I n" * iM *' 4kkL. fc 1 » ° iLmaiaaiKy • DIVINITY SCHOOL TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. M ESSRS. CLARK have much pleasure in forwarding to their Subscribers the First Issue for 1875 : — PROFESSOR GODET'S COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL. Two Vols., which they believe will be very acceptable, as being one of the best Commentaries on this Gospel. The Second Issue will include Oehler's Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, Vol. II., completing the work, arid probably the Second Volume of Professor Delitzsch on the Salomonic Writings ; and they have also pleasure in intimating that Dr. Luthardt is preparing a New Edition of his Commen tary on St. John's Gospel, which, with the sanction of the Author, will appear in the Foreign Theological Library. They beg anew to thank the Subscribers for their continued support, and to respectfully request a continuance of it. May they ask a remittance of the Subscription for 1875 — 21s. 38 George Street, Edinburgh, March 1875. CLARE'S FOREIGN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY. FOURTH SEEIES. VOL. XLV. ©oUft's Commcntanj on tijt Qofytl of JLufec. VOL. I. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 18 75. PRINTED BY MURRAY AND GIBB, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, ... . JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO. NEW YORK, .... SCRIBNER, WELFORD, AND ARMSTRONG. A COMMENTARY THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. BY F. ftODET, DOCTOR AND PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, NEUCHATEL. VOLUME FIRST. TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION BY E. W. SHALDERS, B.A., NEWBURY. f YALE 1 ^ Haven. ^ EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 1875. PREFACE. A YEAR and half has passed away — and how swiftly ! — -*¦-*- since the publication of this Commentary, and already a second edition has become necessary. I bless the Lord for the acceptance which this work has met with in the churches of Switzerland and of France, and I hail it as a symptom of that revived interest in exegetical studies, which has always appeared to me one of their most urgent needs. I tender my special thanks to the authors of those favourable reviews which have given effectual aid towards the attainment of this result. Almost every page of this second edition bears the traces of corrections in the form of my former work ; but the sub stance of its exegesis and criticism remains the same. Of only one passage, or rather of only one term {second-first, vi. 1), has the interpretation been modified. Besides that, I have made a number of additions occasioned by the publication of two works, one of which I have very frequently quoted, and the other as often controverted. I refer to M. Gess' book, Sur la Personne et VCEuvre de Christ (first part), and to La Vie de Jfeus by M. Keim (the last two volumes). In a recent article of the Protestantische Kirchenzeitung, M. Holtzmann has challenged my critical standpoint as being determined by a dogmatic prepossession. But has he forgotten the advantage which Strauss took in his first Vie de Jisus of the hypothesis of Gieseler, which I have defended ? The 7 Vlll PREFACE. reader having the whole before Mm will judge. He will see for himself whether the attempt to explain in a natural and rational way the origin of the three synoptical texts by means of common written sources is successful. There is one fact especially which still waits for explanation, namely, the Aramaisms of Luke, These Aramaisms are met with not only in passages which belong exclusively to this Hellenistic writer, but also in those which are common to him and the other writers, who were of Jewish origin, and in whose parallel passages nothing of a similar kind is to be found ! This fact remains as a rock, against which all the various hypotheses I have controverted are completely shattered, and especially that of Holtzmann, May not the somewhat ungenerous imputation of the Professor of Heidelberg, whose earnest labours no one admires more than myself, have been inspired by a slight feeling of wounded self-esteem? And now, may this Commentary renew its course with the blessing of the Lord, to whose service > it is consecrated ; and may its second voyage be as prosperous and short as the first ! F. G. Neuchatel, August 1870. EXTRACTS FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. A Commentary on the Gospel of John remains an unfinished work so long as it is left unaccompanied by a similar work on at least one of the synoptical Gospels. Of these three writings, the Gospel of Luke appeared to me best fitted to serve as a complement to the exegetical work which I had previously published, because, as M. Sabatier has well shown in his short PREFACE. IX but substantial Jfissai sur les Sources de la Vie de Jfeus, Luke's writing constitutes, in several important respects, a transition' between the view taken by John and that which forms the basis of the synoptical literature.1 The exegetical method pursued is very nearly the same as in my preceding Commentary. I have not written merely for professed theologians ; nor have I aimed directly at edification. This work is addressed, in general, to those readers of culture, so numerous at the present day, who take a heart-felt interest in the religious and critical questions which are now under discussion. To meet their requirements, a translation has been given of those Greek expressions which it was necessary to quote, and technical language has as far as possible been avoided. The most advanced ideas of modern unbelief circu late at the present time in all our great centres of population. In the streets of our citieSi workmen are heard talking about the conflict between St. Paul and the other apostles of Jesus Christ. We must therefore endeavour to place the results of a real and impartial Biblical science within reach of all. I repeat respecting this Commentary what I have already said of its predecessor ; it has been written, not so much with a view to its being consulted, as read. From the various readings, I have had to select those which had a certain value, or presented something of interest. A commentary cannot pretend to supply the place of a complete critical edition such as all scientific study requires. Since I cannot in any way regard the eighth edition of Tischendorf 's text just published as a standard text, though I gratefully acknowledge its aid as absolutely indispensable, I have 1 The publishers intend, if these volumes on Luke meet with a favourable reception, to bring out M. Godet's celebrated Commentary on John in an English dress. Indeed, they would have followed the author's order of publica tion, but that they waited to take advantage of a second edition, which is preparing for the press. — Trans, X PREFACE. adopted the received text as a basis in indicating the various readings ; but I would express my earnest desire for an edition of the Byzantine text that could be regarded as a standard authority. Frequently I have contented myself with citing the original text of the ancient manuscripts, without mentioning the changes made in it by later hands ; but whenever these changes offered anything that could be of any interest, I have indicated them. If I am asked with what scientific or religious assumptions I have approached this study of the third Gospel, I reply, With these two only : that the authors of our Gospels were men of good sense and good faith. TABLE OF CONTENTS TO THE FIRST VOLUME. PACE Introduction, ..... • 1-49 Sec. 1. Traces of the Existence of the Third Gospel in the Primitive Church, .... 2 „ 2. The Author, .... 16 ,, 3. Composition of the Third Gospel, 28 „ 4. Sources of the Third Gospel,. . 33 ,, 5. Preservation of the Third Gospel, 46 The Title of the Gospel, 51 The Prologue, i. 1-4, 53-65 FIEST PAET. The Narratives of the Infancy, i. 5-ii. 52, First Narrative : Announcement of the Birth of John the Baptist, i. 5-25, Second Narrative : Announcement of the Birth of Jesus, i. 26-38 Third Narrative : Mary's Visit to Elizabeth, i. 39-56, Fourth Narrative : Birth and Circumcision of John the Baptist, i. 57-80, Fifth Narrative : Birth of the Saviour, ii. 1-20, Sixth Narrative : Circumcision and Presentation of Jesus, ii. 21-40, Seventh Narrative • The Child Jesus at Jerusalem, ii. 41-52, General Considerations on chap. i. and ii., . 11 66-163 69 86 107 119 135 145151 Xll CONTENTS. SECOND PART. The Advent of the Messiah, hi. 1-iv. 13, . First Narrative : The Ministry of John the Baptist, iii. 1-20, Second Narrative : The Baptism of Jesus, iii. 21, 22, On the Baptism of Jesus, .... Third Narrative : The Genealogy of Jesus, iii. 23-38, Fourth Narrative : The Temptation, iv. 1-13, On the Temptation, ..... PAGE 164-226 165 184 189 195 207221 THIRD PART. The Ministry of Jesus in Galilee, iv. 14-ix. 50, . . . 227 First Cycle : Visits to Nazareth and Capernaum, iv. li-ii, 231 On the Miracles of Jesus, ..... 253 Second Cycle' : From- the Calling of the First Disciples to the Choice of the Twelve, v. 1-vi. 11, ..... 254 Third Cycle : From the Choice of the Twelve to their First Mission, vi. 12-yiii. 56, . . . . . . .294 Fourth Cycle : From the Sending forth of the Twelve to the Depar ture from Galilee, ix. 1-50, . . . . 395 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. INTRODUCTION. THE Introduction of a Biblical Commentary is not designed to solve the various questions relating to the origin of the book under consideration. This solution must be the result of the study of the book itself, and not he assumed beforehand. The proper work of introduction is to prepare the way for the study of the sacred book ; it should propose questions, not solve them. But there is one side of the labour of criticism which may, and indeed ought to be treated before exegesis — the historical. And by this we understand : 1. The study of such facts of ecclesiastical history as may throw light upon the time of publication and the sources of the work which is to engage our attention ; 2. The review of the various opinions which have been entertained respecting the origin of this book, particularly in modern times. The first of these, studies supplies exegetical and critical labour with its starting-point; the second deter mines its aim. The possession of these two kinds of informa tion is the condition of the maintenance and advancement of science. This introduction, then, will aim at making the reader acquainted with — I. The earliest traces of the existence of our Gospel, going back as far as possible in the history of the primitive Church. II. The statements made by ancient writers as to the person of the author, and the opinions current at the present day on this point. III. The information furnished by tradition respecting the VOL. I. A 2 INTRODUCTION. circumstances in which this writing was composed (its readers, date, locality, design), as well as the different views which criticism has taken of these various questions. IV. The ideas which scholars have formed of the sources whence the author derived the subject-matter of his narrations. V. Lastly, the documents by means of which the text of this writing has been preserved to us. An introduction of this kind is not complete without a conclusion in which the questions thus raised find their solu tion. This conclusion should seek to combine the facts estab lished by tradition with the results obtained from exegesis. SEC. I. — TRACES OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE THIRD GOSPEL IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. We take as our starting-point the middle of the second century, and our aim is not to come down the stream, but to ascend it. It is admitted, indeed, that at this epoch our Gospel was universally known and received, not only in the great Church (an expression of Celsus, about 1 5 0), but also by the sects which were detached from it. This admission rests on some indisputable quotations from this book in Theophilus of Antioch (about 170) and Irenaeus (about 180), and in the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (in 177) ; on the fact, amply verified by the testimony of Clement of Alex andria, that the Gnostic Heracleon had published a commen tary on the Gospel of Luke as well as on the Gospel of John (between 175-195) ;x on the very frequent use which Valen- tinus, or at least writers of his school, made of this Gospel ; lastly, on numerous quotations from Luke, acknowledged by all scholars at the present day, contained in the Clementine Homilies (about 160). It is not surprising, therefore, that Origen ranks Luke's work among the number of those four 1 See, for the fact, Grabe, Spicilegium, sec. ii. t. i. p. 83 ; and for the date, Lipsius, Die Zeit des Mardon und des Heracleon, in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, 1867. EXISTENCE OF THE THIRD GOSPEL IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 3 Gospels admitted by all the churches under heaven, and that Eusebius places it among the homologoumena of the new covenant. The only matter of importance here is to investi gate that obscure epoch, the first half of the second century, for any indications which may serve to prove the presence and influence of our Gospel. We meet with them in four depart ments of inquiry, — in the field of heresy, in the writings of the Fathers, in the pseudepigraphical literature, and lastly, in the biblical writings. 