...partly of his own recollection, I see what or whom each is opposed to. XLII. Matthew therefore follows: nor is it to be wondered at, since both could be said; for they believed him a carpenter for the same reason as the carpenter's son. But Luke indicates the same event more fully and records more things there; and he inserts this not long after his baptism and temptation, without doubt anticipating what was done afterward, with many things interposed. Whence anyone may observe—what is most necessary to this so great question, which, with God's help, we have undertaken to unravel, concerning the agreement of the evangelists—that they, not being ignorant that they had passed over something, or not knowing how the order of events stood, held rather to a different order of their own recollection.
This can most evidently be understood from the fact that Luke, before he had narrated anything of what the Lord did at Capernaum, anticipated this passage which we are now considering, where his fellow-citizens both marveled at the power of his mighty works in him and despised the lowliness of his lineage. For he says that he said this to them: 'Surely you will say to me, Physician, heal thyself: whatever great things we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thine own country'—when, according to Luke's own narration, nothing is yet read of his having done anything at Capernaum. And because this is not long, and is most easy and most necessary, we insert the whole of it, showing whence and how he came to narrate this. After he had indicated that the Lord was baptized and tempted, he thus continues: 'from him until the time.'
'And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a report went out through the whole region concerning him.' What then more evident than that he knowingly anticipated this in his narrative, since he himself both knew and himself records that great things had already been done by him at Capernaum—things which he assuredly knows he has not yet narrated? For he has not advanced so far from his baptism that he might be thought to have forgotten that he had not yet recorded anything of the things done at Capernaum; for he has only just begun, after the baptism, to narrate something concerning the Lord. Matthew follows: he had said that it was said by others that John had risen from the dead, yet at the end he does not keep silent that Herod himself said: 'John, whom I beheaded, has risen from the dead.'
These words too can be pronounced in two ways, so as to be understood either as of one affirming or of one doubting. But since Luke, after recording this, passes on to another matter, those two, Matthew and Mark, take occasion from this to narrate how John was killed by Herod. Matthew therefore follows and says: ...that Jesus went into Galilee when he made wine from water, and thence, after dwelling at Capernaum for a few days, returned to the land of Judea and there baptized many about the Jordan, before John was cast into prison.
But who that is less learned in these writings would not suppose that, as it were immediately after those words concerning the winnowing-fan and the cleansed threshing-floor, Herod was offended by John and cast him into prison? But that these things were not narrated in the order in which they were done, we have already proved elsewhere, and in this very place not any other, but Luke himself proves it. For if, immediately after those words, John was cast into prison, how, according to Luke's own narration, was Jesus baptized after the very record of John's being cast into prison? Accordingly it is manifest that, having recalled it on occasion, he anticipated it, and, before many things which he was going to narrate as done before this happened to John, he set this anticipated matter foremost in his narration.
But neither did those two, Matthew and Mark, set down in their narration, in that order of events, John's being cast into prison, in which order it appears to have been done even in their own writings. For they too said that, John having been delivered up, the Lord went into Galilee; and after many things which he did in Galilee, they come to Herod's remark or hesitation—that John, whom he beheaded, had risen from the dead—and from this occasion they narrate all the things that happened concerning John, both his imprisonment and his death. Matthew therefore follows, having said that it was announced to Christ that John was killed, and thus he weaves his narrative:
...the hesitation concerning the Lord as to who he might be, he immediately subjoins this which Mark also has—that is, that the apostles returned to him and told him whatever they had done, and that, taking them, he withdrew into a desert place, and that crowds followed him there, and that he spoke of the kingdom of God and healed those who had need of healing. And thence, as the day was declining, he too records the miracle done with the five loaves. But John, who is far distant from those three evangelists in this, that he dwells more upon the discourses which the Lord delivered than upon the deeds which he wondrously did, after he had recorded that, having left Judea, he went again into Galilee...
