directed by Jesus to prepare for the meal, was already the first day of
unleavened bread, ἡ πρώτη τῶν ἀζύμων, when the passover must be killed,
ἐν ᾗ ἔδει θύεσθαι τὸ πάσχα (Matt. xxvi. 17 parall.): we cannot suppose
the meal in question to have been any other than the paschal; further,
when the disciples ask Jesus, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee
to eat the passover? ποῦ θέλεις ἑτοιμάσωμέν σοι φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα; when
it is hereupon said of the disciples, that they made ready the
passover, ἡτοίμασαν τὸ πάσχα (Matt. v. 19 parall.), and of Jesus, that
when evening was come, he sat down with the twelve, ὀψίας γενομένης
ἀνέκειτο μετὰ τῶν δώδεκα (v. 20): the meal to which they here sat down
appears to be marked out even to the superfluity as the paschal, even
if Luke (xxii. 15) did not make Jesus open the repast with the words:
With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you, ἐπιθυμίᾳ
ἐπεθύμησα τοῦτο τὸ πάσχα φαγεῖν μεθ’ ὑμῶν.—When, on the other hand, the
fourth gospel commences its narrative of the last meal with the
statement of time: before the feast of the passover, πρὸ δὲ τῆς ἑορτῆς
τοῦ πάσχα, (xiii. 1); the supper, δεῖπνον, which is mentioned
immediately after (v. 2), appears also to happen before the passover;
especially as throughout John’s description of this evening, which,
especially in relation to the discourses accompanying the meal, is very
ample, there is not any notice or even allusion, to indicate that Jesus
was on this occasion celebrating the passover. Further, when Jesus
after the meal addresses the traitor with the summons, what thou doest,
do quickly, this is misunderstood by the rest of the disciples to mean,
Buy those things that we have need of against the feast, εἰς τὴν ἑορτήν
(v. 29). Now the requirements for the feast related chiefly to the
paschal meal, and consequently the meal just concluded cannot have been
the paschal. Again, it is said, xviii. 28, that on the following
morning, the Jews would not enter the Gentile prætorium, lest they
should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover, ἵνα μὴ
μιανθῶσιν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα, φάγωσι τὸ πάσχα: whence it would seem that the
paschal meal was yet in prospect. To this it may be added that this
same succeeding day, on which Jesus was crucified, is called the
preparation of the passover, παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, i.e. the day on the
evening of which the paschal lamb was to be eaten; moreover, when it is
said of the second day after the meal in question, being that which
Jesus passed in the grave: that sabbath day was an high day, ἦν γὰρ
μεγάλη ἡ ἡμέρα ἐκείνου τοῦ σαββάτου (xix. 31); this peculiar solemnity
appears to have proceeded from the circumstance, that on that sabbath
fell the first day of the passover, so that the paschal lamb was not
eaten on the evening on which Jesus was arrested, but on the evening of
his burial.
These divergencies are so important, that many expositors, in order to
prevent the Evangelists from falling into contradiction with each
other, have here also tried the old expedient of supposing that they do
not speak of the same thing—that John intends to describe an altogether
different repast from that of the synoptists. According to this view,
the δεῖπνον of John was an ordinary evening meal, doubtless in Bethany;
on this occasion Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, spoke of the
betrayer, and after Judas had left the company, added other discourses
of a consoling and admonitory tendency, until at length, on the morning
of the 14th of Nisan, he summoned the disciples to depart from Bethany
and proceed to Jerusalem, in the words: Arise, let us go hence (xiv.
31). Here the synoptical account may be interposed, since it represents
the two disciples as being sent forward to Jerusalem to prepare for the
paschal meal, and then records its celebration, concerning which John
is silent, and only takes up the thread of the narrative at the
discourses delivered after the paschal meal (xv. 1 ff.). [1762] But
this attempt to avoid contradiction by referring the respective
narratives to totally different events, is counteracted by the
undeniable identity of many features in the two meals. Independently of
isolated particulars which are found alike in both accounts, it is
plain that John, as well as the synoptists, intends to describe the
last meal of which Jesus partook with his disciples. This is implied in
the introduction to John’s narrative; for the proof which is there said
to be given of Jesus having loved his own unto the end, εἰς τέλος, may
be the most suitably referred to his last moments of companionship with
them. In like manner, the discourses after the meal point to the
prospect of immediate separation; and the meal and discourses are, in
John also, immediately followed by the departure to Gethsemane and the
arrest of Jesus. It is true that, according to the above opinion, these
last-named incidents are connected only with those discourses which
were delivered on the occasion of the later meal, omitted by John (xv.
17): but that between xiv. 31 and xv. 1 the author of the fourth gospel
intentionally omitted the whole incident of the paschal meal, is a
position which, although it might appear to explain with some
plausibility the singular ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν, Arise, let us go
hence, no one will now seriously maintain. But even admitting such an
ellipsis, there still remains the fact that Jesus (xiii. 38) foretells
to Peter his denial with this determination of time: οὐ μὴ ἀλέκτωρ
φωνήσῃ, the cock shall not crow, which he could only make use of at the
last meal, and not, as is here presupposed, at an earlier one. [1763]
Thus this expedient must be relinquished, and it must be admitted that
all the Evangelists intend to speak of the same meal, namely, the last
of which Jesus partook with his disciples. And in making this
admission, the fairness which we owe to every author, and which was
believed to be due in a peculiar degree to the authors of the Bible,
appeared to demand an enquiry whether, although they represent one and
the same event with great divergencies in several respects, yet
nevertheless both sides may not be correct. To obtain an affirmative
result of this inquiry it must be shown, as regards the time, either
that the three first Evangelists, as well as the fourth, do not intend
to describe a paschal meal, or that the latter, as well as the former,
does so intend.
In an ancient Fragment [1764] it is sought to solve the problem in the
first method, by denying that Matthew places the last meal of Jesus at
the proper time for the paschal meal, the evening of the 14th of Nisan,
and his passion on the first day of the feast of the passover, the 15th
of Nisan; but one does not see how the express indications respecting
the passover in the synoptists can be neutralized.
Hence it has been a far more general attempt in recent times, to draw
John to the side of the other Evangelists. [1765] His expression before
the feast of the passover, πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ πάσχα (xiii. 1), was
thought to be divested of its difficulty by the observation that it is
not immediately connected with the supper δεῖπνον, but only with the
statement that Jesus knew that his hour was come, and that he loved his
own unto the end; it is only in the succeeding verse that there is any
mention of the meal, to which therefore that determination of time does
not refer. But to what then can it refer? to the knowledge that his
hour was come? this is only an incidental remark; or to the love which
endured to the end? but to this so special a determination of time can
only refer, if an external proof of love be intended, and such an one
is presented in his conduct at the meal, which consequently remains the
point to which that determination of the day must apply. It is
therefore conjectured further that the words πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς were used
out of accommodation to the Greeks for whom John wrote: since that
people did not, like the Jews, begin their day with the evening, the
meal taken at the beginning of the first day of the passover, would
appear to them to be taken on the evening before the passover. But what
judicious writer, if he supposes a misconstruction possible on the part
of the reader, chooses language which can only serve to encourage that
misconstruction? A still more formidable difficulty is presented by
xviii. 28, where the Jews, on the morning after the imprisonment of
Jesus, will not enter the judgment hall lest they should be defiled,
but that they may eat the passover, ἀλλ’ ἵνα φάγωσι τὸ πάσχα.
Nevertheless it was supposed that passages such as Deut. xvi. 1, 2,
where all the sacrifices to be killed during the time of the passover
are denoted by the expression פֶּסַח, authorise the interpretation of τὸ
πάσχα in this place of the remaining sacrifices to be offered during
the paschal week, and especially of the Chagiga, which was to be
consumed towards the end of the first feast day. But as Mosheim has
correctly remarked, from the fact that the paschal lamb, together with
the rest of the sacrifices to be offered during the feast of the
passover was designated πάσχα, it by no means follows that these can be
so designated with the exclusion of the paschal lamb. [1766] On the
other hand, the friends of the above view have sought to show the
necessity of their mode of interpretation, by observing that for the
eating of the passover which was celebrated late in the evening,
consequently at the commencement of the succeeding day, the entering of
a Gentile house in the morning, being a defilement which lasted only
through the current day, would have been no disqualification; but that
it would have been such for the partaking of the Chagiga, which was
eaten in the afternoon, consequently on the same day on which the
defilement was contracted; so that only this, and not the passover, can
have been intended. But first, we do not know whether entrance into a
Gentile house was a defilement for the day merely; secondly, if such
were the case, the Jews, by a defilement contracted in the morning,
would still have disqualified themselves from participating in the
preparatory proceedings, which fell on the afternoon of the 14th of
Nisan; as, for example, the slaying of the lamb in the outer court of
the temple. Lastly, in order to interpret the passage xix. 14 in
consistency with their own view, the harmonists understand the
preparation of the passover, παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, to mean the day of
preparation for the sabbath in the Easter week; a violence of
interpretation which at least finds no countenance in xix. 31, where
the παρασκευὴ is said to be the preparation for the sabbath, since from
this passage it only appears, that the Evangelist conceived the first
day of the passover as occurring that year on the sabbath. [1767]
These difficulties, which resist the reference of the narrative in John
to a real paschal meal, appeared to be obviated by a presupposition
derived from Lev. xxiii. 5; Num. ix. 3; and a passage in Josephus;
[1768] namely, that the paschal lamb was eaten, not on the evening from
the 14th to the 15th, but on that from the 13th to the 14th of Nisan,
so that between the paschal meal and the first feast day, the 15th of
Nisan, there fell a working day, the 14th. On this supposition, it
would be correct that the day following the last paschal meal taken by
Jesus, should be called, as in John xix. 14, the preparation of the
passover, παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, because it was actually a day of
preparation for the feast day; it would also be correct that the
following sabbath should be called μεγάλη (xix. 31), since it would
coincide with the first day of the feast. [1769] But the greatest
difficulty, which lies in John xviii. 28, remains unsolved; for on this
plan the words, that they might eat the passover, ἵνα φαγωσι τὸ πάσχα,
must, since the paschal meal would be already past, be understood of
the unleavened bread, which was eaten also during the succeeding feast
days: an interpretation which is contrary to all the usages of
language. If to this it be added, that the supposition of a working day
falling between the passover and the first feast day, has no foundation
in the Pentateuch and Josephus, that it is decidedly opposed to later
custom, and is in itself extremely improbable; this expedient cannot
but be relinquished. [1770]
Perceiving the impossibility of effecting the reconciliation of the
synoptists with John by this simple method, other expositors have
resorted to a more artificial expedient. The appearance of the
Evangelists having placed the last meal of Jesus on different days, is
alleged to have its truth in the fact, that either the Jews or Jesus
celebrated the passover on another than the usual day. The Jews, say
some, in order to avoid the inconvenience arising from the
circumstance, that in that year the first day of the passover fell on a
Friday, so that two consecutive days must have been solemnized as a
sabbath, deferred the paschal meal until the Friday evening, whence on
the day of the crucifixion they had still to beware of defilement;
Jesus, however, adhering strictly to the law, celebrated it at the
prescribed time, on the Thursday evening: so that the synoptists are
right when they describe the last meal of Jesus as an actual
celebration of the passover; and John also is right when he represents
the Jews as, the day after, still looking forward to the eating of the
paschal lamb. [1771] In this case, Mark would be wrong in his
statement, that on the day when they killed the passover, ὅτε τὸ πάσχα
ἔθυον (v. 12), Jesus also caused it to be prepared; but the main point
is, that though in certain cases the passover was celebrated in a later
month, it was still on the 15th day; there is nowhere any trace of a
transference to a later day of the same month.—It has therefore been a
more favourite supposition that Jesus anticipated the usual time of
eating the passover. From purely personal motives, some have thought,
foreseeing that at the proper time of the paschal supper he should be
already lying in the grave, or at least not sure of life until that
period, he, like those Jews who were prevented from journeying to the
feast, and like all the Jews of the present day, without a sacrificed
lamb, and with mere substitutes for it, celebrated a commemorative
passover, πάσχα μνημονευτικὸν. [1772] But in the first place, Jesus
would not then, as Luke says, have kept the passover on the day on
which the passover must be killed, ἐν ᾗ εἴδει τύεσθαι τὸ πάσχα; and
secondly, in the merely commemorative celebration of the passover,
though the prescribed locality (Jerusalem) is dispensed with, the
regular time (the evening from the 14th to the 15th Nisan) is
inviolably observed: whereas in the case of Jesus the reverse would
hold, and he would have celebrated the passover at the usual place, but
at an unusual time, which is without example. To shield the alleged
transposition of the passover by Jesus from the charge of being
unprecedented and arbitrary, it has been maintained that an entire
party of his cotemporaries joined in celebrating the passover earlier
than the great body of the nation. It is known that the Jewish sect of
the Caraites or Scripturalists differed from the Rabbinites or
Traditionalists especially in the determination of the new moon,
maintaining that the practice of the latter in fixing the new moon
according to astronomical calculation was an innovation, whereas they,
true to the ancient, legal practice, determined it according to an
empirical observation of the phase of the new luminary. Now in the time
of Jesus, we are told, the Sadducees, from whom the Caraites are said
to have sprung, determined the time of the new moon, and with it that
of the festival of the passover, which was dependent upon it,
differently from the Pharisees; and Jesus, as the opponent of tradition
and the friend of scripture, favoured their practice in this matter.
