XXXlll
" ministered to Him of their substance " (Mark xv. 40 f., compared with Luke viii. 3). And it is clear from John xix. 27 that the apostle had some means.
Like the other apostles, with the single exception of Judas Iscariot, St John was a Galilaean. The fact has a moral value. When the rest of the Jewish nation was drawn partly to political intrigues, partly to speculations of the schools, the people of Galilee retained much of the simple faith and stern heroism of earlier times. It was made a reproach to them that they were unskilled in the traditions, and kept to the letter of the Law (comp. vii. 52, note). The rising of Judas "in the days of the taxing" (Acts v. 37) may have been a hopeless outburst of fanaticism, but at least it shewed that there were many in Galilee who were ready to die for the confession that they had "no lord or master but God." The same spirit appears in the multitude who would have " taken Jesus by force " at the lake of Tiberias and made Him king (vi. 14 f.). They were ready to do and to suffer something for their eager if mistaken Messianic hope. It was amidst the memories of such conflicts, and in an atmosphere of passionate longing, that St John grew up. And in some measure he shared the aspirations of his countrymen if he avoided their errors. When the Baptist proclaimed the advent of Christ, St John was at once ranged among his disciples. And more than this: though " simple and unlettered" (Acts iv. 13), he appears to have grasped with exceptional power the spiritual import of the Baptist's message, who directed him immediately to Christ as " the Lamb of God." St John obeyed the sign, and followed without delay the Master who was mysteriously pointed out to him. Thus from the first the idea of sovereignty was mingled with that of redemption, the issue of victory with the way of suffering, in the conception of the work of the Messiah whom he welcomed.
The ardour of the Galilaean temper remained in the apostle. St John with his brother St James received from the Lord (Mark iii. 17) the remarkable surname, Boanerges, "sons of thunder." Thunder in the Hebrew idiom is "the voice of God;" and the sons of Zebedee appear to have given swift, startling, vehement utterance to the divine truth which they felt within them. Theirs was not characteristically the decisive action, but the sudden moving word which witnessed to the inner fire. It may have been some stern voice which marked St James as the first martyr among the apostles. Certainly the sayings of St John which are recorded by St Luke correspond with the prophetic energy which the title indicates (Luke ix. 49 || Mark ix. 38; comp. Num. xi. 28; Luke ix. 54). His zeal was undisciplined, but it was loyal and true. He knew that to be with Christ was life, to reject Christ was death; and he did not shrink from expressing the thought in the spirit of the old dispensation. He learnt from the Lord, as time went on, a more faithful patience, but he did not unlearn the burning devotion which consumed him. To the last, words of awful warning, like the thunderings about the throne, reveal the presence of that secret fire. Every page of the Apocalypse is inspired with the cry of the souls beneath the altar, "How long" (Rev. vi. 10); and nowhere is error as to the Person of Christ denounced more sternly than in his Epistles (2 John 10; i John iv. i ff.).
The well-known incident which occurred on the last journey to Jerusalem reveals the weakness and the strength of St John's character. His mother, interpreting the desire of her sons, begged of Christ that they might sit, the one on His right hand and the other on His left, in His Kingdom (Matt. xx. 20 ff., comp. Mark x. 35 ff.). So far they misunderstood the nature of that especial closeness to their Lord which they sought. But the reply shewed that they were ready to welcome what would be only a prerogative of suffering. To be near Christ, even if it was "to be near the fire" and "near the sword," was a priceless blessing. And we can feel that the prayer was already granted when Salome and St John waited by the Cross (John xix. 25 ff.).
This last scene reveals St John nearest of all the apostles to Christ, as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (ch. xiii. 23, note). Together with his brother St James and St Peter, he was one of the three admitted to a closer relationship with Christ than the other apostles (Luke viii.
51, ix. 28; Mark xiv. 33); and of the three his connexion was the closest. He followed Christ to judgment and to death (John xviii. 15, xix. 26), and received from Him the charge of His Mother as her own son (xix. 27, note).
After the Ascension St John remained at Jerusalem with the other apostles. He was with St Peter at the working of his first miracle; and afterwards he went with him to Samaria (Acts i. 13, iii. i ff., viii. 14). At the time of St Paul's first visit to Jerusalem he seems to have been absent from the city (Gal. i. 18); but on a later occasion St Paul describes him as one of those accounted to be " the pillars of the Church" (Gal. ii. 9). At what time and under what circumstances he left Jerusalem is wholly unknown. At the opening of the Apocalypse (i. 9) he speaks of himself as "in the island called Patmos, for the word and the testimony of Jesus." Beyond this there is no further notice of him in the New Testament1.
