The Harmony of the Gospels 2.155–3.11

Let us consider, then, how this agrees among these three, Matthew, Mark, and John, about whom there is no doubt that they narrate the same event done in Bethany, where also the disciples, as all three record, murmured against the woman as if over the waste of the most precious ointment. As for Matthew and Mark saying that the Lord's head was anointed with that ointment, while John says the feet, that rule shows it not to be contradictory which we demonstrated when he fed the crowds with five loaves. For there, because one was not lacking who recorded that they reclined in fifties and hundreds, while another said fifties, it could not seem contradictory; but it could have, if one had put only hundreds just as another put fifties, and yet it ought to have been found that both happened. By that example we ought to have been taught, as I warned there, to understand that both happened even where the evangelists record one each. So here too let us accept that the woman anointed not only the head but also the feet of the Lord. Unless perhaps, since Mark records that the head was anointed after the alabaster jar was broken, someone is so absurd and slanderous as to deny that anything could have remained in the broken vessel with which she might also anoint the feet. But while such a man contends that it was so broken that nothing was left in it, striving against the truth of the gospel, how much better and more religiously will another contend that it was not so broken as to pour out everything, striving for the truth of the gospel! But if that slanderer is so stubbornly blind as to try to break the agreement of the evangelists over the broken jar, let him accept that the feet were anointed before it was broken, so that enough remained in it whole to anoint the head too, where that breaking would pour out everything. For we acknowledge that the head looks after us in due order; but in due order we too ascend from the feet to the head.

The rest of this event seems to me to raise no question. For as to the others saying that the disciples murmured about the pouring out of the precious ointment, while John records Judas, and that because he was a thief, I think it clear that under the name of the disciples the same Judas was signified, by that manner of speaking which we pointed out in the case of Philip and the five loaves, the plural being used for the singular. It can also be understood that the other disciples too either thought this or said it or were persuaded of it when Judas said it, and that Matthew and Mark expressed in words the will of all; but that Judas said it because he was a thief, while the others did so out of care for the poor; and that John chose to record it of him alone, whose habit of stealing he believed should be made known on this occasion.

Matthew continues: “Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said to them, ‘What will you give me, and I will deliver him to you?’ And they set for him thirty pieces of silver,” up to where he says, “And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.” Nothing in this chapter can be thought contrary to Mark and Luke, who narrate the same thing similarly. For when Matthew says, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I am keeping the Passover at your house with my disciples,’” he means the one whom Mark and Luke call the householder or master of the house in which the upper room was shown them where they were to prepare the Passover. As for Matthew inserting “to a certain man,” he wanted, as if in his own person and out of a desire for brevity, to indicate that man concisely. For if he said that the Lord said, “Go into the city and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I am keeping the Passover at your house,’” it would be taken as though it were to be said to the city. And so he inserted, not in the person of the Lord, whose command he was narrating, but in his own person, that the Lord commanded them to go “to a certain man,” so that he would not need to say everything, since this seemed enough to convey the meaning of the one commanding. For who does not know that no one speaks so as to say, “Go to a certain man”? If he said, “Go to anyone at all” or “to whomever you like,” the expression could be complete, but there would be no definite man to whom they were being sent, whereas Mark and Luke show him to be a definite man, though his name is not given. For the Lord knew to whom he was sending; and so that those whom he was sending could also find him, he told them beforehand what sign to follow, a man carrying a jar or pitcher of water, so that following him they would come to the house he wanted. Since, then, it could not be said here, “to anyone at all,” which the completeness of the expression does allow but the truth of the matter being conveyed in this place does not, how much less could it be said here, “Go to a certain man,” which can never be said in correct speech at all! But it is plainly clear that the disciples were sent by the Lord not to anyone at all but to a certain man, that is, to someone definite. This the evangelist could rightly narrate to us in his own person, saying, “He sent them to a certain man, to say to him, ‘I am keeping the Passover at your house.’” He could also say, “He sent them to a certain man, saying, ‘Go, say to him, I am keeping the Passover at your house.’” And so, when he had set down the words of the Lord saying, “Go into the city,” he himself inserted “to a certain man,” not because the Lord said it, but so that he himself might indicate to us, without giving the name, that there was a certain man in the city to whom the Lord's disciples were being sent to prepare the Passover. And so, after this insertion of two words in his own person, he follows the order of the Lord's words: “and say to him, ‘The Teacher says.’” For now if you ask, “To whom?” the right answer is: to that certain man to whom the evangelist indicated he sent them when he inserted in his own person, “to a certain man.” It is a less usual expression, but understood in this way it is perfectly complete. Or, if the Hebrew language, in which Matthew is said to have written, has some idiom such that even the whole, spoken in the person of the Lord, does not lack completeness of expression, let those who know it see to it. Certainly it could also be said thus in Latin, if it were said, “Go into the city to a certain man whom a man will point out to you who meets you carrying a jar of water.” In this way the one commanding could be obeyed without ambiguity; as also if he said, “Go into the city to a certain man who lives in this or that place, in such and such a house,” it could be understood with the place expressed and the house designated, and could be done. But when these and other such indications are withheld, the one who says, “Go to a certain man and say to him,” cannot be listened to, because he wants someone definite to be understood when he says “to a certain man” and does not state how he is to be recognized. But if we take that insertion as spoken in the person of the evangelist, the expression will indeed be somewhat obscure out of the necessity of brevity, but nevertheless complete. As for Mark saying “jar” where Luke says “pitcher,” the one signified the kind of vessel, the other its measure; both preserved the truth of the meaning.

