contents, it was found necessary to make a selection. The precise date at which the selection of four was made, we do not know; but we have seen that the first certain account we have of this selection gives 140 years from the death of Christ for the formation and increase of myth, or legend, upon a substratum of fact. I have already indicated what must have been the peculiar mythical tendency of the inhabitants of Palestine, in the first and second centuries of our era: the belief that any one regarded as the Messiah-the so long expected deliverer of that subjugated people-must have fulfilled all that it was expected the Messiah should fulfil. I desire that this may be kept fully in mind, since the whole of our exegesis will turn upon it. It is in this tendency of the Jewish mind that we are to look for the origin of the legends with which our gospels are encrusted: it is in the masterly investigation of this great source of error, that the powerfully analytical mind of Strauss has accomplished its completest triumphs. To him we owe the workman-like construction and polish of a key which enables us to unlock the difficulties of what is called 'gospel history,' instead of breaking the lock and scattering the fragments with reviling or contempt, as was so often attempted by our, no doubt honest, but rude and unskilful early English freethinkers, Woolston, Tindal, Blount, and others. Let me observe, before entering on our course of criticism, that I use the terms 'myth, or legend, upon a substratum of fact,' with an especial purpose. I have no sympathy with those who treat the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, itself, as a legend. Speaking of Hume, Paley observes— "This author has provided an answer to every possible accumulation of historical proof, by telling us that we are not obliged to explain how the story of the evidence arose. Now I think that we are obliged, not perhaps to show by positive accounts how it did, but by a probable hypothesis how it might so happen." pas I think the labours of Strauss enable us to accept Paley's challenge, and to accept it without violating the rules on which we judge all other history. We do not throw the history of Rome into the fire, because it contains the legend of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf, the leap of Marcus Curtius into the gulph in the forum, and a host of other equally mythical accounts. All history has its myths; but we do not, on that account, throw away any history-and why then throw away the 'Gospel History'? It is perfectly true that there is no contemporary authority for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth: none whatever: for the alleged passage in Josephus is given up by Christian scholars, as well as doubters. But the sages so often quoted from Tacitus and Pliny the younger the genuineness of which is unquestioned-are proofs that the religion existed, and was widely spread, within a few years of the period affixed for the death of Jesus. The testimonies of these two philosophic Romans enable us, by carrying the evidence higher up, to demand why, when the probability of Christ's real existence is thus strengthened, we are required to believe that the religion had its origin in imagination solely, rather than in a substratum of fact. For my own part, I can only say that I hold myself to be acting much more rationally when I declare that I consider the real existence of Jesus of Nazareth historically proved, than I should be if I doubted it, and yielded to the supposition that the religion had no origin in a real person. History shows me that legends have gathered around many real personages; and as I do not doubt their real existence because of the legends, why should I apply another rule of judgment to the instance of Jesus of Nazareth? If about seventy years after Christ's death Tacitus wrote that about thirty years after the same event, Nero, to quell the rumour of his own guilt, charged certain persons with setting fire to Rome, and had them put to death with horrid cruelties; and that these persons were called Christians from "Christ, who suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, under his procurator, Pontius Pilate"-why should I doubt that the religion had its origin from the veritable person thus clearly pointed out? How could a merely imaginary existence be credited by Tacitus, who lived so near to the time? And (if he reports a fact) how could numbers be found in Rome believing in Christ within thirty years after his crucifixion, if the crucifixion of such a person had never occurred? If Pliny the Younger wrote to the Emperor Trajan, also about seventy years after Christ's death, describing the spread of the Christian religion to be so great in his government of Pontus and Bithynia, that 'many of every age and of both sexes,' in the cities, villages, and open country, professed it, insomuch that it became difficult to sell the victims for Pagan sacrifice in the markets; and if he described the manners of the Christians in such terms as almost to realise the portraiture drawn of them in their own early writings, why should I doubt the Gospel account of the origin of the religion? How came it to spread so successfully thus early, if it were not grounded on some fact or facts? . I have never heard these questions answered satisfactorily: I do not expect to hear them answered. Simply premising that I shall use the terms 'Matthew,' 'Mark,' 'Luke,' and 'John, to avoid confusion, I now beg your attention to our critical enquiry into the real nature of the history of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, as related in the Gospels. Matthew and Luke only, give us narratives of Christ's birth and early life. Mark simply mentions Mary as the Mother of Jesus, and John mentions Joseph as his father: both Mark and John begin their history with John the Baptist, except that the fourth Evangelist has a remarkable preface concerning Christ's spiritual and divine nature, which we shall have to refer to at a future stage of our inquiry. 