“It is common knowledge that among all the Scriptures, even
those of the New Testament, the Gospels have a special pre-eminence,
and this because they are the principal witness to the life and teaching
of the Word Incarnate, our Saviour.

“The Church has in every age held and holds that the four Gospels
are of apostolic origin, in so far as the apostles preached by order of
Christ, and later, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this
message was transmitted in writing by them and by men of their
circle as a foundation of the faith, that is the fourfold Gospel of
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
“Holy Mother Church has maintained and maintains with entire
constancy and steadfastness that the four above-mentioned Gospels
whose historicity she affirms without hesitation, faithfully relate
what Jesus the Son of God, while he passed his life among men, did
and taught for their eternal salvation until the day when he was
taken up into heaven (cf Actsl:l-2)... The sacred writers, when
they composed the four Gospels, made a selection of some of the
many things that had been transmitted orally or in writing. Some of
these they related in an abbreviated form or explained with due
regard for the situation of the Churches. They retained the character
of the original preaching, in such a way as always to impart to us an
honest and true account of Jesus”.

Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation

First Printing....................................................................... May 1975
Second Printing.................................................................. March 1977

/I .
UJlOltn pamphlets

2 REDFORD AVENUE,
WALLINGTON, SURREY, SM6 9DP

The Gospels: Historical and True is reprinted from The Problem of
Christ by Domenico Grasso SJ ©1969, Alba House, New York,
used with permission of the publisher.
Nihil obstat: Daniel V. Flynn, J.C.D. Censor
Imprimatur: Joseph P. O’Brien, S.T.D. V.G. New York, 24-VII-69

The Nihil obstat and Imprimatur arc a declaration that a book or pamphlet is
considered to be free from doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that
those who have granted the Nihil obstat and Imprimatur agree with the
contents, opinions or statements expressed.

THE GOSPELS
Historical and True
Domenico Grasso SJ

Professor of Pastoral Theology at the
Gregorian University, Rome.

In our century some scholars have maintained that Jesus never
existed, that his person is the expression of some powerful ideas
endowed with such great creative force as to become concretized in
terms of an historical personality.1 These attempts are made on the
basis of unacceptable ideological presuppositions which fail the test
of real criticisim.
Actually, we have much more abundant sources of information
on the person of Jesus Christ than we have on almost any other
personality of antiquity. The historical documents which witness
his existence and activity are exceptional both in their number and
critical value.
\ Pagan Sources for the History of Christ
ytu<r U(p
lacUBs, a great Latin historian, writing around tfjgÿEassPFffie votes
a whole page of his
t° ^esus· In speaking of the burning of
Rome, which was presumably the work of Nero himself, he attempts
to recapture the drama of the destruction of Troy. Tacitus claims
that the emperor, in order to quell the voices accusing him of having
been the cause of the disaster, accused those people who were called

Lilatfc>v.dy. This dangerous superstition
1

L. Couchoud, Le mystère de Jesus, Paris, 1924

Λ- He q2>es

H\£

a ■> % which, for a time was successfully controlled, began to spread from
0
? S Judea, where it first originated, to the City (of Rome), where all the
k most common and shameful things seem to congregate and win
.^-applause.2 This brief description, which Tacitus probably found in
â the Senate archives, fully supports what we know of Jesus from the
13
5 é 5 Gospels. He is a Jew who was put to death, under the reign of
of
Tiberius, by the procurator Pontius Pilate; he was the initiator of
> ^2. -i a religious movement whose followers are called Christians. For the
ο
<0 ^.Latin historian, Jesus is an historical personality, living at a precisely
£
,3 determined moment in history, a few decades prior to Tacitus’

o’ ■*$. writing.

ο

,

Ό
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i

ζ

. ·*

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o u the year
he tells us that this Emperor
expelled the Jews from Rome because of their constant agitations
“over Chrestus" 3 The word which he uses, “Chrestus”, obviously
ω
$ u. stands tor
ureeK translation ot
for Lrinst,
Christ, me
the Greek
of me
the Heorew
Hebrew term
ο) $
“Messiah” (anointed). Suetonius alludes to the frequent heated
debates between Christians and Jews on the nature and teachings of
Christ. Still, as Ricciotti observes
s see

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s 91

Before Tacitus and Suetonius,
Roman governor
of Bithynia, in his correspondence with the Emperor Tirajan (A.D. "3 <<
I \ 2. 4aL2^speaks of Christians and their presence throughout the territory ù
under his administration. Describing their religious practices, he says
-

From this testimony, written less than 100 years after the death
of Jesus, we have exact information regarding the place and time in
which Christ lived. These sources speak of him as an historical
personage, and not a myth, as would be expected from the Orient.
2
3

5

Annals, XV,44
Vita Claudii, XXV
Ricciotti, Life of Christ, 2nd ed., Milan, 1941, p.107
Pliny, Letters. X,96

page two

Jewish Sources
'On the subject of Jesus, the Jews used a conspiracy of silence. This
explains the scarcity of Jewish sources regarding Jesus. No matter
how hard they tried to discredit Christ as a person, they never
made any attempt to cast doubt upon the historical reality of his
existence. The only author to present the figure of Jesus in its real
grandeur was Flavius Josephus. “In those times”, he writes, “there
lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed he can be called a man; for he was
a doer of the most extraordinary deeds, and the teacher of men who
receive the truth with joy. He attracted many Jews to himself, and
many Greeks as well: he is the Christ*’.6
We might ask why the evidence from non-Christian sources is so
scarce. The answer is not difficult. The importance of Christianity
was not apparent from its beginnings: the events took place in a
remote province of the Roman Empire, and they were hardly such as
to provoke any great notice. Only in the second century, when the
progress of the Christian movement began to take on imposing
dimensions, did the pagans begin to show an interest in it by criti­
cizing and attacking its doctrines.7

