Tag: Synoptic Gospels

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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87

§ 35.

The Healing of the Paralytic.

Matthew 9:2-8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*) B. C. I, 639.

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

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

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

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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40

§ 31.

The Request of Two Disciples.

Matth. 8, 19-22.

As Jesus is on the way to the ship or perhaps already in the act of boarding it – for at the end of this shorter section it says: “and when he had entered into a ship, his disciples followed him” – at that moment a scribe comes to him with the request to follow him everywhere. Jesus answers him: The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

But another of his disciples *) said to him, “Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

*) V. 21: έτερος των μαθητών αυτού.

But how? Another of his disciples? “Another”: this can only be explained in connection with the previous passage. But was the scribe who made the first request a disciple of Jesus? Far from it! At first glance, and even after letting this story affect one a thousand times: one will always have the feeling that those who were to depart here were not yet followers of the Lord and did not stand so close to him that they could be called his disciples. The excuse that the success has been anticipated here and that those two had joined the disciples who are mentioned later (v. 23) as the Lord’s constant followers, is inadmissible here; if it should be more than just an excuse, if it should be justified, then not only should it be said of the second person that he had joined the Lord, but above all of the first person. Because only if the second person, like the first, the scribe, understood himself to be a follower, could he be called “another of his disciples”. Now, however, the sayings that both must hear are of such a nature that they contain a conflict that has a position and opinion of its own, which stands out for itself, that both have stepped back from it. The position is at least calculated to have the sayings always close the narrative, thus standing out in their high and sublime position, the dissonance between the demand for absolute renunciation and limited finitude for itself, and the dissonance is not resolved by the news that the two really understood this demand. Or even if we can concede to the second story that it has a milder ending and that the man’s inclination is already more decisive – let me bury my father “first” – although it is admittedly not said that he really had the courage to leave the realm of the dead, the dissonance towards which the first story is designed is unmistakable.

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Since he has misunderstood Matthew, it is clear that he is not the original narrator. He is also not the authentic and original informant for the second story. “The other of the disciples” comes with a proposal and suggestion that could not have come out of thin air, but rather is linked to something that came before. When he says, “let me first (προτων) bury my father,” he must already have been called to follow Jesus, and this call must have just been made to him – but Matthew forgot to mention this assumption, which he did not exclude from Luke – whom he quotes here – because he was only interested in the punchline and could not get to it quickly enough.

Luke also closely connected both stories, but he avoided the inconveniences that Matthew brought about with his later pragmatism. The scribe of Matthew is just someone in Luke (9:57), and the other disciple that Matthew speaks of is just another, namely another in relation to that first someone ( ετερος v. 59), and it is finally understandable that the second asks to be allowed to “first” bury his father, because Jesus had already called him to follow *). However, Matthew changed one thing excellently. According to Luke’s account, Jesus says to the second one, “let the dead bury their dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” But that is too specific, too special for the first moment when Jesus first calls a man to follow him, and is only due to the pragmatism of Luke, who immediately reports on the sending of the seventy and, like them, wants to make the proclamation of the kingdom of God (Luke 10:1, 9) the task of this just recently recruited disciple. Matthew has Jesus answer simply: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

*) v. 59: είπε δε προς έτερον, ‘Ακολούθει μοι.

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That Matthew has placed the request of the two men in the wrong place, when he lets it happen on the way from Capernaum to the sea, we do not need to mention, since it has already been shown how this departure from Peter’s house is. Therefore, it is also unnecessary to note here that at the moment when Jesus is about to board the ship, the time is too limited for those requests. “Fortunately,” therefore, Gfrörer says *), “Luke has included the incident.” Why? Schneckenburger seeks to justify this even more specifically by saying **): “The preaching of the kingdom of God (Luke 9:60) was a task that the Lord gave to his twelve only after a longer period of instruction, and then again later, precisely during the last journey, to his seventy. At an earlier time, the severity that would not allow for a small delay requested by the piety of the disciple would not have been compatible with Jesus’ mercy.” But why should the Lord have only demanded the hardest renunciation later from his own? He demanded from those two pairs of brothers at the very first moment of his appearance that they should unconditionally and ruthlessly join him, and they understood the request so precisely and followed it so punctually that they “immediately” left their business and their “father”! Certainly, when Luke makes the proclamation of the kingdom of God the sole task of the man who wanted to bury his father, he has in mind the appointment and sending of the seventy to preach the gospel, and he narrates the calling of some men precisely to make it somewhat understandable to the reader where suddenly seventy disciples come from, but for us, this makes it certain that he has formed the historical context a priori, since those seventy belong to a world that owes its origin to his apriori inferences and tendencies.

**) Heil. Sage II, 19.

***) On the Origin of the First Three Gospels, p. 24-25.

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Luke has also closely linked his account with the preceding events. Those men come into contact with the Lord as he has begun the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, already in Samaria and here he was rejected by the inhabitants of a village where he sought lodging. The first man’s proposal, “I will follow you, Lord, wherever you go,” is supposed to be connected on the one hand with the circumstance that the villagers did not receive Jesus, and on the other hand with the fact that the Lord was on a journey – but this connection doesn’t help us at all, and in general, it’s not worth more than that of Matthew, who also places the event during a travel opportunity, since this journey to Jerusalem, which Luke reports, is of a nature that can never be characteristic of an actual journey.

In short, only in Luke’s account does the event have a real connection, but not the true, not the living connection, but only the writerly connection, which is inherently considered to be very unfortunate and deficient, but even in this imperfect form of presentation, it is not missing in Matthew.

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The apologist, when making the best of a bad job and accepting criticism at least as far as it serves their interests, and the critic, when still entangled in apologetic interests, both could now eagerly grab and triumphantly exclaim: “So Luke did not create these sayings, since they did not emerge fresh from the current context – therefore, these are sayings of Jesus that have come to him through tradition, who knows by what means.” One sees that the proverb “haste makes waste” is unknown to the apologist. If Luke did not create these punchlines, could not someone else have created them before him? Could they not have come to the third evangelist from the element in which such punchlines live, from tradition, and from the conversation of the community? But even this assumption raises a difficulty. In specific circles, for example, of a society, a city, a state, or even a continent, punchlines arise and spread with extraordinary rapidity, which give a new perspective to some aspect of general conditions, and due to their novelty and striking character, they find general approval. However, as quickly as they spread over the circle to which they belong, they disappear just as quickly. They never live long in tradition. Only if they are written down immediately upon their first emergence or shortly thereafter, do they survive until later, included in the context of a larger historical work, and gain eternity, if they strikingly characterize a historical standpoint.

If this statement is based on the nature of history and historiography and is confirmed by a thousand years of experience, we must therefore once again declare ourselves against the tradition hypothesis here. It follows necessarily that we do not hear in these sayings the literal expressions of Jesus that have been preserved in the tradition of the community for many, many years. Consider how quickly the community spread over the earth from morning to evening, how it grew incrementally by attracting individual masses. Should the scattered adherents in cities and provinces have all heard the same anecdotes so that they would know to whom they were serving as a new Lord, and so that the tradition could arise to which we finally owe the preservation of those anecdotes? How could the community that would overcome the world ever arise from such anecdotal peddling? Not only the Pauline, but all the letters of the New Testament prove instead that the community arose entirely differently, that the members who were won had heard entirely different things, and that the interests of the community in the first century AD, which gave it its origin, were fundamentally different. The essence, the principle of the kingdom of heaven in its pure simplicity, in the definiteness that its contrast to the law and its historical revelation in the suffering and resurrection of the Savior gave it, that and only that was proclaimed to the old world, to which the believers held fast and believed it to be enough as such because it was infinitely much, and the internal dialectic of this principle formed the only and exclusive interest that occupied, united, and even through the divisions and questions that it raised in individual communities, united the entire community.

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At that time, only when the community had secured its general principle in dialectic with the law and the view of the suffering, resurrection, and glorification of its Savior was established, the need arose to hear more about the historical empirical circumstances, entanglements, and events of Jesus’ life; but when it arose, the possibility of satisfying it was no longer available. What could Jesus have experienced in his life and during his struggle with the Jewish world? What else but the experiences of the community? What could he speak and present? What else but the self-consciousness of the community? Even if we disregard that the memory of the individual events of Jesus’ life had disappeared, and that the Christian principle, as purely positive, could not grasp the true form of historiography, for the individual could not gain its pure and appropriate representation and mutual interconnection if it was considered as such and in every respect as an appearance of the general, thus exposed to the danger of being excessively expanded, so the general was not recognized in the inner movement of individual events and relationships, but should be viewed immediately at every moment in every detail. Even if we ignore all of this, at that time, when the Gospels were to be written, the true form of historiography had been lost through a series of important revolutions. History had become a collection of anecdotes. In the Roman world, the modern principle of individuality and personality had already been announced and established in the way that was possible then, i.e., in the way of immediacy. The Lord of the world had ascended to the throne in Rome to concentrate and represent all interests, all rights, and the measure of everything in his person. And now that morality and the substantial bond that otherwise made individuals a whole had disappeared, and the power of one person had replaced the moral unity, which should apply to all and instead of all, the atomistic points of others reacted and were forced to regain stability and solidity in their personality, if they did not want to perish completely. The principle of personality had emerged, and history became a biography, and world history became a collection of anecdotes. Suetonius had successors who were worthy of him.

