vain amongst the other evangelists. He likes to report certain words
of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean.[2] He is full of minute observations,
coming doubtless from an eye-witness. There is nothing to prevent our
agreeing with Papias in regarding this eye-witness, who evidently had
followed Jesus, who had loved him and observed him very closely, and
who had preserved a lively image of him, as the apostle Peter himself.

[Footnote 1: Chaps. i., ii., especially. See also chap. xxvii. 3, 19,
51, 53, 60, xxviii. 2, and following, in comparing Mark.]

[Footnote 2: Chap. v. 41, vii. 34, xv. 24. Matthew only presents this
peculiarity once (chap. xxvii. 46).]

As to the work of Luke, its historical value is sensibly weaker. It is
a document which comes to us second-hand. The narrative is more
mature. The words of Jesus are there, more deliberate, more
sententious. Some sentences are distorted and exaggerated.[1] Writing
outside of Palestine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem,[2]
the author indicates the places with less exactitude than the other
two synoptics; he has an erroneous idea of the temple, which he
represents as an oratory where people went to pay their devotions.[3]
He subdues some details in order to make the different narratives
agree;[4] he softens the passages which had become embarrassing on
account of a more exalted idea of the divinity of Christ;[5] he
exaggerates the marvellous;[6] commits errors in chronology;[7] omits
Hebraistic comments;[8] quotes no word of Jesus in this language, and
gives to all the localities their Greek names. We feel we have to do
with a compiler--with a man who has not himself seen the witnesses,
but who labors at the texts and wrests their sense to make them agree.
Luke had probably under his eyes the biographical collection of Mark,