Chapter V: Part 5

In this part of our subject we are a little entangled in cross-division, because the same sections of the narrative are interesting in more ways than one. Chap. vii in particular will meet us under several heads; but there is just one section of it that I must ask leave to quote in full, as containing in a small compass a sketch that seems drawn from the life of the Sanhedrin and its ramifications.

‘The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees; and
they said unto them, Why did ye not bring him? The officers
answered, Never man so spake. The Pharisees therefore answered them,
Are ye also led astray? Hath any of the rulers believed on him, or
of the Pharisees? But this multitude which knoweth not the law are
accursed. Nicodemus saith unto them (he that came to him before,
being one of them), Doth our law judge a man, except it first hear
from himself and know what he doeth? They answered and said unto
him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and see that out of Galilee
ariseth no prophet’ (vii. 45-52).

The ‘chief priests’ in this Gospel correspond to the Sadducees in the Synoptics; the chief priests and Pharisees together make up the Sanhedrin. This body had its own servants and apparitors, whom it sent to arrest Jesus; and their report is discussed in a debate which we may be sure exactly reproduces the kind of thing that actually happened. ‘Hath any of the rulers believed on him, or of the Pharisees?’ ‘But this multitude which knoweth not the law are accursed.’ ‘Doth our law judge a man, except it first hear from himself and know what he doeth?’ ‘Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.’ It is a perfect specimen of the kind of speeches that would be made, and the kind of answers that would be given.

We again get an interior view of the meeting of the Sanhedrin in xi. 47-50. ‘The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many signs. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor do ye take account that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.’

Here we are introduced to the politics of the time. ‘The Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation’ was exactly the fear which constantly haunted the minds of the Sadducean aristocracy, but is expressed in such general terms as would appeal most to the Pharisees as well. The haughty Caiaphas makes a speech which, as reported to the Evangelist, he interprets in a sense that was very possibly not that of its author. The high priest may have meant only that as an act of policy a single individual might be made a scapegoat. But the Evangelist, who is himself a true prophet, has so strong a sense of divine overruling in all that happened and of divine inspiration taking hold of men without their will, that he sees in the words a profounder meaning than they were intended to have, though not perhaps than they really had in the counsels of God and to an insight like his own.

Another example of the same attitude of mind meets us a little lower down in another passage that has the same strong marks of verisimilitude.

‘They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the palace: and it was
early; and they themselves entered not into the palace, that they
might not be defiled, but might eat the passover. Pilate therefore
went out unto them, and saith, What accusation bring ye against this
man? They answered and said unto him, If this man were not an
evil-doer, we should not have delivered him up unto thee. Pilate
therefore said unto them, Take him yourselves, and judge him
according to your law. The Jews said unto him, It is not lawful for
us to put any man to death: that the word of Jesus might be
fulfilled, which he spake, signifying by what manner of death he
should die’ (xviii. 28-32).

There is an often-quoted statement in the Talmud to the effect that the Jews lost the power of capital punishment forty years before the great siege. The Evangelist sees in this a providential appointment designed to verify the Lord’s words, and that His death might take the Roman form (crucifixion) and not the Jewish form (stoning).

There is a singularly fine characterization in the whole narrative of the Trial. Take for instance the following:

‘Upon this Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out,
saying, If thou release this man, thou art not Cæsar’s friend: every
one that maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar. When Pilate
therefore heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on
the judgement-seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew,
Gabbatha. Now it was the Preparation of the passover: it was about
the sixth hour. And he saith unto the Jews, Behold, your King! They
therefore cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.
Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests
answered, We have no king but Cæsar’ (xix. 12-15).

The Roman had sufficient sense of justice not to wish to condemn an innocent man. But the accusers of Jesus have a weapon that they use against him mercilessly. They know that he was not in the best odour at Rome. His administration of his province through his own wilfulness and harshness, had not been very successful. It was in the later days of Tiberius; and Tiberius thought something of the welfare of the provinces, but thought still more of having in office instruments on whom he could depend for strict subservience to himself. The accusers play their part with cynical adroitness: ‘If thou release this man, thou art not Cæsar’s friend;’ ‘We have no king but Cæsar.’

v. Jewish Ideas and Dialectic.

We are in search of hints and allusions appropriate to the time. The evidence is overwhelming that the author of the Gospel was a Jew, and (as I think) also a Jew of Palestine. The best critics admit this, and it is hardly worth while to stay to prove it; indeed it is incidentally proved by a large proportion of the examples I am giving. But it is of more importance to prove that the author was a contemporary of the events he is describing. Now I will not say that the points I am going to urge exactly prove this. They do, however, I believe, justify us in saying that if the author was really an Apostle, a member of the original Twelve, or closely associated with them, the indications in the Gospel entirely correspond with such a position. If the author was not an Apostle, then he must either have been in a position extremely similar to that of the Apostles, or else he must have taken great pains to convey the impression that he was in such a position. The passages I am about to adduce all reflect with great vividness a state of things like that which must have existed in the time of our Lord.

