Gospels

Literary kind

The literary kind Gospel corresponds to the Arétalogie or life of hero, frequent since second century BC. and which will thrive until the 11th century. They are also biographies. The biographical kind was very snuffed at the first centuries of our era, to see for example the Vie of Agricola of Tacite, or the Vie of the twelve Césars of Suétone. But one did not treat it with the scientific rigor and the impartiality (connect) specific to our time.

The four canonical Gospels are known as according to:

Matthieu, known as the publicain , the apostle or the evangelist ;
Marc;
Luc, known as the beloved doctor ;
Jean known as the apostle or the evangelist .

These attributions seem authentic, except for the Gospel of Matthieu, rewritten in Greek, which would be anonymous. But it would include/understand for a great part the Logia of the Lord , written in Hebraic language by the Matthieu apostle according to the tradition. In this direction its title would be thus authentic.

The three first are qualified the synoptic ones - they present the same episodes more or less - in opposition to the fourth which makes theological work , and which is in fact more mystical.

The discovery in 1945 with Nag-Hammadi of a Gospel according to Thomas written in copte made some time the object of a discussion. See this specific article.

Direction of the Gospels and interpretation

The Catholic church recognizes with the Gospels (and the Bible in general) four different significances:

the literal direction , relating to reality and the historical significance of the described events, which raises the historical elements contained in the text;
the allegorical direction or spiritual , relating to the religious significance , which states what the text brings to the faith, with the dogma;
the moral direction , relating to the relation between the text and the believer ;
the anagogic direction or mystical , relating to the symbolic system of the brought back facts in the Writings, which gives them a eschatologic dimension .

The first direction raises of the historical analysis of the facts, the three others are field of the belief. For a Christian, they are indissociable and find their achievement in the Lectio divina , meditation personal of the Gospels which integrates these four dimensions:

These four levels of direction correspond in substance to the deepenings that the lectio divina proposes to make the reader of the Writing, by guiding it of the historico-literal level ( lectio ) to its revealing and theological deepening which makes emerge a central message ( meditatio ) to which one answers by the prayer and engagement in the life ( oratio ), until giving to the very whole existence to share the glance of God on human realities ( contemplatio ).

To define the direction of the Gospels, the researchers and the theologists have recourse to the interpretation . Interpretation is not the only fact of the believers, in particular when it is a question of analyzing the historical reality of the elements contained in the Gospels. The Catholic church gave general orientations on the manner of leading the exegetic studies: during the Concile Vatican II, the Pontifical Biblical Commission made appear a Instruction on the historical truth of the Gospels (April 21st 1964) which was greeted like a splendid guide of work for the Exégète S.

According to these very open directives, there exist three stages of drafting of the Gospels:

Preaching of Jesus and first witnesses,
apostolic Preaching and formation of the writings,
Drafting of the Gospels.

The Encyclical Fides and ratio (number 94) specifies, in reference to this instruction:

With regard to the biblical texts, and the Gospels in particular, their truth is undoubtedly not reduced to the account purely historical events or the Révélation of neutral facts, like would like it the Positivisme historicist. (111) On the contrary, these texts expose events whose truth is beyond the simple historical fact: it is in their significance in and for the history of the hello. This truth receives its full clarification in the reading that the Église continues with the length of the centuries, by keeping immutable the original direction. It is thus urgent that one also wonders from the point of view Philosophique about the report/ratio which exists between the fact and its significance, report/ratio which constitutes the specific direction of the Histoire.

Parabolas of the Gospels

The Gospels count 44 parabola S which would result, for the majority, of a former tradition Midrash ic. They all are contained in the synoptic Gospels. The Gospel according to Jean does not comprise any parabola. They are classified here alphabetically, according to the title that one usually gives them and who is not registered in the Gospels:

01 the importunate Friend,
the 02 Blind men,
03 the Good grain and the ryegrass,
04 lost Ewes,
05 the Debt (or the pitiless servant),
the 06 two debtors,
the 07 Two wire,
the 08 Ten mines
09 the inaccurate Treasurer
10 the lost Drachma,
11 Children in the public place,
12 the Prodigal son,
the 13 Fig tree,
the 14 Net,
the 15 Fruit,
16 the Large one supper
17 the strong Man,
18 the warned Intendant,
the 19 Ryegrass,
20 the iniquitous Judge,
the 21 Lamp (or ten virgins),
the 22 Leaven,
the 23 Lily,
24 the House built on the rock,
25 the Bad rich person and the poor Lazare,
the 26 Weddings (or weddings of the son of the king),
the 27 Birds,
28 new Goatskin bottles,
29 last-minute helpers,
30 Straw and the beam,
31 the Father, (or malicious vine growers),
32 the Pearl,
33 the pharisee and publicain,
34 the Part with a dress
35 the Gatekeeper, (or the Master absent)
36 the Rich person,
37 the Samaritan (or the Good Samaritan),
38 Seed,
39 the Sower,
40 Sénevé (or granulates It sénevé),
41 useless servants
42 Talents,
43 Unfinished tower and the imprudent war of the king
44 the hidden Treasury,

