DIVERGENCIES OF THE GOSPELS, IN RELATION TO THE POINT FROM WHICH JESUS MADE HIS ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM.
Even concerning the close of the journey of Jesus—concerning the last station before he reached Jerusalem, the Evangelists are not entirely in unison. While from the synoptical gospels it appears, that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the same day on which he left Jericho, and consequently without halting long at any intervening place ([Matt. xx. 34], [xxi. 1 ff.] parall.): the fourth gospel makes him go from Ephraim only so far as Bethany, spend the night there, and enter Jerusalem only on the following day ([xii. 1], [12 ff.]). In order [[550]]to reconcile the two accounts it is said: we need not wonder that the synoptists, in their summary narrative, do not expressly touch upon the spending of the night in Bethany, and we are not to infer from this that they intended to deny it; there exists, therefore, no contradiction between them and John, but what they present in a compact form, he exhibits in detail.[46] But while Matthew does not even name Bethany, the two other synoptists mention this place in a way which decidedly precludes the supposition that Jesus spent the night there. They narrate that when Jesus came near to Bethphage and Bethany, ὡς ἤγγισεν εἰς Βηθφαγῆ καὶ Βηθανίαν, he caused an ass to be fetched from the next village, and forthwith rode on this into the city. Between events so connected it is impossible to imagine a night interposed; on the contrary, the narrative fully conveys the impression that immediately on the message of Jesus, the ass was surrendered by its owner, and that immediately after the arrival of the ass, Jesus prepared to enter the city. Moreover, if Jesus intended to remain in Bethany for the night, it is impossible to discover his motive in sending for the ass. For if we are to suppose the village to which he sent to be Bethany, and if the animal on which he purposed to ride would not be required until the following morning, there was no need for him to send forward the disciples, and he might conveniently have waited until he arrived with them in Bethany; the other alternative, that before he had reached Bethany, and ascertained whether the animal he required might not be found there, he should have sent beyond this nearest village to Bethphage, in order there to procure an ass for the following morning, is altogether destitute of probability; and yet Matthew, at least, says decidedly that the ass was procured in Bethphage. To this it may be added, that according to the representation of Mark, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the evening ὀψία, had already commenced ([xi. 11]), and consequently it was only possible for him to take a cursory survey of the city and the temple, after which he again returned to Bethany. It is not, certainly, to be proved that the fourth gospel lays the entrance in the morning; but it must be asked, why did not Jesus, when he only came from so near a place as Bethany, set out earlier from thence, that he might have time to do something worth speaking of in Jerusalem? The late arrival of Jesus in the city, as stated by Mark, is evidently to be explained only by the longer distance from Jericho thither; if he came from Bethany merely, he would scarcely set out so late, as that after he had only looked round him in the city, he must again return to Bethany, in order on the following day to set out earlier, which nothing had hindered him from doing on this day. It is true that, in deferring the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem until late in the evening, Mark is not supported by the two other synoptists, for these represent Jesus as undertaking the purification of the temple on the day of his arrival, and Matthew even makes him perform cures, and give answers to the high priests and scribes ([Matt. xxi. 12 ff.]): but even without this statement as to the hour of entrance, the arrival of Jesus near to the above villages, the sending of the disciples, the bringing of the ass, and the riding into the city, are too closely consecutive, to allow of our inserting in the narrative of the synoptists a night’s residence in Bethany.
