YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE FOURTH GOSPEL IN
RESEARCH AND DEBATE

THE FOURTH GOSPEL IN
RESEARCH AND DEBATE

A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON PROBLEMS CON
CERNING THE ORIGIN AND VALUE OF
THE ANONYMOUS WRITINGS ATTRIB
UTED TO THE APOSTLE JOHN

BENJAMIN WISNER BACON, D.D., LL.D.
Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Exegesis in Yale University
Author of "An Introduction to New Testament Literature," " The Story
of St. Paul," " Beginnings of Gospel Story," etc.

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1910

Copyright, 1910, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
New York
AU Rights Reserved
PUBLISHED, FEBRUARY, IQIO

TO THE MEMORY
OF
MY GRANDFATHER
LEONARD BACON
A STATESMAN OF
THE KINGDOM OF GOD

PREFACE
The present volume has grown out of certain articles con
tributed by the author from time to time during the last ten
years to technical and semi-technical journals on the vexed
problem of the origin of the Fourth Gospel. It owes its
semi-popular, semi-technical character to this fact.
The controversial element implied in its title is also a re
flection of the conditions of the time equally manifest in the
articles which preceded it. A group of four appeared in the
Hibbert Journal in the issues of April, 1903 (I, 3), January,
1904 (II, 2), January, 1905 (III, 2) and October, 1907
(VI, i). In these the effort of the writer was to bring before
the intelligent lay public the merits of the great critical de
bate, the cause of the opponents of the traditional author
ship being frankly espoused. At intervals before and dur
ing this period contributions were made also to The Expositor
(1907), the Journal of Biblical Literature (1894, 1908), and
the American Journal of Theology (1900) in the interest of
research pure and simple into questions involved in the prob
lem. The volume begun as nothing more than a reproduc
tion of these two groups of articles, somewhat revised and
supplemented, naturally reflects, even in its present greatly
developed and altered form, the two aspects of current dis
cussion which called forth the material of its substratum.
Knowledge of the fact just stated may be of service to the
reader, but the fact itself needs no apology. Whether for
tunately or unfortunately — and the effects are not all un
favorable — biblical criticism is forced to build with one
hand on shield and spear, the other on the trowel. Before
vii

viii PREFACE
its results are tested on their merits it is required to justify
its own existence. The assailant of the traditional author
ship of the Fourth Gospel has no real success unless he can
obtain a hearing from men profoundly interested in the
cause of revealed reKgion, above all in the rehgion which
has Jesus Christ as both teacher and Lord. The first step
of those who resist his conclusions is to assure the public to
which he appeals that his motives are inimical to its dearest
and most sacred ideals. How, then, can criticism obtain a
hearing without the weapons of controversy ?
On the other hand, what examples not only of consecrated
scholarship, but of dignified and noble Christian courtesy, are
evoked in such names as Lightfoot, Sanday, James Drum-
mond ! Only the conviction that his cause is just can lead a
comparative novice into the lists against such as these. If
one venture, it can only be in the full realization of relatively
imperfect scholarship, less extensive learning, less accurate
knowledge on many important facts. And yet in such a field
as this, where new facts are grains of gold hidden under moun
tains of thrice sifted waste, the more vital requisite is the
perspective of great and well-known things in their true pro
portion and relation, rather than extent or minuteness in the
knowledge of particulars. New perspectives may be given
to a younger generation, and when seen they demand to be
made known. Such is the reason for this book. Errors will
doubtless reveal their presence in it. Its tone toward older
and greater authorities of opposing view may be criticized
as showing too Uttle of that respect professed by the author,
and professed not in insincerity, nor as conventionally due,
but out of deep and well-founded con\-iction. \A'e hope the
criticism will not seem justified. Many things might have
been better said, some perhaps might have been better left
unsaid. And yet withal the faith remains that our book will
be of service. May the reader gain from it new insights into

PREFACE ix
the beginnings of our faith. May the Church of Christ be
stimulated by it to a larger and freer apprehension of his
Spirit.
Benj. W. Bacon.
New Haven, Oct. 26, 1909.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 
Introduction: The Issues Involved

PAGE iii I

PART I

The External Evidence
Chapter I. The Modern Form of the Ques
tion  17
Echoes and Influences ... 43
Papias, Eusebius, and the Ar
gument FROM Silence ... 73
The Tradition as to the Elders
AND Its Transformations . loi
John in Asia and the Martyr
Apostles  127

Chapter

II.

Chapter

III.

Chapter

IV.

Chapter

V.

PART II

The Direct Internal Evidence

ChapterChapter

VI.
VII.

Chapter VIII.

The John of Revelation . . 157
Epistles and Appendix — Their
Relation to One Another
and to the Gospel . . . . 184
The Appendix a Product of
Revision at Rome . . . . 210

XI

xii CONTENTS PAGE
Chapter IX. The Battle for Recognition
of Asian Tradition at Rome 226
Chapter X. Irenaeus the Mediator and
THE Fourfold Gospel . . . 247
PART III
The Indirect Internal Evidence
Chapter XL The Evangelist's Task . . . 273
Chapter XII. The Disciple Whom Jesus
Loved, and His Relation to
the Author  301
Chapter XIII. Johannine Pragmatism . . . 332
Chapter XIV. Johannine Treatment of Syn
optic Material  356
Chapter XV. Johannine Topography and
Chronology  385
Chapter XVI. Johannine Quartodecimanism . 412
PART IV
Latest Phases of Debate and Research
Chapter XVII. The "Defense" of the Gospel 443
Chapter XVIII. The Analytical School of
Criticism  472
Chapter XIX. Dislocations of Material and
Tatian's Order  497
Chapter XX. Conclusion  528
Index  539

THE FOURTH GOSPEL
INTRODUCTION
THE ISSUES INVOLVED
The greatest English scholar of his generation, acknowl
edged leader of the self-styled "defenders" of the Fourth
Gospel, in beginning his discussion of the problem made the
following statement of his conviction regarding the issues in
volved :
"The genuineness of St. John's Gospel is the center of the
position of those who uphold the historical truth of the record
of our Lord Jesus Christ given us in the New Testament. Hence
the attacks of the opponents of revealed religion are concentrated
upon it. So long however as it holds its ground, these assaults
must inevitably prove ineffective. The assailants are of two kinds:
(i) those who deny the miraculous element in Christianity — Ra
tionalists, (2) those who deny the distinctive character of Christian
doctrine — Unitarians. The Gospel confronts both. It relates the
most stupendous miracle in the history of our Lord (short of the
Incarnation and the Resurrection), the raising of Lazarus. Again,
it enunciates in the most express terms the Divinity, the Deity, of
our Lord. And yet at the same time it professes to have been
written by the one man, of all others, who had the greatest oppor
tunities of knowing the truth. The testimony of St. Paul might
conceivably be set aside, as of one who was not an eye-witness.
But here we have, not an exTpco/xa,^ not a personal disciple merely,
not one of the twelve only, but the one of the twelve — the Apostle
who leaned on his Master's bosom, who stood by his Master's
cross, who entered his Master's empty grave. If therefore the
II Cor. 15:8.

2 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
claim of this Gospel to be the work of John the son of Zebedee be
true, if in other words the Fourth Gospel be genuine, the most
formidable, not to say an insuperable, obstacle stands in the way
of both classes of antagonists. Hence the persistence and the
ingenuity of the attacks; and hence also the necessity of a thorough
ness in the defence." '
It is possible that Bishop Lightfoot, were he Uving to-day,
might modify somewhat the terms by which he characterizes
his opponents. Those who antagonize — not "the claim of
this Gospel to be the work of John the son of Zebedee"; for.
Bishop Lightfoot to the contrary notwithstanding, the Gospel
does not "profess to have been written" by him — but the
theory traceable to about 170 A. D. imputing its authorship
to "the beloved disciple," are still accustomed to being de
scribed as rationalists and Unitarians, and by no means
anticipate that the "defenders of the Gospel" will altogether
refrain from the imputation of evil motives of which the
example has been so conspicuously set. In this no im
mediate change is to be expected. But inasmuch as on the
one side a considerable and increasing number of scholars of
Bishop Lightfoot's own evangehcal type of belief are to-day
joining the ranks of his opponents on the Johannine ques
tion, while on the other one of the most eminent and con
spicuous defenders of the "genuineness" is both a Unitarian
and a denier of that " most stupendous miracle . . . the
raising of Lazarus," it is possible his phraseology might be
altered. Whether the epithets, and the imputations of motive be
fair and reasonable or not, as applied to scholars of to-day,
all such will thoroughly agree with Bishop Lightfoot as to the
vital character of the issues involved. We see many an emi
nent scholar whose views on this moot point of historical and
1 Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, Macmillan, 1S93, p. 47.

INTRODUCTION 3
literary criticism are diametrically opposed to Bishop Light-
foot's, who is an ardent supporter both of "revealed religion"
and of "the divinity of our Lord." But such scholars have
no disposition to deny, they vehemently affirm, that their in
terpretation of those much debated terms " revelation," " di
vinity of Christ," varies widely from that which would be
forced upon the Church by some advocates of the Johannine
authorship. It does indeed make a tremendous difference
whether the particular doctrine of "the Divinity, the Deity of
our Lord" which this admittedly late writer presents as re
flecting Jesus' teaching as to Sonship is, or is not, to be en
forced as the main feature of his message, conveyed on the
authority of "the one man, of all others, who had the greatest
opportunities of knowing the truth." On this question we are
driven unavoidably to the alternative: Either Synoptics, or
John. Either the former are right in their complete silence
regarding preexistence and incarnation, and their subordina
tion of the doctrine of Jesus' person, in presenting his work
and teaching as concerned with the kingdom of God, with
repentance and a filial disposition and life, as the requirement
made by the common Father for that inheritance; or else
John is right in making Jesus' work and message supremely
a manifestation of his own glory as the incarnate Logos,
effecting an atonement for the world which has otherwise no
access to God. Both views cannot be true, and to a very
large extent it is the science of literary and historical criticism
which must decide between them. We agree, then, with
Bishop Lightfoot that the Johannine authorship of the Fourth
Gospel is the question of questions in all the domain of
bibhcal science. The criticism which has effected a trans
formation in our conception of Hebrew religious history by
making the so-called Priestly Document the latest and his
torically speaking least reliable source of the Pentateuch, in
stead of the earliest and most fundamental, will accomphsh

4 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
a still more revolutionary change in our conception of New
Testament beginnings, if its deductions are accepted re
garding the Fourth Gospel.
Since the period of the Greek fathers and the Ecumenical
councils all approaches toward a historical view of the origins
of Christianity have been dominated by that metaphysical
conception of the person of Christ which begins with Paul
and culminates in the Confession of Niccea. The Hellenistic
conception of incarnation visibly enters the domain of Jewish
messianism in the Epistles of Paul; in that which we may
designate the Johannine Canon, a group of Epistles, Gospel
and Apocalypse appearing at Ephesus, the most important
centre of the Pauline mission field, at the very close of the
first century, this conception has become a full fledged
Logos doctrine. In this group of writings Jesus is formally
and distinctly identified with the Logos principle of Herac-
Utus, the Ephesian philosopher of about 500 b. c. There
cannot be in the whole domain of bibhcal science a question
more absolutely vital and fundamental than this : Is the con
ception of the life of Jesus as an incarnation of the divine
Logos a development of Pauhne speculation about Christ;
or is it Jesus' own teaching regarding himself ? The ques
tion depends in large measure upon the ulterior one : Is the
Fourth Gospel, which presents this view — and presents it in
complete contrast to the earlier three, known as Synoptic —
is the Fourth Gospel our sole surviving record from the
hand of one of the twelve — one of the most intimate of these
companions of Jesus in Galilee ? Or is this Gospel not only
late, but altogether secondary and dependent; serviceable
for the light thrown upon the development of Pauline mto
patristic Christology, but of little or no service to supplement
historically the Synoptic picture of the teaching and career
of Jesus?
Paul, like his great contemporary Philo, the interpreter of

INTRODUCTION S
Judaism in terms of Greek philosophy, rests largely upon
the Alexandrian book of Hellenistic stoicism, the Wisdom
of Solomon (ca. 30 b. c). In this book the redemptive as
well as the creative principle in the divine nature is the ele
ment of "wisdom." This "effulgence " of the divine glory,
which was in the beginning the "artificer" of creation, which
"fills all things," interpenetrates all things, and "holds all
things together," enters also "into holy souls and makes
men to be prophets and friends of God." Philo, the Erasmus
of the Jewish church in the period of its great crisis, in
terpreted this "wisdom" doctrine on its scholastic and in
tellectual side. He naturally makes a shorter course in
his identification of it with the creative and revelative prin
ciple of Heraclitus, as subsequently developed in current
stoic cosmology. For Philo, the step would be easy from the
divine "wisdom," his "second God," which is not another,
but only God manifest and operative in the world, to the
Logos of the Ionic school of cosmological speculation.
Paul, the Luther of the age of the Hellenization of Judaism,
has not yet taken this step. With him there are other elements
in the divine "wisdom" which are not covered by the more
coldly intellectual Greek term. The "wisdom of God"
is to Paul preeminently that redeeming agency which goes
out "to seek and to save that which was lost." This is char
acteristic of the Palestinian "wisdom" doctrine, as against
the Hellenistic. We see it for example in what the Eoistle of
James says of the gift of "wisdom" (Jas. 1:5, 17, _8, 21;
3:13-18; 4:5, 6).
Paul is not at heart a Greek, however deeply affected by
stoic dualism. Fundamentally he is a Pharisean messian-
ist. Cosmological speculation with him is secondary. Eth
ics and eschatology are primary. He is interested in ques
tions of conduct, he is schooled in the extravagant dreams
of apocalypse. Nay, he is an apocalyptist himself, rapt

6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
away in ecstasy to the third heaven. When Paul became
a Christian, Jesus became to him the solution of his ethical
and his eschatological ideal in one. Ethically Christ became
to Paul "the end of the law unto righteousness" by a teach
ing and life which put ethics upon a whoUy new plane.
Eschatologically he became the Lord from heaven. Heir of
the Creation, predestined Head of a redeemed universe of
conscious beings, by the fact that he had been "manifested
as the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the
dead." Messianism, and especially apocalyptic messianism
with its copious importations from Persian and pre-Persian
mythology, had almost no effect on Philo. It was the
breath of life to Paul. No wonder, therefore, that Paul is in
no haste to identify that redemptive agency of God which
he found incarnate in Jesus, and that apocalyptic Second
Adam whom he had seen in the person of the risen Christ,
with the cosmological principle of Heraclitus "the obscure."
And yet the cosmological ideas half unveiled in Paul's let
ters to Corinth and Rome, founded as they unmistakably
are upon the Hebraized stoicism of the Wisdom of Solomon,
have as their unavoidable issue just such an identification
of this phase of the divine "wisdom" as Philo makes. As
has been well said, "All of the Logos doctrine but the name
is already present in the Pauline Epistles."
But it is not the Logos doctrine of Philo to which Paul's
thought is leading up. Even in the Johannine hterature,
wherein the name Logos itself is naturalized, thenceforth
to be used in the Greek fathers of the second century in
terchangeably with the Jewish term Wisdom, it only appears
upon the threshold and does not invade the sanctuary. The
prologue of the Fourth Gospel makes the formal identifica
tion, presenting the evangelist's cosmology; but it is not in
troduced into the utterances of Jesus himself. Indeed it is
one of the main objects of this writer to fill the term with

INTRODUCTION 7
that ethical and sociological, if not eschatological, import
which it could never have obtained by the short cut of Philo's
scholasticism. The roots of the Johannine Logos doctrine are only to a
slight and subordinate degree in Philo. They run back by
way of Hebrews and more especially by way of the great
Pauline Espistles of the second period, Colossians and Ephe-
sians, through purely Christian soil to the common ances
tor, the Wisdom of Solomon. We have said, "All of the
Logos doctrine but the name is already present in the Paul
ine Epistles." We might say with almost equal truth, The
whole Christology of "John" — a vastly greater matter than
the mere cosmological concept of the Logos — is a straight
forward development of the incarnation doctrine of Paul.
Hebrew speculative thought, once it had reached the stage
of the Wisdom of Solomon, was sure to issue in some sort
of Logos doctrine. Even the Synagogue developed its hy
postases of a Memra and a Metatron. In Alexandria the
step could be taken easily, logically, through a Philo. In
Palestine and the Christian world it had to undergo a period
of postponement and of immeasurable enrichment by all
that is implied in the story of Jesus and of Paul.
Philosophers of the period of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus
confessed that there was no practical difference between their
own mode of thinking and that of Christian theologians save
on the one point of the incarnation of the Logos. The doc
trine of the Fourth Gospel would be acceptable to them if
they might be permitted to cancel the one clause "the Logos
became flesh." Gnostics and Docetics would go further still,
asking only to substitute "dweU in" for "became." But
one must have failed to grasp even the elements of Johan
nine thought not to realize that this verse is absolutely
central to the system. Incarnation is its keynote. The
Johannine Christ comes not by water only, hke the aeon

8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Christ of Cerinthus, who at the baptism made the man Jesus
a " receptaculum " for his presence until the passion. It is
one that comes by water and by blood. Its Jesus was not di
vine from the baptism only, nor from the birth only, but from
all eternity and to all eternity. The fourth evangehst is de
termined to hold that very man whose voice the Church had
heard, whose form it had seen, and their hands had handled,
in eternal, inseparable union with that very Word and Wis
dom of God, "who being in the form of God had not
counted it (like the first Adam) a prize to be grasped by rob
bery to be equal with God, but had humbled himself and
taken on him the form of a servant, and become obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross; " having also for this very
self-humiliation been highly exalted by God, and given "the
name, which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, and that every tongue of men and
of angels should confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father."
The Logos doctrine of Paul is also a creation doctrine.
"We believe in one God the Father of whom are all things,
and in one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things."
It is also a wisdom doctrine, as postulating a mind sub
stance which forms the common term between the human
reason, the intehigible cosmos, and the Absolute.
" ' Things which eye saw not.
And ear heard not.
And which entered not into the heart of man.'
(Even the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him); he hath revealed them unto us by the Spirit; for the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God."
As a man's spirit gives him consciousness of his purposes
and intentions, so we in having the mind of Christ are made
participant in the consciousness of the Creator. Such is
Paul's conception of the Xo'709 evSta^ero?. But beyond and

INTRODUCTION 9
above these merely philosophical aspects, Paul's Logos doc
trine is an avatar of the redemptive energy of the divine na
ture. The legahstic and apocalyptic thought of Pharisaism
give it substance. The life of Jesus on earth as proclaimer
and exponent of the gospel of sonship by faith, Paul's vision
of him as the risen Lord of glory — these give it definite form.
Such is Paul's doctrine of the Xo'70? 7rpo(popi.K6<;. Is it a
matter of righteousness and the law and the knowledge and
fulfilment of the divine will? — "Say not in thine heart, Who
shall ascend into heaven (that is, to bring Christ down);
or. Who shall descend into the abyss (that is, to bring Christ
up again from the dead). The word is nigh thee, in thy
mouth and in thy heart (that is, the word' of faith which we
preach)." Is it a matter of the coming kingdom, the new
heaven and new earth of religious aspiration? Then the
scripture is applicable. " 'When he ascended on high
He led captivity captive
And gave gifts unto men.'
For this 'He ascended,' what is it but that he also descended
into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same
also that ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all
things." How is it possible in face of the genius, the ardor, the en
thusiastic conviction of a Paul, that anything should survive
to us of that simpler Christology which roots itself in the
Galilean tradition of Jesus' own life and teaching? Not a
fragment remains of the reputed Aramaic compilation by
the Apostle Matthew of the Sayings of the Lord. If we can
restore them it is only in Greek translation, as elements taken
from the substance of later Greek gospels. The narrative
of Jesus' life which tradition tells us comes ultimately from
the lips of Peter, and which at all events has practically
taken the place of all other tradition from times as remote as

ID THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the origin of our first and third Gospels, — even this narrative
of Mark also comes to us as a Greek product, from the Pauline
church of Rome, framed in the interest of Pauhne doctrine,
saturated with Pauhne phrases and ideas. And yet the
older, simpler Christology has survived. /Neither the teach
ings as restored from the non-Markan material common
to Matthew and Luke, nor the Markan narrati\'c, nor our
canonical first or third evangelist has introduced anywhere
one trace of the Pauline doctrine of the preexistence of Christ
or of incarnation. Both the fundamental Synoptic sources,
Matthjean sayings and Markan narrative as well, exhibit a
consistent historical situation true to conditions as we know
them at the time. We see legalism dominant in the Synagogue,
the masses religiously destitute, disinherited from the now
transcendentalized messianic hope. Jesus comes forward
taking up simply and loyally the prophetic and humanitarian
reform of John the Baptist. He becomes the champion of
the publicans and sinners, offers an "easy yoke" of simple
God-likeness, and an assurance that the relation of fatherhood
and sonship is open to all. It is the Father's good pleasure to
give the kingdom even to the little flock now gathered around
him. Sayings, incidents, parables are all consistent with this
Galilean environment, this ethico-religious impulse. Jesus
speaks to "babes" in the wisdom that is revealed to "babes,"
like a plain man to plain men, albeit with the power of a
prophet and of more than a prophet. Even his miracles are
not as in the Fourth Gospel "manifestations of the glory" of
the incarnate Logos. ' ' He went about doing good, heahng all
that were oppressed of the Devil." Like the "sons of the
Pharisees" he exorcised. Like his disciples, and even some
that followed not with them, he "did mighty works," mainly
of healing, "because God was with him." There was colli
sion with the scribes and synagogue authorities — Jesus was
driven out of Galilee. He went to Jerusalem and challenged

INTRODUCTION ii
the priestly hierocracy itself in the stronghold of their power,
demanding in the name of "the people" that the temple be
no longer a den of robbers but a house of prayer, and refer
ring those who called for his authority to the example of the
Baptist. Priestly conspirators seized him, delivered him to
the Roman governor as aspiring to be the Christ, and secured
his crucifixion on this ground. His followers, scattered at first,
soon rallied to Jerusalem, convinced by appearances to Peter
and others that God had raised him from the dead and exalted
him to heaven, whence he would indeed soon appear as the
Christ, the Son of man, the Redeemer of Israel.
Such is the Synoptic story of Jesus. Its keynote is not
incarnation but apotheosis. Jesus is the Servant whom God
according to promise had "raised up from among his breth
ren" "to bless them in turning away every one of them from
his iniquities." Him "the heavens must now receive until
the time of the restoration of all things." Meantime re
pentance and forgiveness in his name must be preached to
Israel and "to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord
our God shall call." All the factors, all the essential ele
ments of this story fall within the known historical environ
ment. The ideas in debate are those current in Judaism as
it then was. John the Baptist, the Pharisees, the scribes, the
publicans and sinners, the mutual relations of these and
their conflicting hopes and ideals, are all intelligible. The
whole drama is a drama of real life. It demands the divine
factor behind it just as all life does, just as the life of our own
time does; because without this not even the simplest thing
is intelligible. But for all the essential factors of the story
divine intervention is not required in any other sense. We
say "essential factors" for it can scarcely be required that
we regard this tradition as miraculously exempted from the
tendencies to exaggeration and legendary accretion to which
all others are exposed.

12 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
The representation of the Fourth Gospel inverts all this.
Divine intention and operation are not interpreted by his
torical fact, but historical fact by divine intention and op
eration. What an incarnation of deity must say and do in
order to make clear the redemptive plan, this is what is said
and done. The selection of seven "signs" is avowedly made
for the purpose of producing faith in this sense. The Synop
tic sayings give way to dialogues on Christological doctrine,
the parables to seven allegorical "I am's." There is neither
order nor connection, nor do events entail their consequences.
John the Baptist already proclaims Jesus as " the Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world; " Jesus' earliest
disciples regard him as "the Son of God, the King of Israel;"
the very opening of his ministry introduces the culminating
act of resistance to priestly control in the temple.
The contrast in point of view between the Synoptic and
Johannine conception is not a matter of dispute to-day
among intelligent people. The facts above stated are veri
fiable. The general contrast is admitted. We have even
from the most unexpected quarters admissions of the un-
historical character of this representation, its allegorical,
mystical and metaphysical nature. It is admitted that the
dialogues, which maintain throughout, for all speakers, the
same style, and that style the marked and characteristic
style of the Epistles of John, are the evangehst's own com
position. It is even conceded by at least one prominent ad
vocate of Johannine authorship that the uicidents themselves
may be — and that in some of the most vital cases — fictitious.
Yet if these concessions seem to be made in one quarter
they are immediately repudiated, or withdrawn, in another.
Such an attitude is untenable. There must be consistency
one way or the other. The hfe of Jesus was either divine
only in so far as it realized all the divinity of which humanity
is capable; or else it was not human save in so far as deity

INTRODUCTION 13
can take upon itself "the form of a servant," while still re
taining the attributes and consciousness of deity. Which of
these two modes of conceiving the life of Jesus contains a
real gospel for a world of lost and disinherited sons of God,
is a question for the Church to determine. Hitherto, it has
placed all its emphasis upon the metaphysical. Which of
them represents the real Jesus, is for historical criticism to
determine; and the heart of the problem is the Gospel at
tributed to John, with its reversal of the Synoptic conception.
Both conceptions cannot represent the apostolic story. Har
monization overreaches itself when it attempts to bridge this
chasm. Manifestly an apostolic eye-witness and intimate of
Jesus who should so abuse his unique position as to offer
speculative fiction and allegory instead of the rich store of
personal recollections of the Master he was competent to
give, would be worse than no witness at all. His high claims
to present "the truth," regarded as the reality of tangible
experience, would be mockery.
No; the issue is far deeper than a mere matter of words
and names, and it calls aloud for decision. If the Fourth
Gospel is that which tradition maintains, then the whole
history of our religion, the whole conception of its Founder
is radically involved. We cannot reasonably treat Synoptic
story as of equal value with this subsequent, completely
different, representation, by one immeasurably better quali
fied to set forth the truth. If, on the other hand, it is within
the competence of historical and literary criticism to deter
mine from what sources, in what period, with what authority,
this Johannine representation has been produced, then our
lives of Christ and our interpretations of Christianity must
be written, or rewritten, accordingly.
Such lives of Christ, such interpretations of Christianity,
and of the Fourth Gospel itself, are fortunately not wanting.
But as long as the issue hangs undecided, Christian teaching

14 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
as a whole will follow the beaten track of tradition. It will
even be treated as heresy and disloyalty to Christ to question
the authorship long imputed to these writings. Such con
siderations will not greatly weigh with those accustomed to
believe that the scientifically trustworthy is apt to prove also
the practically edifying to faith. If in addition the Ephesian
Canon is found to be the exponent of Christian life and faith
in just that obscure period which marks the transition from
Paul to the post-apostolic age, genuine and true because
reflecting the very heart's faith of a great church in a great
age, there will be compensations for the loss of a supposedly
apostolic record. Its author, like Paul, will have known no
"Christ after the flesh"; but deeply and truly the eternal
Christ after the Spirit. The faith will not be vain in which
he has written to the end that by believing we also "might
have life in his name."

PART I
THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE

PART I
THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
CHAPTER I
THE modern form OF THE QUESTION
A singular difference of opinion seems to exist, even among
the strongest upholders of the Johannine Authorship of the
Fourth Gospel, as to the relative value of what is called the
"External Evidence," that is, the traces of its influence, di
rect or indirect, which the book has left upon subsequent
writers. Principal Drummond, the most recent, and one of
the most distinguished defenders of the traditional view,
after a review of the contents in which he feels compelled to
"attribute a lower historical value to the Fourth Gospel than
to the Synoptics," so that "it is to be accepted more in the
spirit than in the letter," is yet so impressed with the evi
dences of its early reception in the Church that he
"cannot but think that the external evidence of Johannine author
ship possesses great weight, and, if it stood alone, would entitle
the traditional view to our acceptance."
His ultimate conclusion is
"The external evidence ... is all on one side, and for
my part I cannot easily repel its force. A considerable mass of
the internal evidence is in harmony with the external. A number
of the difficulties (in the internal evidence) . . . melt away
on nearer examination, and those which remain are not sufficient
to weigh down the balance." ^
1 Drummond, Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, Scribner,
1904, pp. 64, 351, 514-
Fourth Gospel — 2 17

i8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Over against this clear admission of the decisive influence
of the external evidence in the formation of Principal Drum-
mond's opinion let us set that of Professor Sanday, who
welcomes the appearance of this volume from his distin
guished Oxford colleague with extraordinary enthusiasm.^
So long ago as 1872, Sanday had written
"The subject of the external evidence has been pretty well
fought out. The opposing parties are probably as near to an agree
ment as they ever will be. It will hardly be an unfair statement
of the case for those who reject the Johannean authorship of the
Gospel, to say, that the external evidence is compatible with that
supposition. And on the other hand, we may equally say for
those who accept the Johannean authorship, that the external
evidence would not be sufficient alone to prove it." ^
Since that early utterance three great Enghsh ' treatises
have been devoted, exclusively or mainly, to this aspect of
the problem. Ezra Abbott in 1880 redeemed American
scholarship from the reproach of sterility by his famous
essay The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel: External Evi
dences.'^ This was in reahty a supplement to Lightfoot's
brilliant Essays in reply to the author of Supernatural Re
ligion, and became a classic for all subsequent "defenders." *
The work of Principal Drummond already referred to, which
appeared in 1904, was but a development and enlargement
of work in which he had already engaged as an ally of San-
1 The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, Scribner, 1905, p. 32.
2 Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel considered in
reference lo the contents of the Gospel itself, Macmillan, 1872, p. 3.
3 Unitarian Review for February, March, June, 1880; reprinted by
Scribner, The Fourth Gospel, etc.; Essays by Ezra Abbott, .-indrew Peabody,
and Bishop Lightfoot, 1891.
¦"We should mention particularly Lightfoot's own discussion, "E.xternal
Evidence for the Authenticity and Genuineness of St. John's Gospel " re
printed from lecture notes in the volume of his Biblical Essays, Macmillan
1893.

THE MODERN QUESTION 19
day so early as 1875.^ Finally, but a few weeks before Prin
cipal Drummond's book, there had also appeared the most
thorough and judicial of all recent arguments for the Johan
nine Authorship from the external evidence from the pen of
Professor V. H. Stanton of Cambridge.^ But not even these
three consecutive great and able treatises seem to have ma
terially altered Professor Sanday's original conviction. In
his recent work entitled Criticism of the Fourth Gospel ^ the
treatment of "the External Evidence" is stiU relegated to
less than a dozen pages in the last of the eight lectures.
Dr. Drummond seems to him "to overstate a little — but only
a little — the external evidence for the Gospel," * and we are
left to infer that he abides by the conviction in which he had
concurred some fourteen years before ^ with his great an
tagonist Schiirer, that the decisive arguments must fall
within the field of the internal evidence.
If we ask how this singular difference in valuation of the
external evidence arises, the answer is not far to seek. For
Lightfoot and Ezra Abbott the great antagonist had been
the author of Supernatural Religion together with the now
obsolete school of Baur, who for reasons connected with his
own theory of the early history of the Church placed the
origin of the Fourth Gospel at the extremely late date of
1 Three articles on Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel originally printed
in the Theological Review for October, 1875, and April and July, 1877, are
reproduced in Chapter II of the volume above referred to, including pp. 84
to 162. Chapter X on "Basilides" appeared first in the Journal of Bibl.
Lit. for 1892. It had been prepared at a considerably earlier date.
2 The Gospels as Historical Documents; Part I. The Early Use of the Gos
pels, Cambridge University Press, 1903.
3 Scribner, 1905, pp. 238-248.
1 P. 36.
5 See the article by Emil Schiirer in the Contemporary Review, Septem
ber, 1891, with Sanday's reply, ihid., October, 1891. This reply was more
fully elaborated by Sanday in a series of articles in the Expositor for 1891
and 1892.

20 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
170 a. d., denying even its existence prior to the times of
Justin Martyr (150-160) and Tatian (160-180). The battle
of critics began, therefore, as a question of dating, and the
great victories of Drummond, Lightfoot, and Abbott were
won by the use of the external evidence to disprove this un-
tenably late date. Principal Drummond does not need to be
told that Baur's theory of the origin of the Johannine writings
is as obsolete as the Ptolemaic geography. And yet, as we
shall see, his own treatment of the external evidence is but
nominally adapted to modem conditions and to the new
alignment of the opposing critical forces. He himself de
scribes the change of critical opinion as follows:
"The appearance of the first volume of Keim's Geschichte
Jesu, in 1867, may be taken as marking the beginning of a new
period. In this work Keim proved himself one of the most strenu
ous assailants of the genuineness of the Gospel, but at the same
time he made a very long retreat from the positions of Baur. He
conceded that the Gospel was used by Justin Martyr, and brought
back its date to the days of Trajan, 100-117 A. d.'^ He thought
it probable that the author was a Jew and not a Gentile, and
dismissed as without weight some of the arguments which had
been considered adverse to this view. Thus the opponents were
brought much nearer to one another, and those who were not
under Tubingen influence began to feel the force of the arguments
which were pressed against the apostolic authorship; and many
who still defended the genuineness conceded that the author's
point of view and purpose in his composition were not primarily
historical. Thus, in Germany at least, the general result of the
controversy has been to extend the area of doubt respecting the
authorship, or, if not the authorship, the historical accuracy of
the Gospel, and on the other hand to bring the opponents of its
genuineness much nearer to the traditional view."
It is hard for an old soldier to forsake ground won in
1 Principal Drummond omits to state that Keim subsequently relapsed to
the date 130 A. d.

THE MODERN QUESTION 21
battle, even when it has lost strategic importance. In point
of fact the Modern Form of the Johannine Question scarcely
concerns itself with the question of date. It is a question not
of date, but of authorship and historicity. Therefore the
kind of external evidence once relied upon to prove the ex
istence of the Gospel in the times of Polycarp, Ignatius,
Papias, Justin, and Tatian, is almost totally irrele^'ant.
To-day nobody denies the kind of existence this evidence is
alone competent to prove; while on the other hand, evidence
competent to prove acceptance of this Gospel as authorita
tive and apostolic, or even as sharing in the respect accorded
to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and (somewhat later)
Luke, is wanting until the period of Tatian and Theophilus
of Antioch (170-180 A. d.).^ To critics of the present gen
eration such as Edwin Abbott, Schmiedel, and Wellhausen,
it is perfectly apparent that Baur mistook the period of dis
semination for that of origin. To-day Strauss' dictum com
paring the Fourth Gospel in its indivisible oneness to the
holy coat "woven without seam" is no longer an axiom.
Half a century of literary criticism has laid bare to us some
what more of the formative period of our gospel writings.
We are obliged to admit, nowadays, whether conservatives
or radicals, that mere acquaintance with ideas or phraseology
which more or less resemble the Johannine is not equivalent
to acquaintance with our canonical Gospel of John, inclusive
of its appendix and its latest editorial supplements. The con
servative Oxford committee who report on traces of Johan
nine influence in the Epistles of Ignatius,^ confess
"our ignorance how far some of the Logia (sayings) of Christ
1 On the revolution effected about 170-180 A. D. in the acceptance of the
Fourth Gospel, see Keim, Jesus of Nazara (Engl, transl.). Vol. I, pp. 197-
199- 2 The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, by a Committee of the
Oxford Society of Historical Theology, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1905, p. 83.

22 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
recorded by John may have been current in Asia Minor before
the publication of the Gospel. If they formed part of the Apostle's
oral teaching, they must have been familiar to his disciples, and
may have been collected and written down long before our Gospel
was composed."
Professor Sanday too is apparently less confident to-day
than in 1872 of "a date not very far from 80-90 A. D.," '
for the Gospel as a finished whole. He prefers to speak of
the Ignatian letters as proving the existence "well before the
end of the first century, of a compact body of teaching hke
that which we find in the Fourth Gospel." The external
evidence to his mind proves the "existence" of "the sub
stance of the Fourth Gospel" "before the end of the first
century," and this he considers "a considerable step towards
the belief that the Gospel existed in writing." ^
If many leaders of the conservative school appear to-day
so much more cautious in their inferences from the external
evidence, the reason becomes fully apparent when we notice
what inferences are drawn from it by their opponents.
The most thorough and scholarly treatment of the ex
ternal evidence accessible to the English reader, from the
point of view of those who repudiate the traditional author
ship, is that of the veteran scholar Edwin A. Abbott of
London, in §§83 to 107 of the article "Gospels" in the
Encyclopcedia Biblica.^ Abbott discusses seriatim all the
alleged traces of influence of the Johannine writings upon
Clement of Rome (ca. 96 A. D.), the Didache (?8o-iio),
Barnabas (132), Simon Magus (?90-ioo), Ignatius (iio-
117), Polycarp (110-117), Papias (Harnack: 145-160, Ab
bott: 120-130), Epistle to Diognetus (Lightfoot: former
1 Authorship, p. 12. For the difficulty in the way of so early a dating, see
Stanton, Gospels, etc., pp. i8, 238.
2 Criticism, p. 245.
3 Macmillan, 1901, Vol. II, columns 1825 to 1839.

THE MODERN QUESTION 23
part 117-147; latter part 180-210), Hermas (114-156),
Basilides (117-138), Marcion (125-135), and Valentinus
(141-156), and compares these with the use made at first
of Matthew, or Matthew and Mark, later of Luke. He
reaches the following conclusion:
"Up to the middle of the second century, though there are
traces of Johannine thought and tradition, and immature approxi
mations to the Johannine Logos-doctrine, yet in some writers
(e. g., Barnabas and Simon) we find rather what Jn. develops, or
what Jn. attacks, than anything that imitates Jn., and in others
(e. g., Polycarp, Ignatius and Papias) mere war-cries of the time,
or phrases of a Logos-doctrine still in flux, or apocalyptic tradi
tions of which Jn. gives a more spiritual and perhaps a truer
version. There is nothing to prove, or even suggest, that 'Jn.
was recognized as a gospel.' "
The relatively voluminous ^ treatises of Justin Martyr
(153-160 A. D.) form a class by themselves for all students of
the external evidence. The surprising non-appearance of
the Fourth Gospel among his recognized authorities, at least
in a degree approximating his "more than one hundred" ^
employments of the Synoptists, is one of the admitted diffi
culties of the supporters of tradition. Drummond, for ex
ample, after accumulating all possible traces of the use of
John, meets the question "Why has Justin not quoted the
Fourth Gospel at least as often as the other three?" with
certain analogies whose vahdity we must test hereafter. Ab
bott, on the other hand, meets the alleged traces of the Fourth
Gospel in Justin by an analysis even more thorough than
Drummond's, resulting in the following summary:
1 The two Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho occupy together about
six times the space of the eight Epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius combined.
2 So Schmiedel, article " John, son of Zebedee," Encycl. Bibl., Vol. II,
column 2546, § 44. Drummond, Character and Authorship, p. loo, counts
"somewhere about 170 citations from or references to the Gospels.'' Among
these he probably includes what he regards as "three apparent quotations"
from John. See below.

24 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
" It appears, then, that (i) when Justin seems to be alluding to
Jn., he is really alluding to the Old Testament, or Barnabas, or
some Christian tradition different from Jn., and often earlier than
Jn.; (2) when Justin teaches what is practically the doctrine of
the Fourth Gospel, he supports it, not by what can easily be found
in the Fourth, but by what can hardly, with any show of reason,
be found in the Three; (3) as regards Logos-doctrine, his views
are alien from Jn. These three distinct lines of evidence converge
to the conclusion that Justin either did not know Jn., or, as is
more probable, knew it, but regarded it with suspicion, partly be
cause it contradicted Luke his favorite Gospel, partly because it
was beginning to be freely used by his enemies the Valentinians.
(4) It may also be fairly added that lit^ary evidence may have
weighed with him. He seldom or never quotes (as many early
Christian writers do) from apocryphal works. The title he gives
to the Gospels ('Memoirs of the Apostles') shows the value he
set on what seemed to him the very words of Christ noted down
by the apostles. Accepting the Apocalypse as the work of (Trypho
81) the Apostle John he may naturally have rejected the claim of
the Gospel to proceed from the same author. This may account for
a good many otherwise strange phenomena in Justin's writings.
He could not help accepting much of the Johannine doctrine, but
he expressed it, as far as possible, in non- Johannine language;
and, where he could, he went back to earlier tradition for it, such
as he found, for example, in the Epistle of Barnabas."
As between the inferences drawn by "defenders" and by
opponents of the Johannine Authorship only a careful study
of the literature itself can enable us to judge. What we are
now attempting to make clear is the common ground of
agreement, the fact that in our day the debate concerns not
date, but authorship; because the most radical opponent
can easily afford to grant the utmost claims the consen'ative
scholar is able to make from the external evidence as respects
the mere "existence well before the end of the first century
of a compact body of teaching hke that which we find in the

THE MODERN QUESTION 25
Fourth Gospel." An early example of this coincidence of
radical and conservative in the mere matter of dating was
furnished by Keim, as already shown. In our day Zahn,
"the prince of conservative scholars," is still arguing for the
date 80-90 A. D., for the work in its present form,^ while
Wellhausen on purely internal grounds is arguing for sub
stantially the same date, with the difference that for him, it
only marks the beginnings of a htcrary process which culmi
nated, through a series of supplementations and reconstruc
tions, not earher than 135 a. d.,^ in our canonical Fourth
Gospel. What Wellhausen thinks of the Johannine Author
ship appears from his statement that Schwartz has "proved"
the death of John the son of Zebedee along with James his
brother in Jerusalem in 44 a. d.^
Schmiedel, in Professor Sanday's view, "understates the
(external) evidence for the Fourth Gospel" prior to the year
180; '' but he esteems him a competent and sincere scholar,
albeit "cold and severe," a "lawyer who pursues his adver
sary from point to point with relentless acumen." ^ Pro
fessor Sanday is "not so sure as he (Schmiedel) is that there
is no allusion to the Gospel in Barnabas or Hermas, where
it is found (e. g.) by Keim, or in the Elders of Papias, where
it is found (e. g.) by Harnack." ^ But at least Schmiedel can
not be ruled out of court as unquahfied to pronounce an
opinion on the external evidence, and to understand what
1 Einleitung, Bd. II, § 69.
2 Evangelium Johannis, 1908. Jn. 5:43 contains in Wellhausen's view
(pp. 27, 126), a reference to Bar Kochba (132-135 A. D.). The Appendix
(Chapter 21) is not considered in the effort at dating, p. 126.
3 Ibid., p. 119. See below, Chapter V.
* Criticism, p. 240.
^ Ibid., p. 27.
8 Ibid., p. 241. Schmiedel's reasons for disagreeing with Harnack on this
point are given in § 45 of his article " John, son of Zebedee,'' above referred
to. On this point, as well as the "allusions" in Barnabas and Hermas, our
own judgment is given in Chapter II.

26 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
questions are, and what are not, now regarded as within its
capacity, we must hear also the opinion of Schmiedel.
After emphasizing the "distinction between testimonies ex
pressly favorable to the apostolic authorship, and those which
only vouch for the existence of the Fourth Gospel, without
conveying any judgment as to its authorship" Schmiedel
protests against the heaping up of alleged testimonies of
the latter class as if they belonged to the former, as follows :
"Most of the early Christian writings which were held (by
apologists of the last generation) to bear testimony to the Fourth
Gospel — and of these precisely the oldest and therefore most im
portant — in reality do not justify the claim based upon them.
(a) They show manifold agreements with Jn., but these con
sist only of single, more or less characteristic words or formulas,
or other coincidences which might equally well have passed into
currency by the channel of oral tradition. The great number of
such agreements does in very deed prove that the Johannine
formulas and catch-words were very widely diffused, and that the
Johannine ideas had been, so to speak, for decennia in the air.
We should run great danger of allowing ourselves to be misled,
however, if, merely because it so happens that such phrases and
turns of expression first became known and familiar to ourselves
through the Fourth Gospel, we were at once to conclude that the
writers in question can have taken them from that source alone.
The true state of the case may very easily be quite the opposite;
the words and phrases circulated orally; as they circulated they
received an ever more pregnant, pointed, memorable form, and
the writer of the Fourth Gospel, not as the first but as the last in
the series of transmitters, set them down in a form and in a con
nection which excelled that of the others, and thus his work came
to appear as if it were the source of the others." ¦'
Examination of all these resemblances, and estimate of
their bulk and importance as compared with the use made
by the same early writers of the other gospels, and as com-
• Encycl. Bibl., Vol. II, j. i/. " John, son of Zebedee," § 45.

THE MODERN QUESTION 27
pared with what on the traditional theory of authorship we
might have reason to expect, leads Schmiedel to the follow
ing conclusion:
"If we were dealing with a book attributed to an undistin
guished man, such as, for example, the Epistle of Jude, it could
not be held to be very surprising that proofs of acquaintance with
it do not emerge until some considerable time after its production.
The case is very different, however, with a gospel written by an
eye-witness. Papias noticed defects in the Gospel of Mark; the
third evangelist noticed them in the writings of all his predecessors
(of. gospels, §§ 65, 153). The writing of an eye-witness would
immediately on its publication have been received with the keenest
interest, however violently it may have conflicted with the gospels
hitherto known. It would at least by these contradictions have
attracted attention and necessarily have given occasion to such
remarks as that 'the gospels seem to contradict one another' of
Claudius Apollinaris (crracrtd^av hoKii TO. eZayyeXjo) (§§42 and
546). No mention of the Fourth Gospel which we can recog
nize as such carries us back further than to 140 A. d. As late as
152 (Acad., ist Feb., 1896, p. 98), Justin, who nevertheless lays so
great stress upon the ' Memorabilia of the Apostles,' regards Jn. — ¦
if indeed he knows it at all — with distrust and appropriates from
it but a very few sayings. Therefore, notwithstanding the fact
that conservative theology still cherishes the behef that the ex
ternal evidence supphes the best possible guarantee for the genuine
ness of the Fourth Gospel, we find ourselves compeUed not only
to recognize the justice of the remark of Reuss that ' the incredible
trouble which has been taken to coUect external evidences only
serves to show that there really are none of the sort which were
reaUy wanted,' but also to set it up even as a fundamental principle
of criticism that the production of the Fourth Gospel must be
assigned to the shortest possible date before the time at which
traces of acquaintance with it begin to appear. Distinct declara
tions as to its genuineness begin certainly not earher than about
170 A. D. (§42)."^ 1 Ibid., § 49.

28 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
From the foregoing extracts summarizing the conclusions
of representative scholars on both sides it wiU be apparent
that the road to agreement does not he along the hne of heap
ing up more or less fanciful resemblances to Johannine
thought or phraseology, from the period before the Gospel
attains to its wide dissemination and authoritative stand
ing about 170 A. D. Neither does it he along the hne of ad
ding to the already abundant testimonies from the period
of the half century of conflict following Tatian (170 A. d.),
during which its ardent advocates were triumphantly over
powering the weak opposition offered at first to its claims at
Rome. The accumulation of alleged resemblances in writers
of the former period has been carried already to a point
where in many cases they certainly appear to opposing critics,
and may well seem to the impartial observer, to be merely
fanciful; in other cases they will be held to prove no more
than is matter of common consent. The many and wide
spread assertions of the Johannine Authorship of this Gospel,
coupled with an employment of it with a frequency and re
gard equal to, or even beyond the other three, which begin
to appear about 180 a. d., coincidently with the beginnings
of the debate at Rome, will prove indeed — if proof were
needed — how acceptable to the Christianity of the time was
the type of doctrine of the Ephesian Church, but can throw
but little light on the actual origin of the Gospel.
Whether, then, we attribute the Gospel directly, or in
directly to John, or to some wholly different writer, what we
seek to-day from the external evidence is not so much the
Gospel's "date" in the old sense of the word; for on this the
evidence we have is incapable of shedding more than a very
limited amount of light. To-day we inquire for its "forma
tive period"; and the "formative period " of the Fourth Gos
pel has already been determined as closely as the data avail
able, or hkely to become a\ailable, admit. It is approxi-

THE MODERN QUESTION 29
mately the close of the first century and opening decades of
the second.^ Proconsular Asia ^ with the great headquarters
of the Pauhne mission field, Ephesus, as its metropohs, was
the region in which the group of writings attributed to the
Apostle John first came into circulation, in supplementation
of the Epistles of Paul, and probably the Gospels of Mat
thew and Mark and the so-called First Epistle of Peter. In
the threefold form of Gospel, Epistles, and Prophecy, or
Apocalypse, these writings served the purpose of a canon of
New Testament scripture to "the churches of Asia." The
ancient tradition'' which assigns the origin of the "Johan
nine" writings to this region and this approximate date is
therefore in substance correct.*
Since, then, the modern form of the Johannine question is
but slightly, if at all, a question of date or provenance, it is
a primary condition of clear thinking as regards the external
evidence that we distinguish between (i) evidences which
bear on "the existence of a body of teaching like that which
we find in the Fourth Gospel," evidences which for the
period anterior to 181 a. d. consist of mere resemblances
to its doctrine or phraseology, and (2) evidences which bear
upon the question of authorship; these latter being either
confined to the period of dissemination beginning with
Tatian and Theophilus (170-180), or consisting of inferences
1 Harnack considers {Chronologic, p. 680) "-that the Gospel was not written
' later than circa no A. D. is an assured historical fact." Moffat {Historical
New Testament, p. 495) fixes on 95-115, "nearer the latter year, in all proba
bility, than the former."
2 The designation "Asia" usually applies, in reference to this period, to the
Roman province of Asia, the district immediately surrounding Ephesus.
3 Clement of Alexandria {Hypotyposes, on authority of "the early Presby
ters," quoted by Eusebius, H. E. VI. xiv. 7) as to the Gospel; Irenaeus {Haer.
V, XXX, 3) as to Revelation.
4 On this date and provenance as matter of common consent see, e. g.,
Stanton, Gospels as Historical Documents, 1903, p. 19, and Schmiedel,
Encycl. Bibl., s. v. "John, son of Zebedee," §§ 52, 53.

30 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
to be drawn from the mode and measure of unacknowledged
employment in the earher time.
It is also vitally important to define our terminology and
to use it consistently with the recognized practice of criticism,
not classifying as "quotations" mere resemblances of thought
or language, more or less remote, which may or may not be
due to acquaintance with the Fourth Gospel. For mere
resemblances of this kind we propose to employ the term
"echo," or "influence," reserving the term "quotation" for
instances where appeal is directly made to a definite writing
so described as to be recognizable, and attributed to a par
ticular author mentioned by name, or otherwise defined as
the authority to whom appeal is made. The number and
importance of "echoes" and "influences" wiU varv of course
with the keenness of the critic's hearing, which in the present
case has been stimulated to the utmost by the conviction that
"the genuineness of St. John's Gospel is the centre of the
position of those who uphold the historical truth of the
record of our Lord Jesus Christ given us in the New Testa
ment." ^ The German critic who has been accused of
"hearing the grass grow" has abundant opportunity in this
field to retahate upon his Enghsh opponent.^ Unfortunately
for the latter the accumulation of these echoes and influences,
so long as they remain manifestly inferior in mode and meas
ure of employment not only to what, as Schmiedel points
out, we should have a right to expect on the theory of Johan
nine authorship, but conspicuously inferior to the employ
ments of Synoptic tradition, creates a new and serious em
barrassment; and the more the witnesses are multiplied the
worse the embarrassment becomes. Wc refer of course to
1 Lightfoot, as quoted above, p. i.
2 A reductio ad absurdum of this type seems to be afforded in the recent
work The Four Gospels in early Church History, by Thos. Nicol, D. D.,
1908. See the review by W. Bauer in Th. Ltz., 1909, 7.

THE MODERN QUESTION 31
the objection already noticed in the case of Justin Martyr,
and which is commonly spoken of as if it were a phenomenon
of his writings alone, viz., the singular neglect of a Gospel
which of all other writings would naturally be the first re
sort for Christians in the conditions supposed. The argu
ment is wont to be confined to Justin, because with Justin
we reach an age when by common consent the Fourth Gospel
must have been already current, and an author, relatively
voluminous, who in at least one instance gives highly prob
able evidence of acquaintance with it. But there is no reason
save the more doubtful character of the alleged echoes and
influences in earlier writers, and the more limited compass
of the material, why these should not be included in the ar
gument. Professor Stanton, who alone of the "defenders"
makes serious attempts to grapple with the objection from
the neglect of John in the earliest* period, considers that
"the absence of any mention of the Apostle John is very
strange only in the Epistles of Ignatius." ^ Others might
prefer to say "in Polycarp," considering how all the Johan
nine tradition is made to hang on the alleged relation be
tween John and Polycarp.^ Still others might find the neg
lect of Papias harder to account for,' seeing that Papias ex
phcitly acknowledges the defective and secondary character
of Synoptic tradition. In reahty the phenomena are the
same in aU the writers of the early period, and the more the
number is increased by the addition of remote and dubious
echoes and influences from stih other writers, the more
serious becomes the problem. Echoes and influences there
may well be. If hi mode and measure they corresponded to
^Gospels as Historical Documents, p. 236. On the silence of Justin's
predecessors, and Stanton's explanation see Chapter II.
2 On Polycarp's alleged use of the Fourth Gospel as compared with Paul
and the Synoptics see below. Chapter II.
3 So, e. g., Keim, op. cit.. Vol. I, p. 197.

32 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the influential position a writing such as our Fourth Gospel,
acknowledged as the work of the last surviving apostle,
would necessarily hold, they might conceivably make good
the absence of direct quotation or appeal. But even the
echoes, instead of becoming clearer and more unmistakable
as we approach their supposed origin, "tremble away into
silence" and leave us bewildered. Starting with Justin,
whose one resemblance in employing Johannine phraseology
to combine the deutero-Pauline doctrine of the "bath of re
generation" with the teaching of Jesus,^ makes us practi
cally certain that he was really acquainted with the Fourth
Gospel, we pass backward through Valentinus, Papias, Basil
ides, Polycarp, Ignatius, Hermas, to Barnabas, the Didache
and Clement of Rome. In Papias as in Justin we have
true "quotation" of Revelation, and probable use of First
John, with a much disputed possibility, or probability, of
employment of the Fourth Gospel.' As to Basilides (133
A. D.) and Valentinus (150-160 A. d.) Sanday himself can
go no further than to say, "There remains in my own mind
a slight degree of probability that they used the Gospel." '
In Polycarp there is found one "battle-cry" from First John.
In Ignatius a very few much disputed echoes and a diffused
1 After describing the rite of baptism in the name of the Trinity Justin adds
{Apol. I, Ixi), "For Christ also said, Unless ye be born again, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven. But that it is impossible for those who are
once born to enter into the wombs of those who brought them forth is evident
to all." The phrase (dvayivvritns) by which he refers to the doctrine is that
of Tit. 3:5 and I Pt. 1:3, 23. As to his relation to Jn. 3:3-5 Drummond
(p. 87) justly says, "It cannot be denied that this passage immediately re
minds one of Jn. 3 ;3-5, and all critics, as far as I know, acknowledge that
there is some relation which is more than accidental between the two pas
sages. As little can it be denied that it is not quoted verbally from the
Fourth Gospel, but has variations both in language and meaning."
2 On this see Chapter II.
3 Criticism, p. 247. On the evidence from these two Gnostic writers see
Chapter II.

THE MODERN QUESTION S3
and equally disputed influence of the Gospel. In Hermas
Stanton thinks he can detect traces, and Sanday is "not so
sure" as Schmiedel that there are none.^ As to Barnabas
his feeling is the same, although even the famous Oxford
committee, who have certainly not erred in the direction of
radicalism, "must regard Barnabas as unacquainted with
the Fourth Gospel." ^ He finds also in the eucharistic
prayer of the Didache a resemblance in the phrase, "Remem
ber, Lord, thy Church to deliver it from all evil and to per
fect it in thy love" to I Jn. 4: 17, i8; Jn. 17: 23, which again,
in spite of the silence of the Oxford Society's Committee,
he thinks "cannot be wholly accidental." * None of these
really responsible "defenders" consents to follow the rash
echo-chasers who wander up and down the disappointing
pages of Clement of Rome.*
Now in answer to these phenomena of steady decrease
1 Ibid., p. 241. On Stanton's supposed traces in Hermas see Chapter II.
2 The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, Report of the Committee
of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology, 1905, p. 23.
3 Criticism, p. 246. The committee report three passages (Did. ix, 2, 3
and X, 3) which "seem reminiscent of Johannine ideas and terminology."
They decline, however, to class these among even probable employments.
The phrase quoted by Sanday, if its pedigree must be traced, is more nearly
related to Eph. 3:14; 5:32 than to the Johannine passages.
* Stanton (Gospels, etc.) is conscious of the serious objection to a date so
early as 80-90 A. D. (Zahn, Sanday) which emerges from the silence of
Clement of Rome, who, as he says (p. 18), "gives no clear sign that he knew
this Gospel." Stanton would account for this by a date "not earlier than
the last decade of the first century" (p. 238). The only resemblance noticed
by him in Clement is referred to in a footnote on p. 18. "The thought" of
Clem, xhi, i seems to him to "correspond closely" to Jn. 20:21. No re
semblances are adduced in the Apology of Aristides nor in the so-called
Second Epistle of Clement. These with Clement of Rome cover a space
somewhat greater than the Gospel of Matthew. Stanton (p. 152, note)
agrees with Harnack in dating the Epistle to Diognetus, cc, i-x, ca. 200 A. D.,
and cc, xi-xii still later. Lightfoot's claim of an echo of Jn. in this epistle,
which Edw. Abbott endorses (see above, p. 22) may therefore be disre
garded. Fourth Gospel— 3

34 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
in the employment and recognition of the Fourth Gospel by
those who might reasonably be supposed to know it, as we
approach the date and region where its currency and au
thority should be at a maximum, it is not enough to utter
general disparagements of "the argument from silence";
because the external evidence, from the moment we pass into
the debated period, back of the time of express and undis
puted quotations, becomes of necessity an "argument from
silence." To quarrel with that is to quarrel with the external
evidence for being external; and it is by challenge of the "de
fenders" that we have entered this field. If it were a mere
idiosyncracy of Justin Martyr it might perhaps be enough to
say with Sanday: "The whole chapter of accidents is open
before us," and to commend it as "sounder method to fall
back with Dr. Drummond simply upon our ignorance." '
But we are dealing with a whole group of writers, many of
whom could not have been ignorant of the supposed work of
John and all of whom had the strongest motives for referring
to it. It does not seriously affect this argument to demand
an estimate of "the total bulk of the literature on which the
argument is based." ^ With the authors named there might
very properly be included some of the later books of the
New Testament;' yet even without these, the "thin octavo
volume" of which Professor Sanday speaks* which should
include all second century Christian writers down to the
period of real quotations, would bulk considerably larger
than the New Testament itself, and is at all events sufficient
to exhibit a contrast in mode and measure of employment to

1 Sanday, Criticism, p. 247.
2 Ibid., p. 47.
3 Even Stanton, who admits the validity of this inclusion, passes over un-
mentioned the important epistle of First Peter (90-110 a. d. ?), Gospels, etc.,
p. 165.
1 Ibid., p. 39.

THE MODERN QUESTION 35
which not even the most unwilling eye can be bhnd, between
the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth.
To what extent, then, has Principal Drummond accom
modated himself in his momentous inferences from the ex
ternal evidence to the Modern Form of the Question?
His most jubilant and indeed extravagant commender — for
in the matter of commendation even Sanday can be extrava
gant — admits that Drummond's book gives the appearance
of being "written round" certain articles contributed by the
author to the debates of twenty or thirty years ago, and
that there is a certain inadequacy about an argument in
this field which does not so much as recognize the existence
of Schmiedel and Juhcher, two of the leading critics on the
opposing side.^ We may add that Drummond's discussion
of the citations of Justin with which we are now concerned is
equally silent as to Bousset whose treatment of this sub
ject ^ would probably interest the modern reader more than
those of Hilgenfeld ' and Thoma,* and gives only nominal at
tention even to Edwin Abbott.
But Sanday is specially filled with admiration for the "free
dom" of this author "from all dogmatic prepossessions," his
"judicial habit of weighing all that is to be said on both sides,"
his "impartiality." ^ And this is not greatly hindered even
by a recognition that
"On the whole question of the external evidence. Dr. Drum-
1 Sanday in Hibbert Journal, Vol. II (1903-04), pp. 616 ff.
2 Abbott in Enc. Bibl., s. v. "Gospels." Bousset in Evangeliencitate
Justins des Martyrers, 1891. A note on p. 86, referring to Abbott's articles
in the Modern Review for July and October, 1882, and another on p. 130,
referring to Encycl. Bibl. ii, 1836, are found. For an adequate bibliography
of the subject see Preuschen, Antilegomena, 1901, p. 93.
3 Kritische Untersuchungen iiber die Evangelien Justins, 1850.
4 Justins' literarisches Verhdltniss zu Paulus u. zum J ohannesevangelium,
in Ltz. fur wiss. Theol., 1875.
5 Criticism, pp. 33-36.

36 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
mond's view might almost be called optimistic. He endorses af
firmatively almost every item of evidence that has ever been
alleged." -^
For ourselves we yield not even to Sanday himself in
admiration of Principal Drummond's scholarship, and we
are sure of his sincerity of conviction; but we cannot admit
that an author, however learned and sincere, who has merely
"written round" the brief he presented as an advocate some
thirty years ago, recasting it into the form of a judicial ver
dict, can be considered to occupy a position of superior im-
partiahty. In applying again his old-time arguments against
modem writers whom he seems to regard as occupying sub
stantially the same position as his quondam antagonists.
Principal Drummond is doubtless free from the embarrass
ments which beset scholars of less liberal ecclesiastical com
munions. But few temptations to a biased judgment are
found in practice to be more effective with the scholar than
consistency with his own opinion once published, and in
this respect none could be more thoroughly committed in
advance. We recognize indeed a studied reserve in the
phraseology wherein Principal Drummond so summarizes
his present conclusions as not to seem to make unreasonable
demands. It may account for the praise accorded bv Pro
fessor Sanday to his "impartiahty" and "judicial habit."
But this pertains rather to the form. That which affects the
substance is the "optimism" which "endorses affirmatively
almost every item of evidence which has excT been alleged,"
and disregards the most recent and ablest presentations of
the opposing case.
As the matter is vital, and Principal Drummond's book is
expressly put forward as an example of judicial impartiahty,
at once refuting and putting to shame the superficial and
1 See "Drummond on the Fourth Gospel," Hibbert Journal, Vol. II
(1903-04), p. 615.

THE MODERN QUESTION 37
biased judgments of the opposing school, it becomes im
perative that the dissent we have just expressed from Pro
fessor Sanday's lavish praise be supported by direct citation
of fact. We may use for this purpose the very passage of
Drummond's book which Professor Sanday twice adduces
as "perhaps the most important and the most far-reaching of
all the corrections of current practice." ' It represents the
nearest approach the book affords to direct treatment of the
modern form of the question.
"But why, then, it may be asked, has Justin not quoted the
Fourth Gospel at least as often as the other three ? I cannot tell,
any more than I can tell why he has never named the supposed
authors of his Memoirs, or has mentioned only one of the parables,
or made no reference to the Apostle Paul, or nowhere quoted the
apocalypse, though he believed it to be an apostolic and propheti
cal work. His silence may be due to pure accident, or the book
may have seemed less adapted to his apologetic purposes; but
considering how many things there are about which he is silent,
we cannot admit that the argumenium a silentio possesses in this
case any validity. " ^
Passing over the objection that it is not the silence of
Justin alone, but of all his predecessors as well, which is in
question, we confine ourselves to two points of the above
comparison.^ The reader is clearly intended to infer that
Justin's neglect to appeal to the Gospel of John is paralleled
by a failure (i) to "name the supposed authors of the Mem
oirs" and (2) to "quote from the Apocalypse." From this
the conclusion would naturaUy be that Justin, in strange
1 Criticism, p. 33. Cf. Hibbert Journal, Vol. II, p. 614.
2 Sanday, Criticism, etc., p.. 33, quoting Drummond, Character, etc.,
pp. 157 f.
3 On the absence of "reference to" the Apostle Paul see below, p. 93.
The careful reader will note that the use of the Pauline Epistles, of which
there are a number of instances in Justin, is not excluded by the term "ref
erence." Without very careful handling Principal Drummond's argument
will break.

38 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
contrast to his age, cared little for apostohc authority, at
least in relation to those he was addressing, and in particular
might wholly neglect to avail himself of that of the Apostle
John, even when it lay at his command. What now are the
real facts? (i) In Justin's time, or even earlier, it was
known that none of the Synoptic Gospels in their current form
could be directly ascribed to apostohc authors. "Mark"
and "Luke" were not names to conjure with; "Matthew's"
could be apphed only indirectly to the current Greek Gospel.
In later times church fathers torment the ancient tradition
in various ways to evade, or at least to minimize, the un
welcome admission.^ Instead of being indifferent to the
apostolic authority of his Memoirs, Justin adopts just that
form of description, "Memoirs of the apostles," "Memoirs
called gospels, which were written by apostles and their com
panions" which enables him to make the maximum claim
of apostolic authority, without directly doing violence to the
tradition. These Memoirs he uses as authoritative, quoting
and employing them, according to Drummond's own count,
some 170 times.^ Is the mode and measure of his employ
ment of these, then, really parallel to his treatment of the
Fourth Gospel, which he has never referred to, and from
which even Drummond can find but three "apparent quota
tions"? (2) But we are more particularly to infer from a compar
ison of Justin's treatment of the Apocalypse with his treat
ment of the Fourth Gospel, that he did not care to invoke
the authority of the Apostle John even in defense of that
doctrine of the Logos and the divinity of Christ, which Drum
mond finds tinctured throughout with "influences" indic
ative of its Johannine origin. Let us see how this second
analogy holds.
1 See, e. g., the quotation below, p. 84, from TertuUian, adv. Marcionem.
2 See above p. 23, note.

THE MODERN QUESTION 39
First of all we are repeatedly informed that Justin "has
nowhere quoted the Apocalypse." Here, as in the other cases,
the whole argument depends upon the exact choice of terms.
Drummond does not deny, he rather takes pains to assert,
that Justin employs Rev. 20-21. He cioes not deny that
Justin appeals to it by name as "a revelation." He admits
that he refers to it as authoritative and names its author. It is
the "prophecy" of "one of ourselves, John, an apostle of
Christ." ^ But all this in the case of Revelation is not suffi
cient to meet the high requirements of the term "quotation."
That term Principal Drummond reserves for three corre
spondences with the Fourth Gospel, one of which as an ad
mitted " echo " we have already discussed.^ It is the reference
to baptism as typifying " regeneration," for Christ also said,
" Unless ye be regenerated (ava<yevvr]Or)Te) ye shall not enter
into the kingdom of heaven." There is here no mention of
John, no appeal to his authority, no reference to so much as
the existence of a writing. Some even remain doubtful
whether in the passage Justin was influenced at all by this
Gospel.' Such, however, is the first of Drummond's three
"quotations"; for we must remember that they are expressly
distinguished as such from the mere alleged resemblances.
The second "quotation" is not even a probable echo.
It is only a possible influence. In his Dialogue (ch. bcxxviii)
Justin refers to the Baptist's testimony to Christ, using the
Synoptic form, but with the peculiarity of employing the first
person :
"Even he himself cried, I am not the Christ, but a voice crying;
for there shah come he who is stronger than I, whose sandals I
am not worthy to take off."
1 Dial. Ixxxi. See Drummond's elaboration of the two supposed analogies
of neglect on p. 159.
2 Above, p. 32.
3 So Bousset, whose work, however, is not referred to by Drummond.

40 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
This might be due to unconscious reminiscence of Jn. i : 20,
23; but, as Edwin Abbott had already pointed out in the
very article referred to by Drummond a few pages before,^
it may equally weh be due to the influence of Acts 13:25:
"And as John was fulfilling his course he said. What suppose ye
that I am ? I am not he, but there cometh one after me, the shoes
of whose feet I am not worthy to unloose."
Nevertheless to Drummond this is still a "quotation" of
the Fourth Gospel, by the author who "has nowhere quoted
the Apocalypse."
The third "quotation" is the furthest of ah from deser^^-
ing the name. Several pages ^ are occupied with an elab
orate effort to insert a Johannine foundation under Justin's
language. In his First Apology Justin maintains that there
was a fulfilment of Is. 58: 2, "they now ask of me judgment"
in the fact that the Jews "in mockery set him (Jesus) upon
the judgment seat and said. Judge us." Such an incident is
related nowhere in any of our four Gospels. But in a frag
ment found in 1892 of the Ev. Petri, which in the same
manner as Luke transfers the story of the mockery of Jesus
to the account of "the Jews," it is related that "they arrayed
him in purple, and set him on a throne of judgment, say
ing. Judge justly, O King of Israel." Drummond, however,
will not admit that Justin can be referring to this, although
it presents both points of correspondence with the Isaianic
passage, viz., that it is "the Jews" who are guilty of the
mockery, and that the nature of it was that they "asked of
him judgment." Drummond still clings to the contention
he had supported long before the discovery of Ev. Petri,
that Justin's language can onl}' be accounted for as a mis
understanding of the statement of Jn. 19:13 that "Pilate
1 The argument for the "quotation" occurs on p. 144, the reference to
Encycl. Bibl. ii, 1836, on p. 130.
2 Pp. 150-152.

THE MODERN QUESTION 41
led Jesus forth and sat down on the judgment seat." He
gives instances to prove that the word "sat down" (iicddtaev)
could be used transitively. Whence Justin derived the
statement that the Jews said "Judge us" he does not ex
plain. As regards this alleged "quotation" of the Fourth
Gospel we wiU simply refer to another "defender" whose
scholarship is warmly and justly praised by Professor San
day, but who, as Sanday seems to think, does not rise quite to
Drummond's level of judicial impartiality and lofty su
periority to dogmatic prepossession. Stanton's "defense,"
appearing but a few weeks before Drummond's, had given
the following verdict on the alleged "quotation":
" It has in the past been thought by some ^ that Justin had come
to imagine it through a misunderstanding or misremembering
of Jn. 19: 13. But any appearance of probabihty which this
explanation may once have had has now been destroyed through
our finding it again in 'Peter.' " ^
Whether we follow or reject the acute, and to the present
writer convincing, argument of Stanton that the true deriva
tion of the "fulfilment," both in Ev. Petri and in Justin, is
the Acts of Pilate, the judgment of Stanton on the fate of
Drummond's argument is manifestly true. A comparison of
Drummond's use of the word "quotation" as applied to
Justin's use of the Gospel and Revelation respectively will
enable the reader to form, his own judgment. With it we
conclude our examination of the pattern paragraph.
It is indeed important that we distinguish mere "echoes"
and "influences" such as make no reference to a recogniz
able document, and mention no author; from "quotations,"
which describe some recognizable written source, and ap
peal to the author by name as authority. In the former case
1 A footnote reads, "First, it would seem, by Drummond, Theol. Rev. for
1877, p. 238."
2 Gospels as Historical Documents, p. 99.

42 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
it is equally important that we exercise the keenest, most
impartial, most critical judgment as to the mode and measure
of employment of the source. Such impartial verdicts, how
ever, are not illustrated in the statement that Justin "has
nowhere quoted the Apocalypse," but has three apparent
"quotations" from the Fourth Gospel. They are not at
tained by the mere "writing round" of arguments originally
framed against the Tiibingen School and the author of
Supernatural Religion. They are not hkely to be found in
one who "endorses affirmatively almost every item of evi
dence which has ever been alleged." The real greatness
and splendor of scholarship of the venerable Principal of
Manchester College, his critical insight, his judicial poise,
have been proved on many an occasion; proofs of them re
main in many parts of his really great and scholarly defense
of the Johannine Authorship of the Fourth Gospel; but
these quahties, or at least all of these quahties, are not con
spicuous in his treatment of the external evidence and the
argument from silence as these are presented in the Modern
Form of the Question.

CHAPTER II
ECHOES AND INFLUENCES
We have seen in our consideration of the most highly
lauded of recent presentations of the external evidence in
favor of the Johannine authorship that a judgment on the
question in its modern form requires first of aU a separation
of evidence which only bears upon the existence at an early
period of "a compact body of teaching hke that which we
find in the Fourth Gospel," which at best can be no more
than "a considerable step towards the belief that the Gospel
existed in writing," from evidence bearing on the question
of authorship. In the nature of the case evidence bearing
on the authorship must be found mainly within the compass
of the Gospel itself. External evidence, however, will have
something to say on this point also. If on the one hand, the
employments of the Gospel in the region and period of its
origin are such in mode and measure as the claims made in
its behalf would lead us to expect, this may to an extent make
good the admitted lack of explicit appeal to "John" as an
evangelic authority. If, per contra, there is a noteworthy
silence where employment was most to be expected, and that
not in one church father, but in a considerable group; if in
addition this silence extends not only to the Gospel, but to
the very presence of John in Asia, and to the whole body of
tradition regarding the connection of the Apostle John with
the anonymous writings attributed to him; if the earhest
traces of this tradition are found in the period marked by
strenuous advocacy on the one side of "the fourfold gospel"
and equally strenuous denial, on the other side of "that
43

44 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
aspect v/hich is presented by John's Gospel," it being prin
cipally adduced by an ardent champion of the "fourfold
gospel," who at the same time is anything but an accurate
scholar — then the bearing of the external evidence can cer
tainly not be considered altogether favorable to these claims.
The mere fact that it is an argument from silence, subject
to the weakness of aU negative evidence, is merely a warn
ing to rely on internal evidence for its appropriate function,
and upon the external for that which is appropriate to it.
Silence is all that can be expected in the case.
Our summary of the alleged "quotations" from John in
90-155 A. D., will already have justified in some measure the
remark of Reuss that "the incredible pains taken to coUect
external evidences only serve to show that there reaUy are
none of the sort which were really wanted." It is better,
however, that we adduce on this matter of alleged "echoes"
and "influences" of the "Johannine" writings, more im
partial judgments than that of Drummond, before proceed
ing to the question what may be inferred from early state
ments and early silences regarding the alleged activity of the
Apostle John, in literature or otherwise, during the period
in question.
Sanday, as we have seen,i is "not so sure" as Schmiedel
that there is "no allusion to the Fourth Gospel in Barnabas
or Hermas, where it is found (e. g.) by Keim, or in the Elders
of Papias^ where it is found (c. g.) by Harnack." As regards
Papias an "allusion" or two to the Fourth Gospel, or to
some of its traditions would certainly be anything but sur
prising. So meagre a use — just sufficient to make it certain
that besides the First Epistle he also, hke his contemporary
Justin, knew the Fourth Gospel, and appealed to Revelation
— if confirmed, wiU only increase the marvel of his silence
when deahng in his Preface with the relati\-c rehabihty of
1 Above, p. T,T,.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 45
apostolic sources of authority for evangelic tradition. This
question of traditions regarding John in Asia must be treated
by itself, Papias' witness being by far the most important
factor.^ But we must not neglect possible echoes and em
ployments of the debated writings, for if these attain a suffi
cient volume to indicate high regard for the Fourth Gospel,
the phenomenon of silence regarding its author may be in
a measure counteracted. Let us, then, hear the testimony of
other impartial witnesses regarding Barnabas and Hermas,
and investigate the nature of Papias' possible employment of
the Gospel.
It is true that the erratic and brilliant Keim, as if he would
accentuate the paradox of his early dating, writes as follows
regarding the influence of this Gospel upon Barnabas:
" However clearly it may be shown that the Epistle of Barnabas
gives no narrative, not a single word out of this Gospel,^ is not
acquainted with the idea of the Logos, makes an independent use
of the watchword of the water and the blood, or of the types of
Christ in the Old Testament, or, above aU, of the serpent that
was hfted up for believers in the wilderness; ^ yet the inner sphere
of thought of this Epistle corresponds with the Gospel in so many
ways, both in general features and details, that scientific criti
cism is compelled to infer a connection."
Connection there is, and influence there is in the "inner
sphere of thought." But with what? — It would have done
more credit to the common sense of Keim to remember that
the influences which he traces in these vague generahties

1 See Chapter IV.
2 As against twelve from the Synoptics in Chapters i-xii alone, without
counting the copious use of Matthew in the "other knowledge and teaching"
(the Two Ways) incorporated in Chapters xviii-xxi.
' Justin, who borrows this type from Barnabas along with much more
from the same context (Dial, xc-xcvii) remains notably unaffected by
"John's" use of the same. See Abbott, .s. v. "Gospels," Enycl. Bibl. II,
§ 102.

46 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
are quite as easily derived from the Pauline system by way
of the Alexandrianism of Hebrews, an epistle of which
Barnabas makes undeniable use, as by way of the Fourth
Gospel with whose Logos-doctrine, as Keim himself admits,
Barnabas is "not acquainted." ^ As against Professor San
day's uncertainty as to whether he may venture to claim the
aUeged evidences in Barnabas we may set the judgment of
his own Oxford Committee already quoted,^ confirmed by
that of Professor Stanton,' that it "contains no distinct
traces of the two other Synoptics (besides Matthew) or of
St. John."
Keim's attempt to find a literary relation between the
exhortations of Hermas to "keep the commandments of
Jesus " and the neo-legalism of I John * shows equal inat
tention to the distinction between commonplaces of the period,
and distinctive features. Neo-legalism is just as common
among church writers of this period as antinomianism
among heretics. Now Hermas has direct literary connection
with the Epistle of James, in which neo-legahsm reaches its
chmax; whereas if he coincides at any point of his long and
tedious aUegories with a phrase or idea of John, it is so utterly
different in form, context, and application, as to make ac
quaintance with the Fourth Gospel altogether improbable.
Again we miay set against Professor Sanday's uncertainty
the careful and judicial verdict of the Oxford Committee,'
who place all four of the alleged resemblances in the category
of lowest probability (class d). The foUowing is their judg
ment of that one of the four which reaches the highest de-
l It is one of the defects of Keim's view that it attributes an undue measure
of "Alexandrianism" to the Fourth Gospel. Paulinism was not confined to
Ephesus for its development.
2 Above, p. 33.
3 Gospels as Historical Documents, p. 33.
i Op. cit., p. 195.
5 Op. cit., p. 123.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 47
gree of plausibility [the gate (irvkr)) of the tower, Similitudes
IX, xii. I, interpreted as "the Son of God," recalling "I am
the door (6vpa) of the sheep" in Jn. 10:7]:
" The figure of a gate admitting to the tower which represents
the Church is a natural one, and need not be borrowed.^ Never
theless the passage has a Johannine coloring; but whether this
is sufficient to prove a literary connection may be reasonably
questioned. Such sentiments must have spread among Christians
apart from direct literary influence." ^
Stanton ' finds other resemblances in Hermas in addition
to the above supposed trace of Jn. 14: 6, quoting Mand. iii, 1,
as follows :
" Love truth and let nothing but truth proceed out of thy mouth,
that the Spirit, which God made to dwell in this flesh, may be
found true in the sight of all men, and thus shall the Lord who
dwelleth in thee be glorified (So^aa-OijcreTai), for the Lord is true
(aXrjOivos) in every word, and with him there is no falsehood."
Stanton rests his case on the words he has here italicized;
for, as he properly notes, the phrase "the Spirit which God
made to dwell in this flesh" is not Johannine, but from
Jas. 4:5. But these very italicized words are used in a sense
contrary to the Johannine, since the glorification here sought
is a glorification, i. e., praising, of God by men, as in I Pt.
4:11; Mt. 5:16; not as in Jn. 17:10 the raising of Jesus to
his heavenly state. Similarly the word oXtjOlvo^ is apphed in
1 The allegory is the common N. T. one of the Church as "a building of
God." That the building (in this case a tower) should have a gate [iriJXi;] is
certainly not surprising; nor, in view of Mt. 7:13, 14, need it be surprising
that a Roman Christian of 140 A. D. should thus allegorize " the Son of God."
2 The spread of this particular sentiment: Christ the gate (ttiJXt)), apart at
least from the literary influence of the Fourth Gospel, is proved by its occur
rence twice in Hegesippus (ap. Euseb. H. E. II, xxiii, 8, 12) in the form
tIs 17 Bipa ToS "Ii/o-oC and once in Clem. Hom. iii, 52 f. 'E7ci kixi r) iriJXi) t^s
fwTis- Mt. 7 :i3, 14, seems to be the common starting point so far as Christian
literature is concerned.
3 Op. cit., pp. 43, 46 f.

48 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Hermas to truth speaking, and not, as in Jn. 7 :28; I Jn. 5 :2o;
2:27, to action and being.^ The expressions, "the witness
which he witnessed" and "the law which he received from
his Father" in Sim. v. have equally httle of the Johannine
character. "The law" which the Son received has precisely
the character of the neo-legahsm of Matthew and James ^
in contrast with the Johannine. In Jn. 15:12 we have stiU
the Pauline sense of "the law of Christ"; the new command
ment is love. In the very same context of Hermas (Sim. v. 5)
it is defined to be "the commandments (ivroXai) which he
(God) gave to his people through his Son," and the special
application, apropos of which the whole allegory is given, is
the law of fasting, together with the merit or reward to be
gained by doing more than the written requirement. The
"witness" witnessed by God to the Servant, as we shaU see,
is a phrase from Hebrews, not from the Fourth Gospel. No
distinctive character whatever can be claimed for the remain
ing two phrases from Sim. ix, "The seal is the water (of
baptism). ... To them, therefore, was this seal
preached, and they used it, in order that they might enter
into the kingdom of God." ' Indeed, Stanton himself seems
to rest very little weight upon these alleged resemblances,
which are similarly treated by the committee. That which
he alone deems worthy of separate consideration is the phrase
concerning the Servant [explained by Hermas himself to be
the (angelic ?) being who assumed flesh, and because of his
earthly service was thereafter exalted to partnership with
"the preexistent Spirit which created the whole creation"].
1 The Johannine passages compared are those adduced by Stanton.
2 Cf. Mt. 28:20; Jas. 1:25; 2:8.
3 Baptism (of the spirit) is referred to as the "seal" in Eph. 1:13, and often
thereafter. In the phrase from Hermas we are supposed to be reminded of
Jn. 3:5. But what other phrase than "enter into the kingdom of God"
could Hermas be expected to use? Cf. Mk, 9: 47; 10:23-25, etc. Baptism
is the token of admission in Mt. 28:19; Mk. 16:16 and universally.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 49
In the parable, which is simply an adaptation of the
Synoptic parable of the Vineyard,^ the friends (angels) re
joice at "the witness which the Master (God) witnessed to
him." This Stanton ^ designates " a characteristic Johannine
thought and expression," comparing Jn. 5:32. And yet
but a page or two further on he notes with interest the
"signs of knowledge (in Hermas) of the Epistle to the He
brews," which "taken with that of Clement of Rome, shows
that it must have been early held in high esteem in the
Church of Rome." Had the thought and expression been
called characteristic of Hebrews, or even of Clement of
Rome in an adoptive sense, the remark would have been
just; for it is by this phrase "God bearing witness to him"
that Hebrews constantly [7:8; 10:15; ii-"2, 4 (twice), 5, 39]
refers to the favorable verdict of Scripture, and Clement of
Rome follows suit (xvh, i, 2; xvhi, i; xix, i, etc.). "Wit
ness" is indeed a favorite term of the Johannine writings;
but the sense in which it is applied to Christ in Jn. 5 :37 is
that of Old Testament prediction, not of favorable verdict.
Of the four resemblances adduced from Hermas by the
Oxford Committee three are identical with the first of those
already considered from Stanton. The fourth is a reference
in Vis. II, h, 8, to those who by "denying their Lord are
rejected from their life." This is compared with Jn. 11 : 25,
or 14: 6 "I am the life." But the committee themselves say:
"The only connexion is in the word Imr; ('life'), and it is by
no means certain that it refers to Christ in Hermas; in any case
the verse in Colossians (Col. 3 : 4) is sufficient to show that the ex-
ptession need not be borrowed from John. The sentiment of the
passage is closer to the Synoptics."
Stanton's disregard of this bit of "evidence" is certainly
justified. iMt. 21:33 ff. = Mk. 12:1 ff.= Lk. 20:93.
2 The committee do not refer to this resemblance.
Fourth Gospel — 4

so THE FOURTH GOSPEL
It has not been our object in thus considering at length
the alleged traces of John in Barnabas and Hermas, at the
possible cost of wearying the reader, merely to justify the
statement that "the incredible pains taken to collect 'evi
dences' of this kind only serve to show that there are none
of the sort which were really wanted." We must indeed
anticipate such a result, at least for the Shepherd of Hermas,
if nothing more than the above can be evoked from a work
of its character and dimensions.^ But we have no mere
polemic interest in view. Indeed, so far as date is concerned,
Hermas might perfectly well have known the Gospel, or at
least its "body of teaching." Our real interest is to show
that outside of "Asia" even the meager influences attributed
to this "body of teaching" are not really present.^ In regard
to Clement of Rome (95-125 A. D.) and the homily known
as Second Clement (140 a. d. ?) which Stanton thinks of
Corinthian origin, the claim is not seriously advanced.
Nor does it seem to be in the case of the Apology of Aristides
(Athens, 125-126 A. D. ?) from which Professor Stanton ad
duces only the general reference to the doctrine of the Incar
nation of the Son of God as supported by both oral and writ
ten gospel.^ Sanday's very dubious appeal to the Didache,
or rather to the liturgy incorporated in the Didache, whose
derivation is wholly unknown, we have already considered.*
Until recently much was made of alleged employments in
the fragment of the Ev. Petri, found at Akhmim in 1892.
On this we need only cite the able and impartial judgment
of Stanton,*^ after the most careful discussion yet given to the

1 The Shepherd is somewhat longer than the four longest Pauline Epistles.
2 Cf. Harnack, Chronologic, p. 680, note 3.
3 Op. cit., p. 51. Professor Stanton does not seem to claim a reference to
the Fourth Gospel, nor does such appear to be present.
¦1 Chapter I, p. 33. On the Epistle to Diognetus see ibid.
6 Gospels, etc., p. 121.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 51
question of the use of the Canonical Gospels in Ev. Petri,
and of the latter by Justin :
"The dependence of 'Peter' upon St. John more particularly
has been rendered very doubtful. We have seen strong reason for
thinking that various points in 'Peter,' which were supposed to
have been derived from the latter, were in reality taken from the
Pilate-document (the Acts of Pilate cited by Justin).
" It is, however, to be added that the question of the relation of
'Peter' to our Gospels has lost the greater part of its interest.
Since Justin does not refer to the work, the earliest trace of its
existence is Serapion's notice of it at the end of the century. It
may have been composed circ. a. d. 170-80."
What, then, becomes of acquaintance with the Fourth
Gospel outside of "Asia" in 100 to 150 a. d. ? The only
writings which might still present an exception to the rule of
silence are those of the Gnostic heresiarchs to which Prin
cipal Drummond has devoted some of the most important
and learned chapters of his book. These we must consider;
for Professor Sanday, after sympathetic perusal of Drum
mond's ardent advocacy of Johannine quotations in Basihdes
and Valentinus ^ is led to the confession: "There remains in
my own mind a slight degree of probability that they used
the Gospel." ^ On this measure of success in converting a
devout behever Principal Drummond should be congratu
lated. Others will not go so far.
As regards Valentinus, who was at first a disciple of Mar
cion, and flourished in Rome "between A. d. 138 and 160" ^
it would hardly affect the case were Drummond really able
to make good his contention that not the later members of
the school alone, Theodotus in Antioch, Ptolemaeus and
Heracleon, contemporaries of Irenseus (186-196 a. d.) in
1 Character and Authorship, Chapters VIII and X.
2 Criticism, p. 247.
3 Drummond, p. 266.

52 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Rome, but Valentinus himself is also referred to as using
the Fourth Gospel.^ The policy of Valentinus in the use of
evangehc writings, like that of Apelles his "fellow-disciple
of Marcion and fellow-deserter," as TertuUian calls him,
made radical departure from that of Marcion, who had vio
lently opposed the gospels employed by the orthodox, and
introduced one of his own formed by mutilation of Luke.
Valentinus and Apelles rehed on interpretation, avoiding
mutilation, and winning converts from the Church on the
basis of its own canon. ^ Valentinus himself, the founder of
the new school, can hardly have departed from Marcionism
much earlier than 150-160 a. d., so that his taking up the
Fourth Gospel — if a fact — belongs simply among the phe
nomena of rapid dissemination after 160 a. d. which we have
later to consider.
As regards Basihdes the case is different. This heresiarch
is said to have flourished in the reign of Hadrian (11 7-138
A. D.) and seems to have established a school in Alexandria,
subsequently led by his son and disciple Isidore. Harnack
dates this event about 133 A. d. We may perhaps infer from
Basilides' use of Aramaic names ^ that he came originally,
like Cerdo, the Gnostic teacher of Marcion, from Antioch,
1 Stanton, Gospels, etc., pp. 64-69, will not even go so far as Sanday in
thinking that "Drummond has made good his position." He agrees with
Zahn about the "suspiciously modern stamp" affecting Hippolytus' extracts,
giving " color to the supposition that he has a treatise by Isidore before
him" and feels that the same doubt applies to the alleged references of
Valentinus. 2 TertuUian contrasts Valentinus who "used the whole instrument (canon) "
with Marcion the mutilator. "Marcion," he says, "used the knife, \'alen-
tinus the pen. Yet Valentinus took away more by his subtle addition of false
meanings than Marcion with his open violence." De Prceser. Her., p. 38.
3 Agrippa Castor, an early opponent of Basilides, said that he "named as
prophets to himself Barcabbas and Barcoph, appointing also some other
nonexistent persons," and that he "assigned to them barbarous appellations
to astonish those who stand in awe of such things." Eusebius, H. E.TV, vii.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 53
the home of heresy in Ignatius' day (110-117). He is classed
by Eusebius with Saturninus the Antiochian as a pupil of
Menander the successor of Simon Magus. Hippolytus in his
Refutation of all Heresies (220 A. d.) treats the school as a
whole, and frequently employs the formula cf>rjai of individ
ual teachings which are thus in some sense attributed to the
m'aster, but he affords no proof that he knew the Alexandrian
heresiarch of a century before his time otherwise than through
the writings of others. Irenaeus, who also deals with the
school, though not without occasional references in the sin
gular ^ displays his usual unscholarly method and seems to
be borrowing his information largely from the Syntagma of
Justin Martyr. It is possible to infer with Drummond that
his source "may have contained statements which were
avowedly quoted from Basilides." We may say the same
of Hippolytus, with the difference that Hippolytus was a
scholar, Irenseus an unscholarly plagiarist and polemic. In
either case we get very little help. Clement of Alexandria,
however, displays direct knowledge of the founder of the
Alexandrian heresy in the heresiarch's own work; for he
quotes at length from the twenty-third book of Basihdes'
Exegetica,^ and in some instances expressly distinguishes be
tween the teaching of the founder, and of the later disciples.
In the absence of such discrimination on the part of Hip
polytus it becomes impossible to separate the two instances
in which he quotes from his unnamed authority references to
the Fourth Gospel with employment of the formula ^t^o-i',"
from the many which are taken from Isidore. Even the
1 His habitual plurals are interrupted by two instances of ait. As Drum
mond shows (p. 321) Irenaeus is positively incorrect in more than one in
stance in substituting the later teachings of the school for the earlier.
2 In the Stromata, iv, 81-88.
3 Drummond himself has shown (p. 297) that the same Hippolytus uses
this formula <l>t]<rl, to quote the general doctrine of the Naassene heretics
without reference to any individual.

54 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
much desired proof that Hippolytus really means Basihdes
as subject of the verb "he says" would decide nothing tmtil
we were sure he had the means, as well as the intention, of
making the discrimination. The case becomes the more
hopeless when we observe that, as Drummond himself ad
mits, in at least one instance, and probably more, Hippoly
tus has wrongly ascribed to the earher Basihdeans "an
incongruous feature derived from his knowledge of the later
and degenerate school." ^
But we must go further. As Windisch ^ has shown, in
opposition to Zahn,^ the two authorities who actually do
quote for us from Basihdes' own work, Clement of Alex
andria and the Acta Archelai et Manetis, make it highly
probable that Basilides' gospel was not our fourth, but a
more or less variant form of J^ke. The fragment quoted by
the Acta from the thirteenth book of Basilides' Exegetica is
an interpretation of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus
(Lk. 16:19-25), while those cited by Clement from the
twenty-third book are concerned with the martyrdom of
Jesus (Lk. 22-23), treated from the special point of view of
Luke, that "the Lord suffered according to the wiU of the
Father" * (cf. Lk. 23:40 f.; 24: 25-27, 44-46). Indeed it is
almost incredible that Basihdes, if he really knew and ac-
ip. 322.
2 Art. "Das Evangelium des Basilides" iwZts.f. nil. Wiss, VII, 3 (1906),
pp. 236-246.
3 Gesch. d. ntl. Kanons, I, 2, 1889, pp. 763-7S4.
4 These words are quoted by Clement as the subject of this twenty-third
chapter (as we should call it) of Basilides' Commentary. They remind us
strongly of I Pt. 3:17. The whole discussion, in fact, in all three writers,
Luke, I Peter (cf. especially 2:20-24; 3:14-18; 4:1, 12-19, etc.) and Basil
ides, bespeaks the period of persecution in 90-117. Cf. Rev. ?;i3, 14, 20
(95 A. D.) with the statement of Agrippa Castor that Basilides "taught
also that the eating of meat offered to idols and the unguarded renunciation
of the faith in times of persecution were matters of indifference." Eusebius,
H. E. IV, vii, 7.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 55
cepted the Fourth Gospel, should have laid himself open to
the charge of "making the devil divine, because he regarded
the sufferings of martyrdom as a punishment (though an
honorable one) for sin committed in a previous hfe." ^ We
have indeed a relation here between the doctrine of the
sinlessness of Jesus and the theory that suffering may be
accounted for on purely monistic principles through metem
psychosis, which can hardly be without hterary connection
with the Fourth Gospel, where the same two peculiar ideas
are brought into a similar relation, though with opposite
intent.2 Only, if a connection exists, it is certainly to Basili
des and not to the Fourth Gospel that priority must be assigned.
For the attitude of Basilides is well defined by Drummond : ^
" The reality of Christ's humanity and Passion is assumed, even
though it drives Basilides to a conclusion which he is reluctant to
admit. He thinks that all suffering is a punishment for sin, either
actual or potential, in the person suffering; and when pressed
with the case of 'such a one' (o Setva, rightly understood by
Clement to refer to Christ) that he sinned, since he suffered; he
would answer, he did not sin but was like the suffering infant. But,
if urged, he would say, that man, whosoever you may name, is
man, and God is just." *
Basilides, who would not admit that the sufferings of the
martyrs were inflicted on them as the Church held, by the
1 Drummond, p. 324.
2 Jn. 9:1; 10:21.
3 P. 312. Principal Drummond is engaged in the context in proving the
untrustworthiness of IrenjEus, who attributes to Basilides the Docetism of
Cerinthus, and even puts in his mouth a representation of the passion drawn
from the Acts of John by Leucius Charinus.
* Basilides took the position of Heb. 2:9-18 as regards the suffering of
Jesus being incidental to his humanity; only since he did not supplement it
with the doctrine of the disciplinary intention of suffering, borrowed by
Heb. 12:3-11 from the O. T. (cf. Wisd. of Sol. 11:9-26; II Mace. 6:12-16)
his monistic doctrine of divine sovereignty and penal significance of all suf
fering forced him to the assumption in Jesus' case of prenatal guilt.

56 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
malignant power of Satan, because he held to one sole Su
preme Power, found but one loophole of escape from the
inference that Jesus' sufferings were then a proof of sinful
ness. This was the precarious theory of prenatal guilt, by
which he also explained the suffering of new-born infants.
Hence Clement denounces him for having dared to call the
Lord a sinful man (dvOpcoTrov dfiapTr^TiKov), and promises
in due time to take up Basihdes' doctrine of the devil and of
metempsychosis.^ How, then, is it possible to imagine that Basihdes knew
and admitted as authoritative the Fourth Gospel, in which
this whole ground, including the suffering of infants on ac
count of parental guUt, is so completely covered, and with
such complete vindication of the sinlessness of Jesus? We
have in fact not only the incident of the man bom blind,
beginning, "Rabbi, who did sin, this man or his parents,
that he was born blind" and ending with the controversy
with the scribes whether Jesus was "a sinner," or no; we
have reiterated efforts throughout the whole Johannine story
of the Passion, to show that Jesus went voluntarily to his
martyrdom, and that neither Satan nor Pilate had any power
at all over him save as "given from above." ^
With Basilides grouped where Origen has placed him,
among the innumerabiles haerescs quae evangelium secun
dum Lucam recipiunt,' vanishes the last trace of early use
1 Stromata, iv, 12.
2 See Jn. 6:70, 71; 10:11, 17, 18, 39; 11:8, 9, 51, 52; 13:1, 18, 19, 26-31;
14:30; 17:1, 5 ff.; :8:4-6; 19:11, etc.
3 Quoted by Windisch, op. cit., pp. 240-242. The real reason for this, in
Marcion's case as well as the rest, will have been not so much the later date
and greater availability of Luke as against Matthew and Mark, nor even its
supposed connection with Paul, though this may have had weight with
Marcion. Luke, by ancient tradition (Euseb., H. E. Ill, iv, 7), as well as
by strong internal evidence, is the gospel of Antioch. But Antioch, as we
have seen, was the original seat of the heresiarchs, Menander, Cerdo, Sa
turninus, and probably Basilides as well.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 57
of the Fourth Gospel in the larger world of Christendom.
It is a result of something more than controversial interest
to observe that outside the httle group of Asiatics, Ignatius,
Polycarp, Papias, Justin, even the faint echoes and in
fluences to-day rather hesitatingly advanced as possibly
showing acquaintance with the " instrumentum Johan-
neum," ^ prove on closer scrutiny to be altogether iUusory.
As regards the four, on the other hand, we have positive
knowledge of acquaintance with the Johannine Epistles in
the case of Polycarp and Papias, and not only quotation
from the Apocalypse, but explicit defense of its apostolic
authority by Papias and Justin. Only Ignatius, the vis
itor from Syria, gives no decisive evidence of acquaintance
with any of the five Johannine writings, but only of influence
from this "type of teaching," while all the group, if they
make use at all of the Gospel, use "it so sparingly, and so
completely without acknowledgment, that we are compelled
to recognize a striking difference between their treatment of
it and of Synoptic material.
In scrutinizing for ourselves this ultimate problem of the
evidence from actual (not illusory) echoes and influences it
will be convenient, since we have already sufficiently discussed
those of Justin, to pass backward chronologically and Asia-
ward geographicaUy, asking first of Papias (Hierapohs, 145-
160 A. D.) ^ then of Ignatius (Antioch-Asia-Rome, 110-
117 A. D.), then of Polycarp (Smyrna, 110-117 a. d.) the
mode and measure of their employment of the Fourth Gospel
as compared with Synoptic tradition.
Sanday, we note, has greater confidence in the evidences
1 We borrow this convenient term from TertuUian to designate the corpus
of five writings. Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation or "Prophecy" attributed
to the Apostle John.
2 Lightfoot (Bibl. Essays, p. 64), "not before 130 to 140." The date
145-160 A. D. is Harnack's. For the reasons see below, p. 120.

S8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
of Papias' employment of the Fourth Gospel than in other
aUeged echoes, and in this judgment we willingly concur.
The fact that "in the preface" to his 'E^7?7??o-ef9 Papias re
ferred to commandments derived "from the truth itself" ^
will not indeed bear much weight; nor is it indicative of any
thing more than the undisputed provenance of the Fourth
Gospel, that "Andrew, Phihp, Thomas" appear in Papias'
hst of the Apostles, of whom only the Fourth Gospel makes
individual mention. That such traditions were in circula
tion in "Asia," particularly regarding Philip, was known
independently.^ There is, however, good reason to suppose
that Papias knew at least the Johannine Epistles,^ if not the
Gospel; and it is certain that he knew and accepted the
Apocalypse as a^toTrto-To? ("trustworthy"). But Papias is
said to afford evidence of "influence" from the Fourth
Gospel itself, if we may take as from him that which Irenaeus
reports* as from "the Elders," an expression under which
he reproduces traditions borrowed from Papias.^ In sup
port of their doctrine of a lower, middle, and upper place of
reward in the Kingdom, "the Elders" * quoted, he says,
as a "saying of the Lord," "In the region (iv rot?) of my
Father there are many mansions." It is true that the same
1 Adduced by Lightfoot (Bibl. Essays, p. 68) in comparison with Jn. 5:33;
8:32; 14:6. A closer parallel (especially if the reading -irapayimfi^vois be
followed) is III Jn. 12.
2 Zahn's attempt (in his essay on Papias, Jahrb.f. deutsche Theol., 1866) to
"explain Papias' remark as to Mark's want of orderly arrangement, as
based on a comparison with John, instead of with Matthew" cannot be dis
missed with Keim (op. cit., p. 191, note i) as "truly laughable," since it has
seemed worthy of attention even to H. J. Holtzmann. It hardly requires
refutation, however.
3 Eusebius' testimony that he used I Peter and I John is undisputed.
* Haer. V, xxxvi, i, 2.
5 On the strong grounds for believing this an extract from Papias, see
Lightfoot, Bibl. Essays, p. 67.
8 On the real location of this group of authoritative "Elders" see Chap
ter IV.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 59
"Elders" quote other fragments of apocalyptic writings as
"sayings of the Lord" which are certainly unauthentic,^
and that this particular saying is also found in the pre-
Christian apocalypse of Slav. Enoch (Ixi, 2), in a form per
haps as near to "the Elders'" citation as Jn. 14:2.^ More
over, a mere "watchword" such as this could readily appear
independently in the sayings of "the Elders" and the Fourth
Gospel. Indeed it is clear that "the Elders" quote only
oral tradition, and not even then in just the form of the
Fourth Gospel. As regards their authority it must be con
ceded to Abbott ^ that the form of reference shows that they
are "not quoting and misinterpreting John, but quoting and
interpreting in accordance with (oral) tradition a Logion
(illustrating the Synoptic Parable of the Sower) of which Jn.
gives a different version." Papias, however, in quoting
"the Elders" may possibly have been influenced by Jn. 14:2.
This, then, is the measure of Papias' use of the Johannine
writings. He certainly used Revelation and attributed it to
the Apostle John. The Epistles he probably echoed. It is
barely possible that he was remotely influenced by the Fourth
Gospel. With the evidence from Papias we must group the
earlier witness of Ignatius and Polycarp (110-117 a. d.)
presenting as ar verdict whose impartiality none will question
the report of the Oxford Committee:
" Ignatius' use of the Fourth Gospel is highly probable, but
faUs some way short of certainty. The objections to accepting
it are mainly (i) our ignorance how far some of the Logia (sayings)
of Christ recorded by John may have been current in Asia Minor
1 In the interest of the same chiliastic doctrine of the Kingdom they quoted
as a saying of the Lord the Jewish midrash on Gen. 27 :28, found in Apoc. of
Baruch. xxix, 5.
2 Rendered by R. H. Charles, " In the world to come . . . there are
many mansions prepared for men, good for the good, evil for the evil,
many without number."
3 Encycl. Bibl. II, s. v. "Gospels," § 94.

6o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
before the publication of the Gospel. ... (2) The paucity
of phrases which recall the language of the Gospel, and the absence
of direct appeals to it; phenomena which are certainly remarkable
when we consider the close resemblance between the theology of
Ignatius and that of the Fourth Gospel. It is difficult, for ex
ample, to think of any reason why Ignatius did not quote Jn. 20
in Smyrn. iii, 2 (the passage where he quotes the Ev. Hebr. ( ?)
to prove that 'Jesus was in the flesh even after his resurrection')." 1
As regards the Epistle of Polycarp the Committee find
only two possible echoes. In Ep. Polyc. v, 2 we have:
"even as he promised us to raise us from the dead"; and in
xu, 3 : "that your fruit may be manifest among all." Of the
former clause they say: "The reference seems certainly to be
to a Johannine ( ?) tradition, though it need not necessarily
be to our Fourth Gospel." 2 Of the latter: "... the
only point of contact with John is in the word fructus, and
this might be accounted for, e. g., by Gal. 5 :22, ^ if so natural
an expression requires any assignable source." *
What inferences then may be drawn from the mode and
1 Compare this result with Ignatius' twenty-two echoes, references, or
quotations from the Synoptic writings, and sixty-one from the Pauline
Epistles. Of I Corinthians, for example, the committee say: "Ignatius must '
have known this Epistle almost by heart." In addressing the Ephesians
Ignatius calls them "fellow-adepts in the mysteries with Paul" reminding
them how frequently Paul "boasts of them in his letters." He never men
tions John whether in addressing the Ephesians, Polycarp, or others. He
does, however, show the influence of "a body of teaching like that which we
find in the Fourth Gospel." On this see below, p. 64.
2 The context is dealing w^th Mt. 19:27—20:28, and connects with it the
"faithful saying" II Tim. 2:12 (cf. I Jn. 2:25). It is difiicult lo see any
distinctive remainder to justify the claim of " Johannine " influence.
3 We may add, by Rom. 6:22, "your fruit" in combination with I Tim.
4:15, as suggested by Abbott, Encycl. Bibl. Vol. II, col. 1831.
* Stanton (op. cit., p. 19) comes to a similar conclusion regarding Ignatius
and Polycarp. Admitting that "here we may certainly expect to find indi
cations of its use," he adds, "and such do not seem to me to be altogether
wanting, although they are not so full and clear as might have been ex
pected."