[1773] But not to insist that the connexion of the Caraites with the
ancient Sadducees is a mere conjecture; it was a well-founded objection
put forth by the Caraites, that the determination of the new moon by
calculation did not arise until after the destruction of the temple by
the Romans; so that at the time of Jesus such a difference cannot have
existed; nor is there besides any indication to be discovered that at
that time the passover was celebrated on different days by different
parties. [1774] Supposing, however, that the above difference as to the
determining of the new moon already prevailed in the time of Jesus, the
settling of it according to the phase, which Jesus is supposed to have
followed, would rather have resulted in a later than an earlier
celebration of the passover; whence some have actually conjectured that
more probably Jesus followed the astronomical calculation. [1775]
Besides what may thus be separately urged against every attempt at an
amicable adjustment of the differences between the Evangelists, as to
the time of the last supper; there is one circumstance which is
decisive against all, and which only the most recent criticism has
adequately exposed. With respect, namely, to this contradiction, the
case is not so that among passages for the most part harmonious, there
appear only one or two statements of an apparently inconsistent sense,
of which it might be said that the author had here used an inaccurate
expression, to be explained from the remaining passages: but, that all
the chronological statements of the synoptists tend to show that Jesus
must have celebrated the passover, all those of John, on the contrary,
that he cannot have celebrated it. [1776] Thus there stand opposed to
each other two differing series of evangelical passages, which are
manifestly based on two different views of the fact on the part of the
narrators: hence, as Sieffert remarks, to persist in disputing the
existence of a divergency between the Evangelists, can no longer be
regarded as scientific exposition, but only as unscientific
arbitrariness and obstinacy.
Modern criticism is therefore constrained to admit, that on one side or
the other there is an error; and, setting aside the current prejudices
in favour of the fourth gospel, it was really an important reason which
appeared to necessitate the imputation of this error to the synoptists.
The ancient Fragment attributed to Apollinaris, mentioned above,
objects to the opinion that Jesus suffered on the great day of
unleavened bread, τῇ μεγάλῃ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν ἀζύμων ἔπαθεν, that this would
have been contrary to the law ἀσύμφωνος τῷ νόμῳ; and in recent times
also it has been observed, that the day following the last meal of
Jesus is treated on all sides so entirely as a working day, that it
cannot be supposed the first day of the passover, nor, consequently,
the meal of the previous evening, the paschal meal. Jesus does not
solemnize the day, for he goes out of the city, an act which was
forbidden on the night of the passover; nor do his friends, for they
begin the preparations for his burial, and only leave them unfinished
on account of the arrival of the next day, the sabbath; still less do
the members of the Sanhedrim keep it sacred, for they not only send
their servants out of the city to arrest Jesus, but also personally
undertake judicial proceedings, a trial, sentence, and accusation
before the Procurator; in general, there appears, throughout, only the
fear of desecrating the following day, which commenced on the evening
of the crucifixion, and nowhere any solicitude about the current one:
clear signs that the synoptical representation of the meal as a paschal
one, is a later error, since in the remaining narrative of the
synoptists themselves, there is evidence, not easy to be mistaken, of
the real fact, that Jesus was crucified before the passover. [1777]
These observations are certainly of weight. It is true that the first,
relative to the conduct of Jesus, might perhaps be invalidated by the
contradiction existing between the Jewish decisions as to the law
cited; [1778] while the last and strongest may be opposed by the fact,
that trying and giving sentence on the sabbaths and feast days was not
only permitted among the Jews, but there was even a larger place for
the administration of justice on such days, on account of the greater
concourse of people; so, also, according to the New Testament itself,
the Jews sent out officers to seize Jesus on the great day ἡμέρα μεγάλη
of the Feast of Tabernacles (John vii. 44 f.), and at the Feast of
Dedication they were about to stone him (John x. 31), while Herod
caused Peter to be imprisoned during the days of unleavened bread;
though indeed he intended to defer the public sentencing and execution
until after the passover (Acts xii. 2 f.). In proof that the
crucifixion of Jesus might take place on the feast of the passover, it
is urged that the execution was performed by Roman soldiers; and that
moreover, even according to Jewish custom, it was usual to reserve the
execution of important criminals for a feast time, in order to make an
impression on a greater multitude. [1779] But only thus much is to be
proved: that during the feast time, and thus during the passover, on
the five intermediate and less solemn days, criminals were tried and
executed,—not that this was admissible also on the first and last days
of the passover, which ranked as sabbaths; [1780] and thus we read in
the Talmud that Jesus was crucified on the ערב פסה, i.e. the evening
before the passover. [1781] It would be another thing if, as Dr. Baur
strives to prove, the execution of criminals, as a sanguinary expiation
for the people, belonged to the essential significance of the passover,
as a feast of expiation, and hence the custom, noticed by the
Evangelists, of liberating a prisoner at the feast had been only the
reverse side to the execution of another, presenting the same relation
as that between the two goats and the two sparrows in the Jewish
offerings of atonement and purification. [1782]
It is certainly very possible that the primitive Christian tradition
might be led even unhistorically to associate the last supper of Jesus
with the paschal lamb, and the day of his death with the feast of the
passover. As the Christian supper represented in its form, the
passover, and in its import, the death of Jesus: it was natural enough
to unite these two points—to place the execution of Jesus on the first
day of the passover, and to regard his last meal, at which he was held
to have founded the Christian supper, as the paschal meal. It is true
that presupposing the author of the first gospel to have been an
apostle and a participator in the last meal of Jesus, it is difficult
to explain how he could fall into such a mistake. At least it is not
enough to say, with Theile, that the more the last meal partaken with
their master transcended all paschal meals in interest to the
disciples, the less would they concern themselves as to the time of it,
whether it occurred on the evening of the passover, or a day earlier.
[1783] For the first Evangelist does not leave this undetermined, but
speaks expressly of a paschal meal, and to this degree a real
participator, however long he might write after that evening, could not
possibly deceive himself. Thus on the above view, the supposition that
the first Evangelist was an eye-witness must be renounced, and he must
be held, in common with the two intermediate ones, to have drawn his
materials from tradition. [1784] The difficulty arising from the fact,
that all the synoptists, and consequently all those writers who have
preserved to us the common evangelical tradition, agree in such an
error, [1785] may perhaps be removed by the observation, that just as
generally as in the Judæo-Christian communities, in which the
evangelical tradition was originally formed, the Jewish passover was
still celebrated, so generally must the effort present itself to give
that feast a Christian import, by referring it to the death and the
last meal of Jesus.
But it is equally easy, presupposing the correctness of the synoptical
determination of time, to conceive how John might be led erroneously to
place the death of Jesus on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, and his
last meal on the previous evening. If, namely, this Evangelist found in
the circumstance that the legs of the crucified Christ were not broken,
a fulfilment of the words Not a bone of him shall be broken, ὀστοῦν οὐ
συντριβήσεται αὐτῷ (Exod. xii. 46): this supposed relation between the
death of Jesus and the paschal lamb might suggest to him the idea, that
at the same time in which the paschal lambs were killed, on the
afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, Jesus suffered on the cross and gave up
the ghost; [1786] in which case the meal taken the evening before was
not the paschal meal. [1787]
Thus we can conceive a possible cause of error on both sides, and since
the internal difficulty of the synoptical determination of time,
namely, the manifold violations of the first day of the passover, is in
some degree removed by the observations above cited, and is
counterpoised by the agreement of three Evangelists: our only course is
to acknowledge an irreconcilable contradiction between the respective
accounts, without venturing a decision as to which is the correct one.
§ 122.
DIVERGENCIES IN RELATION TO THE OCCURRENCES AT THE LAST MEAL OF JESUS.
Not only in relation to the time of the last meal of Jesus, but also in
relation to what passed on that occasion, there is a divergency between
the Evangelists. The chief difference lies between the synoptists and
the fourth gospel: but, on a stricter comparison, it is found that only
Matthew and Mark closely agree, and that Luke diverges from them
considerably, though on the whole he is more accordant with his
predecessors than with his successor.
Besides the meal itself, the following features are common to all the
accounts: that, during the meal, the coming betrayal by Judas is spoken
of; and that, during or after the meal, Jesus predicts to Peter his
denial. As minor differences we may notice, that in John, the mode of
indicating the traitor is another and more precise than that described
by the other Evangelists, and has a result of which the latter are
ignorant; and that, further, in the fourth gospel the meal is followed
by prolonged farewell discourses, which are not found in the
synoptists: but the principal difference is, that while according to
the synoptists Jesus instituted the Lord’s supper at this final meal,
in John he instead of this washes the disciples’ feet.
The three synoptists have in common the instituting of the Lord’s
supper, together with the announcement of the betrayal, and the denial;
but there exists a divergency between the two first and the third as to
the order of these occurrences, for in the former the announcement of
the betrayal stands first, in the latter, the instituting of the
Supper; while the announcement of Peter’s denial, in Luke, apparently
takes place in the room in which the repast had been held, in the two
other Evangelists, on the way to the Mount of Olives. Again, Luke
introduces some passages which the two first Evangelists either do not
give at all, or not in this connexion: the contention for pre-eminence
and the promise of the twelve thrones, have in their narratives a
totally different position; while what passes in Luke on the subject of
the swords is in them entirely wanting.
In his divergency from the two first Evangelists, Luke makes some
approximation to the fourth. As John, in the washing of the disciples’
feet, presents a symbolical act having reference to ambitious
contention for pre-eminence, accompanied by discourses on humility: so
Luke actually mentions a contention for pre-eminence, and appends to it
discourses not entirely without affinity with those in John; further,
it is in common with John that Luke makes the observations concerning
the betrayer occur at the opening of the repast, and after a symbolical
act; and lastly, that he represents the announcement of Peter’s denial
as having been delivered in the room where the repast had been held.
The greatest difficulty here naturally arises from the divergency, that
the institution of the Lord’s supper, unanimously recorded by the
synoptists, is wanting in John, who in its stead relates a totally
different act of Jesus, namely, the washing of the disciples’ feet.
Certainly, by those who, in similar cases, throughout the whole
previous course of the evangelical narrative, have found a sufficient
resource in the supposition, that it was the object of John to supply
the omissions of the earlier gospels, the present difficulty is
surmounted as well, or as ill, as any other. John, it is said, saw that
the institution of the Supper was already narrated in the three first
Evangelists in a way which fully agreed with his own recollection;
hence he held a repetition of it superfluous. [1788] But if, among the
histories already recorded in the three first gospels, the fourth
Evangelist really intended to reproduce only those in the
representation of which he found something to rectify or supply: why
does he give another edition of the history of the miraculous feeding,
in which he makes no emendation of any consequence, and at the same
time omit the institution of the Lord’s supper? For here the
divergencies between the synoptists in the arrangement of the scene,
and the turn given to the words of Jesus, and more especially the
circumstance that they, according to his representation, erroneously,
make that institution occur on the evening of the passover, must have
appeared to him a reason for furnishing an authentic account. In
consideration of this difficulty, the position that the author of the
fourth gospel was acquainted with the synoptical writings, and designed
to complete and rectify them, is now, indeed, abandoned; but it is
still maintained that he was acquainted with the common oral tradition,
and supposed it known to his readers also, and on this ground, it is
alleged he passed over the institution of the Supper as a history
generally known. [1789] But that it should be the object of an
evangelical writing to narrate only the less known, omitting the known,
is an idea which cannot be consistently entertained. Written records
imply a mistrust of oral tradition; they are intended not merely as a
supplement to this, but also as a means of fixing and preserving it,
and hence the capital facts, being the most spoken of, and therefore
the most exposed to misrepresentation, are precisely those which
written records can the least properly omit. Such a fact is the
founding of the Lord’s supper, and we find, from a comparison of the
different New Testament accounts, that the expressions with which Jesus
instituted it must have early received additions or mutilations;
consequently, it is the last particular which John should have omitted.
But, it is further said, the narrating of the institution of the Lord’s
supper was of no importance to the object of the fourth gospel. [1790]
How so? With regard to its general object, the convincing of its
readers that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God (xx. 31), was it of no
importance to communicate a scene in which he appears as the founder of
a new covenant, καινὴ διαθήκη? and in relation to the special object of
the passage in question, namely, the exhibiting of the love of Jesus as
a love which endured unto the end (xiii. 1), would it have contributed
nothing to mention how he offered his body and blood as meat and drink
to his followers, and thus realized his words in John vi.? But, it is
said, John here as elsewhere, only concerns himself with the more
profound discourses of Jesus, for which reason he passes over the
institution of the Supper, and begins his narrative with the discourse
connected with the washing of the disciples’ feet. [1791] Nothing,
however, but the most obdurate prejudice in favour of the fourth
gospel, can make this discourse on humility appear more profound than
what Jesus says of the partaking of his body and blood, when
instituting the Lord’s supper.
But the main point is that harmonists should show us in what part of
John’s narrative, if we are to believe that he presupposed Jesus to
have instituted the Supper at this last meal, he can have made the
alleged omission—that they should indicate the break at which that
incident may be suitably introduced. On looking into the different
commentaries, there appears to be more than one place excellently
adapted to such an insertion. According to Olshausen, the end of the
13th chapter, after the announcement of Peter’s denial, presents the
interval in which the institution of the Supper must be supposed to
occur; herewith the repast closed, and the succeeding discourses from
xiv. 1 were uttered by Jesus after the general rising from table, and
while standing in the chamber. [1792] But, here, it appears as if
Olshausen, for the sake of obtaining a resting place between xiii. 38
and xiv. 1, had resigned himself to the delusion of supposing that the
words Arise, let us go hence, at which he makes Jesus rise from table
and deliver the rest of his discourse standing, are found at the end of
the 13th chapter, whereas they do not occur until the end of the 14th.
Jesus had been speaking of going whither his disciples could not follow
him, and had just rebuked the rashness of Peter, in volunteering to lay
down life for his sake, by the prediction of his denial: here, at xiv.
