i. 513), good-naturedly defends the present writer from the charge of
wishing to discredit the argument from silence in general. And it is true that in the place to which he refers I had in mind only a particular application of the argument. Still I am afraid that I do wish to see its credit abated. At least it is my belief that too much use is made of the argument, and that too much weight is attached to it. There are two main objections to the way in which the argument is often handled. (1) The critic does not ask himself _what_ is silent—what extent of material does the argument cover? Often this extent is so small that, on the doctrine of chances, no inference can rightly be drawn from it. And (2) experience shows that the argument is often most fallacious. Dr. Drummond’s examples of this will I hope become classical[20].
Dr. Drummond’s book contains a multitude of passages like the above and exhibiting the same qualities. Many of them are a vindication of popular judgement as against the far-fetched arguments of professed scholars. The excellence of his method seems to me to consist largely in this, that he begins by making for himself an imaginative picture of the conditions with which he has to deal, not only of the particular piece of evidence which shows upon the surface, but of the inferential background lying behind it; that he thus escapes the danger of the _doctrinaire_ who argues straight from the one bit of evidence before him to the conclusion; and that he also constantly tests the process of his argument by reference to parallel conditions and circumstances in our own day which we can verify for ourselves.
If I were to express an opinion on the characteristic positions which Dr. Drummond takes up, I think it would be that, whereas he seems to me to overstate a little—but only a little—the external evidence for the Gospel, he at the same time somewhat understates the internal evidence. He gives his decision against the Fourth Gospel sometimes where I cannot help thinking that a writer of equal impartiality would not necessarily do so. It would also be unfair if I did not say that his general estimate of the historical trustworthiness of the Gospel is lower than I should form myself.
I have spoken of Dr. Drummond’s book first because of its importance as a landmark in the study of the Gospel, and because it covers the whole of the ground with which we are concerned. But another book preceded it by a week or two in the date of its publication, which as yet deals only with a limited portion of this ground, and yet which, unless I am mistaken, presents qualities similar in general character to those of Dr. Drummond, though perhaps the expression of them is rather less striking. I refer to Dr. Stanton’s _The Gospels as Historical Documents_, Part I. Dr. Stanton’s book is planned on a larger scale than Dr. Drummond’s in so far as it includes all four Gospels; but as yet he has only dealt with the external evidence bearing upon their early use. An important part of the volume is naturally that devoted to the Fourth Gospel. Like Dr. Drummond, Dr. Stanton also presents a marked contrast as to method with the group of continental writers that we have just been considering. It was therefore a matter of special interest that his book should be reviewed a few months after its appearance by Dr. Schmiedel in the _Hibbert Journal_ (ii. 607-12). It is not very surprising that Dr. Stanton was moved to reply to his critic in the next number (pp. 803-7). There is a direct antithesis of contrasted and competing principles.
It may naturally be thought that I am a biased judge in such a case; but I confess that it seems to me that the advantage is very much on the side of my countryman. He shows without much difficulty that Dr. Schmiedel has seriously misrepresented him. Indeed one might say that the critic’s representation of views and arguments was not so much derived from the book he was reviewing as from his own internal consciousness of what might be expected from an apologist. This, however, is the personal, and more ephemeral, aspect of the controversy. It is of more general interest to note the critical assumptions made in the course of the review. The writer admits that his opponent ‘not unfrequently gives the impression of being animated by the sincere resolve to maintain nothing save only what can be assumed with certainty.’ ‘With certainty’ is characteristic; the writer attributes to Dr. Stanton (in this case) what he would have aimed at doing himself. In the eyes of the school to which Dr. Schmiedel belongs, I will not say exactly that all the data of which they approve are certain, but they are treated very much as if they were; in building up an argument upon them, possibilities easily and imperceptibly glide into probabilities, and probabilities into certainties. Dr. Stanton disclaims the idea of dealing with certainties; he would only profess to adduce facts on a nicely graduated scale of probability, which by their cumulative weight went some way to carry conviction.
‘Concerning Barn. iv. 14, [Dr. Stanton] says (p. 33) with justice that this is our earliest instance of the citation of a saying of Christ as “scripture.” In the year A.D. 130, the date upon which he rightly fixes for the composition of the _Epistle of Barnabas_, this estimate of the Gospels would have been in the highest degree surprising, since it is not until A.D. 170 that the next examples of such an estimate make their appearance.’ Dr. Schmiedel goes on (1) to have recourse to the accustomed expedient of suggesting that Barnabas is quoting, not from the words of the Gospel which are identical, but from a passage in 4 Ezra which is quite different; and (2) if that expedient fails, to represent the quotation as a ‘winged word,’ though it is expressly introduced by the formula ‘it is written.’
However, it is not of either of these points that I wish to speak, but rather to call attention to what Dr. Schmiedel thinks would be ‘in the highest degree surprising.’ Why so surprising? What substantial ground have we for expecting anything else? In the first place Dr. Schmiedel begins by exaggerating the significance of the phrase ‘it is written,’ as though on its first extant occurrence it would necessarily imply full canonical authority. And then he goes on to lay stress upon what is really little more than the absence of literature. If we take the whole extant Christian literature between the years 130 and 170 A.D., it would not fill more than a thin octavo volume, and by far the greater part of that is taken up with external controversy. What sort of argument can be drawn from such a state of things as to the exact estimate which Christians formed of their own sacred books? No valid argument can be drawn from it either way, and it is far better simply to confess our ignorance. It is reasonable to suppose that there was a gradual development in the process by which the Gospels attained to the position that we call canonical; but the data to which we have access do not allow us to map out its stages with any precision.
It seems to me to be a fundamental defect in the reasoning of Dr. Schmiedel and his school that they fail to see that the real question is, not simply, What is the evidence for this or that proposition? but, What is the relation which the extant evidence bears to the whole body of that which once existed, and how far can we trust the inferences drawn from it?
I pass over some quite unwarrantable assumptions which Dr. Schmiedel makes as to the apologetic point of view: such as that, ‘if there can be shown to be resemblance between a canonical and a non-canonical writing, the former is uniformly to be regarded as the earlier’; and that ‘Apocryphal Gospels would not have been used in the influential circles of the Church.’ Apologists would lay down nothing of the kind, though in a certain number of concrete cases they may think that the priority of a canonical to a non-canonical writing does not need arguing, and though they may also think that in some particular case the evidence for the use of an Apocryphal Gospel by a Church writer is insufficient.
Dr. Schmiedel easily satisfies himself that he has refuted an argument bearing on the Fourth Gospel. Professor Stanton had rightly maintained, ‘There must have been good grounds for believing that the Fourth Gospel was founded upon the apostolic testimony in order to overcome the prejudice that would be created by the contrasts between it and the Synoptics.’ He has shown, I think, in his reply, that the instances alleged against this are not relevant, and also that the part played by the two ideas of Apostolicity and Catholicity in the forming of the Canon are not quite correctly stated by his opponent. But even if they had been as stated the original contention would still have been left standing, because agreement with previously accepted writings was part of the idea of Catholicity. It is a sound argument to say that a work so independent as the Fourth Gospel must have come with good credentials to obtain the place which it held.
Lastly, when Dr. Schmiedel speaks so imposingly of ‘the silence of the entire first half of the second century in regard to the sojourn of the Apostle John in Ephesus,’ I would once more ask him what this silence amounts to. What is the total bulk of the literature on which the argument is based? Is it possible to draw from it an inference of any value at all[21]?
Footnote 1:
It is this last work that I consider an exception to the high standard of ability in the group of which I am speaking. It is absolutely one-sided. I do not doubt the writer’s sincerity, but he is blissfully unconscious that there is another side to the argument.
Footnote 2:
_Einleitung in d. N. T._, 3rd ed., 1897; _Das Johannes-Evangelium_, 9th ed. (4th of those undertaken by Dr. Weiss), 1892.
Footnote 3:
For Beyschlag’s treatment of the Fourth Gospel see _Zur johanneischen Frage_, reprinted from _Theol. Studien und Kritiken_ (Gotha, 1876); _Neutest. Theologie_ (Halle a. S., 1891), i. 212-19; _Leben Jesu_ (3rd ed., Halle, 1893).
Footnote 4:
English readers may be reminded that Dr. Ezra Abbot was an American Unitarian who died in 1884. He was a leading member of the American Committee which joined in the production of the Revised Version, and, after serving as Assistant Librarian, became Professor of New Testament Criticism in Harvard University in 1872. He was a scholar of retiring habits, and was one of those who spend in helping and improving the work of others time that might have been given to great work of their own. His literary remains were religiously collected after his death.
Footnote 5:
_Probleme d. apost. Zeitalters_, p. 92 f.
Footnote 6:
The writings of Dr. Delff that bear upon the subject of the Fourth Gospel are _Die Geschichte d. Rabbi Jesus v. Nazareth_ (Leipzig, n. d., but the preface is dated 1889); _Das vierte Evangelium wiederhergestellt_ (Husum, 1890); _Neue Beiträge zur Kritik und Erklärung des vierten Evangeliums_ (Husum, 1890).
Footnote 7:
Bousset thinks that this may mean ‘related to’ the high priest (_Offenb._ p. 46 n.); but this is questioned by Zahn (_Einl._ ii. 483).
Footnote 8:
This book is not to be confused with _Die urchristlichen Gemeinden_ published two years earlier, and now translated under the title _Christian Life in the Primitive Church_.
Footnote 9:
Professor Harnack gave a lecture, which I was privileged to hear, at the Union Seminary on October 10, 1904.
Footnote 10:
_Das vierte Evang._ p. 12 ff.
Footnote 11:
_Enc. Bibl._ ii. 2555.
Footnote 12:
_New Light_, &c., p. 149.
Footnote 13:
A third article, on the internal evidence, appeared in January of the present year, iii. 353 ff.
