Part 2 — I. The Gospel Of The Hebrews. (continued 2)

According to St. Matthew, after the Sermon on the Mount, Christ heals the leper, then enters Capernaum, where he receives the prayer of the centurion, and forthwith enters into Peter's house, where he cures the mother-in-law, and the same night crosses the sea.

But according to St. Mark, Christ cast out the unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum, then healed Peter's wife's mother, and, not the same night but long after, crossed the sea. On his return he went through the villages preaching, and then healed the leper.

The accounts are the same, but the order is altogether different. The deutero-Matthew must have had the material used by Mark under his eye, for he adopts it into his narrative; but he cannot have had St. Mark's Gospel, or he would not have so violently disturbed the order of events.

The compiler has been guilty of an inaccuracy in the use of “Gergesenes” instead of Gadarenes. St. Mark is right. Gadara was situated near the river Hieromax, east of the Sea of Galilee, over against Scythopolis and Tiberias, and capital of Peraea. This agrees exactly with what is said in the Gospels of the miracle performed [pg 179] in the “country of the Gadarenes.” The swine rushed violently down a steep place and perished in the lake. Jesus had come from the N.W. shore of the Sea to Gadara in the S.E. But the country of the Gergesenes can hardly be the same as that of the Gadarenes. Gerasa, the capital, was on the Jabbok, some days' journey distant from the lake. The deutero-Matthew was therefore ignorant of the topography of the neighbourhood whence Levi, that is Matthew, was called.

St. Mark says that Christ healed one demoniac in the synagogue of Capernaum, then crossed the lake, and healed the second in Gadara. But St. Matthew, or rather the Greek compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel, has fused these two events into one, and makes Christ heal both possessed men in the country of the Gergesenes. In like manner we have twice the healing of two blind men (ix. 27 and xx. 30), whereas the other evangelists know of only single blind men being healed on both occasions. How comes this? The compiler had two accounts of each miracle of healing the blind, slightly varying. He thought they referred to the same occasion, but to different persons, and therefore made Christ heal two men, whereas he had given sight to but one.

In the former case the compiler had not such a circumstantial account of the restoration to sound mind of the demoniac in the synagogue as St. Mark had received from St. Peter. He knew only that on the occasion of Christ's visit to the Sea of Tiberias he had recovered two men who were possessed, and so he made the healing of both take place simultaneously at the same spot.

An equally remarkable instance of the fact that St. Matthew's Gospel was made up of fragmentary “recollections” by various eye-witnesses, is that of the dumb man possessed with a devil, in ix. 32. At Capernaum, [pg 180] after having restored Jairus' daughter to life and healed the two blind men, the same day the dumb man is brought to him. The devil is cast out, the dumb speaks, and the Pharisees say, “He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.”

This is exactly the same account which has been used by St. Luke (xi. 14). But in xii. 22 we have the same incident over again. There is brought unto Christ one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb; him Christ heals; whereupon the Pharisees say, “This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” Then follows the solemn warning against blasphemy.

It is clear that the Greek compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel must have had two independent accounts of this miracle, one with the warning against blasphemy appended to it, the other without. He gives both accounts, one as occurring at Capernaum, the other much later, after Jesus had gone about Galilee preaching, and the Pharisees had conspired against him.

St. Matthew says that after the healing of Peter's wife's mother, Jesus, that same evening, cured many sick, and in the night crossed to the country of the Gergesenes. But St. Mark says that he remained that night at Capernaum, and rose early next morning before day, and went into a solitary place. According to him, this crossing over the sea did not occur till long after.

The following table will show how remarkably discordant is the arrangement of events in the two evangels. The order of succession differs, but not the events and teaching recorded; surely a proof that both writers composed these Gospels out of similar but fragmentary accounts available to both. The following table will show this disagreement at a glance.

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St. Matthew. St. Mark.

(At Capernaum), iv. 13. (At Capernaum), i. 21.

1. Goes about preaching in the villages of Galilee (23), 1. Heals man with unclean spirit (23-28).

2. Sermon on the Mount (v.-vii.). 5. Peter's mother-in-law healed (30, 31).

3. Leper cleansed (viii. 2-4). 6. At even heals the sick (32-34).

4. Centurion's servant healed (5-13).

5. Peter's wife's mother healed (14, 15). Next day rises early and goes into a solitary place (35-37). (Leaves Capernaum).