There is just one period in which the Christian Church stood in a relation to Judaism which it never occupied again: that was in its origin. Christianity arose out of the bosom of Judaism. The first disciples reached manhood as Jews; they were witnesses of the process by which Christianity gradually broke loose from Judaism; they themselves underwent a process of conversion; their ideas were modified little by little as they went on, and in the end the new displaced the old. But they had been as familiar with the attitude of their Jewish opponents as they were with their own; they knew the arguments to which the Jews appealed, the prejudices by which they were animated, the language that they used. I repeat, there was one period to which this description applied, and never another in the same degree. The Fourth Gospel is full of instances of this. Let us turn to some of them.

The earlier chapters have been drawn upon rather freely in other connexions: we will therefore begin with chap. iv. How perfect is the local colour of the story of the Samaritan woman![50]

‘The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto him, How is it that thou,
being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a Samaritan woman?... The
woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the
well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou
greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank
thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle?’ (iv. 9, 11, 12).

The standing feud between Jews and Samaritans is notorious, and does not need illustrating. ‘The well is deep’ in the most literal sense; the actual depth is about 75 feet. But how appropriate and natural is the appeal to the patriarch Jacob, and the local tradition about him!

‘The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto
her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this
mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.... The
woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh (which is called
Christ): when he is come, he will declare unto us all things’ (vers.
19-21, 25).

The natural impression of the discourse to which she was listening upon the woman would be that her interlocutor was a prophet. And her first impulse would be to put to Him the burning question which divided Jews and Samaritans—Was the true centre of worship to be sought in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim? It was at one time contended that the Samaritans had no Messianic expectation; but that is now given up. The Samaritans not only had such an expectation, but have it to the present day.

The Jews at Capernaum in chap. vi apply the Pentateuchal history in very much the same way as the Samaritan woman. Some of our modern critics, who have a keen eye for anything to which exception can be taken, and who do not appreciate the simplicity which is not peculiar to St. John but characteristic of the Biblical narrative generally, will say that here we have a ‘schematism,’ a stereotyped formula, which shows poverty of invention. On the contrary, I would describe it as a touch of nature so ingrained in the Jewish habit of mind that it was sure to recur, and harmonizes thoroughly with the historical situation.

Chap. vii is full of the kind of materials of which we are in search; but the greater proportion of them we will reserve for our next head. I must, however, just refer in passing to the expression of the Jews’ surprise, ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?’ (ver. 15). It is just what would excite the astonishment of the populace that one who seemed to be a simple peasant, and had not been a student in any of the current Rabbinical schools, should yet show himself so well able to deal with the profoundest questions that the Rabbis were in the habit of discussing. This seventh chapter places us in the midst of a society which, with only a slight difference of method, reminds us of the restless curiosity with which we are told that Alexandrian Christians canvassed the metaphysical problems involved in the Arian controversy. In Palestine the dominant influence was Rabbinism; the one idea that the people had of learning was Rabbinical learning; and so entirely did the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ cover the ground that the appearance of a teacher who was neither scribe nor Pharisee was sure to be remarked upon.

A little lower down we have exactly the kind of argument to which the Jewish people were accustomed.

‘The multitude answered, Thou hast a devil: who seeketh to kill
thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I did one work, and ye all
marvel. For this cause hath Moses given you circumcision (not that
it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the sabbath ye
circumcise a man. If a man receiveth circumcision on the sabbath,
that the law of Moses may not be broken; are ye wroth with me,
because I made a man every whit whole on the sabbath?’ (vers. 20-3).

I do not think it can be doubted that arguments like this were just what would be constantly heard at the first beginnings of Christianity. But they belong to the time when it was just in the act of differentiating itself from Judaism; and I cannot easily imagine that they would be so clearly realized and so appropriately introduced later.

Of the same kind is much of the discussion in ch. viii. I do not undertake to say that this discussion, or other discussions in the Fourth Gospel, are given exactly as they really happened. I am quite prepared to believe that especially the part in them taken by our Lord Himself was a little different from that which He is represented as taking. But, if I think this, it is because the narrative seems to me (if it is not too much of a paradox to say so) even too true to the time and circumstances in which the discussion took place. No doubt our Lord is represented as holding Himself apart from and above the Jewish controversialists. I feel sure that He did this; but, with the Synoptic Gospels before me, I suspect that He did it in a slightly different, i. e. in a more reserved and—if I may be forgiven the expression—delicate way.

