the matter of their writings. When will they combine Christianity with a small modicum of common sense? In any case, whether every author supplied his writings to Jude in Syriac, as we hold, or some men of the second century collected Greek manuscripts from all parts to which they had been sent and then made a version of them, we are bound to find the ways and means. And this practical matter enters most naturally into the Syrian tradition.

VII. What sort of reception did the first New Testament meet with from the churches for whom it was adapted? The whole Syrian churches accepted it, and have held it fast for eighteen centuries; and even now the critics admit that, where congregations cannot generally understand its language, it is read in public worship, and then interpreted into their vernacular. It is admitted by critics that the learned men of Europe were ignorant of the very existence of a New Testament in Syriac until 1552, when they heard of it at Rome, from Moses of Mardin. They then took steps to get an edition of it, and the cost was borne by the Emperor of Germany, Ferdinand I. But for nearly fifteen centuries the Syrian Christians had firmly adhered to it as a truly apostolic document. It is true, more than one attempt had been made to break through their attachment to it, and win them over to a Greek representation of apostolic teaching, but it could not succeed. They knew their ground too well to suffer either Philocenias in the sixth century, or Thomas of Heraclea, with his bundle of Greek manuscripts gathered at Alexandria, in Egypt, in 616, to win them over to another Testament. We answer, then: the reception of the Peshito Syriac was as cordial, and the adherence to it as constant, as ever happened to any New Testament in the world. But this statement is far too feeble, for to no other version or text has there been any such unswerving adhesion.

VIII. Coming now to the department of higher criticism, we ask how our theory of a first canon in 60 to 65, harmonises with the preface to Luke's Gospel?

1. It finds many who desired such a collection according to the Syriac reading.

2. It finds many who took in hand its preparation; but were not themselves eye-witnesses and ministers, or personal attendants upon Him who is "The Word."

3. It accounts for Luke's hearty sympathy with their attempt and effort to aid them.

4. It indicates a patron, not only of Luke's two works, but of the whole undertaking in the noble Theophilus.

5. It suggests that this work was in hand during Luke's presence in Palestine, near his beloved friend Paul.

6. It supplies us with a hint as to how the active mind of the apostle filled up his time at Cæsarea, namely, in reproducing his writings for Jude's edition in Syriac.

7. It accounts for the current opinion that Luke's Gospel has the apostolic sanction of Paul.

8. It suggests that this Gospel was produced in Syriac before it appeared in Greek.

For in the Peshito Luke speaks of a general desire for collected

Scripture, as influencing him to write. But in Greek he knows, and so does his correspondent, that many have taken the work in hand. Now our Syrian Tradition fully accounts for the terms of this preface. But it is all mystery in the view that there was no canon until the second century. And yet, while Luke is heartily in sympathy with these men in what they were doing, the critics make him take up the pen to supply an antidote to mischief likely to be done by them. It is as if Luke said, "You know, O Theophilus, the good work in which many are engaged, and it seemed good to me to take part in it." If this be not cordial sympathy with what the others were doing, what words could convey the sentiment of approval ? Now, admit that they were labouring under the guidance of the Apostle Thady, and the case becomes intelligible.

IX. What place does this tradition find for the editors, or revisers, found in John xxi.? If we suppose the apostle, who had sometime before this date written his gospel, to commit it to the care of trusty brethren, while he went on with his active ministry, knowing that Jude would finally revise it, then all is clear. Men who knew him, and knew that he was then actively witnessing for his Lord, revised a work which he had written, and they were engaged upon his gospel early enough in the century to have been witnesses of the facts which he selected from the many works of Christ, so that they could write, "We know that his witness is true." In A.D. 60 to 65 such men would be living, and capable of such work of revision. But when you postpone the undertaking until A.D. 100 to 150, it is out of all reason to expect John to be preaching, and his well-known friends and coevals editing his gospel. Place these men among the many whom Luke names in his preface, and there is reason on your side. Remove them down the stream of time, even to the end of the first century, and the thing becomes absurd.

Then what of the chairman of this company who revise the fourth gospel? Here our tradition admirably answers. "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I, Thady, alias Jude, the brother of James, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be written." How well the Syrian suits this verse. It sets forth one who had a right to single himself out from those of verse 24, if he had been an apostle and a daily witness of the wonders wrought by Jesus. He must know much more than the other co-workers on this edition. And then, when he reviewed what he had edited so far in this and other books (see chap. xx. 30, where "This Book" suggests other books) as the synoptic gospels, and remembered how many other things Jesus did, how could he find expression to his full heart in terms other than figurative?