1. Heresy — Marcion, Cerdo, Basilides. Marcion, a son of a bishop of Pontus, who was excommuni cated by his own father, taught at Rome from 140-1 70.1 He proposed to purify the Gospel from the Jewish elements which the twelve, by reason of their education and Israelitish prejudices, had necessarily introduced into it. In order more effectually to remove this alloy, he taught that the God who created the world and legislated for the Jews was different from the supreme God who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, and was only an inferior and finite being ; that for this reason the Jewish law rested exclusively on justice, while the gospel was founded on charity. According to him, St. Paul alone had understood Jesus. Further, in the canon which Marcion formed, he only admitted the Gospel of Luke (on account of its affinity with the teaching of Paul), and ten epistles of this apostle. But even in these writings he felt himself obliged to suppress certain passages ; for they constantly assume the divine character of the Old Testament, and attribute the creation of the visible universe to the God of Jesus Christ. Marcion, in conformity with his ideas about matter, denied the reality of the body of Jesus ; and on this point, therefore, he found himself in conflict with numerous texts of Paul and Luke. The greater part of the modifications of Luke's text which were exhibited, according to the statements of Tertullian and Epiphanius, in the Gospel used by Marcion and his ad herents, are to be accounted for in this way. Notwithstanding this, the relation between the Gospel of Luke and that of this heretic' has in modern times been repre- 1 Lipsius, Die Zeit des Marcion und des Heracleon, in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschr. 1867. i INTRODUCTION. sented in a 'totally different light. And the reason for this is not hard to find. The relation which we have just pointed out between these two writings, if clearly made out, is suffi cient to prove that, at the time of Marciqn's activity, Luke's Gospel existed in the collections of apostolic writings used in the churches, and to compel criticism to assign to this writing both ancient authority and a very early origin. Now this, is just what the rationalistic school was not disposed to admit.1 Consequently, Semler and Eichhorn in the past century, and, with still greater emphasis, Ritschl, Baur, and Schwegier in our time, have maintained that the priority belonged to the Gospel of Marcion, that this work was the true primitive Luke, and that our canonical Luke was the result of a retouching of this more ancient work, accomplished in the second century in the sense of a modified Paulinism. We must do justice, however, to this critical school. No one has laboured more energetically to rectify this erroneous opinion, tentatively brought forward by several of its adherents. Hilgenfeld, and above all Volkmar, have successfully combated it, and Ritschl has expressly withdrawn it {Theol. Jahrb. X. p. 528 et seq.); Bleek {Einl. in. d. N. T. p. 122 et seq.) has given an able summary of the whole discussion. We shall only bring forward the following points, which seem to us the most essential : — 1. The greater part of the differences which must have dis tinguished the Gospel of Marcion from our Luke are to be explained' either as the result of his Gnostic system, or as mere critical corrections. Thus, Marcion suppressed the first two chapters on the birth of Jesus, — a retrenchment which suited his Docetism ; also in the passage Luke xiii. 28, " When you shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God," he read, " When you shall see the just enter into the kingdom of heaven," which alone answered to his theory of the old covenant; in the same way also, for the words of Jesus in Luke xvi. 1 7, " It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail," 1 Hilgenfeld himself points out the purely dogmatic origin of this rationalistic opinion : ' ' This opinion, " he says, ' ' has misapprehended the true tendency of the Gospel of Mareion, through a desire to assign to the canonical text (to our Luke) the most recent date possible " {Die Evangelien, p. 27). EXISTENCE OF THE THIRD GOSPEL IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 5 Marcion read, " than that one tittle of the letter of my words should fail." In both these instances, one must be blind not to see that it was Marcion who modified the text of Luke to suit his system, and not the reverse. Again, we read that the Gospel of Marcion began in this way : " In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Jesus descended to Capernaum " (naturally, from heaven, without having passed through the human stages of birth and youth) ; then came the narrative of the first sojourn at Capernaum, just as it is related Luke iv. 31 et seq. ; and after that, only in the inverse order to that which obtains in our Gospel, the narrative of the visit to Nazareth, Luke iv. 16 et seq. Is it not clear that such a beginning could not belong to the primitive writing, and that the trans position of the two narratives which follow was designed to do away with the difficulty presented by the words of the inhabit ants of Nazareth (Luke iv. 23), as Luke places them, before the sojourn at Capernaum ? The narrative of Marcion was then the result of a dogmatic and critical revision of Luke iii. 1, iv. 31, iv. 16 and 23. 2. It is a well-known fact that Marcion had falsified the epistles of Paul by an exactly similar process. 3. Marcion's sect alone availed themselves of the Gospel used by this heretic. This fact proves that this work was not an evangelical writing already known, which the author of our Luke modified, and which Marcion alone had preserved intact. From all this, a scientific criticism can only conclude that our Gospel of Luke was in existence before that of Marcion, and that this heretic chose this among all the Gospels which enter into the ecclesiastical collection as the one which he could most readily adapt to his system.1 About 140, then, 1 Zeller (in his Apostelgeschichte) expresses himself thus : " We may admit as proved and generally accepted, not only that Marcion made use of an older Gospel, but further, that he recomposed, modified, and often abridged it, and that this older Gospel was essentially none other than our Luke." This restric tion "essentially" refers to certain passages, in which it appears to writers of the Tubingen school that Marcion's reading is more original than that of our canonical text. The latter, according to Baur and Hilgenfeld, must have been introduced with a view to counteract the use which the Gnostics made of the true text. Zeller, however (p. 12 et seq.), considerably reduces the number of those passages in which Marcion is supposed to have preserved the true reading, and those which he retains are far from bearing the marks of proof. Thus, Luke x. 22, Marcion appears to have read aJSsis iyt», no one hath known, in- 6 INTRODUCTION. our Gospel already possessed full authority, the result of a conviction of its apostolic origin. Marcion did not create his system himself. Before him, Cerdo, according to Theodoret's account [Bmret. fabulce, i. 24), proved by the Gospels that the just God of the old covenant and the good God of the new are different beings ; and he founded this contrariety on the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 38-48 ; Luke vi. 27-38). The Gospel of Luke must have sustained1 the principal part in this demonstration, if at least we credit the testimony of an ancient writer (Pseudo- Tertullian, in the conclusion of the Be prmscriptione hcereti- corum, c. 51): "Solum evangelium Lucce, nee tamen totum, recipit [Cerdo]." Some years, then, before Marcion, Cerdo sought to prove the opposition of the law to the gospel by the written Gospels, especially by that of Luke. Basilides, one of the most ancient known Gnostics, who is usually said to have flourished at Alexandria about 120, assumed for himself and his son Isidore the title of pupils of the Apostle Matthias. The statement of Hippolytus is as follows : " Basilides, with Isidore, his true son and disciple, said that Matthias had transmitted to them orally some secret instructions which he had received from the mouth of the Saviour in His private teaching." 1 This claim of Basilides implies the circulation of the book of the Acts, in which alone there is any mention of the apostolate of Matthias, and con sequently of the Gospel of Luke, which was composed before the Acts. stead of obtsls ymitrxu, no one lenoweth ; and because this reading is found in Justin, in the Clementine Homilies, and in some of the Fathers, it is inferred that our canonical text has been altered. But Justin himself also reads yisu/rxu {Dial. c. Tryph. c. 100). There appears to be nothing more here than an ancient variation. In the same passage, Marcion appears to have placed the words which refer to the knowledge of the Father by the Son before those which refer to the knowledge of the Son by the Father, — a reading which is also found in the Clement. Horn. But here, again, this can only be a mere variation of reading which it is easy to explain. It is of such little dogmatic importance, that Irenseus, who opposes it critically, himself quotes the passage twice in this form {Tischend. ad Matth. xi. 27). 1 8. Hippolyti Eefutationis omnium hceresium librorum decern quce supersunt (ed. Duncker et Schneidewin), L. vii. § 20. EXISTENCE OF THE THIRD GOSPEL IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 7 2. The Fathers — Justin, Polycarp, Clement of Pome. If it is proved that about 140, and at Rome, Cerdo and Marcion made use of the Gospel of Luke as a book generally received in the Church, it is quite impossible to suppose that this Gospel was not in the hands of Justin, who wrote in this very city some years later. Besides, the writings of Justin allow of no doubt as to this fact ; and it is admitted at the present day by all the writers of that school which makes exclusive claims to be critical — by Zeller, Volkmar, and Hil genfeld.1 With this admission before us, we know what the assertions of M. Nicolas are worth, which he does not scruple to lay before French readers, who have so little acquaintance with questions of this nature, — such an assertion, for instance, as this: "It is impossible to read the comparisons which critics of this school [the orthodox] are accustomed to make between certain passages of Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and even Justin Martyr, and analogous passages from our Gospels, without being tempted to think that the cause must be very bad that can need, or that can be satisfied ' with, such arguments." 2 It appears that Messrs. Zeller, Hil genfeld, and Volkmar are all implicated together in furbishing up these fallacious arguments in favour of orthodoxy ! Here are some passages which prove unanswerably that Justin Martyr used our third Gospel : Dial. c. 100, he quotes almost verbatim Luke i. 26-30. Ibid. c. 78, and Apol. i. 34, he mentions the census of Quirinus in the very terms of Luke. Dial. c. 41 and 70, and Apol. i. 66, he refers to the institu- tution of the Holy Supper according to the text of Luke. Dial. c. 103, he says : " In the memoirs which I say were com posed by His apostles, and by those that accompanied them, [it is related] that the sweat rolled from Him in drops whilst He 1 " Justin's acquaintance with the Gospel of Luke is demonstrated by a series of passages, of which some certainly, and others very probably, are citations from this book " (Zeller, Apostelgesch. p. 26). On the subject of a passage from the Dialogue with Trypho, c. 49, Volkmar says : " Luke (iii. 16, 17) is quoted here, first in common with Matthew, then, in preference to the latter, literally" {Ursprung wnserer Bv. p. 157). "Justin is acquainted with our three synop- tical Gospels, and extracts them almost completely" (Ibid. p. 91). "Besides Matthew and Mark . . . Justin also makes use of the Gospel of Luke" (Hilgen feld, Der Kanon, p. 25). 2 Etudes critiques sur le N. T. p. 5. 