The Evangelists

The Four Evangelists - Jacob Jordaens

The Gospel is the part of the Bible that recounts the life of Jesus, from his Incarnation to his Resurrection. It is composed of four convergent narratives whose authors, inspired by the Holy Spirit, transmitted the Word of God.    

Of 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

Contrary to commonly accepted opinion, his Gospel aims to prove that Jesus is the Messiah and to present his teaching in great discourses. This Gospel has none of the picturesque or spontaneous qualities that can be found, for example, in the Gospel of Mark.

Three qualities destined Matthew for 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 story for everyone. When you want, I can repeat it all to you. I did not keep accounts in Capernaum, and yet..."          
2. His eloquence guaranteeing a certain style:

   "He displays the old know-how he used to fleece people at his tax booth, to force others to say: 'You are right,'" says Simon Peter about him.

3. Cultured, he directly notes the discourses of Jesus, something certainly not all the other Apostles could do. Maria Valtorta alludes to this in one scene.  

He is the first to have recorded his Gospel.

But I will tell you, at the proper time, how to distribute the episodes of the three years of public life. The order of the Gospels is good but not perfect as chronological order. An attentive observer notices this.

The one who could have given the exact order of events, because he stayed with Me from the beginning of evangelization until my Ascension, did not do so. Indeed, John, true son of the Light, was occupied and concerned with making the Light shine through his garment of Flesh before the eyes of the heretics who attacked the reality of the Divinity confined in human flesh. The sublime Gospel of John has achieved its supernatural goal, but the chronicle of my public life was not helped by it.

The other three evangelists [those called the synoptics] present themselves similarly regarding events, but they alter the chronological order, because of the three, only one was present for almost all my public life: Matthew, and he only wrote it fifteen years later, while the others wrote theirs even later, having heard the account from my Mother, Peter, the other Apostles and Disciples.

Here we can see the "Q source" (from German Quelle meaning source), now lost. It contained the "logia" or sayings of Jesus and would have served as a source to 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 adoptive son of Peter.

Mark

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

This fits well several traits of Peter’s temperament. But one can also see the imprint 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 the young Margziam, Peter's adoptive son. Under the name Martial, Margziam followed Peter to Rome.    

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

Luke

He is, of all The Evangelists, the one who made a profound investigative and historical writing effort. Some events he reports could only be known from the very mouth of Mary.    

This is not the only source on the life of the Christ: Jesus himself recounts to his Apostles certain episodes, like his Temptation in the desert.  

The shepherds of the Nativity recount their memories, on their side.

"Yes, I can tell you again (the words of Mary, then a young mother), Lord, because everything she told us, in the months when we could hear her, is written here" (and he strikes his chest) recalls Benjamin, one of the shepherds of the Nativity."

John

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

The spiritual closeness of the apostle with Jesus and the fact that he witnessed all the events (he is the only apostle in this case) allow him to tell, intimately, facts 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 reproducing 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 blue and salutary course of Water, become a dusty earth and barren stones. But you will still be the river that resounds my word and reflects my light."

The Evangelists in Other Works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1943

June 28 :

I will now explain to you two points of the Gospel, one from Matthew and the other from Luke. In reality, it is one parable, but expressed with some differences. Do 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 mistakes, errors of form and not of substance. Only in the glory of God does one no longer err. But to reach it, they still had to struggle and suffer a lot. Only one of the evangelists reports what I say with phonographic accuracy. But he 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 you observe them closely, they are the gospels that reflect me best; indeed, if Luke’s style is better; his gospel can be called the gospel of my Mother and my childhood — which reports in great detail things that others do not — rather than the gospel of my public life, as it echoes mostly the others instead of bringing new light as John, the perfect evangelist of the Light, the Christ Man-God does. The Evangelists report very reduced versions of my words, to the point of being skeletal: allusions rather than versions. This deprives them of the literary style that I had given them. The Master recognizes himself 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 loving apostle, united by charity to his Christ Light. Compare what this gospel reveals of the power of the speaking Christ with what the summary and essential gospel of Mark reveals, accurate to recount the episodes heard by Peter but reduced to the minimum, and you will see whether I, who am the Word, used only a very humble style or if the power of the perfect Word often shone in me. Yes, it shines with John, though very reduced to a few episodes…"

August 15, 1949 (page 526) :

"My Mother is the only one who knew everything about me, both during my years as Son in Nazareth and when I was the Master and the Redeemer, then the glorious Resurrected one [...] The Evangelists and the Apostles partially knew this or that part of my life. But they did not know much — 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 at our side. You breathed the air of our home, the house of Joachim then of Mary, of our Nazareth, of all our Palestine. You smelled the scent of bread from the oven baked by Mary, the laundry she washed, her virginal body and mine. You inhaled the scent of the balms of Mary Magdalene, the decay of Lazarus resurrected, the scent of the lamb and the wine of the Paschal 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 ever possessed.