With thus much of preface I will just give a specimen of what I mean by truth to the time and circumstances.

‘The Jews answered and said unto Him, Say we not well that thou art
a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil;
but I honour my Father, and ye dishonour me.... The Jews said unto
him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the
prophets; and thou sayest, if a man keep my word, he shall never
taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is
dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?’ (vers.
48, 49, 52, 53).

‘Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil’; ‘Abraham is dead, and the prophets.’ These are exactly the things that would be said, and that we may be sure were said. But I am not satisfied with the hypothesis that the author who wrote them was a Jew of Palestine. I believe that he was, and must have been, an actual contemporary and eye-witness of what he is recording.

The same conclusion forces itself upon us all through the next chapter, which is steeped in Jewish ideas and customs; and those not Jewish ideas and customs in the abstract, but in direct and close connexion with the Jewish controversy as it existed in the time of our Lord and centring in His person. I single out a few of the verses that illustrate this most vividly.

‘And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his
disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his
parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did
this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be
made manifest in him.... Some therefore of the Pharisees said, This
man is not from God, because he keepeth not the sabbath. But others
said, How can a man that is a sinner do such signs? And there was a
division among them.... He therefore answered, Whether he be a
sinner, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now
I see. They said therefore unto him, What did he to thee? how opened
he thine eyes? He answered them, I told you even now, and ye did not
hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? would ye also become his
disciples? And they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple;
but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God hath spoken unto
Moses: but as for this man, we know not whence he is. The man
answered and said unto them, Why, herein is the marvel, that ye know
not whence he is, and yet he opened mine eyes. We know that God
heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and do
his will, him he heareth. Since the world began it was never heard
that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were
not from God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him,
Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they
cast him out’ (ix. vers. 1-3, 16, 25-34).

Notice in this the following essentially Jewish ideas: The connexion of sin with physical infirmity, and the speculation as to how far back, in a particular case, this connexion went—whether it was confined to the individual affected himself, or whether it went back to his parents; the observance of the sabbath as indispensable to one who really had a divine mission; in reply to this, the plea that none but a righteous man could work miracles; the relation of discipleship, and the claim of the Pharisees to be in the strict sense Moses’ disciples; and finally, the characteristic abuse of one who bore in his body the mark of having been born in sin, and yet presumed to teach doctors of the Law; for such a one expulsion from the synagogue was a fitting penalty[51].

vi. The Messianic Expectation.

We have already more than once come across allusions to the Messianic expectation as it existed in the time of Christ. But there are a few examples of this to which it is well that we should direct special attention.

The first is the series of questions put to the Baptist by the deputation which came to test the nature of his mission. They ask him who he is, and he expressly denies that he is the Christ. Is he then Elijah? He replies that he is not. He is once more asked if he is the expected prophet like unto Moses; and to this too he answers, No. His questioners draw the natural inference, and call upon him to explain what is his authority for administering this new rite of baptism, if he had none of these credentials. Thereupon he discriminates between his own mission and that of his greater successor.

It may be contended that this passage was suggested by two parallel groups in the Synoptics, the speculations of Herod Antipas as to our Lord—that He is the Baptist risen from the dead, or Elijah, or a prophet (Mark vi. 14-16; Matt. xiv. 1, 2; Luke ix. 7, 8), and the preliminary of St. Peter’s confession, when the disciples are asked by their Master as to the common opinion about Him and they reply that some supposed Him to be the Baptist and others Elijah, and others again, one of the prophets (Mark viii. 27, 28; Matt. xvi. 13, 14; Luke ix. 18, 19).

There are doubtless the two possibilities: the questions attributed to the deputation in St. John, if we suppose that the author was really remote from the events, would be suggested by passages like these; if he was an eye-witness, it would be more probable that they were taken directly from the life, or at least from the personal knowledge of the writer that such ideas were commonly entertained at the time. There are several reasons for thinking that this latter hypothesis is the easier and less artificial. To suppose that the scene was a literary invention would involve the adaptation to the Baptist of what was originally said of Christ. It is also against the supposition that the questions are borrowed from the Synoptists, that in one important point they run directly counter to the Synoptic tradition. When the Baptist is asked if he is Elijah, he says that he is not, whereas the Synoptists persistently identify him with Elijah, and that upon the authority of Christ Himself (Matt. xi. 14; xvii. 10-13; Mark ix. 11-13). There is another noticeable divergence. In St. John the question relates to ‘_the_ prophet,’ with direct reference to Deut. xviii. 15, 18; in the Synoptists the phrase used is ‘a prophet, as one of the prophets,’ or ‘one of the prophets.’ These are the forms of the phrase in St. Mark, which is fundamental. On the second occasion St. Matthew substitutes ‘Jeremiah or one of the prophets’; on both occasions St. Luke has ‘one of the old prophets is (was) risen again.’ The difference between the two versions is rather marked, though no doubt the Synoptic idea ultimately goes back to Deut. xviii, like the other. For these reasons the hypothesis that St. John is drawing from the life seems distinctly preferable.

