Category: Biblical Studies

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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337

Tenth section.

The Elijah deeds of Jesus.

Matth. C. 14, 1 – 16,12.

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§ 59.

The situation.

Wilke first made the discovery that the events following from the multiplication of the loaves to the demand for a sign have their “parallels” in the deeds of Elijah, as recounted in the Old Testament. *) In the passage that introduces this section, it is already reported as a popular opinion that Jesus is Elijah (Mark 6, 15.), in the narrative section that follows the passage, Jesus is informed by his disciples, in response to the question as to whom the people believe him to be, that they believe him to be Elijah: “so in the section to which we now pass, just such actions and speeches of Jesus are set forth in which he has resemblance to Elijah.”

*) p. 569. 570.

We will not give a preliminary overview of the accounts this time, since only the critique of the individual – it concerns the account of the second feeding of the people in the writing of Mark – can enlighten us about the connection and the structure of the whole. Only this much we notice here, that Luke, at the point where we have arrived at this moment, reports only about one act of Elijah of Jesus, – about the miraculous feeding of the people – C. 9, 10-17. Matthew, on the other hand, after he has become so far master of the confusion caused by the forcibly inserted Sermon on the Mount that he can remain faithful to the type of the Gospel story as formed by Mark, gives us everything that he finds in the scriptures of Mark, only having to omit the sending of the Twelve, which Mark places after Jesus is rejected by the Nazarethites and before Herod takes notice of him. However, once again, he reveals that he has superficially used and thoughtlessly transcribed Mark’s scripture regarding the pragmatic linkage of the individual sections. Otherwise, however, he again reveals that he has used Mark’ writing superficially and copied it thoughtlessly as far as the pragmatic connection of the individual pieces is concerned. After the parable, he has Jesus go to Nazareth, the prophet is rejected in his fatherland, Herod becomes aware of Jesus, now, after the execution of the Baptist has been reported, there follows the momentous message which the disciples of John bring to Jesus, and the latter (C. 14, 13.) “goes from there in a boat into the solitude of the desert. From Nazareth, answers Fritzsche *). It is certain: Matthew is capable of everything; but that he would have imagined that Jesus had sailed directly from Nazareth by ship across the Sea of Genesareth to the eastern shore, we cannot consider him capable of that. However, in chapter 13, verse 58, he forgot to transcribe the note from Mark that Jesus left Nazareth and traveled around teaching – he relied on the impression conveyed by the narrative that must convince every reader that Jesus no longer troubled his unbelieving hometown with his presence. He also does not tell us where Jesus was when he sailed across the sea to the wilderness, as he could not include Mark’s account of the mission trip of the Twelve and their return to Jesus, whom they found at his usual location by the sea. He must now suddenly transcribe the note of the crossing of the sea from Mark (Chapter 6, verse 32) without providing his readers with the necessary assumptions.

*) to Matth, p. 492.

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Matthew also did not know that the Elijah-like character of the following events and that the report that the disciples later gave to the Lord about the opinion of the people (C. 16, 14.) should be motivated and explained to the reader in this passage. For in order that the reader might know where he stood, Mark, when he reported Herod’s opinion of Jesus as the risen Baptist, had already stated that others took him for Elijah, others for a prophet (C. 6, 14. 15.) *), Matthew, on the other hand, only attributes to him the one note (Mark 6, 14.) that Herod believed Jesus to be the risen Baptist. Luke also changed what he read in his source: while Mark simply put the opinion of Herod and the opinion of the people next to each other, he rather combined both, also made the opinion of Herod, that Jesus was the risen Baptist, the opinion of the people and the tetrarch only got embarrassed when he heard the different judgements about Jesus **) (C. 9, 7. 8.). But there is the remark of Herod v. 9: “I have beheaded John, but who is this of whom I hear these things?” – the reworking of Mark 6, 16 – especially if the beheading of the Baptist is not reported, is very futile, because first of all it was just said that Herod was embarrassed and did not know what to think, and secondly it was obvious that the Baptist had gone to or been sent to the dead before it was thought that he had risen in Jesus, if the opinion was formed that he had risen in Jesus.

*) After v. 16 Mark returns – and so it was necessary – to the opinion of Herod; for he wants to make the transition to the report of the beheading of the Baptist and therefore lets Herod say: “he is John, whom I have beheaded”. Matthew did not know the meaning of this nuance and omitted v. 16 just as he did v. 15.

**) The alteration Luke 9, 8 : προφητης εις των αρχαιων ανεστη will be mentioned later.

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Another change! Mark simply reports that Herod became aware of Jesus, whose reputation was spreading, and does not yet attempt to relate the following report of Jesus’ Elijah deeds to this note from Herod. Luke – for he reports here only the one act of Elijah, the miraculous feeding – has nothing which he could relate to the fact that Herod heard of Jesus; but since he omits the report of the beheading of the Baptist, he must fill in the gap and this stopgap is the remark, taken out of the air, that Herod wanted to see Jesus *). From this remark, a new story gradually develops for him, and suddenly, even though he had already sent Jesus (in chapters 9:51 and 13:22) on his journey to Jerusalem and therefore out of Herod’s jurisdiction, he tells us (in chapter 13:31) that some Pharisees (!) approached the Lord and, very sympathetically and unusually for them, advised him to leave here(!), as Herod wanted to kill him. How Luke further develops this fiction later on, and in chapter 23:8 he himself no longer knows anything about this hostile attitude of Herod towards Jesus, which would appear ridiculous if we were to ask why Herod suddenly became so embittered against Jesus, we will learn in due time.

*) 9, 9: και εζήτει ιδείν αυτόν.

Matthew represents the matter as if Herod’s attention had been threatening, for Jesus withdrew into solitude on receiving the news of the tetrarch (C. 14, 13.), so he thought it expedient to avoid publicity for some time. But what motivated him to this retreat? The news that the disciples of the Baptist brought him of the unhappy end of their Master’s life, a news that he could not receive at that moment, since it was intercepted and misappropriated by the authorities long before it could reach the Lord!

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It was not only the news of the death of the Baptist, Matthew thinks, that moved Jesus to retreat into hiding, but explicitly the certainty he now received about the bloodthirsty character of Herod. The tyrant, says the evangelist C. 14, 5, had always wanted to kill the Baptist in prison, but for fear of the people, who regarded him as a prophet, he had not dared to do so. Now, when the disciples of the Baptist brought him this news, did not Jesus have reason enough to fear that Herod would also pursue him? Did he not know how he stood by the tyrant and that he had to beware of him if he did not want to be killed before the time? Quite beautiful! This may have been in Matthew’s mind when he portrayed the matter in such a way that Jesus withdrew into hiding after receiving this news; but the evangelist himself has seen to it that this beautiful pragmatism coincides. Although he says that Herod wanted to kill the Baptist, he presents the matter in such a way that the tyrant was only persuaded against his will to take the prisoner’s life. That oath to which he had committed himself against the daughter of Herodias, and the cunning of his wife, who, it is not known why, instructed her daughter to demand from Herod the head of the Baptist, only these foreign stipulations, which went beyond his will, induced him to have the Baptist beheaded, and he himself was sad when he saw himself bound by his oath *). Strange but easily explained contradiction! Matthew has thrown the subjects, verb and object, in a colourful jumble when he copied and abbreviated the narrative of Mark*). Mark tells us that Herodias resented the Baptist’s censure of her marriage to Herod as unlawful, and that she wanted to kill him but could not. For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man, and therefore had him well guarded; he had also obeyed him in many things, after obtaining his counsel, and had generally liked to hear him. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that Herod was saddened when he saw how his oath, by which he had committed himself against the daughter of Herodias, cost the Baptist his head **).

*) Matth. 14, 9: ελυπήθη ο βασιλεύς, διά δε τους όρκους και τους συνανακειμένους εκέλευσε δοθήναι. Mark 6, 26 : και περίλυπος γενόμενος ο βασιλεύς διά τους όρκους και τους συνανακειμένους ουκ ηθόλησεν αυτήν αθετήσαι.

*) Schneckenburger, about the origin of the first canonical gospel. p. 87. Wilke p. 676.

**) Μatth. 14, 5: και θέλων αυτών αποκτεϊναι, εφοβήθη τον όχλον, ότι ως προφήτην είχον. Mark 6, 19. 20: η δε Ηρωδιάς ενείχεν. αυτό και ήθελεν αυτόν αποκτείναι και ουκ ήδύνατο. ο γάρ Ηρώδης εφοβείτο τον Ιωάννην, ειδώς αυτόν άνδρα δίκαιον και άγιον και συνετηρει αυτόν και ακούσας αυτού πολλά επoίει και ηδέως αυτού ήκουε. Throughout, in all its particulars, Mark’s narrative proves to be the original one. It is not impossible that a cursory glance at the narrative of his predecessor and the reflection that the same danger threatened the Lord on the part of Herod, i.e. the wrong conception of Mark 6, 19 ( ἤθελεν αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι) the same view that Matthew also allowed himself, to whom Luke wrote that note C. 13, 31 (θελει σε αποκτειναι) could be discovered. What Mark 6 says about Herod’s relationship to the Baptist and his own discovery that Herod had discovered Jesus εζητει ιδειν (Ch. 9:9), Luke used both of these for his account of the meeting of Jesus and Herod: ο δε ηρωδης ιδων τον ιησουν εχαρη λιαν ην γαρ θελων εξ ικανου ιδειν αυτον δια το ακουειν πολλα περι αυτου …… επηρωτα δε αυτον εν λογοις ικανοις Ch. 23:8-9.

