GIFT OF I A POPULAR INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. A POPULAR INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. J. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D., Noyrisian Professor of Divinity, Cambtidgc. ITonboii : HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCI.XXXIII. [All Rights Reserved.^ Butier & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. PREFACE. The present volume has its groundwork in twelve Essays written last year for the Clergyman s Magazine. Only one or two of those papers had been printed, before the writer was urged, from several quarters, to let the whole, when complete, be put into a separate form. The pub- lishers- consented that some additions should be made, both in the text, and by means of notes, especially in that portion of the work which deals with St. Paul's Epistles. It is hoped that the book will 272906 vi • Preft ace. thus be found to possess a degree of completeness which it was impossible for it to have in the limited space allowed by the Magazine. Cambridge, March, 1883. CONTENTS. PAGE Preliminary i II. The Synoptic Gospels . . . . .21 III. The Gospel according to St. John . . 75 IV. The Acts of the Apostles ... .97 V. The Pauline Epistles (Introduction) . .119 VI. The Pauline Epistles 153 VII. The Epistle to the Hebrews .... 268 VIII. The Catholic Epistles 296 vii viii Contents. IX. PAGE The Revelation of St. John . . . .328 Table of Authorities with Dates . . -355 Index 357 CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. The New Testament What is it? We now regard it as a single book. We speak of it in the singular number, and lose sight, by so doing, of some most important facts in its history. The New Testament is not one book, but seven-and-twenty pieces, the work of eight or nine authors, writing, it is true, on the same subject-matter, but writing at different times, nearly always for different readers, for the most part under differing circumstances, and so from different points of view. And we need to bear this constantly in mind if the character of all its teaching is to be properly understood. It is worth while, then, to know how these several pieces were brought into one collection. It was not done in a brief time. Nearly four hundred years of the Christian era have rolled 1 B 2 Introduction to the New Testament, by before we find a list^ of New Testament books exactly corresponding with that in our Bibles. During that period these writings had been circulated singly, or in special collections of a few pieces together ; and not till A.D. 397 did the whole volume, as we have it, receive the sanction of the Church, and become recognized as the whole authoritative literature of Christian revelation. When our Lord was taken up into heaven, His Apostles and disciples began to preach and to form Christian congregations, at first in Palestine, then in more distant countries. It was for the guidance of these infant congre- gations that the earliest writings of the New Testament were composed. The first in date are almost certainly some of St. Paul's Epistles, most likely the first letter to the Thessalonians.^ 1 The first list which was accepted by the authority of the Church was that of the Council of Laodicea (a.d. 363), but the books contained in it are specially termed " those that should be read in the church." The Apocalypse was therefore not included, but it is found in the list of the Council of Carthage (a.d. 397). 2 Written about a.d. 52, so that more than twenty years elapsed between the death of Christ and the issue of any portion of the New Testament. Of course many portions of Gospel narrative had before this been taken down from the lips of the Apostles, but no complete Gospel (unless it be perhaps St. Matthew's) existed at so early a date as the first Apostolic letters. Introduction to the New Testament, 3 Of such letters a very large part of the New Testament volume is composed. Twenty-two of the pieces which it contains are of this character; for the Apocalypse, though having a special subject of its own, is St. John's letter to the §even Churches of Asia, among which a large portion of his life's labour was spent. The historic part of the New Testament volume would not be needed till a later time than the date of the early epistles. The Gospels, we learn from one of them (Luke i. 1-4), were composed when those who were best able to tell the life-story of their Master had found it expedient to send forth with authority the history which for a long time they had pub- lished only by oral teaching ; the Acts was written, perhaps, between St. Paul's first and second visit to Rome. The whole of the Christian Scriptures were written originally in Greek ; for though there exists a tradition of a Hebrew original of St. Matthew, the evidence in support of it cannot be called satisfactory.^ The Christian books were intended to circulate through all the Churches, and so the language in which they were produced was that which formed the * On this point see p. 28. 4 Introduction to the New Testament, greatest medium of inter-communication at the time of their appearance. And they are pre- served to us still in Greek. But though we have these words of the Apostles and their fellows in the speech in which they were com- posed, we have no writing which dates from the Apostles' time, no autograph of any portion. The oldest manuscript which we possess was written, at the earliest, some three hundred years after the death of Christ. The actual letters of the Apostles were no doubt long treasured, and oft perused by those to whom they were first sent, and this is one reason why none of them have survived ; but while they were being used, copies of them were sure to be made by the possessors, for use in other Churches, and such copies would be circulated from a very early date. Accordingly, we find that Justin Martyr, who was born near Sichem, in Palestine, at the end of the first centry, was acquainted with the four Gospels, four of St. Paul's epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse ; while TertuUian, who flourished in Northern Africa at the end of the second century, knew of the Gospels, the first Epistle of St. John, the first of St. Peter, the Epistle of St. Jude, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, and the Apocalypse. Thus Introduction to the New Testament, 5 it is clear that, although not included in one volume, as the authoritative documents of the Church of Christ, till A.D. 397, the greater portion of the New Testament was widely- diffused at a much earlier period. We know, moreover, that some of the apos- tolic writings have been lost. St. Paul had written a letter to the Corinthians at an earlier date than that of our present first epistle (i Cor. V. 9). He also mentions (Col. iv. 16) an epistle to the Laodiceans, which we do not possess. St. John speaks (3 John 9) of another letter of his own, and St. Jude (3) njentions his intention to write a more general letter than that which we now possess. If he ever did so, it has not come down to us. But to make copies and preserve documents was not so easy in early Christian days as it has since become. The oldest MSS. of the Greek Testament are written in a sort of small capital letters (called uncials), without any division of- one word from another. No regard is paid in them to anything, except to keep roughly the same number of letters in each line, and to do this sometimes a single letter of a word is placed in one line, while all the re- mainder stands in the next. When these MSS. were made, the art of writing must have been 6 Introduction to the New Testament. confined to professional scribes. This may have been an advantage. It may have helped to keep the copies more free from errors than they otherwise would have been. But even the best scribes make mistakes. The writing of MSS. in uncial characters con- tinued down to the ninth century. After that date another style of writing began to prevail. It is called cursive^ because it has more of a running character, being written in small letters, and having the words separated from each other. Hence the MSS. which we possess are styled respectively uncials and cursives} Of the uncials (so far as is yet discovered), only one has survived which contains all the books of the New Testament entire. This is the famous Codex SinaiticuSy indicated in critical notes by the Hebrew letter j^. Of the cursives, about thirty (out of a total of nearly a thou- sand) have come down to us with all the text complete. Several of the uncials and many of the cursives contain only a few fragmentary pieces. The oldest uncial MS. which we possess is the Codex VaticanuSy known as B. This was ^ In critical notes it has become customary to distin- guish the uncials by capital letters, the cursives by Arabic numerals. Introduction to the New Testament. 