Category: Biblical Studies

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

261

§ 47.

A convocation of heterogeneous sayings.

Matth. 11, 20 -30.

Matthew continues: “Then he began to rebuke the cities in which most of his miracles had taken place, because they had not repented: Woe to you Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida, if in Tyre and Sidon the miracles had been done which were done among you, long ago they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, that Tyre and Sidon shall fare better in the day of judgment than you. And you Capernaum, which is exalted to heaven, even unto hell shalt thou be thrust down: for if the miracles had been wrought in Sodom, which were wrought in you, it would be standing this day. But I say unto you, that the land of Sodom shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment than thou” (vv. 20-24).

262

It is not only incomprehensible why the Lord should have felt the need to rebuke the cities to which only he had given a special reputation through his miraculous work, but it is also unexpected that Capernaum is attacked so harshly, since we have not heard anything about the decided unbelief of this city, but rather the opposite. But if we first leave aside the difficulty of the content, we notice another circumstance, namely the peculiar appearance that the words: “I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you” Matth. 11, 24, were already said above “of that city”, which would not receive the disciples on their missionary journey (C. 10, 15.). Before we assume that these words had become a standing formula for Jesus, with which he threatened the despisers of his name with terrible future judgement at every opportunity, we should rather remember from where Matthew had borrowed these words for the first time. Correct! Luke 10, 12-15 follows after the words about the fate of the city that would not receive the disciples, the woe over Chorazin and Bethsaida, and over Capernaum. But differently structured than in Matthew! As Chorazin and Bethsaida are paralleled with Tyre and Sidon by both Luke and Matthew, so Capernaum is referred by Matthew to the example of Sodom, which would still be standing if it had seen the miracles that happened in Capernaum. Here, however, this parallel was not only superfluous, but also very badly applied: for the saying about Capernaum, in its short form, is supposed to end, like a sudden shattering thunder, the storm that is unleashed upon the cities of Galilee; on the other hand, it contains (in its contrast: You are lifted up to heaven, you shall be cast down to hell) all that he needs, since he describes and threatens both at once the glory that was intended for Capernaum, and the final fate that was destined for the city. Matthew excluded the saying about the more tolerable fate of Sodom, which had been worked out in relation to the city that would not give the disciples shelter, and which he himself had already put in its place above, from its true place (Luk. 1V, 12.) and used it for the superfluous and disturbing elaboration of the saying about Capernaum (Luk. 10, 15.).

263

If the letter, i.e. the resolution of the letter, which Matthew wrote down, led us to the insight that Luke first gave it its existence, others *) thought they were justified by the nature of the content in claiming that “the sermon on the Galilean cities Luke 10, 13-25 certainly stands at the sending of the seventy, provided that, according to Luke’s account, this really took place at Christ’s departure from Galilee, better than at Christ’s declaration about John in the midst of Galilean activity.” To be sure, Luke has presented the matter as if Jesus had chosen and sent forth the seventy when He was already on His way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51, 57). ), but of this absurdity, both that Jesus sent out the company of seventy at such an inopportune time, and of the other monstrosity of pragmatism, that those prophecies were uttered when a company of disciples was sent out for the harvest, criticism, which wants to know nothing of those seventy, has long since told us.

*) E.g. Schneckenburger, Beiträge, p. 20.

Thus, there remains the possibility that Jesus delivered the sermon about the Galilean cities at all when he departed for Jerusalem; but then, as Weisse has correctly remarked**), “the erroneous opinion would be encouraged, as if Jesus wanted to give pleasure to a deceived expectation which he had harboured in relation to his person from the inhabitants of Galilee. So on another occasion? Nevermore! For, to say nothing of the fact that the Synoptics, wherever Jesus appears in Galilee, have the multitudes willingly and enthusiastically gather around him, that Mark only represents the Pharisees as hostile, and when he wants to report the most violent outbreak of unbelief, the accusation of alliance with the devil, he has to bring the proper persons from Jerusalem for the purpose (Mark 3:22.) – apart from all these things, which he himself made later, those prophecies about the cities of Galilee would have been weak and overwrought in every case and in every situation, if Jesus had uttered them. Only an insecure spirit and a man who does not know how to assert his dignity is capable of pronouncing curses and woe on a circle in which he had not succeeded in finding entrance and success for his effectiveness. An individual – and if he were, so to say, God himself – would only betray irritated displeasure and an excessive alteration if he wanted to please his deceived expectation by a cry of woe of such a kind. The saying came into being only when the Jewish people had long since broken with the new principle and the cities, which had been glorified as the scene of Jesus’ activity, stood and looked as if the Lord had never dwelt and worked within their walls. Originating with Jesus, the saying would have been nothing but the expression of an irritation directed at an accidental, individual point; but originating later and recognised by us as such, it only develops its generality, since it is now, on the one hand, a judgement (no longer about a couple of places in Galilee, but) about the Jewish people in general and their attitude to the Christian principle, and even more a symbolic exclamation that applies to all who do not accept the salvation offered. Proverbs of this kind arise only in a congregation which lays down in them the consciousness of their authority, validity and justification.

**) ll, 73.

264

The individual who, within the congregation, helps to express the awareness of their justification does not need to be conscious of the generality of this background at the creative moment, and he is in no way aware of it if, as a writer of history, he incorporates a general feeling into the saying of an individual person, or even into the saying about individual places with which this person was in contact, or only expresses it in such a saying. Luke was the one who spoke on behalf of the congregation, the same Luke who first wrote the other saying, the counterpart to this one, the saying about Jerusalem, which did not want to acknowledge the love of the Lord (Luke 13, 34. 35.). Luke is the only one who made the region of Bethsaida the scene of the miraculous feeding (C. 9,10.), but where he got the name of a place called Cho- razin, of which neither the OT nor Josephus know anything, the theologians will tell us. They will tell us that for many, many years the name of this place lived on in the memory of the congregation with the saying of Jesus: so let them say! Who knows by what accidental geographical peculiarity, or by what error, or by what other means Luke arrived at this name! In any case, he wanted to put two names together, because Tyre and Sidon were to be held up to the unbelieving Jewish cities for shame.

265

Matthew adds several other sayings (v. 25-30). But when he says at the beginning: “at that time Jesus gave an answer,” we do not even want to claim that he finally noticed that he was communicating sayings that had nothing at all to do with the presupposed occasion, for if he had formed this new approach for this purpose, in order to indicate the special independence of the following sayings, he would in no case have introduced the sayings as an answer without reporting that someone had gone out with a question. Everything is easily solved when we look at the scripture of Luke, which Matthew himself had in mind at that moment *) and now see that the two sayings that Matthew writes down C. 11, 25-27 are supposed to be an exclamation of Jesus, which he did on the occasion of the return and relation of the seven, Luk 10, 21-22. Matthew, as he reads it in Luke, cannot include this occasion, that Jesus “in that very hour was raptured in spirit and cried out,” since at this moment he cannot say anything about the return of the disciples – and of the seventy at that – and finds himself in a completely different situation; Nevertheless, he cannot refrain from making a paragraph and describing Jesus’ exclamation as such, namely, as a provoked one, and so he now comes to use a formula – “Jesus gave an answer” – which is motivated solely by the context of a foreign scripture. And “really, says de Wette, the saying Matth. 11, 25 clearly refers to the success which the sending of the seventy had had, so that Luke deserves the preference **).” If, on the other hand, we note that the Seventy report nothing at all in their travelogue about the reception their teachings received, Schleiermacher ***) replies: “Of course they told of the attachment of the lowly and of the adverse mood of the respected. But the situation is so bad that the Seventy not only report nothing about the mood of the people, but say nothing at all about the proclamation of the Gospel; for although they have nothing more to report to the Lord than the denial that “also” the demons are subject to them, it is clear that they speak only of the miraculous activity and report only that as the most important result of their journey, that “also” the possession as well as other diseases and ills have been cured by them.

*) If one considers the Scriptures of Matthew alone, then one must of course come to assertions such as that of Frktzsche (on Matth, p. 412.): ex hac formula (v. 25.) colligas, Matthaeum de ratione temporis factis ipsis accommodandi vehementer esse sollicitum. The formula comes from this, quod scriptor antegressam quaestionem, quae responsum hujusmodi exigat, animo quidem finxerit, sed brevitatis causa omiserit.

**) 1, 1, 110.

***) P. 170.

267

Let us first hear the first half of the saying (Luk. 10, 22. Matth. 11, 25. 26.): “I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to babes *)”. This reflection is said to have arisen when the Seventy returned from a journey on which they learned nothing more significant than that “also” the demons are subject to them, from a journey which they never undertook, since they themselves never existed as these Seventy? The reflection refers to the experiences of the church and is a variation on the theme which Mark (C. 2,17.) elaborated in the saying about the righteous and the sinners.

*) The sharpness of this saying, the price that the Gospel of the Lord of heaven is hidden from the wise, had of course often to be blunted by those who explained it. Thus Chrysostom says: ου τοινυν δια τουτο – that it is hidden from the wise – χαιρει, αλλ οτι, α σοφοι ουκ εγνωσαν, εγνωσαν ουτοι – namely, the immature.

Fritzsche (Matth, p. 415.) says to this: recte. But only what Bengel, for example, says is correct: duplex ratio laudandi.

Nothing but a later reflection on the authority of the Son, on His relationship to the Father, and on the principle of revelation, which no one can take from himself, but can only receive from the Son, in whom the Father is manifested; nothing but a later dogmatic reflection, of which Mark knows nothing, is also the saying (Luke 10, 22. Matth. 11, 27.): “All things are delivered unto me of my Father. And no one knows who the Son is but the Father, nor who the Father is but the Son, and to whom the Son wills to reveal it.”

On his own hand, but in a new direction, Matthew continues (vv. 28-30): “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is gentle and my burden is light.” Matthew has the following passage in mind, in which he wants to portray the Lord as the Saviour who demands and exercises compassion and mercy, and opposes them as the higher and God-pleasing things to the strict rules of Ford and the yoke of the law, and finally proves himself in his behaviour as the one of whom the prophet had already said that he does not quarrel, does not cry out, does not break the bent reed and does not extinguish the smouldering wick. Matthew has long forgotten the message of the Baptist, he hastens to the following passage, and presents the subject of it as the conclusion of a speech that had to do with quite different things. Of course, he could have produced a reflection of this kind, since he had long before brought together sayings which referred to everything else but the historical position of the Baptist *).

*) On Matth. 11, 28. 29: δευτε προς με παντες οι κοπιωντες . . . . . και ευρησετε αναπαυσιν ταις ψυχαις υμων Wilke, p. 629 correctly referred to Jerem. 6, 16: ἴδετε, ποία ἐστὶν ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀγαθή, καὶ βαδίζετε ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ εὑρήσετε ἁγνισμὸν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν. For the following (Matth. 12, 7 ελεον θελω και ου θυσιαν) Wilke refers to Jerem. 6, 20 τὰ ὁλοκαυτώματα ὑμῶν οὔκ εἰσιν δεκτά, καὶ αἱ θυσίαι ὑμῶν οὐχ ἥδυνάν μοι. We can still remember the parallel passage to Jerem. 6, namely Isa. 55. v. 1: οἱ διψῶντες, πορεύεσθε ἐφ᾿ ὕδωρ . . . V. 2: ἡ ψυχὴ ὑμῶν. V. 3: προσέχετε τοῖς ὠτίοις ὑμῶν καὶ ἐπακολουθήσατε ταῖς ὁδοῖς μου· ἐπακούσατέ μου, καὶ ζήσεται ἐν ἀγαθοῖς ἡ ψυχὴ ὑμῶν. Compare Jerem. 31, 25: ἐμέθυσα πᾶσαν ψυχὴν διψῶσαν καὶ πᾶσαν ψυχὴν πεινῶσαν ἐνέπλησα. Compare also Ps. 116, 5-7.

———————————————

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

140

§ 41.

The Healing of a Mute Demoniac.

(Matthew 9:32-34)

Strange contradiction! Matthew is so bound to the letter, indeed he treats it so arbitrarily, that he tears out events which are firmly fixed in their place by the strongest bonds in the scripture of Mark, and places them elsewhere as it suits him and appears appropriate, in short, at any other place. And yet he is again such an unresisting servant of the letter that he copies the information of his predecessor for the second time, when the opportunity arises for the reports that he had already anticipated. It is, in general, the contradiction that is inseparable from positive religion: if the religious consciousness rises once into the sphere of its pure universality and becomes the pure contemplation of its essence, then the individual positive determinations, in which its essence is otherwise given to it, appear to it as indifferent, or at least it goes so far as to believe that it does not matter whether these determinations are always held fast in their sensual particularity; – but the next moment, and immediately after that elevation, it falls back into the servitude of the positive and stiffens itself on the letter: of course! Since that view of the essence, being highly indefinite in itself, cannot last long and must draw its fulfilment from the positive determinations of the letter. The religious consciousness is this immediate union of indefinite freedom and the most determined servitude in the service of the letter.

142

The proof will be given to us again by Matthew.

