By Very Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., S.T.M.
Doctor in Sacred Scripture
Member of the Society of Biblical Archaeology
Professor of New Testament Exegesis
Collegio Angelico, Rome

A. The Name "Gospel."

THE word "Gospel" means "good tidings, εὐαγγέλιον, a meaning which has its roots in prophecy, e.g. Is. 40:9, Is. 52:7. St. Augustine is particularly fond of bringing out this meaning of the word: "they did not all write the Gospel," he says, "but all preached it. For those who told of the origin, the deeds, the sayings, the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, are properly called 'Evangelists.' Indeed the very word is, if translated into Latin, 'Good tidings.'" 1 St. Paul uses the term "Gospel" several times and of course in the sense of the "good tidings" preached, not written; it is found in the same sense on our Savior's lips. 2 Here, however, we are solely concerned with the "Gospel" as denoting the written records of that "good tidings." These records are no mere human composition such as those mentioned by St. Luke in the Prologue to his Gospel; they are inspired by the Holy Spirit and are therefore of supreme authority. 3 "Such is the authority of the Holy Gospel," says St. Augustine, "that since the One Spirit spoke in them, what only one of them declares must needs be true." 4 He also speaks of the Gospels as "dictated by Christ," 5 and again: "The Gospel is the mouth of Christ. He is seated in heaven, yet He ceaseth not to speak on earth. Let us not be deaf, for he shouts at us. Let us not be dead, for he thunders at us!" 6 Hence that "majesty" of the Gospels of which Origen, 7 St. Jerome 9 and St. Cyprian 8 speak. Hence, too, the power attaching even to their written records of curing diseases by mere contact with the sick. 10

B. The Fourfold Gospel: the Symbols of the Evangelists.

The literature of the early centuries reveals the existence of a large number of so-called Gospels, but, with the single exception of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, 11 none of these gained any real hold over men's minds. Indeed one of the most compelling arguments for the divinely-inspired character of the four canonical Gospels is the unquestioned pre-eminence assigned to them from the earliest days. Thus St. Irenaeus, after pointing out that even the heretics take their stand upon the Gospels the Ebionites using that according to Matthew, the Marcionites that according to Luke, others perhaps the Cerinthians that according to Mark, and the Valentinians that according to John, proceeds to show that "there can be neither more nor less than four Gospels." His proof, drawn from the analogy of the four quarters of the globe, etc., may look quaint and fanciful nowadays, but the point is that in Irenaeus days our four Gospels were the only recognized ones. 12 Thus Origen is quoted by Eusebius as speaking of "the Four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones under heaven." 13 Elsewhere

"The Church has her Four Gospels, the heresies their many ... but there are only four approved Gospels whence, in the person (sub persona) of our Lord and Savior, doctrines are to be drawn. I know indeed a Gospel called according to Thomas and another according to Matthias, and we have read many others (he had already mentioned those according to the Egyptians and according to the Twelve Apostles as well as that of Basilides) lest, in the eyes of those who fancy they know something because they know such things as these, we should appear ignorant. But in all these things we approve of nothing save what the Church approves, viz. that only Four Gospels are to be received." 14

How these Four Gospels attained their pre-eminence can only be explained by the fact of their divine inspiration, and of this the Church of God was sole judge. That the Four Gospels, or rather the four Evangelists, were prefigured in Ezechiel's vision, where the "four living creatures" had respectively the face of a man, of a lion, of an ox and an eagle, was apparently taken for granted from the earliest days of the Church, though that the Fathers are far from being in agreement as to the precise assignation of these symbolical figures to the individual Evangelists the following table will show:

Evangelist	St. Irenaeus 15	St. Ambrose 16	St. Jerome 17	St. Augustine 18	Pseudo- Athanasius 19
St. Matthew	Homo.	Homo.	Homo.	Leo.	Homo.
St. Mark	Aquila.	Leo.	Leo.	Homo.	Vitulus.
St. Luke	Vitulus.	Vitulus.	Vitulus.	Vitulus.	Leo.
St. John	Leo.	Aquila.	Aquila.	Aquila.	Aquila.

