If Mark has furnished the narrative framework adopted in the main by the first and third gospels, the problem of the order of events in Jesus' life becomes a question of the chronological value of Mark, and of the estimate to be placed on the narrative of John. If the fourth gospel is held to be of apostolic origin and trustworthy, the task of the harmonist is chiefly that of combining these two records of Mark and John. The testimony of the Baptist, with which the fourth gospel opens, must have been given some time after he had baptized Jesus, and the ministry which preceded Jesus' return to Galilee (i. 19 to iv. 42) belongs to a period ignored by the other gospels. The first three gospels contain indications that Jesus must have visited Judea before the close of his life. They give no hint, however, of the time or circumstances of such earlier Judean labor. In giving the emphasis they do to the work in Galilee, they present a one-sided picture. When, therefore, we find in John a narrative of work in Judea, confirmed by hints in the other gospels, we may justly assume that the arrangement which fills out the ministry of Jesus by inserting at the proper places in Mark's record the events found in John is essentially true.
The consideration of the one-sidedness of Mark's narrative simplifies the problem of harmony, but it does not solve all of the perplexities. Matthew and Luke have much matter, some of it narrative, which Mark has not, and for which he suggests no place. Where shall we put, for instance, the cure of the centurion's servant (Matt. viii. 5-13; Luke vii. 1-10), or John the Baptist's last message (Matt. xi. 2-19; Luke vii. 18-35)? It would simplify matters if we could take Luke's statement that he had "traced the course of all things accurately from the first" (Luke i. 3), as indicating that he had arrived at exact certainty concerning the order of events of Jesus' life. It is probable, however, that his statement was simply a claim that he had carefully gathered material for a record of the whole life of Jesus, from the annunciation of his birth to his ascension. While we may believe that some trustworthy tradition led him to give the place he has to many of the incidents which he adds to Mark's story, it seems impossible to follow him in all respects; for instance, in severing the account of the blasphemy of the Pharisees (xi. 14-36) from the place which it holds in Mark (iii. 19-30).
Still more uncertainty exists concerning the historic connection of teachings of Jesus to which Matthew and Luke give different settings; for example, the Lord's Prayer (Matt. vi. 9-15; Luke xi. 1-4), and the exhortations against anxiety (Matt. vi. 25-34; Luke xii. 22-31). We have seen that much of the teaching common to these gospels is probably derived from the collection of the "oracles" of the Lord made by the apostle Matthew. Everything that we can infer concerning such a collection of oracles indicates that, while some of the teachings may have been connected with particular historic situations (compare Luke xi. 1), many would altogether lack such introductory words. A later example of what such a collection may have been has come to light recently in the so-called "Sayings of Jesus," discovered in Egypt and published in 1897. In these the occasion for the teaching has been quite lost; the sole interest centres in the fact that Jesus is supposed to have said the things recorded. If Matthew's book contained such "logia" or "oracles," it is probable that the original connection in which most of them were spoken was a matter of no concern to the apostle, and consequently has been lost This in no way compromises the genuineness of these sayings of Jesus. The treatment of Luke ix. 51 to xviii. 14 is much simplified by this consideration. To Luke's industry (i. 1-4) we owe the preservation of some events and very many teachings which no other evangelist has recorded. Some of this new material (for instance, vii. 11-17, 36-50) he has assigned a place in the midst of Mark's narrative. Most of it, however, he has gathered together in what seems to be a sort of appendix, which he has inserted between the close of the ministry in Galilee and the final arrival in Judea. For many of the teachings it is now impossible to assign a time or place. That this is so will cause no surprise or difficulty if we remember that in the earliest days the report of what Jesus said and did circulated in the form of oral tradition only. It was the knowledge that first-hand witnesses were passing away that led to the writing of the gospels. During the period of oral tradition many teachings of the Lord were doubtless kept clearly and accurately in memory after the historic situations which led to their first utterance were quite forgotten.
This fact helps to explain another perplexity in our gospel narratives. A comparison of the two accounts of the cure of the centurion's servant reveals differences of detail most perplexing, if we ask for minute agreement in records of the same events. When we see that of two accounts evidently reporting the same incident, one can say that the centurion himself sought Jesus and asked the cure of his servant (Matt. viii. 5, 8), while the other makes him declare himself unworthy to come in person to the Lord (Luke vii. 7), the question arises whether other accounts, similar in the main but differing in detail, should not be identified as independent records of one event. Were there two cleansings of the temple (John ii. 13-22; Mark xi. 15-19), two miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke v. 4-11; John xxi. 5-8), two rejections at Nazareth (Mark vi. 1-6; Luke iv. 16-30), two parables of the Leaven, of the Mustard Seed (Matt. xiii. 31-33; Luke xiii. 18-21), and of the Lost Sheep (Matt, xviii. 12-14; Luke xv. 4-7)? Such similar records are often called doublets, and the question of identity or distinctness can be answered only after a special study of each case. It is important to notice that a given teaching, particularly if it took the form of an illustration, would naturally be used by Jesus on many different occasions. When, on the other hand, we find two accounts of specific doings of Jesus similar in detail it is needful to recognize that definite historic situations do not so often repeat themselves as do occasions for similar or identical teachings.
