Our Father In Aramaic

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Which Ordering for the 10 Commandments?

The True Ten Commandments
A Catholic Apologia for their Content and Arrangement
By Fr. Michael Wensing
This RockVolume 15, Number 3 March 2004

The True Ten Commandments By Rev. Michael Wensing

Last fall the news focused on a judicial building in Alabama with its display in granite of the Ten Commandments, sponsored and installed by Alabama’s chief justice, Roy Moore. Judge Moore defied a ruling for its removal, and by year’s end both the monument and the judge were gone. Sincere Christians of all denominations and even some representatives of Judaism protested their removal, but in vain.The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are rightly revered and practiced by those of Judeo-Christian heritage. But Catholics maintain that the Decalogue can be honored by all peoples and citizens of a country because it is natural law and not just revealed law. Therefore, there is universal application of the requirements of these commandments, regardless of religious affiliation.

The Decalogue can hold a fundamental place along with the opening words of the U. S. Declaration of Independence, which also makes an appeal to natural law: "We hold these truths to be self evident . . ." The Church Father Irenaeus writes of the natural law of the Decalogue: "Their fathers were righteous: they had the power of the Decalogue implanted in their hearts and in their souls. . . . Through the Decalogue he [God] prepared man for friendship with himself and for harmony with his neighbor" (Treatise against Heresies).The heritage of the Old and New Testaments is our primary and truest source for reception of the Decalogue. In both the books of the New Testament, Revelation and Hebrews, the preciousness of these tablets are reconfirmed. In the vision of John (Rev. 11:19) there was seen in the heavenly temple the Ark of the Covenant, within which, as tradition holds (Heb. 9:4), were the tablets of the covenant.The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms the greatness of the Decalogue and its demonstration of the natural law: "The ‘deposit’ of Christian moral teaching has been handed on . . . alongside the Creed and the Our Father the basis for this catechesis has traditionally been the Decalogue which sets out the principles of moral life valid for all men" (CCC 2033).And yet, as Catholics watched the monument being removed from the judicial building in Alabama, they may have observed in a close-up shot of the commandments that they were not the same ten nor the numerical arrangement they had learned in childhood.

The courthouse rendition read:

I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Thou shalt not covet.

Whereas the Catechism’s traditional presentation of the commandments for memorization are:

I am the Lord your God: You shall not have strange Gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
Honor your father and mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

The early Christian church, received this catechetical tradition from the Church Fathers, especially Augustine. He relied heavily on the Decalogue as presented by Moses in Deuteronomy 5. Thus, until the late Middle Ages, children memorized the commandments in the order as we still know it from the Catechism. Even after the Reformation, Lutherans and Catholics agreed on this enumeration and arrangement.Calvin and other Reformers, relying more on Exodus 20 and its presentation of the Decalogue, and wanting to make a strike against the statuary and icons in the Catholic Church, enumerated the commandments in a different way. Based on this new sixteenth-century re-presentation of the Decalogue, many denominations in America now teach the commandments much as they were seen on the Alabama monument. Thus one can see a problem would be created if public squares or public schools were allowed to display the Ten Commandments: Whose version should prevail?While Jewish versions of the commandments follow Exodus 20 primarily, their enumeration does not exactly follow that of the Reformers. The first commandment in Jewish life is usually the creedal statement of verse 2 of Exodus 20: "I am the Lord your God." This affirmation of monotheism and loyalty corresponds to the famous "Shema" of Deuteronomy 6:4. The second commandment in Jewish faith encompasses both verses 3 and 4 against polytheism and the making of or worship of images of other deities or gods. It is only with the third commandment that there is correspondence to the Reform list. In all traditions the second through eighth commandments as listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church basically correspond to one another. The divergence happens in the first and second commandments and then at the end in the ninth and tenth commandments.In an attempt to find the most original Decalogue between Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, scholars have found that both decalogues are a mixture of older and newer traditions, as each book was being written in an earlier millennium. While some may argue that an earlier Decalogue should have primacy, others will argue, more correctly it seems to me, that the latest tradition encoded in sacred Scripture has primacy as the further development in understanding that God intended. In the commandment regarding keeping the Sabbath, the rationale for keeping it provided by Deuteronomy is seen by scholars to be more ancient than the one provided by Exodus, though both rationales are important (cf. Exodus 20:8–11 and Deuteronomy 5:12–15).Since both Exodus and Deuteronomy open in basic agreement on observing or remembering to keep holy the Sabbath, there is little controversy today between denominations on this commandment’s meaning that a special day of the week is to be kept holy. However, the Catechism emphasizes the Christian tradition that the special day to be kept holy is called the Lord’s Day (Latin, Dies Domini), which is Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection. The early delineation of Sunday as the Lord’s Day is seen already in Revelation 1:10.

In contrast, the Decalogue’s presentation in Exodus shows an earlier cultural mindset in putting the wife and household objects as common possessions together under one command against covetousness in (Ex. 20:17). Moses, in separating the wife from household objects with a separate word for coveting in Deuteronomy 5:21, creates a new dignity for marriage, monogamy, and women that corresponds to the understanding reflected in the New Testament and in subsequent Church teaching (especially the writings of Pope John Paul II). Thus it seems to me the Christian tradition was correct in making the end of the Decalogue two separate commandments by following Deuteronomy 5.Much ink has been spilled regarding the early verses of the Decalogue about monotheism and images. The command of monotheism produces little disagreement. But is there a separate commandment regarding images, or are the verses regarding images meant as an example of the practice of monotheism and therefore intimately part of the first commandment? Again our answer depends on which text we choose, Exodus or Deuteronomy, for there are syntax differences. Exodus 20:3 ("You shall have no other gods before me") is a closed sentence and could be a complete commandment.In Deuteronomy 5:7, the Hebrew construction is such that the wording is only the first part of what follows in the commandment, that no idol representing the deity be carved nor placed before the Lord God nor any such carved image be worshiped. In fact, we read verses 6–10 continuously, as one unit, before coming up for air.In ancient Israel, the Lord God (Yahweh) was to receive exclusive worship (in a world full of the gods of other nations) and was not to be represented in images like other nations did for their deities.

