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On the other hand, there were motives to restrain their composition. The Coming of the Lord in glory, His Parousia, or, as we say, His Return, was expected soon to take place. The teaching of the Apostles, as that of Christ Himself, had been and still was entirely oral and by word-of-mouth. And in the third place, Christians already had a Bible, which they shared with their Jewish compatriots and opponents, the sacred book of the Old Testament of course, they did not call it "Old.” And in this Book itself Christ was to be found, in type and figure and prophecy.

Hence we must suppose that the period of written records began early in the history of Christianity: but not too early, probably not much before the lapse of a generation following the Resurrection. St. Luke apparently refers to the "many" who had undertaken to draw up comprehensive narratives of the Life of our Lord as contemporaries. He is writing (1:1) at a time when the movement to produce what we call the "Gospels" is in full swing, and he undertakes his work in the interests of accuracy. But long before his time, the records of the "witnesses" had been no doubt put into some literary form, brief narratives, notes jotted down by hearers of the Apostles, and so on; these were the materials which later writers, like St. Luke, made use of in their larger works.

The first writings were no doubt brief collections of the "sayings and doings" of Jesus (Acts 1:1), such as would represent the current oral instruction of converts to Christianity. These were no doubt numerous, as St. Luke implies (Lk. 1:1, again), and varied both in extent and in character. Some would represent the group of incidents or of teachings reported (and repeated in catechetical instruction, if such existed) by one Apostle, some those by another Apostle. Local memories or "traditions"-the term is fair to use even in connection with this early date-would contribute something. Copies would be made and circulated. And as in the case of all manuscript literature, certain "types" of narrative would appear and predominate: just as in the case (to a lesser degree though on a

wider scale) of the manuscripts of the later New Testament, even after both the Canon and the text began to take a fairly definite shape. That is, copies would be more commonly made from those writings which embodied a larger number of parables, or a more complete picture of our Lord's activity, or-to imagine a probable case-those to which a narrative of the events of the Passion had been added. Again, the influence of what we can hardly call anything else than "ecclesiastical authority" would affect the destinies of certain of these writings: I am still speaking of the period before our present Gospels were written. For the Apostles themselves, those still surviving and living in the ecclesiastical centers (Jerusalem, Antioch, the cities of Asia Minor), would most certainly be judges of what purported to be narratives of Jesus' life and reports of His teaching. We cannot imagine any other situation than one in which their testimony (Acts 1:21-22) and their authority would be the court of appeal. Naturally, writings which had received the approval of an Apostle, or represented his own oral "testimony," would take precedence over others. We are loath to ascribe the exercise of an "imprimatur" to the Apostles; but that this is what it amounted to, practically, is almost indisputable. The primary function of the Apostolate, as represented in the New Testament, together with such data as we possess relative to the origin of our actual Gospels (see Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, etc.), points unquestionably in this direction.

Among these numerous writings, to which St. Luke refers in his prologue, two in particular attained widespread recognition, each representing the "testimony" of an Apostle, an "eyewitness and minister of the Word." (We are now entering the period, say from the year 60 on, in which our first three Gospels were written.) One was the collection of Sayings of the Lord which, by every probability, goes back to St. Matthew the Apostle. The other was the narrative of His Ministry, Passion and Resurrection which was written by St. Mark, but based upon the teaching and reminiscences of St. Peter. The

former was a brief document, less than a fifth the length of our Gospel according to St. Matthew, and embracing the teaching now known as "the Sermon on the Mount," certain of the parables of our Lord, the Message of John the Baptist, the directions given before the Mission of the Disciples, the woes pronounced upon the Pharisees, etc. In all probability, as I have just said, this was either written by St. Matthew the Apostle, or directly represents his own personal reproduction of the Lord's teaching. Its date is anywhere between the years 35 and 60, perhaps somewhere in the 40s, though we have no means of ascertaining its date, any more than its precise extent, or its exact wording. Quite possibly-indeed, probably-it was written in Aramaic, the Apostle's native tongue, and that which our Lord had used; but it was soon translated into Greek, in which form it was used by St. Luke and the author of our first Gospel. For back of the Greek, in many instances, Aramaic scholars are able to recognize traces of that language, its idiom and peculiar constructions. That St. Luke and the author of our "Matthew" used the same Greek translation is almost proved by the identities in language which exist in their common passages (outside St. Mark, which they also use).

