IN the German edition, the present work comprises three parts (8, 10, and 12) of the well-known “Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher.” The present edition gathers these discussions of the Johannine (and incidentally of the Synoptic) problem into a single volume. It has the further advantage—through the kindness of Prof. Schmiedel—of incorporating many manuscript improvements in and additions to the German text. For instance—not to mention smaller additions—§§ 26 and 27 in Pt. I. Chap. III. (pp. 130-136), the second and third paragraphs of § 13 in Pt. II. Chap. V. (pp. 255-257), and the second note in the Appendix (pp. 270-277) are entirely new. In fact, in this, as in other matters, Prof. Schmiedel has spared himself no trouble in order to lay the results of his studies in as complete a form as possible (having regard, of course, to the limitations imposed by a popular German series) before his English readers. In the List of Books at the end of the volume references will be found to some of the author’s contributions to the “Encyclopaedia Biblica “which bear directly upon the subject under consideration. It is hoped that the present work will serve as an introduction, and in some respects as a supplement, to Prof. Schmiedel’s famous “Encyclopaedia” articles.
THE TRANSLATOR.
July 1908.
THOSE whose knowledge of the Life of Jesus has been acquired
merely from Religious Instruction or from attendance at church services, or from
a “Bible History” designed for use in schools, do not realise how much of it is
based entirely upon the Fourth Gospel. If we did not possess this, we should know
nothing at all about the marriage-feast at Cana, about the cure of the sick man who
had lain for thirty-eight years by the Pool of Bethesda, about the gift of sight
to the man who was born blind, about the raising of Lazarus, about the washing of
the disciples’ feet on the last evening of Jesus’ life, and about the spear being
thrust into the side of the crucified Lord. As regards the expulsion of the dealers
and money-changers from the fore court of the Temple, our knowledge would be to
the effect that it happened not at the beginning, but at the end, of Jesus’
public
ministry. Of Jesus’ capture we should only have the report that it was effected by
a band of armed men despatched by the Jewish authorities, not that it was carried
out by the Roman soldiers. The day of Jesus’ death would be known to us as the day
after, not the day before, the evening on which the Jews ate the paschal lamb. In
the case of the crucifixion of Jesus, we should know no more than that, of all his
followers, only a number of women looked on from a distance; we should not be
These few observations are sufficient in themselves to give us pause to think. Why do the first three Evangelists tell us nothing of all that the Fourth is able to report? Did these things not come within the range of their experience? Yet at most of the events we have mentioned all those are reported to have been present who after wards became apostles; about the others also they must have received very soon afterwards quite definite information, and through them in due course, or through intermediaries, the authors of our Gospels. Or can it be that they had some reason for passing over the information in question? And yet how gladly would they have incorporated it in their books! This same information would surely have served the purpose which they had in view in the whole of their literary undertaking—that of making the figure of their Master shine forth in the brightest light—better almost than all that they have included in their narratives!
Why then did they not introduce it? Did they really have no experience of these episodes, though not indeed because they did not happen? We cannot avoid the question. Nor can we dispose of it off-hand, either in the affirmative or in the negative, by a few considerations. Nothing but a general review of the differences between the Fourth Gospel and the first three will enable us to supply the answer. And, first, these differences must be determined without any prepossessions whatever in favour of one or the other story; secondly, attempts to reconcile the two accounts, in spite of their divergences, must be made and tested; and then only after such attempts have failed shall we be called upon to decide definitely which of the two is the more trustworthy.
We say more trustworthy. The obvious thing to say would seem to be, Which account deserves to be trusted altogether? But that would not only be unwise for general reasons—because, for instance, an untrustworthy account is not always the necessary alternative to a thoroughly trustworthy one—but also because the matter is not really presented to us in this way. Should the scales turn in favour of the first three Gospels, we are still obliged to bear in mind continually such evidence as that produced by Wernle, for example, in the first number of this series (Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher), concerning the Sources for the Life of Jesus, which shows that none of these was composed by a man who saw Jesus’ ministry with his own eyes, and that their trustworthiness is subject to considerable limitations. If the Fourth Gospel deserve preference, its author would certainly appear to have been an eyewitness of the work of Jesus. But even then the possibility arises—and those who accept this view fully avail themselves of it—that in his recollection of events much of his material became dislocated or was more or less seriously obscured.
After comparing the Fourth Gospel with the first three as regards
its trustworthiness, our study must advance to an ever wider investigation of its
peculiar character, and must then bring to light its deeper roots in the conceptions
and ideas prevailing at the time. Later, in Part II. of the present work, we shall
have to come to some conclusion as to the author, and the time in which this book
and the writings related to it—all supposed to have been written by the same Apostle
John—were composed. Finally, we shall have to show the abiding value of these works.
Thus, at first we have to enter upon an enumeration of those special points in which
the Fourth Gospel differs from the other three. This
But, on the whole, we are concerned with nothing less than the question, What picture ought we ourselves to form of Jesus? The Fourth Gospel sketches the picture in a very pronounced and quite peculiar way, and no one can pass on without deciding for or against it. The main question with regard to this is whether its features accord with the figure of Jesus as he really existed upon earth, or whether such have been added as were derived from a different, and perhaps even a non-Christian, type of piety and view of the world. Here we have the reasons for including in the present series of books on the history of religion a particularly detailed, treatment of this remarkable book, which has already been called the most wonderful riddle—that is to say, the riddle most replete with what is inconceivable—of all the books of the New Testament.
Turning now to our actual investigation, in accordance with
general usage we shall gladly retain the name John (shortened to Jn.) to
describe the author, just as in the case of the three other Evangelists we keep
the names Matthew (Mt.), Mark (Mk.), Luke (Lk.). Strictly speaking, we should
have always to put these names in quotation marks;
The parallel passages from the other Gospels, which we do not quote, will be found on the margin of most Bibles, either by the side of the verse itself which forms part of a discourse, or at the head of a section to which it belongs. In a more convenient form they may be seen at a glance in a “Synopsis,” where they are always printed side by side (see the appended list of books). In addition, however, a copy of the New Testament will be indispensable, because, as one can easily understand, in a Synopsis the context in which a passage stands in the Gospel of which it forms part is not always clear.
At the least, it seems to us to be a matter of urgent necessity
that the reader should have a New Testament by his side. Nothing could be further
from our wishes than that people should be prepared, or think themselves condemned,
to believe our assertions without testing them.
By inserting the number of the chapters and verses in the text
of this book, we shall, we believe, be studying the reader’s convenience better
than by giving the references at the foot of the page or at the end of the work.
Those who are not interested in them will not, we hope, allow themselves to be distracted
by them or think that for their own convenience they should have been omitted altogether,
but will be prepared to pass over them. There are some readers—and we hope they
are many—who will wish to turn them up, and it may even happen that one of those
who in the first instance has felt the numbers to be distracting will suddenly
have to be included in the other class of readers. If we had done as he at first
wished he would now find himself obliged to search rather helplessly in a Bible
with which he is perhaps not very familiar.—An f. after a verse-number refers only
to the following verse.
ONE of the first points on which one wishes to be clear, if one
would obtain a general view of the stories of Jesus’ life, is this—How long did
Jesus’ public ministry last? As regards this, Jn. gives us information which is quite clear.
The expulsion of the dealers and money-changers from the fore-court of the Temple,
which was only preceded by the presence of Jesus at the marriage feast at Cana in
Galilee, took place when Jesus had gone up (
The Synoptics, on the other hand, do not allow us to fix its duration. They know of no festival except that of the Passover on which Jesus died. The natural thing to do of course would be to supplement them on this point from Jn. But they tell us just as little of any one of the journeys which Jesus is supposed to have made at so many of these festivals. So that if we wished to bring them into agreement with Jn., the effort to do so would give rise to a complaint all the more serious, that they are silent about such important matters. If we are bent on discovering, by means of a calculation which is quite uncertain, how long the public ministry of Jesus is supposed to have lasted, we shall hardly find that it lasted more than one year; in fact, a few months would perhaps suffice to cover all that the Gospels relate.
We have already had to touch upon another main point in which
the other Gospels differ from Jn. It affects the scene of Jesus’ ministry. According
to the Synoptics, Jesus did not come to Jerusalem or to Judaea at all—the most southern
of the three parts of the Jewish land lying between the east coast of the Mediterranean
Sea and the Jordan, which flows from the north to the south into the Dead Sea—until
a few days before his death. Previously he stayed uninterruptedly in Galilee, the
northernmost of these three parts. The shores of the Lake of Gennesareth are here
the chief scene of his ministry. On one occasion
Nevertheless Lk., and he alone, does represent this journey as
having been made through Samaria; in fact his account of it extends over nine whole
chapters (
In Jn. then the most important thing is this, that Jesus real
and abiding dwelling-place during his ministry is Judaea and especially Jerusalem.
To Galilee he came only on rare occasions and only for a short time: in
As to the journeys northward from the Lake of Galilee, Jn. is
entirely silent. Jesus comes to Peraea shortly before the last Passover according
to Jn. also, but on this occasion not by the pilgrimage route from Galilee to Jerusalem,
but from Jerusalem (
With whom then had Jesus to deal when he came forward to teach
in public? In the Synoptics with the most different classes of people. Here we
find crowds of people following him into the wilderness to listen to him for days
together. The sick come and ask for healing, sometimes abashed like the woman with
an issue of blood, who, with out being seen, hoped to be able to touch the hem of
his garment (
Where is all this varied picture in Jn.? Only a few of its features
confront us there. In Jn. also the Pharisees vigilantly enforce the command that
the Sabbath shall not be profaned by any work (
For the rest, Jesus is confronted only by a single class of men,
“the Jews.” Over thirty times this expression recurs in the first eleven chapters.
Of course in the Synoptics also they are all Jews with whom Jesus holds intercourse; but in them a distinction is actually made between Jews and Jews, which is not
made here. Every thing remains indefinite. To the sick man who was healed
In accordance with this, as far as the course of Jesus’
ministry
is concerned it might now be expected to have a very speedy and a violent termination.
In particular, it was the expulsion of the dealers from the fore-court of the Temple
that, according to the account of the Synoptics, sealed Jesus fate. And, as a matter
of fact, no officials could allow their sacred rights to be interfered with in this
way without letting all authority slip out of their
Now certainly it must not be overlooked that in the Synoptics
also (
In the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, although the circumstances
urgently require an immediate settlement of the question, it is deferred again and
again; and, finally the decision is caused by an event of which the Synoptics know
nothing at all—by the raising of Lazarus. The greatest of all miracles leads the
High Council, the highest authority among the Jewish people, to meet together and definitely
contemplate Jesus’ removal (
As to the fact that Jesus worked miracles, it is true, they are
all agreed. And it is only on the surface that the number, according to Jn.’s account,
has to be thought of as somewhat limited. He, as a matter of fact, continually presupposes
that it was large (
Next, it must certainly appear strange that the miracles reported
in Jn. are often more marvellous in their character than those in the corresponding
narratives of the Synoptics. Amongst the stories of cures in the Synoptics we do
not hear of a man being healed by Jesus who had been ill for thirty-eight years;
nor amongst the references to blind men, of sight being given to one who was born
blind. The daughter of Jairus, according to
It would also be a great mistake to suppose that the description
of the walking on the Lake of Galilee is more easy to accept in Jn.’s account (
Yet another view is suggested by the changing of the water into
wine at the marriage-feast at Cana (
Now the Synoptics also report certain works of wonder of this kind,
for example the withering of the fig-tree after Jesus had cursed it (
Now the view thus taken by Jn. is directly opposed to an
utterance of Jesus preserved to us in the Synoptics. When the Pharisees wish to
see a “sign” from him, he answers “there shall no sign be given unto this
generation.” So
In order to emphasise fully the importance of such passages, we
describe them as foundation-pillars of a really scientific Life of Jesus. That is
to say, every historian in whatever field he may work, in a story which shows that the author worshipped his hero, follows the principle of regarding as true anything
that runs counter to this worship, because it cannot be due to invention. Since we
possess several Gospels, we are in a position to note, in addition, how one or more
of them will sometimes remodel, sometimes remove altogether, passages of this nature
because they were too offensive to one who worshipped Jesus. In their original form,
therefore, such passages show us most certainly how Jesus really lived and thought,
that he did so in a way which we—though we fully recognise in him something divine—must describe as truly human. Secondly, if it were not for such passages we could
not be sure that we may, to some extent at least, rely upon the Gospels in which
they are found,
Naturally all that we find to be trustworthy in the Synoptics is by no means limited to these nine “foundation-pillars.” It is one of the chief duties of a historian to show that the success which a great character has had in history can be understood from his words and works. But in the case of Jesus the success has been so great that even an inquirer who is quite sober in his attitude towards him must search out and accept as true everything that was calculated to establish his greatness and to make the worship which was offered to him by his contemporaries intelligible, provided that it is not in conflict with the picture of Jesus presented by the foundation- pillars, and does not for other reasons arouse in us doubts which are well founded.
Coming back to Jesus’ words about the “sign of Jonah,” after what
has already been said about it, it may be gathered how lacking in intelligence the
man must have been who inserted, between the saying about the sign of Jonah and
that about the people of Nineveh, the sentence “for as Jonah was three days and
three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and
three
Why do we spend so much time on this point which is not found
at all in the Fourth Gospel? The reason is that in this too (
As regards the miracle at Cana we have still to note the rôle
played in it by Jesus mother. Although down to this time Jesus has never worked
a miracle (
The conception which we have formed of Jesus as a worker of wonders
will affect to an important extent the picture of him which is formed as a whole.
Here again it will not be forgotten that the Synoptics agree with Jn. in sketching
it with a grandeur which raises Jesus to a marked extent above the standard of what
is human. Yet they report that he also, like others, was baptized by John. In the
Fourth Gospel we look in vain for this information. Here we find only the later
report of the Baptist, that lie saw the Holy Spirit coming down upon Jesus from
heaven like a dove; and even this is supposed to have happened,
In Jn. also the fact recorded by the Synoptics (
In the Synoptics (
Mk. (
Furthermore, we read frequently in the Synoptics that Jesus prayed
to his heavenly Father, and that he sought solitude for this purpose (e.g.,
To this may now be added the continual examples of his omniscience.
Nathanael, who has only just come to him, Jesus has already seen under the fig-tree
before Philip called him to Jesus (
We may add further the continual examples of that
inviolability of his, which we have already referred to (above, p. 17): they
wished to seize him, but he suffered no harm. It will have become clear in the
meantime that the expression which occurs here, “he hid himself” (
When, however, his hour came, he gave himself up of his own accord.
Once more we read that the soldiers could do him no harm; at his words. “It is
I” whom ye seek, they go back and fall to the ground (500, if not 1000, Roman soldiers).
Judas, since it was dark, according to the Synoptics (
But, this being so, does the description of Jesus in the Fourth
Gospel embody no genuinely human characteristics? It is significant that even those
who still place this Gospel on a higher level than the other three would rather
the picture of Jesus were not so like a God as it is in the description we have
just given, following faithfully the real idea of the author But of all that they
can point to, the only thing which is at all worthy of consideration is found in
the words (
Or if this cannot really be seen here, can it not be recognised
even at the beginning of the narrative? If we were to read it aloud simply as far
as the words in
The words at the beginning of this sentence mean, not that this sickness will not cause the death of Lazarus, but that it will not lead to his remaining dead, for, as the concluding words show, Jesus knew beforehand that he would raise Lazarus, and that the miracle would serve for his own glorification. And he could only effect this and exceed all other miracles if he allowed the fourth day to come before he arrived at the sepulchre, since only then could any return to life be considered out of the question (see p. 19). Here then we have the real reason why he delayed his journey for two days.
In this case we can prove something more. Since the journey to
Bethany takes at most two days, and Jesus did not arrive there until the fourth
day after Lazarus’ death, Lazarus was already dead by the time the messengers reached
Jesus, and the Fourth Gospel presupposes that Jesus already knew this, by means
of course of that omni science with which it supposes him to be endowed. The sorrow
of the sisters, their longing for a word of comfort, their anxious waiting for one
who might have arrived long ago—all this is nothing to him; he is only concerned
about
In the character of Jesus as described by the Synoptics we are
allowed to see further that he developed both in thought and action. It would of
course be a very great mistake to suppose that they themselves were conscious of
any such development or believed in it. But they at any rate make such statements
as enable us, when we carefully examine them, to discover this truth. It is at a
relatively late date that Jesus in these Gospels is recognised by his disciples
to be the ardently hoped-for deliverer of his people, the God-sent inaugurator of
the kingdom of God, the Saviour, to use a popular term, or, as the Jewish name “Messiah” and the Greek name “Christus” mean, the “Anointed” of God. They do
not report it, that is to say until the public ministry of Jesus had continued for
a fairly long time, not until after he had found occasion to withdraw for the second
time beyond the northern boundary of Galilee (
Next, in the Synoptics we find Jesus saying at one time that he
has not come to destroy the Law of Moses, but only to fill it with its true import,
and so to deepen it (
Or when we read that Jesus went into foreign territory that he
might remain unrecognised, and that at first he roughly repulsed the Phoenician
woman who cried after him, beseeching him to heal her sick daughter, but after wards
paid attention to her (
Jn. does not give us the slightest clue to any such changes; Jesus in this Gospel suffers no alteration; he is the same from beginning to end.
The same contrast is seen again in a particularly clear way in
Jesus’ discourses. Here indeed the difference, as compared with the Synoptics, is
perhaps most clearly marked. It is apparent even in the form. In the first three
Gospels we have short, pithy utterances: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God”; “ye have heard that it was said to those of old . . . but I say
unto you . . .”; “they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick”;
“what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer loss of his own
life” (
Jesus parables are special gems in his discourses. We never cease
to be charmed by their vividness, the freshness of their colouring, and their appropriate
application to the religious and moral problems of life, and we feel that they really
must have been the best means of bringing eternal truths home to simple people in
whom dwells half unconsciously so deep a desire for them. The Fourth Gospel does
not contain a single parable. The only passage that approaches the parabolic form
is that in which Jesus compares himself to a vine and his disciples to the branches
(
And with what do the discourses of Jesus deal? In the Synoptics
almost exclusively with the question, What must one do to gain admittance into the
Kingdom of God? And the answer to the question is well-nigh exhausted when it is
summed up in the words, “Be pure in heart, love God and your neighbour, do God’s will”
(
He does so all the more frequently in the Fourth Gospel. Here
his person and its divine nature is almost the only subject of his discourses.
Jesus’ words to the sick man at Bethesda after his cure, “Sin no more, lest a worse thing
befall thee” (
And what are known as the Farewell-discourses of Jesus (
There is only one narrative in the Fourth Gospel in which the
utterances of Jesus do not serve the purpose of his own glorification, but are spoken
entirely for the sake of the persons with whom he is dealing; this is the story
of the woman who was taken in adultery and brought to Jesus (
What demands does Jesus make of his hearers in those discourses
which were really penned by the Fourth Evangelist? These can be expressed in a
few words. “Believe in my person and its divine character.” The man who was born
blind, after he has been healed, gradually arrives at the conviction that he who
has healed him must be a God fearing man, one who does God’s will; he must be “from God,” otherwise God would never have given him power to make a blind man see
(
In the Synoptics also Jesus requires faith. He says to Jairus
on their way to his daughter, whose death has just been announced to him, “Fear
not, only believe” (
We have in fact unimpeachable evidence to show that when it was
not cherished spontaneously, he never thought of asking people for it. When he came
forward publicly in his native town, Nazareth, people scorned him because they knew
whose son and brother he was, and he had to experience the truth that a prophet
has no honour in his own country. Now we are further told in Mk. (
In the Synoptics, in yet another sense Jesus asks for faith, even
if the word “faith” does not occur. According
Quite different from the Synoptics then is the method of Jn.
when he makes the person of Jesus and its divine origin the central feature in
Jesus’ discourses. The language agrees fairly well with theirs when the Fourth
Gospel also represents Jesus as requiring people to hear his words and to keep
them (
In Jn. therefore Jesus knows of nothing more important than his
own person; do people believe in its
The large measure of uniformity in the discourses of Jesus in
the Fourth Gospel means that these in themselves very soon reach their end. Nevertheless,
some misunderstanding, on the part of his hearers, gives Jesus remarkably frequent
occasion to prolong them. Sometimes indeed
In other passages, however, we are obliged to ask, on the contrary,
whether the intelligence of his hearers could really have been so feeble. Nicodemus—to give a single instance—is said to have been a teacher in Israel (
But perhaps we have not been fair to him. We have rendered the
words of Jesus according to their real sense: from above, that is to say from God,
must he be born, by God must he be destined and endowed, who is to have admittance
into the kingdom of God. But the words admit of another translation: “If any one
is not born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This is evidently the meaning
which Nicodemus attaches to the words when he puts his counter-question, and this,
at least externally, is not so senseless. Such ambiguity in Jesus language is no
accident; it occurs again on very many occasions. When, as we have just mentioned,
Jesus promises to give bread or meat to his hearers, on first thoughts and until
we have realised that there is a deeper meaning in the words, we cannot help thinking
that he really means ordinary food. It is the same with the water, which, as he
sits by a well, Jesus promises to give the woman of Samaria, and of which he says
that, after tasting it, she will never thirst again (
But at the same time another purpose is served. How can Philip,
who has spent two years with Jesus, desire him to show him the heavenly Father (
That the lack of intelligence in Jesus’ hearers and even in his disciples was not slight, is indicated often enough by the Synoptics also. On the other hand, their books do not suggest that Jesus teaching contained such unfathomable secrets, nor are they aware that he was so continually misunderstood, or that he himself provoked these misunderstandings by using expressions with more meanings than one.
WE might have shown many other differences between the Synoptics and Jn. But it will be better to notice them at a later stage. We shall therefore pause here to deal with a question which must have occurred to many of our readers long before this: Are the accounts in the four Gospels really so fundamentally different? Is there no way of reconciling them?
This question was quite urgent in the days when people felt obliged to cherish the belief that every letter in Holy Scripture was dictated by the Holy Spirit. In those days it had to be answered in the affirmative at any cost. And, as a matter of fact, the cost was not light—it did not involve merely effort and ingenuity, but meant giving up what seems obvious when the Bible is understood in a natural and unsophisticated way. And yet the attempt to establish complete harmony between the four Gospels (or, as was thought, simply the art of exhibiting this harmony), the nature of which suggested the name “Harmonics,” was for many centuries one of the chief pursuits of theological science.
Strictly speaking, there are only two courses open to us, If one and the same event seems to be reported in more Gospels than one, but in a more or less different way, we must either show that the difference in the statement is only apparent, or we must say that each account treats of a distinct event. The more seriously we regard the language, the more frequently will the second course be the one we shall have to take. Strict Harmonics, too, with quite special frequency arrives at this result by starting with the presupposition that each Evangelist not only tells us a story correct in every word, but also gives each particular event and utterance in the life of Jesus in its right order, though—and this could not be denied under any circumstances—he omits many things which are preserved in the other Gospels.
Thus, for example, it was necessary to show in each of the first
three Gospels at what point each of those journeys of Jesus to a feast reported
only in Jn. could be fitted in. In Jesus’ walking on the sea, Jn. (
But enough! The perseverance with which people have pursued all these suggestions—which from the outset are such as we cannot accept—to their utmost limit, and have put faith in them out of respect for the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to have inspired every letter of the Bible, certainly deserves to be fully recognised. Only one question is forbidden. How often may Jesus be supposed to have been born, baptized, crucified, and raised from the dead?