In fact, if one were ever to speak of an image of God, one could refer to how later rabbis said that God had already made such an image in mankind: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Ex. 1:27).Thus the syntax of Exodus 20 can look like two commandments: prohibition of polytheism and prohibition of making carved images. But the syntax of Deuteronomy 5:7–11 shows one commandment, prohibition of idolatry (especially involving carved images that represent other gods or Yahweh). So Catholics are justified after Augustine (following Deuteronomy) in seeing a single commandment in the opening verses of the Decalogue. This, of course, affects the whole counting of the commandments up through the tenth commandment.Was the prohibition of images in worship of Yahweh also a prohibition of any and all artistic images of other realities in the world or in places of worship? Obviously not. Moses ordered the making of the cherubim statues to flank the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. Moses even had a bronze serpent fashioned in the desert for the healing of those bitten by serpents. The first commandment shows us that we are not to make an image of God or of other gods before God or in his presence (except the one image God himself fashioned: man and woman. We are the images of God who go before him in prayer and worship, because God has made us and called us. Thus we see the awesome dignity of the human person and each human life that God has created.).Christians do make artistic representations of saintly heroes or heroines—such as Mary and the saints—to inspire admiration and imitation. Even Jesus in his human nature is portrayed in the suffering figure on the crucifix or as a statue of the Good Shepherd or some other earthly remembrance of his Incarnation. Such artistic renderings not only do not violate the first commandment, but they affirm more solidly the Incarnation, God’s presence and work in the material elements of this world, beginning with Jesus becoming flesh.In our national consciousness, the distinction between admiring, imitating, or honoring someone and worshiping him is easily made (we hope) by Americans visiting the Lincoln or Jefferson memorials or Mt. Rushmore. The men honored in these places are national heroes. So why is it difficult for many to acknowledge Christians as making such a distinction with images of their heroes and heroines of faith, the saints of history worthy of admiring, imitating, and honoring?Whose list of commandments shall prevail? We do not know the future but it seems that we will continue to see these two versions in the mixed religious scene of American life. It is worthwhile to note that the Church itself is not dogmatic about the numbering system one uses. But a good apology for the list Catholics have traditionally memorized, representing the most ancient of Christian traditions, is handy to have in the advancement of the moral truth for all humanity that these commandments represent.

Fr. Michael Wensing. S.T.L., is a professor at Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He is the author of two books, Ministering to Youth and Death and Destiny in the Bible.

Adoration

Adoration

In the strict sense, an act of religion offered to God in acknowledgment of His supreme perfection and dominion, and of the creature's dependence upon Him; in a looser sense, the reverence shown to any person or object possessing, inherently or by association, a sacred character or a high degree of moral excellence. The rational creature, looking up to God, whom reason and revelation show to be infinitely perfect, cannot in right and justice maintain an attitude of indifference. That perfection which is infinite in itself and the source and fulfilment of all the good that we possess or shall possess, we must worship, acknowledging its immensity, and submitting to its supremacy. This worship called forth by God, and given exclusively to Him as God, is designated by the Greek name latreia (latinized, latria), for which the best translation that our language affords is the word Adoration. Adoration differs from other acts of worship, such as supplication, confession of sin, etc., inasmuch as it formally consists in self-abasement before the Infinite, and in devout recognition of His transcendent excellence. An admirable example of adoration is given in the Apocalypse 7:11-12: "And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the ancients, and about the living creatures; and they fell before the throne upon their faces, and adored God, saying: Amen. Benediction and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honour, and power, and strength to our God. forever and ever. Amen." The revealed precept to adore god was spoken to Moses upon Sinai and reaffirmed in the words of Christ: "The Lord thy God thou shalt adore, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:10).

The primary and fundamental element in adoration is an interior act of mind and will; the mind perceiving that God's perfection is infinite, the will bidding us to extol and worship this perfection. Without some measure of this interior adoration "in spirit and in truth" it is evident that any outward show of divine worship would be mere pantomime and falsehood. But equally evident is that the adoration felt within will seek outward expression. Human nature demands physical utterance of some sort for its spiritual and emotional moods; and it is to this instinct for self-expression that our whole apparatus of speech and gesture is due. To Suppress this instinct in religion would be as unreasonable as to repress it in any other province of our experience. Moreover, it would do religious grievous harm to check its tendency to outward manifestation, since the external expression reacts upon the interior sentiment, quickening, strengthening, and sustaining it. As St Thomas teaches: "it is connatural for us to pass from the physical signs to the spiritual basis upon which they rest" (Summa II-II:48:2). It is to be expected, then, that men should have agreed upon certain conventional actions as expressing adoration of the Supreme Being. Of these actions, one has pre-eminently and exclusively signified adoration, and that is sacrifice. Other acts have been widely used for the same purpose, but most of them -- sacrifice always excepted -- have not been exclusively reserved for Divine worship; they have also been employed to manifest friendship, or reverence for high personages. Thus Abram "fell flat on his face" before the Lord (Genesis 17:3). This was clearly an act of adoration in its highest sense; yet that it could have other meaning, we know from, e.g., 1 Samuel 20:41, which says that David adored "falling on his face to the ground" before Jonathan, who had come to warn him of Saul's hatred. In like manner Gen xxxi; 3 narrates that Jacob, on meeting his brother Esau "bowed down with he face to the ground seven times". We read of other forms of adoration among the Hebrews, such as taking off the shoes (Exodus 3:5), bowing (Genesis 24:26), and we are told that the contrite publican stood when he prayed, and that St. Paul knelt when he worshipped with the elders of Ephesus. Among the early Christians it was common to adore God, standing with outstretched arms and facing the east. Finally, we ought perhaps to mention the act of pagan adoration which seems to contain the etymological explanation of our word adoration. The word adoratio very probably originated from the phrase (manum) ad os (mittere), which designated the act of kissing the hand to the statue of the god one wished to honour. Concerning the verbal manifestation of adoration -- that is, the prayer of praise - explanation is not necessary. The connection between our inner feelings and their articulate utterance is obvious.
Thus far we have spoken of the worship given directly to God as the infinitely perfect Being. It is clear that adoration in this sense can be offered to no finite object. Still, the impulse that leads us to worship God's perfection in itself will move us also to venerate the traces and bestowals of that perfection as it appears conspicuously in saintly men and women. Even to inanimate objects, which for one reason or another strikingly recall the excellence, majesty, love, or mercy of God, we naturally pay some measure of reverence. The goodness which these creatures possess by participation or association is a reflection of God's goodness; by honouring them in the proper way we offer tribute to the Giver of all good. He is the ultimate end of our worship in such cases as He is the source of the derived perfection which called it forth. But, as was intimated above, whenever the immediate object of our veneration is a creature of this sort, the mode of worship which we exhibit towards it is fundamentally different from the worship which belongs to God alone. Latria, as we have already said, is the name of this latter worship; and for the secondary kind, evoked by saints or angels, we use the term dulia. The Blessed Virgin, as manifesting in a sublimer manner than any other creature the goodness of God, deserves from us a higher recognition and deeper veneration than any other of the saints; and this peculiar cultus due to her because of her unique position in the Divine economy, is designated in theology hyperdulia, that is dulia in an eminent degree. It is unfortunate that neither our own language nor the Latin possesses in its terminology the precision of the Greek. The word latria is never applied in any other sense than that of the incommunicable adoration which is due to God alone. But in English the words adore and worship are still sometimes used, and in the past were commonly so used, to mean also inferior species of religious veneration and even to express admiration or affection for persons living upon the earth. So David "adored" Jonathan. In like manner Miphiboseth "fell on his face and worshipped" David (2 Samuel 9:6). Tennyson says that Enid in her true heart, adored the queen. Those who perforce adopted these modes of expression understood perfectly well what was meant by them and were in no danger of thereby encroaching upon the rights of the Divinity. It is hardly needful to remark that Catholics, too, even the most unlearned, are in no peril of confounding the adoration due to God with the religious honour given to any finite creature even when the word worship, owing to the poverty of our language, is applied to both. The Seventh General Council, in 757, puts the matter in a few words when it says that "true latria is to be given to God alone"; and the Council of Trent (Sess. XXV) makes clear the difference between invocation of saints and idolatry.

