The Books of the New Testament | Page 8

a few remaining fragments of the writings of this early bishop, who was acquainted with men who knew our Lord's disciples. In the letters of St. Ignatius, the martyred Bishop of Antioch, A.D. 110, we find signs of acquaintance with Matt. and John. The Epistle written by St. Polycarp to the Philippians soon after the death of St. Ignatius contains quotations from Matt. and Luke, and the quotations in it from 1 John almost certainly imply the authenticity of St. John's Gospel, as it is impossible to attribute the Epistles to any writer except the writer of the Gospel. The Didaché, about A.D. 100, shows acquaintance with Matt. and Luke, and contains early Eucharistic prayers of which the language closely resembles the language of St. John. The Epistle of Barnabas, probably about A.D. 98, contains what is probably the oldest remaining quotation from a book of the New Testament. It says, "It is written, Many called, but few chosen," which appears to be a quotation from Matt. xxii. 14. The Epistle of St. Clement of Rome, written to the Christians of Corinth about A.D. 95, is full of the phraseology of St. Paul's Epistles, but contains nothing that can be called a direct quotation from our Gospels. But it does contain what are possibly traces of the first three Gospels, though these passages are perhaps quoted from an oral Gospel employed in the instruction of catechumens.
We must conclude that, considering what a large amount of early Christian literature has perished, the external evidence for the authenticity of our Gospels is remarkably strong. They are genuine writings of the apostolic age, and were received by men whose lifetime overlapped the lifetime of some of the apostles. In the early Christian literature which remains, there is much which lends support to the authenticity of the Gospels, and nothing which injures a belief in that authenticity. And there are strong reasons for thinking that in the early Christian literature which has perished, there was much which would have made a belief in their authenticity quite inevitable.
It would be an aid to modern study if we could be certain {15} when and where the four Gospels were put together in one canon. In the 4th and 5th centuries it was believed by some Christians that the collection had been made at Ephesus by St. John himself, and that he had prefixed the names of the writers to the Gospels when he published his own Gospel. It is at present impossible to discover how far this supposed fact is legendary or not, but modern criticism has done something to corroborate the idea that the Gospels were really collected first in Asia Minor, and if St. John did not make the collection himself, it was probably made by his disciples soon after his death.
[Sidenote: Their Diversity.]
If we compare the four Gospels together, it is as plain as daylight that there is a marked difference between the first three Gospels on the one hand and the fourth Gospel on the other hand. The first three Gospels are usually called the Synoptic Gospels, because they give us one synopsis or common view of our Lord's work. To a great extent they record the same events and the same discourses, and in many passages they express themselves in almost identical words. The account which they give of our Lord's work is mostly confined to His ministry in Galilee, the birthplace of our religion, and it includes only one visit to Jerusalem. But St. John's Gospel differs widely in language from the other Gospels, and also gives an account of no less than five visits to Jerusalem, and chiefly describes the scenes connected with our Lord's ministry in Judaea. Whereas our first three Gospels can be appropriately printed in three parallel columns, the greater part of St. John's Gospel cannot be appropriately placed by the side of the other three. Another most important difference is that St. John's Gospel is marked by a tone and teaching which are seldom to be found in the Synoptic Gospels. The difference was well expressed by Clement of Alexandria, who calls the Synoptic Gospels bodily and St. John's Gospel spiritual; and by Theodore of Mopsuestia, who says that St. John declared that "doubtless it was not right to omit {16} the facts told with regard to the sojourn of Christ in the flesh, but neither was it right to omit the words relating to His Divinity." For the Synoptic Gospels relate the outward events connected with our Lord's ministry, while St. John records the discourses and works which reveal our Lord's heavenly origin and divine authority. Again, the Synoptic Gospels report Christ's addresses to simple Galilean people, addresses consisting largely of parables; while St. John reports discourses, frequently expressed in the language of allegory,