When we pass beyond the limits of Scripture, St John is still presented to us under the same character, as the Son of Thunder, the prophetic interpreter of the Old Covenant. Now it is related that he refused to remain under the same roof with Cerinthus (or according to another account "Ebion"), who denied the reality of the Incarnation: "Let us fly," he said, "lest the bath fall on us, since Cerinthus is within, the enemy of the truth" (Iren. in. 3. 4; comp. Epiph. 'Haer.' xxx. 24). Now he is described as a " priest wearing the plate (or diadem)" prescribed by the law (Ex. xxxix. 30 f.) for the high-priest (Polycrates ap. Euseb. 'H. E.'in. 31, v. 24; comp. ch. xviii. 15, note). Now he is shewn, in one of the most beautiful of early histories, seeking out the lost and enforcing the obligation of ministerial duty (Euseb. 'H.E.' in. 23, on the authority of Clement of Alexandria). Once again we read that "when
he tarried at Ephesus to extreme old age, and could only with difficulty be carried to the church in the arms of his disciples, and was unable to give utterance to many words, he used to say no
1 This is not the place to discuss the authorship of the Apocalypse. Its doctrinal relation to the Gospel of St John, which will be discussed afterwards, appears to be decisive in support of the early date of the banishment.
more at their several meetings than this, 'Little children, love one another.' At length," Jerome continues, "the disciples and fathers who were there, wearied with hearing always the same words, said, 'Master, why dost thou always say this?' 'It is the Lord's command,' was his worthy reply, ' and if this alone be done, it is enough.'" (Hieron. 'Comm. in Ep. ad Gal.' vi. 10)'.
These traditions are in all probability substantially true, but it is impossible to set them in a clear historical framework. Nothing is better attested in early Church history than the residence and work of St John at Ephesus. But the dates of its commencement and of its close are alike unknown. It began after the final departure of St Paul, and it lasted till about the close of the first century (Iren. n. 22. 5, fj-fXP1- ™v T/oeuavou xpo'vwv, A.D. 98 — 117). This may be affirmed with confidence; but the account of his sufferings at Rome (Tert. 'de Praescr. Hser.' 36..."in oleum demersus nihil passus est;" comp. Hieron. 'ad Matt.' xx. 23), and of the details of his death at Ephesus, are quite untrustworthy. One legend, which is handed down in various forms, is too remarkable to be wholly omitted. It was widely believed that St John was not dead, but sleeping in his grave; and that he would so remain till Christ came. Meanwhile, it was said, "he shewed that he was alive by the movement of the dust above, which was stirred by the breath of the saint." "I
think it needless," Augustine adds, " to contest the opinion. Those who know the place must see whether the soil is so affected as it is said; since I have heard the story from men not unworthy of credence" ("revera non e levibus hominibus id audivimus." Aug. 'In Joh. Tract.' cxxiv. 2).
These words of Augustine are part of his commentary on the mysterious saying of the Lord which, as is seen from the Gospel (xxi. 21 ff.), was perceived to mark in some way the future work of the apostle: "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" St John
1 These traditions are collected in a very agreeable form in Dean Stanley's ' Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age.' The later legends are given by Mrs Jameson, in her ' Sacred and Le-, gendary Art," i.
did most truly "tarry till the Lord came." It is impossible for us to realise fully what was involved in the destruction of the Holy City for those who had been trained in Judaism. It was nothing else than the close of a divine drama, an end of the world. The old sanctuary, " the joy of the whole earth," was abandoned. Henceforth the Christian Church was the sole appointed seat of the presence of God. When Jerusalem fell Christ came, and with His coming came also the work of St John. During the period of conflict and fear and shaking of nations which preceded that last catastrophe, St John had waited patiently; and we may believe that he had fulfilled his filial office to the Mother of the Lord in his own home in Galilee to the last, gaining by that a fuller knowledge of the revelation of the Son of God, and bringing into a completer harmony the works which he had seen, and the words which he had heard.
In these scattered traits we can gain a consistent if imperfect conception of St John. The central characteristic of his nature is intensity, intensity of thought, word, insight, life. He regards everything on its divine side. For him the eternal is already: all is complete from the beginning, though wrought out step by step upon the stage of human action. All is absolute in itself, though marred by the weakness of believers. He sees the past and the future gathered up in the manifestation of the Son of God. This was the one fact in which the hope of the world lay. Of this he had himself been assured by evidence of sense and thought This he was constrained to proclaim: " We have seen and do testify." He had no laboured process to go through: he saw. He had no constructive proof to developer he bore witness. His source of knowledge was direct, and his mode of bringing conviction was to affirm.
