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A CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL COMMENTARY
ON
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST MARK
BY
EZRA P. GOULD
Professor of the New Testament Literature and Language, Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Philadelphia
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PREFACE
————
There is a lack of critical commentaries in the English language on the Gospel of Mark, and especially of commentaries based on the more recent criticism of the sources, and of the history contained in the book. Commentaries corresponding to those of Meyer, Weiss, and Holtzmann, not in ability, but in critical method and results, are wanting. This volume is an attempt to supply this lack. This criticism is based on the evident interdependence of the Synoptical Gospels, unmistakable proof of which is found in the accumulated verbal resemblances of the three books. The generally accepted solution of this Synoptical problem makes Mark the principal source of Matthew and Luke, his account being supplemented and modified by material taken from the Hebrew Logia of Matthew. This critical result is accepted by many English and American scholars, but no commentary based on it has appeared among us. A modification of this theory makes the Logia the older source, which Mark uses to a limited extent, the principal source of his information being the Apostle Peter. A few passages in which this dependence is probable have been noted and discussed. The critical theme of this volume is thus the interrelation of the Synoptics.
In carrying out this plan, the relations of the Synoptical Gospels, their harmonies and divergences, and especially their interdependence, have been made a special study, and, where the fourth Gospel is parallel to Mark, their relation has been discussed.
An important part of the critical question is the historicity of the miracles. This doubt—for the question has grown into a widespread doubt—I have attempted to meet on the general ground of the credibility of the narrative as contemporaneous history, and of the verisimilitude of the miracles.
But after all, since the result of criticism has been to establish the historicity of the Synoptical accounts of the ministry of our Lord, the main attempt has been to interpret him in the light of this history. I have not attempted to make this book a thesaurus of opinions, though the more recent critical literature has been cited and discussed. Nor have I sought to collect curious information of any kind for its own sake; but, by historical and literary methods, I have endeavored to arrive at the meanings of the life of Jesus as here set forth. It is recognized that this account is supplemented, and valuable additions made to it, by the other Gospels. But the use of it as the principal source of the other Synoptical accounts gives it an importance which it is hard to overestimate. What it has to say, therefore, about the life and character of the founder of Christianity, it has been the main endeavor of this volume to set forth. Other things have been used, but not for their own sake. Everything has been pressed into this service.
The volume contains, besides the Notes, an Introduction, stating the Synoptical problem, a discussion of the characteristics of Mark, and an analysis of events; a statement of the Person and Principles of Jesus in Mark; a discussion of the Gospels in the second century; a review of Recent Literature; and a statement of the Sources of the Text. There are also Notes on Special Subjects scattered through the book.
E. P. GOULD.
Philadelphia, January, 1896.
A COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF MARK
————
INTRODUCTION
The main question in a study of any one of the Synoptical Gospels is its relation to the others. This is especially true of the questions belonging to Introduction. If writings are independent, the matter of their origin can be considered separately; but where an analysis shows intimate relations between them, the question must be discussed with reference to this relation. Now, our study of the Synoptical Gospels shows both interdependence and independence. There are two parts of the story where the independence amounts to divergence. In the account of the early life of Jesus given by Matthew and Luke, Bethlehem is in Matthew not only the birthplace of our Lord, but also the residence of his parents. Nazareth is introduced only as the place to which they turned aside after their return from Egypt, because Judæ was rendered unsafe for them by the succession of Archelaus. But in Luke, Nazareth is their residence, from which they go to Bethlehem only on account of the Roman census, and to which they return after the presentation in the Temple. And these marks of independent origin are found in the entire story of the infancy in Matthew and Luke. And in the account of the events from the resurrection to the ascension, Matthew and Mark, omitting the closing verses of the latter, make the scene of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples to be Galilee; whereas Luke places them all in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and on the day of the resurrection. In fact, one of the great arguments for the omission of the closing verses of Mark is that the scheme of appearances is that of Luke, and plainly out of gear with that of the previous part of Mark. Evidently, here, then, in the beginning and end of the Gospel narrative, the Gospels are quite independent of each other. And in the body of the history, containing the account of our Lord’s public ministry, there are not wanting evidences of the same independence. The general arrangement of events is the same, but individual events are scattered through this general scheme with a decided independence. Luke distributes discourses which Matthew collects into connected discourse, e.g. the parts of the Sermon on the Mount. And single events, such as the call of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, are given with differences of detail, which show marked independence. But, after all, the general impression made in this body of the narrative is that of interdependence. One of the most striking features of this is the selection of events and discourses out of the great body of material open to writers. The matter peculiar to either of the Gospels is very small, compared to the common material, and yet the whole is very small, compared with all that Jesus said and did. There is some individuality shown in this selection, especially of the discourses of our Lord, but it is not considerable. And we have noticed already the similarity in the general arrangement of events. We can imagine that in the interval of a generation between the close of our Lord’s life and the appearance of the Gospels, the oral tradition, which was for the time the chief source of knowledge of that life, may have acquired something like a fixed form in both these particulars. And so we may use the oral tradition, perhaps, to account for these items in the general account of interdependence. But when we come to the verbal resemblances existing between the Synoptical Gospels, our dependence on this solution of the Synoptical problem ceases. It is enough to say in this connection, that the oral tradition must have been in Aramaic, the language of Palestine, while these resemblances are in Greek Gospels, and verbal resemblances disappear in translation. But it is unnecessary to introduce this consideration even, in the face of such striking resemblances as these. Oral tradition does not tend to fix language to this extent. This verbal similarity is found in the Synoptics, wherever they give parallel accounts of the same event. Good examples of it are the accounts of the call of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, Mat_4:18-22, Mar_1:16-20; and of the healing of the demoniac in the synagogue, Mar_1:21-28, Luk_4:31-37. The effect of this verbal resemblance is very much enhanced, of course, when the words common to two or more accounts of the same thing are themselves uncommon words. E.g. the words πωοαερα and πωολσα in Mat_23:6, and the parallel passage, Luk_11:43; Mar_12:39, and the parallel passage, Luk_20:46; and in a similar connection in Luk_14:7, Luk_14:8; do not occur elsewhere outside of ecclesiastical writers. ἐοόωε Mar_13:20, and the parallel passage, Mat_24:22, is a rare Greek word, and is used in these passages, moreover, in an unusual sense. τρτ, Mar_13:22, and the parallel passage, Mat_24:25, does not occur elsewhere in the Synoptics. ἀρπετ, Mar_13:33, and the parallel passage, Luk_21:36, does not occur elsewhere in the Synoptics, and only twice in the N.T. ἐβπωand τυλο, Mar_14:20, and the parallel passage, Mat_26:23, are not found elsewhere in the N.T. These verbal resemblances can be explained only by the interdependence of the written accounts. Either the Gospels are drawn from each other, or from some common written source.
