iv. It is out of this common ground, and not out of the special features
of the Pauline theology, that the teaching of the Fourth Gospel really sprang. True, there are resemblances and affinities between details in the theologies of the Evangelist and the Apostle. But it does not follow that these were borrowed by the one from the other[73]. If they had been, we may be sure that there would have been clearer evidence of the fact. Somewhere in the group of Johannean writings there would have been a side-glance at St. Paul that we should have understood. As it is, the two great Apostolic cycles stand majestically apart. There may be a connexion between them, but it is a connexion in the main underground. There is no direct affiliation, but the parentage of both lies behind. Many a seed sprouted in the early years of the Pentecostal Church: but it was not this apostle or that who made them grow; the seeds were sown before Pentecost, and they had their watering and their growth and their increase from the same Hand.
It is true that we cannot give chapter and verse for all this. The books from which chapter and verse might have been taken were never written. Even in our own much-lettered age, how many a pregnant thought is there that is not caught and fixed in writing! And what sort of record should we have of the thought, say, of America or England for some fifteen years, if the chronicle of it were compressed into a single document of the length of the first twelve chapters of the Acts?
The best record of the thoughts that grew and fructified in those momentous early years is to be found not in the Acts but in the Gospels; and the fact that it is to be sought there shows whence the impulse really came. It may seem a truism to maintain that Jesus Christ was the real Founder of Christianity, and that He founded it by what He was, and not by what men imagined Him to be. Of course to many Christians it will seem a truism to say this; the simple Christian never thought otherwise; but there are Christians who are not simple, and who may be encouraged to search with a closer scrutiny to see if the old account of the origin of Christianity is not the best, indeed the only account possible. The New Testament is scattered with hints, which are not more than hints, arrow-heads as it were pointing back to Christ. These are a profitable subject of study—none more profitable. If we pay attention to these hints, and if we look for the roots of St. Paul’s teaching, I do not think we shall say that Christianity—the Christianity of nineteen centuries—was his invention, and that St. John did but follow in his train.
6. Larger Objections.
The kind of study that I have just been recommending is strictly critical; but the theory of which I have been speaking carries us out beyond the narrower ground of criticism into the wider field of history and teleology. I may just for a moment in conclusion touch on this. It may supply us with a warning that there is at least a strong presumption that the theory which fathers the teaching of St. John upon that of St. Paul, and St. Paul’s teaching upon itself, with no higher sanction behind, cannot well be true. Such a theory would mean that quite a half, and the most important half, of the fundamental theses of historical Christianity, were a mere human invention which those who have had the wit to discover them to be a human invention may go on to treat as nothing better,—to bestow on them perhaps a certain amount of praise in relation to their time, but to regard them as something that the world has outgrown. This is a view that in the present day, avowedly or unavowedly, is very largely taken. On this view there is a real nucleus of truth in biblical Christianity, but that nucleus in the light of modern science is seen to be very small indeed; all the rest is surplusage. The misfortune for the theory is that it is not only on the nucleus of truth, but very largely upon the surplusage, that nineteen centuries of Christians have lived.
Now I am quite prepared to believe that most great truths that do not come under the head of Mathematics or Physical Science have had a certain amount of surplusage attached to them; there has been husk and kernel, flower and sheath. I quite believe that men do
‘rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.’
But I cannot help thinking that, on the theory of Wernle and his friends, the surplusage is too great, the dead self too large. The course of history, as this theory would describe it, seems to me contrary to the analogy of what we otherwise know of the dealings of God with man. If we look, for instance, at the Old Testament, we see a gradual preparation for the coming of Christ, a gradual elevation and expansion of religious ideas, on the whole a nearer approximation to truth. All of us, critics and non-critics, would give substantially the same account of this; we should all of us at least see in it progress. But when we come to Christianity, Wernle and his friends see in it a far larger proportion of what is not progress but depravation and corruption, not the gradual expansion and purification of true ideas, but the wider dissemination of ideas that are false. There are nearly fourteen centuries of the dissemination of these false ideas; then comes a sudden spasmodic effort of partial relief; and at last, in the latter half of the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries, there is some sort of approach to a rediscovery of truth. It seems to me difficult to describe this view of history as anything else than a systematic impeachment of Divine Providence.
I do not wish to press the point. As I have said, we have left behind the region of criticism, and entered upon another that is not only very wide but that some of you may think rather outside my subject. The Christian, it seems to me, ought to have a comprehensive view of the purpose of God in history; he ought to be able to adjust this to his fundamental beliefs. And I would only ask you to consider how far this can be done on the theory I have been discussing.
Footnote 64:
A few sentences here are repeated from my article in Hastings, _D. B._ iv. 575.
Footnote 65:
_Atonement and Personality_, p. 194. Compare the important and detailed exposition, pp. 154-9, 168 f., 180-2.
Footnote 66:
I do not doubt that the most active period for the putting together of material for Gospels was the decade 60-70 A.D. At the beginning of this period St. Mark had not yet taken up his task; and his Gospel forms the base of the other two Synoptics. The Matthaean _Logia_ perhaps by this time were collected.
Footnote 67:
I cannot regard this argument as at all invalidated by Dr. Drummond’s three sermons, _The Pauline Benediction_ (London, 1897). At the same time I can quite accept the view that the Apostle’s words are ‘the seed rather than the final expression of Christian theology.’
Footnote 68:
With the above may be compared Dr. Hort’s comment (ad. loc.) on 1 St. Peter, i. 1, 2, and other Trinitarian passages referred to in illustration: ‘In no passage is there any indication that the writer was independently working out a doctrinal scheme: a recognized belief or idea seems to be everywhere presupposed. How such an idea could arise in the mind of St. Paul or any other apostle without sanction from a Word of the Lord, it is difficult to imagine: and this consideration is a sufficient answer to the doubts which have, by no means unnaturally, been raised whether Matt. xxviii. 19 may not have been added or recast in a later generation.’
Footnote 69:
Compare the Fifth of the Oxyrhynchus _Logia_.
Footnote 70:
_L’Évangile et L’Église_, p. 78 f.
