With more reason, criticism has attacked the peculiar representation of the third gospel. The strengthening angel has created no little difficulty to the ancient church on dogmatical grounds,—to modern exposition on critical grounds. An ancient scholium on the consideration, that he who was adored and glorified with fear and trembling by all the celestial powers, did not need the strengthening of the angel, ὅτι τῆς ἰσχύος τοῦ ἀγγέλου οὐκ ἐπεδέετο ὁ ὑπὸ πάσης ἐπουρανίου δυνάμεως φόβω καὶ τρόμῳ προσκυνούμενος καὶ δοξαζόμενος, interprets the ἐνισχύειν ascribed to the angel as a declaring strong, i.e. as the offering of a doxology;[18] while others, rather than admit that Jesus could need to be strengthened by an angel, transform the ἄγγελος ἐνισχύων into an evil angel, who attempted to use force against Jesus.[19] The orthodox also, by founding a distinction between the state of humiliation and privation in Christ and that of his glorification, or in some similar way, have long blunted the edge of the dogmatical difficulty: but in place of this a critical objection has been only so much the more decidedly developed. In consideration of the suspicion which, according to our earlier observations, attaches to every alleged angelic appearance, it has been sought to reduce the angel in this narrative first into a man,[20] and then into an image of the composure which Jesus regained.[21] But the right point in the angelic appearance for criticism to grapple with, is indicated by the circumstance that Luke is the only Evangelist from whom we learn it.[22] If, according to the ordinary presupposition, the first and fourth gospels are of apostolic origin; why this silence as to the angel on the part of Matthew, who is believed to have been in the garden, why especially on the part of John, who was among the three in the nearer neighbourhood of Jesus? If it be said: because sleepy as they were, and at some distance, and moreover under cover of the night, they did not observe him: it must be asked, whence are we to suppose that Luke received this information?[23] That, assuming the disciples not to have themselves observed the appearance, Jesus should have narrated it to them on that evening, there is, from the intense excitement of those hours and the circumstance that the return of Jesus to his disciples was immediately followed by the arrival of Judas, little probability; and as little, that he communicated it to them in the days after the resurrection, and that nevertheless this information appeared worthy of record to none but the third Evangelist, who yet received it only at second hand. As in this manner there is every presumption against the historical character of the angelic appearance; why should not this also, like all appearances of the same kind which have come under our notice, especially in the history of the infancy of Jesus, be interpreted by us mythically? Gabler has been before us in advancing the idea, that in the primitive Christian community the rapid transition from the most violent mental conflict to the most tranquil resignation, which was observable in Jesus on that night, was explained, agreeably to the Jewish mode of thought, by the intervention of a strengthening angel, and that this explanation may have mingled itself with the narrative: Schleiermacher, too, finds it the most probable that this moment, described by Jesus himself as one of hard trial, was early glorified in hymns by angelic appearances, and that this embellishment, [[639]]originally intended in a merely poetical sense, was received by the narrator of the third gospel as historical.[24]
The other feature peculiar to Luke, namely, the bloody sweat, was early felt to be no less fraught with difficulty than the strengthening by the angel. At least it appears to have been this more than anything else, which occasioned the exclusion of the entire addition in Luke, [v. 43] and [44], from many ancient copies of the gospels. For as the orthodox, who according to Epiphanius[25] rejected the passage, appear to have shrunk the most from the lowest degree of fear which is expressed by the bloody sweat: so to the docetic opinions of some who did not receive this passage,[26] this was the only particular which could give offence. Thus in an earlier age, doubts were raised respecting the fitness of the bloody sweat of Jesus on dogmatical considerations: while in more modern times this has been done on physiological grounds. It is true that authorities are adduced for instances of bloody sweat from Aristotle[27] down to the more recent investigators of nature;[28] but such a phenomenon is only mentioned as extremely rare, and as a symptom of decided disease. Hence Paulus points to the ὡσεὶ (as it were), as indicating that it is not directly a bloody sweat which is here spoken of, but only a sweat which might be compared to blood: this comparison, however, he refers only to the thick appearance of the drops, and Olshausen also agrees with him thus far, that a red colour of the perspiration is not necessarily included in the comparison. But in the course of a narrative which is meant as a