Solution of the Problem of the Gospels.

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to arrange the whole in a continuous narrative, but still it remained essentially a tradition in the first age, and, as such, found its authoritative expressions in the gospels." Mr Roberts makes the same concessions as Mr Westcott, but has no sympathy with his remaining doubts. He probably, and with good reason, supposed the remaining difficulties and doubts confessed by Mr Westcott, to be those which must always cleave to either theory so long as the Greek gospel of St Matthew is not regarded as the original work of the evangelist, and so long as our Lord and his apostles are supposed to have usually spoken in Aramean, not in Greek. And it was natural enough that, after having so successfully surmounted all difficulties arising from that source, he should conclude that the true and full solution of the problem had at last been discovered. He speaks of the proposition established by his work, that "our Lord Jesus Christ spoke in Greek, and the evangelists independently narrated his actions, and reported his discourses in the same language which he had himself employed," as "a simple and satisfactory hypothesis," as applied to the solution. of the problem of the gospels, "by which, as has been shewn, the whole facts of the case are easily explained, and by which alone they become intelligible." Now if, by "the whole facts of the case," Mr Roberts meant only the whole of the verbal coincidences and differences involved in the case, we are quite prepared to agree with him that the solution offered by him is full and satisfactory; and we think he has done an eminent service to biblical criticism by having supplied it. But these verbal coincidences and differences are not, in truth, "the whole facts of the case;" and if so, a solution full enough to account for the verbal difficulties of the problem may not, after all, be a complete solution of the whole problem. There are other facts of the case to which Mr Roberts has not adverted, but which are pointed out by Professor Bleek. He urges in substance, at p. 238 of his Introduction, that the theory of a common oral tradition as the source of the three synoptical gospels, is inadequate to explain the peculiarity which attaches to all three when compared with the gospel of John, in reference to the cycle or range of events recorded by them. If a definite cycle of events, intended to be put forth as the substance of gospel history, had been fixed by oral narration alone, this could only have taken place in the midst of the apostles during their stay in Jerusalem. But it is difficult, in that case, to understand how no mention should have been made in that oral history of the earlier visits of Christ to Jerusalem, and his journeys in going and returning, with their times and occasions. These visits and journeys were of great importance in themselves, and in relation to the whole

development of gospel history, and were, of course, known to all the apostles as well as St John. How, then, is it conceivable that an oral tradition of gospel history, fixed under the influence of the apostles at Jerusalem, should have excluded all these important facts, so as to cause the omission of them by all the three synoptists? Bleek points out other difficulties, but this is his main one; and in order to meet it, he thinks it absolutely necessary to have recourse to the theory of a common written source of Galilean origin, and written from a Galilean point of view, from which all the three synoptic evangelists derived alike. He thus falls back upon the Urevangelium of Eichhorn, with this important difference, however, that Eichhorn's was conceived to have been written in Aramean, but Bleek's in Greek. This is a new combination of ideas upon the subject, to which Mr Roberts and Mr Westcott have not adverted; and we commend it to their attention as a suggestion well worthy of serious and candid study.

II.-Leaving now the historical criticism of the gospels, and reserving the extensive subject of their text-criticism for future discussion in a separate article, we proceed to notice a few works which have lately appeared in the department of interpretation or commentary. These are the following:-" The New Testament for English Readers; containing the Authorised Version, with Marginal Corrections of Readings and Renderings, Marginal References, and a Critical and Explanatory Commentary." By HENRY ALFORD, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Part I., The Three First Gospels. 1863.-"Theologisch-Homiletisches Bibelwerk, Bearbeitet und herausgegeben von J. P. LANGE." Diè Evangelien. 1857-60.-" A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, of the Old and New Testaments," Vol. 5. Matthew-John. By the Rev. DAVID BROWN, D.D. Glasgow: Collins. 1863.

Of these, Dean Alford's work need not detain us long. "It was undertaken," he tells us, "with a view to put the English reader, whose knowledge is confined to our own language, in possession of some of the principal results of the labours of critics and scholars on the sacred text. There are, of course, very many cases where this cannot be done; but it is believed that there are far more cases where there is no reason why these results should not be imparted to him. And the more we value the inspired word of God, the more anxious ought we to be that all should possess every help to ensure the purity of the text, and to clear up its meaning. But in the present state of the English reader's knowledge of his Bible, there are two great obstacles to the attainment of these ends. The one consists in his ignorance of the variations of reading in the

Dean Alford's New Work.

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ancient authorities from which the sacred text is derived; the other, in his ignorance of the existence of other and often indisputably better renderings of the sacred text, than those which the authorized version gives. That version is of high excellence, and is never to be thought of by Englishmen without reverence and gratitude to Almighty God; but it is derived very often from readings of the Greek, which are not based on the authority of our best ancient witnesses; and it frequently gives an inadequate rendering of the text which it professes to translate. The principal instances of both these imperfections it is the object of the present work to enable the English reader to correct for himself. Words and passages which, in our authorized version, are wrongly read or inadequately rendered, are printed in italics in the text, the true reading or rendering being pointed out in the margin below in the same type as the rest of the text. Besides this, in cases where the principal ancient authorities differ about the reading of the text, the variation is stated in the margin, while marginal notices are also appended in some cases where antiquated terms or expressions, generally misunderstood, are used in the authorised version."

