Chapter IV: Part 4

So far we have been following a series of passages which place us at the standpoint of the disciples at the time of the events of which they were witnesses. The writer for the moment revives in himself, or seems to revive, the old impression. If it is not a spontaneous recurrence to the past, it is at least successful in giving the appearance of spontaneity.

But there is another class of passages where the procedure is rather more complex; where the writer not only throws himself back into the past, but also looks back upon the past in the light of his subsequent experience. There is no better example of this than the very first that meets us:

‘And to them that sold the doves he said, Take these things hence;
make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise. His disciples
remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat me
up. The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, What sign shewest
thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered
and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up. The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this
temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he
spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from
the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this; and they
believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said’ (John ii.
16-22).

Here we have two allusions to the disciples as ‘remembering’ something that had happened, and combining it in their minds with an idea of interpretation. Bishop Westcott distinguishes between the two occasions. He thinks that the expulsion of the buyers and sellers recalled to the disciples at once the passage of the psalm (Ps. lxix. 9): he thinks that they applied it to the act while it was going on. On the other hand ver. 22 is explicit to the effect that the disciples did not bethink them of the saying, and see what they conceive to be the meaning, until after the Lord was risen from the dead. I am not so sure that any contrast is intended. The tense (ἐμνήσθησαν) in the first instance is indefinite, and allows us to think that the application of the psalm was an after-thought; and the attitude of mind which was on the watch for fulfilments of scripture came later. However this may be, in the second instance at least, we clearly have what professes to be a bit of autobiography—autobiography in which the writer speaks for his fellows as well as himself.

Exactly similar to this is the comment on the Triumphal Entry, and the passages of Scripture which it too recalled:

‘These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when
Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were
written of him, and that they had done these things unto him’ (xii.
16).

It is an apt description of a process that we may be sure was constantly going on in the minds of the first disciples. It is a rather different kind of allusion when at the Last Supper the Lord explains to Peter in reference to the washing of the disciples’ feet, ‘What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt understand hereafter.’ This points to the interpretation which was to come, not so much from Scripture as from experience and reflection.

The last discourses contain many passages of this latter kind. Their general character is prophetic; but the writer and his companions had lived to see the prophecies fulfilled. It is very natural, and we cannot be surprised if the effect of the fulfilment is traceable in the form given to the prediction. The spirit in which the writer looks back upon the events that happened after the Resurrection is that expressed in xiv. 29, ‘And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe.’

Here is a retrospect: ‘They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God.... But these things have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may remember them, how that I told you’ (xvi. 2, 4).

And this is another: ‘Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone’ (xvi. 32).

A later stage of the Apostles’ experience is reflected in the following: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she is delivered of her child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world. And ye therefore now have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh away from you’ (xvi. 20-2).

The great salient fact that stood out in the experience of the first disciples was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and its effect upon themselves. This is vividly reflected in a series of passages:

‘These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you.
But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send
in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your
remembrance all that I said unto you. Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful’ (xiv. 25-7).

‘But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the
Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,
he shall bear witness of me: and ye also bear witness, because ye
have been with me from the beginning’ (xv. 26, 27).

‘Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you
into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what
things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall
declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me:
for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you’ (xvi. 13,
14).

It might be said that these passages are a summary sketch of the mental history of the Evangelist from the day of Pentecost onwards. They show him to us looking back upon the eventful time through which he had passed with ever broadening intelligence. They contain the whole secret of the way in which he came to write the ‘spiritual Gospel.’

* * * * *

I am aware that the probative force of the phenomena which I have been reviewing will be differently estimated. I should myself not have laid so much stress upon them if they had stood alone, or if they had occurred in a different class of literature. The novel writers and imaginative biographers of the present day make a point of keeping up the illusion of only allowing the supposed author to use the language appropriate to the exact situation in which he is placed at the time when he is conceived to be writing. But the writers of the first century A.D. were not so scrupulous, and what is natural to us would be very unusual with them. Still I do not deny that a writer whose habit of mind it was to throw himself back into an assumed position, might by the exercise of a special gift have been able to keep up the position so assumed. But in the case before us, we have the instances which I began by quoting where the author claims for himself or others claim for him that he is recording what he had himself heard and seen. This at once puts in our hands a far simpler and easier hypothesis, a hypothesis which really makes no demands upon our constructive powers at all. Whereas it is probable that not one ancient in a thousand, or one in ten thousand, would have written as the writer of the Fourth Gospel has done, if he had not been an eye-witness; it would have been only the natural way for him to write, if he had been an eye-witness. This latter hypothesis therefore seems much preferable to the other. It is confirmed by the really remarkable consistency with which the point of view is carried out, and by another large class of phenomena which will come before us in the next lecture.

