Chapter III: Part 3

Now I am not for a moment going to disparage this display of learning. It is very clever; it is very scholarly: in the state of knowledge when it was written it was at least very excusable in its statements. Altogether it was as brilliant a piece of criticism as one would wish to see. To this day the objections read quite formidably. And yet the inference drawn from them is pretty certainly wrong; indeed the whole array is little more than an impressive bugbear.

* * * * *

With such warnings from the past before our eyes, I think we should be inclined to scrutinize rather closely arguments of a like kind when they meet us in the course of our present investigation.

iii. Examples of Mistaken Method as applied to the Fourth Gospel.

At this point we may go back to Harnack’s Preface. And here I cannot help expressing my regret that it has not had more of the influence that it deserved to have, both in the country of its author and elsewhere. I am even tempted to go a little further, and express my regret that it has not had more influence upon the author himself. I will henceforward confine myself more strictly to the Fourth Gospel. And it seems to me that, in his incidental treatment of this, Harnack has more than once forgotten his own precepts.

He expends endless ingenuity in trying to prove that there was a confusion, in the minds of the Christian writers of the second century, between the Apostle St. John and a certain ‘Presbyter’ of the same name, who really lived, as the Apostle was supposed to have lived, at Ephesus in the Roman province of Asia. An important difficulty in the way of this proof is the explicit testimony of Irenaeus. To meet this difficulty, the attempt is made to show that Irenaeus derived all his knowledge, or supposed knowledge, about St. John and his surroundings from two sources, a very brief intercourse in early youth with Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and the book of Papias, called _Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord_. It is like Nero wishing that Rome had one neck, in order that it might be cut at a single stroke. By reducing the channels through which Irenaeus received his knowledge to these two, it became more possible that if they happened in any way to lend themselves to the confusion, that confusion should really take hold of his mind and express itself in his writings. The learning and ingenuity and skill displayed are admirable. But how futile, from the very first, to suppose that all the information Irenaeus possessed about the greatest leader of the Church of his own home came only through these two channels and no others; indeed, that he was like the princess in the fairy tale, shut up in a tower and cut off from all communication with the outer world. We know that two at least of his companions in the Gallic churches of Vienne and Lyons came from the same region as himself. It is commonly supposed that these churches had as a nucleus a little colony from Asia Minor. In his Fourth Book Irenaeus often refers to a certain Presbyter, whom Harnack rightly shows to have been not a direct hearer of the Apostles, but at one degree removed from them, a disciple of those who had heard from the Apostles. It is natural, with Lightfoot, to identify this Presbyter with Pothinus, Irenaeus’ own predecessor in his see, who had passed the age of ninety when he died in the persecution of the year 177. In any case, Pothinus must have been a store-house of traditions and memories, to which Irenaeus would have constant access. We know also that after the persecution Irenaeus was in Rome; and there is some reason to think that he had resided there more than twenty years before[23]. This was another great centre with which he was familiar, and to which news and traditions of the past came streaming in from every quarter of the Christian world. And yet we are asked to believe that Irenaeus was the victim of a confusion that in any number of ways might have been corrected. As Dr. Drummond well says, ‘Critics speak of Irenaeus as though he had fallen out of the moon, paid two or three visits to Polycarp’s lecture-room, and never known any one else. In fact, he must have known all sorts of men, of all ages, both in the East and the West, and among others his venerable predecessor Pothinus, who was upwards of ninety at the time of his death. He must have had numerous links with the early part of the century[24].’

Again the same writer says:

‘The testimonies of Irenaeus, of Polycrates, and of Clement are
those on which we must mainly rely. In judging of the collective
force of the evidence, we must not forget that the second century
was a literary age. The churches freely communicated with one
another by letters, and there was an abundant theological literature
of which only a few fragments have survived. I see no reason why the
churches of Asia should not have had as well-grounded a certainty
that John had been once among them as we have that Goldsmith was
once in London[25].’

To deal with all this body of evidence as Harnack deals with it is very like ‘arguing on the strength of a few particulars in the face of clear and decisive indications[26].’

Here is another instance of the very thing that Harnack himself complained of. He has made up his mind that chap. xxi of the Gospel could not have been written until after the death of the author. But in ver. 24 the editors of the Gospel say expressly that the Apostle who figures so conspicuously in it was the author of the whole book (‘this is the disciple who beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things’). This, according to Harnack, only convicts them of a deliberate untruth, contradicted by the verses immediately preceding. If we must needs accuse the unfortunate editors of falsification, we might at least give them credit for the sense to take care that their falsehood was not exposed by their own words, and almost (as it were) in the same breath. But the fact is that the premiss, from which Harnack argues, is purely gratuitous, as I hope to show in the next lecture.

Perhaps it is the same persons, the editors of the Gospel—in any case it is the Presbyters who were closely connected with them—who are charged with another piece of dishonesty. Harnack sees that mere accident will not account for the supposed confusion of John the Presbyter with John the Apostle. He therefore does not shrink from imputing deliberate fraud.