Footnote 14:
_Urchristentum_ (ed. 2, Berlin, 1902), ii. 389.
Footnote 15:
_Ibid._ p. 450.
Footnote 16:
_Hibbert Journal_, ii. 620.
Footnote 17:
_Enc. Bibl._ ii. 2554.
Footnote 18:
_Beginnings of Christianity_, ii. 166 ff.; cf. von Dobschütz, _Probleme_, p. 94.
Footnote 19:
_Character_, &c., p. 157 f.
Footnote 20:
An incidental passage in Dr. Dill’s _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_ (p. 120 f.) deserves to be set by the side of Dr. Drummond’s. He is speaking of the _Satiricon_ of Petronius. ‘Those who have attributed it to the friend and victim of Nero have been confronted with the silence of Quintilian, Juvenal, and Martial, with the silence of Tacitus as to any literary work by Petronius, whose character and end he has described with a curious sympathy and care. It is only late critics of the lower empire, such as Macrobius, and a dilettante aristocrat like Sidonius Apollinaris, who pay any attention to this remarkable work of genius. And Sidonius seems to make its author a citizen of Marseilles. Yet silence in such cases may be very deceptive. Martial and Statius never mention one another, and both might seem unknown to Tacitus. And Tacitus, after the fashion of the Roman aristocrat, in painting the character of Petronius, may not have thought it relevant or important to notice a light work such as the _Satiricon_, even if he had ever seen it. He does not think it worth while to mention the histories of the Emperor Claudius, the tragedies of Seneca, or the _Punica_ of Silius Italicus.’
Footnote 21:
The two books of Drs. Drummond and Stanton were reviewed by M. Loisy in the _Revue Critique_, 1904, pp. 422-4, and Dr. Drummond’s by Prof. H. J. Holtzmann in _Theol. Literaturzeitung_, 1905, cols. 136-9. Both reviews were disappointing, though Dr. Holtzmann’s contains the usual amount of painstaking detail. It is natural that play should be made with the real inconsistencies of Dr. Drummond’s position; but his weightier arguments are in neither case directly grappled with.
LECTURE II CRITICAL METHODS. THE OLDEST SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
I. i. Defects in the Methods of current Criticism.
It is now rather more than eight years since Harnack wrote the famous Preface to his _Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur_. It was an instance of the genial insight of the writer, and a keen diagnosis of the criticism of the day.
The main outline of the Preface will be remembered. Looking back over the period from which Science was just beginning to emerge, the writer characterized it as one in which all the early Christian literature including the New Testament had been treated as a tissue of illusions and falsifications. That time, he went on to say, was past. For Science it had only been an episode, during which much had been learnt and after which much had to be forgotten. His own researches, Harnack explained, would be found to go in a reactionary direction even beyond the middle position of current criticism. The results might be summed up by saying that the oldest literature of the Church, in its main points and in most of its details, from the point of view of literary history, was veracious and trustworthy. In the whole New Testament there was probably only a single writing that could be called pseudonymous in the strict sense of the term, the so-called Second Epistle of St. Peter; and, apart from the Gnostic fictions, the whole number of pseudonymous writings down to Irenaeus was very small, and in one case (the Acts of Thecla) the production of such a work was expressly condemned. In like manner the amount of interpolation was also far less than had been supposed; and the tradition relating to this early period might in the main, and with some reservations, be trusted.
Baur and his school had thought themselves compelled, in order to give an intelligible account of the rise of Christianity, to throw over both the statements in the writings themselves and those of tradition about them, and to post-date their composition by several decades. They were driven to do this by mistaken premises. Starting with the assumption that all these writings were composed with a definite purpose, to commend some sectional view of Christianity, they were constantly on the watch for traces of that purpose, and they found them in the most unexpected places. The views of Baur and his followers had been generally given up; but the tendencies set on foot by them remained. The Christian writings were still approached in an attitude of suspicion; they were cross-examined in the spirit of a hostile attorney; or else they were treated after the manner of a _petit maître_, fastening upon all sorts of small details, and arguing from them in the face of clear and decisive indications. Baur thought that everything had a motive, and an interested motive. But, whereas he sought for the motive on broad lines, his more recent successors either gave themselves up to the search for minor incidental motives, or for interpolations on a large scale, or else they gave way to a thorough-going scepticism which confused together probabilities and improbabilities as though they were all the same.
Harnack went on to describe the results of the labours of the last two decades (1876-96) as constituting a definite ‘return to tradition.’ This return to tradition he regarded as characteristic of the period in which he was writing; indeed he looked forward to a time when the questions of literary history which had excited so much interest would do so no longer, because it would come to be generally understood that the early Christian traditions were in the main right.
* * * * *
This Preface of Harnack’s attracted considerable attention, and probably nowhere more than in England. English students hailed it as the beginning of a new epoch, and one in which they could be more at home. It fell in with certain marked characteristics of the English mind. Even the progressive element in that mind naturally works on conservative lines; it has been reluctant to break away from the past. The very advances of freedom, so steady and so sure, have not been revolutionary; they have been advances
‘Of freedom slowly broadening down From precedent to precedent.’
But it was not only the destructive conclusions of continental criticism with which dissatisfaction was felt, and which gave an apologetic colour to much English work. The methods were in many ways not less distasteful than the conclusions. Englishmen felt, whether they said so or not, that there was something wrong. And therefore, when a scholar of Harnack’s distinction put their thoughts into words and pointed to the very defects of which they seemed to be conscious, their hopes were raised that at last a movement was begun which they could follow with sympathy, and in which they might perhaps to some extent bear a part.
When I take upon myself to speak in this way of ‘English students,’ I of course do so with some reservations. I have in mind the rather considerable majority of the theological faculties in our Universities, and I might say the majority of the teaching staffs of all denominations throughout Great Britain; for there are excellent relations, and a great amount of solidarity, among British teachers of Theology in all the churches. A good general representation of the average views would be found (e. g.) in Hastings’ _Dictionary of the Bible_. No doubt there is also the other type—the type represented by _Encyclopaedia Biblica_. There are not a few among us who are less dissatisfied with Continental methods, and who pursue those methods themselves with ability and independence. And beyond these there are very many more, especially among the cultivated and interested laity, who are acquainted in a general way with what has been done on the Continent, and who are impressed by what they take to be the results, though for the most part they have not time to test the processes. I say advisedly that this class is impressed by what it conceives to be results, because I imagine that, while there is a feeling that Continental scholars are freer in their researches and less trammelled than our own, there is also some reserve owing to the consciousness that the results have not been fully tested. To this extent I should say that the intellectual posture of this class was one of waiting—serious and interested waiting—rather than of complete committal either to one side or to the other.
Since my visit to America I seem to be better able to speak of the situation there, though closer acquaintance did but in the main confirm and define the opinion that I had previously formed. There are several differences between the conditions in the two countries. On the other side of the Atlantic there are probably greater inequalities of theological instructedness. They have a greater number of Universities and Seminaries, in which the standard varies more than it does with us. And while on the one hand general culture and that kind of vague knowledge of the nature and tendencies of criticism which goes with general culture is more widely diffused in these islands, on the other hand I should be inclined to think that a real first-hand knowledge of critical work is more often to be found there than it is here. This is due to the fact that a large proportion of the ablest professors and teachers have been themselves trained in Germany. And yet, in spite of these differences and inequalities, there is a general tendency, which seemed to me to embrace the whole nation.
It was summed up in a few words by one of the Methodist Bishops (it will be remembered that the Episcopalian Methodists are strong in America) with whom I had some conversation. He had, I believe, been secretary of some Board of Religious Education, and spoke with wide knowledge. I should be afraid to say how many students had passed through his hands. And, speaking of these students, he said that their general attitude was this: ‘They want to keep their faith; and yet they also want to see the realities of things.’
The same description would, I believe, fit the teachers and professors as well as the students, including those trained in Germany. They too want to keep their faith, and to help their students to keep their faith. As compared with the state of things in Germany, there is a more general and sustained effort to make their teaching positive and constructive; and this constructive teaching takes, I suspect, in most cases very similar lines—I should describe it as in the main Ritschlianism of the Right. At the same time, they too want to see the reality of things; in other words, they want to teach by strictly scientific methods. And the only further remark that I should have to make would be that they are perhaps a little inclined—and it naturally could not be otherwise—to look at these methods through German spectacles.
Now I would not hesitate to carry this generalization still further. We, in this country, have probably a greater number of cross currents; there is a greater number of _media_ that stand between the individual and his ultimate aims and wishes, in the shape of loyalties to this or that church or party. And yet I think that, broadly speaking, we should not be wrong in summing up what is really at the bottom of the minds and hearts of the whole Anglo-Saxon race in the same words: ‘They want to keep their faith; and yet they also want to see the realities of things.’
It is the equilibrium of these two propositions that is most characteristic. I fully believe that motives of the same kind are present among the Germans as well as ourselves. I could easily name a number of German professors who, I feel sure, are as anxious to keep their faith as we are. At the head of the list I should put Harnack himself, whose views have been so much discussed in this country. There is, however, a greater diversity of attitude among the professorial body as a whole. And so far as they were agreed—I am speaking especially of the widespread liberal branch—they would, I think, all invert the order of the two propositions: they would give precedence to the desire to get at realities; and they would identify this getting at realities with the use of scientific method. The reason is that in Germany, more than elsewhere, the prevalent standards of judgement are essentially academic. The Universities give the lead and set the tone for the whole nation; and the Universities have now been accustomed for many generations to an atmosphere of free thought.
