NOTES ON THE HARMONY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. INTRODUCTION. THE following Notes relate chiefly to the mode and order of harmonizing the narratives of the four Evangelists; and touch only incidentally upon other topics. They do not claim, in any sense, to be a Commentary upon the Gospels. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, along with many diversities, have nevertheless a striking affinity with each other in their general features of time and place. But, when compared with John's Gospel, there is seen to be a diversity no less striking between them and the latter, not only in respect to chronology, but likewise as to the part of the country where our Lord's discourses and mighty works mainly occurred. Matthew, Mark, and Luke speak only of one Passover, that at which Jesus suffered; and from this it would follow that our Lord's ministry continued at most only about six months. John expressly enumerates three Passovers, and more probably four, during Christ's ministry; which therefore must have had a duration of at least two and a half years, and more probably of three and a half. Again, Matthew, Mark, and Luke place the scene of Jesus' public ministrations chiefly in Galilee; whence he goes up to Jerusalem only just before his death. John, on the other hand, narrates the miracles and discourses of our Lord as occurring principally at Jerusalem, on various former occasions as well as at his last visit. The apparent difficulty arising from the first difference is at once set aside by the remark that although the three Evangelists do expressly mention only one Passover, yet they do not anywhere, nor in any way, affirm, or even imply, that there were no more; while the testimony of John is express and definite. And further, the incident, narrated by all the three writers, of the disciples' plucking ripe ears of grain as they went through the fields necessarily presupposes the recent occurrence of a Passover during our Lord's ministry, different from the one at which he suffered; and this is further confirmed by Luke's mention of the "second sabbath after the first" in the same connection. See Matt. 12: 1; Mark 2: 23; Luke 6: 1. See also the Note on § 37. [Comp. the Note on § 25, and the margin of Luke 6: 1. Whatever be the meaning of the last passage, the incident must have occurred in early summer, or spring; hence shortly after a Passover not mentioned by these three writers.] This difference being thus satisfactorily explained, the existence of the second difference is of course accounted for. If John is right in enumerating several Passovers, he is right in narrating what took place at Jerusalem on those occasions. But, more than this, we find in the other Evangelists several things in which they too seem to allude to earlier visits and labors of Jesus in the Holy City. So the language in which our Lord laments over Jerusalem, as having rejected his efforts, Matt. 23: 37; Luke 13: 34; and, further, his intimate relations with the family of Lazarus, which imply a longer acquaintance than a few weeks, Luke 10: 38, 39; comp. John 11: 1, 2. For these reasons, I do not hesitate to follow, with most commentators, the chronology of John's Gospel, and assign to our Lord's ministry four Passovers, or a dura tion of three and a half years. The second of these Passovers, which is less certain than the rest, and depends upon the interpretation of John 5:1, will be considered in its place; see Note on § 36. [On the various theories respecting the length of our Lord's ministry, see the additional Note at the beginning of Part III.] In view of the same circumstances, it follows also that the Gospel of John was intended to be supplementary to the others, and to narrate only such facts and events as had not been recorded by the other Evangelists. This, too, is manifest on the pages of the Harmony; since up to the last week of our Lord's life, the language of John is in only a single instance paralled to that of the other Gospels, namely, in the feeding of the five thousand, and the accompanying incidents; see §§ 64, 65. The Gospels, and especially the first three, can in no sense be regarded as methodical annals. It is therefore difficult, and perhaps impossible, so to harmonize them, in respect to time, as in all cases to arrive at results which shall be entirely certain and satisfactory. There is often in them no definite note of time; and then we can proceed only upon conjecture, founded on a careful comparison of all the circumstances. In such cases, the decision must depend very much upon the judgment and taste of the harmonist; and what to one person may appear probable and appropriate may seem less so to another. It is the aim of the present work, not so much to ascertain and exhibit the true chronological order (although this object is not neglected) as to place side by side the different narratives of the same events, in an order which may be regarded as at least a probable one. In so doing I may hope to exhibit the legitimate uses of a Harmony, and accomplish a threefold