Tag: Synoptic Gospels

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§ 66.

The demand for signs.

Matth. 16, 1-4.

As a sign that he was a man of God, Elijah commanded the heavens and called down rain and fire (1 Kings 18:45. L Kings 1:10): let the Messiah do likewise, the Pharisees demand, if he really wants to prove himself as Messiah *). Jesus rejects their demand: from the colour of the sky they know how to determine the weather in the evening and in the morning, but they do not understand the signs of the times? But there shall no sign be given unto this generation, save that of Jonah.

*) Compare (also after the feeding of the people as in Mark and Matthew) John 6, 30 : τί ούν ποιείς συ σημείον, ίνα ίδωμεν και πιστευσωμεν σοι. Furthermore John 4, 48.

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Matthew has brought together two sayings that have different points without defining their mutual relationship. Each of them would have been strong enough to reject the demand for signs: in the first, it is the signs of the times that point to the kingdom of heaven; in the second, it is Jesus as this person himself who guarantees the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. Matthew now comes to the report of Mark about the demand for signs, which he had already given above, transcribes it with the original punch line and enriches it, i.e. confuses it, by inserting Luke’s saying (C. 12, 54-56.) about the signs of the times *).

*) with a slight change, namely, that throughout it speaks of heaven.

Finally, this is the place to make a remark which has already found its proof in the above investigations. Matthew often reports the same fact twice; indeed, it probably happens to him that he relates the same event three times. In former times this phenomenon was explained, depending on the different presuppositions from which one proceeded, either in such a way that one said that the same thing could really have happened more than once, or one maintained that variations on the same theme had developed in the tradition of the congregation and that Matthew had always communicated them with the setting in which they were handed down to him by tradition. On the other hand, we do not even need to remember that the Gospels give us neither the empirical reality of Jesus’ life nor the later tradition that was formed in the view of the community: But no one will be able to deny that reality is rich and manifold, and does not repeat itself so tautologically as Matthew would have us believe, and that the first law of historical memory, when it presents itself in a coherent work, as well as of tradition, if it had really existed in this case and had rounded itself off into a certain type, is simplicity, i.e. at the same time true variety. i.e. at the same time true diversity. Let us, however, leave the abstract argument that the same thing has “happened” several times, or that it has been able to “take shape” in tradition, in a fine place, i.e., in the air, and let us remember that the tradition has really existed and rounded itself off into a certain type. If, however, we leave the abstract argumentation that the same thing has “happened” several times or “been able to take shape” in tradition in its place, i.e. in wishful thinking, and if, on the contrary, we remember the real and thousandfold proven fact, then it is beyond all doubt – we need only read over the writing of Mark – that the writer who freely creates a historical whole from the ideal conception does not repeat himself, observes the law of simplicity and diversity, and is therefore so fortunate as to bring about a coherent composition. Matthew’s outward and servile dependence on the letter of the scriptures he used and wrote out explained to us the tautologies of his historical works.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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383

§ 65.

The Canaanite Woman.

Matth. 15, 21-28.

If one has not yet discovered the scriptural origin of the Gospels, one must be very surprised that the disciples ask their Master to satisfy the Canaanite woman, while the latter replies very sternly that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. In order to avoid all unfortunate consequences, one could say that the request of the disciples came only from a vague compassion, not from a freer insight, and furthermore they wanted to be rid of the annoying cry of the woman, who incessantly cried out behind the Lord: Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David, my daughter is badly afflicted by demons. If the disciples are now duly suspected, one could try to soften the Lord’s offensive word that he was sent “only” to the sheep of Israel, and claim that Jesus was inwardly determined to help the woman, depending on her proving faith. But if Jesus had really inwardly harboured this reservation, he would at least now, after letting the disciples feel the apparent harshness of his purpose and of the divine decree, have to turn kindly to the woman: But not only does he not do so, but even more harshly than he had just done, he tells the woman that he must not waste on the Gentiles the benefits that are meant only for the Jews – “it is not nice to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” – and it is only by chance, the woman’s unexpected strong statement of faith, that he moves him to heal her daughter from afar. So he has nothing on the disciples: if they only wanted the woman to be helped so that they would be relieved of the annoying crying, Jesus, against his expectation and intention, is moved by an accidental surprise to grant the woman’s request. Indeed, the disciples seem to stand even higher because they initially felt compassion, while Jesus had to be disarmed by a new bold attack.

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The point of the story is obviously in the woman’s startling words: “Yes, Lord! (namely, it is indeed not right to give the bread of the children to the dogs, but for this reason I do not have to be excluded) for even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” But if the disciples have already pleaded for the woman and without success, this point comes too late and the contrast that has now come into the narrative remains unclear; on the other hand, the exclusion of the Gentiles has become much too serious if Jesus only tells the disciples and then the woman that he has nothing to do with foreigners, and the coincidence that suddenly changes his view becomes even more arbitrary, making the whole picture restless and unstable.

The disciples must step aside, Jesus must not have previously spoken to them about his limited mission, so that at the first moment when the woman addresses him, the collision is formed and resolved through the bold faith of the Gentile woman: in short, so that the original account, the story of Mark (Mark 7:24-30) is restored. The foreign intruders that Matthew has allowed into the original account will be easily sent back home. Just as the woman’s cry, “Have mercy on me, Son of David,” and the fact that she cries out, are borrowed from Mark’s account of the healing of the blind man at Jericho, so also the other feature that the others find this crying annoying and want peace is also taken from there: in Mark’s account, the people there are generally threatening the blind man to be quiet (Mark 10:47), here, in the present story, the crowd is missing, so the disciples must step aside, find the crying annoying, and ask for the request to be granted – because Matthew knows that the miracle will be performed later – and when it comes to the disciples’ words, Matthew remembers that they have said to the Lord on another occasion: “Send them away!” (Mark 6:36, Matthew 14:15). They must now say the same thing, even though the words take on a different meaning on this occasion.

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If it was now finally a matter of dispatching the disciples – but they had to be dispatched, so that only by the woman’s believing utterance would the collision be resolved – Matthew took the words of Jesus, which the woman hears in the Scripture of Mark, and reworked the one member – for Jesus’ answer has two members – into that saying with which Jesus rejects the disciples’ request. Under this work, a contradiction that Mark had introduced into Jesus’ words was eliminated. For when it is said: let the children first be filled, for it is not good to take “the children’s bread” and throw it to the dogs, in the first clause the dogs are left with the prospect that when the children are filled they will also be filled, but in the second clause of the saying they are deprived of any hope that they will receive bread. The contradiction is to be explained by the fact that Mark was still timid, did not dare to show the limit of Jesus’ destiny in its stark exclusiveness from the outset and, moreover, was involuntarily dominated at this moment by the ecclesiastical view that salvation was first destined for the Jews. But this mood and these influences worked only secretly: the main reason which produced the contradiction lies in the fact that Mark modelled Jesus’ speech on the conversation between Elijah and the widow of Sarepta (1 Kings, 17, 12.13.). How that widow, when Elijah demanded bread from her, asserted the need of her son*), but Elijah spoke courage to her and commanded her to give him first (L. XX s-, nßwroes) bread first, and that with God’s help her son would also find what he needed later, just as in this context it is a question of the previous satisfaction of another, so Jesus must also assert the need of the children, who had to be satisfied first, and only in the second part of the sentence, when the general principle is stated that one must not take “their bread” from the children, only then does it happen that the barrier of Jesus’ determination and the exclusive prerogative of the Jews involuntarily emerge for a moment. But only for a moment! For the woman overthrows the barriers by her bold word, and she had to overthrow them, since the woman of Sarepta also gives the bread, which was intended for her child, to the strange man. Matthew, however, has strengthened the barrier far too much when he suppresses the provision of precedence, which was originally at issue, and even allows the Lord to assert twice to the disciples and to the woman the exclusive privilege of the Jews.

