{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/106/1060109.htm","path":"chr/ecf/106/1060109.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/106/1060109.htm","text":"Chapter XII.\u2014Concerning the Words Ascribed to John by All the Four Evangelists Respectively.\n25. Moreover, Matthew makes up his account of John in the following manner:\u2014Now in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Jud\u00e6a, and saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is He that is spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. 784 Mark also and Luke agree in presenting this testimony of Isaiah as one referring to John. 785 Luke, indeed, has likewise recorded some other words from the same prophet, which follow those already cited, when he gives his narrative of John the Baptist. The evangelist John, again, mentions that John the Baptist did also personally advance this same testimony of Isaiah regarding himself. 786 And, to a similar effect, Matthew here has given us certain words of John which are unrecorded by the other evangelists. For he speaks of him as \u201cpreaching in the wilderness of Jud\u00e6a, and saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;\u201d which words of John have been omitted by the others. In what follows, however, in immediate connection with that passage in Matthew\u2019s Gospel,\u2014namely, the sentence, \u201cThe voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight,\u201d\u2014the position is ambiguous; and it does not clearly appear whether this is something recited by Matthew in his own person, or rather a continuance of the words spoken by John himself, so as to lead us to understand the whole passage to be the reproduction of John\u2019s own utterance, in this way: \u201cRepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; for this is He that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah,\u201d and so on. For it ought to create no difficulty against this latter view, that he does not say, \u201cFor I am He that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah,\u201d but employs the phraseology, \u201cFor this is He that was spoken of.\u201d For that, indeed, is a mode of speech 787 which the evangelists Matthew and John are in the habit of using in reference to themselves. Thus Matthew has adopted the phrase, \u201cHe found 788 a man sitting at the receipt of custom,\u201d 789 instead of \u201cHe found me.\u201d John, too, says, \u201cThis is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true,\u201d 790 instead of \u201cI am,\u201d etc., or, \u201cMy testimony is true.\u201d Yea, our Lord Himself very frequently uses the words, \u201cThe Son of man,\u201d 791 or, \u201cThe Son of God,\u201d 792 instead of saying, \u201cI.\u201d So, again, He tells us that \u201cit behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day,\u201d 793 instead of saying, \u201cIt behoved me to suffer.\u201d Consequently it is perfectly possible that the clause, \u201cFor this is He that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah,\u201d which immediately follows the saying, \u201cRepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,\u201d may be but a continuation of what John the Baptist said of himself; so that only after these words cited from the speaker himself will Matthew\u2019s own narrative proceed, being thus resumed: \u201cAnd the same John had his raiment of camel\u2019s hair,\u201d and so forth. But if this is the case, then it need not seem wonderful that, when asked what he had to say regarding himself, he should reply, according to the narrative of the evangelist John, \u201cI am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,\u201d 794 as he had already spoken in the same terms when enjoining on them the duty of repentance. Accordingly, Matthew goes on to tell us about his attire and his mode of living, and continues his account thus: And the same John had his raiment of camel\u2019s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat was p. 117 locusts and wild honey. Mark also gives us this same statement almost in so many words. But the other two evangelists omit it.\n26. Matthew then proceeds with his narrative, and says: Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Jud\u00e6a, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized by him in Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance; and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. For now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be hewn down and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but He that is to come after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire: whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. 795 This whole passage is also given by Luke, who ascribes almost the same words to John. And where there is any variation in the words, there is nevertheless no real departure from the sense. Thus, for example, Matthew tells us that John said, \u201cAnd think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father,\u201d where Luke puts it thus: \u201cAnd begin not to say, We have Abraham to our father.\u201d Again, in the former we have the words, \u201cI indeed baptize you with water unto repentance;\u201d whereas the latter brings in the questions put by the multitudes as to what they should do, and represents John to have replied to them with a statement of good works as the fruits of repentance,\u2014all which is omitted by Matthew. So, when Luke tells us what reply the Baptist made to the people when they were musing in their hearts concerning Him, and thinking whether He were the Christ, he gives us simply the words, \u201cI indeed baptize you with water,\u201d and does not add the phrase, \u201cunto repentance.