---
title: "The Gospel of Peter, the Diatessaron, Aristides and Origen on John and Matthew"
author: "Various Church Fathers"
translator: "A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 90 of 111
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-gospel-of-peter-diatessaron-aristides-origen/90/
cite: "Various Church Fathers, tr. A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.), The Gospel of Peter, the Diatessaron, Aristides and Origen on John and Matthew, section 90. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-gospel-of-peter-diatessaron-aristides-origen/90/"
---

# The Gospel of Peter, the Diatessaron, Aristides and Origen on John and Matthew

*Various Church Fathers, tr. A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)*

Tatian's Diatessaron, the Gospel of Peter, Aristides, and Origen's commentaries on John and Matthew.

## 90. Scripture Contains Many Contradictions, and Many Statements Which are Not Literally True, But Must Be Read Spiritually and Mystically

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-gospel-of-peter-diatessaron-aristides-origen/90/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-gospel-of-peter-diatessaron-aristides-origen/90/#p-N

[¶0] 4. Scripture Contains Many Contradictions, and Many Statements Which are Not Literally True, But Must Be Read Spiritually and Mystically.

[¶1] In the case I have supposed where the historians desire to teach us by an image what they have seen in their mind, their meaning would be found, if the four were wise, to exhibit no disagreement; and we must understand that with the four Evangelists it is not otherwise. They made full use for their purpose of things done by Jesus in the exercise of His wonderful and extraordinary power; they use in the same way His sayings, and in some places they tack on to their writing, with language apparently implying things of sense, things made manifest to them in a purely intellectual way. I do not condemn them if they even sometimes dealt freely with things which to the eye of history happened differently, and changed them so as to subserve the mystical aims they had in view; so as to speak of a thing which happened in a certain place, as if it had happened in another, or of what took place at a certain time, as if it had taken place at another time, and to introduce into what was spoken in a certain way some changes of their own. They proposed to speak the truth where it was possible both materially and spiritually, and where this was not possible it was their intention to prefer the spiritual to the material. The spiritual truth was often preserved, as one might say, in the material falsehood. As, for example, we might judge of the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob says to Isaac, “I am Esau thy firstborn son,” and spiritually he spoke the truth, for he already partook of the rights of the first-born, which were perishing in his brother, and clothing himself with the goatskins he assumed the outward semblance of Esau, and was Esau all but the voice praising God, so that Esau might afterward find a place to receive a blessing. For if Jacob had not been blessed as Esau, neither would Esau perhaps have been able to receive a blessing of his own. And Jesus too is many things, according to the conceptions of Him, of which it is quite likely that the Evangelists took up different notions; while yet they were in agreement with each other in the different things they wrote. Statements which are verbally contrary to each other, are made about our Lord, namely, that He was descended from David and that He was not descended from David. The statement is true, “He was descended from David,” as the Apostle says, “born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” if we apply this to the bodily part of Him; but the self-same statement is untrue if we understand His being born of the seed of David of His diviner power; for He was declared to be the Son of God with power. And for this reason too, perhaps, the sacred prophecies speak of Him now as a servant, and now as a Son. They call Him a servant on account of the form of a servant which he wore, and because He was of the seed of David, but they call Him the Son of God according to His character as first-born. Thus it is true to call Him man and to call Him not man; man, because He was capable of death; not man, on account of His being diviner than man. Marcion, I suppose, took sound words in a wrong sense, when he rejected His birth from Mary, and declared that as to His divine nature He was not born of Mary, and hence made bold to delete from the Gospel the passages which have this effect. And a like fate seems to have overtaken those who make away with His humanity and receive His deity alone; and also those opposites of these who cancel His deity and confess Him as a man to be a holy man, and the most righteous of all men. And those who hold the doctrine of Dokesis, not remembering that He humbled Himself even unto death and became obedient even to the cross, but only imagining in Him the absence of suffering, the superiority to all such accidents, they do what they can to deprive us of the man who is more just than all men, and are left with a figure which cannot save them, for as by one man came death, so also by one man is the justification of life. We could not have received such benefit as we have from the Logos had He not assumed the man, had He remained such as He was from the beginning with God the Father, and had He not taken up man, the first man of all, the man more precious than all others, purer than all others and capable of receiving Him. But after that man we also shall be able to receive Him, to receive Him so great and of such nature as He was, if we prepare a place in proportion to Him in our soul. So much I have said of the apparent discrepancies in the Gospels, and of my desire to have them treated in the way of spiritual interpretation.