7 written about A.D. 340. But before this copy came into existence, the text must have been subject to many copyings, and the making of copies always involves the rise of errors in the text. The discovery of MSS., therefore, and especially such as are of an ancient date, is of great in^ortance ; for by comparison of various copies errors may be corrected, and a near approach made to the exact words which were spoken by our Lord, or written by His Apostles. But it is only in very recent years that such comparison has been possible. The Codex Sinaiticus was only made accessible to critics in 1862, and it is barely half a century^ since scholars first began to go back to the oldest MSS. for criticism of the text of the New Testament. Such criticism has now, however, been performed with all the completeness which the available resources make possible, and very many of the changes in the language of the recently issued Revised Version are due, not to any desire to change the A.V., but to alterations in the Greek text which examination of MSS. has shown to be necessary. Since there is a chance of error in every fresh ^ The text of Lachmann dates from 1831 ; other very distinguished labourers in the same field have been Tischendorf, Tregelles and Dr. Scrivener. 8 Introduction to the New Testament, transcription, the copy of a copy is more likely still to have its mistakes. So the nearer we can come to an early transcript, the more likely are we to obtain a correct text. The date when a MS. was copied is not, however, always an index of its correctness ; for though made in the seventh century, if it were well copied from a MS. of the third or fourth, it may be more correct than others which came into existence a century earlier, but were drawn from less accurate sources. But lest alarm should be excited by the mention of frequent mistakes in MSS., it should be borne in mind that a very large proportion of the variations here spoken of consist in the changed order of words, and not in any alteration of the words themselves, and often in trifling points of orthography. So largely is this the case, that, in the opinion of the latest critics of the sacred text, there is not more than one word in a thousand about which there can be any serious question of what is the true reading.^ The amount of textual corrup- tion which need ultimately remain is therefore very small. But the text from which our Authorized Version was translated was derived, as will be ^ Westcott and Hort's Introduction, p. 2. Introduction to the New Testament. 9 shewn hereafter, from cursive MSS. only, and those of a late date, so that it inherited the de- fects of many generations. And many changes will be perceived in the Revised Version which have been made because there is now in existence a more accurate Greek text than that which was in the Ifands of the translators in 161 1. Errors crept into the text in various ways. Thus, before printing was discovered, and when MSS. were few in number, the possessor of one often wrote down on the margin such notes as seemed to him to be useful to the reader. At times he would desire to bring together parts of a narra- tive which were separated in the original, at times to explain a word that seemed to need explanation. In this way, in Acts ix. 5, the words. " It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," have been introduced from xxvi. 14. In the latter verse they are found in the oldest MSS., but not in the former, into which either the scribe, misled by a faulty memory, has inserted them, or they have been written on the margin of some copy, and at the next tran- scription have found their way into the text. So too of words in the way of explanation. In Heb. vi. 10, the Revised Version rightly gives "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which ye shewed." The Author- lo Introduction to the New Testament. ized Version had *' labour of love," an addition drawn from i Thess. i. 3, where that expression is found in the earliest copies, and from whence it was added on the margin of some MS., to make more clear, as the reader thought, what was meant by the word " love " in the letter to the Hebrews. To remove such intruded words, and leave them only in their original places, while it takes away nothing from the teaching of Scripture, makes our New Testament volume a closer representation of the words as first written. Besides the two uncial MSS. already men- tioned (B and i^), there are two more which hold places of foremost authority. These are A, the Codex Alexandrinus, in the British Museum ; and C, the Codex Ephraemi, in the National Library at Paris. Both these are of the fifth century. There exist besides about a score of uncials, some of them, however, being very fragmentary. The cursive MSS. date from the ninth to the sixteenth century, and it is easy to understand that as soon as cursive writing became common, no new copies would be made from the uncials ; the cursive hand was so much easier to read. Thus, after a time, the uncial MSS. were allowed to slip out of sight, and it was not Introduction to the New Testament, ii until the middle of the seventeenth century that any attention was again paid to them,^ and then it was only to chronicle some select read- ings from two or three of their number. A little more study (but not much) was bestowed on these older records in the eighteenth cen- tury ; 2 but it is by the students of the present century that the most diligent labour has been spent upon this work, so that now the whole evidence which the uncial texts afford is ac- cessible to all who wish to examine it. As a consequence of the oblivion into which the oldest Greek MSS. had fallen, it came to pass that the Greek texts, which were sent forth soon after the invention of printing, were based only on the evidence of cursive MSS., and those few in number and of a late date. The first printed Greek Testament was that of Erasmus, published at Basle in 15 16. Another text appeared in 1522, in the " Complutensian Polyglot," published by Cardinal Ximenes, at Alcala, in Spain. Hardly any attempt was ^ The attention of English scholars was directed to this subject most probably by the present of the Alexan- drian MS. to Charles I., which was sent by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1628. ^ The most noted workers at this subject were Bengel and Griesbach, 12 Introduction to the New Testament. afterwards made to bring to more accuracy the texts thus first issued, and after a time a beauti- fully printed edition of the text of Erasmus, sent forth by the Elzevirs, from their famous press at Leyden, became the generally accepted form of the Greek text; and in the preface to the second edition of this text (1633), there is found the expression, " Textus ab omnibus receptuSy" from which the name " Received Text " arose. From that " Received Text " our Authorized Version was made ; and it is because of the many, though often very slight, differences between that text and the earliest uncial MSS. that a very large portion of the alterations made in the Revised Version have been rendered necessary. But besides the MS. aids towards obtaining a more correct text of the New Testament, mention should also be made of the earliest translations or "versions." These, though not recording the text, often bear definite witness to what the Greek must have been which the translator had before him, and so constitute valuable subsidiary evidence. Such versions have been preserved to us, wholly or in part, in Latin, Syriac, and the languages of Egypt. In Latin there were two or three somewhat varying versions early circulated in Northern Introduction to the New Testament, i Africa and in Italy.