61.

Let us next look into the words which these three evangelists have all brought in as having been addressed to the Lord, and also into the replies which were made by Him. Matthew says: "And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto His disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" ¹ This reappears very nearly in the same words in Mark: "How is it that He eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?" ² Only we find thus that Matthew has omitted one thing which Mark inserts--namely, the addition "and drinketh." But of what consequence can that be, since the sense is fully given, the idea suggested being that they were partaking of a repast in company? Luke, on the other hand, seems to have recorded this scene somewhat differently. For his version proceeds thus: "But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against His disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?" ³ But his intention in this certainly is not ⁴ to indicate that their Master was not referred to on that occasion, but to intimate that the objection was levelled against all of them together, both Himself and His disciples; the charge, however, which was to be taken to be meant both of Him and of them, being addressed directly not to Him, but to them. For the fact is that Luke himself, no less than the others, represents the Lord as making the reply, and saying, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." ⁵ And He would not have returned that answer to them, had not their words, "Why do ye eat and drink?" been directed very specially to Himself. For the same reason, Matthew and Mark have told us that the objection which was brought against Him was stated immediately to His disciples, because, when the allegation was addressed to the disciples, the charge was thereby laid all the more seriously against the Master whom these disciples were imitating and following. One and the same sense, therefore, is conveyed; and it is expressed all the better in consequence of these variations employed in some of the terms, while the matter of fact itself is left intact. In like manner we may deal with the accounts of the Lord's reply. Matthew's runs thus: "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; but go ye and learn what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners." ⁶ Mark and Luke have also preserved for us the same sense in almost the same words, with this exception, that they both fail to introduce that quotation from the prophet, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." Luke, again, after the words, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners," has added the term, "unto repentance." This addition serves to bring out the sense more fully, so as to preclude any one from supposing that sinners are loved by Christ, purely for the very reason that they are sinners. For this similitude also of the sick indicates clearly what God means by the calling of sinners,--that it is like the physician with the sick,--and that its object verily is that men should be saved from their iniquity as from disease; which healing is effected by repentance.