| 109. Divergencies of the Gospels, on the Point From Which Jesus Made His Entrance into Jerusalem. | ||||
EVEN concerning the close of the journey of Jesus-concerning the last station before he readied Jerusalem, the evangelists are not entirely in unison. While from the synoptic Gospels it appears, that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the same day on which he left Jericho, and consequently without halting long at any intervening place (Matt. xx. 34; xxi.1ff. parall.); the fourth gospel makes him go from Ephraim only so'far as Bethany, spend the night there, and enter Jerusalem only on the following day (xii. 1.12ff.). In order to reconcile the two accounts it is said: we need not wonder that the Synoptics, in their summary narrative, do not expressly touch upon the spending of the night in Bethany, and we are not to infer from this that they intended to deny it; there exists, therefore, no contradiction between them and John, but what they present in a compact form, he exhibits in detail. But while Matthew does not even name Bethany, the two other Synoptics mention this place in a way which decidedly preclude the supposition that Jesus spent the night there. They narrate that when Jesus came near to Beth- {P.620} phage and Bethany, he caused an ass to be fetched from the next village, and forthwith rode on this into the city. Between events so connected it is impossible to imagine a night interposed; on the contrary, the narrative fully conveys the impression that immediately on the message of Jesus, the ass was surrendered by its owner, and that immediately after the arrival of the ass, Jesus prepared to enter the city. Moreover, if Jesus intended to remain in Bethany for the night, it is impossible to discover his motive in sending for the ass. For if we are to suppose the village to which he sent to be Bethany, and if the animal on which he purposed to ride would not be required until the following morning, there was no need for him to send forward the disciples, and he might conveniently have waited until he arrived with them in Bethany; the other alternative, that before he had reached Bethany, and ascertained whether the animal he required might not be found tere, he should have sent beyond this nearest village to Bethphage, in order there to procure an ass for the following morning, is altogether destitute of probability; and yet Matthew, at least, says decidedly that the ass was procured in Bethphage. To this it may be added, that according to the representation oi Mark, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the evening had already commenced (xi. 11,), and consequently it was only possible for him to take a cursory survey of the city and the temple, after which he again returned to Bethany. It is not, certainly, to be proved that the fourth gospel lays the entrance in the morning; but it must be asked, why did not Jesus, when he only came from so near a place as Bethany, set out earlier from thence, that he might have time to do something worth speaking of in Jerusalem? The late arrival of Jesus in the city, as stated by Mark, is evidently to be explained only by the longer distance from Jericho there; if he came from Bethany merely, he would scarcey set out so late, as that after he had only looked round him in the city, he must again return to Bethany, in order on the following day to set out earlier, which nothing had hindered him from doing on this day. It is true that, in deferring the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem until late in the evening, Mark is not supported by the two other Synoptics, for these represent Jesus as undertaking the purification of the temple on the day of his arrival, and Matthew even makes him perform cures, and give answers to the high priests and scribes (Matt. xxi.12ff.); but even without this statement as to the hour of entrance, the arrival of Jesus near to the above villages, the sending of the disciples, the bringing of the ass, and the riding into the city, are too closely consecutive, to allow of our inserting in the narrative of the Synoptics, a night's residence in Bethany. | ||||
If then it remains, that the three first evangelists make Jesus proceed directly from Jericho, without any stay in Bethany, while the fourth makes him come to Jerusalem from Bethany only: they must, if they are mutually correct, speak of two separate entrances; {P.621} and this has been recently maintained by several critics. According to them, Jesus first (as the Synoptics relate) proceeded directly to Jerusalem with the caravan going to the feast, and on this occasion there happened, when he made himself conspicuous by mounting the animal, an unpremeditated demonstration of homage on the part of his fellow-travellers, which converted the entrance into a triumphal progress. Having retired to Bethany in the evening, on the following morning (as John relates) a great multitude went out to meet him, in order to convey him into the city, and as he met with them on the way from Bethany, there was a repetition on an enlarged scale of the scene on the foregoing day, this time preconcerted by his adherents. This distinction of an earlier entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem before his approach was known in the city, and a later, after it was learned that he was in Bethany, is favoured by the difference, that according to the synoptic narrative, the people who render homage to him are only "going before" and "following" (Matt. v. 9), while according to that of John, they are meeting him (v. 13, 18). If however it be asked: why then among all our narrators, does each give only one entrance, and not one of them show any trace of a second? The answer in relation to John is, that this evangelist is silent as to the first entrance, probably because he was not present on the occasion, having possibly been sent to Bethany to announce the arrival of Jesus. As, however, according to our principles, if it