modified by Bishop Herbert Marsh (1803), Gratz (1809), and Bertholdt (who, as Baur says, was
devoted to it with "carnal self-security").
But there is no trace of such an important Gospel, either Hebrew or Greek. Luke knows
nothing about it, although he speaks of several attempts to write portions of the history. To carry
out his hypothesis, Eichhorn was forced to assume four altered copies or recensions of the original
document, and afterwards he added also Greek recensions. Marsh, outgermanizing the German
critic, increased the number of recensions to eight, including a Greek translation of the Hebrew
original. Thus a new recension might be invented for every new set of facts ad infinitum. If the
original Gospel was an apostolic composition, it needed no alterations and would have been
preserved; or if it was so defective, it was of small account and unfit to be used as a basis of the
canonical Gospels. Eichhorn’s hypothesis is now generally abandoned, but in modified shape it
has been renewed by Ewald and others. See below.- The Gospel "according to the Hebrews," of which some fragments still remain. Lessing
(1784, in a book published three years after his death), Semler (who, however, changed his view
repeatedly), Weber (1791), Paulus (1799). But this was a heretical or Ebionitic corruption of
Matthew, and the remaining fragments differ widely from the canonical Gospels. - The Hebrew Matthew (Urmatthäus). It is supposed in this case that the famous Logia,
which Matthew is reported by Papias to have written in Hebrew, consisted not only of a collection
of discourses of our Lord (as Schleiermacher, Ewald, Reuss, I., 183, explained the term), but also
of his deeds: "things said and done." But in any case the Hebrew Matthew is lost and cannot form
a safe basis for conclusions. Hug and Roberts deny that it ever existed. See next section. - The canonical Mark.
- A pre-canonical proto-Mark (Urmarkus). The last two hypotheses have already been
mentioned under the second general head (II. 3).
IV. The theory of a number of fragmentary documents (the Diegesentheorie), or different
recensions. It is based on the remark of Luke that "many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative
(διήγησινconcerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us" (Luke 1:1). Schleiermacher
(1817) assumed a large number of such written documents, or detached narratives, and dealt very
freely with the Synoptists, resting his faith chiefly on John.
Ewald (1850) independently carried out a similar view in fierce opposition to the "beastly
wildness" of the Tübingen school. He informs us with his usual oracular self-assurance that Philip,
the evangelist (Acts 8), first wrote a historical sketch in Hebrew, and then Matthew a collection of
discourses (the λόγιαof Papias), also in Hebrew, of which several Greek translations were made;
that Mark was the third, Matthew the fifth, and Luke the ninth in this series of Gospels, representing
the "Höhebilder, die himmlische Fortbewegung der Geschichte," which at last assumed their most
perfect shape in John.
Köstlin, Wittichen, and Scholten likewise assume a number of precanonical Gospels which
exist only in their critical fancy.
Renan (Les Evang., Introd., p. vi.) distinguishes three sets of Gospels: (1) original Gospels
of the first hand, taken from the oral tradition without a previous written text: the Hebrew Matthew
and the Greek proto-Mark; (2) Gospels partly original and partly second-handed: our canonical
Gospels falsely attributed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke; (3) Gospels of the second and third hand:
Marcion’s and the Apocryphal Gospels.
A.D. 1-100.