{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/106/1060170.htm","path":"chr/ecf/106/1060170.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/106/1060170.htm","text":"Chapter LXXIII.\u2014Of the Person to Whom the Two Precepts Concerning the Love of God and the Love of Our Neighbour Were Commended; And of the Question as to the Order of Narration Which is Observed by Matthew and Mark, and the Absence of Any Discrepancy Between Them and Luke.\n141. Matthew then proceeds with his narrative in the following terms: \u201cBut when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. And one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.\u201d 1168 This is recorded also by Mark, and that too in the same order. Neither should there be any difficulty in the statement made by Matthew, to the effect that the person by whom the question was put to the Lord tempted Him; whereas Mark 1169 says nothing about that, but tells us at the end of the paragraph how the Lord said to the man, as to one who answered discreetly, \u201cThou art not far from the kingdom of God.\u201d For it is quite possible that, although the man approached Him with the view of tempting Him, he may have been set right by the Lord\u2019s response. Or we need not at any rate take the tempting referred to in a bad sense, as if it were the device of one who sought to deceive an adversary; but we may rather suppose it to have been the result of caution, as if it were the act of one who wished to have further trial of a person who was unknown to him. For it is not without a good purpose that this sentence has been written, \u201cHe that is hasty to give credit is light-minded, and shall be impaired.\u201d 1170\n142. Luke, on the other hand, not indeed in this order, but in a widely different connection, introduces something which resembles this. 1171 But whether in that passage he is actually recording this same incident, or whether the person with whom the Lord [is represented to have] dealt in a similar manner there on the subject of those two commandments is quite another individual, is altogether uncertain. At the same time, it may appear right to regard the person who is introduced by Luke as a different individual from the one before us here, not only on the ground of the remarkable divergence in the order of narration, but also because he is there reported to have replied to a question which was addressed to him by the Lord, and in that reply to have himself mentioned those two precepts. The same opinion is further confirmed by the fact that, after telling us how the Lord said to him, \u201cThis do, and thou shall live,\u201d\u2014thus instructing him to do that great thing which, according to his own answer, was contained in the law,\u2014the evangelist follows up what had passed with the statement, \u201cBut he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?\u201d 1172 Thereupon, too [according to Luke], the Lord told the story of the man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers. Consequently, considering that this individual is described at the outset as tempting Christ, and is represented to have repeated the two commandments in his reply; and considering, further, that after the counsel which was given by the Lord in the words, \u201cThis do, and thou shalt live,\u201d he is not commended as good, but, on the contrary, has this said of him, \u201cBut he, willing to justify himself,\u201d etc., whereas the p. 166 person who is mentioned in parallel order both by Mark and by Luke received a commendation so marked, that the Lord spake to him in these terms, \u201cThou art not far from the kingdom of God,\u201d\u2014the more probable view is that which takes the person who appears on that occasion to be a different individual from the man who comes before us here.\nAnother but evidently faulty reading is sometimes found here,\u2014namely, Lucas autem hoc tacet et in fine Marcus, etc. = whereas Luke says nothing about that, and Mark tells us, etc.\n165:1170\nMinorabitur. Ecclesiasticus 19.4.\n165:1171 165:1172","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI: The Harmony of t...","type":"page"}