All these considerations show that while the general order of events in the life of Jesus may be determined with a good degree of probability, we must be content to remain uncertain concerning the place to be given to many incidents and to more teachings. Such uncertainty is of small concern, since our unharmonized gospels have not failed during all these centuries to produce one fair picture, to the total impression of which each teaching and deed make definite contribution quite independently of our ability to give to each its particular place in relation to the whole. The degree of certainty attainable justifies, however, a continued interest in the old study of harmony, because of the more comprehensive idea it gives of the ministry depicted in the partial narratives of our several gospels.
IV
The Chronology
The length of the public ministry of Jesus was one of the earliest questions which arose in the study of the four gospels. In the second and third centuries it was not uncommon to find the answer in the passage from Isaiah (lxi. 1, 2), which Jesus declared was fulfilled in himself. "The acceptable year of the Lord" was taken to indicate that the ministry covered little more than a year. The fact that the first three gospels mention but one Passover (that at the end), and but one journey to Jerusalem, seems at first to be favorable to this conclusion, and to make peculiarly significant the care taken by Luke to give the exact date for the opening of Jesus' ministry (iii. 1, 2). In fact, the second century Gnostics, relying apparently on Luke, assigned both the ministry and death of Jesus to the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar,--an interpretation which may have given rise to the widely spread, early tradition, found, for example, in Tertullian (Ante-nicene Fathers, in. 160), which placed the death of Jesus in A.D. 29, during the consulship of L. Rubellius Geminus and C. Fufius Geminus.
The theory that the ministry of Jesus extended over but little more than one year is beset, however, by difficulties that seem insuperable. The first is presented by the three Passovers distinctly mentioned in the Gospel of John (ii. 13; vi. 4; xii. 1). The last of these is plainly identical with the one named in the other gospels. The second gives the time of year for the feeding of the five thousand, and agrees with the mention of "the green grass" in the account of Mark and Matthew (Mark vi. 39; Matt. xiv. 19). John's first Passover falls in a section which demands a place before Mark i. 14 (compare John iii. 24). Hence it must be shown that this first Passover is chronologically out of order in the Gospel of John, or the one year ministry advocated by the second century Gnostics, by Clement of Alexandria, by Origen, and of late years by Keim and others, is seen to be impossible. The fact that at this Passover Jesus cleansed the temple, and that the other gospels assign such a cleansing to the close of the ministry, suggests the possibility that John has set it at the opening of his narrative for reasons connected with his argument. This interpretation falls, however, before the perfect simplicity of structure of John's narrative. The transitions from incident to incident in this gospel are those of simple succession, and indicate, on the writer's part, no suspicion that he was contradicting notions concerning the ministry of Jesus familiar to his contemporaries. Whatever the conclusion reached concerning the authorship of the gospel, the fact that it gained currency very early as apostolic would seem to prove that its conception of the length of Jesus' ministry was not opposed to the recognized apostolic testimony. It is safe to conclude, therefore, that time must be allowed in Jesus' ministry for at least three Passover seasons.
With this conclusion most modern discussions of the question rest, and it is possible that it may finally win common consent. The order of Mark's narrative, however, challenges it. This gospel records near the beginning (ii. 23) a controversy with the Pharisees occasioned by the fact that Jesus' disciples plucked and ate the ripening grain as they passed on a Sabbath day through the fields. As Mark places much later (vi. 30-34) the feeding of the five thousand, which occurred at a Passover, that is the beginning of the harvest (Lev. xxiii. 5-11), his order suggests the necessity of including two harvest seasons in the ministry in Galilee, and consequently four Passovers in the public life of Jesus. Two considerations are urged against this conclusion. (1) Papias in his reference to the Gospel of Mark criticises the order of the gospel; (2) Mark ii. 1 to iii. 6 contains a group of five conflicts with the critics of Jesus, which represents a massing of opposition that seems unlikely at the outset of his Galilean work. The remark of Papias must remain obscure until his standard of comparison is known. Some suggest that he knew John's order and preferred it, others that he agreed with that adopted by Tatian in his Diatessaron. Mark is in accord with neither of these. No one, however, knows what order Papias preferred. The early conflict group does appear like a collection drawn from different parts of the ministry. Yet the nucleus of the group--the cure of the paralytic (ii. 1-12) and the call of Levi (ii. 13-17)--is clearly in its right place in Mark (see Holtzmann, Hand-commentar, I. 10). The question about fasting (ii. 18-22) may have been asked much later, and its present place may be due to association in tradition with the criticism of Jesus' fellowship with publicans (ii. 16). In like manner the cure of the withered hand (iii. 1-6) may have become artificially grouped with the incident of the cornfields. It is possible, also, that both Sabbath controversies owe their early place in the gospel to traditional association with the early conflicts (ii. 1-17). If so, the plucking of the grain actually occurred some weeks after the feeding of the five thousand, and probably after the controversy about tradition (vii. 1-23), with which, according to Mark, Jesus' activity in Galilee practically closed. It is not clear, however, what principle of association drew forward to the early group the Sabbath conflict, and left in its place the controversy about tradition. It is thus possible that the incident of the cornfields belongs also to the early nucleus of the group; and in this case the longer ministry, including four Passovers, must be accepted. The decision of the question is not of vital importance, but it affects the determination of the sequence of events in Jesus' life. Whatever the explanation of the remark of Papias, the more the gospels are studied the more does Mark's order of events commend itself in general as representing the probable fact. Many students have inferred the three year ministry from the Gospel of John alone, identifying the unnamed feast in John v. 1 with a Passover. But John's allusion to that feast is so indefinite that the length of Jesus' ministry must be determined quite independently of it.