110. More Particular Circumstances of the Entrance. Its Object and Historical... (Chapter 10. The Transfiguration of Jesus; Last Journey to Jerusalem.) (The Life of Jesus Critically Examined) (Strauss, David Friedrich)

WHILE the fourth gospel first makes the multitude that streamed forth to meet Jesus render him their homage, and then briefly states that Jesus mounted a young ass which he had obtained; the Synoptics commence their description of the entrance with a minute account of the manner in which Jesus came by the ass. When, namely, he had arrived in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, towards Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples into the village lying before them, telling them that when they came there they would find-Matthew says, mi ass tied, and a colt with her; the two others, a colt whereon never man sat- which they were to loose and bring to him, silencing any objections of the owner by the observation, the Lord has need of him (or them). This having been done, the disciples spread their clothes, and placed Jesus-on both the animals, according to Matthew; according to the two other Synoptics, on the single animal.

The most striking part of this account is obviously the statement oi Matthew, that Jesus not only required two asses, though he alone intended to ride, but that he also actually sat on them both. It is true, that, as is natural, there are not wanting attempts to explain the ^{P.624} former particular, and to do away with the latter. Jesus, it is said, caused the mother animal to be brought with the colt, on which alone he intended to ride, in order that the young and still sucking animal might by this means be made to go more easily; or else the mother, accustomed to her young one, followed of her own accord; but a young animal yet unweaned, would scarcely be given up by its owner to be ridden. A sufficient motive on the part of Jesus in sending for the two animals, could only be that he intended to ride both, which Matthew appears plainly enough to say; for his words imply, not only that the clothes were spread, but also that Jesus was placed on the two animals (eirdvu airoJv). But how are we to represent this to ourselves? As an alternate mounting of the one and the other, Fritzsche thinks: but this, for so short a distance would have been a .superfluous inconvenience. Hence commentators have sought to rid themselves of the singular statement. Some, after very wek authorities, and in opposition to all critical principles, read in the words relative to the spreading of the clothes upon it (the colt), instead of upon them; and then in the mentioning that Jesus placed himself thereon, refer the i(matia au)twn to the clothes which were spread on one of the animals. Others, thinking to escape the difficulty without an alteration of the reading, characterize Matthew's statement as an enallage numeri, by which, according to Winer's explanation, it is meant that the evangelist, using an inaccurate mode of expression, certainly speaks of both the animals, but only in the sense in which we say of him who springs from one of two horses harnessed together, that he springs from the horses. 1 Admitting this expedient to be sufficient, it again becomes incomprehensible why Jesus, who according to this only meant to use one animal, should have sent for two. The whole statement becomes the more suspicious, when we consider that it is givn by the first evangelist alone; for in order to reconsile the others with him it will not suffice to say, as we ordinarily read, that they name only the foal, as being that on which Jesus rode, and that while omitting the ass as an accessary fact, they do not exclude it.