\u201d Further, in Matthew the Baptist says, \u201cBut he that is to come after me is mightier than I;\u201d while in Luke he is exhibited as saying, \u201cBut one mightier than I cometh.\u201d In like manner, according to Matthew, he says, \u201cwhose shoes I am not worthy to bear;\u201d but according to the other, his words are, \u201cthe latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.\u201d The latter sayings are recorded also by Mark, although he makes no mention of those other matters. For, after noticing his attire and his mode of living, he goes on thus: \u201cAnd preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose: I have baptized you with water, but He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit.\u201d In the notice of the shoes, therefore, he differs from Luke in so far as he has added the words, \u201cto stoop down;\u201d and in the account of the baptism he differs from both these others in so far as he does not say, \u201cand in fire,\u201d but only, \u201cin the Holy Spirit.\u201d For as in Matthew, so also in Luke, the words are the same, and they are given in the same order, \u201cHe shall baptize you in the Spirit and in fire,\u201d\u2014with this single exception, that Luke has not added the adjective \u201cHoly,\u201d 796 while Matthew has given it thus: \u201cin the Holy Spirit and in fire.\u201d 797 The statements made by these three are attested by the evangelist John, when he says: \u201cJohn bears witness 798 of Him, and cries, saying, This was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for He was before me.\u201d 799 For thus he indicates that the thing was spoken by John at the time at which those other evangelists record him to have uttered the words. Thus, too, he gives us to understand that John was repeating and calling into notice again something which he had already spoken, when he said, \u201cThis was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me.\u201d\n27. If now the question is asked, as to which of the words we are to suppose the most likely to have been the precise words used by John the Baptist, whether those recorded as spoken by him in Matthew\u2019s Gospel, or those in Luke\u2019s, or those which Mark has introduced, among the few sentences which he mentions to have been uttered by him, while he omits notice of all the rest, it will not be deemed worth while creating any difficulty for oneself in a matter of that kind, by any one who wisely understands that the real requisite in order to get at the knowledge of the truth is just to make sure of the things really meant, whatever may be the precise words in which they happen to be expressed. For although one writer may retain a certain order in the words, and another present a different one, there is surely no real contradiction in that. Nor, again, need there be any antagonism between the two, although one may state what another omits. For it is evident that the evangelists have set forth these matters just in accordance with the recollection each retained of them, and just according as their several predilections prompted them to employ greater brevity or richer detail p. 118 on certain points, while giving, nevertheless, the same account of the subjects themselves.\n28. Thus, too, in what more pertinently concerns the matter in hand, it is sufficiently obvious that, since the truth of the Gospel, conveyed in that word of God which abides eternal and unchangeable above all that is created, but which at the same time has been disseminated 800 throughout the world by the instrumentality of temporal symbols, and by the tongues of men, has possessed itself of the most exalted height of authority, we ought not to suppose that any one of the writers is giving an unreliable account, if, when several persons are recalling some matter either heard or seen by them, they fail to follow the very same plan, or to use the very same words, while describing, nevertheless, the self-same fact. Neither should we indulge such a supposition, although the order of the words may be varied; or although some words may be substituted in place of others, which nevertheless have the same meaning; or although something may be left unsaid, either because it has not occurred to the mind of the recorder, or because it becomes readily intelligible from other statements which are given; or although, among other matters which (may not bear directly on his immediate purpose, but which) he decides on mentioning rather for the sake of the narrative, and in order to preserve the proper order of time, one of them may introduce something which he does not feel called upon to expound as a whole at length, but only to touch upon in part; or although, with the view of illustrating his meaning, and making it thoroughly clear, the person to whom authority is given to compose the narrative makes some additions of his own, not indeed in the subject-matter itself, but in the words by which it is expressed; or although, while retaining a perfectly reliable comprehension of the fact itself, he may not be entirely successful, however he may make that his aim, in calling to mind and reciting anew with the most literal accuracy the very words which he heard on the occasion. Moreover, if any one affirms that the evangelists ought certainly to have had that kind of capacity imparted to them by the power of the Holy Spirit, which would secure them against all variation the one from the other, either in the kind of words, or in their order, or in their number, that person fails to perceive, that just in proportion as the authority of the evangelists [under their existing conditions] is made pre-eminent, the credit of all other men who offer true statements of events ought to have been established on a stronger basis by their