Gospels

Gospels. The word gospel is the Anglo-Saxon godspell, the "story of (the life of) God "(i.e. Christ), or "good-spell," the equivalent of the Greek enangellion. The four Gospels were written during the latter half of the 1st century - those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke before the destruction of Jerusalem, and that of John towards the end of the century. A comparison of the four Gospels exhibits a broad difference between that of St. John and the three others. Matthew, Mark, and Luke give full accounts of our Lord's visits to Galilee, and as the view of His life presented by the three narratives is essentially the same, while the details recorded are sometimes different, they have been termed the Synoptic Gospels. If we did not possess the fourth Gospel we should not know that He kept the great festivals at Jerusalem. St. John, on the other hand, passes rapidly over His life in Galilee, recording only two incidents in His ministry there which are found in the other Gospels, but gives a full account of His teaching at Jerusalem. The reason probably is that, coming after the other evangelists, he thought it unnecessary to repeat what was already well known, especially as his book seems to have liad a doctrinal rather than an historical aim. The general similarity of the Synoptic Gospels is very striking. The very words used are often either exactly or very nearly the same. This occurs most frequentl}- when the words of another are reported, but in some of the most important narrative passages - as, for example, in that describing the Transfiguration - the verbal coincidence is very remarkable. To explain this agreement, in form and matter, various suppositions have been put forward, which impugn the authenticity of all or most of the narratives. Grotius, Mill, and others suggested that the first evangelist had been copied by the second, and both the first and the second by the third, and tried to find out which was the original Gospel. The notion of Eichhorn that they were all based on a certain common document does not at first sight seem so absurd; but in order to demonstrate his theory he found it necessary to assume four copies of this document, each of which was used by one or more of the evangelists. Bishop Marsh found that Eichhorn's theory could be maintained only by raising the number of documents to eight. There is no shadow of evidence that any such documents ever existed, and, assuming their existence, it is very remarkable they should all have disappeared. A more reasonable explanation has been put forward by Giessler and others. It is pointed out that as, in the course of their missionary labours, the apostles and the teachers appointed by them would often be called upon to repeat the same historical facts, a fixed form of narrative would gradually grow up, which would sooner or later be transmitted to writing. This would apply especially to the leading events in our Lord's life, such as the baptism and the crucifixion, with the events immediately preceding it, and it is just here that the verbal agreement is the most remarkable. The accounts of the resurrection, on the other hand, differ considerably both in their wording and in the details mentioned - a fact which may be explained by supposing that, as its truth was denied by the Jews (Matthew xxviii. 13-15), each evangelist would feel himself urged to bring forward new evidence in its support.

The theories of modern German critics concerning the composition of the Gospels are too numerous and conflicting to be dealt with in detail here. Many of them put the Gospels much later than the writers whose names they bear, and regard them as coloured by the views of one or other of the two schools - the Judaisers and the Pauline school - distinguished in Acts xv. and Galatians ii.

Of the fourth Gospel in particular the genuineness has been much attacked by Baur and the Tubingen school. But a reaction from the extremes of this school, especially in the last point, has been visible of late years.

The earliest versions of the Gospels now known to us are in Hellenistic Greek - i.e. a somewhat debased form of Greek spoken by the Eastern nations who had come under the influence of Greek civilisation. In the case of Mark, Luke, and John there can be no doubt that this was the original form, but it is stated by Papias, Irenaeus, and other Fathers that St. Matthew's Gospel was first written in Hebrew - i.e. in Aramaic, the dialect then spoken by the Jews. As Matthew's Gospel was primarily addressed to the Jews, so those of Mark and Luke were intended in the first instance for the Gentiles. An ancient tradition of the Church asserts that St. Mark's Gospel was written under the direction or influence of St. Peter, and this account is borne out by internal evidence.