Father Leonid’s Page

About the four canonical Gospels, about their origin, about the audience for which each was written, about the similarities and differences of the texts, we talk with Archpriest Leonid Griliches, a biblical scholar, cleric of the church in the name of Job in Brussels.

Father Leonid, let's start with the question, why are there four canonical Gospels, that is, those that the Church has recognized as sources of truth? After all, there are differences between them, there are contradictions, this can always confuse the reader. Have there been attempts in the history of the Church to create and approve a single text that would contain maximum information and exclude contradictions?

Yes, there was such a trend. In the middle of the 2nd century, the disciple of Justin the Philosopher Tatian tried to create a single text based on the four Gospels - the so-called Diatessaron. The surviving fragments show that he did this very skillfully and with great care: some of the verses of the Diatessaron are literally assembled like a mosaic from words and short phrases taken from different Gospels. The text compiled by Tatian was widely used in the East by the Syrians and was used for several centuries. For example, Ephraim the Syrian compiled his gospel commentaries on the Diatessaron. However, later the Church abandoned it: in the 5th century, Theodoret of Cyrus forbade the use of the Diatessaron and returned the use of the four Gospels to the Church of Antioch. But the popularity of the Diatessaron is evidenced at least by the fact that in the hometown of Theodoret,

Why did the Church give up trying to create a single text? After all, the presence of the four Gospels really creates a lot of problems. The four Gospels differ markedly from each other, and discrepancies often cause confusion. Speaking of the number four, they compare with the four cardinal points, because. gospel preaching to the whole world. An allegorical prototype of the four Gospels is seen in the four branches into which the river divides, leaving paradise and watering the earth (Genesis 2:10). But, perhaps, in order to answer the question why the four Gospels are preserved in the Church, one must ask: who are the evangelists? They didn't call themselves that. Even the word gospel in relation to written narratives about Jesus Christ began to be used only from the middle of the 2nd century. Early Christian writers referred to these texts differently, for example, Papias of Hierapolis used the expression "Sayings of the Lord", Justin the Philosopher - "Memoirs of the Apostles" (but he, by the way, is the first to apply the word "Gospel" to these texts). Who are the evangelists, the preachers of the saving doctrine and deeds of Christ? We see from the New Testament books that they constantly refer to themselves aswitnesses(see Acts 5:32; 10:39; 13:31; 1 Pet. 5:1; John 21:24, etc.). They walked with the Savior, they saw everything He did, they heard what He said, and they wrote down their testimonies. The Lord Himself at the Ascension says that the apostles will be His witnesses (Acts 1:8). But the testimony of one is not accepted: One witness is not enough... at the words of two witnesses, or at the words of three witnesses, every deed will take place (Deut. 19:15; see also Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1). Only after two or three witnesses have been heard can any decision be made. And the New Testament testifies to the coming of the Messiah, and in order for this testimony to be accepted, we, according to this biblical institution, need at least two or three witnesses, and we have four of them - so that there is no longer any doubt. They may object that three of these four - weather forecasters - use each other's texts. But then we have at least two witnesses: the weather forecasters and John.

And what about other witnesses, non-canonical gospels?

This is where the boundary passes - for the non-canonical gospels, the Church does not recognize the authority of testimony. We hear the voices of living witnesses only in the four canonical gospels. Of these, Matthew and John are two apostles, disciples of the Savior, who were chosen by him to continue His mission (see Matt. 10:2-3); Mark is a disciple and constant companion of the Apostle Peter, he records the sermon of his teacher, and behind his Gospel is the authority of the supreme apostle. Evangelist Luke in the Orthodox tradition is very closely associated with the Apostle Paul and with the Most Holy Theotokos; in addition, Luke uses numerous of the earliest written and oral sources, as he himself tells us at the beginning of his Gospel. In addition, their testimony was strengthened and guided by the power of the Spirit:You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be My witnesses (Acts 1:8). Therefore, Peter could say: We are his witnesses, and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:32). The voice of an eyewitness and the power of the Spirit is what distinguishes the four canonical Gospels from the numerous non-canonical ones.

You just said that the texts of the Gospels were originally called, in particular, "Memoirs of the Apostles." Indeed, they are retrospective: the words of the Savior were committed, relatively speaking, to paper (parchment, papyrus ...) some time after the utterance. There is no indication anywhere that anyone wrote down what was said directly behind Christ. And there was nothing like shorthand, there was no cursive writing - writing was a complex, slow process. How, under such conditions, is it possible to accurately convey the words of the Teacher?