These phenomena of the Synoptical Gospels have given rise to a most protracted and intricate discussion, in which various theories, e.g. of original writings from which our Gospels were drawn, and of the priority of one Gospel or another, from which the rest were drawn, have been presented and thoroughly sifted. Fortunately, we are at the end of this sifting process, for the most part, and are in possession of its results. Tradition and internal evidence have concurred in giving us two such sources, one of which is the translation into Greek of Matthew’s Logia, or discourses of our Lord, and the other our present Gospel of Mark. There is ample evidence that the Logia cannot be our present Gospel of Matthew, and on the other hand, there is no evidence that there is any original Mark, distinct from our second Gospel. Papias, writing about 130 to 140 a.d., says that Matthew wrote his Logia in Hebrew, and each man interpreted them as he was able. Irenæ Pantæ and Origen all testify to the same, and in fact, there is no early tradition of Matthew’s writing which does not record also its Hebrew character. It is also against the identification of the Logia with our present Matthew, that the latter contains matter that does not come under the head of Logia. It is, moreover, dependent in its narrative portions on Mark, which is scarcely within the range of possibility, if it was itself the work of an eye witness. Papias tells us also that Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately all that he remembered, not however in order, both of the words and deeds of Christ. And tradition is consistent also in regard to this dependence of Mark on Peter. Moreover, this account agrees with the character of the second Gospel. It bears evident marks of the eye-witness in its vividness, and in the presence of those descriptive touches which reproduce for us not only the event, but the scene and surroundings as well.
Is there any evidence that Mark’s Gospel was in part a compilation? Did he draw upon the Logia in his account of discourse and conversation? Does not the supposition of the entire independence of Mark imply two sources of the Synoptical narrative in certain cases, in which the matter of the different Gospels would suggest only one? In the parables, e.g., we have a larger group in Matthew, and a smaller group in Mark. And of course, if Mark is independent here, as elsewhere, this supposes two sources. But the parables themselves, by their homogeneousness, would suggest rather one source, from which both drew. Moreover, Mark’s statement that Jesus used many such parables, in this connection, is another hint of a longer account containing more parables, from which he made selections. And the one parable peculiar to himself would show that this was a third source, independent of either Matthew or Mark. Turning now to the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, Mar_12:1-12, we find Mark supplemented by Matthew in the same way. Mark says that Jesus spoke to them in parables, and proceeds to cite one parable, while Matthew gives us three parables in the course of the same controversy; that is, Mark implies in the plural πρβλῖ, a source giving more abundant material than he uses, and Matthew apparently gives us that more abundant material. Moreover, the traditional source of Mark’s Gospel is unfavorable to the production of long discourse. And accordingly, we find only one example of such discourse in this Gospel, the eschatological discourse in ch. 13. Whereas, we find frequent examples of such discourse in Matthew and Luke, and it is a natural inference that it is characteristic of the Logia from which they both drew. It seems probable, therefore, that this one discourse in which Mark follows their example comes from the written Logia, and not from his transcription of Peter’s oral discourse.
INDIVIDUALITY OF THIS GOSPEL. ANALYSIS OF EVENTS
Mark has a way of his own of handling his material. Whatever may be his reason, the fact is, that he dwells on the active life of our Lord, the period from the beginning of the Galilean ministry to the close of his natural life. The introduction to this career, including the ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism and the temptation, he narrates with characteristic brevity. But it is not brevity for the sake of brevity; it comes from a careful exclusion of everything not bearing directly on his purpose. The work of John the Baptist is introduced as the beginning of the glad tidings about Jesus Christ, and the material is selected which bears on this special purpose. The baptism is told as the inauguration of Christ into his office, and only the baptism, the descent of the Spirit, and the voice from heaven are narrated. And the temptation is merely noted in passing. All of these things have a value of their own, but they are evidently regarded by the writer as introductory to his theme, the active ministry of Jesus, and are abbreviated accordingly.
But beginning with the Galilean ministry, our Gospel is as full in its narrative of separate events as either Matthew or Luke. He omits events and discourses, but what he does tell he tells as fully as they. In the matter of discourse, especially, still more of prolonged discourse, this Gospel is resolutely either brief or silent. As regards the general distribution of material, there is an earlier group of narratives, in which Matthew and Luke are parallel to each other; another further along, in which Matthew and Mark are parallel; and then a third, in which Luke stands alone. But what Mark tells in this period he narrates with pictorial fulness.
