Matthew and St. Mark representing them as alike railing upon our Lord, whilst St. Luke's account would seem to represent only one of them as doing so ; for having told us that one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ save thyself and us,'-xxiii. 39), he adds (verse 40), But the other answering, rebuked him ;'-the apparent difference between St. Matthew and St. Luke as to the time of the return from Bethlehem to Nazareth, St. Luke appearing to speak of our Lord's parents Joseph and Mary, as proceeding, so soon as the mother was purified, at once to Nazareth-informing us (ii. 22-39) that when the days of Mary's purification [i. e. forty days from the birth, Lev. xii. 2-6], according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord,' and that when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth;' whilst St. Matthew relates that they went direct from Bethlehem to Egypt, remaining there until the death of Herod, and that it was not until after the death of Herod, that they returned to Nazareth ;-the apparent differences as to whether one blind man (Mark x. 46, Luke xviii. 35), or two (Matt. xx. 29) was healed by our Lord at Jericho; or as to whether one demoniac or two was dispossessed upon the occasion of his crossing over into the country of the Gergesenes (Matt. viii. 28, Mark v. 2, Luke viii. 27); and also as to various circumstances connected with the resurrection and ascension of our Lord.

Condensation or amplification, as the case may be, will however sufficiently account for and vindicate all such discrepancies as these. Since, for instance, the ultimate abode of our Lord's childhood was not Egypt but Nazareth, as Matthew himself informs us; and since the episode of the flight into Egypt is altogether omitted by St. Luke; it was quite justifiable on the part of the latter, and as truthful as it was justifiable, (and if condensation were intended unavoidable,) so to speak of the movements of our Lord's parents as to represent them as passing, as if directly, from Jerusalem or from Bethlehem to Nazareth. And so also in the other cases-in that of the two thieves for instance-it being quite conceivable that each one of the apparently discordant accounts may be strictly correct. In the course of the three hours during which they and He who hung between them were living and suspended, there may have been the united reviling; but then there may also have been on the part of one of the two the subsequent repentance and rebuking, and on the part of the other mocking and obduracy up to the very last. St. Luke does not say that this was not the case, nor is his account at all inconsistent with the supposition that it was. Confining himself to a single circumstance, and to a single point of

time, there was no need that he should relate in detail all that had occurred previously.

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Or, take the accounts given by the Evangelists of the events connected with the resurrection and ascension of our Lord. Take, for instance, for we are not about to repeat in detail the thricetold tale of all their several seeming differences, the account as recorded by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles (i. 3), that to his disciples he showed himself alive after his passion, being seen of them forty days;' and how discrepant from this account of the lengthened interval between his resurrection and ascension, is the brief narrative of St. Mark. He does not say indeed that the day of his resurrection and the day of his ascension were the same, but he so writes as if they were; for after informing us that 'When Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene' (xvi. 9); and then, that 'After that (and according to St. Luke xxiv. 13, on the same day) he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country, who went and told the residue who believed them not,' (verse 12); he goes on to relate the first appearance of our Lord to the eleven, thus: Afterward (the day being still the same—see Luke xxiv. 33-36) he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God; and they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following,' (verse 14 to end). Whilst another, St. Matthew, appears, but only appears, to represent him to have ascended not from Bethany, near Jerusalem, but from Galilee.

As for the blind men that were restored to sight by our Lord at or near Jericho, there seem to have been three, viz., one before he entered Jericho (Luke xvii. 35) of whom Luke alone makes mention; and two others as he left it (Matt., xx. 29), of whom one was Bartimeus, whom St. Mark (x. 46) mentions by name, and to whom (for reasons that can only be conjectured) his notice is confined.

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The manner in which Da Costa in his Four Witnesses disposes of these various discrepancies is perfectly amazing. Thus with reference to the two thieves, he tells us that only one blasphemed, that "There appears to be no way of reconciling the Evangelists, if we admit the plural of St. Matthew and St. Mark in its literal acceptation, but that all perfectly harmonises if we explain that plural as a mere indication of the species' (p. 6): that 'St. Matthew loves the plural' (p. 322). And, with reference to the demoniacs, 'Let us,' says he, 'merely suppose that the possessed person when first seen by our Lord and his Apostles had attacked some passenger, and was just then struggling with him. Seen at the first glance along with the man whom he had attacked, the possessed person would seem, at a distance, to be not one possessed person only, but would present the appearance of there being two. Putting down this impression, this recollection of the first glance, St. Matthew speaks of two, because he saw two men in the power of those unclean spirits, one the possessed person himself, the other the one attacked by the possessed person.' 'But we must not allow ourselves,' he adds, to think of any misrecollection or inaccuracy. There is design, consistency, and significance in the discrepancy before us. St. Matthew very well knew that his two were in reality only one. But it was fitting that he should present the fact to us in its external aspect, and that the two other Evangelists who follow should describe the same fact in its objective reality,' (p. 61.) He then, as if it were confirmatory of this strange hypothesis, refers us to Matthew viii. 28, which tells us that no man might pass by that way.'