Present-day defenders of the trustworthiness of all the four Gospels
are far more modest in the claims which they make. They quietly assume that one
and the same event
We may set aside such palpably impossible attempts to deny that there are contradictions between the Synoptics and Jn., and give attention to such as are really worth discussing. But before we do this, it should be said that it is almost universally agreed that the author of the Fourth Gospel had the other three before him when he wrote.
To prove this we are not of course at liberty to cite at our pleasure
all kinds of things in which Jn. agrees with them, for these he might himself have
noted as an eye witness. We must specify passages which he would not certainly have
written, if he had not derived them from the Synoptics. Thus, for example, it is
very remarkable that Jesus ascends the mountain before the Feeding of the Five Thousand
(
But why does Jn. differ so often from the Synoptics, if he was acquainted with their books? The most important attempt to explain this consists in saying that his purpose throughout his book is to supplement the story of his predecessors and, where in small matters this was inexact, to correct it. This theory therefore presupposes further that he was himself present at the events described, and was entitled to think that wherever he made additions and corrections he was justified in doing so. Whether this is confirmed is a question we shall soon have to investigate more closely. We leave it for the present and simply ask, Can this double purpose, which is ascribed to him, be discovered at all in his book? As regards this intention to make corrections, it is certainly not easy to recognise it, for the author nowhere says: the matter was not thus, but thus. If then he made corrections, he must have made them quite quietly out of respect for his predecessors.
We prefer, therefore, in the first instance, to consider the question: Does he wish merely to give facts which are supplementary? In the case of the
narratives which are peculiar to him, this would be conceivable, as well as in the
But let us see rather more exactly how in detail people think
of the author as carrying out his purpose of supplementing
All? Strictly speaking, as a matter of fact, everything that
Jn. reports; for he never mentions a point at which the Baptist was imprisoned.
But this view of the matter would be quite impossible; for in the expression “not yet taken” Jn. betrays the fact that he knew very well of the arrest of the
Baptist, and thinks of it as happening during the public ministry of Jesus. But
when? Before
At the best, therefore, the assumption could be used for the events
which Jn. narrates in
And here in fact it suits his purpose very well. It is only the
statement, that Jesus baptized, and did so while John was still at work, that enables
him to represent the interesting situation in which the number of the followers
of the Baptist is becoming smaller and smaller, and that of the followers of Jesus
growing larger and larger. And this is one of Jn.’s chief aims. “He must increase,
but I must decrease” (
Only one? Of course the picture includes that other feature we have mentioned; John the Baptist is still at large. Must we see in this a correct addition, a correction made by an eye-witness when the same “eye-witness” in another verse not far off has told us with equal precision something which on his own admission is not true? Must we base upon this our idea of the purpose of correction which he followed throughout his book? A different idea of his purpose has resulted, with an incomparably greater amount of probability, from this very example; he wishes to be not a reporter who is to be taken at his word, but a painter; a painter of vivid scenes designed to make clear and impressive a higher truth—in the present instance the truth that John was only the forerunner of Jesus, and had to take an entirely subordinate place, in fact does so of his own free will. And if we now ask again, how long the Evangelist imagines the Baptist to be still at large while Jesus is at work, the only answer can be: merely for this particular scene, and not for those that follow. Once his retirement before Jesus has been described, the Baptist is so unimportant to Jn. that he does not think his arrest worth reporting. Indeed, even in the case of preceding events (the marriage at Cana, the expulsion of the dealers from the fore-court of the Temple, the conversation with Nicodemus), he seems to have hardly thought that they occurred while the Baptist was still at large.
But the theory that Jn. wishes to supplement the Synoptics by
giving the earliest events in the public life of Jesus is overthrown by what we
are told as regards the discourses of Jesus, when it is presupposed that these also
served the purpose of supplementing the Synoptics. If
But an attempt is made in another way to show that Jn. could not
really be in conflict with his predecessors. Those who make it find in the Synoptics
themselves passages here and there which confirm, as they think, the story of Jn.
In particular, several journeys of Jesus to Jerusalem, connected with a public appearance
there, are, they say, presupposed
When we do this, it is clear in the very first instance that it
does not read as people think it does, and in the way in which we have rendered
it above, intentionally following the general practice, in order to show what mistakes
one is liable to make when one follows a popular custom. In reality—and in Lk. (
On the other hand, the remarkable form of the sentence
The Wisdom of God is represented in several books of the Old Testament
as a person who takes up the word (
But what kind of book was it? If the Scribes were mentioned amongst
those men who were sent by God to the people, it was the work of a pious Jew who
reproached his people for being stiff-necked, and was anxious to induce them to
repent. Whether it had the title “Wisdom”—perhaps with some addition—or whether
Wisdom was simply represented as speaking in it, we do not know. From this book,
according to the story of the predecessor of our Mt. and Lk., Jesus quoted a passage
in support of his own words in which he warned the Pharisees that they would be
punished. In this way it is still used in Lk. Mt., on the other hand, has wrongly
understood it and introduced it in such a way that Jesus uses the words as his own,
and Lk. also, as regards the utterance about Jerusalem, shares
It would be still more important if we could find a second passage
in the Synoptics fitted to confirm the story of Jn. We mean such confirmation as
would relate not merely to one particular point, such as the journeys of Jesus to
Jerusalem, but to the whole character of Jesus’ discourses. We have in mind
Now it is certainly remarkable that in the Synoptics only this one saying can be found which gives expression to this thought, and might be compared to the discourses of Jesus in Jn. If, as is claimed, it really implies confirmation of these, again all that we get is a new puzzle as regards the Synoptics: why in these does Jesus not speak in this way more often, instead of talking everywhere else in such an entirely different way? This consideration obliges us to re-examine the utterance more closely.
This also originally read quite differently. All ecclesiastical and heretical writers of the second century, who give us any information about this passage, entirely or in part support the following version: “All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one hath known the Father, save the Son, neither the Son save the Father, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.”
Even the Church Father, Irenaeus, about A.D. 185, who warmly upbraids
a Christian sect for making use of this version, follows it several times in his
writings; it must therefore have really been found in his own Bible. As compared
with it, the version which we now have in the Bible cannot under any circumstances
claim the preference. It is true that our oldest copies of the Bible contain it,
but they are about two centuries later than the authorities we have mentioned. And
no plausible reason can be given why the version current in the second century should
be due to a deliberate change on the part of a Christian sect; on the other hand,
since the one form must have arisen through an alteration of the other, it is very
conceivable that it is the text in our present Bible which has resulted from a change,
because, we may suppose, the writer was
Is the difference so great then? At first sight it might seem slight. But that is a very wrong impression. While we read, “No one knoweth the Son . . . the Father,” a mutual knowledge from eternity may be meant, and, as we said just now, this is one of the ideas of the Fourth Gospel. When, however, we read, “no one hath known,” a definite point of time is fixed at which the knowledge first began; and when Jesus goes on to say of himself, “no one has known the Father but the Son,” it is clear that the knowledge of the Father cannot have commenced before some definite date in his earthly life, since the Synoptics are not aware that Jesus existed in heaven before he lived on earth. Nevertheless, if the words in the first place were, “no one hath known the Son save the Father,” it would still be possible that at any rate the knowledge on the part of God was present from eternity, and this would be in agreement with the style of thought in the Fourth Gospel. But a second important peculiarity in the oldest version is found in this very fact that the first place is assigned to the clause, “No one hath known the Father save the Son,” and that the other clause follows, “No one hath known the Son, save the Father.” And since the knowledge spoken of first was not gained earlier than during the earthly life of Jesus, we cannot suppose that the knowledge referred to in the second clause belongs to an earlier date.
The meaning is really quite simple: Jesus alone has acquired
the knowledge that God is not a Lord who is jealous for his own honour, and cannot
be approached by men, but is a loving Father. This of itself means that he can feel
himself to be a son of God. It is a feeling of his own, however, which no one so
far has realised—none of his hearers,
Strictly speaking, when the knowledge that God is the Father dawns
upon any man, he can feel that he himself is His son; this knowledge Jesus wished
to bring to all, and said, “blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called
the sons of God,” “love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, that
ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven” (
Turning again to
Are all these thoughts similar to those found in the Fourth Gospel? Far from it. On the contrary, no utterance harmonises with the spirit of Jesus’ discourses in the Synoptics so well as the one we have been considering if we hold fast to its original language. In fact, it is precisely this that enables us for the first time to under stand fully how Jesus came to be what he was according to the Synoptics; at first he was quite simply a man who in the course of his mental development realised that he had a Father in heaven; next he became one who felt himself called by this Father of his to be a leader, sent to the people, because he found that he stood quite alone in having this knowledge, and yet could not be silent about it; and from this it was easy to take a further step and to feel obliged to regard himself as that highest messenger sent by God, whom his people and his age thought of as the one who had been long promised, as the Messiah.
What remains, if we still wish to maintain that the Fourth Gospel is in agreement with the first three? If we disregard various other expedients, which are far less likely to be satisfactory than those we have already discussed, there is only one left. We are told by the Church Fathers that at the end of the first century the Apostle John was still living. This being so, it is eagerly assumed that he did not write his gospel until shortly before his death. And whereas his great age obscured his recollection of many matters in the life of Jesus, he remembered other things quite correctly. This explains, it is said, how it is that his book, apart from much that is incorrect, contains much that serves to correct the story of the Synoptics.
In itself this assumption has nothing impossible about it; if
indeed it could be accepted that the Gospel was composed by the apostle and in
his old age, this theory might be deemed fairly probable. Since, however, we must
first examine the two presuppositions on which it is based, let us at the outset
put the simple question, What would the result be? At least not this—that Jn., as
compared with the Synoptics, must always be regarded as everywhere right. This particular
idea therefore is abandoned as being untenable. To what extent is he right then? To suit the real desire of those who put forward this theory, he is right on as
many points as possible. For the main purpose of these people is to support the
idea that we have in Jn. the work of an eye-witness of the life of Jesus. But when
we examine the matter more closely, his trustworthiness is
In particular, as regards the discourses of Jesus, it is more and more generally conceded that it was the aged John who first conceived them in the style in which they appear in the Fourth Gospel. His conception of Jesus changed in the course of his long life, and as these new ideas took shape his recollection of the discourses of Jesus altered as well. If this were assumed to a moderate extent, it might seem conceivable; but people would never have jumped at so doubtful an expedient, unless the difference between Jn.’s style of discourse and the other style, which may really be accepted as original, were very marked indeed.
Thus the result of emphasising the great age of John is really the opposite of what was intended. The desire was simply to defend the trustworthiness of the Fourth Gospel as against the Synoptics, and yet the would-be defenders are obliged in a clear, if rather veiled, manner to admit that on most points he is untrustworthy.
We have now come to the end of the attempts to reconcile the accounts of the life of Jesus in the Synoptics and in Jn. In conclusion, we can only say that we sincerely pity any one who engages in this labour. If on many particular points his efforts seem to be really satisfactory to him, he can never rejoice at his success; for he has no sooner shown that it is not absolutely impossible to reconcile some new little circumstance in Jn. with the Synoptics than a whole series of others come to light which defy every attempt at reconciliation.
DECISION AS TO WHICH IS THE MORE TRUST WORTHY: THE STORY OF THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS OR OF THE FOURTH?
WE have then to make a choice. And from what has already been said we are not as yet precluded from giving decided preference to Jn.
Beyond question there are people who think such a picture of Jesus
as the Fourth Gospel gives not merely beautiful in the sense in which even a fairy-tale
may be felt to be beautiful, but also more trustworthy than that of the Synoptics.
They are not concerned to find Jesus humanly intelligible in his whole character; on the contrary, the less human it is, the truer does it seem to them to be. It
is not merely that they want one who can do the greatest miracles, but they really
think it a most likely thing that, when the time was fulfilled, God would have caused
exactly such a Saviour to appear. They are not disturbed when they find that
Jesus’ enemies, in spite of all their efforts, never succeeded in overpowering him, and
think it quite natural that the attempts did not succeed because God tied their
hands. It
We have no idea of arguing with people who feel in this way. We do not wish to destroy their idea; we respect it. One thing, however, they cannot expect us to attribute to them—we mean, the historical sense. Every one who has had much to do with history knows that, to understand events and characters, it is of the first importance to look for such explanations as suggest themselves to us from experience of other human happenings. There will always be points which we cannot clear up in this way. But every student of history knows that he would be defeating his own purpose if he were to set aside those obvious explanations which hold good again and again in all human experience and were to try to put in place of them indefinite and unusual explanations, such as a miracle, a direct intervention on the part of God. In other branches of history, even those people whom we have described above carefully avoid this; it is only in the field of “sacred” history that they prefer the dark to the clear, the inconceivable to the conceivable, the miraculous to the natural.
When we address our question, Do the Synoptics or Jn. deserve the preference? to those who do not care to make such a distinction between “sacred” and ordinary human history, who, though they are quite prepared to find in the history of Jesus and especially in his inmost character much that is unfathomable, would like even here to see as much that is clear and humanly intelligible as it is possible to see, we are almost inclined to conjecture that the decision has already been made. Much as we have tried, in enumerating the distinctions between the two stories of the life of Jesus, to make the facts alone speak, we could not help it if these made the scale turn in favour of the Synoptics: and the review of the attempts which have been made to reconcile the two accounts could hardly fail to strengthen this impression.
Our task is now therefore merely to sum up the matter as briefly as possible, and then to give a rather more detailed treatment of some further points in which the trustworthiness of Jn. really needs to be more thoroughly investigated or in which it is still necessary to explain how it is that Jn. has come to make statements differing so widely from the truth. When we do this it will be time to say plainly what we think of these statements, whereas so far we have refrained from doing so, and have faithfully followed our purpose of giving in the first instance only the facts (p. 4).
Which is more likely—that Jesus came into contact with all sorts
and conditions of men amongst his people and
But if from the first Jesus really met with so much hostility,
how are we to understand why he was so long allowed such freedom? Is it conceivable
that, after driving the dealers from the fore-court of the Temple, and supposing that it took place at the beginning of his visits to Jerusalem, he could have continued
to work for two years unmolested? In Galilee, it would be easier to think this;
But if Jesus really met with a friendly reception and had a following,
especially amongst the humble and oppressed members of his race—and no one would
like to give up the idea that he had—which is the more likely, that this success
was due to the style of addresses the Synoptics describe him as giving to the people
or to that which Jn. describes? In the Synoptics he really lifts from the people
the heavy yoke of the Old Testament law with its thousand impossible precepts,
and substitutes the light yoke of a free, childlike obedience to the simple command
to love God and one’s neighbour; in Jn., instead of this, we find nothing but an
incessant command, supported by bare assurances and awe-inspiring miracles, to believe
in him and his coming from heaven. It was really difficult for a soul in anguish
to derive any comfort from it. There is certainly nothing more touching to such
a soul known to any one—not even to the worshippers of the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel—than the parable of the Prodigal Son (
We have reached a point at which we may also say that it is not the hearers of Jesus who are to be accused of having seriously misunderstood his discourses, and that it was not Jesus who intentionally provoked the misunderstandings. The author himself inserts in Jesus’ discourses, when they have, as a matter of fact, already reached their end, some expression having more meanings than one, in order that he may proceed to tell us how, when the hearers of Jesus understood him in an external, material sense, he explained his deeper, spiritual meaning, and in so doing brought to light on the one hand a want of intelligence on the part of the people, and even of the disciples, and on the other the unsuspected profundity of his own disclosures. These misunderstandings are not therefore the reminiscences of an eye-witness, but a device employed by the author.
When we consider further how limited a number of ideas are continually
repeated in these discourses in a way which is felt to be quite monotonous and tedious
even by very many
But we have still to add something which has not so far been mentioned: in Jn. Jesus continues a discourse even when in the meantime a series of events
have happened, and when of course the audience has changed. He says, for example,
at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple (
That, in spite of this, he should speak as if the healing at Bethesda
had only just happened is so striking as to have given rise to the theory that the
page which contained this continuation of the discourse got shifted in Jn.’s manuscript
or in one of the oldest copies of it, from its proper place in the book, and was
reinserted in a wrong place farther
The matter is much simpler. As we found in the case of the misunderstandings, it is not Jesus but the Evangelist who enlarges upon the ideas and spins out the discourses. He imagines Jesus as having always the same hearers, because he has no real recollection of actual cases in which Jesus confronted the people. It is his fault, and not the fault of Jesus, that no account is taken of the intervals which must have elapsed between two of Jesus utterances which could not have been so close together in actual life as they are on paper.
This explains further how it is that the discourses of Jesus and
the remarks of the Evangelist himself are often so
In these cases there is certainly a considerable amount of carelessness
on the part of the Evangelist. But the most friendly critic cannot deny that there
is evidence of it in other places as well. At the beginning of the story of the
raising of Lazarus, Jn. mentions (
Further, in how colourless a way many of the scenes in Jn. are
sketched! Certain Greeks come (
Even John the Baptist has suffered the same fate. In the Synoptics
he conies before us a character which of itself would have a claim to interest us
greatly, even if it had never been brought into close touch with Jesus. The purpose of his baptism and preaching of repentance, and their benefit to the people,
would have been achieved in any case. It is not merely his pathetic death (
In the Fourth Gospel, however, the Baptist knows from the beginning
not only of Jesus higher nature, as in Mt., and that he was destined to be the Redeemer
of the whole world (
How is it that the circumstances of many events are so obscurely
sketched in the Fourth Gospel? We can some times explain this quite definitely.
It is because the author starts in a careless way from an account in the Synoptics.
Thus we had an instance (p. 51) already in
But the most important example of his following the Synoptics
and at the same time carelessly tacking his story on to theirs, is found in Jn.’s account (
Must we indeed believe that all this was really observed by an
eye-witness John? Or have events which, according to the Synoptics, happened at
three different places with quite different persons and in a quite different way
been simply worked up into one in the style of the writer of Jn.? That may be best
decided by a consideration of the last fact which he reports: Mary anointed
Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair. She could hardly have done anything more awkward.
The ointment was too precious to be used for her hair. On this point Judas, who
afterwards betrayed his Lord, was right; the ointment should have been sold and
the proceeds (about 240 shillings) given to the poor (
The raising of Lazarus, which is supposed to have taken place
in Bethany, suggests that at this point it may be well to say all that remains to
be said about the astounding nature of the miracles in the Fourth Gospel. What we
shall say applies equally to the turning of water into wine at Cana, to the healing
at the Pool of Bethesda of the man who had been lame for thirty-eight years, to
the cure of the man born blind, &c. But it may suffice to explain what we mean,
by dealing with the raising of Lazarus, which did not take place until the fourth
day after death, when the body would already have become putrid. Martha actually
refers to this fact (
We ourselves do not at once assume this attitude, We remember
not only that an incredible story may have found its way even into a book which
is otherwise credible; we feel bound also to examine more closely the actual manner
in which it is demonstrated that this miracle-story as well as the others in the
Fourth Gospel and in the
If we are to be able to say that a matter has been proved, it is necessary that it should have been proved by facts. In the case of a miracle-story, for example, we consider it to have been really proved that nothing miraculous happened, only when we have found the same phenomenon reappearing a second time and are certain that here no other than quite natural causes have operated. We call this kind of proof, proof from experience. The other kind is known as proof from reasoning. Whoever uses the latter in support of the contention that there are no miracles will say either, that the laws of Nature are unalterable, and a miracle would be no miracle unless one or more of the laws of nature were suspended; or he will say, it would be a contradiction of His character, rightly understood, if God were to suspend the laws of Nature the operation of which He has made so inviolable.
Let us devote just a few words to the notion—unfortunately very common among theologians—that a miracle is not contrary to the laws of Nature, but that certain forces come into operation which are quite natural but are not as yet known to us. Of course in earlier times Electricity and quite a short time ago the Röntgen rays were not known to us, and some occurrence due to these forces might easily have seemed miraculous, so that no man, even if he were only half-witted, would think of denying that all the forces of Nature are not as yet known to us. But what is the use of calling something a miracle which is due to forces like these which are quite natural, though still unknown to us? These are miracles which no one in the world would regard as impossible. But the chief aim of those who pride themselves on believing in miracles is to distinguish themselves in this way—to their own advantage—from those who do not believe in them and for this reason, in the opinion of their opponents, deserve to be called “infidels.” That they have no right to make free with these quite natural but unknown forces, and by calling them to their aid to make miracles of as many occurrences as possible, is a fact that we need only mention in passing.
Another favourite contention is that in working a miracle God
only makes certain forces, which are natural and known to us, operate in an extraordinary
way, just as a man does when he makes a clock strike before the hour by moving the
hand. We refrain from insisting here that such intervention on the part of God
would involve a breach in the natural order of things, for this reflection will
not trouble those who imagine the natural order of things to be not something unconditionally
willed by God, a part of His own nature, but a limitation imposed upon him (by whom?), and who are only satisfied, nay can only see in Him a living God
But if any one who for this reason pronounces miracles to be
impossible is asked how he would prove it, he can in reality make no other reply
than this: “I have come to that conclusion after using my reason to the best of my power.”
But this conclusion is not drawn by every one, whereas a fact of experience is recognised
by all. And supposing he should say: “If the laws of Nature could ever cease to
operate, there could no longer be any such study as Natural Science, we could no
longer construct machines, and reckon on the working of a machine or of any
other force in Nature”; the answer would be somewhat as follows: the point is not
whether we can do all this, but how the world is actually constituted; if there
are miracles in it,
Now it has been proved, and proved by experience, that we can do these things; and whenever things do not work as the natural scientist or the technical worker expected, he regularly finds out afterwards that the fault is not with Nature, but that he himself has made a miscalculation and been the cause of the failure. But, strictly speaking, what this means is only that the number of miracles, if miracles there are, must be very small, and moreover the fact only applies to the present time; as regards the distant past, before every occurrence was observed as closely as it is now, one may still suppose that miracles happened in greater number. To try to dispute this with any prospect of success, one should be able to investigate all the miracle-stories of the past which have come down to us, and to show the events to have been perfectly natural; but we are no longer in a position to do this. In fact, even if we were, it would not help us sufficiently; for miracles might have happened which have not been recorded at all. And were it possible to trace these also to natural causes, we should be powerless to prevent an event taking place to-morrow which we should be obliged to recognise as a miracle, and nothing would then be gained by the statement that there are no such things as miracles. A scientific caution therefore bids us in no case to make this statement a guiding principle.
But we have only reached this result quite provisionally. It will
take us a step further if I may be allowed to recall a personal experience. When
I had occasion some years ago to express the above ideas to my class at the University,
And what is the use of the knowledge we possess of so many other
religions if we refuse to use it in order to find
In the case of Buddha the utterance is preserved: “I do not
teach my disciples, Do miracles by means of your supernatural power . . .; I say
to them, Live by concealing your good works and making your sins to be seen.” Confucius, the founder of the Chinese religion, or rather of their political and moral
science, is reported to have said: “Investigate what is obscure, do what is wonderful,
that later generations may say of it, I do not like these things.” In the case of
Zarathustra, the founder of the Persian religion as committed to writing in the
Zend-Avesta, we read: “God said to me, If the king asks for a sign, do thou say,
Only read the Zend-Avesta, and you will need no miracles.” In the Koran we find
God saying to Muhammed: “Thy destiny is to preach and not to do miracles.”
Muhammed appeals to God’s great miracles, the rising and setting of the sun, the
rain, the growth of the plants, and the birth of souls; these are the true
wonders to those who know what faith is.
