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Encyclopaedia Biblica/John son of Zebedee-Jokmeam
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- 1.1 1. Name.
- 1.2.1 2. John, son of Zebedee in NT.
- 1.2.2 3. Sojourn in Ephesus.
- 1.2.3 4. Counter evidence from Papias.
- 1.2.4 5. Silence of all other ecclesiastical writers.
- 1.2.5 6. Similar confusions of persons.
- 1.2.6 7. Conclusions as to John of Asia Minor.
- 1.2.7 8. Other later traditions.
- 1.2.8 9. Credibility of these traditions.
- 1.4.1 16. Method of enquiry.
- 1.4.2 I. Comparison with Synoptists
- 22.214.171.124 17. The baptist.
- 22.214.171.124 18. Scene of public life of Jesus.
- 220.127.116.11 19. Order of principle events in public life.
- 126.96.36.199 20. The miracles.
- 184.108.40.206 21. Date of crucifixion.
- 22.214.171.124 22. Difficulties of synoptic chronology.
- 126.96.36.199 23. Explanation of the Johannine date.
- 126.96.36.199 24. The synoptic and Johannine date confronted.
- 220.127.116.11 25. Character of discourses of Jesus.
- 126.96.36.199 26. The figure of Jesus apart from the Prologue.
- 22.214.171.124 27. The universality of salvation.
- 18.104.22.168 28. Eschatology.
- 18.104.22.168 29. Dualism.
- 188.8.131.52 30. Sayings of Jesus regarding himself.
- 126.96.36.199 31. The Logos.
- 184.108.40.206 32. Purpose of Prologue.
- 220.127.116.11 33. Divisions into triads.
- 188.8.131.52 34. Credibility of certain material.
- 22.214.171.124 35. Johannine tradition.
- 18.104.22.168 36. Dependence on the synoptists.
- 188.8.131.52 37. Comparison with synoptists summed up.
- 1.4.3 II. Other questions bearing on authorship
- 188.8.131.52 38. Geographical and historical correctness.
- 18.104.22.168 39. Nationality of the evangelist.
- 22.214.171.124 40. Chap. 21.
- 188.8.131.52 41. Testimony of author of 1-20 regarding himself.
- 220.127.116.11 42. External evidences for genuineness.
- 220.127.116.11 43. Accepted but author not named.
- 22.214.171.124 44. For existence, without further Judgement.
- 220.127.116.11 45. Mere agreements, not implying dependence.
- 126.96.36.199 46. Denials of genuineness.
- 126.96.36.199 47. Polycarp as indirect witness.
- 188.8.131.52 48. Papias as witness.
- 220.127.116.11 49. Estimate of external evidence.
- 22.214.171.124 50. Gnosticism and the Fourth Gospel.
- 220.127.116.11 51. Relation to Montanism.
- 188.8.131.52 52. 5:43 as a guide to date.
- 184.108.40.206 53. Place of composition.
- 184.108.40.206 54. The Paschal controversy.
- 220.127.116.11 55. Conclusion as to author.
- 1.4.4 56. Partition hypotheses.
- 1.6 62. Permanent value of gospel and first epistle.
- 1.8 66. Literature.
JOHN, SON OF ZEBEDEE[edit]
- Name, 1.
- John, son of Zebedee, in NT, 2.
- The Presbyter John, not the Apostle John, in Ephesus, 3-7.
- Other later traditions, 8-9.
- a. Authorship of the book as a whole, 10.
- b. Authorship of single parts, 11.
- Relation to Fourth Gospel and Johannine Epistles, 12-15.
- Method of enquiry, 16.
- I. Comparison with Synoptists, 17-37.
- a. Narrative, 17-26.
- The Baptist, 17.
- Scene of public life of Jesus, 18.
- Order of principal events, 19.
- Miracles, 20.
- Date of crucifixion, 21-24.
- Character of discourses of Jesus, 25.
- Figure of Jesus (apart from Prologue), 26.
- b. Teaching of Jesus, 27-30.
- Universality of salvation, 27.
- Eschatology, 28.
- Dualism, 29.
- Utterances regarding himself, 30.
- c. Other points of comparison, 31-37.
- The Logos, 31.
- Purpose of Prologue, 32.
- Divisions into triads, 33.
- Credibility of certain details, 34.
- Johannine tradition, 35.
- Dependence on Synoptists, 36.
- Concluding comparison, 37.
- a. Narrative, 17-26.
- II. Other questions bearing on authorship, 38-55.
- Geographical and historical accuracy, 38.
- Nationality of author, 39.
- Chap. 21, 40.
- Personal testimony of author of chaps. 1-20, 41.
- External evidences, 42-49.
- Gnosticism and Fourth Gospel, 50.
- Relation to Montanism, 51.
- Jn. 643 as an indication of date, 52.
- Place of writing, 53.
- The Paschal controversy, 54.
- Conclusion as to authorship, 55.
- III. Partition-hypotheses 56.
- IV. Permanent value of Gospel, 62.
- Polemic against false doctrine, 57.
- Contact with Gnosis, 58.
- Author not the same as author of Fourth Gospel, 59.
- Priority in time, 60.
- Character of polemic of Epistle, 61.
- Permanent value of Gospel and Epistle, 62.
- Address, 63.
- Purpose, 64.
- Authors and dates, 65.
- Literature, 66.
1. Name.[edit]
Instead of the form ICO&NNHC WH everywhere, except in Acts 4 61 3 5 Rev. 228, give ito&NHC. Besides the MSS, especially B, WH rely on Christian inscriptions (App. 159; p. 166 in ed. of 96). As against these, however, we can cite, at least, one inscription from Harran of 568 A.D. which has I<advvi)s (Le Bas-Wad- dington, Voyage Arckeol.1-$ [Asie Mineure, etc.], no. 2464).! The Hebrew name is pn V (see JOHANAN) or, as the case may be, Ijnin , a spelling which makes no difference for the Greek transliteration. The LXX with literal fidelity, sometimes in all the MSS, sometimes in at least several good MSS, and rarely in L alone, gives luai/ai/ (2 K. 25 23 ; also 6 times in Ch., 8 times in Ezra-Neh., and 14 times in Jer. 40-43 (LXX 47-50).
As variants we find : in 2 K. Iwca [B], Icovai/ [L] ; in i Ch. 6gf. Ia>ai>a? [BA : liaavav in 69 A is to be regarded as the accusative]; in i Ch.324 Itaavap [A: cp NaSa/u., Kaii/ap, Lk. 83137, etc., see Winerl 8 ), 5 27^], Iioi/ai/ [L]; in 2Ch. 28 12 Iwacas [B : or more probably Iwai^js : what we have is the gen. Itaavov] ; in i Ch. 12 12 Itavav [A], Itaav [B : defective] ; in Ezra 812 Neh. 6 18 Itavav [BL], in EzralOe Itavav [{<c.a L] ; in I Esd. 9i ( = EzralOe) Iwi/as [B] ; in iEsd.8 3 8[ 4 i] ( = Ezra 8 12) Iu>acK>)$ [A], Ia>air]s [B]. In Jer. in all 14 places, especially in A and Q, sometimes also in N*, \taavvav, as also 47 [40] 15 Itoavvas [Q], 47 [40] 8 Itavav [B], 50 [43] 4 Itavav [N*]. In t Ch. 26 3 alone liaavav does not occur at all, but only Itavav [A] or Itavas [B] ; in like manner in i Esd. 9 29 ( = Ezra 1028) only Iioai/nj? [BA], \<avav [L]. In i and 2 Mace. Iioai/njs is invariably found (not Iwavrjs, as in B these two books are wanting).
In the NT Iiaavav is found in Lk. 3 27. The same name (pnv), however, underlies not only the NT ltaa.v(v)i)f, but certainly also the lui/a? of Mt. 16 17, since in Jn. 1 42 (or in another numeration 1 43), 21 15-17 we find Iu>ai>(v)r)s for the same person the father of Simon Peter.
Of the various equivalents Itavav comes nearest the most original form (Itaavav) so far as the consonants, Itoavas so far as the vowels are concerned, whilst the second v has disappeared in the Graecising of the termination. The same thing has happened also in the forms liavas and luiva, in which, moreover, by the coalescence of the vowels the distinction between this name and that of Ias= HjV, Jonah, has disappeared. The variant Itavd9a<; for Icuai/(i ))s in D (Acts 4 e) is a transliteration of JnJV : Josephus gives the same name as ItavaB^ (Ant, xiii. 1 2, and often ; cp JOHN, 6, col. 2498. Iwainjt is in strict analogy and the form is therefore possible.
Joanes is, however, but an artificial Grcecism, and we have various indications that the Jews inclined to retain the doubled n in names derived from the root pn. So, especially, in the feminine " Avva, (i S. 12 etc.), and also in the masculine "Avvas (Lk. 82 Jn. 1813 24 Acts 46), for which Josephus gives "Avavos ; also in the variants luawav and luavvas in Jer. (the last also in TR of Lk. 827 and in the marginal reading of TR to Jn. 21 15-17) ; again, in the variant Avvav which i Ch. ll43[N] Jer. 42 [35] 4 [N] and i Esd. 5 30 [A] (|| Ezra 2 46 Neh. 749) give for Avav (pn), and i Ch. 19 1 4 [NL] 2/. [L] for A.VO.V (pan) ; and, lastly, in the variant Avvuv which B gives in 28. 10 1-4 for Hanun (Avwv, A, in mi. if.). It is thus, to begin with, extremely improbable that the feminine Tuaavva. of Lk. 83 24 10 ought to be written with a single v as is done by WH, for the biblical nan is an abbreviation of this name (Dahnan, Gramm. 142, n. 9). This consideration gives a corresponding probability to the spelling luavvqs, which is found also in Jos. (Ant. x. 94, 168, and often).
Dalman (I.e.) conjectures even that pnv had already come to be pronounced Ita^avvav, Joliannan (cp Jerome in Jes. 8 14 : Joannan). Of the shortened Aramaic form N:ni adduced by Kautzsch (Bibl.-arani. Grann. 10) Dalman tells us that it occurs only in the Babylonian Talmud.
1 According to Blass (Philol. of the Gospels, 75-77) D gives to I<ua p>)s in Mt., Jn., and Mk. the same degree of preference which it accords to Iwavr/s in Lk. and Acts, although in D Mk. stands between Lk. and Acts. The exemplar he used for the writings of Lk. must therefore have been different from that which lay before him when he copied Mt., Jn. and Mk.
A. JOHN THE APOSTLE AND JOHN THE ELDER IN HISTORY AND IN LEGEND[edit]
2. John, son of Zebedee in NT.[edit]
The call of the two sons of Zebedee to the discipleship is related in Mk. 1:19-20 Mt. 4:21-22. Lk. 5:10-11 (GOSPELS, 137); in the fourth gospel it is usuallv conjectured that John is meant by the unnamed companion of Andrew who from being a disciple of the Baptist joins the com pany of Jesus (135-4)- In the Synoptics John (with his brother James) takes next to Peter the place of greatest prominence among the disciples.
These three alone are witnesses of the transfiguration of Jesus (Mk.9 2 = Mt. 17i = Lk.9 2 8). According to Mk. 5 37 = Lk. 8 51 at least, they alone were present at the raising of Jairus daughter ; according to Mk. 14 33 = Mt. 2637, also, they alone were in close touch with Jesus at Gethsemane. It is only Mk. (129 13 3) who tells us that these three were present along with Andrew at the healing of Peter s mother-in-law, and that it was they who, as they looked at Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, asked Jesus the question as to the time of the destruction of the temple. It is Lk. only (22 8) who relates that the arrangements for the Last Supper were entrusted to Peter and John. Mk. 10 35-41 records that the two brothers asked of Jesus that they might sit, one on his right hand and the other on his left hand, in his glory. In Mt. 20 20 this request is attributed to their mother, who is conjecturally identified with the Salome named in Mk. 1640 16 i (see CLOPAS, 2). In Mt. 2024, however, the indignation of the ten is against (vrepi) the two brothers ; the mother would seem therefore to have been introduced by Mt. to exonerate them. According to Mk. 938 = Lk. 949 it is John who reports to Jesus the attempt of the disciples to forbid the man who was casting out devils in the name of Jesus without being a follower. With James, according to Lk. 854, John would fain have called down fire from heaven upon the Samaritan village which would not receive Jesus as he was journeying to Jerusalem.
Interpreters are very ready to bring into connection with the incident in Lk. 954, just referred to, the name Sons of thunder. According to Mk. 3 17, this name had already been given to the two brothers on their call to the discipleship. In that case, however, the bestowal of the designayon would have been anticipatory, just as Simon in like manner, according to Mk. 3i6, received the name of Peter at his call, although his confession at Caesarea Philippi offers a more fitting occasion. Mt. (16i8) alone, however, transfers it to this period, con necting it with an incident that is certainly unhistorical (GOSPELS, 136). On the real obscurity of the designation of the sons of Zebedee see BOANERGES.
Of all the incidents in the Synoptic Gospels enumer ated above, only the last three (brothers request ; man casting out devils ; fire from heaven ) can be regarded as throwing light on the character of John ; and the third of these is recorded only by Lk. , in whom some critics have been disposed to see a certain prejudice against the original apostles (GOSPELS, 114). None of the three traits can be said, however, to be inconsistent with the most trustworthy of all the references to John which we possess. According to Gal. 2 9, John was one of the three pillars of the church at Jerusalem, Peter and James the brother of Jesus being the other two. John must thus in any case be reckoned as supporting the Jewish-Christian view of things, although we have no means of knowing whether he was of the stricter school of James or of the milder one of Peter (see COUNCIL, 3). According to Acts3i-n he and Peter healed a lame man, according to 4 13 19 the same two made their defence before the synedrium, according to 814 they both went to Samaria to put the apostolic seal upon the mission work of Philip here. This last statement, however, as well as the healing of the lame man, is not without its difficulties (see ACTS, 4, 16).
3. Sojourn in Ephesus.[edit]
Since the time of Irenaeus ecclesiastical tradition has been unanimous in holding that after Paul's departure from Asia Minor John the apostle took up his abode in Ephesus, where he held a leading position throughout the whole church of Asia Minor. Irenaeus himself vouches for this in many places: ii. 883 [22s] I 1 iii. 1 2 [i] 84; v. 30 1 883/1 fragm. nos. 2 and 3 ; to be found also in Eus. HE iii. 23 3 ; v. 84-6; iv. 143-7; v. 24 12-17 204-8. In the last-cited pas sage (the letter to Florinus) Irenosus appeals expressly to the fact that in his youth (as TTCUS ; in his early youth, irptJbTT) ijXiKia, according to iii. 3 4) he had heard his teacher Polycarp in Smyrna tell much about the apostle John who in turn had been Polycarp s teacher. Besides Polycarp he names also Papias the companion (eraTpos) of Polycarp as having been a hearer of the apostle.
The same apostle is intended also by Polycrates of Ephesus when in his letter to Victor, bishop of Rome, about 196 A. D. (Eus. HE iii. 31s v. 24s) he relates of John who lay on the bosom of the Lord, and wore the high-priestly petalon, that he was buried in Ephesus. Even Justin - must have held the Ephesian John to lie the apostle of that name if he assumed, or remembered, that the Apocalypse (which he ascribes to the apostle), must, on account of the authority over the churches of Asia Minor claimed by its author, have been written by a distinguished church-leader of that province. Yet the Trap T]/MI> au-qp TLS (Dial. 81) with which he introduces the apostle John designates him merely as a Christian the contrast being with a psalmist and implies nothing as to the place of his residence.
1 The references to Irenaeus in this article are, in the first instance, to Harvey ; those in square brackets are to Massuet, the edition current in Germany.
4. Counter evidence from Papias.[edit]
The testimony of Papias (see GOSPELS, 67 ff.}, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia is, as we understand it, this : 'But as many things also as I once well learned from the mouths of the elders and well committed to memory I shall not hesitate to set down [or commit to writing] for thee, together with the interpreta tions [appropriate to them], guaranteeing their truth. For I took pleasure not, as the many do, in those who speak much, but in those that teach the things that are true ; nor in those who bring to remembrance the foreign commandments, but in those who bring to remembrance the commandments that were given by the Lord to faith and have come to us from the truth itself. But if anywhere anyone also should come who had companied with the elders I ascertained [first of all] the sayings of the elders [ as to this : not, to wit ] what Andrew or what Peter had said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord [had said] and [secondly] what Aristion and John the Elder the disciples of the Lord say. For I supposed that the things [to be derived] from books were not of such profit to me as the things [derived] from the living and abiding utter ance'.
(a) According to this declaration Papias himself had once spoken with the elders. Otherwise the third sentence ( But if anywhere, etc. ) would only be an otiose repetition of the first ; moreover the from the mouths of (irapd) in the first sentence denotes direct intercourse. Besides speaking with them he spoke also with their disciples (or the disciples of others) at a later period, of course, when he was separated by distance from the elders themselves.
(b) The elders may indeed be officials of the church ; but if they are, it is not in virtue of this attribute that they come into Papias s consideration ; for their official position does not as such in any way qualify them to make valuable communications relating to events of the life of Jesus. For this function the persons best qualified would be apostles ; but these are excluded. It would be arrogance on the part of Papias were he to undertake to guarantee the truth of any communications of theirs. It will be necessary, furthermore, to pay due attention to the distinction implied by Papias when he used he had said (elwfv) in the one case and they say (\tyovffiv) in the other. He means by it that of the nine persons named only the last two were still alive, the first seven, namely the apostles, were not, and this applies not merely to the time of his writing, but also to the time when he was collecting his notes (cp I ascertained ). Lastly, we have in Irenoeus a very close analogy to guide us to what we ought here to understand by elders. Irenoeus says (v. 883): quemadmodum presbyteri meminerunt qui Johannem discipulum domini viderunt ; l v. 5 1 ol irpecr- pvrepoi TWI> diro<TTo\iav fj.a.6-rjrai ; 2 v. 36 1 : presbyteri, apostolorum discipuli ; 2 iv. 42 2 [27 1] even: quemad modum audivi a quodam presbytero, qui audierat ab his qui apostolos viderant et ab his qui didicerant. 1 Thus elders must be taken to mean persons of advanced age who may or may not have been elders of the church, but in no case were apostles, and who were a guarantee for correct tradition only in virtue of their years. Cp GOSPELS, 71.
1 As the elders recalled, who saw John the disciple of the Lord.
2 The elders who were disciples of the apostles.
(c) From this it follows that the third sentence of the fragment under discussion must not be interpreted as if it meant I asked the companions of the ciders as to the words of the elders, to wit what Andrew, etc. , had said ; but : I inquired of them about the sayings of the elders as to what Andrew, etc., had said. Thus we have to distinguish four steps : the apostles, the elders, the companions of the elders, Papias.
(d) John the Elder is distinguished by Papias from John the Apostle, to whom, if we are to judge by the place assigned to him in the narrative, Papias cannot have attributed any special importance. It is difficult to understand how any person can be bold enough to deny this distinction. Some indeed who formerly did so are now in point of fact beginning to see how impossible it is, but as a consequence allow themselves to be led to a step which is just as audacious, the deletion, namely, of the words or what John (ff rl \udvv^). So Haussleiter (Theol. Lit.-Blatt, 96, 465-468), on the ground of a casual conjecture of Renan s (/. Antechrist, 562) ; Zahn (Forsch. 6 MS/. ) is almost inclined to agree. No plausible ground whatever can be alleged for such a step.
It is said that the three words destroy the symmetrical enumeration of the apostles in pairs. But there are only two pairs ; at the beginning Andrew and Peter as being brothers, andat the end precisely John and Matthew, the what (TI) being repeated before lutdvi^y while it is omitted before Iaio/3os. Were this not so, James and John would, as being brothers, constitute a pair, and this would be again a reason why Iiodvt^s should not be regarded as breaking the symmetry. Over and above all this, however, it is by no means certain whether Papias intended to give the names in pairs at all.
(e) It is difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusion regarding this John the Elder. If elder as applied to him has the same meaning as elsewhere, we should be compelled to say that he had enjoyed no personal ac quaintance with Jesus ; so also of Aristion, who stands in the same category with him ; but this personal acquaintance is claimed for them by the added words the disciples of the Lord (ol rov Kvpiov fia.6ijra.L}. This expression has been used immediately before, in the stricter sense, of the apostles ; in the case of Aristion and John the Elder it is clearly used in a somewhat wider meaning, yet by no means so widely as in Acts 9 1, where all Christians are so called ; for in that case it would be quite superfluous here. A personal yet not long-continued acquaintance with Jesus, therefore, will be what is meant. Such acquaintance would seem to be excluded if Papias as late as 140 or 145-160 A.D. (at which date according to Harnack he wrote his book ; cp 48 e) had spoken with both. This, however, he does not say ; his expression may quite well be taken as referring to an earlier time. This is not precluded by the fact that he inquires of other men as to the utterances of these two also ; this was only to be ex pected if he was no longer able to meet them personally at the later date even if he had heard them at the earlier.
It would effectually simplify matters if we might with Edwin Abbott (Exp. 95, 1333-346 , previously, Renan, Antcchr. 345, n. 2) read the disciples of the Lord s disciples (oi n>v rov Kvpiov fiaOyriav jiaflijTai) or with Bacon (JfiL, 8, 176-183), the disciples of these (oi TOVTWV /aa^jrai) or if, as in GOSPELS, 8 7 (3)1 we were to delete oi TOV Kvpiov ^tatfijTat. Such a course, however, must be admitted to be bold, and it does not seem too difficult to suppose that Papias in his youth had spoken with two personal disciples of Jesus and yet, even while they were still alive, had received further utterances of theirs from their disciples. By this supposition we avoid conflict with the state ment of Eusebius(//^iii. S .l;) that Papias called himself a hearer of Aristion and John the Elder, although it is permissible to doubt whether Eusebius took this piece of information from any words of Papias other than those already quoted above (GOSPELS, 7).
1 'As I have heard from a certain elder who had heard it from those who had seen the apostles and from those who had learned from them' - Those who had seen and those who had learned denote the same persons.
(f) On the other hand, owing to this difficulty it seems preferable to take the words a re Apiffriuv . . . X^yovcriv as directly dependent on av^Kpivov, so that they do not mean I sought to learn of the disciples of the elders the words of the elders as to what Aristion and John the Elder said. On this last construction we should have two intermediate links between these two men and Papias, as between the apostles and Papias. The other interpretation is therefore preferable : I sought to learn of the disciples of the elders the sayings of Aristion and of John the Elder which they had personally received from them.
(g) At this point the assumption, that Papias in his youth knew the apostles also, as well as Aristion and John the Elder, becomes tempting. In that case, how ever, he would have referred expressly to them and not have spoken thus vaguely about elders.
(h) In a MS of the Chronicle of George the Monk ( =Georgios Hamartolos) iii. 134 1 it is stated that John the apostle after he had written his gospel suffered martyrdom, for Papias in the second book of the \6yia. KvpMicd says that he was put to death by the Jews, thus plainly fulfilling along with his brother the prophecy of Christ regarding them and their own confession and common agreement concerning him. 1 Mk. 1038/1 is here intended ; it is in fact cited immediately afterwards in the MS, which proceeds to state that Origen also in his commentary on Matthew says he has learned from the successors of the apostles that John had been a martyr. When this passage was first brought into notice by de Muralt in his edition of Georgios ( 59, p. xvii /". ) and afterwards more widely by Nolle ( Tiib. Quartalschr. , 62, p. 466), critics were severely censured for accepting as true a statement coming from the ninth century while they rejected so many that came from the second. The statement in the Georgios Hamartolos MS, however, found some confirmation when the following words from an epitome, dating from the seventh or the eighth century and probably based on the Chronicle of Philip of Side (circa 430 A. D. ), were published by de Boor (Texte u. Untersuchungen, v. 2, 88, p. 170) : Papias says in his second book that John the Divine [-i.e., the apostle] and his brother James were slain by the Jews (IlaTri as iv T Seurepy \6yif) A^-yet, 6Vt ludvvrjs 6 6eo\oyos Kal Id/cw/3os 6 d5e\<pos avrov VTTO lovdaluv dvypedricrav).
(i) It has been attempted in a great variety of ways to weaken the force of this passage.
Lightfoot (Ess. on Supernat. Rel. 2ii_/I) supposed that what Georgios actually wrote may have run in the original some what in this way : Papias says that John [was condemned by the Roman emperor (and sent) to Patmos, for bearing witness (to the truth) while James] was slain by the Jews. Harnack (Gesch. d. altchr. Lift. ii. [ = Chronologic} \ 665-667) concurs : the words interpolated by Lightfoot must have been omitted by an over sight, and the mention in Georgios of the brother of John rightly suggested to some later copyist that something was missing, but he wrongly supplied the omission in the way we read in de Boor. Zahn (Forsch. 6147-151), on the other hand, points out that in Georgios the complete passage on John s martyrdom and on Papias occurs only in a single MS : in twenty- six others its place, from the words naprupiov K<rn)iu>T<u, is taken by the expression ev eipjji/r) a.i>ena.v<ra.TO. He regards it therefore as an interpolation. Whether written by Georgios or by an interpolator, however, the exact citation of the second Book of Papias shows that there was at least some warrant in Papias for the statement.
So far as Origen is concerned, the Passage, it is true, is incorrect. Origen (tout, in Mt.\ti6, ed. )elarue, 8719^) does not say he has derived his information from the successors of the apostles, but only that "tradition teaches," and does not speak of the martyrdom of death but only of that of banishment. What follows from this, however, is only that this excerptor of Origen has not read accurately, not that he on his own part cannot possibly have written anything about John s death by martyrdom. Zahn expressly concedes that the excerptors (or, if one made use of the other, the older excerptor) had found in Papias that John was put to death by the Jews ; but maintains that Papias was here certainly referring to the Baptist. It must be admitted that Papias would not have used the expression the divine (o SeoAoyos) here ; according to Zahn it was not applied to the apostle earlier than the fourth century. On the other hand, it is hardly conceivable that in Papias the expression could have allowed a confusion of the Baptist with the apostle.
1 ... /uaprupiou Karqfitarat. TTaTTi as yap 6 lepan-dAews eTTt cTKOTro? avTOTTTTj? TOVTOu *ye^o/ie? 0? fv ria Sevrepta Adyto TCOI Kvpia.KU>v \oyiiav $acncei ort VTTO lovSauov acrjpe STj, irAijpuia-as 6ryAa6i7 ju-era TOU a5eA<^>ov TJF^V TOU XptaroO Trepi avTa>y Trpdp- pr]<Tiv /cai Tr\v eavrtav b/j.o\oyiat> Trepl TOVTOV KO.I <rvyKaTddeinv.
(k) A more serious question is this - whether Papias was speaking of John of Asia Minor or of John the apostle (if we assume the two to be distinct). Now, the tradition that John of Asia Minor did not suffer death by martyrdom becomes so firmly established soon after the time of Papias ( 3) that it is difficult to believe Papias himself can have said the opposite. Moreover, in Ephesus the Jews could hardly have had the power and the courage to put to death a Christian bishop. It is quite another matter, however, if what Papias meant to say was that John the apostle, as distinct from the Ephesian John, was put to death by the Jews somewhere else say, for example, in Palestine, where this would have been least difficult of accomplishment.
That the saying does not refer merely to John s brother James is made probable also by the vague expression by Jews (iijrb lovSaiiav). If James alone had been in question it would more naturally have run that he was put to death by Herod Agrippa, as of the Baptist it would have been said that Herod Antipas had caused him to be put to death. The vagueness is most easily accounted for if John met his death at the hands of other Jews who could not be further specified. Papias need not have meant, of course, that John s death happened at the same time with that of his brother James.
(l) It must be conceded that the unacquaintance shown by all church fathers down to the time of Philip of Side (or his excerptors) with the statement of Papias now in question is very remarkable. Eusebius, how ever, who had read Papias with great care, may easily have set it down among the things strange (or para doxical, wcLpado^a) and partaking of the legendary (/uLvdiKurepa) which according to HEm. 39 8 n he had often discovered in him.