When we come, however, to the account of the resurrection, and of the appearances to the disciples after the resurrection, this Gospel returns to its policy of brevity regarding what precedes and follows the period of the public ministry. These appearances are to the disciples alone, they are mainly mere appearances, and Mark gives merely the announcement of the resurrection to the women by the angels, and closes with this. This, instead of being strange, and requiring explanation, is quite in accordance with the character of Mark disclosed in the narration of the early events. Those were introductory, these are supplementary of the subject, and both are treated therefore with the same conciseness.
We have discovered a like parsimony in the choice of material for this main theme, the public ministry. But this is for the sake, evidently, of sharpness of impression, and, for this purpose, Mark joins with it an effective grouping of his matter. He is not telling a number of disconnected stories of our Lord’s work, but the one story of his public ministry, and he selects and groups his material in order to show the progress of events, their division into separate periods, and their culmination in the final catastrophe. The first period is one of immediate popularity, and of a corresponding reserve. The effect of Jesus’ miracles in spreading his fame, and in drawing a multitude after him, is emphasized, and at the same time Jesus withdraws from the multitude, and forbids the spreading of the report of his miracles. We are not told about the subjects of his teaching, but of its impression, and its effect in increasing his popularity.
The second period, beginning with Jesus’ return from his first tour in Galilee to Capernaum, is marked by the contrast between this continued popularity and the growing opposition of the Pharisees. We are shown in a series of rapid sketches the causes of this opposition in the revolutionary character of Jesus’ ministry, and his quiet disregard of Pharisaic traditions and customs. He calls a publican to the inner circle of his disciples, and eats with publicans and sinners; he decries formal fastings, heals on the Sabbath, defends eating with unwashed hands, and denounces all traditionalism. There can be no doubt that this rapid succession of events, all of the same character, is intended to produce the effect described, and to show us how, early in the ministry of Jesus, he was forced into opposition to the ruling sect, and so the way was prepared for the end. But the picture has lights as well as shadows, and the mixture with these conflicts of other events, such as the appointment of the twelve, the sending of them on a separate mission, the teaching in parables, and sundry miracles, produces the biographical effect.
But at last this short ministry in Galilee comes to an end, and is followed by a period in which Jesus journeys with his disciples into the Gentile territory about Galilee, and there prepares them for his death at the hands of his enemies. There is added to this the confession of his Messianic claim, the story of his Transfiguration, a few miracles in the strange places where these travels take him; but the characteristic mark of the whole period is this secret conference with his disciples about the crisis in his life.
The succeeding period, beginning with his final departure from Galilee, and ending with his entry into Jerusalem, is one into which Matthew and Luke have put much of their characteristic material, and in which Mark is unusually brief. And the matter selected by him is of an unusually mixed kind. It begins with one of those disputes between him and the Pharisees which mark these last days. It proceeds with various conversations and instructions, in which different aspects of the kingdom of God are shown; it gives a strange picture of the impression of fear produced on Jesus’ disciples by his manner on the road to Jerusalem; and it tells of one miracle at Jerusalem. In brief, this is a period of waiting, in which the events themselves, and the turn given to them, foreshadow and prepare for the final crisis. Then comes the last week, with its story of the final conflicts between Jesus and the authorities at Jerusalem, of his trial and death. The entry into Jerusalem is evidently intended to be his announcement of himself as the Messiah, and the cleansing of the Temple a manifestation of his authority. This authority is immediately challenged by the Sanhedrim, and in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, Jesus makes his charge against them. Then they ply him with their legal puzzles, attempting to discredit his teaching, and their discomfiture only hastens the end.
This brief analysis will show the principle on which Mark selects his material and groups it. Both contribute to the one object of sharpness of impression. The different periods are marked off, and the effect is not blurred by the introduction of confusing or voluminous detail. The life of Jesus has not made on him the effect of mere wonder which he seeks to reproduce in disconnected stories, but of a swift march of events toward a tragic end, and he marks off the stages of this progress.
But Mark’s effectiveness as a story-teller is due not only to his selection and grouping of material, but also to his pictorial fulness. He gives us the scene of events more frequently than the other writers, whether in the house, or by the sea, or on the road. On one occasion, this vividness, where he tells of the green grass on which the five thousand reclined, gives us an invaluable mark of time, telling us what we should not know from the other Synoptics, that there was a Passover during the Galilean ministry. He tells us of the multitudes about Jesus, and gives us a lively description of the way in which they ran about as he entered one village after another, bringing the sick to him on their pallets. He tells us of the astonishment and fear of the disciples, as Jesus went before them to Jerusalem. His style lends itself to the same purpose. He uses the imperfect, the still more effective ἦ with the participle, and the historical present. But he does it all in the rapid and effective way characteristic of him. It is by a stroke here, and a bit of color there, that the effect is produced.
ACCOUNT OF MARK
The places in which Mark’s name occurs in the N.T. are Act_12:12, Act_12:25, Act_12:13:5, Act_12:13, Act_12:15:37, Col_4:10, 2Ti_4:11, Phm_1:24, 1Pe_5:13. From these we learn that he was the son of Mary, to whose house Peter went after his release from imprisonment, and cousin of Barnabas. His original Hebrew name was John, and to this was appended a Roman surname Mark. Peter includes him in the salutation of his first epistle, and calls him his son (in the faith). He makes his first appearance in the history as the companion of Barnabas and Saul, whom they took back to Antioch with them on their return from Jerusalem, where they had been to carry the offerings of the churches on the occasion of a famine. And when they start, immediately after, on their first missionary journey, Mark accompanies them, but only to turn back again after the completion of their mission to Cyprus. Then, at the beginning of their second missionary tour, he becomes the source of contention to his superiors, Barnabas wishing to take his cousin along with them again, and Paul refusing his company on account of his previous defection. But in the epistle to the Colossians he appears again as the assistant of Paul, being mentioned by him as one who sends greetings to that church. And in 2 Tim., Paul writes Timothy to bring Mark with him as one who is useful to him in the ministry. Again, in the epistle to Philemon he is with Paul, and is included in the salutations of that letter.
