m2£id-
52
THE FOURTH GOSPEL
o
additional matter peculiar to Ms own Gospel. The Synoptic Gospels are composite works; several strata of evangelic record are embedded in them, primary and secondary traditions. As for the earlier traditions, the primary elements, they are, generally speak- ing, to be looked for in ' Q ' and in the Marcan Gospel. Or in other words; of our Four Canonical Gospels 'John' is certainly the latest — and perhaps the latest by a long way; as for the remaining three, they are nearer to the events they purport to relate, and it is safe to say of the Synoptic tradition that it stretches back to Apostolic times and to the very days of Jesus. The earlier the narrative the greater, generally speaking, the likelihood of its substantial historicity ; and hence preferences accorded to the Synoptic repre- sentation are well grounded. Nor would such preference necessarily become unreasonable were it proved to demonstration that the Fourth Evangelist was none other than the Apostle John; for in that case account might not unnaturally be taken of failing memory consequent on extreme old age.
Let it be borne in mind that preference for the Synoptic repre- sentation as against 'John' is not invariably bound up with dogmatic prejudices — with the view that the historic Jesus never outsteps the limits of the purely human — but that it is compatible with a recognition of the claims made by the Johannine Christ.
There is another consideration. It has been said that answers to the questions inevitably raised when our Gospel is confronted with the Synoptics are certain to vary with the varying concep- tions of a divine revelation to mankind; the remark follows that it is nothing short of a boon that Christian' thought is no longer fettered by outworn mechanical theories of inspiration and inter- pretation in the case of the Bible literature^. To narrow down to the Gospels; in the old and disastrous view the Evangelists were passive agents, men who could not choose but write down words from divine dictation, 'living pens grasped and guided by an Almighty hand^.' A more enlightened view obtains ; and today — at all events in instructed circles — account is taken of their re-
^ Barth, op. cit. pp. 13 f.
2 'Das Bibelbuch gait als Einheit, die Einzelverfasser nur als Griffel des hi. Geistes,' von Dobschiitz, Der gegenwdrt. Stand dcr N.T. Exegese.
JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS
53
spective personalities. Illustrating a marked diversity of type, of temperament, and of environment, their own proper individuality is never lost. Each one tells his own tale, and tells it in his own way. Neither to the men themselves nor to their respective writings does infallibility attach.
A contrast of some sort between ' John' and the Synoptics, then, there can scarcely fail to be. Diverse are the individualities of the respective Evangelists ; what more natural than that there should be some display of diversity of style and standpoint and manner of presentment ? Similarly in regard to choice of matter ; — there would be nothing necessarily abnormal were this or that Evangelist, say at once the Fourth Evangelist, to refrain, on the one hand, from attempting to cover the whole ground, or, on the other hand, to supply what he deemed lacking in the other narra- tives^. Neither he nor the Synoptics are infallible. If he corrects them and makes his alterations in them, it is exactly what two of them have already done with a third ; Mt. and Lk. have treated Mark with a very free hand. Let us add that mere priority is not in itself an absolute guarantee of accuracy, nor is inaccuracy necessarily connoted by lateness of date.
To proceed without further delay to a comparison which will fasten on the following questions : — Chronology, The Scene of the Ministry, John the Baptist, Miracle, The Discourses, The Synoptic and the Johannine Portrait of Jesus.
I. Chronology. The independent attitude of the Fourth Evan- gelist is manifested in his extension of the duration of the Ministry and in his bold transpositions of events and dates.
One instance is the date of the beginning of the Ministry. According to the Marcan GospeP, it was not until after the Bap- tist's imprisonment that Jesus entered upon his work; not so in the Fourth Gospel, where he is pictured as already active at a time when the Baptist, stUl at liberty, was still drawing followers to himself^. The narratives appear to be mutually exclusive; yet attempts have been made to bring them into some sort of harmony by urging that the otherwise unexplained readiness of Simon,
^
1 Zahn, Einl. ii, p. 499. ^ jyjk i, 14; cf. Mt. iv, 12.
3 Jn iii, 23 E.
Bi-r.-Sic
THE PROBLEM
OF
THE FOURTH GOSPEL
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS C. F. CLAY, IVIanager
LONDON
Ff.ttf.r Lane, E.G. 4
EDINBURGH
too Princes Street
NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'5 SONS
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, MADRAS: MACMILLAN AND CO., Li
TORONTO: J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd.
TOK.YO: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
All rights reserved
THE PROBLEM decs :9
OF ^<^CAL r^
THE FOURTH GOSPEL
BY
H. LATIMER JACKSON, D.D.,
of Christ's College, Cambridge ; sometime Hulsean Lecturer
Author of The Fourth Gospel and some recent German
Criticism^ The Preseyit State of the Synoptic Problem
{Cambridge Biblical Essays), The Eschatology
of Jesas, etc.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1918
TO
THE MASTER AND FELLOWS
OF
CHRIST'S COLLEGE
deep feelings had impress'd
Great objects on his mind, with portraiture And colour so distinct, that on his mind They lay like substances, and almost seem'd To haunt the bodily sense.
Wordsworth, The Excursion.
PREFACE
IF I venture the following personal explanation, the reason is simply and solely this : I have been advised clearly to define the relations between the present volume and a little work of mine which, published about a dozen years ago, was entitled The Fourth Gospel and some recent German Criticism.
Let me accordingly inform the reader that, when asked for a second edition of a work which — so, at all events, people were good enough to tell me — had served a useful purpose, I was for some time loth to acquiesce in such altogether unexpected but certainly encouraging suggestions. It was, indeed, far from being the case that, because the fates had determined that I should stray into Synoptic fields and the region of Eschatological research, I had therefore ceased to be fascinated by the Johannine literature en masse, and in particular by the very noble treatise which bears the name of 'John'; on the contrary, I had actually betaken myself to what bade fair to be a prolonged and laborious attempt to trace connecting links between the ' Schmerzenskind der Theologie' (as Pfleiderer calls the Fourth Gospel) and that great writing of — may I say it? — uncertain provenance which is desig- nated 'The Epistle to the Ephesians.' My hesitation was, of course, partly due to natural reluctance even temporarily to forsake a work which was already rising on the stocks; it was, however, mainly grounded in a difficulty which stared me in the face. To put the matter in a nut-shell: I was speedily compelled to realize that, were any action taken in response to the aforesaid kindly suggestions, it would mean that time must be found for the drastic re-wiiting of a work which I could but turn to with added dissatisfaction and no small measure of dissent. Mere revision was not to be thought of.
Somehow or other time has been found — or rather made; and in the event the present volume arrives at its completion.
viii PREFACE
Looking to the circumstanr-es, it had better be accompanied by something like a warning note. To all intents and pm^poses a new book, it wears but slight, if any, resemblance to its now superseded predecessor, and there is significance in the fact that, if old pages have been utilized, not one of them re-appears intact. To speak quite frankly: the contrast extends from arrangement and amplification to view and standpoint ; and, should any one be at pains to institute a comparison, he will scarcely fail to observe that — to quote from the Preface to the earlier volume— I have been only too 'glad to claim liberty to disagree with myself.' Nor will he be surprised if, the question being of 'das Haupt- problem aller Bibel-Kritik,' the same liberty be claimed in the present instance.
Obviously a change of title was imperative ; and my regret on this score is that, as there is no need to inform me, the one ulti- mately acquiesced in promises far more than the book performs.
There is, perhaps, less ground of apprehension as my eye is caught by an incisive sentence in Professor Percy Gardner's Ephesian Gospel; it runs thus: 'no one has a right to publish a book about the (Fourth) Gospel who has not in a measure surveyed the mass of literature' called forth by the intricate and delicate subject. That Dr Gardner's requirements in the case of others are satisfied by himself is patent ; and if so be that my friend — he will allow me so to speak of him — now puts me on my defence, I can make appeal, I fancy, to the ' heavily documented ' pages now gone to press. They shall bear witness on my behalf; — not only that the works of modern scholars and students have really been ' in a measure surveyed ' by me, but also that, consequent on much ransacking of libraries, acquaintance has been made or renewed with not a few pioneers of Fourth Gospel criticism. In the case of these last my experience has been similar to that of Friedrich Nippold : the reading or re-reading of their books has, speaking generally, been fraught with both interest and reward.
It may be politic to add that, not exactly content to read books about the Fourth Gospel, I have had that Gospel itself continually at my side.
Large is my debt of gratitude. As might be expected, it
PREFACE ix
points first and foremost to Cambridge; but the friends more immediately concerned will readily understand why they are not alluded to by name. Once again it bids me dwell on the literary help, varied and continuous, which I am privileged to receive from my wife. It extends to foreign soil; and it is just here that, altogether refusing to discard the aid of German scholarship, I am painfully alive to the dark reasons which emphatically forbid mte to allude as heretofore to Germany as a second home. Yet even so I look ahead ; and it is to indulge a hope that, to adapt from John Inglesant, old friends and he who cannot banish them from his thoughts may hereafter find themselves 'standing together in a brighter dawn.'
Little Canfield Rectory, Essex, Christmas Day, 1917.
^ NOTE
There are two points on which, perhaps, a few words ought to be said. To begin with, I have been guided to the decision that, as regards pronouns relative to the divine names, the use of capitals shoidd be dispensed with — except, now and again, when they occur in citations; I adhere, that is, generally to the principle adopted in the English Bible. And next; the question of an Index having been duly considered, it has seemed best to offer as substitute such a detailed Synopsis of Contents as will, I trust, enable readers to find their way about my book.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
PAGES
PREFACE vii-ix
INTRODUCTORY xix-xxiv
' Religious eclipse ' ; reasons for and features of display, p. xix. Attention concentrated on Jesus; theological specialists responsive to present-day demands; Biblical research, aim and methods, pp. xx-xxii. Gospel criticism, false impressions and baseless apprehensions, pp. xxii-xxiii. Right attitude to adopt, pp. xxui-xxiv.
CHAPTER I
'the gospel according to ST JOHN' 1-7
The 'favourite' Gospel, p. 1. Prepossessions and convictions; the gauntlet thrown down to traditional behef; survey of Fourth Gospel criticism from its inception to modern times, pp. 2-5. Re-assuring words, p. 6. The Jesus of the First Three Gospels, and ' the problem of the Person of Christ,' p. 7.
CHAPTER II
APPROXIMATE DATE OF THE GOSPEL 8-17
Rise of a distinctively Christian hterature; 'many' Gospels; four remain masters of the field; different orders of sequence; the titles, significance of (card; whUe the Synoptics are ' sister- works ' the 'Fourth Gospel' in a category by itself, pp. 8-10. Preliminary inquiry as to its approximate date; the two extreme Hmits; Irenaeus and Heracleon, the terminus ad quern in any case not later than a.d. 180, pp. 10-1 1. The terminus a quo ; Fourth Evangehst acquainted with the Synoptics, hence his Gospel subsequent to the latest of the 'sister-works,' uncertainty as to date of Mt. and Lk. ; an 'entweder — oder,' pp. 11-12. Evidence more or less suggestive for nearer dating of 'John's' Gospel: — 2 Pet., the Alogi, Second Epistle of Clement (so-called), Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, Epistle of Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, the docetic Gospel of Peter, Papias and Polycarp, Ignatius, Epistle to Diognetus, BasiLides and the Valentinians, pp. 12-16. Provisional conclusion; Fourth Gospel prior to ca. a.d. 135, not earUer than date of the latest Synoptic Gospel — either ca. a.d. 75-80 or close of the first century, p. 17.
62
xii SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER III
AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION 18-30
A confident verdict. At this stage question strictly confined to ex- ternal evidence; support not lacking for the 'orthodox opinion,' p. 18. Eusebius, pp. 19-20. Origen, p. 20. Irenaeus, pp. 20-21. The Alogi, Monarchian Prologue, Muratorian Canon, pp. 21-23. Clement of Alexandria, pp. 23, 24. Irenaeus, Polycarp, Polycrates, pp. 24-26. Threads gathered up; Theophilus of Antioch; situation complicated by appearance of 'John the Presbyter'; the crucial passage from Papias; Eusebius on Papias and Irenaeus; inferences; the two tombs at Ephesus, pp. 26-28. Difficulty of identifying the Beloved Disciple with the Apostle John, conceivable death by martyrdom of the latter; two traditions ultimately combined in assertions as to two Johns of Ephesus; one John only to be reckoned with, p. 29. Concluding remarks ; external evidence far from conclusive for traditional authorship, pp. 29, 30.
CHAPTER IV
INTERNAL EVIDENCE 31-48
Provisional decisions hitherto arrived at; inquiry now passes from external to internal evidence; questions raised by such evidence both direct and indirect; p. 31.
(i) Direct Evidence
Diversity of opinion relative to 'self -witness' of the Gospel, pp. 32, 33. Examination of crucial passages; the 'we' of Jn i, 14, 16, pp. 33, 34; the crux of commentators, Jn xix, 35, significance of iKfivoi, pp. 34, 35; the perplexing verses Jn xxi, 24, 25, pp. 35-38. Literary sanctions of the ancient world; no question of 'UbeUing the dead,' the Fourth Evangehst not necessarily the ^falsarius' if one who made himself 'organ' of the eye-witness, pp. 38, 39. The ' self -testimony ' of the Gospel raises more riddles than it solves, p. 39.
(ii) Indirect Evidence
The field widens; issues numerous, here narrowed down as the Gospel is taken by itself apart, pp. 39, 40. Its author writes for a Gentile community, p. 40. Is not a Gentile but a Jew; and, probably, a Jew of Palestine, pp. 40—42. Generally famiUar with scenes depicted; not guilty of shp in respect of topography, pp. 42, 43. Yet doubt awakened by manner of allusion to Caiaphas: apx^fpfvi av rov eviavrov eKeivov, pp. 43, 44. Questions raised by the discourse-matter; monotony of idea and diction, constructed speeches, pp. 44-46.
Tentative conclusions prompted by the internal evidence in its two forms, pp. 47, 48.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
THE JOHANNINE AND THE SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATION
49-82
Jewish scholarship on the Jewish background and provenance of a Gospel which is now to be confronted with the Sjoioptics ; sharp contrast affirmed, alleged pecuUarity of the Johannine representation, pp. 49-51. General remarks on the Synoptic Gospels; differences between them and 'John' which might reasonably be expected, pp. 51-53. Comparison instituted as follows:
(i) Chronology
Beginning, duration, of the Ministry; Cleansing of the Temple; the 'Death-day' of Jesus, pp. 53-58.
(ii) Scene of the Ministry
Discrepancy as stated; not so certain that the representations are mutually exclusive; reasons why the Fourth Evangelist preferred to accentuate that Judaean Ministry which the Synoptists by no means exclude, pp. 58-60.
(iii) John the Baptist
The two portraits; neither of them, perhaps, true to hfe; process of subordination of John to Jesus; in the Johannine representation the Baptist is a foil to Jesus; Baptist-disciples of a later day, pp. 60, 61.
(iv) Miracle
Summarized contentions; question of 'the miraculous,' pp. 61, 62. Omission by Fourth Evangelist of demoniac-cures, pp. 62, 63. Enumera- tion of the Johannine 'signs,' pp. 63, 64. Admissions as to enhancement, and pm-pose, pp. 64, 65. The Johannine ' signs ' from the modern point of view; the EvangeMst in the main concerned with their symbohsm; 'outward narrative' and spiritual significance, pp. 66-68.
(v) The Discourses
Objections, the Synoptic and Johannine representations deemed mutu- ally exclusive; Justin Martyr on the sayings of Jesus, pp. 68-70. Monotony pervading Fourth Gospel; apt statement of the position; arguments relative to manner and matter of speeches placed in the lips of the Johannine Christ, pp. 70-73. A contrast too sharp to be explained away; the real hearers of the Johannine Christ, pp. 73, 74.
(vi) The Synoptic and Johannine portraits of Jesus
The categorical 'either — or' of past and present criticism, p. 75. Accord- ing to the Marcan representation Jesus is true man, exceptionally great, exalted above purely human greatness, pp. 75-77. The Johannine
xiv SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
Christ a regal personage, transcends mere manhood, features indicatir^ real humanity, pp. 78-80. Resemblance admitted; the two portraits nevertheless diverse in type; predominance of the \6yos over the adp^ in the Fourth Gospel representation, p. 80.
Summary and conclusions
Contrast between the two representations insufificiently accounted for by natural diversity as between author and author. In respect to some points it has perhaps been exaggerated; yet it must be admitted in the case of others, viz. the miraculous, the discourse-matter, portraits of Jesus. To turn from the Synoptics to the Fourth Gospel is to breathe a different atmosphere, to be transported to a world of Greek life and thought, pp. 81, 82.
CHAPTER VI
THE SELF-DATING OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL 83-96
Recapitulation; question for discussion, the Gospel in its relation to event, circumstance, movement, of period, p. 83. Rising headed by Bar Cochba, pp. 83, 84. Marcion and his followers, pp. 85, 86. Baptist- disciples, Ebionites, Montanism, pp. 86, 87. Gnosticism, summarized account of; Pauline Epistles pp. 87-90. Heracleon and BasUides; two extreme positions stated; Fourth Gospel points to a day when BasiUdes and Valentinian had not yet elaborated their systems, pp. 90, 91. Possible extent of life-time of the Beloved Disciple; not absolutely necessary to date Gospel within life- time of any actual eye-witness; reasons precluding very early date, pp. 91, 92. The Paschal controversy; Polycarp and Anicetus; rationale of Quarto-decimanism, three views as to; doubtful whether the perplexing question throws light on date of Fourth Gospel, pp. 92-96. Perhaps safe to place it in the period a.d. 100 ( ? 90)-125. Attitude of the Evangelist to Roman State, p. 96, note.
CHAPTER VII
LITERARY STRUCTURE OF THE GOSPEL 97-104
Processes of combination and compilation in the case of Old and New Test, writings generally; question at issue in respect of Fourth Gospel, pp. 97, 98. Contentions for unity, divergent opinions as to appendix chapter, pp. 98, 99. The Gospel widely held to be a composite work; 'partitionists' and 'revisionists,' pp. 99, 100. Features presented; dis- arrangements, p. 101. Interpolations, apparent difference of conception, the discourse-sections, pp. 101-103. Provisional conclusions; working hypothesis, pp. 103, 104.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS xv
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAKING OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL 105-123
Three-fold question for consideration; (a) authorship of main fabric of Gospel, growing tendency to look away from the Apostle John, pp. 105, 106. Conjectures and hypotheses which fasten on the author of 'Ephesians'; on author of Epistle to the Hebrews who is identified with Apollos; on one who, a Samaritan by birth, may have known the Beloved Disciple (who is Andrew) in Parthia; on the Beloved Disciple who is really the Gnostic Menander; on John Mark, pp. 107-110. Significance of all such conjectures, p. 110. Tentative conclusions; identity of Fourth Evangelist remains undisclosed, pp. 110, 111. (6) Method adopted by him in composition of his work; question of 'inspiration': period of systematic preparation, sources, material; actual composition long time in hand; his work composite yet a unity, pp. 111-114. (c) Processes whereby Fourth Gospel assumed its present form: conjectures, pp. 114, 115. Disarrangement and dislocation, pp. 115, 116. Attempt to distinguish between EvangeUst and redactor (or redactors); preliminary considerations, p. 116. Two sections ruled out by textual criticism; of the appendix chapter; xix, 35; allusions to Beloved Disciple and to Caiaphas; iii, 11; passages and sections sugges- tive of another mind, illustrating diversity of view, pp. 117-119. Re- corded manifestations of Risen Lord, pp. 119-121. The Prologue, pp. 121, 122. Concluding remarks, pp. 122, 123.
CHAPTER IX
THEN — AND NOW 124^-141
Summary of results, pp. 124, 125. Personahty of the Evangehst; con- trasted with Philo, pp. 125-127. His purpose; to what extent polemical; addresses himself primarily to the 'ye' of xx, 31; seeks to confirm dis- ciples and friends in the faith to which he himself has risen, yet with wider circles in his mind, pp. 127-129. Wherein the great service rendered by him for his own day consisted; type of the true free-thinker and hberator within the Christian Church, perhaps object of suspicion and distrust; inviting controversy his Gospel looked askance at; was it intended to be a 'permanent Gospel'?, pp. 129-131. Its significance and value for the modern world ; ghmpses afforded by it of the circumstances and conditions of its own period, pp. 131, 132. While not imperative to rule it out altogether as a source for the Life of Jesus, it must be used with caution, pp. 132, 133. The real Jesus and the Christ of the EvangeKst's experience; Christology of the Gospel, its significance relative to un- solved problem of the Person of Christ, pp. 133, 134. Some main points: (o) reflexions suggested by this time of war; Mr Lloyd Grcorge on in- adequacy of materiahstic national ideals — 'man cannot five by bread alone'; great ideal upheld by the Gospel, pp. 134, 135. (6) Insists on spiritual worship as against exaggerated importance attached to other- wise legitimate and helpful ceremonial, pp. 136, 136. (c) Spectacle of a rent and tattered Christendom; 're-union' much in men's minds;
xvi SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
Gospel points from external uniformity to unity in diversity, pp. 136, 137. (rf) A period of transition, pressing need to provide new embodiment for newly-apprehended truth; what the Evangehst essayed and wrought in and for his own times; how he serves as present-day guide, his message, pp. 137-139. Suggestiveness of the promise xvi, 13, p. 139. Creeds and creed-construction on lines indicated by the Evangehst, pp. 139, 140. Vision of accomplished unity in diversity for Christendom, for humanity, pp. 140, 141.
EXCURSUS I
THE DEATH OF JOHN SON OF ZBBEDEE 142-150
Jiilicher's hypothesis, John the Apostle met a 'tragic end.' The pre- diction Mk X, 35^0 =Mt. XX, 20-25, expectation suggested by it, pp. 142, 143. Statement attributed to Papias by Georgius Hamartolus and Philip of Side, divergent opinions respecting its value; tentative con- clusion, pp. 143-145. The statement apparently supported by notices and allusions, as follows: (a) Heracleon as cited by Clem. Alex., (6) apocr. Martyrdom of Andrew and alleged conclave at Jerusalem, (c) Syriac Martyrology, (d) Aphrahat, pp. 145-147. Of unequal value, yet cumula- tive effect, pp. 147, 148. Of the historicity of incident recorded Mk x, 35-40, p. 148. Assumption being that the Apostle John met a violent end, questions of locality and date; no longer easy to dismiss story of martyrdom as 'altogether untrustworthy,' pp. 148-150.
EXCURSUS II
THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 151-170
Questions raised, p. 151. Fourth Gospel references to Beloved Disciple (xiii, 23 ff. ; xviii, 15 fif. ; xix, 25 ff. ; xx, 2 ff. ; xxi, 1-24), impressions con- veyed by them, pp. 150-154. Whether a real personage or an ideal figure, pp. 154, 155. On assumption of a real man, question of identity with the son of Zebedee; remarks on habit, inveterate with many, of taking the Gospels as a single work; composite biographies, by consequence, offered of Apostle John, pp. 155, 156. The son of Zebedee as he figures in the Synoptics, in Acts, in Galatians; what suggested by the notices; room for conjectures, pp. 156-159. Fragmentary tradition; stories related of aged disciple of Ephesus who in course of time is identified with the Apostle; comparison instituted between the Synoptic John and the Johannine Beloved Disciple; the question is of two distinct personages, pp. 160-164. Conjectures which identify the Beloved Disciple with Judas Iscariot; with Nathaniel; with Lazarus; with the John of Acts iv, 5; with the 'certain young man' of Mk xiv, 51; with Aristion; with the rich young ruler (Mk x, 17 pars), pp. 164-168. Discussion of 'phrase of blessed memory' ; of the term (TriaTr]dios; unsafe to differentiate between ov cfyiXds and riynwa; two alternatives in respect of Beloved Disciple sections of Fourth Gospel, pp. 168-170. Identity of the Beloved Disciple — if a real person — in any case undis- closed, p. 170.
