GOSPEL (gOs'pel), (Anglo-Sax. Godshell--.God story', not 'good story'), the translation from Anglo Sax. times of eUrtyyeXtop in New Testament. In Homer, in the sing., and in Attic Gr., in the pl., it signified a reward or a thank-offering for good tidings. In later Greek (Plutarch, in the pl., Lucian, in the sing.) it signified also the good tid ings itself. In LXX, 2 Sam iv:ro, the Attic mean ing and the plural occur. (Hastings' Bib. Dict.) The central point of Christian preaching was the joyful intelligence that the Savior had come into the world (Matt. iv :23; Rom. x :15) ; and the first Christian preachers, who characterized their account of the person and mission of Christ by the term ehey-yeXtov, gosfiel, were themselves called evangelists (Eph. iv:17; Acts xxi.8). The former name was also prefixed to the written accounts of Christ.
Four Gospels. We possess four such ac counts; the first by Matthew, announcing the Redeemer as the promised King of the Kingdom of God; the second by Mark, declaring him 'a Prophet mighty in deed and work' (Luke xxiv: 19) ; the third by Luke, of whom it might be said that he represented Christ in the special character of the Savior of sinners (Luke vii :36 5o xv A-79, sq.); the fourth by John, who rep resents Christ' as the Son of God, in whom deity and humanity became one. The ancient church gave to Matthew the symbol of the lion, to Mark that of man, to Luke that of the ox, and to John that of the eagle; these were the four faces of the cherubim. The cloud in which the Lord re vealed himself was borne by the cherubim, and the four Evangelists were also the bearers of that glory of God which appeared in the form of man (1) Order and Chronology. Concerning the order which they occupy in the scriptures, the oldest Latin and Gothic Versions, as also the Codex Cantabrigiensis, place Matthew and John first, and after them Mark and Luke, while the other MSS. and old versions follow the order given to them in our Bible. As dogmatical rea sons render a different order more natural, there is much in favor of the opinion that their usual position arose from regard to the chronological dates of the respective composition of the four gospels: this is the opinion of Origen, Irentrits. and Ensebius. All ancient testimonies agree that Matthew was the earliest, and John the latest evangelist. The relation of the gospel of John to the other three gospels, and the relation of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke to each other, is very remarkable. With the exception of
the history of the Baptist, and that of Christ's pas sion and resurrection, tve find in John not only narratives of quite different events, but also dif ferent statements even in the above sections, the strongest of which is that relating to the cruci fixion of Christ, which—according to the first three gospels—took place on the first day of the Passover, while, to Judge from John xiii 29 ; xviii :28; xix :14, 3r, it would appear that it had taken place on the eve of the day on which the passover was to be eaten, but which was either not eaten at all by our Lord, or was anticipated by him by a day. On the other hand, the first three evangelists not only tolerably harmonize in the substance and order of the events they re late, but correspond even sentence by sentence in their separate narratives (comp. ex. gr. Mark i: 21-28 with Luke iv:31-37; Matt. yin:37-34; Mark vi :34 ,• :t7; Luke viii etc.) The thought that first suggests itself on considcring this sur prising harmony is, that they all had mutually dratvn their information from one another. Thus Grotius, ex. gr., is of opinion that Matthew was the oldest source, and that Mark drew his in formation both from Matthew and Luke; again, according to Biisching, Luke was the oldest, and Matthew made use of Luke and Mark; while most critics in Germany have adopted the view of Griesbach, that Matthew was the oldest, and was made use of by Luke, and that Mark derived his information both from Matthew and Luke. Following the suggestion of Rore, some of the most modern critics, such as Weisse, Wilke (in his work entitled Ur-evangelist, 7838), and Bauer, are, on the other hand, of opinion that Mark was the 6riginal evangelist, and that Matthew and Luke dtrived their information from him. The difference of these opinions leads to the suspicion that none of them are right, more especially when we consider that, notwithstanding the partial har mony of the three evangelists in the choice of their sentences, there is still a surprising differ ence in them as regards the words of those sen tences ; a fact which compelled the critics who suppose that the evangelists made use of each other's writings, to account everywhere for such deviations, and frequently to have recourse to the most trivial and pedantic arguments. To us these differences in word and phrase would appear inconceivable were we disposed to assume that the evangelists had copied from each other.