Footnote 71:
H. J. Holtzmann, for instance, points to Is. xiv. 3; xxviii. 12; lv. 1-3; Jer. vi. 16; xxxi. 2, 25, but especially Ecclus. iii. 6; vi. 24, 25, 28, 29; li. 23-30.
Footnote 72:
Contrast the treatment of the passage by M. Loisy with the way in which it is singled out by Matthew Arnold (_Literature and Dogma_, p. 214 f.). Indeed the course of the most recent criticism has borne in upon me more and more that, far from being a stumbling-block, it is really the key to any true understanding of the Christ of the Gospels. If we had not had the passage, we should have had to invent one like it!
Footnote 73:
I do not of course mean to deny all influence of St. Paul upon St. John in the shaping or formulating of Christian ideas. But the ultimate origin of those ideas goes further back than to St. Paul.
LECTURE VIII THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GOSPEL
I. Summary of the Internal Evidence.
All our discussions have for their object, not the production of rounded and symmetrical theories but the ascertainment of truth. We must take the data as we find them. If they do not as they stand sustain a clear conclusion, we cannot make them do so. And it seems to me far better frankly to confess the fact than to strain the evidence one way or the other. We may state the case with such indications of leaning as we please, but always with the reservation that a slight change in the evidence, the discovery or recovery of a single new fact, might turn the scale.
This is, I think, the position of things in regard to some of the outlying parts of the problem of the Fourth Gospel. One broad conclusion seems to stand out from the evidence, internal as well as external. The author was an eye-witness, an Apostolic man—either in the wider sense of the word ‘Apostle’ or in the narrower. So much seems to me to be assured; but round that broad conclusion there arises a cluster of questions to which I cannot give a simple and categorical answer.
I will come back to these questions in a moment. But I ought perhaps first to remind you of the point to which the previous argument has brought us, and of the grounds on which the main proposition is based.
I take it to be a fundamental element in the question that in several places (especially xix. 35, xxi. 24; cf. i. 14, 1 John i. 1-3), the Gospel itself lays claim to first-hand authority. This is a different matter from ordinary pseudonymous writing. The direct and strong assertions that the Gospel makes are either true or they are a deliberate untruth. Between these alternatives I have no hesitation in choosing. I do not think that we should have the right to make so grave an imputation as that implied in the second on anything but the clearest necessity. But the first alternative appeared to me to be confirmed by a multitude of particulars: first, by a number of places in which the author of the Gospel seems to write from a standpoint within the Apostolic circle, or in which he gives expression to experiences like those of an Apostle; and secondly by the very marked extent to which the narrative of the Gospel corresponds in its details to the real conditions of the time and place in which its scene is laid, conditions which rapidly changed and passed away.
This constitutes the internal argument for the authentic character of the Gospel. It is met and, as I conceive, strongly corroborated by the nature of the external evidence.
II. The External Evidence.
1. The Position at the end of the Second Century.
In regard to this I would not spend time in refinements upon some of the scanty details furnished by the scanty literature of the first half of the second century. I would rather take my stand on the state of things revealed to us on the lifting of the curtain for that scene of the Church’s history which extends roughly from about the year 170 to 200. I would invite attention to the distribution of the evidence in this period: Irenaeus and the Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, Heracleon in Italy, Tertullian at Carthage, Polycrates at Ephesus, Theophilus at Antioch, Tatian at Rome and in Syria, Clement at Alexandria. The strategical positions are occupied, one might say, all over the Empire. In the great majority of cases there is not a hint of dissent. On the contrary the four-fold Gospel is regarded for the most part as one and indivisible. Just in one small coterie at Rome objections are raised to the Fourth Gospel, not on the ground of any special and verifiable tradition, but from dislike of some who appeal to the Gospel and from internal criticism of which we can take the measure. Just at this period of which I am speaking these dissentients appear and disappear, leaving so little trace that (as we have seen) Eusebius, who is really a careful and candid person, and has ancients like Origen and Clement behind him, can describe the Gospel as unquestioned both by his own generation and by preceding generations (p. 65 _supra_).
Let us for the moment treat these great outstanding testimonies as we should treat the reading of a group of MSS. The common archetype of authorities so wide apart and so independent of each other must go back very far indeed. If we were to construct a _stemma_, and draw lines from each of the authorities to a point _x_, representing the archetype, the lines would be long and their meeting point would be near the date at which according to the tradition the Gospel must have been composed. A tradition of this kind, so wide-spread and so deep-rooted, could not have arisen if it had not had a very substantial ground. Suppose we allow for a moment that it is something in itself a little short of absolutely decisive, there comes in to reinforce it what we have just been speaking of as the result of internal criticism, that the Gospel is the work of an eye-witness, a member of the circle which immediately surrounded our Lord. That is also a position which seems to me very strong.
I submit that this is a much fairer statement of the case than that (e. g.) which we find in Schmiedel (_Enc. Bibl._ ii. 2550):
‘Instead of the constantly repeated formula that an ancient writing is “attested” as early as by (let us say) Irenaeus, Tertullian, or Clement of Alexandria, there will have to be substituted the much more modest statement that its existence (not genuineness) is attested only as late as by the writers named, and even this only if the quotations are undeniable or the title expressly mentioned.’
This is a characteristic example of the spirit in which the author writes—much more that of the lawyer speaking to his brief for the prosecution than of the scholar or historian. The criticism is couched in general terms: as far as it applies in particular to the Gospel of St. John the _caveat_ is superfluous, because all the three writers named, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria bear witness expressly to the genuineness of the Gospel, and not only to its existence. The witness of Heracleon is still more important. To recognize a writing is one thing; to recognize it as sacred is another; to comment upon it as so sacred and authoritative that its contents can be interpreted allegorically is a third: and all this is so early as _c._ 170. But apart from this the whole form of the statement is unjust. It leaves entirely out of account the extreme scantiness of the material from which evidence could be drawn in the period before the year 180. To me the wonder is that the evidence borne to the New Testament writings in the extant literature prior to this date should be as much as it is and not as little.
2. Earlier Evidence.
But Dr. Schmiedel certainly understates that for the Fourth Gospel. He assumes that no trace can be found of this earlier than 140. A single item of the evidence, which he does not notice, is enough to refute this. I refer to our present conclusion of the Gospel of St. Mark. We may say with confidence that its date is earlier than the year 140—whether we argue from the chronology of Aristion, its presumable author, or from its presence in the archetype of almost all extant MSS., or from the traces of it in writers so early as Justin and Irenaeus. But I may take it for granted that the added verses imply not only the existence but up to a certain point the authority of the Fourth Gospel.