^ These were improved upon by Jerome, who, in A.D. 383, made his translation, which is generally known as the Vulgate. This came into common use, though the wandering memories of scribes have brought back into it, here and there, in the lapse of time, many readings from the older Latin which it was meant to supersede. The authoritative edition of the Vulgate is that issued by Pope Clement VIII. in 1592. Of Syriac versions, the first to be named is the Peshito, or simple Syriac. For a long time this was thought to be the most ancient Syriac translation ; but of late years traces have been discovered of an earlier version by the publica- tion of a MS. of the Syriac Gospels,^ which is in the British Museum. We may conclude, from what has been brought to light concerning the dates of these translations, that portions of the New Testament were translated into Syriac quite as early as into Latin. A later, but very literal, Syriac version is known as the Philo- xenian, from the name of the person ^ for ^ They are known as the " Old Latin" versions. * Usually spoken of as the " Curetonian Gospels " because they were pubhshed by the late Dr. Cureton. ' This was Philoxenus, Bishop of Hierapolis in Syria (a.D. 485-518). This version is only fragmentary, and it is not known whether it contained all the books of the N.T. 14 Introduction to the New Testament, whom it was made. This was produced in AD. 508. We do not possess the actual text which was supplied to Philoxenus, but a revision thereof made about a century later.^ A third Syriac text is derived from the Gospel Lection- aries. It is known as the Jerusalem Syriac, and, like the Philoxenian, appears to be based on the earlier translations. The earliest Egyptian version, known as the Memphitic or Coptic, must have been produced in the main before the close of the second century. This is the version of Lower Egypt. That of Upper Egypt, called the Sahidic, is thought to be nearly as ancient as the Coptic ; while the third, the Bashmuric version, is held to date from the third century. It will be seen, therefore, that where the evidence from translations is such as can be used for a revision of the Greek text, we have in some of these versions a testimony concern- ing the original words of the New Testament, dating from a time antecedent to the production of the earliest Greek MS. which has survived. Hence comes the importance of these transla- * The revision was made by Thomas Harclensis, a monk of Alexandria (a.d. 616), and hence it is called the Harclean Syriac. Introduction to the New Testament, 15 tions where they testify clearly to the text which they are intended to represent. A further and somewhat different kind of evidence is drawn from the writings of the early Christian Fathers. Sometimes, however, the quotations which they make from the original are made somewhat laxly, and in such a way as not to indicate conclusively what Greek words they actually read. Hence this kind of testimony requires much judgment for its right employment in the revision of the Greek text. Where, however, as in the case of Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Cyril of Alexandria, the Fathers have left continuous commentaries on portions of the New Testament Scriptures, we can gather from them some satisfactory evidence about the earliest MS. readings, though the results of labour in this field are not so large as the amount of surviving patristic literature might lead us to expect. Such are the chief sources at present avail- able from, which to seek an exact restoration of the original words of the New Testament. It remains to speak briefly of our English translations. Our Saxon forefathers, like the rest of Western Christendom, had only portions of the Bible in the vernacular. The Vulgate was 1 6 Introduction to the New Testament, in the hands of the clergy, the lay people knew mainly the Psalms and the Gospels in their native speech.^ Hence the Psalms have come down to us in Saxon from the eighth century, while translations of the Gospels into that language date probably from an earlier time. As we draw nearer to the days of Wycliffe, we again find the Psalms rendered into the popular language by RoUe, the hermit of Hampole, and by others ; and a metrical English Psalter exists, of a date earlier than A.D. 1300.^ It was not, however, till Wycliffe's Bible appeared, that the whole of either the New or Old Testament was given to the English in one uniform version. The Bible known by the name of Wycliffe was ^ ^Ifric's rendering of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Esther, Job, with parts of the history of Kings and the books of Judith and Maccabees into Anglo-Saxon, has in part been preserved to us. His work is marked, however, by many omissions and abridgements, and its existence does not alter the truth of what is stated above, that the Psalms and Gospels were the parts of Scripture most known. 2 The version of the Psalms (date about 1330) assigned to William of Shoreham, is not by that author. It is found in a MS. in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 17,376), in which are some poems by Shoreham, but a comparison of the language shews that the Psalms are not his. Specimens of this version, and also of Rolle's, may be seen in the Preface to Forshall and Madden's edition of the Wycliffite versions. Introduction to the New Testament. 17 completed about the year A.D. 1383. The New- Testament, Wycliffe's own work, was finished three years earher, and with his translation he joined a version of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, which had been nearly completed by his friend, Nicholas Hereford, before perse- cution obliged him to flee from England. This Bible (like all the Saxon and English versions which preceded it), was a translation from the Latin of the Vulgate, and of course bears many marks that it is the version of a version. Being made a full century before the invention of printing, it was never circulated except in MS. It was not until the discovery of printing had given a new impulse to the scholarship of the West that there appeared a man able to draw from the original tongues of both the Old and New Testaments. Before, however, the new art, which should multiply copies without limit, was half a century old, God raised up one who has stamped his impress on the English Bible so completely that no time seems likely to efface it. William Tyndale, born about the time when the first printed book came forth in England, early conceived the thought of making a new translation of the Bible. At first he tried to compass the work in his own land. But there was no place for him there. So C 1 8 Introduction to the New Testament. driven abroad, he laboured successively in Hamburg, Cologne, and Worms, at which last- named city, already famous in Reformation history, he put forth two editions of the New Testament in 1525. He published afterwards a translation of the Pentateuch, of the book of Jonah, and of a few selections from the Old Testament, which occur in the Sarum Breviary. Of Tyndale's New Testament, six editions had been issued before the translator gave (A.D. 1536) his life by martyrdom to crown his labours. Yet the hostility exhibited towards his work, and the zeal of those who burnt up the copies, have made Tyndale's New Testa- ment one of the rarest books in the world. Besides what he had printed, Tyndale left translations in manuscript of some other parts of the Old Testament. The next translator lived under more favour- able circumstances. This was Miles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter. He had been a fellow-worker with Tyndale, though being far inferior to him in scholarly power. His heart, however, yearned that Englishmen should have the whole Bible in their own tongue. He com- pleted his version in 1535, and times had then so far changed in England, that it was issued with a dedication to King Henry VHI. A Introduction to the New Testament. 