Such details in the Gospel of John are extremely significant, because they very accurately reconstruct the setting in which the events of Holy Week took place. On the other hand, some facts known from the other Gospels are omitted in John. Thus, all the synoptics speak of Simon of Cyrene, who carried the Cross of Jesus. The Evangelist Mark even gives the names of Simon's sons – Alexander and Rufus, probably these names spoke something to his readers. Perhaps the absence of Simon's name in John's narrative is the result of one of the last editions of the text of this Gospel, when everything about Simon was omitted for a very simple reason.

At the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Docetists appeared (from the Greek word "to seem"), who understood the death of Jesus on the Cross as a kind of ancient drama, as a story of the suffering of a hero reminiscent of one of the ancient gods. God cannot suffer, he is impassible, therefore, according to their version, at the last moment Jesus on the cross was replaced by a double, the role of which was played by Simon of Cyrene. From the point of view of the Docetists, the crucifixion of Jesus is a kind of mystery, a sacred act arranged by God especially for people, in the spirit of the religions of late antiquity. That is why the Gospel of John omits the theme of Simon of Cyrene altogether in order to emphasize the human, and not the mysterious, character of the Golgotha drama.

The Gospel of John shows (not just tells, but shows the reader) that Jesus Himself dies on the Cross. We see His dead body with a wound on its side, from which blood and water flow out. There is no mystery, no ritual or religious drama here – it is primarily just human suffering and just death. This is also a very important moment, reflecting not just some kind of "mechanism" of God's action among people, but a truly terrible event. In his Gospel, John polemicizes against heresies, which at the time of the creation of the Gospel had already begun to spread. With the Docetists, who, while affirming the divinity of Jesus, nullified His human nature. This is frightening, because when Jesus ceases to be a man, Christianity as a whole loses its human character and becomes not something unique, but just one of countless religions. The teaching of the Docetists is destructive because it deprives our faith of its uniqueness.

In John's narrative there are also some other details known to us from the Synoptic Gospels. For example, John does not mention the darkness that was "from the sixth hour to the ninth hour" or the earthquake that occurred at the time of Jesus' death. Obviously, the details that give the Golgotha drama an unusual character on a purely external plane, and the features borrowed from the Old Testament apocrypha, do not interest the Evangelist. He writes real history and therefore does not turn to the language of biblical images and biblical poetry; it does not depict the superhuman character of what is happening, but emphasizes the human character of the events of Good Friday.

Let us compare some more moments in different Gospel narratives. Thus, Mark has two details that are absent from the other evangelists (they have already been mentioned above): the names of the sons of Simon of Cyrene, and Pilate's surprise when he learned that Jesus had already died. Only Luke says that Pilate, having learned that Jesus is from Galilee, sends Him to Herod the tetrarch; only Luke describes everything that happens in Herod. This detail doesn't seem to have much significance in terms of what Jesus teaches and calls us to, but it's quite colorful, and Luke, as a historian, emphasizes it. Only he reports on the dying prayer of Jesus: "Father! into Thy hands I commend My spirit." In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: "It is finished!" In Mark and Matthew, He pronounces the words from the 22nd Psalm, which are preserved here in the Aramaic version: "Eli, Eli! Lama Savahthani?", that is: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

Modern biblical scholars, commenting on the prayer that Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke, say that when He dies, He turns to God with the first prayer that small children were taught to pray before going to bed. Finally, only Luke conveys two more purely psychological details. The women of Jerusalem, seeing Jesus going to Golgotha, weep. He addresses them: "Daughters of Jerusalem! weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." Only in Luke does the wise thief appear, although all the Evangelists mention the two thieves crucified together with Jesus.

In the Gospel of Matthew, which conveys the facts more concisely than the other Gospels, the logia or ipsissima verba, Jesus' own words, play a large role: the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the story of the Last Judgment, etc. In other words, this Gospel is dominated by the direct speech of Jesus, and the narrative part is shortened. At the same time, only Matthew says that Pilate washes his hands, but we can understand why he does this only thanks to the Gospel of John. From Matthew we learn that Pilate's wife sent a message to him not to do anything to "That Righteous One." From the Gospel of John – that Pilate doubts what to do, also because he does not know Who is in front of him – maybe it is some kind of pagan god? But his residual religiosity (as the residual religiosity of the Romans of his time was in general) is defeated by political motives, fear for his career.

We know that this was the attitude of the majority of educated Romans of that time to religion from the works of Roman poets – Ovid, Albius Tibullus, Lucretius and others, which reflect real life, the real views of the Romans of the first century on the gods, on piety. Women are still religious, they perform some rituals, fast, pray, and so on; Men, on the other hand, have lost faith in the gods, although they remember them when they are afraid of something, but then they forget about them. This is what we see in the Gospel of John. When the Gospels of Matthew and John are compared, the picture is complete, and Pilate looks like a typical Roman, a representative of his era. Finally, only Matthew tells us that Pilate allows the bishops to seal the tomb and place guards.

In very different ways, in different language, with the mention of different details, the four Evangelists tell about Passion Week. But from the comparison of their texts, an absolutely complete picture emerges. Nothing in the Gospel is so precise, stunningly authentic as the stories of Holy Week. And the more you read the Gospel lines, the more you compare the testimonies of the four Evangelists, the more the ultimate reliability of the Gospel text is revealed. Each new generation of exegetes discovers more and more new details that were not noticed by their predecessors — so rich is the Gospel narrative of information. It can be safely said that the Gospels have not yet been read to the end, and, apparently, in the future, during the parallel reading of the four Gospels, more and more new material will be revealed.

Chapter 21.

RESURRECTED

After His Resurrection, Jesus begins to appear among the disciples, and always unexpectedly. This is told in the last two chapters of the Gospel of John. He appears in a room that is locked and then disappears, leaving the students in a state of bewilderment. The line between His presence and absence is now blurred—it cannot be said that He is here, but it cannot be said that He is not. At the same time, the disciples, seeing the Teacher, either rejoice, or are confused, or frightened, or simply do not understand who this appearing person is, and therefore they do not immediately recognize Him. The presence of Jesus, to which they have become accustomed in recent years and months, is replaced by His appearance.

In the epilogue of the Gospel of Mark, which also tells about the appearances of Jesus, the key words are "appeared" and "they did not believe."

"Rising early on the first day of the week, Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene... She went and told those who were with Him, weeping and weeping. But when they heard that He was alive and that she had seen Him, they did not believe it. After this, He appeared in a different form to two of them on the road, when they were going to the village. And they, having returned, announced to the rest; But they were not believed either. At last He appeared to the eleven themselves, who were reclining at the supper, and reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him risen" (Mark 16:9-14).