re has perished, the external evidence for the
authenticity of our Gospels is remarkably strong. They are genuine
writings of the apostolic age, and were received by men whose lifetime
overlapped the lifetime of some of the apostles. In the early
Christian literature which remains, there is much which lends support
to the authenticity of the Gospels, and nothing which injures a belief
in that authenticity. And there are strong reasons for thinking that
in the early Christian literature which has perished, there was much
which would have made a belief in their authenticity quite inevitable.

It would be an aid to modern study if we could be certain {15} when and
where the four Gospels were put together in one canon. In the 4th and
5th centuries it was believed by some Christians that the collection
had been made at Ephesus by St. John himself, and that he had prefixed
the names of the writers to the Gospels when he published his own
Gospel. It is at present impossible to discover how far this supposed
fact is legendary or not, but modern criticism has done something to
corroborate the idea that the Gospels were really collected first in
Asia Minor, and if St. John did not make the collection himself, it was
probably made by his disciples soon after his death.

[Sidenote: Their Diversity.]

If we compare the four Gospels together, it is as plain as daylight
that there is a marked difference between the first three Gospels on
the one hand and the fourth Gospel on the other hand. The first three
Gospels are usually called the _Synoptic Gospels_, because they give us
one _synopsis_ or common view of our Lord's work. To a great extent
they record the same events and the same discourses, and in many
passages they express themselves in almost identical words. The
account which they give of our Lord's work is mostly confined to His
ministry in Galilee, the birthplace of our religion, and it includes
only one visit to Jerusalem. But St. John's Gospel differs widely in
language from the other Gospels, and also gives an account of no less
than five visits to Jerusalem, and chiefly describes the scenes
connected with our Lord's ministry in Judaea. Whereas our first three
Gospels can be appropriately printed in three parallel columns, the
greater part of St. John's Gospel cannot be appropriately placed by the
side of the other three. Another most important difference is that St.
John's Gospel is marked by a tone and teac