6. At even cures the sick (16). 1. Goes about the villages of Galilee (38-39).

7. Same night crosses the sea (18-27). 3. Heals the leper (40, 41).

(In the country of Gergesenes). (Outside the town of Capernaum), 45.

8. Heals two demoniacs (28-39).

(Returns to Capernaum), ix. 1. (Returns to Capernaum), ii. 1.

9. Sick of the palsy healed (2-8). 9. Sick of the palsy healed (2-13).

10. Calls Matthew (9).

11. Hemorrhitess cured (20-22). 10. Levi called (14).

12. Jairus' daughter restored (18-26). 19. Plucks the ears of corn (23-28).

13. Two blind men healed (27-30). 20. Heals the withered hand (iii. 1-5).

14. Dumb man healed (32, 33). 21. Consultation against Jesus (6). (Leaves Capernaum), 7.

15. Warning against blasphemy (34). 6. Heals many sick (10-12).

(Goes about Galilee), 35 and xi. 1. Goes into a mountain and

16. Sends out the Twelve (x). chooses the Twelve (13-19).

(Probably at Capernaum). 15, 23. The Pharisees blaspheme;

17. John's disciples come to him (xi. 2-6). warning against blasphemy (22-30).

18. Denunciation of cities of Galilee (20-24). 24. Mother and brethren seek him (31-35).

19. Plucks the ears of com (xii. 1-9). 25. Teaches from the ship; parable of the sower (iv. 1-20).

20. Heals the withered hand (10-13). 7. Crosses the lake in a storm (35-41).

21. Consultation against Jesus (14). (In the country of Gadarenes).

(Leaves Capernaum), 15. 8. Heals the demoniac (v. 1-20).

22. Heals deaf and dumb man (22). (Returns to Capernaum), 21.

23. Denunciation of blasphemy (24-32). 11. Hemorrhitess healed (25-34).

12. Jairus' daughter restored (22-43).

24. Mother and brethren seek Jesus (46-50). 16. Sends out the Twelve (vi. 7-13).

25. Teaches from the ship; parable of sower (xiii. 1-12).

(Returns to his own country), 53.

The order in St. Luke is again different. Jesus calls Levi, chooses the Twelve, preaches the sermon on the plain, heals the Centurion's servant, goes then from place to place preaching. Then occurs the storm on the lake, and after having healed the demoniac Jesus returns to Capernaum, cures the woman with the bloody flux, raises Jairus' daughter and sends out the Twelve.

In the Gospel of St. Mark, the parable of the sower is spoken on “the same day” on which, in the evening, Jesus crosses the lake in a storm.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, this parable is spoken long after, on “the same day” as his mother and brethren seek him, and this is after he has been in the country of the Gadarenes, has returned to Capernaum, gone about Galilee preaching, come back again to Capernaum, but has been driven away again by the conspiracy of the Pharisees.

It would appear from an examination of the two Gospels that articles 23, 24 and 25 composed one document, for both St. Matthew and St. Mark used it as it is, in a block, only they differ as to where to build it in.

19, 20 and 21 formed another block of Apostolic Memorabilia, and was built in by the deutero-Matthew in one place and by St. Mark in another. 5 and 6, and again 9 and 10, were smaller compound recollections which the compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel and St. Mark obtained in their concrete forms. On the other hand, 3 and 16 formed recollections consisting of but one member, and are thrust into the narrative where the two compilers severally thought most suitable. We are [pg 183] therefore led by the comparison of the order in which events in our Lord's life are related by St. Matthew and St. Mark, to the conclusion, that the author of the first Gospel as it stands had not St. Mark's Gospel in its complete form before him when he composed his record.

We have yet another proof that this was so.

St. Matthew's Gospel is not so full in its account of some incidents in our Lord's life as is the Gospel of St. Mark.

The compiler of the first Gospel has shown throughout his work the greatest anxiety to insert every particular he could gather relating to the doings and sayings of Jesus. This has led him into introducing the same event or saying over a second time if he found more than one version of it. Had he all the material collected in St. Mark's Gospel at his disposal, he would not have omitted any of it.