### Paul Also Makes Contradictory Statements About Himself, and Acts in Opposite Ways at Different Times

[¶3] 5. Paul Also Makes Contradictory Statements About Himself, and Acts in Opposite Ways at Different Times.

[¶4] On the same passage one may also make use of such an example as that of Paul, who at one place says that he is carnal, sold under sin, and thus was not able to judge anything, while in another place he is the spiritual man who is able to judge all things and himself to be judged by no man. Of the carnal one are the words, “Not what I would that do I practise, but what I hate that do I.” And he too who was caught up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words is a different Paul from him who says, Of such an one I will glory, but of myself I will not glory. If he becomes to the Jews as a Jew that he may gain the Jews, and to those under the law as under the law that he may gain those under the law, and to them that are without law as without law, not being without law to God, but under law to Christ, that he may gain those without law, and if to the weak he becomes weak that he may gain the weak, it is clear that these statements must be examined each by itself, that he becomes a Jew, and that sometimes he is under the law and at another time without law, and that sometimes he is weak. Where, for example, he says something by way of permission and not by commandment, there we may recognize that he is weak; for who, he says, is weak, and I am not weak? When he shaves his head and makes an offering, or when he circumcises Timothy, he is a Jew; but when he says to the Athenians, “I found an altar with the inscription, To the unknown God. That, then, which ye worship not knowing it, that declare I unto you,” and, “As also some of your own poets have said, For we also are His offspring,” then he becomes to those without the law as without the law, adjuring the least religious of men to espouse religion, and turning to his own purpose the saying of the poet, “From Love do we begin; his race are we.” And instances might perhaps be found where, to men not Jews and yet under the law, he is under the law.

### Different Accounts of the Call of Peter, and of the Imprisonment of the Baptist. The Meaning of “Capernaum.”

[¶6] 6. Different Accounts of the Call of Peter, and of the Imprisonment of the Baptist. The Meaning of “Capernaum.”

[¶7] These examples may be serviceable to illustrate statements not only about the Saviour, but about the disciples too, for here also there is some discrepancy of statement. For there is a difference in thought perhaps between Simon who is found by his own brother Andrew, and who is addressed “Thou shalt be called Cephas,” and him who is seen by Jesus when walking by the sea of Galilee, along with his brother, and addressed conjointly with that brother, “Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” There was some fitness in the fact that the writer who goes more to the root of the matter and tells of the Word becoming flesh, and hence does not record the human generation of the Word who was in the beginning with God, should not tell us of Simon’s being found at the seashore and called away from there, but of his being found by his brother who had been staying with Jesus at the tenth hour, and of his receiving the name Cephas in connection with his being thus found out. If he was seen by Jesus when walking by the sea of Galilee, it would scarcely be on a later occasion that he was addressed, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My church.” With John again the Pharisees know Jesus to be baptizing with His disciples, adding this to His other great activities; but the Jesus of the three does not baptize at all. John the Baptist, too, with the Evangelist of the same name, goes on a long time without being cast into prison. With Matthew, on the contrary, he is put in prison almost at the time of the temptation of Jesus, and this is the occasion of Jesus retiring to Galilee, to avoid being put in prison. But in John there is nothing at all about John’s being put in prison. Who is so wise and so able as to learn all the things that are recorded about Jesus in the four Evangelists, and both to understand each incident by itself, and have a connected view of all His sojournings and words and acts at each place? As for the passage presently before us, it gives in the order of events that on the sixth day the Saviour, after the business of the marriage at Cana of Galilee, went down with His mother and His brothers and His disciples to Capernaum, which means “field of consolation.” For after the feasting and the wine it was fitting that the Saviour should come to the field of consolation with His mother and His disciples, to console those whom He was training for disciples and the soul which had conceived Him by the Holy Ghost, with the fruits which were to stand in that full field.

### Why His Brothers are Not Called to the Wedding; And Why He Abides at Capernaum Not Many Days

[¶9] 7. Why His Brothers are Not Called to the Wedding; And Why He Abides at Capernaum Not Many Days.