‘The legend _purposely set on foot_ that the author of the Gospel
was the son of Zebedee, &c.[27]’

‘But Papias, through the oral traditions about which he took so much
trouble, already stood under the influence of Presbyters, of whom
some _perhaps purposely_ started the legend that the Presbyter John
was the Apostle[28].’

‘The John who had the encounter with Cerinthus, after what has been
said can only be the Presbyter. But in the confusion, “the
unconscious” alone can hardly have been involved.’

The dishonesty went beyond the confusion of the two persons. It is also seen in the definite ascription of the Gospel to the Apostle.

‘The twenty-fourth verse of the twenty-first chapter of the Fourth
Gospel, about which we have spoken, will always remain a strong
indication of the fact that in Ephesus the Fourth Gospel was
deliberately put out after the death of its author as a work of the
Apostle, and so that the Apostle and the Presbyter were deliberately
identified, as Philip the Evangelist was made to change places with
Philip the Apostle[29].’

_Facilis descensus._ When once we begin imputing fraudulent actions we may very easily find that we have to go on doing so. It should, however, be remembered that the ground for all this is no assured fact, but only the exigencies of a complicated theory which, quite apart from this, has a load of improbability to contend with.

* * * * *

I will give one further example of a different kind. The tendency of the criticism that has been, and still is largely in vogue, is to give what seems to me quite undue weight to the exceptional, the abnormal, the eccentric, as compared with that which is normal and regular.

In the controversy over the Fourth Gospel one of the questions has been as to the exact degree of importance to be attached to the so-called Alogi, who, about the third quarter of the second century, denied St. John’s authorship of the writings attributed to him, including the Gospel, and by a piece of sheer bravado ascribed it to the heretic Cerinthus.

Harnack’s account of this—coterie perhaps rather than sect—is just. ‘The attack did not spread; it was soon defeated; but the memory of it lingered on, and the policy of the Church, auspiciously begun by Irenaeus, came to be that of teaching the absolute equality in rank and value of the four component parts of the Gospel[30].’ But the point to which I wish to call attention is that the Church writers did not allow the existence of these Alogi to prevent them from classing the Gospel among the Homologoumena, or books about the canonicity of which all Christians were agreed. Eusebius uses strong language. He says that both the Gospel and the First Epistle were accepted without dispute by his own contemporaries as well as by the ancients (_H. E._ iii. 24. 17). And, if it is said that Eusebius was writing a century and a half after the Alogi, when that little side-eddy of opinion had subsided and been forgotten, it is not Eusebius alone who ignores their existence in this manner. Irenaeus is one of those who certainly knew about them; and yet he regards the Four Gospels, our present four, as a sort of divine institution, deeply implanted in the nature of things, directly presided over and inspired by Christ the Word (_adv. Haer._ iii. 11. 9). A little later Clement of Alexandria speaks of the same Four Gospels as specially handed down among Christians (_Strom._ iii. 13. 93). And, again, a little later Origen describes them as ‘alone unquestioned in the Church of God under heaven’ (Eus. _H. E._ vi. 25. 4). Still earlier, a contemporary of the Alogi, Tatian, gave effect to the same belief by composing his Diatessaron. And the Muratorian Fragment also endorses it.

This striking unanimity from all parts of the Christian world serves to reduce the Alogi to their right dimensions. The reason why they have bulked rather larger than they should do is, I believe, because they wielded the pen. It will be remembered that Dr. Salmon was for reducing them to the single person of Caius of Rome. Schwartz also argues that not more than a single writer _may_ be meant. He thinks that in any case Epiphanius had a book before him[31]. The Alogi were in any case a very ephemeral phenomenon, chiefly significant in the history of the Canon, as marking the slight element of resistance to the establishment of the group of Four Gospels.

II. The Oldest Solution of the Problem of the Fourth Gospel.

You will think perhaps that I have been a long time in approaching the direct treatment of the Fourth Gospel. It is quite true that I have thought well to begin the approach from a distance, as it were by sap and trench, before planting my guns—such as they are. I have indeed the ambition in this course of lectures not only to state a case in regard to the Fourth Gospel, but also at the same time to contribute, if I may, to the work so admirably initiated by Dr. Drummond, of commending by the way what I conceive to be sound principles of criticism, as contrasted with others which I consider unsound. It happens that a discussion of the Fourth Gospel specially lends itself to this purpose.

In accordance with what I have been saying, you will not expect of me any new and startling theory to account for the phenomena of the Fourth Gospel. I am content to go back to the oldest categorical statement in respect to it that history has handed down to us. It seems to me that this statement, plain and direct as it is, really gives an adequate explanation, if not exactly of everything, yet at least of all the salient points that need explaining.

