[Footnote 14:  The woman who anoints his feet, Zaccheus, the penitent thief, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, and the prodigal son.]

[Footnote 15:  For example, Mary of Bethany is represented by him as a sinner who becomes converted.]

[Footnote 16:  Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, the bloody sweat, the meeting of the holy women, the penitent thief, &c.  The speech to the women of Jerusalem (xxiii. 28, 29) could scarcely have been conceived except after the siege of the year 70.]

A great reserve was naturally enforced in presence of a document of this nature.  It would have been as uncritical to neglect it as to employ it without discernment.  Luke has had under his eyes originals which we no longer possess.  He is less an evangelist than a biographer of Jesus, a “harmonizer,” a corrector after the manner of Marcion and Tatian.  But he is a biographer of the first century, a divine artist, who, independently of the information which he has drawn from more ancient sources, shows us the character of the Founder with a happiness of treatment, with a uniform inspiration, and a distinctness which the other two synoptics do not possess.  In the perusal of his Gospel there is the greatest charm; for to the incomparable beauty of the foundation, common to them all, he adds a degree of skill in composition which singularly augments the effect of the portrait, without seriously injuring its truthfulness.

On the whole, we may say that the synoptical compilation has passed through three stages:  First, the original documentary state ([Greek:  logia] of Matthew, [Greek:  lechthenta e prachthenta] of Mark), primary compilations which no longer exist; second, the state of simple mixture, in which the original documents are amalgamated without any effort at composition, without there appearing any personal bias of the authors (the existing Gospels of Matthew and Mark); third, the state of combination or of intentional and deliberate compiling, in which we are sensible of an attempt to reconcile the different versions (Gospel of Luke).  The Gospel of John, as we have said, forms a composition of another orders and is entirely distinct.

It will be remarked that I have made no use of the Apocryphal Gospels.  These compositions ought not in any manner to be put upon the same footing as the canonical Gospels.  They are insipid and puerile amplifications, having the canonical Gospels for their basis, and adding nothing thereto of any value.  On the other hand, I have been very attentive to collect the shreds preserved by the Fathers of the Church, of the ancient Gospels which formerly existed parallel with the canonical Gospels, and which are now lost—­such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Gospels styled those of Justin, Marcion, and Tatian.  The first two are principally important because they were written in Aramean, like the Logia of Matthew, and appear to constitute one version of the