19 second edition was published two years later, and this was followed in the same year by a composite version, under the name of T Matthew (but being the work of John Rogers, Tyndale's friend, who was soon to be, like him, a martyr). In this Bible was incorporated all that Tyndale had left unprinted of the Old Testament, his New Testament of 1535, and only the remaining portions of the Old Testa- ment and Apocrypha printed from Coverdale. This was a great advance on all the editions before it, but the mind of Cromwell, the king's vicegerent, longed to bring the English Scrip- tures to still greater perfection. And no less anxious was Coverdale. So at Cromwell's re- quest he undertook to revise Matthew's Bible ; and his work, printed partly in Paris, and the remainder in London, appeared in 1539, ^"^^ is known as the Great Bible. A copy of this was, by royal injunction, commanded to be set up in every church of the kingdom. In the same year was sent forth another revision of Matthew's Bible, made by a learned lawyer, named Taverner. But the issue of the Great Bible threw this work so much into the shade, that it was soon forgotten. We see, however, that our forefathers had no dread of Bible revision. 20 Introduction to the New Testament. After 1539 we have no English Bible put forth in England for a long time. The exiles from England at Geneva issued, in 1557, a New Testament, which appears to have been the work of Whittingham, Calvin's brother-in-law, and the whole Bible was completed by him and his fellow-labourers in 1560. This Geneva Bible was circulated widely in England, and was held in special esteem as the Bible for home reading, because it was furnished with a marginal commentary. In 1568, through the exertions of Archbishop Parker, was published what is known as the Bishop's Bible, because several prelates took part in this revision; and in 161 1 there ap- peared what we speak of as the Authorized Version, prepared at the instigation of King James I. Since that time, though some agi- tation for a new translation was made under the Commonwealth, no public revision had been put forth for 270 years, till the revised New Testament was issued on 17th May, 1881. CHAPTER 11. r THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. The writers of the first three Gospels deal in the main with the same parts of our Lord's life- history, and hence their writings may be read side by side for illustration of each other. For this reason these Gospels have been called synoptiCy i.e. comprehended in one view. They narrate events which took place for the most part in Galilee and the lands adjacent thereto, and speak of no visit made by Jesus to Jeru- salem, except that final one, which was ter- minated by the Crucifixion. For the history of His other visits to the Holy City, we have only the accounts given in the Gospel of St. John. As we peruse the synoptic Gospels there are certain questions which can hardly fail to come into our minds. What relation do they bear to each other ? In what order were they pro- duced ? Did the writers copy at all from one another.? Or if not, how can their similarity be accounted for.? And how, with so much 2 2 Introduction to the New Testament. similarity, does it come to pass that there are such great differences ? First of all, the resemblances are so many and so close, that we must admit at once, in spite of the different arrangement of the materials, that what we are reading was in some way drawn by the three Evangelists from a com- mon source. But the differences in their nar- ratives are also very striking. In those portions which are most completely common to all the three Gospels, it will be found that by each writer some things are omitted and some things added which make his form of the history to have a character of its own, different from that of the other two. This will be plain to any one who makes comparison, for example, of the three accounts of the Transfiguration. In the seven or eight verses devoted to this event by each evangelist, the great lines of the picture are the same in all. Yet St. Matthew alone tells of the shining of the face of Jesus, and that He touched the disciples to rouse them after the vision was over. It is St. Mark alone who compares the whiteness of the Lord's raiment to snow, and adds the graphic detail, "so as no fuller on earth can white them ; " while St. Luke is the only one who records that the visit to the mount Introduction to the New Testament. 23 of Transfiguration was made for the purpose of private prayer ; that Moses and Elias, in their discourse, spake of our Lord's approaching passion, and that the disciples of Jesus were overcome by sleep. Yet amid these and other minor variations, what we may term the salient points of the history, the expression of St. Peter that it was good to be there, and the words spoken by the heavenly voice, are in such close accord that they might be supposed, if standing alone, to have been drawn from the same docu- ment, or, at all events, to be different close translations of the same original. Hence some have suggested an original Gospel in Aramaic, as a means of accounting for such exact agree- ment where it exists. But such near resem- blances are but few in each section of the com- mon story, while the variations are numerous. We cannot therefore believe that the form of the synoptic Gospels is to be explained by supposing that the writers had some common materials from which to translate. And in the setting (as we may name it) of the events which he relates, each Evangelist differs so much from his fellows, that it is impossible to conceive that any of the three made, after any sort, a copy from the others. We are therefore driven to consider the way 24 Introduction to the New Testament, in which the Gospel narrative was first pub- lished, to see if that may help us to an explan- ation. The first converts heard Christ's life- history by word of mouth. After the day of Pentecost the Apostles and disciples went forth preaching, but did not at once set about writing a Gospel. As they preached, they would tell, now of one phase of the Lord's words and works, and now of another, as best suited their purpose, adding such exhortations as seemed needful. That this was so we can see from the Acts of the Apostles. When the hearers of these first Christian sermons became interested, that which they would most desire to remember would be what the Master had said and done. Of these things narratives would from time to time be written ; but as the speakers would not always in the same account preserve exactly the same phraseology, it is easy to see how nar- ratives might become current, varying, within certain limits, in their words. The chief matters, and those on which lessons were to be specially founded, would be kept always very much the same, but the rest of the diction might be modi- fied in various ways. St. Luke tells us, in the first verse of his Gospel, that many such nar- ratives had already been written. And the existence of materials of this kind, and their Introduction to the New Testament. 