A few words may be added in conclusion on the offences which conflict with the adoration of God. They may be summed up under three categories:

worship offered to false gods;
worship offered to the true God, but in a false, unworthy and scandalous manner; and
blasphemy.The first class comprises sins of idolatry. The second class embraces sins of superstition. These may take manifold forms, to be treated under separate titles. Suffice it to say that vain observances which neglect the essential thing in the worship of God and make much of purely accidental features or which bring it into contempt through fantastic and puerile excesses, are emphatically repudiated in Catholic theology. Honouring, or pretending to honour, God by mystic numbers or magical phrases, as though adoration consisted chiefly in the number or the physical utterance of the phrases, belongs to the Jewish Cabbala or pagan mythology, not to the worship of the Most High.

Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments

Called also simply THE COMMANDMENTS, COMMANDMENTS OF GOD, or THE DECALOGUE (Gr. deka, ten, and logos, a word), the Ten Words of Sayings, the latter name generally applied by the Greek Fathers.

The Ten Commandments are precepts bearing on the fundamental obligations of religion and morality and embodying the revealed expression of the Creator's will in relation to man's whole duty to God and to his fellow-creatures. They are found twice recorded in the Pentateuch, in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, but are given in an abridged form in the catechisms. Written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, this Divine code was received from the Almighty by Moses amid the thunders of Mount Sinai, and by him made the ground-work of the Mosaic Law. Christ resumed these Commandments in the double precept of charity--love of God and of the neighbour; He proclaimed them as binding under the New Law in Matthew 19 and in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). He also simplified or interpreted them, e.g. by declaring unnecessary oaths equally unlawful with false, by condemning hatred and calumny as well as murder, by enjoining even love of enemies, and by condemning indulgence of evil desires as fraught with the same malice as adultery (Matthew 5). The Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's Day. The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, can. xix) condemns those who deny that the Ten Commandments are binding on Christians.

There is no numerical division of the Commandments in the Books of Moses, but the injunctions are distinctly tenfold, and are found almost identical in both sources. The order, too, is the same except for the final prohibitions pronounced against concupiscence, that of Deuteronomy being adopted in preference to Exodus. A confusion, however, exists in the numbering, which is due to a difference of opinion concerning the initial precept on Divine worship.

The system of numeration found in Catholic Bibles, based on the Hebrew text, was made by St. Augustine (fifth century) in his book of "Questions of Exodus" ("Quæstionum in Heptateuchum libri VII", Bk. II, Question lxxi), and was adopted by the Council of Trent. It is followed also by the German Lutherans, except those of the school of Bucer. This arrangement makes the First Commandment relate to false worship and to the worship of false gods as to a single subject and a single class of sins to be guarded against -- the reference to idols being regarded as mere application of the precept to adore but one God and the prohibition as directed against the particular offense of idolatry alone. According to this manner of reckoning, the injunction forbidding the use of the Lord's Name in vain comes second in order; and the decimal number is safeguarded by making a division of the final precept on concupiscence--the Ninth pointing to sins of the flesh and the Tenth to desires for unlawful possession of goods.

Another division has been adopted by the English and Helvetian Protestant churches on the authority of Philo Judæus, Josephus, Origen, and others, whereby two Commandments are made to cover the matter of worship, and thus the numbering of the rest is advanced one higher; and the Tenth embraces both the Ninth and Tenth of the Catholic division. It seems, however, as logical to separate at the end as to group at the beginning, for while one single object is aimed at under worship, two specifically different sins are forbidden under covetousness; if adultery and theft belong to two distinct species of moral wrong, the same must be said of the desire to commit these evils.

The Supreme Law-Giver begins by proclaiming His Name and His Titles to the obedience of the creature man: "I am the Lord, thy God. . ." The laws which follow have regard to God and His representatives on earth (first four) and to our fellow-man (last six).

Being the one true God, He alone is to be adored, and all rendering to creatures of the worship which belongs to Him falls under the ban of His displeasure; the making of "graven things" is condemned: not all pictures, images, and works of art, but such as are intended to be adored and served (First).

Associated with God in the minds of men and representing Him, is His Holy Name, which by the Second Commandment is declared worthy of all veneration and respect and its profanation reprobated.

And He claims one day out of the seven as a memorial to Himself, and this must be kept holy (Third).

Finally, parents being the natural providence of their offspring, invested with authority for their guidance and correction, and holding the place of God before them, the child is bidden to honour and respect them as His lawful representatives (Fourth).

The precepts which follow are meant to protect man in his natural rights against the injustice of his fellows.

His life is the object of the Fifth;
the honour of his body as well as the source of life, of the Sixth;
his lawful possessions, of the Seventh;
his good name, of the Eighth;
And in order to make him still more secure in the enjoyment of his rights, it is declared an offense against God to desire to wrong him, in his family rights by the Ninth;
and in his property rights by the Tenth.

This legislation expresses not only the Maker's positive will, but the voice of nature as well--the laws which govern our being and are written more or less clearly in every human heart. The necessity of the written law is explained by the obscuring of the unwritten in men's souls by sin. These Divine mandates are regarded as binding on every human creature, and their violation, with sufficient reflection and consent of the will, if the matter be grave, is considered a grievous or mortal offense against God. They have always been esteemed as the most precious rules of life and are the basis of all Christian legislation

Selections from Dei Verbum

DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON DIVINE REVELATION DEI VERBUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON NOVEMBER 18, 1965

PREFACE

1. Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: "We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:2-3). Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love. (1)

CHAPTER I
REVELATION ITSELF

2. In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having in inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation. (2)
3. God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20). Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents. Then after their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved (see Gen. 3:15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the human race in His care, to give eternal life to those who perseveringly do good in search of salvation (see Rom. 2:6-7). Then, at the time He had appointed He called Abraham in order to make of him a great nation (see Gen. 12:2). Through the patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, He taught this people to acknowledge Himself the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries.
4. Then, after speaking in many and varied ways through the prophets, "now at last in these days God has spoken to us in His Son" (Heb. 1:1-2). For He sent His Son, the eternal Word, who enlightens all men, so that He might dwell among men and tell them of the innermost being of God (see John 1:1-18). Jesus Christ, therefore, the Word made flesh, was sent as "a man to men." (3) He "speaks the words of God" (John 3;34), and completes the work of salvation which His Father gave Him to do (see John 5:36; John 17:4). To see Jesus is to see His Father (John 14:9). For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.
The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Tim. 6:14 and Tit. 2:13).
5. "The obedience of faith" (Rom. 13:26; see 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5-6) "is to be given to God who reveals, an obedience by which man commits his whole self freely to God, offering the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals," (4) and freely assenting to the truth revealed by Him. To make this act of faith, the grace of God and the interior help of the Holy Spirit must precede and assist, moving the heart and turning it to God, opening the eyes of the mind and giving "joy and ease to everyone in assenting to the truth and believing it." (5) To bring about an ever deeper understanding of revelation the same Holy Spirit constantly brings faith to completion by His gifts.
6. Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind. (6)
As a sacred synod has affirmed, God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the light of human reason (see Rom. 1:20); but teaches that it is through His revelation that those religious truths which are by their nature accessible to human reason can be known by all men with ease, with solid certitude and with no trace of error, even in this present state of the human race. (7)

