The Four Gospels

Index

PREFACE

It should be self-evident that I have used first and foremost all of the exegetical works of the Holy Fathers, especially St John Chrysostom and Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, as well as the interpretations of Scripture (based on patristic sources) provided in the Holy Trinity Periodical, published before the Revolution in Russia and The Patristic Exegesis of the Gospel of Matthew, which was published by the journal Eternal Things, edited by Bishop Methodius these past few years in Paris, in three volumes.

Without aiming for any particular scholarly goals, I intended to give readers and those who study the New Testament a key to understanding and interpreting the Scriptures according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church. Such a handbook, considering the general scarcity of books and publications of this nature, could at least partially replace all the previous Russian prerevolutionary textbooks and guides. I beg the reader to be lenient in assessing my work since I never had the opportunity to wholeheartedly give myself to it, as such a lofty subject would require, working on it only sporadically. But even for such an opportunity I thank God, hoping that my work will not be without usefulness, and I ask every reader to pray for me.

—Archbishop Averky

Editor’s Note: This text emerged from lecture notes. The translator and editors did not always have access to the same editions of the Russian language books used by the author. Furthermore, not all of these works exist in English translation, and where they do it is not always possible to cite a corresponding reference. Additionally, the author followed a Russian cultural and intellectual practice in which it is not considered essential to give all details of the source material but simply an indication of its origins.

Therefore the bibliography and endnotes at the end of this English edition are listed to facilitate the reader’s understanding or indicate as closely as possible a source for further reading and study.

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS THE NEW TESTAMENT?

The New Testament is the collection of holy books that comprise the part of the Holy Bible that appeared in the world after the birth of Christ. These books were written by the disciples and apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

THE PURPOSE FOR WRITING THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THEIR CONTENT

The books of the New Testament were written by the holy apostles with the intention of describing the salvation of mankind, accomplished by the incarnate Son of God—our Lord Jesus Christ. In keeping with this great purpose, they tell us of incredible events—the Incarnation of the Son of God, His earthly life, His teachings, the miracles He performed, His redeeming suffering and death on the cross, His all-glorious resurrection from death and ascension into heaven, the first period of the spread of Christ’s faith through the holy apostles. They also explain the teaching of Christ in its multifaceted application to life, and they further warn us of the final days of the world and mankind.

THE NUMERATION, NAMES, AND ORDER OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament. Their names and order are as follows (note: this order follows the Russian synodal translation):

1.   The Holy Gospel according to Matthew

2.   The Holy Gospel according to Mark

3.   The Holy Gospel according to Luke

4.   The Holy Gospel according to John

5.   The Acts of the Apostles

6.   The General Epistle of the Holy Apostle James

7.   The First General Epistle of the Holy Apostle Peter

8.   The Second General Epistle of the Holy Apostle Peter

9.   The First General Epistle of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian

10. The Second General Epistle of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian

11. The Third General Epistle of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian

12. The General Epistle of the Holy Apostle Jude

13. St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans

14. St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians

15. St Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians

16. St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians

17. St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians

18. St Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians

19. St Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians

20. St Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians

21. St Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

22. St Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy

23. St Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy

24. St Paul’s Epistle to Titus

25. St Paul’s Epistle to Philemon

26. St Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews

27. The Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) of St John the Theologian

THE DIVISION OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

All the books of the New Testament together are usually simply called the New Testament, as if in opposition to the Old Testament, because these books comprise the new commandments and new promises of God to men. They are in fact a new covenant, or union of God with mankind, established on the Blood of the only mediator between God and man—Jesus Christ, Who came into the world and suffered for our sake (Luke 22:20; 1 Tim 2:5; Heb 9:14–15).

The books of the New Testament are divided into the Gospel and the Epistle.¹ The first four books are the Tetraevangelium, or just the Gospels, because they contain the good news (the word Gospel in the original Greek means good news) of the coming into the world of the divine Redeemer promised by God to our forefathers, and of His great work of the salvation of mankind.

All the other books of the New Testament are often combined and called the Epistles (in Russian, at least) because they contain the works referring to the Acts of the Apostles and their instructions, given to the first Christians.

THE DIVISION OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ACCORDING TO THEIR CONTENT

According to their content, the books of the New Testament are usually divided into the following four sections:

1.   The books of the New Law, in which we can include the Gospels, since they comprise the very essence of the law of God’s new covenant with mankind, for they show us the salvific events of Jesus Christ’s life and His divine teaching.

2.   One historical book, the Book of Acts, since it tells of the history of the founding and initial growth of the Church of Christ on earth through the preaching of the apostles.

3.   Books of instruction, which refer to the seven general Epistles (previously listed) and to the fourteen Epistles of St Paul, since they contain the teachings of the apostles, or rather their interpretation of the teachings of Christ, as applicable to various situations in life.

