Note 93 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

Having, with Sieffert and Fritzsche, attained this degree of insight, the only remaining question is: to which of the two narratives must we give the preference as the original? Sieffert has answered this question very decidedly in favour of John; not merely, as he maintains, because he shares in the prejudice which attributes to that Evangelist the character of an eye-witness; but also because his narrative is in this part, by its intrinsic evidence of truthfulness, and the vividness of its scenes, advantageously distinguished from that of Matthew, which presents no indications of an autoptical origin. For example, while John is able to describe with the utmost minuteness the manner in which Jesus indicated his betrayer: the narrative of the first gospel is such as to induce the conjecture that its author had only received the general information, that Jesus had personally indicated his betrayer.93 It certainly cannot be denied, that the direct answer which Jesus gives to Judas in Matthew (v. 25) has entirely the appearance of having been framed, without much fertility of imagination, to accord with the above general information; and in so far it must be regarded as inferior to the more indirect, and therefore more probable mode of indicating the traitor, in John. But in relation to another feature, the result of the comparison is different. In the two first Evangelists Jesus says: he who has dipped or who dippeth with me, ὁ ἐμβάψας or ἐμβαπτόμενος μετ’ ἐμοῦ: in John, he to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it, ᾧ ἐγὼ βάψας τὸ ψωμίον ἐπιδώσω; a difference in which the greater preciseness of the indication, and consequently the inferior probability, is on the side of the fourth gospel. In Luke, Jesus designates the traitor merely as one of those who are sitting at meat with him; and as regards the expression ὁ ἐμβάψας κ.τ.λ. in Matthew and Mark, the interpretation given of it by Kuinöl and Henneberg,94 who suppose it to mean one of the party at table, leaving it uncertain which, is not so mistaken as Olshausen represents it to be. For, first, to the question of the several disciples, is it I? Jesus might see fit to return an evasive answer; and secondly, the above answer, as Kuinöl has correctly remarked, stands in the relation of an appropriate climax to the previous declaration: one of you shall betray me (v. 21), since it presents that aggravating circumstance of the betrayal, fellowship at table. Even if the authors of the two first gospels understood the expression in question to imply, that Judas in particular dipped his hand in the dish with Jesus, and hence supposed this second declaration to have indicated him personally: still the parallel passage in Luke, and the words εἶς ἐκ τῶν δώδεκα, one of the twelve, which in Mark precede ὁ ἐμβαπτόμενος, show that originally the second expression was merely an amplification of the former, though from the wish to have a thoroughly unequivocal designation of the betrayer on the part of Jesus, it was early interpreted in the other more special sense. When, however, a legendary exaggeration of the preciseness of the indication is once admitted, the manner in which the fourth gospel describes that indication must be included in the series of progressive representations, and according to Sieffert, it must have been the original from which all the rest proceeded. But if we beforehand renounce the affirmative reply to Judas, σὺ εἶπας, thou hast said, in Matthew, the mode of designation in John is the most definite of all; for the intimation: one of my companions at table, is comparatively indefinite, and even the expression: he who dippeth with me in the dish, is a less direct sign of the traitor, than if Jesus had himself dipped the morsel and presented it to him. Now is it in the spirit of the ancient legend, if Jesus really gave the more precise designation, to lose its hold of this, and substitute one less precise, so as to diminish the miracle of the foreknowledge exhibited by Jesus? Assuredly not; but rather the very reverse holds true. Hence we conclude that Matthew, together with the unhistorically precise, has yet at the same time preserved the historically less precise; whereas John has entirely lost the latter and has retained only the former.