Note 68 — SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION (continued 3)

Any examiner whose duty it has been to examine into a case of "copying" will be particularly well prepared to appreciate the force of the case stated in that most excellent little book, The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, by Dr. Abbott and Mr. Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884). To those who have not passed through such painful experiences I may recommend the brief discussion of the genuineness of the "Casket Letters" in my friend Mr. Skelton's interesting book, Maitland of Lethington. The second edition of Holtzmann's Lehrbuch, published in 1886, gives a remarkably fair and full account of the present results of criticism. At p. 366 he writes that the present burning question is whether the "relatively primitive narrative and the root of the other synoptic texts is contained in Matthew or in Mark. It is only on this point that properly-informed (sachkundige) critics differ," and he decides in favour of Mark.