According to Zahn, Eusebius would hardly have allowed it to escape him, as it was fitted to be of service to him in connection with his view that the Apocalypse was written not by John the apostle but by John the Elder. But Eusebius referred the Fourth Gospel and the First Johannine Epistle also to the Ephesian John, and thus the statement in question would have been a very two-edged one if he had employed it against the apostolic origin of the Apocalypse.
Irenseus, moreover, and others were already so deeply imbued with the belief that the Ephesian John was the apostle that we may with most probability suppose them to have regarded as a mere oversight, and therefore to have passed over in silence, a contrary allegation in Papias whom they in other things valued highly.
For the same reason, we cannot follow Zahn in the further argument against the existence in Papias of the statement as to the death of the apostle that as early as the second century the fables about the cup of poison and the bath of boiling oil ( 8yi) had already been invented in crder to supply a fulfilment of the prophecy in Mklt)38_/? These fables were current con cerning the Ephesian John, whose peaceful death had long been accepted ; it was therefore necessary that those martyrdoms by which Mk. IQjSf. might seem to have been fulfilled should not be represented as martyrdoms to the death. Thus they could not in any way have been rendered superfluous by the statement of Papias; at most, the rise of the legends might have been checked by it only however, as has been shown, on the assumption, which will not work, that finding them in Papias led to the abandonment of the belief in the peaceful death of John the apostle who was identified with the Ephesian John.
(m) Lastly, the most serious difficulty of all is found in Jn. 21. Here in v. 23 it is presupposed that John, unlike Peter, is not to die a martyr s death. But again the question comes to be, which John is intended. If it be the case that the Ephesian John constituted the centre of the circle from which the Fourth Gospel emanated, it is only natural that in the appendix, chap. 21 , his end should be referred to. What we have to ask here is merely how it could have come about that the apostle John should have been indicated in the Fourth Gospel as its guarantor. On this point see 41.
5. Silence of all other ecclesiastical writers.[edit]
The result obtained from Papias is strongly supported by the fact that, apart from the writers named in s 3, no ecclesiastical writer of the second century betrays any knowledge of a residence of the apostle John in Ephesus. Ignatius in his epistle to the Romans (4:3) mentions the apostles who had for them a special importance, viz. Peter and Paul ; in that to the Ephesians (12:2) he names only Paul, not John. Polycarp (3:2 9:1 11:3) speaks to the Philippians only of Paul and the other apostles, not of his teacher John. Justin and Hegesippus in like manner tell nothing about John. In the Muratorian fragment, lines 9-16, John is found in the company of his fellow-disciples (and bishops) in writing his gospel. He thus seems to be thought of as still living in Jerusalem. In Acts 20:29 f. those who were to come into the church of Ephesus after Paul s departure would assuredly not have been designated as evil wolves if the apostle John had been his successor there. The passage may with confidence be taken to be a vaticinium ex eventu, and even were it not so, the author of Acts would, in his great regard for the original apostles, certainly have toned it down if he had known that one of them had succeeded Paul. Since the epistle to the Ephesians does not come from the pen of Paul, it is also important to notice that only Paul is mentioned while yet in 2 20 the apostles and prophets as a whole are designated as forming the foundation of the church. So also with the Pastoral Epistles, where Ephesus is touched on in i Tim. 13 2Tim.li8, and with the epistles of Peter, of which the first is addressed to Asia Minor (li) and the second to the readers of the first (3i). Special mention is due to the Gnostic Heracleon cited by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iv. 9 71, p. 59.S)- He says that Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi, and many others do not belong to the number of those who for their open profession of the Christian faith had suffered the martyr s death. The apostle John is not named here, and yet he would have been entitled to the first place in the list had Heracleon knowii the tradition as to his peaceful end.
6. Similar confusions of persons.[edit]
Identity of name has led to confusion in other well-known cases also, with the regular result - in accordance with the tendencies of that age - that a non-apostolic person, held in high esteem in some particular locality, came to be regarded as an apostle. The Philip who had four virgin daughters endowed with the gift of prophecy is expressly designated in Acts 21:8-9. as an evangelist and as one of the Seven (deacons) of Acts 65. Polycrates of Ephesus (circa 196 A.D. ) holds him for the apostle of that name and states that he was buried in Hierapolis (ap. Eus. HEm. 31 3, v. 24 2). Clement of Alexandria falls into the same confusion (Strom, iii. 652, p. 535), only adding that Philip gave his daughters in marriage. Even Eusebius, who yet himself clears away the error of Irenasus that Papias had personally known John and other apostles (HE\\\. 39 5-7), affirms in the very same chapter (9) not only that this Philip was the apostle (so also iii. 31 2) but also, further, that Papias knew him personally (for another view see GOSPELS, 72, n. i). The elder whom in iv. 422 [27 1] Irenaeus has designated as a disciple of the disciples of the apostles (for the text, see 4 b) he soon afterwards (iv. 49 1 [32 1]) calls a senior, apostolorum discipulus. The James who in Actsl5i3 takes part in the Council of Jerusalem he takes to be (iii. 12 18 [15]) the same as the son of Zebedee whose death has been already recorded in Acts 12 2. For further instances of the same sort, see 49 b.
7. Conclusions as to John of Asia Minor.[edit]
In view of such gross carelessness on the part of the leading authorities for ecclesiastical tradition, the less hesitation need be felt in giving expression to the result which has been gained with ever-increasing security from the continued examination of their utterances.
When set forth in 1840 by Liitzelberger (Die kirchliche Tradition fiber den Apostel Johannes), and even at a later date by Keim and Scholten, it was treated as hypercriticism and was resisted even by such critics as Hilgenfeld and Krenkel (Der Apostel Johannes, 71, 133-178). It is now maintained by Bousset (see APOCALYPSE, I5_/^, and cp .Meyer s Komin. zur Af>ocalypsc( b \ 96, pp. 34-48) and by Harnack (Gesc/i. der altchrist. Lift. li. \, Chronologie\ 1 [ 97] 659-662), who yet are so conservative as to attribute the contents of the Fourth Gospel, at least in part, to reports of an eye-witness, or even of the apostle John himself ( 55 be).
(a) There were two Johns - the apostle and the Elder. The name elder attached to the person of the latter in a pre-eminent degree. In the circle of his adherents he was named the Elder, KO.T f^ox~n", perhaps so much so that his proper name, John, was even found super fluous. He was a disciple of the Lord (yuaffyrTjs rov Kvpiov) in the wider sense of the word ( 4 e). It was he who, towards the end of the first century, acquired the leading position in Ephesus of which we read, and he it was that was heard by Polycarp, who spoke of him to the youthful Irenaeus. In speaking of him Polycarp was wont to call him a disciple of the Lord. This is the expression which is responsible for the misunderstanding of Irenaeus that he was an apostle. 1 This conjecture, however bold it may appear, is confirmed by the fact, also established by Zahn, that Irenaeus regularly calls this John disciple of the Lord while yet he always applies the word apostle to Paul. Similarly Poly- crates, the other chief witness for the Ephesian residence of the apostle John, designates the latter not as apostle but only as witness and teacher (/jAprvs nai 5t5a<r/ca\os) (cp the passages of Eusebius cited in 3).
Eusebius in his Chronicle (ad annum Abrah. 2114; ed. Schone, ii. p. 162) still copied the error of Irenasus, that Papias had been a disciple of the apostle John. Had he not subse quently noticed it as he was composing his Ecclesiastical History and preserved for us the most important words of Papias, we should have been for ever condemned to remain under the dominion of this mistake.
(b) Eusebius, however, did not draw the further con sequence which follows for Polycarp also, from his discovery of the error of Irenasus. Irenasus calls Papias the hearer of John and companion of Polycarp. Now, as he regards Polycarp also as a hearer of the apostle, it cannot be open to doubt that he regards the two as companions for the reason that both were hearers of one and the same master. What has now been ascer tained as regards Papias will in that case hold good for Polycarp also ; his master was not the apostle, as Eusebius still (HE iii. 36 1) assumes, but the Elder.
(c) Confusion was introduced into the question by Dionysius of Alexandria, who (in Eus. HE vii. 25 16) took the statement that two graves of John at Ephesus were spoken of as basis for the conjecture that therefore two prominent men of the name of John had been contemporaries in that city (in reality of course there may very readily have been two places to which, according to different traditions, the grave of the one John was conjecturally assigned). By the one John he understood the apostle, by the other some John of Asia Minor. Eusebius (HE iii. 39$ f. ) carried the hypothesis further, that this second John was John the Elder. The conservative theologians, also, are rightly agreed in pronouncing against the contemporary presence of two Johns in Ephesus, inasmuch as the contemporary activity of two men of such outstanding rank is nowhere affirmed, and indeed is excluded by the universal tradition of one Ephesian John. All the more remarkable is their error in declaring the one Ephesian John to have been the apostle, and in eliminating the Elder alike from the words of Papias and from history. Both Johns existed ; but this established fact can be harmonised with the leading position of the one in Ephesus where he brooks no rival only on the hypothesis that the apostle carried on his labours, and closed his life, elsewhere. But in this case it is by no means difficult to suppose that he died a martyr s death. As regards most of the apostles, we know nothing either of their later activities, or of the manner in which they came by their death. The sooner the veneration of the church concentrated itself upon the John of Asia Minor, all the more readily could the son of Zebedee pass into oblivion.
1 How little need there is for scruple in attributing to Irenasus a misunderstanding even of the words of Polycarp is taught by the following circumstance : the one detail which he gives as from the mouth of Polycarp about John (the encounter of John with Cerinthus, see 8), Irenaeus on his own showing had not himself heard, but had come to know it indirectly.
8. Other later traditions.[edit]
In proportion as this confusion gained currency does it become easy to understand how an abundance of tradition should gather around the name of John, by which essentially the John of Ephesus was understood.
(a) Irenaeus is our earliest authority for the statement that John lived in Ephesus down to the reign of Trajan ( 3). He further records (iii.34[3], a/>. Eus. HEm. 286 = iv. 14e) that John, when he went to take a bath in Ephesus, and saw Cerinthus within, rushed away from the room without bathing, uttering the words Let us flee, lest the room should indeed fall in, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within. Clement of Alexandria (Qitis div. salv. 42959/1 ; also ap. Eus. H Em. 285-19) is our authority for the pretty story that John had con verted a certain youth, and, after he had relapsed and become a robber, won him back by allowing himself to be made a captive by the robber-band and thus coming into touch with him again. We owe to Jerome (on Gal. (5io) the story that in advanced age John was still able once and again in the congregation to say, filioli, diligite alterutrum.
(b) The most important of the remaining traditions are these : John remained a virgin till his death ; when he intended marrying, or when his father wished him to marry, he was warned against it by a divine voice. He was compelled to drink a cup of poison, and was plunged into a cauldron of boiling oil, but in both cases passed the ordeal unharmed. After one or other of these experiences he was banished in the reign of Domitian to the isle of Patmos ; under Nerva he was allowed to return to Ephesus. A large number of miracles of most various kinds are ascribed to him. At last he caused a grave to be dug for himself, laid himself down in it and died, n the following day his body was no longer to be found.
9. Credibility of these traditions.[edit]
Lipsius (Apocr. Apostelgesch. 1348-542, 83, and else where) refers all the traditions enumerated in 8 b to a work that still survives in fragments (or catholic redactions), 1 the Acta Johannis which formed a part of the irepiodoi ^ wo(rT ^\ wv ( < 'Wanderings of the apostles' ) ascribed to Leucius (Charinus), of Gnostic origin, and dating from somewhere between 160 and 170 A.D. Zahn, who in his edition of the Acta Johannis in 1880 had sought to establish the year 130 A.D. as its date, had already in his Gesch. d. Kanons, 2856-865, 92, accepted the view of Lipsius as to the date, and after the publication of further portions of this text 2 has also conceded that it had its origin in the school of the Gnostic Valentinus (Forsch. 6 14-18, and already in Neue kirchl. Ztschr., 99, pp. 191-218).
For the spirit in which this work is conceived we may perhaps point to the story to the effect that John once in an inn found his bed swarming with vermin. He ordered them out of the chamber for the night. To the great astonishment of his companions, who had ridiculed him, on the following morning they saw the whole band of banished inmates waiting before the chamber door till John should allow them to return.
In the case of several of the other stories the manner of their origin is very transparent. Lifelong virginity is the ideal of manhood in the Apocalypse (Rev. 144), of which John is the author. A martyrdom was foretold for him as well as for his brother James by Jesus according to Mk. lOsS/ = Mt. 2022/. To the figurative baptism of which Jesus here speaks the baptism in boiling oil corresponds in a literal sense as exactly as possible, just as the cup corresponds to the draught of poison. Of John s drinking of that cup without harm tradition preserved a precedent in what was related of Justus Barsabbas, regarding whom Papias told a like story (ap. Eus. HE iii. 399). The banishment to Patmos is open to very grave suspicion that it arose out of a misunderstanding of Rev. 1;9. The words 'I was on the isle of Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus' by no means necessarily imply a banishment ; it is also possible that they may be intended to describe a voluntary journey either in flight after having freely declared the word of God and the testimony concerning Jesus, or for missionary purposes.
1 In the ecclesiastical redaction, the miracle of the boiling oil was, according to Lipsius, transferred from Ephesus to Rome ; that of the cup of poison, on the other hand, from Rome to Ephesus.
2 James, Texts and Studies, v. 1, 97, pp. 1-25 ; cp 144-154, as Iso Acta apost. apocr. ed. Lipsius et Bonnet, ii. 1, 98, pp.
B. AUTHORSHIP OF THE APOCALYPSE[edit]
10. Authorship of the whole.[edit]
Coming now to the question whether the apostle John (or, on the other assumption, the Elder) was the author of all the five NT writings ascribed to John as regards the apocalypse we must in the first instance proceed on the assumption that the book is a unit} .
(a) On this assumption the spirit of the entire book can be urged as an argument for the apostle s authorship : its eschatological contents, its Jewish-Christian character, its view of the Gentiles who are becoming Christians as proselytes who are being added to the twelve tribes of Israel (7 9-17) while yet the whole people of God continues to be represented as numbering twelve times twelve thousand (14i), its violent irreconcilable hostility to the enemies in the outside world (11 18 148-n 166 186-8) as well as to the false teachers within the churches (26 14 /. 20-22). The fiery prophetic utterance which the writer employs need not surprise us even in advanced old age, in a man who, we are to suppose, had cherished thoughts like these all his life long. Nor need we wonder at his calling himself not an apostle but only a minister of Christ and a prophet (li 22 9) ; for an apocalypse, it is only these last two attributes that come into account.
(b) On the other hand, the reference to the sojourn in Patmos (lg) must not be taken as positive evidence for the apostle s authorship ( 9). The technical erudition manifested not only in an intimate acquaintance with the contents of the OT, but also in bold applications of these to new conditions, and in an arrangement of the entire apocalyptic material in a manner which may not indeed be exempt from criticism, but yet certainly is everywhere skilful, is not easily accounted for in the case of one who had formerly been a fisherman, and who in Acts 4 13 is described and certainly correctly as an unlearned and ignorant man (frvdpuiros dypdfj.- fj.a.ro s KO.I idid)Ti)s).
(c) But, above all, in the case of an eye-witness of the life of Jesus one would have expected a livelier image of the personality of Christ than the Apocalypse offers.
The Apocalypse designates Jesus on the one hand, it must be conceded, in the genuine manner of primitive Christianity, as the faithful witness (15 814), which, in accordance with 2 13 176, we may interpret as referring to his martyr-death (cp 821), although it also remains possible that the word denotes his witness to truth by oral revelation ; it calls him the Holy and True (3 7 14 19 n) ; it alludes to his Judsean origin and Davidic descent (65 22 16) ; it claims for him that he has the Holy Spirit, only in the form that he possesses the seven spirits of God (3 i 5 6) into which the spirit of God is divided according to 14 45 56; and in 14 it,/, it represents him in his exalted - state as an angel, not as any higher being. On the other hand, it not only ascribes divine honours to him after his exaltation (1 5 6814, etc.) which need not surprise us ; not only praises him in a doxology which is comparable to those given to God (1 6 5 i2_/I 7 10 12) ; it also assumes his pre-existence as a matter of course and in that pre-existence it gives him the predicate, A and n, which is given to God himself (22 13, cp 1 17 28 as also 18 21 6); indeed in the very same verse (3 14) in which it assignes to him the humblest attribute, it also gives him_ the highest that of the beginning of the creation of God (ip^rj rrjs (CTt crews ToC 0eou). Even if this is to be taken passively, in the sense that he is the first creature created by God, it represents a high claim ; but it can also be meant in the active sense, thus designating him as a self -active principle in the creation of the world, as in i Cor. 8 6 Col. 1 16-18 Heb. 1 2 and elsewhere. The figures under which the author represents the appearance of Christ are partly taken from the OT (as 1 13-20), and partly dependent on NT theological theories (as 56). In order to realise how little the author was in possession of any concrete living image of the personality of Jesus we have only to look at any picture professedly based on 1 13-20, or try to visualise to our own imaginations what is described in 5 6/1 iff. how a lamb standing as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, comes and takes out of the hand of God a. book and opens the seals thereof.
(d) Finally, the Apocalypse speaks (18 20) of the twelve apostles in a quite objective way, without any hint that the author himself is one of them, and in 21 14 it describes them as the foundations of the Church of the latter days in a way which does not speak for the modesty of the author if he himself was of their number.
(e) Most of these difficulties, however, disappear as soon as we think of the Elder, not of the apostle, as the author of the book ; and the attitude of authority towards the churches of Asia Minor assumed in 2f. also speaks for the former always on the assumption that it was he, not the apostle, who held this position there.
11. Of parts.[edit]
If, however, it has to be conceded that the Apocalypse is not a unity - and it is hardly likely that it will long be possible to resist this conclusion - then the question alters itself to this ; whether the apostle or the Elder was the last editor of the whole book or the original author of any portion of it. Here all that can be said is that the John of Asia Minor, by whom, as we have seen, it is easier to suppose the Elder than the apostle to be meant, comes into consideration first of all as possible author of the Epistles to the Seven Churches in 2f. These, however, have only a loose con nection with what properly forms the body of the book which contains the prophecies concerning the last times (4 1-22 5); it is only with 21 i-22s that they show observable contact in some isolated expressions. That they should have arisen separately is hardly likely, for in that case all the seven would not have been written as we must never theless suppose them to havebeen in one corpus, buteach one would have been addressed to its proper destina tion. They become more intelligible when regarded as a preliminary writing prefixed to the rest of the book after it had been completed, and designed to introduce to a particular circle of readers the more strictly apocalyptic book. If this be so, we do best in assign ing them to the redactor of the whole ; but in that case we must be all the more cautious how we attribute to him definite portions of the rest of the book to attempt which, moreover, we have no means at our disposal. But, further, not even the Epistles to the Seven Churches can with certainty be ascribed to the Elder ; they may have been written by another in his name.
The one question left, if we take into account what is said under APOCALYPSE, is as to whether the author of the Apocalypse may be identical with the author of the Fourth Gospel and of the Johannine Epistles. The answer to this question becomes important in our investigation of the Apocalypse if the authorship of the Gospel and Epistles is more easily determined than that of the Apocalypse, and vice versa.
12. (a) General.[edit]
A glance at the four possibilities here will be instructive. Apart from theologians who feel themselves bound to the strictest conservatism, B. Weiss stands alone in attributing the Gospel and the Epistles as well as the Apocalypse to the apostle ; the Gospel and the Epistles, or at least the First Epistle, but not the Apocalypse, are attributed to the apostle by the mediating school, as they formerly were by the rationalists ; the Apocalypse, but not the Gospel and the Epistles, by the earlier representatives of the Tubingen school down to Hilgenfeld and Krenkel (Der Apostel Johannes, 71) ; by all the later critics not one of the Johannine writings is given to the apostle, the Apocalypse even having been already assigned to another author before its unity had been given up. We find a critic of so early a date as De Wette writing " In NT criticism nothing is more certain than that the apostle John, if he was author of the Gospel and the Epistles, did not write the Apocalypse, and conversely." The same thing had already been argued by Dionysius of Alexandria (ap. Eus. HE 7 25) in a manner that, when we consider his time, must be regarded as notably scientific. The authorship of the Apocalypse is in this case, however, prejudged to a certain extent only when the Gospel and the Epistli-s arc attributed to the apostle, and conversely.
13. (b) Language.[edit]
The difference between the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel so far as language and style are concerned can hardly be stated too strongly.
Grammatically, tho Greek of the Gospel, if not particularly good, is at least from the point of view of that period not open to positive objection ; the Apocalypse on the other hand exhibits the most flagrant solecisms. For example, the apposition to any case whatever is given in the nominative, 1 and there is no hesitation in adding the article to a verbal form or in making a nominative dependent on the preposition O.TTO (irrb o uv cai 6 >)f tai o ip\6fjievof, 1 4). The Gospel displays a Hebraizing character only in the syntax of its sentences (simple co-ordina tion), the Apocalypse to a very much greater extent. As for the vocabulary we single out only a few expressions : the Gospel has i//eii<7TTj5, the Apocalypse i^u5>j; ; similarly the Gospel and Apocalypse have, respectively, i6e, iSov , <co<r/xos, oiKOUfteVr; ; the Gospel has a.p\tav TOV KoV/iOu or Tronjpos for the devil, while from the detailed enumeration of all the predicates of the devil in Rev. 12g, these two expressions are absent; the Gospel has iTicrTeveiv (almost 100 times) and ofioAoyeii/, the Apocalypse i^fiv fr\v fLaprupiav Irjo-ou. Equally worthy of notice is the absence in the Apocalypse of certain particles which are of very frequent occurrence in the Gospel : KaSias, /u.eV, jucVroi, wan-ore, nuiiroTf, a>s in the temporal sense, iVo. referring back to a demon strative (as Jn. I")i2). Withal, the difference between the spheres of thought in the two writings is vividly illustrated when it is noted how favourite ideas in the one are totally absent from the other such ideas as Lord God Almighty (wv pios.o Sebs 6 navTOKpariap), or patience (yTro^ovrj) in the Gospel, </>u>s in a secondary meaning, tncoria., <Joji) atajnos, pri/j.ara, 8ea<r0a.i, fiii>eiv iv TIVL, ajroMu<70ai (said of men) in the Apocalypse.
1 E.g. 2 20 3 12 014 14 12. By this the AvriVa of 2i-j instead of AvriVas is shown to be the correct reading. Cp WH, App.
14. (c) Sphere of thought.[edit]
This observation, however, must be extended much more widely. Even where it cannot be traced in the mere vocabulary, the thought-substance in the two writings is in many ways fundamentally different.
(a) So, for example, in what is the main thing so far as the Apocalypse is concerned the eschatology. It is only in isolated passages, and these moreover not free from the suspicion of interpolation, that the Gospel still shows the conception so familiar to the Apoca lypse as to the whole of primitive Christendom of a general Judgment at the end of time, and a bodily resurrection ( 28 b}. On the other hand, special features of the Apocalypse, such as those of the detailed events before the end of the world and those of the millen nium, are in the same degree foreign to the Gospel as is the doctrine of the return of Christ with a heavenly host for the destruction of his enemies in battle (19n-2i), and the presupposition that the state of blessedness will be established upon earth -if even upon a renewed earth (Rev. 204-6 21 1 10) which is directly contradicted by Jn. 14 z/. , where this state is to be looked for in heaven. The First Epistle comes a degree nearer to the expecta tions of primitive Christendom ( 59); but the main idea of the Apocalypse, that a definite personality will come forward as Antichrist, is even there ( i Jn. 2 18 22 43) mentioned only for the purpose of saying that the prediction has been fulfilled by the rise of gnosticism, in other words the idea is gently set aside.
(b) The Universality of salvation is for the Gospel a matter of course (27). In the Apocalypse, on the other hand, one can still clearly perceive how the Jewish people continues to be regarded as the chosen race, and the believing Gentiles are ranked with it, not on principle but only in consequence of their having acquitted themselves also as good Christians under persecution (7i4/. loa). Jew in Rev. 2 9 89 is a name of honour, in the Gospel it carries some note of depreciation ( iq).
(c) As regards the Person of Christ the metaphysical expressions cited in loc approximate the point of view of the Fourth Gospel ; but this approximation is not nearly so great as to amount to equivalence. The difference lies not merely, as might perhaps be sug gested, in this that the Gospel has to speak for the most part of Christ on the earth whereas the Apocalypse is speaking of him as exalted in heaven. Even as regards the pre-existence of which both speak it has to be remarked that the Apocalypse has here only adopted certain expressions without allowing them to have any very noticeable effect upon the general view of things, whilst the Gospel is completely dominated by the idea of the Logos.
Great importance has been attached to the fact that in Rev. 19 13 Christ is expressly called the word of God (6 Adyos TOV Oeov). Even if this fact is to be recognised we must not forget that it by no means necessarily involves full coincidence with the thought of the Gospel. Such coincidence would even in fact be very unlikely, since elsewhere in the Apocalypse we do not find the faintest trace of Alexandrian ideas. Here accord ingly it might seem necessary to resort in the first instance to the explanation which we are constrained to reject in the case of the Gospel ( 31) namely that the expression the word of God is taken from the O T or the Palestinian theology. Only, even where they were not prepared to give up the unity of the Apocalypse altogether scholars ought long ago to have per ceived that 19 136 and his name is called The Word of God is a gloss. Immediately before we are told (19 12) that no one knoweth his name but he himself. How could the author proceed immediately to give his name? But nothing could have been more natural than that an old reader who believed himself to be in possession of the name (possibly from the Fourth Gospel) should have written the answer to the riddle on the margin ; the next copyist took it for an integral part of the text that had been accidentally omitted and accordingly inserted it. Indeed, we must perhaps go even further. In 19 n also we find a name of Christ : the Faithful and True," in 19 16 another : King of kings and Lord of lords ; of this last we are expressly told that it was written upon his mantle and upon his thigh. This does not harmonise with . 12 and must probably also be regarded as an interpolation.
(d) Among the various points of connection, there fore, which in spite of all differences we are able to trace between the Apocalypse and the Gospel the use of the name logos cannot be reckoned as one. Nor do those which are left by any means amount to a proof of identity of authorship. In both writings Christ appears as the lamb ; but the Apocalypse invariably uses apvlov, the Gospel invariably (except in 21 15) d/j.v6s. In the New Jerusalem ( Rev. 21 24 22if. 5) bread, water, and light are mentioned as the highest blessings ; in the Gospel (Jn. 648 414812) Christ himself is repre sented as bread, water, and light ; and so far as light is concerned Rev. 21 23 has already led the way in this. Baur found himself able to speak of the Gospel as the spiritualised Apocalypse. Thoma could call it the Anti-Apocalypse ( /AVT TJ, pp. 289-341). By this is not meant that the two writings as regards their inner substance are actually very near one another ; the long journey that has to be travelled in clearing up the lines of connection and effecting this spiritualisation of ideas shows only how far apart the two really are.
15. Conclusion.[edit]
The attempt even to carry the Gospel and the Apocalypse back to one and the same circle or one and the same school, though suggested by the tradition which 5 assigns 5 them to one and the same author, is therefore a bold one. It will be much more correct to say that the author of the Gospel was acquainted with the Apocalypse and took help from it so far as was compatible with the fundamental differences in their points of view. On account of the dependence thus indicated it will be safe to assume that the Apocalypse was a valued book in the circles in which the author of the Gospel moved, and that he arose in that environment and atmosphere. So far therefore it is possible for criticism to recognise in a qualified way the justice of the tradition as to the origin of the two writings in a common source ; but the complete difference in trend of thought must on no acount be lost sight of.
