Note 41 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.
George Eliot translation
Hence it is more easy to agree with Theile’s opinion, that the author of the fourth gospel has inserted the incident, correctly placed by the synoptists, in a false position.41 Jesus having said, as an introduction to the answer which he returned to the request of the Greeks, that they might see the man who had been so glorified by his entrance into the city: Yes, the hour of my glorification is come, but of glorification by death (xii. 23 f.): this led the narrator astray, and induced him, instead of giving the real answer of Jesus to the Greeks together with the result, to make Jesus dilate on the intrinsic necessity of his death, and then almost unconsciously to interweave the description of the internal conflict which Jesus had to experience in virtue of his voluntary sacrifice, whence he subsequently, in its proper place, omits this conflict. There is nothing strange in Theile’s opinion, except that he supposes it possible for the Apostle John to have made such a transposition. That the scene in Gethsemane, from his having been asleep while it was passing, was not deeply imprinted on his mind, and that it was besides thrust into the background of his memory by the crucifixion which shortly followed, might have been considered explanatory of an entire omission, or a merely summary account of the scene on his part, but by no means of an incorrect position. If notwithstanding his sleepiness at the time, he had taken any notice of the event, he must at least have retained thus much—that that peculiar state of mind in Jesus befel him close upon the commencement of his sufferings, in the night and in privacy: how could he ever so far belie his memory as to make the scene take place at a much earlier period, in the open day, and among many people? Rather than thus endanger the authenticity of the Gospel of John, others, alleging the possibility that such a state of mind might occur more than once in the latter part of the life of Jesus, deny the identity of the two scenes.42