But how was Matthew led into this singular statement? Its true source has been pointed out, though in a curious manner, by those who conjecture, that Jesus in his instructions to the two disciples, and Matthew in his original writing, following the passage, of Zachariah (ix. 9), made use of several expressions for the one idea of the ass, which expressions were by the Greek translator of the first Gospel misconstrued to mean more than one animal. Undoubtedly it was the accumulated designations of the ass in the above passage which occasioned ^{P.625} the duplication of it in the first gospel; for the and which in the Hebrew was intended in an explanatory sense, was erroneously understood to denote an addition, and hence instead of: an ass, that is, an ass's foal, was substituted: an ass together with an ass's foal. Bui this mistake cannot have originated with the Greek translator, who, if he had found throughout Matthew's narrative but one ass, would scarcely have doubled it purely on the strength of the prophetic passage, and as often as his original spoke of one ass, have added a second, or, introduced the plural number instead of the singular; it must rather have been made by one whose only written source was the prophetic passage, out of which, with the aid of oral tradition, he spun his entire narrative, i.e. the author of the first gospel; who hereby, as recent criticism correctly maintains, irrecoverably forfeits the reputation of an eye-witness? If the first gospel stands alone in this mistake, so, on the other hand, the two intermediate evangelists have a feature peculiar to themselves, which it is to the advantage of the first to have avoided. We shall merely point out in passing the prolixity with which Mark and Luke, (though they, as well as Matthew, make Jesus describe to the two disciples, how they would find the ass, and wherewith they were to satisfy the owner,) yet do not spare themselves or the reader the trouble of almost verbally repeating every particular as having occurred (Mark v. 4 if; Luke v. 32 if.); whereas Matthew, with more judgment, contents himself with the observation, and the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. This, as affecting merely the form of the narrative, we shall not dwell on further. But it concerns the substance, that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus desired an animal ivhereon yet never man sat, a particular of which Matthew knows nothing. One does not understad how Jesus could designedly increase the difficulty of his progress, by the choice of a hitherto unridden animal, which, unless he kept it in order by divine omnipotence, (for the most consummate human skill would not suffice for this on the first riding,) must inevitably have occasioned much disturbance to the triumphal procession, especially as we are not to suppose that it was preceded by its mother, this circumstance having entered into the representation of the first evangelist only. To such an inconvenience Jesus would assuredly not have exposed himself without a cogent reason: such a. reason however appears to he sufficiently near in the opinion of antiquity, according to which, to use Wettstein's expression, animalia, usibus humanis nondum mancipata, sacra habebantar; so that thus Jesus, for his consecrated person, and the high occasion of his Messianic entrance, may have chosen to use only a sacred animal. But regarded more closely, this reason will appear frivolous, and absurd also; for the spectaors had no means of knowing that the ass had never been ridden before, except ^{P.626} by the unruliness with which he may have disturbed the peaceful progress of the triumphal train. If we are thus unable to comprehend how Jesus could seek an honour for himself in mounting an animal which had never yet been ridden; we shall, on the contrary, find it easy to comprehend how the primitive Christian community might early believe it due to his honour that he should ride only on such an animal, as subsequently that he should he only in an unused grave. The authors of the intermediate Gospels did not hesitate to receive this trait into their memoirs, because they indeed, in writing, would not experience the same inconvenience from the undisciplined animal, which it must have caused to Jesus in riding.

The two difficulties already considered belong respectively to the first evangelist, and the two intermediate ones: another is common to them all, namely, that which lies in the circumstance that Jesus so confidently sends two disciples for an ass which they would find in the next village, in such and such a situation, and that the issue corresponds so closely to his prediction. It might here appear the most natural, to suppose that he had previously bespoken the ass, and that consequently it stood ready for him at the hour and place appointed; but how could he have thus bespoken an ass in Bethphage, seeing that he was just come from Jericho? Hence even Paulus in this instance finds something else more probable: namely, that about the time of the feasts, in the villages lying on the high road to Jerusalem, many beasts of burden stood ready to be hired by travellers; but in opposition to this it is to be observed, that Jesus does not at all seem to speak of the first animal that may happen to presnt itself, but of a particular animal. Hence we cannot but be surprised that Olshausen describes it as only the probable idea of the narrator, that to the Messiah making his entrance into Jerusalem, the providence of God presented everything just as he needed it; as also that the same expositor, in order to explain the ready compliance of the owners of the animal, finds it necessary to suppose that they were friends of Jesus; since this trait rather serves to exhibit the as it were magical power which resided in the name of the JLord, at the mention of which the owner of the ass unresistingly placed it at his disposal, as subsequently the inhabitant of the room gave it up at a word from the Master (Matt. xxvi. 18 parall.). To this divine providence in favour of the Messiah, and the irresistible power of his name, is united the superior knowledge by means of ^{P.627} which Jesus here clearly discerns a distant fact which might be available for the supply of his wants.