1 ff., he calms the minds of the disciples, whom this prediction had
disturbed, exhorting them to faith, and directing their attention to
the blessed effects of his departure.—Repelled by the firm coherence of
this part of the discourse, other commentators, e.g. Paulus, retreat to
xiii. 30, and are of opinion that the institution of the Supper may be
the most fitly introduced after the withdrawal of Judas, for the
purpose of putting his treachery into execution, since this
circumstance might naturally excite in Jesus those thoughts concerning
his death which lie at the basis of the institution. [1793] But even
rejecting the opinion of Lücke and others, that ὅτε ἐξῆλθε, when he
went out, should be united to λέγει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Jesus said, it is
unquestionable that the words of Jesus v. 31, Now is the Son of man
glorified, etc., and what he says farther on (v. 33) of his speedy
departure, have an immediate reference to the retiring of Judas. For
the verb δοξάζειν in the fourth gospel always signifies the
glorification of Jesus, to which he is to be led by suffering; and with
the departure of the apostate disciple to those who brought suffering
and death on Jesus, his glorification and his speedy death were
decided.—The verses 31–33 being thus inseparably connected with v. 30;
the next step is to carry the institution of the Supper somewhat lower,
and place it where this connexion may appear to cease: accordingly,
Lücke makes it fall between v. 33 and 34, supposing that after Jesus
(v. 31–33) had composed the minds of the disciples, disturbed and
shocked by the departure of the traitor, and had prepared them for the
sacred meal, he, at v. 34 f., annexes to the distribution of the bread
and wine the new commandment of love. But, as it has been elsewhere
remarked, [1794] since at v. 36 Peter asks Jesus, in allusion to v. 33,
whither he will go, it is impossible that the Supper can have been
instituted after the declaration of Jesus v. 33; for otherwise Peter
would have interpreted the expression I go, ὑπάγω, by the body given
σῶμα διδόμενον and the blood shed αἷμα ἐκ χυνόμενον, or in any case
would rather have felt prompted to ask the meaning of these latter
expressions.—Acknowledging this, Neander retreats a verse, and inserts
the Supper between v. 32 and 33; [1795] but he thus violently severs
the obvious connexion between the words εὐθὺς δοξάσει αὐτὸν shall
straightway glorify him in the former verse, and the words ἔτι μικρὸν
μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰμι yet a little while I am with you in the latter.—It is,
therefore, necessary to retreat still farther than Neander, or even
Paulus: but as from v. 30 up to v. 18, the discourse turns
uninterruptedly on the traitor, and this discourse again is inseparably
linked to the washing of the disciples’ feet and the explanation of
that act, there is no place at which the institution of the Supper can
be inserted until the beginning of the chapter. Here, however,
according to one of the most recent critics, it may be inserted in a
way which perfectly exonerates the author of the gospel from the
reproach of misleading his reader by an account which is apparently
continuous, while it nevertheless passes over the Supper. For, says
this critic, from the very commencement John does not profess to
narrate anything of the meal itself, or what was concomitant with it,
but only what occurred after the meal; inasmuch as the most natural
interpretation of δείπνου γενομένου is: after the meal was ended, while
the words ἐγείρεται ἐκ τοῦ δείπνου, he riseth from supper, plainly show
that the washing of the disciples’ feet was not commenced until after
the meal. [1796] But after the washing of the feet is concluded, it is
said of Jesus, that he sat down again (ἀναπεσὼν πάλιν v. 12),
consequently the meal was not yet ended when he commenced that act, and
by the words he riseth from supper, it is meant that he rose to wash
the disciples’ feet from the yet unfinished meal, or at least after the
places had been taken preparatory to the meal. Again, δείπνου γενομένου
does not mean: after a meal was ended, any more than the words τοῦ Ἰ.
γενομένου ἐν Βηθανίᾳ (Matt. xxvi. 6) mean: after Jesus had been in
Bethany: as the latter expression is intended by Matthew to denote the
time during the residence of Jesus in Bethany, so the former is
intended by John to denote the course of the meal itself. [1797] Hence
he thereby professes to inform us of every remarkable occurrence
connected with that meal, and in omitting to mention the institution of
the Lord’s supper, which was one of its features, he incurs the
reproach of having given a deficient narrative, nay of having left out
precisely what is most important.—Instead of this highest extremity of
John’s account, Kern has recently taken the lowest, and has placed the
institution of the Supper after the words, Arise, let us go hence, xiv.
31; [1798] whereby he assigns to it the improbable and indeed unworthy
position, of an act only occurring to Jesus when he is preparing to
depart.
Thus, viewing the subject generally, there is no conceivable motive why
John, if he spoke of this last evening at all, should have omitted the
institution of the Lord’s supper; while, on descending to a particular
consideration, there is in the course of his narrative no point where
it could be inserted: hence nothing remains but to conclude that he
does not mention it because it was unknown to him. But as a means of
resisting this conclusion, theologians, even such as acknowledge
themselves unable to explain the omission of the institution, rely on
the observation, that a rite so universally prevalent in the primitive
church as was the Lord’s supper, cannot possibly have been unknown to
the fourth Evangelist, whoever he may have been. [1799] Certainly, he
knew of the Lord’s supper as a Christian rite, for this may be inferred
from his 6th chapter, and unavoidably he must have known of it; it may,
however, have been unknown to him under what circumstances Jesus
formally instituted this observance. The referring of so revered an
usage to the authority of Jesus himself was an object of interest to
this Evangelist; but from unacquaintance with the synoptical scene, and
also from a partiality for the mysterious, which led him to put into
the mouth of Jesus expressions unintelligible at the moment, and only
to be explained by the issue, he effected this purpose, not by making
Jesus actually institute the rite, but by attributing to him obscure
expressions about the necessity of eating his flesh and drinking his
blood, which, being rendered intelligible only by the rite of the
Lord’s supper introduced into the church after his death, might be
regarded as an indirect institution of that rite.
As John omits the institution of the Lord’s supper, so the synoptists
omit the washing of the disciples’ feet: but it cannot be maintained
with equal decision that they were therefore ignorant of this incident;
partly on account of its inferior importance and the more fragmentary
character of this part of the synoptical narrative; and partly because,
as has been above remarked, the contention for pre-eminence in Luke v.
24 ff. has appeared to many expositors to be connected with the washing
of the disciples’ feet, as the inducement to that action on the part of
Jesus. [1800] But as regards this contention for pre-eminence, we have
shown above, that being unsuited to the tenor of the scene before us,
it may owe its position only to a fortuitous association of ideas in
the narrator: [1801] while the washing of the disciples’ feet, in John,
might appear to be a legendary development of a synoptical discourse on
humility. In Matthew (xx. 26 ff.) Jesus admonishes his disciples that
he among them who would be great must be the minister διάκονος of the
others, just as he himself came not to be ministered unto but to
minister διακονηθῆναι, ἀλλὰ διακονησαι; and in Luke (xxii. 27) he
expresses the same thought in the question: Whether is greater, he that
sitteth at meat or he that that serveth? τίς γὰρ μείζων; ὁ ἀνακείμενος,
ἢ ὁ διακονῶν; and adds, but I am among you as he that serveth, ἐγὼ δέ
εἰμι ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν ὡς ὁ διακονῶν. Now it is certainly probable that
Jesus might see fit to impress this lesson on the disciples through the
medium of their senses, by an actual serving διακονεῖν among them,
while they played the part of those sitting at meat (ἀνακείμενοι); but
it is equally probable, since the synoptists are silent respecting such
a measure, that either the legend, before it reached the fourth
Evangelist, or this writer himself, spun the fact out of the dictum.
[1802] Nor is it necessary to suppose that the above declaration came
to him as having been uttered at the last meal of Jesus, in accordance
with the representation of Luke; for it naturally resulted from the
expressions ἀνακεῖσθαι (to recline at meat), and διακονεῖν (to serve),
that this symbolizing of the relation which they denote should be
attached to a meal, and this meal might on easily conceivable grounds
appear to be the most appropriately represented as the last.
According to Luke’s representation, Jesus on this occasion addresses
the disciples as those who had continued with him in his temptations,
and as a reward for this fidelity promises them that they shall sit
with him at table in his kingdom, and seated on thrones, judge the
twelve tribes of Israel (v. 28–30). This appears incongruous with a
scene in which he had immediately before announced his betrayal by one
of the twelve, and in which he immediately after predicted his denial
by another; at a time, moreover, in which the temptations πειρασμοὶ
properly so called, were yet future. After what we have already
observed in relation to the entire character of the scene in Luke, we
can hardly seek the reason for the insertion of this fragment of a
discourse, in anything else than a fortuitous association of ideas, in
which the contention about rank among the disciples might suggest the
rank promised to them by Jesus, and the discourse on sitting at table
and serving, the promise that the disciples should sit at table with
Jesus in his messianic kingdom. [1803]
In the succeeding conversation Jesus says to his disciples
figuratively, that now it will be necessary to buy themselves swords,
so hostilely will they be met on all sides, but is understood by them
literally, and is shown two swords already in the possession of the
society. Concerning this passage I am inclined to agree with
Schleiermacher, who is of opinion that Luke introduced it here as a
prelude to Peter’s use of the sword in the ensuing narrative. [1804]
The other divergencies in relation to the last meal will come under
review in the course of the following investigations.
§ 123.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE BETRAYAL AND THE DENIAL.
In the statement that Jesus from the beginning knew who would be his
betrayer, the fourth gospel stands alone; but all four of the
Evangelists concur in testifying that at his last meal he predicted his
betrayal by one of his disciples.
But in the first place there is this difference: while according to
Matthew and Mark the discourse respecting the betrayer opens the scene,
and in particular precedes the institution of the Lord’s supper (Matt.
xxvi. 21 ff.; Mark xiv. 18 ff.); Luke represents Jesus as not speaking
of the betrayer until after the commencement of the meal, and the
institution of the commemorative rite (xxii. 21 ff.); and in John what
relates to the betrayer goes forward during and after the washing of
the disciples’ feet (xiii. 10–30). The intrinsically trivial question,
which Evangelist is here right, is extremely important to theologians,
because its decision involves the answer to another question, namely,
whether the betrayer also partook of the ritual Supper. It neither
appeared consistent with the idea of that supper as a feast of the most
intimate love and union, that a virtual alien like Judas should
participate in it, nor did it seem to accord with the love and
compassion of the Lord, that he should have permitted an unworthy
disciple by this participation to aggravate his guilt. [1805] So
undesirable a view of the facts was believed to be avoided by following
the arrangement of Matthew and Mark, and making the designation of the
betrayer precede the institution of the Supper: for as it was known
from John, that as soon as Judas saw himself detected and exposed, he
withdrew from the company, it would thence appear that Jesus did not
institute the Supper until after the retirement of the traitor. [1806]
But this expedient is founded on nothing but an inadmissible
incorporation of the narrative of John with that of the synoptists. For
the withdrawal of Judas is mentioned only by the fourth Evangelist; and
he alone needs the supposition of such a circumstance, because,
according to him, Judas now first entered into his transactions with
the enemies of Jesus, and thus, in order to come to terms with them,
and obtain the requisite force, needed a somewhat longer time. In the
synoptists there is no trace of the betrayer having left the company;
on the contrary, everything in their narrative appears to imply that
Judas, first on the general departure from the room in which the repast
had been taken, instead of going directly to the garden, went to the
chief priests, of whom he at once, the agreement having been made
beforehand, received the necessary force for the arrest of Jesus. Thus
whether Luke or Matthew be right in the arrangement of the scene, all
the synoptists intimate that Judas did not leave the company before the
general departure, and consequently that he partook of the ritual
Supper.
But also as to the manner in which Jesus pointed out his betrayer,
there exists no slight divergency between the Evangelists. In Luke
Jesus only makes the brief remark that the hand of his betrayer is with
him on the table, whereupon the disciples ask among themselves, who it
can be that is capable of such a deed? In Matthew and Mark he says,
first, that one of those, who are present will betray him; and when the
disciples individually ask him, Lord, is it I? he replies: he that
dippeth his hand with me in the dish; until at last, after a woe has
been denounced on the traitor, according to Matthew, Judas also puts
that question, and receives an affirmative answer. In John, Jesus
alludes to the betrayer during and after the washing of the disciples’
feet, in the observations, that not all the disciples present are
clean, and that on the contrary the scripture must be fulfilled: he
that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me. Then he
says plainly, that one of them will betray him; the disciples look
inquiringly at each other, wondering of whom he speaks, when Peter
prompts John, who is lying next to Jesus, to ask who is the traitor?
Jesus replies, he to whom he shall give a sop, which he immediately
does to Judas, with an admonition to hasten the execution of his
project; whereupon Judas leaves the company.
Here again the harmonists are at once ready to incorporate the
different scenes with each other, and render them mutually consistent.
According to them, Jesus, on the question of each disciple whether he
were the traitor, first declared aloud that one of his companions at
table would betray him (Matthew); hereupon John asked in a whisper
which of them he meant, and Jesus also in a whisper made the answer, he
to whom he should give the sop (John); then Judas, likewise in a
whisper, asked whether it were he, and Jesus in the same manner replied
in the affirmative (Matthew); lastly, after an admonition from Jesus to
be speedy, the betrayer left the company (John). [1807] But that the
question and answer interchanged between Jesus and Judas were spoken in
a whisper, Matthew, who alone communicates them, gives no intimation,
nor is this easily conceivable without presupposing the improbable
circumstance, that Judas reclined on the one side of Jesus, as John did
on the other: if, however, the colloquy were uttered aloud, the
disciples could not, as John narrates, have so strangely misunderstood
the words, what thou doest, do quickly,—and the supposition of a
stammering question on the side of Judas, and a low-toned answer from
Jesus, cannot be seriously held a satisfactory explanation. [1808] Nor
is it probable that Jesus, after having already made the declaration:
he who dippeth with me in the dish will betray me, would for the more
precise indication of the traitor have also given him a sop; it is
rather to be supposed that these are but two different modes of
reporting the same particular. But when once this is admitted, as it is
by Paulus and Olshausen, so much is already renounced either in
relation to the one narrative or the other, that it is inconsistent to
resort to forced suppositions, in order to overcome the difficulty
involved in the explicit answer which Matthew makes Jesus give to the
traitor; and it should rather be allowed that we have before us two
divergent accounts, of which the one was not so framed that its
deficiencies might be supplied by the other.