25 employment, according to the judgment of each evangelist, seems alone to account satisfactorily for the characteristics of the first three Gospels. No Evangelist intended to write a complete life of Christ ; but each, either guided by his own knowledge (as St. Matthew, who had been an Apostle),' or with the help of others (as was probably the case with St. Mark and St. Luke), , gathered, from narratives which had been al- ready recorded as they fell at various times from the lips of the first teachers, all that seemed best suited for placing the life and works of Jesus in the light in which the writer desired to display them. That each Evangelist wrote for different hearers, and occupied a dif- ferent point of view from the others, we shall see as we proceed* That their writings should shew us this difference is but natural. And the variations which appear in parallel portions of these three Gospels are just such as oral teach- ing, oft repeated, might be expected to exhibit ; for we should bear in mind that the oral tradition of the Gospel history was different from any other oral tradition with which we are acquainted. It was not the transmission of a narrative through different mouths, and at distant intervals of time ; it was a repetition by the same persons, of the same story, almost 26 Introduction to the New Testament. day by day. And thus, from the preaching of the Apostles, resulted the close resemblances in the separate histories of Jesus. The Gospels, in their variety and in their simplicity, are a true picture of what the first teachers must have spoken ; and the differences which we thus accept, in the language used by those who were eye-witnesses of Christ's life, and fitted by His Spirit to be ministers of the Word, are not without their lesson. They tell of unity, but shew that uniformity is by no means necessary thereto. {a) The Gospel according to St. Matthew. The writer of the first Gospel has always^ been identified with Matthew the publican, who was one of the twelve Apostles. A comparison of his Gospel with the others enables us to discover that he was the same person whom St. Mark and St. Luke call Levi, the son of Alphaeus. To be known by two names was no unusual thing among the Jews, and often a new name was assumed at some great turning- point of a man's life. The New Testament ^ To the genuineness of the first Gospel we have abundant testimony in the patristic writings both of the East and West. Passages are quoted from it in the writings of Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, Irenasus, Athen- agoras, Clement of Rome, Tertullian and Origen. Introduction to the New Testament, 27 history furnishes us with examples, and it is not improbable that Levi assumed the name Matthew (which signifies "the gift of Jehovah") at the time when he was called to follow Christ. Hence the other Evangelists only give him this name when including him in their lists of the twelve, while he uses it of himself always, even at the time when he was first called. We can see from other indications beside his name that he was a Jew. The nature of his knowledge, and all the illustrations which he employs, declare it. It is, however, somewhat strange that such a man should have become a publican or tax-gatherer, an office held in such detestation by the Jews. But as Caper- naum was not directly under the Roman power at the time of St. Matthew's call, but formed part of the government of Herod Antipas, the future Apostle may not have looked upon such service under him (a monarch, whose whole family desired to be held for Jews) in the same light in which it was viewed when rendered to the Roman conquerors. It has often been noticed as a mark of St. Matthew's humility, that when he mentions himself in the list of the Apostles, he adds the opprobrious words "the publican," which the other Evangelists do not use ; also, though by 28 Introduction to the New Testament, St. Mark and St. Luke he is always put be- fore St. Thomas in the enumeration, he places Thomas before himself, and in a like lowly- spirit makes no mention of that self-sacrifice which the other Evangelists tell us of, that " he left all " to follow Jesus. Like the other sacred writers, he keeps himself most completely out of his narrative, and after his name is re- cited as present in Jerusalem waiting for the day of Pentecost, we hear nothing more of him in the New Testament. Tradition tells that for fifteen years after the Ascension he preached in Judaea, and then went to more distant countries. According to one authority, he laboured in -Ethiopia, others say in Parthia, or in Persia ; but neither of his work nor his end have we any sure knowledge. Concerning the language in which St. Matthew's Gospel was originally written, there has been much debate. The Christian Fathers, beginning with Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis early in the second century, and in- cluding Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, the last named in the fourth century, all speak of a Hebrew {i.e. Aramaic) original, and succeed- ing writers adopt their statements. But the internal evidence from the Gospel itself leads to the conclusion that the Greek text which Introdnction to the New Testament. 29 we have is not a translation, but the work of St. Matthew himself. In many parts the words so closely agree with those of the other synop- tists, that to accept them as the result of a translation seems unreasonable ; while in the quotations from the Old Testament (which are very numerous) we have a peculiar feature, which can hardly be due to any but the original writer. For wherever the Old Testament is quoted in the discourses which the Gospel con- tains, we find a close following of the LXX., and not such words as would have been found in a translation from an Aramaic original. But where the Old Testament prophecies, and their fulfilment in Christ, are spoken of, we find no longer the Septuagint version, but a rendering or adaptation of the Hebrew. Now this is exactly what we should expect. When Jesus is pointed out as the fulfiUer of prophecy, it is natural that the very words of the earlier Scriptures should be in the writer's mind, but not so in the other places. For although, from the mention of St. Peter's Galilean dialect, and from the fact that the words of Psalm xxii. came most readily to our Lord's lips, at the Crucifixion, in Aramaic, we may gather that this was the usual language of Christ and the twelve ; we know that the Jews were very familiar with the Septuagint, 30 Introduction to the New Testament. and the adoption of Greek for the records of the New Testament is evidence that this language was well understood and widely used ; and St. Matthew, though writing for Jews, and in Palestine, might with good reason use that tongue which, while it spake to them, would also appeal to Christian Churches elsewhere. And we have no trace of a word of the supposed Aramaic original. It seems, too, as if Jerome, in his later statements on this sub- ject, spoke with less confidence than at first.^ So although we cannot assert that St. Matthew did not write his Gospel first in Aramaic, and that this work on the dispersion of the Jewish nation entirely disappeared, yet the present Greek Gospel (which is quoted in Greek quite as early as any of the others) displays such peculiarities as make it impossible to accept it for anything but the work of St. Matthew himself This Gospel is evidently written by a Jew, and for Jews. This is shewn in many ways. The genealogy of Jesus is traced up only to * In his preface to the Gospel, he says " Matthew in Judaea wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew tongue," but in another place he is content to say that the Hebrew ** is called " or " is as many people say " St. Matthew's work. Cf. Alford's Prolegomena to St. Matthew's Gospel. Introduction to the New Testament. 