tions of these parties. Thus, in the Apostolic age the Apocalypse sprang from the Ebionite party, the Pauline epistles from their opponents. Of the Gospels, the old Gospel according to the Hebrews (of which Matthew is a later revision) represented the Ebionite faction; Luke and Marcion's Gospel belonged to the Pauline movement. Mark, 2 Peter, and Jude were neutral, and so on. The "tendency theory" led on to a "mediation school," under Hilgenfeld, which admitted the majority of the books to be of the age of the apostles, and considered Paul as the virtual founder of Christianity. The followers of Renan (almost confined to the France which gave him birth) are often called the "romancist school;" the importance, however, of Renan's delineation of the psychological development of Jesus is very great, and the influence of his brilliant "Vie de Jesus" in exciting a critical attitude in unlearned spheres is much too important to be lost sight of. In England, also, in 1874 the appearance of "Supernatural Religion" (which has been previously analyzed) attracted much attention to the criticism of the New Testament.
Though, naturally, less startling than the revelation of the origin of the Old Testament, the results which have been attained in New Testament criticism are of no little importance. The activity of the critics has centred chiefly upon what is called the Synoptic problem. It was early noticed that there was a remarkable similarity between the narratives of the first three Gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke; they seem to take a common view of the life of Christ, frequently using even the same language; hence they are called the Synoptic writers. The question how to account for their substantial agreement, with incidental divergencies and even contradictions, gave rise to the Synoptic problem. The problem is now generally solved by assuming that the three writers made use of an earlier document[1] or documents, a simpler life of Christ, of which they frequently retain the very words. The writers expanded this document at discretion and incorporated independent traditions; as time went on, and they were transcribed and dispersed, other mythical and legendary additions were made, and the
- ↑ An interesting résumé of this common early tradition is found in Mr. F. J. Gould's "Concise History of Religion," vol.iii., p. 117.
