GOSPEL AND GOSPELS.
The Gospels a Single Literature (§ 1).
The Gospels a Prophetic Response (§ 2).
Applied to Corporate Needs (§ 3).
Causes of the Rise of the Gospels (§ 4).
Papias and the "Logia" (§ 5).
The Missionary Stimulus (§ 6).
Mark's Gospel (§ 7).
Luke's Gospel (§ 8).
Matthew's Gospel (§ 9).
Gospel According to the Hebrews (§ 10).
Background of Fourth Gospel (§ 11).
Character of Fourth Gospel (§ 12).
Authorship, Date, and Place of Fourth Gospel (§ 13).
Conclusion (§ 14).
1. The Gospels a Single Literature.
The Gospels are something more than individual
books and can not be treated adequately as independent literary units. The Synoptic problem is
the result of a unique literary situation. It straightway
suggests a set of conditions which must be
made the background for the study of the individual Gospels. Even the Fourth Gospel, great as are its differences from
the Synoptists, has none the less certain fundamental qualities in common
with them. It is necessary, then, to
treat the Gospels as a group of books organically
related, and this on two main grounds. First, from
the literary side. In the field of comparative literature the Synoptists are unique. They must be
treated, not only as single books found within the
canon of the Scriptures, but as together constituting a single book. There is no great literature
where the common life behind the books is more
necessary to their understanding. The second
ground is from the side of introduction. The very
existence of the Synoptic problem indicates an extraordinary literary method underlying them. The
closest parallel is the Pentateuchal problem. But
even this parallel is not wholly sufficient. In the
Pentateuch are found literary strata; the Synop-
tics are books that have distinct individualities while they are
indissolubly connected. They are three, yet one. The more intimate
our knowledge, the more compelling becomes the problem, and the
less
easy of solution certain elements in it. To make the outstanding
facts more certain, to put the unsolved questions in the best light,
the Gospels must be treated as a single literature.
2. The Gospels a Prophetic Response
To the student reasonably acquainted with literature as a whole, the
Synoptics suggest a kind of authorship deeply differing from that now
prevailing. They possess a remarkable impersonality; the
author
hardly appears. Even the Fourth Gospel, though it is extremely
self-conscious, is nevertheless anonymous and the individual author
seems to count for very little. The Gospels require for their
explanation an authorship which is in some sense corporate. The
deepest element for the understanding of their peculiar genius is
found in the fact that they are the literary products of a prophetic
community. St. Peter preaching on Joel
(Acts ii.)
introduces the
situation. Our Lord has founded a society in which prophetic power
inheres as an intrinsic quality. The new prophetism differs from
that of the old dispensation in that prophetic inspiration no longer
belongs to certain gifted individuals, but to the entire community
(cf. Paul in
I Cor. xii. and xiv.).
The literary history of a
community is, therefore, the object of study. To use a distinction
drawn by literary critics, the literary study of the Gospels
is not
the history of a literature, but a literary history of a great
community which uses certain individuals as its instruments. The
closest literary parallel is the Periclean age. Greater than the
individual Athenians who wrote the classic books is the great
Athenian community, the polis or Church-State, whose
extraordinary civic and corporate qualities made the individual
genius possible. Bu the parallel is imperfect; the individual author
is full-grown in Athens, he hardly exists in the field of the
Gospels. Corporate consciousness and the corporate mood are
all-controlling. An indication of this state of things is found in
the title of the Gospels. They are entitled the Gospel according to
Mark, etc. The meaning of kata is in part identical with the
same prepositions in the editions of Homer put forth by famous
editors. But there is more at stake. The kata carries the
mind back from the second century into the prophetic age, when the
Gospel was a corporate mood and a corporate message and the
book-gospel of the second century was not thought of.
3. Applied to Corporate Needs
Here is found the explanation of the style of the Gospels, their
noble and sustained simplicity, and their extraordinary adaptability
for translation. While their style is molded by the Old Testament
and by the Aramaic language and mind, the soul of it is the genius of
a supreme community. The Gospels are, like Homer, the creations of
an age, and of conditions where the bookish habits of our time were
wholly lacking. The Homeric singer was one with his audience, and
the poem was lived before it was written. So with the Gospels.