Allusion has already been made to some of the popular ideas and to the meeting of the Sanhedrin in chap. vii. That chapter is especially important from our present point of view, that of the Messianic expectation. We see there reproduced with wonderful vividness just such an undercurrent of criticism as we may be sure was constantly going on, particularly in Jerusalem.

‘Some therefore of them of Jerusalem said, Is not this he whom they
seek to kill? And lo, he speaketh openly, and they say nothing unto
him. Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ?
Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when the Christ cometh,
no one knoweth whence he is.’

‘But of the multitude many believed on him; and they said, When the
Christ shall come, will he do more signs than those which this man
hath done?’

‘Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, said,
This is of a truth the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But
some said, What, doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the
Scripture said that the Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from
Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there arose a division in
the multitude because of him. And some of them would have taken him;
but no man laid hands on him.’

‘They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search,
and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet’ (vers. 25-7, 31,
40-4, 52).

It is to be observed that several of the points in the expectation thus depicted are of a somewhat recondite character. ‘We know this man whence he is: but when the Christ cometh, no one knoweth whence he is.’ This point can be verified, at least approximately. There is a Jewish saying that ‘three things come wholly unexpected, Messiah, a god-send, and a scorpion[52].’ And Justin Martyr alludes to another tradition, that the Messiah would not even know his own mission until he was anointed by Elijah[53]—the idea of this was perhaps suggested by the anointing of David.

Again we note that the writer assumes the point of view of the crowd, according to which Christ was regarded as coming from Nazareth in Galilee, though in any case he had before him the First and Third Gospels which placed His birth in Bethlehem. Not a hint escapes the Evangelist of his knowledge of this, although the point is brought as an objection to our Lord’s Messianic claims. In other words, the Gospel reflects the real state of things in A.D. 28, not the Christian beliefs of A.D. 90. We have to say the same of the test applied by the Sanhedrin, that a prophet was not to be looked for from Galilee.

All these points agree beautifully with the time when Jesus was moving about with His disciples among His countrymen, a time of which the genuine recollection must have been long lost to all those Christians who had not themselves actually lived in it. The same comment would have to be made upon the language in which the Evangelist more than once refers to Christ’s mission, or rather the popular conception of it. In vi. 15, the people are represented as coming to take Him by force and make Him king; and at the entry into Jerusalem He is greeted as the King of Israel, and the prophecy of Zechariah is applied to Him, ‘Behold thy King cometh, &c.’ In all this there are evident traces of the unreformed Messianic idea, as associated with political domination. By the year 90 all such ideas must have entirely vanished, and it must have required an effort of mind to recover them which one who had not been himself connected with the events would have had no incentive to make.

* * * * *

I am greatly mistaken if the mass of particulars collected in this lecture does not come home to the mind with great, and even overwhelming, force. In me at least it inspires, and has always inspired ever since I took up the study of the Gospel, a strong conviction that it could only be the work of one who had really lived through the events that he describes. Perhaps there is a little exaggeration in the phrase that it ‘could only be’ such a one. It is the kind of rough approximate phrase that one is apt to use for practical common-sense purposes. Strictly speaking, there is the other alternative, of which we ought not wholly to lose sight, that the author was a second-century Christian, perhaps of Jewish descent and with some Jewish training, who by a _tour de force_ threw himself back into the circumstances of the time and had a wonderful success in reproducing them. Dr. Drummond reminds us that there is this alternative.

‘It is sometimes said that to produce an untrue narrative possessing
such verisimilitude as the Gospel would have been quite beyond the
capacity of any writer of the second century: such an author would
be without example; such a work would be a literary miracle. In
making this allegation people seem to forget that the book is in any
case unique. Whether it be true history, or the offspring of
spiritual imagination, or a mixture of both, no one, so far as we
know, could have written it in the second or any other century,
except the man who did write it; and to assert that an unexampled,
unknown, and unmeasured literary genius could not have done this or
that appears to me extremely hazardous’ (p. 378 f.).

Perfectly true; there doubtless is the possibility that ‘an unexampled, unknown, and unmeasured literary genius’ could have done what we find. But as a rule, where facts can be explained easily and naturally without having recourse to any such extraordinary assumption, the world is content so to explain them. The practical question is a balance of probabilities. And even now, as in the days of Bishop Butler, probability is the very guide of life.

Footnote 41:

Wrede, _Charakter und Tendenz d. Johannesevangeliums_ (Tübingen and
Leipzig, 1903), p. 25.

