because they do not appeal to him. From what we know of Peter and John-two apostles so unlike in temperament-we cannot expect that the Gospel of Mark, which is practically Peter's story of Jesus, will contain the same incidents or give the same emphasis as the Gospel of John. Then, again, the same material may be treated very differently by a writer who has one purpose in writing or one audience in mind, and another writer who has a different purpose or audience. Matthew wrote for the Hebrews and to set forth Jesus as the Messiah; Luke wrote for the Gentiles and to set forth Jesus as the Saviour of all men: evidently their two books will not give the same picture of Jesus. Each gospel, therefore, must differ from the others: and its account of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of its authorship before it can convey its full meaning.

All this is familiar to us in the case of other biographies, but we sometimes forget it in the case of the gospels. Nevertheless it is just as important to discover and bear in mind individual characteristics when we study the Four Gospels as when we study any other books of history. Only in this way can we fully appreciate the record. We must learn where to put the emphasis in our reading, and how to read between the lines. As we note concerning photographs that this was a snapshot and this a careful pose, or that for this the negative was not retouched, while for this the wrin

kles and blemishes were rubbed out; and after thus valuing our photographs decide about the actual appearance of the person they portray; in like manner we must note the character of the four pictures of Jesus before we can determine what manner of person he

was.

The foregoing statements are not equivalent to saying that the gospels are untrustworthy, but only that, like all biographies, they are limited by the limitations of their authors or of those from whom the material was gained. None knew Jesus thoroughly, not even the disciple who leaned upon his breast; and no evangelist could write about him without personal bias and purposes that would shape his narrative.

Moreover, when we know and bear in mind the characteristics of a gospel, we not only read it with new intelligence, but often we find new grounds for trusting its statements. For example, in Luke-as we shall presently notice there are plain indications that its author looked upon the twelve with much reverence, and disliked to state anything to their discredit; any record, therefore, of their shortcomings and failures in Luke (and there are many such) is specially impressive and credible, since we are sure Luke would have omitted it could he have found good excuse for so doing. Again, Matthew is so eager to point out fulfilment of prophecy in Jesus' life that sometimes he seems to strain the prophecy in order to make it foretell the

particular event; but the very far-fetchedness of his fulfilments shows how careful he was to treat his facts honestly. The temptation to change them, more or less, in order to make them meet the prophecy, was evidently great, yet he stoutly resisted it.

Let us look, then, at the four evangelists and their four pictures of Christ, considering specially those facts that reveal the characteristics of each gospel.

Matthew

Very little is known of Matthew the apostle except the fact that he was a collector of customs at Capernaum, and the circumstances of his call to follow Jesus. In each list of the apostles he stands seventh or eighth, which gives a hint of the estimate put upon his ability by the evangelists. The uniform tradition is that he was the author of the First Gospel, and that he wrote it in Hebrew, by which probably is meant Aramaic. Some truth must lie behind this tradition; for if the apostolic authorship has been purely an invention to give authority to the gospel, a more important apostle would have been selected. But the author of this gospel has incorporated in it nearly the whole of Mark: and, as W. C. Allen observes, "It is indeed not impossible, but it is very improbable, that an apostle should rely upon the work of another for the entire framework of his narrative." Nor could the First Gospel have been written in Hebrew, because it reproduces the Greek phraseol

ogy of Mark often almost exactly. The origin of the tradition is most simply explained by supposing that Matthew did write in Hebrew or Aramaic some book which was used by the author of the First Gospel as the basis of his work: and for this reason the whole compilation was called the Gospel According to Matthew. This has already been pointed out in discussing the synoptic problem.

Though the author of the First Gospel must remain unknown, the strongly Hebraic character of his book makes it evident that he was a Jew; while the broad view he takes of the mission of Christ-beginning his story with the visit of the Gentile magi to the young child and ending with the commission of the apostles to make disciples of all nations-both found only in this gospel-would indicate that he had a wider horizon than most Jews who lived in Palestine. He has, as Moffatt notes, given an unconscious portrayal of himself in the saying of Jesus, recorded in his gospel alone, "Every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old" (13:52). Where his home was, of course, we cannot know. A favorite guess is Southern Syria-say Phoenicia-in which were many Jewish Christians.

That Matthew (to use the established name for the book) was written primarily for Jews is unmistakable.

It contains more than forty quotations from the Old Testament: it traces the genealogy of Christ back to Abraham: it takes special pains to point out the fulfilment of prophecy: it is the only gospel to record Jesus' declaration that the law is permanent (5: 1719); and, indeed, its whole presentation of Jesus is as the Jewish Messiah. Most fittingly it is placed as the beginning of the New Testament, for it forms a natural transition from the messages of the Old Testament prophets. The Jewish readers, however, for whom Matthew was written, must have lived outside of Palestine; otherwise there would have been no need to follow Mark in translating Aramaic words (27: 33, 46) and in stating a custom of the Passover (27 : 15), or a Sadducean belief (22:23).

It is generally held that the book was written not far from the year A. D. 70; and, if so, the character of the times explains the purpose of the author. In that mad revolt against Rome, which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem, the patriotism of the Jews became a frenzy; and many Jewish Christians turned back from Christ to the national religion, or wavered in their belief that he was really the promised Messiah. When Jerusalem fell, those who remained steadfast had to undergo another testing of their faith, because this sore calamity was so contrary to all their expectations of the Messianic kingdom. During these trying hours, when Jewish Christians, as they thought about Jesus,