...which is understood to have happened at the time when the other evangelists too say that he went into Galilee after John was delivered up—after John therefore had recorded this, in the Lord's passage through Samaria he weaves into his narrative many things which he spoke on the occasion of that Samaritan woman whom he found at the well; and after two days he says that he went thence into Galilee, then that he came into Cana of Galilee, where he had made wine from water, and healed the son of a certain nobleman. But the other things which the others said he had done and said in Galilee, John passes over in silence;
but assuredly, what they passed over in silence, he says that he went up on a feast day to Jerusalem and there did that miracle upon the man who had had an infirmity for thirty-eight years and had no man by whom he might be let down into the pool, in which those afflicted with various maladies were healed; and from this occasion he records that he spoke many things. After these things he says that he went across the sea of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias, and that a great multitude followed him; then that he went up into a mountain and there sat with his disciples, the Passover, the feast day of the Jews, being near; then, having lifted up his eyes and seen a very great multitude, that he fed them with five loaves and two fishes, which the other evangelists also say.
And by this it is certain that he passed over those things through which the others, in their narration, came to the recording of this miracle; yet nevertheless, as if by another route of narration—since they too kept silent about what he had said—both those three who walked almost together, and this one who, pursuing the loftier matters of the Lord's discourses, flew around, as it were, through other things which they passed over, met at this miracle of the five loaves; and to them, for the recording of the miracle of the five loaves together, he met, being about not long after to fly back again from them into higher things. XLVI. Matthew therefore follows, and to that very event of the five loaves he carries forward his narration in order thus: ...what he receives.
...how the things they said may all be true, lest, in narrating one man's account, another should exclude something. For if the Lord, according to John's narration, having looked upon the crowds, asked of Philip, testing him, whence food might be given to them, it may raise a question how it is true, what the others narrated, that the disciples first said to the Lord that he should send away the crowds, so that they might buy food for themselves from the neighboring places, to whom he replied according to Matthew: 'They have no need to go; give them to eat yourselves.' With whom Mark and Luke also agree, only omitting this, that he said, 'They have no need to go.'
It is understood, therefore, that after these words the Lord looked upon the multitude and said to Philip what John records, while these others passed it over. Then what Philip answered in John, Mark records as answered by the disciples, wishing it to be understood that Philip answered this out of the mouth of the rest—although they could also, most customarily, put the plural number for the singular. What then did Philip say? 'Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not enough for them, that each one may receive a little'—this is to say what Mark says: 'Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give them to eat?' But what the same Mark records the Lord to have said, 'How many loaves have you?', the others passed over.
But what Andrew, in John, suggested concerning the five loaves and two fishes, this the others, putting the plural number for the singular, related as from the person of the disciples. And Luke indeed compressed the answer of Philip and the answer of Andrew into a single statement. For in that he says, 'We have no more than five loaves and two fishes,' he related Andrew's answer; but in that he added, 'unless perhaps we go and buy food for all this crowd,' he seems to pertain to Philip's answer, except that he kept silent about the two hundred denarii. Although this can be understood even in Andrew's own statement; for when he had said, 'There is one lad here who has five barley loaves and two fishes,' he himself also added:
'but what are these among so many?'—this is to say: 'unless perhaps we go and buy food for all this crowd.' From all this variety of words, but concord of things and meanings, it sufficiently appears that we are wholesomely taught to seek nothing in words but the will of the speakers, to the demonstrating of which all truthful narrators ought to be vigilant, when they narrate anything concerning a man, or an angel, or God; for their will can be brought out in words, provided that concerning it they do not differ among themselves in anything. Indeed it ought not to be passed over in this place, so as to make the reader attentive to other such things as may perchance occur, that Luke said the people were bidden to recline by fifties, but Mark both by fifties and by hundreds.
This here does not disturb us, because the one told part, the other the whole. For he who related also concerning the hundreds related what the other passed over; nothing therefore is contrary. Yet nevertheless, if one had recorded only concerning the fifties, and another only concerning the hundreds, it would seem very contrary; nor would it easily be discerned that both were said, but the one recorded by the one, the other by the other. And yet, who would not confess that, more attentively considered, it ought to have been found out? I have said this for this reason, because there often arise some such things which seem contrary to those who attend too little and judge rashly, and yet are not. XLVII. Matthew follows and says: 'he was walking upon the waters; and he wished to pass by them.'