At the sea, where he had withdrawn himself from the Pharisees’ pursuit, Jesus healed crowds of sick people and had much to do with demoniacs. Faced with the crowds of the sick, Jesus withdrew to the mountain and chose twelve disciples as companions and assistants, so that they could take on a part of his exhausting work and, if he deemed it appropriate, go out and heal the sick and cast out demons. When he came home with the disciples, an enormous crowd of people gathered again, and in addition, his relatives came to arrest him, for they claimed that he would lose his mind, even that he had already lost it, and at the same time, scribes who had come from Jerusalem accused him of driving out demons by the ruler of the demons.

143

With these statements, Mark (Chapter 3, 7-22) introduces the third section of his presentation of Jesus’ public life.
Luke had used the note about the choosing of the twelve and the many healings that the Lord performed in his scripture only after the calling of the apostles as a historical introduction to the speech that Matthew made into the Sermon on the Mount. It could not escape him that the accusation of the scribes referred to the expulsion of demons, which Mark had previously reported and he himself mentioned (Chapter 6, 18); but after the long speech that he followed, which had already diverted the interest from the historical introduction, he can no longer bring up that accusation later, and since he also did not find a suitable place for it later, he puts it into the wide bag of notes that he had obtained in the great travel report (Chapter 9, 51-18, 31). Here he does not hesitate to blindly place one note next to the other, although he still dares to make pragmatic transitions at times. This time – he had just reported (Chapter 11, 1) that Jesus was praying and teaching the disciples to pray “somewhere” – he does not make a transition and drops the remark out of the blue that Jesus had just driven out a demon that was mute (Chapter 11, 14). But when the evil spirit departed, he continued, then spoke the mute one, and the crowds were amazed. However, some of them (he does not say that they were the scribes) said, “He drives out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” Others, however, to test him, demanded a sign from heaven.

That a report like this is not original, that it is a patched-up one, hardly needs to be mentioned, since it is not said who these desperate enemies were, and it is inexplicable how one could demand a sign from heaven from a man who was accused of being an ally of the devil at the same time. Luke compiled various accounts of Mark’s.

144

But he also left something out. Why? And what did he do with the omitted material? Luke no longer saw that both, the accusation by the scribes and the suspicion of Jesus’ relatives that he was out of his mind due to excessive exertion, belonged together. He also could not find it believable that Jesus’ mother and brothers wanted to forcefully seize him because he was out of his mind (εξεστη). Therefore, he leaves out this note. However, the following, that Jesus’ mother and brothers come and call him out while he defends himself against the scribes, could be better used because of Jesus’ answer: “Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” This saying reminded him of the parable of the sower, which also speaks of those who hold fast to the word of God in their hearts and bear fruit. Without further ado, he now has Jesus’ relatives arrive at that occasion when the parable of the sower was presented so that the two sayings about the true doers of the word would stand close together. He even shapes Jesus’ answer to those who wanted to call him out to his relatives after the conclusion of the parable. However, he cannot make it comprehensible to us why this time Jesus’ relatives “wanted to see him” (Luke 8:15, 21) *). Moreover, he cannot really relate both the conclusion of that parable and the saying about the true relatives of the Lord, even though he purposely omits the other parable that Mark still reports. He must add some sayings that are not related to the conclusion, but to the fact that the disciples had asked for an explanation of the parable. In all directions, the connection between both reports reveals itself to be external and forced.

*) Μark 3, 35 : δε γαρ αν ποιήση το θέλημα του θεού, ούτος άδελφός μου και αδελφή μου και μήτηρ εστί.
Μark 4, 20: και ούτοι εισιν οι επί την γήν την καλήν σπαρέντες, οίτινες ακούουσι τον λόγον και παραδέχονται και καρποφορoύσιν, εν τριάκοντα, και εν εξήκοντα, και εν εκατόν.
Luk. 8, 15: το δε εν τη καλή γή, ούτοι εισιν οίτινες εν καρδία καλή και αγαθή, ακούσαντες, τον λόγον κατέχουσι και καρποφορούσαν εν υπομονή.
Luk. 8, 21: μήτηρ μου και αδελφοί μου, ούτοι εισιν οι τον λόγον του θεού ακούοντες και ποιoύντες αυτόν.
Luk. 11, 28 : μενούν γε μακάριοι οι ακούοντες τον λόγον του θεού και φυλάσσοντες αυτόν
Matth. 12, 50 literally agrees with Mark 3, 35. Although Matthew before 12, 22-45 used the account of Luke C. 11 diligently, he also has the scripture of the original evangelist in front of him and his eye turns to it again when he wants to report the dispatch of Jesus’ relatives. Matthew also gives C. 13, 23 the full ending of the sentence as Mark had formed it C. 4, 20. Luke had abbreviated it to make both sayings (8,15.21.) more uniform.

145

When Luke reports Jesus’ defense against the accusation of having a partnership with the devil (C. 11, 17.), he turns again to the writing of Mark and finds here the word about those who do the will of the Father. He is so caught up in the letter at this moment that he cannot bring himself to leave it out. He must somehow bring it in, but cannot rewrite the occasion for which Jesus’ relatives had come to speak with him. So he ingeniously, as he is skilled in drawing and executing such individual sketches, creates a new occasion: a woman in the crowd exclaimed in admiration, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that nursed you,” to which Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27-29) *).

*) Under the pen of Luke, but not as Strauss assumes, “in the legend,” this second version was formed for that saying of Jesus. After Luke had taken the first variation of the same story “at an earlier occasion,” Strauss (l, 761. 762.) says, “he found himself, when he came to the place where in ordinary tradition that anecdote had its place, prompted to insert it now in the second form here.” But if the tradition did not have that information, why did Jesus’ relatives come to see him (because it is absent in Luke and Matthew and only belongs, as Strauss also assumes on p. 758, to the exaggerations which Mark likes to bring forward)? It is inexplicable how they could always find the same place for that incident. In the legend, in this fluid element, an anecdote should have been fixed to a preceding event without the help of a bracket, if Luke did not appreciate and use this bracket in Mark’s writing and place the story of Jesus’ relatives’ arrival in a location where it is out of all context?

146

However significant and compelling the preceding words of Jesus are, in which he rebuffs the accusation of the Pharisees, they are by no means so powerful as to have persuaded a woman to exclaim in admiration and to bless the mother of such a speaker. Nevertheless, if we set aside this aspect of the context and still consider every word that the evangelist attributes to the Lord as admirable *), we must reflect on another aspect of the context, namely that there is no connection at all. Luke has left the saying about the doers of the word standing here, has even created a new occasion for it, and has done so precisely at a time when he should have striven for the shortest possible length and the most precise coherence of the individual parts. He has placed the Lord in the situation of having to defend himself against the accusation of a covenant with the devil and to reject the demand for a sign at the same time – was it not already inappropriate for the Lord to reject the schemes of his opponents one after the other, as if answering an indictment paragraph by paragraph, and after having exposed the senselessness of the first accusation (v. 17-26), to calmly expose the wickedness of the nation that asks for a sign? Certainly, it was inappropriate, but even more inappropriate was that Luke placed the exclamation of that woman and Jesus’ response between the two paragraphs of the defense speech and now had to make a new approach to introduce the second paragraph by saying (v. 29) “the crowds were pressing in,” creating the appearance that the crowd had crowded closer to see a sign and now had to be rebuked with the harsh words “This is an evil generation!”

*) Luk. 11, 21: εγένετο εν τω λέγειν αυτόν ταύτα.

147

The result is simply this: Luke has brought together two narratives from the writing of Mark that are far apart. The detailed description of Jesus’ miracle-working, which in Mark led to the slanderous accusation of the Pharisees, Luke had already used for other purposes. If he now also wanted to convey that accusation, he needed a new occasion, and without looking far, he found it in a later place in the scripture of Mark, where another healing gives occasion for the Pharisees to attack Jesus. Although it is only a deaf mute *) whom the Lord heals this time, before the Pharisees come out and demand a sign from heaven to test him, Luke, on account of the accusation of the Pharisees, needed an exorcism: but how easy was it for him to turn that deaf mute into a possessed person **)? Luke needed these two narratives of his predecessor (Mark 7:32–37, 8:11–12) for another reason as well. When Mark reports earlier (3:21–22) that the Pharisees accused Jesus of being in league with the devil, this note is complemented by the other, that his relatives wanted to seize him and thought he was out of his mind. Through the juxtaposition of relatives and scribes, it creates a kind of contrast, so Luke must have felt a gap when he omitted the note about the relatives. This gap is sufficiently, indeed more than sufficiently, filled if Luke has the people who accused Jesus of being in league with the devil also come forward with those who demanded a sign from him, and in addition, for the sake of the contrast, has the crowd stand there and let the miracle be admired. The material for this contrast was provided to him by Mark’ account of the healing of the deaf mute *).

*) Mark 7:32: κωφον μογιλαλον.

**) δαιμόνιον . . . . κωφόν Luk. 11:14.

*) Luk. 11, 14: ελάλησεν ο κωφός, και εθαύμασαν οι όχλοι. Mark 7, 37 : και υπερπερισσώς εξεπλήσσοντο λέγοντες, καλώς πάντα πεποίηκε (- out of it came εθαύμασαν of Luke) και τους κωφους ποιεί ακούειν, και τους αλάλους λαλείν (Luke recounts the success: και ελάλ. ο κωφ.).

148

Although Matthew had used the account of the strenuous miracle-working of Jesus from the Ur-gospel as an introduction to the Sermon on the Mount after the example of Luke, yet the context, when in chapter 12 he reports on the Sabbath violations and the persecutions of the Pharisees, leads him again to that passage in the Ur-gospel where the Lord, in seclusion, heals the crowds of sick brought to him – Matthew carelessly says, those who followed him – and he unhesitatingly copies the passage, since he is already in the flow. But not completely! He only says (ch. 12, 16): he healed them all and commanded them not to make him known **) – but why? Matthew does say that this was to fulfill the word of the prophet Isaiah – but which word? Matthew writes out in detail the prophetic utterance of Isaiah 42:1-4, but does not say which aspect of this prophecy was fulfilled at this moment. Was it the fact that God called the Messiah his beloved son? That he gave him his spirit? Or the authority to proclaim judgment to the nations? Or the kindness with which the Messiah would not extinguish a smoldering wick until he had brought judgment to victory? Or was it the fact that the nations would hope in his name? None of these, but solely the prophetic praise of the Messiah that he would not cry out and that his voice would not be heard in the street was important to the evangelist and seemed to him to be the reward for the humility that the Messiah demonstrated this time by forbidding the healed not to make him known. For it cannot be the intention of Matthew that Jesus gave this command so that he would not be betrayed to the enemies from whom he had just escaped (ch. 12,15). The Lord demonstrated humility when he did not want to be made known by the healed, and this same humility was already praised by the prophet. But now it was impossible to exercise this virtue, since the crowd of people (οχλοι πολλοι) surrounded the Lord, and it is just as impossible that Matthew would have copied the long prophetic passage here if he were working purely from his own perspective. He has the writing of Mark before his eyes, reads here (ch. 3,11-12) that Jesus forbids him to be betrayed, but overlooks that he forbids the demons who call him “the Son of God,” and now quotes so unfortunately that he lets the healed be given the prohibition, quoting the saying of the old prophet in which he selects a hint that was possible only in the context of Mark’s account, not in his adaptation of the Ur-text. It now also becomes clear why he writes out the whole long prophetic passage: he wants – as Mark (ch. 3,22) prescribes for him – to let the Pharisees make their accusation, but like Luke, he cannot understand how Jesus’ relatives could come forward with an accusation, or at least a suspicion, that could only be explained by the most stubborn unbelief, like the most determined enemies against him. Therefore, he omits this feature altogether, but he also no longer sees how the appearance of the scribes and Jesus’ relatives is motivated by the preceding miraculous healings. Furthermore, Luke has already created a special occasion for him for the accusation of the Pharisees, in short, in the Ur-text, he immediately jumps from ch. 3,12 to v. 22 and now fills the gap that has arisen by his long quotation.

**) και επετίμησεν αυτοίς, ίνα μη φανερόν αυτόν ποιήσωσιν. Mark 3, 12 : και πολλά επετίμα αυτοίς, ίν, μή αυτ. φαν. ποιήσ.

150

Then Luke tells him that Jesus had just healed a demonic and the people were amazed by it. Matthew makes the contrast even greater: the people had already voiced their suspicion that he might be the son of David *) — when the Pharisees came out with the claim that he was rather in league with the devil. But Luke, who only speaks of a mute demonic, cannot be the only witness of Matthew, who speaks of a demonic who was both blind and mute — where does this double affliction of the sick come from? Mark, whose writing he correctly opened at the place C. 7, 32 where Luke had used it, speaks of a deaf-mute and lets the people, as they were astonished at the miracle, exclaim ecstatically: “He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak” — so shouldn’t Matthew give credit to the truth, especially as it made the matter appear more glorious, and make the sick person twice as sick? He knows very well what he has to do and does even more than he actually should: namely, he did not think it was enough that the sick person was deaf-mute, because this affliction is usually one and the same, he wanted to make the duality of the affliction much more prominent and therefore made the demonic blind and mute. Now when the people in Mark’s account exclaim, “He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak,” the twofoldness of the miracle is much more clearly heard, when Matthew can say that the blind and mute spoke and saw. But why did the sick person have to be blind? Because blindness only remained if, instead of deafness, the lack of an equally important sense, such as hearing, had to be added to the affliction of muteness. But also because Matthew used the story of the blind man from Bethsaida (Mark 8:22), which is also before his eyes together with the story of the healing of the deaf-mute, and, just as he had already made this blind man the companion of the blind man from Jericho, he combined his suffering with the suffering of the mute *).

