xvi. 23, must forbid our attributing to it such an effect as the

rancour which it is supposed to have engendered in Judas; [1749] while that in other instances he was less considered than his fellow-disciples, we have nowhere any trace.

All the other conjectures as to what was properly the motive of the deed of Judas, can only be supported by negative grounds, i.e. grounds which make it improbable in general that his project had a bad aim, and in particular, that his motive was covetousness; a positive proof, that he intended to further the work of Jesus, and especially that he was actuated by violent political views of the Messiah’s kingdom, is not to be discovered.—That Judas had in general no evil designs against Jesus is argued chiefly from the fact, that after the delivery of Jesus to the Romans, and the inevitableness of his death had come to his knowledge, he fell into despair; this being regarded as a proof that he had expected an opposite result. But not only does the unfortunate result of crime, as Paulus thinks, but also its fortunate result, that is, its success, “exhibit that which had before been veiled under a thousand extenuating pretexts, in all the blackness of its real form.” Crime once become real, once passed into act, throws off the mask which it might wear while it remained merely ideal, and existed in thought alone; hence, as little as the repentance of many a murderer, when he sees his victim lie before him, proves that he did not really intend to commit the murder; so little can the anguish of Judas, when he saw Jesus beyond rescue, prove that he had not beforehand contemplated the death of Jesus as the issue of his deed.

But, it is further said, covetousness cannot have been the motive of Judas; for if gain had been his object, he could not be blind to the fact that the continued charge of the purse in the society of Jesus, would yield him more than the miserable thirty pieces of silver (from 20 to 25 thalers, [1750] of our money), a sum which among the Jews formed the compensation for a wounded slave, being four months’ wages. But these thirty pieces of silver are in vain sought for in any other narrator than Matthew. John is entirely silent as to any reward offered to Judas by the priests; Mark and Luke speak indefinitely of money ἀργύριον, which they had promised him; and Peter in the Acts (i. 18) merely mentions a reward, μισθὸς, which Judas obtained. Matthew, however, who alone has that definite sum, leaves us at the same time in no doubt as to the historical value of his statement. After relating the end of Judas (xxvii. 9 f.), he cites a passage from Zechariah (xi. 12 f.; he ascribes it by mistake to Jeremiah), wherein likewise thirty pieces of silver appear as a price at which some one is valued. It is true that in the prophetic passage the thirty pieces of silver are not given as purchase money, but as hire; he to whom they are paid is the prophet, the representative of Jehovah, and the smallness of the sum is an emblem of the slight value which the Jews set upon the divine benefits so plentifully bestowed on them. [1751] But how easily might this passage, where there was mention of a shamefully low price (ironically a goodly price ‏אֶדֶר הַיְקָר‎), at which the Israelites had rated the speaker in the prophecy, remind a Christian reader of his Messiah, who, in any case, had been sold for a paltry price compared with his value, and hence be led to determine by this passage, the price which was paid to Judas for betraying Jesus. [1752] Thus the thirty pieces of silver, τριάκοντα ἀργύρια, present no support to those who would prove that it could not be the reward which made Judas a traitor; for they leave us as ignorant as ever how great or how small was the reward which Judas received. Neither can we, with Neander, conclude that the sum was trifling from Matt xxvii. 6 ff.; Acts i. 18, where it is said that a field, ἀγρὸς or χωρίον, was purchased with the reward assigned to the treachery of Judas; since, even apart from the historical value of that statement, hereafter to be examined, the two expressions adduced may denote a larger or a smaller piece of land, and the additional observations of Matthew, that it was destined to bury strangers in, εἰς ταφὴν τοῖς ξένοις will not allow us to think of a very small extent. How the same theologian can discover in the statement of the two intermediate Evangelists, that the Jewish rulers had promised Judas money, ἀργύριον, an intimation that the sum was small, it is impossible to conceive.—Far more weighty is the observation above made with a different aim, that Jesus would scarcely have appointed and retained as purse-bearer one whom he knew to be covetous even to dishonesty; whence Neander directly infers that the fourth Evangelist, when he derived the remark of Judas at the meal in Bethany from his covetousness, put a false construction upon it, in consequence of the idea which ultimately prevailed respecting Judas, and especially added the accusation, that Judas robbed the common fund, out of his own imagination. [1753] But in opposition to this it is to be asked, whether in Neander’s point of view it be admissible to impute to the apostle John, who is here understood to be the author of the fourth gospel, so groundless a calumny—for such it would be according to Neander’s supposition; and, in our point of view, it would at least be more natural to conclude, that Jesus indeed knew Judas to be fond of money, but did not until the last believe him to be dishonest, and hence did not consider him unfit for the post in question. Neander observes in conclusion: if Judas could be induced by money to betray Jesus, he must have long lost all true faith in him. This indeed follows of necessity, and must be supposed in every view of the subject; but this extinction of faith could of itself only lead him to go back, ἀπελθειν εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω (John vi. 66); in order to prompt him to meditate treachery there must be a further, special incitement, which, intrinsically, might just as well be covetousness, as the views which are attributed to him by Neander and others.