The argument is, in general, that Matthew, commencing as he does with the carnal generation of Christ, portrays His Humanity; Mark, with his opening words Vox clamantis in deserto, pictures the regal power of Christ and is therefore symbolized by the lion; Luke, opening with the vision to Zachary the priest, is symbolized by the sacrificial calf; John, soaring, as on the wings of an eagle, to the eternal generation of the Second Person of the Trinity, is symbolized by the eagle. St. Augustine expressly upholds his assignation of the symbols as against that of St. Irenaeus; this latter view, says Augustine, "only takes into account the opening words of each book while neglecting the whole scope of each Evangelist, though this is what really demands consideration." 20 Yet St. Ambrose has a remark which it is well to bear in mind:

"Many think that in the four books of the Gospel our Lord Himself is depicted under the figure of these four animals, and that He Himself is at the same time the Man, the Lion, the Calf and the Eagle. The Man because born of Mary, the Lion because powerful, the Calf since He is the victim, the Eagle since He is the Resurrection." 21

At the same St. Augustine is clearly right when he insists that we have to take into account the whole scope of each Gospel and the individuality of each Evangelist if we would rightly appreciate these symbols. Thus, combining their respective statements, and transferring the symbols from the Evangelists to the Christ Whom they depict, we should be inclined to see in these mystic figures a fourfold presentment of Christ, in Matthew as the King of prophecy and thus the "Lion," in Mark He is the "Man," in Luke He is the "Priest," in John He is, by reason of the sublimity of His teaching, the "Eagle." 22

C. The Unity of the Fourfold Gospel.

The fourfold picture of Christ is essentially one, for the source of its inspiration is the one Christ: "Since they wrote what He showed them and said to them we cannot possibly say that it was not He Who wrote it, for His members have only done what they learnt from the dictation of their Head." 23 Hence that unity in variety and variety in unity which forms one of the chief charms of the Gospels and which is really one of the most convincing proofs of the veracity of the different authors. St. Augustine has well expressed this when he says, apropos of the Resurrection narratives:

"All the Evangelists were furnished with what to write according as the Spirit of recollection provided them with what they should write. One wrote one thing, one another. One might omit some truth, none could state what was false. And you must reckon that One wrote all these things, for there was but one Spirit in them all." 24

But despite this fundamental oneness the standpoint of each Evangelist was different, as was the tongue they used and as were the circumstances under which they wrote, the readers for whom they wrote, and the particular purpose they each had in view in writing. In these facts lies the key to all the apparent discrepancies discoverable when two or more of them narrate the same thing. This could hardly be better expressed than in St. Jerome's words:

"The first of all is Matthew the publican, his name was also Levi; he published his Gospel in Judaea in the Hebrew tongue, and especially for the sake of those Jews who had believed in Jesus and who had therefore wholly ceased to cling to the shadow of the Law now at length dissipated by the Gospel truth. The second is Mark, the interpreter of Peter and the first Bishop of the Alexandrian Church. He had not indeed seen the Lord in the flesh, but what he had heard his master preaching that he narrated, and with greater fidelity to the facts than to the precise order in which they took place. The third is Luke the physician, a Syrian of Antioch by birth, whose praise is in the Gospel, a disciple of the Apostle Paul. He wrote his volume in Achaia and Boeotia. Some things he derived from older sources and, as he himself acknowledges in his Prologue, he described rather what he had heard than what he had actually seen. The last is John, the Apostle and Evangelist whom Jesus loved exceedingly and who, reposing on the Lord's breast, drank thence the purest streams of doctrine." 25