*) Luk. 12, 23: και εξίσταντο πάντες οι όχλοι και έλεγον, μήτι ούτός έστιν ο υιός Δαυίδ.

*) Perhaps the same beginning in the two accounts of Mark of the deaf-mute and the blind man also led him from one to the other.

Luk. 11, 14 it just says: και ήν εκβάλλων δαιμόνιον και αυτό ήν κωφόν.

Against it Mark 7, 32: και φέρουσιν αυτώ κωφών μογιλάλον.

Mark 8, 22 : και φέρουσιν αυτώ τυφλόν.

Matth. 12, 22 : προσηνέχθη αυτώ δαιμονιζόμενος τυφλός και κωφός.

151

Matthew knew very well where to find the Gospel of Mark if he wanted to compare Mark’s account of the healing of the deaf-mute with Luke’s report. First, Mark led him to the parallel narrative in Luke with his report of the hostile accusation of the Pharisees (Mark 3:22), and he had to take this into account because it provided him with more material for his story. But he also found here that people were demanding a sign from the Lord – is it surprising that he turned to Mark’s account of the healing of the deaf-mute, which preceded the demand for a sign, and the healing of the blind man that followed it **), and used them in the way he did?

**) Mark 7:32 – 8:22

Matthew follows Luke and puts the accusation that Jesus had made a pact with the devil and the demand for a sign in immediate connection. Although he did not like that both should be the work of a moment, he now presents the matter as if only after Jesus had defended himself against the suspicion that he had made a pact with the devil, some of the scribes and Pharisees said, “Master, we want to see a sign from you” (Matthew 12:38). However, essentially, he did not improve the matter, for this would be a fine answer from the Pharisees, which is attributed to them here, after they had just been strongly refuted and even accused of sinning against the Holy Spirit! At least, in the original placement of the speech of Jesus in the type of the Gospel story, it was meant to strike down the opponents, to “shut their mouths” and take away all desire to object or even to make such a naive request for a sign.

152

In his account, Matthew omits the small picture of the woman who blessed Jesus, which Luke inserted between the two paragraphs of Jesus’ defense speech. He couldn’t use it anyway, as he wanted to have the Pharisees and scribes respond immediately after the first paragraph of that speech. Besides, he realizes that the essence of that picture is contained in Jesus’ words about his true mother. Therefore, he turns to Mark, whose scripture he already had in front of him when he reported the Pharisees’ accusation, and borrows from it as soon as possible the story of the relatives who called for Jesus. But even though he does it as soon as possible, it comes too late, because this story comes after the demand for a sign in Matthew 12:46, just like in Luke 8:19, so it’s torn out of its proper context and no reader will understand why Jesus suddenly rebuked his relatives so harshly.

If Matthew followed Luke’s example in the way he did, he has already combined two pieces from Mark’s scripture (Mark 3:7-8) completely, and he even knows what he has done because he compared both pieces in the original Gospel and then specified and completed Luke’s presentation accordingly. However, shortly afterwards he forgets everything again, and when he comes to the place in Mark’s scripture where Jesus heals the deaf mute and the Pharisees demand a sign from heaven, he writes the whole story again (Mark 15:30-31; 16:1-4). He only changes a few things, namely the rhythm of the story, that Jesus heals, the crowds are amazed, and the sick are healed, the blind see, the mute speak – this rhythm that he had already borrowed from Luke’s (11:14) and Mark’s (7:32-37) presentation in Matthew 12:22-23, he also keeps this time, as the course of events leads him to the original report (Mark 7). But he doesn’t want to copy it entirely and instead of bringing just one deaf mute to Jesus, he lets the crowd come with many others, including lame, blind, mute, crippled, and many others. Of course, then the crowd must be amazed again when they see the mute speaking, the crippled healed, the lame walking, and the blind seeing (Matthew 15:31). However, the amazement of the crowd only fits into the context if it occurs on the occasion of a remarkable healing. But if there are as many healed as Matthew states, and one imagines the whole crowd running, jumping, speaking, and proving the miracle of healing through their actions, then the picture becomes restless, and instead of being amazed, the people would have lost their ability to hear and see.

153

The same rhythm, that a demon-possessed mute is brought to the Lord, that the mute speaks after the demon was cast out, and the crowd marvels – the same story that he thus tells three times, Matthew has omitted from his narrative in Chapter 9, verses 32-34, in the form in which it was handed down to him by Luke, where the Pharisees’ claim forms a contrast to the wonder of the crowd. Now as before (verses 27-31), it was not dependence on the letter of a foreign scripture, but rather free combination, that led the evangelist to place this story here. In the following instructional speech, Jesus says to the apostles: “The servant is not above his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” (Chapter 10, verses 24-25). Matthew sees quite rightly that the disciples and his readers would not understand this saying if they did not know the fact on which it was based, and so he weaves in without any hesitation the incident that once brought the ruler of the demons together with Jesus into the preceding narrative context.

154

The second and third time he tells the same story, his dependence on Mark and Luke would lead him to do so.

—————————–

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

137

§ 40.

The Healing of Two Blind Men.

Matth. 9:27-31.

It has already been shown above that Matthew copied the conclusion of his account of the healing of the two blind men from Mark’s account of the healing of the leper. The beginning and middle of this account are also borrowed from Mark’s writing; they are nothing but a copy of the story of the blind man from Jericho, which Matthew therefore relates twice, as he also picks it up again where he finds it in Mark’s writing. We also do not know why we should not mention here what Wilke has also demonstrated, that Matthew speaks of two blind men both times, whereas only one blind man is healed at Jericho according to Mark, because with this story he combines another healing of a blind man, which his predecessor reports at another place (after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, Mark 8:22-26).

138

The evidence is as follows. The only thing that still interests and perhaps stands out as content in Mark’s narrative of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida is the description of the way in which the healing gradually takes place and the patient regains the use of his eyes. However, Matthew does not love the details, often neglecting them where he should have taken his predecessor’s account as a model. At times, though, we cannot blame his more educated reflective standpoint, especially when the elaborations on how the healing occurred and the illness disappeared seemed worthless to him in the miracle reports. It was of the utmost indifference to him how a patient was healed, if he could only write that the healing was miraculously brought about by Jesus’ word *). If a narrative contained nothing more than the note that a patient was healed, and consisted of nothing more than a detailed description of the way in which the illness was cured, it had no value for him, and it cost him little effort to leave it out or to combine it with another narrative. Thus, he had not reported particularly on the healing of the possessed man in the synagogue at Capernaum, and without much consideration, he had made this possessed man the companion of the demoniac of Gadara. Similarly, he did not consider it worthwhile to report the healing of the blind man from Bethsaida; however, he did not want to conceal the miracle, and quickly he turned the one blind man from Jericho into two blind men.

*) Μark, for example, describes in great detail how Jesus heals the demoniac after the Transfiguration below the mountain Mark 9:24-27: επετιμησεν τω πνευματι τω ακαθαρτω λεγων αυτω το πνευμα το αλαλον και κωφον εγω σοι επιτασσω εξελθε εξ αυτου και μηκετι εισελθης εις αυτον. και κραξαν και πολλα σπαραξαν αυτον εξηλθεν (literally the same as in Mark 1:25-26) και εγενετο ωσει νεκρος ωστε πολλους λεγειν οτι απεθανεν, ο δε ιησους κρατησας αυτον της χειρος ηγειρεν αυτον και ανεστη. Luke did not write down all these words, which could be found in any medical work, and Matthew, what does he do? He rightly says nothing more than: (C. 17, 18.) και επετιμησεν αυτω ο ιησους και εξηλθεν απ αυτου το δαιμονιον και εθεραπευθη —   there comes again his usual closing formula – ο παίς από της ώρας εκείνης.

139

The incident that occurred at Jericho is in his mind, even the account of Mark, when he reports the healing of the two blind men that occurred after the raising of Jairus’ daughter. As Jesus, he says in Chapter 9, verse 27, continued on from there, namely from the house of Jairus, two blind men followed him. But how can two blind men “follow” the Lord so surely and freely? Nothing is easier! Matthew reads in the scripture of Mark that the blind man followed Jesus, and without further ado, he writes the same thing down because he urgently needed a transition and in the rush did not immediately notice that the blind man of Mark only “follows” the Lord after his healing *). The two blind men cry out and shout, “have mercy on us, Son of David,” they shout now as they did later when they sit by the roadside again in Jericho, and just like the blind man of Jericho whom Mark tells about *). That Jesus enters his house (after leaving Jairus’ house) and that the blind men come to him here is modeled on the story of the blind man who was healed in Bethsaida, because even if he does not come to the Lord himself, at least he is brought to Jesus when he had stayed in Bethsaida **). According to Mark’s account, Jesus asks the blind man from Jericho: “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replies, “I want to see again,” and Jesus then says to him, “Go, your faith has healed you!” Matthew gives the same exchange, only that he borrows the expression of confidence that Jesus could perform the miracle from the story of the leper (Chapter 8, verse 2 in Mark, Chapter 1, verse 40). Finally, he returns to Mark’s account of the blind man from Bethsaida, and finds that Jesus sent the blind man whom he had led out of the village and healed here in the wilderness back home with the command not to enter the village or speak of the matter to anyone in the village. But Matthew cannot use this specific situation when he lets his two blind men be healed in Capernaum, yet he wants to conclude with the same prohibition and now takes up the conclusion of the account of the leper (Mark 1:43-45), which he had omitted above.

*) If one were to say that this is too adventurous, we refer to things that we have already become accustomed to in the Gospel of Matthew. We will learn more of such pragmatic creations that arose only from a hasty combination of information in the Gospel of Mark. One of the most remarkable can be found in Matt. C. 14, 12. Perhaps we can explain his understanding this time so that it no longer seems too adventurous. In Mark 10:46, he reads that when Jesus left Jericho, he was accompanied by his disciples and a considerable crowd (και των μαθητών αυτού και όχλου ικανού). On the other hand, he expresses a simpler version in Matt. C. 20, 29 that when the company left Jericho, a large crowd followed them (ξαλ éxito evoμένων αυτών ….. ηκολούθησεν αυτώ όχλος πολύς). Perhaps he already had this simpler version in mind when he wrote the section in C. 9:27 and used the blind men instead of the crowd because the crowd was not immediately present. The matter remains always adventurous.

*) Matth. 9, 27 κράζοντες και λέγοντες, ελέησον ημάς υιέ Δαυίδ. Matth. 20, 30 έκραξαν λέγοντες, ελέησον ημάς, κύριε υιός Δαυίδ. Mark 10, 47 ήρξατο κράζειν και λέγειν, ο υιός Δαυίδ Ιησού, ελέησόν με.

**) Matth. 9, 28 ελθόντι δε εις την οικίαν, προσήλθον αυτώ οι τυφλοί. Mark 8, 22 και έρχεται εις Βηθσαϊδάν και φέρουσιν αυτώ τυφλόν.

140

Otherwise, when Matthew changes the sequence of events and suddenly connects narratives that are far apart in the writing of Mark, we find the reason for these rearrangements, which were brought about by a kind of necessity, in the pragmatism that had already been established in the previous sections and had become a commanding force. However, this time, nothing can be discovered in the previous sections that would explain why Matthew had to jump from the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter to an event that, according to Mark’s account, happened after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and shortly before the entry into Jerusalem in Jericho. Nevertheless, Matthew had his good reason for letting the healing of the blind happen right now. He is in a hurry to instruct the apostles, wants to report the message of the Baptist immediately after this, but, as Luke prescribes, he has to begin the answer with which Jesus dismisses the messengers of the Baptist with the words (Ch. 11, 5.): “the blind see!” and now wants to give these words, by already reporting a healing of the blind beforehand, a historical basis and justification. Luke, who first introduced this new element into the original type of the Gospel story, did not yet think of prefacing the justification to Jesus’ answer. Or perhaps he was just not thinking about this aspect of the miraculous activity, as he lets the raising of the young man from Nain precede the message of the Baptist so that the reader can understand how Jesus could say in his response to the Baptist, “The dead rise!” (Luke 7:22).

—————————

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

124

§ 38.

The Healing of the Woman with the Issue of Blood.

Matthew 9:20-22.

It would certainly be senseless, says Calvin *), to assume that Christ, without knowing who the blessing would affect, had poured out his grace. We must assume without hesitation that he healed the woman with knowledge and will, and only afterwards asked about her because he wanted her to come forward of her own free will.

*) absurdum.

If it were truly absurd to attribute to the Lord a healing power that involuntarily went out from his body, and even settled in his garment, so that the sick person who only touched the edge of it was instantly healed **), then the evangelical account would be meaningless. Because even Matthew, although he leaves out everything that the other two tell, to make it quite certain that the healing was involuntary, cannot blunt this point of the account, indeed he explicitly includes it in his presentation when he says that the Lord had turned around and, when he saw her, called out to her, “Be of good cheer, daughter, your faith has made you well.” Her faith, which made her sure that she would be healed by touching his garment, had already helped her, and if the Lord had to turn around to see who had touched him *), he had previously concluded from some circumstance that someone must have touched him. Mark tells us what he concluded from – he noticed that power had gone out from him – and Luke even transforms this conclusion into a saying of Jesus: “Someone has touched me, for I perceived that power had gone out from me.”