Now it is far from my intention to undervalue, either the use of scientific method in general, or German science in particular. I have the highest opinion of both. By far the greater part of the advance that has been made in Theology—and I believe that a great advance has been made in our own country as well as elsewhere—I would again appeal to Hastings’ _Dictionary_ as representing a sort of average—has been due to the stricter application of science; and a great part of this has been German science. Honour must be given where honour is due. We must not hold back the full recognition that at the present time Germany holds the first place in Science, and that its output of scientific work is perhaps as great as that of all the rest of the world besides. I am not sure whether this is an exaggeration, but I hardly think it is.
But in all the more tentative forms of science, such as philosophy, history, and theology, there is, or at least has been so far, a double element, one that is stable and permanent, and another that is more or less local and ephemeral.
If I proceed to offer some criticisms upon German critical methods, I am perfectly well aware that the Germans in turn would have something to criticize in ours. At the present day discussion is not limited to any one country, but is international. It is by scholars of different race and training comparing notes together that mistakes are corrected, methods gradually perfected, and results established. I shall not hesitate therefore to point out where it seems to me that German methods have gone wrong. And I feel that I can do this the more freely when a scholar of Harnack’s high standing has set the example. The faults that we seem to have noticed in German criticism are very much those which he has indicated: it has been too academic, too _doctrinaire_, too artificial, too much made in the study and too little checked by observation of the facts of daily life. The very excellences of the German mind have in some ways contributed to the formation of wrong standards of judgement. More than other people the Germans have the power of sustained abstract thought, of thoroughness in mustering and reviewing all the elements of a problem, of thinking a problem out in such a way as not to leave gaps and inconsistencies. Hence they are too ready to assume that all the rest of the world will do the same, that if an important piece of evidence is omitted in an argument it can only be because it was not known, that carelessness and oversights and inconsistencies are things that need not be reckoned with. And there is also too great a tendency to argue as though men were all made upon one pattern. There is a want of elasticity of conception. And, to sum up many points in one, there is a great tendency to purism or over-strictness in the wrong place, and to over-laxity also in the wrong place, to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.
What one desiderates most is greater simplicity, greater readiness to believe that as a rule, in ancient times as well as modern, people meant what they said and said what they meant, and that more often than not they had some substantial reason for saying it.
ii. Instances in which Criticism has corrected itself.
These are not merely _a priori_ reflections, but they are based upon experience of the actual course that criticism has taken. By this time criticism has a considerable history behind it. It has corrected some of its mistakes, and is able to look back upon the course by which it came to make them. In this way it should learn some wholesome lessons.
I will take three rather conspicuous examples in which criticism has at first gone wrong and has afterwards come to set itself right, in the hope that they may teach us what to avoid in future. I imagine that they may be found to throw some side-light upon the particular problem of the Fourth Gospel.
The first example that I will take shall be from the criticism of the Ignatian Epistles. I may assume that the Seven Epistles are now generally allowed to be genuine, and written by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome sometime before the end of the reign of Trajan (i. e. before 117). This result is due especially to the labours of two scholars, Zahn and Lightfoot. It is instructive to note with what kind of argument they had to contend.
Both in their day had to stem a formidable current of opinion. Bishop Lightfoot wrote in the Preface to his great work dated ‘St. Peter’s day, 1885’:
‘We have been told more than once that “all impartial critics” have condemned the Ignatian Epistles as spurious. But this moral intimidation is unworthy of the eminent writers who have sometimes indulged in it, and will certainly not be permitted to foreclose the investigation. If the ecclesiastical terrorism of past ages has lost its power, we shall, in the interests of truth, be justly jealous of allowing an academic terrorism to usurp its place.’
I should not find it difficult to produce parallels to this kind of intimidation in the case of the Fourth Gospel. To look back in face of them upon the issue of the Ignatian controversy is consoling.
Much was said in the course of the controversy about certain features of style and character as unworthy of an Apostolic father. It was enough to answer with Bishop Lightfoot that ‘objections of this class rest for the most part on the assumption that an Apostolic father must be a person of ideal perfections intellectually as well as morally—an assumption which has only to be named in order to be refuted[22].’
It is true that the letters contained exaggerated language of humility, and also an exaggerated eagerness for martyrdom. Beside these general features, there were a good many strange and crude expressions of other kinds. It is needless to say that it did not in the least follow that such expressions could not have been used by Ignatius. But if the critics had been willing to study the letters a little deeper and with a little more sympathy, they might have found reason to change their estimate even of these acknowledged flaws.
In dealing with Ignatius it is always important to remember that we have to do with a Syrian and not a Greek. Certainly the language that he wrote was not in his hand a pliant instrument. It always cost him a struggle to express his thought; and the expression is very often far from perfect. The figure of the writer that one pictures to oneself is rugged, shaggy (if one may use the word), uncouth; and yet there is a virile, nervous strength about his language which is at times very impressive. And even his extravagances differ in this from many like extravagances, that they are not in the least insincere. For instance, if we read through the letter to Polycarp, we shall see in it a really great personality. And Ignatius had a very considerable power of thought as well as of character. Outside the New Testament, he is the first great Christian thinker; and he is one who left a deep mark on all subsequent thinking.
I have little doubt that the strong expressions of humility that are found from time to time in Ignatius are wrung from him by the recollection of the life that he led before he became a Christian. They are doubtless suggested by St. Paul, and they spring from a feeling not less intense than his.
The humility of St. John is a different matter. But as very shallow and obtuse criticisms are sometimes passed upon it, the Ignatian parallel may serve as a wholesome warning. I shall have occasion to return to this point later.
The main arguments against the Ignatian authorship of the letters were drawn from the seemingly advanced condition of things which they implied in the way of heretical teaching on the one hand, and church organization on the other. The objections on these grounds have been quite cleared up; and now the letters supply some of the most important data that the historian has to go upon.
It will be remembered that Bishop Lightfoot began by converting himself before he converted others. He had been inclined to think at one time that the shorter Syriac version represented the true Ignatius. He tells us himself how he came to give up this opinion. He says:
‘I found that to maintain the priority of the Curetonian letters I was obliged from time to time to ascribe to the supposed Ignatian forger feats of ingenuity, knowledge, intuition, skill, and self-restraint, which transcended all bounds of probability’ (Preface to the First Edition).
This is another bit of experience that it may be worth while to bear in mind.
* * * * *
My second example is perhaps in this sense not quite so clear a case, that there is not as yet as complete a _consensus_ in regard to it as there is in regard to the Ignatian Letters. It is taken from the discussions which have been going on at various times in the last twenty-five years as to the genuineness of the treatise _De Vita Contemplativa_ which has come down to us among the works of Philo.
A marked impression was made on the side of the attack by a monograph by Lucius, _Die Therapeuten u. ihre Stellung in d. Gesch. der Askese_, published in 1879. This, together with the acceptance at least of the negative part of its result by Schürer, inaugurated a period during which opinion was on the whole rather unfavourable to the treatise. A reaction began with two articles by Massebieau in 1888, followed by the important and valuable work of Mr. F. C. Conybeare, _Philo about the Contemplative Life_, Oxford, 1895. The success of this defence may be regarded as clenched by the accession of such excellent and impartial authorities as Cohn and Wendland, who are bringing out the great new edition of Philo, and of Dr. James Drummond. It is true that Schürer reviewed Mr. Conybeare in an adverse sense so far as his main conclusion was concerned, and that he still maintains his opinion in the third edition of his _Geschichte d. Jüdischen Volkes_ (1898); but I must needs think that his arguments were satisfactorily and decisively answered by Dr. Drummond in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_ for 1896.
One or two points in this reply of Dr. Drummond have a general bearing, relevant to our present subject.
Lucius had maintained that the treatise was of Christian origin, and that it was composed not long before the time of its first mention by Eusebius. The history of the text is opposed to this; and Dr. Drummond is quite right in saying ‘the argument seems valid that Eusebius did not make his extracts from a work which had been recently sprung upon the market, but from one which had already undergone a long process of transcription.’ I may point to Dr. Schmiedel’s article in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ as one of many examples of reasoning similar to that of Lucius in regard to the Fourth Gospel. It is a common thing among critics to think it unnecessary to allow any but the smallest interval between the first production of a book and the date of its first mention in the literature that happens to be extant. I would not lay down an absolute rule. Circumstances vary in different cases. But I would contend that in any case they need careful consideration, and that assumptions like those of Lucius and Schmiedel are highly precarious.
The next point I would notice is the argument from identity of thought and style. One of the striking features in Mr. Conybeare’s book was the vast accumulation of parallels both in thought and expression between the _De Vita Contemplativa_ and the certainly genuine works of Philo. Dr. Schürer thinks that this might be due to imitation. On that head I should like to quote Dr. Drummond:
‘The purely literary evidence will affect different men differently. To those who have no difficulty in attributing to the forger a boundless power of refined imitation it will carry little weight. To others who act upon the proverb, _ex pede Herculem_, and believe that successful forgery in the name of an author, if not of high genius, at least of unusual ability and distinguished style, is an exceedingly difficult art, this line of evidence will come with almost overwhelming force. It is easy enough to imitate tricks of style, or to borrow some peculiarities of phrase; but to write in a required style, without betraying any signs of imitation; to introduce perpetual variation into sentences which are nevertheless characteristic; to have shades of thought and suggestion, which remind one of what has been said elsewhere, and nevertheless are delicately modified, and pass easily into another subject; in a word, to preserve the whole flavour of a writer’s composition in a treatise which has a theme of its own, and follows its own independent development, may well seem beyond the reach of the forger, and must be held to guarantee the genuineness of a work, unless very weighty arguments can be advanced on the other side.’
This paragraph seems to be very much in point for those who, like Schmiedel, H. J. Holtzmann and Professor Bacon, would distinguish the author of the First Epistle of St. John from the author of the Gospel.
On this point it is also worth while to consider Dr. Drummond’s replies to the inconsistencies alleged to exist between particular details in the _De Vita Contemplativa_ and the other Philonic writings. There is always a tendency in the critical school to make too much of these little _prima facie_ differences, which generally shrink a good deal on closer examination.
