UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES BETWEEN THE GOSPELS.

Having now applied to the Gospels and Acts the principles of Canon V. (page 4), with reference to the alleged contradictions between their narrations, we next propose to apply the same Canon with reference to incidental agreements of the former with one another, and of the last with the Gospels and Paul's Epistles. As we have stated (page 30), this evidence, when the points of incidental agreement are numerous and striking, is the strongest possible evidence of the accuracy of a set of writers dealing with a common series of events. As in the ease of alleged contradictions, we shall not attempt to exhaust this source of evidence, but we shall consider only the more important and striking of the coincidences, and we shall take them up in the order of their occurrence.

1. John the Baptist is represented as making the following speech concerning Jesus: "I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon him. And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said to me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, the same is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit. And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God" (i. 32-34). Now it is very clear, from what John says he had seen, that he could testify that Jesus was he who was to baptize in the Holy Spirit; but how could he from this testify that he was the Son of God? There is nothing in the previous narrative from which this inference could be drawn. But this inference, or rather this positive assertion, is accounted for when we turn to the other Gospels, and find that every one of them asserts that when the Spirit descended as a dove a voice was heard in heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The latter statement accounts for and explains the former, and therefore they mutually throw credit on each other.

2. The accounts given by Matthew and Luke of the call of the four fishermen appear to be contradictory, so different are the details which they give, and it has been treated as a real contradiction by skeptics.1 But the accounts touch each other at such points as to incidentally explain each the other. Matthew says that when Jesus was walking by the lake shore he saw Peter and Andrew "casting a net into the sea;" and that when he came to James and John, they were in the boat, mending their nets" (iv. 18, 21). Now both of these incidents are accounted for by Luke's statement, that they had been fishing all the preceding night (verse 5). A whole night's fishing would naturally necessitate mending some of the nets in the morning; and if it was early in the morning, it would be very natural that the two men whose nets were not broken should not yet have desisted from their toil, especially as they had caught nothing through the night. Again, Matthew represents the four as following Jesus at his word, leaving their business in order to do so, when, so far as his narrative informs us, they had neither seen nor heard of him before that hour. Had we Matthew's Gospel alone, it would be impossible to account for this action on their part, without the conjecture, which rationalists would not have allowed, that in some way unexplained they had formed a previous acquaintance with him. But all is explained without conjecture, when we learn from Luke's independent narrative that when Jesus approached the lake, Peter and Andrew drew their boat ashore, went out of it to wash their nets, allowed Jesus to sit in the boat while he taught the people, and then, thrusting out into the deep water again at his bidding, took a draught of fishes which appeared to them to be miraculous (v. 1-8).

3. Mark represents Jesus as going from the synagogue meeting into the house of Simon and Andrew, and there healing the former's mother-in-law of a fever. This occurred, as we judge from the fact that the synagogue had just been dismissed, not long after noon. Mark then represents the whole town as being excited by the cure, and bringing all their sick to Jesus to be healed, but not till evening when the "sun had set" (i. 29-33). He gives us no reason for this delay; but leaves us to what would be endless and unsatisfactory conjecture and doubt on the point, if we had no narrative but his. But on reading Luke's account of the incident, we learn that it occurred on the sabbath (iv. 31); and on reading the Gospel of John, we learn in an entirely different connection that the Jews held it to be unlawful to bear a burden on the sabbath (v. 10); and thus is explained the strange delay of the people in bringing their sick. Now it is impossible to believe either that Luke said it was on the sabbath to confirm what Mark says about the delay, or that John mentions the rebuke of the man who carried his bed on the sabbath to confirm what either Mark or Luke says about the people of Capernaum; yet the confirmation is complete, and the evidence is the stronger from the search which we have had to find it.

4. Matthew's statement that John the Baptist heard in his prison of the works of Jesus, and sent a message to him by his disciples, assumes that his friends had easy access to him in his prison, contrary to what we would naturally suppose from the facts connected with his arrest by Herod, and his subsequent cruel execution. This circumstance is not accounted for until we read in Mark that, notwithstanding the imprisonment, "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous man and holy, and kept him safe. And when he heard him he was much perplexed, and he heard him gladly" (vi. 20). Thus the writer who says nothing about John's message from the prison furnishes an item, in a totally different connection of thought, which accounts for his ability to send it.