**) This escalation was introduced by Matthew and Luke in the account. Mark only speaks of the garment in general and only exaggerated this simple observation in Chapter 5, verse 56.

*) Matth. 9, 22 ο δε ιησους επιστραφεις και ιδων αυτην. Mark 5, 30 και ευθέως ο Ι. επιγνούς εν εαυτώ την εξ αυτού δύναμιν έξελθούσαν επιστραφείς ….. V. 32 και περιεβλέπετο ιδείν την τούτο ποιήσουσαν.

125

All three accounts insist that the healing was involuntary. But strangely enough, the narrator who has proven to be the first one also felt the secret difficulty that would prompt a Calvin to make the harsh pronouncement that the ordinary view is absurd. Mark, in particular, would not want to exclude the (relative) sensible mediation by the will of Jesus, and thus he allows at least a confirmation of the miracle through the will to follow afterwards. He lets the Lord say after the words, “your faith has helped you”: “Go in peace and be healed of your affliction!” But it was too late: with the words “your faith has helped you,” the healing is assumed to have already been completed, and before Jesus turns around and seeks out the person who touched him, the woman had already realized that she had been healed of her illness (Mark 5:29). If we consider that once a miracle was established in the evangelical view, it was only valuable for its wondrous apex and that eventually this apex became so meaningful in memory that individual elements of the original view were lost **), then it is certain that Mark is not only relatively the first narrator but, speaking specifically of this story, the absolute first, the creator, the poet. He still knew what the miracle he was shaping meant, but he also felt the enormous difficulty that the view of miracles had to overcome in this case, and he had to overcome it in two ways as the first one to do so. The idea was firm in his mind; he wanted to demonstrate it through a single case, how the heavenly miracle-working powers had assimilated with the person of Jesus to such an extent and had been bestowed upon him with such an unbounded abundance that they had even passed into the natural constitution of his body and had been communicated to his garments. This idea had already been brought up by Mark before: by the sea, where Jesus had withdrawn after the conflict with the Pharisees (3:10), the people who were plagued actually fell upon him, so that they could touch him *). Now he wants to show by an example how great the miracle-working power of the body and even of the clothes of Jesus was, and to bring the miracle in all its magnitude before the eyes, he can hardly find words that are full and strong enough to describe the severe suffering of the woman. She had already had the flow of blood for twelve years and had suffered much from many doctors and spent all her property on it, but it had not helped her at all, “on the contrary, it had only become worse *).” With the same care and precision of detail, he describes how the sick woman was healed by touching Jesus’ garment and the Lord at least realizes that someone must have touched his garment, as power had gone out from him. Thus Mark did everything to describe the miracle in its immense magnitude and to raise it to the certainty that Jesus did not heal this time by the power of his explicit will: in the end, however, he becomes anxious, he himself is frightened by the boundlessness of the miracle-working power that he had attributed to the body of Jesus, and now, after he had hoped to have already mastered the difficulty of the matter through the accuracy of the description, he realizes that he has only made the immense even more immense and tries to stifle it with the difficulty. But it is too late! The Lord did not need to intervene with his will anymore, as the healing had already been completed. It remains involuntary **). — Oh, when we now see how Mark, the first creator of this view, wavered, how later — see Luke — healing was considered purely involuntary, others claimed Jesus’ will, until finally in modern times the art of interpretation reached such a high degree of development that it understood how to secretly smuggle “Christian consciousness” into the account and now, when it had quietly blown all “materialistic” notions out of its head, dared to assert that the Lord knew very well what was happening behind his back, he even worked with his will and furthermore intended to heal the woman both physically and morally *) — yes, until finally they did not hesitate to speak of the nonsense “of a trust mixed with erroneous conceptions” of the woman, which “was not deceived” **), — when we see all this, this outgrowth of Mark’s simple view, before us as the monstrosities of exegetical anxiety and madness, and when we are finally allowed to conclude this long sentence — what should we do then? Should we still build the Tower of Babylon higher? As if it were possible! One can clearly see that explanations like those of Olshausen and Neander are so crookedly placed on the building and are themselves so extravagant that they are to blame if the magnificent building of exegetical despair, the tower in which reason was to be walled up, finally collapses to the ground. It has fallen; the rubble, the debris only covers the ground; but the dust settles, liberated reason throws the wild rubble aside and brings to light the true foundation on which the first simple structure was built. We have found this foundation in Mark’s view, and in itself, in its ideal simplicity, it is the postulate that the heavenly powers of the godly men pass into the perfect immediacy of sensual tangibility, in which they penetrate bones, clothing, sweat cloths and even finally share in the shadow of holy men. Even after the death of such men, their bones are miraculous (2 Kings 13, 21.).

**) “The proof is provided by Luke: he omits the subsequent confirmation of the miracle through the will (Luke 8:48). In this case, Matthew was motivated by other considerations to shorten the account, but he could only agree to such a shortening because later the details of the miracle accounts lost their significance. He also omits that confirmation and says instead (Matt. 9:22): “And the woman was healed at that moment.” He used his standard formula with which he usually concludes miracle accounts for that subsequent confirmation of the miracle that he reads in Mark. (Compare Matt. 8:18, 15:8.) In addition, he had to fill a gap here, create a pause, and give a note, since he could not provide the information that messengers had come at that moment who reported the death of Jairus’ daughter.

*) Luke mitigates, abbreviates and even leaves out the last part, which was necessary for the contrast. Matthew only says that she had the flow of blood for 12 years – again a confirmation of the assertion that the detail had lost its significance for later readers.

*) πολλούς εθεράπευσεν, ώςτε επιπίπτειν αυτώ, ίνα αυτού άψωνται, όσοι είχον μάστιγας. Vergl. 5, 34 μάστιγoς.

**) This procedure of Mark forms the counterpart to the carefulness with which he proceeds in the story of the daughter of Jairus to the postulate of a resurrection of the dead. Here the carefulness and the anxiousness of a first attempt in the manner of progress is demonstrated, in the story of the woman with the flow of blood the same is demonstrated in the retraction that is made at the end

*) Olshausen, I, 325.

**) Neander, p. 422.

128

If this transition of divine power to sensory immediacy in the world of ideal perception persists, we know what to do with it: we simply observe it and recall in it the idea that ultimately generated it, namely, the idea that the elevated historical spirits also work beyond the realm of their rational calculation through the power of their inner content, and that the abundance of their power streams far beyond the limits of their determined will. However, if the apologist wants to impose his quackery on us, that is, to insult our reason and distort the evangelical perception, he will now know what criticism will respond to him. Finally, however, no one will be able to naturalize the sensory perception of the evangelist, as immediate as it is, with flesh and bones in the realm of pure reason. Weisse attempts it, but how? “The concept of miracle,” he says*, “takes for itself such an outward appearance of physical existence, through which involuntary action is also conceivable. Such an outward appearance of the purely physical existence, which is bound to the spirit and mediated by the spirit, takes the place of that allegedly irrational incomprehensibility which dogmatic bibliolatry must predicate of the substance of that power.” However, if Weisse had only respected the earlier views of the theologians, he would not have spoken against dogmatism and rather seen that his assumption of a “pure” physical “existence,” which is again “mediated by the spirit,” and of involuntary action, which is again only mediated by the will, is nothing but the fluctuating and untenable excuse of those excellent learned men. We are far from wanting to improve, develop, or secure these excuses now; the historical perception of the religious spirit cannot be raised immediately into the concept, expanded into theory, or placed in the reality of nature and history, and the only task that can be assigned to us because of it is solely the explanation of its origin, an explanation that we have given when we showed that it is the transfer of the essential determinations and relations of self-consciousness into the sensory and individual aspects of immediate being. As for the physical constitution of historical heroes in reality, their relationship to the spirit – if we exclude artists – is no different than that their powers extend just enough to provide the necessary foundation for the inner struggles and exertions of the spirit.

*) a. a. O. I, 502.

130

The final enlightenment will eventually be found in the report when it is considered in its entirety. The section to which it belongs is preceded by three others: first (C. 1:14-45), Mark explains to us how Capernaum became the center of Jesus’ activity; then (C. 2:1-3:6) he reports to us how the relationship between the new principle and the law developed and the enmity of the Pharisees arose; what the significance of the third section (C. 3:7-4:34) is, will later become clear to us; but if the fourth section (C. 4:35-5:43), which Matthew has also preserved in its entirety, begins with the calming of the storm and ends with the raising of Jairus’s daughter, and between these two limits includes the healing of the possessed and the woman with the issue of blood, then we now know what its purpose and significance are: it is to present the pure and unadulterated revelation of the glory of Jesus in his miraculous deeds, with no other interests interfering. In the first and second (also in the third) sections, there are also enough miracles, but the point with which the reports end, or the purpose they serve in context, diverts attention from the miracle as such and directs it to other interests. On the other hand, the miracle itself should now be viewed, and it is self-evident that it will be colossal, extraordinary, and valuable in terms of interest in every case, depending on the degree of importance, that is, the power of resistance the miracle worker had to overcome even if only by a word. As we can expect from such a skilled composer as Mark is in historical matters, he will arrange the individual miracles according to their degree of significance. Mark has worked excellently. In the storm, the Lord stills the turmoil and rebellion in nature; over there among the Gadarenes, he defeats a legion of devilish spirits, and here, on this shore, he heals an ingrained uncleanness with just a touch of his garment, and finally he kills death with a single word. Can the miracle worker achieve more by defeating the devilish, unclean, and death itself? And can the writer better organize than by first bringing the elements into obedience and finally overcoming the greatest enemy of ordinary consciousness, death? Mark has worked so skillfully in every direction, allowing the entire section to stand out so beautifully from its surroundings, arranging it so appropriately and developing the details that we would do him an injustice as a writer if we were to withhold from him the honor of having shaped and created this entire section.

131

We have already traced back the origins of the first two accounts (of the calming of the storm and of the healing of the possessed), so we only need to draw attention to the indications that prove that the last two accounts were created together. It is already significant and only the work of the writer that the healing of the woman with the issue of blood is inserted into the story of the raising of Jairus’ daughter, precisely at the point where Jesus had set out to heal a sick person and the message arrives that the girl had died. But this was necessary according to the structure of the entire section: the prospect of a struggle with death could not be opened up yet, as the power of Jesus’ body healed the deep-rooted illness of the woman with the issue of blood, and only at the moment *) when the woman’s illness was lifted could the message arrive, which presented the Lord with the more difficult task of fighting death **).

*) Mark 5:35 “While he was still speaking…”

**)From this it will become completely clear how inexpediently Matthew has made a change when he has the father of the child immediately appear with the request for its resurrection.

132

Mark has finally used another means to connect both events closely to each other. The woman with the issue of blood suffered for twelve years, and the daughter of Jairus was twelve years old, as is noted at the end of the story in passing to explain why she got up and walked around after being revived (v. 42). Luke did not know that his predecessor was indicating that the child was already at the age where she could get up and walk around on her own, he did not see that Mark needed this detail necessarily to vividly illustrate the awakening of the child. Therefore, he omits the remark that the child walked around again and says at the beginning of the narrative that the child was twelve years old. “The only one” of Jairus, he adds (8:42), by drawing the conclusion from the man’s words in Mark 5:23 “my daughter,” Jairus had no other children. Matthew only reports that the woman with the issue of blood suffered for twelve years, he does not even include the name of Jairus in his account, nor does he say to his readers that his daughter was a twelve-year-old child. He does not appreciate and properly value the detail, even if it is essential in Mark’s writing and serves, as in this case, for the pragmatic connection of two reports.

*) Mark 5:42 και ευθεως ανεστη το κορασιον και περιεπατει ην γαρ ετων δωδεκα. Luke 8:55 και επέστρεψε το πνεύμα αυτής (Mark presents the return of life much better to the view by immediately reporting and painting the consequence) και ανεστη παραχρημα. Luke feels the gap that now arises by leaving out the περιεπατει ην γαρ …, he therefore immediately adds the note: και διεταξεν αυτη δοθηναι φαγειν, a remark that Mark has much more appropriately at the end, after reporting that the child walked around again, that Jesus forbade them to speak of the matter.

133

There is no need to discuss the account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter any further now that the origin of this entire section has been so clearly revealed. However, there are still some things to note about the presentation and literary work.

————————–

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

114

§ 37.

The Fasting of the Disciples of John.

Matthew 9:14-17.

