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silent about many things which we should certainly expect to read about i( the Gospels were biographies. This consideration takes away all point from the sugges-tion that silence about an event means that the writer was ignorant of it (see Sanday, Criticism of Fourth Gospel, p. 71). Again, although, before St. Luke wrote, there were numerous Gospels, only one of these survived till Irenaeus' time (see § 4). But have the rest entirely vanished? It may perhaps be conjectured that some fragments which seem not to belong to our canonical Gospels (such as Lk 22«'-, Jn 7'"-8", Mk 16'-") are survivals of these documents. But this is a mere guess.

2. The Synoptic problem. — The first three Gospels in many respects agree closely with one another, and differ from the Fourth. Their topics are the same; they deal chiefly with the Galilsean ministry, not explicitly men-tioning visits to Jerusalem after jesus' baptism until the last one; while the Fourth Gospel deals largely with those visits. In a word, the first three Gospels give the same general survey, the same 'synopsis,' and are therefore called the ' Synoptic Gospels,' and their writers the 'Synoptists.' But further, they agree very closely in words, arrangement of sentences, and in many other details. They have a large number of passages in common, and in many cases all three relate the same incidents in nearly the same words; in others, two out of the three have common matter. The likeness goes far beyond what might be expected from three writers independently relating the same series of facts. In that case we should look for Ukenesses in details of the narra^ tives, but not in the actual words. A striking example is in Mt 9«=Mk 2i»=Lk 5". The parenthesis ('Then saith he to the sick of the palsy ') is common to all three — an impossible coincidence if all were independent. Or again, in Mt. and Mk. the Baptist's imprisonment is re-lated parenthetically, out of its place (Mt 14™-, Mk 6'™), though in Lk. it comes in its true chronological order (Lk 3"). The coincidence in Mt. and Mk. shows some dependence. On the other hand, there are striking variations, even in words, in the common passages. Thus the Synoptists must have dealt very freely with their sources; they did not treat them as unalterable. What, then, is the nature of the undoubted literary connexion between them?

(o) The Oral Theory. — It Is clear from NT (e.g. Lk 1') and early ecclesiastical writers (e.g. Fapias, who tells us that he laid special stress on ' the utterances of a living and abiding voice,' see Eusebius, HE ill. 39), that the narrative teaching of the Apostles was handed on by word of mouth in a very systematic manner. Eastern memories are very retentive, and this fact favours such a mode of tradition. We know that the Jews kept up their traditions orally (Mt IS'"- etc.). It is thought, then, that both the resemblances and the differences between the Synoptists may be accounted for by each of them having written down the oral tradition to which he was accustomed.

This is the ' Oral Theory,' which met with a great degree of support, especially in England, a generation or so aeo. It was first systematically propounded in Germany by

Gieseler, in 1818, and was mamtained by Alford and West-cott, and lately by A. Wright. It is suggested that this theory would account for unusual words or expressions being found in all the Synoj)tics, as these would retain their hold on the memory. It is thought that the catechetical instruction was carried out very systematically, and that there were diflFerent schools of catechists; and that this would account for all the phenomena. The main strength of the theory lies in the objections raised to its rival, the Documentary Theory (see below^, especially that on the latter -view the freedom with which the later Evangelists used the earlier, or the common sources, contradicts any idea of inspiration or even of authority attaching to their predecessora. It is even said (Wright) that a man copying from a document could not produce such multitudinous variations in wording. The great objection to the Oral Theory is that it could not produce the extraordinarily close resemblances in language, such as the parentheses mentioned above, unless indeed the oral teaching were so firmly stereo-

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typed and so exactly leamt by heart that it had become

g Tactically the same thing as a written Gospel. Hence the ral Theory has fallen into disfavour, though there is cer-tainly this element of truth in it, that oral teaching went on for some time side by side with written Gospels, and provided independent traditions {e.g. that Jesus was bom m a cave, as Justin Martyr says), and indeed influenced the later Evangelists in their treatment of the earlier Gospels. It was only towards the end of the lives of the Apostles that our Gospels were written.

(6) The Documentary Theory, in one form, now obsolete, supposed that the latest of the Synoptists knew and borrowed from the other two, and the middle Synoptist from the earliest.

This theoiy, if true, would be a suflBcient cause for the re-semblances; but in spite of Zahn's argument to the contrary (.Einleitung, ii. 400), it is extremely unlikely that Matthew knew Luke's Gospel or vice versa. To mention only one instance, the Birtn-narratives clearly argue the independ-ence of both, especially in the matter of the genealogi^. Augustine's theory that Mark followed, and was the abbreviator of, Matthew is now seen to be impossible, both because of the graphic and autoptic nature of Mk., which precludes the idea of an abbreviator, and because in parallel passages Mk. is fuller than Mt., the latter having had to abbreviate in order to introduce additional matter.

The form of this theory which may now be said to hold the field, is that the source of the common portions of the Synoptics is a Greek written narrative, called (for reasons stated in art. Mahk [Gospel acc. to]) the 'Petrine tradition' — the preaching of St. Peter reduced to the form of a Gospel. The favourite idea is that our Mk. is itself the document which the other Synoptists independently used; but if this is not the case, at least our Mk. represents that document most closely. This theory would at once account for the close resemblances.

Here it may be as well to give at once a sufficient answer to the chief objection to all documentary theories (see above). Theobjection transfers modem ideas with regard to literary borrowing to the 1st century. As a matter of fact, we know that old writers did the very thing objected to; e.g. Genesis freely embodies older documents; the Didadie (c. a.d. 120) probably incorporates an old Jewish tract on the ' Wa^ of Life and the Way of Death,' and was itself afterwards incorporated and freely treated in later documents such as the Apostolic Constitutions (c. a.d. 375), which also absorbed and altered the Didascalia; and so the later ' Church Osders ' or manuals were produced from the earlier. ^ We have no right to make a priori theories as to inspiration , and to take it for granted that God inspired

£eople m the way that commends itself to us. And we now that as a matter of fact written documents were in existence when St. Luke wrote (Lk 1^). It is not then un-reasonable to suppose that Mk. or something very Uke it was before the First and Third Evangelists when they wrote. A strong argument for the priority of Mk. will be seen if three parallel passages of the Synoptics be written out in Greek side by side, and the words and phrases in Mk. which are found in |1 Mt, or || Lk. be underlined; it will be found almost always that nearly the whole of Mk. is reproduced in one or both of the other Synoptics, though taken singly Mk. is usually the fullest in parallel -passages. Mk. has very little which is peculiar to itself; its great value lying in another direction (see art. Mare [Gospel ACC. to] for other arguments). The conclusion is that it, or another Gospel closely resembling it, is a common source of Mt. and Lk. This accotmts for the resemblances of the Synoptists; their differences come from St. Matthew and St. Luke feeling perfectly free to alter their sources and narrate incidents differently as seemed best to them. They had other sources besides Mk. Here it may be desir-able to remark by way of caution that in so_ far as they use a common source, the Synoptists are not independent witnesses to the facte of the Gospels; in so far as they flupplement that source, they give additional attestation to the facts. Yet an event spoken of by all three Synoptists in the same way is often treated as being more trustworthy than one spoken of by only one or by two. A real example of double attestation, on the other hand, is the reference in 1 Co 132 to the 'faith that removes mountains,' as com-pared with Mt 172" 21a.

Another form of the Documentary Theory may be briefly mentioned, namely, that the common source was an Aramaic document, differently translated by the three Evangelists, This, it is thought, might account