wanting. As, however, it is much dwelt upon by those who do not admit that any of the evangelists made use of the writings of their predecessors, I feel called upon to give such an answer as the circumstances of the case appear to warrant.

In the first place, the argument is purely negative, and therefore never can outweigh positive proof. If I can point out passages word for word the same in the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke, and if I can show that Matthew wrote before Luke, I must infer that Luke made use of Matthew's Gospel; and it is no answer to say that there are many passages in Matthew not to be found in Luke. I may not be able to explain why Luke did not include them in his Gospel, but I do not admit that inexplicability is in itself a just cause of disbelief. Although, however, we cannot, in a case like the present, expect to be able to discover with certainty in every instance the motives which may have induced an author to have selected one portion of a pre-existing document and omitted another, yet I think there are cases in which we can. One class of omissions is easily accounted for-namely, autoptical details, naturally given in the account of an eyewitness writing with the first intention, but usually omitted by subsequent historians. Mark abounds in such details, which are left out by Matthew and Luke because they write historically.

Mr Alford has only cited one case of an omission, which, if St Luke had made use of pre-existing accounts, "must necessarily have formed a part of it" (his account). The passage in question relates to the unction of our Lord in the house of Simon.

To me it appears that the reason why Luke omitted mention. of the event here, is that he had already related it in a former part of his narrative (vii. 36). Mr Alford does not, indeed, think the events the same. He says, in his note on the passage, "The only particular in common to the two is the anointing itself; and

The character of the woman—

even that is not strictly the same. the 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.

No

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. 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.

very

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 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 opos), or from a boat in the lake. To say, therefore, that our Lord went "up to the mountain" (avégŋ eis tò opos, Mat., v. 1; Luke, ix. 28), or "went out to the mountain" (égeλbei is тò öpos, 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 (8) they believed them to be erroneous, and