If then it remains, that the three first Evangelists make Jesus proceed directly from Jericho, without any stay in Bethany, while the fourth makes him come to Jerusalem from Bethany only, they must, if they are mutually correct, speak of two separate entrances; and this has been recently maintained by several critics.[47] According to them, Jesus first (as the synoptists [[551]]relate) proceeded directly to Jerusalem with the caravan going to the feast, and on this occasion there happened, when he made himself conspicuous by mounting the animal, an unpremeditated demonstration of homage on the part of his fellow-travellers, which converted the entrance into a triumphal progress. Having retired to Bethany in the evening, on the following morning (as John relates) a great multitude went out to meet him, in order to convey him into the city, and as he met with them on the way from Bethany, there was a repetition on an enlarged scale of the scene on the foregoing day,—this time preconcerted by his adherents. This distinction of an earlier entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem before his approach was known in the city, and a later, after it was learned that he was in Bethany, is favoured by the difference, that according to the synoptical narrative, the people who render homage to him are only going before προάγοντες, and following ἀκολουθοῦντες ([Matt. v. 9]), while according to that of John, they are meeting him ὑπαντήσαντες ([v. 13], [18]). If however it be asked: why then among all our narrators, does each give only one entrance, and not one of them show any trace of a second? The answer in relation to John is, that this Evangelist is silent as to the first entrance, probably because he was not present on the occasion, having possibly been sent to Bethany to announce the arrival of Jesus.[48] As, however, according to our principles, if it be assumed of the author of the fourth gospel, that he is the apostle named in the superscription, the same assumption must also be made respecting the author of the first: we ask in vain, whither are we then to suppose that Matthew was sent on the second entrance, that he knew nothing to relate concerning it? since with the repeated departure from Bethany to Jerusalem, there is no conceivable cause for such an errand. In relation to John indeed it is a pure invention; not to insist, that even if the two Evangelists were not personally present, they must yet have learned enough of an event so much talked of in the circle of the disciples, to be able to furnish an account of it. Above all, as the narrative of the synoptists does not indicate that a second entrance had taken place after the one described by them: so that of John is of such a kind, that before the entrance which it describes, it is impossible to conceive another. For according to this narrative, the day before the entrance which it details (consequently, according to the given supposition, on the day of the synoptical entrance), many Jews went from Jerusalem to Bethany, because they had heard of the arrival of Jesus, and now wished to see him and Lazarus whom he had restored to life ([v. 9], comp. [12]). But how could they learn on the day of the synoptical entrance, that Jesus was at Bethany? On that day Jesus did indeed pass either by or through Bethany, but he proceeded directly to Jerusalem, whence, according to all the narratives, he could have returned to Bethany only at so late an hour in the evening, that Jews who now first went from Jerusalem, could no longer hope to be able to see him.[49] But why should they take the trouble to seek Jesus in Bethany, when they had on that very day seen him in Jerusalem itself? Surely in this case it must have been said—not merely, that they came not for Jesus’ sake ONLY, but that they might see Lazarus also, οὐ διὰ τὸν Ἰησοῦν μόνον ἀλλ’ ἵνα καὶ τὸν Λάζαρον ἴδωσι,—but rather that they had indeed seen Jesus himself in Jerusalem, but as they wished to see Lazarus also, they came therefore to Bethany: whereas the Evangelist represents these people as coming from Jerusalem partly to see Jesus; he cannot therefore have supposed that Jesus might have been seen in Jerusalem on that very day. Further, when it is said in John, [[552]]that on the following day it was heard in Jerusalem that Jesus was coming ([v. 12]), this does not at all seem to imply that Jesus had already been there the day before, but rather that the news had come from Bethany, of his intention to enter on this day. So also the reception which is immediately prepared for him, alone has its proper significance when it is regarded as the glorification of his first entrance into the metropolis; it could only have been appropriate on his second entrance, if Jesus had the day before entered unobserved and unhonoured, and it had been wished to repair this omission on the following day—not if the first entrance had already been so brilliant. Moreover, on the second entrance every feature of the first must have been repeated, which, whether we refer it to a preconceived arrangement on the part of Jesus, or to an accidental coincidence of circumstances, still remains improbable. With respect to Jesus, it is not easy to understand how he could arrange the repetition of a spectacle which, in the first instance significant, if acted a second time would be flat and unmeaning;[50] on the other hand, circumstances must have coincided in an unprecedented manner, if on both occasions there happened the same demonstrations of homage on the part of the people, with the same expressions of envy on the part of his opponents; if, on both occasions, too, there stood at the command of Jesus an ass, by riding which he brought to mind the prophecy of Zechariah. We might therefore call to our aid Sieffert’s hypothesis of assimilation, and suppose that the two entrances, originally more different, became thus similar by traditional intermixture: were not the supposition that two distinct events lie at the foundation of the evangelical narratives, rendered improbable by another circumstance.
On the first glance, indeed, the supposition of two entrances seems to find support in the fact, that John makes his entrance take place the day after the meal in Bethany, at which Jesus was anointed under memorable circumstances; whereas the two first synoptists (for Luke knows nothing of a meal at Bethany in this period of the life of Jesus) make their entrance precede this meal: and thus, quite in accordance with the above supposition, the synoptical entrance would appear the earlier, that of John the later. This would be very well, if John had not placed his entrance so early, and the synoptists their meal at Bethany so late, that the former cannot possibly have been subsequent to the latter. According to John, Jesus comes six days before the passover to Bethany, and on the following day enters Jerusalem ([xiii. 1], [12]); on the other hand, the meal at Bethany, mentioned by the synoptists ([Matt. xxvi. 6 ff.] parall.), can have been at the most but two days before the passover ([v. 2]); so that if we are to suppose the synoptical entrance prior to the meal and the entrance in John, there must then have been after all this, according to the synoptists, a second meal in Bethany. But between the two meals thus presupposed, as between the two entrances, there would have been the most striking resemblance even to the minutest points; and against the interweaving of two such double incidents, there is so strong a presumption, that it will scarcely be said there were two entrances and two meals, which were originally far more dissimilar, but, from the transference of features out of the one incident into the other by tradition, they have become as similar to each other as we now see them: on the contrary, here if anywhere, it is easier, when once the authenticity of the accounts is given up, to imagine that tradition has varied one incident, than that it has assimilated two.[51] [[553]]
§ 110.
