Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

154 INTRODUCTION.
and to reconcile all discrepancies in facts and words ;
but, from the
cliaractcr of the Gospels, this procedure could not hut lead to the
most arbitrary treatment ;—that is to say, wherever there appeared
a difference, whether in the events or in the discourses, the event or
the discourse was always said to have been twice, and sometimes
even thrice repeated. By setting up the principle, therefore, that
the Gospel-history must agree in all things external and non-essen-
tial, they put weapons into the hands of the enemies of God's Word ;
the evident non-agreement was used as an argument for denying
the divine origin of the Scriptures. The true course, therefore, is, in
this case, also, to adhere to the truth, plainly to acknowledge the
evident fact of discrepancies in the Gospel-history, to seek for a re-
conciliation of these variations where it presents itself naturally, but
to resort to nothing far-fetched or forced. An external agreement
in the Gospel-history should not be absolutely rer[uired as proof
of its divinity, any more than in the formations of nature ; as
in them exact regularity is combined with the greatest freedom,
so also, in the Gospel-history, perfect agreement in what is es-
sential, is found with the freest treatment of what is unessen-
tial.* The credibility of the Gospel-history is securely based only
on the identity of that vital principle which reigned in all the indi-
Addual Evangelists, and in which the whole new communion, of
which they were but members, shared. That vital principle was the
Spirit who guides into all truth. But this Spirit, who inspired the
Evangelists and the whole company of the apostles, neither relieved
them from the use of the ordinary means of historical inquiry, as, for
instance, the use of family memoirs or narratives of single events ;
nor did he obliterate their peculiarities, and use them as passive
organs ; he rather spiritualized their individual capacities and
powers, gave them a sure faculty {tact) of separating every
thing false in matters of faith and in the essentials of the narra-
tive ; of recognizing what was genuine and appropriate, and of
arranging it according to a profounder principle. Although,
sential f—what is word, what is letter f—will never admit of being answered as respects
individual cases, so that all shall be satisfied, because the mind's subjective attitude exercises
too much influence over our views on the point. In general, however, those who
are one in the principles, will be able to unite in this canon : The form of Scripture is to
be regarded as essential, as far as it is connected with what is essential in the doctrine, and
is, consequently, also to be ascribed to inspiration; it is only where there is no such connexion,
that the form is to be regarded as unessential. Consult, further, Tholucli's excellent disser-
tation on the contradictions in the Gospels, in his GlauhwUrdigkeit der Evangelischen
Geschichte gegen Strauss, Hamburg, 1837, S. 429, ff., which preserves just the right me-
dium.
* Literal agreement in the Gospels, would have suggested to the enemies of the truth,
the charge of a concert among the authors to deceive ; as Scripture now is, it appears at
once divine and human. [A clear distinction must be drawn between variations and eon'
tradictions. The former may, of course, be assumed in the Evangelists. "We must re-
quire the strongest evidence before admitting the. latter.— [K.