D. The Credibility of the Gospels.

It is, as we have seen, the Divine inspiration of the Evangelists which secures their unity in diversity since it demands accuracy and truthfulness. "The Apostles," says St. Irenaeus, "as the disciples of truth, are alien to all untruth." 26 Even Origen, who insists so strongly on the impossibility of reconciling the apparent discrepancies in the Gospel without having remorse to allegorical interpretations, 27 insists with equal vehemence on the absolute truthfulness of each evangelist. 28 A comparison between the methods followed by Origen and St. Augustine respectively when investigating the supposed discrepancies in the Gospels will prove most instructive. For Origen is not afraid to say that the Scriptures narrate events which "did not take place," 29 that the history "took place in appearance and not literally," 30 and that "circumstances which did not occur are inserted." 31 At the same time he is careful to insist that the Evangelists "were not guilty of inventing untruths, but that such were their real impressions and they recorded them truly." 32 He points out one of the best arguments for the veraciousness of the Evangelists when he says: "That the dead really were raised and that those who penned the Gospels did not invent this, is very apparent from the fact that if it were a figment they would have told us that many were so raised and would have made out that they had remained much longer in the tomb." 33 But Augustine was fully alive to the dangers of Origen's methods, all the more that he had read him carefully and had indeed taken over some of his explanations. 34 He himself proceeded on entirely different lines and the principles which guided him throughout his De Consensu Evangelistarum as well as in his exegetical Sermons are set forth in his well-known words to St. Jerome:

"To the Canonical Scriptures alone have I learned to pay such honor and deference that I most firmly believe that none of the authors of those Books erred in aught that he wrote. If then I stumble upon anything in their writings which seems contrary to the truth, I do not hesitate to say simply that either my copy is faulty, or that the translator has not set down what was really written, or that I myself have not understood. Other writers however I read in this spirit: Whatever learning or holiness they may be endowed with I do not regard what they say as true merely because they think so, but only in proportion as they have been able to prove to me, either by quoting Canonical writers or by valid reasoning, that what they say is not alien to the truth." 35

These principles are constantly on Augustine's lips; he urged them with great force in his disputes with the Manichees, especially against Faustus. 36 And they have prevailed in the Church. 37 Origen, as we saw above, would exonerate the Evangelists from blame for inaccuracies by saying that they really thought that what they said was true and thus though mistaken they were still veracious. It is worth while noting how absolutely opposed such a view is to the teaching of the Fathers in general. The Apostles, says St. Jerome, had all the special gifts enumerated by St. Paul when writing to the Corinthians, and "What was most especially necessary, they spoke in the tongues of all the peoples so that when preaching Christ they might need no interpreter;" and all this, he urges, is because they were filled with the Holy Spirit. 381 For the same reason Tertullian insists that the Evangelists were either Apostles or "Apostolic men," viz. men in immediate dependence on the Apostles, i.e. Mark and Luke. 39 It was for this reason that Basilides endeavored to give to his Gospel the aegis of the Apostle Matthias. 40 Their very position as members of our Lord's circle "makes it absurd to suppose," says Origen, "that as His familiar friends and hearers they could have handed down the doctrines given in the Gospel without committing things to writing or without leaving to their disciples writings whence they might gather what Christ had done." 41 They had the fullest knowledge: "It is unlawful to say," says St. Irenaeus, "that the Apostles preached before they had full knowledge, though indeed those who boast that they are correctors of the Apostles dare to say this. For after the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead they were both clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit descending from on high and they had full knowledge." 42 Still more emphatically Tertullian: "They are wont to say that the Apostles did not know everything, the same kind of madness which makes them call upwards" "downwards;" 43 or, that while the Apostles knew everything, they yet did not hand down everything to us. Either way they attach reproach to Christ as though He had sent out ill-instructed or excessively simple Apostles." 44 Hence Origen warmly insists on the claims which the Evangelists have to our belief: "Those," he says, "are rightly said to sow (he is commenting on John 4:36) who in any art or science have grasped its principles ... and it is easy to see how much more this must be the case in that art which is the art of arts and the science of sciences (namely the knowledge of God's revealed truth)." But, he continues, Moses and the Prophets were these "sowers" and we have entered into their labors, with this difference, however, that

"the Apostles have made use of the seeds of those far more recondite and profound things which Moses and the Prophets furnished them, and have arrived at a far fuller vision of the truth since Jesus lifted up their minds and enlightened their eyes that is the fuller vision of the fields that were white for the harvest. Yet at the same time, since Moses and the Prophets did not fall behind them, they did not from the outset see all those things which the Apostles saw at Christ's coming, but as it were looked forward to the fullness of the time; when that time came with the coming of the Glorious Jesus Christ then were to be revealed also things more excellent than any which had ever been said or written in the world, revealed by Him Who thought it not robbery to be made equal with God but emptied Himself taking the form of a servant." 45