Eusebius (_H. E._ vi. 14. 7) has preserved for us the substance of a passage from the _Hypotyposes_, or _Outlines_, of Clement of Alexandria, which he says that Clement derived from the ‘early Presbyters’ (παράδοσιν τῶν ἀνέκαθεν πρεσβυτέρων), and which dealt among other things with the order of the Gospels. After speaking of the other Evangelists, he says that ‘last of all John perceiving that the bodily (or external) facts had been set forth in the (other) Gospels, at the instance of his disciples and with the inspiration of the Spirit composed a spiritual Gospel.’

A very similar tradition had been given by Eusebius in an earlier book (iii. 24). He heads the chapter, ‘On the Order of the Gospels,’ and in the course of it he writes as follows:

‘Nevertheless, of all the disciples of the Lord, only Matthew and
John have left us written memoirs, and they are reported (κατέχει
λόγος[32]) to have been led to write under pressure of necessity.
Matthew, having previously preached to the Hebrews, when he was
about to go to other peoples, committed to writing the Gospel that
bears his name in his native tongue, and so by the written book
compensated those whom he was leaving for the loss of his presence.
And when Mark and Luke had by that time published their Gospels,
they say that John, having before spent all his time in oral
preaching, at last came also to write for some such reason as this.
The three Gospels first written having been by this distributed
everywhere, and having come into his hands, they say that he
accepted them, bearing witness to their truth, but (adding) that
there was only wanting to their record the narrative of what was
done by Christ at first and at the beginning of His preaching.’

At this point Eusebius digresses to show that what was said was true. The first three Evangelists began the main body of their narrative after John the Baptist was cast into prison; but St. John expressly tells us that, at the time of the events related in his early chapters, John was not yet in prison. Any one attending to this, Eusebius said, would no longer suppose that the Gospels were at variance with each other, and would see that John had reason for being silent as to the genealogy of our Saviour’s human descent, as this had been already written by Matthew and Luke, and for beginning with His divinity, as though this had been reserved by the Holy Ghost for him as one greater than they. These last are the words of Eusebius, who is very probably influenced by his recollection of the language of Clement. Unfortunately we cannot locate the rest of the tradition. It would be only a guess to suppose that it came from Hippolytus, at the time of his controversy with Caius. But in any case there is a good deal of evidence to show that the opening sections of the Gospels were being much canvassed towards the end of the second and at the beginning of the third century. The passage is in general agreement with Clement, and avoids his mistake in saying that the two Gospels containing the genealogies were the first to be written. Really Clement alone has all the essential points, which are these:

1. The Gospel is the work of St. John the Apostle—for there is no
doubt that he is intended.

2. It was written towards the end of his life, after the publication
of the other three.

3. The three Gospels were in the hands of the Apostle, and he had
read and up to a certain point approved of them.

4. What he himself undertook to write was a Gospel, not a biography;
the difference is important.

5. In contrast with the other Gospels it was recognized as being in
a special sense ‘a spiritual Gospel.’

I believe that these data will enable us to understand all the facts, both those which are more favourable to the Gospel and those which are in a sense less favourable.

1. The best of reasons is given for all those marks of an eye-witness which we shall see to be present in great number and strength. They point to a first-hand relation between the author and the facts which he records. If the Gospel is not the work of an eye-witness, then the writer has made a very sustained and extraordinary effort to give the impression that he was one.

2. By throwing the Gospel to the end of the Apostle’s life, a considerable interval is placed between the events and the date of its composition. That means that the facts will have passed through a medium. Unconsciously the mind in which they lay will have brought its own experience to bear upon them; it will have a tendency to mix up the plain statement of what was said and done with an element of interpretation suggested by its own experience. And this will be done in a way that we should call ‘naïve,’ i. e. without any conscious self-analysis. The mingling of objective and subjective will take place spontaneously and without reflection. The details will not be given out exactly as they went in; and yet the writer will not be himself aware that he is setting down anything but what he heard and saw.

3. The relation of the Fourth Gospel to its predecessors accurately corresponds to that described in the tradition. On the one hand their contents are very largely assumed; and on the other hand the author does not hesitate, where he thinks it necessary, to correct them. The relation is easy and natural; it at once accounts for the selection of the incidents narrated. The author evidently felt himself at liberty to select just those incidents which suited his purpose.

4. And that purpose, it is important to remember, was not by any means purely historical. The author was writing a Gospel, not a biography in the modern sense of the word. His object was definitely religious, and not literary. He tells us in set terms what he proposed to do: ‘These things are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name.’ He did not really aim at a complete narrative of external events or an exhaustive study of a complex human character. He aimed at producing faith; and he sought to produce it by describing at length a few significant incidents, taken out of a much larger whole.