An early and consistent tradition represents the Gospel of St John as written at the request of those who were intimate with the Apostle, and had, as we must suppose, already heard from his lips that teaching which they desired to see recorded for the perpetual guidance of the
Church. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA has preserved the tradition in its simplest form. He states on the authority "of the elders of an earlier generation" (rrapaSoCTis T<av dveKaOfv irpfa-fivTepiDv) that "St John, last [of the Evangelists], when he saw that the outward (bodily) facts had been set forth in the [existing] Gospels, impelled by his friends, [and] divinely moved by the Spirit, made a spiritual Gospel" (Clem. Alex. ap. Euseb. 'H. E.' vi. 14.) This general statement is given with additional details in the MURATORIAN FRAGMENT on the Canon.
"The fourth Gospel [was written by] John, one of the disciples (i.e. Apostles). When his fellow-disciples and bishops urgently pressed (cohortantibus) him, he said, 'Fast with me [from] to-day, for three days, and let us tell one another any revelation which may be made to us, either for or against [the plan of writing] (quid cuique fuerit revelatum alterutrum)'. On the same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that John should relate all in his own name, and that all should review [his writing]" (see 'Hist, of N. T.
Canon,' p. 527). There can be no doubt that JEROME had before him either this fragment, or, as appears more probable, the original narrative on which it was based, when he says that "ecclesiastical history records that John, when he was constrained by his brothers to write, replied that he would do so, if a fast were appointed and all joined in prayer to God; and that after this [fast] was ended, filled to the full with revelation (revelatione saturatus), he indited the heaven-sent preface: In the beginning was the Word..." ('Comm. in Matt.' Prol.) Eusebius, to whom we are indebted for the testimony of Clement, adds in another place, as a current opinion, that St John wrote after the other Evangelists, to the truth of whose narrative he bore witness, in order to supply an account of the early period of the Lord's ministry which they omitted; and at the same time he implies, what is otherwise most likely, that the Apostle committed to writing what he had long delivered in unwritten preaching (Euseb. ' H. E.' in.
Other writers attempt to define more exactly the circumstances under which
St John was induced to compose his Gospel. Thus in the Scholia on the Apocalypse attributed to VICTORINUS of Pettau (tc. 304), it is said that "he wrote the Gospel after the Apocalypse. For, when Valentinus and Cerinthus and Ebion and the others of the school of Satan were spread throughout the world, all the bishops from the neighbouring provinces came together to him, and constrained him to commit his own testimony to writing" (Migne, 'Patrol.' v. p. 333). This statement appears to be an amplification of the Asiatic tradition preserved by Irengeus, which has been already noticed; and is only so far interesting as it shews the current belief that the fourth Gospel was written as an answer to the questionings of a comparatively advanced age of the Church. So much indeed seems to be historically certain; for, though it is impossible to insist upon the specific details with which the truth was gradually embellished, there can be no reason to question the general accuracy of a tradition which was widely spread in the last quarter of the second century. The evidence of Clement of Alexandria is independent of that of the Muratorian Canon, while both appear to point back to some common authority, which cannot have been far removed from the time of the Apostle. The fourth Gospel, we may thus conclude from the earliest direct evidence, was written after the other three, in Asia, at the request of the Christian churches there, as a summary of the oral teaching of St John upon the life of Christ, to meet a want which had grown up in the Church at the close of the Apostolic age (comp. Epiph. 'Haer.'xu. 12).
The contents of the Gospel go far to support this view of its relatively late date. It assumes a knowledge of the substance of the Synoptic narratives. It deals with later aspects of Christian life and opinion than these. It corresponds with the circumstances of a new world.
(a) The first of these statements will come under examination at a later time, and will not be contested in its general shape. The two others can be justified by a few references to the Gospel, which will repay careful study.
(b) No one can read the fourth Gospel carefully without feeling that the writer occupies a position remote from the events which he describes. However clear it is that he was an eye-witness of the Life of the Lord, it is no less clear that he looks back upon it from a distance1. One plain proof of this is found in the manner in which he records words which point to the spread of the Gospel beyond the limits of Judaism. This characteristic view is distinctly brought out in the interpretation which he gives of the judgment of Caiaphas: Now this he said not of himself, but being high-priest in that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation (rov tGvovs, see note), and not for the nation only, but in order that he might gather together in one tJie children of God that were scattered abroad (xi. 5 1 f.). It is beyond question that when the Evangelist wrote these words, he was reading the fulfilment of the unconscious prophecy of Caiaphas in the condition of the Christian Church about him.