What do you think is more reliable - a written text or memory? The Lord preached at a time when there were not only dictaphones and computers, there was also no printing press. A book (or rather, a scroll) was a rare and expensive thing. Therefore, memory was the main custodian of information. Even in the schools of that time, they did not use notebooks, pens, pencils that are necessary in our time - the student had to memorize everything from the voice of the teacher. A student's abilities were directly dependent on his memory. In one ancient teaching, it was said that all students are divided into four groups: some remember for a long time and remember for a long time, others remember for a long time and quickly forget, others quickly remember and quickly forget, and finally, the latter remember quickly and remember for a long time. And of course, every teacher would like to have just such a student with a "tenacious" memory, who will definitely remember and keep his words for a long time. In this case, the teacher had a chance that his teaching would not be forgotten or distorted, that the student would faithfully pass it on to the next generation. But, on the other hand, this circumstance imposed certain duties on the teacher. He had to speak briefly, concisely, rhythmically, use those forms of presenting material that facilitate memorization, resort to well-known mnemonic techniques, etc. And all this we find in the speeches of the Savior. use those forms of presenting material that facilitate memorization, resort to well-known mnemonic techniques, etc. And all this we find in the speeches of the Savior. use those forms of presenting material that facilitate memorization, resort to well-known mnemonic techniques, etc. And all this we find in the speeches of the Savior.
Of course, we would like something to be recorded from His voice; today it seems to us that this would be a big plus. But in those days, students who were able to record everything in their memory were much more appreciated. The error will rather creep into the written text (there are numerous corrections in the margins of the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament that correct the written version based on the oral tradition of reading) than into memory. In addition, the recording can be lost, torn, stolen, but the memory is not. In other words, in the time of the gospel, memory was stronger and enjoyed much greater confidence: it was, as we would say today, the most widespread and most reliable store of information.

It seems to me that there is another reason for our trust in the texts of the Gospels, in the way the words of Christ are transmitted in them. If we ourselves live in an era of the depreciation of the word, a complete separation of words from deeds, from reality, immoral manipulation of words, then the contemporaries of the earthly life of the Savior lived in an era of a completely different attitude to the word. For them, the spoken word was tantamount to a material event, moreover, irreversible. And speaking of God, they simply organically could not afford to lie or, let's say, pass off the alleged as what happened in reality.

Yes, they were brought up by the severity of the Old Testament, the law commanding to apply to false witnesses the same punishment that should be applied to the one they slandered; and the rest will hear, and be afraid, and will no longer do such evil(Deut. 19:18-20). In Hebrew, the same word davar means a word, a deed and a thing. And this is evidence from antiquity: word and deed should not diverge. It is difficult to imagine such an identity of words and deeds in our life. Each of us has a tremendous experience of dealing with hypocrisy and lies. This is the negative side of information progress, the development of communication means. Streams of words fall upon us, and these words are used for a variety of purposes: agitation, propaganda, manipulation of consciousness ... Of course, in such conditions, the word simply depreciates.

Another very difficult question. The earthly preaching of the Savior continued, as is known, for three years. But, if we conduct a mental timekeeping of the events reflected in the gospel pages, it will turn out not three years, but much less. In the Gospel of Luke we read that Jesus taught in the synagogues and was glorified by everyone (4:15), and the question arises: what did he teach, what did he say? Yes, we know the general meaning, the great meaning of what came from the Savior, but can anything from what He said be superfluous for us? Why are the Gospels so short? Because of "objective difficulties"?

Many other things Jesus did; but, if you write about it in detail, then, I think, the whole world would not be able to contain the books written. - this is how the Evangelist John concludes his gospel. Of course, as a human being, we would like more to be written. We understand that the apostles saw and heard much more than is recorded in the Gospels. But, on the other hand, if we turn to what we know about contemporary Jewish teachers, wise men, and the same Pharisees, we will see that so much is not told about any of them. Only some of their statements and judgments have come down to us - crumbs in comparison with the amount of information about Christ that the Gospels convey to us. By the standards of that time, this is a colossal volume. Therefore, one should be surprised - not at how little, but at how amazingly much we know about the life of the Savior. There is no need to doubt: what we know is more than enough. We do not have any "problem of lack of information". In, what the evangelists have told us contains the fullness of revelation. Everything that the Lord wanted to reveal to us, His disciples conveyed to us. Let's remember: two witnesses are enough, and we have as many as four. And God forbid that everything that we read in the four Gospels - we could accommodate, master, understand, and embody in our lives. To do, as we have just said, word by deed.

