Quite otherwise is the theatre of the ministry of Jesus marked out in the fourth gospel. It is true that here also he goes after his baptism by John into Galilee, to the wedding at Cana ([ii. 1]), and from thence to Capernaum ([v. 12]); but in a few days the approaching passover calls him to Jerusalem ([v. 13]). From Jerusalem he proceeds into the country of Judea ([iii. 22]), and after some time exercising his ministry there ([iv. 1]) he returns through Samaria into Galilee ([v. 43]). Nothing is reported of his agency in this province but a single cure, and immediately on this a new feast summons him to Jerusalem ([v. 1]), where he is represented as performing a cure, being persecuted, and delivering long discourses, until he betakes himself ([vi. 1]) to the eastern shore of the sea of Tiberias, and from thence to Capernaum ([v. 17], [59]). He then itinerates for some time in Galilee ([vii. 1]), but again leaves it, on occasion of the feast of tabernacles, for Jerusalem ([v. 2], [10]). To this visit the Evangelist refers many discourses and vicissitudes of Jesus ([vii. 10], [x. 21]), and moreover connects with it the commencement of his public ministry at the feast of dedication, without noticing any intermediate journey out of Jerusalem and Judea ([x. 22]). After this Jesus again retires into the country of Perea, where he had first been with the Baptist ([x. 40]), and there remains until the death of Lazarus recalls him to Bethany, near Jerusalem ([xi. 1]), whence he withdraws to Ephraim, in the vicinity of the wilderness of Judea, until the approach of the passover, which he visited as his last ([xii. 1 ff.]).
Thus, according to John, Jesus was present at four feasts in Jerusalem, before the final one: was besides once in Bethany, and had been active for a considerable time in Judea and on his journey through Samaria.
Why, it must be asked, have the synoptical writers been silent on this frequent presence of Jesus in Judea and Jerusalem? Why have they represented the matter, as if Jesus, before his last fatal journey to Jerusalem, had not overstepped the limits of Galilee and Perea? This discrepancy between the synoptical writers and John was long overlooked in the church, and of late it has been thought feasible to deny its existence. It has been said, that Matthew, at the commencement, lays the scene in Galilee and Capernaum, [[266]]and pursues his narrative without noticing any journey into Judea until the last; but that we are not hence to conclude that Matthew was unacquainted with the earlier ministry of Jesus in Judea, for as with this Evangelist the local interest is subordinate to the effort at an appropriate arrangement of his events, many particulars in the former part of his history, which he narrates without indicating any place, may have been known, though not stated by him, to have occurred in the earlier journeys and residences in Judea.[2] But this alleged subordination of the local interest in Matthew, is nothing more than a fiction of the harmonist, as Schneckenburger has recently proved.[3] Matthew very carefully marks ([chap. iv.]) the beginning and ([chap. xix.]) the end of the almost exclusive residence of Jesus in Galilee; all the intervening narration must therefore be regarded as belonging to that residence, unless the contrary be expressed; and since the Evangelist is on the alert to notice the short excursions of Jesus across the lake and into the north of Galilee, he would hardly pass over in silence the more important, and sometimes prolonged visits to Judea, had they been known or credited by him. Thus much only is to be allowed, that Matthew frequently neglects the more precise statement of localities, as the designation of the spot or neighbourhood in which Jesus laboured from time to time: but in his more general biographical statements, such as the designation of the territories and provinces of Palestine, within the boundaries of which Jesus exercised his ministry, he is as accurate as any other Evangelist.
