The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament (5 page)

So established was the fourfold Gospel canon by the late second century that writers such as St. Irenaeus were beginning to reflect on its theological significance (
A.D.
180). For him, the Church's acceptance of four Gospels signified that the good news was to spread forth in all directions—to the four winds, as it were (
Against Heresies
3, 11, 8). Irenaeus also correlated the four living creatures in Rev 4:6-7 with the four evangelists: Matthew, he said, was represented by the man, Mark by the eagle, Luke by the ox, and John by the lion (
Against Heresies
3, 11, 8). Later this tradition would develop and change. So, for example, St. Jerome would see Matthew as the man, Mark as the lion, Luke as the ox, and John as the eagle (
Against Jovinianus
1, 26), whereas St. Augustine preferred to see Matthew as the lion, Mark as the man, Luke as the ox, and John as the eagle (
Harmony of the Gospels
1, 6, 9). However the correlation is made, the belief is that each book in the collection of four Gospels has a unique message that highlights a different dimension of the mystery of Christ.

Formation of the Gospels
   The Gospels stand as the outcome of a historical process that unfolded over the course of many years. Understanding the formation of the Gospels thus requires some awareness of the stages, literary and preliterary, that led to their composition. These formative stages began with Jesus, extended through the ministry of the apostles, and culminated with the evangelists writing out their inspired accounts. The Pontifical Biblical Commission underlined the importance of these stages in 1964 in its "Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels" (
Sancta Mater Ecclesia
7-9). A summary of these follows.

(1) 
Stage I begins with the person of Jesus, who conveyed his teaching to a handpicked group of disciples known as the apostles. Though he often addressed the crowds in general, he made the apostles his constant companions and invested himself in their formation. To them he revealed the deepest mystery of his identity through his preaching, private instruction, and the performance of miracles. He also provided them with a constant example of prayer and a life of heroic sacrifice.

(2) 
Stage II covers the ministry of the apostles, who were both commissioned and uniquely qualified to bear witness to all that Jesus had said and done. Illumined by the Spirit, they possessed a true understanding of the mystery of Christ and were empowered by the grace of God to testify on his behalf. Through oral proclamation, they made known the purpose of his dying and rising as well as the significance of his living among men. The faith of the apostles did not obscure their memory but rather helped to keep the remembrance of these events alive. Their testimony to Jesus was proclaimed in various forms, including narratives of his life, catechetical instructions, prayers, and hymns.

(3) 
Stage III is the writing of the Gospels as lasting monuments of the apostolic witness to Jesus. The four evangelists composed these written records in order to provide an authentic record of the Lord's sayings and doings and to instruct the faithful in the elements of Christian doctrine and morals. To this end they selected episodes from the life of Jesus that most served their purpose, they synthesized these traditions on occasion, and they wrote with the situation of their readers in mind. Most importantly, the Church believes and teaches that the writers of the four Gospels set down their narratives under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Genre of the Gospels
   Scholarship has long wrestled with the question: What kind of books are the four Gospels? Some scholars consider them an example of
midrash,
a form of homiletic exposition in which texts of the Old Testament are applied to new situations in the life of God's people. Others classify them as
aretalogies,
in which Jesus appears as a heroic "divine man" who performs superhuman feats. Still others see them as literary
dramas
that weave together comic and tragic motifs along lines developed by the classical playwrights. Additional attempts at genre analysis have identified the Gospels as
apocalypses,
as historical
monographs,
and as a form of folk literature known as
cult legends.
Many twentieth-century scholars, owing to the considerable influence of form criticism, declared the Gospels
sui generis
—unique, one of a kind, in a class by themselves.

Not until the late twentieth century did a more promising avenue open for a literary classification of the Gospels. Thanks to ongoing historical and literary research, an increasing number of scholars are now claiming that the Gospels are a species of
Greco-Roman biography.
These were not like many modern biographies, which tend to concentrate on a person's appearance, habits, personality type, psychological development, etc. These works, known in the Hellenistic world as "lives" (Greek
bioi
or Latin
vitae
), did not so much analyze their subjects abstractly as display their character through a narration of their significant words and actions. Prominent biographies of this type were written by Greek authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch, by Roman authors such as Tacitus and Suetonius, and by Hellenistic Jewish authors such as Philo of Alexandria.

Characteristic of these Greco-Roman "lives" are the following features: they focus attention on a single individual; they are broadly chronological but sometimes arrange their materials topically or thematically; and oftentimes only one period of the subject's life dominates the presentation. The subjects of biographical writing tended to be figures of renown and influence—statesmen, philosophers, military men, literary figures, and the like. Most importantly, the greatness of the biographical subject is revealed through heroic acts of virtue and memorable words of wisdom. Several biographies even undertake a careful examination of the subject's death and the circumstances surrounding it.

Insofar as the Gospels appear to stand within the literary category of ancient biography, there is good reason to suppose that the Gospels were written with historiographical intent. In other words, adoption of the biographical genre implies that the evangelists aimed to tell us about the historical life and accomplishments of Jesus. The basis of such a presentation would rest on personal recollections, whether their own or someone else's (see Lk 1: 1-4; Jn 19:35). This being so, the Gospel writers were free to interpret the significance of Jesus for their readers, but they would not have felt free to invent stories and sayings of Jesus out of whole cloth, nor would they have knowingly falsified or distorted the facts about his life as they knew them from experience or had received them through the most ancient channels of tradition. Ancient authors, no less than modern ones, knew the difference between history and historical fiction.