The Gospels
The most important sources for the life and teaching of Jesus are the
Christian sources. In their letters, the Apostles (and especially St.
Paul) allude to many facts in the life of Christ; these allusions,
however, are only drops of water compared to the wealth of infor­
mation presented by the four Gospels.
The word Gospel is from the Greek, euangelio n, meaning, the
good news. In the language of the New Testament the term is
applied to the proclamation of the Messiah and his Messianic
kingdom (Matt. 4:23; Mark 1:14). When the good news preached by
the Messiah was written, the word was extended to include the four
books in which the good news was contained. In this last sense the
term has passed into current usage indicating the story of Christ’s
life and the outline of his teaching, as written by four authors.
Since Jesus neither wrote anything himself nor instructed his
6 Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 63-64
7 Best known among these early pagan polemical writers is Celsus, whose
work was refuted by Origen.
page three

Apostles to write, they were at first occupied with preaching the
doctrine learned from the lips of the Messiah himself. The prolifera­
tion of Christian communities created the need for a written version
of what the Apostles were preaching. This gave rise to various collec­
tions of Jesus’ deeds and sayings. From among these various
accounts, the Church has chosen and officially approved four,
commonly called the Gospels, which represent the most ancient
sources of the life and teaching of Christ.
It follows that we must critically evaluate the authenticity,
integrity and historicity of these sources..
r

actually u/f

fa

i f iS

G uTe.e’„

Authenticity of the Gospels

uted^ The problem of authenticity does
not present any particular difficulty today: an author signs his work,
indicating the place and date of publication. For ancient documents,
however, this was not usually the case. More than once the work of
one author has been freely attributed to another on grounds of
merely external similarities, or on the basis of a similar name. Only
by slow process have competent literary critics managed to correct
these mistakes. For example, for centuries it was believed that the
book on the Celestial Hierarchies was the work of Dionysius
Areopagite, the convert of St. Paul (Acts 17:34), whereas it has now
been demonstrated that a neo-PIatonic philosopher of the fifth
century, commonly referred to as “Psuedo-Dionysius” wrote it.
Scholars of the classics are still arguing the authenticity of some
works, for example, the so-called Appendix Vergiliana and the two
letters to Caesar attributed to Sallust. The authenticity of a docu­
ment is important, because it influences the document’s value.
The Gospels must also undergo the test for authenticity: who is
their author? In examining the codices or manuscript scrolls of the
Gospels, we find that they bear the names of four distinct authors:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If we consider the fact that these
codices, more than four thousand of them from the period between
the fourth and die ninth centuries, came from every part of the
Roman Empire, then we can appreciate the value represented by this
unanimity. There is not a single exception: not one of thenv
page four

mentions the name of any author other than these four. Certainly, if
there had not been a consensus, such perfect unanimity could never
have resulted. This unanimity of Greek, Latin, Coptic and Syriac
codices leaves no room for doubt.
The authenticity of the Gospels is further corroborated by the
historical testimony of ancient writers and Fathers of the Church
who were familiar with the Gospels and informed about their real
authorship.

Testimony of Papias, A.D.125
Around the year 125, Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, wrote
a commentary of five books on the “sayings of our Lord”.
Fragments of this work, which refer to the first two Gospels, have
been preserved in the history of Eusebius of Caesarea. Papias reports
that every so often he had an opportunity to meet personally with
people who had actually known the Apostles, and that he used to
ask them questions in order to determine what the Apostles actually
taught. He did this, he reports, because he was convinced that it was
much more useful to hear the “living voice of the survivors” than
merely to read their books. Among those whom Papias questioned
was “Presbyter John,” probably a disciple of John the Evangelist
from whom Papias learned a few facts about Mark and Matthew.
This is how the presbyter refers to Mark:
“Mark, the interpreter of Peter, wrote most diligently, but not in
strict order, everything he could remember of the deeds and sayings
of the Lord. He, himself, of course, had never heard or seen the
Lord. But he was constantly with Peter, who was preaching the
Gospel for the benefit of those who listened and not with the
intention of weaving together the story of our Saviour’s discourses
(logia). That is why Mark does not err in writing some things as if he
recalled them himself. His whole preoccupation was with losing
nothing of what he had heard and not allowing anything false to
make its way into his account”.
In speaking of Matthew, he has this to say:
“Matthew organized the sayings of our Lord in the Hebrew
dialect: Everyone then interpreted them according to his own
pa<e five

capacity.”8
By the term logia, Papias refers not only to the discourses of
Jesus, but also his works: this is evident from the fact that he had
first described Mark as writing about “the deeds and sayings” of
the Saviour.
Papias’ testimony is most valuable because it was made only
50 years after the composition of the Synoptic Gospels,9 and
comes from a person who had immediate contact with those who
had actually seen the Apostles. No one could possibly be better
informed.
Irenaeus, A.D.170
Around the year 170, Irenaeus shed some fight on this problem.
St. Irenaeus (A.D.140-202) was Bishop of Lyons, native of Asia
Minor, and a disciple of Polycarp, the saintly Bishop of Smyrna, who
was a disciple of John the Evangelist.1 0 He makes mention of the
four Gospels:
“Matthew wrote the Gospel among the Hebrews, in their own
language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome
and founding the Church there. After their departure (death?)
Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, composed a written
version of what Peter had preached. Then Luke, Paul’s companion
and disciple, committed his preaching to book form. Then John,
too, the disciple of the Lord, who had leaned upon his breast,
published his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia.”11
A few chapters later Irenaeus adds: “So great is the stability
regarding the Gospels that their authenticity is attested to even by
the heretics who take them as a point of departure in their attempts
to establish their own teachings”.12 The only exception to this
statement is the Ebionite sect, which accepted only Matthew’s
Gospel.
8 Historia Ecclesiastica, 111, 39
9 The word Synoptic as applied to the Gospels means that the fust three
Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) permit the reader to embrace the whole
narrative of Christ’s activity in one single glance; they follow the same line
of development.
10 Adv. Haereses, III JI,7
11 Ibid., Ill, I, 2
12 Ibid., Ill JI,7

pa^c

Having lived in France and having had constant contact with
/■Rome, Irenaeus is familiar with the authors of all four Gospels; he
even dates the precise time of their composition. In this he confirms
the information given by Papias.

