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    an eye-wkness , be would write the most regularly of all , however plausible in theory , is completely false in fact . Nor , indeed , is it difficult to retort the argument $ for one , like St . Luke , or St . Mark , who , though not an eyewitness ^ yet proposed to write an account of the same things—it might naturally be supposed , even humanly speaking , would take so much the greater pains to rernedy this very defect ; both to acquire a perfect knowledge of his subject , and to verify , in every instance , the order of his facts . [ How could

    he , thirty years after their occurrence , when most of the facts , before the last portion of the history , were necessarily so independent of each other ? With respect to Luke and Mark , the order of information must , in some cases , have been solely that of place or of subject . ^ Meanwhile , if St . Matthew , in particular , though he must have written as an eye-witness , has yet written at all irregularly , this may be a good presumptive evidence that he must have written early , while the recollection of the facts was still unimpaired—and among , and for , eye-witnesses as well as himself , whose own knowledge , or

    possibilities of knowledge , would supply omissions , or rectify transpositions , for themselves . [ This sentence has not been quoted by us , though it might have been , as a specimen of the confused and careless style of writing which pervades a great proportion of the work ; but we cannot avoid leading our readers to notice the addition ' possibilities of knowledge , ' which must have been inserted in the copy , currente calamo , and which gives us to understand that St . Matthew left such of his readers as were eye-witnesses , to rectify

    omissions by possibilities of knowledge . Well for the author that his anomalies are surrounded with the lustre of academic halls I He concludes the parafrap h thus . ] Whether his Gospel was written first or not , I think there can e little doubt ; [ true , for there is only one other supposition , which has not been advanced by anyone—that it was written at the same time with the others ;] but whether it was written all at once , or at different times , and in the order of the , divisions pointed out , may very reasonably bear a question . " —P . 186 .

    T . he suggestion in the last sentence would have been very reasonable , had it been applied to St John ' s Gospel ; but St . Matthew ' s narrative — however irregular the establishment of St . Mark ' s order would oblige us to consider it—bears clear indications of having been intended fora continuous history . But we proceed with our outline of the contents . The Fourth Dissertation discusses the date of the Passover succeeding our Lord ' s Baptism ( John

    ii . 13 ) ; and Mr . Greswell maintains that the 20 th verse means " forty-six years hath it taken to build this temple , nor is it yet completed . " Following this interpretation , he fixes upon A . D . 27 for the year of that Passover . On the best consideration we can give the subject , we agree with Mr . C . Benson ( Chronology , p . 232 ) in regarding the common version as perfectly exact— " Forty-si * years was this temple in building ; " which leaves the date of the Passover to be determined by other considerations , except that it must have been later than A . D . 26 . Mr . Benson considers the tense and

    meaning of ojxo& ^ S ^ as " directly adverse" to the interpretation which Mr . Greswell maintains ; and we had come to the same conclusion independently of the opinion of that judicious critic . Mr . Greswell , according to his usual system , makes no reference to Mr . Benson ' s section on the subject . To this Fourth Dissertation the author annexes three Appendixes . The first contains a detailed investigation to prove that Josephus , when he speaks of Herod's beginning to rebuild the Temple in the 18 th year of his reign , dates from the time when he became sole king by the capture of Antigonus , A . D . 37 , and not from his appointment , three years before , by the Roman Senate . If there had been any question , in the present day , respecting the

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    38 Qn , the Chronology and Arrangement of the Gospel NarraUnes .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1831, page 38, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2593/page/38/