All the synoptists mention a visit of the mother and brethren of Jesus, on being apprised of which Jesus points to his disciples, and declares that they who do the will of God are his mother and his brethren ([Matt. xii. 46 ff.]; [Mark iii. 31 ff.]; [Luke viii. 19 ff.]). Matthew and Luke do not tell us the object of this visit, nor, consequently, whether this declaration of Jesus, which appears to imply a disowning of his relatives, was occasioned by any special circumstance. On this subject Mark gives us unexpected information; he tells us ([v. 21]) that while Jesus was teaching among a concourse of people, who even prevented him from taking food, his relatives, under the idea that he was beside himself, went out to seize him, and take him into the keeping of his family.[15] In describing this incident, the Evangelist makes use of the expression, ἔλεγον ὅτι ἐξέστη (they said, he is beside himself), and it was merely this expression, apparently, that suggested to him what he next proceeds to narrate: οἱ γραμματεῖς ἔλεγον, ὅτι Βεελζεβοὺλ ἔχει κ.τ.λ. (the scribes said, he hath Beelzebub, etc., comp. [John x. 20]). With this reproach, which however he does not attach to an expulsion of demons, he connects the answer of Jesus; he then recurs to the relatives, whom he now particularizes as the mother and brethren of Jesus, supposing them to have arrived in the meantime; and he makes their announcement call forth from Jesus the answer of which we have above spoken.
These particulars imparted by Mark are very welcome to commentators, as a means of explaining and justifying the apparent harshness of the answer which Jesus returns to the announcement of his nearest relatives, on the ground of the perverted object of their visit. But, apart from the difficulty that, on the usual interpretation of the accounts of the childhood of Jesus, it is not to be explained how his mother could, after the events therein described, be thus mistaken in her son, it is very questionable whether we ought to accept this information of Mark’s. In the first place, it is associated with the obvious exaggeration, that Jesus and his disciples were prevented even from taking food by the throng of people; and in the second place, it has in itself a strange appearance, from its want of relation to the context. If these points are considered, it will scarcely be possible to avoid agreeing with the opinion of Schleiermacher, that no explanation of the then existing relations of Jesus with his family is to be sought in this addition; that it rather belongs to those exaggerations to which Mark is so prone, as well in his introductions to isolated incidents, as in his general statements.[16] He wished to make it understood why Jesus returned an ungracious answer to the announcement of his relatives; for this purpose he thought it necessary to give their visit an object of which Jesus did not approve, and as he knew that the Pharisees had [[395]]pronounced him to be under the influence of Beelzebub, he attributed a similar opinion to his relatives.
If we lay aside this addition of Mark’s, the comparison of the three very similar narratives presents no result as it regards their matter;[17] but there is a striking difference between the connexions in which the Evangelists place the event. Matthew and Mark insert it after the defence against the suspicion of diabolical aid, and before the parable of the sower; whereas Luke makes the visit considerably prior to that imputation, and places the parable even before the visit. It is worthy of notice, however, that Luke has, after the defence against the accusation of a league with Beelzebub, in the position which the two other Evangelists give to the visit of the relatives of Jesus, an incident which issues in a declaration, precisely similar to that which the announcement calls forth. After the refutation of the Pharisaic reproach, and the discourse on the return of the unclean spirit, a woman in the crowd is filled with admiration, and pronounces the mother of Jesus blessed, on which Jesus, as before on the announcement of his mother, replies; Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it![18] Schleiermacher here again prefers the account of Luke: he thinks this little digression on the exclamation of the woman especially evinces a fresh and lively recollection, which has inserted it in its real place and circumstances; whereas Matthew, confounding the answer of Jesus to the ejaculation of the woman, with the very similar one to the announcement of his relatives, gives to the latter the place of the former, and thus passes over the scene with the woman.[19] But how the woman could feel herself hurried away into so enthusiastic an exclamation, precisely on hearing the abstruse discourse on the return of the expelled demons, or even the foregoing reprehensive reply to the Pharisees, it is difficult to understand, and the contrary conjecture to that of Schleiermacher might rather be established; namely, that in the place of the announcement of the relatives, the writer of the third gospel inserted the scene with the woman, from its having a like termination. The evangelical tradition, as we see from Matthew and Mark, whether from historical or merely accidental motives, had associated the above visit and the saying about the spiritual relatives, with the discourse of Jesus on the accusation of a league with Beelzebub, and on the return of the unclean spirit; and Luke also, when he came to the conclusion of that discourse, was reminded of the anecdote of the visit and its point—the extolling of a spiritual relationship to Jesus. But he had already mentioned the visit;[20] he therefore seized on the scene with the woman, which presented a [[396]]similar termination. From the strong resemblance between the two anecdotes, I can scarcely believe that they are founded on two really distinct incidents; rather, it is more likely that the memorable declaration of Jesus, that he preferred his spiritual before his bodily relatives, had in the legend received two different settings or frames. According to one, it seemed the most natural that such a depreciation of his kindred should be united with an actual rejection of them; to another, that the exaltation of those who were spiritually near to him, should be called forth by a blessing pronounced on those who were nearest to him in the flesh. Of these two forms of the legend, Matthew and Mark give only the first; Luke, however, had already disposed of this on an earlier occasion; when, therefore, he came to the passage where, in the common evangelical tradition, that anecdote occurred, he was induced to supply its place by the second form.