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 6i
measure of employment of the Fourth Gospel in 100-150
A. D. by those who seem really acquainted with the Johannine
writings ?
We have found it a very singular fact that Justin, the advo
cate of -the Ephesian Logos doctrine and of a chihasm which
he supports by the authority of Revelation, should make no
acknowledged use, and next to no indirect use, of the Fourth
Gospel. It is at least equally singular that Papias, who made
similar use of Revelation and showed acquaintance with
First John, should seem to neglect entirely the Fourth Gos
pel, when treating of the apostohc sources of evangehc tra
dition, and afford no sure proof even of acquaintance with
it. Some consider more surprising still the silence of Igna
tius, who writes seven letters to the very persons but recently
bereaved (according to the "defenders ") of the presence and
leadership of the last and greatest of the Apostles, a peerless
champion of the doctrine Ignatius himself defends against
the same opponents. But Ignatius refers only to Paul, and
never to John. Perhaps the most unaccountable of all these
surprising instances of neglect is reached when we read the
actual letter of the man whom the tradition holds up as its
one sure link of connection with the Apostle John, Polycarp;
for it was Polycarp's supreme distinction to have been an eye-
and ear-witness, yes, an intimate disciple, of the intimate dis
ciple of the Lord. Polycarp never mentions John, though re
peatedly he commends to his readers the writings and authority
of Paul; and the extent of influence of the Fourth Gospel dis
covered by the Oxford Committee in his Epistle is "the word
fructus" — really connected more closely with Rom. 6:22.
Stanton alone among advocates of the traditional view
seems to appreciate the cumulative force of this array of
silent witnesses, and endeavors to deal with it, discussing
first in his chapter on "The Apostohc Fathers and the Fourth
Gospel" (pp. 18-21) "the question . . . whether in

62 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
these writings there are indications of the influence of the
Fourth Gospel." ^ We may quote his summary regarding
the earlier writers:
"The case as regards the evidence of acquaintance with the
Gospel according to John supplied by the Epistles of Ignatius and
Polycarp stands thus. Taken by itself it is inconclusive. In the
former writer it is somewhat indeterminate; his Johannine ex
pressions ^ might possibly have been derived from the phrase
ology of a school. In Polycarp on the other hand the evidence
is partly indeterminate, partly indirect. Neither can fairly be
reckoned a witness adverse to the existence at this time of the
Fourth Gospel or the recognition of its Johannine authorship,
and this is in itself important. On the contrary, the phenomena
that we have noted point to acquaintance with it, but we cannot
feel confident that they may not be due to some other cause, so
long at least as we confine our attention to the Sub-apostolic Age.
The decision between alternative explanations must come, if it
is to come at all, from the position which the Gospel holds and
the strength of the tradition in its favor, which we shall observe
later." Let us distinguish in this summary that which bears on
the existence of the Fourth Gospel, a point not in dispute,
from that which bears on the apostolic authorship, a propo
sition which becomes harder to defend in proportion as the
other point is established. Professor Stanton adduces just
one single resemblance, which to his mind suggests knowl-
1 P. 21, note.
2 The two resemblances which Stanton thinks alone worthy of considera
tion in Ignatius are quoted on the preceding page (p. 19). They are ad Rom.
vii, "My lust hath been crucified, and there is no fire of material longing in
me, but only water living and speaking in me, saying. Come to the Father"
(cf. Jn. 4:10; 17:6; 14:6); and ad Philad. vii, "For even though certain per
sons desired to deceive me after the flesh, yet the spirit is not deceived, being
from God; for it knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth" (cf. Jn.
3:8).

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 63
edge of the Fourth Gospel in the Epistle of Polycarp: ^ "He
that raised him from the dead wiU raise us also; if we do his
will and walk in his commandments, and love the things
which he loved." This from ad Philad. ii, he compares with
Jn. 7:17 (but see also Mt. 12:50); and 14:15 (but see also
Mt. 19:17). The passage as a whole is a very plain echo of
Rom. 8:11, "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus
from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies." Its
Johannean (?) tinge consists only in a substitution of the
characteristic (Matthaean) neo-legahsm of the period for
the Pauhne "If the Spirit dwelleth in you"; and even in
support of this Professor Stanton cites principally from the
Epistles rather than from the Gospel. All his other "evi
dences" adduced from Polycarp, including two passages
supposed to resemble the one just quoted, are from the
Epistles, and are manifestly irrelevant in a chapter in which
"the question considered is simply whether in the language of
these writings (Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp) there are in
dications of the influence of the Fourth Gospel."
Why, then, are we put off with these irrelevancies, when
we ask for evidences of the influence of the Gospel, insist
ing that they should be apparent in two writers like Igna
tius and Polycarp, who
"wrote after sufficient time had unquestionably elapsed for them
to have become acquainted with the work, if it was by the Apos
tle John, . . the former of them writing from, and in most of
his Epistles addressing the Churches of, a region where . . .
St. John hved and exercised great influence during the closing
years of his life, while Polycarp had been one of his hearers "? ^
Is it not manifestly because "there really are no evidences
of the kind that are really wanted"?
1 Neglect of "the single word fructus" is an evidence of his good sense.
2 Op. cit., p. 19.

64 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
We entirely agree with Professor Stanton that neither
Ignatius nor Polycarp "can fairly be reckoned a witness ad
verse to the existence ^ at this time of the Fourth Gospel."
We go further. We point to the careful comparison by
Von der Goltz of the Logos-doctrine of Paul, Ignatius,
"John," and Justin,^ and indorse his result that both Ig
natius and "John" stand as middle links between Paul and
Justin, testifying to the existence of what Sanday designates
"a compact body of teaching like that which we find in the
Fourth Gospel." We indorse (for substance) his conclusion
on the question immediately before us as to the relation of
the two contemporary middle hnks, that it cannot be' ac
counted for by the use by either of the work of the other.
We will not dispute the inference that "Ignatius must have
come under the prolonged influence of a community itself
influenced by Johannean thought." * Inasmuch as this is
conceded on both sides to be so, is the employment of the Fourth
Gospel (we defer the question of appeal by name to its
author) by Ignatius and Polycarp in mode and measure
what we should expect on the traditional theory? To this
question, the only one really in debate. Professor Stanton
gives a somewhat hesitating answer: "Neither (Ignatius nor
Polycarp) can fairly be reckoned a witness adverse to . . .
the recognition of its Johannine authorship." But even this
deprecation of the negative inferences which naturally sug
gest themselves, is left utterly unsupported. Instead of
giving reasons, Stanton reverts to "signs of its use" which he
admits to be "less distinct" (sic!) than of our first Gospel,
and refers the reader to other indications of "the position
1 Italics ours.
2 Ignatius von Antiochien als Christ und Theologe, by Freiherr von der
Goltz (Texie u. Unters. Bd. xii).
3 P. 139. The context is quoted by Sanday, Criticism, etc., p. 242. In
using the word "Johannean" Von der Goltz of course has no thought of
connecting this type of teaching with the son of Zebedee.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 65
which the (Fourth) Gospel holds and the strength of the
tradition in its favor, which we shaU observe later."
The promised later consideration is given on pages 235-
238, after separate discussion of the neglect of Justin on
pages 81-91, and of the absence of traces of the tradition
regarding the Apostle on pages 164-171. Papias is con
sidered only under the latter head. As w.e have already
considered at some length Drummond's explanation of Jus
tin's neglect, we may deal briefly with Stanton's, which adds
but little. The two Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho
are indeed systematically reviewed with this question in
mind; but the conclusion is only that: "The scope of Justin's
argument (in the Apologies) and his method of conducting
it furnish a satisfactory explanation ... for the meas
ure of vagueness which there is in the indications of his use
of the Synoptics," and the same considerations may account.
Professor Stanton thinks, for the " somewhat greater obscu
rity" resting upon Justin's attitude to the Fourth Gospel.^
We have found a more adequate explanation for Justin's
"vagueness" in defining the nature of Synoptic authority
in the vagueness of the tradition regarding their apostolic
authorship. The Fourth Gospel should have supplied just
the definiteness required. Besides, Justin does cite copiously
from the Synoptists and appeals (as well as he can) to their
apostolic authority. Why not cite to an at least equal ex
tent from "John"? Even when dwelling upon "the great
doctrine of the relation of the Son to the Father" Justin
employs only Mt. ii:27=Lk. 10:22, and, correctly enough,
employs it to prove the Jews' ignorance of the personal Logos.^
"He might have quoted a great deal more to the same effect,
especially from the Fourth Gospel," says Professor Stanton, "but
it does not fall within his plan to do so. . . . The argu-
1 Gospels, etc., p. 84.
2 Apol., I, Ixiii.
Fourth Gospel— 5

66 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
ment of Christ's witness to himself would not have been convinc
ing to those for whom Justin wrote."
Justin, it would seem, understood his age far better than
the fourth evangelist, who changes the Synoptic report of
the teaching of Jesus to this very form of self-witness. And
yet the fourth evangelist was successful.
In the Dialogue with Trypho similar considerations are
held to explain the neglect. "The mere name of John,
apostle though he was, would not carry weight with Jewish
hearers and readers." (Was the Dialogue really written to
convert the Jews?) If Justin does appeal to John's au
thority as author (better "seer") of the Apocalypse, that is
an exception which leaves the rule intact. "In the view of
Jews and heathen a vision, even though made to a Christian,
would partake of the character of inspiration." Moreover,
"Justin and the Christians of his age might, even while
regarding the Fourth Gospel as Apostolic, be more famihar
with the others." Finally:
"If — as is admitted by most critics at the present day — the
evidence shows at least that he (Justin) used this Gospel, he can
hardly have taken it for anything else than what it professes to be
(through anonymous guarantors in the Appendix!), a faithful
record of the testimony of a personal and singularly close follower
of Christ regarding the words and deeds of Christ." '
Can these considerations, after what we have seen to be
the real situation, even if admitted at their full value, be
really regarded as furnishing a "satisfactory" explanation?
Could Justin reaUy so treat what would be to him "a faith
ful record of the testimony of a personal and singularly close
1 See for all the extracts Gospels, etc., pp. 81-91, on "Justin's attitude to
the Gospel according to John." The question of "The Apostolic Fathers
(Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp) and the Fourth Gospel" is discussed on
pp. 18-21; but no explanation is offered of a neglect at least as conspicuous
as Justin's.

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 67
follower of Christ" ? And if the explanations be satisfactory
in the case of Justin, will they remain so when to his neglect
is added that of Papias, of Ignatius, of Polycarp ? Who then
were the loyal and discerning disciples who showed such
superior judgment in pubhshing the Gospel as the "true
witness" of "the disciple whom Jesus loved," when men
hke Polycarp and Papias were neglectful? — Or may it per
haps be within the limits of possibihty that the Fourth Gospel
known to these men and to Justin was not yet furnished
with that high imprimatur, which once accepted could not
fail to procure for the work it accompanied a commanding
preeminence among the Gospels? Professor Stanton infers
from the appended chapter (Jn. 21) "that the Gospel ac
cording to St. John was first given to the Church after his
death by companions and disciples." ^ To what period,
then, is it more reasonable to assign this attachment and
publication? To the period when no one accords to the Gos
pel a treatment corresponding to this claim? Or to that of
the formation of the "fourfold gospel," when on the one side
are ranged its ardent advocates, on the other the strenuous
deniers of Johannine authorship?
We cannot beheve that Professor Stanton himself is sat
isfied with his attempts at explanation. In fact after a dis
cussion of the silence of the Sub-apostolic Age regarding the
person of John,^ which we must consider in connection with
the tradition of the Apostle's supposed residence in Asia, he
returns again to the question: "How the silence of the Sub-
apostolic Age (as to the Johannine writings) may possibly
be explained." ' At this point, then, we expect to be favored
with that evidence, which if not indeed sufficient to bear
the whole weight of the argument, as Drummond considers,
1 Gospels, etc., p. 19.
2 Pp. 164-168.
3 Fp. 235-238.

68 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
is at least sufficient "to render it highly probable that the
correspondences with its thought and language in the very
early writings . . . should be put to the account of
its use." ^ Considering the importance of the issue we feel
justified in making a considerable extract:
" In estimating the significance of the early silence we must re
member how scanty the remains of the period are. Moreover,
the absence of any mention of the Apostle John is very strange
only in the Epistles of Ignatius,^ and there we are forced to recog
nize that any inferences from it may be precarious, when we notice
how limited and special is the use made even of the name of St.
Paul. . . .
" Nevertheless, it appears to me difficult to avoid inferring from
the absence of allusions to the Apostle John in writings of the
beginning of the second century, that there was a difference —
which it is a matter of great interest to notice — between his repu
tation and influence then and at the close of the century. At this
later time (i. e., 180-200 A. D.) men were fast learning, if they had
not already learned, to give him a place, as we do to-day, among
the greatest Masters of the Christian Faith, distinct from, but not
inferior to, that of Peter and Paul.
" This position is accorded him mainly as the evangeUst of
the Fourth Gospel. . . . Unquestionably peculiar reverence
must have been felt for the Apostle John if he lingered on among
men as the last surviving Apostle. Yet his real influence may
have been confined within a narrow circle of disciples who had
the mental power and the spirituality to understand his teaching
in some degree.^ To the majority of Christians during his life
time, and for the first generation or two after his death, his title
to honor may have not seemed essentiaUy different from that of
1 Stanton, p. 21.
2 On this point see Chapter IV. We should have included also the First
Epistle of Peter, but Stanton passes this over without mention.
3 Is Professor Stanton really thinking of the Galilean fisherman, or of the
"theologian" of the Fourth Gospel, when he indulges in such conjectures
as this ?

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 69
Andrew or Philip. Whether he was in the strict sense the author
of the Gospel ascribed to him, or it was composed after his death
by the aid of records of what he had said, or which actuaUy pro
ceeded from his own pen, here was a legacy of which the value
could only be appreciated with time."
Instead of supporting the robust claims of apostohc au
thorship with which Professor Stanton set out, the external
evidence when finally reviewed seems to be rapidly carrying
him toward the position of his opponents. The final para
graph, which we have not space to quote, digresses to cer
tain phenomena of the internal evidence which might ex
plain the early belief as to its authorship if "a disciple (of
John), whose own intellectual characteristics and training
may have determined in greater or less degree the form of the
composition, ... set himself to record therein what he
had learned from the venerable Apostle." It will be interest
ing to observe, when Professor Stanton's discussion of the
internal evidence appears in the promised second volume,
whether this theory of indirect apostohc authorship is defi
nitely adopted. We are confining our own attention for the
present to the external evidence, and are interested to ob
serve that even Professor Stanton's diligent search reveals
nothing whatever in support of his earlier statement that the
silence of Ignatius and Polycarp could not fairly be reckoned
as witness adverse to the existence at this time of the Fourth
Gospel or the recognition of its Johannine authorship. The
Johannine "body of teaching" was in existence, teste Igna
tius. The Johannine Epistles were in existence, teste Poly
carp and Papias. The Revelation was treated as of apostolic
Johannine authority, teste Papias and Justin. The Fourth
Gospel may have been known in some form. It was not ap
pealed to, nor even used hke the Synoptics.
We have left to the last a single item of the external evi
dence, partly because it has a bearing upon this question of

70 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the period to which we should assign the attachment of the
Johannine epilogue, partly because neglected by most "de
fenders." It is that to which Profes.sor Sanday seems to ac
cord the position of chief importance, as the present writer
had previously done in the second of the articles to which
Professor Sanday replies.^ The echo found in Mk. 16:9 is,
as we then stated, "perhaps the earliest" of all known em
ployments of the Fourth Gospel. The point of difference
between ourselves and Professor Sanday lies in his state
ment made "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
traces of it in writers so early as Justin and Irenaeus." ^
In reality there is no reason whatever for connecting the
editorial appendix to Mark with Aristion, whether the (prob
ably heathen) writer of Pella, or any other. As we have
elsewhere shown,^ the supposed evidence to this authorship,
discovered by Conybeare in his Armenian MS. of the Gospels
from Edschmiadzin, is a mere worthless conjecture of the
Armenian scribe John, in the year 989 a. d., resting on a
comparison of the Armenian version of Eusebius * with a
misunderstood passage from Moses of Chorene, the father of
1 See below, p. 213.
2 Criticism, p. 241.
3 Hastings, Diet, of Christ and the Gospels, s. v. "Aristion (Aristo)."
* This version has the spelling "Aristo" and the designation "presbyter"
applied not to John only but to "Aristo" also, like the gloss inserted by the
scribe before Mk. 16:9. The translator of Eusebius seems to have identified
the "Aristion" of H. E. Ill, xxxix, 4 with the historian "Aristo" quoted in
IV, xvi, 3. The latter was probably a heathen writer, since neither Eusebius
nor Jerome includes him among the Christian authors they undertake to
enumerate, and may be the same as Aristo, "the cultured rhetorician'' of
Gerasa known to Stephen of Byzantium. He is not at all likely to have been
the author of the Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus as stated by Maximus
Confessor (600 A. D.).

ECHOES AND INFLUENCES 71
Armenian history. On the other hand, Celsus, the oppo
nent of Christianity in 176-180 A. D., already uses Mk. 16: 9,
though not, in our judgment, the Fourth Gospel. Both were
also used by Tatian (172 a. d.), and Sanday may even pos
sibly be right in claiming acquaintance with the Markan
appendix on the part of Justin. He properly disregards the
flimsy claim that Hermas shows acquaintance with it in
using the phrase "apostles and teachers who preached unto
the whole world;" ^ but seems to consider Justin's expres
sion, "His apostles went forth and preached everywhere" ^
a real echo of Mk. 16:20, though the expression surely has
nothing distinctive about it. Let us date the Markan Ap
pendix then ca. 150 a. d. The one thing certain is that it
represents a period when the older gospels of Matthew and
Mark were being adapted to circulate side by side with the
more recent third (and fourth?). Now Harnack has lent the
full weight of his great authority ^ to the brilliant attempt of
Rohrbach,* to show that Asia was the scene of that process
of redaction whence issued our fourfold gospel. We shall
not here advocate the claims of Rome as against Asia. Cer
tainly Asia contributed its full share. But it is hard to
reconcile so early a flate as 120-140 with the silence of Papias
regarding the two newer gospels, and the fact that the use of
them, first of Luke, then of John also, is otherwise traceable
only with Marcion, Justin, Tatian, and Theophilus in 140-180
A. D. The real course of events would seem to us to be the
use first of a twofold gospel by Papias in Asia, then of a
threefold by Justin at Rome, ultimately, after prolonged
1 Sim. IX, XXV, ±, k;. Disregarded also by the Oxford Committee. Cf.
Clem. R. ad Cor, xhi. 3, 4.
2 Ap. I, xlv, Oi d7r6o-To\oi di/ToC iieKdbvres wavraxov iK-^pv^av. Cf. Mk.
16:20, iKetmi. di i^eKBbvres iK-fjpv^av TravraxoC.
3 Chronologic, 1897, pp. 696-700.
i Der Schluss des Markusevangeliums, der Vier-Evangelien-Kanon und
die kleinasiatischen Presbyter, Berlin, 1894.

72 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
struggles against the admission of the Instrumentum Johan-
neum at Rome, the general adoption of the fourfold gospel
of- our canon. We shall have occasion hereafter to ask just
what sort of Fourth Gospel it is to which Mk. i6: 9-20 bears
witness. For the present we note only that the summary
appended to Mark finds its true date and significance in
connection with this transition, effected by the Church about
150 A. D., from a twofold to a threefold, and ultimately a
fourfold gospel. We note also that the epilogue is based
almost exclusively upon Luke; ^ that its aim is harmonistic;
and that the Johannine influence is confined absolutely to
the single trait that th§ appearance of Jesus in Jerusalem to
Mary Magdalen and the other Mary of Mt. 28:9, 10, has
become an appearance to Mary Magdalen alone. While the
contrary relation of a dependence by the author of Jn. 20 :i-
18 on this adapted form of the Lukan tradition is not ex
cluded, it is reasonable to suppose that this slight change is
really due to the Johannine narrative. If so, we have in
this harmonistic adaptation of the Lukan story of the resur
rection, attached in most manuscripts to the mutilated Mark,
our first sure employment. It coincides in its bearing with
aU the evidence derivable from the period of echoes and in
fluences. I. Before 150 a. d. the Fourth Gospel is unknown
outside of proconsular Asia. 2. In Asia itself it is not treated
by those most hkely to have known it as a writing of this
character by the Apostle John would surely be treated.
3. Its wider diffusion begins shortly after 160 a. d. from the
entourage of Justin, the Ephesian convert and promulgator
of the Logos doctrine, at Rome. 4. This wider diffusion and
employment as apostolic authority is met at once, as we shaU
see, with vehement resistance and denial of the authenticity
of all the Johannine writings by eminent representatives of
the Roman church.
1 According to Abbott, Justin's favorite gospel.

CHAPTER III
PAPIAS, EUSEBIUS, AND THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE ^
In his famous debate with Schiirer on the Johannine
problem,^ Professor Sanday expressed "surprise to see
Dr. Schiirer repeat an argument which has been so often
exploded as that about Papias." The explosions would seem
to have first occurred in Lightfoot's. able essays against the
author of Supernatural Religion, entitled "The Silence of
Eusebius" and "Papias of Hierapohs." ^ In point of fact
Schiirer, who had fixed as the very latest date to which mod
ern critics were assigning the Fourth Gospel * 130 a. d., and
who therefore could have had no possible motive for reject
ing indications of its employment by Papias in 145-160, was
far from "repeating the argument" of the author of Super
natural Religion. As we have seen, that author followed
the lead of Baur and the extreme school of Tiibingen critics
in denying the existence of the Fourth Gospel prior to 160
a. d. It may help us, however, to understand why "defend
ers" should be still engaged in writing round thirty-year old
1 Under the title: "Recent Aspects of the Johannine Problem: I. External
Evidence," this chapter appeared originally as first of a series of four in the
Hibbert Journal, I, 3 (Jan., 1903), II, 2 (Jan., 1904), III, 2 (Jan., 1905),
VI, I (Oct., 1907). It is here reproduced with slight abbreviation and cor
rection. 2 In the Contemporary Review, September and October, 1891. Profes
sor Sanday's reply was supplemented later by a series of six articles in the
Expositor, 1891-1892.
3 Republished under the title Essays on Supernatural Religion (2d ed.,
1893), Chapters II and V.
4 Pfleiderer, however, adopts 135-140 A. D. in his Urchrislenthum, 1887,
p. 778. 73

74 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
discussions of the external evidences, if we note that even
Professor Sanday understands Schiirer to be "repeating the
argument" of Baur. In reahty the silences of Eusebius and
Papias are still eloquent, though interpreted far differently
by modern critics than by the author of Supernatural Re
ligion. They have to do with the traditions of the Apostle
John as an author. Since we have already discussed the
evidence from the mode and measure of early employment
of the Gospel, we may now reasonably consider the signifi
cance of early silences on this further point.
We must not imagine any disposition on the part of
Dr. Sanday or his associates on the conservative side to dis
credit the argument from silence,^ nor to advance the claim,
as some have done, on the alleged authority of Lightfoot,
that, "The silence of Eusebius and his authorities is favor
able to the apostolic authorship, as well as their utterances."
That would come near to eliminating external evidence
altogether. If silence and utterance ahke "give consent,"
then the external evidence can prove anything; which is
about equivalent to saying it can prove nothing. Unless
the verdict of the external evidence is always to be in the
affirmative, it must be based on silence. We do not expect
pre-Shaksperian writers to declare, "The Shaksperian plays
do not yet exist." We expect those of Shakspere's own
time and environment and the period immediately follow
ing, if dealing with the drama, and profoundly interested
to maintain the credit of the author of the plays, to show
directly or indirectly that they know and \-alue them. If
they are not only silent as to the authorship, but do not even
show any considerable knowledge of the plays, it leads us to
approach the internal evidence for the date and authorship
with a degree of scepticism proportioned to the amount of
reason we had for expecting utterances. E\'en when we meet
1 See, however. Professor Sanday's reply to this: Criticism, etc., p. 35.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 75
expressions and phrases in Marlowe and the pre-Shakspe
rian dramatists which remind us of features of plot or char
acter in Hamlet or Macbeth we are cautious in our inferences,
because we know that Shakspere did not build his plays
de novo, but recast existent plays, borrowed plots and char
acters, and even incorporated whole scenes. Those who
make large claims in behalf of very dubious "Johannine
echoes" as implying acquaintance with our present Fourth
Gospel are more disposed to admit this principle in theory
than in practice. They should also admit that the emergence,
ca. 100 A. D., of a work, which, if regarded as apostolic
would possess for Papias and Justin superlative importance,
would be marked by no mere ripple on the stream of Chris
tian tradition and doctrine. What we have a right to expect
from the argument e silentio will be apparent from a single
illustration, purposely taken from the very center of our field
of inquiry.
A Latin argumentum ^ prefixed to a Vatican ninth-century
MS. of the Vulgate alleges that "one Papias by name, of
Hierapohs, has related in his exoteric (a blunder for exe-
getic), that is, in his last (extremis) five books," that "the
Gospel of John was published and given out to the churches
by John while he yet remained in the body." It goes on to
declare that Papias himself "wrote down the Gospel at the
dictation of John." Passing by the absurd anachronism
which follows, about an encounter of John with Marcion,
let us see what the argument e silentio has to say regarding
this alleged utterance of Papias, by one who did not even
know correctly the title of his book. Lightfoot ^ has indeed
committed even his great authority, though hesitatingly, to
1 On this argumentum, and its derivation and connection, see the interest
ing Appendix ii, in Burkitt's "Two Lectures on the Gospels," Macmillan,
1901. 2 Essays on Super. Rel., p. 214.

76 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the following as "the most probable explanation of the whole
passage." "We may suppose that Papias, having reported
some saying of St. John on the authority of the Elders, went
on somewhat as follows ; ' And this accords with what we find
in his own Gospel, which he gave to the churches when he
was still in the body (en iv tw aa/xaTi Ka6eaTMT0<;). . . .'
If St. John's authorship of the Gospel had been mentioned
in this incidental way, Eusebius would not have repeated it,
unless he departed from his usual practice." Lightfoot even
comes to the defense of the statement regarding the dicta
tion of the Gospel. "Papias may have quoted the Gospel
dehvered by John to the churches, which they wrote down
(direypacfiov) from his lips; and some later writer, mistaking
the ambiguous dweypacfiov, interpreted it ' / wrote down,' thus
making Papias himself the amanuensis. . . . Eusebius
would be more likely than not to omit such a statement if it
was made thus casually." Reserving our judgment of the
two very large assumptions here required to be made re
garding (i) Papias' mentioning a matter of such paramo tmt
importance only "thus casually," (2) this conception of
"the silence of Eusebius," what shall we say of the silence of
Irenceus, passionate advocate of the Johannine authorship
against those who were denying that aspect (specicm) of the
fourfold gospel? Irenasus was well acquainted with Papias
through his single quite modest little work, and knew as well
as did Eusebius that he must look in it, if anywhere, for the
evidence which would utterly silence his opponents. Here
Lightfoot is clearly minimizing the value of the argument
from silence. Is it really possible to make such suppositions
regarding either Eusebius or Irena;us? We wiU consider
the two in order of date.
Almost certainly Irenaeus was not otherwise acquainted
with Papias than through his book ; for in quoting from it he
declares, "These things Papias, who was a hearer of John

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 77
and a companion of Polycarp, an ancient worthy, witnesseth
in writing in the fourth of his books; for there are five books
composed by him." Eusebius corrects the error of Irenaeus
in representing Papias to have been, hke Polycarp, a hearer
of the Apostle, and shows, by citing the preface ^ of Papias
himself, that this author, in the "traditions of the Elder John"
(too irpea^vTepov 'Icodvvov TrapaSoaeK) which he transmits,
is not referring to the Apostle as his authorhy, but to a con
temporary of his own, a John whom he distinguishes from
the Apostle in words at once so clear and so famihar that to
cite them again is almost superfluous.^ Of this error of
Irenaeus in confounding the John of Papias' paradoses with
the John whom he believed to have been associated with
his revered master Polycarp,^ an error but partially corrected
1 Jerome (De Vir. Illust., p. i8) also informs us that the passage in ques
tion was in the preface of Papias' work.
2 Since, however, so great a scholar as Zahn can still make it appear to him
self compatible with honest exegesis to say that Papias does not distinguish
the two, but means one and the same person, we subjoin the passage itself,
with Eusebius' comment, in the translation of Lightfoot: "And again, on any
occasion when a person came in my way who had been a follower of the
Elders, I would inquire about the discourses of the Elders — what was said by
Andrew, or by Peter, or by Philip, or by Thomas or James, or by John or
Matthew, or any other of the Lord's disciples, and what Aristion and the
Elder John [the disciples of the Lord] say. For I did not think that I could
get so much profit from the contents of books as from the utterances of a living
and abiding voice." "Here," adds Eusebius, "it is worth while to observe
that he twice enumerates the name of John. The first he mentions in con
nection with Peter and James and Matthew and the rest of the Apostles,
evidently meaning the Evangelist, but the other John he mentions after an
interval, and classes with others outside the number of the Apostles, placing
Aristion before him, and he distinctly calls him an Elder," etc. We have
also inclosed in [ ] a clause wanting in some authorities, and both textually
and intrinsically doubtful. See Encycl. Bibl. j. v. "Gospels," col. 1815,
and my article in Journ. Bibl. Lit., 1897. See also below, p. 112.
3 On the correctness of Irenaeus' recollection of Pplycarp's references to
John as the Apostle, see Gwatkin "Irenasus on the Fourth Gospel," in
Contemp. Rev., 1897, i, and Fisher (op. cit., pp. 254 ff.) against R^ville (Le
Quatrieme Evangile, 1901), Harnack (Chronologic, 1897), and M'Giffert
(Apost. Age, 1897). See also below, p. 254 f.

78 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
by Eusebius,^ and the fruitful source of ages of misunder
standing, we shall have more to say hereafter. Suffice it
that Irenasus, knowing him to be a (later) contemporary
and near neighbor of Polycarp, assumed (were prefaces
then read as carelessly as now ?) that his Tra/saSoVet? 'Icodvvov
were of John the Apostle in Ephesus. He pronounces him
accordingly 'ladvvov dKovcrTij<; , and the phrase thereafter
constantly reappears in later references to Papias. In our
argumentum it becomes, e. g., discipulus Johannis carus.
But Irenaeus literally "compasses heaven and earth" to find
an argument against those who denied the apostohc author
ship. Because there are four winds, four elements, four
zones of the earth, four pillars of heaven, four cherubim
sustaining the throne of God, the folly is manifest of "those
wretched men who wish to set aside that aspect presented by
John's Gospel." Is his silence under these circumstances
compatible with the existence in Papias of a direct state
ment, however casual, that "John while yet in the body
published and gave out the Gospel to the churches," Papias
himself or "the churches" (!) having written the Gospel at
1 Eusebius tolerates so much of the misunderstanding of Irenaeus as ac
cords with his own pet theory of a second John at Ephesus, on whom might
be fathered Revelation; for this is his individual improvement upon the
theory of Dionysius of Alexandria, who was at a loss to fix upon another John
for the (then) obnoxious book. But while Eusebius eagerly seizes on the con
fusion as proof that Papias was indeed an d/couo-T-^s 'Iwdwov, though not the
John imagined by Irena;us, he is too candid a scholar not to admit that there
was no evidence of it in Papias' text; for after repeating Irenjeus' phrase as
applicable to the Presbyter, he qualifies the statement by adding, "At all
events (you!/) he mentions them (Aristion and the Elder John) frequently by
name, and besides records their traditions in his writings." In point of fact
the passage quoted clearly implies that neither one of the two Johns was
accessible to Papias. The Apostle had long since been dead (clTrev); the
Presbyter, though living, was accessible to Papias only through report of
travelers who "came his way." On the true habitat and date of this much-
debated John, see Scholten, and Schlatter, Die Kirche Jerusalems, vom
Jahre 70 bis 130, Gutersloh, 1898.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 79
the Apostle's dictation? Careless Irenaeus doubtless was in
mistaking Papias' authority for one much higher, but his
carelessness did not go to this extent, nor tend in this direc
tion. How, then, has the course of recent research and discovery
altered the nature of Lightfoot's argument on "Papias of
Hierapohs," and "The silence of Eusebius"?
Lightfoot was far more accurate than his opponent, more
accurate than many who borrow his arguments, when he
pointed out the fundamental distinction made by Eusebius
between "disputed" (dvnXe'yoixeva) or "spurious" (v66a)
New Testament writings, and the "acknowledged" (o/xoXo-
ryovneva); the four gospels belonging, of course, among the
latter. He also pointed out the two passages in which Eu
sebius defines his twofold purpose. This is (i) "to indicate
what church writers of various periods have made use of any
of the disputed (avTiXeyop-evcov) books." These employ
ments (unacknowledged) are carefuUy identified and trust
worthy; they are termed by Lightfoot "testimonies," and
their presence or absence is the basis of Eusebius' argument
for or against the avriXeyo/xeva. Of course they are not ex
tended to the ofioXojovfjieva, though I Peter and I John,
perhaps as standing on the border-line, are covered. In the
second place, Eusebius undertook to teU from these same
early writers (2) "what has been said by them concerning
(a) the canonical and acknowledged Scriptures, and (b) any
thing that they have said concerning those which do not be
long to this class." ^ He makes stiU clearer what he means
in this second undertaking by reiterating it at the point where
he is about to give "the statements of Irensus in regard to
the divine Scriptures," as follows:
"Since in the beginning of this work we promised to give, when
1 Eusebius, H. E., Ill, iii.

8o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
needful, the words of the ancient presbyters and writers of the
Church, in which they have declared those traditions which
came down to them concerning the canonical books, and since
Irenaeus was one of them, we will now give his words, and, first,
what he says of the sacred Gospels."
Thereupon follows Irenaeus' account of Matthew and Mark,
which, although borrowed from Papias, and already once
given by Eusebius from Papias directly, is now repeated, and
his account of Luke and John. This latter is simply :
"And Luke, the attendant of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel
which Paul had declared. Afterwards John, the disciple of the
Lord, who also reclined on his bosom, published his Gospel while
staying at Ephesus in Asia." ^
Here was a definite and very important fact regarding
the intention of Eusebius, and so bearing directly upon the
question of his " silence," which ought never to have been
disregarded; and yet it was by no means fully appreciated
even by Lightfoot, who himself brought out the phenomena.
Eusebius had anticipated modern criticism in its distinction
between employments, whose only bearing could be upon
the existence and currency, or acceptance, of a writing; and
"statements relating to" the books received as canonical in
his own time, particularly "the sacred Gospels." It was a
definite and important part of his great historical enterprise,
made practicable by his access to the library coUected by
his predecessors at Cassarea, to demonstrate the apostohc
derivation and authority of the four received gospels, from
statements regarding their origin found in "ancient pres
byters and writers of the Church."
Had Lightfoot been able to foresee the light which the
closing decade of the nineteenth century would throw upon
the debates of the second and third regarding the trust-
1 Eusebius, H. E., V, viii, M'Giffert's trans.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 8i
worthiness and authority of the gospel narrative, he would
hardly have defined it as the "main object" of Eusebius in
regard to the four gospels merely to "preserve any anecdotes
which he may have found illustrating the circumstances un
der which they were written." ^ He would have reahzed
that the pre-Eusebian age was almost as famUiar as we with
the higher criticism in both its forms, historical as well as
hterary. He would thus have appreciated that the "state
ments concerning" the gospels in both Irenaeus and Eusebius
are only links in a long chain of prologues, or argumenta, by
which writers of both orthodox and heretical circles endeavored
to establish the apostolicity of their traditions of the Lord's
life and teaching. Of these we have had one example in the
argumentum already cited; for, so far from being a late in
vention of the scribe himself, it bears not only internal evi
dence of translation from an early Greek original,^ but
Wordsworth and White, by the discovery of another version
of the same in a MS. which betrays relations with the Old
Latin version, have furnished evidence which, in the judg
ment of Burkitt, must carry its origin back much beyond the
time of Jerome.'' The famous Muratorian Fragment, which
Professor Sanday now brings down as late as 200 A. d.,
stands forth in its true hght as one more link in this chain,
its denial of any discrepancy between the Fourth Gospel
and the rest being aimed, as Zahn has seen, at the same
Alogi antagonized by Irenaeus and Epiphanius. On the
heretical side stands another succession, into which P.
Corssen has opened the way by his Manor chianische Pro-
loge.^ Here is a heretical account of the origin of the Fourth
Gospel leading back directly to the Gnostic legends of Leu-
1 Essays on Supern. Rel., p. 46.
2 So Lightfoot, op. cit., p 213.
3 Burkitt, Two Lectures on the Gospels, 1901, p. 90.
i Texte u. Unters., xv, i.
Fourth Gospel — 6

82 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
cius Charinus and his Acts of John. It is true that the new
fragment of these Acts pubhshed by M. R. James in the
Cambridge Texts and Studies (1897), and the complete
edition by Bonnet,^ show Corssen to have perhaps inverted
the relation of Leucius to the Gospel. The dependence may
be on his side, if either.^ On the other hand, it is these
Gnostic legends which furnish a possible key to "Johan
nine" phraseology; not only the term Logos, but the desig
nation of John as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." But
we are now concerned merely with the interest displayed
among both orthodox and heretics in the second century
(the Monarchian prologues are earlier than TertuUian) to
connect our Gospel with the Apostle. If we proceed in the
reverse direction a similar feeling of the need for authenti
cating the records displays itself increasingly as ri\'als mul
tiply. The first two gospels have no prologue, but the third
is introduced under the patronage of Theophilus, and with
assurances of the author's better qualification for his task
than certain rivals. The Revelation of John has both a
prologue vouching for the writer, with a blessing on the
1 Acta Apost. Apocrypha, ii, j., Lipsiae, 1898.
2 The clause specially relied on by Professor James, vicra-onai Xi57x("s,
when read in the context, is in much closer relation to the interpolated read
ing of Mt. 24:49 (BCLUrt«( min. vss. Chrys.), which also makes the lance
thrust part of the soldiers' abuse before the death of Christ (cf. Clem, v, 13 11),
than to John. There is therefore at least the possibility of derivation in all
three cases from a common source. Hilgenfeld, in a masterly discussion en
titled Der gnostische und der Kanonische Johannes (Z.f. wiss. Theol., 1900),
at least succeeds in showing that the alleged evidences for Leucius' ac
quaintance with the Fourth Gospel are inconclusive. Certainly the Gnostic
writer relies on Synoptic tradition for his facts, his perverted and fanciful
elaboration standing for the Docetic application of the Pauline Christology
to this tradition, as the Fourth Gospel stands for the anti-Docetic. It must
be admitted that the Johannine writings presuppose a Docetism of the
Leucian type, though probably an older form. It cannot be said that the •
Leucian writings necessarily presuppose the Johannine, least of all cis
apostolic.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 83
devout reader, and an epilogue pronouncing a curse on
spurious matter. The same purpose of authentication of the
record is subserved by the appendix to the Fourth Gospel,
whether with Lightfoot ^ we hmit the later hand to verses 24-
25, or with Zahn and the great majority of critics consider
the whole chapter a later attachment. But the question of
the Appendix and its relation on the one side to the Gospel,
on the other to the tradition as transmitted through church
fathers and argumenta, is one which must be treated by itself,
faUing as it does on the border-land between external and
internal evidence. Here we have but two things to note: (i)
Eusebius' second principal object in reporting the evidence
derivable from the earlier writers on questions relating to
the canon was by no means a mere antiquarian interest,
still less an idle curiosity. He had the example of two cen
turies of effort to authenticate the gospel record, and both
he and his predecessors give evidence of having searched
their authorities with almost the diligence of a modern critic
for anything that might tend to prove its close connection
with the apostles. To imagine, therefore, that Eusebius
would remit the search in such a work as Papias, still more
to suggest that "Eusebius would be more hkely than not to
omit" a statement of Papias, such as Lightfoot assumes, is
to betray a conception of the external evidence and what it
signifies impossible to impute in our day to a scholar of
Lightfoot's eminence.^
1 Biblical Essays, essay on John 21.
2 Lightfoot's reply, when his opponent in a subsequent edition presented
the argument from the silence of Eusebius in a form more like the modern,
was singularly weak. He replied (ibid., p. 182), "If Papias had merely said
of the fourth Evangelist that ' John the disciple of the Lord wished by the
publication of the Gospel to root out that error which had been disseminated
among men by Cerinthus, and long before by those who are called Nico-
laitans,' or language to that effect, it would be no surprise to me if Eusebius
did not reproduce it; because Irenaeus uses these very words of the Fourth
Gospel (Her, III xi, i) and Eusebius does not allude to the fact." As if it

84 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
This, then, is the outcome of a fuU generation of research
on the point in question. There have been no stage denoue
ments. No single starthng discovery has been made, prov
ing or disproving whole theories at a stroke. We have sim
ply come to realize by gradual increase of knowledge that
criticism did not originate with our age, and to appreciate
better, on a wider historical background, the salient facts
already in our possession. In particular we can evaluate
more justly the argument from silence.
Modern discovery forces us to look upon the silence of
both Irenaeus and Eusebius as highly significant. Irenaeus
was fighting with every available weapon, but chiefly the
weapon of apostolic tradition in Asia, against "those wretched
men who wish to set aside that aspect (of the fourfold tra
dition) which is presented by John's Gospel." Eusebius was
engaged in vindicating from ancient writers the strength of
the claim which TertuUian had formulated:
"That the Evangelic Instrument (the fourfold gospel) has
apostles for its authors, on whom this charge of publishing the
gospel was imposed by the Lord himself; that if it includes the
writing of apostolic men (Mark, Luke) also, still they were not
alone, but wrote with the help of Apostles, and after the teaching
of Apostles." ^
Both Irenaeus and Eusebius had the little five-chaptered
treatise of Papias open before them and would eagerly search
every nook and corner of the work for any statement directly
connecting the Gospel with the Apostle, in fact anything
of the kind reported by the argumenta. Others will ha^-e
done the same; for the Exegeses of Papias remained in cir
culation for centuries. Evidence of acquaintance with the
were all one to Eusebius whether he found this in Irencrus, an anti-Gnostic
writer of 180-190 in Gaul, or in Papias, the fountainhead of tradition on the
origin of the gospels, the friend of Polycarp in Asia, and the alleged "hearer
of John!"
1 Adv. Marc, iv, 2.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 85
Gospel in some form may very weU have been found. There
is not the shghtest reason for doubting the statement of Euse
bius that he found evidence of acquaintance with I John and
I Peter. Neither he nor others can have found any statement
regarding the Johannine Authorship.
It is less easy to account for Eusebius' failure to explicitly
acknowledge the use made by Papias of Revelation. For
Eusebius is not lightly to be accused of a suppressio veri.
Yet the testimony of two commentators on Revelation of
450-500 A. D., Andreas of Caesarea and Arethas, the former
quoting a considerable passage, as he says, "word for word,"
is conclusive on this point. Some even infer from the ex
pression TO d^ioTTia-Tov ("the trustworthiness"; Lightfoot,
"genuineness"), employed by Andreas, that Papias, like his
contemporary Justin, was not content with using Revelation,
but signified his belief in its more or less direct relation to the
Apostle.^ Here the silence of Eusebius is explicable — to the
discredit of his impartiality. But the silence of Irenaeus and
Eusebius, to say nothing of TertuUian, Hippolytus and others
deeply interested in the controversy, makes it practically cer
tain that the data of the argumenta and all their tribe are not
derived', and could not be derived, from Papias.
The instance of the argumentum can to-day be cited only
as an illustration, because those who deny the inference as
to the silence of Papias no longer claim with Lightfoot that
Papias said anything so exphcit, but only something of this
1 The silence of Eusebius on this point must be subject to the discount that
he was almost as strongly prejudiced against the apostolic authorship of
Revelation as he was in favor of that of the Gospel. Hilgenfeld (Einl., p. 6i)
goes too far in claiming that ras iToarokiKas Sni-/ri<reis (H. E. Ill, 39, 12)
refers specifically to Revelation (cf. § 11); but Rev. 20:3 is probably included
in Eusebius' thought. We cannot argue from this, however, that he felt
that further acknowledgment was needless; nor even that he might not
disregard a direct statement of Papias. StiU the very loose expressions of
Andreas must be judged in the light of Eusebius' silence.

86 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
kind. That he actuaUy paid no attention whatever to the
Fourth Gospel is an admission which they probably feel
would be fatal to their argument. His mention and use of
it must be taken to be just "casual" enough to make the
silence of both Irenaeus and Eusebius seem reasonable,
though both rest on him for their accounts of the first and
second gospels, and at the same time not so doubtful or so
casual as to indicate either ignorance or lack of the respect
which could not fail to attach to so lofty an authority.
Whence, then, do the statements emanate which attribute
the Fourth Gospel to the son of Zebedee ?
It is a fact of very direct bearing upon the question, and of
no small interest, that a comparative study of these state
ments, whether in the Fathers or in the argumenta, gives with
a high degree of probability their real derivation. Long
since it was conjectured (by Zahn) that the legendary ac
count given by the Muratorian Fragment might be derived
from the Leucian Acts of John, a product of Gnostic ro
mancing and allegory of 160-170 a. d. It was almost surely
a source, perhaps the source, as Corssen, James, and Bonnet
have shown, of the heretical representations. Orthodox tra
dition, however, as embodied in the two forms of the argu
mentum above cited, in the Muratorianum, and in the state
ments of Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, seems to
come from a less tainted source. It is probably connected
indirectly with the Gnostic legend through an orthodox re
cast known by the name of Prochorus; but it rests funda
mentally and ultimately on the Appendix to the Gospel
(Jn. 21).^ In proof of this it is only needful to place their
expressions side by side. The argumentum begins, "The
Gospel of John was published and given forth to the churches
by John while yet in the body." - This is to answer, of
1 See Jiilicher, Einleitung (ed. 1902), p. 320.
2 For the longer form, regarded by Burkitt as the earlier, and as repre-

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 87
course, the objection that it had appeared as a posthumous
work; for who ever thought of declaring the work of a given
author to have been pubhshed "while he was still alive," ex
cept in answer to such an opinion? But the opinion is
clearly suggested by the Appendix, Jn. 21:23; ^^^ the an
swer just as clearly rests upon the foUowing verse, probably
taken in comparison with the related passage in 19 : 35,^ where
the present "he knoweth" (olSev) takes the place of the "we
know" (ocSap-ev) of 21:24. In other words, the question of
the relation of the Gospel to the Apostle, as a posthumous
production or otherwise, was raised and debated 175-200
a. d. just as it is to-day, and on both sides appeal was taken
to the Appendix just as to-day. Similarly, the Muratorianum
also makes the same appeal as to-day to I Jn. i : 1-4 in proof
of the direct Johannine Authorship.^ The only other infor
mation which the tradition is able to impart is something
held in common by the informant of Clement,^ by Irenaeus,
the Muratorianum, the prologues and argumenta, and all
later reporters, viz., that the Gospel was written at the close
of the Apostle's life in response to the request of his "dis
ciples" (yvchpifioi, Clem.), "fellow-apostles and bishops"
(condiscipuh et episcopi, Mur.), "bishops of Asia" (Pro-
logus Toletanus and Jerome), and that these became jointly
responsible with him in various ways (Muratorianum,
" recognoscentibus omnibus") for the contents. What have
we here but variant interpretations of Jn. 21:20-25, ^"^^
senting the source of Jerome's extract, De Viris III. ix, see Burkitt, op. cit.,
and Wordsworth and White, pp. 490, 491. This form has: "Hoc igitur
Evangelium post Apocalypsin scriptum manifestum et datum est ecclesiis in
Asia," etc. It should be compared with Corssen's Monarchian prologues.
1 Jiilicher, loc. cit., suggests 1:14.
2 Non solum visorem, sed et auditorem, sed et scriptorem . . . [se]
profitetur. Cf. Jn. 21:24. We shall have occasion hereafter to discuss the
argument of Lightfoot, op. cit., pp. 186-190, on the First Epistle as "a
commendatory postscript to the Gospel."
3 Clem. Alex. ap. Eus., H. E. VI, xiv.

88 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
attempts to identify those who in 21 : 24 vouch for the Gospel,
with or without comparison with Papias ? Irenaeus identified
them with the "Elders" of Papias, whom he locates in Asia,
as is manifest from the passages quoted by Eusebius from
his second and third books. ^ The Muratorianum heightens
the inspired authority of the writing by making its supple
mentary authors the apostles (hence in Jerusalem?), and
by appending a legend of revelation after fasting.^ All forms,
so far as they are not manifestly modified by heretical or
orthodox legendary traits and by the passage of Papias
(Irenaeus), have complete explanation as simple inferences
from the same passages relied upon by modern defenders.
Jn. 21. 19-25 was the great proof- text then as now. It not
only furnishes a perfectly adequate explanation for aU that
the second century could ad\'ance in the way of tradition on
the authorship; its very phraseology (verse 20, "the disciple —
p.adrjTr)'; — whom Jesus loved, which also leaned back on his
breast at the supper," verse 23, "that disciple should not die,"
verse 24, "the disciple which testifleth — ixapTvpdav — these
things," "we know that his witness is true") echoes and
reechoes along the whole chain of transmission.
We think it must now be apparent that a failure to dis
tinguish between (i) mere evidence for the existence of some
thing identifiable as "Johannine" tradition and doctrine,
1 Eusebius, PI. E. Ill, .xxiii.
2 "John, one of the disciples, when his fellow-disciples and bishops urged
him, said, Fast with me three days, and whatever is revealed to each one, let
us relate it to one another. The same night it was revealed to Andrew, one
of the Apostles, that John should write all in his own name, the rest indorse.''
There are here elements of affinity with the heretical argumenta and the
orthodox. The dictante Johanne recte of the Argumentum of Thomasius
seems also to be connected with the Monarchian declaration that John
dictated the entire Gospel not "at a sitting" but ''standing erect." See also
the Prologus Quatiuor Evangeliorum from Jerome's Commentary on Matthew
(Preuschen's Analecta), where the legend is attributed to an ecclesiastica
historia.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 89
and (2) evidence connecting the Fourth Gospel in its present
form with the son of Zebedee, denotes inabihty to appreciate
the modern attitude toward the external evidence in general.
To be abreast of the times in the matter of external evi
dence to the Johannine writings, one must draw a line at
about 170 A. D., and passing backward beyond it, must pur
sue his inquiry along two divergent lines: (i) What difference
is there in the use made of material of the Johannine type as
we recede? (2) What becomes of the tradition of John as
an author?
The continued accumulation of "Johannine" echoes must
be expected. Every new find will be greeted with as much
delight in one camp as the other; but it adds practically
nothing on the question now in debate. To-day the argu
ment from silence is an argument from the silence of Euse
bius, the silence of Irenaeus, the silence of Justin Mart)T, the
silence of Polycarp and Ignatius, and, as we now venture to
add, the silence of Papias. Where there seems to be a dis
position to pass over this too easily, as if all these champions
of the Church had been indifferent to the great problem of
authenticating the records which agitated both Church and
heretical sects from Papias down, it seems to argue a certain
unprogressiveness, a failure to appreciate the changed aspect
of the problem since the theory of Baur and Volkmar and
the author of Supernatural Religion was "exploded."
So also with the argument from utterance. To-day we
are not concerned with "testimonies" later than Justin; nor
with earlier ones, except with relation to a quite altered
problem. Testimonies to the existence of the type of evan
gelic tradition or teaching known as "Johannine" are super
fluous unless earlier than Justin. Those which are of Justin's
age or earlier never connect this type with John. Testimonies
to the Johannine Authorship to be of value must be independ
ent of the Appendix.

90 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
It must, then, be admitted that a sharp hne of demarca
tion is to be drawn at the point where Theophilus of Antioch
for the first time distinctly declares this Gospel to be the
work of "John, one of the vessels of the Spirit," and almost
simultaneously Tatian introduces it to a parity with the
Synoptics, and Irenaeus and Hippolytus and the Muratorian
fragment vigorously defend it against the Alogi. These
appear to have been orthodox opponents of Montanism, con
servative in opposition to its excesses, ultraconservative (in
the view of Irenaeus and his school) in resisting the doctrine
of a fourfold gospel. In denying the apostolicity of the
Johannine writings they did not deny their antiquity, but
alleged, perhaps because of the favor the Gospel had begun
to enjoy in Gnostic circles, that it was the work of Cerinthus,
the arch-gnostic of Asia.^ The basis of their argument was
its discrepancy with the Synoptics.^ But the weak resistance
of the Alogi was speedily overcome. As Professor Sanday
has put it:
"Direct and express ascription to the Apostle begins with
Theophilus of Antioch (ca. i8i a. d.). . . . From that time
it is of course rapidly taken up in a number of the most diverse
quarters; it has, perhaps, aheady had an elaborate commentary
1 This allegation has been held up by modern critics as evidence that the
Alogi ("senseless") deserved the epithet coined by Epiphanius, whose own
house, however, is a genuine crystal palace. In point of fact the evidence is
quite the other way. Doubtless they were unpardonably influenced by
dogmatic prejudice, but their line of proof was well chosen and consistently
carried out; and, while the selection of Cerinthus as forger was doubtless a
mere dictate of hatred, recent discovery has now afforded us the proof that
the school of Cerinthus did engage in the copious manufacture of spurious
gospels and Acts of the Apostles, in particular in the production, still in the
second century, not only of the Acts of John above referred to, but of a
Gnostic Gospel of John as well.
2 Cf. the Muratorianum, Et ideo licet varia singulis evangeliorum libris
principia doceantur, nihil tamen differt credentium fidei. See also Jerome's
version of the Prologus Toletanus at the end. Quae res et Sia<pwvlav quae
videtur Johannis esse cum ceteris toUit.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 91
written upon it by the Gnostic Heracleon; ^ it has been used by the
heathen philosopher Celsus (ca. 178); and it has been included in
the Diatessaron of Tatian [we may now add 'and the Sinaidc
Syriac version of about the same date']. We have abundant proof
that from the last quarter of the second century the Fourth Gospel
is firmly rooted in every branch of the Christian Church, with
that one exception [of the Alogi]."
This is not put too strongly, nor is it inadvertently that
Professor Sanday writes that from the time of direct ascrip
tion to the Apostle "of course" it was "rapidly taken up."
But we have now to pass behind the epoch of rapid dissem
ination, and put our double question, a.sking first, however,
since the answer is relatively easy. What becomes of the tra
dition of John as an author? Unless we greatly mistake the
evidence, all that connects him with the Fourth Gospel runs
rapidly out in mere legend, either born of Gnostic fancy, or
educed from the "Johannine" writings themselves. The
Acts of John (160-170 A. D.) identify "the disciple whom
Jesus loved" with the son of Zebedee, explaining the phrase
by John's alleged celibacy. Valentinian Gnostics, as less
bound by tradition, may well have taken up the Fourth
Gospel sooner than the orthodox, though for Basilides and
Marcion Luke was "the" gospel. Corssen even thinks he
finds traces of opposition to it in Gnostic circles, anticipating
that of the Alogi. On the orthodox side it is hard to see how
the situation differs from what we might expect it to be if
not one of the church writers, from Clement of Rome to
Justin Martyr, had ever heard of John as an author, except
in so far as he is recognized as the seer of Revelation. The
solitary gleam of light that we can obtain from their utterance
is the fact that in his hst of the apostles, Papias groups
John with Matthew. Lightfoot regarded this as evidence
that Papias considered him as in some sense an evangehst.
1 Disciple of Valentinus. Harnack dates his career in 145-180 A. D.

92 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
We have only to realize what was the main object of Papias'
Expositions of the (principally Matthaean) logia, and what
writing principally determined his chiliastic views, to see
that this explanation is not required. In fact another is
more probable. Papias' "expositions" were directed against
those whom Lightfoot rightly identifies as the i^rjyrjTai Ka/col
TOiv KaXw elprjfjievav. He may even have had the recently
published Exegetica of Basihdes in mind. In the language
of his friend and colleague Polycarp, they "perverted the
logia of the Lord . . . denying that there is either
resurrection or judgment." Papias answered them by ap
plying Revelation in support of his interpretations of ]Matthew
and Mark. In particular he adduced Rev. 12:9, probably
in explanation of Mt. 12:25-29. We may also infer with
great probability that it is to Papias that Irenaeus refers as
the interpreter of Rev. 13:18 (Her. V, xxx, i). Irenaeus
certainly took from Papias his doctrine of a physical Para
dise, which Papias based on Mt. 13:8, 23, interpreted
through certain "unwritten traditions," but also, apparently,
through Rev. 20:3. To seek a further reason for Papias'
grouping of Matthew and John is surely superfluous. Mat
thew was his authority for the sayings of the Lord, John —
the John of Revelation — for " the resurrection and judgment."
For the rest, the silence regarding John as an author is simply
more marked the nearer we draw to the time and place of
origin of the Gospel.
(2) But as already noted we must also ask. What of the
employments of Johannine evangelic material in the years
immediately preceding the vehement advocacy of Irenaeus?
Why is there so sudden and enormous a falling off in the
amount, so little importance attached to the minimum that
appears, so distant a resemblance to our text? Why does
the Fourth Gospel sink at once from the first to the very
lowest rank as an authority? Why docs Justin Martyr,

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 93
eager as he is in advocacy of a Zo^os-doctrine difficult to
distinguish from the Johannine, never appeal to its authority,
though in advocacy of his millenarian doctrine he is glad
to quote Rev. 20:3, and to make the most of the tradition
that "the revelation was made to a certain man with us whose
name was John, one of the apostles of Christ"? ^ Why do his
quotations from the Synoptic Gospels, which he regards as
"memoirs written by Apostles and their followers"^ \i. e.,
Matthew, Peter, Paul (?), Mark, and Luke], run up into
the hundreds and extend over whole paragraphs; while a
few lines will contain all that shows even a plausible connec
tion with the Fourth Gospel, even the single brief passage
generally made the chief reliance,^ showing so close affinity
with I Pt. 1 :3, 23, Mt. 18:3, and Clem. Hom. xi, 26, and de
parting so widely from the Johannine form as to lead Bousset
and Edwin Abbott to the conclusion that the logion at least
is taken from an extracanonical source ? *
Answers of a certain sort have been found for these ques
tions. "The Gospel had not yet obtained currency." "Jus
tin had no copy with him." "He was prejudiced against
it by Gnostic use." "Its esoteric character made it unsuitable
for general use." ^ Our own ignorance has been appealed to,
1 Dialogue with Trypho, Ixxxi.
2 Dial. ciii. 6. (pTj^t virb rOiv airoarbXiav aiTov Ka.1 tCov eKeivoLS irapaKO-
'KovOrjaavTuv avin-eraxBai. The quotation here introduced is the inter
polation in Luke 22:43-44. In cvi, where the naming of the sons of Zebedee
Boanerges is referred to, the gospel which alone contains the incident is
spoken of as "his (i. e., Peter's) memoirs." The phrase "apostles and
their followers," which Westcott would make to include John, cannot fairly
be required to include more than the two apostles Matthew and Peter.
' Jn. 3: 3, 5, in Justin's Apology, I, Ixi.
i See Encycl. Bibl., s. v. "Gospels," col. 1833 f.
5 Professor Sanday, in the Expositor, 1891, even esteemed it altogether the
best reply that can be made, a reply "sufficient to invalidate Dr. Abbott's
whole position,'' to say that "By precisely the same mode of reasoning it
might be proved that Justin recognized none, or only one, of St. Paul's
Epistles, at a time when his opponent, the heretic Marcion, certainly recog-

94 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
and justly. But can it be said that these are satisfactory
answers ? Is there not a starthng contrast still to be accounted
for between Justin and the generation after in their treat
ment of this Gospel as compared, say, with Matthew? And
as regards its claims of apostohcity and those of Revelation ?
Was Justin ignorant of Jn. 21:24, or did he refuse it cre
dence ?
And the phenomena which meet us so startlingly in Jus
tin simply increase in cogency as we come nearer to the very
spot and date whence the Gospel has always been held to
emanate. Just because Papias and Polycarp betray casually
an acquaintance with I John, it is the more surprising that
they indicate not a trace of acquaintance with the Apostle
as an author,^ just because Ignatius is concerned to refute
the same Cerinthian type of Docetism antagonized in the
First Epistle, and (according to both tradition and internal
evidence) in the Gospel, just because he has recourse to a
Zo^o5-doctrine which is far cruder than the Johannine, and
yet resembles it, and because his very language has here and
there a "Johannine" tinge, and because he is writing from
the very scene of the Apostle's latest days, it is the more
extraordinary that he should pass by the story of the dis
pelling of Thomas' doubts, Jn. 20: 27, and the scene of post-
resurrection eating with the eleven, Jn. 21:9-14, and resort
to an apocryphal gospel of unknown origin to prove to the
Smyrnaeans the reality of the resurrection body against the
Docetae.^nized ten of them.'' But what sort of authority would Paul's Epistles have
been for Justin in his endeavor to give the heathen a correct idea of the life
and teaching of Jesus? And of what use would they have been in persuading
a Jew that Jesus was the Messiah and taught a iogoi-doctrine similar to
Justin's own?
1 The exception above noted, that Papias, like Justin, vouched for the
genuineness of Revelation, should be remembered.
2 Ignatius, Ad Smyrn. iii, 2. See Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, as to the
derivation of the quotation.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 95
That Hermas,! and the AtSa^^, and Barnabas, and the
Smyrnaeans, and Clement of Rome are silent, both as to the
Apostle and anything written by him, is scarcely to the point,
since nothmg was perhaps to be expected. But if any are
disposed to find "Johannine" echoes in the eucharistic
prayers of ^i^axn, or elsewhere in these early writings, it
simply increases the difficulty of accounting for the two un
accountable things, (i) the general non-employment of the
Gospel, (2) the apparent universal ignorance of its claims to
apostolic authorship.
As the outcome of the changed aspect given to the external
evidence by modern phases of the Johannine problem, it
appears thus, finally, that Lightfoot was indeed right in de
claring both the silence and the utterance of the earhest
writers to be eloquent. Only, now that both our knowledge
of utterances and our understanding of silences has increased,
there is very much to turn the inferences once drawn in al
most the opposite direction. Eighteen years ago Drs. Schiirer
and Sanday were already agreed on the conclusiveness of the
external evidence regarding the early existence of the Gos
pel. They were divided in opinion as to whether the balance
of this evidence inclined in favor of the Johannine author
ship. To-day the agreed point is much more emphatically
determined than before; the question is now, What kind of
1 The proof of the use of the "sacred quaternion" of the Gospels by
Hermas, expected by Professor Sanday in 1891 (Expositor, iv, 4, p. 419), has
resolved itself into the simple fact that the four supports of the seat on which
Ecclesia sits, which Irenceus adopts as an allegorical type of the four gospels,
are found in Hermas (Vis. iii, 13). Only, the application made by Hermas
is not that of Irenaeus, III, xi, 8, but simply: "Whereas thou sawest her seated
on a couch, the position is a firm one; for the couch has four feet and standeth
firmly; for the world too is upheld by means of four elements." Dr. C. Taylor
developed the promised "proof" in 1892, under the title The Witness of
Hermas to the Four Gospels, which Harnack very unceremoniously dismisses
as "mere inepta." Stanton, Gospels., etc., p. 47, note 3, is more gentle in
finding it "impossible to adopt his view."

96 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
existence had the Fourth Gospel in the first half of the second
century? Did it circulate in its present form, and accom
panied by its present "letter of commendation" in the so-
called Appendix? Did it circulate, as Lightfoot supposed,
with both this and I John besides attached to it as a
"commendatory letter" ? Or does a use barely sufficient to
prove its early existence, even when helped out from Gnostic
sources, and by echoes so remote as to suggest something
quite unlike our form of the text, accompanied by a silence
on the question of authorship, more marked the further we
recede from the stalwart claims of Irenaeus and the argu
menta toward the actual time and place of origin, — do these
complementary lines of evidence to-day tend to show that
the notion of direct apostolic authorship is a later develop
ment? Against these debated questions we may well propound
in briefest form what we regard as the real facts concerning
evangelic tradition in the Sub-apostolic Age, and the au
thority attached to it in the various provinces of the ecclesi
astical world; for as Harnack has admirably set forth,! jj.^g
circulation of a fourfold gospel is not only a phenomenon of
late appearance, for which battle is still being vigorously
waged by Irenaeus and the author of the Muratorianum;
it is in itself a complete anomaly, whose explanation may
be expected to shed a flood of light upon the obscurities of
the tradition. The only normal and intelligible beginning —
and of this primitive condition many traces survi\-e — is one
in which the Church embodies its whole "evangelic instru
ment" in a single gospel — as indeed it repeatedly attempted
to do, and the founders of heretical churches almost invariably
did. A remote period is dimly discernible when the ortho
dox Church also had but one gospel. It was written in
Aramaic and hence confined in circulation to Palestine. It
1 Chronologic, p. 6Si.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 97
was said to have been a compilation by the Apostle Matthew
of the Sayings of the Lord. But at the earhest period to
which we can trace the story, this primitive gospel had as
sumed several \'ariant Greek forms. As the Church ex
panded this growth was inevitable. In Palestine, however,
"the" gospel continued for centuries to be the Gospel ac
cording to Matthew, however varied the forms assumed.
Of these forms (Papias' "translations") one was our own
Greek Matthew, which may have been composed in Caesarea,
or perhaps Alexandria; others, written in Aramaic, circulated
in Palestine. The Greek Matthew, however, is known and
accepted everywhere in the earliest times; only, as every
modern student knows, canonical Matthew is already a
product of fusion. It combines the ancient Matthaean Say
ings (Q) with the Roman gospel founded on Petrine narra
tive, attributed to Paul's companion Mark. And the com
bination itself displays a Palestinian or South Syrian origin,
as indeed we find these two sources (the Sayings and Mark)
recognized by the (Palestinian) "Elders" of Papias. Mat
thew and Mark, the Palestinian and the Roman gospels, are
the only ones of which we have traces everywhere in the
earliest time. They alone circulate without "letters of com
mendation" in the form of preface or appendix. Indeed,
outside of its native Rome even Mark is not treated with a
respect approaching that paid to Matthew. "The" gospel
for the Didache is Matthew. Quotations, whether in Asia,
Syria, Egypt, or even Rome, are almost invariably from
Matthew. Mark is seldom used, and an apologetic tone is
assumed in speaking of its hmhations.
Later there appears in Antioch ^ a new combination of the
1 Ancient tradition (Eusebius, H. E. Ill, iv, 7), early employment (Mar
cion, Basilides), and internal characteristics (settlement of the issue between
Jews and Gentiles in the Church on a Petrine basis at the instance of An
tioch) combine to prove Luke-Acts an Antiochian product.
Fourth Gospel — 7

98 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Matthaean Sayings with Mark, developed with great literary
skill and with the aid of ancient missionary records into a
complete history of the founding of the Church. This third
gospel and book of Acts is put forth under distinguished
patronage.! j^ jg carried to Rome and to Alexandria. In
Asia it strongly influences the author of our Fourth Gospel.
By Marcion and Basilides it is adopted as "the" gospeh
It is placed at least on equal terms with Matthew and Mark
by Justin, and even a new conclusion is framed to the latter
gospel adapting its resurrection narrative to the Lukan form.
The Gospel of Peter effects a harmonizing combination of
the three. Only in Asia is there little trace, outside the
Fourth Gospel itself, of any disposition to take up the An
tiochian gospel. Papias, if he knew it, would seem to have
classed it with the "books" which to him were of less value
than "the living and abiding voice." He perhaps included
the Fourth Gospel in the same category. Asia, as we know,
had given a welcome to the South Syrian embodiment of
Matthaean tradition on the one hand, and to the Roman
embodiment of Petrine tradition on the other. In this head
quarters of the Pauline Greek mission field both tendencies
were thoroughly felt, intense loyalty to the independent mysti
cism of Paul, and at the same time a disposition to revert to
"the word handed down from the beginning" (in Palestine)
against heretical, ultra-Pauline perverters of the oracles of
the Lord and deniers of the resurrection and judgment.
From its whole history Asia could not be satisfied with any
modern product not fundamentally akin to its own lofty
Paulinism. Its own evangehc tradition remained long un
formulated, as we might expect would be the case from
Paul's comparative indifference to the mere story of the
earthly Jesus. When at last formulated it displayed that
lofty eclecticism and disdain of the mere conventionahzed
1 Lk. 1:3; Acts 1:1, Kpcir i(TT( Oe6(l>i\e.

THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 99
Synoptic form which only a Pauline mysticism could pro
duce. For long it is the name of Paul, and only of Paul,
by which the Asiatic type of evangelic tradition, distin
guished especially by the Logos-doctrine, is supported.
After the middle of the second century, at Rome, we find
the name of "John" attached to it, which previously is as
sociated only with the book of Revelation, an Asiatic recast,
as its preliminary letters to the seven Churches of Asia at
test, of a Palestinian Apocalypse. The first attempt to se
cure for the Gospel and Epistles the same apostohc authority
vigorously — and it would seem successfully — asserted for
the Apocalypse, is made (in a very cautious and almost am
biguous manner) in an Appendix, attached, it would seem,
at Rome. The whole object of this Appendix is to adjust
the claims of the Gospel to those of a regnant Petrine tra
dition. The office of chief under-shepherd of the flock of
Christ is here conceded to Peter, together with the crown of
martyrdom. Only for "the disciple whom Jesus loved " there
is reserved the special and unique function belonging to the
"abiding witness"; not indeed that once accepted in the
Church "that that disciple should not die"; but in the new
and vital sense that his "witness" shall remain as the "true"
interpretation of the faith, the essential "mind of Christ."
With this epilogue of commendation to a world-wide circle
our Fourth Gospel is "given forth to the churches."
If Rome be not the place where the harmonizing Appendix
was framed, certainly Rome is the scene of the great contro
versy which now breaks out, as it would seem in consequence
of it. The question which now for half a century agitates
the Christian world with respect to the standard of evan
gehc tradition is that of a single, double, threefold, or four
fold gospel. Rome is the inevitable battle-field. Tatian seeks
to solve the problem by a reduction of the four to one com
posite gospel; and his solution is accepted in Syria, his na-

100 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
tive place. Theophilus of Antioch follows a similar plan.
Gaius of Rome rejects the Asiatic gospel on account of its
"discord with the other three." Cerinthians and Docetists
adopt Mark alone, Basilides Luke alone, Marcion a muti
lated form of Luke. But the method of the Cathohc Church
has always been inclusive, and in the matter of the canon,
more especiaUy the gospel canon, inclusion and combination
had been the method established from the very start. The
long established double standard had already become three
fold. The only logical step was now to make it fourfold.
Against Proclus and his few Phrygian Montanists a great
scholar and ecclesiastic like Gaius might for a time make
head. But the weight of all Asia and the increasing spirit
of catholicity was against him. It was impossible to cut off
the whole province of Asia by excluding its form of gospel
teaching. Irenaeus, proud to take up the cause of Polycarp
and Polycarp's associates, as he esteemed it, swung his heavy
battle-ax against the "wretched men" who think that in
the nature of the case there can be less than four gospels.
In particular he denounced those who dared to question
"that aspect which is presented by John's Gospel." Hippoly
tus overwhelmed them with his learning and logic, and
elaborated a chronology to remove the discrepancies between
the Synoptics and John developed during the Paschal con
troversies. Such in outhne is the course of history as we read
it, in place of that fides semper eadem, that unbroken trans
mission of a fourfold "evangelic instrument having for its
authors Apostles, on whom this charge was imposed by the
Lord himself," which Catholic theory presents.

CHAPTER IV
THE TRADITION AS TO THE ELDERS AND ITS TRANSFOR
MATIONS !
All discussion of the origin and history of the tradition of
John in Asia, and as author of the Gospel, must necessarily
begin with Papias. The famous fragment of his work which
contains practically all we know of the beginnings of gospel
composition, and forms our strongest link of connection with
the apostles, is quoted by Eusebius in an endeavor to cor
rect what has been designated from its principal promulgator
the "Irenaean tradition" of apostles in Asia. Eusebius did
not criticize this in its whole extent, but simply in so far as
it rested on the statements of Papias.^ Shortly before ^
the period of Irenaeus' work (written ca. i86 a. d.) the Roman
presbyter Gaius in debate with the Montanist Proclus, had
repudiated the latter's authorities, the Johannine writings,
as unauthentic* Irenaeus (followed later by his disciple
Hippolytus, whose Heads against Gaius arc still extant in
1 Reprinted by permission of the editors from the Journal of Biblical
Literature, XXVII, i (July, 1908).
2 The section begins: "Irenfeus makes mention of these (the five books of
Exegesis) as the only works written by him (Papias)." It proceeds to cite
and criticize his description of Papias' relation to the apostles and to Poly
carp, as below, p. 117,
3 Eusebius dates Gaius under Zephyrinus (H. E. II, xxv, 6), probably too
late. ¦i The Dialogue aimed to "curb the rashness and boldness of his oppo
nents in setting forth new Scriptures." It maintained the authority of
"Peter and Paul" (attributing thirteen letters to the latter) against that
of the writings attributed to "a great apostle" at Ephesus (H. E. II, xxv, 7;
VI, XX, 3; III, xxviii, 2). Polycrates (H. E. Ill, xxxi, 3) inverts the argument.
loi

102 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
abstract ^) became their stalwart champion, especially de
fending the Fourth Gospel. For this task his early residence
in Asia and direct eye and ear knowledge of Polycarp, a
survivor of the apostolic age, gave him an advantage of which
he makes the utmost. He depends, however, for all his
specific citations of apostohc tradition upon a written source,
now generally admitted to have been the work of Papias,
entitled KvpiaKcSv Xo<yi(ov e^rjyija-ei,';." In the passage wherein
his principal quotation is made he designates the worthy
bishop of Hierapohs as "a man of the earhest period, a
hearer of John and companion of Polycarp." ^ Eusebius one
hundred and forty years later, having the work of Papias
before him, and examining it carefully for the specific pur
pose of determining this particular point, had no difficulty
in showing by citation of the passages bearing upon the
question that Irenaeus had misinterpreted them, attributing
to Papias a much closer connection with the apostolic foun
tainhead of tradition than could be justly claimed.
On the other hand, if Irenaeus was misled by his zeal to
establish the unbroken continuity in proconsular Asia of
that apostolic tradition whereof he counted himself a provi
dential representative, Eusebius in his turn cannot be alto
gether acquitted of similar partiality. He also had read the
Dialogue of Proclus and Gains, and on all but one point was
as ardently opposed as Irenaeus himself to its anti- Johannine
criticism. The Roman followers of Gaius, one of whose
favorite arguments was to point to the disagreement of the
Fourth Gospel with the other three, were to Eusebius as
obnoxious as to Hippolytus and to the author of the Murato-
1 See J. R. Harris, Hermas in Arcadia and Other Essays, 1896.
2 Lightfoot (Bibl. Essays, pp. 64, 66, 68) varies from the reading '£^1)77)1715
to 'E^7)7i)(reis. His apparent preference for the plural is based on the nature
of the work (p. 68, note 2). The present writer was guilty of oversight, as
Drummond notes (Authorship, p. 195), in neglecting the variant.
3 apxaioi ^"'tlP, 'liadvmv d/touiTTTjs, TloKuKapirov Si iratpos.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 103
rianum. He regarded them as "senseless" Alogi, to quote
the punning epithet of Epiphanius,! men who for the sake of
ridding themselves of the excesses of the "Phrygian heresy"
had "emptied out the baby with the bath" by rejecting the
whole Phrygo-Asiatic canon — Gospel, Epistles,^ and Apoca
lypse of John together. On one point of their contention,
however, Eusebius was disposed to yield, though the argu
ments which had convinced him were not, or at least not
directly, those of Gaius. Eusebius had been profoundly
influenced by the reasoning of another great malleus hereti-
corum, Dionysius of Alexandria, whose opponents the Chili-
asts based their millenarian doctrines, not like the Phrygian
champions of the prophetic Spirit on the Johannine canon
as a whole, but simply on the Apocalypse. Dionysius cut the
ground from under their feet by denying its apostolicity,
though he maintained as cordially as ever the authenticity
of the Gospel and at least of the first of the Epistles. Hence
forth Revelation, the writing which alone of the five made
direct claim to Johannine authorship, with direct and ex
phcit attestation by both Papias and Justin Martyr, be-
C9,me the "disputed," and the other four, or at least the
Gospel and First Epistle, the "undisputed" Johannine writ
ings. Eusebius quotes at length the argument of Dionysius
against the Apocalypse, wherein the Alexandrian scholar
displays the skUl in literary criticism one might anticipate
in a pupU of Origen, showing how completely Revelation
differs in style and standpoint from the Gospel and Epistles.
1 Epiphanius in this portion of his Refutation of All Heresies merely re
flects Hippolytus, the disciple of Irenseus, whose Heads against Gaius give
us the substance of his refutation of the presbyter.
2 The rejection of the Epistles seems to be only the inference of Epipha
nius, but it was doubtless correct. The work of Hippolytus in the list of his
writings on the back of the statue in the Lateran Museum is called only a
Defense of the Gospel and Apocalypse of John. The Epistles were perhaps
not involved in the dispute.

I04 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Eusebius himself was anything but favorably disposed
toward the Chiliasts. He even attributes the crude escha
tology he found represented by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and
other members of the Ephesian school, to the influence of
Papias, whom for this very unfair reason he contemptuously
sets down as "a very narrow-minded man." ! We are not
surprised, therefore, to find him not only quoting the theory
of Dionysius with approval, but in his famous list of "ad
mitted," "disputed," and "spurious" books making special
exception of Revelation, which if by the Apostle must of
course be admitted as canonical; but otherwise cannot even
be classed with the "disputed" books (avriXeyo/xeva) which
included II and III John, but must take its place with the
"spurious" (voOa).^ To impute partiality to Eusebius with
out convincing evidence would be a hazardous proceeding;
but on this particular matter of the Apocalypse of John the
evidence is convincing, for, Blass to the contrary notwith
standing, Papias certainly did make repeated and copious
use of this book, besides attesting its "credibility" (d^ioina-
Tov). We have the full and explicit testimony of Andreas
of Caesarea, supported by Anastasius of Sinai, and Victori-
nus, to say nothing of Eusebius' own statements regarding
the infection of millenarianism which spread from Papias
through Justin to Irenaeus. Over and above all we ha-\-e
Irenaeus' testimonies concerning the currency of Revela
tion among "the persons who had seen John with their
^ <r(p6dpa (rp.iKphv rhv voOv.
2 Stanton (Gospels as Hist. Documents, p. 240), who thinks that if the
Dialogue against Proclus had rejected the Fourth Gospel, "Eusebius could
not have ignored so serious a departure," fails to perceive that Eusebius
introduces his answer to Gaius in III, xxiii, xxiv. Very shortly before
(ch. xviii) he speaks his mind on the origin of "the so-called Apocalypse of
John." That he should lend weight to the objections "that the Gospels are
at variance with one another" by naming as their author the "very learned
ecclesiastic" Gaius was not to be expected.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 105
eyes." ! To deny weight to aU this is to discredit oneself,
not the testimony. Yet Eusebius, who had promised to give
his readers the evidence he found in early writers of their
use of books whose canonicity was in dispute, maintains
complete silence regarding Papias' use of Revelation, while
he mentions his "testimonies" taken from I Peter and
I John. Silence under such conditions — silence so marked
as to lead not only Blass but even Hilgenfeld actually to
deny Papias' acquaintance with Revelation in toto — cannot
be called impartial.
Clearly Zahn is right in maintaining that no scientific
judgment can be passed upon Eusebius' correction of Ire
naeus' inferences from Papias, which does not give due
consideration to his strong bias in favor of Dionysius' theory
of Revelation as the work of "another John in Asia." In
fact, he makes direct reference to Dionysius' suggestion in
citing the passage (riav Svo . . . elprjKorcov).
Now the weak point of Dionysius' theory had been his
inabihty to point to any "other John in Asia" than the
Apostle, for he does not himself rely upon the alleged "two
/xvqfiara in Ephesus each bearing the name of John," but
prefers to identify the John of Revelation with John Mark
of Acts. It is here that Eusebius comes in with his great
discovery. He has found, he thinks, the desired evidence in
the Papias fragment. Papias does indeed refer to another
John besides the Apostle, for, as Eusebius says, "he mentions
him after an interval, and places him among others outside
the number of the Apostles, placing Aristion before him, and
distinctly caUs him an Elder." On this Elder John of Papias
Eusebius therefore eagerly seizes, as evidence "that it was
the second (the Elder), if one will not admit that it was the
first (the Apostle), who saw the Revelation, which is as
cribed by name to John." He has the candor to admit,
1 Iren. V, xxx, ±.

io6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
however, that Papias did not really state that he had been
"himself a hearer of Aristion and the Elder John," but only
"mentioned them frequently by name and gave their tradi
tions in his writings." We see, then, that while Eusebius
is anxious to correct Irenaeus in so far as the correction would
militate against Revelation, he is as anxious as any other
orthodox father not to undermine the support of the rest
of the Johannine canon by weakening those hnks of tradition
which Irenaeus had boasted of as connecting himself with
the Apostle, for it is certainly Papias that Irenaeus has in
mind when he alleges that some of the Asiatic Elders "saw
not only John (as Polycarp had) but other Apostles also, and
heard these things (the tradition of Jesus' age) from them,
and testify to the statement." ! The present "testify"
(testantur) shows that he is quoting a written authority,
which can be no other than Papias.
It is important to observe this distinction in Eusebius'
prejudices in weighing Zahn's endeavor to discredit his
statements. He was, we must admit, quite perceptibly
anxious to deprive Revelation of its claim to apostohcity.
As regards all other elements of the Irencean tradition he was
doubly zealous to support it. His eagerness to find "another
John in Asia" does indeed require a discount on this feature
of his testimony. In fact, the concessive yovv ("at all events
he [Papias] mentions them frequently by name, and gives
their traditions in his writings") is nothing less than an
admission that his imputation of a personal relation between
Papias and this "Elder John" had no support in the text.
As we shall see, an eye not prejudiced hke that of Irenaeus,
and that of Eusebius in no less degree, to support the apos
tolic succession of Asia would have drawn quite other in
ferences. Dionysius, for example, can hardly have been
ignorant of this Elder John. So renowned a scholar can
1 Her. II, xxii, 5; Eusebius, H. E. Ill, xxiii, 3.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 107
scarcely be supposed to have left unnoticed the famous work
of Papias in his controversy with the Chihasts. But Dio
nysius found nothing in Papias to connect "the Elder John"
with Asia. In this "discovery," therefore, Eusebius could
claim complete originahty. Contrariwise as respects all
other points of the Irenaean tradition. From these Eusebius
had cogent reason for subtracting as little as possible, for in
his own earlier work ! he had committed himself to all the
exaggerations of Irenaeus, ranking Papias in the generation
along with Polycarp, and even caUing him in Irenaeus' own
words "a hearer of John the Apostle." Thus the stronger
Zahn's case becomes against the impartiality of Eusebius,
the stronger grows the probabihty that Papias knew of no
John in Asia at all, save what he read in Rev. i : 4-9.
Effort has been made by Zahn,^ and especially by Gut-
jahr,^ to turn to account the new evidence afforded by
the Syriac version of Eusebius in the interest of this same
heightening of the rank of Papias and vindication of Ire
naeus' pretensions on his behalf. We shall endeavor to show
on the contrary that the peculiarities of this extremely an
cient translation furnish evidence only on the opposite side.
They are striking enough and eminently consistent, for all
tend to the very object the Protestant champion of reac
tionary views and his Roman Catholic ally have so much
at heart. The one great drawback is that they prove alto
gether too much, evidencing not so much what Eusebius
wished to say, as what the translator, whom we may desig
nate S, desired to make him say; for S's loyalty to his au
thor was not equal to his loyalty to current orthodoxy. In
short, he takes sides against his own text for a still more
1 Chronicon for Olymp. 220, ed. A. Schoene (1866), II, p. 162.
i Forschungen, VI, i. Apostel und Apostelschitler in der Provinz Asien,
I goo. 3 Glatibwiirdigkeit des Irenaischen Zeugnisses, 1904.

io8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
stringent interpretation of the long-established Irenaean tra
dition. Not unnaturally he makes the same kind of non
sense we find in Biblical versions such as the LXX and
Targums, whose authors felt it necessary to be more ortho
dox than the Scriptural writers they professed to- translate.
As manifesting this Tendenz even the blunders and arbitrary
changes of S have value. The tenacity of the Irenaean tra
dition, in the teeth of positive disproof will teach us two
things: (i) A juster valuation of Eusebius' opposition to it.^
We shall realize both how impossible it is that Eusebius
should have made resistance on a point so vital to the Church,
even retracting his own earher statements, without a care
ful and systematic review of the admitted sole source of in
formation on the subject; ! and also how impossible that
having made it, his representations should have gone uncon
tradicted if Papias' treatise, in general circulation as it was
for centuries after, had really been misrepresented.
(2) We shall also better realize from it how much more
serious was the temptation to Eusebius to understate his
correction than to overstate it. As we have seen, his Chro
nology, a substructure of his History, had embodied at full
face-value Irenseus' erroneous placing of Papias, a vital link
in that succession of "Apostles and disciples of Apostles
in Asia" so indispensable to aU defenders of the Ephesian
canon. We must therefore by no means minimize, but
rather take at their maximum value, Eusebius' admissions
that in the authority on which so much of his case rested
there was no claim of direct relation even to the Elder John.
Eusebius had made thorough search of the work of Papias, —
1 It was essential to Eusebius' argument to show that Irenasus had no
ulterior source of information, but based his statements on the passages
adduced. Hence ojs fibpoiv ypacp^vTwv. Irenaeus' exclusive dependence on
the written work for his knowledge of Papias is proved (against Gutjahr) not
merely by his gross misdating of the man, but by his description of the
source of his information iarC yhp ktX.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 109
the only source of evidence known either to Irenaeus or him
self, — and is obliged to admit that even the lower ranking
which he tries to give its author finds no support in the book.
The Papias passages themselves, — the most favorable Eu
sebius was able to find, — interpreted . in their own context,
place their author, as we shaU see, not at the second, but at
the third remove from apostolic authority. Papias was not
a hearer even of the "disciples of the Apostles" yv(opL/j,oi
T(Sv cnroa-ToXfov. Why then does Eusebius halt half-way in
his correction of the error of Irenaeus? Our study of his
interest in current questions of canonicity leaves the motive
transparent. To admit that Papias had not even been a
hearer of the second John would conflict with both of Eu
sebius' cherished ideas. He would then be sacrificing both
the authenticity of the Gospel and the unauthenticity of the
Apocalypse as well. Such an interpretation would have
been almost as obnoxious to him as to Zahn and Gutjahr.
And yet this third-hsind relation of Papias to the apostles is
what naturally follows from Eusebius' admissions. It is in
fact, as we shall see, the only interpretation which can give
a consistent meaning to the citation, or enable us to under
stand irpea^vTepo'; in the sense always attached to it in the
period in question. But let us turn now to S.
The Syriac version of Eusebius' History, edited in France
by Bedjan in 1897, and by Wright and McLean in 1898 in
England, is of extreme antiquity. It is known in a Peters
burg manuscript of 462 a. d., a London manuscript of the
sixth century, and from a subsidiary Armenian version (col
lated by Merx in Wright and McLean's edition) made be
fore 441 A. D.; so that there is some ground even for the
claim of those who think the translator may have been a
contemporary of Eusebius himself. For our purpose it is
sufficient to place in one column the accepted Greek text,
with collation of the MS. variants, the more or less arbitrary

no

THE FOURTH GOSPEL

Latin renderings of Rufinus and Jerome, and the excerpts
of Nicephorus, while we set in a parallel column an English
rendering of Nestle's translation of the Syriac carefully com
pared with the original.! italics are used to call attention
to the variations of the Syriac from the Greek text, [] for
its omissions.
The Papias Fragment

Greek Eusebius
OvK oKvqcTui Se o-ot Koi ocra
TTOTC ira/jo, TU)v TTpecr^vTiputv Ka-
\<Ji>S €/j.o.6ov Kal KaAoJs iiJLVr]fj,6-
V€V(Ta (TvyKaTardiai " rais ^p/^rj-
5 1'euxis 8ta/3e/3atovju.€vos VTrep
avriov aXrjOaav. ov yap tois
TO. TToXXa. Xeyovcrtv tyfaipov
IMTirtp 06 TToXXoi, dAXa TOtS
TaXTqO^ 8i8a.(TKOvcnv, oiSe tols
10 dAAorptas ivroXas /xvrjfjiovevov-
(riv, dXXa. Toll Tcts Trapa. rov
Kvpiov Trj TTiCTTei SeSo/iei/as ''
KaL OLTT avrrji ¦Ko.payivofx.h/OL^ "
T^s aXriOtlas. Ei 8e ttov koX
15 TTO.prjKoXovOrjKo)'; tis Tois wpter-
fivTepoii eXOoi, tous tcov
¦irpe(rj3vT,epu}v av€Kpivov° Xoyovs,
TL AvSpea'S fj Ti ZleVpos ehrev
r) TL ^lAtTTTTOS rj Tt ©(O/xSs ^
1 By the kindness of Professor C. C.
" Var. (rvfTd^ai. Ruf. exponere
cum interpretationibus suis.
^ Ruf. qui domini mandata me-
morabant. ° Var. irapayivoixivas.
^ Ruf. apostolos.
" Ruf. expiscabar. Jer. conside-
rabam.

Syriac Version
I do not scruple to adduce
for thee in these interpreta
tions of mine that also which
I well learned [ ] " from the
Elders and well remember.
And I attest on behalf of
these men ' the truth. For I
did not take dehght in those
who have much to say, as
many do, but in those who
teach the truth; neither in
those who recall command
ments of strangers, but in
those who transmit what was
given by our Lord to the faith,
and is derived and comes from
the Truth (itself). Neither'
did I when any one came
along who had been a fol-
Torrey. " Syr. om. irore.
'' Syr. masc.
" Gressmann (Th. Ltz., 1901, p.
644) (Contrariwise) not ei'en when.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS

III

20 'laxto/Sos ' ^ TL 'lii)dvvr)i ^
Mar^aios ^ th crtpos tUv tov
KVpLov p,a6rjTii)v, a re 'Apia-
Tia>v Kai 6 TTpea-fivTepoi 'Imdv-
vrji oi TOV Kvptov p-aOr/Toi
25 Xtyovo-LV.^ ov yap to, Ik toiv
/8ty8A.i<ov TocrovTov p.e iicjjeXtiv
vireXa.p,j3avov ocrov to. irapa
^uxrrjs </)(oi/^s Kol p.a/ov<7rjs .^

lower of the Elders, compare
the words of the Elders: what
Andrew said, or what Peter
said, or what Philip, or what
Thomas, or what James, or
what John, or Matthew, or
any other of the disciples of
our Lord. Nor what Aristo ''
or John the Elder" [].¦'' For
I did not think that I could
so profit from their " books, as
from the living and abiding
utterance.

The sense given by S to the Papias fragment is clear
enough. He makes Papias distinguish three classes of
teaching: (i) "the commandments of the Lord," "the Truth
itself," which when reported by the actual ear- witnesses
could be described as a " hving and abiding utterance."
These are the object of Papias' quest. (2) The second class
includes "words of the Elders," oral or written. By "the
Elders" S understands "the disciples of our Lord" men
tioned by name, and "Aristo [sic] and John the Elder," the
designation of the last two by the same title as the apostles
being omitted. To "books" S attaches the possessive
"their books," showing that he is thinking of the Gospels.
From the sayings and writings of "the Elders" (i. e., apos
tles) ! Papias could profit, but not "so profit as from the

' Nic. (Ill, 20) i) tI 'Zliuav Id/cw-
;8os. ^ Ruf. ceterique discipuli dice-
bant. Jer. discipuli domini loque-
bantur. Nic. (II, 46) om.
*" Jer. add. in suis auctoribus.

"* Arm. Aristos.
" Arm. the elders; simple addi
tion of the plural points in Syr.
^ Syr. om. oi rov Kvpiov fjLa6tjTal
\^yov<rtv. " Syr. add. their.

1 Jerome at this point is even less scrupulous than S. To make it per
fectly clear that "the Elders" are really the men of the first generation, he

112 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
living and abiding voice." (3) The third class of teaching
includes the wonder-tales or "commandments of strangers"
current in Papias' vicinity, but which were useless or worse.
To obtain this sense the Greek text has suffered; partly by
S's intentional reconstruction, partly by accident. The ex
traordinary rendering, "Neither did I . . . compare
the words of the Elders," which excites the wonderment of
Zahn and Gutjahr, may be due to simple accident. GIAG
has been misread OYAG, probably from illegibility of the
first two letters. The rest of the changes are systematic, in
cluding the omissions.
Although in vol. xvii of the Journal of Bibl. Lit. (1898) I
had already published previous to the appearance of the
Syriac a conjectural emendation of the clause designating
Aristion and John the Elder as "disciples of the Lord," point
ing out that several references in Irenaeus suggest 01 TOYTCO
MAeHTAI instead of 01 TOY KY MAGHTAI,! and that tran
scriptional and internal evidence alike support the former
reading, I cannot agree with Mommsen, who welcomed S's
omission here, as representing the true reading.^ On the con
trary, Corssen ^ rightly insists that some designation of these
unknown men is indispensable to the context. Manifestly
it should not be a designation identical with that just em
ployed for the apostles themselves, but one which marks the
distinction imperfectly imphed in the contrast of tenses
adds in the last clause "in the person of their authors," ;. c, the apostolic
authors of the Gospels (viva vox usque hodie in suis auctoribus personans).
1 Edwin A. Abbott in adopting the conjecture (Encycl. Bibl. s. v. " Gospels,"
col. 1815, n. 3) improves upon it by using the supra-linear Une in the word
TovTuv, He also cites an instance of the same corruption in Jud. 4:24.
LXX, Twv vtujv B, but A kv (i. e. Kvpiov) viwv.
2 Abbott had previously taken this \iew (I. c.) on the basis of Arm. " The
words 'the disciples of the Lord' can hardly have followed 'Ariston, etc.,'
in the text used by Eusebius. . . This . is confirmed by
(i) their absence from the Armian version," etc.
3 Zts. f. ntl. Wiss. iii (1902), p. 244.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 113
(etTre, Xeyovai), and more adequately in the case of the
second individual, who might otherwise be confused with
the Apostle, by the epithet "the Elder." The distinction
should be that of the second generation, as in Lk. 1:2;
Heb. 2 :3. The original in Papias was, as I have maintained
and still maintain, 01 tovtojv /xaOrjTdi, i. e., "the Elders the
disciples of the Apostles," so frequently referred to in Acts,
Hegesippus, and authorities dependent on Papias.! But
the corruption is earlier than Eusebius, probably earlier
even than Irenaeus. In Eusebius' text the phrase had
already been assimilated to that of the line preceding, else
Eusebius would not have been obliged to rely on gram
matical arguments (Stao-reiXa? tov Xoyov . . . Tr/oora^a?
avTO) TOV 'ApccTTwva) to prove his point. Indeed, the cor
ruption may well be largely responsible for the blundering of
Irenaeus himself. But S in omitting the clause is not follow
ing a better text of Eusebius, much less is he consulting a
text of Papias. He is probably not even sensitive to the
"chronological difficulty" which Lightfoot himself admitted
to be occasioned by the clause.^ On the contrary, he makes
two other changes in harmony with the Irenaean anachron
ism: he omits Trore' and obliterates the difference of tense
(el-rre, Xeyovac), the only remaining trace of the chronologi
cal distinction. No, S's omission (followed by Arm.) is
doubtless occasioned by the manifest incongruity, which pro
duces the same result in one of the two excerpts of Nicephorus
Calhstus,^ not to speak of other changes by Rufinus and
others* at the same point. "Aristo" [sic] and "John the
Elder" could not be regarded as "disciples of the Lord" in
^ E. g., IreniEUS, Her. V, v, i and x.xxvi, 2, "The Elders, the disciples of
the Apostles." Euseb. vapd rCiv (keIvois (the apostles) yvapliiuiv.
'^Supern. Rel., p. 150, n.
3 II, 46. The excerpt III, 20 retains it.
* Rufinus omits rov Kvplov. Four Greek MSS. omit oi.
Fourth Gospel — 8

114 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the same sense as the designation had just been applied to
Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, and Matthew.
Changes were felt to be imperative. Arm., which simply adds
plural points to the Syriac "the Elder," makes a shrewd
guess at the real meaning; but the simplest remedy was to
drop the unintelligible clause as a repetition. S understood
very well that Andrew, Peter, Philip, and the rest were desig
nated fiaOrjTai (not dirocTToXoL) , because the matter con
cerned was the transmission of teachings (fiadTJuara). He
knew the first "disciples" included no such names as "Aris
tion and John the Elder." The clause was patently erro
neous; therefore he dropped it along with the Trore and the
Xeyovcri. In the extract he does but one further violence
to his text; he changes the spelling of the name "Aristio"
to "Aristo." The form Aristo then becomes current in
Armenian texts, being adopted in the Edschmiazin Codex of
Conybeare from Moses of Chorene. This is a comparatively
harmless, though mistaken identification of the unknown
"Aristion" with "Aristo" of Pella, a heathen writer!
quoted by Eusebius a few pages farther on. Moses of
Chorene adds to the quotation, while Maximus Confessor,
on the basis of a (misunderstood?) passage of Clement,
declares Aristion to have been the author of the Dialogue of
Jason and Papiscus.^ Gutjahr is probably mistaken in
supposing S to have read avveKptvov for dve'icpivov in the
clause, "Neither did I compare the words of the Elders."
1 Perhaps the same as Aristo of Gerasa (30 miles from Pella) referred to
as an da-retos ji'fiToip by Stephen of Byzantium.
2 As I have shown elsewhere (Hastings, Diet, of Christ and Gospels, s. v.
"Aristion"), Conybeare's apparent discovery of the authorship of Mk. 16:
9-20 turns out to tie a mare's nest. Moses of Chorene was understood by the
Armenian scribe to have declared that Hadrian made Aristo of Pella the
secretary of "Mark" when he appointed him (Marcus) bishop of Jerusalem.
Hence he attributes the Appendix which he introduces for the first time into
Armenian codices to "the Elder ArLsto," the secretary of Mark.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 115
S renders dveKpivov in the same way elsewhere, employing
the same word (p'ham) for "verify by comparison (with
the Gospels)." He inserts an alrSv, as we have seen, after
^i^Xieov in 1. 23, and renders avTcdv in 1. 5 as a masculine —
pardonable hberties. The rest of his variants have signifi
cance only as supporting the preferred reading irapayivop.eva'i
in 1. 12.
The net result of S's work on the Papias fragment is then
as follows: Papias appears, as in Irenaeus, as the immediate
ear-witness of moTe than seven of the apostles, besides two
individuals, one of whom is called "the Elder"; but the
words of Elders, even Apostle-Elders, are of quite subordinate
value to him. He is not seeking their words, but words of
the Lord, to which they can bear witness. Needless to say
this is not the sense of the Greek. Here the all-important
word is the term Tr/aecr/Sure/ao?, four times repeated in the
paragraph. Their words are just what Papias is after. The
"commandments delivered by the Lord to the faith" have
been already considered with their interpretations. But the
interpretations are disputed. As Polycarp had declared at
a much earlier date, "the oracles of the Lord" were being
perverted by the Antinomians to their own lusts. The
heretics denied also "the resurrection and judgment." The
books of "John" (the Apostle and revelator) and of "Mat
thew," ! representing as they did the apostolic teaching on
the two points of doctrinal contention required to be sup
plemented by "turning to the tradition handed down from
the beginning." It is exactly this which Papias undertakes
to do. He may even have had the twenty-four books of
Basihdes' Exegetica in mind in adopting his own title. But
1 As already shown, Papias knows John the Apostle as (reputed) author
of Revelation. He "used testimonies" from I Jn., and therefore may have
known the Fourth Gospel. That he considered John its author is improba
ble. His "Matthew" is certainly ours.

ii6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
we shall best get the sense of Papias' response to Polycarp's
appeal by reproducing the paragraph from his preface in
simple outhne. The process is easy, for in spite of adverse
criticism the style of the fragment is admirably clear and
logical; its structure is perfectly in accord with the best
principles of Greek rhetoric. Simply drop the subordinate
clauses, and sense and logic force themselves free of the
false presuppositions introduced by the Irena;an misdating.
^vyKaTaTo^u) ocra epxidov irapa. tuiv Trpe.<7/3vT(po>v, Kal virip avruiv 8ia-
fie^aiovfJiaL dXiy^eiav
ow yap . oXXa Tots ToXrjOrj . .
ovSe. ctAAa tois ras . . rrj^ aXrjOeia'i.
el 8e TTOV TzaprjKoXovdrjKii'S tl^ rots Trpecr/SvTepoLi eX6oL rows tCiv
TTpe^lSvTipwv avcKpLVOv Adyovs"
ov yap TO. cK t<!)v ^i/iXioiv .
ocrov TO. irapa ^uxrrj's <f>o>vrj';.
Everything here concerns the traditions of "the Elders"
which Papias thinks not unworthy to be subjoined to his
interpretations of the Lord's oracles. Hence the emphatic
po.sition and reiteration of the word "Elders." He bespeaks
for their words higher consideration than such traditions are
wont to receive because of the care he had taken in col
lecting them. This method he then describes in two nega
tive clauses and one affirmative :" I did not . . . , nor did
I . . . , but when a follower of the Elders came along
I inquired for the words of the Elders." Finally, he justifies
his going beyond the instruction of his own teachers by the
superiority of oral tradition thus sifted to books.
Whom Papias meant by "the Elders" wc have yet to
inquire. All that is apparent thus far is that it is not, as S
supposes, words of the Lord of which he is here speaking,
but "words of the Elders," and that he gives no indication
of meaning anything different by the term "Elders" in one
part of the passage from what he means in another. True,

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 117
Eusebius, and Irenaeus before him, took "Elders" in 1. 15 to
equal "disciples of the Lord." Jerome actually adds three
words to the text (1. 26) to force this meaning upon it. But
the evidence that Abbott justly demands ! that the word
was ever so used has yet to be supplied. Even if Irenaeus and
Eusebius were not misled by the corruption of tovtcov to
TOV Kvpiov, we have seen that Irenaeus was blinded by his
own prejudice on this point, and Eusebius was similarly
precluded from more than a partial correction. The real
distinction which Papias makes is between teachings from
"books" and "words of the Elders" who reported the "living
and abiding voice" of apostles. The latter he got from
chance comers who had been their (the Elders') followers,
in particular followers of Aristion and the Elder John. The
former he had obtained like others about him from those who
had "taught the truth."
But since we are now dealing only with S and his evi
dences of Tendenz, let us leave temporarily his distortion
of Papias, and see what he makes of the argument of Euse
bius which incloses the extract. Here, too, wc find the same
bias in favor of Eusebius' opponent. The introductory sen
tence runs thus:
Context of Eusebius
Airds ye juijv 6 IlaTrTrtas But he, Papias, does not
Kara rd irpootfuov tS>v avTov show at the beginning of his
Xdycov aKpoaTrjv p.ev Kal av- words that he had heard from
ToiTTTjv oTuSap-Sii lavTov ye.vi(T- the holy Apostles, or had seen
5 QaL Twv UpSiv diroaToXujv them. But that he had re-
lp,(f>aLvu, irapuXrj<f>evaL Se to. ceived words of the faith from
TTjs iTia-Tem irapa roiv eKuvoL'i men that had known the Apos-
¦yvwpijLKuv StSao-Kti, Si' wv ties he teaches in these words,
<^7yo-tv Xe^ewv. Saying:
1 Encycl. Bibl, s. -u. "Gospels," § 71.

ii8

THE FOURTH GOSPEL

Here follows the extract as above; thereafter:

*Ev^a Kal iTncTTrjcraL diiov
ots KaTapLupovvTi avTtZ to
Iwdvvov ovop.a, wv tov fJLiV
irpoTepov Ilerpa) Kal 'laKcoySoi
5 Kal Mar^a«i> Kal rots AotTTOt?
aTrocrrdAots avyKaTaXtyei, cra-
<^<i)S 8r]Xii>v TOV tiayyeXicTTTjv ,
TOV 8' erepov liodvvrjv, Sia-
(rreiXas rdv Xoyov, erepois irapa
10 rdr Tiov diroo'ToXiov dpidfjibv
/cararao-o-ei, irpOTd^ai avTov
TOV 'ApiaTLwva, cra<^Ss re
avTov irpecr/ivTepov 6vop.d^eL-
£)<; Kal Sia totjtwv diroSeLKWo'dai
15 Trjv LCTTOpCav aXi^drj tuiv Su'o
Kara Ttjv Acrtav 6p(ovvp.La
Ke)(pTJcr$ai elprjKOTWv, 8vo re
ev E<j)ecru) yeve'cr^at pvqp.aTa
KoX tKaTtpov 'Iioavvov ert vvv
20 Xeyeo'OaL' ols Kat avayKatov
irpo(Te)^eiv tov vovv, eiKos yap
rdv Seurepov, ei p.'q ris e^eAot
rdv irpuiTov, rr/v iir dvd/Aaros
ejiepo/xev/jV loidvvov dirOKdXv-
25 i/ftv kuipaKevoL- kol 6 vvv Se
ij/xiv STyAovjiievos Ilairirtas Tovis
yu.ev tS>v diroo'ToXuiv Xoyovi
irapa tS)v avrots irapijKoXov-
OrjKOTwv 6p.oXoycL irapuXrj<l>t-
30 vai, Apia-TLWvo'S Se Kat roB
irpeo^fivTtpov 'Itudwov avrv;-
Koov eaurdv (ftrjcri yeve'cr^ai"'

But here it is requisite for
us to understand that he twice
enumerates the name of .John;
the first, he reckons him to
gether with Peter and James
and Matthew and the rest of
the Apostles, simply pointing
to the Evangelist," but the
other John, him he distin
guishes by the word, and joins
him in a different way to the
number of the Apostles, and
places Aristo (sic) before him;
and him he distinctly calls
"Elder," so that we show from
this regarding the story that
it is true, of those who said
that there were two in Asia
who had the same name, and
their graves are in Ephesus,
and both to this day are called
John; since it behooves us to
reflect in our mind. For the
Revelation which is called
John's, if one do not admit
that it is from John the Evan
gelist, it is probable that it
was manifested to this other
man. But he, this Papias, of
whom we have now given ac
count, testifies that he received
the words of the Apostles from

" Ruf. om. Se, and avrijKoov
yevEcdai.