Having, with Sieffert and Fritzsche, attained this degree of insight,
the only remaining question is: to which of the two narratives must we
give the preference as the original? Sieffert has answered this
question very decidedly in favour of John; not merely, as he maintains,
because he shares in the prejudice which attributes to that Evangelist
the character of an eye-witness; but also because his narrative is in
this part, by its intrinsic evidence of truthfulness, and the vividness
of its scenes, advantageously distinguished from that of Matthew, which
presents no indications of an autoptical origin. For example, while
John is able to describe with the utmost minuteness the manner in which
Jesus indicated his betrayer: the narrative of the first gospel is such
as to induce the conjecture that its author had only received the
general information, that Jesus had personally indicated his betrayer.
[1809] It certainly cannot be denied, that the direct answer which
Jesus gives to Judas in Matthew (v. 25) has entirely the appearance of
having been framed, without much fertility of imagination, to accord
with the above general information; and in so far it must be regarded
as inferior to the more indirect, and therefore more probable mode of
indicating the traitor, in John. But in relation to another feature,
the result of the comparison is different. In the two first Evangelists
Jesus says: he who has dipped or who dippeth with me, ὁ ἐμβάψας or
ἐμβαπτόμενος μετ’ ἐμοῦ: in John, he to whom I shall give a sop when I
have dipped it, ᾧ ἐγὼ βάψας τὸ ψωμίον ἐπιδώσω; a difference in which
the greater preciseness of the indication, and consequently the
inferior probability, is on the side of the fourth gospel. In Luke,
Jesus designates the traitor merely as one of those who are sitting at
meat with him; and as regards the expression ὁ ἐμβάψας κ.τ.λ. in
Matthew and Mark, the interpretation given of it by Kuinöl and
Henneberg, [1810] who suppose it to mean one of the party at table,
leaving it uncertain which, is not so mistaken as Olshausen represents
it to be. For, first, to the question of the several disciples, is it
I? Jesus might see fit to return an evasive answer; and secondly, the
above answer, as Kuinöl has correctly remarked, stands in the relation
of an appropriate climax to the previous declaration: one of you shall
betray me (v. 21), since it presents that aggravating circumstance of
the betrayal, fellowship at table. Even if the authors of the two first
gospels understood the expression in question to imply, that Judas in
particular dipped his hand in the dish with Jesus, and hence supposed
this second declaration to have indicated him personally: still the
parallel passage in Luke, and the words εἶς ἐκ τῶν δώδεκα, one of the
twelve, which in Mark precede ὁ ἐμβαπτόμενος, show that originally the
second expression was merely an amplification of the former, though
from the wish to have a thoroughly unequivocal designation of the
betrayer on the part of Jesus, it was early interpreted in the other
more special sense. When, however, a legendary exaggeration of the
preciseness of the indication is once admitted, the manner in which the
fourth gospel describes that indication must be included in the series
of progressive representations, and according to Sieffert, it must have
been the original from which all the rest proceeded. But if we
beforehand renounce the affirmative reply to Judas, σὺ εἶπας, thou hast
said, in Matthew, the mode of designation in John is the most definite
of all; for the intimation: one of my companions at table, is
comparatively indefinite, and even the expression: he who dippeth with
me in the dish, is a less direct sign of the traitor, than if Jesus had
himself dipped the morsel and presented it to him. Now is it in the
spirit of the ancient legend, if Jesus really gave the more precise
designation, to lose its hold of this, and substitute one less precise,
so as to diminish the miracle of the foreknowledge exhibited by Jesus?
Assuredly not; but rather the very reverse holds true. Hence we
conclude that Matthew, together with the unhistorically precise, has
yet at the same time preserved the historically less precise; whereas
John has entirely lost the latter and has retained only the former.
Alter thus renouncing what is narrated of a personal designation of the
traitor by Jesus, as composed post eventum, there yet remains to us the
general precognition and prediction on the part of Jesus, that one of
his disciples and companions at table would betray him. But even this
is attended with difficulties. That Jesus received any external
notification of treason brooding against him in the circle of his
confidential friends, there is no indication in the gospels: he appears
to have gathered this feature of his destiny also out of the scriptures
alone. He repeatedly declares that by his approaching betrayal the
scripture will be fulfilled (John xiii. 18, xvii. 12; comp. Matt. xxvi.
24 parall.), and in the fourth gospel (xiii. 18), he cites as this
scripture, γραφὴ, the words: He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted
up his heel against me, ὁ τρώγων μετ’ ἐμοῦ τὸν ἄρτον ἐπῆρεν ἐπ ἐμὲ τὴν
πτέρναν αὑτοῦ, from Ps. xli. 10. This passage in the Psalms refers
either to the well-known perfidious friends of David, Ahithophel and
Mephibosheth, or, if the Psalm be not the composition of David, to some
unknown individuals who stood in a similar relation to the poet. [1811]
There is so little trace of a messianic significance, that even Tholuck
and Olshausen acknowledge the above to be the original sense. But
according to the latter, in the fate of David was imaged that of the
Messiah; according to the former, David himself, under a divine impulse
often used expressions concerning himself, which contained special
allusions to the fate of Jesus. When, however, Tholuck adds: David
himself, under the influence of inspiration, did not always comprehend
this more profound sense of his expressions; what is this but a
confession that by the interpretation of such passages as relating to
Christ there is given to them another sense than that in which their
author originally intended them? Now that Jesus deduced from this
passage of the 41st Psalm, that it would be his lot to be betrayed by a
friend, in the way of natural reflection, is the more inconceivable,
because there is no indication to be discovered that this Psalm was
interpreted messianically among the Jews: while that such an
interpretation was a result of the divine knowledge in Jesus is
impossible, because it is a false interpretation. It is rather to be
supposed, that the passage in question was applied to the treachery of
Judas only after the issue. It is necessary to figure to ourselves the
consternation which the death of the Messiah must have produced in the
minds of his first adherents, and the solicitous industry with which
they endeavoured to comprehend this catastrophe; and to remember that
to a mind of Jewish culture, to comprehend a fact or doctrine was not
to reconcile it with consciousness and reason, but to bring it into
harmony with scripture. In seeking such a result, the primitive
Christians found predicted in the oracles of the Old Testament, not
only the death of the Messiah, but also his falling by means of the
perfidy of one of his friends, and even the subsequent fate and end of
this traitor (Matt. xxvii. 9 f.; Acts i. 20); and as the most striking
Old Testament authority for the betrayal, there presented itself the
above passage from Ps. xli., where the author complains of maltreatment
from one of his most intimate friends. These vouchers from the Old
Testament might be introduced by the writers of the evangelical history
either as reflections from themselves or others by way of appendix to
their narrative of the result, as is done by the authors of the first
gospel and the Acts, where they relate the end of Judas: or, what would
be more impressive, they might put them into the mouth of Jesus himself
before the issue, as is done by the author of the fourth gospel in the
present instance. The Psalmist had meant by אֹכֵל לַחְמִי one who
generally was accustomed to eat bread with him: but this expression
might easily come to be regarded as the designation of one in the act
of eating bread with the subject of the prophecy: and hence it seemed
appropriate to choose as the scene for the delivery of the prediction,
a meal of Jesus with his disciples, and for the sake of proximity to
the end of Jesus to make this meal the last. For the rest, the precise
words of the psalm were not adhered to, for instead of ὁ τρώγων μετ’
ἐμοῦ τὸν ἄρτον, he who eateth bread with me, was substituted either the
synonymous phrase μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζῃς, with me on the table, as
in Luke; or, in accordance with the representation of the synoptists
that this last was a paschal meal, an allusion to the particular sauce
used on that occasion: ὁ ἐμβαπτόμενος μετ ἐμοῦ εἰς τὸ τρυβλίον, he who
dippeth with me in the dish, as in Mark and Matthew. This, at first
entirely synonymous with the expression ὁ τρώγων κ.τ.λ., as a
designation of some one of his companions at table, was soon, from the
desire for a personal designation, misconstrued to mean that Judas
accidentally dipped his hand into the dish at the same moment with
Jesus, and at length the morsel dipped into the dish by Judas at the
same time with Jesus, was by the fourth Evangelist converted into the
sop presented by Jesus to his betrayer.
There are other parts also of this scene in John, which, instead of
having a natural character, as Sieffert maintains, must rather be
pronounced artificial. The manner in which Peter has to use the
intervention of the disciple leaning on Jesus’ bosom, in order to
obtain from the latter a more definite intimation concerning the
betrayer, besides being foreign to the synoptists, belongs to that
unhistorical colouring which, as we have above shown, the fourth gospel
gives to the relation of the two apostles. Moreover, to disguise an
indication of Judas in the evil character of the traitor, beneath an
action of friendliness, as that of giving him the sop, must retain
something untruthful and revolting, whatever may be imagined of objects
which Jesus might have in view, such as the touching of the traitor
with compunction even at that hour. Lastly, the address, What thou
doest, do quickly, after all that can be done to soften it, [1812] is
still harsh,—a kind of braving of the impending catastrophe; and rather
than resort to any refinements in order to justify these words as
spoken by Jesus, I prefer agreeing with the author of the Probabilia,
who sees in them the effort of the fourth Evangelist to improve on the
ordinary representation, according to which Jesus foreknew the betrayal
and refrained from preventing it, by making him even challenge the
traitor to expedite his undertaking. [1813]
Besides the betrayal, Jesus is said to have predicted the denial by
Peter, and to have fixed the precise time of its occurrence, declaring
that before the cock should crow (Mark says twice) on the following
morning, Peter would deny him thrice (Matt. xxvi. 33 ff. parall.):
which prediction, according to the gospels, was exactly accomplished.
It is here observed on the side of Rationalism, that the extension of
the prophetic gift to the cognizance of such merely accessory
circumstances as the crowing of cocks, must excite astonishment; as
also that Jesus, instead of warning, predicts the result as inevitable:
[1814] a feature which calls to mind the Fate of the Greek tragedy, in
which a man, in spite of his endeavour to avoid what the oracle has
predicted of him, nevertheless fulfils its inexorable decree. Paulus
will not admit either οὐ φωνήσει σήμερον ἀλέκτωρ, or ἀπαρνεῖσθαι, or
τρὶς, to have been spoken in their strict verbal signification, but
gives to the entire speech of Jesus only this indecisive and
problematical sense: so easily to be shaken is the imagined firmness of
this disciple, that between the present moment and the early morning,
events may arise which would cause him more than once to stumble and be
unfaithful to his master. But this is not the right mode of removing
the difficulty of the evangelical narrative. The words attributed to
Jesus so closely agree with the subsequent event, that the idea of a
merely fortuitous coincidence is not to be here entertained. Occurring
as they do in a tissue of prophecies post eventum, we must rather
suppose that after Peter had really denied Jesus more than once during
that night, the announcement of such a result was put into the mouth of
Jesus, with the common marking of time by the crowing of the cock,
[1815] and the reduction of the instances of denial to three. That this
determination of time and number was permanent in the evangelical
tradition (except that Mark, doubtless arbitrarily, for the sake of
balancing the thrice denying by another number, speaks of the twice
crowing of the cock), appears to be explained without any great
difficulty by the familiarity of the expressions early chosen, and the
ease with which they could be retained in the memory.
Just as little claim to be regarded as a real prophecy has the
announcement of Jesus to the rest of his disciples that they will all
of them be offended because of him in the coming night, that they will
forsake him and disperse (Matt. xxvi. 31 parall., comp. John xvi. 32);
especially as the Evangelists themselves, in the words: For it is
written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be
scattered abroad, point out to us the Old Testament passage (Zech.
xiii. 7), which, first sought out by the adherents of Jesus for the
satisfaction of their own difficulties as to the death of their master,
and the melancholy consequences which immediately ensued, was soon put
into the mouth of Jesus as a prophecy of these consequences.
§ 124.
THE INSTITUTION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER.
It was at the last meal, according to the synoptists, with whom the
Apostle Paul also agrees (1 Cor. xi. 23 ff.), that Jesus gave to the
unleavened bread and the wine which, agreeably to the custom of the
paschal feast, [1816] he, as head of the family, had to distribute
among his disciples, a relation to his speedily approaching death.
During the repast, we are told, he took bread, and after giving thanks,
broke it and gave it to his disciples with the declaration: This is my
body, τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ σῶμά μου, to which Paul and Luke add: which is
given or broken for you, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδόμενον or κλώμενον; in like
manner, according to Paul and Luke after supper, he presented to them a
cup of wine with the words: This is my blood of the new testament,
τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ αἷμά μου, τὸ τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης, or, according to Paul
and Luke: the new testament in my blood, which is shed for many, or for
you, καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου, τὸ περὶ πολλῶν or ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν,
ἐκχυνόμενον, to which Matthew adds: for the remission of sins, εἰς
ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, and Paul, what he and Luke previously give in
reference to the bread: Do this, τοῦτο ποιεῖτε (Paul, with the wine, as
oft as ye drink it, ὁσάκις ἂν πίνητε), in remembrance of me, εἰς τὴν
ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν.
