oU8 



many persons presents as wide a difiFerence as their faces ; and 

 the assertion is generally true that a man^s mental charac- 

 teristics, it he has sluj, display themselves in his style. Thus it 

 is impossible to mistake between Johnson and Macaulay, Hume 

 and Gibbon, Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Demosthenes; and 

 we are safe in pronouncing that the minds which produced the 

 one set of writings could not have produced the other. The 

 style of the sacred writers is no less widely distinguished from 

 that of their contemporaries and successors, and from one another. 

 The imitation of St. PauVs style would, I think, have been impos- 

 sible; and we may assert with the strongest confidence that those 

 who composed the spurious gospels could not have composed the 

 canonical ones. Writers of distinctive individuality can hardly 

 fail to impress that individuality on their pages ; and it is 

 hardly possible for a man of a different order of mind to 

 imitate it. It seems to me unquestionable that such diver- 

 gencies of style prove differences of authorship. 



But large numbers of modern critics carry this principle be- 

 yond all legitimate bounds in inferring from minute differences 

 of style differences of .authorship. It is a certain fact that au- 

 thors do not conceive at all times alike, and that within certain 

 limits their mode of writing varies, not only in conformity with 

 the subject-matter of their compositions, but with the different 

 periods of their life. Criticism founded on minute points of 

 style is of very little value except when supported by strong 

 external evidence. 



I have noticed this subject because it is one on which modern 

 criticism exercises the most unlimited license with respect to the 

 Sacred writings. Different portions of them are boldly pro- 

 nounced spurious on account of minute differences of style. Of 

 this the last edition of Dr. Davidson's Introduction to the Neiv 

 Testament forms the most striking illustration. Admitting, 

 as he does, that the external testimony that the fourth Gospel 

 and the first epistle by St. John were composed by the same 

 author is exceedingly strong, he boldly denies that the epistle 

 Avas composed by the author of the gospel, on the ground 

 of certain minute differences of style which it requires 

 critical eyes of a high magnifying power even to perceive. 

 This species of criticism can, however, be brought to a test of 

 direct verification, and when thus tested it utterly fails. Let 

 books which have been indubitably written by the same author 

 be subjected to the same process, and far greater divergencies 

 will be found in them. No difference of style, therefore, will 

 avail to prove difference of authorship which is not capable of 

 undergoing this test. What is compatible with sameness in the 

 one case cannot be incompatible with it in the other. 



