Luke 10:23-24

Vers. 23 and 24. “ And He turned Him unto His disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: 24 For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. ” Elevated as was the conception which the disciples had of the person and work of Jesus, they were far from appreciating at its full value the fact of His appearance, and the privilege of being the agents of such a Master. At this solemn hour Jesus seeks to open their eyes. But He cannot express Himself publicly on the subject. It is, as it were, in an undertone that He makes this revelation to them, Luke 10:23-24. This last sentence admirably finishes the piece. We find it in Matthew 13, applied to the new mode of teaching which Jesus had just employed by making use of the form of parables. The expression, those things which ye see, is incompatible with this application, which is thus swept away by the text of Matthew himself.

Luke here omits the beautiful passage with which Matthew (Matthew 11:28-30) closes this discourse: “ Come unto me...” If he had known such words, would he have omitted them? Is not this invitation in the most perfect harmony with the spirit of his Gospel? Holtzmann, who feels how much the theory of the employment of a common source is compromised by this omission, endeavours to explain it. He supposes that Luke, as a good Paulinist, must have taken offence at the word ταπεινός, humble, when applied to Christ, as well as at the terms yoke and burden, which recalled the Law too strongly. And it is in face of Luke 22:27, “I am among you as he that serveth...,” and of Luke 16:17, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail...,” that such reasons are advanced! His extremity here drives Holtzmann to use one of those Tübingen processes which he himself combats throughout his whole book.

Modern criticism denies the historical character of this second mission. It is nothing more, Baur alleges, than an invention of Luke to lower the mission of the Twelve, and to exalt that of Paul and his assistants, of whom our seventy are provided as the precursors. With what satisfaction does not this Luke, who is silent as to the effects of the sending of the Twelve, describe those of the present mission! He goes the length of applying to the latter, and that designedly, part of the instructions which Jesus had given (Matthew 10) in regard to the former! Besides, the other Gospels nowhere mention those seventy evangelists whose mission Luke is pleased to relate! Holtzmann, who likewise denies the historical character of the narrative, does not, however, ascribe to Luke any deliberate fraud. The explanation of the matter is, according to him, a purely literary one. Of the two sources which Matthew and Luke consulted, the former that is, the original Mark recorded the sending of the Twelve with a few brief instructions, such as we have found in Luke 9:1-6 and Mark 6:7-13; the second, the Logia, contained the full and detailed discourse which Jesus must have delivered on the occasion, as we read it Matthew 10. The author of our first Gospel saw that the discourse of the Logia applied to the sending of the Twelve mentioned in the original Mark, and attached it thereto. Luke had not the same perspicacity. After having related the mission of the Twelve (Luke 9:1-6) after the proto-Mark, he found the great discourse in the Logia; and to get a suitable place for it, he thought that he must create a situation at his own hand. With this view, but without the least purpose of a dogmatic kind, he imagined a second mission, that of the seventy.

But if the origin of this narrative were as Baur supposes, how should only the Twelve reappear later in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 17:5; Luke 18:31), without ever a word more of those seventy? How should Luke in the Acts make no mention of those latter? Was it not easy and natural, after having invented them, to give them a part to play in the mission organized under Paul's direction? An author does not lie in good earnest, only to forget thereafter to make use of his fraud. We have found that, as to the mission of the Twelve, Luke says at least (Luke 9:10), “And the apostles, when they were returned, told Him all that they had done” (remark the ὅσα, stronger than the simple ἅ); while Matthew, after the discourse, adds not a single word about the mission and its results! In short, the narrative of the sending of the seventy is so far from being a Paulinist invention, that in a work of the second century, proceeding from the sect most hostile to Paul, we find the following passage put in the mouth of Peter (Recognit. Clem. 1.24): “He first chose us twelve, whom He called apostles; then He chose seventy-two other disciples from among the most faithful.” The old historians have undoubtedly been somewhat arbitrary in numbering among those seventy many persons whom they designate as having formed part of them. But this false application proves nothing against the fact itself; on the contrary, it attests the impression which the Church had of its reality.

The opinion of Holtzmann would charge the sacred historian with an arbitrariness incompatible with the serious love of historical truth which is expressed, according to Holtzmann himself, in his introduction. Besides, we shall see (Luke 17:1-10) how entirely foreign such procedure was to the mind of Luke. When, finally, we consider the internal perfection of his whole narrative, the admirable correspondence between the emotions of our Lord and the historical event which gives rise to them, have we not a sufficient guarantee for the reality of this episode? As the account of the healing of the lunatic child is the masterpiece of Mark, this description of the sending of the seventy disciples is the pearl of Luke.