The same actual experience of the spread of the Gospel explains the prominent position which St John assigns to those sayings of Christ in which He declared the universality of His mission: other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also must I lead... and they shall become one flock, one shepherd (x. 16). /, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself "(xii. 32). The Son has authority over all flesh (xvii. 2). All that which the Father giveth me, He said, shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out (vi. 37). The knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ is eternal life (xvii. 3); and this knowledge, the knowledge of the truth, conveys the freedom, of winch the freedom of the children of Abraham was only a type (viii. 3 1 ff.). The final form of worship is the worship of "the Father," in which all local and temporal worships, typified by Gerizim and Jerusalem, should pass away (iv. 21 ff.).
This teaching receives its final seal in the answer to Pilate: Thou sayest that I
1 This is the impression which is conveyed by the notes which he adds from time to time in interpretation of words or facts: vii. 39, xii. 33, xviii. 9, 32, xix. 36, xxi. 19. These notes offer a remarkable contrast to those in which attention is called in the first Gospel to the present and immediate fulfilment of prophecy, Matt. i. 21, xxi. 4, &c. (ytyovev am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice (xviii. 37). The relation of the believer to Christ is thus shewn to rest on a foundation which is of all most absolute. Christ, while He fulfilled "the Law," which was the heritage of the Jews, revealed and satisfied the Truth, which is the heritage of humanity.
There are indeed traces of the announcement of this universalism of the Gospel in the Synoptic narratives, and especially in that of St Luke. It is taught there that Christ came as the salvation prepared before the face of all the peoples, a light for revelation to Gentiles, a?id a glory to God's people Israel (ii. 31, 32). Repentance unto remission of sins was to be preached in His name unto all the nations beginning from Jerusalem (xxiv. 47). It may be possible also to see in the fate of the Prodigal Son an image of the restoration of the heathen to their Father's home. But in these cases the truth is not traced back to its deepest foundations; nor does it occupy the same relative position as in St John. The experience of an organized Christian society lies between the two records.
This is plainly intimated by the language of the Evangelist himself. He speaks in his own person of the great crisis of the choice of Israel as over. He came to His own home and His own people received Him not (i. n); and so in some sense, the choice of the world was also decided, the light hath come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light (iii. 19). The message of the Gospel had already been proclaimed in such a way to Jew and Gentile that a judgment could be pronounced upon the general character of its acceptance.
This typical example serves to shew how St John brings into their true place in the completed Christian edifice the facts of Christ's teaching which were slowly realised in the course of the apostolic age. And while he does so, he recalls the words in which Christ dwelt upon that gradual apprehension of the meaning of His Life and work, which characterized in fact the growth of the Catholic Church. Throughout the last discourses of the Lord, the great charge to the apostolate, we seem to hear the warning addressed to St Peter at the outset: What I do thou knowest not now, but thoit shalt come to knorv (yvwa-rj) afterwards (xiii. 7). It is implied in the recital that the words of patient waiting had found their accomplishment by the mission of the new Advocate. / have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear tJiem now. Howbeit when He is come, even the Spirit of truth, He shall guide you into all the truth (xvi. 12; comp. xv. 26). Even if Christ had already made known all things (xv. 15), there was need of the long teaching of time, that His disciples might master the lessons which they had implicitly received.
The record of these appeals to a future growth of knowledge can admit of only one interpretation. In dwelling on such aspects of Christ's teaching, it is clear that the Evangelist is measuring the interval between the first imperfect views of the Apostles as to the kingdom of God, and that just ideal, which he had been allowed to shape, under the teaching of the Paraclete, through disappointments and disasters. Now at length, on the threshold of a new world, he can feel the divine force of much that was before hard and mysterious. He had waited till his Lord came; and he was enabled to recognise His Presence, as once before by the lake of Galilee, in the unexpected victories of faith.
(c) In the last quarter of the first century, the world relatively to the Christian Church was a new world; and St John presents in his view of the work and Person of Christ the answers which he had found to be given in Him to the problems which were offered by the changed order. The overthrow of Jerusalem, carrying with it the destruction of the ancient service and the ancient people of God, the establishment of the Gentile congregations on the basis of St Paul's interpretation of the Gospel, the rise of a Christian philosophy (yvouo-is) from the contact of the historic creed with Eastern and Western speculation, could not but lead one who had lived with Christ to go back once more to those days of a divine discipleship, that he might find in them, according to the promise, the anticipated replies to the questionings of a later age. This St John has done; and it is impossible not to feel how in each of these cardinal directions he points his readers to words and facts which are still unexhausted in their applications.
