Chapter VI: The Discourses of Jesus in the Three First Gospels. 909 (2)

Among the parables which are peculiar to Luke, that of the two debtors (vii. 41 ff.); that of the good Samaritan (x. 30 ff.); that of the man whose accumulation of earthly treasure is interrupted by death (xii. 16 ff. comp. Wis. xi. 17 ff.); and also the two which figure the efficacy of importunate prayer (xi. 5 ff., xviii. 2 ff.); have a definite, clear signification, and with the exception of the last, which is introduced abruptly, a tolerably consistent connexion. We may learn from the two last parables, that it is often necessary entirely to abstract particular features from the parables of Jesus, seeing that in one of them God is represented by a lukewarm friend, in the other by an unjust judge. To the latter is annexed the parable of the Pharisee and Publican (9–14), of which only Schleiermacher, on the strength of a connexion, fabricated by himself between it and the foregoing, can deny the antipharisaic tendency. [966] The parables of the lost sheep, the piece of silver, and the prodigal son (Luke xv. 3–32), have the same direction. Matthew also has the first of these (xviii. 12 ff.), but in a different connexion, which determines its import somewhat differently, and without doubt, as will presently be shown, less correctly. It is easy to imagine that these three parables were spoken in immediate succession, because the second is merely a variation of the first, and the third is an amplification and elucidation of them both. Whether, according to the opinion of modern criticism, the two succeeding parables also belong with the above to one continuous discourse, [967] must be determined by a closer examination of their contents, which are in themselves noteworthy.

The parable of the unjust steward, notoriously the crux interpretum, is yet without any intrinsic difficulty. If we read to the end of the parable, including the moral (v. 9), we gather the simple result, that the man who without precisely using unjust means to obtain riches, is yet in the sight of God an unprofitable servant, δοῦλος ἀχρεῖος (Luke xvii. 10), and, in the employment of the gifts intrusted to him by God, a steward of injustice, οἰκονόμος τῆς ἀδικίας, may best atone for this pervading unfaithfulness by lenity and beneficence towards his fellow-men, and may by their intervention procure a place in heaven. It is true that the beneficence of the fictitious steward is a fraud; but we must abstract this particular, as, in the case of two previous parables, we have to abstract the lukewarmness of the friend, and the injustice of the judge: nay, the necessity for such an abstraction is intimated in the narrative itself, for from v. 8 we gather that what the steward did in a worldly spirit is, in the application, to be understood in a more exalted sense of the children of light. Certainly, if we suppose the words, He that is faithful in that which is least, etc. (10–12) to have been uttered in their present connexion, it appears as if the steward were set forth as a model, deserving in some sense or other the praise of faithfulness; and when (v. 13) it is said that no servant can serve two masters, the intended inference seems to be that this steward had held to the rightful one. Hence we have expositions such as that of Schleiermacher, who under the master understands the Romans; under the debtors, the Jewish people; under the steward, the publicans, who were generous to the latter at the expense of the former; thus, in the most arbitrary manner, transforming the master into a violent man, and justifying the steward. [968] Olshausen carries the perversion of the parable to the extreme, for he degrades the master, who, by his judicial position evidently announces himself as the representative of God, into ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, the prince of this world, while he exalts the steward into the image of a man who applies the riches of this world to spiritual objects. But as in the moral (v. 9) the parable has a consistent ending; and as inaccurate association is by no means unexampled in Luke; it is not admissible to concede to the following verses any influence over the interpretation of the parable, unless a close relation of idea can be made manifest. Now the fact is, that the very opposite, namely, the most perplexing diversity, exists. Moreover, it is not difficult to show what might have seduced Luke into a false association. In the parable there was mention of the mammon of unrighteousness, μαμωνᾶς τῆς ἀδικίας; this suggested to him the saying of Jesus, that he who proves faithful in the ἀδίκῳ μαμωνᾷ, the unrighteous mammon, as that which is least, may also have the true riches committed to his trust. But the word mammon having once taken possession of the writer’s mind, how could he avoid recollecting the well-known aphorism of Jesus on God and Mammon, as two incompatible masters, and adding it (v. 13), however superfluously, to the preceding texts? [969] That by this addition the previous parable was placed in a thoroughly false light, gave the writer little concern, perhaps because he had not seized its real meaning, or because, in the endeavour completely to disburthen his evangelical meaning, he lost all solicitude about the sequence of his passages. It ought, in general, to be more considered, that those of our Evangelists who, according to the now prevalent opinion, noted down oral traditions, must, in the composition of their writings, have exerted their memory to an extent that would repress the activity of reflection; consequently the arrangement of the materials in their narratives is governed by the association of ideas, the laws of which are partly dependent on external relations; and we need not be surprised to find many passages, especially from the discourses of Jesus, ranged together for the sole cause that they happen to have in common certain striking consonant words.