Matthew continues: “When evening had come, he reclined with the twelve disciples, and as they were eating he said, ‘Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ And being very sorrowful, they began each to say, ‘Is it I, Lord?’” and so on, up to where he says, “And Judas, who betrayed him, answered and said, ‘Is it I, Rabbi?’ He said to him, ‘You have said it.’” In these things that we have now set out to consider, the other evangelists who record such things raise no question either.

Now, since the narrative of all four is concerned with that part where they must walk together to the end and not stray far from one another, if perhaps one records here and there something another passes over, it seems to me that we can show the agreement of all the evangelists more readily if from this point we weave together all the accounts of all of them and arrange them into a single narrative and form. So I think that what we have undertaken will be set out more conveniently and easily if we approach the narrative recording everything, with the attestation of those evangelists who each recorded what he could or would of all these things, so that all these things are said by all of them together; and it must be shown that in nothing do they contradict themselves.

Let us begin here, then, according to Matthew: “As they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’” Mark and Luke also record this. As for Luke recording the cup twice, first before he gave the bread and then after he gave the bread, what he said earlier he anticipated, as he usually does, while what he put in its own order he had not recorded earlier; and both together make up this meaning, which is also theirs. John, however, said nothing in this place about the Lord's body and blood, but he plainly testifies elsewhere that the Lord spoke about this much more fully. But now, having recorded that the Lord rose from supper and washed the disciples' feet, giving also the reason why he did this for them, in which the Lord had still covertly indicated, by the testimony of Scripture, that he would be betrayed by the one who ate his bread, he comes to this place which the other three alike convey: “When Jesus had said these things,” he says, “he was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’” “The disciples, then, looked at one another,” as John himself goes on, “uncertain of whom he was speaking.” “And being sorrowful,” as Matthew and Mark say, “they began to say to him one by one, ‘Is it I?’ But he answered and said,” as Matthew continues, “‘He who dips his hand with me in the dish, he will betray me.’” And the same Matthew continues, adding: “‘The Son of Man goes as it is written of him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man will be betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.’” In these things Mark also agrees, and in this order. Then Matthew adds: “And Judas, who betrayed him, answered and said, ‘Is it I, Rabbi?’ He said to him, ‘You have said it.’” Here too it is not stated whether he was the one. For it can still be understood as, “I did not say it.” This could also have been said by Judas and answered by the Lord in such a way that not all noticed.

Then Matthew continues and inserts the mystery of the body and blood given by the Lord to the disciples, as Mark and Luke also do. But when he had given the cup, he spoke again of his betrayer, which Luke follows out, saying, “But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. And indeed the Son of Man goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he will be betrayed!” Here we must now understand that there follows what John narrates and they passed over, just as John passed over some things they told. When, then, after giving the cup, the Lord had said what Luke put, “But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table,” and so on, there is joined what John says: “Now one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining in Jesus' bosom. So Simon Peter beckoned to him and said to him, ‘Who is it of whom he speaks?’ So, leaning back on Jesus' breast, he said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I shall hand the dipped bread.’ And when he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. And after the morsel, then Satan entered into him.”

Here we must see to it that John does not seem to conflict not only with Luke, who had already said that Satan entered Judas's heart when he then made his bargain with the Jews to betray him for money received, but also with himself, since he had already said above, before Judas received this morsel, “And when supper was over, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas to betray him.” For how does he enter into the heart except by putting wicked persuasions into the thoughts of the wicked? But now we must understand that Judas was more fully possessed by the devil; just as, on the contrary, in the good sense, those who had already received the Holy Spirit when he breathed on them after the resurrection, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” afterward certainly received him more fully when he was sent from above on the day of Pentecost. After the morsel, then, Satan entered into him. And, as John himself records in sequence, “Jesus said to him, ‘What you do, do quickly.’ But no one at table knew why he said this to him. For some thought, because Judas had the money bag, that Jesus was saying to him, ‘Buy what we need for the feast,’ or that he should give something to the poor. So when he had received the morsel, he went out immediately; and it was night. When, then, he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. And God will glorify him in himself, and will glorify him at once.’