Now let's talk about the differences and similarities of the Gospels. You suggested doing this: compare their beginnings. Why are the beginnings so important?

Each of the Gospels was written by a specific person who belongs to a particular social and cultural environment; it is addressed to a certain circle of people - to a certain community, and meets the needs of this community. And the problem of language is closely connected with the problem of authorship and addressee. The language in which the text was written is very important. Therefore, when we talk about the gospel texts, we must ask ourselves these questions: who is the author, what culture does he belong to, what language does he use, what people and for what purpose does he address, what tasks is his text intended to solve, under what conditions this text is being compiled, etc. In the beginnings of the Gospels, answers to these questions are partly visible. Opening a book, starting a conversation is always a very significant semantic moment. Therefore, it is often at the beginning of the text that various author's attitudes are focused,

Then let's start with the earliest Gospel - from Matthew: Genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob...

The Gospel of Matthew has come down to us in Greek, but it is very likely that it was originally written in Hebrew. Many early authors insist on this: Eusebius of Caesarea, quoting the work of Papias of Hierapolis, which has not come down to us, writes: "Matthew compiled the sayings of the Lord in Hebrew." Irenaeus of Lyon writes that Matthew promulgated the Gospel "for the Jews, in their own language," Origen and Blessed Jerome say the same. The Jewish original (the so-called protograph) is indicated not only by external evidence of early church authors, but also by internal, i.e. the Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew itself, which contains a large number of Hebraisms and sometimes looks like a Greek interlinear Hebrew text. If so, then we can say that Matthew compiled his Gospel for the Christian community of Judea (where at that time they continued to speak not only Aramaic, but also Hebrew) with the center in Jerusalem, i.e. for a congregation that was constantly in the teaching of the apostles (Acts 2:42). It was these people, brought up in the Old Testament tradition, who were also the bearers of the new gospel tradition to the fullest extent possible.
 
The beginning of the Gospel of Matthew immediately sends us to the Old Testament. The word "genealogy" with which it begins (Greek genesis ) is the Greek name for the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. And this reference is not accidental: eleven genealogies are given in the book of Genesis, and here, the last, final, twelfth genealogy, which connects all ancient generations with Christ. But the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew is not just a list of names, it is a brief summary of the Old Testament. There is a story behind every name. Reading Boaz begat Obed by Ruth(Matthew 1:5), we remember the book of Ruth; reading Jesse gave birth to David the king (...) Solomon gave birth to Rehoboam (6-7), we mentally return to the books of Kings. Thus, Matthew leads us through the entire Old Testament. Matthew's genealogy is divided into three periods. Before David, this is the era of the Judges. Then, from David to the Babylonian captivity, the age of the kings. And finally, from the return from captivity to Christ, the era when Israel was ruled by high priests. Each of the three periods has fourteen generations (Matthew 1:17). Three times fourteen is six times seven, and behold, the seventh week is coming, during which, according to the prophecy of Daniel (see Dan. 9:25), Christ must appear. The era of judges has passed, the era of kings has passed, the era of high priests is cut short by the reign of Herod, and, finally, comes the One to whom all these genealogies led, Christ - the true Judge, the true King, the true High Priest, and His kingdom is indestructible and endures forever. All this historiosophy of Matthew was close and understandable to his addressees deeply rooted in the Old Testament. Messianic prophecies were very important to them. And so, the first Jewish Christians saw the Old Testament prophecies in the light of the new, New Testament history, in the light of those events that they witnessed quite recently.
 The Gospel of Matthew most notably continues the tradition of Old Testament writing, and it is in it that we find the largest number of quotations from the Old Testament. These quotations sound not only in the direct speech of the Savior, but also in those places where the text belongs to the compiler, Matthew. He perceives each event described as a fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic prophecy: for example, having announced the flight of the holy family to Egypt, he concludes that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet will come true, who says: I called my Son from Egypt (Hosea, 11, 1). One gets the impression that Matthew is not talking about everything in a row, but only about what is “highlighted” by the messianic prophecy. He wants to say all the time: look, what we have taken from ancient times as an indication of the coming coming of the Messiah has been fulfilled in our day in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