5. The previous writings that came into his hands were also Gospels; and they too were intended to produce faith. But in this direction the author of the Fourth Gospel felt that something more remained to be done. Christendom had its Gospels, but not as yet exactly ‘a spiritual Gospel.’ A ‘spiritual Gospel’ meant one that sought to bring out the divine side of its subject. When St. Paul at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans draws an antithesis between the Son of David ‘according to the flesh’ and the Son of God ‘according to the spirit of holiness,’ he is anticipating exactly this later contrast between the Gospels of the bodily life and of the spirit. ‘Spiritual’ means ‘indwelt by the Spirit of God.’ And it was that side of the life of Christ in which the Spirit of God was seen living and working in Him that the fourth evangelist undertook specially to describe.

If, then, it is objected that the Gospel is onesided, that it gives undue prominence to this divine side, we begin by asking what is meant by undue, what standard of measurement marks it as undue. Obviously the standard is that which we have just dismissed as altogether beside the mark, the standard of the modern biography. The Gospel does not in the least profess to do what the modern biographer does; but what the writer does profess to do, he was perfectly within his right in doing. He desired to set forth Christ as Divine. If that is to be onesided, of course he is onesided. Clement tells us why he did it. It was because he thought that the physical and external side, the human side of his subject, had had justice done to it already. In this respect the older Gospels were adequate, and he had no special wish to add to them. The one thing he did feel called upon to add, and that he knew he could add, was a fuller delineation of the divine side. He is not to be blamed for doing the very thing which he proposed.

The paragraph in Clement of Alexandria is stated by him to be derived from ‘the early presbyters.’ They were a good authority; probably, if not altogether identical with the group drawn upon by Papias, yet at least in part identical with it. Papias and Irenaeus on the one hand, and Clement of Alexandria on the other, are just two branches of the same tree, or at least two suckers from the same root. That root is often called the School of St. John. It is from the School of St. John that they ultimately derive their information about St. John. What authority could be better?

It is not possible to say how far the language of Clement comes from the Presbyters, and how far it is his own. The phrase ‘a spiritual Gospel’ may be his own coinage, an early effort of descriptive criticism, putting into words what he felt to be the distinctive characteristic of the Gospel. In any case the phrase is a happy one; it just expresses, in the briefest compass, that which really most differentiates the Fourth Gospel from the other three.

Footnote 22:

_Ignatius_, i. 405.

Footnote 23:

See the story in the Moscow MS. of the _Martyrium Polycarpi_
(Lightfoot, _Ignatius_, iii. 402), which professes to be taken from
‘the writings of Irenaeus.’

Footnote 24:

_Character and Authorship_, p. 348.

Footnote 25:

_Ibid._ p. 213.

Footnote 26:

_Chronologie_, p. ix.

Footnote 27:

_Ibid._ p. 678.

Footnote 28:

_Chronologie_, p. 679.

Footnote 29:

_Ibid._, p. 680.

Footnote 30:

_Chronologie_, p. 695.

Footnote 31:

_Ueber d. Tod_, &c., p. 31.

Footnote 32:

On this phrase see Hort, _Judaistic Christianity_, pp. 170-3.

LECTURE III
THE STANDPOINT OF THE AUTHOR

I. The Gospel is put forward as the Work of an Eye-witness.

There are a number of passages in the Gospel and First Epistle of St. John which go to show that the author either was, or at least intended to give the impression that he was, an eye-witness of the Life of Christ. We will leave it an open question for the present which of these two alternatives we are to choose. And we will begin by collecting the passages, and justifying the description that has just been given of them.

The passages fall into groups; the first small but important, the others larger but, except in a few cases, more indefinite.

On the principles of criticism on which we are going, we shall assume that the Gospel and First Epistle that bear the name of St. John are by the same author, and that, so far as the authorship is concerned, what holds good for the one will hold good also for the other. The proof is not absolutely stringent. Identity of style, and close resemblance of ideas, are compatible with duality of authorship, because one writer may imitate another. But in practice, unless the reasons for laying stress upon it are strong and clear, a refinement like this may be left out of account. Of course there is the distinction which Bacon noted between the minds that are quick to observe resemblances and those that are quick to observe differences. This question of the relation of the Gospel of St. John to the First Epistle is a touchstone by which such minds may be distinguished. I allow that the two works may be assigned to different authors[33]. I allow it in the way in which on most questions, if we attempt a nice enumeration of conditions, there is usually some remote possibility to be allowed for. The quotation from Dr. Drummond on the _De Vita Contemplativa_ that I gave in the last lecture may help us to measure how remote the other possibility is. As a practical person, dealing with these questions on a practical scale, I shall venture to assume that the Gospel and the First Epistle are by the same hand. It is of course open to any one to ignore arguments based on this assumption, if he prefers to do so.

i. Passages which make a direct claim.

I am treading on very familiar ground, but I must ask you to forgive me if I begin by quoting the opening words of the First Epistle:

‘That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that
which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our
hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was
manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you
the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was
manifested unto us); that which we have seen and heard declare we
unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and
our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ:
and these things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled’ (1 John i.
1-3).

