Note 73 — Chapter V · THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS.

Had Jesus, then, under the pressing circumstances that mark his public career, nothing more important to do than to cast about for significant numbers, and to surround himself with inner and outer circles of disciples, regulated by these mystic measures? or rather, is not this constant preference for sacred numbers, this assiduous development of an idea to which the number of the apostles furnished the suggestion, wholly in the spirit of the primitive Christian legend? This, supposing it imbued with Jewish prepossessions, would infer, that as Jesus had respect to the twelve tribes in fixing the number of his apostles, he would extend the parallel by appointing seventy subordinate disciples, corresponding to the seventy elders; or, supposing the legend animated by the more universal sentiments of Paul, it could not escape the persuasion that to the symbol of the relation of his office to the Israelitish people, Jesus would annex another, significative of its destination for all the kindreds of the earth. However agreeable this class of seventy disciples may have always been to the church, as a series of niches for the reception of men who, without belonging to the twelve, were yet of importance to her, as Mark, Luke and Matthew; we are compelled to pronounce the decision of our most recent critic precipitate, and to admit that the Gospel of Luke, by its acceptance of such a narrative, destitute as it is of all historical confirmation, and of any other apparent source than dogmatical interests, is placed in disadvantageous comparison with that of Matthew. We gather, indeed, from Acts i. 21 f. that Jesus had more than the twelve as his constant companions; but that these formed a body of exactly seventy, or that that number was selected from them, does not seem adequately warranted73.