be assumed of the author of the fourth gospel, that he is the apostle named in the superscriqtion, the same assumption must also be made respecting the author of the first: we ask in vain, whither are we then to suppose that Matthew was sent on the secoad entrance, that he knew nothing to relate concerning it? since with the repeated departure from Bethany to Jerusalem, there is no conceivable cause for such an errand. In relation to Jahn indeed it is apure invention; not to insist, that even if the two evangelists were not personally present, they must yet have learned enough of an event so much talked of in the circle of the disciples, to be able to furnish an account of it. Above all, as the narrative of the Synoptics does not indicate that a second entrance had taken place after the one described by them: so that of John is of such a kind, that before the entrance which it describes, it is impossible to conceive another. | ||||
For according to this narrative, the day before the entrance which it details (consequently, on the day of the synoptic entrance,) many Jews went from Jerusalem to Bethany because they had heard of the arrival of Jesus, and now wished to see him and Lazarus whom he had restored to life (v. 9, comp. 12.). But how could they learn on the day of the synoptic entrance, that Jesus was at Bethany? On that day Jesus did indeed pass either by or through Bethany, but he proceeded directly to {P.622} Jerusalem, from which, according to all the narratives, he could have returned to Bethany only at so late an hour in the evening, that Jews who now first went from Jerusalem, could no longer hope to be able to see him. But why should they take the trouble to seek Jesus in Bethany, when they had on that very day seen him in Jerusalem itself? Surely in this case it must have been said, not merely, that "they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also," but rather that they had indeed seen Jesus himself in Jerusalem, but as they wished to see Lazarus also, they came therefore to Bethany: whereas the evangelist represents these people as coming from Jerusalem partly to see Jesus; he cannot therefore have supposed that Jesus might have been seen in Jerusalem on that very day. Further, when it is said in John, that on the following day it was heard in Jerusalem that Jesus was coming, (v. 12.) this does not at all seem to imply that Jesus had already been there the day before, but rather that the news had come from Bethany, of his intention to enter on this clay. So also the reception which is immediately prepared for him, alone has its proper significance when it is regarded as the glorification of his first entrance into the metropolis; it could only have been appropriate on his second entrance, if Jesus had the day before entered unobserved and unhonoured, and it had been wished to repair this omission on the following day-not if the first entrance hail already been so brilliant. Moreover, on the second entrance every feature of the first must have been repeated, which, whether we refer it to a preconceived arrangement on the part of Jesus, or to an accidental coincidence of circumstances, still remains improbable. With respect to Jesus, it is not easy to understand how he could arrange the repetition, of a spectacle which, in the first instance significant, if acted a second time would be flat and unmeaning; on the other hand, circumstances must have coincided in an unprecedented manner, if on both occasions there happened the same demonstrations of homage on the part of the people, with the same expressions of envy on the part of his opponents: if, on both occasions, too, there stood at the command of Jesus an ass, by riding which he brought to mind the prophecy of Zachariah. We might therefore call to our aid Sieffert's hypothesis of assimilation, and suppose that the two entrances, originally more different, became thus similar by traditional intermixture: were not the supposition that two distinct events he at the foundation of the Gospel narratives, rendered improbable by another circumstance. | ||||
On the first glance, indeed, the supposition of two entrances seems to find support in the fact, that John makes his entrance take place the day after the meal in Bethany, at which Jesus was anointed under memorable circumstances; whereas the two first Synoptics (for Luke knows nothing of a meal at Bethany in this period of the life of Jesus) make their entrance precede this meal: and thus, quite {P.623} in accordance with the above supposition, the synoptic entrance would appear the earlier, that of John the later. This would be very well, if John had not placed his entrance so early, and the Synoptics their meal at Bethany so late, that the former cannot possibly have been subsequent to the latter. According to John, Jesus comes six days before the Passover to Bethany, and on the following day enters Jerusalem (xiii. 1, 12); on the other hand, the meal at Bethany mentioned by the Synoptics (Matt. xxvi.6ff. parall), can have been at the most but two days before the Passover (v. 2); so that if we are to suppose the synoptic entrance prior to the meal and the entrance in John, there must then have been after all this, according to the Synoptics, a second meal in Bethany. But between the two meals thus presupposed, as between the two entrances, there would have been the most striking resemblance even to the minutest points; and against the interweaving of two such double incidents, there is so stronga presumption, that it will scarcely be said there were two entrances and two meals, which were originally far more dissimilar, but, from the transference of features out of the one incident into the other by tradition, they have become as similar to each other as we now see them: on the contrary, here if anywhere, it is easier, when once the authenticity of the accounts is given up, to imagine that tradition has varied one incident, than that it has assimilated two. | ||||