If it was finally about getting rid of the disciples – they had to be dismissed so that the collision would be resolved later by the faithful utterance of the woman – then Matthew took the words of Jesus that the woman hears in the Gospel of Mark and turned one clause, which actually consists of two, into the saying with which Jesus rejects the request of the disciples. In this work, a contradiction that Mark had brought into the words of Jesus was eliminated. When it says, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” in the first clause, the dogs are allowed the prospect that they too would be satisfied later when the children are full, while in the second clause of the saying, any hope that they would get bread is taken away from them. The contradiction is explained by the fact that Mark was still hesitant to show the limit of Jesus’ determination in its harsh exclusivity from the outset and was unconsciously dominated by that ecclesiastical view that the Jews were initially (prōton) determined to have salvation. But these moods and influences only worked in secret: the main reason for the contradiction was that Mark had modeled Jesus’ speech after the conversation between Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:12-13). Just as that widow, when Elijah asked her for bread, pleaded the need of her son *), and Elijah encouraged her and told her to bring him bread first (LXX εν πρωτοις), with God’s help, her son’s needs would be met afterwards, since this context is about the previous satiation of another, so Jesus must now also assert the need of the children who had to be satiated first against the woman. Only in the second clause of the saying, when the general principle is expressed that one should not take the children’s “bread”, does the barrier of Jesus’ determination and the exclusive prerogative of the Jews unintentionally emerge for a moment. But only for a moment! For the woman overturns the barriers with her bold words, and she had to overturn them, since that widow of Zarephath also gave the bread that was intended for her child to the stranger. However, Matthew has fortified the barrier far too much, by suppressing the determination of priority, which was originally at stake, and even twice allowing the Lord to assert to the disciples and to the woman that the exclusive privilege of the Jews was claimed.

*) Wilke, 570.

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The situation is still to be considered. Matthew says that the Lord went “into” the territory of Tyre and Sidon and that the woman – a Canaanite, Mark calls her a Greek, from Syro-Phoenicia – met him “just there” when she came “from” the same territory – i.e. Matthew reports an impossibility **). He has written out Mark wrongly! Mark not only reports that Jesus, like Elijah, when he set out for Sarepta, wanted to remain hidden, that he was in a house when that woman approached him and asked for help for her daughter, but he also presents the matter reasonably when he says: Jesus was near the Phoenician region, and here *) that woman came to him; this is just as reasonable and coherent as it is the simple expression of the idea with which we are here concerned. “Jesus was near the Phoenician territory, but not within it.” That woman had come out to him, they stand on the border where the Jewish and the Gentile separated and touched. “Jesus now understands the woman as if she were asking him to go away from the part of the territory where the Jews could seek his help, and to go with the Gentile woman over the border. But the woman says that Jesus can stay where he is and help her from afar **). – The same idea, the same situation – only more appropriately modelled on the idea – that we have already become acquainted with in the story of the centurion of Capernaum.

**) An example of how even the rationalist knows how to tame the contradictions of Scripture! Το Matth. 15, 21 εις τα μερη . . . . remarks Fritzsche p. 516: plurimi post Grotium εis hic versus notare ajunt, quibus ego non tam ideo assentior, quod Mark 7, 24 habet απηλθεν εις τα μεθορια τυρου και σιδωνος quam quod Jesum Hebraeorum terrae fines transgressum esse credibile non est. So therefore εις shall cease to be the region?

*) Mark 7, 31 ist εκ των οριων τυρου και σιδωνος die Gränze und Nachbarschaft von Phönicien, während Matthew C. 15, 22 τα ορια zu dem Gebiete als solchem gemacht hat. Τα ορια entſpricht hier den μερη V. 21.

**) Wilke, p. 578.

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This idea that Jesus was working beyond the boundaries of his historical sphere of activity gave rise to the present account and subjugated the elements of the story of Elijah (1 Kings 17:8-24) and used them for its representation.

Luke changed the Phoenician woman into the centurion of Capernaum, but also used the hint of Mark, which pointed him to the story of Elijah, to introduce the widow, whose son Elijah raised from the dead, into the Gospel story as the widow of Nain ***). But that only the account of the Phoenician widow by Mark really led him to the story of Elijah, is clearly proved by Luke, when immediately after the account of the centurion, i.e., after he had introduced the idea of the “widow of Nain” into the Gospel story. Luke proves this very clearly when, immediately after the account of the centurion, i.e. after he has let the idea of the work come into his own, he takes the interest of a miracle that happened to a dead man from the Old Testament account and immediately lets it be followed by the awakening of the young man of Nain (C. 7,1-16.).

***) Wilke has attributed the woman of Sarepta, p. 570, to the widow of Nain. Nain again. Luke 7, 12: ως δε ηγγισεν τη πυλη της πολεως και ιδου . . . . χηρα. 1 Κοnig. 17, 10: και ήλθεν εις τον. πυλώνα της πόλεως και ιδού εκεί γυνή κήρα.

Luke 7, 15: και έδωκεν αυτόν τη μητρι αυτού. 1 Kings 17, 23 : και έδωκεν αυτό τη μητρί αυτού.

Luke 7, 16; και εδόξαζον τον θεόν λέγοντες· ότι προφήτης μέγας εγήγερται εν ημίν. 1 Kings 17, 24 : και είπεν ή γυνή … ιδού έγνωκα, ότι συ άνθρωπος θεού.

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If the idea and the first elements of the account of the Phoenician woman have been betrayed, it would be pointless to talk about the so-called credibility. Weisse also says *) that “the story cannot be understood factually, otherwise Jesus would this time hardly be acquitted of the accusation of a narrow-minded bias in national antipathies, which is so little in keeping with his other way of thinking and acting. However, we have not yet found out how Jesus thought and acted in other ways, and we will only be able to examine this later **). Weisse continues: “If, on the other hand, we take the whole for a parable invented by himself, the harshness that lies in the first answer to the woman’s request is cancelled out by the intention in which the whole narrative is then designed from the outset. The point of the whole does not rest in that first answer, but in the woman’s reply. But even in this case the harshness of Jesus’ answer would remain, since he would always have stood as this particular, empirical person before those to whom he presented the parable, and would have taught them the idea that he could speak equally harshly in such situations. Supposing Jesus had wanted to speak of himself in a parable and such a lecture had been possible at all, he would have had to introduce himself completely appropriately from the outset, but not put himself in a crooked light, not present himself as excessively limited. Only in the community, when his person had become an ideal quantity and as such could more easily be set in motion in the dialectic of outlook, then when the universality of the Principle had long been assured and the limitation could be instantly lowered to a momentary semblance of dialectic, only then was it possible that those limited words could be formed. One was much too sure to take offence at them, and passed over them impartially, since in the resolution of the collision they already annulled their limitedness of their own accord. In any case, contradictions of this kind were unavoidable if a dialectic, which was carried out by Paul in the pure element of reflection, was to be vividly portrayed in the immediacy of historical appearance.

*) I, 5-7.

**) Strauss (1, 571.) takes the present account seriously in order to argue about how Jesus wanted to relate to the Gentiles; he thus gives us arguments that go into the blue, like most of his reasoning about points of this kind, since they are based on apologetic premises. The critic should leave such reflections to the theologians, who are far better suited to them!

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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374

§ 64.

The divine commandment and the statutes of men.

Matth. 15,1-20.

Once again it was the way of life of the disciples – the fact that they did not wash their hands before meals – which must have given the Pharisees and scribes cause to attack Jesus Himself. “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” with these words they hold the Master responsible for the behaviour of his disciples. Jesus, on the other hand, asks them why they, on their part, transgress the commandment of God for the sake of the tradition of the elders and shows them by example how they subordinated the duties commanded by law to the demands of the hierarchy. They were the hypocrites of whom Isaiah had spoken when he said: “This people draws near to me with its mouth and with its lips it honours me, but its heart is far from me; but in vain do they serve me, setting up doctrines which are nothing but the commandments of men. And he called the people unto him, and said unto them, Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which goeth out of the mouth defileth a man.

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Then came his disciples unto him, and said, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended when they heard the word? But he answered, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they are blind guides of the blind, but if one blind man guides another, both fall into the pit. Peter answered and said unto him, Interpret this parable unto us. Jesus gives the interpretation, setting forth one from another, how all things that enter into the mouth go into the belly, and passes out into the sewer. But that which goes out of the mouth, he continues, comes out of the heart, and that defiles the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, thievery, false witness, blasphemy. But eating with unwashed hands does not defile a man.

It is not difficult to dissolve this report to such an extent that the foreign and disturbing elements it contains are separated from it and the original report emerges in its true form from this chemical process.

