John, Gospel of (continued) – John, Gospel of (continued)

John, Gospel of (continued)

If the Apostle John wrote the Fourth Gospel at all, it must have been composed under these conditions, as early tradition asserts that it was. The same tradition declares that it was written under pressure from without, that it presupposed the first three Gospels, and was not intended to cover the ground occupied by them, that it was ‘a spiritual Gospel’ — which is only another way of saying what the author himself has told us, that he recorded some among the many signs that Jesus did, viewed from the side of a Divine mission and purpose, ‘that ye may believejthat Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life through his name’ (John 20:31). Omissions and additions, therefore, such as are obvious in a comparison between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, cannot count as arguments against the authenticity of the latter. Neither can a more completely developed doctrine of the Person of Christ, nor a somewhat altered representation of His ministry and utterances. We have rather to ask whether the modifications observable in the latest narrative of all, written after a long time, under altered conditions, and from a different point of ^view, imply an incompatibility so marked that it cannot be ascribed to an eye-witness and an Apostle. All the Gospels are confessedly fragmentary, and if one of the Twelve was induced after the lapse of nearly two generations to supplement the records of Christ’s life already in existence, and to present a selection of his own reminiscences for the purpose of inducing and maintaining Christian faith, quite as large a measure of difference in the narrative as that sketched in a previous paragraph may justly be expected. Some of those discrepancies have been exaggerated. For example, the mode of speaking of ‘the Jews’ in the Fourth Gospel is prepared for by the expressions found in Matthew 28:15, Mark 7:3, Luke 7:3 and 23:51. Indeed, such a habit of estimating and describing the members of a nation which had so steadily set itself against Christ and His followers as to have become the very embodiment of virulent opposition to Christianity, was inevitable. Again, it is undeniable that, as St. John from his later point of view discerned not only the glory that should come after the shame and the death of the Saviour, but the glory that was implied in His suffering and death on behalf of the world, so he described not only the final judgment that was to come at the end of all things, but the present judging, searching, sifting power of Christ’s words and presence in the earth, as the Synoptists do not. His point of view in this and in other respects is confessedly more ‘spiritual.’ But he Is not unmindful of that aspect of judgment which predominates in the Synoptics. In 5:21–29 the two points of view are harmonized, and a very definite reference is made to a final judgment as an eschatological event. If it is true, as we read in 12:31, that ‘now is the judgment of this world,’ the same chapter reminds us (v. 48) that Christ’s word will judge men ‘in the last day.’ There is no contradiction, except for shallow interpreters, between the statements that the Kingdom of .God is already come, and that its coming must be waited for with patience, perhaps during a long period. A believer in ‘judgment’ already accomplished is so far prepared for the confident expectation of a final judgment at the end of the ages.

But the examination of details necessarily lies outside the scope of the present article. The only further point which can be noticed here concerns the style and diction of the Fourth Gospel, and the contrast observable between the discourses of Jesus as reported in it and in the three Synoptics. So marked a difference in this respect does obtain, that an upholder of the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel must be prepared to admit that the aged Apostle sees all the objects he describes through a medium of his own, and casts his record into a shape moulded by the habit and working of his own mind. The personal stamp of the writer is very strongly impressed upon his material. Inspiration is quite consistent with marked individuality in the prophet’s character and writings, and the highest kind of inspiration is inseparable from this. The accuracy of the chronicler who regards himself as a mere recording pen is one thing, the truth of the artist or historian who passes all that he knows through the alembic of his own vigorous and active mind is another. As regards the form of the narrative, St. John, if he be the writer, must have allowed himself freedom to present his record in a mould determined by the later working of his own mind and the conditions of the times in which he lived. He presents us not with an exact photograph — though traces of the photography of memory are fairly abundant — but with a free and true picture of the life of Him who was and is the Life indeed.