II. The Identity of the Evangelist.

Before we pass on, however, it may be convenient at this point to consider, on the assumption that the author of the Gospel was really an eye-witness of the events, what are the indications as to his personal identity. If we confine ourselves to those contained in the Gospel itself, it would not follow with any stringency that he was the Apostle John the son of Zebedee. The portion of the Gospel that contributes most to the identification is the last chapter, the scene by the Sea of Galilee, where we are expressly told that the sons of Zebedee were present (xxi. 2). But we are also told that there were two other disciples of whom the author of the Gospel may have been one. If we begin by supposing—and the supposition is very natural—that in order to stand in the intimate relation in which he appears to have stood to Christ, the author must have been an Apostle, then by a process of elimination we should arrive at St. John; and it is no doubt an important fact that in this way internal and external evidence would converge upon the same result. But if we look at some sides of the internal evidence, and bring in only a select few of the indications from without, another hypothesis that has been actually put forward would have great claims upon our attention. It is not on the face of it certain that ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ must have been one of the Twelve. He may have been what might perhaps be called a sort of _supernumerary_ Apostle. I mean that he may have been one who although, perhaps on account of his youth, not actually admitted to the number of the Twelve, yet had all—and even more than all—of their privileges. We have been led to think of the beloved disciple as a youth who, so far as he could help it, never left his Master’s side. We should only have to subtract a couple of years, and the young Apostle of eighteen or twenty would become a stripling—highly favoured, though not an Apostle—of sixteen to eighteen, or even fifteen to seventeen.

I am not sure that this point of the youthfulness that may be attributed to the beloved disciple was much brought out by the author of the theory. And yet it would be a real advantage. We are told that the John who wrote the Gospel lived till the time of Trajan (i. e. till 98 A.D.). In that case, if he were born about 11 or 12 A.D., he need not have been more than eighty-six or eighty-seven at the time of his death; the main body of the Gospel might quite well have been written (probably from dictation) eight or ten years earlier, and the Appendix (chap. xxi) added when the writer felt his strength beginning to fail. All these would be quite reasonable dates; whereas if the writer was a full adult in the years 27-9, that would make him rather old by the end of the century. We must keep down the dates as much as we rightly can.

But it is time that I gave a fuller account of the theory of which I am speaking, as it was put forward by its author—in some ways a rather eccentric person—the late Dr. Delff of Husum. I will try at the same time, as well as I can, to balance the arguments for and against it.

Dr. Delff is not content with distinguishing the beloved disciple from the Apostle. For him the former is no Galilean at all but a native of Jerusalem; he is not a fisherman, but a member of the higher aristocracy, not only acquainted with the high priest but himself belonging to one of the high-priestly families. It was through this connexion that Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, came to make the remarkable statement about him that he wore the frontlet or golden plate (τὸ πέταλον) of the high priest (Eus. _H. E._ iii. 31. 3).

It will be seen that this is a bold reconstruction; but in this case the boldness has a good deal of justification. There are a number of very tangible data which the theory works up into a coherent whole.

i. The theory might be said to take its start from John xviii. 15, ‘And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Now that disciple was known unto the high priest, and entered in with Jesus into the court of the high priest.’ It is natural to suppose that the unnamed disciple here is the same whose presence is hinted at so mysteriously throughout the Gospel. But, if that is so, the relation in which he is said to stand to the high priest explains at once a series of facts. It explains how it was that the Evangelist came to know that the name of the high priest’s servant, whose ear had been cut off, was Malchus; and also how it was that he came to recognize one of those who questioned Peter as a kinsman of this Malchus. It explains again the special information that the Evangelist seems to have about Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, who is mentioned by name in three different contexts in the Gospel. Along with this it would explain the special information which the Evangelist also seems to possess as to what went on at meetings, and even secret meetings, of the Sanhedrin. We have a graphic account of the debate at one such meeting in vii. 45-52, and again in xi. 47-53; and the Gospel has some precise details not found elsewhere as to the part played by Annas, as well as Caiaphas, in the preliminary examination of our Lord.

This whole group of facts is in any case one of which we must take notice. In any case it forms an important element in the portrait that we are to construct for ourselves of the Evangelist, even if we suppose him to be the son of Zebedee. There is no antecedent reason why Zebedee and his sons should not have had friends, and even friends in high places, in Jerusalem. It would seem that Zebedee himself was a person of substance: he has ‘hired servants’ with him in the ship, and Salome—if that is the name of his wife—was one of those who contributed to the support of Jesus and His disciples. We must also remember that the practice of a trade or handicraft was not held to be derogatory among the Jews as it was among the Greeks and Romans. There is, however, also the other possibility that the acquaintance of the Evangelist with the high priest is not to be taken too strictly, but that it meant rather acquaintance with some member of his household. The account of what happened to Peter might well seem to be told from the point of view of what we should describe as the servants’ hall.

ii. Another set of phenomena which Delff’s theory at once explains is the extent to which the Gospel is concerned with events that happened in Jerusalem and Judaea. Delff himself carries out this with a logical severity that hardly seems necessary. He cuts out all the Galilean incidents in the Gospel as later insertions. Even so he cannot be quite thorough enough, because he leaves the latter half of chap. i, which introduces to us the unnamed disciple in the company of Andrew and Peter, natives of Bethsaida. This disciple and Peter were evidently friends: they lodged together in Jerusalem (xx. 2) and go together to the tomb, and they each take an affectionate interest in the other (xxi. 20).

