Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (841 page)

If we here revert to the question from which we set out, whether we are rather to retain the farewell discourses in John as thoroughly historical, and renounce the synoptical representation of the scene in Gethsemane, or vice versa: we shall be more inclined, considering the result of the inquiry just instituted, to embrace the latter alternative. The difficulty, that it is scarcely conceivable how John could accurately remember these long discourses of Jesus, Paulus has thought to solve, by the conjecture, that the apostle, probably on the next Sabbath, while Jesus lay in the grave, recalled to his mind the conversations of the previous evening, and perhaps also wrote them down.† But in that period of depression, which John also shared, he would be scarcely in a condition to reproduce these discourses without obscuring their peculiar hue of unclouded serenity; on the contrary, as the author of the Wolfenbüttel fragments observes, had the narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus been committed to writing by the Evangelists in the couple of days after the death of Jesus, when they had no longer any hope, all promises would have been excluded from their gospels.‡ Hence even Lücke, in consideration of the mode of expression in the farewell discourses, and particularly in the final prayer, being so peculiarly

^*
Against the offence which it has pleased Tholuck (Glaubw. s.
41) to take at this expression
(Verwischen),
comp. the Aphorismen zur Apologie des Dr. Strauss und seines Werkes, s. 69 f.

^†
L. J. 1, b, s. 165 f.

^‡
Vom Zweck J. und seiner Jünger, s. 124.that of John, has relinquished the position that Jesus spoke in the very words which John puts into his mouth, i.e. the authenticity of these discourses in the strictest sense; but only to maintain the more firmly their authenticity in the wider sense, i.e. the genuineness of the substantial thoughts.* Even this, however, has been attacked by the author of the Probabilia, for he asks, with especial reference to chap. xvii., whether it be conceivable that Jesus in the anticipation of violent death, had nothing of more immediate concern than to commune with God on the subject of his person, the works he had already achieved, and the glory to be expected? and whether it be not rather highly probable that the prayer flowed only from the mind of the writer, and was intended by him as a confirmation of his doctrine of Jesus as the incarnate
word
l
o
g
o
V
, and of the dignity of the apostles? † This representation is so far true that the final prayer in question resembles not an immediate outpouring of soul, but a product of reflection — is rather a discourse
on
Jesus than a discourse
from
him. It presents everywhere the mode of thought of one who stands far in advance of the circumstances of which he writes, and hence already sees the form of Jesus in the glorifying haze of distance; an illusion which he heightens by putting his own thoughts, which had sprung from an advanced development of the Christian community, into the mouth of its Founder prior to its actual existence. But in the preceding farewell discourses also there are many thoughts which appear to have taken their shape from an experience of the event. Their entire tone may he the most naturally explained by the supposition, that they are the work of one to whom the death of Jesus was already a past event, the terrors of which had melted away in its blessed consequences, and in the devotional contemplation of the church. In particular, apart from what is said of the return of Christ, that era in the Christian cause which is generally called the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is predicted in the declarations concerning the Paraclete, and the judgment which he would hold over the world (xiv. i6 ff
.
25, xv. 26
,
xvi. 7 ff. 13 ff
.),
with a distinctness which seems to indicate light borrowed from the issue.

In relation, however, to the fact that the farewell discourses involve the decided foreknowledge of the immediately approaching result, the sufferings and death of Jesus (xiii. 18 ff
.,
33, 38, xiv. 30 f. xvi. 5 ff.
16, 32 f.), the narrative of John stands on the same ground with the synoptical one, since this also rests on the presupposition of the most exact prescience of the hour and moment when the sufferings will commence. It was not only at the last meal and on the departure to the Mount of Olives, that this foreknowledge was shown, according to the three first gospels, for in them as well as in John, Jesus predicts that the denial of Peter will take place before the cock crow; not only does the agony in the garden rest on the foreknowledge of the impending sufferings, but at the end of this conflict Jesus is able to say that now, at this very minute, the betrayer is in the act of approaching (Matt. xxvi. 45 f.). Paulus, it is true, maintains that Jesus saw from a distance the troop of guards coming out of the city, which, as they had torches, was certainly possible from a garden on the Mount of Olives: but without being previously informed of the plans of his enemies, Jesus could not know that he was the object of pursuit; and at any rate the Evangelists narrate the words of Jesus as a proof of his supernatural knowledge. But if according to our previous inquiry, the foreknowledge of the catastrophe in general could not proceed from the higher principle in Jesus, neither could that of the precise moment when it would commence; while that he in a natural way, by means of secret friends in the Sanhedrim, or otherwise, was apprised of the fatal blow which the Jewish rulers with the help of one of his disciples were about to aim at him in the coming night, we have no trace in our Evangelical accounts, and we are therefore not authorized to presuppose anything of the kind. On the contrary, as the above declaration of Jesus is given by the narrators as a proof of his higher knowledge, either we must receive it as such, or, if we cannot do this, we must embrace the negative inference, that they are here incorrect in narrating such a proof; and the positive conclusion on which this borders is, not that that knowledge was in fact only a natural one, but, that the evangelical narrators must have had an interest in maintaining a supernatural knowledge of his approaching sufferings on the part of Jesus; an interest the nature of which has been already unfolded.