Footnote 42:

An excellent example is the treatment of the Acts of Paul and Thecla
by Professor W. M. Ramsay in _The Church in the Roman Empire_, pp.
375-428.

Footnote 43:

‘Das Geographische im Evangelium nach Johannes,’ in the _Zeitschr. f.
neuttest. Wiss._, 1902, pp. 257-265.

Footnote 44:

Cf. Drummond, p. 366 f.; and the writer’s _Sacred Sites of the
Gospels_, p. 95.

Footnote 45:

H. J. Holtzmann, ad loc., and _Einleitung_, ed. 2, p. 469: cf.
Drummond, p. 437 f.

Footnote 46:

Pp. 42-6.

Footnote 47:

It is denied by Holtzmann, but approved by Westcott.

Footnote 48:

For a discussion of the nature of this defilement see Chwolson, _Das
letzte Passamahl Christi_, p. 56 ff.

Footnote 49:

Op. cit. p. 49.

Footnote 50:

It is very surprising that Freiherr Hermann von Soden, in a pamphlet
published at the end of the year, _Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben
Jesu_ (Berlin, 1904), p. 9, should deny the existence of local colour
in the Fourth Gospel. In proof he mentions some half-dozen points that
occur in the Synoptics but not in this Gospel; which only means that
it is of a different type from the other three, and does not repeat
what was already found in them. And yet, even of these points, several
come back in another form. It is true that the Gospel does not
describe the healing of a demoniac, but it has many marked allusions
to demoniacal possession (see below, p. 134). It is true that it has
not the name ‘Sadducees’; it speaks of them rather as ‘chief priests’;
but it is well acquainted with their character and policy (see above,
p. 126 ff.). The Gospel has no ‘elders,’ but it has ‘rulers’ or
members of the Sanhedrin, whose position it perfectly understands. In
like manner it has no νομικοί or νομοδιδάσκαλοι, but it is fond of the
title ‘Rabbi,’ and it makes pointed reference to Rabbinical training
(see below, p. 132). The whole page of criticism, coming from a writer
of such eminence, is most disappointing. Either the statements are
very questionable as fact or they have not the slightest bearing on
the authorship of the Gospel. Why should not an Apostle break off
somewhat abruptly in his report of a discourse, or glide imperceptibly
from narrative into comment? That is just what St. Paul does, as we
shall see (p. 168, below).

The truth is that the criticism of the Fourth Gospel on the liberal
side has become largely conventional; one writer after another repeats
certain stereotyped formulae without testing them. It is high time
that they were really tested and confronted with the facts.

Footnote 51:

On the application of this penalty in the lifetime of Christ, see
above, p. 115.

Footnote 52:

_Sanhedr._ 97 a.

Footnote 53:

_Dial. c. Tryph._ §8, cf. 110.

LECTURE V
THE CHARACTER OF THE NARRATIVE

The last lecture called attention to a multitude of little points that seem to lead to a definite conclusion. They almost all belonged to the framework, or setting of the narrative, and not to its salient features. I was conscious, not seldom, of stopping short just where we seemed to be coming to something of more importance, and to which exception would be more likely to be taken. I stopped short deliberately and of set purpose, because I am myself of opinion that from the point of view of critical method, it is just these small incidental details that are most significant. They are the sort of details that an author throws in when he is off his guard. From them, far more than from his laboured arguments, we may tell what is his real standpoint and attitude. In regard to the abundant details which we have examined, the Evangelist had plentiful opportunities of tripping; but in no single instance is he really convicted of doing so, whereas in a vast number his record has been verified.

Taking this ample verification of details with the direct claim considered in the last lecture but one, we have reached a point at which the authentic character of the Gospel, its claim to come from an eye-witness if not from an Apostle, seems to be really well assured. But the question that now meets us is, how far this assurance is neutralized by the arguments brought against the Gospel from a comparison of it with the Synoptics and from certain points of general probability. It is true that there are differences, which may amount to discrepancies, between the Fourth Gospel and its predecessors.

There is, however, this preliminary remark to be made, before we discuss the differences in detail, that whatever we may think in regard to them, in any case the result must in one respect be favourable, and not adverse, to the Gospel; it must be favourable at least to its independence and authority. For there are two things to be noticed in regard to these differences.

i. The Evangelist had the Synoptic Gospels before him; and, where he differs from them, he does so deliberately. Either his intention is to correct them, or at least he deliberately goes his own way.

It follows that he was a person who was conscious of writing with authority. If he had not been, and if he was only desirous of insinuating his own views under cover of a great name, we may be pretty sure that he would have kept closely to the lines already marked out by works that had a considerable vogue and a considerable reputation.

ii. And we are confirmed in this opinion by the further observation that the points on which he differs from his predecessors are for the most part and to all appearance indifferent for any particular purpose that he seems to have had in writing. He has certainly not gone out of his way to exploit or insist upon them. For anything that we can see the only reason that he had for his divergences was that to the best of his belief and knowledge the facts were really as he has stated them, and not otherwise.