Now admitting this to be the meaning and design of the evangelists, such a prediction of an accidental circumstance might certainly be conceived as the effect of a magnetic clairvoyance. But, on the one hand, we know full well the tendency of the primitive Christian legend to create such proofs of the superior nature of her Messiah (witness the calling of the two pairs of brethren; but the instance most analogous has been just alluded to, and is hereafter to be more closely examined, namely, the manner in which Jesus causes the room to be bespoken for his last supper with the twelve); on the other hand, the dogmatic reasons drawn from prophecy, for displaying the far-seeing of Jesus here as precisely the knowledge of an ass being tied at a certain place, are clearly obvious; so that we cannot abstain from the conjecture, that we have here nothing more than a product of the tendency which characterized the Christian legend, and of the effort to base Christian belief on ancient prophecy. In considering, namey, the passage quoted in the first and fourth Gospels from Zechariah, where it is merely said that the meek and lowly king will come riding on an ass, in general; it is usual to overlook another prophetic passage, which contains more precisely the tied ass of the Messiah. This passage is Gen. xlix. 11., where the dying Jacob says to Judah concerning the Shiloh, "Binding his foal to the vine, and his ass's colt to the choice vine." Justin Martyr understands this passage also, as well as the one from Zechariah, as a prediction relative to the entrance of Jesus, and hence directly asserts that the foal which Jesus caused to be fetched was bound to a vine. In like manner the Jews not only held the general interpretation that the Shiloh was the Messiah, as may be shown already in the Targum, but also combined the passage relative to the binding of the ass with that on the riding of it into Jerusalem.That the above prphecy of Jacob is not cited by any one of our evangelists, only proves, at the utmost, that it was not verbally present to their minds when they were writing the narrative before us: it can by no means prove that the passage was not an element in the conceptions of the circle in which the story was first formed. The transmission of the narrative through the hands of many who were not aware of its original relation to the passage in Genesis, may {certainly be argued from the fact that it no longer perfectly corresponds to the prophecy. For a perfect agreement to exist, Jesus, after he had, according to Zechariah, ridden ^{628} into the city on the ass, must on dismounting, have bound it to a vine, instead of causing it to be unbound in the next village (according to Mark, from a door by the way-side) as he actually does. By this means, however, there was obtained, together with the fulfilment of those two prophecies, a proof of the supernatural knowledge of Jesus, and the magical power of his name; and in relation to the former point, it might be remembered in particular, that Samuel also had once proved his gifts as a seer by the prediction, that as Saul was returning homeward, two men would meet him with the information that the asses of Kis his father were found (1 Sam. x. 2.). The narrative in the fourth gospel, having no connection with the Mosaic passage, says nothing of the ass being tied, or of its being fetched by the disciples, and merely states with reference to the passage of Zechariah alone: Jesus, having found a young ass, sat thereon (v. 14).

The next feature that presents itself for our consideration, is the homage which is rendered to Jesus by the populace. According to all the narrators except Luke, this consisted in cutting down the branches of trees, which, according to the Synoptics, were strewed in the way, according to John, (who with more particularity mentions palm branches,) were carried by the multitude that met Jesus; further, according to all except John, in the spreading of clothes in the way. To this were added joyous acclamations, of which all have, with unimportant modifications, the words: "Blessed be he that comes in the name of the Lord;" all except Luke the Hosanna; and all, the greeting as King, or Son of David. The first, from Ps. cxviii. 26, was, it is true, a customary form of salutation to persons visiting the feasts, and even the second, taken from the preceding verse of the same psalm, was a usual cry at the feast of tabernacles and th Passover; but the addition "to the Son of David, and b fiaaiXevf rov 'lapaA, the King of Israel, shows that the people here applied these general forms to Jesus specially as the Messiah, bid him welcome in a pre-eminent sense, and wished success to his undertaking. In relation to the parties who present the homage, Luke's account is the most-circumscribed, for he so connects the spreading of the clothes in the way (v. 36) with the immediately preceding context, that he appears to ascribe it, as well as the laying of the clothes on the ass, solely to the disciples, and he expressly attributes the acclamations to the whole multitude of the disciples only; whereas Matthew and Mark make the homage proceed from the accompanying mass of people. This difference, however, can be easily reconciled; for when Luke speaks of the multitude of the disciples, ^{P.629} this means the wider circle of the adherents of Jesus, and, on the other hand, the very great multitude in Matthew, only means all those who were favourable to him amonf the multitude. But while the Synoptics remain within the limits of the company who were proceeding to the feast, and who were thus the fellow travellers of Jesus, John, as above noticed, makes the whole solemnity proceed from those who go out of Jerusalem to meet Jesus (v. 13), while he represents the multitude who are approaching with Jesus as testifying to the former the resurrection of Lazarus, on account of which, according to John, the solemn escort of Jesus into Jerusalem was prepared (v. 17 f.). This cause we cannot admit as authentic, inasmuch as we have found critical reasons for doubting the resurrection of Lazarus: but with the alleged cause, the fact itself of the escort is shaken; especially if we reflect, that the dignity of Jesus might appear to demand that the inhabitants of the city David should have gone forth to bring him in with all solemnity, and that it fully harmonizes with the prevailing characteristics of the representation of the fourth gospel, to describe, before the arrival of Jesus at the feast, how intently the expectations of the people were fixed upon him (vii.11ff., xi. 56.).

