Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospel of Matthew (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospel of Matthew I think, therefore, that before we let ourselves be lost in the perplex ities of historical detail, which from the lack of necessary information we can, never wholly unravel, we should meditate much upon the higher harmony Of the gospel collection, by which the four narratives are brought into perfect accord. Whether we call Matthew's gospel Jewish and Luke's Gentile, or whether we contrast Matthew's as the gospel of the body, with J ohn's as the gospel Of the spirit, or whether we dwell on Mark's almost Roman compression Of style, we perceive no blur or indistinct ness in the image given us Of Jesus Christ. We see Him on several sides, but the identity Of the representation is perfect. In each and all He is the same sympathetic helper Of men, has the same clear vision of His mission on earth, gives the same account Of His origin and the same foretokening of His end, dies the same death, and has the same resurrec tion. There is no jar, no dissonance in the stories told by the evangelists. Whatever the discrepancies in subordinate points, the narrative of no one Of'them could have been the creation Of the age in which they lived. They were Incapable of conceiving or of inventing the Messiah whom they describe. This sense Of the spiritual harmony Of the gospels will guard us against ascribing di¿iculties which we cannot solve to blunder ing on the part of the evangelists, or to legends which they have credu lously accepted as true, an error into which Dr. Meyer, despite his great exegetical sagacity, sometimes falls. One cannot but wish that modesty should be shown in dealing with a history which, though witnessed to by the ages, is nearly two thousand years Old, for the full explication Of whose minutiae a thousand collateral facts long since faded from the knowledge of men are needed. \ve do not, says Ebrard, enter upon the evangelical history with spyglass in hand, to seek our own credit, by essaying to disclose ever fresh instances of what is contradic tory, foolish, or ridiculous, but with the faithful, clear, and open eye of him who joyfully recognizes the good, the beautiful, the noble, whereso ever he finds it, and on that account finds it with joy, and never lays aside his favorable prepossession till he is persuaded Of the contrary. We give ourselves up to the plastic in¿uence Of the gospels, live in them, and at the same time secure to ourselves, while we thus act in the spirit of making all our own, a deeper insight into the unity, beauty, and depth of the Evangelical History. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.