I. Alleged Discrepancies with the Synoptic Narrative.

i. The Scene of the Ministry.

One of the most obvious differences between the Synoptic and the Johannean narrative is that the scene of so much of the latter is laid in Judaea and Jerusalem.

The first comment that we have to make upon this is that the difference is not really so great or so significant as it seems. From both sides it is subject to some discounting, from the side of St. John as well as from that of the Synoptics.

I have already alluded to the fundamental mistake that is so often made of judging the Gospel as though it were not a Gospel, but a biography. If the author had been writing a biography like (e. g.) Mr. Morley’s _Life of Gladstone_, he would have felt himself bound to cover the whole of the ground. He would have had to sketch the whole of his hero’s career. He would have had to observe a due proportion between its different parts. If the hero had spent part of his life in England, and part of it in the Colonies, each of these should have had justice done to it. But the author of the Gospel was under no such obligation. His object was not to write a complete and connected history. The Gospel is not a history, but a series of scenes, chosen with a view to a particular purpose of which I shall have to speak later. For that purpose geography did not matter: it was quite indifferent whether the scene was laid in Judaea or in Galilee. But there was a sub-current in the author’s mind which led him to supplement the work of his predecessors, and to notice some things which they had omitted. Perhaps this was one of the reasons that led him to single out by preference Judaean scenes. And perhaps those scenes really lent themselves better to the object that he had in view. The simple peasants of Galilee needed moral teaching; whereas the theologically minded inhabitants of Judaea called out more of a theology. If the writer of the Gospel had his home (or a home) at Jerusalem, it would be only natural that he would give prominence to scenes enacted there. But in any case it is to be observed that the Gospel by no means excludes a Galilean ministry, but rather presupposes it.

We are expressly told (in iv. 44) of the reason which caused Jesus to retire from Judaea to Galilee, and it is rather implied that the stay there would be of considerable duration. (‘After the two days he went forth from thence into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.’) Again, in vii. 4, the brethren of Jesus taunt Him with avoiding the head quarters of Judaism. Their words imply that His work had been done in the obscurity of a province (‘No man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly’). He had not as yet manifested Himself to the world.

On the other hand, when we come to examine the evidence of the Synoptics we find that it too is by no means so clear as it might seem at first sight. From the critical point of view what we have to deal with is not our Gospels as we have them, but the original documents out of which they are composed. Thus their evidence is really reduced to that of the main document, which is common to all three and is practically identical with our present Gospel of St. Mark. The second leading document, commonly known as the _Logia_, was a collection (in the main) of sayings with very few exact notes of place or time; and one or two allusions in this would perhaps be better satisfied by a Judaean ministry. In any case that would be true of the special source, or sources, of St. Luke. For instance, the story of Mary and Martha (Luke x. 38-42) points to Bethany; and parables like those of the Good Samaritan and the Pharisee and the Publican would have more local colour if delivered in or near Jerusalem.

Going back to the ground-document, we must remember that that too does not profess to be a biography: it is in the strictest sense a Gospel, the main object of which is to produce belief. If we may accept the well-attested tradition as to its origin—that it was put together from material supplied by the occasional preaching of St. Peter—completeness and consecutiveness are not what we should look for. There can be little doubt that this Gospel was really full of gaps, into which there is nothing to prevent us from inserting such southward excursions as we find described in the Fourth Gospel. It is true that there is something rather strange in the fact that our Second Gospel should be so predominantly taken up with Galilee. Nothing that we know quite serves to explain this. But, however that may be, the unsolved problem has more to do with St. Mark than with St. John.

The antecedent probabilities of the case are really in favour of St. John’s narrative and not against it. It is not likely that a pious Jew would neglect the command to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem. Neither is it likely that a religious reformer would be content to work and teach only in a province. ‘It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem’ (Luke xiii. 33) is a Synoptic saying; and it would be strange if the prophet only went to Jerusalem to die. It may be true that some of the traces of acquaintance with inhabitants of Judaea, such as the owners of the ass requisitioned for the public entry into Jerusalem and of the upper room in which the last Passover was eaten, might be accounted for by visits paid to the south before the active ministry of Jesus began. But this would not hold so well of cases like those of Judas Iscariot and Joseph of Arimathaea, whose relation to Jesus is associated with His religious work. Of course the proof is not decisive; but both these and many other indications would be better satisfied if the ministry had really been carried on in Judaea as well as Galilee. In that case we should better understand why the Pharisees sent emissaries to the north to watch what was going on (Mark iii. 22, vii. 1), and also how events gradually led up to the final crisis; how the populace was worked up to the enthusiasm which greeted the public entry, and how the hostility of the rulers was deepened until it could be satisfied with nothing short of death. If the Synoptic narrative had stood alone, the catastrophe would be too sudden and abrupt.

ii. The Duration of the Ministry.

