The Evangelists

The Four Evangelists - Jacob Jordaens

The Gospel is the part of the Bible that reports the life of Jesus, from his Incarnation to his Resurrection. It is composed of four converging accounts whose authors, inspired by the Holy Spirit, conveyed the Word of God.    

Among the four evangelists, two are direct witnesses, Matthew and John, and two are indirect witnesses, Mark and Luke. No other gospel can be proclaimed that differs from the revealed Gospel.

The Figure of the Evangelists Illuminated by Maria Valtorta

Matthew

According to the commonly accepted view, his Gospel focuses on proving that Jesus is the Messiah and on presenting his teaching in great discourses. This Gospel lacks the picturesque or spontaneity found, for example, in the Gospel of Mark.

Three qualities predisposed Matthew to his future role as evangelist: his memory, his eloquence, and his culture.

1. His memory: "I have a good memory. I developed it at my counter and I will keep the memory of this account for everyone. When you wish, I can repeat everything to you. I did not keep accounts in Capernaum, and yet..."          
2. His eloquence guaranteeing a certain style:

   "He displays the old skill he used to feather the nest at his tax booth, to force others to say: 'You are right,'" says Simon Peter.

3. Cultured, he directly notes the speeches of Jesus, which certainly not all other apostles could do. Maria Valtorta mentions this incidentally.  

He is the first to have documented his Gospel.

But I will tell you, at the right time, how to distribute the episodes of the three years of public life. The order of the Gospels is good, but not perfect as a chronological order. A careful observer notices it.          

The one who could have given the exact order of the facts, because he remained with Me from the beginning of the evangelization until my Ascension, did not do so. Indeed John, true son of the Light, took care and bothered to make the Light shine through his garment of Flesh before the eyes of the heretics who were attacking the reality of Divinity enclosed in a human flesh human. The sublime Gospel of John achieved its supernatural goal, but the chronicle of my public life was not helped by it.      

The other three evangelists [those called the synoptics] appear similar to each other regarding the facts, but they alter the order of time, because of the three only one was present during almost all of my public life: Matthew, and he wrote it only fifteen years later, while the others wrote it even later, having heard the story from my Mother, from Peter, and from other apostles and disciples.

Here we can see the "Q source" (from the German Quelle meaning source), now lost. It contained the "logia" or words of Jesus and would have served as a source for the evangelists.          

According to Maria Valtorta, besides Matthew, the words of Jesus were noted by John of Endor for the period when he followed the Master. These notes were entrusted to Margziam, the adopted son of Peter.

Mark

This gospel is said to be close to Peter, the fisherman fisherman of Galilee. It contains fewer speeches, is simpler, even more rustic, but also more vivid and spontaneous.

This well corresponds to several traits of Peter's temperament. But one can also see the mark of the work of John of Endor. This repentant, cultured man took notes every evening for the time he followed Jesus. These notes were intended for young Margziam, Peter's adopted son. Under the name Martial, Margziam will follow Peter to Rome.    

Regarding Mark’s personality itself, there remains the question: isn’t he the son of Jonas (John), the guardian of Gethsemane?

Luke

He is, of all the evangelists, the one who did thorough investigative work and historical writing. Some events he reports can only be known from the mouth of Mary.    

He is not the only source on the life of the Christ: Jesus himself recounts certain episodes to his apostles, such as his temptation in the desert.  

The shepherds of the Nativity also recount their memories.

"Yes, I can repeat them to you (the words of Mary, then a young mother), Lord, for all that She told us, in the months when we could hear Her, is written here (and he strikes his chest), remembers Benjamin, one of the shepherds of the Nativity."

John

What separates this Gospel from the other three, called "synoptic" because of their concordance, is a more intimate penetration of the mystery of the Christ. Its author, John, is also served by a powerful metaphysical and dramatic genius.

The spiritual closeness of the apostle to Jesus and the fact that he witnessed all the events (he is the only apostle in that situation) allow him to account, intimately, for deeds and gestures that others could not convey.

His Hebrew training as well as his love for Jesus develop in him a perfect memory. He is capable of recalling from memory, word for word, the complete teachings of Jesus.