* * * * *
My last example shall be taken from the _Vita Antonii_, ascribed to, and now generally believed to be a genuine work of, St. Athanasius. The _Vita Antonii_ holds an important place in the literature of the beginnings of Monasticism. As such it was involved in the wholesale scepticism on that subject which was pushed to its furthest limits by the late Professor Weingarten in the seventies and eighties. How complete the reaction has been may be seen in the recent edition of the _Historia Lausiaca_ by Dom Cuthbert Butler. Among Weingarten’s converts was our English scholar, Professor Gwatkin; and I do not think that anything could speak more eloquently than just to transcribe the list of objections brought against the _Vita Antonii_ by Professor Gwatkin in his _Studies of Arianism_ (Cambridge, 1882). I proceed to give the more important of them in an abridged form:
‘In the rest of the works of Athanasius there is no trace of Antony’s existence. Considering the grandeur of the saint’s position, and his intimate relations with the bishop of Alexandria, this fact alone should be decisive.’
Observe the argument from silence, which is enlarged upon in the remainder of the paragraph.
1. The treatise is addressed to the monks of the West, whereas ‘monasticism was unknown in Europe in the reign of Valentinian, and at Rome in particular when Jerome went into the East in 373; and at Milan it had only lately been introduced by Ambrose at the time of Augustine’s visit in 385.’
2. ‘Apart from its numerous miracles, the general tone of the _Vita_ is unhistorical. It is a perfect romance of the desert, without a trace of human sinfulness to mar its beauty. The saint is an idealized ascetic hero, the _mons Antonii_ a paradise of peaceful holiness. We cannot pass from the _Scriptores Erotici_ to the _Vita Antonii_ without noticing the same atmosphere of unreality in both. From Anthanasius there is all the difference of the novel writer from the orator—of the _Cyropaedia_ from the _de Corona_.’
3. ‘Though Athanasius had ample room for miracles in the adventures of his long life, he never records anything of the sort.... But miracles, often of the most puerile description, are the staple of the _Vita Antonii_, and some of them are said to have been done before the eyes of Athanasius himself, who could not have omitted all reference to them in the writings of his exile.’
Again, the argument from silence.
* * * * *
4. ‘Antony is represented as an illiterate Copt, dependent on memory even for his knowledge of Scripture.’ Yet he alludes to Plato, Plotinus, &c., and in general reasons like a learned philosopher.
5. ‘The _Vita Antonii_ has coincidences with Athanasius in language and doctrine, as we should expect in any professed work of his.... But the divergences are serious’....
6. It is implied throughout the _Vita Antonii_ that the monks were extremely numerous throughout the East during Antony’s lifetime. Now there were monks in Egypt, monks of Serapis, long before; but Christian monks there were none’ (_Studies of Arianism_, pp. 100-2).
Now I am not for a moment going to disparage this display of learning. It is very clever; it is very scholarly: in the state of knowledge when it was written it was at least very excusable in its statements. Altogether it was as brilliant a piece of criticism as one would wish to see. To this day the objections read quite formidably. And yet the inference drawn from them is pretty certainly wrong; indeed the whole array is little more than an impressive bugbear.
* * * * *
With such warnings from the past before our eyes, I think we should be inclined to scrutinize rather closely arguments of a like kind when they meet us in the course of our present investigation.
iii. Examples of Mistaken Method as applied to the Fourth Gospel.
At this point we may go back to Harnack’s Preface. And here I cannot help expressing my regret that it has not had more of the influence that it deserved to have, both in the country of its author and elsewhere. I am even tempted to go a little further, and express my regret that it has not had more influence upon the author himself. I will henceforward confine myself more strictly to the Fourth Gospel. And it seems to me that, in his incidental treatment of this, Harnack has more than once forgotten his own precepts.
He expends endless ingenuity in trying to prove that there was a confusion, in the minds of the Christian writers of the second century, between the Apostle St. John and a certain ‘Presbyter’ of the same name, who really lived, as the Apostle was supposed to have lived, at Ephesus in the Roman province of Asia. An important difficulty in the way of this proof is the explicit testimony of Irenaeus. To meet this difficulty, the attempt is made to show that Irenaeus derived all his knowledge, or supposed knowledge, about St. John and his surroundings from two sources, a very brief intercourse in early youth with Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and the book of Papias, called _Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord_. It is like Nero wishing that Rome had one neck, in order that it might be cut at a single stroke. By reducing the channels through which Irenaeus received his knowledge to these two, it became more possible that if they happened in any way to lend themselves to the confusion, that confusion should really take hold of his mind and express itself in his writings. The learning and ingenuity and skill displayed are admirable. But how futile, from the very first, to suppose that all the information Irenaeus possessed about the greatest leader of the Church of his own home came only through these two channels and no others; indeed, that he was like the princess in the fairy tale, shut up in a tower and cut off from all communication with the outer world. We know that two at least of his companions in the Gallic churches of Vienne and Lyons came from the same region as himself. It is commonly supposed that these churches had as a nucleus a little colony from Asia Minor. In his Fourth Book Irenaeus often refers to a certain Presbyter, whom Harnack rightly shows to have been not a direct hearer of the Apostles, but at one degree removed from them, a disciple of those who had heard from the Apostles. It is natural, with Lightfoot, to identify this Presbyter with Pothinus, Irenaeus’ own predecessor in his see, who had passed the age of ninety when he died in the persecution of the year 177. In any case, Pothinus must have been a store-house of traditions and memories, to which Irenaeus would have constant access. We know also that after the persecution Irenaeus was in Rome; and there is some reason to think that he had resided there more than twenty years before[23]. This was another great centre with which he was familiar, and to which news and traditions of the past came streaming in from every quarter of the Christian world. And yet we are asked to believe that Irenaeus was the victim of a confusion that in any number of ways might have been corrected. As Dr. Drummond well says, ‘Critics speak of Irenaeus as though he had fallen out of the moon, paid two or three visits to Polycarp’s lecture-room, and never known any one else. In fact, he must have known all sorts of men, of all ages, both in the East and the West, and among others his venerable predecessor Pothinus, who was upwards of ninety at the time of his death. He must have had numerous links with the early part of the century[24].’
Again the same writer says:
‘The testimonies of Irenaeus, of Polycrates, and of Clement are those on which we must mainly rely. In judging of the collective force of the evidence, we must not forget that the second century was a literary age. The churches freely communicated with one another by letters, and there was an abundant theological literature of which only a few fragments have survived. I see no reason why the churches of Asia should not have had as well-grounded a certainty that John had been once among them as we have that Goldsmith was once in London[25].’
To deal with all this body of evidence as Harnack deals with it is very like ‘arguing on the strength of a few particulars in the face of clear and decisive indications[26].’
Here is another instance of the very thing that Harnack himself complained of. He has made up his mind that chap. xxi of the Gospel could not have been written until after the death of the author. But in ver. 24 the editors of the Gospel say expressly that the Apostle who figures so conspicuously in it was the author of the whole book (‘this is the disciple who beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things’). This, according to Harnack, only convicts them of a deliberate untruth, contradicted by the verses immediately preceding. If we must needs accuse the unfortunate editors of falsification, we might at least give them credit for the sense to take care that their falsehood was not exposed by their own words, and almost (as it were) in the same breath. But the fact is that the premiss, from which Harnack argues, is purely gratuitous, as I hope to show in the next lecture.
Perhaps it is the same persons, the editors of the Gospel—in any case it is the Presbyters who were closely connected with them—who are charged with another piece of dishonesty. Harnack sees that mere accident will not account for the supposed confusion of John the Presbyter with John the Apostle. He therefore does not shrink from imputing deliberate fraud.
‘The legend _purposely set on foot_ that the author of the Gospel was the son of Zebedee, &c.[27]’
‘But Papias, through the oral traditions about which he took so much trouble, already stood under the influence of Presbyters, of whom some _perhaps purposely_ started the legend that the Presbyter John was the Apostle[28].’
‘The John who had the encounter with Cerinthus, after what has been said can only be the Presbyter. But in the confusion, “the unconscious” alone can hardly have been involved.’
The dishonesty went beyond the confusion of the two persons. It is also seen in the definite ascription of the Gospel to the Apostle.
‘The twenty-fourth verse of the twenty-first chapter of the Fourth Gospel, about which we have spoken, will always remain a strong indication of the fact that in Ephesus the Fourth Gospel was deliberately put out after the death of its author as a work of the Apostle, and so that the Apostle and the Presbyter were deliberately identified, as Philip the Evangelist was made to change places with Philip the Apostle[29].’
_Facilis descensus._ When once we begin imputing fraudulent actions we may very easily find that we have to go on doing so. It should, however, be remembered that the ground for all this is no assured fact, but only the exigencies of a complicated theory which, quite apart from this, has a load of improbability to contend with.
* * * * *
I will give one further example of a different kind. The tendency of the criticism that has been, and still is largely in vogue, is to give what seems to me quite undue weight to the exceptional, the abnormal, the eccentric, as compared with that which is normal and regular.
In the controversy over the Fourth Gospel one of the questions has been as to the exact degree of importance to be attached to the so-called Alogi, who, about the third quarter of the second century, denied St. John’s authorship of the writings attributed to him, including the Gospel, and by a piece of sheer bravado ascribed it to the heretic Cerinthus.