The controversy between the different confessions as to the meaning of
these words,—whether they signify a transmutation of bread and wine
into the body and blood of Christ, or a presence of the body and blood
of Christ with and beneath those elements, or lastly, the symbolizing
of the body and blood of Christ by bread and wine,—may be pronounced
obsolete, and ought not to be any longer pursued, at least
exegetically, because it is founded on a misplaced distinction. It is
only when transmitted to a modern age, and to the occidental mind, in
which the forms of thought are more abstract, that what the ancient
oriental understood by the words, τοῦτό ἐστι, divides itself into the
above variety of possible significations; and if we would obtain a
correct conception of the idea which originally suggested the
expression, we must cease to discriminate thus. To explain the words in
question as implying a transmutation of the substance, is to go too
far, and to be too definite; to understand them of an existence cum et
sub specie, etc., is too much of a refinement; while to translate them:
this signifies, is too limited and meagre an interpretation. To the
writers of our gospels, the bread in the commemorative supper was the
body of Christ: but had they been asked, whether the bread were
transmuted, they would have denied it; had they been spoken to of a
partaking of the body with and under the form of bread, they would not
have understood it; had it been inferred that consequently the bread
merely signified the body, they would not have been satisfied.
Thus to dispute farther on this point is a fruitless labour: it is a
more interesting question, whether Jesus merely intended this
peculiarly significant distribution of bread and wine as a parting
demonstration of attachment to his disciples, or whether he designed
that it should be celebrated by his disciples in memory of him after
his departure. If we had only the account of the two first
Evangelists,—this is admitted even by orthodox theologians,
[1817]—there would be no solid ground for the latter supposition; but
the words, Do this in remembrance of me, which are added by Paul and
Luke, appear decisive of the fact that Jesus purposed the founding of a
commemorative meal, which, according to Paul, the Christians were to
celebrate, until he should come, ἄχρις οὖ ἂν ἔλθῃ. Concerning this very
addition, however, it has been of late conjectured that it may not have
been originally uttered by Jesus, but that in the celebration of the
Lord’s supper in the primitive church, the presiding member of the
community, in distributing the elements, may have exhorted the rest to
continue the repetition of this meal in remembrance of Christ, and that
from this primitive Christian ritual the above words were added to the
address of Jesus. [1818] This conjecture should not be opposed by an
exaggerated estimate of the authority of the Apostle Paul, such as that
of Olshausen, who infers from the words, I have received of the Lord,
παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου, that he here delivers an immediate revelation
from Christ, nay, that Christ himself speaks through him: since, as
even Süskind has admitted, and as Schulz has recently shown in the most
convincing manner, [1819] the phrase παραλαμβάνειν ἀπό τινος cannot
signify an immediate reception, but only a mediate transmission from
the individual specified. If, however, Paul had not that addition from
Jesus himself, still Süskind thinks himself able to prove that it must
have been communicated, or at least confirmed, by an apostle, and is of
opinion, in the manner of his school, that by a series of abstract
distinctions, he can define certain boundary lines which must in this
case prevent the intrusion of an unhistorical tradition. But the severe
attention to evidence which characterizes our own day, ought not to be
expected from an infant religious society, between the distant portions
of which there was not yet any organized connexion, or for the most
part any other than oral communication. On the other hand, however, we
must not be induced to regard the words τοῦτο ποιεῖτε κ.τ.λ. as a later
addition to the address of Jesus, on false grounds, such as, that it
would have been repugnant to the humility of Jesus to found a rite in
remembrance of himself; [1820] nor must we rate too highly the silence
of the two first Evangelists, in opposition to the testimony of Paul.
Perhaps this point may be decided by means of another more general
question, namely, what led Jesus to make this peculiarly significant
distribution of bread and wine among his disciples? Orthodox
theologians seek to remove as far as possible from the person of Jesus,
as divine, all progress, and especially a gradual or sudden origination
of plans and resolutions not previously present in his mind: hence,
according to them, there lay in Jesus from the beginning, together with
the foreknowledge of his destiny, and his entire plan, the design to
institute this supper, as a commemorative rite to be observed by his
church; and this opinion may at least appeal for support, to the
allusions implying that he already contemplated the institution a year
beforehand, attributed to Jesus in the sixth chapter of the fourth
gospel.
This is certainly an insecure support, for, as a previous enquiry has
shown, those allusions, totally unintelligible before the institution
of the Supper, cannot have proceeded from Jesus, but only from the
Evangelist. [1821] Further, as, viewing the subject generally, it
appeared to annul the reality of the human nature in Jesus, to suppose
that all lay foreseen and prepared in him from the first, or at least
from the commencement of his mature age; Rationalism has maintained, on
the contrary, that the idea of the symbolical act and words in question
did not arise in Jesus until the last evening. According to this view,
at the sight of the broken bread and the outpoured wine, Jesus had a
foreboding of his near and violent death; he saw in the former an image
of his body which was to be put to death, and in the latter of his
blood which was to be shed; and this momentary impression was
communicated by him to his disciples. [1822] But such a tragical
impression could only be felt by Jesus if he contemplated his death as
a near event. That he did so with a greater distinctness at the last
meal, is thought to be proved by the assurance which, according to all
the synoptists, he gave to his disciples, that he would no more drink
of the fruit of the vine until he drank it new in the kingdom of his
Father; whence, as there is no ground for supposing a vow of abstinence
on his part, he must have foreseen that his end would arrive within the
next few days. If, however, we observe how in Luke this assurance in
relation to the wine is preceded by the declaration of Jesus, that he
will no more eat the passover until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of
God, it appears probable that originally the fruit of the vine also was
understood not as wine in general, but as specially the beverage of the
passover; of which a trace may perhaps be discovered in the expression
of Matthew and Mark—this fruit of the vine, τουτου τοῦ γεννήματος τῆς
ἀμπέλου. Meals in the messianic kingdom were, in accordance with the
ideas of the age, often spoken of by Jesus, and he may have expected
that in that kingdom the Passover would be observed with peculiar
solemnity. When therefore he declares that he will no more partake of
this meal in the present age, αἰὼν, but only in the future; first, this
does not apply to eating and drinking in general, and hence does not
mean that his sojourn in this pre-messianic world was to have an end
within the next few days, but only within the space of a year; nor,
secondly, does it necessarily involve the idea that this change was to
be introduced by his death, for he might even yet expect that the
kingdom of the Messiah would commence during his life.
Meanwhile, to deny every presentiment of his end on the part of Jesus
in these last days of his life, is on the one hand, not warranted by
our previous examination; and on the other, would compel us to doubt
the institution of the ritual Supper by Jesus, which we can hardly do
in opposition to the testimony of Paul. It is moreover easily
conceivable, that the continually increasing involvement of his
relation to the Jewish hierarchy, might at length bring to Jesus the
conviction that his death was inevitable, and that in a moment of
emotion he might even fix the next passover as the term which he should
not survive. Thus each of the supposed cases appears possible: either
that, owing to a thought suggested by the impressiveness of the moment,
at the last passover which he celebrated with his disciples, he made
bread and wine the symbols of his body which was to be slain and his
blood which was to be shed; or that for some time previously he had
embraced the design of bequeathing such a commemorative meal to his
adherents, in which case he may very probably have uttered the words
preserved by Paul and Luke. But before this intimation of the death of
Jesus had been duly appropriated by the disciples, and received into
their conviction, they were overtaken by the actual catastrophe, for
which, therefore, they might be regarded as wholly unprepared.
CHAPTER III.
RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND
CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.
§ 125.
AGONY OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN.
According to the synoptical narratives, Jesus, immediately after the
conclusion of the meal and the singing of the Hallel, it being his
habit during this feast time to spend the night out of Jerusalem (Matt.
xxi. 17; Luke xxii. 39), went to the Mount of Olives, into a garden
χωρίον (in John, κῆπος) called Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. 30, 36 parall.).
John, who gives the additional particular that the garden lay over the
brook Kedron, does not represent him as departing thither until after a
long series of valedictory discourses (xiv.–xvii.), of which we shall
hereafter have to speak again. While John makes the arrest of Jesus
follow immediately on the arrival of Jesus in the garden, the
synoptists insert between the two that scene which is usually
designated the agony of Jesus.
Their accounts of this scene are not in unison. According to Matthew
and Mark, Jesus takes with him his three most confidential disciples,
Peter and the sons of Zebedee, leaving the rest behind, is seized with
tearfulness and trembling, tells the three disciples that he is
sorrowful even unto death, and admonishing them to remain wakeful in
the mean time, removes to a distance from them also, that he may offer
a prayer for himself, in which, with his face bent to the earth, he
entreats that the cup of suffering may pass from him, but still resigns
all to the will of his Father. When he returns to the disciples, he
finds them sleeping, again admonishes them to watchfulness, then
removes from them a second time, and repeats the former prayer, after
which he once more finds his disciples asleep. For the third time he
retires to repeat the prayer, and returning, for the third time finds
the disciples sleeping, but now awakes them, in order to meet the
coming betrayer. Of the number three, which thus doubly figures in the
narrative of the two first Evangelists, Luke says nothing; according to
him, Jesus retires from all the disciples, after admonishing them to
watch, for the distance of about a stone’s cast, and prays kneeling,
once only, but nearly in the same words as in the other gospels, then
returns to the disciples and awakes them, because Judas is approaching
with the multitude. But, on the other hand, Luke in his single scene of
prayer, has two circumstances which are foreign to the other narrators,
namely, that while Jesus was yet praying, and immediately before the
most violent mental struggle, an angel appeared to strengthen him, and
that during the agony ἀγωνία which ensued, the sweat of Jesus was as it
were great drops of blood falling to the ground.
From the earliest times this scene in Gethsemane has been a
stumbling-block, because Jesus therein appears to betray a weakness and
fear of death which might be considered unworthy of him. Celsus and
Julian, doubtless having in their minds the great examples of a dying
Socrates and other heathen sages, expressed contempt for the fear of
death exhibited by Jesus; [1823] Vanini boldly extolled his own
demeanour in the face of execution as superior to that of Jesus; [1824]
and in the Evangelium Nicodemi, Satan concludes from this scene that
Christ is a mere man. [1825] The supposition resorted to in this
apocryphal book, that the trouble of Jesus was only assumed in order to
encourage the devil to enter into a contest with him, [1826] is but a
confession of inability to reconcile a real truth of that kind with the
ideal of Jesus. Hence appeal has been made to the distinction between
the two natures in Christ; the sorrowfulness and the prayer for the
removal of the cup having been ascribed to the human nature, the
resignation to the will of the Father, to the divine. [1827] As
however, in the first place, this appeared to introduce an inadmissible
division in the nature of Jesus; and in the second place, even a fear
experienced by his human nature in the prospect of approaching bodily
sufferings appeared unworthy of him: his consternation was represented
as being of a spiritual and sympathetic character—as arising from the
wickedness of Judas, the danger which threatened his disciples, and the
fate which was impending over his nation. [1828] The effort to free the
sorrow of Jesus from all reference to physical suffering, or to his own
person, attained its highest pitch in the ecclesiastical tenet, that
Jesus by substitution was burthened with the guilt of all mankind, and
vicariously endured the wrath of God against that guilt. [1829] Some
have even supposed that the devil himself wrestled with Jesus. [1830]
But such a cause for the trouble of Jesus is not found in the text; on
the contrary, here as elsewhere (Matt. xx. 22 f. parall.), the cup
ποτήριον for the removal of which Jesus prays, must be understood of
his own bodily sufferings and death. Moreover, the above ecclesiastical
opinion is founded on an unscriptural conception of the vicarious
office of Jesus. It is true that even in the conception of the
synoptists, the suffering of Jesus is a vicarious one for the sins of
many; but the substitution consists, according to them, not in Jesus
having immediately borne these sins and the punishment due to mankind
on account of them, but in a personal suffering being laid upon him on
account of those sins, and in order to remove their punishment. Thus,
as on the cross, it was not directly the sins of the world, and the
anger of God in relation to them, which afflicted him, but the wounds
which he received, and his whole lamentable situation, wherein he was
indeed placed for the sins of mankind: so, according to the idea of the
Evangelists, in Gethsemane also, it was not immediately the feeling of
the misery of humanity which occasioned his dismay, but the
presentiment of his own suffering, which, however, was encountered in
the stead of mankind.
From the untenable ecclesiastical view of the agony of Jesus, a descent
has in more modern times been made to coarse materialism, by reducing
what it was thought hopeless to justify ethically, as a mental
condition, to a purely physical one, and supposing that Jesus was
attacked by some malady in Gethsemane; [1831] an opinion which Paulus,
with a severity which he should only have more industriously applied to
his own explanations, pronounces to be altogether unseemly and opposed
to the text, though he does not regard as improbable Heumann’s
hypothesis, that in addition to his inward sorrow, Jesus had contracted
a cold in the clayey ground traversed by the Kedron. [1832] On the
other hand, the scene has been depicted in the colours of modern
sentimentalism, and the feelings of friendship, the pain of separation,
the thoughts of parting, have been assigned as the causes which so
lacerated the mind of Jesus: [1833] or a confused blending of all the
different kinds of sorrow, selfish and sympathetic, sensual and
spiritual, has been presupposed. [1834] Paulus explains εἰ δυνατόν
ἐστι, παρελθέτω τὸ ποτήριον (if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me) as the expression of a purely moral anxiety on the part of Jesus,
as to whether it were the will of God that he should give himself up to
the attack immediately at hand, or whether it were not more accordant
with the Divine pleasure, that he should yet escape from this danger:
thus converting into a mere inquiry of God, what is obviously the most
urgent prayer.