CHAPTER II
HANDING ON DIVINE REVELATION

7. In His gracious goodness, God has seen to it that what He had revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations. Therefore Christ the Lord in whom the full revelation of the supreme God is brought to completion (see Cor. 1:20; 3:13; 4:6), commissioned the Apostles to preach to all men that Gospel which is the source of all saving truth and moral teaching, (1) and to impart to them heavenly gifts. This Gospel had been promised in former times through the prophets, and Christ Himself had fulfilled it and promulgated it with His lips. This commission was faithfully fulfilled by the Apostles who, by their oral preaching, by example, and by observances handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him, and from what He did, or what they had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The commission was fulfilled, too, by those Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing. (2)
But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, "handing over" to them "the authority to teach in their own place."(3) This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face (see 1 John 3:2).

Excerpts from Benedict's Letter, "Deus Caritas Est"

ENCYCLICAL LETTER DEUS CARITAS EST OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF BENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPs, PRIESTS AND DEACONS, MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS AND ALL THE LAY FAITHFUL ON CHRISTIAN LOVE

INTRODUCTION

1. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”.
We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John's Gospel describes that event in these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should ... have eternal life” (3:16). In acknowledging the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel's faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which expressed the heart of his existence: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God and the commandment of love for neighbour found in the Book of Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere “command”; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us.
In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others. That, in essence, is what the two main parts of this Letter are about, and they are profoundly interconnected. The first part is more speculative, since I wanted here—at the beginning of my Pontificate—to clarify some essential facts concerning the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man, together with the intrinsic link between that Love and the reality of human love. The second part is more concrete, since it treats the ecclesial exercise of the commandment of love of neighbour. The argument has vast implications, but a lengthy treatment would go beyond the scope of the present Encyclical. I wish to emphasize some basic elements, so as to call forth in the world renewed energy and commitment in the human response to God's love.
PART I
THE UNITY OF LOVEIN CREATIONAND IN SALVATION HISTORY
A problem of language
2. God's love for us is fundamental for our lives, and it raises important questions about who God is and who we are. In considering this, we immediately find ourselves hampered by a problem of language. Today, the term “love” has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings. Even though this Encyclical will deal primarily with the understanding and practice of love in sacred Scripture and in the Church's Tradition, we cannot simply prescind from the meaning of the word in the different cultures and in present-day usage.
Let us first of all bring to mind the vast semantic range of the word “love”: we speak of love of country, love of one's profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love between family members, love of neighbour and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness. This would seem to be the very epitome of love; all other kinds of love immediately seem to fade in comparison. So we need to ask: are all these forms of love basically one, so that love, in its many and varied manifestations, is ultimately a single reality, or are we merely using the same word to designate totally different realities?
“Eros” and “Agape” – difference and unity
3. That love between man and woman which is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings, was called eros by the ancient Greeks. Let us note straight away that the Greek Old Testament uses the word eros only twice, while the New Testament does not use it at all: of the three Greek words for love, eros, philia (the love of friendship) and agape, New Testament writers prefer the last, which occurs rather infrequently in Greek usage. As for the term philia, the love of friendship, it is used with added depth of meaning in Saint John's Gospel in order to express the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. The tendency to avoid the word eros, together with the new vision of love expressed through the word agape, clearly point to something new and distinct about the Christian understanding of love. In the critique of Christianity which began with the Enlightenment and grew progressively more radical, this new element was seen as something thoroughly negative. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice.[1] Here the German philosopher was expressing a widely-held perception: doesn't the Church, with all her commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn't she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator's gift offers us a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine?
4. But is this the case? Did Christianity really destroy eros? Let us take a look at the pre- Christian world. The Greeks—not unlike other cultures—considered eros principally as a kind of intoxication, the overpowering of reason by a “divine madness” which tears man away from his finite existence and enables him, in the very process of being overwhelmed by divine power, to experience supreme happiness. All other powers in heaven and on earth thus appear secondary: “Omnia vincit amor” says Virgil in the Bucolics—love conquers all—and he adds: “et nos cedamus amori”—let us, too, yield to love.[2] In the religions, this attitude found expression in fertility cults, part of which was the “sacred” prostitution which flourished in many temples. Eros was thus celebrated as divine power, as fellowship with the Divine.
The Old Testament firmly opposed this form of religion, which represents a powerful temptation against monotheistic faith, combating it as a perversion of religiosity. But it in no way rejected eros as such; rather, it declared war on a warped and destructive form of it, because this counterfeit divinization of eros actually strips it of its dignity and dehumanizes it. Indeed, the prostitutes in the temple, who had to bestow this divine intoxication, were not treated as human beings and persons, but simply used as a means of arousing “divine madness”: far from being goddesses, they were human persons being exploited. An intoxicated and undisciplined eros, then, is not an ascent in “ecstasy” towards the Divine, but a fall, a degradation of man. Evidently, eros needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to provide not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns.
5. Two things emerge clearly from this rapid overview of the concept of eros past and present. First, there is a certain relationship between love and the Divine: love promises infinity, eternity—a reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence. Yet we have also seen that the way to attain this goal is not simply by submitting to instinct. Purification and growth in maturity are called for; and these also pass through the path of renunciation. Far from rejecting or “poisoning” eros, they heal it and restore its true grandeur.
This is due first and foremost to the fact that man is a being made up of body and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness. The epicure Gassendi used to offer Descartes the humorous greeting: “O Soul!” And Descartes would reply: “O Flesh!”.[3] Yet it is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature composed of body and soul, who loves. Only when both dimensions are truly united, does man attain his full stature. Only thus is love —eros—able to mature and attain its authentic grandeur.
Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness. Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility. True, eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.
6. Concretely, what does this path of ascent and purification entail? How might love be experienced so that it can fully realize its human and divine promise? Here we can find a first, important indication in the Song of Songs, an Old Testament book well known to the mystics. According to the interpretation generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt conjugal love. In this context it is highly instructive to note that in the course of the book two different Hebrew words are used to indicate “love”. First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the similar-sounding agape, which, as we have seen, becomes the typical expression for the biblical notion of love. By contrast with an indeterminate, “searching” love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.
It is part of love's growth towards higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being “for ever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 17:33), as Jesus says throughout the Gospels (cf. Mt 10:39; 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25). In these words, Jesus portrays his own path, which leads through the Cross to the Resurrection: the path of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and in this way bears much fruit. Starting from the depths of his own sacrifice and of the love that reaches fulfilment therein, he also portrays in these words the essence of love and indeed of human life itself.
7. By their own inner logic, these initial, somewhat philosophical reflections on the essence of love have now brought us to the threshold of biblical faith. We began by asking whether the different, or even opposed, meanings of the word “love” point to some profound underlying unity, or whether on the contrary they must remain unconnected, one alongside the other. More significantly, though, we questioned whether the message of love proclaimed to us by the Bible and the Church's Tradition has some points of contact with the common human experience of love, or whether it is opposed to that experience. This in turn led us to consider two fundamental words: eros, as a term to indicate “worldly” love and agape, referring to love grounded in and shaped by faith. The two notions are often contrasted as “ascending” love and “descending” love. There are other, similar classifications, such as the distinction between possessive love and oblative love (amor concupiscentiae – amor benevolentiae), to which is sometimes also added love that seeks its own advantage.
In philosophical and theological debate, these distinctions have often been radicalized to the point of establishing a clear antithesis between them: descending, oblative love—agape—would be typically Christian, while on the other hand ascending, possessive or covetous love —eros—would be typical of non-Christian, and particularly Greek culture. Were this antithesis to be taken to extremes, the essence of Christianity would be detached from the vital relations fundamental to human existence, and would become a world apart, admirable perhaps, but decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life. Yet eros and agape—ascending love and descending love—can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized. Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of happiness, in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to “be there for” the other. The element of agape thus enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34).