[¶10] But we must ask why His brothers are not called to the wedding: they were not there, for it is not said they were; but they go down to Capernaum with Him and His mother and His disciples. We must also examine why on this occasion they do not “go in to” Capernaum, nor “go up to,” but “go down to” it. Consider if we must not understand by His brothers here the powers which went down along with Him, not called to the wedding according to the explanations given above, since it is in lower and humbler places than those who are called disciples of Christ, and in another way, that these brothers receive assistance. For if His mother is called, then there are some bearing fruit, and even to these the Lord goes down with the servants and disciples of the Word, to help such persons, His mother also being with Him. Those indeed who are called Capernaum appear not to be able to allow Jesus and those who went down with Him to make a longer stay with them: hence they remain with them not many days. For the lower field of consolation does not admit the illumination of many doctrines, but is only capable of a few. To get a clear view of the difference between those who receive Jesus for longer and for shorter time, we may compare with this, “They abode there not many days,” the words recorded in Matthew as spoken by Christ when risen from the dead to His disciples who were being sent out to teach all nations, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” To those who are to know all that human nature can know while it still is here, is said with emphasis, “I am with you;” and as the rise of each new day upon the field of contemplation brings more days before the eyes of the blessed, therefore He says, “All the days till the end of the world.” As for those in Capernaum, on the contrary, to whom they go down as to the more needy, not only Jesus, but also His mother and His brothers and His disciples “abode there not many days.”

### How Christ Abides with Believers to the End of the Age, and Whether He Abides with Them After that Consummation

[¶12] 8. How Christ Abides with Believers to the End of the Age, and Whether He Abides with Them After that Consummation.

[¶13] Some may very likely and not unreasonably ask, whether, when all the days of this age are over, there will no longer be any one to say, “Lo, I am with you,” with those, namely, who received Him till the fulfilment of the age, for the “until” seems to indicate a certain limit of time. To this we must say that the phrase, “I am with you,” is not the same as “I am in you.” We might say more properly that the Saviour was not in His disciples but with them, so long as they had not arrived in their minds at the consummation of the age. But when they see to be at hand, as far as their effort is concerned, the consummation of the world which is crucified to them, then Jesus will be no longer with them, but in them, and they will say, “It is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me,” and “If ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in me.” In saying this we are keeping for our part also to the ordinary interpretation which makes the “always” the time down to the consummation of the age, and are not asking more than is attainable to human nature as it is here. That interpretation may be adhered to and justice yet be done to the “I.” He who is with His disciples who are sent out to teach all the nations, until the consummation, may be He who emptied Himself and took the form of a servant, and yet afterwards may be another in point of state; afterwards He may be such as He was before He emptied Himself, until all His enemies are made by His Father the footstool of His feet; and after this, when the Son has delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, it may be the Father who says to them, “Behold, I am with you.” But whether it is “all the days” up to that time, or simply “all the days,” or not “all days” but “every day,” any one may consider that likes. Our plan does not allow us at present to digress so far.

### Heracleon Says that Jesus is Not Stated to Have Done Anything at Capernaum. But in the Other Gospels He Does Many Things There

[¶15] 9. Heracleon Says that Jesus is Not Stated to Have Done Anything at Capernaum. But in the Other Gospels He Does Many Things There.