4.   One prophetic book, the Book of Revelation, since it contains prophesies on the future of the Church of Christ, mankind, and the world, expressed in mystical visions and images.

A HISTORY OF THE CANON OF NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES

The holy books of the New Testament are all canonical. They received their canonical status immediately after they were written because all Christians were aware of the writers, and they were considered authoritative. It is interesting to note in this context the words of the Apostle Peter in his Second Epistle (2 Pet 3:16), where he mentions his familiarity with all the epistles of the Apostle Paul. Also, having written his Epistle to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul gives an instruction that it be read out loud to the church in Laodicea (Col 4:16). We have many proofs that from the very beginning the Church has always considered the books of the New Testament to be canonical. If there were some doubts concerning certain individual books (a fact often cited by the so-called negative critics), it is still true that these doubts were limited to individual people and were never shared by the whole Church.

Already in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers we find quotations from almost all the books of the New Testament, and some of these books are directly and clearly indicated as books having indubitable apostolic provenance. Thus, for example, several citations from the New Testament canon are found in the Epistle of St Barnabas, the fellow traveler of the Apostle Paul; in the Epistles to the Corinthians of St Clement of Rome; and in the seven Epistles of St Ignatius the God-bearer, Bishop of Antioch and disciple of the holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, where it is evident that all four Gospels were well known to him. The disciples of St John the Theologian, St Polycarp of Smyrna in his Epistle to the Philippians, and St Papias of Hierapolis in his books (which only exist as fragments in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius) also cited the New Testament.

All these Apostolic Fathers lived during the second half of the first century and the beginning of the second.

A great number of references to the New Testament are found in the Fathers of the next generation after the Apostolic Fathers—the Apologists, who lived primarily in the second century. Thus, for example, St Justin Martyr the Philosopher, in his apologetic work Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, and in other writings, cites the Gospels no less than 127 times. St Irenaeus of Lyons, in his monumental five-volume work Against Heresies, witnesses to the canonicity of all four Gospels and cites them innumerable times. Tatian, in his Oration Against Heresies, revealing the foolishness of paganism, proved the divine origin of Holy Scriptures, using direct quotations from the Gospels; he was also the first person to try to write a synthesis of the four Gospels, which was known as the Diatessaron. Clement of Alexandria, the famous teacher and head of the Alexandrian School, cites the New Testament many times in all of his extant works (such as the Pedagogue and the Stromata), showing by his usage that he had no doubts about their authenticity. The pagan philosopher Athenagoras, who began to read the New Testament with the intention of writing against Christianity, instead became a brilliant Christian apologist. His apology directly quotes several long passages from the Gospels, qualifying them with the phrase, thus saith the Scriptures. St Theophilus of Antioch, in his Three Books to Autolicus, has many direct quotes from the Gospels, while, according to Blessed Jerome, he also wrote a synthesis of the Gospels and called it Commentaries on the Gospel.

That most learned Christian orator Origen, who lived during the late second and early third centuries, was an incredibly prolific writer who used a staggering number of references to the New Testament canon. He also gives an indubitable witness to the fact that the four Gospels, as well as the Book of Acts, the Revelation, and the fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul were of apostolic and divine origins, accepted as such by the universal Church.

Also incredibly valuable is the witness of those outside—heretics and pagans. In the writings of the heresiarchs Basilides, Carpocrates, Valentinus, Ptolemy, Heraclion, and Marcion, we find many places that prove they were well acquainted with the New Testament canon. All of them lived in the second century. Especially important to note in this context is the work called The True Word by the pagan philosopher and self-proclaimed enemy of Christ, Celsus, in which all the material he uses to attack Christianity is taken directly from our four Gospels; in fact, he sometimes quotes passages from them verbatim.

It is true, however, that not all the ancient canonical lists of the books of the New Testament included all twenty-seven books that are now accepted by the whole Church. The so-called Muratorian Canon, dated to the second half of the second century and found in the nineteenth century by Ludovico Antonio Muratori, lists (in Latin) only the four Gospels, the books of Acts, thirteen Epistles of St Paul (excluding the Epistle to the Hebrews), the Epistle of Jude, and the Epistles and Revelation of St John the Theologian. However, there is no reason to consider this canon an official Church document. In the same second century appeared the Peshitta, a Syriac translation of the New Testament. It includes as canonical the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of James, but it omits the Epistle of Jude, the Second Epistle of St Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of St John, and the Book of Revelation.

All of these omissions could be the result of purely private reasons, and the same can be said of the doubts of individual writers concerning the authenticity of this or that book. These doubts do not present a serious problem because they are often no more than private opinions, not free from serious bias. Thus, for example, we know that the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, tried to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Epistle of James since it definitively underlines the insufficiency of faith alone without deeds for salvation (Jas 2:26—faith without works is dead), while a key tenet of the Protestant faith is the exact opposite—that a person is justified by faith alone without good deeds. Of course, all other such private opinions that attempt to bring our canon into disrepute are inevitably biased.