And then, Matthew continues, as Jesus was dining with that tax collector, the disciples of John came to him and asked, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” In order to preserve the honor of his protege, who prompted the Pharisees with this question, Schleiermacher **) simply states that “the question from John’s disciples would have been almost naive,” without telling us why, and without considering whether the way Luke has the Pharisees ask the question would make these people appear even more naive. But Luke reports that the same Pharisees who had just grumbled about Jesus’ association with tax collectors and sinners said to him, “Why do the disciples of John fast often and pray frequently, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink?” Anyone who wants to argue that Luke’s account is the original one must make it understandable to us how the Pharisees suddenly adopt the remarkable objectivity of language, speaking of themselves as if they were others or even strangers. Until casuistry is so far advanced that it explains even this peculiar case, it will probably have to be considered as the only possible explanation that Luke only allows the Pharisees to ask the question in this way because he literally copies the question from a scripture in which it is only asked by Jews in general. He did not consistently carry out the modification of the original report and partly let himself be governed by the letter. And yet he himself changed the question, but in the wrong place: he lets the Pharisees ask why the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast so much and pray so much, and forgets to change the question so much that he makes the opponents wonder why Jesus’ disciples do not pray. He only writes: “and eat and drink what is appropriate.” He has forced the mention of prayer into the report and only forced it into one half of the report, because even in his narrative Jesus only speaks of fasting, as if prayer were not even thought of in the question. Of course – he writes Jesus’ answer according to Mark. Finally, he does not close the question as it should be: why do not your disciples fast, but rather breaks the rhythm of the question and lets the Pharisees speak: but why do yours eat and drink? This change betrays to us the pragmatism of the evangelist, because already before, when the Pharisees ask Jesus’ disciples: why does he eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners, he has changed it so that the question refers to the behavior of the disciples: why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Luke wanted to bring both narratives into immediate connection and now presents the matter in such a way that the questioners are not only the same people, but that their question also refers to the same case, namely the behavior of the disciples. He realizes that even according to his own account, it is not eating in general, but eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners that is criticized, and he has failed to notice that Jesus’ first answer: “I have come to call sinners” assumes an accusation of the Lord and not of his disciples.

**) Cf. Schleiermacher, p. 79.

*) Still maintained by Neander, p. 228.

116

However, according to the original tendency of the account, they must have been decided opponents of the Lord or people whose hostility was already stirring when they took occasion from the disciples’ way of life to accuse the Lord himself. If the question were issued by John’s disciples, it would be inappropriate, if not “simple,” as Schleiermacher thought, unless the historian also explained how they came to such a hostile attitude that they confronted the Lord with the Pharisees. However, Matthew did not provide us with this explanation; he could not provide it unless he wanted to invent a new story like he did on another occasion with the fourth evangelist. And he did not need to provide it because he did not even think that far and only wanted to specify and vivify the indefinite beginning given by Mark’s account. Indeed, at the outset, Mark notes briefly and succinctly – for nothing more was necessary to prepare the reader for the following narrative – “the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting” (Mark 2:18), and now he only lets people step forward who take occasion from the way of life of his disciples to accuse Jesus. Of course, he does not leave the matter completely indefinite, since he always lets the Pharisees act hostilely against the Lord before and after, so he certainly thinks of them as the questioners this time too. However, he intentionally keeps the representation in suspense because he wanted to avoid the appearance that both attacks happened during the meal at Matthew’s, perhaps also because of a correct aesthetic feeling, he wanted to avoid the uniformity of the representation and did not want to start every single paragraph with the remark that the Pharisees stood there and carried out the attack. This feeling prompted him, in chapter 3, verse 2, not to mention the Pharisees by name right away and only to note later (verse 6) that it was the Pharisees who had laid in wait for the Lord.

117

The way in which Jesus justifies his discipline must cause a lot of trouble for the theologian who has not yet freed himself from the service of the letter, and eventually, if he wants to save the letter at any cost, force him to kill the life that is really present in the letter. The letter does not kill, if it depends solely on it, i.e. if its living development is not forcibly suppressed, but it is the apologist who kills it. Criticism revives it again and leads it back to the only source of life, into self-awareness.

First, Jesus answers (Mark 2:19-20): Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast*). Fasting is not rejected in itself, but it is only appropriate if it happens at the right time, namely in the moment of abandonment.

*) Matthew has nicely shortened it by omitting the answer to the question “can they fast?” and immediately following the question with the indication of when the wedding guests will fast. Luke also abbreviated it in this way. Under the hand of Mark, the definite form of the saying only arose, he still struggled with the moments of thought and therefore sometimes gave the members, which become superfluous when the whole is finished, instead of the short whole.

And without pausing, Jesus continues (Mark 2:21-22): No one sews a patch of new cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, and the tear will be worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into new wineskins. That is to say – and this saying is usually understood in this way – do not try to impose the forms of the old on the standpoint on which I have placed mine, otherwise the old will be shattered by the power of the new principle, and instead of gaining a form for the new, one runs the risk of losing it itself. It is unmistakable that the transfer of legal customs to the Christian standpoint can be described and criticized as not only illegitimate but also harmful and corrupting; however, Neander argues that this idea would then be “completely foreign” to the preceding passage *). “What harm does that do?” we might answer, “if only one or both of the passages have a sound sense for themselves.” Oh no! it rings in the apologist’s innermost being, that would be terrible, frightening, because then there would be no way to avoid the admission that we do not have here a saying of the Lord before us, or at least it could no longer be denied that both sayings did not owe their origin to the same occasion at the same time. So let’s just help vigorously, twist, distort, and squeeze! So – the meaning of the second saying is now – “one cannot even reform the old nature of man by forcing fasting and prayer exercises on it from the outside.” Listen: “from the outside!” That’s supposed to be the point! It is true that images must not be anxiously held onto in their individual features, so that one would want to search for a corresponding element in the matter itself for every feature, and one would be rightly said to violate this principle if we were to object to Neander that there is no question here of the old nature of man, since the compared thing is compared to the new wine that one should not put in old wineskins. Well then, let us withhold this objection for a moment, but then we have a much greater right to reject Neander’s explanation and to twist the point, which lies in the determination: “from the outside,” since it is based only on the isolated circumstance that in the first saying there is talk of the patch that one “puts on” an “old” garment. We say, an even greater right! For if two images are brought together to represent the same thing, we can in any case, if the composer is not too clumsy, be sure that the second one will be clearer and more precisely corresponding to the thing. So it is here; it is about the form in which the disciples of Jesus are to grasp the new spirit, and then the second image of the fate of the must, depending on whether it is placed in old or new wineskins, is the one that most closely corresponds to the determinations of the thing itself. But even if it were not the case, the point “from the outside” remains forever lost, as there is no place for it in the second image, unless one believes that the must can be poured into the skins from the inside. The point is not “from the outside”, but rather the idea that only homogenous, new things fit together, that every thing must have its appropriate appearance form – in short, it remains that both images are intended to reject the attempt to bind the new spirit in the old forms of the legal spirit as foolishness, and thus it is again established that the sayings attributed to the Lord here exclude each other. First, it is said that fasting practiced at the right time should not be disapproved, and afterwards, it is described as impossible to unite the old and the new, the new principle and the old forms.

*) ibid., pp. 232-234.

119

Luke must have already had a feeling that both sayings were not really connected, he at least makes the transition from one to the other with the formula “he also told them a parable”, which we have already encountered in his writing in places where he put together sayings on his own and could not hide that the connection he intended was not really present *). Finally, Weisse has successfully found that it is “more correct to separate both sayings from each other or at least leave their connection undecided **).” But as we have proven, they must be separated altogether.

*) Luke 5:36 και παραβολήν προς αυτούς. Compare Luke 6:39 είπε δε παραβολήν αυτοίς. Luke 18:1 έλεγε δε και παραβολήν αυτοϊς.

**) a. a. O. I, 483.

120

First of all, as a necessary consequence of the above criticism, we would have to state that both sayings did not arise from the same occasion; but if the question is asked which saying arose from the presumed occasion, we might well wonder for which of the two the apologist will decide. But no! We don’t want to know, he doesn’t admit that result at all, and we won’t bother him any further for that reason, since we have nothing more to do with this question and the investigation must take a completely different turn. If only one of the two sayings, and both equally, can be appropriately related to that occasion, then this occasion no longer exists for us as a historical one, and it reveals itself to us as a freely formed category under which Mark has placed sayings that refer to the same collision of the old and the new. Weisse himself must admit that the parables of the garment and the wine “only fulfill their purpose if they are not taken merely as a dismissal of that particular question” – but what does that mean other than: their general scope is out of proportion to that specific occasion, and this disproportionality has arisen because general controversies that the community had to fight through were compressed into a single event in the life of Jesus? Jesus has just appeared – the way of life of his followers cannot yet have been so peculiarly shaped that it caused a sensation, so it could not yet be contrasted with the way of life of the disciples of John. Furthermore, when we consider that real history knows nothing about a special school of John’s disciples, nothing about how a group of followers who were supposed to have gathered around the Baptist (but never existed) lived and behaved according to the law, it is clear that this occasion is pure invention. The struggle of the old and the new, which the community endured, was to be exemplified in an incident from the life of Jesus, or rather the life of the Lord, since it was unknown, could only be taken from the treasure trove of the experiences and events of the community: thus, sayings of far-reaching universality and carefully constructed occasions had to come together. This time, the freedom of the Christian principle was to be brought to the attention of a feature of the life of Jesus: it was fitting that not only the one legal party, namely the Pharisees, confronted the Lord, but the power of the new only appeared in its full scope when even the man closest to salvation had not yet freed himself from the shackles of the old. Instead of the Baptist, who had been displaced from the scene, his disciples had to be placed opposite the Lord, and for that reason alone, Mark had to make this historical discovery that there had been a special circle of John’s disciples, because the saying he wanted to convey this time had the way of life of the community in mind and the disciples of Jesus, who are now the historical image of the community, had to be placed opposite the entire circle of disciples of the old powers.

121

The first saying about the fasting of the wedding guests shows itself in all its parts as a later creation. To call oneself “the bridegroom” was impossible for the Lord because at his time the bride, the church, had not yet been born. From the time when the bridegroom was taken away *), he could not speak so briefly that everyone would understand what he meant. No one could know what this strong expression “taken away” meant, even less so since the natural and ordinary circumstances of the bridegroom offer no aspect that could be the self-evident image of the violent rapture of the Lord. Only after the death of Jesus was the saying understandable and where it has its meaning, it was also only formed then.

*) Mark 2, 20. parall. ελεύσονται δε ημέραι, όταν απαρθή απ’ αυτών ο νυμφιος.

122

The theologian should actually be grateful to us for restoring this saying to where it originated, because as long as the assumption holds that it belongs to the Lord, and as long as statutory authority is granted to the biblical word, it must also be a law that the church fasts constantly after the rapture of the Lord or, if this is impossible, accepts that law through specific fasting days. However, if it originated in the church, the saying should not be understood so literally, since after the death of Jesus there was no law or custom by which constant fasting was strictly commanded, and it is finally clear that fasting is to be understood figuratively. Matthew understood this correctly and used the more general expression at the beginning of the saying: can the wedding guests “mourn” *), as long as the bridegroom is with them? In short, fasting is the internal pain and sorrow, this feeling of negation that is an essential element in the life of the church due to the memory of the death of the Redeemer.

*) C. 9, 15 πενθείν.

The difference between both sayings, which we had to designate as such at the beginning and which contradict each other, remains, although according to the figurative explanation of the first, it becomes clear that both are not entirely unrelated: in the first, the point is the idea that the church fulfills the legal commandment of fasting in a higher sense, in the pain over the sufferings of their Redeemer – (she dies with her Lord every day) – in the second, the demand that the Old should be the form of the New is unconditionally rejected. Mark was well aware of this resonance of both sayings, namely that they both exercise a negative dialectic against the old law, when he put them together, but it is just as certain that he did not create both freely and from scratch himself. He freely formed the first, the more artificial one, and for the second, he used a general principle, perhaps a proverb that had formed in the church.

123

Regarding the saying about new wine and old wineskins, Luke (C. 5, 30) adds another one as if it were in the best context: “And no one who drinks old wine wants new, because he says the old is better.” However, it is difficult, indeed impossible, to find a connection between this saying and the preceding context. “If it is authentic,” says Weisse, “it can only be said to explain the difficulty of penetrating Jesus’ teaching.” *) According to our previous discussions, it is hardly necessary to ask whether a saying of this kind, if it were actually spoken by Jesus, could have been remembered for years; indeed, it is much too meager and thin to be a proverb that was circulating in the community. Proverbs of this meagerness, which do not sharpen into a specific spiritual relationship through the power of their point, owe their origin rather solely to the writer, who, with more or less success, continues a given topic and the already found execution of it on his own. Weisse also considers it “more likely that Luke added the saying off the cuff and without thinking of anything right about it.” Luke did indeed add it, believing that he was putting it in the best context, but he was mistaken, for the mere fact that wine was mentioned before and after, that old and new were talked about in both sayings, is not enough to create a true connection. Nevertheless, if no connection with the preceding, but at least some spiritual meaning can be found in the saying itself, this comes solely from the fact that natural relationships are the images of spiritual determinations in themselves.

*) II. 140.

————————-

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

95

§ 36.

The banquet of the tax collector Matthew.

Matthew 9:9-13.

The apologists should finally become wise and stop trying to completely stifle the contradictions in the Gospel accounts with such blind fury, lest they create the impression that the Christian religion stands or falls based on whether these contradictions are stifled or left free. However, it seems as if a demonic force does not allow these people to rest, constantly driving them to work on this weakest aspect of their system, and making it more damaging through their work, because that is actually the case – their system really must fall if the contradictions are not stifled like they do, and finally, the punishment for their contempt for human freedom and reason should strike them. Even at this moment, they are circling, measuring, pressing, stretching, and doing everything possible with these contradictions, while criticism has recognized them and gained insight into their origin. The recognized contradiction is no longer a contradiction.