Hence Origen is able to jeer at Celsus and those like-minded with him and say

"You who think that what the disciples committed to writing touching the miracles Jesus wrought is wholly fictitious, how is it you do not reckon the prodigies (narrated of the heathen deities) to be fictions and fables? Do you fancy Herodotus and Pindar are not deceiving you with their lies, while those who are ready to die for the teachings of Jesus and have left to posterity written accounts of the things they had personally witnessed, have so fought for fictions and fables and lying prodigies as to lead miserable lives and meet with violent deaths." 46

The Evangelists were, as Tertullian has told us, 47 either Apostles or "Apostolic men," viz. immediate disciples of Apostles; they belonged, that is, to Christ's circle and were in close and intimate relation with Him. Thus they were, by the nature of the case, first-hand witnesses of the events they narrated. It is the custom however to speak of them as "uneducated fishermen" who would be in capable of appreciating evidence, and who would be only too easily carried away by their emotions and by their personal devotion to their Teacher. 48 Yet what ground is there for supposing them uneducated? Their writings should be sufficient disproof of this notion, for leaving on one side the indubitably literary Third Gospel we have in Matthew, Mark and John narratives of undeniable charm even if we cannot claim for their very simplicity a high standard of literary composition. The men who penned these "living" documents cannot have been uneducated in the ordinary sense of the term. And as a matter of fact the entire Jewish tradition is opposed to it. The Jews themselves have always been educationalists and we can trace back their efforts in this direction to a very early date. Thus in his very curious amplification of Moses exhortations towards the close of the Wanderings Josephus makes the great Lawgiver say: "Let the children also learn the laws as the first thing they are taught, which will be the first thing they can be taught, and will be the cause of their future happiness" the address opens with the remark able declaration: "O children of Israel, there is but one source of happiness for all mankind the favor of God!" 49 And again: "Our principal care is the educating our children well." 50 It is true that this education was almost, if not quite, exclusively Biblical. But what finer education could men have? St. Paul makes it a matter of special commendation to Timothy that he has received such education. 51 We see its effects in the way in which the Evangelists are steeped in the Old Testament; it is the same with the Saints of the time of Christ. When Zachary, Simeon and the Blessed Virgin break into song their Canticles are little more than a cento of passages from all parts of the Old Testament; it is the same with St. Stephen's speech. 52 How insistent was the regular teaching by the Scribes is clear from the numerous references in the New Testament; and though this teaching was not elementary, yet there is no indication that it was confined to a limited audience. 53 As for individual Evangelists their educated character is vouched for in the case of St. Matthew who would hardly have sat at the seat of custom had he been lacking in the ordinary requirements of a man of business. That St. Luke was educated goes without saying. As for St. John, even if it could be shown that he had not received a good elementary education, we should still have to reckon with the long years of his life, his travels and his intimate experience of men. St. Mark can hardly be an exception; at any rate both St. Peter and St. Paul found him useful as a secretary.

The Evangelists, then, had first-hand sources of information. Moreover they were far from being prejudiced witnesses, they had no axe to grind, they had stubbornly resisted the evidence for Christ's Resurrection, 54 as some also of the body of disciples had found the doctrine touching the Holy Eucharist "a hard saying." But just as St. Thomas doubts serve to render our faith the stronger, so too the fact that the Evangelists were "slow to believe" renders their grudging witness the more effective. 55 Further, the very independence of their individual narratives, together with the apparent want of harmony in their accounts of certain events, cries out against the idea that their stories are fictitious. The same must be said of the unaffected simplicity of style which so offended St. Augustine and on which Lactantius remarks more than once. 56 Yet this same simple style served as a vehicle for the profoundest doctrine, a doctrine which at the same time revolted and yet won the world. 57 The Evangelists died, their Evangels remained. False Gospels appeared in profusion, but they have hardly endured as the treasures of museums, while the Canonical Four, despite their lack of adornment, are and always will be fruitful in the divinest thoughts for all men and for all time.

