2. We are thus brought to consider Eichhorn's famous hypothesis of a so-called original Gospel, now lost. A brief written narrative of the life of Christ is supposed to have been in existence, and to have had additions made to it at different periods. Various copies of this original Gospel, with these additions, being extant in the time of the evan gelists, each of the evangelists is supposed to have used a different copy as the basis of his Gospel. In the hands of Bishop Marsh, who adopted and modified the hypothesis of Eichhorn. this original Gospel becomes a very complex thing. He sup posed that there was a Greek translation of the Aramman original Gospel, and various transcripts with alterations and additions. But when it is considered that all these suppositions are entirely gratuitous, that they are made only to meet the emergencies of the case as they arise, one cannot help feeling that thc licence of hypothesis is carried beyond just bounds. The grand objection to this original Gospel is the entire want of historical evi dence for its existence. If such an original Gospel ever had existed, it must have been of the very highest authority, and, instead of being tampered with, would have been carefully preserved in its origi nal form, or at least in its Greek translation. The alterations and additions supposed to have been made in it are not only inconsistent with its sacred and authoritative character as the original Gospel, but also with the habits of the Jews. Even if this hypothesis did adequately explain the phenomena presented in the first three Gospels, it is far too artificially contrived to be true ; but it fails of its aim. The original work, supposed to consist of the sections common to the three Gospels, cannot be made out ; and the individuality of character be longing to each of the evangelists is irreconcilable with the supposition that several different writers contributed materials. Notwithstanding the iden tity of subject among the three Gospels, each writer is distin,guished by his own characteristic style.
It is remarkable that Dr. Weiss of Konigsberg has quite recently (Stud. it. Hefte, i. iv., IS6i) propounded a theory of explanation very much akin to that of Marsh. Ile supposes that the first evangelist, the writer of Matthew's Gospel, as well as Luke, used a copy of Mark's Gospel, and, along with this, a second more ancient, per haps immediately apostolic written source, which Mark also had already made use of in the composi tion of his Gospel. In this way he thinks all the phenomena are simply and easily explained. He endeavours to establish his view by a detailed ex amination and comparison of the three Synoptic Gospels, and holds that these results of criticism are confirmed by the ancient tradition that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, whilst there is no trace of the Hebrew Gospel itself. The conclusion is, that the Hebrew Gospel of 11Iatthew must have been displaced at an early period by another containing its essential contents, but richer and more generally accessible in its Greek form. Hence the later Greek Gospel was held to be the work of Matthew the apostle, the more ancient Hebrew one having been really the apostle's work. This revival in the present day of what is substantially the hypo thesis of Eichhorn and Marsh is significant of the still unsettled state of the question.
3. That our prcscnt Gospels are to be traced mainly to the oral teaching of the apostles as their source, was the opinion of Herder and Gieseler, and more recently of De Wette, Guericke, Norton, Westcott, and others. They have correctly ap preliended (says De \Vette) the spirit of Christian antiquity who regard the ora; tradition of the Gos pel (the oral original Gospel) as the basis and source of all the Christian Gospels, and who endeavour to apprehend the history of the origin of the latter in a definite relation to the former' (Intrad. to N. T, sec. 87).
The Gospel was published orally before it wa.s committed to writing, and the preaching of the apostles must, from the nature of the case, have consisted chiefly of a narration of the facts recorded in our present Gospels. It is naturally supposed
that very soon a certain agreement or uniformity of narrative would be the result, and that we have a transcript, as it were, of this type or form of narra tive in the first three Gospels. The verbal coinci dences in the Gospels are found especially in those cases in which it might have been expected that the first preachers of the Gospel would be exact, namely, the recital of the words of Christ, and quotations from the O. T.
This account of the probable origin of the Gos pels is not only in accordance with the character of the period as an age of oral tradition rather than of writing, but is also substantially the same as that which Luke gives in the preface to his Gospel (Luke i. 1-4). While Luke refers to written accounts of the ministry of Christ in the possession of some Christians at that time, he mentions that these accounts were founded directly or indirectly upon the oral accounts of the apostles (KaBio' s iraplSoo-ay ()I dpxfis abrorrat kal inn/perm 7€3,641.evot X6-yov). The statement of Papias respecting the origin of Mark's Gospel is, that it was derived from the preaching of Peter, and we have already quoted the important testimony of Irenus to the same effect.
To prevent misapprehension, however, it ought to be observed that our written Gospels date from the latter half of the first century, and that, so long as the first witnesses survived, so long the tradition was confined within the bounds of their testimony ; when they passed away it was already fixed in writing' (Westcott, p. 192).
The theory of the oral origin of the Gospels, while it has much evidence in its favour, cannot be accepted as a complete solution of the problem. It does not explain the striking instances of verbal co incidence in the narrative portions common to the three synoptists, or to two of them ; nor the instances in which either two or all the three evan gelists agree with each other in their quotations from the Septuagint, and at the same time differ from the Septuagint itself (Matt. iii. 3 ; Mark i. 3 ; Luke iii. 4 ; compared with Is. xl. 3, LXX., and Matt. iv. ro; Luke iv. 8, compared with Dent. vi. 13, LXX.) De Wette would combine the two hypotheses of a common oral source, and of the influence through writing- of oue evangelist on another.'* There is a striking difference between the fourth Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels, in respect both to contents and form ; but with all this difference, there is a general and essential agreement. John relates in part the same things as the Synoptists, and in a similar manner, but not with like verbal agreement. The following are parallel The purification of the temple, ii. '3-22= Matt. xxi. r, ff.; the feeding of the multitude, vi. r-r5 = Matt. xiv. 13-21 ; the walking upon the sea, vi. 16-21= Matt. xiv. 22-36 ; the anointing, xii. r-S = Matt. xxvi. 6-13 ; the entry into Jerusalem, xii. 9-19 = Matt. xxi. -.1 ; the prediction of the denial of Peter, xiii. 36-38= Matt. xxvi. 33-35. In some of these instances the expressions are verbally parallel ; also in the following—xii. 25 Matt. x. 39 ; xiii. 20 = Matt. x. 4o ; xiv. 3r = Matt. xxvi. 46. There is a similarity between iv. 44 and Matt. xiii. 57 ; between xiii. 16 and Matt. x. 24, and Luke vi. 40 (De Wette, Exeget. Hana'b. vim N. Test.) On the other hand, however, much important matter has been omitted and much also added by John, whilst his manner of narration also differs from that of the Synoptists. In the first three Gospels, the scene of our Lord's ministry. is laid chiefly in Galilee, but in the fourth Gospel it is chiefly in juchea and Jerusalem. This may partly account for the different style of cur Lord's discourses in the Synoptic Gospels, as com pared with the Gospel of John (Hug, p. 433). In the former, Christ often makes use of parables and proverbial sayings ; in the latter, John records long and mystical discourses. Yet we find pro verbial maxims and parables also in John xii. 24 26 ; xiii. 16, 20 ; X. r, ff.; xv. r, ff.