That covetousness, considered as such an immediate motive, suffices to explain the deed of Judas, I will not maintain; I only contend that any other motives are neither stated nor anywhere intimated in the gospels, and that consequently every hypothesis as to their existence is built on the air. [1754]

§ 120.

PREPARATION FOR THE PASSOVER.

On the first day of unleavened bread, in the evening of which the paschal lamb was to be slain, consequently, the day before the feast properly speaking, which however commenced on that evening, i.e. the 14th of Nisan, Jesus, according to the two first Evangelists, in compliance with a question addressed to Him by the disciples, sent—Matthew leaves it undecided which and how many, Mark says, two disciples, whom Luke designates as Peter and John—to Jerusalem (perhaps from Bethany), to bespeak a place in which he might partake of the passover with them, and to make the further arrangements (Matt. xxvi. 17 ff. parall.). The three narrators do not altogether agree as to the directions which Jesus gave to these disciples. According to all, he sends them to a man of whom they had only to desire, in the name of their master διδάσκαλος, a place in which to celebrate the passover, in order at once to have their want supplied: but first, this locality is more particularly described by the two intermediate Evangelists than by Matthew, namely as a large upper room, which was already furnished and prepared for the reception of guests; and secondly, the manner in which they were to find the owner, is described by the former otherwise than by the latter. Matthew makes Jesus merely say to the disciples, that they were to go to such a man, πρὸς τὸν δεῖνα: the others, that, being come into the city, they would meet a man bearing a pitcher of water, whom they were to follow into the house which he should enter, and there make their application to the owner.

In this narrative there have been found a multitude of difficulties, which Gabler has assembled in a special treatise. [1755] At the very threshold of the narrative it occasions surprise, that Jesus should not have thought of any preparation for the passover until the last day, nay, that he should even then have needed to be reminded of it by the disciples, as the two first Evangelists tell us: for owing to the great influx of people at the time of the passover (2,700,000, according to Josephus), [1756] the accommodations in the city were soon disposed of, and the majority of the strangers were obliged to encamp in tents before the city. It is the more remarkable, then, that, notwithstanding all this the messengers of Jesus find the desired chamber disengaged, and not only so, but actually kept in reserve by the owner and prepared for a repast, as if he had had a presentiment that it would be bespoken by Jesus. And so confidently is this reckoned on by Jesus that he directs his disciples to ask the owner of the house,—not whether he can obtain from him a room in which to eat the passover, but merely—where the guest-chamber appropriated to this purpose may be? or, if we take Matthew’s account, he directs them to say to him that he will eat the passover at his house; to which it must be added that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus even knows what kind of chamber will be assigned him, and in what part of the house it is situated. But the way in which, according to these two Evangelists, the two disciples were to find their way to the right house, is especially remarkable. The words ὑπάγετε εἰς τὴν πόλιν πρὸς τὸν δεῖνα in Matthew (v. 18), sound as if Jesus had named the person to whom the disciples were to go, but that the narrator either would not or could not repeat it: whereas in the two other Evangelists, Jesus indicates the house into which they were to enter, by means of a person whom they would meet carrying a vessel of water. Now how could Jesus in Bethany, or wherever else he might be, foreknow this accidental circumstance, unless, indeed, it had been pre-concerted that at this particular time a servant from the house should appear with a vessel of water, and thus await the messengers of Jesus? To the rationalistic expositors everything in our narrative appeared to point to a preconcerted arrangement; and this being presupposed, they believed that all its difficulties would at once be solved. The disciples, dispatched so late, could only find a room disengaged if it had been previously bespoken by Jesus; he could only direct them to address the owner of the house so categorically, if he had already previously made an arrangement with him; this would explain the precise knowledge of Jesus as to the locality, and, lastly, (the point from which this explanation sets out), his certainty that the disciples would meet a man carrying water from that particular house. This circumlocutory manner of indicating the house, which might have been avoided by the simple mention of the owner’s name, is supposed to have been adopted by Jesus, that the place where he intended to keep the passover might not be known before the time to the betrayer, who would otherwise perhaps have surprised him there, and thus have disturbed the repast. [1757]