But, besides this, Dr. Schmiedel assumes the negative results of an inquiry, which he has conducted very lightly, and the scale on which he was writing compelled him to conduct lightly, into the bearings of the literature older than 140. I am not so sure as he is that there is no allusion to the Gospel in Barnabas or Hermas, where it is found (e. g.) by Keim, or in the Elders of Papias, where it is found (e. g.) by Harnack. The questions raised in these cases are too complex and too delicate to be quite worth discussing from the point of view of that legal proof which for Schmiedel seems alone to have any value. But Ignatius and the _Didaché_ are of more tangible importance. I am inclined to think that justice has rarely been done from this point of view to Ignatius. It is not so much a question of close coincidence in expression. There I should perhaps allow that Dr. Schmiedel is within his rights in denying what Dr. Drummond and Dr. Stanton affirm. The evidence of Ignatius is obscured by the fact that, unlike Polycarp[74], he is not given to exact quotation. Polycarp is by far the weaker man; it is natural to him to express his thoughts in the words of others. But Ignatius has a rugged strength of mind which digests and assimilates all that comes to it, and if it reproduces the thoughts of others, does so in a form of its own[75]. But I do not think there can be any doubt that Ignatius has digested and assimilated to an extraordinary degree the teaching that we associate with the name of St. John. If any one questions this, I would refer him to the excellent monograph, _Ignatius von Antiochien als Christ und Theologe_, by Freiherr von der Goltz (_Texte und Untersuchungen_, Band xii). It will be best to give the conclusion to which this writer comes in his own words, as I agree with it largely but not quite entirely. He says:
‘The question is whether Ignatius came to appropriate this world of thought through reading our Fourth Gospel, or whether he must be held to be an independent witness to this mode of thinking. Up to a certain point the preceding investigation has already shown that the latter is the case. Although, for instance, certain details might seem to point to borrowing from the Fourth Gospel, yet this peculiar religious Modalism, this mysticism, this combination and accentuation of the same points, this special form of faith in Christ, and, in general, this identical mode of thought and belief could not be simply transferred by means of a book to one who had not in other ways taken up the same ideas and made them his own. There is also proof from various turns given to the thought, as from his use of an independent terminology, that the author is in possession of “Johannean” ideas as his own property. So that in case we really came to the result that Ignatius was acquainted with the Fourth Gospel, we should have indeed to refer to that acquaintance the portrait that he draws of Christ and some details, but in spite of that we should have to hold fast the conclusion that in appropriating his general conception of things, Ignatius must have come under the prolonged influence of a community itself influenced by Johannean thought’ (p. 139).
It will have been observed that the reason for thinking that the affinity of thought between Ignatius and St. John is not to be explained by the use of a book, is not because of its slightness but because it is really too deep to be accounted for in that way. It is true that the affinity goes very deep. I had occasion a few years ago to study rather closely the Ignatian letters, and I was so much impressed by it as even to doubt whether there is any other instance of resemblance between a biblical and patristic book, that is really so close. Allowing for a certain crudity of expression in the later writer and remembering that he is a perfervid Syrian and not a Greek, he seems to me to reflect the Johannean teaching with extraordinary fidelity. This applies especially to his presentation of the doctrine of the Incarnation, to his conception of the Logos, and of the relation of Christ at once to the Father and to the believer. In the writers of the next generation to Ignatius e. g. in Justin—the conception of the Logos is infected by Greek philosophy, giving to it more or less the sense of reason, whereas in Ignatius the leading idea is, as we have seen it to be in St. John, that of revelation. Nowhere else have we the idea of the fullness of Godhead revealed in Christ grasped and expressed with so much vigour. What difference there is is of the nature of exaggeration. It is not wrong to say that the language of Ignatius tends towards Modalism. But it is just because he has grasped ideas, for every one of which there are parallels in the Fourth Gospel, with so much intensity.
I can quite allow that Ignatius has so absorbed the teaching that we call St. John’s as it were _in succum et sanguinem_ that the relation cannot be adequately explained by the mere perusal of a book late on in life. There is something more in it than this. Von der Goltz would explain it by the hypothesis that Ignatius had resided for a considerable length of time in a ‘Johannean’ community like the churches of the province of Asia. There is however no hint of anything of the kind in the letters. It is I think Harnack who somewhere remarks that from the opening of the letter of Ignatius to Polycarp we should infer that the latter was a stranger to the writer.
It would be more natural to fall back on the tradition that Ignatius was an actual disciple of St. John. But this tradition appears first in the _Martyrium Colbertinum_; in other words there is no evidence for it before the fourth century. Indeed Zahn has sketched in a plausible manner the process by which we may conceive it to have arisen[76]. Still there is ample room in the dark spaces of the lives both of Ignatius and of St. John for some more or less intimate connexion between them. The alternative seems to me to be, either to suppose something of this kind, or else to think that Ignatius had really had access to the Johannean writings years before the date of his journey to Rome, and that he had devoted to them no mere cursory reading but a close and careful study which had the deepest effect upon his mind.
If the Fourth Gospel was really the work of St. John, the chronology would leave quite sufficient room for this hypothesis. But in any case the phenomena of the Ignatian letters seem to me to prove the existence, well before the end of the first century, of a compact body of teaching like that which we find in the Fourth Gospel. For even Dr. Schmiedel, I suppose, would hardly wish us to invert the relationship, and to say that the Evangelist took his ideas from Ignatius. But if the substance of the Fourth Gospel existed before the end of the first century, that is surely a considerable step towards the belief that the Gospel existed in writing, and the other reasons that we have for thinking that it had been written are so far confirmed.
A smaller item of proof tending in the same direction is supplied by the _Didaché_. It is well-known that the very ancient Eucharistic prayer contained in that document has the remarkable phrase ‘to make perfect in love,’—‘Remember, Lord, Thy Church to deliver it from all evil and to perfect it in Thy love,’ which it is natural to compare with 1 John iv. 17, 18; John xvii. 23. The coincidence cannot be wholly accidental, though the question must be left open whether the phrase comes directly from a writing or only circulated orally[77]. The problem is the same as that which has just met us in the case of Ignatius, though on a much smaller scale. As far as it goes, it helps to strengthen the conclusion that has just been drawn.
