who was one of the twelve apostles, it might be thought that he wrote simply from his own personal knowledge; but his gospel could not cover all the ground of our Lord’s history as known to him, and we may well suppose that in the selection of his materials he had regard—­not a servile, but a free regard—­to the common oral tradition of the apostles, which was, in fact, the embodiment of their united wisdom under the illumination of the Divine Spirit.  Each evangelist, as well Mark and Luke who were not apostles, as Matthew who belonged to the number of the twelve, wrote independently of the other two.  The later writers may, indeed, have been acquainted with the writings of the earlier, but a bare inspection of the three gospels shows that there was no labored effort on the part of one evangelist to adjust his work to those of the others.  Hence arise apparent discrepancies, as in the two genealogies of our Lord, which it is sometimes hard to explain.  But these very difficulties witness to the independent truthfulness of the writers.  Had they written in concert, or borrowed systematically from each other, such difficulties would not have existed.

Although apostolic oral tradition is thus made the main source whence the writers of these gospels drew their materials, it is not necessary to affirm or deny their use, in a subordinate way, of written documents.  That such documents existed in the time of Luke we know from his own words, chap. 1:1.  He does not condemn them, but neither does he rely upon them.  His gospel is not derived from them, but from his own accurate investigations; “It seemed good to me also, having accurately traced out all things from the beginning” (as the original Greek means), “to write to thee in order, most excellent Theophilus.”  Chap. 1:3.  And if Luke, the companion of Paul, was not dependent for his materials on any previously existing writings, neither was Mark, the companion of both Peter and Paul, nor Matthew, who was himself an apostle.  Nor can the incorporation of such writings into the synoptic gospels be shown with any degree of probability.  If it cannot be claimed for this hypothesis of a primitive apostolic tradition, as the source whence the writers of the synoptic gospels drew their materials, that it explains all the phenomena of their mutual relation to each other, it is, nevertheless, more satisfactory than any other that has been proposed, and may be regarded as a near approximation to the actual facts in the case.

Between the traditions of which the apostle Paul speaks (2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6; also, according to the original, 1 Cor. 11:2) received immediately from his mouth or pen, and the pretended traditions of later days, handed down from century to century through a succession of uninspired men, the difference is that between light and darkness, between truth and fiction.  We have in the writings of the New Testament the genuine apostolic tradition, at first oral, but