If the disciples, v. 12, know nothing more to say to the Lord than that the Pharisees were angry about the word – it is not known which word: whether the saying about tradition or about that which really defiles man is meant – they are so familiar with the latter saying about true defilement that they are only interested in what kind of impression it made on the opponents. They thus indicate that they themselves have understood the saying. But this is contradicted when Peter asks the Lord afterwards (v. 15) to interpret “this” parable. But which one? This one? Immediately before went the saying of the blind guide, further back the saying of the plant which the heavenly Father has not planted: “this” parable must therefore be one of the two sayings, and yet it is the saying of that which goes in and out of the mouth? Indeed, says Fritzsche, for one must certainly note and hold that this parable still occupied Peter inwardly and that it is generally the most important in the context *). But where does Fritzsche get such exact information about what was going on in Peter’s mind at that moment, and is it really because of this that the two sayings (v. 13.14.), over which Peter’s question easily disregards itself, were so unimportant? How, finally, can Peter, if he wants to answer, raise the question about the meaning of that long-delayed saying, after (v. 12) a new interest had arisen and Jesus had continued this new turn of interest and conversation, i.e. had distracted even further from that saying? Nothing new must have occurred between that saying about the defilement and the question about its meaning. So it is in the writing of Mark: there Jesus, after having dispatched the Pharisees, calls the people, tells them what really defiles man, and now when he had gone away and arrived at home, “the disciples” – not Peter – ask him about the meaning of the parable (Mark 7,14-17.). Matthew not only interrupted the connection, but completely dissolved it: he borrowed the saying about the blind guide from Luke (C. 6, 39.), and only formed the one about the plant at this moment.

*) to Matth, p. 515.

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We want to put less emphasis on the fact that in the writing of Matthew the explanation of the saying that the disciples wanted to have interpreted is much better worked out – the contrast of that which enters the human being “from the outside” and does not even enter the heart, and of that which rises from the heart “from the inside” is pure and sharp, not to mention the point that the processing of the food that finally enters the stomach and the sewer is called a cleansing of the same (Mark 7, 18-23.) – but in this Matthew has been extraordinarily careful, that at the close of the discourse, when that which defiles a man is mentioned, he lets the Lord say: “but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” Matthew wanted to refer back to the occasion, but wrongly and to the great detriment of the saying about what really defiles, which went far beyond the limited occasion and not only overturned the tradition of the Pharisees but the dietary laws of the OT in general. If nothing that enters the mouth defiles the human being, and thus the legal regulations of the OT no longer apply, what need is there to say that washing the hands before the meal is not necessary for the purity of the human being? This trailing remark is not only superfluous, but disturbing, indeed it destroys the whole sense of the preceding argument.

The original account is finally fully restored when we remove Jesus’ speech against the Pharisees from the structure that Matthew has given it and return it to its true arrangement. Matthew (Ch. 15:3-9) has placed the specific aspect of the opponents disregarding the law for the sake of tradition, as it shows in their theory of vows, before the general aspect that Isaiah had prophesied excellently about them. Mark, on the other hand, has organized it better, and we find in him (Ch. 7:6-13) the original structure of the speech when he moves from the general to the specific and indicates with the closing words, “and you do many other things like these,” that much more specific things could be listed and that the one cited should only serve as an example. Furthermore, “the words ‘you hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you,’ fit much better if they are still allowed to question how he was right, and thus move from the general to the specific about them, rather than following after the specific proof has been given *).” Wille has also drawn attention to another corruption of the original: in Marcus (Ch. 7:21-22), it says that “evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, etc.” come forth from the heart of man. Thus, thoughts are presented as the general and principle of the specific things that are enumerated later. However, Matthew has omitted the article and added thoughts to the specific things as if they were also just one of the specific things. **)

*) Wilke, p. 577.

**) The words Mark 7, 2 – 4, which we currently read between και ιδοντες τινας των μαθητων αυτου κοιναις χερσιν (τουτ εστιν ανιπτοις is also unnoticed) εσθιοντας αρτους and επερωτωσιν αυτον read, explains Wilke p. 673. 674 rightly for a later insertion, likewise the words v. 8: βαπτισμους —- ποιειτε. But it is difficult to understand the words v. 13: και παρομοια τοιαυτα πολλα ποιειτε [overnight?]. Wilke does them an injustice when he explains them according to these interpolations, since they have the meaning: and so you also abrogate divine commandments for the sake of tradition; the later interpolator only misunderstood them, related them to the different kinds of purifications, mentioned these other purifications from this point of view in D. 3. 4. 8, and interpolated the misunderstood words in v. 8.

By the way, Mark presupposes that the Pharisees at a banquet catch the disciples violating the tradition and immediately hold the Lord responsible; similar to C. 2, 16. Matthew left this presupposition unnoticed, Luke changed it and used it as an occasion for a new speech of Jesus C. 11, 37. 38.

What Jesus says against the Pharisees – if we now consider the speech itself – cannot be misunderstood, since the dialectic of Pharisaic consciousness is carried out very simply and clearly. But as for the second passage, the saying about purity, several interests came together which distracted the commentators from the correct understanding of it. We would do Matthew an injustice if we were to blame his inappropriate conclusion of the discourse for the fact that the theologians have very often misinterpreted that saying, for if he had also restricted Jesus’ polemic less and had not mentioned eating with unwashed hands again after Jesus’ discourse had moved on to a much more comprehensive dialectic, the hermits would still have lost their way. The abstracted apologist is shocked when he hears that Jesus, in a single word, overthrows the positive law; the critical apologist, on the other hand, wants to see unity and coherence in Scripture, and when he now remembers that in the first congregation there was a lively dispute about the Mosaic dietary laws, he must not admit that Jesus had already decided this matter long ago.

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Even “the question,” “whether Jesus at the same time declares himself against the Mosaic Laws on food” de Wette *) calls “unseemly,” because the context of the speech does not lead to it and, moreover, it is clear from Matth. 15, 20 that Jesus is only thinking of eating with unwashed hands when he says in v. 11 that what enters the mouth does not defile. But what is the point of referring to the “context” here, when the saying about what really defiles follows a strongly marked paragraph, when Jesus, before he recites it, calls the people, leaves the Pharisees standing, and afterwards, when he explains the saying, does not mention the scribes and their tradition with a single word? So something new comes with the saying, so Mark made a paragraph, the saying has a general interest, therefore the people must hear it, even if they are not allowed to understand it because of the limited and petty pragmatism of the evangelical view, it deals with the Old Testament dietary law in general, therefore the Pharisees and their tradition are no longer remembered.

*) I, 1, 136.

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And as to eating with unwashed hands, it is true that Matthew writes at the beginning (v. 11), “Not that which enters into the mouth defileth a man;” but not to mention that even in this form the saying is quite general, and deals with that which enters into the mouth at all: does not Matthew himself write afterwards (v. 17), “All that enters into the mouth goes into the belly?” Does he not conceal the general interest which is now involved? Is it speaking only of the food that a washed hand brings to the mouth, and not rather of all the food that enters the belly? What senseless torture is needed if one is to deny this general interest! “Nothing (says Mark 7:15), nothing that comes into a man from without can defile him.”

“But that which comes from within, from the heart, that defiles him:” so it is also wrong when Fritzsche asserts *) that Jesus does not by any means want to deny that food defiles man, but only to say that evil thoughts defile him much more. On the contrary, the possibility of defilement through food is denied outright, and that which comes from within alone is called the defiling thing.

But what work awaits us when now the pure apologist comes and oils the dialectic of the saying with his thick unctuousness, wants to lather the thundering movement of negation and blunt the sharp edges and cutting edges with his blunt thoughts. But let us not call the struggle with this unfortunate one work, only patience is needed! A few remarks in between will suffice for now.

*) to Matth. p. 513: nec negat omnino cibos hominem polluere, sed prava animi consilia multo inquinare magis.

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“In Matth. 15, 11, says Olsenhausen *), it must already have seemed difficult to the apostles that Christ’s declaration that what enters the mouth does not defile – so in fact it was not so? – was a contrast to them with the OT, which teaches the difference between clean and unclean food. Since Christ acknowledges the “divinity” of the Old Testament, he also had to see something significant in the dietary laws – but also positively valid forever and for all eternity? – something significant. Now that these were something completely empty and arbitrary, the Saviour in his explanation of the words does not want that they should be regarded as positive regulations, as which the law alone knows them? And did the disciples take offence at the dialectic of the saying, because it seemed to them antinomian? Did they not only ask about the meaning, which they had not grasped? Did they say: Jesus, according to his other views of the “divinity” of the OT, must also see something significant in those commandments? Jesus does not speak as if he were trying to make an apologetic point or to whisper something edifying to the disciples about the “significance” of the Mosaic laws of food. He only emphasizes the contrast between the external and internal and points out that food as something external can never touch or defile the internal; in doing so, he does not necessarily overturn the law concerning food – he simply states that external things cannot defile a person internally.