DESTINATION OF THE GOSPEL. TIME OF ITS WRITING. PLACE
Mark was evidently written for Gentile readers, as it contains explanations of Hebrew terms and customs.1 Tradition says that it was written after the death of Peter and Paul. There is one decisive mark of time in the Gospel itself. In the eschatological discourse attention is called to the sign given by Jesus of the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, which leads us to infer that the Gospel was written before that time, but when the event was impending. This would fix the time as about 70 a.d. Tradition says also that it was written at Rome. And there is a certain support given to this by the use of Latin words peculiar to this Gospel.2
THE PERSON AND PRINCIPLES OF JESUS IN MARK’S GOSPEL
————
Matthew begins his account of Jesus’ public ministry, as Mk. does, with the statement that Jesus came into Galilee after the imprisonment of John, and began to proclaim the good news of the coming kingdom, accompanying this with miracles of healing. But he follows this immediately with the Sermon on the Mount, which serves as a basis for all the subsequent teaching, and gives us as the subject of that teaching the Kingdom of God. Lk. introduces this in another place, giving first some of the detached sayings, and so preparing the way for the connected discourse, instead of making the connected discourse an introduction to the detached sayings. But the effect of the discourse, and its relation to the teaching as a whole, are the same. Mk., on the other hand, gives only detached sayings, unrelated to any central group of teachings, and in his gospel, therefore, we have to study out the problem of our Lord’s life and teaching after a different fashion.
He appears in the first place as a herald of the kingdom, taking up the work of John. Then he calls four men into personal association with himself. His first Sabbath in Capernaum is a memorable one. It is evident that he is regarded as a teacher, for he is asked to preach in the synagogue, and his hearers are impressed with the note of authority in his teaching, so different from the manner of the Scribes, the recognized authorities. But they are still more impressed with a miracle performed by him, and as soon as the law allows, they bring all the sick of the city to him, and the whole town is in an uproar. The two things together stamp him as a prophet, making a decided advance on the character of teacher, in which he appears at first. But so far as he is recognized at all, the popular voice after this accords to him these two titles, rabbi and prophet.
But Jesus evidently sees elements of danger in this popular uprising. The emphasis is on the wrong side of their lack, and of his power. If his message had reached them, and they had clamored to hear more of that, and especially had shown any disposition to follow his teaching, he might have stayed to preach, instead of going out to pray. But he did not wish to pose as a miracle-worker, and to have the inference “Messiah” follow from that in the popular imagination. And so he retires to pray, he refuses the clamorous call to return, and when a man whom he has healed disobeys his command to keep it silent, he retires into the wilderness to escape the inevitable effect of this publicity.
Now Mk.’s method begins to appear. Jesus does not lay down a programme of the Messianic kingdom in a set discourse, but the principles regulating his activity are slowly evolved by the occasions of his life. And after the same fashion Jesus himself begins to appear on the canvas—a herald of the kingdom of God, a teacher, a prophet, a miracle-worker, who represses and deprecates the impetuous desire of the multitude to emphasize the miracle-worker rather than the prophet. This is the picture so far, and it is full of promise and suggestion.
Then in connection with another miracle, Jesus claims the power as the Son of Man to forgive sins. The way it happened was this: the man’s disease was occasioned by some vice, and Jesus announces the cure therefore as a forgiveness of the sins which had caused it. Then, this being challenged by the Scribes as blasphemy, he adduces the cure itself as an example of the power which he had to remove the evils caused by sin. Here is another step forward, for here is a real, but veiled claim of a Messianic title, and the authority coupled with it is that of forgiveness, which forgiveness consists in the removal of the various ills of mankind wrought by sin. The Messianic claim is there, but it is veiled, for we do not find that the people understood him to make the claim, though after this he uses the title familiarly. And the title chosen, Son of Man, is such as to show that Jesus emphasized that side of his work which allied and identified him with man.
This intimation that his work has to do with sin, as a physician has to do with disease, is repeated when he calls the tax-gatherer into the circle of his disciples, and defends himself by the statement that he came to call not righteous men, but sinners. And when they charge him with collusion with Satan in his expulsion of demons, his answer is substantially that his attitude is opposition to Satan, and that his power to cast out demons can have been obtained only as the result of a conflict, in which he had overmastered Satan. Here, as in the case of the paralytic, this aspect of his work as a conflict with sin comes out in connection with his cures, and this is really the only chance that he has to present it, as he has had as yet very little opportunity to deal with sin as sin, only in its occasional intrusion into other than the moral sphere. But he deals with it as already master of the situation. He can despoil Satan of his instruments, because he has already met him and bound him. He can deal with sin in others victoriously, because he has met and mastered it in himself.
