The Gospel of Thaddaeus

Kata Thaddaion
According to Thaddaeus

A number of years back, I got interested in trying to put myself "inside" the heads of the gospel writers. I also wanted to brush the "sawdust of the classroom" off of what I'd learned in the field of biblical studies.

What follows is the result of my little exercise: an entire "early second-century apocryphal gospel," complete with scholarly essays. I omit the detailed tables of texual parallels, as well as the approximately one-third of the Gospel of Thaddaeus which I also wrote up in the "original" Greek...

The Gospel of Thaddaeus

An English Translation
Of the Critical Greek Text
Based on the Edessene Codex θ
And Compared with the Fragments
θ¹ θ² θ³ θ⁴ Fa¹⁹⁷

By Academician Yu. Grigoriev
University of St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

University of Chicago Press © 2004

The Gospel of Thaddaeus. Copyright ©2004 by Yu. Grigoriev. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America by special arrangement with the University of St. Petersburg. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address the University of St. Petersburg Press, 1423 Ul. Yeltsin, St. Petersburg AK5230, Russian Federation. Published simultaneously in the United Kingdom by the University of London, and in Russia by the University of St. Petersburg.

Grigoriev, Yurii Stepanovich (1971--). The Gospel of Thaddaeus: An English Translation of the Critical Greek Text, Based on the Edessene Codex θ, and Compared with the Fragments θ¹ θ² θ³ θ⁴ Fa¹⁹⁷. 1. New Testament studies-- Greek texts, translations, commentaries. 2. Apocryphal gospels. 3. Gospel of Thaddaeus. I. Ivanovna, Anastasia Fyodorovicha (1982--), joint translator. II. Title. 04-29849

Table of Contents

Foreword

According to Thaddaeus
   I. Introduction
   II. Jesus' Ministry in Galilee
   III. The Sermon on the Lake
   IV. Jesus' Ministry in Galilee Continued
   V. The Way to the Cross
   VI. The Journey to Jerusalem
   VII. The Ministry in Jerusalem
   VIII. The Passion Narrative
   IX. The Resurrection

Thaddaeus and the Gospels
Old Testament Citations and Allusions
Luke and Thaddaeus
Mark and Thaddaeus
Other Writings and Thaddaeus

The Discovery of the Gospel of Thaddaeus
Some Brief Remarks Concerning the Gospel of Thaddaeus

Foreword <top>

While field work is still in progress, we are pleased to make available this English translation of the critical Greek text of the Gospel of Thaddaeus.

I provide in the postscript some brief remarks on the provenance and import of this writing.

A project such as this one does not approach completion without help from divers sources, to whom sincere thanks are due.

My thanks go first and foremost to Max Turner of the University of Chicago, and Vanessa James of the University of London, for their most gracious invitation to join in the work on site at Edessa, and for their unflagging support. I owe thanks also to my colleagues at the University of St. Petersburg, especially I.N. Nekrich, Aleksandr Plekhanov, and Sergei Shelepin, for extending to me on very short notice this year of sabbatical leave. Special thanks go to my graduate assistant, Natasha Ivanovna: she has rendered on-site help on a multitude of points, only the most obvious of which is her revision of my translation into English which is at once colloquial and in conformity with the RSV of the synoptic parallels.

Finally, my deepest thanks go out to my friend and colleague, Pyotr Afanasiev of SS. Cyril and Methodius Theological Seminary in Moscow. He deserves, on several counts, the appellation of renaissance man. His always insightful criticism and dialogue have set the standard for the rest of us who have studied the Thaddaean text.

--Yu. Grigoriev

According to Thaddaeus

I. Introduction <top>

Preface
1 ¹The book of Jesus the Nazarene, the Christ of God. ²As it is written in the scriptures, "Who has gone up to heaven, and come down? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has dominion of all the ends of the earth? ³What is his name? Or what is his son's name? For God delivers the one who reverences him."

The Birth of Jesus
⁴Now in Nazareth of Galilee a woman, Mary by name, was betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, a carpenter. ⁵But before they had come together, an angel appeared to her and said, "Fear not; for you are favored before God. ⁶And the Holy Spirit will overshadow you, and you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. ⁷And he will save his people Israel, all whom God calls; and he will be called the Son of God, and he will reign for ever." ⁸And it came to pass as the angel from God had said; and she bore her son, and his name was called Jesus, but Joseph did not know her until he was born. ⁹And his enemies said, "He is the son of a soldier." ¹⁰But all these things took place to fulfill what is written: ¹¹"Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel." ¹²And he sprang up in his own place, as it is written, "Behold the man whose name is the Branch."

John the Baptist
¹³Now John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the prophet: ¹⁴"Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way." ¹⁵And Judea and Jerusalem came out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ¹⁶Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey.

John's Preaching of Repentance
¹⁷Now he said to those that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ¹⁸Bear fruits that befit repentance, and do not say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ¹⁹Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." ²⁰And he preached to them, saying, "I have baptized you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

The Baptism of Jesus
²¹And in the appointed season, Jesus came and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ²²And when he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descended like a dove and rested upon him; ²³and a voice came from the heavens, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased; and thou shalt reign for ever."

The Temptation
²⁴Then the Spirit took him out, as if by the hairs of his head, and brought him out onto the great Mount Tabor. ²⁵And he was there forty days and forty nights, being tempted by Satan; and the angels ministered to him.

II. Jesus' Ministry in Galilee <top>

Jesus Begins to Preach
2 ¹And Jesus heard in Bethany about the arrest of John. And so he went into Galilee. ²And there he preached the Good News of the kingdom of God, saying, "Repent; for the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand."

The Call of the First Four Disciples
³And going by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two fishermen, Simon son of Jonah and Andrew the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea. ⁴And they had toiled all night and took nothing. ⁵And Jesus called to them, "Let down your nets on the other side for a catch." ⁶And when they had done this, they took a great shoal of fish; and their nets were breaking. ⁷And when Simon saw it, he said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." ⁸And Jesus spoke and answered them, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." ⁹And immediately they left everything and were following him. ¹⁰And after he had gone on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending their nets. ¹¹And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

The Calls of Levi and Thaddaeus
¹²And he went out into the way; and as he went along, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, "Follow me." ¹³And he rose and left everything and followed him. ¹⁴And two days later, as he was passing along, Jesus looked in the door of a workshop and saw Thaddaeus, that is, Lebbaeus, mending a wheel. ¹⁵And he said to him, "Come away, follow me." And it fell silent in the shop, and Thaddaeus put down his hammer and immediately followed him.

Teaching in the Synagogue at Capernaum
¹⁶And they went down to Capernaum of Galilee. And on the sabbath he was teaching them in the synagogue. ¹⁷And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.

The Healing of the Demoniac in the Synagogue
¹⁸And immediately in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out, ¹⁹saying, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? We know who you are, the Holy One of God." ²⁰But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of the man!" ²¹And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and throwing him down, cried out and came out of him. ²²And they were all amazed and said to one another, "What is this? What is this new teaching of his? For with authority he command even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." ²³And reports of him went out at once throughout all the surrounding region.

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
²⁴And Jesus arose and left the synagogue, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. ²⁵Now Simon's mother-in-law lay sick with a fever, and they besought him for her. ²⁶And he came and reached out his hand and took hold and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them.

The Sick Healed at Evening
²⁷That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick with various diseases, or possessed with demons. ²⁸And the whole city was gathered together about the door. ²⁹And he healed many who were sick, and cast out many demons; and he rebuked the demons and would not permit them to speak, because they knew him to be the Christ of God.

Jesus Departs from Capernaum
³⁰And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out into a lonely place. ³¹And Simon and those who were with him pursued him, and they found him and said to him, "Every one is searching for you." ³²And he said to them, "Let us go on to the nearby towns and cities, that I may preach there also; for that is why I have come out."

First Preaching Tour in Galilee
³³And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Jesus Casts Seven Demons out of Mary
3 ¹Now when Jesus came to the city of Magdala, he went in and was teaching there. And there came before him a prostitute whose name was Mary, who had seven unclean spirits. ²And crying out with a loud voice, she said to him, "O Son of man, what have you to do with us?" ³And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirits, saying, "Pukou minnah," that is, "Come out of her!" And the unclean spirits were cast out of her and left her. ⁴Now, this Mary of Magdala became one of the women who followed after Jesus.

The Cleansing of the Leper
⁵Now while he was in one of the cities, a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." ⁶And Jesus got angry and stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will; be clean." ⁷And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁸And he sternly charged him, and threw him out at once, and said to him, "Say nothing to any one; ⁹but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift for your cleansing as Moses commanded, for a proof to the people." ¹⁰But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; ¹¹and they came together to him, and he returned to Capernaum.

The Healing of the Paralytic
¹²And it was reported after some days that he was at home. And Jesus was preaching the word to them. ¹³And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door. And behold, four men were coming to him carrying a paralytic on a pallet. ¹⁴And finding no way to get near him because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and removed the tiles above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the paralytic with his pallet in front of Jesus. ¹⁵And when he saw their faith, he said, "My son, your sins are forgiven you." ¹⁶Now some of the Pharisees and scribes there began to question in their hearts, "Who is this that speaks thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" ¹⁷Now when Jesus perceived in his spirit their questionings, he said to them, "Why do you question in your hearts? ¹⁸Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? ¹⁹But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins"-- he said to the man who was paralyzed-- "Rise, take up your pallet, go home." ²⁰And he rose, and immediately took up that on which he lay and went out before them, and went home. ²¹And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!"

The Question about Fasting
²²Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people said to him, "Why do these fast, but your disciples eat and drink?" ²³And Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot fast while they have the bridegroom with them. ²⁴The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. ²⁵No one sews a piece from a new garment on an old garment; if he does, the new tears away from the old, and a worse tear is made. ²⁶And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the skins will burst through, and the wine will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. ²⁷But new wine must be kept in new skins and jars."

Plucking Grain on the Sabbath
²⁸On the second sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples began to pluck and eat some heads of grain. ²⁹And the Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are you doing what it is not lawful to do on the sabbath?" ³⁰And Jesus answered them and said, "Have you never read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him; ³¹how when he entered the house of God, when Abimelech was high priest, he took the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave it to those with him, and they ate it? ³²But I say to you that the sabbath was created for man, not man for the sabbath."

A Man Gathering Sticks on the Sabbath
³³And on the same day, as he was going along, he saw a man picking up sticks on the sabbath. ³⁴And Jesus said to him, "Man, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you do not know what you are doing, you are accursed and a transgressor of the law."

The Man with the Withered Hand
³⁵And on another sabbath he entered the synagogue, and a man came to him who had a withered hand. ³⁶And they watched him, to see whether he would heal him on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. ³⁷So Jesus said to them, "I will ask you, is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. ³⁸And he looked around at them in anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he did so, and his hand was restored, as sound as the other. ³⁹And Jesus said to them, "The Son of man is lord of the sabbath." ⁴⁰But they were filled with fury and considered with one another how to destroy him.

The Choosing of the Twelve
⁴¹Now in those days he went up on the mountain, and called to him his disciples. ⁴²And he appointed twelve of them, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach ⁴³and to have power to heal the sick and authority to cast out demons: ⁴⁴Simon the son of Jonah, whom he surnamed Peter, and Andrew his brother; ⁴⁵and James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, whom together he called the Baneregez; ⁴⁶and Matthew, and Thaddaeus, and Philip, and Nathanael the son of Talmai, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. ⁴⁷And he gathered them at the house of Simon Peter, and said to them, "I desire you to be my apostles, a witness to Israel."

III. The Sermon on the Lake <top>

The Sermon on the Lake
4 ¹And Jesus went with his disciples and withdrew to the lake of Gennesaret, and there gathered about him many people from Galilee, and from Judea and Jerusalem and from about Tyre and Sidon, ²for they came to him to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. ³And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, for they pressed upon him that they might hear the word of God and that power might come forth from him upon them. ⁴And getting into the boat, he asked the disciples to put out a little from the land. ⁵And he sat down, and from the boat he taught the crowd which was beside the lake upon the land, and in his teaching he said to them:

The Beatitudes
⁶"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. ⁷But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. ⁸Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. ⁹But woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. ¹⁰Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh. ¹¹But woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. ¹²Blessed are you who serve as slaves now, for you shall rule in righteousness. ¹³But woe to you who hold dominion now, for you shall be brought down. ¹⁴Blessed shall you be when men hate you, and when they revile you and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! ¹⁵Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. ¹⁶But woe to you, when all men speak well of you! Cry out, and call to the mountains to fall and cover you; for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

On Love of One's Enemies
¹⁷"But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ¹⁸bless those who curse you, pray on behalf of those who abuse you. ¹⁹Reprove one another not in wrath but in peace, for you will never be glad until you look upon your brother with love. ²⁰Do not resist one who is evil, but to him who strikes you on the right cheek, offer the left also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt; ²¹and with him who forces you to carry a burden one mile, carry it two miles. ²²And as you wish that men would do to you, do so yourself to them. ²³If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ²⁴And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive twice as much again. ²⁵But love your enemies, and give to every one who begs from you, expecting nothing in return. ²⁶Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, and neither moth nor mildew destroys. ²⁷For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also; ²⁸and you will be sons of my Father who is in the heavens. For he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

On Judging
²⁹"Show mercy that you may receive mercy; forgive that it may be forgiven unto you. ³⁰As you judge so shall you be judged; and as you are kind so shall kindness be done to you. ³¹For the measure you give will be the same measure you get back, and still more will be given you." ³²And he told them parables. "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? ³³A disciple is not above his teacher, but let him when he is fully taught be like his teacher. ³⁴How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when behold, there is a log in your own eye? ³⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

On Profaning the Holy
³⁶"So give away all that you possess; but let your alms sweat into your palms until you know to whom you give. ³⁷Do not give dogs what is holy, lest they cast it down upon a dungheap; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn again and rend you with their tusks."

"By their Fruits..."
³⁸And he said: "Grapes are not gathered from thorns, nor are figs plucked from camel's thorn. They give no fruit. ³⁹But a good man brings forth good from his treasure. ⁴⁰A wicked man brings forth evil from his evil treasure which is in his heart, and says evil things; for from the abundance of the heart he brings forth evil things.

The Tower Built Upon the Rock
⁴¹"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and say that you are united with me in my bosom, and yet you do not do what I tell you? ⁴²Every one who hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: ⁴³he is like a man building a tower, who dug deep, and laid the foundations upon rock; and the rain fell, and a flood arose, and the sea broke against that tower, and could not shake it, because it had been founded upon the rock. ⁴⁴But he who hears my words and does not do them is like a man who built a tower on the ground without a foundation, and the sea broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that tower was great."

The Parable of the Sower
⁴⁵And he told them more parables. "A sower went out to sow. ⁴⁶And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds of the heavens devoured it. ⁴⁷And other seed fell on rocky ground, and immediately it sprang up; ⁴⁸and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away. ⁴⁹Other seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it. ⁵⁰And other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, and yielded thirtyfold and sixtyfold and one hundred twenty fold.

The Parable of the Lamp
⁵¹"Now, is a lamp lit to be put under a bushel, or in a cellar, and not on a stand? ⁵²Your eye is the lamp of your body; so when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. ⁵³There is light within the sons of light, and it illuminates the whole world; if it does not illuminate it, it is darkness. ⁵⁴For nothing is hid, except to be made manifest; nor anything secret, except to come to light.