The individual author was one with his audience, and the Gospel was
lived before it was written. Hence, also, the relations between the
Gospels. One of the solid results of criticism is the conclusion that
the text of the Gospels took fixed form slowly and that, while it was
fixing itself, it was played upon by the unwritten Gospel. This is
the truth within the abandoned theory of an oral Gospel. In its
original form this theory has become impossible, for the reason that
a text formed by the natural memory, without the help of books,
resists change far more successfully than a written text. The text
of the Gospels, while forming, was for a long time plastic, and the
living memories of a prophetic age which was far larger than its
literature played upon the text and molded it. A corporate mood
controlled the Gospels; consequently, in one sense they have a
corporate author. Put in another way, this means that the Gospels
constitute a literature which in its origins and in the forces and
motives leading to publication closely resembles law. Law, in its
deeper moments, is free from academic processes and motives. The
literary individual plays an exceedingly small part. Law is the
expression of the community's needs, hence it travels no faster than
it is driven. But the literary individual is more or less detached
from corporate needs. He writes for the pleasure of expression, and
seeks a systematic theory for his own mental satisfaction. But law
is forced into expression and publication by the needs of the
corporate life. Similarly the Gospels, in a very real sense, were
published as law is published. They were built up with and shaped
within the Apostolic Church.
4. Causes of the Rise of the Gospels.
There are two main conditions for the rise of the Gospels. First,
the Christian Church from the first day had a Bible under its
hand—it inherited the Hebrew Scriptures. Second, it was a
prophetic
community, inspired with creative hope and moral passion, and,
consequently, the process of gospel-building was entirely free. The
need of new Scriptures was not consciously felt. The law of the new
community was the Old Testament plus the Savior's words, the Logia of
Jesus the Messias
(Acts vii. 38,
logia zonta). As late as I.
Clement (90-95 A.D.?) this situation continues. The eschatologic
passion which dominated the Apostolic Age—the intense and vivid
belief in the speedy return of the Savior (see Millenarianism,
Millennium), and in the triumph of his community—hindered the growth
of the Gospels. But this passion was chastened by the knowledge of
the Christ of history and sobered by the growing governmental
responsibilities of the Church. It may be supposed that small and
imperfect collections of the saving words appeared at a fairly early
date. The Jewish-Christian community, as it began to come under
strain, had to prove its right to exist. It was inevitable that it
should do this by the argument from Prophecy, by searching the
Scriptures
(John v. 39;
Acts xvii. 2-3, 11),
by proving that the life
of Jesus tallied with the Messianic oracles of the Old Testament. It
was equally
inevitable that, in order to know its own mind so far as that
mind contained anything that transcended Judaism, the Jewish-Christian community must study
the mind of Jesus. Hence the tendency to assemble the saving words was instinctive.
5. Papias and the "Logia."
This is the situation that explains the first published Gospel. Up to a short time ago this Gospel
was confidently called the Logia, the name being
taken from Papias' account of Matthew's work.
So many difficulties have besieged this fragment
and the utterances of Papias are so
confused that in the last few years an
increasing number of scholars have
either put it to one side or cashiered
it. In place of the "Logia" they
would put "Q" (Quelle, "source"). They assume,
what must be conceded, that the Agrapha or extracanonical sayings of Jesus can not materially
help and that the only other Gospel which might
have helped (the Gospel according to the Hebrews)
has practically perished. So, the interpreter of the
origin and relations of the Gospels is shut up to the
Gospels as they are. Hence as a measurable quantity the investigator must seek the literary source
(Q) of that text of the saving words which underlies our Synoptists. But Papias can not yet be
wholly abandoned: the best possible must be made
of his statement. It may be supposed that Matthew assembled and published a collection of the
saving words. This edition of the Logia may have
had a slight thread of narrative in it, but the narrative could not have been primary. The motive
was to state the law of the new life and hope as
Jewish Christians sought to live it. This could be
done only by making clear to Christians the mind
of Jesus. The cause of publication is utterly unlike that given by the Fathers, namely that St.
