* We have an early example of this in what Eusebius tells (HE vi. 12) of the obscurity into which the once popula
of Peter’ (used apparently by Justin as one of Memoi had fallen in the time of Serapion, bishop of Antioch (c. a.p, 200 u
. i
* The Oxyrhynchus fragment containing Mt 119 may date from the end of the Srd cent. (see Grenfell end Hunt).
fewer quotations from the Scriptures than if they had been intended for members of the Church. But, speaking generally, it may be said that the language, ma still more the substance, of the NT is woven into the earliest Christian writings that have come down to us, while the quotations by a single writer in the end of the 2nd and in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th cent. are sometimes so extensive as to amount to a considerable part of the whole NT— more than half of it, for example, being imbedded in the works of Origen.
These circumstances, while they give the NT a unique place in literature and afford valuable means for proving the antiquity and integrity of its contents, are attended with the disadvantage of causing uncertainty in innumerable passages as to the precise terms of the original. A careful ex- amination of the existing authorities has led to the discovery of about 200,000 ‘Various Readings,’ which are chiefly to be accounted for by the ter liability to error in copying with the hand than in the use of the printing-press. The difference be- tween the various readings, however, is seldom of such a nature as to affect in the slightest degree the substance of the NT. If all the expressions whose accuracy is in question were brought together and printed in a consecutive form, they would not exceed the length of St. Paul’s Epistle to the
Galatians, while the disputed verses possessed of |
any doctrinal significance would not be equal col- lectively to the shortest Epistle of St. John.
In this connexion it may be well to point out that there is nothing to justify the assumption that we possess all the apostolic writings that were ever in the possession of the primitive Church. So far from this, there are expressions in some of St. Paul’s Epistles which suggest that he wrote other letters besides those which have come down to us (1 Co δ᾽, 2 Th 3", cf. 2Co 11%). We can understand how an apostle’s letters might be less prized during his lifetime than after his death, when the loss of any of his writings would be seen to be irre
to perish, than that so many of our Lord’s spoken words, and those of His apostles, should have been
allowed to away, or that so many of His great re sho d have ἘΞ allowed to go unrecorded (Jn 21%).
iii. CONTENTS OF THE NT (Its individual Books and their Writers).—The NT consists of 27 different books, by 9 different authors, each book having its special characteristics corresponding to the personality of its writer, and the circumstances in which it was written, but all contributing their
to one divine whole centred in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. As early as the 2nd cent. there was a recognized distinction between ‘the Gospel’ and ‘the Apostle,’ just as we find a three- fold division of the OT in Lk 24“ and elsewhere. The former denoted the four Gospels; the latter, the Epistles of St. Paul, to which were added by —— the Book of Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse, under the general name of ‘the Apostles.’ All these were seldom comprised in one MS, and their arrangement varies in MSS containing more than one section and in canonical lists given by Church Fathers, as is also the case with the arrangement of the several books in each section, showing that the consolidation of the NT was a process still going on.
1. The Gospels.—In all cases the Gospels come first. This position has been fitly assigned to them, not only because they were perhaps the first NT Scriptures to be regularly associated with the OT in the public reading of the Church, but also because the history which they record forms the corner-
stene of the Christian religion, which bases its
eparable; and it is no more astonishing | that Providence should have suffered such writings |
NEW TESTAMENT
doctrines not on speculation but on fact. Drawn up without concert and without the formal sanc- tion of the Church, they contain, in a form suitable for all ages and for all classes, several independent records of Christ’s life and teaching, of which it may be said with truth that they are better authen- ticated and more nearly contemporaneous with the events narrated than any other record we possess in connexion with any other period of ancient history. A comparison of the four Gospels, how- ever, reveals a marked difference between the fourth and the first three. The latter give in one common view the same general outline of the ministry of Christ, but this outline is almost entirely con- fined to His ministry in Galilee, and includes only one visit to Jerusalem ; whereas the Fourth Gospel gives an account of no fewer than five visits to Jerusalem, and lays the scene of the ministry chiefly in Judea. A still more important distinction between them has been briefly expressed by designating the Synoptic Gospels as the bodily cele and the Fourth as the spiritual Gospel—by which it is meant that the former relate chiefly the outward events connected with the Saviour’s visible presence, reported for the most pane without note or comment, while the latter is eines to repre- sent the ideal and heavenly side of His personality and work. Akin to this distinction is the fact that the first three report Christ’s addresses to the multitude, consisting largely of parables, while the Fourth contains discourses of a more sublime char- acter, frequently expressed in the language of allegory and addressed to the inner circle of His followers. Furthermore, when we enter into a close examination of the Synoptic Gospels and compare them with one another, we find an amount of simi larity in detail, extending even to minute expres- sions and the connexion of individual incidents, combined with a diversity of diction, arrangement, and contents, which it has hitherto bafied the in- genuity of critics fully to explain. While further investigation may shed more light on the historical and literary relations of the Gospels, there is a deep underlying unity amid their diversity which may be best τ απο not by attempting to piece them together so as to form a complete chronological history, but by sbudyang each from its own point of view, and learning from it what it has to teach con- cerning the many-sidea character and life of Jesus