"Let Him Who Has Ears to Hear..."
⁵⁵"Let him who has ears, hear! Take heed then what you hear; ⁵⁶for to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."

The Kingdom Is in Your Midst
⁵⁷And he said to them: "If they who lead you say to you, 'Behold, the kingdom of God is in the heavens,' then the birds of the heavens will precede you. ⁵⁸If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. And if they say, 'It is upon the earth,' then the cattle upon the hills will precede you. ⁵⁹But the kingdom is in your midst, and it is drawing nigh upon you. ⁶⁰Now you do not know my Father, but in that day which is to come you shall be known, and you shall know that you are children of my Father who is in heaven. ⁶¹But you are in poverty, and indeed you are poverty, unless all men know you as children of my Father on account of your love."

IV. Jesus' Ministry in Galilee Continued <top>

Healings at Gennesaret
5 ¹And after he had said all these things, the people were amazed. And he got out of the boat. ²And they brought sick people on their pallets to him, and besought him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well. ³And the unclean spirits fell down before him and cried out; and he strictly ordered them not to make him known, for they knew him to be the Son of God.

Stilling the Storm
⁴Seeing that evening had come, he said to his disciples, "Let us go across to the other side of the lake." ⁵And leaving the crowd, they set out in the boat, and as they sailed he fell asleep. ⁶And a great storm of wind came down on the lake, and the waves beat into the boat, and they were filling with water. ⁷But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and James the son of Zebedee awoke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care if we perish?" ⁸And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. ⁹He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Where is your faith?" ¹⁰And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, "Who then is this, that he commands, and even sea and wind obey him?"

The Centurion of Capernaum
¹¹And so they came again to Capernaum. Now a centurion had a slave who was dear to him, who was sick and at the point of death. ¹²When he heard of Jesus, he sent word to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. ¹³And he asked Jesus earnestly, and Jesus went with them. ¹⁴When he was not far from the house, the centurion himself came out to him, saying, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But only say the word, and let my servant be healed. ¹⁵For I am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, 'Come,' and he comes; and to another, 'Go,' and he goes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." ¹⁶When Jesus heard this he marveled at him, and turned and said to the multitude that followed him, "I tell you, never in Israel have I found such faith." ¹⁷And when the centurion returned to his house, he found the slave well.

The Widow's Son at Nain
¹⁸Soon afterward Jesus went to a city called Nain, and his disciples went with him. ¹⁹As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city came along with her. ²⁰And when Jesus saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." ²¹And he came and touched the bier, and asked the bearers to stand still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." ²²And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. ²³Fear seized them all; and this report concerning him spread throughout all the surrounding country.

The Woman with the Ointment
²⁴And two days later as he sat at table in the house of Matthew, many tax collectors and sinners were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. ²⁵And a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment, and weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet. ²⁶Now when the Pharisees saw it, they said to themselves, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." ²⁷And then she broke the flask, and anointed his feet with ointment. And again they said to themselves indignantly, "Why was this ointment thus wasted? ²⁸For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." ²⁹And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; for I came to call to repentance not the righteous, but sinners." ³⁰And then Jesus said to them, "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ³¹And when they could not pay he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?" ³²One of the Pharisees answered him, "The one to whom he forgave more." And he said to him, "You have judged rightly. ³³And therefore I tell you, much is forgiven her, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little." ³⁴Then turning toward the woman he said, "Your sins are forgiven." ³⁵Then the Pharisees began to murmur among themselves, saying, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?" ³⁶And he said to her, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Jesus' True Kindred
³⁷Then he went home; and the next day a crowd came together again, so that he and his disciples could not eat. ³⁸And when his mother and his brothers heard it, they went out to seize him, for they said, "He is beside himself." ³⁹And they came to him, but not being able to reach him for the crowd, they called him. ⁴⁰And he was told, "Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are standing outside, asking for you." ⁴¹And he answered and said to them, "Who are my mother or brothers?" ⁴²And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "These who do the will of my Father are my brothers and mother and sisters."

The Walking on the Water
⁴³At evening, his disciples went down to the sea, where he made them get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida. ⁴⁴And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. ⁴⁵And when evening came, it was dark, and the boat was already out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. ⁴⁶And he saw that they were distressed in rowing, for the wind was greatly against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. ⁴⁷He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking upon the sea they thought it was a ghost, and they all cried out; ⁴⁸for they saw him, and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, have no fear; it is I." ⁴⁹And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly amazed.

The Gergesene Demoniac
6 ¹They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gergesenes. ²And when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man from the city with an unclean spirit, ³who lived among the tombs; and no one could bind him any more, even with a chain; ⁴for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces, and he was driven by the unclean spirit into the desert. ⁵And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down and worshiped him; ⁶and said with a loud voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." ⁷For he had said to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" ⁸And Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" And he replied, "My name is Legion; for we are many." ⁹And they begged him not to send them out of the country. ¹⁰Now a great herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him, "Send us to the swine, let us enter them." ¹¹So he gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came out of the man and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned. ¹²When the herdsmen saw it, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. And people went out to see what had happened. ¹³And they came to Jesus, and saw the man who had had the legion, sitting there clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ¹⁴And those who had seen it told what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine. ¹⁵And they urged Jesus to depart from their neighborhood, for they were seized with great fear. ¹⁶And as he was getting into the boat, the man from whom the unclean spirits had gone begged that he might be with him. ¹⁷But he refused, and said to him, "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you." ¹⁸And he went away, proclaiming throughout the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.

Jairus' Daughter and the Woman with a Hemorrhage
¹⁹Now Jesus and his disciples crossed again in the boat to the side; and a great crowd gathered about him beside the sea. ²⁰Then came a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue; and he fell at his feet, ²¹and besought him, saying, "My little daughter is dying. Come and touch her with your hands, so that she may be made well, and live." ²²As he went, a great crowd pressed round him. ²³And a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had spent all that she had on many physicians and could not be healed, said to herself, "If I touch even the garments of this Jesus, I shall be made well." ²⁴So she came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment; and immediately her flow of blood ceased, and she was healed. ²⁵And Jesus, also perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately said, "Who touched the blue of the fringe of my garment?" ²⁶And Peter said to him, "Teacher, you see the crowd pressing round you." ²⁷But Jesus said, "Some one touched the blue of the fringe," and he looked around to see who had done it. ²⁸But the woman, seeing and hearing this, came in fear and fell down before him trembling, and declared to him the whole truth. ²⁹And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace." ³⁰While he was still speaking, a man came from the ruler's house and said, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?" ³¹But overhearing this, Jesus answered the ruler of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." ³²And he permitted no one to enter with him, except Peter and James and John, and the father and mother of the girl. ³³And when they came to the house, they saw people weeping and wailing. ³⁴And he said to them, "Do not make a tumult and weep; for the child is not dead but sleeping." ³⁵And they laughed at him. But he threw them all out, and taking those whom he had called to be with him, he went in where the child was. ³⁶And taking her by the hand he called to her, saying, "Talitha cumi"; which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise." ³⁷And immediately the girl got up and walked (she was twelve years of age), and they were amazed. ³⁸And he directed them to give her something to eat, and strictly charged them that no one should know this.

Jesus Is Rejected at Nazareth
³⁹And Jesus went away from there with his disciples, and came to Nazareth, to his own country. ⁴⁰And on the sabbath day he taught in the synagogue, and he stood up to read. ⁴¹And many who heard him were astonished at his teaching, and they said, "Whence is the wisdom that is given to this man? What mighty works are wrought by his hands! ⁴²Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Jude and Joseph and Simon, and are not his sisters Deborah and Ruth and Rachel here with us?" ⁴³And they stumbled at him; and he said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin. Will you quote to me this proverb, 'No physician is able to heal himself'? ⁴⁴Truly, I say to you, if the peace of God is rejected by those who are near, it shall be proclaimed and heard and accepted among those who stand far off. This is the word of the Lord." ⁴⁵And they were furious. And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. ⁴⁶And marveling because of their unbelief, he went his way among the villages teaching.

Commissioning the Twelve
7 ¹And he called the twelve together and gave them authority over the unclean spirits, and power to cure diseases, ²and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal. ³And he charged them saying, "Take nothing for your journey except a staff; no bread, nor bag, nor money; but wear sandals and do not put on two tunics. ⁴And wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave a place. ⁵And wherever they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them; ⁶and it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah at the last day than for that town." ⁷So they went out two by two through the villages and preached repentance. ⁸And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.

The Return of the Apostles
⁹And on their return, the apostles told Jesus all that they had done and taught. ¹⁰And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves for a while, and rest in a lonely place." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

Five Thousand are Fed
¹¹And they went up into the boat to a lonely place by themselves. ¹²Now many saw them going, and they ran there on foot, and got there ahead of them. ¹³And as Jesus went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them about the kingdom of God. ¹⁴And when it grew late, the twelve came to him and said, "The hour is now late, and this is a lonely place; ¹⁵send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and get themselves lodging and provisions." ¹⁶But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." The other Simon, not Peter, said, "Shall we go and buy food for all these people? For we have no more than seven loaves and two fish." ¹⁷Then Jesus commanded the crowd to sit down upon the green grass, by companies of fifty and companies of a hundred. ¹⁸And taking the seven loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. ¹⁹And they all ate and were satisfied. ²⁰And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. ²¹And those who ate were five thousand men.

Defilement-- Traditional and Real
²²Now some of the Pharisees and scribes came up from Jerusalem, and asked him to sit at table and dine with them. ²³And they were astonished to see that Jesus and his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed. ²⁴For the Jews do not eat unless first they wash their hands, observing the traditions of the elders; and there are many other traditions which they observe. ²⁵And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do you and your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?" ²⁶And he said to them, "You leave the commandments of God, and hold fast the traditions of men. ²⁷For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die'; ²⁸but you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, The Corban is what you will gain from me'-- ²⁹then you do not permit him to do anything for his father or mother. ³⁰And you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness. ³¹You fools! Did not he who made the inside make the outside also? ³²How will you find the kingdom, unless you fast to this evil age? ³³And how will you see my Father, unless you sabbatize the sabbath? ³⁴But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything will be clean for you." ³⁵And he called the people to him again, and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand: ³⁶there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him, for it enters not his heart but his stomach, and so is evacuated into the sewer; ³⁷but what comes out of a man is what defiles him, for it comes out of his heart. ³⁸If any man has ears to hear, let him hear!"

The Canaanite Woman
8 ¹And from there he arose and went away to the region around Tyre. And a woman, whose daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell down at his feet. ²Now the woman was a Gentile. And she begged him to cast the unclean spirit out of her daughter. ³And he refused, saying to her, "It is not right to take the children's bread and meat and throw it to the dogs." ⁴But she answered him, "Lord, even the dogs under the table are fed with the children's scraps." ⁵And he said to her, "For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." ⁶And when she went home, she found her daughter well, and the unclean spirit gone.

Jesus Heals a Deaf Mute
⁷Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis. ⁸And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hands upon him. ⁹And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into the ears of the deaf man, and he spat and touched his tongue; ¹⁰and looking up to the heavens, he sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." ¹¹And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ¹²And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak."

A Blind Man is Healed at Bethsaida
¹³And he came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man, and begged him to touch him. ¹⁴And he took the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" ¹⁵And he looked up and said, "I see men; but they look like trees, walking." ¹⁶Then again he placed his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly. ¹⁷And he sent him away saying, "Go your way, enter your home, and say nothing about it to any one in the town."

V. The Way to the Cross <top>

Peter's Confession
¹⁸And Jesus went on with his disciples to Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked them, "Who do men say that I am?" ¹⁹And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, like one of the prophets." ²⁰And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Peter answered him, "You are the Christ of God." ²¹And he charged them to tell this to no one.

Jesus Foretells His Passion
²²And from then on he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ²³And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him angrily. ²⁴But he turned and rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men."

"If Any Man would Come after Me..."
²⁵And he said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁶For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. ²⁷For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his own life? ²⁸For what can a man give in return for his life? ²⁹For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this evil age, of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes with the angelic host in the glory of the Father. ³⁰But truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power."

The Transfiguration
³¹And six days after this, Jesus took with him Cephas and the sons of Zebedee, and led them up onto a great mountain in Galilee. ³²And when they had come to the top, he was transfigured brightly before them, and his garments became blinding, shining white, so that they were stricken with terror. ³³And behold, two men stood in glory on the mountain, talking with Jesus. ³⁴And Cephas, turning about in fear, said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is well that we are here; let three booths be set up, one for you and one for each of these men." ³⁵And then a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from the cloud, "This is my beloved Son, who shall reign on earth as in heaven; listen to him!" ³⁶And then they saw Jesus only standing with them; and they asked him, "Were these angels with whom you were talking?" ³⁷And he said to them, "No, but Moses and Elijah were manifest here to bear witness to the Son of man for your sake; for I am come to fulfill in my witness all the law and the prophets." ³⁸And in those days they feared greatly, and told no one what they had seen; for Jesus said to them, "Do not speak about this until the Son of man rises from the dead."

The Coming of Elijah
9 ¹And they asked him, "Why do the Pharisees and the scribes say that first Elijah must come?" ²And he answered and said to them, "If Elijah comes first to restore all things, of the Son of man it is written that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt. ³But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him."

Jesus Heals a Boy Possessed by a Spirit
⁴And a great crowd met him, and a man from the crowd cried, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit; ⁵and it seizes him and he cries out and it dashed him down and it convulses him. ⁶And I begged your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able." ⁷And Jesus answered, "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?" ⁸And the father of the child cried out with tears and said, "I believe; help my unbelief! If you can do anything, have pity on us and help us!" ⁹And Jesus said, "Bring your son to me." And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy. ¹⁰But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and commanded it to come out of him and never to enter him again. ¹¹And Jesus lifted up the boy who had been healed by the hand, and gave him back to his father. ¹²And his disciples asked him, "Why could we not cast it out?" ¹³And he said to them, "All things are possible to him who believes. But this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer."

Jesus Foretells His Passion Again
¹⁴As they went on from there they were passing secretly through Galilee, and Jesus said to his disciples, ¹⁵"The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men who will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised up." ¹⁶But they did not understand this saying, and they were afraid to ask him.

The Strange Exorcist
¹⁷John said to him, "Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us." ¹⁸But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him: for he who does a mighty work in my name will not be able soon after to speak evil of me; ¹⁹and he who today is far away will tomorrow be near me."

John the Baptist's Question and Jesus' Answer
²⁰Now John the Baptist sent two of his disciples to Jesus, saying, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" ²¹And when they came and asked Jesus, he was curing many of diseases and plagues and unclean spirits, and on many that were blind he was bestowing sight. ²²And he answered them, "Go and tell John what your eyes have seen and what your ears have heard: ²³the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. ²⁴And blessed is he who takes no offense at me."

Jesus' Witness Concerning John
²⁵When the messengers of John had gone, he began to speak to the crowds concerning John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind? ²⁶What then did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are gorgeously appareled and live in luxury are in kings' courts. ²⁷What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ²⁸I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. ²⁹To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? ³⁰They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, 'We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.' ³¹For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, 'He has a demon.' ³²The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, 'Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' ³³Yet wisdom is justified by all her children."