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Matthew’s ephemeral work, which was done in the fleeting moment of fear, has now dissolved on all sides, and the only question that remains is whether the original evangelist placed the assumption of Herod here solely in order to add the note that some of the people believed Jesus to be Elijah, and thus to introduce the passage that reports Jesus’ deeds of Elijah. The question must be answered in the negative. Why else would Mark describe in such detail the different attitudes of Herod and his wife towards the Baptist? As soon as we throw out the question and let the account work on us with all its means, the mystery is solved. Just as Ahab was provoked and driven to persecute the prophets and to shed innocent blood by the bloodthirsty and bitter Jezebel, so now, when the Lord performs Elijah’s deeds, a new Ahab and a new Jezebel are to stand in the background. As Ahab finally bowed to the prophet and obeyed his words, so must Herod lend a willing ear to the words of the Baptist, while Herodias is resolute in her hatred of the God-man. Just as in the time of Ahab and Jezebel the prophets had to retreat into seclusion and Elijah wandered inactive and volatile, so also the Lord from now on, since Herod became aware of him, has to wander restlessly, into the deserts, then towards Phoenicia, later to the region of Caesarea Philippi and only for a moment he may rest in Capernaum, in order to finally start from the centre of his former activity on the way of death to Jerusalem. The fact that Herod’s attention was drawn to Jesus does not appear to be a threat, but if, against his will and through his own carelessness, the Baptist fell victim to the unforgiving hatred of his wife, could not a similar fate befall the man who seemed to him to be the resurrected preacher of repentance? Mark does not explain Jesus’ retreat into the wilderness from the fact that Herod’s attention was drawn to the miracle-worker, simply because he had told the story of the end of the Baptist so widely and now, knowing full well that he had gone back to an earlier time, had to look for another motive. But this much is certain: Herod and his wife had acted against the Baptist as Ahab and Jezebel had acted against Elijah, and they stand as these threatening figures in the background, while Jesus, the risen Baptist, appears as Elijah, acts, and wanders about without a cause. Mark had been content to simply juxtapose these figures and rely on the impression they would make on the reader, while his two followers, although they had not even understood the tendency of this passage, sought to place Herod’s appearance, his attitude and Jesus’ withdrawal in a more definite context in the unfortunate way we have come to know.

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Only because he wanted Herod to appear as the second Ahab, Mark calls him “the king” C. 6,14; the two others call him “the tetrarch” (Matth. 14, 1. Luke 9, 7.), because they did not know what this title meant.

If the insight into the ideal context of this passage will be very dangerous to the theological presupposition of its credibility, then this danger will betray itself in all its seriousness already in advance, if it does not remain alien even to a piece of narrative that goes back further. We mean the account of Jesus’ appearance in Nazareth.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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305

§ 54.

The Crowds.

As Jesus, as reported by Mark (chapter 4, verses 1-2), had thwarted the plans of the scribes and his relatives, he went to the shore of the lake. A large crowd gathered, so that he was compelled to board a boat. From there, he delivered several parables to the people standing on the shore. Matthew also reports this (chapter 13, verses 1-13), and he was able to follow the parable discourse after the plans of the scribes and Jesus’ relatives, as Mark prescribes. However, Luke was not able to do so, as he did not want to include the parable of the sower in the abyss of his notes, where he had thrown the account of the Pharisees’ plans. Instead, he wanted to assign the context of that parable to the Galilean ministry of Jesus, and he wanted to bring the relatives only after the end of this discourse. Therefore, he had to create a new occasion. Thus, he reports that after Jesus received the message from John and had meanwhile been a guest at a Pharisee’s house, “he went through the cities and villages, preaching and proclaiming the kingdom of God, and with him were the twelve; and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources; and as a great crowd gathered and people from the towns were coming to him, he told them the parable of the sower” (chapter 8, verses 1-4).

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Schleiermacher says: “the intention of our narrative (C.8, 1-21.), if one holds the beginning and the end against each other, cannot be doubtful; it is the glorification of that company accompanying Jesus and serving him, and certainly also of the women mentioned by name, partly in comparison with his bodily relatives, to whom he preferred them as spiritual relatives, partly in the application of the parable of the sower, who found in them the good land, which keeps the word heard and bears fruit *)”. 

*) p. 116

It is very possible that Schleiermacher hit the meaning of the passage; a man, at least, who related Jesus’ word about his true relatives to the parable of the sower, was also able to relate the same parable to those women and, by means of this relationship, to contrast Jesus’ bodily relatives with that helpful company that served and cared for him. For this reason, however, Luke is far from deserving the praise that Schleiermacher bestows upon him; for this reason, it “must” be far from “obvious to everyone that we owe our (Luke’s) narrative with its strange note about the serving women to some private relationship that cannot be determined *)”. On the contrary: the worse, if Luke has looked at the matter in the indicated way, the worse that he has not better – if he once wanted to change it – reshaped the original report, which we must put in the place of that “private relationship”. It is purely his fault that he copied Jesus’ speech to the disciples (C. 8, 16-18.) from the writing of Mark and thereby separated the parable of the sower from the saying about the true relatives much too much. And why did he not better connect the parable, if it should glorify that serving retinue, with the entrance of the narration, why, on the contrary, did he completely divert the attention from those women, if he still lets the Lord interpret the parable? “Must it not be obvious to everyone that this interpretation is out of all proportion to that purpose? How precious, pretentious and attitudeless is it when the praise of those women is wrapped up in a parable whose meaning is hidden from the people and which only the more deeply observant are able to discover **)? How precious to carry this praise through the opposition to the seed which bears no fruit? Why tell the disciples: it is given to you to know the secrets of the “Kingdom of Heaven”, why ask them: see how you hear? Luke borrowed the parable, its interpretation, and Jesus’ statements that led to the disciples’ question about the meaning of the parable from the writings of Mark, and left everything as it is in the original Gospel, even though it is highly probable that he wanted to bring it into a new context.

*) op. cit. p. 117-119.

**) Wilke, p. 379.

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Also the note of the women who followed and served the Lord, he took from the writing of Mark *); but that they were now just in the entourage of Jesus, that they felt urged to their service of love, because the Lord had healed them miraculously and delivered them from demons, that two of them were called Johanna and Susanna **), all this is solely his work. He has now summoned them, created two of them, and it is he who first explains their attachment out of gratitude for the miraculous healing of their diseases. What Jesus did only to Peter’s mother according to the Gospel, he has to do the same service to the other women in Luke’s scripture, so that they serve him again ***).

*) Mark 15, 40 γυναίκες: 23. 41 αι και, ότε ήν εν τη Γαλιλαία, ήκολούθουν και διηκόνουν αυτό.

**) In Mark 15, 40 Mary, the mother of Jacob and Joses, and Salome.

***) Mark 1, 31: και διηκόνει αυτούς.

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Mark only mentions those women when he needs them, namely for some contrasts in his resurrection story. He does mention that they had always belonged to Jesus’ entourage and served him during his time in Galilee – but why didn’t he say it earlier? Why didn’t he give us any hint that would have enlightened us about this part of Jesus’ society? It would be insufficient to say that he didn’t need them before for his pragmatism or didn’t require their services. On the contrary, there was no place for these women before. Nowhere in Mark’s account of Jesus’ travels, or the depiction of his surroundings, can we think of these women. There is no pore to be found where we can place them. Only now, when Mark mentions them, they are assigned their service. The evangelist wants to explain how they came to Jerusalem – they were always part of his entourage! – he wants to explain why they took care of Jesus’ body and wanted to embalm him – they had always served the Lord during his lifetime!

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When Luke later (chapter 23, verses 49-55) comes to the point in Mark’s account where he finds the mention of the women, he simply writes that they came with Jesus from Galilee and doesn’t even mention their names – he wants to prove that he faithfully followed Mark’s more detailed note in chapter 8, that Mark had changed the original report inappropriately, and that he himself created the characters of Joanna and Susanna. Just as an external need of pragmatism gave rise to the mention of that women’s entourage in Mark’s account, it was an even more external and narrowly limited need that prompted Luke to introduce the mention of that entourage before the parable of the sower; he needed a historical introduction and for this purpose he reached for that note to give a completely false connection to the parable of the sower.

*) Because later the remark that these same women had followed the Lord also otherwise and had served, could not be missing.

