THE JOHANNINE
WRITINGS
BY
PAUL W. SCHMIEDEL
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT ZURICH
TRANSLATED BY
MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1908
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PREFACE
IN the German edition, the present work comprises three parts (8, 10,
and 12) of the well-known "Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbuecher." The
present edition gathers these discussions of the Johannine (and
incidentally of the Synoptic) problem into a single volume. It has the
further advantage--through the kindness of Prof. Schmiedel--of
incorporating many manuscript improvements in and additions to the
German text. For instance--not to mention smaller additions--S:S: 26
and 27 in Pt. I. Chap. III. (pp. 130-136), the second and third
paragraphs of S: 13 in Pt. II. Chap. V. (pp. 255-257), and the second
note in the Appendix (pp. 270-277) are entirely new. In fact, in this,
as in other matters, Prof. Schmiedel has spared himself no trouble in
order to lay the results of his studies in as complete a form as
possible (having regard, of course, to the limitations imposed by a
popular German series) before his English readers. In the List of Books
at the end of the volume references will be found to some of the
author's contributions to the "Encyclopaedia Biblica "which bear
directly upon the subject under consideration. It is hoped that the
present work will serve as an introduction, and in some respects as a
supplement, to Prof. Schmiedel's famous "Encyclopaedia" articles.
THE TRANSLATOR.
July 1908.
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CONTENTS
PART I
THE FOURTH GOSPEL IN COMPARISON WITH THE
FIRST THREE GOSPELS.
INTRODUCTION, pp. 3-8.
CHAPTER I
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS AND THE FOURTH, pp. 9-46.
1. Duration of Jesus Ministry, 9 f.; 2. Scene of Jesus' Ministry, 2-13;
3. The Classes of people amongst whom Jesus moved, 13-16; 4. Course of
Jesus' Ministry, 16-18; 5. Jesus' works of wonder, 18-25; 6. The
general picture of Jesus, 25-30; 7. Genuine human characteristics in
Jesus? 30-33; 8. Development of Jesus in the course of his work, 33-35;
9. Form of Jesus' discourses, 35 f.; 10. Subject of Jesus' discourses,
37-39; 11. Demands made by Jesus in his discourses, 40-43; 12.
Misunderstandings as regards Jesus' discourses, 43-46.
CHAPTER II
ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS WITH THE FOURTH, pp. 47-68.
1. Earlier attempts to reconcile them completely, 47-49; 2. Modern
attempts to reconcile them approximately, 49 f.; 3. Use of the
Synoptics by Jn., 51 f.; 4. Is Jn.'s purpose simply to supplement and
correct? 52 f.; 5. Jn.'s purpose not merely to supplement and correct,
53-57; 6. Are several journeys of Jesus to Jerusalem presupposed in Mt.
xxiii. 37? 57-61; 7. Is Jesus relationship to God in Mt. xi. 27 the
same as in Jn.? 61-66; 8. Inaccurate recollection on the part of the
Apostle John? 67 f .
CHAPTER III
DECISION AS TO WHICH is THE MORE TRUSTWORTHY: THE STORY OF THE FIRST THREE
GOSPELS OR OF THE FOURTH, pp. 69-139.
1. Reasons for favouring Jn., 691; 2. Preference for the Synoptics on
the whole, 71; 3. Influence of Jesus with his hearers, 71 f.; 4. Course
of Jesus' public work, 72 f.; 5. Jesus style of speaking, 73 f.; 6.
Misunderstandings as regards Jesus' discourses, 74; 7. Repetitions in
Jesus' discourses, 74 f.; 8. Leaves in Jn. wrongly arranged? 75 f.; 9.
Careless description in Jn., 76-78; 10. Colourless descriptions in Jn.,
78 f.; 11. The picture of John the Baptist, 79 f.; 12. Injudicious
reliance on the Synoptics, 81-83; 13. Astounding nature of the miracles
of Jesus in Jn., 83 f.; 14. Are miracles possible? 84-88; 15. Must we
believe in miracles? 88-93; 16. Silence of the Synoptics as to the
miracles in Jn., 93 f.; 17. The miracles in Jn. symbolic, 95-100; 18.
The Feeding a fact for Jn. in spite of all? 101-106; 19. Are the other
miracles facts for Jn.? 106-110; 20. Traditions known only to Jn.?
110-112; 21. Amplification of the story of Lazarus on the basis of Lk.,
112-115; 22. Other amplifications in Jn., 115-117; 23. Divergence as to
Jesus' death, 117-119; 24. Day of Jesus' death according to the
Synoptics conceivable, 119-126; 25. The day of Jesus' death
artificially fixed in Jn., 126-130; 26. The story of Jesus'
resurrection, 130-134; 27. Introduction of conditions of a later
period, 134-136; 28. Precise statements of time in Jn., 136-138;
Conclusion, 1381
CHAPTER IV
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL AND THEIR ORIGINS, pp. 140-166.
INTRODUCTION, p. 140.
1. Revelation through "the Word" (the Logos), 141 f.; 2. The Logos as
reason, 142-144; 3. Jesus as Logos in the New Testament Epistles,
144-146; 4. Mingling of religions at the time of Jn., 147 f.; 5.
Gnosticism, 148-151; 6. The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel, 151-154; 7.
Jesus as Logos throughout the Fourth Gospel, 154 f.; 8. Suppression of
human traits in Jesus, 156-158; 9. Kingdom of God and Kingdom of the
Devil according to Jn., 158 f.; 10. Children of God and of the Devil,
159 f.; 11. Softening of the opposition, 160-162; 12. Difference
between Jn. and the Gnostics, 162-164; 13. Jn.'s leaning to the
teaching of the Church, 164 f.; Conclusion, 165 f.
PART II
ORIGIN AND VALUE OF THE GOSPEL, EPISTLES, AND REVELATION OF JOHN.
INTRODUCTION, p. 169.
CHAPTER I
AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL AND DATE AT WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN, pp. 170-203.
1. Papias' teacher in Ephesus: John the Elder, 170-173; 2. Polycarp's
teacher in Ephesus: John the Elder, 173 f.; 3. The Apostle John not in
Ephesus, 174 f.; 4. Confusion of the two Johns, 175-177; 5. Early death
of the Apostle John (in Palestine), 177 f.; 6. Result as far as the
Fourth Gospel is concerned, 178 f.; 7. The Testimony of the beloved
disciple, 179-181; 8. Further witness of the author to himself (Jn.
xix. 35), 181-183; 9. No deception in writing under pseudonyms,
183-185; 10. Chapter xxi. an appendix from another pen, 186 f.; 11. The
real picture of John the Apostle, 187 f.; 12. Mistakes as to the
condition of things in Palestine, 188 f.; 13. John the Elder not the
writer of the Fourth Gospel, 189 f.; 14. What kind of person was the
Fourth Evangelist? 190 f.; 15. Date at which the Fourth Gospel was
composed, 191 1; 16. The Apostle is not mentioned as the author until
after the year 170 A.D., 192-194; 17. Value of these "external
evidences," 194-196; 18. The Gospel not used before 140, 197 f.; 19.
Used without recognition in the years 140-170, 199; 20. Conclusion as
to the "external evidences," 199 f.; 21. Mention of Bar Cochba's
insurrection in Jn. v. 43, 200 f.; 22. The Fourth Gospel not the work
of several authors, 201-203.
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN, pp. 204-212.
1. Main purpose: to oppose the Gnostics, 204 f.; 2. Agreement with
Gnosticism, 206; 3. Nature of the opposition to Gnosticism, 207 f.; 4.
The Epistle not by the author of the Gospel, 208-210; 5. Date of
composition, 210 f.; 6. Secondary purpose: recommendation of the Fourth
Gospel/ 211 f.
CHAPTER III
THE SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES OF JOHN, pp. 213-217.
1. Purpose of the two Epistles, 213 f.; 2. Address of the two Epistles,
214 f.; 3. Author of the two Epistles and date of composition, 215-217.
CHAPTER IV
THE "REVELATION" OF JOHN, pp. 218-232.
1. Various interpretations, 218 f.; 2. Combination of separate
fragments, 219 f.; 3. A Leaflet on the fate of Jerusalem, 221; 4.
Prophecy concerning Rome and the First Beast, 222-225; 5. The Number
666, 226 f.; 6. Time of composition, 227; 7. The author not the author
of the Fourth Gospel, 227 f.; 8. The author not the Apostle John, 228
f.; 9. The author John the Elder? 229-231; 10. Spirit of the book, 231
f .
CHAPTER V
SPIRIT AND VALUE OF THE GOSPEL AND EPISTLES OF JOHN, pp. 233-258.
1. Admission of the Gentiles into the Christian body, 233-235; 2.
Struggle with the Jews, 235 f.; 3. Appreciation of Montanism and
Gnosticism, 236 f.; 4. Ideas about the state after death, 237; 5. Jesus
the Son of God and Logos in heaven, 238 f.; 6. Emphasis on the Church,
239-241; 7. Jesus as a divine being upon earth, 241 f.; 8. Why did Jn.
write a Gospel? 242 f.; 9. Some special ideas of abiding value, 244 f.;
10. Communion with God, 245 f.; 11. Redemption through Jesus, 246-253;
12. Spiritualising of materialistic ideas, 253-255; 13. Final
appreciation, 255-258.
APPENDIX, pp. 261-280.
Note to page 248, 261-269. Note to page 250, 270-277. Books
recommended, 279 f.
INDEX . . . . . pp. 281-285
BIBLICAL PASSAGES EXPLAINED . . . . . p. 287
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PART I.
THE FOURTH GOSPEL IN COMPARISON WITH THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS.
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INTRODUCTION.
THOSE whose knowledge of the Life of Jesus has been acquired merely
from Religious Instruction or from attendance at church services, or
from a "Bible History" designed for use in schools, do not realise how
much of it is based entirely upon the Fourth Gospel. If we did not
possess this, we should know nothing at all about the marriage-feast at
Cana, about the cure of the sick man who had lain for thirty-eight
years by the Pool of Bethesda, about the gift of sight to the man who
was born blind, about the raising of Lazarus, about the washing of the
disciples' feet on the last evening of Jesus' life, and about the spear
being thrust into the side of the crucified Lord. As regards the
expulsion of the dealers and money-changers from the fore court of the
Temple, our knowledge would be to the effect that it happened not at
the beginning, but at the end, of Jesus' public ministry. Of Jesus'
capture we should only have the report that it was effected by a band
of armed men despatched by the Jewish authorities, not that it was
carried out by the Roman soldiers. The day of Jesus' death would be
known to us as the day after, not the day before, the evening on which
the Jews ate the paschal lamb. In the case of the crucifixion of Jesus,
we should know no more than that, of all his followers, only a number
of women looked on from a distance; we should not be aware that his
mother and his beloved disciple stood by the cross and received a
message from his lips.
These few observations are sufficient in themselves to give us pause to
think. Why do the first three Evangelists tell us nothing of all that
the Fourth is able to report? Did these things not come within the
range of their experience? Yet at most of the events we have mentioned
all those are reported to have been present who after wards became
apostles; about the others also they must have received very soon
afterwards quite definite information, and through them in due course,
or through intermediaries, the authors of our Gospels. Or can it be
that they had some reason for passing over the information in question?
And yet how gladly would they have incorporated it in their books! This
same information would surely have served the purpose which they had in
view in the whole of their literary undertaking--that of making the
figure of their Master shine forth in the brightest light--better
almost than all that they have included in their narratives!
Why then did they not introduce it? Did they really have no experience
of these episodes, though not indeed because they did not happen? We
cannot avoid the question. Nor can we dispose of it off-hand, either in
the affirmative or in the negative, by a few considerations. Nothing
but a general review of the differences between the Fourth Gospel and
the first three will enable us to supply the answer. And, first, these
differences must be determined without any prepossessions whatever in
favour of one or the other story; secondly, attempts to reconcile the
two accounts, in spite of their divergences, must be made and tested;
and then only after such attempts have failed shall we be called upon
to decide definitely which of the two is the more trustworthy.
We say more trustworthy. The obvious thing to say would seem to be,
Which account deserves to be trusted altogether? But that would not
only be unwise for general reasons--because, for instance, an
untrustworthy account is not always the necessary alternative to a
thoroughly trustworthy one--but also because the matter is not really
presented to us in this way. Should the scales turn in favour of the
first three Gospels, we are still obliged to bear in mind continually
such evidence as that produced by Wernle, for example, in the first
number of this series (Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbuecher),
concerning the Sources for the Life of Jesus, which shows that none of
these was composed by a man who saw Jesus' ministry with his own eyes,
and that their trustworthiness is subject to considerable limitations.
If the Fourth Gospel deserve preference, its author would certainly
appear to have been an eyewitness of the work of Jesus. But even then
the possibility arises--and those who accept this view fully avail
themselves of it--that in his recollection of events much of his
material became dislocated or was more or less seriously obscured.
After comparing the Fourth Gospel with the first three as regards its
trustworthiness, our study must advance to an ever wider investigation
of its peculiar character, and must then bring to light its deeper
roots in the conceptions and ideas prevailing at the time. Later, in
Part II. of the present work, we shall have to come to some conclusion
as to the author, and the time in which this book and the writings
related to it--all supposed to have been written by the same Apostle
John--were composed. Finally, we shall have to show the abiding value
of these works. Thus, at first we have to enter upon an enumeration of
those special points in which the Fourth Gospel differs from the other
three. This enumeration might easily be thought a somewhat external
matter. The task, however, cannot be avoided because it is of primary
importance to find our general bearings. Only gradually can the special
peculiarities of the book from higher points of view be summed up in
such a way as to present consistent pictures. As regards each
particular narrative of the Gospel, therefore, we cannot say at once
all that is to be said about it. On the contrary, many narratives will
come up for discussion in very many places, our purpose being to show
at each stage of our inquiry some new phase which helps to elucidate
the question under consideration.
But, on the whole, we are concerned with nothing less than the
question, What picture ought we ourselves to form of Jesus? The Fourth
Gospel sketches the picture in a very pronounced and quite peculiar
way, and no one can pass on without deciding for or against it. The
main question with regard to this is whether its features accord with
the figure of Jesus as he really existed upon earth, or whether such
have been added as were derived from a different, and perhaps even a
non-Christian, type of piety and view of the world. Here we have the
reasons for including in the present series of books on the history of
religion a particularly detailed, treatment of this remarkable book,
which has already been called the most wonderful riddle--that is to
say, the riddle most replete with what is inconceivable--of all the
books of the New Testament.
Turning now to our actual investigation, in accordance with general
usage we shall gladly retain the name John (shortened to Jn.) to
describe the author, just as in the case of the three other Evangelists
we keep the names Matthew (Mt.), Mark (Mk.), Luke (Lk.). Strictly
speaking, we should have always to put these names in quotation marks;
but that would certainly prove wearisome. Mt., Mk., and Lk. have
received in scientific theology the common name "Synoptics," because
their gospels, in virtue of their far-reaching agreement, may be
regarded or "viewed together" with one glance (Synopsis means "common
view"). But even as regards this, it will be borne in mind that the
agreement is by no means complete. Only on the whole, and only in
comparison with Jn., is it apparent. Where it is found on a particular
point, for the sake of simplicity we shall refer only to the Evangelist
who gives what is presumably the most original form of a report, that
is to say in most cases (though not always) Mk., as representing that
which appears in all three Synoptics, Mt. being referred to mostly for
those discourses of Jesus not preserved in Mk., or given by Mk. in a
less original form. From Lk., therefore, for the most part, only such
sections will be cited as are not found in Mk. and Mt.
The parallel passages from the other Gospels, which we do not quote,
will be found on the margin of most Bibles, either by the side of the
verse itself which forms part of a discourse, or at the head of a
section to which it belongs. In a more convenient form they may be seen
at a glance in a "Synopsis," where they are always printed side by side
(see the appended list of books). In addition, however, a copy of the
New Testament will be indispensable, because, as one can easily
understand, in a Synopsis the context in which a passage stands in the
Gospel of which it forms part is not always clear.
At the least, it seems to us to be a matter of urgent necessity that
the reader should have a New Testament by his side. Nothing could be
further from our wishes than that people should be prepared, or think
themselves condemned, to believe our assertions without testing them.
And yet it is not possible always to print the whole section of the
Bible on which they are based.
By inserting the number of the chapters and verses in the text of this
book, we shall, we believe, be studying the reader's convenience better
than by giving the references at the foot of the page or at the end of
the work. Those who are not interested in them will not, we hope, allow
themselves to be distracted by them or think that for their own
convenience they should have been omitted altogether, but will be
prepared to pass over them. There are some readers--and we hope they
are many--who will wish to turn them up, and it may even happen that
one of those who in the first instance has felt the numbers to be
distracting will suddenly have to be included in the other class of
readers. If we had done as he at first wished he would now find himself
obliged to search rather helplessly in a Bible with which he is perhaps
not very familiar.--An f. after a verse-number refers only to the
following verse. [1]
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[1] The headings to the subdivisions of chapters were added after the
book was already in print, to make it more convenient for readers to
use. Consequently, the first words of a new section often follow
immediately upon the last words of the preceding section without any
regard to the heading.
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CHAPTER I.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS AND THE FOURTH.
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1. DURATION OF JESUS MINISTRY.
ONE of the first points on which one wishes to be clear, if one would
obtain a general view of the stories of Jesus' life, is this--How long
did Jesus' public ministry last? As regards this, Jn. gives us
information which is quite clear. The expulsion of the dealers and
money-changers from the fore-court of the Temple, which was only
preceded by the presence of Jesus at the marriage feast at Cana in
Galilee, took place when Jesus had gone up (ii. 13) to Jerusalem to
keep the Passover feast, our Easter Festival. Shortly before a second
Passover festival, in Galilee by the Lake of Gennesareth he fed the
five thousand (vi. 4). At a third Passover feast (xi. 55; xii. 1; xiii.
1) Jesus met his death. Between these there is mention of three other
feasts. Between the first and second Passover, a "feast of the Jews,"
which is not more closely identified (v. 1); between the second and
third Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles in October (vii. 2), and the
Feast of the Dedication of the Temple in December (x. 22). The
references being so definite, it is quite unlikely that a Passover
feast has been passed over. We may therefore calculate that the public
ministry of Jesus lasted, according to Jn., somewhat over two years
(not, as is commonly said, three years).
The Synoptics, on the other hand, do not allow us to fix its duration.
They know of no festival except that of the Passover on which Jesus
died. The natural thing to do of course would be to supplement them on
this point from Jn. But they tell us just as little of any one of the
journeys which Jesus is supposed to have made at so many of these
festivals. So that if we wished to bring them into agreement with Jn.,
the effort to do so would give rise to a complaint all the more
serious, that they are silent about such important matters. If we are
bent on discovering, by means of a calculation which is quite
uncertain, how long the public ministry of Jesus is supposed to have
lasted, we shall hardly find that it lasted more than one year; in
fact, a few months would perhaps suffice to cover all that the Gospels
relate.
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2. SCENE OF JESUS' MINISTRY.
We have already had to touch upon another main point in which the other
Gospels differ from Jn. It affects the scene of Jesus' ministry.
According to the Synoptics, Jesus did not come to Jerusalem or to
Judaea at all--the most southern of the three parts of the Jewish land
lying between the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan,
which flows from the north to the south into the Dead Sea--until a few
days before his death. Previously he stayed uninterruptedly in Galilee,
the northernmost of these three parts. The shores of the Lake of
Gennesareth are here the chief scene of his ministry. On one occasion
he journeyed outside of the land far to the north-west into the regions
of Tyre and Sidon and back to the east shore of the Sea of Galilee (Mk.
vii. 24, 31); afterwards he went once to the other side of the northern
boundary of Galilee into the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi (Mk.
viii. 27). His journey to Jerusalem led him eastward of Jordan through
Peraea (Mk. x. 1); Samaria, which lay west of this, midway between
Galilee and Judaea, which would have been his nearest way, was avoided
because an old feud had made the Samaritans unfriendly in their
attitude towards the Jews, especially when these were making
pilgrimages to Jerusalem (Lk. ix. 52 f., Jn. iv. 9).
Nevertheless Lk., and he alone, does represent this journey as having
been made through Samaria; in fact his account of it extends over nine
whole chapters (ix. 51-xviii. 34). But he leads us to realise fully
that he is not clear as to the facts of his story. Not very far from
the end of it, for instance, he repeats (xvii. 11) that Jesus was on
the way to Jerusalem, and adds that in the course of it he passed
through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, whereas Galilee must have
been left behind, if his purpose was to reach Jerusalem by way of
Samaria. In xiii. 31 Jesus is warned against the snares of Herod
Antipas, whose jurisdiction he had already avoided by leaving Galilee
for Samaria. Further, on this journey Jesus is supposed on several
occasions to have met Pharisees (xv. 2; xvii. 20), and is even said to
have been invited to sit at meat with two of them (xi. 37; xiv. 1). But
it is certain that no Pharisee could stay in Samaria, where he would
come into daily contact with a people which did not observe the strict
injunctions of the Jewish Law, and so would, of course, be continually
defiled in such a way that no amount of washings and other observances
would have availed to make him clean. Lk.'s story of Jesus journey
through Samaria has therefore no claim to trustworthiness; it must be
left entirely on one side.
In Jn. then the most important thing is this, that Jesus real and
abiding dwelling-place during his ministry is Judaea and especially
Jerusalem. To Galilee he came only on rare occasions and only for a
short time: in ii. 1-12 to Cana at the marriage-feast and to Capernaum,
where however he remained "not many days"; in iv. 43-v. 1 to Cana
again, as regards which visit only the cure of the son of the royal
official from Capernaum is signalised as a (special) event; finally in
vi. 1 Jesus crosses the Lake of Galilee without its being said how he
came there from Judaea; he feeds the five thousand, on the following
night walks across the Lake, on the ensuing day teaches the people; and
soon after the Feast of Tabernacles is again near at hand (vii. 2), for
which he goes to Jerusalem without returning to Galilee. In the case of
the last journey but one to Galilee we learn also where, according to
Jn., Jesus original home really was, "Jesus himself testified that a
prophet has no honour in his own country; when then he came to Galilee,
the Galileans received him kindly" (iv. 44 f.). What is here meant by
Jesus country? Judaea is intended, just as certainly as in the
Synoptics his father's town Nazareth in Galilee is; for it was in
Nazareth, as every one knows from Mk. (vi. 4), Mt., and Lk., that he
uttered this saying (the Greek word patris means both father's land and
father's town). In i. 45 f.; vii. 41 f., 52, it is true, Jn., like the
Synoptics, presupposes that Galilee, especially Nazareth, is Jesus
native place, but in spite of this, iv. 44 f. implies the contrary.
Moreover, vii. 42 suggests that Jn. may have believed that at least the
birth of Jesus took place in Bethlehem, and so in Judaea.
As to the journeys northward from the Lake of Galilee, Jn. is entirely
silent. Jesus comes to Peraea shortly before the last Passover
according to Jn. also, but on this occasion not by the pilgrimage route
from Galilee to Jerusalem, but from Jerusalem (x. 40), where he has
stayed since the Feast of Tabernacles (vii. 2, 10), and so without
break since October. But, besides this, according to Jn,, on the second
excursion also which he makes from here to Galilee (not as in Lk. on
the last journey to Jerusalem in the opposite direction), he comes to
Samaria (iv. 1-4), and follows up the success which he has here with
the woman at Jacob's Well and all the inhabitants of her town, by
holding out the greatest expectations of extensive missionary work on
the part of his disciples (iv. 35-38), though according to Mt. x. 5 he
expressly forbids these same disciples to carry on mission work among
the Samaritans. In short, a greater difference with regard to the scene
of his ministry can hardly be imagined.
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3. THE CLASSES OP PEOPLE AMONGST WHOM JESUS MOVED.
With whom then had Jesus to deal when he came forward to teach in
public? In the Synoptics with the most different classes of people.
Here we find crowds of people following him into the wilderness to
listen to him for days together. The sick come and ask for healing,
sometimes abashed like the woman with an issue of blood, who, with out
being seen, hoped to be able to touch the hem of his garment (Mk. v.
25-34), sometimes, like blind Bartimaeus at Jericho, crying aloud (Mk.
x. 46-48). A rich man desires to learn from the Master what he must do
in order to attain everlasting life (Mk. x. 17); a scribe wishes to
know which is the most important commandment in the Law of Moses (Mk.
xii. 28); another would like to follow him, but does not reflect that
Jesus has no place where he can lay his head (Mt. viii. 19 f.); others
again desire to follow him, but would first bury their fathers (Mt.
viii. 21 f.) or take solemn farewell of their friends (Lk. ix. 61 f.);
yet another has a legacy dispute with his brother, and Jesus is to
settle it (Lk. xii. 13 f.); the chief tax-gatherer Zacchaeus climbs up
a mulberry-tree in order to see Jesus as he passes by (Lk. xix. 1-10).
Another tax-gatherer, who may have been called Levi (so Mk. ii. 14 -
Lk. v. 27) or Matthew (so Mt. ix. 9), at the beck of Jesus leaves his
business to follow him, and at the meal which he prepares afterwards we
find Jesus in the midst of the tax-gatherers and their whole company,
which was regarded as sinful, but which he so much cultivated that it
came to be said, he is "a glutton and a wine-bibber, an associate of
publicans and sinners" (Mt. xi. 19). It was at Levi's meal that the
Pharisees and scribes, with long fringes to their garments (Mt. xxiii.
5) in token of a singular piety, were present to find fault with Jesus,
just as they opposed him everywhere else, raising objection in the name
of the Law of Moses to his disciples plucking ears of corn on the
Sabbath or to his doing work on the Sabbath by healing a sick man (Mk.
ii. 23-iii. 6), or to his declaring that the sins of the paralytic man
were forgiven (Mk. ii. 1-12). And he on his part is never tired of
pronouncing against that hypocrisy and affectation of holiness of
theirs through which they allow themselves to be surprised at prayer in
the street, that they may keep their piety well in evidence, and at the
same time consume the houses of widows and declare it to be a work well
pleasing to God to give to the Temple something which is needed for the
support of one's own poor parents (Mk. vii. 11-13; Mt. vi. 5 and chap.
xxiii.). In return they try to set snares for him and by captious
questions to entice from him an utterance on the strength of which
proceedings may be taken against him. And the Sadducees, the
aristocratic priestly party, which gave itself up to the joys of life,
but held firmly to its position of authority and was relentless in
matters of the law, also associated themselves with these efforts (Mk.
xii. 18-27).
Where is all this varied picture in Jn.? Only a few of its features
confront us there. In Jn. also the Pharisees vigilantly enforce the
command that the Sabbath shall not be profaned by any work (ix. 14-16).
But what Jesus finds fault with in them, apart from this, is not their
factitious holiness, but only their unwillingness to believe in him. In
Jn. not only do the Scribes not appear, but--and this is far more
important--the publicans and sinners, the poor and oppressed, are
missing also. As the particular persons with whom Jesus had to do,
apart from his disciples and the sick persons whom he healed, mention
can be made only of his mother (at the marriage feast of Cana, ii.
1-11, and at the cross, xix. 25-27), Nicodemus (iii. 1-21; vii. 50-52;
xix. 39-42), the woman of Samaria (iv. 7-30), and Martha and Mary (at
the raising of their brother Lazarus, xi. 1-44, and at the anointing of
Jesus, xii. 1-8).
For the rest, Jesus is confronted only by a single class of men, "the
Jews." Over thirty times this expression recurs in the first eleven
chapters. Of course in the Synoptics also they are all Jews with whom
Jesus holds intercourse; but in them a distinction is actually made
between Jews and Jews, which is not made here. Every thing remains
indefinite. To the sick man who was healed at the Pool of Bethesda,
"the Jews" say, "it is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for thee to
carry thy bed" (v. 10). After he has learned who healed him, he tells
"the Jews," it was Jesus (v. 15). Was he not himself a Jew then? And
was not Jesus also a Jew? The Gospel of Jn. is very liable to make us
forget this. Jesus journeys to Jerusalem not for this and that feast,
which since he was a child of his people was a festival for him also,
but to "the feast of the Jews"; with the exception of the Feast of the
Dedication of the Temple (x. 22) all the feasts mentioned in Jn. and
referred to above (p. 9 f.) are described in this way. Jesus says to
the Pharisees, and another time to "the Jews," "in your law it is
written" (viii. 17; x. 34); for Jesus himself, then, this Law is not
valid. We even read in vii. 11-13 that at Jerusalem "none spake openly
about him for fear of the Jews." Here by the Jews cannot be meant the
whole population, but only the authorities whose attitude was
particularly hostile to Jesus. The strange expression indicates,
however, that the same hostile feeling is imagined to prevail among the
whole people.
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4. COURSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY.
In accordance with this, as far as the course of Jesus' ministry is
concerned it might now be expected to have a very speedy and a violent
termination. In particular, it was the expulsion of the dealers from
the fore-court of the Temple that, according to the account of the
Synoptics, sealed Jesus fate. And, as a matter of fact, no officials
could allow their sacred rights to be interfered with in this way
without letting all authority slip out of their hands. But in Jn. the
expulsion takes place at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, and
it happens with out bringing upon him any serious consequences. This is
all the more remarkable since in this Gospel no difficulties seem to be
felt at all when Jesus is represented as about to be taken prisoner
without any clear legal grounds for the action. The High-priests and
Pharisees only need to give their agents command to effect the capture
(vii. 32). It is not effected, it is true. But why not? Their agents
allow themselves to be withheld from obeying their instructions by the
power of Jesus' words, and the authorities quietly abandon their object
(vii. 45-49). We are told repeatedly that "they" (or "the Jews") sought
to take him or to kill him (v. 18; vii. 1; viii. 37, 40; x. 31), but
the result is always: "none laid hand upon him" (vii. 30), "he escaped
from their hands" (x. 39), or when they wished to stone him, "he hid
himself and escaped from the Temple place" (viii. 59). And the reason
given is that "his hour was not yet come" (vii. 30; viii. 20).
Now certainly it must not be overlooked that in the Synoptics also (Mk.
iii. 6) the Pharisees with the party of Herod took counsel together how
they might destroy Jesus after his first cure of a sick man on a
Sabbath. On the whole, however, events run their course here in a much
more intelligible way. Jesus comes forward in Galilee and finds
favour--even an enthusiastic welcome--among the people for a whole
period. The intervention of the Pharisees is powerless to check this.
When Jesus leaves Jewish territory on the north, he does so expressly
in order to escape the pressure now becoming too great (Mk. vii. 24).
Only in the end does there come a time when he finds himself called
upon to go up to Jerusalem, and there, by means of a solemn entry into
the city, to force a decision of the question whether people would see
in him the Saviour (Mk, xi. 1-11). The decision follows within few
days, and is hastened chiefly by the expulsion of the dealers from the
fore-court of the Temple.
In the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, although the circumstances
urgently require an immediate settlement of the question, it is
deferred again and again; and, finally the decision is caused by an
event of which the Synoptics know nothing at all--by the raising of
Lazarus. The greatest of all miracles leads the High Council, the
highest authority among the Jewish people, to meet together and
definitely contemplate Jesus' removal (xii. 47-53, 57). Thus the two
accounts do not agree even to what really provided the occasion for the
overthrow Jesus.
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5. JESUS' WORKS OF WONDER.
As to the fact that Jesus worked miracles, it is true, they are all
agreed. And it is only on the surface that the number, according to
Jn.'s account, has to be thought of as somewhat limited. He, as a
matter of fact, continually presupposes that it was large (ii. 23; iv.
45; vi. 2; vii. 31; xi. 47; xii. 37; xx. 30), and in xx. 31 expressly
says that he has only included a selection of them in his book. And yet
it is significant that among these that class of miracles is not found
which not only, according to the Synoptics, was the most common, but
also (according to the general agreement of modern historians and
theologians of every school) least deserves to be doubted--we mean the
cure of so-called possessed persons or demoniacs, that is to say, of
the mentally sick, a cure which is effected by physicians fairly often
even in our own times.
Next, it must certainly appear strange that the miracles reported in
Jn. are often more marvellous in their character than those in the
corresponding narratives of the Synoptics. Amongst the stories of cures
in the Synoptics we do not hear of a man being healed by Jesus who had
been ill for thirty-eight years; nor amongst the references to blind
men, of sight being given to one who was born blind. The daughter of
Jairus, according to Mk. v. 22-43, was raised very soon after her
death; the young man at Nain, according to Lk. vii. 11-17, on the way
to burial, which in the hot climate of Palestine took place on the very
day of death, or, according to the story of Ananias and Sapphira in the
Acts of the Apostles (v. 5 f., 10), immediately after death (cp. also
Tobit viii. 10-16). To understand what a difference is implied when we
are told that Lazarus was not resuscitated until the fourth day after
his death, we must bear in mind the Jewish idea that the soul hovered
about a dead body for three days after death and was ready to return to
it. On the fourth day it finds the appearance of the dead person so
completely altered that it forsakes it once and for all.
It would also be a great mistake to suppose that the description of the
walking on the Lake of Galilee is more easy to accept in Jn.'s account
(vi. 16-21) than in that of the Synoptics (Mk. vi. 45-52), because it
is supposed to admit of a perfectly natural explanation. Thus stress is
laid on the fact that the Greek words, Jesus walked "upon the sea,"
might also mean "by the sea," and it is assumed that the disciples with
their boat, without noticing it, kept quite near the shore or had come
near it again; Jesus passed close by the water's edge, and it was only
the high waves that made it appear as if he walked upon the water. This
conception is supposed to find further support in the concluding words
(Jn. vi. 21), "they wished then to take him into the ship, and
immediately the ship struck the land." On this view there is only one
thing omitted, and that is the chief point we mean the four words which
follow, "to which they steered." By this, as we are expressly told in
vi. 11 is meant the opposite shore of the sea. The Evangelist,
therefore, really emphasises the fact that Jesus walked across the
whole sea and did not need to be taken into the boat, as in the
Synoptics.
Yet another view is suggested by the changing of the water into wine at
the marriage-feast at Cana (Jn. ii. 1-11). This miracle is one which
Jesus performed not on a man but on an inanimate object, and hardly any
one can say that it was prompted by heartfelt compassion for suffering
humanity. The Evangelist also assigns to it a quite different meaning:
"this was the first sign which Jesus did and whereby he announced his
majesty." Not every work of wonder is in itself a "sign" of this kind.
Any one of them of course may be such a "sign," if its purpose is to
accredit the divine power of the worker; and many works of wonder must
necessarily be regarded as "signs" in this sense, because no other
purpose can be recognised in them.
Now the Synoptics also report certain works of wonder of this kind, for
example the withering of the fig-tree after Jesus had cursed it (Mk.
xi. 12-14, 20 f.), and we must certainly assume that other miracles of
Jesus as well, works of wonder done from compassion, seemed to them to
be "signs" quite as much as anything else. Nevertheless, the
distinction still holds good that compassion as the ruling idea of the
wonder-works of Jesus is in these as much in the foreground as it is in
the background in Jn. The latter mentions not merely, as we have just
noted, that the turning of the water into wine at Cana was the first
miracle, but also says expressly that the healing of the son of the
royal official of Capernaum was "the second sign which Jesus did in
Galilee" (iv. 54); in fact he uses the word "sign" continually for
Jesus' works of wonder, and in this Gospel Jesus emphasises the idea
(v. 36; x. 25) that these "works," by which he means his works of
wonder, are witnesses that he has been sent by God, and that though one
refuses to believe his words, one must believe his "works" (x. 38; xiv.
11).
Now the view thus taken by Jn. is directly opposed to an utterance of
Jesus preserved to us in the Synoptics. When the Pharisees wish to see
a "sign" from him, he answers "there shall no sign be given unto this
generation." So Mk. viii. 11-13. In Mt. (xii. 39; xvi. 4) and Lk. (xi.
29) he adds "except the sign of the prophet Jonah." It almost seems as
if this addition were in full contradiction with Mk.'s account. But
appearances are deceptive. That is to say, by the "sign of Jonah" is
meant something which is really no sign at all--in fact the contrary of
a sign. This unusual mode of expression is very effective. An
illustration will make this clear at once. Suppose that a conqueror
suddenly invades a country, that the inhabitants send ambassadors to
him and ask for credentials to justify his raid, and that he answers,
"no credentials shall be given to you but the credentials of my sword."
And the idea in Jesus' words about the sign of Jonah is really similar,
for he says in continuation, "the people of Nineveh shall rise up in
judgment with this generation (with which I have to deal), and shall
condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold a
greater than Jonah is here "in my person (Mt. xii. 41). Here we are
actually told in what the sign of Jonah consists: it is his preaching.
And what Jesus has to offer--though in a more perfect form--is of
course also preaching. He desires merely to preach, not to do "signs."
Nor is this a principle which he sets before himself one day and
ignores the next. The generation of the Pharisees was not unworthy one
day and worthy the next to see a "sign" from him. Here then we have
evidence of priceless value to show that Jesus declined on principle to
do, not all works of wonder, but all such as might be supposed to serve
the purpose of accrediting his exalted rank. And he must really have
uttered these words, for none of all his recorders who believed that
Jesus really did works of wonder with this intention would have
invented them.
In order to emphasise fully the importance of such passages, we
describe them as foundation-pillars of a really scientific Life of
Jesus. That is to say, every historian in whatever field he may work,
in a story which shows that the author worshipped his hero, follows the
principle of regarding as true anything that runs counter to this
worship, because it cannot be due to invention. Since we possess
several Gospels, we are in a position to note, in addition, how one or
more of them will sometimes remodel, sometimes remove altogether,
passages of this nature because they were too offensive to one who
worshipped Jesus. In their original form, therefore, such passages show
us most certainly how Jesus really lived and thought, that he did so in
a way which we--though we fully recognise in him something divine--must
describe as truly human. Secondly, if it were not for such passages we
could not be sure that we may, to some extent at least, rely upon the
Gospels in which they are found, that is to say upon the first three.
If they were entirely wanting in them it would be difficult to reply to
the claim that the Gospels nowhere present to us anything but the
figure of a saint delineated on a background of gold, and that we
cannot know how Jesus really lived and worked, nor perhaps whether he
even lived at all. The foundation-pillars on which, in addition to that
mentioned above, we may lean in our effort to gain a correct idea of
the wonder works of Jesus, will be discussed on p. 41, and in Chap.
III., S:S: 18 and 19; the rest which are important for other sides of
Jesus character, on pp. 24 f., 26 f., 27 f., 29 and 43.
Naturally all that we find to be trustworthy in the Synoptics is by no
means limited to these nine "foundation-pillars." It is one of the
chief duties of a historian to show that the success which a great
character has had in history can be understood from his words and
works. But in the case of Jesus the success has been so great that even
an inquirer who is quite sober in his attitude towards him must search
out and accept as true everything that was calculated to establish his
greatness and to make the worship which was offered to him by his
contemporaries intelligible, provided that it is not in conflict with
the picture of Jesus presented by the foundation- pillars, and does not
for other reasons arouse in us doubts which are well founded.
Coming back to Jesus' words about the "sign of Jonah," after what has
already been said about it, it may be gathered how lacking in
intelligence the man must have been who inserted, between the saying
about the sign of Jonah and that about the people of Nineveh, the
sentence "for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of
the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth." Moreover, this insertion is found only in Mt.
xii. 40, not in Mt. xvi., nor in Lk. and Mk. What then is meant? The
day will come when the Pharisees shall see the miracle of Jesus
resurrection. And then we are told further in Mt. that "the people of
Nineveh . . . repented at the preaching of Jonah." Did Jonah preach to
them about his coming forth from the belly of the fish? And if he had
done so, could it have made much impression upon them? A miracle one
wishes to see with one's own eyes, not merely to hear about. But,
besides this, we are told quite correctly, in agreement with the Old
Testament book which deals with Jonah, what it was that he preached to
the people of Nineveh: it was repentance. Thus the idea introduced,
that Jesus told the Pharisees they would one day see the miracle of his
resurrection, is not appropriate here.
Why do we spend so much time on this point which is not found at all in
the Fourth Gospel? The reason is that in this too (ii. 18-22) Jesus is
asked to show a "sign" (in proof that he has the right to drive the
dealers from the fore-court of the Temple), and that he does not
decline to do so as in the Synoptics, but points to his future
resurrection, just as he does in the inappropriate insertion in Mt.;
this event will prove his right to have driven the sellers--two years
previously--from the Temple court.
As regards the miracle at Cana we have still to note the role played in
it by Jesus mother. Although down to this time Jesus has never worked a
miracle (Jn. ii. 11), his mother foresees that he will do one, and says
to the servants, even after she has been rebuked by Jesus, "whatsoever
he shall command you, that do." How entirely different is the
presentation of Mary in Mk.! Here (iii. 21 ) Jesus' friends go out to
seize him because they think him mentally distraught. Who these friends
are we are very soon told in Mk. (iii. 31-35); his mother and his
brethren come and send some one to summon him from the house; and only
their intention to withdraw him from his active work and banish him to
his parents house will explain his gruff answer, "Who is my mother and
my brethren? Whosoever doeth the will of God, he is my brother and
sister and mother." We may take it for granted that when Mk. tells us
of this intention, and of the idea that Jesus was mentally distraught,
he was relying upon unimpeachable information. This is clear when we
look into Mt. and Lk. They do not say a word about these two
things--and why, unless it was because they dare not believe anything
of the kind?--and give only Jesus' gruff answer, without of course
reflecting what an unfavourable light is thrown upon Jesus, if it was
not provoked by conduct on the part of his mother and his brethren
which was quite intolerable.
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6. THE GENERAL PICTURE OF JESUS.
The conception which we have formed of Jesus as a worker of wonders
will affect to an important extent the picture of him which is formed
as a whole. Here again it will not be forgotten that the Synoptics
agree with Jn. in sketching it with a grandeur which raises Jesus to a
marked extent above the standard of what is human. Yet they report that
he also, like others, was baptized by John. In the Fourth Gospel we
look in vain for this information. Here we find only the later report
of the Baptist, that lie saw the Holy Spirit coming down upon Jesus
from heaven like a dove; and even this is supposed to have happened,
not for the sake of Jesus, but only of the Baptist the purpose being
that by this sign which God had already announced to him, he might be
able to recognise in the person who stood before him the Son of God
whom he did not already know (i. 32-34).
In Jn. also the fact recorded by the Synoptics (Mt. iv. 1-11), that
Jesus was tempted by the devil, is entirely omitted. And to this
Evangelist the report in Mk. (x. 17 f.) and Lk., that Jesus, when a
rich man said to him, "Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal
life?" answered, "Why callest thou me good? None is good but God alone"
would have been equally unacceptable. And yet without doubt this answer
came from Jesus lips. How little any of those worshippers who noted
down the records in the Gospels could have invented it is shown by Mt.
In Mt. (xix. 16 f.) the rich man says, "Master, what good thing must I
do in order to have eternal life?" And Jesus answers, "Why askest thou
me concerning what is good? One is the good." How in this passage does
Jesus come to add the last four words? Should he not, since he was
questioned about the good, have continued, "one thing is the good"? And
this would have been the only appropriate reply, not only in view of
what precedes, but also on account of what follows, for Jesus says
later, "but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Thus
it is in the keeping of the commandments, Jesus thinks, that that good
thing consists about which he was asked. How does Mt. get the words,
"one is the good"? Simply by having before him, when he wrote, the
language of Mk. Here we have a practical example of the way in which
Mt. deliberately tried so to change this language at the beginning as
to make it inoffensive, while at the end, in spite of his purpose, he
left unchanged a few words of it which reveal to us what has happened
and how it arose. But by removing in this way the words of Jesus to the
effect that he did not deserve to be called good, Mt. has only
anticipated the Fourth Gospel in which Jesus exclaims triumphantly
(viii. 46), "Which of you convicteth me of sin? "
In the Synoptics (Mk. xiv. 32-39) we are told that in the Garden of
Gethsemane Jesus prayed insistently that the cup of death might pass
from him. In Jn. we seek for this information in vain. The words about
the cup, familiar to us from the Synoptics, are used by Jesus in Jn.
also, but in the contrary sense, "the cup which the Father hath given
me, shall I not drink it?" (xviii. 11). We find in a much earlier
passage (xii. 27) the only thing that can be compared with the deep
emotion of Jesus in Gethsemane. Several days before his death Jesus
says here, "Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? "But no more
unsuitable continuation could be imagined than the following words when
they are mistranslated, "Father, deliver me from this hour." How can
the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel think of asking the Father in heaven to
deliver him from death? He actually gives up his life of his own accord
(x. 17 f.). The sentence can therefore only be meant as a question:
"What ought I to say? Ought I to say, `Father, deliver me from this
hour?'" This alone makes the following words also appropriate, "but for
this cause came I unto this hour"; therefore I say, "Father, glorify
thy name," by letting me go to my death. [2]
Mk. (xv. 34) and Mt. at any rate have the saying of Jesus from the
cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In Jn., as well as
in Lk., we fail to find it. And yet we may be quite certain that it was
no more invented than the saying about the sign of Jonah. An indication
of weakness in the Crucified Lord might be found in the saying in Jn.
xix. 28, "I thirst," which, in turn, is not found in the Synoptics. But
the author has been careful at the outset to exclude this
interpretation. He says expressly that Jesus spoke the word in order
that a prophecy of the Old Testament (Ps. xxii. 16) might be fulfilled;
we are not therefore meant to suppose that Jesus was really thirsty.
Furthermore, we read frequently in the Synoptics that Jesus prayed to
his heavenly Father, and that he sought solitude for this purpose
(e.g., Mk. i. 35). How Jn. thinks of Jesus as praying is clear when he
is represented as standing before the open sepulchre of Lazarus (xi. 41
f.) and saying, "Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me. And I know
that thou hearest me always; but because of the multitude which
standeth around I said it, that they may believe that thou didst send
me." From this it appears that Jesus did not need to pray for his own
sake, but only for that of the people; and this he even explains to God
in a prayer. Here that power of his to do wonders, with which we
started, is first revealed in its fullest light.
To this may now be added the continual examples of his omniscience.
Nathanael, who has only just come to him, Jesus has already seen under
the fig-tree before Philip called him to Jesus (i. 48). He did not
trust himself to those who believed on him at the first Passover feast
in Jerusalem, because he knew them all (ii. 24 f.). He was able to tell
the woman of Samaria, that she had had five husbands, and that he whom
she now had was not her husband, and she was obliged to admit on the
strength of this that Jesus was a prophet (iv. 16-19). As regards
Lazarus he received a message merely to the effect that he was sick.
But Jesus knew that in the meantime he had died (xi. 3 f. 11-14; see p.
32). He knew "from the beginning" that Judas Iscariot would betray him
(vi. 64; xiii. 18), In the Synoptics, on the other hand, we find him
expressly declaring that (Mk. xiii. 32) "of that day," that is to say,
the day on which he would come down from heaven, in order to set up the
Kingdom of God upon earth, "or of that hour knoweth no one, not even
the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father"--another of the
sayings which, we may be sure, none of his worshippers has invented.
Lk. omits it altogether; Mt. (according to what is probably the
original text) omits at least the all-important words "neither the
Son."
We may add further the continual examples of that inviolability of his,
which we have already referred to (above, p. 17): they wished to seize
him, but he suffered no harm. It will have become clear in the meantime
that the expression which occurs here, "he hid himself" (viii. 59; also
xii. 36), certainly cannot mean that Jesus concealed himself, but
only--as his dignity would require--that he made himself invisible in a
miraculous way, because "his hour had not yet come."
When, however, his hour came, he gave himself up of his own accord.
Once more we read that the soldiers could do him no harm; at his words.
"It is I" whom ye seek, they go back and fall to the ground (500, if
not 1000, Roman soldiers). Judas, since it was dark, according to the
Synoptics (Mk. xiv 44 f.) requires to point him out first by kissing
his hand; in Jn. he does not need to do so, he stands idly by (xviii.
3-6). Jesus of his own accord, by dipping a morsel in the sop and
giving it to Judas at the Last Supper, made the devil enter into him,
and himself bade him hasten his evil deed (xiii. 26 f.) and of this
again the Synoptics know nothing.
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[2] Marks of interrogation and other marks of inter-punctuation are not
found in our ancient copies of the Bible. We must therefore supply them
as best suits the sense.
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7. GENUINE HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS IN JESUS?
But, this being so, does the description of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel
embody no genuinely human characteristics? It is significant that even
those who still place this Gospel on a higher level than the other
three would rather the picture of Jesus were not so like a God as it is
in the description we have just given, following faithfully the real
idea of the author But of all that they can point to, the only thing
which is at all worthy of consideration is found in the words (xi. 35),
"Jesus wept"--the occasion being when he came near to the grave of
Lazarus. And the idea that we have here an instance of real human
emotion on the part of Jesus seems, further, to be confirmed expressly
by the following words: "The Jews therefore said, `Behold how he loved
him.'" But this of itself is necessarily startling. We shall very soon
(p. 44 f.) have to explain that what the Jews say in reply to a
declaration by Jesus is in the Fourth Gospel regularly based upon a
misunderstanding. But, further, the author has taken care to make it
clear to every one who is at pains to understand him that the words of
the Jews are shown by the context of the passage itself to be a
misunderstanding. Before this it has been said (xi. 33): "When Jesus
therefore saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with
her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled." After the words of the
Jews, "Behold, how he loved him," we are told further, "But some of
them said, `Could not this man, which opened the eyes of him that was
blind, have caused that this man also should not die?'" Jesus, again
groaning in his spirit, now goes to the grave. Why did he groan in this
way? Now this second time we are clearly told, it was because the Jews
who are here speaking did not think that his power to raise Lazarus was
to be regarded as something which he possessed quite as a matter of
course. But why should he have groaned the first time? Surely because
of something of the same nature, that is to say, simply because Mary
and the Jews wept instead of confidently expecting that the dead man
would be raised by Jesus. And when we are told, in the interval, that
he wept, it should not really be so difficult to see that his tears
were not on account of the loss of his friend and the mourning of
Lazarus' kinsfolk--he knew well enough that at the next moment both
would be obliterated by the raising of Lazarus--but simply because they
did not believe in his power to work miracles.
