k of
compilation, at least of the text which bears the name of Matthew,
appears to have been done in one of the countries situated at the
northeast of Palestine, such as Gaulonitis, Auranitis, Batanea, where
many Christians took refuge at the time of the Roman war, where were
found relatives of Jesus[1] even in the second century, and where the
first Galilean tendency was longer preserved than in other parts.

[Footnote 1: Julius Africanus, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, i. 7.]

So far we have only spoken of the three Gospels named the synoptics.
There remains a fourth, that which bears the name of John. Concerning
this one, doubts have a much better foundation, and the question is
further from solution. Papias--who was connected with the school of
John, and who, if not one of his auditors, as Irenaeus thinks,
associated with his immediate disciples, among others, Aristion, and
the one called _Presbyteros Joannes_--says not a word of a _Life of
Jesus_, written by John, although he had zealously collected the oral
narratives of both Aristion and _Presbyteros Joannes_. If any such
mention had been found in his work, Eusebius, who points out
everything therein that can contribute to the literary history of the
apostolic age, would doubtless have mentioned it.

The intrinsic difficulties drawn from the perusal of the fourth Gospel
itself are not less strong. How is it that, side by side with
narration so precise, and so evidently that of an eye-witness, we find
discourses so totally different from those of Matthew? How is it that,
connected with a general plan of the life of Jesus, which appears much
more satisfactory and exact than that of the synoptics, these singular
passages occur in which we are sensible of a dogmatic interest
peculiar to the compiler, of ideas foreign to Jesus, and sometimes of
indications which place us on our guard against the good faith of the
narrator? Lastly, how is it that, united with views the most pure, the
most just, the most truly evangelical, we find these blemishes which
we would fain regard as the interpolations of an ardent sectarian? Is
it indeed John, son of Zebedee, brother of James (of whom there is not
a single mention made in the fourth Gospel), who is able to write in
Greek these lessons of abstract metaphysics to which neither the
synoptics nor the Talmud offer any analogy? All this is of great
importance; and for myself, I dare not be sure that the fourth Gospel
has been entire