Matthew was about to leave the Holy Land (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III., xxiv. 6). The true explanation
has already been given. The new community publishes its law, the ground and obligation of its corporate existence and aim. The place of publication, if any credit is due to Papias, must have been
Jerusalem. The causes and motives of gospel-building were necessarily strongest and clearest at
the center of Christian life. The congregation of
Jerusalem was the mother church of the new religion. Matthew, by assembling and publishing
the Logia, gave to that great congregation a deeper
understanding of itself and a clearer conception of
its calling. The date of publication can not be determined. But it may well have been between the
death of James (62?) and the flight of the church
of Jerusalem to Pella (67?).
6. The Missionary Stimulus.
But the strongest motives for gospel-building
were found not inside, but outside Palestine. The
converts from Judaism were, in terms of religion,
rich before they came to Christ
(Rom. ix. 4-5).
The converts from heathendom, on the contrary,
being polytheists, were paupers
(I Cor. xii. 2;
Eph. ii. 11).
Jewish Christians inheriting
a complete equipment of religion and
discipline, came slowly into the conscious recognition of governmental
needs. Gentile Christians were outposts of Christ, besieged by a vast heathen world.
As a result, Gentile Christianity very soon felt a
compelling need for clear knowledge of the Savior
(Luke i. 4).
The period when the Gospels appeared
is a distinct epoch in the history of the Church
(68?-95?). The Christian communities were rapidly becoming self-conscious; Judaism pressed
upon them from the one side, from the other the
Roman empire. The persecutions under Nero and
under Domitian forced them into close coherence.
The Christian community, under pressure, needed
to know the reason for its being. A clear and continuous view of Christ became a necessity. The
publication of the Gospels corresponds in part to
that need in the life of nations which leads to the
writing of histories and still more closely to those
crises in the existence of great communities which
bring about the publication and codification of law.
7. Mark's Gospel.
Mark begins the series. The priority of Mark is
a strong probability. The evidence is not merely
the lively coloring which is said to indicate the eye
witness. That might be otherwise explained, e.g.,
as due to the temperament and ability of the reporter. Nor is the primary evidence found in
Mark's possession of inside knowledge, which might
in fact be secondary. The primary evidence is
found, first in the literary relationship
between the Synoptics. Practically
the entire text of Mark is found in
Matthew and Luke. The theory
broached long ago by Augustine that Mark is an
epitomator becomes, in the light of the mental and
literary conditions of the Apostolic Age, a sheer impossibility. The only alternative seems to be the
use of Mark by Luke and Matthew. Secondly, the
primary evidence is found in the way the story fits
into the times and in its contrast at this point with
Matthew and Luke. Mark gives the picture of
Christ in his time and place. Jesus' primary
question is his relation to the popular Messianism
of Galilee. He is the Messiah, yet he avoids Messianic titles. At a very early day he adopts a policy of silence regarding his claims
(Mark i. 34),
and
consistently pursues it to its end. His primary relations are with the crowd. He walks across Palestine a man of his time in the fullest sense of the
word, whereas in Matthew and Luke other and later
motives come into the portrait. The literary and
historical arguments together give a very strong
probability of priority. The story of Mark is characterized by fine narrative qualities. The story
is not delayed by the massing of Logia as in Matthew, nor is its continuity ever threatened as in
Luke by detailed accounts of Jesus' relations with
all sorts and conditions of people. The story goes
steadily forward and is a narrative of noble simplicity and movement befitting its supreme object.
There is no reason for doubting the tradition that
it was published in Rome. Mark satisfied the Gentile Christians' craving for an enkindling story of
the Savior's life. It was probably published in the
years immediately following the Neronian persecution (66-68?). As with the Logia, so with Mark,
its publication was in close connection with the intense life of a great congregation. To the Roman
Church, as to the Church of Jerusalem, pressure and
persecution had given superior coherence and deepened its conscious needs. In the Gospel of Mark it
found a reason for its existence and a ground for its
motives and aims.