8 INTRODUCTION. prayed," etc. (Luke xxii. 44). Ibid., Justin refers to Jesus having been sent to Herod, — an incident only related by Luke. Ibid. c. 105, he quotes the last words of Jesus, "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit," as taken from The Memoirs of the Apostles. This prayer is only recorded by Luke (xxiii. 46). We have only indicated the quotations expressly acknowledged as such by Zeller himself (Apostelgesch. pp. 26-37). It is impossible, then, to doubt that the Gospel of Luke formed part of those apostolic memoirs quoted eighteen times by Justin, and from which he has derived the greater part of the facts of the Gospel that are mentioned by him. The Acts of the Apostles having been written after the Gospel, and by the same author (these two facts are admitted by all true criticism), every passage of the Fathers which proves the existence of this book at ' a given moment demonstrates a fortiori the existence of the Gospel at the same time. We may therefore adduce the following passage from Polycarp, which we think can only be explained as a quotation from the Acts : — Acts ii. 24. Poltc. ad Phil. c. 1. ''Of o &ios uviffrvifflv, Xvffas ras u^7va; tou "Ov tjyupsv o @tos Xvress vas atoivag reu Su.va.'rov. ahou. ', " Whom God hath raised up, having "Whom God hath awakened, hav- loosed the [birth-] pains of death. " ing loosed the [birth-] pains of Hades. " The identical construction of the proposition in the two writings, the choice of the term Xvera<;, and the strange ex pression, the birth-pains of death (Acts) or of Hades (Polyc), scarcely permit us to doubt that the passage in Polycarp was taken from that in the Acts.1 In the Epistle of Clement of Rome there is an exhortation beginning with these words : " Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, in which He taught equity and generosity;" then comes a passage in which the texts of Matthew and Luke in the Sermon on the Mount appear to be combined, but where, in the opinion of Volkmar,2 the text of Luke predomi- 1 It is not impossible, certainly, that the expression aims was taken by both these authors from Ps. xviii. 5, or irom Ps. cxvi. 3, where the LXX. translate by this term the word ^an» which signifies at once bonds and pains of childbirth; but there still remains in the two propositions as a whole an unaccountable similarity. 2 " The text of Matthew differs most, whilst Luke's text furnishes the substance ot the developed thought " (Urspr. p. 138). EXISTENCE OF THE THIRD GOSPEL IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 9 nates (vi. 31, 36-38). In this same letter the Acts are twice quoted, first at c. 1 8, where mention is made of a divine testi mony respecting King David, and there is an amalgamation of the two following Old Testament passages: 1 Sam. xiii. 14 and Ps. lxxxix. 21. Now a precisely similar fusion, or very nearly so, is found in the book of the Acts (xiii. 22). How could this almost identical combination of two such distinct passages of the Old Testament have occurred spontaneously to the two writers ? 1 Sam. xiii. 14. Ps. lxxxix. 20. "The Lord hath sought him a man "I have found David my servant ; after his own heart." with my holy oil have I anointed him. " Acts xiii. 22. " / have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will." I Clem. Ep. ad Cor. c. 18. " I have found a man after my own heart, David son of Jesse ; and I have anointed 'him with eternal oil." The other quotation is an expression of eulogy which Clement addresses to the Corinthians (c. 2) : " Giving more willingly than receiving (jiaXKov hihovret $) \afi(3dvovTe in the original Greek, which he admits) might also be translated, a man skilled in questions of legal right ; able, consequently, to make himself useful to Paul whenever he had to deal with the Roman tribunals. But the term ^Xwtj;? rather favours the sense we have given in our translation. If the passage relating to the Acts has been accurately rendered into Latin, or if the text of it has not been altered, we might infer from it that Luke had narrated, in a ¦ third work {semote, separately), the subsequent history of Peter and Paul. In any case, the whole testimony is remarkable for its very sobriety. It does not show the slightest tendency, any more than the preface of the evangelist himself, to ascribe divine authority to this writing. On the contrary, the human aspect of the work comes out very strongly in these ex pressions : in his own name, according to his judgment, as far as he was able to obtain information. Perhaps the author wished to contrast this entirely natural mode of composition with the widely different origin of the Gospel of John, which he describes directly afterwards. 4. At the same period, Irenasus expresses himself thus re- THE AUTHOR. 25 specting the third Gospel {Adv. Hjir. iii. 1) : " Luke, a com panion of Paul, wrote in a book the gospel preached by the latter." Irenseus quotes from our Gospel more than eighty times. This testimony and the preceding are the first two in which Luke is indicated by name as the author of this book. 5. Tertullian, in his book Against Marcion (iv. 2), expresses himself thus : " Of the apostles, John and Matthew inspire our faith ; of the coadjutors of the apostles, Luke and Mark confirm it." He reminds Marcion "that, not only in the churches founded by the apostles, but in all those which are united to them by the bond of the Christian mystery, this Gospel of Luke has been received without contradiction {stare) from the moment of its publication, whilst the greater part are not even acquainted with that of Marcion." He says, lastly {ibid. iv. 5), "that several persons of his time have been accustomed to attribute Luke's work to Paul himself, as well as Mark's to Peter." He neither pronounces for nor against this opinion. 6. Origen, in a passage cited by Eusebius {H. E. vi. 25), expressed himself thus : " Thirdly, the Gospel according to Luke, cited approvingly {eiraivov/ievov) by Paul." It appears from the whole passage that he alludes, on the one hand, to the expression my Gospel, employed three times by Paul (Rom. ii. 16, xvi. 25; 2 Tim. i. 8); on the other, to the passage 2 Cor. viii. 18, 19, which he applied to Luke. 7. Eusebius says {H. E. iii. 4) : " It is maintained that it is of the Gospel according to Luke that Paul is accustomed to speak whenever he makes mention in his writings of his Gospel." 8. Jerome {De vir. ill. c. 7) also refers to this opinion, but attributes it to some persons only {quidam suspicantur). We have three observations to make on these testimonies. 1. If they are somewhat late, — it is only about a/d. 180 that Luke's name appears, — we must observe, on the other hand, that they are not the expression of the individual opinion of the writers in whose works they occur, but appear incidentally as the expression of the ancient, unbroken, and undisputed conviction of the entire Church. These writers give expression to the fact as a matter of which no one was ignorant. They 26 INTRODUCTION. would not have, dreamed of announcing it, unless some special circumstance had called for it. The . ecclesiastical character, at once universal and hereditary, of these testimonies,, even when they date only from the second century, enable us to ascertain the conviction of the first. In fact, what prevailed then was not individual criticism, but tradition. Clement of Alexandria, after having quoted a passage from the Gospel of the Egyptians {Strom, iii. p. 465), immediately adds : "But we have not seen this passage in the four Gospels which have been transmitted to us {iv rots TrapaSeSo/jLevoi,? tj/mv Teo- who was inclined to apply it to every Christian endowed with spiritual powers. Neither could the Jewish high priest Theo philus, of whom Josephus speaks, be intended {Antiq. xviii. 6. 3, xix. 6. 2), nor the Athenian of this name mentioned by Tacitus {Ann. ii. 55). The only traditional information we possess about this person is that found in the Clementine Recognitions (x. 71), about the middle of the second century : " So that Theophilus, who was at the head of all the men in power at the city (of Antioch), consecrated, under the name of a church, the great basilica (the palace) in which he re sided."1 According to this, Theophilus was a great lord residing in the capital of Syria. We have already referred to the reasons which lead us to think that Luke himself was originally from this city. Did he belong to the household of Theophilus ? Had he been his slave, and then his freedman ? Lobeck has remarked that the termination a? was a contrac tion particularly frequent in the names of slaves.2 Physicians appear to have frequently belonged to the class of slaves or freedmen.3 If Luke, freed by Theophilus, practised as a physician at Antioch, and if he was brought to the faith at the time of the founding of the church in that city, he might very well have decided to accompany the apostle in his mission. In this case he would have rejoined him at Troas, just as he was about to pass over into Europe; and there would no longer be anything surprising in the pronoun we, by which he assigns himself a place in the missionary company. 1 ' ' Ita ut Theophilus, qui erat cunctis potentibus in civilate sublimior, domus suce ingentem basilicam eccksim nomine conseeraret." B Wolf's Analecten, iii. 49 ; comp. Tholuck, Glaubwurd. p. 148. s Quintilian, Instit. vii. 2 : Medicinam factitasse manumissum. Suet. Calig. c. 8 : Mitto cum eo ex senis meis medicum. Comp. Cic. pro Claentio, c. 63 ; Seneca, De Ben/ficiis, iii. 24. See Hug, EM. ii. p. 134. COMPOSITION OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 31 On this supposition, also, we can understand why he should have dedicated his work to his old friend and patron. This dedication does not mean, however, that the book was in tended for Theophilus alone. Until the discovery of printing, the publication of a work was a very costly undertaking ; and authors were accustomed to dedicate their works to some high personage of their acquaintance, who could procure the writer an opportunity of reading his production in some select circle, and have the first copies prepared at his own expense. In this way he opened to the author the road to publicity. Who ever was obliging enough to undertake this responsibility was called the patronus libri. Such, doubtless, was the service which Theophilus was asked to render to Luke's work. In reality, Luke addressed himself, through the medium of this person, to all that part of the Church to which Theophilus belonged, to the churches of the Greek world, and, in a certain sense, to the entire Church. The object he had in view, according to the Fathers, was simply to make known the history of Jesus, more particularly to converts from the heathen. Modern criticism has found in the preface, and even in the narrative, indications of a more special design connected with the great movement of ecclesias tical polemics which it conceives occupied the first and second centuries. According to Baur {Marcus Evang. p. 223 et seq.), the original Luke, of which Marcion has preserved a faithful impression, was intended to oppose the Jewish Christianity of the Twelve, as represented by the Gospel of Matthew in its original form. The author sought to depreciate the apostles in order to exalt Paul ; whilst our canonical Luke, which is a later version of this original Luke, was directed rather against the unbelieving.and persecuting Judaism. The former part of this proposition has been reproduced and developed in still ' stronger terms by " the anonymous Saxon," who sees nothing in the third Gospel but a bitter pamphlet of the Apostle Paul against the Twelve, and mpre especially against Peter. M. Bur- nouf has made himself the advocate of this view in the Revue des . Deux Mondes.1 But even in the Tubingen school a protest has been raised against what have been called the " exaggerations " of Baur. Zeller finds no trace either in the Gospel or the 1 December 1865. 