I

had appointed them." By this statement it is made to appear that not only Galilee, but a definite spot in Galilee, had been decided upon in advance of the death of Jesus. Not to the disciples as a whole, but only to "the eleven disciples," did Jesus reveal himself on this occasion, it is reported. Every detail of the narrative from first to last seems purposely fitted to prepare the mind for what is recorded in Matt. 28:18-20, the announcement of the Great Commission.

Of an equally positive nature, but fundamentally different in content, is the gospel LK conception of the purpose of the resurrection and post-resurrection activity of Jesus. That gospel represents it as the one aim, at the empty tomb and afterward, to prove beyond any doubt that the ignominious sufferings and violent death were nothing other than the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures. The beginning is made by the two men at the tomb, who assure the disciples that all that has happened has been in accordance with the prophecy of Jesus himself: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise

There seems to be some significance in the fact that gospel Matt. 28:7 has "lo, I have told you (¿doù elπov vμîv)” while document MK 16:7 has as he said unto you (καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν).” One does not easily find a reason why Matthew should depart from his document MK, if it read as does our document MK, especially if, in addition, his document MK contained the present MK 14:28, and he had taken it over as Matt. 26:32. For there he had, in that case, recorded the definite promise as from Jesus. If now one will add to the fact that gospel MT represents the appointment to Galilee as made by the angel the evidence to be had by a study of the paragraph Matt. 26:31-35=MK 14:27-31=Luke 22:31-34 as set forth in parallelism on p. 332, it will appear that the promise in portion B on p. 332 is with difficulty credible as from Jesus. There is the inference to be drawn from its entire absence from gospel LK, an inference equally strong whether it be held that Luke is here using document MK or some other, minor document. The saying is by nature wholly foreign to the context in which it is here set; portions A, D read consecutively, while B interrupts the thought. The obvious conjecture is that some scribe wrongly copied document MK 16:7 end; that, since the promise was thus attributed to Jesus, it was necessary later to insert such a promise at a suitable point in the history, the place chosen being that at which Jesus had referred to the dispersion of the Twelve; that gospel MT 26:32 is a later assimilation to the Gospel of Mark. If this is a correct interpretation of the evidence, Jesus was not originally reported to have made an appointment to meet his disciples in Galilee; much less do the documents support the belief that he had chosen some specific mountain as a place of meeting, as is credited to him in Matt. 28:16.

again." This representation is carried forward in the following narrative, LK 24:13-35, where the central place is apparently prepared for, and certainly given to, the announcement of Jesus about the fulfilment of prophecy in his career: "And he said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." It is this apologetic vindication of his career from Scripture that is regarded as giving supreme satisfaction to the disciples, rather than the stupendous fact of his resurrection: "And they said one to another, Was not our heart burning within us, while he spake to us in the way, while he opened to us the scriptures ?"

Similarly, it is reported in the final narrative of gospel LK that the last hours of Jesus with his disciples were spent in the endeavor to convince them that his sufferings and death did not give denial to his right to be estimated as the Messiah, but rather were in fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies of the messianic career:

And he said unto them, These are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, how that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their mind, that they might understand the scriptures; and he said unto them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

A study of the recorded words of Jesus previous to his death does not support the assumption of the opening words of this report, for the results of comparative study show substantially no appeal by Jesus to Old Testament prophecy in reference to his actual or prospective ministry, either by life or by death. So intent is the narrative upon the Scripture apologetic that even the mission itself is treated as a part of the prophetic outlook of Moses and the prophets and the psalms "Thus it is written. . . . that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations."

Thus it appears that both gospel MT and gospel LK fashion the narrative of the post-resurrection life and words of Jesus so as to give

1 To present here a complete study of the reputed references by Jesus to Scripture previous to his death in vindication of the unwelcome facts of his ministry would involve too considerable a digression. One interested may compare, for instance, gospel LK 18:31-33 with document MK 10:32-34, or gospel LK 22:52, 53 with document MK 14:48, 49, or gospel LK 22:22 with document MK 14:21, or gospel MT 17:10-12 with document MK 9:11-13.

support of the most impressive kind to certain fundamental needs of the apostolic age, namely, in gospel LK the proof by appeal to Scripture that suffering and death are not to be reckoned as evidences of the non-messianic character of Jesus, and in gospel MT the proof that the assignment of a world-wide mission to the disciples was the single purpose of Jesus after his resurrection. Of the two, it will probably be felt that what is supplied in the Lukan narrative was needed earlier than the contribution made by the Matthaean; and this may be taken as another minor indication that this portion of the Gospel of Matthew is subsequent to the time of the original framer of that gospel.