[¶16] But Heracleon, dealing with the words, “After this He went down to Capernaum,” declares that they indicate the introduction of another transaction, and that the word “went down” is not without significance. “Capernaum,” he says, “means these farthest-out parts of the world, these districts of matter, into which He descended, and because the place was not suitable, he says, He is not reported either to have done anything or said anything in it.” Now if the Lord had not been reported in the other Gospels either as having done or said anything at Capernaum, we might perhaps have hesitated whether this view ought or ought not to be received. But that is far from being the case. Matthew says our Lord left Nazareth and came and dwelt at Capernaum on the seaside, and that from that time He began to preach, saying, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And Mark, starting in his narrative from the temptation by the devil, relates that after John was cast into prison, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God, and after the call of the four fishermen to the Apostleship, “they enter into Capernaum; and straightway on the Sabbath day He taught in the synagogue, and they were astonished at His doctrine.” And Mark records an action of Jesus also which took place at Capernaum, for he goes on to say, “In their synagogue there was a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Ah! what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art Thou come to destroy us? We know Thee who Thou art, the Son of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him; and the unclean spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed.” And at Capernaum Simon’s mother-in-law is cured of her fever. And Mark adds that when evening was come all those were cured who were sick and who were possessed with demons. Luke’s report is very like Mark’s about Capernaum. He says, “And He came to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath day, and they were astonished at His teachings, for His word was with power. And in the synagogue there was a man having a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, Ah! what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Hast Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou art, the holy one of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. Then the demon having thrown him down in the midst, went out of him, doing him no harm.” And then Luke reports how the Lord rose up from the synagogue and went into the house of Simon, and rebuked the fever in his mother-in-law, and cured her of her disease; and after this cure, “when the sun was setting,” he says, “all, as many as had persons sick with divers diseases, brought them to Him, and He laid his hands on each one of them and cured them. And demons also went out from many, crying and saying, Thou art the Son of God, and He rebuked them and suffered them not to speak because they knew that He was the Christ.” We have presented all these statements as to the Saviour’s sayings and doings at Capernaum in order to refute Heracleon’s interpretation of our passage, “Hence He is not said to have done or to have spoken anything there.” He must either give two meanings to Capernaum, and show us his reasons for them, or if he cannot do this he must give up saying that the Saviour visited any place to no purpose. We, for our part, should we come to passages where even a comparison of the other Gospels fails to show that Jesus’ visit to this place or that was not accompanied by any results, will seek with the divine assistance to make it clear that His coming was not in vain.

### Significance of Capernaum

[¶18] 10. Significance of Capernaum.

[¶19] Matthew for his part adds, that when the Lord had entered into Capernaum the centurion came to him, saying, “My boy is lying in my house sick of the palsy, grievously tormented,” and after telling the Lord some more about him, received the reply, “Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it unto thee.” And Matthew then gives us the story of Peter’s mother-in-law, in close agreement with the other two. I conceive it to be a creditable piece of work and becoming to one who is anxious to hear about Christ, to collect from the four Gospels all that is related about Capernaum, and the discourses spoken, and the works done there, and how many visits the Lord paid to the place, and how, at one time, He is said to have gone down to it, and at another to have entered into it, and where He came from when He did so. If we compare all these points together, we shall not go astray in the meaning we ascribe to Capernaum. On the one hand, the sick are healed, and other works of power are done there, and on the other, the preaching, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, begins there, and this appears to be a sign, as we showed when entering on this subject, of some more needy place of consolation, made so perhaps by Jesus, who comforted men by what He taught and by what He did there, in that place of consolation. For we know that the names of places agree in their meaning with the things connected with Jesus; as Gergesa, where the citizens of these parts besought Him to depart out of their coasts, means, “The dwelling of the casters-out.” And this, also, we have noticed about Capernaum, that not only did the preaching, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” begin there, but that according to the three Evangelists Jesus performed there His first miracles. None of the three, however, added to the first wonders which he records as done in Capernaum, that note attached by John the disciple to the first work of Jesus, “This beginning of His signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee.” For that which was done in Capernaum was not the beginning of the signs, since the leading sign of the Son of God was good cheer, and in the light of human experience it is also the most representative of Him. For the Word of God does not show forth His own beauty so much in healing the sick, as in His tendering the temperate draught to make glad those who are in good health and are able to join in the banquet.

### Why the Passover is Said to Be that of the “Jews.” Its Institution: and the Distinction Between “Feasts of the Lord” And Feasts Not So Spoken of

[¶21] 11. Why the Passover is Said to Be that of the “Jews.” Its Institution: and the Distinction Between “Feasts of the Lord” And Feasts Not So Spoken of.