For how could they have understood this, except that he was going in a different direction, wishing to pass them by as though strangers—by whom he was so not recognized that he was thought a phantom? Who is so dull that he would not wish to observe that this is to be referred to a mystical signification? But nevertheless, to them troubled and crying out, he came to their aid, saying: 'Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid.' How then did he wish to pass by those whom, in their terror, he thus reassures, unless because that will of passing by availed to elicit that cry, which it was fitting to relieve? John too still lingers somewhat with these; for after the miracle of the five loaves has been narrated, he too does not keep silent about this concerning the labouring boat and the Lord's walking upon the waters, weaving it thus:
As to Matthew saying that, having dismissed the crowds, he went up into a mountain to pray there alone, but John saying that he was on the mountain when he fed those same crowds with the five loaves—yet since John himself also says that after that miracle he fled into the mountain, lest he be held by the crowds who wished to make him king, it is assuredly manifest that they had come down from the mountain into the flatter places when those loaves were ministered to the crowds. And therefore it is not contrary that he went up again into the mountain, as both Matthew and John say, except that Matthew said 'he went up,' but John 'he fled'—which would be contrary if, in fleeing, he did not go up. Nor does that conflict which Matthew said, 'he went up into the mountain alone to pray,' but John:
'when he had perceived,' he says, 'that they would come to make him king, he fled again into the mountain, himself alone.' For the cause of fleeing is not contrary to the cause of praying, since indeed even hence the Lord, transfiguring into himself the body of our lowliness, that he might make it conformable to the body of his glory, may also teach this: that this is a great cause of praying for us, when there is a cause of fleeing. Nor is that adverse, that Matthew first said he bade the disciples go up into the boat and go before him across the strait, until he should dismiss the crowds, and then, having dismissed the crowds, that he went up into the mountain alone to pray, while John records that he first fled alone into the mountain, and then: 'but when it was evening,' he says,
'his disciples went down to the sea, and when they had gone up into the boat,' and so on. For who does not see that John, by way of recapitulation, said afterward to have been done by the disciples what Jesus had already commanded before he fled into the mountain—just as, in discourse, one is wont in a certain way to return to something passed over? But because that return itself, made especially in the brevity and point of a moment, is not recorded, those who hear generally suppose that this too was done afterward, which is stated afterward. So too those whom he had said went up into the boat and came across the sea to Capernaum—he says that the Lord came to them, labouring on the sea, walking upon the waters; which assuredly was done first, in that very voyage by which they were coming to Capernaum.
But Luke, after the miracle of the five loaves has been narrated, proceeds to another matter and digresses from this order. For he records nothing about that boat and about the Lord's way upon the waters. But when he had said... they related that, walking upon the waters, he came to the disciples who were sailing. Nor on that account ought it to be supposed that on that mountain, into which Matthew said he went up to pray alone, he said to the disciples: 'Whom do the crowds say that I am?'—for Luke seems in this to agree with Matthew, because he said, 'when he was alone praying,' since the other had said, 'he went up into the mountain alone to pray'—but altogether elsewhere, when he was praying alone and the disciples were with him, he asked this.
For Luke indeed said that he was alone, not without disciples, as Matthew and John say when they departed from him to go before him across the sea. For this one most plainly added: 'the disciples also were with him.' Accordingly he said 'alone' meaning without the crowds, which did not dwell with him. XLVIII. Matthew follows, saying: 'to eat does not defile a man.' These things Mark also records, without any question of contradiction; for whatever is said in a different manner by another does not depart from the same meaning.
But John, from that boat to which the Lord came walking upon the sea, after they had gone out onto the land, in his own manner intent upon the Lord's discourse, records that he, taking occasion from the bread, spoke many and especially divine things; and after that discourse his narration is again borne sublimely to one thing after another. Nor yet, in that he digresses from these, does his transition into other matters conflict in anything with the order of these.
For what forbids us to understand both that those were healed by the Lord of whom Matthew and Mark narrate, and that to those who followed him across the sea he spoke these things which John proclaims—since indeed Capernaum, to which, according to John, they are said to have crossed over, is next to the lake of Gennesaret, to which land, according to Matthew, they are said to have gone out? Matthew therefore follows, after that discourse of the Lord, in which he treated with the Pharisees concerning unwashed hands, and thus joins on his narration, keeping the order—as far as the transition itself indicates—even of the events that followed: '...of Sidon.'