If from hence we glance back on the position, that the parable of the unjust steward must have been spoken in connexion with the foregoing one of the prodigal son, we perceive that it rests merely on a false interpretation. According to Schleiermacher, it is the defence of the publicans against the Pharisees, that forms the bond; but there is no trace of publicans and Pharisees in the latter parable. According to Olshausen, the compassionate love of God, represented in the foregoing parable, is placed in juxtaposition with the compassionate love of man, represented in the succeeding one; but simple beneficence is the sole idea on which the latter turns, and a parallel between this and the manner in which God meets the lost with pardon, is equally remote from the intention of the teacher and the nature of the subject. The remark (v. 14) that the Pharisees heard all these things, and, being covetous, derided Jesus, does not necessarily refer to the individuals mentioned xv. 2, so as to imply that they had listened to the intermediate matter as one continuous discourse; and even if that were the case, it would only show the view of the writer with respect to the connectedness of the parables; a view which, in the face of the foregoing investigation, cannot possibly be binding on us. [970]

We have already discussed the passage from v. 15 to 18; it consists of disconnected sayings, and to the last, on adultery, is annexed the parable of the rich man, in a manner which, as we have already noticed, it is attempted in vain to show as a real connexion. It must, however, be conceded to Schleiermacher, that if we separate them, the alternative, namely, the common application of the parable to the penal justice of God, is attended with great difficulties. [971] For there is no indication throughout the parable, of any actions on the part of the rich man and Lazarus, that could, according to our notions, justify the exaltation of the one to a place in Abraham’s bosom, and the condemnation of the other to torment; the guilt of the one appears to lie in his wealth, the merit of the other in his poverty. It is indeed generally supposed of the rich man, that he was immoderate in his indulgence, and that he had treated Lazarus unkindly. [972] But the latter is nowhere intimated; for the picture of the beggar lying at the door of the rich man, is not intended in the light of a reproach to the latter, because he might easily have tendered his aid, and yet neglected to do so; it is designed to exhibit the contrast, not only between the earthly condition of the two parties, but between their proximity in this life, and their wide separation in another. So the other particular, that the beggar was eager for the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, does not imply that the rich man denied him this pittance, or that he ought to have given him more than the mere crumbs; it denotes the deep degradation of the earthly lot of Lazarus compared with that of the rich man, in opposition to their reversed position after death, when the rich man is fain to entreat for a drop of water from the hand of Lazarus. On the supposition that the rich man had been wanting in compassion towards Lazarus, the Abraham of the parable could only reply in the following manner: “Thou hadst once easy access to Lazarus, and yet thou didst not relieve him; how then canst thou expect him to traverse a long distance to give thee alleviation?” The sumptuous life of the rich man, likewise, is only depicted as a contrast to the misery of the beggar; for if he had been supposed guilty of excess, Abraham must have reminded him that he had taken too much of the good things of this life, not merely that he had received his share of them. Equally groundless is it, on the other hand, to suppose high moral excellencies in Lazarus, since there is no intimation of such in the description of him, which merely regards his outward condition,—neither are such ascribed to him by Abraham; his sole merit is, the having received evil in this life. Thus, in this parable the measure of future recompense is not the amount of good done, or wickedness perpetrated, but of evil endured, and fortune enjoyed, [973] and the aptest motto for this discourse is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount, according to Luke’s edition: Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God! Woe to you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation; a passage concerning which we have already remarked, that it accords fully with the Ebionite view of the world. A similar estimation of external poverty is ascribed to Jesus by the other synoptists, in the narrative of the rich young man, and in the aphorisms on the camel and the needle’s eye (Matt. xix. 16 ff.; Mark x. 17 ff.; comp. Luke xviii. 18 ff.). Whether this estimation belong to Jesus himself, or only to the synoptical tradition concerning him, it was probably generated by the notions of the Essenes. [974] We have hitherto considered the contents of the parable down to v. 27: from whence to the conclusion the subject is, the writings of the Old Testament as the adequate and only means of grace.

