ART. VI. A Harmony of the Gospels, on the Plan proposed by LANT CARPENTER, LL. D. Boston. Gray & Bowen. 1831. pp. 276.

THE object of a Harmony of the Gospels is to show the agreement between the narratives of the Four Evangelists, by reducing them to chronological order, and arranging their corresponding portions in parallel columns. When the several Gospels are incorporated in one continued narrative, the work is called a Diatessaron, or Monotessaron; that is, one narrative formed from four. That the undertaking is attended with difficulty, and the successful execution of it considered important, is evident from the great number of works which have been published of this description. Our readers may be surprised to learn, that the number exceeded one hundred a century ago. In 1765, a select catalogue of them was published, containing one hundred and thirty; and, in the edition of Fabricius's Bibliotheca Græca of 1795, is an alphabetical list of one hundred and seventy-two. It may be fairly presumed, that, up to the present day, full two hundred Harmonies have been published.

The difficulty experienced in harmonizing the Gospels has arisen principally from a diversity in their arrangement of events, and from the want of dates numerous and precise enough to determine the time and order of occurrence. Hardly any thing purporting to be a narrative of real transactions could bear less resemblance than they do to methodical annals. Instead of full and complete accounts, they can properly be considered only as memoirs of our Saviour's life; —a circumstance, among others, favoring the opinion, that the Evangelists wrote for their contemporaries, and with but little anticipation of the wants of posterity. Nothing like an exact date can be found in Matthew, Mark, or John. We are told, that Jesus was born in the days of Herod the king,' and that he was crucified when Caiaphas was High Priest, and Pontius Pilate the Governor. The season of the year may be occasionally ascertained, by the nature of the occurrence, such as that of plucking the ears of corn, or by the mention of festivals; but the year itself is left undetermined. The commencement of the Baptist's ministry has been dated by Luke with remarkable precision; but, with

this exception, the foregoing remarks apply to his Gospel not less than to the others; and the commencement, the duration, and the close of our Saviour's ministry are left to be inferred, in the best manner we are able, from the number of events recorded, and the apparent lapse of time.

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Nor are the facts and discourses recorded in the same order by the several Evangelists. In the facts, which are common to the first three Gospels, Mark and Luke have, in general, observed the same arrangement. Not having been eye-witnesses, and probably deriving their materials from a common source, they have placed them in an order, which they had no means of determining to be other than the true Mark's Gospel consists almost entirely of a narrative of facts. Luke has related a large number of our Saviour's discourses, several of which are not given by any of the other Evangelists; and, what is a remarkable feature in his Gospel, he has placed most of them together, between Chap. ix, 50, and xviii, 31,—which portion, comprising nine chapters, and some of unusual length, consists almost entirely of parables and discourses; and these are recorded as though all were delivered on our Saviour's last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. Matthew, who was a personal attendant upon Jesus, in making a different arrangement of his facts, would seem to have aimed at a chronological order, and, in distributing through his narrative the discourses he records, may be presumed to have connected them with the occasions, on which they were respectively delivered. The Gospel of John, which has but little matter in common with the others, appears from its contents to have been designed, as was long since asserted by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius, to supply the omissions of the rest.

The difficulty of harmonizing the Four Gospels is still further increased by discrepancies between them in regard to the circumstances attending some events, or the time and place of their occurrence. Of these discrepancies advantage has been taken, both by the friends and the enemies of the Christian Revelation; by the former, to prove that the Evangelists were independent writers, and by the latter, to prove them unworthy of credit. It may be worth while to inquire, what is the just view of this subject. How great a difference may be allowed in the testimony of witnesses without impairing their credibility? Every difference is not

a contradiction. He, who relates a part, does not contradict him, who relates the whole. Thus, the account by Mark, that blind Bartimeus was restored to sight by our Saviour, as he went out of Jericho, is nowise contradictory to the account by Matthew, that two blind men were cured at the same time and place, and with the same attendant circumstances. The witness, who relates one set of circumstances attending an event, does not contradict him, who relates another. Thus, the account, by the first two Evangelists, of the manner, in which Peter and Andrew, James and John, were called to be followers of Jesus, is by no means inconsistent with the testimony of Luke respecting the preceding draught of fishes, which may have induced them so readily to accept the call.

Nor will real discrepancies in testimony, in regard to the circumstances attending an event, necessarily or naturally bring into discredit the event itself. Thus, if the accounts, which are given us by Luke and John, of the posture of the angels, who appeared to the women as they visited the sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection, be supposed inconsistent with each other, one of these accounts representing the angels to be standing, and the other sitting, and if the two Evangelists are speaking of the same appearance and the same point of time, would the inference, even then, be justified, that there was no such extraordinary appearance? How much less, then, can such a discrepancy discredit the fact of the

*

resurrection!