Synoptics

Synoptics

The name given since Griesbach's time (about 1790) to the first three canonical Gospels. It is derived from the fact that these Gospels admit -- differently from the evangelical narrative of St. John, of being arranged and harmonized section by section, so as to allow the eye to realize at a glance (synopsis) the numerous passages which are common to them, and also the portions which are peculiar either to only two, or even to only one, of them.
Differences and resemblances
Turning over the pages of an ordinary harmony of the four, or of a synopsis of the first three, Gospels, which show in parallel columns the coincident parts of the evangelical narratives, the reader will at once notice the large amount of matter which is common to the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke. Brief as these three sketches of Christ's life actually are, they run parallel to one another in no less than 330-370 verses or about one-third of their whole account of Christ's words and deeds, while, with the exception of a few incidents (68 verses), the whole contents of St. Mark are practically found in St. Matthew and in St. Luke. This agreement in the facts related appears all the more striking, because of the great amount of historical material which must have been at the disposal of each Synoptical writer. The Synoptists are, each and all, fully aware that Jesus healed vast numbers of various diseases; they nevertheless agree in selecting the same cases of healing for fuller record; and while they distinctly speak of His unceasing and extensive teaching, yet they usually concur in reporting the same discourses. A no less wonderful similarity may be observed between the first three Gospels with regard to the general conception and the order of the whole narrative. In all three, Christ's public life is distinctly connected with the preaching of St. John the Baptist, is chiefly confined to Galilee, and is set forth in certain epochs, as the early Galilean ministry, the crisis in Galilee, the ministry in Perea and Jerusalem, and the tragic end in the Holy City followed by a glorious Resurrection. In constructing their several records, the Synoptists adopt the same general method of presentation, giving not a consecutive narrative that would result from a fusing of the material employed, but a series of little accounts which are isolated by peculiar introductory and concluding formulæ, and which repeatedly agree in details and in order even where a deviation from the chronological sequence is manifest. Together with all these resemblances, there is throughout the Synoptics a remarkable agreement in words and phrases, which can be more particularly realized by means of a Greek harmony or a close translation of the original text. This verbal agreement in the Greek Gospels is all the more surprising, as Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and as in most cases, it is plain that the verbal resemblances cannot be referred to an accidental similarity, since they are due to the common use of very peculiar terms and expressions, of identical variations from either the Hebrew or the Septuagint in quotations from the Old Testament.
The interconnexion of the Synoptics is not, however, simply one of close resemblance, it is also one of striking difference. When compared attentively, the three records appear distinct as well as similar in incidents, plan, and language. Each Synoptical writer introduces into his narrative fragments more or less extensive, at times entire episodes which are not related by the other two Evangelists. St. Mark says nothing of the infancy and the early life of Christ, while St. Matthew and St. Luke, who speak of them, do not as a rule narrate the same facts. St. Mark does not even allude to the Sermon on the Mount, and St. Luke alone narrates in detail the last journey of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. On the other hand, Matthew 14:22-16:12 and Mark 6:45-8:26, record a series of Galilean incidents which are nowhere found in the third Gospel. Despite his obvious conciseness, St. Mark has two miracles and two parables wholly peculiar to himself. St. Matthew, who apparently does not aim at brevity, makes no reference to the Ascension. Moreover, in the very passages which indicate a close relation of the three, or of at least two, Synoptics, in their sources, minor differences in the events recorded continually appear, which can be fully realized only through a diligent study of the parallel passages, or through the perusal of larger commentaries in which such constant differences are distinctly pointed out. At times the divergences are so great as to appear, at first, actual contradictions. Of this description are the differences noticeable between the genealogies of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38), the accounts of the episode of the demoniacs of Gerasa (Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39), of the miraculous healing connected with Jericho (Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43), of the petition of the mother of James and John (Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45), of the incidents relative to the Resurrection, etc. The general disposition of the events narrated betrays also considerable differences. Thus while St. Matthew devotes three successive chapters to the Sermon on the Mount (v-vii) and gives together the parables of the kingdom in one chapter (xiii), St. Luke divides this twofold topic into several portions which he connects with distinct circumstances. it is well known too, that St. Matthew very often gathers together topics which are similar, while St. Mark and St. Luke follow more closely the chronological order, whence arise numerous transpositions which affect the general arrangement of the narrative.
Numerous variations can likewise be noticed in the particular arrangement of facts and words, for the elements of the one and the same episode often occupy a different place in one or other of the Synoptics, or either Evangelist suppresses or adds a detail which modifies the incident. Finally, the verbal differences between the first three Gospels are hardly less numerous and striking than their verbal resemblances. Each Synoptist has his peculiar and favourite words and expressions, which have been carefully tabulated by recent Biblical scholars (Hawkins, "Horæ synopticæ"; Allen, on St. Matthew; Swete, on St. Mark; Plummer, on St. Luke). The verbal differences appear in the very passages which abound in verbal coincidences (cf. for instance, Matthew 18:2-3; Mark 9:47-48), the identity of expression never extending through passages of any length, and unless in reported discourses of Christ rarely beyond a few words at a time. This is often due to the use of synonymous terms, or of different tenses, or of different propositions, or of short glosses which either Synoptist adds to the same name or detail. We find for instance, in Matthew 9:6, kline, in Mark 2:11, krabbatos, in Luke 5:24, klinidion; in Matthew 3:16, "Spirit of God", in Mark 1:10, "Spirit", in Luke 3:22, "the Holy Ghost"; etc. And what is of particular significance in this connexion, is the fact that the verbal differences occur when one should most naturally expect an absolute identity of expressions, as for instance, in the words of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, in the record of the title on the Cross, etc. var AID=0;var AsID=1414;-->
The synoptic problem
These resemblances and differences, the extent and complexity of which grow upon the student who compares carefully the Synoptic Gospels and contrasts them with St. John's narrative, constitute a unique phenomenon in ancient and modern literature. They are facts which no one can refer either to mere chance, or to the direct influence of inspiration. On the one hand, the resemblances are too numerous and too striking to be regarded as explicable on the hypothesis that the first three Evangelists wrote independently of one another. On the other, the differences are at times so significant as to imply that they are due to the use of different documents by the Evangelists, as for example in the case of the two genealogies of Jesus Christ. The harmony and the variety, the resemblances and the differences must be both accounted for. They form together a literary problem, -- the Synoptic Problem, as it is called, -- the existence of which was practically unknown to the ancient ecclesiastical writers. In point of fact, St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine are the only Fathers who have formulated views concerning the mutual relation of the Synoptic Gospels, and the writers of the Middle Ages do not seem to have taken into account these patristic views which, after all, were far from affording a complete solution of that difficult question. Subsequent leading scholars, such as Grotius, Rich, Simon, Le Clerc, had little more than a suspicion of the problem, and it is only in the course of the eighteenth century that the scientific examination of the question was actually started.