prelude to the sanguinary death of Jesus, it is the most natural to take the comparison of the sweat to drops of blood, in its full sense. Further, here, yet more forcibly than in relation to the angelic appearance, the question suggests itself: how did Luke obtain this information? or to pass by all questions which must take the same form in this instance as in the previous one, how could the disciples, at a distance and in the night, discern the falling of drops of blood? According to Paulus indeed it ought not to be said that the sweat fell, for as the word καταβαίνοντες, falling, refers not to ἱδρὼς, sweat, but to the θρόμβοι αἵματος, drops of blood, which are introduced merely for the purpose of comparison, it is only meant that a sweat as thick and heavy as falling drops of blood stood on the brow of Jesus. But whether it be said: the sweat fell like drops of blood to the earth, or: it was like drops of blood falling to the earth, it comes pretty much to the same thing; at least the comparison of a sweat standing on the brow to blood falling on the earth would not be very apt, especially if together with the falling, we are to abstract also the colour of the blood, so that of the words, as it were drops of blood falling on the ground, ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι αἵματος καταβαίνοντες εἰς τὴν γῆν, only ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι, as it were drops, would properly have any decided meaning. Since then we can neither comprehend the circumstance, nor conceive what historical authority for it the narrator could have had, let us, with Schleiermacher, rather take this feature also as a poetical one construed historically by the Evangelist, or better still, as a mythical one, the origin of which may be easily explained from the tendency to perfect the conflict in the garden as a prelude to the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, by showing that not merely the psychical aspect of that suffering was fore-shadowed [[640]]in the mental trouble, but also its physical aspect, in the bloody sweat.
As a counterpoise to this peculiarity of Luke, his two predecessors have, as we have said, the twofold occurrence of the number three,—the three disciples taken apart, and the three retirements and prayers of Jesus. It has indeed been contended that so restless a movement hither and thither, so rapid an alternation of retirement and return, is entirely suited to the state of mind in which Jesus then was,[29] and also, that in the repetition of the prayer there is correctly shown an appropriate gradation; a more and more complete resignation to the will of the Father.[30] But that the two narrators count the retirements of Jesus, marking them by the expressions ἐκ δευτέρου and ἐκ τρίτου, at once shows that the number three was a point of importance to them; and when Matthew, though he certainly gives in the second prayer an expression somewhat different from that of the first, in the third makes Jesus only repeat the same words, τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον, and when Mark does this even the second time,—this is a significant proof that they were embarrassed how to fill up the favourite number three with appropriate matter. According to Olshausen, Matthew, with his three acts of this conflict, must be right in opposition to Luke, because these three attacks made on Jesus through the medium of fear, correspond to the three attacks through the medium of desire, in the history of the temptation. This parallel is well founded; it only leads to an opposite result to that deduced by Olshausen. For which is more probable; that in both cases the threefold repetition of the attack had an objective ground, in a latent law of the kingdom of spirits, and hence is to be regarded as really historical; or that it had merely a subjective ground in the manner of the legend, so that the occurrence of this number here, as certainly as above in the history of the temptation, points to something mythical?[31]
If then we subtract the angel, the bloody sweat, and the precisely threefold repetition of the retirement and prayer of Jesus, as mythical additions, there remains so far, as an historical kernel, the fact, that Jesus on that evening in the garden experienced a violent access of fear, and prayed that his sufferings might be averted, with the reservation nevertheless of an entire submission to the will of God: and at this point of the inquiry, it is not a little surprising, on the ordinary view of the relation between our gospels, that even this fundamental fact of the history in question, is wanting in the Gospel of John.
§ 126.
RELATION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL TO THE EVENTS IN GETHSEMANE. THE FAREWELL DISCOURSES IN JOHN, AND THE SCENE FOLLOWING THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GREEKS.
The relation of John to the synoptical narratives just considered has, when regarded more closely, two aspects: first, he has not what the synoptists present; and secondly, instead of this he has something which it is difficult to reconcile with their statements.