31 the Father of the faithful, and not as in the third Gospel to Adam. The writer is himself thoroughly familiar with Hebrew prophecy, and writes for readers who must have been equally so. In the Sermon on the Mount the address is throughout to those who knew what was commanded in the Old Testament "to them of old times." St. Matthew also, unlike the other Evangelists, uses Latin words very rarely, and with equal rareness does he explain any Jewish words or customs. He is specially earnest in recording Christ's denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees, denunciations which would not be telling in a work intended for Gentile readers, while the general cast of the contents of the Gospel, of which we shall speak presently, shews that his mind was full of Jewish ideas in all that he wrote. It is very probable, as tradition has held from the first, that this Gospel was written before the others. It is in harmony with all Christ's ordinances for the spread of the Gospel, that each of its blessings should be first offered to the chosen people. But for fixing the pre- cise time of its composition we have very little to guide us. Traditions vary from eight years after the Ascension to the time when St. Peter and St. Paul were at Rome together. It would 32 Introduction to the New Testament. seem from the use (xxvii. 8 ; xxviii. 15) of the phrase " unto this day," that some time must have elapsed between the events of the Cruci- fixion and the writing of St. Matthew's narra- tive. But if any reliance may be placed on the statement that this Evangelist left Palestine fifteen years after the Ascension, this allows interval enough for such a phrase to become applicable, while no fitter parting gift could have been left by St Matthew to his country- men than a Gospel which, like this, is composed so thoroughly in the spirit of the writings of the older covenant. It seems therefore not unreasonable to suppose that it was written about A.D. 50, or a little later. The contents of St. Matthew's Gospel may be divided into two great sections, which bear a relation to the two aspects in which the Messiah is set forth in Old Testament prophecy. He was to be " a King reigning in righteousness," but also "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" The first section, which extends from the beginning to chapter xvi. 20, is occupied with setting forth Jesus of Nazareth as Immanuel, God with us, made manifest by His works of power and words of mercy, as " He of whom Moses in the Law a^id the prophets did write." The rest of the Gospel Introductio7i to the New Testament. 33 treats mostly of the sufferings of Jesus, from the first brief announcement of them, until the work was finished on Calvary. The Christian fathers have from the earliest times recognized that St. Matthew sets forth Jesus as a king, but have not always observed that it is King Messiah. » The first section contains two parts ; one which treats of those events which preceded Christ's own ministerial acts (chap, i.-iv. 11), and the other containing such a selection of His words and works as shewed, and led some to confess, that He was the Son of God (iv. 12- xvi. 20). (i.) In the first part the keynote is sounded in the mention of King David at the outset of the genealogy, and the whole line of the ancestry bespeaks the King. The genealogy is followed by the announcement of the Divine conception of Jesus, the giving of His name, and the description of His office. The visit of the wise men and the alarm of Herod are each in their kind, intimations of the greatness of Him, who was "born King of the Jews." That He came in fulfilment of prophecy is attested by the Baptist, and His Divine nature by the voice from heaven ; while His victory over Satan in the temptation bears witness that what D 34 Introditction to the New Testament. had been spoken of Him was true, even the enemy addressing Him as " the Son of God." (ii.) The second part is marked off by its subjects into three divisions — a. iv. I2-X. 42. At the opening of the minis- terial life of Jesus, St. Matthew tells of the choice of the first disciples, and gives a general notice of the character of Christ's preaching and miracles. Then in the Sermon on the Mount (v., vi., vii.), and in the group of mira- cles described in the two following chapters (viii., ix.), we have grand examples both of the teaching and the mighty works, and these are followed (x.) by the choosing of the twelve, and an account of the powers and solemn charge which Christ gave to these His first ambassadors. fi. With the mission of John's disciples be- gins that part of the narrative (xi., xii., xiii.), in which Jesus more than once, by express words, proclaims Himself as "the Son of God." The answer to the Baptist's inquiry shewed that in Him the predictions of the Old Testament were fulfilled, and that they were blessed who, discerning this, were not offended in Him. But to say, as He now did, that God was His Father, was the great offence ; and the history in this part closes with the indignant words of Introduction to the New Testament. 35 those who would see in Him only " the son of the carpenter." 7. As a contrast, we have in the next divi- sion (xiv.-xvi. 20) two confessions that He was "the Son of God." The first was made by those who, after witnessing the feeding of the five thousand, and the calming of the storm on the sea of Tiberas, were constrained to own in Him the Creator and Lord of the universe. The second was by St. Peter, as the spokesman of the twelve. They had been learning from the lips of Jesus that it was in vain to put the doctrines of men in place of the command- ments of God, and to call such conduct by the name of worship ; that from the heart of man only cometh that which really defileth ; while by His deeds of mercy toward the Canaanitish mother, and to the four thousand who followed Him on the other side of Gennesaret, they had learnt that others beside the children of the older covenant would be partakers of the new kingdom ; they had heard Christ rebuke the Pharisees and Sadducees, and had been warned by Him against the doctrines of such teachers — men who were wilfully blinded, and could not discern the signs of the times ; and now when they were asked, " Whom say ye that I am } " there came forth evidence that the first 36 Introduction to the New Testament. part of their lesson had been learnt in the words, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." After this begins that other lesson, that Christ must suffer ; a lesson even harder to grasp than the former. St. Matthew makes Christ repeat it four times. First (xvi. 21-28), we read, "From this time forth began Jesus to shew to His disciples how that . . . He must suffer." We see Peter's resentment of such a thought, and how Christ chides him with the lesson that not only He, but all who follow Him, must bear the cross. Then (xvii.-xx. 16), immediately after the glory of the Transfiguration, and the manifes- tation of Divine power in the cure of the lunatic child, the prediction of the passion is repeated, and is followed by the willing payment of tribute, and many other lessons of humility, forgiveness of injuries, and sacrifice of self, and the warning that in the kingdom, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, many that are first shall be last, and the last first. The third prediction is uttered (xx. 17-19) just as they are about to go up to Jerusalem. This is followed (xx. 20-xxv. 46) by the re- quest of the mother of the sons of Zebedce^ Introduction to the New Testament. 