concerning those early productions; notwithstanding they were, as he positively pronounces, so full of inaccuracies, fable, stories, or falsehood, "that a correction of them was absolutely necessary;" yet we find he here confesses himself unable to acccount for the remarkable ver bal agreement perceivable in the three first Gospels now extant, otherwise than by supposing that St. Luke, as well as St. Mark and the translator of St. Matthew, abided by the expressions which they found in those lost many: he likewise acknowledges that it is possible St. Mark and St. Luke followed those early accounts in the arrangement of the recorded facts. But if such concessions as these were considered by him as consistent with his former animadversions on those apocryphal Gospels, what may we not expect to discover by extending our enquiries a little father? Let us proceed. At p. 215, he thus expresses himself on this same subject: "St. Luke, in the preface to his Gospel, mentions that several written accounts were then in circulation; and I think it probable, not only that St. Luke, but likewise St. Mark, made use of these written documents, correcting at the same time whatever was eironeous by the assistance of St. Peter." So then what was before only possible appears now to be probable; this probability, it will perhaps be thought unreasonable to expect he has any where reduced to an absolute certainty. If he has not, we shall have the less reason to be surprised. However, let us not be discouraged from sifting this point too, and especially as we perceive something like the beginning of a clue to direct our enquiry in the page immediately preceding that from which the last extract was made. Speaking therein of the sources from which St. Mark derived his information, he says, "But, notwithstanding the silence of the fathers in respect to any written documents which were used by Mark, it is certain, that he made use of other Gospels in the composition of his own." How! did St. Mark certainly make use of other Gospels in the composition of his own? Our informant not only tells us so here, but he gives us to understand the same thing again at p. 216,where he says, "On the other hand, the circumstance that no ecclesiastical writer before Augustin has advanced this opinion, is no argument against it: for they are equally silent in respect to other written documents, and yet some written document was certainly used by Mark." But what written document, or rather,

what Gospels (for he has undertaken to prove in the section from which the extract immediately preceding was taken, that this Evangelist used, more than once, written documents in the composition of his own,) did he make use of? From St. John's Gospel he could not derive any information, because that Gospel, by the professor's own account, was written after that by St. Mark. Did he then borrow any thing from St. Matthew's Gospel? That he did not, we find the professor was encouraged to think after he had made it his business to sift this point, by what he says at p. 220, viz. "If St. Mark had copied from St. Matthew, this difference would hardly have taken place." Indeed, we perceive that he had pronounced more positively on this point too, a little before in the same page: he there says, "Now let the harmonists reconcile these examples in what manner they please, there will always remain a difference between the two accounts, which would have been avoided if St. Mark had copied from St. Matthew. But what shall we say of instances, in which, as far as I am able to judge, there is no mode of reconciliation?" Neither St. John's Gospel then, nor that by St. Matthew, is to be reckoned among those which Mark, by the professor's account, certainly made use of in the composition of his own. St. John's, we find, he could not use; and St. Matthew's, the professor seems to have been persuaded, he did not use, as their accounts appear to be, in certain instances, irreconcilable*. But, it may be said, we learn, at p. 220, that he used the Gospel of St. Luke." St. Luke's, however, is but one; but Mark, the professor has set apart a section to convince ust, certainly made use of more than one. By all that we collect, then, from professor Michaelis's account of St. Mark's Gospel, we must conclude that he certainly made use of those early Gospels, notwithstanding they "contained so much falsehood, that it was absolutely necessary to correct them," &c. &c. &c. As our enquiries concerning St. Mark's Gospel have been attended with so much unexpected success, we shall be the less surprised if, by resuming our enqui

66

"I have already shewn (says the professor at p. 214) in the third chapter, that St. Mark agrees in his expressions both with St. Matthew and with St. Luke, in such a manner as he would hardly have done, unless the three first Gospels had been connected, either mediately or immediately, with each other.”

† P. 214.

ries concerning that by St. Luke, we should discover that it is more than possible or probable, that he also was indebted to those early documents. Let us then collect what the professor says farther of St. Luke's Gospel. At p. 233, speaking of the inaccuracies* in that Gospel, among several others, the professor points out one to our attention in chap. xvii. 3, 4; concerning which he thus pronounces, "The addition, therefore, of TMs njepas is certainly without authority;" and immediately adds, "and St. Luke must have derived his information, in this instance, not from the Apostles, but from the apocryphal Gospels, of which he speaks in the preface." St. Luke then, we find after all, made use of those early compositions, as well as Mark; and by so doing, we perceive, was certainly led to transfer from those earlier Gospels into his own, an inaccuracy with regard to an important doctrine, of no less magnitude, perhaps, than any of those which he purposely set himself to correct, and, it may moreover be, to deviate from the arrangement facts made by St. Matthew. St. Mark too, it seems, either by copying from those early documents, or from St. Luke's Gospel (for we find "it may be said he used the Gospel by St. Luket," "as this supposition accounts for the agreement of those two Evangelists in the arrangement of facts,") deviated from the arrangement made by St. Matthew; but whether he adopted any inaccuracies from Luke and "the many," it does not appear. "It may be said, indeed, that Mark, if he wrote under the

of

* At p. 231, Michaelis says, "St. Luke was neither an Apostle nor an eye-witness to the facts which he has recorded in his Gospel; and therefore, when he differs from an Apostle and an eye-witness, we must con clude, since two accounts, which vary from each other, cannot both of them be accurate, that the innaccuracy is on the part of Luke." And he then immediately proceeds to produce one instance wherein he differs from St. John, and four from St. Matthew.

