Note 61 — Chapter X · THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS, AND HIS LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.

If the first gospel stands alone in this mistake, so, on the other hand, the two intermediate Evangelists have a feature peculiar to themselves, which it is to the advantage of the first to have avoided. We shall merely point out in passing the prolixity with which Mark and Luke (though they, as well as Matthew, make Jesus describe to the two disciples, how they would find the ass, and wherewith they were to satisfy the owner), yet do not spare themselves or the reader the trouble of almost verbally repeating every particular as having occurred (Mark v. 4 ff.; Luke v. 32 ff.); whereas Matthew, with more judgment, contents himself with the observation, and the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. This, as affecting merely the form of the narrative, we shall not dwell on further. But it concerns the substance, that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus desired an animal whereon yet never man sat, ἐφ’ ὃ οὐδεὶς πώποτε ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισε: a particular of which Matthew knows nothing. One does not understand how Jesus could designedly increase the difficulty of his progress, by the choice of a hitherto unridden animal, which, unless he kept it in order by divine omnipotence (for the most consummate human skill would not suffice for this on the first riding), must inevitably have occasioned much disturbance to the triumphal procession, especially as we are not to suppose that it was preceded by its mother, this circumstance having entered into the representation of the first Evangelist only. To such an inconvenience Jesus would assuredly not have exposed himself without a cogent reason: such a reason however appears to lie sufficiently near in the opinion of antiquity, according to which, to use Wetstein’s expression, animalia, usibus humanis nondum mancipata, sacra habebantur; so that thus Jesus, for his consecrated person, and the high occasion of his messianic entrance, may have chosen to use only a sacred animal. But regarded more closely, this reason will appear frivolous, and absurd also; for the spectators had no means of knowing that the ass had never been ridden before, except by the unruliness with which he may have disturbed the peaceful progress of the triumphal train.61 If we are thus unable to comprehend how Jesus could seek an honour for himself in mounting an animal which had never yet been ridden; we shall, on the contrary, find it easy to comprehend how the primitive Christian community might early believe it due to his honour that he should ride only on such an animal, as subsequently that he should lie only in an unused grave. The authors of the intermediate gospels did not hesitate to receive this trait into their memoirs, because they indeed, in writing, would not experience the same inconvenience from the undisciplined animal, which it must have caused to Jesus in riding.