16. Hence, a subject which deserves inquiry is the question concerning the precise time
when these events took place which are omitted by Matthew and given by Luke, and those,
on the other hand, which have been omitted by Luke and given by Matthew. For after his
account of the return of the magi who had come from the east to their own country, Matthew
proceeds to tell us how Joseph was warned by an angel to flee into Egypt with the young
child, to prevent His being put to death by Herod; and then how Herod failed to find Him,
but slew the children from two years old and under; thereafter, how, when Herod was dead,
Joseph returned from Egypt, and, on hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judæa instead of
his father Herod, went to reside with the boy in Galilee, at the city Nazareth. All these facts,
again, are passed over by Luke. Nothing, however, like a want of harmony can be made out
between the two writers merely on the ground that the latter states what the former omits,
or that the former mentions what the latter leaves unnoticed. But the real question is as to
the exact period at which these things could have taken place which Matthew has linked on
to his narrative; to wit, the departure of the family into Egypt, and their return from it after
Herod’s death, and their residence at that time in the town of Nazareth, the very place to
which Luke tells us that they went back after they had performed in the temple all things
regarding the boy according to the law of the Lord. Here, accordingly, we have to take notice
of a fact which will also hold good for other like cases, and which will secure our minds
against similar agitation or disturbance in subsequent instances. I refer to the circumstance
that each evangelist constructs his own particular narrative on a kind of plan which gives
it the appearance of being the complete and orderly record of the events in their succession.
For, preserving a simple silence on the subject of those incidents of which he intends to give
no account, he then connects those which he does wish to relate with what he has been im-
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mediately recounting, in such a manner as to make the recital seem continuous. At the same
time, when one of them mentions facts of which the other has given no notice, the order of
narrative, if carefully considered, will be found to indicate the point at which the writer by
whom the omissions are made has taken the leap in his account, and thus has attached the
facts, which it was his purpose to introduce, in such a manner to the preceding context as
to give the appearance of a connected series, in which the one incident follows immediately
on the other, without the interposition of anything else. On this principle, therefore, we
understand that where he tells us how the wise men were warned in a dream not to return
to Herod, and how they went back to their own country by another way, Matthew has simply
omitted all that Luke has related respecting all that happened to the Lord in the temple, and
all that was said by Simeon and Anna; while, on the other hand, Luke has omitted in the
same place all notice of the journey into Egypt, which is given by Matthew, and has intro-
duced the return to the city of Nazareth as if it were immediately consecutive.
17. If any one wishes, however, to make up one complete narrative out of all that is said
or left unsaid by these two evangelists respectively, on the subject of Christ’s nativity and
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A Statement of the Manner in Which Luke’s Procedure is Proved to Be in Harmony…