In conclusion, we turn to a group of parables, among which some, as relating to the death and return of Christ, ought, according to our plan, to be excepted from the present review; but so far as they are connected with the rest, it is necessary to include them. They are the three parables of the rebellious husbandmen in the vineyard (Matt. xxi. 33 ff. parall.), of the talents or minæ (Matt. xxv. 14 ff.; Luke xix. 12 ff.), and the marriage feast (Matt. xxii. 2ff.; Luke xiv. 16 ff.). Of these the parable of the husbandmen in all the accounts, that of the talents in Matthew, and that of the marriage feast in Luke, are simple parables, unattended with difficulty. Not so the parable of the minæ in Luke, and of the marriage feast in Matthew. That the former is fundamentally the same with that of the talents in Matthew, is undeniable, notwithstanding the many divergencies. In both are found the journey of a master; the assembling of the servants to entrust them with a capital, to be put into circulation; after the return of the master, a reckoning in which three servants are signalized, two of them as active, the third as inactive, whence the latter is punished, and the former rewarded; and in the annunciation of this issue the words of the master are nearly identical in the two statements. The principal divergency is, that besides the relation between the master who journeys into a far country and his servants, in Luke there is a second relation between the former and certain rebellious citizens; and accordingly, while in Matthew the master is simply designated ἄνθρωπος, a man, in Luke he is styled ἅνθρωπος εὐγενὴς, a nobleman, and a kingdom is assigned to him, the object of his journey being to receive for himself a kingdom: an object of which there is no mention in Matthew. The subjects of this personage, it is further said, hated him, and after his departure renounced their allegiance. Hence at the return of the lord, the rebellious citizens, as well as the slothful servant, are punished; but in their case the retribution is that of death: the faithful servants, on the other hand, are not only rewarded generally by an entrance into the joy of their Lord, but royally, by the gift of a number of cities. There are other divergencies of less moment between Luke and Matthew; such as, that the number of servants is undetermined by the one, and limited to ten by the other; that in Matthew they receive talents, in Luke minæ; in the one unequal sums, in the other equal; in the one, they obtain unequal profits from unequal sums by an equal expenditure of effort, and are therefore equally rewarded; in the other, they obtain unequal profits from equal sums by an unequal expenditure of effort, and are therefore unequally rewarded.

Supposing this parable to have proceeded from the lips of Jesus on two separate occasions, and that Matthew and Luke are right in their respective arrangements, he must have delivered it first in the more complex form given by Luke, and then in the simple one given by Matthew; [975] since the former places it before, the latter after the entrance into Jerusalem. But this would be contrary to all analogy. The first presentation of an idea is, according to the laws of thought, the most simple; with the second new relations may be perceived, the subject may be viewed under various aspects, and brought into manifold combinations. There is, therefore, a foundation for Schleiermacher’s opinion, that contrary to the arrangement in the Gospels, Jesus first delivered the parable in the more simple form, and amplified it on a subsequent occasion. [976] But for our particular case this order is not less inconceivable than the other. The author of a composition such as a parable, especially when it exists only in his mind and on his lips, and is not yet fixed in writing, remains the perfect master of his materials even on their second and more elaborate presentation; the form which he had previously given to them is not rigid and inflexible, but pliant, so that he can adapt the original thoughts and images to the additional ones, and thus give unity to his production. Hence, had he who gave the above parable the form which it has in Luke, been its real author, he would, after having transformed the master into a king, and inserted the particulars respecting the rebellious citizens, have intrusted arms to the servants instead of money (comp. Luke xxii. 36), [977] and would have made them show their fidelity rather by conflict with the rebels, than by increasing their capital; or in general would have introduced some relation between the two classes of persons in the parable, the servants and the citizens; instead of which, they are totally unconnected throughout, and form two ill-cemented divisions. [978] This shows very decisively that the parable was not enriched with these additional particulars by the imagination of its author, but that it was thus amplified by another in the process of transmission. This cannot have been effected in a legendary manner, by the gradual filling up of the original sketch, or the development of the primitive germ; for the idea of rebellious citizens could never be evolved from that of servants and talents, but must have been added from without, and therefore have previously existed as part of an independent whole. This amounts to the position that we have here an example of two originally distinct parables, the one treating of servants and talents, the other of rebellious citizens, flowing together in consequence of their mutually possessing the images of a ruler’s departure and return. [979] The proof of our proposition must depend on our being able easily to disentangle the two parables; and this we can effect in the most satisfactory manner, for by extracting v. 12, 14, 15, and 27, and slightly modifying them, we get in a rather curtailed but consistent form, the parable of the rebellious citizens, and we then recognise the similarity of its tendency with that of the rebellious husbandmen in the vineyard. [980]