Of those who still maintain oneness of authorship for the two, the least favourable position is taken by those who hold them to have been written more or less contemporaneously ; but hardly less favourable is that of those who, in order to be able to maintain the date 95-96 A. D. , assigned by Irenaeus to the Apocalypse, think of the Gospel as the earlier of the two. The only rela tively conceivable hypothesis is that which postulates the other order and a transition from the ideas of the Apocalypse to those of the Gospel. As, however, it is impossible to assign the Apoca lypse to any date earlier than 68, the Gospel must on the assump tion of apostolic authorship belong to a period after the author s sixtieth year a period within which the acquirement of un objectionable Greek, not to speak of so revolutionary a change in the whole world of ideas, even if conceivable in his earlier years, becomes a psychological impossibility.
C. THE FOURTH GOSPEL[edit]
16. Method of enquiry.[edit]
The question whether the Fourth Gospel was written by John the apostle, which we shall here, for convenience sake, in accordance with the accepted phraseology, call the question of its genuineness (although the apostle's authorship is claimed for it only by tradition), cannot be determined apart from the question of its historicity. It would be utterly unscientific to begin by confining ourselves to a proof that the tradition of the Johannine authorship was not open to fatal objection and then supposing this to be made out forthwith to claim for the contents of the Fourth Gospel a strictly historical character throughout without further question. Even defenders of the genuineness have conceded the pos sibility of more or less serious lapses of memory in the aged apostle ( 55 d}. The question of the historicity, therefore, is ultimately the more important of the two, if we bear in mind what must be the final object of all enquiry into the gospels, namely the elucidation of the life of Jesus. As a matter of fact there have been scholars who have maintained that the Fourth Gospel was not the work of the apostle and yet is trustworthy throughout, or that it rests upon communications re ceived from the apostle or some other eye-witness and therefore is partly trustworthy partly not ( 55 b c}. The question of historicity becomes, on any such hypotheses as these last, not merely an end in itself but also a means of determining the authorship. The same remark applies when the complete genuineness is under consideration. Unimportant deviations from historicity, on the view just mentioned, do not make belief in the genuineness impossible ; but serious deviations do.
As regards the historicity, our most important line of research is that of comparison with the synoptists. In proportion as tradition concerning the authorship is uncertain, must we rely all the more upon this means of arriving at knowledge. Of course we must not begin by postulating for the synoptists the higher degree of historicity any more than by making a similar claim for the Fourth Gospel. The immediate object of the comparison must be to ascertain what the differences are ; if any of these are found to be irreconcilable, we shall then have to ask, in the first place, which of the two representations deserves the preference, and then, next, whether the less preferable can have come from an eye-witness. At the same time, it is obvious that the comparison must not in the main deal with details merely, for in every single detail some error may well be regarded as excusable ; rather must it pass in review the plan and character of the two sets of writings viewed broadly and as a whole.
I. Comparison with Synoptists[edit]
17. The baptist.[edit]
Such a comparison will, at the very outset, disclose a fundamental divergence in the picture presented of one the most prominent subordinate figures in the gospel narrative. In the synoptists John the Baptist is a personality of real interest even quite apart from his relation to Jesus. Brief as are the synoptists notices concerning John, they still contain a complete life-history full of dramatic crises. It is not his tragical death alone that compels the reader s sympathy ; we are interested in him quite as much by reason of his uncertainty as to whether or not he ought to recognise in Jesus the Messiah (Mt. 11 a/.). See JOHN THE BAPTIST. That he was re luctant to baptise Jesus is plainly an addition of Mt. (3 14/-) ; Mk. and Lk. know nothing of it. According to Mk. , John did not, even in the very act of baptising, receive any revelation of the exalted dignity of Jesus (GOSPELS, I37, end); and this is undoubtedly the true state of the case, for no one would have invented such a representation, if the descent of the Holy Spirit and the heavenly voice as described in Lk. and even in Mt. had been noticeable to every one.
In the Fourth Gospel, however, it is precisely the representation of Mt. that is fundamental ; in fact it is essentially heightened. From the very first John knows not only the high dignity of Jesus and his destiny to become the redeemer of the whole world (12729), but even his pre-existence (11530). The title of Messiah is implicitly offered to him, in order that he may refuse it in the most categorical manner (119-23 828). The effect is a diminution of John s personal significance to such an extent that the only function left him is that of bearing testimony to Jesus ( 1 6-8 15 23). Even his baptis ing work is felt to be important, not as being of value to those who sought baptism, but as being a means of making Jesus known (12631). Of his preaching of re pentance absolutely no mention at all is made. Yet in his baptism Jesus receives nothing which he did not previously possess ; on the contrary, it is not related at all, and there is a good reason for the omission ( 26). The descent of the Spirit is alone mentioned, yet not as a divine gift bestowed on Jesus but only as a token for the Baptist whereby he is able to recognise Jesus as the Messiah (132 /. ). His question at a later date, whether Jesus really be the Messiah (Mt. 11 2/. ), is in the Fourth Gospel impossible. In short, in place of the personality powerful, yet limited in its horizon and therefore exposed to tragic conflicts (and in all these respects a personality that cannot have been invented) whom we have in the synoptists, we find in the Fourth Gospel nothing more than a subsidiary figure introduced to make known the majesty of Jesus a figure endowed with supernatural knowledge indeed, but always mono tonously the same and historically quite colourless.
18. Scene of public life of Jesus.[edit]
Turning now to what we are told concerning Jesus himself, we are struck first by the difference between the synoptists and the Fourth Gospel as to the scene of Jesus' public activity. Whilst in the synoptists Jesus does not come to Judaea save for the Passover at which he suffered, in the Fourth Gospel Judaea is the scene of by far the greater part of his ministry. Into Galilee he makes only comparatively brief excursions (2i-i2 4 43-5 1 6 1-7 14). Indeed, according to 444, when fairly interpreted, Judaea, not Galilee, is represented as his home. If indeed, especially in view of Mt. 2837 Lk. 1834, it cannot be definitely said that the synoptists leave no room for earlier visits of Jesus to Jerusalem, what has just been stated seems to admit of the explanation that the Fourth Gospel is designed as a supplement to the synoptists. This view, however, cannot be carried out. To begin with, the Fourth Gospel does not confine itself to giving supplementary matter ; it repeats synoptic narratives such as those of the Feeding of the Multitudes, the Walking on the Sea, and the Healing of the Nobleman s Son (another version of that of the servant [or son] of the centurion at Capernaum [ 20 c]). Further, so long a sojourn of of Jesus in Judaea as is depicted in the Fourth Gospel is in no way reconcilable with the representation of the synoptists, and still less is the representation that before his last passover Jesus had stayed in Jerusalem at least from the preceding winter onwards (1622).
19. Order of principle events in public life.[edit]
No less divergent are the representations of the synoptists and the Fourth Gospel as to the order of the principal events in the public life of Jesus. The cleansing of the temple which, according to the synoptists, was in his closing days, is placed in Jn. (2:13-22) at the beginning of his ministry. It is thus quite divested of the importance it has in the other account as bringing the hatred of the authorities to the explosive point ; it has no outward consequences. Nor is the harmonistic expedient of any avail that the cleansing happened twice and with quite opposite results on the two occasions. The conflict of Jesus with the Jews arises, it is true, in Jn. at the very beginning of his ministry ; but all attempts to lay hold of him prove failures, without any explanation being given beyond the very vague and general one that his hour was not yet come (7:30-44 8:20-59 10:39 12:36). The representation, however, that thus between Jesus and the Jews i.e., not only the ruling classes but also his ordinary Jewish audiences a relation of complete anti pathy subsisted from the outset, does not harmonise with what we gather from the synoptists. Jn. alludes to the hearers of Jesus as the Jews (2 1820 5 16 641 and often) as if Jesus were not himself one sprung from their midst ; he speaks of feasts of the Jews (2 13 5 i 64 7 2 11 55) ; he represents Jesus as saying your law (817 1034, cp 1625), as if Jesus had nothing to do with either feast or law ; and as early as lu the full con demnation of the entire people is already pronounced, and so again 8:21-24 12:38-40. Nor is this cancelled, though it is repeatedly said that many believed in him ; Jesus could not otherwise have found opportunity to carry on and develop his message.
As regards Jesus relations with his disciples, the con fession of Peter (Jn. 668 f. Mk. 829) is wholly deprived of its importance as a new discovery and as an achieve ment if Jesus already at the calling of the first disciples (1414549) or even earlier still by the Baptist himself (1:6-8 1:15 1:23 1:26 1:29-34) had been acknowledged as Son of God. Finally to confine ourselves only to points of first importance the Raising of Lazarus brings into the narrative of John, as compared with that of the synoptists, not only a wholly new event, but also a wholly new reason for the persecution of Jesus (11:45-53) which resulted in his death. In the synoptists the immediate cause of his arrest and condemnation was his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his cleansing of the temple.
1 8:7-13 : As Jeremiah was standing in the temple he became as one that gives up the ghost. Baruch and Abimelech (his companions) wept . . . and the people saw him lying dead . . . and wept bitterly. Thereupon they would have him buried, when, behold, a voice was heard, Bury not him who is yet alive, for his soul will again enter into his body. And . . . they remained near his body for three days while they spake of this thing, and remained in uncertainty as to the hour at which he should arise. But after three days his soul came into his body and he lifted up his voice in the midst of them all and said Praise ye God, etc. Thus the Greek text in Harris (Rest of Words of Baruch, 89). The Ethiopic text (Dillm. Chrtst. aeth., 66, German by Pratorius \Z\VT, 72, pp. 230-247], and by Konig [St. u. Kr. 77, 318-338]) concludes more briefly : they remained about him for three days until his soul returned (or, should return) into his body. And a voice was heard in the midst of them all " Praise ye God," etc. Jeremiah s return to life is, it will be seen, not directly stated here ; the words Praise ye God, etc., are not, according to this account, attributed to Jeremiah but to a voice. It is not till 19 that the Ethiopic text, in agreement with the Greek, names Jeremiah as the speaker. Which of the two texts is the more original it is not quite easy to determine, because the passage beginning with the words Praise ye God is, or at least contains, a Christian interpolation, whilst the rest of the book, containing as it does no Christian ideas of any kind, but on the other hand laying stress on such Judaic conceptions as the removal of non-Jewish women, and that of the sacrifice at Jerusalem, must be held to be Jewish. Yet it will not be too bold to conjecture that the Ethiopic translator would hardly have passed over the bringing back to life of Jeremiah if he had found it in the text before him, and thus we may venture to hold that here, as in other places also (Harris, 2g_/T), he repre sents the more original form. We find him, then, giving quite explicit expression to the belief that for the space of three days the return of the soul to the body was considered possible. But even the Greek text does not bear the interpretation that this limit can be exceeded. After three days merely indicates the extreme limit within which the return to life could possibly be expected.
Those critics who do not regard the resurrection of Jesus as an actual fact cite 2 K. 20:5 Hos. 6 2 Jon. 2 i [1 17] as explaining why the resurrection was assigned to precisely the third day after the death of Jesus. It is not impossible that these passages may have had their influence also on the Jewish belief with which we are now dealing.
20. The miracles.[edit]
(a) As compared with the miracle narratives of the synoptists, those of the Fourth Gospel are essentially enhanced. None of the sick mentioned by the synoptists as having been healed by Jesus is recorded to have lain under his infirmity for thirty-eight years (Jn. 5:5). The blind man who is healed has been blind from his birth (9:1). Jesus walks across the whole lake, not over a portion of it only (6:21). Lazarus is not raised on the day of his death, like the daughter of Jairus or the son of the widow of Nain, but after four days have elapsed.
This last point has a special significance. According to Jewish belief (Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr. and Wettstein [both on Jn. 1X39]) the soul of the departed lingers about the body for three days, ready to return into it if possible ; on the fourth day it definitively takes its departure because it sees that the counten ance has wholly changed. For the same reason the identification of the body of a person whom one has known in life is held to be possible only for the first three days ; after that the change is too great to admit of it. A further testimony to the prevalence of this view coming from a time very near that of Jesus, but unknown to the scholars mentioned above, will be found in the Rest of the Words of Baruch, g. 1 This is also the reason why Jesus on receiving word of the sickness of Lazarus does not hurry to his side at once, but lingers for two whole days. Thus his love for Lazarus and the sisters of Lazarus is displayed not by the speed with which Jesus hastens to their relief, but con trariwise by the delay which gives room for the working of a special and seemingly impossible miracle.
(b) No satisfactory explanation can ever be given as to why the synoptists should have nothing to say con cerning this greatest of all miracles ( 37a), or yet of that which is expressly described as the first of his miracles at Cana, or of the healing of the man born blind, or of the miracle at Bethesda. The presence of all the disciples is expressly mentioned, both at Bethany and at Cana. On the other hand it is quite easy to under stand why many miracles related by the synoptists are absent from the Fourth Gospel. The latter offers only one example of each class of miracle ; its aim is accord ingly directed towards a careful selection. Healings of demoniacs, however, are wholly left out in other words, precisely the kind of miracle which, according to GOSPELS ( 144), could most confidently be ascribed to Jesus and which in point of fact are alone ascribed to him by criticism.
(c ) The selection of miracles, notwithstanding the fact that Jesus is stated in 2:23 6:2 7:31 11:47 20:30 to have wrought very many miracles, becomes intelligible most easily if each of the miracles particularised be held to have a symbolical meaning. Such a meaning is ex pressly assigned to the raising of Lazarus (11:25-26), to the healing of the man born blind (9:5-39), and to the feeding of the five thousand in the elucidation in 6:26-27. 30-63, where it is interpreted as having a veiled reference to the eucharist. With this clue it is no longer difficult to see that the miracle of walking upon the water which comes immediately afterwards is intended to signify that exaltation of Jesus above the limitations of space which is necessary in order to render possible the presence of his glorified body at every celebration of the eucharist. That the wine of Cana as compared with the water is intended to symbolise the superiority of the new religion over the old is equally plain. The thirty- eight years of the sick man at Bethesda show that he is an emblem of the Jewish people who had to wander for thirty-eight years in the wilderness (Dt. 214) ; the five porches can without difficulty be interpreted as meaning the five books of Moses. Cp 35 b-e. Lastly, in the case of the nobleman (446-54) the symbolical meaning of the narrative becomes evident as soon as attention is directed to its divergences from the story of the centurion of Capernaum in Mt. (85-13) and Lk. (7i-io), which by almost universal agreement lies at its foundation (see GOSPELS, 17/3).
The centurion of the synoptists is a Gentile who excels, and puts to shame, the Jews by his faith. The nobleman of Jn. is in the service of Herod Antipas, and must therefore be regarded as a Jew, since the contrary is not stated. He also is distin guished by his faith, not, however, as being a heathen, but as being one who trusts the word of Jesus without looking for signs and wonders. At the outset, even he is reproached by Jesus as unable to believe without these. He has given no occasion for such a reproach. If, therefore, the reproach is not to be held to be unjust he must be taken as representing the Jewish people, who really deserve it. He clears himself, however, of the reproach. This being so, he represents, not the entire nation, but only those better members of the nation who intercede for the (spiritually) diseased portion of their people. In the days of the fourth evangelist, in which it was no longer possible with one s own eyes to see miracles wrought by Jesus, belief in the bare word of the Christian preacher came to be of the greatest importance, and an example of such belief is therefore here put forth. By the son of the centurion, then, we are to understand the spiritually and religiously diseased part of the nation. This is the reason why the sufferer is not as in Lk. called the servant (SovAos) of the intercessor, but his son a point which had been left doubtful by the ambiguous expression (TTOUS) of Mt.
(d) The individual miracles (2:11 4:54 6:2-14 9:16 12:18), and indeed the miracles of Jesus as a whole (223 82 7si 1147 1237), are expressly spoken of as signs (cr^/uLfla), though the Jesus of the synoptists is repre sented as having declined on principle to work signs (GOSPELS, 1407.). In Jn. 2:18 6:30 Jesus is asked, as in Mk. 8 ii and parallels, to work miracles to attest his mission ; in Jn. , however, he does not decline as in the other case, but on the contrary promises (2:19) precisely the miracle of his resurrection. Belief that rests on mere miracles he often depreciates (4:48, etc.); but in 5:36 6:26 10:25-38 14:11 he actually attaches to them a decisive importance.
21. Date of crucifixion.[edit]
One of the most important differences between the synoptists and Jn. is that relating to the date of the crucifixion.
(a) According to Mk. 14:12-16 Mt. 26:17-19 Lk. 22:7-15 the Last Supper of Jesus was the Jewish Passover meal which was partaken of on the evening of the 14th of Nisan. In strict Jewish reckoning this evening belongs to the 15th of Nisan with which the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. Since, however, the leaven was removed from Jewish houses during the day-time of the 14th of Nisan, we can easily understand how it is that Mk. 14:12 Mt. 26:17 (cp Lk. 22:17) have come to speak of the 14th Nisan as being the first of the days of unleavened bread. It is equally certain that, according to Jn. , the Last Supper was on the i3th of Nisan (13i 29 1828 19i4 31). If the synoptists are to be brought into harmony with the Johannine reckoning, the day on which the paschal lamb was wont to be slaughtered (Mk. 14 12 Lk. 22?) must have been the i3th, not the I4th of Nisan. If on the other hand Jn. is to be brought into harmony with the synoptists, then at the eating of the Paschal lamb the feast can not yet have begun (13i 29) and to eat the passover (18:28) must be taken as meaning the meals taken during the seven days to the exclusion of that at which the paschal lamb was eaten. The in credibly violent attempts that used to be made to bring about a reconciliation between the two representations no longer call for serious argument.
(b) Some notice, however, must be taken of two attempts still made by scholars of repute to maintain the Johannine reckoning while conceding its incon sistency with that of the synoptists.
According to B. Weiss and Beyschlag the date of the Last Supper was on the i3th of Nisan, but nevertheless it was held as a passover meal. It is argued that since the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan did not give time enough for the slaughter of the many lambs (in 65 A.D., according to Jos. BJ vi. 9 3, 424, there were 256,500 of them), some portion of them were slaughtered on the afternoon of the i3th, and thus it was possible for Jesus to keep the passover a day before the regular time. This theory, however, about the slaughtering of the lambs is not only in flattest contradiction to the express words of Mk. 14 12 Lk. :> 2 7, according to which there was only one day on which the lambs were slaughtered, but also rests upon pure imagination. The slaughtering of the Iambs was not the business of the priests ; it was the duty of the representative of each passover- guild (Philo, Vil. Mos.Zvq, and Decal. 30, ap. Mangey, 2169 and 206). Each such representative had thus only one lamb to slaughter, and all that the priests had to do was to receive the blood in a bowl and pour it out by the altar. Moreover, time enough was secured on 14th Nisan by beginning the work of slaughtering, not towards sundown as Dt. It) 6 enjoined, but in the afternoon about 2 or 3 o clock according to Jubil. 49:10 f. ig, Jos. SJ \i. 93, 423, cp Ant. xiv. 4 3, 65, or, according to later Jewish authorities, even so early as from 12.30 or 1.30. Apart from this, however, an anticipatory- participation in the passover meal would have been a direct violation of the law according to which any one who was unable to take part in the feast on the appointed day was bidden postpone it till the following month (Nu. 9 10-13, cp2 Ch. 30 1-22). So far, moreover, as Jesus is concerned, such an anticipation would be intelligible only on the assumption that he knew beforehand quite definitely that he would not live to see the legally appointed evening (cp Prot. Monatshefte, 1899, pp. 140-143).
(c) According to Spitta (JJ rchristenthum 1221-228) the passage of Mk. on which the reckoning of the synoptists is based (14 12-16) is a later interpolation. According to 142, he contends, it was the intention of the authorities that Jesus should be made away with before the feast. As we are not told that this scheme failed, Mk. must have followed the Johannine chronology.
It is, however, quite sufficient that Mk., in fact, informs us that nevertheless Jesus was not put to death before the feast. This tells us really all that Spitta finds lacking.
Nor is Spitta on better ground when he urges that Mk. 14:17 does not connect itself with v. 16 that Jesus could not come with the twelve if two of them had been sent on before to make ready the passover. As a matter of fact we cannot avoid supposing that the two had in the interval returned to report that the preparations had been made. Over and above this, Spitta has to assume that the interpolation in Mk. already lay before Mt. and Lk., and further that there must have dropped out from Jn. a leaf in which the Last Supper of Jesus was described in agreement with the synoptic account ( 23^), and, conversely, Spitta has to set down Jn. 651-59 as a later insertion. So many are the changes required in order to make his hypothesis work.
22. Difficulties of synoptic chronology.[edit]
As the discrepant accounts do not admit of reconciliation, it remains that we should choose between them. Now according to the synoptists the crucifixion occurred on the first day of the seven-days feast, and this first day was in sanctity almost equal to a Sabbath.
(a) A judicial process in solemn form involving a capital charge could not, according to the Mishna, be begun on a day before a Sabbath, and thus also could not have been begun on the I4th of Nisan, for between the first and the second sitting, if a condemnation was to be arrived at, a night had to intervene. Any formal sentence of death, however, was beyond the competency of the synedrium, as the power of life and death lay in the hands of the Roman procurator. Brandt, one of the most acute and the most learned of the opponents of the synoptic (and the Johannine) chronology, who admits as historical nothing more than the bare fact that Jesus was crucified about the passover season, has conceded in his Evangelische Geschichte (pp. 55, 303, 93) that, legally considered, the proceedings before the synedrium would be unexceptionable if they were regarded merely as a preliminary enquiry to prepare the case for Pilate s hearing. And it must further be taken into account here how urgently time pressed. The project to make away with Jesus before the feast having failed, it was all the more necessary to get rid of him at the beginning of the feast before the people should have had time and opportunity to declare in his favour. Of Pilate one could rest assured that even on the feast-day he would not hesitate to repress any tumult. If he desecrated the day by an execution, the responsibility would not lie on the synedrium.
(b) That Simon of Cyrene came from -the country (air aypou, Mk. 16:21 Lk. 23:26) by no means implies that he had been working there. Many passover pilgrims, to the number of whom he would, as a Cyrenian, appear to have belonged, spent the night outside the city and simply came into it from the country.
(c) The burial of Jesus would always have been more lawful on the 15th of Nisan than on the following Sabbath, which was held to be of superior sanctity ; but in any case it was unavoidable, in accordance with Dt. 21:22.
(d) The prohibition against leaving the festal chamber on the night of the passover (Ex. 12:22) was, from all that we can gather (see Keim, Gesch. Jesu -von Nazara, 82917!) no longer observed in Jesus time. Very many pilgrims had their lodging during the feast outside the walls of Jerusalem. The prohibition in question there fore could no longer be enforced. With reference to certain other inconvenient passover precepts also the rabbins found a way of escape by deciding that they were enjoined only for the passover in Egypt, not for that in Palestine.
(e) That the women prepared ointments is stated only by Lk. (23:56) ; according to Mk. (16:1) they bought ointments only after the Sabbath was ended. Joseph, it is true, according to Mk. 16:46, bought a linen cloth. What we have to ask, however, in case such a pur chase was forbidden by traditional prescription, is whether in the synoptic tradition recollection must on this account have gone wrong altogether as to the day of the death of Jesus, or whether it is not easier to suppose that a narrator who was no longer acquainted with the enactments of the law on the subject, fell into error on a single point that of the purchase effected on a feast day.
(f) The question as regards the swords carried by the company who arrested Jesus is similar (Mk. 14:43-48 Mt. 26:47-55 Lk. 22:52). According to the Mishna (Shabbath 624) it was unlawful to carry on the Sabbath day (and therefore, also, certainly, on the day of the passover) breastplate, helmet, greaves, sword, bow, shield (sling ?) or lance. It is equally certain, however, that the exercise of police functions on Sabbath, especially among the crowds present at the passover, was not allowed to be suspended by any such prohibition. It is not said that no kind of weapon whatever was to be allowed. Here also, no doubt, Rabbinical casuistry was equal to the occasion. Is it then imperative that we should suppose the statement about the swords to be correct and therefore that about the day to be incorrect ? Or is it not, in point of fact, quite easy to imagine that a narrator who was not accurately acquainted with the precepts of the Jewish law inadvertently gave to his true account of an armed company having been sent such a turn as implied that they were armed with swords ?
(g) It is directly attested that the disciples of Jesus had swords among them (Mk. 14:47 Mt. 26:51-52 Lk. 22:49-50). We may venture to suppose that they had provided themselves with these on the preceding days, already seeing cause to fear danger for Jesus and them selves. It was certainly not without reason that Jesus according to Mk. 11:19 Mt. 21:17 Lk. 21:37 passed his nights, not in the city, but (presumably) in various places outside its walls for otherwise his betrayal by Judas would hardly have been necessary. There is nothing to surprise us if the disciples did not lay their swords aside on the day when the danger was greatest. After having learned in so many other points to claim emancipation from the law, they can hardly have felt themselves bound to follow it with slavish literality precisely on this particular occasion.
23. Explanation of the Johannine date.[edit]
In the case of the Johannine date of the crucifixion we are in a position to give the unifying conception which underlies it. It is indicated in Jn thus:
(a) In Jn. 19:36 it is said that the reason why the bones were not broken was in order that a scripture might be fulfilled. The scripture in question (Ex. 12:46 Nu. 9:12) has reference to the paschal lamb. Jesus then is presented as the anti type to the paschal lamb in such a manner that this precept finds literal fulfilment in him.
(b) But not this precept ouly. According to 19 14 Jesus is at midday still before Pilate ; his death thus takes place in the afternoon, exactly at the time when (see 21 b) the paschal lambs were wont to be slaughtered. However tempting it may be to suppose that the discrepancy with Mk. 16:25 arises from a mere oversight, the F [gamma] of Mk. , which denoted the third hour, being misread by Jn. for a F [digamma] representing the number six, or conversely (GOSPELS, 140:), it loses, when taken in connection with the other divergences of Jn. from the synoptists, all its attractiveness.
(c) The anointing of Jesus happened, according to Jn. 12 1, six days before the passover, according to Mk. 14i = Mt. 262 at most two days before it. This dis crepancy also is significant. According to Ex. 12:3 the paschal lamb must be chosen on the loth of Nisan. The evening on which it is eaten belongs, according to Jewish reckoning, to the 15th of Nisan. The 10th of Nisan is thus the fifth day before the passover. Now, the turn of expression in Jn. 12 1 (EV, six days before the passover ) is Roman : irpb i]/j.ep<Zi> TOV irda x a according to the analogy of ante diem tertium Calendas Maias. The Latin phrase of course denotes the 2gth of April, both the first and the last days being included according to the Roman mode of reckoning. Applying the same principle to Jn. 12 1 we find that the loth of Nisan is indicated. Here again, accordingly, Jesus is seen to be the antitype of the paschal lamb. For Greek examples see Winer, 61 5 end.
(d) The synoptists do not mention the lance-thrust, just as they pass over the omission to break the bones of the crucified Jesus. In Jn. (19:34-37) the lance thrust also is mentioned as a fulfilment of a scripture : they shall look on him whom they have pierced. The mean ing of the quotation is not at first sight plain, nor yet its connection with the statement that blood and water flowed from the wound. In spite of all efforts, no one has yet been able to show that blood and water actually do flow from a wound of this kind. But blood and water are mentioned together also in i Jn. 56, where it is said that Jesus Christ came by water and blood. By the water here, so far as the person of Jesus is concerned, we can hardly understand anything else than his baptism ; by the blood the atoning blood which he shed on the cross. The sequel in w. 7-9 shows, however, that what is being spoken of is not merely the experience of his own life, but also that which he brings to believers. In that case the water denotes their baptism, and the meaning of the blood is best found in Jn. 653-56. It is the eucharistic blood. Jesus comes (i Jn. 56) by the two sacraments which signify, partly reception into the Christian church, partly the continual renewal of a Christian standing. Now, the reference to water does not come into connection with the idea of the paschal lamb ; but that to blood does. The reference to water thus carries us beyond the suggestions connected with the paschal lamb, indeed, but only shows all the more clearly that the account of the history is here dominated throughout by ideas.