(a) We have already touched upon the treatment of the Jewish people in the fourth Gospel. They appear as the heirs of divine blessings who have Esau-like despised their birthright. The prerogatives of the people and their misuse of them are alike noted. But in this respect there is one most striking difference between the fourth Gospel and the other three. The Synoptic Gospels are full of warnings of judgment. Pictures of speedy desolation are crowded into the record of the last days of the Lord's ministry (Matt, xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi.). His coming to judgment is a central topic. In St John all is changed. There are no prophecies of the siege of the Holy City; there is no reiterated promise of a Return; the judgment had been wrought. Christ had come. There was no longer any need to dwell upon the outward aspects of teaching which had in this respect found its accomplishment. The task of the Evangelist was to unfold the essential causes of the catastrophe, which were significant for all time, and to shew that even through apparent ruin and failure the will of God found fulfilment. Inexorable facts had revealed the rejection of the Jews. It remained to shew that this rejection was not only foreseen, but was also morally inevitable, and that it involved no fatal loss. This is the work of St John. He traces step by step the progress of unbelief in the representatives of the people, and at the same time the correlative gathering of the children of God by Christ to Himself. There was a divine law of inward affinity to good or evil in the obedience and disobedience of those who heard. / am the good shepherd; and I know mine own, and mine own know me, even as the Father knoweth me and I know the father (x. 14, 15). Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep. My slieep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me (x. 26, 27). This is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil (iii. 19).
The fourth Gospel reveals in these and similar passages the innermost cause of the rejection of the Jewish people. The fact underlies the record, and the Evangelist lays open the spiritual necessity of it. He reveals also the constitution of the Spiritual Church. The true people of God survived the ruin of the Jews: the ordinances of a new society replaced in a nobler shape the typical and transitory worship of Israel. When this Gospel was written, the Christian congregations, as we see from St Paul's Epistles, were already organized, but the question could not but arise, how far their organization was fitted to realise the ideal of the kingdom which Christ preached. The Evangelist meets the inquiry. He shews from the Lord's words what are the laws of His service, and how they are fulfilled by the institutions in which they were embodied. The absolute worship was to be in spirit and truth (iv. 23), as distinguished from letter and shadow; and the discourses with Nicodemus and at Capernaum set forth by anticipation how the sacraments satisfy this condition for each individual. On the other hand, the general ministerial commission, which is contained only in the fourth Gospel (xx.), gives the foundation of the whole. In that lies the unfailing assurance of the permanence of the new society.
(/3) So far the fourth Gospel met difficulties which had not been and could not be realised till after the fall of Jerusalem. In like manner it met difficulties which had not been and could not be felt till the preaching of St Paul had moulded the Christian Society in accordance with the law of freedom. Then first the great problems as to the nature of the object of personal faith, as to the revelation of the Deity, as to the universality of the Gospel, were apprehended in their true vastness; and the Evangelist shews that these thoughts of a later age were not unregarded by Christ Himself. The experience of the life of the Church — which is nothing less than the historic teaching of the Holy Spirit — made clear in due time what was necessarily veiled at first. Sayings became luminous which were riddles before their solution was given. Christ, in relation to humanity, was not characteristically the Prophet or the King, but the Saviour of the world, the Son of Man, the Son of God. In this connexion the fact of the Incarnation obtained its full significance. By the Incarnation alone the words which were partially interpreted through the crowning miracle of the Lord's ministry were brought home to all men; I am the Resurrection and the Life (xi. 25).
Thus by the record of the more mysterious teaching of the Lord, in connexion with typical works, St John has given a historical basis for the preaching of St Paul. His narrative is at once the most spiritual and the most concrete. He shews how Faith can find a personal object. The words He that hath seen me hath seen the Father (xiv. 9) mark an epoch in the development of religious thought. By them the idea of God receives an abiding embodiment, and the Father is thereby brought for ever within the reach of intelligent devotion. The revelation itself is complete (xvii. 6, 26), and yet the interpretation of the revelation is set forth as the work of the Holy Spirit through all ages (xiv. 26). God in Christ is placed in a living union with all creation (v. 17; comp. i. 3, note). The world, humanity and God are presented in the words and in the Person of Christ under new aspects of fellowship and unity.
It will be evident how this teaching is connected with that of St Paul. Two special points only may be noticed: the doctrine of the sovereignty of the divine will, and the doctrine of the union of the believer with Christ. The foundations of these two cardinal doctrines, which rise supreme in the Pauline Epistles, lie deep in the fourth Gospel.
