It has further to be remarked that Christ's own oflice is the theme of the figures in Jn. The parables related in the Synoptists are concerned most frequently with other subjects, especiall}' the kingdom of God and its laws. Yet tliis one also is not absent from His thoughts there (cf. the phvMcian, Mti)'-=Mk 2"=Lk 5" and Lk 4'» : the servant of J", Lk U'"" ; the king's sim, Mt 21'"'-, Mk 12"''-, Mt 22^"- ; the judge, Mt 20"").
The difTercnt aspects under which the life and work and jierson of Christ are proscntcil in the Synoptic Gospels and Jn mi\y i>c ncdniilablo. We have given some rea.Mons for thinking that they are so in great measure. But the question remains, how the existence of such ililleremca in the records can be explained. And it may be
obsen-ed that it is one for which even those need to seek an answer who admit only, as the majority of modern critics do, that the Fourth (jospe' contains considerable historical elements.
Now, the Fourth Gospel has a clearly defined aim (Off"-", and cf. 1'""), wliich goes far to explain the selective method on which the writer has proceeded in constructing his Gosjiel. When in addition to this we take into account the fact that he luusl almost certainly have been acquainted with the con- tents of the Synoptic Go-sjiels, and that lie would at least feel under no obligation to recount what was already recorded, and that he may even have avoided the repetition of it when it did not fall in conveniently with the [dan of his own work, an<l that in point of fact he is in the habit of assuming in his readers the knowledge of things that he does not narrate, little difficulty can be created by his omissions.
The dilEculty is rather to understand how the first three evangelists should omit so much that we find in Jn. The same reasons did not exist in their case for passing over facts as in that of J n. To some small extent, indeed, thej' were influenced in what they relate by the bent of their own minds and the special needs of those whom they addressed. But the vcrj" fact that the matter and arrange- ment of all three are so largely the same, shows that their contents and form must have been in the main determined by some other cause ihan individual purpose or bias. Their fragmentariness must be due to the limited character of the material that had come to their hand. We have seen that the historical circumstances under which the documentary sources of the Synoptic narrative were shaped, were of a kind to circumscribe their range. But in order to explain the phenomeiiou now before us — tlie contrast between the Sj-nojitic and Johannine accounts — it seems necessary to suppose further that the knowledge embodied in the latter had, at the time the first three Gospels were composed, been delivered only within a com- paratively limited circle. It is ditlicult to imagine tli.at even Mark and the editor of the Greek Mt would have remained unall'ected bj' it if it had been widely spread through a considerable part of the Church. And it is imjiossible to believe that Luke would, seeing that he evidently had sought for information in dillerent directions, and desired to give a certain completencse, so far as he could, to his narrative. 1 here appears to be nothing unnatural in this supposition. The needs of simple CInistians, and of tlie mass of the uncon- verted, which had led originally to the sliapin" of the oral instruction in a certain way, and which through it had infiuinced the character of the earliest documents, would continue to be most generally felt. The number of those able to apjireciate the deeper teaching would be small.
III. The Date of ouk (;osri:i,.s and of the SoiritCES EMIJODIED IN THEM.— -In endeavouring to arrive approximately at the date of the Gospels, it is necessary to consider Inith the testimony of tradition and internal indications.
1. The Hi/nv/ilU- GosnrU. — If, as is probable, the fragment of I'apias about J/< is a rojiort of what he lia<l heard many years before from John the I'reslpyter, and preserves for us the recollections of the latter concerning a period already past when Papias met him, the comjiosition of our Greek Mt would seem to fall within the 1st cent, tieneral considerations respecting the history of the position of this tiospel in the Church point to its belonging at least to tlie 1st cent. It has often been aigncil, on the ground of Mt 21-'", that the Gospel was composed before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D.70; but the words in quest ion may be explained by the fidelity with which the original soiirre haa
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GOSPELS
Gusl'KLS
been preserved. Nor do there seem to be other indicjitioiiB in thetlosjiel which enable us to a.<.sij;n it with conlidence to a time either before or after that or any other (bite.
On the ground of tlie strongly supported tradition ■which connects the Second Uospd with Mark, we may somewhat more nearly determine the time of the composition of this tiospel. It would seem, according to the oldest form of the tradition, to have been after St. Peter's death that Mark wrote it, and fon»e(iuently we cannot place its composition much before A.I). 70. The lower limit will be that of the |ierii)(l after this for which Mark, who must have been in middle life at the date just named, is likely to have lived. Internal indications do not help us in this case any more than in the last.