The _prima facie_ view of this passage undoubtedly is that the writer is speaking as one of a group of eye-witnesses. But there are two ways in which this inference is turned aside.

1. Harnack[34] and some others take it as referring not to bodily but to mystical vision.

2. Others, again, think of the writer as speaking in the name of a whole generation, or of Christians generally.

In regard to the first of these explanations we note that the word θεᾶσθαι is used twenty-two times in all the New Testament, including the present passage; and in every one of bodily and not of mental or spiritual vision. And whatever sense we may put upon seeing or hearing, it is difficult to explain such a strong expression as ‘that which ... our hands have handled,’ where the writer seems to go out of his way to exclude any ambiguity, in any other sense than of physical handling.

In regard to the second explanation we observe that there is a contrast between ‘we’ and ‘you,’ between teachers and taught. The teachers are in any case a small body; and they seem to rest their authority, or at least the impulse to teach, on the desire to communicate to others what they had themselves experienced. I have therefore little doubt that the _prima facie_ view of the passage is the right one. The writer speaks of himself as a member of a small group, like that of the Apostles, but a group that may include all who had really seen the Lord and who afterwards took up the work of witnessing to Him.

The other passage, John i. 14, is more ambiguous: ‘the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.’ If this had stood alone, it might have seemed an open question whether ‘we beheld’ was not used in a vague sense of Christians generally—or even of the human race, as ‘tabernacled among us’ just before might mean ‘among men.’ But the more specific reference would be more pointed; and it is favoured by the analogy of the passage of which we have just been speaking as well as of those which follow.

In both the above cases the writer is speaking in his own person. This is not quite so clear in xix. 35, where, after describing the lance-thrust and the pierced side, the narrative goes on, ‘And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true: and he (ἐκεῖνος) knoweth that he saith true, that ye also may believe.’ Is the writer by these words objectifying, and as it were looking back upon himself, or is he pointing to some third person unnamed in the background? Both views are antecedently possible. Perhaps the latter is more consistent with the ordinary use of ἐκεῖνος. If we accept it, then I should be inclined to think with Zahn that ἐκεῖνος points to Christ. It would be just a formula of strong asseveration, like ‘God knoweth’ in 2 Cor. xi. 11, 31, &c. There would be a near parallel in 3 John 12, ‘Demetrius hath the witness of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, we also bear witness; and thou knowest that our witness is true.’ This view is the more attractive because it is in keeping with the habit of thought disclosed in the Gospel. As the Son appeals to the witness of the Father, as it were dimly seen in the background, so also it would I think be natural for the beloved disciple to appeal to the Master who is no longer at his side in bodily presence, but who is present with him and with the Church in spirit: ‘he who saw the sight has set it down in writing ... and there is one above who knows that he is telling the truth.’

This is the view that, after giving to it the best consideration I can, I am on the whole inclined to accept. I could not, however, agree that there is anything really untenable in what may be called the common view, that the asseveration is of a lower kind, and that the author is simply turning back upon himself and protesting his own veracity. The use of ἐκεῖνος to take up the subject of a sentence is specially frequent and specially characteristic of this Gospel; and as the author systematically speaks of himself in the third person, it seems to me that the word may also naturally refer to himself so objectified: ‘he who saw the sight has set it down ... and _he_ is well assured that what he says is true.’

In any case, however, I must needs think that the bearing witness is that of the written Gospel, and that the author of the Gospel is the same as he who saw the sight. The identity is, it seems to me, clenched by xxi. 24, to which I shall come back in a moment.

At this point I may be permitted to interject a speculation—shall I call it a pious speculation? it certainly does not profess to be more—as to the origin of the peculiar way the Fourth Evangelist has of referring to himself. The idea can only be entertained by those who think that the writer was really a companion of the Lord, either an Apostle or one very near to the Apostles. Is it not possible that such a one may have been influenced by the way in which the Master referred to Himself? It is characteristic of the Synoptic Christ that He constantly speaks of Himself objectively as ‘the Son of Man.’ May we not suppose that the Evangelist, through long and familiar intercourse, came insensibly and instinctively to adopt for himself a similar method of oblique and allusive reference? It is of course not quite the same thing; but there seems to be enough resemblance for the one usage to suggest the other. The beloved disciple had a special reason for not wishing to obtrude his own personality. He was conscious of a great privilege, of a privilege that would single him out for all time among the children of men. He could not resist the temptation to speak of this privilege. The impulse of affection responding to affection prompted him to claim it. But the consciousness that he was doing so, and the reaction of modesty led him at the same moment to suppress, what a vulgar egotism might have accentuated, the lower plane of his own individuality. The son of Zebedee (if it was he) desired to be merged and lost in ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’

There is nothing in the least unnatural in this; it is a little complex perhaps, but only with the complexity of life, when different motives clash in a fine nature. The delicacy of attitude corresponds to an innate delicacy of mind. When one reads some of the criticisms on this attitude, one is reminded of a sentence in an English classic, Cowper’s indignant remonstrance at Johnson’s treatment of Milton.