The motive also for heightening the prescience into a real presentiment, and thus for creating the scene in Gethsemane, is easy of discovery. On the one hand, there cannot be a more obvious proof that a foreknowledge of an event or condition has existed, than its having risen to the vividness of a presentiment; on the other hand, the suffering must appear the more awful, if the mere presentiment extorted from him who was destined to that suffering, anguish even to bloody sweat, and prayer for deliverance. Further, the sufferings of Jesus were exhibited in a higher sense, as voluntary, if before they came upon him externally, he had resigned himself to them internally; and lastly, it must have gratified primitive Christian devotion, to withdraw the real crisis of these sufferings from the profane eyes to which he was exposed on the cross, and to enshrine it as a mystery only witnessed by a narrow circle of the initiated. As materials for the formation of this scene, besides the description of the sorrow and the prayer which were essential to it, there presented itself first the image of a
cup
p
o
t
h
r
i
o
n
, used by Jesus himself as a designation of his sufferings (Matt. XX. 22 f.); and secondly, Old Testament passages, in Psalms of lamentation, xlii. 6, 12, xliii. 5, where in the LXX. the
y
u
c
h
p
e
r
i
l
u
p
o
V
(
soul exceeding sorrowful)
occurs, and in addition to this the expression
e
w
V
q
a
n
a
t
o
u
(unto death)
the more naturally suggested itself since

^*
2, s. 588 f.

^†
Ut sup.Jesus was here really about to encounter death. This representation must have been of early origin, because in the Epistle to the Hebrews (v. 7) there is an indubitable allusion to this scene. — Thus Gabler said too little when he pronounced the angelic appearance, a mythical garb of the fact that Jesus in the deepest sorrow of that night suddenly felt an accession of mental strength; since rather, the entire scene in Gethsemane, because it rests on presuppositions destitute of proof, must be renounced.

Herewith the dilemma above stated falls to the ground, since we must pronounce unhistorical not only one of the two, but both representations of the last hours of Jesus before his arrest. The only degree of distinction between the historical value of the synoptical account and that of John is, that the former is a mythical product of the first era of traditional formation, the latter of the second, — or more correctly, the one is a product of the second order, the other of the third. The representation common to the synoptists and to John, that Jesus foreknew his sufferings even to the day and hour of their arrival, is the first modification which the pious legend gave to the real history of Jesus; the statement of the synoptists
,
that he even had an antecedent experience of his sufferings, is the second step of the mythical; while, that although he foreknew them, and also in one instance had a foretaste of them (John xii. 27 ff.)
,
he had yet long beforehand completely triumphed over them, and when they stood immediately before him, looked them in the face with unperturbed serenity — this representation of the fourth gospel is the third and highest grade of devotional, but unhistorical embellishment.

§ 127.
ARREST OF JESUS.

In strict accordance with the declaration of Jesus that even now the betrayer is at hand, Judas while he is yet speaking approaches with an armed force (Matt. xxvi. 47 parall., comp. John xvii. 3). This band, which according to the synoptists came from the chief priests and elders, was according to Luke led by the
captains of the temple
s
t
r
a
t
h
g
o
i
V
t
o
u
i
e
r
o
u
,
and hence was probably a detachment of the soldiers of the temple, to whom, judging from the word
o
c
l
o
V
, and from
staves
x
u
l
o
i
being mentioned among the weapons, was apparently joined a tumultuous crowd: according to the representation of John, who, together with the
servants
or
officers of the chief priests and Pharisees,
u
p
h
r
e
t
a
i
V
t
w
n
a
r
c
i
e
r
e
w
n
k
a
i
F
a
r
i
s
a
i
w
n
speaks of a
band
s
p
e
i
r
a
,
and a
captain
c
i
l
i
a
r
k
o
V
without mentioning any tumultuary force, it appears as if the Jewish magistrates had procured as a support a detachment of Roman soldiery.*