Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (846 page)

So to adjust these very differently narrated denials in such a manner that no Evangelist may be taxed with having given an incorrect or even a merely inexact account, was no light labour for the harmonists. Not only did the older, supranaturalistic expositors, such as Bengel, undertake this task, but even recently, Paulus has given himself much trouble to bring the various acts of denial recounted by the Evangelists into appropriate order, and thus to show that they have a natural sequence. According to him, Peter denies the Lord, 1. Before the portress (1st denial in John);

2. Before several standing at the fire (2nd in John);

3. Before a damsel at the fire (1st in the synoptists);

4. Before one who has no particular designation (2nd in Luke);

5. On going out into the porch, before a damsel (2nd in Matthew and Mark. Out of this denial Paulus should in consistency have made two, since the damsel, who points out Peter to the bystanders, is according to Mark the same as the one in No. 3, but according to Matthew another);

6
.
Before the relative of Malchus (3rd in John);

7. Before one who professes to detect him by his Galilean dialect (3rd in Luke), and who forthwith 8. is seconded by several others, to whom Peter yet more strongly affirms that he knows not Jesus (3rd in Matthew and Mark).

Meanwhile by such a discrimination of the accounts out of respect to the veracity of the Evangelists, there was incurred the danger of impeaching the yet more important veracity of Jesus; for he had spoken of a threefold denial: whereas, on the plan of discrimination, according to the more or less consequent manner in which it is carried out, Peter would have denied Jesus from 6 to 9 times. The old exegesis found help in the canon:
abnegatio ad plures plurium interrogationes facta uno paroxysmo, pro una numeratur.
† But even granting such a mode of reckoning admissible, still, as each of the four narrators for the most part notices a greater or less interval between the separate denials which he recounts; in each instance, denials related by different Evangelists, e.g. one narrated by Matthew, one by Mark, and so forth, must have occurred in immediate succession: a supposition altogether abitrary. Hence of late it has been a more favourite expedient to urge that the
thrice
t
r
i
V
in the mouth of Jesus was only a round number intended to express a repeated denial, as also that Peter, once entangled in the confusion to a supposed necessity for falsehood, would be more likely to repeat his asseverations to 6 or 7 than merely to three inquirers.6
^‡
But even if, according to Luke (v
.
59 f.), the interval from the first denial to the last be estimated as more than an hour, still such a questioning from all kinds of people on all sides, as well as the ultimate impunity of Peter amid so general a suspicion, is extremely improbable; and when expositors describe the state of mind of Peter during this scene as a complete stupefaction,
^§
they rather present the condition which befals the reader who has to arrange his ideas in such a crowd of continually repeated questions and answers having an identical meaning — like the incessant and lawless beating of a watch out of order. Olshausen has justly discarded the attempt to

^*
Comp. Weisse, die evang. Geschichte, 1, s. 609.

^†
Bengel, in the Gnomon.

^‡
Paulus, ut sup. s. 578.

^§
Hess, Geschichte Jesu, 2, s. 343.remove such differences as a fruitless labour: nevertheless he, on the one hand, immediately proceeds to a forced reconciliation of the divergencies at some points of the narrative; and on the other, he maintains that there were precisely three denials, whereas Paulus again has evinced a more correct discernment in pointing out the premeditated effort of the Evangelists to show that the denial was threefold. What on that evening happened repeatedly (not, however, eight or nine times), was represented as having happened precisely three times, in order to furnish the closest fulfilment to the prediction of Jesus, which was understood in its strictest literality.

The termination, and as it were the catastrophe, of the whole history of the denial is, in all the narratives, according to the prediction of Jesus, introduced by the crowing of the cock. In Mark, it crows after the first denial (v. 68), and then a second time after the third; in the other Evangelists only once, after the last act of denial. While John concludes his account with this particular, Matthew and Mark proceed to tell us that on hearing the cock crow, Peter remembered the words of Jesus and wept; but Luke has an additional feature peculiar to himself, namely, that on the crowing of the cock Jesus turned and looked at Peter, whereupon the latter, remembering the prediction of Jesus, broke out into bitter weeping. Now according to the two first Evangelists, Peter was not in the same locality with Jesus: for he is said to have been
without
e
x
w
(Matt. v. 69) or
beneath
k
a
t
w
(Mark v. 66)
in the court
e
n
t
h
a
u
l
h
, and it is thus implied that Jesus was in an inner or upper apartment of the palace: it must be asked, therefore, how could Jesus hear the denial of Peter, and thereupon turn to look at him? In relation to the latter part of the difficulty, the usual answer is that Jesus was at that moment being led from the palace of Annas to that of Caiaphas, and looked significantly at the weak disciple in passing* But of such a removal of Jesus Luke knows nothing; and his expression,
the Lord turned and looked on Peter,
k
a
i
s
t
r
a
f
e
i
V
o
K
u
r
i
o
V
e
n
e
b
l
e
y
e
t
w
P
e
t
r
w
, would not so well imply that Jesus looked at Peter in passing, as that he turned round to do so when standing; besides, the above supposition will not explain how Jesus became aware that his disciple had denied him, since in the tumult of this evening he could not well, as Paulus thinks, have heard when in a room of the palace the loud tones of Peter in the court. It is true that the express distinction of the places in which Jesus and Peter were is not found in Luke, and according to him Jesus also might have had to remain some time in the court: but first, the representation of the other Evangelists is here more probable: secondly, Luke’s own narrative of the denial does not previously create the impression that Jesus was in the immediate vicinity. But hypotheses for the explanation of that look of Jesus might have been spared, had a critical glance been directed to the origin of the incident. The unaccountable manner in which Jesus, who in the whole previous occurrence is kept behind the scene, here all on a sudden casts a glance upon it, ought itself together with the silence of the other Evangelists, to have been taken as an indication of the real character of this feature in Luke’s