‘As a poet, he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked
one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his Muse’s wing,
and trampled them under his great foot[35].’

Samuel Johnson, excellent person as he was, is not the only critic who has had the misfortune to be born (metaphorically, if not physically) with a ‘great foot’ and a heavy hand.

The Gospel closes with a scene in which the writer refers in his usual oblique way to himself. I cannot think that there is any real reason for the assumption, which is so often and so confidently made, that the last chapter is an appendix written after the author was dead. On this point, again, I entirely agree with Dr. Drummond, ‘It is surely conceivable that the aged disciple, feeling death stealing upon him, might point out that no words of Jesus justified the expectation which had arisen among some of his devoted friends[36].’ The complete identity of thought and style, and the way in which this last chapter is dovetailed into the preceding (‘This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples’; compare at the beginning of the Gospel the counting up of the first Galilean miracles, ii. 11, iv. 54), seem to prove that the last chapter is by the same hand as the rest of the Gospel[37].

But at the very end another hand does take up the pen; and this time the writer speaks in the name of a plurality; ‘This is the disciple which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true’ (xxi. 24). The critics who assert that the Gospel is not the work of an eye-witness, and even those who say that the last chapter was not written by the author of the whole, wantonly accuse these last words of untruth. That is another of the methods of modern criticism that seem to me sorely in need of reforming. I hope that a time may come when it will be considered as wrong to libel the dead as it is to libel the living.

I accept, then, this last verse as weighty testimony to the autoptic character of the Gospel. It is easy to see that the two concluding verses are added on the occasion of its publication by those who published it. They, as it were, endorse the witness which it had borne to itself.

ii. Passages in which the impression conveyed is indirect.

We have been through the few salient passages which, in spite of the criticism to which they have been exposed, still proclaim in no uncertain terms the first-hand character of the work to which they belong. I now go on to collect a number of passages which are more indirect in their evidence, and just because of this indirectness have a special value, because the evidence which they afford is unconscious and undesigned. For the present I shall speak only of two groups: first, a series of passages in which the author seems to write as though from the inner circle of the disciples and companions of Jesus; and, secondly, another series in which he refers to the way in which impressions received at the time were corrected or interpreted by subsequent experience and reflection.

The Gospel has not long opened before we begin to receive that subtle impression which is given when one who has himself taken part in a scene reproduces it as history. I know that this kind of effect may be produced by imagination; and I will not assume as yet that it may not be so produced in this instance; I content myself for the present with pointing out that it exists.

When we take the last two paragraphs of the first chapter of the Gospel (i. 35-51), I think we shall feel as though we were being introduced to a little circle of neighbours and acquaintances. Two friends, one of whom is called Andrew, and the other is unnamed, are interested in what they have seen of Jesus and in what the Baptist had said about Him, and they ask leave to join Him. They remain for some hours in His company; and it is clear that their interest is not diminished. Andrew finds his brother Simon, and he too is brought up and introduced. Jesus Himself takes the initiative in inviting a fourth, Philip. We are told expressly that Philip was from the same city as the two before named; and he in turn finds and introduces his friend Nathanael. There is just one of the five whose name is not given. He is the silent spectator in the background. What if it were he to whom we owe the story? In any case there is this little group, all apparently from the same locality, who naturally enough find themselves together, drawn at first by the preacher of repentance, but leaving him to join one greater than he.

We pass over to the next chapter; but that will give us more to say under the next head. There are many points upon which we might pause, but I will pass on to the middle of chap. iii (vers. 22-6). There we have the description of what have now become two groups, the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of John, in near proximity to each other, and with easy intercourse between them. The narrative seems to be written from the standpoint of the disciples. The two principals are in the background, but we follow the events of the day among their _entourage_. There is a little discussion between some of John’s disciples and a stranger (R. V.) about a question naturally connected with baptism. Such a discussion might have interested at the time one who was near at hand and in friendly relation with those who took part in it. But it would be hard to find any other motive that could suggest it to a Christian at the end of the first century.

It is indeed quite possible and perhaps probable that Baldensperger (_Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums, Freiburg_ i. B., 1898) is right in supposing that among the motives present to the mind of the Evangelist was that of marking the subordinate position of the Baptist as compared with the Messiah, to whom he bore witness. We can quite believe that at Ephesus, at the time when the Gospel was written, there still remained some who had only been baptized into the baptism of John, like the disciples mentioned in Acts xix. 1-7. There may be a certain amount of polemical or apologetic reference to such a sect as this. The latter part of chap. iii (‘he must increase, but I must decrease’) may be of this character; but the purely historical statements in vers. 22-6 have in them nothing polemical; they have far more the appearance of personal reminiscences, introduced only because they came back to the memory of the writer. It is a curious fact that the Gospel contains several references to ‘purifying’: e. g. ii. 6 (the waterpots at Cana ‘set there after the Jews’ manner of purifying’), the present passage, iii. 22; the description, in xi. 55, of the Jews going up to purify themselves before the Passover, and the statement (xviii. 28) that the accusers of our Lord did not enter the praetorium ‘that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.’ Nothing is made of these allusions; no argument is based upon them; but they would be very natural if the Evangelist began life as a disciple of the Baptist and had been early interested in such questions.