8. Luke's Gospel
Luke opens with a prologue of large interest and
value. The dedication to Theophilus clearly indicates that the writer is an educated Gentile; the
style of it is thoroughly Greek, the
sentence being highly articulated and
rhetorically developed (contrast the
Aramaic type of sentence in the other
Gospels). The writer knows of other attempts to
write the life of Christ and they do not content him.
He tells his readers that he has gone to first sources
and consulted the eye-witnesses. In every way he
bears himself as an educated Gentile, consciously
devoting himself in a literary way to the historian's
task. Yet he is not an apologete (contrast Matthew). He betrays no dogmatic motive. Hence
he exercises far less control than Matthew over the
materials. Coming from the Greek world into Palestine, he cares little for local coloring. While he
is careful to make connections with the chronology
of the Empire
(iii. 1),
he is careless of the connections in the Savior's life, following Mark less carefully than does Matthew. Like Mark, his Gospel
is, in the best sense, unconstrained, neglecting what
it does not need. Thus Jesus' relations to popular
Messianism are neglected or casually treated. The
"Herodians," more than once in evidence in Mark
(Mark iii. 6, xii. 13),
are not in evidence. The Savior's policy of silence is not consistently developed.
Luke's Gospel was for a long time called Pauline, a
term which does not do justice to its breadth. His
mind is controlled by forces deeper than a conscious
Paulinism. He represents the emotional needs of
the Gentile churches recruited for the most part
among the lower classes and the socially disinherited. The Savior, in Luke's story, is in saving
touch with women and with the folk outside the
pale of rigorous Judaism. Luke's sources seem to
be Mark, the Logia, and springs of tradition still flowing among the Jewish Christians of Palestine. There
are distinct veinings in his Gospel (Jesus' dealings
with women,
vii. 37 sqq.,
viii. 2-3,
19 sqq.,
43 sqq.,
x. 38 sqq.,
xi. 27,
xxiii. 49-55,
xxiv. 22 sqq.; a leaning toward Ebionism,
vi. 20,
xiv.13-21,
xvi. 20 sqq.,
xxi. sqq.).
Some of his sources are thoroughly
localized (the "Perean Gospel," containing much
material found elsewhere in Mark and Matthew,
but some original and local matter: the Jerusalemitic Gospel of the Resurrection; contrast the Galilean Gospel in Mark and Matthew). Evidently he
kept the promise made in his prologue; original
sources deeply color his report of the Savior's life
and words and are reflected much more clearly than
in Matthew. The person of Christ stands out more
distinctly than in Mark. Forgiveness of sins is
based upon love of his person
(vii. 47).
Luke
shares with Matthew the great Logion "No man
knoweth the Father"
(Luke x. 22;
Matthew xi. 27).
Though it be true that he takes this from the
Logia (or Q), yet his choice of it is significant. None
of our Gospels is shaped by a process of mechanical incorporation; all keep close to vital motives
and corporate needs. The outstanding person of
Christ (cf. the persistent use of Kurios as a title for
Jesus) answers the demand of Gentile Christians
for a clear statement of the law of their life. The
date of the Gospel can not be definitely fixed. It
may fall anywhere between 70 and 85, probably
nearer the later date than the earlier, and possibly
at Antioch. If this is the case, it is another illustration of the truth that the Gospels were published
to meet the pressure brought to bear upon the
Christian consciousness at the great centers of missionary opportunity and interest.
9. Matthew's Gospel.
In Mark unity is gained through a deep impression of the events. In Luke there is a certain loss
of unity. But in Matthew unity of a high order is
secured through conscious purpose. The first Gospel is intensely apologetic, and controls its material in this interest which
is its first main object. It steadily
employs the argument from prophecy
to prove that Jesus is the Messiah ("that it might
be fulfilled" occurs in Matthew twelve times, in
Mark twice, and in Luke twice). The other main
purpose is a clear view of the teaching of Jesus,
and this is obtained by massing the Logia in impressive groups (sermon on Mount, parables in
chap. xiii.,
and elsewhere). Through adherence to
purpose Matthew becomes in a sense a creative
writer, having more initiative and a larger influence than Luke. The apologetic is Jewish-Christian in type. The book springs from the heart of
Jewish Christianity straining to convert Israel to
Jesus, and is built into Jewish Christianity and its
needs. There are some evidences that the Logia,
having been constantly used in debate, have been
more or less adapted
(Matt. v. 3,
cf.
