Book Two, Chapter I. Definition of the task

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Book Two

The Canonical Gospel of Luke

Chapter I. Definition of the Task

The scientific treatment of the Synoptic Gospels must embrace the explanation of four problems: (1) wherein their affinity is grounded, (2) wherein their material difference is grounded, (3) with what dogmatic tendency the material has been worked up, (4) how they stand with respect to their credibility. The first two questions were of course, from the beginning, the object of discussion, and the occasion of a series of hypotheses which followed one another in rapid succession. The question of credibility, however, could enter the consciousness of the critics only once one had confessed to oneself the impossibility of presupposing it without further ado in the case of all three writings, and of soothing and holding down, by artificial interpretations, the gradually emerging experience of substantial contradictions among them. And only as one attempted in vain to determine the greater or lesser credibility of the Synoptics did one recognize that they were not at all minded to deliver purely historical documents, but subordinated their collections of traditions about the life of Jesus to definite dogmatic party tendencies. This latter conception is still too new for it already to have gained a more considerable

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influence upon the investigation as a whole, or else it has been acknowledged only with the restriction that the different standpoints and ways of conceiving the Gospels correspond to the different sides of the one subject, without putting to the test, by a more exact investigation, to what extent they might rather exclude one another and contradict one another. These points have, to be sure, been brought into discussion only in the comparison of the Johannine Gospel with the three Synoptic Gospels, especially with Matthew. But for determining the relationship of the Synoptics to one another, and for weighing their credibility against one another, the investigation of the dogmatic characters is also of the greatest importance. In and of themselves they are so far from being of subordinate importance that one may rightly, as has lately been done by Schwegler, regard the Gospels at the same time as documents of dogmatic development — without, on that account, their designation as books of history being denied. The one ground on account of which the investigation of the Synoptics is to be regarded as unfinished up to now is the lack of attention to the dogmatic tendency of the authors. The second ground for this, however, is that one has neglected to follow the traces of the origin of the canonical Gospels which lie before us in the apocryphal writings, however defective those traces may be. Either one has appealed merely to tradition as the foundation, which is, to be sure, to be regarded as the key to the explanation both of the affinity and of the difference of the Synoptics, but which at the same time closes off every definite insight into the origin of the Gospels. Or else, while bypassing all historical testimonies to the origin of the Gospels, one has thought it possible to find within the Synoptics themselves the original writing from which the others arose. Beside these two one-sided views, which have become influential in recent times — the former through Gieseler, the latter through Wilke — there places itself,

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as a judicious mediation, that of de Wette, who regards the Gospel of Mark decidedly as a compilation from Matthew and Luke, and derives these two in general from independent tradition, yet in such a way that Luke would also have used Matthew. To that view of Mark I too fully subscribe; but the relationship between the two other writings, concerning which the opinion and the favor of the leading critical voices are divided, must, in the light of our investigation of Marcion’s Gospel, be judged differently from the way it is judged by de Wette. We believe that we have found dependence on Matthew in sections which were foreign to the original design of the Gospel writing, and so the question will be whether that dependence is not to be confined, altogether, only to those parts of our Luke whose later origin we have demonstrated. By the excision of these pieces, however, a much freer view of the original tendency and design of the third Gospel has also become possible, whereas hitherto one has been led astray by the contradictions and obscurities that cannot be denied away. By this means the judgment concerning the historical credibility of Luke over against Matthew will also be able to receive another and more secure form than was possible hitherto. For while, with respect to the other Gospels, either agreement or a direct and clear contradiction prevails among the critics, the judgment concerning Luke’s Gospel is altogether wavering and uncertain. As we wish, then, to try to determine the value of Luke’s Gospel, we first subject the Marcionite Gospel, which for brevity we shall call “Ur-Luke” [Ur-Lucas], to an investigation with respect to its dogmatic tendency, its pragmatic design, and its historical material. [Translator’s note: “pragmatic” is Ritschl’s term for a causal, purposive arrangement of the narrative, not philosophical pragmatism.] With the investigation of the last point we should now be entering the province which belongs to the historical-critical treatment of the life of Jesus, so that a complete execution of that plan, in a presentation of the life of Jesus according to Luke, would

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consist. This, now, is not our intention. Rather, we wish only to discern the literary character of the Gospel, which does, to be sure, permeate the historical material, of which, however, that character is in part independent. What is at issue, therefore, is whether one can find in the historical material itself a principle of division according to which that material is dependent on, or independent of, the writer’s distinctiveness. As such a principle we may now regard the difference between discourses and facts. In the case of the former, an influence of the writer’s distinctiveness is not only possible but also probable; the facts, however, are too firmly fixed not to withdraw themselves from such an influence. To be sure, one often finds in the various Gospels different forms of the same fact. These, however, plainly do not come from the evangelists, but from the tradition. We can therefore exclude from our plan the demonstrations concerning the identity or difference of such facts, especially since in the writings on the life of Jesus these investigations have found their place. The discourses, by contrast, as the fluid element of the tradition, are exposed to the influence of the writer, and their credibility deserves all the more to become the object of investigation, in that sufficient attention has not yet been given to them. We shall therefore go through the discourses in Ur-Luke, and with continual reference to Matthew, in order thus to be able to ascertain their standing. In the same way the tendency and the value of the interpolations of the last reviser will then also come under discussion. Finally, the time of composition, both of the original Gospel and of the revision, will be determined as well as is possible.

The Gospel of Luke has already, at an earlier time, been made the object of detailed investigations, by Schleiermacher¹ and by the unnamed author

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of the writing “The Gospels, Their Spirit, and Their Authors” [die Evangelien, ihr Geist und ihre Verfasser].² Our work has its points of contact with both. With Schleiermacher we have in common the purpose of arriving at a judgment concerning the credibility of the Gospel. The means, by contrast, are different. Schleiermacher applied to that end the hypothesis of the smaller essays which were supposed to underlie Luke, and, in the comparison of Luke with Matthew, the canon of vividness as testimony to the greater truth of the account, while at the same time he everywhere let a favorable preconception in favor of the Gospel he was treating show through. Our investigation is grounded on a more correct insight into the origin of the Gospel, and turns to the weighing of credibility as between Matthew and Luke only after an insight into the distinctiveness of the writers as such has been gained. We depart from the author of the other writing insofar as he acknowledges the Gospel only as a document of literary distinctiveness, and not as a historical work, whereas we regard what he takes to be the whole only as the one side of the Gospel. Out of that fundamental error there then proceeds the whole arbitrary and baroque view which that writer holds of the Gospel, of which we shall single out individual specimens below. The dogmatic character of the Gospel, to which we shall first direct our attention, has been demonstrated by Zeller³ and Schwegler,⁴ upon whose presentations we shall for the most part be able to rely, insofar as the distinction between the two different elements of the Gospel does not come into play.