But we do not find in St. Matthew's Gospel the following passages:

Mark iv. 26-29, the parable of the seed springing up, a type of the growth of the Gospel without further labour to the minister than that of spreading it abroad. The meaning of this parable is different from that in Matt. xii. 24-30, and therefore the two parables are not to be regarded as identical.

Mark viii. 22-26. By omitting the narrative of what took place at Bethsaida, an apparent gap occurs in the account of St. Matthew after xvi. 4-12. The journey across the sea leads one to expect that Christ and his disciples will land somewhere on the coast. But Matthew, without any mention of a landing at Bethsaida, translates Jesus and the apostolic band to Caesarea Philippi. But in Mark, Jesus and his disciples land at Bethsaida, and after having performed a miracle of healing there on a blind man—a miracle, the particulars of [pg 184] which are very full and interesting—they go on foot to Caesarea Philippi (viii. 27). That the compiler of the first Gospel should have left this incident out deliberately is not credible.

Mark ix. 38, 39. In St. Matthew's collection of the Logia of our Lord there existed probably the saying of Christ, “He that is not with me is against me” (Matt. xii. 30). St. Mark narrates the circumstances which called forth this remark. But the deutero-Matthew evidently did not know of these circumstances; he therefore leaves the saying in his record without explanation.276

Mark xii. 41-44. The beautiful story of the poor widow throwing her two mites into the treasury, and our blessed Lord's commendation of her charity, is not to be found in St. Matthew's Gospel. Is it possible that he could have omitted such an exquisite anecdote had he possessed it?

Mark xiv. 51, 52. The account of the young man following, having the linen cloth cast about his naked body, who, when caught, left the linen cloth in the hands of his captors and ran off naked—an account which so unmistakably exhibits the narrative to have been the record of some eye-witness of the scene, is omitted in St. Matthew. On this no stress, however, can be laid. The deutero-Matthew may have thought the incident too unimportant to be mentioned.

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Enough has been said to show conclusively that the deutero-Matthew, if we may so term the compiler of the first Canonical Gospel, had not St. Mark's Gospel before him when he wrote his own, that he did not cut up the Gospel of Mark, and work the shreds into his own web.

Both Gospels are mosaics, composed in the same way. But the Gospel of St. Mark was composed only of the “recollections” of St. Peter, whereas that of St. Matthew was more composite. Some of the pieces which were used by Mark were used also by the deutero-Matthew. This is patent: how it was so needs explanation.

It is probable that when the apostles founded churches, their instructions on the sayings and doings of Jesus were taken down, and in the absence of the apostles were read by the president of the congregation. The Epistles which they sent were, we know, so read,277 and were handed on from one church to another.278 But what was far more precious to the early believers than any letters of the apostles about the regulation of controversies, were their recollections of the Lord, their Memorabilia, as Justin calls them. The earliest records show us the Gospels read at the celebration of the Eucharist.279 The ancient Gospels were not divided into chapters, but into the portions read on Sundays and festivals, like our “Church Services.” Thus the Peschito version in use in the Syrian churches was divided in this manner: “Fifth day of the week of the Candidates” (Matt. ix. 5-17), “For the commemoration of the Dead” (18-26), “Friday in the fifth week in the Fast” (27-38), “For the commemoration of the Holy Apostles” (36-38, x. 1-15), “For the commemoration of Martyrs” (16-33), “Lesson for the Dead” (34-42), “Oblation for the beheading of [pg 186] John” (xi. 1-15), “Second day in the third week of the Fast” (16-24).

To these fragmentary records St. Luke alludes when he says that “many had taken in hand to arrange in a consecutive account (ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν) those things which were most fully believed” amongst the faithful. These he “traced up from the beginning accurately one after another” (παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς). Here we have clearly the existence of records disconnected originally, which many strung together in consecutive order, and St. Luke takes pains, as he tells us, to make this order chronological.

