Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (838 page)

^*
Ullmaun, über die Unsündlichkeit Jesu, in his Studien, 1, s. 61. Hasert, ib. 3, I, s. 66 ff.

^†
Ullmann, ut sup.

^‡
Hasert, ut sup.

^§
Luther, in der Predigt vom Leiden Christi im Garten.

^||
Ambrosius in Luc., Tom. x. 56.

^¶
In Matthaei’s N. T., p. 447.

^*
Lightfoot, ut sup.angelic appearance, it has been sought to reduce the angel in this narrative first into a man,* and then into an image of the composure which Jesus regained.† But the right point in the angelic appearance for criticism to grapple with, is indicated by the ciicumstance that Luke is the only Evangelist from whom we learn it.‡ If, according to the ordinary presupposition, the first and fourth gospels are of apostolic origin; why this silence as to the angel on the part of Matthew, who is believed to have been in the garden, why especially on the part of John, who was among the three in the nearer neighbourhood of Jesus? If it be said: because sleepy as they were, and at some distance, and moreover under cover of the night, they did not observe him: it must be asked, whence are we to suppose that Luke received this information?§ That, assuming the disciples not to have themselves observed the appearance, Jesus should have narrated it to them on that evening, there is, from the intense excitement of those hours and the circumstance that the return of Jesus to his disciples was immediately followed by the arrival of Judas, little probability; and as little, that he communicated it to them in the days after the resurrection, and that nevertheless this information appeared worthy of record to none but the third Evangelist, who yet received it only at second hand. As in this manner there is every presumption against the historical character of the angelic appearance; why should not this also, like all appearances of the same kind which have come under our notice, especially in the history of the infancy of Jesus, he interpreted by us mythically? Gabler has been before us in advancing the idea, that in the primitive Christian community the rapid transition from the most violent mental conflict to the most tranquil resignation, which was observable in Jesus on that night, was explained, agreeably to the Jewish mode of thought, by the intervention of a strengthening angel, and that this explanation may have mingled itself with the narrative: Schleiermacher, too, finds it the most probable that this moment, described by Jesus himself as one of hard trial, was early glorified in hymns by angelic appearances, and that this embellishment, originally intended in a merely poetical sense, was received by the narrator of the third gospel as historical.||

The other feature peculiar to Luke, namely, the bloody sweat, was early felt to be no less fraught with difficulty than the strengthening by the angel. At least it appears to have been this more than anything else, which occasioned the exclusion of the entire addition in Luke, v. 43 and 44, from many ancient copies of the gospels. For as the orthodox, who according to Epiphanius
^¶
rejected the passage, appear to have shrunk the most from the lowest degree of fear which is expressed by the bloody sweat: so to the docetic opinions of some who did not receive this passage,* this was the only particular which could give offence. Thus in an earlier age,

^*
Venturini, 3, 677, and conjecturally Paulus also, s. 561.

^†
Eichhorn, allg. Bibl. 1, s. 628; Thiess, in loc.

^‡
Comp. on this subject and the following, Gabler, neust. theol. Journal, 1, 2, s.
109 ff. 3, s. 217 ff.

^§
Comp. Julian, ap. Theod. of Mopsuestia in Münter’s Fragm.
Patr. 1, p. 121 f.

^||
Ueber den Lukas, s. 288; comp.
De Wette, in loc. and Theile, zur. Biogr. Jesu, § 32. Neander also appears willing silently to abandon this trait and the following one.

^¶
Ancoratus, 31.

