Chapter XIII · RESURGENCE OF THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM

Luke inserts the episode of the mission of the seventy, with the usual lack of time measurement, between the mission of the twelve and the decisive visit to Jerusalem. In this narrative, the twelve bring back no message, merely reporting “what things they had done.” Their mission is in effect made of no account: we read of more miracles, predictions of the approaching tragedy, the Transfiguration, and a series of episodes disparaging the disciples; and then we come upon the mission of the seventy, who are “sent two and two before his face into every city and place whither he himself was about to come.” To the seventy is now ascribed the joyful report which the Weiss school calmly assign to the Primitive Gospel, and ascribe to the returning twelve, though Matthew and Mark have no mention of it. Thus Luke is in effect represented as connecting with a new mission story a result which he found connected in the primitive story with the mission of the twelve, while Matthew and Mark had seen fit to suppress the result altogether.

What gain in credibility, then, is effected by substituting the “selection” theory for one in which the third evangelist is implicitly represented as a framer of fiction? For Dr. Petrie, the story of the seventy is a logion ignored by the first two Gospel-makers, presumably as serving no purpose, albeit one of the most important items in the history. What kind of narrators, then, were the men who passed it over? The alternatives are equally destructive to credence: on either view we are dealing with men who would invent anything or suppress anything. And yet the subject of the missions lies at the core of the historical problem. To the eye of rational criticism it is an evolving legend. If we take Mark as the first selector or collector, we have the twelve sent forth “by two and two” without money or supplies; with authority over unclean spirits; and with no specified message whatever, though the twelve are to make a solemn and minatory testimony against those who refuse to hear them. “And they went out, and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.” They make no report.

In Matthew, similarly, the twelve are empowered to cast out spirits and heal diseases, and are “sent forth” with a peremptory veto on any visit to Samaritans or Gentiles, to “preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: freely ye received, freely give.” As in Mark, they are to go unfurnished; and are to withhold their peace from the unworthy, testifying as aforesaid. Then ensues a long discourse, with no explanation of the kingdom of heaven, though the missioners are to “proclaim upon the housetops” what they “hear in the ear.” Then, “when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and preach in their cities.” Of the mission there is not another word: the disciples are not even mentioned as returning.

In face of all this the methods of the Bernhard Weiss school and the selection theory are alike invalid. They furnish no explanation. The third Gospel is simply substituting a mission to the Gentiles for a mission to the Jews, under cover of a story of a preparatory mission to all the places that were to be visited by the Teacher on his way to his death at Jerusalem. The seventy—in some MSS. seventy-two—stand for the seventy or seventy-two peoples into whom, by Jewish tradition, mankind was divided. The notion that a genuine logion of this kind was all along lying ready to be used is surely fantastic. It is a planned myth, eking out the main myth. It yields only the same Gospel of one phrase, not meant to be understood by the hearers. But it carries in symbol a provision for the Gentiles; and immediately upon it there follows the story of the Good Samaritan, demonstrating that the real tie among men is not nationality but humanity, and impeaching the fanaticism and hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders.

Facing once more the sharp antithesis between this and the strictly Judaic command in Matthew, we dismiss as a futility the notion that the same teacher delivered both about the same time, and that the pro-Gentile compiler merely “selected” one and dropped the other. The two sayings are framed for two schools or two sects; and it is idle to see history in either. If the deified Teacher had delivered the first, the second would have been a daring blasphemy. They are alike but men’s counsels ascribed to “the Lord.” To this conclusion we are always driven. The starting-point of the diverging sects must be looked for in something else than a body of oracular teaching of any kind.