Gospel, such as the Temptation in the wilderness; the Transfiguration, at which, according to the Synoptics, the sons of Zebedee were present; the last Supper; the agony in the garden; the mournful cries on the cross; and, we may add, the Ascension; and if we turn to the miracles of Jesus, we find that almost all of those narrated by the Synoptics are ignored, whilst an almost entirely new series is introduced. There is not a single instance of the cure of demoniacal possession in any form recorded in the fourth Gospel. Indeed the number of miracles is reduced in that Gospel to a few typical cases; and although at the close it is generally said that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, these alone are written with the declared purpose: "that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."(1) We may briefly refer in detail to one miracle of the fourth Gospel--the raising of Lazarus. The extraordinary fact that the Synoptists are utterly ignorant of this the greatest of the miracles attributed to Jesus has been too frequently discussed to require much comment here. It will be remembered that, as the case of the daughter of Jairus is, by the express declaration of Jesus, one of mere suspension of consciousness,(2) the only instance in which a dead person is distinctly said, in any of the Synoptics, to have been restored to life by Jesus is that of the son of the widow of Nain.(3) It is, therefore, quite impossible to suppose that the Synoptists could have known of the raising of Lazarus and wilfully omitted it. It is equally impossible to believe that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels, from whatever sources they may have drawn their materials, {462}