This last point is in agreement with the way in which Peter and John are found acting together in the other Gospels and in the Acts (Mark v. 37, &c.; Acts iii. 1, 11; iv. 13; viii. 14; cf. Gal. ii. 9). On the other hand the scene at the foot of the cross (John xix. 26, 27) would seem to be rather in favour of the Jerusalem theory, especially if we are to connect the words, ‘And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own (home),’ with the tradition that John had a house in Jerusalem.

iii. In another direction Delff’s theory fits in well with some portions of the patristic evidence. We have seen how it would account for the curious expression used by Polycrates (_circa_ 195 A.D.). Delff thinks that the beloved disciple must have actually performed the functions of the high priest. The high priest only wore his full dress on the Day of Atonement, but on an emergency his place might be taken for him by a substitute; and it is in this capacity that John of Ephesus is supposed to have acted. That does not on the face of it appear very probable; but we can more easily conceive that in the early days, before liturgical details were settled, and when the Christian Church had not yet wholly outgrown its Jewish antecedents, one who had the blood of high priests in his veins might on some solemn occasion (e. g. at Easter) have assumed a part of his distinctive dress.

iv. Yet another alleged point in the testimony of Papias would be explained on this theory, and is not easily explained on the view which identifies the John who wrote the Gospel with the son of Zebedee. Since the publication of De Boor’s Fragment (Cod. Barocc. 142[39]) we have two authorities instead of one for the express statement that Papias in his second book asserted that both the sons of Zebedee were ‘slain by the Jews.’ When attention was first called to this statement, the tendency among scholars was to explain it away, to suppose that there had been some corruption of the text, or some confusion between John the Baptist and John the son of Zebedee. Of course there may have been something of the kind; and yet the statement is quite explicit as it stands, and one does not like emending away just the words that cause a difficulty. Hence there is an increasing tendency among scholars to regard the statement as having some real foundation. Schwartz, the editor of Eusebius, has lately put forth a monograph[40], the whole argument of which turns on the assumption that the statement is true. If it were true, the prediction of our Lord in Mark x. 38, 39, will have been literally fulfilled: both the sons of Zebedee will have suffered ‘red martyrdom,’ and not one red and one white. Wellhausen is among those who think that this was probably the case.

v. Now Schwartz assumes that if John perished by the sword like his brother James, he did so at the same time and at the hands of Herod Agrippa I, in the year 41. Of course he can only do this by throwing over the data in the Acts, which I do not think that he is warranted in doing. I have little doubt that the John who was still a pillar of the Church at the time referred to in Gal. ii. 9 was the son of Zebedee. But it is quite credible that he may have perished, if not at the same time as James the Elder, yet about the same time as James the Brother of the Lord, or in the troublous times which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem.

vi. If the younger son of Zebedee had died in this or some other way, there would be nothing to prevent us from supposing that the John who took up his abode at Ephesus was the beloved disciple. And it would really simplify the history, and make everything more compact, if we could suppose that the beloved disciple, and the John who wrote the Gospel and Epistles, and the John who appears to have called himself, and to have been called by others ‘the Presbyter,’ were one and the same person.

vii. It is a remarkable fact that some of our best authorities, while they leave no doubt as to the identification of the John who figured so conspicuously at Ephesus with the beloved disciple, abstain from expressions that would identify him with the son of Zebedee. Irenaeus most often calls him ‘the disciple of the Lord,’ which we remember is the very phrase used by Papias of the Presbyter. He also more than once describes him as having lain upon the breast of the Lord, but he nowhere (I believe) speaks of him as one of the Twelve or as the son of Zebedee. Polycrates uses the same designation, ‘John who lay upon the breast of the Lord’; and the Muratorian Fragment speaks of him as ‘one of the disciples’: but neither of these witnesses ever calls him an Apostle. Irenaeus, however, does perhaps hint at this title where he says that the Church at Ephesus, ‘having been founded by Paul, and John having resided among them until the time of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the Apostles’ (Eus. _H. E._ iii. 23. 4). Clement of Alexandria also and Tertullian unequivocally call John an Apostle.

viii. If these expressions had stood alone, there need be no great difficulty. We may be pretty sure that the beloved disciple, even if he had not been one of the original Twelve, would be called an Apostle in the wider sense, like St. Paul and St. Barnabas and James the Brother of the Lord. And it would be only natural that he should seem to step into the place of the older John (on the hypothesis of his martyrdom), just as James the Lord’s Brother in a manner stepped into the place of the older James.