Hence the "Majesty" of the Gospels; 58 hence the custom of swearing by them; 59 hence, too, the place of honor assigned to a copy of the Gospels in the Councils of the Church; 60 hence the attribution of miraculous powers to them when brought into contact with the sick. 61

E. The Titles of the Gospels: their Respective Order.

The unity of the Four Gospels is signified in the received expression: "the Gospel according to Matthew, or Mark, etc." In other words their Gospels were not regarded as individual and independent compositions, but each told the same story from his own point of view. The above title "the Gospel according to N," is of very early occurrence; thus we find Clement of Alexandria speaking of the Gospel "according to John," 62 also of that "according to Mark." 63 The Council of Laodicea uses the same expression. 64 At the same time the Apostolic Catalog, ratified at the Quinisextine Council, as well as the Catalog given in the Apostolic Constitutions, speak, the former of "the Gospels of Matthew, Mark," etc., the latter of "the Gospels which Matthew, etc., handed down to us." 65

The order of the Gospels in our printed Bibles is that sanctioned by tradition. Thus out of thirty authorities cited by Westcott 66 no fewer than twenty-one give our present order; among these we may note the Canon of Muratori, 67 the Council of Laodicea, the Apostolic Canon, etc. Six of the above-mentioned authorities simply give "the Four Gospels" without indicating their order; only two show a tendency to put in the first place those Gospels which were written by Apostles in accordance, apparently, with the statement of Clement of Alexandria preserved by Eusebius 68 to the effect that "the tradition of the earliest Presbyters as to the order of the Gospels is that the Gospels containing the Genealogy (of Christ) were, he (Clement) says, written first." This statement however receives no confirmation from other sources unless perhaps Tertullian intends to insist on this same order when he distinguishes between Apostles and "Apostolic men" as authors of the Four Gospels and then goes on to say: "Of the Apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of Apostolic men Luke and Mark renew it afterwards." 69 How far the traditional order can be taken as indicative of the dates at which the respective Gospels were written is another question; it is certainly an indication which cannot be lightly set on one side. St. Augustine has some remarks on the order of the Four Gospels which should be weighed:

"First Matthew," he says, "then Mark, then Luke, lastly John. As far, then, as their respective knowledge of and preaching of the Gospel is concerned, their mutual order is not the same as the order in which they wrote the Gospel. For as far as knowledge and preaching are concerned those were the first who followed the Lord when present in the flesh, who heard Him speaking and witnessed His deeds, and who by His command were sent to preach the Gospel. But in writing the Gospel a task which was, we must suppose, divinely committed to them two of the number of those whom the Lord chose before His Passion occupy the first and the last place respectively, Matthew the first, John the last. "While the two who remain were not of their number, yet none the less did they follow the Christ Who spoke within them. ... Of these four Matthew alone wrote in Hebrew, the others in Greek. And while each of them would seem to have retained their own method of writing, yet no one of them seems to have written in ignorance of what his predecessor had written, nor to have omitted in ignorance what another had given, but, according as each one was inspired, he added to the whole the co-operation of a toil which was not superfluous. For Matthew undertook to speak of the Lord's Incarnation according to His kingly ancestry as well as of many of His sayings and doings according to man's present life. Mark followed Matthew as his body-servant and abbreviator, for nowhere has he aught in common with John alone; scarcely anything does he relate on his own sole authority. Whereas he has very much in common with Matthew; indeed he narrates many things in precisely the same terms as does Matthew and as, at times, do the others. Luke seems more occupied with the priestly character and origin of the Lord." 70

F. The Study of the Gospels.

When preaching on the apparently conflicting accounts of the Genealogy of our Savior St. Augustine pathetically says:

"I speak to you as one who was at one time myself deceived. For when I was younger I approached the Divine Scriptures rather from zeal for discussion than from a devout desire to learn. And thus I, by my perverse frame of mind, shut to the Lord's door upon myself; when I should have knocked for Him to open to me I went and compelled Him to shut it! For I dared in my pride to ask what none save the humble can find!" 71

