| 123. Announcement of the Betrayal and the Denial. | ||||
IN The Statement That Jesus from the beginning knew who would be his betrayer, the fourth gospel stands alone; but all four of the evangelists concur in testifying that at his last meal he predicted his betrayal by one of his disciples. | ||||
But in the first place there is this difference: while according to Matthew and Mark the discourse respecting the betrayer opens the scene, and in particular precedes the institution of the Lord's supper (Matt. xxvi.21ff.; Mark xiv.18ff.); Luke represents Jesus as not speaking of the betrayer until after the beginning of the meal, and the institution of the commemorative rite; | ||||
{P.709} and in John what relates to the betrayer goes forward during and after the washing of the disciples' feet (xiii. 10-30.). The intrinsically trivial question, which evangelist is here right, is extremely important to theologians, because its decision involves the answer to another question, namely, whether the betrayer also partook of the ritual supper. It neither appeared consistent with the idea of that supper as a feast of the most intimate love and union, that a virtual alien like Judas should participate in it, nor did it seem to accord with the love and compassion of the Lord, that he should have permitted an unworthy disciple by this participation to aggravate his guilt. So undesirable a view of the facts was believed to be avoided by following the arrangement of Matthew and Mark, and making the designation of the betrayer precede the institution of the Supper: for as it was known from John, that as soon as Judas saw himself detected and exposed, he withdrew from the company, it would hence appear that Jesus did not institute the Supper until after the retirement of the traitor. But this expedient is founded on nothing but an inadmissible incorporation of the narrative of John with that of the Synoptics. For the withdrawal of Judas is mentioned only by the fourth evangelist; and he alone needs the supposition of such a circumstance, because according to him, Judas now first entered into his transactions with the enemies of Jesus, and thus, in order to come to terms with them, and obtain the requisite force, needed a somewhat longer time. In the Synoptics there is no trace of the betrayer having left the company; on the contrary, everything in their narrative appears to imply that Judas, first on the general departure from the room in which the repast had been taken, instead of going directly to the garden, went to the chief priests, of whom he at once, the agreement having been made beforehand, received the necessary force for the arrest of Jesus. Thus whether Luke or Matthewbe right in the arrangement of the scene, all the Synoptics intimate that Judas did not leave the company before the general departure, and consequently that he partook of the ritual Supper. | ||||
But also as to the manner in which Jesus pointed out his betrayer, there exists no slight divergency between the evangelists. In Luke Jesus only makes the brief remark that the hand of his betrayer is with him on the table, whereupon the disciples ask among themselves, who it can be that is capable of such a deed? In Matthew and Mark he says, first, that one of those who are present will betray him; and when the disciples individually ask him, Lord, is it I? he replies: he that dips his hand with, me in the dish; until at last, after a woe has been denounced on the traitor, according to Matthew, Judas also puts that question, and receives an affirmative answer. In John, Jesus alludes to the betrayer during and after the washing of the disciples' feet, in the observations, that not all the disciples present are clean, and that {P.710} on the contrary the scripture must be fulfilled: "he that eats bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me." Then he says plainly, that one of them will betray him; the disciples look inquiringly at each other, wondering of whom he speaks, when Peter prompts John, who is lying next to Jesus, to ask who is the traitor? Jesus replies, he to whom he shall give a sop, which he immediately does to Judas, with an admonition to hasten the execution of his project; whereupon Judas leaves the company. | ||||