But meantime, another element in the situation is making itself felt. In dealing with the people, Jesus has to contend against a sudden and superficial popularity, and is able only to cure their diseases, not to cope with their sins. But the necessary and unavoidable conspicuousness of his work bring him under the notice of their leaders, and here he encounters active opposition. It develops only gradually. It is evident that the Scribes and Pharisees are watching him at first, as it is always possible that religious enthusiasm may play into the hands of the religious authorities. But the elements of opposition accumulate at every step. The first is the evident lack of sympathy or affiliation with them, and Jesus’ association with men at the other end of the social and ecclesiastical scale, the despised people whose ignorance of the law made them dangerous company for the scrupulous Pharisee, with the remote and insignificant Galilean, and even finally, the hated servant of a foreign government, the Jewish collector of Roman tribute. Jesus’ answer, that, as a physician, his business is with the sick rather than the well, is complete, but like all such answers, it only increased the irritation. The next question is more vital, as it has to do not with themselves, but with their system. Pharisaic Judaism was the climax and reductio ad absurdum of religious formalism. For ethics it substituted casuistry, for principles rules, for insight authority, for worship forms, for the word of God tradition, for spirituality the most absolute and intricate externalism. Jesus did not seek to break with it, but it was inevitable that the break should come. The law prescribed an annual fast, but they had multiplied this into two a week, whereas, it is recorded of Jesus that he came eating and drinking, and himself called attention to this characteristic. When he is challenged about this practice of his disciples, he shows that fasting, like everything else that has a proper place in religion, is a matter of principle, and not of rule. Men are not to fast on set days, but on fit occasions. And in general, he shows the absurdity of attempting to piece out the old with the new, or to pour his new wine into their old wine-skins. The next place where they made a stand against Jesus’ innovating views was in the matter of their absurd Sabbatarianism. That it was absurd, the occasions of their attack show; first, plucking ears of corn to eat on the spot, and secondly, healing. These things, forsooth, were expressly forbidden on the Sabbath. In answer, Jesus does not attempt to meet them on the ground of casuistry, but, as usual, lays down principles. First, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; and secondly, to refuse to confer a benefit in case of need is to inflict a positive injury, on the Sabbath as well as any other day.
Here the narrative pauses, and passes over to other matter. But it is evident that Mk. has grouped this material for a purpose. He wishes to show how, with one occasion after another, the teaching of our Lord acquired substance and shape, and encountered a sharp and well-defined opposition. And how boldly and greatly the figure of Jesus himself begins to stand out. How it is becoming evident that sanity, breadth, insight, ethical and spiritual quality, are in this man not relative, but absolute. And as he faces the gathering storm, how steadfast he is, and regardless of everything but truth.
It needs only a little reading between the lines to see how the next events come in. The evidence is accumulating that our Lord’s own career is to last not very long, and that he must have followers, successors, to whom he can commit his work, and that these must be men whose close attendance on himself will familiarize them with his message. Hence the twelve are appointed. And it is expressly stated that his family had started out to restrain him, at the time when he pointed out that his real family were the disciples who did the will of God. His own family was not to be classed among his enemies, but it is evident that they sought to protect him against what they considered his own extravagance.
And the parables also grew out of the immediate situation. They are the first direct statement of the nature of the kingdom of God. The postponement of the subject, and the veiled presentation of it, both show it to be a matter that Jesus approached with extreme caution. But what he treated with so much reserve in the presence of the others, he explained frankly to his disciples. This means that the time had come when the situation, even among the disciples, needed clearing up. They were not repelled by his differences with the Pharisees; the indications are rather that they were in sympathy with him. But their difficulty, which the parables were intended to meet, came from their sharing the national expectation, that the kingdom was to be set up by a tour de force, an expectation which Jesus’ methods and delay, if not defeat, discouraged. This is the immediate occasion of the parables. But their immense importance appears from the fact that they are the only direct statement of the nature of the kingdom, which otherwise we should have to gather from side-lights and inferences. The kingdom is seed; it is subject to all the vicissitudes of seed sown broadcast into all kinds of soil; it is nevertheless sure of success because it is native to the soil; humanity as such is hospitable to it, and its small beginnings do not interfere with ultimate greatness.
The next event requiring special notice is Jesus’ visit to Nazareth, where he encounters his first rejection. Other places have known only the greatness of his public life, Nazareth, unfortunately, knows the obscurity of his private life, and they reject his greatness as spurious. Here, therefore, he finds even his miracles impossible, whereas in other places, cut off from everything else, he does find a place for these. Jesus marvelled at their unbelief, and no wonder. It was here that this perfect life had matured, grown into an unmatched beauty and power, and yet they had missed it all because it lacked outward greatness. But one is reminded by this episode of a singular fact in our Lord’s life—that he appears largely as a miracle-worker. It was not a role that he coveted, but, for the most part, it was all that he could do. We have some record of the way in which he dealt with the other and larger half of human ill and need. We have the story of Matthew and Zacchæ and the sinful woman, and the rich young man, and Peter; we know that he was the friend of publicans and sinners. But, for the most part, he was shut out from all this, and shut up to physical healings. Even here, he found a unique field for the display of his greatness. His possession of a divine power he shared with other men, but his divine use of that power is his own; he shares it with no one. But if he had had an equal chance to show us the other side of his power, what a story there might have been.
But the time has now come for Jesus to try his disciples in the work. They have heard his message and seen his miracles, and he sends them out to carry forward both the preaching and the healing. His instructions to them are, briefly, to pay no attention to outfit nor entertainment, but to be occupied solely with their ministry.
On Jesus’ return to Capernaum, the opposition to him comes to a head. His enemies are there on the watch for him, and in that apparently careless and unscrupulous life they soon find their opportunity. To be sure, it seems only a slight thing that the disciples should be eating with unwashed hands. But to those men it meant liability to every defilement mentioned in the law. It is their opportunity, but then it is Jesus’ opportunity too. It gives him his chance to strike at traditionalism and ceremonialism, the twin foes of spiritual religion. Over against tradition, he sets the word of God,—against the idea that a thing is true because it is handed down, he posits the word of God, which becomes more true as humanity grows. And against ceremonialism, the idea that man’s spirit can be reached for either good or evil from the outside, he puts the eternal truth, that it is reached and affected only from within, by things akin to itself.