Between Ignatius and Irenaeus we have Papias, Justin, and the greater Gnostics. In view more particularly of the discussion by Schwartz, I think it may be said that Papias probably knew the Gospel and recognized it as an authority. That Justin also used it I think we may take as at the present time generally admitted; and from the extent to which he used it I do not think that any inference can be drawn. Professor Bacon complains that the suggestions which have been put forward to account for the somewhat sparing use which he makes of it are not satisfactory[78]. Probably they are not in the sense of carrying conviction that any one of them is right to the exclusion of others. There must always be this difficulty where we are quite in the dark, and where the whole chapter of accidents is open before us. It is no doubt a sounder method to fall back with Dr. Drummond simply upon our ignorance[79]. But to say that the negative side of Justin’s evidence in any sense cancels the positive seems to me untenable.
As to Basilides and Valentinus, though there remains in my own mind a slight degree of probability that they really used the Gospel, I admit that this probability is not of a kind that can be strongly asserted where it is challenged. At the same time I cannot think Schmiedel’s hypothesis at all probable that ‘the Fourth Gospel saw the light somewhere between A.D. 132 and A.D. 140[80], and that although it was not used by the founders of the great Gnostic schools, it was at once adopted by their disciples. This is an instance of the way in which Dr. Schmiedel and his friends, when they light upon a hypothesis that favours the negative side, content themselves with stating it, as if it must at once carry conviction; and form no mental picture of the conditions with a view to ascertain whether the hypothesis is or is not probable. We may be pretty sure that the Fourth Gospel did not come in surreptitiously in this way, like a thief over the wall, and at once obtain recognition without any examination of credentials.
I do not hesitate to say that this theory of the late origin of the Gospel is not one that will work, or bear to be consistently carried out. On the other hand, if we assume the traditional view, all the evidence falls into line; we have an adequate cause for the authority which from the first attached to the Gospel; and, allowing for the scantiness and critical drawbacks of the materials from which our evidence is drawn, we have a picture quite as satisfactory as we can expect of its gradually expanding circulation.
So far, our course has been straightforward. The salient points stand out in orderly succession, and they all rest on solid foundations. But when we come to closer quarters, and try to reconstruct for ourselves the circumstances under which the Gospel was written, and which attended the first two or three decades of its history, the case is otherwise. Many questions may be raised that cannot be categorically answered. Bricks cannot be made without straw; and positive history cannot be written on the ground of mere surmises and possibilities. All I would contend for is that no valid argument can be brought from the facts as they stand against the Gospel; it is another matter, and will require longer time and perhaps further discoveries, before we can paint on the canvas of history a picture strictly harmonious and coherent in all its parts.
III. Unsolved Problems.
1. The relation of the Gospel to the Apocalypse.
Of the questions that are still _sub judice_ one of the most difficult is that of the relation of the Gospel to the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse is a book on which criticism is very far from having said its last word. I should like to express myself about it with great reserve. But I do not think that in any case an argument can be drawn from it against the Gospel. I will quote two very unprejudiced opinions. Harnack writes as follows:—
‘I confess my adhesion to the critical heresy which carries back the Apocalypse and the Gospel to a single author, always presupposing that the Apocalypse is the Christian working-up of a Jewish apocalypse (I should be prepared to say of several Jewish apocalypses—to me this seems beyond our power to unravel). I mark off the Christian portions very much as Vischer has done, and see in them the same spirit and the same hand which has presented us with the Gospel[81].‘
We remember that in Harnack’s view the author is not the Apostle but the Presbyter.
And then Bousset, who has written the commentary on the Apocalypse in Meyer’s series, though he does not go quite so far as Harnack, places the two works in close relation to each other. After a careful examination of the language of the Apocalypse he sums up thus:—
‘It is certainly right when this Johannean colouring of the language is set down to the account of the last redactor of the Apocalypse (Harnack, Spitta). But here too it may be seen that this redactor has transformed the material before him more thoroughly than is commonly supposed. The linguistic parallels adduced seem to justify the supposition that the Apocalypse also proceeds from circles which stood under the influence of John of Asia Minor[82].’
There are many to whom these opinions will seem paradoxical, but there is much to be said for them. I quote them, however, only to show that the two problems must be worked out independently, and that they need not necessarily clash with one another.
2. The date of Papias.
The next question on which I will touch is the date of Papias, which has a subordinate but rather important bearing upon the group of questions with which he is connected.
I am by no means sure that the late date now commonly assigned to him is right (c. 145-60, Harnack). It turns upon a statement in De Boor’s fragment, supposed to be made by Papias, that some of those who were raised from the dead by Christ lived till the time of Hadrian. A very similar statement is quoted by Eusebius from the _Apology of Quadratus_ (_H. E._ iv. 3, 2). I suspect that there has been some confusion at work here. Experience shows that nothing is commoner than for the same story to be referred to different persons. In the case of Quadratus we have his own words in black and white, whereas the attribution to Papias is vague and may be only a slip of memory[83]. On the other hand Irenaeus expressly calls Papias ‘one of the ancients’ (ἀρχαῖος ἀνήρ), a phrase that I do not think he would have used of a time so near his own as 145-60. Besides, when we look into the great passage, Eus. _H. E._ iii. 39, the standpoint appears to be that, at latest of the third generation, or more strictly where the second generation is passing into the third, if we suppose that Aristion and the Presbyter John were still alive. The natural date for the extracts in this chapter seems to me to be _circa_ 100.
3. The death of the Apostle John.
De Boor’s Fragment is more precise in its assertion, ‘Papias, in his second book, says that John the divine (ὁ θεολόγος) and James his brother were slain by the Jews.’ ‘John the divine’ is naturally questioned; it is defended by Schwartz, but may quite well be due to the fragmentist. The main arguments against the statement are the silence of the early writers, especially Eusebius, and the possibility of confusion between John the Baptist and John the Apostle, or between red martyrdom and white. No doubt this is one of the better examples of the argument from silence, and no doubt we must reckon with the possibility of mistake. Still I do not feel that the statement altogether loses its force. I said something about it in Lecture III; I will at present only add that supposing it were true, the language of Papias about the two Johns can be explained more satisfactorily.