Here again the harmonists are at once ready to incorporate the different scenes with each other, and render them mutually consistent. According to them, Jesus, on the question of each disciple whether he were the traitor, first declared aloud that one of his companions at table would betray him (Matthew): hereupon John asked in a whisper which of them he meant, and Jesus also in a whisper made the answer, he to whom he should give the sop (John); then Judas, likewise in a whisper, asked whether it were he, and Jesus in the same manner replied in the affirmative (Matthew); lastly, after an admonition from Jesus to be speedy, the betrayer left the company (John). But that the question and answer interchanged between Jesus and Judas were spoken in a whisper, Matthew, who alone communicates them, gives no intimation, nor is this easily conceivable without presupposing the improbable circumstance, that Judns reclined on the one side of Jesus, as John did on the other; if, however, the colloquy were uttered aloud the disciples could not, as John narrates, have so strangely misunderstood the words, "What you do, do quickly," and the supposition of a stammering question on the side of Judas, and a low-toned answer from Jesus, cannot be seriously held a satisfactory explanation. Nor is it probable that Jesus, after having already made the declaration: he who dippcth with me in the dish will betray me, would for the more precise indication of the traitor have also given him a sop; it is rather to be supposed that these are but two different modes of reporting the same particular. But when once this is admitted, as it is by Paulus and Olshausen, so much is already renounced either in relation to the one narrative or the other, that it is inconsistent to resort to forced suppositions, in order to overcome the difficulty involved in the explicit answer which Matthew makes Jesus give to the traitor: and it should rather be allowed that we have before us two divergent accounts, of which the one was not so framed that it deficiencies might be supplied by the other. | ||||
Having, with Sieffert and Fritzsche, attained this degree of insight, the only remaining question is: to which of the two narratives must we give the preference as the original? Sieffert has answered this question very decidedly in favour of John; not merely, as he maintains, because he shares in the prejudice which attributes to that evangelist the character of an eye-witness; but also because his narrative is in this part, by its intrinsic evidence of truthfulness, and the vividness of its scenes, advantageously distinguished from that of Matthew, which presents no indications of an autoptical origin. For example, while John is able to describe with the utmost minuteness the manner in which Jesus indicated his betrayer; the narrative of the first gospel is such as to induce the conjecture that its author had only received the general information, that Jesus had personally indicated his betrayer. | ||||
It certainly cannot be denied, that the direct answer which Jesus gives to Judas in Matthew (v. 25) has entirely the appearance of having been framed, without much fertility of imagination, to accord with the above general information; and in so far it must be regarded as inferior to the moro indirect, and therefore more probable mode of indicating the traitor, in John. But in relation to another feature, the result of the comparion is different. In the two first evangelists Jesus says: "he who has dipped or who dips with me," in John, "he to whiom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it," a difference in which the greater preciseness of the indication, and consequently the inferior probability, is on the side of the fourth gospel. In Luke, Jesus designates the traitor merely as one of those who are sitting at meat with him; and as regards the expression o( e)mbayaj (the one who dips etc.) in Matthew and Mark, the interpretation given of it by Kuin l and Henneberg, who suppose it to mean one of the party at table, leaving it uncertain which, is not so mistaken as Olshausen represents it to be. For, first, to the question of the several disciples, is it I? Jesus might see fit to return an evasive answer; and secondly, the above answer, as Kuin l has correctly remarked, stands in the relation of an appropriate climax to the previous declaration: one of you shal betray me (v. 21), since it presents that aggravating circumstance of the betrayal, fellowship at table. Even if the authors of the two first Gospels understood the expression in question to imply, that Judas in particular dipped his hand in the dish with Jesus, and hence supposed this second declaration to have indicated him personally: still the parallel passage in Luke, and the words "one of the twelve," which in Mark precede o( e)mbaptomenoj, show that originally the second expression was merely an amplification of the former, though from the wish to have a thoroughly unequivocal designation of the betrayer on the part of Jesus, it was early interpreted in the other more special sense. | ||||
When, however, a legendary exaggeration of the preciseness of the indication is once admitted, the manner in which the fourth gospel describes that indication must be included in the series of progressive representations, and according to Sieffert, it must have been the original from which all te rest proceeded. But if we beforehand renounce the affirma- {P.713} tive reply to Judas, "you have said it", in Matthew, the mode of designation in John is the most definite of all; for the intimation: one of my companions at table, is comparatively indefinite, and even the expression: he who dips with me in the dish, is a less direct sign of the traitor, than if Jesus had himself dipped the morsel and presented it to him. Now is it in the spirit of the ancient legend, if Jesus really gave the more precise designation, to lose its hold of this, and substitute one less precise, so as to diminish the miracle of the foreknowledge exhibited by Jesus? Assuredly not; but rather the very reverse holds true. Hence we conclude that Matthew, together with the unhistorically precise, has yet at the same time preserved the historically less precise; whereas John has entirely lost the latter and has retained only the former. | ||||