5. Matthew says that when Herod heard of Jesus he "said to his servants, This is John the Baptist" (xiv. 1,2). It is very natural that he should have made the remark to his servants, that is, to his officers; but the question naturally arises, how did Matthew, or any of the disciples, who seem to have been far removed from connection with Herod's household, learn that he did so? To the answer Matthew nowhere gives us the slightest clew; but in a purely incidental way we obtain a natural answer from Luke. The latter writer mentions, among the women who ministered to Jesus out of their substance, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward (viii. 2, 3). How certainly would Chuza tell his wife what Herod said about him whom she so admired, and how certainly would she tell it to Jesus and the disciples! Furthermore, the same writer tells us that Manaen, afterward a noted teacher and prophet in the church at Antioch, was Herod's foster-brother; and thus, without having Matthew's account in his mind, he gives his readers another clew to the source of Matthew's knowledge of the private conversation of Herod.

6. Mark informs us that on a certain occasion, when the apostles returned to Jesus from a tour of preaching and healing, there were so many persons about them coming and going that they had no leisure so much as to eat bread; and that on this account Jesus ordered them into a boat that they might cross the lake and rest awhile in a desert place (vi. 30-32). So eager and pressing a crowd is not mentioned on any other occasion, and we naturally wonder what could have been the cause of it; but on this point Mark leaves us completely in the dark. Here again we might have employed conjecture, but we could never have reached any certainty had not Matthew, who says not a word about the pressure of the crowd, informed us that just at that time some disciples of John had arrived, and brought to Jesus and the people the exciting news that John had been beheaded by Herod (xiv. 12-14). Furthermore, these two circumstances combined help to explain a strange act of the people on that very day, which is mentioned only by John, and for which John gives no adequate cause. It is the circumstance that the multitude, after being fed with the loaves and fishes, were about to take Jesus by force and make him a king (vi. 15). The miracle of feeding is not a sufficient cause for this, yet it is all that is mentioned by John; but when we consider what is said by Matthew about the fresh and exasperating news of the cruel death of John, who had hitherto been the leader of the people, and the excitement which had preceded the crossing of the lake, all is most naturally explained. And how perfectly obvious it is that none of these coincidences could have been the work of design! How certain that they result only from the fact that each of the three writers tells the exact truth so far as he speaks at all!

7. In describing the preceding event, the feeding of the five thousand, Mark says that Jesus commanded the multitude to sit down "on the green grass" (vi. 39). John says that there was much grass in the place, but he says nothing about its being green. He says, however, that this feeding occurred when the feast of the Passover was at hand, and we know that this feast occurred at the next full moon after the vernal equinox, the very time in Palestine when grass is abundant and green. A few weeks before this it is not abundant, and a few weeks later it is dry. This combination of coincidences connected with the account of feeding the five thousand not only shows that the writers are very accurate in their accounts, but that they were aiming to tell the exact truth in the whole story.

8. Luke represents Jesus as preaching in Nazareth before he began his labors in Capernaum (iv. 16, 31-38); yet he quotes him as saying to the people in Nazareth, "Doubtless ye will say unto me this parable, Physician, heal thyself; whatsoever we have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in thine own country." With Luke's narrative alone before us, it would be impossible to account for this language. Not only so, but the course of his narrative implies that Jesus had not been in Capernaum since his return into Galilee. When we turn to John, however, we find that on his first arrival in Galilee, while he was yet at Cana and had not yet gone to Nazareth, he healed a nobleman's son in Capernaum, the cure being effected without his being in Capernaum at all. This, then, accounts for the demand which the people of Nazareth were disposed to make; and the very fact that he had done this in Capernaum while in Cana, which was twenty miles distant, gave more force to the demand that he should do something similar in Nazareth where he was present. This very striking coincidence, let it be observed, is drawn from a portion of John's Gospel which it has suited the purpose of rationalists to particularly discredit.

9 John gives no account of the birth of Jesus; neither does he tell us the place of his birth; but he represents people in Jerusalem as contending that he could not be the Christ, because, instead of coming from Bethlehem as the Christ should, he had come from Galilee. Even the chief priests themselves thus argued (vii. 41, 42, 52). Had we John's Gospel alone, we would not be able to determine whether the objection was well taken or not. He evidently takes it for granted that his readers would know that it was not well taken, but he does not himself furnish us the means of so knowing. It is only when we turn to Matthew and Luke that we find the information that he was actually born in Bethlehem. Thus the information which we find in two of the Gospels is assumed in the third as if it were already in our possession, and the tacit assumption proves to be correct.