A similar relation subsists between the form in which the parable of the marriage feast is given by Luke (xiv. 16 ff.), and that in which it is given by Matthew (xxii. 2 ff.); only that in this case Luke, as in the other, Matthew, has the merit of having preserved the simple original version. On both sides, the particulars of the feast, the invitation, its rejection, and the consequent bidding of other guests, testify the identity of the two parables; but, on the other hand, the host who in Luke is merely a certain man, ἄνθρωπος τις, is in Matthew a king, βασιλεὺς, whose feast is occasioned by the marriage of his son; the invited guests, who in Luke excuse themselves on various pleas to the messenger only once sent out to them, in Matthew refuse to come on the first invitation, and on the second more urgent one some go to their occupations, while others maltreat and kill the servants of the king, who immediately sends forth his armies to destroy those murderers, and burn up their city. Nothing of this is to be found in Luke; according to him, the host merely causes the poor and afflicted to be assembled in place of the guests first invited, a particular which Matthew also appends to his fore-mentioned incidents. Luke closes the parable with the declaration of the host, that none of the first bidden guests shall partake of his supper; but Matthew proceeds to narrate how, when the house was full, and the king had assembled his guests, one was discovered to be without a wedding garment, and was forthwith carried away into outer darkness.

The maltreatment and murder of the king’s messengers are features in the narrative of Matthew which at once strike us as inconsistent—as a departure from the original design. Disregard of an invitation is sufficiently demonstrated by the rejection of it on empty pretexts such as Luke mentions; the maltreatment and even the murder of those who deliver the invitation, is an exaggeration which it is less easy to attribute to Jesus than to the Evangelist. The latter had immediately before communicated the parable of the rebellious husbandmen; hence there hovered in his recollection the manner in which they were said to have used the messengers of their lord, beating one, killing and stoning others (λαβόντες τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ ὃν μὲν ἔδειραν, ὃν δὲ ἀπέκτειναν, ὃν δὲ ἐλιθοβόλησαν), and he was thus led to incorporate similar particulars into the present parable (κρατήσαντες τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ ὕβρισαν καὶ ἀπέκτειναν), overlooking the circumstance that what might have been perpetrated with sufficient motive against servants who appeared with demands and authority to enforce them, had in the latter case no motive whatever. That hereupon, the king, not satisfied with excluding them from the feast, sends out his armies to destroy them and burn up their city, necessarily follows from the preceding incidents, but appears, like them, to be the echo of a parable which presented the relation between the master and the dependents, not in the milder form of a rejected invitation, but in the more severe one of an insurrection; as in the parable of the husbandmen in the vineyard, and that of the rebellious citizens, which we have above separated from the parable of the minæ. Yet more decidedly does the drift of the last particular in Matthew’s parable, that of the wedding garment, betray that it was not originally associated with the rest. For if the king had commanded that all, both bad and good, who were to be found in the highways, should be bidden to the feast, he could not wonder that they had not all wedding attire. To assume that those thus suddenly summoned went home to wash, and adjust their dress, is an arbitrary emendation of the text. [981] Little preferable is the supposition that, according to oriental manners, the king had ordered a caftan to be presented to each guest, and might therefore justly reproach the meanest for not availing himself of the gift; [982] for it is not to be proved that such a custom existed at the period, [983] and it is not admissible to presuppose it merely because the anger of the king appears otherwise unfounded. But the addition in question is not only out of harmony with the imagery, but with the tendency of this parable. For while hitherto its aim had been to exhibit the national contrast between the perversity of the Jews, and the willingness of the Gentiles: it all at once passes to the moral one, to distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy. That after the Jews had contemned the invitation to partake of the kingdom of God, the heathens would be called into it, is one complete idea, with which Luke very properly concludes his parable; that he who does not prove himself worthy of the vocation by a corresponding disposition, will be again cast out of the kingdom, is another idea, which appears to demand a separate parable for its exhibition. Here again it may be conjectured that the conclusion of Matthew’s parable is the fragment of another, which, from its also referring to a feast, might in tradition, or in the memory of an individual, be easily mingled with the former, preserved in its purity by Luke. [984] This other parable must have simply set forth, that a king had invited various guests to a wedding feast, with the tacit condition that they should provide themselves with a suitable dress, and that he delivered an individual who had neglected this observance to his merited punishment. Supposing our conjectures correct, we have here a still more compound parable than in the former case: a parable in which, 1stly, the narrative of the ungrateful invited parties (Luke xiv.) forms the main tissue, but so that, 2ndly, a thread from the parable of the rebellious husbandmen is interwoven; while, 3rdly, a conclusion is stitched on, gathered apparently from an unknown parable on the wedding garment.