ABBREVIATIONS
AV Authorised Version.
CB The Century Bible (Eng. text, A.V. and R.V., with notes).
CBE Essays on some Biblical Questions of the day, by Members of the
Univ. of Cambridge (Edited by H. B. Swete, D.D.). CTE Essays on some Theological Questions of the day, by Members of
the Univ. of Cambridge (Edited by H. B. Swete, D.D.). DB Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible.
DCO Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.
DAG Hastings' Dictionary of the Apostolic Church.
EB The Encyclopaedia Biblica.
Einl. or Intr. Einleitung, Introduction. Exp. The Expositor (Edited by Sir W. R. Nicoll).
GHD The Gospels as Historical Documents, by V. H. Stanton, D.D.
HBNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament (Tiibingen, edited by Lietz-
mann). HCNT Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament (Tubingen, Freiburg
and Leipzig). HE Eusebius, Histor. Eccles.
HJ The Hibbert Journal.
JE The Jeunsk Encyclopaedia.
JTS The Journal of Theological Studies.
LXX The Septuagint.
LZ Literarisches ZentraVblatt.
NKZ Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift.
NTAF The New Testament in the Apos. Fathers (Oxford Society of
Histor. Theology). BOO Die Religion in der Geschichte und Gegenwart (Tiibingen, edited
by Schiele). RV Revised Version.
Schw. TZ Schweiz. Theol. Zeitschrift. SK Studien und Kritiken.
8NT Die Sckriften des Neuen Testamentes (edited by Joh. Weiss).
TLZ Theologische Liter aturzeitung.
TB Theologische Rundschau.
T8 Texts and Studies (Cambridge).
TT Theolog. Tijdschrift (Haarlem).
TU Texte und Untersuchungen.
ZKO Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte.
ZTK Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche.
ZWT Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftliche Theologie.
INTRODUCTORY
'Our age is one of religious eclipse^.' Decades have elapsed since the remark was penned, but, in view of enhanced unsettlement and perplexity, it is aptly descriptive of the present situation. Nor are reasons for such ' eclipse ' far to seek ; they point not only to wide-spread restlessness in every department of human life, but, in particular, to discovery in the realm of physical science, to explorations in the comparatively new field of Comparative Reli- gion, last but not least to new aims and methods and results in respect of Biblical Research. It is patent that, in educated circles, the church-going habit, if retained, is often accompanied by a sense of inquietude and loss, and that assent to traditional belief ever and again ceases to be half-hearted and merges in definite negation^; as for the less instructed masses, restraint may be put on gibe and scoff, but numbers stand doggedly aloof, not neces- sarily from religion, but from organized Christian life^. Again it might be said with truth : ' at the present moment two things about the Christian religion must surely be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One is, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is ^.'
The latter assertion, no doubt, hits the mark. As for its im- mediate predecessor, it is still based on solid fact ; in that symptoms are numerous which testify to strong desires for 'dogmatic views and conceptions which, better grounded than the " Katechismus- weisheit" of the traditional theology, shall the better harmonize with modern thought^.' Unbelief, aloofness, hostility to ecclesi- asticism, there may be ; — the signs of the times ^ are such as to
1 Goldwin Smith, In Quest of Light, p. 39.
2 A recent little book entitled An Englishman's Farewell to his Church is pathetically significant.
* Cf. Soltau, Unsere Evangelien, p. 2.
* Matthew Arnold, Ood and the Bible, p. xiv,
* Soltau, ibid.
* Among them might, perhaps, be reckoned the eager demand for such a book as Mr H. G. Wells' God the Invisible King.
XX INTRODUCTORY
suggest that ' the great body of maiikind will not long live without a faith ^.'
And let it be remarked that, if unsettlement and dissatisfaction in the sphere of religious thought and action there undoubtedly be, it is nevertheless certain that — with natural variety of mani- festation in individual cases — the 'Founder of Christianity' has not ceased to occupy an exalted place in human minds. It is not one man only who forces himself to ask: 'What have I come to think of Christ ^ ' ? the self-same question is being raised in many quarters, nor is effort spared in anxious search for answers which shall in some sort satisfy the inquirer and end suspense. In no preceding century has attention been so concentrated on Jesus as is the case in the modern world ^; to him all eyes are directed*. 'Amidst the crumbling of old forms and institutions, when that new order is dawning for which one and aU hope but which no one may as yet discern, the gaze is riveted on Jesus with an intensity hitherto unknown. That precisely at this juncture he has some word for us and we great need of him is not so much an intellectual perception as a profound consciousness which is overwhelming for the inmost soiil ^.' Or to turn from continental scholarship : *I have yet to hear one college man among all the thousands I have taught speak but in admiration of him' if the view in the main stops short at the belief that 'He reaUy lived and that He was the profoundest ethical teacher the world had produced,' is the striking testimony but lately borne by a University Professor in the United States^. Turning once again to England, it is a dis- tinguished Jew who says : ' Perhaps in the future Christianity and Judaism will be able to shake hands over the Sermon on the Mount and the fundamental elements in the moral and religious doctrine of Jesus'.'
^ Hunger, Freedom of Faith, p. 6. Cf. Percy Gardner, The Ephesian Gospel, p. 354.
^ Diary of a Church-goer, p. 74. What think ye of Christ? is, by the way, the title of a little book from the pen of C. E. Raven which, if inviting sharp criticism, is in many ways suggestive. ' Westermann, ZTK, xv, p. 523.
« Seeberg, NKZ, xiv, pp. 437 ff.
^ Wemle, Quellen des Lebens Jesu, p. 1.
« Carl HolUday, HJ, xv, p. 302.
' Montefiore, Synop. Gospels, i, p. cvii.
INTRODUCTORY xxi
Thus, the wide world over, does the case appear to stand. Then let us remark further that the problems which are to-day- exercising the minds of thousands — of whom many, by reason of insufficient knowledge, are in sore need of help and guidance — have long been, and still are, grappled with by specialists in the diverse fields of theological research. If a duty laid in particular on this age be that of fearless and withal reverent investigation into sources, it is fully realized by scholars who, both at home and abroad, are, unquestionably, showing themselves alive to the demand; and, one and all concerned for truth, deep seriousness and transparent honesty of purpose go with them to their work ^. Rightly conceived of, their unremitting toil is in reality a response to 'the desire of Christendom' (nor yet of Christendom alone) 'for the fullest and most exact knowledge possible of the historic life and ministry of Jesus 2'; and to them gratitude is due for that 'now, again, in our own times, the human Christ has come back to us in the fulness of His manhood ^.' Truly this is so ; yet the reminder is timely that ' for our knowledge of what ... He is to-day, we do not depend on our Scriptures ; other evidence, vast and varied, is forthcoming in the gesta Christi in the history of the world*.'
To make room here for a word or two as to the lines followed by critical students of the Bible literature generally; and on the attitude towards them which non-specialists may reasonably adopt.
It was said in effect at the outset, that 'in these days we have to reckon with a combination of new studies, with new methods, and new results of study.' Again to make use of borrowed words: 'The study of the past has become a science'; and, while in time past the student was 'content to glean from early records a pictur- esque or a majestic story,' more precise now is his aim and more precise are his methods. He is forced to define; he 'analyses his authorities, compares them, weighs them in the balances of his
1 Instances of levity and flippancy are rare.
* Wendt, St John's Oospd, p. 1. See also Gunkel, Zum religionsgesch. Veratdndnis des N.T., Vorwort.
' Beth une- Baker, Nestorius, p. 208.
* Bethune-Baker, Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, 8th June, 1913.
xxii INTRODUCTORY
critical judgement'; he discriminates sources, and, taking account of differences, gauges their significance; and essays to estimate whatever historical values they may possess. 'Chronicles become documents which he has to interpret, to reduce to their original elements of fact and romance ' ; the one only thing which it is his business to discover and present is Truth, and he accordingly works on as convinced that 'in the end there will come a great reward in pure and trustworthy knowledge.' Nor is the case otherwise when, the question no longer pointing to secular literature, the writings which constitute the 'Divine Library' are the field of research; on the contrary, both aim and method are essentially the same. It was inevitable that so it should be in respect of the varied writings of the Old Testament; and as inevitable was it that a time should come when, as it actually has come, inquiry should fasten on the varied contents of the New Testament, in particular on the records of the Life of Jesus. 'Christianity is a historical religion'; as such it distinctly challenges that historical investigation which finds its focal point and centre in Gospel criticism^.
Gospel Criticism. It is a fearsome thing for many a devout soul which not seldom labours under the false impression that criticism is but another word for wholesale denial and rejection. By well- meaning if scarcely well-informed upholders of 'the Old Gospel' as against 'the New Theology' it is often blatantly denounced. With curious disregard of claims justly advanced by, or on behalf of, masculine types of intelligence, it is asserted of those engaged in it that they are occasion of stumbling to that 'weaker brother' whose pose, in point of fact, is often highly suggestive of riding rough-shod over others while expecting and demanding considera- tion for himself^. As if Truth itself were endangered by honest
1 F. H. Chase, Supernatural Elements, pp. 4-6; CTE, pp. 374 ff. See also Bethiine-Baker, Sermon. Dr Bethune-Baker's remarks on 'what is called a moderate criticism ' should be carefully noted and digested.
^ 'Experience. . .tends to show that it is the rams, rather than the lambs, that at right and especially at wrong times, are wont to let the world know that they are being scandalized. It is not the really spiritually poor, but your obstinate and noisy dogmatists who raise a hue and cry when free inquiry demands the right to move within the religious as within all other spheres,' Hoffding, Philosophy of Religion, p. 3.
INTRODUCTORY xxUi
and industrious search for Truth, or 'such an invalid as to be able to take the air only in a close carriage^ ! ' Not so thought St Paul ; hence the 'prove all things 2' which came from him.
What, then, is the right attitude to adopt? Most surely not one which argues either timorousness or hostility. There is no ground for the one or the other; there being so much to make it evident that, if there be some apparent loss, it is more than compensated by the great gain which has already issued, and is issuing, from scholarly investigation of the Bible literature ; — and by no means only in the case of the Old Testament scriptures; 'new light' has been, and is being, shed in abundance on those of the New Testament also. And besides, Gospel Criticism, inevitable as it was, has come to stay; this recognized, the wiser course is not only to allow its reasonableness but to welcome it, to make the most of what it has to teach^. As was said some years ago : 'Instead of using the Gospels to foreclose inquiry, we must use the results of inquiry to interpret the Gospels. Let inqTiiry proceed, the light shall help us, as we reverently welcome and use it,' with- out necessarily accepting every new hypothesis, but as ever testing 'the hypotheses with a vigorous scrutiny; or, if we cannot test them ourselves, we shall wait tUl others whom we trust have tested them*.' Or, as was said more recently by one in whom the trust desiderated can be safely placed : ' I cannot doubt that the evolu- tion of the conception of the conditions of our Lord's life on earth, which is coming with our fresh study of the Gospels, will enhance the appeal that the living Christ is making to us in these our times — His times. As we realize more fully the extent to which the Son of God "emptied Himself" to enter on a really human life, to
^ Oliver Wendell Holmes.
2 1 Thess. V, 21. The Bishop of Ballarat, Dr A. V. Green (Ephes. Canon. Writings, pp. 3 ff.), is not slow to urge the point. ' On a quelque peine k se representer I'etat d'esprit de gens qui, d'une part, proclament I'autorite souveraine de la parole du Christ, le salut par Christ seul, et qui, d'autre part, se refusent a toute etude critique des evangiles,' Reville, Le Quatrieme £vangile, p. ii. The whole passage should be read.
* A pioneer of Fourth Gospel criticism, BaUenstedt, has some highly suggestive remarks to the same effect in the opening pages of his PMlo und Johannes (publ. 1802).
* J. Armitage Robinson, Some Thoughts on Inspiration, p. 47.
xxiv INTRODUCTORY
learn from all the experiences " of joy and woe, and hope and fear," with no supernatural panoply to blunt the edge of any one of them that each of us may not obtain : — the appeal He makes to us wiU not be less persuasive and convincing than of old^.'
It is in such a mind and temper that the ordinarily instructed reader should approach and acquaint himself with the works of some of the many scholars who have concentrated their attention on a document which bears the time-honoured title of ' The Gospel According to St John.'
1 Bethune-Baker, Sermon; Nestorius, p. 208.
CHAPTER I
' THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST JOHN '
It was once said of a Japanese gentleman who became a Christian : 'The vision of glory which came to him while reading John's ac- count of Our Lord's Life and Teaching was a vision from another and diviner world; he fell at the feet of Christ, exclaiming, "My Lord and My God." ... He saw the Divine majesty and the Divine grace of Christ; what could he do but worship Him?^'
Beautiful are the words. Springing, who can doubt it? from the inmost experiences of the venerated divine who penned them, they are also expressive of feelings which stir in thousands for whom the noble work which bears the name of John has been, if in varying manner, the revelation of a 'vision from another and diviner world.' Not, perhaps, the 'most interesting' of the records of the Life of Jesus, it is widely regarded as 'the favourite Gospel' ; as Luther puts it: 'chiefest of the Gospels, unique, tender, and true^.' Herein Luther is in full agreement with Augustine : 'in the four Gospels, or rather the four books of the one Gospel, St John the Apostle, not unworthily in respect of spiritual intelligence com- pared to the eagle, hath taken a higher flight, and soared in his preaching much more sublimely than the other three, -and in the lifting up thereof would have our hearts lifted up likewise^.' In short, there is large and ungrudging witness to the 'tender and unearthly beauty*' which pervades the often well-worn pages of the Johannine Gospel.
1 Dale, The Living Christ, pp. 42, 46 f.
* ' Das einzige zarte rechte Haupt-Evangelium ' ; Werke, Eriangen, 1854, Ixiii, p. 115. Oberhey (Der Qotfeabrunnen der Menschheit, p. v) alludes to it as ' Des Neuen Testamentes Allerheiligstes.' And see the famous quotation from the Wandsbecker Bote (given at length by P. Ewald, NKZ, xix, 1908, pp. 825 f.) : ' Am liebsten aber les' ich im Skt. Johannes &c.'
* On St John, Horn, xxxvi.
* Drummond, Character and Authorship of the Fourth Oospel, p. 2 J. 1
2 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
But it is safe to say that, of those by whom that Gospel is treasured as a hallowed thing, there are numbers who, approaching it and studying it with pre-conceived opinions and with fixed be- liefs, are either unaware of, or prefer to shut their eyes and ears to, the grave difiiculties which it presents. The Johannine problem, as it is called, has no real existence for such persons ; as with the Japanese gentleman of Dr Dale's allusion so with them, they do not ' check their wonder and their awe ' by vexing themselves with questions relating to the authorship and historicity of what is so dear to them as a sacred, a plenarily inspired, book. Accounting it the absolutely true narrative of discourse and incident, they make no room for doubt that it comes down to them from him who figures in it as the Beloved Disciple. Its title is decisive for them, 'The Gospel according to St John.' And in these and the like prepossessions and convictions they are, undoubtedly, repre- sentative of, and can appeal to, a belief which stretches back through long centuries to a far-distant past. ' No Gospel comes to us with stronger external evidence of its acceptance by the Church^ ' than does this Gospel; its familiar title preserves the very name borne by it immediately on its appearance in literature as the not only used but formally adopted work^; when, towards the end of the second century, the four Gospels emerge into the clear light of day this Gospel is one of them, and its authority is 'recognized as undoubtingly and unhesitatingly as that of the other three^.' A few early dissentients are met with; otherwise its Johaimine authorship is assumed : ' the belief handed down that, in his old age, the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, wrote his Gospel as a last testament to the Church*,' and that what it contained was a true narrative, went for a long time unchallenged, and 'ecclesiastical tradition has never assigned' the Gospel which bears John's name 'to anyone but the Apostle John^.'
Yet a day came when the gauntlet was thrown down boldly to traditional and conventional belief. As the situation (it still ob-
^ J. Armitage Robinson, Study of the Gospels, p. 113.
^ 0. Holtzmann, Das Evang. des Joh. p. 1 15.
3 Stanton, GHD, i, p. 162.
« Jiilicher, Einl. p. 361.
» Soltau, op. cit. p. 103.
I. 'ACCORDING TO ST JOHN' 3
tains) has been stated within recent times: 'no book of the New Testament has met with more sharply opposed criticism, nor in respect of the true estimate of any other has there been so fierce a conflict between love and hate. ' What, it is asked, is the true nature of the Fourth Gospel? Is it a trustworthy record of the events it purports to relate? Must it, on the other hand, be regarded as *an epic or a drama or a theological tractate^' if strictly historical it be not ? A ' unique book ' and to be approached ' with no ordinary reverence'; 'the time is past,' it is quickly added, 'when we can accept without a shade of misgiving the tradition of its authorship, and delight ourselves without a question in its narratives*.' Mis- giving there is, and misgiving there must be; if questions be un- avoidable, it is because, raised by the Gospel itself, they stare every honest student in the face.
To go back to the last decade of the eighteenth century. Although the start with Fourth Gospel criticism really began in England towards the close of the seventeenth century^, it was not until the year 1792 that it was bluntly asked, by an English clergy- man, 'how any kind of delusion should have induced creatures endowed with reason so long to have received it (sc. the Fourth Gospel) as the word of truth and the work of an Apostle of Jesus Christ*.' Before long, in Germany, more hostile voices were raised, and with diversity of conjecture and hypothesis; one suggestion pointed to a genuine work of the Apostle with abundant supple- mentary matter by a later hand ^ ; it was said that the real author
1 Heinrici, Der litterar. Charakter der neutest. Schriften, p. 48.
^ Dnunmond. op. cit. pp. 1 f.
^ 'De eerste kritische twijfel openbaarde zich in Engeland, waarschijnlijk van de zijde der engelsche deisten, eerst aan het einde der IT^'^ eeuw.' Scholten, Het Evan, naar Joh. p. 24. And see Clericus (Hammond, Novum
Test cum paraphrasi et adnotationibus, 2nd ed., i, pp. 391, 395) : Confutare
etiam non sum adgressus novos Alogos, quorum scripta non vidi Idem
hodie Alogomm imitatores. . . .
* Evanson, Dissonance of the four commonly received Gospels, p. 226. The 'shallow criticism,' as Luthardt called it, if of a particular passage, is generally significant of both the position and the manner of the sometime Vicar of Tewkesbury. His criticism was, no doubt, crude and marred by coarseness of expression, yet justice should be done to him as a pioneer.
* Eckermann (1796). Vogel (1801) cited the Evangelist to the divine tribunal.
1—2
4 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
of tlie Gospel was an Alexandrian Christian^ or a disciple of the Apostle Jolin^. With firmer grasp and fiiller statement of the Johannine problem in its many ramifications^ it was held incredible that the Gospel should have come from an Apostle's pen; and, albeit the scholar who thus confidently argued made show of re- treating from his position^ and controversy for the time being slumbered, it is none the less the case that the questions shrewdly raised by him in detail have appeared but to reappear in that Fourth Gospel criticism which since his day has grown into a 'mighty stream,' and a mass of literature^ affords ample proof that 'the problem of the Fourth Gospel is still the most unsettled, the most living, the most sensitive in all the field of introduction^,' 'the cardinal inquiry, not merely of all New Testament criticism, but even of Christology ''.' The delicacy and intricacy of the problem is generally admitted; as might be expected, there is wide diver- gence of view ; the pleas vigorously raised in some quarters on behalf of traditional authorship and historicity are elsewhere deemed invalid and are as vigorously disallowed. Yet on both sides there is a tendency to make concessions, while there is general agreement that, whatever else it be, John's Gospel is a noble and inspiring work. In more radical quarters it is said of it that, not by the Apostle and not what we moderns call history, it nevertheless leads back to Jesus, and that, if its theological vesture be worn threadbare, it scintillates with and awakens faith 8; attributed to an author who 'remains unknown' and who had 'not witnessed the earthly life of Jesus except through the eyes of others,' 'the Gospel is the work of a great religious thinker who had entered profoundly into spiritual fellowship with Christ^'; 'while the author makes Jesus speak and act as the real Jesus never spoke and acted, yet in the discourses and the works so lent to him there 1 Horst (1803). ^ Paulus (1821).
* Bret Schneider, Probabilia de evang. et epis. Joan, apos indole et origine.
* Cf. Hilgenfeld, Einl p. 697.
^ No fewer than some 220 works on the Fourth Gospel are enumerated by MoEEatt, Introd. to N.T. pp. 515 £f. « Bacon, Introd. to N.T. p. 252. ' Luthardt, St John's Gospel, p. 3. 8 HeitmiiUer, SNT, ii, p. 707. » E. F. Scott, Histor. and Relig. Value of the Fourth Gospel, pp 17 f.
I. « ACCORDING TO ST JOHN ' 6
ceases not to be a living Christ^.' As for the more conservative school of criticism, a relatively late date is readily admitted; an element of subjectivity; an 'apparent transference of the matured thought of the author to the lips of the speakers in his narrative^' ; not a few, perhaps, would speak of ' an interpretation rather than a life^,' and allow, nor yet of one section only in the Gospel, that 'it contains the reflections of the Evangelist, and is not a continua- tion of the words of the Lord ^ ' ; further, that, in the case of some of the Gospel contents, in respect at all events of detail, there is need of reservation. To revert, for a moment, to the former quarter; an earlier date is acquiesced in, and the terms 'pure romance ' and ' down-right fiction ' are more seldom heard or more guardedly used; here and there dependence on Apostolic notes and influences is allowed if it be held impossible to discover in the Evangelist St John himself. ' Even among those critics who regard the Gospel as concerned, on the whole, more with religious instruc- tion than with historic accuracy, there are some who make the reservation that echoes of a true historic record are to be heard in it, so that it may be called a mixture of truth and poetry 5.'
Thus much by way of rapid survey of Fourth Gospel re- search in its inception and its earlier stages, of the situation as it exists at the present day ^. In the following pages we will attempt some discussion of the problems which confront the serious and open-minded student; and in the course thereof frequent resort shall be had to books which emanate from theological workshops both at home and abroad, nor need there be the slightest hesitation to include such as witness to the 'indefatigable industry, profound thought, conscientious love of knowledge' which are admittedly
^ Loisy, Qttatrieme iSvang. p. 119. From the closing sentences of a fine passage.
2 J. Armitage Robinson, Study of the Oospeh, pp. 114 f. See also Stevens, Johan. Theology, pp. ix ff.
8 Of. Bacon, Introd. to N.T. p. 252. * See Westcott on Jn, iii. 16 ff.
5 Wendt, St John's Gospel, p. 3. See also Sanday, Criticism of the Fourth Oospcl, pp. 1-33; Holtzmann, Einl. p. 436 ff.
* For a more detailed survey the reader should consult Loisy, Le Quatrieme J^vangile, pp. 36 ff.; Scholten, Het Evan, naar J oh. pp. 24 ff. See also A. V. Green, op. cit. pp. 65 ff. Reference might also be made to Albert Schweitzer; Von Beimarus zu Wrede (Engl. tr. The Quest of the Historical Jesus).