4. The son of Zebedee and the beloved disciple.
I cannot disguise from myself that if the elder John really perished at an earlier stage in the history, the position of the younger becomes much clearer. There would then be no difficulty in the way of identifying him at once with the beloved disciple and with the author of the Gospel and Epistles. We should indeed have all the advantages of Harnack’s theory without its disadvantages. We should not be compelled to attribute to the Ephesian Church any fraudulent intention or practice. We should only have to regard the younger John as succeeding in a manner to the place of the elder, much (as I said) in the way that James the brother of the Lord succeeded to the place of the elder James.
I do not wish to prejudge the question. But those who are familiar with its intricacies will, I think, agree with me that it would be a real gain to have only one claimant to the Ephesian tradition[84].
5. John of Ephesus and his Gospel.
We must in any case think of John of Ephesus as ‘the aged disciple,’ for to our modern ears some such double name as that expresses most adequately the feeling that surrounded him. He called himself by preference ὁ πρεσβύτερος, but we have unfortunately no sufficient rendering for this in English. ‘Elder’ and ‘Presbyter’ have both contracted the associations of office, and of a rather formal kind of office that has lost too much of its original meaning, for the natural authority of age was at first always conveyed in it. I suppose that the Apostle thought of himself most of all as a memory—the last and strongest link with those wonderful years. It was this especially that gave him his sense at once of dignity and of responsibility. When his disciples spoke of ὁ πρεσβύτερος, I imagine that they meant, as we might say, ‘the Venerable’; they looked up to him with a feeling of awe tempered with affection.
It was at Ephesus, the capital of Proconsular Asia, that he whom we too may call ‘the Venerable’ held his modest court, and from thence that he went on circuit, organizing and visiting the little congregations formed in the cities and greater towns of the province. We have a glimpse of these activities in the famous story of the Robber Chief. We are more concerned with the contemplative side of his life, with that inward retrospect which occupied his mind. I do not doubt that it is true that the other Gospels, as they came into circulation among the churches, were brought to him, and that he expressed his approval of them. The story makes him speak with unique authority, which has about it however nothing artificial, but is just the natural deference for one who of all men living was in the best position to know the things of which he spoke. His approval of the other Gospels was calm and objective, but critical. I believe that the precious statements that Papias has preserved for us about the compositions of St. Mark and St. Matthew are really fragments of his criticism. I accept also as literally true the story that it was partly because he felt that there was something wanting in the older records, and partly because of the urgency of those around him, that the old man at last was himself impelled to write. Browning’s ‘Death in the Desert’ presents him at a later stage—at the last stage of all—but as an imaginative reproduction of the circumstances and frame of mind in which the Gospel was written, it is the best that I know.
At Ephesus in Asia the embers of the apostolic age glowed longer than elsewhere; and we cannot wonder that here the torch should be lit which was to be handed on to later times. If the devotion of disciples had to do with the writing of the Gospel, we may be sure that it also had to do with the commending and spreading of the Gospel when written. It is possible enough that they were the first to give it the name of ‘the spiritual Gospel.’ As such it passed from hand to hand; and again it is not surprising that those who prided themselves on superior spirituality and insight, like the Gnostics, showed a special fondness for this Gospel, as we are told they did[85]. Neither is it any more surprising that in an opposite quarter, where a spirit like that of our own Hanoverian Bishops looked with jealousy upon every outbreak of enthusiasm, there should be a movement of reaction against the Gospel which seemed to encourage such manifestations (the Alogi). The catholic Church went calmly on its way, and these partialities and inequalities soon found their level. By the time of Irenaeus there is a stable equilibrium; no one of the four Gospels is either before or after another. And this is really the lesson taught by the Muratorian Fragment, though the writer has to speak a little more apologetically—there are, it is true, differences, but all are inspired by the self-same Spirit.
The last trace in ancient times of the preference which from its birth had been given to the Fourth Gospel appears, as we might expect, in Origen. After describing in detail the different purposes which dominated the other Gospels, Origen explains that Providence reserved for him who had leaned upon the breast of Jesus the greater and more mature discourse about Him, for none of the others had set forth His deity so unreservedly as John.
‘So then we make bold to say that of all the Scriptures the Gospels are the firstfruits, and the firstfruits of the Gospels is that according to John the meaning whereof none can apprehend who has not leaned upon the breast of Jesus, or received at the hands of Jesus Mary to be his mother too[86].’
This is the kind of history that the extant materials and tradition sketch for us of the origin and early fortunes of the Fourth Gospel. From the moment that we leave behind the shade of obscurity which does just linger over the person of the author, everything seems to me quite consistent and coherent and natural and probable. Can we say as much of the opposition to the Gospel, especially in its extremer form, as represented by Schmiedel or Jean Réville or Loisy? We certainly cannot give the epithets just used to the theory of these writers, because there is really nothing to apply to them; the Gospel is for them a great _ignotum_, and nothing more. Is not this in itself a rather serious objection? As an _ignotum_ the Gospel is really too great to plant down in the middle of the history of the second century without creating a disturbance of all the surrounding conditions which we may be sure would have lasted for years. Imagine this solid mass suddenly thrust into the course of events, as Schmiedel would say, somewhere about the year 140, between Basilides and Valentinus and their disciples, as it were under the very eyes of Polycarp and Anicetus and Justin and Tatian, without making so much as a ripple upon the surface. Of course nothing can be simpler than to say that the author of the Gospel is unknown; but the moment we come to close quarters with the statement, and realize what it means, we perceive its difficulty.
Epilogue on the Principles of Criticism.