37 which evokes further teaching of lowliness. The blind men on the way hail Jesus as the Son of David, and he rides in triumph into Jerusalem. He ^purifies the temple, and triumphs also in His conferences with chief priests and elders, Pharisees, Sadducees, and lawyers, and pronounces solemn woes on the hypocrisy of those who sat in the seat of Moses, but did their works only to be seen of men. Then to His disciples He speaks much of the destruction of Jerusalem, of the end of the world, and the nature of the judgment at the last day. For the last time, two days before the passover-tide, Jesus again foretells His coming death (xxvi. — xxviii.), and the Evangelist follows this with the details of the betrayal, the passover feast, the agony, the arrest, trial and death, the rending of the veil of the temple, and those other signs, which forced even the centurion to say, "Truly this was the Son of God." The story of the Resurrection is briefly narrated, after which the commission to the Apostles proclaims the Divinity of the speaker : " All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth ; " and that He is still " Immanuel " : " Lo, / am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 38 Introdiiction to the New Testament, It remains to mention those matters in St. Matthew's Gospel which are peculiar to his narrative. These are the coming of the wise men from the East, the massacre of the children at Bethlehem, the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt and their return to Nazareth ; then the coming of the Pharisees and Sadducees to be baptized of John, Peter's request that he might come to Jesus on the water, the payment of tribute by Christ, the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas, as also that traitor's remorse and death, the dream of Pilate's wife, the rising from the grave of the saints in Jerusalem, the watch set at Christ's sepulchre, the bribing of the soldiers, and the earthquake before the Resurrection. It is a feature of St. Matthew's Gospel, that he preserves several discourses not recorded by the other evangelists. Such are the Sermon on the Mount, the discourse on humility in ch. xviii., the connected denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees in ch. xxiii., the description of the last judgment (xxv.), and the apostolic commission (xxviii.). Smaller speeches are the invitation to the heavy laden (xi.), the warn- ing against idle words (xii.), the blessing pro- nounced on St. Peter after his confession (xvi.), as well as those solemn words about the rejec- tion of the Jews (xxi. 43). Introduction to the New Testament. 39 Two miracles are peculiar to St. Matthew : the cure of the two blind men (ix.), and the finding of the piece of money in the fish's mouth (xvii.), and ten j)arables, viz. of the tares, the hid treasure, the pearl of great price, the draw- net, the unmerciful servant, the labourers in the vineyard, the two sons, the marriage of the king's son, the wise and foolish virgins, and its fellow-parable of the talents. {U) The Gospel according to St. Mark. The writer of the second Gospel was not an Apostle, yet we know far more of his history from the New Testament, than we do of the Apostle St. Matthew. He has been generally held to be that Mark, likewise named John (Acts xii. 12), who was the companion of Paul and Barnabas in their first missionary journey, and who parted from them before its close, and for some reason returned to Jerusalem.^ He was a cousin (Col. iv. 10) of Barnabas, which accounts for the desire of that Apostle that he , should be joined with St. Paul and himself ^ The return has been often ascribed to a desire to take part with St. Peter in the preaching in Palestine. This agrees with the after history very well, and makes it easy to understand that St. Paul came in the end to think so highly of Mark. 40 Introduction to the New Testafnent. on their second journey. Because St. Paul de- clined to take him, Barnabas, with Mark as his own companion, parted from his fellow- Apostle, and went to labour in a different direction. The mother of John Mark was Mary, an in- habitant of Jerusalem. She must have been one of the wealthier members of the Christian body there, since she had a house large enough for a great number of the congregation to as- semble in ; and it was there that the brethren were gathered together in prayer at the time of Peter's imprisonment by Herod. That Apostle must have made this house his frequent resort, for it was thither he first turned after his miraculous deliverance, and his voice was familiar to the maid as she heard it through the closed door. His attachment to the family is evidenced by the expression, " Marcus, my son,'' which he uses (i Pet. v. 13), as is thought, of this Evangelist, and which may signify that Mark had been won to Christ by St. Peter's ministry. We know that St. Paul's opinion of Mark did not continue to be unfavourable, for in later days, during the Apostle's first imprisonment (Philem. 24), he speaks of him as a "fellow- labourer " ; and later still, in his second im- prisonment, testifies (2 Tim. iv. 11) "he is Introduction to the New Testament. 41 profitable to me for the ministry." St Mark was spoken of in very early times ^ as the " in- terpreter of St. Peter." By some this has been thought to mean that the Evangelist rendered into Greek tlie Aramaic discourses of the Apostle. But it is far more likely that the ex- pression implies the putting into the form of a Gospel narrative the substance of St. Peter's oral teaching concerning Christ's life. And the con- text of the passage where this expression is found favours the latter sense ; for it is added, "he wrote down exactly whatever things he remembered." It is further reported that it was at the re- quest of those Christians in Rome, who had heard St. Peter, that St. Mark made a record of the Apostle's teachings. And there are some features in the Gospel which would suit with this tradition. It contains comparatively little reference to Old Testament prophecy, and all such matters as would specially interest a Jew are omitted. On the other hand explanations are given, which a Jew would not require ; ^ By Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, " a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp," whose words are preserved by Eusebius, H.E.^ iii. 39. The genuineness of St. Mark's Gospel is attested by numerous quotations in writers as early as Justin Martyr and Irenseus. 42 Introduction to the New Testament. while the condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees, so prominent in St. Matthew's narra- tive, but fully intelligible only to Jewish readers, appears in St. Mark's Gospel only very incident- ally. Then he speaks more distinctly of the admission of the heathen into the kingdom of heaven, and he alone among the Evangelists makes our Lord's quotation from Isaiah at the purging of the temple (xi. 17), include those words which pronounce that house to be a house of prayer " for all nations." These and other like peculiarities mark this Gospel as specially written for Gentile readers, while the somewhat large admixture of Latin words in its language gives some support to the tradition which assigns Rome as the place of its writing, and the Roman Christians as its first recipients. Beyond what we learn from Scripture, tradition records of St. Mark that he was sent by St. Peter into Egypt, where he founded the Church of Alexandria, and where he was made bishop, and ended his life by martyrdom. But for most of these statements the evidence is late and doubtful.^ ^ It has been thought by some that the words in the Gospel (xiv. 51, 52), which describe how, on the night of Christ's betrayal, " a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, followed Jesus, and the Introduction to the New Testament. 