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The Criticism Of The Fourth Gospel

W. (William) Sanday

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The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel

The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel

THE MORSE LECTURES PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS THE CRITICISM OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. By William Sanday , D.D., LL.D. 8vo $1.75 net THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN MODERN THEOLOGY. By A. M. Fairbairn , D.D., LL.D. 8vo $2.50 THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. By William Elliot Griffis . 12mo $2.00 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN. By Professor John M. Tyler . 12mo $1.75...

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PREFACE

PREFACE

These lectures were delivered in accordance with the terms of the Morse foundation in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, between October 12 and November 4, 1904; and they were afterwards repeated, with some changes, in Oxford. I have tried to improve their form both while they were being delivered and since. But I have been content to state the case for the most part broadly and constructively, and have not (as I had at one time intended) burdened the pages with notes and detailed discuss

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1. Conservative Opinion.

1. Conservative Opinion.

It must not be thought that conservative scholars have shown any weakening of confidence in their cause. Quite the contrary. The latest period, which has seen so much recrudescence of opposition, has also seen not only the old positions maintained by those who had maintained them before, but an important accession to the literature on the Fourth Gospel—from the hand of a veteran indeed, but a veteran who had not before treated the subject quite directly. I refer to Zahn’s monumental Introduction

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2. Mediating Theories.

2. Mediating Theories.

The really crucial point in the argument relating to the Fourth Gospel is whether or not the author was an eye-witness of the events which he describes. In any case, if we are to take the indications of the Gospel itself, the author must be identified with ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ But it does not quite necessarily follow that this disciple is also to be identified with the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee. Internally there seems to be a fair presumption that he is; and externally, the ev

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3. Partition Theories.

3. Partition Theories.

Where two or more persons are concerned in the composition of a book, the relation between them may be through a written document, or it may be oral. Hitherto we have been going upon the latter assumption: the mediating theories that we have been considering, so far as they were mediating, have treated the writer of the Gospel, whatever his name, as a disciple or associate of St. John the Apostle; and the information derived from him is supposed to have come by way of personal intercourse. But i

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4. Uncompromising Rejection.

4. Uncompromising Rejection.

I began by saying that the tendency towards rapprochement which was characteristic of the eighties and nineties, gave way towards the end of the century, and has been succeeded in recent years by conspicuous instances of uncompromising denial, at once of the apostolic authorship of the Gospel and of its historical character. The names of Jülicher, Schmiedel, Wrede, Wernle, Jean Réville and Loisy are sufficient evidence of this. We shall probably not be wrong in classing with these writers the em

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5. Recent Reaction.

5. Recent Reaction.

Far as I conceive that all these writers have travelled away from the truth, they followed each other in such quick succession that it would have been strange if public opinion had not been affected by them. To one who himself firmly believed in St. John’s authorship of the Gospel, and in its value as a record of the beginning of Christianity, the outlook last autumn seemed as, I said, very black. A single book dispelled the clouds and cleared the air. Dr. Drummond’s Character and Authorship of

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I. i. Defects in the Methods of current Criticism.

I. i. Defects in the Methods of current Criticism.

It is now rather more than eight years since Harnack wrote the famous Preface to his Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur . It was an instance of the genial insight of the writer, and a keen diagnosis of the criticism of the day. The main outline of the Preface will be remembered. Looking back over the period from which Science was just beginning to emerge, the writer characterized it as one in which all the early Christian literature including the New Testament had been treated as a tissu

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ii. Instances in which Criticism has corrected itself.

ii. Instances in which Criticism has corrected itself.

These are not merely a priori reflections, but they are based upon experience of the actual course that criticism has taken. By this time criticism has a considerable history behind it. It has corrected some of its mistakes, and is able to look back upon the course by which it came to make them. In this way it should learn some wholesome lessons. I will take three rather conspicuous examples in which criticism has at first gone wrong and has afterwards come to set itself right, in the hope that

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

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

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

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

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

You will think perhaps that I have been a long time in approaching the direct treatment of the Fourth Gospel. It is quite true that I have thought well to begin the approach from a distance, as it were by sap and trench, before planting my guns—such as they are. I have indeed the ambition in this course of lectures not only to state a case in regard to the Fourth Gospel, but also at the same time to contribute, if I may, to the work so admirably initiated by Dr. Drummond, of commending by the wa

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

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

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

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i. Passages which make a direct claim.

i. Passages which make a direct claim.