And again, when commenting on John v. 19, he says:

"Heresies are not begotten, nor those perverse doctrines which ensnare men's souls and cast them into hell, save when what Scripture has well said is not well understood, and when what we have not rightly gathered from Scripture is made the subject of rash and bold assertion. We ought, then, to listen to the Scriptures with the greatest caution, for as far as understanding of them goes we are but as little children. Rather then should we with a heartfelt devotion and awe hold to this sound rule, that we joyfully receive as our food that which, in accordance with the faith wherewith we are sealed, we can understand; but when we cannot, according to the sound rule of faith, understand some point, then we put aside all doubt and defer our understanding of it, that is even though we know not what some particular thing may mean we do not therefore for a moment doubt but that it is something most good and true." 72

Humility, then, is an essential if we would arrive at a true understanding of Holy Scripture. And Origen would add also time and patience: when commenting on John 8:37 he says:

"I am exposing myself to danger, for it is dangerous here to treat of and expound such points as these. Indeed especially dangerous here, since the dispenser of the mysteries of God must needs ask for time for setting forth such doctrines so as not to weary his hearers; he must study the reasons why something is lacking or something added." 73 "We must not," says St. Augustine, "rush in headlong fashion to the defense of some opinion and thus come a dismal fall when more diligent investigation has shown that that view was false: for this means that we are fighting not for what the Divine Scripture holds but for what we ourselves hold; we are trying to make Scripture mean what we want, when we ought rather to want our opinion to be that of Holy Scripture." 74

Difficulties of course there must be in the Gospels. How should it be otherwise with documents which serve as the basis for Christianity? We have to remind ourselves sometimes that, as St. Augustine reminded Faustus, we are not the first to discover difficulties in Holy Scripture. 75 The volumes of the New Testament are, as we have seen, "occasional," 76 the Gospels themselves are essentially incomplete biographies, 77 written, too, at a time exceedingly remote from our own, according to the canons of oriental not Western ideas of history and literature, in a language which to us is dead and which we are only in these last days beginning literally to dig up from the rubbish heaps of the past. The simplicity of the narrative, added to our great familiarity with it a familiarity which somehow dulls our sense of the true inwardness of the message, added also to certain unspoken prepossessions a vague notion that somehow the Gospels are not to be taken quite literally all this, combined with the subtle influence of the all-pervading rationalistic criticism of the present day, tends to increase rather than lessen the difficulties already inherent in the Gospels. We have to make our own Origen's beautiful words:

"We cannot say of the Letters of the Holy Spirit that in them there is aught that is idle or superfluous, even though many things therein seem to be obscure. Rather should we direct our souls gaze to Him Who ordered these things to be written and so beg of Him a due understanding of them." 78

It is easy to dogmatize, easy to set forth crude and ill-digested opinions, but as St. Augustine so often reminded his hearers, prayer to the Father of lights is needed, for "deep calleth unto deep" and the Spirit of God in the student must call to and respond to the Spirit of God in the written page.

G. Bibliography.

In addition to those given above some of the following will prove useful: Batiffol, Six Lemons sur les Evangiles, 3rd ed. 1897; Orpheus et les Evangiles, Gabalda, 1910, translated under the title of The Credibility of the Gospels, 1912. Brassac, the New Testament volumes of Vigouroux, Manuel Biblique, 1909. Pillion, Les Saints Evangiles, Paris, 1896; Synopsis Evangelica, Paris, 1896; Introduction Generale aux Evangiles, Paris, 1896. Lesetre, La Clef des Evangiles, Gabalda, 1902; Recent Evidence for the Authenticity of the Gospels: Tatian's Diatessaron, Maher, S.J., C.T.S., 1893. Moftat, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, Clark, 2nd ed., 1912, the Prolegomena. Rose, O.P., Etudes sur les Evangiles, Paris, 1902, translated by Monsignor Fraser, Studies in the Gospels, 1903. St. Margaret's Lectures, Criticism of the New Testament, Murray, 1902.