32 INTRODUCTION. Acts of this spirit of systematic depreciation of Peter and the Twelve. According to him, the author simply wishes to check excessive admiration for Peter, and to preserve Paul's place by the side of this apostle. With this aim, he guards himself from directly opposing the Christianity of the Twelve ; he simply places side by side with the views of the Jewish- Christian apostles those of Paul, which he endeavours, as far as possible, to exhibit as identical with the former. That in this attempt at reconciliation real history is sacrificed, appears evident to this critic. He accounts in this way for the fact that in this Gospel Jesus gives utterance alternately to par- ticularist teaching (in the sense of the Twelve), and to universalist passages suited to the thought of Paul. Volkmar combats this view. Nowhere in our Gospel, not even in the facts and discourses of the first two chapters, does he discover those particularist or Ebionitish elements, by means of which, according to Zeller, the author sought to win the confidence of the Jewish-Christian party. In his judgment, the Gospel of Luke is purely Pauline. In opposition to that fiery manifesto of apostolic Jewish-Christianity, the Apocalypse, composed in a.d. 68, Mark, five years afterwards, published his Gospel, the earliest in point of time, and written in the sense of a moderate Paulinism ; later still, Luke re-wrote this book, laying still greater emphasis on the principles of the apostle to the Gentiles. In all these suppositions the idea is,s that Jesus speaks in the Gospel, not as He really spoke, but as it suits the evangelist to make Him speak. All these opinions as to the aim of Luke's work are con nected with the great question, suggested by Baur, of. a funda mental difference of view between Paul and the Twelve, which is represented as the real starting-point of the development of the Church and of the entire Christian literature. This question, with which that of the origin of the Gospels is now inseparably connected, will be discussed in our concluding- paragraphs. SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 33 SEC. IV. SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. There is no room for an inquiry into the sources whence the author of a Gospel derived his knowledge of the facts which he transmits to us, except on two conditions : 1. That the evangelist is not regarded as an eye-witness of the facts related. Now this is a character which the author of the third Gospel expressly disclaims (i. 2). 2. That we are not governed by that false notion of inspiration, according to which the sacred history was revealed and dictated to the evangelists by the Holy Spirit. As far as our third Gospel is concerned, this idea is altogether excluded by what the author says himself of the information he had to obtain to qualify himself to write his book (i. 3). It is at once, then, the right and the duty of criticism to inquire from what sources the author derived the incidents which he records. This question, however, is immediately complicated with another and more general question, as to the relation between our three synoptics. For many regard it as probable, and even certain, that some one of our Gospels served as a source of information to the writer who composed another of them. It is not our intention to relate here the history of the discussion of this great theological and literary problem.1 We do not even intend in this place to set forth the numerous and apparently contradictory facts which bring it up afresh after every attempted solution. In view of the exegetical work we have in hand, we shall here bring forward only two matters : — I. The elements of which criticism has availed- itself in order to solve the problem. II. The principal systems which it constructs at the present day by means of these elements. I. The factors which criticism has hitherto employed for the solution .of the problem are four in number : — 1. Oral tradition {TrapdSoais), or the reproduction of the 1 We refer our readers to the generally accurate account of M. Nicolas, Etudes Critiques sur le N. T. pp. 45-85. VOL.. L 34 INTRODUCTION. apostolic testimony, as they gave it when they founded the churches. This factor must have borne a very essential part in determining the form of the evangelical historical writings from their very commencement. Luke indicates its import ance, i. 2. According to this expression, even as they deli vered them, unto us, this tradition was the original source of the oral or written narratives which were circulated in the churches. It branched out into a thousand channels through the ministry of the evangelists (Eph. iv. 11 ; 2 Tim. iv. 5). Gieseler, with his exquisite historical tact, was the first to bring out all the value of this fact as serving to explain the origin of the Gospels.1 2. Separate writings or memoirs-'^ea^pvyP'OvevfiaTa) on some feature or particular part of the Saviour s-life, on a dis course or a miracle which an evangelist related, ah4 which he or one of his hearers put in writing that it might ris^t be forgotten; or, again, some private account preserved amongst their family papers by the persons more immediately inte rested in the evangelical drama ;— -we may regard our Gosjfel as a collection of a number of such detached writings, pigced together by the hand of an editor. Carrying out this view, Schleiermacher made a very ingenious analysis..of the Gospel of Luke in a little work2 which was to be completed by a similar study of the Acts, but the second part never appeared. Thus this scholar thought he could discriminate, in the portion ix. 51-xix. 48, traces of two distinct writings, the first of which would be the journal of a companion of Jesus in His journey to the feast of Dedication, the second the journal of another companion of Jesus when He went up to the feast of the Passover. The truth of this second means of explana tion might be supported by the proper meaning of the , word dvaTa^aaOav, to arrange in order, i. 1, if only it were proved that the arrangement implied by this word refers to the documents, and not to the facts themselves. Under this category of detached writings would have to be ranged also the various documents which several critics , ¦ Historisch-kritischer Versuch iiber die Entstehung und diefruhesten Schicksale der Schriftlichen Evangelien, Leipzig 1818. , 8 Ueber die Schriften' des Lucas, ein Kritischer Versuch, von Schleiermacher, Berlin 1817. SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 35 believe they have detected in Luke's work, on account of a kind of literary or dogmatic patchwork which they find in it. Thus Kuinol, following Marsh, regarded the portion ix. 51-xviii. 14 as a more ancient writing, containing a col lection of the precepts of Jesus, to which he gave the name of gnomonology. Hilgenfeld 1 also distinguishes from the narrative as a whole, which has the universalist character of the Christianity of St. Paul, certain passages of Jewish- Christian tendency, which he regards as some very early materials, proceeding from the apostolic Church itself. The entire portion ix. 51-xix. 28 rests, according to him, on a more ancient writing which the author introduced into his work, working it up afresh both, in substance and form. Kostlin2 thinks it may be proved that there were some sources of Judean origin, and others of Samaritan origin, which furnished Luke with a knowledge of the facts of which the two countries of Judea and Samaria are the scene in our Gospel. Keim, while declaring himself for this view, admits besides other sources of Pauline origin ; for example, the docu ment of the institution of the Holy Supper.8 It is impossible to doubt that the genealogical document iii. 23 et seq. existed before our Gospel, and, such as it is, was inserted in it by the author (see on iii. 23). 3. We must allow, further, the existence of longer and fuller documents which Luke might have used. Does he not speak himself, in his preface, of writings that were already numerous at the time he was writing {iroWot), which in respect of contents must have been of very much the same nature as his own, that is to say, veritable Gospels ? He designates them by the name of Sttf'yrjo-is, a word which has been wrongly applied to detached writings of the kind that Schleiermacher admitted, and which can only apply to a con secutive and more or less complete narrative. If such works existed in great number, and were known to Luke, it is diffi cult to think that he has not endeavoured to profit by them. The only question then is, whether, on the supposition that they no longer exist, we can form any idea of them by means 1 Die Evangelien, 1852. 2 Der Ursprung und die Compos, der syn. Evang. 1853. 3 Geschkhte Jesu, t. i., Zurich 1867. 36 INTRODUCTION. of our Gospel, for the composition of which they supplied some materials. Keim thinks he recognises, as a general basis of Luke's work, a Jewish-Christian Gospel, which must have been nearly related to our Matthew, very probably its direct descendant, but distinguished from it by an unhealthy tendency to Ebionitism and Dualism. The spirit of this fundamental document would betray itself all through Luke's work. Ewald imagines a whole series of writings of which Luke must have availed himself, — a Hebrew Gospel by Philip the deacon, a collection of the discourses of Jesus by the Apostle Matthew, of which Papias speaks, etc. (see further on). Bleek,1 reviving in a new form the hypothesis of a primi tive Gospel (a manual composed, according to Eichhorn, for the use of evangelists, under apostolic sanction), admits, as a basis of our Gospels, of Matthew and Luke, a Greek Gospel, written in Galilee by a believer, who at certain times had himself accompanied Jesus. This earliest account of the Saviour's life would mould all the subsequent evangelical narrations. The writings of the iroXKol, many (i. 1), would be only variations of it, and our three synoptics merely different versions of the same. Lastly, we know that many critics at the present day find the principal source of Luke and the two other synoptics (at least of the narrative part) in a sup posed Gospel of Mark, older than our canonical Mark, and to which they give the name of Proto-Mark (Reuss, ReVille, Holtzmann, etc.).2 All these writings, anterior to that of Luke, and only known to us by the traces of them discovered in his work, are lost at the present day. 4. Would it be impossible for some writing which we still possess to be one of the sources of Luke — for example, one of our two synoptics, or even both of them ? This fourth means of explanation has at all times been employed by criticism. At the present day, it is still used with great confidence by many. According to Baur,8 Matthew was the direct and sole source of Luke ; Mark proceeded from both. Hilgenfeld 1 Einleitung in das N. T. 1862 ; Synoptische Erklarung der drei ersten Evangelien, 1869. 2 Reuss, Geschichte der heiligen Schriften 2?. T., 3d ed. 1860 ; Reville, Etudes critiques sur Vivang. selon Saint Matthieu, 1862 ; Holtzmann, Die synopt. Em. 1863. 3 Baur, Das Marcus- Evangelium, 1851. SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 37 also puts Matthew first ; but he interposes Mark between Matthew and Luke. According to Volkmar,1 Mark is the primary source; from him proceeded Luke, and Matthew from both. To sum up : Oral tradition, detached writings, Gospels more or less complete now lost; last of all, one or other of our existing Gospels, — such are the materials by means of which criticism has made various attempts to solve the problem of the origin both of Luke in particular, and of the synoptics in general. Let us endeavour now to describe the systems which actual criticism labours to construct out of these various kinds of materials. II. 1. We will commence with the self-styled critical school of Baur. The common tendency of writers of this school is to represent the synoptics as deriving their contents from each other. In their view, the contents of our Gospels cannot be historical, because they contain the inadmissible element of miracles.2 Consequently they regard our Gospels, not as real historical narrations, but as compositions of a poetical or didactic character. The differences between them are not in any way natural divergences proceeding from such undesigned modifications as tradition undergoes in course of oral trans mission, or from the diversity of written sources, but result . from different dogmatic tendencies in the writers of the Gospels which they perfectly reflect. Each evangelist has reproduced his matter with a free hand, modifying it in ac cordance with his personal views. In reality, then, our Gospels are the reflection, not of the object they describe, but of the controversial or conciliatory tendencies of their authors. These books make us acquainted, not with the history of Jesus, but with that of the Church, and of the different theories respecting the Founder of the gospel, which have been suc cessively held in it. This common result of the school appears 1 Volkmar, Die Evangelien, 1870. 