To these we may add in conclusion the saying of Kant, the founder of the newer philosophy: “Wise governments have at all times conceded, in fact have legally incorporated the notion in the public doctrines of religion, that in olden times miracles happened, but they have not allowed new miracles to happen. As regards new wonder-workers, they must have feared the effects they might have on the public peace and the established order.” It is not difficult in the case of so clear a thinker to read between the lines: if, he would say, in olden times there had already been a wise government, it would not have allowed miracles to happen even in those days.
From which presupposition then ought we to start, if we wish
to decide the question whether miracle-stories deserve belief? Strictly
speaking, from none. But that is not possible. We always bring to the
consideration of a subject
some kind of presupposition. After what has been said, this must not be to the effect
that miracles are not possible. But it would be still worse to assume, that miracles
may easily happen. One who starts with this presupposition will certainly regard
many occurrences as miracles in which everything has been brought about by causes
which are quite natural. If then we cannot avoid starting with a presupposition,
it can only of course be one that has already stood its trial in other cases, not
one which has never yet been tested. In the present case therefore it can only be
this, that any miracle-story we propose to examine will, presumably, admit of exactly
the same natural explanation as others which we have so far been able closely to
investigate. It is therefore not only permissible, but is our bounden duty, to
try with all the means at our disposal to explain such matters by natural causes.
While we do this, we must be ready to find a miracle if
Until such obstacles arise, we are entitled to accept the two statements, (1) that the laws of Nature are unchangeable and (2) that God himself does not desire to suspend them by a miracle. Only we must be clear on this point—that they are not matters which have been proved quite sufficiently, but in spite of all that can be advanced in their favour, are never anything more than a belief.
If we know a miracle-story only from written accounts—which is
the case with those of the Bible—the first question we must ask is, Do these accounts
show themselves to be reliable in every detail? For instance, it is not a matter
of no importance, whether Jesus healed one blind man before he entered the city
of Jericho (so
As compared with the stories in the Synoptics, the only one in
Jn. that can be said to contain an actual contradiction is that of Jesus’
walking
on the sea, since Jesus crossed not merely a part but the whole of the sea, and
is not supposed to have been taken into the boat (see above, p. 19 f.). In the other
miracle stories in this Gospel (apart from that of the Feeding), contradictions
are impossible, because the Synoptics do not include the stories. But this silence
on their part is the very thing that cannot fail to make us feel the most serious
doubts. These miracles which are known only to the Fourth Gospel are actually the
most stupendous recorded: the turning of the water into wine at Cana, the healing
of the man who was thirty-eight years a paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, the cure
of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. (It is difficult to say whether
by the cure of the son of a royal official at Capernaum,
Why these particular miracles should have been passed over by the Synoptics, if they really happened, it is absolutely impossible to imagine. What real arguments have those scholars who hold them to be true to offer, in order to explain the fact that there is not a word about them in the Synoptics? Once more it will be sufficient to fix our attention on the Raising of Lazarus.
We are told, for instance, that among the great mass of persons
who were raised (!) by Jesus, the Synoptists might easily have forgotten Lazarus; or that they did not think themselves gifted enough to be able to gather up the
preeminent importance of the event for the career of Jesus; or that they did not
credit themselves with sufficiently delicate and lively feeling to be able to report
it worthily; or that they were silent out of respect for the relatives of Lazarus
who were still living (as if the story would not, on the contrary, have redounded
to their honour); or that they did not think themselves to be sufficiently well
instructed as to the details; or that the matter did not come to their ears because
it took place before the arrival of the pilgrims from Galilee for the Easter festival
(this would be to disregard
It could not really be shown in a more lamentable way that we cannot discover a single intelligible reason why the Synoptists have not related the Raising of Lazarus. To make such statements is at the same time to pronounce sentence that the event never happened. We see then that to arrive at this conviction it was not necessary to be shy of miracles; the way in which the story is told is in itself quite sufficient for our conclusion. And this is equally true of the other miracle stories which are found only in Jn.
But why does Jn. introduce such incredible matters? Is it purely
from a delight in the wonderful? Is it from the idea that Jesus could only in this
way have shown himself to be the Saviour? Certainly he held this idea, and even
attached importance to it (see p. 20 f.). But we should be doing him a great wrong,
if we were disposed to think this his sole motive for telling us that such miracles
were worked by Jesus. The fact that he describes so few in detail is itself an argument
against this. But he also makes us realise clearly that each of these miracles has
a deeper sense, a symbolic meaning; that is to say, that it is meant to express
a religious idea in a picture as it were. In the case of the .Raising of Lazarus,
he himself has supplied in the clearest manner the legend to the picture. Martha
expresses to Jesus clearly, if shyly, her hope that he will raise her brother: “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. And even now I know that
whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee” (
Is it the same thing when Lazarus is immediately after wards summoned to come forth from the grave? By no means. Lazarus receives back the life of the body; but that spiritually eternal life of which we have spoken is a treasure which is stored in the depth of one’s heart. To call Lazarus back to life, one of the greatest miraculous interventions in the laws of Nature was required; to bring to birth the spiritually eternal life of which we have spoken, only faith was needed. Lazarus can do nothing to help himself to come forth from the grave; whoever wishes to have the spiritually eternal life, must himself do his best within his own heart to call forth faith. Sooner or later Lazarus must die again; the spiritually eternal life, once gained, can never again be lost. Finally, Lazarus is only one man, and though we are certain that Jesus loved all other men, yet he is obliged to leave them all in the grave; but the spiritually eternal life is to be denied to no one. In brief, the thought of that eternal life which Jesus here speaks of as the essence of his message to Martha rises high as the heavens above the work which he afterwards per forms on Lazarus; so high that it has even been thought that the two things were not originally connected, and that the Raising of Lazarus was inserted in the original book of Jn. by a later writer. That is of course a great mistake. Both belong together very well, but only in the same way as a deeply spiritual thought belongs to the picture which gives it clear, if inadequate, expression in a visible occurrence.
Imagine a painter who wishes by means of his art to represent
the thought: “Whosoever believes on me will live, even though he dies, and whosoever
lives and believes on me will never die.” Can he represent the feeling of his heart
on canvas? What better symbol will he choose than
Did he also not believe it? That would certainly be the most
noteworthy aspect of the matter. Before we enter more closely into the question
whether we ought to think this, we must take a wider survey. Clearly, the Raising
of Lazarus is by no means the only instance in which a miracle is used to represent
an idea. On the contrary, this point of view can be applied very easily to all
the miracle-stories of the Fourth Gospel; and for the most part the Evangelist
himself supplies us with a very clear clue. The legend which should be inscribed
under the picture of the healing of the man born blind is found in
But if this is once assured, it is no longer difficult to recognise
also the deeper meaning of Jesus’ Walking on the Sea, which is linked to the Feeding
of the Five Thousand as an event of the same evening. True, it might be thought
that it has simply been taken over from the Synoptics, where also it follows the
Feeding. But, as a matter of fact, Jn. does not repeat other miracle-stories found
in the Synoptics. His repetition of this one, however, fits in very well with his
purpose. When the Supper is celebrated at one and the same time in the most diverse
places throughout the whole of Christendom, it is presupposed everywhere that Jesus
is present at the celebration. Yet this could not be, if he were subject to the
laws by which man is confined to the limits of space. Now, no single story in the
Synoptics better expresses the idea that he was not so limited than that of
In the case of the sick man at the Pool of Bethesda we have a
clue as to how we are to understand his sickness, as regards the time it had lasted.
For thirty-eight years the people of Israel had been obliged, as a punishment for
their disobedience to God, to wander in the wilderness, without being permitted
to set foot on the promised land of Canaan (
The wine into which Jesus changed the water at Cana is then, of
course, the new, glowing and inspiring religion which Jesus puts in the place of
a weak Judaism. With this is grouped—and not without intention—the expulsion of
the dealers and moneychangers from the fore-court of the Temple (
Again, with the healing at the Pool of Bethesda is connected
that of the son of the royal official at Capernaum (
Thus in all the miracle-stories of the Fourth Gospel, a deeper
thought can be recognised which they present vividly to us as in a picture. Now,
as regards the problem suggested above (p. 97), when we were dealing with the
Raising of Lazarus, whether in spite of all that has been said, the author held
them to be actual occurrences, for the present this at least is clear, that the
interest in the question whether a miracle really happened becomes secondary at
once, if the miracle is used to represent nothing more than an idea. And so we
discover in these stories some discord in the thought of the Fourth Evangelist.
Side by side with the absolute value that he attaches to Jesus’ works of wonder
being recognised as real occurrences (p. 21), we note a certain indifference to
the matter. Nor is it necessary to base this conclusion entirely upon our
present examination; he has given even more definite expression to this
indifference in other places. When many in Jerusalem believed on Jesus on
account of his works of wonder, he did not trust himself unto them (
Something more certain from which to start in this matter is found
in the Synoptics. According to Mk. (
Shortly before, Mk. and Mt. have recounted the Feeding of the
Five Thousand and that of the Four Thousand as actual occurrences. When Jesus
now reminds the disciples of these, they must have been confirmed in their first
thought, that by the leaven of which they were to beware he meant real loaves,
and must have believed that, to make up for the omission, he would procure them
loaves in as wonderful a way as he had done in the case of the two Feedings.
Now, it would in itself be very surprising that Jesus should have offered to
repair a piece of forgetfulness on the part of the disciples by exercising his
miraculous power. In such a case, we certainly could not speak of a higher
divine purpose for which he used this miraculous power, and say that he was
actuated by love and compassion. But such reflections are not really necessary.
The result of Jesus calling to mind the two Feedings is this:
The solution of the riddle is, however, not so difficult after all; we must only have the courage to think out the ideas of the story to the end. If the disciples by that of which Jesus reminds them are made to see that by leaven Jesus did not mean loaves but teaching, then in those earlier cases they cannot have seen and eaten loaves, but must simply have heard about loaves—and have heard too that the loaves meant teaching. In other words, the things of which they were reminded (and rightly reminded), when they thought of the Feedings, were not events in the life of Jesus, but discourses, in which he had compared his teaching with bread, by which the soul is satisfied. Now it suddenly dawns upon us also why more bread is said to have remained over than there was at first. Had the bread been real, this would have been a pure miracle. On the other hand, when Jesus propounds his teaching, it is quite natural that it should arouse new ideas in the minds of his hearers, and awaken new impulses; and that they them selves, enriching what they had heard by their own experiences and feelings, should carry it farther.
It is not enough, therefore, to see that the two miracle stories
were certainly one at the beginning, and only came to be regarded as two distinct
events at a later date when through the carelessness of the narrators the number
of the partakers, of the loaves, and of the baskets of broken pieces, was changed.
We must go farther and declare, in all seriousness, that no miraculous feeding took
place, nor even a feeding which merely appeared miraculous. It
The only miraculous feature in the stories of the Feedings is therefore this: that by the side of them the story of the leaven of the Pharisees should also have found a place in the Gospels. Certainly Mk. and Mt. have not proved themselves very careful here; the words “Do ye not perceive?” apply to them also. But we have no reason to complain of them. If they had noticed the contradiction, they would certainly not have omitted the stories of the Feedings, but, rather, the narrative under consideration; and it would then have been much harder for us to recognise the real situation. In reality, they have faithfully preserved the narrative, because it had been transmitted to them. And we must recognise this with the greater satisfaction, because in other places in their Gospels we have been obliged to note many arbitrary alterations in the accounts, and because, again, it has not been possible for them to preserve correctly other matter, they themselves having become acquainted with it in a distorted form. Thus, for example, exactly what was narrated about Jesus’ discourse concerning that remarkable bread (the teaching) which, when it was divided and partaken of, did not decrease but increased, will certainly at a very early date have been misunderstood by people who were not present, just as the Synoptists have misunderstood it, by including it in their books as a miraculous event.
How does what has been said help us to answer the question, In spite of the fact that to Jn. the Feeding was in part a representation of the spiritual appropriation of the nature of Jesus, and in part a representation of the Supper, did he regard it as a real event? In any case, we know at least that if he did so, he was wrong. But since there was a time when it was known that it was not a real event, it is not altogether inconceivable that Jn. too derived this knowledge from that time. On the other hand, this again is hardly likely, for the Synoptists themselves no longer possessed the knowledge, and Jn. did not write until after them and drew upon them. Such reflections therefore will hardly clear up our question. Nor is there any other way of fathoming the inmost thought of the Fourth Evangelist: and if we could dig deeper perhaps we might not find harmony and clearness, but simply a struggle between two points of view, the literal and the purely figurative.
But it is quite sufficient that to Jn. the story of the
Feeding, regarded from one of these two points of view, serves merely to
represent something spiritual. In this way he has in fact approached quite near,
though perhaps in a very roundabout way (if he regards the Feeding as an actual
event), to what we know from the Synoptists to have been the most original
version—namely, that Jesus himself referred to the Feeding with bread simply as
a figure-of-speech for the satisfaction of the soul by his teaching. The point
of view in Jn. does not, it is true, agree with this quite exactly; but very
much is gained already when we find him attaching no decisive value to the
miracle as such. And the relatively slight divergence from the ideas of Jesus is
at the same time characteristic of the general spirit of the Fourth Gospel.
What, in Jesus’
We must quote yet another passage from the Synoptics to elucidate
the question as to what opinion the Fourth Evangelist held with regard to the miracle-stories.
When John the Baptist was in prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask whether
he was the promised Saviour, or whether they must look for another. We must remember
here that, from the time of the baptism of Jesus, John could not have been clear
on this matter (see p. 79 f.). The answer of Jesus is almost verbally identical
in Mt. (
Now, in both consistently (Mk. omits the whole story of the Baptist’s messengers) there appear before this date only the healing of a leper (
Both Evangelists, therefore, although in complete disagreement
with each other, have been at pains to make Jesus enumeration appear literally
true; and, this being so, could they have deprived it of its whole force by
making so unsuitable an addition (concerning the preaching to the poor)?
There is here again, as in the question of Jesus utterance about leaven, only one solution: the most striking and seemingly the most embarrassing version must be the most original. Jesus himself must have added, “and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” But he could only have done so if all the previously mentioned persons are on the same level, that is to say, if he meant spiritually blind, spiritually lame, spiritually leprous, spiritually deaf, and spiritually dead. And here again, just as in the case of the stories of feeding, the concluding words are intelligible only on this understanding. “Blessed is he whosoever finds none occasion of stumbling in me”: this means that the Baptist should not take offence at Jesus for coming forward in such simple guise, as a mere teacher and prophet, and should recognise him as the promised Saviour, in spite of his humble appearance. This, in truth, was why John had had doubts on the matter. In thinking of the promised Messiah, he thought, as his whole race did, of a person who would come forward with superhuman power, drive the Romans from the land and set up a mighty kingdom, in which the Jews would reign.
Here then we have a new instance how utterances of Jesus have
often been faithfully preserved in the Synoptics. In this saying we may depend upon
it that we have the words of Jesus in all essentials, particularly in their conclusion, just as he spoke them (the question whether he enumerated at the beginning
one ailment more or less need not detain us); and this is the more noteworthy,
since the Evangelists have entirely misunderstood it, and have made great efforts
to show that their misunderstanding is right. At the same time, we have in it a
new example of the way in
For the Fourth Gospel, therefore, we have here a foundation upon
which to build if we would assume that not only the feeding of the five thousand,
but also the healing of the man born blind, of the man paralysed for thirty-eight
years, of the son of the royal official, and the awakening of Lazarus, were from
the first meant to describe merely the healing of souls. It makes no difference,
of course, if the son of the royal official is described as suffering, not from
one of the ailments enumerated in
We may not, of course, in any case go as far as to sup pose that
all these stories, in their figurative meaning, actually came from Jesus himself.
Had they done so it would be inconceivable that about most of them the Synoptics
should know nothing. What we gather, therefore, is at most this, that the author
of the Fourth Gospel still had correct information as to the metaphorical style
in which Jesus delighted to express himself, and that he copied this in the spirit
of his master. At the same time, it is true, we must reckon fully with the possibility
that he did not gain this by first-hand knowledge of Jesus style of speech, but
in the roundabout way described above: he believed that in all his miracle-stories
he had to do with
In any case we must be quite clear that at the root of each of the two points of view there are quite distinct presuppositions. If Jn. from the first gave forth his miracle-stories merely as the figurative clothing of religious ideas, then we may be all the more certain that he invented them himself; he could not have had them from the lips of Jesus, for had that been their source the Synoptics also would have given them. If, on the other hand, Jn. regarded them as real events, then they must have come to him from some authorities in whom he had confidence. Is it possible perhaps to decide now which of the two suppositions is right? In other words, is there a tradition concerning the Life of Jesus which was known only to Jn. and remained unknown to the Synoptics?
The far-reaching importance of this question can be realised at
once. If Jn. was acquainted with such a tradition, he may have derived from it
all that he has in addition to what the Synoptics tell us; and in this much else
is included besides the miracle narratives we have been considering. On this basis
very many people immediately think they may assume that all these additional matters
are also historical. But the pleasure which they thus give themselves is premature.
Supposing that Jn. drew from a tradition—for the time being we are willing to assume
Or can we believe that some worshipper of Jesus—not further known to us—outside the circle of his twelve apostles, observed all these things, one, for instance, as people of late have been fond of suggesting, who lived in Judaea, and, having nothing to tell us about Galilee, had all the more to tell us about what Jesus did in Judaea? Of such an one it would be equally true to say that he could have observed nothing which the apostles did not also know of. Does not the Fourth Gospel say continually that they were all present on all these occasions?
It is thus, besides, quite immaterial whether we assume the eye-witness in question (whether we think of him as the apostle John or as one who was not an apostle) to have written the Fourth Gospel himself or only to have given information to the author. In no case can what this person alone tells us be derived from actual observation of the events; for, if it were, we should read of it in the Synoptics as well.
It may, nevertheless, have come to the Fourth Evangelist by tradition. The idea that a tradition must in all circumstances be correct is a very curious one. He to whom it is delivered may hold it to be correct; but before it reached him an error may have crept in. In view of what has been said, only on this presupposition is it worth while to speak of a tradition known only to the Fourth Evangelist. If we call it a “Johannine tradition,” we must not be understood to mean that it started from the apostle John, but simply that it came by tradition to the Fourth Evangelist whom we, depending again upon a tradition, call John.
But instead of instituting general inquiries into such a tradition,
we will at once show by examples how we may very easily think of the matter. We
do not by any means assert that it must really have so happened; it is quite sufficient
if it may have so happened. We will start again with the most instructive story
in the Fourth Gospel, that of the Raising of Lazarus. His name reminds us of the
parable in Lk. (
Let us now imagine this parable to have been discussed in a sermon. It is not difficult to conjecture what may have been said. The brothers of the rich man who have Moses and the prophets are, of course, the Jews. The preacher had thus a most excellent opportunity of proving the truth of Abraham’s concluding words, to the effect that even one who had risen from the dead would not induce them to repent. Jesus had actually risen, and, notwithstanding, the Jews, with trifling exceptions, had rejected his preaching, though so many heathen had accepted it. Now if Lazarus, in answer to the request of the rich man, had been sent back to earth to preach to his brethren, he would have been made to do in the parable what, according to the belief of Christians, Jesus in reality did by his resurrection. If the preacher reckoned on his hearers possessing some intelligence, he may perhaps, with raised finger, have continued the parable thus: “as a matter of fact, Lazarus has risen, and the brethren of the rich man have not listened to him.” Some hearer who had not understood the delicate meaning of this turn it may even have been a woman hearer—then went home, we may further imagine, and said: “To-day the preacher said that Lazarus has arisen.” “Really, such a thing I have never heard.” “But he said so without a doubt.” “Who awakened him then?” “He did not say that. But who should have awakened him, if it was not Jesus himself?”
In this way the kernel of the narrative in Jn. was
This consideration is by no means unimportant. It relieves him
of the charge of having himself invented the whole narrative. Certainly we could
not shrink from making this charge, if the attempt we have made above, to explain
the matter differently, might not be considered successful; for the fact that Lazarus
was not awakened, we do not now, after all that has been said, need to prove. In
fact, we should have to ask ourselves whether this reproach of having invented
the whole narrative would really be a reproach, since quite certainly we could not
reproach the preacher in question with it, if, relying on the intelligence of his
hearers, he carried the parable of Lk. a step further and said, Lazarus has arisen.
But we have preferred our own theory because it has enabled us to assume that the
raising of Lazarus was “delivered” to the Fourth Evangelist as a real miracle,
and because we can understand better how, at least in many passages of his book,
he could
Taking next the narrative of the healing of the man born blind,
its origin could easily be understood on the sup position that some preacher discussed
a story of the healing of another blind man taken from the Synoptics, and held the
Jewish people to be meant by the man. In that case, it was very natural for him
to say that this blind man was so from his birth. In a quite similar way, indeed,
the discourse of Stephen (
For the story of the marriage-feast at Cana also (
The origin of the story of the healing at the Pool of Bethesda
we may suppose to have been rather different (
In this way the explanation may be applied to all the miracle-stories in Jn. which have not been taken directly from the Synoptics, like the
feeding of the multitudes and the walking on the sea. Of other narratives, it perhaps
suits best that of the washing of the disciples’ feet. According to
But enough. We do not press the application of this method of explanation to other accounts in the Fourth Gospel; for we by no means wish to derive all accounts not included in the Synoptics from a “tradition” only known to Jn., but only those in which this can be done naturally; and so we leave every reader to judge in how many cases the method is appropriate.
We must look all the more closely now into the one, but very important,
point in which, with much plausibility, people may find in Jn. a correct tradition
based upon faithful
The difference between Jn. and the other Gospels is seen, therefore, particularly in two points. According to the Synoptics, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal, together with his disciples, on his last evening. But not according to Jn.; according to his account, Jesus’ last supper was, rather, on the preceding day, which was not a feast-day; and when the Jews ate the Paschal lamb twenty-four hours later, he already lay in the grave. Consequently his arrest, condemnation, crucifixion, and burial, which according to both accounts were compressed into less than twenty-four hours (to the next sunset after his last supper), also followed, according to Jn., on the working-day before the festival; but according to the Synoptics on the first feast day which involved strict suspension of all work.
The following table will serve to make this clear. The days of
the month Nisan, placed in the middle, are common
SYNOPTICS. | JOHN. | |
Wednesday. | 13 | Thursday. |
Thursday. | 14 Evening Passover meal. |
†Friday. |
Friday.† | 15 (1st feast-day). |
Saturday. |
Was Jesus trial possible on the feast-day? It would seem not. And if Jn. is right, this point is so decisive that we may seek the truth in this Gospel everywhere else as well. He would, in that case, appear as the eye-witness whose purpose in his story is tacitly to correct the Synoptics (see above, pp. 52-57).
But consider what this means. Hitherto, as compared with the Synoptics,
the Fourth Gospel has always proved less correct, and often quite untrustworthy.
Is this discovery to be all at once reversed? May we believe that the Synoptists
have made a mistake like this even on this one point (the day of Jesus’ death)?