Harnack’s account of this—coterie perhaps rather than sect—is just. ‘The attack did not spread; it was soon defeated; but the memory of it lingered on, and the policy of the Church, auspiciously begun by Irenaeus, came to be that of teaching the absolute equality in rank and value of the four component parts of the Gospel[30].’ But the point to which I wish to call attention is that the Church writers did not allow the existence of these Alogi to prevent them from classing the Gospel among the Homologoumena, or books about the canonicity of which all Christians were agreed. Eusebius uses strong language. He says that both the Gospel and the First Epistle were accepted without dispute by his own contemporaries as well as by the ancients (_H. E._ iii. 24. 17). And, if it is said that Eusebius was writing a century and a half after the Alogi, when that little side-eddy of opinion had subsided and been forgotten, it is not Eusebius alone who ignores their existence in this manner. Irenaeus is one of those who certainly knew about them; and yet he regards the Four Gospels, our present four, as a sort of divine institution, deeply implanted in the nature of things, directly presided over and inspired by Christ the Word (_adv. Haer._ iii. 11. 9). A little later Clement of Alexandria speaks of the same Four Gospels as specially handed down among Christians (_Strom._ iii. 13. 93). And, again, a little later Origen describes them as ‘alone unquestioned in the Church of God under heaven’ (Eus. _H. E._ vi. 25. 4). Still earlier, a contemporary of the Alogi, Tatian, gave effect to the same belief by composing his Diatessaron. And the Muratorian Fragment also endorses it.
This striking unanimity from all parts of the Christian world serves to reduce the Alogi to their right dimensions. The reason why they have bulked rather larger than they should do is, I believe, because they wielded the pen. It will be remembered that Dr. Salmon was for reducing them to the single person of Caius of Rome. Schwartz also argues that not more than a single writer _may_ be meant. He thinks that in any case Epiphanius had a book before him[31]. The Alogi were in any case a very ephemeral phenomenon, chiefly significant in the history of the Canon, as marking the slight element of resistance to the establishment of the group of Four Gospels.
II. The Oldest Solution of the Problem of the Fourth Gospel.
You will think perhaps that I have been a long time in approaching the direct treatment of the Fourth Gospel. It is quite true that I have thought well to begin the approach from a distance, as it were by sap and trench, before planting my guns—such as they are. I have indeed the ambition in this course of lectures not only to state a case in regard to the Fourth Gospel, but also at the same time to contribute, if I may, to the work so admirably initiated by Dr. Drummond, of commending by the way what I conceive to be sound principles of criticism, as contrasted with others which I consider unsound. It happens that a discussion of the Fourth Gospel specially lends itself to this purpose.
In accordance with what I have been saying, you will not expect of me any new and startling theory to account for the phenomena of the Fourth Gospel. I am content to go back to the oldest categorical statement in respect to it that history has handed down to us. It seems to me that this statement, plain and direct as it is, really gives an adequate explanation, if not exactly of everything, yet at least of all the salient points that need explaining.
Eusebius (_H. E._ vi. 14. 7) has preserved for us the substance of a passage from the _Hypotyposes_, or _Outlines_, of Clement of Alexandria, which he says that Clement derived from the ‘early Presbyters’ (παράδοσιν τῶν ἀνέκαθεν πρεσβυτέρων), and which dealt among other things with the order of the Gospels. After speaking of the other Evangelists, he says that ‘last of all John perceiving that the bodily (or external) facts had been set forth in the (other) Gospels, at the instance of his disciples and with the inspiration of the Spirit composed a spiritual Gospel.’
A very similar tradition had been given by Eusebius in an earlier book (iii. 24). He heads the chapter, ‘On the Order of the Gospels,’ and in the course of it he writes as follows:
‘Nevertheless, of all the disciples of the Lord, only Matthew and John have left us written memoirs, and they are reported (κατέχει λόγος[32]) to have been led to write under pressure of necessity. Matthew, having previously preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed to writing the Gospel that bears his name in his native tongue, and so by the written book compensated those whom he was leaving for the loss of his presence. And when Mark and Luke had by that time published their Gospels, they say that John, having before spent all his time in oral preaching, at last came also to write for some such reason as this. The three Gospels first written having been by this distributed everywhere, and having come into his hands, they say that he accepted them, bearing witness to their truth, but (adding) that there was only wanting to their record the narrative of what was done by Christ at first and at the beginning of His preaching.’
At this point Eusebius digresses to show that what was said was true. The first three Evangelists began the main body of their narrative after John the Baptist was cast into prison; but St. John expressly tells us that, at the time of the events related in his early chapters, John was not yet in prison. Any one attending to this, Eusebius said, would no longer suppose that the Gospels were at variance with each other, and would see that John had reason for being silent as to the genealogy of our Saviour’s human descent, as this had been already written by Matthew and Luke, and for beginning with His divinity, as though this had been reserved by the Holy Ghost for him as one greater than they. These last are the words of Eusebius, who is very probably influenced by his recollection of the language of Clement. Unfortunately we cannot locate the rest of the tradition. It would be only a guess to suppose that it came from Hippolytus, at the time of his controversy with Caius. But in any case there is a good deal of evidence to show that the opening sections of the Gospels were being much canvassed towards the end of the second and at the beginning of the third century. The passage is in general agreement with Clement, and avoids his mistake in saying that the two Gospels containing the genealogies were the first to be written. Really Clement alone has all the essential points, which are these:
1. The Gospel is the work of St. John the Apostle—for there is no doubt that he is intended.
2. It was written towards the end of his life, after the publication of the other three.
3. The three Gospels were in the hands of the Apostle, and he had read and up to a certain point approved of them.
4. What he himself undertook to write was a Gospel, not a biography; the difference is important.
5. In contrast with the other Gospels it was recognized as being in a special sense ‘a spiritual Gospel.’
I believe that these data will enable us to understand all the facts, both those which are more favourable to the Gospel and those which are in a sense less favourable.
1. The best of reasons is given for all those marks of an eye-witness which we shall see to be present in great number and strength. They point to a first-hand relation between the author and the facts which he records. If the Gospel is not the work of an eye-witness, then the writer has made a very sustained and extraordinary effort to give the impression that he was one.
2. By throwing the Gospel to the end of the Apostle’s life, a considerable interval is placed between the events and the date of its composition. That means that the facts will have passed through a medium. Unconsciously the mind in which they lay will have brought its own experience to bear upon them; it will have a tendency to mix up the plain statement of what was said and done with an element of interpretation suggested by its own experience. And this will be done in a way that we should call ‘naïve,’ i. e. without any conscious self-analysis. The mingling of objective and subjective will take place spontaneously and without reflection. The details will not be given out exactly as they went in; and yet the writer will not be himself aware that he is setting down anything but what he heard and saw.
3. The relation of the Fourth Gospel to its predecessors accurately corresponds to that described in the tradition. On the one hand their contents are very largely assumed; and on the other hand the author does not hesitate, where he thinks it necessary, to correct them. The relation is easy and natural; it at once accounts for the selection of the incidents narrated. The author evidently felt himself at liberty to select just those incidents which suited his purpose.
4. And that purpose, it is important to remember, was not by any means purely historical. The author was writing a Gospel, not a biography in the modern sense of the word. His object was definitely religious, and not literary. He tells us in set terms what he proposed to do: ‘These things are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name.’ He did not really aim at a complete narrative of external events or an exhaustive study of a complex human character. He aimed at producing faith; and he sought to produce it by describing at length a few significant incidents, taken out of a much larger whole.
5. The previous writings that came into his hands were also Gospels; and they too were intended to produce faith. But in this direction the author of the Fourth Gospel felt that something more remained to be done. Christendom had its Gospels, but not as yet exactly ‘a spiritual Gospel.’ A ‘spiritual Gospel’ meant one that sought to bring out the divine side of its subject. When St. Paul at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans draws an antithesis between the Son of David ‘according to the flesh’ and the Son of God ‘according to the spirit of holiness,’ he is anticipating exactly this later contrast between the Gospels of the bodily life and of the spirit. ‘Spiritual’ means ‘indwelt by the Spirit of God.’ And it was that side of the life of Christ in which the Spirit of God was seen living and working in Him that the fourth evangelist undertook specially to describe.
If, then, it is objected that the Gospel is onesided, that it gives undue prominence to this divine side, we begin by asking what is meant by undue, what standard of measurement marks it as undue. Obviously the standard is that which we have just dismissed as altogether beside the mark, the standard of the modern biography. The Gospel does not in the least profess to do what the modern biographer does; but what the writer does profess to do, he was perfectly within his right in doing. He desired to set forth Christ as Divine. If that is to be onesided, of course he is onesided. Clement tells us why he did it. It was because he thought that the physical and external side, the human side of his subject, had had justice done to it already. In this respect the older Gospels were adequate, and he had no special wish to add to them. The one thing he did feel called upon to add, and that he knew he could add, was a fuller delineation of the divine side. He is not to be blamed for doing the very thing which he proposed.
The paragraph in Clement of Alexandria is stated by him to be derived from ‘the early presbyters.’ They were a good authority; probably, if not altogether identical with the group drawn upon by Papias, yet at least in part identical with it. Papias and Irenaeus on the one hand, and Clement of Alexandria on the other, are just two branches of the same tree, or at least two suckers from the same root. That root is often called the School of St. John. It is from the School of St. John that they ultimately derive their information about St. John. What authority could be better?
It is not possible to say how far the language of Clement comes from the Presbyters, and how far it is his own. The phrase ‘a spiritual Gospel’ may be his own coinage, an early effort of descriptive criticism, putting into words what he felt to be the distinctive characteristic of the Gospel. In any case the phrase is a happy one; it just expresses, in the briefest compass, that which really most differentiates the Fourth Gospel from the other three.
Footnote 22:
_Ignatius_, i. 405.
Footnote 23:
See the story in the Moscow MS. of the _Martyrium Polycarpi_ (Lightfoot, _Ignatius_, iii. 402), which professes to be taken from ‘the writings of Irenaeus.’
Footnote 24:
_Character and Authorship_, p. 348.
Footnote 25:
_Ibid._ p. 213.
Footnote 26:
_Chronologie_, p. ix.