...that is, that the disciples asked him on her behalf, and that he answered that he was not sent except to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel, and that she came—that is, followed after—and worshipped him, saying: 'Help me,' and then thereupon was said what both evangelists record. Matthew follows, narrating thus: This indeed will not be beside the point to remark, in this miracle of the seven loaves which the two evangelists Matthew and Mark have set down, that if any one of them had told it who had not told of those five loaves, he would be thought contrary to the rest.
For who would not have thought that one and the same event had occurred, but had not been narrated wholly and truthfully, whether by the one or by the others or by all, but that either the one had recorded seven loaves for five, being deceived, or the others five for seven, or that both had lied or been deceived by forgetfulness? This too, concerning the twelve baskets and the seven baskets, he would suppose to be, as it were, contrary; this too concerning the five thousand and the four thousand of those who were fed. But because those who narrated the miracle of the seven loaves did not keep silent about that of the five, it disturbs no one, and all understand that both events happened.
We have said this for this reason: that if anywhere a similar deed of the Lord's is found, which in some respect seems so to conflict with another evangelist that it cannot be resolved at all, nothing else may be understood than that both were done and one was recorded by one, the other by the other—just as we have shown concerning the hundred and the fifty who reclined; because, if we did not also find both of these together in one writer, we would suppose that they had said contrary things. LI. Matthew follows and says: 'a sign is sought, and no sign shall be given it but the sign of Jonah.' This the same Matthew has already said elsewhere too. Whence again and again it is to be held that the Lord often said the same things, so that what cannot be resolved when a contradiction exists may be understood as said twice.
Mark indeed, keeping this same order, after that miracle of the seven loaves subjoins this same thing which Matthew does, except that Matthew did not say 'Dalmanutha,' which is read in certain codices, but 'Magedan.' And it is not to be doubted that it is the same place under either name. For most codices, even according to Mark, have nothing but 'Magedan.' Nor let this disturb, that Mark does not say the answer to those seeking a sign from heaven was the same which Matthew gives concerning Jonah, but says that the Lord answered: 'A sign shall not be given it.' For it is to be understood, what sort they were asking—that is, one from heaven—but he omitted to say concerning Jonah, which Matthew recorded. Matthew follows: 'And leaving them he departed.'
...of Caesarea Philippi, and he asked his disciples, saying: 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?' But they said: 'Some John the Baptist, some however Elijah, others truly Jeremiah or one of the prophets,' and so on, up to that place where he says: '...you shall be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter.' Whence neither in that place, where Mark, naming the twelve disciples individually, said that James and John were called sons of thunder, is it to be thought that Peter received his name, because he there said that he had imposed on him the name that he should be called Peter; for he said this by way of recollection, not because it was then done. Matthew follows and says: that the Lord said also this:
As for the fact that Mark says this happened after six days, in agreement with Matthew, while Luke says after eight, those whom this troubles are not to be despised, but rather to be instructed by having the reason explained. For when we announce a day by saying 'after so many days,' sometimes we do not count in the day on which we are speaking, nor the day on which the very thing we foretell or promise is to come to pass, but only the intervening days, after which, when they are truly full and complete, that thing is to be. This is what Matthew and Mark did: leaving out the day on which Jesus was speaking these things, and that on which He displayed the aforementioned vision on the mountain, they looked to the intervening days and said 'after six days'; whereas Luke, counting in the two boundary days, that is, the first and the last, said 'after eight days,' according to that mode of speech by which the part is mentioned for the whole.
Likewise as to what Luke says concerning Moses and Elijah. LVII. There follows in Matthew: 'He is to be delivered into the hands of men.' The discourse, up to the point at which we undertook to consider it, is interrupted by Peter alone, who asks how often he ought to forgive his brother. For the Lord was speaking such things that it is sufficiently clear that this too, which Peter asked and to which he received an answer, belongs to the same discourse. Luke, however, records nothing according to this order kept here, except that matter about the little child whom He set before the disciples to be imitated, when they were thinking about their own greatness.
For if He said any other similar things which are also placed in this discourse, He recalled them elsewhere and on other occasions—just as John records, as spoken by the Lord after the resurrection, the saying about the remission of sins, that they shall be retained if to any they be retained, and remitted if to any they be remitted, whereas Matthew relates that the Lord said this in this discourse, which same John himself testifies had been said earlier to Peter. Jesus therefore often said the same things and in many places. Let us never be disturbed if the order of the sayings shall be thought by certain persons to be contradictory; as we have already so often urged, we ought to remember this, lest it be necessary always to give this warning. LXII. There follows Matthew, narrating thus, keeping the same order.