Luke vi. 20;
Matthew adds "in spirit";
v. 32,
xix. 9,
divorce
on ground of fornication, Mark and Luke being silent on divorce). The apocalypse of Jesus
(chaps. xxiv.-xxv.)
seems to be a literary unit which had
passed through several editions before being incorporated in Matthew's text (contrast Mark
and Luke). In
Matt. xvi. 18 the
explanation of
Matthew's addition is found not, as Harnack and
others have urged, in a second-century Roman
molding of the text, but in the history of Jewish
Christianity in the first century. Christ's criticism
of the Law
(v. 21-47)
along with his insistence on
its binding force
(v. 17 sqq.)
clearly indicates this.
The Gospel stands close to Judaism, while superior
to it. The capital relation of Jesus is not, as in
Mark, with the popular Messianism (the policy of
silence is not steadily presented), but with Phariseeism
(xv. 1 sqq.,
xvi. 1-6,
xxiii. 2-27).
In close
opposition to Judaism as a teaching force the person and mind of the Savior stand out as in no other
Gospel except the Fourth. Christ lays hands on
the Torah and corrects it
(v. 21-47). His personal
consciousness stands out in spiritual sublimity (sermon on Mount;
xi. 28 sqq.,
absent
from
Luke).
Thus the first Gospel marks the way in which the
deeper Gospel, the Gospel of the self-consciousness
of Christ, came to be written. It was probably
published between 75 and 90, when Jewish Christianity was under severe strain. Judaism, as the
result of the great war, was drawing in its lines and
becoming increasingly hostile to Christianity. The
author of our Matthew published the Law for Jewish Christianity under the form of a Scriptural apol-
ogetic. That his arrangement of the Logia satisfied a deep need is proved by the fact that the
Matthean text of our Lord's words is the text generally followed in the Apostolic Fathers, beginning
with Clement. The likeliest place of publication is
North Syria, possibly Damascus.
10. Gospel According to the Hebrews.
The building and publishing of the Gospels was a
process inherent in the growth of the Apostolic
Church. It was wider than our canonical Gospels.
There is one Gospel, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which probably falls within the first century. The
scanty fragments of it remaining make
a constructive hypothesis of any sort
extremely hazardous. In its account
of the conversion of James it places itself on solid
ground (cf.
I Cor. xv. 7).
The silence of the canonical
Gospels and of Acts forcibly recall their limitations
as histories. But it would seem that the story of
James had already become a Jewish-Christian legend.
And possibly the Gospel according to the Hebrews
at this point indicates the beginning of the Clementine legend. There are other elements (account of
the temptation, "My Mother the Holy Spirit took
me by one of the hairs of my head and carried me
off to the great mountain, Thabor") that suggest
a movement toward extravagant mysticism. This
may have been a growing tendency in the depressed
and disheartened congregation of Jerusalem, which
in the last years of the first century had lost its
hold on great affairs. The possible relations of
this Gospel to the canonical Matthew or to the
Logia are questions upon which no opinion may
safely be ventured. The hazy and heterogeneous
opinions of the Fathers yield no solid data.
11. Background of Fourth Gospel.
The foregoing discussion shows that the Gospels
were not written as scientific histories were written, but that they constitute a religious literature
springing from corporate religious need. The
choice and presentation of the saving words of
Jesus was determined by practical,
not by systematic or historical, motives
(John xx. 30-31).