Footnote 27:
_Ibid._ p. 678.
Footnote 28:
_Chronologie_, p. 679.
Footnote 29:
_Ibid._, p. 680.
Footnote 30:
_Chronologie_, p. 695.
Footnote 31:
_Ueber d. Tod_, &c., p. 31.
Footnote 32:
On this phrase see Hort, _Judaistic Christianity_, pp. 170-3.
LECTURE III THE STANDPOINT OF THE AUTHOR
I. The Gospel is put forward as the Work of an Eye-witness.
There are a number of passages in the Gospel and First Epistle of St. John which go to show that the author either was, or at least intended to give the impression that he was, an eye-witness of the Life of Christ. We will leave it an open question for the present which of these two alternatives we are to choose. And we will begin by collecting the passages, and justifying the description that has just been given of them.
The passages fall into groups; the first small but important, the others larger but, except in a few cases, more indefinite.
On the principles of criticism on which we are going, we shall assume that the Gospel and First Epistle that bear the name of St. John are by the same author, and that, so far as the authorship is concerned, what holds good for the one will hold good also for the other. The proof is not absolutely stringent. Identity of style, and close resemblance of ideas, are compatible with duality of authorship, because one writer may imitate another. But in practice, unless the reasons for laying stress upon it are strong and clear, a refinement like this may be left out of account. Of course there is the distinction which Bacon noted between the minds that are quick to observe resemblances and those that are quick to observe differences. This question of the relation of the Gospel of St. John to the First Epistle is a touchstone by which such minds may be distinguished. I allow that the two works may be assigned to different authors[33]. I allow it in the way in which on most questions, if we attempt a nice enumeration of conditions, there is usually some remote possibility to be allowed for. The quotation from Dr. Drummond on the _De Vita Contemplativa_ that I gave in the last lecture may help us to measure how remote the other possibility is. As a practical person, dealing with these questions on a practical scale, I shall venture to assume that the Gospel and the First Epistle are by the same hand. It is of course open to any one to ignore arguments based on this assumption, if he prefers to do so.
i. Passages which make a direct claim.
I am treading on very familiar ground, but I must ask you to forgive me if I begin by quoting the opening words of the First Epistle:
‘That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ: and these things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled’ (1 John i. 1-3).
The _prima facie_ view of this passage undoubtedly is that the writer is speaking as one of a group of eye-witnesses. But there are two ways in which this inference is turned aside.
1. Harnack[34] and some others take it as referring not to bodily but to mystical vision.
2. Others, again, think of the writer as speaking in the name of a whole generation, or of Christians generally.
In regard to the first of these explanations we note that the word θεᾶσθαι is used twenty-two times in all the New Testament, including the present passage; and in every one of bodily and not of mental or spiritual vision. And whatever sense we may put upon seeing or hearing, it is difficult to explain such a strong expression as ‘that which ... our hands have handled,’ where the writer seems to go out of his way to exclude any ambiguity, in any other sense than of physical handling.
In regard to the second explanation we observe that there is a contrast between ‘we’ and ‘you,’ between teachers and taught. The teachers are in any case a small body; and they seem to rest their authority, or at least the impulse to teach, on the desire to communicate to others what they had themselves experienced. I have therefore little doubt that the _prima facie_ view of the passage is the right one. The writer speaks of himself as a member of a small group, like that of the Apostles, but a group that may include all who had really seen the Lord and who afterwards took up the work of witnessing to Him.
The other passage, John i. 14, is more ambiguous: ‘the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.’ If this had stood alone, it might have seemed an open question whether ‘we beheld’ was not used in a vague sense of Christians generally—or even of the human race, as ‘tabernacled among us’ just before might mean ‘among men.’ But the more specific reference would be more pointed; and it is favoured by the analogy of the passage of which we have just been speaking as well as of those which follow.
In both the above cases the writer is speaking in his own person. This is not quite so clear in xix. 35, where, after describing the lance-thrust and the pierced side, the narrative goes on, ‘And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true: and he (ἐκεῖνος) knoweth that he saith true, that ye also may believe.’ Is the writer by these words objectifying, and as it were looking back upon himself, or is he pointing to some third person unnamed in the background? Both views are antecedently possible. Perhaps the latter is more consistent with the ordinary use of ἐκεῖνος. If we accept it, then I should be inclined to think with Zahn that ἐκεῖνος points to Christ. It would be just a formula of strong asseveration, like ‘God knoweth’ in 2 Cor. xi. 11, 31, &c. There would be a near parallel in 3 John 12, ‘Demetrius hath the witness of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, we also bear witness; and thou knowest that our witness is true.’ This view is the more attractive because it is in keeping with the habit of thought disclosed in the Gospel. As the Son appeals to the witness of the Father, as it were dimly seen in the background, so also it would I think be natural for the beloved disciple to appeal to the Master who is no longer at his side in bodily presence, but who is present with him and with the Church in spirit: ‘he who saw the sight has set it down in writing ... and there is one above who knows that he is telling the truth.’
This is the view that, after giving to it the best consideration I can, I am on the whole inclined to accept. I could not, however, agree that there is anything really untenable in what may be called the common view, that the asseveration is of a lower kind, and that the author is simply turning back upon himself and protesting his own veracity. The use of ἐκεῖνος to take up the subject of a sentence is specially frequent and specially characteristic of this Gospel; and as the author systematically speaks of himself in the third person, it seems to me that the word may also naturally refer to himself so objectified: ‘he who saw the sight has set it down ... and _he_ is well assured that what he says is true.’
In any case, however, I must needs think that the bearing witness is that of the written Gospel, and that the author of the Gospel is the same as he who saw the sight. The identity is, it seems to me, clenched by xxi. 24, to which I shall come back in a moment.
At this point I may be permitted to interject a speculation—shall I call it a pious speculation? it certainly does not profess to be more—as to the origin of the peculiar way the Fourth Evangelist has of referring to himself. The idea can only be entertained by those who think that the writer was really a companion of the Lord, either an Apostle or one very near to the Apostles. Is it not possible that such a one may have been influenced by the way in which the Master referred to Himself? It is characteristic of the Synoptic Christ that He constantly speaks of Himself objectively as ‘the Son of Man.’ May we not suppose that the Evangelist, through long and familiar intercourse, came insensibly and instinctively to adopt for himself a similar method of oblique and allusive reference? It is of course not quite the same thing; but there seems to be enough resemblance for the one usage to suggest the other. The beloved disciple had a special reason for not wishing to obtrude his own personality. He was conscious of a great privilege, of a privilege that would single him out for all time among the children of men. He could not resist the temptation to speak of this privilege. The impulse of affection responding to affection prompted him to claim it. But the consciousness that he was doing so, and the reaction of modesty led him at the same moment to suppress, what a vulgar egotism might have accentuated, the lower plane of his own individuality. The son of Zebedee (if it was he) desired to be merged and lost in ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’
There is nothing in the least unnatural in this; it is a little complex perhaps, but only with the complexity of life, when different motives clash in a fine nature. The delicacy of attitude corresponds to an innate delicacy of mind. When one reads some of the criticisms on this attitude, one is reminded of a sentence in an English classic, Cowper’s indignant remonstrance at Johnson’s treatment of Milton.
‘As a poet, he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his Muse’s wing, and trampled them under his great foot[35].’
Samuel Johnson, excellent person as he was, is not the only critic who has had the misfortune to be born (metaphorically, if not physically) with a ‘great foot’ and a heavy hand.
The Gospel closes with a scene in which the writer refers in his usual oblique way to himself. I cannot think that there is any real reason for the assumption, which is so often and so confidently made, that the last chapter is an appendix written after the author was dead. On this point, again, I entirely agree with Dr. Drummond, ‘It is surely conceivable that the aged disciple, feeling death stealing upon him, might point out that no words of Jesus justified the expectation which had arisen among some of his devoted friends[36].’ The complete identity of thought and style, and the way in which this last chapter is dovetailed into the preceding (‘This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples’; compare at the beginning of the Gospel the counting up of the first Galilean miracles, ii. 11, iv. 54), seem to prove that the last chapter is by the same hand as the rest of the Gospel[37].
But at the very end another hand does take up the pen; and this time the writer speaks in the name of a plurality; ‘This is the disciple which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true’ (xxi. 24). The critics who assert that the Gospel is not the work of an eye-witness, and even those who say that the last chapter was not written by the author of the whole, wantonly accuse these last words of untruth. That is another of the methods of modern criticism that seem to me sorely in need of reforming. I hope that a time may come when it will be considered as wrong to libel the dead as it is to libel the living.
I accept, then, this last verse as weighty testimony to the autoptic character of the Gospel. It is easy to see that the two concluding verses are added on the occasion of its publication by those who published it. They, as it were, endorse the witness which it had borne to itself.
ii. Passages in which the impression conveyed is indirect.
We have been through the few salient passages which, in spite of the criticism to which they have been exposed, still proclaim in no uncertain terms the first-hand character of the work to which they belong. I now go on to collect a number of passages which are more indirect in their evidence, and just because of this indirectness have a special value, because the evidence which they afford is unconscious and undesigned. For the present I shall speak only of two groups: first, a series of passages in which the author seems to write as though from the inner circle of the disciples and companions of Jesus; and, secondly, another series in which he refers to the way in which impressions received at the time were corrected or interpreted by subsequent experience and reflection.
The Gospel has not long opened before we begin to receive that subtle impression which is given when one who has himself taken part in a scene reproduces it as history. I know that this kind of effect may be produced by imagination; and I will not assume as yet that it may not be so produced in this instance; I content myself for the present with pointing out that it exists.
