CHAPTER I. UPON THE OBSCURITIES IN THE NARRATIVE PARTS OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. IN conformity with the outline which has been laid before my readers, I now proceed to consider some of those occasional obscurities which are scattered through the writings of the four Evangelists. In the author of a forgery, we should certainly expect great artfulness, and the utmost caution. He must be aware that a want of perspicuity and fulness, even in the slightest circumstances, might render his narrative not only disagreeable, but incoherent, and therefore liable to suspicion. He could have no sufficient motive to aim at obscurity, but would rather affect a lucid style. If he sometimes chose for his model the abrupt and mysterious language of prophetic inspiration-in narrative, at least, he would make perspicuity his object. At the same time, it is highly probable that a false history, though wonderfully clear, smooth, and consistent on the surface, would, upon minute inspection, betray latent defects and incongruities. On the other hand, a true historian would naturally be lucid and coherent in the general course of his narrative. But, having truth principally in view, and not, like the former writer, always anticipating the effect of that which proceeded from his pen, he might be expected to disregard points of lesser interest, especially where he felt engrossed by some more important matter; or where he was conscious of perfect familiarity with his subject, and might expect his readers to view it in the same light. This would be likely to apply still more strongly to a person of inferior or narrow education, in whose works we should expect several things to be left unexplained, or to be glanced at in a slight and cursory manner. 2. Now it must, I think, be sufficiently evident, that the most material events in the Evangelical History, our Lord's birth; the resurrection of Lazarus; the cure of the man born blind; the trial, crucifixion, and ascension of Christ; are narrated in a style strikingly perspicuous and simple. For the most part, there is nothing defective, nothing superfluous, and the whole tenor of the narrative is SO * lucid, so natural, and so vivid, as strikingly to exemplify that figure called by Aristotle, ενεργεια, by which we be come in a manner, witnesses, or even actors in the transaction described. Nevertheless scattered through these histories are certain remarks and allusions, which can be explained only by comparison with parallel passages; in some cases, by collation with other books, or lastly, by mere conjecture. These appear to me to add to the artless character of the whole narrative. 3. Sometimes this obscurity arises from a certain vagueness of expression; as in Luke i. 39, where the Virgin Mary is said to go into the hill country, "into a city of Juda." Whether Hebron be here intended, (as Lightfoot, Whitby, and Doddridge suppose) or some other city, commonly known by that term; or whether the phrase be wholly indefinite, we cannot pronounce; but a writer studious of accuracy, would probably have named some particular place. 4. Sometimes we find an omission, which is supplied, as it were accidentally, after some interval. Thus, John i. 26, our Lord's forerunner, when asked by the priests why he baptized, answered, "I baptize with water;" and *See De Rhet. 1. iii. c. 11. then proceeds to describe One who was vastly his superior. Here we should naturally expect to hear that this Personage would do something greater than 'baptizing with water;' but the Evangelist stops short, and passes on to the appearance of Christ, with John's public testimony to his character. In v. 31, however, he returns to the subject of baptizing with water; and, after mentioning the remarkable circumstances of our Saviour's Baptism, at last tells us (v. 33) "the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost."* Here is an important fact darkly alluded to, then pended for several verses; and again resumed. Hence a partial obscurity arises, which a nearer view indeed dispels, but which a deceiver would be anxious entirely to obviate. sus 4. In several instances the difficulty is to be traced to the exclusion of some slight circúmstance. When our Saviour came down from the Mount, after His transfiguration, He found His disciples, amid a great multitude, disputing with the Scribes. The Evangelist then says, Mark ix. 15, "all the people when they beheld Him were greatly amazed, † and run * In St. Matthew iii. 11, the two baptisms are immediately connected. † Exlaμßεoμai-expavesco, obstupesco, attonitus sum Schleusner. ning to Him, saluted Him." Had they witnessed the glory of Christ on the Mount, this amazement would have appeared highly natural; but why should His mere return so greatly astonish them, especially when their attention was occupied by the very extraordinary case of the demoniac who was brought to be healed? Many commentators suppose that the face of our Lord retained a supernatural brightness upon it, like that which Moses displayed on his descent from Sinai, but this is merely a supposition. St. Mark supplies not the slightest hint for our direction. Here is an omission of one circumstance, which would at once have explained the whole. 5. A similar remark may be made upon the behaviour of our Lord's disciples on another occasion, Mark x. 32, "And they were in the way, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went before them; and they were amazed, and, as they followed, they were afraid." They had on several previous occasions gone up to Jerusalem, without expressing any such surprise or apprehension. Nothing is mentioned in the former part of the chapter, which would appear to justify these feelings. On the contrary, Christ had just before, v. 29, 30, held * See Luke xix. 28. |