After thus renouncing what is narrated of a personal designation of the traitor by Jesus, as composed post eventum, there yet remains to us the general precognition and prediction on the part of Jesus, that one of his disciples and companions at table would betray him. But even this is attended with difficulties. That Jesus received any external notification of treason brooding against him in the circle of his confidential friends, there is no indication in the Gospels: he appears to have gathered this feature of his destiny also out of the scriptures alone. He repeatedly declares that by his approaching betrayal the scripture will be fulfilled (John xiii. 18; xvii. 12. comp. Matt. xxvi. 24. parall), and in the fourth gospel (xiii. 18), he cites as this scripture the words: "He that eats bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me," from Ps. xli. 10. This passage in the Psalms refers either to the well-known perfidious fiends of David, Ahithophcl and Mephibosheth, or, if the Psalm be not the composition of David, to some unknown individuals who stood in a similar relation to the poet. There is so little trace of Messianic significance, that even Thol ck and Olshausen acknowledge the above to be the original sense. But according to the latter, in the fate of David was imaged that of the Messiah; according to the former, David himself, under a divine impulse often used expressions concerning himself, which contained special allusions to the fate of Jesus. When, however, Thol ck adds: David himself, under the influence of inspiration, did not always comprehend this more profound sense of his expressions; what is this but a confession that by the interpretation of such passages as relating to Christ there is given to them another sense than that in which their author originally intended them? Now that Jesus deduced from this passage of the 41st Psalm, that it would be his lot to be betrayed by a friend, in the way of naturalreflection, is the more inconceivable, because there is no indication to be discovered that this Psalm was interpreted Messianically among the Jews: while that such an interpretation was a result of the divine knowledge in Jesus is {P.714} impossible, because it is a false interpretation. It is rather to be supposed, that the passage in question was applied to the treachery of Judas only after the issue. It is necessary to figure to ourselves the consternation which the death of the Messiah must have produced in the minds of his first adherents, and the solicitous industry with which they endeavoured to comprehend this catastrophe; and to remember that to a mind of Jewish culture, to comprehend a fact or doctrine was not to reconcile it with consciousness and reason, but to bring it into harmony with scripture. In seeking such a result, the primitive Christians found predicted in the oracles of the Old Testament, not only the death of the Messiah, but also his falling by means of the perfidy of one of his friends, and even the subsequent fate and end of this traitor (Matt, xxvii. 9 f.; Acts i. 20.); and as the most striking Old Testament authority for the betrayal, there presented itself the above passage from Ps. xli., where the author coplains of maltreatment from one of his most intimate friends. These vouchers from the Old Testament might be introduced by the writers of the Gospel history either as reflections from themselves or others by way of appendix to their narrative of the result, as is done by the authors of the first gospel and the Acts, where they relate the end of Judas: or, what would be more impressive, they might put them into the mouth of Jesus himself before the issue, as is done by the author of the fourth gospel in the present instance. The Psalmist had meant by ''an? pas one who generally was accustomed to eat bread with him: but this expression might easily come to be regarded as the designation of one in, the act of eating bread with the subject of the prophecy; and hence it seemed appropriate to choose as the scene for the delivery of the prediction, a meal of Jesus with his disciples, and for the sake of proximity to the end of Jesus to make this meal the last. For the rest, the precise words of the psam were not adhered to, for instead of "he who eats bread with me," was substituted either the synonymous phrase "with me on the table," as in Luke; or, in accordance with the representation of the Synoptics that this last was a paschal meal, an allusion to the particular sauce used on that occasion: "he who dips with me in the dish," as in Mark and Matthew. This, at first entirely synonymous with the expression o( trwgwn, as a designation of some one of his companions at table, was soon, from the desire for a personal designation, misconstrued to mean that Judas accidentally dipped his hand into the dish at the same moment with Jesus, and at length the morsel dipped into the dish by Judas at the same time with Jesus, was by the fourth evangelist converted into the sop presented by Jesus to his betrayer. | ||||