' Lond. Syr.: the evangelists.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 119
dvo/xao-rt yoCv'' iroXXaKi^ av- those who were their follow-
T<i)v fivr)fiov(.wTai Iv roTs avroS ers, and from Aristo (sic) and
35 a-vyypdp.fiaa-iv TLOrjo-tv avTuiv from the Elder John. For he
TrapaSdcreis. said that he had listened to
tliem and he often mentions
them by name, and in his
books he records the tradition
he received from them.
Now that we have supphed the key to these systematic
mistranslations further comment is needless. We only sub
join one further passage as additional proof that the motive
is, as stated, to restore to Papias as much as possible of his
authority as an dp-)(^aLO<i dvijp avri^Koo^ toov diroaToXcov, in
spite of Eusebius. It is the famous passage cited by Euse
bius in which Irenaeus quotes Papias by name.
TaBra Se Kat IlaTrTrtas d Ituav- This Papias also said, who
vov aKovcTTrji . iyypd<j)(Ds iirL- heard (it) from John
pxipTvptL ktX. and in writing he testifies . . .
To Gutjahr this translation is a God-send, for it makes
him a present of the most serious obstacle to his theory, the
admitted impossibility of grammatically rendering the pas
sage as if it read Kal iyypd(po)<;, instead of kuI HaTTTria?.
When S translates, not only does Papias become a direct
hearer of John, but Irenaeus becomes a direct hearer of
Papias, and the strength of the traditional succession is
doubled. Hallelujah !
It should be by now sufficiently apparent that Iren^us,
Eusebius, S, and Jerome all have the same bent as regards
the interpretation of Papias. Eusebius is far more of a
scholar, and confesses that the vital point of his contention
for "another John in Asia" known to Papias is not sup-
* Ruf. unde et. '' Petersb. Syr., Arm. om.

120 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
ported by the text; but on the question of Papias' chrono
logical rank in the succession of apostolic tradition he has
the same propensity and the same prejudice as the rest. In
stead of dating his work in 145-160 a. d. as does Harnack,
on the basis of the recently recovered de Boor fragment,!
which shows Papias dependent on the Apology of Quadratus,
instead of recognizing in him a contemporary of Justin
Martyr, Eusebius is still under the glamour of the descrip
tion he had adopted from Irenaeus in his Chronology. Papias
was an dp'x^aZo^ dvijp, a contemporary if not strictly an
avTrJKoo'i of apostles, so that those to whom he referred as
"the Elders" must be synchronous, if not identical, with
"the disciples of the Lord." How much of this idea was
due to the textual corruption by which those whom Eusebius
assumed to have been Papias' immediate informants were
also designated "the disciples of the Lord," we need not
pause to estimate. The misconception is certainly present,
and a truly dispassionate exegesis of the fragment requires
that we take account of the fact. The final step in our in
quiry, accordingly, must be an analysis of the extract, ap
proached without either of the Eusebian prepossessions as to
(a) the closeness of Papias to the apostles, or (b) his relation
to "the Elder John," which, if immediate, would imply that
this John also was "in Asia."
We note that Papias "subjoins" Words of the Elders to
his "interpretations" in spite of some reason for hesitation
1 TlaTrias 6 etp'qp.^vos l<rr6pi](7ep ws irapa\a^(jji' dTb rGtv Svyar^poiv ^CKItttov,
6tl Bapaa^ds 6 Kal 'lovaros SoKLp.a^6pL€vos vi/b twv diriiTToiv, Ibv ^x^^^V^ iri^v h
6v6p.aTt rov 'KptaTov diradi^s 5ie(/)uXdx^T?. lo'Topei S^ Kal dWa QaifxaTa Kal pA-'Kiffra
rb Kard t^v firji^pa Mavatp-ov ttjv 4k veKpQv dvatxrdcrav. irepi Twtt inrb tov
^ptarov iK veKpQv dvaffrdvrwv 6tl ^ois *ASpi.avou %^(jov. Papias seems to have
taken Quadratus' statement that some of those who had experienced the
miraculous power of Jesus in healing and raising from the dead "lived even
to OM>-day" as referring to the day of Hadrian, to whom Quadratus was ad
dressing the Apology. At all events, his reference to " the times of Hadrian "
implies a date after the close of Hadrian's reign.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 121
(ovK oKvqaco). They, too, have value as interpreting the
"commandments given by the Lord to the faith," although
they would not be so esteemed, if the reader did not know
how carefully and discriminatingly they had been gathered.
For (i) Papias can testify in his own behalf that he had
given heed to the twofold warning of Polycarp ! against 'rr)v
fiaraiOTTiTa riav ttoXXmv, as well as ra? ¦^evSoSiSaaKaXLa';.
Both these classes of false teaching were already current in
Papias' youth, but he had kept himself to those who taught
the orthodox faith. But (2) he had not confined himself to
what these teachers, excellent as they were, could give him,
but had sought testimonies of the apostles themselves. For
Papias had also followed the advice of Polycarp in "turn
ing to the tradition handed down from the beginning."
But how ? Not, of course, by applying directly to the apos
tles themselves, as Irenaeus and his satellites, ancient and
modern, assume. Such a sense for the term "words of the
Elders" makes the whole passage ridiculous. Who indeed
would "hesitate to subjoin" to his own "interpretations of
the Lord's words" the words of apostles — and apologize for
the addition! But the "words of the Elders" are here con
trasted not merely with the /JLaTacoXoyta rav iroXXav and
the dXXoTpiai ivToXai of the Gnostics, but primarily with
rd iK Twv /Sl^Xlcdv, which his own teachers in Asia had given
him, but which "did not profit so much." What, then, does
Papias mean by "Words of the Elders" ? And whence does
he get them? If one could depend upon the emendation 01
TOYTOO MAGHTAI for the second 01 TOY KY MAGHTAl, aU
would be plain; for we should then understand that "the
Elders" in Papias mean "the disciples of the Apostles" (01
iiceivcov yvQipiixoi), as they are indeed caUed in several depend
ent passages.^ More particulariy he would mean the group
in the original mother church and home of the apostles, to
1 Ad. Phil, vii.; cf. Papias, 11. 6-10. 2 See note i, p. 113.

122 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
which the author of Luke-Acts and Hegesippus look back as
the self-evident authorities in interpreting the Lord's com
mandments. "Aristion" would be an otherwise unknown
member of this Palestinian group, "John the Elder," proba
bly identical with the Jerusalem Elder of that name,! ^hose
death is placed by Epiphanius in 117 A. d.^
But the emendation is not yet admitted. We must depend
on the context.
"The Elder John" is distinguished from the Apostle not
merely by the debatable clause and title, but by the tense
of the verb. When Papias was making his inquiries the
apostles were dead. Many of "the Elders their disciples"
were also dead, but Aristion and the Elder John were stiU
alive. For some reason (distance seems to be that implied
in el' Ti'; eXOoi) Papias could not interrogate these Elders
himself, but followers of theirs who came his way reported
to him the teaching they were then still giving. The same
chance-comers, or others like them, also reported the sayings
of other deceased Elders they themselves had heard. Such
traditions were to Papias strictly equivalent to teachings of
the disciples of the Lord, "Andrew . . . Matthew," as
giving the true sense of the Lord's commandments. They
could be called "living and abiding," because reported by at
least two surviving ear-witnesses. Papias not unreasonably
thought them worthy of altogether different consideration
from the p.araioTrj'i and dXXorpiai ivToXai injuriously preva
lent in Asia. They even seemed to him of more advantage
than the "books" his own local Elders interpreted, for
Papias seems to have known no strictly apostohc gospels
for the determination of the real intent of "the oracles of
the Lord." What their real value was wc have several
examples to inform us — the tradition of the woman taken
1 Euseb. H. E. IV, v, 3. 2 Haer. Ixvi, 20.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 123
in adultery,! of Jesus' senior age,^ of the miraculous fertility
of the soil in the messianic age,^ of the three degrees in
heaven,* etc.
The interpretation here given to the fragment rests pri
marily upon the principle that it is unjustifiable to give a
fundamentally different sense to the most salient word of
the paragraph (¦Kpea^inepo<;) in four adjacent clauses, or to
draw an arbitrary line between the series of imperfects in
which the aiuthor describes his preparation for his task
(ep.adov, e'x^aipov, dveKpivov, vtreXdp.^avov).
It is true that in 11. 6-13 Papias refers to his teachers
(BiBda-Kova-tv), who need not necessarily be identical with
the "followers of the Elders" (¦jraprfKoXov6r)Km rt? tow
7rpe(7/3vTepoi<;), but to whom we have still less reason to apply
the title "the Elders" in 1. 2. It is true that he contrasts
their simplicity and orthodoxy with the qualities which at
tracted the crowd. But this is not for the sake of giving
the reader confidence in these unknown men, but in the
judgment of Papias himself, whose tastes were unhke the
multitude's (ex^pov). But why, if Papias' teachers taught
him "the truth," "commandments given by the Lord to the
faith," does he resort to others? Every reader asks himself
the question, and none of those whose hearts are set on the
assumption that his teachers were themselves "the Elders"
(or even the apostles !) gives any heed to the answer Papias
himself sets down with all explicitness. He questioned
travelers who "came his way" because only thus could he
get "the living and abiding voice" of apostles, the same
which to his mind guaranteed the inerrancy (ovhev rjfiapTe)
of Mark. From chance-comers who had been foUowers of
"the Elders" (the same referred to in 1. 2) he inquired what
(by the Elders' testimony) the apostles had said, and what
1 Euseb. H. E. Ill, xxxix, i6. 3 Iren. Her. II, xxii, 5.
2 Ibid., V, xxxiii, 3. * Ibid., V. xxxvi, i, 2.

124 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the surviving Elders were saying. He thought he could
learn more from these well-authenticated "living" words of
the Elders than from his own home teachers, because the
latter, excellent as they were, could only give him the con
tents of books (rd iK tSv ^i^XCcov).
Who, then, were "the Elders" whose words the chance-
comers reported ? We have two means of judging, (i) Eu
sebius tells us that the authorities largely relied on by Papias
for this kind of material were the Aristion and John men
tioned, the latter of whom is "distinctly called an Elder"
to distinguish him from the apostle of the same name. In
the same generation were the daughters of Philip, whose
traditions probably also came to Papias at second hand.
But these were themselves in Hierapohs, and were not
Elders. He does not mean these, nor does he mean Poly
carp, whom, if he were not among the teachers who "taught
the truth," we should expect to find named. He means a
group or class in which neither Polycarp nor the daughters
of Phihp would naturaUy be thought of by the reader, but
which did include "Aristion and the Elder John." (2) Ire
naeus preserves for us a number of the traditions in question,
which have indeed a strongly Jewish-Christian and chihastic
character, but are quite too legendary and artificial to be
really derived from apostles. Their character is that of
Jewish midrash, particularly that based on the fanciful in
terpretation of Gen. 27:28 in the Apocalypse of Baruch,''-
and the equally fanciful combination of Mt. 13:8 with
Mt. 20:28 (/8 text) to support the doctrine of three degrees
in the future abode of the righteous — Heaven, Paradise,
and "the City" (i. e., Jerusalem).
Both indications concur to prove that "the Elders" in this
case were no more apostles than were Papias' own teachers.
1 Ap. Bar. xxix, 5. See Rendel Harris in Expositor, 1S95, pp. 448-449,
and R. H. Charles, Apoc. of Baruch, p. 55, note.

THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS 125
The advantage of their words was not their proximity to
the apostles in time, but in place. Their words were brought
(idv T£? eXOoi) from the seat of the "hving and abiding
voice." Had the chance-comers themselves then actually
heard apostles? This is distinctly negatived by the con
trast of tense (ri elirev 'AvSpea^ . . . rt Xeyovaiv
'Apiaricov Kal 'Itaaw?;?). They could teU what the Elders
were saying, and what the apostles had said. Like the
Gospels which are and always have been valued both for
their authors' own representations, and stiU more for the
"oracles of the Lord" which they embody, were the "words
of the Elders" which Papias "subjoined to his own exposi
tions." These words concerned themselves with "what An
drew or what Peter had said, or what Philip, or what Thomas,
or James, or what John, or Matthew (for Papias was con
cerned to defend the Apocalypse and the first Gospel), or
any other of the Lord's disciples"; and in so far as in at least
two cases the testimonies were "living and abiding" their
rank was equivalent to that of the Gospel of Mark.
It is true that Papias includes both elements of this oral
gospel of the chance-comers — (a) reports of apostles' say
ings, and (b) teachings of their own immediate followers —
under the single phrase "words of the Elders" (dveKpivov
Toil? Xoyoin tSv irpea^vTepav), which led those of later
times, ignorant of the date of his writing, to the violence of
making irpecr ^vrepoiv in 11. 14-15 mean apostles, while in the
adjacent occurrences it was admitted to mean "disciples of
these." But if the corruption of text in 1. 22 had not oc
curred, this misunderstanding would have been impossible.
I have tried to show that even with it the remaining traces
of the chronological distinction enable all who will separate
the fragment from the prejudiced ideas of its later reporters
to obtain the true sense. It was just because the best teachers
in Asia could not report save from books (e«: tSv ^i^Ccov)

126 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
"what Andrew, or Peter, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, or
John, or Matthew, or any other of the Lord's disciples had
said" that Papias was obliged in his pursuit of "the living
and abiding voice" to question "those who came his way."
Polycarp, it would seem, like the other teachers of Asia who
"taught the truth," could give it only "from books." This
we should naturally infer from his epistle. Irenaeus cher
ished among the dearest recollections of that boyhood time
when "what boys learn growing with the mind becomes
joined to it," how Polycarp in public discourse had related
"his intercourse with John and with others who had seen
the Lord, and their words as he remembered them, and
what he heard from them concerning the Lord, and concern
ing his miracles and his teaching." Whether Polycarp's
acquaintance with those who "had seen the Lord" was
really, as Irenaeus maintains, with the Apostle John, or only
with the Elders, we have still to inquire.

CHAPTER V
JOHN IN ASIA, AND THE MARTYR APOSTLES !
Before proceeding to the history of the tradition regarding
John the Apostle as author of the writings emanating from
Asia in that second stage which is marked by the great
controversies in Rome as to the number of authoritative
gospels, we have one further question to consider from the
earlier period and more limited stage of Asia. The Irenaan
tradition of "apostles and elders" in Asia, was, as we have
seen, grossly exaggerated in the interest of the effort to es
tabhsh a fourfold "evangelic instrument" from "apostles."
Polycarp was its chief rehance, next to the misinterpreted if
not corrupt passage from Papias. Was it then so greatly
exaggerated as to introduce the whole sojourn of John the
Apostle in Asia without real basis in fact ?
Two principal grounds are advanced for this seemingly
radical skepticism towards Irenaeus. We have (i) evidence
from reported statements of Papias and from other sources
tending to show that the Apostle John died a martyr at the
hands of the Jews, and therefore probably in Palestine, quite
too early for the intercourse with Polycarp alleged by Irenaeus.
(2) We have also an extraordinary coincidence of silence in
all authorities earlier than Irenaeus concerning any such
sojourn of John in Asia, many of these authorities, includ
ing Polycarp himself, having the strongest motives for ad
vancing appeals to this supreme apostolic authority if they
could. This second, or negative, line of evidence falls prop-
1 In part reprinted by permission from the Expositor. Ser. VII, iv
(1907). 127

128 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
erly to be considered under Part II, since it is cormected
with the Roman debate of 160-220 A. d. originated, as we
have endeavored to show, by the claims of the Appendix to
the Fourth Gospel. The former, or positive (i) has been
very drastically presented by E. Schwartz,! whose conclusions
in their entirety, including even the date 44 A. d. for the
martyrdom of James and John, are regarded by so eminent
a scholar as Wellhausen as "demonstrated." Bousset and
others have argued independently for the martyrdom on
the basis of the Synoptic "prophecy" Mk. 10:35-40 =
Mt. 20:20-23, but without committing themselves to the
date 44 A. D., when, as reported in Acts 12: 2, "Herod the
king (Agrippa I) killed James the brother of John with the
sword." We may leave to Bousset, Schwartz, and Well
hausen their debate with Harnack and others regarding the
value of the two reports of the statement in Papias, and de
vote our attention primarily to the side-lights which may per
haps be gained by closer inspection of the Synoptic repre
sentation, as well as from a glance at Hegesippus' very con
fused account of the martyrdom in Jerusalem ca. 62 A. d.
of the better known James, "the brother of the Lord."
The gospel writers know of but three among the twelve
who suffered martyrdom, and even tradition, which busied
itself in developing the later career of each apostle, long
hesitated to award the martyr's crown to any save Peter
and James and John. The last-named held a curiously
vacillating position of both martyr and surviving "witness
(fidpTv;) of Messiah." He drank the cup of Jesus (accord
ing to legend a cup of poison) and was baptized with his
baptism of death (according to legend immersion in boiling
oil), but emerged from the ordeal unharmed, to continue un
touched of corruption in a sleep that only resembled death
until the coming of the Lord. The legend is due to the
1 Tod der Sohne Zebedaei, Berlin, 1904.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 129
harmonistic interweaving in later fancy of two antithetic
prophecies of Jesus, one to the disciples at the Declaration
of Messiah's Fate, "Some that stand by shaU not taste of
death tiU they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom"; i
the other to James and John, as they ask the preeminent
places in the messianic kingdom, "Ye shall indeed drink
of my cup, but to sit at my right and left hand is reserved
for them that are worthy." Peter is the third, who had
offered to go with Jesus to prison and death; but broke down
in the attempt.
Regarding the actual fate of these apostohc volunteers to
martyrdom only one is reported in positive, distinct terms
by any New Testament writer. In Acts 12 :if. Luke informs
us of the decapitation of James by Agrippa I early in the
year 44 a. d. As to Peter's fate, while the tradition is early,
and apparently trustworthy, that he perished at Rome by
crucifixion in the Neronian persecution of 64 a. d., the only
New Testament references to it are in the veiled language
of symbohsm. The Appendix to the Fourth Gospel, bal
ancing the respective claims of the apostle to whom leader
ship over the flock of Christ is committed, and the "other
disciple" whose task it is to "witness" until the Lord come,
shows already the traces of the harmonization of the two
antithetic prophecies already referred to, in application to
John. Peter, who had been told when first he volunteered
1 Mt. i6:28 = Mk. 9:1 = Lk. 9:27. As an actual promise of Jesus the pas
sage is not only supported by this strong array but by the kindred saying
Mt. 24:34 = Mk. i3:30 = Lk. 21:32, and by the conviction of the whole
primitive Church, attested by Paul in numerous well-known passages, that
the second advent was to come "quickly," while some of them "were alive
and remained." The unique phrase "taste of death" is an indication that
Jesus has in mind the expected "witnesses of Messiah," Moses (or Enoch)
and Elias, who in Jewish Apocalypse (II Esdr. 6:26) attend the coming of
Messiah as "the men that were taken up, that have not tasted death from
their birth." The meaning seems to be repeated in the Lukan assurance
(Acts 1:8), "Ye are my witnesses."
Fourth Gospel — 9

130

THE FOURTH GOSPEL

to lay down his life for Jesus, "Thou canst not follow me
now, but thou shalt follow afterwards" (Jn. 13:36),! is
told now, "When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, and
walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be
old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird
thee,^ and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." The au
thor adds that Jesus "spake this signifying by what manner
of death Peter should glorify God," and then significantly
adds that "when Jesus had spoken this he saith unto him,
Follow me."
This account leaves little doubt in the mind of the reader
accustomed to the symbolism of the Fourth Gospel, that an
allusion is intended to the time, and even the manner, in
which Peter's too self-confident offer, "Lord, why cannot I
follow thee even now? I will lay down my life for thee"
was to find at last its worthy fulfilment.
But while the symbolic veil is less transparent, there is
one other gospel fragment which seems to the present writer
scarcely less certainly concerned with the same over-confident
offer of Peter to "follow," redeemed, after a first humihat
ing failure, by an altimately victorious faith. It forms an
appendix in Mt. 14:28-32 to the Markan story of Jesus'
Walking on the Sea. This narrative itself is suggestive of
symbolism, from its connection with the Feeding of the Mul
titude, wherein the fourth evangelist rightly finds a type of
the Agape with its memorializing (in the appended eucharist)
1 The relation of this passage to that of the Appendix is one of several
proofs that the process of final editing which sent forth this Gospel to the
churches was not limited to the mere attachment of a postscript, but laid
hold also of the substance. See below, Ch. XVIII, and my Introd. to N. T.,
igoo, p. 274.
2 In the Orient old men are girded by standing up, stretching out the
hands and revolving the body, thus winding around the waist the long
sash or girdle, whereof one end is held by an attendant. Young men gird
themselves.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 131
of the Lord's death (Jn. 6:52-58). Jesus by his death had
been separated from the disciples, leaving them to battle
alone against the elements of the world, yet left them not
alone, but triumphing over all the waves and biUows of
death which had gone over him, came to them, cheered them
and piloted their craft to its desired haven. For those to
whom triumph over the sea-monster was a favorite symbol
for Jesus' victory over the power of death and the under
world,! ^jj(j jjjg rebuije of the storm which threatened the
boat-load of disciples on Gennesaret one of the proofs of his
messianic power, such a combination in the symbolism of sac
ramental teaching is not difficult to conceive.^
Whether or not this be the case with Mk. 6:45-52, which
the evangelist declares to have been a sign misunderstood
at the time by the disciples because "their heart was hard
ened," Matthew's addition to the story is highly suggestive
of symbolic intent. When Peter saw Jesus treading the bil
lows under foot he entreated:
"Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee upon the wa
ters. . . . But when he saw the wind he was afraid; and be
ginning to sink, he cried out, saying. Lord, save me. And immedi
ately Jesus stretched forth his hand and took hold of him, and
saith unto him, O thou of litde faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? "
We have httle difficulty in recognizing in the legend of
Domine, quo vadis? a variation on this same theme of
Peter's denial and recovery. It is certainly conceivable
that this representation of Peter's ultimately successful at
tempt to share in Jesus' triumph over the powers of the
under-world should have been promoted by a fate which re
deemed his promise to "follow unto prison and death,"
though the primary reference is to his " turning again."
1 Cf- Mt. 12:40, and Jona, H. Schmidt, 1907.
2 For an instance of the kind very fully elaborated see the Epistle of
Clement to James (prefixed to the Clementine Homilies), xiv.

132 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
To the practically certain allusion in Jn. 13:36-38; 21 :i8 f.
we may, therefore, join Mt. 14: 28-32 as a possible second al
lusion within the limits of the gospels, though only in their
latest elements, to the martyrdom of Peter. It remains to
be seen whether further traces may not be discoverable of
other apostolic martyrdoms.
An increasing number of critics, beginning with the in
dependent conclusions of Bousset and Wellhausen, are con
vinced that the "prophecy" to the two sons of Zebedee,
"Ye shall indeed drink of my cup," could not have obtained
its place in Mk. io:39 = Mt. 20:23, ^.nd then maintained it
unaltered until the stereotyping of the tradition, unless the
prophecy had actually met fulfilment. These critics are
therefore disposed to accept as genuine and historical the
fragment of Papias recently published by de Boor ! in which
this writer of about 150 a. d. declares that "John and James
his brother were killed by the Jews," to which an interpo
lator of the Codex Coislinianus adds, "thus fulfilhng the
prophecy of Jesus concerning them." Zahn^ vainly endeav
ors to show why it is impossible that Papias — who un
doubtedly regarded the Apostle John as "in some sense re
sponsible for the Apocalypse"^ — can really have indorsed
this tradition. No reason exists why Papias may not have
referre^d this somewhat indefinite literary acti\-ity of the
apostle — or, for that matter the authorship of the whole
"Johannine" canon — to a period antecedent to this martyr
dom. The Muratorianum, if it docs not actually rest upon
Papias, is at least as open as Papias to all these objections
of incompatibility with the later tradition of John's survi\-al
to the times of Trajan. And the Muratorianum represents
John's authorship of Revelation as antecedent to the Pauline
1 Texte u. Untersuchungen, V, 2, p. 170.
2 Forschungen, VI, pp. 147 ff.
3 Fragments x and xi in The Apostolic Fathers, Lightfoot-Harmer, 1891.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 133
Epistles! As for the argument that later readers of Papias
could not then have accepted the tradition of the aged sur
vivor of the apostohc band, it is enough to observe that the
two writers who actually do quote the statement of Papias are
able to reconcile it with the accepted behef, and that those
who could not (such as Eusebius) have simply ignored it,
doubtless classing it with the fivOiKcorepa which Eusebius
claims to find in his pages.
Until some vahd reason is advanced, therefore, why this
doubly attested statement of the martyrdom of James and
John may not have stood on the pages of Papias, writing
ca. 150, it must be accepted as the simple historical fact,
in perfect harmony with the "prophecy" it was adduced to
confirm.! "VVhat must be explained is its displacement by
the subsequently dominant tradition of the survival of John,
the earliest attestation of this tradition being found again in
the Appendix to the Fourth Gospel (Jn. 21 : 23).
But it is not the whole truth to say that a tradition iden
tifying the surviving "witness of Messiah" of Mk. 9:1 with
John the son of Zebedee is attested by the apologetic of
John 21 : 23. The author does indeed undertake to vindicate
for "the disciple whom Jesus loved" a "white martyrdom"
in contrast to the "red martyrdom" of Peter. He goes
further. He undertakes a vindication of this form of the
tradition against the objection that the witness had died —
or at least might be expected to die. Not merely that the
word of Jesus had been conditionaUy spoken, but also that
the disciple's "witness" does in fact continue in the same
way as the witness of Moses and the prophets appealed to in
5:39. "This is the disciple that beareth witness to these
things (0 fiapTvpwv irepl tovtwv) and wrote these things."
1 We have, in addition to the twice reported statement of Papias, the
dates appointed in ancient martyrologies which fix for Stephen Decem
ber 26, for James and John December 27.

134 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
The paragraph, therefore, should be closed after verse 24,
not after verse 23. This is part of the truth concerning this
author's dealing with the tradition of the piapTvpia of John.
The other part, unfortunately ignored in current discussions
of the Appendix, is that it also deals (in the lightest touch
of symbolism to be sure, but no less surely) with the other
form of the tradition: John a sharer of Jesus' cup of mar
tyrdom. The author does not lightly use the term "follow"
in this connection. All possible literary art is used in verse 19
to indicate its pregnancy of meaning. If, therefore, he tells
us immediately after (verse 20) that "Peter, turning about,
seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following," and then
that Peter asked the question when he saw John "follow
ing," what then John's fate would be (Kvpie, ovro? he ri;),^
the ambiguity of the answer which Jesus returns is dehb
erately designed to cover both forms of the tradition. The
writer intends to meet the contention of both parties. Some
had thought John's fiaprvpia was to be a "following" in the
same sense in which Peter finally "followed" Jesus. Others
had thought it was to be that of the survivor of "those that
stood by" when Jesus declared that that generation should
not pass till the judgment came, a tarrying "without tasting
of death" until the Lord came, in the sense of "the wit
nesses of Messiah" of II Esdras 6:26.^ A "tarrying" or a
"following" witness — which had Jesus predicted for John?
1 The rendering "What shall this man do?" does not convey the sense.
The meaning is. By what manner of " witness " shall this man (emphatic
oBtos) glorify God?
2 "Whosoever remaineth . . shall see my salvation and the end of
my world. And they shall behold the men that have been taken up (Moses —
according to other authorities Enoch — and Elijah), who have not tasted
death from their birth."
On the current apocalyptic conception of the "witnesses of Messiah," the
"sons of oil" that "stand in the presence of the Lord of the whole earth"
as his "remembrancers" of the need of Zion, see Bousset, Legend of Anti
christ, the chapter on this subject, and Rev. 11:3-13.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 135
The Evangehst's answer to this question is: It cannot be
known whether Jesus predicted one fate or the other for
John. One thing is important. As Peter was given the
function of administrative care (as moderns might say, the
ruhng eldership) John was given that of interpretation of the
truth (the teaching eldership). Whatever the form of his
visible fiaprvpta, whether by life or by death, his enduring
"witness" to the Lord is that he "is a witness of these things
and wrote these things." The pertinence of the Appendix
as a commendation of the evangelic writing which it accom
panies resides, accordingly, in this paragraph Jn. 21:15-24 !
treated as a whole. The writer takes account of both forms
of the earlier tradition of the p.apTvpia of John, and substi
tutes for them his own, along with the book whose "truth"
he guarantees.
It is doubtful if the New Testament contains other aUu-
sions to the fiaprvpia of James and John, yet before we con
front the problem why the tradition interpreting it in John's
case in the sense of the tarrying witness (Mk. 9:1) should
have ultimately superseded that which interpreted it in the
sense of the following witness (Mk. 10:39), we must take
into account two more possible traces. The former may be
dismissed briefly, since its value is wholly dependent on our
judgment regarding the difficult question of the composite
structure of Revelation.
(i) In substantially its present form the Apocalypse of
John is a product of "the end of the reign of Domitian,"
as even Irenaeus was already aware. It seems to have in
cluded the portions which claim Johannine authorship at
least from before 155 a. d., when Justin already quotes it
as the work of this apostle. Whether the imputation to
John is older than the introductions and epilogues which
1 Verse 25 is not found in K*, and should be canceled as a later addition.
Tischendorf' s text rejects it.

136 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
seem to have been added "in the end of the reign of Domi
tian" would be difficult to say. For, as practically all re
cent critics admit, an older element borrowed from Jewish
apocalypse has been incorporated at least in the section
dealing with the two "witnesses of Messiah" in 11:1-13.
That these "witnesses" were originally Moses and Ehas is
quite apparent from the description of their miraculous en
dowments in verse 6.! Their prophecy follows upon the
voice of the seven thunders (Rev. 10) which the seer is for
bidden to write and commanded to "seal up." In a measure
it takes the place of these thunders, the witnesses themselves
having both of them the Ehjan weapon of fire from heaven,
so that "if any man shall desire to hurt them fire proceedeth
out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies." Never
theless, "when they shall have finished their testimony" the
beast from the abyss puts them to death. This, too, as we
learn from Mk. 9:13, is a genuine element of the old apoca
lyptic legend of Ehas. A vivid trait is the fact that their
dead bodies are suffered to lie exposed "in the street of the
great city." Finally, after the symbolic period of the half
of seven days,
"The breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood
upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them which beheld them.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them,
Come up hither. And they went up into heaven in the cloud,"
after the likeness of the ascension of Jesus.
The occidental reader would probably have some diffi
culty in guessing that "the great city" in whose streets the
bodies of the two witnesses lie unburied is Jerusalem (!),
were it not for the friendly editorial hand which inserts the
1 " These have the power to shut the heaven that it rain not during the
days of their prophecy (Elias); and thsy have power over the waters to turn
them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they
shall desire (Moses)."

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 137
explanation "that which spiritually is called Sodom and
Egypt, where their Lord also was crucified." But whom
does the incorporator of this bit of apocalypse mean by "the
two witnesses" ? For it is somewhat difficult to imagine him,
as a Christian, thinking of Moses' and Elias' return other
wise than in some Christian embodiment, as John the Bap
tist in the Synoptic writers is treated as a reincarnation of
Elias. Especially difficult is it when their martyrdom is
brought into express relation with that of Jesus as "their
Lord" (!), and their resurrection and ascension are depicted
in obvious relation to that of Jesus.
If the question were asked of Justin Martyr, we could
answer it at once. The "witness of Messiah," who comes
again in the guise of Elias to effect the "great repentance"
before the great and terrible day of the Lord (cf. Rev. 11:13)
is John the Baptist redivivus:
"Shall we not suppose that the word of God has proclaimed
that Elijah shall be the precursor of the great and terrible Day,
that is, of his (Jesus') second advent? 'Certainly,' he (Trypho
the Jew) answered. 'Weh, then, our Lord in his teaching,' I
continued, 'proclaimed that this very thing would take place,'
saying that Elijah would also come. And we know that this shah
take place when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come in glory from
heaven; whose first manifestation the Spirit of God, which was in
Elijah, preceded as herald in the person of John, a prophet among
your nation." ^
But the apocalyptist has not yet reduced the "two wit
nesses" to one; and he gives no indication that he has in
mind the Baptist. On the contrary, he seems to be think
ing of two martyrs of Jesus, whose fate provokes the bit
terest resentment in his mind against "the great city which
spiritually is called Sodom, and Egypt, where their Lord too
was crucified." For the stereotyped apocalyptic feature of
1 See the instructive context in Dial., xlix.

138 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the "great repentance" almost disappears from view in his
elaboration of the vengeance inflicted on the guilty city
through the earthquake, wherein a tenth part of the city is
destroyed and seven thousand persons are killed (verse 13;
cf. the earthquake of Mt. 27:51-53). Where hot indigna
tion flames out as here there must be something more than
scholastic borrowing of dead material.
The pages of the Synoptic Gospels, which reflect the
popular apocalyptic conceptions of the coming of Elias as
witness of Messiah, as martyr, as raised from the dead, and
perhaps (in Christian form) as avenger of Messiah's wrongs,
are those to which we must look for light on the question
what personalities, if any, the incorporator of Rev. 11:1-13
has in mind. In Matthew and Mark, John the Baptist
appears as Ehas, who anoints the Messiah and makes him
known to himself and the people.! -pj^g ^^^^ ^-j^^^ j^jg mar
tyrdom was in fulfilment of (apocryphal) prophecy is ad
mitted,^ and we have traces of its companion elements,^
the miracles which are supposed to "work in him" because
he is risen from the dead (Mk. 6:14), and his coming again
before the end (15:35 f.). But the last two conceptions are
only alluded to, not admitted by, the evangelist. The Bap
tist's function is complete, in Mark's idea, at his death.
On the other hand, Moses and Elias are certainly introduced
1 For the Jewish tradition on this point see Justin Martyr, Dial,, viii and
xlix. 2 Mk. 9:13. The only other trace of this in pre-Christian legend is in
the Slavonic Book of Biblical Antiquities attributed to Philo, where Elias
redivivus in the person of Phineas is put to death by the tyrant.
3 The apocalyptic developments of the doctrine of. the "witnesses" are
fond of introducing the trait of the duel of wonders in which the true wit-
ness(es) withstand and outdo the wonders -of the false prophet(s) in the
presence of the tyrant; as Moses and Aaron withstood Jannes and Jambres
in the presence of Pharaoh. The great repentance ensues upon the final
victory of the witnesses in raising the dead. Cf. Bousset, Legend of .Antichrist
and the Clementine duel of Peter (and Paul) against Simon Magus.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 139
as witnesses of Messiah in the remarkable scene of the
Transfiguration; only their function is obscure. It is not
clear whether their appearance in "the vision" witnessed
by the three disciples is prophetic of the glory that is to be
by-and-by, or whether it is an uncovering to their minds of
the present hidden reality. Perhaps both.!
In Luke the crudity of the Markan apocalyptic ideas is
much modified. The Baptist was from his birth a fore
runner "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (1:17, 76-79;
7:27), but the direct identification with Ehas (Mt. 11:14),
the statement that "scripture" had been fulfilled in his
martyrdom, and the cry from the cross, are omitted. The
allusions to popular expectations of the resurrection of Elias
and his mighty works are also almost completely suppressed.
"Moses and Elias" still appear in the Transfiguration to
predict the crucifixion (9:31; cf. 24:25-27); but instead of
coming again from the dead to effect the great repentance,
Israel is forewarned in a special appendix to the parable of
the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:26-31) that if theydo not
accept the written witness of Moses and the prophets the
return from the dead would be useless.
How radically the Fourth Gospel treats the ¦ identification
of the Baptist with Ehas, his witness and his mighty works
(Jn. 1:19-28; 10:41) need here only be mentioned. To
this evangehst as well as to Luke it is only in their writings
that Moses and Ehas are the witnesses of Messiah (Jn. 5:
33-47)-' But in the deep-lying material incorporated by both Mark
and Luke there are certain suggestions which cannot well be
overlooked when the question is put, Whom, if any pne,
1 For the Markan conception in general see the passages commented on
in my Beginnings of Gospel Story, Yale University Press, 1909.
2 The Baptist, however, was "the lamp'' (oXvxvoi, John 5:35; cf. di Sio
\vxvlai. Rev. 11:4) granted as a concession to human weakness.

I40 THE FOURTH GOSI^EL
had the apocalyptist in mind when he incorporated the para
graph on the martyred "witnesses" ?
Aside from the prophecy to the sons of Zebedee, "Ye
shall indeed drink my cup," significantly omitted by Luke
(!), the Synoptic Gospels contain but two references to the
brothers James and John taken by themselves. The first is
Mk. 3:17, where we learn that they bore together the Ara
maic surname Boanerges. What the real meaning of the
epithet may have been is obscure; even the meaning Mark
attached to it is almost equally obscure, for while the words
"sons of thunder" by which he renders the surname are
plain enough, no feature of the life or character of the brothers
is given to show in what sense the epithet was meant.
The only other New Testament passage where the pair
are mentioned by themselves is Lk. 9:51-56; and here the
textual variants, even if unauthentic, are of sufficient in
terpretative value to be worthy of incorporation (in [ ]) with
the text:
" And it came to pass when the days were well-nigh come that he
should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusa
lem, and sent messengers before his face; and they went and entered
into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him. And they
did not receive him because his face was (set as) going to Jerusalem.
And when his disciples James and John saw (this), they said.
Lord, wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven and
consume them [as Ehjah did]? But he turned and rebuked them
[and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. [For the
Son of man came not to destroy men's lives but to save them] ].!
And they went to another village."
To the evangelist at least the spirit rebuked is not so much
that of the historical Elijah, which it would not have oc
curred to any of our gospel writers to question; but (unless
1 The clause in double [ ] is found in still fewer authorities than that which
precedes it.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 141
we greatly err) he sees rebuked in it the vindictive spirit of
Rev. 11:1-13, ^ spirit which rejoices in the fire proceeding
out of the mouth of the two witnesses and devouring their
enemies "as Elijah did" (II Kings 1:12), a spirit only too
glad that "if any man desireth to hurt them, in this manner
must he be killed." But if the narrative have really this aim
in view, we have here a clue to the long-vexed problem of
the epithet "Sons of Thunder." It was applied to James
and John not so much for what they had done, as for what
they were expected to do. Revelation 11:1-13, with its lurid
substitute for the unuttered "voice of the seven thunders,"
is a cry from the tortured spirit of the Church, driven out in
64-67 A. D. from "the city which spiritually is called Sodom
and Egypt," after its chief "pillars" James the Just (and
may we now conjecturally add, John the son of Zebedee?)
had been stoned and beaten to death in its streets, "where
their Lord too was crucified." Under the ancient apocalyp
tic figure the vision depicts the work of vengeance which is
to be wrought by the fj.dprvpe'; of Messiah in the day when
he comes to judgment against the guilty city. As in Justin
John the Baptist-Ehas renews his work of preparing the
way of the Lord at the second advent, so here the Sons of
Thunder come before him to judgment, with fire to destroy
their enemies.! A great earthquake destroys a tenth part of
the bloodstained city, and seven thousand perish of those
that had made merry over the dead bodies of the prophets.^
But in our Gospels another spirit has displaced the vin
dictive spirit of the earher parts of Revelation. The cry
from the cross is no longer an appeal to Ehas to come and
1 Early Christian legend attributes metastasis (ascension to heaven) to
both James (the Lord's brother) and John.
2 Cf. the cry of the souls of the martyrs from under the altar. Rev. 6:9 f.,
"How long, O Master, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood?" and
its answer.

142 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
take him down, but a wail over the departing presence of
God. The last remnant of the spirit of Rev. ii : 1-13, if the
title "Sons of Thunder" be really such, remains a meaning
less survival in Mark. Thereafter it disappears. And in
its place comes in the Lukan story of the rebuke to James
and John, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." !
(2) One more trace seems to us to be distinguishable in
the Synoptic Gospels of the period when James and John,
together with Peter, Rome's "following" witness ("car
ried away whither he would not") were the three martyr-
apostles. Like the two sons of Zebedee, the trio, "Peter
and James and John" are mentioned in but three funda
mental passages by our second evangelist, from whose pages
the group has generally been transferred intact to those
of Matthew and Luke.^ Mark represents Jesus in these
three instances as admitting only "Peter and James and
John" to a peculiarly intimate relationship with himself.
Not even Andrew, who forms one of the group of four at the
calling of the first followers (Mk. 1:16-20) and the predic
tion of the doom of Jerusalem (Mk. 13 :3), is here admitted.
It is conceivable that the phenomenon might have its ex
planation in the subsequent importance to the Jerusalem
church of "James and Cephas and John, those who were
regarded as pillars" (Gal. 2:9), anachronistically referred
1 If the argumentum e silentio is not to be excluded, we should take also
into account the strange phenomenon that the fourth evangelist, who treats
Synoptic eschatology so radically, in particular the doctrine of the coming of
Elias, has stricken from his pages all mention whatever of either of the sons
of Zebedee! In their place comes in the new and mysterious figure of "the
disciple whom Jesus loved." On this see Ch. XII.
2 Matthew disregards the selection of the three in the story of the raising
of Jairus' daughter. Luke, after introducing the group in the Markan form
at the beginning of the Transfiguration story, refers to them in the addition
which he makes (Lk. 9:32) only as "Peter and they that were with him"
(cf. 13: 45). Hence the trio appears to be of primary significance to Mark
only.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 143
to the earher time. To the present writer this explanation
would seem more probable than the current one of some
special predilection of Jesus for just these three. But one
difficulty — perhaps not insuperable ! — is the fact that the
James who became the "pillar" is not the same as the inti
mate of the Gospel of Mark. A more serious objection to
this theory is that it leaves unexplained the special nature
of the three occasions in which only the trio are admitted.
It cannot be mere accident that all are connected with the
same supremely important theme: "Christ and the power
of his resurrection." The three occasions are the Raising
of Jairus' Daughter, the Transfiguration, and the Agony in
Gethsemane. It may fairly be assumed that to our evange
hst, as to the writer of Jn. 21 :i8 f., Peter was one who had
"followed" Jesus in almost literal repetition of his sufferings.
Mark 10:39 shows that he looked upon James and John as
destined to fulfil, if not as having already fulfilled, the
prophecy of the Lord that they should "drink his cup."
From this point of view it will no longer seem strange that
in a gospel wherein Jesus' pedagogic relation to the twelve is
more prominent than in any other,^ Peter and James and
John should be made the confidants of his wresthng with
"him that had the power of death."
The facts we have presented are collected as indications
that the New Testament itself contains confirmation of the
strange new testimony that:
" Papias relates in his second book of the Oracles of the Lord,
that John was slain by the Jews, fulfilling manifesdy, together with
his brother, the prediction of Christ concerning them, and their
own confession and undertaking in the matter." ^
1 Confusion between " James the Just " and James the son of Zebedee
is frequent in post-apostolic literature.
2 Cf. Mark iii, 14.
3 The MS. Coisl. 305 (tenth or eleventh century) of Georgius Hamartolus,

144 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Their cogency will doubtless be variously judged, and must
depend largely on the value attached to the aUeged witness
of Papias. Corroboration of this has been found in ancient
martyrologies which celebrate the martyrdom of "James and
John" the sons .of Zebedee on the day following that of
Stephen, which itself follows the anniversary of the incar
nation. Not improbably there is connection between the
martyrologies and the Synoptic passage, and perhaps Pa
pias as well. They at least serve to show how " the predic
tion of Christ concerning" James and John was understood
at an early date. But they cannot compel us to understand
Mk. 10:39 i!^ the sense of a simultaneous martyrdom of the
two brethren. That conception might quite as easily be
based on the confusion so frequent in early Christian writers
between James the brother of John, and James the brother
of the Lord. Galatians 2 : 9 gives strong evidence that John
the brother of James was stiU a "pillar" of the Jerusalem
church at least fourteen years after Paul's conversion; for
against Schwartz's attempt to explain it as referring to John
Mark stands the unmistakable evidence of the Lukan rep
resentations of John (without James) as a faint satellite of
Peter ! in the beginnings of the Jerusalem church, and the
relative obscurity of Mark. On the other hand, wc have
some reason apart from the apphcation made in Rev.
11:8 of the legend of the two martyred witnesses, to think
that Jerusalem, the bloody city, murderess of the proph
ets, "where also their Lord was crucified," became in
deed in the period just before its destruction the scene of
at least a double martyrdom, one of the confessors being
James the brother of the Lord. The weU known passage
published by Muralt, (Petersburg, 1895, p. xvii, f.). Cf. the fragment from
Cod. Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian library quoted above (p. 143) from
de Boor T. h. U. v. 2, p. 170.
1 Lk. 22:8; Acts 3:r, 3, 11; 4:13, 19.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 145
of Josephus, Ant. XX, ix, i, gives positive evidence to this
effect :
" As therefore Ananus (the high priest appointed by Agrippa II
ca. 62 A. D., a son of the New Testament Annas), was of such a
disposition (harsh towards insubordination like the Sadducees),
he thought he had now a good opportunity as Festus was now
dead, and Albinus was still on the road. So he assembled the
Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of
Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some
others, and having accused them as breakers of the law he de
livered them over to be stoned."
Hegesippus, the Palestinian father whose five-chaptered
book of Memoirs written at Rome ca. 170 a. d., is Eusebius'
main reliance for the history of the Jerusalem church after
the departure of Paul to Rome, has a very confused and
inconsistent account of the martyrdom, transferring to it
traits from Luke's account of the martyrdom of Stephen, as
Luke himself would seem to have introduced into that of
Stephen the trait of trial before the Sanhedrin on charges of
speaking against the temple and the law.! According to
Hegesippus James' life was a sacrifice to the fanaticism of
some of the heretical sects among the Jews, whose descrip
tion corresponds exactly with that of Polycarp's adversaries.
Like those who " denied resurrection and judgment " they
" did not believe either in a resurrection or in one's coming to
give every man according to his works."
James, as Hegesippus proceeds to relate, was placed by
the rulers on the "pinnacle" of the temple at Passover, with
the expectation that he would repudiate this apocalyptic
type of Christology. When on the contrary
" he answered with a loud voice, ' Why do ye ask me concerning
Jesus the Son of man ? He himself sitteth in heaven at the right
1 See Bacon: "Stephen's Speech'' in Contributions of the Semitic ani
Biblical Faculty, "Yale Bicentennial Publications," 1901.
Fourth Gospel^io

146 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
hand of the great Power, and is about to come on the clouds of
heaven' . . . they went up and threw down the just man."
The story is properly at an end here; for not only is a fall
from "the pinnacle of the temple" something self-evidently
fatal in Mt. 4:5-7 = Lk. 4:9-12, but immediately before the
statement "they threw down the just man" the narrator
introduces (in Jewish fashion) a scripture fulfilment from
Is. 3:10:
" And they fulfilled the scripture written in Isaiah, ' Let us take
away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore
they shall eat the fruit of their doings.' "
The italicized words are intended to connect the fate of
Jerusalem with the murder of James, and should therefore
be followed at no great remove by those at the extreme end
of the paragraph "And immediately Vespasian besieged
them." Instead of this we have a second martyrdom of the
same man attached without a break:
" And they said to one another, ' Let us stone James the Just.' So
they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he
turned and knelt down and said 'I entreat thee. Lord God our
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' . . .
And one of them who was a fuller, took the club with which he
beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus
he suffered martyrdom."
This is an entirely separate account of the martyrdom,
with its own adaptation of the beautiful trait from the mar
tyrdom of Stephen,! in contrast to the vindictive spirit of the
narrative first given. The cla"use italicized, which aims to
explain how the two martyrdoms could be perpetrated on the
same victim, is almost ludicrously inept. The proposal to
"stone James the Just" manifestly does not presuppose that
he is already lying mangled at the foot of "the pinnacle of
1 Acts 7 : 60.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 147
the temple"; nor can the martyr from that situation very
well "turn, and kneel down" and offer his Christ-like
prayer.! On the contrary, that which must really follow the
words "and they went up and threw down the just man"
in the former account, is the clause at the end of the second
citation, "and thus he suffered martyrdom" with the state
ment which now follows the latter:
" And they buried him on the spot by the temple, and his monu
ment still remains by the temple"
for in the second narrative no particular spot is mentioned.
The self-evident duplication may be due to either one of
two sorts of combination: (i) Hegesippus may have inter
woven two diverse accounts of the death of James; or (2) he
may have combined the accounts of two different martyr
doms. We are not without some internal indications that
the latter is the case besides the statement of Josephus that
James was not the only victim. There are even hints that
James' principal companion in martyrdom was no other than
John the son of Zebedee, his fellow "pillar" in the Church
and the only survivor there of the group described by Paul.
The earlier portion of Eusebius' extract from Hegesippus
when reexamined in the light of the later portion displays
the same characteristics of duplication. Two surnames are
said to have been given to James. He was called "the Just"
to distinguish him from others of the name of James. But
he was also surnamed "Obhas," which Hegesippus inter
prets " Bulwark of the People," because of his constant in
tercession for them in the temple. If so, then the former
surname was not required. Moreover, the words added to
this translation "and righteousness" clearly do not apply to
it, but would seem to belong to a rendering of the other sur-
1 Later writers (Epiphanius, Jerome) therefore interject here either a
miraculous preservation from injury by the fall, or an equally miraculous
disregard of the broken bones.

148 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
name. Furthermore, we are given a long description of the
intercessor, Oblias, which is clearly of a piece with the de
scription of the second martyrdom whose victim kneels down
to pray for the forgiveness of the people. It runs as follows:
"He was holy from his mother's womb; and he drank no wine
nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. No razor came upon his
head; he did not anoint himself with oil nor did he use the bath.
He alone was permitted to enter the holy place; for he wore not
woolen but linen garments.! And he was in the habit of entering
alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his knees
begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard
like those of a camel, in consequence of his constantly bending
them in his worship of God, and asking forgiveness for the people."
Later writers go still further in developing the portrait of
this high-priestly intercessor. Epiphanius, who used Hege
sippus, states in two passages that James was both of high-
priestly descent and wore the TreraXov upon his head.^ In
the context of the second ^ he connects James' wearing of
the linen garment with Mk. 14:51, and makes this costume
to have been distinctive of him and the two sons of Zebedee,
John being identified with the youth of Mk. 14:51. Epi
phanius adds further in the same context (in spite of I Cor. 9 :
5) that James maintained perpetual virginity.
But all these are traits which elsewhere we find attached
to the Apostle John! In Jn. 18:15 "the beloved disciple"
identified in 21 : 24 with the son of Zebedee is an intimate of
the high-priest's family. In the tradition of Asia cited by
Polycrates of Ephesus ca. 190 a. d. he had worn the •jreraXov.
The ascetic mode of life and the hnen clothing are both
traits derived from New Testament characters of the name
1 The garb necessary for the priests and allowed to them only, Josephus
attributes the disasters of the war to the presumption of the Levites in
venturing to assume the linen vestments.
2 Haer. xxix, 4 and Ixxviii, 14.
3 lx.xviii, 13.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 149
of John, though in the one case it is the Baptist, in the other
probably John Mark who is originaUy meant. In the Gnos
tic Acts of John (170 A. D.) the perpetual virginity of John is
the ground of the title "the beloved disciple." James, on
the other hand, was certainly not of priestly descent and had
no access to the holy place in the temple. He would seem
from I Cor. 9:5 to have been married. In view of all these
phenomena it is not unreasonable to conjecture that the
duplications of Hegesippus' narrative are due not to a com
bination of two accounts of the martyrdom of James, but
to consolidation of the double martyrdom of James and
John.
The Memoirs of Hegesippus furnish still further evidence
that no survivor remained after 70 a. d. of the original twelve,
at least not one who had stood next to James as a "pillar"
at Paul's visit in 48-50 a. t>.
" After James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord
had also on the same account, Symeon, the son of the Lord's
uncle, Clopas, was appointed the next bishop (of Jerusalem).
All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of
the Lord." !
According to a previous statement of Eusebius,^ "the
apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came
together from all directions" on this occasion. But the out
break of heresy is attributed by Hegesippus to a certain
Jew, Thebuthis, who at this time had expected to become
the successor of James, and on account of his disappoint
ment led off the heretical sects.^ No great reliance can be
placed upon the confused chronology of Hegesippus; but we
1 Hegesippus, ap. Eusebius, H. E. IV, xxii, 4.
2 H. E. Ill, xi, I.
3 Another inconsistency. If heresy has its origin in the chagrin of The
buthis in ca. 70 the Church cannot have remained, as claimed, virgin pure
from heresy until the death of the last of the witnesses "in the times of
Trajan."

150 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
can at least say that Thebuthis could hardly have cherished
the alleged aspirations while John the Apostle and "pillar"
was StiU alive. Certainly Hegesippus implies that the only
surviving relatives of the Lord were the two grandsons of
Jude when these were brought before Domitian shortly after
his accession. He plainly states that this marked the end of
persecution on the score of Davidic pretensions. We cannot
but infer that the martyrdom of the successor of James,
Symeon the Lord's cousin, on the same charge, a martyr
dom which Hegesippus dates under Trajan, at the age of
1 20 years (!), has undergone displacement.! But the ques
tion of the inconsistencies of Hegesippus, though too wide
for present consideration, is certainly wide enough to leave
room for a martyrdom of John as well as James the Just in
the troublous times antecedent to the Christians' withdrawal
from the spiritual Sodom and Egypt. ^
The question remains. How could the Church pitch upon
the very same individual who at an earlier time had been
widely held in reverence as fulfilling the prophecy "Ye shaU
drink my cup" to be the subject of the almost contradictory
prophecy, "Some of them that stand by shall not taste of
death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom" ?
Some bearing on this question must certainly be conceded
to the coincidence that one of the Elders ^ of the Jerusalem
church, who survived, according to Epiphanius, until the
1 The motive would be again the prophecy of the surviving witness.
Symeon represents the generation that should not pass away. His age (120
years) is the Old Testament hmit of human life (Gen. 6:3; Deut. 34:7).
Traditions of the survival of "witnesses" "until the times of Trajan" in
the Jerusalem church parallel the later traditions of Ephesus.
2 The reference in this expression of Rev. 11:8 is to Lot's withdrawal
and Israel's exodus. Cf. Lk. 17:28-32.
3 In the Jerusalem church the links of the succession (SiaSoxifi on which
the second century laid such stress were reckoned as "Apostles and Elders"
(Acts 11:30; 15:6, etc.), "the elders, the disciples of the Apostles" (Papias
ap. Iren. Haer. V, v, i and passim); not "bishops" as in the Greek churches.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 151
year 117 a. d., bore this same name John. This Elder John
(of Jerusalem), whom Papias still carefully distinguishes
by the title from the apostle of the same name, is certainly
confounded with him by Irenaeus in his quotations from
Papias, and very probably also in his boyhood recollections
of Polycarp's references to anecdotes of "John" about the
Lord "concerning his miracles and his teaching." Since it is
to Irenaeus and his contemporaries and fellow-defenders of
the Johannine authorship of the Ephesian canon that we
owe the tradition of John the Apostle as the long-surviving
witness, this fact has certainly an important bearing. But
by itself alone it cannot explain the well-nigh complete
eclipse of the earlier tradition by the later. A more im
portant factor is the interaction of the two conflicting "proph
ecies" of Jesus, facilitated by the ambiguity not of the mere
Greek word /^a/arv? but of the deeper-lying Semitic tradition
of the "witnesses of Messiah," wherein both the martyr
dom and the witness-bearing are original elements. Its
Protean forms admit of adaptation to every contingency.
Are there some still surviving of those who "stood by" when
Jesus uttered his memorable assurance of vindication within
the lifetime of the perverse generation which rejected him?
These may be the fulfilhng counterparts of those apocalyptic
"witnesses of Messiah" who were not to "taste of death"
until they had seen and heralded the Lord's Christ.! Have
two shared the Baptist's fate, and the rest departed before
the coming of the Lord? Then these two may be expected
to return with him at his second advent, devouring their
enemies with fire from heaven "as Ehjah did." For this is
precisely the r61e assigned by the Church of Justin's day to
Under Hadrian this church still claimed as its leaders "the disciples of the
disciples of the Apostles" (Epiph. de mens. xv).
1 The story of Simeon, Lk. 2:25 ff., as well as that of Zacharias, Lk. 1:17,
seems to have points of contact with the legend of the Forerunner.

152 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
its John the Baptist-Ehas. The martyrdom also is a mark
of the "witnesses." Surely in the long interval which in
tervened between the martyrdom of the two sons of Zebedee
there must have been some who began to ask whether the
fiaprvpia of John might not be the tarrying 'witness.'
Time is one great corrector of apocalypse. The spirit
of Jesus was another. Rapidly after the seventies the course
of events demonstrated the inadmissibihty of both apocalyp
tic forms of the Christianized doctrine of "the witnesses of
Messiah," the "tarrying" and the "following" /Maprvpia.
The Pauline doctrine that the outpouring of the Spirit is
the pledge of the parousia came to its predestined right.
The very apocalypse which makes the martyr-apostle its
mouthpiece — if indeed in the earlier Palestinian form of the
book it be John and no other who is the seer that receives
his revelation of "the things which must come to pass" in
an anticipatory ascension in spirit to heaven ! — even Reve
lation no longer holds to a literal fulfilment of the prophecy.
Paulinism enters even here: "The /jLaprvpia of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy." ^ With this interpretation it matters
little whether the apostle-prophet "tarries" or "follows,"
the "witness" is given. Twenty years later the churches of
Asia are passing through a new crisis. Persecution with
out is alhed to heresy within. The prophet-witness of Jesus
is invoked again. From Patmos, whither he is brought "for
the word of God and the testimony of Jesus," he is made to
deliver his message again in new and broader form to meet
the double enemy on a wider field. This is not "forgery."
Even if the pseudonymity be deliberate, this is simply the
method of apocalypse, which has not one true representative
among its multitude of productions that is not pseudony-
1 With Rev. 11:12 cf. 4:1. Ascension to heaven is another point in which
James the Lord's brother is decked with the plumage of John by later writers.
2 Rev. 19:10.

THE MARTYR APOSTLES 153
mous. Its strict parallel is found in the use of the authority
of Peter against the same heretics in II Peter. The Appen
dix to the Fourth Gospel furnishes the key to the history
of the conflicting traditions of John the "following" and
the "tarrying" witness, superseded as they could not fail
to be by the Pauline- Johannine doctrine that the true prophet-
witness of Messiah, refuting the false prophecy of Antichrist-
gnosis, abiding with the Church until the coming of the
Lord, is the "witness of the Spirit." But how inevitable it
was that an age which took literally the symbohsm of the
prophet-apostle in Patmos, addressing "the churches of
Asia," should cling to one form of the earlier "prophecy"
of Jesus, and gradually build up for itself, first in Palestine,
afterward, in Irenaeus' time, in Asia, the legend of the
"tarrying Witness."
Our study of external evidences has shown a complete
contrast between the periods before and after the middle of
the second century. Before it no trace whatever of the
Johannine writings save in Asia, and there mere echoes and
influences, attesting indeed the existence of a body of teach
ing similar to what we find in the Fourth Gospel, but far
from what we should expect on the traditional theory of
authorship. As regards the standards of evangelic tradition Asia rests
its Christology on the name of Paul. John is not mentioned.
Its evangelic tradition rests on Matthew, with subordinate
use of Mark. John is mentioned only as the seer of the
Apocalypse, and this only after 140 a. t>. There is no local
apostohc authority. The apostles and elders to whom appeal
is made for the historic sense of Jesus' teaching are, as in
Acts, the sacred college in Jerusalem.
As respects the person and work of John specifically there
is nothing whatever to suggest his presence in Asia save the

154 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
acceptance of Revelation by Papias and Justin. The so
journ "in Patmos" required by Rev. i : 9 is fixed by the Mu
ratorianum at a date antecedent to the Pauhne Epistles (!).
Whether Papias and Justin conceived the apostolic visit
as having really occurred at that time, we cannot tell. It
is quite possible that in regarding the revelation as a whole
as a|to7rto-To'?, they had no intention of indorsing the entire
editorial framework in 1:1-3:22 and 22:8-21. We have
definite testimony from two sources that Papias reported
the death of John by martyrdom at the hands of "the Jews,"
which corresponds with the prediction of Mk. 10:39 and
some other traces in early Palestinian tradition. Such is
the sum total of external evidence on the Johannine prob
lem for the first half of the second century.
The facts are neither abundant nor clear, but so far as
available all point in one direction. The later Irenaean
tradition of apostles and elders in Asia, on which were largely
based the claims of the champions of the fourfold gospel in
180-220 A. D., in the light of these facts can only be a pseudo-
tradition, whose origin must be studied in connection with
the dissemination of the fourfold gospel.

PART II
THE DIRECT INTERNAL EVIDENCE

PART II
THE DIRECT INTERNAL EVIDENCE
CHAPTER VI
THE JOHN OF REVELATION
The external evidence as we have followed it shows a
marked transition about i6o a. d. Previously there is just
enough to show the existence in Asia after 110-117 a. t>. of
"a body of teaching ' like that which we find in the Fourth
Gospel," with traces of the "Johannine" Epistles. Neither
seem to be known outside of proconsular Asia until about
152 a. d., and the employment of the Epistles and Gospel in
mode and measure faUs far short of what we should expect
of an apostolic autograph. Paul, not. John, is the apostolic
authority whose doctrine and writings are appealed to, and
who lives in the rernembrance of the churches. Only at the
very close of the period is there the beginning of a change.
It is now a full generation after Polycarp had uttered his
anathema upon those who were misinterpreting the sayings
of the Lord to their own lusts, and denying the (physical)
resurrection and (apocalyptic) judgment, and had exhorted
his readers to meet "the empty talk of the many and their
false teachings" by turning "unto the word handed down
unto us from the beginning." At this time (145-150 a. d.) we
begin to find a sense of the importance of duly authenti
cated records. Papias now undertakes to establish on the
one hand the evangehc tradition on a firm historical basis by
"Interpretations" authenticated by transmission from "the
IS7

158 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
apostles and elders." On the other hand he maintains the
"trustworthiness" of the book of Revelation with the im
plied appeal to the authority of "John."
It is not necessary to assume that Papias' "Interpreta
tions," based on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, for
which he claimed the largest measure of apostolic authority
compatible with their known derivation, were intended as a
direct answer to the Exegetica of Basihdes, based on the
more recent Gospel of Luke; but, in view of the close con
nection between Polycarp's exhortation and Papias' defini
tion of his object and method, we must at least admit that
the abuses aimed at were the same. Considering too what
Eusebius tells us of the infection of chihasm which was
traceable from Papias "through so many of the church
fathers after him, as for example Irenaeus," we may safely
say that Justin Martyr and Papias, contemporaries in their
writings and allies against the same deniers of the resurrec
tion and judgment,' were also at one in their appeal to and
dependence on Revelation as "trustworthy" because "a
revelation granted to one of ourselves, a man naaned John,
an apostle of the Lord."
Thus at the very close of the period under discussion the
Asiatic Christians are seen to have, besides the generally cur
rent Pauline Epistles and Gospels of Matthew and Mark, one
authoritative, inspired, apostohc, book of their own. It is
introduced by seven letters to their own churches which the
Muratorianum later takes to have served as model for the
seven church letters of Paul. Naturally the real relation is
the other way, though the sevenloXd canon of Pauline let
ters may be of later development. "The commandments of
God and the faith of Jesus" the keeping of which distin
guishes "the saints" in this book (Rev. 14:12) are embodied,
the former in the Old Testament, the latter in "the ever
lasting gospel," which of course is unwritten. Its own princi-

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 159
pal content is a revelation or "prophecy" of "the things
which must shortly come to pass," said to have been granted
to John the Apostle when in the island of Patmos "for the
word of God and the testimony of Jesus." Ephesus thus
seems to have taken the lead in the formation of a New
Testament canon. But its canon consisted of only one book,
a book of "prophecy." The gospel it presents was unwritten.
The epistles which introduce it have canonical standing only
as a framework for the "prophecy."
We cannot safely say that the indorsement of Revelation
given about 150 A. d. by Papias and Justin was intended to
cover more than the doctrine then actually in dispute, i. e.,
"the resurrection and the judgment." Hegesippus also, as
we have seen, reckons the denial of these among the early
heresies which took their rise from Judaism.! The wording
of the indorsement is such (to d^ioiriaTov, "testified in a reve
lation granted to him") as not to commit the church fathers
to a definite statement as to John's residence in Asia, or as
to his personal authorship. Papias and Justin may be merely
indorsing the attribution of the contained "revelation" to
the Apostle John, without specifically vouching for the mise
en scene of the prefixed letters to the churches, in which the
seer is represented as sojourning in Patmos. They may on
the other hand have thought of this sojourn as actual, but
referred it, as it is referred in the Muratorianum, to the period
before the coming of Paul to Ephesus.^ The reported state
ment of Papias that "John was killed by the Jews," makes
it probable that if he accepted the representation of John's
sojourn in Patmos, he regarded it as only a temporary in-
1 Even in Acts the Sadducees, i. e., the priestly nobility, are treated as if
they were a doctrinal party. Cf. Acts 4:2 and 23:6-8.
2 Cf. Acts 19:1-7. It is possible that the existence of a body of disciples
of "John" in Ephesus before the coming of Paul may have played some
part in the development of the tradition.

i6o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
terruption of the Apostle's regular residence in Jerusalem.
At all events we have in the indorsement by both Papias and
Justin of the book of Revelation as their authority against
the opponents of chihasm in about 150 A. d. our first trace
of the tradition of John as an author, and indeed the first
trace of his alleged residence in Asia.
Since the assertion is clearly and emphatically made in
Rev. 22 : 8, "I John am he that heard and saw these things,"
although appended after the formal and solemn conclusion,
22:6-7,! and since the prefixed letters to the churches of
Asia are .similarly written in the name of "John," although
no trace of the Johannine personality appears in the sub
stance of the Apocalypse (4: 1-22: 7), we are called upon to
treat the prologue and epilogue of Revelation (chaps. 1-4,
and 22:8-21) as conveying "direct internal evidence" on
the question of Johannine authorship. It must of course be
tested in its own connection, and if found untrustworthy,
dependent assertions of later date will add nothing to its
weight. Besides the explicit, not to say obtrusive, claims of Rev. 1-3
and 22:8-21 on behalf of the apocalypse which they com
mend to "the churches of Asia," we have at least one other
testimony, which directly affects the Fourth Gospel, but
presents a singular contrast to that of Revelation in the
veiled and ambiguous mode of its reference to the Apostle,
that of the Appendix. Lightfoot even considered that the
First Epistle of John had been also written to accompany
the Gospel, for the purpose of commending it to the various
classes of readers addressed in I Jn. 2 : 12-14; and it is certain
1 Rev. 22: 8-9, it should be noted, simply takes up and repeats Rev. 19:10,
adding to it this identification of the "prophet," who speaks in 19:10 without
making any pretense of the kind. In the following verses (10-21) the angel
of prophecy whom the "prophet" has now been twice forbidden to worship,
suddenly becomes "Jesus" and "the Alpha and Omega" of the "epistles"
to the churches, certainly a worthy object of worship.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION i6i
that the Muratorianum already appeals to I Jn. i : 1-3 as
referring to the Gospel. There would then be examples in
these three instances of editorial compositions aiming to per
form for literary products the function of the "epistles of com
mendation" delivered to oral preachers. However this may
be — and we shall have occasion later to revert to the claim —
there can be no doubt that the Appendix, Jn. 21, is composed
with the object of commending the Gospel it accompanies to
the Christian world, and intends to suggest the identity of "the
disciple whom Jesus loved which also leaned back on his
breast at the supper, and said. Lord, who is he that be-
trayeth thee ?" with the evangelist. In a more enigmatic and
veiled way it seems also to identify this "disciple whom
Jesus loved" with John the son of Zebedee. This representa
tion is combined, as we have seen, by the Muratorianum with
I Jn. 1 : 1-3 to form its proof of the Johannine authorship,
and since these passages can be shown to underlie all the
earhest patristic claims, they may also be reasonably classi
fied as "direct internal evidence." In due time we shall have
to scrutinize the Appendix and its relation to the Gospel
which it accompanies, asking what grounds there may be
for accepting or rejecting its statement "This is the disciple
which beareth witness of these things and wrote these
things." If the words are really written by John's "fellow-
disciples (apostles) and bishops," as it has been the habit of
churchmen since the Muratorianum to assume, they will un
doubtedly carry very great weight. If, on the other hand, the
Appendix does not appear to be known before 160 A. D., and
seems not to speak at first hand, but to partake of the char
acter of other epilogues, subscriptions, argumenta, and ap
pendices of this period, in basing its statements on inferences
drawn from the writings themselves which they indorse,! it
t This is notoriously the case with the "subscriptions" to the Pauline
Fourth Gospel — ii

1 62 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
will carry no more weight than the correctness or incorrect
ness of its exegesis warrants. Thus the direct internal evi
dence may be found to resolve itself simply into a subordinate
clement of the indirect — one example more of how in the age
of the canon-makers evidences were sought in the long-
accepted writings of the Church, which should prove them
of really apostohc derivation as against the "new scriptures"
which were beginning to be poured out from Gnostic and
other sources. But this study of epilogues to the Gospel,
actual or only possible, must be taken up later. First of aU
we must consider the earlier traceable and more exphcit
testimony of Revelation, and its connection with the later-
appearing tradition of John in Asia.
Professor Stanton in his excellent treatise already dis
cussed has to some extent commingled under the single head
ing "The Silence of the Sub-apostohc Age" ! the two related
questions: (i) Why "there should be no allusion to the
Apostle John, if he was, or had been, a prominent figure in
the Church in the province of Asia" in this period; (2) why,
if the Gospel and Epistles circulating in that province were
really attributed to the Apostle, there should be no allusion
to the fact by those who use them and are influenced by them,
and no corresponding employment. We confine ourseh-es to
the former question, deeming what has been already said
sufficient on the mode and measure of employment of the
books in question.
The writings first enumerated as showing a surprising
silence as to the presence of John in Ephesus are (i) the
Epistle to the Ephesians — held by some to have been com
posed in the last two decades of the first century — (2) the
Epistles. Cf. Muratorianum: "The letters of Paul themselves make known
to those who would know, both what they are, and from what place, on
what occasion they were sent."
1 Pp. '164-166.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 163
Pastoral Epistles (90-100 a. d. ?) and (3) the Address to the
Elders at Miletus in Acts 20 (85-95 a. d.). Since the Epistles
to Timothy and the Address at Miletus specially concern
themselves with the inroads of heresy at Ephesus, the latter
placing in Paul's mouth a prediction of the fate of the flock
"after his departure," because of the "grievous wolves" and
the teachers of "perverse things" destined to arise among
themselves, it would be natural to expect some reference,
even if a veiled one, to so notable a reinforcement as the
coming of John. Those, however, who find it possible to
date the book of Acts so early as in the years immediately
after the overthrow of Jerusalem, an event generally ad
mitted to be reflected in Luke's "former treatise," may plead
that John's coming to Ephesus was enough later to account
for the silence.!
Professor Stanton next passes (4) "to the Epistle of
Clement of Rome." But what of I Peter ? Some even of the
most stalwart champions of the authenticity of this epistle
feel compelled by its reflection of the period of governmental
persecution "for the Name" to date it at least as late as
Domitian (81-95 ^- ^Oi ^'^d an increasing number of critical
scholars regard it as pseudonymous, and reflecting the same
persecutions referred to in Pliny's letter to Trajan (112 a. d.)
which affected the regions addressed in I Pet. 1:1. Whatever
its authorship, the immense preponderance of modern scholar
ship makes it later than the date at which the Johannine resi
dence in Asia is supposed to have begun, and the writer himself
in addressing "the elect ... in Pontus, Galatia, Cappa-
docia, Asia, and Bithynia" in the name of "Peter, an apostle
of Jesus Christ" shows how much weight the name "John,
an apostle of Jesus Christ" would have carried here at this
1 It should be remembered, however, that if in the early seventies John
was still in Jerusalem the representations of Hegesippus as to events suc
ceeding the death of James become much more difiicult to account for.

i64 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
time. Absolute silence in I Peter under these circumstances
is not a quantite negligeable.!
Neither should the Synoptists be forgotten, whose writings
cover approximately the period from 75 to 95 a. d. Mark,
it is true, is of Roman origin, and Matthew of south-Syrian,
and for its narrative dependent on Mark. But Lk.-Acts is
Antiochian on the authority of ancient tradition and internal
evidence as well. The Markan idea of the Apostle John, his
character, residence, and fate we have already considered.^
It is distinctly unfavorable to the Irenaean tradition, and is
followed by canonical Matthew. However, Luke quite sig
nificantly omits Mark's prediction of the martyrdom of
James and John, giving per contra a rebuke of the vindictive
spirit they had manifested.^ He also makes a further step
toward the assignment of an individual role to John. Once
in the Gospel * and seven times in Acts ^ John appears, a
faint satellite just emerging into separate visibility from the
rays of Peter's glory. But there is still no suggestion what
ever of a Johannine residence in A.sia, although, as we have
seen, Luke follows with prophetic interest the struggle of
the Ephesian church after Paul's "departure" against the
"grievous wolves" from without and the teachers of "per
verse things" from among their own selves. On the con
trary, Luke is a stalwart champion of Jerusalem as the seat
of apostolic authority and orthodox tradition. Even Antioch,
and its great Apostle Paul have, in Luke's view, no other re
course for the settlement of the one great dispute which he
1 "Defenders" explain the absence of reference to Paul by the death of
that apostle. But John is supposed to be alive and resident in the region
addressed. 2 Chapter V. The Martyr Apostles.
3 Lk. 9:51-56, attached after the Markan story of the rebuke of John for
his intolerance.
1 Lk. 22: 8.
6 Acts 3:1, 3, 4, II, 13; 4:13, 19; 8:14.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 165
admits to have threatened in some degree the harmony of
apostohc times, save to "go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles
and elders about this matter." ! From "Peter and John"
as apostolic delegates from Jerusalem emanates, according to
Luke, the endowment of the Spirit in earher days; ^ from
"James and the elders" the ex cathedra determination of
questions of faith and practice in the later.'' The Antiochian
synoptist is certainly a contemporary of the period of the
supposed Ephesian residence. He interests himself both in
Ephesus and in John. He may even be thought to evince a
certain opposition to the idea of the martyr fate of John.
But Luke certainly does not bring John and Ephesus to
gether. He knows of disciples of "John" in Ephesus; but
this John is neither the Apostle nor the mysterious Elder, but
John the Baptist. For Luke the seat of apostolic authority
is the college of "apostles and elders" at Jerusalem, presided
over by "James the Lord's brother." It is stiU so in Papias
(rightly interpreted) and in Hegesippus. This enhanced
importance attached by Luke not to Ephesus but to Jeru
salem is significant. We beg leave, therefore, to add to the
hst of. silent witnesses as (5), (6), and (7), I Peter, Mark
(with Matthew), and Luke.
We may probably attribute to about this period (90-100
A. D.) the epistles of James and Jude, of which only the latter
concerns itself specifically with the outbreak of heresy,
though both reflect the same type of conservatism as Hegesip
pus, for whom the Jerusalem church is the bulwark of true
orthodoxy by virtue of its unbroken succession of apostles,
elders, witnesses, and kindred of the Lord. The authenticity
of the superscriptions "James, a servant of God, and of the
Lord Jesus Christ, unto the twelve tribes which are of the
Dispersion,"* and "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and
1 Acts 15: 2. 3 Acts 21:18.
2 Acts 8:14. ¦* Jas. 1:1.

i66 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
brother of James, to them that are called," etc., is much dis
puted. But whether the two epistles — rightly designated
catholic, or ecumenical, as the superscriptions prove — were
actually written by James and Jude the brethren of Jesus, or,
as is far more probable, are pseudonymous, is not vital to
our present contention. The two epistles appeared not far
from this time, and owed their acceptance in the churches
east and west to the fact that Jerusalem with its apostles,
elders, and kindred of the Lord, in particular James, and
Jude the brother of James, claimed, and obtained in greater
or less degree, the kind of general censorship of faith and
practice which we have seen reflected in Luke, Papias, and
Hegesippus. While, then, these two writers could not be
expected to refer to John, the employment of these names in
writings meant to be ecumenical confirms our thesis that
Jerusalem, not Ephesus, still remained the recognized seat
of apostolic tradition.
Since the testimony of Revelation is the matter itself tmder
discussion we need not give to this book its place in our
chronological list, though the brevity and vagueness of its
references to John in Patmos, and the very terms in which
he is described, "Your brother and partaker with you in
the tribulation and kingdom and patience (vTrofjiovrj) which
are in Jesus" ! are far more suggestive of the Markan than
of the Irenaean tradition.
With this side-glance at I Peter, the Synoptists, James,
Jude, and Revelation we may consent to "pass to the Epistle
of Clement of Rome" with Professor Stanton.
The relations of the church in Corinth to the church in
Ephesus were of necessity, whether geographically, or from
the history of their founding, intimate from the beginning.
In 95 A. D. Clement, officially representing the church in
Rome, writes to the Corinthians an epistle half as long again
1 Rev. i: 9; cf. II Tim. 2:11, 12.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 167
as Romans, to expostulate with them for having deposed
bishops and other officers who had been "appointed by the
apostles, or afterward by other men of repute." ! What sort
of attitude towards the twelve apostles was characteristic of
this period might be inferred from the book of Acts, or from
Revelation with its twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem
inscribed with their names. But let us take Clement's own
words :
"The Apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus
Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is
from God, and the Apostles are from Christ. Both therefore
came from God in the appointed order. Having therefore re
ceived a charge, and having been fully assured through the resur
rection of our Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed in the word of
God with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth with
the glad tidings that the kingdom of God should come. So preach
ing everywhere in country and town,^ they appointed their first-
fruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops
and deacons unto them that should beheve. . . . And our
Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be
strife over the name of the bishop's office. For this cause therefore,
having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the
aforesaid persons." ^
To explain why the church in Rome with Clement as their
agent, should have taken upon themselves this intervention
in the affairs of Corinth at the very time when Ephesus, so
much nearer, so much more closely related to them than
Rome, was presided over by no less a character than the
Apostle John himself, and why Clement should not so much
as mention John, though exphcitly referring to Peter and
i Ad. Cor. xliv.
2 With this general statement of the mission of the twelve compare that
of Justin, above referred to, p. 70 f., made the basis by Sanday of a claim
that Justin uses Mk. 16: 20.
^ Ad. Cor. xlii, xliv.

i68 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Paul — nay, should speak of "the apostles" in general as if
their witness could only be known through their successors —
is something, of a problem. Even if it stood alone we could
hardly deem it adequately solved by Professor Stanton's ex
planation, which we cite in full:
"It is not unreasonable to suppose that, while the tradition as
to the long life and later labors of St. John was substantially true,
there may yet have been some exaggeration in the representation
that he lived 'till the times of Trajan,' that is, till two or three
years later than the date at which Clement was writing; and even
if he had died only a few years before, there would have been no
special reason for Clement's referring to him." !
That is all.
While the silence of Clement is to us by no means a slight
difficulty, that of the Epistles of Ignatius seems to Pro
fessor Stanton to be "far more serious." We may take his
own statement of the case together with his explanation:
"In writing tO the Ephesians he (Ignatius) expresses the desire
that he 'may be found in the company of those Christians of
Ephesus who were ever of one mind with the Apostles in the
power of Jesus Christ.' St. Paul and St. John may be more
particularly in his mind. But as in writing to the Romans he
names Peter and Paul, why does he not here name both Paul, the
founder of the Church of Ephesus, and also that venerable Apostle
who, according to the belief which we have under consideration,
had lived and taught there more recently, and for a longer period ?
In the immediate sequel he mendons Paul only. There was in
deed a special reason for referring to Paul, because Ignatius saw
in that Apostle's stay at Ephesus on his way to martyrdom a
parallel with his own case. Nevertheless the notice of St. Paul
might naturaUy have suggested one of St. John. We should have
expected that appeals would have been made to the teaching of
both these Apostles in order to confirm those warnings against
errors concerning the Person of Christ, and those exhortations to
ip. 165.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 169
unity, of which Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians and others of
his Epistles are full. The fact, however, that he does not use
St. John's authority for this purpose cannot be pressed, for he
does not use even St. Paul's name in this way. But at least some
personal reference to St. John would have been natural in writing
to the Church at Ephesus. So too he might have been expected
to recall to Polycarp (in the Epistle to Polycarp) the close ties
which bound him to the Apostle John, and to remind the Smyr
naeans (in ad Smyrnaeos) of the authority which their bishop de
rived from this connexion. That Polycarp himself in his short
Epistle to the Philippians should not speak of St. John, in spite
of the personal reasons he might have for doing so, is not so sur
prising because the Church which he was addressing had not
come under St. John's influence." !
At this point Professor Stanton breaks off his considera
tion of "the silence of the Sub-Apostolic Age," admitting
that "It does not seem satisfactory to regard this early
silence respecting the Apostle John as merely accidental," but
promising later to "consider whether it can be more or less
reasonably explained consistently with the supposition that
the common tradition is true." This later consideration
appears on pp. 236-238, after a discussion of the evidence
from Papias and Justin. We shall again be compelled to
cite at considerable length in order to do full justice to Pro
fessor Stanton's loyal attempt to grapple with the difficulty:
"It appears to me difficult to avoid inferring from the absence
of allusion to the Apostle John in writings of the beginning of the
second century, that there was a difference — which it is a matter
of great interest to notice — between his reputation and influence
then and at the close of the century. At this later time men were
fast learning, if they had not already learned, to give him a place,
as we do to-day, among the greatest masters of the Christian
Faith, distinct from, but not inferior to, that of Peter and of Paul.
" This position is accorded him mainly as the evangelist of the
1 Gospels, etc., pp. 165-166.

I70 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Fourth Gospel. Now it will be suggested that the change in the
estimate formed of him of which I have spoken can be explained,
if we allow that he spent his later years in Asia, and suppose that
from this circumstance the Gospel which was produced in that
region was mistakenly attributed to him, though not before the
middle of the century. Thenceforth it will be said his celebrity
rapidly grew. It should be remarked, however, that the different
parts of the tradition are closely connected, that they form one
whole in the mind of the Church of the latter part of the second
century, and are attested by the same witnesses, who, if they are
trustworthy in regard to one point, ought to be so as to others.
And I believe that we may view the early silence about the Apostle
John in a manner which harmonizes more fully with other facts.
"There is much which tends to show that the persons of the
Evangelists, and the importance of the function which they dis
charged, were for a time commonly lost sight of, because the
minds of Christians were absorbed with the main contents and
the outline of that Gospel which had been at first orally delivered.
There is no sufficient ground for assuming an exception in the
case of the Fourth Gospel and its author." !
With the statement about the unity of the Irenaean tradi
tion in the latter part of the second century we need not now
concern ourselves, since we are dealing with the period of its
beginnings, when but a single factor is traceable, i. e., Rev.
1 : 9. We will also pass by the very precarious rule that
traditions true in one point may be trusted in others. We
concern ourselves only with Professor Stanton's explanation
of the early silence about the Apostle John by the lack of
interest in the persons of the evangehsts. In this there is
both truth and significance. But the significance is pre
cisely contrary to Professor Stanton's main contention.
Everything depends on (i) the duration of that time when
1 Gospels, etc., p. 237. From this point Professor Stanton diverges toward
a middle position, cautiously suggesting the possibility of an indirect rela
tion of the Gospel to John. The substance of this sequel has already been
cited. See above, p. 69.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 171
the importance of the gospel writers and their work was
"commonly lost sight of," and (2) the beginnings of that
later appreciation of the importance of authenticated apos
tohc tradition, which we find reflected in various forms of
editorial supplementation. It is unquestionably true that
in the time when our first and second canonical gospels were
composed the need of authentication was not felt. The
authors merely give written form to "that gospel which had
at first been orally delivered," and are content for themselves
to remain nameless. The same is measurably true of the
Fourth Gospel — apart from the Epistles and Appendix —
though the fourth evangehst does not altogether refrain from a
commendatory address to the reader (20:30 f.). The change
is more marked in the third gospel, whose author seeks
authentication of his tradition in a preface placing the work
under the patronage of "Theophilus," and asserting its de
pendence on "eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." In
the time of Papias the authentication of the anonymous
Matthew and Mark had already become a matter of concern,
and apparently of no little difficulty, to judge from the effort
evinced to combine claims of inerrancy for each with the
utmost tenable degree of apostolicity.! Eusebius informs
us — on what authority he does not say — that "the age im
mediately succeeding that of the apostles" was distinguished
by many attempts to deliver the gospel in writing to the
churches throughout the world.^
' Papias is concerned to show by means of the tradition derived from
"the Elder" that the discrepancy in "order" between Matthew and Mark
is immaterial, since the preaching of Peter was reproduced by Mark "with
out any mistake." Conversely "the Lord's oracles," which must be mainly
drawn from Matthew because Mark "had no design of giving a connected
account of them," are not open to objection on the score of disagreement,
since the difference which exists can be accounted for by variation in
"translation." Thus Peter's and Matthew's authority, he contends, is
justly appealed to for doings and sayings respectively in spite of cavil.
2 H. E. Ill, xxxvii.

172 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
We have seen that Basilides and Marcion indirectly witness
to the same, and the preface of Luke and Appendix of the
Fourth Gospel bear similar witness.! -pj^g multiphcation of
gospels drove the • Church unavoidably to the task of dis
crimination, in which the standard uniformly apphed against
the innovations of Gnostics and other heretics was always,
and necessarily, the apostolic tradition. Whether it be Luke,
or Clement, or Jude, or Polycarp, or Ignatius, or Papias, or
Hegesippus, the churchman always falls back upon "the
faith once dehvered to the saints," the integrity and un
broken continuity of the apostohc tradition. Eusebius sim
ply treads in the footsteps of Hegesippus in his great en
deavor to "record the true tradition of apostohc doctrine." ^
Now it is manifestly true that in the early years of the
second century there had been, in the past, a neglect to
authenticate the evangelic tradition of Matthew and Mark.
The "vain talk of the many and the false teachings" com
plained of by Polycarp were giving the Church most pain
ful reason to regret that ignorance of which Professor Stan
ton speaks. It is also true that evangelic tradition of the
Sub-Apostolic age such as Papias refers to as contained in
"books," from which one could "be profited" indeed, but
not so much as from "the living and abiding voice" heard
at the seat of apostolic tradition, might also continue for
some time to obtain a local currency without special im
primatur. "A body of teaching like that which we find in
the Fourth Gospel " might have in this anonymous way a
hmited circulation in the province of Asia. But it is nothing
short of a complete misconception of the attitude of the
times toward apostolicity, and toward genuinely authenti
cated evangelic tradition, to imagine for one moment that
an Ignatius, a Polycarp, nay, actually, a Papias, could "lose
1 Lk. i:i; Jn. 21: 25.
2 Spoken of Hegesippus, H. E. IV, viii, 2; cf. I, i, i.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 173
sight of the importance of the work" of the fourth evan
gehst, supposing him to have been in reality the last survivor
of the apostles.
No better corrective could be devised for this totally false
estimate of the value of apostohcity in the times in question,
than a true appreciation of the history of Revelation, the
first writing to claim the dignity of Johannine authorship,
and the effort manifested in its own prologue and epilogue,
as well as attested outside, to give it "canonical" standing.!
We may well turn, therefore, to this first example of the
Direct Internal Evidence.
Fortunately there is no longer much doubt about the date
of Revelation in its present form. Whatever may be said of
the distinctly Palestinian elements incorporated in the main
substance of the Apocalypse, modern criticism no longer
disputes the plain statement of ancient tradition (Irenaeus)
attributing the work to "the end of the reign of Domitian."
The internal evidence of the letters to the seven churches of
Asia, including the development of church hfe and doctrine,
the growth and subdivision of heresy, more particularly the
conditions of persecution and martyrdom, are conclusive for
a date not earlier than 90-95 A. d. As Dr. Moffat justly says:
"A statement hke that made by Mr. J. B. Strong,^ that 'the
majority of modern critics are of opinion that the book was written
in the time of Nero' becomes true only if the word 'not' be read
between 'was' and 'written.' The former popularity of this date
was probably due in some degree to Renan's presentment, in what
forms the most brilliant volume of his series upon early Chris
tianity, L'antichrist (espec. chaps, xv-xvii). Besides, the lapse of
years which intervenes between the Neronic period of the Apoca-
1 See the article "Der Apokalyptiker Johannes als Begriinder des neu-
testamentlichen Kanons," by H. Windisch in Zts. f. ntl. Wiss. x, 2, June,
1909. 2 Hastings' Diet, of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 690.

174 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
lypse and the much later date of the Fourth Gospel, obviously
helped to remove some of the difficulties felt by those who were
anxious to accept both as works of the same author." !
Harnack is fully justified in making the date 93-96 A. T>.
for Revelation a point of departure for his great work on the
Chronology of primitive Christian literature. He has un
fortunately allowed his loyalty to genuine ancient tradition
to be overborne by the persuasions of an ingenious pupil.^
For the tradition that the Apostle John was its author is still
more ancient, and even Harnack cannot lend antiquity to
Eusebius' notion of an Elder John in Asia. The statements
of Papias and Justin regarding the authorship are doubtless
based on those of Revelation itself; but at all events they
show how purely modern are the attempts, originating, as
we have seen, with Eusebius' prejudice against the chihasm
of the book, to find "some other John at Ephesus" on whom
it might be fathered.
Rev. 1-3 and 22:8-21 present the most conspicuous ex
amples in the New Testament of commendatory prologues
and epilogues composed for the purpose of equipping a book
with apostolic authority. They testify thus at once to the
felt need, and to the still available opportunity afforded by
the name of John. For in this respect also ancient tradition,
which unanimously dates the Apocalypse before the Gospel,
is confirmed. This was the first writing to claim the name of
John. It is not an already existent Gospel of John which the
seer of Rev. 14: 6 sees in the hands of the flying angel. The
"commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus" are
1 Historical New Testament, p. 459.
2 Harnack has indorsed the theory of his pupil Vischer that Revelation
is a mere Christianized translation of a pure Jewish apocalypse. This theory
permits him to subscribe to "the critical heresy" of attributing Revelation
and the Gospel and Epistles to the same author. " John the Elder" could
be author of the latter and translator of Revelation. The theory of Vischer
has not been accepted in this form.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 175
for him in their New Testament elements an unwritten
gospel. The present message of Jesus is sent not by reference
to a written Gospel, but in seven Epistles (already a fixed in
stitution of church edification).! It concerns itself with
maintenance of the true tradition of the faith against forms
of heresy, and includes directions on the moot points of
"fornication and meats offered to idols." In addition to this
special message for the times there is the main substance of
the book; but this concerns the future. The chief danger for
the readers is from those who "deny the (bodily) resurrec
tion and (apocalyptic) judgment." "Prophecy" is therefore
the required antidote ; only it must needs have authority, and
for this the method had been stereotyped since the Book of
Daniel was written. The author of Rev. 1-3, 22:8-21
therefore commends the accompanying "prophecy" to the
churches of Asia.^ The author, he declares, was "John."
He does not call him an "apostle," because it is not John's
authority as an "apostle" (i. e., traveling evangelist) that is
wanted. For like reasons later writers such as Papias and
Irenaeus when appealing to John's testimony to the life or
teaching of the Lord refer to him as John the "disciple"
(fiaOrjTij'i) not the "apostle" of the Lord. A more immediate
cause, however, for our author's epithet for John is the in
fluence of the work he edits; for the seer constantly classi
fies himself with "the Lord's servants the prophets" (10: 7-
1 The fact noted by the Muratorianum that Paul also had "addressed
seven churches not otherwise than by name" may be mere coincidence,
though it is certain that the letters of Paul were in circulation at this time,
and the idea of the glorified Lord employing this means of communicating
with the churches certainly is suggested by them.
2 The procedure of the pseudonymous writer of II Peter, a writing of
about the same period, is curiously analogous. This author reverses the
process. He incorporates a current rebuke of antinomian laxity (Jude =
II Pet. ch. 2) and himself supplies (chs. i and 3) the refutation of those who
"deny the resurrection and judgment.'' "John'' was the next name of
authority after " Peter."

176 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
11; 11:18; 16:6; 19:10; cf. 22: 8, 9). Nevertheless, the tone of
authority assumed in the prologue and epilogue, the simple
" John to the seven churches of Asia," the utter non-existence
of any other John who could be thought of as thus addressing
the seven churches of Asia, should be conclusive as to who is
here meant.! It does not follow that the writer of the prologue
and epilogue in 95 A. d. was not aware of the martyr death of
the Apostle some thirty years before. Rather he could not
have ventured the attribution if the Apostle had not been
dead. As suggested above, his characterization of him as
"your brother, and partaker with you in the tribulation and
kingdom and endurance of Jesus" recall the terms of Mk.
10:36-40. Whether he had other grounds for attributing the
"prophecy" to John besides its Palestinian origin and apos
tolic doctrine we cannot say.^ He holds, at all events, that
the "prophecy" of 4:1-22:7 "concerning the things which
must shortly come to pass" had been given to John the
Apostle. Papias and Justin follow suit. In reality the
"prophecy" speaks of "the twelve apostles of the Lamb"
quite too objectively to have been written by one of them,
and there are further objections, as we shall see, to its Johan
nine authorship. But it enunciated the true apostolic doc
trine, and almost certainly had been brought from the seat
1 If to some the omission of the title "apostle" still seems an obstacle,
no difference whatever will result in our main contention. It will only fol
low that the writer of the prologue and epilogue had one John in mind —
probably John the Elder of Jerusalem — and his readers another. There can
be no disputing the fact that for five generations the John understood was
the "apostle of the Lord" (Justin) "a great apostle" (Gaius). Dionysius
of Alexandria originates the notion of "some other John at Ephesus" to
be author of Revelation, about 255 A. D.
2 Of the four disciples who are given a similar revelation in Mk. 13:3
James could not come into consideration, and Peter's name had been al
ready employed (see above on I Peter). John's name was more prominent
than Andrew's and had besides the special aroma of martyrdom, as sug
gested in the text, to fit it for such employment.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 177
of apostolic tradition in Palestine. The only way to secure
consideration for it in the Sub-apostohc Age was to place an
apostohc name behind the anonymous authoritative "I" of
the "prophecy." The approved method of the time was to
supply a prologue and epilogue continuing the first person
singular of the anonymous Palestinian "prophet," and
clearly declaring him to have been "John."
If John the Apostle had indeed been one of the martyred
"witnesses" obscurely adverted to in Rev. 11 : 7-12, and was
known to have been "killed by the Jews" thirty years before
in Jerusalem, this only fitted him the better to be the "pro
phet" of the embodied "revelation." No Christian reader
of Asia in 95 a. d. could possibly take exception to the rep
resentation that such a prophet, having been brought to
Patmos "for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus"
and "being in the Spirit on the Lord's day," should have
been supernaturally equipped with all the local knowledge
necessary for his messages to the seven churches of Asia.
In fact the letters are not his at all, but dictated epistles of
Jesus. What readers in Asia in 95 a. d. would understand
from the representation is shown by what the Muratorianum
actually understands: The Apostle John, before the coming
of Paul to Asia, had set the example "in the Apocalypse" of
writing a canon of seven Epistles to the Churches. As the
same apostle is considered by the same writer to have sub
sequently ( ?) written his Gospel from the midst of the original
apostohc group,! the stay in Patmos is probably regarded as
transient. In modern phraseology the sense of the commendatory
framework of Revelation might be represented, then, as fol
lows: "The speaker in the enclosed 'prophecy' is John, one
of the company of prophets and martyrs to whom the promise
1 Cohortantibus condiscipulis . . revelatum Andreae ex apostolis
ut recognoscentibus cunctis Johannis describeret.
Fourth Gospel — 12

178 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
is fulfilled 'if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him,'
one who has shared the 'endurance' which is in Jesus. He
received his vision of the approaching end when for reasons
connected with his calling he was temporarily in the island of
Patmos. It was preceded by seven letters dictated by the
glorified Lord, who spoke in vision to the prophet, addressing
in addition a special message to each of the seven churches of
Asia." This commendatory prologue is put in the first per
son simply because such is the invariable custom of all the
apocalyptic writers,! and because, seeing the writer of the
main body of the work spoke in the first person, and pro
logues and epilogues in this period of literary history were not
divided from the substance of the work, it was necessary to
continue the first person in order to secure uniformity.
But some still ask. Why may it not be in reality the same
John (Elder or Apostle) who actually does compose — for
deliberate composition is certainly the nature of the work —
both "prophecy" and prefixed "epistles"?
We are not directly concerned with the history of Revela
tion, and cannot, therefore, review at length the investiga
tions of ancient and modem criticism into its composition
and authorship. It may, however, be set down as an axiom
of criticism, established already by Dionysius of Alexandria
against Nepos the chihast (250 a. d.) that the author of Reve
lation is a totally different individual from the author of the
"Johannine" Gospel and Epistles. These, as being now in
debate, we may designate the X literature. Those, therefore,
who maintain the Johannine authorship of the X hterature
must abandon the claim for Revelation.^ A second proposi-
1 The Muratorianum shows doubt as to whether the Shepherd of Hermas
is to be classed "among the prophets or among the apostles," /. e., as epistle
or apocalypse. If the latter, it is perhaps an exception to the otherwise
invariable rule of pseudonymity among writers of apocalypse.
2 On Harnack as a seeming exception see note above, p. 174.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 179
tion almost equally axiomatic concerns the composite char
acter of the work. Of this its most eminent commentator
speaks as follows:
"It seems to be settled that the Apocalypse can no longer be
regarded as a literary unity. Against such a view criticism finds
irresistible considerations." !
Even more obvious than the indications of literary patch
work in the "prophecy" itself is the separate, but by no
means independent, origin of the prologue with its "epistles"
to the churches of Asia (chs. 1-3) and the epilogue (22 : 8-21).
These are written to commend, indeed in a true sense of the
word to canonize, the "prophecy" among those churches.^
The "epistles" borrow the imagery of the "prophecy" for
their promises to the faithful. But there is absolutely no con
verse relation, as there would surely be if the "prophecy"
had actually been received as represented. The instant we
cross the threshold of the "prophecy" at 4:1, Asia with its
seven churches, its troubles from heretical teachers, its
Balaamites and Nicolaitans, its greater or less degree of
faithfulness to the teaching of Jesus, is absolutely lost from
view. The whole interest is focused upon Jerusalem and
"Babylon" in their mortal duel for the dominion of the
world. The "seven churches" have disappeared as if non
existent; what remains is a "tale of two cities." The author's
horizon is hmited, with all the narrow absorption of the
typical Jewish apocalyptist, to Palestine and its agonizing
struggle with Rome.
This main substance of the book is nevertheless repre
sented in the framework as following immediately after
the vision of the epistles to the seven churches of Asia,
and in fact forming one whole with it as part of the
experience in Patmos. Such certainly could not have been
1 W. Bousset, i. V. "Apocalypse,'' Enc. Bibl. I, § 32.
2 Note the curse (22:18-19) pronounced on interference with the contents.

i8o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the representation if the "prophecy" had been previously
experienced by the writer of the epistles in Palestine or else
where. The author who takes this alien material and adapts
it thus to circulation on foreign soil can only be employing
the transparent devices of apocalyptic fiction exemplified in
scores of similar "prophecies." The Ephesian editor is con
cerned with the interests of the province of Asia. He is cer
tainly not the same as the seer whose personality he assumes
in incorporating his "prophecy"; for the interests of the seer
are those of Judaea exclusively. It is not merely that his
language and mode of thought are Palestinian. The Hebrew
gematria (13:18), the angelology and demonology (12:7)
might characterize a Jew even after long residence on foreign
soil. But the whole geographical standpoint of the "pro
phet" is exclusively Palestinian, without the shghtest thought
of the pro-vince of Asia. "Euphrates" is the barrier against
invasion (9:14; 16:12), "Armageddon," i. e., Megiddo, is the
great battle-field. Mount Zion is the place of Messiah's ap
pearing, the Valley of Hinnom is the scene of the vintage of
blood (14: 20), Jerusalem is "the" city (11: 13; 14: 20), "the
holy city" (11 : 2), "the beloved city" (20: 9), and even "the
great (!) city" (11:8; 16:19). "The wilderness" (12:6, 14)
is assumed to require no more explanation than "the city."
No other can be meant than the wilderness of Judaea. The
Gentile world is to this writer "the rest of mankind . . .
which worship devils and idols" (9: 20). Gentile Christians
are "the rest of the seed" of the Daughter of Zion (12:17).
Messiah is "the man-child who is to rule all the Gentiles with
a rod of iron" (12:5; 19:15). The salvation of the world is
the hegemony of Jerusalem, standing mistress of the nations
on the mountains of Judah (21: 24-26), while to the twelve
thousand redeemed from each of the twelve tribes are gath
ered an innumerable company of adopted Israehtes out of
every kingdom and tongue and people (7 : 4-10).

THE JOHN OF REVELATION i8i
The editor has frequent occasion to interpret for non-
Palestinian readers (4:5; 5:6; 9:11; 11:4, 8; 12:9), and to
adapt the material for later times (17:10-11) and for a
wider circle (7:9-17; 15:3; 17:6, 14, etc.). On one occasion
(19:13) he introduces his own distinctive "Asian" Christ
ology, contrary to the intention of his "prophet," declaring
the name known to none but the Messiah himself to be "the
Logos of God." Verse 16 defines it to be "King of kings
and Lord of lords." In general the Christology of the editor
is more developed and metaphysical than the messianism
of the seer (cf. i: 18; 19: 13Z), 22: 13, 16, with 1:8; 5:5; 12:5;
19:11-21, except 13&). Were it not for the mitigation in
troduced by some of the later passages we should ourselves
find it hard to reconcile the narrow vindictiveness of the
"prophet" against Rome and the heathen world with "the
meekness and lowliness of Christ."
For all these reasons, and many more which cannot be
here enumerated, it is impossible to admit the Ephesian
editor's identification of the Palestinian "prophet" with the
Apostle John, and of himself with both. The seer is not an
apostle, nor an immediate disciple of Jesus, and does not
claim to be. He looks back upon "the twelve apostleS of
the Lamb" (21: 14) as great names of the past. They and
the martyrs have borne their testimony and gone to their
reward (12:11). Two great martyrs in particular stand out,
to his mind, among those whose blood cries aloud for ven
geance (6:10, 11). Their bodies had lain unburied in the
streets of Jerusalem (11:8), and we have seen some reason
to think that one of these was himself John the son of
Zebedee. The Ephesian editor who places this Palestinian
apocalypse in the mouth of "John" in the island of Patmos,
after a vision exclusively concerned with the seven churches of
Asia, may or may not have known of "some other John" in
Palestine. All his readers at least, for more than a century.

i82 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
took him to mean the Apostle John. He certainly was not
himself that Apostle. The representation that John "saw
and heard these things" in Patmos is therefore a hterary fic
tion, comparatively harmless in 95 A. d., momentous for later
times, when the battle of chihasts and anti-chihasts was
waged, first in Asia, later in Alexandria, over the authority of
this book, and men began to argue about the personahty of
the author and his relations to "the churches of Asia." At
first men like Papias and Justin only insisted that the book
was afiOTrio-To'?, and that the revelation had been "granted
to one of ourselves, a man named John, an apostle of the
Lord," leaving the question more or less open of the alleged
visit to Patmos. The tradition of a residence of John in
Ephesus, travehng as a kind of patriarch among the seven
churches of Asia, grew up later, and upon the basis of Rev.
1-4, in combination with II Jn. 12; III Jn. 12, 13.
"It was at this time (the close of Domitian's persecution) that
the Apostle John returned from his banishment in the island and
took up his abode at Ephesus, according to an ancient Christian
tradition." !
The tradition was indeed already " ancient " to Eusebius
(325 A. D.), but it belongs to the days of prologues, epilogues,
argumenta, and subscriptions, when men studied the contents
of their canonized writings for proofs of apostohc authorship,
and to learn "from what place, on what occasion they were
written." ^ For all the period from Paul's own departure
from Asia down to that in which Papias and Justin are found
defending Revelation against those who "deny the resurrec
tion and judgment," the testimony of e^ery writer is adverse
to the Irenaean representation; whether by silence where
1 Eusebius, H. E. Ill, xx, ii. The "ancient Christian tradition" is
perhaps that of Prochorus based on the Leucian Acts of John which repre
sent John as going lo Asia from Patmos. Cf. TertuUian, Praescr. xxxvi.
2 Muratorianum on the letters of Paul.

THE JOHN OF REVELATION 183
silence is unaccountable on the assumptions of the tradition;
by direct statement like that of Papias concerning the murder
of John by the Jews; or by indirect reference, as in Mark and
in the Lukan and later references to Jerusalem as seat of the
true apostolic tradition. Even the author of the prologue
and epilogue of Revelation himself, by his very conception of
"John" as prophet and martyr, "partaker of the tribulation
and kingdom and endurance which are in Jesus," brought to
Patmos and made the mouthpiece of "epistles" from the
glorified Lord to the Asian churches, confirms the Markan
rather than the Irenaean tradition.
Other influences contributed, as we shall see, particularly
in the rapidly developing field of the epilogues and argu
menta, to the growth of the legend of John in Asia. Poly
carp, who in his own epistle looks back not to John, but to
Paul as the source of apostolic teaching, became instru
mental, through the part he was called upon to play in an
other great interecclesiastical controversy, toward the further
development of the legend; but its true starting-point, as
contemporary references show, is in the literary fiction by
which the Ephesian editor of the Palestinian book of "pro
phecy" sought to give it currency and canonicity among the
churches of Asia.