 The Gospel of Matthew is rooted in Jewish life, in it we find many everyday details that are incomprehensible to other peoples. For example, when a woman with blood touched the clothes of the Savior (9.20), only Matthew notes that she touched special tassels on the edges of the clothes (in the Church Slavonic text - to the resurrection of His robe). In other evangelists, the woman simply touches the edge of the garment. When the Savior says Pray that your flight does not happen in the winter or on the Sabbath (24:20), we also find the mention of the Sabbath only in Matthew. Finally, it is in Matthew that we meet the traditional expression God of Israel (Matt. 15:31), or the Kingdom of Heaven (the Jews, avoiding pronouncing the word God once again, replaced it with Heaven), which in other Gospels is usually replaced by the Kingdom of God .

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written by the prophets ... - this is already Mark.

It is very important to understand in what sense the word "Gospel" is used. After all, as we have already said, initially these texts were called differently. The word "Gospel" originally meant not a written text, but precisely the gospel, the good news, i.e. oral preaching about Christ and about the new spiritual reality that came with Him into this world. Mark, a disciple, companion and translator of the Apostle Peter, wrote down his teacher's sermon. The fact that Peter's oral sermon stands behind the Gospel of Mark is unanimously pointed out by early church authors: Papias of Hierapolis, Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria. Here is evidence of the latter:“When Peter publicly preached the Word in Rome and proclaimed the Gospel by the Spirit, those present, who were many, asked Mark, as he had followed him for a long time and remembered what he had said, to write down what was told . ” And, indeed, the language of the Gospel of Mark bears the features of oral speech. Papias of Hierapolis specifically emphasizes that Mark, “ being the translator of Peter, as he remembered, wrote down exactly ... and took care of only one thing, so as not to miss anything or convey incorrectly .” There is reason to believe that Peter preached in Aramaic. Therefore, in the Greek translation of Mark, there are Aramaic words (abba - father, effafa - open, etc.) and short phrases (talifa kumi - girl get up),
and numerous "tracing papers" from Aramaic. The sermon was addressed to pagans who knew neither the Old Testament, nor the geography of Palestine, nor Jewish customs. Therefore, the Apostle, preaching to the Gentiles, was forced, as the same Papias reports, "to adapt the teachings to the needs of the listeners." We find all this in the Gospel of Mark. For example, if it is enough for Matthew to say that Jesus came to the temple (Mt 21:12, 23), then Mark, addressing the Gentiles, always specifies that the temple is in Jerusalem (Mk 11:15, 27). For Matthew, it is enough to call the woman the Hebrew word "Canaanite" (Mt 15:22), Mark explains that the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth (Mk 7:26). Matthew may use specific Hebrew terminology: On the first day of unleavened bread (Mt 26:17), but Mark is forced to clarify: On the first day of unleavened bread, when the passover was slaughtered (Mk 14:12).

Luca: As many have already begun to compose narrations about events that are completely known between us, as those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word from the very beginning conveyed to us ...

If the Gospel of Matthew continues the tradition of the Old Testament literature, the Gospel of Mark is a recording of the oral sermon of the Apostle Peter, then the Evangelist Luke from the very first words declares himself as a researcher who works with various sources. He most of all reminds us of the modern "armchair" scientist. The very first verse of his Gospel says that he used numerous written sources; and the second - that he also relied on the most reliable oral sources, because his informants were the apostles themselves - eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word. In addition, it is very likely that Luke also used the memories of the Mother of God. Sometimes he ends his narratives with the words: Mary kept all these words in her heart (Luke 2:19, 51), which, translated into modern language, means that Mary remembered all this. And indeed, in the Gospel of Luke there is something that only She could tell: the Annunciation (Lk. 1:26-39), the meeting with Simeon the God-Receiver (The Meeting; Lk. 2: 22-33); an adventure with the twelve-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem (Luke 2:39-49); finally, the story of the family of Zechariah and Elizabeth related to Her (chapter 1)

Luke is the only one of the evangelists who tries to tie the gospel events to the dates of secular history (In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a command to make a census of all the earth - Luke 2:1). All this together he carefully examines, trying to build a chronological chain of events. And indicates the goal: so that you know the solid foundation of the teaching in which you were instructed; this gospel is addressed to the pagans, directly to the Greek Theophilus.