It is worth while to bear in mind that the title ‘Apostle’ was used more freely in the early days of the Church than we are in the habit of using it. It was not till about the end of the second century that (except in the case of St. Paul and St. Barnabas and one or two others) it came to be as a rule narrowed down to the Twelve. In the earliest usage of all the word had its proper meaning of ‘one who is sent on a mission.’ But this usage was gradually lost sight of, and it took the place of the primitive μαθητής.

In view of this history of the terms, it will be understood how easily one who was in the position of the beloved disciple would come to be spoken of as an Apostle, and in time to be confused with the older Apostles who bore the same name. In such a process there would be no need, as Harnack does, to bring in the hypothesis of fraud; every step in the process would be really innocent and natural. Harnack of course gets into his difficulties by minimizing the designation ‘disciple of the Lord’ as applied to John the Presbyter, who is also John of Ephesus. One who stood to the Lord in the relation of the beloved disciple would have a right to the name Apostle which the Presbyter, as Harnack conceives him, would not.

ix. So far it would seem that a really strong case can be made out for distinguishing the Evangelist from the son of Zebedee and identifying him with the beloved disciple. My wish is not to make out a case either way, but to state the facts as impartially as I can. From this point of view, there seem to be two serious difficulties in the way of Delff’s hypothesis.

The first is that it puts asunder two sets of phenomena that we feel sure ought to be combined. We have seen that the Gospel represents the beloved disciple and St. Peter as close friends. And we have also seen that the other Gospels, the Acts and, we might add, the Epistle to the Galatians, represent St. Peter and St. John as constantly acting together. It may indeed just be said that this joint action is a sort of official relation, which is a different thing from the private friendship implied in the Gospel. And yet we cannot doubt that the more natural and obvious view would be to regard the later relation as the direct continuation of the earlier, and so to identify the beloved disciple with the leading Apostle. Delff’s theory would make two pairs, who would be too much the doubles of each other.

x. And another difficulty, or set of difficulties, turns round the statement of De Boor’s Fragment. It is certainly strange that this statement appears in no other early authority, and especially that no hint of it is found in Eusebius. I am not sure that this would weigh with me so much as it would with others, because I always discount the argument from silence, even where it is apparently strong, as it is in the present instance.

But there is something more than silence. The common tradition of the church did not ascribe to St. John a violent death. And we cannot escape the inference by saying that the common tradition relates to John of Ephesus and not to the son of Zebedee; because the earliest authority for the tradition, the Apocryphal Acts of John, a second-century work, without any ambiguity identifies the two.

xi. We might perhaps sum up the whole case thus.

The Life of the Evangelist falls into three periods: first, the period covered by the Gospel in which he appears as the beloved disciple; then, at the end of his career, the period during which he appears as John of Ephesus: and, between these two, the period of some forty years which connects them together. Now we might say of Delff’s theory, that it gives a quite satisfactory account of the first period, and also in most ways of the last, and that in particular it enables us to work in the statement as to the death of the two sons of Zebedee; but that its difficulties come out chiefly in regard to the connexion between the first stage of the history and the last.

On the other hand, the common view gives what I think is really on the whole as good an account of the first period, and raises no special difficulties as to the second, but it does leave some obscurities which with our present knowledge it is difficult to clear away as to the third. And it also leaves the alleged statement of Papias an enigma for which we have no certain solution.

At the same time, although the cohesion is on either view not quite complete, it is in each case far too complete to be rejected in the interests of an agnosticism which only presents no target for objections because it has no tangible form or substance.

Footnote 33:

The division of opinion in this case is among the more radical critics
themselves. H. J. Holtzmann, Schmiedel, and Professor Bacon are on the
one side: Jülicher, Wrede, and Wernle are on the other; and in each of
these instances the opinion is thoroughly characteristic; the subtle
and acute minds are ranged against those that are stronger on the side
of what we should call plain common sense.

Footnote 34:

_Chronologie_, &c., p. 676.

Footnote 35:

Letter to the Rev. William Unwin, dated Oct. 31, 1779.

Footnote 36:

_Character_, &c., p. 387.

Footnote 37:

For the proof see especially Lightfoot.

Footnote 38:

_On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament_ (1871), pp. 72, 73.