Clement, Origen, Tertullian. A.D.200
Towards the year 200, Clement of Alexandria (A.D.150-215)
speaks of the “four Gospels handed down to our own day”13
and is familiar with a tradition which holds that the first Gospels
written were those which contained the genealogies of our Lord,
that is, Matthew and Luke.14 Also, in Egypt, Origen (A.D.l85-255),
one of the most learned men of antiquity, described both the names
of the four Gospel writers and the order in which they wrote: first
Matthew, then Mark, Luke and John.15
Around the year 207, Tertullian (A.D.l60-223), writing from
Pro-consular Africa against the heretic Marcion who recognised only
the authority of the Gospel of Luke (because of its non-Hebrew
origins), supports the value of all four Gospel writers, because
Matthew and John were Apostles, and Luke and Mark were disciples
of the Apostles.16
Thus, the codices furnish us with the names of the evangelists,
and historical testimony supplies information concerning their
identity. Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus, Mark was the
disciple of Peter, an Apostle of Jesus, and Luke was the disciple
of St. Paul.
Internal Evidence of Authorship
An internal examination of these Gospels permits us to enlarge
somewhat upon this information. Matthew is expressly named in
the list of the apostles reported in Mark (3:18), Luke (6:15), and
Matthew (10:3). Matthew tells us that he was a publican (10:3)
and then recounts his vocation to follow Jesus (9:9-13). Luke also
speaks of this publican, calling him Levi (5:27); and Mark calls him
the son of Alpheus (2:14). These various facts complement each
13
14
15
16

Stromata, 111,13
Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, 14,5
In Jesu Nave Homil., VII,1
Adversus Marcionem, 4,2

pa^e seven

other. Matthew is also called Levi and he is the son of Alpheus.
Before following Jesus he was a tax collector and a man of good
means. He was rich enough to offer a banquet for the master and
his disciples (Matt. 9:9-13).
Mark, on the other hand, was not a disciple of Jesus, but a
disciple of Peter, the prince of the Apostles. Papias, as we have
already seen, speaks of Mark as the “disciple and interpreter’’ of
Peter. When the Apostle Peter was preaching in Rome, he was
obliged to make use of an interpreter. Mark served as Peter’s inter­
preter. Peter himself, in his first letter written from Rome,
affectionately refers to Mark as “my son” (1 Pet. 5:13). The
presence of Mark in the eternal city is established also by St. Paul,
who, in his letter to the Colossians, calls him “the cousin of
Barnabas” (Col. 4:10). It is this same Mark whom Paul asked
Timothy to bring to Rome, because he was so useful to Paul’s
ministry (2 Tim. 4:11). This helps us to understand why St. Paul
refers to Mark as “his fellow-worker” (Philemon 24). In all proba­
bility he is the John Mark who accompanied the Apostle of the
Gentiles to Cyprus on his first missionary journey (Acts 13:1 ff). The
Acts of the Apostles presents him as the son of a woman named
Maria, in whose home in Jerusalem Peter took refuge after his
miraculous delivery from prison in the year 42. We cannot exclude
the possibility that he was converted and baptized by Peter. At any
rate, Mark was a disciple of both Peter and Paul, but tradition
prefers to call him simply the disciple of Peter.
The third evangelist is Luke, known through ancient Christianity
as “the disciple of Paul”. The anti-Marcionite prologue adds the
information that he is a native of Antioch in Syria and a physician
by profession. He is also held to be the author of the Acts of the
Apostles, an opinion that is substantiated in the prologue of Acts,
where he speaks of having already written a Gospel (1:1). He was the
companion of St. Paul and the eye-witness of the events he describes
in the Acts by using the first person plural (the so-called “wepassages” — 16:10-17; 20:5-16, 27:1 -44, 28:1-15). In his letters, St.
Paul calls him the “beloved physician” (Col. 4:14) and speaks of him
as being alone with Paul in Rome in his last imprisonment (2 Tim.
4:11). The Greek origin of the evangelist is substantiated by the

page eight

style of his Gospel which shows him to be accomplished in the use
•of Greek.
The fourth Evangelist is John the Apostle, author of the Gospel
which bears his name. This teaching of tradition is substantiated by
an internal analysis of the Gospel: the writer makes frequent mention
of a disciple whom Jesus loved, without ever revealing his identity.
John, together with Andrew the brother of Peter, appears in the first
chapter of the Fourth Gospel as a disciple of John the Baptist
(1:35-37). He rested his head on the Master’s breast at the Last
Supper (13:23) and followed his Master to Calvary on the day of the
Crucifixion. Jesus also entrusted his Mother to his care (19:26-27).
At the end of his Gospel he states explicitly that he has written what
he has actually seen and that his testimony is true (21:24). The aging
John wrote the Gospel at the request of the presbyters at Ephesus
who were eager to have a written form of the teaching of such a
renowned authority as a measure to combat the heresies that were
already beginning to develop.