In Matthew
there are clear indications that interpretation has to some extent fused
with the Logia held in the living memory and applied to imperious practical needs. The
habit of quotation has a long history. Nothing
like the modern standard of quotation was reached
in antiquity, not even in Greek learning, and most
certainly not in first-century Christianity, where
the corporate need of law gave the main motive for
gospel-building. Christians did not dream that
they were guilty of irreverence when they adapted
the words of Jesus even as they adapted the saving words of the Old Testament (cf. Paul in
Rom. x. 8 sqq.).
This study of the Gospels illumines the
problem of the Fourth Gospel. To place the book
fairly, the history of Christian prophetism must be
remembered. The Apostolic, or more concretely
the prophetic, age of Christianity was the creative
and constructive period of our religion. It founded
a new type of community and, as a part of that
work, created a new literary type, the Gospels. By
the year 100 Christian prophetism was in rapid decline. The Pastoral Epistles, II Peter, I Clement,
and the Didache are convincing evidence. The
period of decline lasted till near the middle of the
second century. The labored apocalypse of Hermes
indicates its close. The publication of the Diatessaron (see
Harmony of the Gospels, I., §§ 2-4) proclaims its close. Then follows quickly the attempted
revival of Christian prophetism in Montanism, and
the period of the Catholic Church. Much hasty
work has been done in the field of the Fourth Gospel through a disregard of certain fundamental
facts involved in this history of Christian prophetism.
12. Character of Fourth Gospel.
The quality of thought in the Fourth Gospel is
not metaphysical but prophetic. The absence of
the pictured parousia has been given excessive
weight. The quality of the thought is the real
criterion. The Gospel is inseparable from I John,
where there is a lively expectation of
the "last times." There is no emotional gulf between the eschatologies.
The "last day" plays a not inconsiderable part in the Gospel
(vi. 39, 40, 44,
xi. 23,
xii. 48).
The monotheism
is intense. The conception of the "world" (kosmos) has been cast in the apocalyptic mold. It is
true that the presence of the word Logos
(i. 1, 14)
carries great weight. But
>i. 1-5,
by its brevity,
indicates the author's eagerness to get into history,
his indisposition for metaphysics. The fundamental quality of thought is intensely prophetic
and of itself places the core of the book well within
the first century. The parallel with Matthew may
be pressed. Here as there the opposition of Christ
to Judaism is the determining element (the displacing of the purification of the Temple from the
end of the ministry to the beginning to indicate
the irrepressible conflict between Jesus and Judaism; the dialogue with Nicodemus,
iii. 1-10;
the
important part taken by the Sabbath questions; the
constant phrase "your law "; the title "the Jews"
constantly used to describe the dark figures in the
picture). Here as there, though far more decisively, the self-consciousness of Christ stands out in
opposition to Judaism. The self-consciousness of
the Savior is the Gospel (the "kingdom of God"
is absorbed into the person of the king, the phrase
occurs only in
iii. 3, 5;
the parabolic form of teaching disappears with the "kingdom of God"; the
style of Jesus in the Synoptics is in striking contrast).
It is evident that the mold of the Gospel was shaped
in the mind of a first century Jewish Christian.
13. Authorship, Date, and Place of Fourth Gospel.
The occasioning cause of publication is found in
Gnosticism in its first period of development.
There is a truth in the legend that connects the
author of the Gospel with Cerinthus. The substance of the Fourth Gospel was shaped
by the same causes that shaped the
Synoptists, the corporate need of the
Christian community, fighting at close
quarters with the world. The perspective and emphasis and main terms
of the Fourth Gospel are found also in
the First Epistle. The person of Christ becomes
the outstanding and all-controlling principle. The
conception of the Logos is used to lay in consciousness the final foundation for the fact and mystery
of Christian fellowship. These conclusions are the
secure results of exegesis. They prepare for the
patient study of the Johannean Problem. The Johannean literature as a whole decisively demonstrates the existence of a "John" in Asia Minor.
The Johannean organism of literature together with
the exegesis of the Fourth Gospel places its author
deep within the Jewish Christianity of the first century. Confusion begins when Papias is brought
into court. Does he attest the existence of two
"Johns," one of them the apostle, and both of
them the disciples, the personal followers of Jesus?