Turning to the discourse with the woman of Samaria we observe how it is framed as it were in the movements of the disciples: in ver. 8 they go into the city to buy provisions; in ver. 27 they return, and are surprised to find their Master engaged in conversation with a woman—contrary to the practice and maxims of the Rabbis. They are surprised, but they do not venture upon any remonstrance. They had left their Master weary and way-worn, and they find Him refreshed. They do not understand how refreshment of the mind carries with it that of the body; and they speculate as to whether food had not been brought to Him during their absence. This is another scene in which the point of view seems to be that of the disciples, and in which we, as it were, overhear their comments.

It has often been objected that there were no witnesses of the discourse with the woman, and therefore that the narrative of it must be imaginary. It is full of touches, as we shall see presently, which are so appropriate to the circumstances that I find it difficult to think of them as imaginary. But how do we know that there were no witnesses of the discourse? It would certainly be too much to assume that every allusion to the disciples in a body meant of necessity the whole number of the Twelve. We must remember by the way that the Twelve were not yet chosen; but in any case we must expect language to be rough and approximate. If we are really to think of the author of the Gospel as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ we should doubtless be right in assuming that the love was ardently returned. We may think of the Apostle as a youth, only just out of boyhood, and with something of the fidelity of a dog for his master, who does not like to be long out of his sight. ‘_Sicut oculi servorum in manibus dominorum suorum, sicut oculi ancillae in manibus dominae suae_‘: we may picture to ourselves this gentle youth seated a pace or two away, and not wishing to obtrude his presence, but eagerly drinking in all that passed.

In chap. v, the disciples are not prominent; but in chap. vi, before the feeding of the multitude, we have one of those little dialogues which are so characteristic of this Gospel, bringing in two of the disciples who are both mentioned by name (vi. 5-10). At the end of the chapter (vers. 60-71) we are again taken into the midst of the circle of the disciples. We see some perplexed, and some falling away, and an echo reaches us of St. Peter’s confession. At the same time we have a premonitory hint, such as we may be sure that other members of the Twelve recalled after the fact, that one of their number was a traitor.

About chap. vii I shall have occasion to speak later. I will only now point to the discussion with which it begins between Jesus and His brethren (vers. 3-8). This again—if it is not pure invention—is only likely to have been reported by one who was in the closest intimacy, not only with the disciples of Jesus but with His domestic circle. And again we have to ask, what motive there could be for invention. If the Gospel gives examples of belief, and tries to promote belief, it does not on that account suppress examples of unbelief, even among the nearest relations. This episode is St. John’s counterpart to Mark iii. 21: ‘His friends (οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ) ... went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.’

The next occasion on which we are reminded of the intimate personal side of our Lord’s ministry is the story of Lazarus. Here we have two groups, into the interior of which we are allowed some glimpses. The family at Bethany is one, the company of the Twelve is the other. Here once more we see what passed from within. The passage, vers. 7-16, is full of delicate portraiture. We have the remonstrances of the Twelve as a body; moving in a higher plane than these, we have the divine insight which sees what they cannot see, and knows what it will do; and lastly, we have the impulsive, despondent, faithful Thomas—a figure so clearly drawn in the few strokes that are allotted to it—fully recognizing and perhaps exaggerating the dangers, and yet not letting its loyalty yield to them: ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Him.’

Parallel to this description of what passed among the Twelve is the description further on of the interior of the household, the different behaviour of the two sisters and their Jewish sympathizers. If this is not a picture constructed wholly by art, it represents the recollections of one who had himself been present at the events of the day, and who had moved freely to and fro, and very probably talked them over after the day was done.

A natural sequel to this scene is the supper in the same house six days before the Passover. And, as we might expect, the attitude and standpoint of the narrator are still the same. He shows the same intimacy with the members of the household and with his own companions. He remembers the ungenerous short-sighted speech of Judas Iscariot, to whom, with natural antipathy, he attributes the worst motives.

The incident of the coming of the Greeks, with its accurate singling out of the two friends Philip and Andrew and the account of the part played by them, also reflects the standpoint of a bystander who is near the centre.

Still more does this come out in the whole narrative of the Last Supper. One or two episodes stand out as specially graphic and life-like. The first is the whole description of the Feet-washing (vers. 3-12). The other is the indication of the traitor (vers. 21-30).