Footnote 39:

_Texte u. Untersuch._ v. 2, p. 170. The other authority is a single
MS. (but the oldest and most interesting) of the ninth-century writer
Georgius Monachus or Georgius Hamartolus (ed. De Boor, p. 447
[Ἰωάννης] μαρτυρίου κατηξίωται, where the other MSS. have ἐν εἰρήνη
ἀνεπαύσατο). The question of the relation of the texts is judiciously
discussed by De Boor (Preface, pp. lx-lxxi), but the fuller statement
of particulars is reserved for a third volume.

Footnote 40:

_Ueber den Tod der Söhne Zebedaei_ (Berlin, 1904).

LECTURE IV
THE PRAGMATISM OF THE GOSPEL

Different Kinds of Precision in Detail.

I hope the title that I have given to this lecture is not an affectation. The word ‘Pragmatism’ is more common in German than in English. In English it is chiefly used as the name for a particular kind of philosophy which lays stress upon conduct or practice rather than theory. But we want the word, or something like it, in criticism as well as in philosophy. We want a word which shall express a tendency in a given writer or a given book, without begging any questions as to the relation between this tendency in the mind of the writer and the facts that he professes to describe; I mean the tendency to throw his thoughts into the form of concrete pictorial history, whether that history is real or imagined. It is in this sense that I use the word: I use it to describe a very marked characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, the abundance of detail—to all appearance precise detail—with which it presents its pictures. But I do not as yet say anything further as to the nature of this detail or the inference to be drawn from it.

One of the most uncompromising critics of the Gospel[41] calls this apparent precision, more especially in the notes of place and time, a ‘trump-card’ in the hands of the defenders of the Gospel. He goes on to give a meagre list, just of some of these notes of place and time, and nothing else. His only comment on them is that they ‘fail to impart to the presentation life, colour, and movement.’ As though life, in the sense of active life, and movement were the only guarantees of reality. It is true that St. John is not what we should call a dramatic writer; his narrative has not rapidity of movement. He is contemplative rather than energetic, and yet he has a quiet intensity of vision that is in its way not less valuable. He must be judged according to his type: we do not (e. g.) apply to a Maeterlinck the same sort of measure as to a Stanley Weyman.

Wrede’s is a specimen of what I consider poor criticism. It is in striking contrast to that which Dr. Drummond has devoted to the same subject. Dr. Drummond discusses in his judicial manner this phenomenon that I have called ‘Pragmatism.’ He begins by noting how the writer ‘specifies particular days, for no apparent reason except that he remembered them, and sometimes even mentions the hour. He often names the disciple who was the speaker, even when the remark is not of great consequence.’ We have said enough on this part of the subject. But he not only specifies times and persons but also places, with which he connects various incidents, ‘frequently for no discoverable reason beyond the fact itself.’ Then again there is, generally speaking, the graphic character of the work. On this Dr. Drummond has some discriminating remarks:—

‘The Gospel is sometimes spoken of as though it were a monotonous
unfolding of the Logos doctrine, and brought before us a number of
shadowy puppets, marked by no distinguishing features. I cannot but
think that this view is partly owing to the prepossession of
critical dogmatism, but partly also to the identity of style and
tone which, wherever you may open the book, at once betrays the
author. The simplicity is not the simplicity of Genesis or Homer, in
which we forget all but the persons and events that are brought
before us; the dramatic power is not that of Shakespeare, in which
the author is hidden behind his own creations. On the contrary,
everything seems more or less transfused with the individuality of
the writer; and I think this fact sometimes causes us to overlook
the wonderful variety of character that passes before us, and the
graphic nature of some of the descriptions, which imprints the
scenes for evermore on the imagination’ (_The Character and
Authorship_, &c., p. 376).

I am not sure that we might not say that, so far as the narrative is concerned, the simplicity is really like that of Genesis: there is a Biblical style of narration, which descended down the centuries, and which the writer has thoroughly assimilated. But then his own personality must be added to this, and there was much more in his mind besides the impulse of simple narration. It is, as we shall see, the discourses, and especially the longer discourses, in which this personal element comes out most strongly, and which make it seem so dominant. But Dr. Drummond is certainly right in laying stress on the ‘variety of character that passes before us, and the graphic nature of some of the descriptions.’

But when he has said this, Dr. Drummond turns round upon himself, and proceeds to discount the inference that might be drawn from these characteristics of the Gospel. While allowing that they fit in excellently with the external evidence, he will not urge them as an independent proof of authorship, because ‘the introduction of names and details is quite in accordance with the usage of Apocryphal composition.’