Can we, if we do so, believe anything else at all in their books on any one point? What took place in these last hours of the life of Jesus must have
According to Jewish law, as committed to writing in the Mishnah,
the oldest part of the Talmud, about 200 A.D., in order to pass a death sentence
two sittings of the High Council—that is to say, of the highest judicial court—were
necessary, and a night must intervene between them. Now, since no judicial proceedings
might be held on the Sabbath, a trial which might end in a death-sentence could
not commence on the day before (and therefore also, we may be sure, on the day before
the first day of the Feast of the Passover). On this view of the matter, the story
of the Synoptics seems in all circumstances to be excluded; for, according to this,
the first sitting took place in the night which to the Jews already formed part
of the feast-day, and the second actually on the morning of this first feast-day (
At this time the Jews were no longer allowed to execute a sentence of death; that could be done only by the Roman governor, and so at that time by Pontius Pilate, who was present in Jerusalem throughout the Passover feast with a force of soldiers which had been increased on account of the immense throng of people. But, this being so, it was of no importance to the Jews to pass the death-sentence formally, since they had to ask Pilate to confirm and execute it. They could achieve their purpose equally well by simply making their charge against Jesus before Pilate without previously condemning him. The high-priest, who always presided, required in the first instance, therefore, simply to declare that no judicial court would be held, but only a charge be prepared to bring before Pilate; in that case, the law we have mentioned would have proved no obstacle. We may well believe that the High Council had shrewdness enough to hit upon this expedient.
Only consider, as regards the whole subject, how urgent the matter
was! If, during the festival, the people were to declare for Jesus, recognising
him as the Messiah, towards which recognition they had a few days before at Jesus
entry into Jerusalem already made a very
Simon, who was compelled to bear Jesus cross, was coming at
the time “from the country” (
Similarly, from the fact that the Synoptics call the day of
Jesus’ death “the day of preparation” we may not conclude that they support Jn. when
he tells us in his gospel that it was a working-day. “Day of preparation,” that
is to say, day for making preparations, was in fact the
Jesus execution would not have been possible on the feast-day if the Jews themselves had had to carry it out. But as a matter of fact this was the business of Pilate; and what he did the Jewish authorities would not of course regard as a violation of the feast-day for which they could be held responsible. Nor was there any need to fear a rising among the people in favour of Jesus after Pilate had pronounced his sentence; it might be taken for granted that he would suppress anything of the kind with the utmost rigour.
Still less does the burial of Jesus, which according to all four
Gospels (
It was really forbidden in the Law (
So far then we have not discovered a single point in which anything
that the Synoptics tell us would have been really impossible on the feast-day to
which they refer it. The case seems to be different when we read in Lk. (
Similarly, the Synoptics may have been led astray by a pardonable
error, when they suppose that the band of men sent by the Jewish authorities to
capture Jesus were armed with swords (
There is no reason to doubt that Jesus disciples had swords with
them (
Let us draw the conclusion! Apart from unimportant side-issues,
in which we can easily believe that mistakes
True, it always remains a riddle how Jn. can have been led to
give us his account, which, in view of what we have said, is necessarily wrong.
But the riddle can be solved, and even Jn. himself expressly indicates how this
may be done. According to
He does this, it should be noted, not merely in the matter we
have mentioned, where he tells us that Jesus bones were not broken, but in every
case where there are injunctions in the Old Testament about the lamb which might
have been fulfilled in Jesus as well. The lamb had to be slain in the afternoon
(
It might be doubted whether that Evangelist whose work Clement
of Alexandria called—and certainly not unjustly—the pneumatic, or the spiritually-centred,
gospel, can have attached such importance to this verbal fulfilment of the Old Testament.
Yet Jn. has expressly drawn attention to the fact that when Jesus thighs were
not broken, an Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled. And in like manner, it is only
he who gives Jesus cry on the cross, “I thirst” (
The matter may therefore be summed up as follows. The Synoptics report that the arrest, condemnation, execution, and burial of Jesus took place on a day on which all these things would be associated with difficulties, but would by no means be impossible; and as to how they could have arrived at this, by mistake or of set purpose, if the day were really another one, no one has yet been able to offer a suggestion which is even remotely probable. In the case of Jn., on the other hand, we can tell point by point how he must have come to fix upon another day, supposing the Synoptics were right. As soon as we have perceived this, the question ought to be decided, Are we obliged to believe Jn. on this one point, even though in everything else we have been able to put so little faith in him?
But if any one persists in giving the preference to Jn. here,
we must ask him one more question in conclusion; to what are we to trace the agreement
between the last acts in the closing day of Jesus’ life and those associated with
As to the occurrences after Jesus resurrection, especially as
to what transpired at the empty grave, the Fourth Evangelist tells us so much that
is not found in the other Gospels that it might easily be supposed we have here
the words of an eye-witness. The more so because amongst these statements we find
also one to the effect that the disciple whom Jesus loved—and whom to all appearance
we might sup pose to be the author of the Gospel—hastened with Peter to the tomb.
But if that were so, the story of Mk. (
Their chief variation from Jn.—though in this feature Lk. agrees
with him—is found, that is to say, in the statement that the women who find the
tomb of Jesus empty are commissioned by an angel to bid the disciples go to Galilee,
for there they would see their risen Lord. According to Mt. the latter event afterwards
happened, and it must have been narrated by Mk. as well; but the original
But for this very reason Mk. and Mt. could never have been led to tell us of this advice to the disciples to go to Galilee, if they had ever heard that Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem. In no case, therefore, can this account in Lk. and Jn. be the original one; for, if it had been, Mk. and Mt. would unquestionably have heard and accepted it. On the contrary, they must have known of only one account, to wit, that the appearances of the risen Lord had taken place in Galilee.
Even in their case, however, it is remarkable enough that an angel
should have to commission the women at the tomb to bid the disciples go to Galilee; and, as a matter of fact, judged by all that we may suppose to have happened,
this story is not plausible. Only, the truth is not to be looked for in Lk. and
Jn., but in quite a different quarter. In Mk. (
The mistake in Mk. and Mt., therefore, is not that they assume the appearances of the risen Lord to have taken place in Galilee, but that they suppose the disciples to have been still in Jerusalem on Easter morning. But it was this very mistake that must have suggested to Lk. and Jn. the necessity of making a change. If the disciples were still in Jerusalem after Jesus resurrection, these two Evangelists could not but suppose that here also Jesus must have appeared to them. But what to their mind, of course, was the correction of an error, in reality simply added to the -first mistake a second which was much greater.
If, however, in view of this, Jn. does not by any means give us
the truth on the main point, it is clear that in the details also we cannot expect
to find it. For instance, in the story of Thomas, which is so beautiful in itself,
but of which the Synoptics know nothing, and the scene of which, moreover, is likewise
Jerusalem. In the case of the story of Mary Magdalene, attractive and affecting
though it is to persons of delicate feeling, we can detect from a particular expression
that it is not original, but a reconstruction of a story told in the Synoptics.
In Jn. Mary Magdalene came to the sepulchre alone, and yet she says (
And, lastly, the race of Peter and the beloved disciple to the
sepulchre! This cannot have happened if the disciples were no longer in Jerusalem.
But even if they were still there, we must still insist that the Synoptists never
had any knowledge of this race; for, had they had any, who could believe that they
would have been silent about it? Moreover, we can see here quite clearly step by
step how the statements of the Evangelists developed. Although Mk. and Mt. presuppose
that the disciples were still present in Jerusalem, they are quite unaware that
any of them has visited the sepulchre (and this will be an echo of the truth that
they were no longer in Jerusalem). Lk. already knows something about it, but only
in the quite indefinite form (
And how are these details told? The beloved disciple ran
faster than Peter, came first to the grave, and saw the linen cloths lying in
it, but did not go in. Peter went in and saw, in addition to the linen cloths,
the napkin as well. Afterwards the beloved disciple went in too, saw and believed, that is to say, gained the faith that Jesus had risen. Thus, alternately
the one gets an advantage over the other;
In proportion as it becomes less likely that this could have happened at the tomb of Jesus, the question becomes more pressing, Did it not happen in the later careers of the two disciples? We are reluctant to believe it, and yet it can hardly be otherwise: expression is here given to that later struggle for precedence between the two apostles. Peter excelled the beloved disciple by being bolder and observing more closely the details—of, we may now perhaps say without further ado, the life of Jesus; but in faith, that is to say, in the deeper understanding, the beloved disciple had the advantage.
If any one should still have any scruples about seeing here so
bold an introduction of the conditions of a later period into the story of
Jesus’ life, he will dismiss them, we should think, when he takes into consideration another
passage of a similar kind. We refer to the words spoken by Jesus,
Again, the strange metaphor by which Jesus represents himself
as the door through which a rightful shepherd comes to his sheep (p. 36) can be
understood if we seek the explanation in the circumstances of a later period. And
we can easily do this if we follow the clue provided in
The last thing which is made to tell in favour of the accuracy
and fidelity of the Fourth Gospel consists of a number of passages in which the
day, and even the hour, in which something happened is stated much more carefully
than in the Synoptics. Thus
If these passages were shown to any one before he knew the rest
of the contents of the Fourth Gospel, he would certainly form the opinion that the
author must have been a companion of Jesus and deserves to be absolutely trusted
even down to the smallest details. But after what has been said in the preceding
paragraphs, it is no longer possible to think this. We have actually found that
after Jn. has made a statement which is equally precise in form, namely, that Jesus
baptised (
The only further question that we can ask is, how can Jn. have come to make such precise statements of time? And to this no other answer is possible but that he wished by this device to indicate more clearly the progress made in his story, or intended the words to introduce another important suggestion. When in chap. i. he has arrived at a new stage in the increase in the number of Jesus’ disciples, he says that a new day is beginning. We cannot really be surprised at this in a man who is so little concerned about literal accuracy. It helps to make his story decidedly more vivid and impressive; and it is actually his purpose to paint pictures which will make an impression (see pp. 55 f. and 96 f.). The question whether the statements about Jesus journeys to the feasts (p. 9 f.) have arisen in the same way, or were actually “delivered” to Jn., we must leave undecided.
The hours of the day in
But enough. A book in which Jesus gives the explanation of the
Supper a year before its celebration; in which
FROM all that we have said so far, it may have become more and more obvious, that what is decisive, in the thought and in the presentation of the Fourth Evangelist, is the conception of Jesus which exists in his own mind. This idea we must now follow up more closely if we are to advance from a mere comparison of Jn.’s picture of Jesus’ life with that of the Synoptics, and from the conclusion that it deserves less belief, to the most underlying reasons why he has left us so incorrect a description of Jesus’ life.
For this purpose, in the first place we shall deal with a section
of his book about which we have not yet spoken because the Synoptics do not contain
one like it, we mean the prologue,
This remarkable expression has had a history of its own, and would
in itself have quite justified the publishers of the Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher
in allowing the Fourth Gospel a separate treatment. In all religions, it has been
found again and again that the deity, if men are to learn to know its will and to
aim at following it, must reveal itself. This it does, according to the belief of
different peoples, in very different ways. But when it does so, for example, by
natural events, by serious misfortunes, men do not know at first what they on their
part ought to do in order to remove its anger. Special means are needed to find
this out. Wise men must explain the will of God, whether they read it in the stars
or in the flight of birds or in the entrails of sacrificial animals, or in whatever
it may be. The prospect of doing this is far more auspicious, if there are prophets
with whom God—as they themselves are convinced—really speaks in their inner man,
in such a way that they can directly reproduce God’s very words. It is not without
reason, for example, that Muhammed in the Koran again and again emphasises the fact
that he has proclaimed to his people “in clear Arabic” the will of God. But in
the Old Testament, in which we have such abundant information about the prophets,
there are “false” prophets besides the “true”; yet these quite certainly considered
themselves to be the true, and the distinction between the two classes was of such
real difficulty, that rules are given about it in the Bible itself which are quite
impracticable and even contradictory (
The Greek expression for “word” (logos), however, means at the same time “reason.” This brings us to a second origin of this name for Jesus, and one which lies not so much in religion as in the contemplation of the Greek philosophers about the world as a whole. If we recognise in this world one order, it is natural to say that this world, as well as each individual man, possesses a “reason.” The logos is then the reasonable order which rules in the world, and so we are able to express ourselves, even if we cannot believe that the world is ruled by a deity who possesses a consciousness of himself.
In this sense Heraclitus (about 500-450 B.C.) introduced the term
“logos” into Greek philosophy. Plato (427-347), without using this term, assumed
a world of ideas in which the highest, the idea of the Good, represents the deity.
These ideas he regards as the original patterns of which all particular things in
the material world are only copies. The Stoics (from 300 B.C.) adopted the word
logos and the idea of Heraclitus, that the logos is the reasonable order that rules
in the world. On this view, therefore, particular things are adapted to the logos,
just as, on Plato’s view, they are to the ideas. In correspondence with the plurality
of ideas in Plato, the Stoics divided the one logos into a plurality, which is called
in Greek logoi. To the statement that these logoi are the originals or patterns
of the things in the world, they added a second statement, that they are the powers
by which the things of the world are established.
We find the doctrine of the logos fully developed in the Jewish thinker Philo, who was twenty to thirty years older than Jesus. In his native city, Alexandria, in Egypt, he had the best opportunity of imbibing Greek philosophy, and of combining it with the ideas which he himself cherished as a Jew. Consequently, the logos is the pattern and producer of things, as we found it on Greek soil; but it cannot be the deity himself (that would conflict with Philo’s Jewish faith); it is simply a second divine being, who is subordinate to the God of the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament itself we also find the beginnings of a disposition
to distinguish between God himself and a second divine being of this kind. In particular,
the Wisdom of God is often represented as assisting God at the creation of the world; it then works in his sight for his delight (
All this, and presumably in addition, legends about the gods, who, according to the religions of Egypt, Babylonia, or Greece, as the agents of a still higher Deity shaped the world and filled it with divine effects, Philo sums up, by representing that the Logos in itself was, on the one hand, only a faculty of God, by which he conceived the organisation of the world, and, on the other hand, a being who has come forth from God and brought God’s influence into the world. In the second sense, we can call it a person, but in the former not; and the important point is that in Philo the Logos must always be a person and at the same time not a person. Were it only the one or only the other, some necessary aspect which it has would be neglected. Philo gives the Logos designations which only seem applicable to a person; for example, the first-born son of God, the high-priest, the mediator, the sinless one. We must not lose sight of the fact, however, that it always remains the power of mind in God.
The idea has played a further part in the history of religion
in the New Testament itself. The Fourth Evangelist, that is to say, is by no means
the first New Testament writer to represent Jesus as the Logos; others did the
same before him. Even Paul presupposes that, before
The Epistle to the Hebrews, whose author unquestionably knew
Philo’s writings, takes us a step further. To him Christ, before he descended upon
earth, is no longer a man in heaven, but is a reflexion of the majesty and imprint
of the nature of God, just as in a seal the imprint entirely resembles the stamp; he has not only created the world, but he also continually sustains it; that
is to say, keeps it in existence (
The Epistle to the Colossians (the most important sections of
which cannot have been written by Paul himself) adds to the two statements, that
through Christ the world was made and is maintained in existence, a third to the
effect that it was created for him, so that he is thus its goal (
Before, however, we can show this, it remains necessary to review another part of the history of religion; that is to say, the mingling of the religions of the Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Syrians, people of Asia Minor and Greeks, in the last centuries before Christ. Amongst nearly all these peoples there were legends of gods, goddesses or sons of gods, who came down from heaven to earth to contend with hostile beings. One such foe is the great serpent of the Babylonian religion. It represents darkness, and the floods which in that country made the winter such a joyless season. It is conquered by the sun of spring, which is of course thought of as a god. In other religions the struggle associated with the change in the year’s seasons was differently represented, but in such a way that the identity of the thing could not be mistaken.
Another purpose for which the gods had to descend from heaven is found in the belief that the soul of man is from heaven and yearns after its home, but cannot find the way, unless a being descends from above and releases it from the prison in which it is held captive. This idea also had received, in different religions, different, but not altogether dissimilar, expression.
But even that the world might be created or organised, subordinate divine beings had to help as soon as a religion was dominated by the belief that the highest God, if He was to continue to be perfectly pure and divine, could have nothing to do with the world.
But, further, it must be possible to say, as regards these divine
beings, how they arose; and their origin, as can be easily understood, was represented
in such a way that one
When, especially from the end of the fourth century, Alexander the Great’s expeditions brought all the well-known peoples, and many more which were less important, into frequent contact, there was an interchange of ideas, even as regards their gods. The agreement between so many divine forms in the different religions was recognised, and the manner in which such and such a god was worshipped in one country was transferred to the related god in another, so long as people believed that, by doing so, they could better assure themselves of his help. In brief, a complete mingling started, which made this whole world of deities not only an intricate, but even a confused, puzzle.
Gnosticism drew upon this mingling of religions. This was a very
important movement, but is so difficult to present in detail that we must be content
to give only the most noteworthy outlines. Gnosis means “knowledge”; and this
is in fact the first and most important point, that one must have a great fund of
knowledge to be able to know all these doctrines about the different divine beings,
and at the same time a great deal of penetration rightly to apprehend the deep thoughts
which were hidden under such wonderful clothing. These Gnostics, or Knowers, were
at the same time men who thought deeply about the
One idea which continually recurs in their systems is that a deep division runs through the world. God is by nature good, pure, unspotted; the matter of which the world consists is also by nature evil, impure, tainted. God cannot therefore come into contact with this matter; and it would have remained for ever unorganised and devoid of any divine influence, if subordinate divine beings had not imparted this to it and converted it into an organised world. They do it, however, in a very imperfect way; for their own knowledge is quite limited. This is why the world is so faulty.
The soul and the body of men are by nature just as much strangers to one another as are God and the world. The soul comes from heaven, whether it be supposed that the creator of the world, that is to say, one of those divine, but subordinate, beings, created it, or that it represents a spark which emanated from the highest God Himself and descended into the gloomy kingdom of the world. The body, however, is a part of that matter of which the world consists, and therefore shares all its evil characteristics. Through the senses, and the spell which they exercise, it drags down the soul into the domain of the vile and common, and estranges it from its divine destiny. It is its prison, and the soul cannot escape from it, partly for the very good reason that it is no longer conscious of its divine origin. If, therefore, it is to be redeemed, some one must come who will first make it realise that it has come from God. But this can only be a being who has himself come from God, and possesses the knowledge of the divine in full measure—in other words, a god.
All Gnostics who confessed themselves Christians have found this being in Christ as he appeared upon earth. But the division which exists between the soul and the body of every man, of course affects him also, and even in a much stronger degree. A being so high and divine cannot really have a body which consists of earthly matter. Consequently, the Gnostics could only explain in one of two ways. Either the Christ who came down from heaven was only in an external way united to an ordinary man Jesus, who was born of Joseph and Mary, but was righteous in a peculiar degree: that is to say, he came down upon him at the baptism in the Jordan, but left him again before he suffered death, so that the person who underwent suffering was only the man Jesus. Or the heavenly Christ, during the whole of his sojourn upon earth, possessed himself of a phantom body, so that all his human acts, such as eating, sleeping, suffering, &c., were nothing more than appearance.
From what we have said, it will be clear that the chief task of this redeemer was to make the soul of man realise that it is of divine origin. But many souls are not able to apprehend this truth; and so the same disastrous division again makes itself felt, and separates men into two classes. In the nature of the case, it is very conceivable that the great sum of knowledge and the great depth of thought appertaining to Gnosis, could not be within the reach of many simple people. But the Gnostics assumed that the question who can attain to it has been decided long before one comes to know it; from eternity there are some, namely the Gnostics themselves, endowed with the capacity to appropriate it as soon as it is imparted to them, whereas to others this faculty is denied from eternity, and therefore they could never be happy.
From the time when the soul of the Gnostic comes to know its divine
origin it is, strictly speaking, released from its fetters. A new life begins for
it, and from this point it is already sure of returning to heaven as soon as death
emancipates it from the body. For this reason, in
We may now turn to the opening words of the Gospel of Jn. They
read: “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos
was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that hath been made.” None of these statements
is now new to us. Only, we must guard against misunderstanding the third, as if
it meant: God himself was the same being as the Logos—which in fact would not agree
with what has already been mentioned. It would be equally wrong to make the statement
mean the contrary: the Logos was a god. The sense is rather: the Logos was of
divine nature (just as in
It should therefore never have been doubted that Jn. borrowed
the word Logos and the ideas associated with it from Philo. And if we were inclined
to take offence that such an important idea should have come to the Biblical author
from an extra-Biblical writer—though in truth there is nothing objectionable in
it—yet we can console ourselves with the thought that Jn. has shown great independence.
He continues in
In other places also it is clear that Jn. does not on all points
reject the ideas of the Gnostics. Certainly he will not hear of their many divine
beings, but knows of the one true God and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent (
At the end of
Thus we must understand the idea of the author—even though just
before he has spoken of men who are able to be come children of God, and has used
a related Greek expression to the effect that they were begotten from God. Those
are
But at the same time he has perhaps chosen the name monogenés, because several Gnostics, in their long list of divine beings, used it of a being different from the Logos, that is to say, of an older being and one standing in a closer relationship to God. Of him Jn. will not hear.
But the most important feature in this expression, “we saw his
majesty,” &c. (
From tins can now be gathered how greatly Jn.’s style of thinking is misunderstood when an attempt is made to find traits of a real humanity in the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel. Those who do this, for instance, in the case of the raising of Lazarus, or those even who are only disturbed by the thought that no such traits can really be found, have quite misunderstood the peculiar character of this book. Humanly speaking, Jesus must have been so cruel as to keep away from Bethany for two more days, because otherwise the miracle which he proposed to do would not have been so great as if it did not happen until the fourth day after Lazarus’ death. We ought not. however, to apply this human point of view; if we are to do the Evangelist justice, we ought, just as he does, to identify our selves to such an extent with this Son of God who has come from heaven, as to approve entirely of his demonstrating his exaltation, his dignity, and his omnipotence in the strongest possible way. So long as it is what is truly human in Jesus that attracts us, we are totally unfit to enter into the ideas of the Evangelist, for he is attracted only by what is divine.
This is, in fact, so much the case that the human in Jesus is
more sternly set aside than the Evangelist himself desires. He would like certainly
to oppose the Gnostics, amongst whom the heavenly Christ was united with the man
Jesus only superficially and for a limited period, or only had a phantom body to
deceive the eyes of men. To meet this latter idea, he insists that there flowed
from the wound, which was made by the spear-thrust in the crucified Lord, blood
and water (
This is as clear as daylight, when he walks over the sea, or when,
on an attempt being made to stone him, he makes himself invisible in a miraculous
way; when his soul is affected by no feelings of passion; when he keeps away for
two days from the place where his friend has died, in order to set his miraculous
power in a brighter light; when Philip is made to see in his person, as he stands
before him, God the Father. Here he is actually, in hardly a different way than
he is amongst the Gnostics, a God walking upon the earth, whom one can only worship
in astonishment. A man whose possibilities are exposed to limitations, as those
of others are, who thinks and feels like others, to whom one can cling, because
he has first trodden the same path and experienced the same difficulties, whom one
can gladly follow—no, he is nothing of this. The Fourth Gospel knows nothing and
can know nothing of the great consolation which the Epistle to the Hebrews (
Nevertheless, we shall refuse to reproach its author for this, in proportion as it becomes clear to us that the task which he set before himself was from the first impossible of achievement. Nor has any later teacher in the Church been able so to reconcile the divine and human nature in Jesus, that a real and consistent personality has been produced. The important point, therefore, is simply to recognise on which of the two sides in Jn. the scale turns. Those who persist in attempting to reconcile the two natures, are not agreed, even down to the present day, as to whether they ought to say, as Paul says (see above, p. 146), that Jesus, when he came down from heaven to earth, laid aside his divine characteristics, or that he kept them, hiding them during his earthly life. As regards the Fourth Gospel, we must say that it quite certainly does not take the first of these positions. And even as regards the second view, it only presents the thought that on earth Jesus was endowed with all his divine characteristics; their concealment is very slight and transparent, and does not really accord with the purpose of Jesus’ public ministry, which in Jn. consists simply in revealing himself in all his greatness.
