Luke 1:1

many Whether the Gospels of St Matthew and St Mark had been written when St Luke's appeared is a question which cannot be answered with certainty; but it iscertain that he does not here allude to those Gospels, and that he did not make any use of them (see Introd. p. 9).

These many attempts to narrate the earthly life of the Saviour were probably those collections of traditional memorials, parables and miracles (logia, diegçseis), of which all that was most valuable was incorporated in our four Gospels. Setting aside the Apocryphal Gospels, which are for the most part worthless and even pernicious forgeries, Christian tradition has not preserved for us one trustworthy event of the Life of Christ, and barely a dozen sayings (agrapha dogmatalike that preserved by St Paul in Acts 20:35) which are not found in the Gospels.

have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration Literally, attempted to draw up a narrative. A remarkable parallel to this passage is found in Josephus (Contra Ap.i. 10); but no censureis here expressed. The word -attempted" shews indeed that these endeavours were not wholly successful, and the use of the aorist implies that they had already failed. (Acts 19:13.) "Conati suntqui implerenequiverunt," Aug. The works to which St Luke alludes were fragmentary and ill-arranged but not necessarily misleading. Origen (Hom. in Luc.) is hardly justified in supposing that the authors are rebuked for temerity, and Dr M c Clellan goes much too far in calling them "false Evangelists."

of those things which are most surely believed among us Others render it - which have been fulfilled," -have found their accomplishment;" but the analogous uses of the same Greek verb in Romans 4:21; Romans 14:5, and 2 Timothy 4:17, and especially of the substantive plerophoriain 1 Thessalonians 1:5; Hebrews 6:11, support the English version. The expression is most important as shewing that whatever might be the defects of the narratives there was no hesitation about the facts. (Bp Marsh, p. 364.) "The work of these unknown first Evangelists was new only in form and not in substance." Westcott, Introd. p. 174.