GOSPEL (EVANGELIUM). — From the Greek εὐαγγέλιον, meaning “good news” or “glad tidings,” this term came to designate the message of redemption and salvation that Jesus Christ brought to the world; by extension, the same term was then used to designate the book that reports this message.
Jesus, the true author of the G. in every respect, preached but did not write; yet the earliest origins of the written G. date, one may say, from the very day on which the divine Master was taken from the earth. In the preaching of the Apostles and in the instruction of the newly converted faithful, the deeds and sayings of Jesus were recounted. This was the first and principal basis of the Gospels that have come down to us.
St. Luke, writing about the year 60, states that “many” before him had undertaken to narrate the deeds and teachings of Jesus. Among these many must be included St. Matthew and St. Mark; but there is room for others as well, and it is possible, though not proven, that at least some of the authors of those Gospels called of the Hebrews, of the Ebionites, and of the Egyptians should be counted among them—Gospels of which the Fathers have transmitted a few fragments. However that may be, among the many Gospels circulating between the end of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd, the Christian Church soon recognized as authentic, that is, inspired by God and trustworthy, only the four which, under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, still constitute the common patrimony of all Christians. It should be noted, however, that both in the numerous manuscripts of the original text and in the Church’s official language, as well as in the liturgy, they never bear any other title than “according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John.” This thus professes that, as was mentioned above, the proper and sole author of the G. is Jesus himself, and that the four canonical books are merely four versions or four aspects of that one G. St. Irenaeus (2nd century) gave this concept its sculptural formula, creating the felicitous expression “tetraform G.,” that is, “quadriform.”
Indeed, the Evangelists did not set out to relate everything they knew about the divine Master, but only as much as was appropriate and sufficient for establishing Christian faith and the practice of Christian life. Thus each presents the one G. from a particular perspective and according to specific aims, and in good harmony they complement one another. As literary forms, their writings belong to that historical genre of “memorabilia,” which also has distinguished models in the profane literature of the Greeks. And they possess all the power and value of that genre: strict historical truth in their accounts of events and sublime instruction in their doctrine (v. anche CATECHESI APOSTOLICA; GIOVANNI; LUCA; MARCO; MATTEO; SINOTTICI, VANGELI).
The rationalist element lies in the thesis, derived from the comparative criticism of Christian sources, according to which the New Testament would be inwardly permeated by “mythical” conceptions concerning the structure of the world, of man, and the nature of salvation, which underlie the apocalyptic literature of late Judaism and Hellenistic Gnosticism, and would have developed them; consequently, the New Testament’s mode of thinking in images, in radical antithesis to that of modern man, who proceeds by scientific concepts, and an effective apologetic presentation of Christianity would require, as a preliminary step, its “demythologization,” its restatement in modern scientific terms, freeing the substance of V. from mythical ideas. The demand of orthodoxy lies in the fact that Bultmann maintains the reality of the supernatural, while reserving to religious consciousness alone, and not therefore to historical consciousness, the perception of Christ’s saving event as an existential reality that responds to the despair of the lost human being and to his anxiety to be saved. Therefore, the existential situation should be presented above all in the New Testament.
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standpoint: R. Schnackenburg, Von der Formgeschichte zur Entmythologisierung des N. T.-Zur Theologie R. B., in Münchener Theol. Zeitschr., 2 (1915), pp. 345-60; M. Bendiscioli, Interpretazioni razionalistiche del cristianesimo primitivo, Padova 1932, pp. 68-82.