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While in Rome, the personality which encompassed the power of the world ascended the throne, the Christian community arose through the tremendous miracle that a person appeared who had drawn the power of heaven into his inner being and had risen in faith as the Promised One, as the Eternal and the One. As the Eternal and Promised One from the beginning, he founded the community, and when his church was founded and later reflection wanted to find out how this work had formed historically and prevailed in the struggle with the world, there was no other history than the history of this One Person who remained the One as he had worked here on earth and continued to work in his servants from the seat of his heavenly glory. The form of the Gospels was thereby unchangeably determined – the main thing was and remained that individual and always individual things were reported if it was only a single aspect of the life of this One in which his heavenly infinity appeared immediately. Apart from the suffering, death, and resurrection, one knew nothing when one wanted to know individual things – and yet one knew enough: the fortunate one who was called to find it found it in the perception, interests, and struggles of the community, for what the community was, experienced, and possessed in its inner being was and had only been through the One, or rather, that was the One.

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One may say, whatever we write here is aprioric work, but it will not harm us. We have written it here because previous criticism has given us the right to do so, and the following remarks will prove it.

To the point! “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,” Jesus said, “but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Weisse rightly observed *) that Jesus “would hardly have used such a striking image to express the simple observation that he did not want to be physically bound to a fixed home,” or that he did not have a fixed home. Weisse also reminds us of the sense in which we use the expression “four pegs,” and now leads us to the following explanation. Every person has their four pegs, that is, despite all mobility and freedom from external statutes, a resting place, a certain formula that is supposed to apply to everything again, that should give the final satisfaction and with which one can be comfortable. The letter, i.e. every “fixed form that in any way counts as a letter in life or history,” not just the written letter, is once again solidified by people, even by the freest, until it has become a rigid absolute. Jesus wants to deny that the divine spirit that dwells within him can sink to this bondage, and he denies it precisely before a scribe – Matthew, who created him, was guided by a splendid instinct – because it is the scribe’s characteristic that he does not have the courage to free himself from the misunderstood formulaic system, to throw off the baggage of finiteness and to ruthlessly surrender to the infinity of the idea.

*) II, 57

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Now then, if this explanation is correct — and it is — and it finally comes down to the serious question of from which standpoint the saying originated, the answer cannot be doubtful for a moment. Weisse still thinks innocently that the words were spoken by Jesus to a scribe — whom Matthew had just introduced — but he was still innocent and the matter had not yet become so serious that this question could no longer be avoided. If the words had been spoken by Jesus, they would have had the extremely meager meaning that he had no fixed dwelling place and that his followers likewise had to forgo such comforts, and this meaning would also be the only one that it would have to make sense, because the consideration of the empirical person of Jesus, who speaks there, travels around the country and points the man who wants to follow him to his situation, would not only have hindered, thwarted, but also simply made impossible the elevation to a higher sense. But in the community, the saying arose and developed from the self-consciousness of its infinity, without hindrance, the dialectical and revolutionary power of its content, since the personality of Jesus, whose historical situation gave the epigrammatic basis for the actual point, no longer hindered the development of the thought from this standpoint. It is hardly necessary to note that the standpoint which produced the saying did not have the thought in its purity in its consciousness, but only became aware of it from the situation of the person Jesus and as a reflection on it — in a situation that we call the prototype of the idea only according to our understanding.

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Also, the second saying: “let the dead bury their own dead” is also correctly explained by Weisse, when he notes that the word “dead” should be understood figuratively not only the first time, but both times *). “What Jesus meant with this saying is nothing else than the spiritually deadening occupation with the dead and decaying **), where there is something alive that demands our sense and our power.” Correct! The sphere which the follower of Jesus should leave is altogether a realm of the dead, where spiritually dead things float back and forth.

*) II, 58.

**) A fortunate world, where the struggle with the newer dead, the apologetics, a struggle that in our time is only possible through dialectical engagement, no longer needs to be fought! But we are now so unlucky and lucky that we can only help the spirit to victory by overcoming the material. But in essence, it has always been so.

But if Weisse still assumes that the saying belongs to the Lord, he must certainly find it “more than doubtful” whether the exalted Master really intended to dissuade the disciple from fulfilling his pious duty with this call. And yet nothing could be less doubtful than that even a momentary return to the dead in an absolute sense should be forbidden – the point of the whole would at least be irretrievably lost if the commission were not an absolute one, and the disciple, instead of Jesus, should unconditionally succumb, should so comfortably settle with both colliding powers. The collision must therefore be preserved in its purity, i.e., Jesus did not speak these words. Firstly, the elevation of the saying into the spiritual realm would have been impossible again if the man to whom it was addressed really had just buried his father. Secondly, Jesus would never have dared, and if he was a true human being, he would never have dared to form a collision of such abstract cruelty that all divine and human commandments would not have been sufficient to persuade a person to violate the family ethic. Even if all the powers in heaven and on earth were to conspire against the power of the family, their alliance would be powerless.

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So it comes down again to the fact that the saying was formed in the community and should express, command and illustrate the revolutionary renunciation of a world that appeared as a realm of the dead.

If we were not already elevated by both sayings into a world that is just as different from the real world as it is from the real history of Jesus, we would certainly be alienated from our world, to which the story belongs, if we notice that Luke allows a third person to approach Jesus who is also willing to follow him, but who also has to hear that the kingdom of heaven demands the sacrifice of all other considerations, as he asked the Lord for permission to say goodbye to his family first. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:61-62).

It is no longer a question, as it has sometimes been discussed before, whether the Lord had the opportunity to express the same thought three times in a row, but now the question is whether he ever expressed this thought three times in his life, and whether the punch line of his sayings has been preserved in tradition for many, many years – a question that is already answered if we are shown that the first two sayings do not belong to him. We must not even speak as if the tradition of the community were the artist who develops the punch lines that serve the expression of the same thought, since we can no longer entertain the unclear idea that tradition in its substance could produce certain works. It is rather the writer who tries his skills at tasks of this kind and loves to work out general ideas that have indeed flowed into his life circle in several forms. So these three punch lines are a product of the writer and, in this accumulation, actually a disturbing and distracting surplus, which even Matthew took offense at. Matthew rightly leaves out the third punch line.

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Thus, the only remaining question is whether Luke himself created these sayings, or whether he found them at least partially in a written source that he used. Of course, we cannot obtain absolute certainty about this, but it also doesn’t hurt to consider it. It is possible that he received the impetus that led to the elaboration of these points from an earlier written source, or it is possible that his predecessor had already passed on the matter to him in a more specific form, but no one can provide anything substantial against the assertion that Luke created the whole thing. On the contrary, it can even be shown how he arrived at all three points. In the Gospel of Mark, he reads how the first disciples, when they were called by the Lord, left everything behind, and even the sons of Zebedee left their father without further ado and followed the Lord. The courage of recklessness that lies in this decision of the disciples, Luke did not bring to the fore in his presentation at the right place, and where he speaks of the calling of the disciples, he does it confusedly (Lk 5:10-11). He blunts the point that is intended in Mark’s presentation and does not even mention that the followers of Jesus broke away from their families. But what he has neglected here, he has not completely forgotten, rather he carried it around in his head for a long time, turned it over and over, transformed it into general principles, such as the principle that the followers of Jesus must renounce their four stakes, and finally developed these principles into sayings that the Lord directed to men who gave him occasion to do so by putting their limited circumstances – even circumstances that belong to morality – in conflict with the duties of a disciple of Jesus. To further develop the occasion, especially the third (Lk 9:61), the evangelist was brought to reflect on the story of the calling of Elisha *), whose request to bid farewell to his father beforehand could naturally not be granted according to the structure of the evangelical type, and our writer unconsciously drew the deeper meaning that the sayings received from the life element to which he belonged. He may have drawn more meaning from there – especially in the first two sayings – than he knew himself and could fully develop.

*) I Kings 19:20 (LXX) [published as 20:20]: καταφιλήσω τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ ἀκολουθήσω ὀπίσω σου.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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§ 28.

The Centurion of Capernaum.

Matth. 8, 5 — 13.

Upon entering Capernaum, a centurion approaches Jesus with the request that he heal his son, who is lying paralyzed at home, or rather he initially only describes the suffering of his son. In response to Jesus’ declaration that he will go and heal him, the centurion says that he is not worthy for the Lord to enter under his roof, and that it only takes a word from him for his son to be healed. Jesus is amazed and says to his followers: “Truly I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”

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If Jesus could only speak in this way if he had already experienced the nature of the Jewish people for some time, then it is certain that this story stands too early in the first Gospel – for Jesus has just appeared – that its true and original home is in the Gospel of Luke – because here there is really a description of Jesus’ longer activity before it – and that Matthew placed it so unfortunately only because he borrowed it from the Gospel of Luke in connection with the Sermon on the Mount.

But is it really the case that Luke’s account is the original one? Isn’t a lot of it unlikely, isn’t the excess that it has before Matthew’s presentation very disturbing and even inappropriate to the point of the whole thing? Yes, so it is, De Wette answers, and “it seems that Luke provides a later extension.” *)

*) Ereg. Handb. I, I, 83.