Little children, I am with you yet a little while. You will seek me, and, as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,’ so I say to you now. A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.’ Peter said to him, ‘Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow until you deny me three times.’” This about the denial foretold to Peter is recorded not only by John, from whose Gospel I have just inserted these things, but also by the other three. Certainly they do not all come to record it from one and the same occasion in the discourse. For Matthew and Mark, in exactly the same order and at the same point of their narrative, both attach it after the Lord had gone out of that house where they had eaten the Passover, while Luke and John put it before he had gone out from there. We could easily understand that either the former two put it by recapitulation or the latter by anticipation, were it not more troubling that they put first such different sayings of the Lord, not only in words but also in meaning, by which Peter was moved to express that presumption of dying either with the Lord or for the Lord; so that they rather compel us to understand that he expressed his presumption three times, at different points of Christ's discourse, and three times was answered by the Lord that he would deny him three times before the cock crowed.

For it is not incredible that Peter was moved to presume, as to deny, at intervals of time somewhat apart, or that the Lord answered him something similar three times, since even after the resurrection, in sequence and with nothing else, deed or word, in between, he asks him three times whether he loves him, and when he answers the same three times, he too gives one and the same command three times, about feeding his sheep. That it is more credible that Peter showed his presumption three times and heard three times from the Lord about his threefold denial is proved from the very words of the evangelists, who record the Lord's sayings differently and as different. See, let us remember what I have just inserted from John's Gospel. He had certainly said: “Little children, I am with you yet a little while. You will seek me, and, as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,’ so I say to you now. A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’” Clearly it is plain here that Peter was moved by those words to say, “Lord, where are you going?” because he had heard him saying, “Where I am going you cannot come.” Jesus answered the same Peter, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.” Then he said, “Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” To this presumption the Lord answered with his future denial. Luke, however, having recorded that the Lord said, “Simon, behold, Satan has demanded you, to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail, and when you have once turned back, strengthen your brothers,” then added that Peter answered, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” And he said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you deny three times that you know me.” Who does not see how different this is from what moved Peter to presume in John? But Matthew says, “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, ‘You will all be scandalized because of me this night. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will go before you into Galilee.’” Mark has exactly the same. What do these words or meanings have in common with those on which, according to John or according to Luke, Peter put forward his presumption? And here, then, it continues thus: “But Peter answered and said to him, ‘Even if all are scandalized because of you, I will never be scandalized.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, this night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’ Peter said to him, ‘Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.’ And all the disciples said the same.”

Mark too records these things in almost the very words, except that he expressed what was said by the Lord not in general but more precisely, as it was to happen: “Truly I say to you, you today, this night, before the cock crows twice, will deny me three times.” Since, then, all say that the Lord foretold that Peter would deny him before the cock crowed, but not all say how often the cock would crow, Mark alone narrated this more exactly. Hence to some he seems not to agree with the others, because they pay too little attention, and their attention is especially clouded when they put on a hostile mind against the gospel. For Peter's whole denial is a threefold denial. For he remained in the same fear of mind and resolve of falsehood until, reminded of what had been foretold him, he was healed by bitter weeping and sorrow of heart. Now if this whole, that is, the threefold denial, had begun after the first crowing of the cock, three would seem to have spoken falsely: Matthew, who said, “Truly I say to you, this night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times”; Luke, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you deny three times that you know me”; and John, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow until you deny me three times.” For in different words and order of words they set out the same meaning, that the Lord said Peter would deny him before the cock crowed. Again, if he had completed the whole threefold denial before the cock began to crow, Mark would be found to have said superfluously in the Lord's person, “Truly I say to you, you today, this night, before the cock crows twice, will deny me three times.” For what point was there in saying “before twice,” when, if the whole threefold denial was completed before the first crowing, it would be found completed at once before the second and before the third and before all the crowings of the same night, since it would be proved completed before the very first? But because that threefold denial was begun before the first crowing of the cock, those three paid attention not to when Peter would complete it but to how great it would be and when it would begin, that is, that it would be threefold and before the cock crowed; although in his mind it can be understood as whole even before the first crowing. For although in the words of the denier it was begun before the first and the whole threefold denial completed before the second crowing, yet in the disposition and fear of Peter it was wholly conceived before the first. Nor does it matter at what intervals of delay it was uttered in three utterances, since it had possessed his whole heart even before the first crowing, so great a fear having been drunk in that he could deny the Lord not only once but a second and a third time when questioned; just as, to those who attend more rightly and carefully, a man has already committed adultery with a woman in his heart who has looked at her to lust after her. So whenever Peter uttered in words the fear he had conceived so violently in his mind that it could last until the third denial of the Lord, the whole threefold denial is to be assigned to that time when a fear sufficient for a threefold denial seized him. From this, even if those words of denial had begun to burst out of his breast, beaten by questions, after the first crowing, he would not even so absurdly and falsely be said to have denied three times before the cock crowed, since before the cock crowed so great a fear had besieged his mind as could bring it to the third denial. Much less, then, should it trouble us that the threefold denial, in the three utterances of the denier too, was begun before the cock crowed, even though not completed before the first crowing. As if someone were told, “This night, before the cock crows, you will write me a letter in which you will insult me three times”: certainly, if he began to write it before any crowing of the cock and finished it after the first crowing, the prediction would not for that reason have to be called false. Mark, then, spoke more plainly about the intervals of the utterances themselves, saying in the Lord's person, “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” That it happened so will appear when we come to the same place in the gospel narrative, so that there too it may be shown that the evangelists agree.