*) l, 502.

What a terrible foolishness! Are we to lose our minds and contemplate how Jesus still claimed that the external can externally defile? Are we to imagine him as a man who gave instructions for the kitchen, or as a man for whom a person was worth no more than a piece of clothing? For we can only imagine that a piece of clothing, for example, could be externally defiled by something external. We put an end to this foolishness, this madness, these blasphemies of apologetics by remembering that the assumption of natural religion that the natural can affect and defile the spirit is still the basis of the law and its conception of purity. Freedom from nature was only assured to the contemplative mind in the Christian community, and this assurance, for which Paul still had to challenge Peter, is presented and justified in the present section in such a way as to confront the disciples for the first time with a statement from Jesus when they are fighting against the legalistic rules of the Pharisees.

*) The author takes the liberty of referring to his presentation of the religion of O.T. I, 252-258.

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But a saying that even Matthew could not copy correctly from Mark’s scripture, whose point he dulled, whose universality he restricted in copying, such a saying – let the theologian just consider its construction! – could not come to Mark from the tradition or memory of an eyewitness. But what did the original evangelist need for the elaboration of this section more than the certainty of their freedom from natural determinations, which the community had already won in its first internal struggles, and the conviction that the principles of the self-consciousness of the community had already been expressed and sanctified by its Lord? A saying of this kind cannot enlighten us about Jesus’ views.

The occasion, by the way, which gave the Lord the opportunity to present this saying, after he had overthrown the statutes of men, is, as Wilke has found, modelled on that narrative of the zeal of Elijah, who also had to contend with false teachers (1 Kings 18:18, 21). “The parallel lies especially in the fact that Jesus rejects the false teachers, they approach God only with their mouths, and put their own human word in the place of God’s word, similar to the servants of Baal (who worshipped a self-made God).”

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§ 63.

The walking on the sea.

Matth. 14, 24-33.

After the feeding Jesus wanted to be rid of the people as quickly as possible – it seems that he feared consequences from his mighty miracle and from the excitability of the crowd, which were contrary to his spiritual plan, so it seems again that the evangelical view cannot turn away quickly enough from the miracle which it has just seen come into being – the disciples must therefore immediately go ahead to the other shore, while he dismisses the people. Afterwards, when he was free, Jesus withdrew from the mountain to pray. “When evening came, he was there alone,” says Matthew. But the ship, when it was in the midst of the lake, was taken by a storm, and in the fourth watch of the night the Lord went away to the disciples across the lake. But how? The disciples had departed by day, and late in the fourth watch of the night, early in the morning, Jesus went to them while they were struggling with the storm in the middle of the lake? The lake was two hours wide and the disciples did not reach the middle of it until the morning of the following day, after they had left yesterday by day? What an absurdity!

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Nor does this absurdity cease to be disproportionate and impossible when Mark reports: “In the evening the ship was in the middle of the lake and Jesus alone on the land. Then he saw them struggling with the wind, for the wind was against them, and about the fourth watch of the night he came to them walking on the lake” (C. 6, 47. 48.). From evening till morning the ship is in the middle of the lake! The ideal view, however, did not notice this enormous difficulty, because it was important for it to see the disciples in distress during the night as long as possible – the night and the distress belonged together – so that only when the morning dawned – the morning and the deliverance from the distress belonged together again – the Lord would bring them help. The incident belongs to the ideal view!

There is only one thing that Mark has narrated and motivated better – Matthew thus confused and carelessly copied his information – when he tells us that Jesus saw the disciples fighting with the storm, when he even immediately in the beginning of his narration: “In the evening the ship was in the middle of the lake and Jesus alone on the land” lets us see both, the disciples and Jesus, puts both in relation to each other, at least lets us guess how Jesus could see the disciples fighting with the storm. Matthew no longer grasps the meaning of this grouping and has torn the provision that Jesus was alone in the evening out of its context and isolated it.

Although Mark, when he says that Jesus saw the disciples in danger, wants to imply that he wanted to come to their aid when he immediately came to them on the waves of the lake, he nevertheless says that Jesus wanted to pass by them (C. 6, 48-50.) and only the circumstance that the disciples cried out loudly at the sight of him, because they thought they saw a ghost, induced him to keep still and to speak courage to them. This contradiction is to be explained purely and solely from the excess of pragmatism, which this time, as it were, overshoots itself, and from the motive that Mark wants to gain space for the description of the tremendous terror of the disciples and to let this same terror appear in all its greatness by presenting it as the cause that moved Jesus to stand still. Thus, at least at this moment, the moments of the narrative were vividly set in motion and related, admittedly at the expense of the presupposition which was implied in the beginning of the account. Matthew did not exclude the remark that Jesus wanted to pass by, because he no longer felt the need to set the situation in motion: he simply places the individual moments next to each other.

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According to the account of Mark, Jesus, after speaking courage to the disciples, got into the ship and to the great astonishment of the disciples, the storm died down immediately. Matthew, on the other hand, tells us how Peter called out to his Master, who was still standing out on the water: “Lord, if you are (the one) – for Jesus said: do not be afraid, it is I! – Then he gets out of the boat at Jesus’ command and really walks on the water to get to Jesus, but is terrified when he sees the strong wind. He began to sink – as if it took a long time! – and cried out: Lord, save me: then Jesus took hold of him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? Now they enter into the ship, and the wind ceaseth: and they that were in the ship fell down before him, saying, Thou art in truth the Son of God.

Matthew, the last of the synoptics, first reports this episode, which both falls apart in itself and is excluded from the report – of course! for it is the report of Mark – or, if it wants to assert its place, it is crushed. Wilke has already noticed how even Matthew has left the original account so perfectly unchanged that he only allows the storm to subside when Jesus entered the ship*). “Peter must have known beforehand that the wind was strong, before he attempted the perilous course,” and the same thing which terrified him when he had the command of his Master to himself, should have prevented him even more from conceiving the thought of this venture. Furthermore, in the astonished exclamation of the people in the ship, no consideration is given to Peter’s unsuccessful attempt. Moreover, it may be noted that only in the original account, when it says: “when he joined them in the ship, the storm died down”, does the view that Jesus came to the disciples as Saviour and that his presence calmed the agitation of the elements find expression and the causal narration, which is the point here, emerges as such, while the tendency of the account is paralysed when Matthew says: when they (namely Jesus and Peter) entered the ship, the storm died down. The sudden occurrence of unity: they fell down before “him”, is an oversight in Matthew’s account and can only be explained by the fact that the evangelist turns back to the writing of Mark and reworks a remark which relates Jesus and the disciples. Matthew, after speaking of Peter and Jesus in the majority, would have let the latter stand out again as the subject if he had written independently from his own head. Finally, this episode proves to be an interpolation in that it leaves the interest of the original account, namely the tension with which we received the news of the calming of the storm, far too long in abeyance, unsatisfied and tears the two sides of the contrast – the danger and the rescue from distress – apart.

*) p. 637

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Matthew created the episode: the situation was given to him by the account of Mark, which he is transcribing, the story of Peter’s denial served him as a model, and the justification in general gave him the general premise that Peter was the one among the disciples whose all too lively outpouring of faith was to be feared as not standing firm in the moment of danger *).

*) Luke 22, 32.

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That at the end of his account Matthew has the people in the boat fall down before Jesus and exclaim, “Truly you are the Son of God!”, and that he finally wants these people to appear as strangers, should no longer surprise us about him. Mark says: the disciples were amazed beyond measure.

The best appreciation of this account of Jesus’ walk on the sea was given by Luke: – he omitted it because he thought he had already told his readers everything essential in the account of the calming of the storm. Very true, for the idea is the same in both accounts, that the Lord comes to the aid of His own when they struggle with the storms of this life. Mark **), however, formed this view precisely here, at this point, because he thought it appropriate that the Lord, if he had provided miraculous food like Moses, had immediately become equal, even superior, to the lawgiver in that he had made the sea feel his superiority in an even more miraculous ***) way.

**) Not the “evangelical proclamation” as Weisse says (1, SSV.).

***) Cf. Job 9, 8. LXX.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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§ 62.

The miraculous feeding.

1. The report of Matthew.

Matth. C. 14, 14-23. 15, 32-39. 16, 5-12.

