CHAPTER i. CONCERNING THE THREE GOSPELS
1, The three first Gospels, bearing the names of Matthew, Mark and Luke, have, during the present century, been distinguished by critics from the fourth by the epithet synoptical. The term implies that these Gospels are so like one another in contents that they can be, and for profitable study ought to be, viewed together. That such is the fact is obvious to every reader. A single perusal suffices to shew that they have much in common in contents, arrangement and phraseology ; and a comparison with the fourth Gospel only deepens the impression. There everything appears different—the incidents related, the theughts ascribed to Jesus, the terms in which they are expressed, the localities in wh.ch Cae Great Personage who is the common subject of alf the four narratives exercised His remarkable teaching and healing ministries.
2. Yet while these three Gospels present obtrusive resemblances, they also exhibit hardly less obtrusive differences. The differences are marked just because the books are on the whole so like one another. One cannot help asking: Seeing they are so like, why are they not more like? Why do they differ at all? Or the question may be put the other way: Seeing there are so many idiosyncrasies in each Gospel, how does it come about that notwithstanding these they all bear an easily recognisable family likeness? The idiosyn- crasies, though not always so obvious as the resemblances, are un- mistakable, and some of them stare one in the face. Each Gospel, e.g., has some matter peculiar to itself; the first and the third a great deal. . Then, while in certain parts of their narratives they follow the same order, in other places they diverge widely. Again, one cannot but be struck with the difference between the three records ir regard to reporting the words of Jesus. Mark gives com-