Chapter VI · THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS.1

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§ 76.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.

In reviewing the public life of Jesus, we may separate from the events those discourses which were not merely incidental, but which stand independent and entire. This distinction, however, is not precise, for many discourses, owing to the occurrences that suggested them, may be classed as events; and many events, from the explanations annexed to them, seem to range themselves with the discourses. The discourses of Jesus given in the synoptical gospels, and those attributed to him in the fourth, differ widely both in form and matter, having only a few isolated sentences in common: they must, therefore, be subjected to a separate examination. Again, there is a dissimilitude between the three first Evangelists: Matthew affects long discourses, and collects into one mass a number of sayings, which in Luke are distributed among various places and occasions; each of these two Evangelists has also some discourses peculiar to himself. In Mark, the element of discourses exists in a very small proportion. Our purpose will, therefore, be best answered, if we make Matthew’s comprehensive discourses our starting point; ascertain all the corresponding ones in the other gospels; inquire which amongst them has the best arrangement and representation of these discourses; and, finally, endeavour to form a judgment as to how far they really proceeded from the lips of Jesus.

The first long discourse in Matthew is that known as the Sermon on the Mount (v.–vii.). The Evangelist, having recorded the return of Jesus after his baptism into Galilee, and the calling of the fishermen, informs us, that Jesus went through all Galilee, teaching and healing; that great multitudes followed him from all parts of Palestine; and that for their instruction he ascended a mountain, and delivered the sermon in question (iv. 23 ff.). We seek in vain for its parallel in Mark, but Luke (vi. 20–49) gives a discourse which has the same introduction and conclusion, and presents in its whole tenor the most striking similarity with that of Matthew; moreover, in both cases, Jesus, at the termination of his discourse, goes to Capernaum, and heals the centurion’s servant. It is true that Luke gives a later insertion to the discourse, for previous to it he narrates many journeyings and cures of Jesus, which Matthew places after it; and while the latter represents Jesus as ascending a mountain, and being seated there during delivery of his discourse, Luke says, almost in contradiction to him, that Jesus came down and stood in the plain. Further, the sermon in Luke contains but a fourth part of that in Matthew, while it has some elements peculiarly its own.

The foregoing comparison shows us that the discourses of Jesus, like fragments of granite, could not be dissolved by the flood of oral tradition; but they were not seldom torn from their natural connexion, floated away from their original situation, and deposited in places to which they did not properly belong. Relative to this effect, there is this distinction between the three first Evangelists; Matthew, like an able compiler, though far from being sufficiently informed to give each relic in its original connexion, has yet for the most part succeeded in judiciously associating analogous materials; while the two other Evangelists have left many small fragments just where chance threw them, in the intervals between longer discourses. Luke has laboured in some instances to combine these fragments artificially, but he could not thus compensate for the absence of natural connexion.

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§ 77.

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE TWELVE. LAMENTATIONS OVER THE GALILEAN CITIES. JOY OVER THE CALLING OF THE SIMPLE.

The first gospel (x.) reports another long discourse as having been delivered by Jesus, on the occasion of his sending out the twelve to preach the kingdom of heaven. Part of this discourse is peculiar to the first gospel; that portion of it which is common to the two other synoptists is only partially assigned by them to the same occasion, Luke introducing its substance in connexion with the mission of the seventy (x. 2 ff.), and in a subsequent conversation with the disciples (xii. 2 ff.). Some portion of the discourse is also found repeated both in Matthew and the other Evangelists, in the prophetic description given by Jesus of his second advent.

Much that is peculiar to Matthew in this discourse, appears to be merely an amplification on thoughts which are also found in the corresponding passages of the two other synoptists; but there are two particulars in the opening of the instructions as detailed by the former, which differ specifically from anything presented by his fellow Evangelists. These are the limitation of the agency of the disciples to the Jews (v. 5, 6), and the commission (associated with that to announce the kingdom of heaven and heal the sick, of which Luke also speaks, ix. 2), to raise the dead: a surprising commission, since we know of no instances previous to the departure of Jesus, in which the apostles raised the dead; and to suppose such when they are not narrated, after the example of Olshausen, is an expedient to which few will be inclined.

All that the synoptists have strictly in common in the instructions to the twelve, are the rules for their external conduct; how they were to journey, and how to behave under a variety of circumstances (Matt. v. 9–11, 14; Mark vi. 8–11; Luke ix. 3–5). Here, however, we find a discrepancy; according to Matthew and Luke, Jesus forbids the disciples to take with them, not only gold, a scrip, and the like, but even shoes, ὑποδήματα, and a staff, ῥάβδον; according to Mark, on the contrary, he merely forbids their taking more than a staff and sandals, εἰ μὴ ῥάβδον μόνον and σανδάλια. This discrepancy is most easily accounted for by the admission, that tradition only preserved a reminiscence of Jesus having signified the simplicity of the apostolic equipment by the mention of the staff and shoes, and that hence one of the Evangelists understood that Jesus had interdicted all travelling requisites except these; the other, that these also were included in his prohibition. It was consistent with Mark’s love of the picturesque to imagine a wandering apostle furnished with a staff, and therefore to give the preference to the former view.

