Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (834 page)

But also as to the manner in which Jesus pointed out his betrayer, there exists no slight divergency between the Evangelists. In Luke Jesus only makes the brief remark that the hand of his betrayer is with him on the table, whereupon the disciples ask among themselves, who it can be that is capable of such a deed? In Matthew and Mark he says, first, that one of those, who are present will betray him ; and when the disciples individually ask him, Lord, is it I? he replies:
he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish;
until at last, after a woe has been denounced on the traitor, according to Matthew, Judas also puts that question, and receives an affirmative answer. In John, Jesus alludes to the betrayer during and after the washing of the disciples’ feet, in the observations, that not all the disciples present are clean, and that

^*
Olshausen, 2, s
.
380.

^†
Thus Lücke, Paulus, Olshausen.on the contrary the scripture must be fulfilled:
he that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.
Then he says plainly, that one of them will betray him; the disciples look inquiringly at each other, wondering of whom he speaks, when Peter prompts John, who is lying next to Jesus, to ask who is the traitor? Jesus replies, he to whom he shall give a sop, which he immediately does to Judas, with an admonition to hasten the execution of his project; whereupon Judas leaves the company.

Here again the harmonists are at once ready to incorporate the different scenes with each other, and render them mutually consistent. According to them, Jesus, on the question of each disciple whether he were the traitor, first declared aloud that one of his companions at table would betray him (Matthew); hereupon John asked in a whisper which of them he meant, and Jesus also in a whisper made the answer, he to whom he should give the sop (John) ; then Judas, likewise in a whisper, asked whether it were he, and Jesus in the same manner replied in the affirmative (Matthew); lastly, after an admonition from Jesus to be speedy, the betrayer left the company (John).* But that the question and answer interchanged between Jesus and Judas were spoken in a whisper, Matthew, who alone communicates them, gives no intimation, nor is this easily conceivable without presupposing the improbable circumstance, that Judas reclined on the one side of Jesus, as John did on the other: if, however, the colloquy were uttered aloud, the disciples could not, as John narrates, have so strangely misunderstood the words,
what thou doest, do quickly, —
and the supposition of a stammering question on the side of Judas, and a low-toned answer from Jesus, cannot be seriously held a satisfactory explanation.† Nor is it probable that Jesus, after having already made the declaration: he who dippeth with me in the dish will betray me, would for the more precise indication of the traitor have also given him a sop; it is rather to be supposed that these are but two different modes of reporting the same particular. But when once this is admitted, as it is by Paulus and Olshausen, so much is already renounced either in relation to the one narrative or the other, that it is inconsistent to resort to forced suppositions, in order to overcome the difficulty involved in the explicit answer which Matthew makes Jesus give to the traitor; and it should rather be allowed that we have before us two divergent accounts, of which the one was not so framed that its deficiencies might be supplied by the other.

Having, with Sieffert and Fritzsche, attained this degree of insight, the only remaining question is: to which of the two narratives must we give the preference as the original? Sieffert has answered this question very decidedly in favour of John; not merely, as he maintains, because he shares in the prejudice which attributes to

^*
Kuinöl, in Matth., p. 707.

^†
This is Olshausen’s expedient, 2, s. 402. Against it see Sietlert, s. 148. f.that Evangelist the character of an eye-witness; but also because his narrative is in this part, by its intrinsic evidence of truthfulness, and the vividness of its scenes, advantageously distinguished from that of Matthew, which presents no indications of an autoptical origin. For example, while John is able to describe with the utmost minuteness the manner in which Jesus indicated his betrayer: the narrative of the first gospel is such as to induce the conjecture that its author had only received the general information, that Jesus had personally indicated his betrayer.* It certainly cannot be denied, that the direct answer which Jesus gives to Judas in Matthew (v. 25)
has entirely the appearance of having been framed, without much fertility of imagination, to accord with the above general information; and in so far it must be regarded as inferior to the more indirect, and therefore more probable mode of indicating the traitor, in John. But in relation to another feature, the result of the comparison is different. In the two first Evangelists Jesus says:
he who has dipped
or
who dippeth with me,
o
e
m
b
a
y
a
V
or
e
m
b
a
p
t
o
m
e
n
o
V
m
e
t
‘
e
m
o
u
: in John,
he to whom 1 shall give a sop when I have dipped it,
w
e
g
o
b
a
y
a
V
t
o
y
w
m
i
o
n
e
p
i
d
w
s
w
;
a difference in which the greater preciseness of the indication, and consequently the inferior probability, is on the side of the fourth gospel. In Luke, Jesus designates the traitor merely as one of those who are sitting at meat with him; and as regards the expression
o
e
m
b
a
y
a
V
k
.
t
.
l
.
.
in Matthew and Mark, the interpretation given of it by Kuinöl and Henneberg,† who suppose it to mean one of the party at table, leaving it uncertain which, is not so mistaken as Olshausen represents it to be. For, first, to the question of the several disciples, is it I? Jesus might see fit to return an evasive answer; and secondly, the above answer, as Kuinöl has correctly remarked, stands in the relation of an appropriate climax to the previous declaration:
one of you shall betray me
(v. 21), since it presents that aggravating circumstance of the betrayal, fellowship at table. Even if the authors of the two first gospels understood the expression in question to imply, that Judas in particular dipped his hand in the dish with Jesus, and hence supposed this second declaration to have indicated him personally: still the parallel passage in Luke, and the words
e
i
V
e
k
t
w
n
d
w
d
e
k
a
,
one of the twelve,
which in Mark precede
o
e
m
b
a
p
t
o
m
e
n
V
, show that originally the second expression was merely an amplification of the former, though from the wish to have a thoroughly unequivocal designation of the betrayer on the part of Jesus, it was early interpreted in the other more special sense. When, however, a legendary exaggeration of the preciseness of the indication is once admitted, the manner in which the fourth gospel describes that indication must be included in the series of progressive representations, and according to Sieffert, it must have been the original from which all the rest proceeded. But if we beforehand renounce the affirmative

^*
Ut Sup. s. 147
ff.

