entirely wanting
in the first. If parallel narratives, such as the healing of the
paralytic, the cleansing of the Temple, or the feeding of the five
thousand, are compared, this will be very clearly seen. More; there
are features in the first Gospel that are to all appearance unhistorical
and due to the peculiar method of the writer. He has a way of
reduplicating, so to speak, the personages of one narrative in
order to make up for the omission of another [Endnote 154:1]. For
instance, he is silent as to the healing of the demoniac at Capernaum,
but, instead of this, he gives us two Gadarene demoniacs, at the same
time modifying the language in which he describes this latter incident
after the pattern of the former; in like manner he speaks of the
healing of two blind men at Jericho, but only because he had passed
over the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida. Of a somewhat similar
nature is the adding of the ass's colt to the ass in the account
of the Triumphal Entry. There are also fragmentary sayings
repeated in the Gospel in a way that would be natural in a later
editor piecing together different documents and finding the same
saying in each, but unnatural in an eye- and ear-witness drawing
upon his own recollections. Some clear cases of this kind would be
Matt. v. 29, 30 (= Matt. xviii. 8, 9) the offending member, Matt.
v. 32 (= Matt. xix. 9) divorce, Matt. x. 38, 39 (= Matt. xvi. 24,
25) bearing the cross, loss and gain; and there are various others.

These characteristics of the first Gospel forbid us to suppose
that it came fresh from the hands of the Apostle in the shape in
which we now have it; they also forbid us to identify it with the
work alluded to by Papias. Neither of the two first Gospels, as we
have them, complies with the conditions of Papias' description to
such an extent that we can claim Papias as a witness to them.

* * * * *

But now a further enquiry opens out upon us. The language of
Papias does not apply to our present Gospels; will it apply to
some earlier and more primary state of those Gospels, to documents
_incorporated in_ the works that have come down to us but not
co-extensive with them? German critics, it is well known,
distinguish between 'Matthaeus'--the present Gospel that bears the
name of St. Matthew--and 'Ur-Matthaeus,' or the original work of
that Apostle, 'Marcus'--our present St. Mark--and 'Ur-Marcus,' an
older and more original document, t