But such is not at all the impression produced by the evangelical narrative. Of a preconcerted arrangement, of a previous bespeaking of the apartment, it says nothing; on the contrary, the words, they found as he had said unto them, in Mark and Luke, seem intended to convey the idea that Jesus was able to predict everything as they afterwards actually found it; a solicitous foresight is nowhere indicated, but rather a miraculous foreknowledge. Here, in fact, as above in the procuring of the animal for the entrance into Jerusalem, we have a twofold miracle: first, the fact that everything stands ready to supply the wants of Jesus, and that no one is able to withstand the power of his name; secondly, the ability of Jesus to take cognizance of distant circumstances, and to predict the merest fortuities. [1758] It must create surprise that, forcibly as this supranaturalistic conception of the narrative before us urges itself upon the reader, Olshausen himself seeks to elude it, by arguments which would nullify most of the histories of miracles, and which we are accustomed to hear only from rationalists. To the impartial expositor, he says, [1759] the narrative does not present the slightest warrant for a miraculous interpretation (we almost fancy ourselves transported into the commentary of Paulus); if the narrators intended to recount a miracle, they must have expressly observed that no previous arrangement had been made (precisely the rationalistic demand—if a cure were meant to be recognised as a miracle, the application of natural means must have been expressly denied); moreover the object of such a miracle is not to be discerned, a strengthening of the faith of the disciples was not then necessary, nor was it to be effected by this unimportant miracle, after the more exalted ones which had preceded it:—grounds on which the thoroughly similar narrative of the procuring of the ass for the entrance, which Olshausen upholds as a miracle, would be equally excluded from the sphere of the supernatural.

The present narrative, indeed, is so strikingly allied to the earlier one just mentioned, that in relation to their historical reality, the same judgment must be passed on both. In the one as in the other, Jesus has a want, the speedy supply of which is so cared for by God, that Jesus foreknows to the minutest particular the manner in which it is to be supplied; in the one he needs a guest chamber, as in the other an animal on which to ride; in the one as in the other, he sends out two disciples, to bespeak the thing required; in the one he gives them as a sign by which to find the right house—a man carrying water whom they are to meet, as in the other they have a sign in the circumstance of the ass being tied where two roads meet; in the one as in the other, he directs his disciples simply to mention him to the owner, in the one case as the master, διδάσκαλος, in the other, as the lord, κύριος, in order to ensure unhesitating compliance with his demand; in both instances the result closely corresponds to his prediction. In the narrative more immediately under our consideration, as in the earlier one, there is wanting an adequate object, for the sake of which so manifold a miracle should have been ordained; while the motive which might occasion the development of the miraculous narrative in the primitive Christian legend is obvious. An Old Testament narrative, to which we have already had occasion to refer in connexion with the earlier miracle, is still more strikingly recalled by the one before us. After disclosing to Saul that he was destined to be King of Israel, Samuel, as a sign of the truth of this more remote announcement, foretells whom Saul will meet on his return homewards: namely, first two men with the information that his father’s asses are found; then three others, who will be carrying animals for sacrifice, bread and wine, and will offer him some of the bread, etc. (1 Sam. x. 1 ff.): whence we see by what kind of predictions the Hebrew legend made its prophets attest their inspiration.