I am treading on very familiar ground, but I must ask you to forgive me if I begin by quoting the opening words of the First Epistle: ‘That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); that which we have se

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ii. Passages in which the impression conveyed is indirect.

ii. Passages in which the impression conveyed is indirect.

We have been through the few salient passages which, in spite of the criticism to which they have been exposed, still proclaim in no uncertain terms the first-hand character of the work to which they belong. I now go on to collect a number of passages which are more indirect in their evidence, and just because of this indirectness have a special value, because the evidence which they afford is unconscious and undesigned. For the present I shall speak only of two groups: first, a series of passag

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II. The Identity of the Evangelist.

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, whe

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Different Kinds of Precision in Detail.

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

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i. Pilgrimages.

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 th

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ii. Ceremonies.

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 special

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iii. The Temple.

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 ha

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iv. Sects and Parties.

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 w

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v. Jewish Ideas and Dialectic.

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 e

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vi. The Messianic Expectation.

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 pr

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I. Alleged Discrepancies with the Synoptic Narrative. i. The Scene of the Ministry.

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

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ii. The Duration of the Ministry.

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 th

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iii. The Cleansing of the Temple.

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 Fou

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

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

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

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

More serious than any criticism in detail is the general objection that the narrative of the Fourth Gospel does not, like the ground-document of the Synoptics, supply a reasonable and natural evolution of events. It is said—and not without cause—that in the Fourth Gospel we see the end from the very beginning. Whereas in the Synoptics, and more particularly in St. Mark, Jesus does not at first put Himself forward as the Messiah, and is not recognized as such even by His disciples before the Conf

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i. Anticipated Confessions.

i. Anticipated Confessions.

What has just been said will apply especially to the terms in which the first disciples who gathered round our Lord are described as giving in their adhesion. The author of the Gospel was himself a convinced Christian—a Christian so convinced that he could hardly recall the time when he had been anything else. It was natural to him to think of his comrades in the faith as he thought of himself. And if he puts into their mouths stronger expressions than they actually used, it was only a little an

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ii. The Use of the Word ‘Believe.’

ii. The Use of the Word ‘Believe.’

I have long suspected that one of the reasons for the apparent want of progressive development in the Fourth Gospel has been the ambiguity of its use of the word ‘believe.’ We are told from the first that disciples and others ‘believed,’ and it is natural enough that we should take the word in the full sense of complete conversion and acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. But there can be little doubt that to do so is to read into the word a great deal more than the writer intended. We do not make

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iii. Traces of Development in the Fourth Gospel.

iii. Traces of Development in the Fourth Gospel.

So far I have not questioned the indictment that the Gospel is wanting in historical development. All that I have done has been to urge some mitigating or qualifying considerations. But I believe that the extent within which it can be said that there is no development, and that the end appears from the beginning, is often much exaggerated. The unfavourable instances are observed and the favourable are neglected. If, instead of fixing our attention upon what is said of the disciples in the first

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III. The Nature of the Discourses.

III. The Nature of the Discourses.

Another of the objections brought against the Fourth Gospel that is not without a certain amount of foundation is that from the nature of the Discourses. It is said with some degree of truth that the discourses put into the mouth of our Lord in this Gospel are different from those in the Synoptics. We notice at once that the parables, which contribute so much to our conception of the outward form and manner of our Lord’s teaching, have dropped out. What St. John calls by that name, although simi

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IV. The Presentation of the Supernatural. i. The treatment of Miracle in the Fourth Gospel.

IV. The Presentation of the Supernatural. i. The treatment of Miracle in the Fourth Gospel.

I cannot regard anything that we have hitherto had to deal with as constituting a substantial set-off against the arguments previously urged for the authentic and autoptic character of the Gospel. It is otherwise when we come to its manner of presenting the Supernatural. It must be confessed that the miracles in the Fourth Gospel, while in the main they run parallel to those in the Synoptic Gospels, yet do appear to involve a certain heightening of the effect. The courtier’s servant is healed fr

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ii. Method of approaching the Question of Miracle.

ii. Method of approaching the Question of Miracle.

And yet I can well understand the reluctance to accept narratives of miracle. I can well understand a nineteenth or twentieth-century reader taking up the Fourth Gospel and saying at once and off-hand, ‘The writer of this cannot have been an eye-witness of the events he describes.’ I have little doubt that it is the same sort of off-hand impression which is really at work in the minds of many of the critics. They acquire the impression in the course of a rapid perusal; or rather it attaches itse

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iii. The Gospel embodies ocular Testimony.

iii. The Gospel embodies ocular Testimony.