We say: an external need! The need! A limited material interest! After all, it would have been better if a more general aesthetic need had introduced that female retinue into the story of Jesus, and if the evangelists had worked out the situations in such a way that the good women could find a suitable place. The latter did not happen anywhere and the synoptics did not have that aesthetic need, although it would have been very good if they had felt it. Why? Because it is too monotonous and insubstantial, if we learn nothing more about the relationship of Jesus to the people, than always only the one thing, that everywhere, where Jesus exits, “crowds” flow together and surround him. Those women would not have helped much, especially if they were mentioned as regularly as the Synoptics never forget to report that the disciples were around Jesus and the crowds gathered around him; but at least some variety would have come into the meager picture, if that women’s retinue had been mentioned —- but it would not have helped either, since the whole layout of the evangelical historiography is so abstract that no means could have brought it to life. Let us dare to declare the habit of literal interpretation obsolete. Consider how the evangelists have nothing further to say than that the crowds flowed to the Lord from all ends of the land, followed him into the solitude of the desert, or came immediately when he arrived in any city. Observe this painting impartially and think only of the chorus of Greek tragedy, whose place the crowds occupy in the Gospel story!  The former is connected with the hero of the tragedy through a moral pathos, through pity, or contains in the universality of his self-awareness the reconciliation of the conflicting forces that collide in the tragedy. However, the crowds in the Gospel story are just crowds, a shapeless, indeterminate mass that is always and everywhere the same and is only tied to the Lord by external selfish necessity. “As soon as they learn that he has come, they will run about the whole country and take the sick to where they heard that he was. And whenever he came to a hamlet, town, or village, they would bring the sick to market, and besought him that he would only allow them to touch the hem of his garment” Mark 6:55, 56. That was the necessary consequence: if the One is everything and represents the pure universality of self-consciousness alone, then the others are left with only stupidity and at most wickedness – (as happened in the Fourth Gospel) – or natural selfishness and neediness, and that tension between the two sides rests either on the contrast of the sublime self-confidence and the narrowness of the crowd, or the crowds are driven towards the One by their sensual need. The crowds lack moral pathos, pity, they cannot be actively involved in the Lord’s struggle because he must stand isolated as the One, and the only universality left to them is the religious confidence that the One can help them with their natural need.

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We have put the category of the “multitudes” so far into its true light that the theologian will lose all desire to appeal henceforth to the credibility of the reports; for if the way in which the Synoptics placed the multitudes to the Lord is repulsive, it would have done much less honor to Jesus if he had excited and moved the masses of the people only by the appearance which his miracle-working aroused. We have no dogmatic interest why we should call the evangelical view untrue in this respect; we have done enough when we have recognized it as meager and lifeless and have called it a necessary determinant of the religious view in general; but if the theologian should nevertheless be so foolhardy and fight for the historical existence of the “crowds,” the following critical reflection will suffice to send the crowds back to their home. We do not even want to mention that all previous reports and with them the miracles have dissolved and evaporated into the self-consciousness of the church, but as if the reports were still there in their first immediacy, we content ourselves with the demand that the evangelists explain to us how the multitudes could so suddenly gather together and be driven to the Lord. No sooner had Jesus arrived in Capernaum for the first time than all the sick and demoniacs were brought to him, and the whole city gathered at the door of the house where he had entered. In the morning, when Jesus had left quietly, Peter hurried after him to tell him that everyone was looking for him. On his return to Capernaum, many ran to the news of his arrival and as soon as he went to the lake, the whole crowd streamed out to him (Mark 1, 32. 37. 2, 2. 13.). Mark, however, says that Jesus, when he appeared for the first time in the synagogue of Capernaum, caused a sensation by the power of his teaching and astonished the people by healing the possessed man. In the real world, however, the crowd is never so easily aroused; rather, the man who wants to have an effect on his environment has to overcome with great difficulty the most simple resistance offered him by inertia, indolence and doubtfulness, as well as the envy of the crowd. A single deed – and be it even the healing of a man possessed – attracts at first only the attention of a few individuals and is either forgotten or at most and in the happiest case, when the tension is maintained and increased, is judged lukewarmly, doubtfully or with a shake of the head, until ever new, ever more decisive deeds and victories follow and general recognition is secured. So much even heroes have to let themselves become sour and only Jesus is supposed to have tied the mob to himself immediately by one doctrinal lecture and by the one healing of the possessed? So at that time the mob, also the spiritual mob was another than it always was, is and will be? Or the masses had no definiteness about them that had to be overcome before they surrendered to the new? Or did they immediately throw away the heavy burden of the old, which in real history they defended so stubbornly against innovators, in order to pay homage to the new? Before we believe the unbelievable, Mark would have to make us understand how the people from all places could find their way into the desert to Jesus or how it was possible that a few days after his first appearance the crowds from Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, the country beyond the Jordan and from Tyre and Sidon flocked to him (C. 1, 45.3, 7. 8.). Mark says (C. 1, 28.), immediately as he appeared in the synagogue of Capernaum on the first day, the call of him spread throughout the whole region of Galilee, this alone, and especially with this “immediately,” says very little, if anything at all. 

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The crowds” are a category of the Gospel worldview, the reflected image of the universality of the One in the empirical and sensual world, an image that is related to the One and the sublime only through finite need and necessity, and in this position serves as the historical backdrop to the glory of the One. Jesus did not know this category.

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The wrathful shadow of the Twelve, who until now had rightfully complained that we had banished them alone to the realm of ideal contemplation, has now fallen on the crowds as a sacrificial offering of reconciliation, or rather, they have followed the Twelve into a better world where they will no longer be crushed and trampled, even if they gather in the tens of thousands (Luke 12:1). They now lead their true, ideal life.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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300

§ 53.

Visit of the relatives of Jesus.

Matth. 12, 48-50.

When Mark announces to the Lord the arrival of his relatives, who sent for him, with the words: “your mother and your brothers are looking for you outside” (C. 3, 31.), he has really told us why they sought him out and wanted to have him brought out. The two others, since they omit the preliminary remark about the intention of the relatives, must include in the announcement of their visit some more definite words, which say something about their intention: Luke lets them announce with the words: “they want to see you” (C. 8, 20.), Matthew (C. 12, 47.) with the words: “your mother and your brothers are looking for you outside. 12, 47.) with the words: “they want to speak to you,” after he himself had said (v. 46.) that they had arrived with this intention: But neither of them can make us understand why Jesus rejects His own so harshly by asking: who is my mother? who are my brothers? In our day, the theologian will no longer want to say that it was purely and solely his heavenly majesty that led him to declare himself so revolutionary against the family context.

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Matthew and Luke also betray their dependence on Mark in that they foreshadow a certain situation which they did not hint at beforehand, the opposite of which they rather presupposed. Luke tells the Lord, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside”: if it could still seem here that this expression “outside” was used because Jesus was surrounded by the crowd and, as Luke himself says in v. 19, his relatives could not reach him because of the crowd, Matthew removes all doubt that one could still have concerning the original report. He also lets Jesus report what he himself had said before, that his relatives were standing outside, but when he says at the end of his account C. 13, 1: Jesus went “out of the house,” the meaning of the “outside” is explained: the relatives could not reach him because of the crowd that surrounded the house in which Jesus was. But Matthew did not say anything before about Jesus being in a house, nothing about him being in a city at all: but in the account of Mark all these details essential to a historical account are present: Jesus returns “home” with the apostles who had just been appointed, and on the news of his return the people gather together and his relatives go out to capture him (Mark 3, 20. 21.). Of course, the fact that Jesus “summoned” the scholars when they brought their accusation (Mark 3, 23.) presupposes a freer and wider space than the interior of an ordinary house can provide, but Mark himself may be responsible for that, just as the fact that the scholars arrived from Jerusalem for the sake of this accusation falls on his shoulders.

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Now to the matter in hand! To the theologian who still believes in the miracles of the conception, birth and childhood of Jesus, the circumstance that the mother of Jesus makes common cause with his bitterest enemies and wants to capture him because he is mad, while the scribes declare him to be an ally of the devil, must seem very difficult, but no! very easy to explain. She wavered, says Olshausen *), and “a moment of weakness and struggle of faith” had come upon her. But a woman with whom we are intimately connected, especially a mother, is firm; the mother who conceived us poor human children in a natural way remains faithful to us when everything about us goes astray and despairs, she comforts us when everything leaves us, she inspires us with the infinite strength of her feminine hope and forbearance when everything falls upon us, and the mother who carried the God-begotten under her heart is supposed to want to capture him as a madman at the very moment when the scribes accused him of alliance with the devil? Impossible! Even if she had not miraculously conceived him, she would have denied all maternal feeling – which we cannot so easily assume without reason, as Mark wants to move us to do – if she had acted as she is said to have acted according to the account. So impossible must it seem even to the theologian to twist the text and have the audacity to claim **) that in her hard temptation “the sorrowful mother came more to get comfort from her son and Lord than really to take him home.”

*) I. 427.

**) Olshausen, a, a. O.

Only Mark, who still knows nothing of the miracles of Jesus’ birth and childhood, could dare to send the mother out against him, as he does, if he had an interest which was more powerful than reason and did not let him notice the unnaturalness of the situation in which he placed Jesus’ mother. He wanted to make it understandable that it was indeed time for Jesus to choose helpers in the Twelve, since his miraculous activity so attacked and exhausted him that his relatives had already begun to think that he had lost his mind. The assertion of the scribes that Jesus cast out the demons with the help of Satan is only the purely educated intensification of the suspicion of the relatives and should lead us to the conclusion that Jesus had indeed fought so bravely and overpoweringly with the devilish spirits that his unbelieving opponents believed that so much success could only be explained by the fact that he was in contact with the devil himself.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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293

§ 52.

Refusal of a sign.

Matth. 12, 39 – 45.

