Part 2 (1/2)

[Footnote 3: For example, that which concerns the announcement of the betrayal by Judas]

[Footnote 4: See, for exa disputes of chapters vii, viii, and ix]

[Footnote 5: We feel often that the author seeks pretexts for introducing certain discourses (chaps iii, v, viii, xiii, and following)]

[Footnote 6: For example, chap xvii]

[Footnote 7: Besides the synoptics, the Acts, the Epistles of St

Paul, and the Apocalypse, confirm it]

[Footnote 8: John iii 3, 5]

Literary history offers, besides, another exay with the historic phenomenon we have just described, and serves to explain it Socrates, who, like Jesus, never wrote, is known to us by two of his disciples, Xenophon and Plato, the first corresponding to the synoptics in his clear, transparent, i the author of the fourth Gospel, by his vigorous individuality In order to describe the Socratic teaching, should we follow the ”dialogues” of Plato, or the ”discourses” of Xenophon? Doubt, in this respect, is not possible; every one chooses the ”discourses,” and not the ”dialogues” Does Plato, however, teach us nothing about Socrates? Would it be good criticislect the ”dialogues”? Who would venture to y, moreover, is not complete, and the difference is in favor of the fourth Gospel The author of this Gospel is, in fact, the better biographer; as if Plato, hilst attributing to his master fictitious discourses, had known inored entirely

Without pronouncing upon the material question as to what hand has written the fourth Gospel, and whilst inclined to believe that the discourses, at least, are not from the son of Zebedee, we ad to John,” in the same sense that the first and second Gospels are the Gospels ”according to Matthew,” and ”according to Mark” The historical sketch of the fourth Gospel is the Life of Jesus, such as it was known in the school of John; it is the recital which Aristion and _Presbyteros Joannes_hi no importance to this point I must add, that, in my opinion, this school was better acquainted with the exterior circuroup whose remembrances constituted the synoptics It had, especially upon the sojourns of Jesus at Jerusalem, data which the others did not possess

The disciples of this school treated Mark as an indifferent biographer, and devised a systees of Luke, where there is, as it were, an echo of the traditions of John,[2] prove also that these traditions were not entirely unknown to the rest of the Christian family

[Footnote 1: Papias, _loc cit_]

[Footnote 2: For exae which Luke has of the family of Bethany; his type of the character of Martha responding to the [Greek: diechouei] of John (chap xii 2); the incident of the woman iped the feet of Jesus with her hair; an obscure notion of the travels of Jesus to Jerusalem; the idea that in his passion he was seen by three witnesses; the opinion of the author that soe which he has of the part played by Annas in aiding Caiaphas; the appearance of the angel in the agony (comp John xii 28, 29)]

These explanations will suffice, I think, to show, in the course of ive the preference to this or that of the four guides e have for the _Life of Jesus_ On the whole, I admit as authentic the four canonical Gospels

All, in my opinion, date fro, those to whom they are attributed; but their historic value is very diverse Matthew evidently merits an unliia_, the identical notes taken fros of Jesus A kind of splendor at once th, if we may so speak, emphasizes these words, detaches theuishable The person who i a continuous narrative froospel history, possesses, in this respect, an excellent touchstone The real words of Jesus disclose themselves; as soon as we touch them in this chaos of traditions of varied authenticity, we feel them vibrate; they betray themselves spontaneously, and shi+ne out of the narrative with unequaled brilliancy

The narrative portions grouped in the first Gospel around this primitive nucleus have not the saends which have proceeded froeneration[1] The Gospel of Mark isfewer subsequent additions He is the one of the three synoptics who has reinal, the one to whom the fewest after-elements have been added

In Mark, the facts are related with a clearness for which we seek in vain aelists He likes to report certain words of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean[2] He is full ofdoubtless fro with Papias in regarding this eye-witness, who evidently had followed Jesus, who had loved him and observed hie of him, as the apostle Peter himself

[Footnote 1: Chaps i, ii, especially See also chap xxvii 3, 19, 51, 53, 60, xxviii 2, and following, in co Mark]

[Footnote 2: Chap v 41, vii 34, xv 24 Matthew only presents this peculiarity once (chap xxvii 46)]

As to the work of Luke, its historical value is sensibly weaker It is a document which comes to us second-hand The narrative is more mature The words of Jesus are there, more deliberate, erated[1] Writing outside of Palestine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem,[2]

the author indicates the places with less exactitude than the other two synoptics; he has an erroneous idea of the temple, which he represents as an oratory where people went to pay their devotions[3]

He subdues soree;[4] he softens the passages which had beco on account of a erates the y;[7] omits Hebraistic coives to all the localities their Greek names We feel we have to do with a compiler--with a man who has not himself seen the witnesses, but who labors at the texts and wrests their sense to ree

Luke had probably under his eyes the biographical collection of Mark, and the _Logia_ of Matthew But he treats them with much freedom; sometimes he fuses two anecdotes or two parables in one;[9] sometimes he divides one in order toto his own idea; he has not the absolute iht affirs of his individual tastes and tendencies; he is a very exact devotee;[11] he insists that Jesus had performed all the Jewish rites,[12] he is a warm Ebionite and democrat, that is to say, much opposed to property, and persuaded that the triu;[13] he likes especially all the anecdotes showing prominently the conversion of sinners--the exaltation of the humble;[14] he often ive theends about the infancy of Jesus, related with the long as, and the conventional proceedings which form the essential features of the Apocryphal Gospels Finally, he has in the narrative of the last hours of Jesus so, and certain words of Jesus of delightful beauty,[16] which are not found in more authentic accounts, and in which we detect the presence of legend Luke probably borrowed them from a more recent collection, in which the principal aim was to excite sentiments of piety

[Footnote 1: Chap xiv 26 The rules of the apostolate (chap x) have there a peculiar character of exaltation]

[Footnote 2: Chap xix 41, 43, 44, xxi 9, 20, xxiii 29]

[Footnote 3: Chap ii 37, xviii 10, and following, xxiv 53]

[Footnote 4: For example, chap iv 16]