(e) That the Last Supper as related in the Fourth Gospel cannot have been a paschal meal is self-evident, and would not of itself give occasion to any doubts regarding Jn. s chronology. Serious doubts, however, must arise when it is observed how the evangelist connects the interpretation of the Supper with his narrative of the Feeding of the Five Thousand (61-63) and thus makes it to have been given a year earlier than the date at which the event happened according to the synoptists.
How impossible this version of the facts is can best be seen from the attempts to render it harmless. Many deny that the eucharist is intended at all in chap. 6 ; but in view of the words in vv. 51^-56, and of the allusion, otherwise quite point less, to thirst as well as hunger in i>, 35, such a denial is quite useless. Spitta, accordingly, would delete vy. 51-59 ( 21 c) ; but v. 35, which he leaves untouched, raises its protest against such a critical proceeding. Arthur Wright (A Synopsis of the Gospels in Greek, 96) assumes that Jesus instituted the ordin ance of the Supper as early as the first passover of his ministry, at the second gave the exposition now found in Jn. 6, and at the third and last only added perhaps the command to continue its celebration. This is logical enough, but so gratuitous as to require no refutation.
The next surprising thing in this connection is that Jn. reports absolutely nothing regarding the celebration at the last supper. Spitta supposes the dropping out of a leaf which contained the missing account so exactly neither more nor less that the hiatus arising from want of connection remained unperceived. Not only is this hypothesis very bold ; it wholly fails to meet the case. One must go further, and confess that it is impossible to point to the place where the missing leaf ought to have come in. Jn. introduces in place of the celebration something quite new, namely the foot-washing. This is not accidental ; it is a manifestation of love, and the action takes place in the course of the meal. The meal thus takes the character of a love-feast, an agapt, and thereby becomes an excellent substitute for the supper ; in the primitive church, it is well known, agap6 and Eucharist went together. When the matter is viewed in this light there is no further occasion to seek for a place in the gospel where the account of the institution of the Eucharist may originally have stood.
(f) Thus we may take as lying at the foundation of the whole representation in the Fourth Gospel the idea which is thrown out by Paul only casually (1 Cor. 5:7) : as our passover Christ was sacrificed, rb Trdcrxa 7//au)f M9-r] XptcjTos. Jn. carries it out in all its details. The more completely the precepts relating to the paschal lamb could be shown to have been fulfilled in Jesus, the more perfectly could it be held to have been demonstrated that the religion which rested on the pass- over as its foundation had been, by the will of God, set aside and its place taken by another.
It may perhaps be matter of surprise that the pneumatic evangelist should attach weight to so literal a fulfilment of the Old Testament. Yet this is what he does also elsewhere. From Ps. 22:19 we find that Mk. 16:24 Mt. 27:35 Lk. 23:34 have taken only the one detail that the soldiers divided the raiment of Jesus amongst themselves by lot. It is only Jn. (19:23-24) who not only cites the passage verbatim, but also finds in the two members of the verse two separate facts, viz., the dividing of the upper garment, and the casting of lots over the seamless under garment. So also it is he who brings Ps. 69:22 into connection with the fact stated by the synoptists (Mk. 16:36 Mt. 27:48 Lk. 23:36) that .they gave Jesus to drink on the cross, and who ex pressly signalises the act as a fulfilment of a scripture (19:28).
It is he too (2:17) who quotes from the same Psalm the 69th a citation not found in any of the synoptists, claiming that it found its fulfilment in Jesus, and gives four other citations, also not met with in the synoptists in each case, moreover, with Mt. s formula, that it might be fulfilled, etc., Lva. ir\r)pta9fj K.T.A. (1238 13 18 1625 17 12), as in 102428. It is he, too, who (without having been preceded by the synoptists) sees a type of Christ in the Serpent in the wilderness (3 14), a type of the Eucharist in the manna (6 31^ 49 f. 58), as also indeed he finds a type in Siloah (97), translating it by an-eoTaA/iieVos (cp GOSPELS,
24. The synoptic and Johannine date confronted.[edit]
The position of the question, then, is this. In the case of the synoptists no one has ever yet been able to suggest any reason why they should have wished to change the date of the death of Jesus. The utmost that has been said has been this that the disciples had no longer retained a precise re collection of the day. It is difficult to understand how any one who adopts such a view can possibly attach any credence whatever to anything the synoptists say. This view, so damaging to the synoptists, is not at all the result, as such a view ought to be, of careful examination of their work or of appreciative consideration of the position of the authorities on whom they relied on whose memories nothing surely could have imprinted itself so indelibly as the events of those last days. It owes its origin simply and solely to preference for the Fourth Gospel. Only in one case would it be compulsory to adopt it if the synoptic date were proved to be impossible. But this it is far from being ; the difficulties on which emphasis is laid are in part only seeming, and in part admit of explanation by a very excusable error of tradition ( 22). In the Fourth Gospel on the other hand it can be shown, point by point, that the representation of the history had to be given exactly as we find it there if it was to serve to set forth the given ideas. The sole question, therefore is whether we shall make up our minds to recognise that this is what the Fourth Gospel does. This decision we must, however, make, unless the synoptic representation is to remain an insoluble riddle. Nor is such a decision, in view of the entire character of the Fourth Gospel, in the least difficult. Elsewhere also it devotes itself to the representation of ideas (see 20 c), and as regards the date of the crucifixion the coincidences with the precepts regarding the paschal lamb are so strong that on the assumption of literal historicity the position of Hengstenberg is inevitable that God, or Jesus, with conscious intention, so ordered the events as to make them literally correspond to those precepts.
25. Character of discourses of Jesus.[edit]
The difference in character between the synoptic and the Johannine discourses of Jesus can hardly be over stated.
(a) As regards style the synoptists give short say ings, the Fourth Gospel long expositions. The Fourth Gospel has no parables not even in chaps l5 or 10. In 10:6 the saying of Jesus is called, not a parable (irapa.- ), but a proverb (Tra.poifj.la : see PARABLE). This is very appropriate. That Jesus should be a door is an idea that it is impossible to visualise. By it is expressed not by means of an image drawn from life, but by means of an artificial thought-allegory the conception that Jesus, or, more strictly speaking, faith in Jesus, is the only means where by one can enter into the Church and so into blessed ness. In the Fourth Gospel the discourses of Jesus are distinguished so little from those of the Baptist or from those of the evangelist himself that commentators on such a passage, for example, as 827-36 are utterly at vari ance on the question as to where the one ends and the other begins.
(b) In the synoptics the main subject of the discourses of Jesus is furnished by the question how the kingdom of God can be entered ; in Jn. , on the other hand, the leading theme is Jesus himself his person and his dignity, on which in the synoptists he has extra ordinarily little to say. Accordingly, in Jn. , the ex pression 'kingdom of God' occurs only twice (33:5). In Mt. 11:25-30, it is true, it has been thought by scholars that we have one passage which partakes of the char acter of the Johannine discourses of Jesus, and thus guarantees the authenticity of these throughout. This, however, considering its isolated character, the passage in question could not be held to do, even if it really were Johannine in character. Moreover, such a char acter does not in point of fact belong to it, as becomes apparent as soon as the most ancient reading is taken into account.
All the church-fathers and heretics of the second century, of whose reading of this passage we have any knowledge at all, bear witness wholly or in part to the following text : All things have been delivered to me by my father, and no one hath known (tyvia) the father but the son. nor the son but the father and he to whomsoever the son will reveal it." Even Irensus, who severely censures the sect of the Marcosians on account of this reading, himself adopts it twice or (according to the Syriac translation) thrice ; we must therefore suppose that so it stood written in his bible.
According to the text just quoted the knowledge of the Father by the Son is not something which is spoken of in the present tense only, so that according to the Johannine manner of thinking it could be regarded as having existed from all eternity; it is some thing that, as the aorist indicates, came into being at a definite moment of time, and before this particular moment did not as yet exist. This moment of time is of course to be sought for within the period of the earthly life of Jesus. Further, in the true text the first place is not assigned to the knowledge of the Son by the Father which again in the Johannine theology could be regarded as existing from all eternity ; the first in order is this that Jesus has recognised the Father in God, on which follows the second that the Father has recognised the Son. Of course, however, this does not mean here that mysterious interpene trative knowledge which dogmatic theology ascribes to the first person of the Trinity in relation to the second ; what it means is simply this : No one except God has hitherto known that I am the Messiah ; you all have not as yet perceived it. The same thing is very fitly expressed in the parallel text Lk. 10:22, in the words 'No one knoweth [better: hath known ] who the Son is, that is, that I am the Son'. And the final clause in Mt. and Lk. fits the same sense admirably, 'and he to whom the Son will reveal it'. What the Son will reveal is, according to the true reading, not at all the essence of the Father, nor yet so to say his own essence, which might again bring us back to the Johannine theology, but simply the knowledge that he is the Messiah.
Peter's confession and the answer of Jesus to it (Mt. 16:16-17 and ||s) do not come into conflict with this as one might be apt to suppose. Altogether unassisted and out of his own inner consciousness merely, Peter could never have reached the intuition that Jesus was the Messiah ; some hints he must have received from Jesus himself. Or, since Jesus forbade his disciples to make known the confession of Peter, it is open to us to suppose that he uttered the words of Mt. 11:27 somewhat later and in presence of another audience to which Peter did not belong.
Taken in this sense the passage not only does not contain the Johannine Christology ; it is simply a purely synoptist repre sentation of the rise of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus : in the course of his earthly development he arrived at the knowledge that God is not the austere god of the Old Testament law but a father such as is presented to us in the prophets (Is. 63 16), the psalms (Ps. 686 10813), and other later writings (Fcclus. 23 i 4 Wisd. 2 16 11 10 143 etc.). In his relation to the divine Father Jesus feels himself to be a son of God, in the first instance in the Old Testament ethical sense, inasmuch as he submits his will in all things to that of the Father. But in this respect he found himself so isolated in the circle of his contemporaries that he saw himself to be called to the responsibility of leadership. Thus it was that he felt himself to be the son KO.T fo\riv,
As for the text itself, no codex, however old and good, can be a sufficient witness against the extra-canonical reading, since even the oldest of them is some two centuries younger than it. The attempt has been made to discredit the reading as being a falsification of the Gnostics, who denied that under the Old Testament men had possessed any true knowledge of God. This is certainly the view of Irenaeus. That very fact, however, serves to make it intelligible how churchmen should have altered the extra-canonical reading, as seeming to favour heresy, into the canonical, an alteration which seemed to them in point of fact to have its full warrant in the Johannine parallels and particularly in 10 15. That orthodox persons deliberately altered the NT text is expressly attested by one of the most orthodox of them all I,p{pha.mus(.-lnc0ratus, 31) who tells us that, dread ing a too human view of Jesus, they deleted Lk. 2243_/ The converse possibility is all the more improbable in proportion as the uncanonical text is seen to befit the Jesus of the synoptists better and in proportion as it does not deny to the men of the Old Testament all knowledge of God as the Father. For it was not in their case that Jesus was at all concerned to deny such knowledge ; it was in the case of his contemporaries that he did so ; this was sufficient foundation for the unique claim he made.
Finally, we must point out that the opening words of Mt. 11:27 = Lk. 10:22 "All things . . . father" must not be explained according to Mt. 28:18. There stands expressly the word power. In our present context, however, pou<er would be quite unsuitable, for we are concerned only with the knowledge that God is a father. The yoke of Jesus in Mt. 11:29^ is _con- trasted with the yoke of the Law, the yoke of the Pharisees (cp Mt. 23:4 and the expression/<-K> legis in the Apoc. Bar. 41 3); they are the wise and prudent from whom according to 11:25 God has hidden what he has through Jesus revealed to infants, namely, the fatherhood of God. Now the doctrine of the Pharisees is called tradition of the elders (n-apoioo-is tStv Trpea ftvTfpuii ) in Mk. 7:4 8:13 etc., and in this we have explained how anything that Jesus taught was said to be delivered to him. In this way vanishes the last appearance of there being in our passage Johannine ideas.
(c) The occasion which leads to the prolongation of the discourses of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is often some misunderstanding of his words on the part of the listeners. Such misunderstanding may sometimes seem intelligible in some degree as for example when Jesus speaks of himself as the bread which came down from heaven (6:41-42), or says that he will give them his flesh to eat (6:52), that Abraham had already seen him (8:56-57 ), and the like. But it would be difficult to understand how Jesus by such disquisitions can have won over to himself the lowly ones among the people or comforted the weary and heavy-laden. This he did by preaching (according to the synoptics) that the divine compassion is great and that all that God demands is a pure heart, not by disquisitions of the kind referred to or meta physical questions in a language that cannot be called popular. In other places the misunderstandings of the hearers are hardly comprehensible (see, for example, 8:19 8:22-27). It may, in fact, be almost generalised as a prevailing law for the Fourth Gospel that at the begin- ning of a discourse or a portion of a discourse Jesus utters a saying meant to be taken in a spiritual sense but expressed in an intentionally ambiguous form which is understood by the hearers in the physical and so made unintelligible (e.g. 2:19-33, 4:10, 4:13-14, 4:32, 7:33-33. 11:23 [ 56b ] 36 [ 26 d] 12:32 14:7). But it is not easy to suppose that this was invariably what actually happened.
(d) Nor is there any help in the conjecture that the Fourth Gospel reproduces the style of the discourses of Jesus as they were during the later period of his ministry, the synoptics that of his earlier ones. Not only does such a theory directly conflict with the actual text, where in Jn. we have characteristic discourses which are assigned to his earliest period and in the synoptic discourses equally characteristic belonging to his latest ; the discrepancy in character between the two kinds of discourse is so great, that a transition from the one to the other by the same speaker is psychologically un thinkable. A consciousness of approaching departure may very well have influenced the tone and character of the discourses of the last days ; but if that had led to a sudden communication of things never treated before, surely this would at least have been made in the hearing of the disciples alone, and not, as we are expressly told, in the Fourth Gospel, in the presence of the people.
(e) One of the most striking phenomena of the discourses of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is that their themes, which are few to begin with, are repeated on the most diverse occasions to the point of tedium. The monotony is probably felt by every reader. It is carried so far that a discourse which had been left un finished on a certain occasion is continued on another to other hearers. In 7:21-24 Jesus justifies himself at the Feast of Tabernacles, in the autumn, for having healed on the Sabbath-day the sick man at the pool of Bethesda (5 9 16) more than half a year before, at a feast before the preceding passover (5i 64). In 10 26-28 at the Feast of Dedication he continues the dis course about his sheep which he had begun at another time in 10:1-16.
The attempt has been made to account for such phenomena by supposing that the order of the several parts of the gospel Lad been lost by copyists ; cp for example Bacon, JBL, 94, pp. 64-76, Strayer and Turner, JTh. Studies, 1900, pp. 137-140 and 141 f. Such attempts have a certain justification when they seek to remove the difficulty that after the charge (1431) Arise, let us go hence Jesus utters the discourses that fill chaps. 15-17 ; but even here the attempts at rearrangement are by no means convincing.
Much more hopeless are such attempts elsewhere. It has been suggested that 7 15-24 should follow directly on 647. Butat 647 the subject of the Sabbath has been dropped for some time ; at 5i7./C it is passed from with a clearly marked transition( not only . . . but also )- I mmediately after 5 16, therefore, would be the place for the passage from chap. 7, and the passage must be not 715-24 but only 719-24(50 Bertling, St. Kr., 80, pp. 351-353). Even, however, if a better order were obtained at one place by transpositions we should furthermore have to inquire how the original order came to be disturbed. If one could venture to suppose that a leaf which accidentally began and ended exactly with a complete sentence became detached from the papyrus roll to which it had been fastened and was then inserted at a wrong place, the hypothesis becomes of course impossible as soon as it is found necessary to apply it to a series of cases. To obtain a better order, however, 7 3$f., e.g., should be contiguous with 183336, or 737/1 with 4ioi4/:, or 812 with 1246, or 815 with 1247, whilst the intervening verses 8 iT,f. are the continuation of &3 1 ./- These are but a few examples out of an almost endless mass. There hardly remains anything, therefore, but to attri bute this state of things to a peculiarity in the author.
26. The figure of Jesus apart from the Prologue.[edit]
The representation of Jesus throughout the entire Fourth Gospel is in harmony with the utterances of the Johannine Christ regarding his heavenly origin (25 b}.
(a) His baptism is not related (l:32-33), because it seemed to interfere with his dignity ; so also his temptation in the wilderness, his prayer in Gethsemane, and his forsaken cry on the cross are passed over in silence. The place of the prayer in Gethsemane is taken by the words spoken at a much earlier period (12:27), which, however, cannot be worse misinterpreted than they are when punctuated (as in Ti. , Treg. , and WH) : 'Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour'. To the Johannine Christ the thought of asking the father for deliverance from death could never have suggested itself ; his surrender of his life is in fact voluntary (10:17-18). The meaning accordingly is : 'Shall I, peradventure, say : Father, save me from this hour?' It is only thus that the sequel comes in with any ap propriateness : 'Nay, for this cause came I unto this hour, therefore will I rather say : Father, glorify thy name - by this, that thou sufferest me to go to my death'. Cp 18:11. Some trace of a weakness in the crucified one might perhaps be discerned in the words (19:28) 'I thirst' ; but it is expressly observed that they were spoken only that a scripture might be fulfilled. His prayer at the grave of Lazarus is uttered, accord ing to 11:42, only on the people s account. He shows his omniscience in 1:48 2:24-25 4:16-18 6:64-71 11:1-14 13:11-18. Jesus addresses to Philip the question, 'Whence shall we buy bread ?' (65 f. ) only to try him.
(b) His enemies cannot lay hands on him ; as often as they set about his arrest (7:30-44 8:20-59 10:39 12:36) or seek to slay him (5:16-18 7:25-32 10:31, cp 7:19 8:37-40), the attempt fails. The expression (eKpv^rj) which we read in 8:59 12:36 must, in view of his dignity, be interpreted not as meaning that he hid himself, but as meaning that he became invisible in a supernatural way (cp GOSPELS, 56, n. i). At his arrest the entire Roman cohort falls to the ground (186). Of his own initiative he gives himself up. Judas has no need to betray him with a kiss, and stands doing nothing. Of his own initiative, by dipping the sop and giving it to Judas, Jesus had already brought it about that Satan entered into Judas, and had charged him to hasten his work (13:26-27. ). Jesus acknowledged to Pilate that he was King, not of the Jews, but of something higher, of Truth (18:37). There is no need for Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross ; Jesus carries it himself (19:17).
(c) Immediately after his resurrection Jesus will not allow Mary Magdalene to touch him (20:17) as she and the other Mary touch his feet in Mt. 28 9 ; he does not taste food as in Lk. 2442/. (nor yet in Jn. 21 iz/. ) ; on the contrary, he enters by closed doors (20 19 26) and imparts the Holy Spirit (20:22), which according to Acts 2 1-13 was first poured out on the disciples at Pentecost. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus can impart the Holy Spirit because he and the Holy Spirit are one, because his second coming is identical with the coming of the Holy Spirit ( 28 a), and because that coming became possible at the moment of Jesus glorification (7:39). In short, to the Christ of the Fourth Gospel the saying of the Epistle to the Hebrews (58), that he learned obedience through the things that he suffered, has become inapplicable ; so even that of the Epistle to the Philippians (2 7), that he emptied himself of the divine ; what applies to him is the say ing of the Epistle to the Colossians (2g), that in him dwelt the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily.
(d) Over against this we find hardly any really human traits, and such as do manifest themselves are intended in another sense than at first sight appears.
What is principally relied on as evidence of truly human characteristics in the Johannine Christ is his weeping at the grave of Lazarus ^11:35). From the very fact that the Jews are said to have seen in his tears a proof of his love for Lazarus, the reader might have been led to conjecture that this is not the author s view of them, for the Jews are always represented as understanding Jesus wrongly ( 25 c). The evangelist has taken further measures, however, to obviate any such misunderstanding. Even in v. 33 he tells us that Jesus was moved with indignation in the spirit because he saw Mary weeping and the Jews also weeping with her. And again in v. 38 Jesus is moved with in dignation in himself at the words of the Jews, Could this man not have caused that Lazarus also should not die? It is clear, then, that the tears of Jesus as well as his anger were caused by the unbelief in his miraculous power.
27. The universality of salvation.[edit]
We turn now to some leading points in the doctrine of Jesus as recorded in Jn. , with a view to comparison with the synoptists. Salvation is spoken of as destined for all men (10:16 11:52, cp 3:16, /c6o>ios). In the synoptists this doctrine is brought into the mouth of Jesus only by later insertions (see GOSPELS, 109 a-b, 112 b) : it was a doctrine to the defence of which even Paul, had tp devote the whole of his converted life. In the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, it presents itself as a matter settled from the very beginning without possibility of dispute. Lk. had made use of the Samaritans in order to set forth the relations of Jesus with non-Jews, or, in other words (according to his view), with heathen (GOSPELS, 109 a). Jn. not only does the like (41-42; in particular, 35-38 are not confined to Samaria) ; he goes farther, representing Greeks also as coming to Jesus (12:20-32). He does not state what passed at the interview, or what the result was ; the narrative closes abruptly. This makes it all the more clear that the interview is simply to show that Greeks had so come ; the passage thus may be regarded as pointing to the spread of the gospel among the Gentiles. The counterpart of this is that Jesus hardly at all comes into conflict with his opponents as regards the validity of the Mosaic law in any of its precepts. To him it is simply the law of the Jews ( 19). All this shows to what a height the Johannine Christ has risen above those difficulties with which Jesus, Paul, and even the synoptists had still to contend.
28. Eschatology.[edit]
(a) The Christ of the synoptists speaks of the final judgment as one completed act to take place at the end of the present dispensation ; the Johannine Christ says ( 5:24 ^ : 'he that believeth . . . shall not come into judgment'. He regards the judgment, where he really speaks of it, as a process which is accomplished in the course of man's life on earth ; he takes the word judgment (/cpiVts) in an etymological sense, according to which on the one hand it means a decision by which the individual makes his choice whether he is to choose Christ or turn away from him (819); on the other hand, as a separation between men who do the one thing and those who do the other (1231; cp substantially, In/). Whilst the Christ of the synoptists, moreover, announces in a quite literal sense his coming again with the clouds of heaven, the Johannine Christ identifies his second advent with the coming of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers (14:16-18, 16:7, 16:13).
(b) It must not be overlooked that alongside of this the synoptic view also is met with. Passages like 14:3, 14:21, 16:16-22 are capable of being so taken; and so also as regards the final judgment the synoptic re presentation is quite clearly expressed in 6:28-29 ; only we must not regard such expressions as the decisive ones, since they can easily be merely the prolonged effect of the older view. So much is certain -that the spiritualised representation which is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel could not have been possible to the Jesus of the synoptists. So strong is the contradiction between the two that many find the only possible solu tion in the supposition that 6:28-29 is a gloss.
A like supposition can hardly be upheld with regard to those passages in which the second advent is described in synoptical terms. Here the only supposition open to us is that the evan gelist has retained the old form of expression but imported a new meaning into it, and made the new meaning secure against misunderstanding by means of a variety of expressions in which he formulates his own view. As regards the resurrection of believers, we find it expressed in 5(:25?) 5:28-29 5:3 9b 40b 44b 54b quite in the manner with which the synoptists have made us familiar. These passages, however, admit with particular facility the assumption that they are glosses. In their present connection they are in part superfluous, in part even disturbing to the sense, being attached to sentences that state the very opposite.
(c) Alongside of the second advent passages just referred to we find a spiritualised view, according to which resurrection is an event happening within the earthly life of the believer: he who beh eveth . . . hath already passed (^era/J^Kec ) from death unto life (624, cp 8 si/. ). The same view is met with also among the gnostics. In 2 Tim. 2:18 we find quoted as theirs the declaration that the resurrection is past already. By this they meant that the resurrection in the case of each individual is when by the revelation of which Christ is the means he reaches the intuition that his soul is of divine origin and his body only a prison of the soul, and when, in accordance with this, as a true gnostic, he despises what is earthly and cherishes the consciousness of his divine origin. Jn. has given no specially gnostic expression to his view of the resurrection, and in the other leading passage (11:25-26) it is possible that there is nothing more than an expression of the doctrine of immortality : He that believeth on me, even though he die, shall yet live, and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die." Only, in this utterance, the last words have already ceased to speak of the physical death which is the sub ject of the first. That any one would escape physical death the author could not possibly affirm. Nor would the proposition have had any interest for him. What is important for him is the conception of a life which begins already upon this earth and is endowed with such intensity that it cannot be interrupted by the cir cumstance of physical death. If he calls it eternal he means by that word not merely its endless duration, but before and above all, its inextinguishable power even already upon earth. Its opposite is a condition of the soul which is also to be met with in the course of man s earthly life that of spiritual death. This idea of life is quite remote from the sphere of thought of the Christ of the synoptists.
(d) The fact, however, that in order to set forth the Johannine idea of eternal life the raising of Lazarus from a physical death is used, was fitted to conceal the novelty of the idea from theologians. In reality the raising of Lazarus is quite unsuited to express that idea. It is not Lazarus s faith on Jesus which gives him the inward strength to continue his life in fellowship with God and with Christ ; on the contrary, for his resurrection one of the most stupendous of physical miracles is required ; and this resurrection itself does not guarantee to him an endless continuance of his physical life, but sooner or later he must, it need hardly be said, die a second time without the prospect of a new miraculous raising by Jesus.
29. Dualism.[edit]
(a) The Christ of the synoptists has already placed Satan over against God ; but in the Fourth Gospel this antithesis made nuich sharper (8:44). Moreover, it is of much wider reach. Over against one another stand the things that are above and the things that are beneath (ret &vu and TO. Kdrw, 823), in other words, heaven and earth (7?", 3:31, or /c6(7/iios 8:23 15:19 17:14-16). The same antithesis is denoted by that between light and darkness (Is 3i9/.), truth and error (14:17 ), life and death (6:51-53). It subsists accordingly, not between two personalities merely, God and the devil, but between two worlds, the higher and the lower, and in the passages quoted it is conceived as absolute. It recurs again in the world of men as the antithesis between spirit (Trvevfj,a) and flesh (trapi;) (3:6). The important point to notice is that in a number of passages one class of men is re garded as belonging to the one order and the other class to the other, and a transition from the one to the other seems to be excluded. Chap. 3:6 has no meaning unless it is intended to convey that what is born of the flesh is and remains flesh, and what is born of the spirit is and remains spirit. In accordance with this view are the extraordinarily blunt sentences (8:43), Ye cannot hear my word (because ye are of your father the devil) ; cp 3:27 6:44-65 12:37-40, as also 17:9 : I pray not for the world. If only such sentences as these were met with in the Fourth Gospel, it would be a gnostic book ; for they embody the separation of mankind into two classes the pneumatic on the one hand, and the psychic on the other and the declaration, made only by the gnostics, that none but the pneumatic can attain to salvation. This view, had it gained the upper hand, would have been the death of the Christian church, for it excludes from her pale all the intel lectually weak.
(b) In the Fourth Gospel it is not carried out with thoroughness. Side by side with it stand such utterances of a universal Christianity as (lg) the light lighteth every man ; cp 1:7, 3:15-16, or 1:29 6:33 12:47 3:17, accord ing to which Christ s mission is to save the world, or 12:31 16:11, according to which he is to overcome Satan. It is nevertheless not conceivable that such universal ideas embody the original meaning of the Johannine doctrine of Jesus. For in that case it would be incompre hensible how Jn. should ever have attributed the op posite ideas also to Jesus. The actual state of the case can only be stated thus : the gnostic ideas were the starting-point, but were not held with rigorous strict ness, and were allowed to become toned down by asso ciation with those of universal Christianity. This is shown often even by the very language employed ; for example, in 15:19 : because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. If the disciples are not of the world then they are, according to the antithesis strictly taken, already of God and need not, nay, cannot, be chosen out of the world. If, however, they can, then in the second clause we find no longer the mutually exclusive antithesis between God and the world, but rather the idea of the world as denoting the sum -total of all humanity, and that a certain number out of the total are capable of arriving at eternal blessedness.