In Maria Valtorta’s work, Jesus speaks about the Gospel of John and more generally about the role of the Gospels:

"You will serve me until my new coming, which will be the last. Many things will dry up before the last time, like rivers that run dry and, after having been a beautiful course of blue and salutary water, become dusty soil and arid gravel. But you will still be the river that resounds my word and reflects my light."

The Evangelists in the Other Works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1943

June 28 :

Now I will explain to you two points of the Gospel, one from Matthew and the other from Luke. Actually, it is one parable, but expressed with some differences. One should not be surprised to find such differences among my evangelists. When they wrote these pages, they were still men, already chosen but not yet glorified. They could therefore make blunders, make errors, of form and not of substance. It is only in the glory of God that one no longer errs. But to reach it, they still had to struggle a lot and suffer.         Only one of the evangelists reports what I say with phonographic accuracy. But that was the pure and the lover (John) …

The Notebooks from 1945 to 1950

September 30, 1947 (pages 417 and 418) :

Only two evangelists were apostles. If closely observed, it is the gospels that best reflect me; indeed, if Luke’s style is better, his gospel can be qualified as the gospel of my Mother and my childhood — which extensively reports details other gospels do not — rather than the gospel of my public life, because it echoes others more than it brings new light like John, the perfect evangelist of the Light, who is the Christ God-Man. The evangelists report very reduced versions of my words, to the point of being skeletal: an allusion rather than a version. This deprives them of the literary style I had given them. The Master is recognized in Matthew (see the Sermon on the Mount, instructions to the apostles, the praise of John the Baptist and the rest of this chapter, the first episode of chapter 15 and the sign in the sky, the divorce in chapter 19, then chapters 22, 23, and 24). The Master is essentially found in the luminous Gospel of John, the apostle full of love, united by charity to his Christ Light. Compare what this gospel reveals about the power of the Christ the speaker with what the summary and essence-focused gospel of Mark reveals, accurate in relating the episodes heard by Peter but reduced to a minimum, and you will see whether, I who am the Word, only used a very humble style or whether the power of the perfect Word often shone in me. Yes, it shines in John, although very limited to some episodes…"

August 15, 1949 (page 526) :

"My Mother is the only one to have known everything about me, both during my years as Son in Nazareth and when I was the Master and the Redeemer, then the glorious Resurrected [...] The evangelists and apostles knew partially this or that part of my life. But they hardly knew anything — almost nothing — about my Mother.

On the other hand, you alone, my little Maria, my little John, you alone know everything about Mary and about me. You lived our life, by our side. You breathed the air of our house, of the house of Joachim then of Mary, of our Nazareth, of our whole Palestine. You smelled the scent of the bread baked by Mary, the laundry she washed, her virginal body and mine. You inhaled the odor of the balms of Mary Magdalene, of the rot of Lazarus resurrected, the smell of the lamb and wine of the Passover supper as well as that of my blood shed during the Passion. You counted our breaths, our voices and our looks, our gestures, our teachings, our miracles.      

You know more than the great John. My crucified adorer, I wanted to give you this through your long suffering: a perfect and complete knowledge of us, as no saint or doctor has ever possessed."

Commentary on the Apocalypse

Comments Page 563 and following :

Out of pity for these poor men swept away by the turmoil (of the last days) of blood, fire, persecution, death, infinite Mercy will make shine on this sea of blood and horror the pure Morning Star, Mary, who will be the announcer of the last coming of Christ. It follows that the new evangelizers will teach the Gospel of Mary, a truth too often left in the shadows by the evangelists, the apostles, and all the disciples, even though a broader knowledge of her would have served as teaching to many, thus avoiding many falls. She is indeed [[Vierge Marie#Marie Co-rédemptrice[69]|co-redemptrix]] and plays the role of master: a master of pure life, faithful, prudent, compassionate and pious, both at home and among the men of her time. She has never ceased to teach throughout the centuries and she deserves to be better known as the world sinks into mud and darkness, in order to be more imitated and bring the world back to what is enlightened.      