Bishop Lightfoot noticed long ago the careful use of terms in this last passage. In the book by which he prepared the way for the undertaking of a Revised Version of the New Testament, happily accomplished ten years later, he called attention to the defects of the Authorized Version of John xiii. 23, 25:

‘[It] makes no distinction between the reclining position of the
beloved disciple throughout the meal, described by ἀνακείμενος, and
the sudden change of posture at this moment, introduced by ἀναπεσών.
This distinction is further enforced in the original by a change in
both the prepositions and the nouns, from ἐν to ἐπί, and from τῷ
κόλπῳ to τὸ στῆθος. St. John was reclining on the bosom of his
Master and he suddenly threw back his head upon his breast to ask a
question.’

After referring also to xxi. 20, Dr. Lightfoot adds:—

‘This is among the most striking of those vivid descriptive traits
which distinguish the narrative of the Fourth Gospel generally, and
which are especially remarkable in these last scenes of Jesus’ life,
where the beloved disciple was himself an eye-witness and an
actor[38].’

It has been objected that too high a place is given to the ‘beloved disciple,’ and that the stress laid on this is a mark of egotism. But Bishop Westcott has shown (_ad loc._) that this criticism rests on a mistaken view of the order of precedence. The place of honour was in the centre, and the guests reclined on the left side. Peter occupies the second place behind his Master. The beloved disciple has the third place, where his head would naturally be in his Master’s bosom. When we realize this all the details of the narrative become plain.

What we have said of the Last Supper applies also to the last discourses which followed upon it. There too we have the same distinct recollection of persons, of the questions put by each, and the replies which they received. Thomas and Philip stand out in the dialogue of xiv. 4-9. But what is perhaps still more noticeable is the careful specification of Judas (not Iscariot), a disciple otherwise obscure and of little prominence, in ver. 22. If this is art, it is art that is wonderfully like nature. We notice also the disciples’ comments, evidently spoken in an undertone, in xvi. 17.

What could be more easy or more natural than the description of Gethsemane in xviii, 1, 2, and the explanation that it was a familiar haunt of Jesus and His disciples? This is just such a reminiscence as we might expect from one who had been himself a disciple.

There is an ‘undesigned coincidence’ in the fact that the unnamed disciple is described as being ‘known to the high priest,’ and that the Gospel, of which he may be presumed to be the writer, alone gives the name of the high priest’s servant, whose ear Peter cut off, as Malchus, and alone knows that one of the servants who questioned Peter was his kinsman (xviii. 10, 15, 26). It was apparently because the unnamed disciple was a privileged person, that he was not called upon to give an account of himself as Peter was.

We need not go the whole length of the way with Delff, and may yet feel sure that it is not an accident that this same disciple, who is so much at home in the high priest’s house, should also have special knowledge of persons like Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, both members of the Sanhedrin.

Other portions of chaps. xviii and xix will come before us in other connexions. The important passage xix. 34, 35 has already been discussed in part, and we shall have to return to it later. The whole of chap. xx is really significant for our purpose. It is a record of events that immediately followed the Resurrection, and is told throughout from the point of view of the disciples. The delicate precision of the narrative is specially noteworthy in vers. 3-10, where again we have the unnamed disciple in the company of St. Peter. The story is briefly told, but there is enough detail to let us see the different characterization of the two men. We shall not be wrong in thinking of the unnamed disciple as the younger of the two, indeed in the first flush of youth. He is fleet of foot and outstrips his companion; but he is also of a finer and more sensitive mould, and when he reaches the tomb a feeling of awe comes over him, and he pauses for a moment outside. The impetuous Peter has fewer scruples, and he hurries at once into the tomb, and makes his examination of its contents. The spell is broken, and the young disciple also enters. I shall have a word to say later of the effect on both disciples of what they see.

In the rest of the chapter the reader, with the author, is drawn a little aside and allowed to witness the events one by one; first, the appearance to Mary Magdalene, and then the two appearances to the collected disciples, when Thomas is absent and afterwards when he is present.

A like point of view appears in the next chapter. The narrator is himself never far away from the events he is recording. Towards the end of the chapter he is pushed forward into a prominence that is only faintly disguised. In the scene on the lake there comes back to him the feeling that had first passed through his own mind as well as those of his companions. They did not recognize the figure that in the grey dawn called to them from the shore. The instinct of love was the first to awake that sensitive quick perception: the old parts are again repeated; it is the unnamed disciple who speaks and Peter who acts. But the two are friends; and presently, when Peter has been rather hard pressed by his Lord’s searching inquiry and the prophetic forecast with which it ends, a sudden impulse leads him to turn the conversation to his companion. He would fain have the forecast extended to him. His interest, or curiosity, is baffled by an ambiguous reply. And here, once more, the writer steps in to prevent a wrong inference being drawn from its ambiguity.