73. The Twelve Apostles. (Chapter 5. The Disciples of Jesus.) (The Life of Jesus Critically Examined) (Strauss, David Friedrich)

The Men Whose Vocation We Have Been Considering, namely, the sons of Jonas and of Zebedee, with Philip and Matthew (Nathanael alone being excepted), form the half of that narrow circle of disciples which appears throughout the New Testament under the name of ^{P.345} the twelve, the twelve disciples or apostles. The fundamental idea of the New Testament writers concerning the twelve, is that Jesus himself chose them (Mark in. 13 f.; Luke vi. 13; John vi. 70; xv. 16.). Matthew does not give us the story of the choice of all the twelve, but he tacitly presupposes it by introducing them as a college already instituted (x. i.). Luke, on the contrary, narrates how, after a night spent on the mountain in vigils and prayer, Jesus selected twelve from the more extensive circle of his adherents, and then descended with them to the plain, to deliver what is called the Sermon on the Mount (vi. 12.). Mark also tells us in the same connection, that Jesus when on a mountain made a voluntary choice of twelve from the mass of his disciples (iii. 13.). According to Luke, Jesus chose the twelve immediately before he delivered the sermon on the mount, and apparently with reference to it: but there is no discoverable motive which can explain this mode of associating the two events, for the discourse was not specially addressed to the apostles, neither had they any office to execute during its delivery. Mark's representation, with the exception of the vague tradition from which he sets out, that Jesus chose the twelve, seems to have been wrought out of his own imagination, and furnishes no distinct notion of the occasion and manner of the choice.. Matthew has adopted the best method in merely presupposing, without describing, the particular vocation of the apostles; and John pursues the same plan, beginning (vi. 67.) to speak of the twelve, without any previous notice of their appointment.

Strictly speaking, therefore, it is merely presupposed in the Gospels, that Jesus himself fixed the number of the apostles. Is this presupposition correct? There certainly is little doubt that this number was fixed during the lifetime of Jesus; for not only does the author of the Acts represent the twelve as so compact a body immediately after the ascension of their master, that they think it incumbent on them to fill up the breach made by the apostacy of Judas by the election of a uev member (i. 15 ff.); but the apostle Paul also notices an appearance of the risen Jesus, specially to the twelve (1 Cor. xv. 5.). Schleiermacher, however, doubts whether Jesus himself chose the twelve, and he thinks it more probable that the peculiar relation ultimately borne to him by twelve from amongst his disciples, gradually and spontaneously formed itself. "We have, indeed, no warrant for supposing that the appointment of the twelve was a single solemn act; on the contrary, the Gospels explicitly narrate, that six of them were called singly, or by pairs, and on separate occasions; but it is still a question whether the number twelve was not determined by Jesus, and whether he did not willingly abide by it as an expedient for checking the multiplication of his familiar companions. The number is the less likely to have been fortuitous, ^{P.348} able from the degree of cultivation they evince, and the preference always expressed by Jesus for the poor and the little ones, vrimovg (Matt. v. 3; xi. 5. 25), that they were of a similar grade.