The first, the doctrine of Providence, Predestination, however it be called, not only finds reiterated affirmation in the discourses of the Lord contained in the fourth Gospel, but it is also implied as the rule of the progress of the Lord's life. His "hour" determines the occurrence of events from man's point of view; and the Evangelist refers to it in connexion with each crisis of the Gospel history, and especially with the Passion in which all crises were consummated (ii. 4, vii. 30, viii. 20, xii. 23, 27, *iii. i, xvi. 4, xvii. i; comp. vii. 6 — 8, o Katpos). So also the will or " the gift " of the Father is the spring of the believer's power (iii. 27, vi. 37, 44, 65, xvii. 12); and Christ fulfils and applies that will to each one who comes to Him (xv. 16, 5, v. 21).
Faith again assumes a new aspect in the narrative of St John. It is not merely the media tive energy in material deliverances, and the measure (so to speak) of material power; it is an energy of the whole nature, an active transference of f the whole being into another life. Faith in a Person — in One revealed under a new " name " — is the ground of sonship (i. 12), of life (xi. 25), of power (xiv. 12), of illumination (xii. 36, 46). The keywords of two complementary views of truth are finally combined: this is the work of God, that ye believe — believe with a continuous ever-present faith (Trio-revere not Trtoreucn^re) — on Him whom He sent (vi. 29; comp. viii. 30, note).
(y) Once again; when the fourth Gospel was written Christianity occupied a new intellectual position. In addition to social and doctrinal developments, there were also those still vaster questions which underlie all organization and all special dogma, as to the function and stability of knowledge, as to the interpretation and significance of life, as to the connexion of the seen and unseen. The new faith had made these questions more urgent than before, and the teaching of the Lord furnished such answers to them as man can apprehend. Knowledge was placed in its final position by the declaration / am the Truth... The Truth shall make you free (xiv. 6, viii. 31 flf.). Everything real is thus made tributary to religious service. Again, the eternal is revealed as present, and life is laid open in all its possible nobility. The separation which men are inclined to make arbitrarily between " here " and " there " in spiritual things is done away. This is life eternal... (xvii. 3); He that heareth my word hath life eternal... (v. 24). Once more, the essential unity and the actual divisions of the world are alike recognised. All things were made (eyeVero) through Him [in the Word] (i. 3);... and the Light shineth in the darkness (i. 5); and the Word became (eyeVero) flesJi. Thus in Christ there is offered the historic reconciliation of the finite and the infinite, by which the oppositions of thought and experience are made capable of being reduced to harmony.
These internal indications of date completely accord with the historical tradition, and lead to the conclusion that the composition of the Gospel must be placed late in the generation which followed the destruction of Jerusalem. The shock of that momentous revolution was over, and Christians had been enabled to interpret it. There is no evidence to determine the date exactly. St John, according to the Asiatic tradition recorded by Irenseus (11. 22. 5; in. 3. 4) lived "till the times of Trajan" (A. D. 98 — 117), and the writing of the Gospel must be placed at the close of his life. It is probable therefore that it may be referred to the last decennium of the first century, and even to the close of it.
Tradition is uniform in fixing St John's residence at Ephesus (Iren. in. 3. 4; Polycr. ap. Euseb. ' H. E.' in. 31; Clem. Alex. ' Quis div. salv.' c. 42; Orig. ap. Euseb. ' H. E.' in. i, &c.), and naming that city as the place where he wrote his Gospel (Iren. in. i. i, &c.); and no valid objection has been brought against the belief which was preserved on the spot by a continuous succession of Church teachers'.
From what has been already said it will be clear that the circumstances under which the fourth Gospel was written served to define its object. This is clearly expressed by St John himself: Many other signs did Jesus in the presence of His disciples which have not been written in this book; but these have been written that ye may believe (Trio-revere, cf. vi. 29) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in His name (xx. 30 f.). The record is there-
1 The denial of the Asiatic- residence of St John does not call for serious discussion. To suppose that the belief grew out of Irenseus' confusion of "John the presbyter " with "John the apostle," involves the further assumption that Polycarp himself led him into the error (Iren. 'Ep. ad Flor.'). Comp. Steitz, 'Stud. u. Krit.' 1868; Hilgenfeld, ' Einl.' 394 ff.
