GOSPORT 



fourth. They are called " the 

 Synoptics," because they follow 

 the same lines and deal with the 

 narrative from a similar point of 

 view. Mark is the earliest of the 

 three and gives the story of the life 

 of Jesus in its simplest form. 

 Matthew adapts his narrative for 

 Jewish readers, and his apologetic 

 aim is manifest in his constant use 

 of the argument from prophecy. 

 Luke, on the other hand, being a 

 Greek, strives to make his portrait 

 of Jesus appeal to the Greek- 

 speaking world. 



The fourth Gospel was written 

 thirty years later than the others, 

 and is obviously an interpretation 

 of Christ rather than a record of 

 events. Its purpose is definitely 

 stated in the words, "These (signs) 

 are written that ye may believe 

 that Jesus is the Christ, and that 

 believing ye may have life in His 

 name " (xx, 31). 



The Synoptic Gospels 



The problem of the inter-relation 

 of the Synoptic Gospels has been 

 much discussed recently. It is no 

 longer possible to regard them as 

 independent writings. The im- 

 mense amount of common material, 

 the similar arrangement of events, 

 the many verbal similarities put 

 such a theory out of court. 



It is inconceivable, for instance, 

 that three independent writers in 

 the narrative of the healing of the 

 palsied man at Capernaum could 

 have introduced at the same point 

 in the story exactly the same paren- 

 thesis ("he saith to the sick of the 

 palsy "). The hypothesis that the 

 three evangelists embodied and 

 reproduced the oral tradition of the 

 Church is now regarded as inade- 

 quate because it does not explain 

 all the facts. The most generally 

 accepted theory is that the simi- 

 larities in the three narratives can 

 only be accounted for by assuming 

 that the evangelists derived their 

 materials from common sources. 

 One of these sources is generally 

 identified with the Gospel of Mark, 

 perhaps not in its present form. 



The justification for this assump- 

 tion is ample. Practically the 

 whole of our Mark is embodied in 

 Matthew and Luke, and even the 

 order of Mark's narrative is 

 followed by one or other of the 

 later evangelists. It is only very 

 rarely that Matthew and Luke 

 agree in differing from the state- 

 ments or arrangement, or phrase- 

 qjogy of Mark. In addition to Mark 

 we know that the other two evan- 

 gelists used another document, 

 because their Gospels contain much 

 common material which is not 

 derived from that source. This 

 material is chiefly connected with 

 the teaching of Jesus. It is, there- 



3616 



GOSPORT 



fore, highly probable that the probably belong to the period 60- 

 second documentary source em- 80, though it is impossible to date 



ployed by Matthew and Luke, was 

 a collection of the Logia or Sayings 

 of Jesus ; and attempts have been 

 made, notably by Harnack, to re- 

 construct it. Such a reconstruc- 

 tion, however, is bound to be hy- 

 pothetical, because when Matthew 

 and Luke diverge, there is no in- 



them with anything like precision. 

 The tertiary stratum is the Gos- 

 pel of S. John which cannot have 

 come into existence much before 

 100. From an historical point of 

 view its evidence is of much less 

 value. The personal equation of 

 the writer makes its presence felt 



fallible criterion for deciding which especially in his version of the 



of them represents the original. 



Comparing the version of the 

 teaching of Jesus in Matthew's 

 Sermon on the Mount with the 



teaching of Jesus. There is much 

 to be said for the position of Renan 

 that " if Jesus spoke as Matthew 

 makes him speak, he cannot have 



version in Luke, we find that about spoken as John makes him speak," 



a third of the Sermon on the not that this implies that the 



Mount appears in Luke's Sermon Johannine speeches are entirely 



on the Plain ; another third is fictitious, for as Matthew Arnold 



found interspersed at many differ- puts it, " these speeches cannot in 



ent parts in Luke's, while the re- the main be the writer's, because 



maining third is absent altogether, in the main they are clearly beyond 



Again if comparing the versions of his reach." See Bible ; Criticism ; 



the Lord's Prayer or the Beatitudes 

 of the two Gospels, the most strik- 

 ing differences manifest them- 

 selves. It is almost impossible in 

 these and many other cases to say 

 whether Matthew or Luke is more 

 likely to be a faithful representa- 

 tion of the original, and hence the 

 character of the second source 

 must always remain problemati- 

 cal as regards its details. 



From the statement of Papias 

 (c. 130), bishop of Hierapolis in 

 Phrygia, " Matthew then composed 

 the Logia in the Hebrew tongue 

 and each one interpreted them as 

 he was able," it has been argued 

 that what Matthew wrote was not 

 our present Gospel but the Logia 

 source which was afterwards em- 

 bodied in it. 



Three Strata of Evidence 



It follows that our Gospels re- 

 present three different strata of his- 

 torical evidence. The first and 

 most valuable is to be found in the 

 sources of the synoptics Mark 

 and the Logia. It is from these 

 that our earliest and best material 

 for constructing the life of Jesus is 

 to be obtained. Unfortunately the 

 date at which these documents were 

 written cannot be fixed with any- 

 thinglike certainty, ? 

 but they cannot ! 

 be much later j 

 than the decade | 

 50-60. They must I 

 certainly have 

 been composed 

 at a time when 

 their statements 

 might have been 

 checked and chal- 

 lenged by the 

 recollection of liv- 

 ing witnesses. 



The secondary 

 stratum is to be 

 found in Matthew 

 and Luke which 



Jesus Christ ; New Testament. 



H. T. Andrews 



Bibliography. The Gospels as His- 

 torical Documents, V. H. Stanton, 

 1903, etc. ; The Gospel History and 

 its Transmission, F. C. Burkitt, 1906; 

 Sources of our Knowledge of the 

 life of Jesus, P. Wernle, Eng. trans. 

 E. Lummis, 1907 ; Gospel Origins, 

 W. W. Holdsworth, 1909. 



Gosport. Urban district, sea- 

 port and market town of Hamp- 

 shire, the full name of the urban 

 district being Gos - 

 port and Alver- 

 stoke, originally 

 two separate 

 villages. Standing 

 on the W. side 

 of Portsmouth 

 Harbour, it is 86 

 m. from London 

 with a station on 

 the L. & S.W. Rly. A ferry and a 

 floating bridge connect it with 

 Portsmouth, of which it is virtually 

 a suburb. It has various naval 

 establishments, the most notable 

 being the immense Royal Clarence 

 Victualling Yard, and Haslar 

 Hospital, while there are also 

 barracks, a powder magazine, etc. 

 The chief church is Holy Trinity. 

 Pop. 33,300. 



Gosport arms 



iosport, Hampshire. The Hard or landing place on 

 Portsmouth harbour 



