The Jesus of the primitive Church was One whom believers worshipped as the Christ of God, in whose person and mission they saw the fulfilment of Israel’s prophecy and the inauguration of a new religious era.  They represent their conception of Him as corresponding to and created by His own consciousness of Himself.  He was aware of a unique relationship to God—­He is His Son, the Son.  And because of this divine sonship He is the Messiah, commissioned to usher in the Kingdom of God, and to bring forgiveness and eternal life to men.  This He does by becoming their Teacher and their lowly Servant, laying down His life for them in suffering and death, and rising and returning to them as their Lord.  He appeals to them for faith in God, for loyalty to Himself as God’s Servant and Son, and for trust in His divine power to save them.

This conception of Jesus is given us in documents which must be investigated and appraised as sources of historical knowledge.  The four gospels are our principal informants, and no other writings in existence have been so often and so minutely examined.  Among scholars at present it is a common hypothesis that Mark’s is the earliest narrative; that this was combined with a Collection of Sayings (compiled, perhaps, by Matthew) and other material in our first gospel, and by another editor (probably Luke) with the same or a similar Collection of Sayings and still other material in our third gospel.  Later yet, a fourth evangelist interpreted for the world of his day the Jesus of the first three gospels in the light of his own and the Church’s spiritual experience.

The earlier sources, as is usually and naturally the case with literary records of the past, are considered historically more reliable than the later.  The words of Jesus in the form in which they are given in the Synoptists are more nearly as Jesus spoke them, than in the form in which they are recorded in John.  There is a tendency, often found in kindred documents, to make events more marvellous as the tradition is handed on.  In Mark, for instance, the Spirit descends upon Jesus “as a dove,” symbolizing the quietness with which the Divine Power possessed Him; in Luke, the symbol is materialized, and the Holy Spirit descends “in bodily form as a dove.”  The writers interpret the narrative for their readers:  Matthew takes Jesus’ ideal of the indissoluble marriage-tie, as it is given in Mark, and allows, in the practical application of the ideal, divorce for adultery; he adds to Jesus’ word about telling one’s brother his fault “between thee and him alone” further advice as to what shall be done if the brother be obdurate, ending with “Tell it unto the Church.” John substitutes for the many sayings of Jesus in the earlier gospels, in which He appears to look forward to a speedy and sudden coming of His Kingdom in power, other sayings, in which He promises to come again spiritually