Whether Schleiermacher or de Wette is right, when the former *) finds it more natural how Luke puts together the demand for a sign and the accusation that Jesus is in league with the devil, and the latter **) gives preference to Matthew’s portrayal, since “the demand for a sign is caused only by Jesus’ assertion that he works through the Holy Spirit” – (thus, by a statement that has long been drowned out in the noise of the preceding verses V. 33-37) – Mark has decided that neither of them is right.

*) p. 175.

**) I, 1, 119.

1. The sign of Jonah.

Matth. 12, 39 – 42.

In verse 39, Jesus rebukes the evil and adulterous generation which demands a sign, saying, “No sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Then, in verse 40, it is explained, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Without transition, it is added (verse 41-42), “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, someone greater than Solomon is here.”

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Now see how the theologian is already twisting and writhing, clenching his fist, and threatening these sayings, who are shouting something wildly, that they had better observe the laws of harmony, or beware that one of them, if he will not comply, must be strangled. They do not want to obey – the theologian is not a wizard, he lacks the magic formula – so it is time to strangle! Only the sign of Jonah shall be given to this generation? Yes! And what does it consist of? In the resurrection? But that is precisely the most tremendous miracle. And did Jonah tell the people of Nineveh his adventure with the whale and bring them to repentance through this story? Not at all! The Lord himself says that the preaching of the prophet – Jonah is called “the prophet” from the outset – had this effect, and the people of Nineveh are therefore set above the miracle-seeking generation because they had been moved to repentance by the preaching of a man who was otherwise distinguished by nothing*), so the preaching of the man had the same significance for them as Solomon’s wisdom had for the queen of the South.

*) Correct Calvin on v. 41: Jonas apud Ninevitas nullo titulo splendebat, sed homo extraneus poterat explodi.

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But Jesus did perform miracles, and the resurrection, which he promises at the same moment as a sign, is also a miracle and a very powerful one at that, – well, says Neander, Jesus also speaks of his miracles in this whole speech. “We are by no means speaking here merely of the teaching of Christ, but of the whole of his appearance, which is more than the appearance of Solomon and Jonah.” But what a mist and smoke of words the theologian wraps himself in, in order to be able to look down from his lofty standpoint on those who think here first of the doctrine. We would think that when Jonah’s appearance in Nineveh is spoken of, when the journey of the queen of the south to Solomon is mentioned, Jonah and Solomon are taken into consideration for the sake of what they carried in the scope of their spirit and made known through the word; for this reason and for no other, v. 41 “the preaching of Jonah” is called “the preaching of Solomon”. 41 “the preaching of Jonah” and v. 42 “the wisdom of Solomon” are expressly and only thought of – what else are we to think of, then, if we are not to think “merely of doctrine” out of pure nobility, how should the appearance of Solomon and Jonah have oozed their inner being other than through “doctrine”? But it is only the theologian’s own harm if he regards doctrine so contemptuously, as if it were not the proper manifestation of the Spirit, or as if the appearance of Solomon and Jonah had something quite apart from wisdom and preaching to the foreign queen and to the Ninevites. It is his pity, for he misjudges the saying, its power, he surveys the great significance that language has for the appearance of great men, and yet in all the world he does not arrive at the miracles he would like to achieve by means of this saying. Or, in the end, are the miracles to be the only thing that must be added before a personality can become greater than Solomon and Jonah were? To be sure, Jesus compares his “appearance” with that of Solomon and Jonah, but only in so far as the appearance of those men was interpreted by themselves in their wisdom and preaching, and was wholly placed in this manifestation of the spirit, i.e. in so far as the teaching of those men revealed the extent of their spirit. Now when Jesus says of himself: here is more than Solomon, more than Jonas, does he then refer to his miracles, inasmuch as “to the whole of his appearance as a sign belonged also in particular his miracles? *)” Then he would have been smaller than those men! Jonah makes great effort to persuade the Ninevites to repentance by the power of his word, Solomon had only asked God for wisdom and through it won the recognition of his contemporaries, as all Scripture tells us, and what these men acquired with difficulty, Jesus wants to win especially through miracles and by pointing to his miracles, that is, in one fell swoop, in a way that is otherwise not available to the poor children of men in this world?

*) Neander p. 205.

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Lift yourself up from me, theologian, for it is written: here is more than Jonah, more than Solomon, i.e. the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah, the queen of the south came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but you did not believe my words, my speeches, and yet these words are the expression and utterance of a personality whose spiritual scope is infinite, while Jonah and Solomon were still limited personalities. But it shall remain so, only the sign of Jonah shall be given to you, you shall not see any other sign than this my person and its, albeit infinite, expression in the word. So where are the miracles “in particular”?

We are probably not overreaching ourselves in words when we express the hope that people will finally stop scolding philosophy in prefaces and from the rooftops. You have played this game long enough, gentlemen, but now it has come to an end, since philosophy is coming to protect the Scriptures, for which you have hitherto fought, against your abusive protection and to save the letter against yourselves. You want to drive us out of the State, you provoke the government against us, you conjure up heaven and hell against us, and behold! O behold! judgment has come upon you: we drive you out of theTemple – not with the rope, not with passion, no, in all peace of mind, by freeing the letter from your hands, which wanted to strangle it, and let it bear witness against you! He drives you out of the temple! The stones of the temple cry out and accuse you! Flee! Flee!

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Matthew did not create the saying himself, not originally, because he has distorted it to an extent that is impossible with a fresh, original structure. Only in verse 39 does it say that only the sign of the prophet Jonah shall be given to this evil generation, and this sign is (verse 41) Jesus’ three-day stay in the heart of the earth, an extraordinary sign, and yet that “adulterous” generation should be ashamed by the example of the people of Nineveh, who believed the preaching of the prophet without miracles. Impossible! But possible in the way that Matthew – think of chapter 4, verses 13-14! – knows how to squeeze Old Testament types into a literary work that was already developed before him. 

He wrote out Luke, but transformed one sentence of the saying with the same construction into a reference to the Old Testament type of the resurrection of Jesus. Luke C. 11, 29 – 32 says: “This generation is wicked: a sign is required of it, and no sign shall be given unto it, save the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation” – this is the saying about the Queen of the South and the Ninevites. Here is the connection, here is everything clear: as Jonah stood before the Ninevites without a sign and had to wait and see whether they would be moved to repentance by his sermon and be delivered from their sin, so the Son of Man stands before this generation and although he is more than Jonah, this generation still wants a sign and will therefore be condemned by the Ninevites who thought quite differently.

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Matthew, however, because he did not have to create that speech and could let his thoughts wander to the remotest, remembered that Jesus rose on the third day (Mark 10, 34.), that and the similarity of Jesus’ stay in the earth – for the evangelist it was a similarity – with the fate of Jonah, who (Jon. 2, 1.) “was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish,” these two echoes induced him to substitute his explanation of the sign of Jesus for that of Luke, and so little did he notice the tremendous contradiction which now enters into the speech that he retained the construction of the original saying *).

*) Luk 11, 30 καθώς γαρ εγένετο Ιωνάς σημείον τοϊς Νινευίταις, ούτως έσται ο υιός του ανθρώπου τη γενεά ταύτη. Matth. 12, 40 ώσπερ γαρ ήν Ιωνάς εν τη . . . . ούτως έσται ο υιός τ. άνθρ. εν τη …….

As long as the critics accepted this saying, as Luke formed it, for a real saying of Jesus, they could, however, entertain the opinion that with its help they could repel the idea that Jesus had been a miracle-worker. But it is formed by Luke on a standpoint on which the demand of sensual certainty asserted itself against the proclamation of the Gospel and was to be pacified by the reference to the pure view of the personality of Jesus and to the power of his teaching – so there is a contradiction in the fact that a saying which arose from a later collision is put into the mouth of the Lord in a context where he really performed so many miracles.

In its original form the saying did not yet have this general meaning; there it was rather intended to reject the Pharisees, who, in order to tempt the Lord, demanded of him a sign from heaven, simply without any reference to the general. “What, saith Jesus, does this generation ask for a sign? Verily I say unto you, there shall no sign be given unto this generation. Then Jesus left them standing.” Mark 8, 11-13. Luke immediately confused this single definite collision with a later one, which only the church experienced, and accordingly formed that discourse which takes into account a more general interest; Matthew, at last, put the excellent train of thought of this discourse into boundless confusion, by making, after his manner, the story of Jonah a type of the resurrection of Jesus.

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2. The return of cast out demons.

Matth. 12, 43-45.

With a very definite transition, as if the best connection were present, with the formula “but if” (οταν δε) Jesus begins to describe how an unclean spirit, when it has gone out from a man, wanders about in desolate places, seeks in vain for a resting-place, decides to return, and when it finds the man remiss, takes seven other spirits with it, who are even more evil than he, and with them enters again into his first place. With the same man it will then be worse afterwards than it was before. “So, Jesus concludes, will it be with this wicked generation.”

But if this generation was wicked and evil, how can it be compared with a man who for a time was free from demoniac spirits, and whose inward parts were “swept and adorned” during the absence of the evil spirits? Could this a priori evil race be merely warned against “laxity”? And if it were to happen, why all of a sudden in this image, which was taken from the demonic conditions?