The sermon on the mountain

" To reach the deep sense and mysterious sermon on the mountain, it is necessary to read this Gospel like one listens to Mozart " (heard in the sermon of a monk Benedictine)

Problem of the gun

As of the 2nd century, the four of the list are considered canonical above. See for example the Adversus Haereses of Irenee, gone back to approximately 170.

The writings of Luc, his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, reached us in two rather different forms: the text alexandrine and the text say “Western”.

Irenee of Lyon

Saint Irenee (towards 130-202), in the Adversus Haereses (towards 170), us very sobrement describes the formation of the four Gospels:

Thus Matthieu published it among Hebrews, in their clean Langue, the written shape of Gospel, at the time where |Pierre and Paul évangélisaient Rome and founded the Église there. After the departure of the latter, Marc, the disciple and the interpreter of Pierre, transmitted to him also in writing to us what Pierre preached. On its side, Luc, the companion of Paul, consigned in a book the Gospel which this one preached Ga 2,2. Then Jean, the disciple of the Lord, that one even which had rested on its chest, published to him also the Gospel while it remained with Éphèse in Asia. (Adv. Hae. Preliminary).

Let us point out that Irenee was disciple of Polycarpe, which was companion of Jean.

It is him, Irenee, which says to us that the Gospel is tétramorphe (" to four composantes"), and that there can be neither a greater nor more small number of Gospels. (Adv. Hae. , 11,8).

specialized Article: gun

specialized Article: apocryphal book S

Ignace d' Antioche

At the beginning of the 2nd century, he writes: " My files it is Jesus-Christ ". No quotation of any text of the New Testament enamels its writings.

Clement of Rome

He makes great use of the Old Testament. Its quotations are of form free, based on the Seventy, that it quotes of memory:

it grants the statute Writing to texts now lost, with midrachim pecharim (interpretations received and bringing up to date);
like properly Christian writing, it knows only the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians;
it does not make any allusion nor reference to the made of the life of Jesus;
it quotes words of Jesus (1 3:2) that New Testament does not begin again in this form.

Polycarpe of Smyrna

It is familiar of the writings of Paul de Tarse. Some indices give rise to think that he knows texts close to the Gospel according to Matthieu (collection of Logia ?).

Papias

This author is known as bishop of Hiérapolis only through the ecclesiastical History of Eusèbe de Césarée. Papias, quoted by Eusèbe, tells us briefly the formation of the canonical Gospels. It is about the only information source which we have on this formation with Clément of Alexandria, Canon de Muratori and holy Irenee.

Justin (Justin Martyr)

In its first Apology , the New Testament is omnipresent.
It speaks about the life of Jesus; he also speaks about memories of the apostles , read during the eucharistic assembly.
When Justin speaks about Writing , it is the Old Testament which it indicates
In his Dialog with Tryphon , when Justin quotes the Gospels, its quotations do not agree with the known canonical texts nowadays. Marie-Emile Boismard and Arnaud Lamouille, in their work Diatessaron de Tatien with Justin show that these quotations come from a evangelic harmony of a form former to that of Tatien.

Apocryphal books

The accounts of the life of Jesus which were not retained as belonging to the official gun were joined together under the d'" term; Gospels Apocryphal book s" , (étymologiquement: " Gospels cachés"). Forsaken a long time, the modern Exégèse is interested in it again.
Les artists, during the ages, often retained of them pious legends which played a rather great part. Collections of maxims, like the Gospel of Thomas, cover a historical interest. They seem to defend of the gnostic doctrines. Some of these Gospels are close to popular legends tending to fill the vacuums of the account of the four older considered Gospels. Among the traditions quite present in the Catholic church but not appearing in the official Gospels, one finds the name of the parents of Marie, mother of Jesus (who prénommeraient Anne and Joachim), or the presence of ox and the ass in the Crèche where was born Jesus.

specialized Article: Primitive Christianity

specialized Article: Talmud

specialized Article: List Gospels apocryphal book S

specialized Article: The synoptic Problem

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