According to the account of Matthew, Jesus twice miraculously fed the multitude. But if Luke and the fourth evangelist only know of one feeding, then the most favourable and authentic document seems to speak for the report of the two times multiplication of bread, the testimony of Jesus himself *). Soon after the second feeding, the disciples had forgotten to take bread with them on a journey across the lake; when Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” they said to one another, “We have not taken bread with us. Jesus scolded them and asked them if they did not remember how he had fed five thousand with five loaves and how many baskets they had filled with the leftover pieces? And do they not remember the seven loaves with which he fed the four thousand, and how many baskets they also filled with the fragments on that occasion? How then do you not see, Jesus concludes his rebuke, that I did not speak of the bread when I warned you to beware of the bread of the Pharisees.

*) Olshausen I, 512: “one can hardly think of a stronger proof for the authenticity of the second feeding.

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If the warning of Jesus against the leaven of the Jewish sects and his remembrance of the feeding of the multitude are to have a connection – and both, according to the view of the evangelist, are really in the closest connection – then the feeding of the multitude must be meant figuratively. “The conclusion which Jesus wants to be drawn from his words, says Weisse *), is only then a correct one, only then at least one which results directly and straightforwardly from the premises, if one finds the figurative understanding which Jesus demands in the conclusion also already contained in the premises”. Whoever, therefore, refers to this conversation in order to prove the proposition that Jesus really fed the multitude twice miraculously, seems to rely on a testimony which must rather deprive him of all possibility of seeing in the Gospel account the description of two real incidents. Remember,” says Jesus, “how I have described to you the nourishing power of my teaching in the image of a bodily feeding of the multitude, and you will understand what I mean by the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. In short, both narratives of the miraculous feeding are parables which Jesus himself recited and for the details of which he used individual features from the Old Testament narratives of Elijah and Elisha. It was only later that this story was misunderstood as a bodily miracle story, but it received its form and elaboration in Christ’s own mouth, as is also proven by the conversation that led us to the correct explanation of its origin **).

*) I, 512.

**) Weisse, I, 513. 515. 517.

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As reliable and necessary as the conclusion that Weisse draws from Jesus’ conversation about the leaven of the Pharisees seems to be, it would not only be wrong, but it would also entail a number of inconsistencies. First of all, Jesus would have had to depict the idea of the nourishing power of his teaching not only once and for all parabolically in the image of a single incident, but twice, namely as two incidents, which would have been a very harmful and purpose-thwarting excess. For if the parable should always give the impression of a real course of events, but should cancel this impression at the end itself and replace it with the certainty that the whole is meant figuratively and represents a higher spiritual relationship, then not even the perception that the representation is figurative can emerge at the end if Jesus wanted to present the same thought as two incidents from his life. But he could not even once describe the nourishing power of his teaching to the disciples in this way, since a parable can never be understood as a parable when its subject himself recites it and stands bodily before the listeners.

What follows from the nature of the parable is further confirmed by Jesus’ conversation about the leaven of the Pharisees. For “the conclusion of Jesus does not go from the merely figurative sense of the earlier narrative to the same meaning of the later speech, but from the earlier proof of how superfluous the care for bodily bread was in Jesus’ proximity, to the inconsistency of understanding his present speech of such *).” It is wrong of the disciples, Jesus is said to say, to think of bodily bread when he warns them of the leaven of the Pharisees, but not only wrong in general, but they also proved themselves to be of little faith **), since they had to remember how he knew how to provide bread when it was needed.

*) Strauss 1, 229. Matth. 16, 11: πως ου νοειτε οτι ου περι αρτου ειπον υμιν προσεχειν απο της ζυμης των φαρισαιων και σαδδουκαιων. Mark 8, 21 has merely πως ου συνιετε, but Matthew explains its sense correctly.

**) Matth. 16, 8: τι διαλογιζεσθε εν εαυτοις ολιγοπιστοι οτι αρτους ουκ ελαβετε

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Once the meaning of this passage has emerged purely for itself, a difficulty arises, which, however, is very convenient, since it simplifies the business of criticism. Matthew wants the two feedings to be historical events, but it is incomprehensible how, on the second occasion, when Jesus pities the multitude because they have been with him for three days and have nothing to eat, and when he says that he does not want to let them go without food, lest they die of exhaustion on the way, the disciples forget the first feeding and, as if the Lord had never counseled them in such an embarrassment, remarks: “where shall we get so much bread in the wilderness, that so great a multitude may be filled. “Either they were not people who, among other mental abilities, also had a memory *), or, since we lack other testimonies about their brutishness, they had never had the opportunity to prove themselves as forgetful as Matthew would have us believe. The second feeding – this much we can say at first – was foreign to the original type of the Gospel story.

 

2 The restoration of the original account.

That it is really so, namely that the account of the second feeding, which we read in the script of Mark, is a later insertion, was first noticed and proved by Wilke **). He reminds us how improbable it is that “a narrator such as Mark, who has measured out the materials with such scantiness, should have presented one and the same event twice as a real story. Furthermore, the narrative is not at all connected and prepared in the manner of Mark, since one does not see where the many people who need it are supposed to have come from all at once. Finally, “by the insertion of this story, things that belonged together have been separated; for Mark 7, 31-37 is connected with Mark 8, 11-13. Because Jesus is so praised by the people because of the effective healing of the deaf-mute, the Pharisees come to try the ability of the praised one further, in order, where possible, to bring down the admiration of the people.

*) Calvin: nimis brutum proäuut stuporem üiscipuli, yuock tuuo sultem non revoeaut ia memorium superius illud documeutum virtutis et gratie Christi, guod ad praesentem usum aptare poterant: nunc quasi nihil unquam tale vidissent, remedium ab eo petere obliviseuntur. Correct! Calvin does add: similis guotiüie uobis obrepit torpor; but we are quite grateful for such compliments.

**) p. 567

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Wilke has already reminded us that the N.T. knows only one Bethsaida and that Mark, if the second feeding were really reported by him, would have to speak of an eastern Bethsaida, which would be contrary to New Testament geography. Let us look at the context! When the disciples had returned from their missionary journey, Jesus went with them to the eastern shore of the lake, where the feeding (the first of Matthew) took place (Mark 6, 30-33). After the feeding of the multitude Jesus commands the disciples to go on ahead, he follows them on the waves of the lake, when he saw that they suffered distress in the storm, and arrives with them on the west side, where the dispute about the purity laws develops (C. 6, 45 – 7, L.). Jesus then goes to the Phoenician border and, after healing the daughter of the Hellenic woman, travels back to the eastern shore of the lake, to the region of the Decapolis (C. 7, 24-31.). If the report of the second feeding had originally belonged to the writing of Mark, then Jesus, when after the feeding (C. 8,10.) He goes again to the west shore, to the region of Dalmanutha and from here, after rejecting the demand of the Pharisees for signs, He goes again to the other shore *) C. 8, 13, He would arrive in the (supposed) Bethsaida (C. 8, 22.) of the East. But before that, when Jesus has fed the multitude over in the East and commands the disciples to go forward to the other shore (εις το περαν), to Bethsaida (C. 6, 45.), since this city is situated in the west of the lake (C. 6, 53.), so how could Mark suddenly, shortly afterwards, C. 8, 22, speak of another, an eastern Bethsaida, without telling the reader that this city is to be distinguished from the one mentioned before. Both times Bethsaida is the same *) i.e. the report of the second feeding, the remark that Jesus, after the feeding, crossed the lake again to the west (to Dalmanutha), this remark, which leads to the consequence that Bethsaida, after which Jesus (C. 8,13-22.) later translates, lies in the east, all this was inserted later in the writing of Mark.

*) εις το περαν, relative in itself, is the beyond of each point of view.

*) Also the Bethsaida, near which Luke C. 9, 10 relocates the feeding, is the western one, it is the Bethsaida, which is mentioned in Mark 6, 45 and in which Jesus had entered, when they brought him the “blind man”, whom he (Mark 8, 23.) led out to the place and healed outside. This mention of the city and the fact that the healing of the blind man, which Luke omits, is followed by Peter’s confession, which Luke reports immediately after the feeding, both in connection with the peculiar boldness of the evangelical historians and the superficiality of their combinations, induced Luke to transfer the feeding to Bethsaida. By the way, he mentions nothing about a crossing of the lake. It is very uncertain whether there were two places named Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee. The N. T. knows only one Bethsaida. If one wanted to conclude from the words Joh. 12, 21 “Bethsaida Galilee” (Βηθσαιδα της Γαλιλαιας) that there was another Bethsaida, from which the fourth evangelist wanted to distinguish the mentioned one, the father city of Philip, one would have to conclude in the same way that there were two cities called Cana and the fourth evangelist, when he says that the wedding took place in “Cana Galilee” (Κανα της Γαλιλαιας C. 2, 1.), wants to remind his readers that there was another Cana outside Galilee. This definition of “Galilee”, however, is in both cases a very idle addition by the fourth evangelist, who only wants to remind us that Cana and Bethsaida are not located where the scene of Jesus’ deeds is at that very moment. The evangelist proves how foreign the geography of the holy land is to him when he has to orientate himself so laboriously and awkwardly about the location of the cities.