Date of Composition
This information on the Gospels allows us to establish their date of
composition. Notwithstanding certain divergencies in scholarly
opinion, most experts today agree that the Synoptic Gospels were
written before the year 70. Most probably Matthew composed his
Gospel in Aramaic around the year 50. The original Aramaic text,
however, has not survived. It was translated and reworked into
Greek between the years 65-70 to meet the needs of the non-Jewish
elements in the Christian community. At this time the Gospel of
Mark was already in circulation. Mark’s Gospel, in so far as it can be
determined, was written in its present form around the year 65, after
the death of Peter. Luke’s Gospel was written probably between
60-70 A.D. Thus, by the year of the destruction of Jerusalem, the
first three Gospels had already been widely circulated among the
various Christian communities. John wrote his Gospel towards the
end of the first century.
It is interesting to note how rationalist critics have, little by little,
almost completely accepted the conclusions of Catholic scholarship
which were based on tradition. De Giandmaison sums up the various
page nine

opinions in the following outline:1 7
Strauss (1835) - at the very least, yr. 150 for all three Gospels.
Baur (1847)-Matthew, yr, 130-134; Mark, yr 150; Luke, yr. 150
Renan (1877) - Matthew, yr. 84; Mark, yr. 76; Luke, yr. 94.
Hamack (1911) - Matthew, yr. 70; Mark, yr. 65; Luke, yr. 67.
Place of Composition
We might also ask what was the place of composition for each of the
Gospels. Here, too, the historical tradition of the primitive Church
supplies the information. Eusebius, writing in the first decades of the
fourth century, tells us that Matthew wrote his Gospel before leaving
Palestine to evangelize other nations. He wrote in order to leave
his fellow countrymen a record of his ministry among them, since
they were not eager to see him depart. His book is thus almost an
image of his own person.18
This testimony of Eusebius complements that of Papias and
Irenaeus according to whom Matthew wrote “in the Hebrew dialect
for the Hebrews”. We can thus conclude, with reasonable probability,
that the first Gospel was written in Palestine in Aramaic. It is only
logical to suppose that the reworking and translation of the text into
Greek was made in an Hellenistic atmosphere, although it would not
be easy to say precisely where.
Eusebius and Irenaeus supply much information concerning the
place of origin for the second Gospel. Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons,
stated that Matthew wrote while Peter and Paul were preaching at
Rome; and that Mark and Luke wrote after the death of the two
Apostles. This leads us to conclude that Mark composed his Gospel
at Rome. Eusebius is more explicit on the matter. Based on a source
found in the Church of Alexandria, whose foundation tradition
generally assigns to Mark, Eusebius reports that the second evangelist
wrote his Gospel upon the request of the Romans who wanted to
have a written record of Peter’s preaching at Rome.1 9
Eusebius and Irenaeus are unanimous in asserting the Roman
origin of the Gospel of Mark, even though they differ as to the date
17 L. de Grandmaison, Jesus Christ, Paris, 1928, p.l 18
18 Historia Ecclesiastica, 111,24
19 Ibid, 11,15

page ten

ο

of composition, one assigning the writing to a time before the death r1
of Peter, and the other only afterwards. Perhaps Irenaeus formulated ζ
his opinion on the basis of conjecture from the evidence presented
by Papias, who believed that Mark wrote only after Peter had ceased \
topreach.
J"
Ricciotti states that the Gospel of Luke received its “definitive
form” in Rome, though the original may not have been written
there.20 This can legitimately be deduced from the testimony of Jc ξ
Irenaeus as reported above. Probably, the physician of Antioch
+2
began collecting the material for his writings in Greece and then put 2
them into final form in Rome, where he was able to read Mark’s 25
Gospel, whose outline he largely follows.
ej
John wrote his Gospel in Ephesus, or at least in some city of 3 _
Asia Minor. This opinion is common to Christian antiquity. We can
2
thus conclude that the authenticity of the Gospels is a fact which ^5 o
does not permit any reasonable doubt. Both manuscript and
historical tradition justify the conclusion that the authors of the £
four Gospels are actually the men to whom they are attributed.4^
From the outset of our investigation, we can thus exclude tliis q;
fundamental doubt.
9

The Gospels and Classical Historiography
o y
In order to understand the importance of this conclusion, it is well s' 9
to refer to the process of ancient historiography. Since the date of F*
Christ’s death is placed at 30 A.D. and the composition of the Ï

e
κοα. It is interesting to observe^ ‘r
that the great Greek historian Herodotus is first mentioned some
100 years after his death by Aristotle; the second to mention
Herodotus is Cicero, some 400 years later. Cicero is the first to
mention Thucydides, 300 years after his death. Caesar’s
Commentaries are spoken of by Plutarch and Suetonius, 159 years
after Caesar’s death; and the Annals of Tacitus are not mentioned
for some 200 years.
The number of codices and short span of time between the
20 Ricciotti, Life of Christ, p. 146

paie eleven

composition of the Gospels and the first mention of their authors
place the question of their authenticity in a very privileged position
with respect to ancient historiography.

Integrity of the Gospels
The question of authenticity leads to the question of integrity.

The problem is an essential one. A document which has not come
down to us substantially as it was written by its original author, no
matter how genuine it might seem to be in other respects, can hardly
be admitted as an historical source. That is why modem scholars
compile critical editions which undertake comparative examinations
of the various codices and attempt to reconstruct the original
archetype, just as it flowed from the pen of the inspired author. This
is a laborious but indispensable work. Since there was no technique
for mass printing, the scholars of antiquity were obliged to hand
down their library of texts by successive transcriptions. In this
work the copyist, cither by distraction or for some other reason,
could inadvertantly be the cause of additions or omission. It is
therefore absolutely necessary to reconstruct the text in its original
purity. Such an undertaking is more apt to be successful if there are
a great number of codices, and if they are ancient, i.e., as close to
the time of original composition. The possibility of omissions and
additions increases as the manuscript passes from one hand to
another.
In the question of integrity, just as in the question of authenticity,
the Gospels enjoy a privileged position with respect to the other
authors of classical antiquity. The most ancient complete codex
texts, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, date back to the fourth century;
they are thus only 300 years removed from the time of original
composition. We possess some 4000 manuscripts transcribed
between the fourth and ninth centuries. To this we must add the
information that the discoveries of recent decades have brought to
light some papyri containing some Gospel texts that date back prior.

