INTRODUCTION TO THE SACRED WRITINGS OF THE NEW COVENANT, CHAPTER I. OF THE NAME, AND NUMBER OF THE CANONICAL 7 GOSPELS. THE first book of the New Testament, according to the arrangement in the manuscripts', contains the four Gospels, or the four Histories of Christ's life. The Greek name Evayyeλion has three different senses, as used by profane writers, by the sacred writers, and by ecclesiastical writers; and these three senses must be carefully distinguished from each other. The want of this distinction has sometimes given rise to mistakes, and induced, for instance, many persons to suppose that St. Paul dictated the Gospel of St. Luke, because in his epistle to the Romans he uses the expression' according to my Gospel. The word vayyedtov is used by the Greek profane writers to signify good news in general: but in the New Testament it signifies the joyful intelligence of the advent of the Messiah in particular, and is used by St. Paul' in reference to the prophecies VOL. III. * Rom, xi, 16. Rom. i. 1, 2, of that event. Also St. Mark writes, Chap i. 1--4. The beginning of the Gospel-was John'3: and Christ himself, in his answer to John, who had sent to inquire who he was, thought it sufficient, after relating the miracles, which he had performed, to add and the poor have the Gospel preached to them,' that is, it is announced to the poor that the Messiah is come. Ecclesiastical writers have taken the word evayyektov in a new sense, and have used it to signify a narrative of the life of Christ. It is used in this sense in both the old and new superscriptions, which have been prefixed to the four Gospels; and hence the authors of them have acquired the Title of Evangelists". I will not undertake to assign the reason, why we have precisely four Gospels, or to discover to what cause it is owing that their number is neither greater nor less, though it was attempted by some of the ancient fathers, who fancied that they had discovered a mysterious analogy between the four Gospels and the four winds". But I am so far from seeking a mystery in the number four, that I have my doubts whether two of them, namely those of St. Mark and St. Luke were divinely inspired and even if it were true that my doubts were ungrounded, yet on the other hand their number was formerly much greater than four, though four only have descended to the present age. That the number of our present Gospels therefore amounts precisely to four, we can ascribe, to no other cause than mere accident, It is true that every event, which we call accidental, still owing to the particular direction of the Supreme Being; yet we must make a distinction between events, which happen from the common course of things and such as are derived from his immediate interposition. t The real state of the case appears to be as follows. At the time, when St. Luke undertook to write his history of the transactions of Christ, various but uncertain Gospels were already in circulation. These Gospels, c Matth. xi. 5. • Luke i. 1-4. See Vol, I. Ch. 111. Sect 3. probably owing to the circumstance, that the acounts, which they contained, were uncertain, have either totally perished, or are preserved only in a few scattered and even interpolated fragments". It is certain that they never were received by the Christian Church as credible and authentic documents, that they were never deemed worthy to be read in the public service, nor admitted into the catalogue of the writings of the New Testament. Whether internal or external evidence contributed chiefly to their rejection, whether their accounts, which have the appearance of fable, rather than of history, and not seldom contradict each other, rendered them suspected, or whether an opposition on the part of the Apostles and other eye-witnesses prevented them from being generally received, is at present difficult to be determined, because we have no Christian historians of the first century. A tradition relative to this subject is recorded by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History', which he gives however as a mere report, without quoting any written evidence for its authority. Namely, the three first Gospels being now delivered to all inen, and to John himself, it is said, that he ap→ proved them, and confirmed the truth of their narration by his own testimony, saying, there was only wanting a written account of the things done by Christ in the former part, and in the beginning of his preaching." If this report be grounded, we can easily account for the admission of the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, with the addition of that written by St. John, and of those only: the testimony of the last surviving Apostle, who had himself been eye-witness to the several transactions, was sufficient authority. Whe ther this testimony implies that the three first Gospels are totally free from the smallest historical inaccuracy, Book III. ch. 24. * Των προαναγραφέντων τριων εις παντας ηδη και εις αυτον τον Ιωάννην διαδεδομένων, αποδεξασθαι μὲν φασιν, αληθειαν αυτοίς επιμαρτυρήσαντα. |