[Footnote 4:  [Greek:  Ta apomnemoneumata ton apostolon, a kaleitai euangelia].  Justin, Apol. i. 33, 66, 67; Dial. cum Tryph., 10, 100-107.]

Who does not see the value of documents thus composed of the tender remembrances, and simple narratives, of the first two Christian generations, still full of the strong impression which the illustrious Founder had produced, and which seemed long to survive him?  Let us add, that the Gospels in question seem to proceed from that branch of the Christian family which stood nearest to Jesus.  The last work 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