§ 87.
CONTENTIONS FOR PRE-EMINENCE AMONG THE DISCIPLES. THE LOVE OF JESUS FOR CHILDREN.
The three first Evangelists narrate several contentions for pre-eminence which arose among the disciples, with the manner in which Jesus composed these differences. One such contention, which is said to have arisen among the disciples after the transfiguration, and the first prediction of the passion, is common to all the gospels ([Matt. xviii. 1 ff.]; [Mark ix. 33 ff.]; [Luke ix. 46 ff.]). There are indeed divergencies in the narratives, but the identity of the incident on which they are founded is attested by the fact, that in all of them, Jesus sets a little child before his disciples as an example; a scene which, as Schleiermacher remarks,[21] would hardly be repeated. Matthew and Mark concur in mentioning a dispute about pre-eminence, which was excited by the two sons of Zebedee. These disciples (according to Mark), or their mother for them (according to Matthew), petitioned for the two first places next to Jesus in the messianic kingdom ([Matt. xx. 20 ff.]; [Mark x. 35 ff.]).[22] Of such a request on the part of the sons of Zebedee, the third Evangelist knows nothing; but apart from this occasion, there is a further contention for pre-eminence, on which discourses are uttered, similar to those which the two first Evangelists have connected with the above petition. At the last supper of which Jesus partook with his disciples before his passion, Luke makes the latter fall into a φιλονεικία (dispute) which among them shall be the greatest; a dispute which Jesus seeks to quell by the same reasons, and partly with the same words, that Matthew and Mark give in connexion with the ἀγανάκτησις, (indignation), excited in the disciples generally by the request of the sons of Zebedee. Luke here reproduces a sentence which he, in common with Mark, had previously given almost in the same form, as accompanying the presentation of the child; and which Matthew has, not only on the occasion of [[397]]Salome’s prayer, but also in the great anti-pharisaic discourse (comp. [Luke xxii. 26]; [Mark ix. 35]; [Luke ix. 48]; [Matt. xx. 26 f.], [xxiii. 11]). However credible it may be that with the worldly messianic hopes of the disciples, Jesus should often have to suppress disputes among them on the subject of their future rank in the Messiah’s kingdom, it is by no means probable that, for example, the sentence, Whosoever will be great among you, let him be the servant of all: should be spoken, 1st, on the presentation of the child; 2ndly, in connexion with the prayer of the sons of Zebedee; 3rdly, in the anti-pharisaic discourse, and 4thly, at the last supper. There is here obviously a traditional confusion, whether it be (as Sieffert in such cases is fond of supposing) that several originally distinct occurrences have been assimilated by the legend, i.e. the same discourse erroneously repeated on various occasions; or that out of one incident the legend has made many, i.e. has invented various occasions for the same discourse. Our decision between these two possibilities must depend on the answer to the following question: Have the various facts, to which the analogous discourses on humility are attached, the dependent appearance of mere frames to the discourses, or the independent one of occurrences that carry their truth and significance in themselves?