While Olshausen falls back on the ecclesiastical theory, and
authoritatively declares that the supposition of external corporeal
suffering having called forth the anguish of Jesus, ought to be
banished as one which would annihilate the essential characteristics of
his mission; others have more correctly acknowledged that in that
anguish the passionate wish to be delivered from the terrible
sufferings in prospect, the horror of sensitive nature in the face of
annihilation, are certainly apparent. [1835] With justice also it is
remarked, in opposition to the reproach which has been cast on Jesus,
that the speedy conquest over rebellious nature removes every
appearance of sinfulness; [1836] that, moreover, the shrinking of
physical nature at the prospect of annihilation belongs to the
essential conditions of life; [1837] nay, that the purer the human
nature in an individual, the more susceptible is it in relation to
suffering and annihilation; [1838] that the conquest over suffering
intensely appreciated is greater than a stoical or even a Socratic
insensibility. [1839]
With more reason, criticism has attacked the peculiar representation of
the third gospel. The strengthening angel has created no little
difficulty to the ancient church on dogmatical grounds,—to modern
exposition on critical grounds. An ancient scholium on the
consideration, that he who was adored and glorified with fear and
trembling by all the celestial powers, did not need the strengthening
of the angel, ὅτι τῆς ἰσχύος τοῦ ἀγγέλου οὐκ ἐπεδέετο ὁ ὑπὸ πάσης
ἐπουρανίου δυνάμεως φόβω καὶ τρόμῳ προσκυνούμενος καὶ δοξαζόμενος,
interprets the ἐνισχύειν ascribed to the angel as a declaring strong,
i.e. as the offering of a doxology; [1840] while others, rather than
admit that Jesus could need to be strengthened by an angel, transform
the ἄγγελος ἐνισχύων into an evil angel, who attempted to use force
against Jesus. [1841] The orthodox also, by founding a distinction
between the state of humiliation and privation in Christ and that of
his glorification, or in some similar way, have long blunted the edge
of the dogmatical difficulty: but in place of this a critical objection
has been only so much the more decidedly developed. In consideration of
the suspicion which, according to our earlier observations, attaches to
every alleged angelic appearance, it has been sought to reduce the
angel in this narrative first into a man, [1842] and then into an image
of the composure which Jesus regained. [1843] But the right point in
the angelic appearance for criticism to grapple with, is indicated by
the circumstance that Luke is the only Evangelist from whom we learn
it. [1844] If, according to the ordinary presupposition, the first and
fourth gospels are of apostolic origin; why this silence as to the
angel on the part of Matthew, who is believed to have been in the
garden, why especially on the part of John, who was among the three in
the nearer neighbourhood of Jesus? If it be said: because sleepy as
they were, and at some distance, and moreover under cover of the night,
they did not observe him: it must be asked, whence are we to suppose
that Luke received this information? [1845] That, assuming the
disciples not to have themselves observed the appearance, Jesus should
have narrated it to them on that evening, there is, from the intense
excitement of those hours and the circumstance that the return of Jesus
to his disciples was immediately followed by the arrival of Judas,
little probability; and as little, that he communicated it to them in
the days after the resurrection, and that nevertheless this information
appeared worthy of record to none but the third Evangelist, who yet
received it only at second hand. As in this manner there is every
presumption against the historical character of the angelic appearance;
why should not this also, like all appearances of the same kind which
have come under our notice, especially in the history of the infancy of
Jesus, be interpreted by us mythically? Gabler has been before us in
advancing the idea, that in the primitive Christian community the rapid
transition from the most violent mental conflict to the most tranquil
resignation, which was observable in Jesus on that night, was
explained, agreeably to the Jewish mode of thought, by the intervention
of a strengthening angel, and that this explanation may have mingled
itself with the narrative: Schleiermacher, too, finds it the most
probable that this moment, described by Jesus himself as one of hard
trial, was early glorified in hymns by angelic appearances, and that
this embellishment, originally intended in a merely poetical sense, was
received by the narrator of the third gospel as historical. [1846]
The other feature peculiar to Luke, namely, the bloody sweat, was early
felt to be no less fraught with difficulty than the strengthening by
the angel. At least it appears to have been this more than anything
else, which occasioned the exclusion of the entire addition in Luke, v.
43 and 44, from many ancient copies of the gospels. For as the
orthodox, who according to Epiphanius [1847] rejected the passage,
appear to have shrunk the most from the lowest degree of fear which is
expressed by the bloody sweat: so to the docetic opinions of some who
did not receive this passage, [1848] this was the only particular which
could give offence. Thus in an earlier age, doubts were raised
respecting the fitness of the bloody sweat of Jesus on dogmatical
considerations: while in more modern times this has been done on
physiological grounds. It is true that authorities are adduced for
instances of bloody sweat from Aristotle [1849] down to the more recent
investigators of nature; [1850] but such a phenomenon is only mentioned
as extremely rare, and as a symptom of decided disease. Hence Paulus
points to the ὡσεὶ (as it were), as indicating that it is not directly
a bloody sweat which is here spoken of, but only a sweat which might be
compared to blood: this comparison, however, he refers only to the
thick appearance of the drops, and Olshausen also agrees with him thus
far, that a red colour of the perspiration is not necessarily included
in the comparison. But in the course of a narrative which is meant as a
prelude to the sanguinary death of Jesus, it is the most natural to
take the comparison of the sweat to drops of blood, in its full sense.
Further, here, yet more forcibly than in relation to the angelic
appearance, the question suggests itself: how did Luke obtain this
information? or to pass by all questions which must take the same form
in this instance as in the previous one, how could the disciples, at a
distance and in the night, discern the falling of drops of blood?
According to Paulus indeed it ought not to be said that the sweat fell,
for as the word καταβαίνοντες, falling, refers not to ἱδρὼς, sweat, but
to the θρόμβοι αἵματος, drops of blood, which are introduced merely for
the purpose of comparison, it is only meant that a sweat as thick and
heavy as falling drops of blood stood on the brow of Jesus. But whether
it be said: the sweat fell like drops of blood to the earth, or: it was
like drops of blood falling to the earth, it comes pretty much to the
same thing; at least the comparison of a sweat standing on the brow to
blood falling on the earth would not be very apt, especially if
together with the falling, we are to abstract also the colour of the
blood, so that of the words, as it were drops of blood falling on the
ground, ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι αἵματος καταβαίνοντες εἰς τὴν γῆν, only ὡσεὶ
θρόμβοι, as it were drops, would properly have any decided meaning.
Since then we can neither comprehend the circumstance, nor conceive
what historical authority for it the narrator could have had, let us,
with Schleiermacher, rather take this feature also as a poetical one
construed historically by the Evangelist, or better still, as a
mythical one, the origin of which may be easily explained from the
tendency to perfect the conflict in the garden as a prelude to the
sufferings of Jesus on the cross, by showing that not merely the
psychical aspect of that suffering was fore-shadowed in the mental
trouble, but also its physical aspect, in the bloody sweat.
As a counterpoise to this peculiarity of Luke, his two predecessors
have, as we have said, the twofold occurrence of the number three,—the
three disciples taken apart, and the three retirements and prayers of
Jesus. It has indeed been contended that so restless a movement hither
and thither, so rapid an alternation of retirement and return, is
entirely suited to the state of mind in which Jesus then was, [1851]
and also, that in the repetition of the prayer there is correctly shown
an appropriate gradation; a more and more complete resignation to the
will of the Father. [1852] But that the two narrators count the
retirements of Jesus, marking them by the expressions ἐκ δευτέρου and
ἐκ τρίτου, at once shows that the number three was a point of
importance to them; and when Matthew, though he certainly gives in the
second prayer an expression somewhat different from that of the first,
in the third makes Jesus only repeat the same words, τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον,
and when Mark does this even the second time,—this is a significant
proof that they were embarrassed how to fill up the favourite number
three with appropriate matter. According to Olshausen, Matthew, with
his three acts of this conflict, must be right in opposition to Luke,
because these three attacks made on Jesus through the medium of fear,
correspond to the three attacks through the medium of desire, in the
history of the temptation. This parallel is well founded; it only leads
to an opposite result to that deduced by Olshausen. For which is more
probable; that in both cases the threefold repetition of the attack had
an objective ground, in a latent law of the kingdom of spirits, and
hence is to be regarded as really historical; or that it had merely a
subjective ground in the manner of the legend, so that the occurrence
of this number here, as certainly as above in the history of the
temptation, points to something mythical? [1853]
If then we subtract the angel, the bloody sweat, and the precisely
threefold repetition of the retirement and prayer of Jesus, as mythical
additions, there remains so far, as an historical kernel, the fact,
that Jesus on that evening in the garden experienced a violent access
of fear, and prayed that his sufferings might be averted, with the
reservation nevertheless of an entire submission to the will of God:
and at this point of the inquiry, it is not a little surprising, on the
ordinary view of the relation between our gospels, that even this
fundamental fact of the history in question, is wanting in the Gospel
of John.
§ 126.
RELATION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL TO THE EVENTS IN GETHSEMANE. THE FAREWELL
DISCOURSES IN JOHN, AND THE SCENE FOLLOWING THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE
GREEKS.
The relation of John to the synoptical narratives just considered has,
when regarded more closely, two aspects: first, he has not what the
synoptists present; and secondly, instead of this he has something
which it is difficult to reconcile with their statements.
As regards the first and negative side, it has to be explained how, on
the ordinary supposition concerning the author of the fourth gospel and
the correctness of the synoptical account, it happens that John, who
according to the two first gospels was one of the three whom Jesus took
with him, to be the more immediate witnesses of his conflict, passes in
silence over the whole event? It will not suffice to appeal to his
sleepiness during the scene; for, if this was a hindrance to its
narration, all the Evangelists must have been silent on the subject,
and not John alone. Hence the usual expedient is tried here also, and
he is said to have omitted the scene because he found it already
presented with sufficient care in the writings of the synoptists.
[1854] But between the two first synoptists and the third there is here
so important a divergency, as to demand most urgently that John, if he
took their accounts into consideration, should speak a mediating word
in this difference. If however, John had not the works of his
predecessors lying before him, he might still, it is said, suppose that
history to be sufficiently familiar to his readers as a part of
evangelical tradition. [1855] But as this tradition was the source of
the divergent representations of the synoptists, it must itself have
early begun to exhibit variations, and to narrate the fact first in one
way, then in another: consequently on this view also there was a call
on the author of the fourth gospel to rectify these wavering accounts.
Hence of late an entirely new supposition has been adopted, namely,
that John omits the events in Gethsemane lest, by the mention of the
strengthening angel, he should give any furtherance to the Ebionitish
opinion that the higher nature in Christ was an angel, which united
itself with him at baptism; and now as it might be inferred, again
departed from him before the hour of suffering. [1856] But—not to urge
that we have already found any hypothesis of this nature inadequate to
explain the omissions in the Gospel of John—if this Evangelist wished
to avoid any indication of a close relation between Jesus and angels,
he must also have excluded other passages from his gospel: above all,
as Lücke remarks, [1857] the declaration concerning the ascending and
descending of angels upon him, i. 52; and also the idea, given indeed
only as the conjecture of some bystanders, that an angel spake to him,
ἄγγελος αὐτῷ λελάληκεν, xii. 29. If, however, he on any ground
whatever, found special matter of hesitation in the appearance of the
angel in the garden: this would only be a reason for omitting the
intervention of the angel, with Matthew and Mark, and not for excluding
the whole scene, which was easily separable from this single
particular.
If the mere absence of the incident from the narrative of John is not
to be explained, the difficulty increases when we consider what this
Evangelist communicates to us instead of the scene in the garden,
concerning the mental condition of Jesus during the last hours previous
to his arrest. In the same place which the synoptists assign to the
agony in the garden, John, it is true, has nothing, for he makes the
capture of Jesus follow at once on his arrival in the garden: but
immediately before, at and after the last meal, he has discourses
inspired by a state of mind, which could hardly have as a sequel scenes
like those which according to the synoptical narratives occurred in the
garden. In the farewell discourses in John, namely, xiv.–xvii., Jesus
speaks precisely in the tone of one who has already inwardly triumphed
over approaching suffering; from a point of view in which death is
quenched in the beams of the glory which is to come after; with a
divine peace which is cheerful in the certainty of its immovability:
how is it possible that immediately after, this peace should give place
to the most violent mental emotion, this tranquillity, to a trouble
even unto death, and that from victory achieved he should sink again
into doubtful contest, in which he needed strengthening by an angel? In
those farewell discourses, he appears throughout as one who from the
plenitude of his inward serenity and confidence, comforts his trembling
friends: and yet he now seeks spiritual aid from the drowsy disciples,
for he requests them to watch with him; there, he is so certain of the
salutary effects of his approaching death, as to assure his followers,
that it is well for them that he should go away, else the Comforter
παράκλητος would not come to them: here, he again doubts whether his
death be really the will of the Father; there, he exhibits a
consciousness which under the necessity of death, inasmuch as it
comprehends that necessity, recovers freedom, so that his will to die
is one with the divine will that he should die: here, these two wills
are so at variance, that the subjective, submissively indeed, but
painfully, bows to the absolute. And these two opposite states of mind
are not even separated by any intervening incident of an appalling
character, but only by the short space of time which elapsed during the
walk from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, across the Kedron: just as
if, in that brook, as in another Lethe, Jesus had lost all remembrance
of the foregoing discourses.
It is true that we are here referred to the alternation of mental
states, which naturally becomes more rapid in proportion as the
decisive moment approaches; [1858] to the fact that not seldom in the
life of believers there occurs a sudden withdrawal of the higher
sustenance of the soul, an abandonment of them by God, which alone
renders the victory nevertheless achieved truly great and admirable.