6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
characteristic of German scholarship i. At the close of this chapter some remarks shall be ventured in the hope of reassuring those who, having read thus far, may imagine themselves not only robbed of their security in respect of 'John's' Gospel, but asked to sit fast and loose to what, in their conviction, are of the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
It was said to an earlier generation that ' the assailants of (the Fourth Gospel) are of two kinds: those who deny the miraculous element in Christianity, those who deny the distinctive character of Christian doctrine,' and that the Gospel 'confronts both^.' There has been a moving on since then, with a consequent change of front; and now it would be widely allowed that such strong assertions, not altogether destitute of truth in certain cases, are by no means true all round. ' It is unjust to assume that those who question the authenticity of the Gospel according to St John are primarily impelled to do so by theological prepossession,' neither is it right to say that they are one and all prejudiced by 'its em- phatic declaration of the divinity of Christ.' As a matter of fact 'there are many who are heartily devoted to that central truth, and yet cannot easily persuade themselves that the Fourth Gospel offers them history quite in the sense that the other Gospels do, cannot think that Christ spoke exactly as He is here represented as speaking, and consequently cannot feel assured that this is the record of an eye-witness, or, in other words, of the Apostle St John^.' And here perhaps it might be put on record that the traditional authorship of the Gospel has found a staunch upholder in a distinguished Unitarian scholar and divine *.
In anticipation of a comparison to be instituted later on be-
^ Stanley, Sermons on the Apos. Age. To similar effect Sanday, op. cit. pp. 18 ff.; see also his recent pamphlet In View of the End. It is a pity that Mr Raven {op. cit. p. 105) should permit himself the sweeping generalization 'Teutonic unbelief.'
"■ Lightfoot, Bibl. Essays, p. 47. Cf. Diisterdieck, tjber das Evang. Joh. p. 783.
* J. Armitage Robinson, op. cit. pp. 133, 113 f., 118; J. H. Bernard, Paper read at the Bristol (1903) Church Congress.
* The allusion is to Dr Drummond, sometime Principal of Manchester College, Oxford. See Sanday, op. cit. p. 32.
I. 'ACCORDING TO ST JOHN' 7
tween 'John' and the 'other Gospels,' the following well-weighed words shall find a place here :
' The authors of our first three Gospels, in giving, or at all events professing to give, a simple narrative of incident and teaching, and reporting the impression which Jesus made on the first generations of disciples, show us a person with a double consciousness; to whom the Divine communion He enjoyed was as real as the human life He lived*.'
There is nevertheless ' the problem of the Person of Christ^.'
^ Bethune-Baker, iVe^toriws, p- X. AndthasAmmoniOeschichtedesLebena Jem, publ. 1842, i, p. 82) : ' In jedem Falle aber ist es ungegriindet, dass in den drai ersten Evangelien die hohere Natur Jesu iibersehen irnd vemachlassigt worden sei. ' It might be said perhaps of the ' Hat Jesus gelebt ? ' controversy (the echoes which have passed from Germany into England) that it has forced a recognition that behind the human Jesus of the Sjrnoptic repre- sentation there stands One who is conceived of as more than mere man.
* Cf. A. W. Robinson, Are we making progress P, p. 19.
CHAPTER II
APPROXIMATE DATE OF THE GOSPEL
With a change of outlook for tlie Early Church^ and a growing consciousness of new needs ^ a demand sprang up for records of the earthly life of Jesus, and hence the birth of a distinctively Christian literature^. In other words, men started on the composition of 'books'; and these in course of time were designated by a term which, passing from its original meaning^, was used in the first instance of the oral message and then of the document wherein the 'glad tidings' was contained: the 'One Gospel' — as set forth by the several pen-men; 'the Gospels,' their respective works. And there is abundant proof of much industrious activity, at a very early period, in the new field. The allusion Lk. i, 1 ff. is sig- nificant; and, although the word 'many' does not necessarily imply an extensive library, it would scarcely have been used by the Evangelist had but some two or three sources only have been at his command. Other evidence is available ; and it consists, not in 'Chiistian romances' which belong to a somewhat later day, but in fragments of writings approximately near in date to the Canon- ical Gospels, together with possible allusions to one not otherwise known. It may accordingly be said of the Canonical Gospels that they are really specimens of a type or class of literature which, highly popular, spread far and wide.
A time came when the four Bible Gospels — the 'holy quater-
^ A realization that the 'Coming of the Lord' might be delayed, cf. 2 Pet. iii, 8 ff. Here and in some following paragraphs I have ventured to draw on a paper (on the Synoptic Problem) contributed by me to CBE.
2 By reason of (i) the dying off of men who had seen and known Jesus, and (ii) the spread of the new rehgion.
* As distinguished from correspondence; the occasional writings known as 'Epistles.'
* evayyiXiov, the reward.given to the bearer of good tidings. See Jiilicher, EM. p. 252.
CH. n. APPROXIMATE DATE 9
nion' of Eusebius — were fenced off as it were fi-oin other writings of the same family, 'canonized.' To mark off separate stages in the process is impossible; no express information is forthcoming, and it is a right view which suggests that the ' canonization ' of all tie New Testament writings was the issue of an unconscious growth. That no special sanctity attached at the outset to the Gospels is clear both from the attitude of Evangelist to Evange- list^, and also from the fact that when Tatian substituted his Diatessaron for them in aU good faith exception was not taken to his action or to the 'harmony' which of course witnessed to an importance they already possessed. How precisely it came about that four Gospels were singled out from the rest, placed side by side, accounted authoritative and sacred, is not fully known; what can be said is that, as time went on, 'the caskets which enshrined the jewel of traditions concerning Jesus were identified with the jewel itself ; and, if the completion of the New Testament Canon as a whole cannot be dated earlier than the close of the Fourth century (in the case of Eastern churches somewhat later), it is certain that the Gospels had long before attained a position of supremacy in by far the larger part of the Christendom of the age. For Irenaeus they are 'Holy Scripture,' and he gives fanciful reasons as to why they are precisely four in number^.
Or to put it thus : the ' many ' Gospels in circulation had been subjected to such tests as the critical acumen and spiritual insight of the day could apply; by degrees the superiority of some and the inferiority of others was determined; in the event four and four only were deemed worthy to survive, and they, the Canonical Gospels, remained masters of the field^.
They did not invariably stand in the to us accustomed order. No fewer than seven different arrangements have been reckoned up, of which two only however appear to have been at all wide- spread; the sequence Matthew, John, Luke, Mark^, and the more generally favoured sequence of the ordinary Bible ^. These two
^ To wit, the free handUng of our Second Gospel by the First and Third Evangelists. * Euseb. HE, v. 8.
* Ecclesia quatuor habet evangelia, haereses plurima (Origen).
* So in the Monarchian Prologues.
* The order which obtains in the Muratorian Canon.
10 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
arrangements, it is suggested, are alike significant; in the former case of values placed on the respective Gospels — those attributed to Apostles ranking above those attributed to disciples of the Apostles ; the more familiar sequence being based on chronological principle, John regarded as last and Matthew first in order of com- position^. As for the titles of the Gospels ; in the earliest MSS. one general title, ETAFFEAION, covers the four, the separate books being simply headed KATA M A@0AION and so forth. These titles are not to be assigned to the authors themselves ; they were prefixed by others, and probably date from the period when the four Gospels were so collected together as to form one whole. And it is a safe assumption that those who prefixed them regarded, and meant to indicate, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as authors of the Gospels so named 2. Whether the verdict thus pronounced was well founded is quite another matter, and it is the business of students of Christian history to apply modern and approved tests.
To turn from such preliminary considerations to our Gospel. While the first three Gospels are 'sister- works,' it stands, as all admit, in a distinct category, by itself apart, and not only because of its position in the Canon but for other reasons^ it is more fre- quently termed the 'Fourth Gospel' in the diction of Biblical research. And the subject to be approached and provisionally determined in this chapter is one which hinges on the question of its approximate date.
There are two extreme limits beyond which there is no need to travel in our search.
First; in the eyes of Irenaeus all four Gospels are Holy Scrip- ture. Judging from the manner of his allusions, the rank thus acquired by them, however gradually, had ceased to be a novelty in the period marked by his literary activities * ; and the inference
^ So Jiilicher.
* The word Kara, might mean 'as used by,' or 'as taught by,' or imply direct authorship. The latter meaning is the one to be adopted. See Volkmar (Die Evangelien, p. ix f.), who has some caustic remarks on the subject.
3 To avoid committals in respect to authorship, etc.
* Irenaeus, a native of Asia Minor, was bom ca. a.d. 135-142. He may have paid several visits to Rome, but the scene of his chief activities lay in Gaul; a presbyter of the Church of Lyons he became its Bishop ca. a.d. 178:
n. APPROXIMATE DATE 11
is safe that they had so ranked for some little time. 'John' was one of those Gospels. Whethe^ it be the case or not that its attach- ment to the Synoptic group had been attended with hesitation, it could have been no very recent work when Irenaeus said his say. Nor is this all. Some years earlier, as it would appear, it had been already commented upon by Heracleon^.
Hence the terminus ad quem can by no possibility be referred to a date later than the last decade but two of the second century.
In the second place. There is a strong consensus of opinion, at all events it is now widely allowed, that the Synoptic Gospels were known to, or known of by, the Fourth Evangelist^. The conclusion naturally follows that the terminus a quo for the composition of his own Gospel is the date assignable to the latest of the ' sister- works ' ; and accordingly, by reason of the admitted priority of Mark, the choice rests between the Matthaean and the Lucan Gospels.
What of their respective dates ? ' The great authorities difier ' ; as for the First Gospel, there is no certainty whether as to author- ship, locality or date ; it may point to the close of the first century, or it may present features quite compatible with an earlier period ; a cautious verdict finds much which, forbidding a date earlier than ca. A.D. 80, does 'not require one later than 100^'; between the
his death took place some ten or fifteen years later. One of his works {Adv. Haer.) is dated ca. a.d. 180-190.
1 Probably the first to write a commentary on the Fourth Gospel. A native of Alexandria, he was a disciple of Valentinus, and flourished ca, A.D. 145-180. Bleek {Beitrdge zur Evangdien-Kritik, p. 215) remarks: 'Die Erklarungen des Heracleon zeigen aufs deutUchste dass er das Evlgm. als sine in anerkanntem Ansehen stehende Schrif t vorgeftmden hat.' Cf. Stanton, GHD, i, p. 258; Loisy, op. cit. p. 17.
■^ EB, n, col. 2540; Forbes. The Johan. Literature, p. 154; Loisy, op. cit. p. 60. Moffatt (of. cit. p. 534) wiites : ' the only Gospel about which there need be any hesitation is that of Lk,' but (see p. 581) his hesitation is evidently slight, as well it may be. Schleiermacher {Einl. ins N.T. p. 317) found reasons why •John' could not have known the Syn. Gospels. Calmes (L'Etav. selon Saint- Jeav, p. 8) is doubtful in regard to literary dependence. See also Wendt, Die Schichten im vierten Evglm. p. 107. According to Cludius ( Uransichten des Ckristenthums. pp. 61 f.) the Fotirth Evangehst co\ild not possibly have known Matthew. It is noteworthy that the Fourth Gospel was held by Semler (see Lange, Das Evglm. Joh. p. 26) to be the earliest of all the Gospels See also Schleiermacher, Einl. p. 331.
* McNeile, St Matthew, p. xxyiii.
12 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
years '70 and 100' is about all that can be said^. In like manner with the Gospel which bears the name of Luke ; it is held by not a few that 'the decade from a.d. 70 to a.d. 80 is the probable date*,' or that there are grounds for preferring ' the intermediate date of A.D. 75-80^.' Allowance must be made for some developement of Gospel literature, while, if the Third Evangelist had actually read Josephus*, the first century would be nearing its end when he wrote.
The situation is precarious. It would appear that refuge must be taken in an 'either — or.' If the terminus a quo does not lie within the decade a.d. 70-80, it cannot well be pushed back earlier than a.d. 95; and indeed ca. a.d. 95-100 might be nearer the mark.
Let us now cast about for such evidence as may go near, if not all the way, to suggest a date later than to which the composition of the Fourth Gospel cannot be referred.
An appeal, it may be, lies to the second Petrine Epistle ; which, not by St Peter, is, according to a recent conjectm-e, a composite work wherein are embedded genuine Apostolic fragments^. Here attention is arrested by the statement 2 Pet. i, 14, it being, in any case, strongly reminiscent of Jn xxi, 18 £E. ® ; but the question may, of course, be of mere coincidence or of independent allusion to accomplished fact. Yet a possibility remains that an unknown author who wrote ca. a.d. 160-175^ was leaning on the Fourth Gospel.
The region for search now lies outside the Canon of the New Testament.
1 J. Weiss, SNT, i, p. 230.
2 Adeney, St Luke (CB), p. 32. ' Plummei, St Luke, p. xxxi.
* Burkitt, Oosp. Hist. pp. 105 ff. ; Forbes, op. cit. p. 164. 6 E. Iliff Robson, Studies in 27id Ep. of St Peter.
* De Wette, Lehrhuch der histor.-lcrit. Einl. in die Jcanon. Bilcher des N.T. p. 225. But see Schenkel, Das Charaktcrhild Je.su, p. 250. Remarking on 1 Pet. i, 19; Jn i, 29, P. Ewald (Das Hauptproblem der Evangelienfragc, p. 70) discovers ' Johanneische Material ien im ersten Petrusbriefe.'
' So Hamack. With others the date ranges between a.d. 100 and A.D. 175. According to Hollmann (SNT, ii, p. 574) 2nd Pet. is the latest of all the N.T. writings.
n. APPROXIMATE DATE 13
Passing reference may be made to the little sect nick-named by Epiphanius the Alogi. They will be heard of again; the point here is that ca. a.d. 175 — 'or possibly ten years or so earlier'— they testify to the existence of the Fourth Gospel, if in such a way as to show that its authority ' was as yet not firmly established^.' The fact that they could assign its authorship to Cerinthus is per- haps significant of a work of by no means recent composition.
Are hints forthcoming from the so-called Second Epistle of Clement — 'no letter but a homily' — which, originating possibly at Rome or Corinth, is assigned to the period a.d. 120-140 or 150^? There is similarity of idea as to the Incarnation, with phraseology held to be at least suggestive of the Prologue (Jn i, 1 ft.) of the Fourth GospeF. Yet dependence is not proved; and perhaps the facts of the case are fairly satisfied by the hypothesis that the 'pseudo-Clement had resort to a source fusing the forms found in Luke and Matthew' 'with such additions as made it correspond more completely to the notion of Christ's Gospel ^.'
To turn to the Shepherd of Hermas. The work of a single author who, it may be, spent five years and upwards in its com- position, it seems to have made its appearance somewhere in the decade a.d. 130-140; tm-ns and phrases are met with in it to which at first sight there appear to be definite parallels in the Johannine Gospel. A Johannine colouring may be admitted; but whether occasional coincidence or similarity of figure or expression be con- clusive for direct literary connexion is doubtful; and, albeit four Gospels are perhaps symbolized by the 'bench with four feet' (Vis. iii, 13) and 'four ranks in the foundation of the tower' {Sim. ix, 4) of which Hermas tells, it does not follow that he is a witness to the Fourth Gospel itself.
The case is scarcely otherwise with the remarkable work which, discovered in a library at Constantinople by Bishop Bryennios,
1 Stanton, op. cit. i, p. 210. The whole section dealing with the Alogi should be read. See also Loiay, op. cit. pp. 18 ff.
* BGO, i, col. 553.
^ See Loisy, op. cit. p. 3.
* NTAF (OxL Soc. of Hist. Theology) p. 125. The reader is advised to consult this work; it is laid under contribution in regard to the writings now under consideration.
U THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
was published in 1883; the Didache, The Teaching of The Twelve Apostles. There is however, wide diversity of opinion in respect of date ; and if it be a relatively late work^, it ceases to be of value in the present search. Nor does the evidence forthcoming from it go for much; the figure of the vine {Did. ix, 2) is but slightly reminiscent of Jn xv, 1; 'the point of closest resemblance is that the Didache, like the Fourth Gospel, does not connect the spiritual food with the specific ideas of the institution' of the Eucharist.
Neither is there any sure guidance in the Epistle which, pro- bably originating in Egypt, bears the name of Barnabas; for, whether of relatively early date or not — a.d. 100-140, or a.d. 70- 100^ — the connecting links are few, and at most such as to suggest a phraseology not so much borrowed as already current coin.
Johannine resemblances are certainly met with in the Epistle addressed to the Corinthians by Clement of Eome, but they hardly prove dependence, and a probability must be reckoned with that, when Clement wrote, ca. a.d. 95 or 96, the Fourth Gospel had not yet come into existence^.
We now question Justin Martyr*. In the crucial passage ex- press mention is made by him of 'memoirs' compiled by Christ's Apostles and those who companioned with them ^ ; and, although the hypothesis has been advanced ^ that, not without knowledge of the Canonical Gospels, Justin really used a single work, the reference is best accounted for by the supposition that the ' memoirs ' were none other than the works which bear the names of the Apostles
1 Hamack pi ices it between a.d. 130 and a.d. 160 ; Knopf {EGO, i, col. 663) extends the limits from a.d. 90 to a.d. 150.
2 BOG, i, col. 552.
' Calmes {op. cit. pp. 49 ff.) argues for the dependence of Clem. Rom. on the Fourth Gospel,
* His birthplace Sychem and of Greek parentage, Justm (refusing to discard his philosopher's cloak) became a convert at the age of thirty, and gained renown for his vigorous defence of Christianity against the pagans. He was beheaded at Rome about the year a.d. 165 His extant writings consist of two Apologies and a Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.
* Dial. 103: if yap tois dTroiJ.vritJi.oveviJ.aaL a <p-ntJ.i viro tCiv dirocTb^iav avroO Kai tG)v €K€ivois TrapaKoXovdrjadvrwv avvTerdx^ai.
* E.g. by Credner See Stanton, op. cit. pp. 76 ff., on the whole question. Also Ezra Abbott, Fourth Gospel, pp. 16 fif.
n. APPROXIMATE DATE 16
Matthew and John and of the disciples of Apostles viz. Mark and Luke-. Justin's Christology is essentially Johannine; it is true that he nowhere expressly names the Fourth Gospel, but there is, in the eyes of many, amply sufficient evidence that it was not only known to him but actually used^. The assumption accordingly is that, by the year a.d. 16P at the very latest, our Gospel was already well known, while perhaps not as yet ranked with the Synoptics.
It may be that Justin both knew and used the docetic Gospel which, bearing the name of Peter *, enjoyed popularity (ca. a.d. 200) at Rhossus in Cilicia and justly excited the suspicions of Serapion^. In it there appear to be points of contact" which suggest that the Fourth Gospel was known to, and very freely handled by, the docetist writer whose work, if really used by Justin, cannot be later than ca. a.d. 150, while it may stretch as far back as a.d. 130'. If such be really the case the heretical work would become a rela- tively early witness to the existence of our Gospel.
Whether our Gospel was actually known to Papias^ is a moot point, and as his name will come up in another connexion, no appeal shall be made now to the Bishop of Hierapolis. Nor will it serve the immediate purpose to instance Polycarp^; he too will be referred to later on, and here it shall suffice to say that no con- clusive proof of dependence is discovered in the Epistle addressed by him to the Philippians. Opinion differs in regard to Ignatius^";
^ EB, i, col. 677. According to Liitzelberger (Die Kirchl. Tradition ahtr den Apos. Joh. p. 250) Justin's four Gospels were Mt.. Mk, Lk. and Peter = Hebr.
2 Loisy, op. cit. pp. 14 f.; Heitmiiller, SNT, ii, p. 709. Otherwise Schwegler. Der Montanismus wnd die christl. Kirche, p. 184.
^ So Stanton, and see Calmes, op. cit. pp. 26 ff.
* See Rendel Harris, Newly -recovered Gospel of Peter.
* Euseb. HE, vi, 12. « Loisy, op. cit. p. 15 f. ' EGG., i, col. 547. 8 Flourished ca. a.d. 70 (80)-140. W. Bauer (HBNT, n, ii, p. 5) regards
it as probable that he knew our Gospel. Larfeld [Die beiden Johannes von Ephesus, p 185) refuses to admit of any doubt. Heitmiiller (SNT, ii, p. 709) wisely contents himself with a 'perhaps.' Schleiermacher *(op. cit. p. 243) advanced grounds which made it clear to him that Papias did not know 'John.'
Bishop of Smyrna. The date of his martyrdom is placed by Eusebius (HE. iv. 15) ca. a.d. 166.
10 Bishop of Antiooh, martyred at Rome during the reign of Trajan. His
16 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH
on the one hand it is urged that, in his Christology, he is depen dent on 'John^,' on the other hand flat negations come as a matter of course from quarters where the Gospel is relegated to a long subsequent date. More cautiously is it said that its use by the martyr, if highly probable, falls some way short of certainty, and prudence might be content to note features which are highly suggestive of ' the Johannine world of thought and phrase^.'
But that the beautifvd Epistle to Diognetus^ is an unsolved riddle in respect of writer and addressee, of locality and date, it might be summoned as an earlier witness inasmuch as Johannine notes ring out in it, and, were we to take its accomplished author at his word ('a disciple of the Apostles'), the conclusion might follow that it was composed in the reign of Trajan. The possibility is, however, that it originated in a considerably later period *.
The name of Heracleon, already instanced, now points us, if only for a moment, to his predecessors in those great movements of thought which, more or less tinged with Christian ideas, cidmin- ated in the ' boldest and grandest Syncretism the world had ever beheld^'; but, as the question of Gnosticism will be discussed later, it may suffice to remark here that adequate ground is dis- covered for the belief that ca. a.d. 135 'John's' Gospel was highly esteemed by Basilides ^ and was well known to the Valentinians ', if doubt arises in the case of the master himself^.
genuine Epistles (Shorter Greek recension) are dated within the years A.D. 10&-116. Hamack (Chron. i, p. 719) writes: '110-117; perhaps, but improbably, a few years later.'
^ Loisy, op. cit. p. 6. To the same effect Lightfoot, Zahn and others.
2 Wendt, op. cit. pp. 176 f. Indications of the use by Ignatius do not seem to Stanton (op. cit. i, p. 19) 'to be altogether wanting, although they are not so full and clear as might have been expected.' Bardsley (JTS, xiv, pp. 207 f.) writes with greater confidence. On the other hand Schwegler {op. cit. p. 159) writes: 'die Verfasser der ignatian. Briefe tragen jene Lehre (sc. die Logos- lehre) ohne, wie es scheint, das Johan. Evglm. zu kennen, bereits in ziemUch ausgebildeter Gestalt vor.'
3 First printed by H. Stephens in 1592, the one then extant MS. perished ttt Strasburg in the Franco German War. A transcript (made by Stephens) is preserved at Leyden.
* Bardenhewer prefers to think of the third century. 6 Kurtz, Ch. Hid. i, p. 99.
(For notes 6-8 see p. 17.)
II. APPROXIMATE DATE 17
At this point we will pause in our search ; and content ourselves, for the time being, with setting down such provisional conclusions as appear to be suggested by an inquiry which has not stepped outside the field of external evidence.
First in respect of a terminus ad quern. The question is not altogether easy to decide; for, in the case of certain Apostolic fathers, coincidence of idea and phrase is not in itself proof of actual acquaintance with the Fourth Gospel, while documents otherwise temptingly suggestive must be ruled out by reason of their obscure origination. This, at all events, appears certain ; the extreme limit which points to the days of Irenaeus may be pushed back by several decades. The question then is: how much further back? An answer comes with the recognition that, albeit 'the first reliable traces of the existence of the Fourth Gospel are found in the Apology of Justin Martyr^,' there is warrant for the assumption of its use 'in the circles of Valentinian Gnosis^.'
The provisional terminus ad quern, accordingly, lies somewhere about the year a.d. 135.
Secondly. The question of the terminus a quo is encompassed with difficulty, in that it is contingent on the dating of the First and Third Gospels. It may, on the one hand, be discovered in the years m. a.d. 75-80; on the other hand it may not be earlier than the close of the first century. At this stage no further word is possible.
In due course the Fourth Gospel will be itself questioned, and its approximate date more nearly determined from internal evi- dence presented by it, the tone and tenor of its contents. But it must be our first business to go into the question of its authorship in venerable tradition.
