nd which they could invest with authoritative sanction. Is
it not possible then that the identical passages in the Synoptical
Gospels are the remains of something of this kind, which the
evangelists, in their later, fuller, and more complete histories,
enlarged and expanded? The conjecture has been often made, and English
commentators have for the most part dismissed it slightingly; not
apparently being aware that in rejecting one hypothesis they were bound
to suggest another; or at least to admit that there was something which
required explanation, though this particular suggestion did not seem
satisfactory. Yet if it were so, the external testimony for the truth of
the Gospel history would be stronger than before. It would amount to the
collective view of the first congregation of Christians, who had all
immediate and personal knowledge of our Lord's miracles and death and
resurrection.

But perhaps the external history of the four Gospels may throw some
light upon the question, if indeed we can speak of light where all is a
cloud of uncertainty. It would seem as if the sources of Christianity,
like the roots of all other living things, were purposely buried in
mystery. There exist no ancient writings whatever of such vast moment to
mankind of which so little can be authentically known.

The four Gospels, in the form and under the names which they at present
bear, become visible only with distinctness towards the end of the
second century of the Christian era. Then it was that they assumed the
authoritative position which they have ever since maintained, and were
selected by the Church out of the many other then existing narratives
as the supreme and exclusive authorities for our Lord's life. Irenaeus is
the first of the Fathers in whom they are found attributed by name to
St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. That there were four true
evangelists, and that there could be neither more nor less than four,
Irenaeus had persuaded himself because there were four winds or spirits,
and four divisions of the earth, for which the Church being universal
required four columns; because the cherubim had four faces, to each of
which an evangelist corresponded; because four covenants had been given
to mankind--one before the Deluge in Adam, one after the Deluge in Noah,
the third in Moses, the fourth and greatest in the New Testament; while
again the name of Adam was composed of four letters. It is not to be
supposed that