Although the words of the centurion with which he declares himself unworthy for Jesus to come under his roof and expresses confidence that only a word from the Lord is needed for the sick person to be healed are also the same in Luke (7:6-8), the centurion does not present them personally to the Lord, but through friends he sends to him on the way to his house. He does not come into personal contact with Jesus at all, but from the outset he had sent elders of the Jews to him, when he heard of his arrival in Capernaum, and through them he had asked him to come and heal the sick person. And only when the Jews had interceded on behalf of the Gentile, saying that he was worthy of the service of love because he loved their people and even built their synagogue, only then, when Jesus had actually set out and was near his house, did he have the words of faith sent to him that so amazed Jesus.

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What, however, could be more certain than that the words, which come so fresh from the heart and so admirably penetratingly addressed to the Lord, and which also so strikingly relate to the man’s personal circumstances – “I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” – what could be more certain than that such words were personally addressed to the Lord by the man himself? And there can be no greater inconvenience than that the man, after inviting Jesus into his house through his messengers, suddenly has the idea to send new messengers to bring a second request, when Jesus is already close to his house.

Of course, the absolute apologist, as well as the patron of Luke, cannot admit such inconveniences. Olshausen *) must concede to Luke’s account “the advantage of greater clarity and accuracy in external details,” and Schleiermacher **) must find in it “the characteristics of a well-informed eyewitness.”

*) Bibl. Comm. I, 267. 268.

**) Ueber die Schr. des Luke, p. 92.

The difference between the two accounts cannot be admitted by the absolute apologist, nor can he pay attention to the fact that it is a contradiction. Olshausen has done enough good when he merely observes that the account in the first Gospel is “nothing but a shorter expression.” However, more thorough Bible scholars have realized that the matter is not so easily settled. For example, Bengel is very diligent in exploring all possibilities, even searching for divine laws that determined the form of the report provided by Matthew. He maintains that the centurion did not approach Jesus himself, but rather it appears that he left the house at first but returned later. Therefore, his will was taken as the action itself and was credited by God higher than the action, and Matthew expressed this divine assessment of the will excellently by following the law of divine history, which is much more exalted than the law of human history. Look at this edifying torture, you present-day apologists, and be ashamed of your frivolous treatment of such differences! However, the torture remains, of what Bengel has written for the sake of Matthew’s account. If the will was reckoned higher than the act by God *), then wouldn’t Matthew have represented this divine consideration and the law of divine history very poorly by not mentioning anything about the mere will and immediately substituting the less valuable act for it? Or does Luke say anything about the man initially intending to go to the Lord himself and then changing his mind and sending someone else instead? Just as Matthew simply says that the man “came up” to the Lord when he entered Capernaum, so it is said from the outset in Luke that when the man heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him. Finally, when Calvin asserts that Matthew proceeds correctly – inepte – by attributing to the centurion what was only done at his request and in his name, when Paulus defends the evangelist with the principle that one can also say that someone did something even if he had it done by others (quod quis per alium fecit etc.) **), and when Augustine even says that this principle could be applied here especially ***), we must unfortunately note that this application is purely impossible for the act of going, coming, etc., since one cannot have these movements done for oneself by others.

*) Pluris divinitus aestimabatur,

**) I, 709.

***) No, indeed! While he wants to say it, he dares not say it: de cons. Evang. Lib. II, c. 49. Si ipsa peryentio usitate dicitur per aliós fieri, quanto magis accessus per alios fieri potest. Why doesn’t he say: per alios fieri dici potest? The absurdity of the whole sentence would have been even more apparent.

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Although the differences can no longer be denied, it still remains that Luke’s account is the original one and that Matthew had it in mind when he beautifully reworked it. He sends the meticulous and annoying delegation of Jewish elders that Luke portrays back home and correctly figured out that the centurion must approach the Lord personally and without intermediaries. Furthermore, Matthew presents the matter so beautifully that the centurion first laments the suffering of his boy and then, as Jesus agrees to go and heal the sick, expresses his faith that the Lord can perform the healing from a distance.

Another difference arises from the fact that Matthew made an appropriate change. We are not referring so much to the fact that, according to Luke *), the sick person is near death, while according to Matthew he is confined to bed with a painful limb disease, but rather to the fact that he is the servant of the centurion in Luke’s account and the son of the same in Matthew’s (ο παις). “Boy” is indeed ambiguous in the Greek language: it can mean both servant and son – but the categorical way in which the centurion says “my boy,” the urgency and pleading of his request for help, prove that Matthew expects us to think of the man’s son. From Luke’s account and the amount of circumstances and pleas he presents, he concluded that it was more appropriate for the centurion to plead for his son, who was no longer fatally ill but simply suffering. Perhaps he also helped himself, not to stray too far from the original, with the uncertain word “boy” and left it to his readers to determine the indefinite from the context.

*) κακως εχων ημελλεν τελευταν (Luke 7:2). Compare John 4:47: ημελλεν αποθνησκειν

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If it is now certain that Luke “does not provide a later expansion whose purpose is to emphasize the humility of the man even more *)”, we still have to answer the question of how he came to his report. A look at Mark solves the question. Mark knows nothing about the centurion, but tells instead the story of the Hellenistic woman whose daughter Jesus heals from a distance – a story that Luke knows nothing about. And yet we read this story in Luke; it is precisely the story of the centurion! Note beforehand that Luke took offense at such a close and immediate contact of the Lord with a pagan person, so he inserted the delegation of the Jewish elders as an intermediary and put in their mouths the embarrassing recommendation of the heathen, who now becomes a kind of proselyte, so all the inconveniences are explained. That woman, when she heard about Jesus, went to him and asked for help for her daughter, so now that delegation must immediately appear with the specific request and of course, since the centurion does not appear in person, ask the Lord to come and help the sick person **). In the original report, however, Luke finds that the Lord healed from a distance and did not see the sick person he helped this time. Therefore, if Jesus follows the requests of the delegation and is already near the centurion’s house, the centurion must send new messengers to stop him and make the healing possible from a distance. Even the words, and even the construction of the sentences are already ready for this purpose, namely in the writing of Mark, where messengers also come to meet the Lord when he is on his way to a hospital and at least try to hold him back *).

*) de Wette 1, 1, 83. Grauß II, 121.

**) Mark 7, 25, 26 : ακούσασα γυνή περί αυτού, ής είχε το θυγάτριον αυτής πν. ακαθ., ελθούσα προσέπεσε προς τους πόδας αυτού και πρώτα αυτόν ίνα — Luk. 7, 2, 33 εκατοντάρχου δέ τινος δούλος κακώς έχων ήμελλε τελευτάν. ακούσας δε περί του Ιησού, απέστειλε προς αυτόν έρωτών αυτών, όπως ελθών διασώση τον….

The words and construction of the sentences are so similar that the conclusion of the story is also compared: Mark 7, 30: xai artɛlfovoa εις τον οίκον αυτής, εύρε το δαιμόνιον εξεληλυθός και την θυγατέρα βεβλημένην επί της κλίνης. Luk. 7, 10: και υποστρέψαντες οι πεμφθέντες εις τον οίκον, εύρον τον ασθενούντα δούλον υγιαίνοντα.

See also the later investigations in John 4:46-47: Joh. 4, 46. 47 : και ήν τις βασιλικός ου ο υιός ήσθένει εν Κ. ούτος ακούσας, ότι ‘Ιησούς ήκει απήλθε προς αυτόν και ήρώτα αυτόν, ίνα καταβή και ιάσηται αυτού τον υιόν· ήμελλε γάρ αποθνήσκειν.

Note the following interweaving of the reports. Luke is too impatient to send the captain’s messengers back home and to let the sick man be healed, that he completely forgets that the Lord had to first speak the word that heals the sick. Matthew makes up for the omission by supplementing Luke’s report from the original, namely from Mark’s account, and summarily reports only the discovery of the fact that the Lord’s word had helped. He says in Ch. 8, 13: xal Entev και Ι. τ. εκατ. “Υπαγε και ως επίστευσας γενηθήτω σοι. και ιάθη και παίς αυτού εν τη ώρα εκείνη. Mark. 7, 29 : και είπεν αυτή, Διά τού-τον τον λόγον, ύπαγε εξελήλυθε το δαιμόνιον εκ της θυγατρός σου. και απελθούσα , εūρε. When Matthew copies the story of the Canaanite woman from Mark, he again uses some of the phrases which he had previously copied from Mark: Matth. 15, 28: τότε αποκριθείς ο Ι. είπ. αυτή, Ω γύναι, μεγάλη σου η πίστις, γενηθήτω σοι ως θέλεις. και ιάθη ή θυγάτηρ αυτής από της ώρας εκείνης.

Compare John 4:50: λέγει αυτώ ο Ι. Πορεύου, υιός σου ζή. Ebens. 3. 53 : εν εκείνη τη ώρα.