* Basilides flourished ca. a.d. 117-138. About aU that is known of him is that he taught at Alexandria, perhaps also at Antioch and in Persia. His teaching survives mainly in allusions by his opponents, e.g. Clem. Alex. ; of his Exegetica but fragments are extant.
' See on the whole question Scott- Moncrieff, St John Apos. Evang. and Prophet, pp. 240 ff. ; also Stanton, op. cit. i, pp. 64 ff. (Basilides), pp. 69, 205 (Valentinus).
* 'Ob der Meister der Schule es gekannt hat ist fraglich,' W. Bauer, HBNT, n, ii, p. 5.
1 Heitmiiller, SNT, ii, p. 709. ^ Moflfatt, op. cit. p. 581.
J. 2
CHAPTER III
AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION
'The evidences wliicli reach back to disciples of disciples of St John, even to St John himself, who repeatedly affirms it in his Gospel, demonstrate that that Gospel was written by that very same Apostle^.'
So runs the verdict which, with much show of plausibility and prolific diatribe against 'self-styled critics,' amounts to a trium- phant cadit quaestio in regard to the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. Pronounced by a writer who, pledged — it would seem — to the defence, is evidently well content to exercise the combined functions of counsel, jury-man, and judge, its unhesitating accept- ance in the circles immediately addressed by him is a foregone conclusion. Yet such will scarcely be the case in other quarters; nor will open-minded students be slow to realize that the situation is far more complicated than he allows it to be supposed.
In like manner as in the preceding chapter, the question of authorship shall, at this stage, be discussed with exclusive reference to external evidence^; and with the recognition that any decisive word — if such a word be possible — must be spoken by the Gospel itself3.
There is no doubt whatsoever that upholders of the ' orthodox opinion' (there are, be it said, 'critics' among them) have the strong support of two illustrious personages, Eusebius and Origen, and they shall be questioned in the first instance.
To begin with Eusebius*. This writer entertains no doubt that
1 Polidori, / Nostri Quattro Evangelii, p 24C. With the like confidence H. H. Evans (St John the author of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 84, 99).
2 Polidori's assertion points to internal as well as to external evidence.
3 Cf. Wemle, Quelhn, pp. 9, 11.
* Bishop of Caesarea, a.d. 314-340. The pupil and the friend of scholars, he was himself possessed of extensive learning; and, a great traveller, he had
CH. m. AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION 19
he who, returning from his island-exile, governed the Churches in Asia, and continued to reside in Ephesus until the days of Trajan, was John, Apostle and Evangelist, the disciple whom Jesus loved^. Discoursing on the order of the Gospels"^, he starts off with an allusion to the undisputed writings of the same Apostle^; of these, says he, the Gospel, so well known in all the Churches under heaven, must be acknowledged at the first; then, explaining why John's Gospel stands last in order of sequence, he treats of those previously published by Matthew, Mark and Luke. What follows from him is to the following effect: John, they say, having all his time preached but not using his pen, in the end set himself to write. The occasion was this: on the three earlier Gospels being handed to him, he, they say, admitted them and testified to their truth, albeit they were therein defective that the earlier stages of the ministry were absent from their accounts. Such, says Eusebius, was the fact; and, the omissions being specified by him, he thus proceeds : for these reasons, the Apostle John, they say, being en- treated to undertake the task, wrote an account of the period not touched on by the other Evaiigelists and of doings of the Saviour which they had omitted to record. With dismissal of arguments advanced by some that the Gospels were at variance, and with some remarks on John's additions and John's silence on the gene- alogy of the Lord, Eusebius adds: thus much about the Gospel according to John.
Such, in substance, is the testimony of the Bishop of Caesarea. Two things may be inferred from it; to begin with, he himself is fully persuaded that, however the case might stand with the two smaller Epistles and the Apocalypse, the author of the Fourth Gospel (and of the First Epistle) is John the Apostle and Beloved Disciple. And next: the reiterated 'they say' is significant of de- frequent opportiinities of converse with famous persons. He was well versed in the beliefs and opinions current in his age. His industry as a historian is conspicuous, if his style be somewhat prosaic and there be lack of system in the arrangement of his matter.
» HE, iii, 23. 2 Ihid. ui, 24.
* The Gospel and the First Epistle. Eusebius adds that the two smaller Epistles were in dispute, and that with regard to the Apocalypse there was difference of opinion.
2—2
20 THE FOURTH GOSPEL OH.
pendence; the inference here is that Eusebius, having consulted such authorities as were at his command, finds a strong consensus of opinion to warrant his belief i.
Eusebius was, no doubt, abreast of his times and indefatigable in research^. He records what, to the best of his judgement, was ascertained fact; yet his critical judgement might be at fault, for, however conscientious and painstaking he might be, his methods and his tests were, after all, those of his own day, and a wide gulf lies between him and historians of the modern world. Accordingly it cannot be allowed off-hand that the traditional authorship of the Gospel is finally established by what he set down in all good faith.
As for Origen ^, his belief was to the like eft'ect. In the first of the many books of his great commentary on our Gospel, he places it Last in order of sequence ; in the fifth book he writes : What must be said of him, John, who reclined on Jesus' breast? He who has left one Gospel, with the avowal that he could write far more than the world itself could contain*. By 'John' Origen certainly means the Apostle John ; and we may note in passing that he refers both the Gospel and the Apocalypse to the same pen.
It will be observed that Eusebius appeals to Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria^; and to Irenaeus and, if with some delay, to Clement, inquiry shall now turn.
Irenaeus. What this Father says about the Gospels is, in sub- stance, this: Matthew produced his Gospel among the Hebrews, and in their dialect, while Peter and Paul were evangelizing and
^ 'An individual might make a mistake about the authorship of a book, but could a whole community?' Mackay, A Reasonable Faith, p. 106. Yet beliefs do grow up on a very sUght basis of fact, not to say without any basis at all.
" Eusebius 'las griindlich'; Hamack, Chron. i, p. 657. Cf. Schwartz, Vber den Tod der Sohne Zeb. p. 22.
" Origen (a.d. 185-254) was born at Alexandria. The pupil of Clement, he had visited Rome; he laboured in Arabia; some years were spent by him at Antioch; when on the way to Greece he passed through Palestine. A pro- found thinker, his hterary activity was vast; and Raven's panegyric (op. cit. pp. 74 f.) is richly deserved by one who, in the eyes of pagans and Christians, was 'a miracle of scholarship.'
* Euseb. HE, vi, 25. Cf. Jn xxi, 25. ' HE, iu, 23.
m. AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION 21
laying the foundations of the Church in Rome. They being de- ceased, Mark, disciple and interpreter of Peter, also handed down to us in writing things which Peter had preached. Luke, Paul's companion, set forth in his book the Gospel as it had been pro- claimed by Paul. Thereafter John, the disciple of the Lord, who lay on his breast, he too gave forth the Gospel while he yet abode at Ephesus in Asia^. And again: And all the elders, they of Asia who had conferred with John the disciple of the Lord, bear witness that (their tradition) had been delivered to them by John, for he remained on with them until the days of Trajan^. And again, writing to Florinus^, Irenaeus goes back to the days of his own boyhood as one who has better remembrance of events belonging to the past than of those of recent times; I can tell, says he, the very place where sat and taught blessed Polycarp *, and how Poly- carp spoke of intercourse had by him with John, and of what he had heard from others who had seen the Lord.
For Irenaeus, it will be remembered, the Fourth Gospel, like its three companions, was Holy Scripture. It was assigned by him to the Apostle John ; and that in the first of the above citations, as elsewhere, he is reaUy alltiding to the son of Zebedee is not open to doubt and is indeed generally admitted^. This John, it will be remarked further, is identified by Irenaeus with the Beloved Disciple; yet what he does not do is expressly to designate him the Apostle.
Leaving Irenaeus for the moment, but not as yet turning to Clement, we will pause here for some allusion to the Alogi, to the Monarchian Prologue to the Gospel, and to the Muratorian Canon.
It has been said already that the Fourth Gospel was attributed to the heretic Cerinthus by the little sect or coterie to which Epi- phanius gave the nick-name of Alogi. Let us remark now that,
1 Euseb. HE. v, 8. » Ibid, iii, 23.
' In his Epistle vepl fxovapx^as. Euseb. v, 20. Florinus was a Roman presbyter. The genuineness of this Epistle is disputed by Scholten, Der Apoa. Joh. in Kleinaaien (from the Dutch, by Spiegel), p. 68.
^ Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, was martyred ca. a.d. 166 in the reign of Marcus AureUus.
* See Hamack, Chron. i, p. 657; Scholten, op. cit. p. 42; Jiilicher, Einl. p. 362; Stanton, op. cit. i, p. 213; Loisy, op. cit. p. 25; Gutjahr, Glaubumrdig- keit, p 3.
22 THE FOURTH GOSPEL ch.
belonging to the period in which Irenaeus flourished, their theory of the origination of the Fourth Gospel was controverted by Irenaeus himself; yet further, that the home of the Alogi was in Asia Minor. The strange thing, then is that they could flatly deny its Apostolic authorship in the very region to which its authorship was assigned ; and the question necessarily arises whether any con- clusive proof that its author was none other than the Apostle John could have been actually at hand at the time^.
Leaving the Alogi, we turn to the Monarchian Prologue to the Gospel. Together with its companion Prologues it has been as- signed to the first third of the third century, and, revealing features characteristic of the Monarchian tendency^, it is less concerned with the contents than with the alleged author of our Gospel. Therein it is stated: John the Evangelist, one of the disciples of God, by God chosen to be Virgin. . .he wrote this Gospel in Asia, after he had written the Apocalypse in the Isle of Patmos. The romantic story follows which tells how, knowing that the time of his departure was at hand, John gathered his Ephesian disciples round him and descended into his tomb. The point to observe is that, referred to as Evangelist and Disciple, he is not expressly designated the Apostle John.
Again passing on, we take next the Muratorian Canon^. A mere fragment, with nothing in it which exactly determines its date, locality or authorship, written in barbarous Latin and evidently a version from a Greek original, it is held to have originated in the West, perhaps at Rome, towards the close of the second century, or, it may be, a few years later*. The opening sentences evidently referred to Mark; a statement is made as to Luke ; the fourth place is given to John's Gospel and there is an account of the circum- stances in which it was composed: 'At the entreaties of his fellow
^ The point has been raised by Loisy, op. cit. p. 21. 'The Alogi would scarcely have ventured on such a denial of Joh. authorship in the face of a fixed and certain tradition,' Forbes, op. cit. p. 168.
* On the Monarchian Prologues, see Corssen, TU, xv, p. 1.
' First published 1740 by Muratori, Librarian at MUan; hence its name. For the text see Lietzmann, Kleine Texte., i,
* EB, i, col. 679; Westcott, Canon ofN.T. pp. 190 f. The passage as cited is from Westcott's translation.
ra. AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION 23
disciples and his bishops, John, one of the disciples, said : Fast with me for three days from this time, and whatsoever shall be revealed to each of us (whether it be favoui'able to my writing or not) let us relate it to one another. On the same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that John should relate all things in his own name, aided by the revision of all.. . .What wonder is it then that John so constantly brings forward Gospel-phrases even in his Epistles, saying in his own person, what we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled, these things have we wiitten ? For so he professes that he was not only an eye-witness, but also a hearer, and moreover a historian of all the wonderful works of the Lord.' So runs the legendary tale which is perhaps itself based on some more highly elaborated romance^; what, to all appearance, does it suggest? It might be said, in the first place, that, albeit placed last in order of sequence, John's Gospel is apparently referred to a period earlier than the Synoptics. John, it might be said next, is differentiated, as a dis- ciple, from certain Apostles of whom Andrew is one. The inference, again, is that his Gospel is not exclusively his own independent work. A further conjecture might be that the locality of composi- tion is transferred from Ephesus to Palestine. Speaking generally, an impression is conveyed that accurate knowledge relative to the origination of the Fourth Gospel was not available for the Church at Rome.
The points thus far raised being each one borne in mind, our attention is now claimed by Clement of Alexandria 2.
In one of Clement's works some account is given by him of all the Canonical Scriptures; and the tradition as to the order of the Gospels which, derived by him from primitive elders, he hands down is to the following effect : those which contain the genealogies
^ Corssen, op. cit. p. 103. Calmes (op. cit. p. 36, note) writes: 'Le fragment de Murat. depend des Acta Petri. Or ce dernier livre parait etre du meme auteur que les Acta Jo.' And see Scholten, op. cit. p. 82.
* The date of Clement's birth is mioertain; his death took place ca. a.d. 200, and accordingly he would be very nearly contemporaneous with Irenaeus. In earlier life a learned pagan philosopher, he had travelled widely in the pursuit of knowledge. Becoming a convert at Alexandria, all his energies were thereafter devoted to the promotion, both by discourse and writing, of the Church's cause.
24 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
(viz. Mt. and Lk.) were written first; Mark, at the request of many who had heard Peter at Rome, composed his Gospel, Peter neither encouraging nor hindering him; John, last of all, perceiving that what had reference to corporeal things {ra a-wixariKa) in the Gospel of our Saviour was sufficiently related, encouraged by his friends and inspired by the Spirit, wrote a spiritual {Tnev/xaTiKov) Gospel^.
So, then, the Marcan Gospel (as at that day was to be expected) is not prior to Mt. and Lk. in the eyes of Clement. In disagreement with Irenaeus, he refers it to a date at which Peter was still alive. By his manner of allusion to the Fourth Gospel it is plain that he himself realizes a contrast between it and the Synoptics ; and this, perhaps, reminds us of the animadversions of Eusebius on certain men who held that the Gospels were at variance as between them- selves. He is content to call its author John. For his own know- ledge as to its origination he is evidently dependent on tradition ; and then the question arises: who were the elders {dveKadev irpea- ^vreprov)^ of the allusion, and to what locality did they belong? And again, what were the sources of their information?
Unquestionably the opinions of such a man as Clement must be treated with respect. They were based on what, for him, was sufficient evidence; yet here again it is necessary to remember that his methods of criticism were those of his own period. That he means the Apostle John may be freely admitted; a possibility remains that, having ascertained that the Fourth Gospel originated with a John, his own thoughts turned instinctively to John the Apostle and son of Zebedee.
To revert to Irenaeus; and, with him, to Polycarp: is it alto- gether fair to class them with 'pious but stupid Churchmen of the second century^'?
Whatever the illumination of the former as theologian, he was in any case a man of mark ; he had been a great traveller, import- ant missions had been entrusted to him; as Bishop of Lyons he
^ Euseb. HE, vi, 14. 'Eine Einseitigkeit dtr alexandr. Anschauungs- weise,' Lange, Das Evglm. J oh. p. 25.
* The Greek term {rrpecr^vTcpos) does not necessarily connote ecclesiastical office but might also be suggestive of advanced years.
* Raven, op. cit. p. 64.
m. AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION 25
occupied a prominent post. In his judgement the author of John's Gospel is the Apostle John ; how, then, has he arrived at the belief ? It surely cannot be a case of mere conjecture^. Whatever the exact extent of his intimacy with Polycarp in the days of his youth, his memory can scarcely have altogether failed him when he told of the very place where Polycarp had sat and held discourse with John ; it is not likely that Polycarp was his one and only authority. The hypothesis is preferable that other sources were at his disposal ^ ; and that he subjected them to such tests as, with the limitations of the times, he was competent to apply. The fact neverthe- less remains that the decisive word Apostle is missing from the testimony of Irenaeus. As for Polycarp, there is no sufficient reason to distrust Irenaeus's statement relative to the intimacy of the former with a John and with others who had seen the Lord. What the Bishop of Lyons evidently cannot say is that Polycarp, on being asked whether the John he had known was really the son of Zebedee, Apostle, Beloved Disciple, Evangelist, had emphatically answered in the affirmative^.
The situation is not otherwise in the case of Polycrates^. Of the two extant fragments of his writings one is a letter addressed by him, towards the close of the second century, to Victor, Bishop of Rome. In it there stands as follows : In Asia also mighty elements
of the Church {fj-eyaXa <jroL')(ela) have fallen asleep Philip of
the twelve Apostles at Hierapolis and his two aged virgin daughters, another of his daughters ... at Ephesus. Moreover John, he that reclined in the bosom of the Lord, who as priest wore the sacred plate {to TreraXov), martyr {/juapTv;) and teacher, he too fell asleep at Ephesus.
Whether there be here confusion between Philip the Evangelist and the Apostle Philip^ is disallowed by some^; but on the perhaps safe assumption that there is, it might appear that the John named
' Wemle, Quellen, p. 10; Hamack, Chron. i, p. 657. "^ Cf. Drummond, op. cit. p. 348; Gutjahr, op. cit. p. 14. 3 Jiilicher, op. cit. p. 364.
* Bishop of Ephesus. He flourished about the same time as Irenaeus. As the leader of the Bishops of Asia Minor he played a prominent part {ca. A.D. 190) in the Pasohal controversy.
* Euseb. HE, iii, 31. « Cf Soott-Moncrieff, op. cit. p. 193.
26 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
is outside the number of the twelve. That Polycrates, acquainted, probably, with the Fourth Gospel, is himself evidently persuaded that the John who slept at Ephesus was the son of Zebedee may be conceded; why his allusion to the golden High-priestly frontlet^? Why the term used which might suggest a martyr-death^? The main point is the non-use, by Polycrates, of the decisive words Apostle and Evangelist.
We will pause here, and gather up the threads. In the pre- ceding chapter the latest possible date of the Fourth Gospel was pushed back to a relatively early period; what now appears is that, before long time had elapsed, it was generally, not universally, regarded as the work of one who, albeit not thus expressly desig- nated, was nevertheless so alluded to as to indicate his identifica- tion with the Apostle John. And further, the opinion seems to have been wide-spread that his home was in Asia Minor. Once more, it is true that in one instance a term which might imply actual martyrdom is used of him ; otherwise his peaceful death at Ephesus was generally assumed. That 'direct and express ascrip- tion (of the Fourth Gospel) to the Apostle begins {ca. a.d. 181) with Theophilus of Antioch^' is, no doubt, quite true, only then the question arises; was such ascription justified by fact? Must it, on the other hand, be said that all that connects the Apostle with the Gospel 'runs out rapidly in mere legend^'?
Whatever be the case, the situation is complicated as a John other than the Apostle John appears on the scene.
This brings us to Papias ^. Of the work in five books penned by
1 ' Wie unkritisch Polykrates in diesem Brief zu Werke ging, ergisbt sich daraus, dass er Johannes als den Hohenpriester mit dem w^TaXov geziert darstellt und hiermit eine in seiner Zeit bereits bestehende Gewohnheit die hohepriesterliche Wiirde auf den christlichen Bisehof zu iibertragen un- chronologisch in die apostolische Zeit einfiihrt,' Scholten, op. cit. p. 74.
2 fxdpTvs, a witness. The term could also mean martyr.
* Sanday, cited by Bacon, Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate, p. 90: Scott-Moncrieff, op. cit. p. 199. In his Ad Autolycum Theophilus speaks of John as an inspired man. It would appear that the first to attribute literary activity to John the Apostle was Justin Martyr (Dial. 83), yet in respect of the Apocalypse only, and by implication Justin locates its author in Asia Minor. See Loisy, op. cit. p. 14. * Bacon, op. cit. p. 91.
'' The story of his martyrdom at Pergamus seems to have arisen from a confusion of names and may be disregarded.
m. AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION 27
him, probably late in life, fragments only remain; the crucial passage runs thus : But if anywhere anyone also should come who had companied with the elders I ascertained (first of all) the sayings of the elders (' as to this,' not ' to wit') what Andrew or what Peter had said, or what Philip, or what Thomas or James, or what John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord (had said), and (secondly) what Aristion and John the Elder, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I supposed that the things (to be derived) from books were not of such profit to me as the things (derived) from the living and abiding voice^.
Quite properly Eusebius observes that the name of John occurs twice. That by the John first named Papias means the Apostle John is obvious, for he ranks him with other Apostles; as for the second John, he is, to all appearance, sharply differentiated from the former John; not only is he not classed with Apostles but he is expressly designated John the Elder^. If, in like manner as the Apostle John, he is spoken of as a disciple of the Lord, it is a dis- tinction which Aristion shares with him ; yet he is also differentiated from the latter by a term highly suggestive that, not simply ad- vanced in years, he is a personage of importance. If so, where? An answer might come from Eusebius, who, for reasons of his own, is not unprepared to believe in the story of the two Johns in Asia and of the two tombs at Ephesus^. The question then is : was he
' Euseb. HE, iii, 39. As translated EB, ii, col. 2507. The Greek runs as follows: Et 5^ irov Kal irap7]Ko\ov67)Kibs tis tois irpea^vrepots ?\$oi, rovs tCov irpeff^vrdpuv aviKpivov \6yovs, ri 'Av5p^a$ ij rl JUrpo^ elirev 17 tL ^iXiinros rj tL Ouifidi 77 'loLKU^os ^ tI 'ludvvTis rj Mar^atos Ij tis 'irepos tQv toO Kvpiov /xadriTwv (elirev), a re ' Kpurrluv kul 6 ir/)€<r/3i5re/)os 'ludvvqs (oi) tov Kvplov /xadtiral Xiyovo'iv.
* Rob3on(</T»9,xiv,p.440)getsridof one John by reading: . . . rjrj'IaKw^ov 7} 'ludvva rj . . . and remarks: 'a natural and proper pair (Lk. xxiv, 10) to whom enquirers after authentic records would always resort.' The emendation is ingenious but quite imconvincing. For Mr Robson's identification of Aristion with the Beloved Disciple see Excursus II. Krenkel (Der Apostel Johannes, p. 142), identifying John the Presbyter with the Apostle John, discovers John Mark in the John first named by Papias. Yet another emenda- tion is offered by Larfeld (Die beiden Johannes von Ephesus, p. 184), who, reading toO 'Iwofvon ,aaf}7]Tai instead of toO KvpLov fj.a9r]Tai, insists that Aris- ion and John the Elder were disciples of the Apostle John.
3 Euseb. HE, iii. 39; vii, 25.
28 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
still alive (and Aristion also) when Papias made his inquiries, and did Papias actually hold speech with him? Here the change of tense is probably decisive; what Andrew and others 'had said,' what Aristion and John the Elder 'say^'; and besides, Papias himself alleges his own decided preference for the living voice. It accordingly appears that, as a young man, he had not only seen but conversed with this second John who, brought by him on the scene, is not the Apostle John but John the Elder. And it is just here that Irenaeus is caught tripping; for, himself meaning the Apostle, he refers to the Bishop of Hierapolis as hearer of John as well as associate of Polycarp. Not so, says Eusebius, correcting the mistake; Papias by no means asserts that he was himself a hearer and eye-witness of the holy Apostles, but relates how he had received the doctrines of faith from such as were of the number of their friends^.
It might, then, be inferred that he with whom both Papias and Polycarp held converse in their early manhood was not the son of Zebedee, but an aged disciple of the Lord who was in repute in the Churches of Asia as John the Elder. Yet is the further as- sumption warranted that, besides this John the Elder, whoever he might be, there had also been resident in Asia Minor and at Ephesus another John; he who was an Apostle and one of the Twelve^?
While the story of the two tombs at Ephesus, if not purely legendary, is at the most suggestive of a claim asserted by each to be the place of sepulture of a renowned personage *, there are other grounds for hesitating to answer in the aifirmative. They are
^ The 'say' has been held (a) to be a historical present introduced for the sake of variety, or (/3) understood of what men who have passed away still ' say ' in books, or (7) of utterances actually heard and fresh in the mind. The last explanation is adopted above.