Expositors must therefore accommodate themselves to the admission of a difference between the synoptical writers and John,[4] and those who think it incumbent on them to harmonize the Gospels must take care lest this difference be found a contradiction; which can only be prevented by deducing the discrepancy, not from a disparity between the ideas of the Evangelists as to the sphere of the ministry of Jesus, but from the difference of mental bias under which they severally wrote. Some suppose that Matthew, being a Galilean, saw the most interest in Galilean occurrences, and hence confined his narrative to them, though aware of the agency of Jesus at Jerusalem.[5] But what biographer, who had himself accompanied his hero into various provinces, and beheld his labours there, would confine his narration to what he had performed in his (the biographer’s) native province? Such provincial exclusiveness would surely be quite unexampled. Hence others have preferred the supposition that Matthew, writing at Jerusalem, purposely selected from the mass of discourses and actions of Jesus with which he was acquainted, those of which Galilee was the theatre, because they were the least known at Jerusalem, and required narrating more than what had happened within the hearing, and was fresh in the memories of its inhabitants.[6] In opposition to this it has been already remarked,[7] that there is no proof of Matthew’s gospel being especially intended for the Christians of Judea and Jerusalem: that even assuming this, a reference to the events which had happened in the reader’s own country could not be superfluous: and that, lastly, the like limitation of the ministry of Jesus to Galilee by Mark and Luke cannot be thus accounted for, since these Evangelists obviously did not write for Judea (neither were they Galileans, so that this objection is equally [[267]]valid against the first explanation); and were not in so servile a relation to Matthew as to have no access to independent information that might give them a more extended horizon. It is curious enough that these two attempts to solve the contradiction between the synoptical writers and John, are themselves in the same predicament of mutual contradiction. For if Matthew has been silent on the incidents in Judea, according to one, on account of his proximity, according to the other, on account of his remoteness, it follows that, two contrary hypotheses being made with equal ease to explain the same fact, both are alike inadequate.
No supposition founded on the local relations of the writers sufficing to explain the difference in question, higher ground must be taken, in a consideration of the spirit and tendency of the evangelical writings. From this point of view the following proposition has been given: The cause which determined the difference in the contents of the fourth gospel and that of the synoptical ones, accounts also for their divergency as to the limits they assign to the ministry of Jesus; in other words, the discourses delivered by Jesus in Jerusalem, and recorded by John, required for their comprehension a more mature development of Christianity than that presented in the first apostolic period; hence they were not retained in the primitive evangelical tradition, of which the synoptical writers were the organs, and were first restored to the church by John, who wrote when Christianity was in a more advanced stage.[8] But neither is this attempt at an explanation satisfactory, though it is less superficial than the preceding. For how could the popular and the esoteric in the teaching of Jesus be separated with such nicety, that the former should be confined to Galilee, and the latter to Jerusalem (the harsh discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum alone excepted)? It may be said: in Jerusalem he had a more enlightened public around him, and could be more readily understood than in Galilee. But the Galileans could scarcely have misunderstood Jesus more lamentably than did the Jews from first to last, according to John’s representation, and as in Galilee he had the most undisturbed communion with his disciples, we should rather have conjectured that here would be the scene of his more profound instruction. Besides, as the synoptical writers have given a plentiful gleaning of lucid and popular discourses from the final residence of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is no ground whatever for believing that his earlier visits were devoid of such, and that his converse on these occasions took throughout a higher tone. But even allowing that all the earlier discourses of Jesus in Judea and Jerusalem were beyond the range of the first apostolic tradition, deeds were performed there, such as the cure of the man who had had an infirmity thirty-eight years, the conferring of sight on the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus, which, from their imposing rank among the evidences of Christianity, must also have necessitated the mention of those early visits of Jesus to Judea during which they occurred.