30. Sayings of Jesus regarding himself.[edit]
Jesus attributes to himself pre-existence in the most comprehensive manner (8:58): 'before Abraham came into being, I am'. The present tense expresses not only a priority to Abraham in time but also the further idea that the condition of Jesus was at no time any other than it is at the moment of speaking in other words, that he has existed from all eternity. Cp further, 17:5. In view of these utterances it is quite pointless to interpret the oneness with the Father which Jesus attributes to himself in 10:30-38 14:9-11 12:45 17:21 and often, as purely a moral oneness, that is to say as depending merely on the determination of Jesus to submit his own will entirely to the will of God. A pre- existent person has clearly come into being in a way which fundamentally distinguishes him from all merely human persons. The expression only begotten (fj.ovo- yev-fis) applies to him in the quite literal sense that he is the only Son of God, begotten by God, while all men have been created not begotten by him, and therefore it must be understood in this meaning, not in the weakened sense in which a son of a human father can be called only begotten if he has no brother. Herein, further, lies the reason why Jn. never, like Jesus (e.g. , Mt. 5:9-45) and Paul (e.g. , Rom. 8:14), speaks of men as sons (viol), but always only as children (TKVO.) of God, as in Rom. 8:16-17. , and knows of but one son (wos) of God. Only begotten (povoyevris) thus ex presses more than own son (tStos 1/165) by which expression Paul (Rom. 8:32) distinguishes Jesus from all men, or the son of his love (6 vlbs rrjs ay&wris avrov) (Col. 1:13), and more than the simple son (vl6s) which the Epistle to the Hebrews applies, both with and with out the article, to Jesus (128 etc.) ; for the Epistle to the Hebrews does not hesitate also at the same time to speak of men as sons (viol) of God (2:10 12:5-8). Jesus oneness with God would remain firmly established in virtue of his mode of origin, quite apart from the question whether he realises this oneness in the moral sphere by any determination of his own. It accords moreover with this view of his origin, that in his person upon earth God can be seen (12:45 14:9). According to 3:13 he is even continually at the same time in heaven and on earth. It is in harmony too with the same view that the only demand made upon men is that they should believe in Jesus, and that it is declared that no man can come to the father but through him (14:6). The Christ of the synoptists never speaks thus of his own person ; on the contrary, we find him declaring that blasphemy against himself can be forgiven (Mt. 12:31-32. Lk. 12:10 ; see GOSPELS, 116d).
1 Cp Vollmer, Die alttestamentl. Citate bei Paulus, 1895, pp. 83-98.
31. The Logos.[edit]
In the Prologue Jesus is identified with the Logos.
(a) Formerly scholars used to be generally agreed that the Logos-idea had been taken over from Philo. It was not until the Tubingen school had begun to draw from this inferences unfavourable to the genuineness of the gospel that this concession was withdrawn. It is correct to say that in the OT we can observe some tendencies to ascribe to a second divine being side by side with the supreme God a certain independent existence. To the category indicated belong the angel of Yahwe (Gen. 167-13 22 11-18 31 11-13 Ex. 32-614/1 Judg. 611-23 Zech.l 11-13 3 i/), the spirit of God (Gen. 1 2 Is. 11 2 Joel3i [2 2 8]), the face of God (Ex. 8814 01.437), the name of God (Ex.232i Nu. 627 Ps. 54s Prov. 18io Is. 30 27), the glory (IUD) of Yahwe (Ex. 24 16/. i K. 8n), and the wisdom of God (Job 28 12-28; Prov. 822-31; Bar. 828-38; Ecclus. Ii-io24i-i2; Wisd. 722-85 949) ; also (but least of all) the very word of God (Gen. 136 etc., Ps. 336 Wisd. 18 is/. ). In the Targums the Word of God, in par ticular (mem ra), is often substituted where the original has Yahwe. All this, however, is very far indeed from sufficing really to explain the Logos-idea of the Fourth Gospel. Its foundation lies in the idea that God is un known and must remain unknown if he is not revealed. The OT nowhere goes so far. The idea rests rather upon the dualism between God and matter which we find in Plato. The Stoics added to this the idea that the Logos, as having proceeded from God, while at the same time not in the fullest sense of the word a divine being, has for its function to exercise upon the world that operation of God which, strictly speaking, was impossible to God as the absolute good over against the world as the absolute evil. Philo appropriated this Stoical idea, and brought it into connection with some ideas of the OT. Thereby he gave it a development which, as an intermediate stage, prepared the way directly for the Fourth Gospel.
(b) If Philo had not existed, we should have been com pelled to trace the Logos-idea of Jn. to the other sources we have named. In that case, however, we should have been constrained to ascribe to the evangelist a very large measure of independence. As, however, Philo was some twenty-five years older than Jesus, and his writings were already known to the author of Hebrews, if not even to Paul, 1 it is nothing less than wilful blindness to facts to deny the derivation of the Johannine Logos-idea from Philo, and to refuse to admit anything save an OT origin. Apart from this, the object in view to avoid the necessity of deriving an idea of such importance in the NT from an extra-canonical source is attained only if the OT Apocrypha are shut out as well as Philo ; but these are precisely the writings that contain far more important and exact anticipations of the Logos- idea than any in the OT.
(c) A more serious consideration is demanded by the fact that in the Fourth Gospel the view of the universe from which the Logos-idea proceeds is not quite consistently carried out. According to that view God himself should never at all come into relations with the world without mediation of the Logos. Instead of this, we read for example in 3:16 that he loves the world ; cp 6:40 16:27 17:6. This position, however, is nothing more than a mitiga tion of strict philosophical dualism such as is inevitable in thought that is based at one and the same time on the OT and on Christianity ; but, had it been the start ing-point, it would be impossible to see how the author could ever have come to think of a Logos as needful in order to mediate between God and the world.
(d) It is quite a mistake to argue that the Fourth Gospel cannot have drawn from Philo because it represents the Logos as having been made flesh (1:14). It is indeed true that the Philonic Logos can never be made flesh ; it is superfluous to ask whether it be a person at all, for it belongs to the essence of the Logos that at one and the same time as a power working on the world it possesses a distinct existence over against God and yet in accordance with its original meaning it remains an impersonal idea of God. When, however, the Logos- idea came to be brought into connection with Christianity it was inevitable that Jesus should be identified with the Logos ; for in Christianity Jesus has the position of a revealer of God, the position which in Philo is assigned to the Logos. In this a quite fundamental modification of the Logos-idea is involved. But from this fact the proper conclusion is, not that the earlier form does not lie at the foundation of the later, but rather that there is all the less reason why we should not recognise the fact in proportion as the modification which Christianity has wrought upon the Logos-idea has been profound.
32. Purpose of Prologue.[edit]
One might suppose it to be self-evident that the evangelist in his prologue had the intention of propounding the fundamental thoughts which he was about to develop in the subsequent course of his gospel. The view of Harnack (Ztschr. f. Theol. u. Kirche, 1892, pp. 189-231) -that the prologue is not the expression of the evangelist's own view but is designed merely to produce a favourable prepossession on behalf of the book in the minds of educated readers - is in itself remarkable enough. But, apart from this, Harnack, in working it out, has to interpret the Gospel itself, apart from the prologue, in a way which does not correspond with the facts. Thus, he maintains that Jesus is presented in the gospel as mainly ideally, not really pre-existent ; that in so far as he is presented as really pre-existent, it is on the ground not of his being son of God but of his being Messiah ; that Jesus is son of God only in the ethical, not in the metaphysical sense ; the figure of Jesus presented is an expressly human.one and shows at no point divine features inconsistent with this character (see, as against this, s. 26, 30). Further, he draws from the facts unsound conclusions.
Harnack rightly holds that where Jesus is represented as son of God he is not only one with God, but also subordinated to him (e.g., 14:28), but he infers from this that his sonship is to be understood in the ethical, not the metaphysical sense. To this it must be replied that even a son of God who from all eternity has been begotten in a supernatural way remains from the very nature of the case subordinate to the father. Precisely this generation before all time is held by Harnack, it is true, to be excluded by reason of the fact that it is the earthly Christ who is called only begotten (noi/oyenjs) (1:14-18, 3:16-18). It is self-evident, however, that this title could not be withheld from the earthly Christ if it had belonged to him already before his earthly existence ; for the earthly Christ shows in the Fourth Gospel the same attributes of Godhead as we should ascribe to him in his pre-existent state (see 26).
Nor is it any more to the point to say that the pro logue, for its part, does not intend to describe the essence of Jesus in his pre-existence, because at its conclusion it makes the transition to something lower, namely, to the historical person of the only begotten (fj.ovoyevris). It is only on the assumption of Harnack alluded to above that only begotten (fiovoyevf^s) is something lower than word (Xi/yos). 1 Lastly, it is in appearance merely that 1:14 the Logos was made flesh seems to have little importance for the author since the thought never recurs, and that the prologue thus stands apart and aloof from the proper contents of the gospel itself. The entire gospel is nothing else but an elaboration of the thought, we saw his glory. Thus the incarnation of the Logos must be one of its weightiest thoughts if we are not to deny the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ to the gospel altogether.
The only fact worth noting is that pointed out by Harnack that apart from the prologue the word logos occurs in its quite usual sense, eight times of the speech of other speakers, nine times of an individual utterance of Jesus, eleven times of his preaching as a whole, in addition to the seven times where it is used in the expression word of God (Aoyos TOU 6eov) meaning the tidings of salvation. This also, however, admits of explana tion. As soon as the narrative passes over from the pre-existent to the earthly life of Jesus the place of the title logos must be taken by those designations (Jesus, 6 Irjaovs, and the like) which are fitted to express his human manifestation. In this part of the book, therefore, it can cause but little confusion if the word logos is used in its ordinary meaning. We too are in the habit of continually using one and the same word, now in its ordinary and now in its technical sense, as soon as we are sure we shall be understood. In the Fourth Gospel no passage can be pointed to where uncertainty as to the sense in which logos is used is possible ; everywhere it is made clear by some addition such as this word, my word, his word, or the like.
1 Still less would this be the case if in 1 18 an only begotten God (fiovoyevys Oeos) were to be read, as in fact Harnack him self would read. The external testimony is indecisive as between this reading and the only begotten son (6 /uo> cryei>)js tnos). On philological grounds the first reading would require at least to have the article prefixed, as indeed it has in extracts from Theodotus in Clem.Al. p. 968 in a statement about the Valen- tinians, in c and in the minuscule codex 33, further in many (though not in all) places in Clem.Al. (p. 695, ed. Potter), Orig. 489438, ed. de la Rue), Dionys. Alex, (qu 10 contra Paul. Sainosat. in Bibliotlucee Bignianie auctarium, ed. Fronto Ducaeus, I, Paris, 1624, p. 301), Didymus (de trinit. 1262s), Epiphan. (pp. 612 817^ ed. Petav.), Gregor. Nyss. (de trinit., end, ed. Morell, Paris, 1618, 2447, and in Migne s Patrol, grifca, vol. 44, pp. 336 a 1045 d, vol. 45, pp. 469 d 493* 54oc 581 b T2gd TJI.C Some 841 d), Basil (de sfir. sancto, 15, p. 12, ed. Garner.), Cyril. Alex. (comm. in Jo/i., pp. 104 c 107^, ed. Aubert, Paris, 1638, cp p. 103 c in Pusey sed. ; tfiesaur. p. 137 ; dial, quod unus, p. 768 e ; adv. Nestariuiit, p. god, a fioi oyeio); fobs Aoyos ; and in Const, apost. iii. 17 vii. 43 i (in the latter place twice). Hort( 7 a/0 /?/., 76) has laid no weight upon this question ; nor yet has Harnack. It is nevertheless a very important one. Hort (p. 18) renders : An only-begotten who is God, even He who," etc. ; Harnack ( Theol. Lt.-Ztg., 76, p. 545) has einen Gott hat Niemand je gesehen ; ein eingeborner Gott . . . hat Kunde gebracht. It is not permissible, however, to supply the indefinite article to Seoc here (a god), if it is re membered how often elsewhere the word, in spite of the absence of the definite article, denotes the One God. It would in the present case be equivalent to denying altogether the author s possession of the Christian belief in God, if we held that he admitted even in thought the possibility of there being other gods, and that he placed them on a level with the true God with reference to their invisibility. But even apart from this, from a linguistic point of view also, the antithesis between Oeo? without qualification and popoycvr)? 0eos is quite inappropriate and unintelligible. Instead of the #eos without qualification some more precise designation was needed. Such designation, however, is not met with anywhere in the Johannine writings.
The final determination lies in the consideration that the thought of an only begotten God (jiOfoyecrjs fleos) is not Johannine, and that whether with or without the article. In 1 Jn. 620 we find the true God, 6 aArjSii bs 0eo?, as a designation of God (not of Christ ; the meaning is : being in his son Jesus Christ, we are in the True ; this [last] is the true God, etc.). To designate God, however, in contradistinction to this designation of Christ, the true God (6 a\r)9ivbs Oeos, i Jn. 5 20) would not be at all a good antithesis. Jn. 20 28 ought not to be referred to in this connection, for the reason that when Thomas there addresses Jesus with the possessive pronoun as My Lord and my God the expression says much less than it would without the pronoun. Thus the highest utterance regarding Jesus to which the Fourth Gospel anywhere rises is in 1 if the word was God (Oebs 3p> o Aoyos). But this does not mean more than that the Logos was of divine essence; the passage, therefore, gives no warrant for designating Jesus as only begotten God (novoyei ^s fleos), by which designation he would become a second God (Sevrepos Seos) in the sense of the Alexandrian church-fathers.
33. Divisions into triads.[edit]
The perception that the prologue is deliberately intended as a preparation for the entire contents of the gospel has reached its ultimate logical result in the proposition that the entire gospel is a conception at the root of which lies neither history nor even tradition of another kind, but solely the ideas of the prologue. Upon this proposition rests the brilliant analysis of the gospel by Baur, with which, significantly enough, theologians so strictly dogmatic as Luthardt and Hengsten- berg find themselves in accord these two, however, we must hasten to add, in the belief that the artificial arrangement which is rendered necessary by the carrying out of that central thought is at the same time in accord ance with history, God, or Christ, having so ordered the history that it should subserve the expression of those ideas. In setting forth these ideas the division into triads is used as a principal means. It manifests itself partly in single sentences such as 1 1 or 1 20 (GOSPELS, 49), partly in the manner in which the various parts of the book are grouped as a whole. Already, however, it has come to be very generally acknowledged that it is impossible to explain in this way the arrangement of the entire gospel.
It may perhaps be enough to point out that chaps. 2-6 are arranged according to the following scheme:
- chap. 2, two narratives (the miracle at Cana and the cleansing of the temple) ;
- 3:1-4:42, discourses of Jesus which serve to interpret these narratives;
- 4:43-5:16, two miracles of healing;
- 5:17-47, a discourse of Jesus on the healing of the Jewish people ;
- 6 1-21, the feeding of the five thousand and the walking upon the water (on the connection see 20c);
- 6:22-71, the discourse relative to this on Jesus as the bread of life.
In 7:28-11:44 the arrangement is in two respects the opposite of this ; we have always one narrative, not two, and the interpretative discourse precedes instead of following. Thus
- 8:12-59 treats of Jesus as the light of the world,
- in chap. 9 the narrative of the healing of the man born blind follows ;
- 10:22-42 treats of Jesus as the life of the world (cp v. 28);
- in 11:1-44 the raising of Lazarus follows.
If we could regard as well-founded Hausrath's conjecture (NTliche Zeitgesch. iii. 603 f. 2nd ed. iv. 424), that in the place where we now find the story of the woman taken in adultery there originally stood a miraculous narrative, similar to those in chaps. 9 and 11, to which 7:28-52 was the introductory interpretation, then we should have in chaps. 7-11 a triad of narratives associated with interpretative discourses. We cannot, however, be sure of this.
Moreover, it has to be pointed out that chaps. 17:1-27 10:1-21 do not admit of being taken up into this scheme, and that a similar method of grouping is still less applicable to the other parts of the gospel. The evangelist, therefore, has at many points been working with material laid to his hand, and has utilised it to give expression to his ideas, but has not been purely creative.
34. Credibility of certain material.[edit]
A perception of this fact leads to the question how far the material which lay before the evangelist goes back to authentic tradition. If one cannot claim this for the whole of the material (see 35, 37), the next expedient is to search for details that are trustworthy.
(a) Sayings of Jesus such as those in 7:17 or 13:17 would cause no difficulty if we read them in the synoptic gospels. It does not necessarily follow from this, how ever, that they are authentic. They might also con ceivably be summings up, by which the evangelist attri butes to Jesus that which in reality is for himself the product of his own reflection absorbed in the contempla tion of Jesus. In other passages an explanation of this kind is at once suggested by the Johannine phraseology. The Jesus of the synoptists, instead of 14:15, 14:21-23, 15:10, would be much more likely to have said 'if ye love me, keep God s commandments', or perhaps even 'if ye love the father, keep his commandments'. It might be regarded as a real word of Jesus when he is made to say (6:30) that he can do nothing of himself or (3:35 5:20) that he has nothing save what the father has first given or shown him. This, however, can equally well be merely an expression for the metaphysical oneness between God and the Logos, and indeed the expression show points directly to this. It is very conceivable that in actual fact there arrived in the life of Jesus such a moment as that described in chap. 8, when he became convinced that Jerusalem had no response to make to his demand for faith. This same thought, however, is equally inevitable if the history of Jesus be conceived of purely in accordance with Johannine ideas, for it simply carries out what is said in 1 n, and Jerusalem is of course the central point at which it had to be decided whether Jesus was to find faith or not.
(b) The supposition that precise statements about some particular event having occurred or some particular discourse having been pronounced on a definite day (1:29 1:35 1:43 2:1 4:40-43 6:22 7:14-37 12:12) or even at a definite hour (13:9-46) could only have come from an eye-witness is very tempting. Many scholars, therefore, give pre cedence to such passages in their consideration, and then propose to extend to the whole gospel the conclusion based upon these that it is an eye-witness who is speak ing throughout. After what has been said in preceding sections this is, however, indefensible.
It has also to be observed, further, that the evangelist himself will some times be found in one place to contradict his own quite precise statements. According to 7:27 the people know whence Jesus is, according to 9:29 they do not. In 5:31 Jesus says that if he bear witness of himself his witness is not true; in 8:14 he says the opposite. In 8:26 we read that all the people flocked to Jesus, in 3:32 that no one received his testimony. According to 3:22-4:1 Jesus baptizes; according to 4:2 only his disciples do so. In the instances just cited we learn something of the evange list s method of composition. What would we expect of an ordinary author who wished to avoid saying any thing out of place if, when he came to write (say) 4:2, he found that in 3:22-26 he had erroneously stated that Jesus himself had baptized ? Unquestionably he would go back upon these passages and alter them. This is not what Jn. does. Thus he does not attach importance to the literal exactness of what he says. In order to be able to contrast Jesus and John and compare the waxing influence of the one with the waning influence of the other he thought it fitting in 8:22-26 to represent both as baptizing.
(c) In 1:29-36 the mention of a particular day is coupled with the statement that the Baptist declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God that bears the sin of the world, in 1:35-42 it is coupled further with the three other statements that Andrew and another unnamed person had transferred themselves from the discipleship of John to become disciples of Jesus, that Simon was led by Andrew to Jesus, and that he forthwith received from Jesus the name of Peter. All four statements are irre concilable with what we read in the synoptists ( 2, Mk. 1:16-20). It cannot, therefore, be said to be too bold a conjecture if we suppose that these precise statements of day and hour were for the evangelist only a mode of representation, adopted in order to break up a narrative or discourse into connected parts, the individual parts being attached to different points of time (so, especially, 1:29 1:35 1:43 2:1 6:22 12:12 13:9). The sixth hour in 46 has perhaps a symbolical meaning (GOSPELS, 54c). The statement that at the time of the feeding of the five thou sand the passover was at hand (6:4) was necessary in order to call attention to the fact that the interpretation of the eucharist was to be connected with this narrative. The view, therefore, that this verse is a gloss is just as mistaken as the other view that it contains an authentic statement of historical fact.
(d) How little importance the evangelist attaches to details of the sort is shown for example also in such a matter as this, that in 6:15 Jesus again goes up into the mountain which he has not left since 6:3 (the first verse corresponds to the beginning of Mt.'s second narrative of feeding, the second to the close of his first [16:29, 14:23 = Mk.6:46]), or this, that at the close of a dis course which, according to 6:24-25, was begun by the seashore (perhaps in Capernaum) and not interrupted, we are told in 5:9 that it was spoken in the synagogue at Capernaum.
35. Johannine tradition.[edit]
Even if such detailed statements as we have had under consideration fail us on examination, it is yet held to be possible to discover true historical data in other portions, which, as compared with the synoptists, are either new or (even) deliberately at variance with the synoptical account.
(a) The attempt to do so may well be made, for the entire contents of the gospel do not admit of being derived from ideas alone. In that case, however, we must be specially on our guard against the error of supposing that a tradition, because different from that of the synoptists, is eo ipso historical. The true use of a recourse to Johannine tradition lies rather in this, that it may enable us to see how in the course of oral transmission the mistaken statements found in the Fourth Gospel could have arisen.
(b) Should, for example to take the most pregnant instance the evangelist have freely invented the whole narrative of the raising of Lazarus in order to give ex pression to his idea of the life-giving power of Jesus, he is by no means open indeed to the charge of unver- acity in the moral sense of the expression (for his right to use an allegorical method of expressing his thoughts cannot be gainsaid when we remember the character of his writing), but certainly his procedure in this direction cannot but seem very bold. The difficulties which this view might suggest are almost completely obviated if we suppose that the story of Lazarus had taken shape in successive stages so that the evangelist himself had only a few touches left to add.
Bruno Bauer long ago perceived that the story is a develop ment of the parable of Lazarus in Lk. 16:19-31. Following this clue we can imagine that some preacher, after relating that parable, in order to open it up to his hearers, may have added the remark : 'This Lazarus actually did rise from the dead' (cp GOSPELS, 109 b). A hearer of this sermon so let us further suppose gave the notes of it in a shorter form to a third person, who gathered from it as a statement of historical fact that Lazarus had risen. Cp LAZARUS. And so in further transmis sion piece after piece might be added to the narrative, until at last hut little remained for the evangelist to do. Cp GOSPELS, 59-
(c) In somewhat similar fashion we picture to ourselves the rise of the story of the sick man of Bethesda. Some preacher or other likened the Jewish people to a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years (the duration of the wandering in the wilderness, Dt. 2:14). The house in which he lay, he might add, had five porches the live books of Moses but healing, never theless, he was not able to find. As often as the water which possessed the healing virtue began to move, there was no one by to help him to go down to it, till Jesus came and asked : Wilt thou be made whole?
(d) If, further, a preacher was discoursing upon a healing of the blind recorded in the synoptists, and interpreted the blind as representing the Jewish nation, it could easily occur to him to say: this blind man was blind from his birth. In this very manner the discourse of Stephen in Acts 7 seeks to show that the Jewish nation from the first had misknown the will of God. A slightly inattentive hearer might readily infer from such a mode of speaking that Jesus had on some occasion literally healed a man born blind. Now, in Mk. 8:23-25 we have a narrative which tells us how a blind man was made to see by Jesus, not all at once, but gradually. In expounding this, a preacher might easily say : those who are spiritually blind come only gradually to a recognition of Jesus their healer. This thought finds its expression in Jn. 9:17, 9:31-33, 9:38 in this form : he who has been made whole in the first instance takes Jesus merely for a prophet and a good man sent from God, and only in the end does he reach the intuition that he is the Son of Man. A further point of connection with the narrative of Mk. 8:23-25 is to be found in the fact that in Jn. 9:6 Jesus makes use of saliva. All that is new is found in the use made of the saliva, and in the washing in the pool of Siloam.
(e) The synoptics supply us with no parallel that can be immediately taken as foundation for the narrative of the mar riage at Cana. If, however, the view set forth under GOSPELS ( 142) be upheld, that synoptical miracles can sometimes have originated in parables misunderstood, the same can, without any difficulty whatever, be also maintained here. The time of the Messiah's coming resembles a wedding (Mk. 2:19 Jn. 8:29 Rev. 19:7). At such a time there is no fasting ; the Messiah brings wine instead of water (Mk. 14:25). By the wine was understood the new religion which he substituted for the old. Already in Mk. 2:22 we find it likened to new wine. Here, again, Philo (Leg: Alleg. 826; ed. Mangey, 1103) presents himself most appropriately. The Logos which appears under the form of Melchizedek brings wine instead of water, and gives drink to souls so that a divine intoxication befalls them. By the mother of Jesus, on this interpretation, we may understand (in accordance with Rev. 12:1-5) the community of the people of God. It recognises that in the old religion it finds no wine ; that is to say, that it fails in spiritual power, and, if unable itself to remedy matters, it knows at least thus much, that in such a situation it must turn to Jesus.
(f) Let us take one other example that of the foot-washing. In Lk. 22:26 f. we read that Jesus immediately after the last supper said to his disciples, I am among you as he that serves. This a preacher could very easily amplify to some such effect as this : 1 'Yes, Jesus did actually wait upon his disciples ; instead of remaining at table as would have befitted his exalted dignity he arose and washed their feet'. The expression in such a case was meant figuratively ; but the figure was particularly apt because the washing of the feet is the lowliest service. This made it all the more fitted to edify, and made it all the more easy to believe as a literal fact when someone thought he was to understand it so.
(g) In other cases the author must be assigned a larger share in the construction of his narratives (cp, e.g. , 20 c , end). It must not be forgotten, however, that even in the cases discussed in the preceding para graphs the author of the gospel, even when a narrative of the kind had reached him in almost a finished state, always gave it its last touches and adapted it so as to subserve the expression of his thought. It will never be possible to learn with absolute certainty how far he treated materials presented to him with freedom, and how far he himself framed narratives or portions of narratives in order to give his thoughts pictorial expression. The interpretation attempted above must, however, in any case, be welcomed, if the desire is felt to avoid imputing to the author any larger degree of arbitrariness in free invention than is absolutely necessary. Do what we will it will never be possible to say these narratives were to the author not vehicles for conveying spiritual truth but unadulterated histories ; indeed, how far he himself may have regarded them as narratives of actual occur rences remains one of the most difficult of questions, in fact, strictly speaking, insoluble.
(h) There remain some Johannine narratives for which we cannot indicate any basis in the synoptics. The Nathanael incident (14:5-51), that of Nicodemus (8:1-21), of the Samaritan woman (4:1-42), of the Greeks at the feast (12:20-21), of the beloved disciple and Jesus mother at the cross (19:26-27), of the beloved disciple and Peter at the grave (20:2-10), not to mention less important points, are by many regarded as historical.
After so many things peculiar to the Fourth Gospel have been found to be untrustworthy, however, one should really hesitate to maintain the narratives just enumerated, all the more when they fall in with a tendency that could easily have led to their rise. Now the story about the Greeks not only contains no concrete touches, but also serves a purpose that can be recognised with great clearness. Such a purpose can be recognised also in the story of the Samaritan woman in as far as the Samaritans represent the Gentiles ( 27). In con- creteness, on the other hand, the story of the Samaritan woman is as far from being lacking as, for example, that of the raising of Lazarus. It would be a great mistake, however, to see in that a guarantee of historicity. A painter who sets himself to give expression to an idea by depicting an event is not blamed but praised when his lively imagination lays on the colours as strongly as possible. A writer who does the same will be praised in like manner ; but his narrative will not on that account be regarded as historical. Nicodemus is a representative of a very large class of men. They are interested in Jesus ; but their belief in him rests mainly on his wonderful works ; for the deeper things he has to offer they have very little understanding. The preference given to the beloved disciple over Peter at the grave corresponds exactly with the tendency that finds further expression in 21:15-23 ( 40). Jesus committing to him the care of his mother serves the same purpose. The attempt to identify Nathanael with one of the twelve disciples is hardly likely to succeed. It has even been thought to find in him a veiled representation of the apostle Paul. 1 In that case proof that he is not historical would be needless. However that may be (see NATHANAEL), it is further to be considered that the story of Nathanael is connected with an account of the call of the first disciples which cannot be harmonised with that of the synoptists ( 34 c) ; and for all the narratives mentioned above it is necessary to bear in mind the significance of the silence of the synoptists. That silence will occupy our attention in a two fold respect ( 36-37).