Josephus, too, knows only one Bethsaida and nowhere, when he mentions this name, does he indicate that there were two cities or spots of this name. Nowhere! although he often remembers Bethsaida. Only this could be the question, whether he thinks of the city of this name as being situated west of the Sea of Galilee – a question which is very indifferent to the matter and, depending on how it is decided, can never lead to the assumption that there were two Bethsaida. If the Bethsaida of Josephus lies over there in the east: well! then Mark was mistaken when he moved his Bethsaida to the west of the lake.

Of the one Bethsaida, which he knows and never distinguishes from another place of that name, Josephus says (Arch. 18, 2, 1.) that it was situated on the Sea of Galilee, originally a village (κωμη), raised by the tetrarch Philip to the rank of a city, and called Julias. It was here in Julias that Philip died (Arch. 18, 4, 6.). Josephus determines the location of the city more precisely, that the Jordan below it cuts through the Genezareth (Bell Jud. 3, 10, 7: (μετα πολιν ‘Ιουλιαδα διεκτεμνει) this information with the other determination (Arch. 18, 2, 1.) that Bethsaida lay on the Sea of Galilee itself, so it follows that it lay at the northern tip of the lake and was the most important place that could be named if it was to be indicated where the Jordan falls into the lake and from which point it cuts through it. But could Bethsaida lie in the west of the lake, if it belonged to the tetrarchy of Philip, if it, as Josephus expressly remarks (Bell. Jud. 9, 1.), was situated in Lower Gaulonltis? It is enough to have pointed out the difficulties of this investigation and to have simplified the matter to the point where the theologian must decide in favour of the East or the West.

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Only after the separation of this insertion do all the details of the report stand in that context which Mark always knows how to maintain. Matthew, on the other hand, has again done everything to prove to us that he is not very skilful in composition and to make us suspicious of his geographical information. He, too, has the feeding of the people – his first – take place over in the east, and the dispute with the Pharisees about purity over in the west of the sea (C. 14, 34. ); but when Jesus, immediately after that dispute, goes into the Phoenician region and then to the Sea of Galilee, where, sitting on a mountain, he heals a multitude of sick people and feeds the people (for the second time), when he afterwards crosses the Sea again and comes to the region of Magdala, where the Pharisees ask him for a sign, then we do not know what is west and east *). And how should we be informed about such insignificant things by a writer who considers more important matters, such as the elaboration of the context, to be so insignificant that he completes them with a single stroke, often also with a huge cross stroke? Of course, Matthew, because he gives a copy of the original account, must conclude the report of the second feeding with the remark that Jesus dismisses the people, boards the boat (the boat! as if a boat in which Jesus had crossed over had been mentioned before (C. 15, 29.)) and sails across the lake. But when he reports that Jesus comes to Magdala and, after having rejected the Pharisees who demanded a sign from him, goes away, when we then hear that the disciples, when they arrived on the other shore, had forgotten to take bread with them, which is why they could not understand Jesus’ warning against the leaven of the Pharisees, since they referred it to real bread, we ourselves do not know where our heads are, and when, at last, after the conversation about the leaven, it is suddenly said: “When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked, etc.”, we are no longer able to help ourselves. The following questions will shed light on the confusion and resolve it by showing us the darkness of this bottomless world of history. When the disciples arrive at the other shore – it is not said which one? – it seems that they caught up with the Lord at an appointed place: but was it said before, C. 15, 39, that the Lord went alone to Magdala? So it seems: for Matthew must model the account of the second feeding on the original account, and so also make it appear as if Jesus had withdrawn alone from the people: but had he told us that Jesus went back alone, and had made an appointment with the disciples about the place where they would meet him? Could he have carried the matter to this point, since he had sent the Lord across the lake, and therefore, even if he did not say so, had to give him the disciples to accompany him? And how could the disciples meet him afterwards *), when he had gone elsewhere after the conflict with the Pharisees (C. 16, 4. 5.)? What connection: “when Jesus came to Caesarea” (C. 16, 13.), after not a word was said that he had started a journey, after the narrative had rather come to a standstill when the conversation about the leaven was reported? And where did this conversation take place? Matthew does not tell us; but probably Mark: on the crossing to Bethsaida **), that is, on a passage which Matthew had to delay since he was not allowed to report the healing of the blind man of Bethsaida. If we now add that Matthew had to make the return journey of Jesus after the second feeding secret, because the model of the first account forced him to do so, and that he had to make the departure to Caesarea happen behind the scenes, because he did not think of Bethsaida, from where Jesus departed (Mark 8, 27.), then the confusion is explained.

*) The theologians know: some say that Magdala was in the east, some say the opposite: we do not know. Some even know where Dalmanutha was, which is mentioned in the writing of Mark instead of Magdala: we do not know, we do not even know if there ever was a place of that name. The theologians are omniscient: of course, only in platitudes/baloney and often about things that have never existed.

*) As Fritzsche looks at the matter; to Matth. p. 528.

**) Mark 8, 14 : ει μή ένα άρτον ουκ είχον μεθ’ εαυτών εν τω πλοίω.

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The hypothesis of tradition, which one could call upon to help Mark with the mistake of reporting the same event twice, no longer stands in our way, since we have convinced ourselves that in tradition there cannot exist such a definite and detailed material as these narratives: We can therefore no longer consider it possible that one and the same material could have run about in the tradition in two forms, differing only by slight determinations, and that a writer, for the sake of this slight modification, could have considered the one to be twofold and both forms worthy of preservation. Just think the senseless or try to think the impossible and you will see that it cannot be thought. The only thing the theologian could resort to in order to save the integrity of Mark’s writing would therefore be the assertion that Mark found the same event reported in two writings, but for the sake of a few – very tiny – nuances took each of the two accounts for reports of different incidents and inserted them as such into his writing: But this would again mean attempting the impossible, since we have always known him as a skilful, almost correct composer of history and also – which is the main thing – as the first creator of the evangelical story

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The only question that remains is whether the account of the second feeding was first transferred from Matthew’s writing to that of Mark, or whether Matthew found it already inserted in the writing of his predecessor. The answer is not easy. Wilke decides for the former, because Matthew already remarks before (C. 15, 3V.) that a “great” crowd surrounded the Lord, thus trying to form a connection and to explain in advance the fact that Jesus thought of the feeding. But not insignificant *) instances can be cited for the opposite assumption. First of all, the words (Mark 8, 3.) “for some of them have gone far home,” these words, which are missing in Matthew’s writing and are supposed to explain Jesus’ fear that the crowd would die of hunger on the way home, seem to belong to those additions which occur in the first detail and later become superfluous. Also the “immediately” (v. 10), which Matthew does not have, that Jesus immediately goes “with the disciples” across the lake – a provision that is also missing in Matthew’s writing and would have been very useful here – both provisions seem to have been overlooked and omitted by Matthew originally and only through negligence. Finally, the circumstance that in the writing of Matthew the small supply of fish is mentioned only afterwards (v. 7), when Jesus is already busy feeding the multitude, while Matthew has the disciples say already before (C. 15,34.) that they had a few fish besides the stove-bread, this circumstance is very decisive and speaks for the originality of the account which we read in the writing of Matthew *). Matthew already found his account in the latter’s writing; it was Matthew who added to the second account, as in the first, the addition that “besides the women and children” there were so many thousands (C. 14, 21. 15, 38.) who were miraculously fed by Jesus.

*) The one mentioned by Wilke is not even significant: Matthew, who wrote later and elaborated a new work, could already motivate the following, while the interpolator in the writing of Mareus could leave the preceding unchanged and thereby reassure himself that a crowd of people is assumed to be present (C. 7, 33.).

*) Compare e.g. what we have noted about Luke 8, 27 and Mark 5, 15.

