Chapter Twelve
Objection based on the discrepancy of the Gospels about the Crucifixion.
The Philosopher.
But he with bitterness, and with very grim look, bent forward and declared to us yet more savagely that the Evangelists were inventors and not historians of the events concerning Jesus. For each of them wrote an account of the Passion which was not harmonious but as contradictory as could be. For one records that, when he was crucified, a certain man filled a sponge with vinegar and brought it to him (Mark xv. 36). But another says in a different way, "When they had come to the place Golgotha, they gave him to drink wine mingled with gall, and when he had tasted it, he would not drink" (Matt. xxvii. 33). And a little further, "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eloim, Eloim, lama sabachthani? That is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This is Matthew (v. 46). And another says, "Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar. Having therefore bound a vessel1 full of the vinegar with a reed, they offered it to his mouth. When therefore he had taken the vinegar, Jesus said, It is finished, and having bowed his head, he gave up the ghost" (John xix. 29). But another says, "And he cried out with a loud voice and said, Father, into thy hands I will commend2 my spirit." This happens to be Luke (Luke xxiii. 46). From this out-of-date and contradictory record, one can receive it as the statement of the suffering, not of one man, but of many. For if one says "Into thy hands I will commend my spirit," and another " It is finished," and another "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and another " My God, my God, why didst thou reproach me?"3 it is plain that this is a discordant invention, and either points to many who were crucified, or one who died hard4 and did not give a clear view of his passion to those who were present. But if these men were not able to tell the manner of his death in a truthful way, and simply repeated it by rote, neither did they leave any clear record concerning the rest of the narrative.
Chapter Seventeen
Answer to the objection based on the discrepancy of the Evangelists.
The Christian.
Thus far and in such words did he declaim, setting forth with boasting the Hellenic view. But we were not overcome by the din of his words, nor did we fear for our life. Though we shrank from speaking the essential word as the result of acquaintance with it, we spoke as the divine grace gave us help. Speaking as follows, we gave a clear interpretation of the Evangelists as preserving one tenor of a single record, though with interchange of phraseology.
No one seeks the truth that is in the nature of the facts from syllables or letters, but starting from the fact he estimates the divergences of language. For instance, if some one simply speaks of the rational as " man," and another as "mortal," another as "endowed with speech," and yet another as "human being," he will mention many things in word, but there will be one thing that underlies them all. And whether any one says " mortal," or "human being," or "endowed with speech," he means nothing else but "man." Similarly in the case of the outer garment. Whether a man speaks of a "mantle" or a "cloak" or a "robe" or "woven garment," he does not mean many things, but some one thing with an interchange of names. Thus the Evangelists, writing in their eagerness of what was once done at the Crucifixion, spoke one in one way and one in another, but they did not mar the record. So then, if one said "vinegar" and another said "wine," they made no mistake. And in the case of the sponge and the hyssop do not think it strange when you hear it said, "Having bound a vessel of vinegar to a hyssop they gave him to drink"; and again, "Having filled a sponge with vinegar they brought it to him." For the reed and the sponge and the hyssop seem to point in one direction in their origin, for each of them comes as a wild plant, and afterwards is cut down. Therefore when he had to say "reed," he said "hyssop" on account of the similar course of their growth and cutting. And most particularly do they observe the rule of the record, and do not write a single thing beyond what was spoken then amid the seething confusion of that deed of madness.
For His accusers were Jews, and His judges were Romans, both of them a barbarian race,5 which does not lay claim to the language of freedom, and has not grasped the subtlety of Hellenic education. Moreover, everything was at that moment being driven about in confusion; the earth was trembling from beneath as though smitten by a blow, and the rocks were being rent and struck by the crash. Then suddenly there fell a darkness that could be felt, and the sun hid the rays that belong to it. No one was then in his sober senses, but was blinded by the confusion of the elements, while the innermost recesses were shaken of sky and earth and under the earth. . . .6 Tell me, then, who was sound in mind amid such a state of things as this? Who was strong in soul ? Who had not been stricken in mind ? Whose understanding was not harassed ? Who did not throw out his words as if he were in liquor? Who was not like a cheap-jack in the obscurity of his utterances ? Who did not behold the things that were coming to pass as a deep and mighty vision of their dreams? No man, young or old, no woman, whether aged or virgin, no one of tender age, was possessed of steady reasoning, but all were senseless as though heaven's thunder were sounding in their ears, and all did different things, losing their wits and not preserving the sequence of things, nor reason, nor habit. Wherefore those who wrote recorded their frenzy and the strange happening that then befell in word and deed, without seemliness, but without a word of falsehood.
Again, it is not allowable for a historian to write anything beyond the things done or said, even though the language be barbarian. And you yourself have Herodotus who was not a foreigner, but a clever writer of history, but he put sayings of a foreign kind in his history, even barbarous names of mountains and rivers, which would never have been mentioned at all, had he not discovered them from somewhere and written them down, with more careful regard for truth than for purity of style. It is therefore not surprising if the Evangelists seem to record some things that are strange. For it was not their care that what they said should have force, but their zeal was to preserve the truth of what was stated. And even if some woman or some man said something that was not consistent or was a solecism, all their desire was only to set this down. For they perceived that in this way the record would be above suspicion before the world, if the writing of the history was unaffected, and not at all elaborate. Those who wrote these things were not descended from men who were educated or skilled in letters. And even if they had been educated, it was not fitting to rob the history of its unlettered expressions, and to adorn the action with cleverness of language, but rather to preserve the character of what was said in the way that it was spoken.
Footnotes:
1σκεῦος οὖν μεστὸν. In the Christian's answer the reading is similar but not identical.
2παραθήσομαι, as some MSS.
3ὠνείδισάς; This is the reading of Codex Bezae.
4δυσθανατοῦντα. The point of the saying is not quite plain. It would be more in keeping with the sentence to read δὶς θανατοῦντα, i. e, "one who died twice."
5The Hellenic point of view is remarkable, which classes the Romans with the Jews as βάρβαρον ἒθνος.
6Reading ὑπογέιων instead of ὑπεργέιων.