We hold, then, that our Tradition finds a place for these Revisers and their chairman, but that they must meet to do their work when Paul is out of the field, and John too busy to attend to revision; or, in other words, in or near A.D. 60. But we get no sense out of an editorial certificate and a chief editor's addenda after one hundred years are reached.

X. Our next question asks, Why the Acts of the Apostles was sent forth in so unfinished a form ? It is easy to see how it might have been made, in a human point of view, a better history of the Church of

Luke's time. For we learn from 2 Tim. that he was at Rome with Paul when the apostle had despatched his able assistants to churches of which we get no details in the Acts (2 Tim. iv. 11, 12). And then, as a memoir of Paul how exciting in interest, until the reader is on the very tiptoe of expectation as to how his great appeal to Cæsar will succeed; but not one syllable about its result in the Acts.

Just two verses, which may well be the work of editors who have a canon under their charge, conduct us beyond the first few weeks of Paul's confinement, and nothing of the grand and full statement and defence of the Gospel which he delivered when deserted by friends, but sustained by his Divine Master, he first answered the summons to appear in the court. Now, some urgent call for the Acts before this could be added, seems wanted to explain its present termination. Here again our tradition supplies just what is wanted.

Divine wisdom had a more important use for Luke's Acts at the time when the cause of Paul was undecided, and its publication could not be delayed to suit the law's delay at the capital. And so it was despatched soon after the writer reached Italy, with the exception of the general statement about Paul, which could easily be added on a final revision of the collected Testament.

There was another trial going on outside the Roman court. Jesus and Paul were before the world with special prominence, and men needed the means of learning who they were and what they taught. But among the Hebrew people the debate was hottest and most wide-reaching. From every place they went to Jerusalem three times a year, and were kept informed of Paul's undecided case. In five years there would occur fifteen such visits to their holy city, and each one awaken anew the question of Paul versus the Sanhedrim. Now was the time to supply gospels and Church history, with special reference to Paul, so far as the Acts carries it. Then, how must the misrepresentation made even among Jewish Christians, that Paul taught another doctrine than Peter, James and John, be corrected, except by joining their writings in one volume with his. But the Acts occupies the fifth place in the canon, whether Syriac or Greek, and must needs come into the hands of the editors long before some other parts of the New Testament. Our answer, then, to the inquiry about the abruptness of the termination of the Acts is, that Jude needed it before there was the means of making it a more complete work.

XI. How was the solemn pledge of Jesus, given in Matt. xxiii., to test the Hebrew people by sending to them scribes or writers, before their overthrow, fulfilled? A promise or decree to send writers means that they should have writings from which to learn the truth about Himself. These were to be supplied within "that generation."

Now, it is common with critics to give the Jews Matthew's gospel, then to send that of Mark right away into the Gentile world. Luke goes to the library of some private Christian gentleman of Grecian blood, but how it got abroad they do not say, and the Acts is in the same case. As to John, he may well pray, "Save me from my friends; " for these men who are so eloquent on the loving disposition of John, make him too indolent to write anything for the saving of "his kindred according to the flesh" until many years after their capital was ruined. And so

D

the gospel which places the claims of his Master before "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" in the strongest light, they make him keep back until A.D. 96. But all the gospels were in Jude's edition in time for Hebrew readers to study their narrative and argument; and so, too, was all the rest of the New Testament so far as then written.

Did not the Lord foresee that multitudes of synagogues would early be closed against His preachers, and that many Jews would not follow them elsewhere except to persecute them? How then should candid minds in doubt about what they heard learn the truth concerning Jesus without New Testament writings? It was of His rich mercy that He determined that His own people should have this means of salvation. According to early Latin manuscripts, we get John's Gospel next to Matthew; and the Romans had, no doubt, many opportunities of learning how the gospels were first issued. Now, with them all abroad, the three which give most of the works of Jesus stand best together in an order seeking to impress the reader who begins at Matthew and reads right on, and then John's gospel sets forth the true dignity and saving mission of Jesus, as a fitting sequel to the memoirs of the three other Evangelists. But the Romans may have preserved the true chronological order. Our friends the critics, if they would not make the words of the prophet of Nazareth, spoken in the most solemn circumstances, a failure, must produce a Testament of fair dimensions, before Jerusalem was destroyed. Our tradition meets this demand by pointing to the Peshito, which every Hebrew who reads the Old Testament can, according to Chief Rabbi Adler, use if he care to read it.