This analysis gives us an insight into the procedure of evangelical tradition with its materials, which must be pregnant with results.

§ 79.

MISCELLANEOUS INSTRUCTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES OF JESUS.

As the discourses in Matthew xv. 1–20 have been already considered, we must pass on to xviii. 1 ff., Mark ix. 33 ff., Luke ix. 46 ff., where various discourses are connected with the exhibition of a little child, occasioned by a contention for pre-eminence among the disciples. The admonition to become as a little child, and to humble one’s self as a little child, in Matthew, forms a perfectly suitable comment on the symbolical reproof (v. 3, 4,); but the connexion between this and the following declaration of Jesus, that whosoever receives one such little child in his name, receives him, is not so obvious. For the child was set up to teach the disciples in what they were to imitate it, not how they were to behave towards it, and how Jesus could all at once lose sight of his original object, it is difficult to conceive. But yet more glaring is the irrelevance of the declaration in Mark and Luke; for they make it follow immediately on the exhibition of the child, so that, according to this, Jesus must, in the very act, have forgotten its object, namely, to present the child to his ambitious disciples as worthy of imitation, not as in want of reception. [985] Jesus was accustomed to say of his disciples, that whosoever received them, received him, and in him, the Father who had sent him (Matt. x. 40 ff.; Luke x. 16; John xiii. 20). Of children he elsewhere says merely, that whosoever does not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child cannot enter therein (Mark x. 15; Luke xviii. 17). This declaration would be perfectly adapted to the occasion in question, and we may almost venture to conjecture that ὃς ἐὰν μὴ δέξηται τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν ὡς παιδίον, was the original passage, and that the actual one is the result of its confusion with Matthew x. 40, ὃς ἐὰν δέξηται παιδίον τοιοῦτον ἓν ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου.

Closely connected by the word ἀποκριθεὶς, answering, with the sentences just considered, Mark (ix. 38 f.) and Luke (ix. 49 f.) introduce the information which John is said to give to Jesus, that the disciples having seen one casting out devils in the name of Jesus, without attaching himself to their society, had forbidden him. Schleiermacher explains the connexion thus: because Jesus had commanded the reception of children in his name, John was led to the confession, that he and his associates had hitherto been so far from regarding the performance of an act in the name of Jesus as the point of chief importance, that they had interdicted the use of his name to one who followed not with them. [986] Allowing this explanation to be correct, we must believe that John, arrested by the phrase, in my name (which yet is not prominent in the declaration of Jesus, and which must have been thrown still further into the background by the sight of the child set up in the midst), drew from it the general inference, that in all actions the essential point is to perform them in the name of Jesus; and with equal rapidity, leaped to the remote reflection, that the conduct of the disciples towards the exorcist was in contradiction with this rule. But all this supposes the facility of combination which belongs to a Schleiermacher, not the dulness which still characterized the disciples. Nevertheless, the above critic has unquestionably opened on the true vein of connexion between the preceding apothegm and this ἀπόκρισις of John; he has only failed to perceive that this connexion is not intrinsic and original, but extrinsic and secondary. It was quite beyond the reach of the disciples to apply the words in my name, by a train of deductions, to an obliquely connected case in their own experience; but, according to our previous observations, nothing could be more consistent with the habit of association that characterizes the writer of the evangelical tradition in the third gospel, whence the second Evangelist seems to have borrowed, than that he should be reminded by the striking phrase, in my name, in the preceding discourse of Jesus, of an anecdote containing the same expression, and should unite the two for the sake of that point of external similarity alone. [987]

