Christ in Art. Ernest Renan
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in which there has been an attempt to fill the hiatuses in one text by another. Each wished indeed to possess a complete copy. He who had only the discourses in his copy desired to have the narratives, and vice versa. Thus “the Gospel according to Matthew” is found to have incorporated nearly all the anecdotes of Mark, and “the Gospel according to Mark” now contains a multitude of traits which come from the Gospel of Matthew. Each drew largely from the evangelical traditions continuing about him. These traditions are so far from having been exhausted by the gospels that the Acts of the Apostles and the most ancient fathers quote many sayings of Jesus which appear authentic, yet which are not found in the gospels that we possess.
It is of small importance to the present object to carry this delicate analysis farther, and to endeavour to reconstruct in some manner, on the one hand, the original Logia of Matthew; on the other, the primitive narration as it flowed from the pen of Mark. The Logia are undoubtedly represented to us by the grand discourses of Jesus, which fill a considerable portion of the first gospel. These discourses form, indeed, when detached from the rest, a tolerably complete whole. As for the narratives of the first and second gospels, they seem to be based upon a common document, the text of which is found sometimes in one and sometimes in the other, and of which the second gospel, as we now find it, is but a slightly modified reproduction. In other words, the system of the life of Jesus with the synoptic rests upon two original documents: first, the discourses of Jesus collected by the apostle Matthew; second, the collection of anecdotes and personal information which Mark wrote from Peter’s reminiscences. We may say that we now have these two documents, mingled with matter from other sources, in the two first gospels, which bear not wrongfully the name of “Gospel according to Matthew,” and “Gospel according to Mark.”
There is no doubt that early on the discourses of Jesus were reduced to writing in the Aramaic language, and that at an early age his remarkable deeds were recorded. These were not texts settled and fixed dogmatically. Besides the gospels which have reached us, there were a multitude of others professing to represent eyewitness accounts. Little importance was attached to these writings, and the collectors, like Papias, much preferred oral tradition. As they believed the world near its end, they cared little to compose books for the future; it was important only to preserve in their hearts the living image of him whom they hoped soon to see again in the clouds. Hence the little authority which the evangelical texts possessed for a hundred and fifty years. There was no scruple about inserting additions, combining them diversely, or completing some by others. The poor man who has one book, desires it to contain all that speaks to his heart. They lent these little rolls to one another: each transcribed on the margin of his copy the sayings and the parables which he found elsewhere, and which touched him. The finest thing in the world thus resulted from an obscure and entirely popular elaboration – no compilation had absolute value. Justin, who often appeals to what he calls “the memoirs of the apostles,” had before him a condition of the evangelical documents considerably differing from that which we have; at all events, he takes no care to cite them textually. The gospel quotations in the pseudo-Clementine writings of Ebionite origin present the same character. The spirit was everything and the letter nothing. It was when tradition grew weak in the latter half of the second century that the texts bearing the names of the apostles assumed decisive authority and obtained the force of law.
Deesis (detail), 1261.
Mosaic. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.
Christ Pantocrator, 6th century.
Encaustic, 84 × 45.5 cm.
Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai.
Trinity, Virgin Mary and Saint John, c. 1250.
Altarpiece from the Wiesenkirche.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin.
“Who does not see the preciousness of documents thus composed of the tender memories, of the simple recitals of the two first Christian generations, yet filled with the strong impression which the founder had made, and which seems long to have survived him? These gospels too, appear to come through that branch of the Christian family which was most closely allied with Jesus. The last compilation work, at least of the text which bears the name of Matthew, appears to have been done in one of the countries situated to the northeast of Palestine, such as Gaulonitis, Haouran or Batanea, where many Christians took refuge during the persecution by the Romans, where the relatives of Jesus were still found in the second century, and where the first Galilean direction was preserved longer than anywhere else.
Hitherto we have spoken only of the three gospels called synoptic. We must now speak of the fourth, which bears the name of John. Here is much more ground for doubt, and the question is less near a solution. Papias, who belonged to the school of John, and who, if he had not heard him, as Irenseus will have it, had attended much upon his immediate disciples, among others Aristion, and he who was called Presbyteros Joannes Papias, who had eagerly collected the oral narrations of this Aristion and Presbyteros Joannes quotes not a word of a “Life of Jesus” written by John. Had any such mention been found in his work, Eusebius, who extracts from him all that is of value for the literary history of the apostolic century, would undoubtedly have remarked it. The intrinsic difficulties drawn from the reading of the fourth gospel itself are equally great. How is it that by the side of definite details, which savour so strongly of an eyewitness, we find such discourses, totally different from those of Matthew? How, by the side of a general plan of a life of Jesus, which appears much more satisfactory and exact than that of the synoptic, these singular passages in which we perceive a dogmatic interest peculiar to the compiler, ideas entirely foreign to Jesus and sometimes indications which put us on our guard as to the good faith of the narrator? How, in short, by the side of the purest, the most just, the most truly evangelical views, these spots in which we would fain to see the interpolations of an ardent sectary? Is it indeed John, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, (of whom no single mention is made in the fourth gospel), who was able to write in Greek these lessons of abstract metaphysics to which neither the synoptic nor the Talmud present any analogy? All this is weighty, and, for my part, I dare not be certain, that the fourth gospel was written entirely by the pen of an ex-fisherman from Galilee. But that in substance this gospel issued towards the end of the first century, from the great school of Asia Minor, which held to John, a version of the Master’s life, worthy of high consideration and often of preference demonstrated both by external evidence and by the examination of the document itself, in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired.
And first, there is no doubt that towards the year 150 the fourth gospel was in existence and was attributed to John. Formal texts of St. Justin, Theophilus of Antioch, and St. Irenseus show that from that time this gospel was used in all controversies and served as the cornerstone for the development of the doctrine. Irenseus was formal; now, Irenseus came from the school of John, and between him and the apostle there was only Polycarp. The part of this gospel in Gnosticism, and particularly in the system of Valentine, in Montanism was no less decisive. The school of John was on the course of which is most clearly seen during the second century. Now, this school cannot be understood if we do not place the fourth gospel at its very cradle. The first epistle also, attributed to St. John, is certainly by the same author as the fourth gospel; now the epistle is identified as John’s by Polycarp, Papias, and Irenseus.
But above all the book itself is of an impressive character. The author speaks continually as an eyewitness as if he desires to pass for the apostle John. If, therefore, this work is not really by the apostle, we must admit a deception which the author confesses to himself. Now, although the ideas of that day were, in matters of literary honesty, essentially different from ours, we have no example in the apostolic world, of a forgery of this kind. Moreover, not only does the author desire to pass for the apostle John, but we see clearly that he writes in the interest of that apostle. On every page the intention is betrayed as if showing that he was the favourite of Jesus and that upon all the most solemn occasions (at the Supper, on Calvary, at the grave) he held the first place. The relations, fraternal on the whole, though not excluding a certain rivalry of the author with Peter, his hatred on the contrary to Judas, a hatred perhaps anterior to the betrayal which seemed to disclose