*) Luke 7:6: ο δε Ι. επορεύετο συν αυτοίς, ήδη δε αυτού ου μακράν απέχοντος από της οικίας, έπεμψε προς αυτόν και εκατόνταρχος φίλους, λέγων αυτώ, κύριε, μη σκύλλου: – γαρ –

Compare Mark in the account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter: Mark 5, 23: και απήλθε μετ’ αυτού. 23. 35: έτι αυτού λαλούντος, έρχονται από το αρχ. λέγοντες, ότι …. τί έτι σκύλλεις τον διδάσκαλον.

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Another example, then, of the remarkable nature of the first Gospel, that it sometimes presents the same subject to us twice. In connection with the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew borrows from Luke a copy of a portrayal of Mark’s, which he also reproduces when the context leads him in that direction.

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Matthew was naturally not a critic and therefore could not notice that both accounts were the same. Furthermore, when he significantly improved Luke’s account by removing the troublesome messengers and allowing the Gentile to approach Jesus in person, and even used a part of Mark’s account of the Greek woman to complete the story of the captain, it was not a mere external comparison of both accounts that helped him with these improvements; rather, it was the power of the idea that had received its pure expression in Mark’s account that seized him and forced him to eliminate the inconveniences of Luke’s account.

However, this idea is nothing other than that of the spiritual effect of Jesus into the distance, namely into the distance of the heathen world, on which his work, although he acted within the limits of Jewish life, should have an impact *). In the story of the Canaanite woman, the dialectic of this idea is worked into the immediate determinacy of the situation; Luke emphasizes it for reflection and makes this more sensible development possible through the humility of the man who does not dare to approach the Lord personally from the outset and does not consider himself worthy of the envoy himself coming under his roof (Luke 7:6-7). In Matthew’s account, the intelligent elaboration of the punchline is finally completed when the captain appears before the Lord personally, first only complaining of his domestic suffering, and when the Lord is about to go to help him, he says, “No! Just say the word, and my house will be healed” **).

*) See Weisse, ev. Gesch. II, 56.

**) If one confuses the laws that apply in the world of art – namely the art of religious perception – and in empirical reality, then one would have to, as de Wette (a. a. O.) does, call the captain’s second request “the more modest but more believing one”; in reality, however, it would be highly immodest and exceed all measure.

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One more thing that Matthew has done beautifully: he adds to the Lord’s word, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith”, the saying about the arrival of the Gentiles in the kingdom of heaven and the rejection of the children of the kingdom (Ch. 8, 11-12) – a saying which he took from Luke (Ch. 13, 28-29) and reworked brilliantly *).

De Wette thinks **), “perhaps Luke gives this saying ‘more correctly’ on another occasion.” What does that mean? Did the specific, individual occasion ever arise on which Matthew lets it arise? More correctly? Does Luke have more accurate information when he puts the saying out there? Gfrörer also claims that the saying “fits better in the place where it was inserted by Luke ***).” But we have already sufficiently learned about this occasion, created by the question of whether few will be saved (Luke 13:23). Gfrörer even thinks that the saying has “a very unfortunate position” in Matthew. But we can’t find a happier place for it than Matthew has found, namely the occasion where Jesus could greet the faithful Gentile as the forerunner of the multitudes of nations flowing to the kingdom of heaven from the east and west. Matthew has given the saying the home to which it originally belonged, namely the idea that generated it and the story of the centurion. But it is not the “true Matthew”, whom Weisse †) assumes to have placed the saying as a “conclusion” to the story of the centurion. There is only one Matthew, the truly authentic one, who continued the work of Mark and Luke and who also found out this time that this saying, which Luke had put out there, could not be better placed than here, where the symbol of the faithful multitudes of nations was found.

*) As we have already noted above, 1, 159.

**) I, 1, 84.

***) Heil. Sage II, 19.

†) a. a. O. II, 54.

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After all this, it is no longer necessary to explain, with Strauss, the story of the centurion as an attempt to view the miracle-working power of Jesus quantitatively, nor are we allowed to consider it as a parable formed by Jesus himself *), nor do we even need to offend the apologist by asking about the possibility of the miracle – the centurion is the Canaanite woman, and is therefore a metamorphosis that never existed in the real world.

*) and, as Weisse does (II, 54), to give the first evangelist only the praise of a faithful copyist. Weisse says that the first evangelist “fairly accurately” translated the parable from the collection of sayings of Matthew.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

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§ 29.

The first stay of Jesus in Capernaum.

Matthew 8:14-17.

Although Matthew had already said before that Jesus moved to Capernaum, he only mentioned it (Chapter 4, 13), and neither did he take it seriously nor could he explain to us how Jesus came to settle in this city. Now he does say (Chapter 8, 14) that Jesus went into the house of Peter, but the circumstance which led Jesus to Capernaum and to the house of this disciple – his calling – goes much further back.

As for Luke’s account, it has been mentioned several times before, and it needs hardly to be pointed out that in the Gospel of Mark this story of Jesus’ return to the house of Peter has its true context and original origin. *) With the newly recruited disciples, Jesus enters Capernaum (Mark 1:21 εισπορευονται), he enters the synagogue and from there they (the whole group) go to the house of Simon and Andrew; Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law and she waits on them (αυτοις,, the whole company). Matthew no longer needs to look back at Peter’s calling to bring Jesus to his house; he is already at home in Capernaum and therefore speaks in unity (verses 14-15) that Jesus goes into the house of Peter and that the mother-in-law, after he has healed her, waits on him (αυτω). Luke speaks in the plural: she waited on them (avrvtz), by copying this word from Mark, without realizing that he had not yet given the Lord the company of the disciples (Luke 4:39).

*) especially since Wilke has made this relationship between the three accounts so clear once Mark is accepted.

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In the evening, Luke continues (v. 40-41), they brought to him all who were sick, and he healed them. And demons also came out of many. Matthew, on the other hand, reports (8:16-17) that in the evening, many demon-possessed people were brought to him, whom he freed from unclean spirits. He also healed all the sick. Matthew changes the order of events because he wants to connect his account to the reflection that Jesus had to heal the sick in order to fulfill the word of Isaiah, “He himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Only Mark motivates the whole incident not only historically, but also in his presentation, where the individual details are in perfect harmony. “They brought to Jesus all who were sick and demon-possessed,” he says (1:32), “and he healed all who were sick” (v. 33) and “drove out the demons” (v. 34).

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Any thought of a historical basis for this account must immediately disappear when we remember that the occasion for these events is purely fictitious. As we showed above, it is absolutely impossible that Jesus began his work with the calling of the first disciples, and if we imagine the Lord’s activity to be so mechanically determined and regulated that he felt he had to leave Capernaum the next morning because it was his duty to proclaim the gospel in other neighboring places, then we are deluding ourselves. Is it really possible that a teacher could believe that he had done enough even for the near future, if he had given a public lecture and performed a couple of miracles in one place? In the real world, a teacher must take much more time, appear much more freely and liberally, and cannot divide his time so mechanically. If it is in the nature of his task that he must travel to different places, he will not rush from one place to another.

If we are therefore forced to admit the unsuitability of Mark’s presentation, we could perhaps still try to argue that the miracles which Mark places in Jesus’ first stay in Capernaum were performed there later. In vain! They only have their original place and meaning at the place assigned to them by Mark, i.e., at a place that never existed, since Jesus could never have started his work with the calling of the two pairs of brothers in order to come to Capernaum through their mediation. Jesus must heal the demon-possessed immediately as he enters the synagogue, cure Peter’s mother-in-law of fever, and heal many sick people in houses in the evening, so that his connection with Peter and his house, as well as with Capernaum, the center of his Galilean activity, is established and explained from the beginning. Mark no longer knew the historical circumstances under which this connection was formed, so miracles had to take the place of spiritual, gradual mediation. Jesus must now prove himself to the people of Capernaum as a miracle-worker on the first day he comes out in their city, and through a miracle on the woman who entertains guests in Peter’s house, he must open a hospitable house in his new home.

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The discrepancy between the accounts of the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel regarding Peter’s hometown has troubled apologists even more than the miracles, or indeed, far more. According to the note found in the Gospel of Mark and followed by the other two Synoptics (Mark 1:29, Luke 4:38, Matthew 8:14), Peter is from Capernaum, whereas the fourth Evangelist calls Bethsaida his hometown (John 1:45). “But,” asks Fritzsche, “could Peter not very well have been born in Bethsaida and later moved to Capernaum?” DeWette agrees and assumes that Peter moved to Capernaum after his marriage, and Grotius even suggests that the house of Peter mentioned by Matthew is actually his mother-in-law’s house. Another example of how history is enriched with notes, but unfortunately with notes that cannot withstand criticism. The fourth Evangelist knows nothing about Peter moving to Capernaum before he met Jesus; on the contrary, he assumes that Peter is still living in Bethsaida even after being called by Jesus. On the other hand, Mark, who is the only one to consider here since his successors only copied his account partially, refers to the house where Jesus stays as “Simon and Andrew’s” house, not Simon’s alone, as Luke and Matthew do. Therefore, Peter owns the house as an inheritance from his father, not as a dowry from his wife, and he has owned and lived in it with his brother since the beginning. If we now read more carefully in the fourth Gospel how Bethsaida is referred to as the city of Andrew and Peter, the contradiction is complete. How it arose is hardly worth asking, and it is unlikely to be answered, as it may have such a chance origin that the light of criticism can no longer illuminate such a deep mystery. It is likely that the matter can be explained as follows: the Evangelist wanted Jesus to find Philip, but one can only find a person if one already knows them somehow, so some mediation was necessary, and the author assumed that Philip was a fellow countryman of Peter and Andrew. So he immediately gives him Bethsaida as his hometown, without considering whether that brotherly pair was actually from there.