+ P. 222.

"In the arrangement of facts he sometimes agrees with St. Luke, where the order of time is not observed, and in opposition to St. Matthew, which can hardly be explained by mere accident," p. 214. What! did St. Mark, an inhabitant of Jerusalem, agree with St. Luke a gentile, “in opposition to St. Matthew," and where the order of time is not ob served?"

|| P. 223.

P. 222. But if this may be said, why may it not be said too, that if he wrote under the direction of St. Peter, he ought "by his assistance to have corrected whatever was erroneous," and therefore, among other things, to have arranged his matter according to Matthew's report?

direction of Peter, might tacitly correct the inaccuracies of his predecessors: and, therefore, that a deviation in his description of a fact from St. Luke will not absolutely prove that he made no use of St. Luke's Gospel," but (he might as well have added) only tend to depreciate that Gospel a little more, by representing its accuracy as more questionable than that of St. Mark, which suggestion some may think bears a little too hardly on St. Luke's credit.

Not only St. Mark then, but St. Luke too, it seems, certainly made use of those written documents, and suffered themselves to be misguided by them, at least in the arrangement of their facts, notwithstanding Mark, by all accounts, wrote what Peter preached, and Luke professed to write xabens, which it seems he must have been duly qualified to perform, by having made it his business to consult personally some of the aurora of every one of the facts recorded by him, and the latter even adopted some of their other inaccuracies. But if those early compositions were really so incorrect, so contradictory, or so replete with falsehood as the professor would have us think, is it at all likely that either of those two Evangelists would have paid any attention to them whatever? Why then does he tell us that both certainly used them, and that Luke, in particular, was misled by them in more respects than one; and even so far in his report of a very important doctrine as to render it "incomprehensible?" Surely, if he suffered.himself to be misled by them in his arrangement, in his diction, and in his report of a very important doctrine, it may well be suspected that he may have suffered himself to be misled by them in some other eases; for instance, in those four which are mentioned by the professor in the same section, as that wherein his mis-statement of a very important doctrine is recommended to our notice; in each of which he appears to be at variance with the report of the two eye-witnesses, but especially in that wherein he differs so materially from St. Matthew, by not attending to the purport of Hebrew punctuation. But from whatever source those several other instances of inaccuracy, particularly recommended to our attention, together with that concerning an important doctrine, proceeded, whether our Evangelist derived those others, as well as that, from those apocryphal Gospels; or whether they ought to be considered as having arisen from his own misapprehension or inadvertency, Vol. XI. Churchm. Mag. Sept. 1806. Сс (for

(for by what he says of them he seems to have had no reason to think that they were not inserted by Luke himself), if any thing can be wanting, after all the information hitherto obtained by collating the professor's detached observations on this point, to enable us to form a just estimate of the value of his researches concerning St. Luke's Gospel, these last mentioned instances of inaccuracy, by the help of a very little attention to the nature of them, will afford us as ample means of forming a satisfactory judgment concerning it as can be desired; the amount of the additional information with which they supply us being clearly this, viz. St. Luke, who appears to have been so little acquainted with the law of Moses as to misunderstand a common precept of that law; and who, if he was not as little acquainted with the Hebrew language as with the law of Moses, was at least so inattentive to the purport of Hebrew punctuation as to mistake one Hebrew word for another of a very different signification, undertook, of his own accord and his own authority, "modest" as he was, to correct the inaccuracies of those many, notwithstanding they wrote in Hebrew*, and notwithstanding too St. Matthew's Gospel had been publisned many years before, and in the same language; and principally with a view to do away the prejudices of a Jewish high-priest; and after all, has suffered himself to be misled by them, (in one instance confessedly, if not in several others), in his account of our Lord's own words, even so far in that very instance as to broach" a very incomprehensible doctrine." And though he may not have suffered himself to be misled by those many in all or any of those several other instances of inaccuracy above alluded to, yet, by the professor's account, this very Evangelist, who purposely set himself to write with a view to do away the prejudices of his Jewish friend against the Christian Religion, has himself, by "inverting a precept of Christ," (and it may be added, a very "rational," and a very important precept, and a well known precept of the law of Moses) furnished an "objection" to the very religion which he had professedly undertaken to render indubitable, by attesting "the certainty" of the reports which had been propagated concerning it.. "In this manner (to use the pro

* P. 94.

† P. 232.

+ P. 231.

|| P. 232.

fessor's