Although the figure of Jesus claims almost the whole attention
of the Fourth Gospel, we must, in order to realise its fundamental ideas and discover
their origin, look into Jn.’s answer to the question, What is God’s relation to
the world, and the world’s relation to God? We have been obliged to touch upon
this already; for the whole descent of Christ from heaven to earth would not have
been necessary, if God by His own work had made the world according to His will.
Two kingdoms, we should almost say two worlds, are contrasted,
the one which is above, and the one which is below; from the one is Jesus, from
the other are the Jews (
The consequence, strictly speaking, was that all men were incapable
of receiving any divine gift. But the other idea
The Evangelist, however, does not actually go so far. He already
declares against the Gnostics when in
In the next place, we are told in
The importance of these differences between Jn. and the Gnostics
cannot be overstated. By its very nature, Gnosticism was unable to make itself
master of the world, because it was, and aimed at being, a religion restricted to
a limited number of privileged persons. The simple man, the simple woman, could
never hope to be numbered amongst these. All the valuable and exalted elements contained
in the Gospel of Jn. could only be saved for the Church, and so for all future times,
by the author’s declaring them to be destined for all men. “God willeth that all
men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth”: this saying (
It was not less important, however, that he should have differed from the Gnostics in his teaching about the creation of the world. The belief in one God could not be held to consistently if one of the most important kinds of work which the pious gladly ascribe to Him, the creation of the world, was carried out in a very faulty way by subordinate and unintelligent beings. Many Gnostics went so far as to see in this unintelligent creator of the world the God of the Old Testament of whom it is said, that he produced the world. He was then regarded by them as a being quite different from the real God.
In consequence, however, the Old Testament, which was
As regards this Christ, however, if one followed the Gnostics, one could not take seriously what Christian tradition had to communicate concerning his life upon earth. Take, for example, the death on the cross. It was this, according to the common belief of the Church, that brought salvation to mankind; but according to the Gnostics another person, an ordinary man, must be supposed to have suffered, or the body of Christ was merely a phantom figure. In this way, the whole foundation of the faith of the Church crumbled to pieces. It was of the highest importance to receive the assurance that it really was the redeemer himself who was concerned in all the records of the Gospel story.
And this was all the more important, because the existence of
the Church at that time was very seriously
When the author of the Fourth Gospel takes up another position,
different from that of the Gnostics and more
There still remain many important ideas in the Fourth Gospel that
would repay discussion. But we cannot take
We trust that readers who have followed us so far will also give their attention to the briefer investigations to be undertaken there. Not only have we still to deal with the whole question, when and by whom the Fourth Gospel was really composed—which we shall deal with in connection with the same question as regards the three Epistles and the “Revelation” of Jn.—but we propose to add a few words as to the value of these remarkable writings for the time of their authors and for all times.
Whoever desires to know no more than this, whether the Fourth Gospel gives us correct knowledge of the Life of Jesus, might stop at this point. He would then throw the Gospel on one side like an instrument which for any definite purpose is useless. But a book is not a mere instrument. It is the work of some man who, if he does not dryly add one note to another without being really interested in his work, introduces into it, perhaps unconsciously, but to a more delicate mind unmistakably, a part of his own soul. And from what we have already said it should be clear that, in the case of the Fourth Evangelist, this was so to a quite specially high degree. The more we have so far found him to be wrong, when he differs from the Synoptics, the more anxious we become to read his soul, by finding out the ideas and needs by which he was actuated, and to search lovingly for what it is that exercises such undeniable power of attraction over even the strictest of his critics.
AMONG the twelve Apostles of Jesus a prominent place is taken by John, son of Zebedee and brother of the first of the two Jameses who were included in the band of twelve disciples. Tradition tells us that five of the writings contained in the New Testament are by him: the Fourth Gospel, the three Epistles of John, and “Revelation.” By the side, on the one hand, of the first three Gospels, and, on the other, of those Epistles which were either composed by the Apostle Paul or have been wrongly ascribed to him, these writings form a group of their own in the New Testament which is quite as important as the others; and any one who proposes to examine them, must of course regard them all together.
WHAT has been said in Part I. contributes a very great deal towards the decision of the question, By whom and at what date was the Fourth Gospel composed? But it may be pointed out that all this was based solely on one definite view of the contents of the Gospel, and that besides this another is possible according to which the contents thoroughly deserve to be believed, have no connection with Gnosticism, or were directed against it—and so forth. Far more certain, we are told, are statements of men belonging to the oldest Christian times, who were still in a position to know the exact answer to our question. It will be seen whether they are more certain. In any case, we must hear what they are.
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, who wrote about 185, and nearly all
the Christian writers of later date are unanimous in saying that the Fourth Gospel
was composed by the Apostle John, who lived in Ephesus during about the last third
of the first century and took a leading position in the eyes of all the Christian
communities in the West of Asia Minor. Irenaeus, who must have been born about 140,
in
But the latter statement is a mistake. Eusebius, the author of the first History of the Church (ob. 340) has in an earlier work simply repeated it from Irenaeus; in the History, however, which was written later, he has corrected it and, in proof of his right to do so, appeals to Papias own words in a work which, apart from this quotation, has been almost entirely lost. We shall give this memorable passage in order to show how a documentary statement may prove the incorrectness of extremely important ideas which have not been doubted by any one for centuries. Papias’ book contained, as we know from its title, “Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord” Jesus. In the Introduction Eusebius found the following: “I shall not hesitate to gather up for you, with the expositions (belonging to the same), as well all that I once learnt well from the mouths of the elders and committed well to memory, I myself guaranteeing the truth of it. . . . But whenever any one came who had enjoyed intercourse with the elders, I inquired (firstly) about the sayings of the Elders, (as to) what Andrew or Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord (said), and (secondly) what Aristion and John the Elder, the disciples of the Lord, say.”
Quite a number of important inferences may be drawn from this.
(1) Papias gathered his information partly from the persons whom he calls “the
Elders,” partly from their disciples. (2) The Greek word which we render
We must assume with the greater certainty that Papias really knew him, because Irenaeus says that Papias was a hearer of the Apostle John, and yet, according to his own statements, he no longer knew the Apostle. Here then we have the confusion of which Irenaeus was guilty: Papias certainly had a John as his teacher; this, however, was not the Apostle, but John the Elder.
The confusion might appear harmless. It affects Papias merely; but the man with whom we are concerned, who told the young
Irenaeus about his
former teacher, the Apostle John, was Polycarp. But why does Irenaeus call Papias
a companion of Polycarp, unless it be because both of them
Another thing that lends the strongest support to this conclusion
is the fact that none of the Christian writers before Irenaeus knows anything of
a stay of the Apostle John in Asia Minor; and yet this same John, who on the occasion
of the meeting of Paul with the original apostles at Jerusalem (
We will point to one fact only. When Paul took fare well of those
who presided over the community at Ephesus (
But, as a boy, Irenaeus often heard Polycarp himself speak of
his teacher John; how, then, can a mistake have been possible as to which John
was meant? Well, the riddle explains itself. Both Johns were “disciples of the
Lord.” As a rule, Polycarp only needed to say, “my teacher John, the disciple of
the Lord,” and the young Irenaeus only too easily made the mistake of supposing
Once a mistake of the kind had arisen, the statement would be believed only too readily. The community in a city thought it a great honour to have been founded by an apostle, or led by one for some time. In the second century the idea grew up that the bishop of a community must have been consecrated to his office through the laying-on of hands either by an apostle or by a bishop who had received his own consecration at the hands of an apostle. It was thought that the capacity to fill the office of bishop, the so-called “charisma of office,” could be transferred from one person to another only through this laying-on of hands by a consecrated person, and the first of such a series must always be an apostle. Thus it was naturally of the greatest importance to be able to show that in the past an apostle himself laboured in the community. Every one believed that he attended to the consecration of his successor; otherwise doubts might arise as to whether a bishop was properly consecrated.
We must not suppose that the confusion by which Ephesus was given
an apostle, instead of one who was not an apostle, as the leader of the community
is an isolated case. In the Acts of the Apostles (
Where then, if it was not he but John the Elder who led the Church
of Asia Minor in Ephesus, did John the Apostle live, and why are we not told another
word about his fate since the meeting in Jerusalem we have mentioned (
Only, we must beware of misunderstanding the words of Papias as
if he meant that John and his brother James
The result as far as the Fourth Gospel is concerned is as follows.
The earlier the apostle died, the less easy it is to think that he wrote the Gospel.
It is almost universally admitted that the first three Gospels were completed before
the fourth; and of these the third at least was not composed until after the destruction
of Jerusalem in the year 70 (provisionally we confine ourselves to a statement the
truth of which is recognised almost on all hands). But even if we do not suppose
that the Apostle died early, he cannot be regarded as the author of the Gospel because,
as we have
But what about the author’s own testimony? Does he not himself say that he is the Apostle? This is surely a curious question! When a matter is to be decided in other fields—when, for instance, the origin of extra-canonical books is in question, or a trial is being held—scant consideration indeed is paid to the personal testimony of the person involved; but here forsooth this is to be decisive, and all arguments against it, however plausible, are to be ignored. This is to take for granted—is it not?—what, strictly speaking, should first be proved, that a person whose book has been included in the Bible cannot have said anything incorrect.
But let us hear what this testimony is. The author nowhere refers
to the name John as being his own. The superscription “Gospel according to John” is not due to him, but was first added when several Gospels were put together
in one book.
In this circumlocution we see, it is said, the delicate and sensitive
way in which the Apostle John hinted that he was the author of the Gospel, without
expressly saying so. In reality, if he did this, he would have shown himself to
be an incredibly presumptuous person. Jesus surely loved all his disciples! If
the author had said of himself, “the disciple whom Jesus specially loved,” we
could not acquit him of presumption, even though this were really the case; but
he says outright, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” as if he loved him alone. It
is not really doing the Apostle any honour to insist that he must have described
himself in this way. On the other hand, it is quite easy to understand that one
of his devoted admirers may have so described him. But if we examine further all
that is told us about the beloved disciple—the story, in particular, of his race
with
The most characteristic instance of the author testifying to himself—an instance in which there is a real idea of bearing testimony—is held to be that
in
Searching inquiries have been instituted as to whether, in speaking
of himself in Greek, any one could say “he.” But this is not the point. Once the
Apostle had begun by saying, instead of “I,” “he that hath seen,” there was no
other way to continue than by saying “he.” So that the question is: When the writer
says “he that hath seen,” does he mean himself? This in itself would be quite
possible, if he wished to avoid the use of “I.” Throughout the whole description
of his wars (58-48 B.C.), Julius Caesar has never said “I did this and that,” but
always “Caesar did this and that.” But, if he wished to express himself similarly,
it would have been far more correct for the Fourth Evangelist
It is decisive here that blood and water cannot by any means have flowed separately from Jesus’ wound so soon after his death (it was at most two hours, but probably much less; see p. 127). It is therefore doing no honour to the Apostle to insist that he is here bearing personal testimony. On the other hand, we can very well under stand a later writer, who had been orally assured that it really happened, noting it down in good faith.
We should add further, that in any case the flowing of water and
blood has some deeper mysterious meaning. It was a common Christian belief that
the blood of Jesus shed at his death was the means of bringing salvation to man
kind. Now, the individual Christian can partake of the blood of Jesus in the Supper,
and is reminded of the redemption which has through his blood been granted to men.
And water is used in baptism for the purpose of initiating people into communion
with those who have been redeemed by the death of Jesus. Accordingly, the idea that
the two things which are necessary for the most important and holy of the Christian
ceremonies came into being at the death of Jesus is an ingenious one. We can easily
imagine that a preacher may have expressed the idea in a veiled form, just as was
done, if we have conjectured rightly (p. 113 f.), in the case of the story of Lazarus,
and that some one in the audience jumped to the conclusion
If what we have said indicates that it was not the Apostle, but another who wrote the passage which speaks of testifying to the blood and water, and at the same time wrote the whole Gospel, we do not of course know as yet whether he wishes to be regarded merely as the reporter of the testimony of a greater person, or whether he wishes it to appear that he himself is this greater person, this eye witness. Even one who at the outset does not hold the Biblical writers in particularly high esteem, will readily be inclined to find the second supposition unthinkable, be cause it would imply such an amount of dishonesty as there is no reason to ascribe to the Evangelist, whose style is simple and candid.
But, as regards this matter, people quite ignore the fact that in those days it was not considered wrong to compose a writing in the name of another person. Among the Greeks and Romans it was quite common for disciples to publish their works, not under their own name, but under that of their masters; and we can see in what light this was regarded, from the philosopher Iamblichus (about 300 A.D.), for example, who was one of the followers of Pythagoras. We know even at the present time of a list of sixty writings which have been fathered upon Pythagoras and other old masters amongst his successors; and Iamblichus expressly praises the later disciples of Pythagoras, because they have sacrificed their own fame and given all the glory to their masters.
As regards Christian writers, the story of the leader
This way of looking at the matter makes it very easy for us to
understand how so many of the books of the New Testament were composed in the name
of Paul, of Peter, of James, &c. And strange as it may appear, we must thoroughly
accustom ourselves to it. To show that this suggests itself even to a quite orthodox
theologian, we will quote an utterance by Professor Kahnis of Leipzig, who died
in 1888. “If the fifth book of Moses is not by Moses, it is by an impostor, says
Dr. Hengstenberg. To whom does Dr. Hengstenberg say this? Every one who has been
to a classical school knows that there are a great number of writings in classical
literature which are ascribed to persons with famous names, and that specialists
do not think there was any deception in the practice.” As regards
Thus we need not shrink from crediting the author of the Fourth
Gospel with the wish to have his book regarded as the work of the Apostle himself.
We have, however, no absolutely definite ground for saying so. The matter remains
obscure. And perhaps it was meant to remain obscure. The testimony we have been
examining could, as a matter of fact, hardly have been framed in a more enigmatic
way than in the terms, “and his witness is true, and he knoweth that he saith true.”
It is possible therefore that the author, though he did not wish to say expressly
that his book was the work of the Apostle, had no objection to people believing
so. Even when he says in
We could not, it is true, seriously impute this obscurity to him,
if the twenty-first chapter were due to the same author. But this is not the case.
For the same concepts quite different words are used here from those found in the
first twenty chapters. The appearance of the risen Lord in chapter xxi. (
And because the Gospel had gained such slight recognition, he
took occasion at the same time, in the appendix
After all these “witnesses” on the part of badly informed writers,
of the author himself and of his friends who have intervened on his behalf, it is
at length time to seek for some point from which we can learn better who wrote the
Fourth Gospel. What information have we then in the New Testament about the Apostle
John which is really reliable? We must not of course turn to the Fourth Gospel for
our answer. The most certain thing is the record of Paul, that John was one of the
three pillars of the Community in Jerusalem, and wished to confine his missionary
activity to the Jews (see pp. 174 and 177), the reason being no doubt that, if
he held intercourse with the Gentiles, he would violate the Old Testament commandments about foods, cleanness, &c., which he thought ought still to be observed.
This does not harmonise well with
One who writes under an assumed name often betrays himself by
having false ideas of the places or institutions of the country in which he claims
to be living. As far as places are concerned, it cannot be shown with success that
Jn. does this. But, as regards institutions, he has been led to make as great a
mistake as it is possible to imagine. By telling us twice (
May we therefore speak of John the Elder in Ephesus as the author
of the Fourth Gospel? Support for this might, as a matter of fact, be found in
the consideration that Irenaeus and his successors virtually supposed this, even
though they believed that this John in Ephesus was the Apostle. But the assumption
will not bear closer examination. If he was a disciple of Jesus, and consequently
a man whose home was in Palestine, he ought to have known more about the tenure
of the high-priest’s office. But, above all, his standpoint was hardly less Jewish-Christian
than that of the Apostle. In fact when Polycarp (see p. 173), who was a former disciple
of his, visited Rome towards the end of his life (154 or 155), and found that Easter
was fixed at a quite different time (the time at which we still fix it) from that
of Asia Minor, where he lived, he appealed to the practice of John (and others).
In Asia Minor what, according to the Jewish Calendar, was always the 14th Nisan
was duly celebrated, not in memory of the death of Jesus—as the Fourth Gospel would
require (p. 118)—but of the institution of the Supper a practice which conflicts
with the Fourth Gospel, and is, as a matter of fact, supported by a special appeal
to Mt. The John who shared this practice as leader of the Church of Asia Minor cannot
have written the Fourth Gospel. Moreover, this would be equally true
If this means that we must give up the idea of naming some well-known person as the author, we are, nevertheless, very well able to form a clear idea of the writer of the Fourth Gospel. In seeking to do so, we have come back, after making a long circuit, to our starting-point, for we have to consult the Gospel itself. To have been able to write such a book, the author must have been one of the leading spirits of his age. He was familiar with the best that the Greek mind and the religions of the whole world known to people of those days had produced. His own mind was liberal enough to soar to the realm of these ideas, and to refuse to allow itself to be cramped by anything traditional. He knew how to gather into a common reservoir all the streams of thought that flowed towards him from the most diverse sources. His great object was to use all for the glorification of Jesus as he conceived him. Even Gnosticism, the most dangerous movement of his time, was well known to him—so much so that he had made many of its ideas his own. But he recognised the danger in it and did all in his power to overcome it, without giving up anything in Gnosticism which was really lofty and emancipating.
His chief pattern was Philo, and he perhaps had some thing else
in common with him in the fact that he was of Jewish extraction. If he had not been,
he would hardly have attached so much importance to the fulfilment of Old Testament
prophecies (see p. 128 f.), and
More pressing is the question, When did it come into existence? And, as regards this, we must of course look once more for statements outside
the Gospel. When were the first three Gospels written, which, by almost general
agreement, were all known to the writer of the Fourth? If we may voice our own
conviction, it would suffice to say that the Third Gospel cannot have come into
existence until about the year 100, because the author was well acquainted with
the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus who composed his chief work in the
year 93
The most important and decisive point is to know from what date we have reliable external evidence, as we say, concerning the Fourth Gospel; in other words, statements by writers which imply that they knew the book as the work of such and such an author, or at least that they wrote out passages from him, so that there can be no mistake that they really had the book lying before them. This, in fact, is the point on which those who claim that the Gospel was composed by John the Apostle have staked everything. Many of them have undertaken no less a task than to prove by such external testimony that the author ship has been placed so much beyond doubt that it is not permissible even to take into consideration the counter arguments drawn from other considerations, for instance from an examination of the Gospel itself.
Unfortunately it is quite impossible here to go into this point with all the thoroughness that is really required. If we thought of doing so, we should have to give verbatim an almost endless number of passages from all the writers of the second century, in order to enable the reader to decide whether or not they betray a knowledge of the Fourth Gospel. We should be obliged, further, in the case of all these writers to state when they wrote, or rather, since in most cases the matter is not certain, to make inquiry and try to fix the most likely date. Ten years earlier or later here mean a very great difference. Finally, we should be obliged to find out their habits: whether to a greater or less extent they incorporate in their works passages from other books; whether they are accustomed to do this exactly word for word or merely from memory; whether they state regularly from what book they draw, or simply write down the words without saying that they have borrowed them; whether they use books which we no longer possess. All this may be important when it is a question whether a passage in their writings which resembles one in the Fourth Gospel is taken from this or not. Instead of going into all these troublesome and wearisome questions, it must suffice here to state the results briefly, and to show by a few examples how they have been attained.
First then we have to establish the fact that before the year
170 no writer can be found who ascribes the Fourth Gospel to John the Apostle. As
regards this matter, we must note further that the year 170 is the very earliest
that can be specified, for the statement we have in mind that belongs to this time
reads simply: as to the day of Jesus’ death “the Gospels seem to be at variance.”
The name, therefore, of John the Apostle is not mentioned.
But if from this date it is almost generally regarded as the work of the Apostle, in order to be able to determine the value of this assertion, we must know in the first place the general idea which leading persons of the time had of the books of the New Testament.
On this point Irenaeus (about 185) is specially instructive. To
prove that there are just four true Gospels (there were still many others in existence),
he points to the fact that there are four quarters of the world and four winds;
since, then, the Church is scattered over the whole earth and the Gospel constitutes
its pillar and support and the spirit of its life, it is appropriate that the pillars
which on all (four) sides blow upon it with the airs of imperishability should be
four in number—in other words, the four Gospels. Such was the idea of so distinguished
a person as Irenaeus; when it was a question of deciding whether the Fourth Gospel
was composed by John the Apostle, he took his stand on the fact that the quarters
of heaven and the chief winds are four in number. To understand how he could do
this while speaking of the spirit of life, as well as of the winds, we must be aware
that in Greek “wind “and “spirit “are represented by the same word (pneuma).
So that by means of a play upon words, to sustain which he has further to think
of pillars (i.e., the Gospels) as blowing, he is prepared to decide a question of
such great importance. Surely we are justified in practically ignoring the
But we will take a few more cases as tests of the care fulness
of Irenaeus and those of his contemporaries who agreed with him in claiming that
the Fourth Gospel was composed by John the Apostle; they will serve to test their
critical powers as well. Irenaeus regards the James who is said in
Clement of Alexandria, one of the most learned and
But enough. We can see clearly the kind of people we have to deal with when the witnesses in support of the usual statements about the origin of the New Testament books are brought forward. Instead of insisting so emphatically that the fact that the Fourth Gospel was composed by John the Apostle is already borne witness to by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and others, it ought in truth to be said that no one did so until they bore witness to it—or, rather, asserted it.
Of rather a different nature are the cases in which passages from the Fourth Gospel are merely cited without its being said who wrote them. As regards these, it can be shown that before the year 140 there is evidence of none to which we have strict right to appeal. Sayings and expressions which resemble some in this Gospel, are indeed found in Christian writings after about the year 100 not infrequently. But it is a very strange idea that this resemblance must always be accounted for by supposing that the writers had read the Fourth Gospel. Because the Gospel has first made us acquainted with these sayings and expressions, there is no need to suppose that the circum stances were the same as early as about the year 100. On the contrary, why may not the Fourth Evangelist have been acquainted with the writings in question? Or, to mention a suggestion which in many cases is more likely, the discourses of the travelling teachers of the times, of whom there were very many, may have given currency to a number of catchwords, phrases, and whole sentences, which became the common property of all more or less cultured Christians. No one could say where he first heard them. Any one who wrote a book made use of them without suspecting that the question from what other book he took them would ever be asked. It may be that the Fourth Evangelist availed himself of them, and stamped them with his own particular genius; and we of the present day may easily be misled into supposing that he must have been the first to coin them, and that all other writers who use them must have written subsequently.
It is particularly easy to think this when a whole
Most noteworthy are the writers between the specified years 140 and 170, who really cite passages from the Fourth Gospel, but do not say who composed it. The most important is Justin, who wrote about 152 and was subsequently martyred. From the Synoptics he introduces over one hundred passages, but from Jn. only three, and these are so far from following Jn.’s language exactly that in every case it can be thought that he took them from another book, and that the Fourth Evangelist may have done the same. We assume, however, that Justin took them from Jn.’s work. But why, then, are there so few, and why is nothing said about this work being the composition of a personal disciple of Jesus? Referring to the “Revelation” of Jn., he says positively that it was composed by the Apostle; but he says nothing about the Gospel. And yet he attaches so much importance to the “memorials of the Apostles and their companions,” as he calls the Gospels; and shares with the Fourth the doctrine of the Logos. We can only understand this on one supposition: Justin did not consider the Fourth Gospel to be the work of the Apostle. In that case, it must in his age still have been quite new; otherwise it would long ago have won general recognition. Obviously Justin finds in it some passages which are beautiful and worth mentioning, but, compared with the rich use made of the Synoptics, he uses it with great caution, and almost with hesitation.
