phaneroutai pan gar to phaneroumenon phos estin.]





CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.


It would be natural in a work of this kind, which is a direct
review of a particular book, to begin with an account of that
book, and with some attempt to characterise it. Such had been my
own intention, but there seems to be sufficient reason for
pursuing a different course. On the one hand, an account of a book
which has so recently appeared, which has been so fully reviewed,
and which has excited so much attention, would appear to be
superfluous; and, on the other hand, as the character of it has
become the subject of somewhat sharp controversy, and as controversy--
or at least the controversial temper--is the one thing that I wish
to avoid, I have thought it well on the whole to abandon my first
intention, and to confine myself as much as possible to a criticism
of the argument and subject-matter, with a view to ascertain the
real facts as to the formation of the Canon of the four Gospels.

I shall correct, where I am able to do so, such mistakes as may
happen to come under my notice and have not already been pointed
out by other reviewers, only dilating upon them where what seem to
be false principles of criticism are involved. On the general