As for the whole Church, from the very beginning it has always accepted all of the canonical books of the New Testament, a fact witnessed to in A.D. 360 at the local Laodicean Council, which decreed (Canon 60) that all twenty-seven books of the current canon are canonical books of the New Testament. This decree was then further confirmed triumphantly, receiving an ecumenical character at the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS AND THEIR TEXTUAL HISTORY

All the books of the New Testament were written in Greek, but not in Classical Greek. Rather, they were written in a local Alexandrian dialect of the Greek language, so-called Koine Greek, which was the universally spoken (or at least universally understood) cultural language of not only the eastern but also the western halves of the Roman Empire at that time. This was the language of all the educated people of the time. The apostles chose this language for that reason, so that the New Testament books would be understandable and accessible for all educated citizens of the Roman Empire.

They were written either by the hand of the author (Gal 6:22) or by scribes to whom the authors dictated (Rom 16:22), on Egyptian papyrus with ink and stylus (3 John 13). Parchment was used much more rarely since it was prepared from the skins of animals and was thus very costly to make.

It is characteristic that only capital (uncial) letters of the Greek alphabet were used, there were no punctuation marks, and no spaces separating words. Small (miniscule) letters only began to be used in the ninth century, as were spaces between words. Punctuation marks were only introduced after the invention of the printing press in the sixteenth century by Aldus Manutius. Today’s division into chapters was only introduced in the West in the thirteenth century by Cardinal Hugo de Santo Carlo, while division into verses was introduced by the typographer Robert Stephanus (Estienne) of Paris in the sixteenth century.

Through its learned bishops and priests, the Church has always tried to protect the text of the holy books from any corruption, which is always possible, especially before the invention of the printing press when books were copied by hand. There is evidence to suggest that corrupted texts were corrected by such learned Christian teachers as Origen, Hesychius of Egypt, and Lucian of Antioch. After the invention of the printing press, extra care was taken to make sure that the books of the New Testament would be printed only from the best ancient manuscripts. In the first quarter of the sixteenth century, two printed Greek New Testaments appeared almost simultaneously—the so-called Complutensian Polyglot in Spain and Erasmus’s edition, printed in Basel. It is also very important to take note of the work of Constantine Tischendorff in the nineteenth century, who helped uncover more than nine hundred manuscripts of the New Testament.

Both of these well-intentioned critical editions, as well as the untiring vigilance of the Church, which is guided by the Holy Spirit that lives within it, give us more than enough reasons to be sure that we have, in our time, the pure, uncorrupted Greek text of the New Testament.

WHEN THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN

It is impossible to exactly determine the date of the writing of each book with perfect accuracy, but it is completely without doubt that all of them were written in the second half of the first century. This is clearly seen even in the fact that several writers of the second century—such as Justin Martyr, Celsus, and especially St Ignatius the God-bearer in his Epistles (dated to ca. A.D. 107)—cite the New Testament many times and quote it verbatim.

The first New Testament books to be written were doubtless the Epistles of the apostles, which were written in response to the necessity of confirming the faith of the newly established Christian communities. But soon, of course, there appeared a need for a systematic treatment of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ and His teaching. No matter how much the negative criticism of the nineteenth century has tried to bring into doubt the historical authenticity and accuracy of our Gospels and other New Testament books, dating them to a much later time (F. C. Baur and his school, for example), recent discoveries in the field of patristic literature witness clearly to the fact that the entire New Testament was written in the first century.²

In the beginning of our Gospel lectionary, in a special preface to each of the four Gospels, it is written (based on the witness of the Church historian Eusebius and the famous interpreter of the Scriptures, Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria) that the Gospel of Matthew was written eight years after the ascension of Christ; the Gospel of Mark, ten years; the Gospel of Luke, fifteen years; and the Gospel of John in the thirty-second year after the ascension. In any case, there is a whole list of reasons why we can safely determine that the Gospel according to Matthew was written before all the rest, no earlier than A.D. 50–60. The Gospels of Mark and Luke were written a little bit later, but certainly not before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, while St John wrote his Gospel last, at the end of the first century, already as an old man (some people cite the year A.D. 96). He wrote the Apocalypse a few years earlier. The Acts of the Apostles were written soon after the Gospel according to Luke, since (as we see in its prologue) it was written as a continuation of the Gospel.

WHY ARE THERE EXACTLY FOUR GOSPELS?

