Besides the common Galilaean tradition for the people at large which is embodied in the
Synoptic Gospels, there was an esoteric tradition of Christ’s ministry in Judaea and his private
relation to the select circle of the apostles and his mysterious relation to the Father. The bearer of
this tradition was the beloved disciple who leaned on the beating heart of his Master and absorbed
his deepest words. He treasured them up in his memory, and at last when the church was ripe for
this higher revelation he embodied it in the fourth Gospel.
Notes.
The problem of the Relationship of the Synoptists was first seriously discussed by Augustin
(d. 430), in his three books De Consensu Evangelistarum (Opera, Tom. III., 1041–1230, ed. Migne).
He defends the order in our canon, first Matthew, last John, and the two apostolic disciples in the
middle (in loco medio constituti tamquam filii amplectendi, I., 2), but wrongly makes Mark dependent
on Matthew (see below, sub. I. 1). His view prevailed during the middle ages and down to the close
of the eighteenth century. The verbal inspiration theory checked critical investigation.
The problem was resumed with Protestant freedom by Storr (1786), more elaborately by
Eichhorn (1794), and Marsh (1803), and again by Hug (a liberal Roman Catholic scholar, 1808),
Schleiermacher (1817), Gieseler (1818), De Wette (1826), Credner (1836), and others. It received
a new impulse and importance by the Leben Jesu of Strauss (1836), and the Tübingen school, and
has been carried forward by Baur (1847), Hilgenfeld, Bleek, Reuss, Holtzmann, Ewald, Meyer,
Keim, Weiss, and others mentioned in the Literature (p. 577). Starting in Germany, the investigation
was prosecuted also in France, Holland, England, and the United States.
It is not easy to find a way through the labyrinth of the Synoptic question, with all its by-ways
and cross-ways, turns and windings, which at first make the impression:
"Mir wird von alle dem so dumm,
Als ging mir ein Mühlrad im Kopf herum."
Holtzmann gives a brief history of opinions (in his able work, Die Synopt. Evang.) down
to 1863, and Hilgenfeld (Hist. Krit. Einl. in das N. T, pp. 173–210) down to 1874. Comp. also
Reuss (Gesch. der heil. Schr. N. T., I., §§ 165–198, 6th ed., 1887), Holtzmann, Einleitung, 351
sqq., and Weiss, Einl., 473 sqq. The following classification of theories is tolerably complete, but
several overlap each other, or are combined.
I. The Inspiration hypothesis cuts the gordian knot by tracing the agreement of the Synoptists
directly and solely to the Holy Spirit. But this explains nothing, and makes God responsible for all
the discrepancies and possible inaccuracies of the Evangelists. No inspiration theory can stand for
a moment which does not leave room for the personal agency and individual peculiarities of the
sacred authors and the exercise of their natural faculties in writing. Luke expressly states in the
preface his own agency in composing his Gospel and the use he made of his means of information.
II. The Interdependency hypothesis, or Borrowing hypothesis (Benützungshypothese) holds
that one or two Evangelists borrowed from the other. This admits of as many modifications as the
order in which they may be placed.- Matthew, Mark, Luke. This is the traditional order defended by Augustin, who called
Mark, rather disrespectfully, a "footman and abbreviator of Matthew" (tamquam pedissequus et
breviator Matthäi, II., 3), Grotius, Mill, Bengel, Wetstein, Hug (1808), Hilgenfeld, Klostermann,
Keil. Among English writers Townson and Greswell.
A.D. 1-100.