CHAPTER VII
EPISTLES AND APPENDIX — THEIR RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER
AND TO THE GOSPEL
The second factor of the Direct Internal Evidence of the
Fourth Gospel is that of editorial attachments to the Gospel
itself, intended to commend it to the pubhc and to enhance
its authority. Lightfoot held that I John "was in all hkeli-
hood written at the same time with and attached to the
Gospel." ! If so, it has been displaced by another epilogue,
whose ascription of the Gospel to John, while still veiled,
approaches more nearly to the standard of the canon-makers
of Rome in 150-175 a. d. Here, then, are two stages in the
development of the tradition as to the apostohc authorship.
First John surveys the Gospel and commends its witness as
"true" against "the false prophets which are gone out into
the world," much as the "epistles to the churches" had com
mended Revelation to the same circle. The message it con
tained concerning the incarnate Logos, the Word of life; not
a mere emanation, but "seen and handled"; not coming "by
water only, but by water and by blood"; its law of love, a
practical commandment of ethical apphcation, not a mere
gnosis of emancipation, are the true gospel of Jesus, as against
the denials of docetists and antinomians. First John thus
takes the same polemic view of the bearing of the Gospel as
Irenaeus and the later fathers, except that it does not specifi
cally mention Cerinthus. As Lightfoot well says :
"The close association (in the Muratorian Canon) of the two
I Bibl. Essays, p. 63. He further develops this view on p. 198.
184

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 185
Johannine writings (John and I John) warrants the inference that
the author of the Canon treated the First Epistle as an epilogue
to the Gospel. And this in fact is its true character. The Epistle
was intended to be circulated with the Gospel. This accounts for
its abrupt commencement, which is to be explained as a reference
to the Gospel which in one sense preceded it. This accounts like
wise for the allusion to the water and the blood (I John 5:6 f.)
as the witnesses to the reality of Christ's human nature, the
counterpart of the statement in the Gospel narrative (19:35)."''
Lightfoot might have added that the Muratorianum probably
made the same "association" between the Gospel of Mark
and I Peter, which in the name of that apostle assures the
persecuted churches of Asia Minor that "this is the true
grace of God;" and that the so-called Epistle to the Hebrews
follows with the same "abrupt commencement" upon the
instrumentum Paulinum. The idea, however, of treating
these writings as epistles of commendation intended to ac
company the Gospel of Mark and the Epistles of Paul re
spectively had not suggested itself to Lightfoot, although the
omission of all reference to them in the Muratorianum, un
less I Peter was mentioned in connection with Mark, sug
gests that they may have been so considered.^ The Codex
Bezae before its mutilation placed, as is well known. III Jn.,
1 Bibl. Essays, p. 198.
2 Support for it may also be found in Papias' reference to a statement of
his own (not the Elder's) concerning Mark's relation to Peter. "For he
(Mark) was not a follower of the Lord, but afterwards, as I said, of Peter."
Harnack (Zts.f. ntl. W. Ill, 1902, pp. 159-163) properly refuses to admit
Zahn's contention for a Papias extract in Eusebius, H. E. II, xv. The
infinitives, tov Si MdpKov /ivTuioveiuv rbv Jl^rpov . . . atipjiLvnv t4 are
dependent grammatically on to<tovtov eiriKap.'j/ev . us kt\. But
Eusebius would not thus glide into the form of indirect discourse if he were
not consciously reproducing the traditional argument. It is therefore not
unreasonable to accept, as conjecture only, Zahn's suggestion that the "testi
mony from I Peter" found by Eusebius in Papias was really I Pt. 5:13, and
that the subsequent development of the tradition connecting the Gospel of
Mark with Peter rests upon this basis.

i86 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
and therefore probably all three Johannine epistles, immedi
ately before Acts, an indication that the association con
tinued, in the case of these epistles at least, for a long period.^
What, then, is the internal relation of the Johannine
Epistles to the Gospel? Who are they who write this com
mendation of the message, alternating between "we" and
"I"? — Like the group Ephesians-Colossians-Philemon cur
rent in this same region we have (i) a general epistle (I Jn.),
(2) a special church epistle (II John), and (3) a personal
epistle (III Jn.). The individuahty of the writer comes out
most strongly, as we might expect, in the last. He is ah elder
in an orthodox church, probably that of Ephesus. He is
doubtless well known to "Gaius," whose good offices he be
speaks for the bringing of his message before the church
(III Jn. 9). Gaius, then, is his Maecenas, fulfilling the office
Theophilus fulfils for Luke. Certain messengers are the
bearers of his writings, and Gaius is to promote the work of
these. Curiously "the Elder" gives himself no name, either
because it was needless, or because his real name would have
detracted from the authority of the writings he would put in
circulation rather than add to it. For while he seems to
occupy a position of some authority in the church, it is by no
means undisputed. "Diotrephes who loveth to have the pre
eminence among them" will not receive the writer nor his
¦ messengers or message. And Diotrephes is a bishop of some
standing, for he " casts out of the church" those who take the
Elder's part. One of those who seems to have suffered for
this reason is "Demetrius." Demetrius has the witness of
all. The author and his friends bear witness, and Gaius
1 The present order of D is Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, Acts. But as
Nestle shows (Einf. i. d. Gr. NT., p. 56) this is not original. The fragment
of III Jn. which in the Latin column remains attached to the beginning
of Acts shows that the four gospels had originally the usual order, John being
followed by I-III Jn.

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 187
" knows that their witness is true." Such is the conclusion of
the epilogue which consists of the three epistles, manifestly
of the same Asian provenance as the Gospel. When we come
to examine the present epilogue, we shall see that its conclu
sion (Jn. 21:24) repeats this phraseology and gives it a
special application. In short, the Appendix follows the model
of its predecessor, making the personality a shade more con
crete. But we must return to the Epistles.
Second John addresses a local church in the name of a
sister church (II Jn. 13). The main object is to warn against
"the deceiver and the antichrist." This is "they that con
fess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh," in fact the
same docetists opposed by Ignatius. Forgetfulness of the
fact that Christ has also a law, the new commandment of
love, is the other occasion of warning. As in III Jn. the
writer's personality is allowed to appear to this extent, that
he hopes for the further privilege of a personal presentation
of his message.
First John is absolutely general. Those addressed are
"children," "young men," and "fathers" everywhere. The
message is as before a warning against "those who would
lead you astray" (2: 26), and the essence of the false teach
ing is again neglect of the moral law of love in practical ap
plication, and denial of the human, historic Jesus, a "Christ
come in the flesh." The author's personality still appears
to the extent of employing the first person singular in the
phrase "I write" (or "have written"); but in speaking of the
evangehc tradition whose historical trustworthiness he aims
to uphold it is always merged in that of his fellow-witnesses
in the Church. The form is always "we have seen and
heard" "our witness," never "/ have seen." In fact 5: 9-12
expressly defines the witness borne to the Son of God to be
the inward witness of the Spirit of adoption, which is neces
sarily common to all believers in all ages.

i88 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
It may be possible by indirect inferences with which we are
not here concerned, to draw certain conclusions as to the
personahty of this author. The office of "Elder" which he
fills imphes maturity of years, as weU as his use of the Pauhne
expression "my httle children" (cf. Gal. 4: 19). The type of
language and the use of the term "Gentiles" (III Jn. 7)
for "heathen" suggest that hke nearly aU church teachers
of this period he was a Jew. But so far as direct claim to be
the Apostle John is concerned it is conspicuous only by its
absence. The writer makes the utmost that he can of the
evangelic tradition of the Church, asserting its historicity and
trustworthiness against those who "deny that Jesus is the
Christ" (2 : 18-23). His test of the true teaching against the
antichrist of false prophecy that is gone out into the world is
that "every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh is of God" (4: 2). For this reason he leaves no
device of rhetoric unemployed to heighten the authority and
authenticity of the witness of the incarnation. But just this
fact is fatal to the idea that he is the last survivor of the
apostohc college, the special eye-witness and intimate of
Jesus. How is it credible that the Apostle John instead of
simply saying, "I, John, am he that heard and saw these
things" should seek to bolster his own authority against op
ponents like Diotrephes and his adherents, by appeal to such
unknown names as " Gaius" and " Demetrius" ? Why should
he conceal his own direct first-hand knowledge by merging
his personal testimony in the general witness borne by the
Spirit in the Church and all its teachers? Why should he
caU himself "the Elder" and not "an apostle of Jesus Christ,"
unless because he was simply an elder and not an apostle ?
It is indeed quite possible that Lightfoot was mistaken in
his very confident assertion that "the Epistle was intended to
be circulated with the Gospel," though our own judgment
confirms the opinion, and joins with the first the second and

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 189
third Epistles, whose history is inseparable from that of the
first until the time when distinctions began to be made be
tween "the Elder" and "the Apostle." ! But even if we
disconnect Gospel and Epistles the result is the same. The
writer is generally admitted to be the same as the author of
the Gospel. If he was the Apostle John, he had the strongest
possible motives for making it known. No rational motive
has ever been propounded why he should hinder his primary
objects by thus veiling his identity. If, on the other hand, he
could not pretend to higher authority than that of a simple
presbyter, but rested with a truly Pauhne conviction on that
inward witness of the Spirit which unites all generations of
the Church in a common consciousness that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh, and was eager to give widest currency to a
great "spiritual Gospel" whose key-note is the Incarnation,
then such expressions as those of the Johannine Epistles are
precisely what we should expect. They approach as near
to the claim of real apostolic authority as candor will allow.
Their mystical merging of the author's personality in that of
the Church as the abiding witness of the Christ manifest in
the flesh makes the utmost, on the other hand, of its advantage
over its opponents in the matter of historic continuity.
Professor Sanday misconceives the present writer's posi
tion in classifying him with those who differentiate between
the author of the Gospel and the author of I Jn.^ There
are indeed elements of the Gospel in the form in which we
1 In the fourth century and later we find II Jn. and III Jn. counted
among the dviiXeySixeva while I Jn. is one of the op^Xoyoifieva, although
all three are certainly by the same author. The reason is that I Jn. had
by this time become so inseparable from the Gospel as to share its claim to
apostolicity, whereas II Jn. and III Jn. professed to be written by "the
Elder." The phenomenon, therefore, has no significance save to show that
Elder and Apostle were by no means equivalent terms, as some interpreters
of Papias seem to think.
2 Criticism, etc., p. 57.

190 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
have received it which are later than the Epistles, and which
the author of the Epistles could not have subscribed to.
Such is certainly the Appendix with its identification of "the
disciple whom Jesus loved" with the writer of the Gospel,
and suggested identification of both with the son of Zebedee.
The author of A (if we may so designate the epilogue con
sisting of the three Epistles) has no idea of the sort. Such
are a number of passages inserted in the body of the Gospel,
and generally tending to accommodate its teaching to Synop
tic conceptions, which show a relation to the Appendix, and
prove that its author was by no means content to leave the
writing as he found it with the mere addition of an epilogue
of his own. The discussion of these internal evidences must
be deferred to a later time.! For the present we observe that
on general grounds of style and doctrinal standpoint, as well
as by primeval tradition, Lightfoot's judgment of the intimate
relation of Gospel and Epistles is justified. The substance
of the Gospel was compiled by the author of the Epistles.
There is, however, this important difference, that in the
Gospel, unlike the Epistles, he aims to reproduce a body of
evangelic tradition not pecuhar to himself, though saturated
with his own personality. On the other hand, there is not a
word to even remotely suggest the name of " John." AU that
pertains to this is intimately connected with the Appendix,
but shows no relation whatever to the substance of the Gospel.
We must aUow that the author of the Epistles, if he reaUy was
seeking to commend the Gospel, has indeed gone as far as
real candor would allow in the suggestion of immediacy of
the record; but of pseudonymity there is not the faintest
trace. So far from obtruding an assumed personality the
writer of A goes to the other extreme in merging his own in
the common consciousness of the Church. The common
object of authenticating the tradition is pursued by quite a
1 See below, Chapter XVIII, and cf. my Introd. lo N. T., p. 274.

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 191
different method in the present epilogue of the Gospel known
as the Appendix; but even here the case still falls far short of
pseudonymity. It is conceded by all scholars that "The Gospel was origi
nally intended to end with the twentieth chapter." ! Even
those who with Lightfoot and Zahn contend for identity of
authorship on both sides, admit that "the twenty-first chapter
is an after- thought." ^ But with what object was it ap
pended? The object is made somewhat clearer when the
textual corruption is removed of the.-added verse 25. Tisch
endorf rightly rejected this addition, absent from n*, whose
real service to the scholar is only to illustrate the morbid
disposition of editors and scribes toward a species of ap
pendicitis. Internal evidence abundantly confirms Tischen-
dorf's textual judgment, for not only is the verse a mere
¦exaggerated imitation of 20 :30 in a style much inferior to the
context, but this context is itself only obscured by the addi
tion.^ Omitting the spurious verse 25, chapter 21 ends, as already
noted, with an echo of the conclusion of the Epilogue of the
three Epistles, "we know that his witness is true." The
words are certainly connected also, as often observed, with the
scholium of 19:35,* "He that hath seen hath borne witness,
1 Lightfoot, Bibl. Essays, p. 194.
2 Lightfoot, ibid.; cf. Zahn, Einl. II, § 66.
3 Lightfoot with characteristic conservatism writes thus of verse 25: "The
last verse is evidently a scholium. Tischendorf declares that in the Sinaitic
manuscript (K) it is written in a different hand from the rest of the Gospel,
by the Si.op6uT-/is of the whole. However, as it occurs in all the
other copies, and these come from very various sources, we may safely infer
that, if an addition, it was written by St. John himself, or by one of his im
mediate disciples."
^Cf. Lightfoot, ibid., p. 197. "Through the main part of the narrative
we find these parenthetical additions. . . At length (19:35; 20:31)
there is a direct appeal to these disciples, for whom the whole has bqen
written."

192 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
and his witness is true; and he knoweth that he saith true
that ye also may believe," which itself rests on 20:31. The
effort to authenticate the record is again apparent. But what
strange obscurity! Who ever heard of a writer employing
such ambiguities to make the simple statement, "I myself
saw this"? And who can testify to the content of another's
consciousness ("he knoweth," etc.) unless that other has him
self first given expression to it ? Sanday is inchned to follow
the extraordinary exegesis offered by Zahn that
"exetvos (in 19:35) points to Christ. It would be just a formula
of strong asseveration, Hke God knoweth." !
But this ignores the author's manifest desire to estabhsh the
fact upon historical testimony, and particularly the "near
parallel in III Jn. 12" and the equally close relation with
20:31. The key will be found in the phenomenon described
of the issuing of water and blood from Jesus' side, and the
emphasis laid upon this particular fact in the A epilogue
(I Jn. 5 : 6 ff.) in connection with these literary relations. The
author of the "parenthetic addition" (19 : 35) is no other than
he of the Appendix who has his eye not only upon III Jn. 12,
as already noted, but also upon I Jn. 5 : 6 ff., and Jn. 20:31
as well. Only, instead of being content, as his predecessor
of I Jn. 5 : 6-11 had been, with the inner witness of the Spirit
corroborating the historical tradition, this editor, whom we
may designate R, aims to make the corroboration individual
and concrete. He means by his iKelvo<; his own prede
cessor, who with reference to this same currently reported
phenomenon had testified: "This is he that came by water
and blood, even Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but
with the water and the blood," and thereafter (III Jn. 12)
"we also bear witness, and thou knowest that our witness is
true." Jn. 19:35 is a paraphrase by the author of 21 : 24 of
1 Criticism, p. 78.

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 193
these passages of A, together with I Jn. 5:7, "It is the
Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth."
Viewing his predecessor A as not only the evangehst, but as
identical with "the disciple whom Jesus loved," if not the
son of Zebedee in person (21 : 24), R takes the witnessing
"Spirit" to be that of A's authorship. "He (e'/cetw?) know
eth that he saith true" is, then, in the view of R, an equiva
lent for the expression of the evangelist's consciousness re
garding the same phenomenon in I Jn. 5 : 7, "It is the Spirit
that beareth witness." He therefore puts it in the present
tense (iKelvo<; olBev) ! and conjoins with it the phrase from
the end of the Gospel proper (20:31) "that ye may believe."
R, the author of Jn. 21 : 24, looks back, then, both to the
Epistles and the Gospel, identifying their author, the name
less "Elder," with the figure designated in certain passages of
the Gospel "the disciple whom Jesus loved." What was really
meant by this expression is a question to be met in connection
with the internal evidence. Here we need only note that out
side the Appendix there is nothing whatever to suggest the
name of "John."
But verse 24, we are told by the "defenders" is not by the
same hand as the rest of the Appendix. In this case it is
the conservatives who resort to the dissecting knife, and the
critics who maintain the integrity.
For Jn. 21:1-24 is certainly a hterary unit. Amputate
verse 24 and its whole raison d'etre disappears. Maprvpia —
"testimony," "confession," or "white and red martyrdom,"
to use a phrase fehcitously chosen to express the double sense
of the Greek, is, as we have seen already,^ the subject of the
whole paragraph, verses 1 5-24, and is illustrated in the respec
tive fates of Peter and "the disciple whom Jesus loved." The
1 Written testimony is referred to in the present tense. Littera scripta
manet. 2 Above, Chapter V.
Fourth Gospel — 13

194 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
latter is identified with the Apostle John, not exphcitly, but
by a process of ehmination subtly suggested to the reader,
who thus assumes the responsibihty R seems loth himself to
undertake.! In symbolic language and description the risen Lord is
presented in the act of imparting two commissions, cor
responding to the two senses of the word p,apTv<;, and the two
types of fiaprvpia illustrated in the history of the Church.
Since the time when Paul had found himself "in a strait be
twixt two" to "depart and be with Christ, which is very far
better," or "to abide, which is more needful for your sakes"
the Church had clung to two promises, 'that of a share in the
Lord's glory for those who suffered with him (II Tim. 2:12),
and that of an "abiding witness" to "be ahve and remain tiU
the Coming of the Lord" (Mk. 9:1). We have seen^ that
first "red," then "white," then both types of "martyrdom"
together were attributed in church tradition to the Apostle
John. Here the functions are distributed. For the first time
save the obscure reference of Clement of Rome ' we have
distinct allusion to the martyrdom of Peter. Joining on to
the primitive Synoptic tradition of Peter's turning again and
1 This characteristic attitude of R toward current tradition has been
observed by Lightfoot with his habitual acumen, and interpreted with his
habitual apologetic tendency, in the Appendix B to his Essays on the Johan
nine problem, entitled, "On the Conversational Character of the Gospel"
(Bibl. Essays, p. 197). The instances adduced by Lightfoot from i: 41;
2:11; 4:54; 18:13; 19:34; 21:14, and 21: 23 are of immense "evidential
value," as Lightfoot declares. They are also to be connected in our inter
pretation of their significance, as he further notes, with 19:35 and I Jn. 5: 6 ff.
But the inferences to be drawn are very different from those drawn by
Lightfoot. These phenomena are in reality the specific and characteristic
marks of a redaction which aims to accommodate "Johannine" to current
tradition. 2 Chapter V.
^ Ad. Cor. V. "There was Peter, who by reason of wicked jealousy en
dured not one or two, but many toils, and thus having borne his testimony
(impTvpi)(Ta{) went to his appointed place of glory."

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 195
stablishing his brethren, thus retrieving the humiliating fail
ure of his offer to go with the Lord to prison and to death,!
our author indorses the general verdict of the Sub-apostolic
Age which looked to Peter as having received from the Lord
the charge of chief shepherd of the flock, ^ with apparent de
pendence on I Pt. 5 :i-4. But besides this primacy of Peter
which R does not wish to dispute, and which is ultimately
crowned with the glory of martyrdom, there remains a func
tion at least equally vital to the welfare of the Church, and
assured to it by Jesus' promise of the "abiding" witness.
To make clear in just what sense this promise must be under
stood, and to attach it to the person of "the disciple whom
Jesus loved" as none other than the writer of the foregoing
Gospel, is R's aim and object in the dialogue of verses 20-24.
A "following" of the Lord like Peter's in the sense of glorify
ing God by the manner of his death had by some been under
stood to be the fate of this man.' Others "among the
brethren" had applied to him in a literal sense the promise
"There are some that stand by that shall not taste of death
till they see the Son of man coming in his glory." In reality
Jesus had made only an ambiguous suggestion. The true
sense in which that disciple had fulfilled the promise of an
"abiding witness" appears in the Gospel he has given to the
Church, the Gospel of a real incarnation. This witness is
indorsed in its own consciousness as "true."
If such be the sense and bearing of the second half of the
Appendix, what is the object, bearing and significance of
verses 1-14? Here too there is manifest employment of sym
bohsm,* and "the beloved disciple" is also introduced,
1 Lk. 22:32-34; cf. Mt. 14: 28-33 2.nd i6:i8.
2 Cf. Acts 1:15; 2:14, etc.
3 On the sense of Peter's question in verse 21 as he sees John "following,"
/tiipic, oDtos Sk tI, see above p. 134, note 1.
< Note the count of fishes as 153, verse 11. Such is the total number of

196 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
though less prominently than in verses 15-24. Since the dis
covery of the fragment of Ev. Petri, which breaks off at the
point where the group of disciples in sorrow and despair have
returned, Peter at their head, to their fishing at the Sea of
Gahlee, it is scarcely needful to point out that this story,
counted in the Appendix as the "third" appearance of Jesus
to his disciples, isjn its own intrinsic meaning a first appear
ance.! It represents that Galilean form of the tradition
which in Luke has become completely superseded by the
Jerusalem form more acceptable to later believers in that
the "scattering" of the disciples and flight to Gahlee (Mk.
14: 28) has been canceled, so that there remains an unbroken
continuance of the original body of disciples at Jerusalem.
It also becomes apparent as part of this process that Luke has
rescued the story of Peter's new commission to all the world
symbolized in the miraculous draft of fishes by transfer
ring it to the context of his first call in company with Andrew
and the sons of Zebedee.^ R in Jn. 21 : 1-14 is confronting
the same problem as Ev. Petri, how to harmonize the earher
Galilean tradition which revolves around the manifestation
to Peter ' at the Sea of Galilee, with the Lukan form revolv
ing around the sepulcher at Jerusalem and the manifestation
to the women which is consistently followed in the body of
the Gospel. The story of Peter's commission to the world is
to R indispensable, because if room is to be found at all for
the general circulation of the Johannine Gospel it can only
all existing varieties of fish according to Oppianus Cilix as quoted by
Jerome. 1 See the note above (p. 194) on Lightfoot's " Conversational Character
of the Gospel," with references cited.
2Mk. 1:16-20; cf. Lk. 5:4-11.
3 The primary character of this form is attested both by the references of
Paul (I Cor. 15:1-11) and by the mode of introduction of its rival, Mk.
15:40-16: 8, as something which had not at first come to light on account of
the women's fear (Mk. i6: 8).

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 197
be by process of adjustment to the dominant authority. Now
in the body of the Gospel this authority is placed in very
marked subordination to that of "the disciple whom Jesus
loved." At every critical point, whether of the first calling
(1:41), the supper (13:21-30), the following to Calvary
(18: 15-18; 19: 25-27, 35), or even the birth of the resurrec
tion faith (20:1-10) another steps in before Peter. This
marked subordination of Peter to "the disciple whom Jesus
loved" might promote the circulation of this Gospel in Asia;
but unmodified it would be weU-nigh fatal to its acceptance
in Rome, the see of Peter, or in Christendom at large. The
old Galilean form of the tradition, centering upon the com
mission of "Peter and them that were with him" to the
world must receive at least that measure of consideration
which we find in 21:1-14. Only now it takes the "third"
place among the manifestations (that to Mary Magdalen,
20:11-18 being apparently not counted), much as the Markan
"beginning of miracles" has to give way to the two of Cana
(2:1-12; 4:46-54). In the readjusted story of the Mani
festation of the risen Lord and Apostolic Commission "the
disciple whom Jesus loved" still stands at Peter's elbow,
somewhat as in Acts. He does not forego the faculty of
deeper insight which in the Gospel makes him first to know
and first to believe (20: 8). Even here (21 : 7) Peter's recogni
tion of the risen Lord comes only when "that disciple said
unto him. It is the Lord"; but apart from this modicum of
tribute to the hero of the substance of the Gospel "Simon
Peter" is first in everything. He leads, "the other disciples"
follow. He alone draws the net unrent to land,! ^j^^j jjg^g jjj.
1 C/'. in Acts 11:1-18 Peter's prevention of a disruption of the Church
after the bringing in of Gentile believers. In Acts 15 the credit of this is
accorded to James and "the apostles and elders in Jerusalem" on motion
of Antioch through its delegates Barnabas and Saul. Peter's part becomes
less prominent than in the parallel Acts 10:1-11:18.

198 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
dividual relations with the Lord. Concession to the primacy
of Peter could not be greater if any place at all was to be
reserved for "the disciple whom Jesus loved."
But the continuity which makes a unit of the Appendix
disappears absolutely when we attempt to pass backward to
the substance of the Gospel. Individual "parenthetic addi
tions" such as 19:35 are indeed present, proving, as already
noted, that R has not left the work unrevised.! In particular
the relation of 21:15-19 to Peter's offer to "follow" in
13: 36-38 is unmistakable, and we shall have occasion here
after to scrutinize it in connection with the indirect internal
evidence. But quite apart from the mere differences of style
and vocabulary often pointed out,^ which nullify R's attempt
to adjust his own style to that of his model, there is abun
dant proof in the Appendix and its few connected passages
that the writer is not the author of the Gospel.
Difference of authorship is imphed in what we have aheady
shown concerning the purpose of the Appendix and its en
deavor to adjust the Lukan tradition of the resurrection
made fundamental by the Gospel proper, to the (proto-)
Markan, or Roman. Precisely the converse process has been
attempted in the corresponding appendix attached in all save
a few MSS. to the Roman Gospel of Mark. Here the Gah-
lean yields to the Lukan. The so-called "longer ending" of
Mark (Mk. 16:9-20) treats the resurrection tradition im
plied in the body of the work (Mk. i4:28;i6:7)toa radical
J See Lightfoot, ibid., on "The Conversational Character," etc.
2 See e. g.. Scholten, Das Evang. n. Joh., 1867, and Schmiedel, Encycl.
Bibl. s. v. " John," § 40. Among the more important, because involving a
difference of conception, is the return of the Appendix (and the interpolated
section 2:13-22) to earlier usage in referring to Jesus' resurrection (21:14,
Jesus "was raised," ¦i}y(pB-ri; 20:9, he "rose," dviari}, in accordance with
the idea of 10:18). Similarly the Second coming in the Gospel is spiritual
and inward, not a manifestation "to the world" (14: 22, 23). Here, too, the
Appendix reverts to the ordinary catastrophic sense (21 : 23).

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 199
readjustment, forcibly fitting it to the Procrustean bed of
Lukan narrative. The appearance "in Galilee" to "Peter
and the rest" has been remorselessly amputated and a modi
fied abstract of the Jerusalem tradition of Luke substituted
in its place (Mk. 16: 9-20).! Less radical is the method by
which the author of Ev. Petri (160 a. d.) approaches the
problem. Harmony by combination is the method of his
time, commended by names like Tatian and Theophilus.
Indeed the radical treatment exemplified in Mk. 16:9-20
was no longer practicable. In view of this fortunate dis
covery in Ev. Petri of an attempted combination of the
Markan and Lukan traditions of the Resurrection and
Apostolic Commission, and the light thus thrown upon the
motive of the Markan appendix, how futile appears such an
attempt as the following to explain the addition of the Ap
pendix to the Fourth Gospel :
"Though an after-thought, this chapter was certainly written
by the author of the Gospel. How soon after it is impossible to
say; but there is nothing in the style which requires us to postulate
more than a few weeks or a few days. As all the manuscripts
without exception contain the chapter and there is no trace of its
ever having been wanting from any copies, the probable conclu
sion is that it was added before the Gospel was actually pub
lished.^ After the Gospel was written and submitted to his friends,
the Apostle may have heard that some misapprehension was
abroad respecting himself, or that some disappointment had been
expressed because no mention had been made of an incident
which they had heard him relate, and which would naturally be
interesting to his admirers. He may have then consented to add
it as a postscript." '
It was not because he thought it might be "interesting to
1 On the redactional history of the Roman gospel see my Beginnings of
Gospel Story, 1909, ad. loc.
2 On this very fallacious argument, see below.
3 Lightfoot, Bibl. Essays, p. 195.

200 , THE FOURTH GOSPEL
his admirers" that the author added a new statement of the
resurrection Appearance to Peter and them that were with
him in Gahlee. It was not for such reasons that he attached
a new and special account of the Apostohc Commission based
upon the ancient Roman form, distributing its responsibilities
between Peter and John, after having previously brought his
Gospel to a formal and solemn close (20:30, 31) on the basis
of a pronounced type of the Jerusalem, or Lukan, tradition,
which related the same supremely important events in an
other interest. The author of the Gospel did not stultify his
own work by representing the disciples as returning to their
occupation on the "Sea of Tiberias," ignorant of the Lord's
resurrection (21:4), after he had previously related the
overcoming of all their doubts and the equipment of them
with their great commission (20: 22-23). He did not con
ceive himself to have related but two appearances "to his
disciples" (21:14), merely because "he was manifested first
to Mary Magdalen." He did not first forget that Peter was
under disgrace (13:36-38; 18:15-18, 25-27), then, recoUect-
ing himself, give him his reinstatement at "the third time
that Jesus was manifested to the disciples " (21:15-19). These
are additions by one whose conception of events and of
doctrine are different, tending to revert toward the Markan,
i. e., Roman, type.
Of course, this editor (R) adjusts his own style to that of
the work he edits. Such was the literary method of his time.
Besides the instances of easy imitation adduced by Lightfoot
and Zahn, there are cases of true stylistic affinity of which
notice has been taken already in 21:24 (c/- 19 "35; I Jn.
6:7ff., and III Jn. 12) and 21:14 (cf- 2:22; 12:33). ^^t
these occur in the "parenthetic additions," which as Light
foot notes are characteristic of the Gospel. Real agreement
in vital points of conviction is lacking. The whole object of
the Appendix is to so adjust the respective claims to au-

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 201
thoritative commission from the risen Christ that room may
be left for those of "the disciple whom Jesus loved" without
detriment to the accepted claims of Peter. R does this on the
assumption that the individual so described is John the son
of Zebedee, and also the author of the book; though he shows
a timidity in advancing this claim which is very natural in
view of the conflicting traditions regarding the fate of John
alluded to in verses 20-23. He also identifies him apparently
in the "parenthetic addition" of 19:35 with the author of
I Jn. 5: 6-8. In neither case can the identification be ad
mitted. A single plausible argument is advanced to prove that the
same peculiar attitude is characteristic both of R and of the
evangelist proper, on this point of the identification of "the
disciple whom Jesus loved" with the son of Zebedee. It is
said that the same "reserve" characterizes both in speaking
of James and John, neither apostle . being mentioned by
name in the Gospel, and the Appendix making but a single
passing reference to "the sons of Zebedee." Why this
curious silence regarding the two disciples who next to Peter
are the most prominent in the other gospels? If the ex
planation of a pecuhar "modesty" on the part of the apostle-
evangelist accords but ill with the extreme degree of special
honor with which the person of "the disciple whom Jesus
loved" is clothed in this Gospel, to the complete over
shadowing even of Peter, and is directly antithetic to the
bold enunciation of Revelation "I, John, am he that heard
and saw these things" (Rev. 22:8), must there not at aU
events be some cause common to Gospel and Appendix for
this peculiar silence? We are convinced that there is; and
equally convinced that it is not to be found in the fanciful
conjectures of special "reserve," "modesty," or the hke, af
fecting the character of the evangelist.
The silence of the Gospel proper as to the sons of Zebedee

202 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
might be due either (i) to some unexplained and inexphcable
circumstance affecting the original composition; or (2) to a
cancelation, effected in R's revision, of references which
seemed to present obstacles to his own theory of the author
ship. It is the latter supposition only which can reasonably
account for all the phenomena.
In the Appendix R appears in his own personality, refer
ring to the evangelist in the third person, as distinct from
himself (verse 24). Accordingly there is no objection here
(verse 2) to a reference to "the sons of Zebedee." Indeed, the
mention of them is indispensable to the desired identification.
In the body of the Gospel he was compelled to proceed other
wise. His theory required that John in speaking of himself
should employ the periphrase "the disciple whom Jesus
loved." If, then, he found references in the work to "the sons
of Zebedee " or " James and John," as in other gospels, it might
not disabuse him of his behef, but he would be most apt
to remove what would prove an obstacle in his readers ' minds
by cancelation of this feature. That this has in fact actually
taken place is apparent from the altered form given in Jn.
1:35-42 to the Markan story of the caUing of Andrew and
Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. What we have in the
"Johannine" form of the story is not simple silence regard
ing John, or James and John, but a manifest and palpable
gap in the story, such as would be produced by cancelation
without adequate editorial revision. The story reports how
"One of the two that heard John (the Baptist) speak, and
followed him (Jesus), was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He
findeth his own brother Simon as the first. . . ." >
1 The accusative (irpCiTov) is not adequately rendered in the English
versions ("findeth first his own brother") and gives rise to frequent misun
derstandings. The author is enumerating those who were found and brought
to Jesus and begins the list, as we should expect from Synoptic tradition,
with "Peter." Peter is "first," though another, here his (elder?) brother
Andrew, is placed before him, as in 20: 8.

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 203
In its original form this Johannine version of the Call of the
First Disciples can only have continued with mention of the
next on the list, certainly one of the sons of Zebedee, unless
all traditions of the order of the twelve are at fault. But we
have simply a blank. Where the story is resumed after the
naming of Peter (cf. Mk. 3:16, 17) the point of interest is
already past, the other of "the two who heard John speak
and followed Jesus" has vanished utterly, and even the sub
ject of the verb "he was minded" with which the narrative
is picked up again remains problematic. Unless all literary
indications fail, the original narrative continued somewhat
as follows: "The other disciple that heard John speak was
John (or James?) the son of Zebedee. He also findeth his
brother and brought him to Jesus. Jesus saith unto them.
Ye shall be called Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder."
It would be unsafe in dealing with a writer so inconsequen
tial in narrative as our fourth evangelist to argue from the say
ing placed in Jesus' mouth in 6: 70, "Did not I choose you
the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" that any complete ac
count of the Choosing of the Twelve was ever actually given.!
Even the subsequent r61e given to Thomas (11 :i6; 20: 24-29)
and to the two Judases (13: 26 ff.; 14: 22; 18: 2f.) does not
prove that this Gospel ever contained, like the others, a list.
of the twelve. If it did, however, its variations (" Nathanael "
" the disciple whom Jesus loved") would give strong motives
for cancelation to editors anxious to avoid conflict with other
forms of the tradition. All we can say with confidence is that
the sequel to the paragraph i : 35-42 proves a gap at just the
point where the sons of Zebedee ought to be mentioned, al
most as clearly as the preceding context imphes it. It cer
tainly was not Jesus who "determined (rj6eXr}aev) to depart
1 Cf. 6:5, where it is assumed that the multitude must be fed, although
just arriving, and 11:2, where Mary is identified by actions not yet per
formed.

204 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
(i^eXOelv) on the morrow to Gahlee "^and yet did not go.
Nor was it he who "findeth Phihp," whereas in all the other
cases the disciple-to-bc is found by a fellow-disciple. The fol
lowing clause "Jesus saith to him" in its parallel to verse 42
shows that the finder of Phihp is some other. It may have
been John, or James, or Thomas. Whoever it was, the name
is lacking, and the lacuna cannot have been intentional. The
inference is unavoidable that the non-appearance of James
and John in this Gospel is not a primary phenoinenon, but is
due to some process of revision; whether by the hand which
introduces "the disciple whom Jesus loved," perhaps the
author of the Epistles, or by R of the Appendix, whose in
terest seems to be to accommodate the claims of this nameless
one to other apostolic dignities, on the assumption that he is
John the son of Zebedee.
Other proofs of a profound difference in standpoint be
tween the Appendix with its connected "parenthetic addi
tions" and the substance of the Gospel must be deferred to a
later occasion, since they would carry us too far into the
domain of the Indirect Internal Evidence.! Enough has
been already presented to show that the latest of our gospels
1 a possible solution of the problem Whom did the author of the sections
which introduce "the disciple whom Jesus loved" mean by this enigmatic
figure, as against the identification made by R (21: 24?), is suggested in my
article "The Disciple whom Jesus loved" in the Expositor [Series VII., iv.
(1907)]. It should be noted that the phrase on p. 338 "a very real man
has sat for the portrait," i. e., of this ideal disciple, has given rise to mis
understanding, as if the meaning were. The evangelist is cryptically de
lineating Paul, who wrote in Gal. 2: 20, "that life which I now live in the
flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me, and
gave himself up for me.'' The artist who paints an ideal figure has a
model, but what he aims to delineate is not the model. He is not a photog
rapher. He paints an ideal. Still in many Madonnas by the greatest mas
ters the model can be identified. "The disciple whom Jesus loved" would
seem to have been originally (not in the ^ppendix) an ideal figure. But a
key to the ideal is not unreasonably to be found in Gal. 2: 20; that is, it is in
part a Pauline ideal.

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 205
forms no exception to the rule that writings of this character
were constantly subject to editorial revision to adapt them
to wider circulation, and especially to harmonize them with
similar writings already invested with a quasi-canonical au
thority. The Appendix to the Fourth Gospel bears every
mark of such an editorial epilogue and is linked to a number
of "parenthetic additions" of a redactional character at
tached to the substance of the Gospel. The literary usage of
the period was not to distinguish such editorial interpolations
and postscripts from the text, but contrariwise to obliterate
as much as possible the marks of difference. The later MSS.
insert their editorial addenda in the form of brief notes,
separate from the text, the so-called "subscriptions." ! In
other cases, such as the longer and shorter endings of Mark
and Rom. 16, the fortunate survival of a very few evidences
from the earliest period proves that what now circulates as
part of the text was originally an editorial postscript. Only
one solitary manuscript survives to prove — and that only by
a difference in the handwriting — that Jn. 21:25 is a post-
postscript, while in Matthew and Revelation textual evi
dence of the process of editorial recasting and supplementa
tion is wholly wanting. And yet there is general admission
of the fact in these cases on the basis of the internal evidence
alone. In short the further back we go toward precanonical
conditions the larger are the editorial liberties thus taken.
Back of the Appendix itself, presupposed and employed
by it, though now separated from the Gospel, is another
editorial framework, or epilogue of commendation, certainly
of Asian origin, consisting of the three "Johannine" epistles.
The method may have been suggested by the epistles to the
churches of Asia editorially prefixed to Revelation, but this
writer (A) has no thought whatever of introducing the name of
"John"; neither does he "address seven churches not other-
1 For examples see the A. V. at the end of the Epistles.

2o6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
wise than by name" ! after the plan of the current instru
mentum Pauhnum. He follows the more specially Ephesian
group, Ephesians-Colossians-Philemon, and makes a real
separation between the letters and the body of the work. Only
when adopted byR the Appendix writer (Jn. 19:35; 21:24)
does A's editorial "we" (I Jn. i :i-3; III Jn. 12) seem liable to
be mistaken for a post-mortem publication committee of the
Ephesian church after the interpretation of Matthew Arnold,
or for a group of "friends and disciples" (Lightfoot), or for
the original body of apostles and elders in Jerusalem (Mura
torianum).^ In the Epistles the "we" who write and testify
to the reahty of the historic incarnation are unmistakably the
witnessing Church; because the Church with its historic and
apostolic succession is placed in antithesis to the false witness
of the antichrist that is going forth into the world with a
denial that Jesus Christ is come "in the flesh." The "we"
of I Jn. I :i-3 must be placed side by side with the "we" of
the Prologue:
"The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld
his glory, glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of
grace and truth . . . for of his fulness we aU received, and
grace for grace." ^
It is not a pubhcation committee who are intrusted with
this witness of the Spirit, at once historic and inward. It is
not "a narrow circle of disciples who had the mental power
and the spirituality to understand" the Johannine teaching.
It is not a prelatical chque arrogating to themselves a special
1 Muratorianum. Paulus . non nisi nominatim septem ecclesiis
scribit. 2 Such seems to be the implied interpretation of Jn. 21: 24. Cf. Johannes
ex decipolis (discipulis) cohortantibus condescipolis et epi (episcopis) suis
dixit. . Eadem nocte revelatum Andrew ex apostolis ut recog-
niscentibus cunctis Johannis suo nomine cuncta discriberet.
3 Jn. 1:14-16. Cf. 3:11 and see Chapter XII.

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 207
"apostohc succession." It, too, has its antithesis in the con
text: "He came unto his own (land) and his own (people) received
him not. But as many as received him to them gave he the right
to become children of God, even to them that believe on his
name." !
It is the "Israel of God" as against the Jews, the historic
Church as against the false prophet of heretical antichrist,
which is the abiding "witness of Messiah" in the view of the
writer of Johannine Prologue and Epistles.
From this "we" of the whole body of Christian witnesses
the author of the Epistles plainly differentiates his own indi
vidual "I" — simply "the Elder" whose nameless personality
is known to, and vouched for by "Gaius," but not otherwise
obtruded on the reader's attention. There is no pretense
whatever to apostolic authority, though the effort to make
clear the superiority of the Church's " abiding witness" to the
neologisms of the Docetists might mislead a later generation.
Are we challenged to point to some individual other than
the son of Zebedee supposably competent to produce such
writings? The Epistle to the Hebrews remains a standing
warning against the idea that none but immediate followers
of Jesus, or persons of well-known name in the Church, could
produce its greater literary works. But let the challenge be ac
cepted. Why should not this nameless "Elder" be the same
as that nameless and venerable Elder of Ephesus to whom
Justin Martyr, the quondam philosopher, first and greatest of
the Roman fathers of the church, owed his own conversion ?
Justin relates the interview in the opening chapters of his
Dialogue. While endeavoring to satisfy his philosophical
doubts as a disciple of "a sagacious man holding a high posi
tion among the Platonists" at Ephesus, Justin reports:
1 Jn. i:ri, 12.

2o8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
"I used to go into a certain field not far from the sea. And
when I was near that spot one day, which having reached I pur
posed to be by myself, a certain old man, by no means contempti
ble in appearance, but exhibiting meek and venerable manners,
followed me at a little distance."
In the conversation which ensues Justin reports how the
venerable Christian teacher resolved his philosophic doubts
concerning the knowledge of God and the immortality of the
soul, by pointing to a revelation unknown to Plato and the
philosophers. Let the reader pursue Justin's report, e. g., of
the argument which makes the life of the soul not intrinsic as
in Plato, but the gift of God, "for to hve is not its attribute,
as it is God's" (Chapter vi); or the presentation of the
"prophets who spoke by the Divine Spirit" as teachers su
perior to all the philosophers:
"For they did not use demonstration in their treatises, seeing
they were witnesses to the truth which is above all demonstration,
and worthy of faith; and those events which have happened, and
those which are happening compel you to assent to the utterances
made by them, although indeed they were entitled to credit on
account of the miracles which they performed, since they both
glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all things, and pro
claimed his Son the Christ (sent) by him: which indeed the false
prophets, which are filled with the lying, unclean spirit neither
have done nor do. . . . But pray that, above all things the
gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be
perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whom God
and his Christ have imparted wisdom." !
This was Justin's only colloquy with the Elder. He does
not seem to have known his name, and declares in so many
words "I have not seen him since." We cannot of course lay
stress upon the coincidences with "Johannine" thought and
phraseology in the reported discourse; for we cannot tell
1 Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters iii-viii.

EPISTLES AND APPENDIX 209
how much in the report is Justin's own. But so long as this
figure of the venerable Christian philosopher of Ephesus in
Justin's youth (i 10-120 a. d. ?) is available we have no need
to shrink from the challenge to point to an Elder who could
have compiled the Gospel and given it to the Asian churches
under cover of the three Epistles.
It is easy to see why a work current first in Asia in such a
form, from such a nameless hand, should later, when destined
for wider circulation be given out as "apostolic." Its Ephe
sian origin and accompanying Epistles could not fail to sug
gest this name in quarters where Revelation was already
accepted as written by the Apostle John while staying at
Patmos in Asia. We should rather marvel at the caution and
restraint of R in his manner of making the suggestion in the
new epilogue (Jn. 21) which, as we have seen, prepares the
work for wider circulation in competition with other forms
of the evangelic tradition, and other apostolic authorities.
But concerning the evidences which reveal to us something
of the date and history of the Gospel's conquest of canonical
standing we shall have to deal in another chapter.

Fourth Gospel — 14

CHAPTER VIII
THE APPENDIX A PRODUCT OF REVISION AT ROME
Inquiry into the relations of the Appendix, of the Revela
tion and of the Epistles of John to the Gospel has compeUed
us to anticipate our study, to the extent that these connected
writings were involved, of the indirect internal evidence. To
appreciate the bearing of these documents on the problem of
the authorship of the Gospel it was necessary to scrutinize
the internal structure of the subsidiary and connected writ
ings, especially the Appendix, since in the manuscripts as
we have them this forms an integral part of the book. The
light already obtained indicates for what purpose the Ap
pendix was written, and what were its author's views regard
ing the authorship of the Gospel. It gives at least a sugges
tion as to the grounds on which they rested, in the phrases
which appear to be taken up from still earher writings of
similar bearing.
We must now attempt a closer determination of the where,
when, and why of this first assertion of the Johannine author
ship; because it became the source and foundation, as the
phraseology proves, of all later accounts; and to do this we
shall need to apply both external and internal evidences.
They should help us to determine at what place and period
the influence of the Appendix begins to be felt, as well as
what influences of other writings are traceable in it.
We have already noted Lightfoot's opinion that so far as
difference in style ( !) is concerned a few weeks' or months'
interval is all that need be assumed between Appendix and
Gospel; and that the fact that we possess no manuscript
evidence of the circulation of the Gospel apart from the
210

REVISION AT ROME 211
Appendix is proof of its having been added within the hfe-
time of the evangehst, before the original work had become
disseminated. Lightfoot even apphes the same argument to
the post-postscript (21: 25) attributing this also to the Apos
tle John himself, or at least "one of his immediate disciples,"
at a date but slightly later still. Zahn and other "defenders"
pursue a similar line of reasoning, explaining the apparent
reference to the Apostle's death (21: 23) — for how could the
writer otherwise know that the sense currently given to the
saying of Jesus was incorrect ? — as due to a sense on his own
part that death was not far off. In the language of one of the
most eminent of recent "defenders."
"The aged disciple, feehng death stealing upon him, might
point out that no words of Jesus justified the expectation which
had arisen among some of his devoted friends." !
This type of exegesis, which takes Browning for a model,^
and unconsciously parallels the rabbinic explanations how
Moses might write the account of his own death in the closing
verses of the Pentateuch, substitutes the play of imagination
for serious inquiry into the actual history of tradition and its
adaptation to ecclesiastical conditions in the second century.
We shall have more to say regarding it at a later time.
It is incumbent upon us first of all to point out how little
force there is in the argument of an early date for the Ap
pendix based upon the lack of MS. evidence for the circula
tion of the Gospel without it.
Those who make this plea show shght appreciation of the
power a canonized writing exerts, as -shown, e. g., in the
history of the Massoretic text of the Old Testament, toward
the suppression of earlier and uncanonical forms. How
many examples are left to us of the "many narratives"
' Drummond, Char, and Auth., p. 387, quoted and indorsed by Sanday,
Criticism, p. 81.
2 Sanday, Criticism, p. 254.

212 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
which "Luke" aimed to supersede, and has actually super
seded ? How many of the Logia of Matthew ? How many of
the Diary incorporated by "Luke" in Acts? How many of
Romans without the Epistle of commendation of Phoebe,
and without the doxology so variously placed but in the
printed texts appearing as Rom. 16:25-27? How many
examples have we of Mark unsupplemented ? How many of
Revelation without the framework provided by its Asian
editor? Or, to come down to the Gospel itself, how ex
tensive is the manuscript evidence of its circulation without
the ^orf-postscript 21 : 25 ?
But external evidence is not so dumb on this question as is
sometimes imagined. Silence, as we have seen, is its only
form of witness for the period anterior to the circulation of a
given writing; and there are circumstances under which even
silence is eloquent. Such in fact are the circumstances al
ready described under which Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, and
Justin successively manifest just enough acquaintance with
the X literature to prove that it had some limited circulation,
and at the same time by their silence as to any authority at
taching to it, and the extreme meagerness of their employ
ment of it, present an insoluble problem to the "defenders."
Professor Stanton's statement of the case shows just how
great the embarrassment is, which is created by the assump
tion that Jn. 21: 24 already formed an integral part of the
Gospel on a footing of complete equality with the rest in the
time of Justin Martyr:
"If (as is admitted by most critics at the present day) the e\'i-
dence shows at least that he (Justin) used this Gospel, he can
hardly have taken it for anything else than what it professes to
he '(in the Appendix!), a faithful record of the testimony of a
personal and singularly close follower of Christ regarding the
words and deeds of Christ." !
1 Gospels, etc., p. 91.

REVISION AT ROME 213
If on the contrary the Gospel had not yet received this edi
torial supplement, or if Justin, who, as Professor Stanton
has taken great pains to show, was exceptionally careful to
avoid dependence on apocryphal or dubious sources, had
knowledge of its earlier circulation in other form, either
apart from this epilogue, or accompanied only by the Asian
epilogue of the three Epistles, we have at once a satisfactory
explanation not only of Justin's treatment of the Gospel,
but of that of his predecessors.
So much for the argument from silence. But we are not
so destitute as many imagine of evidence directly attesting
the circulation of the Gospel in unsupplemented form. The
earhest of all clearly recognizable references to the Gospel,
as already pointed out — and on this point we are glad indeed
to have such high indorsement as that of Sanday — is that of
Mk. 16:9.! But the Fourth Gospel which this reference
implies is a Fourth Gospel without the Appendix.
The real derivation of the appendix to Mark is com
pletely unknown.^ The first traces of its existence are at
Rome about the middle of the second century. This agrees
with its purpose, already shown to be the adjustment of the
Gahlean type of tradition regarding the Manifestation to
Peter and Apostohc Commission followed in the substance
of the Gospel (Mk. 14:28; 16:7) to the Jerusalem type
presented by Luke. The method employed is drastic indeed.
The Manifestation to Peter, although the references of Paul
already show it to have been fundamental (I Cor. 15:5;
Gal. 2 : 8; cf. Lk. 24:34), is canceled, and the post-resurrection
scenes are restricted as in Luke to Jerusalem. In fact with
the sole exception of the opening clause "Now when he was
risen early on the first day of the week he appeared first to
1 See above, p. 69 f.
2 On the supposed evidence of derivation from "The Elder Aristo" see
above, p. 70.

214 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Mary Magdalen," the writer depends throughout on Luke,
or traditions connected with the Lukan writings.!
Now the leaning toward Jerusalem is even more pro
nounced in the substance of the Fourth Gospel (chs. 1-20)
than in Luke. The tendency naturally increased as the
claims of Jerusalem to be the seat of apostohc tradition were
enhanced by the growing dependence on "the word handed
down -from the beginning." In the body of the Gospel
(chs. 1-20) Judaea is the original and the principal scene of
Jesus' ministry, and Jerusalem the principal seat of his ad
herents (7:3; 12:17-19). The three resurrection appear
ances, including the Apostolic Commission (20: 21-23), ^^e
all in Jerusalem. If Jesus "walks in Gahlee" at all, it is
only because "he would not walk in Judaea because the
Jews sought to kill him" (7:1). When he does return to
Gahlee a special reason is given (4: 44), and it is explained
that "the Galileans received him because they had seen the
things that he did in Jerusalem" (4:45). Contrariwise, as
we have seen, it is a primary object of the Appendix (Jn. 21)
to adjust this extreme type of the Jerusalem form of the tradi
tion, at least so far as it concerned the Manifestation to Peter
and the Apostohc Commission, to the Roman, or proto-
Markan, form. Thus there are exemphfied three stages of
the tradition: (1) the proto-Markan. This is represented in
(a) Mark, (b) Paul, (c) traces in Lk. 22:32; 24:34, and
(d) more traces in Ev. Petri. We have (2) the Lukan, repre
sented in (a) canonical Luke and (b) Jn. 1-20. We have
(3) a harmonistic combination of (i) and (2), represented in
(a) canonical Mark, (b) Ev. Petri and (c) canonical John.
Now of these three types it is not the last, but the second
which is known and employed in Mk. 16: 9-20. Had its au
thor known the combined (third) form, he would surely not
1 The rival "shorter ending" has similar relation to Matthew. See
Bacon, Beginnings of Gospel Story, ad loc.

REVISION AT ROME 215
have chosen that which involves his work in self-contradiction,
besides leaving the promise of the angel, "Ye shaU see
him in Galilee as he told you," unfulfilled, and Peter, his
hero, under the unlifted cloud of disgrace! To suppose
that he had before him our Fourth Gospel's account of the
appearance to Peter and the rest in Gahlee with the miracu
lous draft of fishes, and the beautiful story of the rehabilita
tion and induction of Peter into the office of chief shepherd,
yet passed this all over for the sake of material so ill-adapted
to his purpose as Jn. 20:11-18 and Lk. 24:13-35, is to make
him out incredibly unfit. In short the appendix to Mark is
an example of the same harmonizing effort displayed in the
Appendix to John, but is earher and cruder; so that its author
while acquainted with Jn. 20, cannot be supposed to have
known Jn. 21.
The earliest known reference to the Fourth Gospel, ac
cordingly, seems to know it not as supplemented by the
Appendix, but apart from this, and with such mode and
measure of employment as we have found to be characteristic
of the period when no such claims as those of the Appendix
had yet been advanced in its behalf.
We may add that if the Gospel was already provided
with the Appendix such an editorial envelope as Lightfoot
supposes (I Jn.) would hardly have been added. The
converse, however, is easily explicable, inasmuch as the
Epistles provide only for a local circulation in the region of
Ephesus, whereas the Appendix takes account of Christen
dom at large. In this respect comparison with Ev. Petri
and particularly with the appendix to Mark is pecuharly
instructive. Both appendices represent adjustments of the
two great streams of tradition regarding the origin of the
evangehc message and the foundation of apostohc authority.
In the one case the Gahlean has been suppressed in favor of
the Jerusalem tradition; in the other the Jerusalem tradition

2i6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
has been supplemented by the Galilean. It is the latter
which represents the later stage.
Herewith we must return to the internal evidence; for
internal evidence alone can be decisive as to date and au
thority. And the internal evidence of the Appendix agrees
with the apparent ignorance of all early writers of its
claim. 1. Furrer, writing on the " Geography of the Fourth Gos
pel," ! refers to the frequently expressed view of critics
that the words tj}? Ti/Se/JtaSo? in Jn. 6 :i are a gloss attached
before the diffusion of our manuscripts. The phrase Tcepav
T^? OaXdacrr]'; ttj? TaXiXaia<; T'j}? Ti^epidSo<; is at least "awk
ward and unusual" as Sanday admits.^ Jewish writings
of the second century and Pausanias, afford, as Furrer
shows, the first evidence of the superseding of the old name,
"Sea of Galilee," or "Gennesaret," after Tiberias had ac
quired its later predominant importance.^
But the Appendix has "the Sea of Tiberias" pure and
simple. Furrer, therefore, dates it "bedeutend spater." *
2. The tendency of Mk. 16:9-20, of Luke, of Jn. 1-20,
is progressive towards suppression of the Galilean form of
the tradition of the resurrection, in favor of that which de-
1 Zts.f. n. t. Wiss., November, 1902.
2 Criticism, p. 114.
3 The only mention of Tiberias in the Gospels is Jn. 6: 23. It acquired
importance as seat of the central synagogue of Judaism, which removed
thither from Jamnia after the war of Bar-Cocheba (135 A. D.). In the Tal
mud "Sea of Tiberias" is consistently employed.
* Lightfoot (Bibl. Essays, p. 176) had said in reply to this argument,
"The city of Tiberias, built by Herod Antipas . could hardly have
given its name to the lake as early as the date of our Lord's ministry. The
designation however 'Sea of Tiberias' is found in Josephus (B. J. iii, 3, 5),
before St. John wrote his Gospel." More careful scrutiny of the evidence
from Josephus will show however that its bearing is in reality the other
way. Niese reads rijs irpSs Ti/3e/3id5i(-a) Xf/ixi/s; " altered in the inferior
MSS. to "Si^epidSos."

REVISION AT ROME 217
nies the "scattering of the sheep,"! and beginning with
Mt. 28 : 9-1 1 (= verses 7-8) builds up an account which starts
with an appearance to Mary Magdalen, and ends with an
overcoming of the increduhty of the disciples in Jerusalem.
The Appendix, as we have seen, follows the still later
tendency to reinstate the Galilean tradition, harmonizing in
21: 14, and presenting it in a form similar to the Ev. Petri,
wherein the same tendency to combination appears. A
similar adjustment seems to be attempted toward the relative
claims of Peter and John, those of John being reaUy a later
growth.^ In the Appendix Peter is the Lord's </)t'Xo?; John his
dyairrjTO'; (21:15-17, 20). The function of witness-bearing
(fiapTvpia) is divided between the two. Peter receives,
besides the office of chief shepherd, the crown of "martyr
dom"; John becomes the fiapTv? who abides until the second
coming, the "witness of Messiah." ^ The speech and action
are even more affected than in the body of the Gospel by the
later disposition toward an enigmatical and mystical sense.
3. The conception of the function of John as against
Peter, just referred to, almost reverses synoptic tradition.
Martyrdom (suffering) there is the part of John (Mk. 10:39).
If Peter suffered such a fate, the first trace of it is in Clement
of Rome. New Testament writers [except II Pt., 150
A. D. (?)] ignore it.* The specific application to John of the
logion regarding the "witnesses of Messiah" (Mt. 16:28;
1 Mk. 14: 27-28, omitted by Luke, and contradicted by his account of
events. 2 C/. Mt. 16:18; Lk. 5: i-ri; 22:32; 24:12, with Gal. 2:9; Lk. 22:8,
Acts 3:1, 11; 4:13, 19; 8:14; Jn. 1:35-42 (John the first follower of Jesus;
earlier than Peter); 13:23-25; 19: 25-27, 35; 20:1-9 (against Lk. 24:12,
John the first to believe in the risen Lord).
3 On the animus of the Appendix, see Kldpper, "Joh. Kapitel 21," in the
Z.f. wiss. Th., 1899. But his views are pushed to an extreme.
< The earlier disposition was rather to feel execution a disgrace, Eph.
3:13; I Pt. 4:16.

2i8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
cf. II Esdr. 6: 26; Rev. 11 .-3-13) testified to in the "sayings"
alluded to in 21: 23, comes in after Mt. 20: 23=Mk. 10:39.
It is supposed to have grown up in consequence of the long
survival of this Apostle. At any rate it must in the nature
of the case be much later. The scoffs aUuded to in II Pt.
3 : 4 are met in the Leucian-Prochorus legend by the story of
John's metastasis, or miraculous survival in the grave. Our
Appendix meets them by giving a conditional form to the
logion ("if I will that he tarry"), and making the witness-
bearing the point in question.! -pj^g author not only feels
with Papias the need of an acceptable "exegesis" of Mk.
10:39, but of Mt. 16: 28 as well. This latter logion has not
only received its specific application to John, but the current
interpretation of this application itself now requires to be
corrected, because this Apostle, too, has "fallen on sleep."
4. The conception of the function and career of Peter is
like that assigned in the Clementines to James the Lord's
brother, as the episcopus episcoporum, or even hke that of
the later Roman hierarchy, rather than the conception we
should draw from Paul (I Cor. 9:5; Gal. 2:8, 11), from
Acts, or even from Clement (ad Cor. v, 4) of his itinerant
evangehstic labors. It seems to be based on I Pt. 5 :i-5.^
The relation of the Commission of Peter of Jn. 21:15-17 to
the Commission of the Twelve of Jn. 20: 21-23 is therefore
parallel to the relation of Mt. 16:17-19 to Mt. 18:15-20;
except that in the Appendix it is not the founding of the
Church on the rock of faith in the resurrection, prevaihng
against the gates of Hades, a pendant to Lk. 22:32, which
the writer has in mind. In Jn. 21 :i5-i7 it is permanent con
trol and leadership. The analogy of the two Matthaean
1 Cf. Polycrates, "John was a witness and teacher."
2 Cf. in Jn. 21:15-19 the direction to "feed the flock" given by the "chief
Shepherd," the references to "girding," "elder" age, and the "glory" of
faithful service.

REVISION AT ROME 219
passages, generally acknowledged to represent different stages
of the same traditional "saying," only accentuates the relative
lateness in the point of view of Jn. 21 : 15-17 in comparison
with Jn. 20: 21-23.
Considerations such as the above point to a relatively late
date for the Appendix, such as the external evidence would
also suggest; while against it there is nothing but the fallacious
assumption that if the Gospel had had any circulation at all
previous to the addition of the Appendix, even were that cir
culation confined to the churches of Asia, and without ex
plicit pretensions to apostolic authorship, we should have had
greater textual evidence of the fact than now survives.!
But the surest method for dating this supremely important
document is to put the question. At what period, under what
circumstances, was it essential to the acceptance of the
Gospel referred to and commended in 21: 24 to be thus in
troduced ? To this question we can find but one answer : At
Rome, ca. 150 A. d.
It is in the same region at about the same date that we find
a similar appendix attached to the Gospel of Mark, making
converse adjustment of the Roman gospel to the Antiochian,
whose wider circulation is now attested by Basilides in Alex
andria, by Marcion and Justin at Rome. With the break
ing up of the original seat of apostolic tradition in Jerusalem
in the war of Bar-Cocheba Asia obtained no doubt some small
1 We shall have occasion later to discuss evidences derived from the Gospel
itself of its circulation in earlier form. Among these are the addition in
5:36, 4 which the best texts omit as an interpolation, but which subse
quent reference (verse 7) proves to have once formed part of the story.
In the article "Tatian's Rearrangement of the Fourth Gospel" reprinted
in Part IV from the Amer. Journ. of Theol. (Oct., 1900) evidence is ad
duced to show that Tatian was influenced by something more than the
present form of the Gospel in the construction of his Diatessaron. In view
of its late date (125-175?) the reference in II Pt. i: 14 to Jn. 21:18 L can
only be classed with external evidences for the currency of the Gospel as a
whole.

220 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
increment of believers "escaped from the war;" ! but Rome
fell heir to the principal substance of apostohc influence and
authority. Already with the visit of Polycarp to Anicetus in
154 A. D. we find the bishop of Rome endeavoring to bring
the ritual practice of East and West into uniformity. Tradi
tions exist — of how great value it is difficult to say — that so
early as under bishop "Xystus" (Sixtus I) in the year 119
A. D. a council was assembled at Rome to deal with questions
relating to the story of the infancy of Jesus in the early chap
ters of Matthew.^ It is certainly at Rome tliai the problem of
harmonization between the Markan and Lj^an (Gahlean
and Jerusalem) forms of the tradition is first precipitated by
the new prominence given by Marcion (ca. 140 a. d.) to the
Antiochian gospel. It is during this same period and at
Rome that Valentinus becomes the exponent in Gnostic
circles of the policy of combination and harmonization of
aU four (?) of the gospels, which is carried on from the
orthodox side by Tatian (160-170 A. d.) to the point of
actual combination into a composite Diatessaron. It is here
at Rome that we find the conflict breaking out, whose history
we have still to trace, between the advocates of one gospel,
or two, or three; or of the fourfold gospel which finally com
mands the field. What circumstances in all the known his-
1 So Trypho the Jew in Justin's Dial. i. Papias may have similar refugees
in mind in referring to "those who came my way." The Dialogue of Jason
and Papiscus (140 A. D.?) had a similar mise en scene which may have led
to its attribution to Aristo of Pella. For Eusebius' account of the effects
of the war is quoted from "Aristo."
2 See the Syriac MS. entitled, "As to the Star: showing how and by what
means the Magi knew the Star, and that Joseph did not take Mary as his
Wife" pubhshed by W. Wright in Journ. of Sacred Lit., Oct., 1866. The
only element of value is the alleged assembling of the council " in the year
430 (Seleucid era ^119 A. D.), under the reign of Hadrianus Ca;sar, in the
consulship of Severus and Fulgus, and the episcopate of Xystus bishop of
the city of Rome." In the judgment of Hilgenfeld ("Das kanon. Mtev."
in Zts.f. wiss. Th., 1895, p. 449) this date must rest on authentic data.

REVISION AT ROME 221
tory of the gospel canon can so explain the attachment of this
commendatory postscript to the Fourth Gospel as those of
Rome ca. 1 50 A. d. ? Up to this date we find it scarcely
known, current only in proconsular Asia, and making its
claims to apostolic authority only in the mystical and (to the
matter of fact occidental mind) enigmatic "we" of Gospel
and Epistles; thereafter it is first hesitatingly and doubtfully
employed at Rome by Justin (a convert of Ephesus), then
hotly contested as "new scripture" falsely attributed to "a
great Apostle," then, after suppression of the opposition,
rapidly disseminated in various forms of the fourfold gospel.
We have seen what generous concessions are made in the
Appendix to the claims of the see of Peter, and how the
ancient Roman, or proto-Markan, tradition of Peter's
Apostolic Commission is revived and adjusted to the claims
of "the disciple whom Jesus loved"; how the tradition is
here developed' of his martyrdom late in life, far from the
scene of his tending the flock (21 :i8), a story which is trace
able aside from this passage only in later writers, principally
at Rome. Indeed we can scarcely see how it were possible
otherwise for the transition to be made from a mystical
Ephesian Gospel, accompanied by no higher claims than
those embodied in Jn. 1-20 and the inclosing Epistles, to a
catholic Gospel of general acceptation and admitted apostolic
authority. We cannot conceive the transition as practicable
without an editorial revision involving adjustment to Synop
tic story, and more especially some new and more general
epilogue identifying "the disciple whom Jesus loved" with a
"great apostle" himself the author of the book. This once
effected it would depend not on critical reasons, which in that
age were secondary, but preeminently on doctrinal accepta-
bihty, whether the work would or would not come to be
reckoned the last and greatest element in the fourfold gospel
of the cathohc Church.

222 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
In the light of such an interest as this the singular cancela
tion from the body of the work of references to the sons of
Zebedee becomes intelhgible, together with the veiled and
enigmatic manner of the identification of "the disciple whom
Jesus loved." The "prophecy" current for some decades in
Asia under the name of "John" and stalwartly defended by
leading men both in Asia and Rome, as by the Apostle, lent
plausibility to the representation. It was the less open to
objection because the place of composition could at need (as
in the Muratorianum) be considered Jerusalem; while at the
same time other views of the fate of "this man" recognized
as current are explained away. The editor only suggests the
identification of the author and beloved disciple with John; he
diplomatically avoids the responsibility of a direct assertion.
So with the contradictions of Synoptic story so far as such
are allowed to stand.! j^ jg jj^ connection with these that we
find the comments, scattered equally through Gospel and
Appendix, which Lightfoot designates "Instances of allusions
to misapprehensions or to questionings rife in those about
him." The notion of "conversational comments" addressed
to a group of disciples who stand about as the author dictates
his Gospel may appeal to a poetic imagination like Brown
ing's, quick to follow the lead of the Muratorianum in its
interpretation of 21 : 24; but the historic will recall the har
monistic and apologetic interest of the second century and the
analogy of many another ecclesiastical writer of the period,
who aims to show that
"Although varying ideas may be taught in the several books
of the evangelists, there is no difference in that which pertains
to the faith of behevers." ^
' On the "veiled" correction of the Synoptists in respect to the occurrence
of the crucifixion on the fourteenth (not fifteenth) Nisan, see the discussions
below of the Quartodeciman controversy and the relation of the Fourth
Gospel to it. Chapter XVI.
2 Muratorianum.

REVISION AT ROME 223
Applying not the poetic, but the historic imagination we may
well adopt Lightfoot's own examples:
"1:41 'He was the first to find,' etc.,! j.^^ ' xhis was the be
ginning of his miracles,' 3:24' John was not yet cast into prison,'
4:54 'This again was the second miracle which Jesus did,' 18:13
'He (Annas) was father-in-law to Caiaphas, who was high-priest
of that year,' 19:34 sq. 'There came out water and blood.' Great
stress is laid upon this last point, doubtless in allusion to some
symbolism which is not explained, because they would under
stand it.^ So 21:14 'This was now the third ^ time that Jesus
manifested Himself, 21:23 'The saying therefore went abroad
among the brethren that that disciple should not die. Yet Jesus
said not unto him. He shall not die,' etc. Thus we find the
Evangelist clearing up matters which the current tradition had
left doubtful, or on which the popular mind wished to be further
informed. Through the main part of the narrative we see these
parenthetical additions, these conversational comments. At
length (19:35; 20:31) there is a direct appeal to these disciples (?)
for whom the whole has been written. ' He knoweth that he saith
true that ye might believe.' 'These things are written that ye
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye might have life through His name.' " *
Into the question of the separation of redactional addi
tions from the body of the Gospel we cannot enter at this
1 Has even Lightfoot allowed his eye to rest for a. moment upon the
English, or is he misled by the j3 text ? See above, p. 202, note.
2But c^. I Jn. 5:6ff.
3 In this case the italics are ours. The internal evidence shows clearly
that this was originally related as a first appearance. The same thing has
happened in Lk. 24:36-43, which in spite of the previous context was
originally a. first manifestation, as proved by verse 37 which is irreconcilable
with verses 33, 34. Here, in the Lukan story, and in the manifestation to
James of Ev. Hebr. alike, the "eating together" is brought out not merely
to prove Jesus' corporeality, but in the interest of justifying church ritual,
which "broke fast" in celebration of the resurrection. R here seeks to
harmonize by giving the manifestation a " third" place. Cf. the passage in
Lk. 24.
* Lightfoot, Bibl. Essays, p. 197 f.

224 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
point. What the great leader of the "defenders" has noted
should suffice for our present purpose. All that need be
added is the reminder that the notion of a surrounding group
of disciples, to whom the Evangelist addresses "conversa
tional comments" as he writes, rests upon an exegesis of
21 : 24 based on mere poetic fancy; while the real "matters
which the current tradition had left doubtful, on which the
popular mind wished to be further informed" are not such
vague and shadowy possibilities as here suggested, but are
the actuah discrepancies between the Gospels which evoked
on the one side the taunts of Celsus and of the predecessors
to whom he alludes, on the other the explanations of a Papias
regarding the differences of order in the narrative and lan
guage in the sayings. More especially we have the harmoniz
ing adjustments of the two traditions of the resurrection
which begin to appear after the Church has admitted a third
to the number of its gospels, to exemphfy the real matters on
which the popular mind required to be "further informed."
Such then is the situation presupposed by the Appendix
and its connected revision. So far as it is possible to fix a
date by means of the internal phenomena of a writing adapt
ing it to the needs of a given period, the internal evidences of
the Appendix agree with the external. Both seem to con
verge to the following conclusion: The Appendix forms part
of a revision of the Gospel effected at Rome not far from
150 A. d., in dependence on I Pt. and on the Gospel itself,
inclosed as the latter then was under its Asian editorial set
ting of the three Epistles. The reviser aimed, hke the nearly
contemporary author of the appendix to Mark, to adjust the
Gospel to rival forms of the evangelic tradition, and to secure
to it the apostohc authority of the John of Revelation, with
out detriment to the dominant authority of Peter, by a cau
tiously suggested identification of "the disciple whom Jesus
loved" with the son of Zebedee.

REVISION AT ROME 225
There remains one further line of proof for this dating and
motivation of the Appendix — the historic effect. An element
of such profound and far-reaching importance as a hitherto
unknown, or at least unemployed, gospel, so different in char
acter from those already current in the Church, so superlative
in its claims to apostolic authority, could not be interjected
into the developing hfe and strife of the infant faith without
some degree of commotion. What traces still remain to us of
such effects, and whether they do or do not bear out the theory
we have advanced of the origins of the tradition of John in
Asia' and his authorship of the Gospel, is a problem still to
be confronted. It brings us face to face with the struggle
toward general adoption of the fourfold gospel, at the end of
which the Fourth Gospel attains its position of undisputed
canonicity.

Fourth Gospel — 15

CHAPTER IX
THE BATTLE FOR RECOGNITION OF ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME
The period of a full human generation between Justin's
very non-committal employment of the Fourth Gospel (ca.
152 A. D.) and Irenaeus' sweeping assertions of its high au
thority (ca. 186 A. D.) is marked at Rome by a series of con
troversies which involved to greater or less extent the re
spective claims of Ephesus and Rome as seats of apostohc
tradition. Eusebius is our principal reliance for an account
of these, and has the qualifications of a true scholar, though,
as we have seen in the case of Revelation, he is not without
the prejudices of an ecclesiastic, which sometimes affect his
testimony. We must remember, too, that he is professedly
writing as an apologist for the apostolic authority and au
thenticity of the generally received writings of the Church,
and for its succession of orthodox teachers and leaders. So
far, then, as he reports at all questions which had arisen re
garding the apostohc authorship of the Fourth Gospel,
especially if they seemed to be raised by a "very learned ec
clesiastic" not otherwise open to the suspicion of heresy, we
must not expect him to treat the matter from an altogether
unbiased and critico-historical point of ^¦ie^v. To his age
such questioning, from such a source, could only be intelhgi
ble if given a less radical bearing. It is therefore no more
than we should expect when we find the chapter of his
History that actually deals with this controversy ! entitled
only "The Order of the Gospels"; although something
much more vital is suggested both by the adjoining context
^ H. E. Ill, xxiv. Ilepi t^s rd^etas twv etiayyeXtuv.
226

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 227
(the preceding chapter is entitled "Narrative concerning
John the Apostle"; the succeeding "The Divine Scriptures
that are Accepted and those that are not") and by the actual
contents of the chapter itself. It appears in fact to be the
main object of the chapter to explain how
"one who understands this (viz, that 'John in his Gospel
records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the
Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists men
tion the events which happened after that time') can no longer
think that the Gospels are at variance with one another, inasmuch
as the Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ,
while the others give an account of the latter part of his hfe."
In other words, Eusebius, while ostensibly dealing only with
"the order of the Gospels" is really offering his own (?)
solution of the great bone of contention between "Alogi" ^
and advocates of the fourfold gospel, that "the Gospels are
at variance with one another" ^ (Biacficovelv dXXi]Xoi^ to,
evayyeXia, cf., SoKel araaid^eiv rd evayyeXia of Apollinaris).
In what interest he does this is apparent from the adjoining
chapters. In a previous reference where he aimed to substantiate the
claim of Rome to have Peter and Paul as its founders he
further indicates the principal source of his information as
follows .
"It is confirmed hkewise by Caius, a champion of the Church
(iKKXrja-uxoTTiKb's dv^p), who arose under Zephyrinus bishop of
I Epiphanius (Haer. Ii) coins this punning epithet for those who rejected
the Fourth Gospel because this was the gospel of the Logos-doctrine.
2 Cf. the Muratorianum, which after its defense of the apostolic authorship
of the Fourth Gospel, adds "And therefore, although varying ideas may be
taught in the several books of the evangelists, there is no difference in that
which pertains to the faith of believers," etc. See also the accusations ex
changed during the Paschal controversy that Quartodeciman or anti-
Quartodeciman interpretations "set the Gospels at variance with one
another."

228 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Rome.! He in a published Disputation with Proclus, the leader
of the Phrygian heresy,^ speaks as follows concerning the places
where the sacred corpses of the aforesaid apostles are laid: 'But
I can show the trophies of the apostles. For if you will go to
the Vatican, or to the Ostian Way you will find the monuments
(Tpcnraia) of those who laid the foundations of this church.' " ^
Caius is boasting against his "Phrygian" opponent of the
apostohc authority of Rome, as against the Montanistic
succession, which claimed to descend by successive prophets
and prophetesses from the prophets of Acts 15:32; 21:10 and
the prophesying daughters of Philip the Evangehst. Proclus
had pointed to "their tomb and the tomb of their father" at
Hierapohs in Phrygia.* In a later controversy we shall find
conversely Polycrates of Ephesus offsetting the rpoiraia of
Peter and Paul at Rome by the declaration that
"in Asia also great fights (a-TOLx^ui) have fallen on sleep,
which shall rise again on the day of the Lord's coming. . . .
Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles [sic], who
fell asleep in Hierapohs, and his two aged virgin daughters, and
1 The date is probably too late. It may have been inferred from the
reply written by Hippolytus at about the period of this episcopate (198-
217 A. D.). But replies were often written at a period long after the appear
ance of the work refuted, e. g., Origen's treatise Against Celsus. Scholars
of all schools admit that Eusebius has greatly postdated the rise of Montan
ism. On the true dates see below.
2 Montanism, so called from its Asian provenance. Its advent in the
West was not later than 177 A. D., when Eleutherus, bishop of Rome, under
pressure from Praxeas (TertuUian, Adv. Prax. i) declared against it. Proclus
(called Proculus noster by TertuUian, and classed by him, in adv. Val. v,
with Justin Martyr, Miltiades and Irenseus, as a successful opponent of
heresy) was a leader of one division of the Montanists, .lEschines of the other.
3 H. E. II, xxv, 6.
* H. E. Ill, xxi, 4. Proclus had said "After him (Silas?) there were four
prophetesses the daughters of Philip at Hierapohs in Asia. Their tomb is
there and the tomb of their father." See also the extract from Apollinaris
of Hierapohs in H. E. V, xvii, 3, 4, protesting against the Montanists'
enrolment of Agabus, Judas, and Silas, the daughters of Philip, Ammia in
Philadelphia, and Quadratus in their prophetic succession.

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 229
another daughter who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests at
Ephesus; and moreover John, who was both a witness (//.apTv^)
and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and
being a priest wore the sacerdotal plate (irtTaXov). He fell asleep
at Ephesus." !
Of this claim of Polycrates, addressed to Victor, the suc
cessor of Eleutherus as bishop of Rome (189-199 a. d.), in
behalf of Ephesian Quartodeciman practice against the
Roman observance of Easter, each side appealing to the
monuments of buried apostles, we shall have more to say
hereafter. It shows the tradition of the death of the Apostle
John at Ephesus to be current in the time of Polycrates
(190-200 A. D.), together with certain characterizations
which we remember to have met in Hegesippus as applied
to James. It is cited in the present connection only to illus
trate the competition for apostolic authority exhibited, at a
shghtly earlier time, in the rival claims of Gaius and Proclus,
or else of forerunners of these.
For, only four chapters after that on "the Order of the
Gospels," Eusebius quotes again from Gaius (or Caius),
showing something more of the nature of his Dialogue or
Disputation: "Caius, whose words we quoted above, in the Disputation
(against Proclus) which is ascribed to him, writes as follows con
cerning this man (Cerinthus the Docetist): 'But Cerinthus also
by revelations which he pretends were written by a great apostle,
brings before us marvellous things which he falsely claims were
shown him by angels (Rev. 19:10; 22: 8); and he says that after
the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth,
and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to
desires and pleasures. And being an enemy of the Scriptures of
God,^ he asserts with the purpose of deceiving men, that there
1 Letter of Polycrates of Ephesus to Victor of Rome, cited by Eiisebius,
H. E. V, xxiv.
2 Cf. the "variance" of the Johannine writings from the (Synoptic) Gos-

230 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
is to be a period of a thousand years for marriage festivals
(Rev. 20:1-5; 2i:i-g).'"!
Finally he gives an exphcit though all too brief description
of the Disputation itself, with a definition of its purpose:
"There has reached us also a Dialogue of Caius, a very learned
man, which was held at Rome under Zephyrinus,^ with Proclus,
who contended for the Phrygian heresy. In this he curbs the
rashness and boldness of his opponents in setting forth new
Scriptures." ^
What these "new Scriptures" were, besides the book of
Revelation contemptuously ascribed in the preceding ex
tract to Cerinthus, Eusebius does not inform his readers,
confining himself to the evidence afforded on the "disputed"
Epistie to the Hebrews, that Caius, hke the earher Latin
fathers generally
"mentions only thirteen epistles of the holy apostle (Paul),
not counting that to the Hebrews with the others." *
For Eusebius at least they will have included the "Cathohc
epistle" which Themiso, one of the Phrygian leaders, had ad
dressed to his adherents "in imitation of the Apostle" as
was charged by the orthodox. The "new Scriptures" to
which the Alogi objected will have included, however, more
important writings than Themiso 's, if we may judge from
other references.
Fortunately the list of Hippolytus' works on the base of
pels above referred to (p. 227). In the Heads against Gaius (see below)
Gaius is quoted as accompanying each of his strictures against Revelation by
quotations from the O. T., the Synoptic Gospels, and the Pauline Epistles,
showing that these presented a different doctrine.
1 H. E. Ill, xxviii, i, 2. Hippolytus in the fifth of his Heads against
Gaius below cited replies to this stricture with the explanation that the
"thousand years" are figurative.
2 On this date see above, p. 228, note.
3 H. E. VI, XX, 3.
¦» lUd.

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 231
his statue in the Lateran museum, with the recently recov
ered extracts from Ebed-Jesu in the Commentary on Revela
tion by Dionysius Bar-Salibi, entitled Heads against Gaius ^
and the borrowings of Epiphanius from Hippolytus ^ enable
us to determine more exactly the nature of the Disputation,
and (if Bar-Salibi is to be trusted) the "new Scriptures" it
protested against. That the tone and temper of Gaius were
anything but conciliatory might be inferred from the extract
with which Eusebius favors us on Revelation, declaring it a
work of Cerinthus falsely claiming to be written by "a great
apostle." The inference is confirmed by the great scholar
Dionysius of Alexandria who turns against the Chihast
Nepos in his own time (250 a. d.) the weapon his predecessor
had forged against the Montanists. Dionysius does not name
this predecessor, and of course would not reproduce any
strictures he might find upon the Fourth Gospel, which in
his day had been for half a century an integral part of the
accepted fourfold gospel. But the description of his prede
cessor in this field of criticism is not difficult to recognize :
" Some before us have set aside and rejected the book (Revela
tion) altogether, criticising it chapter by chapter,^ and pronoun
cing it without sense or argument and maintaining that the title is
fraudulent. For they say that it is not the work of John, nor is it
a revelation (unveiling) because it is covered thickly and densely
by a veil of obscurity. And they affirm that none of the apostles,
and none of the saints, nor anyone in the Church is its author,
1 Published by J. Gwynn in Hermathena, vol. VI, 397-4 iS. Dionysius
Bar-Salibi was bishop of Amid in 1166-1171 A. r>. The five fragments of
the work of Hippolytus published by Gwynn are extracts from the Com
mentary of Bar-Salibi on Revelation, Acts, and the Pauline and Catholic
Epistles. Of course nothing appears of any strictures Caius may have
brought against the Fourth Gospel. The five extant apply to Rev. 8: 8;
8:12; 9:2 ff.; 9:14 ff., and 20:2 ff.
2 Hcer. Ii, § 4 sqq. See, for the relation to Hippolytus, Lipsius, Zur
Quellenkritik des Epiphanius, pp. 233-235.
3 Cf. the method of Gaius in the Heads.

232

THE FOURTH GOSPEL

but that Cerinthus, who founded the sect which was called after
him the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction,
prefixed the name. For the doctrine which he taught was this:
that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one. And as he
was himself devoted to the pleasures of the body, and altogether
sensual in his nature, he dreamed that that kingdom would con
sist in those things which he desired, namely in the delights of
the belly and of sexual passion; that is to say in eating and drink
ing and marrying, and in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying
of victims, under the guise of which he thought he could indulge
his appetites with better grace." !
Dionysius proceeds to say that he himself "could not
venture to reject the book (Revelation), as many brethren
hold it in high esteem." He thinks, however, that it was
written by "some other John" than the Apostle.
Professor Stanton, it is true, is not convinced by the argu
ment of Dr. J. R. Harris ^ that Gaius rejected the Gospel as
well as the Apocalypse of John. According to Bar-Sahbi
"the heretic Gaius" charged John with being "at variance
with the other Gospels" in regard to the course of events at
the beginning of Christ's ministry. Whether the name
Gaius is here introduced by an editor, as Harris believes,* or
comes from Bar-Salibi, or from Ebed-Jesu, makes very httle
difference. Neither is likely to have consulted Eusebius for
the characteristic phrase "the Gospels are at variance," nor
for the curious limitation to "the course of events at the be
ginning of Christ's ministry" which also corresponds to
Eusebius' answer in the same chapter;* for Eusebius here
1 Eusebius had already quoted this tirade against Cerinthus in immedi
ate connection with his extract from the Disputation of Gaius (H. E. Ill,
xxviii). The polemic style of the Roman anti-Montanist is not difficult to
recognize. 2 Hermas in Arcadia and other Essays, 1896.
3 This (in the twelfth century) scandalous opinion is attributed else
where in the book only to "a certain heretic." For the reason see below.
i H. E. Ill, xxiv.

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 233
takes no account of the point raised in the Quartodeciman
controversy of the conflicting date of the crucifixion, nor of
the difference in the number of Passovers referred to, but
confines himself to the opening chapters of the Gospel.
Another remarkable coincidence is the fact that Epiphanius'
charge against the "Alogi" in a part of his work which is
admittedly based on the work of Hippolytus, should be in
precisely the same form; for here too it is a matter of dis
agreement of the Fourth with the Synoptic Gospels. More
over, the reply to the objection of the "heretic" against John's
Gospel is introduced in Bar-Sahbi with the words "of the
holy Hippolytus against him" and similar expressions intro
duce the replies in the quotations from the Heads against
Gaius. But Professor Stanton is still unwilhng to admit the iden
tity of the work from which the five Heads against Gaius are
drawn with the Defence of the Gospel according to John and
the Apocalypse named in the list of Hippolytus' works in the
Lateran inscription. Hippolytus might have written two
works, he thinks, of similar bearing, only one of which was
named on the statue. It might have been the other book
which was directed against Gaius, and in this not the Fourth
Gospel be defended, but only the Apocalypse. His principal
reasons are the following :
" (i) Gaius cannot have shown a disposition to reject the Gos
pel according to St. John in his Dialogue against Proclus, with
which Eusebius was familiar; Eusebius could not have ignored
so serious a departure from the beliefs of his own time.
"(2) Dr. Harris lays considerable stress on the facts that in
the passage in which Barsalibi records the objection of ' a certain
heretic' to John's Gospel, the reply is introduced with the words
'of the holy Hippolytus against him,' and that similar expressions
introduce the replies in the quotations from the Heads against
Gaius. But surely there is nothing in this. It would be natural

234 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
that Hippolytus, or Barsalibi in quoting him, should give the
objection and the answer in a similar manner, even though a differ
ent opponent was in question. It may also be asked why, if
Gaius was meant, the expression 'a certain heretic' should have
been used, instead of his name being given as elsewhere." !
The rfeader need only turn once more to the chapter of
Eusebius on "The Order of the Gospels" already cited, to
find an immediate answer to both of Stanton's objections to
Harris' cogent arguments. Eusebius is very far from "ignor
ing the serious departure from the behef s of his own time"
revealed in the Disputation. As we have seen, he interjects
an antidote to the poison for the benefit of any who might be
led to "think that the Gospels are at variance with one an
other," confining himself to "the course of events at the
beginning of Christ's ministry." He may even, like Epi
phanius, be indebted to "the holy Hippolytus" for his har
monizing explanation, though he does not mention explicitly
the Defence among Hippolytus' works, but limits his ac
count of the strictures of Gaius against the "new Scriptures"
appealed to by the Phrygians to Revelation. But why should
Eusebius lend weight to the difficulty, and increase the dan
ger to those whom he warns against the idea that "the
Gospels are at variance" by admitting it to have been main
tained, if not originated, by the "very learned ecclesiastic"
and defender of the faith, the revered presbyter Gaius ? The
same considerate discretion, with perhaps the example of
Eusebius to lend it greater weight, may well account for
later writers preferring to attribute the scandalous idea to "a
certain heretic" rather than to give the name.^ Even Epi
phanius, whiDse principal claim to scholarship was his ability
to denounce in seven languages the heresies of Origen, an
1 Gospels, etc., "Additional Note to Ch. V. Gaius' Attitude to the
Fourth Gospel," p. 240.
2 Cf. Dionysius of Alexandria in the extract above, "Some before us."

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 235
incomparably greater scholar and nobler man than himself,
of more recent date than Gaius, would certainly not have
followed a different course. Profes.sor Stanton argues:
"We may infer from Barsalibi that in the Heads the name of
Gaius occurred repeatedly. If the same work lay before Epi
phanius it is strange that this name should not have appeared in
his pages. He would not have desired to suppress it; on the con
trary he would have felt satisfaction in gibbeting a misbeliever."!
By similar reasoning we might expect Dr. Orr to "take
satisfaction" in pointing out that John Calvin questioned the
authenticity of II Pt., because, forsooth, he takes up the
cudgels of Pentateuch apologetic with alacrity against the
late W. Robertson Smith. Origen was a dangerous heretic.
To mention the eccentricity of Gaius by name would only
serve to besmirch the reputation of an honored defender of
the faith.
On the other hand, we are informed by other opponents of
Montanism of the same period as Gaius, that Montanus him
self claimed to fulfil in his own person the promise of the
Paraclete (Jn. 14:16, 17, 26), his pretensions on this score
being naturally even more obnoxious to the orthodox than
his millenarianism. Gaius had, therefore, at, least as much
motive for denying the apostolic authorship of the Gospel as
of the Apocalypse, and the silence of later writers on this
point cannot offset the clear evidence that Hippolytus de
fended both against him. For a theory which conjectures
another treatise of Hippolytus, not mentioned in the list of
his works inscribed upon his monument, but similar in char
acter to the Defence of the Gospel according to John and the
Apocalypse, having also the form of replies to an opponent
and differing from this Defence only in the single respect that
in the latter case the opponent was a Gaius who "cannot
have shown a disposition to reject the Gospel according to
1 Ibid., p. 240.

236 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
St. John, comes quite too near the pattern of a "Hiilfshy-
pothese." The outcome of the argument, accordingly, can
only be to make it more probable than ever that in his
Disputation against Proclus the real Gaius did include the
Gospel as well as the Apocalypse of John among the "new
Scriptures" which he declared were being brought in by the
"boldness and rashness" of his Asian opponents. For this
reason Hippolytus felt called upon for a Defence of the Gospel
according to John as well as of the Apocalypse. Indeed, it
would seem to be just the argument of Gaius, and none other,
which Eusebius is tacitly refuting in the chapter discreetly
headed "On the Order of the Gospels," which he inserts
between two explicit quotations from the Disputation of
Gaius against Proclus,''' next after a chapter on "A Narra
tive concerning John the Apostle" and next before that on
"The Divine Scriptures that are Accepted and those that
are not." ^ Even, however, were this not so, the case remains
the same for the opposition to the Fourth Gospel. The
Alogi presupposed by the Muratorianum and by Irenaeus
become anonymous, but they do not disappear.
But it is maintained by the "defenders" that we have set
the date of Gaius much too early. According to Zahn the
real Alogi in distinction from the Gaius whom Hippolytus
refutes were already in his time (200-234 a. d.)
"an ancient faction, which had declared war upon all the
Johannine writings, but more particularly against the Apocalypse
and the Gospel. Not till Epiphanius and Philaster of Brescia
do we obtain an explicit account of them." *
1 H. E. II, XXV, 6, and III, xxxi, 4.
2 Since the enunciation of the above conjecture I find it independently
advanced as " a guess " by Professor Sanday, Criticism, etc., p. 69.
3 Kanongesch. Bd. I, p. 223. The passages cited are Epiph. Panar, Ii;
Philaster, Haer. Ix. In particular Epiph. § 3 oSre t6 tov 'luidvvov eiayy£\iov
S^X""''''" o^'''^ ¦'¦'!'' ^<JToC dTroKd\v\j/i.v; cf. Phil, evangelium Kard ''ludvvov et
apocalypsim ipsius non accipiunt. Epiph. § 3 X^ouo-t ydp p,ii chai airri,

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 237
According to Zahn's view the "very learned ecclesiastic
Gaius" would merely have borrowed from an eccentric fac
tion of the Church, which had already been crushingly an
swered by no less an authority than Irenaeus, and whose
views had already been condemned in such a quasi-official
document as the Muratorianum. For as he well says:
"In the Canon of Muratori the discussion on the Gospel and
First Epistle of John bears an unmistakably apologetic char
acter, whereas the Apocalypse appears to be less in need of de
fense; unless indeed the sentence in which it was discussed has
reached us in a completely confused condition.! A serious and
threatening assault upon the Apocalypse can hardly at that time
have taken place within the ken of the fragmentist (author of the
Canon) in Rome, and her dependent churches. But only a very
short time can have elapsed before the Disputation occurred in
Rome between the Montanist Proclus and the Catholic Gaius,
in which the latter laid down the thesis, among other propositions
affecting the canon, that the Apocalypse purporting to be by the
Apostle was a work of the heretic Cerinthus." ^
If the Eusebian dating of the Disputation under Zephyrinus
must stand, Gaius' work must indeed sink to this level of
second-hand heresy. The real Alogi will be not his followers,
but certain unknown predecessors, who a full generation be
fore had awakened the opposition of both the Muratorian
fragmentist and of Irenaeus. Nameless they will have been,
but far from voiceless or without influence, since in spite of
this opposition in high quarters they won to themselves such
'Iwdvvov dWd Kriplvdov; cf. Phil, ut etiam Cerinthi illius hgeretici esse (sc.
evangelium) audeant dicere, (et) apocalypsim ipsius itidem non beati
Joannis evangelista; et apostoli, sed Cerinthi ha;retici. Philaster rests
on the same source as Epiphanius.
• An allusion to his own conjecture that the words et Petri in the sentence
"We receive the Apocalypse of John and of Peter only" may be interpo
lated. ^Kanongesch. I, p. 222.

238 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
an adherent as Gaius, who adopts even their most incredible
tenet, the ascription of Revelation (!) to the Docetist Cerin
thus. They even called forth at least one Defence of the
Gospel according to John and the Apocalypse from the great
scholar Hippolytus some fifty years after their objections
had been raised.
To ourselves such a conception of events cannot but seem
less probable than that defended by scholars so opposite in
tendency as Salmon and Schwartz that "the Alogi of Epi
phanius are Gaius and nobody else." Unless the expressions
of Eusebius in describing the contents of the Disputation are
most deceptive, as well as the coincidence of his phraseology
in the chapter on "The Order of the Gospejs" with those of
Epiphanius and Bar-Salibi, the real nucleus of opposition to
the Asian canon which purported to be by "a great apostle,"
if not its earliest germ, was the Disputation of Gaius against
Proclus. In that case of course the Disputation must be
dated earlier than Irenaeus, earlier than the Muratorianum,
in all probabihty ca. 180 a. d.
Either way it was the advent of Montanism, the Phrygian
heresy, to Rome, which aroused aggressive opposition to their
"new Scriptures;" and concerning the date of the appear
ance of Montanism some further evidence is fortunately
available. But we must first consider the Muratorianum.
The Muratorianum contains but one clear indication of
its date, the reference to the Shepherd of Hermas as having
been " written quite recently in our own times (nuperrime tempori-
bus nostris) in the city of Rome by Hermas, while his brother
Pius occupied the seat of Bishop of the church of Rome" (130-
155 A. D.).
It seems much hke reasoning in a circle to argue that because
the Alogi cannot have appeared so early as 170-180 a. d.,
and the Muratorianum opposes them, iJicrcfore it must be

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 239
put as late as 200-210 a. d.! Moreover, while the Leucian
Acts of John (170? A. D.) may possibly show an indirect in
fluence we are by no means forced to date the Muratorianum
so late as 200-210 a. d. by the mere fact that it refers to "the
founder of the Kataphrygians of Asia," apparently among
the heretics,^ nor by the (perhaps) undisputed position it
accords to Revelation. The battle for Revelation had been
won long since by Papias, Justin, and Melito of Sardis.* Its
"less need of defense" than the Gospel is rather a proof that
we have not yet come to the long period of questioning
marked by Hippolytus' treatise on that subject, called forth
by the reaction against Montanistic "prophecy." The ex
trusion of the "kataphrygians" was the work of Eleutherus
(174-189 A. D.) under whom Irenaeus wrote his work Against
Heresies (186-189); but the Muratorianum is not affected
by the epoch-making representations of Irenaeus concerning
the residence and death of John in Asia. On the contrary,
the Muratorianum, as we have seen, makes the stay of John
in Patmos an episode of his career earlier than the coming of
Paul to Ephesus. The writing of the Gospel, on the other
hand, is related in manifest dependence on Jn. 21: 24 as a
joint work of the entire apostohc coUege (cohortantibus con
discipulis et episcopis suis . . . revelatum Andreae ex
apostolis ut recogniscentibus cunctis, etc.). It is represented
as "fourth" and last of the Gospels and as settling the de
bated question of "order" (quae vidimus . . . et manus
nostrae palpaverunt ... per ordinem profetetur). In
the absence of the slightest suggestion of a general migration
of the apostles and disciples to Asia a la Irenaeus we have
no excuse for understanding the scene to be other than
1 Th. Zahn in Hauck's Realencyklopadie, s. v. "Kanon Muratori," p. 798.
2 The fragment breaks off with Assianom catafrycum constituto-
rem ... the middle word being a mere mistranslation of tuv Kara
^piyas It probably went on to condemn Montanus.
3 On Melito's work On the Revelation of John, see below.

240 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Jerusalem, the accepted seat of "the apostles and elders"
throughout the second century. A demurrer may therefore
be reasonably interposed to dates later than 185 a. d. for the
Muratorianum, even while we decline to fix it more nearly
than in the period of the conflict at Rome over Asian claims
to apostolic authority, and rest our case for the course of
events on other evidence.
Whether then the Alogi took their rise from Gaius or con
versely, there is no dispute that opposition to the Fourth
Gospel appears first at Rome about 170-180 a. d. as an
outgrowth of resistance to the "Phrygians." ! On this point
the reference of Irenaeus (186 a. d.) is decisive:
" These things being so (the correspondence of the four Gospels
to the four winds, four elements, four cherubim, etc.) all who
destroy the form of the (fourfold) Gospel are vain, unlearned, and
also audacious, those (I mean) who represent the aspects of the
Gospel as being either more in number than aforesaid or on the
other hand fewer. . . . Others again (the Alogi; he has
previously spoken of Marcion and those who admit fewer than
four gospels), that they may set at nought the gift of the Spirit,
which in the latter times has been poured out by the good pleasure
of the Father upon the human race, do not admit that aspect
presented by John's Gospel, in which the Lord promised that he
would send the Paraclete ^ but set aside together both the Gospel
and the prophetic Spirit. Wretched men indeed, who will have
it that there are pseudo-prophets, forsooth, but who repudiate
the gift of prophecy from the Church (read: infelices vere qui
pseudoprophetas quidem esse volunt, propheticam vero gratiam
repellunt ab ecclesia); acting like those who, on account of such
as come in hyprocrisy hold aloof from the communion of the
brethren. We should conclude, further, that these (Alogi) would
1 Harnack (Chron., p. 379) dates the appearance of the Alogi at Rome
"not much later than 165." He thinks the beginnings of opposition to the
Johannine writings on the part of the orthodox at Rome cannot have been
so late as 175-180.
2 See above p. 235.

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 241
not admit the Apostle Paul either, since in his Epistle to the
Corinthians he speaks expressly of prophetical gifts, and recog
nizes men and women prophesying in the Church. Sinning there
fore in all these particulars against the Spirit of God, they (the
Alogi) fall into the unpardonable sin. Those who are from
Valentinus, on the contrary, being altogether reckless, while
putting forth their own compositions, boast that they possess
more gospels than there really are." !
How comes it that Irenaeus in the midst of aU this turmoil
in Rome about the Montanists and their claims to exercise
the spirit of prophecy presents no single reference in all his
voluminous writings to the "heresy" save this one, in which
he manifestly sympathizes much more nearly with the
Phrygians than with their opponents ? ^ To understand this
we must look back for a moment at the origin of the sect
and the occasion of its prominence in Rome.
Modern authorities are agreed in recognizing that Euse
bius has dated the origin of Montanism too late. His date
(172 A. D.) appears to be nothing more than a superficial in
ference from that of the writing of" Apolhnaris of Hierapohs
against the heresy (171 A. D.). On the contrary, the death of
Maximilla, last of the Montanistic prophetic succession,
which after Montanus had been continued by Priscilla, is
securely fixed in the year 179. The Roman bishop Soter,
who died in 1 74, is said to have written against the Montan
ists,^ and two separate passages of Epiphanius, who though
1 Haer. Ill, xi, 9.
2 The absence of the names connected with the Montanist controversy
at Rome from the list of Hippolytus' 32 heretics in the treatise Against all
Heresies, which professed to reproduce the lectures of Irenajus, so im
pressed Lipsius that he even carried back the treatise to the time of Victor
(188-199 A. D.). Irenajus of course could not include Praxeas or Gaius, and
would not include Proclus or others on the Asian side. The treatise of Hip
polytus belongs in the earlier years of Zephyrinus (Salmon, Diet. Chr. Biogr.
Ill, p. 94).
3 The statement of Priedestinatus [Haer. xxvi (86)] to this effect has been
disputed; but see Harnack, Chron., p. 369.
Fourth Gospel— 16

242 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
a blunderer himself borrows from good authorities, especially
from Hippolytus, give coincidently the year 156-157 a. d.
for the appearance of the movement in Asia.! Here it
awakened intense opposition among the conservative leaders
of the Church, not because of heretical opinion, for its teach
ings were admittedly orthodox, or even reactionary in what
would to-day be called their millenarian evangehcahsm.
The bishops of Asia were scandalized by the mantic excesses
of those who professed to possess "the prophetic Spirit," and
especially by the prominence given to the two "prophet
esses" Priscilla and Maximilla, suspecting, not without rea
son, the reappearance in Christian guise of the characteristic
rehgious frenzy of Phrygian heathenism. Miltiades (161-
169 A. d.) wrote against them his tract Tlepl rov /mtj 8elv
'!rpocj)i]T7jv ev eKo-jda-ei XaXecv ("That a prophet ought not
to speak in ecstasy "). Bishops Zoticus of Comana and Juhan
of Apamea, or ^hus Pubhus Julius of Debeltum and Sotas
of Anchialus, as Serapion of Antioch (ca. 200 A. d.) gives the
names, undertook "to cast the demon out of Priscilla"
(Maximilla),^ but were prevented by the followers of Themiso,
1 The passages are Haer. xlviii, i and 2. On the combinations by which
Zahn, Harnack and Bonwetsch come to agreement on the year 156-157
A. D. for Montanus see Zahn, Forsch. v. 25 ff., Harnack, Chron., 358 ff., and
Hauck, Realencykl. s. v. "Montanismus." The passage Haer. Ii, ^j, con
tains some blunder, but is probably taken from Hippolytus. Salmon
(Diet, of Chr. Biogr. c. v. "Montanus," p. 937, note) reasonably conjectures
"birth" instead of "ascension," making it read in substance "John, writing
93 years after our Lord's birth (cf. Irena:us on the date of Revelation) had
foretold this (destruction of the church in Thyatira), what he says about
the woman Jezebel being a prediction of the Montanist prophetess. But
now, after ri2 years there is again a church in Thyatira which by God's
help wiU increase." The date 934-112^205 A. D. is that to which Hip
polytus' Defence of the Gospel and Apocalypse of John may reasonably be
assigned (see above, p. 241, note 2). Epiphanius himself was writing in
375 A. D. so that he is clearly borrowing.
2 So Serapion of Antioch (ca. 200 A. D.) ap. Eusebius, H. E. V, xix, 3. Ac
cording to Apollonius of Ephesus (196-197 A. d., ibid. V, xviii, 13) the at
tempt was made against Maximilla by Zoticus of Comana and Julian of

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 243
then the head (or "steward") of the sect, who naturally
resented this insult to their "prophetess." The effort to
suppress them did not stop with this failure. The anony
mous anti-Montanist quoted by Eusebius (Rhodon? ca.
192 A. D.) declares that:
"The faithful in Asia met often in many places throughout
Asia to consider this matter, and examined the novel utterances,
and pronounced them profane, and rejected the heresy, and thus
these persons were expelled from the Church and debarred from
communion." !
Even the common suffering of martyrdom could not
reconcile the estrangement. A little further on the same
writer reported:
"When those called to martyrdom from the Church for the
truth of the faith have met with any of the so-called martyrs of
the Phrygian heresy, they have separated from them, and died
without any fellowship with them, because they did not wish to
give their assent to the spirit of Montanus and the women. And
that this is true and took place in our own time in Apamea on
the Maeander, among those who suffered martyrdom with Gaius
and Alexander of Eumenia, is well known." ^
The Montanists on their part complained bitterly of this
treatment. One of their writers named Asterius Urbanus
gave as a word of "the Spirit" uttered through Maximilla:
"I am driven away from the sheep Hke a wolf. I am not a
wolf. I am word and spirit and power." ^
The aggrieved parties were not content to remain under the
ban without protest. Rome had intervened at Corinth two
generations before, and to Rome they appealed. Ter-
Apamea (H. E. V, xvi, 17). The similarity of the names Zoticus and Sotas,
Julius and Julianus, leads authorities such as Lightfoot (Ignatius, II, iii)
and Harnack (Chron., p. 366) to identify the two attempts.
1 H. E. V, xvi, 10.
2 Ibid. V, xvi, 22.
3 Ibid.