All four Gospels tell of the life and teaching of Christ the Saviour, His miracles, His passion on the cross, His death and burial, and His glorious resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. All four together fill in each other’s gaps and help explain difficult moments for interpretation. In fact, they are one whole book that has no contradictions or lack of agreement in the most essential and important elements—in the teaching on salvation, which was accomplished by the incarnate Son of God, wholly God and wholly man. Early Christian writers compared the four Gospels to the river that flowed out of Eden for the watering of the garden planted by God, which divided into four rivers that flowed through the area around the garden, making the land full of all manner of precious fruit. An even more typical symbol for the four Gospels is the mystical chariot that the Prophet Ezekiel saw at the river Chebar (Ezek 1:1–28) and which was made of four beings that looked like the faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. These beings, taken separately, became the emblems of the evangelists. Beginning in the fifth century, Christian iconography represented Matthew with a man or angel, St Mark with a lion, St Luke with an ox, and St John with an eagle. St Matthew was given the symbol of a man because his Gospel especially accents Christ’s human lineage from David and Abraham. St Mark received the symbol of the lion because he especially underlines Christ’s kingly power. St Luke is given the ox (a sacrificial animal) because he speaks of Christ most of all as the Great High Priest who brought Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. St John is associated with the eagle because his thoughts are especially exalted and his language is very majestic like the eagle that flies high above the earth, above the clouds of human weakness, as St Augustine said.

Besides the four canonical Gospels, the first century after Christ saw many (more than fifty) other writings that called themselves gospels and claimed apostolic provenance. The Church, however, very quickly rejected them, relegating them to the list of the so-called apocrypha. Even St Irenaeus of Lyons, the disciple of St Polycarp of Smyrna (who in his own turn was the disciple of St John the Theologian), wrote in his Against Heresies that there are only four Gospels, and that there can be neither fewer nor more than four since there are four directions in the world and four winds in the universe.³

St John Chrysostom brilliantly writes on this question of why the Church accepted four Gospels, not just one:

Can one Evangelist write everything? Of course, he could have, but consider this: Four Evangelists wrote at different times, in different places, without talking or agreeing with each other about the contents. And yet, they wrote their Gospels in such a way that it seems they uttered their words with one mouth. This is a great proof of their truth.⁴

St John also brilliantly counters the objection that in some elements the Gospels even seem to contradict each other:

If they were exactly in agreement with each other in every element (concerning times, places, exact words), then the enemies of Christ would never believe that they had written the Gospels without coming together and agreeing on the contents in advance. Such a prior agreement may have been seen in a pejorative light. But since there are insignificant differences among them, it removes any doubt about their authenticity, and speaks authoritatively in favor of the writers.⁵

Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria argues in a similar vein:

Do not tell me that they are not in agreement at all points. Rather, go and look at the moment where they do not agree. Did a single one of them say that Christ was not born? Did one of them say that Christ resurrected, while another said that He did not? God forbid! In the most important and essential they are all in agreement. Otherwise, people may have thought that they wrote the four Gospels while meeting together and counseling each other on the writing. But in reality, what one missed, another included, and so it only seems that sometimes they contradict each other.⁶

From these words, it is clear that the few insignificant differences in the telling of the four Evangelists do not speak against the genuineness of the Gospels, and instead clearly witness to it.

THE MEANING OF SUCH PHRASES AS: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

The word Gospel, as we have already seen, means good news in the original Greek, which is why the Slavonic Gospels are usually titled, for example, The Good News according to Matthew. It must be said, however, that this expression according to is relative. All four Gospels are the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ—He Himself gives us, through the four Evangelists, the joyful news of our salvation. The Evangelists are only mediators in the transmission of this good news. This is why the English according to is more proper.

THE INTERRELATION OF THE FOUR GOSPELS ACCORDING TO THEIR CONTENT

When considering all four Gospels, the content of the first three (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) coincides at many points, both in the sequence of events and the manner of telling. The fourth Gospel of John in this sense stands alone, being significantly different from the first three both in the events related and the style of writing.

Thus, the first three Gospels are generally called the Synoptics, from the Greek word synopsis, which means summary in the same fashion (the same as the Latin conspectus). But while the first three Gospels are similar to each other both in form and content, which can be easily expressed in parallel tables, they do have their particularities. So, if we use 100 percent to mean the entire content of all four Gospels, then Matthew’s Gospel corresponds to all other Evangelists 58 percent of the time, while 42 percent of his content is unique. Mark’s content agrees with the others 93 percent of the time, while 7 percent is unique to his Gospel. Luke has 41 percent corresponding, 59 percent unique. John, however, has only 8 percent correspondence with the other Evangelists; 92 percent of his Gospel is different from the rest. The corresponding material in all four is generally found in the words of Christ the Saviour; the differences are generally in the narrative sections. When Matthew and Luke literally agree with each other, Mark always agrees with them. There are many more areas of consonance between Luke and Mark than between Luke and Matthew. When Mark has additional material, it generally corresponds to unique material in Luke as well, which is not the case with the unique elements found in the Gospel according to Matthew. Finally, in those cases when Mark is silent, Luke often differs in his account from Matthew.