As regards the first and negative side, it has to be explained how, on the ordinary supposition concerning the author of the fourth gospel and the correctness of the synoptical account, it happens that John, who according to the [[641]]two first gospels was one of the three whom Jesus took with him, to be the more immediate witnesses of his conflict, passes in silence over the whole event? It will not suffice to appeal to his sleepiness during the scene; for, if this was a hindrance to its narration, all the Evangelists must have been silent on the subject, and not John alone. Hence the usual expedient is tried here also, and he is said to have omitted the scene because he found it already presented with sufficient care in the writings of the synoptists.[32] But between the two first synoptists and the third there is here so important a divergency, as to demand most urgently that John, if he took their accounts into consideration, should speak a mediating word in this difference. If however, John had not the works of his predecessors lying before him, he might still, it is said, suppose that history to be sufficiently familiar to his readers as a part of evangelical tradition.[33] But as this tradition was the source of the divergent representations of the synoptists, it must itself have early begun to exhibit variations, and to narrate the fact first in one way, then in another: consequently on this view also there was a call on the author of the fourth gospel to rectify these wavering accounts. Hence of late an entirely new supposition has been adopted, namely, that John omits the events in Gethsemane lest, by the mention of the strengthening angel, he should give any furtherance to the Ebionitish opinion that the higher nature in Christ was an angel, which united itself with him at baptism; and now as it might be inferred, again departed from him before the hour of suffering.[34] But—not to urge that we have already found any hypothesis of this nature inadequate to explain the omissions in the Gospel of John—if this Evangelist wished to avoid any indication of a close relation between Jesus and angels, he must also have excluded other passages from his gospel: above all, as Lücke remarks,[35] the declaration concerning the ascending and descending of angels upon him, i. 52; and also the idea, given indeed only as the conjecture of some bystanders, that an angel spake to him, ἄγγελος αὐτῷ λελάληκεν, [xii. 29]. If, however, he on any ground whatever, found special matter of hesitation in the appearance of the angel in the garden: this would only be a reason for omitting the intervention of the angel, with Matthew and Mark, and not for excluding the whole scene, which was easily separable from this single particular.
If the mere absence of the incident from the narrative of John is not to be explained, the difficulty increases when we consider what this Evangelist communicates to us instead of the scene in the garden, concerning the mental condition of Jesus during the last hours previous to his arrest. In the same place which the synoptists assign to the agony in the garden, John, it is true, has nothing, for he makes the capture of Jesus follow at once on his arrival in the garden: but immediately before, at and after the last meal, he has discourses inspired by a state of mind, which could hardly have as a sequel scenes like those which according to the synoptical narratives occurred in the garden. In the farewell discourses in John, namely, [xiv.]–[xvii.], Jesus speaks precisely in the tone of one who has already inwardly triumphed over approaching suffering; from a point of view in which death is quenched in the beams of the glory which is to come after; with a divine peace which is cheerful in the certainty of its immovability: how is it possible that immediately after, this peace should give place to the most violent mental emotion, this tranquillity, to a trouble even unto death, and that from victory achieved he should sink again into doubtful contest, in which he needed strengthening [[642]]by an angel? In those farewell discourses, he appears throughout as one who from the plenitude of his inward serenity and confidence, comforts his trembling friends: and yet he now seeks spiritual aid from the drowsy disciples, for he requests them to watch with him; there, he is so certain of the salutary effects of his approaching death, as to assure his followers, that it is well for them that he should go away, else the Comforter παράκλητος would not come to them: here, he again doubts whether his death be really the will of the Father; there, he exhibits a consciousness which under the necessity of death, inasmuch as it comprehends that necessity, recovers freedom, so that his will to die is one with the divine will that he should die: here, these two wills are so at variance, that the subjective, submissively indeed, but painfully, bows to the absolute. And these two opposite states of mind are not even separated by any intervening incident of an appalling character, but only by the short space of time which elapsed during the walk from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, across the Kedron: just as if, in that brook, as in another Lethe, Jesus had lost all remembrance of the foregoing discourses.