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    incidents which are tecordsd are sepaifclfcd b y wide iiftertfofe in the life of Jesus ; assuming for the present their autfeerifcicitjf , they are insulated evenis , which have escaped the oblivion that covers the test of his early years ; and was it unnatural that a narrator , compelled by the Want of traditions ot documents to pass from one of these events to another , should give such a

    general summary of the progress of our Lord ' s life in the interval?—^ a summary which needs no external proof , because the recorded events of the succeeding period sufficiently attest its correctness . Dr . S . himself has been aware thatch , ii . 21 , as it connects itself both with the previous and the subsequent history , threatens to overturn his opinion of their original distinctness , and he supposes that they had been previously united by the interposition of this verse when our Evangelist incorporated thfeni with his work ,

    alleging the improbability that in a continuous narrative the phrase # re l > tr \ vj ( r&vi < rav a \ yj ^ ipai should have been repeated in two successive verses ( ch . ii . 21 , 22 ) . Had these words merely denoted a lapse of time , we should have thought that there was some ground for the remark , bxfc they are always used of the expiration of a term ; { Luke i . 23 , ii . 6 ;} they are , with the substitution of itiypovo-Scci , the very words in which tte expiration of a legal term is described ; ( Lev . xii . 4 , Numb . vi . 5 ;) they may therefore fairly be considered as technical 5 and surely the most fasHdious critic must

    allow the repetition of a technical phrase when a technical Occasion calls foi it . We may further remark , that these wor lds occur four times in the two first chapters of Luke , and no where else iti the New Testament—a circum- * - stance which furnishes presumption , we think , not altogether to be overlooked , in favour of the original identity of the author or translator of these chapters . Of the history contained in th&n , Dr . S . expresses his opinion ( pp . 44—51 ) , that it is much mixed with poetical embellishment , that tfie taxing by Cyrenius ( chr . ii . 1 ) is inconsistent with history as referred to the

    days of Herod , and that the two accounts of Matthew and Luke are utterly irreconcilable : yet , even with these deductions from their historical credibility , he observes how far superior they are to " the extravagance and romance of the exploded gospels , the compilers or authors of which were possessed with the confused spirit of Rabbinical Judaism . " This is a view of the matter which has hardly been taken by English critics , tvhp have

    either received the whole as inspired , or rejected the whole as a forgery ; a few , however , acknowledging the genuineness of Luke to the exclusion of Matthew . The opinion of Schleiermacher , we think , will gain ground , as theologians accustom themselves to consider the question critically rather than dogmatically . At the lowest computation , half a century must have elapsed from the birth of Jesus to the publication of this history- —a still longer period to the composition of the introductory chapters of Matthew ;

    supposing them to have stood from the first in the Greek . Unless then we are to lay aside all ordinary rules of evidence in judging of the records of Christianity , ( which is in other words to say , that the truth of Christianity cannot be historically proved at all , ) we are justified in allowing only a Ifmited credibility to accounts of events , some of which were known

    origittally onl y to one or two individuals , which were so completely forgotten in our Lord's mature age , that neither friend nor enemy ever alludes to them , and which bear in parts such strong internal marks of improbability . How different from the evidence of those events , the knowledge of which was sufficient for an apostle , " which began from the baptism of John , to that day on which the Lord Jesus Was taken up into heaven" ! Acts ii . 22 .

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    38 Review . * -Schteiertoacker $ € ritieul Essay on the ftespel of St . Luke ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1827, page 38, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1792/page/38/