{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/106/1060136.htm","path":"chr/ecf/106/1060136.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/106/1060136.htm","text":"Chapter XXXIX.\u2014Of the Question as to the Manner of Matthew\u2019s Agreement with Luke in the Accounts Which are Given of the Lord\u2019s Reply to Certain Persons Who Sought a Sign, When He Spoke of Jonas the Prophet, and of the Ninevites, and of the Queen of the South, and of the Unclean Spirit Which, When It Has Gone Out of the Man, Returns and Finds the House Garnished.\n86. Matthew goes on and relates what followed thus: \u201cThen certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign of thee;\u201d and so on, down to where we read, \u201cEven so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.\u201d 1016 These words are recorded also by Luke in this connection, although in a somewhat different order. 1017 For he has mentioned the fact that they sought of the Lord a sign from heaven at an earlier point in his narrative, which makes it follow immediately on his version of the miracle wrought on the dumb man. He has not, however, recorded there the reply which was given to them by the Lord. But further on, after [telling us how] the people were gathered together, he states that this answer was returned to the persons who, as he gives us to understand, were mentioned by him in those earlier verses as seeking of Him a sign from heaven. And that reply he also subjoins, only after introducing the passage regarding the woman who said to the Lord, \u201cBlessed is the womb that bare thee.\u201d 1018 This notice of the woman, moreover, he inserts after relating the Lord\u2019s discourse concerning the unclean spirit that goes out of the man, and then returns and finds the house garnished. In this way, then, after the notice of the woman, and after his statement of the reply which was made to the multitudes on the subject of the sign which they sought from heaven, he brings in the similitude of the prophet Jonas; and then, directly continuing the Lord\u2019s discourse, he next instances what was said concerning the Queen of the South and the Ninevites. Thus he has rather related something which Matthew has passed over in silence, than omitted any of the facts which that evangelist has narrated in this place. And furthermore, who can fail to perceive that the question as to the precise order in which these words were uttered by the Lord is a superfluous one? For this lesson also we ought to learn, on the unimpeachable authority of the evangelists,\u2014namely, that no offence against truth need be supposed on the part of a writer, although he may not reproduce the discourse of some speaker in the precise order in which the person from whose lips it proceeded might have given it; the fact being, that the mere item of the order, whether it be this or that, does not affect the subject-matter itself. And by his present version Luke indicates that this discourse of the Lord was of greater length than we might otherwise have supposed; and he records certain topics handled in it, which resemble those which are mentioned by Matthew in his recital of the sermon which was delivered on the mount. 1019 So that we take these words to have been spoken twice over, to wit, on that previous occasion, and p. 143 again on this one. But on the conclusion of this discourse Luke proceeds to another subject, as to which it is uncertain whether, in the account which he gives of it, he has kept by the order of actual occurrence. For he connects it in this way: \u201cAnd as He spake, a certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him.\u201d 1020 He does not say, however, \u201cas He spake these words,\u201d but only \u201cas He spake.\u201d For if he had said, \u201cas He spake these words,\u201d the expression would of course have compelled us to suppose that the incidents referred to, besides being recorded by him in this order, also took place on the Lord\u2019s part in that same order.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI: The Harmony of t...","type":"page"}