Matthew got this saying from Luke. Luke does not have it in the answer of Jesus to the demand for a sign, but as the end of the speech of defence against the accusation of the alliance with the devil (C. 11, 24-26.). It is impossible to determine what the saying here is about – this most important matter – for it follows after the saying (v. 23.), which itself was already out of all connection with the occasion, after the saying: “he that is not with me is against me.” Luke also omits the conclusion which Matthew formed: “so shall it be with this evil generation,” so we do not even know for certain – a great pity! – whether the saying is meant to be a mere description of demonic conditions or figurative. But if Luke had already strayed far from the occasion with v. 23 and allowed himself to go even further and be tempted to work out and write down the saying about the return of the evil spirit on the off-chance, are we to torment ourselves for two millennia in order not to find a connection, but to present it to ourselves and others?

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
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§ 51.

Defence against the accusation of an alliance with Beelzebub.

Matth. 12, 25 – 37.

How the three Synoptics bring the Lord into the case, that he had to answer against the accusation that he was in league with the prince of the unclean spirits, has already been set forth.

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1. The absurdity of the accusation.

Matth, 12, 25 – 30.

In His response the Lord assumes that Satan would certainly understand his own interest so far and would not conspire to the ruin of His kingdom: “every kingdom divided against itself shall be desolate, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand; and if one Satan cast out another, he is divided against himself, how then shall his kingdom stand?” (B. 25. 26.)

This proof, we think, would be sufficient. But there is no harm in adding a few more arguments, if they are conclusive and appropriate. At the most, the former, that it applies, can still apply to the following remark (v.27.): “and if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, wherein do they cast out your sons? Therefore they themselves will pronounce judgment upon you.” But if v. 28 continues, “But if I cast out demons in the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you,” it goes much too far beyond the foregoing, for in the first place it was not said whether the children of the Jews also cast out demons by the Spirit of God, or if this supposition should apply to them, they must always have proved the coming of the kingdom of God before Jesus appeared. But the confusion becomes even greater *) when finally v. 29, although the proposition that Jesus casts out demons by the Spirit of God had already been established and secured by the reference to the Jewish exorcists, is argued as if it should and must first be proved by the other proposition that it requires ‘a superior power against the devil at all: “Or, says v. 29, how can one enter the house of the devil? how can one go into the strong man’s house and rob his household goods, if one does not first bind him and then plunder his house?”

*) See Wilke, p. 453. 454.

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Matthew has borrowed the whole argument, with all its members, from Luke, but has left only the last clause, not in the form which Luke gave it, but excepting it in the original form which he received from Mark. In Luke, too, the inadequacy remains that after the argument that Satan would not conspire to destroy his kingdom and that the Jewish exorcists would pronounce judgement on the accusers of Jesus themselves, the other remark follows that the coming of the kingdom of God is to be concluded when he, Jesus, casts out the devils by “God’s finger”. The last remark, however, is not made by Luke as if to prove anew the necessity of a superior power to fight Satan, but he lets the speech – although always inappropriate and slow enough – run out into a description of the brave attack on the strong man’s castle (Luk 11, 17-22). 11, 17 – 22.): “when the strong man in full armour guards his palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he comes and conquers him, he takes his armour, on which he relied, and divides the spoil.” The change was necessary, but what is the point of this meaningless epic description?

We are now in the right mood and condition to reflect on how Mark formed the proof beautifully, simply, strikingly and – for such reflections are not preserved and formed in the shifting sands of tradition – first. Very appropriately – the two others have omitted it – the question is prefixed: “how can Satan cast out Satan?” Then follows the remark that every kingdom or house that is at variance with itself cannot stand, and so not even Satan, if he wanted to stand up against himself; and finally follows the rejoinder that the house of the strong man cannot be taken and plundered unless he is first bound (Mark 3, 24-27.). Nothing more, but enough and above all coherent!

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Nor does Mark want to know of the following saying, which Luke and after him Matthew add to the previous one about the storming of the strong man’s castle (Luk 11, 23. Matth. 12, 30.). “He that is not with me is against me; he that gathereth not with me scatters” If all the theologians were to join forces and try to bring about a semblance of coherence, they would not be able to do so: they, too, must finally learn to understand that what is impossible remains impossible. They have no reference to the relation of Jesus to Satan, as was formerly believed, for Jesus just now expressly said that one must bind the strong man if one wished to deal with him; they apply just as little to the relation of the Pharisees to Jesus, since they had this time appeared as resolute opponents. To what, then, do they refer? To all other things, but not to the present occasion. Luke probably only wrote this saying as a counterpart to the other saying, since it speaks of the casting out of demons: He who is not against us is for us”, a saying which he probably also first formed on the occasion that the disciples of Jesus reported that they had seen someone casting out demons in his name (C. 9, 49. 50.).

Now what are we to say and think when Matthew, after a saying of this kind with the formula: “therefore (δια τουτο) I say unto you”, passes on to the saying of the sin against the Holy Spirit, that is, to a saying which refers to the reproach of the Pharisees? We will say nothing at least that even remotely resembles the assertion that there is a connection here. Matthew returns to the Scripture of Mark – Luke has assigned another place to the saying of the sin against the Holy Spirit – and because he now sees a connection there, because he even reads there (Mark 3, 30.) that Jesus had spoken of this sin “because” the Pharisees had said: “he has the devil,” he thinks he also gives everything in the best connection when he processes this remark of Mark: “because (ότι) they had said” into the transition: “therefore”. *) The saying of the unpardonable sin was already in Matthew’s mind when he had the Lord (v.28.) draw the conclusion: “if I cast out devils in the Spirit of God, the kingdom of God has come to you.” Matthew, in consideration of the following, which Luke did not have to take into account, since he placed the saying of the greatest sin in a different place, had even deliberately changed Luke’s expression: “if I cast out devils by the finger of God” (Luke 11:20), and yet immediately before the saying of that sin he brings another one which has nothing to do with it? But why does he also want to do too much of a good thing, to unite the treasures of Luke and Mark and not let a single piece be lost, and why does he not always proceed, as he sometimes does, boldly and brazenly in the combination of the sayings which his predecessors handed down to him?

*) Luke has put Mark’ remark, when he omits the saying of the unpardonable sin, much too early and moreover unskilfully in the form of a remark by Jesus himself, namely immediately after the question: how then, if Satan is at odds with himself, can his kingdom exist? 6. 11, 18: ότι λέγετε, εν βεελζεβούλ εκβάλλειν με τα δαιμόνια. Here, Jesus’ remark seems inappropriate and unnecessary in itself, but Luke used it to remind of the occasion when he (V. 13, 16) reported two things: the accusation that Jesus was in league with Satan, and the demand for a sign. Thus, we must acknowledge Mark’s tact in expressing the opponents’ accusation in a way that made it clear that it was based on their terrible error of mistaking the spirit in which Jesus was working for a diabolical one ; οτι ελεγον, πνευμα ακαθαρτον εχει.

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2. The sin against the Holy Spirit.

Matth, 12, 31. 32.

Even though he finally communicates the verdict of the unpardonable sin, Matthew does too much of a good thing. Twice he says that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, once in simple contrast to the statement that (v. 31) every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, the other time (v. 32) in a more elaborate contrast (“it will neither be forgiven in this world nor in the next”) to the statement that it will be forgiven him who speaks something against the Son of Man. But one thing was enough! For if every sin but one can be forgiven, then among the forgivable is also the blasphemy against the Son of man; or if it can be forgiven, then it is also forgiven against all others but one, because it is above all others and nearest to the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. This was known to Mark and Luke, the former only having the simple antithesis, the latter only the more definite, the latter saying (C. 3, 28. 29.), “all sins are forgiven the children of men, even all blasphemies which they utter: but he that blasphemeth the Holy Ghost hath no forgiveness for ever, but is guilty of everlasting judgment;” whereas Luke C. 12, 10: “and whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever blasphemeth the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him.”

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Luke has linked this saying to that excellent occasion when ten thousands crowded around the Lord so that they trampled one another. Matthew knew what to make of such a beautiful occasion and audience; he put Luke’s saying together with that of Mark – although both are basically the same saying.

If it now remains to be asked how Luke arrived at the form of his saying, and if Weisse *) supposes that the mention of the children of men (υιοις των ανθρωπων) in Mark is an “error of memory” on his part, “who remembered this expression in the context of this saying from Peter’s narration – (which memory, as if the words in the memory did not rather receive themselves through the thought, its strueture and interest, and afterwards, out of the thought, either gather themselves together again or form themselves into a new shape! ) – but no longer knew how to find the right relationship” – (as if such an insignificant word as human children could cause a writer so much trouble) – if, therefore, Weisse hopes to clarify the matter in this way, we are rather permitted, no, it is certain, that Luke was rather led to his form of the saying by the allusion to that word and by an imprecise understanding of it, in that he was at the same time guided by the perception and the instinct of the contrast.

*) II. 77.

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Therefore, the new saying we receive from Luke is, like some others *) in the Gospels, the discovery of that instinct which is true and correct in itself, even of deep content, but only needed a coincidence, a random occasion and connection, to find its object. The children of Mark led Luke to the Son of Man.

*) Remember the “poor in spirit.”

