5. STRUCTURE AND CHARACTER OF THE FIRST GOSPEL

i. The structure of the first gospel is topological rather than chronological.

1. Since historians commonly follow the chronological order, we naturally expect the evangelists to be chronologists. But when we compare the gospels, we find that each evangelist has a characteristic arrangement coincident up to a certain point with that of others, and yet so far different that harmonists are at times driven to violent expedients. Again, both contents and structure of the gospels show that they are memoirs rather than histories. Definite marks of time and place are very rare, and general indications of temporal and local connections are hardly more frequent. The transitions are either indefinite or disjunctive, so that the gospels appear to be rather collections of anecdotes than complete histories. While in regular historical works circumstances of time and place predominate, in the gospels the spiritual import of events is of paramount importance, to which temporal and local circumstances are subservient.

2. The older commentators, following the lead of St. Augustin, believed that St. Matthew, being an eyewitness, had followed the chronological order, and that the other synoptists had inserted only supplementary facts and incidents in the first gospel [cf. Lamy, Comm. in harm. quat. evang. Parisiis, 1699, præf. p. vi]. At present, commentators are inclined to look in the third gospel for the true chronology of the life of our Lord, with which the first and the second gospel must be harmonized. In point of fact, St. Luke alone professes to follow a chronological order; in the history of the infancy and in Acts, which latter book he represents as a continuation of the gospel, he does follow a chronological order; and if we suppose a chronological order in the third gospel, we do not disturb the arrangement of any other except the first. But even a cursory reading of the first gospel shows its topological structure; the discourses of Jesus are collected in some chapters, his miracles in others, the opposition of the scribes and Pharisees in others again, and at the end our Lord’s prophecies, passion, and resurrection [cf. Reuss, History of the New Testament, i. p. 192]. Now whatever may be said about the other parts, it is not probable that all the miracles happened in groups and clusters, and were confined to certain days and weeks.

3. It does not follow from this that Delitzsch has given the correct analysis of the first gospel [Neue Untersuchungen über Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien, part i. Leipzig, 1853]. Selecting Mt. 5:17 as containing the fundamental idea of the gospel that Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it, the author shows that the Old Testament theocracy has been fulfilled in the life of Jesus, and that the five books of the Pentateuch correspond to the five parts of the first gospel. a. The first chapter of St. Matthew, giving the genealogy of Jesus, corresponds to the Book of Genesis. b. The second chapter of the first gospel, relating the murder of the Holy Innocents, corresponds to the Book of Exodus, which begins with the murder of the Israelite children in Egypt; the Sermon on the Mount, in the same part of the gospel, corresponds to the events on Sinai, c. Mt. 8:1 ff. is the fulfilment of the Book of Leviticus, the cleansing of the leper pointing to the corresponding legal ordinances, d. Mt. 10:1 ff. corresponds to the Book of Numbers, the numbering of the twelve tribes being fulfilled in the choice of the twelve apostles, e. Lastly, Mt. 19 ff. corresponds to the Book of Deuteronomy, fulfilled in the Judean ministry and the passion of Jesus. But in this analysis the parts corresponding to Genesis and Leviticus are too short, those corresponding to Deuteronomy and Numbers too long; besides, the whole hypothesis is rather ingenious and fanciful than plausible, since it overrates a formal correspondence at the expense of the material proportion of parts.

4. If we consult other commentators, we find that they substantially agree as to the division of the gospel. They may give different names to the several parts, and here and there the line of division may differ by a short passage; but the main parts of the gospel are those described in the Contents of the Commentary. The evangelist proves the Messiasship of Jesus from the history of his infancy, from the preparation for his public life, and from the history of his public life. In the first part, the proofs are drawn from the Lord’s genealogy, birth, and reception by both the Jews and the Gentiles; in the second part, the proofs are based on the ministry of the Baptist, and the trial and general ministry of the Lord; in the third part, the argument rests on the exercise of the various offices of Jesus, first that of teacher and legislator; secondly, that of wonder-worker; thirdly, that of founder of the Messianic kingdom.

ii. As to its character the first gospel is both antithetic and progressive.

1. There is such a contrast between the two extremes of the life of Christ as represented by the first evangelist that we cannot ascribe this peculiarity to mere chance. The gospel opens with the Jewish genealogy of Jesus, as if salvation were reserved for the house of Israel, but it ends with the apostles’ mission to all nations, and the rejection of the Jews. In the first chapter, Jesus is conceived by a virgin, and announced by an angel; in the last chapter, Jesus rises from a sealed and inviolate sepulchre, and angels announce the event. In the second chapter, Gentiles come to adore Jesus, and are the unwitting instruments of the first persecution by the political power regarded with indifference by the Synagogue; in the history of the passion the Synagogue forces the Gentile and political power, however unwilling, into the crime of deicide. The passion is preceded by our Lord’s triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, and by the voice from heaven declaring, “I have both glorified it [thy name], and will glorify it again” [John 12:28]; and the public life is preceded by the baptism and the heavenly testimony: “This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.” At both times Jesus withdraws from the public for a short while: after the baptism, for forty days into the desert, to prepare for the public life; after the triumphal entrance, for a few days into the company of his disciples, to prepare for the passion. The Baptist announces “the wrath to come,” maintaining that God can “raise up children of Israel” out of these stones, and that “the ax is laid to the root of the trees”; Jesus, at the end of his ministry, clearly announces the approaching doom of Jerusalem, and the judgment at the end of the world. Jesus begins his career with the eight beatitudes, and ends it with the woes against his opponents. These instances must suffice to illustrate the antithetic character of the first gospel, though they might be multiplied considerably.

2. The progressive and almost dramatic character of the first gospel may be inferred from the following considerations: a. In the beginning other persons do, as it were, Christ’s work for him: his ancestors, his parents, the angels, the Magi, Herod, the Jews, the Baptist prove by word and action that Jesus is the Messias. b. Then, Jesus begins to act in his own person: at the Jordan, in the desert, in Galilee; as a teacher, as a wonder-worker, as the founder of a kingdom; in all particulars he manifests himself as the Messias to his disciples, as an uncompromising enemy to the Pharisees and the Judaizing party. The mass of the people is kept interested in his sacred person, and they form what may be compared to the chorus of the Greeks. They enter as the chorus enters, interrupting as it were the course of action, and imparting on the whole an air of dignity to the life of Jesus, c. In the third part, the union between Jesus and his followers becomes more intimate: the disciples acknowledge his divinity, and they cling to him in spite of the repeated prediction of his coming passion. Jesus organizes them into an apostolic body with Peter as their head. On the other hand, the opposition between Jesus and his enemies grows at the same pace: disregarding the differences of parties, they unite to destroy their common enemy. d. Then, Jesus and his enemies collide in the final struggle: his Messianic rights are questioned publicly, but he silences his opponents, and denounces them in a series of parables. A political, a theological, and a legal attack follow, and then are pronounced Christ’s final woes, so that the rupture is complete. e. The unfaithful husbandmen put the Son and heir to death most cruelly, but their triumph is very transitory: Jesus appears on the third day, impassible and glorious, and formally institutes his Church, in which Jews and Synagogue have no part. The apostles are sent among the nations, to work among the Gentiles.