1. We have a Genealogy given by Matthew, and another by Luke. Let us begin at 'Abraham' with Matthew, reverse the order followed by Luke, and trace the genealogy also from 'Abraham,' according to him, making use also of the genealogies in the Old Testament, until we come to Zerubbabel, and note the result, in the following table : The first thing which strikes us in Matthew's list is the omission of three names found in the lists from Kings and Chronicles, 'Aha ziah, Joash, Amariah.' This was, doubtless, done by Matthew for 'reasons sufficiently fanciful,' expressed by him in the 17th verse of his 1st chapter— "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations." In order to make out his second series of fourteen (beginning with Solomon and ending with Joachim) he was compelled to omit three names found in the Old Testament lists. Our prevailing notions of 'plenary inspiration' are thus shaken in the outset. A New Testament writer differs from the Old, seemingly out of a merely 'fanciful' regard to curiously comparative numbers! But Luke's list presents a still greater difficulty. He makes Salathiel (the father of Zorobabel according to Ezra, but the grandfather according to Chronicles) descend from David through nineteen generations (beginning with Nathan and ending with Neri), all of which have different names to the eighteen generations in Kings and Chronicles (beginning with Solomon and ending with Jehoiachin); and, of course, are utterly unlike the fifteen names of Matthew. It is in vain to say that each of the eighteen persons in Kings and Chronicles might have two names, and Luke may have given their surnames. Test this scheme of explanation, and it is destroyed as soon as you commence-for we know from the Hebrew history that Solomon and Nathan are two distinct historical personages-the one being the magnificent king who succeeded David, and the other the prophet who reproved him for a crime. How could Salathiel be descended both from Solomon and Nathan, and also through two entirely different lines of eighteen or nineteen persons? The varying numbers, 19, 18, 15the varying names-produce in us again the conviction that these records are not those of 'plenary inspiration. And if such difficulties meet us here, what shall we say when we proceed to compare Luke with Matthew, in tracing the genealogy from Zorobabel to Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus?' We cannot compare the Gospel accounts here with the Old Testament-for the names of all the sons of Zerubbabel, and all their descendants (as given in 1st Chron. iii. 19), are utterly unlike the names in Matthew and Luke. Matthew's list is composed of the following eleven names:— "Zorobabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadoc, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph." Luke's list is composed of the following twenty names: Zorobabel, Rhesa, Joanna, Juda, Joseph, Semei, Matthias, Maath, Nagge, Esli, Naum, Amos, Mattathias, Joseph, Janna, Melchi, Levi, Matthat, Heli, Joseph." Here the scheme of surnames fails again, because of the difference of numbers; and that both these can be genealogies of Joseph is impossible. Commentators have perceived this so clearly that they have presented enquirers with various hypotheses to solve the difficulty. Augustine conjectured that Joseph was an adopted son, and that one Evangelist gave the name of his real, and the other that of his adopted father. Julius Africanus supposed that a Levirate marriage had taken place between the parents or Joseph, and that the one genealogy belonged to the natural, the other to the legal, father of Joseph. But the most favourite hypothesis is that one genealogy is that of Joseph and the other that of Mary. Yet, if we demand which is the genealogy of Mary, we receive different answers-some replying 'Matthew's;' others, 'Luke's.' And the replies are as diverse, if we put questions respecting the hypotheses of Augustine and Julius Africanus. But setting aside the fact that both Matthew and Luke profess to give the genealogy of Joseph, suppose we were to admit that one of the genealogies is really that of Mary, albeit Joseph's name is inserted in accordance with some peculiar Jewish custom, as it is alleged— what shall we do with the difficulty of Salathiel's contradictory descent from Nathan and Solomon? Lastly, why have we either one or two genealogies of Joseph, if Joseph were not the actual father of Christ? How could Christ be descended from David through Joseph, if the latter were not Christ's father? The account of the miraculous conception cannot have been written by either of the writers of these genealogies. And yet, neither can we admit either genealogy as historical; for on every scheme of interpretation we are involved in difficulties; and it is not credible, as Strauss observes, that the pedigree of an obscure family, like that of Joseph, extending through so long a series of generations, should have been preserved during all the confusion of the exile, and the disturbed period that followed. The source of these genealogies is evidently mythical. According to the legendary belief of the people of Palestine, founded on the writings of their ancient bards or prophets, the Messiah could only spring from David :— "When therefore," proceeds the intelligent Strauss, "a Galilean, whose lineage was utterly unknown, and of whom consequently no one could prove that he was not descended from David, had acquired the reputation of being the Messiah, what more natural than that tradition should, under different forms, have early ascribed to him a Davidical descent, and that genealogical tables, corresponding with this tradition should have been formed? which, however, as they were constructed upon no certain data, would necessarily exhibit such differences and contradictions as we find actually existing between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. If, in conclusion, it be asked, what historical result is to be deduced from these genealogies? we reply: a conviction, (arrived at also from other sources,) that Jesus, either in his own person, or through his disciples, acting upon minds strongly imbued with Jewish notions and expectations, left among his followers so firm a conviction of his Messiahship, that they did not hesitate to attribute to him the prophetical characteristic of Davidical descent, and more than one pen was put in action, in order, by means of a genealogy which should authenticate that descent, to justify his recognition as the Messiah." 2. The 'Miraculous Conception,' being the next point in the narratives, now claims our investigation. Here, again, let us compare the supposed Matthew and Luke, and see if there be an accordance in their relations. (To be continued in next number.) 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