When therefore we sum up the results of our examination of the
external evidence for the Fourth Gospel, we find that
Let us now return to a consideration of the Gospel itself, and
ask whether we cannot really get the best information as to the date at which it
was composed in the same way
We have reserved a question for discussion last, which, it might
be thought, ought to have been dealt with first. Can it be that the Fourth Gospel
is not by one and the same author? If not, whenever any assertion is made with
regard to the author, it must of course be stated very care fully to what part it
refers. But the question is not of serious importance. We have mentioned that the
story of
The case would be altered, only if we were obliged to partition the first twenty chapters in large part between two or more authors. The attempt to do this as a rule rests upon the supposition that one half is due to a trust worthy historian and an eye-witness, the other to a badly informed contributor. In an earlier part of this volume (p. 110 f.), we have already realised how far such assumptions are from making anything contained in the Gospel really credible. But in conclusion we will try to show the contradictions in which people involve themselves when they make a division of the kind.
One of the most recent of these attempts explains that the eye-witness
Peter, whose record Mk. preserves in his Gospel, tells us that on the last evening
of Jesus’ life he celebrated the Supper with his disciples; and the eye-witness
John that he washed their feet. Peter therefore knew nothing of the washing, and
John nothing of the Supper. The eye-witness Peter—we are told further as regards—Jesus’ idea of the judgment of the world, preserved the record that it would begin
for all men on one and the same day at the end of the world; the eye-witness John
recorded that for those who believed in Jesus it would never take place (
WHAT is known as the First Epistle of John, though in reality it is not in epistolary form at all but in that of a circular addressed to the whole of Christendom, is to all appearances inseparably connected with the Gospel. Often, as we read, we can hardly say whether we have the one or the other book open before us. And in fact the matter on which they differ from each other most clearly is one which, from another point of view, serves to bring them together again.
Whereas, for instance, the Gospel never says that it is opposing
false teaching within the Christian fold (except in
As to Jesus, the opponents of the writer of the Epistle taught
that he was not the Christ (
But, further, in
But it is remarkable that the man who so decisively opposes Gnosticism
agrees with it entirely on a strikingly large number of points. He also cannot but
think that there are two kingdoms very sharply opposed to each other, the kingdom
of God, and that of the world which is ruled by the devil (
We found that there is the same kind of agreement with the Gnostics
in the Gospel (pp. 158-160). But the Epistle goes a step farther. While the Gospel
only occasionally suggests that knowledge is a valuable thing (
But we see at the same time the peculiar nature of the attack
that is made upon them. Those who opposed them claimed as their own all that was
valuable in the things the Gnostics prided themselves on, and denied it to the Gnostics.
And upon what ground? If these Gnostics really lived the sinful kind of life they
were reproached with, this would assuredly provide a certain amount of justification
for arguing on these grounds against the truth of their teaching, on the principle
“by their fruits ye shall know them” (
As regards the First Epistle of John, we must say that in its attack on its opponents, compared with the writings mentioned above, it has observed a certain moderation. In form at least it is written in a calm and measured style. We note that the author feels the necessity of convincing his readers of the truth of what he says. Laying so great stress on knowledge as he does, he cannot have failed to desire this. True, his argument does not take the form of giving real proofs; he simply gives expression to his own conviction; but the brevity and simplicity with which he does so makes it so effective that he could really hope to make an impression by it.
On what then, in the last resort, does he take his stand when
he opposes the Gnostics? On the Confession of the Church. People must confess that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh that is to say, has appeared with a body consisting of flesh; otherwise they are not from God, but are Christ’s enemies, and,
in denying the son, they are at the same time denying God the Father as well (
After all that has been said so far, the Gospel and the first
Epistle might very well seem to have been the work of the same person; but on a
closer view it is clear that in all probability the two writings had different authors.
A number of important expressions occur only in the Epistle which the author of
the Gospel would have had opportunities of using as well had he been familiar with
them. But, above all, the convictions to which the Epistle gives
Jesus second coming from heaven, at which he will bring eternal
happiness, in
It is indeed permissible to think that one and the same person might have expressed himself differently in two works. But the facts of the case are certainly more easily understood if we suppose that we have to do with two different authors; and since, moreover, the Evangelist cannot have been John the Apostle, it is no use insisting that the author of the Epistle can have been no other than he.
But when was the Epistle written? Since it represents the simpler
and earlier form of the Christian faith, it is natural to think it older than the
Gospel. But the contrary may also have been the case; and there are many other
writers who have not followed the Gospel of John, when it diverges from the original
teaching, but have betaken themselves to this. We must therefore look for another
means of deciding the question. Let me quote here
We must now devote a few more words to the purpose of the Epistle.
We have hitherto explained that the author is opposing the Gnostics, but if what
we have just said be correct, this does not exhaust the matter; another purpose
is to repeat in another form what is contained in the Gospel and so to confirm it.
Is there any connection between this and the fact that in the earliest days after
its publication it gained so little recognition (p. 199 f.)? In that case, the
purpose of the Epistle would be the same as that which induced some one, as we
have already found (p. 186 f.), to add the twenty-first chapter to the Gospel. And
just as in the addition to the Gospel the ruling idea was to satisfy the requirement
that the account of Peter should be more favourable, sq in the present case the
work was carried out
We should have to assume at the same time that he wished to be
taken for the Evangelist. But, according to the ideas of the time, there would be
as little harm in this as there was in the other case where the Evangelist (perhaps)
wished to be taken for John the Apostle (pp. 183-185). We must not therefore regard
it as being in the slightest degree deceitful when we are told at the beginning
of his circular: “that which was from the beginning, that which we have heard,
that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands handled,
concerning the Word of Life (that is to say, concerning Jesus) . . . declare we
unto you also.” By taking up the pen in the name of the Evangelist, and yet writing
in a rather different sense, the author served the great purpose of gaining recognition
in the Church for the precious thoughts contained in the Fourth Gospel, knowing
as he did how to remove all that was offensive; and it is quite possible that he
helped in a real sense to achieve this purpose. He did not, however, fulfil in any
way his opening promise (
THE agreement which we have noticed in the mode of expression and the thought of the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle, is much less pronounced when we turn to the Second Epistle, and disappears even more in the Third. On the other hand, these two Epistles supplement the First from a new point of view.
If we take note of what is most peculiar in them, we cannot help
seeing that their main purpose is to insist that with certain members of the Christian
Church communion must be ended. We read in
In the Third Epistle the opposition to these is less perceptible; there was less opportunity, for the occasion for this Epistle was provided by
disputes between the author and a certain Diotrephes as to the authoritative influence
in the community. “I wrote somewhat unto the Church; but Diotrephes, who loveth
to have the pre-eminence among
The Third Epistle, then, is addressed to a particular person.
At first sight, this seems to be so with the Second Epistle as well, when we read,
“the elder unto the elect lady and her children.” But who is the lady? The last
sentence of the Epistle runs: “The children of thine elect sister salute thee.”
Does the author actually write from the house of the sister of the recipient? And
what does
We need not stop to think, as regards this matter, that a community
had been shown to be meant instead of what appeared at first sight to be one woman.
Where should we have to look for it? There is no clue to anything of the kind.
Any community, therefore, might suppose that it was greeted by that other community
in which the author was staying. This means that the Epistle was meant for the whole
church, and its contents suit this idea quite well. For a secondary purpose of the
Epistle is found in the fact that the author wishes to warn people in quite a general
way against the Gnostics and to emphasise the correct teaching about Jesus (
While the Second Epistle insists, not only on opposition to, but on the expulsion of the Gnostics, it goes beyond the First, and so might with the Third seem to be later. Unfortunately we have no definite points from which to start in order to determine the date at which both were written. Yet, on the other hand, there is another fact which leads us to suppose that they preceded the Gospel and the First Epistle.
The author of both Epistles, that is to say, calls himself simply,
“the elder.” How it could be thought that, in spite of this clear description,
he was the Apostle, is really difficult to explain. If we cannot say for certain
who is meant by “the elder,” yet it is clear that the Apostle would not have described
himself in this way. When we read in
Was he the writer of the Epistles? If the Gnostics did not succeed in gaining a following in the Christian communities until about the year 100 (p. 192), a considerable period of time must have elapsed before people would take measures to exclude them so harshly from communion. For many decades they regarded themselves as members of the Church, and, though they were opposed by other teachers in it, they were treated everywhere with toleration, A personal disciple of Jesus, such as John the Elder was, cannot have lived to see the time when they were excluded from communion.
Another person in his circle, who is not known to us, may have had the same title, and in course of time have come to be known solely by this name, “the Elder.” But in view of the close relationship between, at least, the Second Epistle on the one hand and the First and the Gospel on the other, it is very likely that the author is supposed to be that John the Elder whom Irenaeus and the other Christian writers had in mind, even though they mentioned the Apostle as the writer of the Gospel and the First Epistle. Only, in that case, the two small Epistles would have been composed merely in the name of John the Elder, just as the First Epistle and (perhaps) the Gospel are represented as being works of John the Apostle.
And this would be the reason for supposing these two to be the earlier of the four writings in question. On this assumption, we shall have to think that in one particular place, Ephesus perhaps, there was a whole number of persons of like mind who were filled with a feeling of veneration for John the Elder, once head of this community, and at the same time were anxious, by writing books, to make their ideas current in the Church. Even if these ideas had ceased to be quite identical with those of their former Master, it was most natural for them to publish their first writings in his name. But perhaps they were made to realise that his reputation had not extended beyond the immediate circle in which he had once worked. In order, therefore, to make a greater impression, when they thought of publishing new works, such as the Gospel and the First Epistle, they felt obliged to choose a person who ranked still higher and publish them in his name; this person was John the Apostle. In this way the two small Epistles, in spite of the fact that their range is restricted, would contribute not a little towards giving us a very interesting and instructive glimpse of a whole series of events and struggles, which the idea that arose later, that their author was John the Apostle, to all intents and purposes served to overcloud completely.
THE last book of the New Testament is called “Revelation” (Gk.
Apokalypsis) of Jesus Christ, but after we have pored over the books—far more than
a thousand—which have been written in the past years to explain it, it must appear
so obscure that the seven seals which are mentioned in the book (
It has been supposed to prophesy the whole history of the Church
and even of the world, in each case of course down to the lifetime of the expositor,
and nearly always in a different way. In the beast described in
All this mass of ingenuity and error might of course have been
seen from the beginning to be useless, if people had only taken note, amongst other
things, of the first verse and the last verse but one in the book. We are told in
But first we must realise clearly that in this book we have not
to do with a single author. The visions which he is supposed to have seen in it
follow upon one another with so little regard to order that it has already been
thought that he could not have seen them all one after another, but after each must
have had time to note it down; other wise he would not have been in a position
to note them all in their right order. No less than six times we find the “last
things,” which from what has already been said we might think are to follow (
It has been noticed that
Such leaflets may still be discovered in the Apocalypse of Jn. as well. It is difficult to say whether the writer who put together the whole book was the first to insert them, or whether earlier workers did so, each of them publishing only a part of the present book; and the matter is of subordinate importance. Particular stones in the building attract attention and can be separated more easily than those sections of the walls which have been constructed by one or another foreman.
In
He cannot, of course, have been a Christian if Jesus supposed
prophecy, “there shall not be left here one stone upon another” (
But the city of Rome takes an even more important place than Jerusalem
in the Apocalypse. Fear of the authorities, who might think the prophecies about
it dangerous to the State, leads the author to mention the city not by its real
name, but by that of Babylon, which, as was well known, was in the Old Testament
associated with an equal amount of wickedness; but
In these we find connected with it the most important figure in
the whole Apocalypse, the (first) beast, that is to say, the Roman imperium. It
supports and carries the woman, as the city of Rome is also called (
There is something else which suggests that the time intended
is that immediately following Nero’s death. By the beast we are not always meant
to understand the Roman imperium in general, but sometimes a single emperor. There
is no mistake when it is said in
To which Roman Emperor does this apply? When Nero saw that his rule was at an end, he fled in the company of a few persons to an estate, and on hearing his pursuers approaching, with the help of his secretary he cut his throat with a sword. His corpse was solemnly burned. But his friends, especially amongst the mob, refused to believe that he was dead; they imagined that he had made his escape and would shortly return and wrest back his power.
A heathen could not reconcile these two accounts of Nero’s end; but a Christian (or a Jew), believing as he did in a resurrection, could very
well do so. Accordingly, all that we read about the beast in the Apocalypse would
apply to Nero: the sword-wound, the death, the return from the underworld, to which
every one went when he died, and the statement that this risen person who is to
appear as the eighth emperor, was one of the seven preceding emperors. We know indeed
that impostors were continually coming
Those who, as we mentioned above, claim that the sixth place must be assigned to the Emperor Vespasian, and that this was the reign in which the author lived, may still discover the reason for his statements in the appearance of this false Nero, if they suppose that they were written in the first period of Vespasian, that is to say at the be ginning of the year 70. On the other hand, the next false Nero of whom we hear did not appear at the end of the reign of Vespasian, but in the days of his successor, Titus. But a person who wrote in this reign (79-81) could in no circumstances say that he was living in the reign of the sixth Emperor.
It has been thought that the expectation that the resuscitated
Nero would be the eighth Emperor could only have been held when the seventh had
already ascended the throne; otherwise a seventh would not have been prophesied.
But the writer’s conviction that Rome would have seven emperors was drawn from the
Old Testament book of Daniel. This represents the matter in such a way that it might
have been composed in the sixth century B.C. (in reality it was not written until
167-164 B.C.), and prophesies in
Since the author of the Apocalypse does not pretend, like the
book of Daniel, to prophesy so many centuries before the time in which he really
lived, he speaks of only one world-wide empire, that of Home. Since, however, the
book of Daniel and its description of the empires ruling the world was held to be
a divine prophecy, which in the author’s lifetime still waited for fulfilment, he
(or one of his predecessors) has made its four beasts into one, which now, according
to
Here again we can note well how the Apocalypse borrows its descriptions from an older prophecy, which it held to be sacred, and how at the same time it adapts this prophecy to its own present. This enables us to understand fully such a figure as that of the beast, which is really very curious. In other cases as well, the author continually takes his expressions and even whole sentences from the Old Testament. It may be, however, that several remarkable descriptions in the book are derived from other old prophecies, perhaps suggested by myths about the gods of the Babylonians or Persians.
The last point which confirms us in thinking that Nero is meant
by the beast consists in the famous number (
The most important sections of the book, that concerning Jerusalem, and those about the return of Nero from the underworld, date therefore in all probability from the years 68-70. None of the others indicates so clearly the date at which it came into existence. We ask therefore at once when the whole book may be supposed to have been put together. And here Irenaeus tells us that the Apocalypse was revealed and written down at the end of the reign of the Emperor Domitian, that is to say, in the year 95 or 96. We have already seen (p. 194 f.) how little we can rely on Irenaeus in such matters. But in this case we have no definite reason to dispute that the date he fixes for the composition of the Apocalypse is appropriate enough for the putting together of the whole book.
But who is the author (or compiler) of the whole Apocalypse? In any case, it is not the same person who wrote the Fourth Gospel. The two works are fundamentally different.
If the Gospel is not written in good Greek style, the style is
at any rate smooth; the Apocalypse has very serious linguistic mistakes. Moreover,
in both works Jesus
As we cannot ascribe the Gospel to the Apostle John, it is still
possible that he may have written the Apocalypse (in
It is different if we think of John the Elder (p. 172 f.) as the
final editor of the Apocalypse. This would explain the fact (which would also be
appropriate if the author
We know further, as regards John the Elder (but not also as regards
the Apostle), that he was very much interested in prophecies of the end of the
world, and imagined, for example, that after the resurrection of the dead there
would be on earth a millennial kingdom full of peace and happiness and ruled by
Christ, exactly as it is described in
When we remember, finally, that John the Elder of Ephesus was
leader of the Church of Western Asia Minor, we can easily see how well his position
suits the tone in which the seven Epistles to the seven Communities in that region
are composed in
We must not persist, however, in thinking that it was John the Elder who wrote the seven letters, and in this way, as well as by other embellishments which we can no longer specify exactly, brought the Apocalypse to a close. The description of Jesus tells against this, even if John him self only heard him for a short time. The work may also have been composed by another person in his name, just as well as the Second and Third Epistles of John.
The seven Epistles in the Apocalypse contain severe words about
evil conditions and the opponents of the author in some of the seven communities; but they also contain beautiful and truly religious utterances which are sufficient
to compensate for the spirit of the whole book, which is sometimes narrow and vindictive
(
THE task that remains is the most attractive of all. We have to enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of the other four Johannine writings, and to try to realise their importance, on the one hand for their own time, and on the other for all times. When we did this in the case of the Apocalypse, we could only speak with a good deal of reserve; as regards these other writings, however, we are in a much more favourable position, especially as regards the Gospel and the First Epistle. At this point we assume, of course, that the reader is acquainted with all that we have said at the close of the first part of this book (pp. 151-165) about the intellectual currents observable in the Fourth Gospel.
A consideration of the question whether the Gentiles also ought to be encouraged to become Christians will perhaps be the clearest way of showing that, of all the writings of the New Testament, the Fourth Gospel marks the greatest step forward.
At first Jesus did not think of extending to the Gentiles the
benefits of his work (p. 34 f.), and he forbade his disciples
In the Fourth Gospel, however, the admission of Gentiles to Christianity
is quite a matter of course. When Greeks come near to Jesus and wish to meet him,
he sees in their coming the beginning of the hour in which he will be glorified,
that is to say, exalted to heaven (
For the same purpose again it was important that it should not
seem to be dangerous to the State. In the case of Paul, the Acts of the Apostles
always represents the Roman officials as recognising that it did not really threaten
the State (
If Christianity was to become a world-religion, it had to break
away more and more from Judaism; and this cer tainly could not be done without
a struggle. The great majority of the Jews from the time of the Apostle Paul had
already adopted a hostile attitude towards Christianity: this would make the Christians
despise them all the more. The way in which Jesus is represented as speaking of
the Jews, the Law, the feasts of the Jews, as matters of utter indifference to him,
and which to us seems inconceivable (p. 15 f.), entirely harmonises with the ideas
of Christians in the second century, who were for the most part Gentiles by birth,
and is most appropriate if the Evangelist was alive at the time of the rising of
Bar Cochba (p. 200 f.). When he represents Jesus as being continually engaged in
controversies with the Jews, all those points are touched
We see more clearly how the author appreciates those intellectual
movements of his age with which he feels that he him self has something in common.
He prepared the way even for Montanus of Phrygia and his followers, who after the
year 156 came forward with new prophecies and declared that this age of theirs,
the age of the Holy Spirit which filled them, represented a higher level compared
with the time in which Jesus lived, by making Jesus himself say in
But it was, in particular, the captivating ideas of Gnosticism
that the Fourth Evangelist appropriated (pp. 152 f. 158-160). He did a great service
to his age by showing that one could be a thinker, appreciate knowledge, stand in
the midst of a stream of thoroughly intellectual movements, and yet remain a faithful
son of the Church. In this way, we may presume, he contributed not a little to keep
Christians from splitting into two classes having hardly any connecting link, the
intellectual aristocracy of the Gnostics and simple believers. In face of mutual
feuds and of persecution
The Fourth Evangelist, by adopting the view that the visible world
is only a perishable copy of the invisible, at the same time introduced a revolution
in the ideas about the state after death, the results of which have been felt even
down to the present time. The Old Testament, and with it Jesus and the whole of
primitive Christendom, imagined a future state of happiness upon earth. Even in
the Apocalypse (
Only in a few passages does Paul express the idea (
But the Fourth Evangelist exercised the greatest influence by
adopting to some extent the view of the world held by the great thinkers of his
age and applying it to the Person of Jesus. Paul and those who followed him (pp.
144-146) had already ascribed to Jesus a life with God in heaven before his descent
upon earth, and even a share in the creation of the world; but Jn. is the first
to start clearly with the idea that Jesus was the Logos and that without him God
could have produced no effect upon the world, because He, being perfectly good,
was obliged without question to keep at a distance from the world which was thoroughly
evil. The idea that Jesus was begotten of God as a human son is begotten by his
human father, an idea which Paul and those who followed him had given expression
to before Jn., must of itself have helped very much to make Gentiles familiar with
Jesus from the start and favourably disposed towards his worship, for they knew
of and worshipped so many deities who were begotten by a god. But the statement
was truly a greater one when it could be said that the Logos, whose work the deepest
thinkers had found to be necessary if the divine influence was to come into the
world, was no other than Jesus. While the conception of Jesus as a Son of God might
make an impression on the lower classes among the Gentiles, that of Jesus as the
Logos would attract the people of culture. And, as a matter of fact, it was very
important that Christianity should not always remain a religion merely for uncultured and uninfluential people. In the form in which the Fourth Gospel presented
it, it was capable of satisfying the highest demands of the age. Here attention
was no longer
True, there is another side to this picture. There was now no
longer any other way of attaining to blessedness than by believing in Jesus. He
himself must now be represented as continually requiring people to believe in him—a request which the Jesus of the Synoptics made so seldom. The branches must abide
in the vine (by which Jesus means himself), otherwise they will wither. “Apart
from me ye can do nothing” (
Nevertheless, it was necessary to establish a Church communion. The desire to enjoy a common religious possession with people of a like mind cannot be repressed. Moreover, such communion is a powerful support to the individual, whether he comes to be distressed by doubts, is in trouble, or is in danger of falling into sin. Institutions which serve this purpose, whatever dangers may lurk in them, must be considered instruments of progress.
To all intents and purposes, the Fourth Evangelist never speaks
of such institutions (
But beyond question the author, while emphasising these thoughts,
does so in moderation. In the First Epistle of John, the believer’s consciousness
that he comes from God, possesses full knowledge, and is free from sin (
The really dangerous aspect of the matter when, by describing
Jesus as the Son of God and the Logos, people easily induced the Gentiles to believe
in him, is seen in another direction. They had to carry this description through.
It had to be shown in detail how be walked on earth as a divine being, simply proclaiming
his high rank, doing the greatest miracles for his own glorification, and for that
reason keeping away from the grave of Lazarus for two days, while at the same time
an effort had to be made to maintain that he was really a man. We need not stop
again to explain how difficult it is for the mind to imagine this figure, or how
hard it is for the religious sentiment to accept it. Even if it were applied to
the Jesus of the Synoptics, that would be a hard saying: “I am the way and the
truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (
For centuries this demand has been made and complied with; and the books of history suggest rarely to some extent how many have been the doubts, and how great has been the torture of souls. To-day, in ever widening circles, people resolutely refuse to comply with it. And since this has happened, it may be considered fortunate that Jn. has made the demand so emphatically. For as a result of it we have been made to decide that no further move can be made in his direction, and that we must go back to the Synoptics and try to find in their account and—with their own guidance—in the background of their account, the figure of Jesus as he really existed.