10. Mark gives the following very singular account of the feelings of the disciples when Jesus started on his last direct journey to Jerusalem: "And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed; and they that followed him were afraid." He then goes on to state that Jesus, as if he were desirous of increasing this fear and amazement, took the twelve aside and told them that he would be betrayed in Jerusalem and killed (x. 32-34). There is nothing in his preceding narrative to account for the beginning of this fear and amazement; and there is nothing in the preceding parts of Matthew or Luke. Had we none but these three gospels, it would be impossible, except by conjecture', which rationalists would seriously object to, to assign a cause for these feelings. Should that conjecture be that Jesus had been in Jerusalem before this, and had met with such treatment that his disciples were amazed that he should return thither, we would be charged with imagining facts to explain an incredible statement. But this is the exact state of the case as we learn from John's Gospel, which informs us of five previous visits to Jerusalem, at the close of the last four of which the Jews had sought to kill Jesus (John ii. 13; v. 1, 18; vii. 10; viii. 59; x. 22, 23, 31, 39; xi. 7-9, 53). We find, too, that when about to go on the last of these five visits, the disciples even that early expressed their astonishment, saying, "Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?" And when he would go, one of them said, "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (John xi. 8, 16). When, after all this, he starts thither again, there is no longer any wonder that, as Mark says, they were amazed and followed him with fear. Thus we see that not only do John's statements account for and explain that of Mark, but they are really necessary to this end; they make Mark's statement most credible, and his remark reflects credit back on them. Let it be noted, too, that these very visits to Jerusalem are a part of the Gospel of John which have been blindly treated by rationalists as inconsistent with the narratives of the Synoptists.2  

11. The minute circumstance as to where the ass was procured on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem, will furnish our next example. Matthew says that it was procured at Bethphage; and he says nothing of any other village (xxi. 1, 2). Mark and Luke both say that Jesus and his company had arrived near Bethphage and Bethany, and that in ordering two disciples to go for the ass Jesus said, "Go your way into the village over against you"--leaving it uncertain which of the villages he meant (Mark xi. 1; Luke xix. 29, 30). John simply says that they "found an ass," without saying where, though he says that they spent the previous night in Bethany, and the village over against them must have been Bethphage. Here, then, are three accounts differing from Matthew's in omitting the particular which he mentions, while Matthew's differs from all of them by omitting nearly all of the details which they mention; yet even in a matter so minute as this there is perfect agreement, and the ambiguity of Mark and Luke is cleared up by the briefer statement of Matthew. How could this be if all were not speaking the exact truth so far as they spoke at all?

12. While John mentions five visits of Jesus to Jerusalem or its vicinity, between his baptism and his last visit, the other writers mention not one. This is held by some unbelievers as proof that the latter knew of no such visits; by some as proof that the author of John misrepresented the facts; and by all as a contradiction. But we find in both Matthew and Luke incidental proof that John is right, and that the others were not ignorant of these visits. They both quote the apostrophe to Jerusalem in which Jesus says, "How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and ye would not" (Matt, xxiii. 30-39; Luke xiii. 34). He could not have made this attempt often without being often in the city; and the quotation of his language implies the knowledge that these visits had taken place. This agreement, appearing in the midst of apparent contradiction, and being discoverable only after a careful search, affords the stronger evidence from these two considerations.

13. Our next example is a coincidence of a topographical kind. In Mark's account of the withering of the barren fig tree, the disciples are represented as not seeing the tree until the next morning after the curse was pronounced or. it, although they went out to Bethany the next afternoon, and we should suppose that they passed by it (xi. 14, 19, 20). This appears quite strange, if not unaccountable, until we inspect the route of travel between Jerusalem and Bethany, and find that there are two different paths, by either of which a person may pass up the western side of the Mount of Olives from the one place to the other. One of the paths is very steep, while the other has a gradual slope. The steep path is the shorter of the two, and the one which a person would naturally take when coming down the mountain side toward the city, while the other would naturally be preferred by one going the other way. Now Jesus was coming into the city when he cursed the tree, and this accounts for the failure of the disciples to see it as they went out, and also for their seeing it when they came in the next morning. A coincidence so minute as this, and so artless, can be the work of none but an accurate writer.

14. Matthew and Mark both state that when the Pharisees sent men to Jesus to tempt him with the question about paying tribute to Caesar, they sent to him, with the others, Herodians. The particular bearing of this circumstance is not apparent until Luke, who says nothing about the Herodians being sent, brings out in a totally different connection the fact that Herod was at that time in the city. This last circumstance accounts for the former, yet it is impossible to suppose that it was mentioned for this purpose.

