LITERARY NOTICES. 



559 



by Matthew and understood according to 

 Schleiermacher's interpretation of Papias 

 and the priority of Mark, which may be re- 

 garded as an incontestable conclusion of 

 recent gospel criticism, furnish the key to 

 the solution of the problem of the relation 

 of the synoptic Gospels." Mark, according 

 to this view, wrote his Gospel " in the last 

 years of the sixties," probably at Rome, from 

 notes on St. Peter's sermon, the logia by 

 Matthew, and oral tradition. We can only 

 partially indorse this opinion. We doubt 

 whether Mark furnished as much of the 

 materials of our present Gospel as our au- 

 thor thinks; but his view of Matthew we 

 may safely adopt. The Logia of Jesus, 

 which Papias says Matthew wrote in Ara- 

 maic, the Gospel of Mark, and oral tradi- 

 tion doubtless constituted the substrata of 

 our present Gospel, which was written in 

 Greek some time between a. d. 70 and 100. 

 Dr. Cone says that the Gospel, as it now 

 stands, contains legendary matter. " Such 

 are probably the accounts of the birth and 

 infancy of Jesus, the details of the tempta- 

 tion in the desert, the episode of Peter's 

 walking on the water, the story of the piece 

 of money to be found in the mouth of a fish, 

 the rending of the veil of the temple, the 

 resurrection of the saints at the time of the 

 crucifixion, and the corruption of the guard 

 placed at the tomb." The author accepts 

 the traditional authorship of Luke's Gospel, 

 holding that it was written by St. Paul's 

 companion about a. d. 90. We can not sub- 

 scribe to this opinion, for neither the exter- 

 nal nor the internal evidence seems to us to 

 justify it. Luke probably furnished the 

 substrata of the Acts and the third Gospel 

 (both were written by the same person), 

 which were subsequently wrought up into 

 their present shape by a friend of Theophi- 

 lus. The prologue to this Gospel, which 

 Dr. Cone somewhat unaccountably ascribes 

 to the hand that composed the rest of the 

 book, differs from it entirely in its style, and 

 is generally believed to have been added to 

 the Gospel by a late rcdacteur. The work 

 is composite in its character and the product 

 of several hands. Davidson's view of this 

 Gospel is more satisfactory than that of Dr. 

 Cone. 



The authorship of the fourth Gospel is 

 the pons asinorum of biblical criticism. 



The man who holds that St. John the Apos- 

 tle wrote it is ipso facto excluded from 

 philosophical critics, and placed among the 

 special pleaders for traditionalism. Both 

 the external and the internal evidences are 

 overwhelmingly against the Johannine au- 

 thorship of the book. No tradition ascribes 

 it to the apostle for a century after he is 

 supposed to have written it, and this late 

 tradition is wholly untrustworthy. There is 

 no adequate evidence to show that it was in 

 existence before Justin Martyr's day, a. d. 

 140. But, above all, the style, the theol- 

 ogy, and the general character of the Gos- 

 pel make it impossible to accept it as the 

 work of John. It is rather the mystic mus- 

 ing of a Philonic philosopher, who may 

 have belonged to the Ephesian school, and 

 have got fragments of the apostle's teach- 

 ing and woven them into his work during 

 the first quarter of the second century. Dr. 

 Cone nowhere shows more critical ability 

 and philosophic insight and discrimination 

 than in his cautious yet masterful discus- 

 sion of the Johannine problem. He con- 

 cludes that "the problem of the authorship 

 of the fourth Gospel is not one to be solved 

 offhand by radical criticism, or to be pro- 

 nounced upon ex cathedra by conservative 

 dogmatism. If the external evidences are 

 indecisive of its early origin (and he thinks 

 they are) ; if from internal grounds we can 

 not regard it as the work of an apostle ; if 

 it plainly has a composite character then 

 the unbiased critic may still be just to the 

 ancient tradition of the Ephesian Church 

 and to the profound spiritual sayings of 

 the Gospel in holding that, while on any 

 hypothesis of its origin many critical 

 problems remain unsolved, there is at least 

 a strong probability for a Johannine nu- 

 cleus in the book, for frequent 'words of 

 the Lord,' handed down from the apostle 

 without connection, probably, and without 

 a historical setting, which have in this re- 

 markable work found a literary embodi- 

 ment in the midst of much mysticism, it is 

 true, and overlaid by Greek-Christian, sec- 

 ond-century speculations, but distinguisha- 

 ble from these by their unique quality and 

 surprising originality." 



After discussing, with much clearness 

 and satisfaction, the eschatology of the 

 Gospels, Baur's celebrated " tendency-the- 