96

1. The Calling of Matthew.

The man whom Jesus called to follow him away from his tax booth after healing the paralyzed man is called Levi *) by Mark (2:14) and Luke (5:27), but the first Synoptist calls him a certain Matthew. In modern times, the solution to this contradiction was believed to be found in the possibility that “the tradition” had confused two people. Levi, says Sieffert, was called as all three Synoptists report, and his profession was to provide the occasion for that banquet where Jesus’ friendly relationship with tax collectors offended the Pharisees. “But it is certain that the apostle Matthew was also a tax collector before he was called by Christ to be his disciple, although his calling probably did not take place under the same circumstances that relate to the calling of Levi **).” Neander offers another solution to the difference: “It is always possible that the host was another rich tax collector named Levi, a friend of Matthew’s. Thus, the one whose calling provided the occasion for this feast and the host may have been confused with each other through tradition” *). However, all talk of tradition must be rejected from the outset, as it can be proven most clearly here, as previously, that the evangelist whom the church has called Matthew has used nothing but the writings of his two predecessors and his own wit for this narrative **). He noticed with amazement that neither Luke nor Mark mention that Levi, whom they report was called by Jesus to permanent discipleship, belonged to the twelve apostles. How, he asks, could this man not belong to the twelve? Yes, he belonged to them, he is only listed under a different name in the register. But under which name? He knew best, and it was previously believed that he himself was the Matthew from whom the first gospel originated, and whom Mark and Luke only mention under his original Hebrew name when they call him Levi. But if it gives us pause that this man speaks so strangely of himself and, when he immerses himself in history, does so with the formula “then Jesus saw a man named Matthew (ανθρωπον Ματθαιον λεγομενον),” the apologist awaits us with the edifying remark *), we must admire in this circumstance “the receding of subjectivity” which the evangelists **), as chaste historians, manifest who were purely absorbed in their sublime object. What nonsense! As if this were still purity when an evangelist speaks of himself in such a way that the reader is misled. “He saw a man named Matthew” does not simply introduce Matthew – does the apologist not have a Caesar who could teach him otherwise? – but also tells us that this Matthew was an unknown person to the evangelist. He only knew him from the list of apostles provided by Mark (3:18) and Luke (6:15). Luke recorded the story of Levi’s calling and included the list of apostles mechanically, but the synoptist who was preferred and placed first by the church, perhaps because they felt he was the apologist among the three, took offense at Levi not being named among the apostles – no! He was certain that Levi must have been one of the twelve and had hidden himself under another name in the list of apostles, and without much thought, he blindly picked from the multitude of unknown names that the list presented to him. Thus, Levi became Matthew. Both Mark and Luke did not think of identifying the two men, they would not have omitted the least thing that was required of them in this case, they would have at least called Matthew “the tax collector” so that their readers, if lucky, could come to the assumption that this Matthew was the tax collector whose calling they had previously recounted. But both list Matthew without further designation. If the apologist were right, they would not be secure from the accusation that their carelessness had caused unrest in the church for almost two millennia, and if the accusation were taken seriously, they would not be acquitted.

*) Mark calls him even more specifically the son of Alphaeus (τον του Αλφαιου). However, Wilke (p. 673) has convincingly demonstrated that this addition is later and inauthentic. Mark actually “only mentions one N. τον του Αλφαιου”, James in 3: 18, whom he has to distinguish from the other James, the brother of John.

**) Sieffert on the Origin of the First Canonical Gospel, p. 59.

*) L. J. Chr. 253.

**) Already the beginning of his narration (C. 9, 9) και παραγων εκειθεν ειδεν ανθρωποω is structured in such a way that it is only understandable when we compare it with Mark’s account. Παραγων means “in passing,” but how can this formula be immediately connected with the other phrase, “from there”? “In passing,” Jesus can only be thought of if it was said that he had left the place where he was before; but Matthew is silent about this. He does say “from there,” but “in passing.” This expression no longer reflects on the starting point that was left behind, but on the line along which one already finds oneself. The mediation and the movement that led to this line are done with, and just as the starting point is forgotten, the state that has now arisen can be called rest in comparison to that movement. Matthew had to reflect on the starting point and on the preceding movement, but he expressed this reflection disorderly. Why? Because it was tedious for him to deal with these details, which are essential for the appropriate construction of the narrative and which will never be missing in the original account. Because he did not want to copy Mark completely, because copying these minutiae was boring for him, because he was satisfied if he had the petty but essential assumptions of what follows roughly in his head, regardless of whether his readers were orientated in these matters or not, briefly, because he was only concerned with the essential content. Even Luke found this exact copying of the original tedious; he only says in chapter 5, 27: “And after that he went out, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom.” So he does not tell his readers where the customs house was located. Now listen to the original account (Mark 2, 13-14): “And he went out again by the seaside; and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom.” Compare with John 9, 1: και παραγων ειδεν. Because of John, 8, 59 ιησους δε εκρυβη  . . . διελθων δια μεσου αυτων και παρηγεν ουτως. Compare Luke 4, 30 αυτός δε διελθών διά μέσου αυτών ἐπορεύετο. Παρηγεν Joh. 8, 59 is actually an inaccurate expression, but can still be explained at most: after he had gone “through the midst of them,” he went “quietly” past them “along the crowd” and “further.”

Regarding the difficulty we will find below, if Sieffert (p. 60) says that the first evangelist must have been unaware that the choosing of the twelve apostles had already taken place before the Sermon on the Mount, it has just been shown to us again that he could have easily obtained more precise information on such matters from the writings of his two predecessors if they had not caused him as much scruple as his apologist.

*) z. B, still Olshausen, I, 315.

**) Olshausen says, “the Gospels”! Here, only the haste was at fault for the blunder, but otherwise, the confusion in the language of the apologists proves that their cause itself is nothing but the confusion of self-consciousness. The apologist cannot write better because his cause does not give him courage, strength, and confidence. One only needs to look at the insane statement, “Of course, if Olshausen, at the aforementioned place, is excessively concerned with the retreat of subjectivity and the chastity of the evangelists and then continues a moment later: ‘Certainly, their reflectionlessness is also expressed in this. The twisted and contorted phrases, the uncertainty and lack of coherence in movement, and the pale bloatedness in the language of the apologists—all this dull and exhausting style comes from the untruth and dullness of the matter. If one analyzes the saw they anxiously twist, one must either lose patience because no content rewards the effort, or, if one seeks the truth with them out of fear, become insane, or move beyond this oppressed standpoint, if one wants to remain rational and patient during the analysis.”

100

In this important matter, Mark did not reflect yet. The list of apostles was given to him and he did not feel compelled to relate the story of the calling of the tax collector to it – why? Because this story only had value for him in regard to the hostile interaction between the Pharisees and the Lord that arose from it, and because he was only concerned with the development of Jesus’ relationship with the Jewish party in this context. Luke follows him without hesitation, but Matthew, the latest, for whom the pragmatism of his predecessor had become completely foreign, and who no longer wanted to simply copy, reflected – namely in his own way.

Sometimes, however, he did not reflect or could not direct his reflection, which was directed to other things, to circumstances that also cannot be overlooked. His reflection was always only directed to individual points, so it was not all-powerful. But let us not reveal the secret too early; the apologist would be unhappy and would have to despair of everything, and in the end, he believed he was at the end of the world if his miserable worries were taken away from him. Only in his petty obsession with the letter did he have his true self-confidence, and whoever robs him of that is evil.

Luke – namely, Mark is not considered in this world question – first tells of the calling of Levi – that is, of Matthew in the apologetic world – (Ch. 5, 27), then he reports how Jesus, in the solitude to which he later withdrew, chose the Twelve – including Matthew – and held the Sermon on the Mount before them as well as before the crowd that had just arrived (Ch. 6, 12-20). Terrible! The first synoptist reports that Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount before the disciples and the people, before telling us about the calling of Matthew and the determination of the circle of disciples, and the poor apologist must still know Matthew as well as the Twelve if he is to hear the Sermon on the Mount devoutly and with the proper effect! So how can he be helped?

101

It is not easy to find a way out of this, as evidenced by the various tortures to which Tholuck has to resort; however, a way out is always found in the end. For the moment, we would have too much to do if we wanted to reflect on “the fact that Matthew also thought about the election of the apostles preceding the Sermon on the Mount, although he does not mention it here or anywhere else” *) – we will soon hear that the first evangelist, in chapter 10, did not report on the election of the apostles at all. Let us focus for now on the core of Tholuck’s explanation. Matthew was already called to be an apostle before the Sermon on the Mount; “but this election may have been something surprising and unexpected for him, he could not simply stay with Jesus, but had to return to his tax business and only here fulfill his obligations completely. And then, after a few days, when Jesus went out of Capernaum again, he found the tax collector sitting at the tax booth, who in the meantime had made his arrangements, and now called him to join him” **).

*) Tholuck, Ausleg. der Bergpr. p. 26.

**) Ibid. p. 28.

That would be a disciple as evangelical belief demanded! It is very unfortunate when Tholuck reminds us of the disciple whom Jesus invited to follow him another time, but who asked permission to first bury his father. What did Jesus answer this young man? And would he – namely he, as he lived, acted and spoke in evangelical belief – not have answered the tax collector just as strictly if he had said after the invitation: “Let me make arrangements first before I follow you?” Furthermore, when we see the tax collector sitting calmly in his booth as Jesus passes by and calls him – for the second time – we do not see that he has made his arrangements in the meantime; he is rather sitting there as if he is thinking about nothing but his daily business. Yes, the narrative would fall apart if the contrast were removed that the man who sits calmly in his tax business is moved to follow Jesus by a word from the Lord and immediately – whoever wants to take care of the business afterwards! – leaves his business.

102

But why waste words to prove that the first evangelist knows nothing about an earlier calling of Matthew: we have seen why he immediately reached so far into Luke’s presentation at the beginning and brought forward the Sermon on the Mount and placed it at the forefront of his presentation of the public life of the Lord. Once the Sermon on the Mount had received this place, the account of the calling of the tax collector had to follow later. The evangelist did not care about the consequences of this, and he did not expect the believers to be so troubled by it. He was not always as literal-minded as the later theologians.

2. The Banquet.

And as he was reclining at table in the house, the first Evangelist continues, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples at table (Matt. 9:10).

In what house? Fritzsche thinks it was Jesus’ own house *). When? Some time after the calling of Matthew, Fritzsche answers. Certainly! One cannot write more carelessly than Matthew did; but no matter how deficient his account may be, it still reveals, by its structure, the original intention behind it. The house is in contrast to the tax collector’s booth which Matthew had just left, and because he had left it immediately to follow the Lord, the banquet was arranged by him right after his calling. This is what it really says in the original text: “And it came to pass, as he (namely Jesus) reclined at table in his (the tax collector’s) house, many tax collectors and sinners were also reclining with Jesus and his disciples at table; for there were many of them and they followed him” — namely, they followed him from the tax collector’s booth (Mark 2:15) *). Luke further elaborated on Mark’s account when he says (Luke 5:29), “And Levi made him a great feast in his own house.”

*) on Matthew, p. 341.

*) και εγένετο εν τω κατακείσθαι αυτόν εν τη οικία αυτού. Matt. 9:10: και εγένετο αυτού ανακειμένου εν τη οικία.

103

3. The Question of the Pharisees.

As Fritzsche says, he does not know how the Pharisees had seen Jesus eating with tax collectors, but it is certain that their question to the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” had been posed by them later **). They did not even see him sitting at the table himself, but later, de Wette ***), “found out” that he had eaten with tax collectors. But not even in the careless account of Matthew is there a justification for this explanation, because immediately after it was mentioned that the tax collectors were sitting at table with Jesus and his disciples, it is said “when the Pharisees saw” †), so this is supposed to be the immediate consequence of the former. Just as quickly as the striking phenomenon that Jesus is sitting at table with tax collectors and sinners has occurred, the reader is amazed and reflects on the remarkable event, no! before the reader can even come to reflection, the Pharisees are supposed to express their amazement and give occasion for Jesus to interpret and explain the striking appearance. Luke hastens to this point of the report so quickly that he does not even notice that the Pharisees had seen Jesus sitting at table, but immediately says: “they murmured and said to the disciples” *). In the writing of Mark, the matter is correctly presented: “And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?'”

**) in Matthew, p. 342: posthac aliquando.

***) 1, 1, 92.

†) και ιδόντες οι φαρ.

*) και εγόγγυζον …. λέγοντες.

104

4. The Response of Jesus.

“The strong, Jesus answered when he heard the question of the Pharisees **), do not need a physician, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. The Pharisees, explains De Wette, are, if only comparatively, the healthy and righteous, because they did not live in such injustice as the tax collectors” ***) “Jesus recognizes legal righteousness.” But can there be a harsher, sharper saying than the one which here we see the apologists, out of fear that Jesus might appear too harsh and offensive, dulling? The saying is revolutionary and expresses in a striking point the reversal of the concept and the revolution that entered the world with Christianity, which humiliated the pride of self-righteousness and redeemed the rejected – it is the entire revolutionary irony of the Christian principle, as it cannot be expressed better in its simplest form *).