244 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
tuUian, who himself became later a convert to Montanism,
reports that Praxeas, his opponent, came to Rome from Asia
"inflated with the pride of confessorship (martyrdom) simply
and solely because he had to bear for a short time the annoyance
of a prison. . . . For after the bishop of Rome ! had ac
knowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca and Maxi
milla, and in consequence of the acknowledgment had bestowed
his peace on the churches of Asia and Phrygia, he (Praxeas),
by importunately urging false accusations against the prophets
themselves and their churches, and insisting on the authority of
the bishop's predecessors in the see,^ compelled him to recall the
pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his
purpose of acknowledging the said gift." *
Who, then, had come before Praxeas to win from Eleutherus
the "pacific letter" by which he would have "bestowed his
peace" on the warring churches of Asia?
We are tempted to think of Proclus himself as the one who
had so eloquently and persuasively pleaded the cause of the
outraged Montanists before Eleutherus; for Tertulhan refers
to him in connection with Justin, Miltiades, and Irenaeus as
not only men of an earher time than his own,* but "con
temporary with the (Valentinian) heresiarchs themselves."
Among these authors of "carefully written volumes" against
the Valentinians "our own Proculus" was "the model of
chaste old age and Christian eloquence." ^ But whether
Proclus had part in the appeal or not, we have already
learned of one who came as bearer of a letter from the mar
tyrs of Lyons entreating Eleutherus to "restore peace to the
churches." The sentiments of Irenaeus may be guessed by
1 Eleutherus; see Harnack, Chron., p. 375.
2 Soter (ob. 174 A. d.) had written against the Montanists according to
Prtedestinatus. See above, p. 241, note 3.
" Adv. Prax. i.
¦• The treatise in question seems to be written in 200-207 a. d.
^ Adv. Val. V.

ASIAN TRADITION AT ROME 245
what he writes under Eleutherus (before the reversal of his
decision?) concerning "those wretched men who . . .
set at nought the gift of the Spirit poured out in the latter
times by the good pleasure of the Father . . . who will
have it that there are pseudo-prophets, forsooth, but who
repudiate the gift of prophecy from the Church." Irenaeus,
we remember, defended specifically the prophesying of women
by the example of Paul in I Cor. 11:5.
A factor in the crisis, perhaps the decisive factor in carrying
Eleutherus so far toward a nullification of the ban pro
nounced by the bishops of Asia, must have been the letter
addressed to him from prison by the martyrs of Lyons in
Gaul, "negotiating for the peace of the churches." The
relations of the Galilean Church to the Asian were of the
closest; more than one of the most eminent of these martyrs
themselves being immigrants from Phrygia and Asia. They
wrote, says Eusebius,
"to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, and also to
Eleutherus, who was then bishop of Rome, negotiating for the
peace of the churches." !
The bearer of the letter, whose date can be fixed with cer
tainty in 178-179 A. D., was Irenaeus, whom the writers recom
mended as their "brother and comrade" and a "presbyter
of the church," hinting very broadly that a similar position
at Rome, if open, would be well suited to his capacity.
Eusebius, it is true, would not have referred to the judg
ment of the Galhcan martyrs on the Montanistic schism as
both "prudent and most orthodox," if it had not condemned
the excesses of the new prophetism, so that Pearson and
Others who think they asked reversal of the ban pronounced
in Asia clearly exaggerate. On the other hand, the altogether
sympathetic attitude of Irenaeus toward the recent mani-
1 H. E. V, iii, 4.

246 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
festations of "the gift of the Spirit," his severe denunciation
of the "wretched men who ... set aside the gift of
prophecy from the Church," and his defense of the exercise
of prophetic gifts by both men and women, would be inex
plicable if the object of his mission had been hostile to the
Montanists. Indeed, TertuUian's grouping of him some
twenty years after with Justin and "our own Proculus" as
worthy of gratitude for their defense of the Church against
the Valentinians, would be passing strange if Irenaeus had
taken the part of Praxeas. There remains but a single possi
bility. It is that which all our knowledge of Irenaeus and of
the Galilean churches which he represented would suggest.
It is the course which we find him repeating in a new clash
with Asia under Victor, the successor of Eleutherus, and for
which Eusebius commends him as well named (Irenffius=
"man of peace"). The pohcy counseled by the GaUican
martyrs and by Irenaeus their representative was a mediat
ing one. Its watchwords were "prudence" and "peace."
Doubtless Tertulhan exaggerates the favorableness of the
verdict Eleutherus would have pronounced had not Praxeas
intervened with his detestable intolerance; but Eusebius and
TertuUian are at one as to its pacific aim, and the attitude of
Irenaeus both in relation to "the prophetic gift" and later in
the paschal controversy proves how keenly ahve he was to
the necessity of toleration and cathohcity in the face of the
inroads of Gnosticism.

CHAPTER X
IRENAEUS THE MEDIATOR AND THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL
The course of events in the matter of "the Phrygian
heresy" throws hght upon that in another great controversy
which agitated the churches of Asia during the same period
(150-200 A. D.) and came to involve the respective claims of
Asia and Rome to apostolic authority, and in the end those
of the Gospel ascribed to John. Once more Irenaeus comes
to the front, this time no longer as representing the church of
Lyons alone, but on his own authority. Still, however, it is
the same catholic pohcy which he pursues, a pohcy illus
trated in the mean time in still a third instance by his letter
of remonstrance to the Quartodeciman Blastus, who was
"disturbing the sound ordinance of the church at Rome."
This was entitled On Schism. The very title suggests a view
of the dominant motive and attitude of Irenaeus which will be
of value in our judgment of his testimony.
Both before, and during, and after the turmoil about "the
prophetic spirit" and its manifestations, the churches of Asia
were torn by disputes about their observance of Passover
coincidently with the Jews on the fourteenth Nisan, those
who followed this practice being designated from it Quarto-
decimans; ! whereas the churches of the west, as well as those
everywhere less affected by inheritance from the Syna
gogue, merely heightened the weekly observance of the
Lord's day at the Easter season. As the fourteenth Nisan
might fall on any day of the week, the fast by which the
1 1, e., "observers of the Fourteenth.''
247

248 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Lord's death was commemorated being broken at dawn of
the fifteenth by a "breaking of bread" commemorative of
the resurrection, it not infrequently happened that while the
church in one place was fasting, in another it was feasting.
To the Oriental mind, and in fact the liturgical spirit of the
age in general, it was a crying scandal that some Christians
might even be engaged in Easter rejoicings on Good Friday
itself. Roman practice is unmistakably set forth in the
Roman Gospel of Mark, whose carefully marked divisions
of time in the section on the Passion and Resurrection ! are
adapted to the vigil, fast, and resurrection rejoicings of this
church. Mark determines Synoptic tradition, committing it
to the fifteenth Nisan as date of the crucifixion. But Asia,
as we might expect, followed another practice. For it was
from Ephesus that Paul himself had written to the Corin
thians exhorting a worthy celebration on Nisan 14th of " Christ
our Passover sacrificed for us" and on Nisan i6th, the legal
day of "Firstfruits" a remembrance of Christ's being raised
"the third day" the " 'firstfruits' of them that slept." ^ Asia
became the primal seat of Quartodecimanism, claiming to
have practised the observance of the day since the times of
the apostles. In the year 154 came the first clash of which
we have record. The same Irenaeus whom we have seen but
now expostulating with Blastus for the promotion of schism
by his advocacy of Quartodeciman practice at Rome,^ in
forms us of the circumstances in a letter of expostulation ad
dressed to Victor then 'bishop of Rome,
"admonishing him that he should not cut off whole churches
iMk. 14:12, 17, 30-72; 15:1, 25, ii, 34 ff., 42; 16:2, 9. See Bacon,
Beginnings of Gospel Story, 1909, on these passages.
2 1 Cor. 5: 6-8; 15: 20.
3 It is pseudo-Tertullian (Hippolytus?) who in his treatise ^^ajns; all
Heresies (Chapter VIII) informs us of the nature of Blastus' schism. Pa-
cianus (Epist. ad Sempron. ii) adds that he was a Montanist also, which
agrees with the general practice of the Montanists of Asia.

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 249
of God for observing the tradition of an ancient custom. For
the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concern
ing the very manner of the fast. For some think they should fast
one day, others two, yet others more.! Some moreover count their
day as consisting of forty hours day and night. ^ And this variety
in its observance has not originated in our time, but long before
in that of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to
strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity
according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of
these hved none the less in peace, and we also (in Gaul) live in
peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the
fast confirms the agreement in the faith.
"Among these (catholic spirits) were the presbyters before
Soter, who presided over the church which thou now rulest. We
mean Anicetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and
Xystus. They neither observed it (the fast of 14th Nisan) them
selves, nor did they permit those after them to do so. And yet,
though not observing it, they were none the less at peace with
those who came to them from the parishes in which it was ob
served; although this observance was more opposed to those who
did not observe it. But none were ever cast out on account of
this form; but the presbyters before thee who did not observe it
sent the eucharist (to be used at breaking of the fast) to those of
other parishes who observed it. And when the blessed Polycarp
was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little
about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one
another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could
Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always
observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles
1 According to the varying ideas of the moment of the resurrection.
2 Thus the Syriac Didaskalia counts the period between the darkness
from the sixth to the ninth hour (Mk. 15:33-39) as a night, and the re
newed light from the ninth to the twelfth hour, when "the sun shone out
and it was found to be the ninth hour, and the Jews rejoiced" (Ev. Petri),
as an additional day. This with the ensuing 15 th Nisan until dawn of the
day of "Firstfruits" made a total of 40 hours and at the same time covered
the prophecy about rising "after three days."

250 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade
Anicetus to observe it." !
We encounter here for the first time the celebrated asser
tion of Irenaeus regarding the personal relations of Polycarp
with John the disciple of our Lord and the other apostles
"with whom he had associated" which subsequently played
so momentous a part, becoming from this time onward the
principal reliance of "defenders."
Had Irenaeus, then, any grounds for the assertion that
Polycarp had observed the Quartodeciman fast "with John
and other apostles," besides such as Chiliasts like Papias,
Justin, and Melito were urging on behalf of the authenticity
of Revelation, or Quartodeciman s like Blastus and Montan
ists hke Proclus were urging on behalf of the whole Instru
mentum Johanneum and the apostolic succession in Asia?
We are not favorably disposed by Irenaeus' pretensions in
regard to Papias, whom in spite of that author's own testi
mony, carefully gone over by Eusebius, he insists on making
"a man of the earliest times, a hearer of John," confusing
for the purpose the Jerusalem Elder of that name, whose
Tra/aaSo'o-et? were reported by Papias at second hand, with
"John the disciple of the Lord." Moreover the phraseology
here and elsewhere employed by Irenaeus, and the reference
to "the other apostles" make it apparent that the fore
ground of his mind is occupied, as usual, by the group of
"apostles, elders, and disciples of the Lord" whom he
imagines to be the immediate informants of Papias, and
whom he also identifies (in this agreeing with the Mura
torianum) with the group of witnesses who vouch for the
fourth evangelist in Jn. 21 : 24. Nevertheless there are rea
sons, presently to be examined, for thinking that Irenaeus
was not exclusively dependent upon these literary data, but
had a real contribution of his own to make to the plea of his
1 Ep. to Victor, ap. Eusebius, H. E. V, xxiv, 12-17.

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 251
Montanist allies in the common warfare against Valentinian
gnosis. We have seen how these were seeking to maintain
the claims of Asia and its succession against the claims of
Rome. Proclus could point to the monument of Phihp "the
apostle" and his four daughters at Hierapohs. Polycrates of
Ephesus, champion of the Asian Quartodecimans, if he
could not yet point, like Dionysius of Alexandria, to actual
"monuments" of John in Ephesus, could at least declare
that he "fell asleep" there. Irenaeus, however, declared
that he could himself remember from his boyhood discourses
of Polycarp in which the old man had related
"his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen
the Lord, and concerning his miracles and his teaching, having
received them from eyewitnesses of the Word of Hfe (Lk. 1:2;
I Jn. I :i). Polycarp related all things in harmony with the Scrip
tures." !
This statement to the Valentinian Florinus is introduced
by a reference to the scenes of their common boyhood in
Asia, and an explanation that,
"what boys learn, growing with their mind becomes joined to
it; so that I am able to describe the very place in which the blessed
Polycarp sat as he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings
in, and the manner of his Hfe and his physical appearance, and
his discourses to the people." ^
Irenaeus, then, had one point of definite individual knowledge
of his own recollection. He had been a "growing" boy at
the time to which he refers; not a "disciple" of Polycarp, nor
in "intimate relations" with him, but simply able to recall
through the exceptional freshness of boyhood recollections
the external circumstances attending the teaching of "the
father of the Christians" ' of Asia, and the striking elements
1 Ep. to Florinus, ap. Eusebius, H. E. V, xx.
2 Ibid.
3 So called in the Martyrdom, or Epistle of the Smyrnceans, xii, 2.

252 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
of " his discourses to the people," namely, "the miracles of the
Lord and his teachings" which Polycarp had heard from
eye-witnesses. This boyhood memory of Irenaeus was of
itself a unique distinction. To say to a Valentinian gnostic
hke Florinus that Polycarp's teaching was altogether "in
harmony with the Scriptures," and that the old man would
have thrown up his hands in horror at the kind of doctrine
Florinus was now following adds nothing material; for no
more personal intercourse with Polycarp than the above is
required by it. On the contrary, the effort of Irenaeus to
prove to Florinus that he can recall the general outward
situation of Polycarp's discourses "to the people" goes to
show his inabihty to point in his own case to those closer
relations which he intimates that Florinus, an older lad, was
at the time aspiring to. But Irenaeus counted himself a
providential link in the succession of the apostolic tradition
of the Church, because he could remember the discourses of
Polycarp " to the people," and the appearance of the old
man as he " sat and discoursed," and knew of his own recol
lection that Polycarp had referred to " John " and to dis
courses and miracles of the Lord of which the said " John"
was an eye ( ?) witness.
Besides this exphcit reference in the Epistle to Florinus
Irenaeus gave in his work Against Heresies another equiva
lent reference to this relation of Polycarp to the apostles as
follows :
"But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and
acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also ap
pointed hy apostles in Asia bishop of the church in Smyrna. We
too saw him in our early youth; for he Hved a long time, and died
when a very old man a glorious and most illustrious martyr's
death, having always taught the things which he had learned
from the apostles, which the Church also hands down, and which
alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify,

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 253
as do also those who down to the present time have succeeded
Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and certain witness
of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of the
heretics. He also was in Rome in the time of Anicetus and caused
many to turn away from the above-mentioned heretics to the
Church of God, proclaiming that he had received from the apostles
this one and only system of truth which has been transmitted by
the Church."!
We must not underestimate the extraordinary capacity of
the age for creating "personal disciples of the apostles"
(yveopifj,oi rdov d-rroaroXcov) , nor the special genius of Irenaeus
for discovering such in writers who themselves disclaim the
honor. The next centuries actually proclaim Hippolytus,
Irenaeus' own pupil, a yvapiixa rcSv aTroaToXonv, and Irenaeus
not only dubs Papias such in virtue of his "traditions of
John" (irapaSoaeK tov 'Iwdvvov), but writes as follows con
cerning Clement of Rome, whose epistle is as remote from
the claim of personal relations with the apostles as Polycarp's
own: "In the third place from the apostles (i. e., after Linus and
Anencletus) Clement received the episcopate. He had seen and
conversed with the blessed apostles, and their preaching was still
sounding in his ears, and their tradition was still before his eyes. •
Nor was he alone in this, for many who had been taught by the
apostles yet survived." ^
The palpable exaggeration italicized in the former extract
representing Polycarp as "appointed by apostles in Asia
bishop of the church in Smyrna," for which Irenaeus invokes
the authority of "aU the churches of Asia," is evidence how
fair this manufacture of hnks of apostohc succession could be
carried in the process of disputes wherein each party appealed
to "tradition handed down from the apostles." The fact
1 Irenaius, Haer. Ill, iii, 4, quoted by Eusebius, H. E. IV, xiv, 3.
2 Haer. Ill, iii, 3, quoted by Eusebius, H. E. V, vi, 2.

254 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
that Papias had reported "traditions of John" seems to have
been enough in his case; the fact that Clement had exhorted
the Corinthians to set before their eyes as "examples which
belong to our generation" — i. e., in contrast with Abel,
Joseph, Moses, and David — "the good apostles," Peter and
Paul ! would seem to have been sufficient in his case.^ Possi
bly Polycarp's similar exhortation to the Philippians to study
the epistles of the " blessed and glorious Paul" and to "turn
from the false teachings ... to the word which was
handed down to us from the beginning," coupled with his
appearance at Rome in defense of the "apostohc" practice
of Asia in the matter of the Fast, might alone account for the
ascription to him of "apostohcity"* in the age when one
must be apostolic or nothing. But the circumstantial state
ment of Irenaeus so many times repeated that he could him
self remember Polycarp's claim to "intercourse with John
and with the others who had seen the Lord" does not im
press the impartial critic as mere exaggeration of a recollec
tion long cherished and constantly appealed to as a source of
doctrinal authority. Irenaeus clearly does remember having
heard Polycarp refer to "John and the others who had seen
the Lord " as men with whom he had himself had intercourse.
And for Irenaeus, bent upon vindicating the apostohc stand
ing of Asia, and persuaded that Papias was a reporter not at
second, but at first hand of the "Elders and disciples of the
Lord," this was amply sufficient to cover the case of Poly
carp also. He, as well as Papias, had reported " traditions
of John," and for Irenaeus there is but one John. The fur
ther question of the Where ? would never occur to him. If,
however, we turn to the Life of Polycarp, probably written
1 Ad. Cor. V.
2 Or did Irensus also have his eye upon Phil. 4:3 ?
3 In the Martyrdom he is in fact called an "apostolic teacher" (Ep.
Smyrn. xvi, 2).

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 255
by Pionius, at all events compiled upon traditions traceable
to a period not long after the martyrdom,! we find it reported
that Polycarp had been brought as a slave in his youth from
"the East" (i. e., Palestine; cf. Mehto) and manumitted in
Asia. Moreover, the author of the Vita, though anxious to
endow the Smyrnaean succession with the highest apostolic
authority, has no thought whatever of any connection with
John. Paul, and only Paul, is the fountain head. Nor is
Polycarp brought into direct contact even with Paul. His
immediate predecessor in the see is Boukolos, between whom
and Strataeas, the appointee of Paul, several others intervene
of names unknown. Polycarp, so far from having been
"appointed by apostles bishop of the church in Smyrna"
was according to Pionius "chosen by the church and its
clergy, and installed in his office by the neighboring bishops."
This indigenous tradition, so much more modest than the
Irenaean, so much more in accord with the witness of the ear
lier literature, is followed by several later writers in spite of
Irenaeus. A genuinely historical criticism cannot but give it
the preference.
We know at all events from the Martyrdom that Polycarp
was born in 69 A. d. The references recalled by Irenaeus
among his boyhood memories will have been, accordingly,
references to Polycarp's own boyhood in Syria, where Jerusa
lem was then still the seat of "Elders and witnesses and
disciples of the Lord." These Jewish Christians among
other distinctive practices will unquestionably have main
tained the observance of the fourteenth Nisan as "the new
passover of the Lord"; and this may well account for Ire
nseus' assertion. On the other hand, the very fact that Ire
naeus habitually refers to Polycarp's "John" not by him-
1 Corssen ("Die Vita Polycarpi," Zts.f. ntl. Wiss. V, 4, 1904, pp. 266-
302) endeavors to prove this the actual work of Pionius. At least it em
ploys Smyrnaoan tradition independent of Irenaeus.

256 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
self, but in company with a group of "disciples (or apostles)
and Elders" indicates that this group is the same to which
Papias refers as containing at the time of his inquiries but
two surviving disciples or apostles, "Aristion and the Elder
John"; so that the references themselves tend to show that
the John in question is the Elder of that name in Jerusalem
who presided until 117 a. d. over the group of "Elders,"
"witnesses" and "teachers."
But the Gallic ally of Asian rights to the exercise of the
prophetic gift and to the observance of ancient customs in
herited from apostolic times was not left to labor alone in his
effort to strengthen Asia's claim to apostolic tradition by
weaving in the name of "John." His claims do not indeed
seem to have had the support he alleges of "all the churches
of Asia," as we have just seen; yet the Asian churches were
not averse to aid even from outside sources. The letter of
protest addressed by Polycrates of Ephesus and a synod of
Asian bishops to Victor and the Church of Rome in 191-192
A. D., follows the example of Proclus in citing the great names
of the Asian succession as then appealed to against the pre
tensions of Rome :
"We observe the exact day (of the crucifixion); neither adding
nor taking away.! Yor in Asia, too, great Hghts have fallen asleep,
which shall rise again on the day of the Lord's coming, when he
shaU come with glory from heaven, and shall seek out all the
saints. Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles [sic],
who fell asleep in Hierapohs; and his two aged virgin daughters,
and another daughter who Hved in the Holy Spirit and now rests
at Ephesus; and moreover John who was 'both a witness and a
teacher,' who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and, being
a priest wore the sacerdotal plate (iriTaXov). He fell asleep at
Ephesus. And Polycarp in Smyrna, who was a bishop and
martyr; and Thraseas, bishop and mart}-r from Eumenia, who
1 As anti-Quartodecimans were obliged to do to make the fast fall on
Good Friday and Easter on the Lord's day.

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 257
fell asleep in Smyrna. Why need I mention the bishop and
martyr Sagaris, who fell asleep in Laodicea, or the blessed Papi-
rius, or Melito, the eunuch who lived altogether in the Holy
Spirit, and who lies in Sardis awaiting the episcopate from heaven,
when he shaU rise from the dead? All these observed the four
teenth day of the passover, according to the Gospel, deviating in
no respect, but following the rule of faith. And I also Polycrates
the least of you all, do according to the tradition of my relatives,
some of whom I have closely followed,- for seven of my relatives
were bishops; and I am the eighth. And my relatives always ob
served the day when the people (i. e., the Jews) put away the
leaven. I, therefore, brethren, who have lived sixty-five years in
the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the world,
and have gone through every Holy Scripture am not scared by
terrifying words. For those greater than I have said ' We ought
to obey God rather than man' (Acts 5: 29)." !
Here in the last decade of the second century we find all
elements of the Johannine tradition commingled, though
even now traceable to some extent by their phraseology to
their Palestinian or Asian sources as the case may be. But
we interest ourselves first of all in the champions of Quarto
deciman practice whom Polycrates .refers to as of a past
generation, notably Mehto of Sardis, whose two books on
The Passover written under the proconsulship of Sergius
(var. Servihus) Paulus prove that at that time (167-168 A. d.)
the subject was already in debate. In fact the work of
Clement of Alexandria, on the same subject was expressly
written "on occasion of" Melito's, if not in answer to it.
But among the very numerous works of this learned bishop,
who on occasion of a journey to "the East" (Palestine)
made scholarly inquiry into the canon of the Old Testament ^
was one whose title Eusebius gives as The Apocalypse of
1 Ep. of Polycrates to Victor ap. Eusebius, H. E. V, xxiv.
2 See the extract from Melitos' preface to his work called Extracts (iK\oyat)
in Eusebius, H. E. IV, xxiv, 12-14.
Fourth Gospel — 17

258 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
John. It was doubtless called out by the Montanist move
ment, for it had a companion On Prophecy; but we may be
very, sure that it did not take the radical course of Gaius or
of Dionysius against the millenarian fanatics, otherwise we
should have heard something of it from Eusebius, if not
from his predecessors in opposition to the book. On the
contrary, Melito, like his predecessors Papias and Justin,
must have maintained at least the d^ioina-Tov of Revelation,
and thus contributed to the belief in John's residence in Asia.
Another of the "great lights" of Asia who took part, it
would seem, in the Quartodeciman controversy at Laodicea
in 164-167 A. D., although not mentioned by Polycrates, was
Claudius Apolhnaris (or Apolhnarios) of Hierapohs, a city
in full view across the valley from Laodicea. Drummond !
is certainly right in resisting the attempt of some opponents
of the Johannine authorship to make out that Apolhnaris
was at variance in this respect with the rest of Asia and with
his own predecessors in the see of Hierapohs, where Poly
crates points to Philip "one of the twelve apostles" as the
first of his witnesses for Quartodeciman observance. The
whole tenor of Apollinaris' denunciation of those who by
ignorantly following what they understand as Synoptic tra
dition bring about discord in the Church and a practice in
consistent with the law (of Moses), imphes a pronouncedly
Quartodeciman position, as we should expect from the occu
pant of his see. No less characteristic is the second of the
two extracts we possess from his work. Both, as wiU be
seen, have a vital bearing upon the problem of the Gospels
and the authority then attaching to them in Asia. Apolhnaris
writes :
"There are, then, persons who, owing to ignorance, are con
tentious about these things, being affected in a pardonable wa}';
'^Authorship, etc., pp. 508 ff.

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 259
for ignorance does not admit of blame, but requires instruction.
And they say that on the fourteenth the Lord ate the sheep with
the disciples, but himself suffered on the great day of unleavened
bread (Nisan 15), and they pretend that Matthew speaks in
accordance with their opinion. Hence both their opinion is in
consistent with the law (Ex. 12:14-20), and the Gospels seem,
according to them, to be at variance (Soxa a-Tacnd^av to. evayye
Xia)."
The second extract will have been from the same context :
"The fourteenth day is the genuine passover of the Lord, the
great sacrifice; the Servant of God instead of the lamb, he who
was bound binding the strong man (Mt. 12:29), and he who was
judged becoming Judge of quick and dead; he who was betrayed
into the hands of sinners to be crucified, who was exalted on the
horns of the unicorn (Ps. 22: 21); he who had his holy side pierced,
he who poured forth out of his side the two elements of (sacra
mental) purification, water and blood, word and spirit, and was
buried on the day of the passover, the stone being laid upon the
tomb." !
Here speaks a true Asian Quartodeciman, saturated with
the "Johannine" ideas of Christ as the passover lamb, in
sisting on the Johannine date for the crucifixion, and main
taining that those who interpret Matthew inconsistently with
this are ignorant disturbers of the peace of the Church, guilty
both toward Moses who ordained the fourteenth Nisan as a
perpetual memorial, and toward the evangelists, whom he
himself holds to be in perfect accord. How Apollinaris in
terpreted Matthew so as to harmonize with John he does not
explain, but just as it is possible to know what he meant by
the inconsistency of western practice with "the law" from
other Quartodecimans who declared their opponents to incur
the curse of Moses upon transgressors of the law,^ so it is
1 Paschal Chronicle ap. Charteris, Canonicity, p. 194.
2 This conception of the binding validity of the Mosaic ordinance proba
bly explains Polycrates' curious expression at the beginning of his remon-

26o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
possible to make at least a very probable inference as to
Apollinaris' exegesis of Matthew from that of the author of
the Paschal Chronicle, who quotes him, maintaining that:
"It is clear that Jesus did not keep the passover on the four
teenth, but celebrated a typical (i. e., symbolic) supper before this,
when the sanctification of the unleavened bread and the prepara
tion of the feast took place (i. e., the qiddush of passover); for he
did not give his disciples the sacrificial lamb and unleavened
bread, but bread and a cup (i. e., the elements of the qiddush)." !
There is strong reason to beheve that the paschal chronicler
is absolutely correct as to the historical fact that it was the
qiddush of passover, and not the passover supper itself, that
Jesus ate with his disciples; though such is of course not the
intention of the Synoptic evangehsts, who foUow Mark in
recasting the older Petrine tradition into accord with Roman
theory. For Roman theory identified the Lord's supper
with the passover.^ This question of the differences of
Synoptic and Johannine tradition must be treated later. But
Apolhnaris at all events finds no difficulty in reconcihng
Matthew with John, though he originates a phrase ^ which
we have found later current at Rome, and is significant of an
awakening demand for harmonization.
But another demand would at first be felt even more
urgently in a region distracted by controversy, where de
cisions turned, always on the question of apostolic tradition.
The authority of Phihp the evangehst, now constantly spoken
strance to Victor: "We keep the day dpaSioipy-qrov" which Drummond
renders "not in a reckless manner." See his references on p. 462 to efforts
of Catholics to avoid the charge of departing from " the divine law."
^Paschal Chronicle, quoted by Drummond, ibid., p. 503. Oa t\\e: qid
dush, or blessing and distribution of bread and wine on the eve of the sab
bath and of feast-days, see Hamburger's Realcncvkl s. v.
2 On this see Bacon, Beginnings of Gospel Story, 1909, comments on
Mk. 14-16, with critical analysis.
3 SoKei iTTairid^eiv rd cvayyiXia. See above, p. 227.

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 261
of as "the apostle," whose tomb with that of his prophesying
daughters was shown at Hierapohs, was appealed to on both
sides; doubtless with good historical foundation, since the
relations of Paul with this family (Acts 21 : 8-14) were such
as naturally to bring them after Paul's death to Paul's princi
pal mission field. But what of John, whose sojourn in
Patmos had become a fixed element of belief since Papias
and Justin and Mehto had indorsed the trustworthiness of
Revelation? Peter whose epistle from "Babylon" had wide
circulation was bespoken by Rome; James too was known to
have been martyred in Palestine under Agrippa I; but what
of Andrew, and other apostles? It is Leucius, or Leucius
Charinus,! a docetic gnostic of Asia, who in the midst of this
period (170-180 A. d.) arises to meet the demand for au
thentication of apostolic tradition by his legendary Acts of
the various available apostles; and these romances at once
exert their influence, not only on docetists, but (in more or
less modified form) on the orthodox as well. Montanists and
anti-Montanists alike resort to them. To Pacianus, Leucius
is a great churchman of the past, whose reputation must be
contended for. According to him
"the nobler class of Montanists who falsely claim to be in
spired by Leucius, boast of Proculus as their founder." '
The better informed Decree of Gelasius, on the other hand,
calls Leucius a discipulus diaboli. His recently recovered
Acts of John, which influenced even so great a scholar as
Clement of Alexandria, forges the connecting link by which
the Apostle is brought after the death of the tyrant Domitian
from his sojourn in Patmos to a final residence and death in
Ephesus. Prodigy of course plays a conspicuous part in the
romance, the raising of a man from the dead being the most
1 In the Gospel of Nicodemus Leucius and Charinus are separate indi
viduals. Elsewhere we have "Leucius Charinus."
2 Ep. i, 2. Migne, Latin Fathers, xiii, 1053.

262 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
prominent feature. Of this legend the echoes long continue
to resound on aU sides. ApoUonius of Ephesus writing in
196-197 A. D. against the Montanists, and "using testi
monies" as Eusebius reports "from the Revelation of John,"
related "that a dead man had, through the divine power, been raised
by John himself in Ephesus." !
Clement of Alexandria has the tale in rationahzed form,
accommodated to the conception (derived from the Johan
nine Epistles) of an "Elder" whose pastoral visitations to
the churches confirm the good and rebuke the evil (cf. Ill
Jn. 9-14). This story of John and the robber chief, which
Clement caUs "a myth which is not a myth but a true say
ing" (i. e., contains a truth), elaborates in edifying narrative
the theme of Lk. 15:32, "This thy brother was dead and is
alive again, he was lost and is found." Eusebius culls it
from Clement to prefix, as we have seen, to his chapter in
refutation of Gaius.
Not from Leucius, on the other hand, but probably of
Palestinian origin, perhaps as connected with John the
Elder, is another tale too trifling for our consideration were
it not seriously advanced by "defenders" among the proofs
of John's residence in Asia, and because outside the state
ments of Irenaeus of his own boyhood recollections it is abso
lutely the only early datum which connects Polycarp in any
way with " John." Irenaeus himself relates it, not as some
thing heard by himself, but on the authority of "those who
had heard it from Polycarp." It maintained that:
" John the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus
and seeing Cerinthus within, ran out of the bathhouse without
bathing, crying. Let us flee, lest even the bath fall, because Cerin
thus the enemy of the truth is within." -
1 Ap. Eusebius, H. E. V, xviii, 13.
2 IrenEEus, Haer. Ill, iii, 4, quoted by Eusebius, H. E. Ill, xxviii, 6 and

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 263
This anecdQte we find attached to several other names be
sides John and Cerinthus, but it seems to be connected first
with a rabbinic tale of the period of strife between Church
and Synagogue leaders in Palestine in the time of John the
Elder. It is related in rabbinic literature of the encounter of
Rabbi Jehoshua ben Hananiah (i 10-135 A. d.) with a
Christian, who by pronouncing a spell makes the roof fall in
at the baths of Tiberias.!
When, therefore, we come at last to the period of Victor
(189-199) and his endeavor to suppress the Quartodeciman
practice of the churches of Asia it is not surprising to find
vehement declarations on the part of Polycrates and other
champions of the ancient Asian tradition maintaining the
residence among them not only of Philip "one of the twelve
apostles" and his four daughters, from whom the Montanists
had derived their succession, but
"John also, who was both a witness and a teacher, who re
clined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore the
sacerdotal plate (iriTaXov). He fell asleep at Ephesus." ^
Here the elements are mingled. The Fourth Gospel is in
circulation in its canonical (Roman) form, and Polycrates-
appeals to the Appendix (Jn. 21: 20-24). At the same time
the expressions "witness and teacher," so singular in appli
cation to an apostle, and especially the curious declaration
that John was a priest and wore the TreraXov, recall the tradi
tions of Hegesippus concerning the "witnesses and teachers"
IV, xiv, 6. McGiffert notes on the former passage: " This same story with
much more fullness of detail is repeated by Epiphanius (Haer. XXX, xxiv),
but of Ebion (a mythical heresiarch of Palestine) instead of Cerinthus.
This shows that the story was a very common one, while at the same time
so vague in its details as to admit of an application to any heretic who
suited the purpose."
1 See Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, p. 112.
2 Ep. of Polycrates to Victor, ap. Eusebius, H. E. V, xxiv, 2,

264 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
in Jerusalem and the priestly accoutrements and functions of
James.! There is an adoption of the Palestinian traditions
industriously collected by Papias. If any use at all is made
of Leucian legend it is limited to the modest claim that
"John . . . feU asleep at Ephesus." Of the sweeping
claims of Irenaeus of prolonged relations "in Asia" between
Polycarp and John, and even that Polycarp had been "ap
pointed bishop in Smyrna by John and other apostles" there
is not a word. And Polycrates was 65 years old at the time
of writing (192-195 a. d.), and seven of his relatives had been
bishops in Asia. Had all of them unfortunately failed to
come into relations with the great apostle ? It is not easy to
see why we should have nothing but the bare allegation
(from Leucius?) that John "sleeps at Ephesus," not even
Polycarp's alleged claim before Anicetus to have observed the
fast "with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apos
tles with whom he had associated." Even this bare mention
of John at Ephesus is tacked on like an afterthought (eVt Be
Kal 'ladvvrj'i). Such reference is not what we should expect
if Polycrates' idea of "John in Asia "was at all hke that
to which Irenaeus gave final and dominant currency in the
Church. Why, then, was the Asiatic tradition, even in the later and '
exaggerated form imparted to it in the course of controversy
by anti-Montanists and Quartodecimans, displaced in the
catholic Church by that of Irenaeus in far-off Lyons? Not
merely because the Irenaean conception by transferring from
Palestine to Asia the whole group of apostles and "Elders,
disciples, teachers and witnesses of the Lord," rescued to the
Church that continuity of apostolic tradition which was its
most valued possession, and which seemed to have been
utterly abolished when the war of Bar-Cocheba and the sub
sequent edict of Hadrian dispersed forever the native Pales-
1 See also, however. Acts 4: 6.

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 265
tinian church of Jerusalem. This was indeed a motive of
tremendous cogency in favor of indorsing the larger claims of
Irenaeus; but it was not all. The sympathies of the Church
catholic must inevitably be with the great champion of
catholicity in the struggles of the age to secure uniformity of
faith and practice.
The two things Irenaeus cannot tolerate are (i) a heretical
Gnostic, (2) an intolerant churchman. Irenaeus and his
Galhcan supporters are not Montanists; but they intervene
with all their might when Eleutherus is sohcited to join part
of the bishops of Asia in "repelling from the Church the gift
of prophecy." Irenaeus himself is not a Quartodeciman. He
treats the cantanberous Blastus as a disturber of the peace
and author of "schism." He explains the difference of usage
between East and West to Victor on the ground that "it is
likely that (the forefathers) did not hold to strict accuracy,
and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to
their own simplicity and peculiar mode." His method of
reconciling the Gospels (by a public ministry extending over
twenty years! !) would have made Apollinaris stare as well
as the anti-Quartodecimans.^ But Irenaeus intervenes again
from Gaul on behalf of the rights of Asia to "observe the
tradition of an ancient custom" against the rash intolerance
of the bigot Victor. And he necessarily carried with him the
consensus of the growing catholic Church.
And there was something more. Irenaeus' intolerance of
intolerance was only another aspect of his intolerance of
Gnosticism. Proclus, whom a Gaius would have cast out of
the Church together with the whole body of his Asian "new
scriptures," was Irenaeus' trusty ally against a real foe
far more to be feared than Montanistic millenarianism — the
dreaded Valentinian Gnostics. In this too the common sense
of the infant catholic Church could not fail to side with
1 Haer., II xxii, 5.

266 THE FOURTH GOSPEL ^
Irenaeus, the "man of peace." Only by a concihatory spirit
toward those within could the Church at large present a
united front against the real "Heresies." And for this union
the absolutely indispensable prerequisite was adoption of
"the fourfold Gospel"
Since Justin's time the Antiochian gospel of Luke had ob
tained a place, at least in Roman circles, alongside the
ancient Roman (Mark), and the south-Syrian (Matthew).
It was not for one moment imaginable that Asia could work
in harmony with the West if its "Johannine" canon were to
be treated as the Alogi and Gaius (or Gaius and the Alogi)
proposed. Since the time of Tatian and Theophilus of
Antioch the inevitable course of real progress had been
marked so plainly that the bigotry of Gaius and his party
was fortunately foredoomed from the start. Harmonization
is the watchword of the times. Leave to Gnostics like
Marcion, or Basilides, their narrow hmitations of e\'angehc
truth, or their still more daring impositions of self-made
"gospels" is Irenaeus' plea. For the Church there can be but
one pillar and ground of all evangelic faith, a fourfold Gospel;
because a fourfold gospel was in truth, and not merely in the
fanciful imagery and symbohsm of Irenaeus, representative
of "the four quarters of the inhabited earth."
As scholar Irenaeus is open to the most serious charges of
blundering, exaggeration, plagiarism, misrepresentation. His
most ardent supporters are prompt to admit that he grossly
misrepresents the doctrines of Valentinus. Eusebius abund
antly proved his flagrant exaggerations in regard to the rela
tions of Papias to "John." His report that Jesus attained
the age of the "presbyter" (40-50 years) attributed to "aU
the Elders who in Asia conferred with John the Lord's disci
ple" is admittedly based upon Papias' book. In the same
connection he declares that
"some of them saw not only John (as had Polycarp in Irenaeus'

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 267
idea), but others also of the apostles, and had this same account
from them, and witness (testantur) to the aforesaid account." !
The (present) witness of the Elders can only be on the
pages of Papias, who thus appears as even more intimately
associated with "the apostles" than Polycarp. With the
original passage before us, as Eusebius has kindly furnished
it for the purpose, we can easily see that this pretension is
utterly groundless. A Gutjahr can indorse it even in modern
times, which shows how older Catholics could do the same; ^
but Professor Stanton has the candor to acknowledge that
" It is not by any means clear that he (the John whom Papias
heard) even resided in Asia." ^
We have ourselves seen reason for the decided conviction
that Irenaeus' whole notion of an apostohc groqp about John
in Asia rests on nothing more than the older assertions of his
sojourn in Patmos, Polycarp's references to intercourse in
boyhood with "John" and others who had seen the Lord,
and his own misinterpretation of Papias. As historian and
scholar Irenaeus was not a trustworthy leader, although far
saner than Leucius and his Montanistic and Docetic ad
herents. But it was not as scholar and historian that the
Church followed him. It followed him — and wisely — rather
than a Victor, or a Gaius, because he was a truly cathohc ec
clesiastic and statesman, "well named the man of peace."
We, too, while in the field of scholarship and history we re
verse his iU-founded assertions, commend his spirit, and re
joice that it preserved to us the last and in some respects the
greatest of the Gospels, even if under the aegis of a borrowed
name. 1 Haer. II, xxii, 5.
2 I am unable to discover anything of value to add to the arguments of
Zahn and Gutjahr in the recent treatise of F. G. Lewis, The Irenceus Tes
timony to the Fourth Gospel, Chicago University Press, 1908.
3 Gospels, etc., p. 168.

268 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Careful scrutiny of the direct internal evidence on the au
thorship of the Fourth Gospel leads to the same result as
the external. In fact, as we have already seen, the external
evidence is not independent, and in its assertions of Johan
nine authorship betrays the fact that it is a mere echo by its
character, its date, its hmitations, and its phraseology. The
assertions of Irenaeus and his contemporary supporters of
the fourfold gospel simply reverberate with natural enlarge
ments those which had previously been embodied by redac
tors and revisers in the substance of the instrumentum Jo
hanneum. To a certain extent the surviving literature of the second
century enables us to follow the process. Much earher and
more positively than for the Gospel the claim of apostohcity
under the name of "John" is put forth on behalf of Reve
lation. Scrutiny of the structure of this book reveals, how
ever, an unmistakably composite origin. Only the outer
framework, the prologue of the seven epistles and the epi
logue with its claim to canonical authority, belong to Asia
and "the end of the reign of Domitian," and it is only in
these that the claim appears. The substance of the "proph
ecy" is imported from Palestine, and conspicuously fails to
bear out the assertions of the Ephesian redactor. Such traces
as remain of conflict in Asia, at first against those who "de
nied the resurrection and the judgment," later conversely
against the Montanistic miUinarian prophets, indicate that
the field on which the Revelation of John attained its first
general acceptance was Asia.
The claim of apostolicity for the Gospel was put forth
later; at Rome, as we have seen reason to beheve. At all
events Rome was the scene of subsequent dispute, and this
involved the entire instrumentum Johanneum. The sub
stance of the Gospel (chapters 1-20) which had long en
joyed a limited circulation in Asia, though as yet without

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 269
pretensions to apostolicity, was first supplied with a frame
work adapted to Asiatic conditions in the form of the three
Epistles, the hint perhaps being taken from Revelation. In
this framework claims to apostolic authority are still limited
to the historic tradition of the Church. The author does
not personate "John," like the redactor of Revelation; he
merely uses the "corporation we." But the claim is made
more concrete in the second revision and supplement with
which we find the Gospel supplied in its canonical or Roman
form. Even here it still chngs to the refuge of ambiguity.
Only with the polemic of the Alogi does the counter asser
tion at last appear full fledged and bold, to dominate hence
forth wherever the fourfold gospel is received.
This review of actual conditions in the second century
should suffice to meet the demand of Drummond ! that it
be explained how a book published far away from the circle
of John's immediate disciples came to be ascribed to him.
Such a book is Revelation, whose history prefigures that of
the Gospel. Its Asian framework shows how the name of
an apostle and martyr of Palestine could become attached
a generation later to the Ephesian edition of a Palestinian
" prophecy." The ascription at Rome in 160-180 a. d. of an
anonymous gospel, known to have been long in circulation
in Asia to an author by this time generally admitted, for
the reasons stated, to have sojourned in Asia in the end of
the reign of Domitian, is not more difficult of explanation.
If the indirect internal evidence does not support the claim
of Johannine authorship, which was not found to be really
supported by the external, certainly the mere claims of ed
itors and writers of epilogues and epistles of commendation
cannot do so. They fall far short of offsetting the silence of
the earhest times. 1 Char, and Authorship, p. 349.

PART III
THE INDIRECT INTERNAL EVIDENCE

PART III
THF INDIRECT INTERNAL EVIDENCE
CHAPTER XI
THE evangelist's TASK
If thirty years have witnessed a great change in critical
treatment of the external evidence relating to the Fourth
Gospel, a still greater change is manifest in respect to the
internal. The progress, however, has not been upon the side
of the "defenders," and therefore we need feel no surprise if
Principal Drummond out of his volume of 513 pages de
votes but 32 to "the Internal Evidence in Favour of the
Traditional View," referring the reader to Bishop Westcott's
Introduction to the Four Gospels (1862), Sanday's Authorship
of the Fourth Gospel (1872), and Lightfoot's articles in the
Expositor (Series IV, 1890).! This meager treatment of
that aspect of the question which to some of the greatest
writers on both sides has seemed the more important of the
two, is explained by the statement
" The internal evidence of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel
has been examined with such care and completeness, especially
by EngHsh writers, that I cannot hope to contribute any fresh
material to the subject." ^
For the fresh material we must indeed look elsewhere; for
Drummond's "rapid survey and judgment of the several
hnes of argument" is, as he forewarns us, a mere recapitula-
1 Reprinted in Bibl. Essays, 1893, pp. 1-44.
2 Char, and Auth., p. 352.
Fourth Gospel — 18 273

274 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
tion of the stereotyped apologetic of thirty years ago: First,
the author was a Jew; second, he knows the topography of
Palestine; third, he speaks like an eye-witness. A few "evi
dences" of this type culled by earlier apologists which have
particularly impressed Principal Drummond take the place
of any comprehensive survey of the Gospel in its general
structure, dominant ideas, and adaptation to existent condi
tions. As none disputes the Jewish birth of the evangelist,
which of itself would imply more or less knowledge of Jewish
literature and the Holy Land ; as, moreover, individual traits
evincing the accuracy of an eye-witness could not prove more
than the use of good authority for the particular item in
question unless shown to characterize the Gospel as a whole,
the field, thus cultivated, offers little indeed to mere gleaners
after Westcott, Sanday, Lightfoot, Andrew P. Peabody,! ^^^
Zahn.^ Professor Sanday himself, although naturally devoting
much the greater part of his recent volume ^ to the indirect
internal evidence, hardly departs from the mode of treatment
which since he himself formulated it more than thirty years
ago has become stereotyped for "defenders." Only in the
year following the appearance of his Criticism was this
"atomistic" method, as Wrcde has aptly characterized the
process, been transcended by an English scholar, whose in
terpretation of the Gospel against the background of its
known historical environment is worthy of the highest praise.
Mr. Ernest F. Scott in his volume entitled The Fourth
Gospel, its Purpose and Theology (1906) marks an epoch, at
least for English readers, in the progress of true appreciation
of the Gospel. At last an Enghsh scholar treats it for what
1 Essay in The Fourth Gospel. Evidences external and internal of its
Johannine Authorship, Scribner's Sons, 1S91.
2 Introduction to New Testament, Engl, transl., 1909.
3 Criticism, etc., 1905.

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 275
it was to its own generation, and therefore may be to every
generation that approaches it through its own. The un
productive quest of the mere polemic or apologist, traversing
the X literature only to pick up a phrase here, an expression
there as evidence in the pros and cons of critical debate is at
last abandoned. It gives way to a comprehensive survey of
the Gospel as a whole. Mr. Scott places himself in the ad
mitted situation, Ephesus, in "the first or second decade of
the second century," and gives us a historical interpretation.
On the moot points of debate he makes neither affirmation
nor denial, though in the Preface his own position is frankly
stated as "that which is now generally accepted by Conti
nental scholars," as against that of Stanton, Sanday, and
Drummond. What Mr. Scott has endeavored to give is
simply "the real message of John"; and he is justly
"convinced that the Gospel has nothing to lose by a fearless
analysis of its teaching in the light of what appears the more
probable theory of its origin."
It is indeed not the Gospel but the Church which loses, and
that heavily, for lack of such light. Yet the reader will
wonder only that so much can already be accomplished
toward the illumination of these dark origins, when the Gospel
is simply permitted to spealt~f6r itself apart both from ancient
efforts to obtain for it an apostolic authority to which in its
integral elements it makes no pretension, and from modem
attempts to bolster up the ancient claim.
Studied by this historical and sympathetic method, free
from the distractions of polemic interest, the Gospel proper,
separate from its advertising Appendix, exhibits character
istics so broad and unmistakable as to have impressed them
selves upon even the earliest observers. Next to the evangel
ist's own, perhaps the best of all characterizations of the
Gospel comes to us from the period of original opposition to

276 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
its reception to canonical standing. It is found in the well-
known passage quoted by Eusebius from the lost Hypoty
poses of Clement of Alexandria. Clement reported it as a
"tradition derived from the early presbyters" as follows:
" Last of all John, perceiving that the bodily (or external) facts
had been set forth in the (other) Gospels, at the instance of his
disciples and with the inspiration of the Spirit composed a spir
itual (irvf.vp.dTLKOv) Gospel." !
Without attempting to separate tradition from inference
in the passage. Professor Sanday enumerates five data as
present in it, remarking that it "alone has all the essential
points" of primitive behef regarding the Gospel:
" I. The Gospel is the work of St. John. . . .
" 2. It was written towards the end of his life.
"3. The three Gospels were in the hands of the Apostle, and
he had read and up to a certain point approved of them.
"4. What he himself undertook to write was a Gospel, not a
biography; the difference is important.
''5. In contrast with the other Gospels it was recognized as
being in a special sense 'a spiritual Gospel.' " ^
Of these the first four may be dismissed. Comparison
with the Muratorianum and the early Prologues shows at
once the derivation of the statement (i) that "John" wrote
the Gospel "at the instance of his disciples and with the in
spiration of the Spirit." It merely echoes the Appendix
(Jn. 21: 24), whose data we have already seen to be drawn
by inference from the work edited. (2) The late date of the
Gospel was probably not mere inference from its employ
ment of the other three. The time could stiU be remembered
when the Johannine writings were "new scriptures" as com
pared with the Pauline Epistles and Synoptic Gospels. On
this there is no dispute. However, there was certainly no
difficulty in perceiving on even the most superficial inspec-
1 H. E., VI, xiv, 7. 2 Criticism, p. 69.

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 277
tion, that (3) the fourth evangelist "had read, and up to a
certain point approved of" the Synoptic Gospels. This too
argues no authority outside the text itself. (4) As regards
Professor Sanday's fourth datum we mean no disparagement
either of its validity or its importance, in expressing grave
doubts whether either Clement or the "early presbyters" had
any such distinction in mind as that between "a gospel and
a biography," or desired to make any such assertion as
Professor Sanday discovers. This leaves of the five points
of primitive belief derivable from Clement's authorities the
single one which constitutes the real aim of the passage, and
of all the five is most easily accounted for by simple inspec
tion of the Gospel itself. It was (5) intended to supplement
the other three as a "spiritual" gospel. The technical term
by which this most obviously distinctive feature of the Gospel
is expressed is probably coined by Clement himself; or rather
Clement employs for it the current term of Alexandrian
exegesis. The observation could be made by anybody.
Employed as Clement employs it the term "spiritual" can
only mean "exhibiting a higher or symbohc sense." As
Philo had distinguished the bodily or external sense of the
Old Testament narratives from the higher or "spiritual"
sense to be drawn from them by allegorical interpretation
without disparagement or rejection of the literal, so the
fourth evangelist, Clement would say, aimed to present what
would convey the loftier (more philosophical) truths of the
faith. Of course he does not mean to suggest that the inci
dents related are allegories invented to convey the evangel
ist's theological beliefs. Modern exponents of the theory of
allegory as the key to the evangehst's plan, such as Thoma
on the radical side or Drummond on the conservative, fail to
do justice to a distinction self-evident to ancient rabbi or
Christian expounder of the true gnosis such as Clement.
Such critics pay also too little attention to the evangehst's

278 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
own insistent emphasis on the importance of the historical
reahty of the incarnation. What Clement means is that in
the Fourth Gospel as compared with the other three the
selection of incidents is made, and the mode and detail of
narration is determined, with principal reference to the
"higher" (i. e., theological) truths which the evangehst thinks
it imperative to bring out. The observation is just; but the
distinction between "bringing out" and "putting in" is also
vital. The evangelist is no more conscious of composing
"fictions," whether in his seven wonders or in his seven I
am's of Christ, than is Paul in the "allegory" he educes from
the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Both words and deeds of
Jesus are for him sacred. But for that very reason they
allow — nay they demand — to his mind, just such expository
treatment as the Jewish synagogue preacher ! accords to the
teachings and the wonders of the Old Testament in his
midrash, or haggadic interpretation. He would resent the
idea that he puts in the smallest iota; but inability to bring
out the entire system of theological truth as he conceives it
would mark only his own incapacity. Its presence there is to
him axiomatic.
One must read the epistles of Clement of Rome and
Barnabas, or the exegesis of Justin Martyr to obtain a
realizing sense of the incredible license of this process of
"bringing out" which was the approved method of edifica
tion whether for the Jewish or Christian teacher of the early
second century. If even "external" evangelists felt at liberty
to agglutinate the sayings of Jesus into extended discourses
of a doctrinal bearing, and to compose allegorical parables
such as the Sheep and Goats (Mt. 25 :3i-36) or the Usurping
Husbandmen (Mk. 12:1-12), we cannot wonder that a
"spiritual" evangehst should employ the time-honored form
1 The Darshan, i. e., "Ireader out"; substantive form of the same Hebrew
root as Midrash. Cf. I Cor. 9: 9.

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 279
of dialogue, chosen vehicle since Plato's time for the con
veyance of the deeper truths of philosophy and rehgion, to
elaborate the sense of the mystical and oracular sayings in
his time understood to be characteristic of Jesus. As to in
cident, Mark's story of the Cursing of the Fig Tree is not the
only instance, even in the Synoptics, of parable recast in
pragmatic form, nor of the symbohc application of wonder-
stories. We have in fact the fourth evangelist's own word
for it that the supply of wonder-stories was superabundant,
and that the signs "written in this book" are the merest
fraction of the mass from which his selections were made
(Jn. 20:30, 31). We need only note what was the principle of
selection to realize something of the freedom a "spiritual"
evangehst would feel both in selection and in treatment of
such material. If of the many "signs" which Jesus did only
seven were given, and these were made illustrative, the
presentment would have to take a typical or representative
form. The third generation after Jesus' ministry had not the
means, even if it had conceived the idea, to relate Jesus'
"mighty works" with historical regard for the detail of in
dividual cases. Our author's seven "signs" were written
that his readers might have life, by believing in Jesus' name.
What he means by the terms "hfe" and "belief" will be
come clearer as we examine the formative element of his
construction. The material element consists on his own
showing of selected traditions of the Lord, a part of which
seems to have corrie from sources other than the Synoptics
and probably oral. There were in fact two cogent reasons
for transcending Synoptic hmits: first, the intense craving of
the age which Papias attests; ! second, the far greater plas
ticity of materials not protected by the quasi-canonical posi
tion accorded to Matthew and Mark, if not to Luke also. If
then "John" surprises us by the degree to which he has
1 Oi) ydp TOIS id TToXXd \^yovirtv ex^.^pov, iljffirep oi iroXKoi.

28o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
used the liberty of a "spiritual" evangelist to adapt the
material which he takes from the three,! ^g ^^y j^g g^j-g j^g
has used it to much greater extent in framing to his purpose
of edifying symbolism what he borrows from the mass of
current oral tradition. As we shall see, the modifications
made in material adapted from Synoptic sources are sweep
ing. In many cases it is difficult to say whether the evangehst
is borrowing at first hand, or whether some allegorizing
preacher such as he who caricatures the Transfiguration and
Resurrection stories in the Acts of John (though surely one
of better taste and more orthodox purpose) has preceded
him. At all events both the dramatis personae and the inci
dents seem ultimately derived for the most part from Synoptic
material, even where the resultant composite reveals its
origin only in mismated parts. What was required of the
seven selected "signs" was that they should furnish com
plete illustrations of how the incarnate Logos had "mani
fested his glory." If, then, a Luke can borrow the traits of
Mark's anointing in Bethany to embelhsh his own preferred
story of the Penitent Harlot (Lk. 7:36-50), we should not
expect a "John" to refrain from combining traits from vari
ous sources to set forth a typical healing, or from framing
composites to bring out the "spiritual" significance of his
seven "manifestations."
There is an element of truth, accordingly, in the representa
tion of some of the early fathers that the fourth evangelist
aimed to "supplement" the three, as well as to "correct"
them. It is unquestionably true that he aimed to present a
"spiritual" gospel; and the undertaking involved not only
the free handling of Synoptic material, but resort upon occa
sion to the still flowing though turbid stream of oral tradi
tion. The names "Nathanael" and "Cana of Galilee" and
the exphcit reference to the many current narratives of
1 On this point see below, p. 287, and Chapter XIV.

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 281
miracle are not easily explained without admission of a real
element of more or less authentic report. We must beware,
however, of exaggerating this element. Study of the actual
construction of the narrative, its predominant note of sym
bohsm, and its relation to the Synoptic tradition, warn us to
expect but small addition to our meager stock of historical
evangelic tradition. More influence would seem to have
been exerted by midrashic handling through a succession of
teachers of the Petrine story familiar to us in its Markan
embodiment. At this point, however, we are brought to a consideration
of the formative principle of the Gospel, as defined in the
author's own statement of his purpose :
" These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ,
and that by believing ye might have life through his name."
The design of the evangelist is so to present his typical
selections from the tradition of Jesus' words and deeds that
they may result in the reader's obtaining life through faith.
Here in a nutshell is the best characterization of the Gospel
that could be framed, and the emphasis lies upon the forma
tive principle. Many had taken in hand to write the story;
but our evangehst's distinction is his preeminent determina
tion to make it subsidiary to life through faith.
For reasons almost certainly connected with Gnostic
abuse of these technical terms our evangelist systematically
avoids the use of the words "faith" (wiaTK), "knowledge"
(yvibaa), "wisdom" (ao(^La). We must also admit a de
cided advance beyond the Pauhne doctrine of self-surrender,
towards an ecclesiastical sense in the various forms of the
verb "beheve" which take the place of the Pauhne "faith."
Nevertheless the supreme key to the Gospel is its absolute
loyalty to Pauhnism. Its author is the "vindicator" (go'el)
of Paul, accomphshing after Paul's death that "unity of the

^82 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Spirit" in the universal Church, which was the supreme aim
of Paul's hfe. Even the "alien element" of Greek meta-
physic which Scott discovers in the developed mysticism of
the Logos doctrine, is there not because the evangehst would
consciously add a new feature to the Pauline doctrine, but
because Paul himself, or at least the deutero-Pauline epistles
of the Asian group, have met him half-way in his Hellenistic
cosmology and anthropology. The doctrine of the Logos
underhes the whole Gospel; but so it would if Paul himself
had written it. The term is borrowed from Philo, and some
of the symbolism of the discourses. But the term only occurs
in the Prologue, whose object is to give the reader the evan
gelist's own point of view, and the dependence in the symbol
ism is slight and perhaps unconscious.
No other provenance is imaginable for such a work as
this than Ephesus, headquarters of the Pauhne mission field,
where Paul spent the three most fruitful years of his life,
whence he wrote at least one of the greatest of his epistles,
and where he left behind him a true college of supporters and
interpreters (Acts 20:17-38), as well as opponents and false
teachers without and within. Ephesus was the center of that
region to which the great deutero-Pauline epistles are ad
dressed, those which we sometimes designate the Christologi
cal, because they principally occupy themselves with that
doctrine of the Person of Christ which in the Fourth Gospel
is formally developed. We must conceive as Paul's successor
there some converted Jew of Alexandria, mighty in the
Scriptures, such as that great and loyal disciple of Paul,
ApoUos, whose career, so far as known to us, begins and
ends at Ephesus (Acts 18: 24-28; I Cor. 16:12). Only such
a disciple as ApoUos can have carried on there Paul's work,
both as disputer in "the school of Tyrannus," as confuter of
"the Jews," and persuader of the "disciples of John." Such
a disciple of Paul must we conceive as originator of the type

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 283
of doctrine embodied in the Fourth Gospel; for it is in terms
of Jewish Alexandrianism that the Christology of Paul is
here interpreted. We have no means of proving that ApoUos
ever touched pen to paper; yet it is permissible to say that if
any identifiable spirit speaks through the Fourth Gospel
besides that of Paul it is such a spirit as that of ApoUos.
For with all its originahty and freedom, with all its com
prehensiveness and cathohcity, the Fourth Gospel's "spirit-
uahzation" of the evangelic tradition is nothing else than
the incorporation and apphcation of it in the interest of the
Pauline gospel. It aims at catholicity; but a catholicity that
is based on Paul's view of the redemptive drama of Incar
nation, Atonement, and diffusion of the Spirit of Adoption.
To appreciate the indispensableness of this "unity of the
Spirit" so longed for by Paul we must go behind the mere
temporary phases of conflict between his followers and those
of the Gahlean apostles. The surface outbreaks were deter
mined by such external and more or less fortuitous occasions
as the "Jerusalem decrees" attempt to meet. Back of these
hes the really fundamental difference.
The Galilean apostles had conceived the gospel as a sys
tem of ethics and eschatology, of precepts and reward.
Their system was distinguished from Judaistic legahsm only
by a new law and a new reward. It substituted the "easy
yoke" of Jesus for that which "neither we nor our fathers
were able to bear," and the kingdom guaranteed in the resur
rection of Jesus to be "at hand" for "the world to come"
which had been monopolized by scribes and Pharisees.
Therefore the evangelic tradition current in the Aramaic-
speaking portion of the Church began as a compilation of
the Precepts of Jesus, perhaps dispensing even with an ac
count of his death and resurrection. To the end, even when
enlarged by the addition of Mark's version of Petrine story,
the Palestinian Gospel remained, and still remains, an en-

284 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
deavor to "teach men to observe all things whatsoever Jesus
had commanded" (Mt. 28:20). To Paul on the contrary
the gospel was not ethics but mysticism. The precepts of
Jesus were to him merely the better interpretation of the
abiding element of the Old Testament. They were aU
summed up in the doctrine of the Spirit of sonship, whose
distinctive characteristic is the disinterested love and service
exemplified in the self-abnegation (Kevcoa^) and passion of
the Son of God. There is no law save to "Have in you the
mind which was in Christ Jesus, who humbled himself and
became obedient unto the cross." The gospel is the infusion
of this "mind" of Christ; and the possession of this "mind"
is antecedent to obedience and conditions it. "Faith" and
"hfe" in the Pauline gospel, therefore, take the place of pre
cept and reward in the Palestinian. What a race "sold un
der sin," "in bondage to sin and death," requires is a re
demption through grace. What a lost world really needs is
not so much light as life; not knowledge of "the law of our
mind" impelhng to righteousness, but power to overcome
the law of sin in our members. Therefore Paul felt no need,
after the manifestation in him of the risen Son of God, whose
Spirit had- been so transfused into his own as to make the
very hfe he was living in the flesh no longer his hfe but
Christ hving in him, to go up to Jerusalem to them that were
apostles before him, to hear their reminiscences of the earthly
Jesus, his teachings and his miracles. Therefore the Christ
that he knew and preached was exclusively the risen and
glorified Christ, whose hfe in us is both victorious power in
the conflict against sin, and also pledge and foretaste of the
eternal life to which we are destined. As many as have the
Spirit of adoption are sons, and if sons then also heirs, and
joint heirs with Christ. Salvation is the apprehending of
that "hfe" for which we were also apprehended. If its fuU
enjoyment is still conceived under the forms of Jewish es-

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 285
chatology this is manifestly non-essential. On this point
Paul's thought even undergoes marked transformation
within the. period between the Thessalonian letters and
Phihppians. Life, conceived as a power or energy resident
in God, embodied in Christ, transfused into us by imparta-
tion of the Spirit of Christ when in the self -surrender of faith
the soul casts itself upon God — this to Paul is the core and
kernel of the gospel. The greatest boon he can ask of James
and Cephas and John, the "apostles of the circumcision," is
non-interference. He does not secure even this without a
struggle with Peter, the broadest minded of the Jerusalem
trio.! Of course the earthly story of Jesus is to Paul also of
value for its precious sayings, and still more for its exempli
fication of the nature of the spirit of "sons." Paul was man
ifestly at a disadvantage here as compared with the eye
witnesses. Per contra he excelled all in his penetration to
the essence of the revelation. The redemptive power of the
gospel lay in its manifestation of life communicated through
the channel of faith. The message of reconcihation given
to preachers of the word was that " God was in Christ recon
cihng the world unto himself, not imputing unto men their
trespasses." Those who received the word with the self-
surrender of faith were baptized into the likeness of Jesus'
self-surrender to obedient death, and in the rite were raised
with him, the Spirit of adoption and eternal hfe suffusing and
reanimating their whole nature with a life not their own but
"hid with Christ in God." This is the essential and dis
tinctive feature of the "gospel" of Paul, as against the Pal
estinian represented by James and John; for Peter occupies
a position of compromise, or mediation. After Paul's death
the very hfe of the Pauline churches depended upon a sys
tematic presentation of this doctrine of redemption of the
1 Gal. 2:1-21.

286 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
world by incarnation and glorification of "the Son of God."
But it could succeed only by virtue of some sort of adjust
ment to, or embodiment in, the historic tradition of the
Palestinian church. It must relate the story.
The fourth evangelist was far from being the first to at
tempt such a Pauline restatement of the evangelic tradition.
The Gospel of Mark, earliest of the Greek gospels, earlier
than any save that Aramaic compilation of the Precepts by
one of the Gahlean apostles of which we know by tradition
only, was an attempt to tell the story of Jesus' career as such
a manifestation of "the Son of God." Tradition is doubtless
correct in attributing its origin to the predominantly Pauline,
Gentile-Christian church of Rome, with employment of an
ecdotes mainly derived from Peter. It pays scarcely any at
tention to the Precepts of Jesus as such, making the condition
of "entrance into life" imitation of the great sacrifice. Its
cardinal points of doctrine are (or were, for the original
resurrection story is missing) (i) the Baptism, in which
Jesus is made the Son of God by entrance into him of the
Spirit, which thereafter controls his speech and action, prov
ing him the Son of God; (2) the Manifestation of the IMessiah-
ship, interpreted to the disciples by a vision of Transfigura
tion, exhibiting the Messiah's superhuman character and
mission; (3) the Passover of the Passion and Resurrection,
whereby Jesus had set the example of dying to hve, and been
exalted to "the right hand of God." About the Baptism are
grouped the incidents having to do with the formation of
the community of disciples over against hostile Judaism;
about the Supper the teachings respecting the world to
come. How small was the residuum of really authentic nar
rative tradition at command of the Greek-speaking Church
may be inferred from the fact that none of the later evan
gehsts have anything of material value to add to the Markan
narrative outhne. All the Greek gospels are simply attempts

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 287
to combine the Petrine story with the Matthaean Discourses,
now narrative, now precept, assuming the preponderance ac
cording to the evangehst's preoccupation with ethical or
mystical interests. These are the distinctive phenomena of
the great period of gospel-composition which ensues after
the death of Paul, in which, as Papias' inquiries and the in
ternal phenomena alike make clear, the two fundamental fac
tors were (i) the Matthaean Precepts; (2) the Petrine Sayings
and Doings.
Neither the more mechanical combination of Mark with
the Sayings by our first evangelist, nor the esthetically and
rhetorically superior combination by our third, could be ex
pected to meet the deeper need of the post-apostolic age, as
that need would be understood in such a Pauline center as
Ephesus. Still less could Mark be considered in itself a sat
isfactory presentment. The Roman gospel was genuinely
Pauline in conception and outline, but it scarcely touched
the deeper elements of the Pauline evangel. Its Paulinism
was of the cruder, external type, a Pauhnism of the man in
the street, who is aware of current controversy but ignores
its underlying causes. Moreover, the deficiencies of Mark
were generally recognized. Docetism had laid hold of its
account of the Baptism to divorce the locally and temporally
limited "Jesus" from the emanation "Christ" more con
genial to Greek dualism. Its primitive device of a Trans
figuration vision informing the leading apostles by a Voice
from heaven of the transcendental nature and mission of
Jesus was open to similar abuse, and could not meet the
real requirement. For from a Pauline point of view it would
be needful to exhibit the entire career of Jesus as a "taber
nacling" of the Son of God in human flesh to the manifes
tation of his glory.! Finally, its very "order" and historical
trustworthiness were admittedly open to criticism. In par-
1 So Jn. 1:14 compared with Mk. 9: 2-10.

288 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
ticular its account of the Resurrection itself had proved so ill-
suited to the times as to have been suppressed almost from
the beginning; yet the two versions by which our first and
third evangelists had sought to supply the gap were so hope
lessly irreconcilable with one another as to make the need
now greater than ever. After Rome and south Syria and
Antioch had done their best, and still in their embodiment of
the evangelic tradition had given no adequate expression to
the most fundamental of all the Pauhne doctrines regard
ing the Person of Christ, his Incarnation and Glorification;
still less to the Mystical Union of the believer with him,
the message of life by faith; what else could be expected but
that Ephesus should put forth its "spiritual gospel," coun
teracting on the one hand the ultra-Pauline dualism of the
Docetists by emphasizing the historic reality of the Incarna
tion and atoning death and Resurrection; counteracting on
the other the crudities of Jewish legalism and eschatology
by the doctrine of eternal life by transfusion of the Spirit.
Not during Paul's hfetime nor for long after could such a
work be undertaken, for the whole period of Jesus' earthly
career was for Paul a period of the humiliation of the Son of
God under the guise of a servant, systematically and on
principle to be subordinated to that in which he had been
"manifested as the Son of God with power by the resurrec
tion from the dead." Not until a later age had felt the
pressure of another type of gospel marked by a larger and
larger sense of the divinity manifest in the earthly career of
the Nazarene, an age forced back upon the historical tradi
tion of the Galilean apostles by the vagaries of Gnostic specu
lation, could the combination — indispensable though it was —
be effected.
It is the chief merit of Scott's illuminating book that it
recognizes this double purpose of the fourth evangehst, and
in good degree correlates it with the conditions of the time.

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 289
"The author, writing in a period of transition, is continually
striving to find place within the same system for opposite types of
thought and behef." He has even "incorporated in his work
alien fragments which do not enter into its substance," made it
a "union of opposites" a "blending of various tendencies." !
The question to what extent we can attribute this com
bination of opposites to a single hand is a very delicate one,
which we shall have occasion to consider hereafter. Scott
apphes his principle to the limit in favor of the unity of the
Gospel (excepting of course the Appendix), but, on the other
hand, sees so different a spirit in the First Epistle as to feel
compelled to attribute this to a later author of the same
school. The converse application may seem to others more
advisable; but the principle is profoundly true, and reveals
the real task of the evangelist as he himself conceives it.
He aims to reinterpret the evangelic tradition in such man
ner as to exhibit, whether by sayings or doings, its "spiritual"
import. His material is selected and adapted with all the
sovereign superiority to historical conditions of a true disciple
of Paul, the disciple after the Spirit. The object is to bring
out both by dialogue and incident the inner gospel of "God
manifest in the flesh," that by belief in it the reader may
imbibe the "life." In the Prologue, as we have seen, the
evangelist sets forth his personal standpoint and philosophi
cal principles; and here, but only here, he employs the cat
egories of Alexandrian metaphysics; for these were congenial
to him, and doubtless would seem to his readers the most
natural key to the Gospel. The identification of the pre
existent Wisdom of God, which in Paul's view had become
incarnate in Jesus Christ, with the Logos of Hellenistic
Stoicism is not obtruded. It merely informs the reader
^Fourth Gospel, pp. lo, ii. With Mr. Scott's admirable presentation we
venture to ask a comparison of the briefer statement here expanded from
The Hibbert Journal for January, 1905 (III, 2), pp. 359 f.
Fourth Gospel — 19

290 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
from what point of view the evangelist approaches his sub
ject. Thenceforth, as in the outhne of Mark, the sacraments
of baptism and the supper and their significance become
largely determinative both of order and selection of material.
The historic Christ is he who " came by water and by blood."
Ancient tradition had accounted for the absence of chron
ological sequence in the Petrine narrative by the statement
that Peter had used anecdotes as they seemed "fitted to the
occasion" (ttjoo? toik; ¦)(peiov<;). Our evangelist follows this
example, but employs a chronology of his own based on in
dependent tradition and the "feasts of the Jews" in sym
bolical treatment.! Polemic aims are present. We are
grateful to Mr. Scott for his judicious estimate in particular
of the view which Baldensperger recalls from the forgotten
pages of Michaelis concerning this evangelist's effort to
counteract an exaggerated estimate of "John." For in this
Gospel the Baptist does not have this title, nor even receive
credit as originator of the rite. He issues no call to repent
ance or warning of judgment, has no relation to the pubh-
cans and sinners — this class are altogether non-existent in
the Fourth Gospel — nor is the rite he employs a "baptism
of repentance unto remission of sins." Only the Lamb of
God to whom he points can "take away the sin of the world."
Baptism is a purely Christian institution having no sense
but the Pauline of the new birth of the Spirit. The Fore
runner merely employs it prophetically by special divine
direction, as a symbol of the new dispensation of the Spirit,
a token to Israel of its Dispenser (Jn. i : 25-27, 29-34).
Certainly the evangehst has adapted his portrait of the Bap
tist and his rite to the special need of the "disciples of John"
at Ephesus, known to the second century as Hemerobaptists;
yet even this polemic is subordinate. Scott is certainly right
in pointing out that all forms of opposition and misbelief
1 See below, Chapter XV. Topography and Chronology.

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 291
are combined for this evangelist in the attitude of "the
Jews." Apologetic and aetiologic aims are present. Ecclesias-
ticism, sacramentarian interest, the defense qf Christological
doctrine against Jewish and other aspersion, including per
haps that of Basihdes himself, are present. They may con
ceivably furnish the means of a more accurate dating than
hitherto; they at least suffice to determine the epoch of real
debate, whereof the disputes of Jesus with "the Jews"
regarding his own preexistence and relation to the Father are
a mere reflection. But the question for us is not so much a
question of date, as of the evangehst's purpose; and the
supreme interest of the evangehst is something more and
greater than any temporary polemic. He aims to "bring
out" the Pauhne gospel of life by faith in the incarnate Son
of God, through an interpretation of the current evangehc
tradition, and of the sacred rites of the Church. Like the
second century compilers of the Ev. Petri and those who
labored at the formation of a fourfold composite gospel,
the fourth evangelist also is a harmonizer; but not in the ex
ternal, mechanical sense of their work. We should class
him rather with our first and third evangelists, whose work
cannot have long preceded his own. Both of these are intent
on combining the two types of gospel which Papias shows
us to have been still dominant in the time of the Jerusalem
Elders. But "John's" effort at harmony goes far deeper.
The work of Mark is really nearer in purpose to his, as
J. Weiss suggests in directing us to the affinity of these two
otherwise so different gospels. Weiss calls our attention to
their similarity in the symbolic employment of narrative
material; but the deepest point of sympathy is in the effort
to combine Pauline doctrine with Galilean tradition. Mark
also had disregarded the Jewish-Christian idea of Jesus'
earthly life as merely that of the "prophet hke unto Moses,"

292 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
who gives a "new law" as the condition of a millennial king
dom; he too had aimed, however crudely, to present the hfe
and especially the death of Jesus as a manifestation of the
Son of God. Mark also had aimed to set forth ministry and
passion as the types of life and death " in the Spirit," that
men "might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and by
believing might have hfe in his name." But at the beginning
of the second century the supreme demand of the Church
was for a deeper, more comprehensive statement of the
gospel in its two aspects, ethical and mystical, law and re
demption, light and power. For all believers Jesus was
"The Way." An Alexandrian Paulinist had compared him
to the High Priest of humanity entered within the veil of
the great world-sanctuary "a new and living Way" whereby
we come to the Father. It remained so to present precepts
and story in one, that the eternal Christ might be perceived
to be both Truth and Life, that by him men might come unto
the Father.
The eternal values of the gospel were certainly those
emphasized in Paulinism. A mere new standard of duty
summarizing and simplifying the law and the prophets
made no revolutionary improvement on Stoic ethics; Jewish
eschatology had everywhere been found wanting. To keep
abreast of Greek conceptions of "eternal hfe," it needed to
transform itself at a pace well-nigh too rapid for the Church.
This was indeed already a Greek-speaking, Gentile, Pauhne
Church, and could not be fully satisfied with any statement
of its gospel not fundamentally based on the great Christo
logical principles of the Pauline epistles, Spirit and Life. It
must have a " spirituahzed " restatement of the tradition of
both the Sayings and Doings. From whence could such a
restatement emanate, if not from Ephesus, the great seat of
the Pauline school? And what should we e.xpect it to be, if
not a "bringing out" under forms borrowed from the mass

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK _ 293
of current narrative, and freely adapted to the special needs
of the time, of the transcendental, eternal Christ of Pauhne
theology, the Way to the Father which is both Truth and
Life? The question whether the three Epistles which accompany
and supplement the Gospel should be attributed to the same,
or to a later hand, will largely depend on the attitude dis
played on one side and the other toward the Docetic heretics.
The Gospel has its own denunciation of unworthy shepherds,
whose access to the sheep has not been by the Door of Christ,
but across and over the protecting barriers of the fold. Their
mercenary motives and cowardice in time of danger, are con
trasted with the conduct of the Good Shepherd in forms
drawn from the book of Ezekiel.! The flock as a whole, how
ever, have turned a deaf ear to the voice of these "strangers."
In the Epistles the situation seems less favorable, or at all
events there is a more explicit and direct polemic. The un
worthy element have "gone out from" the brotherhood
because " they were not of it"; their moral laxity, substituting
"illumination" for the New Commandment of brotherly
love, is directly denounced; their Docetic presentation of
Christ as coming "by water only (i. e., in the sacrament of
baptism conceived as the channel of transfusion of the Spirit
in the case both of Jesus and of disciples) but not by blood "
(i. e., not in the atoning death commemorated in the sacra
mental cup), is indignantly repudiated; their teaching is
stigmatized as the spirit of Antichrist, as against the in
spired witness of the Church; in fact the author states in so
many words:
"These things have I written unto you concerning them that
would lead you astray."
1 With Jn. 10: 11-16 cf. Ezek. 34: 1-16.

294 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
These phenomena have a bearing on questions of date and
authorship. But the modem world does not require a de
tailed refutation of the ponderous absurdities of Kreyenbiihl
to prove that the Gospel is anything but a product of Gnosti
cism and the school of Menander in Antioch. In Gospel as
well as Epistles Docetism is distinctly opposed in a whole
series of passages. We need mention only the "becoming"
flesh of the Logos; the exposition of the Eucharist as the
flesh and blood of Christ, participation in which is indis
pensable to "hfe;" the special manifestation of the resurrec
tion body to Thomas. Still there can be no question of that
double aspect of the Gospel in respect to points of dispute
between Gnostic and orthodox which Scott so distinctly
brings out. The author goes at least to the verge of self-
contradiction in his hospitahty toward both Gnostic and
Jewish Christian conceptions. Some passages, as we have
already seen, are demonstrably due to redactional revision,
among them such particularly as come nearer the Synoptic
type, and it may be possible to show that instances like the
correction of Mark in Jn. 19 :i7 that Jesus bore his own cross,
and the seeming reference of 9 : 2-3, 24 ff. to Basilides'
doctrine of prenatal guilt, are ahen to the earliest form of the
Gospel. Nevertheless the Gospel must first be treated as a
whole and in its present form; and thus treated it cannot be
said that its attitude toward Docetism is incongruous with that
of the Epistles. The latter, it is true, seem to reflect a more
advanced and embittered stage of the conflict; they are
openly and professedly polemic, while the Gospel is in high
degree irenic and even sympathetic toward some of the
leading ideas of Gnosticism. It does not follow that the
same hand which originally compiled the Gospel, at all
events the hand which contributed most largely to its present
form, may not have been the same which under later condi
tions, in a more embittered stage of the conflict, supplemented

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 295
its message by a renewed ajid greater emphasis on the side
of ethical requirement and the historic tradition, coupled with
a denunciation of those who had "gone out from" the
brotherhood to follow the spirit of Antichrist.
The same profound loyalty to Paulinism which furnishes
the real clue to the combined catholicity and freedom of the
Fourth Gospel would avail, if adequately applied, to explain
other features which to many critics have seemed obscure,
or have suggested the intervention of some alien source or
influence. The categories of "sources and influences,"
though instructively employed by Scott, are not in fact fully
adequate for the purpose. We have already taken a pre
liminary glimpse at our evangelist's relation to Synoptic
tradition, and shall see later somewhat more fully in what
sense it has served him as a "source." It is only rarely that
we can apply the term "source employment" to his use of
the Pauhne writings. Yet surely Paulinism is to him much
more than an "influence." We should call it rather his uni
versal solvent in which all elements of mere historical tradi
tion are held in solution until precipitated and recast in his
own molds of thought.
The well-known instance of the altercation with "the
Jews" regarding the seed of Abraham according to the flesh
and that according to the spirit, the bond and the free, in
Jn. 8:31-47 may serve in comparison with its parallels in
GaL 4:21-31 and Rom. 6: 16-23 as an example of "John's"
occasional direct employment of Pauhne material. As a rule
the relation is far deeper, pertaining to the fundamental
doctrines and modes of thought, such as the interpretation
of the sacraments, the doctrine of mystic union "in Christ,"
and the doctrine of the Spirit. Examples of the latter type
may be found (i) in the "parable" of the Vine and the
branches (15 : 1-6) adapted from Is. 27 : 2-6 (LXX), compared
with Eph. 4:4-16; (2) in the "high priestly" Prayer for the

296 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Church, substituted in 17 : 1-26 for the agony in Gethsemane,
compared with Paul's prayer in Eph. i : 3-23 for the unity of
the redeemed Israel of God. One need only penetrate be
neath the surface to the really dominant ideas of the Pauhne
passages, in order to realize how thoroughly the fourth
evangehst is mastered by their spirit and reproduces it in
forms of his own. But since detailed comparison would carry
us too far, we may content ourselves with one further illus
tration, for which there is the more occasion in that Scott,
who seldom fails in this respect, seems not to have done
justice to the relation.
"John's" doctrine of the Paraclete (i. e., "advocate" or
"preacher") completely transforms the Synoptic, which
mentions only a promise of Jesus to the disciples in view of
coming persecution, that when summoned before earthly
tribunals they should have an "Advocate" to conduct their
defense with more than human eloquence. The Spirit of
God should speak through them, as through prophets of old,
so that they need "take no thought how or what they should
speak" (Mt. 10:17-20). In the synoptic form the recollec
tion of Paul's inspired defenses "before governors and
kings" is stiU fresh, and clearly dominates the form of the
reported saying. Something of this original relation of the
promise of the Spirit as "Advocate" stiU remains in the con
nection of Jn. 15:18-27 between the predicted hatred and
persecution of the world and the promise of the Paraclete,
"the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father,"
although here the function of defense before tribunals has
given place to that of a "bearing witness" of Christ in which
the disciples are to share. In the following context (16: 7-14)
the function of the Paraclete is described in its two aspects,
(i) that which it presents to the world, which is simply con
victed by it "in respect of (its own) sin, and of righteousness
(as shown in the Church) and of judgment" (in its God-

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 297
given triumph over the power of Satan in the world); (2) that
which it presents to the Church as Revealer of the things of
Christ. In the former we recognize an adaptation of Paul's
saying to the Corinthians (I Cor. 14:24, 25) concerning the
outsider, who in presence of the spirit of prophecy exercised
by the Church,
" is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the secrets of
his heart made manifest; and so, falling down on his face, he will
worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth."
In the latter we recognize that wider and continually widen
ing aspect of the promise which finds its fulfilment in the
Pentecostal gifts of "prophecy," "exhortation," "insight"
(yvwa-i'i), and "edification," all of which for the primitive
Church are comprised under the term 7rajoa/cX?}<7t? ("exhorta
tion" or "comfort"). It is because of its far-reaching de
velopment of this doctrine of the "witness of the Spirit," in
line with the Pauline conception of I Cor. 2: 6-16, that the
Fourth Gospel so commended itself to the Montanists, and
conversely was so obnoxious to their opponents at Rome.!
But in 14:15-24 the coming of the Paraclete is made
practically to take the place of the Second Coming of Christ
himself. Judas not Iscariot ^ is disabused of the crude
eschatology of Judaism, and taught that the eternal indweU-
ing of the Father and the risen Christ in the believer's heart
is the real Second Coming. It is natural to inquire what
function then remains.for the Paraclete, and why it is neces
sary to add in verses 25-26 the further promise to send the
Spirit, which already in verse 16 had been described as
"another Paraclete" (here = "Intercessor" — i. e., another
besides Christ himself, who has just promised to intercede
for them with the Father). Scott very justly replies that in
1 See above, p. 235.
2 The name of this Judas is possibly chosen to suggest the Jew ('louSoios)
who is merely unenlightened, not an enemy.

298 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
strictness there is no logical place in "John's" theology for
the Spirit, as distinguished from the risen Christ. But to
discard the doctrine of the Spirit would have been an in
conceivably revolutionary departure from the most funda
mental principle of Paulinism, not to say of Christianity itself.
If the outpouring of the Spirit were forgotten, what remained
to convict the world ? On the other hand, to speak of the
Spirit as "another Intercessor" is neither an innovation on
the part of the fourth evangehst, nor contradictory, as has
sometimes been maintained, of I Jn. 2:1, where we read:
"If any man sin we have a Paraclete (Intercessor) with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation
(IXaa-p.o's) for our sins, and not for our sins 'Only, but also for the
sins of the whole world."
The figure of Christ as the high priest of humanity entering
into the cosmic holy of holies with the blood of the atonement
(Heb. 9: 24; 10: 25) may well have affected the form of this
latter passage, and the author of Hebrews is quite hkely to
have in mind the passage often quoted from Philo (Vita
Mos. iii, 14) on the intercession of the high priest who as he
wears the TreraXov ("breastplate"?) when he enters before
God in the Temple "symbohcally makes the whole world
(represented in the TreraXov) enter in with him."
" For it was necessary that the man (Aaron) consecrated to the
Father of the world should employ as Intercessor (irapaKXrjTio)
his son (i. e., the ideal cosmos), most perfect in virtue, to ensure
forgiveness of sins and a supply of richest blessings."
If there is any relation whatever between Philo's Inter
cessor represented by the high priest's rreraXov and the "other
Intercessor" of Jn. 14:16— and of this we are more than
doubtful — it is utterly beside the mark to adduce the passage
from Vita Mosis; not merely, as Scott maintains, because
"the TrapdKXrjro<i of the Gospel has nothing in common with

THE EVANGELIST'S TASK 299
that of Philo but the name," but because the whole passage
about the intercession of the risen Christ in heaven simul
taneously with that of the Spirit on earth as "another In
tercessor" has a derivation so direct and simple that once our
attention has been called to it the relation becomes obvious.
The passage in I Jn. 2 :i may evince, as stated, an additional
influence from the author of Hebrews; but for that of Jn. 14:
12-17 concerning the intercession of Christ in heaven and
of the Spirit upon earth no other derivation is possible than
Paul's great chapter on the work and witness of the Spirit,
where with manifest allusion to the unintelligible, half ar
ticulate prayers uttered "in a tongue" or "in the Spirit"
he declares first that:
"the Spirit himself maketh intercession (iirepcvrvyxdvu) for us
with inarticulate groanings; but he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh inter
cession for the saints according to the will of God,"
and but a few verses farther on continues :
"Who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died
(who is the judge), yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who
is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." !
If there seems to be confusion of thought between the
Intercessor for the saints before the throne of the heavenly
Judge and the "other Intercessor" who here upon earth
fulfils all the manifold functions of the Church's TrapdKXr]ro<;
we must blame, not the fourth evangelist, but the Apostle
Paul. Nevertheless, as an indication how remote are these
"Johannine" discourses from the Sayings of Jesus it is in
structive to note that of all the many senses in which the
promise is developed, partly on the basis of the Church's
experience, partly on that of Pauline doctrine, the only one
which has entirely disappeared is that which by synoptic re-
1 Rom. 8: 26-34.

300 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
port, as well as by all rules of sound historical criticism, must
be considered to most nearly represent the original utterance :
"When they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye
shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall
speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father
that speaketh in you." !
In his development of this promise of the "Paraclete" we
have an example of the sense in which the fourth evangehst
understood his task of "bringing out" the spiritual gospel
of Paul from the current evangelic tradition.
1 Mt. lo: 19-20.

CHAPTER XII
THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED AND HIS RELATION TO
THE AUTHOR !
Since the problem of the Fourth Gospel is no longer a
problem of date, but of authorship,^ the main question to be
determined by the indirect internal evidence will be that of
the personality reflected in the work, and with this is inextri
cably bound up that of the figure, elsewhere unknown, of
"the disciple whom Jesus loved"; a figure unexpectedly in
troduced in the second part of the Gospel, which deals ex
clusively with the Lord's Supper, the Cross, and the Resur
rection. This portion of the Gospel is doubly marked off
from the first twelve chapters, which deal with the public
ministry; (a) by the general closing reflections on the results
of Jesus' pubhc work in 12:37-50; (b) by the transition in
13:1 to those to whom Jesus now gave himself exclusively,
"his own which were in the world," whom as his beloved
"he loved unto the end." Among these one is conspicuous
as "the beloved disciple" par eminence. He is not merely
Jesus' "friend" ((j}iXo<;), as Lazarus was (11:3, 11), but his
dyaTTr]r6<;, as Jesus himself is the 'AyaTrtjro'; of the Father;
he is the type of true discipleship.
Even the superficial observer cannot fail to perceive that
the problem of authorship is somehow hnked with that of
this mysterious figure. Elsewhere all evangelic tradition
appears inseparable from the personahty of Peter. The
1 The substance of this chapter was published in the Expositor (Series VII,
Vol. IV (1907), pp. 324 ff.) under the same title.
2 See Chapter I. 301

302 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Markan story, which supplies the entire substance of the
narrative outline of both Matthew and Luke, is certainly
based, as tradition has always maintained, on the reminis
cences of Peter. Even in the meager instances where our
first and third evangelists venture to add some shght new
feature of narrative the figure of Peter is usually made cen
tral, as if to emphasize the completeness of dependence of
all authentic early tradition upon this single thread. The
outhne of Mark is that aaopted in general by the fourth
evangelist also. He too begins with the Appearance of the
Baptist and Call of the Fiist Disciples, marks the culmina
tion of the Galilean ministry by the Feeding of the Multitude,
the Walking on the Sea, and the Confession of Peter, and
concludes the story of Jesus' career by the journey through
Perea to Jerusalem and the Passion and Resurrection at the
final Passover. But here in the three instances of the Supper,
the Cross, and the Resurrection another sponsor appears.
The first instance is the most conspicuous of our evangelist's
departures from the stereotyped Synoptic outhne; the other
two are conspicuous both for their intrinsic interest and for
the admitted failure of first-hand testimony. For according
to Mark's narrative the flight of Peter to Gahlee before the
final catastrophe made this unavailable.
Aside from the Appendix, which has its own answer to
the question. Who is meant by "the Disciple whom Jesus
loved"? this figure appears only in the three instances
named. Except at the Cross he is introduced in association
with Peter, but certainly not as of lower rank. Rather he
appears in the role of one who precedes Peter, the fountain
authority of the Church's evangelic tradition, in apprehen
sion of the real significance of what transpires. At the Cross,
where Peter's absence is painfully conspicuous, he becomes
by appointment of Jesus himself the guardian of Jesus'
mother.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 303
No ordinary place or function can be attributed to such a
character. The distinguishing trait by which he is first
introduced as "lying in Jesus' bosom," and the name "that
disciple whom Jesus loved" tolerate no secondary place.
The phrases have the symbolic significance characteristic of
this Gospel. The Gospel of Mark had made prominent the
Jewish "hardness of heart" which had infected the Twelve,
so that even they, "having eyes saw not, and having ears
heard not," ! and in the most conspicuous instances had
made Peter the special object of rebuke for this common
failing. The Fourth Gospel presents the phenomenon not
negatively only, but affirmatively. In contrast to the ob-
tuseness of Peter and the other disciples is the insight of "the
disciple whom Jesus loved." The mystery of Jesus' self-
surrender to the Cross — incomprehensible to Peter (Mk. 8:
31-33), — nay, his actual stiffening of the faltering purpose
of the betrayer; the mystery of the empty tomb, which had
left Peter only "wondering" (Lk. 24:12), arc to this disciple
an open book. To him is delivered the care of Jesus' dearest
upon earth. For what significance can the scene of Jesus'
mother at the Cross have had to an evangelist bent on "spir
itual" meanings, save to symbolize that element of his
"kindred after the flesh" which however blindly had yet
loyally clung to him. Peter's- attempt to solve the knotty
question of the standing of the Jewish element in the larger
"Israel of God" we know had not been attended with signal
success. Considering the relation in which the Beloved disciple is
made to stand to Peter in these three instances of his appear
ance on the scene we can hardly dispute those students of
the Fourth Gospel, both ancient and modern, who see in it
a subtle correction of the Petrine story, and understand the
figure of the Beloved disciple to be introduced in connection
1 Mk. 6: 52; 7:18; 8:17-21, etc.

304 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
with this purpose, to rectify what had been misimderstood.
The Beloved disciple speaks from "the heart of Christ," and
sees things as they really are; on this point opponents and
defenders of the traditional authorship are at one. The
question in debate will be. What kind of correction is aimed
at? Is it external fact, or internal significance? Does the
author aim to present a new and more historically correct
account than Mark's of the events experienced in common
during the period of the ministry, supplementing its defi
ciencies, restoring its unhistorical "order," and tacitly cor
recting its misstatements? Or is his aim doctrinal rather
than historical, his effort the "bringing out " of the "spiritual"
side rather than the concrete, his "eye-witness," in short,
that of the eye which has been "spiritually" enhghtened
(Eph. I :i8) ? And if the latter be the case, is such a design,
so carried out as we find it, attributable to the son of Zebedee ?
To writers who approach the question from the point of
view of the Reverend F. W. Worsley of Durham, whose recent
work on The Fourth Gospel and the Synoptists awakens ex
pectations by its title,! these questions answer themselves.
Supplementation and correction at a few necessary points of
the substantially historical narrative of Mark was all the
fourth evangehst aimed at.
"His plan was not concerned with any theological or Christo
logical opinion, which were rather natural views of one who was
under the influence of a closer contact with the Person of Christ
than any of the Synoptists."^
On this conception of the task of the fourth evangehst, which
is so remarkably convenient for the critical historian of the
twentieth century, however foreign to the ideals of the second,
we will merely recommend a more careful reading of the
works of Drummond and Scott; for Mr. Worsley professes
1 Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1909. ^Op. cit., p. 29.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 305
high regard for these scholars in spite of their leanings to
criticism. We may then turn at once to the main argument
on which his assertions are based :
"We have one plain and definite claim put forward by the
writer of the Fourth Gospel, 'And he that hath seen hath borne
witness, and his witness is true: and he knoweth that he saith true,
that ye also may beheve' (19:35); and again, 'This is the disciple
which beareth witness of these things and wrote these things : and
we know that his witness is true' (21: 24).
"Are we to suppose that he is a har?" !
The Bible Society prints the Appendix as an integral part of
the Gospel, therefore it was written by "the writer of the
Gospel." Therefore that writer was the Beloved disciple;
for he says so himself, and who could know better ? ^
Reasoning of this type would scarcely be worthy our atten
tion were it not for examples in higher places, such as the
following :
"The critics who assert that the Gospel is not the work of an
eye-witness, and even those who say that the last chapter was not
written by the author of the whole, wantonly accuse these last
words of untruth." ^
1 Ibid., p 28.
2 In Mr. Worsley's book debatable points are usually covered by the
phrase "I am satisfied," or "My conviction is" or "I say emphatically," or
"We feel at once" or the like (see pp. 36, 38, 49, 53, 59, 61, 74, 75, 80, 89,
92, 96, 98, 106, 117, 129, 143, 152, 160, 163, 166, 169, 171). This saves the
reader the trouble of examining the evidence and guards him from the dan
ger of a wrong conclusion. In the cardinal question of the authorship of the
Appendix we find two references in the Index which give the entire argu
ment of Mr. Worsley on the question. The first is on p. 58, as follows: "I
am quite satisfied that the Appendix is the work of the author of the rest of
the Gospel and that it is all the work of one person." The other, on p. 148,
confirms the reader's faith as follows: "I can see no reason for doubting the
historicity of this incident. One thing is quite certain, and it is that the
Appendix is the work of the author of the other twenty chapters."
3 Sanday, Criticism, p. 81.
Fourth Gospel — 20

3o6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
This style of polemic suggests a sense of trepidation lest the
chain of reasoning should not hold. But since everything is
thus made to hinge upon the identity of the writer, not of the
Appendix alone, but in particular of its last (textually genuine)
verse (21 : 24), it becomes necessary to take this as our point
of departure, and ask, Is the exegesis correct which thus (in
21: 24) identifies the Beloved disciple with John the son of
Zebedee ? Setting aside those late legends, such as Jerome's !
concerning the aged John continually reiterating the "new
commandment" of the Lord "Little children, love one an
other," whose source is obviously no other than the X litera
ture itself, does the figure of the Beloved disciple in its three
occurrences really correspond with our knowledge of John
the son of Zebedee from other sources than the X hterature
and dependent legends; or does the context and mode of intro
duction of the figure imply another, perhaps an ideal per
sonage ?
We have seen that there are in the substance of the Gospel
but three appearances of the figure, and these to some extent
interrelated. It is important to distinguish from these two
other groups of passages which fall outside our consideration
because they either are (a) indefinite, and need not refer to
the same, nor indeed to any specific individual; or else (b)
are from a later writer, who may easily have attached a
different meaning to the phrase "the disciple whom Jesus
loved." In the former category of indefinite references are to be
placed (i) those of Jn. i :3S-42, where the analogy with Mark
1: 16-20 may weU lead the reader mentally to introduce the
figures of James and John. But not only h&\e we here no
allusion whatever to "the disciple whom Jesus loved," the
phenomenon is not even connected primarily ^^•ith the intro
duction of this new personality. Its real explanation must
1 Comm. on Gal., vi, 10.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 307
be found in connection with the general question, "Why is
there no mention in the Fourth Gospel of the two sons of
Zebedee, James and John, the 'sons of thunder'"? — a
problem already discussed.!
(2) In the account of Peter's Denial, Jn. 18: 15-27, a syn
optic story intimately connected with the Appendix (cf. 21:
15-19), we have again the indefinite mention of "another
disciple known to the high-priest," who procures Peter's ad
mission to the court and then disappears. There is nothing
to prove that this was "the disciple whom Jesus loved"; the
inference is simply suggested to the reader's mind in view of
Mk. 14:33, perhaps intentionally, as is almost certainly the
case in the Appendix. This problem too must be dismissed
for the present. It will be treated in our discussion of the
editorial revisions which the Gospel has undergone.^
(b) Unlike the Gospel as a whole (i) the Appendix intro
duces openly "the sons of Zebedee" (21:2). A penumbra
of indefiniteness is secured by the addition to the list of five
mentioned by name in 21 : 2, of "two other of his disciples,"
possibly because of interest in the number seven. ^ But given
"the two sons of Zebedee," the process of elimination becomes
so easy that the reader cannot really fail to identify "the
disciple whom Jesus loved, which also leaned back on his
breast at the supper, and said. Lord, who is he that betrayeth
Thee?" (Jn. 21: 20) with the "witness-bearer" who, accord
ing to the Appendix, "beareth witness of these things and
wrote these things" (21: 24). The author of the Appendix,
accordingly, supplies the missing "sons of Zebedee," and,
without positively so stating, leads the reader to infer that "the
1 See above, p. 201 f.
2 See below. Chapter XVIII.
3 Cf. the seven in Papias, and Clem. Hom., xviii, 14, the patriarchs, as
"the seven pillars of the world." In Gal. 2: 9, Peter, James and John are
"pillars" (cf. Rev. 3:12). Was the early Church, like "the world," and like
"Wisdom's house" (Prov. 9:1), conceived as built on seven pillars?

3o8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
disciple whom Jesus loved" is John, the survivor of the two.
But we have seen reason to consider the Appendix the work of
a later redactor (R), who may, or may not, correctly identify
the enigmatic figure.
A further passage frequently cited as if belonging to the
group introducing the Beloved Disciple suffers from both
objections: (a) indefiniteness and (b) editorial character. It
is the passage on Peter's Denial (Jn. 13:36-38; 18:15-18,
25-27), which is so intimately connected with the Appendix!
as to make it reasonable to infer that the nameless "other
disciple known to the high-priest" of this story (18: 10 f.) is
meant to be understood in the same way. The reader of
chaps. 18 f. might well ask. How is it, after the disciples have
"gone their way," ^ that "the disciple whom Jesus loved"
can still be beside him at the foot of the cross, 19:26? The
answer (of R) is the introduction in 18: 15 f., together with
his insertion of the incident of Peter's Denial, of the "other
disciple known to the high-priest." The trait may have been
suggested by the following of the "young man" (usually
identified as John surnamed Mark) of Mk. 14:51 f. Other
reasons concur to prove this whole story of Peter's Denial an
interpolation by R.^ Were it part of the original stock, whose
interpreter of events is "the disciple whom Jesus loved," we
should expect this title, and not the indefinite "another
disciple known to the high-priest."
Deferring the consideration of the "other disciple" of Jn.
18 : i5,*we may therefore say as regards the "Beloved disciple "
that the editor (R) who commends the Gospel to the reader
1 On this story as an insertion, along with other material related to Synoptic
tradition by the author of the Appendix, see Bacon, Introd. to N. T. Lit.,
p. 274.
2 John 18: 8 f., the Johannine euphemism for the desertion of the eleven,
Mk. 14: 27, 50; Lk. omits.
3 Bacon, Introd. to N. T., p. 274 (1900).
4 See Chapter XVIII.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

309

in 21: 24 wishes at least the latter, if not the former also, to
be identified with the son of Zebedee.
(2) Whatever be the derivation in whole or in part of Jn.
19:31-37, the famous crux of 19:35 cannot be fairly inter
preted without taking into consideration its manifest relation
to 21: 24. The phraseology alone would compel us here to
recognize the hand of R. Once more we find the indefinite
"He that saw it" (6 ecopaKox;) brought into the same myste
rious relation with "the disciple whom Jesus loved" as in the
Appendix. The writer will not say in so many words, "This
was the 'disciple whom Jesus loved';" still less "This
was John the son of Zebedee," but he makes it impossible to
think of anyone else. Phraseology, interest in authentication,
method pursued, are those of R. We have no alternative but
to class Jn. 19: 35 also with the references which are both (a)
indefinite and (b) redactional. It is R who speaks, and his
intention is that the witness of the "blood and water" from
Jesus' side shall be taken to be no other than "the disciple
whom Jesus loved" of verse 26. Whether he also means
that this disciple shall be identified with the author of I Jn.
and III Jn. depends upon our judgment of the relation of
Jn. 19 : 34 f. to I Jn. 5 : 6-9 and III Jn. 12. The reference in
eKelvo'i olSev would seem to be to the emphatic "witness"
of I Jn. 5 : 6-9. In that case R will be not only asserting his
conviction that the phenomenon of the blood and water was
witnessed by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (in his view
John), but in addition that it is the same who, in the Epistles
whose language he borrows, had laid such stress upon the
"water and blood," declaring this to be a "witness of the
Spirit" in some sense present and eternal. R's standpoint,
in other words, is identically that of subsequent tradition,
except that instead of plain statement he shelters himself be
hind purposed ambiguity.
To test the value of R's answer to the question: Who is

310 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
meant by "the disciple whom Jesus loved"? we must now
return to the three unequivocal entries of this figure upon the
stage, and ask ourselves what their significance is in the hght
of the original context. We may distinguish between the
general context of the writing as a whole, and the individual
context of each of the three entries, considering the latter first.
I.' Jn. 13 : 1-30. The extraordinary character of the Johan
nine story of the Last Supper is quite inadequately stated
when it is simply pointed out that it is not the Passover; that
it has not the institution of the Eucharist, which this Evan
gelist, on the contrary, connects with the Feeding of the
Multitude (Jn. 6), a narrative of the Agape cycle; and that
it completely eclipses the Eucharist by the emphasis laid upon
the new rite of foot-washing, which Jesus institutes in per
petuity (ver. 15), as his own complement to the rite of bap
tism (ver. 10). All this is surprising enough when we reflect
what significance already attached, even in Paul's time, to
the story of the sacrament instituted by Jesus on " that same
night in which he was betrayed" (I Cor. 11 : 20, 23 ff.). But
it is not the whole truth. In Jn. 13: 1-30 the supper is not a
Passover, and not a Eucharist. There is a sacrament, with
the bread and the cup after supper. But it is a sacrament
for only one of those present — "the son of perdition," and
for him it is a sacrament of judgment! By it "Satan entered
into him." !
There is no need to exaggerate. The phenomenon has not
so startling an effect as it would have if this were new material
introduced by the fourth evangelist de suo, instead of being a
mere retention of the synoptic trait of the Betrayer whose
"hand dipped with his Master in the dish" (Mt. 26: 21-25 =
Mk. i4:i8-2i=Lk. 22:21-23). It is significant enough as
being the only trait which the fourth evangelist sees fit to pre-
1 On the fourth evangelist's treatment of the Eucharist and Agape nar
ratives see the chapter below entitled "Johannine Quartodecimanism."