And now that we have come to the end of this brief sketch of the history of the Gospel for the first hundred years or so of its existence, I may perhaps turn in conclusion to the other object which has been present to my mind throughout this course of lectures, and attempt to collect and state, also in the most summary form, some of the underlying principles of criticism which have from time to time found expression in the lectures and which I desire to submit for your consideration, more especially where they differ from much current practice. I consider them to be self-evident; but their obviousness has at least not prevented them from being too often disregarded. The main points would, I think, be as follows:—
1. In judging of the external evidence for any ancient writing, it is always important to observe not only the details of the evidence itself (date, genuineness, authority, freedom from ambiguity, the precise point attested), but also the extent of the area from which it is drawn and the proportion which it bears to the extant literature of the period which it covers. The first step should be an attempt to realize by an effort of the imagination the proportion between (1) the whole of the extant evidence, (2) the amount of the material that yields this evidence, (3) the amount of the material, once extant but now no longer extant, which might have contributed evidence if we had it. In other words, what we have to consider is not only the actual, positive evidence available, but the distribution of this evidence and its relation to the real lie of the facts—no longer accessible to us but as they may be imaginatively reconstructed.
2. In particular, when use is made of the argument from silence, the first question to be asked is, What is silent? It may well be that the literature supposed to be silent is so small that no inference of any value can be drawn from it.
3. In any further use of the argument from silence full allowance should be made for common human infirmity in the persons who are silent—for oversight forgetfulness, limited range of thought. It is always desirable that the application of the argument from silence should be checked by comparison with verifiable examples from actual experience, whether that experience is derived from ancient life or from modern.
4. The presumption is that plain statements of fact may be trusted, unless there is a distinct and solid reason to the contrary. Even where there is a considerable interval of time between the fact and the statement, it may be presumed that the writer who makes the statement had connecting links of testimony to which he had access and we have not. In any case it is worth while to ask ourselves whether it is not probable that such connecting links existed.
5. In such plain statements the presumption further is that the writer meant what he says, or appears to say. Not until this apparent sense has proved wholly unworkable is it right to tamper with his express language, whether by emendation of the text or putting upon his words a sense that is not obvious and natural.
6. The imputation of conscious deception or fraud is to be strongly deprecated, except with writers of ascertained bad character, and even then the imputation should not be made without substantial reason.
7. All imputations of motive, and especially of sinister motive, should be carefully weighed, and it should in particular be considered whether the supposed motive is one that was likely to be in operation under the historical conditions of the time and circumstances of the writer affected.
8. It should never be forgotten that human nature is a very subtle and complex thing—usually far more subtle and complex than any picture of it that we are likely to form for ourselves. Hence it is improbable that the enumeration of motives by the critical historian will really exhaust the possibilities of the case. Many seeming inconsistencies, whether of character or of statement, are really less than they seem, and quite capable of conjunction in the same person.
9. Where a simple cause suffices to explain a group, especially a large group, of facts, it is better not to assume a cause that is highly exceptional and complicated. This rule seems to apply to the indications of an eye-witness in the Fourth Gospel.
10. Such indications do not in the least exclude the natural effect of lapse of time and the unconscious action of experience and reflection on the mind of a writer who sets down late in life a narrative of events that had happened long before.
11. In studying a narrative of this kind we should bear in mind, as well as we can, the whole career of the writer: we should divide it into its successive stages, and we should be constantly asking ourselves which stage of his experience is reflected in the shape that each portion of the narrative takes. If the conception which results as a whole appears to be such as naturally starts from direct contact with the facts, that will supply us with a much easier explanation than any which involves the wholesale use of fiction.
12. There are different kinds of portraiture; and it does not at all follow that a portrait to be real must be full of movement and action. There are some minds that, from peculiarity of mental habit, although they preserve what they once saw or heard with great distinctness and fidelity, nevertheless easily travel away from these recollections of observed fact and glide into a train of reflection which is almost soliloquy. The author of the Fourth Gospel appears to be a writer of this kind.
13. He himself lays so much stress upon ocular testimony that we must give him credit for such testimony, even where it is not altogether easy for us to follow him.
14. This applies particularly to his reports of miracle. But in judging of these reports, we must before all things bear in mind that the personal disciples of Jesus and the whole first generation of Christians certainly believed that they were living in the midst of miracle, and certainly held that belief to be an important constituent in their conception of Christ.
15. If we would form an adequate idea of what we call ‘the supernatural’ in the dealings of God with men, we must not begin by ruling out all that transcends our common experience. We must keep it in our minds even where we feel that there are features of it that we do but imperfectly understand. More light may be given to us by degrees.
16. All our Gospels together present us with a view of the life and words of Christ to which, if we did but know it, there would be much to be added. The first Christians were acquainted with many particulars under both heads which to us are entirely lost. These particulars contributed in an important degree to the total impression which they formed of the Person of Christ.
17. The conception was naturally fullest and most adequate in the Mother Church, i. e. in the Church in which the immediate followers of Christ were for the longest time collected. It was here, and nowhere else, that that conception of His Person was formed which dominated all parts of the Church, and which carried with it certain corollaries as to the nature of God and his dealings with men that became a permanent body of belief.
18. St. Paul no doubt developed certain portions and aspects of this body of belief, but it is quite impossible and contrary to the evidence that he can have invented its main propositions.
19. We may be sure that St. John did not draw directly from St. Paul, but, firstly, from his own recollections, and in the second place, from the store of common memories and common doctrine that was the possession of all Christians and especially of those who had been nearest to the Master.
20. If we attempt a reconstruction of the main lines of the progress of the Church in the early and in subsequent centuries, such reconstruction ought to be worthy of its subject. In other words, it ought to be one in which we can really see the finger of God.
21. The workings of Divine Providence, as we have experience of them, do not indeed always correspond to what we should antecedently expect. They are such as belong to a world, not of perfect, but of imperfect beings. The Divine purpose as we see it, does not take effect at once, but by slow and gradually expanding degrees.
22. In a world so mixed and chequered progress also has been mixed and chequered; it has not been exactly what we, with our limited faculties, could at once recognize as ideal. It has been progress by tentative experiment, by gradual formulation, by description, at first rough and approximate, but improved little by little as time went on. Any reconstruction of Christian history which agrees with these broad conditions is legitimate, I mean, any reconstruction which recognizes the tentative, experimental, imperfect but gradually improved formulation of Christian belief. It is incumbent upon us, in our own day, to take our part in the attempt to formulate our conceptions of truth, whether historical or doctrinal, with all the accuracy in our power; and we may be quite sure that future generations will improve upon anything that we leave behind us.