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1 Contra Faustum, II. 2; cf. Enarr. in Ps. C. 46, Sermo, xlv. 5, cxxxiv. 6.

2 E.g. Matthew 24:14 and Matthew 26:13.

3 Note Origen's comment on St. Luke's expression "many have taken in hand to set forth ..."; "taken in hand, an implicit accusation of those who, though without the grace of the Holy Spirit, rushed into the task of writing Gospels. Of a truth Matthew, Mark, John and Luke did not take in hand to write, but being filled with the Spirit they penned the Gospels" (Hom. I. in Lucam, P.L. XXVI. 221).

4 Sermo ccxxxv. i.

5 De Consensu Evangelistarum, I. 54.

6 Sermo lxxxv. i; cf. Sermo cxlii. 9, P.L. XXXVIII. 520 and 784.

7 Contra Celsum, III. 21.

8 Ep. cxxviii. i; on Ezech. i. 18.

9 Ep. xxix. 2.

10 St. Augustine, Tract. VII. i. 12 in Joann. : Origen, Contra Celsum, III. 24.

11 Cf. p. 182 infra,

12 Adv. Haer. III. xi. 6, cf. III. i. i.

13 H.E. VI. xxv. 4, cf. III. xxv. i, "the holy quaternion of the Gospels."

14 Hom. I. in Lucam, St. Jerome's translation, P.L. XXVI. 221.

15 Adv. Haer. III. xi. 8, P.G. VII. 887.

16 Prol. in Comment, in Lucam, P.L. XV. 1532.

17 Adv. Jovin. I. 26, P.L. XXIII. 248; Comment, in Ezech. i. 10 P.L. XXV. 24; Prol. to Comment, in Matth., P.L. XXVI. 19.

18 Tract. XXXVI. viii. 5 in Joann., P.L. XXXV. 1666; De Consensu, I vi. (9).

19 Pseudo-Athanasius, P.G. XXVIII. 431.

20 De Consensu, I. vi. 9.

21 Prol. in Lucam, 8, P.L. XV. 1532.

22 For various summaries of the Fourfold Gospel see Origen, Prol. 6 and Tom. VI. 17 in Joann., Hom. I. in Matth.; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. III. 13; St. Augustine, De Consensu, I. i. 3, etc.

23 De Consensu, I. xxxiv. (54), P.L. XXXIV. 1070.

24 Sermo cxlvi. 1, P.L. XXXVIII. 1153. Note, too, Origen's remark: "Some do not understand that just as He Whom the several Evangelists preach is One, so is the Gospel which they wrote one. In fact the Gospel written by four is but one Gospel," Tom. II. 4 in Joann., P.G. XIV. 194; cf. also St. Chrysostom on Gal. I, P.G. LXI. 621.

25 Prol. to Comment in Matthaeum, P.L. XXVI. 18; cp. Adv. Jovin. I. 26, P.L. XXIII. 247-8.

26 Adv. Haer. III. v. 1, P.G. VII. 858; Origen, Contra Celsum, II. 24, 26, 48.

27 "In my judgment it is impossible for those who refuse to admit anything but pure history in these things to show that the apparent discrepancies are really not such," Tom. X. 15 in Joann., P.G. XIV. 346; and further on, "Examine then carefully whether the changes in what is written and the discrepancies in it can be got rid of by some anagogical explanation whereby each Evangelist describes different actions of the Word of God in different states of souls, not, that is, setting forth identical things but similar things," ib. 18.

28 E.g. Tom. X. 11 in Joann.

29 De Principiis, IV. 15-16.

30 Ibid. 16.

31 Ibid.

32 Contra Celsum, II. 26.

33 Ibid. 4 8, P.G. XI. 258.

34 Compare for example Contra Faustum, XXXIII. 8, P.L. XLII. 516, with Origen, Tom. X. 3 in Joann., P.G. XIV. 311; also De Consensu, II. 27-29, P.L. XXXIV. 1090-91, with Origen, Tom. VI. 18 in Joann., P.G. XIV. 258; the dependence of St. Augustine on Origen almost extends to the very words he uses.

