Let the Gospel
of Mark be called an epitome of that of Matthew; if a person in the
situation in which Mark is described to have been actually made the
epitome, it affords the strongest possible attestation to the character
of the original.
Again, parallelisms in sentences, in word, and in the order of words,
have been traced out between the Gospel of Matthew and that of Luke;
which concurrence cannot easily be explained, otherwise than by
supposing, either that Luke had consulted Matthew's history, or, what
appears to me in nowise incredible, that minutes of some of Christ's
discourses, as well as brief memoirs of some passages of his life, had
been committed to writing at the time; and that such written accounts
had by both authors been occasionally admitted into their histories.
Either supposition is perfectly consistent with the acknowledged
formation of St. Luke's narrative, who professes not to write as an
eye-witness, but to have investigated the original of every account
which he delivers: in other words, to have collected them from such
documents and testimonies as he, who had the best opportunities of
making inquiries, judged to be authentic.
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