23. Any method of reconstructing history on these lines is, as I have stated, legitimate and worthy of a Christian who is loyal to his faith. But a view of history that cannot be expressed in terms fit to describe the operation of Divine Providence; that sees in it nothing but huge blunders and gross deteriorations; that regards the Church of Christ as built on fundamental untruth, which only becomes worse and not better as the centuries advance; such a view seems to me to be not loyal and not really Christian.
Footnote 74:
See, however, the Oxford Society of Hist. Theol., _N. T. in Apost. Fathers_ (1905), p. 84.
Footnote 75:
Ibid., pp. 64, 67, 69; on the use of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 81-83 (a judicious estimate).
Footnote 76:
_Ignatius von Antiochien_, pp. 46 ff.
Footnote 77:
Strangely enough, the Oxford Society’s committee do not mention this phrase, though it presents a stronger case than any of those on p. 31.
Footnote 78:
_Hibbert Journal_ i. 529.
Footnote 79:
_Character, &c._ 157.
Footnote 80:
_Hibbert Journal_ ii. 610.
Footnote 81:
_Chronologie_, p. 675.
Footnote 82:
_Die Offenbarung Johannis_, p. 208.
Footnote 83:
It is pointed out to me by Dr. V. Bartlet that the sentence in the Fragment about the dead raised to life is really a new statement not connected with the sentences preceding which are referred to Papias. I am inclined to think that this is right, and that the authority may be Quadratus.
Footnote 84:
Since this was written I have had the advantage of seeing in manuscript an argument by Dom John Chapman, presenting in a more attractive shape than I have ever yet seen the view that the only John of Ephesus was the son of Zebedee. All depends upon the truth of the story of this Apostle’s death. It is one of those statements that we can neither wholly trust, nor wholly distrust. There is a real chance that it may be right, and there is an equally real chance that it may be wrong; the evidence, as it seems to me, does not warrant a positive assertion either way. I should be much inclined to think that, if the statement is true, there was but one John at Ephesus, the beloved disciple who was also the Presbyter; and, if the statement is false, there was still but one John, who was both Presbyter and Apostle. But then there comes in the problem of the Apocalypse, which _may_ require two Johns!
Footnote 85:
Iren. _adv. Haer._ iii. 11. 7.
Footnote 86:
_Comm. in Joan._ i. 6.
INDEX
Abbot, Ezra, 12 f., 15.
Abbott, Edwin A., xi.
Alogi, 65 f., 238, 255.
Antioch, 199.
Apocalypse, 248-50.
Apocryphal Acts, 112.
Apocryphal Gospels, 112 f.
Apologetics, x, 3-5, 38.
Apostle, the title, 105 f.
Apostolicity, 41.
Aristion, 241; _see also_ Presbyters of Papias.
Arnold, Matthew, 225.
Athanasius, _Vita Antonii_, 57 ff., 183.
Augustine, St., 178.
Bacon, Benjamin W., 19, 24 f., 35, 57, 75.
Baldensperger, Wilhelm, 84.
Barnabas, Epistle of, 38 f., 241.
Bartlet, Vernon, 250.
Basilides, 247, 256.
Batiffol, Mgr. Pierre, 12.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian, 43.
‘behold,’ meaning of, 76 f.
‘believe,’ 161 f.
Bethsaida, 114.
Beyschlag, Willibald, 10 f.
Bousset, Wilhelm, 17, 249 f.
Box, George H., 153.
Briggs, Charles Augustus, 21 ff.
Burkitt, F. Crawford, 183 f.
Butler, Dom Cuthbert, 57, 183.
Caius, 66, 69.
Calmes, Père Th., 12.
Canonicity, 39.
Catholicity, 41.
Ceremonies, 119 ff.
Chapman, Dom John, 252.
Cheyne, Thomas Kelly, x f.
Church, the Mother, vii, 228-33, 261.
Chwolson, Daniel, 121, 152 f.
Clement of Alexandria, 66, 67 ff., 72 f., 105, 238 ff.; _see_ Presbyters.
Continuity, 5, 234 f.
Conybeare, Frederick C., 29, 55.
Cosmos, 197.
Criticism, American, 46 ff.
— English, 44 ff.
— French, 27 f., 31.
— German, ix, 27 f., 48 ff.
— Principles of, 42-67, 142, 257-63.
De Boor’s Fragment, 103 f., 107, 250 ff.
Delff, Hugo, 17 f., 21, 90, 99, 108.
Demoniacal Possession, 130, 133 f.
Development, alleged want of, 155-65, 209.
_Didaché_, 199, 241, 245 f.
Dill, Samuel, 35 f.
Dobschütz, Ernst von, 15 f., 18 f., 115.
Dods, Marcus, 11.
Drummond, James, 3, 15, 32 ff., 41, 67, 81, 110 ff., 115, 141, 166, 192, 197, 241, 247.
Dualism, 196.
Ebionism, 29, 226, 230.
ἐκεῖνος, 77 ff.
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, 1 f., 45.
Eusebius, 65, 67 ff., 238 f., 250 f.
Extensions, Principle of, 178.
Feasts, the Jewish, 117 f., 119 ff.; _see_ Passover.
Fisher, George P., 14.
Fourth Gospel, Appendix to (ch. xxi), 63 f., 80 f.
— as a ‘spiritual Gospel,’ 68, 70 ff., 96.
— Christology of, 205-35.
— Criticism of, 1-3, 5-8, 15, 25, 32, 60 ff., 65 f., 67 ff.
— Discourses in, 165-9.
— External Evidence for, 238-48.
— Internal Evidence, Summary of, 238 f.
— Geographical Details in, 113 f.
— Monotony of, 206.
— not a biography, 70 f., 205-7.
— Object of, 68 f., 71 f., 205 f.
— Relation to Synoptics, 67 ff., 71 f., 117 f., 143-55, 166, 216-25.
— Author of, 67 ff., 70 ff., 79 f., 82-108, 128, 167 ff., 188 f., 206, 244 f., 260; _see_ St. John, Apostle and Presbyter.
Furrer, Konrad, 113 f.
Galatians, Epistle to the, 230.
Georgius Monachus (Hamartolus), 103.