^†
Comm. über die Gesch. des Leidens und Todes Jesu, in loc.reply to Judas,
s
u
e
i
p
a
V
, thou hast said,
in Matthew, the mode of designation in John is the most definite of all; for the intimation: one of my companions at table, is comparatively indefinite, and even the expression: he who dippeth with me in the dish, is a less direct sign of the traitor, than if Jesus had himself dipped the morsel and presented it to him. Now is it in the spirit of the ancient legend, if Jesus really gave the more precise designation, to lose its hold of this, and substitute one less precise, so as to diminish the miracle of the foreknowledge exhibited by Jesus? Assuredly not; but rather the very reverse holds true. Hence we conclude that Matthew, together with the unhistorically precise, has yet at the same time preserved the historically less precise; whereas John has entirely lost the latter and has retained only the former.

After thus renouncing what is narrated of a personal designation of the traitor by Jesus, as composed
post eventum,
there yet remains to us the general precognition and prediction on the part of Jesus, that one of his disciples and companions at table would betray him. But even this is attended with difficulties. That Jesus received any external notification of treason brooding against him in the circle of his confidential friends, there is no indication in the
gospels: he appears to have gathered this feature of his destiny also out of the scriptures alone. He repeatedly declares that by his approaching betrayal the scripture will be fulfilled (John xiii. 18, xvii. 12 ; comp. Matt. xxvi. 24 parall.), and in the fourth gospel (xiii. 18), he cites as this
scripture,
g
r
a
f
h
,
the words:
He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel againsi me,
o
t
r
w
g
w
n
m
e
t
‘
e
m
e
t
h
n
p
t
e
r
n
a
n
a
u
t
o
u
,
from Ps. xli. 10. This passage in the Psalms refers either to the well-known perfidious friends of David, Ahithophel and Mephibosheth, or, if the Psalm be not the composition of David, to some unknown individuals who stood in a similar relation to the poet.* There is so little trace of a messianic significance, that even Tholuck and Olshausen acknowledge the above to be the original sense. But according to the latter, in the fate of David was imaged that of the Messiah; according to the former, David himself, under a divine impulse often used expressions concerning himself, which contained special allusions to the fate of Jesus. When, however, Tholuck adds: David himself, under the influence of inspiration, did not always comprehend this more profound sense of his expressions; what is this but a confession that by the interpretation of such passages as relating to Christ there is given to them another sense than that in which their author originally intended them? Now that Jesus deduced from this passage of the 41st Psalm, that it would be his lot to be betrayed by a friend, in the way of natural reflection, is the more inconceivable, because there is no indication to be discovered that this Psalm was interpreted messianically among the Jews : while that such an interpretation was a result of the divine knowledge in Jesus is impossible, because it is a false interpretation. It is rather to be supposed, that the passage in question was applied to the treachery of Judas only after the issue. It is necessary to figure to ourselves the consternation which the death of the Messiah must have produced in the minds of his first adherents, and the solicitous industry with which they endeavoured to comprehend this catastrophe; and to remember that to a mind of Jewish culture, to comprehend a fact or doctrine was not to reconcile it with consciousness and reason, but to bring it into harmony with scripture. In seeking such a result, the primitive Christians found predicted in the oracles of the Old Testament, not only the death of the Messiah, but also his falling by means of the perfidy of one of his friends, and even the subsequent fate and end of this traitor (Matt. xxvii. 9 f. ; Acts i. 20); and as the most striking Old Testament authority for the betrayal, there presented itself the above passage from Ps. xli., where the author complains of maltreatment from one of his most intimate friends. These vouchers from the Old Testament might be introduced by the writers of the evangelical history either as reflections from themselves or others by way of appendix to their narrative of the result, as is done by the authors of the first gospel and the Acts, where they relate the end of Judas: or, what would be more impressive, they might put them into the mouth of Jesus himself before the issue, as is done by the author of, the fourth gospel in the present instance. The Psalmist had meant by [
Heb. letters
]
‘okel lakhmiy
one who
generally
was
accustomed
to eat bread with him : but this expression might easily come to be regarded as the designation of one
in the act
of eating bread with the subject of the prophecy: and hence it seemed appropriate to choose as the scene for the delivery of the prediction, a meal of Jesus with his disciples, and for the sake uf proximity to the end of Jesus to make this meal the last. For the rest, the precise words of the psalm were not adhered to, for instead of
o
t
r
w
g
w
n
m
e
t
‘
e
m
o
u
t
o
n
a
r
t
o
n
, he who eateth bread with me,
was substituted either the synonymous phrase
m
e
t
‘
e
m
o
u
e
p
i
t
h
V
t
r
a
p
h
z
h
V
, with me on the table,
as in Luke; or, in accordance with the representation of the synoptists that this last was a paschal meal, an allusion to the particular sauce used on that occasion:
o
e
m
b
a
p
t
o
m
e
n
o
V
m
e
t
‘
e
m
o
u
e
i
V
t
o
t
r
u
b
l
i
o
n
, he who dippeth with me in the dish,
as in Mark and Matthew. This, at first entirely synonymous with the expression
o
t
r
w
g
w
n
k
.
t
.
l
., as a designation of some one of his companions at table, was soon, from the desire for a personal designation, misconstrued to mean that Judas accidentally dipped his hand into the dish at the same moment with Jesus, and at length the morsel dipped into the dish by Judas at the same time with Jesus, was by the fourth Evangelist converted into the sop presented by Jesus to his betrayer.