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We can also indicate how the later came to insert the account of the second feeding into the writing of Mark. After the first feeding follows a collision with the Pharisees; now, when C. 8, 11 again such a collision arises, the later thought it fitting, for the sake of symmetry, that also another feeding should precede it. He was strengthened in this view by the fact that after the Pharisees’ demand for a sign, the discussion of the leaven follows and the miraculous feeding is remembered: should not, he now concluded, such a feeding have happened first? For he did not see that Mark expressly presupposes that the feeding, which he alone knows, must have happened long ago: for does Jesus say, after the incomprehensible utterance of the disciples (C. 8, 17.): do ye “not yet understand?” If ye have “still” a hardened heart, not only must a long period of time have elapsed between the feeding of the people, the meaning of which they should now “at last” have comprehended, and the present incident, but another incident must have intervened, where the disciples had already proved that they had not yet fully recognized the power of the Lord from the feeding, and that their hearts were hardened. This premise is also not missing in the scripture of Mark. It is stated in C. 6, 52.

So far did the later still understand his cause that in the conversation about the leaven, when the Lord appeals to the proof of His power which He had supplied in the feeding, he brings his interpolation to honour and puts into the Lord’s mouth the appeal to the second feeding (C. 8, 20.).

The later received the definite form of his narration by giving a new twist to a statement of the original report. The original account contains the number seven in the five loaves and two fish with which Jesus feeds the five thousand, the later says that there were seven loaves which the Lord distributed among the multitude. In the same way, after the feeding, the Lord fills seven baskets with the remaining pieces, while according to the first account, twelve baskets are filled with the pieces – twelve: as many as the disciples had baskets. Finally, the later determines the number of the crowd to be four thousand, so as not to give the same number that he finds in the first account *).

*) A minor change is that instead of κοφινοι he reads σπυριδος.

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The most important change, however, is the following. In the first account, the disciples call their Lord’s attention to the embarrassment of the crowd: let them go so that they can buy bread. Jesus replies, give them food. They then ask: shall we go and buy bread *)? Jesus replied, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see! They found that they had five loaves and two fish with them. The second feeding, on the other hand, is introduced in such a way that Jesus himself first responds to the situation of the crowd and the disciples point out to him the impossibility of bringing the necessary bread here in the desert, from which Jesus asks how many loaves they have and receives the answer: seven. This is the transition to the account we find in the fourth Gospel, that Jesus thinks of the feeding from the beginning and only to try him asks Philip, where shall we buy bread for the people? In the first account, the thought of the impossibility of getting enough bread is brought about by a reflection of the disciples, in the second account by a reflection of Jesus, in the account of the fourth evangelist, everything is already ready in the mind of Jesus and he is pleased from the start that he can embarrass the disciples by making them feel the difficulty of the situation.

*) The more detailed provision (Mark 6, 37.)  δηναριων διακοσιων explains Wilke p. 463 for being inserted later. In his answer, Jesus does not get involved with the specific sum of money and does not answer at all as if the disciples had calculated the expense that might have to be made, but rather he wants to ward off the idea of buying anything at all. The construction of the question of the disciples is also not at all calculated to speak of a certain expense. Compare John 6:7: here the estimate of the cost is in its place, because the evangelist wants to show how much is needed in all, if bread is scarcely sufficient for two hundred denarii; the same contrast is carried out in a very elaborate way later in v. 9. The fourth calls the loaves barley bread (κριθίνους) according to 2 Kings 4, 42 (L.XX). Compare also 2 Kings 4:43 τί δῶ τοῦτο ἐνώπιον ἑκατὸν ἀνδρῶν and John 6:9 αλλα ταυτα τι εστιν εις τοσουτους; According to the original account and the parallels in Luke and Matthew, the disciples say they have only five loaves and two fishes; according to the fourth gospel, Andrew says there is a boy who has so many loaves and fishes: also 2 Kings 4:42, a stranger brings the loaves and the servant of Elisha receives them, after the prophet had commanded him to distribute them among the people.

The provision of Mark 6, 40:  καὶ ἀνέπεσαν πρασιαὶ πρασιαὶ κατὰ ἑκατὸν, which he emended, Wilke also rightly declares to be inserted (p. 674), as the statement that there were 5000 follows Ch. 6, 44.

Compare also Joh. 6, 1. 3:  απηλθεν ο ιησους περαν της θαλασσης της Γαλιλαιας της Τιβεριαδος . . . . . ανηλθεν δε εις το ορος ο ιησους και εκει εκαθητο μετα των μαθητων αυτου. Matt 15:29 : καὶ μεταβὰς ἐκεῖθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἦλθεν παρὰ τὴν θάλασσαν τῆς Γαλιλαίας, καὶ ἀναβὰς εἰς τὸ ὄρος ἐκάθητο ἐκεῖ.

John 6:10 : ποιησατε τους ανθρωπους αναπεσειν ην δε χορτος πολυς εν τω τοπω. Mark 6:39 : καὶ ἐπέταξεν αὐτοῖς ἀνακλῖναι πάντας . . . . . ἐπὶ τῷ χλωρῷ χόρτῳ

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3. The resolution of the original report.

If it is now a question of explaining the origin of the original report itself, we may hope to get to the bottom of it if we look more closely at the conversation about the leaven of the Pharisees, since it seems to contain Jesus’ own explanation of the meaning of the miraculous feeding.

Mark does not say what is to be understood by the leaven before which Jesus warns his disciples; only this much we see that Jesus warns the disciples of a spiritual certainty, since he rebukes them for understanding his words sensually. Luke, on a later occasion (C. 12, 1.), only warned against the leaven of the Pharisees, and let Herm himself explain, with the addition, “which is hypocrisy,” what he understood by this leaven. Finally, Matthew tells us that the Lord warned against the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and gives the interpretation in the form that he says that when Jesus reminded the disciples of the two feedings, they understood that he wanted to warn them against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (C. 16,12.). Both have interpreted correctly the statement that Mark attributes to the Lord: the disciples should beware of the general determination of the Pharisaic nature, and should not let it influence them even in the specificity of principles, teachings, and principles. Mark had to leave Jesus’ statement in its generality and did not want to interpret it in a specific way, because he places Herod next to the Pharisees and wants the disciples to be warned of his leaven. If one asks what this leaven of Herod means, we must confess that we do not know, since from the context of the Gospel as little as from other news is known that Herod had established or followed a principle which would have been worth the trouble of warning the disciples of Jesus against him. With the Herodians (Mark 12, 13.) it is something quite different. Only for this reason did Mark mention Herod, in order to relate this conversation to the beginning of the passage.

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Certainly Mark wanted to place the reminder of the miraculous feeding next to Jesus’ warning against the leaven of the Pharisees: but we must be very surprised at how he did it. We ought to expect that the leaven of the Pharisees should be contrasted with the bread which Jesus gives to His own, that is, with the bread of His teaching and His principles. However, instead of aligning with that image as a parallel, the mention of the feeding appears almost tangential or only as a random, external add-on, as it only serves to criticize the disciples for not thinking of Jesus’ power, which would quickly provide help if they needed bread at that moment. And how is it brought about! This is why the disciples are said to have been surprised at the leaven of the Pharisees, because they had no bread with them. An unnatural and impossible misunderstanding! The disciples are said to have thought that their Master was warning them not to buy bread from the Pharisees, as if every child should not know that the Pharisees, when warned against, are to be considered as teachers, as interpreters of the Law and as that particular sect, but not as bakers. Were the Pharisees bakers? Could it even remotely occur to anyone that bread could be bought from them?

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Mark has created a misunderstanding, a contrast between the wisdom of Jesus and the limitation of the disciples, which is as absurd and groundless as only one that the fourth evangelist has created. Two interests determined and occupied him: he wanted to make the disciples appear limited in an evangelical way and, by means of their limited expression, to give the Lord the opportunity to remember the miraculous feeding. But why should the feeding be remembered? The leaven of the Pharisees and the bread which Jesus gives to His people, both should be placed in parallel, at least next to each other, so that the reader would be led to think, through the allusion which puts both in relation to each other, that Jesus shares the true bread of life and has proved His ability to sustain the life of His people in the feeding of the people. Mark explicitly created this conversation about the leaven of the Pharisees to portray the Lord as the giver of the bread of life. However, he could not really and adequately achieve his intention because he had to suddenly lose sight of the goal he was aiming for and paralyze his tendency when he remembered the Lord of the feeding only as a real individual fact and only as proof of his miraculous power. With his abstract boldness and bold abstraction, the fourth evangelist knew how to help himself better when, after the feeding, he wanted to give the Lord the opportunity to call himself the true bread of life: he presented the matter in such a way that Jesus, full of displeasure against the Jews who, after the feeding, only rejoiced in their full belly, looked contemptuously at the sensual fact, pushed it far away from himself and called himself the true bread of life.

