to be found in a passage of an earlier work,1 in which, speaking of the theory of Strauss, he says, 'It is not without many restrictions that the denomination of myths can be employed in treating of the gospel narratives. I would prefer for my part the word legends or legendary stories, which, while giving large scope for the operation of popular opinion, allows the action and personal influence of Jesus to remain entire.' In the Introduction to his work he has given, with considerable fulness, his views as to the origin of the Gospels, and he has devoted one of his chapters to an unfolding of the manner in which the legendary stories involving miracles were produced. We shall glance shortly at each of these, restricting ourselves in our criticism to those objections which, without involving any recondite lore, are best calculated to show the falseness of his opinions, and we greatly mistake if the account which he presents to us do not clearly appear to be anything but 'probable, logical, and harmonious throughout.'

Quoted by Rev. J. B. Paton, M.A., in his sifting Review of Renan, reprinted from the London Quarterly, p. 117.

As we have already incidentally observed, he has, yielding to the force of incontrovertible evidence, fixed the date of the completion of the Gospels before the end of the first century. Beginning with that of Luke, he says regarding it, that 'doubt is scarcely possible." He admits that its author is the same as that of the Acts of the Apostles, and that its date is only a short time after the destruction of Jerusalem; adding, "We are here, then, upon solid ground, for we are concerned with a work written entirely by the same hand, and with the most perfect unity.' When we inquire on what ground the date of this Gospel is placed after the destruction of Jerusalem, we are referred in the footnote to the passage containing the prophecy of that event; and the reasoning implied, though not expressed, is that because that prediction is there, the book in which it is found could not have been written till after the event. But apart from the dogmatic assumption involved in such a mode of procedure, how does this date harmonize with the admission that the Gospel was written by the author of the Acts? 1 Life of Jesus, p. 9.

In the beginning of the latter book it is shown that the Gospel had been already written; but the Acts, as is clear from their closing chapters, were finished during the imprisonment of Paul, which is placed by no one later than A.D. 65. Hence the admission that the Gospel was written by the author of the Acts, leads us to the conclusion that it was finished before the year A.D. 65, and therefore some years before the destruction of Jerusalem. But leaving that, let us show our readers how M. Renan moves over the 'solid' ground of this third Gospel. In another part of his Introduction, removed by a few pages from the passage to which we have referred, and when the reader may have forgotten the admissions made, we come upon the following: 'The historical value of Luke's work is sensibly weaker [than that of Mark]. It is a document which comes to us second-hand.

Some

sentences are distorted and exaggerated. . . . He subdues some details in order to make the different narratives agree: he softens the passages which had become embarrassing on account of a more exalted idea of the divinity of Christ: he exaggerates the marvellous, commits errors in chronology:

we feel we have to do with a compiler, with a man who has not himself seen the witnesses, but who labours at the texts, and wrests their sense to make them agree: he interprets the documents according to his own idea.'1 Now if this be solid ground, we wonder what our author's idea of a marshy quagmire is; and we should like to see by what process these two views of Luke's Gospel can be made harmonious. Nor is it better when we look below the surface, and ask on what grounds all these assertions are made. There is of course a long array of proof texts in the notes, but they have very frequently no bearing on the assertion which they are intended to support; and those that have a reference to the subject, are given precisely as if no other view could be taken of them than that which he wishes to be received. Thus, in proof that Luke exaggerates the marvellous, we are directed to chap. iv. 14: And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.' But what is there peculiar to the third evangelist here that he

1 Pp. 22, 23.

should be placed beneath the others on account of it? and when in the matter of chronology he refers to the decree of the taxing, we are tempted to ask if he has never seen any of the explanations of the difficulty which it presents, that he should so complacently ignore them all. This is not criticism, it is dogmatism; and as in the case of Strauss, so here we may remark, that on such principles as these no historic document, even the most recent and authentic, could escape.

But it is not better with the other evangelists. Here is his account of the first two Gospels. They are impersonal compositions, in which the author totally disappears. That which appears most likely is, that we have not the entirely original compilations of either Matthew or Mark, but that our first two Gospels are versions in which the attempt is made to fill up the gaps of the one text by the other. Every one wished in fact to possess a complete copy. He who had in his copy only discourses, wished to have narratives, and vice versa. It is thus that the Gospel according to Matthew is found to have included almost all the anecdotes of Mark; and that the Gospel