For these reasons I do not wish it to be supposed that I regard all difficulties as removed and every question as closed, if I insist upon the conclusion that has so far seemed to be emerging from our study—the conclusion that the Gospel is the work of an eye-witness of the events, who is describing for us what he had himself actually seen. I do not want to use any kind of argumentative coercion. I fully believe that the author of the Gospel occupied this position; and yet I do not mean, by asse

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iv. A Patristic Parallel.

iv. A Patristic Parallel.

So far as the treatment of the supernatural has been made a ground of objection to the Gospel, I think we may take a warning from critical experience in another field. I quoted in the second Lecture several instances in which criticism has distinctly changed its mind and come back to a view far more in accordance with tradition than that which at one time prevailed. One of these instances was taken from the literature of the beginnings of Monasticism, and more particularly from the Vita Antonii

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I. Affinities of the Logos doctrine.

I. Affinities of the Logos doctrine.

The preponderance of opinion at the present time doubtless leans to the view that there is some connexion between the Logos of Philo and the doctrine of the Logos in the Fourth Gospel. But the question is as to the nature and closeness of that connexion. On this many shades of opinion are possible....

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1. Partial parallels in O. T. and Judaism.

1. Partial parallels in O. T. and Judaism.

If the Logos of St. John is not connected with that of Philo, the alternative must be that its origin is Palestinian. The directions in which we should look would be to the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the Memra of the Targums. And it is true that there are many places in these writings in which ‘the Word of God’ is used with pregnant meaning. Ps. xxxiii. 6: ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.’ Cf. 2 Esdras vi. 43: ‘As soon as

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2. The Evangelist not a philosopher.

2. The Evangelist not a philosopher.

It is a distinct question in what form we are to conceive of Philo’s teaching as coming before him. The author of the Fourth Gospel was a thinker, but not a professed philosopher. So far as we can judge from the writings of his that have come down to us, we should not be inclined to credit him with much philosophical erudition. The idea that we form to ourselves of the Evangelist is not that of a great reader always poring over books. I find it hard to think of him as sitting down to a deliberat

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3. Points of Agreement with Philo.

3. Points of Agreement with Philo.

And, first, as to the agreement. I have said that Philo’s philosophy, in spite of its decorative exuberance and prolixity, is yet at bottom a system. And in the main outline of that system the Evangelist coincides with him. By the side of the Eternal, Philo has what he himself called ‘a second God’ (πρὸς τὸν δεύτερον θεόν, ὅς ἔστιν ἐκείνου λόγος Grill, Entstehung d. vierten Evang. p. 109); and this second God he called ‘the Divine Word.’ The Word was Himself God (καλεῖ δὲ θεὸν τὸν πρεσβύτατον αὐ

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4. Absence of Philonian Catch-words.

4. Absence of Philonian Catch-words.

On the other hand, when we examine the parallels adduced in detail, we cannot help noticing that many catch-words of the Philonian doctrine are entirely absent from the Fourth Gospel: πρεσβύτατος in many connexions (Grill, p. 106); πρεσβύτατος υἱός (p. 107); πρωτόγονος (pp. 106, 107); μέσος τῶν ἅκρων, ἀμφοτέροις ὁμηρεύων (p. 106); λόγος ἀίδιος, ὁ ἐγγυτάτω (sc. θεοῦ), εἰκὼν ὑπάρχων θεοῦ (a term which occurs in St. Paul and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but not in St. John); λόγος ἀρχέτυπος, σκιὰ

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5. More fundamental differences.

5. More fundamental differences.

It is of yet more importance that the conception of the Logos in Philo and in the Fourth Gospel presents great and fundamental differences. I do not feel compelled to number among these that particular difference which is at once the most obvious and the most comprehensive. It is of course true that the Evangelist identifies the Logos with the person of Jesus Christ, whereas it is doubtful how far the Philonian Logos is to be regarded as in any sense personal. We always need to remember that the

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iv. Possible avenues of connexion.

iv. Possible avenues of connexion.

It does not follow that I would deny all connexion between the Philonian Logos and St. John’s. My doubt is whether this connexion can have been literary. I find it difficult to picture to myself the Evangelist sitting down to master the diffuse tomes of Philo. Where is the interest that would impel him to do this? Philo is a student and a philosopher. He is a philosopher who operates with a sacred text, and therefore has unlimited opportunity for applying and expounding his philosophy. But the E

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II. Relation of the Prologue to the rest of the Gospel. 1. View of Harnack.