pa<e twelve

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to the fourth century. Among these we might mention the Rylands
Papyrus, preserved in the Manchester Library, which contains some
verses of chapter 18 of the Gospel of St. John. It dates back to the
first half of the second century.
Here once again a comparison with the other texts of antiquity
demonstrates the privileged position of the Gospel texts. There is a
1400 year span between the writing of Sophocles, Aeschylus,
Aristophanes, and Thucydides and the earliest known extant
codex; the span is 1600 for Euripides and Catullus; 1300 for Plato;
1200 for Demosthenes; 700 for Terence. The most favoured text, in
this respect, is that of Vergil, separated from its original by no more
than 400 years. Thus we conclude that we cannot be as certain, in
the case of any written text of classical antiquity, that we have a
modern copy which represents the faithful handing down of the
original, as we are in the case of the Gospels.
The objection might be made that there is an enormous number
of variants in the Gospel. In such a case, how is it possible to have
the true original text? The answer is that these variants do not
effect the essential part of the test. This is the result arrived at by
comparative analysis of the various manuscripts in an effort to
reconstruct the original text. Amiot sums it up like this:
“In the totality of manuscripts, citations from the Fathers prior

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The greater part of these are insignificant, since they con- £
cern only the spelling and order of words.
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It is not difficult to explain the origin of these variants. In
copying a manuscript, the copyist could easily change one word or
letter to another, or he might even understand a word differently if
he were writing from a dictation. A good number of variants is due
to the ancient practice of citing Scripture from memory. Nor must
21 Amiot, L'Evangile, p.450

page thirteen

we discount the attempts of heretics to incorporate their doctrines
into the Gospel text.
We can thus be certain that we have a Gospel text that is in
conformity with the original. If we have no valid reason to doubt the
integrity of the work of Thucydides and Tacitus, even though we
are dependent upon texts which date some 1400 years from the time
of original composition, then we can hardly think of doubting the
integrity of the Gospels, with a span of only 300 years between their
original composition and the date of the first manuscripts.

Historicity
Finally, the most important question concerns the value of our
Gospels. Are the Gospels documents worthy of belief? Do they
really tell us about Christ’s life, or are they merely the result of the
faith of the early Christian community, with its particular visions and
interests? Do the Gospels present a real portrait of Christ?
The answer to this question depends on our ability to demon­
strate that the evangelists actually knew the facts and that they
reported them accurately.
As to their knowledge of the facts, we can have no serious
doubts. As a matter of fact, as we have pointed out, Mark came
from Jerusalem, the setting for many of the episodes he tells us
about and the home of many of the people who had personally
witnessed these episodes. As the disciple of Peter he had contact
with a man who lived with Jesus. No one could have a better
knowledge of Jesus and what he taught and preached.
Luke does not have the same credentials as Mark. Luke, however,
as Paul’s disciple and travelling companion witnessed his preaching;
and had the opportunity of visiting the Church at Antioch. His
firsthand acquaintance with the apostolic atmosphere puts Luke
in a position of knowing what really went on. In the prologue to his
Gospel, Luke says that he had taken great pains to inform himself of
his material, from
those who had been ministers of the Gospel from
*
the very beginning.
Matthew, for his part, was a disciple of Jesus. In writing his
Gospel in Aramaic, he cited things that he had personally and
directly experienced. The Greek reworking and translation which

page fourteen

we have today, enjoyed such authority throughout the ancient
Church that its popularity can hardly be explained unless we admit
that it was a faithful translation of the original. The Greek editor of
Matthew’s Gospel made use of Mark’s Gospel, whose trustworthiness
we have already established.
John’s own words guarantee that he wrote down what he had
seen and “touched”. In his first letter, which many scholars hold to
be an introduction for his Gospel, John has this to say: “that which
was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we looked upon and touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest and we saw
it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was
with the Father and was made manifest to us — that which we have
seen and heard we proclaim also, to you, so that you may have
fellowship with us” (1 John 1: 1-3). Even if his Gospel is spiritual,
he knows that he is recounting events which actually happened,
events for which he is an eyewitness (21:24).
The evangelists were well acquainted with the happenings they
recount in their works. What Luke says of himself in the prologue
to his Gospel can also be said of the others. Besides, the facts they
narrate, like the miracles and the sayings of Jesus, were well geared
to find a permanent place in their memories. Nothing so strikes our
attention as what is surprising and unexpected.
Neither can the truthfulness of the evangelists be called into
question. It is after all, a fundamental canon of historical criticism
that no one lies without a reason. The evangelists certainly had no
reason to lie. In preaching Christ they could look forward only to
persecution, poverty, dishonour, and death. They were considered
asscandaïous traitors to their own nation because they preached a
Messiah who spelled the end of Israel’s political dreams of
restoration. The pagans looked on them as fools (1 Cor. 1:23). A
passage from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians tells the
story of what he had to suffer in preaching the Gospel (2 Cor.
11:16-33).
On the other hand, even if the evangelists bad wanted to lie, the
circumstances of their times would not have allowed them to do so
successfully. They wrote at a time when people who had seen and
page fifteen

heard Christ were still alive.