As regards the relation of the gospels to each other, the narrative of Matthew is commonly placed far below that of the two other synoptists, and regarded as the later and more traditional. [1760] The circumstance of the man carrying water, especially, is held to have belonged to the original fact, but to have been lost in tradition before the narrative reached Matthew, who inserted in its place the enigmatical ὑπάγετε πρὸς τὸν δεῖνα, go to such a man. But we have seen, on the contrary, that the δεῖνα presents no difficulty; while the circumstance of the water-bearer is in the highest degree enigmatical. [1761] Still less is the omission of Matthew to designate the two commissioned disciples as Peter and John, an indication that the narrative of the third gospel is the more original one. For when Schleiermacher says that this trait might easily be lost in the course of transmission through several hands, but that it could scarcely have been added by a later hand,—the latter half of his proposition, at least, is without foundation. There is little probability that Jesus should have assigned so purely economical an office to the two most eminent disciples; whereas it is easy to conceive that in the first instance it was simply narrated, as by Matthew, that Jesus sent the disciples or some disciples, that hereupon the number was fixed at two, perhaps from the narrative of the procuring of the ass, and that at length, as the appointment had relation to a task which was ultimately of high importance,—the preparing of the last meal of Jesus,—these places were filled by the two chief apostles, so that in this instance even Mark appears to have kept nearer to the original fact, since he has not adopted into his narrative the names of the two disciples, which are presented by Luke.

§ 121.

DIVERGENT STATEMENTS RESPECTING THE TIME OF THE LAST SUPPER.

Not only does the fourth Evangelist omit all mention of the above arrangements for the paschal meal; he also widely diverges from the synoptists in relation to the meal itself. Independently of the difference which runs throughout the description of the scene, and which can only be hereafter considered, he appears, in regard to the time of the meal, to represent it as occurring before the passover, as decidedly as it is represented by the synoptists to be the paschal meal itself.

When we read in the latter, that the day on which the disciples were directed by Jesus to prepare for the meal, was already the first day of unleavened bread, ἡ πρώτη τῶν ἀζύμων, when the passover must be killed, ἐν ᾗ ἔδει θύεσθαι τὸ πάσχα (Matt. xxvi. 17 parall.): we cannot suppose the meal in question to have been any other than the paschal; further, when the disciples ask Jesus, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? ποῦ θέλεις ἑτοιμάσωμέν σοι φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα; when it is hereupon said of the disciples, that they made ready the passover, ἡτοίμασαν τὸ πάσχα (Matt. v. 19 parall.), and of Jesus, that when evening was come, he sat down with the twelve, ὀψίας γενομένης ἀνέκειτο μετὰ τῶν δώδεκα (v. 20): the meal to which they here sat down appears to be marked out even to the superfluity as the paschal, even if Luke (xxii. 15) did not make Jesus open the repast with the words: With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you, ἐπιθυμίᾳ ἐπεθύμησα τοῦτο τὸ πάσχα φαγεῖν μεθ’ ὑμῶν.—When, on the other hand, the fourth gospel commences its narrative of the last meal with the statement of time: before the feast of the passover, πρὸ δὲ τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ πάσχα, (xiii. 1); the supper, δεῖπνον, which is mentioned immediately after (v. 2), appears also to happen before the passover; especially as throughout John’s description of this evening, which, especially in relation to the discourses accompanying the meal, is very ample, there is not any notice or even allusion, to indicate that Jesus was on this occasion celebrating the passover. Further, when Jesus after the meal addresses the traitor with the summons, what thou doest, do quickly, this is misunderstood by the rest of the disciples to mean, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast, εἰς τὴν ἑορτήν (v. 29). Now the requirements for the feast related chiefly to the paschal meal, and consequently the meal just concluded cannot have been the paschal. Again, it is said, xviii. 28, that on the following morning, the Jews would not enter the Gentile prætorium, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover, ἵνα μὴ μιανθῶσιν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα, φάγωσι τὸ πάσχα: whence it would seem that the paschal meal was yet in prospect. To this it may be added that this same succeeding day, on which Jesus was crucified, is called the preparation of the passover, παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, i.e. the day on the evening of which the paschal lamb was to be eaten; moreover, when it is said of the second day after the meal in question, being that which Jesus passed in the grave: that sabbath day was an high day, ἦν γὰρ μεγάλη ἡ ἡμέρα ἐκείνου τοῦ σαββάτου (xix. 31); this peculiar solemnity appears to have proceeded from the circumstance, that on that sabbath fell the first day of the passover, so that the paschal lamb was not eaten on the evening on which Jesus was arrested, but on the evening of his burial.