II. Relation of the Prologue to the rest of the Gospel. 1. View of Harnack.

Mention has been made above of Harnack’s view as to the relation of the Prologue to the main body of the Gospel. He holds that the Prologue is really separable from this, that it is of the nature of a postscript, or after-thought, rather than a preface. He regards it as not so much the statement of a programme to be worked out in the Gospel as a sort of ‘covering letter,’ intended to commend the work to cultivated Gentile or Hellenistic readers. This view has in its favour the obvious fact that

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2. View of Grill.

2. View of Grill.

It is easy (as I have said) to bring under the head of Life and Light all the miracles in the Gospel, from the miracle at Cana down to the Raising of Lazarus and even the miraculous Draught of Fishes in chap. xxi. Both the first ‘sign’ and the last are instances of the assertion of creative power, and the Healing of the Blind Man in chap. ix, where this aspect is more subordinate, illustrates the activity of Christ as the Light of the World, a text on which the concluding paragraph of the chapte

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3. View of Loisy.

3. View of Loisy.

The same verse may help us to form an estimate of the theory of M. Loisy. So far as ‘the theology of the Incarnation’ is meant to express the same thing, the phrase is certainly justified. And if M. Loisy intends it to be at the same time a paraphrase for the doctrine of the Logos, we can have no objection. At least the only objection we need have would be that he is using a vaguer and more general term, when he might use one that is both definite and characteristic. As a rule, one is more likel

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1. The Gospel not a Biography.

1. The Gospel not a Biography.

Once more we fall back upon our main position. The Evangelist is writing a spiritual Gospel, and his whole procedure is dominated by that one fact. His object is to set forth Christ as Divine, not only as Messiah but as Son of God, as an object of faith which brings life to the believer. It follows that all criticism which does not take account of this—and how large a part of the strictures upon the Gospel does not take account of it!—is really wide of the mark. M. Loisy, for instance, brings a

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2. The Christology of St. John compared with that of St. Paul and of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

2. The Christology of St. John compared with that of St. Paul and of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The meeting-point of all the authorities just mentioned—indeed we might say the focus and centre of the whole New Testament—is the title ‘Son of God.’ But whereas the Synoptic Gospels work up to this title, St. John with St. Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews work downwards or onwards from it. What I mean is this. The Synoptic Gospels show us how, through the conception of the Messiah and the titles equivalent to it, by degrees a point was reached at which the faith of the disciples found its m

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3. Comparison with the Synoptic Gospels.

3. Comparison with the Synoptic Gospels.

Now I am not going to maintain that, if one of us had been an eye-witness of the Life of Christ, the profound teaching of which I have just given an outline would have seemed to him to bear the same kind of proportion to the sum total of His teaching that it bears in the Fourth Gospel. By the essential conditions of the case it could not be so. It is this particular kind of teaching which the Evangelist specially wishes to enforce; and, in order to enforce it, he has singled out for his narrativ

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4. Interpretation of these Relations between the Synoptic Gospels, St. Paul and St. John: Alternative Constructions.

4. Interpretation of these Relations between the Synoptic Gospels, St. Paul and St. John: Alternative Constructions.

These comparisons that we have just been instituting between the Synoptic Gospels, St. Paul, and St. John raise a very large question, a question involving nothing less than our whole construction of the history of the Apostolic Age. It is becoming more and more the custom with the left wing of critical writers to make the most fundamental part of Christianity, the pivot teaching of the New Testament, an invention of St. Paul’s. St. John is only the chief of his disciples. According to these wri

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Two Preliminary Remarks.

Two Preliminary Remarks.

Before I attempt to answer this question, there are two remarks that I should like to make upon it. i. We observe here, as in so many other cases, that the theory reflects, not so much the essential disposition and proportions of the facts as the state of the extant evidence. Hardly anything has come down to us from the early years, at least for the first three decades, of the Mother Church; and from that which has come down to us, the earlier chapters of the Acts and the Epistle of St. James, c

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5. Objections to the Critical Theory.

5. Objections to the Critical Theory.

Let us think for a moment what the theory involves. It involves that the Pauline Gospel not only conquered the West, but that it came flooding back in a great reflux-wave all over the East. The East, on this theory, has no power of resistance; it surrenders at discretion. How does this accord with the evidence? i. In order that there should be this conquest and annexation of the whole Church by the Pauline Gospel it is implied, and it is of the essence of the theory to imply, that there was a br

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6. Larger Objections.