Or if this cannot really be seen here, can it not be recognised even at
the beginning of the narrative? If we were to read it aloud simply as
far as the words in xi. 5 f., "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister,
and Lazarus. When therefore he heard that he was sick," certainly every
listener would expect us to proceed, "then he went to him immediately."
Instead of this we actually find the words, "he abode at that time two
days in the place where he was." Why? Unless we are willing to believe
that he feared the snares of the Jews, against which his disciples warn
him in xi. 8 two days later--he himself refusing to take warning--we
can only say that this delay was to all appearances due to an
indifference or inhumanity which is superior to all genuinely human
feeling. But it would be quite unfair to make his conduct a subject of
moral criticism. The author of the Gospel has taken care to show that
we may not, as a matter of fact, expect to find any genuinely human
feeling in the Jesus of his story. After two days have passed, Jesus
says to his disciples openly (xi. 14 f.): "Lazarus is dead; and I am
glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may
believe." In what? This we have been told already, in xi. 4, where
Jesus receives news of the illness of Lazarus: "This sickness is not
unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be
glorified thereby."
The words at the beginning of this sentence mean, not that this
sickness will not cause the death of Lazarus, but that it will not lead
to his remaining dead, for, as the concluding words show, Jesus knew
beforehand that he would raise Lazarus, and that the miracle would
serve for his own glorification. And he could only effect this and
exceed all other miracles if he allowed the fourth day to come before
he arrived at the sepulchre, since only then could any return to life
be considered out of the question (see p. 19). Here then we have the
real reason why he delayed his journey for two days.
In this case we can prove something more. Since the journey to Bethany
takes at most two days, and Jesus did not arrive there until the fourth
day after Lazarus' death, Lazarus was already dead by the time the
messengers reached Jesus, and the Fourth Gospel presupposes that Jesus
already knew this, by means of course of that omni science with which
it supposes him to be endowed. The sorrow of the sisters, their longing
for a word of comfort, their anxious waiting for one who might have
arrived long ago--all this is nothing to him; he is only concerned
about the miracle and his own glorification. Here we can see whether
the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel has any human characteristics.
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8. DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS IN THE COURSE OF HIS WORK.
In the character of Jesus as described by the Synoptics we are allowed
to see further that he developed both in thought and action. It would
of course be a very great mistake to suppose that they themselves were
conscious of any such development or believed in it. But they at any
rate make such statements as enable us, when we carefully examine them,
to discover this truth. It is at a relatively late date that Jesus in
these Gospels is recognised by his disciples to be the ardently
hoped-for deliverer of his people, the God-sent inaugurator of the
kingdom of God, the Saviour, to use a popular term, or, as the Jewish
name "Messiah" and the Greek name "Christus" mean, the "Anointed" of
God. They do not report it, that is to say until the public ministry of
Jesus had continued for a fairly long time, not until after he had
found occasion to withdraw for the second time beyond the northern
boundary of Galilee (Mk. viii. 27-30). The confession which Peter now
made in Caesarea Philippi, in the name of the other disciples as well,
was, according to the Synoptics, one of the most important
turning-points. According to Jn., Peter made the corresponding
pronouncement (vi. 66-69), not on foreign territory, but at Capernaum
(Jn. knowing nothing of the journey farther north); but--and this is
the chief point--it is not represented as a new discovery and
announcement and as made for the first time. In truth, it cannot be
such, for in this Gospel John the Baptist already knows, when he sees
Jesus approaching him for the first time, that he is the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sins of the world, and that he has existed before
him (i. 29 f.) And Andrew, after he has been a day with Jesus, and even
before Jesus' public appearance, is able to say to his brother Peter,
"we have found the Messiah" (i. 38-41).
Next, in the Synoptics we find Jesus saying at one time that he has not
come to destroy the Law of Moses, but only to fill it with its true
import, and so to deepen it (Mt. v. 17) in a manner which is more
precisely exemplified in Mt. v. 21 f. 27 f.; and at another time making
such statements as, "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath" (Mk. ii. 27), or "whatsoever from without goeth into the man,
it cannot defile him, but only evil thoughts which proceed out of the
heart" (Mk. vii. 18-23). Such declarations as these brush aside the
whole Law, if we think of the literal meaning of its particular
precepts. There is hardly any other way of reconciling the two classes
of utterance but to suppose that Jesus expressed himself in the one way
at an earlier period, and in the other at a later date.
Or when we read that Jesus went into foreign territory that he might
remain unrecognised, and that at first he roughly repulsed the
Phoenician woman who cried after him, beseeching him to heal her sick
daughter, but after wards paid attention to her (Mk. vii. 24; Mt. xv.
21-28), certainly the natural explanation is that at first he seriously
meant what he said to her: that it would be wrong to take the
bread--that is to say, the power to heal, with which he was
endowed--from the children (of the chosen people) and to give it to the
dogs, that is to say, to the Gentiles, to whom she also belonged. It
was only the affecting and very appropriate retort of the anxious
mother, "even the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs,"
that could convert him, if this version is correct, and so prepare him
to alter all his ideas about the extension of his lifework to the
Gentiles.
Jn. does not give us the slightest clue to any such changes; Jesus in
this Gospel suffers no alteration; he is the same from beginning to
end.
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9. FORM OF JESUS DISCOURSES.
The same contrast is seen again in a particularly clear way in Jesus'
discourses. Here indeed the difference, as compared with the Synoptics,
is perhaps most clearly marked. It is apparent even in the form. In the
first three Gospels we have short, pithy utterances: "Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God"; "ye have heard that it was said
to those of old . . . but I say unto you . . ."; "they that are whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick"; "what shall it profit a
man if he gain the whole world and suffer loss of his own life" (Mt. v.
8, 21 f.; Mk. ii. 17; viii. 36). We might go on quoting utterances of
this kind almost without end. Even where the discourses are longer, as
in the Sermon on the Mount, or on the occasion when he sent forth the
disciples, or in his address to the Pharisees (Mt. v.-vii., x.,
xxiii.), we can easily see that they are really compilations of such
pithy utterances as these, each of which has a meaning and force of its
own. In Jn. no more than a few of these utterances reappear. Everywhere
else in this Gospel we find long spun-out discourses about certain
thoughts, which, moreover, are repeated on the most varied occasions.
In order to gain some idea of their style, read for instance Jn. iii.
11-21; v. 19-47; viii. 12-59; or vi. 26-58.
Jesus parables are special gems in his discourses. We never cease to be
charmed by their vividness, the freshness of their colouring, and their
appropriate application to the religious and moral problems of life,
and we feel that they really must have been the best means of bringing
eternal truths home to simple people in whom dwells half unconsciously
so deep a desire for them. The Fourth Gospel does not contain a single
parable. The only passage that approaches the parabolic form is that in
which Jesus compares himself to a vine and his disciples to the
branches (xv. 1-8); but this is only a figurative discourse, not a
story in which some action is represented as going on before our eyes,
such as that of the sower scattering seed or the shepherd going in
search of his lost sheep. Elsewhere we have in Jn., besides this, only
the instances in which Jesus calls himself the good shepherd and the
door of the sheepfold (x. 11-16; x. 1-10). The first is as beautiful as
the second is peculiar. Who can think of Jesus as the door? The thought
is employed here for the purpose of distinguishing two classes of
teacher: the shepherds who come to their sheep by entering the door,
and robbers who climb in by another way. But how Jesus can here
represent the door cannot be made clear, and much less when he is
immediately afterwards compared (x. 11-16), not to the door, but to the
good shepherd the good shepherd, by whom we have just been led to think
(x. 2-5) some one else was intended.
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10. SUBJECT OF JESUS' DISCOURSES.
And with what do the discourses of Jesus deal? In the Synoptics almost
exclusively with the question, What must one do to gain admittance into
the Kingdom of God? And the answer to the question is well-nigh
exhausted when it is summed up in the words, "Be pure in heart, love
God and your neighbour, do God's will" (Mt. v. 8; xxii. 37-39; vii.
21). According to the circumstances, and the persons to whom it was
given, it took on different occasions the most varied forms; but the
point was always that what is required is moral conduct based on the
fear of God. This is so, even where Jesus speaks of his own person and
says that one must follow him, one must listen to him (for instance, in
Mt. x. 37-40). He does not say this for his own sake, but on account of
those whom he wishes, by speaking thus, to lead into the right path,
which of course no one knew so well as he. Words which go beyond this
and require people to recognise his exalted nature, such as, "every one
who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my
Father which is in heaven" (Mt. x. 32 f.) play a quite subordinate
part. Jesus speaks about himself very seldom.
He does so all the more frequently in the Fourth Gospel. Here his
person and its divine nature is almost the only subject of his
discourses. Jesus' words to the sick man at Bethesda after his cure,
"Sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee" (v. 14) are indeed spoken
for the sufferer's sake; but the whole discourse which follows down to
the end of the chapter serves to elaborate the thought, that Jesus has
been sent by God and that God through his miracles, as well as through
the prophecies found in the Old Testament, bears witness to Jesus as
His son. It is true that we find again in this chapter something which
is said on account of Jesus' hearers, "He that heareth my word, and
believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life" (v. 24); but this word
of Jesus to which they are to listen, according to the immediately
preceding verse amounts to this, that all ought to honour the Son as
they honour the Father in heaven. The man born blind is healed, but no
word is said to him that might be helpful for the nurture of his
soul--his only gain is this, that he learns step by step who it was
that healed him; and this again, to say the least, subserves the
purpose of Jesus glorification of himself. At the very beginning of the
cure (ix. 5), Jesus calls himself the Light of the World. This thought,
to which he has already given expression in viii. 12, is amplified
throughout chapter viii., and here the discourse frequently harks back
to what we have mentioned from chapter v., the idea that God bears
witness to Jesus as His son. In chapter vi. (26-58), it is true that it
is in the interest of Jesus' hearers when we are told that they are to
receive the true bread of life, but the important point on which the
whole discourse turns is this, that Jesus himself is this bread of
life.
And what are known as the Farewell-discourses of Jesus (chaps.
xiii.-xvii.) are not at bottom different in character. They deal with
the idea that, to help the followers of Jesus after his death, the Holy
Spirit will come upon them, and guide them to the whole truth (xiv. 26;
xvi. 13); but at least of equal importance is the other point, that it
is not only God (so xiv, 16 f.), but also Jesus himself, who will send
this Holy Spirit (xv. 26; xvi. 7), and even that he himself, regarded
from another point of view, is this Holy Spirit (xiv. 18, identical
with xiv. 17; also xiv. 28). Moreover, these chapters are full of
sayings which expressly serve the purpose of Jesus own glorification:
"he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (xiv. 9, exactly as in xii.
45); "all things whatsoever the Father hath are mine" (xvi. 15); "I
came out from the Father, and am come into the world" (xvi. 28). It may
be nothing more than external corroboration of this, but it is
significant all the same, that in the discourses of Jesus in Jn. the
word "my" occurs much more than twice as often as in Mt., and the word
"I" more than six times as often.
There is only one narrative in the Fourth Gospel in which the
utterances of Jesus do not serve the purpose of his own glorification,
but are spoken entirely for the sake of the persons with whom he is
dealing; this is the story of the woman who was taken in adultery and
brought to Jesus (vii. 53-viii. 11). "He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her"; and after her accusers have slunk
away one after another, "Neither do I condemn thee; go thy way, from
henceforth sin no more." These utterances read, in fact, as if Mk.,
Mt., or Lk. lay open before us. But, apart from this, there is hardly a
scholar who does not agree that this narrative was not found originally
in the Gospel of Jn. It is missing in copies which were made as late as
in the fourth century or still later, and many particular words are
found in it for which elsewhere Jn. regularly uses quite different
terms.
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11. DEMANDS MADE BY JESUS IN His DISCOURSES.
What demands does Jesus make of his hearers in those discourses which
were really penned by the Fourth Evangelist? These can be expressed in
a few words. "Believe in my person and its divine character." The man
who was born blind, after he has been healed, gradually arrives at the
conviction that he who has healed him must be a God fearing man, one
who does God's will; he must be "from God," otherwise God would never
have given him power to make a blind man see (ix. 31-33). But this
alone is not sufficient. Jesus asks him afterwards: "Dost thou believe
in the Son of Man?" And when he replies, "And who is he, Lord, that I
may believe in him?" Jesus says, "He that speaketh with thee is he."
And not until now is that point reached which was bound to be reached.
The man exclaims, "Lord, I believe it," and offers worship to Jesus
(ix. 38). On the other hand, the only reason for the enmity existing
between Jesus and his many opponents is that they have no faith in him.
They reproach him for ascribing to himself a rank which he does not
possess, that is to say, for making himself equal to God by calling Him
his Father in the sense that he came from Him as a man comes from his
human father (v. 18); and he, on his side, reproaches them for having
an evil will and refusing to recognise his divine origin (v. 40; viii.
45 f.).
In the Synoptics also Jesus requires faith. He says to Jairus on their
way to his daughter, whose death has just been announced to him, "Fear
not, only believe" (Mk. v. 36). But the faith referred to here and
nearly everywhere else in these Gospels relates only to Jesus power of
doing a saving act which will result in some one being restored to
health. We have an example of this when it is said so often at the
conclusion of a story of healing: "Thy faith hath saved thee" (Mk, v.
34, &c.). This is something essentially different from the belief in
Jn., that Jesus has come down from heaven to earth. In the Synoptics we
might translate the word more appropriately "trust" instead of "faith,"
whereas in the Fourth Gospel it is clear that this would be quite
unsuitable. Moreover, according to the accounts in the Synoptics, Jesus
hardly ever needs to ask for this trust in the way that he is
continually obliged to in Jn.; it is offered to him spontaneously.
We have in fact unimpeachable evidence to show that when it was not
cherished spontaneously, he never thought of asking people for it. When
he came forward publicly in his native town, Nazareth, people scorned
him because they knew whose son and brother he was, and he had to
experience the truth that a prophet has no honour in his own country.
Now we are further told in Mk. (vi. 5 f.): "And he could there do no
mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and
healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief." He could not!
Here again we have a report like that about the sign of Jonah (see p.
21 f.). We may be quite sure that it would not have found a place in
our Gospels, if it had not been made by one who had himself observed
the fact, and been handed on without alteration. How unacceptable it
must have been to those later chroniclers who were all, Mk. not
excepted, convinced of the power of Jesus to work miracles, is shown by
Mt., in which it reads thus (xiii. 58): "And he did not many mighty
works there because of their unbelief."
In the Synoptics, in yet another sense Jesus asks for faith, even if
the word "faith" does not occur. According to our way of expressing it,
it is faith that he asks for when he says, for instance, "Follow me,
and I will make you fishers of men" (Mk. i. 17), or "Ye have heard that
it was said to them of old . . . but I say to you . . ." (Mt. v. 21
f.). But again the faith here meant is not, as in Jn., faith in the
fact of Jesus descent from heaven, but simply confidence in his
knowledge of the right way that leads to salvation.
Quite different from the Synoptics then is the method of Jn. when he
makes the person of Jesus and its divine origin the central feature in
Jesus' discourses. The language agrees fairly well with theirs when the
Fourth Gospel also represents Jesus as requiring people to hear his
words and to keep them (viii. 31, 51; cp. Mt. vii. 24; xxiv. 35); but
what he asks of people in these words of his is not, as in the
Synoptics, moral conduct, but acceptance as true of his assurance that
he has come from heaven. This acceptance is even described as "the work
"required by God (vi. 29). It is not a question of the kingdom of God
and the way to reach it, but of Jesus person and the acknowledgment of
his exalted nature. On one point certainly all the Gospels agree--in
saying that love is the highest commandment (Mk. xii. 30 f.; Jn. xiii.
34 f.). The difference, however, is this, that, according to Jn., if
love is not accompanied by this faith in the heavenly origin of Jesus,
it can be of no value and can never be the path by which entrance is
made into the kingdom of God. That is made quite clear by the saying of
Jesus in Jn. (iii. 18): "He that believeth on him (the son of God) is
not judged; he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he
hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God."
In Jn. therefore Jesus knows of nothing more important than his own
person; do people believe in its divine origin or not?--the answer to
this question decides whether men are to be saved or lost for time and
eternity. In the Synoptics he knows of something higher. He says in Mt.
xii. 31 f.: "All sins and blasphemy will be forgiven to men, but
blasphemy against the Spirit will not be for given. And whosoever shall
speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but
whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven
him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come." Thus he
regards his own person as subordinate to the Holy Spirit, or in other
words to the sacred cause which he represents. And he must really have
said this; for no one would have invented it. Indeed Mk., who in this
passage (iii. 28 f.) by no means preserves the original language, has
obviously changed it with a definite purpose. He has retained the
phrase "Son of man," but no longer uses it in such a way as to mean
that the person of Jesus suffers the blasphemy; he applies it, in the
plural, to the persons who utter it: "All their sins shall be forgiven
unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall
blaspheme; but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath
never forgiveness."
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12. MISUNDERSTANDINGS AS REGARDS JESUS' DISCOURSES.
The large measure of uniformity in the discourses of Jesus in the
Fourth Gospel means that these in themselves very soon reach their end.
Nevertheless, some misunderstanding, on the part of his hearers, gives
Jesus remarkably frequent occasion to prolong them. Sometimes indeed it
is not surprising that his hearers do not understand him for example,
when he tells them that he is the bread come down from heaven (vi. 41
f.), that he will give them his flesh to eat (vi. 52), that Abraham has
already seen him (viii. 56 f.), etc.
In other passages, however, we are obliged to ask, on the contrary,
whether the intelligence of his hearers could really have been so
feeble. Nicodemus--to give a single instance--is said to have been a
teacher in Israel (iii. 10), and yet he does not understand Jesus when
he says, "whosoever is not born from above, cannot see the kingdom of
God." He asks in astonishment, "How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" (iii. 3
f.).
But perhaps we have not been fair to him. We have rendered the words of
Jesus according to their real sense: from above, that is to say from
God, must he be born, by God must he be destined and endowed, who is to
have admittance into the kingdom of God. But the words admit of another
translation: "If any one is not born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of
God." This is evidently the meaning which Nicodemus attaches to the
words when he puts his counter-question, and this, at least externally,
is not so senseless. Such ambiguity in Jesus language is no accident;
it occurs again on very many occasions. When, as we have just
mentioned, Jesus promises to give bread or meat to his hearers, on
first thoughts and until we have realised that there is a deeper
meaning in the words, we cannot help thinking that he really means
ordinary food. It is the same with the water, which, as he sits by a
well, Jesus promises to give the woman of Samaria, and of which he says
that, after tasting it, she will never thirst again (iv. 13-15); and
other instances occur frequently (e.g., iv. 31-34; vii. 33-36; viii.
31-33; xi. 11-14; xii. 32-34). We see that it is a peculiarity of these
discourses, that in them Jesus chooses an expression with more meanings
than one, and thus intentionally provokes misunderstanding, in order
that he may afterwards explain the matter more precisely.
But at the same time another purpose is served. How can Philip, who has
spent two years with Jesus, desire him to show him the heavenly Father
(xiv. 8 f .)? This seems inconceivable even if he did not understand
the words spoken by Jesus immediately before: "If ye had known me, ye
would have known my father also; from henceforth ye know him, and have
seen him." But we ourselves are perhaps surprised at the further
statement which Jesus makes in reply to Philip's request, "Have I been
so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father." We ourselves might still have thought
perhaps that the recognition of the Father, as Philip may be supposed
to have reached it from his acquaintance with Jesus, consisted in
gaining a true idea of God's attributes, of His power, His wisdom, His
goodness. Instead of this, however, Jesus thinks that we ought not to
conceive of God here as a Being who has an existence independent of and
separate from other beings, but ought to see Him presented to our
objective vision in the person of Jesus himself. This in fact goes
beyond all that we are accustomed to think we know about God. And so
Philip's misunderstanding--as well as many others in Jn.--serves the
further purpose of revealing in a particularly clear manner, on the one
hand the lack of intelligence on the part of Jesus' hearers and even of
his disciples, and on the other the infinite depth and unsuspected
novelty of Jesus interpretations.
That the lack of intelligence in Jesus' hearers and even in his
disciples was not slight, is indicated often enough by the Synoptics
also. On the other hand, their books do not suggest that Jesus teaching
contained such unfathomable secrets, nor are they aware that he was so
continually misunderstood, or that he himself provoked these
misunderstandings by using expressions with more meanings than one.
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CHAPTER II.
ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS WITH THE FOURTH.
WE might have shown many other differences between the Synoptics and
Jn. But it will be better to notice them at a later stage. We shall
therefore pause here to deal with a question which must have occurred
to many of our readers long before this: Are the accounts in the four
Gospels really so fundamentally different? Is there no way of
reconciling them?
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1. EARLIER ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THEM COMPLETELY.
This question was quite urgent in the days when people felt obliged to
cherish the belief that every letter in Holy Scripture was dictated by
the Holy Spirit. In those days it had to be answered in the affirmative
at any cost. And, as a matter of fact, the cost was not light--it did
not involve merely effort and ingenuity, but meant giving up what seems
obvious when the Bible is understood in a natural and unsophisticated
way. And yet the attempt to establish complete harmony between the four
Gospels (or, as was thought, simply the art of exhibiting this
harmony), the nature of which suggested the name "Harmonics," was for
many centuries one of the chief pursuits of theological science.
Strictly speaking, there are only two courses open to us, If one and
the same event seems to be reported in more Gospels than one, but in a
more or less different way, we must either show that the difference in
the statement is only apparent, or we must say that each account treats
of a distinct event. The more seriously we regard the language, the
more frequently will the second course be the one we shall have to
take. Strict Harmonics, too, with quite special frequency arrives at
this result by starting with the presupposition that each Evangelist
not only tells us a story correct in every word, but also gives each
particular event and utterance in the life of Jesus in its right order,
though--and this could not be denied under any circumstances--he omits
many things which are preserved in the other Gospels.
Thus, for example, it was necessary to show in each of the first three
Gospels at what point each of those journeys of Jesus to a feast
reported only in Jn. could be fitted in. In Jesus' walking on the sea,
Jn. (vi. 16-21), we are told, has not in mind the same event as the
Synoptists have, for in the Synoptics Jesus is taken into the boat in
the middle of the Lake (Mk. vi. 51), but in Jn. is not (see above, p.
19 f .). Again, the Feeding of the Five Thousand reported by Jn. (vi.
1-13) must be a different event from the Feeding spoken of by the
Synoptics (Mk. vi. 35-44) for in all the Gospels we are told that such
a feeding took place on the day preceding the night on which Jesus
walked on the sea (with the exception of Lk. who does not report the
walking on the sea). But how? It is not permissible even to regard the
Feeding reported in all three Synoptics as one and the same event; for
in Mt. (xiv. 21) those who are fed are more numerous--besides the 5000
men there are women and children the number of whom is not given.
Consequently, there are three Feedings instead of one, in which the
number 5000 figures: one in Mk. = Lk., another in Mt., a third in Jn.
On each occasion there are only five loaves and two fishes ^ on each
occasion twelve baskets full of fragments are gathered up; each event
is followed by a night-journey across the sea; yet each Evangelist
relates only one of these three events, and Mk. and Mt., though each
knows of another Feeding, do not report more than one of these three;
but the two between them tell of a fourth and a fifth--one according to
Mk. (viii. 1-9) in which 4000 men, and another according to Mt. (xv.
32-38) in which 4000 men besides an indefinite number of women and
children, were satisfied; but on both occasions this happens after the
people have wandered about with Jesus for three days, on both occasions
there are seven loaves and a few fishes, and on both occasions seven
baskets full of fragments are gathered up afterwards.
But enough! The perseverance with which people have pursued all these
suggestions--which from the outset are such as we cannot accept--to
their utmost limit, and have put faith in them out of respect for the
Holy Spirit, who is supposed to have inspired every letter of the
Bible, certainly deserves to be fully recognised. Only one question is
forbidden. How often may Jesus be supposed to have been born, baptized,
crucified, and raised from the dead?
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2. MODERN ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THEM APPROXIMATELY.
Present-day defenders of the trustworthiness of all the four Gospels
are far more modest in the claims which they make. They quietly assume
that one and the same event is meant, even where the accounts differ
from one another rather widely; only they would rather not concede too
much, and so they try as far as possible to represent the differences
as being only slight. Naturally it is right for us always to test
whether these are really as great as they seem at first sight to be.
Where, however, this attempt is vain unless we seriously misinterpret
the language, it is not only unfair, but is also nothing better than
illogical. For if we are obliged to admit, and actually do admit, that
there are many contradictions in the Bible, there is no point in
insisting in the case of a limited number of these, that they are not
really contradictions. If we admit--since Jesus was taken captive only
on one occasion--that according to the Synoptics Judas betrayed him by
a kiss, and according to Jn. did not betray him in this way (xviii.
4-6), what is the use, when we turn to the expulsion of the dealers
from the fore-court of the Temple, of denying that either the
Synoptists or Jn. must have made a mistake, and of preferring to
suppose that there were two such acts, one at the beginning of his
ministry (Jn. ii. 13-22), the other at the end of it (Mk. xi. 15-18)?
If this were so, why did Jesus omit to drive the dealers and
money-changers from the temple court on his other visits to Jerusalem
as well? Are we to suppose that they were not stationed there on these
occasions? And why on the first occasion did he escape scot free,
whereas on the second he suffered death in consequence?
__________________________________________________________________
3. USE OF THE SYNOPTICS BY JN.
We may set aside such palpably impossible attempts to deny that there
are contradictions between the Synoptics and Jn., and give attention to
such as are really worth discussing. But before we do this, it should
be said that it is almost universally agreed that the author of the
Fourth Gospel had the other three before him when he wrote.
To prove this we are not of course at liberty to cite at our pleasure
all kinds of things in which Jn. agrees with them, for these he might
himself have noted as an eye witness. We must specify passages which he
would not certainly have written, if he had not derived them from the
Synoptics. Thus, for example, it is very remarkable that Jesus ascends
the mountain before the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Jn. vi. 3) and
ascends the mountain after it (vi. 15), though we have not been told in
the meantime that he came down, or been given any clue that would lead
us to conjecture that he did so. The matter admits of a simple
explanation: when the author was about to relate the beginning of the
Feeding, he had before him the beginning of the second Feeding in Mt.
(xv. 29), "and he went up into the mountain and sat there." He tells us
almost word for word: "And Jesus went up into the mountain, and there
he sat with his disciples." At the second place, however, when he was
about to pass from the Feeding to Jesus' walking on the sea (vi. 15) he
remembered that Mk. and Mt., in their first story of the Feeding, said
that between the two acts Jesus ascended the mountain (his language
agrees very closely with Mt. xiv. 23), and so he added this and
overlooked the fact that he had said nothing about Jesus coming down.
For another example see xx. 2 (chap. iii., 26). In i. 15, in the words,
"This was he of whom I said, `He that cometh after me is become before
me,'" the Baptist actually recalls something he has said about Jesus at
an earlier date, but which is not found in the Fourth Gospel but only
in the Synoptics Mt. iii. 11), though there the language and meaning
are different.
__________________________________________________________________
4. Is JN.'S PURPOSE SIMPLY TO SUPPLEMENT AND CORRECT?
But why does Jn. differ so often from the Synoptics, if he was
acquainted with their books? The most important attempt to explain this
consists in saying that his purpose throughout his book is to
supplement the story of his predecessors and, where in small matters
this was inexact, to correct it. This theory therefore presupposes
further that he was himself present at the events described, and was
entitled to think that wherever he made additions and corrections he
was justified in doing so. Whether this is confirmed is a question we
shall soon have to investigate more closely. We leave it for the
present and simply ask, Can this double purpose, which is ascribed to
him, be discovered at all in his book? As regards this intention to
make corrections, it is certainly not easy to recognise it, for the
author nowhere says: the matter was not thus, but thus. If then he made
corrections, he must have made them quite quietly out of respect for
his predecessors.
We prefer, therefore, in the first instance, to consider the question:
Does he wish merely to give facts which are supplementary? In the case
of the narratives which are peculiar to him, this would be conceivable,
as well as in the case of the expulsion of the dealers from the
fore-court of the Temple, if such an event really took place at the
beginning of Jesus' ministry. But in Jn. we find again a number of
stories given by the Synoptics, in which the idea cannot possibly be
that the events happened a second time, and not merely on one occasion
as the Synoptics state. We need only mention the Feeding of the Five
Thousand, the walking on the sea and the entrance into Jerusalem (vi.
1-15, 16-21; xii. 12-16). It might really be thought in the case of the
second of these stories that the idea of correcting was the ruling
purpose; Jn., in opposition to the story of the Synoptics which says
that Jesus was taken into the boat in the middle of the sea, wishes, as
an eye witness, to insist that this was not so, since Jesus crossed the
lake from one shore to the other. But it is really hard to discover
what correction he means to make in his description of the entry into
Jerusalem, or, in particular, in that of the Feeding of the Five
Thousand; and this is sufficient to show that the whole idea that Jn.'s
purpose is always either to supplement or correct is untenable. If, on
the other hand, certain concessions are made, and it is claimed that he
only meant to do this now arid then, the whole explanation of the
passages in which he differs from the Synoptics would have no value;
for in the case of a considerable number of sections in his book the
question why he introduced them would still be left unexplained.
__________________________________________________________________
5. JN.'S PURPOSE NOT MERELY TO SUPPLEMENT AND CORRECT.
But let us see rather more exactly how in detail people think of the
author as carrying out his purpose of supplementing and correcting the
Synoptics. Here special importance may be attached to his statement
that some time after Jesus' public appearance John the Baptist was
still baptizing and that Jesus was doing so too, and to the addition,
"for John was not yet imprisoned" (iii. 22-24). In the Synoptics (Mk.
i. 14), Jesus does not come forward publicly until after the
imprisonment of the Baptist. Consequently the remark in Jn. which
contradicts this might easily be due in this instance to his purpose of
making a correction. If this were so, Jn. is aware, as the Synoptics
are not, that Jesus started a public mission while the Baptist was
still at work. And here we should have the explanation of the fact that
he adds so much which these omit: all this really happened before the
arrest of the Baptist, with which in the Synoptics the story of Jesus
work begins.
All? Strictly speaking, as a matter of fact, everything that Jn.
reports; for he never mentions a point at which the Baptist was
imprisoned. But this view of the matter would be quite impossible; for
in the expression "not yet taken" Jn. betrays the fact that he knew
very well of the arrest of the Baptist, and thinks of it as happening
during the public ministry of Jesus. But when? Before v. 35 ("he was
the lamp") and certainly before the Feeding of the Five Thousand and
Jesus' walking on the sea (Jn. vi. 1-21), of which the Synoptics do not
speak until long after the imprisonment of the Baptist--unless we were
to adopt the quite untenable assumption (see p. 48) that Jn. in these
two stories is thinking of two events quite different from those the
Synoptics have in mind. But we find afterwards in Jn. (chap. vii.-xi.)
Jesus appearing in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, the cure of
the man born blind, Jesus appearing at the Feast of the Dedication of
the Temple, and the raising of Lazarus--all things about which the
Synoptics say nothing, and which, nevertheless, are so extremely
important, that their silence about them is quite inexplicable. In all
these cases it does not help us at all to be told that Jn. merely
wished to supply facts as to what happened before the imprisonment of
the Baptist.
At the best, therefore, the assumption could be used for the events
which Jn. narrates in chapters ii.-v. But before we adopt it, we shall
do well once more to examine closely the passage on which it is based.
"Jesus baptized," we are told in Jn. iii. 22 (26; iv. 1). And in iv. 2
we read "and yet Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples." What
would a writer, who was anxious to report nothing false, have done when
he noticed afterwards that this had happened? We may be sure that he
would afterwards have deleted the error in the earlier passage, instead
of allowing it to stand and appending the confession that he had made a
mistake. Here we can see the peculiar character of the Fourth
Evangelist. He is not an author who is anxious to report nothing false;
where it suits his purpose, he reports it.
And here in fact it suits his purpose very well. It is only the
statement, that Jesus baptized, and did so while John was still at
work, that enables him to represent the interesting situation in which
the number of the followers of the Baptist is becoming smaller and
smaller, and that of the followers of Jesus growing larger and larger.
And this is one of Jn.'s chief aims. "He must increase, but I must
decrease" (iii. 30): with these words the Baptist himself is made to
write the legend to this little picture, which is really sketched very
gracefully. In order to do so, the author adds a touch which, in
reality, as he himself knows, does not at all harmonise with the truth.
Only one? Of course the picture includes that other feature we have
mentioned; John the Baptist is still at large. Must we see in this a
correct addition, a correction made by an eye-witness when the same
"eye-witness" in another verse not far off has told us with equal
precision something which on his own admission is not true? Must we
base upon this our idea of the purpose of correction which he followed
throughout his book? A different idea of his purpose has resulted, with
an incomparably greater amount of probability, from this very example;
he wishes to be not a reporter who is to be taken at his word, but a
painter; a painter of vivid scenes designed to make clear and
impressive a higher truth--in the present instance the truth that John
was only the forerunner of Jesus, and had to take an entirely
subordinate place, in fact does so of his own free will. And if we now
ask again, how long the Evangelist imagines the Baptist to be still at
large while Jesus is at work, the only answer can be: merely for this
particular scene, and not for those that follow. Once his retirement
before Jesus has been described, the Baptist is so unimportant to Jn.
that he does not think his arrest worth reporting. Indeed, even in the
case of preceding events (the marriage at Cana, the expulsion of the
dealers from the fore-court of the Temple, the conversation with
Nicodemus), he seems to have hardly thought that they occurred while
the Baptist was still at large.
But the theory that Jn. wishes to supplement the Synoptics by giving
the earliest events in the public life of Jesus is overthrown by what
we are told as regards the discourses of Jesus, when it is presupposed
that these also served the purpose of supplementing the Synoptics. If
Jesus be supposed to have spoken in both ways--as he is represented as
doing in the Synoptics and as Jn. makes him do--it cannot be imagined
that the style met with in Jn. was the earlier. We are told on the
contrary that Jn. preserves the manner of speech in which Jesus
addressed his disciples in his last days, after he had finished his
ministry amongst the people, which latter is reflected in his
discourses in the Synoptics. This statement might seem worth
considering if the discourses of Jesus preserved to us in Jn. were
solely farewell ad dresses to his disciples during his last days, like
those in chapters xiii.-xvii. But, as a matter of fact, Jn. represents
Jesus as speaking from the very beginning in the same style as in these
farewell discourses. To sum up, in the events which he describes, Jn.
is supposed to take us back to the earliest days, and in the discourses
which Jesus delivered at these, the earliest events in his public
career, this same author Jn. is supposed to preserve the tone in which
Jesus spoke during the last weeks of his life. Both assumptions are
necessary if we are to insist that Jn. wishes to supplement and correct
the Synoptics. And yet one of the two assumptions annuls the other.
__________________________________________________________________
6. ARE SEVERAL JOURNEYS OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM PRESUPPOSED IN MT. xxiii. 37?
But an attempt is made in another way to show that Jn. could not really
be in conflict with his predecessors. Those who make it find in the
Synoptics themselves passages here and there which confirm, as they
think, the story of Jn. In particular, several journeys of Jesus to
Jerusalem, connected with a public appearance there, are, they say,
presupposed when Jesus says in Mt. (xxiii. 37): "Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee,
how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." The
inference really appears to be unavoidable. The only remarkable thing
is that the Synoptists themselves have not drawn it. If they themselves
really suggest that Jesus came forward so often in Jerusalem, why do
they not only tell us nothing about this, but represent things as if
when he made this utterance he had come to Jerusalem for the first time
to counsel and admonish. Thus those who refer to this utterance as a
corroboration of the story of Jn. are producing a greater puzzle as
regards the Synoptists, who likewise claim that their story has a right
to be regarded as correct. So that before we attach such great
importance to the utterance in question, we prefer to examine it again
more closely.
When we do this, it is clear in the very first instance that it does
not read as people think it does, and in the way in which we have
rendered it above, intentionally following the general practice, in
order to show what mistakes one is liable to make when one follows a
popular custom. In reality--and in Lk. (xiii. 34) exactly as in Mt.--it
reads: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets and stones them
that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children,"
&c. Jerusalem is therefore apostrophised only in the second half of the
sentence; in the first something is said about the city without the
city itself being addressed. No one who has a thought clearly in his
mind, and intends to write it down in an equally simple sentence, would
express himself in this way.
On the other hand, the remarkable form of the sentence would be quite
intelligible if our Evangelists, Mt. and Lk., or rather the earlier
writer from whom they both draw, [3] used a book in which the sentence
about Jerusalem appeared without any apostrophe; and if they or he
proceeded to introduce the apostrophe without noticing that, having
made this alteration, the sentence should have been made to read
differently at the beginning. And this is not a mere conjecture; we
have, in addition, a clue which indicates the kind of book it may have
been. In Mt., that is to say, the utterance immediately follows another
(xxiii. 34-36) to this effect: "Therefore, behold, I send unto you
prophets, and wise men, and scribes; some of them shall ye kill and
crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and
persecute from city to city," &c. Lk. gives this utterance in xi.
49-51, keeping the continuation about Jerusalem--quoted above--for
chap. xiii. of his book. But this earlier utterance in Lk. not only
dispenses with the apostrophe, as the beginning of the continuation
about Jerusalem does--"I will send unto them prophets and apostles, and
some of them they shall kill and persecute," &c.--but--and this is the
chief point it is preceded by the introductory words: u There fore also
said the wisdom of God."
The Wisdom of God is represented in several books of the Old Testament
as a person who takes up the word (Prov. viii. f., Ecclus. xxiv.), or
is found as the title of a book (Wisdom of Solomon; Wisdom of Jesus,
son of Sirach). The saying under consideration is not found in any of
these books. But it is clear that it cannot have been framed for the
first time by Jesus. In what precedes Jesus is addressing the
Pharisees. He could not, therefore, as he does in Lk., suddenly
continue, "therefore also said the wisdom of God," unless what now
follows is a saying which was already well known. But this is clear
from the version in Mt. as well, though here the introductory formula
is wanting. Jesus cannot have said of himself, as Mt. makes him say, "I
send to you prophets and wise men and Scribes," for he never did this,
and at least would never have sent Scribes, whose attitude towards him
was so unfriendly. Lk. knew very well what he was doing, when he
substituted "Prophets and Apostles"; for Jesus could really send
Apostles and (New Testament) Prophets. In this description of the
persons sent, Mt. therefore has, we may be sure, preserved the more
original version, but in the introductory formula it is Lk. who has
done so. In Mt. the only remaining clue to the fact that his
predecessor had before him a book in which this introductory formula
stood is the word "therefore."
But what kind of book was it? If the Scribes were mentioned amongst
those men who were sent by God to the people, it was the work of a
pious Jew who reproached his people for being stiff-necked, and was
anxious to induce them to repent. Whether it had the title
"Wisdom"--perhaps with some addition--or whether Wisdom was simply
represented as speaking in it, we do not know. From this book,
according to the story of the predecessor of our Mt. and Lk., Jesus
quoted a passage in support of his own words in which he warned the
Pharisees that they would be punished. In this way it is still used in
Lk. Mt., on the other hand, has wrongly understood it and introduced it
in such a way that Jesus uses the words as his own, and Lk. also, as
regards the utterance about Jerusalem, shares the misunderstanding.
Thus it was the Wisdom of God which said that it had often wished to
gather together Jerusalem's children, as a hen gathers her chickens.
This it had actually done by sending prophets and wise men and Scribes.
It is not Jesus who says he has done this. Thus the whole confirmation
of Jn.'s story of many visits of Jesus to Jerusalem rests solely on the
fact that an utterance put into the mouth of the Wisdom of God by a
Jewish author has been wrongly regarded as a saying of Jesus. And now
we understand also why the Synoptics, in spite of this "saying of
Jesus" in which he says how often he has concerned himself about
Jerusalem, had no information about these labours.
__________________________________________________________________
[3] The truth of the theory that they had the work of an earlier writer
before them has been fully demonstrated. Cp. Wernle, Die Quellen des
Lelens Jesu, pp. 70-7-4 (in the Religionsgeschichtlichen Volksbuecher;
Engl. trans, pp. 131-139).
__________________________________________________________________
7. IS JESUS' RELATIONSHIP TO GOD IN MT. xi. 27 THE SAME AS IN JN.?
It would be still more important if we could find a second passage in
the Synoptics fitted to confirm the story of Jn. We mean such
confirmation as would relate not merely to one particular point, such
as the journeys of Jesus to Jerusalem, but to the whole character of
Jesus' discourses. We have in mind Mt. xi. 27: "All things have been
delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son, save the
Father; neither (doth any know) the Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him." These words seem certainly
to be spoken quite in the spirit of the Fourth Gospel, which in x. 14
f., for instance, says ("I am the good shepherd; and I know mine own,
and mine own know me), even as the Father knoweth me, and I know the
Father." In Jn. this mutual knowledge must be understood in the sense
that Jesus had from eternity existed with God in heaven before he came
down to earth.
Now it is certainly remarkable that in the Synoptics only this one
saying can be found which gives expression to this thought, and might
be compared to the discourses of Jesus in Jn. If, as is claimed, it
really implies confirmation of these, again all that we get is a new
puzzle as regards the Synoptics: why in these does Jesus not speak in
this way more often, instead of talking everywhere else in such an
entirely different way? This consideration obliges us to re-examine the
utterance more closely.
This also originally read quite differently. All ecclesiastical and
heretical writers of the second century, who give us any information
about this passage, entirely or in part support the following version:
"All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one hath
known the Father, save the Son, neither the Son save the Father, and he
to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him."
Even the Church Father, Irenaeus, about A.D. 185, who warmly upbraids a
Christian sect for making use of this version, follows it several times
in his writings; it must therefore have really been found in his own
Bible. As compared with it, the version which we now have in the Bible
cannot under any circumstances claim the preference. It is true that
our oldest copies of the Bible contain it, but they are about two
centuries later than the authorities we have mentioned. And no
plausible reason can be given why the version current in the second
century should be due to a deliberate change on the part of a Christian
sect; on the other hand, since the one form must have arisen through an
alteration of the other, it is very conceivable that it is the text in
our present Bible which has resulted from a change, because, we may
suppose, the writer was anxious to make the language resemble more
closely Jesus style of preaching in Jn.
Is the difference so great then? At first sight it might seem slight.
But that is a very wrong impression. While we read, "No one knoweth the
Son . . . the Father," a mutual knowledge from eternity may be meant,
and, as we said just now, this is one of the ideas of the Fourth
Gospel. When, however, we read, "no one hath known," a definite point
of time is fixed at which the knowledge first began; and when Jesus
goes on to say of himself, "no one has known the Father but the Son,"
it is clear that the knowledge of the Father cannot have commenced
before some definite date in his earthly life, since the Synoptics are
not aware that Jesus existed in heaven before he lived on earth.
Nevertheless, if the words in the first place were, "no one hath known
the Son save the Father," it would still be possible that at any rate
the knowledge on the part of God was present from eternity, and this
would be in agreement with the style of thought in the Fourth Gospel.
But a second important peculiarity in the oldest version is found in
this very fact that the first place is assigned to the clause, "No one
hath known the Father save the Son," and that the other clause follows,
"No one hath known the Son, save the Father." And since the knowledge
spoken of first was not gained earlier than during the earthly life of
Jesus, we cannot suppose that the knowledge referred to in the second
clause belongs to an earlier date.
The meaning is really quite simple: Jesus alone has acquired the
knowledge that God is not a Lord who is jealous for his own honour, and
cannot be approached by men, but is a loving Father. This of itself
means that he can feel himself to be a son of God. It is a feeling of
his own, however, which no one so far has realised--none of his
hearers, but God alone. This second part of the thought is very well
expressed in Lk. (x. 22) by the clause: "no one knows (more correctly,
has known) who the son is," that is to say, that I am he. Finally, with
this agrees very well the conclusion in Mt. and Lk., "and to whom the
son will reveal it." In the usual version of the saying, the
immediately preceding words are: "no one knows the Father, but the
son." What the latter will reveal is thus the deeper nature of God,
and, understood in the spirit of the Fourth Gospel, the meaning might
be that Jesus acquired the knowledge during his pre-existence in
heaven. But, according to the correct version, the immediately
preceding words are, "no one has known the son, but the Father," and
here the following words mean, "and he to whom I myself am willing to
reveal that I am that son; you have all failed as yet to recognise
this, I myself must tell you of it."
Strictly speaking, when the knowledge that God is the Father dawns upon
any man, he can feel that he himself is His son; this knowledge Jesus
wished to bring to all, and said, "blessed are the peace-makers, for
they shall be called the sons of God," "love your enemies, and pray for
them that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father which is in
heaven" (Mt. v. 9, 44 f.). He used the expression "sons of God," and so
the same expression as he applied to himself. Instead of this, Jn.
continually uses of men--and he is the first to do so--the phrase
"children of God," reserving the expression "Son of God" for Jesus
alone, and Luther, without any justification, has used it also in Mt.
and in other places where the original has "sons." [4] It is quite
clear that, in view of what we have said, Jesus cannot have called
himself Son of God in a sense that only applies to himself, on the
ground, for instance, that he proceeded from God in a manner different
from that in which human beings come into existence at their birth; he
can only have done so in a sense in which all men can become what he
was, that is to say, sons of God who are equally ready to obey
absolutely the Father in heaven, but at the same time rely upon His
love, just as a human son relies upon the love of his human father. If
we of to-day wish to express the sense in which Jesus called himself
Son of God in a way that cannot be misunderstood, we must do the
reverse of what Jn. has done--use the other expression and say that
Jesus felt himself to be a child of God.
Turning again to Mt. xi. 27, we must remember that at this time Jesus
alone possessed the knowledge that God is a loving Father. This made
him singular and raised him above other men. Thus the thought of being
God's son made him feel in addition that he was sent by God to reveal
this knowledge to his brethren. This is the meaning of the initial
words of the saying: "all things have been delivered to me of my
Father." It does not imply any super human power, as in the saying
(which, it is almost generally agreed, was not spoken by Jesus), "all
power is given to me in heaven and upon earth" (Mt. xxviii. 18). Here
the word "power" does occur in the passage, but not in the text under
consideration. What is delivered to Jesus, in our passage, we must
gather simply from the context; on the evidence of the saying itself,
it is the knowledge that we can regard God as our Father. In agreement
with this is the fact that according to xi. 25 it must be something
which was hidden from the wise and revealed to the simple, and
according to xi. 28-30 something which was quite different from the
yoke of the Jewish Law under which the weary and heavy-laden groaned,
while Jesus yoke was easy and his burden light, and was able to refresh
the soul because it consisted simply in doing the will of God gladly
and in relying upon His love.
Are all these thoughts similar to those found in the Fourth Gospel? Far
from it. On the contrary, no utterance harmonises with the spirit of
Jesus' discourses in the Synoptics so well as the one we have been
considering if we hold fast to its original language. In fact, it is
precisely this that enables us for the first time to under stand fully
how Jesus came to be what he was according to the Synoptics; at first
he was quite simply a man who in the course of his mental development
realised that he had a Father in heaven; next he became one who felt
himself called by this Father of his to be a leader, sent to the
people, because he found that he stood quite alone in having this
knowledge, and yet could not be silent about it; and from this it was
easy to take a further step and to feel obliged to regard himself as
that highest messenger sent by God, whom his people and his age thought
of as the one who had been long promised, as the Messiah.
__________________________________________________________________
[4] Paul interchanges "sons" and "children" without any distinction.
Luther renders only the Singular by "son" (Heb. xii. 5-7; Rev. xxi. 7),
the Plural by "sons" only in the phrase "sons and daughters" (2 Cor.
vi. 18). In Gal. iv. 7 he arbitrarily changes the Singular into the
Plural in order to be able to use the term "children." The Authorised
English Version has, like Luther, son for the Singular, but also in
Gal. iv. 7. For the Plural it has in half the cases sons (Rom. viii.
14, 19; Gal. iv. 6; Heb. ii. 10, xii. 7 f.; besides 2 Cor. vi. 18), but
in the other half, like Luther, children (Mt. v. 9, 45; Lk. vi. 35, xx.
36; Rom. ix. 26; Gal. iii. 26; Heb. xii. 5). The Revised Version
everywhere translates correctly son or sons.
__________________________________________________________________
8. INACCURATE RECOLLECTION ON THE PART OF THE APOSTLE JOHN?
What remains, if we still wish to maintain that the Fourth Gospel is in
agreement with the first three? If we disregard various other
expedients, which are far less likely to be satisfactory than those we
have already discussed, there is only one left. We are told by the
Church Fathers that at the end of the first century the Apostle John
was still living. This being so, it is eagerly assumed that he did not
write his gospel until shortly before his death. And whereas his great
age obscured his recollection of many matters in the life of Jesus, he
remembered other things quite correctly. This explains, it is said, how
it is that his book, apart from much that is incorrect, contains much
that serves to correct the story of the Synoptics.
In itself this assumption has nothing impossible about it; if indeed it
could be accepted that the Gospel was composed by the apostle and in
his old age, this theory might be deemed fairly probable. Since,
however, we must first examine the two presuppositions on which it is
based, let us at the outset put the simple question, What would the
result be? At least not this--that Jn., as compared with the Synoptics,
must always be regarded as everywhere right. This particular idea
therefore is abandoned as being untenable. To what extent is he right
then? To suit the real desire of those who put forward this theory, he
is right on as many points as possible. For the main purpose of these
people is to support the idea that we have in Jn. the work of an
eye-witness of the life of Jesus. But when we examine the matter more
closely, his trustworthiness is abandoned on one point after another,
because, however much we may wish to believe in it, it cannot be
maintained.