3. Sayings alien to the presupposed occasion.

Matth. 12, 3Z-S7.

Mark still knew – because he was the first to write the evangelical work of history – how opponents must be defeated, namely, by arguments that are short, to the point, and incisive; but he did not yet know that one could also use arguments that had nothing to do with the matter itself or were only in some contact with it through a distant allusion; in short, he did not yet know that a speech in defence must consist of a collection of the most diverse sayings and run into an incomprehensible pincer. Only his successors, who had fine sayings in mind and did not want to merely copy them, came to this insight. This insight led Luke – we have already seen how far – but it led Matthew even further.

Matthew lets four sayings follow, after the opponents had long since been thrown to the ground by the sayings he borrowed from Mark. So a dead enemy is fought – and how? First, v. 33: “either plant a good tree and its fruit will be good, or plant a corrupt tree and its fruit will be corrupt: for from the fruit the tree is known” – i.e. the definiteness of the action depends on the general definiteness of the personality. Then, “ye generation of vipers, how can ye speak good, seeing ye are evil? for what the heart is full of, the mouth overflows with it” v. 34 – continued in v. 35. A new thought follows v. 36: “of every vain word that they have spoken, men shall give account in the day of judgment.” Finally, a new turn in v. 37: “From your words you will be justified, from your words you will be condemned”, i.e. actions can still conceal the inner nature of man, but in a word the same is revealed involuntarily and in its true authenticity.

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Let us not dwell on the arts and crafts of the theologians! Calvin remarks that Jesus wanted to strip the Pharisees of their hypocrisy and remind them that they must be either decidedly good or evil – but the Pharisees had previously revealed their decided wickedness. Calvin remarks on the third saying in v. 36 that it is a conclusion from the lesser to the greater: if every word is weighed, how will God let blasphemies go unpunished? But this should have been said, the more so as the saying, as it stands here, forms an independent magnitude. But if de Wette now comes with the explanation: “Jesus goes on about the malicious speech of the Pharisees and its evil source and he applies the sentence C. 7, 16 ff. First of all, we notice that the beginning of the sentence speaks of the determination of actions in general, but not of the speeches of the people, and then we remember from where Matthew had derived this sentence for the Sermon on the Mount – from the parallel speech of Jesus in Luke! Now, from here he writes down the saying about the tree and its fruit, which he had already used for the Sermon on the Mount, in a shorter form, because he finds it in close connection with the saying about the speeches that come from the treasure of the heart, and because he was reminded of this other saying by the reminiscence of the argument against the Pharisees because of their speeches. Hence the unseemliness of the first saying; hence Matthew, before he copies the saying from the speech (Luke 6:45.), prefixes it with the question (v. 34.), “how can ye, vipers, speak good things, seeing ye are evil?” hence this confusion. The last two sayings (v. 36, 37) are the work of Matthew.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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280

§ 50.

A sabbath healing.

Matth. 12, 9-14.

Whether it should have happened on the same Sabbath, on which they had just been severely treated, or on another, is irrelevant. It is incomprehensible and inappropriate that the Pharisees should expressly put the question to the Lord, whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, when he had entered the synagogue, in which there was also a man with a withered hand. Whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath! They had just heard that the Son of Man was Lord even over the Sabbath, and they had also experienced that Jesus knew how to answer courageously. So why provoke him? Neither historically nor aesthetically probable?

It is quite another thing when Mark (C. 3, 2.) reports that they were watching him to see if he would heal the sick man on the Sabbath, so that they could accuse him. That is right: they want to see how he would behave in this case, but they are careful not to provoke him by a question or to draw attention to the danger and their intentions. This is also reported by Luke (C. 6, 7.). Another time (C. 14, 1-3.) the same evangelist found out – which he and only he succeeded in doing so often – that the Lord was a guest of a Pharisee. This time the man is a leader of the Pharisees – a character that is otherwise unknown to us – and Jesus, as it seems, went into his house of his own accord “to eat bread. Luke, in fact, diligently keeps the matter in abeyance, because he wants to portray the Pharisees as hostile from the start: “they were watching him.” It was the Sabbath day, and behold, there was – (suddenly, we don’t know where he came from) – a man suffering from dropsy in front of him. Jesus then asked the experts in the law and the Pharisees whether it was permitted to heal on the Sabbath. What a question! He has already answered with both words and deeds! So why raise the issue again? One should not say that those present had not heard of the earlier incident, for in the original evangelical view, everything happens only once, everything that happens is known to everyone, and the public, because it is one, is all-knowing. The question is created as a situation and should only serve as a theme for the following speech, or rather just as a heading. Matthew has combined this account of Luke with the report of Mark, for he has overlooked the fact that these Sabbath incidents originally appear – in the writing of Mark – as practical conflicts of the new principle with the positive law and with the legal world, he has furthermore – (compare C. 11, 28 – 30.) – transferred the interest to the theory as such *) and so the Pharisees must now immediately advance with the question whether it is permitted to heal on the Sabbath.

*) Cf. Wilke, 482.

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That Matthew had confused two things, the original account of Mark, which Luke reproduces in its place essentially unchanged, and that later narrative of Luke, is also proved in this way. “Who,” Jesus is said to have answered (v. 11. 12.) to that question of the Pharisees, “is there among you, if he have a sheep which shall fall into a pit for him on the sabbath day, that shall not take hold of it, and lift it up? How much better then is a man than a sheep? So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” This is either saying too much or too little. Too much! for the opponents were already beaten when they were reminded that the Sabbath law was broken because of an animal. Too little, insofar as the thought of benevolence in relation to both sides has not been properly prepared e.g. *) “Either not clearly enough described as something to be practiced against humans or, taken in this sense, is so detached from those examples of the benevolence practiced on animals as if it were something else and that no benevolence.” It was enough, when the Lord once (Mark 3.4. Luke 6.9.) asks his opponents: “Is it lawful to do good or evil on the Sabbath? To save a life or to bear the burden of perishing”)?” and the other things (Luke 14:5): “Who is among you whose ox or donkey falls into the well and does not immediately pull it out on the Sabbath day?” Both were enough in themselves each time, and if Luke rightly says that the people could not answer anything to the latter question, Mark, on his part, was allowed to give the Lord, after the former question, immediately a withering glance from the opponents, and to heal the sufferer ***).

*) as Wilke, p. 461 excellently states.

**) Instead of αποκτειναι is also to be read in Mark as in Luke: απολεσαι.

***) The note that the Pharisees (Mark 3, 6.) consulted “with the Herodians”, of which the two others in the parallel passage know nothing, is a later gloss from Mark 12,13. Mark had only written: they consulted against him. Wilke, p. 500.

Now come the critics, if the theologian, if he has heart, could say, now he only “asserts” that Jesus did no miracles! Didn’t he heal a dropsy man on the Sabbath and a man with a withered hand? Isn’t it certain that he healed miraculously, since we still have the sayings that he had to use to counter his opponents on this occasion? And aren’t these sayings so peculiar that they must be genuine? Aye! Aye!

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Good theologian, you gain nothing by claiming that criticism is content only to “assert” something – it only proves, but does not “assert”! – You gain nothing by confusing all the categories of the world. Real! Original! Proper! O, and what not everything else!

So now, valiant theologian, the critic asks you to consider again how Matthew has changed the historical situation which he sees written before him by Mark, and the saying which the same writing of Mark has handed down to him, and indeed has changed it very incongruously, and you now dare to think it possible that in oral tradition such things can live unchanged for many, many years? If litera scripta non manet, shall the letter, which is written or preserved in tradition – that is, where? in a thousand heads, and always add, in a thousand hearts, here and there in so variously individualised vessels? – are written or preserved, remain and endure? See, good friend, how the original tale of Mark has become a theme on which later variations have played freely! Or would the saying which Luke C. 14 communicates also have come from tradition? Then at least it would not have to be Luke who reports it, not Luke who so often invites the Lord to breakfast or to the banquet of the Pharisees, not to give him the opportunity to speak out most vehemently against these arch-enemies or to rebuke them about law and tradition. Then Luke would not have to report another healing of the Sabbath and let the Lord answer for it with the saying that everyone unties his ox or donkey from the manger on the Sabbath and leads it to the watering place (C. 13, 15.). 6, 5, that Jesus, on the same day, when he had proved his authority against the Sabbath law, saw a man working “on the Sabbath” (!) and called out to him, “if thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed; if thou knowest not, thou art accursed, and a transgressor of the law *).” These are, as I said, variations on the one theme which Mark composed.

*) Cf. Rom. 14, 23.

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Mark composed it first! The theologian should thank us and wish himself luck if we prove to him that these reports are pure, later creations, for if they were historical and “credible,” it would be certain that Jesus only shook the Sabbath law, but did not break through this fence. When Jesus refers to the authority of David, it basically only means that in cases of necessity the Sabbath law does not apply; if it may only be violated for the sake of an extraordinary good deed, then it remains as a rule apart from this exception. Weisse **) may have secretly foreseen this danger, or rather he may have been interested in ascribing to the Lord an unconditional exaltation of the Sabbath law, but the fact remains: if the accounts are to be understood as historical, Jesus only conditionally permitted an exception to the rule, even demanded it, but thereby only confirmed the rule even more. If Jesus wanted to negate the law, he would have had to give his statements a more far-reaching direction.

