The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (4th ed.)

All the synoptists mention a visit of the mother and brethren of Jesus, on being apprised of which Jesus points to his disciples, and declares that they who do the will of God are his mother and his brethren (Matt. xii. 46 ff.; Mark iii. 31 ff.; Luke viii. 19 ff.). Matthew and Luke do not tell us the object of this visit, nor, consequently, whether this declaration of Jesus, which appears to imply a disowning of his relatives, was occasioned by any special circumstance. On this subject Mark gives us unexpected information; he tells us (v. 21) that while Jesus was teaching among a concourse of people, who even prevented him from taking food, his relatives, under the idea that he was beside himself, went out to seize him, and take him into the keeping of his family.15 In describing this incident, the Evangelist makes use of the expression, ἔλεγον ὅτι ἐξέστη (they said, he is beside himself), and it was merely this expression, apparently, that suggested to him what he next proceeds to narrate: οἱ γραμματεῖς ἔλεγον, ὅτι Βεελζεβοὺλ ἔχει κ.τ.λ. (the scribes said, he hath Beelzebub, etc., comp. John x. 20). With this reproach, which however he does not attach to an expulsion of demons, he connects the answer of Jesus; he then recurs to the relatives, whom he now particularizes as the mother and brethren of Jesus, supposing them to have arrived in the meantime; and he makes their announcement call forth from Jesus the answer of which we have above spoken.

These particulars imparted by Mark are very welcome to commentators, as a means of explaining and justifying the apparent harshness of the answer which Jesus returns to the announcement of his nearest relatives, on the ground of the perverted object of their visit. But, apart from the difficulty that, on the usual interpretation of the accounts of the childhood of Jesus, it is not to be explained how his mother could, after the events therein described, be thus mistaken in her son, it is very questionable whether we ought to accept this information of Mark’s. In the first place, it is associated with the obvious exaggeration, that Jesus and his disciples were prevented even from taking food by the throng of people; and in the second place, it has in itself a strange appearance, from its want of relation to the context. If these points are considered, it will scarcely be possible to avoid agreeing with the opinion of Schleiermacher, that no explanation of the then existing relations of Jesus with his family is to be sought in this addition; that it rather belongs to those exaggerations to which Mark is so prone, as well in his introductions to isolated incidents, as in his general statements.16 He wished to make it understood why Jesus returned an ungracious answer to the announcement of his relatives; for this purpose he thought it necessary to give their visit an object of which Jesus did not approve, and as he knew that the Pharisees had [395]pronounced him to be under the influence of Beelzebub, he attributed a similar opinion to his relatives.

If we lay aside this addition of Mark’s, the comparison of the three very similar narratives presents no result as it regards their matter;17 but there is a striking difference between the connexions in which the Evangelists place the event. Matthew and Mark insert it after the defence against the suspicion of diabolical aid, and before the parable of the sower; whereas Luke makes the visit considerably prior to that imputation, and places the parable even before the visit. It is worthy of notice, however, that Luke has, after the defence against the accusation of a league with Beelzebub, in the position which the two other Evangelists give to the visit of the relatives of Jesus, an incident which issues in a declaration, precisely similar to that which the announcement calls forth. After the refutation of the Pharisaic reproach, and the discourse on the return of the unclean spirit, a woman in the crowd is filled with admiration, and pronounces the mother of Jesus blessed, on which Jesus, as before on the announcement of his mother, replies;

Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it!18 Schleiermacher here again prefers the account of Luke: he thinks this little digression on the exclamation of the woman especially evinces a fresh and lively recollection, which has inserted it in its real place and circumstances; whereas Matthew, confounding the answer of Jesus to the ejaculation of the woman, with the very similar one to the announcement of his relatives, gives to the latter the place of the former, and thus passes over the scene with the woman.19 But how the woman could feel herself hurried away into so enthusiastic an exclamation, precisely on hearing the abstruse discourse on the return of the expelled demons, or even the foregoing reprehensive reply to the Pharisees, it is difficult to understand, and the contrary conjecture to that of Schleiermacher might rather be established; namely, that in the place of the announcement of the relatives, the writer of the third gospel inserted the scene with the woman, from its having a like termination. The evangelical tradition, as we see from Matthew and Mark, whether from historical or merely accidental motives, had associated the above visit and the saying about the spiritual relatives, with the discourse of Jesus on the accusation of a league with Beelzebub, and on the return of the unclean spirit; and Luke also, when he came to the conclusion of that discourse, was reminded of the anecdote of the visit and its point—the extolling of a spiritual relationship to Jesus.

But he had already mentioned the visit;20 he therefore seized on the scene with the woman, which presented a [396]similar termination. From the strong resemblance between the two anecdotes, I can scarcely believe that they are founded on two really distinct incidents; rather, it is more likely that the memorable declaration of Jesus, that he preferred his spiritual before his bodily relatives, had in the legend received two different settings or frames. According to one, it seemed the most natural that such a depreciation of his kindred should be united with an actual rejection of them; to another, that the exaltation of those who were spiritually near to him, should be called forth by a blessing pronounced on those who were nearest to him in the flesh. Of these two forms of the legend, Matthew and Mark give only the first; Luke, however, had already disposed of this on an earlier occasion; when, therefore, he came to the passage where, in the common evangelical tradition, that anecdote occurred, he was induced to supply its place by the second form.