Opinions Regarding Jesus
³⁴Now King Herod heard of it; for Jesus' name had become known. And he said, "John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him." ³⁵But some said, "Elijah has appeared," and others said, "One of the prophets of old has risen." ³⁶And Herod said, "John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?"

The Death of John the Baptist
³⁷For Herod had been reproved by John for Herodias, his brother's wife, and so he shut John up in prison. ³⁸And Herod feared John, but Herodias sought his death. ³⁹So at a festival she had her daughter beguile Herod and extract from him an oath, that he should give her the gift she requested. ⁴⁰And the girl requested of Herod the head of John upon a bronze platter; and Herod lamented, but he was bound by his oath. ⁴¹So when John had been beheaded, his disciples came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

The Kingdom Plundered
⁴²And when Jesus heard of it, he said, "The law and the prophets were until John; but now the kingdom of God is plundered, and every one enters it by force."

VI. The Journey to Jerusalem <top>

Decision to Go to Jerusalem
10 ¹And knowing that the season had drawn near for him to be handed over, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.

Jesus Is Rejected by Samaritans
²And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; ³but the people would not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. ⁴And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them, as Elijah did?" ⁵But he turned and rebuked them, saying, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of; for the Son of man came not to destroy men's lives but to save them." ⁶And they went on to another village.

On Following Jesus
⁷As they were going along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." ⁸And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." ⁹To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." ¹⁰But he said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, follow me." ¹¹Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." ¹²Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." ¹³And after this, Jesus said to his disciples, "Do you not see? Many are near the well, but few are in the well. ¹⁴For he who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom of God."

Commissioning the Seventy-Two
¹⁵Then Jesus appointed seventy-two, and sent them out two by two, man and sister wife, into the towns of Galilee; ¹⁶and he breathed a share of his Spirit upon them. ¹⁷And he spoke and said to them, "The plain is white; the harvest is come. ¹⁸Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers while it is the month of harvest. ¹⁹Go your way; carry no purse, no bag, no staff; ²⁰but when you come to a village, enter saying, 'Peace be to this house of peace!' ²¹And if a son of peace truly is there, your peace shall rest upon his head; but if not, it shall return to you. ²²And remain in the same house while you remain in the village, eating the bread they provide and drinking the wine they provide; for the laborer deserves his wages. ²³And heal the sick and cast out demons in the town, saying to the people, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' ²⁴But if they do not receive you, say in the streets, 'Even the dust that clings to our feet, we wipe it off; nevertheless, hear this, that the kingdom of God has come near.'

Woes Pronounced on Galilean Cities
²⁵"Woe to you, Chorazin and Bethsaida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. ²⁶But it shall be more tolerable in that day for Tyre and Sidon than for you. ²⁷And you, Capernaum, who have been exalted to the heavens, you shall be brought down to Hades!

"He Who Hears You, Hears Me"
²⁸"He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who hears me hears him who sent me."

The Return of the Seventy-Two
²⁹The seventy-two returned in awe, saying, "Lord, we laid our hands on the sick, and they have recovered; ³⁰and neither serpent nor any deadly thing can hurt us; ³¹and even the demons we cast out in your name!" ³²And Jesus said to them, "I saw Satan fall like a shooting star from the heavens into the darkness of the sea. ³³Behold, I have given you great authority; ³⁴nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the unclean spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in the book which stands before the throne."

Jesus' Thanksgiving to the Father, and the Blessedness of the Disciples
³⁵In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing before thee." ³⁶And turning to the disciples he said, "All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ³⁷Blessed are the ears which hear what you hear! ³⁸For I tell you that many prophets and angels desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."

The Lawyer's Question
³⁹And a certain lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, which commandment is the first of all?" ⁴⁰And Jesus answered and said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself. ⁴¹And all the other commandments are commentary on these." ⁴²And the lawyer said to him, "You are right, Teacher; for to love God and to love your neighbor, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." ⁴³But after that no one dared to ask him any question.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan
⁴⁴And then Jesus, to show them who is their neighbor in the kingdom of God, told them a parable. ⁴⁵"A man was journeying in the countryside, but he did not keep to the way, and he fell into a great ditch, so that he lay there half-dead. ⁴⁶Now a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. ⁴⁷So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ⁴⁸But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, ⁴⁹and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ⁵⁰And the next day he took out seven denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.' ⁵¹Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell into the ditch?" ⁵²He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Mary and Martha
⁵³Now it happened that as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. ⁵⁴And Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. ⁵⁵But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that Mary has left me to serve alone, and that she sits at your feet and asks you when the kingdom will come, while I toil?" ⁵⁶And the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; ⁵⁷but when the kingdom of God comes, two shall be as one, and the heights shall fathom the depths, and the woman shall be with the man, the man and the woman together in the Spirit. ⁵⁸But in this age there shall be factions and divisions."

The Lord's Prayer
11 ¹And Jesus was praying, and when he ceased for a little while, Andrew said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." ²And he said to them, "Whenever you pray, say, 'Our Father, our King, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. ³Thy kingdom come, thy Holy Spirit descend upon us and cleanse us. ⁴Give us today thy continual bread. ⁵And forgive us our trespasses, for we ourselves forgive every one against whom we hold anything. And lead us not into tribulation.'

Encouragement to Pray
⁶"And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. ⁷For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. ⁸For what father among you, if his son asks for a bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion; ⁹or if he asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? ¹⁰If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give a good gift to those who ask him!"

The Beelzebul Controversy
¹¹Now scribes came down from Jerusalem and found him casting out demons. ¹²And they said, "He is possessed by Beelzebul, and he casts out demons by the prince of demons." ¹³But he called them to him, and said to them, "How can Satan cast out Satan? ¹⁴Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no house divided against itself will be able to stand. ¹⁵And if Satan also is divided against himself, then he cannot stand, but his kingdom is coming to an end. ¹⁶And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? ¹⁷But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. ¹⁸But no one can enter a strong man's palace and plunder his goods, unless he first overcomes and binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house. ¹⁹He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

The Return of the Evil Spirit
²⁰"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes into waterless places, through hill and dale, seeking rest. ²¹But finding none he says, I will return to my house from which I came. ²²And when he comes he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. ²³Then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. ²⁴So when you are cleansed, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and give thanks to my Father who is in heaven."

The Sign of Jonah
²⁵Then the scribes and Pharisees, to test him, sought from him a sign from heaven. ²⁶They said to him, "Show us a sign of this kingdom, so that we may see, and believe you." ²⁷He said to them, "You test the face of the heavens and the earth, and you do not know what is before you, and you cannot test this time. ²⁸When you see a red sky in the evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather'; and when you see a yellow sky in the evening, you say, 'It will be stormy.' ²⁹And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; but you do not know how to interpret the present time. ³⁰You hypocrites! No sign shall be given to this evil generation except the sign of Jonah. ³¹And I say to you, the queen of the South will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. ³²The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here."

The Leaven of the Pharisees
³³And turning to his disciples, he said, "Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."

Exhortation to Fearless Confession
³⁴And Jesus said to them, "Everything that is not before you will be revealed to you, for there is nothing hid which will not be revealed; nor buried, which will not be raised. ³⁵Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in your inner room shall be proclaimed from the rooftops. ³⁶I tell you, you shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves; But fear not, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." ³⁷And Peter answered and said to him, "But Lord, what if the wolves tear the lambs?" ³⁸And Jesus said to him, "Let not the lambs after they are dead fear the wolves. ³⁹For I tell you, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing to you. ⁴⁰But fear him who, after you are dead, has authority over soul and body to cast into the Gehenna of fire; yes, I tell you, fear him! ⁴¹Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yes, and not one of them is forgotten before God. ⁴²Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. So fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. ⁴³And I tell you, every one who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; ⁴⁴but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

The Sin Against the Holy Spirit
⁴⁵"And I say to you, every sin will be forgiven, and every one who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven."

Warning Against Avarice
12 ¹And one of the multitude came and said to him, "Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me." ²But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge over you?" ³And turning to his disciples, Jesus asked them, "Am I a divider?" ⁴And he said to the crowd, "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

The Parable of the Rich Fool
⁵And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; ⁶and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' ⁷And he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ⁸And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; so take your ease."' ⁹But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' ¹⁰So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. Let him who has ears to hear, hear!"

Anxieties About Earthly Things
¹¹And Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not take care from morning to evening or from evening to morning, for your clothes, what you shall put on, nor for your food, what you shall eat. ¹²For you are far better than the lilies, which neither spin nor weave; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ¹³But if God so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, he himself will give you your garment, O men of little faith! ¹⁴And having one garment, what do you lack? ¹⁵Or consider the birds of the heavens; they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! ¹⁶Who can add to his span of life, or to his stature? ¹⁷If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? ¹⁸For all the nations of the earth seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. ¹⁹Instead, seek the kingdom of God, and these things shall be yours as well."

Division in Households
²⁰And Jesus said to the multitudes, "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and how I am constrained until it is kindled! ²¹Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; ²²for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; ²³they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Agreement with One's Accuser
²⁴"So judge for yourselves what is right. ²⁵As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. ²⁶I tell you, you will never get out till you have paid the very last copper."

Repentance or Destruction
²⁷There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ²⁸And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? ²⁹I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. ³⁰Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? ³¹I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."

The Parable of the Vintner
³²And he said to them, "There was a vintner who advanced ten thousand denarii to the owner of a vineyard. ³³And the vintner said to him, 'Pay me in new wine at the appointed season.' ³⁴But when that day came, the owner of the vineyard could not pay his debt; for although some of the vines in his vineyard had borne grapes abundantly, others had borne no fruit at all. ³⁵So he went in fear and shame to the vintner, and pleaded with him for clemency. ³⁶He said to him, 'I can pay you only three thousand denarii, for some of my vines bore no fruit.' ³⁷And the vintner answered the owner and said, 'So be it. Turn over to me every cluster and every grape which you have, that they may be trodden out in the winepress, and I will forgive your debt. ³⁸But I am sending my servants through the vineyard, and they shall uproot every vine which bore no fruit, and cast it into the fire.'"

Saulasau, Caulacau, Zeersam
13 ¹And as they were walking along the banks of the River Jordan, Thomas asked him, "Teacher, how shall we recognize the coming of the kingdom of God?" ²And Jesus answered him and said, "Thomas, Thomas, is it not written, 'Saulasau, Caulacau, Zeersam'?-- ³That is, order upon order, canon upon canon, a little here, a little there? ⁴So measure straight, and cut once, and let not your eye watch where your hand cuts; ⁵for the coming of the kingdom of God is tribulation upon tribulation, and hope upon hope, yet a little, yet a little. ⁶But these things I tell you, that you may read the signs, and reading you may hope, and hoping you may keep watch."

The Parable of the Seed Growing by Itself
⁷And Jesus spoke to the disciples in parables, saying, "To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, ⁸and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. ⁹The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. ¹⁰But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. ¹¹And he has grain enough to eat plentifully, and grain enough left over to scatter seeds again."

The Parable of the Mustard Seed
¹²And he said, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? ¹³It is like a grain of mustard seed, which is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ¹⁴yet when a man took and sowed it in his garden, it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. ¹⁵For if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to the sycamine tree, 'Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you."

The Parable of the Leaven
¹⁶And again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? ¹⁷It is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened."

The Parable of the Mill
¹⁸And he said to them, "The kingdom of God is like a mill to which men brought their grain to have it threshed and ground. ¹⁹And they asked the miller for their flour; and he answered and said to them, 'The chaff is still being flailed from the wheat upon the threshing floor.' ²⁰And they asked the miller again; and again he answered and said, 'The oxen are still treading it out.' ²¹And a third time they asked, and the miller said, 'The millstone is grinding it exceedingly fine.' ²²And at last he delivered the flour to them, and when it was baked the bread was raised up twentyfold and fortyfold and eightyfold."

The Parable of the Small Seed in a Hidden Place
²³And Jesus asked and said to them, "When a husbandman has enclosed a small seed in a hidden place, so that it is invisibly buried, how does its abundance become immeasurable?" ²⁴And when they were perplexed at this, then Jesus, as he walked, stood still upon the verge of the River Jordan. ²⁵And stretching forth his right hand, he filled it with water and sprinkled it upon the shore; and thereupon the sprinkled water made the ground moist, and it was watered before them, and brought forth fruit.

The Olive Tree and the Tribulation
14 ¹Now when Jesus and the disciples came to Pella, they went into the city, and he sat and taught the people alongside the spring. ²And a young man from the crowd asked him and said, "Rabbi, what if the tribulation should break out tomorrow? ³Why should I arise early and work until the sun sets, if tomorrow the work of my hands will be consumed in fire?" ⁴And Jesus answered and said to him, "Even if it were revealed to you that tomorrow the wrath should come, still you should plant an olive tree today in your field. ⁵For in that day, a man will be found who had just planted ten olive shoots, and he will be praised. ⁶But a man will be found also who had contented himself to recline and eat from the olive tree which his fathers had planted, and he will be cast out."

Exclusion from the Kingdom
⁷And some one else in the crowd asked him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them, ⁸"Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. ⁹And men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. ¹⁰Then you will weep and gnash your teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out. ¹¹So repent, turn back to God, lest it be one in a thousand and two in ten thousand: for God made man upright, but the heart of man has sought out endless subtleties."

The Parable of the Wall and the Gate
¹²And Jesus also told them a parable. "A city has around it a strong wall, and upon that wall are set watchmen, that no enemies may fall upon the city. ¹³And all who come to the city to do trade, or to pay honor to the king, must enter into the city through the gate which is set in the wall. ¹⁴So enter in through the gate of the city. ¹⁵For any one who seeks to enter the kingdom of God except through the strait gate is like a thief who tried to enter over the wall, and the watchmen caught him, and he was cast into the pit."

A Warning Against Herod
¹⁶After that, Jesus and his disciples went back across the Jordan, and he came to a village and was teaching. ¹⁷And some Pharisees came, and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." ¹⁸And he said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.' ¹⁹Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.

The Lament over Jerusalem
²⁰"O daughter of Zion, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! ²¹Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"

Teaching on Humility
²²Now he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees. ²³And he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ²⁴"When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not choose and sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; ²⁵and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give place to this man'; and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ²⁶But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. ²⁷So seek from the small to increase and from the great to be less; and this will be more to your advantage." ²⁸He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. ²⁹But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, ³⁰and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

The Parable of the Great Supper
³¹When one of those who sat at table with him heard this, he said to him, "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" ³²But he said to him, "A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; ³³and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited to come, for all was now ready. ³⁴But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused.' ³⁵And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them; accordingly I cannot come.' ³⁶And another said, 'I have taken a wife, and accordingly I cannot come.' ³⁷So the servant came and reported this to his master. Then the householder in anger said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and carry in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.' ³⁸And the servant said, 'Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.' ³⁹And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. ⁴⁰For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.'"

The Conditions of Discipleship
15 ¹Now great multitudes accompanied him; and he turned and said to them, ²"If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ³Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. ⁴For which of you, desiring to build a house, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ⁵Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ⁶saying, 'This man began to build, and was not able to finish.' ⁷Or what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down immediately and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ⁸And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace. ⁹So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

The Parable of Salt
¹⁰"For every sacrifice will be salted with salt. ¹¹Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltness, how shall its saltness be restored? ¹²It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill; men throw it away. ¹³Or if any one has been washed with water but not rubbed with salt, how will he pass through the fire? ¹⁴So have you salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."