It will be observed also that the Lukan form of the commission is much less elaborated than the Matthaean, its comparative simplicity testifying probably to its earlier origin. Yet even within it there emerges some phraseology, "repentance unto remission of sins" and "in his name," which is not customary with Jesus, if we may trust the witness of the documents. The former does appear, indeed, in gospel MT 26:28, "unto remission of sins," but is unsupported by document MK 14:24. Of the phrasing in the Great Commission of gospel MT, one ought to observe the following among other particulars that classify it with, or distinguish it from, other sayings in the Synoptic Gospels:

1. "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth." The sense in which the word "heaven" is used here seems to correspond with that in the delegation of all authority to Peter in the first instance, and later to the Twelve, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," gospel MT 16:19; 18:18. But this meaning for the word "heaven" stands outside of the usage of Jesus as elsewhere recorded in original sayings.'

2. "Baptizing them into the name of the Father." There is no evidence anywhere in the Synoptic Gospels that either Jesus or his disciples practiced the rite of baptism during the ministry of Jesus. Therefore, on the basis of the synoptic testimony as to the ministry and I See p. 162 on the phrase, “in his name.”

2 See chap. vi, §11.

teaching of Jesus, when Matthew represents Jesus as saying "baptizing into the name of" he makes Jesus introduce abruptly an institution hitherto unpracticed as an initiatory rite within the circle of Jesus. And yet it is commanded in a way which assumes that the injunction will have in it nothing of strangeness and newness to those who are to be henceforth its administrators. In any judgment as to the origin of baptism as a Christian rite, account must be taken of the rise, from a scanty basis in the words of Jesus, of the companion rite of the Lord's Supper. May the rite of baptism be regarded as having grown up independent of any injunction from Jesus, the reputed injunction being the product of a historical development rather than the producer of that development? Apparently an endeavor was made elsewhere in the same gospel to bring to the support of the rite the authority of Jesus.2

Not frequently does

3. "Into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." Jesus speaks often of God as Father. Now and then he refers to himself as Son of man or Son of God. he make mention of the Holy Spirit. But there seems to be absent from all of these terms, as elsewhere used, that implication of content which is at once established upon their conjunction as here effected.

4. "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you." In these words there is the solid and authoritative basis for a new legalism. Is this what Jesus came to establish, judging his purpose from that which he taught previous to his death? Or are these words to be taken as indicating the tendency of his religion of life and liberty to harden, under the hands of his disciples, into a rigidity of demand different only in content, not in ultimate nature, from the legalism which the free spirit of Jesus during his ministry had overridden and set at naught, and in the place of which he seemed then to have had no intention of setting up a new code?

5. "And lo, I am with you alway." In these words there resides essentially the same promise as is elsewhere expressed in the terms, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I

I See 84 of the present chapter.

2 Compare gospel MT 3:13-17 with document MK 1:9-11, and on gospel MT 3:14, 15 see p. 364.

in the midst of them" (gospel MT 18:20).

These two sayings are

I

the only intimations in the Synoptic Gospels that Jesus made promise of his personal presence with his disciples after he had left the earth. It has been concluded, as seemed to be demanded by the evidence, that out of the actual experiences of the apostolic age, rather than from Jesus himself, there came the latter saying. May the former be regarded as the product of the same high and holy experiences? That this mode of expression resulted from the tendency to attribute to the risen Jesus those vital inspirations which in times past had been interpreted as the activity of the Spirit of Jehovah seems attested, further, in the Lukan rewriting of document MK 13:11 as gospel LK 21:14, 15.

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6. "Even unto the consummation of the aeon." The phrase "the consummation of the aeon" is peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew. Within that gospel it occurs five times (Matt. 13:39, 40, 49; 24:3; 28:20). The four instances previous to the present one are found in passages which, wholly apart from the presence of this phrase, seem to compel the conclusion that they are not from Jesus. Shall it be considered that here as elsewhere this Matthaean form of expression is derived not from Jesus, but from a certain circle of the early Christians, and that it covers the conclusion of a thought-"I am with you alway❞—which was less truly a promise of Jesus than an abounding and confident hope of the early community, based on their vital experiences with their risen Lord?

In view of all the evidence, external and internal, bearing upon these reports of gospel LK and gospel MT as to the post-resurrection commissioning of his eleven disciples by Jesus for a world-wide propaganda under specific conditions and with fixed formula and rite, it seems reasonable to urge the question whether one can hold with conviction that such a commission was given by Jesus. Or does it seem more likely that Jesus did not become more definite after his resurrection than he had been before his death, that is, that he was satisfied to leave the extent of the mission as he had left it by the parables of the kingdom, suggested but not defined with precision? Did Jesus think it wiser simply to cast forth the seed thoughts in the parables of the kingdom, and leave it to the unfolding of history to I See §3 of the present chapter. 2 See chap. v, §6.