Comments Pages 610 to 619

If the ancient prophets only saw the God-Man, a few others saw the God-Man carried on his throne by his main confessors, the four evangelists, whose aspect symbolized their spiritual nature: Matthew, the man, entirely man by the past and man to describe the Son of Man; Mark, the lion, by his announcement of Christ to the pagans even more than by his description of the time of Christ by his gospel, in which, however, as a lion, he preferred to highlight the figure of the divine Thaumaturge rather than that of the God-Man as Matthew had done. And this to stun and conquer the pagans, always attracted by what was prodigious.

Luke, patient and strong like the ox to complete, by patient research even on what preceded the apostolic work properly speaking of Christ and his disciples, God's work for the salvation of humanity. For this work of infinite love began with the immaculate conception of Mary, by the fullness of the grace granted to her, by the continual communion of Mary with her Lord who, after creating her, as Father, with a unique perfection compared to all the bodies born of a man and a woman, as his beloved daughter, then filled her with his light: the Word. (page 610)        

[…] So it can be said that anyone who wants to know Mary — whom the evangelists and the Acts of the apostles reveal too little — must look at her Son who took everything from her, and from her only, except his divine nature as First-born and only Son of the Father. (page 614)    

[…] John, the fourth evangelist, is the eagle. He holds from the eagle the high, powerful and solitary flight, as well as the ability to fix on the sun. One finds in John the evangelist the nobility of this bird royal, his powerful flight and the power to fix on the divine sun, Jesus — Light of the world, Light of heaven, Light of God, Infinite Splendor — the power to rise to supernatural heights that no other evangelist attained and, through this ascension, the power to penetrate the mystery, the truth and doctrine, all about the Man who was God.

Hovering like a royal eagle high above the realities of the earth and of humanity, he saw the Christ in his true nature as the Word of God. More than the thaumaturge and the martyr, John presents us with "the Master," the unique perfect Master the world has ever known. The God-Master, the Wisdom made flesh and oral teacher of men, the Word or Word of the Father, in other words the Word that makes the thoughts of his Father perceptible to men, the Light come to enlighten the darkness and drive away the gloom.

The gospel of John sincerely presents the sublimest truths, the most gentle, the deepest, as well as the harshest truths. With his eagle eye and by the elevation of his spirit following the spirit of the Master, he saw from above the sublime greatnesses as well as the extreme basenesses, he measured all the extent of the love of Christ and the hatred of the Jewish world for Christ; he saw the fight between light and darkness — these too numerous darknesses —, that is to say those of too many enemies of his Master, among whom is even a disciple and apostle whom John clearly designates, in his gospel of truth and light, by one of his true names: "thief"; he saw the dark plots, the subtle traps employed to make Christ be seen badly by the Romans, the Jews and these "little ones" who made up the flock of the faithful of Christ. He knows them all and makes them known, while showing Jesus in his sublime holiness, not only as God but also as man (page 615).

[…] No one understood the intimate Christ as well as John. He knew all his perfections. He penetrated the mystery and the ocean of his virtues and truly measured the height, width and depth of this living Temple not made by human hands and that men vainly sought to destroy. Decades later, he wrote and described them, leaving us the most perfect gospel in historical truth, the most powerful in doctrine, the most luminous of sapiential and charitable lights, the most faithful to describe episodes and characters, capable of overcoming the narrow-mindedness of the Jews and even describing what the other evangelists did not dare to say: the Samaritan woman, the royal officer, the scandal, the flight and rebellion of the disciples against the Master after the discourse on the Bread descending from heaven, as well as the woman of adultery, the open discussions with Jews, Pharisees, scribes and doctors of the Law, the fact that he took refuge in Samaria at Ephraim, his contacts with pagans, the truth about Judas "who was a thief," and many other things.

When he wrote his gospel, John was more than a mature man as he had reached an advanced age, but he remained young due to his purity and always burning with love for Christ, for no other human love had deflected any flame from his love for the Beloved; John, the loving eagle of Christ, revealed Christ to us with a power superior to all others, only inferior to that of Christ revealing his Father, which was infinite since it was the very power of God (page 617).

[…] On the mystical scale of the evangelists, Matthew can be placed on the first level, Mark at a quarter of the scale, Luke halfway up, and John at the top (page 618).