purpose, namely, to make the Evangelists their own best interpreters; to show how wonderfully they are supplemental to each other in minute as well as important particulars; and in this way to bring out fully and clearly the fundamental characteristic of their testimony, UNITY IN DIVERSITY. [See Note below.] In the arrangement of the Harmony, made in accordance with the probable sequence of the events, and without ascribing any preference to the order of either Evangelist, this unexpected result has been brought out, namely, that the order of both Mark and John remains everywhere undisturbed, with the exception of four short passages in Mark and of three in John ; in all which cases the reasons for a change of order are apparent. See Mark 2: 15-22, in § 58; Mark 6: 17-20, in § 24; Mark 14: 22-25, in § 137; Mark 14: 66-72, in § 144; John 12: 2-8, in § 131; John 18: 25-27, in § 144; John 20: 30, 31, in § 173. Besides these there are a few slight transpositions of single verses for the sake of closer parallelism; for example, in §§ 112, 142, 153, etc. [The deviations from the chronological order in Mark may be reduced to two. Mark 6: 17-20 may be a repetition; Mark 14: 27-31 is by many referred to a second prediction of Peter's denial, while 66-72 points to what was going on during the trial of Jesus. But if, as seems very probable, John (12: 2-8) narrates the anointing at Bethany in regular order, Mark 14 : 3–9 must constitute another deviation. In John the deviations indicated above scarcely deserve the name, if the first passage is in chronological position. If there was an informal trial before Annas, John 18: 25-27 follows verse 24, and John 20: 30, 31 is merely a comment of the Evangelist.] [ON THE RELATION OF THE GOSPELS TO EACH OTHER. By the Editor.] [The independence of the Gospels is rightly assumed in the above Introduction. No one of the four Evangelists seems to have used the work of any other, and it cannot be proven that any two of them derived much common matter from a written source. We may admit that the Apostle John, when writing his Gospel, was aware of the contents of the three other narratives, but find no traces of any use of them. It is supplementary in fact, but not in form, and not necessarily in purpose. The three other Gospels, which tell of the Galilæan ministry and proceed on a common outline (synopsis), are called synoptical Gospels, or more briefly Synoptics, their authors being termed the Synoptists. The similarity in outline and the correspondence in matter we regard as due to the form which the story of our Lord's life took in the earliest preaching of the gospel. Such preaching necessarily preceded all our Gospels. It naturally took settled, yet not unvaried, form. The age was one when the memory was cultivated, the Jews being remarkably retentive of verbal forms. The first disciples would especially treasure up with reverence the words of our Lord. Hence the greatest correspondence is in the sayings recorded in the Gospels. Whatever of divine inspiration was needed to give truthfulness and authority our Lord had promised. It by no means follows that the oral teaching, above referred to, included all that could be known, or that has been accurately preserved; the preface to Luke's Gospel implies the contrary. There is no reason for seeking in this common matter a more correct and authoritative history than that presented in the four canonical Gospels. We append some reasons for the acceptance of the theory of independence : (1.) The books themselves give every evidence of independence. The variations are not verbally exact in any passages of considerable length, while the divergences cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on the theory that any one borrowed matter from another, or that any two derived the common matter from one written document. Careful and repeated comparisons of the sections treating of the same occurrences justify the above statement. (2.) If one borrowed from another we might expect evidence of priority in the case of the Gospel thus used. But there is no conclusive proof on this point. The Fathers place Matthew first, but internal evidence most pointedly opposes the view that Mark borrowed from Matthew. The reference in Acts 1: 1 to Luke's Gospel as a "former treatise" has led some scholars to assign the earliest place to the latter. (3.) The theories which deny independence are so various, and indeed so contradictory to each other, as to warrant the gravest suspicion in regard to the correctness of the method on which they proceed. No kind of evidence is so untrustworthy as that employed by the advocates of these theories, and the same phenomena lead different critics to diametrically opposed results. (4.) The amount and character of the common matter favor the theory of independence. The three synoptic Gospels have less than one half of their matter in common, estimated by sections; Mark, however, having but two sections that are peculiar. In these parallel sections verbal divergences are so numerous that more than one half of the