St Luke in this part of his Gospel had lost, it would seem, the guidance of the original memoir which is supposed to have been the basis of the rest, but he was in possession of much valuable matter, a part of which was, very possibly, in the form of detached documents, which he does his best to arrange in order of time. We can understand that parables, such as those of Lazarus and the Prodigal Son, would be copied and circulated and handed from preacher to preacher, as would also incidents of particular interest, or discourses of our Lord. This part of St Luke’s Gospel seems drawn from such sources, and the connecting matter is sparingly supplied. Nothing, then, will be gained by endeavouring to keep any longer to chronological order. Henceforth, therefore, I shall treat the points of interest as separate topics and, passing over all that does not immediately bear on the Schooling of the Apostles, I shall take the matters connected with it, about which I have something to say, and discuss them one by one. NOTE.—The passage from St Luke, xii. 41, &c. (quoted at p. 367), contains the only mention of St Peter in all the Gospel narrative, between the going up to the Feast of Tabernacles (October) and the final journey to Jerusalem (April); although occasions occur in this interval, such as that when Thomas says: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (St John xi. 16), when we should have expected that Peter would not be silent. In St John’s Gospel he is not named between Chaps. i. and xiii. The question arises, was Peter continuously in attendance on his Master during this last winter; or was he, during part of it, learning to feed his Master’s sheep by holding together the disciples at Capernaum? If when his Master was in Judæa, he only went backwards and forwards to him, this would account for the omission of the history of this half year in the Gospel of St Mark, for which Peter furnished the materials, and also for the brief mention of the Temptation; for I suppose our Lord to have given the fuller history of this to the disciples, when he was near the banks of the Jordan, after the Feast of the Dedication (St John x. 40). See p. 119. St Peter, who may not have been present, would probably limit his narrative to what he had himself seen, or heard from his Master’s lips. CHAPTER XII. THE LATER LESSONS. Different cases receive different treatment. St Luke ix. 57-62.