The Parable of the Least Sheep
¹⁵Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. ¹⁶And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." ¹⁷So he told them this parable: ¹⁸"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost even the least one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after that least sheep which is lost, until he finds it? ¹⁹And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ²⁰And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.' ²¹Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy among the angels in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

The Parable of the Lost Coin
²²"Or what woman, having ten silver coins and losing one of them, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? ²³And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.' ²⁴Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the throne of God over one sinner who repents."

The Parable of the Prodigal Son
²⁵And he said, "There was a man who had a son; ²⁶and the son said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.' And he gave him his share. ²⁷Not many days later, the son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. ²⁸And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. ²⁹So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. ³⁰And he would gladly have filled his belly with the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. ³¹But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! ³²I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ³³I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants."' ³⁴And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. ³⁵And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.' ³⁶But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; ³⁷and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; ³⁸for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' ³⁹And they began to make merry; and great was the rejoicing in that house over the son who was lost, but had turned back."

The Parable of the Unjust Steward
16 ¹He also said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. ²And he called him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be my steward.' ³And the steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, since my master is taking my stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴I have decided what to do, so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of the stewardship.' ⁵So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' ⁶He said to him, 'A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' ⁷Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe?' He said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.' ⁸The master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light." ⁹And James the son of Alphaeus asked him, "Teacher, how then shall those who are chosen and called stand and not stumble in these days which yet remain?" ¹⁰And Jesus answered and said to him, "Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations.

On Serving Two Masters
¹¹"For it is impossible for a man to mount two horses and stretch two bows, and it is impossible for a slave to serve two masters. ¹²Either he will honor the one and despise the other, or he will hate the one and love the other. ¹³You cannot serve God and mammon."

The Pharisees Reproved
¹⁴The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they scoffed at him. ¹⁵But he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God."

The Parable of the Two Plowmen
¹⁶And he also told them a parable. "A good plowman lengthens the yoke of the weaker ox, so that the stronger ox bears the greater burden, and so the oxen in yoke together plow a straight furrow. ¹⁷But a bad plowman burdens the weaker ox with a heavy yoke, so that the ox stumbles beneath the load. ¹⁸What then will happen? His oxen shall be taken away from him, and given over to the care of the good plowman, whose yoke is light."

Concerning the Law
¹⁹And the Pharisees when they had heard this were furious, and they said to one another, "This man wants to make the law void." ²⁰But he answered them and said, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one dot of my law to become void. ²¹So hear my words! For the kingdom is drawing near."

The Parable of the Assassin
²²And Jesus said to them, "The kingdom of God is like a man who wanted to kill a great man. ²³He drew the sword in his house and ran it through the wall, in order to know whether his arm was strong enough. ²⁴Then he went forth and killed the great man."

The Parable of the Woman and the Jar of Meal
²⁵And Jesus again said to them, "The kingdom of God is like a woman who carried a vessel full of meal and went a long way. ²⁶The handle of the vessel broke, and the meal flowed out behind her on the way. She did not notice it, for she was not watching. ²⁷When she reached her house, she set the vessel down and found it empty. ²⁸So keep watch, for you have been entrusted with the treasure of the kingdom in clay vessels."

The Parable of the Anvil
²⁹And he said, "To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? ³⁰To an anvil, on which a smith shapes much gold, and much silver, and much bronze, and much iron. ³¹And on one anvil he hammers out both gold and silver and bronze and iron, two talents of one and three talents of another and six talents of yet another; ³²and one anvil wears out many hammers, but the anvil stands firm."

The Parable of the Crowns
³³And again he said to them, "A man who owned a great field sent his son to hire workers. ³⁴And the son said to those whom he had hired, 'I am going away into a far country. But while I am gone, set up a fence around this field, and when I return you will be well paid for your labor.' ³⁵And he went away with his father's men into a far country. ³⁶And the workers labored and set up a fence around the field, as they had been commanded. ³⁷And then they watched and waited, through heat and storm and south wind; and whenever the birds came, they drove them away. ³⁸Now, the son tarried long in a far country, and the season of the harvest came. ³⁹And the workers said to one another, 'What shall we do? For it is the season of the harvest, and our master has not yet returned. Let us harvest the grain in the field, that his storehouses may be filled.' ⁴⁰And they began to harvest the grain. And while they were still laboring, the son returned from the far country with his father's men, who bore scythes to finish the harvest. ⁴¹And the workers said to him, 'We set up a fence around the field, as you commanded us. And we oversaw it through many tribulations. ⁴²Then when the season of the harvest came, we began to harvest the grain. But before that season, we did not uproot a single weed in your field.' ⁴³And he said to them, 'You have done all that was commanded, and more than was commanded. And I shall pay you all that I promised, and more than I promised. ⁴⁴Behold, to each of you I grant a crown. ⁴⁵For I have asked my father, and it is his good pleasure that you become joint heirs with me.'"

On Forgiveness
17 ¹And the next day as Jesus was walking along the road with his disciples, he said to them, ²"Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him seven times a day." ³And Simon Peter said to him, "Seven times a day?" ⁴And Jesus answered and said to him, "Yes, Simon, I tell you, as many as seventy times seven times! ⁵For also in the prophets, after they were anointed by the Holy Spirit, there was found a word of sin."

We Are Unprofitable Servants
⁶And he said to them, "Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down at table?' ⁷Will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'? ⁸Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? ⁹So you also, when you have done all that is commanded to you, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

The Cleansing of the Ten Lepers
¹⁰On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. ¹¹And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance ¹²and lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." ¹³When he saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were cleansed. ¹⁴Then one of them, when he saw that he was cleansed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; ¹⁵and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. ¹⁶Then said Jesus, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? ¹⁷Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" ¹⁸And he said to him, "Rise and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

On the Coming of the Kingdom of God
¹⁹Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; ²⁰nor will they say, 'Lo, here it is!' or 'Lo, there!' for behold, wherever two are in my name, there am I in their midst; and where only one is in my name, I am with him. ²¹Split wood: the kingdom of God is there. Lift up the stone, and there you will find it. ²²For the Spirit of God is moving in the midst of you, and whoever is known and called by my Father will find the kingdom."

The Parable of the Field
²³And Jesus told them a parable. "The kingdom of God is like a man who had in his field a treasure which was hidden. ²⁴And he knew nothing of it; and he did not find it before he died. ²⁵He left that field to his son, and his son knew nothing. And he handed it over and sold it. ²⁶And the buyer came, and plowed, and found the treasure. ²⁷And he built a great estate; and the seller came back and saw it, and he was greatly vexed."

The Parable of the Unjust Judge
²⁸And he told his disciples a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. ²⁹He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; ³⁰and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Vindicate me against my adversary.' ³¹For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor regard man, ³²yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.'" ³³And Jesus said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. ³⁴Will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? ³⁵I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

The Pharisee and the Publican
³⁶He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others: ³⁷"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ³⁸The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ³⁹I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.' ⁴⁰But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' ⁴¹I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

True Greatness
18 ¹And they came to a village; and when he was in the house where they were staying he asked them, "What were you discussing on the way?" ²But they were silent; for on the way they had argued among themselves as to which of them was the greatest. ³And he sat down at the table and called the twelve; and he said to them, "If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." ⁴And he took a child and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them, ⁵"Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me."

Warning against Offenses
⁶And he said also to his disciples, "Stumbling blocks are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come! ⁷Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around him and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble."

Jesus Blesses the Children
⁸Now they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. ⁹But Jesus was indignant, and said to them, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. ¹⁰Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." ¹¹And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.

True Blessedness
¹²And as he was saying these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!" ¹³But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

The Children Receiving Milk
¹⁴And Jesus saw little ones receiving milk. ¹⁵And he said to his disciples, "These little ones receiving milk are like those who enter into the kingdom. ¹⁶And I tell you, greatly do their angels rejoice before the face of my Father in the heavens."

The Rich Young Men
¹⁷And as he was setting out again on his journey, two men ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what shall we do to inherit eternal life?" ¹⁸And Jesus said to them, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother." ²⁰And they said, "Teacher, all these we have observed from our youth." ²¹And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "You lack one thing: go, sell what you have, give to the poor, and become passers-by; and you will have treasure in heaven." ²²And the first man hastened to do as Jesus had told him. ²³But when the second man heard this he scratched his head, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions, and this word did not please him.

On Riches and the Rewards of Discipleship
²⁴And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who are not passers-by to enter the kingdom of God!" ²⁵And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁶It is easier for a hawser to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

The Samaritan and the Lamb
19 ¹As they were entering into Judea, Jesus said to his disciples, "Look upon the Son of man while you yet live, so that you will not die and seek to see him without being able to see him." ²Then as they were walking along, they saw a Samaritan leading a lamb. ³Jesus spoke to them and asked, "Why is he bringing the lamb?" ⁴They said to him, "In order to kill it and eat it." ⁵He said to them, "As long as it lives, he will not eat it, but only if he kills it." ⁶And Philip said, "In no way will it be able to grow old, unless it lives." ⁷He turned and said to Philip, "Philip son of Jonathan, you speak rightly." And turning to all of them, he said, "So seek continually the kingdom of God, that you may not be killed and eaten. ⁸Do not cease from seeking until you find, and having found you will be amazed, and having been amazed you will reign, and having reigned you will rest."

On Seeking and Finding
⁹And Peter asked him and said, "Teacher, how shall we find, if we do not even know how to seek?" ¹⁰And Jesus said to them, "You can do nothing of your own accord; but as you hear me doing, so do you likewise. ¹¹For I seek not my own will but the will of my Father who is in heaven."

On Being Amazed
¹²Then Matthew asked him and said, "But show us what it is to be amazed." For they did not yet understand his words. ¹³And Jesus said, "Have I not already shown you great works? ¹⁴Yet do not be amazed, for my Father will show you greater works than these, for he will raise the dead, and will give all authority to the Son of man. ¹⁵And it will be shown to you, and you will fear, and you will be amazed at this."

On Reigning
¹⁶And James and John asked him, "Teacher, when you come to sit in judgment, will you give it to us to sit with you, one at your right hand and one at your left hand?" ¹⁷And he turned and said to them, "Can you drink the cup which I drink, running over with gall and vinegar? ¹⁸I say to you that the Son of man will indeed be seated in judgment; and they will smite him and mock him. ¹⁹So, if you can, pluck the scarlet wool from among the thorns!" ²⁰And they drew back from him in terror. ²¹But he said to them, "When you have seen the Son of man driven out and lifted up, then you will know that he reigns as the Father has given him authority to reign. ²²And if you continue in this word as my disciples, you will marvel at what is unveiled; and in the unveiling you will reign. ²³For if the Son of man reigns in you, you will reign indeed."

On Resting
²⁴And Mary Magdalene asked him, "But how shall they rest who reign, if they do not know the day of the coming of the Son of man, or if he should tarry?" ²⁵And Jesus answered her and said, "Mary, Mary, you have shared table and couch with me, and do you not know this? ²⁶I say to you that I shall go away, and you will seek me and die; for where I am going, you cannot come. ²⁷But if you continue in this word, the Son of man will reign in you, and the Holy Spirit will give you rest, and you will never see death. ²⁸So look upon the lamb who is driven out for the sins of many, to give his life as a ransom; ²⁹eat him who is able to die and not be eaten, that you may be neither killed nor eaten; ³⁰and you will have rest, and be raised up at the day of the coming of the Son of man."

The Third Prediction of the Passion
20 ¹And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and those who followed him were afraid. ²And taking the twelve again, he said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; ³and the Son of man will be delivered to the Gentiles, and they will condemn him to death; ⁴and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and drive him out, and kill him; and on the third day he will rise." ⁵And Nathanael the son of Talmai said to the rest of them, "Then let us go up to Jerusalem, and die along with him." For they did not yet understand him.

The Raising of Azariah of Bethany
⁶Now as Jesus and his disciples were passing along the way to Jerusalem, a woman came out to him from Bethany. ⁷And she fell before him weeping, and said to him, "Teacher, my brother fell ill and has died; and would that you had been here, so that you could have healed him!" ⁸But Jesus asked the woman to lead them to where her brother lay; for the man had already been laid in a tomb. ⁹Now as people gathered, some Pharisees in the crowd scoffed, and said to one another, "Let us see what this impostor shall do; for surely the spirit of the man has already departed." ¹⁰But Jesus, standing before the door of the tomb, raised up his hands to heaven and said, ¹¹"Father, I pray that you will now show forth your kingdom; for you are the God, not of the dead, but of the living." ¹²And the man stirred within, and called out; and Jesus said to them, "Bring him forth out of the tomb, and give him water and bread." ¹³And at this, the Pharisees were greatly enraged, and called Jesus a sorcerer. ¹⁴Now eight days later, this man whom Jesus had raised up, whose name was Azariah, came to Jesus alone by night. ¹⁵And he spoke to Jesus and said, "Teacher, show me the way of the kingdom of God, and I will follow you." ¹⁶And from that day, the man became a disciple of Jesus, and followed him.

The Healing of the Blind Man
¹⁷And as they came to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging; ¹⁸and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth passing by, he cried, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" ¹⁹And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" ²⁰And Jesus stopped and commanded them to call him; and when the blind man heard this, he threw off his mantle and sprang up and drew near to Jesus. ²¹And Jesus asked and said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" And he said to him, "Master, let me receive my sight." ²²And Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well." ²³And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

The Parable of the Shekels
²⁴And as they walked along the way, Jesus told them a parable: "A rich master went away into a far country to do trade. ²⁵Now, this master had three servants, and to each of them he gave a thousand shekels with which to do business while he was gone. ²⁶After a long time the master returned, and called his three servants before him. ²⁷The first servant said, 'See, master, you gave me a thousand shekels, and I have made a thousand shekels more.' ²⁸And the master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have done worthily in little, you shall do worthily in much; behold, I set you up over one of my cities.' ²⁹The second servant said, 'Master, you gave me a thousand shekels. ³⁰But alas, I was wicked, and I am no longer worthy to be called your servant; for my heart was set on feasting and harlots, and I squandered on them nine hundred shekels, and now I have only a hundred shekels to give you.' ³¹And the master rebuked him and said to him, 'You have done unworthily in little; who shall give you to do worthily in much? ³²But behold, I set you at the left hand of your fellow servant, in the city I have given him to rule. So you shall yet do worthily in little.' ³³The third servant said, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow; and so, fearing you, I took the thousand shekels, and hid them in a dark place. ³⁴And now I return to you a thousand shekels.' ³⁵And the master said, 'You wicked servant, you knew me to be a hard master, reaping where I did not sow! ³⁶Why then did you not put the shekels in the bank, so that when I returned, I might have them back, and with them yet a tithe?' ³⁷Then the master said, 'Take the thousand shekels from this servant, and give them to the servant who has two thousand; ³⁸for to him who has, more shall be given, but from him who has not, even what he has not shall be taken from him. ³⁹And take this wicked servant, bind him, and cast him into the outer darkness.'" ⁴⁰And Jesus said to his disciples, "So be skilful bankers, rejecting some things but retaining and multiplying what is good."