Godet, Frédéric, 11.
Goltz, Freiherr E. von der, 242-4.
Grill, Julius, 190-2, 194-7, 200 f.
Gwatkin, Henry M., 58 f.
Harnack, Adolf, 18 ff., 42 ff., 60 ff., 76, 106, 197, 200, 223, 241, 249, 250, 252.
Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, 45-9.
Hebrews, Epistle to the, 207-16.
Heracleon, 24, 238, 240.
Hermas, 241.
Holtzmann, Heinrich Julius, 41, 57, 75, 115, 194, 224.
Holtzmann, Oscar, 25 f.
Ignatius of Antioch, 51 ff., 199, 241-5.
Irenaeus, 60 ff., 65 f., 73, 105, 238 ff., 251, 255.
Jacquier, Abbé E., 12.
Jerusalem, Destruction of, 116, 123 f.
Jewish Ideas, 15, 128-36.
John, Apocryphal Acts of, 108.
— First Epistle of, 57, 74 ff.
— School of St., 73, 81 f., 253 f.; _see_ Presbyters of Papias, Presbyters of Clement.
John the Apostle, 16 ff., 60 ff., 97-108, 248-56; _see also_ Fourth Gospel, Author of.
— Death of, 103 ff., 107 f., 251 f.
John the Presbyter, 16 ff., 19 f., 60 ff., 97-108, 248-56; _see also_ Fourth Gospel, Author of.
Jülicher, Adolf, 1, 31 f., 75.
Justin Martyr, 33, 139, 166, 246 f., 256.
Keim, Theodor, 241.
Kreyenbuhl, Johannes, xi.
Last Discourse, 90, 94 ff.
Last Supper, 88 f., 94, 150-5.
Lazarus, Story of, 87 f., 170-2.
Light and Life, 190 f., 201.
Lightfoot, Joseph B., 12, 51 ff.
Local Colour, 129-36.
Logos, Doctrine of the, 185-204, 211 ff.
Loisy, Abbé Alfred, 2, 28, 31, 41, 200-4, 205, 223 f., 256.
Lucius, Ernst, 54 f.
Luthardt, Christoph E., 11.
Malchus, 90.
Matthew, Apocryphal Gospel of, 112 f.
McGiffert, A. Cushman, 19.
_Memra_, 187.
Messiah, the title, 208, 221 f.
Messianic Expectation, 117, 136-40, 158 f.
Milligan, William, 11.
Ministry, Scene of the, 144-8.
— Duration of, 148 f.
Miracle, 169-84.
Moberly, Robert Campbell, 215.
Moffatt, James, 19.
Moulton, William F., 11.
Muratorian Fragment, 66, 105, 255.
Origen, 66, 238, 255.
Papias, 60, 64, 73, 246, 250 ff., 254; _see_ De Boor’s Fragment.
Paraclete, 196 f., 219 f.
Passover, 85, 117, 119 f., 151-5; _see_ Feasts.
Paul, St., 168, 174 f., 188, 261.
— St., and St. John, Relation of, viii, 168, 208-16, 226-33.
Peter, St., and St. John, 91 f., 100, 102, 107.
Peter, Second Epistle of, 43.
Petronius, _Satiricon_, 35 f.
Pfleiderer, Otto, 26.
Pharisees; _see_ Sects and Parties.
Philip the Evangelist, 64.
Philo, 55, 185-200.
— _De Vita Contemplativa_, 54 ff.
Pilgrimages, 117 f.
Polycarp, 60, 62, 242, 256.
Polycrates, 62, 99 f., 102 f., 105.
Pothinus, 61 f.
Pragmatism, 109 ff.
Presbyter, the title, 253.
Presbyters of Clement, 67, 72 f.
— of Papias, 60 f., 63 f., 241.
Purification, 84 f., 120 f.
Quadratus, 250.
Rabbinical Schools, 132.
Ramsay, William M., 112.
Réville, Jean, 2, 28, 31, 200, 256.
Ritschlianism, 47.
Roman Government, 126 ff.
Sadducees; _see_ Sects and Parties.
Salmon, George, 66.
Samaria, Woman of, 85.
Sanhedrin, 90 f., 100 f., 116, 124 ff.
Schmiedel, Paul W., 2, 26 f., 37 ff., 57, 75, 239 ff., 247, 256.
Schürer, Emil, 18, 28, 55 f.
Schwartz, Eduard, 32, 66, 246.
Sects and Parties, 123 ff.
Silence, Argument from, 33 ff., 39, 171 f., 251.
Soden, Freiherr Hermann von, viii f., 129 f.
Soltau, Wilhelm, 21.
Son of God, the title, 208-26, 231.
Spirit, the Holy, 214 f.
‘spiritual,’ meaning of, 71 f.
Stanton, Vincent H., 3, 37 ff., 241.
Stoics, 199.
Style, Argument from Identity of, 56 f., 74 f., 81.
Supernatural, the, 169-84, 260 f.
Synoptic Gospels, Criticism of, 151 ff., 170-2, 217 f., 261; _see_ Fourth Gospel, Relation to Synoptics.
Tatian, 66, 238 ff.
Temple, the, 113, 122 f.
Temple, Cleansing of, 149 f.
— Golden Gate of, 113.
— Solomon’s Porch, 123, 164 f.
— Treasury, 123.
Tertullian, 105, 238 ff.
Textual History, Argument from, 55 ff.
‘that year,’ 115.
Thecla, Acts of Paul and, 43, 112.
Theophilus of Antioch, 34, 238.
Tiberias, Sea of, 114.
Tradition, 4, 44.
Trinity, Doctrine of the, 215 f., 218 f., 231.
Valentinus, 247, 256.
Ward, Miss Janet, 1.
Watkins, Henry W., xi.
Weingarten, Hermann, 57.
Weiss, Bernhard, 9 f., 30.
Wellhausen, Julius, ix.
Wendland, Paul, 199.
Wendt, Hans Hinrich, 21 ff., 220 f.
Wernle, Paul, 27, 31, 75, 227-35.
Westcott, Brooke Foss, 13, 93.
Wrede, William, ix, 75, 109 f.
Zahn, Theodor, 8 f., 245.
● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the lectures in which they are referenced.