Differences in the mode of presentation do indeed exist, but they need not be exaggerated. For example, as regards the number and length of Christ’s discourses recorded, the Fourth Gospel is not separated from the rest by some impassable gulf. Dr. Drummond has calculated that whilst in Mt. Christ speaks 139 times, in Jn. He speaks only 122 times; and that as regards length of speeches, Mt. records 111 utterances not exceeding 3 verses and Jn. 96; of speeches exceeding 3 and not exceeding 10 verses, Mt. gives 16 and Jn. 20; whilst of discourses exceeding 20 verses, Mt. records 4 and Jn. 3 only. Then as regards the character of the sayings of Jesus, it is often represented that those recorded in the Synoptics are pithy, incisive, and telling, whereas in Jn. the style is prolix and monotonous. Dr. Drummond, however, enumerates sixty detached logia taken from the Fourth Gospel quite as aphoristic and memorable as any contained in the other three, whilst it has often been pointed out that in Mt II25-2’ is found in germ the substance, both in matter and in form, of teaching which is fully developed by St. John. At the same time it is not denied that the Fourth Evangelist allows himself the liberty of blending text and comment in one narrative marked by the same characteristic diction, so that, as in ch. 3, it is not altogether easy to determine whether Jesus or John the Baptist or the Evangelist is speaking; or, as in 17:3, whether the Evangelist has not expressed in his own words the substance of what fell from the Master’s lips. Such freedom, however, is not really misleading. A measure of translation, of re-statement and reproduction, was necessary from the very nature of the case. Harnack says of the NT generally, ‘The Greek language lies upon these writings only like a diaphanous veil, and it requires hardly any effort to retranslate their contents into Hebrew or Aramaic’ Such slight, but easily penetrable veils, partly of language, partly of representation, necessarily rest over the four narratives of our Lord’s life and ministry which have been handed down through different media and under different conditions. The argument here briefly sketched out goes to show that the Fourth Gospel contains no representation of the Person, words, or works of Christ incompatible or seriously inconsistent with those of the Synoptics, whilst at the same time it bears the indubitable marks of a sacred individuality of its own.

4. Alternative theories. — A considerable number of eminent scholars of the last two generations have not been satisfied by the line of argument indicated above, and they decline to accept not only the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel, but also its historical trustworthiness. It is easy to understand that considerations which would strongly appeal to Christian believers might have small weight with those who reject the supernatural, and cannot admit the evidence of an alleged eye-witness of the raising of Lazarus, and who profess to be able to trace the growth of the legend which transformed the prophet of Nazareth into the Word of God Incarnate. For them the document we are examining is an ideal composition of the 2nd cent., of no greater historical value than the Gospel of Nicodemus or the Clementine Recognitions. Others, who are convinced that the book embodies early and perhaps Apostolical traditions, have adopted mediating theories of different types, pointing to the use by a 2nd cent, writer of earlier ‘sources,’ much as the Logia document is supposed to have been used by the author of ‘Matthew’ or the Markan document by St. Luke. The late date assigned by Baur to the composition of the Gospel has long been given up as impossible, and a theory of ‘forgery’ Is no longer advocated by any one whose judgment is worth considering. Few responsible critics now would place the document later than a.d. 110-120, and the good faith of the writer is hardly questioned even among those who most strenuously deny that his facts have any historical basis.

