Note 103 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

In this exigency of having to reconcile two contradictory commands given on the same day, the comparison with the Acts presented a welcome help by indicating a distinction of the times. Here, namely, the command of Jesus that the disciples should not leave Jerusalem is placed in his last appearance, forty days after the resurrection, and immediately before the ascension: at the close of the gospel of Luke it is likewise in the last interview, terminating in the ascension, that the above command is given. Now though from the summary representation of the gospel taken by itself, it must be believed that all occurred on the very day of the resurrection: we nevertheless see, it is said, from the history of the Acts by the same author, that between v. 43 and 44 in the last chapter of his gospel we must interpose the forty days from the resurrection to the ascension. Herewith, then, the apparent contradiction between these two commands vanishes: for one who in the first instance indeed enjoins a journey into Galilee, may very well forty days later, after this journey has been made, and the parties are once more in the metropolis, now forbid any further removal from thence.103 But as the dread of admitting a contradiction between different New Testament authors is no ground for departing from the natural interpretation of their expressions: so neither can this be justified by the apprehension that the same author may in different writings contradict himself; since if the one were written somewhat later than the other, the author may in the interim have been on many points otherwise informed, than when he composed his first work. That this was actually the case with Luke in relation to that part of the life of Jesus which followed his resurrection, we shall have reason to be convinced when we come to the history of the ascension: and this conclusion removes all ground for interposing nearly five weeks between the ἔφαγεν, v. 43, and εἶπε δὲ, v. 44, in defiance of their obviously immediate connexion; at the same time, however, it does away with the possibility of reconciling the opposite commands of Jesus in Matthew and Luke by a distinction of times.