36. Dependence on the synoptists.[edit]
The evangelist's acquaintance with the synoptists, here presupposed, needs no proof here. Illustrative instances are given in 34 a, d, and in abundance in GOSPELS, 20, 32, 36, 44. 2 It is also conceded on all hands, even by the most conservative theologians, who further declare that John's intention was to supplement the synoptists. It will be enough here to say in a single word how impossible it is to take the matter the other way. A story like that of the sick man at Bethesda, or that of the man born blind, or that of Lazarus, going so far beyond the synoptists in respect of the greatness of the miracle involved, those writers could by no possibility have passed over ; just as little could they have passed over such an incident as that of the foot-washing, the theme of which is actually touched on in Lk. 22:27 ( 35 -36) or the scene at the cross between the beloved disciple and the mother of Jesus, or that at the grave between the beloved disciple and Peter and between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. That Jesus, too, from the very outset had been recognised as the Messiah would have been exactly what, in their veneration for Jesus, they would have wished to be able to say. The first step in this direction is, in fact, taken by Mt. him self, when he makes Jesus appear as the Messiah even before the confession of Peter (GOSPELS, 145 A).
1 The arguments that can be adduced in support of this are the following : Like Nathanael Paul refuses to believe in Jesus till he is convinced miraculously. Paul was an Israelite in the fullest sense (Gal. 1 13 f.). He disclaims guile, for example, in 2 Cor. 12 16-18 and in i Thess. 2 3 even with the word SdAps itself. He was marked out to be an apostle from the mother s womb (Gal. 115). The name Nathanael ( = God has given ) is ex plained as the counterpart of Saul (= asked ).
2 See, further, especially, Holtzmann, Ztschr.f. tviss. Theol., 69, pp. 62-85, SS- yS, 446-456 ; Weizsacker, Untersuch. fiber die E-uane;. Gesc/t., 64, pp. 278-284 ; Thoma, Genesis des Joh.-Evang., 82; Jacobsen, Untersuch. fiber das J oh.- Evang., 84; Wernle, Synoptische Frage, 99, pp. 234-248 and 253-256.
37. Comparison with synoptists summed up.[edit]
The considerations just mentioned, however, carry us still further.
(a) We shall be safe in asserting not only that the synoptists cannot have been acquainted with the Fourth Gospel but also that they were not aware of the existence of other sources, written or oral, containing all these divergences from their own account which are exhibited in this gospel.
In the case of the Lazarus-narrative, to confine ourselves here to a single instance, among the explanations of the silence of the synoptists which have been boldly offered are the following : that among the multitude of the other raisings from the dead they could easily have forgotten this one, or that they were not acute enough to perceive its outstanding importance in its bearing upon the life of Jesus, that they felt themselves wanting in the delicacy and keenness of feeling that were required for the right telling of it or that they felt themselves insufficiently informed on the details, that they kept silence out of regard to the still surviving relatives of Lazarus, that, as having happened before the arrival of the Galitean pilgrims to the feast, or as having already become in Jerusalem so well known as no longer to be talked about, they had never heard of it, that their plan of writing, apart from the events of the week of the crucifixion, allowed them to include only Galilaean incidents, or even that in view of a later gospel to be written by another evangelist (John) they confined themselves to these. A glance at this series of explanations is sufficient to show how hopeless is the task of those who seek to establish the superiority of the Johan- nine gospel to those of the synoptists in historical accuracy.
(b) In all points, then, which in substance are common to all the four gospels, the synoptists every where excel in simplicity, naturalness, intelligibility. Although one might be tempted to give the preference to the fourth as regards the scene of the activity of Jesus, one is precluded from doing so as soon as it is perceived how by the action of Jesus in Jerusalem the conflict with the Jewish authorities is brought on at a much earlier period than is historically conceivable. Although, as regards the miracle-narratives, one might say on the authority of 20 30 f. that Jn. seeks only to supplement those given by the synoptists, it must still be conceded that the relations of Jesus with the demoni acally-possessed relations nowhere touched on in Jn. are yet, historically, the best-attested of all, and enable us best to conceive how actual wonders of healing sick persons might be wrought by Jesus. Beyond all doubt, the character in which the Johannine miracles are brought forward as signs ( 20 d ) would render quite impossible, if the miracles were historical, the rise of a tradition that Jesus had expressly refused to work any signs, and that he had forbidden the miracles he actually wrought to be made known (GOSPELS, 140*7, 141, 133^). Had Jesus really possessed that exalted consciousness of his pre-existence and divine dignity which is attributed to him in the Fourth Gospel, the declaration that blasphemy against him was capable of forgiveness (Mt. 12si/ Lk. 12 10) could never have been attributed to him.
(c) As regards Jesus discourses, nothing is more natural than that their popular character, often taking concrete shape in the form of parables, should have won for him the love of the people ; on the other hand, the constant repetition of metaphysical propositions con cerning his own person, of imperious demands for the faith of his hearers could never have done so, and in point of fact, according to the Fourth Gospel, they actually had the opposite effect, so that one is really at a loss to understand how, in spite of it all, so many should have turned to him which nevertheless is certainly historically true, as the triumphal entry into Jerusalem proves. If Jesus had actually proclaimed the universality of salvation as we find it in Jn. 3:16-17, 10:16, it would be an insoluble mystery how any could be regarded as disciples of his who affirmed they had been forbidden by Jesus to go in the way of the Gentiles or enter a city of the Samaritans (Mt. 10:5), and who persisted in raising such formidable opposition to the mission of Paul to the Gentiles. If Jesus ex pressed himself in such highly spiritualised terms as we have seen ( 28 a c) regarding the final judgment, his own second coming, and the resurrection of his followers, we should be irresistibly forced to treat as grave errors those reports by the synoptists according to which he predicted all these things in their literal sense. So far as the date of the crucifixion is concerned, Jn. by reason of the inherent probability of his date seems to come into consideration as a witness of equal or even higher authority than the synoptists ; yet even here the date he gives is explicable only as a deliberate diver gence from that of the synoptists, not conversely.
But we have said enough and more than enough. A book which begins by declaring Jesus to be the logos of God and ends by representing a cohort of Roman soldiers as falling to the ground at the majesty of his appearance (186), and by representing 100 pounds of ointment as having been used at his embalming (19:39), ought by these facts alone to be spared such a misunderstanding of its true character, as would be implied in supposing that it meant to be a historical work.
38. Geographical and historical correctness.[edit]
If AEnon, Salim (3:23), Sychar (4:5), Bethesda (5:2), Bethany beyond Jordan (1:28), etc., have never yet been satisfactorily identified (see special articles) the fact ought not be urged as necessarily proving defective information on the part of the author. Neither ought exception to be taken to the name Gabbatha (19:13). The evangelist, too, has unquestionably given correctly (18:1) the name of the ndhal between Jerusalem and the Mt. of Olives ( brook Kidron ; ^et/iappos TOU KeSpcii ) in spite of his copyists and the whole body of approved modern editors (see KIDRON). The forty and six years of 2 20 rest upon sound reckoning inasmuch as the building was begun by Herod the Great in 20-19 B.C. There are therefore nineteen years before and twenty -seven years after the beginning of our era. The passover at which Jesus is represented to have uttered the words in question will be, if the forty-sixth year was not yet ended, that of 27 A. D. ; if it was ended, which suits the expression better, that of 28 A.D. , and Jesus death, since in the Fourth Gospel two passovers follow (64 12 1), at passover in 30 A.D. a date by many supposed to be correct. Also the statement that during forty-six years the building continued in process can be justified. 1 All this, however, weighs but little against the serious mistake by which in 1149 1813 Caiaphas is called the high -priest of that year (GOSPELS, 132). This of itself betrays unfamiliarity on the part of the evan gelist with the conditions subsisting in Palestine in the time of Jesus (cp 53 ; also GOSPELS, 46).
1 Cp the passages in Jos. collected by E. A. Abbott (Class. Rev., 94, pp. 89-93), who, however, prefers to explain them of the temple of Zerubbabel.
39. Nationality of the evangelist.[edit]
Notwithstanding this, the writer may still have been a Jew. He alone makes use of the Aramaic names Mecroias [Messias], Tafipada [Gabbatha], etc. , and rightly explains SiXua/i [siloam] (a distortion of the Heb. niS c>) as meaning d.Trto TaX/j^i os [apestalmenos]. However small the weight he attaches to the Mosaic law on its enacting side, and however depreciatory the words he attributes to Jesus in this regard ( 19), all the more noteworthy is the deference with which he regards it as a book of prophecy. It is in this aspect that he says of it (10 35) that the scripture cannot be broken ; on this view of it depends his citation of predictions and types even of such as he did not find in the synoptists ( 23 [/]) and his declara- tion (5:39) that the scriptures testify of Jesus whilst the Jews diligently search them (tptwarf is indicative) in the belief that in them, if understood in the Jewish way, eternal life is to be found. From the historical point of view, he recognises also that salvation comes from the Jews (422). In this attitude partly of acceptance, partly of rejection towards the OT, the evangelist occupies much the same position as that of Paul or of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. A born Gentile would not easily have attached so great a value to the prophetic significance of the OT. This considera tion, taken in combination with the author s defective acquaintance with the conditions in Palestine in the time of Jesus, points to the conclusion that he was by birth a Jew of the Dispersion or the son of Christian parents who had been Jews of the Dispersion.
40. Chap. 21.[edit]
Before passing on to the direct utterances of the author regarding himself, it will be necessary to take account of chap. 21. As 20:30-31 constitutes a formal and solemn conclusion, 21 is beyond question a later appendix. We may go on to add that it does not come from the same author with the rest of the book.
The appearance of the risen Jesus is the third (21:14) only if that to Mary Magdalene (20:11-17) is not included in the reckon ing ; but originally it was certainly meant to be included, the number three playing a great part in the Fourth Gospel. Further, the narrative of 21:1-14 is governed by the intention to do justice to what is said in Mt. and Mk., according to which the appear ances of the risen Jesus were in Galilee. The writer of chap. 20 on the other hand is plainly, with deliberate purpose, following Lk., who restricts those appearances to Jerusalem. The phrase ology indeed shows dependence on that of chaps. 1-20 at many points (as, for example, by ovv and the asyndeta) ; but it shows divergences also, such as virdyeiv with the infinitive and epxeir#ju <rvv instead of a.KO\ovOeiv and other alternative syno nyms (v. 3) ; npiaia instead of -rrptat (v. 4) ; iratSia for rexvia (v. 5) ; (craven/ for Svva<r6a.i (v. 6); eferaijeii/ for epcu-ai (v. 12); eyepSet s for ai tttrrds (v. 14) ; <^>e peii> for ayeiv (v. is), and the like. Peter appears in the character of a fisherman, as in the synoptists ; in 1 35 40 he is a disciple of John. Among the seven disciples who are present (v. 2) are numbered the (sons) of Zebedee an expression that never occurs elsewhere in the gospel.
The parousia of Jesus is expected in v. 22 in a literal sense (as against 28). That Nathanael belonged to Cana (21:2) is certainly the result of a false combination of 1:46 and 2:1. The purpose of the second half of the chapter is to bring the dignity of Peter into somewhat greater prominence than it had received in the gospel. The unnamed disciple indeed is always placed even higher than he ; but the purpose of rehabilitating Peter is plain. This circumstance also makes against the identity of the author of this chapter with the author of the rest of the book.
The second half of the chapter has, however, a second main purpose that, namely, of accrediting the gospel by v. 24-25. This cannot be an independent appendix to vv. 1-23, else these verses, until they had received this addition, would have been without any proper close. Now the testimony is given by more than one person, and must, in the eyes of the critic, for that very reason lose the importance which in the intention of its writer it is designed to have. A witness whose testimony in turn requires to be attested cannot be regarded as a very authoritative person. 1 The fact is here betrayed that doubt has been thrown on his testimony. The same thing is betrayed also in the Muratorian fragment (/. 14 f. ), where it is said that, after consultation on the part of John with his fellow-disciples and bishops, and after a three days fast together, it was revealed to Andrew that John should write the whole recognoscentibus cunctis suo nomine.
1 Although the phrase in 3 Jn. 12 is almost identical it is there not open to criticism.
Chap. 21:24-25 points back (a) to 19:35. The elaborate investigations that have been made on the question whether any one can designate himself by BKE~YOS (' that ') are not only indecisive as regards any secure grammatical result ; they do not touch the kernel of the question at all.
Once it has been said, he who saw has testified and his testi mony is true, there is nothing surprising when the sequel runs and that one knows that he speaks true even when in all these words the author is meaning himself. The question that ought to have been discussed is not as to whether the author could (or would) intend to denote himself or another by ixdvos, but as to the person whom he intended by lie who saw (6 eupcucois). If he meant himself, then the present tense would have been more appropriate than the perfect has testified (jiefxaprvp)ice), in the sense, I who saw it now bear witness to it hereby, that I write it. Yet also the perfect is defensible in the meaning he (i.e., I) has testified it, and with this you must rest satisfied. It would have been appropriate also to say he who witnesses has seen (6 fj.aprvpu>v eoupaxec) ; but this was not necessary in order to express the meaning that the writer was an eye-witness. The knows (olS(v) seems to indicate that the author really wishes to be regarded as an eye-witness, otherwise the preferable phrase would be and that man assures that he speaks true. At the same time, such a mode of expression would be too tautological or even too obviously a weakening when coming immediately after the words and his testimony is true.
Thus we obtain nothing from this central passage except this, that we must leave quite undecided the question whether the writer is intending to present him self or some other person as the eye-witness. Indeed, this very vagueness seems to be intentional on the author s part. We must seek to arrive at a definite conclusion by some other road. Here is one. For every one who grants that at the spear-thrust blood certainly but not water could have flowed from the pierced side, it is also firmly established that no eye witness could actually have seen the circumstance attested. If, therefore, the author s intention is to point to himself as such a witness, he presents himself in a much less favourable light than if he were merely reproducing information derived from another which he had received in good faith. He is therefore spared a reproach if he is supposed to be reproducing. Such a reproach need not in itself hinder us from supposing him to present himself as an eye-witness ; in view of the mysteriously allusive character of the entire book absolute freedom must be allowed the writer in this matter, especially as we are dealing with a point the central importance of which, in the eyes of its author, is evident from the very circumstance of his offering a special attestation of it at all.
(b) But the supposed other testimony to himself the designation of the unnamed disciple as the disciple whom Jesus loved (18:23 19:26 20:2 ; cp 21:7 21:20-24) - speaks quite decisively against the view that it was written by the person who is intended by that expression. One can hardly understand how it is possible to have sympathy for a writer who claims for himself such a degree of superiority as is implied in this designation. The desig nation is quite intelligible on the other hand when coming from the pen of one of his admirers. Our research then has brought us thus far at least that there are great dis advantages in regarding the apostle as the author of the gospel. On the other hand, so far as it has gone, it has given us no assurance as to whether the actual writer intends to inform us regarding the beloved disciple and the eye-witness as if he were a third person, or whether he does not desire to produce the appearance that he himself is the person.
(c) Should this last be the actual fact, no charge of moral obliquity is involved, such as might seem to be implied if the principles of modern law as to intellectual and literary property were to be invoked. Classical antiquity furnishes us with a great number of examples of cases in which a pupil published his works not in his own name but in that of nis master, and the neo - Pythagorean lamblichus (circa 300 A.D.), to cite a single instance, expressly commends the Pythagoreans of whose writings some sixty are still known which were falsely attributed to Pythagoras and other ancient masters of that school in that, renouncing the desire for personal fame, they were willing that all the praise of their work should go to their master. The presbyter of Asia Minor who in the second century had composed the Acts of Paul and Thecla in Paul s name, when he was challenged for this explained that his motive was his regard for Paul (id se amore Paulifecisse) ; and Tertullian s remark (tie Baft. 17) implies depreciation indeed yet no moral censure : quasi titulo Paul! de suo cumulans the reason he gives for the deposition of the author being his contradiction of i Cor. 1434 in having introduced Thecla as teaching and baptizing.
(d) A definite reason, however, for assuming the same thing for the Fourth Gospel would be found only if 21:24-25 had come from the author of the rest of the book. As we have not to suppose this, it remains open to suggest that the author of the appendix by this addition intended to go yet one step further than the author of chaps. 1-20 himself had gone. At the same time the vagueness with which the author has expressed himself in 19:35 is worthy of remark. It can very well be due to the purpose of saying what was capable of more than one meaning, so that one reader might believe that the author was speaking of the eye-witness as a third person, whilst another might believe he had himself in his mind. The fact that the name of the beloved disciple and eye-witness is not mentioned anywhere throughout the entire gospel is, on the other hand, not decisive. The suppression of his name would be just as natural as a consequence of the delicacy due to his person if the author, distinct from him, introduced him as a mysterious magnitude, as it would have been if he himself had written the book.
42. External evidences for genuineness.[edit]
The external evidences for the Fourth Gospel constitute that portion of the field in which conservative theology has hitherto believed itself to have gained its secure successes. It has deemed it practicable to preclude all discussion of internal reasons against the genuineness merely by showing how early an attesta tion the gospel received. Careful examination shows how mistaken this belief is. As, however, a full dis cussion of the leading passages would carry us too far into detail, we must content ourselves here with merely giving results, on all points upon which some measure of agreement has been attained.
We must make a strict distinction between testimonies expressly favourable to the apostolic authorship and those which only vouch for the existence of the Fourth Gospel without conveying any judgment as to its author ship. The only authors belonging to the first category (apostolic authorship) down to the end of the second century (in the third century this view becomes a matter of course) are Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria (who, more over, appeals to ot aveKadev TT pea pure pot), Tertullian, Theophilus ad Autolycum, and the Muratorian frag ment (which still, however, deems it necessary to give a circumstantial justification for its recognition of the gospel ; see 40). Earlier than any of these church fathers, namely about 170 A. u. , we must place the expresssion of Claudius Apollinaris in the Chronicon Paschale, crracriafeii doitei ra evayye\ia ( the gospels seem to contradict one another ; the reference is to the date of the crucifixion ; see 54 b}. Here, although the name of John is not mentioned, we may presume that there is implied a recognition of the Fourth Gospel as being on a level with the synoptics with which it is not in agreement about the date in question, and thus as being genuine.
Coming now to testimonies to recognition of the gospel, though the author is not named, we find the Fourth Gospel taken into account in Tatian's Diatessaron (roughly, between l60 and l80 AD) as on a level with the synoptists. Yet this very attempt to bring together all the four gospels into a single whole even of itself shows to how small an extent each in dividual gospel was regarded by this author as authorita tive. So also when gnostics make use of the Fourth Gospel. Moreover, it cannot be asserted of Valentinus himself (who flourished from 135 to 160) that he does so, but only of his school (so Irenaeus, iii. lliof?]). In the Philosophoumena the citation-formula is often [he] says (<f>ii<rl ; so, e.g. , 6s4/. ?2$/ alongside 5 16 629 89) ; but it has been shown that this expression has the collective meaning and has no different force from [they] say (<f>afft). 1 Athenagoras, the epistle to the church of Lugdunum (ap. Eus. HE v. 1 15) (both about 178), the epistle to Diognetus (later), go, in like manner, no further. In 2 Pet. 1:14 Jn. 21 is already presupposed ; but 2 Pet. cannot be dated earlier than the close of the second century, since it already reckons the Pauline Epistles as part of holy scripture (3 is/), and has no testimony to its own existence earlier than in the third century.
1 Cp Tiib. Theol. fahrb., 1853, pp. 148-151 ; JBL, 1892, pp. 133-139 . Bentley on Hor. Sat. i. 4 -,%f.
44. For existence, without further Judgement.[edit]
As for evidence to the existence of Jn. , without any further judgment being pronounced, mere quotations from the Fourth Gospel are enough, if the passages are such as cannot possibly have been derived from some other source. But the two cases, in which the book is cited as an authoritative writing, as in 43, and in which it is not cited as such, are very different. In the latter case, it is not only possible but probable that the author making the quotation did not regard the book as authoritative. The ecclesiastical writers incorporate in their writings passages from a multitude of works which never gained ecclesiastical recognition. Thus, even those works which ultimately did gain this recognition need not necessarily have already been in enjoyment of it at the time at which they were used by the writers in question.
This remark applies, according to a now fairly general con sensus of opinion, to the case of Justin (circa 152). Alongside of more than one hundred quotations from the synoptists, he has only three which offer points of contact with the Fourth Gospel (for the actual words, see GOSPELS, 101-104). But in no case is the verbal coincidence with it so exact as to exclude the possibility of their having emanated from another source, which, if we choose, we may suppose to have been accessible to the evangelist also. Yet, even apart from this, we cannot fail to recognise that the Fourth Gospel was by no means on the same plane with the synoptics in Justin s eyes, and that his employment of it is not only more sparing but also more circumspect. This is all the more remarkable since Justin certainly champions one of its leading conceptions (the Logos-idea), lays great weight upon the Memorabilia of the Apostles, and expressly designates the Apocalypse as a work of the apostle (Dial. 81, Apol. \t&f. etc.). So also with the Ada Jokannis referable to Leucius ( 8_/I), Corssen 1 sought to show that the Acta did not make use of the Fourth Gospel, but that, on the contrary, the gospel made use of the Acta or at least was acquainted with the traditions contained in it; and Hilgenfeld 2 inclines substantially to the same view even after James 3 had published new fragments and sought to prove from these the acquaintance of the author of the Acta with the Fourth Gospel. Even if we grant this, Corssen still will be right in his assertion that the Acta diverge from the Fourth Gospel in the freest and most far-reaching manner, and thus by no means give it a position of authority.
Here also belong the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies (end of 2nd cent.), and Celsus (circa 178).
1 Monarchianische Prologe zu den 4 Evangelien ( = Texte it, Untersuch. xv. 1), 117-134.
2 ZIVT, 1900, pp. 1-61.
3 Texts and Studies, v. 1, 97, 1-25, cp 144-154 and ix.-xxviii. ; cp Acta apost. apocr. edd. Lipsius et Bonnet, II. i, 98, pp. 160-216.
45. Mere agreements, not implying dependence.[edit]
Most of the early Christian writings which were held to bear testimony to the Fourth Gospel and of these precisely the oldest and therefore most important in reality do not justify the claim based upon them.
(a) They show manifold agreements with Jn. ; but these consist only of single, more or less characteristic words or formulas, or other coinci dences which might equally well have passed into currency by the channel of oral tradition. The great number of such agreements does in very deed prove that the Johannine formulas and catch-words were very widely diffused, and that the Johannine ideas had been, so to speak, for decennia in the air. We run great danger of allowing ourselves to be misled if, however, merely because it so happens that such phrases and turns of expression first became known and familiar to ourselves through the Fourth Gospel, we were at once to conclude that the writers in question can have taken them from that source alone. The true state of the case may very easily be quite the opposite ; the words and phrases circulated orally ; as they circulated they received an ever more pregnant, pointed, memorable form, and the writer of the Fourth Gospel, not as the first but as the last in the series of transmitters, set them down in a form and in a connection which excelled that of the others, and thus his work came to appear as if it were the source of the others.
(b) To the class of early Christian writings here referred to belong the two epistles of Clement of Rome (the first probably 93-97 A.D. , perhaps not till 112-117, at the latest 120-125 I the second, roughly, 160-180), the Epistle of Barnabas (130 or 131 ; see ACTS, 16), the Shepherd of Hernias (about 140), the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (between 130 and 160), the Apology of Aristides (probably under Antoninus Pius, 138-161 A. D. ), as also the so-called Oxyrhynchus Logia, the Coptic Gospel-fragment discussed by Jacobi (GOSPELS, 156, a and i>), and the Gospel of Peter (see PETER).
(c) Also the seven epistles of Ignatius. The question as to the genuineness of these need not be gone into here since even Harnack (op. cit., p. 396, n. 3) does not regard it as probable that Ignatius had read the Johan- nine writings even though, in itself considered, the thing seems to him very easily possible.
(d) A single word of comment is required only in connection with the saying of the elders cited in Iren. v. 36 1 : it was on this account that the Lord declared, " In my Father s (domains) are many places of abode " (dia TOJTO elp-rj^vaL rbv Kvpiov, iv rots TOV Trarpfc /JLOV fj.ovas flvai TroXXds). Even if we abstain from re marking that here the saying is quoted in proof of the doctrine that in the state of blessedness there will be various degrees, it has at any rate to be observed that it by no means coincides verbally so closely with Jn. 14a as necessarily to be a quotation. But what is chiefly to be noted is that in its substance it is so well adapted as a winged word to pass from mouth to mouth that we cannot refrain from thinking Harnack far too precipitate in basing upon this word alone (no other can be pointed to) the proof, regarded by him as secure, that these elders were acquainted with the Fourth Gospel (see 48 [/]). As to who these elders were, see ibidem.
46. Denials of genuineness.[edit]
How doubtful was the recognition of the Fourth Gospel is shown with most clearness by the fact that within the church an entire school could regard it as not genuine and even attribute it to Cerinthus. Two theologians in so many other respects so divergent in their views as Zahn and Harnack are agreed that the Alogi, who assigned the work to Cerinthus from 160 or 170 onwards are identical with the unnamed gainsayers of the genuineness who are mentioned in Iren. iii. 11 12 [9], and that in other respects their standpoint was a correct churchly and catholic one. On the similar attitude of Gaius of Rome as late as the begin ning of the third century see GOSPELS, 82, last footnote.
47. Polycarp as indirect witness.[edit]
For those who hold 1 Jn. to be later than Jn. an evidence of the existence of the gospel is found whereever the existence of the epistle can be shown - This appears to be the case witness in the Epistle of Polycarp (7i): For every one who does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is an antichrist (TTOS yap, 5s av fj.rj 6,1*0X0777 I-rjcrouv Xpt0Td> v (rapid \r]\v- (tevai, avrlxpiffTos fffnv). This has points of contact with i Jn. 42/i, as also with 2 Jn. 7 ; in neither case, however, is the verbal coincidence so close that the passage can be regarded as an actual quotation. Im mediately after the words quoted Polycarp adds two parallel sentences of his own. Here again, moreover, the expression partakes so largely of the nature of a 1 winged word that there is no necessity for regarding it as having been taken from a written source at all, not to speak of the Johannine epistles. It is certainly very significant that Eusebius notes indeed of the Epistle of Polycarp that it contains quotations from the First Epistle of Peter, but makes no similar statement regard ing the Johannine epistles. This makes it all the more strange that Harnack (op. cit. 658), relying upon the fact we have mentioned, makes the claim that thereby the existence of the epistle can be securely established. He even goes so far as to say securely even for the close of the reign of Trajan. In fact he assigns the epistle of Polycarp approximately to the year 115 A.D. Even should the seven Ignatian Epistles be genuine and of this date, it would by no means be thereby proved that the Epistle of Polycarp must have been written so early. According to a very probable reckoning Polycarp died on 23rd Feb. 155. Moreover the meagre, mainly ethical, character of the contents of the Epistle of Polycarp is so little in harmony with the central thought of the Ignatian Epistles directed as these are to the glorification of martyrdom and of the episcopate, as also to the elaboration of christological ideas that the separation of those parts of the Epistle of Polycarp in which the Ignatian epistles are recom mended (chaps. 913 along with a few other sentences) a separation which has been proposed from the most various quarters seems to be in the highest degree plausible.
48. Papias as witness.[edit]
Here also Papias stands on the same level with Polycarp.
