Now no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history, but if we take the whole body of early literature, of which the canonical Gospels form the centre and crown, including Apocalypses, party-gospels, and the like, we shall find that there never was a body of history which was so overgrown with legend, and the major part of these legends result from the irregular study of the Old Testament, probably based on the synagogue methods of the time of the early Christian teachers. This reaction of the prophecy upon history colours the style of authors and affects their statements; and it is only by a close and careful study of the writers and their methods, that we are able to discriminate between what is a _bona fide_ allusion in the Prophets, or what is a trick of style borrowed from the Prophets, or what is a pure legend invented out of the Prophets.(123)
The immediate object here, of course, is to lay the basis of an indictment against the fragment; but in this clear and excellent statement, a principle is enunciated, the application of which cannot be directed as the writer pleases, but is apt to be as deadly to friends as to foes. Mr. Harris may attempt to satisfy his doubts, in writing with the impartiality of a scholar, as he does, with the reservation that “no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history,” but he has only to formulate the reasons for such a statement, to recognise their utter inadequacy. In so far as he gives us any glimpse of them here, they are of sad insufficiency. He speaks, a little further on, regarding “the real need of a critical method that can distinguish between statements that are genuine history, and statements that are prophetic reflexes. For this discrimination,” he says, “our main guide is the Canon, which expresses the judgment of the primitive Christian Church upon its literary materials; but I think it will be generally felt that we shall need finer-edged tools than Church customs or decrees in the more difficult parts of the problem; and certainly we must not assume _a priori_ in a critical investigation, that there is no trace of legendary accretion in the Gospel, and no element of genuine fact in what are called the Apocrypha.”(124) Alas! is not the “main guide” a mere blind leader of the blind in regard to “the encroachment of prophetic interpretation upon the historical record”? We have no intention of maintaining here a very different view of the credibility of Christian history, the arguments against which we have elsewhere fully stated, but it is desirable, for reasons which will presently appear, that the fundamental principle of this attack on the Gospel according to Peter should be clearly understood. Mr. Harris goes on to affirm that the measure of this encroachment is, in the first two centuries, one of the best indications of documentary date we possess: “As a test, it will settle the period of many a document, and perhaps the measure of the appeal to prophecy will even determine the chronological order of the Gospels themselves: Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew.”(125) This order will probably surprise a good many readers, and shake the faith they might perhaps be disposed to repose in the test which is supposed to have decided it. Mr. Harris applies the test in various instances to Peter, and we shall briefly examine his results.