Indeed it must be carefully considered lest there seem to be a contradiction in that the same Mark says that the Pharisees were asked by the Lord what Moses had commanded them, and that they thus answered the questioner concerning the bill of divorce that had been permitted them; whereas Matthew has said that they, tempting Him, had approached, and reported their response to the words of the Lord by which He had shown that from the law God had joined together male and female, and that therefore they ought not to be separated by man. This intention of theirs is so expressed by Matthew that he does not record their having been questioned, but rather their having of their own accord brought forward the command of Moses, by which they might, as it were, refute the Lord who forbade the separation of spouses. Since therefore the intention of the speakers, to which the words ought to be subservient,
has been shown by both Evangelists, it matters not how different the manner of narrating was between the two, so long as neither departed from the same truth. It can also be understood in this way: that, as Mark says, when they first questioned Him about putting away a wife, the Lord in turn questioned them as to what Moses had commanded them; and when they had answered that Moses permitted them to write a bill of divorce and to put her away, He answered them concerning that very law given through Moses, how God had instituted the marriage of male and female, saying the things which Matthew sets down—that is, so that the answer might be given back to them in those very words which they had spoken twice, since the Lord had given it back to them in those very words. There follows Matthew: the one asking, 'What good thing shall I do?'
For there both the word 'good' is named and there is a question; but 'Good Master' is not yet a question. Most fittingly, therefore, both are understood to have been said: 'Why do you call me good and ask me about the good?' LXIIII. There follows Matthew and says: he recorded in order the things which He had foretold to the twelve disciples concerning His passion and resurrection; he passes over the things which these others record, after which, being interposed, there met Him at Jericho. But as to what Matthew and Mark said about the princes of the Gentiles who lord it over their subjects—that it would not be so among them, but that he who would be greater would even be the servant of the others—Luke too says something of the sort, but not in the same place; and the order itself indicates that the same sentiment was again spoken by the Lord.
There follows Matthew: he also expressed by name the ruler of the synagogue whose daughter Jesus raised. In this too that sense the more appears, because that ruler of the synagogue was certainly noble in that place. Without doubt, then, this Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, cast down from some great prosperity, was of a most well-known and notorious misery, in that he sat not only blind but even a beggar. This, then, is why Mark wished to record him alone, whose enlightenment procured for this miracle a fame as bright as his calamity was well known. But Luke, although it was done altogether in the same manner, is nonetheless to be understood as recording a like miracle in the case of another blind man, and a like manner of the same miracle. For he indeed says this was done
as He drew near to Jericho, but these others say it was as He went out from Jericho. Yet the name of the city and the similarity of the deed might persuade one to think it was done only once, but that the Evangelists contradict one another in this—that one says it was as He drew near to Jericho, the others as He went out from Jericho. This surely persuades none but those who are more ready to believe that the Gospel lies than that Jesus performed two similar miracles in a similar way. But what is more credible, or rather what is true, both every faithful son of the Gospel most easily sees, and every contentious person, at least when he has been admonished, either by keeping silent, or, even if he refuses to keep silent, by thinking, answers himself. LXVI. There follows Matthew and says:
'And when He drew near to Jerusalem and they had come to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them: Go into the village which is over against you, and immediately you shall find an ass tied and a colt with her'—and so on, up to that place where he says: John too, although he is silent as to how the Lord sent his disciples to bring these animals to Him, nevertheless briefly inserts this about the colt, with the testimony also of the prophet which Matthew adduces. In which prophetic testimony too the somewhat different wording of the Evangelists does not indeed depart from the same meaning; but it may raise a difficulty that Matthew adduces it in such a way as to say the prophet mentioned the ass.
But it is not so, either in what John inserts or in the copies of the customary ecclesiastical translation. The cause of this thing seems to me to be that Matthew is reported to have composed his Gospel in the Hebrew tongue. Now it is evident that that translation which is called the Septuagint differs in some places from what those who know that language, and who have each individually translated those same Hebrew books, find in the Hebrew.