This is true, and the examples given are quite to the point. The Apocryphal Gospels and Acts are plentifully sprinkled with names. We observe, however, that names of places are somewhat less common than names of persons; and where there is any real precision in the use of place-names, an inference in regard to the author may often be fairly deduced from it, and as a matter of fact has in a number of cases been successfully so deduced[42]. It would be unsafe to draw a conclusion simply from the presence of precise details. But all details are not alike; and when they come to be critically tested, they will soon be found to fall into two classes—one that admits of verification and is valuable, and the other that is soon exposed as worthless.

One of the parallels for the Fourth Gospel specially put forward from this point of view was the Apocryphal Gospel of Matthew, and I took some little pains to test this in the pages of the _Expositor_ (1892, pp. 172 ff.). It was quickly found to teem with anachronisms and confusions. Professing to describe the circumstances of the birth of the Virgin Mary, it spoke of her father’s almsgiving in terms borrowed from the practice of the Christian Church. There were supposed to be schools for girls in the Temple, modelled upon the convent schools of the fifth century. The father and mother of the Virgin were represented as meeting at the ‘Golden Gate’ of the Temple. A gate bearing that name may be seen at the present day; but it probably owes its name to a corruption (_aurea_ = ὡραία); and though the modern gate, which can be traced back to the time of Heraclius, is supposed to represent the Beautiful Gate of Herod’s Temple, it certainly occupies a different position. The Gospel contains a developed legend of the Descent into Egypt, which is also garnished with topographical details. These, however, cannot be worked into a consistent itinerary, and an official title introduced into the story belongs rather to the period after Constantine than to the time of Augustus.

Does the Fourth Gospel present anything at all analogous to this? One or two mistakes have been attributed to the author which are not seriously maintained at the present time. The only supposed anachronism that does not stand refuted is one recently put forward by Furrer the eminent geographer. In an interesting article on the topographical data in the Gospel[43] he gives them in general the praise of accuracy. He himself, however, regards the Gospel as a work of the second century, and he sees an indication of this in the name ‘Sea of Tiberias’ for ‘Sea of Galilee’ or ‘of Gennesaret.’ Dr. Furrer points out that this last form (‘Sea of Gennesar’ or ‘Gennesaritis’) is found in the writers of the first century, while ‘Sea of Tiberias’ became the regular designation in the second century, and from that time onwards. It is found in the Greek writer Pausanias (who wrote in the middle of the century, under Hadrian and the Antonines), and consistently in the Talmud. We may observe that in any case the Gospel was written quite late in the first century; and the way in which the name is introduced the first time it is mentioned would seem to point exactly to the period of transition from the one form to the other. John vi. 1 runs thus: ‘After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias’ (πέραν τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς Γαλιλαίας τῆς Τιβερίαδος). There is perhaps something a little awkward and unusual in the apposition, which, however, does not justify the striking out of one of the two names as a gloss, against all the authorities[44].

Another point made by Furrer is that in xii. 21 Bethsaida is called ‘Bethsaida of Galilee,’ whereas, according to Josephus, Galilee ended with the right bank of the Jordan, and Bethsaida is on the left bank. Josephus, however, is by no means precise in his usage, as he twice speaks of Gamala as in Galilee, which is much further away on the other side of the lake.

Professor von Dobschütz treats as an anachronism the allusions (John ix. 22; xii. 42) to expulsion from the synagogue as practised upon the followers of Jesus during His lifetime. But this is surely very gratuitous. Partly the argument goes upon the assumption that the extreme penalty must have been always inflicted. Partly it seems to imply that excommunication was too great a punishment for the disciples, at the very time when death itself was threatened against the Master.

I hardly know whether I ought to mention as a fourth example, that is at the present time seriously alleged, the notion that the phrase ‘being high priest that year’ (xi. 49, 51), is derived from the fact that the Asiarch acting as high priest in the worship of the Emperor held office for a single year[45]. It is far more probable that the phrase is connected with the deep sense which the writer of the Fourth Gospel shows of the significance of particular times. I take it to be the counterpart of the often recurring words, ‘the hour had not yet come,’ ‘the hour is come.’

So that the four precarious examples really shrink up to one, the first, and that is explainable without any straining. There is no anachronism; but at the time when the Evangelist wrote the usage was changing, and he was aware of this, and expressed the fact in his text.

And now let us consider what there is to be said on the other side—_for_ the Gospel from this same point of view of truth to a particular period. Is the Fourth Gospel in the main true to the period which it professes to describe?

This is a question that should not be difficult to answer. It should be less difficult than in the case of most periods, because as a rule one period shades gradually and imperceptibly into another, and there is a more or less prolonged transition. But the history of Judaism and Christianity in the first century of our era is not like this. There we have one great catastrophe standing out in the boldest possible way and dividing what goes before from what comes after. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus completely altered the conditions of Judaism, and altered no less the conditions of Christianity both in itself and in relation to Judaism. We have to remember that Judaism as it existed up to that date—from the time of Josiah to the year 70 A.D.—had been the most centralized religion of the ancient world. Its system of worship, its hierarchy, and what remained to it of self-government, all had a single centre in the holy place and the holy city, the temple and Jerusalem. It is true that there was the newer institution of synagogues, which was destined to play such an important part in the Judaism of the future; but this was as yet quite subordinate, existing side by side with the temple worship, but not consciously regarded as a substitute for it.

