some cause the book was incomplete; and the present longer and shorter endings are attempts to complete it. When and by whom they were made we can only guess. An Armenian manuscript was found recently in which the longer ending is separated from the preceding verses by a space and some flourishes, and bears the heading "Of the presbyter Ariston." There was an Aristion who lived at the beginning of the second century, and from whom Papias says he gained information about the Lord (see p. 40). Possibly he may have been the author of the passage, though we have only this single and late testimony to that effect. The shorter ending seems to have originated even later than the longer one, and we know nothing about its authorship.

John 7: 53-8: 11.-This story of the woman taken in adultery is precious to the Christian church, and harmonizes so completely with the character and work of Jesus that there is little question of its truth. Yet textual criticism shows plainly that it was not in the original gospels. It is absent from all the earliest manuscripts except D; and some of those which contain it, mark it with asterisks or obeli as suspicious. It wanders from place to place like an intruder, being found in the margin, or after 7: 36, or at the end of the gospel, or in Luke after 21: 38.

The text varies

considerably-the most curious reading being (8: 8f): "He wrote upon the ground the sins of each single one

of them, and they, when they read it, being convicted by their conscience went out." It is found in none of the early versions except the Latin, and only some of the Latin Fathers know it. The evidence is conclusive against its belonging to the original text. And yet the story is undoubtedly a very early one. Eusebius (3: 39: 16), describing the writings of Papias, says: "He has likewise set forth another narrative concerning a woman who was maliciously accused before the Lord touching many sins, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews." Probably it should be put among the Agrapha as a true story of Jesus, which came down at first orally or in the discarded gospels, and finally was given a place in the canonical gospels.

John 5: 3-4.-The angel troubling the waters of the pool of Bethesda is given by many authorities; but it is omitted by A, B, C, D, and §, and seems to be evidently a note of some copyist, which afterward crept into the text. Without it there is need of explanation why the crowd gathered around the pool, and why a sick man must be the first to step into the troubled waters if he would be healed. The note gave the popular explanation, and is interesting for that reason.

Luke 22: 43-44.-The evidence for and against this passage, which tells of the angelic ministry and the bloody sweat at Gethsemane, is pretty equally divided. If the passage was in the original text, its

omission in some manuscripts is hard to explain. But without it Luke's account is so lacking in emphasis of Christ's struggle and anguish that a copyist might well be led to insert the passage to supply the lack. Even so it may possibly be trustworthy. Westcott and Hort say: "It would be impossible to regard these verses as a product of the inventiveness of the scribes. They can only be a fragment from the traditions, written or oral, which were for a time, at least, locally current beside the canonical gospels, and which doubtless included matter of every degree of authenticity and intrinsic value."

Luke 23: 34a. Very much the same may be said of this cry of Christ upon the cross as of the preceding passage, though the evidence in its favor is more strong. Certainly no one can question the truth of the narrative, whether we owe it to Luke or to a later writer. And if it was preserved for us by a later writer, then Westcott and Hort are right when they say of this and of Luke 22: 43-44 that they "may safely be called the most precious among the remains of this evangelic tradition which were rescued from oblivion by the scribes of the second century."

CHAPTER VII

THE DATE OF THE GOSPELS

No one of the canonical gospels is dated or bears the name of its author. The present titles are late, and the nearest approach to a statement of authorship is John 21:24. In this they differ from the apocryphal gospels, which usually make prominent the name of the author, and often state the circumstances under which the book was written. The difference is a valid argument for the genuineness of the canonical gospels, since a forger would have taken special pains to make an early date and apostolic authorship unmistakably evident.

Concerning the date of the gospels there has been, and still is, a great deal of dispute. Were they written in the lifetime of the apostles or, at least, of their immediate disciples, when the facts they narrate were fresh in mind, and many witnesses were still living to confirm the narrative; or were they written sometime in the second century, long after all witnesses were dead, and when the oral tradition had become distorted and unreliable? This is the problem we must discuss in the present chapter. As we take it up we shall do well to bear in mind that it never would have

arisen if the gospels had contained no account of miracles and no claim of divinity for Jesus. The arguments for an early date would be accepted without question were the supernatural left out of the books. But those who deny that miracles ever happen, and refuse to see in Jesus anything more than a human teacher, must in some way explain away these portions of the gospel narrative; and the easiest way to do so is to say that the gospels themselves were written too late to be trustworthy.

Church history has been likened to a road in which, soon after leaving the starting-point, we enter a dimly lighted tunnel, and have to proceed some distance before we emerge into the full light. The tunnel portion is the first half of the second century. For the apostolic age we have the writings in the New Testament, which—even if some of them are rejected as being of later date-throw a great deal of light upon the history of that period, though not enough to answer all the questions we would like to have answered. For the last half of the second century we have the voluminous writings of the apologists, which set forth clearly the condition of the church in that period. But for the first half of the second century we have only the scanty writings of the apostolic fathers, and possibly a few of the New Testament books; and from these we can gain little knowledge of how the church was progressing during those years.