Prolonged study of Papias has possibly thrown our
minds slightly out of bearing. Papias being in
court with the results of exegesis, the controversy
over the two Johns loses much of its importance.
The mind of the Fourth Gospel requires a personal
disciple of Jesus for its author. The Gospel or its
first text (possibly worked over by the Johannean
"School") was published in Ephesus in the last
decade of the first century. The law that applies
to the other Gospels, namely, that they were shaped
under pressure at the strategic points of a militant
Christianity, applies in full force here. Ephesus
and its region were the critical point in the religious
movements of the Empire during the first century.
It is not an accident that the Logos doctrine of the
Fourth Gospel became the speculative platform of
the Church Catholic.
14. Conclusion.
The Gospels taken together furnish a life of Christ
as the subjective and corporate needs of the apostolic or prophetic age shaped it. It is not a life
of Christ in the scientific sense. Beyond question
the vital interpretation of the Christian consciousness has fused itself, in
varying degrees, with the facts and
words reported. But the modern
critic is in serious danger of confounding the subjectivity of academic individualism with the prophetic subjectivity of an age controlled by corporate consciousness and corporate aims. The fact
that the Gospels were so largely shaped and published as law, and the fact that the publication of
the canonical Gospels falls within a period of thirty
years (66-96?), a period, moreover, distant but a
single generation from the original words and events
in the life of the Savior, are sufficient security to
Christians for the conviction that the first cause
and the primary reality of the Gospels is the person and mind of Jesus. See the articles on the
separate Gospels.
Henry S. Nash.
Bibliography:
The reader should consult the literature
under the separate articles on the individual Gospels,
also the works on N. T. Introduction, those on the life of
Christ and on the Apostolic Age. Not to be overlooked
are the introduction and prefaces to works named in and
under
Harmony of the
Gospels, e.g., A. Wright, Synopsis, London, 1903. Consult further: C. Weizsäcker,
Untersuchungen über die evangelische Geschichte, Tübingen, 1901; P. Ewald, Das Hauptproblem der Evangelienfrage, Leipsic, 1890; A. Wright, Composition of the Four
Gospels, London, 1890; idem, Some N. T. Problems, ib.
1898; F. P. Badham, The Formation of the Gospels, ib.
1892; A. J. Jolley, The Synoptic Problem, ib. 1893; B.
F. Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, ib.
1895; E. Roehrich, La Composition des evangiles, Paris, 1897;
J. C. Hawkins, Horœ synopticœ, London, 1899; P. Wernle,
Die synoptische Frage, Freiburg, 1899; W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, Göttingen, 1901; J. Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, Berlin,
1905; T. C. Burkitt, The Gospel Hist. and its Transmission, Edinburgh, 1906; J. E. Carpenter, The First Three
Gospels, their Origin and Relations, London, 1908; G.
Salmon, The Human Element in the Gospels, ed. N. J. D.
White, ib. 1906; A. Jülicher, Neue Linien in der Kritik
der evangelischen Ueberlieferung, Giessen, 1906 (a criticism of the late works of Wrede, Wellhausen, and Harnack, giving the present situation of the problem); F.
Blass, Die Entstehung und der Charaktrr unserer Evangelien, Leipsic, 1907; A. Harnack, Spräche und Reden
Jesu, ib. 1907; Eng. transl., The Sayings of Jesus,
London, 1908; H. Loriaux, L'Autorité des évangiles,
Paris, 1907; C. T. Ward, Gospel Development, Brooklyn,
1907; P. Wernle, The Sources of our Knowledge of the
Life of Jesus, London, 1907; A. Loisy, Les Evangiles synoptiques, vols. i.-ii., Paris, 1907-08; T. Nicol, The Four
Gospels in the Earliest Church History, Edinburgh, 1908;
B. Weiss, Die Quellen den synoptischen Ueberlieferung,
Leipsic, 1908; DB, ii. 234-249, supplementary vol., pp.
338-343; EB, ii. 1781-1898 (elaborate, important, with a
classified literature).
