Examination of the First Part. In this Part, it may reasonably be supposed, Mark and Luke had, as their common basis, a Record consisting of the eighteen Sections so numbered, early drawn up by some stationary resident at Capernaum, which was the chief emporium of Galilee, and a kind of native capital; and this compiler must have confined himself to what fell under his own observation, or was learnt by him at once from personal witnesses. It was probably written in the language of the Country; but there may have been Hellenistic renderings of the whole or of separate parts; and the Hebrew may have existed with many variations in different copies. Every thing recorded in it clearly occurred in Capernaum or its immediate vicinity, with the exception of the first portion of Division F.; and this was closely connected with the second portion, which did occur at Capernaum. The occurrences in F. certainly are not in their chronological position; this has already been shown in Sect. v., p. lix. Now, since the true position of these remarkable occurrences could not have been difficult of ascertainment by a person who was residing on the spot, and desirous to make the order of time his principle of arrangement, it appears certain that this was not, exclusively at least, the system on which the original Record was compiled. The Record begins, Division A., with the First Sabbath at Capernaum, the day preceding the commencement of our Lord's Public Ministry in Galilee.-B. gives a brief account of the commencement, extent, and termination of his First Progress in Galilee, ending with the Cure of the Leper, the effects of which occasioned him to absent himself, for a little while, from Capernaum.-C. begins with the first occurrence in that city, after his return, marking the malignant spirit of the Scribes and Pharisees; and this is followed by several other occurrences at or near Capernaum, marked by the same character,-the connection being very distinct, but merely that of subject and locality.-D. narrates the Selection of the Twelve, which occurred soon after Matthew's Call; and this forms the leading subject of the preceding Division.-E. respects the Day of Parables, which, according to St. Matthew, occurred after the Mission of the Twelve, and before their Return. Thus far the several Divisions are arranged according to the time of occurrence of the leading subject of each. But Division F. relates a series of single and striking miracles, each unique in its kind, which certainly occurred at the period of Matthew's Call, and two of them (p. lix.) in connection with his Feast. It appears not unreasonable, to regard this Division as derived from an independent narrative of the remarkable series of occurrences (Harm. p. 75-87) which commences with the stilling of the Storm and ends with the raising of Jaïrus's Daughter; and to suppose that the compiler of the Record merely annexed to it this narrative, omitting those occurrences which he had already recorded among the specimens of the captious malignant spirit of the Pharisees. The foregoing hypothesis seems to have the requisite characters of simplicity of adaptation to the circumstances of the period, and of accordance with existing phenomena; and it yields my own mind a restful satisfaction. The Record seems clearly to have guided both Mark and Luke in the order of narration. Mark prefixes to it, as Matthew does, §. a, the striking commencement of our Lord's Public Ministry in Galilee after the Imprisonment of John; and §.b, the Call of Peter and the other disciples which immediately succeeded this. The absence of both these from Luke, the former especially, marks a less early acquaintance with the Gospel history than Mark possessed, and a less intimate knowledge of Apostles. But Luke has, in in §. a, a fact of singular interest, exclusively found in his Gospel, which his greater scope of research presented to him, viz. the first Rejection of our Lord at Nazareth, apparently before he took up his residence at Capernaum with a view to his Public Ministry; which forms a perfect introduction to that period, and which affords a general specimen of his mode of preaching in the synagogue of Galilee. See Harm. p. 39. In B., which gives a view of our Lord's First Progress, Luke has inserted one occurrence, §.ẞ, which is peculiar to him, viz. the Draught of Fishes. See Harm. p. 57. To this he annexes, as he may have found in his document, the Call of Peter, &c. The locality was the same; and the interval was not great, perhaps not more than a week or ten days. In C. we have a striking indication of St. Luke's desire to give accurate information respecting the events which he relates. He clearly had no record of any national festival during Christ's Ministry in Galilee, which we know he considered as terminating shortly before the Passover at which our Lord was crucified, and probably regarded as commencing after the preceding Tabernacles. Now, from the season at which the Walk through the Corn-fields, §. 9, must have occurred, it could not have been in the intervening period; and just as St. John (p. xxxi.) assigns the time of that miracle which he has recorded out of its chronological position, so St. Luke, having ascertained the date of this event, viz. the second-first sabbath,-while he arranges it as given in the Record, according to the connection of subject,-specifies that date, as though to prevent confusion; and goes on to say, expressly, that the next event was on another sabbath, as though his Record had left this doubtful, but he knew that this event occurred during our Lord's Public Ministry in Galilee. See Harm. p. 37, and p. 116. I presume that Matthew had a document corresponding to Division C., or at least to the last two sections of it, in neither of which had he any personal concern; and that as he found them both together, distinctly connected by subject, he placed them together, and in the position to which the latter of them belonged in reference to time, (viz. in the interval btween the Mission and the Return of the Twelve), and in connection with other facts displaying the malignant captiousness of the Pharisees. If, as appears probable, Matthew returned to our Lord before the Day of Parables, recorded in ch. xiii., then he must have been a personal witness from ch. xii. 22; but for his materials from ch. xi. 2 to ch. xii. 21, I presume that he depended upon the information of others, and, as it appears, mainly on written documents. If so, the initiatory expressions in ch. xi. 20, 25, xii. 1, 9, 22, must not be construed too closely. From ch. xii. 22, the connection is uninterrupted to the end of the thirteenth chapter, after which a new portion of the Gospel commences. In D. occurs a passage, §. 