**) l, 484.

Nevertheless, it is true that the reports, as formed by Mark, are based on the premise that the Sabbath law as such no longer has any validity; the individual case and the settlement of this individual case are to be advanced to the generality of all cases and the higher rule that stands above the old law – but this progress, this premise, is only there in itself, and is not really carried out and elaborated. Why? Because the reports are formed only later, when the community had long since come to terms with the law, and its self-awareness, when it was presented in a single figure, in a particular anecdote from the life of its master, of its own accord supplemented the lack of this particularity, added the generality, just as it found the same confirmed at the same time in a single saying of the master.

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Those anecdotes only teach us about the self-awareness of the congregation as it was at that time when they were formed – if we want to inform ourselves about the position of Jesus, other investigations are needed, to which we first pave the way by examining the evangelical views and, if necessary, dissolving them. The miracle falls, reason, self-awareness triumphs!

Matthew, by the way, already had the need to really transfer the definiteness of the individual (C. 12, 3-8.) to the generality, only he could not quite succeed in his way. Luke, too, had the same need inwardly; he therefore multiplies the individual cases which gave the Lord occasion to declare himself against the Sabbath law: but much of the individual is not the general. Both of them had only considered the individual things formed by Mark, and no longer saw that the generality of the self-awareness of the congregation was at the bottom of it. Mark worked beautifully.

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§ 49.

The disciples’ grain-picking.

Matth. 12, 1-8.

A secret horror always seizes the apologist when he is to regard, even for a moment, a positive determination, which he regards as a divine revelation, as one which is somehow to be drawn into the negative dialectic and unassigned to a higher principle; indeed, he is even frightened when history wants to give him the factual proof that the positive provisions of the Old Testament do not have the value he attaches to them, – he must therefore forcibly keep at bay the dialectic which is so inconvenient to him and its appearance.

One Sabbath Jesus went through the fields of grain; his disciples were hungry, plucking ears of corn and eating. The Pharisees, who were always in the place where there was something to see, saw it and pointed out to Jesus that his disciples were doing what was not allowed on the Sabbath. Jesus replied that they had not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the shewbread, which neither he nor his companions, but the priests alone, thirsted to eat. Or do you not know, Jesus asks, do you not know from the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and yet are blameless?

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Nevertheless, says Calvin, Jesus did not oppose the Sabbath law, but only the petty spirit of the Pharisees (their superstitio) and their most self-found traditions. If Jesus says that David did something that was not his due according to the law, Calvin knows better: he says that David did nothing against the law *). Or when Jesus says that the priests desecrate the Sabbath for the sake of the temple service, which demands work from them, Calvin says that Jesus is expressing himself improperly and is accommodating himself to the listeners **). The listeners! the opponents, to whom he should rather have opposed himself, the people whom he strikes down precisely by the bold statement that even the priests desecrate the Sabbath because of their consideration for the service of the temple!

Another interest led the more recent critics to dismiss the point of the report in the same way as the apologists did. On the one hand, they find a contradiction in the fact that Jesus is said to have risen above the positive law, while in the early days of the church people were still afraid of how to cope with the barriers of the old; on the other hand, they are still captivated by the letter, so what is written – as if it were not written in letters of iron – must be worked on until the contradiction is erased. Thus it is said *): Jesus did not rise above the Sabbath law but only above the “petty spirit” of the Pharisees, “when he heals on the Sabbath or lets his disciples pluck out ears of corn.”

*) praeter fas. Calvin shifts the point of view. The question is not only whether David can do nothing against the law according to the different reports – but whether he did what the positive law forbade. 

**) Quod dicit, Sabbatum profanari a sacerdotibus, impropria est loquutio, in qua se Christus auditoribus accommodat. As per Olshausen, I, 387.

*) e.g. Strauss, I, p59.

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From the standpoint on which criticism has at present risen, the question is solved, because it is posed correctly and is no other than that of how the creative consciousness, from which the certain evangelical views have arisen, regarded the matter. If the question is put in this way, then we should think that it is clear that this effort of thought and language, this invocation of David, who did what was not his due, this bold, extraordinary expression that the priests also profane the Sabbath, this conclusion that the Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath, this bravery of thought and this ruthlessness of language could only have been possible when it was necessary to break the barrier of the positive law. When, on the other hand, the “petty spirit” of the Pharisees is combated, the language is different and no thought is given to later regulations concerning the sanctity of the Sabbath.

The Lord is to be portrayed in the struggle with the positive law, therefore the Pharisees immediately attack him by holding him responsible for what his disciples were doing, therefore Jesus takes up the matter as his own from the beginning and closes his responsibility with the word that the Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath, therefore – Luke did not form this report first, but altered the original report, when he does not have the Pharisees immediately attack the Lord, but says to the disciples: “what do ye that is not lawful to do on the sabbath day **)? “

**Luk 6, 2, thus the same inappropriate change that Luke allowed himself just before C. L, 30.

Matthew is also not the first to create the report. First of all, the Lord refers to the example of David, which really proves that it is a case of necessity knows no law. But when (v. 5.) the appeal to the law follows, which demands work from the priests even on the Sabbath and compels them to desecrate the Sabbath, then *) the argument has already moved further away from the question which was to be dealt with, since “there was no question of work at all, but only of work which necessity compelled.” If it had really been a question of whether work was permitted on the Sabbath, the reference to the priests’ Sabbath work would have been sufficient. But Matthew, who, as we now see, wants to exhaust everything that only serves to dialectic against the old law, goes further and lets the Lord draw the conclusion that if the temple and its higher right entitled the priests to profane the Sabbath, then here, in the one who stands here, there is in himself more than the temple; he is more, and thus has in himself the right and authority against the Sabbath. Matthew has left the disciples out of sight: he returns to them. If you knew, he lets Jesus say in v. 7, what that is, I want mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocents. Much too short! It should have been pointed out in more detail that the accusation of the Pharisees was not only unjust, but also harsh and unloving, and that the true law did not demand the observance of outward statutes, but love. And finally, how can that citation familiar to Matthew – compare C.9,13 – be justified by the saying: “for the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath? How are the two connected? Not at all! Only in the writing of Mark does the latter saying have its connection, there it is the conclusion C. 2, 28: “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath,” after it had been remarked before (v. 27.) that the Sabbath was made for man’s sake, but not man for the Sabbath’s sake – a remark which expresses the general truth which David proved in the particular case of his eating the shewbread (v. 25. 26.).

*) See Wilke, p. 350.

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In short, Mark created a real connection, since he only brought the one argument that fit this particular case, the example of David, and drew from it the general truth and the application to the Son of Man. Matthew retains the structure of the argumentation, beginning and end, but sets the end as the end and in the concluding reference back to the preceding, although he has partly pushed back the preceding too far, partly – the general proposition that man was not made for the sake of the Sabbath – omitted it, and inserted new reflections that have nothing to do with the end, which nevertheless presents itself as if it were in the best agreement with them. His enrichments, which he has granted to the passage, are beautiful, are correct, but not exactly related to the occasion, nor to the sayings, which he has copied from Mark.

Luke, on the other hand, has abbreviated: after the reference from David, he immediately lets follow the saying: the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath (C. 6, 3-5.). But did he ever read the sentence: that the Sabbath was made for man’s sake, not man for the Sabbath’s sake, in Mark? Wilke*) doubts it. But probably wrongly, for it would be incomprehensible how anyone, after the consideration of the Son of Man had been established, could give it up even for a moment and put the other consideration of man first. Rather could anyone feel tempted to overlook the latter and proceed at once to the more specific one, which the believer is more fond of and accustomed to; – but to form it after the only thing of interest to the believer, the thought of the Lord’s attitude to the Sabbath, had been formed and written down? Luke and Matthew have omitted the saying. Mark certainly wrote it down, and he was only able to write it down because he first formed the epigrammatic preparation of the whole saying, the reference to what David did, and because he still had to feel vividly the impropriety of immediately inferring from David the justification of the Son of Man. Between the preparation and the point of the epigram, therefore, he inserted that general saying. The fact that it is called “Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also over the Sabbath” is due to the fact that Mark was still thinking of David and his desecration of the shewbread: if David has done this, then the Son of Man is also Lord over the Sabbath.

*) p. 464

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By the way, it is beyond doubt that a later clumsy hand inserted the historical error: “under Abiathar the high priest” (v.26) in an inappropriate place and thereby interrupted the context.

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Section Eight.

Collision with the Law and the Pharisees.

Matth, 12, 1-50.

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§ 48.

Overview.