[1859] But this latter opinion at once betrays its unintelligent origin
from a purely imaginative species of thought (to which the soul can
appear like a lake, ebbing or flowing according as the floodgates of
the conducting canals are opened or closed), by the contradictions in
which it is on all sides involved. The triumph of Christ over the fear
of death is said only to appear in its true magnitude, when we
consider, that while a Socrates could only conquer because he remained
in the full possession of his mental energies, Christ was able to
triumph over all the powers of darkness, even when forsaken by God and
the fulness of his spirit, by his merely human soul ψυχὴ:—but is not
this the rankest Pelagianism, the most flagrant contradiction of the
doctrine of the church, as of sound philosophy, which alike maintain
that without God, man can do no good thing, that only by his armour can
man repel the shafts of the wicked one? To escape from thus
contradicting the results of sober reflection, the imaginative thinker
is driven to contradict himself, by supposing that in the strengthening
angel (which, incidentally, contrary to the verbal significance of the
text, is reduced to a merely internal vision of Jesus) there was
imparted to Jesus, when wrestling in the extremity of his abandonment,
an influx of spiritual strength; so that he thus would not, as it was
at first vaunted, have conquered without, but only with Divine aid; if,
in accordance with Luke, the angel be supposed to have appeared prior
to the last, most violent part of the conflict, in order to strengthen
Jesus for this ultimate trial. But rather than fall into so evident a
self-contradiction, Olshausen prefers covertly to contradict the text,
and hence transposes the order of the incidents, assuming, without
further preliminary, that the strengthening came after the third
prayer, consequently after the victory had been already gained, whence
he is driven to the extreme arbitrariness of interpreting the phrase:
καὶ γενόμενος ἐν ἀγωνίᾳ ἐκτενέστερον προσηύχετο, and being in an agony
he prayed, as the pluperfect—he had prayed.
But setting aside this figurative representation of the cause which
produced the sudden change of mood in Jesus; such a change is in itself
burthened with many difficulties. Correctly speaking, what here took
place in Jesus was not a mere change, but a relapse of the most
startling kind. In the so-called sacerdotal prayer, John xvii.
especially, Jesus had completely closed his account with the Father;
all fear in relation to what awaited him lay so far behind the point
which he had here attained, that he spent not a single word on his own
suffering, and only spoke of the afflictions which threatened his
friends; the chief subject of his communion with the Father was the
glory into which he was about to enter, and the blessedness which he
hoped to have obtained for his followers: so that his departure to the
scene of his arrest has entirely the character of an accessory fact,
merely consummating by external realization what was already inwardly
and essentially effected. Now if Jesus after this closing of his
account with God, once more opened it; if after having held himself
already victor, he once more sank into anxious conflict: must he not
have laid himself open to the remonstrance: why didst thou not, instead
of indulging in vain anticipations of glory, rather occupy thyself
betimes with earnest thoughts of the coming trial, that by such a
preparation, thou mightest spare thyself perilous surprise on its
approach? why didst thou utter the words of triumph before thou hadst
fought, so as to be obliged with shame to cry for help at the on-coming
of the battle? In fact after the assurance of already achieved victory
expressed in the farewell discourses, and especially in the final
prayer, the lapse into such a state of mind as that described by the
synoptists, would have been a very humiliating declension, which Jesus
could not have foreseen, otherwise he would not have expressed himself
with so much confidence; and which, therefore, would prove that he was
deceived in himself, that he held himself to be stronger than he
actually found himself, and that he had given utterance to this too
high self-valuation, not without a degree of presumption. Those who
regard this as inconsistent with the equally judicious and modest
character which Jesus manifests on other occasions, will find
themselves urged to the dilemma, that either the farewell discourses in
John, at least the final prayer, or else the events in Gethsemane,
cannot be historical.
It is to be regretted that in coming to a decision in this case,
theologians have set out rather from dogmatical prejudices than from
critical grounds. Usteri’s assertion, at least, that the representation
given in John of the state of mind of Jesus in his last hours is the
only correct one, while that of the synoptists is unhistorical, [1860]
is only to be accounted for by that author’s then zealous adherence to
the paragraphs of Schleiermacher’s Dogmatik, wherein the idea of the
impeccability of Jesus is carried to an extent which excludes even the
slightest degree of conflict; for that, apart from such
presuppositions, the representation given in John of the last hours of
Jesus, is the more natural and appropriate, it might be difficult to
prove. On the contrary, Bretschneider might rather appear to be right,
when he claims the superiority in naturalness and intrinsic evidence of
truth for the synoptists: [1861] were it not that our confidence in the
decisions of this writer is undermined, by his dislike for the
dogmatical and metaphysical purport of the discourses assigned to this
period in John—a dislike which appears to indicate that his entire
polemic against John originated in the discordance between his own
critical philosophy of reflection, and the speculative doctrine of the
fourth gospel.
John, indeed, as even the author of the Probabilia remarks, has not
wholly passed over the anxiety of Jesus in relation to his approaching
death; he has only assigned to it an earlier epoch, John xii. 27 ff.
The scene with which John connects it takes place immediately after the
entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, when certain Greeks, doubtless
proselytes of the gate, who had come among the multitude to the feast,
wished to have an interview with him. With all the diversity of the
circumstances and of the event itself, there is yet a striking
agreement between what here occurs and what the synoptists place in the
last evening of the life of Jesus, and in the seclusion of the garden.
As Jesus here declares to his disciples, my soul is troubled even unto
death, περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου ἕως θανάτου (Matt. xxvi. 38): so
there he says: Now is my soul troubled, νῦν ἡ ψυχή μου τετάρακται (John
xii. 27); as he here prays, that if it be possible, this hour may pass
from him, ἵνα, εἰ δυνατόν ἐστι, παρέλθη ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ ἡ ὥρα (Mark xiv. 35):
so there he entreats: Father, save me from this hour, πάτερ, σωσόν με
ἐκ τῆς ὥρας ταύτης (John xii. 27); as here he calms himself by the
restriction: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt, ἀλλ’ οὐ τί
ἐγὼ θέλω, ἀλλὰ τί σύ (Mark xiv. 36): so there, by the reflection: but
for this cause came I to this hour, ἀλλὰ διὰ τοῦτο ἦλθον εἰς τὴν ὥραν
ταύτην (John xii. 27); lastly, as here an angel appears strengthening
Jesus, ἄγγελος ἐνισχύων (Luke xxii. 43): so there something happens
which occasions the bystanders to observe that an angel spake to him,
ἄγγελος αὐτῷ λελάληκεν (John xii. 29). This similarity has induced many
of the more modern theologians to pronounce the incident in John xii.
27 ff., and that in Gethsemane identical; and after this admission the
only question was, on which side the reproach of inaccurate narration,
and more especially of erroneous position, ought to fall.
Agreeably to the tendency of the latest criticism of the gospels, the
burthen of error in this matter has been more immediately cast on the
synoptists. The true occasion of the mental conflict of Jesus is said
to be found only in John, namely, in the approach of those Greeks who
intimated to him through Philip and Andrew their wish for an interview
with him. These persons doubtless wished to make the proposal that he
should leave Palestine and carry forward his work among the foreign
Jews; such a proposal held out to him the enticement of escape from the
threatening danger, and this for some moments placed him in a state of
doubt and inward conflict, which however ended by his refusing to admit
the Greeks to his presence. [1862] Here we have the effects of a vision
rendered so acute by a double prejudice, both critical and dogmatical,
as to read statements between the lines of the text; for of such an
intended proposal on the part of the Greeks, there is no trace in John;
and yet, even allowing that the Evangelist knew nothing of the plan of
the Greeks from these individuals themselves, there must have been some
intimation in the discourse of Jesus that his emotion had reference to
such a proposal. Judging from the context, the request of the Greeks
had no other motive than that the solemn entrance of Jesus, and the
popular rumour concerning him, had rendered them curious to see and
know the celebrated man; and this desire of theirs was not connected
with the emotion which Jesus experienced on the occasion, otherwise
than that it led Jesus to think of the speedy propagation of his
kingdom in the Gentile world, and of its indispensable condition,
namely, his death. Here, however, the idea of his death is only
mediately and remotely presented to the soul of Jesus; hence it is the
more difficult to conceive how it could affect him so strongly, as that
he should feel himself urged to beseech the Father for delivery from
this hour; and if he were ever profoundly moved by the presentiment of
death, the synoptists appear to place this fear in a more suitable
position, in immediate proximity to the commencement of his sufferings.
The representation of John is also deficient in certain circumstances,
presented by the synoptists, which appear to vindicate the trouble of
Jesus. In the solitude of the garden and the gloom of night, such an
ebullition of feeling is more conceivable; and its unrepressed
utterance to his most intimate and worthy friends is natural and
justifiable. But according to John that agitation seized Jesus in the
broad daylight, in a concourse of people; a situation in which it is
ordinarily more easy to maintain composure, or in which at least it is
usual, from the possibility of misconstruction, to suppress the more
profound emotions.
Hence it is more easy to agree with Theile’s opinion, that the author
of the fourth gospel has inserted the incident, correctly placed by the
synoptists, in a false position. [1863] Jesus having said, as an
introduction to the answer which he returned to the request of the
Greeks, that they might see the man who had been so glorified by his
entrance into the city: Yes, the hour of my glorification is come, but
of glorification by death (xii. 23 f.): this led the narrator astray,
and induced him, instead of giving the real answer of Jesus to the
Greeks together with the result, to make Jesus dilate on the intrinsic
necessity of his death, and then almost unconsciously to interweave the
description of the internal conflict which Jesus had to experience in
virtue of his voluntary sacrifice, whence he subsequently, in its
proper place, omits this conflict. There is nothing strange in Theile’s
opinion, except that he supposes it possible for the Apostle John to
have made such a transposition. That the scene in Gethsemane, from his
having been asleep while it was passing, was not deeply imprinted on
his mind, and that it was besides thrust into the background of his
memory by the crucifixion which shortly followed, might have been
considered explanatory of an entire omission, or a merely summary
account of the scene on his part, but by no means of an incorrect
position. If notwithstanding his sleepiness at the time, he had taken
any notice of the event, he must at least have retained thus much—that
that peculiar state of mind in Jesus befel him close upon the
commencement of his sufferings, in the night and in privacy: how could
he ever so far belie his memory as to make the scene take place at a
much earlier period, in the open day, and among many people? Rather
than thus endanger the authenticity of the Gospel of John, others,
alleging the possibility that such a state of mind might occur more
than once in the latter part of the life of Jesus, deny the identity of
the two scenes. [1864]
Certainly, between the synoptical representation of the mental conflict
of Jesus and that given in John, besides the external difference of
position, there exist important internal divergencies; the narrative in
John containing features which have no analogy with anything in the
synoptical account of the events in Gethsemane. It is true that the
petition of Jesus in John for deliverance from this hour, is perfectly
in unison with his prayer in the synoptists: but, on the other hand,
there is no parallel to the additional prayer in John: Father, glorify
thy name, πάτερ, δόξασόν σου τὸ ὄνομα (xii. 28): further, though in
both accounts an angel is spoken of, yet there is no trace in the
synoptists of the heavenly voice which in the fourth gospel occasions
the belief that an angel is concerned. Such heavenly voices are not
found in the three first gospels elsewhere than at the baptism and
again at the transfiguration; of which latter scene the prayer of Jesus
in John: Father, glorify thy name, may remind us. In the synoptical
description of the transfiguration, it is true the expressions δόξα,
glory and δοξάζειν, to glorify, are not found: but the Second Epistle
to Peter represents Jesus as receiving in the transfiguration honour
and glory, τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν, and the heavenly voice as coming from the
excellent glory, μεγαλοπρεπὴς δόξα (i. 17 f.). Thus in addition to the
two narratives already considered, there presents itself a third as a
parallel; since the scene in John xii. 27 ff. is on the one side, by
the trouble of spirit and the angel, allied to the occurrences in
Gethsemane, while on the other side, by the prayer for glorification
and the confirmatory voice from heaven, it has some affinity with the
history of the transfiguration. And here two cases are possible: either
that the narrative of John is the simple root, the separation of which
into its constituent elements has given rise in a traditional manner to
the two synoptical anecdotes of the transfiguration and the agony in
the garden; or that these last are the original formations, from the
fusing and intermingling of which in the legend the narrative of John
is the mixed product: between which cases only the intrinsic character
of the narratives can decide. That the synoptical narratives of the
transfiguration and the agony in the garden are clear pictures, with
strongly marked features, can by itself prove nothing; since, as we
have sufficiently shown, a narrative of legendary origin may just as
well possess these characteristics as one of a purely historical
nature. Thus if the narrative in John were merely less clear and
definite, this need not prevent it from being regarded as the original,
simple sketch, from which the embellishing hand of tradition had
elaborated those more highly coloured pictures. But the fact is that
the narrative in John is wanting not only in definiteness, but in
agreement with the attendant circumstances and with itself. We have no
intimation what was the answer of Jesus to the Greeks, or what became
of those persons themselves; no appropriate motive is given for the
sudden anguish of Jesus and his prayer for glorification. Such a
mixture of heterogeneous parts is always the sign of a secondary
product, of an alluvial conglomeration; and hence we seem warranted to
conclude, that in the narrative of John the two synoptical anecdotes of
the transfiguration and the agony in the garden are blended together.
If, as is apparently the case, the legend when it reached the fourth
Evangelist presented these two incidents in faded colours, [1865] and
in indistinct outline: it would be easy for him, since his idea of
glorification (δοξάζειν) had the double aspect of suffering and
exaltation, to confuse the two; what he gathered from the narrative of
the agony in the garden, of a prayer of Jesus to the Father, he might
connect with the heavenly voice in the history of the transfiguration,
making this an answer to the prayer; to the voice, the more particular
import of which, as given by the synoptists, was unknown to him, he
gave, in accordance, with his general notion of this incident as a
glory δόξα conferred on Jesus, the import: I have both glorified and
will glorify again, καὶ ἐδόξασα, καὶ πάλιν δοξάσω, and to make it
correspond with this divine response, he had to unite with the prayer
of Jesus for deliverance that for glorification also; the strengthening
angel, of which the fourth Evangelist had perhaps also heard something,
was included in the opinion of the people as to the source of the
heavenly voice; in regard to the time, John placed his narrative about
midway between the transfiguration and the agony in the garden, and
from ignorance of the original circumstances the choice in this respect
was infelicitous.