To the exhortation to receive such little children, Matthew annexes the warning against offending one of these little ones, σκανδαλίζειν ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων, an epithet which, in x. 42, is applied to the disciples of Jesus, but in this passage, apparently, to children. [988] Mark (v. 42) has the same continuation, notwithstanding the interruption above noticed, probably because he forsook Luke (who here breaks off the discourse, and does not introduce the admonition against offences until later, xvii. 1 f., and apart from any occasion that might prompt it), and appealed to Matthew. [989] Then follows in Matthew (v. 8 f.) and Mark (v. 43 f.) a passage which alone ought to open the eyes of commentators to the mode in which the synoptists arrange the sayings of Jesus. To the warning against the offending, σκανδαλίζειν, of the little ones, and the woe pronounced on those by whom offences come, τὸ σκάνδαλον ἔρχεται, they annex the apothegm on the offending, σκανδαλίζειν, of the hand, eye, etc. Jesus could not proceed thus,—for the injunctions: Mislead not the little ones! and, Let not your sensuality mislead you! have nothing in common but the word mislead. It is easy, however, to account for their association by the writer of the first gospel. [990] The word σκανδαλίζειν recalled to his mind all the discourses of Jesus containing a similar expression that had come to his knowledge, and although he had previously presented the admonitions concerning seduction by the members, in a better connexion, as part of the Sermon on the Mount, he could not resist the temptation of reproducing them here, for the sake of this slight verbal affinity with the foregoing text. But at v. 10 he resumes the thread which he had dropped at v. 7, and adds a further discourse on the little ones, μικροὺς. Matthew makes Jesus confirm the value of the little ones by the declaration, that the Son of man was come to seek the lost, and by the parable of the lost sheep (v. 11–14). It is not, however, evident why Jesus should class the μικροὺς with the ἀπολωλὸς (lost); and both the declaration and the parable seem to be better placed by Luke, who introduces the former in the narrative of the calling of Zaccheus (xix. 10), and the latter, in a reply to the objections of the Pharisees against the amity of Jesus with the publicans (xv. 3 ff.). Matthew seems to have placed them here, merely because the discourse on the little ones reminded him of that on the lost—both exemplifying the mildness and humility of Jesus.

Between the moral of the above parable (v. 14) and the following rules for the conduct of Christians under injuries (v. 15 ff.), there is again only a verbal connexion, which may be traced by means of the words, ἀπόληται, should perish, and ἐκέρδησας, thou hast gained; for the proposition: God wills not that one of these little ones should perish, might recall the proposition: We should endeavour to win over our brother, by showing a readiness to forgive. The direction to bring the offender before the church, ἐκκλησία, is generally adduced as a proof that Jesus intended to found a church. But he here speaks of the ἐκκλησία as an institution already existing: hence we must either refer the expression to the Jewish synagogue, an interpretation which is favoured by the analogy of this direction with Jewish precepts; or if, according to the strict meaning of the word and its connexion, ἐκκλησία must be understood as the designation of the Christian community, which did not then exist, it must be admitted that we have here, at least in the form of expression, an anticipation of a subsequent state of things. [991] The writer certainly had in view the new church, eventually to be founded in the name of Jesus, when, in continuation, he represented the latter as imparting to the body of the disciples the authority to bind and to loose, previously given to Peter, and thus to form a messianic religious constitution. The declarations concerning the success of unanimous prayer, and the presence of Jesus among two or three gathered together in his name, accord with this prospective idea. [992]

The next discourse that presents itself (Matt. xix. 3–12, Mark x. 2–12), though belonging, according to the Evangelists, to the last journey of Jesus, is of the same stamp with the disputations which they, for the most part, assign to the last residence of Jesus in Jerusalem. Some Pharisees propose to Jesus the question, at that time much discussed in the Jewish schools, [993] whether it be lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause. To avoid a contradiction between modern practice and the dictum of Jesus, it has been alleged that he here censures the species of divorce which was the only one known at that period, namely, the arbitrary dismissal of a wife; but not the judicial separation resorted to in the present day. [994] But this very argument involves the admission, that Jesus denounced all the forms of divorce known to him; hence the question still remains whether, if he could have had cognizance of the modern procedure in dissolving matrimony, he would have held it right to limit his general censure. Of the succeeding declaration, prompted by a question of the disciples, [995] namely, that celibacy may be practised for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, Jesus himself says, that it cannot be understood by all, but only by those to whom it is given (v. 11). That the doctrine of Jesus may not run counter to modern opinion, it has been eagerly suggested, that his panegyric on celibacy had relation solely to the circumstances of the coming time, or to the nature of the apostolic mission, which would be impeded by family ties. [996] But there is even less intimation of this special bearing in the text, than in the analogous passage 1 Cor. vii. 25 ff., [997] and, adhering to a simple interpretation, it must be granted that we have here one of the instances in which ascetic principles, such as were then prevalent, especially among the Essenes, [998] manifest themselves in the teaching of Jesus, as represented in the synoptical gospels.