Commentaries on the Apocalypse

Commentaries Pages 563 and following :

Out of pity for these poor men swept away by the storm (of the last times) of blood, fire, persecution, and death, the infinite Mercy will make shine on this sea of blood and horror the pure morning Star, Mary, who will be the herald of the last coming of Christ. It follows that the new evangelizers will teach the Gospel of Mary, too often overshadowed by The Evangelists, the Apostles and all the Disciples, even though a broader knowledge of her would have served as teaching to many people, thus avoiding numerous falls. She is, indeed, [[Virgin Mary#Marie Co-rédemptrice[69]|a co-Redemptrix]] and plays the role of master: a pure life master, faithful, prudent, compassionate, and pious, both at home and among the men of her time. She has constantly taught through the centuries and is worthy to be better known as the world sinks into mud and Darkness, in order to be more imitated to bring the world back towards what is detached from it.      

Commentaries Pages 610 to 619

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

Luke, patient and strong as the ox to complement, by patient research even on what preceded the proper apostolic work of Christ and his Disciples, the work of God for the salvation of humanity. For this work of infinite love began with the immaculate conception of Mary, by the fullness of Grace granted to her, by Mary's continual communion with her Lord who, after having created 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)      

[…] Therefore, one can affirm that he 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 alone, except for his divine nature as the Firstborn 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 the sun. One finds in John the evangelist the nobility of this royal bird, his powerful flight and the power to fix 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 could reach and, by this ascent, the ability to penetrate the mystery, the truth and the Doctrine, all about the Man who was God.

Soaring like a royal eagle high above the realities of earth and humanity, he saw Christ under his true nature as the Word of God. More than the thaumaturge and martyr, John presents to us "the Master," the only perfect Master the world has known. The Master-God, the Wisdom made flesh and oral teacher of men, the Word or Speech of the Father, in other words the Word that makes the thoughts of his Father sensible to men, the Light that came to illuminate the Darkness and dispel the shadows.

John’s gospel sincerely presents the most sublime, the gentlest, the deepest truths, as well as the harshest truths. With his eagle eye and by uplifting his spirit following the spirit of the Master, he saw from above the sublime greatnesses and the extreme lownesses, he measured the full extent of Christ’s love and the hatred of the Jewish world for Christ; he saw the combat between light and Dark—those many Darknesses—that is, those of too many Enemies of his Master, among whom is even a disciple and apostle whom John clearly names, in his gospel of truth and light, by one of his true names: "thief"; he saw the dark plots, the subtle traps used to make Christ regarded badly by the Romans, the Jews and those "little ones" who formed the troop of faithful to Christ. He knows them all and makes them known, while showing Jesus in his sublime holiness, not only of God but also of man (page 615).

[…] No one understood the intimate Christ as well as John. He knew all his perfections. He penetrated the mystery and ocean of his Virtues and truly measured the height, width, and depth of this living Temple not made by human hand and which men vainly sought to destroy. Decades later, he wrote and described them, leaving us the most perfect gospel in historical truthfulness, the most powerful in Doctrine, the most luminous in sapiential and Mount Cherithative lights, the most faithful to describe episodes and characters, able to overcome the narrow-mindedness of the Jews and to even describe what the other evangelists had not dared to say: the Samaritan woman, the royal officer, the Scandal, the flight and Revolt of the Disciples against the Master after the discourse on the Bread coming down from heaven, and also the Woman adulteress, open discussions with Jews, Pharisees, scribes and teachers 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 since he had reached an advanced age, but he always remained young due to his purity and always burning with love for Christ, for no other human love had diverted the slightest flame of his love for the Beloved; John, the loving eagle of Christ, revealed Christ to us with a power superior to all others, only surpassed by that of Christ revealing his Father, which was infinite as it was the very power of God (page 617).