These divergencies are so important, that many expositors, in order to prevent the Evangelists from falling into contradiction with each other, have here also tried the old expedient of supposing that they do not speak of the same thing—that John intends to describe an altogether different repast from that of the synoptists. According to this view, the δεῖπνον of John was an ordinary evening meal, doubtless in Bethany; on this occasion Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, spoke of the betrayer, and after Judas had left the company, added other discourses of a consoling and admonitory tendency, until at length, on the morning of the 14th of Nisan, he summoned the disciples to depart from Bethany and proceed to Jerusalem, in the words: Arise, let us go hence (xiv. 31). Here the synoptical account may be interposed, since it represents the two disciples as being sent forward to Jerusalem to prepare for the paschal meal, and then records its celebration, concerning which John is silent, and only takes up the thread of the narrative at the discourses delivered after the paschal meal (xv. 1 ff.). [1762] But this attempt to avoid contradiction by referring the respective narratives to totally different events, is counteracted by the undeniable identity of many features in the two meals. Independently of isolated particulars which are found alike in both accounts, it is plain that John, as well as the synoptists, intends to describe the last meal of which Jesus partook with his disciples. This is implied in the introduction to John’s narrative; for the proof which is there said to be given of Jesus having loved his own unto the end, εἰς τέλος, may be the most suitably referred to his last moments of companionship with them. In like manner, the discourses after the meal point to the prospect of immediate separation; and the meal and discourses are, in John also, immediately followed by the departure to Gethsemane and the arrest of Jesus. It is true that, according to the above opinion, these last-named incidents are connected only with those discourses which were delivered on the occasion of the later meal, omitted by John (xv. 17): but that between xiv. 31 and xv. 1 the author of the fourth gospel intentionally omitted the whole incident of the paschal meal, is a position which, although it might appear to explain with some plausibility the singular ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν, Arise, let us go hence, no one will now seriously maintain. But even admitting such an ellipsis, there still remains the fact that Jesus (xiii. 38) foretells to Peter his denial with this determination of time: οὐ μὴ ἀλέκτωρ φωνήσῃ, the cock shall not crow, which he could only make use of at the last meal, and not, as is here presupposed, at an earlier one. [1763]

Thus this expedient must be relinquished, and it must be admitted that all the Evangelists intend to speak of the same meal, namely, the last of which Jesus partook with his disciples. And in making this admission, the fairness which we owe to every author, and which was believed to be due in a peculiar degree to the authors of the Bible, appeared to demand an enquiry whether, although they represent one and the same event with great divergencies in several respects, yet nevertheless both sides may not be correct. To obtain an affirmative result of this inquiry it must be shown, as regards the time, either that the three first Evangelists, as well as the fourth, do not intend to describe a paschal meal, or that the latter, as well as the former, does so intend.

In an ancient Fragment [1764] it is sought to solve the problem in the first method, by denying that Matthew places the last meal of Jesus at the proper time for the paschal meal, the evening of the 14th of Nisan, and his passion on the first day of the feast of the passover, the 15th of Nisan; but one does not see how the express indications respecting the passover in the synoptists can be neutralized.

Hence it has been a far more general attempt in recent times, to draw John to the side of the other Evangelists. [1765] His expression before the feast of the passover, πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ πάσχα (xiii. 1), was thought to be divested of its difficulty by the observation that it is not immediately connected with the supper δεῖπνον, but only with the statement that Jesus knew that his hour was come, and that he loved his own unto the end; it is only in the succeeding verse that there is any mention of the meal, to which therefore that determination of time does not refer. But to what then can it refer? to the knowledge that his hour was come? this is only an incidental remark; or to the love which endured to the end? but to this so special a determination of time can only refer, if an external proof of love be intended, and such an one is presented in his conduct at the meal, which consequently remains the point to which that determination of the day must apply. It is therefore conjectured further that the words πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς were used out of accommodation to the Greeks for whom John wrote: since that people did not, like the Jews, begin their day with the evening, the meal taken at the beginning of the first day of the passover, would appear to them to be taken on the evening before the passover. But what judicious writer, if he supposes a misconstruction possible on the part of the reader, chooses language which can only serve to encourage that misconstruction? A still more formidable difficulty is presented by