2 Euseb. HE, iii, 39.
3 Silanus the Christian, p. 306. And see Calmes, op. cit. p. 24. Larfeld {op. cit. p. 185) writes: 'Die Amtsbezeichnung irpecr^urfpos ist nach altchristl. Gebrauch auch auf den Apos. Joh. (6 ir pea ^vr epos kut i^oxv") auszudehnen.' And thus Hennell {An Inquiry concerning the origin of Christianity, p. 104): 'the name "elder" was very commonly given to the heads of the Church (1 Pet. v, 1), and might be assumed by John the Apostle.'
* Erbes, ZKO, xxxm, ii, p. 162.
m. AUTHORSHIP IN TRADITION 29
separately discussed elsewhere^, and it will suffice if, at this point, they be specified in few words. And first, it is clear that a John located in Asia Minor is identified in tradition with the Beloved Disciple who figures in the pages of the Foui'th Gospel. The as- sumption being that the latter is a real personage, there is, to say the least, very grave difficulty in identifying him with the Apostle John. In the second place, it is not any longer possible to use the word 'universal ' of the tradition which brings John son of Zebedee to Ephesus to die a natural death in extreme old age. Another stream of tradition must be reckoned with; and with the result that ample room must be made for the probability that, never quitting Palestine, he suffered martjrrdom, and thereby completely fulfilled the recorded (Mk x, 39) prediction to himself and his brother James.
'The tradition of Asia Minor,' it has been said, 'knows but one John only, who accordingly must be either the Apostle or the Elder^' ; and it is, no doubt, true that for the ancients, the residence of John son of Zebedee in Asia Minor appears to have been an 'uncontested historical fact^.' Not necessarily will it be accounted fact by the modern student. As he reviews the situation he will perhaps be led to agree that the question really is of two traditions, which, by the end of the third century, had been combined in the assertion that two Johns had resided at Ephesus, the one being the Apostle and the other the Elder ^. He may go a step further; with an admission that the earlier and more trustworthy tradition, if decisive for some aged disciple who had companied with Jesus, is not by any means decisive for the Apostle John. And, although arguments from silence are precarious, he will pay added heed to the fact that in respect of the latter Ignatius has no single word to say^.
But to bring this chapter to a close. The allusion being to the external evidence for the traditional authorship of the Fourth Gospel, it has been remarked of it that it constitutes ' that portion of the field in which conservative theology has hitherto believed
* See Excursus T and II. ^ yo^ Dobschiitz, LZ, Nrs. 52-53, col. 1779. •'' Schanz, Evang. d. h. Joh. p. 2.
* von Soden, Early Christ. Liter, p. 429. * See Excursus I.
30 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
itself to have gained its securest successes^ ' ; and a case very much in point is the confident appeal made to such evidence by the staunch upholder of the traditional authorship^ with whose verdict this chapter began. Whether the successes so claimed are indubit- able is quite another question; and we must admit that neither for the residence of the Apostle John in Asia nor yet for his author- ship of the Gospel called by his name is the external evidence of such a nature as to banish doubt^. On the contrary, it is highly probable that, when the field of internal evidence has been ex- plored, we shall rather agree that were anyone, knowing nothing of the traditional belief, to peruse our Gospel, it would scarcely occur to him to seek for its author among the immediate disciples of Jesus ^.
I EB, ii, col. 2545.
* Polidori De Wette (op. cit. ii, p. 223), with allusion to the external evidence, gave it as his opinion that 'in dieser Hinsicht steht unser Evglm. nicht schlimmer, ja besser, als die drei ersten und als die paulinischen Schriften.' 'The external evidence,' says Evans [op. cit. p. 84), 'is wholly in favour of St John's authorship.'
* It must be said with Cohu [The Gospels and Modern Research, p. 412) that 'the external evidence. . .is utterly inconclusive as to its [sc. the Fourth Gospel's) Apostolic authorship.'
4 Heitmiiller, 8NT, ii, p. 707. And see Contentio Veritatis, pp. 223 f.
CHAPTER IV
INTERNAL EVIDENCE
In the two preceding chapters, inquiry being kept strictly within the field of external evidence, it was provisionally decided that, in the first place, while the Fourth Gospel cannot be earlier than the latest of the Synoptics, there is apparently no valid reason which requires a date subsequent to the fourth decade of the second century; and next, that the case for the traditional author- ship was by no means made out. A possibility may remain that 'in some way or other John son of Zebedee stands behind' the Gospel which bears John's name^. As it is we cannot but already feel that, be his relation to it what it. may, he eludes discovery in the very region in which that Gospel is held to have originated; and that it is not at all unlikely that, with the lapse of time and for whatever reason 2, the distinctive title of Apostle attached itself to a John whom an earlier generation had been content to speak of as (together with other titles of distinction) a disciple of the Lord'. We now pass from external to internal evidence. The first question which arises is this: what direct evidence relative to its authorship is afforded by our Gospel itself? As for the second, it is concerned with indirect evidence; we shall ask: what impressions does our Gospel convey with regard to the personality of its author?
^ Hamack, Chron. i, p. 677.
* According to Schmiedel {Evang. Briefe u. Offenb. des Joh. p. 7) the confusion arose — as in the case of Philip and Hierapolis — from claims ad- vanced by the Church of Ephesus to have had an Apostle as its founder. Forbes {op. cit. p. 173) aptly remarks: 'Ephesus did not become a famous religious centre of apostolic renown, hke Rome and Jerusalem, as would naturally have been the result in case an apostle from the Twelve had long resided there.'
' Albeit the allusion is specifically to Polycrates, von Soden's pointed remark {Early Christ. Liter, p. 427) applies generally: 'Though so many titles of honour are . . . heaped upon this John, that of Apostle, the highest of all in those days, is not among them.'
32 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
The present chapter shall accordingly be divided into two main sections.
(i) Direct Evidence
We will remark at the outset that the question of the 'self- testimony' of our Gospel is approached, regarded and decided in ways which illustrate a wide diversity of view on the part of scholars. On the one hand it is resolutely maintained that *the Fourth Gospel claims to be the work of an eye-witness of the life of Jesus ' ; that he who speaks in xix, 35 ' can be none other than the Evangelist himself,' who, 'throughout constant in declining the use of an "I," ' vouches, as eye-witness, for the truth of what he relates, and gives it to be understood that his place was very near to Jesus ; the disciple whom Jesus loved, he is identified with the nameless disciple of i, 37 ff ., and with him who, acquainted, xviii, 15, with the High Priest, follows Jesus to the High Priest's Palace; it is said expressly of him, xxi, 24, that he penned the Gospel; as he is ever and again coupled with Peter, it is natural to look for him in the little group of intimates told of in the Synoptics ; in the last analysis he is John the Apostle and son of Zebedee^. On the other hand it is contended that the Gospel's ' self-testimon}'- ' is exceedingly strange : the ' we beheld his glory ' of the Prologue, i, 14, invites inquiry as to who it is that speaks ; as with the other Gospels so here, the manner is objective and anonymous; with ch. xiii a mysterious personage is brought on the scene who, thenceforward eclipsing Peter, is ever to the front; unlike Peter and the rest, he is steadfast at the Cross, and vouches for the reality of the death of Jesus; the meaning of xix, 35, is that he is the authority on whom the tradition of the Fourth Gospe' rests; in the event it appears that the question really is of two traditions, and that the one which points to this Beloved Disciple is to be deemed equal, if not superior, to that which is referred to Peter. It is urged further that the 'self-testimony' becomes utterly complicated
^ So, generally, Barth ; Das Johannesevglm. pp. 5 ff. Cludius ( Uran- sichten des Christenthums, p. 51) allowed that the rank of eye-witness is claimed by the Evangelist. Westcott (St John, pp. v-xxi), gradually nar- rowing down the choice, is decisive for the Apostle John. In like manner Cohu, op. cit. p. 419, note.
IV. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 33
when, xxi, 24, the authority of the unnamed Beloved Disciple is confirmed by men who, writing in the first person, are themselves unknown — as if, forsooth, such testimony would be needed in the case of an actual Apostolic witness. The ' self -testimony ' of the Gospel, it is added, raises more riddles than it solves ; and, far from establishing the authenticity of the work, it arouses suspicion which merges in doubt^.
The situation is probably more complex than is suggested in the former quarter. Nor is there over-statement, in the second quarter, of what are certainly curious phenomena. Not only does 'the author (of the Gospel) nowhere give his name,' but the fact that 'he designates himself in mysterious hints^' enhances our perplexity.
But let our inquiry begin with the Projogue^ of the Gospel. In two places the first person plural is met with ; and it is perhaps safe to infer that, inasmuch as the 'we' of v. 16 is accompanied by an 'all' ('?At6t<? iravre';) the allusion there is to believers generally, whether eye-witnesses or not*. The case is somewhat different with V. 14; the question there is whether the 'we beheld' (edeaadfieda) implies physical sight or spiritual perception; and if the former alternative be adopted ^ the allusion is naturally to persons who had actually seen Jesus. That granted, it certainly appears that the Evangelist expressly lays claim to be such an one himself;
^ Thus, in outline, Wemle, Quellen, pp. 12 ff.
2 Weizsacker, Apos. Age, ii, p. 207. 'Aller Streit ware geschlichtet, wenn der Verfasser sich in seinem Evglm. selbst nennte. Aber er thut es nicht.' So Liicke, Comment, uher das Evglm. des Joh. i, p. 85. And thus A. R. Loman {Het Evan, van Joh. imar Oorajyrong, Bestemming en Gebruik in de Oudheid, p. 17): 'Nergens zegt de auteur, of dat hij een der Apostelen is, of dat hij Johannes heet.'
3 Jn i, 1-18.
^ 'Die ganze Christenheit,' Hengstenberg, Das Evglm. des heil. Joh. ui, pp. 396 f. 0. Holtzmann (Das Johannesevglm. p. 198) writes: 'Die Gemeinde der Grotteskinder.'
5 ' The original word in the N.T. is never used of mental vision,' Westcott, op. cit. p. XXV. To the same effect Sanday, op. cit. pp. 76 f. And thus Loisy, op. cit. p. 187: 'L'^^vangeliste parle comme un temoin oculaire de la vie de Jesus.' The second alternative is preferred by int. al. W. Bauer, HBNT, u, ii, p. 15. And see HeitmiiUer, SNT, ii, pp. 733 f. ; who comments at length on the phrase tt^v dd^av avToO,
34 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
'by his use of the first person plural he associates himself with other eye-witnesses of Jesus' appearance on earth^.' It does not f oUow that he claims to be one of the Twelve ; neither, we will add, is the fact established that he had actually been an eye-witness. On the contrary, he may have had resort to literary sanctions of the age of which more hereafter.
Whether he be the nameless disciple of i, 37 ff. or not, the Beloved Disciple stands full in view from xiii onwards ; and inas- much as he is found, xix, 26, at the Cross of Jesus, his presence is generally suspected in the crux of commentators, xix, 35: 'And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true (aXrjdcvr)) and he (e'/ceti/o?) knoweth that he saith true {aXijdi]. things that are true), that ye also may believe.'
Is it really he, thp Beloved Disciple, eye-witness. Evangelist, who speaks in the perplexing verse? A very natural inference would be that it comes from another and a later hand; from the pen of certain unknown personages who, for whatever reasons, are constrained to add their testimony to the credibility both of the narrator and of his report^? If he it really be, is he pointing to himself? If so, the method adopted by him is peculiar; if he means thereby to indicate his authorship he does so in strange fashion. Still more singular is it that, if he be thus mysteriously alluding to himself as both eye-witness and Evangelist, he, to all appearance, makes appeal for support to some third person whose identity is also veiled: 'He that hath seen hath borne witness {sc. the Evan- gelist), and his witness is true' ; it is vouched for by another autho- rity: 'and that one (e/ceti/o?) knoweth that he {sc. the Evangelist) saith things that are true.' And besides, questions are invited by the sentence with which the ambiguous verse ends : ' that ye also may believe.' Who are the ' ye ' ? Had need arisen to combat in-
1 Wendt, op. cit. p. 207. Cf. 1 Jn i, 1 flf. Zahn (Einl. ii, p. 467) writes: 'Turning to the Prologue we at once come across, not indeed an "I," but a thrice repeated "we" which includes an "I," the "I" of the author.'
* This raises the question, to be discussed later on, of the 'homogeneity or otherwise of the Fourth Gospel. It may be remarked here that the 'blood and water' of the preceding verse xix, 34, whatever the occurrence, are, in this connexion, held to be symbolic of the Supper of the Lord and Baptism. Otherwise Kreyenbiihl, Das Evglm. der Wahrheit, ii, p. 663.
rv. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 35
credulity, or to assert the authority of a Gospel which had not yet attained to general acceptance?
Taking the verse as it stands, it is not unreasonable to say of it that the intention is to place the reader in the presence of the Evangelist^. As for the puzzling allusion (e/ceti/09), opinions differ ; upon the one hand it is afiirmed that the term can be used by a speaker of himself and is often so used in this very Gospel^; the case is said to be one in which ' the author is simply turning back upon himself and protesting his own veracity^.' On the other hand a thii-d person is discovered; yet here again opinions differ as to who he is, and conjecture has turned from any human guarantor to dwell on the risen and ascended Lord*. But however this may be, the author of the Gospel apparently figures in the verse ; and, if so, the choice lies between two alternatives; either he is thus pointed to by others, or he adopts an oblique way of indicating himself. In the latter case he claims to be an eye-witness; and, should he be but the secondary historian, he must be judged, not by modern standards, but by the literary sanctions of his own period.
A third perplexing passage now demands attention. By com- mon consent ch. xxi is an Appendix^; whether vv. 1-23 come from the same pen as do the preceding chapters or not, there is no room for doubt that the two final verses (24, 25) are the addition of a later hand. Taken in connexion wdth vv. 1-23 they amount to 'an 'express assurance^' that 'the disciple which beareth witness of
^ Who. according to Wellhausen (Das Evgm. J oh. p. 89), distinguishes himself from the eye-witness to whom he appeals and who is the Beloved Disciple.
2 A case in point is Jn ix, 37. Westcott, op. cit. p. xxv. And see Steitz, Vher den Gebrauch dcrPronom. eKelvos im vierten Evglm. See also Kreyenbiihl, op. cit. i, p. 168: 'aus dem gesagten ergiebt sich. . .dass der Verfasser sich selber (Kelvos nennen konne.'
* Sanday, Criticism of the Fourth Ooapel, p. 78.
< Sanday, ibid. ; Zahn, op. cit. ii, pp. 474 f. ; W. Bauer, HBNT, n, ii, p. 177. See E. A. Abbott, Joh. Grammar, pp. 284 f.
5 With Jn XX, 30 f. a perfectly adequate conclusion is reached by the Gospel.
* Wendt, op. cit. p. 213. The 'express assurance,' according to Haus- leiter (Zwei Apos. Zeugen), of Andrew and Philip, who, on his theory, are joint authors of Jn xxi.
3—2
36 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
these things and wrote these things^' was the disciple whom Jesus loved. Those who say so add: 'and we know {otSa/jiev) that his witness is true.' Then comes a change from the plural to the sin- gular : were the ' many other things which Jesus did ' to be ' written every one, I suppose {ol/xat) that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be written.' Thereupon the Appen- dix chapter reaches its abrupt close.
The second of the two verses is, as we have seen, explicitly referred by Origen to the Apostle John; and in any case one might naturally infer that the 'I' who speaks in it is, or claims to be, himself of the number of the eye-witnesses, for the manner of the allusion is such as to suggest personal knowledge rather than second-hand information. But his identity shall be left the enigma that it is^; the immediate question being far more nearly connected with the emphatic declaration of the preceding verse. Who are the speakers in it? Is it certain who the person is to whom they refer? How comes it that they are in a position to substantiate the accu- racy of the narrative which they so positively assign to his pen ? Why, again, is it that, on the assumption that they deem him no second-hand reporter but an eye-witness, both he and his Gospel should require their guarantee? It has indeed been suggested that their declaration in no way turns on the authorship of the Gospel but is concerned solely with the truth of the Gospel-contents^, yet the suggestion is hard to accept. To all appearance a three-fold assertion is contained in the verse; — the disciple referred to is a still living witness * ; he is author of a work which has reached its conclusion in the verse antecedent to the statement; the 'we,' qualified to bear testimony, are themselves eye-witnesses.
^ Calmes (op. cit. p. 34) writes: 'selon nous, les mots Kai 6 ypd\pai ravra doivent s'entendre, non de tout I'fivangile, mais seulement des versets qui precedent, ou il est question de I'immortalite eventuelle du disciple bien-aime.'
^ Holtzmann {HCNT, iv, p. 230), remarking on the non-Johamiine word ol/xoLi, speaks of Apologetics led astray to think of Papias.
3 Baldensperger, Prolog p. 110.
* Or, being dead, speaks in his book. ' L'emploi du present ne prouve pas que le disciple vive encore; il rend temoignage actuellement par son livre,' Loisy, op. cit. p. 949.
IV. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 37
Who are the 'we'? Of certain answer there is none whatever^. Refuge might be taken in the conjecture that they are Ephesian Elders^; yet so as to leave their date an open question.
To what personage do they refer? Obviously to the mysterious Beloved Disciple^; with their 'this is the disciple' they point back to the passage which immediately precedes their statement, and in it he figures. Is it quite so certain that he is one and the self- same person as the Apostle John^? As is shown elsewhere, the identity is hard to establish^; for the moment assuming it, the situation is clear, the son of Zebedee is of course equated by the 'we' with the Beloved Disciple. Otherwise everything depends on whether the process of confusion between two distinct persons has been accomplished or not. In the former contingency they, the 'we,' mean (without saying it) John the Apostle, in the latter they are referring to him who is spoken of as a disciple of the Lord.
They are, anyhow they say that they are, in a position to render two-fold testimony; is it possible to take them at their word? If the Beloved Disciple be really the Apostle John and the Beloved Disciple- Apostle be really the Evangelist, yes; what if they, meaning the Apostle, do but reflect the unfounded opinion of a later day? The answer would again be in the affirmative were the Beloved Disciple, being other than the Apostle, really author of the Fourth Gospel ; yet here again the case for his direct authorship may be hard to prove. Room must be made for the conjecture that, in view of circumstances held by them to justify their action, they give authoritative expression to beliefs current in their midst.
* De Wette {op. cit. ii, p. 229) says of the 'unbekannter Urheber' (of v. 24) that he was 'einer der jiingern Zeitgenossen.' W. Bauer [HBNT, n, ii, p. 189; cf. Holtzmann, op. cit. p 229) finds the allusion reminiscent of the tradition as given by Clem. Alex, and of the Muratorian Canon.
- HenneU (op. cit. p. 105) instances the conjecture of Grotius that the 'we' points to the Church at Ephesus.
* Alex. Schweizer, Das Evglm. J oh. pp. 59 f. And see p. 239; where Schweizer, remarking that he who appended eh. xxi declares the Evangelist to be a disciple and eye-witness, viz. the Beloved Disciple, whoever the latter was, adds : But is this true to fact ?
* Schwalb {Christns und die Evangelien, pp. 198 f.) is of opinion that the author of ch. xxi clearly differentiates the anonymous 'Lieblingsjiinger' from the sons of Zebedee. * See Excursus II.
38 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
And well might it be asked : wherefore is it that one so positively stated to be eye-witness and Evangelist — and perhaps Apostle — should require the anonymous testimony to himself and his work ? That zeal is manifested by the ' we ' is clear enough ; yet it is possible to urge that the line taken by them is not exactly calculated to advance their cause; but that, on the contrary, they go near to cast a slur on the very personage for whose credit they are so evidently concerned^. They have acted, shall it be admitted? in all good faith; the tentative conjecture shall follow that, in the said action, they were conscious of and responsive to a need of their day. Men had looked askance at our Gospel ; and hence steps were taken by the 'we' to obviate objection and win acceptance for the treasured work.
A dilemma is proposed; either the Apostle John is the author of the Gospel, or it has been written by someone else who personates him. Thus when it is said: 'the author is either the eye-witness (and, with every probability, the son of Zebedee) or, with resort to artifice and mysterious hints, he poses as such . . . and good friends of his are prompt with their imprimatur for what is a sheer imposture; for they, knowing his testimony to be false, declare it to be true^.' Apart from the objectionable way of putting it, a false issue is raised by the second alternative in that it reads back modern standards into a remote past. What at the present day would be utterly indefensible was not simply condoned but recog- nized and sanctioned by the literary etiquette of the ancient world: 'it was characteristic of the spirit and custom of ancient historians and poets and especially those of the Bible, to live them- selves into the modes of thought and expression of great men, and by imitating their thoughts and feelings, make themselves their
^ 'Ein Zeuge, dessen Zeugnis selbst erst wieder bezeugt werden muss, kann nicht als eine sehr vertrauenswiirdige Person erscheinen,' Schmiedel, Evglm. Brief e und Offenbarung des J oh. p. 15. And see Liitzelberger, Die Kirchl. Tradition iiber den Apos. J oh. p. 188.
- Barth; op. cit. p. 7. Cf. Lightfoot, Bibl. Essays, p. 80.
3 Kirkpatrick, Divine Library of O.T. pp. 40 f. See also Percy Gardner, Ephea. Gasp. pp. 92 S. ; von Soden, Early Christ. Lit. pp. 14 f.
IV. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 39
who composed and put fortli works in another's name^; neither they nor their readers would be conscious of enacted fraud. So with the unknown author of Ecclesiastes who veils his identity with the great name of Solomon ; so with the author of the Second Petrine Epistle when he calls himself 'Simon Peter'; so with ' Ephesians ' if, as is not altogether inconceivable, it originates from a disciple of Paul. Precisely so here ; if the Fourth Evangelist be really one who, in his Gospel, makes himself 'organ' of the eye- witness (whoever the eye-witness may be) he is not necessarily the 'falsarius^.'' The course adopted by him would have the literary sanctions of his period, and the ' we ' who, xxi, 24, give their testi- mony are not necessarily so many confederates in a literary fraud.
Let us agree that, in the event of necessary preference for the alternative which disposes of the traditional authorship of the Fourth Gospel as altogether untenable, there can be, in view of old-world literary usages, no question of wanton accusation and of libelling the dead^.
The direct evidence of the Gospel has been surveyed. On the face of it, no doubt, it pleads for the conclusion that, whatever his identity, the author of the Gospel is an eye-witness, the Beloved Disciple. Yet with closer examination of the salient passages con- fidence passes over into doubt; and, as the case stands, it must be admitted that the Gospel does lay claim to Apostolic origin and authority in a way which is both singular and mysterious, and that its self -testimony raises more riddles than it solves ^. Whether more light will be thrown on the problem by evidence of an indirect nature has yet to be seen.
With such indirect evidence our business now lies.
(ii) Indirect Evidence As we pass from direct to indirect evidence the field to be ex- plored widens; for, whereas in the former case our inquiry was
1 Schmiedel, op. cit. pp. 12 f.
2 Of the dilemma as propomided by De Wette, op. cit. ii, p. 229.
3 As Sanday suggests, op. cit p. 81.
* In the view of Scholten (Het Evan, naar J oh. p. 399) the Fourth Evangelist intended his Gospel to be accepted as by the Apostle John who is the Beloved Disciple.
40 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
concentrated on a group of but three passages, we now enter upon an examination of our Gospel as a whole. Nor shall we stop short there; on the contrary, it will become necessary to confront "John' with the Synoptic Gospels, whUe an attempt must also be made to determine its relation to circumstance, event, or movement in the world of the period within which the date of its composition has been held to fall. We shall further have to address ourselves to the vexed question whether our Gospel be a unity or a composite work.
The issues, in short, are numerous; and the consideration of them will spread itself over many pages. But in the second section of the present chapter, our Gospel being taken as a whole, and by itself apart, the main questions are these: What impressions are conveyed by it as to the personality of the Evangelist? Does it vouch for the first-hand knowledge of an eye-witness? Or does it reveal the secondary historian who constructs his situations after the manner of his age?