VII. The Ministry in Jerusalem <top>

The Triumphal Entry
21 ¹Now Jesus came to the brow of the Mount of Olives, and with him his disciples, ²Simon called Peter, and John the son of Zebedee, and Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, and James the brother of John, and Andrew the brother of Simon, and the rest of the twelve; ³and the women who had gone about with him, Mary of Magdala and Salome and Mary the wife of Zebedee, and the other women; ⁴and also those who had come over from the baptism of John, Joses and Ananaias and others who had heard the proclamation in Galilee and followed him. ⁵Now as they looked across the Kidron Valley at the city of David, Jesus said to them, "Go over into Jerusalem, to the street to which I shall direct you, and there you will find an ass tethered with a vine. ⁶Untether the ass, and bring it to me, and if any one asks what you are doing, tell him that your master has need of it, and he will not hinder you." ⁷So they went, and did as he had told them. And when they had come into the city, they found the ass, and as they were untethering it, a man asked them and said, "What are you doing?" ⁸And Peter answered and said to him, "Our master has need of this beast." And he did not hinder them. ⁹And when they had delivered the animal to Jesus, they laid their coats upon its back, and Jesus came up and rode into Jerusalem through the east gate, ¹⁰as it is written, "Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in"; ¹¹and again, "Behold, the glory of the Lord came from the east, and entered the temple by the gate facing east." ¹²And as he entered the city, the crowd hailed him, and they laid their cloaks on the path before him, and some of them cut branches and laid the branches in his path. ¹³And the people hailed him, crying, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" ¹⁴As it is written, "Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass." ¹⁵And as he entered the temple, the teachers of the law and the chief priests said to him, "Tell your followers to be quiet." ¹⁶And he answered and said to them, "What do you say? Is it not written, 'The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him'? ¹⁷And do you not know that it is written, 'Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and the Lord has prepared a sacrifice'? ¹⁸You empty and rattling gourds! You say, 'Be silent!' ¹⁹But I say to you that the day of the Lord is truly at hand! And behold, the sacrifice has been prepared!" ²⁰And when he had said this, they found nothing to say against him. And the people rejoiced to hear his teaching. ²¹And he went out with his disciples, for it was evening; and they lodged in Bethany.

The Cursing of the Fig Tree
²²And when they came back into Jerusalem the next day, Jesus saw a fig tree, and he went up to it, for he was hungry. ²³But when he had come up to it, he found no figs, for it was not the season. ²⁴And cursing the tree, he said, "May no one ever eat from you again!" ²⁵And when they came out that evening, as they passed by the fig tree they saw that it was withered. ²⁶And the disciples marvelled, and when they pointed it out to him he said, "So shall it be when two of you under one roof ask anything of my Father in faith. ²⁷If you say to this mountain, come hither, you shall not have to go to the mountain, but the mountain shall come to you. ²⁸But woe to those whose faith is found to be without fruit!"

Cleansing the Temple
²⁹And when Jesus came back to Jerusalem the next day, he entered the temple. ³⁰And in rage he drove out the money changers and overturned their tables; and he drove out those who sold pigeons and lambs for the sacrifices. ³¹And he said to them, "It is written, 'My house is a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of thieves." ³²And he would not permit any one to carry anything through the temple; ³³as it is written, "There shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day."

Jesus' Dispute with a Chief Priest
³⁴And after that Jesus took his disciples with him into the very place of purity, and they walked in the temple. ³⁵And a certain Pharisee, one of the chief priests, came to them and said to him, "Who permitted you to walk upon this place of purity, when you and your disciples have not first washed? ³⁶But you have walked on this clean spot in defilement, in this holy place where no one can walk unless he has washed and changed clothes." ³⁷And Jesus stopped with his disciples and answered him, "Since you are in the temple, are you clean?" ³⁸And the Pharisee said to him, "I am clean; for I have washed in the pool of David and I went down to it by one ladder and up by another, and I have put on clean white clothing, and then I came to look at these holy vessels." ³⁹Then Jesus said, "Woe to the blind who do not see! You have washed in these waters and you have scoured your outside skin, though inwardly you are full of scorpions. ⁴⁰But I and my disciples, whom you call unwashed, we have been washed in living waters which have come down from my Father who is in the heavens. ⁴¹But woe to this generation of vipers, which makes righteousness to be unrighteousness, and uncleanness of heart to be cleanness! ⁴²So do not presume to wash your feet, or the feet of another, unless first you are washed from above in the power of the Holy Spirit."

The Chief Priests and Scribes Conspire against Jesus
⁴³And by night he went out with his disciples and stayed in Bethany. ⁴⁴But by day he was in Jerusalem teaching and healing, in the temple or by the pool of Bethesda. ⁴⁵And the chief priests and the scribes took counsel together, how they might have him arrested and destroyed. ⁴⁶For they said to one another, "You see how the people are following after his teaching and his signs."

The Question about Authority
22 ¹And so the Pharisees and the scribes sent a delegation to him, to test him and to seek to entrap him. ²And they said, "Rabbi, we know that you are a righteous man, and that you speak rightly, neither seeking favor with men nor fearing false judgment. ³Now we ask you: by whose authority do you teach and cast out unclean spirits?" ⁴But Jesus perceived what was in their hearts, and he said to them, "Let me ask you: was the baptism of John from heaven, or from earth?" ⁵And they took counsel among themselves, and said to one another, "If we say 'from heaven,' then he will say, 'Why then did you not believe him?' ⁶But if we say 'from earth'--" For they feared the crowd, for the people believed in the word of the Lord through John. ⁷So they answered and said, "Rabbi, we do not know." ⁸And he said to them, "Then neither will I tell you by what authority I say and do these things."

The Parable of the Caravan
⁹And Jesus taught the crowd, saying, ¹⁰"A wealthy king sent a caravan to go and trade in a far land, and he appointed his son to lead the caravan. ¹¹But when the caravan had gone out into the heart of the desert, the merchants of the caravan took counsel and said to one another, 'Why should we not take the treasure of the king, and divide it among ourselves? ¹²For he has entrusted to his son much gold, and incense, and spices, and rubies, and carnelians; and no one shall know.' ¹³So they set upon the son of the king, and beat him and staked him out in the desert. ¹⁴But when they missed the marks, they lost their way, and thieves fell upon them in the desert, and slew some of them and took the treasure and the camels. ¹⁵And others of them perished of thirst. ¹⁶Now what do you think will happen when the son comes suddenly with a troop of his father's soldiers upon them, and apprehends them? ¹⁷Will he not put these wicked merchants to the sword, and go on to recover what has been stolen? Him who has ears, let him hear!"

On Paying Tribute to Caesar
¹⁸But the scribes and Pharisees perceived that he taught this word against them, and so they sent again to test him. ¹⁹And they asked him and said, "Rabbi, is it right to pay the tax to Caesar?" ²⁰And he turned to the crowd and asked, "Does any one have a coin?" ²¹And a young man handed him a coin, a denarius. ²²And turning back to those who had been sent from the scribes and Pharisees, he said, "Whose likeness is on this coin?" ²³And they said, "Caesar's." ²⁴And he said to them, "Then render to Caesar according to the measure of Caesar, and to God according to the measure of God." ²⁵And they went away from him, greatly enraged.

The Question about David's Son
²⁶And a third time they sent to him, in order to entrap him. ²⁷And they said to him, "Rabbi, never has there been a greater king in Israel than David. ²⁸Now is not the Christ called the son of David? ²⁹How then, when he comes, shall he be greater than David?" ³⁰But Jesus answered them and said, "Do you not know that David said, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I make thy enemies for thee a footstool?"'? ³¹Why does David call him 'my Lord,' if the Christ is the son of David? ³²And do you not know that it is written, 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone'? ³³Yes, and I say to you, when that stone comes it will fill up the earth, and if that stone falls on an egg, alas for the egg, and if an egg falls on that stone, alas for the egg!" ³⁴And they were filled with fury at him, and after that no one dared to ask him any questions; ³⁵as it is written, "The king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall glory; for the mouths of liars will be stopped."

Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees
³⁶And Jesus taught the crowd, saying, "Beware of the scribes, ³⁷and beware of the lawyers also, for they load men with burdens hard to bear, and they themselves do not touch the burdens with one of their fingers. ³⁸And they like to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places ³⁹and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts. ⁴⁰But they are like a dog in a manger, who will neither eat nor let the oxen eat. ⁴¹They have taken away the key of knowledge; they have not entered themselves, and they have hindered those who were entering. ⁴²And they devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

The Alphabet of the Law
⁴³And Jesus looked upon the teachers of the law, and said to them: "You who know not the Aleph, how can you teach others the Beth? ⁴⁴You hypocrites! First, if you know, teach the Aleph, and then we shall believe you about the Beth! ⁴⁵But the Christ of God shall fulfill the whole of the law, from the Aleph through the Tau."

The Widow's Mite
23 ¹And as they sat in the temple, Jesus saw a woman, and he said to his disciples, "Do you see that widow, putting two bronze coins into the treasury? ²I say to you that those who give great gifts have not given as much as she. ³For they give out of their hoard of riches, whereas she has given freely her entire living."

Prediction of the Destruction of the Temple
⁴And as they came together out of the temple, one of his disciples pointed out to him the stones and the buildings, how wonderful they were. ⁵And Jesus answered and said to him, "Do you see these buildings? ⁶The day is coming when there will not be one stone left upon another, but all this will be cast down."

Signs before the End
⁷And he led them out of the city, across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives. ⁸And Peter and John and James and Andrew asked him privately, "Teacher, when will these things come to pass, and what will be the sign when they are drawing near?" ⁹And Jesus answered and said to them, "Take heed that no one leads you astray, for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he!', and they will lead many astray. ¹⁰And they will say to you, 'Lo, here!' Do not follow them. ¹¹And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be fearful; for the end is not yet, but this must take place first. ¹²For nation will rise against nation, king against king, and dominion against dominion. ¹³There will be earthquake and famine and volcanoes manifest on earth, and hidden in the heavens Michael and his angels warring against Satan and his legions. ¹⁴And there will be terror, and this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

Persecutions Foretold
¹⁵"But take heed among yourselves, for they will hand you over to councils, and drive you out of their synagogues; ¹⁶and you will stand before kings and governors for my name's sake, because they do not know my Father who is in the heavens. ¹⁷But do not worry what you will say in that hour; for the Holy Spirit will speak through you, and will give you what you ought to say.

The Desolating Sacrilege
¹⁸"And in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate. ¹⁹For when lawlessness increases, brothers shall persecute and betray one another. ²⁰And then shall appear the world-deceiver, the son of lawlessness, who shall set up the desolating sacrilege where it ought not to be. ²¹And he shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands, and he shall do iniquitous things which have never yet come to pass since the beginning of days.

The Coming of the Son of Man
²²"Then shall the whole creation come into the fire of tribulation, and many shall stumble and perish; but they that endure shall be saved from under the curse itself. ²³And if those days were not shortened for the sake of the elect, not one should survive. ²⁴And then shall appear the signs which herald the coming of the Son of man. ²⁵First there shall appear an outspreading in the heavens, to the east and the west, to the north and the south. ²⁶Then there shall be the sound of the trumpet. ²⁷And the third sign will be the raising up of the dead, as it is written, 'The Lord shall come and all his saints with him.' ²⁸But you who are alive at the coming of the Son of man, you shall be changed, and caught up together with them to meet him in the air. ²⁹And then shall the world see the Son of man coming upon the clouds of heaven.

The Time of the Coming
³⁰"But as to times and seasons, the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³¹When people are at ease, then sudden tribulation will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child. ³²When that day comes, flee to the mountains; ³³let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything away; ³⁴and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his mantle; ³⁵and let him who is grinding at the mill not tarry to gather what has been ground; ³⁶and pray that that day not come in winter. ³⁷But do not let that day surprise you like a thief, for you are sons of light and not sons of darkness. ³⁸So do not sleep, but keep awake; for those who sleep sleep at night. ³⁹But you are chosen and called to belong to the day."

The Parable of the Fuller
⁴⁰And he said to them, "If shorn wool is dirty, or if a white garment becomes filthy, how shall it be made clean? ⁴¹Shall not the fuller tread it out, and shall he not cleanse it with his club and with lye? How else shall wool be woven into a garment, or the garment cleansed for wearing to the great feast? ⁴²For when the Son of man comes suddenly to the temple, what of those whose garments are stained with the stain of guilt? I tell you, they shall be put out of the feast. ⁴³So change your filthy garments for white garments, and your old heart for a new heart of righteousness; ⁴⁴for as the fuller goes out of the gate, in being spread out outside the walls of the city all that is filthy shall in him be cleansed as white as snow. ⁴⁵So entrust your garment to him before the day of tribulation; for who can bear the day of his coming?

"Take Heed, Watch!"
⁴⁶"So take heed, watch for your life's sake. ⁴⁷Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed. ⁴⁸But watch and wait, for no man knows the hour when the Son of man comes, not the angels in the heavens, nor the Son, but only the Father.

What Eye Has Not Seen, nor Ear Heard
⁴⁹"So come together often, anticipating the great feast which is to come. ⁵⁰For the whole time of your faith will not profit you, if you be not cleansed in anticipation of the last time. ⁵¹And in that day, think not to say, 'I did thus and such, for my brother said to me, "Let us do thus."' ⁵²For in that day, every stool shall stand upon its own legs. ⁵³And those who stand, having been cleansed and having received white garments, will enter into the great feast, and they shall rejoice and reign forever. ⁵⁴But those whose garments are stained, will be cast into everlasting fire. ⁵⁵So again I say unto you, watch and wait! ⁵⁶For I reveal unto you what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, which will be given to those who are beloved of God."

On the Giving of Fair Measure
⁵⁷Now later that day, as they were passing through the marketplace, Jesus saw traders weighing out cardamon and coriander and cloves for silver and bronze. ⁵⁸And he said to them, "See that you give measure for measure. For to him who gives short measure to the poor in this age, shall be given short measure in the age to come. ⁵⁹But to him who gives full measure in this age, shall be given abundance in the age to come, and fullness upon fullness."

VIII. The Passion Narrative <top>

Jesus' Death is Premeditated
24 ¹Now on the second day before the Passover, the chief priests and the scribes were taking counsel how to arrest him and have him killed. ²For they feared lest the people follow him, and the Romans then come and destroy the city. ³And they feared also lest there be a tumult during the feast.

The Betrayal by Judas
⁴And Satan drove Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, one of the twelve, to seek out the chief priests and the scribes, ⁵as it is written, "My companion, my familiar friend, stretched out his hand against me." ⁶And Judas said to them, "I can deliver him over quietly into your hands." ⁷And they were glad at this, and promised to give him money. ⁸And he watched for an opportunity to betray him.

Preparation for the Passover
⁹And that same day, Jesus sent Peter and John into the city, saying to them, "You will meet a young man with one breast and one arm and one leg uncovered; follow him into the house which he enters. ¹⁰And when you enter the house, say to the widow who dwells there, who is his mother, 'Where is the room which you have set aside for the Rabbi and his disciples to keep the feast?' ¹¹And she will show you a large upper room, which is furnished and ready for the feast. ¹²And there make ready, and watch and wait for me." ¹³And when they had gone into the city, they found it arranged as he had said; and so they prepared as he had instructed them, and awaited his coming. ¹⁴And when the hour came, he sat at table with the twelve.

