Chapter XLII.—Of His Coming into His Own Country, and of the Astonishment of the
People at His Doctrine, as They Looked with Contempt Upon His Lineage; Of Matthew’s
Harmony with Mark and Luke in This Section; And in Particular, of the Question Whether
the Order of Narration Which is Presented by the First of These Evangelists Does Not Ex-
hibit Some Want of Consistency with that of the Other Two.
89. Matthew thence proceeds as follows: “And it came to pass that, when Jesus had fin-
ished these parables, He departed thence: and when He was come into His own country,
He taught them in their synagogues;”1029 and so on, down to the words, “And He did not
many mighty works there because of their unbelief.”1030 Thus he passes from the above
discourse containing the parables, on to this passage, in such a way as not to make it abso-
lutely necessary for us to take the one to have followed in immediate historical succession
upon the other. All the more may we suppose this to be the case, when we see how Mark
passes on from these parables to a subject which is not identical with Matthew’s directly
succeeding theme, but quite different from that, and agreeing rather with what Luke intro-
duces; and how he has constructed his narrative in such a manner as to make the balance
of credibility rest on the side of the supposition, that what followed in immediate historical
sequence was rather the occurrences which these two latter evangelists both insert in near
connection [with the parables],—namely, the incidents of the ship in which Jesus was asleep,
and the miracle performed in the expulsion of the devils in the country of the
Gerasenes,1031—two events which Matthew has already recalled and introduced at an
earlier stage of his record.1032 At present, therefore, we have to consider whether [Matthew’s
report of] what the Lord spoke, and what was said to Him in His own country, is in concord
with the accounts given by the other two, namely, Mark and Luke. For, in widely different
and dissimilar sections of his history, John mentions words, either spoken to the Lord or
spoken by Him,1033 which resemble those recorded in this passage by the other three
evangelists.
90. Now Mark, indeed, gives this passage in terms almost precisely identical with those
which meet us in Matthew; with the one exception, that what he says the Lord was called
by His fellow-townsmen is, “the carpenter, and the son of Mary,”1034 and not, as Matthew
tells us, the “carpenter’s son.” Neither is there anything to marvel at in this, since He might
1029 Three mss., however, give in synagoga eorum—in their synagogue—as in our version.
1030 Matt. xiii. 53–58.
1031 Mark iv. 35, v. 17; Luke viii. 22–37. [On the variations in the name, see critical editions of Greek text.
Comp. Revised Version. The Latin versions generally read “Gerasenes” in all three accounts.—R.]
1032 Matt. viii. 23–34.
1033 John vi. 42.
1034 Mark vi. 1–6.
Of His Coming into His Own Country, and of the Astonishment of the People at His Doctrine, as They Looked with Contempt Upon His Lineage; Of Matthew’s Harmony with Mark and Luke in This Section; And in Particular, of the Question Whether the Order of Narration Which is Presented by the First of These Evangelists Does Not Exhibit Some Want of Consistency with that of the Other Two.
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Of His Coming into His Own Country, and of the Astonishment of the People…