The language of the Gospel of Luke is very heterogeneous: its conception is built according to the rules of Greek rhetoric (Luke 1:1-4), so no Hebrew book can open. But putting an end to the beautifully built, complex Greek period, he suddenly completely changes the nature of the narrative: already the fifth verse and the further story about the birth of John the Baptist demonstrates the style of Jewish books - In the days of Herod, the king of Judea, there was a priest from the Avian line ... This is a typical language of the Old Testament chronicles . Luke, in addition to oral and written sources, includes in his work early church hymns (the song of Zechariah (1, 68-79), the song of the Virgin (1, 46-55)), this is a very valuable material for him. This is how an amazing gospel appears, uniting the earliest and most diverse (and probably compiled even in different languages) sources available to the evangelist: records, memoirs,

And the Gospel of John, which is so unlike the first three, begins in a completely different way. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God... It's like a prophecy.

The Gospel of John is different from the first three. This difference is so striking that even early Christian authors drew attention to it. Clement of Alexandria calls the Gospel of John spiritual - contrasting it with the first three, which he calls bodily, that is, telling about the earthly life of the Savior. It is to John that we owe such wonderful names of the Savior as the Good Shepherd, the Vine, the Light of the World, the Way, the Truth, the Life, and, finally, the Word, the name with which the fourth Gospel opens: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We have already seen how the Evangelist Matthew, speaking of the origin, i.e. genealogy of Jesus Christ, refers us to the book of Genesis. And here, in the first words of John, the connection with the book of Genesis, with the very beginning of Holy Scripture is also very noticeable: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). The Old Testament states that God is the Creator of the world. And the Evangelist John goes even further, he says that in the bosom of the Father is the Word, the Only Begotten Son (John 1:18), and this Word became flesh, i.e. came into the world made by God, full of grace and truth (Jn 1:14), and that this Word is God, and all things came into being through him (Jn 1:3).

There is an opinion that the Gospel of John was written much later than others, when its author was already a deep old man - somewhere in the 90s of the 1st century, that is, about sixty years after the events described. This last Gospel differs from the Gospel of Matthew not only in its content, but also in the use of Old Testament quotations. In Matthew, the so-called fulfillment quotations—when the descriptions of New Testament events are concluded with a reference to the Old Testament in order to show that they are the fulfillment of ancient prophecies—supplied the first part of the Gospel; as soon as Matthew starts talking about the Passion cycle, the Old Testament quotations disappear. And this is no coincidence. For the Jews, contemporaries of the earthly life of the Savior, the expected Messiah was a king, a conqueror, a deliverer of Israel from slavery, a spiritual, but at the same time a political leader, who was to deliver and exalt Israel. Of course, they had no idea about the Messiah, dying on the cross, perishing at the hands of the Roman invaders. Therefore, Matthew, when describing the Passion of Christ, did not have the opportunity to refer to generally accepted messianic prophecies.
In the Gospel of John we see the exact opposite picture. There are very few quotations from the Old Testament in the first part, but where it is about the Savior, John literally reinforces every verse with an Old Testament quotation: three times, speaking of the crucifixion, he repeats - let the Scripture come true (John 19:24, 28, 36). And that which tore His garments; and that they were drawn by lot; and that vinegar was brought to him; and that they broke his legs and pierced him with a spear - all this John connects with Scripture. Why? Because during the time that has passed between the compilation of the first and last Gospel, the young Christian Church has learned to read the entire Old Testament (and not just its individual passages) as a messianic prophecy. Christians began to turn to the Old Testament on their own, without regard to Jewish traditions, and without limiting themselves to traditional interpretations.
 
In the Gospel of John there are not many events described in the Synoptic Gospels, there are no parables, there are not so many stories about healing, but there are long conversations of the Savior - with Nicodemus (3:1-21), with a Samaritan woman (4:4-28), and , just before the arrest - with the students.
The language of the Gospel of John is sublime, solemn, at times its narrative turns into a hymn. If Luke opens his Gospel by pointing to the sources used, then John at the very beginning declares that to those who accepted Christ (and among them, of course, John himself, his beloved and closest disciple), He gave the power to be children of God. From Him, from His fullness, they received grace upon grace (John 1:12, 16). Therefore, we can say that this gospel is sung in the language of grace. This is a testimony about Christ, but it is also evidence of the fullness of the knowledge of God, which is capable of a person who has accepted Christ and followed Him to the end. Let us remember that only the Evangelist John, the only one of the apostles, stood at the Cross.

Archpriest Leonid Griliches