But why did this person write a Gospel? We are sure that the
question has long ago occurred to many of our readers. But what other kind of book
should he have written? A treatise, or a letter like the First Epistle of Jn. as
found in our Bible? What does this contain? Hardly anything but general maxims:
we must love God, we must shun false teachers. Now the Gospel also contains such
maxims: God is Spirit; a man must be born from above (
And it was necessary to be able to describe everything as being as sublime as possible. It would not do to stop short at the teaching of Paul, that Jesus laid aside his divine attributes before he came down from heaven. If he ever possessed them, he must actually reveal them, and reveal them just where they could be seen by human eyes—upon earth. This idea must necessarily have arisen sooner or later. The higher the god, the more powerful his help; and Gentiles, who hitherto had always turned from a god who was not sufficiently powerful to one who was supposed to be more so, would only address themselves to a powerful god. In fact, even if Jn. had refrained from writing a Gospel, another person would have written one in the same sense, and we should simply have to make our complaint elsewhere.
What we have said may have suggested that the Fourth Gospel with the Epistles of Jn. met the needs of its age in a very successful way, but hardly gives us anything that is of value for all times. Certainly, the abiding worth of the Gospel is not to be found where people seek it, and where the claim of the book itself, that it is a history of the life and work of Jesus, implies that they must seek it. Nevertheless, it is seen to be all the greater in other respects.
If the authors of the Gospel and the First Epistle were not thinkers
in the strict sense of the term, but have taken up philosophical ideas simply in
order to defend their own religion, yet by their declarations, “God is Spirit” (
Equally deep is the truth hidden in the saying of Jesus (
The First Epistle of John speaks in most beautiful language of
what is at the heart of religion, communion with God. In the Gospel, since it is
assumed that God is separated from the world, this communion is always effected
through Jesus, who says, for example, in
The actualisation of this close communion with God,
He does this again, though with a different result, in what he
says about the redemption brought by Jesus. According to the Synoptics, Jesus emancipated
(redeemed) those who attached themselves to him from two kinds of illusion and from
two kinds of sin: from the illusions of a religion of fear, and of a religion of
pretences, as it is represented in the parable in Lk. (
On the last evening of his life, Jesus said: “this is my body;” “this is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many” (
In what sense Jesus thought of shedding his blood for many, we
can easily realise when we remember that he was reclining at the paschal meal (pp.
117-130). God had promised to pass by those houses, the doors of which were smeared
with the blood of the Paschal lamb, when on the night before the Exodus of the Israelites
with Moses from Egypt, he would kill all the first-born (
And the only other passage in the Synoptics in which Jesus attaches
importance to his death for the salvation of men, can be understood in the same
way as the paschal sacrifice: “for verily the Son of Man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (
Paul or some of his predecessors (
If, as the Fourth Gospel represents, Jesus is the Logos, it cannot
have been through his death that he first brought redemption. He is supposed to
bring the world into conformity with God’s will, since God himself was obliged
to avoid contact with it. This he could only do by his own activity, and so, when
upon earth, by his works and preaching. According to Jn., he may be compared especially
with the light which shines upon the world; and so the only important question
is whether people turn to him or away from him (
May we suppose then that Jn. here preserves a correct recollection
of the Life of Jesus? Certainly not. He only arrives at this agreement with the
Synoptics after making an extraordinarily roundabout journey. Paul, influenced by
a kind of piety which was very conscientious, and for that reason very punctilious,
in his teaching about the sacrificial death of Jesus introduced foreign matter into
the
We ourselves, nevertheless, have reason to rejoice at the result.
We no longer find in Jn. any of Paul’s laborious arguments to prove that the Jewish
Law has ceased to be binding upon Christians, and that the sinner is justified,
that is to say, is declared righteous by God, through faith. If God is to declare
any one righteous, he must be represented as a judge, and must as such examine
one’s works; and the faith which the sinner has merely to exhibit will not be a
work, but the opposite of any kind of service: it must be simply trust, purely
the opening of the hand to
Now, the latter Jn. also requires us to believe, that is to say,
to accept as true; but the faith in Jesus person which Jn. asks for—although it
also includes acceptance of the truth of his heavenly origin—consists again, exactly
as it does in the Synoptics, simply in feeling oneself drawn to him, in confiding
in him, in recognising him as one’s redeemer. Similarly—in place of the above-noted difficulties in Paul’s teaching about justification by faith—in the Johannine writings
everything has once more become so simple that the important matter is again, just
as in the Synoptics, to do the will of God or Jesus, concerning which especially
the First Epistle of John speaks in such beautiful language (
But the Fourth Gospel is most distinctly modern when it substitutes
for the materialistic and literally understood ideas of the earliest Christians,
the spiritual interpretations which were already implied in them without people
being conscious of the fact. Usually people have no idea how many of the liberal
ideas of the present may be found in this Gospel. As regards miracles, we have already
decided, that they are only emphatically declared to be real events from one point
of view, but that from another standpoint they are regarded purely as symbolical
descriptions of profound truths (pp. 95-100, 105 f., 109); and those who are no
longer disposed to use them as buttresses of the Christian faith need only appeal
to the words which Jesus addressed to Thomas (
It was generally expected by the early Christians that Jesus second
coming from heaven would be the signal for a bodily resurrection and for the judgment
to be held before the throne of God upon all mankind; and that eternal life would
then begin. In Jn., on the other hand, the judgment takes place during life, when
a distinction is drawn between men, and the one section turns towards Jesus, the
light which streams upon the world, while the other turns away from him (
We have thus produced ample evidence to show that, although we cannot admit the claim of the Fourth Gospel to be regarded as a record of the life of Jesus, it deserves the highest consideration at the present time when it is viewed as a book dealing with the essence of Christianity. So long as it is read with the idea of finding each particular statement about Jesus’ works and discourses to be correct, it cannot be enjoyed. But when this idea is abandoned, and when, in addition, Jesus continual claim upon people to believe in his heavenly origin is set aside, when therefore attention is given only to the thoughts which he is made to express, or when one reads attentively the First Epistle of John, one is impressed by a profundity of thought and feeling, the equal of which cannot easily be found anywhere else in the New Testament.
We may be sure that from the experience of his own soul he knew
the value of the benefits offered by religion. He is aware that the religious man
has light to illuminate his path (
For all that constituted his religious aspirations he now found
satisfaction in Christianity. But to him this means that he found it in the person
of Jesus. For, in addition to all that we have mentioned, he knew something else: that no man has ever seen God, that none can receive any thing unless it be given
from heaven, and that one must be chosen and cannot be the chooser of his own Saviour
(
This again leads us to the thought that the author of the Fourth
Gospel deserves credit for wishing to ascribe to Jesus all the sublime thoughts
that he had made his own, especially when we remember that people of other ages,
the present not excepted, have in the same way been only too ready to find in Jesus
all that at any time has seemed to them truest and best in religion, We can understand
now how it is that the author sees in this Jesus, and in him alone, the way to God,
the truth and the life (
At the same time he has not shut his eyes to the truth that Christian
knowledge needed to make progress. After the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is
to guide the disciples into all truth (
PROF. SCHMIEDEL has kindly allowed me to add a note to his remarks on p. 248, and to make them a subject for discussion. In doing so, I am breaking through my general principle as Editor of these Volksbücher, which is not to express any opinion upon disputable passages.
Personally it does not seem possible to me that at this decisive hour when Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples for the last time, he should have thought more of the bodily needs of his followers than of the needs of their souls. He himself said, “Fear not those who kill the body, but those who can kill the soul,” &c. And are we to suppose that in face of that calamity which was about to rush upon them through his death, he thought these words no longer applied? It seems to me that Jesus would be going against the spirit of his own words, if, when he took that pathetic farewell of his disciples, he was silent about the importance of his death for their souls, and in his kindly anxiety thought only of the safety of their bodies. When Socrates went to death, he explained to his disciples that he could not try to escape it, since his death was necessary for the welfare of their souls—and can Jesus at this supreme moment have thought only of the bodily welfare of his followers?
SCHIELE.
The saying of Jesus (
To whom then can the saying of Jesus apply? Schiele’s objection is to the idea that Jesus wished the disciples to be protected from the death of the body. But, considering the position of the disciples at the time, the saying which he has quoted cannot in any way apply to them. They are not yet face to face with the question, whether they ought to flee from or resign themselves to death at the hands of men. The authorities would not feel obliged to lay hands upon them, until Jesus’ public ministry assumed such a character as to threaten the security of the State. The advice to surrender the body rather than escape by violating the will of God, was therefore, as far as the disciples were concerned, not required by the circumstances of the case; consequently there would be no question of Jesus “going against the spirit of his own words,” if he did not give it.
Nor can the saying quoted have applied to Jesus himself. If he
had tried to avoid death by flight or by denying his belief in his Messiahship,
he would thus have violated the will of God which clearly showed him that the moment
had come to prove the truth of his cause by resigning himself to death. But there
would only be a question of “going
But if Schiele’s meaning be that Jesus ought to have told the disciples simply that he had decided, as far as he himself was concerned, to act in the spirit of this saying and resign himself to death, it seems to me quite obvious that he did this, and, to strengthen their minds, added to this explanation all the consequences which it necessarily implied, even if we are not told that he did so, Indeed, it will be seen that this is implicit in what our records tell us about Jesus’ words on this evening.
Let us therefore leave the words of Jesus which have been quoted, and the citation of which does not seem to me to throw any light on the question, and turn to Schiele’s real objection.
First, however, I will print in full, with his permission, an explanation of the above note, which, at my request, he was kind enough to give me. He writes as follows:
Whatever Jesus may have hoped to achieve by all that he did for
his disciples, now at any rate they were directly confronted by a very serious mental
crisis; within a few hours they will all be offended with him, they will all be
doubtful about him, when they see that he will allow him self to be killed. How
shall they survive this mental crisis? Jesus himself had already overcome the same
crisis in his own mind, when he submitted to the will of his Father and accepted
death as an obligation which could not be refused. Legend, making a justifiable
use of poetry, has represented Jesus as going through this struggle quite alone
in the hour of agony in Gethsemane—after the Passover meal
For if Jesus does not struggle successfully and resolve to die, he—and with him his cause—must be inwardly ruined. That is Jesus’ own idea. His death means salvation to him, and therefore to his cause also—salvation to his disciples.
As the death of the Passover lamb means salvation to the Israelites in a critical hour, so in like manner in another critical hour the death of Jesus means salvation to his disciples.
He who will preserve the life of his body, shall lose it; he who loses it, as Jesus now wills to lose it, will save it. By thus deciding in favour of death and saving his own soul, Jesus’ death is the salvation of his cause and of his disciples.
You will see from what I have said that I intentionally refrain from championing any specific interpretation of the death of Jesus, or from trying to maintain that it is possible to know in what special sense Jesus attached importance to his death as a means of salvation. All that I would claim is that, as Jesus thought of himself as the preacher and bringer of salvation, he definitely decided to reconcile him self to his death as an act of saving power.
And naturally when we speak of this salvation, we must
For my own part I can see no need to confine myself to such indefinite statements and to base my answer to the question, What had Jesus in mind when he celebrated the Supper? upon conjectures concerning such a general term as salvation. The words spoken by Jesus have in fact been handed down to us, and in a more reliable way than pretty well anything else. For when Paul became a Christian a year or a few years after Jesus’ death, he already found that this ceremony was in existence and that the words of Jesus relating to it were continually repeated. And although changes, especially additions, forced their way into this language, it is still so concise, that what Jesus himself said can hardly have been briefer. As regards the meaning of his words, however, the sanctity in which they were held protected them against any serious alteration.
Now if Jesus spoke them at a Paschal meal, it would be strange
indeed if he did not think of his death as being like that of a paschal lamb. And
Schiele does not dispute this. But according to the Old Testament, by which we
If, by trying to escape from death, Jesus had at the same time brought upon his disciples the risk of persecution, his whole cause might easily have perished with them; but Jesus was absolutely sure that God could not wish this, for he was convinced that this cause of his was the cause of God. As soon, therefore, as Jesus saw reason to hope that by dying himself he might save his followers from a similar fate—and the whole situation justified this hope—he must have felt that it was God’s will also that he should do this. But if it was God’s will, it was something sacred to him, and he could not by any means regard it as a matter of such slight importance as Schiele supposes—even if nothing more profound, nothing of an essentially religious nature, was included.
Jesus’ first task must have been to keep the disciples from that
despair which they would be only too likely to fall into as soon as he was removed; this purpose was a great one, and was in accordance with the divine plan as he
understood it, even if no word of Jesus is given us about the way in which it was
to be carried out, apart from the assurance that Jesus’ death would preserve the
bodily life of the disciples. But is something more profound, something of an essentially religious nature, really lacking? I have not thought it necessary to say
in so many words that when Jesus wished to preserve his disciples from death, he
did not do so in the sense that they did not need after his death to remain faithful
to his cause. He must therefore earnestly have admonished them to continue faithful
and to realise the
Thus I cannot really think that my meaning is correctly represented by the words, “Jesus thought only of the bodily welfare of his followers, in his kindly anxiety he thought only of the safety of their bodies.” Salvation of the body (or rather, preservation of bodily life) and salvation of the soul are, I think, in the present case inseparably united.
Moreover, Schiele could not have written the twofold “only,” if he had also given due consideration to the words which immediately follow the passage to which he has added his note. One who thinks that the idea of a sacrifice like that of the paschal lamb is not deep enough for Jesus, might very well, I think, discover the profundity, which he misses here, in the idea which I have there tried to find in the words of Jesus as preserved to us, namely, that his death was the sacrifice offered at the making of a covenant by which the disciples were to be united to God more closely than ever before.
I think therefore that my explanation, which closely follows the records, is, as regards the religious value of the character of Jesus, by no means inferior to that of Schiele, and, moreover, that it is really not so very different from his.
In particular, I agree with him when he says that care for the
soul must always take precedence of care for the
And as for the forgiveness of the sins of the disciples, which Schiele includes amongst the absolutely important objects of care, in my opinion Jesus cannot in any case have thought his death necessary for this, for he had previously on many occasions assumed, and even declared, that God would forgive sins without this (p. 247).
Nor would I venture to declare that the account according to which Jesus’ prayer that he might be saved from death, and his resignation to the will of God which followed subsequently, first took place in Gethsemane and so after the celebration of the Supper, is a legend. True, even at the Supper, Jesus looked upon his death as the will of God, but only in the event of the authorities laying hands on him. If they omitted to do this, he on his part would not only have had no reason to bring it about, but would even have been obliged to think that his death was contrary to the will of God. For, according to all the assumptions that were made with regard to the Messiah, it was the will of God that he should establish the divine rule triumphantly upon earth, and not at the price of suffering and death. Thus even while Jesus was in Gethsemane he may at first have been filled with the desire to be preserved from death, and there is no need to think that this involved the danger that his cause would be inwardly ruined. It is enough that Jesus succeeded in gaining such self-control that, when the authorities really interfered, he submitted with resignation.
Once more then I have no reason to dissent from the Gospels here
and to reverse the order of the two events, the
Moreover, a legend which arose in the first instance amongst worshippers of Jesus would never have assigned this wavering attitude of Jesus in his prayer to so late an hour as that of Gethsemane, since it might so easily cast a shadow upon him. In this matter the feeling of the Fourth Evangelist was correct; see above, p. 27.
SCHMIEDEL.
THE following are the explanations that are given in the New Testament of the death of Jesus. We have grouped them according to their similarity or dissimilarity, not according to the persons who have put them forward.
1. Since, as we have shown above (p. 247), until quite a short
time before his death, Jesus did not regard it as an eventuality ordained by God
for the salvation of mankind, and since he was obliged to think that, being the
Messiah, he was destined triumphantly to establish the kingdom of God, (a) in view
of the Baptist’s end and of the machinations of his own enemies (
2. Jesus’ death implied a purpose as regards his own person, (a)
3. Jesus by his death fulfilled a purpose with reference to the
final condition of the world, (a)
4. From another point of view his death is regarded as a sacrifice
of exemption from an unmerited misfortune. (a) Thus Jesus himself explained his
death at the celebration of the Supper, by representing it as a paschal offering
(see above, p. 248). On this perhaps rests also the idea that the good shepherd
lays down his life for his sheep (
5. Again, it has been interpreted as a covenant sacrifice. (a)
In this way also Jesus explained his death at the celebration of the Supper (see
above, p. 248 f.). (b) The Epistle to the Hebrews (
6. Before we consider the idea of atonement in its most prominent
application, as a reconciliation with God, we must view it (a) in a quite different
aspect, that is to say as a reconciliation between the Jews and the Gentiles by
the admission of both into the Christian body. To effect this was the purpose of
Jesus’ death according to
7. In
8. The stricter idea of a sin-offering, without which forgiveness
of sins is not possible, is applied to Jesus’ death, (a) without any qualification
as regards the predecessors of Paul,
9. The blood of Christ shed at his death is compared, not with
an offering, but with a ransom to be paid (a) when Paul says that men have been
redeemed by it (
10. The attainment of everlasting happiness means, however, not
merely forgiveness of past sins, but, quite as much, the averting of future sins; and this again (a) Paul ascribes to Christ’s death in which he finds all the salvation
that has ever been brought to mankind. The reason for the experience that again
and again without fail man is led to commit sin, he finds in the fact that his body
consists of flesh (
We have omitted many passages, for instance even passages from
the First Epistle of Jn., which reveal nothing specially characteristic, as well
as those the explanation of which is not certain. Thus, for example, the description
of Christ as the true witness (
In spite, however, of the limited number of passages which we
have dealt with, we can observe how many explanations of the death of Christ are
often found side by
Hausrath, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, last volume (2nd ed. 1877; E. T. 1895); Weizsäcker, Das Apostolische Zeitalter, 2nd ed. 1892 (3rd ed. unchanged; E. T. 1894 f.); Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, 2nd ed. 2nd vol. 1902 (E. T. 1906); in briefer form in his Entstehung des Christentums, 1905 (E. T. 1906); Wernle, Die Anfänge unsrer Religion, 2nd ed. 1904 (E. T., 1903-1).
Most akin to the fundamental points in our own conception of the
Life of Jesus are: Neumann, Jesus, wer er geschichtlich war, 1904 (in Neue Pfade
zum alten Gott, No. 4; Engl. transl. Jesus, A. & C. Black, 1906), and Hühn,
Geschichte Jesu und der ältesten Christenheit, 1905 (which is the last part of Hühn’s
Hilfsbuch
zum Verständnis der Bibel, 1904-1905), both written in popular style. For separate
sections see also my essays on
[See also in the Encyclopaedia Biblica Schmiedel’s articles, JOHN SON OF ZEBEDEE, GOSPELS, 108-156, especially 131-145, MARY, SIMON PETER, 5-23, RESURRECTION, MINISTRY, §§ 1-6, and CLOPAS.
A. Wright, Synopsis of the Gospels in Greek, 1906; Stevens and Burton, A Harmony of the Gospels, 1896; S. D. Waddy, A Harmony of the Four Gospels, 1895.
O. Cone, Gospel-Criticism and Historical Christianity, 1891;
The Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations, 1893; A. C. McGiffert, The
J. J. Tayler, An attempt to ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel, 1867; Gloag, Introduction to Johannine Writings, 1891; J. Drummond, An Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, 1903; J. Warschauer, The Problem of the Fourth Gospel, 1903; B. W. Bacon in Hibbert Journal, April 1903, Jan. 1904, 1905; E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel: its purpose and theology, 1906.]
ABRAHAM, 113 f., 155, 202
Additions, later, 39, 134 f., 186, 208 f., 228 f.
Adultery, woman taken in, 39
Acts of the Apostles, 174 f., 235
Agrippa I., Herod, 178
Alpha and Omega, 228
Ambushes, Jesus escapes, 17, 72
Ananias and Sapphira, 19
Andrew, 34, 78, 136 f., 171
Angels, 274
Annas, 120 f.
Anointing of Jesus, 77 f., 81 f., 127
Antipas, Herod, 17, 178
Apocalypse, the beast in, 218, 222-225
Apocalypse, letters in, 230 f.
Apostles, 172, 176, 229
original, 234
Arrest of Jesus, 3, 29 f., 125, 138 f., 154
Aristion, 171 f., 176
Atonement, 272
day of, 274
AV and RV, 65 n.
BABYLON, 222
Baptism, 1821, 273
of Jesus, 251, 791, 154, 205
by Jesus, 55, 136
Bar Cochba, 200 f., 235
Bartimaeus, 13
Beloved disciple, 3 f., 130, 133 f., 179-181, 186
Beast, the, in Apocalypse, 218, 222-225
Bethany, 77 f., 82, 83
Bethesda, 3, 151, 19, 37, 75, 99, 116
Bethlehem, 12
Bishop, 176, 239 f.
Blind, man born, 3, 19, 371, 97, 115
Blind men at Jericho, 92
Blood, woman with issue of, 13
Blood and water, 156, 181
Body, 1491, 161, 275
Boulanger, 218
Bread = Jesus, 38
Bread = teaching, 101-106
Buddha, 90
Burial, 19
of Jesus, 123, 138 f.
Buying on a feast day, 124 f.
CAESAR, 181
Caesarea Philippi, 11, 33
Caiaphas, 120, 188, 271 f.
Cana, 12
marriage feast at, 3, 20, 24, 99, 109, 116
Capernaum, 33
Carelessness in Jn., 51, 75-78, 81 f., 135, 202 f.
Centurion of Capernaum. 93, 99 f.
Changes, intentional, 25 f., 29, 41, 42 f., 62 f.
Children of God, 64 f.,153 f., 159, 161, 256
Children of the Devil, 159 f.
Christians, persecutions of, 164, 262
Christus as distinct from Jesus, 150, 156, 205, 237
Church, 208, 239 f., 272 f.
Circumcision, 234
Clement of Alexandria, 70, 128, 195 f.
Colossians, Epistle to the, 146, 152 f., 207 f., 274
Conditions of a later period, 134-136
Confession of faith, 208
Confucius, 90
Corrections, 52, 56, 119 f.
Covenant, 248 f., 267, 272
Creation, 145, 147-149, 161 f., 228 f.
Crucifixion of Jesus, 123, 126
Cures of disease, 92
DANGER to the State, 235
Daniel, book of, 224 f.
Darius, 196
Day of Jesus’ death, 3, 117 f.
"Day of preparation,” 122 f.
Dealers, expulsion of, 3, 16, 18, 24, 50, 521, 72, 99, 138
Death of Jesus, 27, 29 f., 163, 205, 209, 246-251, 261-277
Dedication, Feast of, 9, 16, 75
Demetrius, 214
Development of Jesus, 33-35, 66
Devil, 159 f., 206, 275
children of the, 159 f.
Diotrephes, 213 f.
Disciples of the Lord, 171, 173, 176
Discourses of Jesus, 35-46, 561, 61, 68, 73-76
Disease, cures of, 92
Domitian, 227
Door, 36, 135 f.
Duration of Jesus’ ministry, 91, 138
EASTER, 189
Embalming of Jesus, 125, 139
Empty tomb, 130 f.
Entry into Jerusalem, 17 f., 121 f.
Ephesus, 170, 173-179, 191, 217, 230
Eternal life, 95, 151, 254, 255 f.
Eusebius, 171
External witnesses, 191-199, 211
Eye-witness, 5, 51, 56, 67, 78, 82, 111, 202 f., 212
FAITH, 251 f.
in Jesus, 301, 401, 711, 154, 251 f.
Farewell discourses of Jesus, 38 f., 57
Feedings, the, 48 f., 87, 97 f., 101-106
Festivals, 91, 16, 138, 154 f., 235
Flesh, 275 f.