Be the author who he may, there can be no doubt whatever that he addresses himself to a Gentile community or communities. It is not simply that he writes in Greek ; for, quite apart from the fact that the New Testament as a whole is a Greek book^, precisely the same course is adopted by a writer whose addressees — if the superscription of his Epistle^ be taken literally — are specifically Jewish Christians. A decisive proof is that he is at pains to trans- late'^ and is ready with his explanations^. He might, or he might not, be resident in their midst.
Next comes the question of his nationality. Is he himself a Gentile? Such a contention has been raised, and not once or twice; an English pioneer of criticism satisfied himself that the Fourth Evangelist was ' no Apostle or any Jew ^ ' ; ' a sincere Christian . . . and a Greek' : such was the verdict of a master of English prose ^, It must be admitted that there is force in the argument ' ; for his
* Deissmann, New Light on the N.T. pp. 29 f.
2 1 Pet. ii, 1. » Jn i, 42; ix, 7; xx, 16.
'' Jnii, 6; vi, 4; xix, 31. 40.
•'' Evanson, op. cit. p. 226.
« Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible, p. 284.
' Which Scott-Moncrieff {op. cit. p. 84) minimizes.
IV. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 41
incessant allusions to 'the Jews' are so acrimonious^ and so objec- tive^ in their nature as to suggest that he differentiates himself from their race. Yet there are counter-arguments which may be deemed strong enough to weigh down the balance on the other side, if it does not at once follow that he who records the Saving: 'Salvation is of the Jews^' was obviously himself of Jewish origin. Adverse voices are not sUent ; yet the general trend of scholarship is to allow and to afl&rm that he came from, originally belonged to, Jewish Christianity*. 'John, like Paul, was a Jew^'; 'there is nothing to preclude his Jewish birth, his style and methods of representation favour its admission^.'
And such is really the case. Looking to the diction of the Gospel, it is surely true to say that, penned for Gentile readers for whom Jewish terms and usages had to be translated and ex- plained, it throughout reveals a distinctively Semitic mode of thought by its phraseology, its frequent Hebraisms, its compara- tively limited vocabulary'. No doubt its author 'writes in a style which is peculiar but quite literary 8'; there are nevertheless fea- tures which suggest that the foreign language acquired by him has not been so entirely mastered that its resources are fully at his command. That he breathes a Greek atmosphere is unquestion- able; as unquestionable does it appear from the Hebraisms he indulges in that our Gospel comes from a Jewish hand^.
' The style of the narrative alone is conclusive as to its Jewish authorship^".' This point decided^the further question arises: Was
1 Scholten (Het Evan, naar Joh. p. 439) writes; 'Is het mogelijk om in zulk een oordeel over het wederstrevend Israel een geboren Jood te erkennen ? Daar komt bij, dat de schrijver overal over de Joden spreckt als over eene vreemde natie.' To the same effect Schenkel, Das Charakterbild Jesu, p. 251. But see Schleiermacher, EirU. p. 337.
- As an EngUshiiaan speaks of ' the Germans,' or ' the Danes.'
' Jn iv, 22. * Weizsacker, op. cit. ii, p. 218.
^ von Dobcchiitz, Christ. Life in the Prim. Church, p. 218; Prohleme des Apos. ZeilaUers, pp. 92 f.
' Holtzmann, Das Evglm. des Joh. p. 16. ' Barth, op. cit. pp. 7 f.
« P. Gardner, Ephes. Gosp. p. 45. And see De Wette, Lehrburh, ii, p. 213.
^ Thoma {Genesis des Evglm. Joh. p. 787) writes; 'Er hat mit der Mutter- milch jiidische Denkart eingesogen.' And thus Herder (Von Goties Sohn, der Welt Heiland, p. 275): 'er dachte Ebraisch und schrieb Griechisch.'
1 AVest-cott, St John, p. vi. In the opinion of Liicke (op. cit. pp. 41ff.) the
42 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
its author a Jew of Palestine? Did lie belong, upon the other hand, to the Diaspora? Was he, that is, a Hellenistic Jew?
The point is not settled by the source of his quotations from the Old Testament; sometimes he quotes from the Greek Bible (LXX) whUe at other times he approximates more nearly to the Hebrew text^. Appeal might be made to his doctrine of the Logos, but at this stage of our inquiry it must be left an open question whence it was derived. What certainly appears probable is that his diction has closest afl&nity, not with the literatiire of Hellenistic Judaism, but with that of Palestinian learning^. An important consideration then is whether he himself be thoroughly familiar with the scenes and the circumstances of the country with which his narrative is primarily concerned. Does he so know his Palestine as to establish it that Palestine had actually been his birthplace and his home?
It is in matters such as this that a writer who, posing as an eye-witness, is altogether destitute of any real knowledge of locality and conditions, is almost certain to give himself away by confusion or mistake.
Speaking generally, the Fourth Evangelist is not open to sus- picion. It cannot be proved against him that, in respect at all events of localities, he is guilty of the slip or blunder which would betray his ignorance^, if research has as yet failed to identify one or other of the places specified in his report*. There may of course be 'some hidden and allegoric meaning' in his particularizations, and the point will come up again ; yet ' every critic remarks in the style, albeit more Greek than Palestinian, reveals the bom Jew who had long resided in Asia.
^ Scott-Moncrieff {op. cit. p. 76) inclines to 'the supposition that the Evangelist used some catena of Messianic quotations compiled, it may be, by differcDt hands.' ^ See Credner, Einl. pp. 264 f.
* Schmiedel, op. cit. p. 16. Otherwise Scholten {Het Evan, naar Joh. p. 431): 'De Evangelist is bhjkbaar geen ooggetuige en van het tooneel der gebeurtenissen verwijdert.' With allusion to Jn i, 29, 35; ii. 1 ff. Cludius {op. cit. p. 64) asks: could the author so have written had he been a Pales- tinian Jew, and famUiar with locahties ? And see his remarks on pp. 65 f. On p. 67 he writes : ' Die Mahre von Bethesda . . . verrath auch einen von Jerusalem fern lebenden Verfasser.'
* ' In most cases the difficulty resolves itself into our ignorance of the local geography, not into the writer's,' Moffatt, op. cit. p. 548.
IV. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 43
Gospel a number of details which do not seem in themselves impor- tant, but which give to the narrative an air, which is in fact some- what delusive, of being a very exact narrative^.' 'Delusive' in a sense it may be, and perhaps it is; there is nevertheless an air of verisimilitude about certain details which goes far to convey an impression that they are traceable to actual personal reminiscence. Yet it might be too venturesome to say of such details one and all that, often irrelevant enough, they yet betray the vi\dd recollec- tions of a narrator who never stays to ask whether a thing be trivial or not, but who is fain to describe scenes photographed on his mind — even side incidents^.
Whether the Fourth Evangelist, in any case no Gentile, be a Palestinian or a Hellenistic Jew, he is in a position to draw on his own personal acquaintance with the 'Holy Land^'; and in the second alternative (which is the less likely of the two) an inference might be that, although his temporary residence is there no longer, he had travelled up and down in it as having eyes to see and using them.
Yet it may not be so clear that his knowledge extends from geography to political and ecclesiastical organization. A charge here brought against him is that he has perpetrated a blunder than which none more glaring can be conceived * ; in that, with his thrice-repeated and emphatic allusion to Caiaphas^, he assumes the Jewish High-priesthood to be an annual appointment when as a matter of fact the office was tenable for life ^. ' Being high priest that year' :— it must be confessed that the definitive phrase 'that year' gives the reader pause; and besides, it is not a little curious that the person referred to is so casually introduced when he is of such exalted rank'. If gross error there be— and the Evangelist be really a Jew — it is no satisfactory explanation which accounts for it by a long interval between the events narrated and
^ P. Gardner, op. cit. pp. 56 f . - Barth, op. cit. pp. 7 f.
2 ' At any rate he is intimately acquainted,' says Cohu {op. cit. p. 474), ' with the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem.'
* Schmiedel, op. cit. pp. 16 f
* Jn xi, 49, 51; xviii, 13; dpxi-fpevs uf rod iviavToD iKeivov.
« Heitmviller, SNT, ii, p. 808; W. Bauer, HBNT, n, ii, p. 115; Julicher, Einl. p. 380. ' eh Si tis e| ai^Tcji/ Kaidcpas.
44 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
the telling of them with the confused memories of extreme old age. Other explanations are, perhaps, more to the point; with his emphatic 'that year' the Evangelist really meant 'that fateful year,' the 'year of all years,' 'the acceptable year of the Lord^.' Perhaps it really was so ; on the other hand there is force in the suggestion that he was simply accommodating himself to local usages, in respect of the Asiarchs, for the sake of Gentile readers on a foreign soil 2. A contingency remains that the responsibility for the dubious statement is not attachable to himself^.
Let him have the benefit of the doubt. Another point must be raised ; and it again turns on the exactitude or otherwise of the report of this Jew eye-witness as he claims, and is held, to be. The question ceases to be of narrative and is now con- cerned with discourse^.
It has been said ^ of the Fourth Gospel that, rich in ' tender and unearthly beauty ' it is suggestive of solemn cathedral voluntaries improvised upon the organ of human speech. Yet it is a just criticism which insists that the Evangelist's ideas, if sublime, are few; that they are continually reiterated in well-nigh identical form; that there is a poverty of vocabulary, a sameness in manner of presentment ^ : ' if the same great conceptions and ideas recur over and over again, the language becomes almost monotonous, colourless, — yes, almost poor '.' The admission is abundantly ne- cessitated that precisely these features are ever and again illus- trated in the speeches of the personages who play their respective parts in the wonderful drama of the Fourth Gospel story. It may be quite true that the characters are invested with an individuality of their own ; it is equally true that, having played their part, they often vanish from the scene. Once more; is it quite the case that they pass out of sight as men of flesh and blood and not like
^ So Westcott, Lightfoot, and others. It is to beg the question when Scott-Moncrieff {op. cit. p. 89) writes: 'He does not say that he was the high priest of that year.'
2 Holtzraann, HCNT, iv, p. 160. Otherwise Clemen (Entstehung des Joh. Evglms. p. 216), who discovers an explanation in the allusion Lk. iii, 1 ff.
' The question of interpolations is discussed in later chapters.
* A subject which will come up again. ^ By Drummond.
* von Soden, op. cit. p. 13.
' Luthardt, op. cit. p. 19. But cf. Westcott, op. cit. pp. 1 f.
IV. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 46
characters in some legeudaiy tale^? Might it not rather be said of some of them that they ' appear in a strange twilight . . . they pro- fess to be actual personalities, yet they live only the life of typical characters,' and that, as for the Evangelist, ' he loses the whole of his interest in both persons and situations as soon as they have served his doctrinal purpose^? ' The question will come up again; let it be observed in this connexion that it is precisely when they begin to speak that the uniform note is perceptible. There is little if any variety in the manner of their discourse. Admittedly their language is Johannine. Or to put it thus: the Evangelist has ' fashioned a speech peculiar to his school,' and it is in that speech that all his characters discourse^.
Let it be observed at this point that the claim raised by the Evangelist (or advanced on his behalf) is not simply that of having been an eye-witness. The idea of an ear- witness is included in the claim. When it is said by (or of) him that 'his witness is true' the meaning undoubtedly is that, if his report be trustworthy in respect of things seen with his eyes, it is not one whit less trustworthy in the case of things heard with his ears.
Then this weighty consideration arises: no matter who the personages are, the speeches which the Evangelist purports to report are assuredly characterized by a remarkable sameness of style or tone. They, the said personages — each one with an indivi- duality proper to himself — must surely have displayed their indi- viduality in the manner of their discourse. They are certainly not found so to do ; and the conclusion is unavoidable that the asserted ear-witness Evangelist is anything but a true witness if verity be contingent on exactness of report. The speeches must be, to some extent, constructed speeches. In any case the Evangelist has allowed himself a very free hand ^.
^ Westcott, op. cit. pp. Ixxi, Ixxv; Barth, op. cit. p. .30.
* von Soden, op. cit. pp. 390 ff. To the same effect Wrede, Charakter und Tendenz des Evglm. Joh. p. 21.
* von DobschiJtz, Christ. Life in the Prim. Ch. p. 222.
* Treating of 'Die "subjective Form" der johan. Christusreden,' P. Ewald (NKZ, xix, 1908, p. 842)%rites: 'Es gibt auch im taglichen Leben eine doppelte Art, Gehortes zu bewahren und anderen zu vermitteln; Entweder indem man wirklich den Wortlaut durchaus festhalt und anderen
46 THE FOURTH GOSPEL ch.
To which it may be added that his own reflexions are some- times so merged in reported conversation or discourse that it is no easy thing to decide who precisely the speaker is^. Sometimes the difficulty is less; thus, e.g., in the case of Jn iii, 16-22, 31-36; where we have in all likelihood the ponderings of the Evangelist rather than words assigned respectively to Jesus and the Baptist,
There is another important point. The professed, or alleged, eye- and ear-witness occasionally relates scene or incident in a manner strongly suggestive that no one is present but the persons immediately concerned, yet he appears to record what passed be- tween them with the precision of an attentive listener to the spoken words ^. That sources of information were at his command may be freely admitted ; yet this is by no means a sufficient explan- ation, for, such sources granted, it must nevertheless be urged that they have been amplified by the Evangelist, and in terms of his own conceptions of what was likely to be said by the respective personages who figure in the narrative. But this is scarcely to go far enough; the conclusion is ever and again inevitable that the case, far from being one of an ear-witness's verbatim — or free yet sufficiently accurate — report, is actually of artificially con- structed discourse. The position is well stated thus: 'few will deny that in this Gospel the prerogative of the ancient historian to place in the mouth of his characters discourses reflecting his own idea of what was suitable to the occasion, has been used to the limit^.'
gegeniiber reproduzirt, oder indem man alien Nachdruck auf den Gedanken- gehalt legt.' The latter method, it is added, is better calculated to convey the real significance of the spoken word, and it is that employed by the Fourth Evangehst.
^ 'Zudem verschwimmen die ihm (Jesus) geliehenen Worte ofters mit den eigenen Reflexionen des Verfassers,' Reuss, Geschichte der heil. Schriften des N.T. p. 208. See also von Soden, op. cit. p. 412; Weizsacker, op. cit. ii, p. 225.
* Of this there are at least six striking instances : the night visit of Nico- demus, Jn iii, 1-16 ; the conversation with the woman of Samaria, Jn iv, 7-26 ; the scene laid in the palace of the Roman Governor, xviii, 33-xix, 14; the debate in the council, xi, 47 ff. ; the Burial, xix, 38 fif. ; the appearance to Mary Magdalene, xx, 11 f. See Alex. Schweizer, op. cit. pp. 241 fiE.
' Bacon, Introd. to N.T. p. 267. See also Percy Gardner, op. cit. p. 93; CBE, pp. 392 £f.
IV. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF AUTHORSHIP 47
But to sum up ; and, of course, provisionally. It was said by an earlier critic^ that, while the external evidence for the authorship of the Fourth Gospel was unimportant, the internal evidence was so convincing that only a madman could reject it. As we have seen already, the internal evidence, where direct, is of such a nature that it raises more difficulties than it solves; looking to that indirect evidence which has just been rapidly surveyed, the case is somewhat different ; nor is it altogether incredible that it should be maintained by a recent writer that 'everything in the Gospel points to a Jewish author who is an eye-witness of our Lord's Ministry, and a native of Palestine^.' There is nevertheless ground for hesitation; but at this stage of our inquiry it must suffice to say of the Evangelist that he writes with a view to Gentile readers and that it is a reasonable conjecture which locates his clientele, not to say himself, in Asia Minor. He is evidently a Jew ; possibly of the Diaspora, with far greater likeli- hood of Palestinian origin. There is little need to question his personal acquaintance (somewhat blurred, perhaps, with the lapse of time) with scenes and localities depicted in his Gospel, but it must be confessed that doubt is awakened whether he (if he it be) was equally conversant with the political situations and conditions which obtained in Palestine. Vivid are his descriptions ; the ques- tion nevertheless arises whether the protraits drawn by him are invariably true to life. Sometimes, it may be, actually present when his characters engage in converse, and sometimes, as it would appear, by his own showing, not so present, he, in any case no shorthand reporter, makes them discourse in his own language. Nay more, he places his own reflexions in their lips. As we find him actually setting down what Jesus thought and felt, the temp- tation is strong to account him one whose relations with Jesus had
^ Gfrorer, Die heilige Sage. For some remarks on Gfrorer (who was far indeed from accepting the historicity of our Gospel) see Albert Schweitzer, Von Seimarus zu Wrede, pp. 160 S.; Liitzelberger, op. cit. p. 41.
- Cohu, op. cit. p. 474. Practically the same thing was said by Schleier- macher {Hermtneutik, p. 224) : ' Aber betrachten wir das Evglm. im ganzen, so werden wir urtheUen miissen, es sei das Bericht eines Augenzeugen.' John's Gospel, he says elsewhere (Einl p. 318) is 'lauter Selbsterlebtes.' And thus Lange {op. cit. p. 24) 'Es («c. our Gospel) beruht offenbar anf der personlichen Erinnerung eines der friihsten Zeugen Jesu.'
48 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH. iv.
been singularly close; anyhow we are disposed to agree that he was not so very far removed from the fountain-head of informa- tion^. What we find it hard to say is that his Gospel 'is a genuine Johannine work from the pen of the Apostle, who wrote from Ephesus^.'
Author of our GospeP the Beloved Disciple to whom it points may be; or, if not himself the author, then a main authority for that Gospel.
^ De Wette, op. cii. ii, p. 233 : 'nicht zu weit enfemt von der ersten Quelle.' ' Thus, confidently, Strachan, DGO, i, p. 881. The position now adopted
by him (The Fourth Oospel, its Significance and Environment, p. ix) indicates
a change of view.
* The main fabric of that Gospel. See chs. vii and viii.
CHAPTER V
THE JOHANNINE AND THE SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATION
Jewish scholarship has pronounced that Jewish scholars, steeped in Rabbinic lore, find when they come to study the Gospels care- fully that they have not passed into a strange world^; and that, if 'the Gospel of Matthew stands nearest to Jewish life and the Jewish mode of thinking,' 'a greater familiarity with Jewish rites, with Jewish personalities, and with the geography of Pales- tine ' is shown by the Fourth Gospel. ' The whole book was written by a born Jew^.' And such, generally speaking, was a conclusion arrived at in the preceding chapter. A Jewish background was recognized; and albeit in regard to some points hesitation occa- sionally merged in doubt, it was decided that our Gospel bears the traces of a Jewish pen. Yet a contingency was reckoned with that the alleged eye- and ear-witness of its allusions might be not so much author of as authority for a work impregnated with Jewish thought.
Another stage of inquiry is entered. Hitherto ancient authori- ties have been questioned; and, the ground of external evidence traversed, there followed a general survey of our Gospel which passed from direct to indirect evidence. The time has now come when, confronting that Gospel with its three companions, we must institute that comparison which will pave the way for more definite conclusions on the three-fold question of its date, author- ship, and claims to historicity^.
To turn to the immediate subject. As every student knows, comparisons between the Johannine and Synoptic representations have been instituted again and again; with the result, in many
1 Abrahams, CBE, pp. 164, 181,
- Kaufmann Kohler, JE, ix, p. 251. See also Brooke, CBE, pp. 318 f.; Jiilioher, op. cit. p. 375.
2 The question of substantial accuracy, it is said., is 'ultimately the more important,' Schmiedel, EB, ii, col. 2518; Heitmiiller, SNT, ii, p. 707.
J. 4
50 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
quarters, that an array of reasons is advanced for disallowing not only the genuineness but the credibility of a Gospel which, from its generally recognized peculiar character, is placed in a category by itself apart. And although ' the day is now over, or almost over, when the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptists could be played oS against each other in a series of rigid antitheses^,' yet it will serve the present purpose to summarize objections and make some independent study of the situation.
Now, where objection is raised, the marked peculiarity of the Fourth Gospel is highly accentuated. It is regarded, not as the record of historical events, but as a manual of instruction of which the theme is Jesus, the divine Logos manifested in the flesh. The view further is that the Synoptic Jesus, human in his every linea- ment and child of his own age and people, is altogether unrecog- nizable in the Johannine Christ. As for the former, he is sharer in all the experiences which are the common lot of man, and, moved by tender pity, he performs his deeds of love; as for the latter, a God who walks this earth as a stranger, his signs are done but to manifest his own glory and omnipotence, to lead up to pro- found spiritual meditations. The one is the prophet-preacher who proclaims the Kingdom, the other is for ever discoursing of him- self; the one is friend of sinners, the other prefers the company of seekers after truth ; the one prays and the other can dispense with prayer. Nor is stress laid only on a sharp diversity in the portrai- ture of him who is the central figure; it is further urged that our Gospel and the Synoptists part company in the case of other personages, and that they are utterly at variance on matters, amongst others, of locality and date. The Baptist of the earlier Gospels is the great preacher of repentance, while as portrayed by the Fourth Evangelist he plays no independent role; whereas in the former case the recorded vision at the Baptism is a sign to Jesus, in the latter case all mention of the Baptism is suppressed, while the vision is granted to the Baptist to assure him as to who and what Jesus really is. With the Synoptists the scene is mainly laid in Galilee ; with the Fourth Gospel it is largely transferred to Judaea and Jerusalem ; in the former case the events are crowded 1 jMoffatt; op. cit. p. 540.
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 51
into one short year, in the other the Ministry is extended over three Passovers. In the one case the Jewish people are described with picturesque variety of type and class and section; not so in the other case, with 'John' they dwindle down to Pharisees and Priests and rulers of the people; as for the Pharisees they have become the very core of unbelieving Judaism in its hostility to Jesus. The Jews are pictured as in hopeless case ; away with them to the devil, the Greeks for Jesus and for God ! And again, the difference between the Johannine and the Synoptic representa- tions of the Passion, the Death, and the Resurrection is regarded as fundamental^.
For reasons such as these there is wide-spread agreement that, whatever be its interest and value as an early Christian document, the Fourth Gospel must be ruled out as a source for the Life of Jesus.
As we shall realize presently, the Fourth Gospel does, in many respects, present a striking contrast to its three companions. Com- mon features and resemblances there may be; the fact remains that discrepancies are both numerous and of such a nature as to stare the instructed reader 4n the face. Nor is it destitute of signi- ficance that the very points which were raised a century and more ago are reiterated, often with next door to verbal coincidence, in the modern world. But in view of undisguised preferences for the Synoptic representation, room shall be made here for some remarks on the Synoptic Gospels.
It cannot be said of any one of them that it emanates directly from an eye-witness of the life of Jesus. They are alike in this respect that they are anonymous compositions. They are not three distinct and entirely independent narratives ; on the contrary, two of the three are dependent on the third; the First and Third Evangelists (Mt., Lk.) had the Second Gospel (Mk) before them, and between them they incorporated the bulk of it into their respective works. They drew also on 'the non-Marcan document,' a collection of Sayings generally designated by the symbol 'Q'; other — to us quite unknown — sources were respectively at their command, with the result that both Mt. and Lk. have, each one, ^ So, generally, Wernle, op. cit. pp. 14 ff.
4—2
o
52 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
additional matter peculiar to his own Gospel. Tlie Synoptic Gospels are composite works; several strata of evangelic record are embedded in them, primary and secondary traditions. As for the earlier traditions, the primary elements, they are, generally speak- ing, to be looked for in 'Q' and in the Marcan Gospel. Or in other words; of our Four Canonical Gospels 'John' is certainly the latest — and perhaps the latest by a long way ; as for the remaining three, they are nearer to the events they purport to relate, and it is safe to say of the Synoptic tradition that it stretches back to Apostolic times and to the very days of Jesus. The earlier the narrative the greater, generally speaking, the likelihood of its substantial historicity; and hence preferences accorded to the Synoptic repre- sentation are well grounded. Nor would such preference necessarily become unreasonable were it proved to demonstration that the Fourth Evangelist was none other than the Apostle John; for in that case account might not unnaturally be taken of failing memory consequent on extreme old age.