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In the same style does he dispose of the apparent discrepancy in reference to the blind at Jericho. 'St. Matthew,' he says, 'no doubt, identified in his description the blind man with his conductor. When, as he accompanied Jesus, the cry from the blind man reached his ears, it might naturally seem to come from two persons instead of one, and it is that impression, not the actual fact in itself, that he describes. Certainly no one can otherwise 'explain another couple of blind persons in St. Matthew (ix. 27-31) of whom it is said that they followed Jesus praying that he would heal them. If there be any truth in the saying recorded in Scripture, "If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch," what more unreasonable than to suppose that two blind men should have ventured out together on the highway, and should have followed Jesus even into the house? What more simple, on the contrary, than that in the narrative of the Evangelist, both here and in that other place, the blind and his leader should have been identified from their being so intimately associated together?' (p. 64.)

We should not have taken any notice of these reveries were it not that the work (the English translation of which by David Dundas Scott, Esq., is comparatively recent) has been over-hastily greeted with much applause by various reviews; there being not a few good people who in the fullness of their hearts are ready in these days of doubt and infidelity to hail anything and everything that professes to defend the truth, whether that defence be wisely conducted or unwisely-fairly, or unfairly. The brief notices and minor articles of many of our magazines and reviews are too often of this crude and hasty character. We lament to say that Mr. Da Costa, notwithstanding many excellencies in his work, appears to us to defend Scripture in a spirit not very dissimilar to that in which others attack it. As, rather than see truth, or admit miracle, the Rationalist and Deist will have recourse to any hypothesis, however monstrous; so, rather than admit discrepancy, will Mr. Da Costa.

But, as already observed, it is obvious that for discrepancies such as those above referred to, condensation and consequent omission will account most thoroughly; more thoroughly indeed, and more satisfactorily than any other hypothesis whatever. The only other conceivable supposition by which they could be accounted for is that the Evangelists were respectively ignorant of the facts which they omit to record, or which they seem to contradict or to ignore. But this is not likely. Upon the supposition, for instance, of the correctness of the account given by St. Matthew of the events which transpired between the birth of our Lord and the return to Nazareth, it is altogether improbable that St. Luke, who evidently knew so much of our Lord's early history, should have been ignorant of facts such as those related by St. Matthew. He may seem to have been so ; but even supposing him to have been uninspired, we can scarcely conceive that he should have been really ignorant of them. Quite as unlikely is it that he should have known nothing of the previous impenitence and railing of the crucified thief, of whose impenitence he nevertheless gives no account; and, upon the supposition of his subsequent repentance, quite as unlikely that St. Matthew and St. Mark should have known nothing of the repentance. The narrative as given by each, is, so far as it goes, complete in itself. There was no necessity that those Evangelists who record the united reviling of the two, should inform us that one of the two repented before he died; none that St. Luke, who alone records the penitence, should tell us that at the first he too was no less scurrilous than he who died impenitent.

Still less can we conceive, if, as stated by St. Luke (Acts i. 3), there was an interval of forty days between our Lord's resur

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rection and ascension, that St. Mark could have been so ignorant of the circumstance, as to have believed that the day of his resurrection and the day of his ascension were one and the self-same day, especially as Luke himself in his gospel appears, but only appears, to assert the same thing; for, having related the first appearance to the eleven, he, too, concludes his account of that first appearance, by saying, And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them; and while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven; and they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem,' (xxiv. 50-52). And quite as inconceivable is it, if the scene of our Lord's ascension was Bethany, that St. Matthew should suppose it to have been from a mountain in far-off Galilee.

These discrepancies, therefore, and all such as may be similarly accounted for, even though they were twenty times as many as they are, since they leave unimpeached the completeness on the part of the several Evangelists, of their knowledge of the circumstances which they have undertaken to record, are in no respect inconsistent with the fact of their being divinely inspired. They differ indeed in their statements, but they do not contradict each other. There is discrepancy but not variance. Their statements, though not the same, are not conflicting. There is difference, but not opposition.

Another thing which they are assumed to have done, but which they do not profess to have done, and which moreover they clearly did not do, is, that in reporting the words of our Lord or of others, they always give, or by implication profess to give, the very words. This they may have done frequently, perhaps generally, but certainly not always. They seldom differ in their reports, but they do occasionally. Indeed for the most part so exact is their agreement, that we need scarcely remind our readers that three out of the four Evangelists have by many been supposed to have derived their accounts, at least in part, from some previously existing document or documents consulted by them in common.

But their differences in this respect are so unimportant, and the varieties of their respective reports are so substantially the same, that were it not that these differences have been considered by some to be inconsistent with the fact of their inspiration, and were it not that by the production of them, the character and substantial sameness of these differences will be made the more apparent, it would be scarcely worth our while to notice them. Of the discrepancies then, or differences, of the Evangelists in this respect such as they are, the following are instances :

Matt. xvi. 28.—Then said Jesus unto his disciples, There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.'

VOL. VI. NO. XI.

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