^*
Vid. Wetstein, s. 807.doubts were raised respecting the fitness of the bloody sweat of Jesus on dogmatical considerations: while in more modern times this has been done on physiological grounds. It is true that authorities are adduced for instances of bloody sweat from Aristotle * down to the more recent investigators of nature; † but such a phenomenon is only mentioned as extremely rare, and as a symptom of decided disease. Hence Paulus points to the
w
s
e
i
(as it were),
as indicating that it is not directly a bloody sweat which is here spoken of, but only a sweat which might be compared to blood: this comparison, however, he refers only to the thick appearance of the drops, and Olshausen also agrees with him thus far, that a red colour of the perspiration is not necessarily included in the comparison. But in the course of a narrative which is meant as a prelude to the sanguinary death of Jesus, it is the most natural to take the comparison of the sweat to drops of blood, in its full sense. Further, here, yet more forcibly than in relation to the angelic appearance, the question suggests itself: how did Luke obtain this information? or to pass by all questions which must take the same form in this instance as in the previous one, how could the disciples, at a distance and in the night, discern the falling of drops of blood? According to Paulus indeed it ought not to be said that the sweat fell, for as the word
k
a
t
a
b
a
i
n
o
n
t
e
V
, falling,
refers not to
i
d
r
w
V
sweat,
but to the
q
r
o
m
b
o
i
a
i
m
a
t
o
V
, drops of blood,
which are introduced merely for the purpose of comparison, it is only meant that a sweat as thick and heavy as falling drops of blood stood on the brow of Jesus. But whether it be said: the sweat fell like drops of blood to the earth, or: it was like drops of blood falling to the earth, it comes pretty much to the same thing; at least the comparison of a sweat standing on the brow to blood falling on the earth would not be very apt, especially if together with the falling, we are to abstract also the colour of the blood, so that of the words,
as it were drops of blood falling on the ground,
w
s
e
i
q
r
o
m
b
o
i
a
i
m
a
t
o
V
k
a
t
a
b
a
i
n
o
n
t
e
V
e
i
V
t
h
n
g
h
n
only
w
s
e
i
q
r
o
m
b
o
i
, as it were drops,
would properly have any decided meaning. Since then we can neither comprehend the circumstance, nor conceive what historical authority for it the narrator could have had, let us, with Schleiermacher, rather take this feature also as a poetical one construed historically by the Evangelist, or better still, as a mythical one, the origin of which may be easily explained from the tendency to perfect the conflict in the garden as a prelude to the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, by showing that not merely the psychical aspect of that suffering was fore-shadowed in the mental trouble, but also its physical aspect, in the bloody sweat.

As a counterpoise to this peculiarity of Luke, his two predecessors have, as we have said, the twofold occurrence of the number three, — the three disciples taken apart, and the three retirements and prayers of Jesus. It has indeed been contended that so restless

^*
De part. animal. iii. 15.

^†
Vid. ap. Michaelis, not. in loc., and Kuinöl, in Luc., p. 691 f.a movement hither and thither, so rapid an alternation of retirement and return, is entirely suited to the state of mind in which Jesus then was,* and also, that in the repetition of the prayer there is correctly shown an appropriate gradation; a more and more complete resignation to the will of the Father.† But that the two narrators count the retirements of Jesus, marking them by the expressions
e
k
d
e
u
t
e
r
o
u
and
e
k
t
r
i
t
o
u
;
at once shows that the number three was a point of importance to them; and when Matthew, though he certainly gives in the second prayer an expression somewhat different from that of the first, in the third makes Jesus only repeat
the same words,
t
o
n
a
u
t
o
n
l
o
g
o
n
, and when Mark does this even the second time, — this is a significant proof that they were embarrassed how to fill up the favourite number three with appropriate matter. According to Olshausen, Matthew, with his three acts of this conflict, must be right in opposition to Luke, because these three attacks made on Jesus through the medium of fear, correspond to the three attacks through the medium of desire, in the history of the temptation. This parallel is well founded; it only leads to an opposite result to that deduced by Olshausen. For which is more probable; that in both cases the threefold repetition of the attack had an objective ground, in a latent law of the kingdom of spirits, and hence is to be regarded as really historical; or that it had merely a subjective ground in the manner of the legend, so that the occurrence of this number here, as certainly as above in the history of the temptation, points to something mythical? ‡

If then we subtract the angel, the bloody sweat, and the precisely threefold repetition of the retirement and prayer of Jesus, as mythical additions, there remains so far, as an historical kernel, the fact, that Jesus on that evening in the garden experienced a violent access of fear, and prayed that his sufferings might be averted, with the reservation nevertheless of an entire submission to the will of God: and at this point of the inquiry, it is not a little surprising, on the ordinary view of the relation between our gospels, that even this fundamental fact of the history in question, is wanting in the Gospel of John.