Finally, in addition to being historiographical works, the Gospels are also evangelical works. That is to say, they also aim to produce faith in their readers. This is made explicit in the Gospel of John, where the evangelist addresses his audience with the words: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name" (Jn 20:30-31). Most agree that this purpose behind the Gospel of John lies behind the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) as well. If anything is unique about the Gospels in comparison with Greco-Roman biographies, then, it is their aim to make believers out of their readers. Other ancient biographies held up their subjects as objects of admiration and imitation. The Gospels do likewise, but they go beyond this by making Jesus an object of religious faith and by inviting readers into a personal relationship with him.

Historicity of the Gospels
   The Church has always affirmed the historicity of the Gospels. None of the four accounts can be reduced to a form of fictional writing in which realistic narratives serve merely as allegories of the life of the early Church or as vehicles to impart religious teaching in concrete and memorable ways. On the contrary, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John report about real events of the past and about real people who had a part in them. This is not to deny them the theological and spiritual richness that is theirs. It is only to insist, in concert with Vatican II, that the Gospels tell us what Jesus "really did and taught" for our salvation (
Dei Verbum 19
).

For the historian, the reliability of the Gospels means that their stories are generally accurate in bearing witness to Jesus and his times. The historian might admit the presence of slight errors and minor misstatements of fact, while concluding that the overall presentation of the main events is a trustworthy description of history. For the Church, however, the historical reliability of the Gospels means something more than this. Since the Bible is inspired by God, it can never be said that its human authors assert as true anything that is untrue, whether the affirmation be made about doctrine, morals, or the events of history. Of course, careful study is needed to ascertain the intention of the author, lest we mistake a non-historical narrative such as a parable for a historical one. And even historical narratives have a theological relevance and purpose behind them. But where an author's intent to record history can be established, the factual accuracy of the account is guaranteed as part of the mystery of divine inspiration. The Pontifical Biblical Commission reaffirmed this point in 1964, when it said that the four Gospels were written under the inspiration of the Spirit, who "preserved their authors immune from all error" (
Sancta Mater Ecclesia
11). By implication, this is also the meaning of Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation when it states that "everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held as asserted by the Holy Spirit" (
Dei Verbum 11
).

What, then, are we to make of the apparent mistakes and contradictions that appear in the Gospels? It can hardly be denied that numerous difficulties face the interpreter who would try to reconcile the four Gospels in detail. There are several places where a story in one Gospel seems to conflict with the same story as told in another. Sometimes the words of Jesus recorded in one Gospel seem to disagree with his words recorded in another. And occasionally the evangelists make historical claims that contradict the testimony of secular sources regarding the events and circumstances of the period.

The Church's approach to resolving such discrepancies has never been to compromise her belief in the divine inspiration and the historical truthfulness of the Gospels. Her faith is firmly maintained in spite of the difficulties that confront us. In practical terms, this means that interpretation proceeds with the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture in mind, and it falls to the Church's scholars to find ways to alleviate tensions and to reconcile discordant accounts to the best of their ability (see Leo XIII,
Providentissimus Deus
45; Pius XII,
Divino Afflante Spiritu
46). The attempt to harmonize the Gospels will not always produce satisfactory results. Nevertheless, it is good to remember that numerous difficult passages of the Bible have been clarified over time thanks to the efforts of scholars toiling to vindicate the truthfulness of Scripture. As for those problematic passages still in need of a solution, there are several considerations to keep in mind when one stumbles across apparent contradictions and inconsistencies in the Gospels.

(1) 
Biblical scholars have long recognized that the Gospels do not always present the story of Jesus in strict chronological order. Certainly the main outline of his life, ministry, and final days is kept intact. In this sense, the story line is broadly chronological. But some of the short episodes within this larger framework are moved around and repositioned according to the aim of each evangelist. Thus, one notices that episodes sharing a common theme are sometimes grouped together, as are sayings that touch upon a related topic of discussion.

The freedom to rearrange sayings and stories in a non-chronological sequence does not mean that the essential historicity of the Gospels is compromised. This is something that ancient biographers and historians were accustomed to doing in their writings. Besides, it is important to remember that the evangelists, in addition to preserving the memory of Jesus' words and deeds, were also preachers of the good news. Their aims and interests as authors were evangelical and catechetical as well as historiographical. One result is that chronology is sometimes subordinate to theology in the narrative depiction of Jesus' life. Such adaptations of chronology can be explained by the Gospel writers' use of the literary techniques of their age to communicate the historical truth about Jesus.

(2) 
An examination of parallel passages shows that the four Gospels frequently record the words of Jesus in different ways. This is not surprising, since Jesus delivered much of his teaching in Aramaic, whereas the Gospels record his sayings in Greek. No doubt some variations in wording were bound to arise in the process of translation from one language to another. Also, it sometimes appears that the evangelists offer an interpretive paraphrase of Jesus' sayings in order to highlight a particular theme or teaching they deem especially relevant to their readers. The Gospel authors can thus clarify the meaning of a saying, or even place a certain emphasis on this detail or that, all the while preserving the substance of what Jesus said on the occasion.

Although this procedure may strike us as questionable, given our modern preference for exact quotation, the best historians of the ancient world typically allowed a measure of freedom in recording spoken discourse. They permitted an author to paraphrase, abbreviate, or even bring out the meaning of a person's words, so long as the original sense of the words was faithfully conveyed. Still, this was a liberty that operated within strict limits. The historian's aim was not always to preserve the exact words of a saying but rather the speaker's intended meaning.