35 Ep. CXVI. 3 inter Opp. St. Hieronymi, P.L. XXII. 937; cf. Contra Faustum, III. 5, XI. 5, XIII, 56, XVII. 3, XXVIII. 2, 4; P.L. XLII.

36 Contra Faustum, III. 5, XXVI. 3, 5, XXXII. 21, XXXIII. 5-6; P.L. XLII.

37 See the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, also the Encyclical Pascendi gregis as an application of the former, see the extracts given in the Introduction to St. John's Gospel, infra.

38 Ad Hedibiam, Ep. CXX. 9, P.L. XXII. 994-997-

39 Adv. Marcionem, IV. 2, P.L. II. 363; note too the Muratorian Fragment, lines 6-7, supra, p. 88.

40 Hippolytus, Haer. VII

41 Contra Celsum, II. 13, P.L. XIII. 523.

42 Adv. Haer. III. i. i, P.G. VII. 844.

43 Susum jusum convertunt, low-Latin forms of sursum and deorsum; this seems to have been a familiar expression, cf. St. Augustine, Tract. VIII. 2 and X. 8 in Joann., Lactantius, De Morte Persecutorum, XIX. 4.

44 De Praescriptionibus, 22 and 26, P.L. II. 34-38. Cp. De Fuga, 9.

45 Tom. XIII. cf in Joann., P.G. XIV. 483-486.

46 Contra Celsum III. 27, P.G. XI. 954.

47 Supra, pp. 72-73; note, too, how St. Irenaeus seems to speak of the Four Evangelists as Peter, John, Matthew and Paul, Adv Haer. III. xxi. 3, P.G. VII. 950.

48 Such views practically formed the basis of Lives of Christ like those by Strauss and Kenan.

49 Ant. IV. viii. 12.

50 Contra Apionem, I. 12, cf. II. 26.

51 2 Timothy 3:15.

52 Acts 7.

53 See St. Jerome, Ep. CXXI. 10, P.L. XXII. 1034.

54 Mark 16:14; Luke 24:25.

55 John 20 with St. Gregory, Hom. XXVI. in Evangelia.

56 Lactantius, Instituta V. i, cp. Origen, Tom. II. 2 in Joann., P.G. XIV. 186.

57 See Acts 17:32-34 and 1 Cor 1:18-28.

58 Supra, p. 154.

59 H.E. VII. xv.; for the procedure at the Council of Chalcedon see Mansi, Concilia VI. 726, also Binius' note on the Council of Nice, ib. II. 730, for the Council of Ephesus, ib. V. 449; see Baronius under A.D. 428, no. 19.

60 Mansi, Concilia VI. 730, 778, 782, 798. Haddan and Stubbs, III. 142.

61 P. 154, supra.

62 Paedag. I. 6.

63 Quis Dives? V.

64 A.D. 363; given by Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, Append. D.; for the authenticity of this Canon LIX. see I.e. 399-405, 3rd ed.

65 Ibid. pp. 503 and 505.

66 L.c.

67 See above, p. 89.

68 H.E. VI. xiv. 5, P.G. XX. 551; the Curetonian Syriac has the order Matthew, Mark, John, Luke; Codex Bezae has Matthew, John, Luke, Mark.

69 Adv. Marcionem, IV. 2.

70 De Consensu, I. ii. 3-4, P.L. XXXIV. 1043-4.

71 Sermo LI. 5, P.L. XXXVIII. 336.

72 Tract. XVIII. 1 in Joann., P.L. XXXV. 1536; cf. Tract. XVI. 2.

73 Tom. XX. 2 in Joann., P.G. XIV. 573; cf. De Principiis I. 10, also Tom. XX. 29 in Joann., P.G. XIV, 655.

74 De Genesi ad Hit. I. xviii. 37, P.L. XXXIV. 252.

75 Contra Faustum, III. 2, P.L. XLII. 214.

76 Supra, p. 67.

77 Ibid.

78 Hom, XXVII, 1 in Numbers, P.G., XII. 782,