In particular, as regards the discourses of Jesus, it is more and more
generally conceded that it was the aged John who first conceived them
in the style in which they appear in the Fourth Gospel. His conception
of Jesus changed in the course of his long life, and as these new ideas
took shape his recollection of the discourses of Jesus altered as well.
If this were assumed to a moderate extent, it might seem conceivable;
but people would never have jumped at so doubtful an expedient, unless
the difference between Jn.'s style of discourse and the other style,
which may really be accepted as original, were very marked indeed.
Thus the result of emphasising the great age of John is really the
opposite of what was intended. The desire was simply to defend the
trustworthiness of the Fourth Gospel as against the Synoptics, and yet
the would-be defenders are obliged in a clear, if rather veiled, manner
to admit that on most points he is untrustworthy.
We have now come to the end of the attempts to reconcile the accounts
of the life of Jesus in the Synoptics and in Jn. In conclusion, we can
only say that we sincerely pity any one who engages in this labour. If
on many particular points his efforts seem to be really satisfactory to
him, he can never rejoice at his success; for he has no sooner shown
that it is not absolutely impossible to reconcile some new little
circumstance in Jn. with the Synoptics than a whole series of others
come to light which defy every attempt at reconciliation.
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CHAPTER III.
DECISION AS TO WHICH IS THE MORE TRUST WORTHY: THE STORY OF THE FIRST
THREE GOSPELS OR OF THE FOURTH?
WE have then to make a choice. And from what has already been said we
are not as yet precluded from giving decided preference to Jn.
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1. REASONS FOR FAVOURING JN.
Beyond question there are people who think such a picture of Jesus as
the Fourth Gospel gives not merely beautiful in the sense in which even
a fairy-tale may be felt to be beautiful, but also more trustworthy
than that of the Synoptics. They are not concerned to find Jesus
humanly intelligible in his whole character; on the contrary, the less
human it is, the truer does it seem to them to be. It is not merely
that they want one who can do the greatest miracles, but they really
think it a most likely thing that, when the time was fulfilled, God
would have caused exactly such a Saviour to appear. They are not
disturbed when they find that Jesus' enemies, in spite of all their
efforts, never succeeded in overpowering him, and think it quite
natural that the attempts did not succeed because God tied their hands.
It does not surprise them that Jesus spoke to the people about his
coming from heaven in a way that they could not under stand at all;
were his teaching intelligible, it seems to them it would not have been
so sublime as it must certainly have been. Taking examples from
history, we will only add that Clement of Alexandria as early as about
A.D. 200 called the Gospel of John the pneumatic Gospel, that Luther
called it the true, unique, tender Gospel of Gospels, and that
Schleiermacher (ob. 1834) ranked it high above the Synoptics.
We have no idea of arguing with people who feel in this way. We do not
wish to destroy their idea; we respect it. One thing, however, they
cannot expect us to attribute to them--we mean, the historical sense.
Every one who has had much to do with history knows that, to understand
events and characters, it is of the first importance to look for such
explanations as suggest themselves to us from experience of other human
happenings. There will always be points which we cannot clear up in
this way. But every student of history knows that he would be defeating
his own purpose if he were to set aside those obvious explanations
which hold good again and again in all human experience and were to try
to put in place of them indefinite and unusual explanations, such as a
miracle, a direct intervention on the part of God. In other branches of
history, even those people whom we have described above carefully avoid
this; it is only in the field of "sacred" history that they prefer the
dark to the clear, the inconceivable to the conceivable, the miraculous
to the natural.
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2. PREFERENCE FOR THE SYNOPTICS ON THE WHOLE.
When we address our question, Do the Synoptics or Jn. deserve the
preference? to those who do not care to make such a distinction between
"sacred" and ordinary human history, who, though they are quite
prepared to find in the history of Jesus and especially in his inmost
character much that is unfathomable, would like even here to see as
much that is clear and humanly intelligible as it is possible to see,
we are almost inclined to conjecture that the decision has already been
made. Much as we have tried, in enumerating the distinctions between
the two stories of the life of Jesus, to make the facts alone speak, we
could not help it if these made the scale turn in favour of the
Synoptics: and the review of the attempts which have been made to
reconcile the two accounts could hardly fail to strengthen this
impression.
Our task is now therefore merely to sum up the matter as briefly as
possible, and then to give a rather more detailed treatment of some
further points in which the trustworthiness of Jn. really needs to be
more thoroughly investigated or in which it is still necessary to
explain how it is that Jn. has come to make statements differing so
widely from the truth. When we do this it will be time to say plainly
what we think of these statements, whereas so far we have refrained
from doing so, and have faithfully followed our purpose of giving in
the first instance only the facts (p. 4).
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3. INFLUENCE OF JESUS WITH HIS HEARERS.
Which is more likely--that Jesus came into contact with all sorts and
conditions of men amongst his people and achieved successes of every
kind, or that he had to deal almost entirely and without distinction
with the "Jews" in a body? Which is more likely that he often had an
enthusiastic reception, or that the Jews, in a compact body, refused to
believe in him? It is said in Jn. often enough that "many" believed in
him on this or that occasion (ii. 23; vii. 31; viii. 30; x. 42, &c.).
This, however, should not deceive us as to the fact, that as a general
result the Jews do not believe. When a certain number believe, this
always (apart from x. 42) gives rise to a division among Jesus'
hearers, and if that had not happened, Jesus would never have been led
to speak such words as "if a man keep my word, he shall never see
death" (viii. 51) and the like, which Jn. is determined to record. But
the belief has no permanent result, for when Jesus delivers his
farewell discourses (chaps. xiii.-xvii.), only the little band of his
intimate disciples is represented as being still true to him; all those
who have believed only for a time are referred to in the saying: "But
Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men" (ii.
24); in other words, he knew that in the end these--all of them--would
join in the cry, "Crucify him, crucify him" (xix. 6, 15).
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4. COURSE OF JESUS' PUBLIC WORK.
But if from the first Jesus really met with so much hostility, how are
we to understand why he was so long allowed such freedom? Is it
conceivable that, after driving the dealers from the fore-court of the
Temple, and supposing that it took place at the beginning of his visits
to Jerusalem, he could have continued to work for two years unmolested?
In Galilee, it would be easier to think this; it is not so easy to
imagine that he could have done so under the eyes of the Jewish
authorities in Jerusalem, where, according to Jn., he stayed with few
exceptions. The excuse that "his hour was not yet come" (vii. 30; viii.
20), is one which, having regard to all we know from the rest of human
history, should be characterised as quite unsatisfactory.
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5. JESUS' STYLE OF SPEAKING.
But if Jesus really met with a friendly reception and had a following,
especially amongst the humble and oppressed members of his race--and no
one would like to give up the idea that he had--which is the more
likely, that this success was due to the style of addresses the
Synoptics describe him as giving to the people or to that which Jn.
describes? In the Synoptics he really lifts from the people the heavy
yoke of the Old Testament law with its thousand impossible precepts,
and substitutes the light yoke of a free, childlike obedience to the
simple command to love God and one's neighbour; in Jn., instead of
this, we find nothing but an incessant command, supported by bare
assurances and awe-inspiring miracles, to believe in him and his coming
from heaven. It was really difficult for a soul in anguish to derive
any comfort from it. There is certainly nothing more touching to such a
soul known to any one--not even to the worshippers of the Jesus of the
Fourth Gospel--than the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk. xv. 11-32),
whom the father, in spite of his great fault, goes forth to meet and
embrace when he comes back penitent to his old home. This parable, with
those of the Good Samaritan (Lk. x. 25-37), of the cruel and wicked
servant (Mt. xviii. 23-35), of the Pharisee and the Publican (Lk.
xviii. 9-14), and all the others, so helpful and dear to us as precious
and living examples of a simple piety which at once touches the heart,
we seek for in vain in the "true, unique, tender Gospel of
Gospels"--and not because they are already found in the Synoptics and
must not be repeated, but because they do not illustrate the only
matter about which the Jesus of Jn. is permitted to speak, his divine
majesty.
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6. MISUNDERSTANDINGS AS REGARDS JESUS' DISCOURSES.
We have reached a point at which we may also say that it is not the
hearers of Jesus who are to be accused of having seriously
misunderstood his discourses, and that it was not Jesus who
intentionally provoked the misunderstandings. The author himself
inserts in Jesus' discourses, when they have, as a matter of fact,
already reached their end, some expression having more meanings than
one, in order that he may proceed to tell us how, when the hearers of
Jesus understood him in an external, material sense, he explained his
deeper, spiritual meaning, and in so doing brought to light on the one
hand a want of intelligence on the part of the people, and even of the
disciples, and on the other the unsuspected profundity of his own
disclosures. These misunderstandings are not therefore the
reminiscences of an eye-witness, but a device employed by the author.
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7. REPETITIONS IN JESUS' DISCOURSES.
When we consider further how limited a number of ideas are continually
repeated in these discourses in a way which is felt to be quite
monotonous and tedious even by very many of those who regard the Fourth
Gospel with a kind of awe, we wonder the more how Jesus could have gone
on talking in this way for two years without being left with no one at
all to listen to him.
But we have still to add something which has not so far been mentioned:
in Jn. Jesus continues a discourse even when in the meantime a series
of events have happened, and when of course the audience has changed.
He says, for example, at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple (x.
26; cp. 22), "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep," and
then proceeds to enlarge upon the idea of the sheep, just as he has
done on an earlier and quite different occasion (x. 3, 10 f., 14). On
another occasion, at the Feast of Tabernacles (vii. 23; cp. 2) he says,
"are ye wroth with me, because I made a man every whit whole on the
Sabbath? "Now the only act of the kind which has been mentioned so far
is the healing of the sick man at Bethesda (v. 1-16) which took place
at an earlier, but not definitely distinguished, "feast of the Jews."
Since this, according to Jn., Jesus fed the Five Thousand at the
Passover Feast in Galilee (vi. 4), and the interval between this and
the Feast of Tabernacles would amount to another six months.
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8. LEAVES IN JN. WRONGLY ARRANGED
That, in spite of this, he should speak as if the healing at Bethesda
had only just happened is so striking as to have given rise to the
theory that the page which contained this continuation of the discourse
got shifted in Jn.'s manuscript or in one of the oldest copies of it,
from its proper place in the book, and was reinserted in a wrong place
farther back. This is not in itself impossible; indeed, the existence
of this kind of mistake in several ancient books has been made so
probable that there can no longer be any question about it. Of course,
if it occurred here, both the first words and the last in the wrongly
inserted leaf must have caused some disturbance in the context of the
book, and in the place where the leaf originally stood a lacuna in the
narrative, as we have it, would be noticeable. But there is nothing of
this in the passage under consideration; and, apart from this, there
are very many other passages, in which, because the order of events is
unlikely, or because the order in the Gospel of Jn. does not agree with
that of the Synoptics, one would like to suppose that a leaf has been
misplaced in some such manner. We wish any one who proposes by such
expedients to bring the Fourth Gospel into good order and into
agreement with the Synoptics a long life, but his labour is one which
will never suffice for his task.
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9. CARELESS DESCRIPTION IN JN.
The matter is much simpler. As we found in the case of the
misunderstandings, it is not Jesus but the Evangelist who enlarges upon
the ideas and spins out the discourses. He imagines Jesus as having
always the same hearers, because he has no real recollection of actual
cases in which Jesus confronted the people. It is his fault, and not
the fault of Jesus, that no account is taken of the intervals which
must have elapsed between two of Jesus utterances which could not have
been so close together in actual life as they are on paper.
This explains further how it is that the discourses of Jesus and the
remarks of the Evangelist himself are often so much alike that the one
might be taken for the other--they are even amalgamated with the
discourses of the Baptist. In the midst of one of these a number of
utterances begins in iii. 31, of a kind that only Jesus himself makes
elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, and yet it is not said that Jesus is
the speaker. The expositors are therefore quite at a loss to know
whether to ascribe them to the Baptist or to regard them as remarks of
the Evangelist himself. Even the well-known saying, "And this is life
eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom
thou didst send, even Jesus Christ," is in Jn. (xvii. 3) an utterance
made by Jesus himself, though, were it his, he would surely have said,
"and know me whom thou hast sent," especially as he is using the words
in a prayer addressed to God.
In these cases there is certainly a considerable amount of carelessness
on the part of the Evangelist. But the most friendly critic cannot deny
that there is evidence of it in other places as well. At the beginning
of the story of the raising of Lazarus, Jn. mentions (xi. 1 f.) Lazarus
sisters Martha and Mary, and adds: "And it was that Mary which anointed
the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair." We ask in
vain where Jn. has already narrated this. There would perhaps be some
excuse--though it would still be strange--if he thought he might refer
to Mary in this way because the description of the anointing was known
to his readers from the older Gospels (cp. i. 15, p. 52). In that case
his purpose would be to add, as a new point, that the woman who is
mentioned in the Synoptics but is not named was no other than this same
Mary. But we do not find in any of the Synoptics what seems to be
recalled here. According to Mk. (xiv. 3) and Mt. (xxvi. 7), a woman in
Bethany, near Jerusalem, pours the contents of a flask of precious
nard, having according to Mk. broken it for the purpose, on Jesus head.
According to Lk. (vii. 37 f.), when Jesus was invited in Galilee to sup
at the house of a Pharisee, a sinful woman of the town moistened his
feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, kissed them, and
anointed them with ointment. Which of these accounts does Jn. wish to
recall to us? Neither meets the case. On the other hand, the puzzle is
solved at once when we reach the 12th chapter of his own Gospel. Here
in v. 3 we are told for the first time something which is already
referred to in chap. xi. as a past event (see further, below pp.
81-83). Here Jn. tells us distinctly that what is narrated in the 12th
chapter happened later than what he has reported in the 11th chapter.
If a modern writer were to tell us something like this, we should think
ourselves badly treated, and would not easily forgive him.
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10. COLOURLESS DESCRIPTIONS IN JN.
Further, in how colourless a way many of the scenes in Jn. are
sketched! Certain Greeks come (xii. 20) to Jerusalem for the Passover
Feast and wish to see Jesus. They apply to Philip; he tells Andrew, and
both inform Jesus. Up to this point every word suggests that we are
dealing with an eye-witness, so precise is every statement. And then?
"But Jesus answered them" (i.e. the two disciples), "the hour is come
that the Son of Man should be glorified," &c. He makes a reference to
his impending death, to which he cheerfully reconciles himself. Whether
the Greeks were admitted to see him, what they said, what Jesus said to
them--about all this we hear nothing. Similarly, the conversation with
Nicodemus, to take another example (iii. 1-21), has no conclusion. It
is again clear that the author is not concerned about the persons who
come into touch with Jesus, but entirely about Jesus himself.
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11. THE PICTURE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
Even John the Baptist has suffered the same fate. In the Synoptics he
conies before us a character which of itself would have a claim to
interest us greatly, even if it had never been brought into close touch
with Jesus. The purpose of his baptism and preaching of repentance, and
their benefit to the people, would have been achieved in any case. It
is not merely his pathetic death (Mk. vi. 17-29) that makes him sure of
winning the sympathy of readers of the Synoptics, but also his
uncertainty as to whether he is to regard Jesus as the Messiah (Mt. xi.
2 f.). It shows how truly Jesus speaks when he says that he is greater
than any Old Testament figure, and yet least amongst the New Testament
believers (Mt. xi. 11). He could call men to repentance, but he had not
himself been commissioned to preach the glad tidings. We are told only
in Mt. (iii. 14 f.) that he refused to baptize Jesus, and this is
clearly a later touch, for according to the most original account which
we can still gather easily from Mk., he did not learn Jesus higher
nature even at the baptism itself. Jesus alone in Mk. (i. 10) sees the
heavens open and the Holy Spirit coming down upon him like a dove. And
this is undoubtedly the correct version, since no one would have
invented it, if as Lk. reports (iii. 21 f.), and as regards the heavens
Mt. also (iii. 16), the opening of the heavens and the coming down of
the spirit were visible to every one. It is true that Mk. also (like
Mt. and Lk.), as regards the voice from heaven, only says that it
sounded, which seems to imply that it could be heard by every one. But
only Mt. says "this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased;" Mk.
(and Lk.), on the contrary, "thou art," &c.; and from this we may
certainly assume that according to the older account which was used by
Mk., the voice could be heard by Jesus alone, just as he alone saw the
heavens open.
In the Fourth Gospel, however, the Baptist knows from the beginning not
only of Jesus higher nature, as in Mt., and that he was destined to be
the Redeemer of the whole world (i. 27, 29), but also that he
pre-existed with God in heaven (i. 15, 30). But for this very reason
the work of the Baptist is strictly limited: he bears witness to Jesus
(i. 6-8, 15, 23). His baptism is never of any importance to those who
receive it. John uses it only as a means of testifying to Jesus (i. 26,
31). His preaching of repentance is not even mentioned. It would thus
be quite impossible for him to ask later whether Jesus is the Messiah,
as in Mt. xi. 2 f., unless we were to explain such a question by
ascribing to him doubts--which would be quite sinful--of all that had
been revealed to him at an earlier date by God Himself, According to
the original account of the Synoptics, on the other hand, he had as yet
no actual knowledge which would enable him to answer the question. In
short, in place of a character which was full of power, if limited in
its spiritual outlook, and of a person whose tragic death made him an
object of veneration, the Fourth Gospel gives us nothing better than a
lay-figure endowed with supernatural knowledge, but always the same,
and devoid of living features--a figure which was only meant to serve
the purpose of revealing Jesus majesty.
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12. INJUDICIOUS RELIANCE ON THE SYNOPTICS.
How is it that the circumstances of many events are so obscurely
sketched in the Fourth Gospel? We can some times explain this quite
definitely. It is because the author starts in a careless way from an
account in the Synoptics. Thus we had an instance (p. 51) already in
vi. 3, 15, where Jesus twice ascends the mountain, without in the
meantime having come down. This again explains a fact we noted as far
back as p. 12, that in vi. 1, Jesus betakes himself to the other shore
of the Lake of Galilee, whereas in the whole of the fifth chapter we
have found him in Jerusalem. Without any further explanation, the
Synoptics (Mk. vi. 32), and they alone, can represent him as crossing
the Lake, because in the Synoptics he is always in Galilee; Jn. has
carelessly followed them, without reflecting that he should have told
us first how Jesus came from Jerusalem to Galilee--a matter which he
reports quite appropriately in other places (iv. 3, 43).
But the most important example of his following the Synoptics and at
the same time carelessly tacking his story on to theirs, is found in
Jn.'s account (xii. 1-8) of the anointing of Jesus. Several striking
features in it we have already noticed (p. 77 f .); we must now explain
how these originated. Jn. found an anointing of Jesus reported twice in
the Synoptics j in Mk. (xiv. 3-9) and Mt. (xxvi. 6-13), one in Bethany
near Jerusalem shortly before his death, in Lk. (vii. 36-50) one in
Galilee, a long time before it. And yet in both cases the master of the
house is called Simon. Moreover, in Mk. and Mt. he is (had been) a
leper; in Lk. he is a Pharisee. But the fact that the names were alike
seems to have been sufficient to lead Jn. to believe that in both cases
the same event was intended. The woman therefore who anointed Jesus in
this case must have been the same sinful woman who did so in Lk. (Mk.
and Mt. tell us nothing beyond the fact that a woman anointed Jesus).
But Jn. is prepared to say that it was that pious Mary who, according
to the beautiful story in Lk. (x. 38-42), sat at Jesus' feet and
listened to him, while her sister Martha busied herself more than was
necessary with the household affairs. How did he obtain this knowledge?
Not from Lk. , for in this Gospel the two sisters live in an unnamed
village at which Jesus stops on his way through Samaria. We know
already from xi. 1 f. that Jn. believed they lived in Bethany near
Jerusalem and that Lazarus was their brother. Comparing the account of
Lk., which Jn. drags in here, it suits the circumstances when at the
meal Martha undertakes the serving and Mary anoints Jesus; this quite
harmonizes with the fact that in Lk.'s Gospel she listens to him so
attentively.
Must we indeed believe that all this was really observed by an
eye-witness John? Or have events which, according to the Synoptics,
happened at three different places with quite different persons and in
a quite different way been simply worked up into one in the style of
the writer of Jn.? That may be best decided by a consideration of the
last fact which he reports: Mary anointed Jesus' feet and dried them
with her hair. She could hardly have done anything more awkward. The
ointment was too precious to be used for her hair. On this point Judas,
who afterwards betrayed his Lord, was right; the ointment should have
been sold and the proceeds (about 240 shillings) given to the poor
(xii. 5). No; no such anointing was observed by any eye-witness; it
owes its origin simply to a wrong use of the two accounts in Lk. There
the sinful woman moistens Jesus' feet with her tears and then dries
them with her hair; she anoints them afterwards, not before. But the
tears of a sinful woman do not suit the case of Mary. Jn. therefore
omits them. And, having done this, the anointing has to come first;
otherwise there would be nothing to wipe away. We see then that there
is really no reason to think the Synoptics wrong. We see also that Mary
is not the woman who anointed Jesus' feet; the name of the woman will
always be unknown to us. The same is true of the dwelling-place of Mary
and Martha. That this was Bethany is a fact which existed only in the
imagination of the Fourth Evangelist.
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13. ASTOUNDING NATURE OF THE MIRACLES IN JN.
The raising of Lazarus, which is supposed to have taken place in
Bethany, suggests that at this point it may be well to say all that
remains to be said about the astounding nature of the miracles in the
Fourth Gospel. What we shall say applies equally to the turning of
water into wine at Cana, to the healing at the Pool of Bethesda of the
man who had been lame for thirty-eight years, to the cure of the man
born blind, &c. But it may suffice to explain what we mean, by dealing
with the raising of Lazarus, which did not take place until the fourth
day after death, when the body would already have become putrid. Martha
actually refers to this fact (xi. 39), with the idea of suggesting that
Jesus need not trouble to have the stone, which closed the rock-hewn
selpulchre, rolled away. There is nothing which so clearly reveals the
astounding nature of this miracle as the way in which it is regarded by
scholars who assure us with the greatest earnestness that they do
believe in miracles. They will tell us not only that the utterance of
Martha is based upon a pure conjecture, but also that her conjecture
was wrong. Certainly they can never have been inside a mortuary; nor do
they reflect that in the warm climate of Palestine decomposition began
much sooner than it does with us (cp. p. 19). Again they will tell us
that, when a man dies, hearing is the last of all his senses to fail;
and for this reason we are expressly told (xi. 43) that Jesus cried
with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." Indeed, they are able to tell
us more. They will tell us that the bands in which, according to xi.
44, Lazarus' feet and hands were wrapped, were not fastened round his
feet tightly. That Jesus could raise a man on the fourth day after his
death they believe, and they expect every one who does not wish to be
called an unbeliever to believe it too; but that he could give the man
power to walk with firmly fastened feet--no, this they do not believe.
Can we wonder then that other people refuse to accept as credible not
only this narrative, but with it the whole book which produces it, and
lays such emphasis on it, as principal evidence for the divine power of
Jesus?
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14. ARE MIRACLES POSSIBLE?
We ourselves do not at once assume this attitude, We remember not only
that an incredible story may have found its way even into a book which
is otherwise credible; we feel bound also to examine more closely the
actual manner in which it is demonstrated that this miracle-story as
well as the others in the Fourth Gospel and in the Bible generally do
not deserve to be believed. In the last resort most people, we may be
sure, rely in this matter on the idea that miracles are quite
impossible. But the idea is not so firmly established as is commonly
supposed. At the outset, it is certainly remarkable that it does not
have the slightest influence on one who believes in miracles. Now we
might say that the person who believes in miracles is unable to think
correctly. But even his opponent will feel that his own case is not
very strong when a miracle-story is brought to his notice which is
attested by people who are worth considering, and when he has nothing
better to say against it than, "Ah yes, but there are no such things as
miracles," without being able to show, in this particular occurrence,
how what seems miraculous in it can have arisen in a natural way. This
reflection may lead us to what--regarding the matter from a strictly
scientific standpoint--lies at the root of this question.
If we are to be able to say that a matter has been proved, it is
necessary that it should have been proved by facts. In the case of a
miracle-story, for example, we consider it to have been really proved
that nothing miraculous happened, only when we have found the same
phenomenon reappearing a second time and are certain that here no other
than quite natural causes have operated. We call this kind of proof,
proof from experience. The other kind is known as proof from reasoning.
Whoever uses the latter in support of the contention that there are no
miracles will say either, that the laws of Nature are unalterable, and
a miracle would be no miracle unless one or more of the laws of nature
were suspended; or he will say, it would be a contradiction of His
character, rightly understood, if God were to suspend the laws of
Nature the operation of which He has made so inviolable.
Let us devote just a few words to the notion--unfortunately very common
among theologians--that a miracle is not contrary to the laws of
Nature, but that certain forces come into operation which are quite
natural but are not as yet known to us. Of course in earlier times
Electricity and quite a short time ago the Roentgen rays were not known
to us, and some occurrence due to these forces might easily have seemed
miraculous, so that no man, even if he were only half-witted, would
think of denying that all the forces of Nature are not as yet known to
us. But what is the use of calling something a miracle which is due to
forces like these which are quite natural, though still unknown to us?
These are miracles which no one in the world would regard as
impossible. But the chief aim of those who pride themselves on
believing in miracles is to distinguish themselves in this way--to
their own advantage--from those who do not believe in them and for this
reason, in the opinion of their opponents, deserve to be called
"infidels." That they have no right to make free with these quite
natural but unknown forces, and by calling them to their aid to make
miracles of as many occurrences as possible, is a fact that we need
only mention in passing.
Another favourite contention is that in working a miracle God only
makes certain forces, which are natural and known to us, operate in an
extraordinary way, just as a man does when he makes a clock strike
before the hour by moving the hand. We refrain from insisting here that
such intervention on the part of God would involve a breach in the
natural order of things, for this reflection will not trouble those who
imagine the natural order of things to be not something unconditionally
willed by God, a part of His own nature, but a limitation imposed upon
him (by whom?), and who are only satisfied, nay can only see in Him a
living God when (as happens rarely enough) He breaks through this
limitation. But of course it is nothing better than a very naive
presumption to suppose that a miracle which really deserves to be
called one is prearranged by and adjusted to preconditions in exactly
the same way as the premature striking of a clock. To produce bread for
five thousand men--supposing that it were prearranged in some such
way--flour, leaven, and heat must have been ready at hand. To increase
the number of fish for the feeding, spawn and time for growth, or at
least a good catch, and in any case heat, would again have been
necessary; to walk upon the sea some quality in the water would have
been needed to offer to the feet some power of resistance like that of
a firm body; for a cure there must have been in the body a condition
quite different from that which favours the continuance of sickness,
though for the most part we cannot exactly define the condition
necessary for disease or recovery. We must therefore disregard such
statements, and reckon seriously with the fact that a miracle under all
circumstances is a violation of the laws of Nature.
But if any one who for this reason pronounces miracles to be impossible
is asked how he would prove it, he can in reality make no other reply
than this: "I have come to that conclusion after using my reason to the
best of my power." But this conclusion is not drawn by every one,
whereas a fact of experience is recognised by all. And supposing he
should say: "If the laws of Nature could ever cease to operate, there
could no longer be any such study as Natural Science, we could no
longer construct machines, and reckon on the working of a machine or of
any other force in Nature"; the answer would be somewhat as follows:
the point is not whether we can do all this, but how the world is
actually constituted; if there are miracles in it, the fact is that we
cannot do any of these things for certain.
Now it has been proved, and proved by experience, that we can do these
things; and whenever things do not work as the natural scientist or the
technical worker expected, he regularly finds out afterwards that the
fault is not with Nature, but that he himself has made a miscalculation
and been the cause of the failure. But, strictly speaking, what this
means is only that the number of miracles, if miracles there are, must
be very small, and moreover the fact only applies to the present time;
as regards the distant past, before every occurrence was observed as
closely as it is now, one may still suppose that miracles happened in
greater number. To try to dispute this with any prospect of success,
one should be able to investigate all the miracle-stories of the past
which have come down to us, and to show the events to have been
perfectly natural; but we are no longer in a position to do this. In
fact, even if we were, it would not help us sufficiently; for miracles
might have happened which have not been recorded at all. And were it
possible to trace these also to natural causes, we should be powerless
to prevent an event taking place to-morrow which we should be obliged
to recognise as a miracle, and nothing would then be gained by the
statement that there are no such things as miracles. A scientific
caution therefore bids us in no case to make this statement a guiding
principle.
__________________________________________________________________
15. MUST WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?
But we have only reached this result quite provisionally. It will take
us a step further if I may be allowed to recall a personal experience.
When I had occasion some years ago to express the above ideas to my
class at the University, as they left the class-room they shook their
heads and said, "He believes in miracles." I had certainly given them
credit for more intelligence. To hold that it is not right to deny
unconditionally that miracles are possible, and to believe that
miracles do really happen, are two entirely different things. All that
has been said so far only amounts to saying that in forming my opinion
about miracles I must not be guided by general ideas, but by
experience. But from experience I know for certain that I have never
yet seen a miracle. I know also that pretty well all the miracles which
are supposed to have happened in the present age have turned out, upon
more careful inquiry, to be perfectly natural occurrences. I know too
that the certainty with which the natural scientist and the technical
worker reckon has never yet failed them. As regards the miracles of the
past, I know that we can find no reason for supposing that miracles
could have happened then more easily than to-day. In particular, I know
that to say that God was obliged to use miracles for the purpose of
proving Jesus to be the Saviour of the world is a bare assertion and
cannot be proved. The Bible tells us that Paul, as well as Jesus, and
very many ordinary persons in the Christian communities, and in fact--a
still more important point--even the disciples of the Pharisees and
other contemporaries of Jesus, possessed the power of working miracles
(Rom. xv. 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12; 1 Cor. xii. 9 f., 28; Mt. xii. 27, vii.
22 f.; Mk. ix. 38-40); and yet none of these was ever regarded as the
Saviour. Had Jesus worked ever so many miracles, without being at the
same time a physician of souls, I know that he would not have been
worshipped as the Saviour, and that we of to-day should not be called
by his name.
And what is the use of the knowledge we possess of so many other
religions if we refuse to use it in order to find out the origin of our
own? Works of wonder are ascribed to every founder of a great religion
of whose life we possess records, and they are often much more
astounding than those attributed to Jesus; and--what is most remarkable
here--in the case of each one of them utterances have at the same time
been preserved in which he absolutely declines, as Jesus did (see
above, p. 21 f.), to work miracles, and refers to them as matters of
quite minor importance.
In the case of Buddha the utterance is preserved: "I do not teach my
disciples, Do miracles by means of your supernatural power . . .; I say
to them, Live by concealing your good works and making your sins to be
seen." Confucius, the founder of the Chinese religion, or rather of
their political and moral science, is reported to have said:
"Investigate what is obscure, do what is wonderful, that later
generations may say of it, I do not like these things." In the case of
Zarathustra, the founder of the Persian religion as committed to
writing in the Zend-Avesta, we read: "God said to me, If the king asks
for a sign, do thou say, Only read the Zend-Avesta, and you will need
no miracles." In the Koran we find God saying to Muhammed: "Thy destiny
is to preach and not to do miracles." Muhammed appeals to God's great
miracles, the rising and setting of the sun, the rain, the growth of
the plants, and the birth of souls; these are the true wonders to those
who know what faith is. [5] Very much that is told us about these
founders of religion is untrustworthy. But these utterances deserve to
be believed without question; for who could have invented them?
To these we may add in conclusion the saying of Kant, the founder of
the newer philosophy: "Wise governments have at all times conceded, in
fact have legally incorporated the notion in the public doctrines of
religion, that in olden times miracles happened, but they have not
allowed new miracles to happen. As regards new wonder-workers, they
must have feared the effects they might have on the public peace and
the established order." It is not difficult in the case of so clear a
thinker to read between the lines: if, he would say, in olden times
there had already been a wise government, it would not have allowed
miracles to happen even in those days.
From which presupposition then ought we to start, if we wish to decide
the question whether miracle-stories deserve belief? Strictly speaking,
from none. But that is not possible. We always bring to the
consideration of a subject some kind of presupposition. After what has
been said, this must not be to the effect that miracles are not
possible. But it would be still worse to assume, that miracles may
easily happen. One who starts with this presupposition will certainly
regard many occurrences as miracles in which everything has been
brought about by causes which are quite natural. If then we cannot
avoid starting with a presupposition, it can only of course be one that
has already stood its trial in other cases, not one which has never yet
been tested. In the present case therefore it can only be this, that
any miracle-story we propose to examine will, presumably, admit of
exactly the same natural explanation as others which we have so far
been able closely to investigate. It is therefore not only permissible,
but is our bounden duty, to try with all the means at our disposal to
explain such matters by natural causes. While we do this, we must be
ready to find a miracle if necessary, but only when there are
insurmountable obstacles to our regarding a matter otherwise.
Until such obstacles arise, we are entitled to accept the two
statements, (1) that the laws of Nature are unchangeable and (2) that
God himself does not desire to suspend them by a miracle. Only we must
be clear on this point--that they are not matters which have been
proved quite sufficiently, but in spite of all that can be advanced in
their favour, are never anything more than a belief.
If we know a miracle-story only from written accounts--which is the
case with those of the Bible--the first question we must ask is, Do
these accounts show themselves to be reliable in every detail? For
instance, it is not a matter of no importance, whether Jesus healed one
blind man before he entered the city of Jericho (so Lk. xviii. 35-43)
or healed him after he left it (so Mk. x. 46-52), or whether he healed
two blind men (so Mt. xx. 29-34) at the same place. Why should I take
it for granted that the Evangelists or their authorities duly informed
them selves that it was really a case of blindness, when they are not
agreed as to where and in the case of how many per sons the thing was
done? Nor is it any more a matter of indifference whether on the
evening after Jesus had healed Peter's wife's mother, people brought
all the sick to him and he healed many of them (so Mk. i. 32-34), or
whether they brought many and he healed all (so Mt. viii. 16), or
whether they brought all and he healed them all (so Lk. iv. 40). Nor
again is it a matter of no importance whether he taught the multitude
before the Feeding of the Five Thousand (so Mk. vi. 34), or whether he
healed their sick (so Mt. xiv. 14). We might continue thus for a long
time if we wished /to throw light on this aspect of the miracle-stories
found in the Synoptics. But the points we have mentioned are only
intended to serve as examples of the kind of thing we are obliged to
take note of in the stories of the Fourth Gospel.
__________________________________________________________________
[5] Further information on this subject will be found in Seydel, Das
Evangelium von Jesu in semen Verhaeltnissen zu Buddha-Sage und
Buddha-Lehre, 1882, pp. 239-251.
__________________________________________________________________
16. SILENCE OP THE SYNOPTICS AS TO THE MIRACLES IN JN.
As compared with the stories in the Synoptics, the only one in Jn. that
can be said to contain an actual contradiction is that of Jesus'
walking on the sea, since Jesus crossed not merely a part but the whole
of the sea, and is not supposed to have been taken into the boat (see
above, p. 19 f.). In the other miracle stories in this Gospel (apart
from that of the Feeding), contradictions are impossible, because the
Synoptics do not include the stories. But this silence on their part is
the very thing that cannot fail to make us feel the most serious
doubts. These miracles which are known only to the Fourth Gospel are
actually the most stupendous recorded: the turning of the water into
wine at Cana, the healing of the man who was thirty-eight years a
paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, the cure of the man born blind, and
the raising of Lazarus. (It is difficult to say whether by the cure of
the son of a royal official at Capernaum, iv. 46-54, the same event is
intended as the cure of the son or servant of the centurion at
Capernaum in Mt. viii. 5-13 and Lk. vii., 1-10; see p. 99 f.)
Why these particular miracles should have been passed over by the
Synoptics, if they really happened, it is absolutely impossible to
imagine. What real arguments have those scholars who hold them to be
true to offer, in order to explain the fact that there is not a word
about them in the Synoptics? Once more it will be sufficient to fix our
attention on the Raising of Lazarus.
We are told, for instance, that among the great mass of persons who
were raised (!) by Jesus, the Synoptists might easily have forgotten
Lazarus; or that they did not think themselves gifted enough to be able
to gather up the preeminent importance of the event for the career of
Jesus; or that they did not credit themselves with sufficiently
delicate and lively feeling to be able to report it worthily; or that
they were silent out of respect for the relatives of Lazarus who were
still living (as if the story would not, on the contrary, have
redounded to their honour); or that they did not think themselves to be
sufficiently well instructed as to the details; or that the matter did
not come to their ears because it took place before the arrival of the
pilgrims from Galilee for the Easter festival (this would be to
disregard xi. 16, where it is expressly said that all the twelve
disciples of Jesus were present); or that it did not come to their ears
because, when they arrived in Jerusalem, it was already too well known;
or that the plan which they followed in their Gospels, apart from the
last week of the life of Jesus, did not allow of their reporting events
in Judaea. but only those which happened in Galilee; or that they were
already aware that John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, would write his
Gospel after them, and they wished to leave him to relate the Raising
of Lazarus.
It could not really be shown in a more lamentable way that we cannot
discover a single intelligible reason why the Synoptists have not
related the Raising of Lazarus. To make such statements is at the same
time to pronounce sentence that the event never happened. We see then
that to arrive at this conviction it was not necessary to be shy of
miracles; the way in which the story is told is in itself quite
sufficient for our conclusion. And this is equally true of the other
miracle stories which are found only in Jn.
__________________________________________________________________
17. THE MIRACLES IN JN. SYMBOLIC.
But why does Jn. introduce such incredible matters? Is it purely from a
delight in the wonderful? Is it from the idea that Jesus could only in
this way have shown himself to be the Saviour? Certainly he held this
idea, and even attached importance to it (see p. 20 f.). But we should
be doing him a great wrong, if we were disposed to think this his sole
motive for telling us that such miracles were worked by Jesus. The fact
that he describes so few in detail is itself an argument against this.
But he also makes us realise clearly that each of these miracles has a
deeper sense, a symbolic meaning; that is to say, that it is meant to
express a religious idea in a picture as it were. In the case of the
.Raising of Lazarus, he himself has supplied in the clearest manner the
legend to the picture. Martha expresses to Jesus clearly, if shyly, her
hope that he will raise her brother: "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died. And even now I know that whatsoever thou shalt
ask of God, God will give thee" (xi. 21 f.). Jesus answered, "Thy
brother shall rise again." Martha rejoins, "I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection at the last day." And thereupon Jesus said to
her, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth on me,
though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on
me shall never die." Here therefore we have the well-known and
beautiful idea in the Fourth Gospel of that eternal life, in a deeply
spiritual sense, which, through faith in Jesus, begins even during this
earthly existence, and not merely after death, and which cannot be
interrupted by the death of the body (cp. further especially v. 24).
Is it the same thing when Lazarus is immediately after wards summoned
to come forth from the grave? By no means. Lazarus receives back the
life of the body; but that spiritually eternal life of which we have
spoken is a treasure which is stored in the depth of one's heart. To
call Lazarus back to life, one of the greatest miraculous interventions
in the laws of Nature was required; to bring to birth the spiritually
eternal life of which we have spoken, only faith was needed. Lazarus
can do nothing to help himself to come forth from the grave; whoever
wishes to have the spiritually eternal life, must himself do his best
within his own heart to call forth faith. Sooner or later Lazarus must
die again; the spiritually eternal life, once gained, can never again
be lost. Finally, Lazarus is only one man, and though we are certain
that Jesus loved all other men, yet he is obliged to leave them all in
the grave; but the spiritually eternal life is to be denied to no one.
In brief, the thought of that eternal life which Jesus here speaks of
as the essence of his message to Martha rises high as the heavens above
the work which he afterwards per forms on Lazarus; so high that it has
even been thought that the two things were not originally connected,
and that the Raising of Lazarus was inserted in the original book of
Jn. by a later writer. That is of course a great mistake. Both belong
together very well, but only in the same way as a deeply spiritual
thought belongs to the picture which gives it clear, if inadequate,
expression in a visible occurrence.
Imagine a painter who wishes by means of his art to represent the
thought: "Whosoever believes on me will live, even though he dies, and
whosoever lives and believes on me will never die." Can he represent
the feeling of his heart on canvas? What better symbol will he choose
than the summoning of Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, from the grave? And
is he obliged to make it real to our eyes in an obscure and indistinct
way, because he does not suppose that the event really happened, but
only wishes to awaken an idea in the soul of the beholder? We shall
call him nothing better than a bungler, if he fails to represent, in a
stirring way, how Jesus, while the onlookers are nervously expectant,
stands in front of the sepulchre and cries out with arm upraised,
"Lazarus, come forth," while behind the stone door, which has been
rolled aside from the hollow vault, is seen the figure of the dead man
wrapped in bands. And are we ready to reproach the author of the Fourth
Gospel for using his art with equal vigour and effectiveness--the art
of painting with words, instead of with the brush? Are we ready to
reproach him, because we do not believe that what he paints on his
canvas really happened, and because perhaps he also did not believe it?
Did he also not believe it? That would certainly be the most noteworthy
aspect of the matter. Before we enter more closely into the question
whether we ought to think this, we must take a wider survey. Clearly,
the Raising of Lazarus is by no means the only instance in which a
miracle is used to represent an idea. On the contrary, this point of
view can be applied very easily to all the miracle-stories of the
Fourth Gospel; and for the most part the Evangelist himself supplies us
with a very clear clue. The legend which should be inscribed under the
picture of the healing of the man born blind is found in viii. 12: "I
am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the
darkness, but shall have the light of life" (cp. ix. 5, 39). The
Feeding of the Five Thousand is explained in the discourses attached to
it, vi. 26-35a, 36-5la, as a spiritual enjoyment of the person of
Jesus, he being described as the true bread that comes from heaven:
people must take his whole nature into themselves, or in other words,
must believe in him (vi. 28 f.). At the same time the Feeding is here
meant to represent the Supper; if this were not so, there could not be
mention in vi. 51b-58 of the eating of Jesus flesh and at the same time
of the drinking (cp. what is already said in vi. 35b) of his blood, not
a word having been said in the Feeding of the Five Thousand to the
effect that Jesus handed a cup to the disciples. Here indeed emerges
the quite remarkable fact that Jesus, about the time of the second
Passover feast, which occurred during his public ministry (vi. 4),
gives his disciples an explanation of the meaning of the Supper, which,
according to the same Gospel, he did not celebrate with them at all,
and according to the Synoptics not until a year later; yet the
discourses in chapter vi. do not permit of the least doubt that the
Supper is really alluded to.
But if this is once assured, it is no longer difficult to recognise
also the deeper meaning of Jesus' Walking on the Sea, which is linked
to the Feeding of the Five Thousand as an event of the same evening.
True, it might be thought that it has simply been taken over from the
Synoptics, where also it follows the Feeding. But, as a matter of fact,
Jn. does not repeat other miracle-stories found in the Synoptics. His
repetition of this one, however, fits in very well with his purpose.
When the Supper is celebrated at one and the same time in the most
diverse places throughout the whole of Christendom, it is presupposed
everywhere that Jesus is present at the celebration. Yet this could not
be, if he were subject to the laws by which man is confined to the
limits of space. Now, no single story in the Synoptics better expresses
the idea that he was not so limited than that of the walking on the
sea; consequently, it is certainly meant to serve to support the belief
that at every celebration of the Supper Jesus is really near to his
followers.
In the case of the sick man at the Pool of Bethesda we have a clue as
to how we are to understand his sickness, as regards the time it had
lasted. For thirty-eight years the people of Israel had been obliged,
as a punishment for their disobedience to God, to wander in the
wilderness, without being permitted to set foot on the promised land of
Canaan (Deut. i. 34 f., ii. 14). The sick man thus represents the
Jewish people, and in the five porticoes of the house in which he has
so long hoped for a cure (Jn. v. 2) we may easily recognise the five
books of Moses, obedience to which had been no help to the people.
Jesus was the first to be able to bring to an end the period of their
banishment from the land of peace and quiet; but since the people had
opposed the will of God, he was obliged to say first, "Wilt thou be
whole?" (v. 6).
The wine into which Jesus changed the water at Cana is then, of course,
the new, glowing and inspiring religion which Jesus puts in the place
of a weak Judaism. With this is grouped--and not without intention--the
expulsion of the dealers and moneychangers from the fore-court of the
Temple (ii. 1-11, 13-22). It was this act that showed most clearly how
necessary it was to displace the old religion.
Again, with the healing at the Pool of Bethesda is connected that of
the son of the royal official at Capernaum (iv. 46-54; v. 1-18). In
order also to understand this miracle-story, the last that remains in
Jn., we must take note of the points in which it differs from that
concerning the Centurion at Capernaum in Mt. (viii. 5-13) and Lk. (vii.
1-10), a story which so manifestly lies at the root of it that perhaps
the same event may be supposed to be intended in both cases. This
centurion is a Gentile, who by his faith excels and puts the Jews to
shame. In Jn., however, there appears in his place an officer of the
king (so we read in Jn. as in Mk. vi. 14; Mt. xiv. 9 inexactly instead
of "of the prince"; see Mt. xiv. 1; Lk. iii. 1, 19), Herod Antipas of
Galilee, and we must take him to be a Jew, since, if he were not, the
contrary would have been expressly stated. By his faith he also
distinguishes himself, though not like the centurion by excelling all
Jews, but only those who wish to see signs and wonders before they will
believe in Jesus divine power. At first, no doubt in order to prove
him, Jesus assumes that he shares the same disposition (iv. 48), but
the man frees himself from this suspicion by taking Jesus at his word,
when he says that he will make his son whole. We must, therefore, see
in him a picture of that better section of the Jewish people which
intercedes for the sick section; that is to say, for those who do not
believe in Jesus. The latter is represented by the son of the official,
just as in the other case it is by the sick man at Bethesda. Just
because the sick man of the first story, like the sound official who
makes petition for him, represents a section of the Jewish people, he
must be described as his son and not as his servant, as in the case of
the centurion of Capernaum according to Lk., and perhaps also according
to Mt. Though the Greek word in Mt. (pais) may mean, not merely
servant, but, equally well, son, and Jn. might keep this second meaning
because it suited him better.
__________________________________________________________________
18. THE FEEDING A FACT FOR JN. IN SPITE OF ALL?
Thus in all the miracle-stories of the Fourth Gospel, a deeper thought
can be recognised which they present vividly to us as in a picture.
Now, as regards the problem suggested above (p. 97), when we were
dealing with the Raising of Lazarus, whether in spite of all that has
been said, the author held them to be actual occurrences, for the
present this at least is clear, that the interest in the question
whether a miracle really happened becomes secondary at once, if the
miracle is used to represent nothing more than an idea. And so we
discover in these stories some discord in the thought of the Fourth
Evangelist. Side by side with the absolute value that he attaches to
Jesus' works of wonder being recognised as real occurrences (p. 21), we
note a certain indifference to the matter. Nor is it necessary to base
this conclusion entirely upon our present examination; he has given
even more definite expression to this indifference in other places.
When many in Jerusalem believed on Jesus on account of his works of
wonder, he did not trust himself unto them (ii. 23 f.), and Thomas, who
would not believe on Jesus resurrection until lie had touched his
wounds, was told, "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have
believed" (xx. 27-29). If we felt ourselves absolutely bound to go
farther and to conjecture that Jn. first conceived his pictures in his
own brain, just as a modern painter does, it would hardly be thinkable
that afterwards he could have believed what he had depicted to be real
events. What then is the truth?
Something more certain from which to start in this matter is found in
the Synoptics. According to Mk. (viii. 14-21) the disciples, when they
journeyed across the Lake of Galilee, had forgotten to take bread.
Jesus then says to them: "Take heed, beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and the leaven of Herod" (or according to Mt. xvi. 6, "and
the leaven of the Sadducees"). They imagine that he wishes to warn them
against procuring loaves from the Pharisees and the others. Jesus notes
this and says, "Do ye not perceive nor understand? . . . and do ye not
remember? When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand, how
many baskets (full of broken pieces) took ye up? . . . And when the
seven among the four thousand, how many baskets took ye up?" (so
according to Mt.). "Do ye not yet understand?" Mt. fittingly completes
Jesus utterance thus: "that I spake not to you concerning bread? But
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Then understood
they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of
the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
Shortly before, Mk. and Mt. have recounted the Feeding of the Five
Thousand and that of the Four Thousand as actual occurrences. When
Jesus now reminds the disciples of these, they must have been confirmed
in their first thought, that by the leaven of which they were to beware
he meant real loaves, and must have believed that, to make up for the
omission, he would procure them loaves in as wonderful a way as he had
done in the case of the two Feedings. Now, it would in itself be very
surprising that Jesus should have offered to repair a piece of
forgetfulness on the part of the disciples by exercising his miraculous
power. In such a case, we certainly could not speak of a higher divine
purpose for which he used this miraculous power, and say that he was
actuated by love and compassion. But such reflections are not really
necessary. The result of Jesus calling to mind the two Feedings is
this: the disciples see that he does not wish to speak of loaves; and
this is simply impossible. Have the Evangelists, then, told us
something that is meaningless? That would be equally inconceivable. How
can they have come to say the contrary of what is as clear as daylight?