Among partition-theories may be classed that of Renan, who considers that the history of the Fourth Gospel is more accurate than that of the Synoptics, and that it was probably derived from the Apostle John by one of his disciples; but he slights the discourses as tedious and almost entirely tictitious. Wendt, on the other hand, holds that a ‘third main original source’ of the Gospels — in addition to the Logia of Matthew and the original Mark — is to be found in the groundwork of the discouiBes of the Fourth Gospel, whilst the historical framework came from another hand and is less trustworthy. Ewald held that St. John composed the Gospel with the aid of friends and disciples whose pens are discernible in the body of the work, whilst the 21st chapter is entirely theirs, though written with the Apostle’s sanction and before iiis death. Dr. E. A. Abbott holds that John the son of Zebedee was the author of the Gospel, but not in its present shape. Hebrews 7 that viewed as history the document must be analyzed so as to ‘separate fact from not-fact,* but that it has considerable value in correcting impressions derived from the Synoptic Gospels, whilst the spiritual significance of the Gospel is exceedingly high. Harnack attributes the authorship to ‘John the Elder’ of Ephesus, a disciple of the Apostle, who has incorporated in his work some of his teacher’s reminiscences, so that it might be styled ‘Gospel of John the Elder according to John the Son of Zebedee.’ He holds that the Gospel, the three Epistles and the Apocalypse in its latest, i.e. its Christian, form, were all written by John the Elder in Asia about a.d. 100. Bousset ascribes the Gospel to a disciple of this John, who had access to traditional knowledge concerning Christ’s Judsean ministry which enabled him in some respects to correct and to supplement the Synoptic accounts. Schmiedel, on the other hand, considera that the Gospel caimot be the work of any eye-witness, Apostolic or non-Apostolic, and that it was not meant to record actual history. The author is ‘a great and eminent soul,’ in whom the tendencies of his time (about A.n. 120) are brought to focus; and he finds in the Gospel ‘the ripest fruit of primitive Christianity — at the same time the furthest removed from the original form.’

The mention of ‘John the Elder’ brings to view the only definite alternative theory of authorship that has gained much support. It is based upon a much discussed passage from Papias, preserved for us by Eusebius {HE iii. 39), of which the following sentence is the most important: ‘If, then, any one came who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders — what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say.’ Upon this foundation the hypothesis has been set up that the John who at the end of the 1st cent, gained such a position of influence in Ephesus was not the Apostle, but a presbyter of the same name. It follows that Irenteus totally misunderstood Polycarp when he claimed to have heard ‘John,’ imagining that he meant the Apostle; and moreover, that Polyerates was mistaken in his reference to the Apostle’s residence in Ephesus; and further, that Clement of Alexandria and the whole Church of the 2nd cent, were similarly misled. ‘John the Elder’ is at best a shadowy personage. Dr. Salmon contended that he had no real existence, but that Papias in the extract names the Apostle John twice over, though through his ‘slovenliness of composition’ it might seem as if two distinct persons were intended. It would appear, however, to be fairly established that a second John, known as ‘the Presbyter,’ was recognized by Papias, and perhaps by Eusebius, but he is an obscure figure; history is almost entirely silent about him, and there is no proof that he was ever in Asia at all. It is hard to believe that such a person’ was really the author of a book which so boldly challenged and so seriously modified evangelical tradition, and that, by an inexplicable mistake which arose within the living memory of persons actually concerned, his personality was confused with that of one of the inner circle of the twelve Apostles of the Lord.

6. Summary and Conclusion. — It will be seen that some approximation has taken place between the views of those who have defended and those who have assailed the traditional view of the authorship of the Gospel, since the middle of the last century. It is fairly agreed that the date of its composition must be fixed somewhere between a.d. 90 and 110. It is further agreed by a large majority of moderate critics that the Gospel contains historical elements of great value, which must have come from an eye-witness. These are independent of all the sources upon which the Synoptists had drawn, and they enable us in many important particulars to supplement the earlier narratives. It is admitted, further, that the discourses at least contain valuable original material which may have come from John the Apostle, though many contend that this has been so ‘worked over’ by a later hand that its general complexion has been altered. On the other hand, it is admitted by many who maintain the Johannine authorship, that the Apostle must have written the Gospel in advanced age, that he may have been aided by others, that he has cast his reminiscences into a characteristic form determined by the working of a mind saturated with the teaching of Christ but retaining its own individuality, and that he was of necessity largely influenced by the conditions of the time in which he wrote.