This really marks the end of Jesus’ work in Galilee. It has resulted in proving the inaccessibility of the people to his spiritual work, in the unsympathetic attitude of his family, in his total rejection at Nazareth, and in active hostility on the part of the religious leaders. But his work with his disciples is not ended, and he accordingly departs with them to Syrophœ Here, he desired to keep his presence unknown, as his work was not with Gentiles, but Jews. But the extraordinary faith of the Syrophœ woman overcame his scruples, so that he healed her daughter. This confinement of his work on earth to his own nation, while evidently announcing the broadest universalism, is easily explained. He was laying foundations, and the human material for that, such as it was, existed in only one nation.
On the occasion of only a brief return to Galilee, during this Wanderjahr, the Pharisees make another attack on him, demanding a sign from heaven. They want something plainly and indisputably of heavenly origin, not open to the suspicion of collusion with Satan, nor of originating in the lower air, and plainly nothing more nor less than an attestation by God of our Lord’s claim. Something merely a sign, not complicated with other characters and purposes which might obscure the plain issue, was their demand. Jesus refused it. He would do his work, including cures and miracles, and let that tell his story, but a mere sign he refused to give. We must pause again to notice Mk.’s method, and to say now that it bears all the appearance of being the method of Jesus himself. He meets questions as they arise, instead of projecting discourse from himself. But the wisdom and completeness of his answer anticipates the controversies of Christendom. This question of signs, e.g., of external evidence, our Lord answers by refusing a sign, and he emphasizes it by his allusion to the generation which had seen him. He was his own sign, and needed no other. The question belonged to that age, but no age nor any other man has arrived at the wisdom of the answer.
We are coming now to the close of Jesus’ ministry, and his method has not yet led him to any declaration of himself nor of his mission. It would almost seem as if he had no consciousness of a mission of any definite sort, so content has he been to let things merely happen, great as has been his use of these happenings. But now the time has come, not for him to declare himself, but to bring the thought of men about him into expression. And first of all, his own disciples. He asks them what men say about him,—what they call him. They say briefly, a prophet. Then he asks them if that is all they have to say. No, Simon Peter says; we call you the Messiah. The value of this is in the fact, that it is not their assent to his claim, but their estimate of his greatness. They, as Jews, had inherited an idea, an expectation of a man in whom human greatness was to culminate. As far as Jesus’ activity went, the answer of the people was enough. But the feeling of the disciples was, it may describe his activity, but is inadequate to describe his own greatness. The race has culminated in him, and he is therefore the Messiah whom we are to expect.
There are two things noticeable here: first, the title itself, and then the manner of its assumption. It is no wonder that Jesus was dissatisfied with the title prophet, when his real title was king, king of men. And when we examine what he says in elucidation of this claim, we find that there are just two things which he emphasizes as involved in this, viz. love and obedience. Careless of everything else, he proposes to himself just this, to conquer for himself the love and obedience of all men everywhere and in all things. There is no lack of definiteness nor adequacy in this. And yet, though Jesus is very explicit in this, we are altogether missing the point, as usual. We are very busy organizing his church, devising the ways and means of his worship, defining his person, and meantime the world, the flesh, and the devil are dictating terms not only to government and society, but to the church. They are well satisfied to have the church scatter its fire, instead of concentrating its energy upon doing the will of its Lord, and getting that will done. But besides the title, and of almost equal importance with it, is the manner of its assumption. Jesus waits for men to give it to him. This does not mean any lowering of his claims, any disposition to meet men half-way, and accept some compromise with them. It means just the opposite of this, the most absolute and apparently extravagant claim that he could make. It means mastery, not from without, but from within,—a mastery of convictions, affections, and will, and from that centre controlling the whole of life. He will have, not the enforced obedience of men who would throw off the yoke if they could, or any part of it, but the self-devotion and homage of those who come voluntarily to him,—the unforced mastery of man over man. By this means, and in this sense, he will rule the world. To be sure, since it is included in his programme that he is to die and still be king, that rule is to be exercised from heaven, that centre from which the network of law and self-enforcing order overspreads the world. But that universal law leaves one domain free, and within the sphere of human action it exercises no compulsions but those which leave the spirit free. And yet within that province, it is meant that God shall exercise absolute control.
This is the meaning of our Lord’s words in the light of all that he said and did, and of all that has happened since. But at present, he has said only that he is king,—the Messianic king, and he has said it to men sure to misunderstand it if he leaves it in its present unconditional form. Hence he immediately puts over against it the prediction of his own fate. He is to be rejected and put to death. Their idea of the Messianic king was that through him righteousness was to be victorious. God had been holding off for his own wise purposes, not asserting himself, but in the times of the Messiah, he was to intervene with his almightiness, and sin was to be put down, and righteousness established. And this power to put down all enemies was to be lodged in the Messiah. This was the Jewish Messianic programme. We have seen already that Jesus, in all probability, did not, at any time before his death, predict his violent death and his resurrection with any definiteness. The utter dismay of the disciples over the actual event, their hopelessness between the death and the resurrection, and their failure to accept the fact of the resurrection, make such a prediction psychologically impossible. But it is equally evident that he did make statements which, in the light of the later events, they saw implied and involved those events. And this means Jesus’ repudiation of the Jewish Messianic programme. His enemies were not to be in his power, but he in theirs. God was not to intervene in his behalf, nor was his own divine power to be used in this way.