Ever since the last quarter of that century, the discussion of the origin of the mutual relationship between the first three Gospels has been carried on with great ardour and ingenuity especially in Germany. As might well be expected, the supposition that these Gospels are so like one another because their respective authors made use of each other's writings was first tried, and in settling the order, that in which the Synoptic Gospels stand in the canon first found favour. As fresh investigations brought new facts to light, new forms of hypothesis sought to satisfy the facts, with the gradual result that the domain of possibility well-nigh appears to have been measured out. Numerous and conflicting as the successive attempts at solution have been, their history shows that a certain progress has been made in the discussion of the Synoptic Problem. The many relations of the question have come into clearer light, and the data for its solution have been revealing themselves while mere a priori views or unsound inferences have been discarded.
Solutions of the synoptic problem
All attempts at assigning the cause of the resemblances and differences of the first three Gospels admit of being classified under three general heads, according as the relationship of the Synoptics has been explained by appealing to: A, oral tradition; B, mutual dependence; or C, earlier documents.
Oral dependence
The hypothesis of oral tradition implies that before our Gospels arose there were no written records of Christ's ministry, or at least none which was used by the Synoptists. It asserts that these Evangelists have drawn from narratives of sayings and deeds of Jesus which eye-witnesses of His public life handed on by word of mouth, and which gradually assumed a greater or less degree of fixity with constant repetition. According to this theory, the resemblances between the first three Gospels can be easily accounted for. The sections common to all are explained by a cycle of teaching probably formed in Jerusalem, actually made up of incidents and discourses connected with Christ's life from the baptism of John to the Ascension (cf. Acts 1:21, 22), and faithfully preserved with regard to order and language by the trained retentiveness of Eastern memories. In like manner, the differences of the Synoptic Gospels are easily explained. Sections are found only in two, or one, of the Gospels because the bond established between the narratives was at times modified to suit the various circles of the hearers, and other differences in order or wording are due either to previous variations in oral tradition or to the personal initiative of the several Evangelists who fixed it in writing. This theory of an oral Gospel, handed on everywhere in very similar form, was enunciated by Herder, and chiefly elaborated by Gieseler and A. Wright. With differences in detail, it has been admitted by a large number of Catholic exegetes (Schegg, Haneberg, Friedlieb, Kaulen, Cornely, Knabenbauer, Meignan, Fillion, Fouard, Le Camus, Felten), and by many Protestant scholars (Credner, Guericke, De Wette, Ebrard, Lange, Hase, Wetzel, Thompson, Westcott, Godet, etc.). It undoubtedly points to a vera causa in the spread of the Gospel and cannot be wholly left out of account in an endeavour to explain the origin of our written records of Christ's life. One of its claims to acceptance is that it dispenses with the unseemly supposition that any of the Evangelists made wholesale use in their own Gospels of written records composed by others, and nevertheless did not reproduce them with greater fidelity. Appeal is also made in favour of this theory, to its simplicity, and to its aptness to account for the resemblances and the differences exhibited by the Synoptics.
By itself, however, the hypothesis of oral tradition can hardly be considered as an adequate solution of the Synoptical problem. First, it does not satisfactorily explain the selection of the material included in our first three Gospels. Oral tradition had undoubtedly preserved much more than the Synoptics record, and of this the Evangelists themselves were fully aware (Matthew 11:21; 23:37; Luke 10:13; John 21:25; etc.); whence then does it come that the framework of the Synoptic narrative is practically the same in all the first three Gospels, that it consists very largely of the same events and the same discourses, and gives no account of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, that is, of His ministry in the very place where the oral tradition is generally supposed to have been formed?
Secondly, the hypothesis of oral tradition does not account for the general identity of order noticeable in the Synoptics. The order of St. Mark is, as it seems, the fundamental order, and it can hardly be said to have been known simply as an oral tradition to St. Matthew and St. Luke, else the sequence of its sections, when additions were made by these two Evangelists, would not have remained as little altered as it has. Again and again, the thread of the common order is resumed at the point at which it had been left. On the supposition of a written source to which St. Matthew and St. Luke had recourse, this is natural enough. But if they depended on memory, the natural effect of the working of the laws of association, would be that when some fresh incident or some part of Christ's teaching was recalled, the old order would be disturbed more or less extensively than we notice it to be.
Thirdly, the verbal relationship between the Greek Gospels is not satisfactorily explained on the hypothesis of oral tradition. This oral tradition was primitively in Aramaic, and the coincidences in the Greek with regard to rare words, irregular arrangement of the sentence, etc., cannot be explained by supposing that our Gospels are independent translations of one and the same Aramaic oral tradition. it is true that in order to account for these coincidences in the Greek, the early formation of an oral Greek tradition which would more or less be the counterpart of the Aramaic one, and which would have been directly utilized by our Evangelists, has been postulated by many advocates of the theory under review. But it remains very doubtful whether such oral Greek tradition would really explain the coincidences in question; and it is quite certain that it would not satisfactorily account or the variations in Greek wording of such important passages as the words of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, of the Lord's Prayer, of the Beatitudes, of the title on the Cross, etc. Lastly, there are historical proofs of the existence of written documents at the time when our Synoptics were written (cf. Matthew 24:15-16; Mark 13:14; Luke 1:1), and the most natural supposition is that our Evangelists availed themselves of them. In fact, many phenomena disclosed by the attentive study of the first three Gospels render the supposition so probable, not to say necessary, that several advocates of the hypothesis of oral tradition (Eckermann, Fillion, Le Camus, etc.), have been led to admit a limited use of written helps by the Synoptists.
Mutual dependence
