The Johannine Writings/Part I, Chapter III
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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).
__________________________________________________________________
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).
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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?
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________