line of inquiry has led
to the statement and the discussion of what is known as the _Synoptic
Problem_.

In the Essays (VII.--XI.) which deal with the consequences of the
application of the agnostic principle to Christian Evidences,
contained in this volume, there are several references to the results
of the attempts which have been made, during the last hundred years,
to solve this problem. And, though it has been clearly stated and
discussed, in works accessible to, and intelligible by, every English
reader,[5] it may be well that I should here set forth a very brief
exposition of the matters of fact out of which the problem has arisen;
and of some consequences, which, as I conceive, must be admitted if
the facts are accepted.

These undisputed and, apparently, indisputable data may be thus
stated:

I. The three books of which an ancient, but very questionable,
ecclesiastical tradition asserts Matthew, Mark, and Luke to be the
authors, agree, not only in presenting the same general view, or
_Synopsis_, of the nature and the order of the events narrated; but,
to a remarkable extent, the very words which they employ coincide.

II. Nevertheless, there are many equally marked, and some
irreconcilable, differences between them. Narratives, verbally
identical in some portions, diverge more or less in others. The order
in which they occur in one, or in two, Gospels may be changed in
another. In "Matthew" and in "Luke" events of great importance make
their appearance, where the story of "Mark" seems to leave no place
for them; and, at the beginning and the end of the two former Gospels,
there is a great amount of matter of which there is no trace in
"Mark."

III. Obvious and highly important differences, in style and substance,
separate the three "Synoptics," taken together, from the fourth
Gospel, connected, by ecclesiastical tradition, with the name of the
apostle John. In its philosophical proemium; in the conspicuous
absence of exorcistic miracles; in the self-assertive theosophy of the
long and diffuse monologues, which are so utterly unlike the brief
and pregnant utterances of Jesus recorded in the Synoptics; in the
assertion that the crucifixion took place before the Passover, which
involves the denial, by implication, of the truth of the Synoptic
story--to mention only a few particulars--the "Johannine" Gospel
presents a wide divergence from the other three.

IV. If the mutual resemblances and differences of