It is not necessary to enter upon any argument to prove the fundamental difference which exists in every respect between the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel. This is admitted even by apologists, whose efforts to reconcile the discordant elements are totally unsuccessful. "It is impossible to pass from the Synoptic Gospels to that of St John," says Canon Westcott, "without feeling that the transition involves the passage from one world of thought to another. No familiarity with the general teaching of the Gospels, no wide conception of the character of the Saviour is sufficient to destroy the {451} contrast which exists in form and spirit between the earlier and later narratives."(l) The difference between the fourth Gospel and the Synoptics, not only as regards the teaching of Jesus but also the facts of the narrative, is so great that it is impossible to harmonize them, and no one who seriously considers the matter can fail to see that both cannot be accepted as correct. If we believe that the Synoptics give a truthful representation of the life and teaching of Jesus, it follows of necessity that, in whatever category we may decide to place the fourth Gospel, it must be rejected as a historical work. The theories which are most in favour as regards it may place the Gospel in a high position as an ideal composition, but sober criticism must infallibly pronounce that they exclude it altogether from the province of history. There is no option but to accept it as the only genuine report of the sayings and doings of Jesus, rejecting the Synoptics, or to remove it at once to another department of literature. The Synoptics certainly contradict each other in many minor details, but they are not in fundamental disagreement with each other and evidently present the same portrait of Jesus, and the same view of his teaching derived from the same sources. The vast difference which exists between the representation of Jesus in the fourth Gospel and in the Synoptics is too well recognized to require minute demonstration. We must, however, point out some of the distinctive features. We need not do more here than refer to the fact that, whilst the Synoptics relate the circumstances of the birth of Jesus, two of them at least, and give some history of his family and origin, the fourth Gospel, ignoring all this, introduces the great {452}