2 Hilgenfeld (Die Evangelien, p. 530): "The principal argument for the later origin of our Gospels is always this fact, that they relate very many things about the life of Jesus, which certainly could not have taken place as they narrate them." 38 INTRODUCTION. in its most pronounced form in Baur and Volkmar, in a milder form in Kostlin and Hilgenfeld. Baur himself, as we have seen, makes, as Griesbach and De Wette did before him, Luke proceed from Matthew, and Mark from Luke and Matthew united. This relationship is made out in this way. There was first of all a strictly legal and particularist Matthew, reflecting the primitive Christianity of the Twelve, and of the church of Jerusalem. From this original Matthew afterwards proceeded our canonical Matthew, the narrative being re-cast in a universalist sense (between 130 and 134). In opposition to the original Matthew there appeared first, a Luke, which was altogether Pauline, or anti- legal ; this was the writing Marcion adopted, and from which proceeded later on our canonical Luke. The latter was the result of a revision designed to harmonize it with the Jewish- Christian views (about 140). Reconciliation having thus been reached from both sides, Mark followed, in which the original contrast is entirely neutralized. For its matter, the latter is naturally dependent on the other two. The anonymous Saxon 1 starts with the same general notion ; but he seasons it in a piquant fashion. According to him, our synoptics, with the, exception of Luke, were indeed com posed by the authors to whom the Church attributes them ; but they intentionally misrepresented the facts. As to the third, Paul, who was its author, composed it with a view to decry the Twelve and their party. Hilgenfeld denies the opposition, admitted by Baur, between the original Matthew and a Luke which preceded ours. He believes that, in the very bosom of apostolic and Jewish- Christian Christianity, there was an internal development at work from the first century in a Pauline direction, the result partly of the force of events, but more especially of the in fluence of the fall of Jerusalem, and the conversion of the Gentiles. He finds a proof of this gradual transformation in the numerous universalist passages of our canonical Matthew, which witness to the changes undergone by the original Matthew. This last writing, the oldest of the Gospels, dated from 70-80. The Gospel of Mark, which followed it, went a % 1 Sendschreiben an Baur uber die Abfassungszeit des Lukas und der Synoptiker, 1848, p. 26 et seq. SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 39 step further in the Pauline direction. It was an imitation of the Gospel of Matthew, but at the same time modified by the oral tradition existing in the church at Rome, which was derived from Peter; it dates from the period from 80-100. Hilgenfeld, therefore, does not recognise Luke's influence any where in Mark, while Baur discovers it everywhere. Luke proceeds, according to him, from the two former ; he takes a fresh step in the universalist and Pauline direction. It was written before Marcion's time, from 100 to 110. Thus, as this theologian himself remarks, " the formation of our cano nical Gospels was completely finished before the time when Baur makes it begin" {Kanon, p. 172). With this difference as to dates between the master and his disciple, there is con nected a more profound difference still. Instead of a sharp dogmatical contrast which was gradually neutralized, Hilgen feld admits a progressive development in the very bosom of primitive Jewish Christianity. With Baur, Mark came third; with Hilgenfeld, second; there was only wanted further a theologian of the same school who should assign him the first place; and this is done at the present time by Volkmar, who follows the example of Storr in the last century. According to him, that fiery manifesto of primitive Jewish Christianity, the Apocalypse, had about 6 8 declared im placable hostility against St. Paul, representing him (chap, xiii.) as the false prophet of the last times, and making the churches founded by him, in comparison with the Jewish-Christian churches, a mere plebs (chap. vii.). A moderate Paulinian took up the gauntlet, and wrote (about 73) as a reply our second Gospel, the oldest of all the writings of this kind. It was a didactic poem, on a historical basis,1 designed to defend Paul and the right of the Gentile churches. Beyond the Old Testament and the Epistles of Paul, the author had no other sources than oral tradition, his Christian experience, the Apocalypse which he opposed, and his creative genius. Somewhat later (about the year 100), a Pauline believer of the Church of Rome, who had travelled in Palestine, worked up this book into a new form by the aid of some traditions which he had collected, and by inserting in it first a genealogical document {Genealogus 1 Die Evangelien, p. 461: "Eine selbstbewusste Lehrpoesie auf historischen Grande." 40 INTRODUCTION. Hebrceorum), and then a writing of Essenist tendency {Evan- gelium pawperum). His aim was to win over to Paulinism the Jewish-Christian part of the Church, which was still in a majority. This was our Luke. Matthew is the result of a fusion of the two preceding writings. It. is the manifesto of a moderate Jewish-Christian feeling, which desired to gather all the heathen unto the Church, but eould not see its way to this at the cost of the abolition of the law, as Paul taught ; its composition dates from 110. All the other writings, the existence of which has been supposed by modern criticism, such as a Proto-Matthew, the Logia, and a Proto-Mark, in Volkmar's judgment, are nothing but empty -critical fancies. The third, second, and first place in succession having been assigned to Mark, no new 'supposition seemed possible, at least from the same school. Nevertheless Kbstlin has ren dered possible the impossible, by assigning to Mark all three positions at once. This complicated construction is difficult to follow : The oldest evangelical record would be that Proto- Mark to which Papias must have referred ; it represented the moderate universalism of Peter. From this work, combined with oral tradition and the Logia of the Apostle Matthew, would proceed our canonical Matthew. These different works are supposed to have given birth to a 'Gospel of Peter, which closely resembled the original Mark, but was still more like our actual Mark. After that must have appeared Luke, to which all the preceding sources contributed; and last of all our actual Mark, which would be the result of a revision of the original Mark by the help of the canonical Matthew and Luke. The principal waymarks of the route thus traversed are these : Mark (I.) ; Matthew ; Mark (II., or the Gospel of Peter); Luke; Mark (III.). We oan only say that this hypothesis is the death-blow of the theory of the Tubingen school, as formerly Marsh's system was of the hypothesis of an original Gospel. The complicated and artificial form this hypothesis is compelled to assume, by the difficulties which weigh upon its simpler forms, is its condemnation. Thus, as Hilgenfeld regretfully observes, "after such multiplied and arduous labours, we are still very far from reaching the least agreement even on the most essential points." Let it be observed that this disagreement is evinced by disciples of one SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 41 and the same school, which advanced into the critical arena with colours flying, and thundering forth the psean of victory. Is not such a state of things a serious fact, especially for a school the fundamental idea of which is, that there is an intimate connection between the successive appearances of our Gospels and the history of the primitive Church, of which last this school claims to give the world a new conception ? Does not such a complete diversity in fixing the order in which the Gospels -appeared, exhibit a no less fundamental disagreement in conceiving of the development of the Church ? These are evident symptoms not only of the breaking up of this school, but, above all, of the radical error of the original notion on which it was founded. The opposition in principle between Paulinism and Jewish Christianity, which is an axiom with this school, is also its nrpmrov tyevSos. 2. We will now enumerate the critical systems which have kept independent of the Tubingen school. If Bleek, who is at once the most discerning and judicious critic of our day, is in several respects the antipodes of Baur, he agrees with him on one point : the entire dependence he attributes to Mark in relation to the two other synoptics. As has been already mentioned, he makes Matthew and Luke proceed from a Gospel written in Greek by a Galilean believer, who was present at several scenes in the ministry of Jesus in this province. This is the reason why this book has given such great preponderance to the Galilean work. The numerous works of which Luke speaks (i. 1) were all different versions of this, as well as our canonical Matthew and Luke. This im portant book, with all its offshoots, which preceded our synoptics, is lost ; these last, the most complete, and best accredited, have alone survived. This conception is simple and clear. Whether it renders a sufficient account of the facts, remains to be seen. Ritschl, in a remarkable article, has pronounced in favour of the absolute priority of our canonical Mark (to the exclu sion of any Proto-Mark). Matthew proceeded, according- to him, from Mark, and Luke from both.1 Ritschl endeavours to prove these statements by a very sagacious analysis of the relations between the narratives of Matthew and Mark on ' Ueber den gegenwartigen Stand der Kritik der syn. Eo., in the Theol. Jahrb. 1851. 42 INTRODUCTION. certain points of detail. But the impression we have received from this labour is, that both the method followed, and the results obtained, are more ingenious than solid. Reuss, Reville, Holtzmann, agree in making two writings, now lost, the original sources of our three synoptical Gospels. These were : 1. The Proto-Mark, which furnished our three evangelists with their general outline, and with the narratives common to them all ; 2. The Logia, or collection of discourses compiled by Matthew, which was the source for those in structions of Jesus related in common by Matthew and Luke. Our canonical Mark is a reproduction (enlarged according to Reuss, abridged according to Holtzmann) of the former of these two writings. Its author made no use of the Logia. Matthew and Luke both proceeded from a fusion of these two funda mental writings. Their authors inserted or distributed, in the outline sketch of the Proto-Mark, the sayings and dis courses collected in the Logia. But here arises a difficulty. If the sayings of Jesus, as Matthew and Luke convey them to us, are drawn from the same source, how does it happen that Matthew transmits them in- the form of large masses of discourse (for example, the Sermon on the Mount, chap. v.— vii. ; the collection of parables, chap, xiii., etc.), whilst in Luke these very sayings are more frequently presented to us in the form of detached instructions, occasioned by some accidental circumstance ? Of these two . different forms, which is to be regarded as most faithful to the original docu ment ? Matthew, who groups into large masses the materials that lie side by side in the Logia 1 or Luke, who breaks up the long discourses of the Logia, and divides them into a number of particular sayings ? Holtzmann decides in favour of the first alternative. According to this writer, we ought to allow that the form of the Logia was very nearly that pre sented by the teaching of Jesus in the narrative of travel, Luke ix. 51-xix. 28. Weizsacker, on the contrary, defends the second view, and thinks that the long discourses of Matthew are more or less faithful reproductions of the form of the Logia. This also is the opinion of M. ReVille. We shall have to see whether this hypothesis, under either of its two forms, bears the test of facts. Ewald sets out in the same way with the two hypotheses SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 43 of the Proto-Mark and the Logia ; but he constructs upon this foundation an exceedingly complicated system, according to which our Luke would be nothing less than the combined result of eight anterior writings : — 1. A Gospel written by Philip the Evangelist, which described in the Aramsean language the salient facts of the life of Jesus, with short historical explanations. 2. Matthew's Logia, or discourses of Jesus, furnished with short historical introductions. 3. The Proto-Mark, composed by the aid of the two preceding writ ings, remarkable for the freshness and vivacity of its colouring, and differing very little from our canonical Mark. 4. A Gospel ' treating of certain critical points in our Lord's life (the temp tation, for example). Ewald calls this writing the Book of the Higher History. 5. Our canonical Matthew, combining the Logia of this apostle with all the other writings already named. 