While there is no doubt that, in its original form, the Gospel was oral, not written, it is not to be wondered at that as the years went by there appeared brief written records, which were eventually expanded and elaborated to form what we know as the four Gospels. For example, the evangelist Luke, who was not, of course, one of the twelve apostles, nor a direct disciple of the Master, had perforce to base his account of Jesus' life and work upon the writings and recollections of others, and he informs us in the opening verses of his Gospel of his desire to do this to the best of his ability. Moreover, he records that by the time he wrote, perhaps between 80 and 85 A. D., there were in circulation numerous narratives which he, being a careful historian, had doubtless studied and compared. To quote his own words (Luke 1: 1-3): "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, ... it seemed good to me also . . . to write unto thee in order." It seems that before this time Mark's Gospel had appeared, followed, after some years, by that of Matthew; but we may well inquire as to what is known of such other early writings as those which Luke mentions in his introduction.
It can be reasonably assumed, and indeed there is evidence to show, that the earliest recorded fragments of the Christian teaching consisted of statements made by the Founder of Christianity himself. The name given by scholars to such words of Jesus is "Logia," a Greek term meaning literally "sayings"; and it was such logia that formed the basis of the later Gospels, though, as Professor Flinders Petrie has vividly expressed it, "between the Logia and a Gospel, there is the difference between a notebook and a treatise" (Growth of the Gospels, pp. 3,4).
Within the past fifty years a number of such Logia or sayings of Jesus, written on ancient fragments of papyrus, have been recovered from the dry sands of Egypt. Some of these correspond closely to Christ Jesus' words as set down in the Gospels; others find no direct parallel there.