'

Books of Devotion
The above observations on the knowledge and truthfulness of the
evangelists seem perfectly clear. But there are very many factors
which determine the veracity of a writer. First of all we must keep in
mind that the Gospels were not written for a purely historical
purpose, but for motives of devotion. In committing the life and
teaching of Christ to writing, the evangelists were primarily
interested in furnishing the faithful with a document of edification
to nourish piety and promote the love of Christ. Then is it not
possible that their avowed intentions might not have led them,
unconsciously, to present an image of Christ that was adapted to the
circumstances and purged of everything that would not edify? Is it
not possible to conclude that in the Gospels we meet the Christ of
faith, and not the Christ in history?
This objection does have some foundation in fact. Anyone familiar
with hagjographical literature, the lives of the saints, written simply
for reasons of edification, knows how easy it is for authors to pass
over personal defects and to exaggerate virtues. Fortunately, the
modern hagiographer takes a different approach, which stresses the
humanity that had to be sacrificed to attain the more ethereal
concepts of Christian perfection.
This objection, however, does not detract from the historicity of
the Gospels. It is certainly quite possible to contribute to the piety
and devotion and still remain perfectly faithful to fact. The evange­
lists themselves assure us that this was their objective. Luke, in his
prologue, says that he examined all his sources most thoroughly
(1:3); and John says that he wrote what he had seen and that his
witness is true (19:35). This attention to exact detail is found in the
writings of the other Apostles as well. St. Paul bids Timothy to be
attentive because these are not idle stories that are being taught (1
Tim. 1:4), and St. Peter is no less explicit: “For we did not follow
cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his
majesty” (2 Pet. 1:16). These references make it clear that critical
sense was not unknown to the preachers of the Gospel.
pige sixteen

We might also add that this purpose of edification is actually a
motive for believing in the historical exactness of the Gospels.
Unlike ordinary biographers, who attempt to contribute to the
reader’s edification by exaggeration, the evangelists are dealing with
a person whom they recognize as the Son of God. This conviction
makes them see Jesus as the perfect man. His acts and words take on
a divine worth and meaning. The evangelists’ task is to describe
Jesus’ words and deeds as exactly as they can. The mentality and
preoccupation of the evangelists differ from that of the hagiographers. The hagiographer tends to idealise his subject, while the
evangelist tends to faithfully reproduce his subject which is perfec-.
tion itself. This preoccupation with exactness explains why the evan­
gelists included certain episodes from the life of the Master which
seemed to compromise Jesus’ prestige and personality. For example,
Jesus seems to be lacking in gentleness and patience when he drove
the money changers out of the temple (John 2:14-17); or the
destruction caused when Jesus drove the evil spirits into the herd of
swine (Matt. 8:30-34). The Gospels also state that Jesus’ enemies
thought he was possessed by the evil spirit (John 7:20), and even his
relatives thought he was “beside himself’ (Mark 3:21).

Jesus is not an Idealized Figure
A further objection may be made. It is a fact that a body of legend
and myth often grows up around great historical personalities. Little
by little, the idealized figure tends to lose his real dimension. TJiis
has happened to a good number of historical and religious person­
ages. Might we not legitimately expect that the Jesus presented in
the Gospels fell prey to the same idealistic tendencies?
There is a foundation for this objection. It is true that famous
personages easily give rise to myth and legend. The person of Jesus
does not escape this human tendency.
In the second century, when the canonical Gospels22 were
already written and circulating among the faithful, a literature of
legends and myths grew up among the faithful regarding the person
and teachings of Christ and his Apostles. Some of this literature is
22 The canonical Gospels are the ones we know today; they are so named
from the catalogue of books which the Church recognises as sacred, the
so-called “canon”.

page seventeen

referred to as the Apocryphal Gospels. Many of the imaginary recon­
structions attempt to fill gaps in the canonical Gospels. For example,
the canonical Gospels give very little information concerning Jesus
prior to his public life. The apocryphal versions, however, have filled
Jesus’ hidden life with a number of miracle stories. In one of these
accounts we read that the seven year old Jesus, while playing with
the neighbourhood children, moulded birds out of clay. When the
other boys began bragging about their models, Jesus told the other
boys that he was going to command his birds to fly. The birds
became alive and flew away.
In such cases we are dealing with fantasy, and that is why the
Church rejects the apocryphal gospels. This goes to demonstrate that
scientific criticism was not unknown in early Christianity. We might
question further: if the Church becomes critical in the second
century, might we not suspect it was an effort to end the free range
of fantasy that had been already incorporated in the canonical
Gospels? The answer is negative. Some considerations will convince
us of this.
First of all, the evangelists or the first faithful take full account of
the weaknesses of Christ and leave us a detailed description of his
sufferings. Frequently they tell how he was put to flight by his
enemies, how he was treated like a drunkard, a possessed man, a
madman, etc. If the process of idealization consists in carefully
removing every shadow of defect from the personality described,
why do we see no evidence of this in the Gospel narratives? We
might point out that this is a question of the greatest and most
formidable of all idealization, because it involves nothing less than
the transformation of a man into God. Can we imagine a god who
would flee before his enemies, who would refuse to defend himself
against the soldiers who arrested him, who would submit to cruci­
fixion between two thieves?
To this consideration we might well add another: works of
imagination and fantasy indulge in the spectacular. The evangelists,
however, describe with sobriety the incarnation, birth, resurrection
and ascension of Christ. Yet, each of these episodes presents the raw
material for the most imaginative reconstruction. In fact, the
Christians were criticized for their moderation in presenting Christ.
pa<e eighteen

In particular, Celsus, a bitter antagonist of Christianity, asked why
Christ had never appeared to his enemies, if he was truly risen from
the dead. This idea is so completely human that we are surprised to
find it missing in the Gospels.