The Synoptic Gospels almost exclusively tell of the Lord Jesus Christ’s preaching in Galilee, while St John speaks almost exclusively about Judea. The Synoptics for the most part write about Christ’s miracles, parables, and external events in the life of the Lord, while St John discourses on the deep inner meaning of these events through the words of the Lord on the most exalted subjects of the faith.

Despite these differences between the Gospels, they have absolutely no internal contradictions. Attentive reading will reward one with clear marks of agreement between the Synoptics and St John. Thus, St John speaks little about Christ’s Galilean mission, but he doubtless knows of His long sojourns in Galilee; the Synoptics write nothing about the early activity of the Lord in Judea and Jerusalem proper, but there are plenty of internal suggestions of this early preaching. Thus, according to their witness, the Lord had friends, disciples, and followers in Jerusalem, such as the owner of the house where the Mystical Supper was performed, and Joseph of Arimathea. Especially important in this sense are the words written by the Synoptics: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.… How often I wanted to gather your children together (Matt 23:37), words that clearly express Christ’s frequent trips to Jerusalem. It is true that the Synoptics do not write of the miracle of Lazarus’s resurrection, but Luke knows his sisters in Bethany well, and the clearly described character of each of them (expressed in very few words) fully corresponds to their characterization as given by St John.

The main difference between the Synoptics and St John is in the manner of relating Christ’s preaching. In the Synoptics, Christ speaks very simply, in a manner easy to understand, in a populist vein. In St John, Christ speaks about profound and mystical things, often difficult to understand, almost as if they were not intended for the crowd, but rather for a limited circle of listeners. But that is, in fact, the case. The Synoptics relate Christ’s preaching to the Galileans, who were simple and ignorant people. St John, in contrast, relates the words of the Lord directed at the Judeans, the scribes, and Pharisees, people who knew the Law of Moses well, and were (by the standards of that time) quite well educated. In addition, St John, as we see later, has a special goal—to reveal as completely as possible the teaching of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and this theme, of course, is much more difficult to understand than the simple and accessible parables of the Synoptics. But even here there is not a great divergence between the Synoptics and St John. If the Synoptics show a more human side of Christ, while John stresses the divine aspects, this does not mean that the Synoptics do not describe a divine Christ or that John does not show Christ’s human side. The Son of Man of the Synoptic Gospels is also the Son of God, to Whom is given all authority, both in heaven and on earth. In the same way, the Son of God in John is also truly man, Who accepts the invitation to the wedding feast, Who has a friendly conversation with Martha and Mary, and Who weeps over the tomb of His friend Lazarus.

Not in the least contradicting each other, the Synoptics and St John complement each other and only in their wholeness do they give the most beautiful and complete image of Christ, how He is understood and preached by His holy Church.

CHARACTERISTICS AND PARTICULARITIES OF EACH OF THE FOUR GOSPELS

The Orthodox teaching on the divine inspiration of the books of Sacred Scripture has always maintained that the Holy Spirit, while inspiring the holy writers and conveying certain thoughts and words to them, at the same time does not constrain their own mind and character. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit never suppresses the spirit of man, rather only purifies and raises it above its normal limits. Thus, while together they constitute one whole in their transmission of divine truth, separately the four Gospels have their differences that depend on personal qualities of each Evangelist’s character, differences in the manner of writing, style, and phraseology. They also differ as a result of the various circumstances of their writing and the goal with which each of them undertook the writing of his particular Gospel.

Thus, to better understand and interpret the Gospels, we must become more intimately familiar with the personalities, characters, and life of each of the four Evangelists, as well as the circumstances leading to the writing of each Gospel.

The Gospel According to Matthew

The writer of the first Gospel was St Matthew, also called Levi, son of Alphaeus, one of the twelve apostles of Christ. Before he was called to be an apostle, he was a publican, that is, a tax collector, and for this reason was justly despised by his fellow Jews, who generally despised and hated the publicans because they were the servants of Gentiles who had enslaved their nation. The publicans oppressed their own people through heavy taxation, and were not above taking even more money than necessary for the sake of personal gain.

St Matthew himself mentions his calling to apostleship in the ninth chapter, ninth verse of his Gospel, calling himself Matthew, while Mark and Luke, when describing the same event, call him Levi. It was customary for the Jews to have several names, and so there is no reason to think that these are two different people, especially considering that all three Synoptics describe the subsequent invitation of the Lord and His disciples to the house of Matthew in exactly the same terms. Also, in the list of twelve apostles, both Mark and Luke already call the reformed publican Matthew.

