These explanations will suffice, I think, to show, in the course of my narrative, the motives which have determined me to give the preference to this or that of the four guides whom we have for the Life of Jesus.  On the whole, I admit as authentic the four canonical Gospels.  All, in my opinion, date from the first century, and the authors are, generally speaking, those to whom they are attributed; but their historic value is very diverse.  Matthew evidently merits an unlimited confidence as to the discourses; they are the Logia, the identical notes taken from a clear and lively remembrance of the teachings of Jesus.  A kind of splendor at once mild and terrible—­a divine strength, if we may so speak, emphasizes these words, detaches them from the context, and renders them easily distinguishable.  The person who imposes upon himself the task of making a continuous narrative from the gospel history, possesses, in this respect, an excellent touchstone.  The real words of Jesus disclose themselves; as soon as we touch them in this chaos of traditions of varied authenticity, we feel them vibrate; they betray themselves spontaneously, and shine out of the narrative with unequaled brilliancy.

The narrative portions grouped in the first Gospel around this primitive nucleus have not the same authority.  There are many not well defined legends which have proceeded from the zeal of the second Christian generation.[1] The Gospel of Mark is much firmer, more precise, containing fewer subsequent additions.  He is the one of the three synoptics who has remained the most primitive, the most original, the one to whom the fewest after-elements have been added.  In Mark, the facts are related with a clearness for which we seek in vain amongst the other evangelists.  He likes to report certain words of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean.[2] He is full of minute observations, coming doubtless from an eye-witness.  There is nothing to prevent our agreeing with Papias in regarding this eye-witness, who evidently had followed Jesus, who had loved him and observed him very closely, and who had preserved a lively image of him, as the apostle Peter himself.

[Footnote 1:  Chaps. i., ii., especially.  See also chap. xxvii. 3, 19, 51, 53, 60, xxviii. 2, and following, in comparing Mark.]

[Footnote 2:  Chap. v. 41, vii. 34, xv. 24.  Matthew only presents this peculiarity once (chap. xxvii. 46).]

As to the work of Luke, its historical value is sensibly weaker.  It is a document which comes to us second-hand.  The narrative is more mature.  The words of Jesus are there, more deliberate, more sententious.  Some sentences are distorted and exaggerated.[1] Writing outside of Palestine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem,[2] the author indicates the places with less exactitude than the other two synoptics; he has an erroneous idea of the temple, which he represents as an oratory where people went to pay their devotions.[3]