Let it be borne in mind that preference for the Synoptic repre- sentation as against 'John' is not invariably bound up with dogmatic prejudices — with the view that the historic Jesus never outsteps the limits of the purely human — but that it is compatible with a recognition of the claims made by the Johannine Christ.
There is another consideration. It has been said that answers to the questions inevitably raised when our Gospel is confronted with the Synoptics are certain to vary with the varying concep- tions of a divine revelation to mankind; the remark follows that it is nothing short of a boon that Christian' thought is no longer fettered by outworn mechanical theories of inspiration and inter- pretation in the case of the Bible literature^. To narrow down to the Gospels; in the old and disastrous view the Evangelists were passive agents, men who could not choose but write down words from divine dictation, 'living pens grasped and guided by an Almighty hand^.' A more enlightened view obtains; and today — at all events in instructed circles — account is taken of their re-
^ Barth, op. cit. pp. 13 f.
2 ' Das Bibelbuch gait als Einheit, die Einzelverfasser nur als Griffel des h\. Geistes,' von Dobschiitz, Der gegenwdrt. Stand dcr N.T. Exegese.
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 53
spective personalities. Illustrating a marked diversity of type, of temperament, and of environment, their own proper individuality is never lost. Each one tells his own tale, and tells it in his own way. Neither to the men themselves nor to their respective writings does infallibility attach.
A contrast of some sort between ' John' and the Synoptics, then, there can scarcely fail to be. Diverse are the individualities of the respective Evangelists ; what more natural than that there should be some display of diversity of style and standpoint and manner of presentment? Similarly in regard to choice of matter; — there would be nothing necessarily abnormal were this or that Evangelist, say at once the Fourth Evangelist, to refrain, on the one hand, fi-om attempting to cover the whole ground, or, on the other hand, to supply what he deemed lacking in the other narra- tives^. Neither he nor the Synoptics are infallible. If he corrects them and makes his alterations in them, it is exactly what two of them have already done with a third ; Mt. and Lk. have treated Mark with a very free hand. Let us add that mere priority is not in itself an absolute guarantee of accuracy, nor is inaccuracy necessarily connoted by lateness of date.
To proceed without further delay to a comparison which will fasten on the following questions : — Chronology, The Scene of the Ministry, John the Baptist, Miracle, The Discourses, The Synoptic and the Johannine Portrait of Jesus.
I. Chronology. The independent attitude of the Fourth Evan- gelist is manifested in his extension of the duration of the Ministry and in his bold transpositions of events and dates.
One instance is the date of the beginning of the Ministry. According to the Marcan GospeP, it was not until after the Bap- tist's imprisonment that Jesus entered upon his work; not so in the Fourth Gospel, where he is pictured as already active at a time when the Baptist, still at liberty, was still drawing followers to himself^. The narratives appear to be mutually exclusive; yet attempts have been made to bring them into some sort of harmony by urging that the otherwise unexplained readiness of Simon,
1 Zahn, Einl. ii, p. 499. '^ Mki,U; cf. Mt. iv, 12.
3 Jn iii, 23 ff.
54 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee to obey the call of Jesus^ is accounted for by a discipleship whicb dated back to that earlier stage of the Ministry told of by the Fourth Evangelist, who does but amplify the Marcan narrative in a way which it necessitates and positively invites. Whether such a conjecture meets the case is another matter^.
Again. It certainly appears from the Synoptic representation that the public Ministry of Jesus began and ended within a single year; otherwise the Fourth Evangelist, who expands it to a period which includes at the least three Passovers^. Here, too, attempt is made to reconcile the discrepancy; it has been urged, by no means to conviction, that all three Passovers were, in reality, one and the same. The contention, again, is that, apart from hints and allusions to seasons of the year which themselves are suggestive of the longer period^, it is impossible to conceive of the many events recorded by the Synoptists as happening within the space of one short year^. The Fourth Evangelist, it is maintained, is nearer the mark; and the companion Gospels are, implicitly, in agreement with his reckoning. Very likely such is the case.
To turn to the Cleansing of the Temple. According to the Fourth Gospel it occurred at the beginning of the Ministry ®, while it is placed by the Synoptics at the close of the Ministry ', and is evidently regarded by them as the decisive act which precipitated the Death of Jesus.
Harmonists have struggled to escape the difficulty. One sug- gestion is that there were really two Cleansings of the Temple, the one at the outset and the other at the closing scenes^; few to-day would venture to advance and uphold it^, and perhaps many
1 Mk i, 14 pars. ^ Wemle, op. cit. p. 23.
^ Jn ii, 13 (? V, 1); vi, 14; xi, 1. Stanley (Sermons on Apes. Age) re- marks on the far longer Ministry alluded to by Irenaeus.
* Cf. IMk ii, 23. ^ Westcott, op. cit. p. Ixxxi. 6 Jn ii, 13 ff. ' Mk xi, 15 ff, pars.
8 So Hengstenberg, op. cit. i, pp. 156 f. Askwith (Hist. Value of Fourth Gospel, p. 197) is 'of opinion that the repetition of the oocurrence is the simplest and most natural explanation of the contents of the documents.' Hitchcock (Fresh Study of Ath Gosp. p. 22) finds it 'quite possible to believe that the Temple required and received a second purification.'
* 'Un tel expedient,' says Loisy (op. cit. p. 295), 'atirait fait sourire le grand Origins.'
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 55
would agree that 'such a demonstrative act, the expression of a holy zeal, can only once be morally justified^.' Where preference obtains for the Johannine dating, it is maintained that the conflict had really begun at the very first, and that the Galilaean Ministry of the f*^vnoptics, rightly conceived of, had been but a series of retreats horn a prolonged but intermittent Ministry at the very head-quarters of Jewish orthodoxy. The case would accordingly be one in which the Fourth Evangelist has corrected a Synoptic blunder. But to this there is good ground for demur.
The balance of probability is surely against the Johannine A dating^; for the position of the story in the Synoptics is natural, while in the case of our Gospel it has rather the effect of an anti- climax^.
Another instance of 'violent alteration,' as it would appear, is that of the respective datings of the Death-Day of Jesus.
Take first the Synoptic representation. Jesus, it would appear, celebrates the Passover with the Twelve. They depart from the Upper Room; the scene changes from the Mount of Olives to 'a place which was named Gethsemane'; quickly there follows the Arrest. As for the Crucifixion, it takes place the day after the Celebration of the Passover*. Not so, says the Fourth Evangelist; he tells of a Supper partaken of by Jesus and his friends while nowhere stating that the number of the latter was limited to The Twelve. Far from identifying that Supper with the Paschal Meal, he is at pains to make it understood that the Passover lay still ahead ^; and that, when the night of its celebration had arrived, the body of Jesus was already in the tomb. The two authorities are thus far in agreement that they refer the Crucifixion to a Friday.
1 Wendt, op. cit. p. 12.
2 A displacement of the narrative in the Fourth Gospel is suggested. Sanday (DB, ii, p. 613) prefers the dating of that Gospel. Baldensperger (Prolog, des 4. Evglm. p. 65) finds a sequence of thought from the preceding story, Jn ii, 1 ff., but that is quite another matter.
' von Soden, op. cit. p. 403. * Mk xiv, 1-xv, 32 pars.
* Jn xiii, 1 ff. ; xviii, 28; xix, 14. 'Das (pdyeiv t6 -n-daxa. kann man nach dem herschenden jiidischen und christlichen Sprachgebrauch gewiss nicht anders verstehen, als von der Passahmahlzcit,' Neander, Das Leben Jesu Christi, p. 580, note.
56 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
At once they part company, and in regard to tlie day of the month ; the Synoptists assign it to the 15th of Nisan, 'John' to the 14th. They are, accordingly, in flat contradiction in regard to date.
Eeconciliation^ being hazardous, not to say impossible, the one question is: Which of the two datings is correct?
There is a strong consensus of opinion in favour of the Johan- nine dating. Jewish scholarship is in no doubt at all: 'the one possible date of the Crucifixion' is that given by the Fourth Evangelist^. It is urged in other quarters that, albeit the Synoptists are apparently convinced that the 'Last Supper' was a legal Pass- over^, yet their narratives when closely scrutinized reveal such glaring inconsistencies and incongruities* as to make them 'bear unwilling testimony '^ to the emphatic statements of the Fourth Gospel, while traces of early confusion are detected in a recorded Saying which points to Paschal anticipations which, entertained by Jesus, were frustrated in the event ^. And further, appeal is held to lie to the Apostle Paul; for although his account of the Institution of the Eucharist' is quite inconclusive in regard to
^ Thus when it is argued by Zahn {op. cit. ii, p. 514) that 'to eat the Passover' was a f agon de parler; a vague term popularly used of the whole seven-day — seven-and-a-half-day — Feast which began with the slaughter of the Paschal Iamb, and that the men referred to Jn xviii, 28, were really thinking of the Chagiga, or sacrificial meal of 15th Nisan, which was held, not like the Passover, after simset but in the course of the day. Sanday, at one time in- clined to such a view {DB, ii, p. 634), has since abandoned it. B. Weiss {Das J oh. Evglm. p. 248) is unconvinced by Zahn's 'Polemik.' Another line of argument is to the eiiect that the Passover celebrated by Jesus was not the legal, but an anticipated Passover.
- Kaufmann Kohler, JE, ix, p. 25.
^ Though silent as to formal rites and accessories of Paschal observance, they apparently specify certain concomitants (not the lamb) of the Passover- meal, while the recorded singing of a hymn might be significant. Spitta {Das Evglm. Joh. p. 295) takes the contrary view.
* They relate (Mk xiv, 2) a decision to take no action on the 'feast day,' yet it is on that very day that the Arrest takes place, while they naively tell of occuiTences and transactions (Mk xiv, 47; xv, 21; xv, 46) altogether in- compatible with enactment or impracticable at the time in question.
5 Sanday, DB, ii, p. 634.
* Lk. xxii, 15. The conjecture here is that the phrase 'this Passover' does not point to a Passover then and there being celebrated but to the Passover of the morrow which, greatly desired by Jesus, would not be cele- brated until after his Death. See JTS, July 1904. ' 1 Cor. xi, 23 ff .
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 57
date, there are two beautiful comparisons which suggest a dating of the Crucifixion identical with that afterwards insisted on by the Fourth Evangelist. In the one case Paul conceives of Jesus as the true Paschal lamb whose Death on the Cross was exactly coincident with the slaughtering by thousands of lambs destined for the Paschal meal: 'for our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ^.' In the other case Paul's thoughts turn from first- fruits offered in the Temple on the Resurrection Sunday to the Risen Lord: 'now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first- fruits of them that are asleep^.' Nor does appeal stop short with Paul; a passage in one of the Apocryphal Gospels is regarded as significant : ' the sun must not go down upon a murdered person on the day before their Feast, the Feast of unleavened bread^.'
Yet Paul's thought of Jesus as 'the Christian's Paschal Lamb' is not necessarily decisive for historic date, while it may have 'induced the Fourth Evangelist to transfer Jesus' hour of Death to the day on which the Paschal lamb was sacrificed*.' So runs a suggestion; and in any case voices are raised on behalf of the Synoptic dating of the Crucifixion^. Such dating, it is maintained, is perfectly conceivable, nor do the earlier Evangelists relate any single occurrence which might not quite well have happened on the feast-day; their statement is deemed far more deserving of credit than is that of 'John^.' And besides, objections raised to the Synoptic dating of the 15th Nisan (it is said) by no means necessarily establish the date of the llth, but rather tend to favour hypotheses advanced by daring critics who, contesting both dates, proceed to assign the Crucifixion to one or other Friday prior or
1 1 Cor. V, 7 f. Yet, as 0. Holtzmanri {Das J oh. Evglm. p;35) points out, without specific reference to any Paschal lamb. ^ 1 Cor. xv, 20.
^ Rendel Harris, Newly Recovered Gosp. of Peter, pp. 43 f., 64 f.
* Weinel, St Paul, the Man and his Work, p. 303.
^ Hitchcock (op, cit. p. 24) takes refuge in the suggestion that the dis- crepancy ' might be explained away by an appeal to the original languages,' and adds : ' the four Evangelists are, however, unanimous that Jesus suffered on the 14th NLsan.'
* 'De geschiednis leert dus, dat Jezus med zijne discipelen op den 14'J«° van Nisan het gewone pascha der Joden geviert heeft,' writes Scholten (Het Ev. n. J oh. p. 306). To like effect Schmiedel, Das 4. Ev. gegen den drei Ersten, pp. 96 ff.; Jiilicher, op. cit p. 379; Schenkel, op. cit. pp. 253 ff.
58 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
subsequent to the Paschal week^. It is also said that artificiality is a conspicuous feature of the Johannine representation generally ; and that in this particular instance the provisions relative to the Paschal lamb have been transferred, with characteristic symbolism and disregard of fact, to the Passion and the Death of the Johannine Christ^. So run the arguments, and they occasion pause.
The case here is probably one ' where the record in the Fourth Gospel may claim the greater internal probability^,' whereas in the former case it must be allowed that the Evangelist has 'divorced the Cleansing of the Temple from its tragic connexion with the final catastrophe^.'
II. The scene of the Ministry. This, by the Synoptists, is laid in the Galilaean homeland of Jesus ; and, recording certain journeys outside Galilaean territory ^, they have nothing to say of visits paid to Jerusalem^ save only the one which issued in his death. In sharp contrast is the representation of the Fourth Evangelist ; for with him the scene on which Jesus moves during the period of his Messianic activity is Judaea ', and in particular Jerusalem ; but rarely does he appear in Galilee, and when there his stays are of brief duration^. No wonder that the discrepancy is insisted on^.
The difficulty is scarcely met where the point is laboured of Synoptic hints and allusions which pre-suppose a familiarity on the part of Jesus with Judaea and Jerusalem^". Such familiarity might well be matter of assumption in the case of one who, himself a pious Jew, would naturally go up at feast- times to the metropolis from his Galilaean home; the strange thing would be were he
^ Loisy, op. cit. p. 67.
* Wellhausen, Erweit. undAnder. imi. Ev. pp. 30 f. See also W. F. Loman, Het vierde Ev., Kenbron van Jezus' Leer en Leven, p. 31.
^ Wendt, op. cit. p. 13. * von Soden, o]}. cit. p. 443.
5 Mk vii, 24; viii, 27; x, 1.
® Apart from the story of the Childhood, Lk. ii, 41 ff.
' Which (Jn iv, 44 f.) is conceived of as his native land. The Saying is taken over from the Synoptics (Mk vi, 4), who naturally refer it to Galilee. Cf. Schwalb, op. cit. p. 208; Wendt, op. cit. p. 108; Moflatt, op. cit. p. 553.
8 Jnii, lff.;iv, 43ff.; vii, 10 ff.
9 Heitmiiller, SNT, ii, p. 704; Schmiedel, oj}. cit. pp. 6 ff.; Holtzmann, Das Ev. des J oh. p. 3. The list of names might b& easily enlarged.
" Mk iii, 7 f.; xiv, 3; xi, 1 ff.; xiv, 12 ff.
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 59
represented as being entirely without friends and acquaintances, not to say sympathizers, in and in the neighbourhood of Jeru- salem. The question at issue, however, relates definitely to the public activities of Jesus, and hence mere familiarity with par- ticular scenes is not in itself to the point.
It is open to doubt whether the Synoptic and Johannine repre- sentations are so mutually exclusive as to necessitate a categorical 'either — or'; and the probability is that the discrepancy may be in part accounted for on the theory of diversity in respect of choice of matter. If so, it might be said of our Evangelist that, recog- nizing that Galilee had actually been a field of action^, he decides that he himself will go into detail in respect of that Judaean Ministry which the Synoptists, not explicitly denying, insufficiently relate. As for the Synoptists, the probability again is that they not only invite assumptions of, but actually testify to a prolonged Judaean Ministry in that two of them fasten on that pathetic lament over Jerusalem ^ which is strongly suggestive of repeated effort and repeated failure in the course of frequent mission- journeys from Galilee to Judaea.
It may be so. On the whole it appears quite likely that such was really the case. The recorded utterance 'is a very important piece of evidence^,' nor is it altogether childish play* to regard it as bearing out one feature of the Johannine representation^. And besides, were our Evangelist, in any case a Jew, a Jew of Jerusalem, he would naturally prefer to tell of the Judaean Ministry.
The contingency must be reckoned with that the Fourth Evangelist was also specially concerned to establish it against hostile voices that, far from having dragged out an obscure exist- ence in such an out-of-the-world region as Galilee, Jesus had appeared and laboured openly at Jerusalem, at the very centre of
1 'Wir finden auch in diesem Evglm.,' says Neander (op. cif. p. 384). 'selbst guten Raum fiir die galUaische Wirksamkeit Christi.'
^ Mt. xxiii, 37 ; Lk. xiii, 34. The Saying stood in Q, but is placed by Mt. and Lk. in different connexions.
* Wendt, op. cit. p. 10. Otherwise Schenkel, who (op. cit. pp. 1.3 f.) makes room for but one, and prolonged, stay in Jerusalem.
* 'Ein kindJiches Vergniigen,' Jiilicher, op. cit. p. 379. 6 J. Weiss, SNT, i, p 377.
60 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
Jewish life, as it behoved one who desired to be regarded as the Messiah^.
III. John the Baptist. The contention here is that the Baptist who figures in the Fourth Gospel wears but slight if any resem- blance to the Baptist of the Synoptic representation ; that the two portraits are singularly unlike.
A question might be whether either of them be strictly true to life; for there can be little doubt that 'the prophet's life was spread over a longer period of time, his mission more independent in character, his influence upon his own and upon succeeding genera- tions more far-reaching, than' is implied by the manner of the Gospel representation^; and it is possible that the real Baptist at no time definitely attached himself to the cause of Jesus^, but went his own way and rushed to a self-invited fate.
But this by the way. The Synoptic and the Johannine portrait of the Baptist are, no doubt, in some things unlike. In each case, however, the portrait is of a strong man, while the Johannine representation is not less decisive than the Marcan for an eminent personage^. Yet the fact remains that a process of subordination of John to Jesus is noticeable, which, setting in with Mark and continued in the two later Synoptics, reaches its climax in the Fourth Gospel. If the Baptist is magnified as recipient of know- ledge supernaturally vouchsafed ^, a relatively unimportant office is assigned to him, and it would seem that his sole function is to bear witness to Jesus ^. A time comes when he is dispensed with'. The strong soul, it has been said, is conceived of as a mere 'voiced' but this is surely to go too far.
^ Cf. Baldensperger, op. cit. p. 120; Wrede, Charakier u. Tendenz des J oh. Evglms. pp. 48 f. And see Herder, op. cit. p. 307.
- BlAkiston,John Bapiistandhisrelationto Jesus, Freiace. And see p. 194.
* Thus, positively, Schwalb, op. cit. p. 206.
* Herder rightly says (op. cit. pp. 269 f., 308) that our Evangelist shows no small honour to the Baptist.
* Jn i, 15, 27, 29, 30, 32.
6 Jn i; 7, 8, 15, 19 f. Wellhausen, Das Ev. Joh. p. 103. According to Schwalb {op. cit. p. 207) the Baptist of the Fourth Gospel preaches, not re- pentance, but the Gospel; he has the same conception of Jesus as the Evan- gelist. ' Jn V, 30 ff.
* Baldensperger, op. cit. p. 59. Cf. Forbes, op. cit. p. 158.
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 61
We conclude that in the Johannine representation the Baptist is pre-eminently a foil to Jesus ; and hence precisely those features are preserved which tell of one who, anything but a lay figure, was in high renown^. It is said in effect: John towered above his fel- lows, but Jesus is incomparably greater than he. Let it be added that the studied representation of the Baptist as a witness might be due to circumstances which, pointing to Baptist-disciples of a later day^, had made it imperative to differentiate sharply between the 'lamp' and 'the light of the world ^.'
IV. Miracle. The contention is raised that the Fourth Gospel is in contrast with the Synoptics in that, along with changed motives and with significant omissions, the element of the miracu- lous is strongly enhanced.
To venture some preliminary remarks. In the popular mind, no doubt, a miracle is nothing short of a prodigy^; a startling occurrence which, in itself improbable, not only runs counter to experience but implies violation of Natural Law by one with whom ' all things are possible ' and who plays as it were the part of a divine magician. With loftier conceptions of Deity the pre- ference will ever be for the more sober view that the given occur- rence, be it never so surprising and perplexing, may be, and pro- bably is, the expression of Law as yet undiscerned or but partially understood, and that present difficulty will be resolved with a larger understanding of the range and meaning of nature. Faith not for a moment identified by him with mere credulity, the candid inquirer, prepared to encounter instances of the marvellous, will ever be resolute to cross-examine his documents and to apply every practicable test. More careful, more hesitating, will be his judge- ment ' in regard to stories of the miraculous which have come down from antiquity'; there may be this or that story in the Gospel
^ Jn i, 19 ff. It may be remarked that the Evangelist, who (i, 29 f.) ad- vances ample reason why John should jdeld allegiance to 'the Lamb of God' and 'Son of God,' gives (iii, 23 ff.) more than a glimpse of the real John in his independent role.
2 Acts xviii, 25; xix, 1 ff. It is not said of the disciples here instanced that they regarded the Baptist as Messiah.
3 Weizsacker, op. cit. ii, p. 226; von Soden, op. cit. p. 415.
* 'Eine Abart des Wimders,' Traub, Die Wunder im N.T. p. 7.
62 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
records which he will elect to 'put quietly aside,' and it may be that he will have to 'leave it there for ever'; on the other hand its meaning may one day so dawn on him that it will then assume a significance of which he had never dreamt^. It will certainly be present to his mind that, if ' psychology is still very far from being an exact science,' ' the whole burden of recent research is in favour of the belief that we, even the least of us, are greater than we know^'; and, alive accordingly to the mysterious power exercised by mind on mind, and perhaps by mind on matter, he, not slow to admit that ' exceptional manifestations of psychic and spiritual force . . . were only to be expected in a Being of exceptional eleva- tion and fullest capacity^,' will probably go on to own that, how- ever the case might stand with the disciples, Jesus is the greatest spiritual force the world has ever known. It will not necessarily follow that the recorded Gospel-miracles one and all will be ac- cepted as they stand; on the contrary, some will quite possibly be referred to the misunderstandings of a later day and others to imperfect knowledge with consequent miraculous interpretation of what, for moderns, would be the natural event. Yet such deduc- tions made, a residuum will clamour for acceptance.
But this is a digression. Reverting to the main question, we will observe in the first instance that one particular class of miracles is excluded by the Fourth Evangelist ^. In the case of the Synoptics there is frequent mention of demoniac-cures performed by Jesus ; and, by the way, it is widely conceded that he did actually heal many a sufferer who, in the conception of the age, was possessed by an evil spirit^. No such narratives occur in the Fourth Gospel;
^ Harnack, What is Christianity ?, pp. 28 ff.
- Raven, op. cit. p. 46.
^ A. W. Robinson, Sermon.
* Otherwise H. Ewald {Die J oh. Schriften, i, pp. 25, 58, 221), who, dis- covering a gap between Jn v and vi, argues that the Evangelist, concerned to give a specimen of every class of miracle, had actually given a specimen of the class in question in the conjectured missing section. In like manner Spitta {Zur Geschichte und Literatur des Vrchristentums, pp. 189 ff.) accounts for the absence of any account of the Institution of the Eucharist.
^ Harnack, op. cit. p. 28; Traub, op. cit. p. 41; Bousset, Jesus, pp. 23 f. Bousset finds the parable of the Unclean Spirit suggestive of frequent failure and relapse.