When we take the last two paragraphs of the first chapter of the Gospel (i. 35-51), I think we shall feel as though we were being introduced to a little circle of neighbours and acquaintances. Two friends, one of whom is called Andrew, and the other is unnamed, are interested in what they have seen of Jesus and in what the Baptist had said about Him, and they ask leave to join Him. They remain for some hours in His company; and it is clear that their interest is not diminished. Andrew finds his brother Simon, and he too is brought up and introduced. Jesus Himself takes the initiative in inviting a fourth, Philip. We are told expressly that Philip was from the same city as the two before named; and he in turn finds and introduces his friend Nathanael. There is just one of the five whose name is not given. He is the silent spectator in the background. What if it were he to whom we owe the story? In any case there is this little group, all apparently from the same locality, who naturally enough find themselves together, drawn at first by the preacher of repentance, but leaving him to join one greater than he.
We pass over to the next chapter; but that will give us more to say under the next head. There are many points upon which we might pause, but I will pass on to the middle of chap. iii (vers. 22-6). There we have the description of what have now become two groups, the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of John, in near proximity to each other, and with easy intercourse between them. The narrative seems to be written from the standpoint of the disciples. The two principals are in the background, but we follow the events of the day among their _entourage_. There is a little discussion between some of John’s disciples and a stranger (R. V.) about a question naturally connected with baptism. Such a discussion might have interested at the time one who was near at hand and in friendly relation with those who took part in it. But it would be hard to find any other motive that could suggest it to a Christian at the end of the first century.
It is indeed quite possible and perhaps probable that Baldensperger (_Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums, Freiburg_ i. B., 1898) is right in supposing that among the motives present to the mind of the Evangelist was that of marking the subordinate position of the Baptist as compared with the Messiah, to whom he bore witness. We can quite believe that at Ephesus, at the time when the Gospel was written, there still remained some who had only been baptized into the baptism of John, like the disciples mentioned in Acts xix. 1-7. There may be a certain amount of polemical or apologetic reference to such a sect as this. The latter part of chap. iii (‘he must increase, but I must decrease’) may be of this character; but the purely historical statements in vers. 22-6 have in them nothing polemical; they have far more the appearance of personal reminiscences, introduced only because they came back to the memory of the writer. It is a curious fact that the Gospel contains several references to ‘purifying’: e. g. ii. 6 (the waterpots at Cana ‘set there after the Jews’ manner of purifying’), the present passage, iii. 22; the description, in xi. 55, of the Jews going up to purify themselves before the Passover, and the statement (xviii. 28) that the accusers of our Lord did not enter the praetorium ‘that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.’ Nothing is made of these allusions; no argument is based upon them; but they would be very natural if the Evangelist began life as a disciple of the Baptist and had been early interested in such questions.
Turning to the discourse with the woman of Samaria we observe how it is framed as it were in the movements of the disciples: in ver. 8 they go into the city to buy provisions; in ver. 27 they return, and are surprised to find their Master engaged in conversation with a woman—contrary to the practice and maxims of the Rabbis. They are surprised, but they do not venture upon any remonstrance. They had left their Master weary and way-worn, and they find Him refreshed. They do not understand how refreshment of the mind carries with it that of the body; and they speculate as to whether food had not been brought to Him during their absence. This is another scene in which the point of view seems to be that of the disciples, and in which we, as it were, overhear their comments.
It has often been objected that there were no witnesses of the discourse with the woman, and therefore that the narrative of it must be imaginary. It is full of touches, as we shall see presently, which are so appropriate to the circumstances that I find it difficult to think of them as imaginary. But how do we know that there were no witnesses of the discourse? It would certainly be too much to assume that every allusion to the disciples in a body meant of necessity the whole number of the Twelve. We must remember by the way that the Twelve were not yet chosen; but in any case we must expect language to be rough and approximate. If we are really to think of the author of the Gospel as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ we should doubtless be right in assuming that the love was ardently returned. We may think of the Apostle as a youth, only just out of boyhood, and with something of the fidelity of a dog for his master, who does not like to be long out of his sight. ‘_Sicut oculi servorum in manibus dominorum suorum, sicut oculi ancillae in manibus dominae suae_‘: we may picture to ourselves this gentle youth seated a pace or two away, and not wishing to obtrude his presence, but eagerly drinking in all that passed.
In chap. v, the disciples are not prominent; but in chap. vi, before the feeding of the multitude, we have one of those little dialogues which are so characteristic of this Gospel, bringing in two of the disciples who are both mentioned by name (vi. 5-10). At the end of the chapter (vers. 60-71) we are again taken into the midst of the circle of the disciples. We see some perplexed, and some falling away, and an echo reaches us of St. Peter’s confession. At the same time we have a premonitory hint, such as we may be sure that other members of the Twelve recalled after the fact, that one of their number was a traitor.
About chap. vii I shall have occasion to speak later. I will only now point to the discussion with which it begins between Jesus and His brethren (vers. 3-8). This again—if it is not pure invention—is only likely to have been reported by one who was in the closest intimacy, not only with the disciples of Jesus but with His domestic circle. And again we have to ask, what motive there could be for invention. If the Gospel gives examples of belief, and tries to promote belief, it does not on that account suppress examples of unbelief, even among the nearest relations. This episode is St. John’s counterpart to Mark iii. 21: ‘His friends (οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ) ... went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.’
The next occasion on which we are reminded of the intimate personal side of our Lord’s ministry is the story of Lazarus. Here we have two groups, into the interior of which we are allowed some glimpses. The family at Bethany is one, the company of the Twelve is the other. Here once more we see what passed from within. The passage, vers. 7-16, is full of delicate portraiture. We have the remonstrances of the Twelve as a body; moving in a higher plane than these, we have the divine insight which sees what they cannot see, and knows what it will do; and lastly, we have the impulsive, despondent, faithful Thomas—a figure so clearly drawn in the few strokes that are allotted to it—fully recognizing and perhaps exaggerating the dangers, and yet not letting its loyalty yield to them: ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Him.’
Parallel to this description of what passed among the Twelve is the description further on of the interior of the household, the different behaviour of the two sisters and their Jewish sympathizers. If this is not a picture constructed wholly by art, it represents the recollections of one who had himself been present at the events of the day, and who had moved freely to and fro, and very probably talked them over after the day was done.
A natural sequel to this scene is the supper in the same house six days before the Passover. And, as we might expect, the attitude and standpoint of the narrator are still the same. He shows the same intimacy with the members of the household and with his own companions. He remembers the ungenerous short-sighted speech of Judas Iscariot, to whom, with natural antipathy, he attributes the worst motives.
The incident of the coming of the Greeks, with its accurate singling out of the two friends Philip and Andrew and the account of the part played by them, also reflects the standpoint of a bystander who is near the centre.
Still more does this come out in the whole narrative of the Last Supper. One or two episodes stand out as specially graphic and life-like. The first is the whole description of the Feet-washing (vers. 3-12). The other is the indication of the traitor (vers. 21-30).
Bishop Lightfoot noticed long ago the careful use of terms in this last passage. In the book by which he prepared the way for the undertaking of a Revised Version of the New Testament, happily accomplished ten years later, he called attention to the defects of the Authorized Version of John xiii. 23, 25:
‘[It] makes no distinction between the reclining position of the beloved disciple throughout the meal, described by ἀνακείμενος, and the sudden change of posture at this moment, introduced by ἀναπεσών. This distinction is further enforced in the original by a change in both the prepositions and the nouns, from ἐν to ἐπί, and from τῷ κόλπῳ to τὸ στῆθος. St. John was reclining on the bosom of his Master and he suddenly threw back his head upon his breast to ask a question.’
After referring also to xxi. 20, Dr. Lightfoot adds:—
‘This is among the most striking of those vivid descriptive traits which distinguish the narrative of the Fourth Gospel generally, and which are especially remarkable in these last scenes of Jesus’ life, where the beloved disciple was himself an eye-witness and an actor[38].’
It has been objected that too high a place is given to the ‘beloved disciple,’ and that the stress laid on this is a mark of egotism. But Bishop Westcott has shown (_ad loc._) that this criticism rests on a mistaken view of the order of precedence. The place of honour was in the centre, and the guests reclined on the left side. Peter occupies the second place behind his Master. The beloved disciple has the third place, where his head would naturally be in his Master’s bosom. When we realize this all the details of the narrative become plain.
What we have said of the Last Supper applies also to the last discourses which followed upon it. There too we have the same distinct recollection of persons, of the questions put by each, and the replies which they received. Thomas and Philip stand out in the dialogue of xiv. 4-9. But what is perhaps still more noticeable is the careful specification of Judas (not Iscariot), a disciple otherwise obscure and of little prominence, in ver. 22. If this is art, it is art that is wonderfully like nature. We notice also the disciples’ comments, evidently spoken in an undertone, in xvi. 17.
What could be more easy or more natural than the description of Gethsemane in xviii, 1, 2, and the explanation that it was a familiar haunt of Jesus and His disciples? This is just such a reminiscence as we might expect from one who had been himself a disciple.
There is an ‘undesigned coincidence’ in the fact that the unnamed disciple is described as being ‘known to the high priest,’ and that the Gospel, of which he may be presumed to be the writer, alone gives the name of the high priest’s servant, whose ear Peter cut off, as Malchus, and alone knows that one of the servants who questioned Peter was his kinsman (xviii. 10, 15, 26). It was apparently because the unnamed disciple was a privileged person, that he was not called upon to give an account of himself as Peter was.
We need not go the whole length of the way with Delff, and may yet feel sure that it is not an accident that this same disciple, who is so much at home in the high priest’s house, should also have special knowledge of persons like Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, both members of the Sanhedrin.