The solution of the riddle is, however, not so difficult after all; we
must only have the courage to think out the ideas of the story to the
end. If the disciples by that of which Jesus reminds them are made to
see that by leaven Jesus did not mean loaves but teaching, then in
those earlier cases they cannot have seen and eaten loaves, but must
simply have heard about loaves--and have heard too that the loaves
meant teaching. In other words, the things of which they were reminded
(and rightly reminded), when they thought of the Feedings, were not
events in the life of Jesus, but discourses, in which he had compared
his teaching with bread, by which the soul is satisfied. Now it
suddenly dawns upon us also why more bread is said to have remained
over than there was at first. Had the bread been real, this would have
been a pure miracle. On the other hand, when Jesus propounds his
teaching, it is quite natural that it should arouse new ideas in the
minds of his hearers, and awaken new impulses; and that they them
selves, enriching what they had heard by their own experiences and
feelings, should carry it farther.
It is not enough, therefore, to see that the two miracle stories were
certainly one at the beginning, and only came to be regarded as two
distinct events at a later date when through the carelessness of the
narrators the number of the partakers, of the loaves, and of the
baskets of broken pieces, was changed. We must go farther and declare,
in all seriousness, that no miraculous feeding took place, nor even a
feeding which merely appeared miraculous. It would be tempting to us to
explain the matter by sup posing that very many persons in the crowd
were provided with more provisions than Jesus and his disciples, and
that Jesus example simply induced them to place these at his disposal.
But had this been the case, the disciples could just as little, by
being reminded of it, have been led to understand that by leaven Jesus
meant teaching, as they could by being reminded of a real miracle of
feeding.
The only miraculous feature in the stories of the Feedings is therefore
this: that by the side of them the story of the leaven of the Pharisees
should also have found a place in the Gospels. Certainly Mk. and Mt.
have not proved themselves very careful here; the words "Do ye not
perceive?" apply to them also. But we have no reason to complain of
them. If they had noticed the contradiction, they would certainly not
have omitted the stories of the Feedings, but, rather, the narrative
under consideration; and it would then have been much harder for us to
recognise the real situation. In reality, they have faithfully
preserved the narrative, because it had been transmitted to them. And
we must recognise this with the greater satisfaction, because in other
places in their Gospels we have been obliged to note many arbitrary
alterations in the accounts, and because, again, it has not been
possible for them to preserve correctly other matter, they themselves
having become acquainted with it in a distorted form. Thus, for
example, exactly what was narrated about Jesus' discourse concerning
that remarkable bread (the teaching) which, when it was divided and
partaken of, did not decrease but increased, will certainly at a very
early date have been misunderstood by people who were not present, just
as the Synoptists have misunderstood it, by including it in their books
as a miraculous event.
How does what has been said help us to answer the question, In spite of
the fact that to Jn. the Feeding was in part a representation of the
spiritual appropriation of the nature of Jesus, and in part a
representation of the Supper, did he regard it as a real event? In any
case, we know at least that if he did so, he was wrong. But since there
was a time when it was known that it was not a real event, it is not
altogether inconceivable that Jn. too derived this knowledge from that
time. On the other hand, this again is hardly likely, for the
Synoptists themselves no longer possessed the knowledge, and Jn. did
not write until after them and drew upon them. Such reflections
therefore will hardly clear up our question. Nor is there any other way
of fathoming the inmost thought of the Fourth Evangelist: and if we
could dig deeper perhaps we might not find harmony and clearness, but
simply a struggle between two points of view, the literal and the
purely figurative.
But it is quite sufficient that to Jn. the story of the Feeding,
regarded from one of these two points of view, serves merely to
represent something spiritual. In this way he has in fact approached
quite near, though perhaps in a very roundabout way (if he regards the
Feeding as an actual event), to what we know from the Synoptists to
have been the most original version--namely, that Jesus himself
referred to the Feeding with bread simply as a figure-of-speech for the
satisfaction of the soul by his teaching. The point of view in Jn. does
not, it is true, agree with this quite exactly; but very much is gained
already when we find him attaching no decisive value to the miracle as
such. And the relatively slight divergence from the ideas of Jesus is
at the same time characteristic of the general spirit of the Fourth
Gospel. What, in Jesus' opinion, is offered to men to satisfy their
souls is his teaching; what is offered them in Jn. is his person. To
Jn. everything centres round his person; and even when he finds the
Supper represented in the story of the Feeding, he imagines that when
it is celebrated, it is the person of Jesus that in some mysterious way
the partaker receives into himself.
__________________________________________________________________
19. ARE THE OTHER MIRACLES FACTS FOR JN.?
We must quote yet another passage from the Synoptics to elucidate the
question as to what opinion the Fourth Evangelist held with regard to
the miracle-stories. When John the Baptist was in prison, he sent his
disciples to Jesus to ask whether he was the promised Saviour, or
whether they must look for another. We must remember here that, from
the time of the baptism of Jesus, John could not have been clear on
this matter (see p. 79 f.). The answer of Jesus is almost verbally
identical in Mt. (xi. 4-6) and in Lk. (vii. 22 f.): "Go your way and
tell John the things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their
sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and
the dead are raised up and the poor have good tidings preached to them.
And blessed is he whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in
me." Could Jesus have done anything more calculated to destroy the
effect of his words than, in his list of works of wonder which reaches
a climax in the awakening from the dead, to specify at the end of them
preaching to the poor, that is to say, something quite ordinary,
something not at all wonderful, something which could not make the
slightest impression on the disciples of John as an answer to their
question whether he was the promised Saviour, their ideas of his
superhuman power being what they were. Or may we suppose that the
Evangelists have inappropriately added this from clumsiness? Assuredly
not. They have taken the greatest possible care that we should read in
their books of all the five classes of wonders which Jesus enumerates
before this answer to the Baptist.
Now, in both consistently (Mk. omits the whole story of the Baptist's
messengers) there appear before this date only the healing of a leper
(Mt. viii. 1-4 = Lk, v. 12-14) and of palsied men (Mt. viii. 5-13 = Lk.
vii. 1-10; Mt. ix. l-8 = Lk. v. 17-26); and in Mt. (ix. 18-26), besides
these, in agreement with the order of events in Mk. (v. 21-43), the
awakening of the daughter of Jairus. This Lk. introduces too late for
the answer to the Baptist's question (not until viii. 40-56). But,
instead of it he has introduced earlier (vii. 11-17) the awakening of
the young man at Nain, about which Mt. and even Mk. say nothing at all.
On the other hand, Mt. ix. 27-34 introduces the healing of two blind
men and a dumb man, about which Lk. and even Mk. are silent. In Jesus
enumeration there is no dumb man, but mention is made of the deaf;
since, however, both are described by the same Greek word (kophos),
there do, as a matter of fact, appear in Mt. before chapter xi. all the
ailments mentioned by Jesus. In Lk. the blind and the deaf are omitted.
Instead of this, Lk. tells us in vii. 21 that in the presence of the
messengers of the Baptist Jesus healed many blind and other ailing
persons, about whom there is not a word in Mt.
Both Evangelists, therefore, although in complete disagreement with
each other, have been at pains to make Jesus enumeration appear
literally true; and, this being so, could they have deprived it of its
whole force by making so unsuitable an addition (concerning the
preaching to the poor)? Or was it perhaps later copyists who did this?
But even in their case, the matter would be equally inexplicable.
There is here again, as in the question of Jesus utterance about
leaven, only one solution: the most striking and seemingly the most
embarrassing version must be the most original. Jesus himself must have
added, "and the poor have the gospel preached to them." But he could
only have done so if all the previously mentioned persons are on the
same level, that is to say, if he meant spiritually blind, spiritually
lame, spiritually leprous, spiritually deaf, and spiritually dead. And
here again, just as in the case of the stories of feeding, the
concluding words are intelligible only on this understanding. "Blessed
is he whosoever finds none occasion of stumbling in me": this means
that the Baptist should not take offence at Jesus for coming forward in
such simple guise, as a mere teacher and prophet, and should recognise
him as the promised Saviour, in spite of his humble appearance. This,
in truth, was why John had had doubts on the matter. In thinking of the
promised Messiah, he thought, as his whole race did, of a person who
would come forward with superhuman power, drive the Romans from the
land and set up a mighty kingdom, in which the Jews would reign.
Here then we have a new instance how utterances of Jesus have often
been faithfully preserved in the Synoptics. In this saying we may
depend upon it that we have the words of Jesus in all essentials,
particularly in their conclusion, just as he spoke them (the question
whether he enumerated at the beginning one ailment more or less need
not detain us); and this is the more noteworthy, since the Evangelists
have entirely misunderstood it, and have made great efforts to show
that their misunderstanding is right. At the same time, we have in it a
new example of the way in which Jesus availed himself of figurative
language which might easily be misunderstood, and which actually was
understood in such a manner that objective works of wonder were
supposed to be intended when he had spoken merely of spiritual
experiences unaccompanied by any miracle.
For the Fourth Gospel, therefore, we have here a foundation upon which
to build if we would assume that not only the feeding of the five
thousand, but also the healing of the man born blind, of the man
paralysed for thirty-eight years, of the son of the royal official, and
the awakening of Lazarus, were from the first meant to describe merely
the healing of souls. It makes no difference, of course, if the son of
the royal official is described as suffering, not from one of the
ailments enumerated in Mt. xi. 5, but from a fever. In fact, by
recognising this figurative style of speech, we may also venture to
seek such an explanation of the last remaining miracles of the Fourth
Gospel, the turning of water into wine at Cana, and Jesus' walking on
the sea, even though these are not miracles of healing.
We may not, of course, in any case go as far as to sup pose that all
these stories, in their figurative meaning, actually came from Jesus
himself. Had they done so it would be inconceivable that about most of
them the Synoptics should know nothing. What we gather, therefore, is
at most this, that the author of the Fourth Gospel still had correct
information as to the metaphorical style in which Jesus delighted to
express himself, and that he copied this in the spirit of his master.
At the same time, it is true, we must reckon fully with the possibility
that he did not gain this by first-hand knowledge of Jesus style of
speech, but in the roundabout way described above: he believed that in
all his miracle-stories he had to do with real events; not until later
did they become to him figures for mere ideas, and the question whether
they really happened become of but secondary importance. Not even now
are we able to come to a decision upon these two points of view;
perhaps indeed, as already intimated, Jn. could not himself have said
which of them he had finally adopted.
__________________________________________________________________
20. TRADITIONS KNOWN ONLY TO JN.?
In any case we must be quite clear that at the root of each of the two
points of view there are quite distinct presuppositions. If Jn. from
the first gave forth his miracle-stories merely as the figurative
clothing of religious ideas, then we may be all the more certain that
he invented them himself; he could not have had them from the lips of
Jesus, for had that been their source the Synoptics also would have
given them. If, on the other hand, Jn. regarded them as real events,
then they must have come to him from some authorities in whom he had
confidence. Is it possible perhaps to decide now which of the two
suppositions is right? In other words, is there a tradition concerning
the Life of Jesus which was known only to Jn. and remained unknown to
the Synoptics?
The far-reaching importance of this question can be realised at once.
If Jn. was acquainted with such a tradition, he may have derived from
it all that he has in addition to what the Synoptics tell us; and in
this much else is included besides the miracle narratives we have been
considering. On this basis very many people immediately think they may
assume that all these additional matters are also historical. But the
pleasure which they thus give themselves is premature. Supposing that
Jn. drew from a tradition--for the time being we are willing to assume
that he did--have we then disposed of the question, Why do the
Synoptics know nothing about this tradition? Who was the first to know
of it? Was it the Apostle John? Could he really, in Jesus' lifetime,
have noted certain things of which Peter and the other apostles had no
experience? And yet the Synoptists themselves drew from the
communications of the Apostles or of their disciples! We might
acquiesce, if the things which appear only in the Fourth Gospel were
all minor matters, In that case, we might think that to the other
Apostles or to the Synoptics they seemed to be unimportant. But the
healing of the man born blind, the healing of the man palsied for
thirty-eight years, the raising of Lazarus, the farewell discourses of
Jesus, the washing of the disciples' feet on the last evening of his
life, etc.!
Or can we believe that some worshipper of Jesus--not further known to
us--outside the circle of his twelve apostles, observed all these
things, one, for instance, as people of late have been fond of
suggesting, who lived in Judaea, and, having nothing to tell us about
Galilee, had all the more to tell us about what Jesus did in Judaea? Of
such an one it would be equally true to say that he could have observed
nothing which the apostles did not also know of. Does not the Fourth
Gospel say continually that they were all present on all these
occasions?
It is thus, besides, quite immaterial whether we assume the eye-witness
in question (whether we think of him as the apostle John or as one who
was not an apostle) to have written the Fourth Gospel himself or only
to have given information to the author. In no case can what this
person alone tells us be derived from actual observation of the events;
for, if it were, we should read of it in the Synoptics as well.
It may, nevertheless, have come to the Fourth Evangelist by tradition.
The idea that a tradition must in all circumstances be correct is a
very curious one. He to whom it is delivered may hold it to be correct;
but before it reached him an error may have crept in. In view of what
has been said, only on this presupposition is it worth while to speak
of a tradition known only to the Fourth Evangelist. If we call it a
"Johannine tradition," we must not be understood to mean that it
started from the apostle John, but simply that it came by tradition to
the Fourth Evangelist whom we, depending again upon a tradition, call
John.
__________________________________________________________________
21. AMPLIFICATION OF THE STORY OF LAZARUS ON THE BASIS OF LK.
But instead of instituting general inquiries into such a tradition, we
will at once show by examples how we may very easily think of the
matter. We do not by any means assert that it must really have so
happened; it is quite sufficient if it may have so happened. We will
start again with the most instructive story in the Fourth Gospel, that
of the Raising of Lazarus. His name reminds us of the parable in Lk.
(xvi. 19-31), in which a Lazarus appears by the side of a rich man. At
first sight the two narratives seem to be radically different: in Lk.
we have before us a figure in a parable, in Jn. a real person; in Lk. a
poor and sick man who after his death is compensated for his
sufferings, in Jn. a man for whom neither sufferings nor compensation
come in question. But the two figures have at any rate one point of
contact. The rich man in Lk. (xvi. 27-31) in his torment wishes Abraham
to send Lazarus back to earth to warn the brethren of the rich man.
Abraham answers, "they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear
them." The rich man objects: "Nay, father Abraham, but if one go to
them from the dead, they will repent." Abraham, however, decides that
"if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded if one rise from the dead."
Let us now imagine this parable to have been discussed in a sermon. It
is not difficult to conjecture what may have been said. The brothers of
the rich man who have Moses and the prophets are, of course, the Jews.
The preacher had thus a most excellent opportunity of proving the truth
of Abraham's concluding words, to the effect that even one who had
risen from the dead would not induce them to repent. Jesus had actually
risen, and, notwithstanding, the Jews, with trifling exceptions, had
rejected his preaching, though so many heathen had accepted it. Now if
Lazarus, in answer to the request of the rich man, had been sent back
to earth to preach to his brethren, he would have been made to do in
the parable what, according to the belief of Christians, Jesus in
reality did by his resurrection. If the preacher reckoned on his
hearers possessing some intelligence, he may perhaps, with raised
finger, have continued the parable thus: "as a matter of fact, Lazarus
has risen, and the brethren of the rich man have not listened to him."
Some hearer who had not understood the delicate meaning of this turn it
may even have been a woman hearer--then went home, we may further
imagine, and said: "To-day the preacher said that Lazarus has arisen."
"Really, such a thing I have never heard." "But he said so without a
doubt." "Who awakened him then?" "He did not say that. But who should
have awakened him, if it was not Jesus himself?"
In this way the kernel of the narrative in Jn. was provided: Lazarus
has been awakened by Jesus. And without any idea of deception or
forgery, without even any censurable indulgence in phantasies, but
purely from a very excusable misunderstanding! We need not go on
describing further how one little feature after another may have, now
and again, been added. Let it suffice that this may very well have
happened; and again without any idea of deception, but purely with the
idea that the thing cannot well have happened in any other way. For
instance, what was more natural than that Lazarus, before his death,
should have been ill, and that Jesus should have been informed of this?
If we only imagine a sufficient number of people contributing to the
story, and adding one detail after another, the Fourth Evangelist in
the end need only have dotted the i's, so to say, in order to get the
story in due form into his book.
This consideration is by no means unimportant. It relieves him of the
charge of having himself invented the whole narrative. Certainly we
could not shrink from making this charge, if the attempt we have made
above, to explain the matter differently, might not be considered
successful; for the fact that Lazarus was not awakened, we do not now,
after all that has been said, need to prove. In fact, we should have to
ask ourselves whether this reproach of having invented the whole
narrative would really be a reproach, since quite certainly we could
not reproach the preacher in question with it, if, relying on the
intelligence of his hearers, he carried the parable of Lk. a step
further and said, Lazarus has arisen. But we have preferred our own
theory because it has enabled us to assume that the raising of Lazarus
was "delivered" to the Fourth Evangelist as a real miracle, and because
we can understand better how, at least in many passages of his book, he
could attach so much importance to the fact of this and the other
miracles having really happened (p. 20 f.).
__________________________________________________________________
22. OTHER AMPLIFICATIONS IN JN.
Taking next the narrative of the healing of the man born blind, its
origin could easily be understood on the sup position that some
preacher discussed a story of the healing of another blind man taken
from the Synoptics, and held the Jewish people to be meant by the man.
In that case, it was very natural for him to say that this blind man
was so from his birth. In a quite similar way, indeed, the discourse of
Stephen (Acts vii.) aims at showing that the Jewish people had mistaken
the will of God from the first. Some hearer who was not too attentive
might easily have gathered from the discourse that Jesus had really
healed a man who was blind from birth. In this particular case,
however, we are in a position to say further how some of the details in
the narrative in Jn. may have arisen. In Mk. viii. 22-25 we read that a
blind man was made to see by Jesus, not at once but by degrees. If a
preacher enlarged upon this, he might easily reach the thought: the
spiritually blind only succeed gradually in recognising Jesus, the
person who makes them whole. The thought is in Jn. ix. 17, 31-33, 38
expressed in such a way that the healed man at first regards Jesus only
as a prophet and a devout man sent by God, and only in the end comes to
perceive that he is the Son of man, in other words, the Saviour of the
world. Further, from the same passage in Mk. the point in Jn. ix. 6 is
borrowed, that Jesus' spittle served as the remedy. The only new
features are the way in which this is used, and the washing of the eyes
in the Pool of Shiloah.
For the story of the marriage-feast at Cana also (ii. 1-11) there were
starting-points in the New Testament. In the future kingdom of eternal
happiness people drink wine (Mk. xiv. 25). Figuratively, the new
religion which Jesus introduces has already (in Mk. ii. 22) been
compared with new wine which ought not to be poured into old skins; and
the time during which Jesus is with his friends, whether in the present
or in the future, is here (Mk. ii. 19) and elsewhere (Rev. xix. 7; Jn.
iii. 29) described as a marriage festival. If we may believe that the
Fourth Evangelist built his narrative upon these foundation stones,
some one who was familiar with the figurative style of speech, or a
number of such people, before Jn. may easily have done the same; and in
that case the whole account would have been handed on to Jn. as a real
miracle.
The origin of the story of the healing at the Pool of Bethesda we may
suppose to have been rather different (v. 1-16). Here a preacher may
not have started with some parable which had been handed down as coming
from the mouth of Jesus. But he might certainly have taken the story in
the Old Testament (Deut. ii. 14) as his starting-point, according to
which the people of Israel, in punishment of its disobedience, was
obliged to wander in the wilderness for thirty-eight years. Thus, in a
figurative discourse, having in view all the while the people's whole
history down to his own time, he might have described the nation as a
sick person, who for thirty-eight years had been bed-ridden. Five
porticoes--thus he went on per haps to recall the five books of Moses,
by obedience to which the Jews hoped to be made blessed--had the house
in which he lay, but he did not become well; often as the water was
stirred, which held out to him the hope of a cure, there was never any
one there to help him to step in, until Jesus came and asked him, Wilt
thou be whole?
In this way the explanation may be applied to all the miracle-stories
in Jn. which have not been taken directly from the Synoptics, like the
feeding of the multitudes and the walking on the sea. Of other
narratives, it perhaps suits best that of the washing of the disciples'
feet. According to Lk. xxii. 26 f., immediately after the last occasion
in his life on which he supped with his disciples, Jesus said, "I am in
the midst of you as one that serveth." Now, washing the feet was one of
the duties of the humblest servants. It may perhaps seem to us rather
bold, but it is not unthinkable, that a preacher, wishing to describe
very vividly Jesus condescension in serving his followers, may perhaps
have said: "Jesus ministered to his disciples like the humblest slave;
he compared himself with the servant who washes the feet of the guests
at meal-time." Of course, he meant this only as a figure of speech; but
it is very conceivable that it was understood as a real event which
actually happened on the last evening of Jesus' life.
But enough. We do not press the application of this method of
explanation to other accounts in the Fourth Gospel; for we by no means
wish to derive all accounts not included in the Synoptics from a
"tradition" only known to Jn., but only those in which this can be done
naturally; and so we leave every reader to judge in how many cases the
method is appropriate.
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23. DIVERGENCE AS TO JESUS DEATH.
We must look all the more closely now into the one, but very important,
point in which, with much plausibility, people may find in Jn. a
correct tradition based upon faithful recollection, a tradition by
which the story of the Synoptics is shown to be faulty. It concerns the
day of Jesus' death. According to all four Gospels, Jesus died on a
Friday. This was, according to the Synoptics (Mk. xiv. 12, 14; xv. 1),
the 15th of the month Nisan (corresponding almost to our April), but
according to Jn. (xiii. 1, 29; xviii. 28; xix. 14, 31) the 14th. This
means an extremely serious difference. On the afternoon of the 14th
Nisan the lambs were slain in the fore-court of the Temple at
Jerusalem, and then after sunset, at the meal of the Passover festival
(the place of which is taken by our Easter festival), were eaten. The
15th Nisan was the first of the seven days of the festival, and in
sanctity and the strictness with which all work was refrained from, was
almost equivalent to a Sabbath. It is important to remember that this
is true also of the night between the 14th and the 15th of Nisan,
because amongst the Jews the day began with sunset.
The difference between Jn. and the other Gospels is seen, therefore,
particularly in two points. According to the Synoptics, Jesus
celebrated the Passover meal, together with his disciples, on his last
evening. But not according to Jn.; according to his account, Jesus'
last supper was, rather, on the preceding day, which was not a
feast-day; and when the Jews ate the Paschal lamb twenty-four hours
later, he already lay in the grave. Consequently his arrest,
condemnation, crucifixion, and burial, which according to both accounts
were compressed into less than twenty-four hours (to the next sunset
after his last supper), also followed, according to Jn., on the
working-day before the festival; but according to the Synoptics on the
first feast day which involved strict suspension of all work.
The following table will serve to make this clear. The days of the
month Nisan, placed in the middle, are common to the Synoptics and Jn.
The /- denotes the crucifixion of Jesus.
SYNOPTICS. JOHN.
Wednesday. 13 Thursday.
Thursday. 14
Evening Passover
meal. /-Friday.
Friday./- 15
(1st feast-day). Saturday.
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24. DAY OF JESUS DEATH ACCORDING TO THE SYNOPTICS CONCEIVABLE.
Was Jesus trial possible on the feast-day? It would seem not. And if
Jn. is right, this point is so decisive that we may seek the truth in
this Gospel everywhere else as well. He would, in that case, appear as
the eye-witness whose purpose in his story is tacitly to correct the
Synoptics (see above, pp. 52-57).
But consider what this means. Hitherto, as compared with the Synoptics,
the Fourth Gospel has always proved less correct, and often quite
untrustworthy. Is this discovery to be all at once reversed? May we
believe that the Synoptists have made a mistake like this even on this
one point (the day of Jesus' death)? Can we, if we do so, believe
anything else at all in their books on any one point? What took place
in these last hours of the life of Jesus must have stamped itself
indelibly on the minds of the disciples. How could they have told, or
merely through an obscure recital have suggested to their hearers, that
their Lord was present to partake with them of the Jewish paschal meal,
if this was not the case at all? How can they have wrongly stated, or
only suggested, that he was arrested, condemned, crucified, and buried
on the feast-day, when all this seems to be made impossible by the
sanctity of the day itself? Of course, up to the present it seems an
equally great riddle that Jn. should have been led by some mistake to
relate the contrary. But, in any case, we have the most .pressing
occasion to see exactly whether the statement of the Synoptics is
really unacceptable.
According to Jewish law, as committed to writing in the Mishnah, the
oldest part of the Talmud, about 200 A.D., in order to pass a death
sentence two sittings of the High Council--that is to say, of the
highest judicial court--were necessary, and a night must intervene
between them. Now, since no judicial proceedings might be held on the
Sabbath, a trial which might end in a death-sentence could not commence
on the day before (and therefore also, we may be sure, on the day
before the first day of the Feast of the Passover). On this view of the
matter, the story of the Synoptics seems in all circumstances to be
excluded; for, according to this, the first sitting took place in the
night which to the Jews already formed part of the feast-day, and the
second actually on the morning of this first feast-day (Mk. xiv. 17,
53-64; xv. 1). But--and this is a point which is not usually
noted--even the Johannine account would be impossible. Even if we
assume that a trial of Jesus took place in the palace of Caiaphas
(xviii. 24-28), as it had already done (xviii. 13-23) in the palace of
Annas (Jn. does not tell us at all what happened before Caiaphas), we
must still insist that between the two trials there intervened not a
night, but only a few hours of one and the same night. If in conformity
with the regulations a night was to be allowed to intervene between the
two sittings, the trial, even according to Jn., could not have
commenced; for, according to his account, the 14th of Nisan had already
begun when Jesus was arrested, so that the second trial could not have
fallen before the 15th Nisan, which would mean the great feast-day.
Accordingly, as regards both stories, we cannot avoid devoting space to
the following consideration.
At this time the Jews were no longer allowed to execute a sentence of
death; that could be done only by the Roman governor, and so at that
time by Pontius Pilate, who was present in Jerusalem throughout the
Passover feast with a force of soldiers which had been increased on
account of the immense throng of people. But, this being so, it was of
no importance to the Jews to pass the death-sentence formally, since
they had to ask Pilate to confirm and execute it. They could achieve
their purpose equally well by simply making their charge against Jesus
before Pilate without previously condemning him. The high-priest, who
always presided, required in the first instance, therefore, simply to
declare that no judicial court would be held, but only a charge be
prepared to bring before Pilate; in that case, the law we have
mentioned would have proved no obstacle. We may well believe that the
High Council had shrewdness enough to hit upon this expedient.
Only consider, as regards the whole subject, how urgent the matter was!
If, during the festival, the people were to declare for Jesus,
recognising him as the Messiah, towards which recognition they had a
few days before at Jesus entry into Jerusalem already made a very
suspicious beginning (Mk. xi. 1-11), it would be too late to take
action. The original determination to remove him had been formed even
before the beginning of the festival (Mk. xiv. 1 f.). After the
festival had started and Jesus had been arrested, not another hour was
to be lost. The Christians heard nothing at all of that purely juristic
observation of the high-priest, which we have conjectured; or they paid
no attention to it for they saw in it, unquestionably and quite
correctly, a mere excuse, and they held fast, in a way that we can very
easily understand, to the familiar idea that the High Council was the
highest judicial Court in their nation.
Simon, who was compelled to bear Jesus cross, was coming at the time
"from the country" (Mk. xv. 21). But who can say that he had been
working there? He belonged, in truth, to Cyrene in North Africa, and
therefore clearly was one of the number of pilgrims who had come to
Jerusalem solely in order to keep the feast. At such a feast two
million men may easily have assembled; for we know that about 65 A.D.
256,500 paschal lambs were counted at the slaughter in the fore-court
of the Temple, and no part of their flesh might be left over until the
next morning (Ex. xii. 4, 10). Beyond question very many of those who
had come to the feast must have passed the night outside the city, so
that Simon may very well have returned to it before nine o'clock in the
morning (Mk. xv. 25). The Greek words may mean not only "from the
field," but equally well "from the country."
Similarly, from the fact that the Synoptics call the day of Jesus'
death "the day of preparation" we may not conclude that they support
Jn. when he tells us in his gospel that it was a working-day. "Day of
preparation," that is to say, day for making preparations, was in fact
the name of every Friday, because people prepared for the Sabbath by
doing the works which were forbidden on the Sabbath itself. And this
would be equally appropriate if the Friday were a feast-day; for some
kinds of activity forbidden on the Sabbath were allowed then,
particularly (see Ex. xii. 16) the cooking of foods, which were kept
warm from every Friday evening to be used on the Sabbath when there
could be no fire. Mk. expressly says (Mk. xv. 42) that the day of
preparation was "the day before the Sabbath"; cp. Lk. xxiii. 54; Mt.
xxvii. 62.
Jesus execution would not have been possible on the feast-day if the
Jews themselves had had to carry it out. But as a matter of fact this
was the business of Pilate; and what he did the Jewish authorities
would not of course regard as a violation of the feast-day for which
they could be held responsible. Nor was there any need to fear a rising
among the people in favour of Jesus after Pilate had pronounced his
sentence; it might be taken for granted that he would suppress anything
of the kind with the utmost rigour.
Still less does the burial of Jesus, which according to all four
Gospels (Mk. xv. 42-46; Jn. xix. 38-42) was carried out before sunset
on the very day of Jesus' death, prove that the first feast-day had not
begun before this sunset, as Jn. would have us believe (according to
the Jewish division of the day). All four accounts agree that Jesus
died on a Friday. If then the time of burial had been delayed because
this (according to the Synoptics) was a feast-day, it would have fallen
on a Sabbath, a day on which it must have been still more strictly
excluded. Moreover, the burial on the day of death itself is not merely
a custom (see above, p. 19), but in the case of one who has been
hanged, is expressly commanded in the Law (Deut. xxi. 22 f.).
It was really forbidden in the Law (Exod. xii. 22) to leave the house
in which the Passover meal had been eaten before the next morning. But
this prohibition in view of the multitude of pilgrims, to which we have
referred above, could certainly at this time no longer be obeyed. Even
the custom enjoined in the same verse as well as in verse seven, of
smearing the door-posts with the blood of the paschal lamb, was
dispensed with. It seemed helpful to suppose that the practice had been
ordained solely for the first celebration of the Passover before the
Exodus from Egypt, and not for its later repetition (see v. 12 f.),
though, as a matter of fact, in vv. 24 f. it is ordained "for ever."
Jesus therefore may very well have gone to the Garden of Gethsemane
with his disciples on the night which was included in the feast-day.
So far then we have not discovered a single point in which anything
that the Synoptics tell us would have been really impossible on the
feast-day to which they refer it. The case seems to be different when
we read in Lk. (xxiii. 56) that the women prepared ointments, and in
Mk. (xv. 46) that Joseph of Arimathea bought a linen cloth in which to
wrap the body of Jesus. True, we do not know whether these two things
would be as strictly forbidden on such a feast-day as they were on the
Sabbath. But if they were, the further question must always arise, Were
the Synoptics really guilty of the great mistake of placing Jesus'
death on a wrong day, or only of the small slip of recording on a
side-issue something which the sanctity of the day made impossible?
Would it not be quite excusable if they have pictured to themselves in
a way that is not quite correct a matter which they did not witness
themselves, and if they did so through not having a very accurate
knowledge of Jewish regulations? Moreover, Mk. (xvi. 1), at any rate,
says, in conformity with these, that the women did not buy the
ointments until the Sabbath was over.
Similarly, the Synoptics may have been led astray by a pardonable
error, when they suppose that the band of men sent by the Jewish
authorities to capture Jesus were armed with swords (Mk. xiv. 43, 48).
To carry a sword on the Sabbath, and therefore probably also on the
night which, according to the Synoptics, was part of the feast-day, was
forbidden. But this at any rate is certain, that the use of police on
days when there was an immense throng of people could in no case be
rendered impossible by a command which prohibited the carrying of any
weapon. In the Mishnah, in fact, only the following weapons are for
bidden; cuirasses, helmets, greaves, swords, bows, shields, slings (?),
and spears. We may well believe that the Jews were sharp-witted enough
to hit upon something which could not be included amongst these, and
yet was a weapon all the same. Perhaps the Synoptics give us a real
clue here, when they say that those who were sent by the Jewish
authorities were armed with staves as well as with swords.
There is no reason to doubt that Jesus disciples had swords with them
(Mk. xiv. 47). But they had themselves long given up the habit of
painfully adhering to commands about such things as these. They had, of
course, armed themselves on the preceding working-days, in order to be
prepared against a sudden attack; and certainly on the night when they
were exposed to greatest danger they would not have laid aside their
swords, even though, strictly speaking, they were forbidden to carry
them on the feast-day.
Let us draw the conclusion! Apart from unimportant side-issues, in
which we can easily believe that mistakes may have been made, the
Synoptists tell us nothing that might not have happened on the
feast-day. The account in Jn., according to which the whole thing took
place on a working-day is, it is true, easier to understand, but it
does not by any means provide the only explanation. And it cannot
surely be postulated that an event must have transpired in a way that
can be understood easily. If that were so, how many events would have
to be struck out of the pages of history! It is not necessary to reject
an account, unless it is thoroughly inconceivable. But, as we have
shown, that is by no means the case with that of the Synoptists.
Consequently, we are fully justified in accepting it, seeing that on
other points we have always been able to give more credit to the
Synoptics than to Jn.
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25. THE DAY OF JESUS DEATH ARTIFICIALLY FIXED IN JN.
True, it always remains a riddle how Jn. can have been led to give us
his account, which, in view of what we have said, is necessarily wrong.
But the riddle can be solved, and even Jn. himself expressly indicates
how this may be done. According to xix. 31-36, Pilate, at the
instigation of the Jews, gives command for the thighs of Jesus and of
the two men who were crucified with him to be broken, that their death
might be hastened, and that they might be buried before the sunset with
which in Jn. the feast begins. But the soldiers find Jesus already
dead, and therefore in his case do not carry out the command. Jn. then
tells us that this happened in order that the passage in the Old
Testament might be fulfilled: "a bone of him shall not be broken." Of
whom? The paschal lamb (Ex. xii. 46). Consequently, Jn. regards Jesus
as the true paschal lamb, and thinks that in him what is said of the
paschal lamb in the Old Testament must be fulfilled. Paul had expressed
the thought: "for our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ"
(1 Cor. v. 7); Jn. elaborates it more exactly, and tells of the
sufferings and death of Jesus as they must have happened if they were
in precise agreement with the injunctions about the paschal lamb.
He does this, it should be noted, not merely in the matter we have
mentioned, where he tells us that Jesus bones were not broken, but in
every case where there are injunctions in the Old Testament about the
lamb which might have been fulfilled in Jesus as well. The lamb had to
be slain in the afternoon (Ex. xii. 6; Deut. xvi. 6: towards evening,
but in Jesus time as early as from one or two o'clock). In accordance
with this, Jesus is still standing before Pilate (Jn. xix. 14) at
midday, though, according to the Synoptics (Mk. xv. 25), he was
crucified at nine o'clock in the morning. This, however, makes it the
more difficult to understand why Jn. should represent that Jesus was
already dead towards five o'clock in the afternoon, for we know that,
by no means seldom, crucified men have continued to live on the cross
for several days. Further, the lamb had to be chosen on the 10th of
Nisan (Exod. xii. 3); in harmony with this, the anointing of Jesus in
Bethany, which, according to the Synoptics (Mk. xiv. 8) as well as Jn.
(xii. 7), is of the nature of a consecration for his death, is
represented in Jn. xii. 1 as taking place on the sixth day before the
feast, though Mk. xiv. 1 tells us that it happened on the second day
before it (the first and the last day being included; reckoning
backwards, therefore, from 15th Nisan as the first day of the feast,
this gives us really the 10th Nisan). But, in particular, the day on
which the lamb had to be slain was the 14th Nisan (Ex. xii. 6), and
this now explains the whole dislocation which Jn. has introduced into
the last events of Jesus' life. In the interest of an idea, to Jn. an
idea of some importance, Jesus has been made to carry out to the exact
letter, in his own person, the whole fate of the paschal lamb, in order
to show that all the injunctions concerning it have now been fulfilled
and so abolished for ever, and with them all the commands of the
religion of the Old Testament.
It might be doubted whether that Evangelist whose work Clement of
Alexandria called--and certainly not unjustly--the pneumatic, or the
spiritually-centred, gospel, can have attached such importance to this
verbal fulfilment of the Old Testament. Yet Jn. has expressly drawn
attention to the fact that when Jesus thighs were not broken, an Old
Testament prophecy was fulfilled. And in like manner, it is only he who
gives Jesus cry on the cross, "I thirst" (xix. 28), and adds that it
was made in fulfilment of a passage in the Old Testament (Ps. xxii.
16). It is only he who tells us (xix. 23 f.) that after Jesus
crucifixion his cloak and his tunic were differently disposed of, and
who adds here also that this was done in fulfilment of a passage in the
Bible, the 19th verse of this same 22nd Psalm: "they divided my raiment
among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." The Synoptics
introduce from this Psalm (besides the cry undoubtedly made by Jesus,
"My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?") other matter that might
serve to embellish the story of Jesus passion (Mt. xxvii. 39, 43); but
they have rightly understood verse 19 to imply only one action (Mk. xv.
24). Jn., in understanding it of two actions, shows, on the one hand,
that he has no idea how often, times without number, in the Old
Testament one idea is expressed by two clauses slightly differing from
each other, and, on the other hand, how anxious he is to demonstrate in
the history of Jesus the literal fulfilment of the Old Testament. Much
as he felt himself to be exalted above it, so far as it contains
injunctions as to life, yet in so far as the prophecies are concerned,
he held fast very tenaciously, just as the apostle Paul did, to the
thesis that "the scripture cannot be broken" (x. 35). Jesus says to the
Jews in this Gospel (v. 39), "Ye search the Scriptures because ye think
that in them ye have eternal life" (that is to say, have received
assurance of eternal life), "and these are they which "in reality "bear
witness of me" Compare further the quotations in xiii. 18 (compared
with xvii. 12), xv. 25, xix. 37, xii. 38, and the reference to the
serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness as being a symbol of the
lifting up of Jesus on the cross in iii. 14 f.; also ii. 17, vi. 31,
45, x. 34.
The matter may therefore be summed up as follows. The Synoptics report
that the arrest, condemnation, execution, and burial of Jesus took
place on a day on which all these things would be associated with
difficulties, but would by no means be impossible; and as to how they
could have arrived at this, by mistake or of set purpose, if the day
were really another one, no one has yet been able to offer a suggestion
which is even remotely probable. In the case of Jn., on the other hand,
we can tell point by point how he must have come to fix upon another
day, supposing the Synoptics were right. As soon as we have perceived
this, the question ought to be decided, Are we obliged to believe Jn.
on this one point, even though in everything else we have been able to
put so little faith in him?
But if any one persists in giving the preference to Jn. here, we must
ask him one more question in conclusion; to what are we to trace the
agreement between the last acts in the closing day of Jesus' life and
those associated with the paschal lamb? Is it chance? Chance in no less
than four points? Any one who has not the courage to say this, should
realise that only one supposition remains, and one which has been put
forward only by the very strictest believers: God so arranged the
course of the Passion that everything in it agreed exactly with the
injunctions concerning the paschal lamb, purposing in this way to make
men realise that Jesus died as the true paschal lamb, and thus did away
with the Jewish feast of the Passover and the whole Jewish religion.
This view may be found wholly unacceptable, and yet no defender of the
statement of the days as given in Jn. can refuse to accept it, unless
he is prepared to see here a really very remarkable accident.
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26. THE STORY OF JESUS RESURRECTION.
As to the occurrences after Jesus resurrection, especially as to what
transpired at the empty grave, the Fourth Evangelist tells us so much
that is not found in the other Gospels that it might easily be supposed
we have here the words of an eye-witness. The more so because amongst
these statements we find also one to the effect that the disciple whom
Jesus loved--and whom to all appearance we might sup pose to be the
author of the Gospel--hastened with Peter to the tomb. But if that were
so, the story of Mk. (xvi. 1-8) and of Mt. (xxviii. 1-8) would be quite
inconceivable.
Their chief variation from Jn.--though in this feature Lk. agrees with
him--is found, that is to say, in the statement that the women who find
the tomb of Jesus empty are commissioned by an angel to bid the
disciples go to Galilee, for there they would see their risen Lord.
According to Mt. the latter event afterwards happened, and it must have
been narrated by Mk. as well; but the original conclusion to his Gospel
has been lost, and a much later supplement (xvi. 9-20) substituted for
it. In Lk. and Jn., on the other hand, all the appearances of the risen
Lord take place in or near Jerusalem. And this too seems really to be
the only natural course. All the Gospels agree that Jerusalem was the
place in which Jesus rose, and that the disciples were still staying
there on Easter morning. Why, then, should the disciples be advised to
go to Galilee in order that they might see Jesus?
But for this very reason Mk. and Mt. could never have been led to tell
us of this advice to the disciples to go to Galilee, if they had ever
heard that Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem. In no case,
therefore, can this account in Lk. and Jn. be the original one; for, if
it had been, Mk. and Mt. would unquestionably have heard and accepted
it. On the contrary, they must have known of only one account, to wit,
that the appearances of the risen Lord had taken place in Galilee.
Even in their case, however, it is remarkable enough that an angel
should have to commission the women at the tomb to bid the disciples go
to Galilee; and, as a matter of fact, judged by all that we may suppose
to have happened, this story is not plausible. Only, the truth is not
to be looked for in Lk. and Jn., but in quite a different quarter. In
Mk. (xiv. 50) and Mt., that is to say, we read that when Jesus was
arrested all the disciples forsook him and fled. Whither? Hardly to
Jerusalem; for there what happened to Peter might only too easily
happen to them: they might be identified as followers of Jesus. Mk.
(xiv. 27 f.) and Mt., however, give us a further clue. When, shortly
before his arrest, Jesus prophesied to the disciples that they would
all forsake him, he added, "Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go
before you into Galilee." The idea that he would reach Galilee before
them agrees with the account of the angel's advice to the women; but it
is really too obvious to see in this statement merely a veiled
indication that the disciples made their escape to their native place,
Galilee, and that Jesus appeared to them there, simply because they
took up their abode there from the day of his resurrection or a little
later (the distance is two or three days journey). Peter, too, after
his denial of Jesus, would certainly have followed the rest.
The mistake in Mk. and Mt., therefore, is not that they assume the
appearances of the risen Lord to have taken place in Galilee, but that
they suppose the disciples to have been still in Jerusalem on Easter
morning. But it was this very mistake that must have suggested to Lk.
and Jn. the necessity of making a change. If the disciples were still
in Jerusalem after Jesus resurrection, these two Evangelists could not
but suppose that here also Jesus must have appeared to them. But what
to their mind, of course, was the correction of an error, in reality
simply added to the -first mistake a second which was much greater.
If, however, in view of this, Jn. does not by any means give us the
truth on the main point, it is clear that in the details also we cannot
expect to find it. For instance, in the story of Thomas, which is so
beautiful in itself, but of which the Synoptics know nothing, and the
scene of which, moreover, is likewise Jerusalem. In the case of the
story of Mary Magdalene, attractive and affecting though it is to
persons of delicate feeling, we can detect from a particular expression
that it is not original, but a reconstruction of a story told in the
Synoptics. In Jn. Mary Magdalene came to the sepulchre alone, and yet
she says (xx. 2), "we know not where they have laid him." The plural
here is only appropriate if there were several women, as in the
Synoptics. In xx. 13, the mistake is avoided; Mary Magdalene says here:
"I know not where they have laid him."
And, lastly, the race of Peter and the beloved disciple to the
sepulchre! This cannot have happened if the disciples were no longer in
Jerusalem. But even if they were still there, we must still insist that
the Synoptists never had any knowledge of this race; for, had they had
any, who could believe that they would have been silent about it?
Moreover, we can see here quite clearly step by step how the statements
of the Evangelists developed. Although Mk. and Mt. presuppose that the
disciples were still present in Jerusalem, they are quite unaware that
any of them has visited the sepulchre (and this will be an echo of the
truth that they were no longer in Jerusalem). Lk. already knows
something about it, but only in the quite indefinite form (xxiv. 24):
"and certain of them that were with us went to the tomb, and found it
even so as the women had said, but him they saw not." [6] Jn. already
knows the names of the disciples and all the details of their visit to
the grave.
And how are these details told? The beloved disciple ran faster than
Peter, came first to the grave, and saw the linen cloths lying in it,
but did not go in. Peter went in and saw, in addition to the linen
cloths, the napkin as well. Afterwards the beloved disciple went in
too, saw and believed, that is to say, gained the faith that Jesus had
risen. Thus, alternately the one gets an advantage over the other; but,
first and last, the beloved disciple appears as the greater.
__________________________________________________________________
[6] Lk. xxiv. 12, according to which Peter ran to the tomb, saw the
linen cloths lying, and departed to his home, wondering, certainly did
not originally find a place in the Third Gospel but was only added to
it subsequently as an abstract from the Fourth. Only, in Lk. the
beloved disciple was ignored, because he was not known at all to the
readers of the Third Gospel.
__________________________________________________________________
27. INTRODUCTION OF CONDITIONS OF A LATER PERIOD.
In proportion as it becomes less likely that this could have happened
at the tomb of Jesus, the question becomes more pressing, Did it not
happen in the later careers of the two disciples? We are reluctant to
believe it, and yet it can hardly be otherwise: expression is here
given to that later struggle for precedence between the two apostles.
Peter excelled the beloved disciple by being bolder and observing more
closely the details--of, we may now perhaps say without further ado,
the life of Jesus; but in faith, that is to say, in the deeper
understanding, the beloved disciple had the advantage.
If any one should still have any scruples about seeing here so bold an
introduction of the conditions of a later period into the story of
Jesus' life, he will dismiss them, we should think, when he takes into
consideration another passage of a similar kind. We refer to the words
spoken by Jesus, iv. 35-38, on an occasion when there seemed to be a
possibility of winning over the men belonging to the city of the woman
of Samaria. The idea with which the author starts, that the fields
(that is to say, the field of his operations among the Samaritans) are
white already unto harvest, seems appropriate to the situation. But not
a single word in the concluding sentence (iv. 38) is suitable. It is
not true that, before the disciples, others laboured to win the
Samaritans, or that the disciples themselves did so (cp. p. 13)--to say
nothing of the idea that they afterwards entered into the labour of
their predecessors. On the other hand, all these sentences are seen at
once to be true, if we suppose that Jesus is here speaking of the
Christian Mission, and in the way in which some one who was looking
back upon the progress of this work during a number of decades would be
obliged to speak of it. Then, and then only, is it appropriate to say
that the one set of missionaries took the place of the other, and that
the later only reaped what the earlier had sown (iv. 37 f.). Here then
we can note clearly the careless way in which the author makes Jesus
express views which could not have been formed until the much later
period in which the author himself lived. But at the same time we can
see further that such views do not apply to the Samaritans alone, nor
even to them in a special sense, but to all the Gentiles. The author
regards the Samaritans--who, as a matter of fact, were not recognised
as fellow-countrymen by the Jews (iv. 9; Lk. xvii. 18)--simply as
representatives of the whole Gentile world; it is in this that he finds
the fields white already unto harvest.
Again, the strange metaphor by which Jesus represents himself as the
door through which a rightful shepherd comes to his sheep (p. 36) can
be understood if we seek the explanation in the circumstances of a
later period. And we can easily do this if we follow the clue provided
in 1 Jn. iv. 1-3. The shepherds and the robbers contrasted with them,
stand for two classes of Christian teacher; the former acknowledge the
true faith in Christ, the latter disavow it. Strictly speaking, then,
not Jesus himself, but faith in him is the door by which a true teacher
seeks admission to the members of the Christian communities, as
compared with false teachers who seek to force an entrance into the
communities without any such passport, and so in an unlawful way, and
try to capture the leadership of them. In the lifetime of Jesus of
course these two classes of teacher were not in existence; they did not
arise until a much later period. In x. 8, it is true, Jesus says that
all teachers who came forward before him were thieves and robbers; but
this is an entirely new thought, and the interpretation of the
adjoining verses (x. 1-7, 9, 10a) cannot be made to depend upon it. In
these verses teachers who came forward before Jesus cannot be meant,
simply because they could never have been in a position to use him as a
door.
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28. PRECISE STATEMENTS OF TIME IN JN.
The last thing which is made to tell in favour of the accuracy and
fidelity of the Fourth Gospel consists of a number of passages in which
the day, and even the hour, in which something happened is stated much
more carefully than in the Synoptics. Thus i. 29, 35, 43; vi. 22; xii.
12 commence "on the following day"; ii. 1 "on the third day"; in i. 39
it is four o'clock in the afternoon when the two first disciples,
Andrew and one who is unnamed, join Jesus; in iv. 6 it is twelve
o'clock midday, when Jesus sits by Jacob's well in Samaria. The
inhabitants of the town of Sychar having invited him to stay with them,
he remains two days (iv. 40, 43).
If these passages were shown to any one before he knew the rest of the
contents of the Fourth Gospel, he would certainly form the opinion that
the author must have been a companion of Jesus and deserves to be
absolutely trusted even down to the smallest details. But after what
has been said in the preceding paragraphs, it is no longer possible to
think this. We have actually found that after Jn. has made a statement
which is equally precise in form, namely, that Jesus baptised (iii. 22,
26), a few verses later (iv. 2) he himself withdraws it (p. 55 f.). And
what is it that happens on each occasion "on the following day"? In i.
29, 35 f. the Baptist is said to have declared Jesus to be the Lamb of
God which will take away the sins of the world; in i. 35-42 Andrew and
an unnamed disciple are said to have been the first to become disciples
of Jesus, and after them Simon, Andrew's brother, and he is said to
have received from Jesus at once, without having given any further
proof of his fidelity, the name of honour, Peter, that is to say,
"rock." All this is diametrically opposed to the account of the
Synoptics (p. 79 f.; Mk. i. 16-20), and has no likelihood in itself; in
fact, if the Baptist had already called Jesus the Lamb of God, and
Andrew (i. 41) had described him as the Saviour, it is quite impossible
that Jesus should not have been recognised to be the Saviour until a
relatively late date (see p. 33). But what is the use of the precise
statement, that a matter happened "on the following day," if it cannot
have happened at all?