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It is not inappropriate here to note more precisely the way in which the evangelists view Capernaum as the center of Jesus’ Galilean activity.

As we have already learned, all three Synoptics have Jesus going from Nazareth to be baptized and moving to Capernaum. According to Mark’s account, Jesus stays as a guest in Simon’s house for only one day. When he returns to Capernaum after his first journey, and people hear that he is at home, this house (Mark 2:1) can only be that of Peter, into which he enters with the twelve whom he called after the second outbreak in Capernaum (Mark 3:20). It is not mentioned that he entered another house after his third departure, when he returned to Capernaum after the parable speech and the healing of the Gadarene demoniac, apart from that of Jairus, whose daughter he raised. Rather, he immediately goes to his hometown (πατριδα) of Nazareth after the miracle. Later, shortly before his departure to Jerusalem, he comes to Capernaum once again and is in the same house (εν τη οικια Mark 9:34), which can only be that of Peter in this context.

In short, according to Mark’s account, Jesus stays in Capernaum only as a guest, but if he initially feels it is his duty to stay only a short time in this city, as he must also preach elsewhere, Capernaum immediately appears as the center of his activity after his first journey (Mark 2:1). He only leaves it, as with his two subsequent journeys (Mark 3:6, 3:20-22), because he is forced to do so by his enemies.

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The contradiction is undeniable, and we must at least admit that even Mark has not given us a firm and reliable picture of the way of life of Jesus.

Luke cannot be considered in the present question, since he even dealt very disorderly with the statements of his predecessor, namely, three times when Mark says that Jesus returned to Capernaum (Mark 2:1, 3:20, 9:33), he leaves the locality completely undefined (Luke 5:17, 11:15, 9:46). Only after the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 7:1) does he let Jesus enter Capernaum, and when he later lets him return to the near shore after healing the Gadarene demoniac, where Jairus receives him (Luke 8:40), he does not remind us that this synagogue ruler was at home in Capernaum, which circumstance, however, must necessarily be assumed in the narrative of Mark, as well as Matthew (Matthew 9:1).

We can also be brief about Matthew. According to his account, Jesus stays in Peter’s house for only one day, but immediately returns to Capernaum on the following day, after having just left it. This time, too, he only stays in the city for one day, travels around the country from now on, and touches Capernaum only once more and only for a moment (Matthew 17:24-19:1), when he set out on the journey to Jerusalem. So Jesus only stays in Capernaum for two days, and yet this city is called (Matthew 9:1) “his city” ( η ιδια πολις)! A striking proof of how little the evangelists knew about the locality in which Jesus worked, how much they were inclined to make a priori determinations even about this point, and how little they were nevertheless able to work these determinations into the historical narrative in a pure and consistent manner. Matthew finds Capernaum mentioned most frequently in Mark’s scripture, and he immediately makes it “his city,” even though he only allows him to stay there for two days.

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But we must not forget to mention that Luke has formed an equal a priori and just as inconsistent as Matthew. According to his account, Jesus slept in Capernaum only twice, and yet he first pronounces the woe over this city, which, having been raised to heaven, is now to be cast down to hell (Luke 10:15), a saying of which Mark knows nothing. He forms a saying that presupposes that Capernaum was particularly favored as a witness to the miraculous deeds of the Messiah, and yet he tells us nothing of the many signs that occurred in this city.

Even Mark shows how little he had an original and coherent view of these relationships by the way he suddenly has Jesus’ relatives, his mother and brothers, appear in Capernaum. He presents it as if they were at home in this city and known to everyone in the crowd (Mark 3:20-21, 32) – but how is that possible, since Jesus himself only came from Nazareth to Capernaum and even then only by chance through the disciples he had found? As a guest, he stayed in this city?

It seems, however, to have been an involuntary – and easily satisfying – need for this type of perception to see Jesus’ relatives immediately as residents of the place where he himself often stayed. Even the fourth evangelist felt this need and satisfied it in his own way without hesitation. Although he considers Judea as the ordinary sphere of Jesus’ activity, he is so dominated by the type of historical view that regards Capernaum as an esteemed venue for the deeds of the Lord that he cannot completely suppress the glory of this city. Immediately after the wedding in Cana, Jesus goes to Capernaum (John 2:12). That royal official whose son is dying comes from this city (4:47), and in the synagogue of Capernaum (6:59) Jesus speaks of the enjoyment of his flesh and blood. The same evangelist, who only lets the Lord stay in Galilee for a very short time, who introduces Jesus as a Nazarene (John 1:46-47), cannot avoid having his mother and brothers, who were guests at the wedding in Cana, also go to Capernaum. It seems that the attention was not to be too scattered and that if Jesus’ relatives were to come into conflict with him, they should be nearby – as in John 7:3.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

14

§ 27.

The Healing of the Leper.

Matthew 8:1-4.

Immediately after calling the two pairs of brothers, Jesus goes with them to Capernaum, where they are based, and he appears as a powerful teacher in the synagogue, so much so that the people are amazed. Even a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit and present in the synagogue, or rather the demon in this man, recognizes in Jesus “the Holy One of God” and senses that he has come to destroy him and his kind. When he cried out and revealed that he knew who Jesus was, Jesus commanded him to be silent and to come out of the possessed man, and he was freed to the amazement of those present.

15

Luke includes this account of Mark’s (Mark 1:21-28) in his writing in its entirety, after he had led the Lord of Nazareth to Capernaum (Luke 4:31-37). The only mistake he made was to allow Jesus to go to Capernaum and even stay at Peter’s house (verse 38) before reporting the calling of the first disciples.

Although Matthew was indeed hasty in mentioning Capernaum (Matthew 4:13), he does not report the calling of the first disciples as late as Luke, but instead has Jesus travel around Galilee and gain great fame in order to give the Sermon on the Mount an appropriate background. And he reports the sermon itself so early because he wants to show by example that Jesus’ teachings must have greatly affected the people.

He cannot report the incident in the synagogue in Capernaum, so he leaves it aside for later when it would be more appropriate to bring it up. Now, however, he is dominated by Luke, from whom he borrowed the occasion, idea, and structure of the Sermon on the Mount, and he must now, willingly or unwillingly, have the Lord come to Capernaum and heal the centurion’s servant. But before that, as the Lord is coming down from the mountain to Capernaum, he sends the leper to meet him. Why? He wanted to fill in the empty space between the descent from the mountain and the meeting with the centurion upon entering the city. He did not want the triumphal procession of the divine envoy and new legislator to go unnoticed in one place, and if just then the people were amazed at the powerful preaching of the preacher, he wanted to immediately start the miracle-working upon coming down from the mountain and arriving in the plain. He was led to this healing in particular by the following circumstance. After the great sermon, Luke says, the Lord entered Capernaum *). Matthew reads the same thing word for word from Mark **) at a place where he had just read the healing of the leper – he needed no more than this to believe he was justified in inserting this healing precisely here, where a miracle was so necessary to him before Jesus entered Capernaum.

*) Luke 7:1 εισηλθεν εις Καπερναουμ

**) Mark 2:1 και παλιν εισηλθεν εις Καπερναουμ

16

The fact that he placed it in the wrong place and was forced to leave out the punchline of the whole thing, we have already seen.

Luke reports it at the place where he found it in Mark; he places it on the journey that Jesus took when he left the house of Peter, but he had already disorderly arranged the travel plan from the beginning when he lets Jesus call Peter on this journey. In addition, he has given the situation an indefinite definiteness, while Mark leaves it completely indefinite, as appropriate to the punchline. According to Mark’s account, the leper came to the Lord while he was traveling throughout Galilee, but according to Luke, when Jesus was in one of the cities where, as he said at the beginning of his journey, he must also preach the gospel ***). Finally, Luke does not reproduce the contrast on which Mark has built the whole thing purely; he does not say that despite the prohibition, the healed man made the matter known and Jesus had to stay away from the cities and retreat into the wilderness. Rather, he chooses the indefinite portrayal that the reputation of Jesus only spread further *), that the crowds flocked to him to hear him and be healed, and that he himself stayed in the wilderness and – the standing formula! – prayed. Peter’s catch of fish made this weakening of the contrast necessary, as it not only interrupts the journey, but also gives the impression that it only begins when Jesus meets the leper in one of the cities. At least now the travel report makes a new start when Jesus and the sick man meet, and it would have to end too quickly if the healed man immediately made Jesus known as his savior and forced him to withdraw into secrecy. The news of the miraculous event must therefore spread only generally – one does not know how, but in any case in a way that takes more time – among the people.

***) Luke 5:12: και εγένετο εν τω είναι αυτόν εν μιά των πόλεων.  4:43: και ταϊς ετέραις πόλεσιν ευαγγελίσασθαι με δεί.

*) Luke 5:15: διήρχετο δε μάλλον ο λόγος περί αυτού.