The other document, reproducing the reminiscences of St. Peter, was to all intents and purposes the equivalent of our present Gospel of Mark. It is a narrative, to the exclusion of almost all of Jesus' teaching, though mention is constantly made of this activity on His part. And it is a narrative designed for extra-ecclesiastical reading. Matthew's collection of Sayings was undoubtedly intended for use within the Church, for instructing converts and for "edification": it set forth "the Way" in definite terms, and as distinct from "orthodox" Judaism, and it embodied the Christian hope (the Parousia, and the Kingdom of Heaven) as announced in Jesus' teaching. St. Mark's work, as well as that of the author of "Matthew," is quasi-apologetic, having in mind the objections of contemners or inquirers on the outside, particularly Jews and Jewish proselytes in one case, and Gentiles in the other. St. Luke's Gospel,

while patently addressed to one already "instructed" in the Christian teaching, is the most historical of all the early evangelic writings in spirit, in aim, and in effect-a book suitable alike for readers within and without the Ecclesia. The Gospel according to St. John is later, and comes under a still different category, as not only apologetic in purpose (see 20: 31), but also as "the theological Gospel."

Papias of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, who lived early in the second century, records (Eusebius' Church History, III:39:15) that Mark wrote down what knowledge of our Lord's life he derived from the preaching of St. Peter. The character of the book bears out this hint of its origin. It is a hurried, obviously not exhaustive (not exhaustive even of contemporary and easily available tradition) sketch or outline of the chief events in Jesus' Ministry, Passion and Resurrection. It was designed to prove that our Lord was Messiah, and was recognized as Messiah, even in His earthly life. It was not that He became Messiah by the Resurrection, or even that He was "set forth" as Messiah, designated and proved as such, by the Resurrection. Rather, His Ministry on earth was already Messianic in character, and was recognized as such-not only by His Apostles, but by the spirits which He exercised, by the centurion at the Cross, by the boatmen on Galilee, by the restored demoniacs, by the enthusiastic multitudes, by all save the religious authorities of the day and His fellow-townsmen in Nazareth, who labored under the heavy judgment of spiritual blindness and deafness (4:12). On two great occasions, His Baptism, and the Transfiguration, the Voice of the Father Himself had been heard proclaiming the Messiahship of the Lord. It was this corrective, and apologetic, motive which lay back of St. Mark's Gospel: and it is no hazardous guess that the motive goes back farther still, to the Apostle whose "testimony" it preserves.

I have already remarked that these two documents, Matthew's Collection of Sayings, and the Gospel according to Mark, became predominant. The evidence for this, though not suf

ficient to exclude the possibility of other documents similar in nature and authority having existed at that time (c. 60-70 A.D.), is extremely strong and decisive. For the two Gospels of "Matthew" (our later "Gospel of Matthew") and Luke, so very dissimilar as they are in character and purpose, have both taken these two older documents and, each in his own way, incorporated them in their writings. Their fidelity to the text and even the order of Mark is almost inexplicable unless its acceptance in the Church of their day was widespread and, practically, universal. And back of this widespread acceptance there can be nothing less than Apostolic approval (the book agreeing with the consentient "witness" of the Twelve); very likely, it is something more-the direct and authoritative testimony of one articular Apostle, St. Peter. And even greater is their fidelity to the Collection of Sayings. Not, indeed, its order: for this made no pretense of chronological exactness; but its text, which for paragraph after paragraph is found in almost identical verbal form in these two Gospels. Once more, the predominance of this writing over others of the sort is attributable to but one sufficient cause: its Apostolic origin.

This was the stage, then, which had been reached in the development of the Gospel literature when our present first Gospel was written.

II.

There is little doubt that the book was written after the Fall of Jerusalem. The words of ch. 22:7 prove this almost conclusively: "But the king was wroth; and he sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city." This could scarcely have been written before the catastrophe in 70 A. D. Other indications in the Gospel confirm this, as, e. g., the considerable development of ecclesiastical institutions, the long-completed breach with Judaism (i. e., the "orthodox," non-Christian Judaism), the use made of the Gospel of Mark, already accepted in the Church, and the seriousness of the question as

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