Touched to the depth of his soul by the mercy of the Lord, Who did not reject him despite the general hatred directed at him by the Jews and especially the spiritual leaders of the Jews, the scribes, and the Pharisees, Matthew accepted the teachings of Christ with his whole heart. He especially understood their superiority to the traditions and opinions of the Pharisees, who bore the stamp of external righteousness, self-satisfaction, and disdain for sinners. This is why he alone recounts in such detail the scathing, accusatory speech of the Lord against the scribes and the Pharisees, whom He calls hypocrites (Matt 23). For the same reason, it would be correct to assume that he especially took to heart the work of the redemption of his own Jewish nation, which was at that time so deeply imbued with the understandings and opinions of the Pharisees, and so his Gospel was written first and foremost for the Jews. There are reasons to believe that it was written originally in Aramaic and only a little later was translated into Greek by an unknown translator, perhaps by Matthew himself. This is witnessed by St Papius of Hierapolis: "Matthew wrote down the preaching of the Lord in the Hebrew tongue, and each reader translated it as well as he was able.⁷ It is possible that Matthew himself later translated his Gospel into Greek, in order to make it accessible to a wider circle of readers. In any case, the Church accepted as canonical only the Greek text of the Gospel according to Matthew since the Aramaic text was very soon corrupted by certain Judaizing heretics.

Having written his Gospel for the Jews, St Matthew intended first of all to prove to the Jews that Jesus Christ is that Messiah of Whom the Old Testament prophets spoke, that He is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets,⁸ and that the Old Testament revelation, obscured by the scribes and the Pharisees, can only be fully understood and explained in Christianity. Thus, St Matthew begins his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, desiring to show the Jews Jesus’s descent from David and Abraham, and he cites the Old Testament numerous times in order to prove the fulfillment of its prophecies. There are no fewer than sixty-six such citations, and in forty-three of these, the citation is written down verbatim. The text itself witnesses to the fact that St Matthew’s intended audience was Jewish—when he mentions some specific Jewish ritual, he never finds it necessary to describe it in detail, as if it were already fully understood by his readers; this also can be said of the use, without explanation, of certain Aramaic words that were commonly used in Palestine. In contrast, the other Evangelists take special care to describe these same rituals in detail (Matt 15:1–3; Mark 7:3–4; 10:46).

The Church historian Eusebius has St Matthew writing the Gospel eight years after the ascension of Christ, but St Irenaeus of Lyons believed that St Matthew wrote his Gospel when Peter and Paul were both preaching the good news in Rome,⁹ that is, ca. A.D. 60.

Having written his Gospel for his countrymen the Jews, St Matthew continued to preach to them in Palestine for a long time, but later traveled to other countries and died a martyr’s death in Ethiopia.

The Gospel according to Matthew has twenty-eight chapters or 116 lectionary readings. It begins with the genealogy of Christ from Abraham and ends with the parting instruction of Christ to the disciples before His ascension. Since St Matthew primarily writes about Jesus Christ’s human origins, he is associated with the Evangelical symbol of the man.

The Contents of the Gospel According to Matthew by Chapter

Chapter 1. The genealogy of Jesus Christ. The Nativity of Christ.

Chapter 2. The adoration of the Magi. The flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. The killing of the innocent children. The return of the Holy Family from Egypt and their settling in Nazareth.

Chapter 3. The preaching of John the Baptist. The baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter 4. Christ is tempted by the devil. The beginning of the Galilean mission. The calling of the first apostles. Christ’s preaching and healing of the sick.

Chapter 5. The Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes, the apostles as the salt of the earth and the light of the world: I have come not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. The new understanding of the commandments: thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, the teaching on divorce, on oaths, and love for one’s enemies.

Chapter 6. Continuation of the Sermon on the Mount: The teaching on mercy, on prayer: Our Father; on fasting; on collecting treasures in heaven, not on earth; on the impossibility of serving both God and mammon; on laying aside cares for the body and its needs; on seeking the kingdom of God and its righteousness.

Chapter 7. Continuation of the Sermon on the Mount: On not judging one’s neighbors; on not casting pearls before swine; on constancy in prayer; on the narrow and wide gates; on false prophets; on the need to do good; the parable of the house built on stone and the house built on sand.

Chapter 8. The healing of the leper. The healing of the servant of the centurion of Capernaum. The healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and many possessed and diseased: The Son of Man has no place to lay his head; Leave the dead to bury their dead. The calming of the storm at sea. The healing of two possessed in the country of the Gergesenes and the destruction of the herd of swine.

Chapter 9. The healing of the paralytic. The calling of the publican Matthew: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. On the fasting of Christ’s disciples. The raising of the daughter of a certain ruler and the healing of the woman with an issue of blood. The healing of two blind men and the dumb man who was possessed by a demon: The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Matt 9:37)."

