| Matthew, having omitted (ix. 34) the discourse of Jesus, was obliged also to defer the demand of a sign, which required a previous rejoinder on the part of Jesus, until his second narration of the charge concerning Beelzebub; and in this point again the narrative of Luke, who also attaches the demand of a sign to the accusation, is parallel with the latter passage of Matthew, But Matthew not only has, with Luke, a demand of a sign in connection with this charge. Luke makes the demand of a sign follow immediately on the accusation, and then gives in succession the answers of Jesus to both. This representation modern criticism holds to be far more probable than that of Matthew, who gives first the accusation and its answer, then the demand of a sign and its refusal; and this judgment is grounded on the difficulty of supposing, that after Jesus had given a sufficiently long answer to the accusation, the very same people who had urged it would still demand a sign. But on the other hand, it is equally improbable that Jesus, after having some time ago delivered a forcible discourse on the more important point, the accusation concerning Beelzebub, and even after an interruption which had led him to a totally irrelevant declaration (Luke xi.27 ft), should revert to the less important point, namely, the demand of a sign, The discourse OH the departure and return of the unclean spirit, is in Matthew (v. 4:3-4-5) annexed to the reply of Jesus to this demand; but in Luke (xi. 24; ff.) it follows the answer to the imputation of a league with Beelzebub, and this may at first seem to be a more suitable arrangementi But on a closer examination, it will appear very improbable that Jesus should conclude a defence, exacted from him by his enemies, with so calm and purely theoretical a discourse, which supposes an audience, if not favourably prepossessed, at least open to instruction; and it will be found that here again there is no further connection than that both discourses treat of the expulsion of demons. By this single feature of resemblance, the writer of the third gospel was led to sover the connection between the answer to the oft-named accusation, and that to the demand of a sign, which accusation and demand, as the strongest proofs of the malevolent unbelief of the enemies of Jesus, seem to have been associated by tradition. The first evangelist refrained from this violence, and reserved the discourse on the return of the unclean spirit, which was suggested by the suspicion cast on the expulsion of demons by Jesus, until he had communicated the {P.428} above charge; he has also another, after the second feeding of the multitude (xvi.1ff.), and this second demand Mark also has (viii. 11 f.), while he omits the first. Here the Pharisees come to Jesus (according to Matthew, in the unlikely companionship of Sadducees), and tempt him by asking for a sign, from heaven. To this Jesus gives an answer, of which the concluding proposition, a zoicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas, in Matthew, agrees word for word with the opening of the earlier refusal. It is already improbable enough, that Jesus should have twice responded to the above requisition with the same cnismatical reference to Jonah; but the words (v. 2, 3) which, in the second passage of Matthew, precede the sentence last quoted, are totally unintelligible. For why Jesus, in reply to the demand of his enemies that he would show them a sign from heaven, should tell them that they were indeed well versed in the natural signs of the heavens, but were so much the more glaringly ignorant of the spiritual signs of the Messianic times, is so far from evident, that the otherwise unfounded omission of v. 2 and 3, seems to have arisen from despair of rinding any connection for them. Luke, who also has, (xii. 44 f.), in words only partly varied, this reproach of Jesus that his contemporaries understood better the signs of the weather than of the times, gives it another position, which might be regarded as the preferable one; since after speaking of the fire which he was to kindle, and the divisions which he was to cause, Jesus might very aptly say to the people: You take no notice of the unmistakeable prognostics of this great revolution which is being prepared by my means, so ill do you understand the signs of the times. But on a closer examination, Luke's arrangement appears just as abrupt here, as in the case of the two parables (xiii. 18). If from hence we turn again to Matthew, we easily see how he was led to his mode of representation, He may have been induced to double the demand of a sign, by the verbal variation which he met with, the required sign being at one time called simply a "sign", at another a "sign from heaven." And if he knew that Jesus had exhorted the Jews to study the signs of the times, as they had hitherto studied the appearance of the heavens, the conjecture was not very remote, that the Jews had given occasion for this admonition by demanding a sign from heaven, Thus Matthew here presents us, as Luke often does elsewhere, with a fictitious introduction to a discourse of Jesus; a proof of the proposition, advaaiced indeed, but too little regarded by Sieffert: that it is in the nature of traditional records, such as the three first Gospels, that one particular should be best preserved in this {P.429} narrative, another in that; so that first one, and then the other, is at a disadvantage, in comparison with the rest. | |
