We have thus considered the objections drawn from the chronological and biograpliical details of the Synoptic (iospels, and have shown that the omissions by the Synoptics of certain facts pre- sumed to be of historical importance, as well as the striking omissions by the Fourth Gospel of events of cardinal significance in the Synoptic narrative, have often been pressed beyond their real sigiiiticance. We have traced also the general correspondences in the chief facts and minute details of manner and matter between them, and examined the biographic portraiture of the most noted characters. There remain some general objections of greater or less moment which aU'ect the whole composition.
D. Misrellane.oiis Objections. — o. The supposed exaggeration, through the mythopceic tendi ncy in the later writer, of the supernatural element. The transmutation by creative process of 'water' into ' Avine ' is reckoned as an exaggerated and suspicious instance of divine prerogative attri- buted to the incarnate Logos. But this act seems by no moans a more wonderful display of tliu wUl of Christ in harmony with the Supreme Will than is the multiplication of the bread, which belongs to the entire tradition. The heightened intensity of some of the special signs selected by ' John ' is sometimes cited, e.g. the thirty-eight years of the man s infirmity in ch. 5 is compared dis- advantageoiisly with the eighteen years of similar paralysis as mentioned by Lk ; so likewise the blindness from birth is compared unfavourably with the temporary blindness which Jesus healed, as recorded by Mt'and Mk. But the w.-iy in which
Mt tells of two blind men where the other evangel ist-s, Mk and Lk, mention one, and twu demoniacs instead of one at Gadara, and two multil>lication8 of bread and lish instead of one in the other records, is far more open to the charge of mythical enlargement than anything that is here attributed to the Fourth Gospel. There is a deepening glory in the resurrections from the dead, which has been commented upon since the days of Augustine. The daughter of Jairus just laid upon her deathbed, and the young man at Nain being carried to his grave, nii'dit seem insutlicieut /)cr se to iirove that the Lord Jesus had the keys of death in Ilia hands, but the fourth day of cieath and the probabla putridity of Lazarus' corpse are more conclusive evidence that the Lord is King, and can and will raise in some way all that are in the dust of death. He had chosen death and the sepulchre as His special battlefield,— the ev'angelist had ample facts from which lie made selection with reference alike to blindness and deaih, and in both cases, as well as in the bread sign and the Bethesda ' Sabbath cure,' he apparently chose the incidents for the sake of the di.scourses with which they were followed, and which he remembered so well. It must not be forgotten in estimating the weight of this argu- ment that the Fourth Gospel is iiarsimonious in describing specilic miracles, though it records the fact of their abundance (2CP- "). Further, it is the only one of the four which declares that the miraculous is a kind of evidence far inferior to that of intuition and per.sonal recognition of the divine in Himself (Jn H'"""). The miracle arrested attention, but it was still in the region of the natural and sensuous, and appealed rather to the understanding than to the higher con- science or to the spirit. The most startling and dramatic scenes, including, as we hiive seen, the temptation, the transfiguration, and the portents of tlie crucifixion, are shorn of those mj'sterious accompaniments which are desired by the miracle- loving multitude, and might be described as the unhistorical accretion of years. After prolonged pondering of the problem, we are convinced it might be urged that there is more of the mythical lustre overspreading the Synoptic narrative, more of the imaginative setting, and the solitary un- corroborated event or teacliing in both Alt and Lk than in the Fourth Gospel, and more of the pictorial and even dramatic presentation in the Gospel of Mk than in either of them, and still more than in the stern self - repression and spiritual recollections of the great Apostle of Love.
/3. Schenkel (CharakterhiUl Jesu, § ii., and else- where throughout his able work), Hase, Kenan, Ritschl, and others, have empha.sized the absence from the Fourth Gospel of t\\a.t progressive mental and official development of the character and Messianic claim of Jesus alleged to be discoverable in the Sj'noptic tradition. But if the Preacher of the Sermon on the Mount identified Himself with 'righteousness,' and declared that, by pene- trating the secrets of all hearts, He could and would di-spose of the final destinies of individuals ; if He was hailed as the Holy One of God by the demoniacs (Mk), and in the synagogue at Nazareth (Lk) aroused inveterate hatred by a double claim to Messianic dignity and to an obnoxious uni- versalism, — there is not much room for develop- ment after that, especially when the three Gospels empha.size the significance of the Heavenly Voice which accompanied His baptism by John, and His subsequent transfiguration, as the climax of His Galila'an ministry. We are not concerned to deny the development of Jesus from His birth to the twelfth and afterwards to the thirtieth year of His life. Enough has been told to discriminate His infancy finally from that of the later legendf