The Birth of Christ and the Birth of Buddha
A comparison will bear out this observation even more forcefully.
The difference between imaginative writing and the Gospels. This is
how the LaUta Vistara recounts the birth of Buddha:
“Then Maya-Devi, surrounded by 84,000 chariots drawn by
horses, 84 JOOO chariots hitched to elephants, adorned with ornaments
of every kind, protected by an army of 84,000 soldiers of heroic
courage, handsome and well built, armed with shield and cuirass,
preceded by 60,000 women of Kakya, protected by 40,000
members of the household of Kuddhodana on his father’s side, old,
young, and mature age alike, surrounded by 60,000 members of the
inner circle of King Kuddhodana’s court, singing and producing a
symphony of all manner of musical instruments, surrounded by
80,000 daughters of Naga, 80,000 daughters of Gandhavar, 80,000
daughters of Kinnara, 80,000 daughters of Asura, after completing
all manner of preparations and making ready all manner of adorn­
ment, singing songs and making all manner of acclamation, followed
(by this great retinue) the Queen came out of the palace. The whole
garden of Lumbini, flowing with perfumed waters, was filled .with
divine flowers; and all the trees, the most beautiful of the garden,
although it was not the time of year for it, were decked in leaf and
fruit ... The garden was perfectly adorned by the gods just as the
garden of Mikraka is perfectly adorned by the gods.
“Then Maya-Devi, entering the garden of Lumbini and leaving her
magnificent Chariot, surrounded by the daughters of men and gods,
went from one tree to the other, from one woods to the other,
looking at all the trees one after the other, until she came to this
Plakcha, the most precious among all the precious trees, with its
finely balanced crown of branches, rich with beautiful leaves and
gems, all covered with the flowers of gods and men, exhaling the
sweetest aroma from its branches which were decked in raiment
of the most beautiful hues, sparkling in the manifold lustre and
page nineteen

gleam of a thousand precious stones, completely covered with every
manner of jewel from root to trunk and branches and leaves, those
large and well balanced and symmetrical branches, while the ground
was all covered with a tapestry of grass green as a peacock’s tail and
soft to the touch ... (This tree) beautiful and without blemish ...
she now approached.
“Suddenly this tree, through the power of Bodhisattva, bent down
in salutation; then Maya-Devi, stretching out her right arm like a
lightning bolt that furrows its way across the sky, then taking a
branch of the tree, as a sign of blessing, and looking to the distant
horizon of the sky, and yawning, remained motionless. At that
moment, the 60,000 Aspsara, drawing close to serve her, formed an
honorary escort. Accompanied by a like supernatural power,
Bodhisattva entered into his mother’s womb. At the end of ten full
months he issued from his mother’s side, endowed with memory and
knowledge, without ever having been touched by the impurity of his
mother’s womb, a thing that cannot be said of any other person. At
that same moment, Kakra, Lord of the gods, and Brahma, Lord of
Saha, were standing before him. They both made a bow of the most
profound reverence and, recognizing within his body and the parts
of his body the presence of Bodhisattva arrayed in â divine raiment
of Kaki, they took him into their arms. And the palace in which
Bodhisattva had been while in his mother’s womb, was taken by
Brahma the Lord of Saha and the sons of the gods Brahmakayika
and transported into the world of Brahma ... Bodhisattva was thus
not touched by any human being; it was the gods themselves who
first received him ...”
This is how Jesus’ birth is reported in the third Gospel:
“And while they were there the time came for her to be delivered.
And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swadd­
ling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place
for them in the inn” (Luke 2:6-7).
The difference between the two accounts is striking: there is the
same contrast as there is between history and legend, truth and
fantasy. The words of Rousseau might well apply to the Gospel
account: “Something made up is not like this”.23
23 Emile, IV
pate twenty

For the narrative of the Lalita Vistara we might say the opposite:
something made up sounds like this.

The Absolute Newness of Christ
The impossibility of idealisation of the historical Christ, such as he
was seen and encountered by his apostles, appears even more evident
if we consider the atmosphere in which he lived and worked. The
great novelty of Christ in the history of religion is that he presented
himself to humanity as God and man at one and the same time; as
a person in which two natures existed, divine and human. This is
what Karl Adam has to say: “In the whole history of religion there
is no parallel for such a faith which believes in the integral humanity
of the Son of God. In those religions in which we frequently
encounter divinisation, we always find that the human element is
absorbed by the divine and disappears in it”.24 Thus, for example,
Antinous, the favourite of the Emperor Hadrian, was worshipped as
transformed into Osiris. Pagan mythology is familiar with many
cases of human divinisation, in which men lose their human persona­
lity and take on a divine one. We know of no case in which a man is
divinised while remaining human. Christ, on the contrary, is both
*
perfect God and perfect man.
Karl Adam goes on to say that the God who is joined to this
humanity, is not, for the Christian, just one God among the many
gods and goddesses. This God, who is Christ in union with Father
and Holy Spirit, is the Only God, the one God of heaven and earth.
The one and only God of the Old Testament is present here, in this
man, who is the Son of God upon earth. In no other setting in the
history of religion can we find this one and only God and this one
and only Christ. In this Christian concept, we recognise the second
characteristic trait which distinguishes it from all supposed parallels
which are claimed to exist in the history of religion.
In pagan myth, we find examples of gods who have become men.
But these arc always secondary gods, subject to fate and destiny,
never the one and only God.
Nor was Judaism, rooted as it was in the concept of the
24 Karl Adam, Jesus Christ

page twenty-one

uniqueness of its God, any more in a position to contribute to the
idealisation of Christ. The Old Testament is filled with the convic­
tion of God’s uniqueness. In order to preserve this conviction in
the minds of the Jews who lived in daily contact with pagan poly­
theism, the Book of Deuteronomy forbade the cult of idols. In this
strictly monotheistic mentality, it is impossible to make a man into
the Son of God, equal in all things to God; and therefore equally
deserving of worship. St. Paul, in keeping with Jewish mentality,
affirms that Christ is a scandal for the Jews (1 Cor. 1:23). We can
well imagine the great difficulty the Jewish people had in admitting
that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus himself, for that matter, in
perfect sympathy with this difficulty, blessed the man who would
not be scandalised in him (Matt. 11:6) and said it was a gift of the
Father to be able to recognise the Son of God (Matt. 16:17).
How then, in an atmosphere filled with the conviction of God’s
uniqueness, was it possible to achieve the idealisation of a man to
the point of making him into God Incarnate? Particularly difficult
was it, when the man in question was put to death by a punishment
reserved for slaves. What is more, this idealisation would necessarily
have to take place primarily in the Jewish world, to which all the
apostles and the majority of the early Christians belonged.
The Greek world presented gods who were subject to a cycle of
death and rebirth. But these were legendary figures, lost in the
distant past. Jesus is the Son of God made man, not by the force of
some hostile destiny which he could not escape, but voluntarily, out
of love for man — to save man from sin and teach him the ways of
salvation. Moreover, Jesus is a perfectly historical figure, seen and
. touched by thousands of people. Karl Adam concludes that neither
the Jews nor the Greeks, left to their own resources, could ever
arrive at the figure of Christ which shines out so brilliantly in the
Gospels. The theory which seeks to establish Christ’s origin in the
creative powers of the Christian community of faith turns out to be,
from the historical point of view, false and deceptive.