There are other parts also of this scene in John, which, instead of having a natural character, as Sieffert maintains, must rather be pronounced artificial. The manner, in which Peter has to use the 714 intervention of the disciple leaning on Jesus' bosom, in order to obtain from the latter a more definite intimation concerning the betrayer, besides being foreign to the Synoptics, belongs to that un-historical colouring which, as we have above shown, the fourth gospel gives to the relation of the two apostles. Moreover, to disguise an indication of Judas in the evil character of the traitor, beneath an action of friendliness, as that of giving him the sop, must retain something untruthful and revolting, whatever may be imagined of objects which Jesus might have in view, such as the touching of the traitor with compunction even at that hour. Lastly, the address, What you do, do quickly, after all that can be done to soften it, is still harsh, a kind of braving of the impending catastrophe; and rather than resort to any refinements in order to justify these words as spoken by Jesus, I prefer agreeing with the author of the Probabilia, who sees in them the effort of the fourth evangelist to improve on theordinary representation, according to which Jesus foreknow the betrayal and refrained from preventing it, by making him even challenge the traitor to expedite his undertaking, Besides the betrayal, Jesus is said to have predicted the denial by Peter, and to have fixed the precise time of its occurrence, declaring that before the cock should crow (Mark says twice) on the following morning, Peter would deny him three times (Matt. xxvi.33ff. parall.); which prediction, according to the Gospels, was exactly accomplished. It is here observed on the side of nationalism, that the extension of the prophetic gift to the cognizance of such merely accessory circumstances as the crowing of coclcs, must excite astonishment; as also that Jesus, instead of warning, predicts the result as inevitable: a feature which calls to mind the Fate of the Greek tragedy, in which a man, in spite of his endeavour to avoid what the oracle has predicted of him, nevertheless fulfils its inexorable decree. Paulus will not admit either ou) fwnhsei shmeron o( a)lektwr, or a)parneisqai, to have been spoken in their strict verbal signification, but gives to the entire speech of Jesus only this indecisive and problematical sense: so easily to be shaken is the imagined firmness of this disciple, that between the present moment and the early morning, events may arise which would cause him more than once to stumble and be unfaithful to his master. But this is not the right mode of removing the difficulty of the Gospel narrative. The words attributed to Jesus so closely agree with the subsequent event, that the idea of a merely fortuitous coincidence is not to be here entertained. Occuring as they do in a tissue of prophecies post eventum, WE must rather suppose that after Peter had really denied Jesus more than once during that night, the announcement of such {P.715} a result was put into the mouth of Jesus, with the common marking of time by the crowing of the cock, and the reduction of the instances of denial to three. That this determination of time and number was permanent in the Gospel tradition, (except that Mark, doubtless arbitrarily, for the sake of balancing the three times denying by another number, speaks of the twice crowing of the cock,) appears to be explained without any great difficulty by the familiarity of the expressions early choosen, and the ease with which they could be retained in the memory. | ||||
Just as little claim to be regarded as a real prophecy has the announcement of Jesus to the rest of his disciples that they will all of them be offended because of him in the coming night, that they will forsake him and disperse (Matt. xxvi. 31. parall. comp. John xvi. 32.); especially as the evangelists themselves, in the words: For it is written, "I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad," point out to us the Old Testament passage (Zech. xiii. 7), which, first sought out by the adherents of Jesus for the satisfaction of their own difficulties as to the death of their master, and the melancholy consequences which immediately ensued, was soon put into the mouth of Jesus as a prophecy of these consequences. | ||||