[¶22] “And the passover of the Jews was at hand.” Inquiring into the accuracy of the most wise John (on this passage), I put myself the question, What is indicated by the addition “of the Jews”? Of what other nation was the passover a festival? Would it not have been enough to say, “And the passover was at hand”? It may, however, be the case that the human passover is one thing when kept by men not as Scripture intended, and that the divine passover is another thing, the true passover, observed in spirit and truth by those who worship God in spirit and in truth; and then the distinction indicated in the text may be that between the divine passover and that said to be of the Jews. We should attend to the passover law and observe what the Lord says of it when it is first mentioned in Scripture. “And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month is to you the beginning of months, it is the first for you among the months of the year. Speak thou to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month shall every man take a sheep, according to the houses of your families;” then after some directions in which the word passover does not occur again, he adds, “Thus shall ye eat it, your loins girt and your shoes on your feet, and your staves in your hands, and ye shall eat it with haste. It is the passover of the Lord.” He does not say, “It is your passover.” And a little further on He names the festival again in the same way, “And it shall come to pass, when your sons say to you, What is this service? And ye shall say to them, It is the sacrifice, the passover of the Lord, how He guarded the houses of the children of Israel.” And again, a little further on, “And the Lord spake to Moses and Aaron, saying, This is the law of the passover. No alien shall eat of it.” And again in a little, “But if a proselyte come to you, and keep the passover of the Lord, every male of him shall be circumcised.” Observe that in the law we never find it said, “Your passover;” but in all the passages quoted the phrase occurs once without any adjunct, while we have three times “The passover of the Lord.” To make sure that there is such a distinction between the passover of the Lord and the passover of the Jews, we may consider the way in which Isaiah speaks of the matter: “Your new moons and your Sabbaths and your great day I cannot bear; your fast and your holiday and your new moons and your feasts my soul hateth.” The Lord does not call them His own, these observances of sinners (they are hated of His soul, if such there be); neither the new moons, nor the Sabbaths, nor the great day, nor the fast, nor the festivals. And in the legislation about the Sabbath in Exodus, we read, “And Moses said unto them, This is the word which the Lord spake, The Sabbath is a holy rest unto the Lord.” And a little further on, “And Moses said, Eat ye; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord.” And in Numbers, before the sacrifices which are offered at each festival, as if all the festivals came under the law of the continuous and daily sacrifice, we find it written, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, Announce to the children of Israel, and thus shalt thou say unto them, My gifts, My offerings, My fruits for a smell of sweet savour, ye shall observe to offer unto Me at My festivals. And thou shalt say unto them, These are the offerings which ye shall offer unto the Lord.” The festival set forth in Scripture He calls His own, not those of the people receiving the law, He speaks of His gifts, His offerings. A similar way of speaking is that in Exodus with regard to the people; it is said by God to be His own people, when it does not sin; but in the section about the calf He abjures it and calls it the people of Moses. On the one hand, “Thou shalt say to Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness. But if thou wilt not let My people go, behold, I will send against thee and against thy servants, and against thy people and against thy houses, the dog-fly; and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of the dog-fly, and on the land on which they are, against it will I send them. And I will glorify on that day the land of Gesem, on which My people are; on it there shall be no dog-fly, that thou mayest know that I am the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. And I will make a distinction between My people and thy people.” To Moses, on the other hand, He says, “Go, descend quickly, for thy people hath transgressed, which thou leddest out of the land of Egypt.” As, then, the people when it does not sin is the people of God, but when it sins is no longer spoken of as His, thus, also, the feasts when they are hated by the Lord’s soul are said to be feasts of sinners, but when the law is given regarding them, they are called feasts of the Lord. Now of these feasts passover is one, which in the passage before us is said to be that not of the Lord, but of the Jews. In another passage, too, we find it said, “These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall call chosen, holy.” From the mouth of the Lord Himself, then, we see that there is no gainsaying our statement on this point. Some one, no doubt, will ask about the words of the Apostle, where he writes to the Corinthians: “For our Passover also was sacrificed for us, namely, Christ;” he does not say, “The Passover of the Lord was sacrificed, even Christ.” To this we must say, either that the Apostle simply calls the passover our passover because it was sacrificed for us, or that every sacrifice which is really the Lord’s, and the passover is one of these, awaits its consummation not in this age nor upon earth, but in the coming age and in heaven when the kingdom of heaven appears. As for those feasts, one of the twelve prophets says, “What will ye do in the days of assembly, and in the days of the feast of the Lord?” But Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to ten thousands of angels, the assembly and church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven.” And in the Epistle to the Colossians: “Let no one judge you in meat and in drink, or in respect of a feast-day or a new moon, or a sabbath-day; which are a shadow of the things to come.”