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

[…] Each evangelist helped compose the mosaic that reveals to us Jesus Christ Man-God, 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, all four serve, in their own aspect, as foundation and crown to the Throne where sits the one who is, was, and who must come, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all that was, is and will be; and their voices, united with those of the twenty-four elders — that is, the twelve main patriarchs and the twelve greatest prophets or major prophets — sing an eternal hymn of praise to the one who is most holy and almighty.

Osty Bible: Presentation of the Four Gospels

Very early on, fragments more or less important of Peter’s catechesis were written in Aramaic, then in Greek. Then appeared the first gospel attempts to which Saint Luke alludes in his Prologue. Finally, concerned to preserve apostolic message pure and responding to the desire of the various Christian communities, Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, and Saint Luke wrote their gospel between 50 and 80.

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew

Saint Matthew, a tax collector turned Apostle, wrote his gospel probably before 60, perhaps even about the year 50, for converted Jews of Palestine. Being an eyewitness, he used the Jerusalem catechesis of Peter, so authoritative. He added his own memories as well as written or oral information, mainly about the words of Jesus, which he gathered from the communities of Palestine. Matthew wrote in Aramaic, but his gospel was interpreted in Greek based on the text of Mark between 70 and 80, and that is the only text we have.    

The Gospel According to Saint Mark

Saint Mark, like Saint Matthew, was of Jewish origin. We know his mother owned a house in Jerusalem where Peter, miraculously freed from prison, took refuge. Companion of Paul during his first major apostolic journey, he became his collaborator again after a brief separation. But he seems above all to have been in the sphere of Peter, who called him "his son" , perhaps because he converted and baptized him. It was he whom the Christians in 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 on his last missionary journey and especially during the captivity in Caesarea and the journey from Caesarea to Rome, wrote his gospel after the two other synoptics. Born in Antioch and of Hellenic culture, he intended 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 unit. Saint John did not believe himself bound by the type of catechesis initiated by Saint Peter. Apostle and eyewitness, he used his freedom. He broke with the fourfold plan, and one will see, in the particular introduction dedicated 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 toward the end of the first century.

Excerpts from "The Life of Mary According to the Revelations of the 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. Therefore, God is the irrevocable author, but it is nonetheless the work of a human writer, an instrument of God, who retains his freedom, personality, character, own education, tendencies, stylistic qualities or deficiencies, for he is a living instrument and not a pen or pencil. He is the human author, therefore free. And God used him from within to give form to his Word. It is less about interaction than coaction, for the Creator is the internal and conjoint cause of all the rest.

At the natural level, as at the supernatural level, in all human action, everything is from God, the first cause, and everything is good from man, the second cause, from whom God creates authentic freedom.

This point is, philosophically and theologically, essential.

The four gospels are very different in episode choice: 111 pericopes out of 373 are unique to a single Gospel (4 in Mark, 30 in Matthew, 36 in Luke, 41 in John), the other 262 being common sometimes to 3, sometimes to two evangelists. The two childhood Gospels (Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2) do not share a single episode: not even the birth of Jesus which Matthew does not even narrate in summary. He only says, in the past tense: "Jesus having been begotten in Bethlehem, 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 on these two levels, as shown precisely by "The Authentic Life of Jesus" and "The Gospels of Christmas": concordantia discordantium (concordance of discordances: convergence of apparent oppositions) was already noted in the Middle Ages.

In the Catholic context, usually refers to the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) because of their common framework. Broader definition: those offering a general overview of a whole. (Example: a synoptic table).

Offering a general overview of a whole. (Example: a synoptic table). In the Catholic context, often refers to one of the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) because of their common framework.

Holy person who performs miracles of healing or resurrection (Example: Jesus the Divine Thaumaturge).

Holy person who performs miracles of healing or resurrection (Example: Jesus the Divine Thaumaturge).

Name given to characters of the Old Testament who had a long life and numerous descendants: Ex: Abraham. By extension: Elderly man having great authority over his people and inspiring deep respect.

People who analyze the historical, cultural, and literary context of Biblical texts to better understand what they meant at the time they were written and how they can be interpreted today.

In-depth research on God, faith, religious Doctrine.