Thus it is impossible to explain why the synoptical writers, if they knew of the earlier visits of Jesus to Jerusalem, should not have mentioned them, and it must be concluded that if John be right, the first three Evangelists knew nothing of an essential part of the earlier ministry of Jesus; if, on the other hand, the latter be right, the author of the fourth gospel, or of the tradition by which he was guided, fabricated a large portion of what he has narrated concerning the ministry of Jesus, or at least assigned to it a false locality. [[268]]
On a closer examination, however, the relation between John and the synoptical writers is not simply such, that the latter might not know what the former records, but such, that they must have proceeded from positively opposite data. For example, the synoptical writers, Matthew especially, as often as Jesus leaves Galilee, from the time that he takes up his abode there after the Baptist’s imprisonment, seldom neglect to give a particular reason; such as that he wished to escape from the crowd by a passage across the sea ([Matt. viii. 18]), or that he withdrew into the wilderness of Perea to avoid the snares of Herod ([xiv. 13]), or that he retired into the region of Tyre and Sidon on account of the offence taken by the scribes at his preaching ([xv. 21]): John, on the contrary, generally alleges a special reason why Jesus leaves Judea, and retires into Galilee. Not to contend that his very first journey thither appears to be occasioned solely by the invitation to Cana, his departure again into Galilee after the first passover attended by him in his public character, is expressly accounted for by the ominous attention which the increasing number of his disciples had excited among the Pharisees ([iv. 1 ff.]). His retirement after the second feast, also, into the country east of the Sea of Tiberias ([vi. 1]), must be viewed in relation to the ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἀποκτεῖναι ([v. 18]), since immediately after, the Evangelist assigns as a reason for the continuance of Jesus in Galilee, the malignant designs of his enemies, which rendered his abode in Judea perilous to his life ([vii. 1]). The interval between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of the Dedication seems to have been spent by Jesus in the capital,[9] no unpropitious circumstances compelling him to absent himself ([x. 22]); on the other hand, his journey into Perea ([x. 40]) and that into Ephraim ([xi. 54]) are presented as effects of his persecution by the Jews.
Thus precisely the same relation as that which exists between Matthew and Luke, with respect to the original dwelling-place of the parents of Jesus is found between the first three Evangelists and the fourth, with respect to the principal theatre of his ministry. As, in the former instance, Matthew pre-supposes Bethlehem to be the original place of abode, and Nazareth the one subsequently adopted through fortuitous circumstances, while Luke gives the contrary representation; so in the latter, the entire statement of the synoptical writers turns on the idea that, until his last journey, Galilee was the chosen field of the labours of Jesus, and that he only left it occasionally, from particular motives and for a short time; while that of John, on the contrary, turns on the supposition, that Jesus would have taught solely in Judea and Jerusalem had not prudence sometimes counselled him to retire into the more remote provinces.[10]
Of these two representations one only can be true. Before they were perceived to be contradictory, the narrative of John was incorporated with that of the synoptical writers; since they have been allowed to be irreconcilable, the verdict has always been in favour of the fourth Evangelist; and so prevalent is this custom, that even the author of the Probabilia does not use the difference to the disadvantage of the latter. De Wette numbers it among the objections to the authenticity of Matthew’s gospel, that it erroneously limits the ministry of Jesus to Galilee,[11] and Schneckenburger has no more important ground of doubt to produce against the apostolic origin of the first canonical gospel, than the unacquaintance of its author with the extra-Galilean labours of Jesus.[12] If this decision be well founded, it must rest on a careful consideration [[269]]of the question, which of the two incompatible narratives has the greater corroboration from external sources, and the more internal verisimilitude? We have shown in the introduction that the external evidence or testimony for the authenticity of the fourth gospel and of the synoptical ones, that of Matthew emphatically, is of about equal value: that is, it determines nothing in either case, but leaves the decision to the internal evidence. In relation to this, the following question must be considered: is it more probable that, although Jesus was actually often in Judea and Jerusalem previous to his last journey, yet at the time and place whence the synoptical gospels arose, all traces of the fact had disappeared: or that, on the contrary, although Jesus never entered Judea for the exercise of his public ministry before his last journey thither, yet at the time and place of the composition of the fourth gospel a tradition of several such visits had been formed?
The above critics seek to show that the first might be the case, in the following manner. The first gospel, they say,[13] and more or less the two middle ones, contain the tradition concerning the life of Jesus as it was formed in Galilee, where the memory of what Jesus did and said in that province would be preserved with a natural partiality—while, of that part of his life which was spent out of Galilee, only the most critical incidents, such as his birth, consecration, and especially his last journey, which issued in his death, would be retained; the remainder, including his early journeys to the various feasts, being either unknown or forgotten, so that any fragments of information concerning one or other of the previous residences of Jesus at Jerusalem would be referred to the last, no other being known.