Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE GOSPELS AND THEIR ORIGIN I Am to speak to-day of the origin of the Gospels, and some of their characteristics. There can be no doubt that an oral account, an account of the life and teachings and works of Jesus Christ that passed from mouth to mouth, was the basis of our present Gospels. Indeed, it is quite certain that from twenty to forty years passed before the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written down. During those twenty to forty years the story of each of these Gospels had been current in quite another way. It had been communicated viva vocc, by the living voice. This ought not to surprise us. The truth is, that the apostles were primarily teachers and only secondarily writers. There were multitudes of converts from the Jews and from the Gentiles. This multitude of converts had to be instructed, and instruction in those days was almost wholly by word of mouth. There was not only preaching, but teaching; and this preaching and teaching was all personal communication of one individual to another. You remember that the Sanhedrin commanded Peter and John no more to preach or teach in this name. They put no prohibition upon them in regard to writing. Paul taught publicly and from house to house. We read nothing at all about his writing at that time. The multitude of those who came into the Christian church needed just this personal and direct instruction; and the memory was strong in those days, stronger probably than in these days when we trust so much more to books. The Jews, you know, could repeat endless genealogies. Those very things which might seem most difficult to remember they had deeply impressed upon their minds; and then, they not only had the most vivid recollection of the words of Jesus, their Lord, and of those wonderful three yea...