[Gutenberg 39052] • Ecce Homo! Or, A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth / Being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to [www.million-books.com](http://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: CHAPTER III. ADORATION OFTHE MAGI AND SHEPHERDS?MASSACEF- OP THE INNOCENTS; AND OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, WHICH FOLLOWED THE BIRTH OP JESUS CHRIST, . OF the four historians of Jesus adopted by the church, two are wholly silent on the facts we are to relate in this chapter; and St. Matthew and St. Luke who have transmitted them, are not atall unanimous in particulars. So discordant indeed are their relations, that the ablest commentators do not know how reconcile them. These differences, it is true, are less perceptible when the Evangelists are read the one after the other, or without reflection; but they become particularly striking- when we take the trouble of comparing them. This is undoubtedly the reason why we have hitherto had no concordance of the gospels, which received the general approbation of the church. Even those which have been printed, have not been universally adopted, though it must be acknowledged that they contain nothing contrary to faith, it is perhaps from judicious policy, that the heads of the church have not approved of any system on this point; they have probably felt the impossihility of reconciling narratives so discordant as those of the four Evangelists; for tkHoly Ghost, doubtless with a view to exercise th faith of the faithful, has inspired them very differently. Besides, an able concordance of the Gospeli would prove a very dangerous work: ?it would necessarily bring together facts related by authors, who, Very far from supporting-, would only reciprocally weaken each other?a circumstance which could not fail to stagger at least the faith of the compiler. St. Matthew, who, according to common opinion, wrote the first history of Jesus, asserts, that as soon as Christ was born, and while he was still in the stable a$ethlehem, Magi cam...