fore a selection from abundant materials at the command of the writer, made by him with a specific purpose, first to create a particular conviction in his readers, and then in virtue of that conviction to bring life to them. The conviction itself which the Evangelist aims at producing is twofold, as corresponding with the twofold relation of Christianity to the chosen people and to mankind. He makes it his purpose to shew that Jesus, who is declared by that human name to be truly and historically man, is at once the Christ, in whom all types and prophecies were fulfilled1, and also the Son of God, who is, in virtue of that divine being, equally near to all the children of God — His Father and their Father (xx. 17) — scattered throughout the world (xi. 52; comp. i. 49). The whole narrative must therefore be interpreted with a continuous reference to these two ruling truths, made clear by the experience of the first stage in the life of the Church; and also to the consequence which flows from them, that life is to be found in vital union with Him who is made known in this character (ev r<2 oVo- (JLCLTL avrov). Each element in the fundamental conviction is set forth as of equal moment. The one (Jesus is the Christ] bears witness to the special preparation which God had made; the other (Jesus is the Son of God) bears witness to the inherent universality of Christ's mission. The one establishes the organic union of Christianity with Judaism; the other
1 It is not without instruction to notice that writers of very different schools have unconsciously omitted the words "the Christ" in quoting this verse, and thereby obscured the full design of the Apostle. Among others I may quote as representatives:
Reuss, ' Hist, de la Theologie Chretienne ' ed. 2, n. 426, "Ceci, dit-il dans ses dernieres lignes, ceci est ecrit, afin que vous croyiez que Jesus est le Fils de Dieu, et afin que vous ayez la vie par cette croyance."
Weisz, ' Lehrbuch d. Bibl. Theol.' Ausg. 2, s. 636, "Der Glaube, welcher die Bedingung des Heilsaneignung bildet...ist die zuversichtliche Ueberzeugung davon, dasz Jesus der Sohn Gottes ist."
Lias, ' The Doctrinal System of St John,' p. i. [The purpose for which the Gospel was written] ' ' is stated in express language by the author: ' These things have been written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life through His name* (John xx. 31)."
liberates Christianity from Jewish limita-
It will at once appear that this pregnant description of the object of the Gospel coincides completely with the view which has been given as to the date and occasion of its composition. To establish that Jesus is the Christ is to prove that Christianity is the true spiritual heir of Judaism, through which a divine society and a divine service have been established for all time. To establish that Jesus is the Son of God is to place the doctrine of $t Paul upon a firm basis, inasmuch as the Saviour is revealed in His essential relation of Creator to all the world. To establish that life is to be had in His name, is to raise all being, all thought, into a new region, where rests the hope (at least) of the reconciliation of the conflicts and contradictions of our present order.
So far then the fourth Gospel is distinguished from the other three in that it is shaped with a conscious design to illustrate and establish an assumed conclusion. If we compare the avowed purpose of St John with that of St Luke (i. i — 4), it may be said with partial truth that the inspiring impulse was in the one case doctrinal, and in the other case historical. But care must be taken not to exaggerate or misinterpret this contrast. Christian doctrine is history, and this is above all things the lesson of the fourth Gospel. The Synoptic narratives are implicit dogmas, no less truly than St John's dogmas are concrete facts. The real difference is that the earliest Gospel contained the fundamental facts and words which experience afterwards interpreted, while the latest Gospel reviews the facts in the light of their interpretation. But in both cases the exactness of historical truth is paramount. The discovery of the law of phenomena does not make the record of the phenomena less correct than before in the hands of him who has ascertained it. On the contrary, such knowledge keeps the observer from many possibilities of error, while it enables him to regard facts in new relations, and to present them in such a way that
1 This definition of the object of the Gospel must be compared with the parallel definition of the object of the First Epistle, i John i. i — 4.
they may suggest to others the general truth which he has gained. The historic interest of St John in the substance of his narrative is, in other words, purified and made more intense by the dogmatic significance with which he feels that each incident is charged.
If the scope of the fourth Gospel is thus distinctly apprehended in all its fulness according to the Evangelist's own description, it becomes unnecessary to discuss at any length the different special purposes which have been assigned as the motive of his work. The narrative is not in express design polemical, or supplementary, or didactic, or harmonizing; and yet it is all this, because it is the mature expression of apostolic experience perfected by the teaching of the Holy Spirit in the writer's own life and in the life of the Church.
L The Gospel is not specifically polemical (Iren. 'Adv. Haer.'m. n, Hieron. ' Comm. in Matt.' Prol.; comp. 'De Virr. 111.' 9). It is quite true that many passages in the Gospel of St John are conclusive against particular points of Ebionitic and Docetic error (comp. i John ii. 22, iv. 2), and against false claims of the disciples of the Baptist (comp. Acts xix. 3 f.); but it does not follow that it was the particular object of St John to refute these false opinions. The full exhibition of the Truth was necessarily their refutation; and in this respect their existence may have called attention to points which had been overlooked or misunderstood before. But the first Epistle shews with what directness the Apostle would have dealt with adversaries if controversy had been the purpose immediately present to his mind.