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 311
serve from the story of the Lord's Supper. The removal of
the institutional teachings to a connection with the story of
the origin of the Agape in 6: 52-58, the removal of connection
with the Passover, and the substitution of the rite of foot-
washing for the Eucharist have their explanation, no doubt,
in the Evangelist's own view of these rites, and of their re
lation to Judaism on the one side, Gnosticism on the other.
This particular trait, retained alone from the synoptic story
of the Supper, may be partly explained by the desire to
counteract a false value attached by some to the Eucharist.
Its full significance, however, cannot be appreciated without
a survey of all the passages in which the fourth evangelist
takes up and restates the facts related by the Synoptists con
cerning Judas and his betrayal of the Lord. The apologetic
intention thus becomes unmistakable. The taunt is to be
met and overcome that the pretended Son of God, who
"knew all men, and . . . needed not that anyone should
bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was
in man," had not been able to foresee or guard against be
trayal by one of his own chosen circle of disciples.
The first mention of the betrayer occurs in 6 : 70, where it
takes the place of Mark's account of the rebuke to Peter for
rejecting the declaration of Messiah's fate,
" Get thee behind me Satan, for thou mindest not the things of
God, but the things of men." !
In the Fourth Gospel it is declared that this reproach was
addressed not to Simon, but to
"Judas the son of Simon, Iscariot; for he it was that should
betray him, being one of the twelve." ^
Moreover Jesus had intended from the beginning that events
should take this course, and made the utterance with express
reference to it: iMk. 8:33. 2 Jn. 6:71.

312 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
"Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" !
The Evangelist even inserts in the context the explanation :
"For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that be
heved not, and who it was that should betray him." ^
This is certainly an important "correction of the Synoptists,"
especially as it is one of a connected series, all made in the in
terest of showing that Jesus intended his death to happen just
as it did, and even impeUed the unwilling actors to do their part.
In fact so far from "being in an agony" and praying for dehv-
erance from "that hour" as reported in Mk. 14: 32-36, when
the critical choice is put before him of going to the Greeks and
teaching them, Jesus deliberately chooses rather the way of
the cross as a better means of "drawing all men." He re
fuses to pray, "Father, save me from this hour," because "for
this cause came I unto this hour." His prayer becomes,
therefore, "Father, glorify thy name," which brings from
heaven the audible reply: "I have both glorified it and will
glorify it again," and some interpreted this as "an angel
speaking to him." This further "correction" of the Synop
tists' story of the agony in Gethsemane and the strengthening
angel is also highly significant. It requires, however, an
unusual standard to perceive in it "the testimony of an eye
witness" replacing the inaccuracies of secondary narrators by
a more historical version of events.^
We come then to the incident of the Supper, when, as Mark
had related, Jesus had intimated, though vaguely and ambigu
ously, his foreknowledge of the impending betrayal :
" One of you shall betray me, even he that eateth with me." ^
Matthew had improved upon the indefinite indication of Mark
by adding in particular that
1 Jn. 6: 70. 3 -With Lk. 22 cf. Jn. 12: 20-36.
2 Jn. 6: 64. i Mk. 14: 18.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 313
" Judas which betrayed him answered and said, Is it I (who am
to betray thee). Rabbi ? He saith unto him. Thou hast said." !
But even this did not make the foreknowledge and intention
of Jesus quite undeniable. There must be an "eye-witness"
who could testify to Jesus' inmost intention. The fourth
evangelist elaborates the scene with a minuteness of detail
which leaves not the smallest loophole of escape. Satan's
"entering into Judas Iscariot" of which Luke had told
(Lk. 22:3) was an immediate consequence of receiving the
sop which Jesus "dipped in the dish." ^ Peter and the rest
"doubted of whom Jesus spake." Even when the signal had
been given privately to "the disciple whom Jesus loved,"
"No man at the table knew for what intent Jesus spake this
unto him (the command to Judas, That thou doest do quickly)";
for only one who both understood the true intention of the
Lord, and also so completely sympathized with it as to be un
willing even to interpose an obstacle to the nefarious work of the
betrayer, could look calmly on and say no word.^
Finally to complete this particular line of "correction of
the Synoptists" Judas appears at the scene of the betrayal
accompanied not by a paltry posse of slaves from the high
priest's house, but by the entire Roman garrison of Jerusalem
(t) arrelpa — 600 men) headed by the military tribune him
self (o 'x^iXCapxo';) and accompanied by "the officers of the
Jews." Judas has no need to "betray the Son of man with a
kiss," so that here the appearance of verisimilitude in Synop
tic story is fallacious. On the contrary Jesus himself,
"knowing all things that were coming upon him went forth and
said unto them. Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of
1 Mt. 26: 25.
2 Cf. Mk. 14: 20, "He that dippeth with me in the dish," i. e. (proverbially)
my trusted friend.
3 Jn. 13: 21-30.

314 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also,
which betrayed him, was standing with them. When therefore he
said unto them (the military tribune, cohort and ofiicers of the
Jews), I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. Again
therefore he asked them. Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus
of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I told you that I am he. If there
fore ye seek me, let these (disciples) go their way : that the word
might be fulfilled which he had spoken (in the high priestly
prayer 17 : 12), Of those whom thou hast given me I lost not one." !
As a vindication of the disciples from Mark's admission that
at the approach of the posse of slaves "they all forsook him
and fled" this is far more complete than Luke's bald cancel
ation of the trait. As a vindication of the incarnate Logos
from the appearance of having been overtaken by a fate he
had vainly sought to avoid, it leaves nothing to be desired —
save credibility.
As regards motive and intention this first introduction of
"the disciple whom Jesus loved" stands in line with all the
previous references to the betrayal by Judas, and exemplifies
both the interest of the evangelist himself in his corrections of
Synoptic tradition and the function of the Beloved disciple.
It is not merely, however, in the apologetic interest that this
figure is introduced. In order to do complete justice to the
role it plays even in this first appearance we must consider
further two passages which connect themselves with the par
ticular scene of the Supper and its contrasting figures of the
Betrayer and the Beloved disciple. They are (i) The Evan
gehst's own teachings regarding the sacrament in 6: 52-71;
(2) the teaching of Paul in I Corinthians 11 : 29 f. concerning
that eating of the bread and drinking of the cup unworthily,
which becomes a sacrament of judgment and death to those
that "discern not the Lord's body."
(1) As regards the evangehst's view of the sacrament ex-
1 Jn. 18: 4-9.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 315
pressed in the chapter on the Agape (Jn. 6.) I cannot do better
than transcribe the excellent exposition of Mr. E. F. Scott.!
" The discourse in this chapter ( Jn. 6) is based on the preceding
miracle, which, in accordance with John's method, becomes the
symbohcal expression of a permanent religious fact. Christ dis
penses to the world the bread of life. He has in Himself an inex
haustible divine Hfe which He imparts from age to age to those
who beheve on Him. How is this life communicated? It might
appear from the earlier portion of the discourse as if the process
were conceived as wholly spiritual. Jesus demands a true belief
on Himself as the revelation of God, a living communion with
Him, an assimilation of our nature to His. But this spiritual
process is associated, more and more definitely as the chapter
draws to a close, with the ordinance of the Eucharist: 'The bread
that I will give is My flesh, which I give for the life of the world '
(6:51). ' Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His
blood, ye have no life in you' (53). ' He that eateth My flesh and
drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him' (56). In say
ings like these we have direct allusion to the Eucharist as the
'medicine of immortality' (Ignat. Eph. 20), the means of fellow
ship between Christ and the believer, the real appropriation of
the body and blood of the Lord.
" In this chapter, therefore, we seem to have two views wholly
contradictory to each other. The imparting of the bread of life,
typified in the miracle, is the communication by Jesus of His own
mind and spirit to His disciples. It is also identified in a special
manner with the outward rite of the Eucharist. The contradic
tion is partly to be explained as an instance of John's peculiar
method. He does not discard the common behefs, even when
they clash with his own, but accepts them formally in order to
interpret and spiritualize them. In the present instance he takes
the popular conception of the religious value of the Supper, and
sets it in the light of a higher and more reasonable conception.
The outward ordinance becomes symbolical of the true communion
with Christ by a life of faith and obedience. To ' eat His flesh
1 The Fourth Gospel, its Purpose and Theology. E. F. Scott, 1906, p. 123.

3i6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
and drink His blood' is to appropriate His Spirit, to make yourself
one with Him, so that He seems to live again in His disciple.
John himself points us to some such symbolical import in his
words, by the warning with which the discourse closes: 'It is the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing' (6: 63)."
(2) To this strong reaction against the popular, crudely
superstitious, and non-ethical view of the sacrament as a
"medicine of immortahty," the evangelist joins, however, as
Scott correctly observes, a mysticism of his own, producing a
conception not wholly freed from the magical element, but
certainly able to plead even in this respect the great authority
of Paul (I Cor. 11: 29 f.). The sacrament is the means by
which one appropriates Christ's spirit, by which one's hfe is
fed by the divine life of the Logos. Because this is something
more than an ethical participation, unworthy eating has not
merely moral but physical consequences. The open channel
of divine grace becomes the opportunity of Satan, to the
judgment and death of the unworthy participant. The Com
munion of the Lord's body and blood has its awful counter
part in a "communion with devils" (I Cor. 10: 14-22). This
Pauline doctrine of the sacrament of judgment is embodied by
our evangehst in his story of the Designation of the Traitor,
the sole feature he thinks it worth his while to retain from the
synoptic account of the Supper. "The disciple whom Jesus
loved " is made the hierophant of this mystery. The question
vainly put by the twelve in the synoptic story "which of them
it was that should do this thing," is answered to this confidant
of Jesus' bosom, who is given to understand its working. It
is at the sohcitation of Peter that "the disciple whom Jesus
loved" obtains the explanation; but it does not appear when,
if ever, Peter was told the result. Doctrinally, therefore, the
teaching our evangelist finds in the synoptic story of Judas
"dipping in the dish" with Jesus at the last Supper is ex
pressed in I Cor. 10: 20-22, "I would not that ye should have

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 317
communion with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord
and the cup of devils; ye cannot partake of the table of the
Lord and the table of devils." He intimates that it is possible
for a Judas to make even of the Lord's Supper a sacrament of
damnation. It should be needless to say that this is not history, but
doctrinal interpretation. No disciple of flesh and blood could
have received the positive assurance of the traitorous purpose
entertained by Judas, and permitted the traitor to walk forth
before his eyes to its accomplishment, without lifting a finger
to prevent it. But the disciple of Jn. 13: 23-30 is not a dis
ciple of flesh and blood. He is the interpreter of the "Pe
trine" story of the announcement of the betrayal. And he in
terprets it on the basis of the Pauline doctrine of the sacra
ment of judgment.
2. We may pass now to the second context in which the
Beloved disciple appears.
Jn. 19: 25-27 deals with the synoptic scene of the Women
at the Cross, Mt. 27:55 f. = Mk. 15:41 f.=Lk. 23:49.
Among these the fourth evangelist introduces the mother of
Jesus, whose presence, in view of the silence of the Synoptics
and the statements of Mk. 3:21, 31 ff., is somewhat sur
prising. That of a disciple is even more surprising, in view of
the desertion of all which forms so conspicuous an element of
the earher tradition. The entire Johannine scene, so con
trary even to the representation of Luke, where the women
themselves "stood afar off, beholding" (John 19: 25, "stood
by the cross"), and to the historical presuppositions of an exe
cution of this character, suggests that here too it is not a flesh
and blood disciple, nor a flesh and blood mother, that enters
upon the scene. This mother rather, as we have seen, is she
of whom Jesus speaks in Luke 11 : 27 f., "they that hear the
word of God and keep it " ; perhaps in a narrower sense the rep
resentative of the adherents of an older faith which had not

3i8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
known the day of its visitation, finding a home with that
younger ecclesia which took its start from the cross as the
essence and substance of the gospel.! -pj^g author of John
12: 20-32 cannot have been less cathohc than Paul in inter
preting the significance of the cross. The adaptation which he
makes, in 19: 25-27, of the synoptic scene of the Women at
the Cross suggests, therefore, in a writer admittedly devoted
to symbohsm, a Pauline interest in those who were Jesus'
"kindred according to the flesh," and probably were his own
as well. Like Paul, he finds in the doctrine of the cross the
reconcihation of Jew and Gentile ; ^ he too expects such a
dweUing of Shem in the tents of Japheth as Paul foresees
(Rom. 11:13-32). But here again the hierophant of the
"ministration of the Gentiles" is "the disciple whom Jesus
loved." (3) The third instance of introduction of this personahty is
that of Jn. 20. This chapter contains the fourth evangehst's
only narratives of the Resurrection and the Great Commis
sion. That of the Appendix (21 : i ff.) we have seen to be the
work of a later hand. For R's story of a return of seven of the
disciples to their fishing in Gahlee is clearly out of harmony
with the preceding account of their receiving the Great Com
mission in Jerusalem (20:21-31). Wellhausen' has even
serious objections to urge against the originahty of 20 : 24-29
also, because it introduces Thomas as an absentee on that
supreme occasion. Whatever the cogency or the inadequacy
of this latter plea, the whole content of the resurrection story
as related by the synoptic writers, from their account of the
1 Cf. the taking refuge by the mother of Messiah in Rev. 12: 6 "in the
wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that there they may
nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days," perhaps referring
to the flight of the church to Pella from Jerusalem.
2 Eph. 2:16-18.
3 On the structural analysis of Wellhausen see his Erweiterungen u.
Aenderungen im Vierten Evangelium, 1907, and below. Chapter XVIII.

THE. BELOVED DISCIPLE 319
empty tomb to the Great Commission and the Pentecostal
endowment with the Spirit, is covered by our evangelist in
three scenes, the Empty Tomb (20: i-io), the Appearance to
Mary Magdalen (20: 11-18), and the Mission of the Twelve
(20:19-23). The first at the tomb, the first to believe, was "the disciple
whom Jesus loved." He appears as a kind of invisible com
panion of Peter in the hurried visit to the tomb borrowed from
Luke 24: 12.! Neither of the two speaks to, nor appears to
notice, his companion. The new-found faith of "the disciple
whom Jesus loved " does not express itself to Mary Magdalen,
who is left "standing without, weeping"; nor even to any of
the disciples. His coming and seeing the empty tomb and
believing, is all an episode introduced into the Lucan story of
the women at the sepulcher without the faintest trace of an
effect upon the course of the narrative. Again we must say
this is no disciple of flesh and blood. All is precisely as if he
were not there. His function indeed has no regard for the
persons and conditions of that age. The empty tomb was
enough for him. "He saw and believed." He is the type of
that faith which does not wait for ocular demonstration, but is
quickened to full hfe by "knowing the Scripture that he must
rise from the dead " (ver. 9).
In the light of these three individual contexts is it a son of
Zebedee, even a glorified son of Zebedee, that the original
author intends to present under the mask of "the disciple
whom Jesus loved " ? Is it both this and his own personahty ?
If so, he uses a strange title,^ and has a strange way of de
scribing his hero. We are told that it is modesty which
1 The verse is omitted in some MSS., but the incident is referred to in
24: 24, which appears in all.
2 Zahn seriously considers the possibility of accounting for the title on the
basis of the legend in the Leucian Acts of John, where John is the irapedpos
of Rev. 14; 4, prevented from accomplishing his intended marriage in order
to be reserved for Christ. This is inverting cause and effect.

320 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
accounts for this; the author shrinks from introducing him
self by name. Strange modesty, which prefers a title of
extreme and exclusive honor to the simple pronoun, and
which introduces the personality only to place it in contrast
with the weakness and bhndness of the rest of the Twelve!
We are told that this veiled introduction of "the disciple
whom Jesus loved " is one of the "touches of the eye-witness."
And yet of all the unreal scenes of this gospel of abstractions
none is so unreal, none of the dramatis personce so phan
tasmal, as the Beloved disciple himself, and the symbohc
adaptations of synoptic scenes in which he figures.
Let us then turn from that interpretation of this veiled
figure which R has imposed on later tradition by his interpo
lations in and additions to the Gospel, and frame for our
selves an interpretation on the basis of the broader context
of the original work viewed as a whole.
The view many times advanced since Scholten that the
Beloved disciple is a purely ideal figure is surely more in
accord with the nature of his entry on the scene in the three
individual contexts just discussed, than that which R has
imposed on all subsequent traditional interpretation. In
some sense he is an ideal figure, that ideal disciple whom
Jesus would choose, and who reads his soul aright. What,
then, is ideal discipleship in the fourth evangehst's concep
tion? What message will he be supposed to obtain, who
reads the very soul of Jesus? To these questions "the spirit
ual Gospel" leaves room for but one answer. Rarely has it
been better stated than in the work of Mr. Scott. The
essence of the gospel of Christ for our evangehst centers in
the great word "hfe." He makes himself the great vindi
cator of Paul, for whom the redemption had been simply
"the law of the Spirit of hfe in Christ Jesus making me free
from the law of sin and death." To the fourth evangehst,
as to Paul, the gospel is not precept, but personahty and

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 321
power; "the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwelhng in you." The cardinal ideas of the Fourth
Gospel are defined in the conclusion of the volume we have
quoted in three fundamental principles:
" (i) Jesus Christ in his actual Person is the revelation of God.
(2) The peculiar work of Jesus was to impart Life. (3) The hfe
is communicated through union with Christ. It was inherent in
His own Person, and before it can reappear in His disciples they
must become in some sense identified with Himself." !
From these cardinal principles of the Fourth Gospel it should
be possible to deduce the evangelist's conception of the ideal
disciple. In one sense he must needs correspond to the author him
self, whose insight into the deeper meaning of the gospel is
the occasion of his writing. With all those who have not seen
and yet have believed, the gospel has come to our evangelist
through union with the eternal Christ, the Logos of God.
He is of those who, with the great Apostle to the Gentiles, if
they had known a Christ after the flesh would know such a
Christ no more. He has apprehended him sub specie eterni-
tatis, and abides in his bosom, as the glorified Redeemer
himself abides in the bosom of the Father. In the sacrament,
at the cross, in the resurrection, he has "put on Christ," and
in him has appropriated the eternal life of God. The ideal
disciple cannot be less. He must be an interpreter of the
evangelic tradition of Peter in the deeper, larger sense.
But we should be doing scant justice to the fourth evange
list if we proceeded at once to identify his typical disciple with
any one individual, whether himself, or Paul, or John, or
some less known figure of the past. This is not his method.
His Nicodemus combines traits from the rich ruler of Lk.
18:18, Joseph of Arimathca, Lk. 23:5off., and Gamaliel,
1 E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, p. 360 fE.
Fourth Gospel — 21

322 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Acts 5 : 34 ff. His woman of Samaria is a composite of the
Syro-phoenician (Mk. 7: 24 ff.) and the "woman that was a
sinner" (Lk. 7:365.). His family group at Bethany com
bines the traits of the Peraean scene of Lk. 10: 38-42, the Gal
ilean of Lk. 7:36 ff., and of the parable of Lk. 16: 19 ff.
Even his pool of Bethesda seems to have borrowed its most
distinctive pecuharity, the periodic "troubhng of the water,"
from either the Virgin's Fount (Gihon) or the pool of Siloam.
It is true that the Beloved disciple "always comes to the fore
as the Interpreter, supplying and correcting from the evange
hst's point of view, and to this extent his voice is the evange
hst's voice, the same voice which speaks in the "corporation
we" of Jn. 1:14; 3:11 and throughout the Epistles. He
does speak for the author, as the author himself speaks for
the Church. But to say that he is the author is not only a
begging of the question, but a solution which would not
naturally suggest itself to minds not bent like that of R on
securing at all costs the aegis of apostolic authority for the
Gospel. We may return for a moment, apropos of this self-expression
of the writer, to the Epistles, in which, as we have seen,
he half unveils his personahty. First John exphcitly de
clares itself as "written concerning them that would lead you
astray." The heretics in question have been clearly identi
fied in both ancient and modern times without serious dis
agreement as the same Docetists against whom Ignatius
launches his fiery polemics in Asia ca. 1 10-117 A. d. The
author of I Jn., in a passage echoed not long after by
Polycarp, identifies this heresy with the predicted spirit of
Antichrist, herein rationalizing on the older apocalyptic
eschatology with its visible counterparts to Messiah and his
"witnesses" and "prophets." Against this false witness
our author undertakes to speak for the Church which has
"an anointing from the Holy One and knows aU things"

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 323
(I Jn. 2: 20-27). This appeal to the indwelling "witness of
the Spirit" is an expansion and application of Paul's equally
far-reaching claim in I Cor. 2:6-16 for those who by endow
ment of this Spirit have become infused with "the mind of
Christ." One who is thus " spiritual " can venture, even with
out new historical evidence, to write a "spiritual" gospel
against traducers and dissipators of the evangehc faith. Once
more we demand the application of the historic imagination
instead of the poetic or apologetic. No man is quahfied to
interpret the "we" of I Jn. i : 1-3, of Jn. i : 14 and Jn. 3:11,
who has not first diligently read and compared I Cor. 2 : 6-16
with I Jn. 2: 20-27, interpreting both in the light of the con
troversies of Asia in loo-iio a. d. Read in the sense it
would convey to contemporary minds, not even I Jn. i : 1-3
would suggest the idea that its writer claimed to be an
apostle, or a personal disciple of Jesus.
It is his object, as we have seen, to oppose the "false
prophets who are gone out into the world" with a true "wit
ness"; and in this he seeks the participation (Koivcovia) of
his readers (i : 1-4). At first he speaks in behalf of a body of
teachers, who perpetuate the historic tradition of the con
crete, tangible, human reality of the incarnate Logos, and
who transmit his "new commandment." From 4: 12 on,
the whole body of those who are conscious of the abiding
presence of God and the gift of the Spirit are associated with
the writer and his fellow-presbyters in their "witness that
the Father hath sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."
Thus the Church in its continuous life becomes the true
"witness of Messiah" against the Antichrist, (i) by its un
broken historic tradition (i: 1-3; 4: 14), (2) by the abiding
inner witness of the Spirit (4: 15-16; 5: 7-12). The conclu
sive evidence that the body of witnesses to the historic, hu
man reality of the manifestation of the Logos spoken of in
I Jn. 1 : 1-3, is not hmited to such as could boast of personal

324 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
intercourse with Jesus is the parallel reference to the incar
nation of the Logos in the Gospel, Jn. 1:12-16, where it
would be absurd to interpret "tabernacled among us" as
"among the twelve apostles," even if verse 16 did not sim
ilarly make witnesses of all who have shared in his "fulness
of grace and truth." The "we" of I Jn. i : 1-3 must there
fore be measured by that of Jn. i: 12-16, where it can only
mean "as many as received him," the spiritually begotten
Israel of God, in contrast with oi lSloi that "received him
not." The case is not radically different even in Jn. 3: 11,
where the witness of the Church is placed, by what at first
might seem a startling anachronism, in the mouth of Jesus
himself: " Verily, verily I say unto thee. We (the true sons of God) speak
that we do know, and bear witness of that we have seen (cf. Jn.
19:35 and I Jn. i: 1-3; 5: 6-12); and ye (unbeHeving Jews who
falsely claim to know God and thus to be his sons) receive not our
witness." !
The evangelist thinks no more of anachronism in making
Jesus debate with a Jewish rabbi the doctrine of the new
birth and the witness of the Spirit of Adoption, than when in
the next verse but one (3: 13) he makes Jesus allude to his
own ascension (!). Whether in the incarnate Christ, or in
the Church, or in the person of the evangelist himself,
"It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the
truth. For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit and the
water and the blood (the two historic sacraments of the Church)
and the three agree in one. . . . And the witness is this, that
God gave unto us eternal Hfe, and this Hfe is in his Son." ^
For the discourses in which Jesus expounds the doctrine
of his own Sonship, and for the general outline of evangelic
tradition focused upon the two great themes of "the ^\¦atcr
'Jn. 3:11- 2ljn. 5:8, II.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 325
and the blood" (ministry and passion), our evangelist
needed no new figure to serve as Interpreter. Only where
particular points of historic fact had assumed controversial
or doctrinal importance, as in his bold assertions of Jesus'
foreknowledge and prearrangement of his own death, in the
scenes at the cross and at the tomb, where the lack of apos
tolic testimony was most keenly felt, there was need of a
more definite sponsor, a "spiritual" disciple to solve the
enigmas of disputed historic fact. This is the function of
"the disciple whom Jesus, loved," and in this sense he
speaks for the evangelist himself.
But we have seen that personages as well as scenes and
"signs" in the Fourth Gospel are composite, and the Be
loved disciple is no exception to the rule. In particular the
name by which our author chooses to designate him suggests
another factor in his thought. The "disciple whom Jesus
loved" is something more than a purely ideal figure. A very
real man has sat for the portrait; although, as already stated,
this is not a case of self -portraiture.
We have seen that the Beloved disciple enters on the scene
only in the drama of the cross and resurrection. His gospel of
redemption is his by mystic union with Christ in the fellow
ship of his suffering and the power of his resurrection. We
have seen also that- he stands in some special antithetic re
lation to Peter. We have found that ultimately it must be one
who anywhere, in any generation, enters the eternal hfe, hke
the evangehst himself, by appropriating "the mind which was
in Christ Jesus." But the term "disciple whom Jesus loved "
cannot weU have been coined, nor his relation to the "first" of
the twelve thus depicted, without a primary reference to that
great Apostle who, when even Peter was recreant and blind to
the real significance of the doctrine he professed to follow, cut
into the rock foundation of the Church the true gospel of the
redemption. No language ever framed can so express the

326 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
whole heart secret of the Fourth Gospel as that great utterance
of Paul, wherein, as against the inadequate apprehension Peter
had shown of the true meaning of the cross, he pours out his
soul's experience of Christ. If the Fourth Gospel be "the
heart of Christ," the heart of the Fourth Gospel is Paul's con
fession of his faith in Galatians 2 : 20:
"I have been crucified with Christ; yet I Hve; and yet no longer
I, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the
flesh I Hve in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who
LOVED ME (tov dyaiTT^a-avTOi p.t), and gave himself up for me."
In this sense Paul, and whosoever has had Paul's ex
perience — whosoever has thus seen the Lord, whether in the
body or out of the body, whosoever has come to "know him
and the power of his resurrection" — is the "disciple whom
Jesus loved." For it is Paul who first set the example of
such personal appropriation of the love manifested toward
us "while we were yet enemies."
The author of the editorial Appendix has determined for all
subsequent "defenders" another sense in which the figure of
the Beloved disciple must be taken. For the sake of securing
to the "spiritual" Gospel the standing which in his age it could
not have unless declared to be "apostolic," he has cautiously
and by veiled suggestion, yet unmistakably, introduced his
own interpretation, cancelling, it would seem,! ^ £g^y traits
which offered obstacles in the body of the work, and attach
ing at least the direct declaration in 19: 35, perhaps other and
longer passages. The enigmatic figure, he believes, was John
the son of Zebedee, next to Peter in prominence in Synoptic
story. John was suited to the r61e as author of a gospel of
Ephesian provenance by the currently accepted representa
tion that he had written the Asiatic book of Revelation.
There was indeed the objection that this disciple like his
1 See above, p. 201 f.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 327
brother James had "fulfilled Christ's prophecy concerning
them and their own confession and undertaking on his be
half" by "following" the Lord in martyrdom, even before
Peter had glorified God in the manner of his death. But
there was also a concurrent and rival tradition, perhaps origi
nating from the long life of "the Elder John" of Jerusalem
(ob. 117 A. D.), or perhaps starting from the known date of
Revelation (93 a. d.), which connected with this apostle the
promise of another kind of fiaprvpia — that of the abiding
"witness of Messiah" who according to Mk. 9: i should not
" taste of death " until the Coming of the Lord. R knows how
to adjust these rival traditions to his theory. Although "that
disciple whom Jesus loved" seemed also to "follow" after
the example of Peter, yet Peter's inference as to his fate was
incorrect. Jesus' reply to the inquiry "What of this man?"
was only "What is that to thee, follow thou me." Conversely
the inference was also wrong which had been drawn from the
words "If I will that he tarry till I come." This too was not
a promise but a mere supposition. What was really meant
was the abiding "witness" of the Beloved disciple's writing,
the Gospel now presented to the reader, whose contents R,
speaking for the Church at large, guarantees to be "true."
The difficulty of the tradition of John's martyrdom thus re
moved, there might well seem — to R — no insuperable ob
stacle to his identification of the ideal disciple with the son of
Zebedee. And if our ideas of John's character are framed on
the lines afforded by the Gospel and Epistles, ignoring Reve
lation and accommodating the Synoptic and Pauhne refer
ences to the figure required by Irenaean theory, it is of course
easy to foUow this lead.
But what do we really know of John the son of Zebedee
after deducting the legends and inferences drawn from the ma
terial in debate. It will not take long to state the sum total.
Once, and once only, does John the son of Zebedee appear

328 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
in Synoptic tradition in a separate r61e. The Roman and
Pauhne Gospel of Mark records a rebuke of Jesus admin
istered to him for a special instance of intolerance :
" John said unto him, Master, we saw one casting out devils
in thy name: and we forbade him, because he followed not us.
But Jesus said. Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall
do a mighty work in my name, and be able quickly to speak evil
of me. For he that is not against us is for us." !
The Palestinian Gospel of Matthew not only cancels this
rebuke of John, with its sweeping assertion of the Pauhne
principle that gifts of the Spirit are the supreme token of true
discipleship,^ but inserts after the saying "By their fruits ye
shall know them" in the Sermon on the Mount a completely
contrary doctrine:
" Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by
thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity
(dvop,[a)."
Even the saying quoted in Mk. 9 : 40 is reversed in Mt. 12 : 30:
"He that is not with me is against me." *
Clearly there was difference of opinion between Jerusalem
and Rome as to the value of "gifts of the Spirit" as witness to
discipleship. But in neither of the earher gospels is there any
difference of opinion as to the position of John with respect
to this moot-point of primitive fellowship. John stands where
1 Mk. 9: 38-40.
2 Gal. 3:5. Mark, like the Corinthians, takes this principle in the cruder,
more external sense.
3 Mt. 7:22-23.
<< Cf. the following context (ver. 33) with that of the preceding passage
(Mt. 7:19). Mark maintains that gifts of the Spirit are "fruits." "Mat
thew" denies this unless those thus endowed are keepers of the law (vbfws).

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 329
Paul's reference in Gal. 2 : 9 would lead us to anticipate, side
by side with James, a "pillar" of the Jerusalem church,
willingly relinquishing to Paul aU part or lot in "the gospel of
the uncircumcision " as something to which he felt no call.
He is not even involved with Peter in the controversy which
subsequently broke out at Antioch over the imphcations of
the agreement with Paul; for his name remains utterly un
connected with the whole question of the Gentiles and their
affairs. John simply went with James "to the circumcision"
(Gal. 2:9). There is no early evidence whatsoever that he
ever reversed this momentous decision. All that we have
tends simply to confirm it.
"James and John" together, as we have seen,! are known
to Synoptic tradition in the r61e of martyrs who drink Jesus'
cup and are baptized with his baptism; but here again Mark's
introduction of the incident is with the primary object of re
buking the spirit of narrow and ambitious self-assertion which
the sons of Zebedee had exemphfied in their desire to obtain
the places of honor in the kingdom. "Matthew" makes his
usual minute changes ^ to relieve James and John of the im
putation. Luke omits. Connected, perhaps, with this con
ception, is Mark's interpretation of the surname Boanerges
(Mk. 3: 17) and Luke's supplement to the rebuke of John's
intolerance in the rebuke of "James and John" for seek
ing an Elijan vengeance on inhospitable Samaritans (Lk.
9 •• 51-56).
Aside from these two rebukes we have absolutely nothing
in Synoptic tradition to distinguish John from the rest of the
group of fishermen first called to discipleship at the sea of
Galilee, save the grouping with Peter and James in three
1 See above, Chapter V.
2 In Mt. 20: 20 the mother of James and John makes the objectionable
request. Mr. Worsley (op. cit., p. 169) "thinks we should accept the slight
correction."

330 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Markan scenes already discussed,! and the faint traces in
Lk.-Acts of his appearance as a satelhte of Peter. If we ask.
How can it be imagined that a Galilean fisherman should
possess the literary and philosophic culture evinced by the
fourth evangehst ? we are told that in Zebedee's fishing boat
there were also "hired men"! If every characteristic of the
great go'el of Paul is the reverse of what seems to be evinced
by the meager references of the synoptists, and even of the
position occupied by John so late as Paul's visit to Jerusalem
ca. 50 A. D., we are assured that after coming to Ephesus
John's views became enlarged and Paulinized !
These three, (1) the reference of Paul in Gal. 2: 9, (2) the
attachment by Mark of his example of anti-Paulinistic in
tolerance to the name of " John," (3) the references to "James
and John" the "sons of thunder" as martyrs and perhaps as
avengers of the rejection of the Christ, are the only gleams
of hght the first century affords to differentiate John of
Capernaum momentarily from the undistinguished group of
Galilean peasants and fishermen who arc raised for a single
hour by their association with Jesus into the hght of history,
but relapse promptly, with the one exception of Peter, into
their natural oblivion. Of the three references not one affords
a single trait to recall or suggest the author of the Fourth
Gospel. Each and every one, on the contrary, raises its own
insuperable objection to the intrinsically improbable identi
fication made by R in the Appendix.
Many wiU doubtless continue to hold that at least R is not
wrong in supposing the figure of the Beloved disciple to have
been intended to represent John. The present writer himself,
until more careful scrutiny of the evidence convinced him
of the baselessness of the tradition of John in Asia, clung to
this remnant of Irenaean theory. But even were this granted
how httle of the case would be altered! This Beloved dis-
1 Chapter V.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE 331
ciple will be baptized into the name of John, but the figure
itself will gain no appreciable degree of historicity. The
change will be from ideality to ideahzation. It will still be
not a real, but an ideal John, not the rough unlettered Gali
lean, but a Greek-speaking, Pauline Christian of 100 A. D.,
who in th(5. Gospel is projected in bodiless form into the scenes
of the past. For it is not merely the figure of Jesus which
in the Fourth Gospel undergoes a perpetual transfiguration.
The Beloved disciple too has attained Paul's goal of true
discipleship :
" But we all with unveiled face, reflecting as a mirror the glory of
the Lord, are transfigured (p.(.Tap.opif>ovp,e6a) into the same image
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit." !
For reasons such as these we are constrained to disagree
with R's interpretation of the enigmatic figure. R's exegesis
of the three passages involved seems to us less consonant with
historical and scientific exegesis than with the effort of his own
time to magnify the persons of the apostles and to involve their
authority. If the reader's patience has been taxed by the
fullness of our attempt to set forth the exact nature of our
difference with the writer of 19: 35 and 21: 24, we plead in
extenuation the necessity that is put upon us of proving that
a difference of judgment with R on a point of exegesis is not
equivalent to "caUing the evangehst a har."
Ill Cor. 3:18.

CHAPTER XIII
JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM
Our study of The Evangelist's Task, and the use to which
he has put his figure of the Beloved Disciple, should prepare
us to anticipate a complete recast of the Markan embodi
ment of evangelic tradition, selective and illustrative in pur
pose, symbohc in method, with the object of "bringing
out" the higher or "spiritual" gospel of Paul whose content
is "life" by "believing in the name of the Son of God."
Systematic inspection of the changes undergone by Synoptic
material in its Johannine embodiment will prove that such
is the case. The "supplementations" and "corrections" of
the Synoptists are not such as would be made by an eye
witness improving the inaccuracies and oversights of the
historically less well informed; but are primarily doctrinal
and theoretic, subordinately apologetic and aetiological, but
always a priori. In short, the author "perceiving that the
bodily (or external) facts had been set forth in the (other)
Gospels . . . composed a spiritual Gospel." !
In considering this question of the evangehst's use of
Synoptic material we are fortunately able to hmit ourselves
to a few fundamental traits, using merely enough of specific
reference to establish the points in question, and postponing
such detailed study of the Gospel throughout as belongs
properly to the commentator. The excellence of the work
already done, especially by Scott ^ and Schmiedel,' in the
1 Clement of Alexandria, ap. Eusebius, H. E. VI, xiv, 7.
2 Ut supra.
3 The Johannine Writings, Pt. I. The Fourth Gospel in Comparison
with the first three Gospels. London, Adam and Charles Black, 1908.
332

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 333
hne of affirmative and negative criticism, and that of the two
Holtzmanns,! HeitmuUer,^ and Loisy,' in the hne of his
torical exegesis, makes restatement needless.
Unlike the irenic interpretation of Scott, Schmiedel's dis
cussion undertakes the thankless but necessary task of what
is called destructive criticism, preparing the way for an ade
quate and historical appreciation of the Gospel by proving
that its reconstruction of the story is not such as the "de
fenders" maintain, but that from the merely historical stand
point it is both dependent and inferior.
The consistently "subjective" character of the Fourth
Gospel, its author's "carelessness" in narrative and "free
dom" in reproducing the thought of Jesus in language
proved to be the evangehst's own by identity of style with
the Epistles are so universally and freely acknowledged by
leading "defenders"* that further demonstration of these
points may well seem like beating the air. But Sanday, and
(indirectly at least) even Drummond, still maintains that
"traits of the eye-witness" are so prominent in this Gospel
as to imply not merely occasional access to more trustworthy
tradition than that of the Synoptists, but personal partici
pation by the author in the scenes narrated. In particular
we are referred to the mention of minute details of place and
time, including new proper names, as in the scenes of the
Call of the earliest disciples, 1 : 19-51 ; the Samaritan Woman,
4:1-45; the Feeding of the Multitude, 6:1-21; the Raising
of Lazarus, 11:1-57; and the Resurrection, 20:1-29. We
are reluctantly compelled, therefore, to devote a preliminary
1 Das J ohannesevangelium untersucht und erkl'art, von Oscar Holtzmann,
Darmstadt, 1887; and Handkommentar zum neuen Testament, Bd. IV, by
H. J. Holtzmann, 1908.
2 Schriften des neuen Testaments, by J. Weiss, Bd. II, pp. 685-861, 1908,
by W. Heitmiiller.
3 Le Quatrieme Evangile, A. Loisy, Paris, 1903.
^ E. g., Drummond, Character and Authorship, pp. 34-41-

334 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
and (in one aspect) "destructive" discussion to what Pro
fessor Sanday designates "the pragmatism of the Gospel." !
For mere purposes of disproof of Sanday's explanation it
should be enough merely to point to an instance or two of
mistaken dependence on the Synoptists, where on the tra
ditional assumption John, as an eye-witness, must have had
better knowledge. A number of examples of such "inju
dicious reliance on the Synoptics" are given by Professor
Schmiedel on pages 81-83 of his little book.^ We will cite
but one, somewhat independently of Schmiedel.
Following the later tendency to combination already re
ferred to ' Luke in omitting Mark's story of the Anointing
of Jesus in Bethany (Mk. 14:3-9) had reserved the more
striking details, the name "Simon" for the host and the
"alabaster box of pistic (?) ointment," to embellish there
with his own quite independent incident of the Penitent
Harlot (Lk. 7 : 36-50). The reader of this latter touching
narrative will sec at once how greatly it gains in simphcity
and consistency by simply omitting the three allusions to
the "pistic ointment" in verses 37, 38, and 46. This woman,
because she is a "sinner," dares not hke the female disciple
of Mark openly approach the head of Jesus, but (as he hes
rechning with head toward the table) steals to his feet and
standing there bedews them with her tears. Then, as if
fearful of the consequences of this "defilement" of the
"prophet," and having no other means to remove it, she
brushes the tears away with her hair. Jesus beautifully
contrasts this cleansing of his feet with the omitted courtesy
of his Pharisaic host. The costly anointing, editorially in-
1 Criticism, Lecture IV. Professor Sanday uses the term "pragmatism"
"to describe a very marked characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, the abund
ance of detail — to all appearance precise detail — with which it presents its
pictures." 2 Johannine Writings.
' Above, p. 321.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 335
troduced to heighten the contrast,! is both improbable and
incongruous, preeminently so when expended upon the
feet (!). But the fourth evangelist is not content with the
degree of combination already effected by the Lukan re
dactor. He makes the scene still more composite by identify
ing the woman with Mary, in whose home beyond Jordan
Jesus had been entertained according to Lk. 10: 38-42, and
retains only the most extravagant and unnatural features
of the (composite) scene, that this Mary anointed Jesus' feet
with precious "pistic" nard, and then wiped it away (why?)
with her hair! The result is not only to leave us quite in
doubt as to the character of this "Mary," but to require a
double for "the village of Mary and her sister Martha"; be
cause in Mark the anointing had taken place in Bethany
near Jerusalem, whereas in Luke Mary's "village" was be
yond Jordan. In the Fourth Gospel, accordingly, we have
two Bethanys, between which Jesus oscillates in the last
weeks of his hfe, "Bethany nigh unto Jerusalem, about
fifteen furlongs off," where Jesus stays with the sisters Mary
and Martha and their brother Lazarus (from Lk. 16: 19-31),
and a "Bethany beyond Jordan," elsewhere unheard of,
whence Jesus comes to them for the purpose of raising
Lazarus from the dead (10: 40; i : 28).^
In textual criticism there is no more positively established
1 Festal anointing was a not uncommon practice — of course on the head —
cf. Is. 61:3; Ps. 23:5; 141:5. That of Mk. 14:3-9, however, is more
solemn and exceptional. It is intended by the woman as messianic; cf.
I Sam. 10: I. As we understand Schmiedel he does not regard these Markan
traits in Luke's story as redactional additions to a pre-Lucan source, but
regards the entire narrative as a Lucan composition influenced at these
points by Mark.
2 "Bethany beyond Jordan," which also serves as the scene of John's
Baptism, is the only Palestinian locality off the direct high road from Jerusa
lem through Samaria to Capernaum that appears in our evangelist's topog
raphy. On his acquaintance with Palestinian geography see below. Chap
ter XV.

336 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
principle than the secondary character of conflate readings
as against the factors of which they are made up. In the
Fourth Gospel conflation of incidents, scenes and characters
is the rule. We have not only composites, but, as we have
just seen, composites of composites, and the uniform tendency
is that the changes from Mark toward a more theoretical,
less historical view in the later gospels of Matthew and Luke
are carried in "John" much further still in the idealizing
direction. We have seen how this theoretical transformation
operates in the case of the Betrayer. It is notoriously the
case in regard to the representation of Jesus' person, his
sayings and his miracles. We shall see that in other respects
also, such as the representation of the Baptist and his func
tion, the controversy with "the Jews," and the hke, the same
principle holds true. Two points only (i) the evangelist's
chronological and topographical equipment, (2) his treat
ment of the sacraments, in particular of the sacrament of
the "flesh" and blood of the Lord, call by their complexity
for separate discussion. Reserving these, we may return
to what Professor Sanday designates his "pragmatism,"
showing in the present chapter that the supposed indica
tions of first-hand testimony in "precise details" have in
reahty a quite different significance. In the chapter follow
ing we shall consider the general structure and outline of
the story, investigating the Johannine treatment of Synoptic
material in its broader phases, whether as to (a) omissions,
or (b) supplements, or (c) changes and substitutions. The
results of this latter study may even here be anticipated —
since the relation is really notorious — to the extent of saying
that the changes are not those of a better informed eye
witness, but the theoretical reconstructions of a later "theo
logian" intent on "bringing out " the religious, doctrinal, or
apologetic values, on the basis of the spiritual gospel of Paul.
Professor Sanday's contention for the "pragmatism" of

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 337
the Fourth Gospel is considerably embarrassed at the outset
by the fact that his foremost witness. Dr. Drummond, from
whom he had quoted a comment on the "variety of character
that passes before us, and the graphic nature of some of the
descriptions," "turns round upon himself, and proceeds to discount the infer
ence that might be drawn from these characteristics of the Gospel.
While allowing that they fit in excellently with the external evi
dence (in favor of the tradition), he will not urge them as an in
dependent proof of authorship, because ' the introduction of names
and details is quite in accordance with the usage of Apocryphal
composition.' " !
Dr. Drummond, having no interest to defend the his
torical accuracy of the Gospel, which to him is "of a lower
historical value than the Synoptics and . . . to be ac
cepted more in the spirit than in the letter," ^ is naturally
unwilling to risk his reputation as a historical critic in so pre
carious a contention as Sanday's. He therefore states with
a freedom unwelcome to his more conservative ally the fact,
well known to scholars, that such "detail" is characteristic
of the later and legendary elaborations of bibhcal story,
whether in Church or Synagogue. To know the names of
the obscurer characters — yes even of the angels and demons —
is more apt to be a mark of late and legendary writers than
of the earher. The knowledge, e. g., that the name of the
servant whose ear (Lk. "right ear") was cut off by a "by
stander" in Mark's story of the Arrest (Mk. 14:47) was
"Malchus," that "Peter" was the inexpert swordsman, and
that the servant was a "kinsman" of the slave encountered
later by Peter in the high priest's courtyard, is paralleled
by that of the apocryphal Acts. These can inform us, for
example, that the centurion who stood at the cross was named
1 Criticism, p. 112. Italics ours. 2 IJnd., p. 65.
Fourth Gospel — 22

338 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Longinus,! know the names of both the thieves, and the
name and story of the centurion converted by Peter at
Caesarea. The fourth evangehst's naming of Peter in
Jn. i8: lo, II, and of other interlocutors among the disciples
elsewhere (Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Judas not Iscariot, etc.),
has precisely the significance of the first evangehst's substi
tution of "Peter" for Mark's "the disciples" in Mt. 15: 15
and 18: 21, and the third evangehst's substitution of "Peter
and John" (Lk. 22: 8) for the "two disciples" of Mk. 14: 13.
The only difference is that the phenomenon is most pro
nounced and frequent in the latest gospel.
Professor Sanday admits indeed that "the examples given
(by Drummond) are quite to the point," but pleads that in
the Apocryphal Gospels and Acts
"place-names are somewhat less common than names of persons;
and where there is any real precision in the use of place-names an
inference in regard to the author . . . may be fairly de
duced." 2
The observation is true, for the obvious reason that place-
names if wrongly employed would reveal the fiction, whereas
personal names are not subsequently verifiable. "Where
there is any real precision" we too shall endeavor to deduce
the proper inference as regards the fourth evangelist. In
deed we may say at once that as regards locahties along a
single limited line of travel in Palestine, the evangelist un
questionably has first-hand knowledge. And he makes the
utmost of it.'
But what sort of motive is it which supplements the Markan
story of the blind man healed by clay and spittle (Mk. 8: 22-
26= Jn. 9: 1-7) with the direction
1 From \liyxv, the "lance"' wherewith Jesus' side was pierced?
2 Ibid., p. 112.
3 See below. Chapter XV.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 339
" Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation,
Sent (d7recrTaXjU,ei/os) "? !
Such detail is to be classed with that of the precise number of
fishes in the miraculous draft specified by R in the Ap
pendix (21 : 11) as "one hundred and fifty and three," which
corresponds exactly with the supposed number of existing
varieties. It stands on a par with the specification (6:9)
that the five loaves at the miraculous Galilean Agape were
of ' ' barley ' ' like those of Ehsha's similar miracle in II Kings 4 :
42; and the " correction " of Mark's " green htter {a-n^dSa<;)
from the fields" strewn in Jesus' way (Mk. 11:8), into
" palm-branches " ( Jn. 12:13). Symbolically there is gain;
for the palm-branch typified triumph and victory (Rev. 7 : 9).
Historical'y there is loss; for the palm is an exotic in the
chmate of Jerusalem.
These are not exceptional instances of the fourth evan
gehst's "pragmatism" but typical and characteristic. Even
the pathos of the supreme tragedy does not make it to him
a banality to supplement the Synoptic story of the slaking of
Jesus' thirst by the statement that Jesus had first said "I
thirst" which was a "fulfilment of scripture" (Ps. 22:16),
and that the partition of his garments corresponded in
"detail" with the same psalm (Ps. 22:19), because the
soldiers both "parted his garments among them" and also
"cast lots upon his vesture." Is it psychologically credible
that "details" of this kind would preoccupy the mind of the
sole surviving witness of the Crucifixion?
Deeper study of the much lauded Johannine "pragma
tism," in the light of the known propensities of haggadic
interpreters of sacred story to introduce " abundance of de
tail — to all appearance precise detail — " of time, place and
circumstance, especially where it can subserve a didactic,
1 Jn. 9:7; cf. 6: 29; 17:3.

340 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
symbolic, or apologetic purpose, completely reverses its prima
facie significance. At first "this apparent precision, more
especially in the notes of place and time" seems a " 'trump-
card' in the hands of the defenders." When we compare
the entire series, and with it the phenomena of contemporary
midrash,^ we note that the didactic, symbolic, or apologetic
purpose is almost always apparent in Johannine detail,
while the larger outline of each scene as a whole, and of the
Gospel as a whole, shows the very reverse of the characteris
tics which are inseparable from the true eye-witness.
The limitations of our knowledge forbid that in every
case we should see with the clearness of the original reader
what was the intended purpose, symbolic or other. For ex
ample, no one doubts that the motive for the remark "and
it was night" after the exit of the Betrayer from the scene
of the farewell Supper (13:30) is symbolic. Shall we say
the same of the note of circumstance in 12:3 "And the house
was filled with the odor of the ointment" ? The clause takes
the place of the Synoptic direction, "Wheresoever the gospel
is preached that also which this woman hath done shall be
spoken of for a memorial of her" (Mk. i4:9 = Mt. 26: 13),
a direction which nevertheless had not a\'ailed to secure
mention of the incident in Luke. Moreover, the comparison
of deeds of ministering love to the odor of sacrifice ascend
ing as a "memorial" to God, or filling the place of worship,
is almost stereotyped in biblical parlance.^ Still in this case
we are not so sure that there was symbolic purpose. Again,
the example of Mk. 15: 1, 25, 33, 34, 42, in which the four
1 As an example of "midrash'' to those who may be unfamiliar with the
literature covered by the term we may cite the beautiful fable of Jonah,
whose relation to the nationalistic prophecies of the Assyro-Babylonian
period resembles that of the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptics. The abuse
of Jonah in treating it as no more than a narrative of sober fact is equally
flagrant. 2 Ex. 40: 34 f., etc., Tobit. 12: 12, 15; Acts 10: 4; Eph. 5: 2; Rev. 8: 4.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 341
quarters of the day of the crucifixion are accurately marked
off, probably to correspond with the practice of the church
in Rome in its ritual observance of the day,! makes it prac
tically certain that the Johannine "correction" (Jn. 19: 14)
which has given so much trouble to the harmonizers, making
"the sixth hour" the time of Pilate's sentence from the
judgment seat, instead of the time of the supernatural
"darkness" (Mk. 15:33), corresponds to Ephesian practice
in the celebration. For, as we have already had some oc
casion to see and as will more fully appear hereafter, there
was radical difference between Rome and Ephesus on this
matter of "observing the Fast." ^ On the other hand, we
cannot be sure "that any such significance attaches to the
notes of time in Jn. i: 29, 35, 41, 43; not even to that of
1 : 39, so greatly affected by "defenders," that "it was about
the tenth hour" when Andrew and his unnamed companion
first came into relation with Jesus, after listening to the
preaching of the Baptist. A very ancient note of time em
bodied in the "Western" text of Acts 19:9 informs us that
Paul's preaching "in the school of Tyrannus" at Ephesus
was "daily from the fifth to the tenth hour." The gloss
very likely gives better information concerning preaching
services in Ephesus in the glossator's own time, when "the
school of Tyrannus" was doubtless still pointed to with
interest as the cradle of the local church, than for the time of
Paul. Yet even so it furnishes at least a curious correspond
ence between an extremely ancient practice of the Ephesian
church, and the conception the fourth evangelist has formed
of the gathering and dispersal of the hearers of John the
1 The proof involves the similar, though less careful marking off of the
watches of the preceding night (Mk. 14: 17, 37, 68) and of the resurrection
day (16: 2), which can be certainly connected with the vigil (cf. Mk. 14: 37),
fast and breaking of bread distinctive of Easter observance. See Bacon,
Beginnings of Gospel Story, ad loc.
2 See Chapter XVI.

342 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Baptist. Here too, however, we emphatically draw the line
of self-restraint, refusing to present as fact what our ignor
ance necessarily limits to the domain of mere conjectural
possibility. In this case, complicated as it is by omissions
from the original story,! y^^ cannot offer more. But a partial
understanding of the Johannine "pragmatism" is all that
can be expected of the modern reader.
The "precision in detail" of the note of time of Jn. 2 : i8-
22, must be more fully considered later.^ At present we
merely observe that a symbolic correspondence is explicitly
established by the evangelist himself,
"he was speaking (in the saying 'Destroy this temple,' etc.) of the
temple of his body."
Jesus is probably assumed to have been at the time forty-six
years of age,^ which comes near to one form of Palestinian
tradition,* and to have given as "the sign of the Son of man"
a prediction of his resurrection "after three days." ^ The
author calculates, apparently, that the consular "year of the
two Gemini " (29 A. d.), early fixed as that of the crucifixion,
was coincidently the jubilee year (49th) of the temple and
of Jesus' age (cf. Jn. 8: 57). The calculation is remarkably
accurate; the application is typically haggadic. So with
the precision of the "five and twenty or thirty furlongs"
(6: 19), by which our evangelist interprets Mark's statement
that the disciples' boat, when Jesus came to them walking
1 See above, p. 202.
2 See Chapter XV.
3 See Loisy ad loc, and below, Chapter XV.
^ Irenaeus, Haer. II, xxii, 5; cf. Acts 7: 23.
"^ Jn. 2: 18-22 follows the Matthsean theory of the Sign from Heaven
(Mt. 12: 40; cf. Lk. ri: 30, and see below, p. 350, note i.), locating the de
mand as in Mt. 21: 23-27, i. e., after the purging of the temple. Jn. 6: 30 ff.
follows the Lucan theory (Lk. 11: 30), locating the demand as in Mk. 8: 11 f.
The duplication with different points of view corroborates other evidence for
the later addition of Jn. 2: 13-25. See Chapter XVIII.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 343
on the waves, was "in the midst of the sea." This certainly
shows an approximate knowledge of the dimensions of the
lake "of Tiberias"; ! but its motive is apologetic. The aim
is to make it clearer that Jesus had surely traversed this
distance on the water, and that the disciples had not simply
lost their bearings and mistaken a hail of Jesus from the
shore for his miraculous approach upon the sea. For the
same reason the Synoptics are "corrected" in the matter of
Jesus' entrance into the boat. He merely showed himself
to them; he did not get in, but traversed the whole sea by
walking on the waves to "the land whither they were going"
(verse 21), which was "on the other side of the sea" (verse 22).
The boat too was miraculously conveyed "immediately" to
the port (verse 21), but Jesus had no need of its aid in crossing,
and did not avail himself of it.^
The "precise details" in the dialogue with the Samaritan
Woman (4:1-45), are either topographical, displaying real
knowledge of the locality, as in the case just cited of the
dimensions of the sea "of Tiberias," and similarly accounted
for; or else they concern the dialogue on the abolition of
1 C/-. the estimate of distance of Bethany from Jerusalem as "fifteen
furlongs," 11: 18.
2 A symbolic motive perhaps cooperates. In the setting (institution of
the Agape — " John" adds the Eucharist) the coming of Jesus to the terrified
and affrighted disciples in the boat, who think they "see an apparition,"
after they have left him praying alone upon the mountain, is highly sug
gestive of the separation at Gethsemane followed by Jesus' manifestation
of himself in the resurrection scenes at the sea of Galilee, when he is taken
for "an apparition." The correspondence becomes convincing when we
further consider the supplement of Mt. 14: 28-33, which parallels Peter's
offer to go with Jesus "to prison and death," his failure, restoration by the
personal intervention of Jesus (Lk. 24: 34), and stablishing of his brethren
in the faith that this is the risen Son of God (Lk. 22: 32; cf. Mt. 14: 33).
Johannine eschatology, however, would require, to carry out the sym
bolism, that Jesus should not "enter into the boat" (the earthly Church),
but after encouraging them by a brief manifestation await them "at the
land whither they were going."

344

THE FOURTH GOSPEL

distinctions of locality in worship secured by the gift of the
Spirit.! q-jjg general topic here is completely foreign to the
capacity of the supposed character, but the details of argu
ment are really such as prove knowledge — the knowledge of
a Jew concerning the story of the Samaritans as related in
II Kings 17: 24-41,^ and of current disputes between "Jews
and Samaritans." But what has such knowledge to do with
the "eye-witness," even if we indulge in Professor Sanday's
poetic fancies concerning the "Son of thunder" as "a gentle
youth,""only just out of his boyhood and with something of the fidelity
of a dog for his master, who does not like to be long out of his
sight " ? 3
This, doubtless, is to explain why "John," without any in
timation of the sort in the text, is made to stay behind when
"the disciples were gone away into the city to buy food"
(verse 8) ? Is it the same quahty which enables the gentle
youth to report with even greater "precision of detail" what
the high priest Caiaphas said in secret meeting of the con
spirators against Jesus' life (11:47-53), o'^ Pilate in his
private examinations of Jesus (18:28, 33-38; 19:8-11)?
We arc probably supposed to make the same tacit assump
tion in the case of Nicodemus (3: 1-21). But here it must
be supplemented by the conjecture that through the lateness
of the hour the eye-witness was gradually overcome with
drowsiness; for while Nicodemus' entrance, and the begin
ning of the colloquy are graphically described, the colloquy
1 Cf. Eph- 2 : 13-18.
2 It is sometimes objected to the symbolic interpretation of the reference
"Thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy
husband," as suggested by II Ivings 17: 30-32, 4r, that the false gods of the
Samaritans here spoken of are not five in number, but six. But Josephus
(Ant. IX, xiv, 3) shows that whatever our count may be the contemporary
count was "five" (irivrt Beovs).
3 Sanday, Criticism, p 86.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 345
imperceptibly shades off into a sohloquy of the evangehst,
while Nicodemus is left to evaporate from the stage.
But the Raising of Lazarus in its depiction of "the different
behavior of the two sisters and their Jewish sympathizers"
and especially its reference to Jesus' emotion (11:33-38),
is supposed to exhibit in pecuhar degree
"the recollections of one who had himself been present at the
events of the day, and who had moved freely to and fro, and very
probably talked them over after the day was done." !
Strangest of all, this preeminently unreal of the unreal
narratives of the Fourth Gospel is supposed to exhibit more
graphically than the Synoptics the human sympathy (!) of
Jesus. The "notes of time and place" are certainly present
[10:40 (Bethany beyond Jordan); 11:1, 6, 17, 18]. Un
fortunately for the defenders' argument the motive also
for which they are introduced is made superabundantly
clear (verses 4, 6, 11, 17). Jesus purposely waited where he
was, paying no attention to the piteous appeal of the family
that he "loved," until he knew (by his omniscience, verse 11)
that Lazarus was dead. He waited until his arrival "to
awake him out of sleep," should be "four days" after burial,
when the setting in of decay (verse 39) should have left no
possibility of objection such as might be urged against the
Synoptic raisings from the dead.^ This Being who in the
interest of apologetic proof completely disregards the feelings
of the stricken family, is at the utmost possible remove from
the humane and kindly Jesus of Synoptic story. For the
Markan Jesus is distracted between his instinctive abhor
rence of the role of the common miracle-monger and exorcise r,
and the compassion he feels for the distressed and importu-
1 Ibid., p. 88.
2 Three days marked the limit of time during which according to rabbinic
belief the soul hovered near its former abode, seeking to reanimate the clay.

346 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
nate multitude (Mk. i: 21-45). The difference in represen
tation is quite intentional on the part of the fourth evangehst.
We know from what Celsus says of Jewish predecessors who
before his time had ridiculed the doctrine of the divinity of
Jesus, that there had been no failure on their part to point
out the incongruity of a divine Being walking about among
the lower classes in obscure Galilee, distributing the favors
of his miraculous omnipotence at their solicitation, to "Peter's
wife's mother" or to "a few sick folk." "Correction" of
Mark's account of the "beginning of miracles" was impera
tive on many accounts, as, e. g., their restriction to Gahlee,
their too close relation to the works of the "strolhng Jews,
exorcisers" in bad repute at Ephesus (Acts 19: 13), and
other objectionable features. But supremely inconsistent
with the conception of an incarnate Logos acceptable to
Stoic thought was the Synoptic suggestion of a swaying of
Jesus from his original purpose by the importunity of those
who sought his miraculous aid. Hence in the Fourth Gospel
the miracles are always volunteered by Jesus (5:6; 6: 5, 6;
9 : 1-6). He never yields to importunity. He repels it almost
harshly, even in the person of his own mother (2 : 4), or of
a "royal officer" (4: 48), or of his dearest friends (11 : 4-6).
Explicit pains are taken to show that the appearance of
yielding created by Synoptic story is fallacious. Everything
had been foreseen and fixed in advance to its appropriate
"hour," especiaUy Jesus' own fate, which, as we have seen,!
he is so far from strugghng against, as rather to compel its
unwilhng agents to their task. Hence acts of apparent yield
ing to importunity are carefully pointed out by the fourth
evangelist to have been predetermined by Jesus and fixed
for their exact place and "hour" in the scheme of "mani
festation of his glory." Thus it is with the beginning of
miracles (2:4, 11); thus with the man born blind "that tiie
1 Above, p. 3i2f.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 347
works of God should be made manifest in him" (9:3-5);
thus with the raising of Lazarus (11:4, 9-15), where even
the prayer by the grave is not a real prayer, but uttered "for
the sake of those that stand by" (verses 42), like the prayer
in regard to Jesus' own fate and its answer (12:30). It is
all a matter of the predetermined "hour," particularly when
the question is raised of Jesus' own safety (7 : 30; 8 : 20; 1 1 : 9).
Yes, precision in detail and graphic description abound —
where it serves the doctrinal or apologetic purpose.
On the other hand, those who think that the Jesus of the
Fourth Gospel is lacking in sympathy in this and similar
scenes simply fail to make use of the key which the evangelist
supphes in his prologue (1:14). This Jesus, too, overflows
with sympathy; only it is not and cannot be human sym
pathy. It must be super -h-ava.a.'a, divine, the sympathy of
an omniscient Being, who "knew all things that were coming
upon him" (18:4), and "needed not that anyone should
bear witness concerning man, because he himself knew what
was in man" (2:25). Without the application of this key
the depiction of Jegus' emotion in the scene of the raising
of Lazarus, an intentionally prominent feature of the story,
becomes a hopeless enigma. With it, all is consistent and
intelligible. Why does Jesus remain "two days in the place where
he was" in disregard of the sisters' appeal, and then say
"Lazarus is dead, and / am glad for your sakes that I was
not there'"? Why, after explaining to the twelve concerning
his "hour" and returning to Judea (11: 7-16) does he meet
the tears and remonstrances of Martha and Mary only with
the general doctrines of present eternal life and future resur
rection "in the last day," reserving his own "groaning" and
tears for the spectacle of Mary "weeping and the Jews also
weeping with her"? The Jews when they saw Jesus' tears
at the sepulcher said, "Behold, how he loved him." But

348 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
"the Jews" in this Gospel are always those who misunder
stand and misrepresent the Lord; and the objection imme
diately raised by "others" to this explanation of Jesus' emo
tion (verse 37; cf. 7:25, 26, 31, etc.) is in reahty fatal to it,
and is so intended. The evangelist's explanation of Jesus'
emotion requires us to remember, first, that his Jesus is an
omniscient Being descended from heavenly glory (3:i2f.,
31 f., 17: 5), to whom the recalling of a beloved friend from
Paradise is a calamity only admissible because of the hard
ness of heart of Jews, who "except they see signs and won
ders will not believe" (4:48). We must remember, second,
that Mk. 7: 34; 8: 12 had already set the example of relating
this "sighing" and "groaning" of Jesus at the necessity
created by Jewish "hardness of heart" for his "signs." The
Jesus of "John" is "glad" when blind mortals weep. Jesus
weeps when because of human unbehcf a friend that "slept"
and was "saved" (a-oiOi^aerai) must be "awaked out of his
sleep" and return to this vale of tears (verses 11-13).
The story of Lazarus is a typical instance of Johannine
"pragmatism" and double meaning. The writer dwells
on minute and apparently precise details for a didactic and
theoretical purpose, while in the wider view the scene as a
whole is impossible to frame into the known history. The
lesson is lofty, and (from the theological standpoint) a
needful " correction " of the too familiar and naive repre
sentation of the Synoptists. The interventions of the di
vine omnipotence are not evoked by the importunities of
friendship and personal sohcitation. They answer to the
requirements of the plan of God in " manifesting his glory."
This doctrine too has its place in our times of sorrow. The
Christian world instinctively and rightly turns to Jesus'
tender expostulation with Martha's tears, and with the timid
suggestion of both sisters that a miracle should be wrought
to alleviate their individual sorrow, as among the loftiest and

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 349
purest expressions of Christian faith in face of bereavement.
But we do injustice to this Gospel when we try to force it to
our demand for the "historical." It is not historical, but
"spiritual." The story of the Raising of Lazarus, absolutely
excluded as it is by Synoptic tradition, should suffice of itself
alone to settle this point once and for all.
We have not space to discuss the kindred scene of Mary
Magdalen at the empty tomb (20: 11-18), similarly touching
and beautiful, similarly didactic, similarly unhistorical. For
how is it conceivable historically, that the Beloved disciple,
after being brought to the tomb by Mary, entering in with
Peter, seeing and believing (verse 8), should "go away unto
his own home " (verse 10) without so much as a word of hope
either to Peter, or to Mary who had brought them there for
an explanation of the riddle, and who now remained "with
out, at the tomb, weeping" ? When indeed has the Beloved
disciple any other role than that of the deus ex machina ?
Johannine "pragmatism" elaborates detail (for a purpose)
and ignores the larger nexus of history. The "atomistic"
treatment of "defenders" follows it. But the instant we
turn to the larger outline of Jesus' career, considered as part
of human history, even "defenders" hasten to acknowledge
that only the Synoptics present an intelligible sequence of
events, and that the fourth evangelist is largely indifferent
to consistency of cause and effect or place and time.
When we compare Mark's Baptist with the older material
embodied in the Sayings of Q we see already a decline from
historicity in the interest of Christian apologetic. In the
Sayings of Jesus the Baptist still belongs to the older dis
pensation, a prophet of prophets, warning a sinful people to
prepare to meet its God. His baptism, accepted by pub
licans and sinners as a means of grace and token of forgive
ness, but disdained by Scribes and Pharisees, was a sign
"from heaven" of the Day of Jehovah, as Jonah's preach-

350 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
ing had been a sign to the Ninevites.! gy^ aside from his
warning to moral repentance in view of impending judgment
reiterating the call of an Elijah, an Amos, or an Isaiah, and
his impersonal proclamation of the coming Executioner of
God's judgment, the Baptist of Q is not concerned with the
work of Jesus. Up to the very end (Mt. 11:2 = Lk. 7 : 18 ff.)
he attains only to the distant hope, as he hears in prison
"the works of Christ," that this may possibly be "he that
should come," and is consoled by the non-committal reply,
"Blessed is he that shall not be stumbled in me." In Mark's
fervent apologetic nearly all the independent significance of
the Baptist's reformatory work is stripped away. Mark re
cords no utterance of his save the prediction of the Greater
than he that should "baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire."
His significance in Markan story is not that he proclaimed
a baptism of repentance unto forgiveness of sins to publi
cans and sinners, but that, according to the Jewish expecta
tion that Ehas would come to anoint the Messiah and make
him known to himself and to Israel,^ he had baptized Jesus,
and thus "prepared the way of the Lord." ^ In their com
binations of Mark with Q Matthew and Luke have each
introduced shght modifications to still further reduce the
figure of the Baptist from its independent significance toward
that of forerunner of Jesus, pure and simple. Do the "cor
rections" of the fourth evangelist, quondam disciple of the
Baptist as he is himself supposed to be, tend to restore the
distorted outlines? Far from it. In the Fourth Gospel the
1 Mt. 21: 23-32. The "sign of Jonah" in the parallel (Q) narrative of
the Demand for a Sign in Mt. 12: 38-45 = Lk. 11: 29-32 is neither as our
first evangelist assumes, the resurrection (Mt. 12: 40), nor, as our third
interprets (Lk, 11; 30), Jesus' own preaching, which is compared with the
"wisdom" sought by the Queen of Sheba. It is the warning message of
John the Baptist
2 Justin Martyr, Dial, with Trypho, viii and xlix.
3 See Beginnings of Gospel Story, ad loc.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 351
theoretic substitution is carried to a much greater extreme.
The Baptist is stripped of the last vestige of his historical,
independent, significance; absolutely nothing remains but
the function of forerunner and herald of the Christ. There
is no warning to flee from the wrath to come; there are no
"publicans and sinners"; nothing but disciples whom John
points to "the Lamb of God," and representatives of the
Sanhedrin, whose questions elucidate the true significance
of John's caUing and of the rite he practices. Even this rite
is not a "baptism of repentance unto forgiveness of sins."
There is none such save Christian baptism, and forgiveness
cannot be proclaimed until after the sacrifice of the Lamb
of God. Until after the resurrection the world is "yet in its
sins" (cf. I Cor. 15:17). The proclamation, accordingly,
must be reserved for the Commission of the apostles after
the resurrection (20: 22 f.). John is not even Elias (i: 21).
The miracles expected to characterize this apocalyptic figure
(Mk. 6:14) are noted as wanting (10:41). The reader
of the Fourth Gospel is even left in doubt whether John
baptized Jesus at all. Certainly Jesus was not in need of
revelations regarding his own nature and calhng, and the
revelation which for this reason is transferred to the Baptist
(i : 31-34) may, or may not, be on occasion of his baptizing
Jesus. According to this Gospel the Baptist was simply a
"lamp" given to Israel to guide it to Jesus (5:33-36); the
rite he employed was borrowed from the new dispensation
as a predictive type only, and was totally devoid of signifi
cance except as a prophetic, anticipatory token, witnessing
to Israel of the person and work of the Giver of the Holy
Ghost (1:25-34).
Moreover, Jesus does not come forward as a successor of
John. He begins his work independently, before John
is shut up in prison, though out of consideration for the
disposition of "the Pharisees" to draw invidious compari-

352 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
sons, he withdraws from pubhc notice into the obscurity of
Gahlee (4: 1-3, 43-45). The whole Markan scene of the
calling of the first disciples at the Sea of Gahlee "after John
was dehvered up" when Jesus had raUied the scattered fol
lowing of the imprisoned prophet (Mk. i : 14-20) is antic
ipated and its significance nullified. There was, says this
Gospel, an earlier calling, at which Andrew and Peter with
several others had not merely laid aside their nets to become
with Jesus "fishers of men," but had been indoctrinated by
the Baptist himself with the Pauhne conception of Christ
as the atoning "Lamb of God." They had recognized him
as Messiah, as King of Israel, as Son of man and omniscient
Searcher of hearts. Andrew had anticipated Peter's Con
fession, and Peter himself had already at this time received
from Jesus the name betokening his faith (i: 29-31).
Is this history; or is it apologetics under the forms of mid
rash ? The whole trend of debate regarding the relation of
Jesus and his work to that of the Baptist proves that it is
the latter. If the revelation of the Messiahship be thus
placed at the beginning, or rather before the beginning of
Jesus' career, instead of at its very close, if three years be
fore the conspiracy of the priests against him Jesus had al
ready thrown down the gauntlet by an affront to their au
thority in the temple and at that time already Jiad uttered
the saying brought up against him at his trial (Jn. 2: 13-19),
the whole course of events becomes unintelhgible.
This, then, is the unhistorical larger outhne at the expense
of which we obtain the "precise details of the eye-witness"
in the opening scenes of the Gospel. We gain at best an
idylhc picture of disciples drawn to Jesus by the Baptist's
"witness," including the item that the preaching closed "at
the tenth hour." We lose — the last remnant of a historical
conception of the relation of the great reformatory move
ment from which that of Jesus took its rise, the last shred

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 353
of relation to historical cause and effect in the drama of his
career. The case is not otherwise with Johannine "pragmatism"
elsewhere. Of the anachronistic and impossible dialogue
with the Samaritan woman we have already spoken, and of
the Raising of Lazarus. Drummond himself completely
abandons the attempt to dovetail the latter into the Synoptic
narrative, and acknowledges it a "fiction," though he still
insists that the author was an eye-witness — one who has the
characteristic, unfortunate among eye-witnesses, of pre
ferring fiction to fact. As the whole tragedy of Jesus' death is
made to hang upon this supreme prodigy (11:45-53), the
forgetfulness of all three Synoptists in failing to mention it,
and assigning the course of events in Jerusalem instead to
Jesus' colhsion with the priestly authorities in the temple,
is indeed somewhat difficult to account for. It seems almost
as surprising that in the scene of the Betrayal in Gethsemane,
minutely described by all three, none should have noticed
the "detail" that the commander of the Roman garrison of
Jerusalem was present with his entire cohort of 600 soldiers,
and that upon Jesus' mere offer of himself with the annoupce-
ment, "I am he "
"they went backward and fell to the ground. Then asked he
them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus answered, I told you that I am he; if therefore ye seek me,
let these go their way." !
Thus the disciples owed their escape not to a cowardly de
sertion and flight, but to Jesus' intercession. That nothing
of these somewhat remarkable phenomena was observed by
other eye-witnesses seems extraordinary; but it may truth
fully be replied that reporters who could overlook the Rais
ing of Lazarus could overlook anything.
1 Jn. 18: 6-8.
Fourth Gospel — 23

354 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Is it still needful to return and point out that the "precise
details" of the scene of the feeding of the multitude (6: 1-14)
are mere atoms in a mass of unreality? Is it the better
knowledge of an eye-witness which makes Jesus ascend the
mountain in verse 3 and reascend in verse 15 without de
scending meantime; or is it a slip of erroneous dependence
on the Synoptic model ?! Is it historicity, or theory combined
with hterary dependence, which makes Jesus propose to feed
the multitude as soon as they appear in sight, before they
have even had an opportunity to become hungry?
We have seen already that the appearances of the Be
loved disciple are outside the framework of history, and we
axe not now concerned with those more general characteris
tics of the Gospel which determine its real relation to its
predecessors. The fourth evangelist suppresses entirely from
the work of Jesus all reference to his exorcism of evil spirits,
imitating in this respect the silence of Paul; he substitutes
for the Champion of pubhcans and sinners and the httle ones
of Galilee, in their right to a share by repentance and faith
in the kingdom of their Father, a theological Hypostasis,
who "manifests his glory" by prodigies of omnipotence, and
debates with "the Jews" the questions of his own divinity
as propounded in the Pauline system. But of these broader
traits we must speak later. We are deahng for the present
only with the Johannine "pragmatism," endeavoring to
show that its "details — apparently precise — " of place and
time and circumstance, are not, as the "atomistic" method
maintains, a mark of the historical eye-witness, but when
more carefully studied in relation to contemporary practice,
and in relation to a survey of the Gospel and its scenes as
wholes, have almost a contrary character. If further evi
dence be needed we must refer to Schmiedel. " Constructive "
criticism is more to our taste than "destructive." And yet
1 See Schmiedel, op. cit. p. 51.

JOHANNINE PRAGMATISM 355
what "defence of the Fourth Gospel" is so cryingly needful
in our day as that which resists the attempt to force its lofty
and beautiful mysticism into the service of "the external and
bodily things," and which demands that "spiritual" gospels,
hke other "spiritual" things, shall be "spiritually discerned."

CHAPTER XIV
JOHANNINE TREATMENT OF SYNOPTIC MATERIAL
We may pass over very rapidly Professor Sanday's re
maining items of internal evidence for Johannine authorship,
none of which has any bearing on the question whether the
writer was an eye-witness; because we fully agree that he
was a Jew, and a teacher of ripe years. As such he could
hardly fail to be familiar with
" (i) the pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the Jewish feasts; (ii) the
detailed ceremonies connected with those feasts; (iii) the temple
itself; (iv) the state of sects and parties; (v) the Messianic expec
tation." !
The mere overthrow of the material temple (whose ruined
courts were of course not obliterated) and cessation of the
ceremonial in practice, was, as we well know, very far indeed
from removing them from the arena of Jewish and Jewish-
Christian debate. Not the Epistle to the Hebrews alone and
the connected Epistle of Barnabas, but the entire Tahnudic
literature abundantly attests how the temple "on paper," a
legal and ceremonial system whose only basis was the Torah
of Moses, some day, in some sense, to be restored, took
the place of the actual temple cult almost immediately after
the catastrophe of 70 A. d. Indeed, so thoroughly had the
real religious life of Israel become already detached from
the hierocratic system of priesthood and temple, and rebuilt
itself around that of scribe and synagogue, that the downfall
of the oppressive and arrogant Sadducean priest nobility
was felt rather as a relief. The overthrow of the priest was
1 Criticism, p. 117.
356

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 357
the exaltation of the rabbi. Legalism attained its zenith
when the Sanhedrin fell, and the great Synagogue of Jamnia
and Tiberias took its place. It is this period which gives
birth to the literature of "colloquies," "debates," "dispu
tations" or "dialogues" between Christians and Jews of
which so many examples remain; ! and all of these turn upon
the interpretation of the Old Testament and the doctrine of
the divine "Sonship" of Christ. On the Jewish side we have
a few echoes from Talmudic sources ^ reporting more direct
and personal collision, in which the same distinctive Christian
doctrine is connected especially with the Christian sacrament
and Christian thaumaturgy.
A Hellenistic Jew and teacher of ripe years in Asia could
also hardly have failed to make at least once the pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, and if a Christian would surely have extended
his journey to Nazareth and the sea "of Tiberias.'! Even
without the occasion of Jewish descent, Melito of Sardis
about the middle of the second century takes this journey
with the purpose expressly in mind of securing trustworthy
information about the Old Testament. How Papias felt
about the seat of historical tradition we have already seen.^
We have no occasion, then, to do more than supplement
Professor Sanday's helpful reasoning on the evangelist's
noteworthy interest in Jewish Pilgrimages, including their
rites of "purification." * We only demur to his assumption
1 See, e. g., the Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus, Dialogue with Trypho
(Justin Martyr), etc.; and cf. McGiffert, "Christian Polemics against the
Jews," in Presb. Review, July, 1888.
2 See Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, r903.
3 Chapter IV.
^ The observation (p. 120) on the frequency of "allusions to the laws
(practice?) of Levitical purity" is just, and significant. One can realize
how conspicuously practices relating to sabbaths and lustrations would
stand out, especially after the destruction of the sacrificial system, as dis
tinctive of Judaism, by noting (i) that somewhat contemptuous char
acterizations of Mark (Mk. 2: 23-3: 6; 7: 1-15; 10: 1-12; 12:38-40), es-

358 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
that "a pious Jew" — by which Professor Sanday means the
Friend of pubhcans and sinners, whose disregard of lustra
tions, fasts and sabbaths was the chief cause of Pharisaic
complaint against him — would not
"neglect to attend the feasts for so long a time, and in the course
of a religious mission addressed directly to his countrymen." !
The fourth evangelist also seems to have thought it "im
probable," and doubtless for the same a priori reasons.
This is another respect in which his "pious Jew" differs
from the Synoptic leader of Gahlean insurgents against the
religion of "scribes and Pharisees."
As to Professor Sanday's quotation from Chwolson apropos
of "Ceremonies" (p. 121) to the effect that
" After the destruction of the Temple all the regulations about
cleanness and uncleanness, which were closely connected with
the sacrificial system, fell into disuse"
we simply beg leave to omit the commas, after which the
statement wiU be approximately true. As to the evangehst's
familiarity with features of "the Temple" — or its ruins —
we have no objection to make, though it is instructive to
compare the recent apocryphal fragment of dialogue of
second (or third?) century origin between Jesus and the
high priest concerning purification in the Temple, found by
GrenfeU and Hunt. Its "precise details" are vouched for
by excellent scholars.^
pecially 7:3-4; (2) the references of Juvenal and other classic authors;
(3) the almost entire preoccupation of the Talmud with questions of "puri
fication" of "feasts" and of " sabbaths."
IP. 118.
2 See especially L. Blau, " Das neue Evangelienfragment von Oxyrhyn-
chos'' in Zts.f. ntl. Wiss. IX (1908), pp. 204-215. The statement (p. 215)
that "ritual lustrations and baths belong to the weightiest portions of the
Halacha" with what follows, is peculiarly instructive, in view of Pro
fessor Sanday's quotation from Chwolson.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 359
As to "Sects and Parties," those which are of concern for
the second century debate between Church and Synagogue are
certainly prominent in the Fourth Gospel. We have already
mentioned the "disciples of John" as of special interest to
the church in Ephesus. There is but one social element
which completely disappears from view, and that is — the
"pubhcans and sinners!" Instead of figuring as their cham
pion against the rehgious oligarchy, as in the Synoptics,
Jesus is now simply the champion of "believers" (in his
divinity) against "the Jews." As for the political situation.
Professor Sanday regards the effort of Jn. 18-19 to throw aU
the blame for Jesus' fate on "the Jews" and make the Ro
man power appear only to be unwiUingly led, by misrepre
sentation or otherwise, to the crime of Pilate ! as a "singularly
fine characterization." It is at least in hne with the tendency
more and more strongly marked from the earliest Synoptic
gospel down to the second century apologists. In the third
gospel and Acts it is very conspicuous; in Jn. 18-19 it is per
haps a little more conspicuous still. In the Apologies of
Justin and his contemporaries it culminates.
But the fourth evangelist shows acquaintance with "Jew
ish Ideas and Dialectic." It certainly would be an excep
tional author of Dialogues against the Jews in the second
century who did not. We are compelled, however, at this
point to take very emphatic exception to the following state
ments, which seem to us so completely to invert the histori
cal fact that we are at a loss to account for them in a writer
famihar with such second century debate :
" '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. (When ?) But I am not
satisfied with the hypothesis that the author who wrote them was
1 See Jn. i8: 28-19: 16, especially 19: 11. "He that dehvered me unto
thee" probably refers to Caiaphas.

360 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
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 (Jn. 9), which is steeped in Jewish ideas and cus
toms; 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." !
We find it impossible to obtain any other sense from
Professor Sanday's language here than that controversy be
tween Jews and believers on the doctrine of "the person"
of Christ was not characteristic of the period 100-120 a. d.,
and was characteristic of that of his earthly ministry, before
he was "declared to be the Son of God with power (better
'miraculously manifested as the Son of God') by the res
urrection from the dead."
When we begin to recover from our astonishment, and to
ask ourselves what possible grounds Professor Sanday can
suppose himself to have for so extraordinary an assertion, we
recall the fact that his book also contains a chapter on
"The Christology of the Gospel," in which the effort is con
spicuous to screw up scattered phrases from the Synoptics
to a doctrine of Messiahship having some resemblance to
the Johannine Logos doctrine. We are told, e. g., that the
Synoptic Jesus
"took upon Himself to forgive sins (?) with the assurance that
those whom He forgave God also would forgive." ^
"He called Himself (?) in one very ancient form of the narra
tive, 'Lord of the sabbath.' He did not hesitate to review the
whole course of previous revelation, and to propound in His own
name ( ?) (cf. Mt. 5 : 45-48) a new law superseding the old. He
evidently regarded His work on earth as possessing an extraor-
1 Sanday, Criticism, p. 134. Italics ours.
2 Cf. Mk. 2: 5; Lk. 7: 48, "Thy sins are forgiven," Lk. 23: 34, "Father,
forgive them," and see below, p. 378.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 361
dinary value. He was Himself (?) a greater than Solomon, a
greater than Jonah." !
On points of historical exegesis we expect to differ with Pro
fessor Sanday.^ On points of grammar and philology we
feel ourselves decidedly his inferior; yet we cannot refrain
from asking how the sense "He was Himself a greater
(fiei^av masculine) than Solomon" can be obtained from
the Greek neuter rrXelov (i. e., "something more," "a greater
matter")?* But, as might be expected, supreme reliance
is placed on Mt. 11 : 27 = Lk. 10: 22, often designated "the"
Johannine passage, because (as sometimes interpreted) it
stands alone and unique in Synoptic representation.
We have given elsewhere * complete exegetical discussion
to this famous saying and here can only summarize results.
The very fact of its standing alone should warn us against
adopting the sense Professor Sanday would give to the pas
sage; the context should deter us still more. Jesus is vindi
cating two things, his own right as leader and teacher, and
the rights of his "little flock," his Galilean followers, re
ferred to as "babes," or "little ones." Against him are the
"scribes," who claim for themselves a monopoly of the

1 P. 222.
2 Professor Sanday accounts for differences in point of view between him
self and the critics on the ground that they are dominated by "the recollec
tion that they bring with them of what they learnt in their childhood. They
do not try to shake it off; it is always there at the back of their minds; and it
colors, and I must needs think discolors all the elaborate and learned study
that they make of the Gospels in maturer years!"
3 The real sense (pace Professor Sanday) is as above implied (p. 350) a
comparison of the Baptist's warning with the message of Jonah, and of
Jesus' own ofifer of the divine forgiveness with what the Queen of Sheba
came to seek. This winning message of the forgiving love of God is a greater
matter than "the wisdom of Solomon." Where a comparison of persons is
implied we have /ielt^wy, as in Mt. 11: 11, and the later readings of the
passage Mt. 12:7.
* Bacon, "Jesus the Son of God," Harvard Theol. Review, July, 1909.

362 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
"knowledge of God," ! and for their bhnd followers, the
Pharisees, a monopoly of "the right to be called the sons
of God," to the exclusion of "this people that knoweth
not the law." Parallel passages in the Pauhne Epistles
(Rom. 2:17-20; I Cor. i: 17-25 ; 2: 10; 3: i; 13:12; Gal. 4:8-
9; II Tim. 2 : 19) suggest that we have in Mt. 11:27 ^ com
bination of two sayings, one on the quahfications of the
"scribe of the kingdom of heaven" to teach, the other on
the right of his disciples to regard themselves as "sons and
daughters of the Highest." However that may be, the con
text and Pauline parallels allow no other than a generic
sense for the term "the son" ^ in either occurrence. So far
as Jesus speaks of himself and his own relation to "the
Father" it is representatively. As against the arrogance of
the scribes his utterance may be paraphrased:
" All my ' paradosis ' comes from my Father, neither is there
any true knowledge of him or qualification to reveal him save the
filial spirit" (cf. Mt. 5:8).
As against the exclusiveness of the Pharisees, and the claim
of the scribes to hold the keys of the kingdom Jesus denies
the right to extend or hmit the "adoption" to any whom
"the Father" himself has not "recognized" (eyvco).^ For
himself he claims the authority of an Amos against the pro
fessional religionists (Am. 3:8); for his "little ones" he de
mands release from the grievous yoke and heavy burdens of
the scribes, and "in their Father's love a fihal part." The
ology may think itself the gainer, but the Church only loses
1 In the wider field of Paul's polemic it is "the Jew" who is guilty of this
arrogance as toward the Gentile; cf. Rom. 2: 17-29.
2 Cf. Jn. 8: 35 "The son (i. e., 'he who is a son') abideth in the house
forever" — as against the bondservant who is "cast out"; an adaptation of
Paul's application of the story of Isaac and Ishmael (Gal. 4: 21-5: i).
3 On the textual questions involved see Harnack (Spr'uche und Reden
Jesu, 1907, Exkurs I), and Chapman's reply in Journ. of Theol. Studies
for July, 1909.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 363
when this magna charta of Gahlean discipleship is robbed
of its pure religious simphcity, and transformed into an
oracular utterance on the interior relations of the Trinity,
explaining "the mutual relation of the Father and the Son ... ex
pressed as a perfect insight on the part of each, not only into the
mind, but into the whole being and character of the other." !
It is far from improbable, we admit, that the fourth evan
gelist put, or at least would have put, the same mystical in
terpretation on this saying of Jesus as his "defender" puts
upon it,^ just as late transcribers of Mt. 12: 7 have antici
pated Sanday's treatment of the phrase "a greater matter
than Solomon," * and as our second evangehst has antici
pated his representation of Jesus assuming the prerogative
of God and silencing protest with prodigy." The second
evangelist carries his Pauline Christology so far as to place
in the mouth of Jesus an appeal to Ps. no: i. This passage
had been employed in Peter's speech at Pentecost and
previously by Paul (I Cor. 15: 25) as proof of the ascension.
Mark transforms it into a refutation of "the scribes'" con
ception of Messiah as a human descendant of David.^ This
1 Criticism, p. 223.
2 Mr. Worsley (Fourth Gospel, etc., p. 9) presents Jn. 3: 35 and 6: 46 as
cases of "verbal coincidence" with Mt. 11: 27. They might reasonably be
called "reflections" of Q — after a preliminary "refraction" in Mt. 28: 18.
3 The older and better MSS. have jxeliov giving the sense "a greater
matter" (than the sanctity of the temple). Later MSS. alter to imI^uiv.
4 We agree with Mr. Worsley (ibid., p. 92) as against Professor Sanday
that in Mk. 2: 1-12 there is no " effort at veiling in the establishing of the
claim to forgive sins by a following miracle," and that the second evangelist is
already well advanced on the road toward a doctrine of incarnation. This
does not justify us in preferring his view to that which is alone consistent
with Jesus' own language (cf. Q) and action. On the editorial character of
Mk. 2: 56-10, see Beginnings of Gospel Story; Loisy, Evang. Synopt., ad loc,
etc., and below, p. 379.
5 Mk. 12: 35-37. On the editorial character of this supplement to the
debates with Pharisee, Sadducee, and Scribe, see Beginnings, etc., ad loc

364 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
would seem indeed a Markan anticipation of the Johannine
debates of Jesus with "the Jews"; but a lesser anachronism
cannot condone a greater. Either there is no such thing as
historical criticism, and cause and effect are topsyturvy, or
else the Christology of the Petrine speeches of Acts, wherein
Jesus is "made both Lord and Christ" by his resurrection
and exaltation to "the right hand of God" comes first; the
Pauhne, which ignores his earthly ministry to view him
solely as "the Lord the Spirit," came later; while latest of
all is the Johannine, which reflects upon his entire earthly
career the heavenly glory "which he had with the Father
before the foundation of the world," viewing it simply as a
period during which
"the Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we be
held his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father." !
Professor Sanday sets his own doctrine that the Christo
logical debates of the Fourth Gospel, not the rights of the
"lost sons" as against the grievous burdens of the scribes — ¦
not a kingdom of God for the "httle flock" as against the
exclusive spiritual privilege of the Pharisees — was typical
of " Jewish controversy as it existed in the time of our Lord,"
over against "the critical theory." He objects to the latter,
as propounded by Professor Wernle, that it attributes too
much "originality" to Paul, and too little resisting power on
the part of the Jewish Christian element in the Church.^
If the scholarly world must choose between the two we may
rest secure of the verdict. The "common ground" of the
Jewish and Gentile Church is not left obscure by Paul. It is
stated repeatedly and exphcitly — most explicitly perhaps in
I Cor. 15 : i-ii. It was the doctrine that by the resurrection
and outpouring of the Spirit Jesus had been made "both
Lord and Chri.st," or in Paul's language had been "mirac-
1 Jn. i: 14. 2 Criticism, pp. 226-233.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 365
ulously manifested as the Son of God by the resurrection."
What was implied in this as to the nature of his person and
work was a matter for individual judgment. It was elab
orated among the various parties in the Church in ac
cordance with their (largely preconceived) theories of re
demption, whether legalistic, apocalyptic, metaphysical, or
mystical. That a Pauhne incarnation doctrine, with all its
modicum of " originality," should have ultimately prevailed
in the Greek-speaking Church over the Petrine Christology
of apotheosis is surely no matter for wonderment.
Understanding, then, that it is just this inadequacy of the
Synoptic Gospels, and on the point above all others of their
Christology, that made a Fourth Gospel indispensable to the
Pauline churches, we may turn to the treatment accorded
in it to its predecessors, with the expectation that if our con
ception of its authorship and purpose be correct it will show
in its whole structure this relation. We shall expect it to
remedy (from doctrinal, not historico-critical motives) those
"defects" of Mark which had made this Gospel a favorite
with "those who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ re
mained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered," !
if only because two previous efforts had been made to coun
teract the impression (just or unjust) that Jesus according
to this Gospel became the Son of God by adoption of the
Spirit at his baptism. We shall expect it to remedy (in the
interest of doctrine, not history) the "order" of Mark, ad
mittedly unauthoritative, and the Markan representation of
both words and deeds of the Christ, removing the appearance
of pettiness attaching to its figure of a Gahlean healer and
exerciser, and showing that "this thing was not done in a
corner." For we have both the ridicule of a Celsus, and the
1 Irenseus, Haer. Ill, xi, 7.

366 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
apologetic example of a Luke, to show how the controversy
ran between Church and Synagogue as to the character of
the Ministry. We shall expect it to remedy the Markan
type of Resurrection narrative; for that had already been
suppressed. We shall expect withal a reflection of the
changed ideas of later times, an increased sacramentarian
interest, a more exalted view of the apostles and their func
tion, a revised and improved eschatology, changes in scores
of features which in 1 10-115 ^- ^- -^ad made the Roman
evangelist's attempt to combine Petrine story with Pauhne
doctrine look antiquated and inadequate; so that a Papias
must apologize for it and the Church at large first mutilate
and then neglect it. We have not space to treat after the
manner of the Biblical theologies of the fourth evangehst's
Logos doctrine, his anthropology, soteriology, and escha
tology in comparison with the Synoptic. In view of Mr.
Scott's work we are glad to think we need not. But we are
required to show in what general relation the Gospel stands
to its predecessors. How, then, has the fourth evangehst
treated the Synoptic material?
Mr. Worsley finds
"as the result of careful search, that in the Fourth Gospel there
is no conscious use made of any of that part of the first Gospel
which is peculiar to itself." !
After the space given to five instances in which it is difficult
to imagine any critic discovering a literary relation ' we are
1 op. cit., p. 7.
2 Mr. Worsley's "careful search" brings him to (i) a variant reading in
Mt. 14: 24, not necessarily related to Jn. 6: 19; (2) another, generally rejected,
in Mt. 27: 49; (3) Mt. ir: 27, which is not "peculiar to Matthew"; (4) Mt.
13; 55 f., of which the same is true; (5) Mt. 15: 13, which is not parallel to
Jn. 15: 2. The only one of the six passages adduced which appears to have
a real bearingonthe question is Jn. 2: i9 = Mk. 15: 58 = Mt. 26: 61. Here q
(for reasons entirely unnoticed in Mr. Worsley's superficial treatment) w.e

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 367
somewhat surprised to find no attention paid to Jn. 12: 8,
which is verbally identical with Mt. 26: 11 (Mk. 14: 7 ex
pands). The verse, however, is wanting in D and the
Sinaitic Syriac, and is therefore probably a "Western non-
interpolation." It would also have been well to mention
that the silence of Mark and the misstatement of Lk. 3:2!
as to the name of the high priest are emended in Jn. 18: 13
in accordance with the correct statement of Mt. 26: 57; and
further that the naming of Peter on occasion of his recog
nition of Jesus as the Christ (Jn. i:42=Mt. 16: 18) is also
pecuhar to our first Synoptist.^ With a few slight corrections
of the evidence, such as the above, Mr. Worsley's observa
tion is correct, and corresponds with what we should an
ticipate regarding the Evangelist's attitude toward the most
anti-Pauhne of the Gospels. The only Synoptic writer from
whom he quotes verbatim is Mark, and that quite rarely.-''
On the other hand, his divergences from Mark are fre
quently but further developments of changes already begun
by Luke, and in several instances combination of Mark
with Luke is effected.* Several of the Lukan additions to

judge the relation to Matthew to be the nearer. We have seen already,
however (p. 342), that Jn. 2: 13-22 is an exceptional passage, whose treat
ment must be deferred. See Chapter XVIII.
1 We leave the question open whether Jn. 11: 49 ("high-priest that year")
shows "injudicious dependence" on Lk. 3: 2.
2 Note, however, that "John" deprives the naming of all significance,
save that of bare miraculous prediction, by making others precede Peter in
the recognition.
3 In Jn. i:26-27 = Mk. 1:7-8; Jn. 12: i3 = Mk. 11:9; Jn. 13:21=
Mk. 14: 18. These too are probably memoriter, as transcription is not the
method of the fourth evangelist.
¦1 Note, e. g., the carrying back of the Sonship of Jesus, the Samaritan
ministry, the "Jerusalem" type of Resurrection narratives, etc. On the
combination of Mk. 14: 3-9 with Lk. 7: 36-50 in Jn. 12: 1-8, see above,
p. 334. Cf. further Jn. i: 24-28 with Mk. i:7-|-Lk. 3: 15-16, and Jn.
3: I ff. with Mk. 10: 13-22-l-Lk. 18: 18 (the rich man a "ruler").

368 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Mark are adopted with characteristic freedom of recasting,!
and Lukan characters are added to Mark's dramatis personae,
either as separate individuals, or as supplementary traits in
a composite whose basis is from Mark.^ Anyone who will
take the pains to verify the evidence, as presented in the
footnotes we here subjoin, can see for himself the general
method of the fourth evangelist in dealing with Synoptic
material, (i) Matthew is practically ignored; (2) Mark is
made the basis; (3) supplements and changes are made with
large use of Luke both as to motive and material. The
formative principle determining the entire construction is,
as we have already made clear and now reiterate, the "spir
itual" gospel of Paul. It is this which forbids any such mere
transcription as that which characterizes our first and third
evangehsts in their combination of Mark and Q.
In its general structure the outline of the Fourth Gospel
is simple and clear, and reproduces that of Mark as modified
by Luke. We have a primary division at the end of chap
ter 12, separating Jesus' pubhc ministry from the farewell dis
courses to "his own" (chapters 13-17); which are followed by
^ E. g., Jn. 20:2-10, recasting Lk. 24:8-12; Jn. 20:19-25 recasting
Lk. 24: 36-43.
2 E. g., Mary and Martha (from Lk. 10: 38-42) in Jn. ii;'Lazarus (from
Lk. 16 : r9-3i) ibid. The composite Nicodemus (=Naq Dimon of Tal
mudic tradition, celebrated for his wealth and for having provided at his o\\n
expense baths for purifying pilgrims to the temple) is based on Mk. ro: 17,
22 (cf. verses 14-16), 12: 28-34, and r5: 42-46 with additional traits de
rived from Lk. 18: 18 and suggested by Acts 5: 34-40. The Samaritan
Woman plays the part of Mark's Syro-Phcenician (extension of the gospel
to outsiders) with the Lukan intermediate stage of a Samaritan mission
(Lk. 9:51-56; 10:29-37; 17:11-19; Acts 1:8; 8:5-25), and traits from
Lk. 7 : 36 ff. Philip, who plays a separate part only in the Fourth Gospel, is
here prominent, and that especially in connection with the wider extension
of the gospel (Jn. i: 43-48; 6: 5-7; 12:21-22; 14:8-9). In .-^cts only Philip
appears among the Twelve, apart from Peter, as engaged in the work of
evangelization (Acts 8: 26-400 [406 should be refcfrred to Philip the Evan
gelist, cf. 21: 8]).

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 369
the scenes of the Passion and Resurrection (chapters 18-20).
AU that which in Mk. 3:7-6:13 is concerned with the
Training and Mission of the Twelve and in Mk. 4: 1-34
and 13: 1-37 predicts the Estabhshment of the Kingdom, is
transferred, after the example of Lk. 22:35-38 and Q,! to
a final sending forth of the apostles to the conquest of the
world, forewarned of persecution and armed with the Spirit
(Jn. 14-16). Thus instead of two eschatological discourses,
as in Mark,- and two Missions of the Twelve as in Luke,
we have a single great Farewell Discourse combining their
three principal elements (i) the disciples' work (Jn. 15:1-
16), (2) their conflict with the world (15: 17-16:4), (3) the
promise of the Spirit (16:5-33; 13:36-14:31)- The par
ables, which in Mk. 4: 1-34 are treated as an esoteric de
liverance to Jesus' spiritual kin (cf. 3 : 31-35) of "the mystery
of the kingdom of God" intentionally hid from "those that
are without," are scattered, as by Luke, throughout the Gos
pel. They reappear in the form of allegories (e. g., 10: 1-16;
15: 1-6),^ which deal not with the nature of the kingdom,
but with the nature of Christ. On the other hand^ the
Wonders of Faith, which in Mk. 4: 35-5: 43 present to the
Twelve examples encouraging them to their ministry as
workers of miracle by the power of faith, in an ascending
series which culminates in the Raising of Jairus' Daughter,
1 Mt. 10: 16-42= Lk. 10: iff.; 12:3-9, 51-53 is appended by our first
evangelist to Mk. 6: 7-13 as if part of a Galilean mission; but its intrinsic
character (e. g., verses 16, 18, 27-31) and the duplication of much of Chap
ter 24 (=Mk. 13) suggest that Q agreed with Jn. 14-16. I. e., the sending
and warning of the Twelve, with the promise of the Paraclete, were not pro
visional and local as in Mk, 6: 7-13, but final and general as in Mt. 10, where
the setting begins indeed as in Mark, but there is no return of the disciples.
2 On the Discourse in Parables (Mk. 4: 1-34) as eschatological in the
evangelist's conception see Bacon, "The Apocalyptic Chapter in the Synoptic
Gospels," Journ. of Bibl. Lit. XXVIII, (1909) i, pp. 5-7.
3 The seven "I am's" of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. In this case the
number may be accidental.
Fourth Gospel — -24

370 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
are also distributed. They are stiU arranged in a similar
ascending series, with similar culmination (Jn. ii). We note,
however, the important difference, whose apologetic value
is highly significant, that the mighty works are no longer
limited, as in Mark (with unimportant exceptions), to the
Galilean "comer," but are equaUy distributed between Gah
lee and Jerusalem.! We note further that the same liberty
of transposing the Markan parables and mighty works had
been previously taken by our first and third evangehsts.
Matthew's scheme, however, gives a group of ten mighty
works, aU in Gahlee (Mt. 8-9), and a group of seven parables
(Mt. 13).
Turning from the second half of the Fourth Gospel, whose
general structure (aside from the substitution just noted of
the Farewell Discourse for the Eschatological Discourse of
the Synoptics), merely reproduces Mark's outhne of the
Passion story as supplemented in Luke,^ we may examine
a little more closely Part I (Jn. 1-12). This half of the
Gospel depicts the public ministry, its close (12:366-50)
applying the Pauline doctrine of the "hardening of Israel"
(Rom. 9: 14-33) already utilized in Mk. 4: 11-12, as it had
been previously applied to form the close of the Lukan nar
rative (Acts 28: 25-28). Jn. 12: 38-40 even reproduces the
Pauline "scripture fulfilments." ^

' Jerusalem has the Paralytic (5: i ff.), the Man born Blind (9: i ff.) and
Lazarus (11: i ff.), as against the two in Cana (2: i ff.; 4: 54 ff.) and two
at the sea of Tiberias (6: 1-25). But Jerusalem has not only the greatest of
the signs (11: i ff.) but the tokens of the Resurrection.
2 We may note that the High-priestly prayer (Jn. 17) is a characteristic
substitution for the Agony in Gethsemane, to which only Lk. 22: 32 furnishes
a link of transition.
3 Jn. 12:38 quotes Is 53:1. So had Paul (Rom. 10:16). Jn. 12:40
quotes Is. 6: 9, 10. So had Paul (Rom. 11: 8). The whole structure of this
concluding chapter of Part I, Jesus received by the "little ones" but con
spired against by the rulers (12: 1-19), sought by the Gentiles, but remain-

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 371
The pubhc ministry has the same division in the Fourth
Gospel into a Galilean and a Peraean period which Luke
had adopted from the obscurer Markan scheme and made
so fundamental to his own. As in Mk. 8 : 28-9 : 50 the
Confession of Peter, with its connected incidents and teach
ings, concludes the Gahlean ministry, while, the chapter
following (Mk. 10) is occupied with the journey through
Perasa, so in Jn. 6 : 66^1 the Confession of Peter marks
the same transition.^ "John" passes from a Galilean min
istry concluded with the Sign of the Loaves (Jn. 4-6) to a
Perasan (Jn. 10:40; 11:54); though this, like the Galilean,
is interrupted by visits to Jerusalem (7: i-io; 10: 22; 11 : 7;
12: 1 ff.).! Thus the first half of the Gospel falls into two
approximately equal parts (chapters 1-6, and chapters 7-12),
which correspond with similar geographical subdivisions bor
rowed by Luke from Mark, and form a counterpart to those
of Part II (Jn. 13-17; 18-20).
The same rule already applied — the Markan outline with
modifications often foreshadowed in Luke — will carry us
still further toward an understanding of the general structure
of the "spiritual" Gospel. We have seen that those ele
ments of Mark's story of the Galilean ministry which relate
to the choosing, training and sending of the Twelve (Mk. 3 : 7-
6:13) are transferred (by no means without precedent) to
Part II (Jn. 14-16). In 110-120 A. D. an Apostle's calhng
could no longer be treated as a model for mere travehng
evangelists and healers. This leaves of the first half of
Mark's Gospel only two of its three main divisions.^ The
ing to "abolish in his flesh the enmity" (12: 20-36), should be compared
with Luke and Paul.
1 On the significance of the visits to Jerusalem at the feasts see below,
Chapter XV, Johannine Topography and Chronology, and Chapter XVI,
Johannine Quartodecimanism.
2 As to these divisions and subdivisions of Mark no difference of opinion
exists among modern authorities. The reader is referred to Beginnings of

372 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
first (Mk. 1 : 1-3 : 6) might be entitled the Beginning of the
Ministry; it includes two parts: (a) the Baptism of John,
CaU of the First Disciples, and Beginning of Miracles
(Mk. i); (b) the Growth of Opposition (Mk. 2:1-3:6).
Each of these has its counterpart in the Fourth Gospel, the
former (a) in Jn. i : 1-2 : 12; 3 : 22-36; the latter (b) in Jn. 5.!
The remaining division of Mark included (a) the Sign of the
Loaves and Walking on the Sea (Mk. 6: 14-52), and (b) the
Colhsion with the Scribes in Capernaum and Ministry in
Phoenicia and Decapohs (Mk. 6: 53-8: 27). Both of these
again have their counterparts in Jn. 6 and Jn. 4: 1-42, re
spectively. Notoriously the latter part (b) of this section of
Mark has been treated in the most radical manner by Luke,
and less drastically by Matthew. In both these Synoptic
predecessors of our evangelist the Markan representation of
a ministry of Jesus among Gentiles had been suppressed.^
Both had added the incident of the Centurion's Servant
which conveys nearly the same lesson as the Markan story
of the Syro-Phoenician Woman, without fixing on Jesus the
role of a Jonah needing to be freed from the limitations of a
narrow nationalism, and also without suggesting an actual
ministry in partibus infidehum. In Jn. 4 the Lukan sub
stitute of a ministry among Samaritans is followed in pref-
Gospel Story, pp. xi-xvii, but interpreters agree as to the divisions after
i: 45; 3: 6; and 6: 13, which are here in question.
1 On the prolepsis of Jn. 2: 13-3: 21 (Temple Cleansing and Nicodemus)
and Jn. 4 (Samaritan Mission and Centurion's Servant) see below, and
Chapter XIX.
2 Mt. 15: 21-28 retains the episode of the " Canaanitish " Woman from
Mk. 7: 24 ff., alongside its less radical pendant of the Heathen Centurion
(Mt. 8:5-i3 = Lk. 7:1-10), but makes the woman come "out of those
borders," so that Jesus does not leave the sacred soil. Luke retains only the
Centurion, but more than compensates for the cancelation by his entire
second treatise, whose motive from beginning to end is equivalent to that
of the canceled section of Mark. In addition he introduces a work of Jesus
in Samaria.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 373
erence to the Matthjean method, which brings the "Canaan
itish" woman "out of those borders," so that her case may
correspond with the Centurion's, or more closely still with
that of "Rahab the harlot." However, the fourth evangehst
declines to follow Luke in canceling the Markan episode,
preferring to retain it in the modified form of the Dialogue
with the Woman of Samaria side by side with its Q pendant
of the Centurion's Servant.
With the exception of the interjected material of Jn. 2:13-
3: 21 and 4: 1-42, which has a history of its own,! ^j^g Gali
lean Ministry of the Fourth Gospel thus agrees throughout
with the corresponding section of Mark (Mk. 1-9). The
greater omissions have already been explained.^ Such
minor substitutions and changes as remain are all explicable
by the recognized and characteristic motives of our evangelist.
It will be needful, however, to observe the nature of these
seriatim, at least for the opening chapters, that we may fully
acquaint ourselves with his method.
The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel (Jn. i : 1-18) corre
sponds to the prologue of Mark (Mk. i : 1-13) with character
istic correction of "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus
Christ the Son of God." The attempts of Matthew and
Luke to obviate its inadequate Christology had fallen far
short of the Pauhne incarnation doctrine, much as they im
proved upon Mark in respect to making the "sonship" of
Jesus cover his entire earthly life. If the earthly life was
to be treated throughout as a "tabernacling" of the Logos
among us (Jn. i : 14) and not merely as irradiated at inter
vals by visions and voices as at the Baptism and Transfig
uration, the "sonship" must first of all be carried back to
"the glory which he had with the Father before the founda
tion of the world." In particular the Temptation must be
not merely reduced, as in Mk. 1:12-13, but completely
1 See Chapters XVIII and XIX. 2 Above, p. 369.