But Jesus is not satisfied with the statement about himself, which might make it appear that his fate was unique, and that his case stood by itself. But he goes on to state that any one who wishes to follow him must deny himself and take his life in his hands in the same way. In his kingdom, to save is to lose, and the only way to save is to lose. Instead of getting God on his side so that he is saved from the ordinary mishaps of life, the disciple only multiplies indefinitely the chances of mishap without adding anything to the safeguards. Any one can see that if righteousness was to become a spiritual power in the world, it could only be by such a sacrifice of safety. A padded and steel-clad righteousness protects the person, but its power to propagate is gone. And as we have seen, the Transfiguration itself was not a revelation of the glory that was covered up and concealed by this human weakness of our Lord, but of the glory of the sacrifice itself. It is as much as to say that gentleness, self-effacement, and weakness, instead of power, are in themselves glorious, and are to be crowned.
But the disciples themselves give Jesus an opportunity to define himself still further. They were disputing who among their number was greatest. He does not deny that there is such a thing, nor that it is to be coveted, but it is the greatness of humility and service. In the world, greatness is the power to make others tributary to yourself, but in the kingdom of God, the greatness even of the king is service, the power to contribute to the common weal.
At last, then, Jesus has declared himself. He is the divinely appointed king of men, and as such demands obedience, and finds greatness in service. But the obedience is to be voluntary and unenforced, and his own road to kingship is through repudiation and death. This absolute self-effacement is, moreover, the principle of the kingdom, and required of all its members.
From this, he passes over again to more incidental matters. John brings to his attention the case of a man whom they had caught casting out demons in his name, but who had not attached himself to the circle of disciples. Jesus’ reply is, virtually, that they ought to have inferred from his casting out the demons that he really belonged with them, instead of from his not associating with them that he had no right to cast out the demons. This shows that whatever exclusiveness has grown up since then among his followers did not originate with Jesus. He did not organize a society, though his principles justify the later organization; but those principles exclude a hierarchy.
With the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Judæ begins a series of discourses occasioned by the attempt of the Pharisees to put his authority as a teacher to the test, and, if possible, to discredit it. In general, the questions propounded were either in dispute between the different schools, or the standing puzzles of the schoolmen. It is significant, as showing that Mk.’s development of Jesus’ position in occasional, rather than set, discourse, is the method of Jesus himself, that some of his most important teaching is occasioned by these questions. And it shows his position as a teacher that these answers are final, revealing in every case the principles involved. His treatment of divorce is one of the safeguards of civilization. His answer to the question about paying tribute to the Roman government shows that citizenship in the kingdom of God does not conflict with citizenship in the State. The one, as the other, is based on fundamental facts. Their question is an inference from their political conception of the kingdom of God. His answer is a corollary from his spiritual conception. His answer to the Sadducees about the resurrection not only puts that question to rest, but establishes the right to argue from fundamental conceptions of God, the right of reason in matters of faith. In what he says about the two great commands, he establishes fundamental principles and sentiments instead of rules, in control of life. But more than this, he selects the one principle that does contain in itself all righteousness, and which still condemns the essential parts of life. And still more, he shows the final and conclusive reason why the kingdom is spiritual. Outward conduct can be controlled by civil authority, but love is capable of only inward enforcement.
Meantime, other things have been happening by which his position is still further defined. The scene with the rich young man whose wealth alone kept him from following our Lord leads him to say that his difficulty is not peculiar to him, but belongs to his class. The difficulty that all men have in accepting the principle of the kingdom becomes, in the case of wealth, a human impossibility to be overcome only by God. This means only that the principle of the kingdom is self-sacrifice and love, and that the acquisition and possession of wealth, on the other hand, tend almost certainly to selfishness.
Christ’s entry into Jerusalem is his public claim of the Messianic kingship. This is followed immediately by his one act of authority, the cleansing of the temple. But the power is only that of a masterful personality,—the power of a prophet or righteous man. But he not only claims authority for himself, he denies the authority of the constituted authorities to judge his claim. He puts them to the test, as they have put him, by putting them a question in regard to John the Baptist, which will show whether they can judge such a case or not. The question of authority in the kingdom of God is a question of fitness, of ability to do the thing.
Jesus has one more word to say to his disciples. It is the prediction of the destruction of the temple, city, and nation, and the transfer of the kingdom from them to others. He sees that their rejection of a spiritual Messiah, and their insistence on political independence and greatness, will certainly lead to destruction. That, moreover, will be a coming of the Son of Man in clouds, clothed with power. Not that that will be the beginning of his reign, for he is to be seated at the right hand of power, and to come in the clouds, immediately. But this is to be his first great appearance as the arbiter of human affairs. The overthrow of the nation will come directly, as for the divine side of it, not by force, but by the inevitable operation of cause and effect, from the denial of his principle of a spiritual kingdom. And so, by the operation of the same inexorable law working in human affairs, his principles are to be everywhere vindicated. And at the same time, the spiritual power accumulated in his life and death are to be wielded by him in the spiritual sphere, until finally, in the exercise of both powers, his kingdom becomes universal.
Two things remain to be spoken of: the death of Jesus, and his enshrinement of that in a memorial rite. The way has been opening ever since that time for a right understanding of that event, and yet even now one needs to weigh his words to speak with even partial truth about it, let alone adequacy. In the first place, then, looked at simply as a matter governed by the ordinary conditions of human life, it was natural and necessary. Nothing else could come of the opposition that he encountered from the religious and civil authority. There were two ways of escape morally possible to any other man, but not to him. One was to compromise in some way with the authorities, or to make some alliance with the people, that should neutralize the opposition of the Sanhedrim. His insight, his grasp of principles, his mastery of the situation, his influence with the people, might have given him political power, to which his instinct for righteousness would have given the last touch of greatness. But that was the way of compromise, which was demanded at every turn of the perplexing situation. And that admits us to one secret of the uniqueness of Jesus’ death. It was entirely for righteousness’ sake. The opposition to him was purely on that account, unmixed with any other oppositions or repugnances, growing out of the ordinary weakness or disagreeableness of men. But Jesus died because his righteousness was uncompromising and absolute, not because its manner was hard and obtrusive. Another way of escape was by the use of his supernatural power. Both friends and enemies saw this. The Jews did not expect deliverance, except supernaturally, and the hope of the people was that Jesus, who evidently possessed this power, would use it in the appointed way. And the Jews taunted him, because at the last moment his power had forsaken him. But Jesus died because he would do his work as a man, and under the ordinary conditions and limitations of humanity.