Chapter 10. The calling of the twelve apostles and their preaching. The prophecy of their future persecutions by many. The meaning of confessing Christ before men and the danger of denying Him. On the necessity of complete love for the Lord, even greater than love for one’s family and even for one’s self.

Chapter 11. The delegation from John the Baptist and Christ’s witness about John. Woe to Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. The Lord calls to Himself all those who are weary and heavy laden.

Chapter 12. The disciples tear off the heads of wheat on a Sabbath. The healing of the man with a withered arm. The fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about Christ. The healing of the possessed man and the accusation that Christ is casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub. Jesus denounces the Pharisees for their unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees seek a sign from Christ. The parable of the unclean spirit that went out of a man and then came back. Who are My mother and My brothers?

Chapter 13. The parable of the sower. Why does Christ the Saviour speak in parables? The explanation of the parable of the sower. The parable of the wheat and the tares. The parable of the mustard seed, of the yeast; explanation of the parable of the wheat and the tares. The parable of the treasure hidden in the field, of the pearl beyond price, and the net cast into the sea. No prophet is without honor.

Chapter 14. The beheading of John the Baptist. The feeding of the five thousand. The walking on water. The healing of the sick through merely touching Jesus’s garments.

Chapter 15. Christ’s accusation of the Pharisees, that they prefer their own traditions to the word of God. On the impure heart as the source of impurity in man. The healing of the possessed daughter of the Canaanite woman. The healing of many diseased, and the feeding of the four thousand.

Chapter 16. The sign of Jonah the Prophet. The warning against the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Apostle Peter confessed Christ as the Son of the Living God on behalf of all the apostles. The prophecy of Jesus about His imminent suffering and the rebuking of Peter. The teaching on self-denial, taking up one’s cross and following after Christ.

Chapter 17. The transfiguration of Christ. The healing of the possessed youth. The miraculous payment of the temple tax.

Chapter 18. On the necessity for being as children to enter the kingdom of heaven. On temptations. The parable of the lost sheep. On accusing a fallen brother and on the highest authority of the Church. On forgiveness of offences. The parable of the unmerciful debtor.

Chapter 19. The teaching on the reprehensibility of divorce and on virginity. The blessing of the children. Of the rich youth and on riches as a hindrance to the inheritance of eternal life.

Chapter 20. The parable of the workers hired for the care of the vineyard. Jesus’s prophecy of His own death and resurrection. The request of the mother of the sons of Zebedee and the Lord’s instruction to His disciples on humility. The healing of the two blind men of Jericho.

Chapter 21. The entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and the expulsion of the sellers from the temple. The withered fig tree and the power of faith. The high priests question Christ’s authority. The parable of the two sons. On the stone, which became the head of the corner.

Chapter 22. The parable of the bridal feast of the king’s son. On taxes to Caesar. The conversation with the Sadducees on the resurrection from the dead. On the two major commandments—love for God and love for one’s neighbor and on the divine Sonship of Christ.

Chapter 23. The Lord accuses the scribes and Pharisees. Prophecy of God’s wrath regarding Jerusalem.

Chapter 24. Prophecy of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, wars, persecution of His followers, the end of the world, and the Second Coming.

Chapter 25. The parable of the ten virgins. The parable of the talents. The Last Judgment.

Chapter 26. The council of the high priests and scribes on putting Jesus to death. Christ is anointed in Bethany. The betrayal of Judas. The Mystical Supper. The prophecy of Peter’s denial. The prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. The Lord is taken by the servants of the high priest. Judgment before Caiaphas. The denial of Peter.

Chapter 27. Judgment before Pilate. The remorse of Judas and his death. The people ask for the release of Barabbas instead of Christ. The mockery of the soldiers. The crucifixion. Taunting of the Crucified One. Darkness over all the land. The death of the Lord. His burial and the sealing of the tomb.

Chapter 28. The myrrh-bearing women come to the tomb. The earthquake and the coming down of the angel who threw aside the stone from the tomb. The good news of the angel to the women of the resurrection of Christ. The guards are bribed to lie about the resurrection. The appearance of the Lord to the eleven in Galilee and his final words on the preaching of the Gospel to all nations.

The Gospel According to Mark

The second Gospel was written by Mark, who also had the name John. He was by birth a Jew, but was not one of the Twelve. Therefore, he could not have been such a constant follower and disciple of Christ, as was St Matthew. He wrote His holy Gospel from the words and under the guidance of the Apostle Peter. He himself, apparently, was a witness only of the last days of the earthly life of the Lord. This Gospel is the only one that speaks of a certain young man who, when Christ was taken by the soldiers in the garden of Gethsemane, went after Him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And they laid hold of him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked (Mark 14:51–52). Ancient tradition identifies this young man with the author of the second Gospel, St Mark himself. His mother Mary is mentioned in the Book of Acts (12:12), as one of the women who was most dedicated to the faith of Christ. In her home in Jerusalem, faithful gathered for prayer. St Mark later participated in the first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul together with Barnabas, whose nephew he was on his mother’s side (Col 4:10).