Now with one single stroke the whole of this temple system, the hierarchy, and the Sanhedrin, as hitherto constituted, came to an end. It was not that it went on with modifications, but it was destroyed root and branch.

At the same time Christianity broke loose from Judaism more thoroughly than it had ever done before. Henceforth the dominant forces in the Church were Gentile, not Jewish. In particular the last shreds of the idea of a political Messiah were thrown off.

These considerations supply us with abundant means of testing the picture of the time that we have in the Fourth Gospel. We can easily determine whether its features correspond to the state of things in the first half of the first century or at its end. What we have chiefly to ask ourselves is, does the Fourth Gospel presuppose a centralized religion or a de-centralized? We may discuss this in relation to (i) the pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the Jewish feasts; (ii) the detailed ceremonies connected with those feasts; (iii) the temple itself; (iv) the state of sects and parties; (v) the Messianic expectation.

i. Pilgrimages.

It is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, as compared with the common matter of the Synoptics, that it alone represents our Lord as making a number of pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the express purpose of attending the Jewish feasts. The Synoptic narrative mentions only a single Passover at the very end of our Lord’s public ministry, which led to His arrest and death. St. John mentions three Passovers as falling in the course of the ministry: one soon after it may be said to have begun, one in the middle, and one at the end. Beside this there is an unnamed feast in v. 1; there is a Feast of Tabernacles which our Lord attends in vii. 2, 10; and the Feast of Dedication is expressly mentioned in x. 22.

It is somewhat surprising that Dr. Drummond, who takes in general so favourable a view of the Fourth Gospel, should seem to be in doubt as to these visits and these feasts, and should sum up rather against them[46]. I must not stay now to go fully into the question of their historical character, which will come before us again. But, speaking broadly, I may point to the improbability that a pious Jew, within the Holy Land and not a member of the Dispersion, would neglect to attend the feasts for so long a time and in the course of a religious mission addressed directly to his countrymen. I must needs think it wholly improbable. And apart from this improbability, we should have to account for the determined hostility of the authorities at Jerusalem, which had manifested itself before the last Passover, and which came to a head in proposals of betrayal so soon after its victim had set foot in Jerusalem.

However this may be—and I reserve the fuller discussion for the present—in any case it must be allowed that the narrative of the Fourth Gospel is in the strictest accordance with the religious customs of the time to which it relates, and not in accordance with those at the time when the Gospel was written. We must at least set down this fact as markedly to its credit.

ii. Ceremonies.

The effect of this is heightened when we further observe that the feasts are more than once not mentioned barely, but with some little allusion that agrees well with what we know of them from other sources.

I will not lay much stress upon what is said of the first Passover in chap. ii, because it might be thought that the account of the cleansing of the Temple is simply derived from the Synoptics, although in them it appears at a later period. It is, however, worth while to point out the specially graphic delineation in the Fourth Gospel (the upsetting of the money-changers’ piles of coin, and the address to the sellers of doves, whose commodities could not be overturned or driven out). Little touches of this kind acquire an increased importance from the fact that the marketing in the temple courts, even if it survived the drastic treatment described in the Gospel, in any case did not survive the events of 70 A.D.

There is nothing very special in connexion with the unnamed feast; and the Passover of vi. 4 is mentioned only by the way. But in the account of the Feast of Tabernacles there is a precise touch in vii. 37, ‘on the last day, the great day of the feast.’ This shows accurate knowledge, because the last day was kept as a sabbath with an ‘holy convocation’ (Lev. xxiii. 36). Whether, as many have supposed, our Lord’s words on this day (‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink’) were suggested by the libations of water from Siloam poured out during the feast, is a question of association that is hardly capable of proof, but may be true[47].

There is nice accuracy in the picture presented by xi. 55-7:—

‘Now the passover of the Jews was at hand: and many went up to
Jerusalem out of the country before the passover, to purify
themselves. They sought therefore for Jesus, and spake one with
another, as they stood in the temple, What think ye? That he will
not come to the feast? Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had
given commandment, that, if any man knew where he was, he should
shew it, that they might take him.’

The strictest ritualistic purity was required of those who took part in the feast. ‘Every man,’ said R. Isaac, ‘is bound to purify himself for the feast’ (Lightfoot, _Hor. Hebr._ ad loc.). The purifying might take quite seven days, and during this time the pilgrims to the feast would be standing about and often conversing among themselves, and the rumours of the day would circulate freely among them.