The Last Supper
¹⁵And as they were reclining and eating, he took up bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "Take, this is my flesh, which is offered up unto salvation." ¹⁶And then he took up a cup, and when he had said the blessing he gave it to them, saying, "This is my blood which is poured out for many unto the covenant." ¹⁷And when all of them had drunk of it, he said to them, "I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until we drink of it together in the kingdom of God. ¹⁸But as for you, until the kingdom comes, take up this bread, take up this cup. ¹⁹Do this in remembrance of me."

Washing the Disciples' Feet
²⁰After they had completed the meal, Jesus ungirded himself and took a cloth and a basin full of water. ²¹And he passed around in their midst, and knelt and washed the feet of each disciple. ²²But when he came to him, Peter said, "Lord, I am not worthy to kneel and wash your feet! How then shall you wash my feet?" ²³But Jesus answered and said to him, "Peter, Peter, do you not yet know the kingdom of my Father? ²⁴For he who is least in your midst, shall be first; and he who would be great, must be slave to all. ²⁵So serve one another, and wash one another's feet, as I have served you, and offer up my life for the washing of many." ²⁶Then Peter said, "Lord, be it done to me as you say." ²⁷So Jesus washed Peter's feet. ²⁸And when he had washed the feet of each of them, he girded himself and reclined among them again.

Jesus Foretells His Betrayal
²⁹And Jesus said, "I say to you, one of you who has eaten with me at this table will betray me." ³⁰And the disciples began to ask him who it was. ³¹And he answered and said to them, "It is he who dipped his bread into the dish with me." ³²And while they were talking, greatly troubled at heart, Judas arose and slipped away.

Peter's Denial Predicted
³³And when they had sung a hymn, they arose and went out to the Mount of Olives. ³⁴And Jesus said to them, "The hour is coming when you will all fall away"; as it is written, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." ³⁵And Peter said, "Lord, even if the others fall away, I will stand beside you and give my life." ³⁶And Jesus said to him, "Peter, I tell you, before the cock's-crow watch ends tonight, you will deny me three times."

Gethsemane
³⁷Then he went with them to a place which was called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, "Sit here, while I go and pray." ³⁸And taking with him Peter and John and James, he went on a little farther. ³⁹And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and keep awake." ⁴⁰And going on beyond the olive presses, he fell on the ground, deeply troubled, and prayed, saying, ⁴¹"Abba, my Father, remove this cup from me; yet not as I will, but as thou wilt." ⁴²And he came and found them sleeping, and he said, "Simon, could you not keep awake one hour? ⁴³Keep awake and pray that you may not enter into temptation." ⁴⁴And again he went away and prayed, and when he came back he found them sleeping. ⁴⁵And he awoke them, saying, "Rise, let us go hence. ⁴⁶For behold, the hour has come; the Son of man is handed over to sinners, and his betrayer is at hand."

Jesus Arrested
⁴⁷And while he was speaking, Judas came with a crowd from the chief priests and the elders, and they bore lanterns and swords. ⁴⁸Then Jesus asked them and said, "Whom do you seek?" ⁴⁹But Judas went up to him, and kissed him, saying, "Rabbi!" For he had given them this sign. ⁵⁰And when they saw the sign, they reached out and seized Jesus. ⁵¹And they said to him, "Are you Jesus of Nazareth?" And he answered and said, "I am he whom you seek." ⁵²Then one of those who was with him drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. ⁵³But Jesus said, "Hold! Shall I not drink the cup which is given me?" ⁵⁴And Jesus said to them, "Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? ⁵⁵Day by day I taught openly in the temple, and you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour and your darkness." ⁵⁶And his disciples all forsook him, and fled.

Jesus before the Sanhedrin (Peter's Denial)
⁵⁷And they led Jesus away to the high priest; and all the chief priests and elders and scribes were there. ⁵⁸And Peter followed him at a distance, and went inside the courtyard of the high priest. ⁵⁹And a maid said to Peter, "Are you not a disciple of the Nazarene?" And he looked at her, and said, "I am not." ⁶⁰And he sat down with those who were there, and was warming himself at a fire. ⁶¹And the chief priests were questioning Jesus about his teaching and his works. ⁶²And Jesus answered them, "Have you not heard me, teaching in the temple? Ask those who have heard my teaching; ask those who have been healed." ⁶³And they brought forth false witnesses against him, who testified that he had said, ⁶⁴"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." ⁶⁵And the high priest asked Jesus, "Do you not hear what they have testified against you? Will you not answer them?" ⁶⁶But Jesus was silent. And the high priest asked him, "Tell us openly: are you the Christ of God?" ⁶⁷And Jesus answered and said to him, "You have said that I am; and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." ⁶⁸And when they heard this, one of the guards struck him, and the high priest said, ⁶⁹"You have heard his blasphemy. Why do we still need witnesses? What is your judgment?" And they condemned him as deserving death. ⁷⁰And out in the courtyard, a man came up to Peter by the fire; ⁷¹and he said to him, "You also were with this man Jesus." But Peter denied it. ⁷²And after a little while a servant passed by and said, "Certainly you were with him, for you are a Galilean." ⁷³But Peter swore by the throne of heaven, saying, "I do not know this Jesus!" ⁷⁴And Peter saw that it was the last watch of the night; and at once the cock crowed, and Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him. ⁷⁵And Peter went out of the courtyard, and wept.

The Trial before Pilate
25 ¹And early in the morning the chief priests and the scribes arose, and they took Jesus and handed him over to the procurator, Pontius Pilate.

Pilate Declares Jesus Innocent
²And when Pilate had come out from the praetorium and heard the charges which the elders of the people brought against him, he asked him, ³"Have you no response to make to their accusations?" ⁴But Jesus stood there and said nothing. ⁵And Pilate said, "What do you say? Are you the King of the Jews?" ⁶And Jesus answered and said, "You have said that I am." ⁷And at this the chief priests and the scribes were greatly outraged, but Pilate raised his hand, and questioned him further. ⁸But Jesus would answer nothing more, so that Pilate was amazed. ⁹And they said, "Do you not see? Is he not guilty before you and against Caesar?" ¹⁰But Pilate answered and said, "I find nothing in this man deserving of death. I will therefore chastise him and release him."

Jesus or Barabbas?
¹¹Now it was the custom at the Passover for Pilate to release to the Jewish people one prisoner of their choice. ¹²And among the rebels in prison was a murderer, surnamed Barabbas. ¹³So Pilate took Jesus out before the crowd, and he said to them, "Whom would you have me release to you? Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus the Nazarene?" ¹⁴And the crowd, being stirred up by the chief priests, cried, "Give us Barabbas!" ¹⁵And Pilate said, "Will you not have your king, the Nazarene?" ¹⁶But they said, "Caesar is our king! Give us Barabbas!" ¹⁷And Pilate asked, "What about Jesus the Nazarene?" ¹⁸And they cried, "Crucify him!" ¹⁹And Pilate said, "Why? What evil has this man done?" ²⁰But they cried all the louder, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

"Behold the Man!"
²¹Now Pilate feared greatly, lest there should be a riot at the festival. ²²So he did as the crowd demanded, and handed Jesus over to his soldiers to be scourged. ²³And they took Jesus and they stripped him and scourged him. ²⁴And when they had loosed him from the pillar, they dressed him in a long scarlet robe, and plaited a crown of thorns and pressed it down upon his head. ²⁵And they sat him down in the judgment seat, and blindfolded him and struck his cheeks with a cane, and pulled his beard and spat on him. ²⁶And they said, "Prophesy, O King of the Jews! Who struck you?" ²⁷And when they had finished, they put his own clothes back on him.

Pilate Deliver Jesus to be Crucified
²⁸And Pilate ordered the soldiers that Jesus be taken out and crucified.

The Road to Golgotha
²⁹And Jesus carried his cross, but they ran on ahead and drove him through the streets, so that he stumbled and fell. ³⁰And again they drove him on with his cross, and struck him. ³¹And a Jewess who was in the city for the Passover, whose name was Berenice, had pity on him and wiped his face with a cloth. ³²And Jesus blessed her, and again took up his cross.

The Crucifixion
³³And they drove him out of the gates of the city. ³⁴And when they came to a hill called Golgotha, that is, the place of a skull, they offered him vinegar and gall in a bowl, but he would not drink it. ³⁵Then the soldiers took up a hammer and nailed him to the cross, as it is written, "They have pierced my hands and feet." ³⁶And then they raised him up on high, ³⁷as it is written, "Proclaim to the nations, 'The Lord reigns from the wood.'" ³⁸And they crucified him between two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Now it was the third hour. ³⁹And when they had crucified him, the soldiers cast dice to divide his clothing between them, ⁴⁰as it is written, "They divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots." ⁴¹And the inscription over him read, "Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews."

Jesus Derided on the Cross
⁴²And those who passed before him mocked him, they wagged their heads and they said to him, ⁴³"Come down from the cross, you who would destroy the temple and in three days rebuild it! ⁴⁴If you are the Christ of God, come down from the cross, that we may believe." ⁴⁵And he said nothing. And the two criminals who were crucified with him also reviled him.

The Death of Jesus
⁴⁶And at the sixth hour, the sun was darkened, and a great darkness fell over the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁷And many went to and fro with lamps, and they stumbled in the darkness. ⁴⁸And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out, "Elahi, Elahi, lema sabachthani?", which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ⁴⁹And some one ran and raised a sponge of water to him on a javelin, but they said, "Wait, he calls for Elijah! Let us see whether Elijah will come and deliver him!" ⁵⁰And Jesus said, "Father, I ascribe to thee the glory due thy name." ⁵¹And when he had said this, he bowed his head and gave up the spirit. ⁵²And the veil in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, and the threshold of the temple was shaken, ⁵³as it is written, "I saw the Lord upon the altar, and he said: 'Smite the capitals until the thresholds shake.'" ⁵⁴And when he saw how Jesus died, the centurion who was standing there said, "Truly, this man was a son of God."

Jesus' Side Pierced
⁵⁵Now it was the eve of the sabbath; and when they came to take Jesus down from the cross, a soldier thrust his pike into Jesus' side, ⁵⁶as it is written, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced." ⁵⁷And when they had brought tongs, they drew out the nails.

Witnesses to the Crucifixion
⁵⁸And nearby stood his mother, and Mary Magdalene, and Salome, and James and John the sons of Zebedee, and Mary their mother. ⁵⁹And Mary his mother wept over Jesus' body, and it thundered, and rain fell upon them.

The Burial of Jesus
⁶⁰Now Joseph of Arimathea was a Jew of the council, who hoped for the coming of the kingdom of God, and he had spoken for Jesus before the chief priests and the scribes. ⁶¹And he came to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus; and when Pilate learned that Jesus was already dead, he commanded that the body be given to him. ⁶²And Joseph had the body taken and wrapped in a linen shroud and laid in his own tomb, hewn from the rock, which had never been used; ⁶³as it is written, "They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death." ⁶⁴And the women saw where the body was laid. ⁶⁵And when a large stone had been rolled over the door of the tomb, they went away, for it was the eve of the sabbath, and the sun was falling in the west.

IX. The Resurrection <top>

The Empty Tomb; the Angel's Message
26 ¹Now very early on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other women went to the tomb with the spices to anoint him. ²And at the rising of the sun they were coming and saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone?" ³For there was a great stone before the door of the tomb; but when they came, they found it rolled back. And they wondered what this might mean. ⁴And entering the tomb, they were perplexed, for they did not find the body. ⁵But they saw a man dressed in dazzling white, and they became frightened and hid their faces. ⁶And he said to them, "Do not fear; why do you seek Jesus the crucified among the dead? He has risen from the dead; he is not here. Look, see where they laid him. ⁷But go, tell Cephas and his disciples that the Son of man is going before you to Galilee." ⁸And they fled from the tomb, for fear and trembling had seized them, and they said nothing to any one, for they were awestruck at what they had seen.

The Apostles Refuse to Believe Mary
⁹When Mary returned to the disciples and told them all that she had seen, Peter turned away his face, and would not believe her. ¹⁰And then he turned back his face, and began to speak to her in a loud voice. And Mary wept. ¹¹And Thaddaeus answered and said to him, "Peter, wrath is always with you. Now I see you contending against the woman. ¹²But if the Lord has called her to be a worthy witness, who are you to reject her? For truly the Lord has loved her."

Peter at the Tomb
¹³After this Peter arose and went to the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and he wondered at what had happened.

Jesus Appears to Peter in Galilee
¹⁴So Peter went away to Galilee, and with him his brother Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, and Nathanael the son of Talmai, and Philip. ¹⁵And they journeyed in great haste, so that by the third day they had come to the Sea of Galilee. And they rested, for night was falling. ¹⁶But early, when the sun was just beginning to rise, Peter went out on the lake in a boat to fish. And while they were casting the net, Peter saw Jesus standing on the shore. ¹⁷And Jesus said, "Have you any fish?" ¹⁸But Peter, knowing that it was he, threw on his garment, and dove from the boat, and swam to the shore; and the others followed in the boat. ¹⁹Now when he reached the shore, Peter found that Jesus had kindled a fire; and so they brought fish, and he gave thanks and they ate with him. ²⁰While they were eating, Jesus said to Peter, "Cephas, do you love me?" And Simon Peter was troubled in his heart, and he said, "Lord, you know whether I love you"; and Peter wept. ²¹But Jesus reached out his hand to him and said, "Cephas, Cephas, I have set you up as a shepherd, to oversee my flock. ²²But go to your brothers who are in Jerusalem, and to all the elect of Israel, and bear witness to them that the Son of God is raised up from the dead, and behold, the day is at hand." ²³So they arose, and returned to Jerusalem.

Jesus Appears to James the Just
²⁴Now in Jerusalem, James the brother of the Lord was fasting, and he was on his knees in continual prayer; for he was grieving, and had sworn that he would eat no bread until he saw the coming of the kingdom of God. ²⁵But while he was praying, Jesus came and appeared to him, saying, "Bring me a loaf of bread." ²⁶He was astonished, and trembled, but he brought the bread; ²⁷and Jesus took and blessed it and gave it to James and said to him, "My brother, eat your bread, for the Son of man has arisen from those who sleep."

Jesus Meets Two Disciples on the Road
²⁸That same week two of them were going into the countryside. While they were walking together, Jesus came and walked and talked with them; but they did not recognize him. ²⁹And as they were walking, he opened to them all the words in Moses and the prophets concerning the suffering and the exaltation of the Christ of God. ³⁰Now when they drew near to an inn, he was going further, but they begged him to stay the night. ³¹But suddenly their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and they feared greatly. ³²And after he had departed from them they said, "Lo, did not our hearts burn while he talked to us on the road?" ³³And the next day they returned to Jerusalem, and told the other disciples; but they counted it an idle tale until Peter returned from Galilee, bearing witness to the risen Lord.

Jesus Appears to the Apostles
³⁴On the first day of the week following, Jesus came to the eleven while they were at table together. ³⁵And they were startled and troubled; and showing them his hands and feet, he said, "Fear not; behold, handle me and see that I am not a phantom." ³⁶And they wondered, and wondering they rejoiced in him. And he sat down at table to break bread with them.

Last Instructions to the Apostles
³⁷And Jesus said to them, "My peace I give to you, as I have it from my Father in heaven. ³⁸The day is coming soon when the Spirit of God will drive you out from east to west as if before a storm, to preach repentance to Israel and Syria and all the world. ³⁹So go out, bear witness to the nations and baptize in my name, that the elect may be snatched out of the tribulation and saved." ⁴⁰And they said to him, "Lord, is not this impious age given over to the rule of Satan? Restore your kingdom now!" ⁴¹But he reproved them, saying, "Behold, all the scriptures concerning the Son of man shall be fulfilled; only hold fast to the proclamation, and many signs and wonders will seal your witness." ⁴²And as they were marvelling, he departed from their sight.