The hypothesis of mutual dependence assumes that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels used each other's writings, each successive writer availing himself of earlier contributions, so that the second Evangelist (in the order of time) borrowed from the first, and the third from both first and second. According to it, the passages which are alike reproduce those of earlier writings; those which are divergent come from the personal memory of the author or from an oral source. This, it is said, is the most natural, as it is the oldest, manner of explaining the resemblances and differences of the first three Gospels. It is the most natural, inasmuch as if three other writers exhibited such a close resemblance in their works as the Synoptists do, it would readily occur to the reader's mind that they are not independent of each other. It is the oldest also, for it goes back to St. Augustine who formulated it in a general way in his "De consensu evangelistarum" (I, ii, 4), and who in describing the order of succession of the Synoptics, naturally followed the one embodied in the canon: Matthew, Mark, Luke. This order of succession has been accepted by many scholars, Catholic (Hug, Danko, Reithmayr, Patrizi, De Valroger, Wallon, Schanz, Coleridge, Bacuez) and Protestant (Mill, Wetstein, Bengel, Credner, Hilgenfeld, etc.). But every other possible order of arrangement has found advocates, in accordance with their respective views concerning the priority and order of sequence of the Synoptics. The order: Matthew, Luke, Mark, was advanced by Griesbach and has been adopted by De Wette, Bleek, Maier, Langen, Grimm, Pasquier. The arrangement: Mark, Matthew, Luke, with various modifications as to their interdependence, is admitted by Ritschl, Reuss, Meyer, Wilke, Simons, Holtzmann, Weiss, Batiffol, Weizsäcker, etc. It is often designated under the name of the "Mark hypothesis", although in the eyes of most of its defenders, it is no longer a hypothesis, meaning thereby that it is an established fact. Besides these principal orders, others (Mark, Luke, Matthew; Luke, Matthew, Mark; Luke, Mark, Matthew) have been proposed, and more recent combinations (such as those advocated by Calmel, Zahn, Belser, and Bonaccorsi) have also been suggested. As regards the theory of Baur and his school concerning the composition of the Gospels, suffice it to say that it should not really be connected with the hypothesis of mutual dependence, inasmuch as its contention as to the origin of the canonical Gospels has nothing to do with the literary process of composition propounded by that hypothesis to explain the relationship of the Synoptics.
By itself alone, the theory of mutual dependence cannot be regarded as a full solution of the Synoptic Problem. Whichever order be adopted, there are always narratives where one of the Evangelists, -- at times, St. Mark himself, -- is more complete than the one who is given as his source, and consequently is independent of him, so that in all such cases appeal must needs be made either to oral tradition or to non-canonical writings. Again, in any form of the theory, the differences in form of narration, especially where one writer seems irreconcilable with the other, and the differences in arrangement, where the temporal sequence is very close, remain unaccounted for. Obviously, there is little need to criticize all the forms of this hypothesis by bringing forward special instances of the general objections just mentioned. These forms of it, however, which have found most able and numerous advocates, may be briefly considered. Against the form which asserts that St. Mark made use of St. Matthew, and St. Luke made use of both, it may more particularly be urged:
(1) that St. Mark bears in the Greek too manifest a stamp of originality that it should be regarded simply as the work of an abbreviator of St. Matthew;
(2) that the use of both St. Matthew and St. Mark by St. Luke, even though we should suppose it to be a fact, is insufficient for explaining by itself alone the presence in our Third Gospel of an independent genealogy of Christ, the insertion by St. Luke of an altogether new narrative of Jesus's birth and infancy, his scattering of many of Christ's sayings grouped by St. Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, his detailed account of the Perean journey which is absent from both St. Matthew and St. Mark, etc.
The arrangement advocated by Griesbach, to wit. that St. Luke made use of St. Matthew and St. Mark utilized both, is likewise open to weighty objections. Plainly, the supposition that St. Mark followed and epitomized the other two Synoptics renders it more difficult to account for the freshness and power of his narrative; and in point of fact, it clearly appears that if a direct dependence is to be admitted at all, it is time and again not on the side of St. Mark's rugged style and shorter account of the Galilean ministry, but on the side of the smoother form and larger framework of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Again, the dependence of St. Luke on St. Matthew alone leaves unaccounted for the additions, transpositions, etc., already referred to. Finally, the following are the principal difficulties urged against the "Mark hypothesis". Its supposition that St. Mark is prior to the other two Evangelists, goes against the traditional data which describe St. Matthew's Gospel (in the Aramaic) as written first, and St. Mark's narrative as originating independently of any written Gospel. Again, the assumed priority of St. Mark to St. Matthew and St. Luke makes it hard to imagine on what principle the later two Evangelists partitioned between themselves practically all the contents of St. Mark's writing. it is also urged that in the "Mark hypothesis" neither the simple dependence of St. Matthew on St. Mark alone, nor that of St. Luke on both St. Matthew and St. Mark can account for all the phenomena (additions, inversions, verbal changes, etc.), which are disclosed by an attentive study of the Synoptics.
Earlier documents
The documentary hypothesis is the prevalent theory among non-Catholics. Its general principle of solution of the Synoptic Problem is that in the composition of their writings, the first three Evangelists have all made use of earlier written material. The application of this general principle has given rise to a great number of suppositions, the principal of which may be briefly considered. Since Eichhorn (close of the eighteenth century), and especially since Resch (close of the nineteenth), attempts have been made to get behind our Greek Gospels to one or more Semitic documents used in them, and thus to account for the relationship of the Synoptics. This written source, the primitive contents and wording of which might still be detected, was Hebrew according to Resch and Abbott, Aramaic according to Marshall, Hoffmann, etc. In general, the variation in the words and clauses in our Gospels is accounted for by the different translations given to the Aramaic or Hebrew words. It is undoubted that the recent advocates of the hypothesis of a Semitic source have displayed great learning and ingenuity in pointing out the Semitic expressions which might underlie the divers readings noticeable in parallel passages of the Synoptics. It is undoubted, too, that the general background of the Gospels is Semitic in thought and forms of expression, and even that Semitic documents (for instance, Christ's genealogies) have been used by their authors.
By itself alone, however, the theory of a Semitic source does not appear a satisfactory solution of the Synoptic Problem. It is not certain that the whole Semitic background of the Synoptics had assumed a written shape before it was utilized by the Evangelists, for countless instances of Semitic forms of thought and expression may equally well be accounted for through the direct use of oral tradition, to which source, as a matter of fact, Papias refers the origin of St. Mark's Gospel. Again, the differences between the parallel passages of the first three Gospels are very often such as to point directly to the use by the Synoptists of the same Greek sources, so that in large portions of their works, it is much more natural to account for such differences by the individual literary taste, general purpose, etc., of the Evangelists, than by an appeal to the collateral use of a Semitic original, or a multiplicity of versions of it, the very existence of which is doubtful, and the knowledge of which by the Synoptists is still more questionable.