The only further question that we can ask is, how can Jn. have come to
make such precise statements of time? And to this no other answer is
possible but that he wished by this device to indicate more clearly the
progress made in his story, or intended the words to introduce another
important suggestion. When in chap. i. he has arrived at a new stage in
the increase in the number of Jesus' disciples, he says that a new day
is beginning. We cannot really be surprised at this in a man who is so
little concerned about literal accuracy. It helps to make his story
decidedly more vivid and impressive; and it is actually his purpose to
paint pictures which will make an impression (see pp. 55 f. and 96 f.).
The question whether the statements about Jesus journeys to the feasts
(p. 9 f.) have arisen in the same way, or were actually "delivered" to
Jn., we must leave undecided.
The hours of the day in i. 39, iv. 6, which we mentioned above, may
perhaps have a hidden meaning. If we cannot define it, it does not in
the least follow that we have before us the account of an eye-witness.
We have quite clearly a hidden meaning of the kind in vi. 4, when we
are told that at the time of the feeding of the five thousand "the
feast of the Passover was near." The discourses which follow are an
explanation of the Supper (see p. 98). No one, however, could have
known this, since the Supper does not take place in Jn., and in the
Synoptics not until a year later. It must, therefore, have been hinted
at in a hidden, though intelligible, way. With this, however, agrees
the statement, that the Passover was near; for it was at a Passover
festival that Jesus celebrated the Supper with his disciples. If this
be correct, there would no longer be any occasion to consider seriously
the idea that Jesus' ministry lasted for two years; for this is based
entirely upon the statement about this feast of the Passover (p. 9 f
.). But the idea also that it began shortly before a (preceding) feast
of the Passover is simply founded on the fact that the expulsion of the
dealers from the fore-court of the Temple, which Jn . transfers from
the end to the beginning of the public work of Jesus, according to the
account of the Synoptics happened at a Passover feast. The short space
of two days, for which, according to iv. 40, 43, Jesus accepted the
invitation to stay in the Samaritan town agrees with the time beyond
which in the second century a travelling preacher was not allowed to
stay as a guest and receive board.
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CONCLUSION.
But enough. A book in which Jesus gives the explanation of the Supper a
year before its celebration; in which 500, if not 1000, soldiers, when
he whom they are sent to take prisoner says "I am he," recoil and fall
to the ground (xviii. 3-6); in which one hundred pounds of spices are
used to embalm his body (xix. 39), ought, at the outset, to be safe
from the misunderstanding that it recounts real events. These three
points are enough to show that it is dominated by complete indifference
as to the faithfulness of a record; that importance is attached only to
giving as impressive a representation as possible of certain ideas; and
that the whole is sustained by a reverence of Jesus which has lost
every standard for measuring what can really happen.
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CHAPTER IV
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL AND THEIR ORIGINS.
FROM all that we have said so far, it may have become more and more
obvious, that what is decisive, in the thought and in the presentation
of the Fourth Evangelist, is the conception of Jesus which exists in
his own mind. This idea we must now follow up more closely if we are to
advance from a mere comparison of Jn.'s picture of Jesus' life with
that of the Synoptics, and from the conclusion that it deserves less
belief, to the most underlying reasons why he has left us so incorrect
a description of Jesus' life.
For this purpose, in the first place we shall deal with a section of
his book about which we have not yet spoken because the Synoptics do
not contain one like it, we mean the prologue, i. 1-18. Something to
which hitherto our attention has only been directed occasionally--the
fact that Jesus before his earthly life lived a life with God in
heaven--is here, at the very outset and with the greatest emphasis,
placed at the head of everything, and is even surpassed by the
explanation, "he was the word" (in Greek "the logos").
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1. REVELATION THROUGH "THE WORD" (THE LOGOS).
This remarkable expression has had a history of its own, and would in
itself have quite justified the publishers of the
Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbuecher in allowing the Fourth Gospel a
separate treatment. In all religions, it has been found again and again
that the deity, if men are to learn to know its will and to aim at
following it, must reveal itself. This it does, according to the belief
of different peoples, in very different ways. But when it does so, for
example, by natural events, by serious misfortunes, men do not know at
first what they on their part ought to do in order to remove its anger.
Special means are needed to find this out. Wise men must explain the
will of God, whether they read it in the stars or in the flight of
birds or in the entrails of sacrificial animals, or in whatever it may
be. The prospect of doing this is far more auspicious, if there are
prophets with whom God--as they themselves are convinced--really speaks
in their inner man, in such a way that they can directly reproduce
God's very words. It is not without reason, for example, that Muhammed
in the Koran again and again emphasises the fact that he has proclaimed
to his people "in clear Arabic" the will of God. But in the Old
Testament, in which we have such abundant information about the
prophets, there are "false" prophets besides the "true"; yet these
quite certainly considered themselves to be the true, and the
distinction between the two classes was of such real difficulty, that
rules are given about it in the Bible itself which are quite
impracticable and even contradictory (Deut. xviii. 20-22; xiii. 2-6).
Clearly then the most helpful thing that could happen would be for a
divine being, who could not make mistakes, to appear himself upon earth
in order to speak immediately with men. Such a being would really
deserve to be called the incarnate "word of God."
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2. THE LOGOS AS REASON.
The Greek expression for "word" (logos), however, means at the same
time "reason." This brings us to a second origin of this name for
Jesus, and one which lies not so much in religion as in the
contemplation of the Greek philosophers about the world as a whole. If
we recognise in this world one order, it is natural to say that this
world, as well as each individual man, possesses a "reason." The logos
is then the reasonable order which rules in the world, and so we are
able to express ourselves, even if we cannot believe that the world is
ruled by a deity who possesses a consciousness of himself.
In this sense Heraclitus (about 500-450 B.C.) introduced the term
"logos" into Greek philosophy. Plato (427-347), without using this
term, assumed a world of ideas in which the highest, the idea of the
Good, represents the deity. These ideas he regards as the original
patterns of which all particular things in the material world are only
copies. The Stoics (from 300 B.C.) adopted the word logos and the idea
of Heraclitus, that the logos is the reasonable order that rules in the
world. On this view, therefore, particular things are adapted to the
logos, just as, on Plato's view, they are to the ideas. In
correspondence with the plurality of ideas in Plato, the Stoics divided
the one logos into a plurality, which is called in Greek logoi. To the
statement that these logoi are the originals or patterns of the things
in the world, they added a second statement, that they are the powers
by which the things of the world are established. So they compare the
logoi with seeds of corn which have been scattered everywhere in the
world and which have produced out of themselves the particular things.
Thus it happens, on their view, that the deity which they see in the
one logos, the world-reason, through its particular logoi creates all
that is, in conformity with that original which it actually represents
itself.
We find the doctrine of the logos fully developed in the Jewish thinker
Philo, who was twenty to thirty years older than Jesus. In his native
city, Alexandria, in Egypt, he had the best opportunity of imbibing
Greek philosophy, and of combining it with the ideas which he himself
cherished as a Jew. Consequently, the logos is the pattern and producer
of things, as we found it on Greek soil; but it cannot be the deity
himself (that would conflict with Philo's Jewish faith); it is simply a
second divine being, who is subordinate to the God of the Old
Testament.
In the Old Testament itself we also find the beginnings of a
disposition to distinguish between God himself and a second divine
being of this kind. In particular, the Wisdom of God is often
represented as assisting God at the creation of the world; it then
works in his sight for his delight (Job xxviii. 12-28; Proverbs viii.
22-31; Ecclus. i. 1-10; xxiv. 1-12; Wisdom of Solomon vii. 22-30). This
is, of course, only a figurative way of saying that God at the creation
of the world made use of his wisdom; but the form of the world, which
he conceived in this wisdom of his, before he made the real to arise in
conformity with the ideal, may, with a little imagination, be regarded
as the original of the world as it existed in the abstract, or as a
kind of model of it. And we get some thing very like the expression
"logos," when it is said that God created the world by his word (Psalm
xxxiii. 6), because in Gen. i. 3 it is said, "God spake . . . and it
was so." In the Hebrew Old Testament as translated into the Aramaic
language current at the time of the Fourth Evangelist, and as recited
in the Synagogue every Sabbath, in place of the name God, which the
people had to avoid pronouncing, the expression "the word of God" was
often put, even where, strictly speaking, it was not suitable.
All this, and presumably in addition, legends about the gods, who,
according to the religions of Egypt, Babylonia, or Greece, as the
agents of a still higher Deity shaped the world and filled it with
divine effects, Philo sums up, by representing that the Logos in itself
was, on the one hand, only a faculty of God, by which he conceived the
organisation of the world, and, on the other hand, a being who has come
forth from God and brought God's influence into the world. In the
second sense, we can call it a person, but in the former not; and the
important point is that in Philo the Logos must always be a person and
at the same time not a person. Were it only the one or only the other,
some necessary aspect which it has would be neglected. Philo gives the
Logos designations which only seem applicable to a person; for example,
the first-born son of God, the high-priest, the mediator, the sinless
one. We must not lose sight of the fact, however, that it always
remains the power of mind in God.
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3. JESUS AS LOGOS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT EPISTLES.
The idea has played a further part in the history of religion in the
New Testament itself. The Fourth Evangelist, that is to say, is by no
means the first New Testament writer to represent Jesus as the Logos;
others did the same before him. Even Paul presupposes that, before
Jesus appeared on earth, he lived a life with God in heaven (Gal iv. 4;
Rom. x. 6). In doing so, he thinks of him, in spite of all his heavenly
perfection, as a man in whose image earthly beings, especially men,
were first created (1 Cor. xv. 45-49; xi. 8). In fact, according to one
passage (1 Cor. viii. 6), he himself helped to carry out the creation
of the world. In any case, he arose in quite a different way from human
beings, and for this reason he is called God's own son (Rom. viii. 32).
We can see how much there is here in agreement with Philo, whose
writings or ideas Paul may have known very well. However, it is
noteworthy that Paul was not so much concerned, as Philo was, to
explain the origin of the whole world; had he been, he would have
described Jesus as the prototype of the whole world and not merely of
human beings.
The Epistle to the Hebrews, whose author unquestionably knew Philo's
writings, takes us a step further. To him Christ, before he descended
upon earth, is no longer a man in heaven, but is a reflexion of the
majesty and imprint of the nature of God, just as in a seal the imprint
entirely resembles the stamp; he has not only created the world, but he
also continually sustains it; that is to say, keeps it in existence (i.
2 f. 10). The manner in which he proceeded from God is expressly
described as a "being begotten" (i. 5), and he is accordingly called
simply "Son of God," without further addition, and so with the
implication that there is only one such (i. 1 f. 5; not so, however, in
i. 6 "the first-born"). It is all the more note worthy that Jesus "in
the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong
crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and
. . . though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he
suffered" (v. 7 f.), and that he "in all points like as we," men, "was
tempted, yet without sin" (iv. 15), This true recollection of real
events in the life of Jesus can only be reconciled with the description
of his God-like elevation before his earthly existence by supposing, as
Paul does in 2 Cor. viii. 9 and Phil. ii. 6 f., that when he descended
upon earth he emptied himself of his heavenly powers, and assumed the
form of a man, even of a servant.
The Epistle to the Colossians (the most important sections of which
cannot have been written by Paul himself) adds to the two statements,
that through Christ the world was made and is maintained in existence,
a third to the effect that it was created for him, so that he is thus
its goal (i. 15-17). Moreover, it calls him the image of the invisible
God, and in doing so, explains even more clearly than the Epistle to
the Hebrews why God needed such an image. But, above all, in the
Epistle to the Colossians we find the idea of the humiliation of Jesus
on earth inter changed with its opposite. It is said in ii. 9, "in him
dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily"; and this is true, not merely
from the time of Jesus resurrection, but even during his heavenly life
before his earthly existence, and then even during his earthly life
itself. We read for instance in i. 19 f., God "was pleased that in him
should all the fulness dwell, and wished" (afterwards) "through him to
reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood
of his cross, &c." If the author had thought as Paul did, he would not,
directly before the mention of Jesus' sacrificial death, have
emphasised the fact that God endowed Jesus with all the fulness of the
God head. The whole of the Gospel of Jn. is an amplification of this
briefly suggested thought, that in Jesus all the fulness of the Godhead
dwelt on earth, as in heaven.
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4. MINGLING OF RELIGIONS AT THE TIME OF JN.
Before, however, we can show this, it remains necessary to review
another part of the history of religion; that is to say, the mingling
of the religions of the Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Syrians,
people of Asia Minor and Greeks, in the last centuries before Christ.
Amongst nearly all these peoples there were legends of gods, goddesses
or sons of gods, who came down from heaven to earth to contend with
hostile beings. One such foe is the great serpent of the Babylonian
religion. It represents darkness, and the floods which in that country
made the winter such a joyless season. It is conquered by the sun of
spring, which is of course thought of as a god. In other religions the
struggle associated with the change in the year's seasons was
differently represented, but in such a way that the identity of the
thing could not be mistaken.
Another purpose for which the gods had to descend from heaven is found
in the belief that the soul of man is from heaven and yearns after its
home, but cannot find the way, unless a being descends from above and
releases it from the prison in which it is held captive. This idea also
had received, in different religions, different, but not altogether
dissimilar, expression.
But even that the world might be created or organised, subordinate
divine beings had to help as soon as a religion was dominated by the
belief that the highest God, if He was to continue to be perfectly pure
and divine, could have nothing to do with the world.
But, further, it must be possible to say, as regards these divine
beings, how they arose; and their origin, as can be easily understood,
was represented in such a way that one always proceeded from the other
or was born from two others, thought of as male and female. Here we
have reason enough for the existence of a number of divine figures in
every religion, whose derivation from one another, whose rank,
friendship and enmity amongst one another, whose activity in favour or
to the detriment of men, it was a somewhat intricate problem to solve.
When, especially from the end of the fourth century, Alexander the
Great's expeditions brought all the well-known peoples, and many more
which were less important, into frequent contact, there was an
interchange of ideas, even as regards their gods. The agreement between
so many divine forms in the different religions was recognised, and the
manner in which such and such a god was worshipped in one country was
transferred to the related god in another, so long as people believed
that, by doing so, they could better assure themselves of his help. In
brief, a complete mingling started, which made this whole world of
deities not only an intricate, but even a confused, puzzle.
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5. GNOSTICISM.
Gnosticism drew upon this mingling of religions. This was a very
important movement, but is so difficult to present in detail that we
must be content to give only the most noteworthy outlines. Gnosis means
"knowledge"; and this is in fact the first and most important point,
that one must have a great fund of knowledge to be able to know all
these doctrines about the different divine beings, and at the same time
a great deal of penetration rightly to apprehend the deep thoughts
which were hidden under such wonderful clothing. These Gnostics, or
Knowers, were at the same time men who thought deeply about the origin
of the world; and their ideas were again taken up by several of the
most prominent philosophers of the nineteenth century.
One idea which continually recurs in their systems is that a deep
division runs through the world. God is by nature good, pure,
unspotted; the matter of which the world consists is also by nature
evil, impure, tainted. God cannot therefore come into contact with this
matter; and it would have remained for ever unorganised and devoid of
any divine influence, if subordinate divine beings had not imparted
this to it and converted it into an organised world. They do it,
however, in a very imperfect way; for their own knowledge is quite
limited. This is why the world is so faulty.
The soul and the body of men are by nature just as much strangers to
one another as are God and the world. The soul comes from heaven,
whether it be supposed that the creator of the world, that is to say,
one of those divine, but subordinate, beings, created it, or that it
represents a spark which emanated from the highest God Himself and
descended into the gloomy kingdom of the world. The body, however, is a
part of that matter of which the world consists, and therefore shares
all its evil characteristics. Through the senses, and the spell which
they exercise, it drags down the soul into the domain of the vile and
common, and estranges it from its divine destiny. It is its prison, and
the soul cannot escape from it, partly for the very good reason that it
is no longer conscious of its divine origin. If, therefore, it is to be
redeemed, some one must come who will first make it realise that it has
come from God. But this can only be a being who has himself come from
God, and possesses the knowledge of the divine in full measure--in
other words, a god.
All Gnostics who confessed themselves Christians have found this being
in Christ as he appeared upon earth. But the division which exists
between the soul and the body of every man, of course affects him also,
and even in a much stronger degree. A being so high and divine cannot
really have a body which consists of earthly matter. Consequently, the
Gnostics could only explain in one of two ways. Either the Christ who
came down from heaven was only in an external way united to an ordinary
man Jesus, who was born of Joseph and Mary, but was righteous in a
peculiar degree: that is to say, he came down upon him at the baptism
in the Jordan, but left him again before he suffered death, so that the
person who underwent suffering was only the man Jesus. Or the heavenly
Christ, during the whole of his sojourn upon earth, possessed himself
of a phantom body, so that all his human acts, such as eating,
sleeping, suffering, &c., were nothing more than appearance.
From what we have said, it will be clear that the chief task of this
redeemer was to make the soul of man realise that it is of divine
origin. But many souls are not able to apprehend this truth; and so the
same disastrous division again makes itself felt, and separates men
into two classes. In the nature of the case, it is very conceivable
that the great sum of knowledge and the great depth of thought
appertaining to Gnosis, could not be within the reach of many simple
people. But the Gnostics assumed that the question who can attain to it
has been decided long before one comes to know it; from eternity there
are some, namely the Gnostics themselves, endowed with the capacity to
appropriate it as soon as it is imparted to them, whereas to others
this faculty is denied from eternity, and therefore they could never be
happy.
From the time when the soul of the Gnostic comes to know its divine
origin it is, strictly speaking, released from its fetters. A new life
begins for it, and from this point it is already sure of returning to
heaven as soon as death emancipates it from the body. For this reason,
in 2 Tim. ii. 18, and of course in a tone of reproach, the doc trine of
the Gnostics is represented thus: "the resurrection is come already."
And it is a resurrection only of the soul. The body can in no way share
in the eternal happiness; it abides for ever in death. The Gnostics are
equally firm in rejecting the idea that the Christ, who has risen and
been exalted to heaven, will return to earth again, when the dead will
be awakened and their works judged. Every soul at the moment of death
of itself reaches its final state of happiness.
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6. THE PROLOGUE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
We may now turn to the opening words of the Gospel of Jn. They read:
"In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the
Logos was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were
made by him; and without him was not anything made that hath been
made." None of these statements is now new to us. Only, we must guard
against misunderstanding the third, as if it meant: God himself was the
same being as the Logos--which in fact would not agree with what has
already been mentioned. It would be equally wrong to make the statement
mean the contrary: the Logos was a god. The sense is rather: the Logos
was of divine nature (just as in iv. 24 the words "God is spirit" mean:
God is of a spiritual nature, has a spiritual nature). This is really
what we should expect: the Logos is not God Himself, but of like
nature. Similarly, we may expect that he was from the beginning, and so
existed before the creation of the world, and with God, and that by him
the whole world was made. What Paul, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and
the Epistle to the Colossians have said with increasing precision, only
without using the word Logos, is here expressed by the Fourth
Evangelist quite in the language of Philo.
It should therefore never have been doubted that Jn. borrowed the word
Logos and the ideas associated with it from Philo. And if we were
inclined to take offence that such an important idea should have come
to the Biblical author from an extra-Biblical writer--though in truth
there is nothing objectionable in it--yet we can console ourselves with
the thought that Jn. has shown great independence. He continues in
verse 14, "and the Logos became flesh, and dwelt among us." The idea
that the Logos could become flesh would have been to Philo something
impossible. We see then that Jn. gives the idea an entirely new turn.
Only, it would be a misunderstanding to interpret it: the Logos was
transformed into flesh. The sentence is certainly opposed to the idea
of the Gnostics, according to which the Christ who had come down from
heaven was not a real man. But Jn., nevertheless, agrees with them
inasmuch as he thinks the transformation of a divine being into a
fleshly being cannot be imagined. A more guarded statement therefore
would be: he became man, or as we read in 1 Jn. iv. 2 and 2 Jn. 7, he
came in the flesh that is to say, not "he came into flesh," but "he
came, clothed with flesh; he came forward with a body consisting of
flesh." It is possible that, as against the Gnostics, the expression
"he became flesh" was a more sharp than useful definition from the
point of view of clearness.
In other places also it is clear that Jn. does not on all points reject
the ideas of the Gnostics. Certainly he will not hear of their many
divine beings, but knows of the one true God and of Jesus Christ whom
he has sent (xvii. 3). But this Christ is to him, as to the Gnostics, a
necessary mediator between God and the world, and in his view, exactly
as in theirs, he must for a definite time appear upon earth. These last
ideas are, it is true, shared also by Paul, the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and the Epistle to the Colossians; the first especially by the Epistle
to the Colossians, in which God, just as in Jn. i. 18, vi. 46, is an
invisible God and Christ his image (Col. i. 15). But what Jn. has in
common with the Gnostics alone is the idea that it was Christ's most
important work to communicate a certain kind of knowledge to men.
At the end of i. 14: "and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth," we have, further,
the most peculiar term which Jn. applies to Jesus to describe precisely
the sense in which he is the Son of God. The Greek word monogenes means
the only son w r ho was begotten by his father, and that, in ordinary
human relations, means of course the single son produced by a father.
This being so, a satisfactory translation would be: "the only son."
Since, however, in Jn.'s Gospel, by the side of Jesus as the Son of
God, there appear very many children of God among men, the second part
of the expression also acquires a special sense: Jesus is the only son
of God who was begotten by Him; all others have been produced by Him in
another way.
Thus we must understand the idea of the author--even though just before
he has spoken of men who are able to be come children of God, and has
used a related Greek expression to the effect that they were begotten
from God. Those are meant of whom the Gnostics say they are able to
apprehend the idea of their heavenly origin because they come from God.
But that Jn. thought of Christ as having arisen in another way, having
been begotten in a more peculiar sense, is seen already in the
persistence with which he applies the name "son" solely to him, and
always calls all others the children of God (see p. 64).
But at the same time he has perhaps chosen the name monogenes, because
several Gnostics, in their long list of divine beings, used it of a
being different from the Logos, that is to say, of an older being and
one standing in a closer relationship to God. Of him Jn. will not hear.
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7. JESUS AS LOGOS THROUGHOUT THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
But the most important feature in this expression, "we saw his
majesty," &c. (i. 14) is this, that the whole Gospel is nothing but an
amplification of it, This explains the continual insistence on the
omnipotence and omniscience of Jesus, the omission of the baptism, the
temptation, the anguish in Gethsemane; it explains the prayer at the
grave of Lazarus, which was only for the sake of the people, the saying
on the cross "I thirst," which was only in fulfilment of a passage in
the Bible, Jesus inviolability when attempts were made to capture or to
stone him, the falling down of the Roman battalion when he said "I am
he" whom ye seek, his continual reference to his own person and to his
life with God before his descent upon earth, his ambiguous style of
speaking without considering whether his hearers could follow him, his
continual demand that they must believe in him, his continual assurance
that only faith in him could give eternal life; his unvarying
uniformity from beginning to end, his opposition to "the Jews" without
distinction, his superiority to "the law of the Jews" and "the feasts
of the Jews," and the colourlessness of the figure of the Baptist, who
is only permitted to point to Jesus. This explains, in particular,
certain utterances of Jesus which we have not yet mentioned: "And now
(that is to say, now that I am taking farewell of the earth), Father,
glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with
thee before the world was" (xvii. 5), "before Abraham was, I am" (viii.
58). The "I am" seems really to be senseless. But, as a matter of fact,
there is a purpose in it, and it alone gives the sentence its real
force. Strictly speaking, two sentences have been compressed into one:
"before Abraham was, I was" and "I am eternal and, being such, have no
change." Next and last, iii. 13, "No man hath ascended into heaven" in
order to bring information, "but he only" can bring it "who descended
out of heaven, the Son of man, which is in heaven," that is to say "who
is simultaneously in heaven continually," not "who was in heaven." The
four last words are omitted in important manuscripts, but only, we may
be sure, because the copyists thought they went too far. They very
appropriately reflect Jn.'s idea about Jesus, and were therefore
certainly written by him. Finally, the positive summing-up of Jn.'s
view is expressed by Thomas in the last words addressed to Jesus in the
Fourth Gospel (xx. 28), "My Lord and my God." In the rest of the New
Testament Jesus is called "God" only in Heb. i. 8 f. (Tit. ii. 13?); in
1 Tim. iii. 16; Rom. ix. 5, he is only so called through a wrong
reading or faulty punctuation.
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8. SUPPRESSION OF HUMAN TRAITS IN JESUS.
From tins can now be gathered how greatly Jn.'s style of thinking is
misunderstood when an attempt is made to find traits of a real humanity
in the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel. Those who do this, for instance, in
the case of the raising of Lazarus, or those even who are only
disturbed by the thought that no such traits can really be found, have
quite misunderstood the peculiar character of this book. Humanly
speaking, Jesus must have been so cruel as to keep away from Bethany
for two more days, because otherwise the miracle which he proposed to
do would not have been so great as if it did not happen until the
fourth day after Lazarus' death. We ought not. however, to apply this
human point of view; if we are to do the Evangelist justice, we ought,
just as he does, to identify our selves to such an extent with this Son
of God who has come from heaven, as to approve entirely of his
demonstrating his exaltation, his dignity, and his omnipotence in the
strongest possible way. So long as it is what is truly human in Jesus
that attracts us, we are totally unfit to enter into the ideas of the
Evangelist, for he is attracted only by what is divine.
This is, in fact, so much the case that the human in Jesus is more
sternly set aside than the Evangelist himself desires. He would like
certainly to oppose the Gnostics, amongst whom the heavenly Christ was
united with the man Jesus only superficially and for a limited period,
or only had a phantom body to deceive the eyes of men. To meet this
latter idea, he insists that there flowed from the wound, which was
made by the spear-thrust in the crucified Lord, blood and water (xix.
34); and perhaps he has the same thing in mind when he says that Jesus
sat down tired by Jacob's well (iv. 6), and so forth. In this Gospel
again Jesus speaks of having always observed the commands of God (xv.
10) and of being studious to do not his own will, but the will of God
(v. 30). But how does all this help us? This kind of obedience can
hardly be said to have the same value as the obedience of a man to God,
for Jesus simply could not act otherwise; he himself speaks of doing
the will of God as being his food (iv. 34). He can even say "I and the
Father are one" (x. 30); and the reason for this is not that he
entirely subordinates his own will to the will of his heavenly Father
(he does indeed do this, but only because it was natural for him to do
so), but that he, and he alone, was begotten of God, that he, and he
alone, was of like nature with God.
This is as clear as daylight, when he walks over the sea, or when, on
an attempt being made to stone him, he makes himself invisible in a
miraculous way; when his soul is affected by no feelings of passion;
when he keeps away for two days from the place where his friend has
died, in order to set his miraculous power in a brighter light; when
Philip is made to see in his person, as he stands before him, God the
Father. Here he is actually, in hardly a different way than he is
amongst the Gnostics, a God walking upon the earth, whom one can only
worship in astonishment. A man whose possibilities are exposed to
limitations, as those of others are, who thinks and feels like others,
to whom one can cling, because he has first trodden the same path and
experienced the same difficulties, whom one can gladly follow--no, he
is nothing of this. The Fourth Gospel knows nothing and can know
nothing of the great consolation which the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii.
18) gives to all such earthly pilgrims: "because that he himself hath
suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted."
Nevertheless, we shall refuse to reproach its author for this, in
proportion as it becomes clear to us that the task which he set before
himself was from the first impossible of achievement. Nor has any later
teacher in the Church been able so to reconcile the divine and human
nature in Jesus, that a real and consistent personality has been
produced. The important point, therefore, is simply to recognise on
which of the two sides in Jn. the scale turns. Those who persist in
attempting to reconcile the two natures, are not agreed, even down to
the present day, as to whether they ought to say, as Paul says (see
above, p. 146), that Jesus, when he came down from heaven to earth,
laid aside his divine characteristics, or that he kept them, hiding
them during his earthly life. As regards the Fourth Gospel, we must say
that it quite certainly does not take the first of these positions. And
even as regards the second view, it only presents the thought that on
earth Jesus was endowed with all his divine characteristics; their
concealment is very slight and transparent, and does not really accord
with the purpose of Jesus' public ministry, which in Jn. consists
simply in revealing himself in all his greatness.
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9. KINGDOM OF GOD AND KINGDOM OF THE DEVIL ACCORDING TO JN.
Although the figure of Jesus claims almost the whole attention of the
Fourth Gospel, we must, in order to realise its fundamental ideas and
discover their origin, look into Jn.'s answer to the question, What is
God's relation to the world, and the world's relation to God? We have
been obliged to touch upon this already; for the whole descent of
Christ from heaven to earth would not have been necessary, if God by
His own work had made the world according to His will. There is,
therefore, in Jn., strictly speaking, exactly the same deep division
between God and the world as exists in the system of the Gnostics. And
to this he gives expression often enough.
Two kingdoms, we should almost say two worlds, are contrasted, the one
which is above, and the one which is below; from the one is Jesus, from
the other are the Jews (viii. 23). This lower kingdom is also called
the earth; it is, therefore, quite literally supposed that Jesus came
down from that heaven which forms an arch over the earth (iii. 31).
Elsewhere, the lower kingdom is called also "this world," or simply
"the world"; heaven is consequently never included in it. The upper
kingdom is that of light, truth, life; to the lower belong darkness,
deception, and death (i. 5; iii. 19-21; viii. 44; vi. 47-54). The ruler
of the upper kingdom is, of course, God; the ruler of the lower is the
devil (viii. 44). Paul also has already called the devil the god of
this world (2 Cor. iv. 4), but he has not set up any thing like so
harsh an opposition between it and the kingdom of heaven. In Jn. this
opposition is based on the thought that God cannot come into contact
with the world, because the matter of which it consists is evil by
nature and God would be denied by any contact with it. This idea is not
only represented in the Gnostic system, but is found even in Plato, and
has thence become the common property of many Greek philosophers, and,
in particular, of the Jews also who, like Philo, made the philosophic
thinking of the Greeks their own.
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10. CHILDREN OF GOD AND OF THE DEVIL.
The consequence, strictly speaking, was that all men were incapable of
receiving any divine gift. But the other idea also, which we have found
among the Gnostics, that the souls of men come from the upper kingdom,
was very widespread. But not all souls. And so the Gospel of Jn.
reveals that deep division, which separates God and the world, even
between those men who are begotten from God (i. 13), and those who are
the children of the devil (viii. 44). It is only another mode of
expressing this, when it is said in iii. 6, "that which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." And
this sentence would lose all force, if we were to continue: but that
also which is born of the flesh can become spirit and vice versa. If it
is to have any value, we must complete it thus: that which is born of
the flesh is and remains flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is
and remains spirit. Further it accords entirely with this when in viii.
47 it is said: "ye hear not" the words of God, "because ye are not of
God," or in viii. 43, "ye cannot hear my word?" or in vi. 65, "No man
can come unto me, except it be given unto him of the Father." And when
he is leaving the earth, Jesus utters those words in xvii. 9 which may
well startle us: "I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou
hast given me." In fact, if this were the Evangelist's last word, he
could not be distinguished from a Gnostic; only destined men could come
to know the truth, and redemption would consist merely in enabling
these alone to recognise their heavenly origin and so to achieve their
emancipation from the prison formed by their body.
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11. SOFTENING OF THE OPPOSITION,.
The Evangelist, however, does not actually go so far. He already
declares against the Gnostics when in i. 3 he says that by the Logos
the world was made, and so not, as they taught, by subordinate divine
beings, who had no correct understanding of the way to do it, but by
the highest and only representative of God. True, if we were inclined
to conclude from this, that this Being must have made it quite
according to God's will, it would certainly be hard to under stand why,
notwithstanding, it is a kingdom of darkness, deception, and death. The
division between God and the world, which the author has accepted from
the philosophical thinkers of his time, is therefore not really set
aside; but the author has made a move in this direction.
In the next place, we are told in v. 22, in the spirit of the same
harsh division between God and the world, that God judges no one, but
has committed the whole work of judging to the Son. As regards other
works, however, he does not deny that God exercises them in the world;
for example, God attracts to Jesus the men who from the beginning were
destined to come to him (vi. 44). But we have, in quite a special way,
the expression "world," in which the change of Jn.'s mode of thought is
revealed. When Jesus declines to pray for the world (xvii. 9), the
world includes only those men who are children of the devil. Similarly,
in xv. 19, "be cause ye are not of the world, . . . therefore the world
hates you." Between these two parts of the sentence, however, we have
the clause, "because I have chosen you from the world," and here the
word "world "has a wider sense; it includes all men, even those who,
since they could be chosen, were from the first children of God, and
therefore, according to the more limited use of the word, are not "of
the world." Similarly in xvii. 6, "I manifested thy name unto the men
whom thou gavest me out of the world." But expressions like that in
iii. 16 f. go even beyond these: "For God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not
perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world
to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him":
that is to say the whole world, and not merely individuals singled out
of the world (similarly xii. 47; i. 29; vi. 33).
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12. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JN. AND THE GNOSTICS.
The importance of these differences between Jn. and the Gnostics cannot
be overstated. By its very nature, Gnosticism was unable to make itself
master of the world, because it was, and aimed at being, a religion
restricted to a limited number of privileged persons. The simple man,
the simple woman, could never hope to be numbered amongst these. All
the valuable and exalted elements contained in the Gospel of Jn. could
only be saved for the Church, and so for all future times, by the
author's declaring them to be destined for all men. "God willeth that
all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth": this
saying (1 Tim. ii. 4) possesses telling force; and the author of the
Fourth Gospel has not failed to notice it.
It was not less important, however, that he should have differed from
the Gnostics in his teaching about the creation of the world. The
belief in one God could not be held to consistently if one of the most
important kinds of work which the pious gladly ascribe to Him, the
creation of the world, was carried out in a very faulty way by
subordinate and unintelligent beings. Many Gnostics went so far as to
see in this unintelligent creator of the world the God of the Old
Testament of whom it is said, that he produced the world. He was then
regarded by them as a being quite different from the real God.
In consequence, however, the Old Testament, which was likewise regarded
as his work, seemed at the same time to be a useless and abortive book,
though at that time it was the only holy book which Christians who
adhered to the Church .had (the New Testament writings were not
regarded as holy until towards the end of the second century, and in
large part had not yet been written at the time when Gnosticism made
its way into the Christian communities, that is to say, about the year
100). By such ideas, simple Christians, who on all questions thought
they might rely on the Old Testament, were thoroughly confused. It is
perhaps for this reason that the author of the Gospel of Jn. emphasises
the statement that Holy Scripture could not be annulled (see p. 129).
The Gnostics supposed that it was quite a new revelation which Christ
brought from heaven; if, however, as Jn. represents, this Christ was
the same being who had made the world, simple believers might rest
assured that everything which they received as a revelation through the
Old Testament and the teaching of Christianity was in agreement.
As regards this Christ, however, if one followed the Gnostics, one
could not take seriously what Christian tradition had to communicate
concerning his life upon earth. Take, for example, the death on the
cross. It was this, according to the common belief of the Church, that
brought salvation to mankind; but according to the Gnostics another
person, an ordinary man, must be supposed to have suffered, or the body
of Christ was merely a phantom figure. In this way, the whole
foundation of the faith of the Church crumbled to pieces. It was of the
highest importance to receive the assurance that it really was the
redeemer himself who was concerned in all the records of the Gospel
story.
And this was all the more important, because the existence of the
Church at that time was very seriously endangered. On the one side, the
Gnostics attracted a large following. On the other, the old habit of
worshipping the pagan deities and a continued intercourse with
relatives and friends who had remained pagan, enticed people back to
the old beliefs. Above all, however, the persecutions of Christians,
which from the beginning of the second century followed upon one
another all too quickly, made it really difficult for the young
community to persist in its faith. And though we, at the present time,
reject so much that was at that time accounted a necessary part of
Christianity, and has perhaps been clung to with a tenacity which may
be vexatious to us, yet, in judging past periods, we ought never to
forget one thing, that something which we can dispense with to-day may
at an earlier date have been in dispensable because people had not
anything better to cling to, and that perhaps we might not have had
Christianity as a whole to-day if in time of danger it had not been
kept intact by means which we should no longer think of using. Had the
martyrs, for example those at Lyons in the year 177, not cherished so
firmly the conviction that God would bring together from the ocean
every particle of the ashes of their burnt bodies, which the Romans
scattered in the Rhone in mockery of their faith, and so at the
resurrection would completely reunite their bodies with the old shapes,
who can say whether they would have endured their terrible tortures
with that firmness which made their persecutors on the very next day
adopt the same faith and themselves go to death on its behalf?
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13. JN.'S LEANING TO THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH.
When the author of the Fourth Gospel takes up another position,
different from that of the Gnostics and more akin to the faith of the
Church, arid yet in many points agrees with them we would like much to
know whether this mingling is due entirely to a want of clearness or
whether it admits of a more satisfactory explanation. At that time,
when so many competing ideas were brought to the notice of the
individual, it is not inconceivable that many persons might appropriate
something of one and some thing of another, without being able really
to blend the two. Many other persons, however, will have attached
themselves entirely to the one at first, and afterwards have had a
leaning to the other, without having given up everything that at an
earlier time they had accepted as true. We may suppose the author of
our Gospel to have been in this position. Not that he was in process of
passing from the teaching of the Church to Gnosticism, but, on the
contrary, of passing from Gnosticism to the teaching of the Church.
This, of course, is merely a conjecture. It, however, strikes us as
probable, because we may presume that the Gnostic ideas would be more
prominent and not so strongly combated if the author had been by way of
attaching himself to them. Instead of this, they appear, in the main,
sporadically; and are withdrawn or made harmless by other utterances.
If this consideration be correct, the easiest explanation would be that
the author was attached to the Gnostic ideas at an earlier date, and at
the time he wrote had not succeeded in banishing them entirely from his
mind, but to all intents and purposes had now passed beyond them to
where he now stands.
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CONCLUSION.
There still remain many important ideas in the Fourth Gospel that would
repay discussion. But we cannot take them up here. In Part II. of this
book we shall discuss them from a new point of view.
We trust that readers who have followed us so far will also give their
attention to the briefer investigations to be undertaken there. Not
only have we still to deal with the whole question, when and by whom
the Fourth Gospel was really composed--which we shall deal with in
connection with the same question as regards the three Epistles and the
"Revelation" of Jn.--but we propose to add a few words as to the value
of these remarkable writings for the time of their authors and for all
times.
Whoever desires to know no more than this, whether the Fourth Gospel
gives us correct knowledge of the Life of Jesus, might stop at this
point. He would then throw the Gospel on one side like an instrument
which for any definite purpose is useless. But a book is not a mere
instrument. It is the work of some man who, if he does not dryly add
one note to another without being really interested in his work,
introduces into it, perhaps unconsciously, but to a more delicate mind
unmistakably, a part of his own soul. And from what we have already
said it should be clear that, in the case of the Fourth Evangelist,
this was so to a quite specially high degree. The more we have so far
found him to be wrong, when he differs from the Synoptics, the more
anxious we become to read his soul, by finding out the ideas and needs
by which he was actuated, and to search lovingly for what it is that
exercises such undeniable power of attraction over even the strictest
of his critics.
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PART II.
ORIGIN AND VALUE OF THE GOSPEL, EPISTLES, AND REVELATION OF JOHN.
__________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION.
AMONG the twelve Apostles of Jesus a prominent place is taken by John,
son of Zebedee and brother of the first of the two Jameses who were
included in the band of twelve disciples. Tradition tells us that five
of the writings contained in the New Testament are by him: the Fourth
Gospel, the three Epistles of John, and "Revelation." By the side, on
the one hand, of the first three Gospels, and, on the other, of those
Epistles which were either composed by the Apostle Paul or have been
wrongly ascribed to him, these writings form a group of their own in
the New Testament which is quite as important as the others; and any
one who proposes to examine them, must of course regard them all
together.
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CHAPTER I.
AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL AND DATE AT WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN.
WHAT has been said in Part I. contributes a very great deal towards the
decision of the question, By whom and at what date was the Fourth
Gospel composed? But it may be pointed out that all this was based
solely on one definite view of the contents of the Gospel, and that
besides this another is possible according to which the contents
thoroughly deserve to be believed, have no connection with Gnosticism,
or were directed against it--and so forth. Far more certain, we are
told, are statements of men belonging to the oldest Christian times,
who were still in a position to know the exact answer to our question.
It will be seen whether they are more certain. In any case, we must
hear what they are.
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1. PAPIAS' TEACHER IN EPHESUS: JOHN THE ELDER.
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, who wrote about 185, and nearly all the
Christian writers of later date are unanimous in saying that the Fourth
Gospel was composed by the Apostle John, who lived in Ephesus during
about the last third of the first century and took a leading position
in the eyes of all the Christian communities in the West of Asia Minor.
Irenaeus, who must have been born about 140, in his early youth stayed
at the house of the aged Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna in Asia Minor, who
died in the year 156, and he often heard him speak of his teacher John.
He adds that Papias also, the companion of Polycarp, who was afterwards
bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, was a hearer of the Apostle John.
But the latter statement is a mistake. Eusebius, the author of the
first History of the Church (ob. 340) has in an earlier work simply
repeated it from Irenaeus; in the History, however, which was written
later, he has corrected it and, in proof of his right to do so, appeals
to Papias own words in a work which, apart from this quotation, has
been almost entirely lost. We shall give this memorable passage in
order to show how a documentary statement may prove the incorrectness
of extremely important ideas which have not been doubted by any one for
centuries. Papias' book contained, as we know from its title,
"Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord" Jesus. In the Introduction
Eusebius found the following: "I shall not hesitate to gather up for
you, with the expositions (belonging to the same), as well all that I
once learnt well from the mouths of the elders and committed well to
memory, I myself guaranteeing the truth of it. . . . But whenever any
one came who had enjoyed intercourse with the elders, I inquired
(firstly) about the sayings of the Elders, (as to) what Andrew or Peter
said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or
any other of the disciples of the Lord (said), and (secondly) what
Aristion and John the Elder, the disciples of the Lord, say."
Quite a number of important inferences may be drawn from this. (1)
Papias gathered his information partly from the persons whom he calls
"the Elders," partly from their disciples. (2) The Greek word which we
render "the Elders" is presbyter. We cannot use this Greek word itself,
because it would be understood to mean, as it does still in the
Reformed Churches, leaders of a Christian community. But such an office
is no guarantee that its holder could give what Papias needed--reliable
memoranda of the Life of Jesus based as far as possible on personal
observation; such a guarantee could only be given by persons of great
age. Papias was born about 70; even if he began to collect his
information at twenty years of age, the people who could tell him
anything which they had learned by experience from their association
with Jesus--that is to say, about the year 30--must have been already
well advanced in years. (3) Jesus twelve apostles would have been the
proper people to have spoken to, but Papias did not speak to any of
these. It would really be very unnatural for him to wish on his own
part to guarantee for the first time the truth of what he had heard
from such all-important persons. But, besides this, he expressly tells
us that he inquired about the sayings of the Elders from companions of
the Elders--inquired as to what Andrew and the six others first
mentioned said, and what Aristion and John the Elder say. It is clear
that only these two were still alive when Papias gathered his
information, and that those who are mentioned before them were no
longer living. But these are actually seven of Jesus twelve Apostles;
and there can be no idea of his having spoken personally to any of the
five others, since he would not in that case under any consideration
have failed to mention it. (4) We must therefore distinguish four
stages: the twelve Apostles whom Papias no longer knew, the elders whom
he still knew, their disciples, and lastly Papias himself. (5) Papias
distinguishes between two persons with the name John: the Apostle and
the person whom he calls "John, the Elder." Both belong to the
"disciples of the Lord," but each in a different sense. The Apostle was
a constant disciple of Jesus; the other was not; in fact, it may be
that he only heard Jesus a few times in his early youth. When the first
century came to an end, and the persons who could boast of a personal
acquaintance with Jesus died out, it became easier for the title of
honour, "disciple of the Lord," to be applied to one who, strictly
speaking, little deserved it. (6) Papias may very well have known this
second John. This need not be doubted on the ground that he inquired
about his sayings of other persons; this only became necessary when he
himself could no longer speak to him, either because he was living in a
remote place or because he had died. In all probability Papias wrote
his work between 140 and 160. At that time the John who had seen Jesus
could certainly no longer be living; he may very well have lived during
Papias youth.
We must assume with the greater certainty that Papias really knew him,
because Irenaeus says that Papias was a hearer of the Apostle John, and
yet, according to his own statements, he no longer knew the Apostle.
Here then we have the confusion of which Irenaeus was guilty: Papias
certainly had a John as his teacher; this, however, was not the
Apostle, but John the Elder.
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2. POLYCARP'S TEACHER IN EPHESUS: JOHN THE ELDER.
The confusion might appear harmless. It affects Papias merely; but the
man with whom we are concerned, who told the young Irenaeus about his
former teacher, the Apostle John, was Polycarp. But why does Irenaeus
call Papias a companion of Polycarp, unless it be because both of them
in their early youth had the same teacher? Both lived in Asia Minor,
and when they were young there was only one John in Asia Minor. It was
left for a Christian writer in the third century to note that there
were statements about both John the Apostle and John the Elder which
indicated Ephesus as their dwelling-place; and because he knew of no
other way of adjusting these, he was obliged to think that the two men
lived there simultaneously. But no one belonging to the earlier period
has any knowledge of this, and it is clear from our records, every one
of which knows only of one head of the Christian Church in Asia Minor,
that there was no room for the two men at the same time. Irenaeus must
therefore have been as much mistaken about Polycarp's teacher as about
the teacher of Papias; and Polycarp was the disciple of John the Elder,
not of the Apostle.
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3. THE APOSTLE JOHN NOT IN EPHESUS.
Another thing that lends the strongest support to this conclusion is
the fact that none of the Christian writers before Irenaeus knows
anything of a stay of the Apostle John in Asia Minor; and yet this same
John, who on the occasion of the meeting of Paul with the original
apostles at Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 1-10 and Acts xv.) appears by the side
of Peter and James (the brother of Jesus) as one of the three pillars
of the first community, is one of the most important persons in
primitive Christianity.
We will point to one fact only. When Paul took fare well of those who
presided over the community at Ephesus (Acts xx. 29), he prophesied
that after his departure fierce wolves would force a way in and would
not spare the flock. This farewell address was not actually so
delivered by Paul, but was composed by the author of the Acts (between
about 105 and 130) in accordance with his own ideas a liberty which
every ancient historian took with the speeches of his heroes, and which
no one thought wrong, seeing that the most famous of the Greek
historians, Thucydides (about 400 B.C.), expressly declares (I. xxii.
1) that he followed this plan in his work because it would have been an
impossibility to have reported the exact words of the speeches as
delivered. But how could the author of the Acts of the Apostles, who
was as full of a feeling of veneration for the original apostles as he
was for Paul, have introduced into Paul's speech so unfriendly an
utterance about his successors, if he had any idea that the most
important and influential of these was the Apostle John? But, further,
if it be supposed that Paul actually made the utterance, without, of
course, having any idea of the person of his successor, how could the
author incorporate it in his book, and thus seriously impede his own
main purpose--that of showing the unanimity subsisting between Paul and
the original disciples--instead of quietly ignoring it, as he does so
much that is unfavourable to the original apostles and their adherents
(so we learn from the Epistles of Paul; e.g., Gal. ii. 11-21; i. 6 f.;
vi. 12 f.)?
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4. CONFUSION OF THE TWO JOHNS.
But, as a boy, Irenaeus often heard Polycarp himself speak of his
teacher John; how, then, can a mistake have been possible as to which
John was meant? Well, the riddle explains itself. Both Johns were
"disciples of the Lord." As a rule, Polycarp only needed to say, "my
teacher John, the disciple of the Lord," and the young Irenaeus only
too easily made the mistake of supposing that he meant the apostle, who
was perhaps the only John of whom he had so far heard. In fact,
Irenaeus himself says regularly in his book, when he means the Apostle
John, as we have just conjectured that Polycarp did, "the disciple of
the Lord," whereas for Paul he always uses the expression "Apostle."
Once a mistake of the kind had arisen, the statement would be believed
only too readily. The community in a city thought it a great honour to
have been founded by an apostle, or led by one for some time. In the
second century the idea grew up that the bishop of a community must
have been consecrated to his office through the laying-on of hands
either by an apostle or by a bishop who had received his own
consecration at the hands of an apostle. It was thought that the
capacity to fill the office of bishop, the so-called "charisma of
office," could be transferred from one person to another only through
this laying-on of hands by a consecrated person, and the first of such
a series must always be an apostle. Thus it was naturally of the
greatest importance to be able to show that in the past an apostle
himself laboured in the community. Every one believed that he attended
to the consecration of his successor; otherwise doubts might arise as
to whether a bishop was properly consecrated.
We must not suppose that the confusion by which Ephesus was given an
apostle, instead of one who was not an apostle, as the leader of the
community is an isolated case. In the Acts of the Apostles (vi. 5) we
find included among the seven almoners of the community at Jerusalem a
Philip who, according to xxi. 8 f., was an evangelist, that is to say,
a missionary, and had four daughters who were endowed with the gift of
prophecy. At the end of the second century this same Philip was
identified with Philip the Apostle. Thus Hierapolis, where he is
supposed to have stayed at the end of his life, was provided with an
apostle as the head of the community.
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5. EARLY DEATH OF THE APOSTLE JOHN (IN PALESTINE).