374 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
canceled; moreover, the Baptism by John must cease to be
a revelation to Jesus — for how can the Son who had "de
scended out of heaven" ! require a Vocation by Voice from
heaven to acquaint him with his own nature and mission?
It must become a mere testimony to Israel mediated by the
Baptist.^ Of the further occasion for reducing the relative
importance of the Baptist himself, and for making his rite a
loan from Christianity and not conversely, we have already
spoken.' The transformations of Mk. i : 1-13 thus called
for are indeed profound, and require the detail of a commen
tary for full exposition; but it cannot justly be said that we
have not a completely adequate key in the basic postulates
of Johannine (and Pauline) Christology, to all the trans
formations effected.
The transformation of Mark's Call of the Four and Be
ginning of Miracles (Mk. i: 14-45) i^ J^- ^' i9~2: 12 was
equally unavoidable, and is equally intelligible on Johannine
principles. It is inherently probable that the ready response
of the four fishermen to Jesus' proposal to engagein a fishery
of men (with Mk. 1:17; cf. Jer. 16:16) was historically
mediated by previous joint association with the Baptist,
whose frustrated work Jesus now proposes to take up. Tra
dition of such earher association of Jesus with his earhest
followers may very well have been accessible to our evangehst.
The motive of his correction of Mark must be judged,
however, not by conjectures of superior information acces
sible to him, but by our real knowledge of his situation, and
his systematic treatment of the earher portrait of the Baptist.
In the hght of these we can see that he had, doctrinally
1 Jn. 3: 13; cf II Cor. 8: 9.
2 B. Weiss in his Leben Jesu thinks it consonant with historical probability
that the experience which results in driving Jesus first to the wilderness,
afterwards to his ministry and death, should have its psychological origin in
the soul of the Baptist I
3 Above, p. 349 ff.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 375
speaking, no alternative but to make Jesus' ministry begin
independently of the Baptist's, explaining its apparent
growth out of the latter by an intentional restraint on Jesus'
part (4: 1-3). The best method to this end was to fall back
upon some antecedent relation of Jesus to the first group
of disciples, before the Capernaum period, and before John
^yas "cast into prison" (2: 12; 3: 24). We note that in this
substitute for the Markan Call of the Four it is not at all a
taking up of the Baptist's call to repentance which is in view,
nor is anything said of the plebeian status and occupation
of the disciples.! -What is presented to them is simply the
doctrine of Jesus' Messiahship, understood in the Pauline
sense as a taking away of the sin of the world by an atoning
sacrifice, this to be followed by an opening of heaven and an
ascending and descending of the angels upon the Son of man
(Jn. 1 : 29, 36, 45, 49, 51). Thus not only Peter, but Andrew
and Phihp also already know and fully accept the revelation
found so distasteful in Mk. 8: 27-9: 13. Jesus has already
declared himself as the Messiah, the Son of God, the King
of Israel, in the non- Jewish, transcendental sense, and has
been accepted as such by all the disciples. The Confession
and Naming of Peter is anticipated,^ and even the much
disputed prophecy about the Revelation of the Son of Man
(Mk. 9:i=Jn. 1:51). This latter, however, is dehvered
to "Nathaniel," a new figure characterized like Paul's "Jew
which is one inwardly" (1:47; cf. Rom. 2:28f.) and de
clared by R (21: 2) to be of the new locahty "Cana of Gal
ilee." Thus the whole ground, not only of Mk. i : 16-20 but
of Mk. 8:27-9:13 also, is already covered' in a way to
meet all objections of "the Jews," whether to the obscurity
1 In the Four.h Gospel the Hellenized " city " of Bethsaida, not the
Gahlean town'of Capernaum is the^r native place (Jn. 1:44).
2 See above, p. 352.
3 With Mk. 9: 2-8 cf. Jn. i: 14.

376 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
of the beginnings of Jesus' work, or its dependence on that
of the Baptist.
But the Markan Beginning of Miracles also (Mk. 1:21-
45) was peculiarly unsatisfactory. Historically nothing can
be more probable than that Jesus' fame as a healer, and
particularly as an exerciser (Acts 10: 38), had its beginning
in such an outcry and word of rebuke followed by restorq,-
tion of the "possessed" as Mark relates (Mk. 1:21-39; cf.
Acts 16: 16-18). The fact that this "exorcism" with its
attendant train of "healings" was in reality the starting
point of Jesus' miracles is also supported not only by the
verisimilitude of this peculiarly simple narrative of the
Sabbath in Capernaum at Peter's house, and the uniform
representation of all Synoptic material concerning Jesus'
casting out of "demons," but more especially by the pro
found revulsion of feehng it occasions in Jesus' own mind
(Mk. 1 : 35-38), leading to a complete change of program.
Doctrinally, however, such a "beginning of miracles" was
open to the gravest objections from the fourth evangehst's
point of view. Not only were such feats as characterized
the "strolling Jews, exorcisers" of Ephesus far from such
as he would attribute to the incarnate Logos "manifesting
his glory"; not only had Jesus' exorcisms been assailed by
"the Jews" as evidence of quite other spiritual control than
Mark maintains; the complete silence of Paul as to this
particular "gift of the Spirit" and the still more marked
silence of "John" ^ suggest that the more cultured element
in the Church viewed the popular delusion about "t\l\
spirits" as a cause of disease with a skepticism approximating
that of the recognized Greek medical authorities of the
1 There is one allusion to "possession" in the Fourth Gospel — the charge
of "the Jews" against Jesus (8: 48) — and one "exorcism," It is the Pauline
exorcism of the deposing of the "Prince of the power of the air" from his
control of "this world" (Jn. 12: 31).

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 377
time. In the Fourth Gospel, accordingly, we should expect
as complete a recasting of the Beginning of Miracles (Mk. i :
21-45), as of the Call of the First Disciples (Mk. 1: 14-20).
Such is in fact the nature of Jn. 2: 1-12, which pragmatizes
the theme of Mt. 11:2-6, i6-i9 = Lk. 7:18-23, 31-35 on
Jesus' work in comparison with the Baptist's. His healing
ministry is purification and life; his message of redemption
the song of a wedding feast.! It should be superfluous to
point out that a "beginning of miracles" of this sort in Cana,
where by a stupendous prodigy of omnipotence the Son of
God "manifests his glory," makes a subsequent new begin
ning in Capernaum, exciting amazement by mere exorcisms
and healings, psychologically impossible.
The section of Mark which occupies the remainder of his
narrative of the beginnings of Jesus' ministry is often en
titled the Growth of Opposition (Mk. 2:1-3:6). Its con
stituent incidents are doubtless based on Petrine story, but
these in the section as it stands are simply woven into a
group based upon, and in Mark's pragmatic fashion repro
ducing, the older Q group of discourses whose leit-motif is the
Stumbhng of the Jews at Jesus' conduct, because he was
neither a scrupulous observer of the law like the Pharisees,
nor an ascetic like the disciples of John (Mt. 11:2-19 =
Lk. 7: 18-50). The study of Jn. 5, which recasts the ma
terial of Mk. 2: 1-3: 6 in our evangelist's characteristic man
ner, is peculiarly instructive, because we are able to com-
1 For the symbolic sense see the commentaries of Holtzmann, Loisy, and
Heitmiiller. A traditional basis of the story may have been current. Similar
tales of the change of water to wine attach to the river Adonis, sacred to
Dionysus, because of its extraordinary annual discoloration. See lEpi-
phanius, Haer. LI, xxx, and cf. Irenaeus, Haer. I, xiii. For those who take
the "detail" of the six waterpots set "according to the Jew's manner of
purification" as indicative of the "eye-witness," we would suggest com
parison of Mk. 6: 43, with the note that the huge amphorae of Jn. 6: 6
(XWirat vSplai) require each two men to transport.

378 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
pare it with Mark's antecedent combination of Petrine story
with Q.
The Q discourse was introduced by the incident of the
coming of two disciples of John from their imprisoned master
to inquire concerning the work of Jesus and what it meant.
This work is then described in its two factors of healing and
the proclamation of "glad tidings to the poor." ^ In the
Lukan form the section concludes with the exquisite intaglio
of the Penitent Harlot, illustrating the adorinjg love and
gratitude of the pubhcans and sinners on the one side, and
the offense taken by Pharisees on the other at Jesus' assump
tion of authority to declare to such penitents "Thy sins are
forgiven." In this version Jesus justifies his declaration of
God's forgiveness (not his own) by pointing to the woman's
manifestation of "love" as proof of the fact.^ The central
portion in both Synoptic embodiments of Q is occupied by a
discourse of Jesus which arraigns the religious oligarchy for
its rejection of both the Baptist's message of funereal wailing,
and his own of wedding music. It proceeds to justify his
"eating and drinking with publicans and sinners," and
boldly declares the termination of "law and prophets" with
John, who had thrown down the barriers to the kingdom
of God erected by the scribes, admitting "Wisdom's chil
dren." In Mark the "disciples of John" appear only for the con
trast between Jesus' "eating and drinking" and the ascetic
practices which they themselves share with the Pharisees.
Jesus' disciples are "sons of the bride-chamber" and there-
1 The expression "the poor" to designate the "unchurched" classes
(airoavvayiliyoi) is borrowed from Is. 6i: i. The third evangelist reemploys
the passage in a scene of his own composing in Lk. 4: 16 ff.
2 This representation agrees with Mt. 21:31-32: the repentance of the
publicans and harlots proves their admission to the kingdom of God. Mark's
recast (Mk. 2: 5-10) applies the proof of Q (Mt. 11: 5=Lk. 7: 22) in a
very different sense.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 379
fore "cannot fast" (Mk. 2: 18-20). The work of Jesus is
concretely exhibited in a particular instance of the heahng
of a paralytic which the evangelist supplements (quite in
congruously) in verses 5-10 with a declaration to the patient
(unsohcited), "Thy sins are forgiven." "The scribes who
were sitting there" (!) murmur, "He blasphemeth. Who
can forgive sins but one, even God?" whereupon Jesus
proves that he has this prerogative by proceeding with the in
terrupted heahng. In this pragmatizing version of Q's story
of the "stumbling" of the scribes at Jesus' work of heahng
and proclamation of "glad tidings to the poor" a long step
is certainly taken toward the Johannine point of view.
In verses 13-17 Mark pragmatizes in similar fashion upon
the objection "a glutton and wine-bibber, a friend of publi
cans and sinners," giving the concrete instance of "Levi."
The rest of the section (2: 21-3: 6) he devotes to the anti-
legalism of Jesus (cf. Mt. ii:i2f. = Lk. 16:16), instanced
by two cases of conflict with the scribes regarding the law
of the sabbath. The concluding incident contrasts Jesus'
interpretation of the law as intended "to save hfe" with
that of the scribes, who use it "to kill." How, then, does
the Fourth Gospel handle the theme ?
In Jn. 5 the evangelist follows Mark in taking as his point
of departure the healing of a paralytic whom Jesus bids
"Arise, take up thy pallet (Kpd^arro<i) and walk," though
the issue of the "forgiveness of sins" has necessarily to be
postponed in a Gospel which makes forgiveness of sins a
proclamation of the apostles (20: 23) depending on the aton
ing death of the "Lamb of God." ! We anticipate also the
disappearance of the "pubhcans and sinners." Since the
days of Paul the spiritual monopolists had become "the
Jews"; "the poor" on behalf of whom Jesus speaks are
1 A trace remains, however, in Jn. 5: 14, "Sin no more, lest a worse thing
befall thee."

38o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
now the "believers." Moreover, the healing (5:1-9) is
transferred to Jerusalem on occasion of "a feast of the
Jews" ! and symbohcally elaborated.^ In verses 10-18 the
Sabbath controversy with "the Jews" is brought in (with a
side glance at the blasphemy of Jesus in "making himself
equal with God"; cf. Mk. 2:7) by the statement that the
occasion of the healing was a sabbath. Jesus then gives his
interpretation of true sabbath observance as the constant
imitation of "the works of God,-" in particular the giving of
"life" [cf. Mk. 3:4 and Q (Mt. 11: 5=Lk. 7:22)].^ Finally,
he shows the true function of John the Baptist on the one
side, and of "the law and the prophets" on the other, as mere
witnesses to himself. The scribes who "think they have
eternal hfe" in the Scriptures which testify of Jesus, are
themselves condemned by Moses in whom they trust, be
cause they reject him, the true Giver of life ( Jn. 5 : 30-47 ;
cf. Mk. 2: 18-22; Lk. 16: 16).
We could scarcely ask a better example of the Fourth
Gospel's free combination of Mark and the Discourses, in a
manner to "bring out " the doctrinal values. Each is handled
with truly Pauline freedom, but with high loyalty to "spir
itual" truth. The motive and method are not those of his
torical criticism, but of haggada and midrash.
After omission of Mark's section on the Choosing, Training,
and Mission of the Twelve (Mk. ^3:7-6:13) for reasons
above explained, we find the Fourth Gospel again in the
sixth chapter in close correspondence to Mark's di\'ision on
the Breaking of Bread as the Sign from Heaven granted to

1 Probably Pentecost, the feast of the Giving of the Law, was originally
intended. -See Chapters XV and XVI.
2 On the symbolism, see the commentaries above referred to.
3 With this function of the Son of man as "Lord of the sabbath" (Mk. 2:
28) is associated its converse, the execution of judgment (Jn. 5: 22-29; 'J-
Mk. 3:5-6).

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 381
the disciples but refused to the Pharisees, and the Confes
sion of Peter (Mk. 6: 14-9: 29; cf. especially Mk. 8: 11-21
with Jn. 6:30-59). After the example of Jn. 5 detailed
comparison with Mark is needless. We only note two things :
(i) Our evangehst follows Luke in substituting a Samaritan
mission for the Gentile mission of Mk. 7: 24 — 8: 26, reserv
ing his utterance on the calhng of the Gentiles for the close
of the ministry when Jesus has been definitively rejected by
the Jews (12:20-36). The section combining the equiva
lents of Mark's incident of the Syro-Phoenician Woman and
Q's Centurion's Servant are now found in Jn. 4, doubtless
inserted at this point rather than later because of the con
nection of the former with the doctrine of Baptism and the
Gift of the Spirit.!
(2) Some of the material of Mk. 6: 14-9: 50 is utilized
elsewhere in John, after the example set by both Matthew
and Luke; in particular the healing of the Blind Man with
clay and spittle (Mk. 8: 22^26; cf. Jn. 9: i ff.); and the con
nected Denunciation of the Scribes who said, "He hath
Beelzebub" as "blind leaders" guilty of the Unforgivable
Sin (Mt. i2:22-37=Lk. 11:14-36; i2:io = Mk. 7:1-23;
3: 22-30; cf. Jn. 9: 13-41; 10: 19-21). The Transfiguration
(Mk. 9: 2-13) has its substitute in the Fourth Gospel as a
whole, though reflected in Jn. i: 14 and 12: 28-30; the In
structions to the Twelve on True Primacy (Mk. 9:30-50)
came later by the evangehst's plan (Jn. 13: 1-17). As for
the exorcisms of Mk. 7:31-37 and 9: 14-29, they were ex
cluded on principle. Nothing accordingly of Markan ma
terial remains unaccounted for. The fourth evangelist really
employs every available shred of Mark in his own way; nor
has he even added, except from Luke.
The section of Mark on the Peraean Ministry (Mk. 10)
1 On indications of transpositions of material in the Fourth Gospel from
its original order see Chapter XIX.

382 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
has but a single miracle, the healing of Blind Bartima;us, in
which even Matthew and Luke seem already to have in
corporated the Blind Man of Bethsaida. Jn. 9 restores the
Markan traits of the clay and spittle, transferring the healing,
like that of the Paralytic in Chapter 5, to Jerusalem, with
characteristic elaboration, manifestly symbolic in purpose
(9: 7). On the other hand, while we recognize in Jn. 7: 1-13
a certain resemblance to the situation of Mk. 10: i, where
Jesus and the Twelve are leaving "houses and brethren and
sisters" for the way of martyrdom, still wc miss, at first
sight, the distinctive figure of this section of Mark, the Rich
Man who came to Jesus asking the way of eternal life. In
Mk. 10: 17-22 he stands opposed on the one side to the
"babes" whom Jesus had welcomed to "the kingdom of
God," on the other to the disciples who have "left aU and
followed" him. This "ruler" (so Luke) we have already
recognized, however, in the Johannine figure of Nicodemus,
rich and acknowledging in Jesus a "teacher come from God,"
but unable to "turn again and become as a little child" or
to accept the doctrine of the Cross (Jn. 3: 1-21). The em
bodied interpretation of the doctrine of baptism (3 : 5) is
doubtless responsible for its removal to the earlier context;
for it bears many marks of having once stood after Jn. 7 : 30,
where Tatian has placed it, in the same chapter where Nico
demus reappears in the r61e of a Gamaliel (7: 50 f.).!
Of the Markan material of the Perasan ministry the only
elements not really taken over by the Fourth Gospel are the
controversy with the scribes on the Mosaic law of di\'orce
(Mk. 10: 2-12; but compare Jn. 7: 15-24), and the Offer of
the Sons of Zebedee (Mk. 10:35-45). Both of these had
previously been canceled by Luke. Of the scene of the Raising
of Lazarus, compounded of Mk. 5:35-43 and Lk. 10:38-
42; 16: 19-31, we have already spoken.
1 On this displacement see below. Chapter XIX.

TREATMENT OF SYNOPTICS 383
It is needless to compare the Markan story of the Passion
and Resurrection (Mk. 11-16) with the Johannine. We
have seen already how drastic the recasting must be which
would here do justice to Johannine Christology; also that
Luke had already determined its general nature, at least as
regards the Resurrection scenes, while the Betrayal and
Agony in Gethsemane would suggest their own conditions
of recasting. In this section detailed comparison would
again prove the evangelist's complete loyalty to the two
essential elements of Synoptic story, Petrine narrative and
Matthajan discourse, subject always to his formative prin
ciple of the "spiritual" gospel of Paul. The wonder is that
so little disappears of the Markan basis. The most conspic
uous instance is the displacement of the Purging of the
Temple (Mk. 11: 15-18) by the Raising of Lazarus as the
occasion of the conspiracy against Jesus' hfe (Jn. 11 : 47-53).
A later hand, as we shall see, has reinstated the episode,
though on a Matthccan basis, and in an impossible context.
Of this more hereafter. As a question of historicity we may
leave the Markan and the Johannine explanations of the
conspiracy against Jesus' life to make their own impres
sion. Our study of the evangelist's relation to his sources shows
him to depend not on external eye-witness, but on "spiritual"
insight. He has certain quahfications for his task which
belong to the merely external order. He is a Jew and a
teacher. He knows Jerusalem and its environs and the
northward road through Samaria to the sea "of Tiberias"
by personal visit. He can add perhaps here and there a
minute trace of much distorted historic tradition. In one
conspicuous instance to be separately discussed ! he brings
an important historical correction of Mark's inaccuracy;
though even here the motive is not historical but ritual. His
1 Chapter XVI.

384 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
real quahfication, as he himself would have defined it, hes
in his transcendent abihty so to restate the tradition of
Jesus' deeds and words as to bring out its "spiritual" values
"for teaching, for reproof, for correction (moral and doc
trinal), for instruction which is in righteousness."

CHAPTER XV
JOHANNINE TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY
We have already distinguished in Chapter XIII between
the "graphic detail" of midrash, imagined or inferred for a
doctrinal or apologetic purpose, and detail of the veritable
eye-witness, which reveals its true character by a relation to
the history in its larger aspects. Detail of the latter type is,
as we have seen, almost wholly wanting to the Fourth Gos
pel. Two points, however, were deferred for more special
consideration: (i) the fourth evangelist's topography, which
not only differs in a very striking way from the Synoptic, but
admittedly indicates a first-hand knowledge of certain Pales
tinian locahties; (2) his chronology, which is equally pecul
iar, and which also, in our judgment, indicates use of in
dependent Palestinian tradition. The first of these questions
may be very briefly discussed in the present chapter. The
second is more closely related than the first to the system of
correspondences with the Jewish festal and calendar system
on which this evangelist has schematized his story. The
discussion of it, therefore, must to some extent be carried
over to Chapter XVI, on Johannine Quartodecimanism; for
Quartodecimanism, as already defined, is simply the reten
tion in Christianized form of the Jewish observance of the
Fourteenth Nisan. In Asia this becomes "the true passover
of the Lord, the great Sacrifice," ! and the Fourth Gospel
reflects the practice in its representation of Jesus' attend
ance at the "feasts of the Jews."
It is needless to repeat what has been well said by others,
1 Above, p. 247 f.
Fourth Gospel— 25 385

386 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
especially by Professor Sanday, on the evidence for our
evangelist's personal acquaintance with scenes in and about
Jerusalem, Sychar, and Tiberias. Here we have allusions to
sites in the Holy City, its temple and environs, to scenes
famous in the story of the patriarch Jacob, and to Gahlean
villages whose very names are absent from the Synoptics.
Bethany "about fifteen furlongs off" from Jerusalem, the
"Kidron" valley, the "pavement" called Gabbatha, where
Pilate's ^riixa used to be set up, the colonnades of the temple,
including "Solomon's," its "treasury," the pool of "Siloam"
and that of "Bethesda" with its "five colonnades" are all
mentioned only by "John," and in such a way as could
hardly be done without personal acquaintance with the
locahties. Moving northward through Samaria we pass the
"city called Ephraim," ! a refuge of Jesus, according to
the fourth evangehst, during the last weeks of the ministry.
In Samaria we find ourselves in a group of locahties almost
certainly visualized by our evangelist. Here is "Jacob's
well," too "deep" for its waters to be reached by one who
"has nothing to draw with," and sunk in "the parcel of
ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph." "This moun
tain" where the Samaritans worship, overhangs it. The
"city (!) called Sychar" ^ nestles about a mile further north
at the foot of Ebal. Three miles eastward, in plain view
over the gently undulating "parcel of ground," is Jacob's
city of Salim [Gen. 33:18 (LXX)], while northward some
five miles down the valley one sees the ruined to-wer Burj
el-Far 'a surrounded by "many waters" in the most copious
1 Usually identified with Et-Tayyibeh, near Bethel on a conspicuous
height east of the highroad to Nablous (Shechem).
2 The identification with 'Ain-'Askar is very probable. The only ques
tion is whether this tiny hamlet can ever have been called a "city" (Jn. 4: 5),
and may not rather have acquired both name and existence during the
pilgrimage period of the fourth century through the inquiries of pilgrims
for "Sychar."

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 387
springs and pools of the whole hill-country of Ephraim.
The name ".^Enon" (i. e., "Springs") no longer attaches to
them, but only to the miserable modern hamlet 'Aintin,
"without a drop of water," huddled for safety on the summit
of a height some two miles further northeast. As this is the
only Salim known to Palestine, and the only 'Ainlin north of
Hebron, we are disposed to be less skeptical than Pro
fessor Sanday in identifying the glorious springs and pools of
el-Far 'a with the fourth evangelist's scene for the later
career of the Baptist (Jn. 4: 23).! Again in Gahlee our
evangehst has traditions (?) concerning "Cana." He knows
that one "descends" from Cana in less than a day "to
Capernaum" (4: 52; 2: 12), and seems to imply that it is not
far from Nazareth (2 : i). He knows the location of Tiberias,
and that a boat going thence to Capernaum (Tell Hum) and
"in the midst of the sea" is "about five and twenty or thirty
furlongs" from shore (6: 19). How could such information
be obtained in an age destitute of maps and gazetteers,
without an actual visit to these scenes ?
On the other hand, how rapidly this notable knowledge,
far transcending the meager allusions of the Synoptics, dis
appears as soon as we leave the beaten track from Jeru
salem to the sea "of Tiberias." "Beyond Jordan" is for
"John" the scene both of the Baptist's earlier activity, and
of the Peraean ministry described by Luke. What becomes
of the "graphic realism of the eye-witness" in these regions?
One name alone is mentioned, "Bethany beyond Jordan."
Diligent search, continued since the time of Origen and
1 Professor Sanday gives his reasons for rejecting the identification of
"Mnon near to Salim" with the modern 'Ainfln in Sacred Sites of the Gospel,
1903, pp. 33-36. His criticism of the author of Macmillan's Guide is justi
fied. We have given reasons elsewhere for the identification with el-Far 'a,
and for rejecting that of Eusebius, Jerome, and Silvia, who located it at a
place then called Sedima and pointed to as "the city of Melchizedek." See
The Biblical World, art. "JExion near to Salim,'' April, 1909.

388 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Eusebius, has failed to reveal it. Batneh near es-Salt is the
latest desperate guess; but at Batneh ( = Betonim of Jos.
13:26?) the Baptist would have had to depend on cistern
water and live in a village community.! Jericho, so notable
a stage in Jesus' last journey in the Synoptics, now fails to
appear. According to our evangelist to reach Galilee from
Jerusalem Jesus "must needs go through Samaria." From
the scene of John's baptizing "beyond Jordan" he arrives
with his disciples "on the third day" (!) in Cana of Galilee.
The "graphic realism of the eye-witness" seems not to ex
tend "beyond Jordan."
And when we look again at the data which are correct,
how singularly they correspond with just the sites, and only
those, which could be and would be pointed out to the devout
pilgrim. There is no mention of the great city of Neapohs
just hidden over the low watershed from the scenes of the
patriarch Jacob's life, but only of "Sychar" ( = 'Askar),
which the pilgrim on the northward road would pass through.
The scenes which attract notice in Samaria are "the parcel
of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph," "Jacob's
well," Jacob's city. In Galilee we have mention of "the
place where he [Jesus] made the water wine"; or of Tiberias
"nigh unto the place where they ate the loaves"; or of
scenes immediately connected with Peter's story. True
"Bethsaida" is called the "city" of Philip, as well as of
Andrew and Peter (1:44); — but so it was to Josephus also
the "city" of "Phihp." ^ Thus the existence here of separate
historical tradition becomes questionable again. In Judaea
we have mention of "the village of Mary and her sister
Martha"; in Jerusalem of the temple, the pools, the Preto-
1 A visit by the present writer to Batneh, is described, with photographs,
in The Bibl. World for July, 1907. It lies almost at the summit of the de
clivity of the eastern plateau, a good half day's journey beyond the Jordan.
2 7. e., Herod Philip.— See .int. XVIII, ii, l.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 389
rium, the Pavement, the Tomb — all sites which no devasta
tions of war could obhterate,! and about which sacred legend
would begin at once to weave its romance. Admittedly the
fourth evangehst has new stores of topographical knowledge,
of which he makes ample use to lend graphic touches to his
narrative; but of what kind ? The limitation of his evidences
of knowledge to a particular line of travel and a particular
class of data, and still more the interest in which they are
adduced, which includes the transfer from Galilee to Jeru
salem of the center of gravity of Jesus' work (Jn. 7:3), be
speak not the companion of Jesus' walks about the villages
of Galilee and Peraea, but the pilgrim antiquary of a century
after, whose starting point is Jerusalem.
If the Lukan tendency to gravitate toward Jerusalem ^ is
markedly developed in the Fourth Gospel the case is still
more pronounced in respect to chronology. Consistently
with his attempt to apply the methods of the historiographer,
Luke has prefaced his transcript of Mark's account of the
ministry with an elaborate though not altogether accurate
group of synchronisms to determine precisely the sacred
year, "the acceptable year of the Lord" of Lk. 4: 19. For
the primitive understanding that the public career of Jesus
had covered but a single year is almost unbroken.^ Even the
appearance of the Fourth Gospel with its three passovers, if
not more, during the ministry did not noticeably affect this
generally accepted datum of evangelic tradition until the
1 Thus the present tanv in Jn. 5:2 is to be accounted for. To this day
the pool in question is in Jerusalem.
2 See e. g., Lk. 1-2; 4: 44 (read " Judasa"), and especially Chapter 24.
3 Note, c. g., Clem. Hom. XVII, xix. "Why did our Teacher abide and
discourse a whole year?" and see Irenaeus, as quoted below, p. 394. With
these authorities belong Clem. Al. (Strom, I, 145; VI, 279), Julius Africanus,
Hippolytus in his later works, and Origen in his earlier. For a two to three
years' ministry Melito, Heracleon, Tatian, and Hippolytus on Daniel may
be cited. The latter are manifestly influenced by the Fourth Gospel.

390 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
fourth century. It was, as Drummond justly observes,
"too weU grounded to be easily displaced." ! The Asian
church claimed, as we have seen, to have maintained its
observance of "the Fast" in commemoration of Jesus'
death on every recurring fourteenth of Nisan since the days
of the apostles.^ Under such conditions it would be strange
Indeed if the year from which the observance started was not
soon approximately fixed, as it so easily might be, by some
form of absolute dating. In point of fact we know that at a
very early time it was so fixed by use of the consular hsts-
as the "year of the two Gemini" [i. e., 29 a. d., whose consuls
were L. Rubellius Geminus, and C. Fufius (var. Rufius,
Rufus, Fusius) Geminus]. In reahty this date, while ex
tremely ancient, and surely not far from the truth, is demon
strably incorrect and artificial.^ Arguments based on the
Jewish calendar system are somewhat disputed and pre
carious, so that to fix positively the year of Pilate's admin
istration in which Nisan 14 (or, according to the Synoptic
date for Jesus' death, Nisan 15) can have fallen on a Friday,
may be beyond our power. There are, however, certain
years which can be certainly and positively excluded; and
one of these is the year 29 a. d. We can say with ahnost
absolute certainty, the Crucifixion did not occur in 29 a. d.^
1 Char, and Authorship, p. 47. See especially the note citing the "great
number of references to writers who limited the ministry to one year" in
F^ra Abbott: Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, ut supra, p. 73, note.
2 Above, p. 257.
3 Turner, in his admirable article in Hastings' Bible Diet., s. v. "Chronology
of the New Testament," is so justly impressed Avith the great antiquity and
historical credibility of this date as to give it his own adhesion. .\ more
exact study of the Jewish calendar system in the Talmudic treatise Rosh
ha-Shana would have saved him, however, from the error which leads him
in this respect to do violence to the astronomical argument. This latter,
especially as developed by Fotheringham (see below) is decisi\c against
29 A. D. as a possible date for the crucifixion.
¦iThe best demonstration is that of Fotheringham (Journ. of PhiloL, 1903,
pp. 100 ff.). Even Achelis, however (Gbtt. gel. Nachr., phil. hist. Kl., 1902,

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 391
Nay, more; we can explain with a very high degree of proba
bihty the origin of this date 29 a. d., erroneous as It is. It was
probably adopted by the earher chronographers for the same
reason which led Hippolytus later to make it the basis of his
own elaborate system. In 29 A. d. the vernal equinox of the
Julian calendar fell on Friday, March 25. Now we learn
from Epiphanius ! of certain Quartodecimans of Cappadocia
who on authority of the Acts of Pilate, a work we have found
to be employed by Justin Martyr,^ observed the anniversary
on March 25th of each year, precisely as the church of Rome
and the west has adopted December 25th (the Juhan winter
solstice) as the anniversary of the Nativity. An Important
exception proves the nature and reason of this rule. Other
Asian Quartodecimans who quoted the same authority In a
variant reading, observed the anniversary on March i8th.
This had not only the advantage of meeting the lunar con
ditions of the year 29 A. d., In which, as current lunar cycles
would show, the full moon occurred on March i8th, but also
coincided with the astronomical equinox of the same calendar
when the sun enters Aries. Our own practice In observing
the Nativity on December 25th shows what advantages there
would be for Christians concerned to commemorate an
nually "the exact day" of the crucifixion, in abandoning the
complicated Jewish lunar calendar, dependent as It was on
the "sanctification" by the Sanhedrin of the new moon of
Nisan as the beginning of the year, and substituting the
vernal equinox of the Julian calendar already In general use
pp. 707 ff.), who follows the inaccurate method of Wurm, Anger, and Wieseler
in dating from astronomic new moon, or a uniform 36 hours after, instead
of from actual phasis, as the Jews certainly reckoned, excludes 29 A. D.
from possible years. He makes Nisan 14 of 29 A. D. to fall on Sunday,
April 17th. By Synoptic tradition it would have to be Thursday; by Johan
nine Friday.
1 Haer. I, i; L, i, 23.
2 Above, p. 41.

392 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
throughout the empire. Practical convenience, and dislike
of dependence on the hated Jews, wiU have had almost as
much to do with the adoption of the Cappadocian plan, as
the symbolism immemorlally connected with the reawakening
of hfe at vernal equinox. The remarkable coincidence that
In "the year of the two Gemini" (29 a. d.), which feU about
midway In the high priesthood of Caiaphas and procurator-
ship of Pilate, the two vernal equinoxes March i8th and
25th fell on Fridays, Friday being the known week-day of the
crucifixion, Is quite sufficient to account for the early and
universal adoption of this date as marking the year of the
crucifixion.! It Is much more difficult to determine whether our third
evangelist already has this date in mind in fixing the begin
ning of the ministry with so great pains In "the fifteenth
year of Tiberius" (Lk. 3: i), or whether we should regard it
as mere coincidence that his chronology also attains the
same result.
As Turner has admirably shown,^ both dates, TIberii XV
and TIberii XVI, were current early in the second century
as designations of "the year of the two Gemini." Luke, ac
cordingly, cannot be supposed to be following any different
tradition, but only employs that common method of dating
which reckoned the first year of the emperor as beginning
from the next preceding consulship (January i), or possibly,
as Josephus does, with the preceding Passover, thus reaching
the equivalence Passover 29 a. d.= TIberii XVI,^ Instead of
1 The possibility also remains open that the year 29 A. D. was fixed with
reference to the Jewish era of the temple (20-19 B. c), on the assumption
(on which see below) that Jesus' life co\ered one jubilee (7x7) of years.
2 Hastings' Bible Diet., s. v. "Chronology of N. T.," p. 413.
3 The accession of Tiberius was August 9, 14 A. D. Efforts to accommo
date Lk. 3: I to other systems, ancient or modern, by introducing one or
more additional years as years of "coregency" with Augustus, are un
scientific.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 393
that which failed to reckon In the fraction of a year, and
thus made Passover 29 a. d. = TIberii XV.
However attained, the starting point of gospel chronology
was certainly this date for the crucifixion.! The fact that It Is
astronomically inadmissible, but can be accounted for by a
priori reasoning, that It appears "In so many authorities that
the common source must ascend to a remote antiquity," ^
and finally that the Lukan version represents but one of two
equivalent forms, makes it most probable that Its origin,
although speculative and unhistorical, Is more ancient than
the third gospel Itself.
We must think of our third evangelist, accordingly, as
elaborating his synchronisms of Lk. 3 : i on the basis of this
first century date for the crucifixion. As we have seen, a
twelvemonth for the ministry, if not already traditional,^
soon became so. The one new feature added by "Luke,"
and added, as we have reason to think, in disagreement with
an earlier though vague tradition, was the date of Jesus'
birth, with the imphed determination of his age In the year
of the ministry as "about 30 years" (Lk. 3:23). Both
Basllidean and Valentinian gnosis took up these two data.
The Valentinians In particular brought the twelve months
of the ministry and the thirty years of Jesus' age Into cor
respondence with their duodecads and triple decads of
yEons,

1 Turner-(Hastings' Bible Diet., s. v. "Chronology of the N. T.," p. 4146)
rightly distinguishes the greater relative importance to the Church, and
hence earlier fixation of the date of the Passover. " Here was to every
Christian eye from the first the turning point of the world's evolution, and
the Church's confession had always put in the forefront the historical setting
'under Pontius Pilate.' " He adduces not only I Tim. 6: 12, but Ign. ad
Magn. xi, and the "Apostles' " Creed.
2 Turner, ibid.
3 The annual recurrence of the celebration of the death and resurrection
at Passover would tend to limit the outline of evangelic story to a cyclic year.

394 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
"the passion which took place in the case of the twelfth Mon
being indicated by the apostasy of Judas who was the twelfth
apostle, and also by the fact that Christ suffered in the twelfth
month. For their opinion is that he continued to preach for one
year only after his baptism." !
With both these chronological data the Fourth Gospel takes
decided Issue, reverting, as will be shown, to pre-Lukan'
tradition in the matter of Jesus' age, and extending the
duration of the ministry (In this respect also coming In aU
probability nearer to historic fact) over at least two years.
Whether the temple synchronism of Jn. 2:13-22 starts
from the same fixed date as those of Luke (Passion at Pass
over 29 A. D.= TIberii XV-XVI), or not, the insertion of the
story at this point corresponds to Luke's setting of the
proclamation at Nazareth, " where Jesus was brought up,"
of "the acceptable year of the Lord." We merely have In
stead of Jesus' offer of himself to his fellow-townsmen and his
rejection, an offer of himself in the temple at Jerusalem to
"the Jews." In the Synoptic Gospels, which (historically)
withhold the declaration of the Messiahship till the end, this
overt act of challenge to the hierocracy marks of necessity the
beginning of the final catastrophe. Jesus maintains himself
for a few days on the strength of his popularity with the
masses. The priests demand his authority for this in\-asion
of their precincts, but to overcome It are forced by their
"fear of the people" to resort to conspiracy rather than open
violence. This story accounts historically both for the fact
of Jesus' death at the instigation of "the chief priests," and
also for the indirectness and delay in bringing it about. The
fourth evangelist has httle regard for mere considerations
of historical interrelation of cause and effect, and therefore
thinks nothing of divorcing this opening scene of the final
1 Irenaeus, Haer. I, iii, 3. Irenasus himself extends the ministry to twenty (!)
years.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 395
conflict In Jerusalem from Its necessary conditions and neces
sary consequences. Considerations of theoretic propriety,
such as move the third evangelist to transform Mk. 6 : 1-6 Into
a programmatic discourse of Jesus In his rrarpk (Lk. 4:
16 ff.), induce the transfer of this Synoptic scene of the
Visitation of the Temple (cf. Mai. 3 : 1-4) to the place it
logically must occupy in a Gospel which makes it Jesus'
first task to commend himself to Israel as Messiah and
Incarnate Son of God. There Is no consideration given to
the fact that the purging of the temple, a huge fortress,
with its "captain of the temple" ! and garrison of organized
Levitical pohce could not be carried out before Jesus had
reached the zenith of his popularity with the masses, nor to
the fact that when carried out all its consequences. Including
those of the saying on "destroying the temple," could not he
quiescent for a period of two or three years, awaiting Jesus'
return to Jerusalem. The one consideration for the fourth
evangehst is that if Jesus Is to offer himself to Israel as the
Christ he should do so at once, at the Passover, before the
assembled nation In his "Father's house." For this reason
the Purging of the Temple takes the place in the Fourth
Gospel of the Lukan Preaching in Nazareth.
But while this writer has properly drawn together the
Incident of Mt. 21 : 12 f. and Its sequel related In verses 23-
32,^ avoiding the interruption of Mk. 11: 19-25, he will not
lose, it would seem, the opportunity to bring In a correction
of the Lukan chronology by his own favorite method of
symbohsm. The answer given by Jesus to the scribes' de
mand for a sign of his authority was a reference to his own
resurrection in three days,^ contained in the saying alluded
1 The so-called Segan. See Acts 4: i, and Schurer, Jewish People, etc.,
§ 24, z (Second Div., Vol. I, pp. 257 f., Engl).
2 The basis of Jn. 2: 13-22 seems to be more nearly Mattha;an than
Markan. 3 Cf. Mt. 12: 40. The demand of "the scribes" for "a sign from heaven"

396 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
to by Mark: "Destroy this temple and in three days I wiU
build it again." He was speaking symbolically, says the
evangehst, "of the temple of his body." But not the words
of Jesus only must convey a double sense; "the Jews" also,
hke Caiaphas in 11:49-51 must, it would appear, uncon
sciously "prophesy." They do so by declaring,
"Forty and six years has this temple been in building (wKoSofi,^6rj),
and wilt thou raise it up in three days ? "
Here the point of departure, as all admit, Is the date of
Herod's great undertaking to rebuild the temple, whose
date Is carefully fixed by Josephus in connection with other
authorities in 20-19 ^- C-,' so that any Christian Jew who
reckoned from this epoch of the temple could not fail to
notice that the received date for the crucifixion (29 A. d.)
fell at exactly one jubilee (7 x 7) of years from the founding
of the temple. Thus, barring the isolated statement of Luke
that Jesus at his baptism was "about 30 years old" the
symbolism by which the resurrection of Jesus' body in three
days was brought into equivalence with the saying "Destroy
this temple and In three days I will raise It up" would easily
be extended into a correspondence between the foimding of
the temple and the incarnation. Now In point of fact we not
only find that the saying "Forty and six years has this
temple been in building" was understood to symbohze the
years of Jesus' hfe,^ but we can trace this reckoning by
in Jn. 6: 30 ff. seems to be the original Johannine parallel. This also is
answered by a reference to the Resurrection. But there is duplication al
ready in the Synoptics.
1 War, I, xxi, i; Ant. XV, xi, i, on which cf. Schiirer, H. J. P. § 15, notes
12 and 72 (Engl. I, i, pp. 410 and 438). See also Turner, Hastings' Bible
Diet. I, s. V. "Chronology," pp. 405 f.
2 Augustine (de Doctr. Chr. II, xxviii) refers to certain errorists (perhaps
successors of Gaius and the Alogi) who maintained that Jesus attained an
age of nearly 50 years on the ground not of Jn. 8: 57 only, but Jn. 2: 20 also.
This view is taken by the author of the treatise de montibus Sina et Sion, iv
(in the works of Cyprian, Hartel, III, 108). Augustine himself, however,

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 397
jubilees of years to Its fuller form In a fragment of the Apoca
lypse of Thomas, which forecasts "nine jubilees" (450 years)
from the Ascension to the Second Coming. As the Nativity
was probably dated by this apocalyptist like others of his
class in anno mundl 5500 ! and the duration of the world at
6,000 years, In accordance with the stereotyped principle of
the hexaemeron (6 days of creation each = 1,000 years, the
sabbath = the millennium), the period of the Incarnation will
certainly have been reckoned at one full jubilee (50 years),
making up the total of ten jubilees (500 years) for the Chris
tian dispensation.^ We may therefore reasonably infer that
the synchronism with the temple in Jn. 2: 13 ff. represents
this type of reckoning by jubilees, the author counting that
at this passover Jesus (coincidently with the temple) was
beginning his 47th year, at the unnamed feast of 5: i, which
the fathers, beginning with Irenaeus, understand to be a
passover,^ was beginning his 48th, at the passover of 6 : 4 his
49th, and at the passover of the crucifixion (12: i ff.) his
50th, the jubilee year being that of his "glorification." This
reckoning, though it may exaggerate the implication of
Jn. 8: 57 Is at least In harmony with It, a statement which
for all the contortions of "harmonistic" exegesis cannot be
made in favor of the Lukan.
The reckoning of Jesus' hfe at a jubilee of years can be
attributes an allegorical significance to the 46 years in relation to the body
of Jesus (de Trin. IV, v).
1 E. g., Annianus, a chronographer of about 412 A. D., dates the nativity
December 25 anno mundi 5501. The conception (Lk. i: 31) took place as
the last day of the year 5500 was passing into the first of 5501. Annianus is
one of those who show dependence on the 49 years' duration of Jesus' life
probably given currency by Hippolytus in 203-205 A. D.
2 See Frick in Zts.f. ntl. Wiss., 1908, 2, p. 172.
3 Incorrectly so. The subject of the dialogue — Christ's authority vs. the
law of Moses — shows that Pentecost, the Feast of the Giving of the Law,
was originally intended. This is a further item of the manifold evidence
that Jn. 2: 13 ff. is an editorial addition.

398 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
traced much further back than the Apocalypse of Thomas,
and to no less an authority than Hippolytus himself, if we
may trust the scholarly reasoning of Dom Chapman,! in his
Defence of the Fourth Gospel and Apocalypse, which Chap
man gives new reason for dating In 203-205 A. d. Un
fortunately for inferences regarding the currency of this
"jubilee" dating at an earher time. Chapman gives very
cogent reasons for thinking Hippolytus' results, a period of
49 years for the duration of Jesus' hfe and of twelve years
for the ministry, to have been purely fortuitous, a mere result
of dependence on the grossly careless statements of Ter
tulhan In combination with the consular hsts. Yet this
49-year duration of Jesus' life coincides exactly with the
data of an ancient fragment, whose contents purport (justly,
so far as we can judge) to be from the "own hand" of "Alex
ander, bishop of Jerusalem." This Alexander, who had
previously held a bishopric in Cappadocia, was for several
years associated In the episcopate of Jerusalem with Nar
cissus, under whom the great council was held In Jerusalem
(ca. 198 A. D.) which settled for the time being the con
troversy about the passover, its dates, relation to gospel
story and observance. Alexander, fragments of whose letters
are preserved by Eusebius, was a friend and host of Origen,
formed a celebrated library, Interested himself In the paschal
controversy and its connected questions of chronology and
the "disagreement of the Gospels," and could scarcely fail
to know the earlier chronological work of Hippolytus un
dertaken in the "Defence of the Fourth Gospel and the
Apocalypse of John." ^ But the fragment, an extract from
1 Journ. of Theol. Studies, VIII (1906-07), pp. 590-606. See also his
further article connecting the fragi-nent from Victorinus witli Papias. Ibid.
IX (1907-08), pp. 42-61.
2 Epiphanius in his famous chapter against the Alogi (Haer. LI), now
known to be based on the work of Hippolytus, avowedly introduces his list
of consulships from the thirteenth to the forty-second year of Augustus to

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 399
the Commentaries of Victorinus (ob. 304 a. d.) extant in
several forms,! states expressly that Its contents were derived
by Alexander from "apostolic autographs" (de exemplaribus
apostolorum) and were found by Victorinus "among the
parchments of Alexander." Its distinctive feature Is an at
tempt to date the birth, baptism, and crucifixion of Jesus in
absolute terms of the Julian calendar, obviously for ritual
purposes and In a Quartodeciman interest. /. e., the Passion
and Resurrection are fixed for annual observance on the
23d and 25th of March ("X" and "VIII Kal. April.") a
practice current so far as we know nowhere but in Cappa
docia.^ This certainly would seem to corroborate very
strongly the claim of the chronology to emanate from Alexan
der, a Cappadocian and a writer of authority on paschal
questions. Chapman's reasoning, on the other hand, Is very
convincing for regarding the consular dates (Nativity:
Sulpicio Camerino et Poppaeo Sabino Coss. = 9 a. d. ; Cruci
fixion: Nerone III et Valerio Messala Coss. = 58 a. d.)
which also figure In the fragment, as resting on mere blunders
of Hippolytus, Alexander's contemporary. They seem to be
due to an attempt to locate the ordinary datings (XLII Aug.
and XVII Tiber.) In the consular lists, wherein Hippolytus
was misled by the previous misstatements of Tertulhan. If,
then, we are not to reject as pure falsification the statement
about Alexander's dependence on apostolic documents
(transcripsit manu sua de exemplaribus apostolorum) we
must limit his dependence on Hippolytus to the Roman
refute "those who think there is disagreement in the number of years set
forth by the evangelists."
1 See Dobschiitz in Texte u. Unt. XI, i, pp. 136 f., and J. Chapman in
Journ. of Theol. Studies, VIII (1906-07), pp. 590-606.
2 For some reason Harnack, in discussing the fragment in his Gesch. d.
altchr. Lit., Bd. II, 8, p. 506, declares this effort to fix the observance of the
Resurrection on March 25, without regard to the day of the week, an un
mistakably Quartodeciman trait, to "point to Gaul" (I).

400 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
consulships. We have, in fact, every reason to believe that
Alexander regarded himself as possessing such "apostohc
documents," because the great synod held under his prede
cessor and colleague Narcissus, and held for the very pur
pose of deciding these questions, had recorded its finding
as made on the basis of
" the tradition concerning the passover which had come to them
in succession from the apostles." !
The nucleus of the library formed at Jerusalem by Alexander
will at least have contained, if It did not consist of, the docu
ments of this synod. Corssen,^ and Chapman ^ are indeed
both convinced that Alexander's "apostohc" authority was
Papias, and as respects Victorinus, to whom we owe the
extract. In his Commentary on Revelation, dependence on
Papias for chiliastic reckonings Is highly probable. But in
all the voluminous literature of the paschal controversy none
dreams of citing Papias as an authority for these dates, which
could hardly be the case If he afforded such chronographic
material. We must think rather of the Acts of Pilate, already
known in some form to Justin Martyr (153 a. d.) and ac
cepted by him as authentic, with Its connected hterature,''
one of whose chief aims was the determination of the exact
date of the Crucifixion.^ Moreover, if we are not to Ignore
1 Eusebius, H. E. V, xxv.
^ Zts.f. ntl. Wiss. II (1901), pp. 202-227 and 289-299.
3 Journ of Theol. Studies, IX (1907-08), pp. 42-61.
* E. g., the Gospel of Nicodemus. Epiphailius (Haer. L, 1) reports that the
Cappadocian Quartodecimans who kept the anniversary of the Lord's Pas
sion "on the eighth day before the Kalends of April" (March 25), alleged in
support of the practice the finding of this "exact date in the Acts of Pilate."
5 The appearance of this effort at an exact chronology of the evangelic
tradition coincides remarkably with two events each of which would naturally
give rise to it: (i) The Egyptian renaissance of chronography springing from
the completion of the great cycle of Sirius in 140 A. D.; (2) the first outbreak
of the Quartodeciman controversy signalized by the visit of Polycarp to
Anicetus in 154 A. D.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 401
the fact that one of the burning questions the Jerusalem
synod had been called to face was the alleged "disagreement
between the Gospels" in respect to their chronology, we must
believe that Alexander had access to "apostolic" deliver
ances on this particular feature of the controversy.
Now the Alexander fragment gives as Its year dates (Na
tivity, 9 A. d.; Baptism, 46 A. d.; Crucifixion, 58 A. d.) a
duration of 1-2 years for the ministry and 49 years for Jesus'
life, two periods which coincide with tradition as otherwise
known,! and which improve upon Irenseus' attempt to main
tain an age of "nearly fifty years" for the life of Jesus on the
basis of the Fourth Gospel, while at the same time holding
fast to the Lukan age of "about 30 years when he began (to
teach)." Chapman's results, however, go to show that these
periods of 12 and 49 years for Jesus' ministry and life are
purely accidental! If it is true that Hippolytus, the disciple
and echo of Irenaeus,^ writing with the special object of
refuting"those who think there is disagreement in the number of years
set forth by the evangelists"
was quite unconscious when he transcribed his consular
dates that he was bringing out a duration of 49 years for the
life of Jesus and of 12 years for the ministry, then we have
little or no evidence to carry back the "jubilee" theory be
yond 203 A. D. We shall also be obliged to regard eyerything
in the Alexander fragment as of the newest of the new at the
time of writing, instead of "apostolic" in derivation, save
1 See above on the "jubilee" chronology of Jesus' life. The twelve-year
period for the ministry corresponds with that adopted in many early writ
ings for his association with the twelve apostles (inclusive of the period after
the Resurrection), e. g., the Kerygma Petri (140 A. D.), Apollonius (Eusebius,
H. E. V, xviii, 14), Acta Petri c. Simone, V, Pistis Sophia, and Papyrus
Bruce. 2 For Irenaeus' method of harmonization (20 years! for the ministry,
nearly 50 for the life), see below.
Fourth Gospel — 26

402 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the single feature of the dating of ecclesiastical anniversaries
by days of the Juhan calendar (December 25, March 25,
etc.), which, as we have seen, Alexander Is most likely to
have brought with him from Cappadocia. As the matter
stands we can only acknowledge a non hquet. The appear
ance of a relation In Jn. 2 : 20 to the "jubilee" chronology may
be merely fortuitous and deceptive.
But Is It admissible to suppose that the date of Jesus'
birth could be reckoned so much earlier than Luke as Jn.
2: 20 and 8: 57 Imply at the early date to which these pas
sages must be assigned? Is not the clause Lk. 3: 23 "And
Jesus when he began (his ministry) was about thirty years
of age," however casual and isolated, a fatal barrier to the
supposition ?
By strict application of the principles of historical criticism
the statement of Lk. 3 : 23 has next to no value whatever,
being opposed not only by Jn. 8: 57, which Irenseus justly
declared absurd when spoken of a man "about thirty years
of age," but by the first evangelist also, who dates the birth
of Jesus not two merely but an Indefinite period of years be
fore the death of Herod In 4 b. c. It Is opposed further by
Luke's own sources, which In two Instances Imply for Jesus
an age of some forty years "when he began"; and finaUy it is
opposed by that extremely ancient tradition of the "Elders
and witnesses" at Jerusalem borrowed by Irenaeus from
Papias and adapted to his defense of the Johannine chro
nology, which moderns have somewhat superclhously treated
as merely one of Papias' "absurdities." ! In support of the
lEven Corssen ("Warum ist das vierte Evangelium fiir ein Werk des
Apostles Johannes erklart worden?" Zts.f. nil. Wiss. II (1901), pp. 202-
227, and "Die Tochter des Philippus," ibid., pp. 289-299, does injustice to
Papias. He attributes to him the entire substance of the chronographic
fragment of Alexander including the dates by consulships! In reality Papias
may not even have subscribed to the jubilee theory of the duration of Jesus'
life. The tradition he reported was a irapdSoats 'ladvvov (tov irpta^vTipov)

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 403
statement no witnesses appear save the later and dependent
chronographers, quick to seize upon a positive and definite
date hke this "thirty years" of Jesus' age, and. In the case
of Baslhdean and Valentinian "Zahlensymbolik" to turn It
to account in allegory. In reality the 30-year datum Is mani
festly no more than a necessary inference from Luke's own
explanation of the occurrence of the Nativity at Bethlehem
Instead of Nazareth. Prophecy (MIc. 5:2), and Jewish
legend In the Matthaean form, required It to occur In Bethle
hem, though Markan narrative had already established Naza
reth as Jesus' Trarpi<;. Luke's solution of the difficulty Is
the famous census referred to both by Mark (Mk. 12: 14)
and by the speech of Gamahel (Acts 5: 37). Marking as It
did the downfall of Judaean independence the Census of
Quirinius, with its accompanying insurrection under Judas
of Gamala, was an epoch-making event. It was most natural
for Luke to find In It the solution of his difficulty, and at the
same time a dating for the Nativity. Josephus, it is true, in
a portion of his narrative conspicuous for its lack of good
authority Identifies the Insurrection of the Galileans under
Judas, suppressed by Quirinius, with the disturbances in
Judcea occasioned by the deposition of Archelaus In 6 A. d.
On several accounts, mainly the identity of the chief actors
In the scene, Judas of Gamala with his Galilean following,
and Quirinius, who Is known to have been "governor of
Syria" In the period immediately after the death of Herod
(3-2 B. c.) but not at any other time before or after, we are
disposed to agree with Spitta ! in preferring the chronology
that Jesus had attained the aetas magistri of 40 years when he began to
teach. The context of Irenaeus and his awkward insertion of "et quinqua-
gesimo" (see below) is conclusive evidence of this. That Papias on his own
account speculated with apocalyptic numbers there is independent evidence
to prove (Anastasius of Sinai).
^ Zts. f. ntl. Wiss. VII, 4 (1906). "Chronologische Notizen und Hymnen
in Lk. I und 2."

404 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
of Luke to that of Josephus regarding the Census. We thus
consider the Roman intervention Implied to be that required
by the execution of the will of Herod. The disturbances,
accordingly, would be those which accompanied the assump
tion of control by Rome after Herod's death, some of which
are also referred to by Josephus himself. Luke, then, will be
correct, as against Josephus, in dating the Census "about
thirty years" earher than "the fifteenth year of Tiberius"
(28 A. D.), some two years after the death of Herod (spring
of 4 B. c.).
But this is not the conception of Luke's own sources.
These, on the contrary, look to a dating of the Nativity more
in accordance with that of Matthew, the Fourth Gospel and
the Trapd8o(7L<; 'ladvvov of Papias. The opening clause of the
narrative "There was in the days of Herod the king" (Lk.
5ii) Is certainly intended to cover at least the events con
cerning the birth of John and of Jesus, interwoven as they
are in the ensuing story (i: 5-2: 39). This contemplates a
dating for the Nativity corresponding to Matthew's some
years before Herod's death, rather than to Luke's. So also
does the typology of Stephen's Speech (Acts 7:17-37),
which goes even beyond Old Testament data with its careful
estabhshment of chronological correspondences between the
careers of Moses and of Christ. Thus Moses, who is here
explicitly made the prototype of Christ (7:37), is declared,
on merely midrashic authority, to have "attained the full age
of forty years" (verse 23, iTrXrjpovro avrai reaaepaKOvraerrjii
^/joTO?), when he "visited his brethren, the cliildren of
Israel" and was rejected by them. A second "forty years"
marks his second and successful manifestation (verse 30).!
But we must bring this correspondence with jNIoses, waiting
tiU he had "attained the full age of forty years" before un-
1 Cf. the 40-year period of "signs and wonders" in verse 36, and the 40
years of Israiel's ol)duracy in Heb. 3: 17.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 405
dertaking " to be a judge and ruler over" his brethren. Into
relation with a third witness to primitive tradition, In order
fully to appreciate its significance.
Irenseus, in support of his argument against those who
maintained that the Fourth Gospel was "at variance with
the others," resorts to the strange harmonistic device of a
duration of twenty years (!) for the public ministry. This
is to reconcile Lk. 3:23 and Jn. 8:57, the former stating
that "Jesus, when he began, was about 30 years old," the
latter implying, as Irenseus correctly observes, that he was
nearly 50 years old at his death.
To establish this (to us) astonishing estimate of Jesus' age
Irenaeus combines a certain "tradition of the (Jerusalem)
Elders " borrowed from Papias with the passage from Jn. 8:57
as follows: —
"But that the age of thirty years (Luke's 'beginning' of the
ministry) is the prime of a young man's ability, and that it reaches
even to the fortieth year, everyone will allow; but after the fortieth
and fiftieth year it begins to verge towards elder age: which was
our Lord's when he taught, as the Gospel (Jn. 8:57) and all
'the Elders' witness, who in Asia conferred with John the Lord's
disciple,! to the effect that John had delivered these things unto
them; for he abode with them until the times of Trajan." ^
We are not so much concerned with Irenaeus' awkward ad
aptation of the "tradition ('irapdhocn<;) of John" (the Elder
of Jerusalem, ob. 117 a. d.) by inserting the two words
italicized (et quinquagesimo),^ as with the TrapdBoai^ of John
1 "In Asia" represents Irenaeus' view; "the Lord's disciple" reflects the
corruption oi tov KD (for Toiiru) p.adr]Tdi.
2 Haer. II, xxii, 5.
3 Corssen (op. cit., p. 220) arbitrarily cancels the words on the ground
that they make no sense, and Drummond (Char, and Auth., p. 252), ac
cepts this violent emendation as having "great probability." A scribe
wishing to make the correction Corssen supposes would not have added
"et quinquagesimo " but sim.ply changed XL to L (p. to y).

4o6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
itself, whose object, as might even be inferred from the
Irensan context,! has nothing to do with the harmonization
of the Third and Fourth Gospels, but only with synagogal
aspersions upon Jesus. The question apparently in debate
Is whether Jesus when he began to teach had attained "the
age which befits the teacher." ^ The rabbis treated his
teaching as an Impertinence, because Tahnudic law requires
that a man shall have attained the full age of forty years
before assuming this function.^ "The Elders" rephed with
the assertion, wholly In conformity to all we know on the
subject, with the sole exception of Lk. 3 : 23, that Jesus had
In fact fully attained this age when he began to teach.
The existence of debate on this point of the duration of
Jesus' hfe is attested by the Talmudic sources themselves,
which give us at least a hint of the rabbinic counter argu
ment, based 6n Ps. 90:10 and 55:23, to Christian asser
tions. Herford, who rightly perceives that "Balaam," the
"bloody and deceitful man" who seduced Israel to idolatry,
in the extract Is a mere mask for Jesus, gives us the foUowing
colloquy between Rabbi Hanina of Sepphoris (ob. 232 a. d.)
and a Min (Christian) :
"A certain heretic {min) said to R. Hanina, 'Have you ever
heard how old Balaam was?' He rephed, 'There is nothing
-written about it (i. e., in Numbers). But from what is -sratten
(in Ps. 55: 23), Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their
days, he must have been thirty-three or thirt}--four vears old.
He (the heretic) said, " Thou hast answered me well. I have seen
the chronicle of Balaam (gospels?), and therein is vTitten ' Balaam
1 The preceding paragraph states that Jesus "came to Jerusalem (Jn. 2:
13-22) when he had attained^the full age of a teacher (magistri), so that
he might properly be listened to by all as a teacher."
2 Irenaeus, ibid.
^ Aboda Zara, Bab. Talm., Frankfurt ed. (1715), f. 196. Ad quodnam
vero aetatis momentum expectandum est antequam vir doctus alios docere
possit ? Resp. ad exactos annos quadraginta. Quoted by Schcettgen.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 407
the lame ! was thirty-three years old when Pinhas the Robber ^
killed him.' " »
Herford of course sees the relation of this to Lk. 3 : 23, but
gives no reason why the Jew should make a point of proving
against the Christian that Jesus at his death was still less
than 35 years of age. The Christian combines Lk. 3 : 23
with the ministry of three or four years imphed In the Fourth
Gospel; but the rabbi falls back upon passages which are
supposed to prove "the age of Balaam when he died." The
anecdote at least reflects contemporary discussion in the
Church on the chronology of Jesus' life. It may reflect the
older debates as to whether Jesus, when he began, had "at
tained the age of a teacher."
It appears, then, that Lk. 3 : 23, so far from representing
the older Palestinian tradition, merely correlates the primitive
date for the crucifixion (TIberii XV-XVI = 28-29 a. d.) with
this evangelist's own synchronism of the Nativity with the
Census of Quirinius (3-2 b. c). The older tradition, as
traceable by all other authorities, merely asserted that Jesus
was bom "in the days of Herod the King," and that he had
"fully attained the age which befits the teacher (40 years)
when he began to teach."
We cannot say more with confidence of Jn. 8: 57, "Thou
art not yet fifty years old" than that It represents the older
Palestinian view rather than the Lukan, and may well be
regarded for this reason. If for no other, as nearer the his
torical fact. Even here, however, It does not appear to be so
much historical Interest which occasions the correction, as
apologetic. Jn. 2:135., on the other hand, may perhaps
Imply an interpretation of Jn. 8: 57 in the exact sense that
1 "Balaam" according to R. Johanan was lame of one foot and blind of
one eye. Cf. Mk. 9: 45, 46.
2 Pinhas Listaah according to Perles is a corruption of Pontius Pilate.
3 Christianity in Talmud, etc., p. 72, quoting B. Sanh. io6b.

4o8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Jesus on the latter occasion was m his forty-ninth year; but
we have repeatedly seen reason for considering Jn. 2 : 13-25
the Insertion of a later hand. Its Introduction of the Idea of
jubilees of years and correspondence with the temple, If not
illusive, may well go beyond the Intention of the original
writer. On any candid interpretation, however. It must be
admitted that the Fourth Gospel repudiates the Lukan date
of the Nativity, on which Basihdes had perhaps already
built up his fantastic symbolism of numbers, and reverts to
the older tradition that Jesus was bom "in the days of
Herod the king," and "had fuUy attained the age of forty
years when he began to teach."
So far as concerns the duration of the ministry the differ
ence of the Fourth Gospel with its predecessors should not
be exaggerated. Mark had already divided the ministry Into
two clearly distinguished parts, of which the former. Includ
ing the Galilean ministry, closed with the great cycle of nar
ratives relating to the Signs of the Loaves and Confession of
Peter. Indications such as ancient readers were as quick to
notice as modern, were not wanting In Mk. 2: 23 and 6:39
that at least one passover season had been spent In Gahlee.
The fourth evangelist simply brings this passover into relation
with the Sign of the Loaves, connecting with it, for reasons
which must be considered in connection with the Quarto
deciman practice of his church, his exposition of the Sacra
ment. This called for a ministry of iioo years Instead of one,
by no means a radical correction of Synoptic tendencies, and
one which besides being suggested, as we have seen, by
casual indications in Mark, may well be in consonance with
historical fact.!
1 Turner (o/>. c//,, pp. 406 and 4096), considers "St. Mark's Gospel . .
to imply, exactly like St. John's, a Iwo-year Ministry." .\11 the fathers
(save Ircn;cus) down to the time of Eusebius who do not subscribe to the
one-year ministry, interpret " John " as requiring a ministrj- of tiuo years.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 409
Besides this correction of the duration of the ministry, so
simply effected by merely dropping in the remark of 6:4,
our evangelist has schematized his story by Interjecting into
each division of the ministry one visit of Jesus to Jerusalem
at each of the three greater "feasts of the Jews," besides one
lesser feast (Dedication, Jn. 10: 22) and a second visit at
Passover. Of these the first visit at Passover (2: 13-25) and
the visit at the minor feast of Dedication (lo: 22-39) have
no miracle, and remain without development in the dialogue;
they are at least of subordinate Importance, and may be
reserved for future discussion.! The visit at Pentecost
(5 : 1 ff.) is signalized by the healing of the paralytic at the
pool of Bethesda, introducing a debate with "the Jews" re
garding Jesus' own authority as Son of man and Lord of the
Sabbath as against the law of Moses. It corresponds, as we
have seen, to the section of Mark on the Growth of Opposi
tion (Mk. 2:1-3:6), which modern criticism freely admits
to be unchronological In arrangement and setting. This Is
the only visit of the Galilean period. The Persean period
begins with a visit "in secret" at "Tabernacles" (7: 2-10).
Its miracle Is the healing of the man born blind, which leads
to a disputation with the "blind" Pharisees including their
accusation "He hath a devil" and the imputation to them
on Jesus' part of the unpardonable sin (9: i-io: 21; cf. Mt.
12 : 22-45). l!! th^ earher portion (7 : 14-8 : 59) It is occupied
with debates which connect themselves in the former part
with the rite of water-pouring on "the last day, the great day
of the feast" (of Tabernacles), in the latter (8: 12-59) with
the Illuminations which also characterized this feast. This
visit distinguishes the Persean period. Passover, the feast of
Redemption from death, has its twofold miracle and Its In-
1 The visit at Passover (2: 13 ff.), as previously observed on several oc
casions, can hardly be reckoned as part of the original scheme. On the
relation of Jn. 10: 22 to its context see Chapter XVIII.

4IO THE FOURTH GOSPEL
terpretative dialogue In Chapter 6. The Passover visit to
Jerusalem of course does not take place at this time, but Is
reserved as the distinctive feature of the Judsean period.
The assumption that Jesus actually visited Jerusalem at
each of the three great feasts of Pentecost, Tabemacles and
Passover, as required In the law (Ex. 23: 14-17) has always
been easy to make on the part of those who reason a priori
as to what "a pious Jew" would do. Josephus ! very pos
sibly employs in part this method of reasoning when he
reckons the number of lambs slain for persons congregated
in and about the httle, poorly provisioned city at 256,500,
Implying some 3,000,000 participants in the feast, without
counting the disqualified. In reality the number who seri
ously and systematically undertook to carry out this (in
20-30 A. D.) absolutely impracticable requirement of !Mosa-
Ism is hkely to be better represented by the 8,000 Pharisees
whom the same authority counts as true obsen'ers of the law
In Israel. Jesus' visits to Jerusalem will have been as rare
as those of his humble Galilean followers, whose poverty
alone would preclude any attempt to live up to the letter of
the requirement. We are far from denying all relations with
Judaea and Peraea to the entire unknown period of thirty
or forty years before the beginning of the ministry. To
greater or less extent they would be almost sure to exist, and
may account for Synoptic e^•idences of acquaintances of
Jesus whose homes are In the south. But a priori reasoning
from the probable conduct of "a pious Jew" to that of
Jesus Is, to say the least, unsafe. Still more objectionable
from a scientific standpoint are attempts to find "evidence"
for previous visits of Jesus to Jerusalem in the quotation
from the "Wisdom of God" in Mt. 23:37 = Lk. 13:34.
Attempts by such means to counteract the Impression con
veyed by the Synoptics that Jesus at the final passover is
1 War, VI, ix, 3.

TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY 411
visiting the temple for the first time In company with the
disciples (Mk. 11: 11; Lk. 19:41) simply discredit the rea-
soner. In reahty the plaint of "the Wisdom of God" em
ploying the Imagery of Ps. 91:4 cannot be apphed to the
visits of a being in human form without grotesque Inappro-
priateness. Even were It possible to imagine Jesus as re
ferring to visits recently made by him as opportunities for
gathering Israel "under his wings," the reference to re
peated sendings In the past of "prophets, wise men and
scribes" could only apply to the non-incarnate "Wisdom of
God." It Is when we study the nature of the dialogues on
the Authority of the Son of Man, the Bread of Life, the Liv
ing Water and Light of the World in Jn. 5, 6 and 7 f., that
we perceive the real "Johannine" relation of Jesus to the
"feasts of the Jews." It Is not historical, but Interpretative
and doctrinal. We cannot draw from It an itinerary of
Jesus' journeys during the ministry; but we may obtain
from It, if we will, a real Insight Into the mind of Christ,
as understood and interpreted well-nigh a century after, on
"the feasts of the Jews" as superseded and glorified in the
ritual "of the Christian Church.

CHAPTER XVI
JOHANNINE QUARTODECIMANISM
According to Dr. Turner !
" St. John's Gospel distinguishes itself from the other three by
its careful enumeration of six notes of time, five of them Jewish
festivals, between the Baptism and the Crucifixion; and these
precise and detailed recollections of an eye-witness must be al
lowed decisive weight against the apparently divergent testimony
of the third Synoptist, not to say that their very precision may
have consciously aimed at a silent correction of impressions
erroneously derived from earlier evangelical narratives.
We have seen in the preceding chapter to what extent the
fourth evangehst's corrections of his predecessor's datings of
Jesus' birth and death deserve the name of "precise and de
tailed recollections of an eye-witness." To some extent we
have been enabled to form a judgment also concerning this
evangelist's return to a scheme of the ministry more like that
of Mark In its two-year duration. His adjustment of the
story to "the feasts of the Jews" has appeared, however, to
be artificial.
In the present chapter we shall discover another Instance
In which the practice and belief of Asia has led the fourth
evangelist to revert from the conception of the present form
of Mark, characteristic of Roman ritual since the earhest
times and through Mark dominating the dependent first and
third Gospel, toward a conception certainly antecedent, be
cause Imphed In the material of Mark itself, If not in the.
independent material of Luke also. The practice in ques-
1 op. cit., p. 407a.
412

QUARTODECIMANISM 413
tion Is that, the defense of which by "the churches of Asia"
In 150-200 A. D. has already occupied our attention on ac
count of Its relation to the claims advanced in behalf of the
Gospel during this period,! (-j-^g annual commemoration of
the death and resurrection of Jesus coincidently with "the
feast of the Jews" on the fourteenth Nisan. This practice
has been designated by ecclesiastical historians Quarto
decimanism, a term which may also be extended to cover
the divergent ritual of certain sects In Cappadocia which
early substituted the Juhan solar calendar for the com
plicated lunar system of Jewish observance. For the real
differences of the controversy lie elsewhere.^ Throughout Its
course those who followed the Asiatic practice are distin
guished from followers of the Roman as "observers" vs.
"non-observers" (sc. of "the Fast").^ Quartodecimans ac
cused anti-Quartodecimans of "recklessness" in disregard
ing the law (Ex. 12 : 1-28),* which they themselves of course
interpreted as applying to the Redemption effected by the
Passion and Resurrection. Conversely, anti-Quartodecimans
accused Quartodecimans of " Judaizing," because,
"at the season in which the Jews keep their feast of unleavened
bread, then they themselves (the Quartodecimans) are eager to
hold the (Christian) Passover." '
1 See Chapter X.
2 Schurer (art. "Passastreit," eic, in Zts. f. d. hist. Theol., i8jo, p. 251)
pronounces the declaration of Epiphanius (Haer. L. i) that the Cappado
cian observers of Easter on March 25th were Quartodecimans, one of the
all too frequent blunders and misstatements of that father. His reasoning,
however, is based on the fallacious assumption that Quartodecimans sought
conformity with Jewish practice for its own sake, instead of for the sake of
fixing the true date of the Passion.
3 See Drummond, op. cit. p. 479, note 3 on irtipijoav, p.^ rripovvres.
< So, e. g., Blastus, whose schismatic disturbance of the peace of the
churches at Rome was rebuked by Irenaeus. See above, p. 247 f., and Ps.-
Tert., Adv. Haer. viii.
5 Epiphanius, Her. LXX, 9.

414 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
The mere substitution of the Juhan calendar for that of the
Synagogue — if Indeed the Jews too In Cappadocia had not
made the same reform — did not affect the substance of the
matter. The essential difference was that In Asia, where the
influences of Judaism were stronger, the Church persisted in
observing the greatest of the Jewish feasts; whereas Rome
and the West, though in the later phases of the controversy
biblical phraseology naturally attached itself to the Easter
celebration, took the more radically Pauhne ground that all
the feasts and sacred seasons of Judaism were done away in
Christ.! Just as the presence and claims of the X literature
reflect themselves on one side and the other of the Mon
tanistic controversy, so was it with the so-called Paschal
controversy of earlier origin and longer duration. Only In
the latter we have the additional point of connection that sub
sequent to the appearance of the Alogi (ca. i8o a. d.) we
observe conflicting methods of reconciling the Fourth Gospel
with its predecessors. Gaius of Rome, as we have seen,
called attention to the discrepancy of the earher beginning
of the ministry In the Fourth Gospel than In the Synoptics.
The charge formed part of his attempt to disparage the
Gospel of his opponents the " Phrygians "; others at about the
same period, or still earlier, had observed that its period for
the ministry requires at least two years Instead of the Synoptic
one-year period ; ^ and not only this but Its stiU more striking
discrepancy with the Synoptics regarding the most sacred
season of Christian observance, the "night In which the
Lord Jesus was betrayed" (I Cor. ii: 23), and the ensuing
day, In which he had "given his life a redemption price
(X-vrpov) for many."
1 The most radical representative of this view was one Aerius, a con
temporary of Epiphanius, who wished to do away altogether with the festival
as a "clinging to Jewish fables'' (see Drummond's citation, op. cit., p. 490).
2 So Melito of Sardis, ca. 167 A. D.

QUARTODECIMANISM 415
In the Fourth Gospel, notoriously, the Last Supper takes
place "before the passover" (Jn. 13: i); the purchases "for
the feast" are then stiU to be made (13: 29); the priests on
the following morning have not yet "eaten the passover"
(18: 28); the great event of this day — Pilate's condemnation
of Jesus to the cross — Is clearly and definitely dated as oc
curring at noon on "the Preparation of the Passover" (i. e.,
the day on which the prehmlnarles of the feast, such as put
ting away the leaven and slaughtering the lamb, were sol
emnly performed); ! finally the removal of the bodies from
the crosses is accounted for in the Fourth Gospel by the ad
ditional reason, beyond the fact specified by the Synoptists
of the morrow being a sabbath, that "that sabbath was a
high day" (19: 31), as would of course be the case with the
first, but not In the same degree. If at all, of the second day
of unleavened bread (Lev. 23: 7).
Modern attempts at harmonization ' have at least the
merit of showing how each side in the second century con
troversy could discover a mode of exegesis by which the
charge of "causing the Gospels to disagree" could be leveled
at its opponents.^ Modem scholars are so nearly agreed in
1 It is true that the same term, irapaaKeiii, could be applied to the sixth
day of the week as the "preparation" for the Sabbath. But the fourth
evangelist is not counting days of the week, nor has he any interest in de
termining on what day of the week the crucifixion took place except that it
was "three days" before the Resurrection "on the first day of the week"
(20: i; cf. 2: 19). Previous to 20: i he reckons by days "before the Pass
over" (12: i). The preparation day of the Passover if it could ever mean
"the Friday of passover week,'' an ambiguous and unexampled expression,
could not have this meaning after the count had been begun as in Jn. 12: i.
2 The most recent which has come to hand is from the pen of Rev. David
Smith in The Expository Times for August, 1909 (xx, rr), an article en
titled "The Day of the Crucifixion," aiming to show that "John" agrees
with the Synoptists. Jn. 13 : i is a separate paragraph, not to be connected
with 2 ff.; 13: 29 is not explained; 18: 28 refers to the Hagiga of Lev. 23: 6 ff.;
"the sixth hour" (19: 14) is 6 A. m. (how about Jn. 4: 6?), etc.
3 Principal Drummond is convinced that both sides had "some way of

4i6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
admitting the discrepancy, whatever their explanation, that
we may consider the fact already established; especially as
we are further agreed with the leading "defenders" in op
position to Schmiedel and other opponents of the Johannine
authorship, that on this point It Is the Synoptists who are In
error, and not the fourth evangelist. What we are concerned
to show Is not the mere fact of error on one side or the other,
but the cause of both error and correction; seeing that cor
rection may be due either to the superior knowledge of an
eye-witness, or to the better tradition pre\'alent In the region
whence the correcting document emanates. We believe it to
be capable of demonstration that a true tradition had per
petuated Itself among the churches of Asia through their
distinctive anniversary; whereas at Rome and in the West
generally the absence of a strong Jewish element had per
mitted the earlier tradition to become obscured — not, how
ever, to the extent of complete obliteration.
Principal Drummond has greatly contributed to the clar
ification of the much debated question In his admirable
chapter on "The Paschal Controversy" ! reprinted with
slight changes from the American Journal of Theology for
July, 1897. With due recognition of the great learning and
able reasoning of this discussion, wherein all available ma
terial seems to be thoroughly, and for the most part judicially,
considered, we must venture on one or two points to express
a certain degree of dissent.
To Principal Drummond the fundamental character of the
forcing the Gospels to speak with one voice." At all events Quartodecimans
accused their opponents of "making the Gospels disagree." See above,
p. 259. How their opponents reasoned may be seen by the example of Ire
naeus adduced by Drummond (p. 488), from which, however, we cannot
infer what was "possible for Asiatics." Epiphanius' mode of reconciling
the Gospels while adopting the Johannine date is still more curious (op. cit.,
p. 496).
1 Char, and Auth., Bk. II, § 3, Chapter VIII, pp. 444-512.

QUARTODECIMANISM 417
Quartodeciman observance seems so distinctly marked as
"a festival, a time of rejoicing," that it seems to him "need
less to dwell on Its festive character"; though the point Is
admittedly of Importance. For one of the chief points In
dispute is, What did the Quartodecimans commemorate In
their anniversary? Was It the Passion and Resurrection,
the former of which would according to the Fourth Gospel
coincide exactly with the slaughtering of the passover lamb ?
Or was it the institution of the Lord's Supper? In the for
mer case the Fourth Gospel would be the great bulwark of
Quartodecimanism. Its author would be strongly opposed
to the Synoptic representation, like the other Asian writers
on the question, and would entirely justify their confident
appeals to It. On the latter supposition the Fourth Gospel
would be the one great exception to Asian sentiment, its
author really opposing those who made their appeal to It,
and treating the Last Supper, of which Quartodecimans took
such extraordinary account, with the utmost possible neglect.
Strange as it may seem, some of the foremost scholars have
taken this view, arguing from It against the Johannine au
thorship. The contention was that whereas it Is conceded
that John the Apostle will have been Quartodeciman In
practice, the Fourth Gospel opposes this; inasmuch as
Quartodecimanism was a commemoration of the institution
of the Supper, resting on the Synoptic dating of this event.
Nothing could be clearer, or to our mind more conclusive,
than Principal Drummond's argument In opposition to this
strange Idea that Quartodeciman practice was founded on
the Synoptic story and chronology, that of the rest of the
Church on the Johannine.! That which was really com-
1 Op. cit., p. 486 ff. Nevertheless Drummond's own colleague at Oxford,
an authority no less eminent than Bigg, in the chapter entitled "The Easter
Controversy," in his Origins of Christianity written in 1908, merely restates
the antiquated theory of Tayler, showing not so much as knowledge of the
Fourth Gospel — 27

4i8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
memorated In the annual observances of what was called
"the Christian Passover" was always and only the Passion
and Resurrection. These were considered as constituting the
greater Redemption (aTroXiirpaaK), Christ's victory through
death over "him that had the power of death" being re
garded as prefigured by the "Redemption" from Egypt.
This turning point In human history was the event com
memorated in the Church's anniversary, whether in Asian
or Roman usage; whether on a single day, as we are Informed
was the general practice of Quartodecimans,! or on two days
corresponding to the fourteenth and sixteenth Nisan, the
day of the slaying of the lamb, and the day of the offering of
the sheaf of firstfruits; whether on the same day as "the
people" (Nisan 14), or on the Lord's day next following, or
on March 25th, or (as In later Cappadocian usage) on the
23d and 25th of March. ^ The idea of an annual feast to
commemorate the institution of a rite is entirely modem In
conception, and, as Drummond's citations abundantly show,
is utterly foreign to the ancient literature of the subject.
More than one citation could be made to the same effect
as that of Trecentlus In the third century,
"For we have no other purpose (in endeavoring to estabhsh
the true date) than to keep the memory of his (Jesus') passion,
and at the time when those who from the beginning were eye
witnesses have handed down." ^

existence of Drummond's complete and scholarly refutation published in
1897 and republished in r904.
1 " One of the objections against Quartodecimans was that although they
followed the Jewish reckoning, they did not carry out the legal prescriptions
with sufficient care; for they confined their celebration to a single day, whereas
they ought to have chosen the sheep on the tenth day, and so fasted for five
days." Drummond, op. cit., p. 490, citing Epiphanius, Haer. L, i, 3 and
LXX, 12.
2 So the fragment of Alexander cited in Chapter XV.
3 Ap. Drummond, op. cit., p. 477.

QUARTODECIMANISM 419
Dr. J. J. Tayler had maintained, however, that the Quar
todecimans " kept as the oldest Christian pascha the anniversary of the fare
well supper on the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan," !
arguing that the festal character of the Christian anniversary
Is fatal to the Idea that it commemorated the death of Christ,
because "If the death-day of Christ was observed on the fourteenth of
Nisan, it must have been observed as a fast day, and would there
fore have been in harmony with the prolonged course of fasting
which preceded the anniversary of the resurrection." ^
The true answer to this argument is that the Quarto
deciman observance did have just this character of a com
memorative fast day and Is particularly so designated In the
oldest and most authoritative reference that we possess:
"For the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also
concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that
they should fast one day, others two, yet others more." ^
Nevertheless this is only partly applicable against Drum
mond's view of the character of the anniversary. It still
remains true that In Its general character the Christian pass-
over was, like the Jewish, a feast; only, like the Mohammedan
feast at the termination of Ramadan, and many similar
Oriental rites. It was a feast terminating a fast.* The ele
ments of the observance in East and West alike Included a
^Fourth Gospel, p. 114.
2 Ibid., p. I2r.
3 Irenaeus, Letter to Victor, ap. Eusebius, H. E. V, xxiv, 12.
^ This breaking of the fast, usually between midnight and dawn of "the
third day," is the point (usually missed by moderns) of many of the resurrec
tion stories, in which Jesus "eats and drinks with" the disciples [Acts i: 4
((TucaXifi/ifvos); 10: 41]; or distributes food (Lk. 24: 42 f.; Jn. 2r: 12). In
Ev. Hebr. James the Lord's brother has assumed a vow of fasting since the
Supper. Jesus appears to him, orders "a table and bread" and says, "My
brother, eat thy bread; for the Son of Man is risen from the dead."

420 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
fast, of longer or shorter duration, commemorating the
sufferings of Jesus' martyrdom, a vigil borrowed from the
observances of passover (Ex. 12 : 42) and in Roman practice
made to correspond with the night of the Betrayal (cf.
Mk. 14:27-42) — and "at cock-crowing," or "in the fourth
watch of the night" a breaking of fast in celebration of the
bursting of the "gates of Hades." The fundamental dis
tinction of Roman usage from Asian was Its insistence that
the sacred mystery of the Resurrection must not be cele
brated "on any other than the Lord's day." This insistence
on accommodation of the Jewish annual festival of passover
to the Christian weekly observance of the Lord's day was the
fundamental cause of the entire disagreement. As Drum
mond well says:
" Regard was paid to three measures of time, the solar year,
the month (lunar), and the week. The first decided the equinox,
after which the festival must be held. The second fixed the
fourteenth day, on which under the law (Ex. 12:6), the sheep
was to be killed, and on which accordingly Christ was crucified.
But a week was observed instead of a single da}-, partly because
a sheep was set apart from the tenth day to the fourteenth (Ex.
12:3), and partly because the events connected with the true
Paschal Lamb were not Hmited to a single day, but comprised
the resurrection which took place two days after the passion.
The fourteenth day therefore was comprised within the week;
but the breaking of the fast, and the celebration of the festival,
were postponed until the Lord's Day. If, however, the fourteenth
fell on a Sunday, the feast was put off till the next Sundav." '
As a description of the practice whereby at the Council of
Nicsea the great majority of the churches were brought into
uniformity of observance the above extract seems to us a
clear and accurate statement. Its N^eakness hes in the at
tempt to account for the introduction of the week period Into
^Op. cit., p. 485.

QUARTODECIMANISM 421
the purely lunar datings of the loth, 14th, and 16th Nisan.
These dates mark respectively the choosing and slaying of
the paschal lamb and the offering of the sheaf of firstfruits.
They correspond to the anointing of Jesus "six days before
the passover" (Jn. 12: i ff.), his crucifixion, and his mani
festation of himself to Mary "three" days after It. But
this cannot account, as Drummond holds, for the hebdom
adal element. It Is not even true that Firstfruits would fall
on the same week-day (whatever that day might be) as the
choosing of the Lamb; for Nisan lo^NIsan 16 = 6 (not 7)
days. Moreover (i) the correspondence of the Anointing of
Jesus in Bethany with the Choosing of the Lamb is obtained
by the fourth evangelist alone, and this by dint of one of the
most startling of his "corrections of the Synoptics"; yet it is
just In the Fourth Gospel that the days of the week are least
considered. For this supposed starting point "six days
before the passover," the day of the week is not fixed at all.
Only a roundabout inference from Jn. 19:31 and 20:1
enables the curious reader who will count backward, re
membering that the ancient practice Is to count both termini
of Intervals, to discover that In the year in question Nisan 10,
"six days before the passover" (Nisan 15= first of Unleav
ened Bread) would have been a Monday. The evangelist,
however. Is not here concerned with the week-day on which
Nisan 10 happened to faU that year. He wishes only to
make clear that the anointing of Jesus, because (uncon
sciously) done "against the day of his burying" corresponded
with the choosing of the lamb for the, sacrifice of the Re
demption ordained by the law for "the tenth day of the
month" (Ex. 12 : 3). He cannot, then, be reckoning here by
week-days. Much less the Synoptists, who make the period
one of four days only.
(2) Strange as It may seem at first sight, there was at first
no uniformity in determining the Interval between Jesus'

422 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
death and his resurrection. It was not even In strictness his
resurrection, i. e., his return to earth to manifest himself to
his disciples, which was primarily celebrated in "the Chris
tian passover." The return from the under-world, when
celebrated separately, was celebrated on the day of First-
fruits (Nisan i6), the "third day according to the scriptures"
of I Cor. 15:4; for it Is the Imagery of the new sheaf of wheat
restored from Its burial under the soil which suggests the
whole tenor of this sublime chapter In which Paul declares:
"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and (by his return to the
world of the living as first of a great harvest of souls redeemed
from the power of the grave and gifted with the body of incor-
ruption) become the Firstfruits (dirapxn) of them that slept."
Where conformity to the Mosaic ritual was less close than
among the Corinthians, whom Paul is constantly reminding
In this letter of the ritual of passover (I Cor. 5 : 7, 8; c/. 16: 8),
Quartodecimans would observe only the one great day of
passover, the feast of Unleavened Bread, introduced by its
"night of vigil unto the Lord," and preceded by a longer or
shorter period of fasting ! In commemoration of Jesus'
suffering. But as to why this fasting could be turned Into
feasting already In the very night of the day which commem
orated Jesus' death without waiting for the ensuing Lord's
day, or even for the "third day" (i. e., Firstfruits = Nisan 16)
we need not be in the dark. The famous quotation from
Apollinaris of Hierapohs, one of the foremost champions of
Quartodecimanism and bishop of one of Its greatest strong-
1 Above, p. 419, note 4. We may conjecture from Jn. 12: i that in Asia
the period recognized at the time as the appropriate one was "si-X days"
(»'. c, five by modern count). We can hardly infer from Mk. 14: i ff. that
the period in Rome was then of "two days," because the date of verse i was
not originally intended to cover verses 3-9. See below and Beginnings of
Gospel Story, ad loc. In some cases, as the letter of Irena?us informs us, it
covered but 40 hours, /. e., from 3-5 p. M. on Nisan 14 to "the fourth watch
of the night" of Nisan 16.

QUARTODECIMANISM 423
holds, leaves no room for question on this point to minds
awake to the distinction between Christ's victory over the
powers of darkness and death, and his subsequent reappear
ance on earth to report the triumph to his downcast followers.
"The fourteenth (of Nisan) is the true passover of the Lord,
the great sacrifice, the Servant (iraXq) of God instead of the
lamb, he who was bound binding the 'strong man' (Mt. 12: 29 =
Lk. 11:21-22, applied by the fathers to the binding of Satan,
who 'had the power of death'), he who was judged becoming
Judge of quick and dead, he who was delivered into the hands
of sinners to be crucified, he who was lifted up on the horns of
the unicorn (an allusion to Ps. 22: 21, supposed to refer to the
transverse beam of the cross), and who when his holy side had
been pierced poured forth out of his side the two media of purifi
cation, water and blood, word and spirit, he who was buried on
the day of the passover, the stone being laid upon the tomb." !
The victory which this ardent Quartodeciman and lover of
the Fourth Gospel^ sees commemorated In "the true pass-
over of the Lord" Is one accomphshed "on the day of the
passover," during the hours while Jesus' body lay buried
"the stone being laid upon the tomb." It was on the fol
lowing day, the day of Firstfruits (Nisan 16; in that > year
a Sunday) that he came forth from the grave to announce
his victory, ascend to the Father, and returning, "the same
^ Ap. Charteris, Canonicity, p. 194.
2 Drummond's disproof of Schiirer's view that Apollinaris was not Quar
todeciman in his sympathies (op. cit., p. 507) is entirely sound. The non
appearance of Apollinaris in Polycrates' list need not be due to his sympathy
with Roman practice against the unanimous conviction of Asia (Euseb.
H. E. V, xxiii, i) on the main question of the monthly vs. the weekly date.
It is far more probably accounted for by difference on some minor point such
as the Cappadocian peculiarity of using the Julian instead of the Jewish
calendar. The differences of Quartodecimans among themselves on this
point, or on methods of interpreting the Synoptics in harmony with John,
may also account for the "great controversy about the Passover in Laodicea"
ca. 170 (H. E. IV, xxvi, 3).

424 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
day at evening it being the first day of the week," bestow
upon his assembled disciples the gift of the Spirit, brought
with him from the Father.!
This earlier dating of the victory over death is not peculiar
to the Fourth Gospel. Even Ev. Petri makes the ascension
take place from the cross itself, to say nothing of the docetic
Acts of 7o/jw which make the glorification precede the Passion.
I Pt. 3:18-22; 4:6, makes the separation of Jesus' spirit
from his body on the cross the immediate antecedent of his
conquest of the under-world ; and this representation Is Itself
only a development of Paul's in his great letters to the
churches of Asia, wherein Christ's triumph "in the cross"
over "the principalities and the powers" of the under-world
(Col. 2: 13-15) is connected with the triumphal ode of the
Redemption from Egypt (Ps. 68:18; cf. Eph. 4:8-10).
Even the vigil of Israel at Passover, "having their loins girt,
their feet shod, and staff In hand ready to go forth" (Ex. 12:
II, 34, 39) Is paralleled in Paul's thought, not as In Ivlark by
the vigil of Jesus In Gethsemane, where the disciples in face
of approaching trial show the weakness of the flesh, but by
the vigil of the Church awaiting as "prisoners of darkness" ^
the summons of its Leader to an eternal redemption. The
enemy is "the world-rulers of this darkness," "the spiritual
hosts of wickedness," the "Prince of the power of the air,"
Vv'hose stronghold of death and the grave has been invaded
by a stronger than he, delivering his "captivity." The wait-*
1 Jn. 20: 17-23. The Fourth Gospel like the Epistle of Barnabas places
the ascension on the same day as the Resurrection. This would be another'
¦'correction of Luke" were Acts i: 3 ff. justly taken to place the ascension
at the end of the 40-day period of intercourse. In reality Acts means the
same as the Fourth Gospel (see Bacon, "The Ascension in the Fourth Gos
pel and Ads," Expositor, Mar. 1909). The ascension in Lk. 24: 44-51 =
Acts i: 4-12, marks the beginning of the 40-day period. Pentecost (origi
nally) marked the end.
2 So Wisd. of Sol. 17: 2ff.

QUARTODECIMANISM 425
ing Church must "stand having their loins girt about with.
truth . . . having their feet shod with the prepared
ness (iroifxaaia) of the glad tidings of peace," ready to fol
low their triumphant Leader to an eternal Redemption.!
Because It commemorated Christ's victory over the powers
of the under-world, "the Christian passover," independently
of whether It was followed or not by a further festival of
Firstfruits in commemoration of his return to the earth, took
the place both of the Jewish feast of Redemption, and of the
many chthonic mysteries and cults which among Asiatic
Greeks celebrated the vernal equinox as the season of the
reawakening of life. For Quartodecimans and for the fourth
evangehst It was an Interesting coincidence, but nothing more,
that Firstfruits, which when observed at all, marked the close
of their celebration, had fallen In that first year on a "first
day of the week." The essential dates were the vernal equi
nox, symbohc to all races, and the full moon of Nisan, of
supreme significance to the Jews. The week-day was to
their mind unimportant.^
1 Origen is correct in connecting Eph. 6: 10-17 -with Ex. 12: 11 ff. The
whole epistle is full of passover rejoicing, in which the Church's redemption
in the victory of Christ from the "principalities and powers" of the under
world takes the place of Israel's from Egypt. See especially i: 14; 2: 5-7;
3: 10; 4; 8-10; 6: 10-18. The passover vigil is similarly treated in I Thess.
5: 4-ro; cf. in Wisd. of Sol. 18: 15 f., the description of the Logos of God
appearing as the champion of Israel to deliver them out of the house of
bondage. In Ev. Petri, 9: 40, this description is applied to Christ as he
issues from the tomb after his mission to the under-world.
2 On this question of what was celebrated by Quartodecimans on the 14th
Nisan we find ourselves in disagreement with Schiirer's masterly discussion
(Zts.f. d. hist. Theol., 1870, pp.r82-284). According to Schurer (p. 208) "It
is setfTCvident that the 14th cannot have been celebrated as the anniversary
of the resurrection." The assumption is that the victory over death was
associated originally with the third day. The earliest traces of the resurrec
tion faith indicate the contrary. The third day marked the Conqueror's re
turn. The statement on p. 260 is more correct. Easter was the anniversary
of the Redemption as a whole, whether in East or West.

426 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Now if even Paul so greatly appreciated the worth of a
Christianized celebration of Passover, and probably Pente
cost as well (I Cor. i6: 8; Acts 20: 16) it Is needless to point
out the extreme Improbability of the older disciples having
ever ceased to keep these feasts. But If Quartodeciman
practice be the really ancient and apostohc usage, how shall
we account for Roman subordination of the annual and lunar
date to the merely hebdomadal ? Why was feeling so strong
at Rome that the mystery of Redemption from the grave
should be celebrated only on the Lord's day? — Partly, no
doubt, because of an occidental obtuseness to the distinction
between the victory Itself over death, and the announcement
of It to the disciples at the tomb "on the third day"; but
more especially because of the stronger reaction at Rome
against the ceremonial of Judaism. A separate reading of
Mk. 2:18-3:6; 7:1-23 and 10:2-12 may be necessary at
this point for those who question whether the Roman at
titude toward Jewish observances is really of the radical type
corresponding to Gal. 4: 9-11; Col. 2 : 16; Rom. 14: 5, rather
than to Paul's milder and more conservative mood. At aU
events indications are not wanting In Romans Itseff of a
prevailing disposition at Rome to override the "Jewish" ob
servances of the "weak" element. We may Illustrate to
ourselves primitive Roman feeling regarding the keeping of
passovers — even Christianized passovers — by the attitude still
maintained In conservative churches of Puritan origin against
the observance of Easter as savoring of "popery." The
weekly observance of the Lord's day, on the other hand, was
universal and unquestioned. Its distinctive rite was the
breaking of bread in memory of "the Lord's death," which
from the earhest times had followed upon the Agap^ (I Cor.
II : 20 ff.). What more natural than that this rite should be
considered to have done away with the Jewish feast ? What
more plausible than the representation that Jesus himself

QUARTODECIMANISM 427
had Instituted it for the very purpose of superseding the Pass
over on occasion of his last observance of that rite ? As we
understand the bearing of the narrative In Mk. 14-16 the
effort Is apparent throughout to make It appear that the fare
well supper of Jesus with the Twelve was in fact the passover
meal (though the reasons are exceedingly strong against this
having been the case), and that this rite should no more be
observed until fulfilled in the kingdom of God (Mk. 14: 25),
the new ordinance of bread and the cup taking Its place
until the Coming.!
Yet the older view (the so-called "Johannine" which Is
reaUy the Pauhne and apostolic) is distinctly traceable be
neath the surface even in Mark. The purpose of Jesus' death
(Mk. 10: 45) is that of the passover lamb, to provide "a Re
demption for many" (Xvrpov dvrl ttoXXwv). The Anointing
in Bethany (Mk. 14:3-9) is brought Into a relation now
unintelligible with the conspiracy against Jesus' life. Why,.
unless its original application was that which the Fourth
Gospel with its new dating supplies?^ The "two days"
of Mk. 14:2 are Intended to show why the betrayal must
take place on the night Immediately following the conspiracy,
lest If the execution take place "on the feast day" "there be
an uproar of the people," — and yet as the narrative now
stands it does take place "on the feast day." At the supper
1 C/-. Schiirer, op. cit., p. 192, "We see then that according to ancient
Christian parlance the sacrificial death of Christ was considered to be the
passover offering of the new covenant on the one side; but on the other the
memorial supper was also considered to be the passover feast of the New
Testament." 2 The whole point of the story of the Anointing lies in Jesus' poetic chang
ing of its intended sense. The woman wishes to anoint Jesus for the Davidic
throne as Samuel had anointed Saul after the feast at his house (I Sam.
10: i). Jesus accepts the tribute, but deprecates the sense implied. The
anointing will prove not for his enthronement, but his burial. The great
stress laid upon its narration (verse 9) is indicative of its connection with the
Easter ritual; cf. Ex. 12: 26 f.

428 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
there Is no trace of passover ritual or surroundings (save the
"hymn" !), no roasted flesh, no ritual five cups, no cere
monial, no abiding in the house till the moming. All Is what
we should expect if the meal were simply the Qiddush of
passover and not the Passover Itself.^
But Interpretation of the Roman Gospel, Its transforma
tion of the older form of the tradition of Passion and Resur
rection, with the motives thereof, does not belong to our
present task. On these points we must refer the reader to
the critical discussion of Mark.^ The First Epistle of Paul
to the Corinthians, written from Ephesus itself, out of the
very midst of the Easter celebrations of that church, or Im
mediately after (I Cor. i6: 8), remains an Impassable barrier
to all attempts to make out the ritual imphed In the Ephesian
Gospel to be the later and that of the Roman the earher.
Paul explicitly declares that the Christian passover is the
sacrifice of Christ's body for us (I Cor. 5 : 7, 8), and im
plicitly. that the Christian Firstfruits Is his resurrection "on
the third day" (15:4, 20 ff.); our "watch-night" (Ex. 12:42)
Is an expectation of his return in triumph to liberate us from
our bondage after having "spoiled" the powers of darkness.^

1 Part of the Christian ritual; Eph. 5: 19; cf. Ep. of Pliny to Trajan.
2 We note with pleasure that both Drummond (p. 52, note i) and Sanday
(Criticism, p. 153) speak in high terms of the "thoughtful paper" of Rev.
G. H. Box, to whom credit is due beyond all others for this helpful identifi
cation (Journ. of Theol. Studies, April, 1902).
3 See Beginnings of Gospel Story, pp. 192-235.
¦•The "spoiling" is partly an element of the Redemption story (Ex.
12: 36; cf. Wisd. of Sol. 10: 20); partly a midrashic inference from Ps. 68:
18 L (reading Ipn "distributed spoil" for r\\>\> "received gifts"; cf. Eph.
4: 8-ir and Col. 2: 15); partly an interpretation of the "spoiling" of the
Strong man Armed (Mt. 12: 29 = Lk. 11: 21-23). What Quartodecimans
made of this appears from one of the arguments urged by Gaius against the
authenticity of Revelation, answered in the fifth of Hippolytus' Heads
against Gaius. "The heretic Caius" argues against the binding of Satan
alleged in Rev. 20: 2 f. that "Satan is already bound, according to what is

QUARTODECIMANISM 429
Certain characteristic tendencies of the post-apostolic age
are the real causes of the strange phenomena which mark
the history of the Roman Gospel. The principal phenomena
are two: (i) the divergence of its present form from prim
itive tradition In respect to the date of Jesus' death, (2) the
suppression of its original narrative of the Resurrection as an
appearance first of all to Peter in Galilee, necessarily later
than "the third day," In favor of one which makes the ap
pearance to the women at the sepulcher "on the third day"
the starting point of all. The tendencies of post-apostolic
times to which we have referred will throw hght upon the
phenomena. First of these tendencies is the Increasing prejudice against
things regarded as Jewish In character. "Let there be
nothing In common with the most hateful mob of the Jews.
We should have no communion with the practices of such
wicked men, the slayers of the Lord," urges Constantine in
his letter on the paschal question. Where the infusion of
Jewish blood and Influence was slighter, as In the West, the
Church would interpret Paul's language against a Judaizing
observance of feasts, new moons, and Sabbath days in the
more uncompromising sense, discouraging as much as pos
sible the practice of a continued observance of the feast
of the fourteenth Nisan, while at the same time clinging to,
and exalting the weekly Agape, with Its accompanying com
memoration of "the Lord's body." The ultimate and in
evitable triumph of the passover anniversary would be con
ditioned on recognition of the superior claims of the weekly
observance, leading to the fixation of the principle that the
celebration of the mystery of the Resurrection was permis
sible on no other but the Lord's day.
A second tendency of the times was a growing disposl-
written (in Mt. 12: 29), that Christ entered the house of the Strong Man
and bound him and despoiled him of us his vessels" (id a-Keir) avrov).