The question as to the length of our Lord’s ministry is allied to that as to its place. As to this, however, I should not be prepared to speak with quite so much confidence. Antecedently we have no sufficient means of saying whether a period of a little over one year or a little over two years would be more probable. Over such work a year is soon gone; and the relation of the different Synoptic documents to each other seems to show that all are but fragmentary and give an imperfect account of the events. The plucking of the ears of corn (or ‘grain,’ Amer. R. V.) has been taken to point to the occurrence of a Passover in the course of the Galilean ministry, because it would be at Passover time that the grain was beginning to ripen. We cannot press this very far; the incident may have occurred (if we have not to work in the Johannean narrative as well) near the beginning of the ministry.

On the other hand it is just possible that St. John’s story may be compressed within the shorter limits. All turns on the reading of John vi. 4, where it is well known that there is strong patristic evidence for omitting ‘the Passover,’ so that this feast, like that in ver. 1, would be unnamed. At the same time readings that rest entirely on patristic quotations are notoriously precarious; and I should hesitate as much to lay stress on this point as on the other. If I myself give the preference to the Johannean reckoning, it would be not because I thought that a clear case could be made out for it in itself, but only on the ground of the general superiority of the Fourth Gospel in chronological precision.

iii. The Cleansing of the Temple.

Another well-known difference is that as to the place assigned to the cleansing of the Temple. In the Fourth Gospel this comes at the beginning of the ministry, and in the Synoptic Gospels at the end. Really the opposition is only between one document and another. The three Synoptics have in this instance a single base, which is practically our St. Mark. In matters of chronology the authority of this document does not rank very high; so that on external grounds it is possible enough that the Fourth Gospel should be preferred.

It is, however, often assumed that the internal grounds in this case outweigh the external. It is held that so strong a measure as the expulsion of the buyers and sellers could only fall in the later period, when the tension between the two sides was reaching its climax and the end was drawing near. I am not sure that this is not to exaggerate the significance of the action. It is really very much in the spirit of the Old Testament prophets. Compared (e. g.) to the slaughter of Baal’s prophets by Elijah, it may well seem a small thing. I agree that the act was in the strict sense Messianic rather than prophetic. This I think comes out in the saying, ‘Make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise’ (John ii. 16). And yet, when we remember that the Lord had not long before come up from His baptism in the Jordan, and still had the Divine Voice proclaiming His sonship as it were sounding in His ear, it seems natural enough that He should mark the beginning of His ministry by some emphatic act. The conscience of the bystanders would be on His side, and one could well understand that they would be abashed and make no defence, like the accusers of the woman taken in adultery.

For these reasons it seems to me that the inferiority of St. John’s version is not so self-evident as is supposed. If it were, how was it that the Evangelist came to change the accepted story as it reached him? At the same time I quite allow that memory may have played him false. The point is not really of any great importance, and I would not ask for more than that the question should be kept open.

iv. The Date of the Last Supper and of the Crucifixion.

Few subjects connected with the Fourth Gospel are more difficult and more complicated than this question of the date (i. e. the day of the month) of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. As the texts stand there is a real difference between the dates assigned to these events in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel. There is agreement as to the day of the week. In any case the Last Supper was eaten on the evening of Thursday, and our Lord suffered on the afternoon of Friday. But according to the Synoptics this Thursday would be Nisan 14, though on the Jewish reckoning (which counted the days from sunset to sunset) the Last Supper would fall on the beginning of Nisan 15. The Supper itself would be the regular passover, and the Crucifixion will have taken place after the passover. According to St. John we are expressly told that the Last Supper was held ‘_before_ the passover’ (xiii. 1), on what we should call the evening of Nisan 13, and the Jews the beginning of Nisan 14; and our Lord will have suffered on the afternoon of the following day, that still belonged to Nisan 14, and His death will have taken place at the time devoted to the slaughter of the Paschal lambs (3-5 p.m.).

It is said that this date is chosen for typological reasons, to identify Christ as the true Paschal Lamb. If that is so, the Evangelist has at least not said a word to emphasize the point, and to appreciate its significance we have to go to St. Paul (1 Cor. v. 7, ‘For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ’). But the argument may just as well be inverted, and St. Paul may be taken as corroborating the statement in the Fourth Gospel. It is indeed, as I cannot but think in this as in other cases, more probable that the fact gave rise to the idea, than that the idea came first and was afterwards translated into fact.