There are several pointed allusions in the Gospel to the laws of Levitical purity. The mention of the water-jars at the miracle of Cana is one; the dispute of John’s disciples with a Jew about purifying is perhaps another; we have just had a third; and a fourth is in xviii. 28, where the Sanhedrists are prevented from entering the _praetorium_, in order not to incur defilement, and so be prevented from eating the passover[48]. These allusions are really, if we think of it, very striking. They fit into the narrative with perfect ease and appropriateness; and they are admirably natural if the author of the Gospel was really St. John, a Christian brought up as a Jew, and even as it would seem in some way personally connected with the priesthood, who had been himself in the company of Jesus, had himself held intercourse with disciples of the Baptist, and himself moved about among the crowds and heard their comments. It is a wholly different thing if we are to suppose that all these touches were thrown in by a Christian of the third generation, who could only arrive at them by study and imagination. Chwolson says expressly: ‘After the destruction of the Temple all the regulations about cleanness and uncleanness, which were closely connected with the sacrificial system, fell into disuse[49].’

The last instance that I will notice is xix. 31, which is full of the same truth of detail.

‘The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies
should not remain on the cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that
sabbath was a high day), asked of Pilate that their legs might be
broken, and that they might be taken away.’

The exact nature of the ‘high day’ will depend upon the day of the month, which is disputed. I have little doubt that on St. John’s reckoning it would be Nisan 15, the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, which was to be marked by an ‘holy convocation’ (Lev. xxiii. 7), and which, coinciding with the sabbath, would make it a double sabbath. It would also be the day for the offering of the peace-offering or Chagigah. This would be on the Saturday morning: when the Jewish day began (at sunset on Friday) the Jews would be engaged on the paschal meal.

iii. The Temple.

The references to the Temple in the Fourth Gospel are marked by the same minute accuracy.

There is a remarkable allusion in ii. 20, where we might paraphrase the force of the aorist by saying in our own idiom, ‘it took forty-six years to build this temple.’ The calculation is exact, though we must suppose the word for temple (ναός, ‘the holy place’) to be used somewhat loosely. The building of the Temple appears to have been begun about 20-19 B.C. The holy place or sanctuary proper is said to have been finished in eighteen months; but the whole complex of buildings was not finished till the reign of Nero. Reckoning forty-six years from 19 B.C. we should come to 27 A.D., which suits the chronology of the Life of Christ as well as any date could do. It seems, however, very improbable that the date was arrived at by any elaborate process of calculation. We are in the midst of a multitude of examples of the precise and accurate detail which is characteristic of the Gospel; and the most natural explanation seems to be that the actual words used stuck in the memory of the Apostle, and were reproduced by him just as they were spoken.

There are two other close specifications of locality in connexion with the Temple. One is the mention of ‘the treasury’ in viii. 20. The name ‘treasury’ (γαζοφυλάκιον) was given to the thirteen boxes with funnel-shaped openings which stood round the women’s court. This court was not confined to women, and was used indifferently by both sexes; but it was the point beyond which women were not allowed to pass.

The other part of the Temple mentioned is ‘Solomon’s porch’ in x. 23. It is explained that Jesus was walking here because of the season of the year. The time was the Feast of the Dedication, which was held late in December, when those who walked in the open court would be exposed to snow or rain.

These points relating to the Temple are of more importance, because at the time when the Gospel was written the Temple was a heap of ruins, which had long ceased to be frequented for worship, and of which an accurate knowledge could hardly be expected except from a few Rabbinical students, like the author of the tract _Middoth_, and those who had used the Temple before its destruction.

iv. Sects and Parties.

The fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. made a great change in the ecclesiastical organization of the Jewish people. During the life of Christ this too had been highly centralized. Both the great parties of Pharisees and Sadducees—especially the latter—had their head quarters in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the seat of the Sanhedrin, in which both parties were represented—the Sadducees in the numerical majority and with the control of executive power, but the Pharisees in closer touch with the people and with the stronger religious influence. In the Gospel we have traces of both parties and in both characters, official and extra-official.

We meet first with the Pharisees, and that in rather peculiar circumstances, but in circumstances which we may be sure existed. We are expressly told (i. 24) that the deputation sent to cross-examine John the Baptist as to the nature of his mission was sent from the Pharisees. Only one party was represented upon it, so that it cannot have been sent by an act of the Sanhedrin as a whole. From the religious point of view the Pharisees would be far more interested in the Baptist and his doings than the Sadducees. At the same time the deputation consisted of official persons (‘priests and Levites from Jerusalem,’ i. 19), who would carry with them a certain authority. Of the nature of their questions we shall have to speak presently.