Such a judgment is confirmed, positively, by the so-called ' Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' which in its present form is probably of Palestinian or Syrian origin, and understands 'the teaching (diSaxv) of the Lord ' to have differed from Judaism only ethically, in the deeper knowledge of God's will, fuller spiritual life, and firmer grasp on immortality {yvwa-is /cat ttiVtis, ^u-q, ddavacrla, ix. 3, X. 2), which it bestowed. Its negative confirmation lies in the very fact that Gnosticizing versions of Christ's teaching early arose in the centres where the Hellenic spirit was strongest. Such ' apocry- phal ' Gospels, professing, as a rule, to supply from a secret line of tradition the words of ' deeper wisdom ' which it was assumed must have fallen from the lips of the great Kevealer of the spiritual world (here regarded cosmically rather than ethic- ally), only show what the speculative spirit missed in our Gospels, with their concrete, jiractical teach- ing, often in terms of an individual case. Most probably Christian Gnostics felt some encourage- ment and justification afforded them by the less Hebraic tone of the Fourth Gospel, even though it is mystical rather than metaphysical in its dis- tinctive elements, and is tinged with Christian experience rather than cosmical philosophy. Pro- bably also their first efforts at Gospel-writing were more ethical than metaphysical in scope and in- terest. This was certainly the case in some circles, notably that represented by the Gospel to which belong the Oxyrhynchus ' Sayings of Jesus ' (pub- lished in 1898, 1904), in wliich the non-original element is largely inspired by the ' Wisdom ' litera- ture of Hellenistic Judaism, and takes the form mainly of glossing certain actual sayings of Jesus with developments and expansions in terms of the deeper moral philosophy of the day, e.g. of the
* True to the OT usage = ' secret counsels ' ; cf . Rev 107 ' then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which he declared to his servants the prophets.' VOL. II. — 45
maxim, ' Know thyself,' and the Platonic doctrine of Wonder as the mother of Wisdom. Once this process of free development was started, however, and sanctioned among Christians imbued with Hellenic and Oriental notions, both philosophical and mythological, — for the age was one of syncret- ism or the blending and fusion of ideas of very diverse origin, — it was bound to go ever further and further away from the attitude and horizon of historic Gospels. If the remains of 2nd cent. Gospels known to us were not so scanty, we should be able to see the stages by which the later types, in which the historic element of Jesus' teaching in word and deed is at a minimum, evolved gradually, rather than sprang full-blown to life. Thus thts uncanonical Gospel drawn on by the preacher whose homily is known tradition- ally as ' 2 Clement,' whether it be the Gospel according to the Egyptians or not, represented the next stage of idealization to that marked by the Oxyrhynchus Gospel ; but it still contained much matter found in (and probably borrowed from) our Synoptic Gospels.* Quite the opposite kind of development, though one which also carries us away from the historic teaching of Jesus, is seen in the Judaizing Gospel according to the Hebrews, in its two forms or stages, in which the reaction- ary reading of Jesus' message, the tendency to make it Judaic in letter and spirit, becomes more and more manifest.
Midway between these two opposed tendencies — the Judaic or legal, and the Gnostic or esoteric, mysterious, metaphysical — lie our historic Gospels. They are full of the spirit of Hebraic teaching as to knowledge of Divine things ; but raise it to a new power and universality by contact with the Personality and spirit of Jesus, Himself the heart of the Gospel within the Gospels, the prime source of their perennial vitality and authority. Nor must we overlook the fact that the very form of these Gospels fits them, in a wonderful way, to be the vehicles of religious teaching after the mind of Jesus Himself, through ' being narrative instead of didactic, and coming from the Evangelists instead of from Christ' Himself direct. 'If our Lord,' says Latham (p. 13), 'had left writings of His own, every letter of them Avould have been invested with such sanctity that there could have been no independent investigation of truth. Its place would have been taken by commentatorial works on the delivered word,' on the lines of the scribes and Rabbis. The letter of Jesus' teaching would have been so revered, that its 'spirit ana life' would have had less chance of reproducing itself through personal effort freely to find its meaning by inner moral quest. So would the very end of that teaching have been frustrated. For 'in all His sayings and doings, our Lord was most careful to leave the individual room to grow.' 'He cherishes and respects personality.' And so ' He gave seed thoughts which should lie in men's hearts, and germinate when fit occasion came ' {ib. pp. 5, 10, 12). All this is permanently secured by the simple narrative form of the Gospels, especially the Synoptics. Herein the outer form of the NT — its Epistles hardly less than its Gospels — is as characteristic of the religion it enshrines as the Koran is of Islam. It is a notable fact that the Apocryphal Gospels steadily moved away from tlie narrative to the didactic manner, many of them transposing their key from the third to the first person, by the device of making their teach- ing ostensibly post-resurrectional (even the Oxy- rhynchus Gospel does this), with a view to make it more dogmatically impressive. In so doing they came nearer the Koran and most other sacred