6, 7, and 8. Three writings now lost, which Ewald describes as though he had them in his hands : one of a familiar, tender character; another somewhat brusque and abrupt; the third comprising the narratives of the infancy (Luke i. and ii.). Lastly, 9. Our canonical Luke, composed by the aid of all the preceding (with the exception of our Matthew), and which simply combines the materials furnished by the others. We may add, 10. Our canonical Mark, which with very slight modification is the reproduction of No. 3. This construction certainly does not recommend itself by its intrinsic evidence and simplicity. It may prove as fatal to the hypothesis of a Proto-Mark as was formerly that of Marsh to the hypothesis of a primitive Gospel, or as that of Kostlin at the present day to the Tubingen idea. Lastly, we see a new mode of explanation appearing, which seems destined to replace for a time the theory; so stoutly maintained by and since Wilke, of the priority of Mark or of the Proto-Mark, whenever it has any considerable connection with this last. This opinion has been developed by Weiss in three very elaborate articles,1 in which he seeks to prove : 1. That the most ancient work was an apostolical Matthew, com prising the discourses, some longer and others shorter, with a 1 In the Studien und Kritiken, 1861 ; Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie, 1864 ; ibid. 1865. Since then, Weiss has attempted to prove his theory by a detailed exegesis of Mark. 44 INTRODUCTION. large number of facts, but without any intention on the part of the author to write the entire history of Jesus. 2. There upon appeared Mark, written by the aid of recollections which the author had preserved of the recitals of Peter. This was the first attempt to trace the entire course of the ministry of Jesus. He included in this sketch all the sayings of Jesus contained in the preceding work which oould be adapted to his narrative. 3. The author of our canonical Matthew made use of this work of Mark, re-wrote it, and supplemented it by the aid of the apostolical Matthew. 4. Luke also re-wrote the two more ancient works, the apostolic Matthew and Mark, but in a very free manner, and enriched his narrative with new materials derived from oral or written tradition. This combination appears to me to come very near the explanation which is the basis of a recent work of Kloster- mann.1 By a consecutive, detailed, delicate analysis of the Gospel of Mark, this seholar proves that the author of this work composed it on the basis of Matthew, enamelling the story with explanatory notes, the substance of whieh evidently emanated from an eye-witness of the ministry of Jesus, which could have been none other than Peter ; in general, the addi tions refer to the relations of Jesus with His apostles. With Klostermann, as with Weiss, Matthew would be the first and principal written source; but with this difference (if we rightly understand), that with the former this Matthew is our canoni cal Matthew, whilst in the opinion of Weiss, this last writing differed sensibly from the primitive Matthew, which only appears in our canonical Matthew as transformed by means of Mark. The dependence of Mark on Matthew has then much more stress laid upon it by Klostermann than by Weiss. Klostermann announces a second work, in which he will prove a precisely similar dependence of Luke upon Mark. Thus it is clear, that in proportion as criticism dispenses with the hypothesis of a Proto-Mark, it is compelled to attribute to the primitive Matthew, which at the outset was to be only a collection of discourses, more and more of the historical ele ment ; so that in Weiss it again becomes a more or less com plete Gospel, and lastly in Klostermann approximates closely to our canonical Matthew itself. i Das Marcus-Evangelium, Gbttingen 1867. SOURCES OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 45 This question of the origin of the synoptics, and of their mutual relations, must not be regarded as unimportant in re gard to the substance of the evangelical beliefs. Just as the view defended by the Tubingen school, according to which our* synoptics are simply derived from one another, exhibits the contents of these writings, and the degree of confidence they inspired at the time they appeared, in an unfavourable light (since the differences whieh exist between them could, in such a case, only proceed from the caprice of the copyists, and the slight faith they placed in the story of their pre decessors) ; so does the other opinion, which looks for different sources, oral or written, whence each writing proceeds, and which are adequate to account for their mutual resemblances or differences, tend to re-establish their general, credibility, and their genuineness as historical works. The following is a table of the opinions of which we have just given an account : — Matthew Luke Mark I Luke Baur. *> Mark. Volkmar. Matthew. -SCHOOL OF TUEBINGEN. Hilgenfeld. Matthew ~) | S- Luke. Mark ) Koestlin. Mark (I.}; Matthew ^ t Mark (II.) or Gospel of Peter Luke. J B II.— INDEPENDENT SYSTEMS. Ritschl. Mark ) | V Luke. Matthew ) Ewald. Gosp. of Phil. Logia") Mark (I.) Matthew. t Luke. Bleek. Primitive Gospel » N Matthew ; Luke v J Mark. Weiss. Matthew (I.) I Mark Matthew (II.); Luke. Reuss, etc. Mark (I.) Logia | ' , ' Mark (II.); Matthew; Luke. Klostermann. Matthew ) | V Luke. ¦ Mark ) The state of things which this table portrays is not certainly such as to lead us to regard the question as solved, and the 46 INTRODUCTION. door closed against fresh attempts to explain the origin of the synoptics, particularly the origin of Luke, which is the final term of the problem. SEC. V. ON THE PRESERVATION OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. Are we sure that we possess the book which we are about to study as it came from its author's hands ? Taken as a whole, yes. As guarantees of it, we have — 1. The general agreement of our text with the most ancient versions, the Peschito and the Italic, which date from the second century, and with the three Egyptian translations made at the beginning of the third ; 2. The general agreement of this text with the quotations of the Fathers of the second and third centuries, Justin, Tatian, Irenseus, Clement, Tertullian, Origen, etc. ; lastly, 3. The general uniformity of the manuscripts in which the Greek text has been preserved. If any great changes had been introduced into the text, there would inevitably have been much greater differences among all these documents. These different tests prove that the third Gospel, just as we have it, was already in existence in the churches of the second and third centuries. A text so universally diffused could only proceed from the text that was received from the very first. The manuscripts containing the text of the New Testa ment consist of majuscules, or manuscripts written in uncial letters (until the tenth century), and of minuscules, or manu scripts written in small or cursive writing (from the tenth century). The manuscripts known at the present day, con taining the whole or part of the Gospels, number nearly 44 majuscules, and more than 500 minuscules. The former are, for their antiquity and variety, the most important. Of this number; 19 contain the Gospel of Luke more or less com plete ; of 1 1 there only remain some fragments, or series of fragments : there are, in all, 30 documents prior to the tenth . century. Two of the fourth century — 1. The Sinaiticus (s). 2. The Vaticanus (B). Five of the fifth century — 3. The Alexandrinus'{A). ON THE PRESERVATION OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 47 4. The Codex Ephrcemi (C). 5. Twenty-eight palimpsest leaves (I). 6. Palimpsest fragments found at Wolfenbiittel (Q). 7. Different fragments, Greek with a Sahidic version, comprised in the Sahidic collection of Woide (Tw). Ta denotes similar fragments of the seventh century. Five of the sixth century — 8. The Cantabrigiensis (D) 9. Fragments of a manuscript de luxe, written in letters of silver and gold (N). 10. The hymns of Luke (chap. i. ii.) preserved in some psalters (Oc). OaMef denote similar portions of the seventh and ninth centuries. 11. Fragments of a palimpsest of London (R). 12. Fragments of Wolfenbiittel (P). Five of the eighth century — 1 3. The Basiliensis (E). 14. A manuscript of Paris (L). 15. Fragments of the Gospels, of Paris and of Naples (W; Wb). 16. Fragment of Luke at St. Petersburg (0d). 17. The Zacynthius, a palimpsest manuscript, found at Zante, comprising the first eleven chapters of Luke (E in Tischendorf, Z in our commentary). Eight of the ninth century — ¦ 18. The Codex Boreeli (F). 19. The Cyprius (K). 20. A manuscript of Paris (M). 21. A manuscript of Munich (X). 2 2. A manuscript of Oxford {T). 23. The San Gallensis {A). 24. A manuscript of Oxford {A). 25. A manuscript found at Smyrna, and deposited at St. Petersburg (IT). Five of the tenth century — 26, 27. The two Codd. of Seidel (G. H). 2 8. A manuscript of the Vatican (S). 29. A manuscript of Venice (U). 30. A manuscript of Moscow (V). 48 INTRODUCTION. Adding together all the various readings which these docu ments contain, we find from five to six thousand of them. But in general they are of very secondary importance, and involve no change in the matter of the Gospel history. On a closer study of them, it is observed that certain manu scripts habitually go together in opposition to others, and thus two principal forms of the text are established, — one which is generally found in the most ancient majuscules, another which is met with in the minuscules and in the less ancient of the majuscules. Some manuscripts oscillate between these two forms. As the text on which Erasmus formed the first edition of the New Testament in Greek was that of certain minuscules in the Bale library, and this text has continued to form the basis of subsequent editions, of which that of the Elzevirs of 1633 is the most generally diffused, it is evident that this, called the Received Text, is rather that of the minuscules and less ancient majuscules than the text of the old majuscules. This text is also called Byzantine,, because it is probably the one which was uniformly fixed in the churches of the Greek Empire. Those of our majuscules which represent it are the following : E. F. G. H. R. M. S. U. V. T. A. II. This form of the text is also called Asiatic. The opposite form, which is found in the older majuscules, B. G. L. R. X. Z., appears to come from Alexandria, where, in the first centuries of the Church, manuscripts were most largely produced. For this reason this text takes the name of Alexandrine. Some manuscripts, while ordinarily following the Alexandrine, differ from them more or less frequently ; these are K. A. D. A. The text of N and of D resembles, in many instances, the ancient Latin translation, the Italic. A middle form between these two principal texts is found in the fragments denoted by N. 0. W. Y. 0. It is a constant question, which of the two texts, the Alex andrine or the Byzantine, reproduces with the greatest fidelity the text of the original document. It is a question which, in our opinion, cannot be answered in a general way and a priori, and which must be solved in each particular instance by exegetical skill. ABBREVIATIONS. 49 ABBREVIATIONS. The abbreviations we shall use are generally those which Tischen- dorf has adopted in his eighth edition. 1. Fathers. Just., Justin; Ir., Irenseus; Or., Origen, etc. 2. Versions. Vss., versions. It., the Italic, comprising the different Latin translations prior to Jerome's (from the second century) : a, b, c, etc., denote the different documents of the Italic; a the Fercellensis (4th c.) ; b the Feronensis (5th c.) ; c the Colbertinus (11th c), etc. Vg., the Fulgate, Jerome s translation (4th c.) ; Am., Fuld., denote the principal documents of this translation, — the Amiatinus (6th a), the Fuldensis {id.), etc. Syr., the Syriac translations; Syrsch, the Peschito, Schaaf s edition ; Syr0"', a more ancient translation than the Peschito, discovered and published by Cureton. Syr. in brief (in our own use), these two united. Cop., the Coptic translation (3d c). 3. Manuscripts. Mss., the manuscripts ; Mjj., the majuscules ; Mini., the minus cules. The letter denoting a manuscript with the sign * (s*, B*) denotes the original text in opposition to corrections inserted in the text afterwards. The small figures added to this same letter (Ba, C2, etc.) signify first, second correction. For the manuscript N, which is in a peculiar condition, N% Kb denote the most ancient corrections, made by at least two different hands according to the text of diffe rent MSS. from that from which N was copied, and K° similar correc tions, but made a little later (7th a), and differing sometimes from each other {if, Ncb). F", some quotations from the Gospels anno tated in the margin of the1 Coislinianus (H. of the Epistles of Paul). 4. Editions. T. R, the received text, viz. the ed. Elzevir of 1633, which is generally the reproduction of the third ed. of Stephens ; fj irapahovs to Kar' airbv eiayyeXiov (Matthew having put in writing the Gospel according to him) in Eusebius {H Eccl. iii 24) ; — but this preposition must have this sense in our title. For, 1. The titles of our four Gospels bear too close a resemblance to each other to have come from the authors of these writings ; they must have been framed by the Church when it formed the collection of the Gospels. Now the opinion of the Church, as far as we can trace it, has always been, that these writings were composed by the persons named in the titles. 