MORE PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ENTRANCE. ITS OBJECT AND HISTORICAL REALITY.
While the fourth gospel first makes the multitude that streamed forth to meet Jesus render him their homage, and then briefly states that Jesus mounted a young ass which he had obtained; the synoptists commence their description of the entrance with a minute account of the manner in which Jesus came by the ass. When, namely, he had arrived in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, towards Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples into the village lying before them, telling them that when they came there they would find—Matthew says, an ass tied, and a colt with her; the two others, a colt whereon never man sat—which they were to loose and bring to him, silencing any objections of the owner by the observation, the Lord hath need of him (or them). This having been done, the disciples spread their clothes, and placed Jesus—on both the animals, according to Matthew; according to the two other synoptists, on the single animal.
The most striking part of this account is obviously the statement of Matthew, that Jesus not only required two asses, though he alone intended to ride, but that he also actually sat on them both. It is true that, as is natural, there are not wanting attempts to explain the former particular, and to do away with the latter. Jesus, it is said, caused the mother animal to be brought with the colt, on which alone he intended to ride, in order that the young and still sucking animal might by this means be made to go more easily;[52] or else the mother, accustomed to her young one, followed of her own accord:[53] but a young animal, yet unweaned, would scarcely be given up by its owner to be ridden. A sufficient motive on the part of Jesus in sending for the two animals, could only be that he intended to ride both, which Matthew appears plainly enough to say; for his words imply, not only that the clothes were spread, but also that Jesus was placed on the two animals (ἐπάνω αὐτων). But how are we to represent this to ourselves? As an alternate mounting of the one and the other, Fritzsche thinks:[54] but this, for so short a distance would have been a superfluous inconvenience. Hence commentators have sought to rid themselves of the singular statement. Some, after very weak authorities, and in opposition to all critical principles, read in the words relative to the spreading of the clothes, ἐπ’ αὐτὸν (τὸν πωλον), upon it (the colt), instead of ἐπάνω αὐτων, upon them; and then in the mentioning that Jesus placed himself thereon, refer the ἐπάνω αυτων to the clothes which were spread on one of the animals.[55] Others, thinking to escape the difficulty without an alteration of the reading, characterize Matthew’s statement as an enallage numeri,[56] by which, according to Winer’s explanation, it is meant that the Evangelist, using an inaccurate mode of expression, certainly speaks of both the animals, but only in the sense in which we say of him who springs from one of two horses harnessed together, that he springs from the horses.[57] Admitting this expedient to be sufficient, it again becomes incomprehensible why Jesus, who [[554]]according to this only meant to use one animal, should have sent for two. The whole statement becomes the more suspicious, when we consider that it is given by the first Evangelist alone; for in order to reconcile the others with him it will not suffice to say, as we ordinarily read, that they name only the foal as being that on which Jesus rode, and that while omitting the ass as an accessory fact, they do not exclude it.
But how was Matthew led into this singular statement? Its true source has been pointed out, though in a curious manner, by those who conjecture, that Jesus in his instructions to the two disciples, and Matthew in his original writing, following the passage of Zechariah ([ix. 9]), made use of several expressions for the one idea of the ass, which expressions were by the Greek translator of the first gospel misconstrued to mean more than one animal.[58] Undoubtedly it was the accumulated designations of the ass in the above passage: הֲמוֹר וְעַיִר בֶּן־אֲתֹנות, ὑποζύγιον καὶ πωλον νέον, LXX. which occasioned the duplication of it in the first gospel; for the and which in the Hebrew was intended in an explanatory sense, was erroneously understood to denote an addition, and hence instead of: an ass, that is, an ass’s foal, was substituted: an ass together with an ass’s foal.[59] But this mistake cannot have originated with the Greek translator, who, if he had found throughout Matthew’s narrative but one ass, would scarcely have doubled it purely on the strength of the prophetic passage, and as often as his original spoke of one ass, have added a second, or introduced the plural number instead of the singular; it must rather have been made by one whose only written source was the prophetic passage, out of which, with the aid of oral tradition, he spun his entire narrative, i.e. the author of the first gospel; who hereby, as recent criticism correctly maintains, irrecoverably forfeits the reputation of an eye-witness?[60]