ii. The same remark applies to the "supplemental" theory (Eusebius, *H. E.' 111.24; comp. Hieron. 'De Virr. 111.' 9). As a matter of fact the fourth Gospel does supplement the other three, which it presupposes. It supplements them in the general chronology of the Lord's life, as well as in detailed incidents. But this, is because the Gospel is the vital analysis of faith and unbelief. It traces in order the gradual development of the popular views of Christ among those to whom He came. As a natural consequence it records the successive crises in the divine revelation which happened in Jerusalem, the centre of the religious activity of the Jewish theocracy. The scope of the Gospel is from the nature of the case supplementary to that of the other three; and this being so, the history is also supplementary.
iii. But though the scope of the fourth Gospel is supplementary to that of the other three, it cannot rightly be said that the aim of the Evangelist was essentially didactic (comp. Clem. Alex. ap. Euseb. ' H. E.' vi. 14) in such a sense that he has furnished an interpretation of the Gospel rather than a historical record. The substance of the narrative is distinctly affirmed to be facts (these signs are written); and the end contemplated is practical (that ye may have life), and speculative only so far as right opinion leads to right action.
iv. Once again: The conciliatory — irenical — effect of the Gospel cannot be questioned, but this effect is due to the teaching on Christ's Person which it discloses, and not to any conscious aim of the writer. Just as it rises above controversy while it condemns error, it preserves the characteristic truths which heresy isolated and misused. The fourth Gospel is the most complete answer to the manifold forms of Gnosticism, and yet it was the writing most used by Gnostics. It contains no formal narrative of the institution of sacraments, and yet it presents most fully the idea of sacraments. It sets forth with the strongest emphasis the failure of the ancient people, and yet it points out most clearly the significance of the dispensation which was committed to them. It brings together the many oppositions — antitheses — of life and thought, and leaves them in the light of the one supreme fact which reconciles all, the Word became Flesh; and we feel from first to last that this light is shining over the record of sorrow and triumph, of defeat and hope.
The view which has been given of the object of the Gospel enables us to form a general conception of what we must call its plan. This is, to express it as briefly as possible, the parallel development of faith and unbelief through the historical Presence of Christ. The Evangelist is guided in the selection, and in the arrangement, and in the treatment of his materials by his desire to fulfil this purpose. He takes a few out of the vast mass of facts at his disposal (xxi. 25, xx. 30), which are in his judgment suited to produce a particular effect. Every part of his narrative is referred to one final truth made clear by experience, that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." He makes no promise to compose a life of Christ, or to give a general view of His teaching, or to preserve a lively picture of the general effect which He produced on average observers, or to compose a chapter on the general history of his own times, or to add his personal recollections to memoirs of the Lord already current; nor have we any right to judge his narrative by the standard which would be applicable to any one of such writings. He works out his own design, and it is our first business to consider how he works it out. When this is done we shall be in a position to consider fairly the historical characteristics of the Gospel.
The development and details of St John's plan are considered at length elsewhere. Here it will be sufficient to indicate in a tabular form the outlines of the history.
The Word in His absolute, eternal Being; and in relation to Creation.
The Self-revelation of Christ to the world and to the Disciples.
(a) In Jerusalem (the impotent man healed on the Sabbath), v.
(b) In Galilee (the five thousand fed), vi.
(a) The Revelation of faith and unbelief, vii. — x. The Feast of Tabernacles, vii., viii. The Feast of Dedication (the blind man healed on the
The final sign and its issues (the raising of Lazarus), xi. The close of Christ's public ministry, xii.
II. — THE SELF-REVELATION OF CHRIST TO THE DISCIPLES (xiii. — xxi.).
i. The last acts of love (xiii. i — 30).
i. The Lord and the body of disciples (the miraculous draught of fishes), xxi. i — 14.
1 The data for fixing the chronology are very meagre. The following appears to be the best arrangement of the main events.
The Feast of the New Year (September), v. See Additional Note. Second Passover (April), vi. The Feast of Tabernacles (October), vii., viii. The Feast of Dedication (December), ix., x.;
Such in a rough outline appears to be the distribution of the parts of the Gospel. It will be felt at once how fragmentary the record is, and yet how complete. The incidents all contribute to the orderly development of the truths which it is the object of the Evangelist to commend to his readers. In developing the plan thus broadly denned he dwells on three pairs of ideas, witness and truth, glory and light, judgment and life. There is the manifold attestation of the divine mission: there is the progressive manifestation of the inherent majesty of the Son: there is the continuous and necessary effect which this manifestation produces on those to whom it is made; and the narrative may be fairly described as the simultaneous unfolding of these three themes, into which the great theme of faith and unbelief is divided. A rapid survey of their treatment will bring out many instructive features in the composition.