It is not pretended that the measure of approximation thus reached amounts to agreement. The difference in time between A.n. 90 and 110 may appear slight, but the earlier date admits the possibihty of Apostolic authorship, and the later does not. The agreement to recognize elements of value in the historical portion of the Gospel is important, but it does not extend to the admission of the possibility that one who had himself witnessed with his own eyes the signs and mighty works that Jesus wrought, did also at the close of his life record with substantial accuracy what he had heard and seen, so that readers of to-day may be assured that they are studying history and not a work of pious imagination. The deep chasm remains practically unbridged which separates those, on the one hand, who hold that the view of the Person and work of Christ taken in the Fourth Gospel can claim the authority of an eye-witness, one of ‘the men who companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us,’ and, on the other, those who hold that the document contains a ‘developed’ and practically unhistorical representation of) facts, devised to support a doctrinal position which belongs essentially not to the first, but to the fourth generation of primitive Christians.

This distinction is deep and vital. It need not be exaggerated, as if such representative scholars as Harnack and SchUrer on one side, and Sanday and Drummond on the other, are fundamentally antagonistic in their views of Christianity. But the distinction should not be minimized, for a deep doctrinal difference is often tacitly implied by it. John the Presbyter may seem to be removed by but a hair’s breadth from John the Apostle at whose feet he sat, but it is a question of vital importance to the Christian faith of to-day whether, when we read the first and the eighth and the fourteenth chapters of the Fourth Gospel, we are listening to the voice of an Apostle recalling the memories of years long past and recording them in a form suited to strengthen the belief of tils own and succeeding times, or to a developed doctrinal manifesto of the early 2nd cent., in which are included a few reminiscences derived from the lips of an aged Apostle before he passed away from earth. The difference thus indicated can with difficulty be removed, because it depends upon a still deeper difference in the mode of viewing Christian origins. The point really at issue between two classes of scholars and critics is this — Did the facts and events, a selected record of which is contained in the Fourth Gospel, take place substantially as described, or has a reconstruction of the original tradition been effected, in all good faith, for dogmatic purposes? Is the picture of the unique Person here described a faithful reflexion of a Divine Reality, or has the comparatively distant remembrance of a true prophet been sublimated into the portrayal of such a Being as never actually lived and spoke on earth?

A spiritual Gospel must be spiritually discerned. External evidence is most important in its place, and in this instance the testimony which assigns the Gospel to the Apostle John is early, wide-spread, explicit, and practically unchallenged in the early Church. Internal evidences, again, are most valuable, and the claims directly and indirectly made by the writer have been briefly described in this article, and the lines along which a vindication of those claims may be established have been indicated. Also, in determining a disputed question of authorship, alternative theories should be compared and their relative probability estimated. Accordingly, it has here been contended that the balance of probability is decidedly in favour of Johannine authorship, though some difficulties involved in that hypothesis have not been denied, and the possibility of co-operation on the part of John’s disciples in Ephesus has not been excluded. But ‘evidences’ cannot prove spiritual truth, and the ultimate criterion between different views of this Gospel is practically furnished by the writer’s own words, ‘These are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.’ Those who hold such views of God, of Jesus Christ, of history, and of the Christian religion, as to be able to accept the view that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Son of God, the Word of God Incarnate, who wrought works that never man wrought and spoke words such as mere man never spake, who died for our sins and rose again from the dead and lives now to impart the gift of that Spirit whom He promised — will find little difficulty in accepting the statement that John the Apostle who saw the things recorded in the Gospel ‘hath borne witness, and his witness is true.’ Those to whom such statements are on other grounds quite incredible, and who ascribe them not to the religion of Jesus and His first disciples, but to the dogma of a period which had advanced beyond the teaching of Paul to a point which is characteristic of the 2nd cent., will naturally adopt any theory of authorship that the case allows rather than admit that the Fourth Gospel was written by the son of Zebedee. Absolute demonstration is from the nature of the case impossible, but it may fairly be said that the external and internal evidences combined are such as would in any ordinary case, and apart from all doctrinal prepossessions, be considered strong, if not conclusive, in favour of the Johannine authorship of the Gospel. It may be said in closing that the conditions of current opinion have made it necessary to devote this article almost entirely to the discussion of the question of authorship. But the contents and nature of the Gospel have incidentally been brought somewhat fully into view, and an outline of its theological teaching will be found in a subsequent article. — John [Theology of].

W. T. Davison.