If we here revert to the question from which we set out, whether we are
rather to retain the farewell discourses in John as thoroughly
historical, and renounce the synoptical representation of the scene in
Gethsemane, or vice versâ: we shall be more inclined, considering the
result of the inquiry just instituted, to embrace the latter
alternative. The difficulty, that it is scarcely conceivable how John
could accurately remember these long discourses of Jesus, Paulus has
thought to solve, by the conjecture, that the apostle, probably on the
next Sabbath, while Jesus lay in the grave, recalled to his mind the
conversations of the previous evening, and perhaps also wrote them
down. [1866] But in that period of depression, which John also shared,
he would be scarcely in a condition to reproduce these discourses
without obscuring their peculiar hue of unclouded serenity; on the
contrary, as the author of the Wolfenbüttel fragments observes, had the
narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus been committed to writing by
the Evangelists in the couple of days after the death of Jesus, when
they had no longer any hope, all promises would have been excluded from
their gospels. [1867] Hence even Lücke, in consideration of the mode of
expression in the farewell discourses, and particularly in the final
prayer, being so peculiarly that of John, has relinquished the position
that Jesus spoke in the very words which John puts into his mouth, i.e.
the authenticity of these discourses in the strictest sense; but only
to maintain the more firmly their authenticity in the wider sense, i.e.
the genuineness of the substantial thoughts. [1868] Even this, however,
has been attacked by the author of the Probabilia, for he asks, with
especial reference to chap. xvii., whether it be conceivable that Jesus
in the anticipation of violent death, had nothing of more immediate
concern than to commune with God on the subject of his person, the
works he had already achieved, and the glory to be expected? and
whether it be not rather highly probable that the prayer flowed only
from the mind of the writer, and was intended by him as a confirmation
of his doctrine of Jesus as the incarnate word λόγος, and of the
dignity of the apostles? [1869] This representation is so far true that
the final prayer in question resembles not an immediate outpouring of
soul, but a product of reflection—is rather a discourse on Jesus than a
discourse from him. It presents everywhere the mode of thought of one
who stands far in advance of the circumstances of which he writes, and
hence already sees the form of Jesus in the glorifying haze of
distance; an illusion which he heightens by putting his own thoughts,
which had sprung from an advanced development of the Christian
community, into the mouth of its Founder prior to its actual existence.
But in the preceding farewell discourses also there are many thoughts
which appear to have taken their shape from an experience of the event.
Their entire tone may be the most naturally explained by the
supposition, that they are the work of one to whom the death of Jesus
was already a past event, the terrors of which had melted away in its
blessed consequences, and in the devotional contemplation of the
church. In particular, apart from what is said of the return of Christ,
that era in the Christian cause which is generally called the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is predicted in the declarations
concerning the Paraclete, and the judgment which he would hold over the
world (xiv. 16 ff. 25, xv. 26, xvi. 7 ff. 13 ff.), with a distinctness
which seems to indicate light borrowed from the issue.
In relation, however, to the fact that the farewell discourses involve
the decided foreknowledge of the immediately approaching result, the
sufferings and death of Jesus (xiii. 18 ff., 33, 38, xiv. 30 f. xvi. 5
ff. 16, 32 f.), the narrative of John stands on the same ground with
the synoptical one, since this also rests on the presupposition of the
most exact prescience of the hour and moment when the sufferings will
commence. It was not only at the last meal and on the departure to the
Mount of Olives, that this foreknowledge was shown, according to the
three first gospels, for in them as well as in John, Jesus predicts
that the denial of Peter will take place before the cock crow; not only
does the agony in the garden rest on the foreknowledge of the impending
sufferings, but at the end of this conflict Jesus is able to say that
now, at this very minute, the betrayer is in the act of approaching
(Matt. xxvi. 45 f.). Paulus, it is true, maintains that Jesus saw from
a distance the troop of guards coming out of the city, which, as they
had torches, was certainly possible from a garden on the Mount of
Olives: but without being previously informed of the plans of his
enemies, Jesus could not know that he was the object of pursuit; and at
any rate the Evangelists narrate the words of Jesus as a proof of his
supernatural knowledge. But if according to our previous inquiry, the
foreknowledge of the catastrophe in general could not proceed from the
higher principle in Jesus, neither could that of the precise moment
when it would commence; while that he in a natural way, by means of
secret friends in the Sanhedrim, or otherwise, was apprised of the
fatal blow which the Jewish rulers with the help of one of his
disciples were about to aim at him in the coming night, we have no
trace in our Evangelical accounts, and we are therefore not authorized
to presuppose anything of the kind. On the contrary, as the above
declaration of Jesus is given by the narrators as a proof of his higher
knowledge, either we must receive it as such, or, if we cannot do this,
we must embrace the negative inference, that they are here incorrect in
narrating such a proof; and the positive conclusion on which this
borders is, not that that knowledge was in fact only a natural one,
but, that the evangelical narrators must have had an interest in
maintaining a supernatural knowledge of his approaching sufferings on
the part of Jesus; an interest the nature of which has been already
unfolded.
The motive also for heightening the prescience into a real
presentiment, and thus for creating the scene in Gethsemane, is easy of
discovery. On the one hand, there cannot be a more obvious proof that a
foreknowledge of an event or condition has existed, than its having
risen to the vividness of a presentiment; on the other hand, the
suffering must appear the more awful, if the mere presentiment extorted
from him who was destined to that suffering, anguish even to bloody
sweat, and prayer for deliverance. Further, the sufferings of Jesus
were exhibited in a higher sense, as voluntary, if before they came
upon him externally, he had resigned himself to them internally; and
lastly, it must have gratified primitive Christian devotion, to
withdraw the real crisis of these sufferings from the profane eyes to
which he was exposed on the cross, and to enshrine it as a mystery only
witnessed by a narrow circle of the initiated. As materials for the
formation of this scene, besides the description of the sorrow and the
prayer which were essential to it, there presented itself first the
image of a cup ποτήριον, used by Jesus himself as a designation of his
sufferings (Matt. xx. 22 f.); and secondly, Old Testament passages, in
Psalms of lamentation, xlii. 6, 12, xliii. 5, where in the LXX. the
ψυχὴ περίλυπος (soul exceeding sorrowful) occurs, and in addition to
this the expression ἕως θανάτου (unto death) the more naturally
suggested itself, since Jesus was here really about to encounter death.
This representation must have been of early origin, because in the
Epistle to the Hebrews (v. 7) there is an indubitable allusion to this
scene.—Thus Gabler said too little when he pronounced the angelic
appearance, a mythical garb of the fact that Jesus in the deepest
sorrow of that night suddenly felt an accession of mental strength;
since rather, the entire scene in Gethsemane, because it rests on
presuppositions destitute of proof, must be renounced.
Herewith the dilemma above stated falls to the ground, since we must
pronounce unhistorical not only one of the two, but both
representations of the last hours of Jesus before his arrest. The only
degree of distinction between the historical value of the synoptical
account and that of John is, that the former is a mythical product of
the first era of traditional formation, the latter of the second,—or
more correctly, the one is a product of the second order, the other of
the third. The representation common to the synoptists and to John,
that Jesus foreknew his sufferings even to the day and hour of their
arrival, is the first modification which the pious legend gave to the
real history of Jesus; the statement of the synoptists, that he even
had an antecedent experience of his sufferings, is the second step of
the mythical; while, that although he foreknew them, and also in one
instance had a foretaste of them (John xii. 27 ff.), he had yet long
beforehand completely triumphed over them, and when they stood
immediately before him, looked them in the face with unperturbed
serenity—this representation of the fourth gospel is the third and
highest grade of devotional, but unhistorical embellishment.
§ 127.
ARREST OF JESUS.
In strict accordance with the declaration of Jesus that even now the
betrayer is at hand, Judas while he is yet speaking approaches with an
armed force (Matt. xxvi. 47 parall., comp. John xvii. 3). This band,
which according to the synoptists came from the chief priests and
elders, was according to Luke led by the captains of the temple
στρατηγοῖς τοῦ ἱεροῦ, and hence was probably a detachment of the
soldiers of the temple, to whom, judging from the word ὄχλος, and from
staves ξύλοι being mentioned among the weapons, was apparently joined a
tumultuous crowd: according to the representation of John, who,
together with the servants or officers of the chief priests and
Pharisees, ὑπηρέταις τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ Φαρισαίων, speaks of a band
σπεῖρα, and a captain χιλίαρκος, without mentioning any tumultuary
force, it appears as if the Jewish magistrates had procured as a
support a detachment of Roman soldiery. [1870]
According to the three first Evangelists, Judas steps forth and kisses
Jesus, in order by this preconcerted sign to indicate him to the
approaching band as the individual whom they were to seize: according
to the fourth gospel, on the contrary, Jesus advances apparently out of
the garden (ἐξελθὼν) to meet them, and presents himself as the person
whom they seek. In order to reconcile this divergency, some have
conceived the occurrences thus: Jesus, to prevent his disciples from
being taken, first went towards the multitude, and made himself known;
hereupon Judas stepped forth, and indicated him by the kiss. [1871] But
had Jesus already made himself known, Judas might have spared the kiss;
for that the people did not believe the assertion of Jesus that he was
the man whom they sought, and still waited for its confirmation by the
kiss of the bribed disciple, is a supposition incompatible with the
statement of the fourth gospel that the words I am he, made so strong
an impression on them that they went backward and fell to the ground.
Hence others have inverted the order of the scene, imagining that Judas
first stepped forward and distinguished Jesus by the kiss, and that
then, before the crowd could press into the garden, Jesus himself
advanced and made himself known. [1872] But if Judas had already
indicated him by the kiss, and he had so well understood the object of
the kiss as is implied in his answer to it, Luke v. 48: there was no
need for him still to make himself known, seeing that he was already
made known; to do so for the protection of the disciples was equally
superfluous, since he must have inferred from the traitor’s kiss, that
it was intended to single him out and carry him away from his
followers; if he did so merely to show his courage, this was almost
theatrical: while, in general, the idea that Jesus, between the kiss of
Judas, and the entrance of the crowd, which was certainly immediate,
advanced towards the latter with questions and answers, throws into his
demeanour a degree of hurry and precipitancy so ill suited to his
circumstances, that the Evangelists can scarcely have meant such an
inference to be drawn. It should therefore be acknowledged that neither
of the two representations is designed as a supplement to the other,
[1873] since each has a different conception of the manner in which
Jesus was made known, and in which Judas was active in the affair. That
Judas was guide to them that took Jesus, ὁδηγὸς τοῖς συλλαβοῦσι τὸν
Ἰησοῦν (Acts i. 16), all the Evangelists agree. But while according to
the synoptical account the task of Judas includes not only the pointing
out of the place, but also the distinguishing of the person by the
kiss, John makes the agency of Judas end with the indication of the
place, and represents him after the arrival on the spot as standing
inactive among the crowd (εἱστήκει δὲ καὶ Ἰούδας—μετ’ αὐτῶν, v. 5). Why
John does not assign to Judas the task of personally indicating Jesus,
it is easy to see: because, namely, he would have Jesus appear, not as
one delivered up, but as delivering himself up, so that his sufferings
may be manifested in a higher degree as undertaken voluntarily. We have
only to remember how the earliest opponents of Christianity imputed the
retirement of Jesus out of the city into the distant garden, as an
ignominious flight from his enemies, [1874] in order to find it
conceivable that there arose among the Christians at an early period
the inclination to transcend the common evangelical tradition in
representing his demeanour on his arrest in the light of a voluntary
self-resignation.
In the synoptists the kiss of Judas is followed by the cutting question
of Jesus to the traitor; in John, after Jesus has uttered the ἐγώ εἰμι,
I am he, it is stated that under the influence of these commanding
words, the multitude who had come out to seize him went backward and
fell to the ground, so that Jesus had to repeat his declaration and as
it were encourage the people to seize him. Of late it has been denied
that there was any miracle here: the impression of the personality of
Jesus, it is said, acted psychologically on those among the crowd who
had already often seen and heard Jesus; and in support of this opinion
reference is made to the examples of this kind in the life of Marius,
Coligny, and others. [1875] But neither in the synoptical account,
according to which there needed the indication of Jesus by the kiss,
nor in that of John, according to which there needed the declaration of
Jesus, I am he, does Jesus appear to be known to the crowd, at least in
such a manner as to exercise any profound influence over them; while
the above examples only show that sometimes the powerful impression of
a man’s personality has paralyzed the murderous hands of an individual
or of a few, but not that a whole detachment of civil officers and
soldiers has been made, not merely to draw back, but to fall to the
ground. It answers no purpose for Lücke to make first a few fall down
and then the whole crowd, except that of rendering it impossible to
imagine the scene with gravity. Hence we turn to the old theologians,
who here unanimously acknowledge a miracle. The Christ who by word of
his mouth cast down the hostile multitude, is no other than he who
according to 2 Thess. ii. 8, shall consume the Antichrist with the
spirit of his mouth, i.e. not the historical Christ, but the Christ of
the Jewish and primitive Christian imagination. The author of the
fourth gospel especially, who had so often remarked how the enemies of
Jesus and their creatures were unable to lay hands on him, because his
hour was not yet come (vii. 30, 32, 44 ff., viii. 20), had an
inducement, now, when the hour was come, to represent the ultimately
successful attempt as also failing at the first in a thoroughly
astounding manner; especially as this fully accorded with the interest
by which he is governed throughout the description of this whole
scene—the demonstrating that the capture of Jesus was purely an act of
his own free will. When Jesus lays the soldiers prostrate by the power
of his word, he gives them a proof of what he could do, if to liberate
himself were his object; and when he allows himself to be seized
immediately after, this appears as the most purely voluntary
self-sacrifice. Thus in the fourth gospel Jesus gives a practical proof
of that power, which in the first he only expresses by words, when he
says to one of his disciples: Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to
my Father, and he shall presently give me twelve legions of angels (v.
53)?