The controversial discourses which Matthew, almost throughout in agreement with the other synoptists, places after the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem (xxi. 23–27; xxii. 15–46), [999] are certainly pre-eminently genuine fragments, having precisely the spirit and tone of the rabbinical dialectics in the time of Jesus. The third and fifth among them are particularly worthy of note, because they exhibit Jesus as an interpreter of Scripture. With respect to the former, wherein Jesus endeavours to convince the Sadducees that there will be a resurrection of the dead, from the Mosaic designation of God as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, maintaining that he is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. xxii. 31–33 parall.): Paulus admits that Jesus here argues subtilly, while he contends that the conclusion is really involved in the premises. But in the expression אֱלהֵי־אַבְרָהָם the God of Abraham, etc., which had become a mere formula, nothing more is implied than that Jehovah, as he had been the protecting Deity of these men, would for ever continue such to their posterity. An individual relation subsisting between Jehovah and the patriarchs after their death, is nowhere else alluded to in the Old Testament, and could only be discovered in the above form by rabbinical interpreters, at a time when it was thought desirable, at any cost, to show that the idea of immortality, which had become prevalent, was contained in the law; where, however, it is not to be met with by unprejudiced eyes. We find the relation of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, adduced as a guarantee of immortality elsewhere in rabbinical argumentations, all of which could hardly have been modelled on this one of Jesus. [1000] If we look into the most recent commentaries, we nowhere find a candid confession as to the real character of the argumentation in question. Olshausen has wonders to tell of the deep truth contained in it, and thinks that he can deduce from it, in the shortest way, the authenticity and divinity of the Pentateuch. Paulus sees the validity of the proof between the lines of the text; Fritzsche is silent. Wherefore these evasions? Why is the praise of having seen clearly, and spoken openly, in this matter, abandoned to the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist? [1001] What spectres and double-sighted beings, must Moses and Jesus have been, if they mixed with their cotemporaries without any real participation in their opinions and weaknesses, their joys and griefs: if, mentally dwelling apart from their age and nation, they conformed to these relations only externally and by accommodation, while, internally and according to their nature, they stood among the foremost ranks of the enlightened in modern times! Far more noble were these men, nay, they would then only engage our sympathy and reverence, if, in a genuinely human manner, struggling with the limitations and prejudices of their age, they succumbed to them in a hundred secondary matters, and only attained perfect freedom in relation to the one point by which each was destined to contribute to the advancement of mankind.

A controversial question concerning the Messiah is proposed (v. 41–46) to the Pharisees by Jesus, namely, How can the same personage be at once the Lord and the son of David? Paulus maintains that this is a model of interpretation in conformity with the text; [1002] an assertion which is no good augury that his own possesses that qualification. According to him, Jesus, in asking how David could call the Messiah, Lord, when in the general opinion he was his son, intended to apprise the Pharisees, that in this Psalm it is not David who is speaking of the Messiah, but another poet who is speaking of David as his lord, so that to suppose this warlike psalm a messianic one, is a mistake. Why, asks Paulus, should not Jesus have found out this interpretation, since it is the true one? But this is the grand error of his entire scheme of interpretation—to suppose that what is truth in itself, or more correctly, for us, must, even to the minutest details, have been truth for Jesus and the apostles. The majority of ancient Jewish interpreters apply this psalm to the Messiah; [1003] the apostles use it as a prophecy concerning Christ (Acts ii. 34 f.; 1 Cor. xv. 25); Jesus himself, according to Matthew and Mark, adds ἐν πνεύματι to Δαβὶδ καλεῖ αὐτὸν Κύριον, thus plainly giving his approval to the notion that it is David who there speaks, and that the Messiah is his subject: how then can it be thought that he held the contrary opinion? It is far more probable, as Olshausen has well shown, that Jesus believed the psalm to be a messianic one: while, on the other hand, Paulus is equally correct in maintaining that it originally referred, not to the Messiah, but to some Jewish ruler, whether David or another. Thus we find that Jesus here gives a model of interpretation, in conformity, not with the text, but with the spirit of his time: a discovery which, if the above observations be just, ought to excite no surprise. The solution of the enigma which Jesus here proposes to the Pharisees, lay without doubt, according to his idea, in the doctrine of the higher nature of the Messiah; whether he held that, in virtue of this, he might be styled the Lord of David, while, in virtue of his human nature, he might also be regarded as his son; or whether he wished to remove the latter notion as erroneous. [1004] The result, however, and perhaps also the intention of Jesus with respect to the Pharisees, was merely to convince them that he was capable of retaliating on them, in their own way, by embarrassing them with captious questions, and that with better success than they had obtained in their attempts to entrap him. Hence the Evangelists place this passage at the close of the disputations prompted by the Pharisees, and Matthew adds, Neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions: a concluding form which is more suitable here than after the lesson administered to the Sadducees, where it is placed by Luke (xx. 40), or than after the discussion on the greatest commandment, where it is introduced by Mark (xii. 34).