17

So in Mark we find the conception of the story in its first purity, simplicity, and epigrammatic elaboration. The tension of the whole is calculated for the point at which Jesus so strictly forbids the announcement of the miracle, and the appropriate resolution of the tension is given in the circumstance that the healed man nevertheless and even immediately, after leaving Jesus, speaks much about the matter, makes it known, and thereby causes the crowds to rush to the Lord himself in the wilderness, where he had withdrawn to.

But why does Jesus forbid the healed man so strictly to speak of the matter? Why does he tell him to show himself only to the priest and to offer the cleansing sacrifice commanded by Moses “as a testimony to them”? The matter cannot be understood as if the man were not first to speak with the people at length and first show himself to the priest, as if it were then permitted for him to make the matter known. The prohibition is rather absolute: he is not to speak with anyone at all about the matter **), that is, he is not to betray his doctor as the miraculous Messiah; for the healed man had recognized Jesus not only through the miracle but had already recognized him as the Messiah from the outset when he addressed him with the words: “if you will, you can make me clean.” The solution does not lie in the assumption that Jesus himself was initially uncertain of his messianic calling: for in this case, he could not have spoken as if the assumption of the sick man regarding his messianic dignity and power was fully correct. Instead of merely forbidding him to speak of the miracle, he should have told him that his assumption was too far-reaching. Or did Jesus’s still obscure intuition of his messianic calling get hit electrically by the recognition of another, so that in this recognition he saw what was not yet clearly recognized by himself, then he should have spoken differently in this case as well. But just as his words simply confirm the assumption of the healed man, his messianic nature must have been long recognized and generally acknowledged if someone were to come up with the idea of demanding the liberation from leprosy from him without further ado.

**) “Ορα μηδενί μηδέν είπης.

18

In the third edition of his work, *) Strauss finds “the true reason for that prohibition” in the account of the fourth Gospel. Just as in John 6:15, the people, because they had concluded from the miraculous feeding that he was the Messiah, intended to make him king by force, “so he had to fear from the dissemination of any act or discourse that seemed to testify to him as the expected Messiah an excitement of the fleshly Messianic hopes of his contemporaries, whose transformation into the spiritual was the task of his life.” If Jesus really had something to fear, then he must have had very little confidence in the power and clarity of his speech, or his speech must have been of such a nature that he could not rely on its impression at all. Or, as for the deeds, it would have been not only less dangerous, but also dignified and appropriate if he had not performed any that could cast a false light on his work and his purpose. But how does the critic reason from the assumption that Jesus really worked miracles—namely, miracles according to the popular notion? Only the apologist can fall into the contradiction that, on the one hand, he demands miracles from Jesus so that he can worship him as the Messiah, and on the other hand, he must hide them away in order to see Jesus as the spiritual Messiah. And what about the testimony of the fourth Gospel? How can that serve to explain the difficulty? What is it other than the view pushed to the extreme pinnacle that is just now to be explained?

*) E. J., I, 548.

19

Also Wilke *) explains that “Jesus does not want to make a big deal out of it.” The meaning of his command, with which he dismisses the healed man, is: “Don’t say anything about the healing, let the people see for themselves that you have been healed when you bring your cleansing offering.” Very well! To some extent, this explanation is based on the text, but not entirely, as it puts an accent on the “you” and “the people themselves” which the text does not know. On the other hand, it does not exhaust the text, as the words of the text: “for a testimony to them,” are too solemn to only mean: “so that the people see that you have been healed.”

We would vainly try to explain the words which the evangelist puts in Jesus’ mouth if we did not, with a jolt, move away from the apologetic standpoint which takes those words as Jesus’ words from the outset. But the following consideration gives us that jolt. It is true that the words imply that Jesus does not want to make a big deal out of it, and if he did not want to, it could only be because he did not want people’s view of his personality to be too much restricted to one side, namely that of a miracle worker. But if he had really had this principle, he would not have followed it at the right time or rather he would have either not been able to perform miracles at all or only very rarely. Does this not give miracle working a great predominance when he heals a large number of sick people in the evening when he had taken up residence in Peter’s house (C. 1, 33) and later, when crowds from all of Palestine flocked to him (C. 3, 7), so many that he exhausted himself? Why, if only one leper is healed, forbid the announcement of the story, since he healed in the presence of a large crowd before and (C. 3, 8) the crowds came to him because they had heard of his deeds, i.e. his miracles? And scarcely has Jesus forbidden the leper to speak of the matter, than the first thing he does after leaving him is to make the matter known. And what is the result? The people streamed to him from all directions! But if the prohibition was so completely useless, Jesus would have known beforehand, and therefore he would not have bothered to oblige the healed man to be silent. On the other hand, if he had really issued the prohibition, we may be sure—and we must presuppose this of any real man—that his word was so firm, so serious, and so penetrating that the healed man could not have forgotten it even for a moment.

*) Der Urevangelist, p. 182.

20

All possibility of seeing words of Jesus in this prohibition has thus disappeared for us. It was made by the evangelist, but since it is the core of the whole story, since it is the punchline that the miracle only serves to bring about, nothing can give us the certainty that Jesus performed this miracle. In addition, the whole situation is purely fabricated: the first disciples had to be called urgently so that Jesus could come to Capernaum as quickly as possible, but he had to arrive immediately on his first appearance in Capernaum, because at the time when Mark wrote, this city was considered the center of his Galilean travels, and because it was now fitting that he should embark on his first mission journey from Capernaum: in short, if the early entry into Capernaum and the departure the following day are events that only took place in the pragmatic reflection of Mark, then we also know where Jesus was traveling when he met the leper.

21

The enigmatic prohibition now stands as a free creation of Mark’s and its meaning will now only be revealed. As the belief in miracles had developed to the extent that it was believed that the Lord had often performed miracles, healed the sick and raised the dead, a contradiction arose which is necessarily inherent in the Christian idea of miracles. It was established that Jesus had performed miracles, thereby accrediting himself as the one sent by God and testifying to the divine origin of his work. On the other hand, with the rise of the Christian principle, the Jewish demand for signs had been so far restricted and the proof from the spirit had become so prominent, or at least a postulate, that one did not want to rely solely on miracles or view Jesus solely as a miracle worker and thus somehow had to limit the view of miracles. In the graphic portrayal of the gospel story, this contradiction took on the form that Jesus performs miracles – for that was once absolutely necessary – and at the same time declares that he does not want to attach weight to such deeds. The miracles must therefore – forgive the expression – be hidden away in the corner or placed under a bushel: Jesus forbids their publication. However, the evangelical view is unable to remain consistent; it does so already in that it forms miracles that must be hidden away again, and thus it has, at the same time as it hides them, a secret interest in miracles and yet it cannot have told the story in vain. Therefore, it must somehow present the prohibition as futile: in the present case, it portrays the situation in such a way that the healed man nevertheless makes the miracle known and causes the crowds from all over to rush after the Lord into the seclusion of the desert (Mark 1, 45).

22

Now, the solemn words “as a testimony to them”? The context in which we find them will explain them. If the leper turns to Jesus convinced that he is the Messiah and therefore can help him, and if Jesus then heals him with a single word, it seems that this would result in a conflict with the order of the law, namely that the legal ceremony of priestly purification and cleansing would no longer be necessary. After this healing, however, the clashes with the Pharisees and with the law follow (Mark 2.) – is it not clear that this healing and Jesus’ statement are intended to form the transition to this new section? In the sense that the transition would make it clear that Jesus did not willfully bring about the collisions with the law, and in fact did everything to avoid them where they could be avoided? “To be a testimony to them,” therefore, means that my higher authority should not overturn or violate the legal order at any cost, as a testimony to all who would like to reflect on it.

The new contradiction into which the entire prohibition falls at the end is loud enough to draw our attention.

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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 2

—o0o—

1

Fifth Section.

The Two Miracle Days.

Matthew 8:1 – 9:34.

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§ 26:

Overview of the report of Matthew and ancillary accounts.

The two days, on the first of which even the Sermon on the Mount is held, are true miracle days, not only in the sense that they are distinguished by miracles from others, but also because they must have been of a wondrous nature themselves, since it would have been impossible for Jesus otherwise to perform so many extraordinary miracles in a time that must appear disproportionately short.

As Jesus descends from the mountain after the sermon, a leper asks him for healing, and he immediately cleanses him of his leprosy. Like a triumphator, the envoy of God descends from the mountain into the plain and the city: there, on the height of the mountain, he has called the laws of the kingdom of heaven far beyond the earth, and now, accompanied by the admiring crowd, he descends to take possession of the earth by blessing, saving, and healing through compassionate deeds. Upon entering Capernaum, a centurion asks him (Matthew 8:5) to heal his servant, and Jesus heals him from a distance. Upon entering the house of Peter, he sees his mother-in-law lying ill with fever; moved with pity, he immediately heals her, and when all sorts of sick people were brought to him in the evening, he healed them all.

2

But when he sees the crowd of people, he gives the command to sail to the other side of the lake. On the way to the lake, a scribe wants to join him and tells him what he can expect in the company of the Son of Man; another one of his disciples wants to bury his father before following him, and he tells him that his followers have no contact with the realm of death. Finally, while crossing the lake, a great storm arises, and he calms it with a single word.