words used in the three Gospels are peculiar to one or the other Evangelist, and the proportion of coincidences in all three is small. The proportion of passages verbally coincident in two or more Gospels is estimated by Norton (Genuineness of the Gospels) at one sixth in Matthew and Mark, one tenth in Luke. He notices that the agreement is greater in discourses reported, especially those of our Lord, and the divergences more marked in the narrative portions. The independence of the Gospels is an argument in support of their historical truthfulness. The tendency to harmonize has introduced many minor corruptions into the Greek text; happily we now have sufficient authorities to remove them. The Revised Version has this as its crowning merit, that it presents better than any other known version the coincidences and divergences of the Gospel narratives. It is only by a comparison of the various sections as therein presented that the English reader can discern the peculiarities of the several Evangelists and discover the strength of the internal evidence in support of the independence of their narratives. On the general subject, see Schaff, History of the Christian Church, I. pp. 607–612, new ed.; Archbishop Thomson (in Smith's Bible Dictionary and Speaker's Commentary); Stroud, Harmony; and Abbott and Rushbrooke, Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels in the Revised Version.] PART I. EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF OUR LORD. §§ 1-13 § 2. Zacharias was an ordinary priest of the class of Abia [or Abijah], one of the twenty-four classes instituted by David for the service of the temple, which relieved each other in succession every Sabbath; see 1 Chr. 24 : 3–19; 2 Chr. 8 : 14 ; Josephus, Antiq. vii. 14, § 7. Their service included the daily burning of incense on the altar of incense in the first or outer sanctuary; and this was what Zacharias was now doing; Luke 1:9; Ex. 30: 6–8; 1 Chr. 23: 13. — It follows, that no inference whatever can hence be drawn as to the year, or season of the year, when the vision took place. Nor is it said how long a time elapsed between the vision and Elizabeth's conception; the expression "after those days" in v. 24 being quite indefinite. [The course of Abijah was the eighth class. Since each class served for a week in the temple, an effort has been made to fix the time of year by counting back from the destruction of Jerusalem. This occurred on the ninth day of the month Ab, and the first class (that of Jehoiarib) was then in waiting. But each course served twice in the year; hence a definite calculation is impossible.] § 3. The sixth month here refers back, not to the vision, but to the conception of Elizabeth; see v. 36. § 4. The conjecture of Reland is probably correct, namely, that Juda in v. 39 is a softened form for Juta, i. e. Jutha or Juttah in Hebrew, a city of the priests in the mountains of Judah, south of Hebron ; Josh. 15: 55; 21: 16. The place still exists under the same name. [There is no positive evidence in support of the view of Reland, not even a manuscript variation. It is now generally rejected. The traditional site of the home of Zacharias is a village about four miles west of Jerusalem, now called 'Ain Karîm (Thomson, The Land and the Book). Lightfoot, Ewald, and others suppose that the place was Hebron, a priestly city, "in the hill country of Judah" (Josh. 21: 11). The question is still an open one, though not of great importance.] § 6. Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months, or nearly until the full time of the latter; and then returned to Nazareth; Luke 1: 56. It was after this and after the birth of John, when Mary was now in her fourth or fifth month, and her pregnancy had become perceptible, that Joseph was minded to put her away. § 7. The precise year of our Lord's birth is uncertain. Several data however exist, by which an approximation may be made, sufficiently accurate to show that our present Christian era is not entirely correct. [The present Christian or Dionysian era is reckoned from the incarnation, which was identified with the miraculous conception, and not from the nativity. It fixed the date of the latter as December 25, A. D. 1 = a. u. 754. This is four years and nine or ten months after the death of Herod (see below). Much confusion results from the employment of two eras, especially since we must reckon both backward and forward from the Dionysian era. Moreover, the numbers are ordinal, not cardinal, and rarely represent the full measure of the year which is mentioned. In changing from the Roman era to the Dionysian, the following rule is convenient: The sum of the dates A. U. and B. C. must always = =754; the difference of the dates A. U. and A. D. — 753. For example :— A. U. 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 .... 780.. 783 27. 