**) Mark 2:17 and after him Matthew (9:12). The question and answer followed one after the other. Luke hurries back quickly by suppressing the “they” and instead saying in 5:31,  και αποκριθεις ο ιησους ειπεν προς αυτους.

***) see  Handb. 1, 1, 92.

*) Calvin: est ironica concessio. Compare Weisse 1, 481.

105

Luke also recorded the saying, probably not because he thought the point was too sharp, but because he remembered that Jesus had come to call for repentance (Mark 1:15) — softened by saying that Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32) **). So he misunderstood the meaning of the saying; for the monstrous thing about the ironic contrast is that sinners are “called to salvation,” while the righteous are rejected, and the kingdom of heaven is destined for those sinners who are considered outcasts by the world.

Matthew also introduced a new element into the saying, interrupting its original movement on the one hand and weakening the impact of the point on the other, by directing the reader’s attention to a point that is outside the direction of the saying. After the words, “The strong do not need a doctor, but the sick do,” Jesus says, “But go and learn what this means ***): ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13). Matthew was the one who introduced this “for/because” – ου γαρ ηλθον – into the saying, and it is precisely this “for” that completely disrupted the coherence of the saying. If one were to retain the “for” as the authentic saying, although it is very dispensable and does not even form an appropriate transition from one half to the other, it could only connect the general statement that the sick, not the strong, need a doctor, and its confirmation by referring to Jesus’ actual purpose. But is there still coherence when the saying of Hosea is inserted between the two sentences? And what does this saying have to do here, where Jesus is speaking about his behavior and only has to speak about it, since the Pharisees had taken offense at his behavior? Finally, even if Jesus wanted to say how others should follow his example, and that he could do so in the midst of the saying that justifies and describes his behavior, could he then possibly think of that saying of the prophet? Never! For the point in this word of the prophet has nothing to do with the thought of the opposite fate that is destined for the righteous and sinners, and it points to a completely different point, namely, where the absolute value of inwardness is decided against external observance of the law. Only the echo that there is a contrast contained in Jesus’ saying and that of the prophet, and that Jesus, when he calls sinners, is practicing the mercy that the prophet recommends, only this echo, which becomes dissonant if one listens to it for more than a moment, has prompted the evangelist to insert this saying here *).

**) εις μετάνοιαν.

***) μαθετε τι εστιν. On another occasion, Matthew lets the Lord quote the same saying of Hosea with the same formula – on his own authority: C. 12, 7 ει δε εγνωκειτε, τι εστιν.

*) Cf. Wilke, p. 349.

106

5. Credibility of the Report.

The main saying itself, which is short but of tremendous power and penetration, seems to be entirely genuine and to have originated on this occasion; nevertheless, we are forced to make a remark, or rather we have just made it and have not yet expressed it, which will shake and completely overthrow the assumption that we have really received many sayings of Jesus literally handed down to us in the Gospels. In any case, we no longer have a definite occasion on which the saying could have arisen, the one at least that Mark reports to us, we have lost it in our contemplation.

107

For religious belief, however, when it artistically shapes and works out its inner determination into history, the scene in which the tax collector immediately follows the first call of Jesus, abandons his tax booth and violates his duty, can be held, because in it it sees the power of Jesus’ word and sees it all the more surely, the more the tax collector was bound by his duty to the post he left and the more ruthlessly he left it. What in the world of religious belief is called faith and zeal for the Lord is in the real and human world forgetfulness of duty; what in that world is natural and simple form, in this world is a storm that whips all relationships together wildly and tears them out of their sockets; what is possible in that world is impossible or insane in this one. By their tortured interpretations, the expositors have already betrayed to us that it is incomprehensible how the Pharisees could be immediately at hand to object to the striking spectacle of this banquet, how they could express their amazement to the disciples, and finally, how Jesus could hear their accusation and answer them. Religious belief does not concern itself with such difficulties; for intelligent contemplation, these difficulties are things of impossibility.

Only the remark about the saying! One only needs to make it oneself— a glance at the accounts of the three Synoptics is enough. Luke and Matthew had the written letter in the scripture of Mark before them, and what did they make of the saying? Luke gave it a different and even inappropriate meaning, while Matthew made its meaning unclear by splitting the punchline and inserting a foreign one. If this happens to a saying that they read in writing, what will happen to the fate of a saying that wanders around in the memory of a scattered community composed of heterogeneous elements for who knows how many years? Well, we don’t need to be concerned about it, as it cannot wander around in this unstable, changeable element, since it will become different in every head, in every particular circle, and assume new forms — that is, there can no longer be talk of a particular saying. It would have been very little indeed if the first followers of Jesus had brought and shared nothing more than a couple or hundreds of sayings from their life together with the Savior; they could neither have founded a community nor overcome the world with that. Rather, it was principles, principles, general views, and the creation of a new essential world that gave the community its existence, which initially occupied it alone and later drove it to create individual views, punchlines, contrasts, and sayings. The specific, individual is shaped only when the essence and the general have become common property and firm possession of a life circle, after the view of the essence and the essential principles had formed again from a series of individual stimuli, influences, and impacts. Jesus had given his own and the world this impetus — but not through individual sayings alone, not even through sayings that were in fact the expression of the new principle in the broadest sense, but by infinitely expanding the soul of his own through the endless series of his influences, which they had never suspected until then, and thus deeply shaking it that they were finally — after his departure — forced to bring this inner expansion to self-consciousness in the thought of the new principle and in the view of the essential world and to trace it back to its simplest expression. The moment that created this expression gave the community its life, and its first vital movements and efforts were — as the Pauline letters prove — directed towards further defining this expression — but still initially in the form of general principles. From these principles, the sayings of Jesus were formed later, which the anachronism that always creeps into religious views makes the first historical expression and the basis of those principles in the Gospels that emerged when the general interest of faith became historical.

109

So in this case, Mark has expressed the irony of the Christian principle sharply, purely, and effectively in the saying he puts into the Lord’s mouth. The opportunity for this was easily found: the tremendous word had to be spoken against the self-righteous Pharisees, the condescension of the Lord who associates with the rejected – with tax collectors and sinners – had to give rise to the occasion, and so that this occasion – the banquet where association even as eating and drinking with the despised appears – would naturally come about, the tax collector who is organizing the banquet to bid farewell to his former friends must be summoned.

Mark has constructed this story only for the context in which he allows the collision between the Savior and the Pharisees and scribes to arise, and at this moment he does not think beyond this context. He does not, therefore, think of comparing this account, which he created for a special purpose, with the list of the twelve apostles and putting them in connection. He could not yet carry out this work. That story of the tax collector had just been created by him, while the list of apostles was given to him; but the list tells him nothing about a Levi, nothing about a tax collector who belonged to the Twelve; so it was impossible for him to insert that tax collector into the list. For the first Synoptist, for this pragmatic artist, these difficulties no longer existed; he could compare and put both calmly in connection, and he did it boldly enough by blindly inserting that tax collector as Levi’s substitute and making him a tax collector.

110

Luke has not yet compared, but, as he usually does, has copied from Mark. Instead, he has done something else, namely used the point of Mark’s story to create a new story, or rather to spin this story – it is that of Zacchaeus – from it. Everything in this story, from the name of the tax collector which from the outset should indicate the inner purity of the man *), to the fact that Jesus addresses him by name, even though he was previously unknown to him and had climbed a mulberry tree to see him **), since how can chance, the name of a person, be known to another person other than through experience – everything has been purified. To secure the evidence, we are allowed to anticipate a later investigation here. On the journey to Jerusalem, Mark reports (chapter 10, 46-52) that as Jesus passed through Jericho and went through the gate ***), a blind man who was standing by the roadside called out to him for help, and after Jesus had restored his sight, the man followed him on the journey †). Mark intended for a witness of his miraculous power to follow the Lord on the way to Jerusalem. Luke says that Jesus healed the blind man when he was near Jericho, simply stating that the blind man followed the Lord, omitting the words “on the journey,” since he only needs the blind man for the pomp of the procession through the city. He now fills the gap he still feels by saying that the healed man praised God and that the entire crowd, which was witness to the miracle, joined in this praise. It is clear why Luke has made changes – he wants to make the procession through Jericho more magnificent, and by giving the Lord a praising entourage, he motivates the curiosity of the chief tax collector *) in a striking way.

*) זַכָּ֔י, the pure, the louder, e.g. Ezra 2: 9.

**) Luk. 19, 5: Zacchaeus,  descend with haste.

***) εκπορευομένου αυτού από Ιεριχώ.

+) ήκολούθει τώ Ι. εν τη οδώ.

*) εζήτει ιδείν τον Ι. τίς έστι.

111

“Today I must stay at your house,” Jesus calls to Zacchaeus, who is still sitting in the tree. He quickly climbs down and joyfully welcomes his guest, who had invited himself. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, “He has gone in to be guest with a man who is a sinner.” Weisse **) thought he had to praise the “living individuality” in this story, but it may not be called nitpicking if we ask who are the “all” who murmur about Jesus’ kindness to the tax collector, and if we answer that from the context it is not only inexplicable but also purely impossible that everyone should have had such an attitude towards the Lord. Only the people had been mentioned before. But if they had just praised God for the healing of the blind man and followed the miracle worker in fervent zeal on the triumphal procession through Jericho, how is it possible that all of a sudden they should change their minds? If Jesus had compassion on the blind man and therefore received praise, he could also be merciful to a “sinner” without being rebuked. Olshausen says, “the Pharisees” murmured ***), but how else can he know than from a story that the evangelist at this moment has in mind, even copying it carelessly and hastily, borrowing only the punchline (the people’s accusation) and, because he is only concerned with this, forgetting to indicate who was murmuring about the Lord? In short, Luke has given the account he had already copied from Mark on his own, with a variation for the second time †). He also repeats the saying that the Son of Man came not to call the righteous, but sinners, in a different, free-form when he has the Lord say he came (C. 19:10) to seek and to save the lost.

**) a. a. O. II, 176,

***) a. a. O. I, 765.

†) Luke 19:7: και ιδοντες – He has the text of Mark before him and picks up the ξαναρρίπτων that he had let fall earlier in Luke 5:37 – πάντες εγόγγυζον, λέγοντες, ότι παρά αμαρτωλω ανδρί εισήλθε καταλύσαι.

112

It is actually superfluous to note that the following words of Zacchaeus and Jesus are not appropriate to the context: even if they were much better formulated and seemed to flow naturally from the occasion, the fact remains that the occasion was contrived. When the people murmured, Zacchaeus stepped forward and said, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (Luke 19:8). But that would be a beautiful “sinner,” as the Lord desires, if Zacchaeus stepped forward so confidently and said he was one of those tax collectors who acted as the Baptist had commanded (Luke 3:13). He does indeed want to defend himself against the popular cry of “he stays with a sinner,” but it was still inappropriate to enumerate the virtues that adorn him. And how he praises himself! The first part of his self-praise, “I give half of my goods to the poor,” is boastful, and the second part, “if I have defrauded anyone, I restore it fourfold,” is even more ambiguous and only arose from the fact that Luke wanted to incorporate the reminiscence of his saying of the Baptist, “take no more than what is prescribed for you,” into the tax collector’s speech. Even Jesus’ speech is not very successful for the evangelist, indeed he does not even know how to introduce it properly when he addresses it to Zacchaeus *), although the saying that the Son of Man seeks the lost, as is done correctly in Mark’s account **), must be directed immediately against the self-righteous. Even Luke could not help but develop Jesus’ speech in such a way that it was addressed to strangers, not to Zacchaeus. “Today,” Jesus says, “salvation has come to this house, since he too is a son of Abraham.” In fact, we need only to have rid ourselves of the bad habit of taking every word as given *), to see how it is more similar to a timid retreat than a bold attack on the proud and the divine defense of sinners and the lost, when Jesus justifies or rather excuses his choice of the tax collector by saying that he too – και αυτος – is a son of Abraham, just like the dissatisfied and envious critics!

*) V. 9: είπε δε προς αυτόν.

**) Mark 2, 17: noi héyal aŭrois ουκ ήλθον καλέσαι.

*) and thinks it is sufficient to explain by exchanging the words of the text with a couple of others that mean the same thing. Thus Olshausen, I, 765: “As an Abrahamite, he had the next right to salvation.” Similarly, de Wette, I, 2, 96.

113

Once again – for the third time – Luke has taken the narrative of Mark word for word to let the point emerge in new variations. But they all, Luke says in chapter 15, verses 1 and 2, came near to him, all (!) tax collectors and sinners, to hear him. Then the Pharisees and scribes murmured **) saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” “He eats with them” belongs to Mark’s scripture; “He receives sinners” is a later reflection of the community, a reflection which praises the beneficence and mercy as such, namely as an exalted quality of the Lord, and could not be more appropriately placed than here, where it is reported as a reflection of the Pharisees. “He receives sinners” is the theme of the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son that follow (chapter 15, 3-32). Later, when Matthew gives us the opportunity, we will examine these parables and similar passages in the third Gospel, in which the acceptance of sinners is praised in more detail; for now we only notice – which is actually superfluous – that this third outbreak of the Pharisees’ displeasure is patterned after Mark’s narrative *) and that Luke had in mind this section of his own writing, in which the word “lost” was used three times (verses 6, 9, 32), when he later formulated the general principle in the narrative of Zacchaeus that the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.