2. With respect to the third Gospel in particular, no other sense is possible. Apostles and eye witnesses, such as Matthew or John, might have created an original conception of the Gospel, and afterwards a different writer might have produced a narrative of the ministry of Jesus according to this type. But this supposition is not applicable to persons so secondary and dependent as Luke or Mark. 51 52 THE GOSPEL OF LUKE. This Luke, whom the title designates as the author of our Gospel, can be no other than the companion of Paul. The evangelical history mentions no other person of this name. As to the term Gospel, it appears to us very doubtful whether in our four titles it indicates the writings themselves. This term applies rather, as throughout the New Testament, to the facts related, to the contents of the books, to the coming of Christ — this merciful message of God to mankind. The complement understood after eiayyeXiov is Qeov ; comp. Rom. i. 1. This good news, though one in itself, is presented to the world under four different aspects in these four narratives. The mean ing then is, " The good news of the coming of Christ, accord ing to the version of . . ." It is the eiayyeXiov rerpdfiopcpov, the Gospel with four faces, of which Irenseus still speaks towards the end of the second century, even after the term Gospel had been already applied by Justin to the written Gospels. PBOLOGUE. Chap. i. 1-4. THE first of our synoptic Gospels opens with a genealogy. This mode of entering upon the subject transports us into a completely Jewish world. This preamble is, as it were, a continuation of the genealogical registers of Genesis ; in the /9t)SXo? yeveo-emf of Matthew (i. 1) we have again the Ell'e Tholedoth of Moses. How different Luke's prologue, and in what an entirely different atmosphere it places us from the first ! Not only is it written in most classical Greek, but it reminds us by its contents of the similar preambles of the most illustrious Greek historians, especially those of Herodotus and Thucydides. The more thoroughly we examine it, the more we find of that delicacy of sentiment and refinement of mind which constitute the predominant traits of the Hellenic character. Baur, it is true, thought he discerned in it the work of a forger. Ewald, on the contrary, admires its true simplicity, noble modesty, and terse conciseness.1 It appears to us, as to Holtzmann,'2 " that between these two opinions the choice is not difficult." The author does not seek to put himself in the rank of the Christian authorities ; he places himself modestly among men of the second order. He feels it necessary to excuse the bold ness of his enterprise, by referring to the numerous analogous attempts that have preceded his own. He does not permit himself to undertake the work of writing a Gospel history until he has furnished himself with all the aids fitted to enable him to attain the lofty aim he sets before him. There is a striking contrast between his frank and modest attitude and that of a forger. It excludes even the ambitious part of a 1 Jahrbiicher, ii. p. 128. 2 Die Synoptischen Evangelien, p. 898. 53 54 THE GOSPEL OF LUKE. secretary of the Apostle Paul, which tradition has not been slow to claim for the author of our Gospel. This prologue is not least interesting for the information it contains respecting the earliest attempts at writing histories of the Gospel. Apart from these first lines of Luke, we know absolutely nothing definite about the more ancient narratives of the life of Jesus which preceded the composition of our Gospels. Therefore every theory as to the origin of the synoptics, which is not constructed out of the materials fur nished by this preface, runs the risk of being thrown aside as a tissue of vain hypotheses the day after it has seen the light. This introduction is a dedication, in which Luke initiates the reader into the idea, method, and aim of his work. He is far from being the first who has attempted to handle this great subject (ver. 1). Numerous written narratives on the history of Jesus are already in existence ; they all of them rest on the oral narrations of the apostles (ver. 2). But while drawing also on this original source, Luke has collected,more particular information, in order to supplement, select, and properly arrange the materials for which the Church is in debted to apostolic tradition. His aim, lastly, is to furnish his readers, by this connected account of the facts, with the means of establishing their certainty (ver. 4). Vers. 1—4. " Since, as is known, many have undertaken to compose a narrative of the events which have been accom plished amongst us, (2) in conformity with that which they have handed down to us who were eye-witnesses of them from the beginning, and who became ministers of the word, (3) I have thought good also myself, after carefully informing my self of all these facts from their commencement, to write a consecutive account of them for thee, most excellent Theo philus, (4) in order that thou mightest know the immoveable certainty of the instructions which thou hast received."1 — This period, truly Greek in its style, has been composed with 1 A literal translation of M. Godet's rendering of Luke's preface is given here, for the sake of harmonizing the text with the verbal comments which follow in the next paragraph ; but, except when something turns on our author's render ing, the passages commented on will be given in the words of the A. V. A close and happy translation of the original Greek into French does not always admit of being reproduced literally in English, and a free translation of a translation is of little service for purposes of exegesis. — Note by the Translator. PROLOGUE. 5 5 particular care. We do not find a style like it in all the New Testament, except at the end of the Acts and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. As to the thought of this prologue, it cannot be better summed up than in these lines of Tholuck : " Al though not an immediate witness of the facts that took place, I have none the less undertaken, following the example of many others, to publish an account of them according to the information I have gathered."1 The conjunction etreihrjirep is found nowhere else in the New Testament ; it has a certain solemnity. To the idea of since {errei), By adds that of notoriety: "since, as is well known ;'; rrep draws attention to the relation between the great number of these writings and the importance of the events related: It is so (Sjj), and it could not be otherwise {irep). — The relation between the since thus defined and the principal verb, i" have thought good, is easy to seize : If my numerous prede cessors have not been blamed, why should I be blamed, who am only walking in their steps ? — The term iire^elprja-av, have undertaken, involves no blame of the skill of these prede cessors, as several Fathers have thought ; the I have thought good also myself is sufficient to exclude this supposition. This expression is suggested by the greatness of the task, and con tains a slight allusion to the insufficiency of the attempts hitherto made to accomplish it. The nature of these older writings is indicated by the term dvard^acrQai hirffflaiv, to set in order a narrative. It is a question, as Thiersch2 says, of an attempt at arrangement. Did this arrangement consist in the harmonizing of a number ¦ of separate writings into a single whole, so as to make a con secutive history of them ? In this case, we should have to admit jfchat the writers of whom Luke speaks had already found in the Church a number of short writings on particular events, which they had simply united : their work would thus constitute a second step in the development of the writing of the Gospel history. But the expression, in conformity with that which, they have handed down to us, hardly leaves room 1 Glaubwwrdigk. der evang. Gesch. p. 143. 2 Versuch zur Herstellung des historischen Standpunkts fur die Kritik der Neu- testamentl. Schr. p. 164 (a work which we cannot too strongly recommend to beginners, although we are far from sharing all its views). 56 THE GOSPEL OF LUKE. for intermediate accounts between the apostolic tradition and the writings of which Luke speaks. The notion of arrange ment, then, refers rather to the facts themselves which these authors had co-ordinated in such a way as to make a con secutive narrative of them. The term diegesis designates not, as Schleiermacher maintained, recitals of isolated facts, but a complete narrative. What idea should we form of these writings, and are they to be ranked among the sources on which Luke has drawn ? — Certain extra-canonical Gospels, which criticism has sometimes regarded as prior to Luke's, may be thought of, — that of the Hebrews, for example, in which Lessing was disposed to find the common source of our three synoptics ; or that of Marcion, which Ritschl and Baur regarded as the principal document reproduced by Luke.1 But does not tradition exhibit itself in these writings in a form already perceptibly altered, and very far removed from the primitive purity and freshness which characterize our canonical Gospels ? They" are then later than Luke. Or does Luke allude to our Gospels of Matthew and Mark ? This is maintained by those who think that Luke wrote' after Matthew and Mark (Hug), or only after Matthew (Griesbach, etc.). But however little Luke shared in the traditional opinion Which attributed the first Gospel to the Apostle Matthew, he could not speak of that writing as he speaks here ; for he clearly opposes to the writers of the tradition (the iroXXoi, ver. 1), the apostles who were the authors of it. It may be affirmed, from the connection of ver. 2 with ver. 1, that Luke was not acquainted with a single written Gospel emanating from an apostle. As to the collection of the Logia (discourses of the Lord), which some attribute to Matthew, it certainly would not be excluded by Luke's expressions ; for the term diegesis denotes a recital, a historical narrative. Hug, in his desire to save his hypothesis, according to which Luke made use of Matthew, explained vers. 1 and 2 in this sense : "Many have undertaken to compose written Gospels similar to those which the apostles bequeathed to us . . ." But this sense would require atroZa {(SiBXla) instead of Kadm,1 and has not 1 Ritschl has since withdrawn this assertion. * Thiersch, Versuch, etc., p. 211. PROLOGUE. 5 7 been accepted by any one. — As to the Gospel of Mark, Luke's expressions might certainly suit this writing. For, according to tradition, Mark made use in his narrative of the accounts of an eye-witness, St. Peter. But still it may be questioned whether Luke would have employed the term undertake in speaking of a work which was received in the Church as one of the essential documents of the life of Jesus. For the rest, exegesis alone can determine whether Luke really had Mark before him either in its present or in a more ancient form. — It appears probable, therefore, to me, that the works to which Luke alludes are writings really unknown and lost. Their incompleteness condemned them to extinction, in proportion as writings of superior value, such as our synoptics, spread through the Church. As to whether Luke availed himself of these writings, and in any way" embodied them in his own work, he does not in form us. But is it not probable, since he was acquainted with them, that he would make some use of them ? Every aid would appear precious to him in a work the importance of which he so deeply felt. The subject of these narratives is set forth in expressions that have a touch of solemnity : " the events which have been accomplished amongst us." HXrjpo^opelv is a word analogous in composition and meaning to reXeo-tpopeiv {to bring to an end, to maturity, viii. 14). It signifies, when it refers to a fact, to bring it to complete accomplishment (2 Tim. iv. 5, to accom plish the ministry ; ver. 1 7, to accomplish [to finish rendering] the testimony) ; and when it refers to a person, it means to cause him to attain inward fulness [of conviction], that is to say, a conviction which leaves no room for doubt (Rom. iv. 21, xiv. 5 ; Heb. x. 22, etc.). With a substantive such as irpdyp.ara, the second sense is inadmissible. Nevertheless, it has been de fended by some of the Fathers, by some modern interpreters, as Beza, Grotius, Olshausen, and by Meyer, who concludes from 2 Tim. iv. 17 that irX7)po Xoyoov rrepl &v Kart}j(fj6r]<; ; the second and more simple, adopted by Bleek, is to make -rrepl depend not on do-cpdXetav, but on Karr)j(f)6n^ : rr)v da-v Xoycov ov? Kar^xv^, certitude touching the instruc tion which . . . Comp. for this form Karr\yeto-Qal n, Acts xviii. 