The last trait in the picture before us, is the displeasure of the enemies of Jesus at the strong attachment to him, exhibited by the people on this occasion. According to John (v. 19), the Pharisees said to each other: we see from this that the (lenient) proceedings which we have hitherto adopted are of no avail; all the world is following him (we must interpose, with forcible measures). According to Luke (v. 39 f.), some Pharisees addressed Jesus as if they expected him to impose silence on his disciples; on which he answers, that if these were silent, the stones would cry out. While in Luke and John this happens during the progress, in Matthew it is only after Jesus has arrived with the procession in the temple, and when the children, even here, continue to cry Hosanna to the Son of David, that the high priests and scribes direct the attention of Jesus to the impropriety, as it appears to them, whereupon he repulses them with a sentence out of Psa. viii. 3. (Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you hat perfected praise) (v. 15 f.); a sentence which in the original obviously relates to the Lord, but which Jesus thus applies to himself. The lamentation of Jesus over Jerusalem, connected by Luke with the entrance, will come under our consideration further on.

John, and more particularly Matthew by his phrase touto de gegonen i(na plhrwqh etc. "All this was done that it might be fulfilled, etc." (v. 4), unequivocally express the idea that the design first of God, inasmuch as he ordained this scene, and next of the Messiah, as the participant in the Divine counsels, was, by giving this character to the entrance, to fulfil an ancient prophecy. If Jesus knew ^{P.630} himself as the Messiah, this cannot have been a knowledge resulting from the higher principle within him; for, even if this prophetic passage ought not to be referred to an historical prince, as Uzziah, or John Hyrcanus, but to a Messianic individual, still the latter, though a pacific, must yet be understood as a temporal prince, and moreover as in peaceful possession of Jerusalem thus as one altogether different from Jesus. But it appears quite possible for Jesus to have come to such an interpretation in a natural way, since at least the rabbis with decided unanimity interpret the passage of Zechariah of the Messiah. Above all, we know that the contradiction which appeared to exist between the insignificant advent here predicted of the Messiah, and the brilliant one which Daniel had foretold, was at a later period commonly reconciled by the doctrine, that according as the Jewish people showed themselves worthy or the contrary, their Messiah would appear in a majestic or a lowly form. If Nw even if this distinction did not exist in the time of Jesus, but only in general a reference of the passage Zech. ix. 9. to the Messiah: still Jesus might imagine that now, on his first appearance, the prophecy of Zechariah must be fulfilled in him, but hereafter, on his second appearance, the prophecy of Daniel. But there is a third possibility; namely, that either an accidental riding into Jerusalem on an ass by Jesus was subsequently interpreted by the Christians in this manner, or that, lest any Messianic attribute should be wanting to him, the whole narrative of the entrance was freely composed after the two prophecies and the dogmatic presupposition of a superhuman knowledge on the part of Jesus.