The Exaltation
⁴³Now in due season, after he had been raised up from the dead, Christ Jesus said to the disciples who had been gathered together with him, "It is given to me from ancient of days to hold dominion over all things, and to make intercession on your behalf; ⁴⁴so keep watch, and proclaim the gospel, for I pray earnestly that you not be found many called but few chosen. ⁴⁵But I say to you, peace be with you; for the kingdom of God is at hand." ⁴⁶And the Lord Jesus was exalted to the right hand of the Power, ⁴⁷just as it is written, "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek"; and again, "You shall serve as shepherd with an iron rod, Lord from Zion"; ⁴⁸until the fullness of the appointed season, when the Lord Jesus will come with the clouds of heaven. Amen.

According to Thaddaeus

The Discovery of the Gospel of Thaddaeus <top>

Near Alexandria, at a site known as Tel-al-Faron, a Russian archaeological team in 1997 uncovered a cache of ancient codices and scrolls which rivals in importance the historic finds at Qûmran near the Dead Sea. These Tel-al-Faron documents turned out to be a collection of discarded and duplicate texts from the famed library of Alexandria, which had been set aside in a remote storage chamber, and so escaped the general sack and burning of the library in the 7^th century A.D.

The attention of the scholarly world was immediately drawn when among the first documents published by Yu. Grigoriev and his team were two until-now lost tragedies of the Greek playwright Aeschylus. Among the other documents eventually to see publication was the partial text of a hitherto unknown apocryphal gospel.

This document, designated Fa¹⁹⁷, was an incomplete early 3^rd century codex in a fair-to-poor state of preservation. The Greek uncial text was inscribed According to Jude Thaddaeus. Biblical scholars began rapidly to suspect that they had on their hands an unprecedented find, as internal indications pointed toward an extremely early origin for the work, perhaps in the first half of the second century. But because of the incompleteness of the text, work on the Gospel of Thaddaeus proceeded slowly.

In 2003, a joint British-American archaeological team began to excavate the site of the ancient city of Edessa, which now lies in the middle of the United Nations administered Red Zone comprising former territories out of Syria, Turkey, Greater Armenia, Kurdistan, and Iraq. The conclusion of the Balkan War and the Turkish-Armenian War made it possible, for the first time in almost a decade, to enlist the support of the Turkish government in reaching and excavating this site.

Academician Grigoriev was soon called in from the University of St. Petersburg to the Edessa site to consult on the find of a complete Edessene uncial codex inscribed Kata Thaddaion, According to Thaddaeus. This codex, which was designated θ, proved to be a complete copy of that text, about a third of which was also contained in Fa¹⁹⁷. θ was in an excellent state of preservation, and Grigoriev began an immediate critical study and translation of the text.

While he was engaged in this project, the team at Edessa unearthed fragments of four other copies of the Thaddaean text. These fragments, designated θ¹, θ², θ³, and θ⁴, were all of them in a poor state of preservation, and none of them contained much more than a tenth of the whole. But together they provided some supplemental help to Grigoriev's critical work; θ⁴, in particular, seems to be by a slim margin the oldest of the texts, followed by the complete codex θ.

Yu. Grigoriev labored under the difficult conditions of a direct UN military administration. It was difficult to impossible to obtain permission to bring archaeological finds out of the Red Zone. And regulations designed to prevent importation of a nanovirus limited Grigoriev and the Edessene team to that computer hardware and software which could be obtained locally. This meant that work had to proceed on an ancient Intel 8088 processor, with a long-obsolete dot-matrix printer.

The limited availability of soft fonts forced the adoption of a less-than-ideal Greek uncial font. UN anti-nanovirus regulations also forbid export of any electronic media, so that the fruit of Grigoriev's labor-in-progress has had to be brought out through UN checkpoints by a courier in hard-copy form. It is a direct photofacsimile of this hard copy which is here provided to the academic community for the first time. It is hoped that a proper printing will be quickly available, as soon as Academician Grigoriev is able to leave his work in the Red Zone, and supervise the edition himself.

The present translation of the Gospel of Thaddaeus is based largely on the codex θ, with critical comparison where appropriate to the other manuscripts. But these fragments add little to our knowledge of the text, so that it would be small loss if our knowledge were based on θ alone.

Hence, this present preliminary English translation omits Grigoriev's full textual apparatus, which will appear with the forthcoming revised edition. Grigoriev's critical Greek text will also be supplied in the revised edition, along with a full critical commentary on the Thaddaean text. The accompanying pericope-by-pericope English translation in the present edition is Grigoriev's, as revised by his graduate assistant, and brought into line, as far as is practicable, with the RSV text of the UBS Greek-English Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, 3^rd edn.

The footnotes are Grigoriev's own abridgment of his fuller textual commentary in preparation. The availability at the Edessene site of a CD-ROM peripheral has provided on-site access to the full Migne texts of the PL and PG. However, the slowness of the primitive facilities has prohibited anything like an exhaustive search of relevant passages in the patristic literature.

The Gospel of Thaddaeus has excited some interest among the general public ever since Grigoriev's original find at Tel-al-Faron seven years ago. Indeed, not since the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls has an archaeological find of religious texts generated comparable curiosity and controversy.

Yu. Grigoriev has provided a brief essay on the historical and critical significance of the Gospel of Thaddaeus, making full use of his insights gained during the ongoing work at Edessa. We present here, for the first time, an English translation of his remarks in full.

Brief Remarks Concerning the Gospel of Thaddaeus <top>

In the work superscribed KATA THADDAION, "According to Thaddaeus," we have an apocryphal gospel of the first importance, dating back to the subapostolic era. This so-called Gospel of Thaddaeus, first known to us in an incomplete text, the Faronic Greek uncial Fa¹⁹⁷, is now available in full in the Edessene Greek uncial codex θ. The brief Edessene fragments θ¹ θ² θ³ θ⁴, though they add little to our critical understanding of the text, demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that this work did originate from an early Christian community at Edessa.

The Gospel of Thaddaeus is the earliest complete apocryphal gospel we have, earlier even by some years than the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, a complete Coptic text of which was found near Nag Hammadi in 1946. The Thaddaean text must have been published some time in the first quarter of the second century of the present era, perhaps about the year 115.

The codex θ, which is in an excellent state of preservation, seems to have been written shortly after the middle of the second century. The fragment θ⁴, which contains only portions of three chapters, may be slightly older even than this. Although we cannot draw extensive text-critical conclusions from the Thaddaean text, yet when used with caution, this text may due to its very early date have some light to shed on an early form of the Western text of Mk and Lk.

I would continue to dissent from the judgment of my colleague, P. Afanasiev, who assigns the publication of Thaddaeus to the final years of the first century. But still, it must now be recognized that we are dealing here with a text which originated little more than a generation later than the first and third gospels, and (though it stands in quite another lineage) not too many years after the Johannine writings.

Thaddaeus is quite unique among the non-canonical gospels, of which we possess several in whole or in part, in that it emanates from a community close to the mainstream of the early Christian traditions. Unlike the Gospel of Thomas, unlike the fragmentary Gospel of Peter, or those gospels "according to the Hebrews" and "according to the Egyptians" which we know only by patristic quotation or from a few stray leaves, Thaddaeus is quite free of gnosticizing or docetizing tendencies. And unlike the many later "infancy gospels," Thaddaeus displays a remarkable sobriety and restraint.

Indeed, Thaddaeus belongs to the same general stream as our three canonical synoptic gospels. We can only speculate what set of circumstances led to its early disappearance from circulation, and indeed its complete oblivion, after an early career in the church at Edessa, and a dissemination which brought at least one copy as far afield as the famed library of Alexandria.

The old Syriac literature from Edessa contains no hint of an earlier Thaddaean gospel, despite the traditional linkage of the name of the Apostle Jude Thaddaeus with the Edessene Abgar tradition, and despite the not inconsiderable body of apocryphal literature extant in Syriac, much of it of a relatively early date, which originates from Edessa. We can only conclude that the Gospel of Thaddaeus, like Jude the Obscure under whose pseudonym it was circulated, vanished early into an obscurity both dark and complete. It must have suffered a total eclipse in its place of origin well before the end of the second century: no trace of its influence can be found in the Diatessaron of Tatian (ca 170), long so popular in the Syriac church.

Indeed, on one point the discovery of the Gospel of Thaddaeus forces us to an historical reassessment. On the basis of admittedly tenuous evidence, it has long been the consensus of the scholarly community that the church at Edessa originated about the middle of the second century. This origin must now be assigned a terminus ad quem close to the beginning of that century.

The unknown writer and redactor of Thaddaeus was clearly drawing on copious earlier traditions: he must have had copies of both Mk and Lk at hand, and makes full use of them; Mt, on the other hand (to say nothing of the fourth gospel) was almost certainly unknown to him. Yet Td displays considerable redactorial restraint in drawing upon his sources, and does not often expand upon them. At the same time, he sometimes exercises a certain measure of editorial boldness, which leads one to suspect that, even where Td more or less follows Mk or Lk, he is often not altogether dependent on them.

For Td was redacted at the extreme point in the subapostolic era when there was still a substantial extra-synoptic oral and written tradition available to draw upon. Some of this has also come down to us through other apocryphal gospels, or via patristic citation; and some of the pericopes which have thus been preserved, are parallelled in Td, as for example the parable of the assassin, the parable of the woman and the jar of meal, the exhortations to "be skilful bankers" and to "become passers-by," or Jesus' dispute with the official in the temple.

Interestingly, a not insignificant fraction of this material has parallels, often indirect, with logia in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas. But this material, as it appears in Td, is quite free of the gnosticizing redaction which, a generation later, it has undergone in GTh. The Thaddaean version seems without exception to represent a more primitive, pre-gnostic stratum of this tradition. Overall it seems easier to hypothesize that each of these apocryphal gospels, Td and GTh, was drawing independently on a common stream of older tradition, than that one of them directly or even indirectly influenced the other.

Since recent scholarship has tended to locate the composition of GTh in Edessa ca 140, the Thaddaean finds at Edessa reopen the question of where GTh was written. There seem to be three possibilities. (1) GTh was composed at Edessa, and its early career overlaps with the later career of Td. This leaves unexplained how GTh could have flourished shoulder-to-shoulder with the very different Td; but an analogous problem obtains for either gospel relative to the Diatessaron. (2) GTh was composed at another city in the Osrhoene, such as Samosata or Carrhae, and its career and that of Td were independent. Despite the a priori geography of some biblical scholars, this is hardly impossible. (3) Or, to return to an older hypothesis, GTh was composed, or at least received its final redaction, in Egypt.

But Td also seems to have yet other oral and written sources at his disposal. Some sayings and parables in Td-- such as the parable of the anvil, the parable of the vintner, or the lapidary little parable of the two plowmen-- we find nowhere else outside of Td. It is yet open to question whether we can speak of a single homogeneous T source; one "pre-Thomas, pre-Thaddaeus" T₁ source, and another pre-Thaddaean T₂ source; or whether we are dealing here with several distinct strands of written and oral tradition.

Another clear example of an additional source can be found in Td's passion narrative. Mk and Lk have made an obvious impact on Td's account of the passion. But order, wording, and detail make it abundantly clear that Td is drawing primarily-- not on Mk or Lk-- but rather on a third, not dissimilar, but quite distinctive and independent passion narrative. (Indeed, the initial lines of Td's account of the triumphal entry read much like the opening of a free-standing text! If anything of the sort ever stood in the sources behind the Marcan and Lucan accounts, it was effaced in Mk and Lk by redactional sandpaper.)

Still another example is the idiosyncratic "Johannine symposium," a summary of Thaddaean spirituality in chapter 19 of Td which seems to be drawing on leaves from an older dialogue gospel. This older source may underlie, not only this non-synoptic intrusion into the text of Td, but also certain passages in chapters 5 and 8 of Jn.

And yet another example would be Td's brief infancy narrative, really much more restrained than that in either Mt or Lk, which seems to draw on a written annunciation tradition of considerable antiquity, which Td may well share in common with Lk. That Td relies on this older tradition, when he has the much more expansive account of Lk in front of him, typifies his editorial restraint. The kind of recklessness which was finding its way into the surviving independent oral tradition by this time (as witness even some of the fragments of Papias which have come down to us) seldom finds its way past the editorial judgment of Td.

Thus, though Td seldom really extends the historical purchase we gain through the synoptics, when he does depart from or extend their scope, the Thaddaean text is sometimes not unworthy of consideration. For example, in an otherwise unattested addition to the pericopes concerning the call of the first disciples, Td recounts the call of Thaddaeus. The inclusion, not to say the invention, of this incident would be amply accounted for by the association of the apostle with the Edessene Abgar legends, and the founding of the church at Edessa. The naming of him as "Thaddaeus, that is, Lebbaeus" excites further critical suspicion as an evident conflation, even though, as is well known, "Lebbaios" is a hellenization of the Aramaic cognate to the Greek "Thaddaios."

But the critic is brought up short by the casual remark of Td that Thaddaeus was a wheelwright, who was called by Jesus "while mending a wheel" in his shop. It is hard to see why the author of Td should have invented such an odd and otherwise unattested detail, unless it were founded at the least on a very old tradition, but for this passage now lost to us.

As a redactor, Td displays great freedom in locating within the text such traditions which he is drawing neither from Mk nor from Lk: such pericopes are found scattered throughout his text, often alongside material with a similar theme or key words. But their distribution is uneven.

In the Galilean ministry, outside the Sermon on the Lake and a few scattered pericopes, these non-Markan, non-Lucan traditions make their presence felt in a verse here, a change in wording there. Much of this section of Td-- chapters 2 through 9-- gives the impression of a very fine parquet-work of Marcan and Lucan materials, with an occasional detail or accent from other sources.

It has been remarked that, in the journey to Jerusalem, Lk opens the meandering stream of Mk out into a wide river through the wholesale insertion of special Lucan material. We might well say that Td even further broadens Lk's river into a flood plain. In this section of Td-- chapters 10 through 20-- Td inserts numerous pericopes, and indeed entire chapters, from his special Thaddaean material. Td displays a liking for grouping material of similar theme, or similar key words, into chapter-length symposia: chapter 13, a symposium on the growth of the kingdom; chapter 14, the Pellan symposium; chapter 16, a symposium on discipleship; chapter 18, a symposium on children; and chapter 19, the already-mentioned idiosyncratic Johannine symposium.

As a table of gospel parallels will show, outside the opening and closing sections of his gospel, Td generally follows the overall order of Lk when he can. However, he does not hesitate to relocate Lucan material when it suits his purpose, e.g. the call of Levi, which he splits up and uses in two separate places; or the sayings and incidents relating to children, all of which Td gathers together in one place. Occasionally Td omits Lucan material, e.g. the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. And in two sections, Td follows Mk instead of Lk: the sayings from Mk 4, which Lk scatters throughout, are gathered together and included in the Sermon on the Lake; and Mk 6:45-8:26, which Lk omits but much of which Td includes toward the end of the Galilean ministry.