As we know from the Book of Acts, after their arrival in Perga, Mark separated from Paul’s company and returned to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13). For this reason, St Paul did not want to take Mark with him on his second missionary journey, but since Barnabas did not want to be separated from Mark, they had a falling out, so sharp that they parted from one another (Acts 15:39), Barnabas going to Cyprus with Mark, and Paul continuing his journey with Silas. This momentary coolness, apparently, did not last long, since we find Mark later on together with Paul in Rome, from where Paul wrote his Epistle to the Colossians, whom St Paul greets on behalf of Mark as well, warning them of his possible arrival (Col 4:10). Later, St Mark traveled and worked with the Apostle Peter, a fact attested to especially by tradition and the words of the Apostle Peter himself in his First General Epistle, where he writes: She who is in Babylon, elect together with you, greets you; and so does Mark my son (1 Pet 5:13). Before his death, Paul once again called Mark to himself (2 Tim 4:6), writing to Timothy: Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry (2 Tim 4:11). According to tradition, the Apostle Peter made Mark the first bishop of the Alexandrian Church, and St Mark ended his life as a martyr in Alexandria.

According to the witness of St Papius of Hierapolis, as well as St Justin the Philosopher and St Irenaeus of Lyons, St Mark wrote his Gospel from the words of the holy Apostle Peter. St Justin calls it literally the memoirs of Peter.¹⁰ Clement of Alexandria says that the Gospel according to Mark is in effect the written down oral preaching of St Peter, which St Mark wrote due to requests of Christians living in Rome. This is also witnessed by many other Church writers, and even the content of the Gospel of Mark clearly shows that it was written specifically for Gentile Christians. There is very little written about the relationship of Christ’s teaching to the Old Testament, and very few citations are given from Old Testament books. In addition, Mark uses occasional Latin words, such as speculator (6:27; executioner), centurion (15:39, 44, 45), quadrans (12:42). Even the Sermon on the Mount, which explains the supremacy of the New Testament law over the old, is completely left out.

Most of Mark’s attention is directed to giving the reader a clear record of the miracles of Christ, underlining thus the royal majesty and omnipotence of the Lord. In his Gospel, Jesus is not the Son of David, as in Matthew, but the Son of God, the Lord and Master, the King of the universe (compare his first verse with the first verse of Matthew). Thus, Mark’s emblem is the lion, the king of beasts, the symbol of power and strength.

In general, the content of the Gospel according to Mark is very close to the narration in Matthew, but it is shorter and more concise. It only has sixteen chapters, or seventy-one lectionary readings. It begins with the appearance of John the Baptist, and it ends with Christ sending the apostles to preach to the world after His ascension.

The Church historian Eusebius dates the writing of the Gospel according to Mark to the tenth year after the ascension of the Lord. In any case, it was definitely written before the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, before A.D. 70.

The Content of the Gospel According to Mark by Chapter

Chapter 1. The preaching of St John the Baptist. The baptism of Christ. The temptation in the wilderness. The beginning of Christ’s Galilean mission. The calling of the first apostles. Preaching and miracles in Capernaum. The healing of the lepers.

Chapter 2. The healing of the paralyzed man who was lowered into the house through the roof. The calling of Levi. On the fasting of the disciples of Christ. Plucking the heads of grain on a Sabbath.

Chapter 3. Healing the man with the withered arm on a Sabbath. The Pharisees conspire to kill Jesus. The great multitudes following the Lord, and the miracles of healing. Calling the Twelve. The Lord is accused that He casts out demons with the power of Beelzebub, and the unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Who are My Mother and brothers?

Chapter 4. The Parable of the sower. The parable of the mustard seed. Calming the storm at sea.

Chapter 5. Casting out the legion of demons from the possessed man in the country of the Gadarenes and the destruction of the herd of swine. The raising of Jairus’s daughter and the healing of the woman with an issue of blood.

Chapter 6. A prophet has no honor except in his own country.… Sending the Twelve to preach. The beheading of John the Baptist. The miraculous feeding of the five thousand. Walking on water. Miraculous healing merely by touching the hem of Christ’s garments.

Chapter 7. The Pharisees accuse the disciples of the Lord of disregarding the traditions of the elders. It is not proper to disregard the word of God in favor of the tradition of the elders. Not that which goes into a man, but that which comes out of his impure heart, defiles him. Healing the possessed daughter of the Syro-Phoenician