15. John says that Jesus and his disciples arrived at Bethany on his last visit to the city "six days before the passover." Neither of the other Evangelists says how long it was, but Mark, without apparently aiming to count the time, incidentally mentions the days as they pass, and the count which we are able to make from his statements agrees with the statement of John. On the next day after the arrival at Bethany the public entry took place (John xii. 1, 12), and of course this was five days from the passover. Now, following Mark, we find that, counting the day of the public entry as one, at the close of which they went out to Bethany, the next day on which the fig tree was cursed would be two (xi. 11, 12); the day following, on which they found the tree withered, is three (xi. 20); and when at the close of that day it is said, "Now after the two days was the feast of the passover" (xiv. 1), we have the five days, and the count is even with that of John. This is unmistakably a case of agreement which could have resulted from nothing but strict accuracy of statement on the part of both writers.

16. The fact that when Jesus was about to be arrested one of his disciples, whom John alone designates as Peter, cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, is attested by all four of our Evangelists. They all assert, too, that when Peter came into the house of the high priest he was accused of being one of the disciples of Jesus; but strange to say, the servants and soldiers who make this accusation have nothing to say about the very serious offense of cutting off a man's ear in resistance to arrest. Stranger still, as we learn from John, who knew the servant and calls him Malchus, one of the persons who accused Peter was a kinsman of Malchus, and yet even he says nothing of cutting off the ear. This silence has been treated as proof that the ear was not cut off, and that all the Evangelists are here at fault; but the true explanation is found in a statement by Luke, evidently not made for the purpose of explanation, that when the ear was cut off Jesus healed it (Luke xxii. 51). Not even this would have saved Peter from censure, had it been possible to speak of the affair without giving evidence in favor of Jesus, whom Peter's accusers were seeking to condemn as an impostor. The incidental way in which this explanation is furnished goes far to establish also the reality of the miracle.

17. Matthew states that in mocking Jesus the servants of the high priest "smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy to us, thou Christ; who is he that smote thee?" (xxvi. 68). Now this, were it not for a circumstance which we are about to notice, would undoubtedly be declared by unfriendly critics a piece of absurdity; for they would say, Why ask him to prophesy who smote him, when his assailant stood before his face? Believers would, of course, contend that something which Matthew omits would doubtless make the matter plain if we only knew a little more of the circumstances; but this would be ridiculed, as all other such suppositions are. But when we turn to Luke we find the very circumstance which Matthew omits, and the manner in which it is supplied shows clearly enough that it was not designed to explain Matthew's account. He says that they blindfolded Jesus (xxii. 14). If Matthew had been making up his story he would probably have been on his guard against such omissions; but as he was conscious of writing only the truth, he left his statement to take care of itself.

18. All four of the Evangelists, in the account of Peter's denial of the Lord, state that it was a maid connected with the high priest's household that first charged him with being one of the disciples. If we had only the first three, this would be difficult to account for, seeing that the men who had arrested him would be naturally much more likely to know Peter than the maid whose duties were confined within the house; and especially would this be so from the fact that Peter had used a sword in the garden. In this ease, as in the preceding, some hypothesis as to the omission of details would be necessary to preserve the credibility of the writers. But when we turn to John all is explained by the supply of the omitted circumstance. He tells us that Peter was at first standing at the door outside, until John asked the maid who kept the door to let him in. As John was known to be one of the disciples, his request that Peter might be admitted within the court naturally excited the maid's suspicion, and led her to be first in making the accusation.

19. The manner in which Mary Magdalene is spoken of in the Gospels affords another remarkable coincidence of the kind which we are considering. Matthew introduces her first at the time of the crucifixion, as one among "many women beholding from afar, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him" (xxvii. 55, 5G). This shows that for some reason she had thus followed him and ministered to him, but it leaves us in the dark as to the particular motive which had actuated her. John introduces her also in the same group of women, without saying how she happened to be at the cross, but he indicates her great devotion to him by her visit to the tomb on the morning of the first day of the week; her extreme agitation when she found that the tomb was empty; and her weeping when she despaired of finding the body of Jesus (xix. 25; xx. 1, 11). The reader would be utterly at a loss to conjecture the special cause of this devotion, and he might conjecture in vain but for a remark which is made incidentally by both Mark and Luke, that out of Mary Jesus had cast seven demons (Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2). While this explains perfectly her devotion, neither Mark nor Luke can be suspected of making the remark for this purpose, and it is therefore an undesigned coincidence.

Thus far we have considered coincidences between the several Gospels; and these, taken in connection with other evidences which have preceded them, appear sufficient to establish their authenticity as above that of any other writings to which the same tests can be applied. We now turn to Acts of Apostles, and we shall try it in the same way. 

1 Strauss, New Life, ii. 129, 130.

2 Sup. Rel. 453.