thesis that ' parts of the Synoptic Gospels are based upon a common original Hebrew document,' Hebrew being used not in the loose sense of the vernacular Aramaic (with Marsh), but in the strict sense, Biblical Hebrew. The work of the end of the eighteenth century is thus continued at the beginning of the twentieth.

The three theories thus briefly sketched are further susceptible of combination in various ways. Herder, for instance, who united the parts of philosopher, theologian, and critic, published an essay in 17972 in which he shot a series of penetrating glances into the early history of the Gospels. Their common ground-work he placed in the tradition of the apostolic teaching, which was propagated in the vernacular Aramaic, before it was carried among the Greeks. The best representative of this earliest form is to be found in Mark. Twenty years later, in times of persecution and national distress, the Aramaic Gospel of the Hebrews was compiled, to give emphatic expression to the Messianic hope. Our Mark was the first Gospel to take shape in Greek; faithful to the primitive sketch, Mark, who was Peter's companion in Rome, followed his original very closely, adding sundry explanations for foreign readers. Luke was written for Hellenist Christians by a companion of Paul, who not only knew Mark

1 Clue, 1900, p. xvii.; The Corrections of Mark adopted by Matthew and Luke, 1901.

2 Entitled 'Regel der Zusammenstimmung unsrer Evangelien, aus ihrer Entstehung und Ordnung,' in his Christliche Schriften, vol. iii.

but freely used it together with the Gospel of the Hebrews. Third in the time-series (as in the later order of Westcott) stands our Greek Matthew, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D; it was in reality a free translation of the Gospel of the Hebrews, some things being omitted, and yet others added. Finally, at the end of the century came John, briefly described as the echo of the older Gospels in a higher key.'

One other famous name in German theology further calls for notice, that of the great Berlin preacher Schleiermacher. In the astonishing range of subjects covered by his university lectures-ethics, theology (dogmatic and practical), church history, logic and metaphysics,-even pedagogy and politics, -the study of the New Testament was naturally included. His critical essay on the Gospel of Luke (published in English by Thirlwall, 1825) was enriched with an introduction in which he endeavoured to set aside Eichhorn's theory of a primitive Aramaic Gospel in favour of more numerous if scantier documents, founded on oral narratives of incident or discourse. Notes of this kind were made from the apostolic preaching both among Jewish and Greek Christians; they were collected, perhaps even grouped in small series of parables, or miracles, or the scenes of the last days. Some were simple, some composite; and out of those early documents (to which Luke alludes in his preface) came the materials of our Gospels. Of these, as he afterwards showed, Matthew was founded on the

Matthæan collection of the 'Logia' of Jesus; it was not, therefore, itself apostolic. That character belonged to John alone, and entitled the Fourth Gospel to preference over the Synoptics. Concerning Mark, Schleiermacher added his great authority to Griesbach's view that it was a later compilation based on Matthew and Luke. Not till 1838 was this latter theory seriously challenged; when two scholars Christian Gottlob Wilke and Ch. Hermann Weisse independently reverted to Herder's conviction of Mark's priority. Wilke2 based his argument partly on tables showing that in their distribution and arrangement Matthew and Luke could only be explained as diverging from a common type still preserved in Mark. He laid emphasis on the evidences of literary plan, proving that they were not mere aggregates of oral traditions; he inferred that Matthew and Luke depend on Mark, or an earlier text which Mark has expressed more clearly than the other two, the type common to all three being Greek, and not a translation of a primitive Jerusalem gospel; but he reached the strange conclusion that in the common matter belonging to Matthew and Luke, Matthew was based on Luke and had no other source. To Weisse, on the other hand, belongs the credit of approaching nearest to the modern two

1 Studien und Kritiken, 1832, p. 735, 'Ueber die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern beiden ersten Evangelien.' The 'Logia' were contained in Matt. 5-25, especially in such groups as 5-7, 10, 131-52, 18, 23, 24-25.

2 Der Urevangelist, Dresden and Leipzig, 1838.

3 Die Evangelische Geschichte, Leipzig, 1838.

document hypothesis, which may now be said to be most widely-though not universally-accepted. Mark, he argued from 983-50 and its parallels, is a common source for Matthew and Luke; while the matter traceable in these two, unrepresented in Mark, is drawn from the original Matthæan Logia. Thus, a third of the century had passed before the hypothesis was propounded which was to secure the majority of suffrages by its close.

II.

The criticism of the Gospels involves, in fact, two problems, whose close relation was then hardly realised. It has in the first place a literary aim. It seeks to determine the nature and extent of the materials which their authors employed; to account for the forms in which they are combined; to ascertain the mutual relations of the Gospels to each other; to fix, if possible, the order of their production and the main characteristics of their writers. But behind these literary problems lie the historical. What are the actual values of the several narratives for fact? How far are they real records of real events? When they describe the person or the teachings of Jesus in different ways, as may be seen, for example, in the Synoptic pictures on the one hand and the Fourth Gospel on the other, how far is it possible to account for the differences and determine their historic worth? Or where the divergences are still prominent though on a smaller

scale, as between the beatitudes of Matt. 5 and the blessings and the woes of Luke 6, can the methods of research pass behind them, and settle not only which is earlier and which later, but which more nearly represents the actual thought and speech of Jesus? And yet again, in the case of stories which criticism is compelled to reject as history, while it accepts them as symbols, like the narratives of the virgin birth, the temptation, the transfiguration, the final appearance of Jesus on the Galilean mount charging the disciples to make disciples of all nations, what explanation can be given of their origins, how far can the motives which produced them be discerned, and the processes which shaped them be traced? In instances such as these, the historic and the literary problems are most closely related. The assumptions of the eighteenth century, that the Gospels contained the testimony of eye-witnesses, and must therefore be accepted as accurate reports, were brought into inevitable conflict with the new conceptions of philosophy and science, and the results. (as will be seen immediately) were sometimes grotesque and shocking. It was impossible in that age, and under existing conditions, to escape from such treatment as that of Woolston and Reimarus save by rationalistic evasions like those of Paulus. The time was ripe, therefore, for a new movement. The year 1835, already notable in Old Testament study for the publication of the treatises of Vatke and George, was still more distinguished by the