Note 46 — Chapter X · THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS, AND HIS LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.

Even concerning the close of the journey of Jesus—concerning the last station before he reached Jerusalem, the Evangelists are not entirely in unison. While from the synoptical gospels it appears, that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the same day on which he left Jericho, and consequently without halting long at any intervening place (Matt. xx. 34, xxi. 1 ff. parall.): the fourth gospel makes him go from Ephraim only so far as Bethany, spend the night there, and enter Jerusalem only on the following day (xii. 1, 12 ff.). In order to reconcile the two accounts it is said: we need not wonder that the synoptists, in their summary narrative, do not expressly touch upon the spending of the night in Bethany, and we are not to infer from this that they intended to deny it; there exists, therefore, no contradiction between them and John, but what they present in a compact form, he exhibits in detail.46 But while Matthew does not even name Bethany, the two other synoptists mention this place in a way which decidedly precludes the supposition that Jesus spent the night there. They narrate that when Jesus came near to Bethphage and Bethany, ὡς ἤγγισεν εἰς Βηθφαγῆ καὶ Βηθανίαν, he caused an ass to be fetched from the next village, and forthwith rode on this into the city. Between events so connected it is impossible to imagine a night interposed; on the contrary, the narrative fully conveys the impression that immediately on the message of Jesus, the ass was surrendered by its owner, and that immediately after the arrival of the ass, Jesus prepared to enter the city. Moreover, if Jesus intended to remain in Bethany for the night, it is impossible to discover his motive in sending for the ass. For if we are to suppose the village to which he sent to be Bethany, and if the animal on which he purposed to ride would not be required until the following morning, there was no need for him to send forward the disciples, and he might conveniently have waited until he arrived with them in Bethany; the other alternative, that before he had reached Bethany, and ascertained whether the animal he required might not be found there, he should have sent beyond this nearest village to Bethphage, in order there to procure an ass for the following morning, is altogether destitute of probability; and yet Matthew, at least, says decidedly that the ass was procured in Bethphage. To this it may be added, that according to the representation of Mark, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the evening ὀψία, had already commenced (xi. 11), and consequently it was only possible for him to take a cursory survey of the city and the temple, after which he again returned to Bethany. It is not, certainly, to be proved that the fourth gospel lays the entrance in the morning; but it must be asked, why did not Jesus, when he only came from so near a place as Bethany, set out earlier from thence, that he might have time to do something worth speaking of in Jerusalem? The late arrival of Jesus in the city, as stated by Mark, is evidently to be explained only by the longer distance from Jericho thither; if he came from Bethany merely, he would scarcely set out so late, as that after he had only looked round him in the city, he must again return to Bethany, in order on the following day to set out earlier, which nothing had hindered him from doing on this day. It is true that, in deferring the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem until late in the evening, Mark is not supported by the two other synoptists, for these represent Jesus as undertaking the purification of the temple on the day of his arrival, and Matthew even makes him perform cures, and give answers to the high priests and scribes (Matt. xxi. 12 ff.): but even without this statement as to the hour of entrance, the arrival of Jesus near to the above villages, the sending of the disciples, the bringing of the ass, and the riding into the city, are too closely consecutive, to allow of our inserting in the narrative of the synoptists a night’s residence in Bethany.