25, Gal. vi. 6. — The term Kar^eiv, to cause a sound to penetrate into the ears, and thereby also a fact, an idea, into the mind, may simply mean that intelligence of the great events of which Luke speaks had reached Theophilus by public report (Acts xxi. 21, 24) ; or it may denote instruction properly so called, as Rom. ii. 18, Acts xviii. 25, Gal. vi. 6 ; neither the expressions nor the context appear to me to offer sufficient reasons to decide which. Perhaps the truth lies between these two extreme opinions. Theophilus might have talked with Christian evangelists without receiving such catechetical instruction, in the strict sense of the term, as was often given when a church was founded (Thiersch, Versuch, p. 122 et seq.) ; and then have applied to Luke with a view to obtain through his labours something more complete. — The word do~r)fiepla, properly daily service ; thence : in rotation, returning on a fixed day ; thence : lastly, the group of persons subject to this rota tion. As we know that the day on which the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed was the ninth of the fifth month of the year 823 u.c, that is to say, the 4th of August of the year 70 of our era; and as, according to the Talmud, it was the first ephemeria which was on duty that day, we may reckon, calculating backwards, that in the year which must have preceded that in which Jesus was born, that is to say, probably in 748, the ephemeria of Abia was on duty in the week from the 17th to the 23d of April, and in that from the 3d to the 9th of October. Therefore John the Baptist would be born nine months after one of these two dates, and Jesus six months later, consequently in the month of July 749, or in the month, of January 750.1 In this calculation, however, of the time of year to which the births of John and Jesus should be assigned, everything depends on the determination of the year of the birth of Jesus. But this is a question which is not yet decided with any certainty. The Hebraistic colouring of the style is seen particularly : 1 Wieseler, Chronohg. Synopsis der vier Evang. pp. 141-145. 72 THE GOSPEL OF LUKE. 1st, in the expression iv Tat? ruiepai? (10*3) ; 2dly, in the con nection of propositions by means of the particle Kal, instead of the Greek syntactical construction by means of relative pro nouns and conjunctions ; 3dly,in the employment of the verb eyevero in the sense of 'IT1!. The subject of iyevero is not, as is generally thought, the word lepevg, but rather the verb rjv, which must be understood in the three following propositions (comp. ver. 8, iyeiJero eXa%e). — The Alex, reading yvvr) airw, which is more uncouth and Hebraistic than -q yvvrj airov, is probably the true reading.-— The term righteous (ver. 6) indi cates general conformity of conduct to the divine precepts ; this quality does not absolutely exclude sin (comp. vers. 18-20). It simply supposes that the man humbly acknow ledges his sin, strives to make amends for it, and, aided from on high, struggles against it. — The Byz. reading ivcomov, in the presence, under the eyes of, appears preferable to the Alexan drian Teading ivavrlov, in the face of, before. God and man cannot be represented as being face to face in this passage. where God's judgment on man is in question (see at ver. 8). 'Evdmiov answers to 'OS?, and expresses the inward reality of this righteousness. — The two terms ivroXai and StKauofiara, commandments and ordinances, have been distinguished in different ways. The former appears to us to refer to the more general principles of the moral law — to the Decalogue, for example ; the latter, to the multitude of particular Levitical ordinances. AiKalo)p,a properly is, what God has declared righteous. — As the expression before God brings out the in ward truth of this righteousness, so the following, walking in . . ., indicates its perfect fidelity in practice. The term blame less no more excludes sin here than Phil. iii. 6. The well- known description in Rom. vii. explains the sense in which this word must be taken. The germ of concupiscence may exist in the heart, even under the covering of the most com plete external obedience. Ver. 7. In the heart of this truly theocratic family, so worthy of the divine blessing, a grievous' want was felt. To have no children was a. trial the more deeply felt in Israel, that barrenness was regarded by the Jews as a mark of divine 'displeasure, according to Gen. ii. — Kadori does not signify because that exactly, but in accordance with this, that. It is one CHAP. I. 8-12. 73 of those terms which, in the New Testament, only occur in Luke's writings (xix. 9, and four times in the Acts). If, there fore, as Bleek thinks, Luke had found these narratives already composed in Greek, he must nevertheless admit that he has modified their style. The last proposition cannot, it appears, depend on Kadori, seeing thai ; for it would not be logical to say, " They had no children . . . seeing that they were both well stricken in years." So, many make these last words an independent sentence. The position, however, of the verb rjcrav at the end, tends rather to make this phrase depend on Kadori. To do this, it suffices to supply a thought: They had no children, and they retained but little hope of having any, seeing that . . ." The expression 7r/3o/3e/3i7«oTe? iv Tat? 17/iepat? airav is purely Hebraistic (Gen. xviii. 11, xxiv. 1 ; Josh. xiii. 1 ; 1 Kings i. 1 — D^S N13). 2. The promise of deliverance: vers. 8-22. This portion comprises: 1. vers. 8-17, The promise itself; 2. vers. 18-22, The manner in which it was received. 1. The narrative of the promise includes : the appearance (vers. 8—1 2), and the message (vers, vl 3-1 7), of the angel., The appearance of the angel: vers. 8— 12.1 — The incense had to be offered, according to the law (Ex. xxx. 7, 8), every morning and evening. There was public prayer three times a day : at nine in the morning (Acts ii. 1 5 ?), at noon (Acts x. 9), and at three in the afternoon (Acts iii. 1, x. 30). The first and last of these acts of public prayer coincided with the offering of incense (Jos. Antiq. xiv. 4. 3). — In the construc tion iyevero eXa^e, the subject of the first verb is the act indicated by the second. — "Evavri, in the face of, before, is suitable here ; for the officiating priest enacts a part in the front of the Divinity. The words, according to the custom of the priest's office (ver. 8), may be referred either to the estab lished rotation of the courses (ver. 8), or to the use of the lot with a view to the assignment of each day's functions. In both cases, the extraordinary use of the lot would be worthy of . mention. The reference of these words to what precedes appears to us more natural; we regard them as a simple 1 Ver. 8. The Mnn. vary between siwr; and :v«>™i, — Ver. 10. K. B. E. and 13 Mjj. put nv Xxtiu between w and vpenuxeftmii ; whilst the T. R., with A. C. D. K. n., put it before «». 74 THE GOSPEL OF LUKE. amplification of iv rfj rdljei : " the order of his course, accord ing to the custom of the priest's office." — On the use of the lot Oosterzee rightly observes that it proceeded from this, that nothing in the service of the sanctuary was to be left to man's arbitrary decision. The function of offering incense, which gave the priest the right to enter the holy place, was regarded as the most honourable of all. Further, according to the Talmud, the priest who had obtained it was not permitted to draw the lot a second time in the same week. — Elo-eX6d>v, having entered ; there was the honour ! This fact was at the same time the condition of the whole scene that followed. And that is certainly the reason why this detail, which is correctly understood by itself, is so particularly mentioned. Meyer and Bleek, not apprehending this design, find here an inaccuracy of expression, and maintain that with the infinitive Ovfiidaai the author passes by anticipation from the notion of the fact to its historical realization. This is unnecessary ; elaeX6a>v is a pluperfect in reference to 6vfiido-ai : " It fell to him to offer incense after having entered." The term rao?, temple, designates the buildings properly so called, in oppo sition to the different courts ; and the complement icvplov, of the Lord, expresses its character in virtue of which the Lord was about to manifest Himself in this house. The 10 th verse mentions a circumstance which brings out the solemnity of the time, as the preceding circumstance brought out the solemnity of the place. The prayer of the people assembled in the court accompanied the offering of incense. There was a close connection between these two acts. The one was the typical, ideal, and therefore perfectly pure prayer ; the other the real prayer, which was inevitably imperfect and defiled. The former covered the latter with its sanctity ; the latter communicated to the former its reality and life. Thus they were the complement of each other. Hence their obligatory simultaneousness and their mutual connection are forcibly expressed by the dative rfj &pa. The reading which puts rod Xaov between fy and rrpoaevxptievov, expresses better the essential idea of the proposition contained in this participle. Ver. 11. Here, with the appearance of the angel, begins the marvellous character of the story which lays it open to CHAP. I. 8-12. 75 the suspicion of criticism. And if, indeed, the Christian dis pensation were nothing more than the natural development of the human consciousness, advancing by its own laws, we should necessarily and unhesitatingly reject as fictitious this super natural element, and at the same time everything else in the Gospel of a similar character. But if Christianity was an entirely new beginning (Verny) in history, the second and final creation of man, it was natural that an interposition on so grand a scale should be accompanied by a series of particular interpositions. It was even necessary. For how were the representatives of the ancient order of things, who had to co-operate in the new work, to be initiated into it, and their attachment won to it, except by this means ? — According to the Scripture, we are surrounded by angels (2 Kings vi. 17 ; Ps. xxxiv. 8), whom God employs to watch over us ; but in our ordinary condition we want the sense necessary to per ceive their presence. For that, a condition of peculiar recep tivity is required. This condition existed in Zacharias at this time. It had been created in him by the solemnity of the place, by the sacredness of the function he was about to perform, by his lively sympathy with all this people who were imploring Heaven for national deliverance, and, last of all, by the experience of his own domestic trial, the feeling of which was to be painfully revived by the favour about to be shown him. Under the influence of all these circum stances combined, that internal sense which puts man in contact with the higher world was awakened in him. But the necessity of this inward predisposition in no way proves that the vision of Zacharias was merely the result of a high state of moral excitement. Several particulars in the narrative make this explanation inadmissible, particularly these two : the difficulty with which Zacharias puts faith in the promise made to him, and the physical chastisement which is inflicted on him for his unbelief. These facts, in any case, render a simple psychological explanation impossible, and oblige the denier of the objectivity of the appearance to throw himself upon the mythical interpretation. — The term 0776X0? Kvpiov, angel of the Lord, may be regarded as a kind of proper name, and we may translate the angel of the Lord, notwithstanding the absence of the article. But since, when once this per- 76 THE GOSPEL OF LUKE. sonage is introduced, the word angel is preceded by the article (ver. 13), it is more natural to translate here an angel. — The entrance to the temple facing the east, Zacharias, on entering, had on his right the table of shew-bread, placed on the north side ; on his left the candelabrum, placed on the south side ; and before him the golden altar, which occupied the end of the Holy Place, in front of the veil that hung between this part of the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. The expres sion, on the right side of the altar, must be explained according to the point of view of Zacharias ; the angel stood, therefore, between the altar and the shew-bread table. The fear of Zacharias proceeds from the consciousness of sin, which is immediately awakened in the human mind when a super natural manifestation puts it in direct contact with the divine world. The expression