6. Larger Objections.

The kind of study that I have just been recommending is strictly critical; but the theory of which I have been speaking carries us out beyond the narrower ground of criticism into the wider field of history and teleology. I may just for a moment in conclusion touch on this. It may supply us with a warning that there is at least a strong presumption that the theory which fathers the teaching of St. John upon that of St. Paul, and St. Paul’s teaching upon itself, with no higher sanction behind, ca

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I. Summary of the Internal Evidence.

I. Summary of the Internal Evidence.

All our discussions have for their object, not the production of rounded and symmetrical theories but the ascertainment of truth. We must take the data as we find them. If they do not as they stand sustain a clear conclusion, we cannot make them do so. And it seems to me far better frankly to confess the fact than to strain the evidence one way or the other. We may state the case with such indications of leaning as we please, but always with the reservation that a slight change in the evidence,

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1. The Position at the end of the Second Century.

1. The Position at the end of the Second Century.

In regard to this I would not spend time in refinements upon some of the scanty details furnished by the scanty literature of the first half of the second century. I would rather take my stand on the state of things revealed to us on the lifting of the curtain for that scene of the Church’s history which extends roughly from about the year 170 to 200. I would invite attention to the distribution of the evidence in this period: Irenaeus and the Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons in Gaul,

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2. Earlier Evidence.

2. Earlier Evidence.

But Dr. Schmiedel certainly understates that for the Fourth Gospel. He assumes that no trace can be found of this earlier than 140. A single item of the evidence, which he does not notice, is enough to refute this. I refer to our present conclusion of the Gospel of St. Mark. We may say with confidence that its date is earlier than the year 140—whether we argue from the chronology of Aristion, its presumable author, or from its presence in the archetype of almost all extant MSS., or from the trac

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III. Unsolved Problems. 1. The relation of the Gospel to the Apocalypse.

III. Unsolved Problems. 1. The relation of the Gospel to the Apocalypse.

Of the questions that are still sub judice one of the most difficult is that of the relation of the Gospel to the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse is a book on which criticism is very far from having said its last word. I should like to express myself about it with great reserve. But I do not think that in any case an argument can be drawn from it against the Gospel. I will quote two very unprejudiced opinions. Harnack writes as follows:— ‘I confess my adhesion to the critical heresy which carries bac

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2. The date of Papias.

2. The date of Papias.

The next question on which I will touch is the date of Papias, which has a subordinate but rather important bearing upon the group of questions with which he is connected. I am by no means sure that the late date now commonly assigned to him is right (c. 145-60, Harnack). It turns upon a statement in De Boor’s fragment, supposed to be made by Papias, that some of those who were raised from the dead by Christ lived till the time of Hadrian. A very similar statement is quoted by Eusebius from the

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3. The death of the Apostle John.

3. The death of the Apostle John.

De Boor’s Fragment is more precise in its assertion, ‘Papias, in his second book, says that John the divine (ὁ θεολόγος) and James his brother were slain by the Jews.’ ‘John the divine’ is naturally questioned; it is defended by Schwartz, but may quite well be due to the fragmentist. The main arguments against the statement are the silence of the early writers, especially Eusebius, and the possibility of confusion between John the Baptist and John the Apostle, or between red martyrdom and white.

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4. The son of Zebedee and the beloved disciple.

4. The son of Zebedee and the beloved disciple.

I cannot disguise from myself that if the elder John really perished at an earlier stage in the history, the position of the younger becomes much clearer. There would then be no difficulty in the way of identifying him at once with the beloved disciple and with the author of the Gospel and Epistles. We should indeed have all the advantages of Harnack’s theory without its disadvantages. We should not be compelled to attribute to the Ephesian Church any fraudulent intention or practice. We should

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5. John of Ephesus and his Gospel.

5. John of Ephesus and his Gospel.

We must in any case think of John of Ephesus as ‘the aged disciple,’ for to our modern ears some such double name as that expresses most adequately the feeling that surrounded him. He called himself by preference ὁ πρεσβύτερος, but we have unfortunately no sufficient rendering for this in English. ‘Elder’ and ‘Presbyter’ have both contracted the associations of office, and of a rather formal kind of office that has lost too much of its original meaning, for the natural authority of age was at fi

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Epilogue on the Principles of Criticism.

Epilogue on the Principles of Criticism.

And now that we have come to the end of this brief sketch of the history of the Gospel for the first hundred years or so of its existence, I may perhaps turn in conclusion to the other object which has been present to my mind throughout this course of lectures, and attempt to collect and state, also in the most summary form, some of the underlying principles of criticism which have from time to time found expression in the lectures and which I desire to submit for your consideration, more especi

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