As soon as he landed on the other side of the lake, two possessed men immediately met him, whom he freed from the demons, but because of the consequences of this healing, he had to leave the area immediately. Therefore, he returned to Capernaum, healed a paralytic who was immediately brought to him, went to the shore of the lake after a dispute with the Pharisees, called Matthew, and when he followed him immediately and gave a banquet in his house, new conflicts with the Pharisees followed. While he was still talking with his opponents, the ruler Jairus came, asked for the restoration of his daughter who had just died, and Jesus immediately set out for his house. On the way, his garment touched a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years, and when he arrived at the house of mourning, he resurrected the daughter.

As he departed again, two blind men followed him, crying out for help. He healed them, and as soon as they left him, a mute man was brought to him, and he also restored his speech.

If we have given due admiration to these two days, their extraordinary length, and the abundance of miracles they gave rise to, they give us an important hint about the composition of the Gospels. Because even after that, it remains the case that only individual days from the life of Jesus are reported, which are then more or less rich in events, and it finally turns out that we only learn about very few days from the life of the Lord with any precision.

3

So it is, says Paulus. But he calls out to us when we complain that we do not learn more about such a rich life and are limited to the notes of very few days, is it not “this fact that only full traditions of individual days exist, a sign that such news is drawn from almost contemporary recordings of certain eyewitnesses *)?” So we should not lament the fact that the gospel story is not a portrayal of the life of Jesus, but rather a collection of anecdotes that only inform us about a few days. Rather, we should rejoice that there were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus who inform us about a couple of days all the more accurately and reliably, since their recordings are almost contemporaneous with the events. “Almost contemporaneous” means in this context that the recordings were written no later than the day after the events, and often, therefore, probably during the night that followed the events.

*) Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Handbook I, pages 586-587.

But how painful – we cannot be satisfied yet – how sad it is that these so quickly prepared protocol writers have only reported to us about eight to nine days, although there must have been other days that contained enough remarkable events. It was not their fault, Paulus answers, because “on many other days, such observers who could and would write were lacking.” Incomprehensible or rather inexcusable! People who could write and were so willing to do so should have contented themselves with the protocol of one day or at most two days? No one will consider this impossibility possible, at least Paulus will not be able to convince anyone. If there were such diligent writers, they would have been all the more encouraged by the importance of one day to keep a record for the other days as well. But since we find no reliable trace of such diaries, no one will blame us if we doubt that there was even a single one of those protocol writers during the lifetime of Jesus.

4

Paulus himself must strengthen us in this doubt, since he says that Matthew combines similar events in his account, even if they happened at different times. But how can the apologist make such a claim? He cannot and should not, and at the moment he utters it, he must twist and turn the words in his mouth. Thus, Paulus says, “Matthew tells in categories, not just chronologically.” “Not just:” so also at the same time? Also at the same time when he constructs a priori and combines similar events from the most remote corners? Even the rationalistic apologist – but in reality, all apologists, including the anointed and the faithful, are die-hard rationalists – even the apologist who is by nature rationalistic must come to such monstrous assertions.

Even when Paulus apparently makes an effort to say that Matthew does not tell chronologically, he must speak in such a way that it finally becomes clear that the evangelist tells in a completely chronological way! That “not just” is too powerful. The healing of Peter’s mother-in-law happened much earlier according to the account of Mark and Luke than Matthew indicates. However, Matthew also goes back “from two healings that happened immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, C. 8, 1-13, to the earlier one of Peter’s mother-in-law.” A monstrous regression, if Matthew so clearly presents the visit to Peter’s house as a consequence (v. 14) of the arrival in Capernaum after the Sermon on the Mount *)! In the end, Matthew would have to go back to something earlier if he were to send the leper (C. 8, 1. 2.) to the Lord upon his return from the mountain. At least Paulus would have to claim this, since even Luke – not to mention Mark – lets the healing of that leper happen long before the Sermon on the Mount.

*) 8: 5: είεελθότι δε αυτώ εις Καπερναούμ. V. 14: και ελθων ο Ι. εις την οικίαν Πέτρου.

5

So already at the beginning and from this instructive dialogue with Paulus, it has become clear to us that Matthew arrived at the rich content of these two miracle days because he rearranged the reports of his predecessors and connected what they had separated and assigned to different times. As in all these cases, the proof is simply established by presenting the facts. First, we consider the beginning, middle, and end of the narrative.

On his triumphal procession, as he descends from the mountain in the company of the enthusiastic and numerous crowd, a leper approaches Jesus, who frees him from his affliction. But how can Jesus forbid the healed man to speak about the miracle when the crowd surrounded him as he healed the sick man? In Mark’s account, where Jesus is only wandering in Galilee when the leper coincidentally meets him, this prohibition is natural, and the prohibition can be sternly and seriously pronounced – Jesus threatened him and immediately drove him away **) – and, by way of contrast, one expects the result that the healed man nevertheless spoke a great deal about the matter and made the story known ***). Although Matthew omits that threat because he must, as the crowd is present, he cannot eliminate one thing: Jesus’ prohibition altogether; he must keep this thing and thereby provide us with evidence that he has misplaced the story from its true context to a very unsuitable place.

**) Mark 1:43: και εμβριμησάμενος αυτω, ευθέως εξέβαλεν αυτόν.

***) ο δε εξελθών ήρξατο κηρύσσειν πολλά και διαφημίζει τον λόγον

6

Furthermore! He has also provided us with the proof that he borrowed this account from Mark. At the end of the two-day work, Jesus heals two blind men – where they come from, we will get to that later! – and when Matthew reports that he threatened and forbade them to speak of the matter, but they went out and made him known everywhere, he uses the same words he found in Mark’s account of the leper, but which he did not need to use when he copied it. He does not want to let the good go to waste *), but he picked up this morsel at the wrong time. That prohibition only makes sense if no one from the crowd is present during the healing, and again only the healed can make the miracle known if the crowd did not see it themselves. This is also the case in Mark’s account of the leper: but Matthew copies the end of this account, even though he must reveal the next moment (9:33), when the blind men had gone out and the dumb man was brought to him, that the usual crowds surrounded Jesus. So why impress on the blind men that prohibition so strongly when the crowd saw the miracle, and why did those men have to chatter first to make their healing known when the crowd had already witnessed the miracle?

*) Matth. 9, 30. 31: και ενεβριμήσατο αυτοίς ο Ι. λ. οράτε, μηδείς γινωσκέτω, οι δε εξελθόντες διαφήμισαν αυτόν.

No one writes like this, and no one gets so lost in their own writing if they have freely conceived the plan of a historical presentation in their head and independently elaborated on the details according to this plan: only a compiler writes like this, who has the works of his predecessors lying on the table on both sides and cannot even overcome them to the extent that he does not get lost in the most glaring contradictions.

7

Only Matthew could shape the center and turning point of the two-day work as he did. Where does the second day begin? Matthew does not tell us. He does report that in the evening when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, he healed all kinds of sick people. But when he continues (Ch. 8, 18) that Jesus, when he saw the crowd around him, gave the command to cross to the other side of the sea and immediately crossed over, and when it continues in one go that he met the two demon-possessed men over there, returned and continued his miracle-working here, if there is nowhere that shows where a night could be inserted, what follows? Firstly, that the two miraculous days become even more wonderful in a third sense – they are two days that immediately followed each other and were not separated by any night. Another consequence is the complete certainty that Matthew also connected something foreign in the middle here and thereby caused this extraordinary accumulation of miracles. Nothing but a keyword, which he finds in two places next to Mark – at the third place it was too closely connected with another event and could not mislead it, Mark 6:47 – nothing but the keyword “when it was evening,” led him into this confusion. Just now, Matthew had written to Mark the news that Jesus had healed the sick “when it was evening” who were brought to him at Peter’s house *): instead of continuing to transcribe that Jesus got up very early and went into the desert, Mark 1:35 – but he couldn’t do that either because he was far beyond the story of the leper, which now follows in Mark 1:40 – he readily moves forward to another place in his predecessor’s writing, where he also finds the formula “when it was evening” and where Jesus in the evening avoids the crowd of people and gives the command to cross over to the other side *), Mark 4:35 – of course, we must add – that even Mark has let himself go at this point, he has let himself go too much, since he also lets Jesus cross over to the other side of the river in the evening, sends the demon-possessed men to him over there, lets him immediately return, sends the crowd back to him on this side and connects the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman with the issue of blood with his arrival on this side, Mark 4:35-5:43. Mark also made a mistake and attached a long series of events to Jesus’ evening departure without mentioning that it had become night, but at least where Matthew first found the formula “when it was evening” in his writing, he did not fail to note that and under what circumstances a night had passed. In addition, he has the important advantage that he already knows that Jesus is in the boat (Ch. 4:36) when he gives the command to cross over, whereas it is incomprehensible to Matthew how Jesus suddenly comes up with the idea of escaping the crowd by boat.