43 It is certainly not unfitting that the Church at Rome, destined to play so conspicuous a part in the history of Western Christianity, should be debtor to both the great Apostles, — to St. Paul for his Epistle, and to St. Peter, through his son in the faith, for a narrative of the life of Christ. And that St. Mark's Gospel was drawn from St. Peter's preaching seems not improbable when we look at the internal evidence. In both the Epistles ascribed to that Apostle we meet with a multitude of figurative expressions and much graphic diction. He constantly makes pictures by his words. In those parts of the Acts of the Apostles, also, which may be looked upon as derived from him, we notice the same peculiarity. This will be manifest to any one who compares the narrative of the cure of the cripple at the temple gate (Acts iii.) with the account of a similar miracle wrought by St. Paul at Lystra (Acts xiv.) ; of which latter cure the story is either in St. Luke's own words, or taken from St. Paul's description. In it all the young men laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked," is so minute in its details that it must be an account of what happened to Mark himself, and that he has suppressed his name while narrating what only he to whom it occurred could have known about so exactly. 44 Introduction to the New Testament. graphic features which are found in the earlier chapter are wanting. We are told nothing of the attentive gaze of the Apostle, of his reading the lame man's thoughts in his face, of the actions accompanying the cure, nor anything to compare with the exultant joy of the healed man, who laid hold on the clothes of Peter and John, and went with them into the temple, " walking, and leaping, and praising God." With language of this pictorial character St. Mark's Gospel abounds. He introduces into almost every story graphic touches which are found in neither of the other synoptists. Thus, in the account of the cure of the lunatic child after the Transfiguration, St. Mark alone presents the boy as wallowing on the ground and foaming when he is brought to Jesus. He alone makes the history dramatic by introducing at some length the conversation of Jesus with the child's father. He alone tells of the father's tears and passionate cry, " Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief;" and how, when the spirit had gone forth, the child was sore rent, and lay as dead, insomuch that some said, " He is dead ; " but Jesus took him by the hand, and " lifted him up," and he arose. It may be noticed in passing how this charac- teristic, which makes the second Gospel to differ Introduction to the New Testament. 45 so markedly from the others, renders it impos- sible for us to suppose that the narratives were in any way copied from one another. And St. Mark's whole story is full of these word-pictures. With him the heavens at Christ's baptism are " rent " asunder ; at His temptation Jesus is " with the wild beasts," and had been previously "driven" of the Spirit into the wilderness. James and John, when called by Christ, are in the ship "with the hired servants " of their father. At the house where Jesus abode when He healed many that were sick, " all the city " is pictured as "gathered together at the door." The man sick of the palsy, when brought to Jesus, is " borne of four." For these marks of the Evangelist's style we have gone very little beyond his first chapter, and a similar character pervades all the language, except that of the last twelve verses, of which we shall speak here- after. In the work of such a writer we should ex- pect to find both the human and divine aspects of Christ's life strongly marked, and in this we are not disappointed. At the outset, in the words which form what we may call the title of his Gospel, he assumes that his readers know the supernatural birth and divine character of Him of whom he has to write, but yet he 46 Introduction to the New Testament. constantly sets it forth in his graphic speech. Thus he tells us much of the amazement (i. 27 ; ii. 12), and the fear (iv. 41 ; vi. 50), and the mar- velling (v. 20), and the wonder (vi. 51), and the astonishment (vii. 37), which the God-like words and works of Jesus excited in those about Him ; how multitudes pressed around Him, how the sick were brought to Him in crowds, or laid where He would pass by, and how all that He touched were made perfectly whole. Just as St. Peter says elsewhere (Acts x. 38), " He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; for God was with Him." But with all this we have at the same time the most striking tokens of His humanity. We are told how He hungered, and needed rest and sleep like other men, how He was moved by love and grief, pity and wonder, anger and even violent indignation. In thinking of St. Peter as the source whence St. Mark drew the materials for his Gospel, it is important to notice how the order in which events are ranged by this Evangelist accords with the arrangement in St. Matthew. St. Mark does not record all the deeds of Jesus which are mentioned in the first Gospel, and he gives us very little of our Lord's discourses anywhere ; but the sequence of those actions which he Introduction to the New Testament. 47 does narrate corresponds in a marked manner. This becomes very evident if a list of the events recorded by each Evangelist be placed side by side, and in sucji comparison it will be seen that when the sequence in the two records varies, it is not a single incident that is differently placed, but a group of incidents, which, in their changed position, preserve their proper consecution. Thus the Sabbath day's journey through the cornfields, followed by the cure of the man with the withered hand, and the desire of the Pha- risees to destroy Jesus, in consequence of which He withdrew Himself, and in His retirement wrought many miracles (all narrated in Mark ii. and iii.), are found similarly conjoined in Matthew xii. As neither Evangelist regarded chronological order in his work, such coinci- dence of arrangement can only come about because the two writers gave the story as it was impressed on the memory of eye-witnesses ; St. Matthew, his own recollections ; St. Mark, it may well be, those of St. Peter. Moreover the mention of St. Peter, in con- nection with some events in our Lord's history, where he is not mentioned by the other Evan- gelists, seems to point to his share in the composition of the second Gospel, while the omission in St. Mark's narrative of some things, 48 Introduction to the New Testament. which would seem to give Peter importance above his fellows, has been ascribed to a modesty which checked the recital of such incidents. It is by St. Mark alone that we are told how Peter followed our Lord in the morning after His miracles in Capernaum ; that Peter noticed and spake of the speedy withering of the fig- tree, and was the one to ask Jesus, as He sat on the Mount of Olives, about the coming destruc- tion of Jerusalem ; and that Peter was specially singled out by the angel as the Apostle to whom the announcement of the Resurrection should be made. On the other hand, this Gos- pel says nothing of Peter's share in the discus- sion concerning " what defileth a man," nor of his walking on the sea, nor of his being sent to catch a fish, in the mouth of which he should find money to pay the Temple tribute, nor how Christ named him^ "the Rock" on which His * It is impossible to give in English the force of the Lord's words here by translation only. Of course, the Church was not built on the individual Peter, but on that acknowledgment of Christ as the Son of God which Peter had just made. The Greek has two words for rock — one masculine, petros^ which is the name of the Apostle ; one feminine, /.?/r