The priority of Mark is now the prevailing theory among German critics, notwithstanding the protest of Baur and Keim, who had almost a personal animosity against the second Evangelist. One of the last utterances of Keim was a passionate protest against the Präkonisation des Markus (Aus dem Urchristenthum, 1878, pp. 28-45). But the advocates of this theory are divided on the question whether the canonical Mark or a lost proto-Mark was the primitive evangelist. The one is called the Markushypothese, the other the Urmarkushypothese. We admit the originality of Mark, but this does not necessarily imply priority of composition. Matthew and Luke have too much original matter to be dependent on Mark, and are far more valuable, as a whole, though Mark is indispensable for particulars.
4. Mark, Luke, Matthew. Herder (1796), Volkmar (1866 and 1870).
5. Luke, Matthew, Mark. Büsching (1776), Evanson (1792).
6. Luke, Mark, Matthew. Vogel (1804), Schneckenburger (1882).
The conflicting variety of these modifications shakes the whole borrowing theory. It makes the omissions of most important sections, as Matt. 12-17; 14:22 - 16:12; and Luke 10-18:14, and the discrepancies in the common sections entirely inexplicable. See text.
III. The hypothesis of a Primitive Gospel (Urevangelium) written before those of the Synoptists and used by them as their common source, but now lost.
1. A lost Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic Gospel of official character, written very early, about 35, in Palestine by the apostles as a manual for the travelling preachers. This is the famous Urevangeliumshypothese of the learned Professor Eichhorn (1794, 1804, 1820), adopted and modified by Bishop Herbert Marsh (1803), Gratz (1809), and Bertholdt (who, as Baur says, was devoted to it with "carnal self-security").
But there is no trace of such an important Gospel, either Hebrew or Greek. Luke knows nothing about it, although he speaks of several attempts to write portions of the history. To carry out his hypothesis, Eichhorn was forced to assume four altered copies or recensions of the original document, and afterwards he added also Greek recensions. Marsh, outgermanizing the German critic, increased the number of recensions to eight, including a Greek translation of the Hebrew original. Thus a new recension might be invented for every new set of facts ad infinitum. If the original Gospel was an apostolic composition, it needed no alterations and would have been preserved; or if it was so defective, it was of small account and unfit to be used as a basis of the canonical Gospels. Eichhorn's hypothesis is now generally abandoned, but in modified shape it has been renewed by Ewald and others. See below.
2. The Gospel "according to the Hebrews," of which some fragments still remain. Lessing (1784, in a book published three years after his death), Semler (who, however, changed his view repeatedly), Weber (1791), Paulus (1799). But this was a heretical or Ebionitic corruption of Matthew, and the remaining fragments differ widely from the canonical Gospels.
3. The Hebrew Matthew (Urmatthäus). It is supposed in this case that the famous Logia, which Matthew is reported by Papias to have written in Hebrew, consisted not only of a collection of discourses of our Lord (as Schleiermacher, Ewald, Reuss, I., 183, explained the term), but also of his deeds: "things said and done." But in any case the Hebrew Matthew is lost and cannot form a safe basis for conclusions. Hug and Roberts deny that it ever existed. See next section.
4. The canonical Mark.
5. A pre-canonical proto-Mark (Urmarkus). The last two hypotheses have already been mentioned under the second general head (II. 3).
IV. The theory of a number of fragmentary documents (the Diegesentheorie), or different recensions. It is based on the remark of Luke that "many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative (diegesinconcerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us" (Luke 1:1). Schleiermacher (1817) assumed a large number of such written documents, or detached narratives, and dealt very freely with the Synoptists, resting his faith chiefly on John.
Ewald (1850) independently carried out a similar view in fierce opposition to the "beastly wildness" of the Tübingen school. He informs us with his usual oracular self-assurance that Philip, the evangelist (Acts 8), first wrote a historical sketch in Hebrew, and then Matthew a collection of discourses (the logiaof Papias), also in Hebrew, of which several Greek translations were made; that Mark was the third, Matthew the fifth, and Luke the ninth in this series of Gospels, representing the "Höhebilder, die himmlische Fortbewegung der Geschichte," which at last assumed their most perfect shape in John.
Köstlin, Wittichen, and Scholten likewise assume a number of precanonical Gospels which exist only in their critical fancy.
Renan (Les Evang., Introd., p. vi.) distinguishes three sets of Gospels: (1) original Gospels of the first hand, taken from the oral tradition without a previous written text: the Hebrew Matthew and the Greek proto-Mark; (2) Gospels partly original and partly second-handed: our canonical Gospels falsely attributed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke; (3) Gospels of the second and third hand: Marcion's and the Apocryphal Gospels.
V. The theory of a common Oral Tradition (Traditionshypothese). Herder (1796), Gieseler (who first fully developed it, 1818), Schulz (1829), Credner, Lange, Ebrard (1868), Thiersch (1845, 1852), Norton, Alford, Westcott (1860, 6th ed., 1881), Godet (1873), Keil (1877), and others. The Gospel story by constant repetition assumed or rather had from the beginning a uniform shape, even in minute particulars, especially in the words of Christ. True, as far as it goes, but must be supplemented, at least in the case of Luke, by pre-canonical, fragmentary documents or memoranda (diegeseis). See the text.