[…] Each evangelist served to compose the mosaic that reveals to us Jesus Christ God-Man, savior, master, redeemer, conqueror of death and the demon, eternal judge and King of kings for eternity. This is why, in the theophany described by the apostle John in his Apocalypse, they all serve, each in his own aspect, as foundation and crown to the Throne where sits the One who is, who was and who is to come, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all that was, is, and will be; and their voices, joined to those of the twenty-four elders — that is the twelve chief patriarchs and the twelve greatest prophets, or major prophets — sing an eternal hymn of praise to him who is very holy and almighty.

Osty Bible: Presentation of the Four Gospels

From very early on, fragments more or less important of Peter's catechesis were written in Aramaic, then in Greek. Then appeared the first evangelical attempts to which Saint Luke refers in his Prologue. Finally, in order to preserve the apostolic message in its purity and responding to the desire of various Christian communities, Saint Matthew, Saint Mark and Saint Luke wrote their gospels between 50 and 80.  

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew

Saint Matthew, a tax collector turned Apostle, probably wrote his gospel before 60, perhaps even around the year 50, for converted Jews of Palestine. Although an eyewitness, he used Peter's Jerusalem catechesis, so authoritative. He added his own memories as well as written or oral information, especially concerning the words of Jesus, which he could gather in the communities in Palestine. Matthew wrote in Aramaic, but his gospel was interpreted into Greek based on the text of Mark between 70 and 80, and it is the only text we possess.

The Gospel According to Saint Mark

Saint Mark was, like Saint Matthew, of Jewish origin. We know that his mother owned a house in Jerusalem where Peter, miraculously freed from prison, took refuge. Companion of Paul on his first great apostolic journey, he became his collaborator again after a temporary quarrel. But he seems mostly to have been in Peter’s circle, who calls him "his son", perhaps because he converted and baptized him. It was to him that the Christians of Rome, mostly from paganism, asked to put Peter’s catechesis into writing. Saint Mark wrote his gospel in Greek around the year 65.        

The Gospel According to Saint Luke

Saint Luke, the "Beloved physician" and friend of Paul, whom he accompanied during his last missionary journey and especially during the captivity in Caesarea and the trip from Caesarea to Rome, wrote his gospel after the other two synoptics. Born at Antioch and of Hellenistic culture, he aimed to introduce Christianity into literature and history. He probably wrote around 80, perhaps in Rome, for converted pagans.      

The Gospel According to Saint John

The fourth gospel constitutes an absolutely independent unity. Saint John did not feel bound by the type of catechesis inaugurated by Saint Peter. Apostle and eyewitness, he made use of his freedom. He broke with the quadripartite plan, and one can see, in the special introduction devoted to this gospel, the chronological, narrative, and spiritual differences that characterize this work compared to the synoptics. The Gospel According to Saint John was written near the end of the first century.

Excerpts from "The Life of Mary According to the Revelations of Mystics"

It is normal that in matters of faith and even revelation, there are differences. This is the case with the Gospel itself. It is the Word of God for the Church. So it is God who is the indisputable author, yet it remains the work of a human writer, an instrument of God, who retains his freedom, personality, characteristic, proper instruction, tendencies, stylistic qualities or deficiencies, for he is a living instrument, not a pen or pencil. He is the human author, thus free. And God used him from within to give shape to his Word. It is less an interaction than a coaction, for the Creator is the internal and conjoint cause of all else.      

On the natural as well as the supernatural level, in every human action, all is from God, the first cause, and all is truly from man, the second cause, whose authentic freedom God creates.

This point is, philosophically and theologically, essential.  

The four gospels are as different as possible concerning the choice of episodes: 111 pericopes out of 373 are unique to one Gospel (4 in Mark, 30 in Matthew, 36 in Luke, 41 in John), the other 262 being common sometimes to 3, sometimes to 2 evangelists. The two Childhood Gospels (Matthew 1 – 2 and Luke 1 – 2) do not share a single episode in common: not even the birth of Jesus, which Matthew does not even briefly relate. He only states, in the past tense: "Jesus having been begotten in Bethlehem, the magi came." He says begotten, not born.

Many exegetes start from their "contradictions", but there are none — neither historical nor theological — and remarkable is their agreement at these two levels, as precisely established by "Authentic Life of Jesus" and "The Gospels of Christmas": concordantia discordantium (concordance of discordances: convergence of apparent opposition) already noted in the Middle Ages.