It is no longer necessary that we consider the passage to which we are passing as a whole before we consider it in detail. Its tendency has already been indicated. Jesus’ relationship to the Law is to be illustrated in His struggle with the Pharisees: therefore the passage begins with the report of two Sabbath violations (vv. 1-14). Jesus then demonstrates (vv. 15-21) the humility and modesty by which the Messiah should distinguish himself, as already proclaimed by the prophet through the spirit of prophecy, and with which he should take care of the suffering and miserable who were crushed and broken in the old order of the law. The Pharisees now have the opportunity to express their bitterness against the one who had so decisively opposed the old law, and they dare to accuse him of an alliance with Satan (vv. 22-37; cf. v. 14). If this incident seemed to the evangelist to be in the right place, because the Pharisees were fighting the Lord, he was also compelled to place it here, because he found it in Luke’s Scripture already connected with the demand for a sign, and wanted to report it here, since it had given the Lord cause to confront the law-abiding crowd’s addiction to miracles (vv. 38-45). The passage concludes (vv. 46-50. ) with an event which does not inwardly fit the intended context and tendency of the whole (with the visit of the mother and brothers of Jesus), Matthew did not notice that this piece did not belong here, but rather wrote it down mechanically, because he had found it in the writing of Mark in too close a connection with the report of the accusation of the alliance of the Jews and did not know how to place it differently; he also thought it no harm to include at the end of the section a piece that had no connection with the whole – it could nevertheless drag on here at the end as an incidental appendage, as it could and liked to! – and this kind of ending can seem even less of a harm to us, since it rather proves that Matthew did not form this passage freely from his own viewpoint, but from materials that originally belonged to a completely different context.

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Thus it is also proved from this side, what has already been proved to us above from other points, that Matthew has combined in this passage pieces which, according to their original purpose, should serve other purposes and belong to other groups. The accusation of the Pharisees, that Jesus was in league with Satan, and the simultaneous arrival of the relatives, originally belonged together; we have already seen how both pieces were separated, how the former is connected by Luke with the demand for signs, and in this connection is excepted by Matthew; nor are we any longer ignorant how Matthew (vv. 15-20. ) was given occasion to praise the modesty and humility of Jesus; we have already seen, finally, that and why Matthew omitted the story of the two Sabbath violations, when he reworked the second section of the account of the public life of Jesus, as he saw it before him in the writing of Mark, into an entirely different consideration, and used it for his account of the second day’s work. Now he takes up again what he had left behind earlier, first he catches up with the story of the two Sabbath violations (Mark 2, 23 – 3, 6.), then he comes through the mediation of Mark 3, 7-12 to the story of the accusation that the Pharisees brought against the Lord, and by communicating this story in Luke’s connection with the demand for signs, he means to form a special section in which he presents Jesus in collision with the old law, with the harshness of the legal nature and its advocates, the Pharisees – an opinion that is already certain to him when he writes down the invitation to the weary and burdened (C. 11, 28-30.), an opinion that would bring him (C. 12, 15-20.) to the prize of Jesus’ humility and modesty, but which he was no longer allowed to assert when he reported the visit of Jesus’ relatives (v. 46-50.).

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What has now been proven to us from all sides that could only come into consideration will finally be confirmed by reflection on the pragmatic connection of the individual pieces.

We do not want to worry about the fact that Matthew says (v.1.) “at that time” Jesus went through the fields *), since even before that, when we think of the message of the Baptist, we did not know where we were when this message, this certain thing, suddenly dropped out of the greatest indeterminacy as if from thin air. Nor do we want to find fault with the fact that the second incident (C. 12, 9-13) is said to have taken place on the same Sabbath as the first, although we cannot conceal the fact that the Pharisees, who had just been dealt with roughly and severely enough, could hardly have felt like meeting the Lord again on the same day. But we cannot and must not be reassured by the fact that Matthew (v. 9) suddenly says: “and he departed thence, and entered into their synagogue” (εις την συναγωγην αυτων), without telling us either before or afterwards in what city Jesus was. “Their synagogue” is a definite one, but at the same time, what it should not be and should not be in a proper history book, a completely indefinite one *). Only a man writes so thoughtlessly who has already worked out the pieces of history in another’s writing before his eyes, and is therefore no longer dependent on shaping them himself from his own free view, on seeing to their connection and determining the situations; only a man who has directed his interest solely to the material and is thereby able to let the hastily and formlessly thrown transitions plunge from the broadest indeterminacy into the most individual definiteness. The definiteness into which he allowed his transition to run this time is only founded in the Scripture of Mark, in which this definite synagogue is the synagogue of Capernaum (C. 3, 1.). Mark also knew when the second battle with the Pharisees after the first, which was brought about by the picking of the grain by the disciples, could occur. Not on the same Sabbath, but – he keeps the matter in the proper vagueness, so that the ideal spread of the content may come into its own – when Jesus went into the synagogue again at all.

*) εν εκεινω τω καιρω, the same formula as C. 11, 25.

*) Fritzsche says (Matth, p. 425) that αυτων refers to the Pharisees: in synagogam eorum i.e. ubi ii adessent, Caphernaumi quidem. If this madness were to happen, then not only would everything have to be said beforehand – but what would not have to be said, and what an absurdity the language would first have to become. De Wette again gives us another example of theological naiveté by referring us in I, 1, 114 to C. 4, 23. And what do we read here?- “and Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues” (εν ταις συναγωγαις αυτων)! As if it were not indicated here to whom the synagogues belonged; to the inhabitants of Galilee! Should we be referred to a passage, it could only be C. 11, 1 (εν ταις πολεσιν αυτων). But if here the “their” (αυτων) was already unmotivated and abhorrent, all thought ceases when a certain synagogue is spoken of, and this is called the synagogue of “them,” without our being told who “they” are.

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While Matthew, according to his abstract, summing up manner, attributes both incidents to one Sabbath, Luke is no longer content, like his predecessor, to give the reader the impression through the content that some time must have passed between the two incidents*); rather, when he comes to the second incident (C. 6, 6.), he says that it took place on another Sabbath. Finally, he too has excluded from his account a certainty which is not explained by him, but only by Mark. When he says that Jesus went into “the synagogue,” and yet does not tell us in which city Jesus was, we would like to see the theologian who dared to prove that Luke does not know how to build castles in the air. He has built into the air, because he has borrowed a pragmatic definiteness from the writing of Mark, which in his writing remains only an air construction and only finds its solid ground again when it is brought together with the presuppositions of Marks’ writing. Mark has told us that those battles with the Pharisees were fought when Jesus had returned to Capernaum after His first journey (Mark 2, 1 – 3, 6.); Luke, on the other hand, does not tell us with a word where those battles (C. 5, 17 – 6, 11. ) were delivered, since he saves the formula (εισηλθεν εις καπερναουμ), with which Mark had sent the Lord to Capernaum, as if it were a magic formula, which could only once prove its power, for the later occasion, when, on entering Capernaum (Luke 7, 1 εισηλθεν εις καπερναουμ), he led that centurion to meet the Lord *).

*) Mark did not want to fill in the gap that would have arisen if he had assigned the second incident to another Sabbath, because otherwise both incidents would have been too much separated. However, both should be connected and since he now endeavours to present the activity of Jesus as a continuum, he lets the echo of the first collision with the Sabbath law and the significant statement of Jesus, to which the reproach of the Pharisees gave rise, fill the gap.

*) The expression Luke 6,1: εν σαββατω δευτεροπρωτω διαπορευεσθαι, which has given rise to so important archaeological hypotheses and must finally serve to bring the Synoptic Gospels closer to the fourth, since it (Neander p. 380.) “presupposes a Passover which occurred during Christ’s public ministry,” and if the occurrence of the Passover is once casually presupposed, further presuppositions are permitted: Witte has slain this monster p. 591. But he still let it half live. Luke, he says, wrote C. 6, 1 εν σαββατω πρωτω with reference to the second Sabbath, which he mentions afterwards v. 6. “A busy hand had now written δευτερω next to πρωτω in the margin to the first place with further reference to the Sabbath on which Jesus C. 4, 31 had first appeared in Capernaum, and from the coalition of both indications arose the monstrosity of the reading: δευτεροπρωτω.” Luke, however, did not even write down πρωτω. Witte does say that ετερον v. 6 points to a πρωτον; indeed, but this πρωτον lies in the matter, lies in the circumstance, that an ετερον follows, but need not therefore be written down, nay, it cannot even be written down, because the writer can only count, if he has noticed beforehand in general, that there is now something to be counted, because he can only count when there are more than two to be counted in succession; and as for Luke, he did not count from the beginning, because afterwards, when he comes to the second Sabbath, he ought to have referred to the first aahl and put the article to ετερω. Only a later man, who could now calmly consider both narratives and, with regard to the ετερω, come up with the improper idea of rubricating already in the beginning and hastily pointing to what follows, wrote to V. 1 πρωτω; then another came to remind us that Jesus had already appeared once before on a Sabbath in the synagogue of Capernaum – this other knew how to determine Luke’s vagueness according to the information of Mark – this one now wrote δευτερω in the margin and thus gave rise to the reading which was to cause so much trouble to the later ones.

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Now that it has been so clearly shown that Matthew did not create the pragmatic connection of the individual passages at the same time as the passages themselves, nor did he give the events a new natural connection after he had transposed them to his own hand, nor did he even communicate the most necessary prerequisites to his readers, there is no need for further proof of the long-proven proposition that in this passage he also threw together individual passages from the writings of his two predecessors. We will only point out how little the formula “at that time” (v. 22.) is cleverly used to connect what it is supposed to connect, and that the formula: “while he was still speaking,” which connects the visit of Jesus’ relatives with his speech against the Pharisees (v. 46.), is borrowed from Mark, who uses it in another, but in its true place (C. 5, 35.).

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