**) και διεγόγγυζον οι φ. και οι γρ. λέγοντες, ότι ούτος αμαρτωλούς προσδέχεται και συνεσθίει αυτοίς.

*) The Pharisees say: “He eats with sinners!” and before that it was only reported that the tax collectors and sinners came near to hear him!

————————

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

87

§ 35.

The Healing of the Paralytic.

Matthew 9:2-8.

The boldness with which Jesus exclaimed to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven!” seemed like blasphemous presumption to the present scribes. Jesus recognized in their hearts *) their thoughts and said to them, “Why do you think such things in your hearts? What is easier to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or:

*) Only Mark 2:8 has the addition: τω πνευματι for he was the first to feel the need to explain the miraculous fact that Jesus recognized the secret thoughts of the scribes. Luke omits the addition, he only says επιγνους τους διαλογισμους αυτων, and Matthew (9:4) even says: “And Jesus, knowing their thoughts” – εἰδὼς; for the later generations it goes without saying that Jesus instantly understood people’s inner thoughts.

88

Rise, take up your bed and walk?” But to show them that as the Son of Man he had the authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” “And immediately he rose up, took up his bed and went out before them all. *)” Thus ended the story, according to Mark 2:12, and the people were amazed and praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” Luke confused the conclusion by his redundancy: first, saying that all were amazed, then that they praised God, and finally that they were filled with fear, saying, “Today we have seen strange things.” He also introduced confusion by saying earlier (Luke 5:25) that the healed man went home, praising God δοξαζων τον θεον. This praise was originally only intended for the conclusion, as the people saw the formerly paralyzed man leave the house, healed and healthy (Mark 2:12 εξηλθεν εναντιον παντων).

When Mark notes at the end of a miracle story that the people or the disciples were amazed **), and often uses vivid colors to paint their amazement, it was once thought that this was proof that he wrote after Matthew and Luke and had no choice but to exaggerate the short, casual and unguarded reports of his predecessors. This was very unjustified! On the contrary, we have just seen how Luke has overloaded and confused the simple and natural conclusion of his predecessor’s account. Matthew had to reveal to us through his clumsiness in changing the conclusion of the account of the calming of the storm that he could no longer find himself in the representation of his predecessor, or at least could not leave it unchanged. He will prove to us again shortly that by transcribing the writing of Mark and changing its details, he did not necessarily improve it from a pragmatic perspective. He will show us this again, also in the concluding remarks to accounts of miracles.

*) Mark 2, 10-12: λέγει τα παραλυτικώ· σοι λέγω, έγειραι, άρον τον κράββατών σου και ύπαγε εις τον οίκόν σου, και εγερθείς ευθέως και άρας τον κράββατον εξήλθεν εναντίον πάντων. Luke 5, 24 hat ſtatt zpáßßatov zhuvidiov. Matth. 9, 6 shivrv. Compare temporarily John 5, 8, 9: λέγει αυτώ ο Ιησούς, έγειραι, άρον τον κράββατών σου και περιπάτει, και ευθέως εγένετο υγιής ο άνθρωπος» και ήρε τον κράββατον αυτού και περιεπάτει. John 5. 5, 14 μηκέτι αμάρτανε, ίνα μη χείρόν τί σοι γένηται. Further V. 18 ίσον εαυτόν ποιών τω θεώ compare with Mark, 2, 7 τί ούτος λαλεί βλασφημίας και τις δύναται αφιέναι αμαρτίας, ει μή είς ο θεός; Luke 5, 21 ει μη μόνος ο θεός; Matth. 9, 3 let the scribes say only:  οὗτος βλασφημεῖ; he doesn’t dwell on the individual anymore because he believes every reader will interpret the meaning of the reproach as he himself does.

**) See C. 4:41: “Who is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” Mark 5:20: “And they were amazed beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’” Mark 7:37: “And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’”

At times, Mark omits to mention that everyone was amazed, but never without reason; he then creates another contrast at the end or intends to connect the following event closer to the miraculous deed. For example, after the Sabbath healings, the Pharisees “immediately” decide to destroy Jesus (Mark 3:6). Also, in Mark 1:34 and 3:12, he doesn’t want to be made known by demons. After the miraculous feeding (Mark 6:45-46), he immediately forces the disciples to go ahead of him across the sea, and he himself escapes to the mountain. After healing the deaf-mute demoniac, the disciples ask in Mark 9:28 why they couldn’t cast out the demon. Peter’s mother-in-law, freed from fever, waits for the guests in Mark 1:31. In contrast, the amazement of the people is expressed strongly elsewhere! Also, compare the amazement of the disciples in Mark 6:51!

89

The matter is to be understood quite differently, and this – the only correct – interpretation is not unimportant for the development of criticism, as it is fatal to the miracle stories. If Mark lets the people or the disciples be beside themselves with amazement at the miraculous deeds of the Lord, this amazement is the objective and plastic expression of what was happening in the view of the community and the writer who shaped it, as faith in the heavenly power of the Redeemer became historical belief and created a new, wonderful history. The religious self-consciousness itself was beside itself, and with every new enrichment of the Gospel miracle story it was beside itself, and although the miracle power of the Lord was certain to the writer who worked for the community, it was still an involuntary feeling that these specific types of miracles were new, and his feeling, as well as the impression these reports made on the community, had to be incorporated into the historical narrative itself. The amazement of the crowd and the disciples is the amazement and restoration of the original evangelist and his contemporaries.

90

Luke writes down the formulas that express this amazement without significant changes, but Matthew proves the correctness of our interpretation through the changes he attempted to make to the original account. Either he suppresses the remark that Jesus’ deed aroused admiration (as in the account of the healing of the Gadarene demoniac), or he exchanges his predecessor’s strong expressions (“they were amazed,” “they were beside themselves”) for the milder expression that they were simply surprised. When Mark reports that even the disciples were amazed, he says that “the people” in Jesus’ surroundings marveled (as in Mark 8:27 and 14:33). And when finally in Mark’s account the people are amazed at the wondrousness of the deed in general, Matthew says that they were amazed at the power of this particular deed. That’s how he did it this time. To the scribes Jesus said, “So that you may see that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, rise up, take up your bed, and go home.” Accordingly, in Matthew 9:8, the people praise God for giving “such” power to people. And now, “people!” It is not so much the miracle-working power of Jesus that is the cause of amazement, but rather the fact that in Jesus’ power the whole of humanity is considered, elevated, and glorified by God. When Matthew wrote, the world of wonder was already established to such a degree and the view already so deeply rooted that it seemed inappropriate to make a big deal out of the miracle.

91

If we are asked to discuss the so-called credibility of the report, the theologian in us and the theologian outside who scrutinizes us demand it. Well then! The amazement of the crowd is depicted, but the crowd itself only came together in such great numbers that it blocked the way to the house where Jesus was staying and prevented the faithful bearers of the sick man from reaching him, because it wanted to take advantage of Jesus’ presence and insisted that he leave as quickly as he did during his first visit to Capernaum. For the same reason, they absolutely wanted to bring the sick man to Jesus. However, we have already recognized the first visit, that is, the one described by Mark, as the work of the writer. Furthermore, how could Jesus know what the scribes were thinking in their hearts? Jesus knows because that’s what Mark wants, because the evangelist wants to report the following speech about forgiveness of sins and miraculous powers, and the scribes must take offense at it this time because the arrangement of this report demands it, namely, that the hostility of the scribes should first be expressed as inner dissatisfaction and then gradually become more evident until finally (Mark 3:6) the opponents of the Lord conspire to bring about his downfall. As for how the bearers could bring their stretcher onto the roof of the house, we will not ask, as the apologist will torture us with the excuse that they took a – at any rate, very long and arduous – detour; but how they could break open the roof and enter the room where Jesus was, without damaging the assembly in the room or fatally injuring anyone’s head, no one will tell us, at least no one who would try to persuade us that we should consider the report as credible. Operations of this kind, such as breaking open a roof over a room filled with people, only cease to be dangerous when they are carried out in the realm of ideal perception.

92

In Jesus’ words, “which is easier to say, ‘your sins are forgiven’ or to say, ‘get up and walk’?” the most convincing proof for the assertion that he performed miracles had to lie if they were really his words. But to believe this is hindered by nothing less than their content. The scribes took offense at Jesus speaking as if he had the power to forgive sins. Jesus now wants to prove that he does indeed possess and can exercise this power: “For which is easier, to forgive sins or to perform miracles? Clearly the former; therefore, if I can do the more difficult, as I will now show, then it cannot be doubted that I also have the authority for the easier.” The conclusion is understandable, but for whom? For the consciousness to which the Savior’s miraculous power is the strongest and compelling proof of his authority. However, this consciousness has only formed him, not Jesus! As understandable as he may be, he is incorrect, untrue, because the power of the spirit to forgive sin and to undo what has been done is surely greater than the most enormous miracle, which only suspends a natural law, as the spirit surpasses nature infinitely through its power, interiority, intensity, i.e. through its ability to resist. The man who shook the world by expanding self-awareness to infinity and revealed it as the power over sin, this man could never have made the statement that the miracle was greater than the act of forgiving sins. It was only in the later community that the saying and the occasion that brought it forth were formed. When, namely, the religious-historical view of Jesus’ authority to forgive sins wanted to become truly certain and to view its proof through the power of miracles in one focus, it was indeed appropriate that a sick person be brought before the Lord, since illness was considered a punishment for sin and in its healing the abolition of sin also appeared externally, just as Jesus most clearly demonstrated his power over sin when he performed what was perceived as the more difficult task, namely, lifting the visible appearance of sin. It is also very appropriate and a correct instinct of view that the scribes are set up as opponents; to Jewish consciousness, it indeed seemed impossible that the spirit could gain mastery over its inner determinacy, including sin.

93

If the point of the report is based on the assumption that illness is a punishment for sin *), then the result of our criticism relieves us of the question of whether Jesus assumed a positive connection between sin and illness. We do not know how he saw the matter, but we do see from the Gospels that in the early church the Jewish view of that connection still held, at least to the extent that it was still accepted unreservedly when needed for pragmatic reasons.

*) Weisse, I, 480 notes that the report does not assume that “every individual illness is a specific punishment for sin.” That is correct, but does not address the matter and does not negate the actual assumption. It was only the reasonable uncertainty and inconsistency of the Jewish consciousness if that view was not taken out of its generality and applied to each individual case. The embarrassment of this application to the individual would have entangled the legal consciousness in too many contradictions and would have led to the dissolution of the view earlier than it actually happened. The evangelists assume lengthy and ingrained illnesses when they use the Jewish view for their narratives.

The story of the man born blind in the fourth Gospel provides us with evidence that the difficulties of the Jewish view, when applied to individual cases, were not hidden and gave rise to casuistic questions. A similar proof is provided by the Gospel of Luke. Once people come to Jesus and report to him about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. Jesus answers, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or do you think that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. (Luke 13:1-5) The story tells us nothing about those Galileans. Of course, Olshausen *) says, “among the countless horrors that the Romans committed against the Jews, the slaughter of some unknown Galileans was like a drop in the ocean.” If this is so and no one can find the drop that has disappeared into the sea, then Luke would have known nothing about Pilate’s act, just as he knew nothing about the eighteen who were killed by a tower in Jerusalem. But the statement of Jesus, which referred to these accidents, has preserved the memory of them! Now, finally, make it understandable to us how a saying like this, a saying that truly has no such significant content, could have been preserved until the time of Luke – and even in tradition? The saying is freely formed and formed by Luke himself only in the present context, since before and after that it was said that one had to get one’s affairs in order and repent before it was too late. Before: if you go with your adversary to the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge; after: if the fig tree does not bear fruit, it will be cut down (Luke 12:58-59; 13:9) **). In the middle, Luke placed a saying that recommends the same consideration for the end, and is only different in its starting point from the other two, just as they differ from each other with regard to the epigrammatic preparation and the starting point.

*) B. C. I, 639.

**) Even the construction of the sentences corresponds to each other: Luke 13:5: ἀλλ’ ἐὰν μὴ μετανοήτε, πάντες ὡσαύτως ἀπολεῖσθε; Luke 23:9: εἰ δὲ μήγε, εἰς τὸ μέλλον ἐκκόψεις αὐτήν.

95

For the saying that concerns us here, Luke used the casuistic question that arose from the dissolution of the legal consciousness, namely the question of whether the misfortune is truly a punishment for sinfulness and proves the guilt of the suffering, since there are so many sinners running around who are spared from all misfortune. No, says Luke, their punishment will catch up with them in the end.

The apologist may still answer the question of how Jesus could immediately rebuke the people who innocently brought him the news of Pilate’s deed: Do you think these Galileans were especially sinful? At least he must answer the question, i.e., become a poet and create a new story if “credibility” is to be maintained. We have answered the question by saying that the address breaks out so prematurely because Luke is only concerned with this punchline and the occasion only needed to be mentioned as far as the reader needed to know to which event the saying referred.

——————————