Collected Essays, Volume V | Page 8

should he
not have given the best, if he had known of them? Admitting he was
the mere pedissequus et breviator of Matthew, that even Augustine
supposed him to be, what could induce him to omit the Lord's Prayer?
Whether more or less of the materials of the twofold tradition D, and of
the peculiar traditions F and G, were or were not current in some of the
communities, as early as, or perhaps earlier than, the triple tradition, it
is not necessary for me to discuss; nor to consider those solutions of the
Synoptic problem which assume that it existed earlier, and was already
combined with more or less narrative. Those who are working out the
final solution of the Synoptic problem are taking into account, more
than hitherto, the possibility that the widely separated Christian
communities of Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Italy, especially after
the Jewish war of A.D. 66-70, may have found themselves in
possession of very different traditional materials. Many circumstances
tend to the conclusion that, in Asia Minor, even the narrative part of the
threefold tradition had a formidable rival; and that, around this second
narrative, teaching traditions of a totally different order from those in
the Synoptics, grouped themselves; and, under the influence of
converts imbued more or less with the philosophical speculations of the
time, eventually took shape in the fourth Gospel and its associated
literature.
XII. But it is unnecessary, and it would be out of place, for me to
attempt to do more than indicate the existence of these complex and

difficult questions. My purpose has been to make it clear that the
Synoptic problem must force itself upon every one who studies the
Gospels with attention; that the broad facts of the case, and some of the
consequences deducible from these facts, are just as plain to the simple
English reader as they are to the profoundest scholar.
One of these consequences is that the threefold tradition presents us
with a narrative believed to be historically true, in all its particulars, by
the major part, if not the whole, of the Christian communities. That
narrative is penetrated, from beginning to end, by the demonological
beliefs of which the Gadarene story is a specimen; and, if the fourth
Gospel indicates the existence of another and, in some respects,
irreconcilably divergent narrative, in which the demonology retires into
the background, it is none the less there.
Therefore, the demonology is an integral and inseparable component of
primitive Christianity. The farther back the origin of the gospels is
dated, the stronger does the certainty of this conclusion grow; and the
more difficult it becomes to suppose that Jesus himself may not have
shared the superstitious beliefs of his disciples.
It further follows that those who accept devils, possession, and
exorcism as essential elements of their conception of the spiritual world
may consistently consider the testimony of the Gospels to be
unimpeachable in respect of the information they give us respecting
other matters which appertain to that world.
Those who reject the gospel demonology, on the other hand, would
seem to be as completely barred, as I feel myself to be, from professing
to take the accuracy of that information for granted. If the threefold
tradition is wrong about one fundamental topic, it may be wrong about
another, while the authority of the single traditions, often mutually
contradictory as they are, becomes a vanishing quantity.
It really is unreasonable to ask any rejector of the demonology to say
more with respect to those other matters, than that the statements
regarding them may be true, or may be false; and that the ultimate
decision, if it is to be favourable, must depend on the production of

testimony of a very different character from that of the writers of the
four gospels. Until such evidence is brought forward, that refusal of
assent, with willingness to re-open the question, on cause shown, which
is what I mean by Agnosticism, is, for me, the only course open.
* * * * *
A verdict of "not proven" is undoubtedly unsatisfactory and essentially
provisional, so far forth as the subject of the trial is capable of being
dealt with by due process of reason.
Those who are of opinion that the historical realities at the root of
Christianity, lie beyond the jurisdiction of science, need not be
considered. Those who are convinced that the evidence is, and must
always remain, insufficient to support any definite conclusion, are
justified in ignoring the subject. They must be content to put up with
that reproach of being mere destroyers, of which Strauss speaks. They
may say that there are so many problems which are and must remain
insoluble, that the "burden of the mystery" "of all this unintelligible
world" is not appreciably affected