(a) According to Eusebius (HE iii. 39:17) Papias 'made use of testimonies from the First Epistle of John, and likewise from that of Peter' (Kexp^Tai 5 avrds /jLaprvpiais a7r6 T?}? ludvvov irportpas e7no"roX??y Kal airb Trjs Iltrpov 6/j.otus). We know what 'made use of testimonies' (xtxpyTai fiapTvpiais) in Eusebius means. He uses the same expression in iv. 14:9 with reference to Poly- carp s quotations from 1 Pet. In the Epistle of Poly carp we can control the statement by observing that the name of Peter is not mentioned there. We have therefore no ground for supposing that Papias used the name of John either. Moreover, we can hardly set aside the doubt whether in Papias we have to do with real quotations at all and not rather again with winged words, such as have been spoken of in 45 </ 46, which prove nothing so far as the present question is concerned. Cp GOSPELS, 72, n. 2.
Even assuming, however, that they prove Papias's acquaint ance with 1 Jn., we must all the more on that account take exception to the proposition of Harnack (op. cit. 658), that Papias's acquaintance with the Fourth Gospel must be clear to every one who looks upon i Jn. and the gospel as a unity. Such a statement would he justified only if the two writings in question had constituted a single book. The theory, however, that the epistle was written at the same time as the gospel and was incorporated with it as an appendix, has long since been abandoned. If the two existed only in a separate state, ac quaintance with the one is no proof at all of acquaintance with the other.
(b) We have, moreover, the strongest evidence to show that Papias never wrote in his work anything with reference to the Fourth Gospel.
Eusebius (HE iii. 3:3) pledges himself in his history to mention without fail which of the disputed biblical writings the ecclesi astical authors of each period had made use of and what they said about the acknowledged writings and all that they said about those which were not such (Tor the original text, see GOSPELS, 66). As regards the acknowledged writings among which he reckoned the Fourth Gospel he dispenses himself accordingly merely from the duty of collecting the quotations from them, not from that of collecting the sayings of the church fathers concerning them. This programme he has carried out with great care. In Papias, whom he read with special attention, he did not find any saying of the kind indicated either regarding Lk. or regarding Jn. But as Papias did make such a statement regarding Mt. and Mk., and as he made use of the gospels as well as of oral communications for the preparation of his work, it would be exceedingly remarkable if he had made use of Lk. and Jn. and yet nowhere expressed himself regarding their character (cp GOSPELS, 67, 74, 82 [i]).
(c) The case would be different, it is true, if a Latin prologue in Wordsworth, N T Latine, 1491, were correct :
- Evangelium Johannis manifestatum et datum est ecclesiis ab Johanne adhuc in corpore constitute ; sicut Papias nomine, Hierapolitanus, discipulus Johannis carus, in exotericis, id est in extremis quinque libris retulit.
We may rest assured, however, that this mention of Papias proceeds upon an error ; for otherwise Eusebius would certainly have told us of it.
Moreover there would still remain the question whether by the John whom he would thus have designated as the writer of the gospel we should understand John the apostle, which for the writer of the prologue was a matter of course, or the John of Asia Minor in that case certainly John the Elder.
(d) A similar question must be raised in connection with the statements of Armenian writers to the effect that Papias was acquainted with the Fourth Gospel.
In what Conybeare cites in The Guardian of i8th July 1894 (p. 1123), Papias is expressing himself regarding the nature of the aloe ; but that he is here dealing with the aloe met with in Jn. 19:39 does not appear from the words of the Armenian writer.
(e) Even if all that has been alleged as to Papias s acquaintance with the Fourth Gospel were indisputable, his testimony would not carry us beyond what has already been long known and recognised from other sources. According to a fragment published by De Boor ( 4 A), the work of Papias contained the statement that the individuals who had been raised from the dead by Christ survived till the reign of Hadrian (?ws Adpiavov Zfav, I.e. 170). As there is no reason why the attribution of this statement to Papias should be disputed, Papias must have written it not earlier than between 140-160 (Harnack, op. cit. 357). At that date, however, the Fourth Gospel was known to other writers also, and Papias s acquaintance with it would add nothing to what we previously knew.
(f) The case would be otherwise only if Harnack were right in what he says about the elders of Irenseus (op. cit. 333-340).
Harnack (i) asserts that Irenaeus had not personally heard the elders whose sayings he quotes, and (2) conjectures that Irenaeus had taken all of these sayings from the writing of Papias. The first assertion has a certain probability by reason of the vagueness with which Irenaeus speaks of those elders ; the conjecture, on the other hand, is mere hypothesis. The sole passage which we can control even speaks to the contrary effect. In v. 333/1 Irenaeus first introduces the saying about the great grape-cluster of the blessed days to come in the following terms : quemadmodum presbyteri meminerunt qui Joannem discipulum Domini viderunt, audisse se ab eo, quemadmodum de temporibus illis docebat dominus et dicebat. After telling what they had said, he proceeds, these things, moreover, Papias also, who was a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, a man of the older time, testifies in writing in the fourth of his books (ravra 6e /cat llama? o Ia>ai/i>ou juey aKOva Tys, Ho\vKa.prrov 6e eratpo? ytyovws, apxaios avrjp, eyypd^u? eTrijUapTvpet ei/ TT; TerapTT) rtav ai/rov tAiW). Harnack is of opinion that the KOLI here and the 7n- in 7ri|xapTvpet certainly ought not to be pressed ; but it is not permissible, in favour of an hypothesis, to ignore the force of these words which plainly distinguish the written communication of Papias from an oral communication that had reached Ireneeus. Harnack, however, pursues this forbidden path still further, and asserts that Irenaeus had taken the formulae which he uses in citing the elders z ertatii/i from the work of Papias. By this means Harnack arrives at the result that these elders had already presented themselves to the mind of Papias as invested with those dignified attitudes of venerable antiquity which they undoubtedly had to judge by his language, for Irenaeus. Accord ing to this, we should have to carry their date as far back before 140-160, the time at which Papias lived, as we should have to carry them back, according to the text of Irenaeus, before 185, the approximate date of Irenasus s work.
This supposition, however, of a borrowing by Irenaeus from Papias verbatim is a mere hypothesis : and yet this supposition, and its application to the presumed quotation from Jn. 142 ( 45^), is, along with what has been adduced ( 47) from Polycarp, the sole basis on which Harnack rests his proposition (op. cit. 680) that the gospel was not written later than circa no, is an assured historical truth.
49. Estimate of external evidence.[edit]
(a) If we were dealing with a book attributed to an undistinguished man, such as, for example, the epistle of Jude, it could not be held to be very surprising that proofs of acquaintance j with it do not emerge until some considerable time after its production. The case is very different, however, with a gospel written by an eye-witness. Papias noticed defects in the gospel of Mk. ; the third evangelist noticed them in the writings of all his predecessors (cp GOSPELS, 65, 153). The writing of an eye-witness would immediately on its publication have been received with the keenest interest, however violently it may have conflicted with the gospels hitherto known. It would at least by these contradictions have attracted attention and necessarily have given occasion to such remarks as that 'the gospels seem to contradict one another' of Claudius Apollinaris (aTa.<na^eLv doKfi TO. evayytXia) ( 42 and 54^). No mention of the Fourth Gospel which we can recognise as such carries us back further than to 140 A.D. As late as 152 (Acad. ist Feb. 1896, p. 98), Justin, who nevertheless lays so great value upon the Memorabilia of the Apostles, regards Jn. if indeed he knows it at all with distrust and appropriates from it but a very few sayings. Therefore, notwithstanding the fact that conservative theology still cherishes the belief that the external evidence supplies the best possible guarantee for the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel, we find our selves compelled not only to recognise the justice of the remark of Reuss that the incredible trouble which has been taken to collect external evidences only serves to show that there are really none of the sort which were really wanted, but also to set it up even as a funda mental principle of criticism that the production of the Fourth Gospel must be assigned to the shortest possible date before the time at which traces of acquaintance with it begin to appear. Distinct declarations as to its genuineness begin certainly not earlier than about 170 A.D. (42).
(b) Furthermore, it is not usually remembered how small is the value which all such testimonies possess.
According to Irenaeus (ii. 33:3 [22:5]) the gospel and all the elders personally acquainted with John in Asia bore witness that Jesus, at the time of his teaching, was more than forty years old and this as a tradition from John, some of them also giving it as a tradition from other apostles. This can rest only on Jn. 8 57. It is irreconcilable with Lk. 823. In iii. 32(3), Irenaeus asserts that Clement of Rome had enjoyed personal intercourse with the apostles, although he might have learned from Clement s own (first) epistle (44 zf.) that the opposite was the case. In iii. 11 n [8] Irenaeus, too, finds the rationale for the four gospels in the fact that there are four quarters of the globe and four winds (n-i/evjuara) ; since, further, the church extends over all the world, while its pillars and grounds and spirit of life (irvevfj.a a>ijs) are the gospel, it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out (TiWoi/ras) immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. Such is the sort of verbal trifling with which he favours his readers in place of history. The Muratorian fragment calls the book of Acts Acta omnium apostolorum, and John, in respect of his seven epistles (Rev. 2 f.), the predecessor Pauli (//. 34, 48). Clement of Alexandria (Strain, vi. 5 43, p. 761 f.) quotes the apostle Paul as saying : Take also the Greek books, read the Sibyl as she reveals one God and the future ; and, taking Hystaspes, read and ye will find the son of God much more clearly described. In Strom, v. 14 104, p. 711, Clement cites with entire belief the book of Zoroaster, in which, after his resurrec tion from the dead, he reports what he had learned in the under world from the gods. Justin (Apol. i. 35 48) is able to tell his readers that the Acta Pilati contained the partition of the garment of Jesus, his healings, and his raisings of the dead. Tertullian (Apol. 21) adds to these the eclipse of the sun, the watch at the grave, the resurrection, the forty days in Galilee, and the ascension, and closes with these words : ea omnia super Christp Pilatus, et ipse jam pro sua conscientia Christianus, Caesari turn Tiberio nuntiavit. Compare 6.
It is surely unnecessary to multiply examples. When the church fathers bring before us such statements as these, no one believes them ; but when they attest the genuineness of a book of the Bible, then the conservative theologians regard the fact as enough to silence all criticism. This cannot go on for ever. Instead of the constantly repeated formula that an ancient writing is attested as early as by (let us say) Irenaeus, Tertullian, or Clement of Alexandria, there will have to be substi tuted the much more modest statement that its existence (not genuineness) is attested only as late as by the writers named, and even this only if the quotations are undeniable or the title expressly mentioned.
50. Gnosticism and the Fourth Gospel.[edit]
If no trace of the Fourth Gospel can be found earlier than 140 A. D. , there cannot be the slightest difficulty in doing justice to its relations with Gnosticism. According to Hegesippus (ap. Eus HE iii 32:7-8) profound peace reigned in the entire church till the reign of Trajan ; but after the sacred choir of the apostles had died out and the race of the immediate hearers of Christ had passed away, the god less corruption began through the deception of false teachers who now with unabashed countenance dared to set up against the preaching of truth the doctrines of gnosis falsely so called. There is no reason for dis puting the date here given. A personal disciple of lesus certainly can hardly have survived to see it. But the gospel shows clearly how profoundly the gnostic ideas had influenced its author. Neither is the position of the case as if he had started from the churchly point of view and then found himself on the road to the gnostic ; on the contrary, we find him on the return path from gnosticism to the churchly view. Cp 29 b. In addition to what is said there, attention may be called to the high value Jn. places on knowledge (17:3).
It might at first appear as if Jn. were not yet in open antagon ism against gnosis and thus that gnosticism has not yet attained any great development. If, however, we view the matter so, we shall mistake the task which was set before him. The first epistle gave room for direct polemic against gnosis, and he uses his opportunity in the most distinct manner. But when a gospel had to be written, polemic methods could be employed only under some disguise. Nevertheless they are recognisable enough. Against the gnostic division between pneumatic and psychical persons are levelled such sentences as 3 i6_/C ; so also against the dualism between God and the world ; against the one-sided emphasis laid by gnosticism on the importance of knowledge is directed the insistence upon faith ; and against the docetic view that Christ was man only in appearance stress is laid (1 14) on the doctrine that the Logos was made flesh and that his glory could be beheld. Indeed, the great importance given in IS* 35 to the attestation of the flowing of water and blood from the wounded side appears although the water and blood have also a symbolical meaning ( 23 d) at the same time and indeed primarily to have its reason in the desire to combat the view that Jesus did not suffer really but only seemingly.
All that must be conceded is that no traces can as yet be found in the Fourth Gospel of the great and elaborated systems such as were developed by Valentinus and others after 140 A. D. The ideas of light, and the like, out of which those later gnostics formed their pairs and their ogdoads of aeons are still touched upon in the gospel only comparatively lightly. Ch. 8:44 does not speak of the father of the devil, but only says, by a some what lax construction, that the devil is a liar and the father of (the) lie (Winer( 8 >, 18, n. 30 ; 22 9 </).
51. Relation to Montanism.[edit]
With Montanism the case is otherwise. The Fourth Gospel shows an indubitable contact with it in the idea of the Paraclete. Here, however, the priority must be assigned to the gospel, since Montanism, according to one ancient source, first came to manifestation about 156 or 157, according to the other even as late as 172 (cp Harnack, op. cit. 363-379). In actuality the idea of the paraclete is further developed in Montanism than in the Fourth Gospel. In the latter the ruling conception is that Jesus is identical with the Paraclete, that is to say that his second coming consists in nothing other than the coming of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers ( 26 c). In Montanism, on the other hand, a sharp distinction is drawn between the age of Christ and the age of the Holy Spirit, and a much higher value is given to the latter.
52. 5:43 as a guide to date.[edit]
If on independent grounds some period shortly before 140 A. D. can be set down as the approximate date of the production of the gospel, then new importance attaches to one particular passage upon which, apart from this, we could not venture to base any hypothesis as to date. In 5:43 Jesus says : 'I am come in the name of my father and ye receive me not ; if another will come in his own name, him ye will receive'. This prophecy of another Messiah was fulfilled when in 132 A.D. Bar- chochba arose and incited the Jews to the great revolt which in 135 ended in the complete extinction of the Jewish state. It is very tempting to think that 5:43 contains an allusion to this. At all events, as compared with this supposition the hypothesis of Bousset (Antichr. , 1895, 108) has no superior claims that by the pseudo- Messiah here predicted the Antichrist is meant, and this because thus almost all the church fathers interpret, and in this region these are the authorities from whom we have to learn. 1 Bousset, in conformity with this interpretation, supposes that such apocalyptic ideas had great importance for the evangelist, notwithstanding the fact that his entire book shows no trace of this, but rather the opposite ( 28). Compare further, 65, end.
53. Place of composition.[edit]
Asia Minor is almost universally regarded as the Fourth Gospel's place of origin. It is on this assumption that we can most easily explain how the Gospel could be ascribed to the John living there to whom the Apocalypse, or at least the seven epistles therein con tained, are assigned with still greater probability. Alexandrian as well as gnostic ideas can without difficulty be traced in those regions. It has even been attempted to account for the mistake by which Caiaphas is called high priest for that year" ( 38) by the fact that in Asia there was a high priest (dpxitpfvs) for the whole province who changed from year to year (Momm- sen, Rom. Gesch. 5 318 ; ET Provinces, 1345). It must, however, be affirmed once for all that these proofs have no decisive value ; but neither does the question as to place of origin possess any fundamental importance.
54. The Paschal controversy.[edit]
Very important inferences, however, can be drawn from the paschal controversies of the second century. 1
(a) In Asia Minor the celebration was always held on the 14th of Nisan by those who afterwards were called Quartodecimans ; elsewhere it was celebrated on the first Sunday after the Spring equinox. The difference of usage first came to light on the occasion of a visit of Polycarp of Smyrna to Rome during the bishopric of Anicetus (therefore in 154 A.D. ). On that occasion Polycarp, according to the report of Irenaeus (fragm. 3, cp Eus. HE v. 24 16), appealed on behalf of the Asiatic celebration to the authority of John the disciple of the Lord, and of the other apostles. Similarly, in the third stage of the controversy, Polycrates of Ephesus in his letter to the Roman bishop Victor about 196 A.L>. (ibid. v. 242-8) made a like appeal to the authority of Philip, John, Polycarp, Melito, and a large number of famous names.
Of the reasons for this usage we become apprised in the second stage of the controversy, about 170 A.D. , in which its supporters came into conflict not with Rome but with men in Asia Minor itself.
(b} In order to escape the conclusion that the John appealed to by the Quartodecimans could not have been the writer of the Gospel, some theologians assert that the men of Asia Minor, and John among them, had observed the I4th of Nisan in commemoration of the death of Jesus. This would fit in with the Fourth Gospel admirably, only it is opposed to the express statements of Hippolytus and Apollinaris (Chron. Pasch. , ed. Paris, p. 6abd; ed. Dindorf, pp. i2/. and 14), according to whom the commemoration intended was that of the institution of the Lord's Supper by Jesus. That this was only the opinion of a minority cannot be maintained.
(c ) Others sought to attain the same result by supposing that the Quartodecimans without any reference at all to events in the life of Jesus had simply, in accordance with the Jewish calendar, observed the day upon which the Jewish passover fell. Such a mechanical conformity with the Jewish law, and such a degree of indifference towards reminiscences of occurrences in the life of Jesus, would be very remarkable if observable in any Christians, and most of all if observable in one who had actually been an eye-witness of the last days of Jesus. It is, however, expressly set aside by the statement of Apol linaris (I.e. ) that the Quartodecimans claimed Mt. as on their side - on the point, namely, that Jesus had eaten the paschal lamb with his disciples on 14th Nisan and had suffered on the I5th. Apollinaris infers from this that in their view the gospels seem to be at variance as to this ( 42). He himself is on the side of the Fourth Gospel, and thus, as he himself admits no variance, interprets the First Gospel wrongly in the actual sense of the Fourth ; the Quartodecimans, how ever, appealed not simply to the Jewish calendar but also to Mt. , and that too to Mt. properly understood.
(d) A last resort remains, that of Schiirer, who thinks they did this only in a late stage of the con troversy. This also, however, is very improbable. We shall do well to attribute to them at least enough continuity of view for them to be always aware what it was that they were maintaining.
(e) In this failure, then, of all the suggested views we have no alternative left but to acknowledge that the John to whose authority the Quartodecimans appeal cannot have been the author of the gospel. If then this John of Asia Minor was the Elder, the apostle's authorship of the gospel remains, so far as the paschal controversy is concerned, a possibility. The assump tion, then, must be that the gospel was written by the apostle, though at the same time he was not head of the church at Ephesus. This assumption, however, is one that has been resorted to by but few, for the tradition says only of the Ephesian John that he wrote the gospel.
1 The most thorough discussions are those of Hilgenfeld, Der Paschastrcit, 1860, and of Schiirer. De controversies paschalilnis, Leipsic, 1869; in German in Ztschr. /. d. hist. Theol., 1870, pp. 182-284.
After what has been said, only a very brief recapitulation as regards the genuineness will be required.
(a) Even when the Apocalypse has been assigned to another writer, the apostolic authorship of the gospel remains impossible, and that not merely from the consideration that it cannot be the son of Zebedee who has introduced himself as writer in so remarkable a fashion (s. 41), but also from the consideration that it cannot be an eye witness of the facts of the life of Jesus who has presented, as against the synoptists, an account so much less credible, nor an original apostle who has shown himself so easily accessible to Alexandrian and Gnostic ideas, nor a contemporary of Jesus who survived so late into the second century and yet was capable of composing so profound a work. On this ground are excluded not only the son of Zebedee but also every non-apostolic eye-witness, including even John the Elder, although the last-named seems to be recommended by the Asian tradition so far as this does not make for the apostle.
(b) Harnack, who holds the Elder to be the author with in corporation also of reminiscences of theson of Zebedee in his work, so that the gospel might appropriately enough be called Gospel of John the Elder according to John the son of Zebedee (evay- ye Atoi liaavvov TOV jrpe<T/3uTe pov Kara laxxi/i/rji/ TOV Ze/3eSai ov) is compelled not only to place the date at a much earlier period than is justified by the evidence ( 48 [/"], but also, notwithstand ing this, to understand by a disciple of the Lord (which the Elder was) one who perhaps had seen Jesus only once in earliest childhood without really entering into personal relations with him ; and all this over and above the further necessity for im puting so many incredibilities to the author, if the credibility of the synoptists is not to be reduced to zero. Further, Harnack s hypothesis must be characterised as incapable of being discussed so long as the continuation of his work gives him no occasion to state quite frankly whether he regards as historical such state ments for example as those regarding the foot-washing, the spear-thrust, the falling to the ground of the Roman cohort in Gethsemane, and the 100 pounds of ointment at the embalming of Jesus. 1
(c) The same remark holds good as regards Bousset who (Apoca- lypse in Meyer's Kommentar. sth ed. 1896, p. 33-51) maintains that the Ephesian John, that is to say, the Elder, in his youth belonged to the train of Jesus at such times as Jesus was in Jerusalem, and that from his mouth one of his scholars has given us, so far as the activity of Jesus in Jerusalem is concerned, an account that, as compared with the synoptists, is independent and in many points to be preferred.
1 As wewrite we take from his Wesen des Christenthums, 1900, p. 13 (ET What is Christianity? 1900) the following: 'The Fourth Gospel which does not come from the apostle John, and does not profess to do so, cannot be used as a historical source in the ordinary [i.e., customary] sense of those words. The author acted with autocratic freedom, transposed events and placed them in an unwonted light, composed discourses at his own will and illustrated lofty thoughts by imagined situations. Hence his work though not wholly wanting in the elements of a genuine if hardly recognisable tradition, can hardly at any point be taken into account as a source for the history of Jesus ; it is but little that we can take over from him and even that only with circumspection.
(d) To what degree the thesis of the authorship of the gospel by a son of Zebedee (or indeed any eye-witness) can be maintained only at the cost of the very credibility which yet it is proposed to support by this assumption, is well seen in what B. Weiss has to say regarding the discourses of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. 1 He grants that the misunderstandings of these dis courses by the hearers are often in reality merely attempts on the part of the evangelist to account for the continuance of the discussion, that the evangelist is well aware that he is not giving his readers the discourses and conversations with literal accuracy, that not only the original words, but also the concrete historical context of the words of Jesus are often obliterated, the evangelist concerning himself only for the endur ing significance of these and their value for edification in the sense of his own conception of the person of Christ, that even in the narrative parts the connections in detail have often dis appeared, the historical colouring has been lost and the repre sentation of occurrences has been manipulated in accordance with the meaning w_hich they had acquired to the mind of this narrator. No critic, however severe, could express himself much more unfavourably with regard to the Fourth Gospel than this defender of its genuineness has done.
(e) As compared with such a line of defence, there is a positive relief from an intolerable burden as soon as the student has made up his mind to give up any such theory as that of the genuineness of the gospel, as also of its authenticity in the sense of its being the work of an eye-witness who meant to record actual history. Whoever shrinks from the surrender can, in spite of all the veneration for the book which constrains him to take this course, have little joy in his choice. Instead of being able to profit by the elucidations regarding the nature and the history of Jesus promised him by the genuineness theory, he finds himself at every turn laid under the necessity of meeting objections on the score of historicity, and if he has laboriously succeeded (he thinks) in silencing these, others and yet others arise tenfold increased, and in his refutation of these, even when he carries it through and that too even, it may be, with a tone of great assurance he yet cannot in conscientious self-examination feel any true confidence in his work.
(f) With the other view the case is quite different. We have to deal with a writer from whom we neither can demand strict historical accuracy, nor have any occasion to do so. Just in proportion as this is frankly recognised, however, we find in him a great and eminent soul, a man in whom all the ruling tendencies of his time meet and are brought together to a common focus. A philosophical book, indeed, would not have been difficult for him to write, yet would have received but little attention ; for all that at that time was recognised as divine was held to be seen in the person of Jesus. Thus the task this man deemed to be laid upon him by the nature of the circumstances was that of giving ex pression to his deep ideas in the form of a life of Jesus. We become aware that this implied many restrictions upon his freedom, and one is astonished all the more at the ease of movement with which he has carried out his work. In short, one discerns in the gospel the ripest fruit of primitive Christianity the ripest, if also at the same time the furthest removed from the original form. We shall return to a consideration of this subject with somewhat greater detail ( 62) after we have glanced at the First Epistle which in this respect is closely related to the gospel.
1 Lehrb. der Einleitung in das NT, 51 7.
56. Partition hypotheses.[edit]
Before proceeding to this, however, a word must be given to the partition hypotheses,
(a) We have postponed notice of them until now because to have brought them up at an earlier point would have tended only to obscure the issues. A whole series of earlier partition hypotheses have shared the common fate of being withdrawn by their own promulgators. Least hopeful of all is a hypothesis of interpolations. Not that the existence of interpolations in Jn. is impossible ; on the contrary, it is affirmed even by the most outspoken critical theologians ( 28 b}. But if it is proposed to eliminate every difficult passage as having been interpolated, very little indeed of the gospel will be left at the end of the process. Theoretically, the case is somewhat better with a sources -hypothesis, which should maintain that the last author did not introduce mere interpolations into the exemplar before him without touching the text itself, that he dealt with it very much as the synoptists dealt with their sources. Even so, however, no great advantage is gained.
(b) To mention only the latest advocate of a hypothesis of this sort, Wendt 1 holds most of the miracle narratives, and some of the elaborations of the discourses as well as of the occasions assigned to them, to be additions of the last author. The main point, however, is that his funda mental principle in itself worthy of all acceptance is that passages are to be held to be later insertions, not on account of their contents, but only when they break the connection. There is much reason to fear, however, that distrust of the authenticity of the substance often causes an interruption of the connection to be imagined where in reality there is none. Many passages of the same sort as others which give Wendt occasion for the separating process, are left by him untouched, when the result would not be removal of some piece held to be open to exception in respect of its contents ; the ground for exception which he actually takes, on the other hand, is often altogether non-existent.
Thus, for example, it ought not by any means to be regarded as betokening a broken connection when (11 16), at the words of Jesus, Let us go unto him [Lazarus], Thomas says to his fellow-disciples: Let us also go that we may die with him. That the sequence of these sentences does not demand the interpretation that Thomas wishes to die with Lazarus is self- evident, for Thomas is speaking to his fellow-disciples about a word of Jesus in which he had implicitly said that he was going to his death. It is therefore not permissible to conclude that, in the source, v. 16 followed immediately upon v. 10, and that accordingly the announcement of the raising of Lazarus con tained in vv. 11-15 is an addition by the evangelist. Moreover, v. 16 in strictness fits on to v. 10 no better than it does to v. 15. In 7 . 40 where Jesus says to Martha, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God? Wendt with justice finds a reference back to ?rv. 23 2$f., but considers that they rest upon a misinterpretation of these verses which speak, not of a bodily resurrection, but of the imparting by Jesus of an inward eternal life even here in this temporal sphere. This is essentially correct ; but it presents only one side of the matter. The word is purposely ambiguous ( 25 c), and in its literal sense is fulfilled by the raising of Lazarus, which nevertheless is itself only a figure for the impartation of that inward eternal life. Wendt proceeds therefore upon a mis apprehension of the distinctive character of the Fourth Gospel when he comes to the conclusion that in the source all that was related was this : Jesus heard of the sickness of Lazarus, but, although no delay in his journey occurred, did not arrive until after his death ; on his arrival he comforted Martha by pointing to that inward eternal life which can be lived in the temporal, went with her to the grave, and wept there. What availed Martha this pointing to the inward eternal life when her brother had just quitted this temporal, and what point has it in presence of the assurance of Jesus (z>. 23), thy brother shall rise again ? It cannot be a continuation of this assurance, neither if with Martha we understand v. 23 to refer to the last day, nor if we inter pret it in a spiritual sense ; for resurrection and continuance in life are different things. That it was, on the other hand, anything higher than what is said in v. 23 is excluded by the simple fact that after the apparent death of Lazarus it was not practicable.
