Many of these were undoubtedly still alive and they told all they knew.Gradually torn bits of the prophet's famous sermons which they remembered were put together until they made a book.
Next the parables were retold and gathered into another volume.
Old men and old women in Nazareth were interviewed.
In Jerusalem,several people who had gone out to Golgotha to witness the execution gave an account of the last hours and the agony of Jesus.
Soon there was quite a literature upon the subject.
It increased as the demand for such books grew more popular.Within a very short time,the material assumed unwieldy proportions.
If you want a modern example,take the case of Abraham Lincoln.There is a steady outpouring of volumes,big and little,devoted to the life and death of the greatest of our American prophets.It is impossible for the average person to read all these books.Even if he knew where to find them all,he would hardly be able to choose what was really essential.
Therefore,every now and then,some scholar who has devoted his life to this subject sifts all the evidence and gives the public a short and concise “Life of Lincoln”which throws light upon the important issues but leaves out what would not really interest those who are not professional historians.
That is exactly what the authors of the four gospels did with the life of Jesus.Each one,according to his own tastes and ability,retold the story of the suffering and the triumph of his Master in his own words.
No one can state with certainty who Matthew was or when he lived.But from the way in which he gives us his good tidings,we know him as a simple fellow who loved the homely stories which Jesus used to tell to the peasants of Galilee and who therefore by preference dwelt upon the subject of parables and sermons.
Far different was John.He must have been a learned if somewhat dull professor,thoroughly familiar with the most modern doctrines then being taught in the academies of Alexandria,and giving to his “Life of Jesus”a dignified theological turn which is entirely lacking in the other three gospels.
Luke,after whom the third gospel is called,was a doctor,according to tradition.
He well may have been a schoolmaster.
He stated with great solemnity that he had read all the other lives of Christ which were then in circulation,but that he did not think any of them quite satisfactory.He therefore had decided to write a book of his own.
He expected to tell his readers all that was already known,and to add a few details which had never been published before.True to his promise he bestowed much time and attention upon details which had escaped Matthew and John,and by his painstaking research,rendered us all a great service.
As for Mark,he was (and still is)a subject for the special attention of all Biblical scholars.
Against the hazy background of the last days of Jesus,we get frequent glimpses of a bright and intelligent young man who played a definite although very minor rle in the tragedy of Golgotha.
Sometimes we see him running errands for Jesus.
On the night of the last supper he comes rushing into the garden of Gethsemane to warn the Prophet that the soldiers of the Council are coming to arrest him.
We hear of him again as the secretary and the travelling companion of Paul and of Peter.
But we never know quite who he was or what he actually did or in what relation he stood to Jesus himself.
The gospel which bears his name makes the matter more complicated.It seems to be just the sort of work which just that sort of young man might have done exceedingly well.It shows a personal familiarity with many events.It omits a great deal which is given in the other gospels,but when it stops to describe a certain event with some detail,the story becomes at once a living document and is full of picturesque little anecdotes.
This intimate and personal touch has often been used as absolute proof that in this instance at least we have to do with the work of a man who had first-hand knowledge of his subject.
But alas!The gospel of Mark,like all the others,has certain literary characteristics which place it definitely in the second century and make it the work of one of the grandchildren of the original Mark and Matthew and John.
The complete absence of all contemporary evidence has always been a strong argument in the hands of those who claim that all our efforts to re-create the life of Jesus upon an historical basis must be futile and must remain so until further evidence (which may lie buried almost anywhere)shall have given us the connecting link between the first half of the first and the latter half of the second century.
Personally,however,we cannot share this opinion.
While it is undoubtedly true that the actual authors of the Gospels,as we have them to-day,had not personally known Jesus,it is equally evident to any one who has seriously studied those documents that they derive their common information from a number of texts which were current in the year 200but which have been lost since then.
Such gaps are quite common in early European and American and Asiatic history.Even the famous book of nature is apt to indulge in an occasional jump of a couple of million years,during which period we are allowed to use our imagination as best pleases our fancy,or our scientific convictions.
In the present case,however,we are not obliged to deal with vague prehistoric figures,but with a personality of such extraordinary charm and such definite strength,that it has outlived everything else that existed twenty centuries ago.
Besides,the direct documentary evidence which is so desirable in the historical laboratory seems utterly superfluous when we speak or write of Jesus.The very literature written around the figure of the prophet of Nazareth will bear us out.
The number of books which deal with him and his work written during the last two thousand years cannot be counted.They represent every language,every dialect and every conceivable point of view.
