greater moment, or that he should have deliberately left them out, as things not worthy of mention.

b. The supposition that "Matthew" was acquainted with "Luke," or "Luke" with "Matthew" has equally grave implications. If that be so, the one who used the other could have had but a poor opinion of his predecessor's historical

veracity. If, as most experts agree, "Luke" is later than "Matthew," it is clear that he does not credit "Matthew's" account of the infancy; does not believe the "Sermon on the Mount" as given by Matthew was preached; does not believe in the two feeding miracles, to which Jesus himself is made to refer; wholly discredits "Matthew's" account of the events after the crucifixion; and thinks it not worth while to notice "Matthew's" grave admission that "some doubted."

IX. None of these troublesome consequences pursue the hypothesis that the threefold tradition, in one, or more, Greek versions, was extant before either of the canonical Synoptic Gospels; and that it furnished the fundamental framework of their several narratives. Where and when the threefold narrative arose, there is no positive evidence; though it is obviously probable that the traditions it embodies, and perhaps many others, took their rise in Palestine and spread thence to Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt and Italy, in the track of the early missionaries. Nor is it less likely that they formed part of the "didaskalia" of the primitive Nazarene and Christian communities.[6]

X. The interest which attaches to "Mark" arises from the fact that it seems to present this early, probably earliest, Greek Gospel narrative, with least addition, or modification. If, as appears likely from some internal evidences, it was compiled for the use of the Christian sodalities in Rome; and that it was accepted by them as an adequate account of the life and work of Jesus, it is evidence of the most valuable kind respecting their beliefs and the limits of dogma, as conceived by them.

In such case, a good Roman Christian of that epoch might know nothing of the doctrine of the incarnation, as taught by "Matthew" and "Luke"; still less of the "logos" doctrine of "John"; neither need he have believed anything more than the simple fact of the resurrection. It was open to him to believe it either corporeal or spiritual. He would never have heard of the power of the keys bestowed upon Peter; nor have had brought to his mind so much as a suggestion of trinitarian doctrine. He might be a rigidly monotheistic Judæo-Christian, and consider himself bound by the law: he might be a Gentile Pauline convert, neither knowing of nor caring for such restrictions. In neither case would he find in "Mark" any serious stumbling-block. In fact, persons of all the categories admitted to salvation by Justin, in the middle of the second century,[7] could accept "

Mark" from beginning to end. It may well be, that, in this wide adaptability, backed by the authority of the metropolitan church, there lies the reason for the fact of the preservation of "Mark," notwithstanding its limited and dogmatically colourless character, as compared with the Gospels of "Luke" and "Matthew."

XI. "Mark," as we have seen, contains a relatively small body of ethical and religious instruction and only a few parables. Were these all that existed in the primitive threefold tradition? Were none others current in the Roman communities, at the time "Mark" wrote, supposing he wrote in Rome? Or, on the other hand, was there extant, as early as the time at which "Mark" composed his Greek edition of the primitive Evangel, one or more collections of parables and teachings, such as those which form the bulk of the twofold tradition, common exclusively to "Matthew" and "Luke," and are also found in their single traditions? Many have assumed this, or these, collections to be identical with, or at any rate based upon, the "logia," of which ecclesiastical tradition says, that they were written in Aramaic by Matthew, and that everybody translated them as he could.

Here is the old difficulty again. If such materials were known to "Mark," what imaginable reason could he have for not using them? Surely displacement of the long episode of John the Baptist—even

perhaps of the story of the Gadarene swine—by portions of the Sermon on the Mount or by one or two of the beautiful parables in the twofold and single traditions would have been great improvements; and might have been effected, even though "Mark" was as much pressed for space as some have imagined. But there is no ground for that imagination; Mark has actually found room for four or five parables; why should he not have given the best, if he had known of them? Admitting he was the mere pedissequus et breviator of Matthew, that even Augustine supposed him to be, what could induce him to omit the Lord's Prayer?

Whether more or less of the materials of the twofold tradition D, and of the peculiar traditions F and G, were or were not current in some of the communities, as early as, or perhaps earlier than, the triple tradition, it is not necessary for me to discuss; nor to consider those solutions of the Synoptic problem which assume that it existed earlier, and was already combined with more or less narrative. Those who are working out the final solution of the Synoptic problem are taking into account, more than hitherto, the possibility that the widely separated Christian communities of Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Italy, especially after the Jewish war of A.D. 66-70, may have found themselves in possession of very different traditional materials. Many circumstances

tend to the conclusion that, in Asia Minor, even the narrative part of the threefold tradition had a formidable rival; and that, around this second narrative, teaching traditions of a totally different order from those in the Synoptics, grouped themselves; and, under the influence of converts imbued more or less with the philosophical speculations of the time, eventually took shape in the fourth Gospel and its associated literature.

XII. But it is unnecessary, and it would be out of place, for me to attempt to do more than indicate the existence of these complex and difficult questions. My purpose has been to make it clear that the Synoptic problem must force itself upon every one who studies the Gospels with attention; that the broad facts of the case, and some of the consequences deducible from these facts, are just as plain to the simple English reader as they are to the profoundest scholar.

One of these consequences is that the threefold tradition presents us with a narrative believed to be historically true, in all its particulars, by the major part, if not the whole, of the Christian communities. That narrative is penetrated, from beginning to end, by the demonological beliefs of which the Gadarene story is a specimen; and, if the fourth Gospel indicates the existence of another and, in some respects, irreconcilably divergent narrative, in which the demonology retires into the background, it is none the less there.

Therefore, the demonology is an integral and inseparable component of primitive Christianity. The farther back the origin of the gospels is dated, the stronger does the certainty of this conclusion grow; and the more difficult it becomes to suppose that Jesus himself may not have shared the superstitious beliefs of his disciples.

It further follows that those who accept devils, possession, and exorcism as essential elements of their conception of the spiritual world may consistently consider the testimony of the Gospels to be unimpeachable in respect of