It will not be denied that the petition of the sons of Zebedee, is in itself too specific and remarkable to be a mere background to the ensuing discourse; and the same judgment must be passed on the scene with the child: so that we have already two cases of contention for pre-eminence subsisting in themselves. If we would assign to each of these occurrences its appropriate discourses, the declarations which Matthew connects with the presentation of the child: Unless ye become as this child, etc., and Whosoever shall humble himself as this child, etc., evidently belong to this occasion. On the other hand, the sentences on ruling and serving in the world and in the kingdom of Jesus, seem to be a perfectly suitable comment on the petition of the sons of Zebedee, with which Matthew associates them: also the saying about the first and the last, the greatest and the least, which Mark and Luke give so early as at the scene with the child, Matthew seems rightly to have reserved for the scene with the sons of Zebedee. It is otherwise with the contention spoken of by Luke ([xxii. 24 ff.]). This contention originates in no particular occasion, nor does it issue in any strongly marked scene (unless we choose to insert here the washing of the disciples’ feet, described by John, who, for the rest, mentions no dispute;—of which scene, however, we cannot treat until we come to the history of the Passion). On the contrary, this contention is ushered in merely by the words, ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ φιλονεικία ἐν αὐτοῖς,—nearly the same by which the first contention is introduced, [ix. 46],—and leads to a discourse from Jesus, which, as we have already noticed, Matthew and Mark represent him to have delivered in connexion with the earlier instances of rivalry; so that this passage of Luke has nothing peculiarly its own, beyond its position, at the last supper. This position, however, is not very secure; for that immediately after the discourse on the betrayer, so humiliating to the disciples, pride should so strongly have taken possession of them, is as difficult to believe, as it is easy to discover, by a comparison of [v. 23] and [24], how the writer might be led, without historical grounds, to insert here a contention for pre-eminence. It is clear that the words καὶ αὐτοὶ ἤρξαντο συζητεῖν πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς, τὸ, τίς ἄρα εἴη ἐξ αὐτῶν ὁ τοῦτο μέλλων πράσσειν; suggested to him the similar ones, ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ φιλονεικία ἐν αὐτοῖς, τὸ τίς αὐτῶν δοκεῖ εἶναι μείζων; that is, the disputes about the betrayer called to his remembrance the disputes about pre-eminence. One such dispute indeed, he had already mentioned, but had only connected with it, one sentence excepted, the discourses occasioned by the exhibition of the child; he had yet in reserve those which the [[398]]two first Evangelists attach to the petition of the sons of Zebedee, an occasion which seems not to have been present to the mind of the third Evangelist, whence he introduces the discourses pertaining to it here, with the general statement that they originated in a contention for pre-eminence, which broke out among the disciples. Meanwhile the chronological position, also, of the two first-named disputes about rank, has very little probability; for in both instances, it is after a prediction of the passion, which, like the prediction of the betrayal, would seem calculated to suppress such thoughts of earthly ambition.[23] We therefore welcome the indication which the evangelical narrative itself presents, of the manner in which the narrators were led unhistorically to such an arrangement. In the answer of Jesus to the prayer of Salome, the salient point was the suffering that awaited him and his disciples; hence by the most natural association of ideas, the ambition of the two disciples, the antidote to which was the announcement of approaching trial, was connected with the prediction of the passion. Again, on the first occasion of rivalry, the preceding prediction of the passion leads in Mark and Luke to the observation, that the disciples did not understand the words of Jesus, and yet feared to ask him concerning them, whence it may be inferred that they debated and disputed on the subject among themselves; here, then, the association of ideas caused the Evangelists to introduce the contention for pre-eminence, also carried on in the absence of Jesus. This explanation is not applicable to the narrative of Matthew, for there, between the prediction of the passion and the dispute of the disciples, the anecdote of the coin angled for by Peter, intervenes.
With the above contentions for pre-eminence, another anecdote is indirectly connected by means of the child which is put forward on one of those occasions. Children are brought to Jesus that he may bless them; the disciples wish to prevent it, but Jesus speaks the encouraging words, Suffer little children to come unto me, and adds that only for children, and those who resemble children, is the kingdom of heaven destined ([Matt. xix. 13 ff.]; [Mark x. 13 ff.]; [Luke xviii. 15 ff.]). This narrative has many points of resemblance to that of the child placed in the midst of the disciples. Firstly, in both, Jesus presents children as a model, and declares that only those who resemble children can enter the kingdom of God; secondly, in both, the disciples appear in the light of opposition to children; and, thirdly, in both, Mark says, that Jesus took the children in his arms (ἐναγκαλισάμενος). If these points of resemblance be esteemed adequate ground for reducing the two narratives to one, the latter must, beyond all question, be retained as the nearest to truth, because the saying of Jesus, Suffer little children, etc., which from its retaining this original form in all the narratives, bears the stamp of genuineness, could scarcely have been uttered on the other occasion; whereas, the sentences on children as patterns of humility, given in connexion with the contention about rank, might very well have been uttered under the circumstances above described, in retrospective allusion to previous contentions about rank. Nevertheless, this might rather be the place for supposing an assimilation of originally diverse occurrences, since it is at least evident, that Mark has inserted the expression ἐναγκαλισάμενος in both, simply on account of the resemblance between the two scenes. [[399]]