11. which Mark appears to connect with §. 10, in C., by the word avexwpnos, withdrew or departed; but which really best suits §. 12, as Luke arranges it. In the following Harmony, p. 118, it is placed as Mark gives it, in connection with §. 10; nevertheless, the present Analysis makes me doubtful whether most of it did not really belong to §. 12, as Luke places it. That portion in Mark singularly partakes of some expressions in Matthew, with whose arrangement his own here agrees, and of others in Luke, who connects §. 11 with the Selection of the Apostles, with which it best agrees.-There could not have been such a gathering to our Lord of the common people of distant regions, so soon after his retirement in Ephraim; whereas, after his First Progress, it was to be expected that this would take place when he began another Progress, nine or ten days after the former one was ended. My conjecture is, that it appeared as Mark has it, though more briefly, in the common Record; that Matthew employed at least this part, respecting occurrences during his absence on the Apostolic Mission; that he omitted (see Harm. p. 118) expressions which he knew suited only an earlier period; that Mark, not aware of this fact, further added those circumstances which he alone records; and that Luke (Harm. p. 89) transferred what he had in the Record, to that position which, by his accurate inquiries, he found it respected. 1 perceive nothing improbable in this conjecture; and it is founded on the phenomena. To the narrative which Luke found in the Record, Division D., respecting the Selection of the Twelve, he has subjoined, §. 7-, a connected series of occurrences; first, the Discourse which Matthew places at the end of the First Progress; and then, several facts, of singular interest in themselves, two of them peculiar to Luke, and another, the Cure of the Centurion's Servant, marked, in his relation, by circumstances which assist to prove that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were entirely independent of each other, and which must have been derived from original sources. Luke may have received all these in their present connection, either in a written document, or by oral information. At any rate, all the sections of this series are in the order of occurrence; and wherever Luke placed the first, §.y, he would naturally place the rest. I cannot doubt that the position of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew's Gospel, is that of actual occurrence. Why Luke placed his less perfect account of it where we find it, is easily explained, if we suppose, what cannot be deemed improbable, that the selection of the Apostles was made on the mountain where the Discourse was delivered. The interval between the two occurrences was only about nine days; and if Luke and Mark had, in this Part, which I deem next to certain, a common Record, consisting of the contents, and arranged in the order, specified in the Analysis, I know no position where Luke could have introduced the series referred to, with greater probability. He must have learnt that our Lord delivered the Discourse at a mountain near Capernaum, and at a time when great multitudes were flocking around him; and finding in the Record a perfectly correspondent part, §. 12, he there introduced the Discourse and the regular series of occurrences which he had received in connection with it. As to §., which records the short but interesting statement respecting our Lord's Second Progress, its position was decided by the expression, 'And the Twelve were with him'. The general system of St. Luke is, to complete the series of occurrences which the subject or other circumstances connected in his view; and then to proceed to another fact or series, which came, in regular succession, after the leading fact of the preceding series. The leading fact of D., is the Selection of the Twelve; and the terms of §., place it therefore in close succession after that Division. With Division E. of the Record, we have, in Mark, §. c, a relation of the circumstances leading our Lord to condemn blasphemy against the holy spirit', which is followed by the application of his Mother and Brethren; and this last occurrence precedes the Parable of the Sower, &c. This too is the order in Matthew. Harm. p. 124. Luke has §. c in his Gnomology; and places §. 14 after the Parables. This may have been the position in the common Record; and when Mark prefixed to the series of Parables, the occurrences which preceded the delivery of them, he would naturally transfer §. 14 to its true connection, as observed in Matthew's Gospel, viz. with §. c, which he would of course learn from Peter. See Harm. p. 124. To the remarkable series of facts in Division F. which closed the Record, (see p. lxvi.), St. Mark subjoins, §. d, an account of our Lord's visit to Nazareth. This, from St. Matthew's statement, so clearly succeeded the Day of Parables, shortly before the general Return of the Apostles, that there can be no difficulty in understanding why Mark has given the present position. We must regard it as related in time to the following Part, rather than to the facts with which the Record terminates. That St. Matthew, when he prepared his Gospel for publication, had not before him the Record employed by Mark and Luke, I infer from the following facts. 1. He does not mention the cure of the Demoniac, which was the first miracle, and that a remarkable one, after our Lord's public announcement of the new dispensation. 2. He places the cure of Peter's Mother-in-law, and the miracles of that evening, (the position of which is quite established by the circumstantial narrative of Peter's companion, see Harm. p. 55), after the First Progress, instead of on the sabbath before it. 3. He mentions two Demoniacs in his brief narrative of the miracles in the region of Gadara: see Harm. p. 78, note. Nevertheless he must, for the occurrences during his absence on his mission, have had written or oral information from others. On comparing the section in Luke, respecting the Message of the Baptist, Harm. p. 97, with that in Matthew, it seems nearly certain that these Evangelists had there a common record; and also in the Thanksgiving to the Father, p. 103, if not in the Upbraiding of the Cities of Galilee, p. 102. It appears also next to certain, that Matthew had a copy of the document from which Division C. was formed, or at least of §. 9 and 10, to which sufficient reference has already been made in p.lxvii. It is further probable, that he had, in common with Mark and Luke, a document which formed the basis of Part V. Sect. x. §. 1 and 2; with the addition which we find in §.3. See Harm. p. 119-124. After this, it seems probable, Matthew employed his own records. |