(c) Wendt attributes his assumed source to the apostle John. The eye-witness Peter, on whose communica tions in Wendt s view the gospel of Mk. rests, knows that on his last evening Jesus held the sacrament of the Supper with his disciples ; John the eye-witness that he washed his disciples feet. Peter the eye-witness knows concerning Jesus that he expected the Final Judgment on a definite day at the end of the present world, John the eye-witness knows that he spoke the words contained in 11 25/1 and 5 24, and proves by this that the representa tions which agree with the report of Peter (e.g. , 5 28 f. and the closing words of 639 40 44 54 1248) were added by the evangelist in contradiction of the source written by the eye-witness John. The eye-witness Peter transmits an account according to which Jesus had not any con sciousness of his pre-existence, the eye-witness John knows that he spoke the words, Before Abraham came into being, I am, glorify me with the glory which 1 had with thee before the world was (858175), and he wrote the prologue with exception of the verses (6-8 15) about the Baptist.
1 Das Johannes- Evangelium, 1900, and previously in Die Lchre Jesu, 1, 1886, pp. 215-342.
(d) As for the miracle-narratives, according to Wendt Jesus, e.g., did not heal the man born blind but only beheld him and took him as text of his discourse on the healing of the spiritual blindness of the world ; in the case of the sick man at Bethesda Jesus in healing him laid his hand upon him somewhat in the manner indicated in Mk. 7:33 8:23-25, so that the action could be regarded by the Jews as a violation of the Sabbath-law.
(e) What has been said mayperhaps suffice to show how little fitted is this latest attempt at separation of sources however superior to kindred efforts of the same sort to supply a really satisfactory solution of ... the Johannine problem. Its indications of difficulties in the connection are valuable ; but these will have to be explained by the writer s carelessness about the matter (as has been done in 34 b, c). In the end we shall have to concur in the judgment of Strauss, that the Fourth Gospel is like the seamless coat, not to be divided but to be taken as it is.
D. FIRST EPISTLE[edit]
57. Polemic against false doctrine.[edit]
What distinguishes the First Epistle from the gospel most obviously is its express polemic against false teachers. These, to speak generally, are gnostics; this appears (2:4 ) in the expression 'he that saith, I know him' (6 \tyuv Sri lyvuKa avr6i>) as also in that terminus technicus of gnosis 'seed' (ffirtpfjLO. : 89), which signifies the individual seed-grains of divine origin scattered throughout the world of matter, to wit the souls of gnostic persons, and in the declaration of these persons that they have no sin (18:10).
More precisely, the false teachers disclose themselves to be docetics. Their assertion (2:22) that Jesus is not the Messiah finds its explanation in iaf. (cp 2 Jn. 7), accord ing to which they deny that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, and in 56 ( this is he that came by water and blood ). While holding this teaching they give them selves over to libertinism, according to 2:4-15, 3:4-10, 5:17, which passages must certainly be taken as referring to them. The case is not met by supposing the reference to be to Cerinthus, the oldest of the gnostics, who with all his gnosticism was still a Jewish Christian ; later forms must be intended even although we are not in a position to state more precisely what they were. The purpose of the epistle, then, is to combat this tendency with as much directness (2:26 37) as it is combated indirectly in the gospel ( 50). The writing can be called a letter only in a remote sense (cp EPISTOLARY LITERATURE, 9). The writer addresses his readers as little children, or beloved, or brethren ; but in these expressions he is addressing all Christendom.
58. Contact with gnosis.[edit]
In all his controversy with gnosis the author is at the same time strongly influenced by its ideas. Like that of the gospel his thought is dominated by the great antithesis between God and the world ( 2:16, 4:5-6), or God and the devil (3:8-10 4:4), or truth and falsehood (2:21 4:6) ; in analogy with Jn. 3:6, 8:43, etc. , in i Jn. 6:19 also we find the mutually exclusive alternatives that one must either be of God or of the world which lieth in the wicked [one] (v T(f5 irovr)p<jj /cetrat). The claim to know, or to have known, all things is made by the writer for himself and for his readers (2:13-14, 2:20-21, 2:27 4:7) as positively as any gnostic could make it ; the expression seed (ffTrtpii.0.) he applies in similar manner to himself and to them, and asserts sinlessness for both (3:96 5:18).
In the ideas just indicated, as well as in respect of language, the agreement with the gospel seems so strong that the identity of authorship of both writings is often regarded as self-evident. Holtzmann, however (Einl. in's NT), enumerates fifteen German theologians by whom it is denied, and he himself has elaborated the same view with the utmost care in Jahrob. f. prot. Theol. 881,690-712; 1882, 128-152, 316-342, 460-485.
To begin with the vocabulary : ayyeAia [aggelia], eTrayyeAia [epaggelia], Sidvoia [dianoia], -rrapovcria. [parousia], eATri s [elpis], ai/o/nt a [anomia], etc., are found only in tne epistle, not in the gospel. Moreover, a somehat different field of thought is disclosed by the use of iAaoyio [ilasmos]? (2:2, 4:10) and also of ^pioyx-a [chrisma](2:20-27) which characterises the epistle. On the whole it is seen that the thoughts of the epistle in many ways follow the ordin ary lines, above which the gospel has risen to purely spiritual conceptions. The second coming of Christ is still spoken of in 1 jn. 2:28 as a visible individual occurrence in time; the resurrection is (32) looked for simply after death ; the final judgment is relegated to a particular day (4:17). The more spiritual apprehension is not wholly wanting (see 3 14 24 5 11-13); but it is not prominent. In 2 i Christ appears as the Paraclete, which finds an analogy in the gospel only in the expression another Paraclete (14, 16), spoken of the Holy Spirit. Redemp tion is wrought by Christ by means of his death (1:7, 2:2, 4:10), a conception which in the gospel finds its parallel only in 1:29-36 and perhaps 11:50-52 17:19 whilst everywhere else in the gospel his redeeming activity is for the most part sought in his mes sage (1:9-13, 8:12, 17:4-8), to which, in the epistle, allusion is made only in 4 9.
Above all, in the epistle Christ is represented much less than he is in the gospel as intervening between God and men. The conception, based on the Logos-idea that it is Christ alone, not God, who can come into direct relation with the world, is absent. In the gospel the relation of God to Christ is like that of Christ to believers (10:14-15, 14:20, l5:9-10); God gives salvation to him, he imparts it to them (17:8 etc. ; the only exceptions are 3:16, 6:40, 14:21-23, 16:26-27, 17:6-23). Christ alone is the way to God (14:6, 10:7-9 15:5), while in the epistle (3:21) we can have boldness directly toward God ; in the gospel it is Christ who is the light (14, 8:12), in the epistle it is God (1:5) ; in the one it is Christ who is the law-giver (13:34 15:12), in the other it is God (3:23) ; in the one it is Christ who is the hearer of prayer (14:13-14, cp 15:16, 16:23-24, 16:26), in the other it is God (3:22, 5:14-15). These divergences are explained much more easily on the assumption that the two writings come from different writers though belonging to one and the same school of thought.
60. Priority in time.[edit]
Which of the two writings was the earlier cannot be decided on general grounds. In itself considered, the more ordinary and commonplace way of looking at things may very well be regarded as the earlier, the more spiritualised as the later ; indeed on this supposition the growth of one and the same author out of the one into the other would become in some measure intelligible. We could, however, equally well imagine that the gospel had come into existence first, and that later when, from the novelty of its ideas, it met with but little approval and much opposition, another hand belonging to the same circle as the evangelist had made the attempt to give currency to the newer ideas with closer adherence to the current theological conceptions. The undertaking in this case would be analogous to the con jectured attempt mentioned in 28, by means of later interpolations of passages implying a resurrection at a definite point in time, to avert the objections likely to be raised by the more spiritualised statement of the resurrection-idea. In imputing some such intention to the writer it is by no means necessary to assume that he set about his task merely by way of accommodation, at a sacrifice of his own convictions. It is precisely when we distinguish the author of the epistle from the author of the gospel that it becomes possible for us to suppose that in it he was giving expression solely to his own personal view.
A date later than that of the gospel is very strongly suggested by the only passage which directly indicates any time relation at all, namely 2:12-14. The three things of which the writer here begins by saying, I write them unto you, he repeats with the words, I have written unto you. Here he seems to be referring to the gospel. If in doing so he identifies himself with the author of the gospel, we must not judge of the fact otherwise than we do when we find the evangelist writing in the name of the apostle ; fiction of this kind was regarded as perfectly permissible (41 c). As to the bearing of this question of date upon the question of attestation, see 47. External evidence does not forbid the supposition that the first epistle was written after the gospel (and that in turn after 132), provided that the epistle was written not later than about 140.
61. Character of polemic of epistle.[edit]
What the author seeks to establish against the false teachers is, viewed in one aspect, the creed of the church. Everyone who does not hold it passes with him for Antichrist. On this he is decided - indeed, stern. Only, as a gnostic he is far too much imbued with a feeling of the necessity for working on the convictions of his readers to be able to avoid attempting to make plain from the evidence of the facts themselves the truth of his theses. This, however, he does not by any means attempt in the form of proofs properly so called ; rather does he express his convic tion in a simple propositional manner, in the confident expectation that it will make an impression by its own inherent force. As compared with the other NT writers who engage in polemic against false teachers, and especially the authors of the Pastoral Epistles, the Epistle of Jude, and the second Epistle of Peter nor even to the exclusion of Paul he must be credited with a high degree of moderation in his polemic, and avoidance of personalities in speaking of his opponents. Moreover, alongside of the church creed on which he lays weight, he also elaborates a practical Christianity. But here we reach a point at which the gospel and the epistle can be considered together.
62. Permanent value of gospel and first epistle.[edit]
If the worth of the Fourth Gospel does not lie in the accuracy of its separate details regarding the life of Jesus, nor yet in the character of the total picture it presents, it is the more to be found in the ideas by which in common with the epistle it is dominated.
(a) Both writings rendered an extraordinary service to their time by absorbing into Christianity, as they did, every element in the great spiritual tendencies of the age that was capable of being assimilated, and thus disarming their possible antagonism. While the oldest Christianity might seem to be a religion for the uncultured merely, the Johannine theology made it possible for educated persons also to attach themselves to it without renouncing the rest of their spiritual heritage. If the Jesus of literal history might seem to an educated Gentile merely as an individual member of the despised Jewish race, the impression must neces sarily have been very different when, as now, he was presented as the Logos of God, as the world-principle which had existed long before Judaism came into being, and even upon earth was far exalted above everything Jewish. If Paul with deliberate intention had proclaimed the Gospel to be to the Gentiles foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23), the Johannine theology took account of the strivings of Gnosticism after knowledge and brought this into its own service. That between God and the world there is fixed a great gulf which strictly speaking cannot be bridged over, it frankly recognised, in order in the next place to provide a bridge in the Logos-idea itself bor rowed from the Greek philosophy and, in doing so, at the same time to avoid the separation (so dangerous to the existence of the Christian Church) of mankind into two eternally distinct classes. It also even pre pared the way for Montanism, at least in so far as it recognised the coming of the Holy Spirit to mankind as the greatest thing of all.
(b) Of supreme value, not only for that age but for all time, is the full assurance of its faith in the truth of Christianity (4:14, 8:31-32, 8:51, 16:33, 1 Jn. 5:4). The idea of God is apprehended with a depth that is nowhere approached elsewhere in the NT. A philosopher may dispute the propositions both that God is spirit and that God is love (Jn. 4:21-24, 1 Jn. 48:16), but he cannot surpass them in simplicity of scientific expression. The first basis of the religious life, the feeling of dependence, cannot be expressed with greater depth than in the gospel (3:27), the essence of sin with greater depth than in 1 Jn. 18:10, 2:9, prayer with greater depth than when it is represented as an asking in the name of Jesus (15:16), which again in turn cannot be better ex pounded than it is in 1 Jn. 5:14 as an asking according to God s will. All objections based upon pernicious results which might be supposed to follow from the prominence given to knowledge are disarmed at the outset by the declaration, 1 Jn. 2:3, that the verification of knowledge lies in the keeping, of the commandments of God. Truth is not only seen ; it is done (Jn. 3:21 1 Jn. 1:6) ; and this doing of the truth is again made equivalent to the doing of righteousness ( 1 Jn. 2:29). Any one-sidedness of mere intellectualism is guarded against from the outset by the depth of the mysticism which comes to its fairest expression in the Johannine theology (14:23, 15:4-7, 17:23), without, however, leading to any vague idea that man must be absorbed in the divine essence. If we discern in Christ not only the historical individual but also at the same time that summing-up of all that is divine which the author of the gospel saw in his individuality, in a word, the ideal of a child of God, then, in spite of all that criticism has to say in the exercise of its own proper functions, we can still echo with full conviction the words in which the author has expressed his unique appreciation of Jesus, as in 15:5, 14:6, 3:36, or 6:63-64.
(c) The spiritualisation of the concrete conceptions of primitive Christianity has led to ideas such as it would be impossible to express in a more modern way. The person who finds himself no longer able to believe that the redemptive significance of Jesus lies only in the fact of his death finds the opposite view according to which his work of redemption was achieved by his message and only confirmed by his death already laid down for him in the prologue to the gospel 1:9-13 and also in 8:12, 17:4-8, etc.
So far as this is concerned, the gospel, in virtue, so to say, of the principle that extremes meet, even comes round again to the original historical point of view such as we find it in the synoptists. Paul had transferred the redeeming significance of Jesus from his life to his death. But at the same time he had also thought of him as pre-existent. When John developed this latter thought into the Logos -idea he was compelled by the nature of it to place the redeeming work wrought by Jesus not any longer in his death, which for the Logos would only mean a return to his previous condition, and thus have value only for himself and not for mankind ; he had therefore to seek it in the revealing work of Jesus, and this work Jesus could perform upon earth only by declaration of his peculiar message. Any one who finds himself unable to accept the dogma of the Trinity here finds that which can justify him in his attitude in the declaration (7:39) that the Holy Spirit had no existence before the exaltation of Christ, being in fact according to 2 Cor. 3:17 identical with the exalted Christ ( 26 c). Any one who finds himself unable to be lieve that Jesus needed to legitimise his claims by means of miracle has only to take his stand on 2029, Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed. Any one who finds himself no longer able to think of the second coming of Christ as destined to happen in bodily form finds opened for him in 14:16-18 the way by which he may think of it as spiritual. Any one who finds himself unable to think of a bodily resurrec tion and a final judgment once for all on the last day has only to take his stand on 11:26, 5:24. Any one who finds himself unable to regard the value of the sacra ment of the Eucharist as an absolute one has on his side the express utterance of Jesus (6:63): it is the spirit that maketh alive ; the flesh profiteth nothing, a principle which Paul in 2 Cor. 36 had made use of with reference to the OT religion, but not as yet with refer ence to any of the positive institutions of Christianity. Indeed this fundamental principle, taken along with 13 15 and 3:34b, is in itself a sufficient counteractive against any one-sided or exaggerated exaltation of the figure of Christ as pourtrayed in John. On the other hand, the Johannine theology can claim the most unreserved and absolute acceptance for the highest which it has to offer, the place which it assigns to love. This is the central idea of the first epistle (2:7-8, 3:23, 4:7-21), and equally central is the saying in the gospel in 13:34/1, 15:12. It has indeed been the achievement of Christ to bring this new commandment of love into the world and to give the world his own example in this (1815) even if the foot-washing never occurred in a literal sense.
E. SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES[edit]
63. Address.[edit]
The 'elect lady' (e/cXeKTTj Kvpia) in 2 Jn. 1 is, especially in view of v. 13 and of the change between 'thy children' and 'thee' in 4-5, a church. It is designated as 'lady perhaps because (Eph. 5:31-32. ) of the marriage relation with Christ the lord (KVPLOS) ; the predicate elect together (ffweic-Xe/cTij), only with the substantive church (fKK\7)ffia) understood, is applied also to the church in Babylon in 1 Pet. 5:13. This interpretation of lady (Kvpia) becomes quite obvious if 3 Jn. 9 refers back to the second letter, which is not improbable. Now, in 2 Jn. 13 the church ad dressed is greeted by a sister church. This sister church is, we may be sure, that to which the writer belongs. The church addressed need not, however, on this account be also an individual church ; there is a possibility that any church whatever may be intended. In this case the second epistle, though individual in form, will be in reality as catholic as the first.
The case of the third epistle is different. Gaius is an individual, and neither can Diotrephes and Demetrius (vv. 9:12) be divested of their individual character. One Gaius is named in Acts 19:29, a second in 20:4, a third in 1 Cor. 1:14, Rom. 16:23. The last-named has affinity with the Gaius of this epistle in so far as hospi tality is predicated of both. That the two are identical there is nothing further to show. We may perhaps rather assume the name to have been chosen in order to recall the other hospitable Gaius.
64. Purpose.[edit]
If we direct our attention to what is most distinctively peculiar to the two epistles we shall have to say that their purpose, first and foremost, had reference to church-polity. The new thing in the second epistle is not a theoretical refutation of false teachers but the exhortation (v. 10-11. ) not to receive such persons under one s roof and not even to salute them. Although this does not refer to the case of persons living in the same place, but only to that of passing travellers, it in any case represents an effectual step in the direction of the exclusion from church fellow ship of these adversaries who in v. 9 are designated as progressives (6 wpodyuv), in v. 7 as docetics.
The stringency with which this is demanded seems to find its explanation in 3 Jn. 9-11, according to which Diotrephes, an opponent of the writer, refuses to receive not only his letters but also the brethren who adhere to him, and expels from his own community those members who are willing to receive these i brethren. At the same time it is perfectly plain that the cause of this reciprocal excommunication is in the third epistle differ ent from what it is in the second. In the third there is no word of false doctrine ; but great emphasis is laid upon the personal ambition of the adversary and upon the claim on the part of the writer to unconditional authority. The fact that travelling brethren are spoken of in both letters ought not to be allowed to disguise this difference. Now the directly expressed purpose of the third epistle is that Gaius should give a friendly reception to the adherents of the writer on their travels. As Demetrius is mentioned immediately before the close of the epistle, and a good testimony is expressly given with regard to him, he has been regarded as the bearer of the epistle, which thus was at the same time a letter of introduction (cp Rom. 16:1-2). The interesting hypothesis, as to an important turning- point in the history of the most ancient form of ecclesiastical or ganisation, which Harnack ( Texte u. Untersuch. 15 3, 97) has connected with the the third epistle, will on account of its wide scope be most conveniently considered under MINISTRY (?.r.).
In this place, on the other hand, a word is still de manded by the second purpose which, over and above that of church -polity, underlies at least the second epistle. This epistle combines with its polemic against false teachers a recommendation of the ideas of the gospel and of the first epistle, and in this respect stands on the same level with the first epistle itself, whether it be that the second epistle is later than the first and the gospel, or whether it be that it preceded them. If the second epistle preceded, the second (and also the third epistle, in case it was contemporary with the second) would be a first attempt at giving literary cur rency to those ideas under the name of a known church authority ; the gospel would then exemplify a further step in that it claimed to be by a still higher authority, namely the son of Zebedee.
65. Authors, and dates.[edit]
In the second epistle the coincidence in language with the gospel and the first epistle is fairly strong ; in the third it is confined to a few expressions in vv. 3-4, 6, 11-12. The contents fall in profundity far behind both the larger writings. For neither of the two smaller writings can we assert more than that they move in the same spiritual sphere with the larger.
In both the author calls himself the Elder (6 irpeff- /3irre/)os). By this expression the authorship of an apostle is as good as excluded, unless it so happened that within the circle of his followers he had borne this name as one of special distinction. This, however, according to 7 a, holds good rather of John the Elder, who is distinct from the apostle. The Elder seems to many to be expressly shown by the designation to have been the author. He was, however, a chief authority with Papias, and Papias was strongly inclined to chiliasm ; but of chiliasm we find no trace in the epistles before us. The Elder might indeed be the designation of a person quite unknown to us, if only it was understood in the circle of the recipients who was meant by it. If, however, we are right in hold ing that at least the second epistle is for the entire church, then the designation of the writer will also be intended for it, in other words it will denote the famous Elder - not indeed in the sense of his being the actual author, but in that of his being the author in whose name it was to run.
That both epistles are from the same hand need not be doubted, yet neither is it absolutely certain. If we must suppose from the outset, on account of the other Johannine writings, that there was a whole group of men who laboured in one and the same spirit, then there can always have been two different members of the group to whom we are indebted for these two writings which do not absolutely coincide either in language or in intention. The reference back from 3 Jn. 9 to the second epistle is by no means a conclusive proof of unity of authorship, nor yet are the limited number of expressions in which^ both agree, such as walking in truth (Trepi.wa.Tfiv ev tiArjSeia), 2 Jn. 4, 3 Jn. 3-4, or love and truth in 2 Jn. 3, 3 Jn. 1.
It will be seen from what has already been said how difficult it is to say almost anything as to the date of composition. The answer to the question depends on the hypotheses adopted as to purpose and author. The external attestation for the second epistle and still more for the third is much weaker than for the first. Even though this is intelligible enough in view of their brevity and of their designation of their author as Elder, it yet permits any view which may be required by the hypotheses mentioned above, especially the view which relegates them to a date appreciably later than the first. Ludemann (JPT, 1879, PP- 565-576) has even sought to establish a probability that the two minor epistles, which he assigns to a date earlier than that of the first epistle or of the gospel, presuppose the work of Papias and subserve the intention of substituting a different picture of John for that drawn by Papias.
We may conclude, then, by pointing out briefly that the first half of the second century suits all the references to the condi tions of a later time (less precisely determinate) which we have found in the second and third epistles and in the gospel. In the second and third epistles the most important trace of this kind js the excommunication of one another by Christians and the rise of a hierarchy. In the gospel we have, corresponding to this, on the one hand, the idea of the unity of the church (here expressed quite ideally, without any hierarchical flavour : 10:16, 17 11:12-23 etc -)j on the other hand, the expulsion of Christians from the synagogue, which Barcochba carried out. The assigning of this in 9:22 to the lifetime of Jesus is certainly not historical (see GOSPELS, 136). It is significant that 162 announces it for a future time. The same period fits also the tendency to detach the responsiblity for the condemnation of Jesus as much as possible from the Roman government and to roll it on to the Jews, a tendency even more marked in Jn. 18:26- 19:16 than in the synoptics (cp GOSPELS, 108). Jesus acknow ledges himself not as Messiah of the Jews, but as King of Truth ; politically, therefore this is the political aspect of the narrative Christianity is not dangerous.
66. Literature.[edit]
Of conservative works on the Johannine question that of Luthardt (Der joh. Urspr. des 4. Ev., 74 ; ET by C. R. Gregory, St. John the author of the Fourth Gospel, 75> with copious bibliography) deserves special mention ; of mediating works, that of Beyschlag (Die Joh. Frage, 76, previously in St. Kr. 74 f.). The most important critical works are : Bret-schneider, Probabilia, 20 ; Baur, Tubinger theolog. Jahrbb. 44, 1-191, 397-475, 615-700, and Die kanonischcn Evangelien, 47 ; Hilgenfeld, Das Ev. u. die Briefe Johannis, 49, and Die ungen iiber das Joh.-Ev, 84 ; Oscar Holtzmann, Joh.-Eva.ng:, 87. Baldensperger, Prolog des 4. Evang., 98 (regards polemic and apologetic against the sect of the Disciples of John as the aim of almost the whole gospel). Too late to be used in the above article appeared Kreyenbiihl, Das Evangelium der Wahrheit, \. (1900). The Johannine question enters here quite a new stage. Kreyenbiihl regards the Fourth Gospel as a Gnostic work, and seeks to ascribe it to Menander of Antioch, a pupil of Simon Magus.
[The English literature on the subject is mainly conservative ; see, especially, Sanday, Authorship and Hist. Char. of Fourth Gosp. ('72); The Gospels in the Second Cent. ('76); Salmon Hist. Introd. to NT ('85) ; Watkins, Mod. C d . considered in Rel. to Fourth Gospel ( 90) ; Gloag, Introd. to Joh. Writings ( 91); Lightfopt, Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion (orig. in Cont. Rev. 74- 77) and on the Internal Evidence for the Authenticity and Genuineness of St. John's Gospel' in the Erpositor (Jan. Feh. 1889); T. B. Strong, art; 'John' in Hastings, DB, 2 ; Reynolds, art. 'John, Gospel of, ib. ; Salmond, 'John, Epistles of,' ib. ; also the comm. of Westcott, Gosp. of St. John, in Speaker's Commentary, and Epp. of St. John, 3rd ed. ( 85) and Plummer, St. John s Gospel aiid Epistles ( 96). The critical view is represented by J. J. Tayler, An Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel, especially in its relation to the first three ( 67) ; by the anony mous author of Supernatural Religion : an Enquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation (vol. ii., 74)1 by E. A. Abbott, art. Gospels in Ency. Brit. ( 79 ! see a so GOSPELS, above, 8-107) i a "d by B. \V. Bacon, Introd. to NT (1900), pp. 230- 2 79-l P. W. S.
(0"$*i Yah knows ; an abbreviation of rT liV : see JEHOIADA).
1. (AV JEHOIADA) b. Paseah, in list of wall -builders (see NEHEMIAH, \f. ; EZRA ii., 16 [i], 15 [i (</)]), Neh. 36 (iociaa [B], IMOi <fa [X], toeiSa [A], iu)ae [L]).
2. Son of Eliashib the high priest, in pedigree of Jaddua (EZRA ii., 6ff) , contemporary with Nehemiah ; Neh. l 2iof. (ituSa, [B and in v. n N 1 *], icoiae [R], uaa&a [A], lunaSa [L]), 22 (iwaSa [BM*A]), 13z8 (tcoaSa [BX], tuuaSa [AL]).
(D pT, cp JEHOIAKIM), ben Jeshua ; high priest ; Neh. 12 10 12 26(ioo6.K6IM [BNAL]).
(TT V; icopeiB [BN=-> vid.], , W |*p[ e ]iB
1. Neh. 11 10 (twpi/3 [A]) 126 (BX*A om.) 12ig (BX*A om. iwapi/3 [Kc.a m. inf.]). See JEHOIARIB.
2. A Judahite, temp. Nehemiah (Neh. lls, i<">pi. [***])
(DlTfi^. lApeiKAM [B], leKAA&M [A], I6KN- [L]), in the hill-country of Judah, mentioned with Juttah and Jezreel (Josh. 15s6f). The name is probably a corruption of JORKEAM, a clan-name or place-name in i Ch. 244, belonging to the SW. of Hebron, and to be identified with REKEM. The place intended by Jorkeam and Rekem is probably the Judahite CARMEL (Vcro), and the common original of all these forms is probably Jerahmeel (^Nam ). The Jerahmeelites did not confine themselves to the Negeb. See JERAHMEEL, 4. T. K. c.
(D pV, 31), a descendant of SHELAH (i Ch. 422). The name might conceivably be mis-spelt for JEHOIAKIM (so <S liAL , iua.Kei/j.) ; but cp JASHUBI- LEHEM.
(DlJPi^ as if= 'let the [divine] Kinsman arise' ; rather, perhaps, DIJDp*, 'the Kinsman (?) takes vengeance', cp (5), a Levitical city in Ephraim (i Ch. 668 [53], IKA&M [B], I6KM&AN [A], -M [L]), mentioned with Shechem, Gezer, and Beth-horon. In the parallel list of Levitical cities in Josh. 21, KIBZAIM is the name given (v. 22, /ca/Jcraet/u. [A], om. B, Kaftaefj. [L]). This form, however, seems to be an old corrup tion of Jokmeam (D S2p from DJ/Dp[ ])- Jokmeam is also mentioned in i K. 4 12 (\OVKO,/J. [B ; S precedes], e /j.aai> [A], ovKa/jL [L]), but the reading rendered as far as beyond Jokmeam (so RV, and similarly the Geneva Bible, but AV, by a printer s error, substitutes Jok- neam ) is probably corrupt ; substitute as far as the ford of Meholah (nViDD 13J7D ij/). See ZARETHAN.