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Mark could not yet “rise” to this abstraction. However, he had to make such a tremendous effort because he was the first to create this individual event as such and had to let it be regarded as an individual if he attempted to develop its general meaning. To him, the individual fact as such still had value even when it was to be dissolved into his idea: but the later had it easier when he applied himself to this dissolution, since he did not have to create the individual first and no longer knew the birth pains under which it had come into the world.

The same Mark who developed the conversation about the leaven of the Pharisees is responsible for the historical view of religious consciousness, which can be certain of its Lord as the true giver of life who nourishes and satisfies his own in a single event, thus making it sensory and empirical. When they are almost fainting in the wilderness of this life, he strengthens them anew. Mark, the writer, created this image first; the tradition and legend of the community do not understand such creations. Or would it, in its indefinite generality, be possible to bring forth this definite symmetry, that the five loaves and the two fishes form precisely the sacred number seven? Can it cause just as many thousands to be fed as there were loaves? Can it calculate that twelve baskets were filled with the leftover loaves because there were twelve disciples? This mathematical calculation must leave the general view of the church to the mind and judgement of the writer. The only thing it gives the creative artist is the certainty that Jesus nourishes, revives and strengthens his own, the certainty that he has the bread of life in his possession and distributes it freely among the faithful *), finally the conviction that the Messiah must prove and has proved the same miraculous power that was available to Elijah and Elisha and that Jehovah revealed when the people found their daily food during their journey through the wilderness. The writer followed this indication and this conviction when he made the wilderness the locality of the feeding, the report of O.T. about the miraculous deeds of Elijah the idea of the miraculous increase of a small supply of food (1 Kings 17:14-16) and the report about Elisha the idea of the miraculous increase of a small supply of food (1 Kings 17:14-16.) and from the account of Elisha the more definite idea that a disproportionately small supply of food is distributed among a great multitude and yet in the end, when all are satisfied, something of the supply remains (2 Kings 4:42-44).

*) Compare Is. 55, 1. 2. Jer. 31, -5.

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Mark was also convinced that the Messiah, if he would do something similar to the men of God of the OT, would have to surpass, even surpass them by the extraordinary nature of his deeds. He has indeed surpassed them, as Mark tells us.

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§ 60.

Jesus in Nazareth.

Matth. 13, 53-58. Mark 6, 1-6.

After the account of the reception of Jesus in Nazareth, Matthew immediately tells us how Herod heard of Jesus; for he had to omit the account of the instruction and sending of the Twelve, which Mark has placed between the two pieces.

So far we had always found that the sections which Mark formed were homogeneous within themselves and contained a single tendency, or rather that Mark always carried out and elaborated the various tendencies, interests and situations in individual sections. “Outside of the groups that were distinguished from each other as distinct wholes, but were easily and fairly appropriately linked together, we never found isolated figures that separated themselves from the groups and either lagged behind in the movement of the whole or proved resistant to the connection with a single group. Now, suddenly, it seems to be different.” The fact that the disciples went out, preached repentance and performed miracles could still be connected with what follows, or rather it must be connected with it, for the activity of the Twelve should finally explain how the name of Jesus became more and more known and finally attracted Herod’s attention; but how the rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth could be inserted into this section as a homogeneous link seems more difficult to determine. Yet nothing is easier. Before Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, all the ties that bound him to Galilee are to be broken, the conditions in which he has hitherto moved are to be shaken, and the ground beneath him made unsafe. Ahab, whose weakness had been abused by his Jezebel to destroy the Baptist – the new Elijah – was shortly to meet the resurrected John, Jesus was henceforth to roam the northern provinces in disguise: how could this catastrophe be more thoroughly prepared than by the hardest blow that could strike Jesus, namely, that he himself was rejected in his native city? If his fate had been decided here in Nazareth and the last place of refuge had become inaccessible to him, he was now the Elijah who had to wander homeless and could only spread his blessings and prove his zeal for the truth by fleeing. This last test, this hardest blow had to happen in Nazareth, the home town, because Capernaum only accommodated the Lord on his journeys from time to time and this blow, if it had happened here, would not have had such great significance. But also this city should not see the Lord from now on, instead Bethsaida is mentioned, and when the Lord really visits Capernaum again shortly before his departure for Jerusalem, it happens quietly, without any noise and the former life, which otherwise awoke with his arrival in the city, has died: No crowds of people come to meet him, no crowd surrounds the house where he enters, no one emerges from the crowd to make a request to him: nothing of the kind happens, for the Lord has now become Elijah, the wanderer, who is not at home in a particular city and can only be found by the people out in the desert and on the shore of the lake when he returns from his wanderings.

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In short, Jesus had to be rejected in Nazareth because of the tendency of the following section, and the report of his misfortune among his countrymen arose here, where it introduces the following section, and the proverb that a prophet is not respected in his hometown provided the theme for its elaboration. Only here in this ideal world, and only here in this specific context, does the report make sense, value, and significance; in the real world, however, it would have been highly insignificant if a small locality, even if it was his hometown, refused to acknowledge the prophet; the memory that deemed such a tiny incident worth preserving, and the tradition that carried such an insignificant story around and ensured that it came to everyone’s ears, both must have been very poor, meager, and unfamiliar with higher, more general interests.

When the origin of the report has been explained, we can unhesitatingly point out a contradiction that Mark was guilty of and leave its solution to the theologian. When Jesus, says Mark, appeared and taught in the synagogue of Nazareth on the Sabbath *), the people were astonished and said: “Where does such a thing come from? And what wisdom is this that is given to him, and what acts are done by his hand?” i.e. they spoke like believing Christians, and we do not understand how they should now again not acknowledge the wisdom which they acknowledged as such *).

*) Only Luke still has this provision (C. 4, 16.), because he was moved to keep it besides Mark 6, 1 also Mark 1,-1. Matthew was indifferent to this provision, he did not pay attention to it and left it out.

*) Matthew C. 13, 34 has the same recognition of Jesus’ wisdom and miracle-working, only abbreviated: ποθεν τουτω η σοφια αυτη και αι δυναμεις. Luke elaborated the contradiction into the objective C. 4, 22: και παντες εμαρτυρουν (!) αυτω και εθαυμαζον επι τοις λογοις της χαριτος τοις εκπορευομενοις εκ του στοματος αυτου. Compare Joh. 7, 15: και εθαυμαζον οι ιουδαιοι λεγοντες πως ουτος γραμματα οιδεν μη μεμαθηκως.

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Only in passing do we recall the following change which the account of Mark has suffered under the hand of the later author. Mark (C. 6, 3.) only lets the Nazarethans exclaim: “is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of Jacob, etc.? And are not his sisters here with us?” Mark did not yet know Joseph and makes Jesus himself the carpenter, perhaps on the basis of a tradition. Luke merely lets the people ask: “Is this not the son of Joseph?” **) Matthew combines the two and, taking offence at the fact that Jesus himself is said to have been a carpenter, has the people ask: “Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James, etc.? And are not all his sisters with us?”

**) C. 4, 22: ουχ ουτος εστιν ο υιος ιωσηφ. Cf. Joh. 6, 42: υχ ουτος εστιν ιησους ο υιος ιωσηφ ου ημεις οιδαμεν τον πατερα και την μητερα; One thing is said here twice.

The prelude to the following drama of Elijah will end immediately when we consider the account of the beheading of the Baptist.

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Tenth section.

The Elijah deeds of Jesus.

Matth. C. 14, 1 – 16,12.

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§ 59.

The situation.

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

*) p. 569. 570.

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

*) to Matth, p. 492.

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

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

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

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

*) 9, 9: και εζήτει ιδείν αυτόν.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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§ 54.

The Crowds.

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

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

*) p. 116

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

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

**) Wilke, p. 379.

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

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

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

***) Mark 1, 31: και διηκόνει αυτούς.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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300

§ 53.

Visit of the relatives of Jesus.

Matth. 12, 48-50.

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

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

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

*) I. 427.

**) Olshausen, a, a. O.

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

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