The Fair Haven

[...]Luke's and St. Matthew's accounts of the early life of our Lord, the Dean openly avows that it is quite beyond his purpose to attempt to reconcile the two. "This part of the Gospel history," he writes, "is one where the harmonists, by their arbitrary reconcilement of the two accounts, have given great advantage to the enemies of the faith. As the two accounts now stand, it is wholly impossible to suggest any satisfactory method of uniting them, every one who has attempted it has in some part or other of his hypothesis violated probability and common sense," but in spite of this, the Dean had no hesitation in accepting both the accounts. With reference to this the author of The Jesus of History (Williams and Norgate, 1866) - a work to which my brother admitted himself to be under very great obligations, and which he greatly admired, in spite of his utter dissent from the main conclusion arrived at, has the following note: - "Dean Alford, N.T. for English readers, admits that the narratives as they stand are contradictory, but he believes both. He is even severe upon the harmonists who attempt to frame schemes of reconciliation between the two, on account of the triumph they thus furnish to the 'enemies of the faith, ' a phrase which seems to imply all who believe less than he does. The Dean, however, forgets that the faith which can believe two (apparently) contradictory propositions in matters of fact is a very rare gift, and that for one who is so endowed there are thousands who can be satisfied with a plausible though demonstrably false explanation. To the latter class the despised harmonists render a real service." Upon this note my brother was very severe. In a letter, dated Dec. 18, 1866, addressed to a friend who had alluded to it, and expressed his concurrence with it[...].