Some Churches had certain Memorabilia, others had a different set. That of Antioch had the recollections of St. Peter, that of Jerusalem the recollections of St. James, St. Simeon and St. Jude. St. Luke indicates the source whence he drew his account of the nativity and early years of the Lord,—the recollections of St. Mary, the Virgin Mother, communicated to him orally. He speaks of the Blessed Virgin as keeping the things that happened in her heart and pondering on them.280 Another time it is contemporaries, Mary certainly included.281 On both occasions it is in reference to events connected with our Lord's infancy. Why did he thus insist on her having taken pains to remember these things? Surely to show whence he drew his information. He narrates these events on the testimony of her word; and her word is to be relied on; for these things, he assures us, were deeply impressed on her memory.

The “Memorabilia” in use in the different Churches founded by the apostles would probably be strung together in such order as they were generally read. How early the Church began to have a regulated order of seasons, an ecclesiastical year, cannot be ascertained [pg 187] with certainty; but every consideration leads us to suspect that it grew up simultaneously with the constitution of the Church. With the Church of the Hebrews this was unquestionably the case. The Jews who believed had grown up under a system of fasts and festivals in regular series, and, as we know, they observed these even after they were believers in Christ. Paul, who broke with the Law in so many points, did not venture to dispense with its sacred cycle of festivals. He hasted to Jerusalem to attend the feast of Pentecost.282 At Ephesus, even, he observed it.283 St. Jerome assures us that Lent was instituted by the apostles.284 The Apostolic Constitutions order the observance of the Sabbath, the Lord's-day, Pentecost, Christmas, Epiphany, the days of the Apostles, that of St. Stephen, and the anniversaries of the Martyrs.285 Indeed, the observance of the Lord's-day, instituted probably by St. Paul, involves the principle which would include all other sacred commemorations; for if one day was to be set apart as a memorial of the resurrection, it is probable that others would be observed in memory of the nativity, the passion, the ascension, &c.

As early as there was any sort of ecclesiastical year observed, so early would the “Memorabilia” of the apostles be arranged as appropriate to these seasons. But such an arrangement would not be chronological; therefore many took in hand, as St. Luke tells us, to correct this, and he took special care to give the succession of events as they occurred, not as they were read, by obtaining information from the best sources available.

It is probable that the “Recollections” of St. Peter, written in disjointed notes by St. Mark, were in circulation through many Churches before St. Mark composed [pg 188] his Gospel out of them. From Antioch to Rome they were read at the celebration of the divine mysteries; and some of them, found in the Churches of Asia Minor, have been taken by St. Luke into his Gospel. Others circulating in Palestine were in the hands of the deutero-Matthew, and grafted into his compilation. But as St. Luke, St. Mark, and the composer of the first Gospel, acted independently, their chronological sequences differ. Their Gospels are three kaleidoscopic groups of the same pieces.286

Had St. Matthew any other part in the composition of the first Canonical Gospel than contributing to it his “Syntax of the Lord's Sayings”? Of that we can say nothing for certain. It is possible enough that many of the “doings” of Jesus contained in the Gospel may be memorabilia of St. Matthew, circulating in anecdota.

A critical examination of St. Matthew's Gospel reveals four sources whence it was drawn, three threads of different texture woven into one. These are:

1. The “Memorabilia” of St. Peter, used afterwards by St. Mark. These the compiler of the first Gospel attached mechanically to the rest of his material by such formularies as “in those days,” “at that time,” “then,” “after that,” “when he had said these things.”

2. The “Logia of the Lord,” composed by St. Matthew.

3. Another series of sayings and doings, from which the following passages were derived: iii. 7-10, 12, iv. 3-11, viii. 19-22, ix. 27, 32-34, xi. 2-19. Some of these were afterwards used by St. Luke.287 Were these by St. Matthew? It is possible.

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4. To the fourth category belong chapters i. and ii., iii. 3, xiv. 15, the redaction of iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, v. 1, 2, 19, vii. 22, 23, viii. 12, 17, x. 5, 6, xi. 2, xii. 17-21, xiii. 35-43, 49, 50, the redaction of xiv. 13a, xiv. 28-31, xv. 24, xvii. 24b-27, xix. 17a, 19b, 28, xx. 16, xxi. 2, 7, xxi. 4, 5, xxiii. 10, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, 35, the redaction of xxiv. 3, 20, 51b, xxv. 30b, xxvi. 2, 15, 25, xxvii. 51-53, xxvii. 62-66, xxviii. 1a, 2-4, 8, 9, 11-15.