XII. If the apostles took no steps to secure a collection of Christian writings in their own lifetime, how was the wisdom assured in the same sentence as foreshowed that Christ would have writings made good? When He said, "Behold I send you prophets, wise men and scribes," He most certainly had the apostles, whom He had chosen, chiefly in view. That He also looked on to the conversion of Paul and Silas, Mark and Luke, we will not dispute. But surely the wisdom promised went beyond the mere production of manuscripts even to their preservation and circulation in the world. Abundant proof of the saving power attending the Word read, can be supplied in the biography of the people of the Lord. Did not the Spirit of Jesus in the apostles show them this means of carrying on their work? If a gospel or an epistle be worth anything to a small community, surely its wide circulation increases its power for good.

Then it was not the pledge of Christ that any one of the apostles should have in himself all the promised wisdom. He does not say, I send you a wise man, in the singular, but wise men.

Peter appears

to have this thought when speaking of Paul's writings; he says they are penned "according to the wisdom given him." Even men of lower status in the churches are allowed by the critics to have wisely collected a canon from A.D. 100 to 150. Were men in the second century gifted with sagacity superior to that given to the apostles?

Were the twelve hearers in that most awful discourse in Matthew. xxiii., in which the writings which set Jesus' claims before the people, indicated? Most certainly. How then, did they illustrate the accompanying promise of wisdom from on high? They do not put

themselves prominently forward as authors, for they all knew to whom they were indebted for their teaching. If Matthew could be asked about his gospel, we doubt not but he would speak of a conference of the apostles on the subject of a written biography of their Master, of which he undertook to be not so much the author as the scribe. One half of his gospel consists of events and discourses of which he was not a witness, but must have been supplied with them from others. He is not called until we reach chapter ix., and yet other apostles had heard and seen much before his call. And then we know from Mark, who they were that heard chapter xxiv. and xxv., and he was not one. Neither was he present, as John was, at the trial of Jesus, and so, of what took place in the house of Jairus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and in the depths of Gethsemane. Clearly, his brethren joined in the composition of the work, and surely each one carried a copy of it with him when he went out to evangelise in distant lands. It was brotherly Christian common sense to thus co-operate in preserving and spreading the story of Jesus. Then, when witnesses began to die off, it was wise to add to the written testimony, as the Gospel of Mark does, with more brevity than Matthew.

A larger idea shaped the gospel according to Luke. Paul could not appear in it, for he was permitted to preach nothing at second hand, only what the risen Christ gave him; still, he could guide Luke in making those thorough researches into the history of John the forerunner, and Jesus, which we fail to find, in the other gospels.

Then, how much assistance Luke received when he dwelt some two or three years in the Holy Land. James not only emphasized the advantage of the regular reading of the written word, but supplied one epistle. Peter, even though late in the field, added his quota. And he had, before writing his second letter, and while among the circumcision at Babylon, who used the Syriac, obtained and read all Paul's epistles. By this fact, we learn that Paul did not neglect the collection of his works, nor withhold copies from his brother apostles.

But what of John? Even among a large circle of friends and followers of an eminent man there is generally one to whom all eyes are turned to look for good account of him after he is gone from among men. Now, which of the apostles occupied this position, if not the one whom Jesus loved? Could he leave the grand fourth gospel until A.D. 96, when he could best set before the Jews in and out of Palestine, that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and the channel of Life to all who believe? We are sure, notwithstanding Jerome's romance about the way he came to write the gospel in his old age, that he wrote it long before. Reading between the lines of our Syrian story, and exercising a little common sense thereon, we see Jude perceiving the service which a collected canon would be to the Christian cause, and relieved of anxiety as to the means of effecting it; then, considering the way in which it could best be done.

1. He knew that a number of Christian writings were abroad.

2. He also knew Silas, and his important relation to the churches and ministers of Christ. For he was one of the apostles who gave the charge which carried him over the whole Christian field of labour.

3. He knew that every writer of inspired Christian composition was