Where then, if it was not he but John the Elder who led the Church of
Asia Minor in Ephesus, did John the Apostle live, and why are we not
told another word about his fate since the meeting in Jerusalem we have
mentioned (Gal. ii. 1-10)? As regards this also Papias gives us
information, but this time in another sentence of his book which became
known to scholars only a few years ago: "John, the man of God, and his
brother James were killed by Jews." We are also told this about James
in the Acts of the Apostles (xii. 2); he was executed at Jerusalem in
the year 44 by Herod Agrippa I. Of the John who was head of the Church
in Ephesus we know the contrary: there is no other record but this,
that he died a natural death at a great age. But there is really no
contradiction here, if we realise that this was a different John from
John the Apostle. Besides, in Ephesus, where the Jews were closely
watched by a foreign power, they would hardly have dared to lay hands
on the bishop of the Christian community. It would be quite different
if the Apostle John, whom, as we learn from the story of Papias, they
killed, lived in Pales tine. And as a matter of fact at the meeting
with Paul (about 52) mentioned above, he, as well as Peter and James
(the brother of Jesus), declared this intention: they wished to go as
missionaries to the Jews (Gal. ii. 9).
Only, we must beware of misunderstanding the words of Papias as if he
meant that John and his brother James were killed at the same time. If
that were so, it would certainly be impossible to understand why only
the death of James is reported in the Acts of the Apostles. But besides
this, the idea that they died together does not suit the words of
Papias. No one has ever said that John the Baptist was killed by Jews;
every one says, by Herod Antipas (Mk. vi. 17-29). Similarly, if Papias
had meant to say that the two brothers had perished at the same time
and on the same pretext he would have said: they were killed by Herod
Agrippa 1. When he says, instead of this, "by Jews," it is most natural
to suppose that John at least perished in such a way that no such
notable person as a prince could be referred to as the author of his
death. The sooner we can suppose the death of John to have taken place
after the year 52, the easier it is to understand, on the one hand, why
we do not hear more of his work, and, on the other, how the John in
Ephesus, alongside of him, could become so prominent that in the end he
was confused with him.
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6. RESULT AS FAR AS THE FOURTH GOSPEL IS CONCERNED.
The result as far as the Fourth Gospel is concerned is as follows. The
earlier the apostle died, the less easy it is to think that he wrote
the Gospel. It is almost universally admitted that the first three
Gospels were completed before the fourth; and of these the third at
least was not composed until after the destruction of Jerusalem in the
year 70 (provisionally we confine ourselves to a statement the truth of
which is recognised almost on all hands). But even if we do not suppose
that the Apostle died early, he cannot be regarded as the author of the
Gospel because, as we have seen, he did not live in Ephesus. The
Christian writers who look upon him as the author do not say that the
Apostle composed it, no matter where he lived, but they say, "the John
who was head of the Church of Asia Minor wrote it," so that the Apostle
may be held to be the author of the Gospel only if we can think of him
as living in Ephesus. If he lived elsewhere, we cannot say that these
writers regarded him as the author; for by the John who in their
opinion wrote the Gospel, they always mean the John in Ephesus.
Accordingly, their "testimony" to the effect that the Apostle was the
author is evidence, rather, that some one else was the author.
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7. THE TESTIMONY OP THE BELOVED DISCIPLE.
But what about the author's own testimony? Does he not himself say that
he is the Apostle? This is surely a curious question! When a matter is
to be decided in other fields--when, for instance, the origin of
extra-canonical books is in question, or a trial is being held--scant
consideration indeed is paid to the personal testimony of the person
involved; but here forsooth this is to be decisive, and all arguments
against it, however plausible, are to be ignored. This is to take for
granted--is it not?--what, strictly speaking, should first be proved,
that a person whose book has been included in the Bible cannot have
said anything incorrect.
But let us hear what this testimony is. The author nowhere refers to
the name John as being his own. The superscription "Gospel according to
John" is not due to him, but was first added when several Gospels were
put together in one book. [7] Neither, however, does he ever refer to
the Apostle John by this name. But he has him in mind when he says that
after the arrest of Jesus, "Simon Peter and another disciple "followed
him to the Palace of the High Priest (xviii. 15), and that "Peter and
the other disciple "went to the grave of Jesus (xx. 1-10). Here he
writes more fully (xx. 2), "Simon Peter, and that other disciple whom
Jesus loved," and the simple description, "one of the disciples whom
Jesus loved," is found already in xiii. 23, where it is said that at
Jesus' last supper he "reclined in Jesus bosom"; finally, we learn from
xix. 26, that "the disciple whom he loved" stood with Jesus mother at
the foot of the cross.
In this circumlocution we see, it is said, the delicate and sensitive
way in which the Apostle John hinted that he was the author of the
Gospel, without expressly saying so. In reality, if he did this, he
would have shown himself to be an incredibly presumptuous person. Jesus
surely loved all his disciples! If the author had said of himself, "the
disciple whom Jesus specially loved," we could not acquit him of
presumption, even though this were really the case; but he says
outright, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," as if he loved him alone. It
is not really doing the Apostle any honour to insist that he must have
described himself in this way. On the other hand, it is quite easy to
understand that one of his devoted admirers may have so described him.
But if we examine further all that is told us about the beloved
disciple--the story, in particular, of his race with Peter to the grave
of Jesus is so incredible (p. 133 f.) that we cannot imagine it to have
been committed to writing by an eyewitness. And so here again this
"testimony" of the author to the effect that he is the Apostle becomes
evidence, rather, that some one else was the author.
__________________________________________________________________
[7] The words are "Gospel according to John," not "Gospel of John";
similarly, "Gospel according to Mt., according to Mk., according to
Lk." But this does not mean that such a gospel was written by another
man with the help of communications from the person specially named.
The word "Gospel" in these cases means, rather, "Account of the Life of
Jesus," and the superscription means therefore "the Gospel History as
composed by Mt., Mk., Lk., or Jn."
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8. FURTHER WITNESS OF THE AUTHOR TO HIMSELF
(Jn. xix. 35).
The most characteristic instance of the author testifying to
himself--an instance in which there is a real idea of bearing
testimony--is held to be that in xix. 34 f.: "one of the soldiers with
a spear pierced his side (the side of the crucified Lord), and
straightway there came out blood and water; and he that hath seen hath
borne witness, and his witness is true, and he knoweth that he saith
true, that ye also may believe." We must remember here that we were
told in verse 26 that the beloved disciple stood at the foot of the
cross; it is he therefore who is meant when reference is made to one
who saw the flowing of blood and water. But is it he himself who pens
the words?
Searching inquiries have been instituted as to whether, in speaking of
himself in Greek, any one could say "he." But this is not the point.
Once the Apostle had begun by saying, instead of "I," "he that hath
seen," there was no other way to continue than by saying "he." So that
the question is: When the writer says "he that hath seen," does he mean
himself? This in itself would be quite possible, if he wished to avoid
the use of "I." Throughout the whole description of his wars (58-48
B.C.), Julius Caesar has never said "I did this and that," but always
"Caesar did this and that." But, if he wished to express himself
similarly, it would have been far more correct for the Fourth
Evangelist to say: "he that hath seen it, bears witness" (now, as he
writes it down). The expression, "he hath borne witness" would be far
more appropriate if the observer of what occurred told it orally and
another person recorded it in writing afterwards. Yet according to
Greek Syntax the expression might also mean: he wishes (hereby) to have
testified; and in this case it is still possible that what we read in
this passage was written down by the observer.
It is decisive here that blood and water cannot by any means have
flowed separately from Jesus' wound so soon after his death (it was at
most two hours, but probably much less; see p. 127). It is therefore
doing no honour to the Apostle to insist that he is here bearing
personal testimony. On the other hand, we can very well under stand a
later writer, who had been orally assured that it really happened,
noting it down in good faith.
We should add further, that in any case the flowing of water and blood
has some deeper mysterious meaning. It was a common Christian belief
that the blood of Jesus shed at his death was the means of bringing
salvation to man kind. Now, the individual Christian can partake of the
blood of Jesus in the Supper, and is reminded of the redemption which
has through his blood been granted to men. And water is used in baptism
for the purpose of initiating people into communion with those who have
been redeemed by the death of Jesus. Accordingly, the idea that the two
things which are necessary for the most important and holy of the
Christian ceremonies came into being at the death of Jesus is an
ingenious one. We can easily imagine that a preacher may have expressed
the idea in a veiled form, just as was done, if we have conjectured
rightly (p. 113 f.), in the case of the story of Lazarus, and that some
one in the audience jumped to the conclusion that it might be recorded
as an actual fact that blood and water flowed from Jesus wound.
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9. NO DECEPTION IN WRITING UNDER PSEUDONYMS.
If what we have said indicates that it was not the Apostle, but another
who wrote the passage which speaks of testifying to the blood and
water, and at the same time wrote the whole Gospel, we do not of course
know as yet whether he wishes to be regarded merely as the reporter of
the testimony of a greater person, or whether he wishes it to appear
that he himself is this greater person, this eye witness. Even one who
at the outset does not hold the Biblical writers in particularly high
esteem, will readily be inclined to find the second supposition
unthinkable, be cause it would imply such an amount of dishonesty as
there is no reason to ascribe to the Evangelist, whose style is simple
and candid.
But, as regards this matter, people quite ignore the fact that in those
days it was not considered wrong to compose a writing in the name of
another person. Among the Greeks and Romans it was quite common for
disciples to publish their works, not under their own name, but under
that of their masters; and we can see in what light this was regarded,
from the philosopher Iamblichus (about 300 A.D.), for example, who was
one of the followers of Pythagoras. We know even at the present time of
a list of sixty writings which have been fathered upon Pythagoras and
other old masters amongst his successors; and Iamblichus expressly
praises the later disciples of Pythagoras, because they have sacrificed
their own fame and given all the glory to their masters.
As regards Christian writers, the story of the leader of a Church in
Asia Minor, who published the history of Paul and Thecla in the second
century under the name of the Apostle Paul, is specially instructive.
When he was reproached for doing so, he replied that he did it out of
love for Paul; and Tertullian, the Church writer and jurist at Carthage
(about 200), who tells us about it, does not think of charging him with
it as a sin, but only makes fun of him for his incapacity in the words:
"as if his work could do anything to increase the fame of Paul." The
man was deposed, not however because he had been guilty of anything
that we should call a forgery, but because he said in his book that
Thecla came forward to teach in public and baptized herself by jumping
into a ditch filled with water in view of death by wild beasts in the
Circus. Both things were contrary to the regulations of the Church (on
the first see 1 Cor. xiv. 34, "Let the women keep silence in the
churches"). They were not allowed; but there was no offence in the
publication of a writing in the name of another person.
This way of looking at the matter makes it very easy for us to
understand how so many of the books of the New Testament were composed
in the name of Paul, of Peter, of James, &c. And strange as it may
appear, we must thoroughly accustom ourselves to it. To show that this
suggests itself even to a quite orthodox theologian, we will quote an
utterance by Professor Kahnis of Leipzig, who died in 1888. "If the
fifth book of Moses is not by Moses, it is by an impostor, says Dr.
Hengstenberg. To whom does Dr. Hengstenberg say this? Every one who has
been to a classical school knows that there are a great number of
writings in classical literature which are ascribed to persons with
famous names, and that specialists do not think there was any deception
in the practice." As regards the Second Epistle of Peter, even very
conservative theologians now admit that it was written one hundred and
twenty or more years after Jesus' death, although, in speaking of Jesus
transfiguration, its author assures us, quite as if he were the Apostle
Peter (i. 18): "and this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven,
when we were with him on the holy mount." Why then should the same
thing not have happened in the case of the Fourth Gospel?
Thus we need not shrink from crediting the author of the Fourth Gospel
with the wish to have his book regarded as the work of the Apostle
himself. We have, however, no absolutely definite ground for saying so.
The matter remains obscure. And perhaps it was meant to remain obscure.
The testimony we have been examining could, as a matter of fact, hardly
have been framed in a more enigmatic way than in the terms, "and his
witness is true, and he knoweth that he saith true." It is possible
therefore that the author, though he did not wish to say expressly that
his book was the work of the Apostle, had no objection to people
believing so. Even when he says in i. 14 "the Logos became flesh . . .
and we beheld his glory", it is not certain whether he means with our
bodily eyes (which, in view of what we have said above, would not need
to be regarded as a fraudulent assertion), or whether he wishes to
imply that those who were not privileged to do this saw his glory with
their spiritual vision by means of the stories of Jesus' life, and of
the blessings which proceeded from him even after his death.
__________________________________________________________________
10. CHAPTER XXI AN APPENDIX FROM ANOTHER PEN.
We could not, it is true, seriously impute this obscurity to him, if
the twenty-first chapter were due to the same author. But this is not
the case. For the same concepts quite different words are used here
from those found in the first twenty chapters. The appearance of the
risen Lord in chapter xxi. (14) is said to be the third; but three
others have already been mentioned in chapter xx. Peter is a fisher, as
in the Synoptics (Mk. i. 16), whereas Jn. (i. 35-41) knows him only as
a disciple of the Baptist. But, most important of all, in chapter xxi.
Peter appears in a much more favoured light than before; he even
receives the commission to feed Jesus sheep, that is to say, to guide
the Church, and is told that he is likely to have the honour of dying a
martyr's death. The beloved disciple, on the other hand, who has always
taken precedence of him in chapters i.-xx. (xiii. 24; xviii. 16; xix.
26; xx. 2-10), in chapter xxi. (22-24) has to content himself with a
humbler role: he is promised a long life, and is given the task of
writing the Gospel. This striking recognition of Peter is in all
likelihood due to the fact that offence had been taken because in
chapters i.-xx. he was made subordinate to the beloved disciple. Peter
had already won high esteem in the Christian Church, especially at
Rome, and the friends of the author of the Gospel must have feared, or,
as we shall see shortly, must have found, that for this reason the book
was gaining slight recognition. One of them therefore decided to reckon
with these circumstances by adding an appendix.
And because the Gospel had gained such slight recognition, he took
occasion at the same time, in the appendix which he added, to assure
its readers once more that the author was the famous John. This he does
(xxi. 24) with more clearness and emphasis than the author himself:
"this (that is to say, the long-lived beloved disciple) is the disciple
which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we
know that his witness is true." We? Who? Here we have a hint that the
author of the appendix has perhaps been commissioned by a whole number
of the party of the Evangelist to write, or at least writes to voice
their sentiments and to promote the idea that the Gospel was composed
by the beloved disciple and for that reason deserves to be trusted
absolutely. But his very zeal has been the means of discrediting him in
the eyes of a serious critic. A witness, whose evidence must itself be
witnessed to in turn, cannot seem a very trustworthy person.
__________________________________________________________________
11. THE REAL PICTURE OF JOHN THE APOSTLE.
After all these "witnesses" on the part of badly informed writers, of
the author himself and of his friends who have intervened on his
behalf, it is at length time to seek for some point from which we can
learn better who wrote the Fourth Gospel. What information have we then
in the New Testament about the Apostle John which is really reliable?
We must not of course turn to the Fourth Gospel for our answer. The
most certain thing is the record of Paul, that John was one of the
three pillars of the Community in Jerusalem, and wished to confine his
missionary activity to the Jews (see pp. 174 and 177), the reason being
no doubt that, if he held intercourse with the Gentiles, he would
violate the Old Testament commandments about foods, cleanness, &c.,
which he thought ought still to be observed. This does not harmonise
well with the fact that in the Fourth Gospel Jesus calls the Law a "Law
of the Jews" and feels that he is quite superior to it. Further, the
whole view of the world here, familiar as it is with the ideas of the
greatest Greek thinkers, and the boldness with which, following the
example of Gnosticism, all that is traditional is swept away--all this,
which we have found in the Gospel, suits no one so little as this man
who had remained stationary and simply persisted in holding the
standpoint of the Old Testament. Add to this that according to Mk. i.
19 he was a fisherman, and according to Acts iv. 13 a man without
learning and culture. Nor is this altered by the fact that he, with his
brother James and with Peter, was one of the most intimate companions
of Jesus in the circle of the twelve disciples (Mk. v. 37; ix. 2; xiv.
33).
__________________________________________________________________
12. MISTAKES AS TO THE CONDITION OF THINGS IN PALESTINE.
One who writes under an assumed name often betrays himself by having
false ideas of the places or institutions of the country in which he
claims to be living. As far as places are concerned, it cannot be shown
with success that Jn. does this. But, as regards institutions, he has
been led to make as great a mistake as it is possible to imagine. By
telling us twice (xi. 49, 51, and xviii. 13) that Caiaphas was "high
priest that year" he assumes that the office changed hands every year.
As a matter of fact, the high priest held the office for life, and,
although it happened not infrequently that one was deposed, there was
never any question of a yearly vacation of office. This of course is a
fact which would have been as well known to a contemporary of Jesus in
Palestine, as the fact that the office of Emperor is hereditary is to a
German of to-day. In face of a mistake on such a matter, how can we
attach importance to the knowledge of places in the country, which
could easily be acquired even one hundred years after the events with
which they are associated?
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13. JOHN THE ELDER NOT THE WRITER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
May we therefore speak of John the Elder in Ephesus as the author of
the Fourth Gospel? Support for this might, as a matter of fact, be
found in the consideration that Irenaeus and his successors virtually
supposed this, even though they believed that this John in Ephesus was
the Apostle. But the assumption will not bear closer examination. If he
was a disciple of Jesus, and consequently a man whose home was in
Palestine, he ought to have known more about the tenure of the
high-priest's office. But, above all, his standpoint was hardly less
Jewish-Christian than that of the Apostle. In fact when Polycarp (see
p. 173), who was a former disciple of his, visited Rome towards the end
of his life (154 or 155), and found that Easter was fixed at a quite
different time (the time at which we still fix it) from that of Asia
Minor, where he lived, he appealed to the practice of John (and
others). In Asia Minor what, according to the Jewish Calendar, was
always the 14th Nisan was duly celebrated, not in memory of the death
of Jesus--as the Fourth Gospel would require (p. 118)--but of the
institution of the Supper a practice which conflicts with the Fourth
Gospel, and is, as a matter of fact, supported by a special appeal to
Mt. The John who shared this practice as leader of the Church of Asia
Minor cannot have written the Fourth Gospel. Moreover, this would be
equally true of John the Apostle if he had been the leader of the
Church of Asia Minor.
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14. WHAT KIND OP PERSON WAS THE FOURTH EVANGELIST?
If this means that we must give up the idea of naming some well-known
person as the author, we are, nevertheless, very well able to form a
clear idea of the writer of the Fourth Gospel. In seeking to do so, we
have come back, after making a long circuit, to our starting-point, for
we have to consult the Gospel itself. To have been able to write such a
book, the author must have been one of the leading spirits of his age.
He was familiar with the best that the Greek mind and the religions of
the whole world known to people of those days had produced. His own
mind was liberal enough to soar to the realm of these ideas, and to
refuse to allow itself to be cramped by anything traditional. He knew
how to gather into a common reservoir all the streams of thought that
flowed towards him from the most diverse sources. His great object was
to use all for the glorification of Jesus as he conceived him. Even
Gnosticism, the most dangerous movement of his time, was well known to
him--so much so that he had made many of its ideas his own. But he
recognised the danger in it and did all in his power to overcome it,
without giving up anything in Gnosticism which was really lofty and
emancipating.
His chief pattern was Philo, and he perhaps had some thing else in
common with him in the fact that he was of Jewish extraction. If he had
not been, he would hardly have attached so much importance to the
fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies (see p. 128 f.), and would
hardly have made Jesus say "salvation is of the Jews" (iv. 22). He
cannot of course have received his wide culture in Palestine.
Accordingly, we must seek his home outside of this country, and
preferably in a great city which would gather up all the wisdom of the
known world. Ephesus would suit the requirements admirably, and if the
Gospel came into existence here, it would be very easy for it to be
ascribed to a person who had taken a very prominent position in the
city at an earlier date, John the Elder whether or not it was done in
such a way that he was sup posed to be the Apostle. Ephesus will
suggest itself again when we inquire into the origin of the
"Revelation" of Jn.; and in itself it is rather likely that all the
five writings which are supposed to have been composed by John the
Apostle would have come into existence amongst the same circle of men
of kindred spirit, and so in one and the same locality. But we cannot
rely upon all these considerations, nor need we think it important to
be able to say where the Gospel was written.
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15. DATE AT WHICH THE FOURTH GOSPEL WAS COMPOSED.
More pressing is the question, When did it come into existence? And, as
regards this, we must of course look once more for statements outside
the Gospel. When were the first three Gospels written, which, by almost
general agreement, were all known to the writer of the Fourth? If we
may voice our own conviction, it would suffice to say that the Third
Gospel cannot have come into existence until about the year 100,
because the author was well acquainted with the writings of the Jewish
historian Josephus who composed his chief work in the year 93 or 94.
Others, who place the Gospel of Lk. (and so the Gospels of Mk. and Mt.
also) earlier, think that, when this estimation is taken into
consideration, the Gospel of Jn. may have been composed as early as
about the year 100. But here again we have to remember that the
Gnosticism with which the Fourth Evangelist is familiar, and which he
vigorously opposes, did not force its way into the Christian
communities until about the year 100. We learn this from Hegesippus,
who wrote his "memorials" about the year 180, and as he was of a great
age was still able to afford correct information on the matter. Jn., on
the other hand, already had to do with a more developed form of
Gnosticism (p. 205). Only, he does not seem to be acquainted with the
forms which appeared after about the year 140.
__________________________________________________________________
16. THE APOSTLE IS NOT MENTIONED AS THE AUTHOR UNTIL AFTER THE YEAR 170.
The most important and decisive point is to know from what date we have
reliable external evidence, as we say, concerning the Fourth Gospel; in
other words, statements by writers which imply that they knew the book
as the work of such and such an author, or at least that they wrote out
passages from him, so that there can be no mistake that they really had
the book lying before them. This, in fact, is the point on which those
who claim that the Gospel was composed by John the Apostle have staked
everything. Many of them have undertaken no less a task than to prove
by such external testimony that the author ship has been placed so much
beyond doubt that it is not permissible even to take into consideration
the counter arguments drawn from other considerations, for instance
from an examination of the Gospel itself.
Unfortunately it is quite impossible here to go into this point with
all the thoroughness that is really required. If we thought of doing
so, we should have to give verbatim an almost endless number of
passages from all the writers of the second century, in order to enable
the reader to decide whether or not they betray a knowledge of the
Fourth Gospel. We should be obliged, further, in the case of all these
writers to state when they wrote, or rather, since in most cases the
matter is not certain, to make inquiry and try to fix the most likely
date. Ten years earlier or later here mean a very great difference.
Finally, we should be obliged to find out their habits: whether to a
greater or less extent they incorporate in their works passages from
other books; whether they are accustomed to do this exactly word for
word or merely from memory; whether they state regularly from what book
they draw, or simply write down the words without saying that they have
borrowed them; whether they use books which we no longer possess. All
this may be important when it is a question whether a passage in their
writings which resembles one in the Fourth Gospel is taken from this or
not. Instead of going into all these troublesome and wearisome
questions, it must suffice here to state the results briefly, and to
show by a few examples how they have been attained.
First then we have to establish the fact that before the year 170 no
writer can be found who ascribes the Fourth Gospel to John the Apostle.
As regards this matter, we must note further that the year 170 is the
very earliest that can be specified, for the statement we have in mind
that belongs to this time reads simply: as to the day of Jesus' death
"the Gospels seem to be at variance." The name, therefore, of John the
Apostle is not mentioned. But it is clear from the words that this
writer (Claudius Apollinaris) puts the Fourth Gospel, which introduces
the variance (for the first three are quite agreed; see p. 118 f.), on
the same level as the others.
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17. VALUE OF THESE "EXTERNAL EVIDENCES."
But if from this date it is almost generally regarded as the work of
the Apostle, in order to be able to determine the value of this
assertion, we must know in the first place the general idea which
leading persons of the time had of the books of the New Testament.
On this point Irenaeus (about 185) is specially instructive. To prove
that there are just four true Gospels (there were still many others in
existence), he points to the fact that there are four quarters of the
world and four winds; since, then, the Church is scattered over the
whole earth and the Gospel constitutes its pillar and support and the
spirit of its life, it is appropriate that the pillars which on all
(four) sides blow upon it with the airs of imperishability should be
four in number--in other words, the four Gospels. Such was the idea of
so distinguished a person as Irenaeus; when it was a question of
deciding whether the Fourth Gospel was composed by John the Apostle, he
took his stand on the fact that the quarters of heaven and the chief
winds are four in number. To understand how he could do this while
speaking of the spirit of life, as well as of the winds, we must be
aware that in Greek "wind "and "spirit "are represented by the same
word (pneuma). So that by means of a play upon words, to sustain which
he has further to think of pillars (i.e., the Gospels) as blowing, he
is prepared to decide a question of such great importance. Surely we
are justified in practically ignoring the proof which a person of this
stamp brings forward to show that such and such a person was the author
of a book in the New Testament.
But we will take a few more cases as tests of the care fulness of
Irenaeus and those of his contemporaries who agreed with him in
claiming that the Fourth Gospel was composed by John the Apostle; they
will serve to test their critical powers as well. Irenaeus regards the
James who is said in Acts xv. to have been present at the
already-mentioned (p. 174) meeting with Paul as one of the three
pillars of the Church at Jerusalem as that brother of John and personal
disciple of Jesus whose execution has been recorded three chapters
further back (xii. 2). In the Gospel of Lk. again he thinks that the
discourses of the Apostle Paul concerning the Life of Jesus are
committed to writing just as those of Peter are in the Gospel of
Mk.--and this in spite of the fact that Paul never met Jesus, and
continued to persecute the Christians even after Jesus' death. Dealing
with the question of eternal happiness, Irenaeus is able to tell us
that there will be vines with 10,000 stems, on each stem 10,000
branches, on each branch 10,000 shoots, on each shoot 10,000 clusters,
on each cluster 10,000 berries, and that every berry will yield 900 to
1000 litres of wine. The most important point, however, is not the size
of these vines, but Irenaeus statement, that Jesus himself prophesied
this; the aged men whom he so often mentions had told him so, and had
added that they had heard it from John the Apostle. And this Irenaeus
believes, although he assures us so emphatically that this same person
wrote the Fourth Gospel which makes Jesus appear so superior to all
such expectations.
Clement of Alexandria, one of the most learned and most venerated
teachers in the Church (about 200), quotes as an utterance of the
Apostle Paul(!) the words, "take also the Greek books, read the Sibyl
and see how it reveals one God and the future, and read Hystaspes, and
you will find in them the Son of God described much more clearly."
Hystaspes was the father of Darius, the Persian king who reigned from
521 to 485 B.C. The words of Clement give us some idea of the kind of
fabrication that was put forth in his name. The credulous Clement also
quotes the book of Zoroaster of Pamphylia in which he recorded after
his resurrection all that had been taught him in the under world by the
gods. The jurist Tertullian (about 200) is able to tell us that in the
official account of Jesus condemnation which Pilate sent to the Emperor
Tiberius, he mentioned, amongst other things, the eclipse of the sun at
the time of Jesus' death, the guarding of the sepulchre, the
resurrection of Jesus and his ascension, and that in his inmost
convictions he was already a Christian. If Tertullian is not giving
free rein to his imagination here, but has used some book ("Acts of
Pilate"), we shall be glad to think that the author of it was a
Christian.
But enough. We can see clearly the kind of people we have to deal with
when the witnesses in support of the usual statements about the origin
of the New Testament books are brought forward. Instead of insisting so
emphatically that the fact that the Fourth Gospel was composed by John
the Apostle is already borne witness to by Irenaeus, Tertullian,
Clement of Alexandria and others, it ought in truth to be said that no
one did so until they bore witness to it--or, rather, asserted it.
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18. THE GOSPEL NOT USED BEFORE 140.
Of rather a different nature are the cases in which passages from the
Fourth Gospel are merely cited without its being said who wrote them.
As regards these, it can be shown that before the year 140 there is
evidence of none to which we have strict right to appeal. Sayings and
expressions which resemble some in this Gospel, are indeed found in
Christian writings after about the year 100 not infrequently. But it is
a very strange idea that this resemblance must always be accounted for
by supposing that the writers had read the Fourth Gospel. Because the
Gospel has first made us acquainted with these sayings and expressions,
there is no need to suppose that the circum stances were the same as
early as about the year 100. On the contrary, why may not the Fourth
Evangelist have been acquainted with the writings in question? Or, to
mention a suggestion which in many cases is more likely, the discourses
of the travelling teachers of the times, of whom there were very many,
may have given currency to a number of catchwords, phrases, and whole
sentences, which became the common property of all more or less
cultured Christians. No one could say where he first heard them. Any
one who wrote a book made use of them without suspecting that the
question from what other book he took them would ever be asked. It may
be that the Fourth Evangelist availed himself of them, and stamped them
with his own particular genius; and we of the present day may easily be
misled into supposing that he must have been the first to coin them,
and that all other writers who use them must have written subsequently.
It is particularly easy to think this when a whole sentence is in
question, which contains in itself an independent and important
thought. We have an example in Jn. xiv. 2, "in my Father's house (that
is to say, in heaven) are many mansions." Those people of great age to
whom Irenaeus often appeals, have handed down to him as a saying of
Jesus the words, "in my Father's domains are many mansions." Besides
this, we learn from Jn. alone (xiv. 2) that Jesus made this statement,
and the conclusion is drawn that the "elders" also can only have become
acquainted with it from the Gospel. And since they have been referred
to by Irenaeus as people who speak not from a more recent age, but from
their own recollection of the distant past, the Gospel must already
have been in existence at a very early date. This is a typical example
of the kind of proof it is not permissible to use. We refrain from
reckoning with the possibility that Jesus may really have made the
statement, and that the elders were just as likely as the Fourth
Evangelist to have learned it orally. But in their case, as well as
that of Jn., the belief may also have grown up erroneously that he made
the statement. This assertion would then have been repeated, and so
finally have found its way into the Fourth Gospel. It was certainly the
kind of saying that was likely to have been passed on from mouth to
mouth, for it contains the comforting assurance that after one's death
one might look forward with certainty to finding a refuge in heaven.
Another indication that the saying became current in this way may be
found in the fact that the versions in Jn. and Irenaeus are not word
for word identical.
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19. USED WITHOUT RECOGNITION IN THE YEARS 140-170.
Most noteworthy are the writers between the specified years 140 and
170, who really cite passages from the Fourth Gospel, but do not say
who composed it. The most important is Justin, who wrote about 152 and
was subsequently martyred. From the Synoptics he introduces over one
hundred passages, but from Jn. only three, and these are so far from
following Jn.'s language exactly that in every case it can be thought
that he took them from another book, and that the Fourth Evangelist may
have done the same. We assume, however, that Justin took them from
Jn.'s work. But why, then, are there so few, and why is nothing said
about this work being the composition of a personal disciple of Jesus?
Referring to the "Revelation" of Jn., he says positively that it was
composed by the Apostle; but he says nothing about the Gospel. And yet
he attaches so much importance to the "memorials of the Apostles and
their companions," as he calls the Gospels; and shares with the Fourth
the doctrine of the Logos. We can only understand this on one
supposition: Justin did not consider the Fourth Gospel to be the work
of the Apostle. In that case, it must in his age still have been quite
new; otherwise it would long ago have won general recognition.
Obviously Justin finds in it some passages which are beautiful and
worth mentioning, but, compared with the rich use made of the
Synoptics, he uses it with great caution, and almost with hesitation.
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20. CONCLUSION AS TO THE "EXTERNAL EVIDENCES."
When therefore we sum up the results of our examination of the external
evidence for the Fourth Gospel, we find that the lesson it teaches is
the opposite of what those who believe that it was written by the
Apostle think it ought to teach. Instead of proving that this was
written very early, it proves that it was composed at a very late date.
If the work in question were that of an obscure person, we can perhaps
understand that it may have been in existence for decades without
attracting attention or gaining recognition. But think of it! A work by
the disciple whom Jesus loved! And, besides, a work containing
disclosures of such paramount importance! It could not have failed to
be greeted on its first appearance with the greatest joy, and to be
greedily devoured; we could not fail to find an echo of it in all
Christian writers. Instead of that, from the date at which it must have
been published by the Apostle, that is to say, at latest from 90-100,
until 140, there is not one certain instance of the use of the book; we
do not find the Apostle recognised as the author until after 170, and
in the meantime we do find it clearly realised that it was not by him.
Indeed, we have to add further that after 160 or 170 it was positively
stated by some who were good Churchmen, and later by the Presbyter
Gaius in Rome at the beginning of the third century, to have been
composed by a heretic. The result therefore of examining the external
evidence means that we cannot place the origin of the Gospel earlier
than very shortly before the first appearance of this evidence, and so
very shortly before 140.
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21. MENTION OF BAR COCHBA S INSURRECTION IN JN. v. 43 .
Let us now return to a consideration of the Gospel itself, and ask
whether we cannot really get the best information as to the date at
which it was composed in the same way that we have obtained it in
considering the questions who was its author, and whether the work is
reliable. Here then our attention is arrested by Jesus' words to the
Jews in v. 43, "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not:
if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." In the
year 132 Simon, having taken the name Bar Cochba, came forward,
proclaimed himself the Messiah, and became among the Jews the leader of
a fanatical rising against the Roman rule, with the result that in the
year 135 the Jewish nation finally lost its in dependence. The
Christians, as we can well understand, declared against the new Messiah
from the first, and in consequence were fiercely persecuted so long as
he retained any power. If the Fourth Evangelist had had experience of
all this, may he not have thought that it would be under stood and
would make an impression if he put into Jesus mouth a prophecy of these
events? In that case he would have written between 132 and 140. If it
had not been that for other reasons we have already been led to assign
the composition of his book to about this date, we might not have had
the boldness to appeal to this passage; but, such being the case, we
seem to be really justified in doing so.
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22. THE FOURTH GOSPEL NOT THE WORK OF SEVERAL AUTHORS.
We have reserved a question for discussion last, which, it might be
thought, ought to have been dealt with first. Can it be that the Fourth
Gospel is not by one and the same author? If not, whenever any
assertion is made with regard to the author, it must of course be
stated very care fully to what part it refers. But the question is not
of serious importance. We have mentioned that the story of the woman
taken in adultery (vii. 53-viii. 11) and chap. xxi. are later additions
(pp. 39 and 186 f.; see also p. 209). But this does not make the least
difference to our explanation of the Gospel as a whole.
The case would be altered, only if we were obliged to partition the
first twenty chapters in large part between two or more authors. The
attempt to do this as a rule rests upon the supposition that one half
is due to a trust worthy historian and an eye-witness, the other to a
badly informed contributor. In an earlier part of this volume (p. 110
f.), we have already realised how far such assumptions are from making
anything contained in the Gospel really credible. But in conclusion we
will try to show the contradictions in which people involve themselves
when they make a division of the kind.
One of the most recent of these attempts explains that the eye-witness
Peter, whose record Mk. preserves in his Gospel, tells us that on the
last evening of Jesus' life he celebrated the Supper with his
disciples; and the eye-witness John that he washed their feet. Peter
therefore knew nothing of the washing, and John nothing of the Supper.
The eye-witness Peter--we are told further as regards--Jesus' idea of
the judgment of the world, preserved the record that it would begin for
all men on one and the same day at the end of the world; the
eye-witness John recorded that for those who believed in Jesus it would
never take place (v. 24), and it is the badly informed contributor who
has added the version in v. 28 f. which agrees with the statement of
Peter. The eye-witness Peter, we are told, finally, left a record which
suggests that .Jesus never betrayed that he was conscious of having
lived a life with God in heaven before his earthly life; the
eye-witness John is able to tell us that Jesus said "before Abraham
was, I am," "Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was" (viii. 58; xvii. 5); and he wrote
in the Prologue the sentences in which Jesus is described as the Logos
who was with God before the be ginning of the world. In face of such
contradictions, it is really no use bringing forward passages here in
which the context is said to have been interrupted by some intervention
on the part of the contributor. We have already found out the
carelessness of the Evangelist (pp. 76-78, 81-83) and it sufficiently
explains the contradictions which appear in his book, even if no one
else helped to compose it.
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CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN.
WHAT is known as the First Epistle of John, though in reality it is not
in epistolary form at all but in that of a circular addressed to the
whole of Christendom, is to all appearances inseparably connected with
the Gospel. Often, as we read, we can hardly say whether we have the
one or the other book open before us. And in fact the matter on which
they differ from each other most clearly is one which, from another
point of view, serves to bring them together again.
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1 . MAIN PURPOSE: TO OPPOSE THE GNOSTICS.
Whereas, for instance, the Gospel never says that it is opposing false
teaching within the Christian fold (except in x. 1-10: see p. 135 f.),
the Epistle says this most emphatically. But we found certain
utterances in the Gospel aimed at very definite opponents, in other
words, at the Gnostics (pp. 152-154, 160-163); and the first Epistle
likewise opposes the Gnostics. We are told (ii. 4) that the author's
opponents asserted that they knew God; and it was knowledge on which
the Gnostics prided themselves. We know further the doctrine of the
Stoics according to which the logos or rather the individual logoi were
like seeds of corn scattered throughout the world (p. 142 f.), and out
of these the things of the world arose. The Gnostics applied this idea
to themselves, and claimed that they had in their own persons the
divine seed. There is a hint of this idea in iii. 9; and in i. 8, 10 of
the Gnostics assertion that this made them sinless.
As to Jesus, the opponents of the writer of the Epistle taught that he
was not the Christ (ii. 22). And in this again we can recognise the
claim of the Gnostics, that Jesus was only a man who for a time and in
a loose way became one with the Christ who had come down from heaven.
This is seen even more clearly in iv. 2 f.; they deny that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh, an utterance which is aimed at the same time at
that other idea of the Gnostics--that he had merely a phantom body (pp.
150, 152). And in v. 6 that teaching of theirs is opposed, according to
which the man who suffered on the cross was not really the redeemer,
that is to say, the Christ, who had come down from heaven. The author
says here that he came, that is to say, to save mankind, not only with
water through his baptism but also with blood through his death.
But, further, in iii. 4, 10, ii. 4 the author declares against "every
one that doeth sin" or "that keepeth not God's commandments," and by
sin he means opposition to the injunction in iii. 3, that every one
should purify himself. What he has in mind therefore is an unholy,
unbridled life. Now, it is hardly possible that this reproach, which is
made more than once and in the most varied forms, can apply to persons
other than those who are opposed in other passages throughout the
Epistle. And if this be so, the Gnostics with whom we have to deal here
are not, like many others, especially in the first decades of the
second century, people who adhered to the law of the Old Testament. We
already have to do with a more developed form of Gnosticism.
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2. AGREEMENT WITH GNOSTICISM.
But it is remarkable that the man who so decisively opposes Gnosticism
agrees with it entirely on a strikingly large number of points. He also
cannot but think that there are two kingdoms very sharply opposed to
each other, the kingdom of God, and that of the world which is ruled by
the devil (ii. 16; iii. 8, 10; iv. 4-6), or the kingdom of truth and
that of lies (ii. 21) and this opposition extends to mankind as well,
the one part being from God and the other from the world, which "lieth
in the evil one," that is to say, is under the dominion of the devil
(v. 19).
We found that there is the same kind of agreement with the Gnostics in
the Gospel (pp. 158-160). But the Epistle goes a step farther. While
the Gospel only occasionally suggests that knowledge is a valuable
thing (xvii. 3), the Epistle emphasises, in a way that a Gnostic could
not excel, that the author and his party themselves possess the
knowledge of God or of the truth (ii. 13 f., 20 f., 27; iv. 7).
Further, as to the Gnostics belief that they had in themselves the
divine "seed," the author maintains again that it is really he and
those who think with him who possess it as their own. And on this point
he ventures to make the strongest statement found in his Epistle:
"Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin" (iii. 9; v. 18). By these
he means himself and his party. And this is said by the same person who
just before (i. 8, 10) has reproached his opponents in these words: "If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not
in us." Here we can see how great a spell the ideas of the Gnostics
exercised upon men's minds.
3. NATURE OF THE OPPOSITION TO GNOSTICISM.
But we see at the same time the peculiar nature of the attack that is
made upon them. Those who opposed them claimed as their own all that
was valuable in the things the Gnostics prided themselves on, and
denied it to the Gnostics. And upon what ground? If these Gnostics
really lived the sinful kind of life they were reproached with, this
would assuredly provide a certain amount of justification for arguing
on these grounds against the truth of their teaching, on the principle
"by their fruits ye shall know them" (Mt. vii. 16). But it is much to
be feared that the opponents of the Gnostics painted their excesses in
darker colours than was just; and it would also be reasonable to ask
whether they had as much light on their own side as (in their view)
there was of shade in that of their opponents. Unfortunately, we are
obliged to say that the New Testament writers are too prone to
disparage their opponents by attacking their morals, and often they do
so in a way that is very unpleasant. In this matter the Epistles to
Timothy and Titus (which were not composed by the Apostle Paul, but in
the first half of the second century), the Epistle of Jude from the
same period, and the Second Epistle of Peter (which was not written by
the Apostle Peter any more than the first Epistle, but is the latest
book in the New Testament, and was not written until after the middle
of the second century) offend in a special degree. It is very possible
that by employing this method of warfare, they show at the same time
that they are incapable of overcoming their opponents with intellectual
weapons. The author of the Epistle to the Colossians provides an
honourable exception; and from this we can see at the same time that
Gnostic views were not always and necessarily associated with
immorality.
As regards the First Epistle of John, we must say that in its attack on
its opponents, compared with the writings mentioned above, it has
observed a certain moderation. In form at least it is written in a calm
and measured style. We note that the author feels the necessity of
convincing his readers of the truth of what he says. Laying so great
stress on knowledge as he does, he cannot have failed to desire this.
True, his argument does not take the form of giving real proofs; he
simply gives expression to his own conviction; but the brevity and
simplicity with which he does so makes it so effective that he could
really hope to make an impression by it.
On what then, in the last resort, does he take his stand when he
opposes the Gnostics? On the Confession of the Church. People must
confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh that is to say, has
appeared with a body consisting of flesh; otherwise they are not from
God, but are Christ's enemies, and, in denying the son, they are at the
same time denying God the Father as well (iv. 2 f.; ii. 22).
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4. THE EPISTLE NOT BY THE AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL.
After all that has been said so far, the Gospel and the first Epistle
might very well seem to have been the work of the same person; but on a
closer view it is clear that in all probability the two writings had
different authors. A number of important expressions occur only in the
Epistle which the author of the Gospel would have had opportunities of
using as well had he been familiar with them. But, above all, the
convictions to which the Epistle gives expression bring it nearer than
the Gospel to the ordinary, simple faith of the Church.
Jesus second coming from heaven, at which he will bring eternal
happiness, in ii. 28, as amongst primitive Christians in general, is
expected to take place on a definite day as an objective event; on the
other hand, when the Evangelist speaks of a second coming of Jesus
after his death, he does so only in the sense that it will be identical
with the coming of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers, which
of course happens at very different times (xiv. 16-18, 26-28). The
Epistle follows the old idea closely in expecting that on that great
day in the future all men will rise from the dead and come before the
bar of judgment (iii. 2; iv. 17). In the Gospel this idea is found only
in particular passages, for example in v. 28 f., or in a clause which
is perhaps disturbing, or at least can always be dispensed with, "and I
will raise him up at the last day," vi. 40, 44, 54, 39 (on this account
perhaps added by another person, in order to make the book more
acceptable to simple believers); but his principal idea on this point
is that eternal life begins even in this world as soon as a man
believes in Jesus, and that such a one will never come into judgment
(v. 24). To the writer of the Epistle the most important redemptive act
of Jesus seems to be his death (i. 7; ii. 2; iv. 10), as was generally
thought since the time of the Apostle Paul; the Gospel gives expression
to this belief only in i. 29, 36, and perhaps in xi. 50-52; xvii. 19 b,
and assumes everywhere else that Jesus brought redemption by coming
amongst men and bringing them that true knowledge which leads to
believing in him. In the division which is made between God and the
world, the Epistle does not go so far as the Gospel. The Evangelist's
most significant train of thought is to the effect that God does not
give his gifts directly to men, but to Jesus. Jesus is the first to
bestow them upon men (xv. 9 f.); none can come to the Father save
through him (xiv. 6). There are not wanting in the Gospel, as we have
indicated already (p. 161), sayings which represent the idea, assumed
throughout the Epistle (ii. 24; iii. 24; iv. 12 f., 15 f.), that men
also can commune directly with God. But the difference is perceptible
all the same. Finally, in place of the designation "Logos," the Epistle
(i. 1) has "the Word of Life," by which one cannot perceive that Jesus
is a Being who bears the name Logos and is well known from Greek
Philosophy.
It is indeed permissible to think that one and the same person might
have expressed himself differently in two works. But the facts of the
case are certainly more easily understood if we suppose that we have to
do with two different authors; and since, moreover, the Evangelist
cannot have been John the Apostle, it is no use insisting that the
author of the Epistle can have been no other than he.
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5. DATE OF COMPOSITION.
But when was the Epistle written? Since it represents the simpler and
earlier form of the Christian faith, it is natural to think it older
than the Gospel. But the contrary may also have been the case; and
there are many other writers who have not followed the Gospel of John,
when it diverges from the original teaching, but have betaken
themselves to this. We must therefore look for another means of
deciding the question. Let me quote here ii. 12-14: "I write unto you,
my little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's
sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye know him which is from the
beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the
evil one. I have written unto you, little children, because ye know the
Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye know him which is
from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are
strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the
evil one." This can hardly be understood to mean anything else than
that the author wishes to inform his readers that what he now writes is
essentially the same as he has already written to them once before. And
thus it is very natural to suppose that he suggests that he had done
this in the Gospel. With this the external evidence would agree; the
Epistle, like the Gospel, is not used by Christian writers until after
the year 140, and when it is first used there is no mention of the
author's name.
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6. SECONDARY PURPOSE: RECOMMENDATION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
We must now devote a few more words to the purpose of the Epistle. We
have hitherto explained that the author is opposing the Gnostics, but
if what we have just said be correct, this does not exhaust the matter;
another purpose is to repeat in another form what is contained in the
Gospel and so to confirm it. Is there any connection between this and
the fact that in the earliest days after its publication it gained so
little recognition (p. 199 f.)? In that case, the purpose of the
Epistle would be the same as that which induced some one, as we have
already found (p. 186 f.), to add the twenty-first chapter to the
Gospel. And just as in the addition to the Gospel the ruling idea was
to satisfy the requirement that the account of Peter should be more
favourable, sq in the present case the work was carried out in such a
way as to avoid those statements in the Gospel which differed too much
from the ordinary faith of the Church. Here we may again wonder whether
this may not have been done by the author of the Gospel himself, and
whether he may not have written in this way, to set aside his original
views of set purpose. But it is easier to suppose that one who belonged
to the circle of his followers wrote it to give expression to his own
view of the matter.
We should have to assume at the same time that he wished to be taken
for the Evangelist. But, according to the ideas of the time, there
would be as little harm in this as there was in the other case where
the Evangelist (perhaps) wished to be taken for John the Apostle (pp.
183-185). We must not therefore regard it as being in the slightest
degree deceitful when we are told at the beginning of his circular:
"that which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that
which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands
handled, concerning the Word of Life (that is to say, concerning Jesus)
. . . declare we unto you also." By taking up the pen in the name of
the Evangelist, and yet writing in a rather different sense, the author
served the great purpose of gaining recognition in the Church for the
precious thoughts contained in the Fourth Gospel, knowing as he did how
to remove all that was offensive; and it is quite possible that he
helped in a real sense to achieve this purpose. He did not, however,
fulfil in any way his opening promise (i. 1). There is not the least
trace in his Epistle of anything that only an eye-witness of the Life
of Jesus could know.
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CHAPTER. III.
THE SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES OF JOHN.
THE agreement which we have noticed in the mode of expression and the
thought of the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle, is much less
pronounced when we turn to the Second Epistle, and disappears even more
in the Third. On the other hand, these two Epistles supplement the
First from a new point of view.
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1. PURPOSE OP THE TWO EPISTLES.
If we take note of what is most peculiar in them, we cannot help seeing
that their main purpose is to insist that with certain members of the
Christian Church communion must be ended. We read in 2 Jn. 10 f.: "If
any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this (the right) teaching,
receive him not into your house and give him no greeting: for he that
giveth him greeting partaketh in his evil works." Here the Gnostics are
intended who are called in verse 9 people who "go onward."
In the Third Epistle the opposition to these is less perceptible; there
was less opportunity, for the occasion for this Epistle was provided by
disputes between the author and a certain Diotrephes as to the
authoritative influence in the community. "I wrote somewhat unto the
Church; but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them,
receiveth us not . . . neither doth he himself receive the brethren,
and them that would he forbiddeth, and casteth them out of the Church"
(3 Jn. 9 f.). These brethren are therefore travelling Christians, who
belong to the party of the author. The idea of the Epistle is to
request Gaius, to whom it is addressed, to receive them kindly. The
author claims to have an influence extending beyond his own
dwelling-place. The Demetrius who is mentioned at the end of the
Epistle, and of whom it is expressly stated that he "hath the witness
of all men," may well have conveyed it himself.
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2. ADDRESS OP THE TWO EPISTLES.
The Third Epistle, then, is addressed to a particular person. At first
sight, this seems to be so with the Second Epistle as well, when we
read, "the elder unto the elect lady and her children." But who is the
lady? The last sentence of the Epistle runs: "The children of thine
elect sister salute thee." Does the author actually write from the
house of the sister of the recipient? And what does verse 4 mean? "I
rejoice greatly that I have found certain of thy children walking in
truth." Only certain? Was there not greater cause to express sorrow for
the others? In short, the "lady" is not a particular woman; she is a
community. We learn from Ephes. v. 31 f.; Rev. xix. 7, that the
community was thought of as the bride of Christ who had been exalted to
heaven, just as in the Old Testament the people of Israel is the bride
of God. Since Christ is called "the Lord," the community might be
called "the lady." It deserves to be called "elect" because it consists
of all the chosen. Its children are of course the members of the
community.