In other words, Jesus’ death crowned the complete self-surrender of his life. All of us know that just here is where ordinary righteousness is lacking. It is righteousness with a saving clause. We follow it just so far as it does not involve a complete sacrifice of self-interest. Some draw the line in one place, and some in another, but everybody somewhere. Jesus seeing more clearly than any other the sacrifice involved, undertook the task of absolute righteousness, and carried it out to the end. And he would accept no immunity, wield no power, and exercise no self-defence, that would mar the completeness of that ideal.
But he was, nevertheless, king. He did not propose to himself simply to be righteous, in which case men might have let him alone. He proposed to establish this complete, and principled, and radical righteousness in the world as its supreme law. Men felt in his first words the note of authority, and he did not attempt in any way to disguise the uncompromising nature of his demand. He told them that if any one would follow him, he must deny himself as he did. And in his own life, he showed them how, at every turn, the acceptance of this principle involved the hostility, not of the vicious and degraded, but that opposition of the constituted authorities, and of the higher class, which means loss of caste.
But we must not think of Jesus’ death as simply sacrifice to a principle. He died primarily because he loved men supremely. He was the Son of Man, whose life was bound up with the life of the world, who was identified with humanity. Here was where the danger came of abating any of the demand that he made upon men, since in the law which he sought to enforce is the only true life of man, and any abatement meant something less than his highest good. Nay, more, it meant the admission somewhere of the opposite principle to sap and undermine the whole fabric, and the danger also of abating any of the rigor of his demand upon himself, since his own righteousness was the foundation of his authority, and loss of power here meant loss of power to confer this highest good.
And here is where the bitterness of his death came in. Here was a man who loved men supremely, to whom any evil or lack of men was known so surely and felt so deeply, and to whom in his own death was revealed the whole depth and bitterness of that human ill which was to find its only cure in him.
And, finally, it is this self-surrendering love which makes the cross to-day the very seat and secret of his power. For love is Lord of life, and love culminated here. It is the constraint and inspiration of his love that makes him king of men. A clear-sighted and far-seeing love which chose for himself the thorn-crowned road to power and kingship, and that leads men over the same long and hard way to ultimate and complete good.
And, as we have said, he enshrines this death in a memorial rite. He bids men take the bread, which is his body, and the cup, which is his blood, and find in them the food and drink of their souls. It is in his death that he wishes especially to be remembered. But, above all, it is in his death that he wishes to be understood, and to have himself brought intimately into the life of men, until the things that made him die have become the material and substance of man’s spiritual life.
THE GOSPELS IN THE SECOND CENTURY
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The reason that this subject is given a large place in N.T. Introduction is the fact that prominent and influential literature will leave its traces upon other writings just as soon as that literature has time to circulate, and so the later literature becomes a witness to the earlier. Especially is that the case with what is called Scripture. Scripture is a court of appeal in regard to religious matters to which other writers on the same subject necessarily refer, and that a thing is written, that is, a part of Scripture, establishes its authority. In turn, other religious literature becomes thereby a test by which we may determine whether any particular writing which claims to be Scripture is put in that category at any period, or is extant even. For instance, if we found Paul’s writings generally accepted as Scripture, and, at the same time, lack of reference to Galatians, it would raise doubts about that epistle. However, Scripture is not in a class by itself in this matter; it presents only an extreme case of a general fact which applies to all prominent and influential literature. The question whether the Gospels were in existence early in the second century—a really vital question—is one to be answered by the second-century literature. Considering the unique position of Jesus in Christianity, no writings of any account telling the story of his life are going to be ignored,—and this entirely apart from the question whether they are classed as Scripture. But there is another still more vital question, whether the Jesus of the Synoptical Gospels is a true, historical figure. Now, supposing that we found no special reverence attached to the Gospels themselves, and yet nothing else quoted in the earliest succeeding Christian literature in regard to him, the inference would be conclusive that these were regarded at the time as the only standard books on the subject, which would go far toward establishing the historical character of the writings themselves and of the personage presented in them. But, on the other hand, supposing that this earliest succeeding literature quoted from other, extra-canonical sources freely and without apology, and yet the historical figure remained unchanged, the additional matter, whether meagre or abundant, being almost entirely in keeping with the account in the canonical Gospels, the historicity is more triumphantly established by the corroborative testimony than by the absence of other witness. In fact, this state of things in the second-century literature would be the most favorable possible for historicity. And the historical character of these Gospels—not whether they are the only Gospels, nor even whether they are Scripture—is the main question in Apologetics.
What, then, is the relation of the second-century literature to the Synoptical Gospels? We have, in the first place, two epistles bearing the name of Clement of Rome. The second of these is wrongly attributed to Clement, but belongs to the same period. In the genuine epistle, then, the O.T. is quoted frequently and at great length. But the N.T. quotations are very few and meagre. With one exception, too, the writers are not mentioned. The words of our Lord are quoted as his, but not the writer who reports them. In one case, 1 Cor. is quoted as St. Paul’s, but this stands alone.1 The quotations from the Gospels are only two, and these are so inexact as to make it doubtful whether the writer had before him at the time our present Gospels.2
In the spurious writing, the num