A more plausible form of the documentary hypothesis goes back in substance to Schleiermacher (1817). It maintains that, at an early period, many evangelical fragments, Greek as well as Aramaic, were scattered throughout the Churches, -- traditions floating about of which written accounts had been made. These the three Synoptists worked in their Gospels, together with materials which each had himself collected; and in this manner the coincidences and the differences of the Synoptics may be accounted for. This theory of a plurality of primitive documents, -- which in certain of its modifications is combined with that of a dependence of later, on earlier, canonical Gospels, -- is admitted by many scholars (Renan, Wrede, Schmiedel, Loisy, etc.). This form of the documentary hypothesis does not necessarily go against the inspired character of the Synoptic Gospels. The actual use of certain primitive documents, notably by St. Matthew and St. Luke, may also be readily granted. But tradition ascribes to St. Mark's Gospel a very different origin from the one supposed by this theory, and a careful study of the contents and the style of that Gospel has recently convinced several prominent scholars that the work is not a compilation from written sources. Again, it is not proved that because St. Matthew and St. Luke employed written documents, they exclusively confined themselves to the use of such sources. In their day, oral tradition was certainly much alive. At that time, the difference between oral tradition and a document was not great in many cases where it had easily become stereotyped by frequent repetition. And it is not a safe position to deny the use of this tradition by St. Luke, in particular, that is, by a writer who would naturally utilize every source of information at his disposal. Finally, a constant appeal to new documents, the contents, extent, and very existence of which cannot, many a time, be ascertained, gives to this theory an air of artificiality which recommends it little as an exact description of the actual manner in which the Synoptic Gospels were composed.
The last general form of the documentary hypothesis which remains to be examined is the "Two Document theory", according to which two large works form the main sources of the Synoptics. One work like our Gospel of St. Mark, if not identical with it, is the source of the narratives common to the first three Gospels, and the other, containing the Sayings of Jesus, is the source of the didactic matter common to St. Matthew and St. Luke. Modified in various ways, this solution of the Synoptic problem has had, and has yet, numerous advocates chiefly among Protestant scholars. In the eyes of all such critics, the theory of only two main written sources is especially commendable for its simplicity and plausibility. The contents of the Synoptics comprise two classes of parallel sections: the one consists of narratives of actions and events found in all three Gospels; the other consisting of Christ's teaching appears only in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Now, as in the selection of material, the arrangement, and the language of sections parallel in all three, St. Matthew constantly agrees with St. Mark against St. Luke, and St. Luke with St. Mark against St. Matthew, but St. Matthew and St. Luke scarcely ever agree against St. Mark, the simplest supposition is that St. Matthew and St. Luke made independent use of St. Mark as we have it, or of a Gospel like it (Ur-Marcus). The freshness and power of St. Mark's narrative go also to prove its priority to that of the other two Evangelists. Thus far of the material common to the first three Gospels. The great bulk of the additional matter found only in St. Matthew and St. Luke consists mainly of the words and discourses of Jesus and although it is very differently given as to historic connexion and grouping, yet it is pervaded by such similarity of thought and expression as to suggest forcibly the hypothesis of a single main source as its natural explanation. The "Two Document theory" is also claimed to explain the peculiar phenomenon of "doublets" in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Finally, it is said to be supported by tradition rightly interpreted. Papias, speaking of books about Christ written by St. Matthew and St. Mark, says: "Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, wrote carefully, though not in order, as he remembered them, the things spoken and done by Christ". "Matthew wrote the Logia in the Hebrew language, and every one translated them as he was able". These statements seem to point to two books as the fountains of evangelical written tradition. One can be distinctly named; it is practically our second Gospel. The other, according to Harnack, Wellhausen, Stanton, can still be reconstructed; it is a record of Logia chiefly embodied in our first Gospel (Ur-Mattheus) and also utilized by St. Luke.
The "Two Document theory" is advocated by many prominent critics (H. Holtzmann, B. Weiss, Wendt, Wernle, Soltau, Jülicher, Hawkins, etc.). Yet, is is not an adequate solution of the Synoptic problem. It leaves its defenders hopelessly divided on points of considerable importance, such as the compilatory character of St. Mark's Gospel; the extent and exact nature of the Logian document (Q) utilized by our first and third Evangelists; the manner of its use by St. Matthew and St. Luke, respectively; the question whether it was used by St. Mark also; the number of the sources employed by St. Matthew and St. Luke besides St. Mark and Q; etc. A greater difficulty sometimes urged against this theory, regards the priority of St. Mark, which its advocates treat as a point altogether settled. Tradition has it that St. Matthew's Gospel existed in a Semitic form before it was rendered into Greek, that is before it assumed the only form now available for a comparison, with St. Mark's narrative. Hence, it is claimed that St. Matthew's dependence in the Greek on our second Gospel is one arising from the fact that its Greek translation was made with the aid of our second Gospel, and leaving intact the priority of the earlier Semitic form of St. Matthew's Gospel to the composition of St. Mark's writing. Among other difficulties against the "Two Document theory" may be mentioned:
(1) its inherent tendency to appeal to subsidiary written sources, the extent and nature of which cannot be determined;
(2) its general disregard of the influence of oral tradition in the composition of the Synoptics;
(3) its common, but very improbable, denial of St. Luke's dependence on both St. Matthew and St. Luke.
From the foregoing rapid survey of the attempts at solving the Synoptic Problem, it is plain that none of them has been really successful. The problem is very intricate; the historical information concerning the origin of our first three Gospels, incomplete; and every theory, one-sided. The satisfactory hypothesis, yet to be formulated, must be a combination hypothesis gathering and uniting, in due proportions, all the truths presented by the various opinions, and also a more thorough theory taking fully into account both the data of Patristic tradition and those disclosed by literary analysis. Such theory, when framed, will undoubtedly supply the fullest vindication of the historical value of our Synoptic records.
The synoptic question and the biblical commission
The only decree thus far enacted by the Biblical Commission, which has a bearing on the Synoptic Question, was issued 19 June, 1911. Its direct object is to affirm the traditional authorship, date of composition, and historical character of St. Matthew's Gospel. Accordingly, it declares that the author of our first Gospel is no other than the Apostle St. Matthew, who wrote before the other Evangelists and considerably before the destruction of Jerusalem, in the language of the Palestinian Jews for whom he composed his work. It authoritatively affirms that the original work of St. Matthew was not a mere collection of the sayings and deeds of Christ, but a Gospel substantially identical with our present Greek Gospel according to St. Matthew. It finally proclaims the historical character of our first Gospel and the genuineness of some of its portions (the first two chapters; dogmatic passages concerning the primacy of Peter, the form of baptism, etc.), which has been questioned by modern critics. Hence it is plain that by this decree the Biblical Commission did not intend to deal with the Synoptic problem, to set forth an explanation of the resemblances and differences disclosed by a comparison of our first three Gospels. Yet, the Roman decree has a particular bearing on the theories of mutual dependence and earlier documents put forth as solutions of the Synoptic question. In deciding the priority of St. Matthew's Gospel in its original language and substance, to the other evangelical narratives, the Biblical Commission has solemnly disapproved of any form of those theories which maintains that St. Matthew's original work was not a complete Gospel or the first Gospel in the order of time. In fact those Catholic scholars who admit either of these theories regard our Greek Gospel according to St. Matthew as a work which goes back in its primitive Aramaic form to the Apostle of that name, and restrict its dependence on St. Mark to its extant Greek translation.
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