These are all very useful features of Dean Alford's work, but of course the "Critical and Explanatory Commentary" makes up its principal bulk; and of this, all but a very small proportion is simply " an adaptation and abridgment" of the matter contained in his Greek Testament. This description applies equally to the critical introduction (with the exception of the preliminary chapter) and to the explanatory notes attached to the text. It is unnecessary, therefore, for us to characterize these main portions of the work, as their contents have now for many years been familiar to the critical students of the gospels; but whether, in this abridged and adapted form, they will prove as acceptable to the common reader as they have proved to scholars and critics in their original form, seems to us exceedingly doubtful. What is drawn up in the first instance for the latter select class of readers, does not become suitable and palateable to the other, simply by being abridged and adapted. Each class must either have an exposition drawn up specially for itself, or, if both classes are to be addressed together, the exposition must, in its original conception and cast, be adapted to this wider scope. It will be found quite as impossible to satisfy the larger class by merely cutting down matter which was originally intended for the smaller, as it would be to satisfy learned readers with a commentary written in the first instance for the million, by picking it out here and there with bits of philology, or intercalating occasional paragraphs of critical discussion.

The volumes of Professor Lange's "Bibelwerk" which treat of the gospels-three of them from his own genial pen, and the fourth, that on Luke's gospel, from the hand of his likeminded friend and coadjutor Dr Van Oosterzee of Rotterdam— constitute a valuable addition to "the minister's library." Dr Lange is one of the very best living theological writers of Germany. He is a man of genius, as well as of extensive learning and profound piety. Everything he writes is fresh and suggestive, as well as profitable and instructive. Full of thought himself, he is the cause of thought in others. Such a man was admirably qualified to be the editor and chief writer of the "Theologisch-Homiletisches Bibelwerk "-a work in which the Bible was not only to be exegetically explained, but its deep theological "grundgedanken," or ground-thoughts, to be seized and expounded with the appreciation of entire sympathy, and homiletic hints and suggestions for its right handling in the pulpit to be supplied. The work is not formally a commentary, but, substantially, it includes one, and one of the very best. Using Luther's excellent version as the basis, and taking it up in successive parcels of moderate extent, it supplies first a series of "Exegetische Erläuterungen," or exegetical elucidations of all the points in the text which may chance to require them. Then follow a series of "Dogmatisch Christologische Grundgedanken," in which all the doctrinal and christological ideas and principles of the passage are evolved and clearly set forth; and it is not till the passage has been interpreted thus fully, both in its words and thoughts, that the "Homiletische Andeutungen," or Hints for the Pulpit, follow. In perusing these rich and suggestive pages, from chapter to chapter of the gospels, the reader is brought into contact, in the hand of a most trustworthy guide, with all that is best and most precious in the fruits of modern German thought, as applied to the interpretation of the holy Scriptures. We are permitted, so to speak, to read the old familiar Bible with a fresh eye. Innumerable things are brought into view which never struck us before, and our minds are enriched and invigorated by new ideas, which come to the aid of, without supplanting our older, homegrown thoughts. And herein is the true use to us of the German theology in general, in so far as that theology is of the believing and evangelical typenot to rob us, but to enrich us; not to supersede our own native ideas and forms of religious thought, but to add to them ideas and forms of foreign growth not the less true and valuable because they are not English, and by these additions to impart new vigour and fecundity to our home-born theology; just as our native soil is enriched every year by foreign manures, and is thus strengthened to yield to us more abundant harvests.

Dr Brown's Commentary on the Gospels.

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Dr Brown's Commentary on the Gospels is not intended specially for preachers, like Lange's, nor specially for mere English readers like Dean Alford's; without special adaptations of any kind, it is drawn up in a style and upon principles of construction fitted to commend it equally to the learned and the unlearned, to preachers and people. Not being a commentary upon the Greek text, but upon the authorised version, it is of course not philological in its character,-though judicious observations upon the words and phrases of the original are frequently introduced. Nor though claiming, and justly claiming, to be "critical," is it so in the sense of including any very long and elaborate discussions either on points of historical or textual criticism. The critical "Introduction," though satisfactory and indeed excellent so far as it goes, is very much less copious and erudite than the prolegomena usually prefixed to commentaries intended exclusively for the scholar; and the remarks upon textual readings and emendations, which occur wherever there is any real need and use for them, though in general distinguished by sound and independent critical judgment, and evincing a knowledge of the subject in its very latest developments, are usually much shorter and more summary than would be satisfactory to a professed text-critic. In neither of these respects-philology nor criticism-is Dr Brown's work either fitted or intended to be a substitute for those more learned commentaries which take the original text for their basis. Works of a strictly and exclusively learned character are not at all crossed by Dr Brown's volume, and such works will still be procured and studied by all who desire to search and penetrate deep for themselves. But we share the conviction of the author, that the sort of commentary which he has here supplied is much better adapted to lead men to an intelligent understanding and appreciation of the gospels than either an exclusively scholarly or an exclusively unlearned work. It not only explains the text, but expounds it. It interprets not only its words but its ideas. It unveils not only the meaning of the gospels, but their "excellent glory." In a word, we look upon this work as a very masterly specimen of what may be called the higher exegesis or interpretation of Scripture.

The Germans are accustomed to speak of the lower and the higher criticism, meaning by the former the criticism of the text. of an ancient work, with a view to its emendation; by the latter, historical criticism, or the criticism of its literary genuineness, and in the case of a history, of its historic truth. And so may we speak of the lower and the higher exegesis of Scripture, meaning by the first all the work of interpretation which has to do with bringing out the true and genuine sense