8 Paulus and Olshausen, in loc.; Schleiermacher, ut sup. 289 ; Neander, s. 622
,
Anm.

narrative. When also it is added, that as Jesus looked on Peter the latter remembered the words which Jesus had earlier spoken to him concerning his coming denial; it might have been observed that the glance of Jesus is nothing else than the sensible image of Peter’s remorseful recollection. The narrative of John, which is in this case the simplest, exhibits the fulfilment of the prediction of Jesus objectively, by the crowing of the cock; the two first Evangelists add to this the subjective impression, which this coincidence made on Peter; while Luke renders this again objective, and makes sorrowful remembrance of the words of the master, with the force of a penetrating glance, pierce the inmost soul of the disciple.†

§
130. THE DEATH OF THE BETRAYER.

On hearing that Jesus was condemned to death, Judas, according to the first gospel (xxvii. 3 ff.),
was smitten with remorse, and hastened to the chief priests and elders to return to them the thirty pieces of silver, with the declaration that he had betrayed an innocent person. When however the latter scornfully retorted that on him alone rested all responsibility for that deed, Judas, after casting down the money in the temple, impelled by despair, went away and hanged himself. Hereupon the Sanhedrists, holding it unlawful to put the money returned by Judas into the treasury, since it was the price of blood, bought with it a potter’s field as a burying place for strangers. To this particular the Evangelist appends two remarks: first, that from this mode of purchase, the piece of ground was called the
field of blood
up to his time : and secondly, that by this course of things an ancient prophecy was fulfilled. — The rest of the Evangelists are silent concerning the end of Judas ; but on the other hand we find in the Acts of the, Apostles (1. 16 ff.) some information on this subject which in several points diverges from that of Matthew. Peter, when about to propose the completion of the apostolic number by the choice of a new colleague, thinks proper, by way of preliminary to remind his hearers of the manner in which the vacancy in the apostolic circle had arisen, i.e. of the treachery and the end of Judas; and in relation to the latter he says, that the betrayer purchased himself a field with the reward of his crime, but fell headlong, and burst asunder in the midst, so that all his bowels gushed out, which being known in all Jerusalem, the piece of ground was called
a
k
e
l
d
a
m
a
i.e.
the field of blood.
In addition to this, the narrator makes Peter observe that these occurrences were a fulfilment of two passages in the Psalms.

Between these two accounts there exists a double divergency: the one pertaining to the manner of the death of Judas, the other to the statement when and by whom the piece of ground was bought. As regards the former, Matthew declares that Judas laid violent hands on himself out of remorse and despair: whereas in the Acts nothing is saidof remorse on the part of the traitor, and his death has not the appearance of suicide, but of an accident, or more accurately, of a calamity decreed by heaven as a punishment; further, in Matthew he inflicts death on himself by the cord : according to the representation of Peter, it is a fall which puts an end to his life by causing a horrible rupture of the body.

How active the harmonists of all times have been in reconciling these divergencies, may be seen in Suïcer
^‡
and Kuinöl: here we need only briefly adduce the principal expedients for this purpose. As the divergency lay chiefly in the words
a
p
h
g
x
a
t
o
,
he hanged himself
in Matthew, and
p
r
h
n
h
V
g
e
n
o
m
e
n
o
V
,
falling headlong,
in Luke, the most obvious resource was to see whether one of these expressions could not be drawn to the side of the other. This has been tried with
a
p
h
g
x
a
t
o
in various ways; this word being interpreted at one time as signifying only the torments of a guilty conscience,§ at another, a disease consequent on these,
^||
at another, any death chosen out of melancholy and despair ;
^¶
and to this it has been thought that the statement
p
r
h
n
h
V
g
e
n
o
m
e
n
o
V
k
.
t
.
l
.
in the Acts added the more precise information, that the kind of death to which Judas was driven by an evil conscience and despair was precipitation from a steep eminence. Others on the contrary have sought to accommodate the meaning of
p
r
h
n
h
V
g
e
n
o
m
e
n
o
V
to
a
p
h
g
x
a
t
o
, understanding it merely to express as a circumstance what
a
p
h
g
x
a
t
o
expresses as an act: and accordingly maintaining that if the latter should be rendered
se suspendit,
the former should be translated by
suspensus.
^*
From repugnance to the obvious violence of this attempt, others, sparing the natural meaning of the expressions on both sides, have reconciled the divergent accounts by the supposition that Matthew narrates an earlier, the author of the Acts a later, stage of the events which marked the end of Judas. Some of the ancient commentators indeed separated these two stages so widely as to see in Matthew’s statement (
a
p
h
g
x
a
t
o
)
only an unsuccessful attempt at self-destruction, which from the bough whereon he suspended himself having broken, or from some other cause, Judas outlived, until the judgment of heaven overtook him in the
p
r
h
n
h
V
g
e
n
o
m
e
n
o
V
, falling headlong.
^†
But since Matthew evidently intends in his expression
a
p
h
g
x
a
t
o
to

^*
Comp. de Wette, in loc.