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 63
'John knows nothing whatsoever of the most frequent wonder- works of Jesus, the healing of demoniacs^'; or rather, he declines to admit such Synoptic stories into his own Gospel. It is not that, assuming independent knowledge on the part of his readers of the 'many things that Jesus did,' our Evangelist refrains from need- less repetition ; nor will it do to plead that such stories are implicitly confirmed by his allusion to crowds who followed Jesus ' because they saw the signs wrought on them that were diseased^.' The suggestions are alike precarious; and the inference is preferable that stories told of cures which others besides Jesus could perform^ were deliberately suppressed by our Evangelist because out of keeping with his conception of Christ *.
What miracles, ' signs ^,' are related by him? As commonly enumerated, these: The Water turned into wine^, the Healing of the 'nobleman's' son', the Impotent man made whole®, the Feed- ing of the Five Thousand^, the Walking on the sea^", the Man blind from his birth made to see^^, and the Raising of Lazarus ^2. The question, then, is whether there be really 'enhancement of miracle' with altered motive, and, the 'signs' being precisely seven, whether there be significance in the sacred number?
^ Wemle, op. cit. p. 18. ^ Jn vi, 12.
8 Lk. xi, 19. See Forbes, op. cit. p. 156.
* Loisy {op. cit. p. 58) infers reluctance to bring Jesus into direct conflict with demons. In the view of Neander (op. cit. pp. 307 f.) the omission is due to the fact that in Jerusalem, where the scene is chiefly laid, demoniac cases were rare. According to Herder (op. cit. p. 267) the Evangelist refused to allow such a Palestinian superstition to become 'ein wesentlicher Zug des Christenthums, ein Vorwurf der spottenden oder ein Glauben der thorichten Welt.' See also Liitzelberger, op. cit. p. 286 ; BaUenstedt, Philo und Johannes, p. 73.
* The Fourth Evangelist generally prefers the term ariixelov. « Jn ii, 1 ff.
' Jn iv, 46 ff. RV (margin) 'King's Officer.' In the Greek ns /Sao-tXt/cos.
8 Jn V, 2 ff. 3 Jn vi, 4 flf. i» Jn vi, 19 £f. " Jn ix, 1 if.
^2 Jn xi, 1 ff. The Resurrection (Jn xx) and the Take of fishes (Jn xxi) are included by some, and others extend the list with instances of invisibility (Jn viii, 59: 'une sorte de miracle permanent,' Loisy, op. cit. p. 65), of om- niscience (Jn i, 47 fit.), and of ability to pass through solid matter (Jn xx, 19 f., 26). According to Alex. Schweizer (op. cit. pp. 130 ff.) the genuine Johannine miracles are to be found Jn i, 49 ff. ; ii, 13 ff.; iV; 16-18; v, 1-10; ix, 1-7; xi, 1 ff. And see Cludius, op. cit. p. 71.
64 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
There is a preliminary question; might it not be argued that the number could be reduced ; inasmuch as two if not three of the 'downright wonders of omnipotence' which are held to illustrate enhancement are not peculiar to the Fourth Gospel but make their appearance in the Synoptics^, and in that case there remain but, say, four 'signs' for consideration, e.g., the occurrence at Cana, the healing at the pool of Bethesda, the blind man given his sight, and the dead man brought back to life? Yet such a conclusion is unsafe; for, to begin with, the resemblance between the Synoptic story of the Centurion's servant and the Johannine story of the 'nobleman's' son, if striking, is not altogether decisive for identity; and secondly, assuming such identity elsewhere, there are added touches which differentiate between the respective representations^. That there are seven Johannine ' signs ' to be reckoned with^ must be allowed.
It must be said, then, that there is enhancement^. With the works of healing the effect is heightened; in one case the cure is performed from a considerable distance, in another blindness is from birth, in a third it is emphatically said of the sick man that he had been no less than 'thirty and eight years in his infirmity.' The enhancement ma,y not be so marked with the Walking on the Sea and the two Nature-miracles, but it is nevertheless present. The very climax is reached with the Raising of Lazarus. In the case of Jairus' daughter it would appear that death had not actually supervened ^, while it is safe to assume the decease but a few hours past of the son of the Widow of Nain ®. Otherwise the narrative which, pointing to Bethany, suggests unmistakably that the corpse already four days in the tomb had seen corruption '.
^ Mk vi, 34 ff. pars. ; Mk vi, 45 ff. par. ; Mt. viii, 5 fE. par.
2 With allusion to the Feeding of the 5000 and the Walking on the Sea Schwalb (op. cit. p. 221) writes: 'Unser Evangelist aber hat sie noch ver- grossert.' On the other hand Hart (Exp. 7th ser. v and vi), with similar allusion, eliminates the miraculous elements altogether
3 'Die ganze Reihe dieser Allmachtswunder steht doeh als etwas vollig Neues da,' Wernle, op. cit. p. 18.
* As, writing in 1838, was affirmed by Hennell, op. cit. p. 106.
* Mk V, 39: t6 iraidiov ovk diridavev dXXd. KadevSei.
* Lk. vii, 12 ff. According to Eastern custom but a very short interval elapsed between death and burial.
' Jn xi, 39: i)5r) o^ei. 'Lazarus' Leiche stromt bereits Verwesimgsgeruch
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 65
To pass on^. The further admission appears unavoidable that the Johannine ' signs ' are conceived of as wrought with transformed purpose. The Synoptic Jesus is 'moved with compassion' for the leper^; his sympathies go out to Jairus^, and to the father of the epileptic boy^; lest those who 'have nothing to eat' should 'faint in the way' to their homes, he supplies their physical needs ^; the blind beggar is heartened to come into his presence®. Scarcely so with the Johannine Christ; his 'signs' are proof of his divine omnipotence and manifest his glory. Thus when at Cana he be- stows his gift of wine ; nor is there much trace of tenderness in the stories told of the 'nobleman' of Capernaum, of the sick man at Bethesda, of the man blind from birth. It is said of Jesus that he 'wept'' at the grave of Lazarus, yet he had not been promptly responsive to the sisters' message ; and, knowing that his ' friend ' was dead, he dwells on issues which shall mean a glorification of the Son of God and the awakening of faith. It is true to say that * whereas the miracles of healing in the Synoptists are miracles of mercy and compassion, wrought because Jesus had sympathy with
aus ehe er erweckt wird,' Wrede. op. cit. p. 7. Of the contrary opinion Neander, op. cit. p. 355, note.
1 Yet not without noting that the feature just instanced is highly char- acteristic—not always with dignified restraint — of the Gospel which bears the name of Matthew. The First Evangelist, ' on a lower level of spirituality,' occasionally displays 'an imreality, a lack of reserve, a desire to astonish, that makes one suspect that they (his recorded miracles) are pinchbeck and tinsel rather than the authentic gold.' 'They are too like the man-invented wonders of the religious romances.' 'One feels that they derogate from the dignity of Jesus' (Raven, op. cit. pp. 115 f.). This cannot be laid to the charge of the Johannine representation.
^Mki, 41. sjukv, 22. " Mk ix, 14 ff.
* Mk viii, 2 ff. « Mk x, 49.
' For some remarks on the significance of Jn xi, 35 f. see Oort, TT, 1909, pp. 536 f. Let the remark be ventured that, despite its beauty and its pathos, there is an anti-climax in the story. On the one hand it points to 'that higher eternal life which Jesus, in other places besides, claims to bestow on all who beheve, a life which dwells in them even now, and because it is a life eternal and divine, survives the temporal death ' ; on the other hand it apparently descends to a lower level when it goes on to point to the mere prolongation of that earthly life to which, according to the story, Lazarus came forth from his grave (Wendt, op. cit. p. 101). The majestic words: 'I am the resurrection and the Hfe' are rung out; what follows in the narrative robs them of their deep spiritual significance.
66 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
the sufferers, the miracles recorded by the Fourth Evangelist tend to the glory of him who wrought them. They are proofs, not of his humanity, but of his divinity^.'
It has been affirmed of the 'signs' related by the Fourth Evangelist that they are 'downright marvels of omnipotence as God alone can "conjure" them^.' Let it be asked here: What of the verdict to be pronounced on them from the modern point of view? Some, perhaps, admit of a natural explanation^ ; scarcely so others*, and, a variety of suggestions notwithstanding, it must be allowed that they present serious difficulty. True, no doubt, that ' what is regarded as a miracle to-day may be known to be a scientific fact to-morrow^ ' ; yet it must be owned that, taking the narratives as they stand, they are without satisfactory explanation within the known laws of nature, nor are such conditions fulfilled as might win for them the readier acceptance. It is certainly curious, and perhaps significant, that the Raising of Lazarus, / which, according to the Fourth Evangelist, precipitates the closing scenes, is apparently unknown to the Synoptists ; who, with greater show of probability, regard the Cleansing of the Temple as the decisive act which instigated the chief priests and the scribes to seek how they might destroy Jesus ^.
^ Percy Gardner, op. cit. p. 280. In like manner Bruckner, Die vier Evangelien, p. 75. And thus Calmes (op. cit. p. 2): 'C'est le Fils de Dieu operant des miracles pour manif ester sa divinite.'
2 Wernle, op. cit. p. 18.
^ E.g. The Healing of the 'nobleman's' son and of the impotent man.
* The Water turned into Wine, the man blind from birth, the Raising of Lazarus. With allusion to the Walking on the Sea, Granger {The Soul of a Christian, p. 109) pleads that ' there are serious reasons for hesitating before we declare that a human body cannot. . .float along the sea in defiance of gravity.' Schweitzer (von Reimarus zu Wrede, p. 373) thinks that the story of the multiphcation of the loaves is true if the words 'they were filled ' be struck out; others suggest O.T. influences (cf. Jn vi, 5 ff. ; 2 Ka. iv, 42 ff.). As for the Lazarus story, the theory of catalepsy is advanced, ' nicht die geringste Spur eines wirklichen Todes' (Ammon, op. cit. iii, pp. 114 ff.).
* Hudson, Law of Psychic Phenomena, pp. 372 f.
* Mk xi, 18. See Bacon, op. cit. p. 349; Loisy, op. cit. p. 72; Burkitt, Gospel History, p. 222. Percy Gardner (op. cit. pp. 283 f.) is 'disposed to think that there was some actual historic foundation for the narrative,' and that 'it may be that the Fourth Evangelist has worked up the tale from his own point of view, and made it loom very large in the prospect.' Yet it is scarcely
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 67
A possibility must be reckoned with that a miraculous inter- pretation had been read into occurrences which would be otherwise apprehended and narrated at the present day.
But what of the Johannine ' signs ' in the view of the Evangelist himself?
It is impossible to believe that the stories are of his own con- struction. In all likelihood they, or some of them, have reached him, in whatever form, from the lips or the pen of others ; and, the decision made to utilize them, he tells them in his own way^. He scarcely troubles himself to ask whether they occasion doubt; if in his eyes they be literally true, it is unfair to charge him with 'crass credulity 2' when he did but share beliefs which were com- mon to the age. It might be near the mark to say of them that, while not deliberately constructed allegories^, they really become such, as, employing them for his own ends*, he is far more con- cerned for their spiritual meaning than for historical fact, albeit an appearance of historicity is conserved by him^. Their very number, conceivably, proclaims that, for the mystic who records them, their symbolism is the main thing®. 'As the Evangelist soars above the literal value of the words of his master, so he regards His mighty works as valuable indeed to impress the people in their natural form, but far more valuable in the higher meaning which shines through them'.'
safe to say with A. V. Green {op. cit. p. 101) of the Raising of Lazarus that it was the one thing which above all others 'decided the definitely hostile action of the Jewish authorities.'
1 ' He may have taken many liberties with his material. His treatment of Christ's words and deeds probably went much beyond "dotting the i's and crossing the t's," to use Sanday's phrase,' Johnston, Philosophy of the Fourth Gospel, p. 120. 2 Wellhausen, op. cit. p. 103.
^ 'Grossartig angelegte Allegorien. . .kunstvoll gebUdet,' Briickner. op. cit. p. 75. But see Calmes, op. cit. p. viii.
* von Soden, op. cit. p. 396. ^ Cf. Loisy, op. cit. p. 83.
" See Schwalb, op. cit. p. 218. The Johannine signs, says Herder (op. cit. p. 268) are 'symbolische Facta, typische Denksaulen.'
' Percy Gardner, op. cit. p. 277. Prof. Gardner adds: 'M. Doutte, who had a long experience in Algeria, tells us that he made the acquaintance of many local saints . . . and that the working of marvels was the seal of this vocation .... The Fourth EvangeHst takes this view as natural and uni- versal.'
5—2
68 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
To bring this section to a close. The modern reader will be well-advised if, forgetting the ' outward narrative ' of the Johannine 'signs/ he loses himself 'in its deeper significance^.' His thoughts wiU then turn from earthly bread ministered by disciples and fasten on the Bread of Life for the soul^. The wine which has failed at Cana will speak to him of Judaism, the good wine there- upon provided of a new religion on its way to conquer the world : 'the waters of legal purification turned into the wine of marriage joy^.' As for the story of the man born blind, he will be quick to find it pointing to him who is 'the light of men.' Similarly with the perplexing story of the Raising of Lazarus. It is deeply sug- gestive of that moral and spiritual change^ which Paul conceives of as a death, a burial and a resurrection. The like figure occurs in the Burial Service prayer; 'We meekly beseech thee, 0 Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness.'
V. The Discourses. Here, again, the Synoptic and Johannine representations are held to be mutually exclusive: — 'Jesus must have spoken just as the Synoptists make him speak^'; the Christ of the Fourth Gospel adopts 'the theological and philosophical language of the schools^.' So, briefly stated, run multitudinous objections; and, as has been noted in another connexion, there is a strong family likeness between the criticisms of time past and time present. Let two specimens be placed side by side:- — 'Here (in the Synoptics) the popular form of oriental proverb-wisdom and inventive parable, there (in the Fourth Gospel) the profound allegory with appeal to profound reflexion; instead of pithy and concise sayings alike luminous and easy to retain, a series of wit- nessings and disputings in exalted tone and with utter disregard for the capacity of the hearers. . . . According to the Synoptics the demands of Jesus are for self-renunciation, for compassionate love,
^ von Soden, op. ctl p. 390. ^ Philochristus, ]ip. 21S S.
^ Wemle, op. cit. p. 24.
^ See Calmes, op. cit. p 75: 'la resurrection corporelle de Lazarus sym- bolise la resurrection a la vie mystique par la foi.'
* Jiilicher, op. cit. p. 372.
* von Soden, op. cit. p. 441. According to Keim (Jesus von Naz. i, p. 112) 'Jesus selbst ist zum subtUsten Dogmatiker geworden.' And see Wemle, op. cit. p. 24; Jiilicher, op. cit. p. 421.
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 69
for a taking of one's self in hand, for work for others ; his warnings are directed against the danger of riches, worldly desires and anxieties; above all he preaches about the Kingdom of God and the conditions of entrance therein. Not so in the Fourth Gospel; the preaching of the Kingdom recedes, while Jesus becomes the dialectician who treats of his own divinity, and withal in singular, and by no means popular, style. In both cases he figures as teacher; in the Fourth Gospel the subject-matter of his teaching is well-nigh exclusively himself^.' Thus speaks modern criticism; now for that of a century ago: 'Jesus, as pictured in the earlier Gospels, whether he be speaking, preaching, or disputing, never has resort to dialectic skill, to the ambiguity of artifice, to a mysti- cal style ; on the contrary, there is utmost simplicity and clearness, a certain natural eloquence which owes far more to mental genius than to painfully acquired art. In the Fourth Gospel he disputes as the dialectician; ambiguous is his language and mystical his style; he deals to such an extent in obscurities that even very learned people are quite in the dark as to the real significance of many of his words. In the one case there are short and pregnant sayings, parables so full of beauty and of inward truth as to grip attention and to sink deep into the soul ; in the other the parabolic mode of teaching is practically absent. Here the question turns on conduct, rules of life, the Mosaic Law, errors of the Jewish people; there the speaker is concerned with dogma, with meta- physics, with his own divine nature and dignity^.'
It may, perhaps, strike us that, in such-like allusions to the Synoptic Jesus, there is, in both cases, something which recalls the words of Justin Martyr; when, referring to 'the very doctrine delivered by Chi'ist himself,' he goes on to say: 'short and pithy
^ H. J. Holtzmann, op. cit. pp. 430 f . And see von Soden, op. cit. pp. 409 ff . ; Loisy, op. cit. pp. 56 ff. With allusion to our Gospel Wemle {op. cit. p. 19) states the case thus: 'statt der Sache iiberall nur die Person.'
^ Bretschneider, op. cit. pp. 1 f. An entirely opposite view is that of Bertholdt, who (Hiator. Krit. Einl. iii, p. 1303) prefers the speech of the Joh. Christ and says of the Synop. Jesus that he speaks for the most part 'in dem gemeinen trockenen Lehrton jiidischer Rabbinen, ohne alien Schwung und Schmuck und Tiefe der Ideen.' It might be added that Wemle, in the remark cited in the previous foot-note, is reminiscent of one of Bret- achneider's predecessors, viz. Cludius (op. cit. pp. 87 ff.).
70 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
are his discourses; no sophister was tie^.' On the assumption that the Fourth Gospel was actually known to Justin, it might be in- ferred that, if contrast was discerned by him, he nevertheless reconciled it to his own satisfaction. Perhaps he too would have said : * it is not true then, that the Johannine Christ speaks like a sophist, and abstains from using brief and concise sayings^.'
But let us look into the matter for ourselves.
We have already remarked on a certain monotony which per- vades our Gospel as a whole. There is an absence of variety in the manner of the discourses generally, no matter who the speaker may be ; the several characters, that is, hold converse in Johannine phraseology^, and without individuality whether of idea or speech; conversations are reported at length when, apparently, there was no third person at hand. The question here being nar- rowed down to a single issue, the discourses placed by the Evan- gelist in the lips of his Christ, the fact must be reckoned with that, if 'some actual sayings of the historic Jesus*' be embedded in our Gospel, it is certainly not throughout a depository of genuine utterances of Jesus. Of verbatim report there can be no question; and the same thing holds good of the three companion Gospels ^.
Now, the position has been aptly stated thus: 'Jesus cannot have had, at the same time, the style and method of teaching which the Synoptists describe and that which the Fourth Gospel reflects. We must therefore attribute the language, the colour, and the form of these Johannine discourses to the Evangelist. The Gospel of John is a distillation of the life and teaching of Jesus from the alembic of the Apostle's own mind. It is his interpreta- tion of the meaning of Christ's words, deeds and person derived
^ Apol. i, 14: ^paxeh de /cat aivroixoi Trap' avrov \6yoi yeyovaai' ov yap ao<pL<rr7ji vTrrjpx^v.
2 Drummond, op. cit. p. 20.
» The Evangelist, according to Eichhom (Einl. in das N.T. ii, pp. 269 ff.), 'scheint sich einen eigenen relig. Dialekt, einen eigenen rpowos iraidelas, gebildet zu haben.' In the interesting conjecture of Stronck (De Doctrina et Diciione Joh. Ap. ad Jesu magistri Doctrinam et Diclionem composita), he had made the style of Jesus his own. See P. Ewald, op. cit. p. 833.
* Percy Gardner, op. cit. p. 62. And see Burkitt, Two Lectures.
* ' It is undeniable that in no case can we be quite confident that we posseaa the ipaissima verba of our Lord,' McNeile, CBE, p. 220.
V. JOHANNINE AND SYNOPTIC REPRESENTATIONS 71
from intimate personal relations with him, and coloured and shaped by a long life of Christian thought and experience^.'
It will be observed that the writer here quoted accepts the 'venerable tradition' as to Apostolic authorship. Where, and by well-nigh general agreement^, he hits the mark is in his description of the Johannine discourses as a distillation from the alembic of the Evangelist's own mind. But he invites pause on a question which, raised by him in his opening sentence, recalls the assertion : 'a Jesus who preached alternately in the manner of the Sermon on the Mount and of Jn xiv-xvii is a psychological im- possibility^.'
And first in respect of manner. Not unreasonably might it be m-ged that, with ready adaptation to their envii'onment, men doubly gifted with simplicity and profundity will naturally ' speak in the vernacular ' — not descending to vulgarity — to uninstructed hearers, while they will adopt other modes of speech when dealing with more cultured and reflective minds. So it may have been with Jesus; his Galilaean hearers being, generall}^ speaking, of a very different type from those with whom he came in contact in Judaea, he would be, as it were, one person in Galilee and quite another person in Jerusalem ; to the Galilaean populace a man of the people and to scholars of Jerusalem one of themselves*. It was in the Holy City that his deeper teaching would naturally be given — to' those who by comparison with the ' motley crowd ' away in Galilee were 'cultured and responsible people^.' And besides, a reminder comes that the Synoptic Jesus is represented as speaking, on one occasion at least, in precisely the same manner as the Johannine
1 Stevens, Theology of N.T. p. 172. And see Herder, op. cit. p. 329; Johnston, op. cit. p. 119.
2 ' Tout le monde admet volontiers maintenant que les discours de Jesus sont ecrits dans le style de I'evangeliste,' Loisy, op. cit. p. 54.
^ Jiilicher, Introd. to N.T. p. 421. (The Engl. tr. of an earlier edition.) * Delff, Rabbi Jesus, pp. 138 £f. But of. Hase, Geschichte Jesu, p. 41. 5 Swete, Studies in the Life of our Lord, p. 130. 'Poscunt aliae dicendi causae, aUi auditores aliam formam dicendi, admittit dives Jesu ingenium varietatem,' Fleck, De Imagine Christi Joan, et Synop. p. 10. And according to Hengstenberg (op. cit. iii, p. 404, see also p. 393) Jesus had 'eine doppelte Lehrweise.'
72 THE FOURTH GOSPEL CH.
Christ; — when, 'in a moment of intense emotion, He turns from earthly hearers and addresses Himself to God^.'
Secondly in regard to subject-matter. It is contended that the discom'ses placed by the Fourth Evangelist in the lips of Jesus leave men utterly in the lurch when it comes to the vitaUy impor- tant question: What is it that God looks for and what is alone decisive for life or death? The answer of the Fomth Gospel is this : believe on the Son of God who came down from heaven and believe that he is Jesus — an answer which has had a baneful effect on Christendom, for it is only too easy to make such a profession of belief without drawing nearer to God and becoming a better man. Very difierent is the answer of the Synoptic Jesus ; with him everything is contingent on that doing the Will of God which in- volves uprightness, brotherly love, trust in God, humility, yearn- ings for God's Kingdom; of those who do the WiU of God he says that they are for him mother or sister or brother^. Counter argu- ments are strong; it is urged that inasmuch as 'Christianity was a great crisis of civilisation' 'because it changed the internal man, creeds, sentiments, because it regenerated the moral man, the intellectual man^,' the expectation is nothing short of reasonable that its Founder was far more than a great moral teacher. The personal equation cannot but come in ; the question is not only of how and what Jesus taught, but of what he was in himself. It might further be argued that there are passages in the Synoptics in which he, clearly pointing to himself, assumes a position of authority and lays claim to the exceptional reverence of men. And again; if the Johannine Christ be represented ah discoursing more frequently of himself, one reason, it is said, is not far to seek; the scene being laid mainly in Jerusalem, it was only natural that, with assertion of his Messiahship, he should have discoursed of himself at the headquarters of Judaism ; and with resort to a ter- minology which, abstruse as it might be to some, was not neces-
1 See on the 'Agalliasis' utterance (Mt. xi, 27 =Lk. x, 22) Raven, op. cit. pp. 130 ff.; McNeile, St Matthew, pp. 173; P. Ewald, op. cit. p. 834.