We need not stop to think, as regards this matter, that a community had
been shown to be meant instead of what appeared at first sight to be
one woman. Where should we have to look for it? There is no clue to
anything of the kind. Any community, therefore, might suppose that it
was greeted by that other community in which the author was staying.
This means that the Epistle was meant for the whole church, and its
contents suit this idea quite well. For a secondary purpose of the
Epistle is found in the fact that the author wishes to warn people in
quite a general way against the Gnostics and to emphasise the correct
teaching about Jesus (2 Jn. 7-9). In this respect it falls into line
with the first Epistle.
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3. AUTHOR OF THE TWO EPISTLES AND DATE OF COMPOSITION.
While the Second Epistle insists, not only on opposition to, but on the
expulsion of the Gnostics, it goes beyond the First, and so might with
the Third seem to be later. Unfortunately we have no definite points
from which to start in order to determine the date at which both were
written. Yet, on the other hand, there is another fact which leads us
to suppose that they preceded the Gospel and the First Epistle.
The author of both Epistles, that is to say, calls himself simply, "the
elder." How it could be thought that, in spite of this clear
description, he was the Apostle, is really difficult to explain. If we
cannot say for certain who is meant by "the elder," yet it is clear
that the Apostle would not have described himself in this way. When we
read in v. 1 of the First Epistle of Peter (which, besides, is not by
Peter, but was written at the beginning of the persecution of the
Christians in Asia Minor in the year 112; see iv. 12, 15 f.), that
Peter is addressing the elders of the community, and for this special
reason calls himself their fellow elder we have something quite
different. But, besides this, we know of one quite famous person who is
continually called "the elder"; this is John "the Elder," head of the
Church in Asia Minor. The use of his special name "the elder" may very
well have been so widespread that his real name John was omitted.
Was he the writer of the Epistles? If the Gnostics did not succeed in
gaining a following in the Christian communities until about the year
100 (p. 192), a considerable period of time must have elapsed before
people would take measures to exclude them so harshly from communion.
For many decades they regarded themselves as members of the Church,
and, though they were opposed by other teachers in it, they were
treated everywhere with toleration, A personal disciple of Jesus, such
as John the Elder was, cannot have lived to see the time when they were
excluded from communion.
Another person in his circle, who is not known to us, may have had the
same title, and in course of time have come to be known solely by this
name, "the Elder." But in view of the close relationship between, at
least, the Second Epistle on the one hand and the First and the Gospel
on the other, it is very likely that the author is supposed to be that
John the Elder whom Irenaeus and the other Christian writers had in
mind, even though they mentioned the Apostle as the writer of the
Gospel and the First Epistle. Only, in that case, the two small
Epistles would have been composed merely in the name of John the Elder,
just as the First Epistle and (perhaps) the Gospel are represented as
being works of John the Apostle.
And this would be the reason for supposing these two to be the earlier
of the four writings in question. On this assumption, we shall have to
think that in one particular place, Ephesus perhaps, there was a whole
number of persons of like mind who were filled with a feeling of
veneration for John the Elder, once head of this community, and at the
same time were anxious, by writing books, to make their ideas current
in the Church. Even if these ideas had ceased to be quite identical
with those of their former Master, it was most natural for them to
publish their first writings in his name. But perhaps they were made to
realise that his reputation had not extended beyond the immediate
circle in which he had once worked. In order, therefore, to make a
greater impression, when they thought of publishing new works, such as
the Gospel and the First Epistle, they felt obliged to choose a person
who ranked still higher and publish them in his name; this person was
John the Apostle. In this way the two small Epistles, in spite of the
fact that their range is restricted, would contribute not a little
towards giving us a very interesting and instructive glimpse of a whole
series of events and struggles, which the idea that arose later, that
their author was John the Apostle, to all intents and purposes served
to overcloud completely.
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CHAPTER IV.
THE "REVELATION" OF JOHN.
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1. VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS.
THE last book of the New Testament is called "Revelation" (Gk.
Apokalypsis) of Jesus Christ, but after we have pored over the
books--far more than a thousand--which have been written in the past
years to explain it, it must appear so obscure that the seven seals
which are mentioned in the book (chapters v. f.; viii. 1) as closing
over the fate of humanity and being loosened one after another, must
seem to clasp the book itself firmly together and to refuse to be
broken.
It has been supposed to prophesy the whole history of the Church and
even of the world, in each case of course down to the lifetime of the
expositor, and nearly always in a different way. In the beast described
in xiii. 1-10; xvii. 7-18, people have recognised emperor after
emperor, pope after pope, one leader after another of the Vandals,
Muhammedans, and Turks, as well as Luther, Napoleon I., Napoleon III.,
and the French General Boulanger (1891); and, besides these, even
impersonal things, such as apostasy, godlessness, the Catholic Church,
and, to mention only one other thing, Smallpox. In a revelation of
Jesus Christ men would fain expect to read nothing less than every
thing which had determined the fate of humanity since its appearance.
In proportion as people could show for certain that what had already
happened was prophesied in it, they might also rest assured that all
that it said about a time still to come would be correctly unravelled.
All this mass of ingenuity and error might of course have been seen
from the beginning to be useless, if people had only taken note,
amongst other things, of the first verse and the last verse but one in
the book. We are told in i. 1 (and xxii. 6) that the revelation of
Jesus Christ is "to shew unto his servants the things which must
shortly come to pass." And this does not mean "which must soon begin,
and then go on for thousands of years," for in xxii. 20 (as well as in
iii. 11; xxii. 7, 12) Jesus says, "I come quickly," that is to say, to
introduce the end of the world. The author of the book, accordingly,
expected the end of the world in his own lifetime; and if we wish to
understand the curious figures in which he described it, we must try to
interpret them in the light of the ideas which prevailed at the time.
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2. COMBINATION OF SEPARATE FRAGMENTS.
But first we must realise clearly that in this book we have not to do
with a single author. The visions which he is supposed to have seen in
it follow upon one another with so little regard to order that it has
already been thought that he could not have seen them all one after
another, but after each must have had time to note it down; other wise
he would not have been in a position to note them all in their right
order. No less than six times we find the "last things," which from
what has already been said we might think are to follow (viii. 1; xi.
15-19; xiv. 20; xvi. 17-21; xviii. 21-24; xix. 21), described before
the real conclusion of the book. In every case we meet with a
self-contained picture only in a particular section of the narrative,
and for the most part this never extends to a whole chapter.
It has been noticed that chap. xxiv. of Mt.'s Gospel (not so literally
in Mk. xiii., and in Lk. xxi. in a version which differs still more)
incorporates a very small publication in which events are described
which are supposed to happen immediately before or at the end of the
world. Mt. xxiv. 6-8, 15-22, 29-31, 34, that is to say, do not fit into
the sections between which they are placed, but connect together all
the better. These verses, which have been called a "little Apocalypse,"
and which now appear as the words of Jesus only by an entire
misapprehension, may very well have been a leaflet published and spread
abroad at the time of direst need in order to call the attention of the
faithful to signs by which they might recognise the near approach of
the end of the world, and to warn them. In xxiv. 15 we even read, "let
him that readeth under stand," though Jesus would have been obliged to
say, "let him that heareth."
Such leaflets may still be discovered in the Apocalypse of Jn. as well.
It is difficult to say whether the writer who put together the whole
book was the first to insert them, or whether earlier workers did so,
each of them publishing only a part of the present book; and the matter
is of subordinate importance. Particular stones in the building attract
attention and can be separated more easily than those sections of the
walls which have been constructed by one or another foreman.
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3. A LEAFLET ON THE FATE OF JERUSALEM.
In Rev. xi. 1-13 we can recognise a leaflet which is quite similar to
the little Apocalypse in Mt. xxiv., and belongs to the last years
before August 70 A.D., when the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed by
the Imperial Prince, Titus. We learn from xi. 1 f. that the heathen
might tread upon the outer fore-court of the Temple and the rest of the
holy city of Jerusalem, but might not touch "the temple of God, and the
altar, and them that worship therein." Often enough two, and even
three, hostile parties had struggled for months without result inside
the walls of Jerusalem. Just before Easter of the year 70 one of the
three parties was in possession of the Temple with the inner
fore-court, the other of the rest of the Temple hill, the third of the
rest of the city. The author was therefore entirely justified by the
events of the time in his expectation, even if in the end he was
baffled by the destruction of the Temple.
He cannot, of course, have been a Christian if Jesus supposed prophecy,
"there shall not be left here one stone upon another" (Mk. xiii. 2),
was well known. And Jesus may very well have uttered such a prophecy,
even if we refuse to credit him with omniscience. By simply exercising
human powers of reflection, it was not difficult to foresee the fall of
the Temple. But since this prophecy may also have been ascribed to
Jesus subsequently, it is still possible that it was a Christian who
gave expression to the contrary prophecy in his leaflet (Rev. xi.
1-13).
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4. PROPHECY CONCERNING ROME AND THE FIRST BEAST.
But the city of Rome takes an even more important place than Jerusalem
in the Apocalypse. Fear of the authorities, who might think the
prophecies about it dangerous to the State, leads the author to mention
the city not by its real name, but by that of Babylon, which, as was
well known, was in the Old Testament associated with an equal amount of
wickedness; but xvii. 5 f., 9, 18 make it clear enough to every
intelligent reader what city is meant. In chap. xviii., which, like xi.
1-13, may have been a separate leaflet, the description of its
overthrow is quite different from that given in the other parts of the
book.
In these we find connected with it the most important figure in the
whole Apocalypse, the (first) beast, that is to say, the Roman
imperium. It supports and carries the woman, as the city of Rome is
also called (xvii. 3, 7), it has a throne, kingdom, dominion over the
world (xiii. 2, 7; xvi. 10), and, in particular, seven heads, that is
to say, as we learn in xvii. 9 f., seven kings, of whom the first five
have fallen, one is now reigning, and the seventh is still to come. The
first five Roman emperors, who are here intended, were Augustus,
Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. The author of chap. xvii.
therefore writes after Nero's death, which took place on the 9th of
June in the year 68; and the same date suits chap. xiii. Nero, it is
true, had no real successors; but Galba, Otho, and Vitellius struggled
for the mastery until Vespasian seized it for himself in December of
the year 69. Yet it is by no means certain that he was numbered as the
sixth, and that the one and a half years of the dispute about the
succession are excluded. A person who lived in the second half of the
year 68 could only say, as our author does, "the sixth emperor is now
reigning," though in other parts of the extensive Roman empire his rule
was disputed.
There is something else which suggests that the time intended is that
immediately following Nero's death. By the beast we are not always
meant to understand the Roman imperium in general, but sometimes a
single emperor. There is no mistake when it is said in xiii. 7 f., "and
there was given to him (that is to say, the beast) authority over every
tribe . . . and all that dwell on the earth shall worship him" and in
xiii. 14, "to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword, and lived."
Add to this xvii. 8, 11: "the beast . . . was and (now) is not, and is
about to come up out of the abyss . . . and the beast that was, and is
not, is himself the eighth, and at the same time is one of the seven
(Roman Emperors), and he goeth into perdition."
To which Roman Emperor does this apply? When Nero saw that his rule was
at an end, he fled in the company of a few persons to an estate, and on
hearing his pursuers approaching, with the help of his secretary he cut
his throat with a sword. His corpse was solemnly burned. But his
friends, especially amongst the mob, refused to believe that he was
dead; they imagined that he had made his escape and would shortly
return and wrest back his power.
A heathen could not reconcile these two accounts of Nero's end; but a
Christian (or a Jew), believing as he did in a resurrection, could very
well do so. Accordingly, all that we read about the beast in the
Apocalypse would apply to Nero: the sword-wound, the death, the return
from the underworld, to which every one went when he died, and the
statement that this risen person who is to appear as the eighth
emperor, was one of the seven preceding emperors. We know indeed that
impostors were continually coming forward and claiming to be Nero. The
very first, who arose as early as the year in which Nero died, created
a disturbance for months along the whole of the west coast of Asia
Minor as well as in Greece. And this makes it probable that these
sections of the Apocalypse date from that time, and so from 68 or 69.
Those who, as we mentioned above, claim that the sixth place must be
assigned to the Emperor Vespasian, and that this was the reign in which
the author lived, may still discover the reason for his statements in
the appearance of this false Nero, if they suppose that they were
written in the first period of Vespasian, that is to say at the be
ginning of the year 70. On the other hand, the next false Nero of whom
we hear did not appear at the end of the reign of Vespasian, but in the
days of his successor, Titus. But a person who wrote in this reign
(79-81) could in no circumstances say that he was living in the reign
of the sixth Emperor.
It has been thought that the expectation that the resuscitated Nero
would be the eighth Emperor could only have been held when the seventh
had already ascended the throne; otherwise a seventh would not have
been prophesied. But the writer's conviction that Rome would have seven
emperors was drawn from the Old Testament book of Daniel. This
represents the matter in such a way that it might have been composed in
the sixth century B.C. (in reality it was not written until 167-164
B.C.), and prophesies in vii. 1-8 that there will appear one after
another a lion, a bear, a panther with four heads, and another terrible
beast with ten horns. According to vii. 17, what are meant are four
empires which will rule the world one after another, the Babylonian
down to 539 B.C., the Median which really ended as early as 550, the
Persian, 539-330, to which the author assigns four kings instead of
eleven, and the Greek with ten kings in Syria, to the last among whom
the Jews were subject.
Since the author of the Apocalypse does not pretend, like the book of
Daniel, to prophesy so many centuries before the time in which he
really lived, he speaks of only one world-wide empire, that of Home.
Since, however, the book of Daniel and its description of the empires
ruling the world was held to be a divine prophecy, which in the
author's lifetime still waited for fulfilment, he (or one of his
predecessors) has made its four beasts into one, which now, according
to xiii. 1 f., has at the same time the characteristics of the lion,
the bear, and the panther, and the ten horns of the fourth beast, but
the seven heads of all four which these have all together. The idea
that the end of the world is at hand is reckoned with, in spite of the
seventh emperor, by representing in xvii. 10 that he will reign for a
short time.
Here again we can note well how the Apocalypse borrows its descriptions
from an older prophecy, which it held to be sacred, and how at the same
time it adapts this prophecy to its own present. This enables us to
understand fully such a figure as that of the beast, which is really
very curious. In other cases as well, the author continually takes his
expressions and even whole sentences from the Old Testament. It may be,
however, that several remarkable descriptions in the book are derived
from other old prophecies, perhaps suggested by myths about the gods of
the Babylonians or Persians.
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5. THE NUMBER 666.
The last point which confirms us in thinking that Nero is meant by the
beast consists in the famous number (xiii. 18): "He that hath
understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the
number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty and six." The
number of a man, or as it is said in xiii. 17, the number of the name
of the beast is the number which results when all the numbers are added
which are indicated by the letters of the name. In Latin only a few
letters (I, V, X, L, C, M, D) are used for numbers, but in Greek and
Hebrew all. Now the number 666 does really result when we write N(e)ron
K(e)s(a)r (that is to say, Emperor Nero) in Hebrew letters and add up
the numbers: 50 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 100 + 60 + 200 (the letters in
brackets are not written in Hebrew). The number 666 also results from
more than a hundred other solutions which have been suggested. But,
apart from other reasons which show that the many popes, princes, and
so forth down to the present time which people have tried to find in
the beast, cannot be intended, no such calculation has been hit upon
which might at the same time give 616 as the correct number. And yet
there must be this alternative, for in many copies of the Apocalpyse
even before the time of Irenaeus, that is to say, before 185, 616 is
given as the number instead of 666, And this is the number we get if an
"n" is omitted from Neron Kesar, which represents the number 50: Nero
Kesar. This, too, would suit very well, for where Latin was spoken
people said Nero, whereas the Greek form, familiar to the author of the
Apocalypse himself, is Neron. It was natural to him to use Hebrew for
the calculation, for in any case it was his mother-tongue, and it would
make it less easy for uninitiated persons to solve the riddle. Irenaeus
himself no longer knew the solution. It was rejected because Nero
failed to return.
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6. TIME OF COMPOSITION.
The most important sections of the book, that concerning Jerusalem, and
those about the return of Nero from the underworld, date therefore in
all probability from the years 68-70. None of the others indicates so
clearly the date at which it came into existence. We ask therefore at
once when the whole book may be supposed to have been put together. And
here Irenaeus tells us that the Apocalypse was revealed and written
down at the end of the reign of the Emperor Domitian, that is to say,
in the year 95 or 96. We have already seen (p. 194 f.) how little we
can rely on Irenaeus in such matters. But in this case we have no
definite reason to dispute that the date he fixes for the composition
of the Apocalypse is appropriate enough for the putting together of the
whole book.
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7. THE AUTHOR NOT THE AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
But who is the author (or compiler) of the whole Apocalypse? In any
case, it is not the same person who wrote the Fourth Gospel. The two
works are fundamentally different.
If the Gospel is not written in good Greek style, the style is at any
rate smooth; the Apocalypse has very serious linguistic mistakes.
Moreover, in both works Jesus is called the Lamb, but in each case a
different Greek word is used. The Evangelist knows nothing about the
things which are most important to the author of the Apocalypse, about
the terrible events before the end of the world, about the descent of
Christ and his army from the sky on white horses for the great battle
with the kings of the earth, about the peaceful millennial rule of the
faithful after their resurrection, about the Jerusalem which is to come
down from heaven and is 12,000 stadia--say, a third of the radius of
the earth--in length, breadth, and height, and consists of gold
transparent like glass (xix. 11-21; xx. 1-6; xxi. 9-xxii. 5), &c.; and
he cannot have wished to know anything about these things, since his
style of thought was averse to all such expectations. Nor may we go so
far as to assume that both men belonged to one and the same circle of
kindred spirits. The most we can say is that the Apocalypse may have
still been held in honour by those who held the same views as the
Evangelist; he himself was far superior to its style of thought, and
shows only in isolated cases that he was familiar with it but not, for
in stance, where it is said that Jesus "is the Logos of God." In Rev.
xix. 13 this is a later addition, for his name "no one knoweth, but he
himself" (verse 12).
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8. THE AUTHOR NOT THE APOSTLE JOHN.
As we cannot ascribe the Gospel to the Apostle John, it is still
possible that he may have written the Apocalypse (in i. 1, 4 the author
calls himself John and a servant of Christ; in xxii. 9 a prophet). But,
in that case we may be sure he would not call Jesus, exactly as if he
were God, the Alpha and Omega, that is to say, as is expressly
explained, the first and the last (literally the first and last letter
of the Greek Alphabet; see xxii. 13; i. 17; ii. 8, just as in i. 8;
xxi. 6), nor describe him as the first link of God's creation, if not
as the author of God's creation (iii. 14). We found such expressions in
the Fourth Gospel, but not in the Synoptics. And how can a personal
disciple of Jesus imagine him in heaven as a lamb with seven horns and
seven eyes, "standing as though it had been slain," and then taking a
book from the hand of God and breaking its seals (v. 6-9; vi. 1), or
conceive of him as he is described in i. 13-16? But even if he took
such sections as these from another book and incorporated them in his
own, we might expect that expression would be given at the same time to
his own recollection of the life of Jesus. And yet almost the only case
in which this is done is in the statement that Jesus is "the true
witness" (i. 5; iii. 14), and we cannot be sure that this does not mean
that Jesus is now testifying in heaven that what is prophesied in the
Apocalypse is true (such is the idea in i. 2). We need only add that
according to xxi. 14 the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb, that
is to say, of Christ, are written on the twelve foundation-stones of
the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem. Had one of these same apostles
written this or even merely incorporated it in his book, we should be
obliged to regard it in the same way as the title, "the disciple whom
Jesus loved," if by this the Fourth Evangelist meant himself (pp.
179-181).
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9. THE AUTHOR JOHN THE ELDER?
It is different if we think of John the Elder (p. 172 f.) as the final
editor of the Apocalypse. This would explain the fact (which would also
be appropriate if the author were the Apostle John) that the Jews are
always represented as the chosen people of God (vii. 1-8), and that it
is forbidden to eat flesh taken from a victim offered to a heathen idol
(ii. 14, 20), though Paul declared it to have been allowed in principle
(1 Cor. x. 25-27, 29b, 30) and only forbids it when a sensitive
Christian who thought it for bidden might be offended by it (1 Cor.
viii. 7-13; x. 28, 29 a), or when people, by sharing in the
festivities, recognised the idol as a real god (1 Cor. x. 20 f .) In
this matter a strongly Jewish sentiment in favour of the Law of the Old
Testament still pervades the Apocalypse.
We know further, as regards John the Elder (but not also as regards the
Apostle), that he was very much interested in prophecies of the end of
the world, and imagined, for example, that after the resurrection of
the dead there would be on earth a millennial kingdom full of peace and
happiness and ruled by Christ, exactly as it is described in Rev. xx.
1-6.
When we remember, finally, that John the Elder of Ephesus was leader of
the Church of Western Asia Minor, we can easily see how well his
position suits the tone in which the seven Epistles to the seven
Communities in that region are composed in Rev. ii. f. They were
certainly not sent separately to each one of those communities, and
grouped together only at a later date. The way in which they are all
written round the same circle of ideas, and almost modelled on one
pattern, indicates far rather that from the very first they were only
intended for publication in the book of Revelation. They make a weighty
impression precisely because the same turns of expression recur so
continually. They must, therefore, in any case, have been composed by
the last contributor to the book, with the idea of recommending a
definite circle of readers to take due note of the prophecies which
follow in iv. 1-xxii. 5.
We must not persist, however, in thinking that it was John the Elder
who wrote the seven letters, and in this way, as well as by other
embellishments which we can no longer specify exactly, brought the
Apocalypse to a close. The description of Jesus tells against this,
even if John him self only heard him for a short time. The work may
also have been composed by another person in his name, just as well as
the Second and Third Epistles of John.
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10. SPIRIT OF THE BOOK.
The seven Epistles in the Apocalypse contain severe words about evil
conditions and the opponents of the author in some of the seven
communities; but they also contain beautiful and truly religious
utterances which are sufficient to compensate for the spirit of the
whole book, which is sometimes narrow and vindictive (xvi. 6; xviii. 6
f.), and concentrated upon such external and materialistic matters as
eating, ruling, and white garments (ii. 7, 17; iii. 20 f.; xix. 8,
&c.): "I stand at the door and knock" (iii. 20); "Be thou faithful unto
death, and I will give thee the crown of life" (ii. 10); "hold fast
that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown" (iii. 11). Not a
single prophecy in the book has been fulfilled, and none remains to be
fulfilled, since they are all framed in such a way that they ought to
have been fulfilled within a few years. The main idea, that people
should no longer attempt to improve upon the world, but should withdraw
from it entirely, and simply wait and hope for a speedy end to it
(especially xxii. 11), is certainly quite out of harmony with the most
precious truths which Christianity has brought home to us in the course
of centuries, and the fully developed seeds of which were already
present in the ideas of Jesus; still, one of the most beautiful
products of Christianity, and one which in the end concerns absolutely
every individual, consists in that constancy and faithfulness which all
the prophecies and admonitions of this book insist upon so forcibly.
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CHAPTER V.
SPIRIT AND VALUE OF THE GOSPEL AND EPISTLES OF JOHN.
THE task that remains is the most attractive of all. We have to enter
wholeheartedly into the spirit of the other four Johannine writings,
and to try to realise their importance, on the one hand for their own
time, and on the other for all times. When we did this in the case of
the Apocalypse, we could only speak with a good deal of reserve; as
regards these other writings, however, we are in a much more favourable
position, especially as regards the Gospel and the First Epistle. At
this point we assume, of course, that the reader is acquainted with all
that we have said at the close of the first part of this book (pp.
151-165) about the intellectual currents observable in the Fourth
Gospel.
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1. ADMISSION OF THE GENTILES INTO THE CHRISTIAN BODY.
A consideration of the question whether the Gentiles also ought to be
encouraged to become Christians will perhaps be the clearest way of
showing that, of all the writings of the New Testament, the Fourth
Gospel marks the greatest step forward.
At first Jesus did not think of extending to the Gentiles the benefits
of his work (p. 34 f.), and he forbade his disciples to undertake
mission work amongst them, or even among the Samaritans; though perhaps
the reason was simply that he wished the preaching of salvation to
reach, at any rate, all the members of his own race before the end of
the world, which he imagined to be quite near (Mt. x. 5 f. 23). For a
Gentile was no less capable than a Jew of meeting the requirements for
entrance into the kingdom of God, a longing for God, humility,
compassion, purity of heart (Mt. v. 3-9); and in this matter Paul has
grasped the inmost thought of Jesus more correctly than the original
apostles. These leave Paul and his associates to go on a mission to the
Gentiles, while they address themselves solely to the Jews (p. 187);
and Paul has to fight hard for the principle that the Gentiles do not
need first to become Jews and to accept circumcision and the whole of
the Jewish Law before they can become Christians (Gal. ii. 1-10; Acts
xv. 1, 5). In the Apocalypse only Jews (12,000 from each of the twelve
tribes) receive the seal on the fore head which protects them against
the great tribulations of the last days before the end of the world
(vii. 1-8); and it is only in a section added later (vii. 9-17) that
the seer sees before the throne of God a numberless crowd of all
peoples who have come there, because they have steadfastly endured the
great persecution of the Christians.
In the Fourth Gospel, however, the admission of Gentiles to
Christianity is quite a matter of course. When Greeks come near to
Jesus and wish to meet him, he sees in their coming the beginning of
the hour in which he will be glorified, that is to say, exalted to
heaven (xii. 20-23). This story, which at an earlier point in our
discussion (p. 78) seemed very curious, is now intelligible. The last
and greatest goal of Jesus earthly message was the admission of the
Gentiles to Christianity. And in x. 16 he says: "And other sheep I
have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring . . . and they
shall become one flock, one shepherd." Only such views as these could
make Christianity a world-religion.
For the same purpose again it was important that it should not seem to
be dangerous to the State. In the case of Paul, the Acts of the
Apostles always represents the Roman officials as recognising that it
did not really threaten the State (xviii. 14 f.; xxiii. 29; xxv. 18 f.;
cp. xix. 37; xxvi. 31 f.). In the Third Gospel, the same author, going
beyond Mk. and Mt., tells us that Pilate declared three times that he
found no fault in Jesus (xxiii. 4, 14 f., 22). Jn. emphasises this
still more (xviii. 28-xix. 16) and adds, moreover, that in the course
of his trial Jesus expressly said that his kingdom was not of this
world (xviii. 36).
__________________________________________________________________
2. STRUGGLE WITH THE JEWS.
If Christianity was to become a world-religion, it had to break away
more and more from Judaism; and this cer tainly could not be done
without a struggle. The great majority of the Jews from the time of the
Apostle Paul had already adopted a hostile attitude towards
Christianity: this would make the Christians despise them all the more.
The way in which Jesus is represented as speaking of the Jews, the Law,
the feasts of the Jews, as matters of utter indifference to him, and
which to us seems inconceivable (p. 15 f.), entirely harmonises with
the ideas of Christians in the second century, who were for the most
part Gentiles by birth, and is most appropriate if the Evangelist was
alive at the time of the rising of Bar Cochba (p. 200 f.). When he
represents Jesus as being continually engaged in controversies with the
Jews, all those points are touched upon which were in question between
Christians and Jews in the second century: Jesus is really the Son of
God; the Jews refusal to believe this is simply due to obstinacy, &c.
In this way, the author answers all the needs of his time. We must
leave the question whether there were also followers of John the
Baptist to be refuted, and whether it is against these that proof is
offered of the great superiority of Jesus (p. 80).
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3. APPRECIATION OF MONTANISM AND GNOSTICISM.
We see more clearly how the author appreciates those intellectual
movements of his age with which he feels that he him self has something
in common. He prepared the way even for Montanus of Phrygia and his
followers, who after the year 156 came forward with new prophecies and
declared that this age of theirs, the age of the Holy Spirit which
filled them, represented a higher level compared with the time in which
Jesus lived, by making Jesus himself say in Jn. xvi. 12 f., that the
disciples could not at the time understand many other things which he
had to say to them, but that after his death the Holy Spirit would come
and lead them into all truth.
But it was, in particular, the captivating ideas of Gnosticism that the
Fourth Evangelist appropriated (pp. 152 f. 158-160). He did a great
service to his age by showing that one could be a thinker, appreciate
knowledge, stand in the midst of a stream of thoroughly intellectual
movements, and yet remain a faithful son of the Church. In this way, we
may presume, he contributed not a little to keep Christians from
splitting into two classes having hardly any connecting link, the
intellectual aristocracy of the Gnostics and simple believers. In face
of mutual feuds and of persecution from without, such cleavage might
have endangered the continued existence of Christianity altogether. The
Second and Third Epistles of John, which aimed at keeping the
communities closely knit together by means of the authority of the
Church, also deserve part of the credit for having warded off this
danger. To us the effort may not seem, very exalted or even very
beautiful: but, nevertheless, it was productive of good.
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4. IDEAS ABOUT THE STATE AFTER DEATH.
The Fourth Evangelist, by adopting the view that the visible world is
only a perishable copy of the invisible, at the same time introduced a
revolution in the ideas about the state after death, the results of
which have been felt even down to the present time. The Old Testament,
and with it Jesus and the whole of primitive Christendom, imagined a
future state of happiness upon earth. Even in the Apocalypse (xxi. 1
f.), we read of the New Jerusalem descending from heaven upon a
renovated earth.
Only in a few passages does Paul express the idea (2 Cor. v. 1-8; Phil.
i. 23) that the faithful immediately after their death will come to
Christ in heaven. It is not until we turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews
(xii. 27 f.) that we find the teaching that at the end of things the
earth will pass away entirely and only the heavens remain; there, in
the heavenly Jerusalem, which will not descend upon earth, is also the
place where Christians will enjoy eternal happiness (xii. 22 f.). But
whereas this truth is not easily to be discovered in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, in Jn. it is expressed with absolute clearness (xiv. 2): "in
my Father's house are many mansions. . . I go," by being exalted to
heaven, "to prepare a place for you."
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5. JESUS THE SON OF GOD AND LOGOS IN HEAVEN.
But the Fourth Evangelist exercised the greatest influence by adopting
to some extent the view of the world held by the great thinkers of his
age and applying it to the Person of Jesus. Paul and those who followed
him (pp. 144-146) had already ascribed to Jesus a life with God in
heaven before his descent upon earth, and even a share in the creation
of the world; but Jn. is the first to start clearly with the idea that
Jesus was the Logos and that without him God could have produced no
effect upon the world, because He, being perfectly good, was obliged
without question to keep at a distance from the world which was
thoroughly evil. The idea that Jesus was begotten of God as a human son
is begotten by his human father, an idea which Paul and those who
followed him had given expression to before Jn., must of itself have
helped very much to make Gentiles familiar with Jesus from the start
and favourably disposed towards his worship, for they knew of and
worshipped so many deities who were begotten by a god. But the
statement was truly a greater one when it could be said that the Logos,
whose work the deepest thinkers had found to be necessary if the divine
influence was to come into the world, was no other than Jesus. While
the conception of Jesus as a Son of God might make an impression on the
lower classes among the Gentiles, that of Jesus as the Logos would
attract the people of culture. And, as a matter of fact, it was very
important that Christianity should not always remain a religion merely
for uncultured and uninfluential people. In the form in which the
Fourth Gospel presented it, it was capable of satisfying the highest
demands of the age. Here attention was no longer paid to the fact that
this Jesus in whom people were to believe was a Jew--a fact which might
have greatly repelled many Gentiles--for he is described in such a way
as to make him quite superior to everything Jewish. And so Jn., even
more than Paul, has brought it about that Jesus should be recognised as
being what he was--without Jesus himself thinking the idea out--the
Saviour of the world.
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6. EMPHASIS ON THE CHURCH.
True, there is another side to this picture. There was now no longer
any other way of attaining to blessedness than by believing in Jesus.
He himself must now be represented as continually requiring people to
believe in him--a request which the Jesus of the Synoptics made so
seldom. The branches must abide in the vine (by which Jesus means
himself), otherwise they will wither. "Apart from me ye can do nothing"
(xv. 4 f.). But this means at the same time that one must be a member
of the Church and submit to the ordinances of the Church; for example,
to those of the Second Epistle of John (verse 10 f.), which forbids one
to receive Christian brethren who hold different doctrines, or even to
greet them. People are now divided into those who are in communion with
the Church and are blessed, and those who are outside and are not; and
the fact that one belongs to the Church is apt, moreover, to depend
more on faith than on that doing of the will of God which Jesus
required so continually in the Synoptics. On the other hand, the
feeling that one is one of the elect leads only too readily to
presumption; the power which is associated with ecclesiastical
officialism leads to domination, and even, in certain circumstances, to
mercenariness (1 Pet. v. 2; 1 Tim. iii. 8).
Nevertheless, it was necessary to establish a Church communion. The
desire to enjoy a common religious possession with people of a like
mind cannot be repressed. Moreover, such communion is a powerful
support to the individual, whether he comes to be distressed by doubts,
is in trouble, or is in danger of falling into sin. Institutions which
serve this purpose, whatever dangers may lurk in them, must be
considered instruments of progress.
To all intents and purposes, the Fourth Evangelist never speaks of such
institutions (xxi. 15-17 is by a later writer; see p. 186 f.). He has
no interest whatever in episcopal authority and such like things. Had
he had, it would have been a simple matter to make Jesus say something
more than he does in xx. 21-23 about the privileges of the Apostles.
His idea of the Church is still thoroughly ideal a community with
Christ alone as its head. Nevertheless, we should make a great mistake
if we were to think that he is indifferent to the Church. Every one who
wishes to be blessed must share the Church's belief in Jesus; he who
does not share it is already judged (iii. 18). He who wishes to be a
shepherd of the Church must come in to the sheep through the door,
which is Jesus himself, that is to say, through faith in him (x. 7-9;
see p. 135). Indeed, according to the one point of view, with which, it
is true, we shall soon have to contrast another, no man can have life
in him unless he partakes of the Supper (vi. 51b-56).
But beyond question the author, while emphasising these thoughts, does
so in moderation. In the First Epistle of John, the believer's
consciousness that he comes from God, possesses full knowledge, and is
free from sin (iv. 4, 6; ii. 20 f., 27; iii. 9; v. 18 by the side of i.
8-ii. 2: "if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus),
certainly goes very far; but it is due to a connection with Gnosticism,
more than to the idea that one belongs to the Church. Both authors
never forget that it is the individual who must have the faith and keep
the commandments of God; they do not say that, because he is a member
of the Church, any demand which should really be required of him will
be lessened. If, on the one hand, the Church is a blessing, and so far
as it is an evil, on the other hand, is a necessary evil, we shall have
to admit that only the Second and Third Epistles of Jn. transgress the
limits of what has to be recognised as an appropriate move forward.
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7. JESUS AS A DIVINE BEING UPON EARTH.
The really dangerous aspect of the matter when, by describing Jesus as
the Son of God and the Logos, people easily induced the Gentiles to
believe in him, is seen in another direction. They had to carry this
description through. It had to be shown in detail how be walked on
earth as a divine being, simply proclaiming his high rank, doing the
greatest miracles for his own glorification, and for that reason
keeping away from the grave of Lazarus for two days, while at the same
time an effort had to be made to maintain that he was really a man. We
need not stop again to explain how difficult it is for the mind to
imagine this figure, or how hard it is for the religious sentiment to
accept it. Even if it were applied to the Jesus of the Synoptics, that
would be a hard saying: "I am the way and the truth and the life; no
man cometh unto the Father but by me" (xiv. 6). People without number
have either never had an opportunity of hearing about him, or in spite
of knowing of him, hold to another religion or to a way of thinking
which cannot ascribe any merits to some mediator who has appeared at
some previous date; and yet, as a matter of fact, they display as much
humility, love, and fidelity to God as the many Christians who have
devoted themselves to the faith of the Church. But how much harder is
the saying, when it is the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel in whom one must
believe unconditionally if one wishes to enter into communion with God!
For centuries this demand has been made and complied with; and the
books of history suggest rarely to some extent how many have been the
doubts, and how great has been the torture of souls. To-day, in ever
widening circles, people resolutely refuse to comply with it. And since
this has happened, it may be considered fortunate that Jn. has made the
demand so emphatically. For as a result of it we have been made to
decide that no further move can be made in his direction, and that we
must go back to the Synoptics and try to find in their account
and--with their own guidance--in the background of their account, the
figure of Jesus as he really existed.
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8. WHY DID JN. WRITE A GOSPEL?
But why did this person write a Gospel? We are sure that the question
has long ago occurred to many of our readers. But what other kind of
book should he have written? A treatise, or a letter like the First
Epistle of Jn. as found in our Bible? What does this contain? Hardly
anything but general maxims: we must love God, we must shun false
teachers. Now the Gospel also contains such maxims: God is Spirit; a
man must be born from above (iv. 24, iii. 3), and so forth. But
Christianity does not purpose to be a system of Wisdom, based upon
theory; it is a religion which appeals to Jesus. Therefore in a book
which is to make an impression he must be represented as coming forward
and saying: "a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one
another;" "I am the Light of the world;" "I am the Bread of Life;" "I
am the Resurrection and the Life" (xiii. 34; viii. 12; vi. 35; xi. 25).
At Jesus hand the Christians, and with them the Fourth Evangelist,
wished to receive no less than all that they thought themselves
entitled to hope for. And, similarly, if all the blessings which still
make Christianity precious to us at the present day were to be brought
into the world of the Gentiles, it was of all things necessary that
Jesus should be recognised by them; it was necessary therefore to
record his acts, especially if the Gnostics introduced the danger of
resolving his earthly life into a mere phantom existence (p. 150).
And it was necessary to be able to describe everything as being as
sublime as possible. It would not do to stop short at the teaching of
Paul, that Jesus laid aside his divine attributes before he came down
from heaven. If he ever possessed them, he must actually reveal them,
and reveal them just where they could be seen by human eyes--upon
earth. This idea must necessarily have arisen sooner or later. The
higher the god, the more powerful his help; and Gentiles, who hitherto
had always turned from a god who was not sufficiently powerful to one
who was supposed to be more so, would only address themselves to a
powerful god. In fact, even if Jn. had refrained from writing a Gospel,
another person would have written one in the same sense, and we should
simply have to make our complaint elsewhere.
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9. SOME SPECIAL IDEAS OF ABIDING VALUE.
What we have said may have suggested that the Fourth Gospel with the
Epistles of Jn. met the needs of its age in a very successful way, but
hardly gives us anything that is of value for all times. Certainly, the
abiding worth of the Gospel is not to be found where people seek it,
and where the claim of the book itself, that it is a history of the
life and work of Jesus, implies that they must seek it. Nevertheless,
it is seen to be all the greater in other respects.
If the authors of the Gospel and the First Epistle were not thinkers in
the strict sense of the term, but have taken up philosophical ideas
simply in order to defend their own religion, yet by their
declarations, "God is Spirit" (Jn. iv. 24: that is to say, God is of
spiritual nature; not, God is a spirit) and "God is Love" (1 Jn. iv. 8,
16), they have expressed the nature of God with a precision which
cannot be surpassed. Their leaning towards Gnosticism has given them
other ideas of abiding value: a deep-rooted feeling of dependence upon
God (Jn. iii. 27; pp. 149 f., 159 f.), and that interest in knowledge
and truth which no religion can ever dispense with. And yet, at the
same time, the onesidedness to which this might lead is obviated by the
fact that what is made the test of knowing God is the keeping of his
commandments (1 Jn. ii. 3).
Equally deep is the truth hidden in the saying of Jesus (Jn. vii. 17):
"If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself." The context
shows that by the will of God, which is to be kept, is meant, not the
command to live a moral life, but nothing else than that teaching of
Jesus which consists in declaring that people must believe in his
divine origin. They will find this to be true as soon as they humbly
accept it. Whether this statement is correct is another question. But
it carries us farther than its application in this passage. It contains
a criterion which is true in all cases and will show how man, to whom
the knowledge whether a thing is of God has been made so difficult, can
learn in another way, by trial, by a provisional submission of his
will, whether it will satisfy him to such an extent that he can rest
assured that it is divine.
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10. COMMUNION WITH GOD.
The First Epistle of John speaks in most beautiful language of what is
at the heart of religion, communion with God. In the Gospel, since it
is assumed that God is separated from the world, this communion is
always effected through Jesus, who says, for example, in xvii. 23, "I
in them, and thou in me"; according to the Epistle, man himself,
without a mediator, feels that God is in him and that he is in God (p.
209 f.). This mysticism, the intenseness of which remains, whether it
consist in a feeling of union with God, or with Christ, is something
peculiar to the Johannine Writings. Nowhere else in the New Testament
has it so profound a meaning; in most cases, indeed, the gap between
man and God, and man and Christ, is represented as being so great that
the writers cannot imagine any such union. In the Johannine Writings
the idea at the same time serves in a valuable way to counter balance
the emphasis laid on knowledge, and thus assigns the feelings the place
that rightfully belongs to them in religion.
The actualisation of this close communion with God, however, is found
in love of God to man and of man to God, and from these in turn flows
the love of the brethren for one another. Not even Paul in the
thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians has written
anything more profound about love than that found in the First Epistle
of John (iii. 13-18; iv. 7-21). The original source of love, it tells
us, is God. Our love for Him and for the brethren only flow from His
love; but it should do so for the very reason that God first loved us.
It is of the very essence of love for God that we should keep those
commandments of His which are not hard when they are obeyed from love,
and that all fear of Him should vanish. In fact, though God is
originally unknown, through our love to the brethren, he becomes
perceptible as one who is present in our souls. And the Fourth
Evangelist could not have summarised the life-work of Jesus more
appropriately than he does when he makes him say (xiii. 34 f .): "A new
commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another. . . . By this
shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another." In this way, as a matter of fact, he turns from his great
doctrines about Jesus dignity and his derivation from God, to the
simplest fact which the Synoptics tell us about him.
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11. REDEMPTION THROUGH JESUS.
He does this again, though with a different result, in what he says
about the redemption brought by Jesus. According to the Synoptics,
Jesus emancipated (redeemed) those who attached themselves to him from
two kinds of illusion and from two kinds of sin: from the illusions of
a religion of fear, and of a religion of pretences, as it is
represented in the parable in Lk. (xviii. 9-14) by the Pharisee as
distinguished from the publican, and from the sins of selfishness and
worldliness (Mt. xvi. 25 f.). He does so by proclaiming his teaching,
by illustrating it by his own example, and by his death, which proves
that he is ready not merely to come forward and champion his cause, but
even to die for it. Remission of guilt, forgiveness of sins, was
included in this emancipation from the religion of fear. He is not in
the least aware that his death is required in order that God may be
merciful out of consideration for the sacrifice. When he promises the
spiritually poor, the meek, the merciful, those who do God's will, and
those who become like children, that they shall enjoy the Kingdom of
Heaven, no previous conditions are laid down (Mt. v. 3-9; vii. 21;
xviii. 3); when in the parable in Lk. (xv. 11-32) the lost son returns
home penitent, his father goes to meet him, falls on his neck and
kisses him without asking whether any one has offered a sacrifice for
him; while Jesus is still present amongst his followers, he teaches
them to pray "Forgive us our sins," and comforts them with the words,
"Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will
refresh you" (Mt. vi. 12; xi. 28). Picture to yourself a scene in which
some poor child of man, burdened with guilt, casts himself at Jesus'
feet and asks that he may realise this promise. Had Jesus thought his
own death necessary before forgiveness of sin could be realised, he
would have been obliged to say to him: "No, no, I did not mean that;
you must wait until I have died for you on the cross." And yet before
the declaration in Mt. xi. 28 he was silent about it!
On the last evening of his life, Jesus said: "this is my body;" "this
is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many" (Mk. xiv. 22-24).
But only Mt. tells us that he added "for forgiveness of sins;" and in
the words, which have been thought so sacred, and moreover from the
first have been repeated at every celebration of the Supper, we may be
certain, nothing was omitted. On the other hand, additions might
certainly be made; the person who officiated at the celebration would
first express something as his own idea, and then at a later date this
would be wrongly regarded as a saying of Jesus (we have a very clear
example in the introductory words, "take," "eat," in Mt., of which Mk.
has only one, and Paul, in 1 Cor. xi. 24, and Lk. neither).
In what sense Jesus thought of shedding his blood for many, we can
easily realise when we remember that he was reclining at the paschal
meal (pp. 117-130). God had promised to pass by those houses, the doors
of which were smeared with the blood of the Paschal lamb, when on the
night before the Exodus of the Israelites with Moses from Egypt, he
would kill all the first-born (Exod. xii. 7, 12 f.; 21-27). The lamb,
therefore, had to die that others might be spared from death. In like
manner, Jesus will give his life to the fury of the enemy, that his
followers, whose lives would otherwise have been equally threatened,
might escape, since after their Master's death people would think them
harmless. We see then that he certainly wished to make his death a
sacrifice, not, however, in order that they might have forgiveness of
sins, but that they might be preserved from misfortune, and from a
misfortune which they did not deserve. [8] And if he added further,
that his blood was the blood of a covenant, his idea was that he was
again knitting them closely to God by a covenant, and that in the Old
Testament whenever such a covenant was made a sacrificial victim was
slain (Jer. xxxiv. 18; Gen. xv. 10, 17 f.; Exod. xxiv. 3-8). Here again
there is no idea of a sacrifice for sin.
And the only other passage in the Synoptics in which Jesus attaches
importance to his death for the salvation of men, can be understood in
the same way as the paschal sacrifice: "for verily the Son of Man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many" (Mk. x. 45 = Mt. xx. 28), that is to say, that they
might be spared from the danger of themselves falling victims to
persecution. Instead of the Greek word "ransom," Jesus, who spoke
Aramaic, may very well have used a word which simply meant "an
instrument of escape." If, however, a sacrifice for the forgiveness of
sins were really intended, we should be compelled to suspect that the
concluding words ("and to give his life" . . .) are a later addition
based upon an idea of the Apostle Paul, since they would be in
contradiction with all that we have just found in the Synoptics. As far
as the context is concerned, they can be dispensed with at once, and
are not found in Lk. (xxii. 27) where the introductory words (in a
somewhat different version) occur.
Paul or some of his predecessors (1 Cor. xv. 3), with their strictly
Jewish way of thinking, introduced into Christianity the idea that God
was so angry with men for their sins that he had decreed the eternal
destruction of all of them, and could only have mercy upon them if his
own son died on the cross as a sacrifice on their behalf. In doing so,
according to the opinion of Paul, Jesus took upon him the punishment of
death which originally men themselves deserved; but he took it upon him
as one who was guilt less, and therefore his offering became a
sin-offering to God. This view has been held fast to in Church doctrine
down to the present day, regardless of the fact that it is not found at
all in the Synoptics, and only sporadically in the Fourth Gospel (p.
209), and that in the New Testament the purpose of Jesus' death is
described in more than twenty different ways, [9] which would not
certainly have been the case if people had known of one generally satis
factory explanation.
If, as the Fourth Gospel represents, Jesus is the Logos, it cannot have
been through his death that he first brought redemption. He is supposed
to bring the world into conformity with God's will, since God himself
was obliged to avoid contact with it. This he could only do by his own
activity, and so, when upon earth, by his works and preaching.
According to Jn., he may be compared especially with the light which
shines upon the world; and so the only important question is whether
people turn to him or away from him (iii. 19-21; i. 4-13). If they do
the former (that is to say, as Jn. puts it, believe in him), they are
quit of sin from that hour. But this brings us at once face to face
with a character which is familiar to us from the Synoptics. In the
Synoptics also Jesus brings salvation by his words and works, not by
his death; and declares that people's sins are forgiven at once,
wherever he finds the right frame of mind (Mk. ii. 5, 9; Lk. vii. 47
f.).
May we suppose then that Jn. here preserves a correct recollection of
the Life of Jesus? Certainly not. He only arrives at this agreement
with the Synoptics after making an extraordinarily roundabout journey.
Paul, influenced by a kind of piety which was very conscientious, and
for that reason very punctilious, in his teaching about the sacrificial
death of Jesus introduced foreign matter into the Gospel. Jn., though
in a tacit and quiet way, removes it again. Had he remembered that it
was not originally part of the Gospel, he would have omitted it
altogether, whereas, as a matter of fact, he uses it several times (i.
29, 36; on xi. 50-52; xvii. 19b, see pp. 271, 272 f.). It is not used
by him in other places, simply because it could not easily be adapted
to the other new matter which he felt obliged of his own accord to
introduce into the Gospel of Jesus, we mean to the doctrine that Jesus
was the Logos. To this doctrine itself he had only been led by that
other mistake made by Paul when he supposed that Jesus was begotten as
the Son of God before the creation of the world, and had existed in
heaven down to the time of his descent upon earth. The idea that he was
the Logos only carries us one step beyond this teaching. And yet it is
this alone that gives rise to the doctrine that Jesus brought
redemption, not by his death, but by his appearance upon earth. Thus we
have here an exemplification of the great law of intellectual progress,
that very often one truth proceeds from another only by the pathway of
error. Jn. only succeeded in arriving at the truth which already
existed in the Life of Jesus, by adopting the second of Paul's mistakes
and carrying it farther.