There does not, therefore, seem to be any real presumption against the accuracy of the Fourth Gospel. Probably, if the truth were known, the presumption so far as it went would be rather in its favour, from the early date and excellent character of the evidence supplied by St. Paul. But when we come to compare the two narratives in detail, the favourable presumption is increased by the fact that, whereas the Fourth Gospel is throughout entirely consistent with itself, the Synoptics are by no means so consistent.

An interesting point was raised by the late Dr. Chwolson, an eminent Russian _savant_, who was a great authority on things Jewish—he was a Jew by birth, though he embraced Christianity, and became Professor at St. Petersburg and a member of the Imperial Academy. In an elaborate monograph, _Das letzte Passamahl Christi und der Tag seines Todes_ (St. Petersburg, 1892), Dr. Chwolson tried with great learning and ingenuity to bring the Synoptic narrative into harmony with that of St. John. The attempt was carefully examined by Dr. Schürer[54], and I am not prepared to say that it was successful. But I am not sure that one of the items in Dr. Chwolson’s criticism of the Synoptic story was completely disposed of, even though so formidable a triad as Schürer himself, H. J. Holtzmann and Zahn agree in taking the other side. The three Synoptic Gospels all place the Last Supper on the evening of ‘the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the passover’ (Mark xiv. 12: cf. Matt. xxvi. 17, Luke xxii. 7). Chwolson challenges the accuracy of this expression and asserts that ‘From the Mosaic writings down to the Book of Jubilees (chap. xlix), Philo, Flavius Josephus, the Palestinian Targum ascribed to Jonathan ben Uziel, the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Rabbinical writings of the Middle Ages, indeed down to the present day, the Jews have always understood by the expression “the first day of the feast of unleavened bread,” only the 15th of the month, never the 14th.’ There is something of an answer to this criticism; and it is perhaps made good that by a laxity of expression the Synoptists might write as they have done. Of course the fundamental text is that of St. Mark, and Chwolson’s ingenious solution by emending the text of St. Matthew is so much labour thrown away. Still the comprehensive statement as to Jewish usage does not seem to be invalidated, and the laxity of expression remains somewhat curious.

I can conceive it possible that the Synoptists may be brought into closer agreement with St. John—perhaps on the lines of a paper by the Rev. G. H. Box (_Journ. of Theol. Studies_, April, 1902), which I am glad to see is spoken of with some approval by Dr. Drummond—on the hypothesis that the meal of which our Lord and His disciples partook was really the ceremony of _Kiddûsh_, a solemn ‘sanctification’ which preceded the weekly Sabbath and great festivals like the Passover.

But in any case the Synoptic version is too much burdened by contradictions to be taken as it stands. Many of these have been often pointed out In Mark xiv. 2 (Matt. xxvi. 5) we are expressly told that the Sanhedrin determined to arrest Jesus, but ‘not during the feast,’ lest there should be a tumult among the people. But, according to the Synoptic account, it was on the most sacred day of the feast, and after the Passover had been eaten, that the arrest was carried out. Further, we observe that although the Last Supper is described as a Passover, there is no hint or allusion to its most characteristic feature, the paschal lamb. The events of the night would involve sacrilege for a devout Jew. On such a holy day it was not allowed to bear arms; and yet Peter is armed, and the servants of the High Priest, if not themselves armed, accompany an armed party. Then we have the hurried meeting of the Sanhedrin who, according to the Synoptic version, would have just risen from the paschal meal. Jesus is taken to the _praetorium_ of the Roman Governor, to enter which would cause defilement, and that on the most sacred day of the feast. Simon of Cyrene is represented as coming in from the country, which though perhaps not necessarily implying a working day, looks more like it than a day treated as a sabbath. The haste with which the bodies were taken down from the cross is accounted for by the sanctity of a day that is about to begin, not of one that is just ending (Mark xv. 42). If it had been the latter, Joseph of Arimathaea could not have ‘bought’ the linen cloth in which the body was laid.

We may add to the above a point specially brought out by Mr. Box. ‘In all the accounts it is noticeable that _one_ cup only is mentioned which was partaken of by _all_; whereas at the Passover a special point is made of each man bringing his own cup to drink from.’

It seems on the whole to be safe to say that if the two accounts are to be harmonized, it is not St. John who will need to be corrected from the Synoptists, but the Synoptists who will have to be corrected by St. John. And the result of the investigation on which we have been engaged will be that, of the four points commonly alleged against the Gospel, two are more or less clearly in its favour, and the remaining two are not more than open questions on which either side may be right. Even if the investigation had been more adverse than it is, it would by no means have followed that the Fourth Gospel was not the work of an eye-witness: but its position appears to be strengthened rather than the reverse.

II. The alleged Want of Development in St. John’s Narrative.