Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
64 ….Are the versions of the Gospel, the original ones written by the Evangelists ?
As can be expected the versions of the Gospel that we have in hand today are copies of the Original. The originals, written by hand, by the Evangelists, are, unfortunately, lost. Many copies were made, from the originals, and, in no time, were distributed to wherever there were the Christian Communities. Again from these copies, others copies were made along the time. Naturally, when copies are made, mistakes are expected to be made.
Now, how can we know that the original four versions of the Gospel are the faithful works, recordings of the Evangelists, and therefore agree with the copies made ?
When the copies are compared it is found that they are faithful, with very slight differences, but in substance agree with each other, therefore they are faithful copies. So we have to conclude that the copies we have in hand, nowadays, are in fact faithful copies, though with slight differences from the ones used by the early communities.
We have to note that, to the writings of the Evangelists, some small addendas were made…for example, the last Chapter of Saint John, which was the work of John’s disciples. Yet we have to bear in mind that this was done under the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, during the Apostolic Age.
Should we expect to find in the Gospel the authentic, exact words, spoken by Jesus ?
No, we should not expect that the Evangelists did report this always and in every occasion. We understand this if we compare the discourses of Jesus as reported in John, with the other three Evangelists, the Synoptists. The most important, thing, is that the teachings of Jesus remain the same in the four versions.
This truth was declared by Saint Augustine, hundreds of years ago, when he wrote in his study, “De consensus Evangeliorum, II, 27s, ML 34, 1090s.” This is what Augustine said: “The Evangelists could change the words of Jesus, add to it, leave out some of His words, change the construction of some sentences, if needs be, as long as the concept , the message, the spirit, does not change.”
An example of this is found if we compare Christ’s Discourse on the Beatitudes, as we find it in Matthew and in Luke. The same goes for words of the Consecration as found in Matthew (26: 26 – 29) and Mark (14: 22 – 25) with Luke (22: 15 – 20) and St.Paul (2Cor.2: 23 – 25).
The Theological Principle which explains why the Evangelists had this liberty, this license, is because they were under the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and, one of the missions of the Spirit was to inspire the Evangelists to understand, to comprehend better and proclaim in a character, in a form, in a style that suited best, their particular circumstances, the Teachings of Jesus. /65
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