Immediately before this question of Jesus, the first two Evangelists narrate a conversation with a lawyer, νομικὸς, or scribe, γραμματεὺς, concerning the greatest commandment. (Matt. xxii. 34 ff.; Mark xii. 28 ff.) Matthew annexes this conversation to the dispute with the Sadducees, as if the Pharisees wished, by their question as to the greatest commandment, to avenge the defeat of the Sadducees. It is well known, however, that these sects were not thus friendly; on the contrary, we read in the Acts (xxiii. 7), that the Pharisees were inclined to go over to the side of one whom they had previously persecuted, solely because he had had the address to take the position of an opponent towards the Sadducees. We may here quote Schneckenburger’s observation, [1005] that Matthew not seldom (iii. 7, xvi. 1) places the Pharisees and Sadducees side by side in a way that represents, not their real hostility, but their association in the memory of tradition, in which one opposite suggested another. In this respect, Mark’s mode of annexing this conversation to the foregoing, is more consistent; but all the synoptists seem to labour under a common mistake in supposing that these discussions, grouped together in tradition on account of their analogy, followed each other so closely in time, that one colloquy elicited another. Luke does not give the question concerning the greatest commandment in connexion with the controversies on the resurrection and on the Messiah; but he has a similar incident earlier, in his narrative of the journey to Jerusalem (x. 25 ff.). The general opinion is that the first two Evangelists recount the same occurrence and the third, a distinct one. [1006] It is true that the narrative of Luke differs from that of Matthew and Mark, in several not immaterial points. The first difference, which we have already noticed, relates to chronological position, and this has been the chief inducement to the supposition of two events. The next difference lies in the nature of the question, which, in Luke, turns on the rule of life calculated to insure the inheritance of eternal life, but, in the other Evangelists, on the greatest commandment. The third difference is in the subject who pronounces this commandment, the first two synoptists representing it to be Jesus, the third, the lawyer. Lastly, there is a difference as to the issue, the lawyer in Luke putting a second, self-vindicatory, question, which calls forth the parable of the good Samaritan; while in the two other Evangelists, he retires either satisfied, or silenced by the answer to the first. Meanwhile, even between the narrative of Matthew and that of Mark, there are important divergencies. The principal relates to the character of the querist, who in Matthew proposes his question with a view to tempt Jesus (πειράζων); in Mark, with good intentions, because he had perceived that Jesus had answered the Sadducees well. Paulus, indeed, although he elsewhere (Luke x. 25) considers the act of tempting (ἐκπειράζων) as the putting a person to the proof to subserve interested views, pronounces that the word πειράζων in this instance can only be intended in a good sense. But the sole ground for this interpretation lies, not in Matthew, but in Mark, and in the unfounded supposition that the two writers could not have a different idea of the character and intention of the inquiring doctor of the law. Fritzsche has correctly pointed out the difficulty of conciliating Matthew and Mark as lying, partly in the meaning of the word πειράζων, and partly in the context, it being inadmissible to suppose one among a series of malevolent questions, friendly, without any intimation of the distinction on the part of the writer. With this important diversity is connected the minor one, that while in Matthew, the scribe, after Jesus has recited the two commandments, is silent, apparently from shame, which is no sign of a friendly disposition on his part towards Jesus; in Mark, he not only bestows on Jesus the approving expression, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth, but enlarges on his doctrine so as to draw from Jesus the declaration that he has answered discreetly, and is, not far from the kingdom of God. It may be also noticed that while in Matthew Jesus simply repeats the commandment of love, in Mark he prefaces it by the words, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord. Thus, if it be held that the differences between the narrative of Luke, and that of the two other Evangelists, entail a necessity for supposing that they are founded on two separate events; the no slighter differences between Mark and Matthew must in all consistency be made a reason for supposing a third. But it is so difficult to credit the reality of three occurrences essentially alike, that the other alternative, of reducing them to one, must, prejudice apart, be always preferred. The narratives of Matthew and Mark are the most easily identified; but there are not wanting points of contact between Matthew and Luke, for in both the lawyer νομικὸς appears as a tempter (πειράζων), and is not impressed in favour of Jesus by his answer; nor even between Luke and Mark, for these agree in appending explanatory remarks to the greatest commandment, as well as in the insertion of forms of assent, such as, Thou hast answered right, Thou hast said the truth. Hence it is evident that to fuse only two of their narratives is a half measure, and that we must either regard all three as independent, or all three as identical: whence again we may observe the freedom which was used by the early Christian legend, in giving various forms to a single fact or idea—the fundamental fact in the present case being, that, out of the whole Mosaic code, Jesus had selected the two commandments concerning the love of God and our neighbour as the most excellent. [1007]