The joy, ἀγαλλίασις, expressed by Jesus (v. 25–27) on account of the insight afforded to babes, νηπίοις, is but loosely attached by Matthew to the preceding maledictions. As it supposes a change in the mental frame of Jesus, induced by pleasing circumstances, Luke (x. 17, 21 ff.), would have all the probabilities on his side, in making the return of the seventy with satisfactory tidings the cause of the above expression; were it not that the appointment of the seventy, and consequently their return, are altogether problematical; besides, it is possible to refer the passage in question to the return of the twelve from their mission. Matthew connects with this rejoicing of Jesus his invitation to the weary and heavy laden (v. 28–30). This is wanting in Luke, who, instead, makes Jesus turn to his disciples privately, and pronounce them blessed in being privileged to see and hear things which many prophets and kings yearned after in vain (23 f.): an observation which does not so specifically agree with the preceding train of thought, as the context assigned to it by Matthew, and which is moreover inserted by the latter Evangelist in a connexion (xiii. 16 f.) that may be advantageously confronted with that of Luke.

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§ 78.

THE PARABLES.

In conclusion, we turn to a group of parables, among which some, as relating to the death and return of Christ, ought, according to our plan, to be excepted from the present review; but so far as they are connected with the rest, it is necessary to include them. They are the three parables of the rebellious husbandmen in the vineyard (Matt. xxi. 33 ff. parall.), of the talents or minæ (Matt. xxv. 14 ff.; Luke xix. 12 ff.), and the marriage feast (Matt. xxii. 2ff.; Luke xiv. 16 ff.). Of these the parable of the husbandmen in all the accounts, that of the talents in Matthew, and that of the marriage feast in Luke, are simple parables, unattended with difficulty. Not so the parable of the minæ in Luke, and of the marriage feast in Matthew. That the former is fundamentally the same with that of the talents in Matthew, is undeniable, notwithstanding the many divergencies. In both are found the journey of a master; the assembling of the servants to entrust them with a capital, to be put into circulation; after the return of the master, a reckoning in which three servants are signalized, two of them as active, the third as inactive, whence the latter is punished, and the former rewarded; and in the annunciation of this issue the words of the master are nearly identical in the two statements. The principal divergency is, that besides the relation between the master who journeys into a far country and his servants, in Luke there is a second relation between the former and certain rebellious citizens; and accordingly, while in Matthew the master is simply designated ἄνθρωπος, a man, in Luke he is styled ἅνθρωπος εὐγενὴς, a nobleman, and a kingdom is assigned to him, the object of his journey being to receive for himself a kingdom: an object of which there is no mention in Matthew. The subjects of this personage, it is further said, hated him, and after his departure renounced their allegiance. Hence at the return of the lord, the rebellious citizens, as well as the slothful servant, are punished; but in their case the retribution is that of death: the faithful servants, on the other hand, are not only rewarded generally by an entrance into the joy of their Lord, but royally, by the gift of a number of cities. There are other divergencies of less moment between Luke and Matthew; such as, that the number of servants is undetermined by the one, and limited to ten by the other; that in Matthew they receive talents, in Luke minæ; in the one unequal sums, in the other equal; in the one, they obtain unequal profits from unequal sums by an equal expenditure of effort, and are therefore equally rewarded; in the other, they obtain unequal profits from equal sums by an unequal expenditure of effort, and are therefore unequally rewarded.

A similar relation subsists between the form in which the parable of the marriage feast is given by Luke (xiv. 16 ff.), and that in which it is given by Matthew (xxii. 2 ff.); only that in this case Luke, as in the other, Matthew, has the merit of having preserved the simple original version. On both sides, the particulars of the feast, the invitation, its rejection, and the consequent bidding of other guests, testify the identity of the two parables; but, on the other hand, the host who in Luke is merely a certain man, ἄνθρωπος τις, is in Matthew a king, βασιλεὺς, whose feast is occasioned by the marriage of his son; the invited guests, who in Luke excuse themselves on various pleas to the messenger only once sent out to them, in Matthew refuse to come on the first invitation, and on the second more urgent one some go to their occupations, while others maltreat and kill the servants of the king, who immediately sends forth his armies to destroy those murderers, and burn up their city. Nothing of this is to be found in Luke; according to him, the host merely causes the poor and afflicted to be assembled in place of the guests first invited, a particular which Matthew also appends to his fore-mentioned incidents. Luke closes the parable with the declaration of the host, that none of the first bidden guests shall partake of his supper; but Matthew proceeds to narrate how, when the house was full, and the king had assembled his guests, one was discovered to be without a wedding garment, and was forthwith carried away into outer darkness.

This analysis gives us an insight into the procedure of evangelical tradition with its materials, which must be pregnant with results.

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§ 79.

MISCELLANEOUS INSTRUCTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES OF JESUS.

After having considered all the discourses of Jesus given by Matthew, and compared them with their parallels, with the exception of those which had come before us in previous discussions, or which have yet to come before us in our examination of single incidents in the public ministry, or of the history of the passion: it might appear requisite to the completeness of our criticism, that we should also give a separate investigation to the connexion in which the two other synoptists give the discourses of Jesus, and from this point review the parallels in Matthew. But we have already cast a comparative glance over the most remarkable discourses in Luke and Mark, and gone through the parables which are peculiar to each; and as to the remainder of what they offer in the form of discourses, it will either come under our future consideration, or if not, the point of view from which it is to be criticised, has been sufficiently indicated in the foregoing investigations.

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