38 



REV. CANON R. J. KNOWLING, D.D._, ON 



of the Jews," probably the earliest letter in which their 

 habitual characteristic is associated with the Jewish people. 



We turn to the word apxf'7roL/jLr}v, Chief-Shepherd, used of our 

 Lord by St. Peter, and not found elsewhere, but now traced to an 

 inscription in the Eoman period, on a wooden tablet round the 

 neck of a mummy ; apparently marking the fact that the wearer 

 was an " overseer," or master perhaps of a guild of shepherds. 



But whilst conservative critics rightly lay stress upon the 

 position taken by Dr. Harnack with regard to the authorship of 

 the third Gospel and the Acts, we cannot say that even Dr. 

 Harnack regards every portion of these books as historical. 

 And this is why it is so important to be able to corroborate the 

 statements of the earlier chapters of St. Luke by fresh evidence, 

 or to point to the Canticles of the same Lucan Gospel as bearing 

 the evident marks of truthfulness A little less and these 

 songs would be purely Jewish, a little more and they would be 

 purely Christian." At the same time it is only too often for- 

 gotten that there is in Germany a strong conservative school 

 headed by men like Feine and E. Seeberg, to say nothing of the 

 generally recognized conservatives like Zahn and Nosgen and 

 P. Ewald. 



Dr. Harnack's own most recent statement with regard to 

 the actual date of the Synoptists is indeed sufficiently 

 conservative, and he tells us at the close of his fourth volume of 

 l^ew Testament Studies that the second and third Gospels, as 

 well as the Acts, were composed while St. Paul was still alive, 

 and that the first Gospel came into being only a few years later 

 (Date of the Acts and the Byno^tic Gosjjcls, p. 162, 1. 7). 



But then we are obliged to face the further question as to 

 what sources lie at the root of our Synoptists in their present 

 form. The question is one which is admittedly full of the 

 greatest difficulty. But it would seem that recent scholars ask 

 us to recognize that there is a source Q {i.e., the source common 

 to St. Matthew and St. Luke, and with which St. Mark was 

 also to all appearance familiar), there is the Gospel of 

 St. Mark practically as we have it to-day, and there is a 

 further source peculiar to St. Luke, wJiich we may call S, 

 containing those exquisite passages which St. Luke himself 

 may have chosen out for special remembrance. I am not 

 endorsing all these details, but it is necessary to mention 

 them. 



The further tendency of criticism would also seem to be to 

 place Q very early, possibly some twenty years before Mark. 

 Dr. Harnack in the volume to which we have just referred, 