We ourselves, nevertheless, have reason to rejoice at the result. We no
longer find in Jn. any of Paul's laborious arguments to prove that the
Jewish Law has ceased to be binding upon Christians, and that the
sinner is justified, that is to say, is declared righteous by God,
through faith. If God is to declare any one righteous, he must be
represented as a judge, and must as such examine one's works; and the
faith which the sinner has merely to exhibit will not be a work, but
the opposite of any kind of service: it must be simply trust, purely
the opening of the hand to receive a gift from God--and this, moreover,
is what it really is. Paul himself in truth found it very difficult to
preserve intact the most deeply-rooted feature of this kind of faith,
for with him faith always involved the acceptance as unimpeachably true
of two facts of the past which criticism might only too easily shatter,
and as a matter of fact has shattered altogether. The first is that
Jesus suffered death for the purpose of blotting out the sins of
mankind; the second that he rose from the dead after three days.
Now, the latter Jn. also requires us to believe, that is to say, to
accept as true; but the faith in Jesus person which Jn. asks
for--although it also includes acceptance of the truth of his heavenly
origin--consists again, exactly as it does in the Synoptics, simply in
feeling oneself drawn to him, in confiding in him, in recognising him
as one's redeemer. Similarly--in place of the above-noted difficulties
in Paul's teaching about justification by faith--in the Johannine
writings everything has once more become so simple that the important
matter is again, just as in the Synoptics, to do the will of God or
Jesus, concerning which especially the First Epistle of John speaks in
such beautiful language (ii. 3 f., iii. 22, 24, v. 3 f.; Jn. viii. 51,
xiv. 21, xv. 10, 14). In fact, when Jesus washes his disciples' feet he
speaks of it simply as an example which he is giving them (xiii. 14
f.), an idea, for a parallel to which we shall search in vain in many
writings of the New Testament. If the roundabout way by which the
author arrives at the teaching that Jesus was the Logos, and in the
later course of which this beautiful language has all taken shape,
represents doctrines which are as unacceptable to us now as they were
before; if Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet on the last evening of
his life, about which the Synoptics know nothing, remains now, as much
as before, something which did not happen; yet the result has been that
the working-out of those ideas current amongst Christians of the time
which so often took people farther and farther away from the original
form of Christianity, leads us back in several main points to its
primitive simplicity, and so to what at the present time is the only
form that can satisfy us.
__________________________________________________________________
[8] On this see a note by the editor of the present series, and my
reply to it, Appendix, pp. 261-269.
[9] For further explanation, see Appendix, pp. 270-277.
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12. SPIRITUALISING OF MATERIALISTIC IDEAS.
But the Fourth Gospel is most distinctly modern when it substitutes for
the materialistic and literally understood ideas of the earliest
Christians, the spiritual interpretations which were already implied in
them without people being conscious of the fact. Usually people have no
idea how many of the liberal ideas of the present may be found in this
Gospel. As regards miracles, we have already decided, that they are
only emphatically declared to be real events from one point of view,
but that from another standpoint they are regarded purely as symbolical
descriptions of profound truths (pp. 95-100, 105 f., 109); and those
who are no longer disposed to use them as buttresses of the Christian
faith need only appeal to the words which Jesus addressed to Thomas
(xx. 29): "blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
The doctrine of the Trinity, which represents that from eternity
Father, Son, and Spirit have existed as three divine Persons, and yet
only as one divine substance, cannot by any means be maintained in face
of Jn.'s statement (vii. 39): "the Spirit did not yet exist, because
Jesus was not yet (by his exaltation to heaven) glorified." The belief
that prevailed throughout the whole of the first century, that Jesus
would come back from heaven to establish the blessed kingdom of the
last days, has, in the mind of Jn., resolved itself into the idea that
the Holy Spirit, though of course at a quite different time, will come
into the hearts of believers. It is all the same to Jn. whether he says
that Jesus will come again (xiv. 3, 18, 28; xvi. 22), or that the Holy
Spirit will come because God or Jesus will send it (xiv. 16 f., 26; xv.
26; xvi. 7). The Jesus who has been exalted to heaven is for Jn., that
is to say, as he was already for Paul (2 Cor. iii. 17), this Spirit;
and this again is the reason why the Holy Spirit does not exist before
Jesus ascension.
It was generally expected by the early Christians that Jesus second
coming from heaven would be the signal for a bodily resurrection and
for the judgment to be held before the throne of God upon all mankind;
and that eternal life would then begin. In Jn., on the other hand, the
judgment takes place during life, when a distinction is drawn between
men, and the one section turns towards Jesus, the light which streams
upon the world, while the other turns away from him (iii. 19-21). This
very moment marks the be ginning of eternal life for such as believe in
him or acknowledge God and Jesus; and it is a life which can never be
interrupted by the death of the body, and so does not need to be
introduced by a resurrection of the body. Compare xi. 25 f.; xvii. 3,
and particularly v. 24: "He that heareth my word, and believeth him
that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath
passed (already) out of death into life." In fact, participation in the
Supper, which according to vi. 51b-56 seems so essential, is made a
matter which at bottom is of no importance by the concluding words in
vi. 63: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing;
the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." In
fact, we can hardly conceive of the matter in a more modern way. And
obviously it is not merely the Supper that is stripped of its
importance by these words.
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13. FINAL APPRECIATION.
We have thus produced ample evidence to show that, although we cannot
admit the claim of the Fourth Gospel to be regarded as a record of the
life of Jesus, it deserves the highest consideration at the present
time when it is viewed as a book dealing with the essence of
Christianity. So long as it is read with the idea of finding each
particular statement about Jesus' works and discourses to be correct,
it cannot be enjoyed. But when this idea is abandoned, and when, in
addition, Jesus continual claim upon people to believe in his heavenly
origin is set aside, when therefore attention is given only to the
thoughts which he is made to express, or when one reads attentively the
First Epistle of John, one is impressed by a profundity of thought and
feeling, the equal of which cannot easily be found anywhere else in the
New Testament.
We may be sure that from the experience of his own soul he knew the
value of the benefits offered by religion. He is aware that the
religious man has light to illuminate his path (xii. 35), and that he
possesses truth--truth which does not merely preserve him from error,
but, more than that, delivers him from sin and leads him to holiness
(viii. 32-35; xvii. 17-19). He knows of that faith which means
resigning one's ego entirely to a higher personality; he knows of that
depth of meaning imparted to life which implies that this truly begins
at the moment of faith's awakening and cannot be interrupted by the
death of the body; he knows of a spring of living water in his soul
(iv. 14) and of the true bread from heaven which lasts for the life
eternal (vi. 27, 32); he knows of a peace which the world cannot give
(xiv. 27; xvi. 33), and of perfect joy (xv. 11; xvii. 13). In a word,
he knows what it is to feel oneself a child of God and a friend of
one's Master, instead of a slave who does not know what his Master is
doing (xv. 14 f.); he knows what it is for a man to feel at one with
God and with his Saviour.
For all that constituted his religious aspirations he now found
satisfaction in Christianity. But to him this means that he found it in
the person of Jesus. For, in addition to all that we have mentioned, he
knew something else: that no man has ever seen God, that none can
receive any thing unless it be given from heaven, and that one must be
chosen and cannot be the chooser of his own Saviour (i. 18; iii. 27;
xv. 16). Consequently he needed revelation, and, sharing as he did the
ideas of the age in which he lived, he could only conceive of this
being imparted by a divine being who came down from heaven, proclaimed
all truth, and brought every kind of salvation. The result is he has
sketched the Jesus of his own mind in such a way that we men of to-day
are often no longer able to find in him the true revelation. And yet in
spite of this we can understand the way in which this deeply religious
man came to build up this faith of his, In his Gospel we can still
discover some very homely statements about Jesus, which show how at
first a person's attention might have been attracted to him simply as a
remarkable phenomenon: "never man so spake" (vii. 46); "he that
speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh the
glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is
in him" (vii. 18); "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth
down his life for the sheep" (x. 11). But the author having by such
observations as these, which are really appropriate to the historical
Jesus, gained confidence in Jesus, his longing for revelation would of
itself carry him farther so that he could accept everything else that
was recorded of this same Jesus and all those ideas that necessarily
seemed to him to be presupposed if in his own person he represented a
perfect revelation of God. [10]
This again leads us to the thought that the author of the Fourth Gospel
deserves credit for wishing to ascribe to Jesus all the sublime
thoughts that he had made his own, especially when we remember that
people of other ages, the present not excepted, have in the same way
been only too ready to find in Jesus all that at any time has seemed to
them truest and best in religion, We can understand now how it is that
the author sees in this Jesus, and in him alone, the way to God, the
truth and the life (xiv. 6); we can understand the confidence with
which he can make him say, "whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him shall never thirst" (iv. 14), or "if a man keep my word,
he shall never see death" (viii. 51). And one will be glad to be able
to say after him, though the words were addressed to another kind of
Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life"
(vi. 68).
At the same time he has not shut his eyes to the truth that Christian
knowledge needed to make progress. After the death of Jesus, the Holy
Spirit is to guide the disciples into all truth (xvi. 13). We may
certainly suppose that the Evangelist himself felt that he was
receiving some of this guidance when he advanced so far beyond his
predecessors in his effort to spiritualise Christianity. In fact, he
has contributed very greatly towards establishing the truth of those
words which in his Gospel (iv. 23 f.) Jesus addresses to the woman of
Samaria: "the hour cometh and now is (already) when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth . . . God is
Spirit, and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
__________________________________________________________________
[10] In the suggestion here offered, which of course is not meant to be
anything more than a suggestion, we have deliberately assumed that when
the Fourth Evangelist devoted himself to Christianity he was of mature
age. The growth of his ideas could be explained with very much greater
simplicity if we might suppose that he had been educated in
Christianity from the days of his youth.
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__________________________________________________________________
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APPENDIX
__________________________________________________________________
NOTE TO PAGE 248.
PROF. SCHMIEDEL has kindly allowed me to add a note to his remarks on
p. 248, and to make them a subject for discussion. In doing so, I am
breaking through my general principle as Editor of these Volksbuecher,
which is not to express any opinion upon disputable passages.
Personally it does not seem possible to me that at this decisive hour
when Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples for the last
time, he should have thought more of the bodily needs of his followers
than of the needs of their souls. He himself said, "Fear not those who
kill the body, but those who can kill the soul," &c. And are we to
suppose that in face of that calamity which was about to rush upon them
through his death, he thought these words no longer applied? It seems
to me that Jesus would be going against the spirit of his own words,
if, when he took that pathetic farewell of his disciples, he was silent
about the importance of his death for their souls, and in his kindly
anxiety thought only of the safety of their bodies. When Socrates went
to death, he explained to his disciples that he could not try to escape
it, since his death was necessary for the welfare of their souls--and
can Jesus at this supreme moment have thought only of the bodily
welfare of his followers?
SCHIELE.
The saying of Jesus (Mt. x. 28 = Lk. xii. 4 f.) quoted by the Editor of
the present series must not be taken by itself. It must be read in
connection with the following words: "but rather fear him which is able
to destroy both soul and body in hell." We see from this that Jesus was
thinking only of cases in which people are exposed either to death at
the hands of men or to eternal punishment at the hands of God. For
instance, in the Christian persecutions those who denied their faith
because they were afraid of the death which threatened them from men if
they confessed Christ, incurred the punishment of God.
To whom then can the saying of Jesus apply? Schiele's objection is to
the idea that Jesus wished the disciples to be protected from the death
of the body. But, considering the position of the disciples at the
time, the saying which he has quoted cannot in any way apply to them.
They are not yet face to face with the question, whether they ought to
flee from or resign themselves to death at the hands of men. The
authorities would not feel obliged to lay hands upon them, until Jesus'
public ministry assumed such a character as to threaten the security of
the State. The advice to surrender the body rather than escape by
violating the will of God, was therefore, as far as the disciples were
concerned, not required by the circumstances of the case; consequently
there would be no question of Jesus "going against the spirit of his
own words," if he did not give it.
Nor can the saying quoted have applied to Jesus himself. If he had
tried to avoid death by flight or by denying his belief in his
Messiahship, he would thus have violated the will of God which clearly
showed him that the moment had come to prove the truth of his cause by
resigning himself to death. But there would only be a question of
"going against the spirit of his own words" if, as far as he himself
was concerned, he disregarded the advice, not if he does not require
the disciples to follow it, to whom indeed the advice was not
appropriate.
But if Schiele's meaning be that Jesus ought to have told the disciples
simply that he had decided, as far as he himself was concerned, to act
in the spirit of this saying and resign himself to death, it seems to
me quite obvious that he did this, and, to strengthen their minds,
added to this explanation all the consequences which it necessarily
implied, even if we are not told that he did so, Indeed, it will be
seen that this is implicit in what our records tell us about Jesus'
words on this evening.
Let us therefore leave the words of Jesus which have been quoted, and
the citation of which does not seem to me to throw any light on the
question, and turn to Schiele's real objection.
First, however, I will print in full, with his permission, an
explanation of the above note, which, at my request, he was kind enough
to give me. He writes as follows:
Whatever Jesus may have hoped to achieve by all that he did for his
disciples, now at any rate they were directly confronted by a very
serious mental crisis; within a few hours they will all be offended
with him, they will all be doubtful about him, when they see that he
will allow him self to be killed. How shall they survive this mental
crisis? Jesus himself had already overcome the same crisis in his own
mind, when he submitted to the will of his Father and accepted death as
an obligation which could not be refused. Legend, making a justifiable
use of poetry, has represented Jesus as going through this struggle
quite alone in the hour of agony in Gethsemane--after the Passover meal
and immediately before the arrest. But who can doubt that Jesus, having
conquered himself and decided to face death, must already have prayed,
"not as I will, but as thou wiliest," before he prepared to eat the
last Passover with his disciples? That very thing which helped Jesus
himself in his agony, when his soul was troubled to the point of
despair, his death--submission to the will of God by dying--must in the
end have helped and saved the disciples also in their soul's
distraction--his divinely willed and self-willed death.
For if Jesus does not struggle successfully and resolve to die, he--and
with him his cause--must be inwardly ruined. That is Jesus' own idea.
His death means salvation to him, and therefore to his cause
also--salvation to his disciples.
As the death of the Passover lamb means salvation to the Israelites in
a critical hour, so in like manner in another critical hour the death
of Jesus means salvation to his disciples.
He who will preserve the life of his body, shall lose it; he who loses
it, as Jesus now wills to lose it, will save it. By thus deciding in
favour of death and saving his own soul, Jesus' death is the salvation
of his cause and of his disciples.
You will see from what I have said that I intentionally refrain from
championing any specific interpretation of the death of Jesus, or from
trying to maintain that it is possible to know in what special sense
Jesus attached importance to his death as a means of salvation. All
that I would claim is that, as Jesus thought of himself as the preacher
and bringer of salvation, he definitely decided to reconcile him self
to his death as an act of saving power.
And naturally when we speak of this salvation, we must think of
salvation of the body as well as of the soul. If not, why should Jesus
have saved so many sick persons from bodily suffering? But there can be
no doubt that the significance of the salvation of the body as compared
with the salvation of the soul is secondary, and that, especially,
where it is a question of "care," care for the body will bear no
comparison with the cares that affect the soul: care for its salvation,
for forgiveness of its sins, for its child-like nature, for its
blessedness in the kingdom of God. So that in my opinion the meaning
also of Mt. x. 28a (whether with or without 28b) is simply: he who is a
disciple of Jesus, should not have any fear for his body. This is
Schiele's explanation.
For my own part I can see no need to confine myself to such indefinite
statements and to base my answer to the question, What had Jesus in
mind when he celebrated the Supper? upon conjectures concerning such a
general term as salvation. The words spoken by Jesus have in fact been
handed down to us, and in a more reliable way than pretty well anything
else. For when Paul became a Christian a year or a few years after
Jesus' death, he already found that this ceremony was in existence and
that the words of Jesus relating to it were continually repeated. And
although changes, especially additions, forced their way into this
language, it is still so concise, that what Jesus himself said can
hardly have been briefer. As regards the meaning of his words, however,
the sanctity in which they were held protected them against any serious
alteration.
Now if Jesus spoke them at a Paschal meal, it would be strange indeed
if he did not think of his death as being like that of a paschal lamb.
And Schiele does not dispute this. But according to the Old Testament,
by which we must certainly be guided here, the dying of the paschal
lamb does not involve salvation in such a general sense as he states,
but, as I have explained on p. 248 f., exemption from bodily death. Is
this idea really so unworthy of the mind of Jesus as Schiele supposes?
If, by trying to escape from death, Jesus had at the same time brought
upon his disciples the risk of persecution, his whole cause might
easily have perished with them; but Jesus was absolutely sure that God
could not wish this, for he was convinced that this cause of his was
the cause of God. As soon, therefore, as Jesus saw reason to hope that
by dying himself he might save his followers from a similar fate--and
the whole situation justified this hope--he must have felt that it was
God's will also that he should do this. But if it was God's will, it
was something sacred to him, and he could not by any means regard it as
a matter of such slight importance as Schiele supposes--even if nothing
more profound, nothing of an essentially religious nature, was
included.
Jesus' first task must have been to keep the disciples from that
despair which they would be only too likely to fall into as soon as he
was removed; this purpose was a great one, and was in accordance with
the divine plan as he understood it, even if no word of Jesus is given
us about the way in which it was to be carried out, apart from the
assurance that Jesus' death would preserve the bodily life of the
disciples. But is something more profound, something of an essentially
religious nature, really lacking? I have not thought it necessary to
say in so many words that when Jesus wished to preserve his disciples
from death, he did not do so in the sense that they did not need after
his death to remain faithful to his cause. He must therefore earnestly
have admonished them to continue faithful and to realise the magnitude
of the task that confronted them in the future. It is self-evident that
Jesus cannot have spoken only the two lines which have been preserved
to us. But even if we were to suppose that he did not add a single
word, must not Jesus mere announcement that he wished by going to his
death to preserve their lives, if apart from this they really loved
him, have served to ripen the idea which Paul expressed concisely (2
Cor. v. 15) at a later date, when he said that those who live no longer
live for themselves, but for him who died for their sake?
Thus I cannot really think that my meaning is correctly represented by
the words, "Jesus thought only of the bodily welfare of his followers,
in his kindly anxiety he thought only of the safety of their bodies."
Salvation of the body (or rather, preservation of bodily life) and
salvation of the soul are, I think, in the present case inseparably
united.
Moreover, Schiele could not have written the twofold "only," if he had
also given due consideration to the words which immediately follow the
passage to which he has added his note. One who thinks that the idea of
a sacrifice like that of the paschal lamb is not deep enough for Jesus,
might very well, I think, discover the profundity, which he misses
here, in the idea which I have there tried to find in the words of
Jesus as preserved to us, namely, that his death was the sacrifice
offered at the making of a covenant by which the disciples were to be
united to God more closely than ever before.
I think therefore that my explanation, which closely follows the
records, is, as regards the religious value of the character of Jesus,
by no means inferior to that of Schiele, and, moreover, that it is
really not so very different from his.
In particular, I agree with him when he says that care for the soul
must always take precedence of care for the body. Only, care for the
preservation of the disciples lives was of the utmost importance,
since, without it, there was danger that, when his followers were
extirpated, his cause would perish with them.
And as for the forgiveness of the sins of the disciples, which Schiele
includes amongst the absolutely important objects of care, in my
opinion Jesus cannot in any case have thought his death necessary for
this, for he had previously on many occasions assumed, and even
declared, that God would forgive sins without this (p. 247).
Nor would I venture to declare that the account according to which
Jesus' prayer that he might be saved from death, and his resignation to
the will of God which followed subsequently, first took place in
Gethsemane and so after the celebration of the Supper, is a legend.
True, even at the Supper, Jesus looked upon his death as the will of
God, but only in the event of the authorities laying hands on him. If
they omitted to do this, he on his part would not only have had no
reason to bring it about, but would even have been obliged to think
that his death was contrary to the will of God. For, according to all
the assumptions that were made with regard to the Messiah, it was the
will of God that he should establish the divine rule triumphantly upon
earth, and not at the price of suffering and death. Thus even while
Jesus was in Gethsemane he may at first have been filled with the
desire to be preserved from death, and there is no need to think that
this involved the danger that his cause would be inwardly ruined. It is
enough that Jesus succeeded in gaining such self-control that, when the
authorities really interfered, he submitted with resignation.
Once more then I have no reason to dissent from the Gospels here and to
reverse the order of the two events, the Supper and the prayer of
Jesus. The fact as to when and where they heard Jesus utter that prayer
must have stamped itself indelibly on the memory of the disciples. If,
however, as Schiele assumes at the end of p. 263, after the Supper
Jesus again uttered that earnest petition, that the cup of death might
pass from him, when he had before this meal already won his victory
over the fear of death and prayed "not as I will, but as thou wiliest,"
his figure hardly gains that completeness which is meant to be gained
for it by the whole of this assumption.
Moreover, a legend which arose in the first instance amongst
worshippers of Jesus would never have assigned this wavering attitude
of Jesus in his prayer to so late an hour as that of Gethsemane, since
it might so easily cast a shadow upon him. In this matter the feeling
of the Fourth Evangelist was correct; see above, p. 27.
SCHMIEDEL.
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NOTE TO PAGE 250.
THE following are the explanations that are given in the New Testament
of the death of Jesus. We have grouped them according to their
similarity or dissimilarity, not according to the persons who have put
them forward.
1. Since, as we have shown above (p. 247), until quite a short time
before his death, Jesus did not regard it as an eventuality ordained by
God for the salvation of mankind, and since he was obliged to think
that, being the Messiah, he was destined triumphantly to establish the
kingdom of God, (a) in view of the Baptist's end and of the
machinations of his own enemies (Lk. xiii. 31-33; Mk. xii. 6-8), he can
at most have believed that possibly, but by no means necessarily, God
would assign him the cup of death as the decisive stroke. (b) The idea
which approaches this most nearly is that found in the speeches of
Peter in Acts (iii. 13-15, 17; v. 30) according to which the execution
of Jesus was a sin on the part of the Jews, though an unwitting one.
(c) Chapter iii. 18 implies only a slight advance upon this: Jesus'
death was ordained by God in fulfilment of the predictions of the
prophets. This does not by any means include the idea that its purpose
was the salvation of mankind; in that case, the expression could not
have been directly preceded by iii. 13-17.
2. Jesus' death implied a purpose as regards his own person, (a) Heb.
v. 7 f., he is to learn obedience by his suffering; (b) Jn. xii. 23 f.
5 xvii. 1, 5, he had to return to heaven, whence he had come down; (c)
xvii. 19 a, he had to sanctify, that is to say consecrate, himself for
this return by means of death.
3. Jesus by his death fulfilled a purpose with reference to the final
condition of the world, (a) Jn. xiv. 2 f., xii. 32, xvii. 24, he had to
prepare for his friends a place for their future abode in heaven; (b)
Heb. ix. 21-24, x. 19 f., he had to consecrate, by the sprinkling of
his blood, that sanctuary which, on the analogy of the earthly temple,
the author conceives as existing in heaven. Here for the first time in
our list of interpretations we come upon the idea that Jesus' death was
an offering, and, in this instance, an offering of initiation.
4. From another point of view his death is regarded as a sacrifice of
exemption from an unmerited misfortune. (a) Thus Jesus himself
explained his death at the celebration of the Supper, by representing
it as a paschal offering (see above, p. 248). On this perhaps rests
also the idea that the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep
(Jn. x. 11, 15), as well as that reflection of Caiaphas (xi. 50) which
is intended to represent a truth not only from his own point of view
but also from a higher standpoint: it is better that one man should die
for the people, and that the whole people should not perish. Moreover,
it must be remembered here that Jn. describes Jesus' death in such a
way as to make all the details agree exactly with the commands about
the paschal lamb, his manifest purpose being to suggest that Jesus was
the true passover lamb, by whose death these commands were once and for
all fulfilled and abrogated (see pp. 126-130). (b) In Col. i. 24, Paul
is represented as one who continues the work of Jesus Passion, since as
the vicar of Jesus he fills up the gaps left in Jesus' sufferings. That
is to say, by giving up his life, Jesus was able to concentrate the
fury of his living enemies upon himself, and could thus divert it from
his followers, but he could not at the same time ward off the fury of
all their future enemies. To divert this, others had to sacrifice
themselves later, and Paul is felt by the author to be the only such
offering that needs to be taken account of, the Apostle being an object
of veneration to him. (Paul himself cannot have written this; he would
never have admitted that Jesus left gaps in his sufferings, and that he
himself was so far on a level with Jesus as to be able to fill them.)
5. Again, it has been interpreted as a covenant sacrifice. (a) In this
way also Jesus explained his death at the celebration of the Supper
(see above, p. 248 f.). (b) The Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 15-20; x.
29) makes a markedly different use of this idea, since it has in mind,
not, as Jesus had, the general nature of a covenant, but in quite a
special sense the Old Testament ordinances regarding the ceremonial
observed when God solemnised his covenant with the people of Israel on
Sinai.
6. Before we consider the idea of atonement in its most prominent
application, as a reconciliation with God, we must view it (a) in a
quite different aspect, that is to say as a reconciliation between the
Jews and the Gentiles by the admission of both into the Christian body.
To effect this was the purpose of Jesus' death according to Eph. ii.
13-16; it was therefore a peace-offering, (b) Similarly it is said in
Jn. xi. 52, in extension of the idea of Caiaphas referred to above (4
a), that Jesus' death must have been not merely for the Jewish people,
but also for the bringing together and uniting of the dispersed
children of God. Here, however, the special point is not the removal of
the conflict between Jews and Gentiles, but, more generally, the
founding of the Church as one which was to embrace the whole world.
Perhaps we may include here also what in Jn. xvii. 19b is added as
another purpose in addition to that of consecrating himself by his
death for entrance into heaven: his disciples are by this means
initiated in the truth. At least, the continuation, xvii. 20-23, in
which Jesus prays that his disciples may all be united in communion
with God and with himself points to this explanation of the obscure
words.
7. In Eph. v. 25 f., the death of Christ is represented as a means of
sanctification or consecration of the Church, and this consecration is
imparted to its members by baptism. Baptism, however, is regarded as a
bath which effects purification from sin. Here, then, for the first
time in our list of explanations we meet with the idea that the death
of Jesus meant the removal of sin; but the Old Testament pattern
presupposed is always a kind of offering which (as above, 2 c) produced
sanctification, that is to say, consecration, and so such a condition
of purity as is necessary if people are to regard themselves as
consecrated to God.
8. The stricter idea of a sin-offering, without which forgiveness of
sins is not possible, is applied to Jesus' death, (a) without any
qualification as regards the predecessors of Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 3, in
Jesus' words at the Supper, but only in Mt.'s version (xxvi. 28), so
that the words were certainly not spoken by Jesus himself (see above,
p. 247 f.), and then in Eph. i. 7, Jn. i. 29, 36, for example, (b) With
clear reference to the sacrificial ordinances of the Old Testament, in
the Epistle to the Hebrews Jesus is designated a sin-offering (v. 1, 3;
vii. 27; ix. 26, 28). Here it is to be noted that in such an offering
the sacrificial beast does not bear the punishment which is strictly
deserved by the person who offers it. On the contrary, on the great Day
of Atonement, for instance, the ceremonial of which the author has
chiefly in view, the sins of the people are transferred by the
laying-on of hands, not to the goat which is sacrificed, but to the
other which is driven into the wilderness (Lev. xvi.). (c) Paul assumes
the contrary, and so the strictest form of the idea of sin-offering
(see above, p. 249), especially in Rom. iii. 25 f.: hitherto God has
not forgiven sins, but neither has he punished them, that is to say not
in such a way as would have been commensurate with the sin, to wit, by
the death of sinners, that is to say of all men. In order now to show
that his justice, which requires some kind of equivalent, whether it be
punishment or propitiation, is nevertheless operative, he brings about
not indeed the punishment on sinners, but the reconciliation in Christ,
by imposing upon him, as the representative of men, the penalty of
death which they themselves had really deserved, (d) Quite peculiar is
the teaching of the Epistle to the Colossians (i. 20), to the effect
that the reconciliation thus produced extends to the heavenly powers,
that is to say, to the angels (this also, no less than the passage
mentioned under 4 b cannot have been written by Paul; on the contrary,
according to 1 Cor. xv. 24-26, Christ is still obliged to contend with
these angels throughout a long period of his exaltation in heaven).
9. The blood of Christ shed at his death is compared, not with an
offering, but with a ransom to be paid (a) when Paul says that men have
been redeemed by it (1 Cor. vi. 20; vii. 23; Rom. iii. 24), and to wit
from the curse of the Law (Gal. iii. 18). As the person to whom the
ransom must here be paid, it is not so much God who is thought of as
the Law of the Old Testament, which, according to Gal. iii. 19, was
really imparted not by God himself but by subordinate angels, and so
does not give pure expression to the will of God. Paul seems to think
of it as a kind of independent being which on its own authority
pronounces the curse upon sinners and does not acquit them without
payment of a ransom. Now a ransom cannot strictly bear punishment; but
that even on this view of the matter Christ does this in Paul's
opinion, as the representative of mankind, is clear from Gal. iii. 13:
"Christ redeemed us thus from the curse of the Law, having become a
curse for us," that is to say an object for the curse, (b) In place of
the half-personified Law appears in Heb. ii. 14 f. the wholly
personified devil who has the power of torturing men for their sins
while they are dying, and before this of keeping them in continual fear
of death.
10. The attainment of everlasting happiness means, however, not merely
forgiveness of past sins, but, quite as much, the averting of future
sins; and this again (a) Paul ascribes to Christ's death in which he
finds all the salvation that has ever been brought to mankind. The
reason for the experience that again and again without fail man is led
to commit sin, he finds in the fact that his body consists of flesh
(Rom. vii. 14-25), that is to say, of that same matter which, according
to Greek philosophy, is evil by nature (p. 149). Since he regards
Christ as the pattern upon which all men have been modelled (1 Cor. xi.
3), he believes further that everything which has happened to him is
entirely reproduced of itself in men as well, at least in so far as
they attach themselves to him (1 Cor. xv. 21 f., 48 f., Rom. vi. 3-11).
And thus in Rom. viii. 3 f., he next reaches the idea, which to us is
quite unacceptable, but with him was quite a serious conviction, that
by the slaying of Christ's flesh on the cross, the flesh in his
followers was slain likewise, not in the sense that they suffered
bodily death, but that the impulse in them was dead which again and
again drove them to sin. (b) The First Epistle of Peter gathers up this
idea in a far more simple and appropriate way (iv. 1; i. 18; ii. 24):
by fixing one's attention on the death of Jesus, one is brought to arm
oneself with the same frame of mind as his, and to shrink from sin. As
a result, but not as a real explanation of the death of Christ, this
already occurred to Paul also (2 Cor. v. 14 f.). (c) But this frame of
mind is represented in the New Testament, not as something which people
can produce in themselves of their own accord, but as a being possessed
by a new, independent being, the Holy Spirit in the hearts of
believers. And so in Jn. (xv. 26; xvi. 7) the idea is put in the form
that Christ died on purpose that the Holy Spirit might be able to come
down from heaven and take up His abode in believers. Chap. vii. 39
shows that in Jesus' life-time this was regarded as impossible (see
above, p. 253 f.).
We have omitted many passages, for instance even passages from the
First Epistle of Jn., which reveal nothing specially characteristic, as
well as those the explanation of which is not certain. Thus, for
example, the description of Christ as the true witness (Rev. i. 5; iii.
14) might mean that he gave his life as security for his conviction,
and this would be one of the most appropriate interpretations of his
death; but it might also contain a thought which had no reference at
all to his death (see above, p. 229). On Mk. x. 45, another passage
which admits of several interpretations, see above, p. 249.
In spite, however, of the limited number of passages which we have
dealt with, we can observe how many explanations of the death of Christ
are often found side by side in one and the same New Testament book.
Thus the Epistle to the Hebrews contains four such, the Fourth Gospel
some seven or eight. We can also easily perceive that several of them,
but by no means all, can be reconciled with one another. Finally, it
must not be forgotten also that the New Testament contains a book which
gives a rather detailed exposition of the author's conception of
Christianity, and yet does not mention Jesus' death, and indeed hardly
mentions his person--we mean, the Epistle of James.
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BOOKS RECOMMENDED.
Hausrath, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, last volume (2nd ed. 1877;
E. T. 1895); Weizsaecker, Das Apostolische Zeitalter, 2nd ed. 1892 (3rd
ed. unchanged; E. T. 1894 f.); Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, 2nd ed.
2nd vol. 1902 (E. T. 1906); in briefer form in his Entstehung des
Christentums, 1905 (E. T. 1906); Wernle, Die Anfaenge unsrer Religion,
2nd ed. 1904 (E. T., 1903-1).
Most akin to the fundamental points in our own conception of the Life
of Jesus are: Neumann, Jesus, wer er geschichtlich war, 1904 (in Neue
Pfade zum alten Gott, No. 4; Engl. transl. Jesus, A. & C. Black, 1906),
and Huehn, Geschichte Jesu und der aeltesten Christenheit, 1905 (which
is the last part of Huehn's Hilfsbuch zum Verstaendnis der Bibel,
1904-1905), both written in popular style. For separate sections see
also my essays on Mt. xi. 27 (for pp. 61-66) in Protestantische
Monatshefte, 1900, pp. 1-22, on the Last Supper (for pp. 117-130,
247-249, 261-269), ibid. 1899, pp. 125-153, on the empty grave of
Jesus, ibid. 1908, pp. 12-29 (for pp. 130-134), and on the "Revelation"
of Jn. (for pp. 218-232) my popular lecture, ibid. 1903, pp. 45-63.
[See also in the Encyclopaedia Biblica Schmiedel's articles, JOHN SON
OF ZEBEDEE, GOSPELS, 108-156, especially 131-145, MARY, SIMON PETER,
5-23, RESURRECTION, MINISTRY, S:S: 1-6, and CLOPAS.
A. Wright, Synopsis of the Gospels in Greek, 1906; Stevens and Burton,
A Harmony of the Gospels, 1896; S. D. Waddy, A Harmony of the Four
Gospels, 1895.
O. Cone, Gospel-Criticism and Historical Christianity, 1891; The Gospel
and its Earliest Interpretations, 1893; A. C. McGiffert, The Apostolic
Age, 1897; B. W. Bacon, An Introduction to the New Testament, 1900; J.
Moffatt, The Historical New Testament, 1901; P. Gardner, Exploratio
Evangelica, 2nd ed. 1907.
J. J. Tayler, An attempt to ascertain the Character of the Fourth
Gospel, 1867; Gloag, Introduction to Johannine Writings, 1891; J.
Drummond, An Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth
Gospel, 1903; J. Warschauer, The Problem of the Fourth Gospel, 1903; B.
W. Bacon in Hibbert Journal, April 1903, Jan. 1904, 1905; E. F. Scott,
The Fourth Gospel: its purpose and theology, 1906.]
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INDEX
ABRAHAM, 113 f., 155, 202
Additions, later, 39, 134 f., 186, 208 f., 228 f.
Adultery, woman taken in, 39
Acts of the Apostles, 174 f., 235
Agrippa I., Herod, 178
Alpha and Omega, 228
Ambushes, Jesus escapes, 17, 72
Ananias and Sapphira, 19
Andrew, 34, 78, 136 f., 171
Angels, 274
Annas, 120 f.
Anointing of Jesus, 77 f., 81 f., 127
Antipas, Herod, 17, 178
Apocalypse, the beast in, 218, 222-225
Apocalypse, letters in, 230 f.
Apostles, 172, 176, 229
original, 234
Arrest of Jesus, 3, 29 f., 125, 138 f., 154
Aristion, 171 f., 176
Atonement, 272
day of, 274
AV and RV, 65 n.
BABYLON, 222
Baptism, 1821, 273
of Jesus, 251, 791, 154, 205
by Jesus, 55, 136
Bar Cochba, 200 f., 235
Bartimaeus, 13
Beloved disciple, 3 f., 130, 133 f., 179-181, 186
Beast, the, in Apocalypse, 218, 222-225
Bethany, 77 f., 82, 83
Bethesda, 3, 151, 19, 37, 75, 99, 116
Bethlehem, 12
Bishop, 176, 239 f.
Blind, man born, 3, 19, 371, 97, 115
Blind men at Jericho, 92
Blood, woman with issue of, 13
Blood and water, 156, 181
Body, 1491, 161, 275
Boulanger, 218
Bread = Jesus, 38
Bread = teaching, 101-106
Buddha, 90
Burial, 19
of Jesus, 123, 138 f.
Buying on a feast day, 124 f.
CAESAR, 181
Caesarea Philippi, 11, 33
Caiaphas, 120, 188, 271 f.
Cana, 12
marriage feast at, 3, 20, 24, 99, 109, 116
Capernaum, 33
Carelessness in Jn., 51, 75-78, 81 f., 135, 202 f.
Centurion of Capernaum. 93, 99 f.
Changes, intentional, 25 f., 29, 41, 42 f., 62 f.
Children of God, 64 f.,153 f., 159, 161, 256
Children of the Devil, 159 f.
Christians, persecutions of, 164, 262
Christus as distinct from Jesus, 150, 156, 205, 237
Church, 208, 239 f., 272 f.
Circumcision, 234
Clement of Alexandria, 70, 128, 195 f.
Colossians, Epistle to the, 146, 152 f., 207 f., 274
Conditions of a later period, 134-136
Confession of faith, 208
Confucius, 90
Corrections, 52, 56, 119 f.
Covenant, 248 f., 267, 272
Creation, 145, 147-149, 161 f., 228 f.
Crucifixion of Jesus, 123, 126
Cures of disease, 92
DANGER to the State, 235
Daniel, book of, 224 f.
Darius, 196
Day of Jesus' death, 3, 117 f.
"Day of preparation," 122 f.
Dealers, expulsion of, 3, 16, 18, 24, 50, 521, 72, 99, 138
Death of Jesus, 27, 29 f., 163, 205, 209, 246-251, 261-277
Dedication, Feast of, 9, 16, 75
Demetrius, 214
Development of Jesus, 33-35, 66
Devil, 159 f., 206, 275
children of the, 159 f.
Diotrephes, 213 f.
Disciples of the Lord, 171, 173, 176
Discourses of Jesus, 35-46, 561, 61, 68, 73-76
Disease, cures of, 92
Domitian, 227
Door, 36, 135 f.
Duration of Jesus' ministry, 91, 138
EASTER, 189
Embalming of Jesus, 125, 139
Empty tomb, 130 f.
Entry into Jerusalem, 17 f., 121 f.
Ephesus, 170, 173-179, 191, 217, 230
Eternal life, 95, 151, 254, 255 f.
Eusebius, 171
External witnesses, 191-199, 211
Eye-witness, 5, 51, 56, 67, 78, 82, 111, 202 f., 212
FAITH, 251 f.
in Jesus, 301, 401, 711, 154, 251 f.
Farewell discourses of Jesus, 38 f., 57
Feedings, the, 48 f., 87, 97 f., 101-106
Festivals, 91, 16, 138, 154 f., 235
Flesh, 275 f.
Forgiveness of sins, 246-250, 268, 273
Foundation-pillars of a Life of Jesus, 22 f., 24 f., 26 f., 27 f., 29,
41, 43, 101-104, 106-109
Fraud, 183, 212
Fulness of the Godhead, 146
GAIUS, 214
Gaius of Rome, 200
Galba, 222
Galilee, 10-12, 111, 131 f.
Garments of the crucified Lord, 128
Genesareth, Lake of, 9-11
Gentiles, 34, 135, 233 f., 243, 272
Gethsemane, 27, 154, 263 f., 268
Gnosticism, 148-165, 188, 190, 192, 204-208, 215, 216, 236 f., 240 f.,
243
God, the highest, 162
of the Old Test., 162 f.
is Spirit and Love, 244
communion with, 245 f.
Jesus called, 155
Godhead, fulness of the, 146
Gods, 148
Gospel acc. to Matthew, 180
Grave of Jesus, 130-134
Greeks, 78, 234
HARMONIES, 47-50
Heaven, 159, 237, 271
Jesus' existence in, 61 f., 63, 140, 144 f., 202 f., 238, 251
Heavenly Jerusalem, 228, 237
Hebrews, Epistle to the, 145 f., 152 f., 237, 272, 273, 277
Hegesippus, 192
Hengstenberg, 184
Heraclitus, 142
Herod Agrippa I., 178
Herod Antipas, 17, 178
Hierapolis, 171, 177
High Council, 18, 120 f.
High Priest, 121, 188
Historical research, 70
Holy Spirit, 38, 42 f., 79, 209, 236, 253 f., 257 f., 276
Human traits in Jesus, 30-33, 156 f.
Hystaspes, 196
IAMBLICHUS, 183
Idols, 229 f.
offering's to, 229 f.
Inviolability of Jesus, 17, 29, 154
Irenaeus, 62, 170 f., 173-177, 189, 194 f., 198, 227
JAIRUS, 19, 40
James, brother of John, 169, 171, 177 f., 188, 195
James, brother of Jesus, 174, 177, 184
Epistle of, 277
Jericho, blind men at, 92
Jerusalem, 12, 131 f., 221
entry into, 17 f., 121 f.
Jesus, the image of God, 146, 153
existence in heaven, 61 f., 63, 140, 144 f., 202 f., 238, 251
before Abraham, 155, 202
laid aside his godhead? 146, 158, 243
his dignity upon earth, 37, 42, 74, 156 f., 241 f.
called "God," 155
one with God, 157
has divine and human nature, 158
escapes ambushes, 17, 72
hides himself, 17, 29, 157
sinless, 27
as model, 247, 252, 275
not to be called "good," 26
truly human, 23; in Jn.? 30-33, 156 f.
mentally distraught, 24 f.
forsaken by God, 27 f., 128
acc. to the Apocalypse, 228 f.
baptism by, 55, 136
Jews, 151, 71 f., 154 f., 229 f., 235 f., 272
Johannine tradition, 110-117
John the Apostle, 67 f., 171-179, 187 f., 189 f., 196, 228 f.
John the Baptist, 33 f., 54 f., 56, 76 f., 79 f., 106-108, 136 f., 153,
236, 270
John the Elder, 171-173, 174 f., 189 f., 215-217, 229-231
John, Epistles of:
First, 204-212, 242, 244 f., 246, 252
Second and Third, 213-217, 237, 239, 241
Jonah, sign of, 21 f., 23 f.
Jordan, 10, 150
Joseph of Arimathaea, 124
father of Jesus, 150
Josephus, 191 f.
Journeys of Jesus, 11 f., 57-61
Judaea, 10 f., 111
Judas Iscariot, 29 f., 50, 82
Jude, Epistle of, 207
Judgment, 151, 202, 209, 254
Justification, 251 f.
Justin, 199
KAHNIS, 184
Kant, 91
Knowledge, 61-66, 148, 150, 207 f., 236 f., 244
Koran, 90, 141
LAKE, walking on the, 19, 48, 53, 87, 93, 981, 109, 157
Lamb, the, 227 f.
Law, 16, 34, 154 f., 235 f., 251 f., 274 f.
Lazarus, 3, 19, 28, 30-33, 83 f., 93-97, 101, 112-115, 154, 156, 182
f., 241
Leaflets, 220 f.
Leaven of the Pharisees, 101-104
Leaves, disarrangement of, 75 f.
Letters in the Apocalypse, 230 f.
Levi, 14
Life, eternal, 95, 151, 254, 255 f.
Light of the world, 38, 250, 254
Logos, 141-145, 151 f., 199, 203, 204, 210, 227 f., 238, 251 f.
Love, 42, 245 f.
Luke, 11, 191 f., 195
Luther, 64, 70, 218
MARRIAGE-FEAST at Cana, 3, 20, 24, 99, 109, 116
Mark, 195, 202
Martyrs, 164
Mary Magdalene, 132 f.
Mary, mother of Jesus, 3 f., 15, 24 f., 150, 180
Mary and Martha, 15, 30 f., 77, 83 f., 95, 96
Matter, 149, 159, 275
Matthew, 14, 171
Memory of the Fourth Evangelist, 51, 67 f.
Messiah, 33, 66, 79, 106, 108, 121 f., 137, 268.
Metaphorical language, 103, 108 f.
Metaphorical interpretation of miracles in Jn., 95-100, 105 f., 109 f.,
112-116
Ministry, duration of Jesus, 91, 138
Millennial rule, 228, 230
Miracles, 18-25, 83-110, 241, 253
Mishnah, 120, 125
Mission, 134 f., 234
Misunderstandings, 30, 43-46, 74, 154
Mk., appendix to, 130 f.
Monogenes, 153
Montanus, 236
Muhammed, 90, 141
Mysticism, 245
NAIN, 19, 107
Napoleon, 218
Nathanael, 28
Nazareth, 12, 41
Nero, 222-225
Nicodemns, 15, 44, 78
OBEDIENCE of Jesus, 156 f, 270 f.
Offerings, 246-250, 270-277
to idols, 229 f.
Official, royal, 93, 99 f., 109
Old Testament, 128 f., 143 f., 162 f., 222, 224, 272, 274 f.
Omniscience of Jesus, 28 f., 32, 154
Original apostles, 234
Otho, 222
PAINTER, 56, 96 f., 101, 137
Papias, 170-173, 177 f.
Parables, 36, 73 f.
Passover festival, 9, 118, 138, 248, 265 f..
Passover-lamb, 118, 122, 126-130, 248, 271
Paul, 89, 144, 146, 152 f., 158 f., 174 f., 183 f., 187, 195, 230, 234
f., 237 f., 239, 243, 246, 249 f., 251, 254, 267, 271 f., 273 f., 275
f.
People, classes of, 13-16, 150, 160
Peraea, 10 f., 13
Persecutions of Christians, 164, 262
Peter, 33 f., 130-134, 137, 171, 174, 177, 180, 184, 1861, 188, 195,
202, 211 f.
Peter, speeches of, in Acts, 270
First Epistle of, 215 f., 276
Second Epistle of, 184 f., 207
Phantom body, 150, 152, 156, 163, 205
Pharisees, 11, 14, 89, 246 f.
leaven of the, 101-104
Philip, 28, 45, 78, 157, 171, 176 f.
Philo, 142-144, 152, 159, 190 f.
Phoenician woman, 34
Pilate, 121, 123, 126, 196, 235
Plato, 142, 159
Polycarp, 171, 173 f., 175, 189
Pope, 218
Possessed persons, 18 f.
Prayers of Jesus, 27 f., 154
Preachers, travelling, 138, 197
Presbyter, 171 f.
Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, 140
Prophecies, 128 f., 190, 222, 225, 230, 231, 236, 270
Prophets, 60, 141
Propitiation, 274
Pythagoras, 183
RANSOM, 249, 274 f.
Reconciliation, 274
Redemption, 160, 246-253, 275.
Religions, non-Christian, 144, 147 f., 225
Repetitions, 35 f., 37 f., 74 f.
Research, historical, 70
Resurrection, 151, 209, 223, 254
of Jesus, 231, 130-134
Revelation, 256
Revelation, methods of, 141 f.
Revelation of Jn., 169, 199, 218-232, 233, 234, 237
Rome, 222
Royal official, 93, 991, 109
SABBATH, 14, 34
Sacrifice, 246-250, 270-277
Sadducees, 14
Samaria, 111, 13, 233 f.
Samaria, woman of, 13, 28 f., 134
Schleiermacher, 70
Scribes, 141, 60
Sea, walking on the, 19, 48, 53, 87, 93, 98 f., 109, 157
Second coming of Jesus, 151, 209, 254
Seed, 143, 204 f., 205, 206
Self-witness, 179-183, 184 f.
Sentence of death, 120 f.
Serpent, 147
Sibyl, 195 f.
Sidon, 10 f.
Signs (miracles), 21 f., 95-100
Simon Bar Cochba, 200 f., 235
Simon of Cyrene, 122
Simon the Leper, 81 f.
Simon the Pharisee, 81 f.
Sinful woman, 78, 81 f.
Sinlessness, 205, 206, 240 f.
of Jesus, 26
Sins, forgiveness of, 246-250, 268, 273 f.
Socrates, 261
Son of God, 63-66, 145, 153, 157, 238, 251
Son of man, 115
Soul, 147, 149, 150, 159 f.
Spear-thrust, 3, 156, 181
Speeches of Peter in Acts, 270
Spirit, Holy, 38, 42 f., 79, 209, 236, 253 f., 257 f., 276
Spittle, 115
Statements of time, 136-138
Stephen, discourse of, 115 Stoics, 142, 204 f.
Supper, 98, 106, 138, 182, 189, 202, 240, 247 f., 254, 261-269, 271 f.
Supplementary matter in Jn., 52-57
Swords, 125
Synopsis, 7
Synoptics, 7; trustworthiness of, 4 f., 7, 104 f., 108 f., 119 f., 268
f.; date of composition, 51, 178 f., 191 f.
TABERNACLES, least of, 9, 12, 13, 75
Tax-gatherers, 15
Tears of Jesus, 30 f.
Temple, 221
expulsion of dealers from, 3, 16, 18, 24, 50, 521, 72, 99, 138
Temple, destruction of, 221 f.
Temptation of Jesus, 26, 145 f., 154, 157
Tertullian, 184, 196
Testament, Old, 128 f., 143 f., 162 f., 222, 224, 272, 274 f.
Thecla, 183 f.
Thirst of Jesus, 28, 128, 154
Thomas, 132, 155, 171
Thucydides, 175
Tiberius, 196, 222
Timothy, Epistles to, 207
Titus, Emperor, 221, 224
Titus, Epistle to, 207
Tradition, Johaninne, 110-117
Trinity, 253
Truth, 251, 255
Tyre, 101
VESPASIAN, 222, 224
Vines, great, 195
Vitellius, 222
WASHING of feet, 3, 117, 202, 252
Water and blood, 156, 181, 205
Wisdom of God, 59-61, 143
Witnesses, external, 191-199, 211
World, Light of the, 38, 250, 254
World and God, 149, 158 f., 160 f., 206, 209
ZACCHAEUS, 14
Zarathustra, 90
Zebedee, 169
Zoroaster, 196
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