But if the very words that the Lord said to Peter are sought, they cannot be found, and it is superfluous to seek them, since his meaning, for the knowing of which words are uttered, can be perfectly well known even in the evangelists' different words. Whether, then, Peter, moved at different points in the Lord's discourses, uttered his presumption three times separately and the Lord three times foretold his denial to him, as is more probably found out, or whether the records of all the evangelists can be brought into one by some order of narration showing that the Lord foretold to Peter once, when he presumed, that he would deny him, no conflict of the evangelists can be detected here, as there is none.

Now, then, let us follow as far as we can the very order drawn from all of them. When, then, according to John, this had been foretold to Peter, the same John continues and weaves in the Lord's discourse, saying, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwellings,” and the rest of his discourse, splendid and most sublime, he narrates at length, until he comes in sequence to that place where the Lord says, “Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me; and I have made known to them your name and will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” But when a dispute had arisen among them as to which of them seemed to be the greater, as Luke records, he said to them: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called benefactors. But you not so; but let him who is greater among you become as the younger, and him who leads as one who serves. For who is greater, he who reclines or he who serves? Is it not he who reclines? But I am among you as one who serves. But you are those who have remained with me in my trials. And I appoint to you, as my Father appointed to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in the kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” And the Lord said to Simon, as Luke himself adds: “Behold, Satan has demanded you, to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and when you have once turned back, strengthen your brothers.” He said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” And he said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you deny three times that you know me.” And he said to them, “When I sent you without purse and bag and sandals, did you lack anything?” And they said, “Nothing.” He said, then, to them, “But now let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has none sell his tunic and buy a sword. For I tell you that this which is written must still be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was reckoned with the unrighteous.’ For the things concerning me have their end.” And they said, “Lord, behold, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.” “And when they had sung a hymn,” as Matthew and Mark record, “they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, ‘You will all be scandalized because of me this night. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will go before you into Galilee.’ But Peter answered and said to him, ‘Even if all are scandalized because of you, I will never be scandalized.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, this night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’ Peter said to him, ‘Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.’ And all the disciples said the same.” These we have inserted according to Matthew; but Mark's are almost the same and as many words, except for the difference about the cock's crowing that we have already untangled above.

Matthew, then, continues the narrative and says, “Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane.” Mark says this, and Luke too, without naming the estate expressly, when he says, “And going out, he went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed him. And when he had come to the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’” This is the place whose name the others gave as Gethsemane. We understand that the garden was there which John records, narrating thus: “When Jesus had said these things, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.” Then, according to Matthew, he said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” And taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and sad. Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death; wait here and watch with me.” And going a little further, he fell on his face, praying and saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “So you could not watch one hour with me? Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, a second time, he went away and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And he came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And leaving them, he went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same words. Then he came to his disciples and said to them, “Sleep now and take your rest; behold, the hour has drawn near, and the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go; behold, he who will betray me has drawn near.”

Mark too weaves in these things, in exactly this manner and order, somewhat more briefly, compressing certain sayings and making something clearer. For this discourse according to Matthew seems as if self-contradictory, in that after the third prayer he comes to his disciples and says to them, “Sleep now and take your rest; behold, the hour has drawn near, and the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go; behold, he who will betray me has drawn near.” For how does he say above, “Sleep now and take your rest,” when he joins on, “Behold, the hour has drawn near,” and therefore says, “Rise, let us go”? Troubled by this seeming contradiction, readers try to pronounce the words “Sleep now and take your rest” as said by one reproaching, not permitting. This would be rightly done if it were necessary. But since Mark recorded it so that, having said, “Sleep now and take your rest,” he added, “It is enough,” and then brought in, “The hour has come; behold, the Son of Man will be betrayed,” it is certainly understood that after what was said to them, “Sleep and take your rest,” the Lord was silent for some while, so that what he had permitted might happen, and then added, “Behold, the hour has drawn near.” That is why after those words in Mark is put “It is enough,” that is, “That you have rested is now enough.” But because the interposed silence of the Lord itself is not recorded, it narrows the understanding, so that another way of pronouncing those words is sought.