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Nor does an inconsistency in regard to the place or time of an occurrence throw discredit upon the fact. When Mark relates, that the blind man was cured by our Saviour, he went out of Jericho,' and Luke that the cure was effected, as he was come nigh unto Jericho,' will our inability to reconcile the discrepancy justify our rejection of their concurrent testimony, that such a miracle was performed? Or, if we are unable to reconcile the inconsistency between the testimony of the first two Evangelists, that our Saviour was anointed at Bethany two days before the crucifixion passover, and the express testimony of John, that this unction, with

*The Harmony upon Carpenter's plan represents the above accounts, as we think, rightly, to be those of different appearances; that by Luke, of the appearance to all the women at one time; that by John, of the appearance to Mary Magdalene alone at another.

all its concomitants, took place six days before the passover, and the very day before the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, would the inference be rational, that no such transaction was performed? Conclusions are not thus drawn in regard to testimony respecting ordinary events. We require that historians should possess the best means of information, and use them with honest minds. If they were themselves eyewitnesses of the events they record, their authority is of the highest kind; if not, their authority is next in value, if they faithfully record the testimony they have procured by diligent inquiry from those who were. As the same occurrences, however, are viewed in various aspects, and produce different impressions on different witnesses; as the attention of one may be directed more particularly to one circumstance, and that of another to another; as memory is possessed by different individuals in various degrees of accuracy and retentiveness; and as events are recollected and connected according to different laws of association in different minds; we expect to find in all historians diversities in the manner of relation, some things recorded by one which are omitted by another, and some discrepancies between them in circumstantial concomitants, if not in important facts. Such discrepancies do nothing towards destroying our general confidence in the record. We know it to be morally impossible for two independent historians, writing after a considerable interval from the occurrence of the events, to give exactly the same relation, with no variation in their accounts of time, place, or circumstance. In ordinary cases such perfect coincidence would afford the strongest presumptive evidence of concert, if not of collusion, between them.

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Do we meet with some such variations, and some such discrepancies, in the narratives of the Evangelists ? ascribe them to the operation of the same natural causes. What inference, then, is justified by the admission, that there are some discrepancies in these narratives, which cannot be reconciled? Not that the writers are unworthy of credit, but that they were not exempted, upon these points, from human fallibility. Nothing can be gained, in the evidence for the authenticity of the Scriptures, by forced argument, or exaggerated statement. Let the narratives of the Evangelists be considered as actually the productions of those whose names they bear, and the argument for their 46

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credibility will be of the same nature, and equally conclusive, as for that of any records of unquestioned authenticity, either in ancient or modern times. It appears to us to derogate from the character and competency of the sacred historians, to suppose that they were not able to give an account of facts, without continued miraculous superintendence and suggestion. The supposition of such superintendence destroys all internal evidence of genuineness and authenticity. Such a supposition precludes all reply to those objections of the sceptic, which are drawn from the discrepancies in the accounts of the Evangelists. The above remarks are by no means intended to imply that the minds of the sacred writers were not divinely illuminated upon the great truths of the religion, but that, in giving an account of our Saviour's life, they were left to the exercise of their natural powers.

It is the fashion with some to speak in the strongest language of disparagement of the standing and capacity of the Apostles. The most extraordinary instance we have witnessed of this occurred in the discussion upon the evidences of Revealed Religion, which was held at Cincinnati, in the Spring of 1829, between Robert Owen, and Mr. Campbell, a clergyman of the western part of Virginia. With far more zeal than discretion, Mr. Campbell repeatedly spoke of the Apostles in the most disparaging manner. His expressions were noted at the time. He said the Apostles were 'stupid men,' men of the lowest intellect,'' without a penny in their pocket'; intellect was not wanted.' We have stated his very words. Again and again, he applied to them the terms, 'roughness, uncouthness, and stupidity.' By such means was the attempt made to support the claims of Christianity to a divine origin, for eight successive days, before an audience consisting of some thousands of people. How often have we reason to lament that the advocates of Revelation should furnish their adversaries with the weapons of attack! Had it been the fact that the Apostles were such low, ignorant, and stupid men, how easily might they have been duped by an artful deceiver! What can we imagine to be the object in thus disparaging the Apostles? It is, by making them the passive instruments in the hand of God, to ascribe to him immediately the glory of their success. The glory, on any supposition, must indeed be ascribed to God; but there is no ground in truth for the assertion, that the Apostles of Jesus