instrumentality: so that when several parties happen to narrate the same circumstance, none of them can by any means be rightly charged with untruthfulness if he differs from the other only in such a way as can be defended on the ground of the antecedent example of the evangelists themselves. For as we are not at liberty either to suppose or to say that any one of the evangelists has stated what is false, so it will be apparent that any other writer is as little chargeable with untruth, with whom, in the process of recalling anything for narration, it has fared only in a way similar to that in which it is shown to have fared with those evangelists. And just as it belongs to the highest morality to guard against all that is false, so ought we all the more to be ruled by an authority so eminent, to the effect that we should not suppose ourselves to come upon what must be false, when we find the narratives of any writers differ from each other in the manner in which the records of the evangelists are proved to contain variations. At the same time, in what most seriously concerns the faithfulness of doctrinal teaching, we should also understand that it is not so much in mere words, as rather truth in the facts themselves, that is to be sought and embraced; for as to writers who do not employ precisely the same modes of statement, if they only do not present discrepancies with respect to the facts and the sentiments themselves, we accept them as holding the same position in veracity. 801\n29. With respect, then, to those comparisons which I have instituted between the several narratives of the evangelists, what do these present that must be considered to be of a contradictory order? Are we to regard in this light the circumstance that one of them has given us the words, \u201cwhose shoes I am not worthy to bear,\u201d whereas the others speak of the \u201cunloosing of the latchet of the shoe\u201d? For here, indeed, the difference seems to be neither in the mere words, nor in the order of the words, nor in any matter of simple phraseology, but in the actual matter of fact, when in the one case the \u201cbearing of the shoe\u201d is mentioned, and in the other the \u201cunloosing of the shoe\u2019s latchet.\u201d Quite fairly, therefore, may the question be put, as to what it was that John declared himself unworthy to do\u2014whether to bear the shoes, or to unloose the shoe\u2019s latchet. For if only the one of these two sentences was uttered by him, then that evangelist will appear to have given the correct narrative who was in a position to record what was said; while the writer who has given the saying in another form, although he may not indeed have offered an [intentionally] false account of it, may at any rate be taken to have made a slip of memory, and will be reckoned thus to have stated one thing instead of another. It is only seemly, however, that no charge of absolute unveracity should be laid p. 119 against the evangelists, and that, too, not only with regard to that kind of unveracity which comes by the positive telling of what is false, but also with regard to that which arises through forgetfulness. Therefore, if it is pertinent to the matter to deduce one sense from the words \u201cto bear the shoes,\u201d and another sense from the words \u201cto unloose the shoe\u2019s latchet,\u201d what should one suppose the correct interpretation to be put on the facts, but that John did give utterance to both these sentences, either on two different occasions or in one and the same connection? For he might very well have expressed himself thus, \u201cwhose shoe\u2019s latchet I am not worthy to unloose, and whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:\u201d and then one of the evangelists may have reproduced the one portion of the saying, and the rest of them the other; while, notwithstanding this, all of them have really given a veracious narrative. But further, if, when he spoke of the shoes of the Lord, John meant nothing more than to convey the idea of His supremacy and his own lowliness, then, whichever of the two sayings may have actually been uttered by him, whether that regarding the unloosing of the latchet of the shoes, or that respecting the bearing of the shoes, the self-same sense is still correctly preserved by any writer who, while making mention of the shoes in words of his own, has expressed at the same time the same idea of lowliness, and thus has not made any departure from the real mind [of the person of whom he writes]. It is therefore a useful principle, and one particularly worthy of being borne in mind, when we are speaking of the concord of the evangelists, that there is no divergence [to be supposed] from truth, even when they introduce some saying different from what was actually uttered by the person concerning whom the narrative is given, provided that, notwithstanding this, they set forth as his mind precisely what is also so conveyed by that one among them who reproduces the words as they were literally spoken. For thus we learn the salutary lesson, that our aim should be nothing else than to ascertain what is the mind and intention of the person who speaks.\nReading solet quippe esse talis locutio, etc. Some codices give solet quippe esse quasi de aliis locutio = a mode of speech as if other persons were meant.\n116:788 116:789 116:790 116:791 116:792 116:793 116:794 117:795 117:796\nGreek and Latin Bibles now, however, add the word Holy in Luke. [The variation does not occur in early Greek mss.\u2014R.]\n117:797\nMatt. 3:3, Mark 1:6, Luke 3:7.\n117:798 117:799 118:800 118:801\nOr, as abiding by the same truth\u2014in eadem veritate constitisse approbamus.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI: The Harmony of t...","type":"page"}