The lower limit for the composition of the Third Goxpel is li.xed by a consideration similar to that in the last case. Its author was a companion of St. Paul for some years, and there is in point of fact no reason to doubt the tradition which identi- fies him with Luke, named in St. Paul's E[)istles. This Gospel consequently cannot have been written much later than A.l). 8U. On the other hand, the greater precision with w hich the siege of Jerusiilem IS referred to than it is in Mt and Mk (see Lk 19^ 21-°), seems to show that in thisGos])el the original form of the prophecy has been somewhat lost, owing to knowledge of the particular circumstances of the event.
But we have seen that sources, documentary and other, are embodied in the Sj'noptic Gospels. In order, then, to judge how near we are in reality brought to the events related, we have to inquire into the historical character of the matter which the evangelists used, and the faithfulness with which they have reproduced it. This is a fruitful field for study. It is only possible here to say that the subject-matter of the Synoptic Gospels is marked by traits which show that the information proceeds direct from those who have lived amid the surroundings described. The characteristics of Jewi.sh life and thought in Palestine in the first half of the 1st cent, of our era are reflected in the narrative with a truth which could not have been otherwise imparted.
The fact that our Gospels were put forth far from Palestine, in the midst of the Gra?co-Roman world, and subsequently to, or at the earliest only a short while before, the destruction of Jerusalem, —that great catastrophe which profoundly atlected the Jews everywhere, and above all in Palestine, and the Christian Church itself, — becomes (strange to say) a guarantee of their truth. Placed as the evangelists were when they wrote, they could not have accurately reproduced the features of an age which had passed away, as they are found to ha\e done, e.xcept from immediate knowledge of their own, the reports of those who possessed it, or the use of documents based on it. Attention may be directed to the following points : — (a) The dis- tribution in Pal. of the Jewish population on the one hand, and of the Grecized cities and regions on the other. It will be found that our Lord's work is confined, saving in a very few cases, which are of the kind that may be truly said to be exceptions that prove the rule, to the preenunently Jewish districts. In Galilee itself the incidents of His ministry are connected with Jewish villages and village-towns, not with the places known in the outside world. We may infer what Christ's own plan was for the work of His brief ministry on earth. Only the first evangelist lays stress on it; the records of the second and third, and we may add of the fourth, equally reveal it, but they do so, to all appearance, unconsciously. Ami although we can on reflection see clearly the reason fir euch a course of action, it is not one whicli
would have naturally suggested itself to men who, like the third and fourth evangelists at least, wera deeplv impressed \.ith the univer.sality of the gospel, (ji) The political and social circumstances, the strangely mingled Jewish and Koman in.sti- tutions ami remaining eti'ects of the jieriod of (Jrccian rule, the relations of the jurisdictions of Herod and the Koman governor and the Jewish priests and elders, and the influence of the Phari- sees and scribes. (7) The pojiuliir Messi.-inie ex- pectation, and the temjier of dill'crent classes in respect to it, its various forms and the l^eliefs con- nected therewith. (0) The subtle correspomlencea in form between the teaching of Jesus and that of Jewish liabbis, combined with the vital diU'erences in spirit.
Tlie teaching, again, of our Lord is much of it such as could have been given only by Himself in His own lifetime, or is marked by the promi- nence of terms and ideas which .speedily ceased to be much in vogue in the Church. This serves to •show that the character of the record generally can have been comparatively little all'ectcd by the thought and language of the Church in a subsequent generation.
The following m.ay be taken as illustrations : — (a) The use of the term and idea ' the kingdom of God ' in the Gospels (see The Jewish and the Chrui- tian Messiah, by the present writer, pp. 226, 227). (/3) The use in the Gospels of the title ' the Son of Man ' (.see ib. pp. 243, 244). (7) The use of the term tiaO-qral (.see Weizsacker, Apost. Zeitalter, p. 36).
In order that the (gospels may be tested in the respects indicated with the greater precision, those portions of them which appear to be derived from common sources, or from a source peculiar to one or other evangelist, or which are the setting or the remarks furnished by the .several evangelists individually, should be separately examined.
2. The Fourth Gospel. — The history is contem- plated in this Gosjiel from a point of view accpiircd through long reflection and experience, and thiougli sharing in the ever-widening work and conflicts of the Church. And yet familiarity with Palestine and with the thought and feeling of its population at the time to which the record refers, is manifested in it not less markedly than in the others. If these two characteristics — the immediate knowledge of the facts, and a wide and large conception of their significance — belong, as appears to be the case, to one and the same person, we must suppose that he was one of the immediate disciples of Jesus whose mind underwent a remarkable growth during his subsequent life. There is next to nothing in the character of .John the son of Zebedee, as we see it in the Gospels and the early chapters of the Acts, which marks him out as fitted to be the writer. And the allusion to him in Gal 2", aa one of the apostles of the circumcision, may seem un- favourable to the belief that he was so. IJut tradition, which assigns to him the authorship, also re])resents him as having lived to a great age, and having passed his later years amid the influences of Epiiesus. This leaves room for a change in his apprehension of the truth. And, strange as this change from the mode of thought of the Twelve in the early days of the Church at Jerusalem to that of the writer of the Fourth Gospel may seem to us, it is one well within the bounds of possibility, and hardly to be reckoned greater than some of those of which there have been instances among religious thinkers in our own century. It is to be added, that if the characteristics of this Gospel have been correctly described above, the difliculty as to the authorship would be in no way lightened by supposing that the writer was not the son of Zebedee. For there is no other of the earliest Palestinian disciples who, so far as we know.