Forgiveness of sins, 246-250, 268, 273
Foundation-pillars of a Life of Jesus, 22 f., 24 f., 26 f., 27 f., 29, 41, 43, 101-104, 106-109
Fraud, 183, 212
Fulness of the Godhead, 146
GAIUS, 214
Gaius of Rome, 200
Galba, 222
Galilee, 10-12, 111, 131 f.
Garments of the crucified Lord, 128
Genesareth, Lake of, 9-11
Gentiles, 34, 135, 233 f., 243, 272
Gethsemane, 27, 154, 263 f., 268
Gnosticism, 148-165, 188, 190, 192, 204-208, 215, 216, 236 f., 240 f., 243
God, the highest, 162
of the Old Test., 162 f.
is Spirit and Love, 244
communion with, 245 f.
Jesus called, 155
Godhead, fulness of the, 146
Gods, 148
Gospel acc. to Matthew, 180
Grave of Jesus, 130-134
Greeks, 78, 234
HARMONIES, 47-50
Heaven, 159, 237, 271
Jesus’ existence in, 61 f., 63, 140, 144 f., 202 f., 238, 251
Heavenly Jerusalem, 228, 237
Hebrews, Epistle to the, 145 f., 152 f., 237, 272, 273, 277
Hegesippus, 192
Hengstenberg, 184
Heraclitus, 142
Herod Agrippa I., 178
Herod Antipas, 17, 178
Hierapolis, 171, 177
High Council, 18, 120 f.
High Priest, 121, 188
Historical research, 70
Holy Spirit, 38, 42 f., 79, 209, 236, 253 f., 257 f., 276
Human traits in Jesus, 30-33, 156 f.
Hystaspes, 196
IAMBLICHUS, 183
Idols, 229 f.
offering’s to, 229 f.
Inviolability of Jesus, 17, 29, 154
Irenaeus, 62, 170 f., 173-177, 189, 194 f., 198, 227
JAIRUS, 19, 40
James, brother of John, 169, 171, 177 f., 188, 195
James, brother of Jesus, 174, 177, 184
Epistle of, 277
Jericho, blind men at, 92
Jerusalem, 12, 131 f., 221
entry into, 17 f., 121 f.
Jesus, the image of God, 146, 153
existence in heaven, 61 f., 63, 140, 144 f., 202 f., 238, 251
before Abraham, 155, 202
laid aside his godhead? 146, 158, 243
his dignity upon earth, 37, 42, 74, 156 f., 241 f.
called “God,” 155
one with God, 157
has divine and human nature, 158
escapes ambushes, 17, 72
hides himself, 17, 29, 157
sinless, 27
as model, 247, 252, 275
not to be called “good,” 26
truly human, 23; in Jn.? 30-33, 156 f.
mentally distraught, 24 f.
forsaken by God, 27 f., 128
acc. to the Apocalypse, 228 f.
baptism by, 55, 136
Jews, 151, 71 f., 154 f., 229 f., 235 f., 272
Johannine tradition, 110-117
John the Apostle, 67 f., 171-179, 187 f., 189 f., 196, 228 f.
John the Baptist, 33 f., 54 f., 56, 76 f., 79 f., 106-108, 136 f., 153, 236, 270
John the Elder, 171-173, 174 f., 189 f., 215-217, 229-231
John, Epistles of:
First, 204-212, 242, 244 f., 246, 252
Second and Third, 213-217, 237, 239, 241
Jonah, sign of, 21 f., 23 f.
Jordan, 10, 150
Joseph of Arimathaea, 124
father of Jesus, 150
Josephus, 191 f.
Journeys of Jesus, 11 f., 57-61
Judaea, 10 f., 111
Judas Iscariot, 29 f., 50, 82
Jude, Epistle of, 207
Judgment, 151, 202, 209, 254
Justification, 251 f.
Justin, 199
KAHNIS, 184
Kant, 91
Knowledge, 61-66, 148, 150, 207 f., 236 f., 244
Koran, 90, 141
LAKE, walking on the, 19, 48, 53, 87, 93, 981, 109, 157
Lamb, the, 227 f.
Law, 16, 34, 154 f., 235 f., 251 f., 274 f.
Lazarus, 3, 19, 28, 30-33, 83 f., 93-97, 101, 112-115, 154, 156, 182 f., 241
Leaflets, 220 f.
Leaven of the Pharisees, 101-104
Leaves, disarrangement of, 75 f.
Letters in the Apocalypse, 230 f.
Levi, 14
Life, eternal, 95, 151, 254, 255 f.
Light of the world, 38, 250, 254
Logos, 141-145, 151 f., 199, 203, 204, 210, 227 f., 238, 251 f.
Love, 42, 245 f.
Luke, 11, 191 f., 195
Luther, 64, 70, 218
MARRIAGE-FEAST at Cana, 3, 20, 24, 99, 109, 116
Mark, 195, 202
Martyrs, 164
Mary Magdalene, 132 f.
Mary, mother of Jesus, 3 f., 15, 24 f., 150, 180
Mary and Martha, 15, 30 f., 77, 83 f., 95, 96
Matter, 149, 159, 275
Matthew, 14, 171
Memory of the Fourth Evangelist, 51, 67 f.
Messiah, 33, 66, 79, 106, 108, 121 f., 137, 268.
Metaphorical language, 103, 108 f.
Metaphorical interpretation of miracles in Jn., 95-100, 105 f., 109 f., 112-116
Ministry, duration of Jesus, 91, 138
Millennial rule, 228, 230
Miracles, 18-25, 83-110, 241, 253
Mishnah, 120, 125
Mission, 134 f., 234
Misunderstandings, 30, 43-46, 74, 154
Mk., appendix to, 130 f.
Monogenés, 153
Montanus, 236
Muhammed, 90, 141
Mysticism, 245
NAIN, 19, 107
Napoleon, 218
Nathanael, 28
Nazareth, 12, 41
Nero, 222-225
Nicodemns, 15, 44, 78
OBEDIENCE of Jesus, 156 f, 270 f.
Offerings, 246-250, 270-277
to idols, 229 f.
Official, royal, 93, 99 f., 109
Old Testament, 128 f., 143 f., 162 f., 222, 224, 272, 274 f.
Omniscience of Jesus, 28 f., 32, 154
Original apostles, 234
Otho, 222
PAINTER, 56, 96 f., 101, 137
Papias, 170-173, 177 f.
Parables, 36, 73 f.
Passover festival, 9, 118, 138, 248, 265 f..
Passover-lamb, 118, 122, 126-130, 248, 271
Paul, 89, 144, 146, 152 f., 158 f., 174 f., 183 f., 187, 195, 230, 234 f., 237 f., 239, 243, 246, 249 f., 251, 254, 267, 271 f., 273 f., 275 f.
People, classes of, 13-16, 150, 160
Peraea, 10 f., 13
Persecutions of Christians, 164, 262
Peter, 33 f., 130-134, 137, 171, 174, 177, 180, 184, 1861, 188, 195, 202, 211 f.
Peter, speeches of, in Acts, 270
First Epistle of, 215 f., 276
Second Epistle of, 184 f., 207
Phantom body, 150, 152, 156, 163, 205
Pharisees, 11, 14, 89, 246 f.
leaven of the, 101-104
Philip, 28, 45, 78, 157, 171, 176 f.
Philo, 142-144, 152, 159, 190 f.
Phoenician woman, 34
Pilate, 121, 123, 126, 196, 235
Plato, 142, 159
Polycarp, 171, 173 f., 175, 189
Pope, 218
Possessed persons, 18 f.
Prayers of Jesus, 27 f., 154
Preachers, travelling, 138, 197
Presbyter, 171 f.
Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, 140
Prophecies, 128 f., 190, 222, 225, 230, 231, 236, 270
Prophets, 60, 141
Propitiation, 274
Pythagoras, 183
RANSOM, 249, 274 f.
Reconciliation, 274
Redemption, 160, 246-253, 275.
Religions, non-Christian, 144, 147 f., 225
Repetitions, 35 f., 37 f., 74 f.
Research, historical, 70
Resurrection, 151, 209, 223, 254
of Jesus, 231, 130-134
Revelation, 256
Revelation, methods of, 141 f.
Revelation of Jn., 169, 199, 218-232, 233, 234, 237
Rome, 222
Royal official, 93, 991, 109
SABBATH, 14, 34
Sacrifice, 246-250, 270-277
Sadducees, 14
Samaria, 111, 13, 233 f.
Samaria, woman of, 13, 28 f., 134
Schleiermacher, 70
Scribes, 141, 60
Sea, walking on the, 19, 48, 53, 87, 93, 98 f., 109, 157
Second coming of Jesus, 151, 209, 254
Seed, 143, 204 f., 205, 206
Self-witness, 179-183, 184 f.
Sentence of death, 120 f.
Serpent, 147
Sibyl, 195 f.
Sidon, 10 f.
Signs (miracles), 21 f., 95-100
Simon Bar Cochba, 200 f., 235
Simon of Cyrene, 122
Simon the Leper, 81 f.
Simon the Pharisee, 81 f.
Sinful woman, 78, 81 f.
Sinlessness, 205, 206, 240 f.
of Jesus, 26
Sins, forgiveness of, 246-250, 268, 273 f.
Socrates, 261
Son of God, 63-66, 145, 153, 157, 238, 251
Son of man, 115
Soul, 147, 149, 150, 159 f.
Spear-thrust, 3, 156, 181
Speeches of Peter in Acts, 270
Spirit, Holy, 38, 42 f., 79, 209, 236, 253 f., 257 f., 276
Spittle, 115
Statements of time, 136-138
Stephen, discourse of, 115 Stoics, 142, 204 f.
Supper, 98, 106, 138, 182, 189, 202, 240, 247 f., 254, 261-269, 271 f.
Supplementary matter in Jn., 52-57
Swords, 125
Synopsis, 7
Synoptics, 7; trustworthiness of, 4 f., 7, 104 f., 108 f., 119 f., 268 f.; date of composition, 51, 178 f., 191 f.
TABERNACLES, least of, 9, 12, 13, 75
Tax-gatherers, 15
Tears of Jesus, 30 f.
Temple, 221
expulsion of dealers from, 3, 16, 18, 24, 50, 521, 72, 99, 138
Temple, destruction of, 221 f.
Temptation of Jesus, 26, 145 f., 154, 157
Tertullian, 184, 196
Testament, Old, 128 f., 143 f., 162 f., 222, 224, 272, 274 f.
Thecla, 183 f.
Thirst of Jesus, 28, 128, 154
Thomas, 132, 155, 171
Thucydides, 175
Tiberius, 196, 222
Timothy, Epistles to, 207
Titus, Emperor, 221, 224
Titus, Epistle to, 207
Tradition, Johaninne, 110-117
Trinity, 253
Truth, 251, 255
Tyre, 101
VESPASIAN, 222, 224
Vines, great, 195
Vitellius, 222
WASHING of feet, 3, 117, 202, 252
Water and blood, 156, 181, 205
Wisdom of God, 59-61, 143
Witnesses, external, 191-199, 211
World, Light of the, 38, 250, 254
World and God, 149, 158 f., 160 f., 206, 209
ZACCHAEUS, 14
Zarathustra, 90
Zebedee, 169
Zoroaster, 196
Genesis
Exodus
12:3 12:4 12:6 12:6 12:10 12:12-13 12:16 12:22 12:24-25 12:46 13:7 13:12 13:13 13:21-27 24:3-8
Leviticus
Deuteronomy
1:34-35 2:14 2:14 13:2-6 16:6 18:20-22 21:22-23
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Jeremiah
Matthew
3:11 3:14-15 3:16 4:1-11 5:1-7:29 5:3-9 5:3-9 5:8 5:9 5:9 5:17 5:21-22 5:21-22 5:27 5:28 5:44 5:45 5:45 6:5 6:8 6:12 6:21 6:22 7:16 7:21 7:21 7:22-23 7:24 8:1-4 8:5-13 8:5-13 8:5-13 8:16 8:19-20 8:21-22 9 9:9 9:18-26 9:27-34 10:1-42 10:5 10:5-6 10:23 10:28 10:28 10:28 10:32-33 10:37-40 11:2 11:2-3 11:4-6 11:5 11:11 11:19 11:25 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:28 11:28 11:28-30 12:27 12:31 12:39 12:40 12:41 14:1 14:9 14:14 14:21 14:23 15:21-28 15:29 15:32-38 16 16:4 16:6 16:25-26 18:3 18:23-35 19:16-17 20:28 20:29-34 22:37-39 23:1-39 23:1-39 23:5 23:34-36 23:37 23:37 24:1-51 24:1-51 24:6-8 24:15 24:15-22 24:29-31 24:34 24:35 26:6-13 26:7 26:28 27:39 27:43 27:62 28:1-8 28:18
Mark
1:10 1:14 1:16 1:16-20 1:17 1:19 1:32-34 1:35 2:1-12 2:5 2:9 2:14 2:17 2:19 2:22 2:23-3:6 2:27 3:6 3:31-35 5:21-43 5:22-43 5:25-34 5:34 5:36 5:37 6:4 6:5-6 6:14 6:17-29 6:17-29 6:32 6:34 6:35-44 6:45-52 6:51 7:11-13 7:18-23 7:24 7:24 7:24 7:31 8:1-9 8:11-13 8:14-21 8:22-25 8:27 8:27-30 8:36 9:2 9:38-40 10:1 10:17 10:17-18 10:45 10:45 10:46-48 10:46-52 11:1-11 11:12-14 11:15-18 11:20 11:21 12:6-8 12:18-27 12:28 12:30 13:1-37 13:2 13:32 14:1 14:1-2 14:3 14:3-9 14:8 14:12 14:14 14:17 14:22-24 14:25 14:32-39 14:33 14:43 14:44-45 14:47 14:48 14:50 14:53-64 15:1 15:1 15:21 15:24 15:25 15:25 15:34 15:42 15:42-46 15:46 16:1 16:1-8 16:9-20 17:27-28
Luke
3:1 3:19 3:21 4:40 5:17-26 5:27 6:19-31 6:35 7:1-10 7:1-10 7:1-10 7:11-17 7:11-17 7:21 7:22-23 7:36-50 7:37-38 7:47-48 8:40-56 9:51-18:34 9:52 9:61-62 10:22 10:25-37 10:38-42 11:1-2 11:29 11:37 11:49-51 12:4-5 12:13-14 13:1-35 13:31 13:31-33 13:34 14:1 15:2 15:11-32 15:11-32 16:27-31 17:11 17:18 17:20 18:9-14 18:9-14 18:35-43 19:1-10 20:36 21:1-38 22:26-27 22:27 23:4 23:14 23:15 23:22 23:54 23:56 24:12 24:24
John
1:1-18 1:1-20:31 1:1-20:31 1:3 1:4-13 1:5 1:6-8 1:13 1:14 1:14 1:14 1:14 1:15 1:15 1:15 1:15 1:18 1:18 1:23 1:26 1:27 1:29 1:29 1:29 1:29 1:29 1:29 1:29 1:29-30 1:30 1:31 1:32-34 1:35 1:35 1:35-41 1:35-42 1:36 1:36 1:36 1:36 1:38-41 1:39 1:39 1:41 1:43 1:45-46 1:48 2:1 2:1-11 2:1-11 2:1-11 2:1-11 2:1-12 2:1-5:47 2:11 2:13 2:13-22 2:13-22 2:17 2:18-22 2:23 2:23 2:23-24 2:24 2:24-25 3:1-21 3:1-21 3:3 3:3-4 3:6 3:10 3:11-21 3:13 3:14-15 3:16-17 3:18 3:18 3:19-21 3:19-21 3:19-21 3:21 3:22 3:22 3:22-24 3:26 3:26 3:27 3:27 3:28-29 3:29 3:30 3:31 3:31 4:1 4:1-4 4:2 4:2 4:3 4:6 4:6 4:6 4:7-30 4:9 4:9 4:13-15 4:14 4:14 4:16-19 4:22 4:23-24 4:24 4:24 4:24 4:31-34 4:34 4:35-38 4:35-38 4:37-38 4:38 4:40 4:40 4:43 4:43 4:43 4:43-5:1 4:44-45 4:44-45 4:45 4:46-54 4:46-54 4:48 4:54 5:1 5:1-16 5:1-16 5:1-18 5:1-47 5:2 5:6 5:10 5:14 5:15 5:18 5:18 5:19-47 5:22 5:24 5:24 5:24 5:24 5:24 5:28-29 5:28-29 5:30 5:35 5:36 5:39 5:40 5:43 5:43 6:1 6:1 6:1-13 6:1-15 6:1-21 6:1-71 6:2 6:3 6:3 6:4 6:4 6:4 6:4 6:11 6:15 6:15 6:15 6:16-21 6:16-21 6:16-21 6:21 6:22 6:26-35 6:26-58 6:26-58 6:27 6:28-29 6:29 6:31 6:32 6:33 6:35 6:35 6:36-51 6:39 6:40 6:41-42 6:44 6:44 6:45 6:46 6:47-54 6:51-56 6:51-56 6:51-58 6:52 6:54 6:63 6:64 6:65 6:66-39 6:68 7:1 7:1-11:57 7:2 7:2 7:2 7:10 7:17 7:18 7:23 7:30 7:30 7:30 7:31 7:31 7:32 7:33-36 7:39 7:39 7:41-42 7:42 7:45-19 7:46 7:50-52 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 8:1-59 8:11-13 8:12 8:12 8:12 8:12-59 8:17 8:20 8:20 8:23 8:30 8:31 8:31-33 8:32-35 8:37 8:40 8:43 8:44 8:44 8:44 8:45-46 8:46 8:47 8:51 8:51 8:51 8:51 8:56-57 8:58 8:58 8:59 8:59 9:5 9:5 9:6 9:14-16 9:17 9:31-33 9:31-33 9:38 9:38 9:39 10:1-7 10:1-10 10:1-10 10:2-5 10:3 10:8 10:9 10:10 10:10 10:11 10:11 10:11 10:11-16 10:11-16 10:14 10:14-15 10:15 10:16 10:17-18 10:22 10:22 10:25 10:26 10:30 10:31 10:34 10:34 10:35 10:38 10:39 10:40 10:42 10:42 11:1-2 11:1-44 11:3-4 11:4 11:5-6 11:8 11:11-14 11:11-14 11:14-15 11:16 11:21-22 11:25 11:25-26 11:33 11:35 11:39 11:41-42 11:43 11:44 11:47 11:47-53 11:49 11:50 11:50-52 11:50-52 11:51 11:52 11:55 11:57 12:1 12:1 12:1-8 12:1-8 12:2 12:3 12:5 12:7 12:12 12:12-16 12:20 12:20-23 12:23-24 12:27 12:32 12:32-34 12:35 12:36 12:37 12:38 12:45 12:47 13:1 13:1 13:1-17:26 13:1-17:26 13:1-17:26 13:14-15 13:18 13:18 13:23 13:24 13:26-27 13:29 13:34 13:34-35 13:34-35 13:58 14:2 14:2 14:2 14:2-3 14:3 14:6 14:6 14:6 14:8-9 14:9 14:11 14:16-17 14:16-17 14:16-18 14:17-18 14:18 14:21 14:26 14:26 14:26-28 14:27 14:28 14:28 15:1-8 15:4-5 15:9-10 15:10 15:10 15:11 15:14 15:14-15 15:16 15:19 15:25 15:26 15:26 15:26 16:7 16:7 16:7 16:12-13 16:13 16:13 16:15 16:22 16:28 16:33 17:1 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:5 17:5 17:5 17:6 17:9 17:9 17:12 17:13 17:17-19 17:19 17:19 17:19 17:19 17:20-23 17:23 17:24 18:3-6 18:3-6 18:4-6 18:11 18:13 18:13-23 18:15 18:16 18:24-28 18:28 18:28-19:16 18:36 19:6 19:7-9 19:14 19:14 19:15 19:23-24 19:25-27 19:26 19:26 19:26 19:28 19:28 19:31 19:31-36 19:34 19:34-35 19:35 19:37 19:38-42 19:39 19:39-42 20:1-10 20:1-31 20:2 20:2 20:2 20:2-10 20:13 20:21-23 20:27-29 20:28 20:29 20:30 20:31 21:1-25 21:1-25 21:14 21:15-17 21:22-24 21:24 52
Acts
3:13-15 3:13-17 3:18 4:13 5:5-6 5:10 5:30 6:5 7 12:2 15:1 15:1-41 15:1-41 15:5 17 18:14-15 19:37 20:29 21:8-9 23:29 25:18-19 26:31-32
Romans
3:24 3:25-26 6:3-11 7:14-25 8:3-4 8:14 8:19 8:32 9:5 9:26 10:6 15:19
1 Corinthians
5:7 6:20 7:23 8:6 8:7-13 10:20-21 10:25-27 10:29 10:30 11:3 11:8 11:24 12:9-10 12:28 14:34 15:3 15:3 15:21-22 15:24-26 15:45-49 15:48 15:49 20:28-29
2 Corinthians
3:17 4:4 5:1-8 5:14-15 5:15 6:18 6:18 8:9 12:12
Galatians
1:6-7 2:1-10 2:1-10 2:1-10 2:9 2:11-21 3:13 3:18 3:19 3:26 4:4 4:6 4:7 4:7 6:12-13
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1:15 1:15-17 1:19-20 1:20 1:24 2:9
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Hebrews
1:1-2 1:2-3 1:5 1:5 1:6 1:8-9 1:10 2:10 2:14-15 2:18 4:15 5:1 5:3 5:7-8 5:7-8 7:27 9:15-20 9:21-24 9:26 9:28 10:19-20 10:29 12:5 12:5-7 12:7-8 12:22-23 12:27-28
1 Peter
1:18 2:24 4:1 4:12 4:15 4:16 5:1 5:2
2 Peter
1 John
1:1 1:1 1:7 1:8 1:8 1:8-2:2 1:10 1:10 2:2 2:3 2:3-4 2:4 2:4 2:12-14 2:13-14 2:16 2:20 2:20 2:21 2:21 2:22 2:22 2:22 2:24 2:27 2:27 2:28 3:2 3:3 3:4 3:8 3:9 3:9 3:9 3:10 3:10 3:13-18 3:22 3:24 3:24 4:1-3 4:2 4:2-3 4:2-3 4:4 4:4-6 4:6 4:7 4:7-21 4:8 4:10 4:12-13 4:15 4:16 4:16 4:17 5:3-4 5:6 5:18 5:18 5:19 17:3
2 John
3 John
Revelation
1:1 1:1 1:2 1:4 1:5 1:5 1:8 1:13-16 1:17 2:1-3:22 2:7 2:8 2:10 2:14 2:17 2:20 3:11 3:11 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:20 3:20-21 4:1-22:5 5:1-6:17 5:6-9 6:1 7:1-8 7:1-8 7:1-8 7:9-17 7:17 8:1 8:1 9 10 11:1-2 11:1-13 11:1-13 11:1-13 11:15-19 13:1-2 13:1-10 13:1-18 13:2 13:7 13:7-8 13:14 13:17 13:18 14:20 16:6 16:10 16:17-21 17 17:1-18 17:3 17:5-6 17:7 17:7-18 17:8 17:9 17:10 17:11 17:18 18:1-24 18:6-7 18:21-24 19:7 19:7 19:8 19:11-21 19:12 19:13 19:21 20:1-6 20:1-6 21:1-2 21:6 21:7 21:9-22:5 21:14 22:6 22:7 22:9 22:11 22:12 22:13 22:20
Tobit
Sirach
iii iv v vi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 213 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 270 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 285 287 288