30 A. C. (B. C.) 6 5 4 3 2 1 (A. D.) 1 2 3 If our Lord was born near the close of B. C. 5 and died A. D. 30 (the usual dates), then the length of his life was only thirty-three years and a few months, since each date represents a fractional part of a year.] 1. According to Matt. 2:1-6, Jesus was born during the lifetime of Herod the Great, and not long before his death. Herod died in the year of Rome (A. U.) 750, just before the Passover; see Jos. Antiq. xvii. 8, § 1; id. xvii. 9, § 3. This has been verified by calculating the eclipse of the moon, which happened just before his death; Jos. Ant. xvii. 6, § 4; Ideler, Handb. of Chron. II. p. 391 sq. If now we make an allowance of time for the purification, the visit of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and the remaining there till Herod was dead, for all which not less than six months can well be required, it follows that the birth of Christ cannot in any case be fixed later than the autumn of A. U. 749. [On the time of year, see below.] 2. Another note of time occurs in Luke 3: 1, 2, where John the Baptist is said to have entered upon his ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius; and again in Luke 3: : 23, where Jesus is said to have been "about thirty years of age at his baptism. [Here the A. V. is misleading. The R. V. properly renders: "And Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years of age."] Now if both John and Jesus, as is quite probable, entered upon their ministry at the age of thirty, in accordance with the Levitical custom (Num. 4: 3, 35, 39, 43, 47), then by reckoning back thirty years we may ascertain the year of John's birth, and of course also that of Jesus. Augustus died Aug. 29th, A. U. 767; and was succeeded by Tiberius, who had already been associated with him in the government for at least two years, and probably three. If now we reckon from the death of Augustus, the fifteenth year of Tiberius commenced Aug. 29th, A. U. 781; and going back thirty years, we find that John must have been born not earlier than August, A. U. 751, and our Lord of course not earlier than A. u. 752 ; a result disagreeing with that obtained from Matthew by three years. If, on the other hand, we reckon from the time when Tiberius was admitted as co-regent of the empire, which is shown to have been certainly as early as A. U. 765, and probably in A. U. 764; then the fifteenth year of Tiberius began in A. U. 778, and it follows that John may have been born in A. U. 748, and our Lord in A. U. 749. In this way the results obtained from Matthew and Luke are more nearly coincident. [The phrase "about thirty years" allows an earlier date, on either theory. The fifteenth year of the joint reign covers A. U. 779, and if John began at thirty years of age the date of the baptism may be in January, A. U. 780.] 3. A third note of time is derived from John 2: 20, "Forty and six years was this temple in building.' Josephus says, in one place, that Herod began to build the temple in the eighteenth year of his reign; while in another he specifies the fifteenth year; Ant. xv. 11, § 1; B. J. i. 21, § 1. He also assigns the length of Herod's reign at thirty-seven or thirty-four years, according as he reckons from his appointment by the Romans, or from the death of Antigonus; Ant. xvii. 8, § 1; B. J. i. 33, § 8. Herod was first declared king of Judæa in A. U. 714; Jos. Ant. xiv. 14, §§ 4, 5; B. J. i. 14, § 4; comp. Ant. xiv. 16, § 4; Ideler, Handb. of Chron. II. p. 390. Hence the eighteenth year of his reign, when Herod began to rebuild the temple, would coincide with A. U. 732; and our Lord's first Passover, in the forty-seventh year following, would fall in A. U. 779. If now our Lord at that time was thirty and a half years of age, as is probable, this would carry back the year of his birth to the autumn of A. U. 748. [This note of time enables us only to say that our Lord could not have been born later than the beginning of A. U. 750, though it renders an earlier date probable.] 4. Further, according to a tradition preserved by the Latin Fathers of the first five centuries, our Lord's death took place during the consulate of the two Gemini, C. Rubellius and C. Fufius, that is, in A. U. 782. So Tertullian, Lactantius, Augustine, etc. See Tertull. adv. Jud. § 8; Augustin. de Civ. Dei, xviii. 54. If now the duration of his ministry was three and a half years, then, as before, the year of his birth would be carried back to the autumn of A. u. 748. [The date of our Lord's death is more probably A. u. 783. In that year the 15th of Nisan (assuming that our Lord died on that day) fell on a Friday. Tertullian's statement is incorrect in other points. Those who make the ministry but two years in length (see beginning of Part III.) and accept the 14th of Nisan (see Introductory Note, Part VIII.) as the day of the crucifixion, give the preference to A. u. 782. With either theory there is no difficulty in accepting A. U. 749 as the year of the Nativity.] 5. Some modern writers, taking into account the abode in Egypt and also the "two years" of Matt. 2: 16, have supposed that Jesus must have been from two to three years old at Herod's death; and hence they assume that he was born in A. U. 747. The same year, A. U. 747, is also fixed upon as the date of Christ's birth, by |