VI. The Tendency hypothesis (Tendenzhypothese), or the theory of Doctrinal Adaptation. Baur (1847) and the Tübingen school (Schwegler, Ritschl, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, Köstlin), followed in England by Samuel Davidson (in his Introd. to the New Test., 1868, revised ed., 1882). Each Evangelist modified the Gospel history in the interest of the religious school or party to which he belonged. Matthew represents the Jewish Christian, Luke the Pauline or Gentile Christian tendency, Mark obliterates the difference, or prepares the way from the first to the second. Every individual trait or characteristic feature of a Gospel is connected with the dogmatic antithesis between Petrinism and Paulinism. Baur regarded Matthew as relatively the most primitive and credible Gospel, but it is itself a free reproduction of a still older Aramaic Gospel "according to the Hebrews." He was followed by an Urlukas, a purely Pauline tendency Gospel. Mark is compiled from our Matthew and the Urlukas in the interest of neutrality. Then followed the present Luke with an irenical Catholic tendency. Baur overstrained the difference between Petrinism and Paulinism far beyond the limits of historic truth, transformed the sacred writers into a set of partisans and fighting theologians after modem fashion, set aside the fourth Gospel as a purely ideal fiction, and put all the Gospels about seventy years too far down (130-170), when they were already generally used in the Christian church--according to the concurrent testimonies of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus, and Tertullian. Volkmar went even beyond Baur in reckless radicalism, although he qualified it in other respects, as regards the priority of Mark, the originality of Luke (as compared with Marcion), and the date of Matthew which he put back to about 110. See a summary of his views in Hilgenfeld's Einleitung, pp. 199-202. But Ritschl and Hilgenfeld have considerably moderated the Tübingen extravagancies. Ritschl puts Mark first, and herein Volkmar agrees. Hilgenfeld assigns the composition of Matthew to the sixth decade of the first century (though he thinks it was somewhat changed soon after the destruction of Jerusalem), then followed Mark and paved the way from Petrinism to Paulinism, and Luke wrote last before the close of the first century. He ably maintained his theory in a five years' conflict with the Tübingen master (1850-1855) and reasserts it in his Einleitung (1875). So he brings us back to the traditional order. As to the time of composition, the internal evidence strongly supports the historical tradition that the Synoptists wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem.
[878] Synopsis (conspectus), from sun, together, and opsis-i,-i view, is applied since Griesbach (though used before him) to a parallel arrangement of the Gospels so as to exhibit a general view of the whole and to facilitate a comparison. In some sections the fourth Gospel furnishes parallels, especially in the history of the passion and resurrection. The first three Evangelists should not be called Synoptics (as is done by the author of Supernatural Religion, vol. I., 213, and Dr. Davidson), but Synoptists. The former is a Germanism (Synoptiker.)
[879] Holtzmann (p. 12) and others include also among the verbal coincidences the irregular apheontai (the Doric form of pass. perf., 3 pers., plur.), Matt. 9:2, 5; Mark 2:5, 9; Luke 5:20, 23, and the double augment in apekatestathe, Matt. 12:13; Mark 3:5; Luke 6:10. But the former is ruled out by the better reading aphientai, which is adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort, in Matt. 9:2, 5, and in Mark 2:5. Moreover, the Doric form is not confined to the New Test., but somewhat widely diffused; see Moulton's Winer, p. 97, note. And as to the double augment, it occurs also in the Sept. (see Trommius' Concord., I., 163, sub apokathistemi); comp. also apekateste in Mark 8:25. Ebrard (Wiss. Krit., p. 1054) quotes a passage from Pseudo-Lucian (Philiopatr., c. 27) where apekatestese occurs
[880] Mr. Norton brings out this fact very fully in his Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels (Boston, ed. of 1875, p. 464 sq.). I give his results: "In Matthew's Gospel, the passages verbally coincident with one or both of the other two Gospels amount to less than a sixth part of its contents; and of this about seven-eighths occur in the recital of the words of others, and only about one eighth in what, by way of distinction, I may call mere narrative, in which the evangelist, speaking in his own person, was unrestrained in the choice of his expressions. In Mark, the proportion of coincident passages to the whole contents of the Gospel is about one-sixth, of which not one-fifth occurs in the narrative. Luke has still less agreement of expression with the other evangelists. The passages in which it is found amount only to about a tenth part of his Gospel; and but an inconsiderable portion of it appears in the narrative, in which there are few instances of its existence for more than half a dozen words together. In the narrative, it may be computed as less than a twentieth part. These definite proportions are important, as showing distinctly in how small a part of each Gospel there is any verbal coincidence with either of the other two; and to how great a degree such coincidence is confined to passages in which the evangelists professedly give the words of others, particularly of Jesus.-The proportions should, however, be further compared with those which the narrative part of each Gospel bears to that in which the words of others are professedly repeated. Matthew's narrative occupies about one-fourth of his Gospel, Mark's about one-half, and Luke's about one-third. It may easily be computed, therefore, that the proportion of verbal coincidence found in the narrative part of each Gospel, compared with what exists in the other part, is about in the following ratios: in Matthew as one to somewhat more than two, in Mark as one to four, and in Luke as one to ten .... We cannot explain this phenomenon by the supposition that the Gospels were transcribed either one from another, or all from common documents; for, if such transcription had been the cause, it would not have produced results so unequal in the different portions into which the Gospels naturally divide themselves."
[881] Geschichte der heil. Schriften N. Test., I., p. 175 (5th ed., 1874). See also his Histoire Evangelique, Paris, 1876 (Nouveau Testament, I. partie).
[882] See Westcott, Introd. to the Gospels, p. 191, fifth ed.