Was this taken from a collection of the recollections of St. Matthew, and the series 3 from another set of Apostolic Memorabilia? That it is not possible to decide.

Into the reasons which have led to this separation of the component parts 3, 4, the peculiarities of diction which serve to distinguish them, we cannot enter here; it would draw us too far from the main object of our inquiry.288

The theory that the Synoptical Gospels were composed of various disconnected materials, variously united into consecutive biographies, was accepted by Bishop Marsh, and it is the only theory which relieves the theologian from the unsatisfactory obligation of making “harmonies” of the Gospels. If we adopt the received popular conception of the composition of the Synoptical Gospels, we are driven to desperate shifts to fit them together, to reconcile their discrepancies.

The difficulty, the impossibility, of effecting such a harmony of the statements of the evangelists was felt [pg 190] by the early Christian writers. Origen says that the attempt to reconcile them made him giddy. Among the writings of Tatian was a Diatessaron or harmony of the Gospels. Eusebius adventured on an explanation, “of the discords of the Evangelists.” St. Ambrose exercised his pen on a concordance of St. Matthew with St. Luke; St. Augustine wrote “De consensu Evangelistarum,” and in his effort to force them into agreement was driven to strange suppositions—as that when our Lord went through Jericho there was a blind man by the road-side leading into the city, and another by the road-side leading out of it, and that both were healed under very similar circumstances.

Apollinaris, in the famous controversy about Easter, declared that it was irreconcilable with the Law that Christ should have suffered on the great feast-day, as related by St. Matthew, but that the Gospels disagreed among themselves on the day upon which he suffered.289 The great Gerson sought to remove the difficulties in a “Concordance of the Evangelists,” or “Monotessaron.”

Such an admission as that the Synoptical Gospels were composed in the manner I have pointed out, in no way affects their incomparable value. They exhibit to us as in a mirror what the apostles taught and what their disciples believed. Faith does not depend on the chronological sequence of events, but on the verity of those events. “See!” exclaimed St. Chrysostom, “how through the contradictions in the evangelical history in minor particulars, the truth of the main facts transpires, and the trustworthiness of the authors is made manifest!”

In everything, both human and divine, there is an [pg 191] union of infallibility in that which is of supreme importance, and of fallibility in that which concerns not salvation. The lenses through which the light of the world shone to remote ages were human scribes liable to error. Θεῖα πάντα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα πάντα, was the motto Tholuck inscribed on his copy of the Sacred Oracles.

Having established the origin of the Gospel of St. Matthew, we are able now to see our way to establishing that of the Gospel of the Twelve, or Gospel of the Hebrews.

No doubt it also was a mosaic made out of the same materials as the Gospel of St. Matthew. There subsisted side by side in Palestine a Greek-speaking and an Aramaic-speaking community of Christians, the one composed of proselytes from among the Gentiles, the other of converts from among the Jews. This Gentile Church in Palestine was scarcely influenced by St. Paul; it was under the rule of St. Peter, and therefore was more united to the Church at Jerusalem in habits of thought, in religious customs, in reverence for the Law, than the Churches of “Asia” and Greece. There was no antagonism between them. There was, on the contrary, close intercourse and mutual sympathy.

Each community, probably, had its own copies of Apostolic Memorabilia, not identical, but similar. Some of the “recollections” were perhaps written only in Aramaic, or only in Greek, so that the collection of one community may have been more complete in some particulars than the collection of the other. The necessity to consolidate these Memorabilia into a consecutive narrative became obvious to both communities, and each composed “in order” the scraps of record of our Lord's sayings and doings they possessed and read in their sacred mysteries. St. Matthew's “Logia of the Lord” was used in the compilation of the Hebrew Gospel; one of the [pg 192] translations of it, which, according to Papias, were numerous, formed the basis also of the Greek Gospel.

The material used by both communities, the motive actuating both communities, were the same; the results were consequently similar. That they were not absolutely identical was the consequence of their having been compiled independently.

Thus the resemblance was sufficient to make St. Jerome suppose the Hebrew Gospel to be the same as the Greek first Gospel; nevertheless, the differences were as great as has been pointed out in the preceding pages.

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