(2) Substantial Truth Tinder Circumstantial Variety. As the three evangelists mutually sup ply and explain each other, they were early joined to each other, by Tatian, about A. D. 17o, and by Ammonius, about A. D. 23o, and the ap parent discrepancies among them early led to at tempts to reconcile them. An essay of this kind was written by Augustine in his book De Con sensu Evangelistarum. Starting from the prin ciple of a verbal inspiration in the gospels, every difference in expressions and facts was consid ered as a proof that the speeches and facts had repeatedly occurred. This opinion is advanced for instance, in Andreas Ossiander's Harmonia Evangelislarum. The subject is, however, more freely handled by Calvin, Chemnitz, Kaiser, Ger hard, and others. in their respective works, De Har mania Evangelistarum. Gerhard's book, in three folio volumes, is one of the most comprehensive exegetical works on the four gospels. (See also Examination of the Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf, LL. D., late Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University.) Strauss has drawn his principal argument against the his torical character of thc gospels from these dis crepancies; but he is in the first instance wrong in supposing that the Evangelist had the intention of relating the particulars of events scrupulously in a chronological order ; nor is hc less wrong in seeing in every deviation a contradiction, and in thc attempts at reconciliation, productions of mcre dogmatic prejudice, while he is himself guilty of prejudice, by the very aversion he shows against every attcmpt at such reconciliation! When we consider that one and the same writer, namely, Luke, relates thc conversion of Paul (Acts ix:22, 26), with different incidental circum stances, after three various documents, though it would have been very easy for him to trave annulled the discrepancies, we cannot help being convinced that the evangelists attached but little weight to minute preciseness in the incidents, since, indeed, the historical truth of a narration consists less in them, in the relation of minute de tails, than in the corrcct conception of the char acter and spirit of the event. An exposition and
refutation of the most recent attacks against the truth of the Evangelical history on account of this discrepancy, may be seen in Tholuck's Glaub wardisrkeit der Evangelischen Gesclzichte; and in his Review of Strauss's Life of Christ in Liter arisclzer Anzeiger, 1838; also in Ebrard's IVissen schaftliche Kritik der Evangelischen Geschichte, 2 YOIS. 1842. This last work is a compendium of all critical investigations into the history con tained in thc gospels. (Lacrature: Fisher's Es says On the Supernatural Origin of Christianity, N. Y., 1866; N. C. Burt, Hours Among the Gos pels, Philadcl.; Tischendorf, Wolin ll'uerden unsere Evangelien verfasst? Leipz., Eng. trans. by Gagc, Boston; Row, The Historical Character of the Gospels tested by an Examination of their Contents, Journl. Sacred Lit. 1865-6; Warren, New Testament with Notes, Boston; Trench, Notes on the Parables, Aliracles, and Studies in tlze Gospels; Lange, Bibelwerk, Am. ed.; Nast's Commentary ; Cowper, Apocryphal Gospels ; Rush brooke, Synopticon, t88o ; A. Wright, A Synopsis of the Gospels in Greek, 1896; S. Davidson, In troduction to the Study of the New Testament, 2d ed. 1882, 3d ed. revised and improved, 1894; Sanday, Survey of the Synoptic Question,' arts. in the Expositor, 189r, inspiration, Lect. vi. 1893; Introductions to the Synoptic Gospels in Book by Book; A. J. Jolley, The Synoptic Problem for English Readers, 1893; Westcott, Prolegomena in Commentary on St. John, T881; Sanday, The Au thorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel, 1872; Watkins, Modern Criticisnz consid ered in its relation to the Fourth Gospel, 189o.)