Other portions of chaps. xviii and xix will come before us in other connexions. The important passage xix. 34, 35 has already been discussed in part, and we shall have to return to it later. The whole of chap. xx is really significant for our purpose. It is a record of events that immediately followed the Resurrection, and is told throughout from the point of view of the disciples. The delicate precision of the narrative is specially noteworthy in vers. 3-10, where again we have the unnamed disciple in the company of St. Peter. The story is briefly told, but there is enough detail to let us see the different characterization of the two men. We shall not be wrong in thinking of the unnamed disciple as the younger of the two, indeed in the first flush of youth. He is fleet of foot and outstrips his companion; but he is also of a finer and more sensitive mould, and when he reaches the tomb a feeling of awe comes over him, and he pauses for a moment outside. The impetuous Peter has fewer scruples, and he hurries at once into the tomb, and makes his examination of its contents. The spell is broken, and the young disciple also enters. I shall have a word to say later of the effect on both disciples of what they see.
In the rest of the chapter the reader, with the author, is drawn a little aside and allowed to witness the events one by one; first, the appearance to Mary Magdalene, and then the two appearances to the collected disciples, when Thomas is absent and afterwards when he is present.
A like point of view appears in the next chapter. The narrator is himself never far away from the events he is recording. Towards the end of the chapter he is pushed forward into a prominence that is only faintly disguised. In the scene on the lake there comes back to him the feeling that had first passed through his own mind as well as those of his companions. They did not recognize the figure that in the grey dawn called to them from the shore. The instinct of love was the first to awake that sensitive quick perception: the old parts are again repeated; it is the unnamed disciple who speaks and Peter who acts. But the two are friends; and presently, when Peter has been rather hard pressed by his Lord’s searching inquiry and the prophetic forecast with which it ends, a sudden impulse leads him to turn the conversation to his companion. He would fain have the forecast extended to him. His interest, or curiosity, is baffled by an ambiguous reply. And here, once more, the writer steps in to prevent a wrong inference being drawn from its ambiguity.
So far we have been following a series of passages which place us at the standpoint of the disciples at the time of the events of which they were witnesses. The writer for the moment revives in himself, or seems to revive, the old impression. If it is not a spontaneous recurrence to the past, it is at least successful in giving the appearance of spontaneity.
But there is another class of passages where the procedure is rather more complex; where the writer not only throws himself back into the past, but also looks back upon the past in the light of his subsequent experience. There is no better example of this than the very first that meets us:
‘And to them that sold the doves he said, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise. His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat me up. The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said’ (John ii. 16-22).
Here we have two allusions to the disciples as ‘remembering’ something that had happened, and combining it in their minds with an idea of interpretation. Bishop Westcott distinguishes between the two occasions. He thinks that the expulsion of the buyers and sellers recalled to the disciples at once the passage of the psalm (Ps. lxix. 9): he thinks that they applied it to the act while it was going on. On the other hand ver. 22 is explicit to the effect that the disciples did not bethink them of the saying, and see what they conceive to be the meaning, until after the Lord was risen from the dead. I am not so sure that any contrast is intended. The tense (ἐμνήσθησαν) in the first instance is indefinite, and allows us to think that the application of the psalm was an after-thought; and the attitude of mind which was on the watch for fulfilments of scripture came later. However this may be, in the second instance at least, we clearly have what professes to be a bit of autobiography—autobiography in which the writer speaks for his fellows as well as himself.
Exactly similar to this is the comment on the Triumphal Entry, and the passages of Scripture which it too recalled:
‘These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him’ (xii. 16).
It is an apt description of a process that we may be sure was constantly going on in the minds of the first disciples. It is a rather different kind of allusion when at the Last Supper the Lord explains to Peter in reference to the washing of the disciples’ feet, ‘What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt understand hereafter.’ This points to the interpretation which was to come, not so much from Scripture as from experience and reflection.
The last discourses contain many passages of this latter kind. Their general character is prophetic; but the writer and his companions had lived to see the prophecies fulfilled. It is very natural, and we cannot be surprised if the effect of the fulfilment is traceable in the form given to the prediction. The spirit in which the writer looks back upon the events that happened after the Resurrection is that expressed in xiv. 29, ‘And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe.’
Here is a retrospect: ‘They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God.... But these things have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may remember them, how that I told you’ (xvi. 2, 4).
And this is another: ‘Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone’ (xvi. 32).
A later stage of the Apostles’ experience is reflected in the following: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she is delivered of her child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world. And ye therefore now have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh away from you’ (xvi. 20-2).
The great salient fact that stood out in the experience of the first disciples was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and its effect upon themselves. This is vividly reflected in a series of passages:
‘These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful’ (xiv. 25-7).
‘But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me: and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning’ (xv. 26, 27).
‘Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you’ (xvi. 13, 14).
It might be said that these passages are a summary sketch of the mental history of the Evangelist from the day of Pentecost onwards. They show him to us looking back upon the eventful time through which he had passed with ever broadening intelligence. They contain the whole secret of the way in which he came to write the ‘spiritual Gospel.’
* * * * *
I am aware that the probative force of the phenomena which I have been reviewing will be differently estimated. I should myself not have laid so much stress upon them if they had stood alone, or if they had occurred in a different class of literature. The novel writers and imaginative biographers of the present day make a point of keeping up the illusion of only allowing the supposed author to use the language appropriate to the exact situation in which he is placed at the time when he is conceived to be writing. But the writers of the first century A.D. were not so scrupulous, and what is natural to us would be very unusual with them. Still I do not deny that a writer whose habit of mind it was to throw himself back into an assumed position, might by the exercise of a special gift have been able to keep up the position so assumed. But in the case before us, we have the instances which I began by quoting where the author claims for himself or others claim for him that he is recording what he had himself heard and seen. This at once puts in our hands a far simpler and easier hypothesis, a hypothesis which really makes no demands upon our constructive powers at all. Whereas it is probable that not one ancient in a thousand, or one in ten thousand, would have written as the writer of the Fourth Gospel has done, if he had not been an eye-witness; it would have been only the natural way for him to write, if he had been an eye-witness. This latter hypothesis therefore seems much preferable to the other. It is confirmed by the really remarkable consistency with which the point of view is carried out, and by another large class of phenomena which will come before us in the next lecture.
II. The Identity of the Evangelist.
Before we pass on, however, it may be convenient at this point to consider, on the assumption that the author of the Gospel was really an eye-witness of the events, what are the indications as to his personal identity. If we confine ourselves to those contained in the Gospel itself, it would not follow with any stringency that he was the Apostle John the son of Zebedee. The portion of the Gospel that contributes most to the identification is the last chapter, the scene by the Sea of Galilee, where we are expressly told that the sons of Zebedee were present (xxi. 2). But we are also told that there were two other disciples of whom the author of the Gospel may have been one. If we begin by supposing—and the supposition is very natural—that in order to stand in the intimate relation in which he appears to have stood to Christ, the author must have been an Apostle, then by a process of elimination we should arrive at St. John; and it is no doubt an important fact that in this way internal and external evidence would converge upon the same result. But if we look at some sides of the internal evidence, and bring in only a select few of the indications from without, another hypothesis that has been actually put forward would have great claims upon our attention. It is not on the face of it certain that ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ must have been one of the Twelve. He may have been what might perhaps be called a sort of _supernumerary_ Apostle. I mean that he may have been one who although, perhaps on account of his youth, not actually admitted to the number of the Twelve, yet had all—and even more than all—of their privileges. We have been led to think of the beloved disciple as a youth who, so far as he could help it, never left his Master’s side. We should only have to subtract a couple of years, and the young Apostle of eighteen or twenty would become a stripling—highly favoured, though not an Apostle—of sixteen to eighteen, or even fifteen to seventeen.
I am not sure that this point of the youthfulness that may be attributed to the beloved disciple was much brought out by the author of the theory. And yet it would be a real advantage. We are told that the John who wrote the Gospel lived till the time of Trajan (i. e. till 98 A.D.). In that case, if he were born about 11 or 12 A.D., he need not have been more than eighty-six or eighty-seven at the time of his death; the main body of the Gospel might quite well have been written (probably from dictation) eight or ten years earlier, and the Appendix (chap. xxi) added when the writer felt his strength beginning to fail. All these would be quite reasonable dates; whereas if the writer was a full adult in the years 27-9, that would make him rather old by the end of the century. We must keep down the dates as much as we rightly can.
But it is time that I gave a fuller account of the theory of which I am speaking, as it was put forward by its author—in some ways a rather eccentric person—the late Dr. Delff of Husum. I will try at the same time, as well as I can, to balance the arguments for and against it.
Dr. Delff is not content with distinguishing the beloved disciple from the Apostle. For him the former is no Galilean at all but a native of Jerusalem; he is not a fisherman, but a member of the higher aristocracy, not only acquainted with the high priest but himself belonging to one of the high-priestly families. It was through this connexion that Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, came to make the remarkable statement about him that he wore the frontlet or golden plate (τὸ πέταλον) of the high priest (Eus. _H. E._ iii. 31. 3).
It will be seen that this is a bold reconstruction; but in this case the boldness has a good deal of justification. There are a number of very tangible data which the theory works up into a coherent whole.
i. The theory might be said to take its start from John xviii. 15, ‘And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Now that disciple was known unto the high priest, and entered in with Jesus into the court of the high priest.’ It is natural to suppose that the unnamed disciple here is the same whose presence is hinted at so mysteriously throughout the Gospel. But, if that is so, the relation in which he is said to stand to the high priest explains at once a series of facts. It explains how it was that the Evangelist came to know that the name of the high priest’s servant, whose ear had been cut off, was Malchus; and also how it was that he came to recognize one of those who questioned Peter as a kinsman of this Malchus. It explains again the special information that the Evangelist seems to have about Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, who is mentioned by name in three different contexts in the Gospel. Along with this it would explain the special information which the Evangelist also seems to possess as to what went on at meetings, and even secret meetings, of the Sanhedrin. We have a graphic account of the debate at one such meeting in vii. 45-52, and again in