Note 11 — Chapter III · LOCALITY AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.

Of these two representations one only can be true. Before they were perceived to be contradictory, the narrative of John was incorporated with that of the synoptical writers; since they have been allowed to be irreconcilable, the verdict has always been in favour of the fourth Evangelist; and so prevalent is this custom, that even the author of the Probabilia does not use the difference to the disadvantage of the latter. De Wette numbers it among the objections to the authenticity of Matthew’s gospel, that it erroneously limits the ministry of Jesus to Galilee,11 and Schneckenburger has no more important ground of doubt to produce against the apostolic origin of the first canonical gospel, than the unacquaintance of its author with the extra-Galilean labours of Jesus.12 If this decision be well founded, it must rest on a careful consideration of the question, which of the two incompatible narratives has the greater corroboration from external sources, and the more internal verisimilitude? We have shown in the introduction that the external evidence or testimony for the authenticity of the fourth gospel and of the synoptical ones, that of Matthew emphatically, is of about equal value: that is, it determines nothing in either case, but leaves the decision to the internal evidence. In relation to this, the following question must be considered: is it more probable that, although Jesus was actually often in Judea and Jerusalem previous to his last journey, yet at the time and place whence the synoptical gospels arose, all traces of the fact had disappeared: or that, on the contrary, although Jesus never entered Judea for the exercise of his public ministry before his last journey thither, yet at the time and place of the composition of the fourth gospel a tradition of several such visits had been formed?