*) Matthew 8:16, Mark 1:32: οψιας γενομενης 

*) Mark 4, 35: και λεγει αυτοις . . . . οψιας γενομενης διελθωμεν εις το περαν. και αφεντες τον οχλον . . . Matth. 8, 18: ιδων δε ο Ιησους πολλους οχλους περι αυτον εκελευσεν απελθειν εις το περαν

8

Yes, in Matthew’s account it is not even clear why Jesus found it necessary to leave Capernaum when he saw the crowds (C. 8, 18.). He had just healed the sick, as the evangelist adds (v. 17.), so that the prophecy would be fulfilled: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.” So why did he withdraw from the work that the spirit of prophecy had already entrusted to him? Why? It is inexplicable. Only in Mark is there a reason when Jesus left early in the morning, after healing all kinds of sick people in the evening. He is only a guest in Capernaum and to fulfill his task of preaching the gospel to neighboring towns, he moves on (Mark 1:38-39). The other time when he was already in the boat when he sailed to the other side, he had done enough, taught the people, and had nothing else to do for the day (Mark 4:35-36).

9

We could have told you from the beginning that two days, on one of which the Sermon on the Mount was delivered, never existed and cannot belong to real history; but we have now provided proof of this statement ourselves, from the nature of the present section. However, we have lost all desire to welcome the apologist who would have sent us a good load of heavenly fire for this “assertion” right at the beginning of our work, now that we have proved this statement from the nature of the present section itself. Not only those diligent yet again so lazy scribes of whom Paulus speaks, but also the two days that were so fortunate to find an observer who “could and would” write, never existed. Only Matthew created these two days through a failed compilation of the information from his predecessors. —-

If he had only really compiled similar material, he could have confused the chronology of his predecessors as much as he wanted or needed for his purpose! But he not only did not do that, he also interrupted the objective order and unity of thought that he found particularly in Mark’s scripture at an important point.

We will not dwell on the fact that he places the healing of the leper before the miracle of Peter’s mother-in-law and before the healing of the crowd of sick people in Capernaum, or that he generally links these miracles so closely to the crossing of the sea and the healing of the two Gadarenes. This combination would not have much significance or justification, as long as the connected events consist of pure miracles, although there would already be an error in placing the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law too late, as it is supposed to serve, according to the original type, to strengthen the bond between Jesus and Capernaum.

10

We will not dwell any longer on the fact that in between the command to cross the sea and the actual entering of the boat in Matthew 8:19-22, there are two verses about true discipleship from Luke 9:57-60 inserted, which interrupt the flow of the narrative too much.

Instead, we will point out that in the midst of this series of miracle reports, Matthew has inserted the account of clashes with the Pharisees that Mark had developed as a separate unit, and not even fully inserted, but distributed to various places. According to Mark’s account, Jesus leaves Peter’s house, where he had entered for the first time, and travels around Galilee, heals the leper, but has to stay in the wilderness when the news of the miracle spreads. Only after several days does he return to Capernaum. Here the contrast with the Pharisees arises immediately, which gradually intensifies on the occasion of Jesus’ entire appearance and breaks out into open accusation. To a paralytic who is brought to him immediately upon his return to the city, Jesus says, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” Then some scribes who happened to be present said to themselves, “Why does he talk like this? He’s blaspheming.” (Mark 2:7) This is followed by the banquet at Levi’s, who had just been called, and the scribes and Pharisees immediately ask Jesus’ disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 2:16) The Pharisees’ fasting and the disciples of John give rise to the following discussion about new wine and old wineskins. Now the Pharisees even have the opportunity to observe how Jesus allows his disciples to break the Sabbath and, when they drew his attention to it, he rebuked them. They even spy on him at another opportunity, to see if he will keep the Sabbath holy, so that they can accuse him (Luke 6:2). He breaks the Sabbath, and they immediately conspire to destroy him. Jesus has to withdraw to the sea, but when the people flock to him, he heals a great number of sick people and is also recognized by the demons. When he returns home after choosing the Twelve, the scribes from Jerusalem are already there, and they now openly come forward with the accusation that he has Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he drives out demons (Matthew 12:22).

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Now, after Mark reports that Jesus, after those collisions, went back to the sea and taught the people in parables, comes the command of Jesus to sail to the other side, the story of the stilling of the storm, the healing of the demoniac in the country of the Gadarenes, and after returning to CapernauAre you anyway we’ll see what happens yeahm, the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman with the issue of blood (Mark 4:35-5:43).

How Matthew came to link the command to sail to the other side with the first visit to Peter’s house, we have already seen: enough, Jesus drives out the demons from two possessed men over there in the land of the Gadarenes and returns to Capernaum, forced by the inhabitants of the shore. But here he cannot immediately meet the crowd that awaited him, nor Jairus. Why? Because Matthew has something else to report before that. When Jesus returned to Capernaum from the journey he took after the first visit to Peter’s house, they brought him the paralytic and the collision with the Pharisees ensued. This and the following events must be reported by Matthew now. On the other hand, he must report at this moment a completely different return of Jesus, which was forced upon him by the Gadarenes on a different occasion. Two entries into Capernaum have become one under his hand: what is left for him to do? He must hurry and not delay the second entry too long. That is, he cannot bring all the complications that Mark follows with the first return to Capernaum here so that Jairus can come out soon enough with his request that he entrusted to the Lord on the occasion of the second return. Therefore, Matthew omits everything from the Sabbath disputes to the accusation of a covenant with the devil, to bring it up later in a different context, and as soon as he brings the Lord to the conversation about new wine and old wineskins, he sends the ruler Jairus to him. As a transition to the new miracle story, he even uses a formula that in Mark’s account introduces not Jairus but his servant, who brings him the news of his daughter’s death*). “While the Lord was still speaking,” namely to the woman with the issue of blood, these servants come with their message, after Jairus had only asked the Lord to heal his dying daughter (Mark 5:35). Matthew sends Jairus to Jesus after the death of his daughter, and “while he was still speaking,” namely about new wine and old wineskins, the grieving father comes to him with the request that he may raise his daughter who had just died. In Mark’s account, that transitional formula is in its place since it leads from one miracle – the healing of the woman with the issue of blood – to the point where – through the now occurred death of the girl – the demand for the other miracle reaches its peak. In Matthew’s account, however, it links two completely unrelated circles, the conflict with the Pharisees and the miraculous activity that the Lord developed when he had to leave the land of the Gadarenes over there. But this link is all the more inappropriate since it cuts the former circle, the image of his entanglements with the Pharisees, in the middle and had to push the other half to a later location.

*) Mark 5, 35: ετι αυτου λαλουντος. Matth. 9, 18 : ταυτα αυτου λαλουντος.

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Finally, let us note that in Matthew’s account, after the raising of Jairus’ daughter, two closely connected healings follow, namely, the healing of the two blind men and the healing of the mute man. However, in the latter, the presence of the crowd is assumed, which is excluded in the former (C. 9, 31, 33.). Thus, our general overview of this presentation of the two-day work is concluded: not only are foreign circles compressed in it, but also miracles are piled up that originally belong to very different contexts.

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Luke, in terms of composition, has remained more faithful to the type of holy history formed by Mark. When he motivates Jesus’ move to Capernaum by the unbelief of the people of Nazareth, he takes his predecessor’s account completely. Jesus teaches in the synagogue of Capernaum, heals the demoniac, Peter’s mother-in-law, and the sick crowd in the evening. In the morning, he sets out to proclaim the gospel in other cities and, after calling Peter on the journey, he heals a leper in one of those cities. Now, while he does not let Jesus return to Capernaum, and forgets to specify the situation of what follows, he does follow the sequence of complications with the Pharisees (Chapters 4, 31 – 6, 11). However, he does not reproduce them entirely, but separates the main charge of the whole, the open accusation of the devil’s alliance, and moves it to another place (Chapter 11, 14). He could not bring it up here, for Jesus’ retreat into solitude at the lake and the selection of the twelve, which, according to Mark’s account, precedes the open attack of the Pharisees, had been reworked for the occasion of the Sermon on the Mount. And now, having already deviated considerably from his predecessor’s type, and unable to connect the discourse on the devil’s alliance, he uses his current emancipation to insert even more material from his own resources into that type. He behaves in fact extraordinarily audacious, as audacious as profane historians may never venture to. After the discourse that Matthew turned into the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord goes to Capernaum, and at the entrance to the city, a centurion, through his friends, asks for help for his dead sick servant. Then follows the miracle at Nain, the message of the Baptist, and the meal at the house of the Pharisee Simon. After these digressions, Luke finally returns to his predecessor’s account, Jesus delivers the parable of the sower, crosses over to the land of the Gadarenes, and after returning, helps Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood (Chapter 8, 1-56).

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So, it is clear that the Sermon on the Mount is mainly responsible for breaking the original type of holy history formed by Mark. It caused Luke to deviate from Mark later on, while Matthew rushed to share it as quickly as possible, to explain why the people were amazed at the Lord’s teaching at the beginning of his work. And so, it happened that he was forced to pile up a multitude of miracles and remarkable entanglements in one place, in order not to fall behind his predecessors.

That’s it for the overview! The specifics of the particular pragmatism of the three accounts, and the changes that the original type underwent through its later editors, will be taught to us by examining each one in detail.

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