Even a preliminary historical-critical analysis of Td is a task which lies yet in the future. For the moment, we must content ourselves with the foregoing, quite tentative outline. And for the present we must also be content with a brief sketch of some of the salient and distinctive themes and motifs of Td.

Throughout Td, both on a large and on a small scale, there is a striking motif of interchange between word and deed. Of course, the broad-scale contrast between the more act-oriented Galilean ministry and the more discursive journey toward Jerusalem is inherited by Td from Mk and Lk.

But we also find throughout Td little touches such as the editorial remark at the opening of the Sermon on the Lake (4:3) that the people "pressed upon [Jesus] that they might hear the word of God and that power might come forth from him upon them." Or again, the act of cleansing the Temple (21:29-33) is immediately followed by Jesus' discursive dispute with a chief priest in the Temple (21:34-42), an incident without parallel in the synoptics. Examples could be multiplied almost indefinitely. We have but to read a few verses further (21:46) to discover the chief priests and scribes conspiring against Jesus: "For they said to one another, 'You see how the people are following after his teaching and his signs.'"

Also prominent in Td is a stress on election and call. In the Thaddaean account of the raising of Jairus' daughter, Td redacts the text to read, "And taking those whom he had called to be with him, [Jesus] went in where the child was." (6:36)

This motif, as developed by Td, binds up within itself elements, not only of the priority of God within the divine-human relationship, but also a focus on the mission of the Thaddaean community; the universal thrust of the kingdom; and the grace of God. Already within Td's annunciation story (1:7) we read, "And he will save his people Israel, all whom God calls." At the end of Td's gospel, in a logion which finds a parallel in the Epistle of Barnabas, the risen Christ tells his disciples, "I pray earnestly that you not be found many called but few chosen." (26:44) Perhaps the characteristic note of the Thaddaean notion of call is to be found in a redactional comment which Td appends to a saying also found, in a much more gnosticized form, in divers patristic sources: "Split wood: the kingdom of God is there. Lift up the stone, and there you will find it. For the Spirit of God is moving in the midst of you, and whoever is known and called by my Father will find the kingdom." (17:21-22)

Not altogether unconnected with this vision of call is another peculiar trait of the Thaddaean text, namely, the personalization of the Twelve. In Td, as in the canonical gospels, Peter is the leading figure of the Twelve; but the other disciples are mentioned by name more often, and stand forth as individuals much more sharply, than in the synoptics. Indeed, each of the Twelve, in the course of Td's gospel, has at least one "speaking part."

And in Td the figure of Mary Magdalene is noticeably more prominent than in the synoptics. Jesus' exorcism of her, merely alluded to in Mk 16:9 and Lk 8:2, is recounted in Td 3:1-4. In 10:53-58, Td so redacts the text that the Magdalene displaces the sister of Martha! In the Johannine symposium, Mary poses a question to Jesus, on a par with the other disciples (19:24). And in a passage which may represent the pseudonymous writer's signature (cf. the fleeing neaniskos of Mk 14:51), when Peter reproves Mary after she returns from the empty tomb, Thaddaeus (instead of, as in another apocryphal account, Matthew) intervenes: "If the Lord has called her to be a worthy witness, who are you to reject her? For truly the Lord has loved her." (26:12)

It was the triumph of Conzelmann to lay forth the realized eschatology of Luke's gospel, in contrast with the tone of imminent expectation in Mk. If Mk is to be dated about the year 65, and Lk about 80, then Td might be dated, very roughly and tentatively, around the year 115. In Td there is what we might call an eschatological "restringing of the bow": even more time has passed for Td than for Lk, and still no parousia. Td's solution to this, quite the opposite of Lk's (although apparently in reaction against a solution not unlike the Lucan), is to heighten the tension between the Lord's promise and the Lord's tarrying, the "already" and the "not yet" of the Thaddaean community's experience and expectation. Each term of the dialectic is stressed all the more. The bow of eschatological expectation is restrung, and in the restringing it is stretched taut.

It is in this light that we are to view the favorite Thaddaean theme of the coming tribulation, as even in Td's version of the Lord's Prayer (11:5). Along with the expectation of tribulation, there is also a repeated command to watch and wait, as in the unparalleled dominical logion in 13:5, "These things I tell you, that you may read the signs, and reading you may hope, and hoping you may keep watch." In Td's version of the parable of the woman and the jar of meal (17:25-28), we find a detail not attested in the parallel in GTh 97: the woman did not notice the jar leaking, "for she was not watching." And Td includes among the last words of the risen Christ, before his exaltation to heaven: "So keep watch, and proclaim the gospel... for the kingdom of God is at hand."

This theme of watching and waiting bears in it the seeds of a quietism, often with an emphasis on immersion in the worship life of the community of faith. Td tells us that the disciples were instructed to make the Upper Room ready for the Last Supper, and then to "watch and wait" there for their Lord: "So they prepared as he had instructed them, and awaited his coming." (24:12-13) And in the Thaddaean eschatological discourse, Christ exhorts his followers, "So come together often, anticipating the great feast which is to come... So again I say unto you, watch and wait!" (23:49,55)

In connection with this eschatological perspective, we may note that Td, like Lk, also heightens the tension between mercy and judgment; but that, in Td, this tension is accompanied by a tendency toward draining judgment of specific content. The hearers are to flee from the wrath to come, but this wrath is portrayed in a pinpoint of white light, rather than on a broad and colorful canvas.

This is not to say that Td eschews color-- quite the contrary! For perhaps the most characteristic motif of all in Td-- we might almost call it a tone or a tint which pervades the whole-- is a stress on something not unlike the aesthetic.

This dimension of Td is difficult to sketch in the limited space here at our disposal, but it leaps out at the reader from every chapter of the text. Td sees with the eye of an artist, with the keen sense almost of an aesthete. This comes out only in part in Td's love of the just-so detail: Td could do no other than take over from Mk, in his account of the feeding of the five thousand, that Jesus had the multitude sit "on the green grass." (7:17) Nor are we really surprised-- we are, but it is so characteristically Thaddaean-- when we are told, in an unparalleled turn of phrase, that the woman who suffered from a hemorrhage touched, not just the fringe of Jesus' cloak, but "the blue of the fringe": "Who touched the blue of the fringe of my garment?" asks Jesus. (6:25)

Td delights in the world of the senses, in what seems like an earthy mysticism. His evaluation of the body is fundamentally positive: one wonders whether this accounts for the omission from his gospel of the dispute with the Sadducees over the resurrection (Mt 22:23-33, Mk 12:18-27, Lk 20:27-40). He holds on to all those "rough touches" in Mk which Lk smooths over, and adds to them others.

But Td's aesthetic slant comes forth even more strongly on an abstract plane. One gets the impression that, for Td, the aesthetic is often close to assimilating itself to the numinous, the prerational and amoral pole of the holy. Or perhaps it is the other way around.

It is in this light, rather than in view of any incipient gnosticism, that we ought to read the Johannine symposium in chapter 19 of Td; or the opening of the first symposium in chapter 13, where Thomas asks, "Teacher, how shall we recognize the coming of the kingdom of God?", and is answered by Jesus with the cryptic syllables from Isaiah 28: "Saulasau, Caulacau, Zeersam." The dominical commentary which Td immediately supplies draws us back from any gnostic abyss: these three enigmatic words are explained, first in terms of their literal meaning in Hebrew, and then in terms of their somewhat otherwise rendering in the Greek Septuagint! Needless to say, the effect is still rather uncanny, and the two competing meanings are each-- one might say fortuitously but felicitously-- altogether apt to what Td has framed as the issue at hand!

(The reader may almost be forgiven if this passage in Td calls to mind a textually and theologically quite disparate passage from the Gospel of Thomas, logion 13: "And [Jesus] took [Thomas], withdrew, and spoke to him three words. Now when Thomas came back to his companions, they asked him: What did Jesus say to you? Thomas said to them: If I tell you one of the words which he said to me, you will take up stones and throw them at me; and a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.")

This technique of aesthetic framing, by which Td makes his source materials serve his purposes, points up Td's often formidable skill as a redactor. To return once again to the Johannine symposium, Td has here woven together three highly diverse sources into a unified whole. A variant of the account of the Samaritan and the lamb (19:1-7) is to be found in GTh 60, and the saying on seeking and finding (19:8) appears in variant forms as a frequent dominical agraphon in the church fathers. Likewise, as we have already mentioned, in much of what follows (19:9-30), Td seems to be drawing on leaves from an early dialogue gospel, which may also be reflected in some of the "synoptic-like sayings" in Jn 5 and 8. Nowhere other than in Td do these three elements appear together, and yet in Td they are not just juxtaposed, they are seamlessly integrated into a capstone summary of the typical Thaddaean spirituality.

This aesthetic framing, and the concomitant redaction, show themselves from another angle in the immediately following chapter 20, where Td draws out the threefold implication of this spirituality for the life of faith. A threefold rhythm: being, knowing, and doing. First, on the level of being, Jesus raises Azariah of Bethany up from the dead, in an account which bears only the most distant echoes of the raising of Lazarus in Jn 11. Secondly, on the level of knowing, Jesus restores sight to a blind man. And thirdly, on the level of doing, we encounter something very like Td's aestheticism spilling over into the domain of the ethical, in the parable of the shekels.

This parable is clearly parallel to the parable of the talents in Mt, and the parable of the pounds in Lk. In each case, three servants are entrusted by their master with varying sums. But in Mt and Lk, two of the servants are faithful, and are rewarded; while the third servant buries his money, and is cast out.

Td, by contrast, reminds one of the variant in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, where one servant was faithful, and was rewarded; another buried his money, and was reproved but forgiven; and a third servant wasted his money in profligacy, and was cast out.

However, Td inverts the fates of these latter two servants. Td has the first servant faithful, and rewarded. The second is profligate, and reproved but forgiven. Only the third, who buries his money, is cast out. Here Td comes perilously close to saying, with an aesthetic eye, that faithfulness is better than profligacy, but that action of any sort, even if it go astray, is preferable to inanition.

Comment on the christology presupposed in Td would require a book in itself, which will perhaps be one day forthcoming. To permit ourselves only the briefest of thumbnail sketches, we may say that the unknown Thaddaean author, and the early second-century Edessene Christian community to which he belonged, were apparently operating with a fairly "high" christology, and yet one which retains certain vigorous and relatively undeveloped features.

To put the matter in source-critical terms, the portrait of Jesus which emerges from Td resembles in some ways the "high christological" and yet very human and compassionate picture of him in Lk; but in Td this image is painted often in colorful, bold, and even rough strokes more reminiscent of Mk. And Td is not without little touches that are peculiarly his own: for example, he puts the free citation of the LXX Prov 30:4-5 in the opening of his gospel to very apt christological use. But such a use of this text, strangely, is conspicuous by its absence from the church fathers prior to the sixth century.

The reader will rapidly note that Td favors certain christological titles. "The Son of man" is much more common than "the Son of God." The title "Lord" appears often enough as a term of address, but not that frequently (outside of scriptural citations) in the third person outside of the resurrection narratives; and the term "Lord Jesus" appears precisely twice, in the last few verses of Td, in connection with the exaltation and expected coming of the risen Christ.

The characteristic Thaddaean christological title, though, is "the Christ of God," which appears already in 1:1, and is ubiquitous throughout. Even at its first appearance, it is linked with a key christological theme in Td, the motif of ascent and descent, of which Td independently makes quite different use than does Jn. For Td, ascent and descent are correlate with Christ's offices as priest and king, as mediator of divine mercy, as well as bearer of God's sovereign power.

This comes forth strikingly in Td's passion account, where the lifting up of Christ on the cross is interpreted as his universal enthronement through a citation from Ps 96: "Proclaim to the nations, 'The Lord reigns from the wood.'" (The curious reading ek xylou is also attested in Justin Martyr.) Christ is presented as dying with a quotation on his lips, not from Ps 31 as in Lk, but rather with a further citation from Ps 96: "Father, I ascribe to thee the glory due thy name." And, as the veil of the Temple is rent and the threshold of the Temple shaken, Christ's death on the altar of the cross is then interpreted as the death of one who is both priest-sacrificiant and lamb-sacrifice, via a free citation from Amos: "I saw the Lord upon the altar, and he said: 'Smite the capitals until the thresholds shake.'"

As I write these words, night has fallen over our work site at Edessa. But for the call of the insects, the air is still. And I have before me a yellowed scrap of paper which I have carried with me in all my travels. I no longer recall when or how I first ran across it, only it has been among my papers now for many years. It is from a periodical, no doubt long defunct, called The War Cry. The issue was dated February 5, 1949. The item was a filler piece, run at the bottom of page four.

But the most insignificant and ephemeral of writings sometimes exercise over us a disproportionate force. For no good reason I can name, this little filler piece has given this biblical scholar many a pause to think, as if it came from the pen of some notable or worthy. And now I ponder it again, in a night hour, and as if it were a slide rule of sorts, I try it out to reckon upon it a writing titled kata Thaddaion.

The little filler, in four tidy columns, tells me that Matthew "Presents Christ as... The Mighty King"; Mark, as the Lowly Servant; Luke, as the Ideal Man; John, as the Divine Son.

Like the C and D and CI and CF scales on a slide rule, the piece tells me that Matthew "Was written for" the Jews; Mark, for the Romans; Luke, for the Greeks; John, for the Church.

CIF and DI and DF scales... The "Chief characteristic" of Matthew is that it is Prophetical; Mark, Practical; Luke, Historical; and John, Spiritual.

A and B scales, and K scale, and L scale... Matthew "Deals mainly with" the Past; Mark, with the Present; Luke, with the Future; John, with Eternity.

And ST and T and S scales, and those log-log scales which I could never fathom... Matthew "Emphasizes Christ as" Power; Mark, as Endurance; Luke, as Sympathy; John, as Glory.

Forgive a not-so-old scholar if I confess in all candor that this little piece exercises over me a quite unreasonable attraction, rather like that of Irenaeus' old argument which likened the four gospels to the four winds, the four elements, the four humors, the four arms of the cross. For all its brevity, it is apt: more apt than my uncle, who once told a pop-eyed assistant professor of a nephew that, among the gospels, he preferred Matthew and John, because "John is realistic, and Matthew direct."

And if I slide the slipstick back and forth, and adjust the cursor thus and so, I seem to read off that Thaddaeus Presents Christ as the Numinous Priest-King; Was written for Those Outside the Empire; its Chief characteristic, that it is Aesthetical; it Deals mainly with Time Shot through with Eternity; and Emphasizes Christ as the Beauty of Holiness.

All this is but a jeu d'esprit on a moonlit night, though I do not beg the reader's indulgence, for it is a game that bears within it an earnest reminder that we do not live by scholarship alone.

However, even a first-order evaluation of the import of the Gospel of Thaddaeus for NT studies will be a task for scholarly debate for many years to come. Foremost among the questions with which to grapple is surely the following: why did such an early example of the gospel genre, emanating from a not insignificant church of the subapostolic era, and comparatively close in its content to the mainstream of the synoptic traditions, drop so rapidly and so thoroughly from sight, until it was yielded up to the archaeologist's spade at the dawn of the third millennium of the Christian era?

--Yu. Grigoriev
University of St. Petersburg,
on site at Edessa,
UN Zone of Extended Occupation,
Orthodox Feast of the Ascension, 2004

Home