Judgement of Rousseau and Goethe
As a conclusion to our discussion on the historicity of the Gospels,
pa<e twenty-two

it might be useful to quote the judgment of two important and well
known writers. Rousseau, when asked if the Gospel story is arbit­
rarily invented, answered: “My friend, something made up does not
sound like tins; and the facts of Socrates’ life, which no one
seriously doubts, are less well attested to than those of Jesus
Christ”.25
All we can do is to rephrase the problem without solving it;it is
more inconceivable that a handful of men should have got together
to produce this book than it is to admit that its subject was furnished
by only one man. Never did the Jewish authors achieve such tone or
such morality; the Gospel enjoys such great, obvious and absolutely ‘
inimitable marks of truth that the man who made it up would be
more astounding than the Person about whom he writes.
This is what Goethe has to say: “I hold the Gospels to be abso­
lutely authentic. They are like a reflection of the person of Christ, a
reflection that is sublime and more divine in character than anything
that has ever appeared on earth. I bow before them as before the
divine manifestation of the loftiest principle of morality.”26
We can thus trust our Gospels; we can read them, convinced that
they represent the person of Christ as he actually was, as he was seen
and encountered by his friends and enemies. The Gospels are
historical books, the most historical books of antiquity, and their
truthfulness is sealed by the blood of their authors. Pascal said that
he did not find it difficult to believe in the truth or authenticity of a
story for which its witnesses had to face death.27 The Gospels may
indeed be used as our primary source in examining the proof for the
divinity of Christ:
“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name”.
(John 20:31)
f

25 Emile, IV
26 Eckermann, Coversations with Goethe, III
27 Pen sees, 28

page twenty-three

EPILOGUE

St. John’s Testimony
The apostle John narrated events of which he had clearly been an
eye-witness: “When they came to Jesus, they found he was already
dead, and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced
his side with a lance; and immédiat» ly there came out blood and
water. This is the evidence of one who saw it - trustworthy evidence,
and he knows that he speaks the truth - and he gives it so that you
also may believe’’. (19:33-35)
St. Justin Martyr: Official Confirmation
Writing to the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, around A.D.150,
St. Justin Martyr in his “Defence of the Christians’’ (Book 1, cc. 35
& 50) confirms the facts narrated by the evangelists concerning the
death of Christ by appealing to the official archives of the Roman
Empire:
“The passage ‘they pierced my hands and my feet’ (which I have
just indicated to your Majesty) was the foretelling by the prophet
of the nailing of his hands and his feet on the cross. After they had
crucified him, those who had the carrying out of the deed cast lots
for his clothing, and divided it among themselves. That all this really
happened as I have described it, Your Majesty can read for yourself,
in the official annals compiled under Pontius Pilate. .. . After he
had been crucified even his disciples all fell away from him. But then
he appeared to them, living again, who had been dead, and taught
.them the meaning of all the things which had been written in the
prophets concerning him. Then finally they looked upon him as he
ascended into heaven; they saw, and they believed. They received
the power he had promised to send them, and went out to all
manner of men. They taught all these things, and were known by the
name of apostles”.

twenty-four

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On the authenticity and historic value of the Old Testament Scriptures

The most ancinet and solemn tradition of the people of Israel testifies to it Flavius Josephus,
born in 37 A D, says in his work, Contra Apionem:
“Therefore among us there is not an innumerable multitude of books, dissenting and fighting one
another; but 22 books embracing the history of all time, which are with merit believed to be
divine Of these, five indeed are from Moses, which contain laws and history from the
establishment of the human race up until his death. This space of time embraces almost three
thousand years. From the death of Moses to the rule of Artaxerxes, who reigned among the
Persians after Xerxes, the prophets who succeeded Moses put the things done in their time in 13
books, the remaining four exhibit hymns in praise of God and most useful precepts for the life of
men. From the rule of Artaxerxes up to our own day, individual commandments have been
written but they do nat at all merit such faith and authority as the other books because the
succession of prophets has been less explored. It is apparent with what veneration we hold our
books For during all the ages past no one has dared to add to them nor take away from them nor
to change anything. But to all Jews from the very time of their birth it has been instilled that we
should believe these precepts of God, constantly adhere to them and for their sake, if necessary,
freely prefer death.”

1 )Although Josephus attributes little authority to some later books, it is however evident from
Josephus that these other books enjoy the greatest authority. The canon of those books was
established after the year 100.
2) The historical authority of these books is confirmed from citations and from the absolute
authority which the Jews who heard and accepted the words of Jesus and the Apostles in the New
Testament gave to them (cf Mt. 21:42; 22:29; 24:15; JO 5:39; 10:35).

3) The very books of the Old Testament call upon preceeding collections of books which is a sign
both of their historicity and their inclusion (3 Kgs 2:4; 4Kgs 14:6).

4) Since many things narrated in these books are not honorable but disgracefi.il to the people of
Israel, their leading men and kings, this cannot be explained except through the historical
authority of these books.