430 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
tion In face of docetic volatlhzlngs of the resurrection doc
trine, to Insist upon the material and concrete character of
Jesus' resurrection body, in fact to identify the victory over
death with the Issuing of his body from the grave. One con
sequence of this un-Pauhne doctrine of the "resurrection of
the flesh" (t?)? adpKo<i In the "Apostles'" Creed) was the
disappearance of the apostohc resurrection tradition start
ing from the manifestation "to Peter" in Galilee. Paul, as
we know, makes this appearance to Peter equivalent to the
manifestation of God's Son "in" himself (I Cor. 15:5, 8;
cf. Gal. 1 : 16; 2 : 8), and ignores occurrences at the sepulcher.
In Markan and subsequent evangelic story this resurrection
tradition disappears In favor of another, whose starting point
is a manifestation to the women at the sepulcher at dawn
of "the first day of the week." Thus "the first day of the
week" and its newly established connection with the Resur
rection ! becomes the fundamental epoch of the Church, and
resurrection traditions and observances which failed to agree
with the Idea of the victory over death as achieved on "the
Lord's day," especiaUy if like those of Ev. Petri they re
ported the manifestations to Peter and the rest as subsequent
to the experience of the women, necessarily fell into the
background. Nothing, accordingly, In the whole domain of criticism csin
be more certain than that the Roman Gospel of Mark In its
present form has displaced the earlier, Pauhne resurrection
tradition, which centered on the appearance to Peter in
Galilee, when he "turned again and stabhshed his brethren"
justly redeeming his position as leader of the Tweh-e. In
Mark a later and alien tradition, which focusses attention
1 "The third day" did not necessarily mean "the first day of the week,"
but only Nisan i6, the day of Firstfruits. Mk. i6: 8 shows the newness of
the tradition by accounting for its non-appearance up to date. The women
had not told their experience "because they were afraid."

QUARTODECIMANISM 431
not on the victory won over the powers of darkness "In the
spirit" wherein Jesus "went and preached unto the spirits
in prison" (I Pt. 3: 18-22), but on the mere physical wonder
of the empty tomb, has been substituted for the apostohc.
It Is no small merit of the "spiritual Gospel" that while It
follows, and even exaggerates — as was unavoidable In its
period — the tendency toward the Jerusalem form of the tra
dition, it remains faithful to the conception of the Easter
anniversary as commemorating the victory of Christ over
the power of death (Jn. 12 : 24-36) in the more truly Pauline
and authentic sense. This Is the chief significance of Its re
turn to the earlier conception of the nature and date of the
Last Supper and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as "our
passover;" and this "Quartodeciman" conception it main
tains firmly and uncompromisingly, albeit without needless
affront to recognized evangelic authorities.
The central feature of the Johannine treatment of the
eucharistic sacrament Is the bold transfer of it from the Pass
over, with which Mark and his satellites had made It coincide,
to another passover of the preceding year, when Jesus had
remained In Gahlee. Instead of Instituting the sacrament of
his body and blood at the farewell supper In Jerusalem,
Jesus is now made, by what from the merely historical
standpoint Is nothmg less than a staggering anachronism,
to connect it with the Miracle of the Loaves in Galilee
(Jn. 6:30-59). The evangelist attaches his interpretative
discourse to a Markan feature of this cycle of Agape tra
ditions, viz., the Demand of a Sign from Heaven (Mk. 8:11-
13, a sequel to the second Feeding of the Multitude, 8: i-io).
Through this connection the sacrament still remains as in
Mark a New Testament counterpart of the Passover — for
the Miracle of the Loaves Is expressly at "the passover"
(6 : 4) — without violence to this evangelist's more funda
mental principle that the death of Jesus on the cross at the

432 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
very hour of Nisan 14 when the passover lambs were being
slain (3-5 p. M.; cf. Jn. 19: 14, 31, 36), was the real beginning
of the Christian passover. By this transfer the Fourth Gos
pel displays a fundamentally Quartodeciman point of view.
The dissociation of the institution of the Eucharist from Its
connection with the passover supper and association of It
with the Agape, as a rite connected with the Galilean Break
ing of Bread rather than with the scenes of the "upper room,"
is only partly true to historical fact; for the Eucharist really
was instituted at Jerusalem as an adaptation of the Breaking
of Bread. Nevertheless the correction of the Roman miscon
ception: the Eucharist a substitute for Passover, and the
return to the Pauline and apostolic: Christ crucified our
Passover, his resurrection our Firstfruits, is as true to fact,
and as deeply significant, as it Is distinctive of the behef
and practice of "Asia" in the second century.
We have already noted as proof of this Quartodecimanism
the many references in the Johannine passion story which
tacitly but firmly correct the Markan dating of Nisan 15.
That which so conspicuously begins the series by dating the
anointing in Bethany "six days (cf. Mk. 14: i, 'two days')
before the passover" (i. e., Nisan 10) is inexphcable save as
an attempt to bring the story into correspondence with the
law for the choosing of the passover lamb (Ex. 12:3) and
with actual Quartodeciman practice. The clear Indications
of 13: I and 29 that the Last Supper was held "before the
feast of the passover," and the substitution of the rite of foot-
washing (I Tim. 5 : 10) as an example of self-abnegating
service (cf. Lk. 22 : 24-27) for the Institution of the eucharist,
together with the correspondences subsequently established
by date and circumstance in the story of the crucifixion itseff
between the experiences of Jesus and the treatment of the
passover lamb (19:14, :'.,2,) Icaxc no room for reasonable
doubt that the fourth c\'angelist Is bent upon restoring the

QUARTODECIMANISM 433
relation which Paul had already formulated (I Cor. 5 : 6,
7; 15: 20 ff.), but which had been nullified by the Markan
perversion. We have seen that even aside from Paul, his
torical probabihty Is in favor of Nisan 14 rather than 15 as
the true date. But is it possible to reason from this "correc
tion of the Synoptics" that the evangehst was an eye-witness
of the events? — The whole purpose, manner, and Interest of
his narrative show that such is not the case. It Is the ritual
Interest which dominates. The anointing, crucifixion, death,
and resurrection are dated on Nisan loth, 14th and i6th
respectively, not because the evangelist recalls the true dates,
and wishes for the sake of historical accuracy to make these
slight rectifications In Synoptic story; but because the great
and distinctive ritual observance of the churches which he
represents is at stake, an observance which he rightly be
lieves had been transmitted unbroken from the times of the
apostles, and which If we ourselves had perpetuated It might
have gone far to counteract the materiahsm with which the
doctrine of Christ's victory over death has become Infected.
Moreover, In spite of the conspicuous anachronism of the
dialogue which marks our evangelist's development of the
Markan sequel to the Miracle of the Loaves, it Is quite a
mistake to suppose that Mark has altogether the right on his
side and the fourth evangelist the wrong, in their connection
of the Breaking of Bread with the Gahlean and the Jerusa
lem occasions respectively. Box has justly pointed out that
Jesus is recognized "in the breaking of bread" by disciples
who know nothing of the latter (Lk. 24:35). This imphes
that the action at the Last Supper was not so much the in
stitution of a new rite (so Mark for reasons already ex
plained) as the adaptation and perpetuation of a practice
already characteristic of Jesus' Intercourse with his disciples.
In asking them to continue the practice "in memory" of
him (I Cor. 11: 24f.) Jesus recalled the unselfish generosity
Fourth Gospel — 28

434 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
of many months of Intercourse, during which he had filled
the place of father and host to the httle company. Yes, on
one occasion he had extended it to a multitude of outsiders
whom he bade the disciples treat as guests.! ^^j j^q^ g^^ j^g
parting repast he was giving all that remained his to give,
his body and his blood. He wished the wonted sharing of the
common loaf and cup to remain a memorial of the spirit
which had dominated his life, and was now to be exemphfied
In his death — dyarrr], the spirit of self-abnegating, minister
ing love. Because the observance instituted by Jesus at the
Last Supper was not new either In the form of observance,
or In the spirit exemplified, but only In its present more
tragic application, the Eucharist In the practice of the
Church did not become an annual substitute for the Passover,
as Mark's narrative would lead us to expect, but was attached
to the Agape or banquet of brotherhood to form Its solemn
close. It became thus from the outset a rite of weekly. If
not of daily, occurrence. In attaching, then, his interpre
tation of the Eucharist to the story of the Feeding of the
Multitude Instead of to the Last Supper the fourth evangehst
is profoundly true while superficially In error. He violates
the mere historical proprieties to an extraordinary degree;
but only the better to convey the true, and In a higher sense
the historical, meaning of the Church's rite. In connecting
his Institution of the Eucharist with the Passover In Galilee,
not with that In Jerusalem, he has flouted historical fact to
convey to us spiritual truth.
The example of the evangelist's treatment of the greatest
of the three appointed feasts of the Jewish law should serve
1 We cannot agree vi'ith Schmiedel (op. cit., pp. 103-110) that there is no
historical basis for the story of the Feeding of the Multitude, six times re
lated in the Gospels. The very persistence of the rite of the brotherhood
banquet (dyairi]) attests the age of the tradition, which in all its details aims
to justify and explain the ritual.

QUARTODECIMANISM 435
as our key to his treatment of the lesser two. With deeper
and more genuine Insight Into the true spirit of Paul than
that which considered only his prohibition of Jewish sab
baths, feasts, and new moons, the Ephesian Gospel empha
sizes the affirmative side of the command :
" Let no man judge you in meat or drink or in respect of a
feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow
of the things to come; but the body is Christ's." !
How the passover is continued in the Agape and Eucharist,
even though the Last Supper was not a passover meal, is
shown in the two passover narratives of the Gospel, the first
in Gahlee, the second In Jerusalem.^ We have in addition
two further chapters devoted to the Incidents and dialogues
connected with visits of Jesus to Jerusalem on occasion of
"the feasts of the Jews." The former of these (chapter 5)
belongs to the Galilean ministry and leaves the feast un
named.^ We have already inferred from the subject of the
dialogue that the feast intended Is that of Pentecost, the
feast regarded as commemorating the Giving of the Law.
We need not here repeat the demonstration that Jn. 5 sim
ply recasts the Markan group of Incidents on the Growth
of Opposition (Mk. 2 : 1-3 : 6) Itself framed on the model
of the Q group on How they were stumbled in him (Mt. 1 1 :
2-19 = Lk. 7:18-35). Here, as was appropriate to a first
occasion of Jesus' observance of the Mosaic feasts, the ques
tion of the sabbath occupies the foreground. The sabbatic
imitation of God's "rest" is not simply set aside as In Mark,
but as In Hebrews and the fathers generally, fulfilled In the
Imitation of God's work of mercy, which is declared to be
1 Col. 2: 16-17.
2 On the reason for disregarding Jn. 2: 13-25, see Chapter XVIII.
3 The reason of the omission (cancelation) is probably connected with
the present position of the chapter, immediately preceding the incidents of
"passover" in Chapter 6. On the probable readjustments of order which
this portion of the Gospel has undergone, see Chapter XIX.

436 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
unbroken. The dialogue sets the authority of Jesus as Son
of man (cf. Mk. 2: 10, 28) in contrast with that of Moses,
explains his relation to John the Baptist, and concludes with
a parallel (7: 15-24) ! to the conspiracy against Jesus' life of
Mk. 3 : 6. Even the scenic setting of a visit at Pentecost to
Jerusalem is less foreign to Mk. 2:1-3:6 than at first sight
would appear. Mk. 2 : 23 implied a journey with the dis
ciples at the season of Pentecost. The conspiracy of Mk. 3: 6
'Strikingly recaUs that of Mk. 12: 13 at Jerusalem. StiU the
dominant reason for this innovation In Synoptic story must
be found In the evangehst's more conservative understand
ing of Christian continuation of "the feasts of the Jews." ^
As regards the other feast which Jesus attends at Jerusa
lem at the beginning of the Peraan ministry the e^'angelIst
is exphcit. It Is the Feast of Tabemacles (Jn. 7 : 2). Here
again Incidents and dialogue reproduce the distinctive fea
tures of the Jewish ritual, water-pouring and illumination.
Tabernacles, unlike Pentecost, would not seem to have passed
over into Christian observance. Jesus at first dechnes to go
up to this feast (7:8). Ultimately, however, he goes up at its
latter part, only, it would seem, to make use of its symbohsm
as pointing to himself. Here too we need not further ex
emplify the principle. What our evangelist gives is not
"careful enumeration of notes of time" for the benefit of
chronologlsts nor "detailed recollections of an eye-witness";
but a reconstruction of Markan story In the sense of the
deeper and more "spiritual" Pauline doctrine. His belief
is that Jesus observed the legal requirement of attendance at
the three feasts of the Jews, Pentecost, Tabernacles and
Passover, and at the same time that he also transcended and
1 On the connection of this paragraph with Chapter 5, sec below. Chapter
XIX. 2 For proof that the alleged visits to Jerusalem during the ministry are
nevertheless quite unhistorical, see Drummond, pp. 42-46.

QUARTODECIMANISM 437
fulfilled all In the same manner as he fulfilled the great Feast
of the Redemption.
Our discussion of the Indirect Internal Evidence has pur
posely refrained from those aspects of the problem which
have been adequately and judiciously treated by others.
We have left the history of the Logos doctrine In Its wider
aspects to Aall,! the relations of the evangehst to contempo
rary philosophic thought to J. GriU,^ the Prologue to Har
nack and Baldensperger.^ Even the bibhcal theology of
the Fourth Gospel, Including the demonstration of the late
and advanced character of the evangelist's eschatology,-* his
doctrine of sin and redemption and the like we have left to
Scott, not to mention others. We have said nothing of the
evangelist's oracular style, not merely adopted for himself
but put In the mouth of Jesus and more or less of all the
characters. The conception of Jesus' mode of speech, and
of "inspired" utterance in general, seems to be that of
apodlctic, enigmatic apothegms on the mystic relations of
the soul, whose deeper senses are developed by the misun
derstanding they uniformly encounter In the hearers. This
form of dialectic, monotonously revolving around the same
few great themes, has been sufficiently set forth as char
acteristic of the " Johannine" style by Schmiedel and Wrede.^
It certainly is not primitive or true to fact.
^Geschichte der Logosidee, Bd. I, 1896; Bd. II, 1899.
2 Untersuchungen iiber die Entslehung des vierten Evangeliums. Erster
Theil, 1902.
3 Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums, sein polemisch-apologetischer
Zweck, 1898.
4 On this, see the noteworthy admission of Drummond, p. 37.
5 Charakter und Tendenz des Johannesevangeliums, 1903. The argument
is not answered by counting the number of sentences to a paragraph and
showing that the sentences of the fourth evangelist are not longer than the
Synoptists'. Drummond (pp. 16-20) has more nearly defined the differ
ence as one of contents; but this is not all.

438 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
With all these omissions our results are far from supporting
the theory of an eye-witness gi^'ing "precise and detailed
recollections." On the contrary, the whole structure of the
work reveals a non-historical, theoretic purpose. Its whole
conception of Jesus' career, and his relation to his environ
ment is patterned on the disputes of the post-apostolic age.
His teaching is a more developed Paulinism; the reported
incidents of his hfe are dependent on Synoptic tradition,
sometimes misunderstood, more often than not exaggerated
and distorted to fit theological assumptions as to his super
human nature. The unhistorical tendencies which aheady
become apparent by comparison of the earher sources are
here uniformly found carried much further stiU. The "pre
cise details" supposed to speak for the "eye-witness" on
closer scrutiny tend to the opposite conclusion, and even
the "corrections of the Synoptics" which have some right to
be considered really such, find their most reasonable and
simple explanation in a tradition and practice older Indeed
than that represented by the Synoptic Gospels In their pres
ent form, but by no means attributable to eye-witnesses only.
If then our decision be adverse to the historicity of this
Gospel, as well as to Its apostohc authorship. It by no means
follows that the foes of true evangehc orthodoxy gain any
advantage whatever. A theory of authorship based on the
guesses of second century editors will be given up, a theory
which has no support in the nature of the writing itself, and
only abuses It in the attempt to make the "spiritual" sub
servient to the material, the metaphysical to the concrete.
When we have ceased the barren search for the "precise and
detailed recoUections of an eye-witness" where none should
be expected, and have learned something of the nature of
this writing by observing Its hterary connections and the
environment from which it grew, wc shall begin to win from
it tenfold greater service to our devotion and faith than ever

QUARTODECIMANISM 439
heretofore. The "precise details of an eye-witness" cor
recting the imperfect record of Synoptic story seem very
precious In the eyes of the historical critic; but they have
never been to the average Christian the reason for his love
of this Gospel. The reason has been that it gave expression
more perfectly than any other to the profound and spiritual
gospel of Paul, that apostle who not having known Christ
after the flesh yet penetrated more deeply than any other to
the true significance of his being and message. It gave men
life through faith — taught them "by beheving to have hfe
In his name." It is Paul who really speaks again to us
through the pages of the Fourth Gospel, and Paul was not
deceived when he wrote "and we have the mind of Christ."
That disciple to whom his life had become no longer his own
but Christ living In him speaks to us through the form of
"the disciple whom Jesus loved."
When we can be satisfied to take this Gospel for what It Is,
the richest, choicest flower of the spiritual life of the Pauline
churches a half-century after Paul's death, when we begin
to study its spiritual lessons against the background of that
Inward history, a new era will begin in the appreciation of
this great Gospel. But "spiritual things must be spiritually
discerned."

PART IV
LATEST PHASES OF DEBATE AND RESEARCH

PART IV
LATEST PHASES OF DEBATE AND RESEARCH
CHAPTER XVII
THE DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL
A generation ago "the genuineness of St. John's Gospel"
was declared by the foremost conservative scholar to be
"the center of the position of those who uphold the his
torical truth of the record of our Lord Jesus Christ given us
In the New Testament." ! The latest supporters of the
traditional view of the authorship it is to be hoped are not
disposed to throw upon its opponents the odium of disloyalty
to the common Lord and Master, or even of enmity to that
mystical or Pauhne element In our religion, which seems
to be represented In It. Still It may be well, since they have
chosen for themselves the title of "defenders of the Gospel"
to state that those of opposite conviction are equally per
suaded that the Gospel does need "defense" — from some
of Its friends; also that there Is a t'ype of criticism which
justly deserves the epithet "destructive," because In the In
terest of a mere ecclesiastical theory of authorship educed
by second-century editors from mistaken premises, It under
mines all confidence in the historical veracity and sincerity
of the author. True "defense," on the other hand, would
make clear his real endeavor to set forth the whole truth as
he sees it, however he Inchnes to emphasize Its doctrinal side.
1 Lightfoot. See .above, p. ±.
443

444 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
So long as It Is maintained that the author could have made
real historic fact the basis of his "spiritual" interpretation
of Jesus' hfe and teaching, our respect for his message can
with difficulty survive the shock of the discovery that he
has turned In preference to mere fiction and allegory. If, on
the other hand, as we have maintained, his attempt, how
ever anachronistic and a priori. Is not consciously false to
historic truth, It requires only an adjustment on our part to
his circumstances and point of view to welcome his work as
full of hght and truth. It will prove an illuminating and
Inspiring revelation of the Pauhne conception of the eternal
and spiritual Christ, as apprehended by the generation after
Paul. Critics who are engaged in the facilitation of this ad
justment do not feel that their work is justly designated
"destructive," even if it require the demohtion of a vener
able tradition of the Church. Since the disposition, how
ever, appears to be still strong to identify defense of the
tradition with defense of the Gospel, we shaU endeavor, at
the risk even of a repetition which may seem tedious, to state
precisely where the issue lies. For experience warns us that
a single positive, and — to our own apprehension — unam
biguous statement may prove to be no protection against
misunderstanding in even the highest quarters.!
1 In the article entitled "The 'Defence' of the Fourth Gospel" (Hibbert
Journal, VI, i, Oct., 1907, p. 123) the present author cited as an instance
of fallibility in exegesis even in so great an exegete as Professor Sanday, the
statements that "Professor Bacon ascribes the main body of the Gospel to
John the Presbyter" (Criticism, p. 24) and that he follows "those critics of
vigour and rigour, Schmiedel and H. J. Holtzmann, who would distinguish
the author of the First Epistle of St. John from the Author of the Gospel."
In reality Professor Bacon had written (Introduction, etc., p. 26S): "The
main source on which the compiler of John in its present form has relied is
unmistakably the work of the writer of the three Epistles"; and in the pre
ceding chapter, on "The Apocalypse and the Epistles" (p. 249), he had
written of the latter, "Their author superscribes himself simply 'The El
der.' . . . There remains nothing to indicate that the unknown Elder's
name was John rather than Alcibiades or Melchizedek." In the kindliest

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 445
If our discussion thus far has had any value toward clari
fication of the issue It must have become apparent that the
question really turns first of aU upon the credibility of the
statement of the last (authentic) verse of the Appendix
(21: 24), and second upon the relation of this Appendix and
its kindred "parenthetic additions" In the body of the Gos
pel to the deeper substance. The "defenders' " whole case,
so far as the external evidence is concerned, rests absolutely
upon the single verse Jn. 21:24; because there Is not one
attribution of the Gospel to John, early or late, direct or in
direct, which admits of even plausible reference to any other
source. We are agreed with the "defenders" — although the
matter Is still disputed — as to the meaning of this verse.
We beheve that it really intends to attribute the Gospel to
the Apostle John. We also agree — against some "destruc
tive" critics — with conservatives such as Lightfoot and Blass
that it is Impossible to dissociate the verse in question from
the kindred assertion of 19: 35 which "defenders" make one
of the cardinal positions (when not the cardinal position) In
their argument from the Internal evidence. We may be
pardoned, therefore, if we devote some further consideration
to these central positions of the external and internal evi
dence. It is to be recalled first of all that we are dealing with an
anonymous work, which makes no claim to be from the hand
of John,! g^j^^ which Is only brought Into connection with his
name by means of an Epilogue (21 : 24 f.), acknowledged by
the most ardent "defenders," Including Professor Sanday
spirit, and with a courtesy proverbial among all who know him, Pro
fessor Sanday has privately expressed his regret at the unintentional mis
representation — not so surprising in view of the wide acceptance of the
theory ably represented by Harnack. Since, however, the private expression
alone can scarcely overtake the printed word, we feel compelled to guard
in the present chapter against further misunderstanding.
1 On the ambiguous passages alleged to be such, see below.

446 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
himself, to be attached at a later time by another and un
known hand.* Even the meaning of this unknown editor is
a subject of dispute, to say nothing of the value of his opin
ion. Yet Professor Sanday writes:
" The critics who assert that the Gospel is not the work of an
eye-witness, and even those who say that the last chapter was not
written by the author of the whole, wantonly accuse these last
words (21: 24) of untruth. That is another of the methods of
modern criticism that seem to me sorely in need of reforming.
I hope that a time may come when it will be considered as -wrong
to libel the dead as it is to hbel the hving."
In this hope for better observance of the Ninth Command
ment we cannot but concur. As regards "accusations" and
"defenses," the facts are these. To make It appear possible
to accept the statement of the writer of Jn. 21: 24, In the
particular sense attributed to It by Tatian ( ?), Theophilus of
Antioch, Irenasus, and subsequent tradition, two critics in
modern times have ventured so far as to describe the story
of the raising of Lazarus (Jn. 11) as intentional and con
scious fiction. One Is Renan, whose stubborn chnging to
the traditional authorship was not usually considered to
atone for the violence done In its interest to both critical
sense and rehgious feeling. Renan explained the story of
the raising of Lazarus as a pious fraud at which Jesus, under
pressure of circumstances, was guilty of connivance. The
scene was an acted fiction In which Jesus consented to be
chief vTTOKpirrj'i ! The other vindicator of apostohcity at the
expense of veracity is Principal Drummond, the appearance
of whose book Is thus greeted by Professor Sanday: —
1 See, B. g., Zahn, Einleitung, ii, § 66, pp. 485, 487, and Sanday, p. 81.
The latter admits that Chapter 21 is an appendix, but "by the same hand
as the rest of the Gospel," written when "the aged disciple, feeling death
stealing upon him, might point out that no words of Jesus justified the
expectation" (of his survival). The last phrase is quoted by Sanday from

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 447
"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 very black. A
single book dispelled the clouds and cleared the air. Dr. Drum
mond's Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel is of
special value to the defenders of the Gospel . . . the whole
work is something more than a defence of the Gospel."
Principal Drummond attributes the pious fraud to the
Apostle John. This "eye-witness," he conceives, not only
invented the whole story of Lazarus "to set forth In a vivid
and picturesque form the truth that Jesus Is the resurrection
and the hfe," but expressly intended It as "a repudiation of
the older story" of the Synoptic writers, although these, as
he admits, had set forth the real facts in substantial truth
and soberness.!
To one who himself firmly believed In the sincerity of
both the anonymous evangehst and of his editor in the Ap
pendix, however slight the qualifications of either for his
torical or literary criticism. Principal Drummond's book did
not come quite as the clear shining after rain. To opponents
as well as friends of the traditional authorship it has a very
great and special value, as may be seen from our own de
pendence on It in the preceding chapter. Its discussion of
the internal evidence deserves even Professor Sanday's en
comiums. But the attempt to rescue deductions previously
made from the external evidence, by resort to an extreme
theory of allegory to counteract the inferences naturally sug
gested by the Internal, Is a fatal weakness of the book. At
tempts to gain credit for a theory of authorship by dis
crediting the author still seem to us more hke "hbel of the
dead" than the behef that the author of the Epilogue was in
Drummond. He also admits that " at the very end (21: 24) another hand
does take up the pen."
1 Op. cit., p. 63.

448 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
error.! 'Pq Professor Sanday they convey "an enhance
ment of the value of the Gospel as a record of the beginning
of Christianity." The mere unreformed critic might prefer
not to be required to take the sacred writer's professed de
votion to truth and loyalty to the concrete facts of history
(I Jn. 1 : 2, 3; Jn. i : 14-17 f., 19: 35) In a Pickwickian sense,
nor to occupy in his own person the position of certain well-
meaning rabbis whom Jesus rebuked for "making the word
of God of none effect that they might keep their tradi
tion." The exegesis is not yet wholly obsolete which defends the
traditional theory of the authorship of the Pentateuch by
declaring that Moses wrote by anticipation the account of
his own death which concludes the book. The Talmud
even depicts him bewailing his own end as the Spirit dictated
the words. Later it was thought wiser to allow that the
passages relating to the death of the assumed authors of the
books of Moses, Joshua, and Samuel (these passages and
no more) were written as appendices "by their disciples."
The history of the ecclesiastical tradition of Johannine au
thorship is following step by step In the same course. Does
the Appendix appear to refer to the death of the Beloved
Disciple? — It was written by him by anticipation. Does the
last verse speak in the name of others? — It was written "by
his disciples." Does the contrast developed throughout the
chapter between the "red martyrdom" of Peter and the
peaceful end of "this man" seem to show that the last verse
cannot be disjoined from the context? Does the allusion
to current associations of the name of John with the earthly
"witnesses of Messiah," who according to Mt. 16: 28 were
1 We hold no brief for Harnack, whom Professor Sanday rebukes for
"imputing deliberate fraud" to the writer of 21:24. Harnack's view is
his own. But Professor Sanday extends the charge expressly to all "who
say that the last chapter was not written by the author of the whole"!

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 449
to be ahve and remain at the coming of the Lord, expecta
tions which only the event itself could reaUy disprove, seem
to show a knowledge both of John's death and of conflict
between the inconsistent forms of the tradition? — All this
is nothing. "The aged disciple felt death steahng upon
him," seized his pen and wrote the Appendix. The Gospel
itself, though long since completed, had been kept from
circulation until death should be just near enough to make
It certain John would not survive the parousia, but not so
near as to incapacitate him for his hterary task.
But let us refrain from characterizing this type of exe
gesis and turn rather to a more careful justification of our
own. We have seen that Lightfoot and Sanday were perfectly
justified In pointing to the close connection between Jn. 19:
35 and 21 : 24 as Indicating an Intention to identify the "wit
ness" In question as the Apostle John. This interpretation
ought never to have been questioned. Even the authority
of so eminent a scholar as Bousset Is unavalhng to make
it seem probable that the Beloved Disciple of verse 20 is
to be sought among the nameless "other two disciples" of
verse 2, rather than "the sons of Zebedee" of the same
verse. In his third lecture (pp. 97-108) Professor Sanday
does not conceal the strong attraction which he feels toward
the theory of Delff, which explains the confusion in second-
century tradition between John the Apostle and "John the
Elder," by attributing the Johannine writings to the latter
and applying to him most of the traditions. The theory
unquestionably gains weight from the growing evidence most
forcibly presented by Bousset,! that the martyrdom of the
son of Zebedee predicted in Mt. 2o:23=Mk. 10:39, ^^r
which Lk. 22:30 significantly substitutes the logion Mt.
19 : 28, not only took place in Judsea not long after that of
1 Theol. Rundschau, 1905, pp. 225, 277 ff. See above. Chapter V.
Fourth Gospel — 29

450 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the namesake of his brother,! but was actually related by
Papias.^ Nevertheless the objection which appears to be
the most serious in Professor Sanday's view Is to us also
Insuperable. Galatians and Acts certainly have the son of
Zebedee in mind as the John who Is associated with Pe'ier
as nearest In apostolic rank, and In Mk. 3: i6, 17 he is on
the road to this distinction. It is not sound and Impartial
exegesis which would substitute In the Appendix, where the
"two witnesses" are balanced over against one another, Peter
plus some utterly unknown personage in place of "Peter and
John." Delff and Bousset yield here to the laudable but mis
leading desire to justify tradition and acquit R of error. We
have seen already an explanation of the Incoming of the name
of "John" more In accord with the known facts of second-
century debate.
We must further concede to Professor Sanday the real
weight of that authority to which he refers as aU-sufficient
for the proof that the last chapter Is by the same hand as the
rest of the Gospel.^ Lightfoot adduces some linguistic proof
of that close connection of the Appendix with portions of the
rest of the Gospel which the present writer thought more
convincingly demonstrated by the connection of the dis
arranged material of the Gospel with the Appendix.^ The
Inference drawn in our own study of the relation was that
the Appendix was part of a general revision and recasting
of the "Johannine" material to bring It Into acceptable
adjustment to "Petrine" (Synoptic) tradition. Both the
1 Schwartz, Tod der Sohne Zebedaei, thinks of the actual brother, Acts
12: I, in spite of Gal. 2: 9.
2 Fragment vi, ap. Apostolic Fathers, Lightfoot-Harmer, 1891.
3 The note (p. 81) has only, "For the proof, see especially Lightfoot."
The reference is probably to Biblical Essays, p. 194.
* See Bacon, Introd. to N. T. Literature, 1900, pp. 269, 274, especially
the note (p. 274) showing the connection of 13: 36 f. with 21: 19, 22; also
above, p. 198.

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 451
superficial resemblances of phraseology and style which
every reader can verify (though Lightfoot has given them
more careful enumeration) and also the much deeper and
more significant differences of conception and view-point to
which later critics have repeatedly called attention, have
real significance. After the discussion already given to the
question the reader cannot be in doubt concerning our judg
ment of what that significance Is. All that concerns us now
is to point out that the argument so often brought against
critics of their disagreement among themselves has here also
its converse application. It Is neither surprising nor seri
ously disconcerting to opponents of the tradition to find their
constructive efforts attended by even widely varying results.
But "defenders" cannot afford, after having brought down
the ark of God Into the camp by resting all the future of
revealed religion on the assurance that "the last chapter
(the Appendix) was written by the author of the whole," to
fall Into such disagreement as that of Sanday with Zahn,
"the prince of conservative scholars." For Zahn finds him
self compelled to draw the line not at the concluding verse,
but at the concluding chapter of the Gospel, interpreting the
phenomena of mingled superficial resemblance and under
lying dissimilarity by a less close relation of the author of
the Appendix to the Apostle :
"The traces of a hand different from that of the author of the
book are observable not in verse 24 f. only, but already from 21:2
onward. The inference from this that the entire Appendix was
attached by the friends of John who come distinctly to the front
in verse 24 must be admitted." !
Since, then, the question whether "the last chapter was
written by the author of the whole" Is at least a debatable
one, we may reasonably devote some further consideration to
the alternative explanations, one of which treats 21 : 24 and the
1 Zahn, Einl., Bd. II, § 66, p. 487.

452 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
related material, especially 19:35, as representing the hand
and the opinion of a revising editor (R), who has before him
not only the Gospel, but also Its earher Epilogue of the Three
Epistles, including specifically I Jn. 5:6-9 and III Jn. 12;
the other of which assumes that his information Is derived
Immediately from the Apostle.
Revision and recasting are the phenomena which -recent
research has brought more prominently than aught else to
view. Moreover, they affect not this Gospel only, but aU
products of the kind. Of the evidences that the Fourth
Gospel Is no exception to the rule we shall see more In the
succeeding chapter, confining ourselves at this point to a
protest against classification with the so-called partitionists,
Delff, Wendt, and Briggs, in spite of previous endeavor to
avoid the confusion.!
As regards John the Elder and his supposed connection
with the author of the "Johannine" Epistles and Gospel we
emphatically reject the idea that he has any connection of
the kind. "The Elder John," so called by Papias to dis
tinguish him from the Apostle, is a dim and distant figure
for Papias himself, utterly unknown in Asia, unquestion
ably a historical figure, but by all the indications of con
temporary usage as regards the seat of the authoritative
tradition of "the Elders," a resident of Jerusalem.^ No ob
jection exists to Delff's view that some of the tales regarding
" John" related by Polycrates and others may have originally
apphed to this John; but the attempt to set aside the fuU,
plain refutation by Eusebius of Irenasus' confusion, a refuta
tion made with the work of Papias open before him, is
1 For previous efforts see Bacon, Introduction, 1900, p. 268. For the dis
tinction itself, below. Chapter XVIII.
2Cy. Hegesippus on the "succession" in Jerusalem "down to the times
of Trajan," ap. Eus., H. E. HI, xix, xx, i-S, etc., passim, on "The apostles
and elders in Jerusalem," the superscriptions of "James" and "Jude" and
the John of Jerusalem, ap. Eus., H. E. IV, v, 3.

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 453
irrational, and that which seeks to connect the Fourth Gospel
with him is equally so. John the Elder cannot possibly have
written Epistles or Gospel.! The traditions actually trace
able to him are at the very opposite pole from the doctrine of
these writings. They represent a crude millenarianism of
the most pronounced type, utterly Irreconcilable with the
highly spiritualized eschatology of the X literature.
The whole endeavor somehow or other to connect this
Jerusalem Elder with the "Johannine" Epistles and Gospel
is due to the notion that the attachment to them of the name
"John" must somehow be accounted for. But the attach
ment accounts for itself the moment we find a previous at
tachment of It to the Ephesian apocalypse of Revelation.
And this we do find made in several writers some decades
earher than the attachment to the rest of the Ephesian canon.
The Epistles emanate It Is true from an "Elder"; but who
else but one who held this office would write epistles to
churches? At an earlier point of our discussion we have
proposed, simply as a working hypothesis, to Identify this
nameless Ephesian "Elder" of the Epistles with the revered
and nameless teacher of Justin Martyr.^ For convenience
let us call him Theologos. The Elder Theologos will be the
author of the Gospel in the form it possessed before the final
revision which aims to adapt it to general circulation and
identifies its enigmatic figure of the Beloved Disciple with
the Apostle John. Whether previous to the form given It by
the Elder Theologos the Gospel, or elements of it, had cir
culated in still simpler form Is a more difficult, perhaps a
fruitless, question. There are, nevertheless, certain indica
tions that such was the case. The evidence seems, however,
to the present writer too precarious to warrant the assertion
1 The Apocalypse he might, if we distinguish the Palestinian nucleus from
the Asiatic envelope.
2 Above, p. 207.

454 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
that this earhest hand was other than that of Theologos
himself. Whoever it was, his quahfications for his task were
by no means those of an apostle, or even of an eye-witness,
but such as we might attribute to an ApoUos.
For the author of the Appendix and recaster of the Gospel,
who adjusted the Asiatic or Pauhne tradition to the Petrine
of Syria and Rome, we have no designation save the title
Redactor. This editor (R) gave to the Gospel its authorita
tive currency by his not unnatural identification of "the
disciple whom Jesus loved" with the son of Zebedee, and
by ascribing to him the writing and testimony. R was a
contemporary of Papias, Polycarp, and Justin, probably a
Roman. He doubtless believed with Papias and Justin that
"John the Apostle" had been "In the Spirit" in the Island
of Patmos, whence he had addressed letters to the churches
[ of Asia. What more natural than to attribute to John the
anonymous Gospel also ? R knew, moreover, that Polycarp
claimed to have seen and heard that Apostle — whether cor
rectly or by confusion with some other depends upon the
date of the Apostle's death. Polycarp's memories and the
Seven Epistles of Rev. 1-3, would tend to make John the
natural patron apostle of Asia. Otherwise there is nothing
to Indicate that R thought of him as having ever been there.
On the contrary. It is Peter who is carried away "whither he
would not," and John who "abides" with the flock. So the
Muratorianum understands the Appendix, and so It was
probably meant. Even for Ignatius and Polycarp, Paul, not
John, Is still the Apostle of Asia.
To decline to accept R's opinion on the authorship of the
Gospel Is not to "wantonly accuse the Epilogue of untruth."
No modern scholar feels bound to accept that of "Jude the
brother of James" on the authorship of Enoch, any more
than that of the Muratorianum on the authorship of the
Epilogue In its turn; for the Muratorianum attributes this to

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 455
John's "fellow-disciples and bishops" in the same way that
it attributes the Book of Wisdom to "the friends of Solo
mon." The question of the external evidence resolves itself
Into that of the internal: Is the writer of 21 : 24 In personal
contact with the principal author, or not? One factor In
the determination of this question is that of date; and to this
-\Ve have already given consideration, and must give more in
connection with that of literary structure. Meantime we
have another means of judging in his divergence from the
author's standpoint, and his misunderstanding and occa
sional maltreatment of the material.
If indeed It could be maintained that no one could hon
estly say "We know that his witness is true" who had not
personal acquaintance with the author, our difference with
R might be held to Imply an unfavorable moral judgment.
But who can thus argue concerning one of the constant re
frains of the Johannine writings,! not to say one of the most
fundamental Ideas of the New Testament, the "witness of the
Spirit with our spirit that we are born of God,'' the assurance
of the fulfilment of the Messianic promise in the outpouring
of the Holy Ghost upon every one that Is baptized into Christ.
The truth witnessed by the Gospel Is In substance that
"the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding
so that we know Him that is true and are in Him that is true in
his Son Jesus Christ." ^
Where is there a true Christian who cannot say of this "We
know that this witness is true" ?
But certain passages anterior to the Appendix are also
supposed to make direct claims to emanate from an eye
witness. To dispute these would in that case Imply an im
putation of Insincerity to the author. Here then the question
becomes again a question of exegesis.
1 E. g.. Ill Jn. 12; I Jn. 5: 9-12; Jn. 3: 11.
2 1 Jn. 5: 20.

4s6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Among the "passages which make a direct claim," Pro
fessor Sanday cites first of aU I Jn. i : 1-3, the rehance of the
Muratorianum,^ a passage which we also attribute to the
author (not the redactor) of the Gospel. Sanday disposes
quickly and correctly of the Interpretation of the reference
of 6eda6ai to mystical vision. Certainly Theologos em
phasizes the visibihty and tangibility of the incarnation of
the Logos, just as in Jn. i : 13, 14, 16,^ and 20: 24-31. We
have every reason for accepting the ancient behef that the
author Is vindicating the historic tradition of the Church
against the docetism of Cerinthus. Cf. I Jn. 4: 2, 3, and
5:6-10. Against the alternative view that the writer "Is speaking
In the name of a whole generation, or of Christians gen
erally," the only objection raised Is the "contrast between
'we' and 'you,' between teachers and taught." Here also
we admit the contention (if anybody disputes it) that
"the teachers are in any case a small body; and they seem to
rest their authority, or at least the impulse to teach, on the desire
to communicate to others what they had themselves experienced."
Precisely; for they are genuine successors of the Apostle Paul
in the great headquarters of his mission field, and therefore
they speak with the authority of those who ha\-e been "in
trusted with the ministry of reconciliation, how that God
1 "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that
which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands
handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested and we
have seen and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life
which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); that which we
have seen and heard, declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellow
ship with us; yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son
Jesus Christ, and these things we write that our joy may be fulfilled."
2 See the passage reproduced below (p. 458). As an illustration of the
infelicitous interpolations of R, we have printed also (in other type) verse 15,
to show how it interrupts the connection of 14 with 16, and refers to an
utterance of which we hear nothing down to verse 30.

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 457
was in Christ reconciling the world." Because they are the
conscious successors of this Apostle of the present, spiritual
Christ, they emphasize and reiterate to the last degree that it
is "the hfe," the hfe of the Logos, the hfe which was from
the beginning, the hfe which was historically manifested and
which since that manifestation, to which the writer and his
associates have been ordained and set apart to bear witness,
has been the continual, conscious possession of the whole
brotherhood of believers, constituting their fellowship, the life
which flows from God, the hfe that so constitutes the being
of the Christian that it Is no more he that hves but Christ that
liveth In him. The teachers are a small body — not because
nobody can teach except those whose physical hands touched
the Incarnate Logos,! but because so few have come Into
hving, conscious contact with the spiritual Logos. Its lines
of limitation do not run across the generations at so many
years after the crucifixion, but along all generations accord
ing as men receive or reject the Spirit. The author uses the
same "we" to speak through the mouth of Jesus himself in
Jn. 3: 11.^ The witness Is historical in Its source, but per
sonal and Immediate in Its verification. The record Is con
firmed by the experience; and the experience therefore makes
subsequent generations fellow-witnesses with the first. Ac
cording to Theologos there Is no need for Christians to be
disputing about the length of life of this "witness of Mes
siah" or that. With Paul he holds that it Is not physical
but spiritual contact which gives Apostohc authority. The
Logos is with them alway, even unto the end of the world.
Because his life is In them, they are his witnesses, that shall
not taste of death till his parousia.
1 This is the plane to which Theologos relegates the doubting Thomas.
Cf. Jn. 20: 26-29.
2 "We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen" is the utter
ance of the Church, conscious of having received the promised Spirit, to
unbelieving Judaism.

458 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
" Hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because
he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have beheld and bear
witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the
world. . . . This is he that came by water and blood, even
Jesus Christ; not with water (of baptism) only (as the Docetists
held), but with the water and with the blood (of the passion;
denied by the Docetists). And it is the Spirit that beareth wit
ness, because the Spirit is the truth. . . . If we receive the
witness of men, the witness of God is greater. . . He that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him. . .
And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and
this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life. He
that hath not the Son of God hath not the Hfe."
This is the "witness." To talk as If it were something
which none but the first generation can render, with mere
tales about their experiences of the physical senses, Is to
force upon the writer as his only meaning "the witness of
men," when he insists upon testifying by "the witness of
God which is greater." This apostohc succession he belongs
to, and he seeks to extend It. We still have few enough such
teachers. If the nature of the original author's "witness" Is clear
from the Epistle alone. It becomes ten times more clear when
we bring Into comparison the next of Professor Sanday's
"passages which make a direct claim," Jn. i : 14, though this
he regards as "more ambiguous."
It forms part of a context (Jn. i : 11-17), in which, as so
constantly In Paul, the spiritual Israel, "which were born
not of blood, nor of the wiU of the flesh, nor of the wiU of
man, but of God" (cf. Gal. 4: 22-31; Rom. 4: 16-18; 9: 7-9),
are contrasted with the fleshly, "the Jews," as they are
designated in this Gospel.
" He came unto his own, and his own received him not. '- But
as many as received him to them gave he the right to become

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 459
children of God. . . . !* And the Logos became flesh,
and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of
the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John beareth witness of him and crieth, saying. This was he of whom I
said. He that cometh after me is become before me, for he was before me.l
!^ For of his fulness (of grace and truth) we all received, and
grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses. Grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ."
Does the author mean by "tabernacled among us," us
twelve Apostles; or does he means us, the spiritual Israel,
who "received hlm"?^ When he says, "We beheld his
glory full of grace and truth, for we all received from his
fulness of grace," does he mean to exclude from this ex
perience all but the first generation? If so, the ubiquitous
signs of his relationship to Paul are very fallacious. But
such an Interpretation would be behtthng to the Gospel.
Professor Sanday has but one more "passage which makes
a direct claim." It is the famous crux of interpretation,
19:35,^ and as to it Professor Sanday himself, as we have
seen (p. 192), is fain to admit that If we accept the ordinary
use of iK€lvo<; (and he suggests no. other),
"then I should be inclined to think with Zahn that 6K€tvo? points
to Christ, ' he who saw the sight has set it down in writing . . .
and there is One above,who knows that he is telling the truth.' "
But who that was anxious to establish a historical fact
would write in this ambiguous fashion? And what then
becomes of the "direct claim"? Manifestly It remains to
be proved
1 Verse 15 is borrowed carelessly from verse 30, after the original report
had been cut out. See above, p. 456, note 2.
2C/. Ex. 33:5 ff.; 40:34 L
3 "There came out (from the spear wound) blood and water. And he
that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true. And he knoweth
that he saith true that ye may believe."

46o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
"that the bearing witness is that of the written Gospel, and that
the author of the Gospel is the same as he who saw the sight."
Professor Sanday's only "proof" Is a reference to 21:24,
and we are (seemingly) back where we were before.
However, we are not quite where we were before, for
Professor Sanday refuses to relinquish the favorite among
"defenders" of aU the "passages which make a direct
claim." He cannot
"agree that there is anything really untenable in what may be
called the common view, that . the author is simply
turning back upon himself and protesting his own veracity. The
use of e/c£tvos to take up the subject of a sentence is specially
frequent and specially characteristic of this Gospel; and as the
author systematically speaks of himself in the third person, it seems
to me that the word may also naturally refer to himself so ob
jectified: 'he who saw the sight has set it down . . . and
he is well assured that what he says is true.' " !
In the above extract we have taken the liberty to itahcize
a clause which to us appears simply a begging of the ques
tion In debate. The usual example cited by those who main
tain this alleged self -objectifying use of iKelvo<; by the
evangelist Is Jn. 9: 37, "He that speaketh unto thee Is that
one" (iKelvo'i, i. e., the one assumed to be another).^ In the
absence of any real parallel Professor Sanday's statement
should read "if the author speaks of himself in the third
person." The assumption that he does certainly calls for
some proof. But let us continue: —
"In any case, however, I must needs think that the bearing
witness (Jn. 19:35) i^ t'^^t of the written Gospel, and that the
author of the Gospel is the same as he who saiv the sight. The
identity is, it seems to me, clenched by 21 : 24."
t Criticism, p. 79.
2 To show the absurdity of adducing this as a parallel let the question be
asked. What 'effect would result from the opposite procedure: "He that
speaketh unto thee is myself"?

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 461
Once more we itahcize the clause which seems to us to
beg the question in dispute. With all the rest we emphati
cally concur, with the further addition of I Jn. 5 : 6-8 as
part of the witness borne by the author in question. We too
feel that this sense is "clenched" by 21 : 24. We even agree
to the Italicized clause — if the meaning be that such was the
opinion of the author of the verse, and are not compelled to
make It our own.
But why has Professor Sanday paid no heed to the warn
ing of one of the most eminent scholars of our time in the
field of New Testament philology and textual criticism, and
one of the most consen^atlve on questions of authorship and
date? In 1902 Friedrich Blass had published a minute and
scholarly Investigation of the textual evidences for "Jn.
19 ¦ 35-" ^ Rs conclusion is as follows: —
"What then shall the textual critic do? I fear there remains
to him but a single possibihty, to let the ordinary text (of 19: 35)
stand as it is. But he should not permit himself as he values his
life (bei Leibe nicht) to believe in the correctness of this text; it
would be unscientific. Everything in it is uncertain: the whole
thirty-fifth verse and its position, as well as its individual parts,
except the first, and more especially the Ikuvos olStv. Finally,
even if we could find firm ground for this, we should still be en
tangled with the EKetvos and engaged in the old controversy
waged 40 years ago in this Journal (Th. St. u. Kr.) between
Steitz and Buttmann. It ought therefore to be clear, and more
than clear: Whoever hereafter attempts to build a theory of the
origin of this Gospel upon this verse, will have built upon sand —
yes, upon quicksand — and there will be need of no tempest and
no torrent to bring about the collapse of his structure."
Blass' evidence Is convincing that 19:35 "belongs In the
margin." In other words, Its omission by some authorities,^
1 In Theol. Studien u. Kritiken, 75 (1902), pp. 128-133.
2 Palatinus (e) and Fuldensis of Vlg. omit the whole, Nonnus part

462 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
different position In others,! different wording, particularly
as regards iKelvo'; otSev (var. o'lSafiev, o'iSare, olSa) in stUl
others proves It an early marginal gloss of editorial char
acter. Blass very naturally, and most irrefutably, brings It
Into connection, as we have done, with I Jn. 5: 6-8, "which
of course does not really refer to the incident (of the cruci
fixion) here related." What he has left undone, but fortu
nately had been made unnecessary by the clear assurances
of "defenders" such as Lightfoot and Sanday, Is the demon
stration of the close relation of this editorial gloss — proved
such by even the textual evidence — with the Appendix; In
particular with 21: 24, which also uses the same expressions
borrowed from the Epilogue of the Three Epistles, and also
identifies "that witness" with the Beloved Disciple and the
author of the Gospel as well. It Is true that for reasons
already explained we still have little or no textual evidence
for the circulation of the Gospel without the Appendix.^
We are not, however, altogether without evidence of its
circulation without the post-postscript (21:25) and the same
process of tinkering at the passages bearing on the author
ship of the Beloved Disciple which Is evidenced In 21: 25 Is
evidenced also, as Blass has shown, in 19: 31-37.
Review of the passages supposed to "make a direct claim"
of Johannine authorship has Involved, through the depend
ence of "defenders" on passages demonstrably foreign to the
Gospel in Its original form, a certain comminghng of the two
aspects of our Inquiry (i) as to the credlbihty of R, tested
by the admittedly authentic passages; (2) as to his own rela
tion on the one side to the "parenthetic additions," on the
other to the original author. R's relation to some of the
former has with the aid of the "defenders" been aheady
sufficiently proved. To what further extent It can be traced
1 Cyril of Alexandria seems to have had the order 34, 36, 37, 35.
2 See, however, above, p. 213 ff.

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 463
is a problem for the succeeding chapter." There remains for
present consideration only the question of his relation to the
author of the Gospel In the form supplemented by the three
Epistles. 2. If R, with his editorial ascription of the Gospel (and
Epistles?) to the son of Zebedee, Is simply doing what the
writers of the Muratorianum, of the Monarchian Prologues,
of the various argumenta and subscriptions, habitually do,
presenting as fact his own Inferences from the author he Is
handhng, and If his exegetical Inferences, together with the
whole dependent chain of alleged "external evidence," car
ries (to put it mildly) no conviction, what Is the Indirect evi
dence of the author himself? His "direct claims," as we
have seen, are not for himself, but for the body of witnesses
to which he belongs, a body not yet divided Into a "Catho
hc" camp which holds to the historic succession by physical
contact, and a Protestant camp which declares "the Spirit
and the gifts are ours " and despises the historic tradition.
His witnesses stand for both. Theologos, as we have caUed
him, merges his own testimony completely In that of the
Church. The witness of the Spirit Is everything, "because
the Spirit is truth." The purest and loftiest Paulinism Is
reacting from the unbridled fancy of Gnosticism toward the
historic tradition of the Church, but without the surrender
of Pauhne hberty in the Spirit. Space does not here permit
the demonstration how far below this level is that of the
redactor, who, by his additions and readjustments, par
ticularly in the Appendix, has sought to harness this eagle
to the wingless creatures of Sjmoptlc tradition. But we
certainly have no need and no inchnatlon to accuse him of
untruth. Many reasonable Inferences can be drawn from Gospel
and Epistles conceming his personality. We have seen !
1 Above, p. 188.

464 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
that he was probably an elderly man, a HeUenlstIc Jew of
Ephesus, and that he was familiar from personal observation
with the scenes along a hmited hne of travel in Palestine.
He does not seem to have been himself guilty of the an
achronistic reference to "the sea of Tiberias"; for the ap
pending of rrj<; Ti/3epi,dSo'; In 6:1 is more likely on gram
matical grounds to be due to R, who employs this designation
(21:1). If he was misled by Lk. 3 : 2 and Asiatic usage Into
speaking of Caiaphas as high -priest "for that year" (11 : 49-
52), he has more than atoned for it by correcting from
Mt. 26: 57. He knows the Scriptures, and that perhaps in
the original Hebrew. At least he seems conversant with
more than one Greek rendering.! His mastery of midrashic
method, especially that of a "spiritualizing" Alexandrian
type, reminds us of an ApoUos, his attitude toward Stoic
conceptions and to some of the commonplaces of Greek
philosophy recall the venerable Ephesian teacher of Justin
Martyr. All reasonable inferences of this kind have value
in proportion as they help us to understand the author, his
task and his times. Polemically or apologetically employed
they are more apt to be productive of confusion than of hght.
And after all it is not the Individual traits of the author's
character which we need to know, so much as those which
are not distincti\'e but representative; we need to know the
characteristics of the church and period he represents.
Jewish birth is not so great a matter for a Philo in Alexan
dria, a Paul in Tarsus, or a Spinoza in Amsterdam, as
abihty to lay hold of and master the greatest thoughts of
Gentile philosophy. All mere questions of the precise in
dividual and date are subordinate to those of real importance
to the reader for whom the Scriptures are a record of the
march of God in history. What Is Important for such readers
1 See Drummond, op. cit., pp. 361-365, and Dittmar, Vetus Test, in Novo,
ad loca.

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 465
is the appreciation which only historical study can give first
of aU of the evangehst's relation to Paul, especially the
Pauhne Christology as revealed in the Asian group of epis
tles, above all Ephesians. Next to this must come his rela
tion on the one side to Mark and Luke, on the other to
Matthew and the Sayings, as representations of the evangehc
tradition. And over against these sources and Influences
must be set the evangehst's antagonisms and emendations.
The docetism of Cerinthus and probably of the Gnostics
of Antiochian origin, perhaps the doctrines of Basihdes him
self, are certainly met and overthrown. Ancient tradition
coincides with the express statement of the Epistles on this
point; modern criticism abundantly confirms the fact by
comparison of the contemporary polemic of Ignatius. On
the other hand, the evangelist Is certainly conscious also, as
tradition maintains, of the shortcomings of his predecessors
on the "spiritual" side. A striking instance, all the more
curious from the fact that his writings have come to be at
tributed to the same author as Revelation, a book represent
ing the very opposite tendency in this field. Is his eschatology.
The nature of the Christian hope for the future was the
burning question of the age. Scoffers demanded mockingly
"Where Is the promise of his Coming?" Gnostic and
Docetic heretics etherealized Church doctrine into vague
nebulosity. Palestinian apocalyptic "prophecy" material
ized It Into a concrete, hard and fast millenarianism of the
type represented by the Jerusalem "Elders" and later by
Papias and the Montanists. Paul had followed both tend
encies. In his earlier letters he looks for the Coming of
Christ to us, while we are alive and remain; In the latest he
expects "to depart and be with Christ, which Is very far
better." The foundation which did not change with Paul
was his conviction that our real hfe, even now, is the etemal
hfe, of which the Indwelhng Spirit Is the essence as weU as
Fourth Gospel — 30

466 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
pledge, which even now for Its center of gravity is "hid with
Christ In God." Our evangehst rests firmly on the deeper
truth, and follows it out In the direction of Paul's later think
ing. AU this appreciation of the Inner hfe of the evangehst,
his church and his times. Is more Important than his years of
life, his ancestry, or even — since in any event he has not
aimed to draw upon the resources of an eye-witness — his
historical nearness to the times of which he professes to
speak. And R also has his place In the divine development,
though it is far from the lofty one we must concede to A.
The accommodation of the "spiritual" to the concrete, the
adjustment of the Ideal to the practical Is not a sphere for
transcendent genius. But labor of this kind also deserves
to be understood and appreciated. Can we trace probable
errors and misunderstandings? Let him that Is without sin
among us cast the first stone. But let us not be considered
to be stoning the prophets because we prefer understanding
them, even In their Imperfections, to building their sepul-
chers. We have seen that the Appendix differs widely In Its point
of view from the Gospel, and in the direction of the con
crete and the commonplace. There Is reversion toward the
Synoptic type of apocalyptic eschatology (21:22), and re
crudescence still more marked In the post-postscript (21 : 25).
Further study of the reviser's work In the body of the Gospel
may give further hght on this relation.! Meantime we
deprecate the imputation of "destructive" aims or tend
encies to such Investigation. Discrimination Is the first con
dition of insight. Undiscrimlnating reading e^¦en of the
Fourth Gospel is not to be preferred to the apphcation of the
keenest processes of critical analysis.
To one whose conception of the beginning of Christianity
1 See below. Chapter XVIIt.

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 467
Is confined to the soil of Palestine and the narrations of those
who had known Christ after the flesh, light upon the develop
ment of the Pauhne Gospel In Asia may perhaps be a matter
of small moment. The Pauhne Gospel is resolutely dis-
regardful of the sayings and doings of Jesus, In favor of the
Incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection considered as a
drama of the di-vine economy of creation and redemption.
It is the tendency of modern Christianity, however, to look
upon Paul's great appropriation of the Logos doctrine, the
doctrine in which, from Herachtus of Ephesus to Cleanthes
the Stoic and Philo the Gnostic, Greek monotheistic philoso
phy had embodied Its loftiest interpretation of man and God
and the Universe, as having also had something to do with
"the beginning of Christianity." An extremist of the school
of Roman Catholic criticism, to whom everything that has
developed on the Christian stock is Christian, criticizes the
principle of an extreme Lutheran, who can admit nothing as
of the essence of Christianity that cannot be traced back at
least to the first century. But these counteract one another.
The via media of criticism lies between them. The great
Insight which criticism is giving to the Church is the percep
tion of Christianity as a vital germ which laid hold of, drew
to itself out of the chaos of mingled rehglons, philosophies,
systems, of the first century, which digested, assimilated,
organized, whatever was available for the world-religion that
was to be, because kindred to Its spirit. This germ, so long
as It retains its vltahty, must also tend to throw off ahen and
morbid growths. Therefore modern thought sympathizes
with the magnificent syncretism of Paul, when he transforms
the national messianic hope of Israel Into a universal mes
sianic hope, the second David Into a second Adam, the re
demption of Israel Into a redemption of the world; makes
the new law of ministering love inclusive of all ethics, and all
pohtlcs, and the law of the spirit of hfe shed abroad by the

468 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
risen Redeemer, making us free from the law of sin and
death In our members, inclusive of all rehgion. The new
dynamic, God emerging in us, the life that was and Is mani
fested, and the love which Is the law of its manifestation,
this Is to Paul the Essence of Christianity. "This only
would I know from you, received ye the Spirit?" The Idea
of the Israel of God which is to be heir of the world is recast
by him in the mold of Stoic thought. It becomes the body
of those who died with Christ unto sin, were buried with him
in baptism, and were raised to their new hfe by the Spirit,
which vitalizes the whole as the blood flows from the head
through all the members. When a man so conceives the
Gospel, not the "word of wisdom" of Jesus himself, not the
mighty works of a faith that could move mountains wiU be
the main thing; but the drama of the Redemption of hu
manity considered as a manifestation of the hfe and the love
of God. It will be a message of reconcihation, how that
God was In Christ reconcihng the world. This Is the ever
lasting gospel of the Gentiles, and it will stand forever along
side the gospel of the circumcision as it always has stood,
an interpretation of the significance of Christ's person and
work, just as essential to Christianity as the report of his
sayings and his deeds.
It Is this gospel of the person of Christ which comes to Its
full expression in Ephesus, the great metropohs of the
Pauline mission field. But records fail us after the time
when Paul "by the space of three years" taught the word
in Ephesus, reasoning daily in the school of one Tyrannus,
strugghng to make the most of his "great door and effectual"
against the "many adversaries," the time when he assembled
the elders of his Ephesian churches (was Theologos among
them ?) for a last warning and farewell at Miletus, the time
when he sent to "the Churches of Asia" the twin epistles
"concerning Christ and the Church" with their subhme

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 469
Christology, the time of the Pastoral Epistles with their in
creasing emphasis on "the sound doctrine," the "form of
sound words" against a gnosis that is falsely so called. Be
tween this time. Into whose struggles of germinant Christology
with aU the theosophy wherewith that Phrygian-Ionic soil
teemed and luxuriated, the New Testament Itself affords us
glimpse upon ghmpse, and the later time, half revealed to us
In the letters of Polycarp and Ignatius, there is a period of
darkness In which Pauhnism seems to bear fruit only in the
great anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, and that on distant
soil. At Its close the old conflict Is still raging. The an
tagonists are still those who are puffed up In their proud
gnosis, forgetful of the love that builds up. The Apostolic
authority appealed to by name is still Paul, and only Paul.
But now the issue is more definite, the heresy Is more clearly
defined. Opposed to It Is a Logos doctrine, strong and crude
In Ignatius, more refined and philosophic In Justin. But
most significant for our particular study is the Increasing
appreciation of the weapons to which Polycarp urges re
course, on which Papias at length lays hold.
"For everyone who shall not confess that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh is anti-Christ; and whosoever shall not confess the
testimony of the Cross is of the devil; and whosoever shall pervert
the logia of the Lord to his own lusts, and say that there is neither
resurrection nor judgment, that man is the firstborn of Satan.
Wherefore let us forsake the vain talk of the many and the false
doctrines, and turn to the word handed down to us from the he-
ginning." !
It surely Is not hard to see what literature has intervened
here with its new interpretation of the old doctrine of the
anti-Christ, the false witness that exalteth himself against
the true witness of the Church. Nor is it difficult to recog
nize the antagonists against whom "Papias and so many
1 Ep. of Polycarp, vii.

470 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
church fathers after him ... as, for Instance, Ire
nseus," and Justin, and Jude, and II Peter, advanced the
Apocalypse of John. Papias and Justin are the first to bring
In the authority of "John the Apostle" In favor of (a physi
cal) "resurrection and (an apocalyptic) judgment," Papias,
In addition, bringing that of "the Elder John." For their
Logos doctrine neither Ignatius nor Justin have any au
thority to cite save Paul. But in respect to questions about
"the form of sound words, even the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ," against those who are "puffed up with a
doting gnosis," ^ there Is a new development.
The new feature is the turning toward "the Apostles and
Elders" for "the word handed down from the beginning, the
logia of the Lord," which are being perverted by those who
do not accept the witness of the cross. ^ Papias follows this
advice, turning from the "vain talk of the many" to "those
who teach the truth, and from the false doctrine of those
who relate alien 'commandments' to those who relate com
mandments given from the Lord to the Faith." Against the
twenty-four books of Basihdes' Exegetica on the Antiochian
Gospel appear five books of Exegesis of the Lord's logia,
based on the testimony of apostles and elders. The test of
trustworthiness Is now the historic tradition derived from an
apostolic group. ^ Historical criticism has begun. Even the
metropohs of the Pauhne mission field Is beginning to hsten
for the voice of ecclesiastical authority. Soon it wiU be im
possible for even the very embodiment of the gospel of Paul
to find standing save as accommodated to Petrine tradition,
1 1 Tim. 6: 3.
2C/. I Jn. 5:6-9.
3 As to whether this apostolic group is to be found at Jerusalem, where
Luke places it, where all authorities seek it do\\-n to Irenasus, down to a
time when not merely the Church of "the apostles and eldej-s" had been
scattered by Fladrian, but Ephesus and Rome had divided its inheritance
and forgotten its distinction, see above. Chapter IV.

DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL 471
even In dialogues misunderstood as hteral reports of actual
interviews with Jesus.
The significance of the Fourth Gospel hes in its testimony
to the growth and self-definition of the gospel of Paul In the
heart of the church of the uncircumcision, before the harking
back to Jerusalem. Wlien we are able to trace the history
of "the Churches of Asia" from the time when Paul con
veys their greetings to Corinth down to the annihilation of
the church of "the apostles and elders" In the war against
Hadrian, and the transfer to Rome under Antoninus Pius
of the leading minds In the great school of Ephesus, then we
may realize against the background of that history that it is
not all enhancement of "the value of the Fourth Gospel as a
record of the beginning of Christianity" to wrest It out of
Its true setting, and attempt to change Its witness to "the
hfe which was with the Father and was manifested unto us"
into an admittedly defective, unhistorical, and fictitious sup
plement to Synoptic tradition.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL OF CRITICISM
On several occasions the course of our discussion has com
pelled us to anticipate In some degree the question of the
Integrity of the Fourth Gospel, i. e.. Its persistence in Its
original form. In fact we have found It a matter of general
agreement, conceded by the most strenuous "defenders"
that the Appendix (ch. 21) is "an afterthought" and that
the last two verses, if not more, are from a hand distinguish
able from that of the evangelist.! The last verse of aU (21 : 25)
Is even textually doubtful and Is justly omitted in the critical
text of Tischendorf. How far back Into the body of the
Gospel will this process of disintegration extend? Great
effort has been made and Is still exerted by "defenders" to
prove the inseparableness of 19: 35, one of the most Impor
tant of the "parenthetic additions" noted by Lightfoot,
from 21 : 24. And for the latter, as we have seen, only an in
direct relation is claimed with the original writer. But Blass
has proved that 19:35 is at least as subject to textual sus
picion as 21 : 25. What then of the other "parenthetic addi
tions"? What of the passages which display Internal con
nection with the Appendix, such as 12:33, which Lightfoot
says must be from the same hand as 21:19?^ 'What of
i Cf. Sanday, Criticism, p. 8i. "At the very end another hand does take
up the pen."
2 Bibl. Essays, p. 194. Scholten (Ev. n. Joh., p. 67) reverses this reason
ing. "If ch. 21 comes from a later hand, does not 21: 19 prove that the sup-
plementer has also added r2: 33 and 18: 32 to the original text?" Whether
these mere explanatory comments ("He said this indicating by what manner
of death he should die") are additions by R, or R has merely imitated them
in 21: 19 is a question of no vital significance. 472

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 473
13:36-38; 18: 15-18, 25-27, a group of passages intimately
related in subject-matter to 21 : 15-19 ? Shall we admit with
Drummond that:
"Chapter 21 seems to show that the book underwent some
kind of editing before it was given to the public,"
and that the process may have extended to the body of the
work; ! or shall we take our stand with "defenders" who
resist at all hazards every suggestion of revision or editorial
change ?
Besides Its "parenthetic additions" and passages related
to the "afterthought," the Fourth Gospel Is notoriously full
of the gaps and seams, the logical discrepancies and incon
sistencies which. If not due to an extraordinary degree of
carelessness on the part of the evangelist, can only be ex
plained as we explain them in other writings of the kind.
They must be due to later intervention, whether by combina
tion with parallel documents, or by editorial revision, supple
mentation or readjustment. As a matter of mere text Blass
has thus described the case :
" This too (inversion of the order of clauses or paragraphs) seems
to be a special feature in the textual condition of John; careless
ness in copying, and the leaving out of sentences, which were
afterwards supplied in the margin, and from thence came again
into the text, but at a wrong place, may have been the early
causes of this damage. It seems to have taken place now and
then even on a larger scale: Prof. H. Wendt ^ has proposed a
highly probable conjecture on 7: 15-24, which he removes from
their present place, putting them at the end of chapter 5." ^
As regards the "early causes of this damage" we must dep-
1 Op. cit., p. 407.
2H. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, i, 228 ff.; cf. also Bertling, in Studien u.
Kritiken, 1880, 351 ff. (before Wendt), and F. Spitta, Zur Gesch. u. Litter.
des Urchristenthums, zgc) ff.
3 Philology of the Gospels, 1898, p. 239. On this special question of the
displacements of John see Chapter XIX.

474 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
recate Blass' suggestion of a textual occasion, remembering
the disposition of experts in textual criticism who are far
from such In the higher, and naturally prefer to account for
the pecuharities of a document by the vicissitudes of its
transmission rather than of its composition. Blass' attempts
to explain phenomena of this kind have not met with marked
success. His testimony as to the fact, however, Is of no
smaU importance. Notoriously the "seamless robe" has
proved sufficiently loose in texture to admit a very consider
able addition in Jn. 7:53-8:11, probably borrowed from
the Ev. Hebr.'^ The textual evidence by itself alone may have
further indications of significant modifications In process of
transmission. At all events we must connect with Blass'
testimony the evidences of gaps we have already noted In
1 : 35-51 ^ and 5 : 2-7.^ In the former passage we are simply
left in the dark, both as regards the movements of the second
of the two disciples of John, and as regards the incident
"under the fig-tree" referred to In i : 50.-* In the latter pas
sage (5: 2-7) a friendly hand has kindly supplied in the later
MSS. after verse 3 the words :
"waiting for the moving of the water: for an angel of the Lord
went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the
water. Whosoever then first after the troubling of the water
stepped in was made whole, with whatsoever disease he was
holden." Some explanation of this kind Is indispensable, for without
It the genuine passage in verse 7 Is unintelhgible :

1 This passage is so universally recognized as unauthentic as to need no
argument. Eusebius found the story in Ev. Hebr. Papias had employed it.
His "Elders'' read Aramaic.
2 Above, pp. 201 ff.
3 Above, p. 219, note.
^ Note also the absence of the Baptist's saying referred to in i: 15, a pas
sage discussed below.

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 475
" Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into
the pool: but while I am coming another steppeth down before

The gloss above cited, accordingly, which our R. V. rele
gates to the margin. Is more properly a reinstatement than an
interpolation, though the phraseology may be that of the
glossator only.! g^j- whether the transcriber who first sup
plied this missing explanation Invented It, or found it in
some related document Is Immaterial to our present conten
tion. Our present contention is only that the gap was so
noticeable in Jn. 5 : 2-7 (true text) as to call forth interpola
tion. Now as such gaps, discrepancies, dislocations and Illogical
connections are found repeatedly throughout the Fourth
Gospel, the attempt to account for them by some strange
accident to the text, after the work had been "pubhshed and
given out to the churches," Is most improbable. The dam
age was done before publication, or it would not be most
apparent in the best and oldest textual authorities.^ Con
versely It Is not really probable that It was done by the author
himself. Drummond is Indeed
"on the whole inclined to attribute the apparent displacements
to the original writer, who cared more for the associations of
thought than for the order of chronology, and who might refer
back to what he had recently -written without reflecting that the
1 See Blass' comment on the phraseology. Philology of the Gospels, p. 228,
note I. The reading of Nonnus, which Blass wishes to consider as reflecting
the original (p. 229), merely shows the same dislike of the superstition which
led to R's cancelation.
2 Drummond, op. cit., p. 407, would prefer Spitta's appeal to accidental
misplacement of pages as an explanation of the dislocation of Johannine
material to that of editorial revision advocated by the present writer. He
thinks that in connection with the "editing which the book underwent," as
evidenced by the appending of chapter 2r, "it is conceivable that some of
the author's sheets may have got displaced."

476 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
continuity of thought was supposed, historically, to be interrupted
by change of time and scene." !
For this conclusion Principal Drummond is able to cite no
less authority than that of the veteran H. J. Holtzmann,
who well deserves the title of "prince of hberal New Testa
ment scholars," and who takes a similar attitude in his
article "Unordnungen und Umordnungen Im vierten Evan
gelium" in the Zts. f. ntl. 'Wiss. for 1902.^ But such ex
planations fail to explain. To go no further than mere
balancing of authorities, we have that of Wellhausen, whose
opinion Is based on a study and experience not inferior to
Holtzmann's, and Is completely opposite In effect. Speaking
of those who like Holtzmann follow in the main the Idea of
Baur that "the key to all chambers of this extraordinary
structure, and the bond which unites the whole, Is the Idea
which is expressed in the discourses and shines through the
allegorically conceived narrative," Wellhausen writes:
"Investigators as a rule, their eyes fixed on this guiding star
(Baur's idea) , give too little heed to their steps. If they do come
across a flaw in the unity, it does not trouble them. If they feel
obliged to acknowledge disturbances and contradictions, they do
not treat them as vestiges of literary construction, but append
them as peculiar traits of physiognomy to their portrait of the
author, which thereby becomes an incredible caricature. An
author may be careless and unskilful, and occasionaUy even a
bit forgetful; but he must understand his own intention, and
cannot all in a moment cease to have any conception of the bear
ing of his own expressions." ^
But let us judge for ourselves regarding this distinction be
tween flaws attributable to carelessness, and faultings due to
structural disturbance. We have already referred ^ to the
1 Op. cit., pp. 407 f.
2 III, pp. 50-60.
3 Das Evangelium Johannis, 1908, pp. 3 f.
4 Above, p. 458.

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 477
interruption of the connection of Jn. 1:14 and 16 caused by
the Interjection of a reference to John the Baptist In verse 15.
A survey of the adjoining material here will enable us to
draw some preliminary inferences on our own account.
In the context (of Jn. 1:11-18) the Christian revelation
is being contrasted with the Mosaic. Against the carnal
claims of those who had been "his own," yet who, when the
Logos came to them (In all the divine visitations of old and
new dispensations) ! received him not, are set those of the
spiritual Israel who received him, and who were given a true
and indefeasible title to real divine sonship. Believers thus
became the sons of God by faith. The Logos "tabernacled " ^
among them as God had "tabernacled" In the midst of the
people redeemed out of Egypt. Through the "tabernacle"
of his flesh his followers saw his "glory," a "glory" from
God, full of grace and truth, as In the days of the Exodus.
And of this theophany surpassing that to Moses no doubt
could remain, because believers themselves became visibly
partakers of the glory, Christ's "fulness of grace and truth"
passing over Into them.' Thus the Mosaic revelation of law
was superseded by the Christian revelation of grace, bringing
real knowledge of God as our Father. The central thought
In this context we will reproduce again just as it stands. In
cluding (in smaller type) the interjected addition:
" !^ And the Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us,
and we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the
Father, fuU of grace and truth; ^ !^John beareth witness of him and
iC/. Acts 7: 51-53.
2 There is a play upon the Hebrew mishkan from the root meaning "to
dwell," and an allusion to the "glory" which had "filled" the tabernacle.
In the New Testament period these conceptions recur frequently, as in
Acts 7: 44-50 and Rev. 21: 3. The body in particular is constantly spoken
of as a "tabernacle" (i. e., of the soul), e. g., II Cor. 5: 4; II Pt- i: 13, I4-
3 With Jn. i: 14, 16 cf. II Cor. 3: 6-18; Col. 2: 9 i. and Ex. 33: 17-19.
^ An allusion to the privilege accorded to Moses, Ex. 33: 19-34: 6.

478 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
crieth saying. This was he of whom I said (i: 30), He that cometh after
me is become before me, for he was before me; !® for of his fulness
we all received, and grace for grace."
Prima facie it does not look probable that an author writing
with even the carelessness (!) of the prologue of the Fourth
Gospel should interrupt himself after this fashion, or forget
(already!) that the saying of John the Baptist, a reference to
which is here placed in the Baptist's own mouth, had not
yet been given, but was later to be reported in i : 30. Add to
this that the interjection of verse 15 does not stand alone, but
has a companion in verses 6-8, where as Wellhausen ex
presses It "John the Baptist casually drops into eternity." !
We again reproduce the context, not paraphrasing all of
verses 1-9, but merely calling attention to the fact that they
deal throughout (interpolation excepted) with the cosmic
and eternal aspect of the redemptive drama, not with particu
lar Incidents of Jesus' earthly career.
" * In him (the Logos) was life, and the life was the light of
men. ^ And the light shineth in the darkness and the darkness
overcame it not. * There came a man sent from God whose name
was John. '' The same came for witness, that he might bear witness
of the Light, that all might believe through him. * He was not the
Light (!) but came that he might bear witness of the Light. ^ That
was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world."
There are few passages In hterature of equal length with
Jn. 1 : 1-4, 9-14, 16-18 which give less ground for the sug
gestion of carelessness In composition. We cannot therefore
beheve the author of this prologue responsible for mutilation
of his own work so flagrant as the Interjection of verses 5-8
and 15 produces. In the case of verses 6-8, which seem to
be drawn from 5 : 35 f., the relation of verse 9 to verse 4 Is so
obscured as to make its opening clause one of the most noted
1 "In die Ewigkeit hineinschneit."

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 479
cmces Interpretum of the entire New Testament. In the
case of verse 15, the "fulness" of verse 16 is no longer seen
to be the "fulness of grace and truth" of verse 14, and the
reader loses the point unless reminded by Col. 2 : 9 f . Matter
interjected after this fashion does not come in by accident
after pubhcation, leaving no traces In the history of the text.
Neither can it be due to revision by the author himself. As
Wendf! and others have shown, Jn. 1:6-8 and 15 are in
terpolations of the same type as those which Lightfoot
designated "parenthetic additions" and Blass "sentences
supplied in the margin"; only their presence In aU manu
scripts in the same place and the same form proves their In
sertion to have been anterior to pubhcation; i. e., it is redac
tional, not textual. It belongs to the domain of the higher,
not merely of textual, criticism.
The influence of Baur Is partly responsible for the general
resistance to the force of evidence of this kind. But we must
also realize that the mistaken and uncritical methods of the
critics themselves have placed greater obstacles in their' way
than the arguments of their opponents. A priori assump
tions will mislead a critic just as surely as an apologist, and
in his case are less excusable. Since the time of C. H. Weisse ^
analyzers of the Fourth Gospel have too often approached
its problems with an ill-concealed desire to rescue a preferred
element by the sacrifice of another deemed of less importance.
There must be, to their feeling, an apostolic element con
nected, if not with the Apostle John, at least with a name
sake who should be a real "disciple of the Lord." Now the
preferred element would be, as with Weisse, A. Schweitzer,
and Wendt, the discourses; now it would be the narrative,
as with Renan. In either case there could be set over against
the preferred element another regarded as Interpolated or
1 Lehre Jesu, Vol. I, pp. 219 ff. on Jn. i: 15.
2 Evangelische Geschichte, 1838.

48o THE FOURTH GOSPEL
appended by a later redactor with back broad enough for aU
responsibilities of error and Inaccuracy, a convenient scape
goat for all objections raised by historical criticism. Such
has been the aim of the "partitionists," among whom the
present writer finds himself unwiUingly classified by the
author of The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel. An obscurity
not apparent to ourselves seems to have lurked In our state
ment of 1900:
" It would be puerile to proceed at once to the assumption that
because a more and a less trustworthy element are present in the
discourses and narrative of the Fourth Gospel we have nothing
to do but to resort to the methods of documentary analysis to
reach offhand the solution of the problem. Against all such
rough and ready attempts to distinguish an element which we
may deem worthy of the Apostle, and another which shaU bear
all the onus of the mistakes and misunderstandings, the famous
comparison of Strauss holds true; the Gospel of John is like the
seamless coat of the Lord." !
The obscurity seems not to have been dissipated by the
following, written at a little later date :
"The general verdict of scholars on such attempts (273. at
tempts to resolve the Fourth Gospel into documents similar to
those blended in the Pentateuch) is justly of a discouraging char
acter. The relation of the fourth evangelist to his sources is not
a mere matter of scissors and paste, nor is it to be conceived after
the analogy of 'redactors' of the historical books of the Old
Testament. Even the perplexing question of the sources of Acts
is likely to prove less intricate. Certainly the search will not be
promoted by ready-made theories as to the personality of the
author and his relation to the Apostle,^ nor by artificial devices
of separation, whether by sweeping classifications, like Wendt's,
1 Bacon, Introd. to N. T. Lit., pp. 267 f .
2 We regret to be obliged to "name the gentleman," but since we seem to
be regarded as sharing his opinions, if not depending on them, we will con
fess that the theory here more especially alluded to was that of Delff.

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 481
into narrative material (secondary) and discourse material (Jo
hannine), or by fine-spun distinctions of style and catch- words of
vocabulary." !
We have endeavored in the preceding chapter to elucidate
the distinction between "partitionists" and "revisionists."
So long ago as Scholten it was carefully enunciated.^ Parti
tion theories seem either to have been suggested by the
documentary theory of the Pentateuch with its evidences of
compilation, or by fancies connected with the imaginary
Elder John of Ephesus. "Revisionists" start from the actual
phenomena of the text in comparison with the known vicissi
tudes of similar writings. The analyses of Wendt and Delff
are typical of the partitionists, with whom we need not
further concern ourselves.* Theories of revision and sup
plementation are best exemplified by the two very recent
discussions of Wellhausen, entitled respectively "Expansions
and Alterations In the Text of the Fourth Gospel" (1907)^,
and "The Gospel of John" (1908).^
"Revisionists" regard the phenomena as Indicating a
redactional process, whose latest undulations only are trace
able In the textual transmission, but which centers In the
Appendix. This imphes a method of critical scrutiny which
approaches the problem from the side of the Appendix, tak
ing careful account of the textual phenomena, but without
1 Bacon, art. "Tatian's Rearrangement of the Fourth Gospel" m Amer.
Journ. of Theol., Oct., 1900, pp. 770 f.
2 Das Evang. n. Johannes, 1864. German transl. Lang 1867, pp. 22-69.
See also Holtzmann, op. cit., p. 59.
3 The five articles contributed to the Theol. Rundschau by A. Meyer in
1904 and 1906 and in 1905 two by Bousset give an adequate review of these
theories. i Erweiterungen und Aenderungen des Vierten Evangeliums, Berlin, 1907.
^Das Evangelium Johannis, Berlin, 190". With these should be com
pared the work of Blass, who, however, finds his explanation in the textual
history only, and the contribution of E. Schwartz in Gbtt. Gel. Nachr., 1907,
PP- 342-372. Fourth Gospel — 31

482 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the delusion of those who imagine that there is no history of
the evangehc writings behind that furnished by the textual
critic. Mere evidences of a high degree of scribal alteration
In the text of John will not therefore of themselves concem
us.! We shall also reserve for separate consideration In
Chapter XIX the special phenomenon of the "apparent dis
placements." The question for us at present Is that of the
passages In the body of the Gospel which show Intrinsic
connection with the Appendix. The latter chapter, as we
have seen, has a well-defined viewpoint and an object of Its
own, clearly distinguishable from those of chapters 1-20.
It aims in general to accommodate the Johannine to the
common evangehc tradition In Its latest synoptic form,
which is generally that of Luke. Passages connected with
the Appendix, If really due to redactional insertion, may be
expected to show traces of the fact (i) in greater or less dis
turbance to the context; (2) occasionally In a continued re
flection of this disturbance in the textual history; (3) In a
specially close relation to the synoptic narrative.
The most conspicuous instance of a passage admittedly
inseparable from the Appendix has already been sufficiently
considered. It is that of 19:35, on which "defenders" so
largely build. We have already seen ^ that even the textual
evidence here concurs in marked degree with both the other
considerations. As Blass has pointed out,' not only verse 35
has every appearance of a "parenthetic addition," but
verses 34 and 37, if omitted with it, leave the connection
1 In view of our previous observation of the comparative neglect of Matthew
by the fourth evangelist (above, pp. 368 ff.) it is interesting to note that the
discovery of the Syr. ""'¦ confirming D and A* in their omission of Jn. 12: 8
( = Mt. 26: 11), removes the only instance of direct use of Matthew from the
Fourth Gospel. The verse is certainly a "Western non-interpolation."
2 Above, pp. 461 ff.
3 Theol. St. u. Kr., 1902, pp. 128 ff. Blass had previously stated the sub
stance of his argument in Philology of the Gospels, 1898, pp. 224 ff.

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 483
much Improved, to say nothing of the apocryphal character
of the alleged Incident. It Is similarly added in almost all of
the earhest texts after Mt. 27:49, and was already known
to Celsus (170 A. D.), but in a different form from the Jo
hannine. Whatever the character or derivation of the inci
dent of verses 34 and 37, none will deny that the Interest and
motive of verse 35 are Identical with those of 21 : 24.
Next to 19: 35 In distinctness of relation to the Appendix
Is the group of passages, wholly synoptic In contents, which
relate the story of Peter's Denial in Jn. 13: 36-38 and 18: 15-
18, 25-27. Without the Appendix, these passages remaining
where they stand, the Gospel would leave Peter under the
unhfted cloud of disgrace. The Appendix relates his rein
statement in his position of leadership, and assurance of
ultimately retrieving his failure In the attempt to "follow"
unto prison and death (21: 15-22). Now from the point of
view of the higher critic it is impossible that either the story
of the denial or the reinstatement can have formed part of the
Gospel in Its original condition, because its original conclud
ing chapter — chapter 20 is universally admitted to have been
such — pays no attention to Peter's condition of humiliation,
but treats him as still one of the leaders In the apostolic group
commissioned to the world and endowed with the Spirit. In
view of this indissoluble interrelation of the passages Jn. 13:
36-38; 18: 15-18, 25-27, with 21: 15-24, It is interesting to
observe the radical treatment of the two paragraphs In
ch. 18 by Syr. ^"¦, concerning which Blass writes as foUows:
"Our John is not identical with the real John, and it will be
quite clear even from a careful examination of the text as it
stands, that John can neither have meant nor have written the
commonly accepted account with Annas' house as the scene of
the trial. ' They led him away to Annas first, for he was father-in-
law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year. Now
Caiaphas was he which gave counsel to the Jews that it was

484 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
expedient that one man should die for the people (see 11: 49 ff.).
And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple:
that disciple was known unto the high priest, and went in with
Jesus into the palace of the high priest' (Jn. 18: 13 ff.). After
having been distinctly told that Caiaphas was the high priest
that year, and not Annas, we read that the other disciple went
in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest. Whose palace,
therefore? Of course that of Caiaphas. How has Jesus come
there? The writer, leaving that serious omission unexplained
and uncorrected, goes on to speak not of Annas, but of the high
priest, and to tell of Peter's being introduced into his palace
(ver. 18), and then of Peter's first denial, and next not of the
second one, but of the trial of Christ. After that he suddenly
says, (ver. 24) : ' Now Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high
priest.' Then he returns to Peter, telling of his second and third
denials, and from Peter again to Christ (ver. 28) : ' Then led they
Jesus from Caiaphas into the hall of judgment ' (to Pilate) . This
narrative is so utterly confused that it is no wonder King James'
translators tried to correct it by interpretation, giving in ver. 24
not ' sent' but ' had sent.' ! But the Greek words give no warrant
for this interpretation, and even if it were possible, we could not
withhold our censure of the writer, as he would then have told a
simple story in the most awkward way." ^
Professor Blass is right about the confusion, though the
discovery of It Is not due either to his critical acumen or to
the unearthing of the Sinaitic Syriac, whose text Blass adopts
offhand, declaring:
"This is the narrative of a real author; the other one is that of
blundering scribes."
The confusion had been recognized centuries before the
discovery of Syr. "'"¦j and the whole situation clearly set
1 Luther had observed the confusion at a still earlier time, and attributed
it to displacement "in the turning of the leaf, as often happens." Beza
adopted a similar view. See Holtzmann, op. cit., p. 57.
2 Blass, Philology of the Gospels, pp. 57 f.

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 485
forth by the higher critic F. Spitta, who accounted for it as
due to the accidental displacement of a leaf of papyrus.! In
reahty It is due neither to accident to the original manu
script, nor to the work of "blundering scribes." The phe
nomenon Is completely accounted for as soon as we look at
the original from which the extract on Peter's Denial has
been made for Insertion In Jn. 18 : 14-18, 24-27. The curious
division after verse 18, by which Peter is made to stand
warming himself among the servants at the fire in the court
of Annas' house, and then In verse 25 to be standing and
warming himself In precisely the same situation at Cai
aphas' house, Jesus having made the change of scene mean
time (verse 24), Is simply due to unclrcumspect transfer of
Mk. 14: 53 ff. to the pages of John. It Is Mark who first
drew the picture of Peter entering the court of "the high
priest" and warming himself at the fire (Mk. 14: 53-54),
then passed to Jesus' trial by the chief priests, and then
returned again. This trial scene of Mk. 14: 55-65 is a
replica of the trial before Pilate (15: i ff.) and Is so awk
wardly Interjected as to make the brutal treatment of the
victim of verse 65, properly the low pastime of the menials
who "led Jesus away" (53a, 54), appear to be indulged in
by the members of the Sanhedrin (!). Thereafter Mark re
sumes his story with a second statement of how Peter was
warming himself at the fire (verses 66 f.), and relates finaUy
the denials. The Insertion In Jn. 18: 14-18, 24-27 has fol
lowed this model exactly. Inserting the story of the trial
between two identical statements of how "Peter stood and
warmed himself" (verse 18^ = 250). It even reflects the
absurdity that the abuse of Jesus took place in the actual
presence of the high priest (18 : 22 f. ; cf. Acts 23 : 2 ff.). The
Interpolator only failed to observe one of the minute "cor-
1 Zur Gesch. u. Lit. d. Urchristenthums, r893, pp. 158 ff. Blass' reference
to this as "getting at part of the truth" is hardly adequate.

486 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
rections" of the fourth evangehst (in this case probably a
real historical improvement), and herein proves himself an
other and a later writer. The fourth evangehst not only
names the anonymous "high priest" of Mark (correctly) as
in Matthew "Caiaphas," but associates him as In Luke,
though more precisely and accurately, with Annas. To the
house of Annas accordingly, which Talmudic writers locate
in the Immediate vicinity of Gethsemane, Jesus is brought
for preliminary examination and detention, until at dawn he
can be delivered up to Pilate. The statement of verse 28,
therefore, that at dawn they led Jesus "from Caiaphas to
the Pretorium" does not mean, as it is taken to mean in
verse 24, "from Caiaphas' house," but "from Annas' house,"
where Caiaphas had been conducting the examination of the
prisoner. But the Interpolator by effecting the change of
scene In verse 24 has produced the absurdity of Peter's posi
tion already noted. The simple omission of verses 14-18
(or 15-18) and 24-27 removes every disturbing feature, and
leaves a logical and consistent story. The attempt of Syr. ^™-
to cure the trouble by transposing verse 24 after verse 13 and
19-23 after verse 15, ranks with the conjectures of Luther and
Beza, or with the mistranslation of the Authorized Version,
except in b^ng more drastic. The Syr. ^'"- furnishes In fact
several other instances of the kind. In chapter 4 it similarly
transposes verse 8 into verse 6, and in 2 1 : 7 f . It makes the ex
planatory parenthesis "for they were not far from the land"
to follow verse 7, as the sense requires. While, then, we
cannot justify Blass' precipitate adoption of the Sinaitic
transpositions as representing the "real author," they do
afford entirely unbiased evidence to the gaps and seams of
this Gospel which still attracted attention in 170-180 a. d.,
and led to attempted Improvements.
But there remains one further passage of the group con
nected with the Appendix. It Is that which interjects the

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL

487

account of Peter's offer to follow in Jn. 13: 36-38 after the
giving of the "new commandment." This passage employs
the same synoptic material as before (cf. Mk. 14:27-31 =
Lk. 22: 31-34) but Introduces it where It interrupts the con
nection of the "new commandment" with Its development
In the parable of the Vine and the Branches. It should come
after Jn. 16: 32 f., the counterpart of Jesus' prediction of the
desertion of the Twelve In Mk. 14: 27; for this prediction Is
the occasion of Peter's offer. We have the following par
allelism :

Mk. 14: 27, 29 f. ; Lk. 22: 33
"And Jesus saith unto
them. All ye shall be caused
to stumble; for it is written,
I will smite the shepherd and
the sheep shall be scattered
abroad. . But Peter
said unto him. Although all
shaU be caused to stumble,
yet will not I" (Lk. "And he
said unto him. Lord, with
thee I am ready- to go both to
prison and to death") "And
Jesus saith unto him. Verily
I say unto thee, that thou,
to-day, even this night, be
fore the cock crow twice
shalt deny me thrice."

Jn. 16:31 f.; 13:36-38
"Jesus answered them. Do ye now
believe? Behold the hour cometh,
yea, is come, that ye shall be scat
tered, every man to his own and
shall leave me alone: and yet I am
not alone because the Father is with
me. Simon Peter saith unto
him Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus
answered, whither I go thou canst not
follow me now; but thou shalt follow
afterwards. Peter saith unto him. Lord,
why cannot I follow thee even now ? I
will lay down my life for thee. Jesus
answereth, Wilt thou lay down thy life
for me ? Verily, verily I say unto thee.
The cock shall not crow till thou hast
denied me thrice."

Manifestly Jn. 13: 36-38, to make true connection, should
have been Inserted where we have placed it, after 16:31 f.
The error Is due to 13: ^t,, where Jesus says "Whither I go
ye cannot come." But this subject of his departure, here
proleptically Introduced after a distinctive habit of "John,"
is not taken up "plainly" until 16: 29. The interpolator has
come in too soon. He should have waited for his cue, where

488 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Jesus' discourse, after developing the new commandment in
15:1-16:27; returned to the plain statement "I leave the
world and go unto the Father" (16: 28).
Independently even of this notable proof that 13 : 36-38
is inserted by a hand other and later than that of the original
evangelist, we have the displacement which accompanies it.
For scarcely any of all the striking Instances of this phe
nomenon of displacement in John has attracted such general
comment, often by quite Independent observers, as the in
troduction of the "fareweU" chapter (chapter 14) between 13
and 15. At this point it comes In quite prematurely; its true
place Is after chapters 15-16; for these continue the discourse
which draws to an end in 14: 1-24 and is formally concluded
In verses 25-31. It can hardly be accidental that so many
of the displacements occur in connection with added mate
rial of synoptic character.
It thus appears that every one of the passages in the body
of the Gospel Intrinsically connected with the Appendix gives
Independent evidence of being alien to Its present context,
the insertion of a later hand. The interpolator depends on
similar sources to those of R, works In the same interest, and
produces a disturbance of the original connection which is
sometimes reflected even in the textual history.
One more passage of synoptic content stands related to
the Appendix, not so much In subject-matter as In phrase
ology. So long ago as 1864 Scholten, critlcaUy reviewing the
analysis of A. Schwelzer, found his objections to the primary
authenticity of many passages inadequately sustained. Re
garding two, however, Schwelzer seemed to Scholten to es
tabhsh his case. These were (i) 18:9, because it seems to
mistake the sense of 17: 12; and (2) 2: 21 f., against whose
authenticity Scholten brought no fewer than eleven considera
tions, only two of which need here detain us; for we have
already found stronger evidences of entirely Independent

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 489
character applying to the whole paragraph. According to
Scholten :
"the evangelist nowhere else brings forward predictions of Jesus'
bodily resurrection; he also shows, by speaking in 20: 9 of ypa<f>y
only, that he has no knowledge of the saying 2: 19 as a reference
made by Jesus to his resurrection." Moreover, " The reanimation
of Jesus is expressed passively as a being raised; according to the
evangelist on the contrary Jesus me.y (dvdo-Tao-is, dvao-riyvat) 11: 25;
20: 9. Only in 21 : 14 do we have lyipOcd." !
Indications of connection with the Appendix so Inconclusive
as these would hardly call for more than passing mention,
were It not that on so many previous occasions we have come
across Independent Indications of the alien origin of Jn. 2:
13-25, and that among these are some which imply on the
one side an Interest in the adjustment of Johannine to syn
optic story, on the other a relation to the peculiar chronologi
cal system of this Gospel, and the displacement of consider
able sections of its material.
The Purging of the Temple Is not only what Wellhausen
calls "a synoptic story which has no proper place in" a
Gospel "whose motivation of the Passion (in the Lazarus
episode) leaves no room for an assault of Jesus upon the
Jewish authorities made so openly and with such Impunity."
Historically It is of course Inseparable from Its synoptic
sequel, the dehvering up of Jesus to Pilate.^ We cannot as
sume a priori, however, that a writer so Indifferent to the
historical nexus of cause and effect might not insert a story
rich to his mind in doctrinal or apologetic value, regardless
of historical consistency. The case is somewhat altered when
we observe that the apologetic interest subserved by this
report of Jesus' enigmatic reply to the demand of a sign from
heaven Is met In Jn. 6 : 30 ff . quite Independently, and In a
different manner. To the author of Jn. 2:14-22 the sign of
1 Evang. n. Johannes, p. 65. 2 See above, pp. 394 f.

490 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the son of man is the bodily resurrection "after three days."
It corresponds exactly to Matthew's Interpretation of "the
sign-of Jonah" (Mt. 12: 40). To the author of Jn. 6: 30 ff.
Jesus himself Is the sign, as in Lk. 1 1 : 30. Or rather we have
the same connection as in Mk. 8: 1-13 between the Sign of
the Loaves and Jesus' giving of himself, with the eucharistic
symbolism made more explicit. Christ himself Is the new
manna which comes down from heaven and gives life to the
world. Mark's story of the Demand of a Sign, followed at
once by Jesus' reminder to the disciples of the miracles of
the Loaves (Mk. 8: 1-14) Is thus combined in Jn. 6:3off.
with the Lukan Interpretation of "the Sign of Jonah" (Lk.
1 1 : 30) that Jesus Is himself the sign. It Is true that already
In the Synoptics there is duplication. The demand for a sign
Is connected first as In Jn. 6 with the collision in Capernaum
after the Feeding of the Multitude (Mk. 8: 11 ff. = Mt. 12:
38 ff. =Lk. II : 29 ff.), later, as in Jn. 2, with the coUision in
Jerusalem after the Purging of the Temple (Mk. 11 : 27-33 ^
Mt. 21: 23-32 =Lk. 20:1-8). Still a writer such as our
fourth evangelist would scarcely be likely to embody so
comparatively crude an Interpretation of the "sign" as that
of 2: 14-22 In addition to the more "spiritual" of 6:3off.
The Matthsean view, as we have seen, does not appeal to him.
Why then anticipate his own loftier teaching of the "sign"
by this preliminary passover with the variant Idea ?
For we have also found that 2: 14-22, with its connective
tissue in verse 13, stands peculiarly related to the scheme of
" feasts of the Jews" and to the chronology of the Gospel. Its
author counts Jesus' age as 46 at this beginning of his minis
try. It Is a probable, though by no means a certain Inference,
that he takes Jn. 8: 57 (rightly or wrongly) to imply that
Jesus was then close to his fiftieth year. If so he must have
treated the unnamed feast of 5 : i as a passover, as most of
the early fathers have done. This, however, is certainly a

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 491
misunderstanding.! Turner has shown that the Fourth
Gospel fundamentally agrees with Mark in assuming a dura
tion of two years for the ministry. Only at a comparatively
late period. In fact, could the Idea of a ministry of more than
two years make any headway In the Church. The original
scheme, then, will have contemplated a Galilean ministry
concluded by a passover signalized by the miracle of the
Loaves In Galilee, and after the Judasan ministry a second
passover signalized by the Passion and Resurrection. The
extra passover of 2: 13 ff. would fall, therefore, quite outside
the plan. In point of fact we shall see that like the Instance
of 13:36-38 already discussed, it stands Immediately con
nected with one of the most notable of the "apparent dis
placements." The connective verses 23-25 lead over to a
paragraph (3:1-21) full of references and presuppositions
which fall out of the Implied situation. Of these we must
take consideration In the succeeding chapter. Here we note
only that, unlike the other visits of Jesus to Jerusalem at the
great feasts distinctive of this Gospel, the incident and
dialogue have no relation whatever to the ritual of the feast
itself. The interview with Nicodemus deals with the doctrine
of the "new birth" by water and the Spirit. Both by Its rela
tion of dependence to Mk. 10: 13-31,^ and by its doctrinal
purport, we should expect It to appear in connection with the
feast of Tabernacles, when Jesus went up to Jerusalem at
the desire of his brethren that he declare himself openly, and
on the great day signahzed by the rite of water pouring pro
claimed the outpouring of the Spirit under this figure (7:37-
39). It certainly has no connection with the symbolism of
1 See above, pp. 380, 409. Authorities no less important than Hitzig,
Hilgenfeld, and van Bebber have maintained that "the feast" (ii ioprij
vera led.) could only mean Pentecost, citing patristic authority. It seems
more probable that ^ t^s irecre/coirT^s has been canceled.
2 See above, p. 382.

492 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Passover. Only one other visit In the Gospel Is thus bar
ren of poetic analogy between the ritual of the feast and the
"signs" and teaching of Jesus. It is that of lo: 22 f., which
merely interjects the statement that
"It was at Jerusalem, the feast of dedication. It was winter,
and Jesus was walking in Solomon's Porch."
So far from having any relation to the context this paren
thetic date Interposes an Interval of three months between
the two parts of a continuous dialogue! In 10: 1-2 1 Jesus
has just vindicated his claim to be the Light of the world,
already supported by the accompanying "sign" of giving
sight to the blind, by the parable of the Good Shepherd. In
verses 24-31 the Jews resent the implied claim to messianic
leadership (the parable being obviously based on Ezek.
34: 23), and Jesus replies, continuing Its imagery:
" Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto
you. My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow
me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shaU never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them- out of my hand."
Advocates of the Integrity of the original composition wish
us to believe that it occurred to the author, after reaching
the Interlude of verses 19-21, that It would be a good thing
for the audience to take an airing for three months, the
lecturer resuming his theme at the next paragraph, his pupils,
after their three months' vacation, opening their notebooks
at the point of Interruption. If this be not the moth'e It is
Incumbent on those who attribute Jn. 10: 22, 23 to the same
hand as the adjoining context to point to some Instance in
hterature, sacred or secular, of a mode of composition anal
ogous to what they Impute to the fourth evangehst. And
with the majority of such "defenders" this is supposed
to represent the graphic and precise detail of the eye
witness!

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 493
Whether the two verses io:22f. have simply been edi
torially transposed, as we were once disposed to think; ! or
as now seems more probable were added simultaneously
with the passover incident of 2: 13-25 to complete a total of
five festal self-presentations of Jesus, is a question for our
later consideration. At all events the two stand apart from
the festal schematlzatlon of the Gospel as a whole, and sug
gest editorial addition by their flagrant violation of the con
text. Having already anticipated the question of the dislocation
of 3: 1-2 1, anachronistically Inserted after the editorial sup
plement of 2: 13-25, we may now call attention to the fact
that 2:1-12 Is also disconnected from the preceding con
text; whereas 3: 22 ff. resumes the narrative concerning the
concurrent work of Jesus and John at the point of interrup
tion, with the same scenes and the same dramatis personae.
The Wedding In Cana Is In fact a pragmatlzed variation on
the same theme as 3: 29 f., the theme of Mk. 2: 16-22 and
of Mt. 11: 16-19 =Lk. 7:31-35. On grounds independent
of those urged by Delff and Wellhausen we must therefore
regard 2: 1-12 as equally alien to the original context with
2: 13-25, though perhaps not added by the same hand. The
real course of thought proceeds from i: 19-51 to 3: 22 ff.
Starting thus from the Appendix we have been led back
step by step to a perception of gaps and seams, structural
faultings and dislocations throughout the substance of the
Gospel. At first the textual evidence confirmed our infer
ences and even seemed to offer an explanation of the phe
nomena In some remarkable vicissitude of the period of
scribal transmission. As we proceeded the phenomena proved
1 This view is taken in the article in the American Journ. of Theol. for
Oct., 1900, made the basis of Chapter XIX. It is credited by Holtzmann
and Drummond to Rev. P. M. Strayer, whose article in the Journal of Theol.
Studies appeared simultaneously. See below, p. 521, note.

494 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
to have occurred on too large a scale, and to be too slightly
reflected In manuscript variation to admit of explanation
through mere accident in transmission, or even to the arche
typal text. Others, in particular Schwartz and Wellhausen,
have carried out the investigation in detail with results more
or less convincing, more or less affecting the general struc
ture and character of the work. We have first the "paren
thetic additions" which occur throughout the Gospel and
which impel even an opponent of the higher critics hke Blass
to say:
" The thing we find does not look like a double form of the text
[as in his theory of the Lukan -writings] but like an uncommented
text on the one side (not always preserved) and a text accompanied
with different comments on the other." !
But between these "parenthetic additions" and the larger
phenomena pointed to by critics of the Analytical School It
Is impossible to draw a line of distinction. The duphcations
adduced by Wellhausen and others in Jn. i: 19-23 = 24-28,
and even more markedly in Jn. 18:28-40 = 19:1-16, have
a significance which can no longer be ignored when led up to
by the phenomena of both textual and higher criticism al
ready cited. The supplementary manifestation to the dis
ciples for the special benefit of Thomas In 20: 24-29, after
In 19-23, eight days before, all the disciples have believingly
welcomed the risen Lord and been endowed with their great
Commission and the gift of the Holy Ghost, will certainly
justify the very emphatic query which Wellhausen places
over against It. Not unlike in motive to this reinforcement
of the testimony to the physical character of the resurrection
on the basis of Lk. 24:36-43, are the Interjected qualifi
cations and reductions of the lofty " spirltuahsm " of the
evangelist, repeatedly pointed out by critics from Weisse to
Wendt. In the words "in the last day" In 6: 396, 12: 486,
1 Philology, p. 233.

THE ANALYTICAL SCHOOL 495
"and I wIU raise him up In the last day," 6:40b, 44b, and In
5: 28, 29 Scholten found evidence of the same hand "which
In 21 : 22, 23 represents the parousia as a visible return."
Wendt ! finds the same coarsening of the sense of the con
text In Jn. 5 : 28 f., and adds further Instances of supple
mentation. Thus 1 2 : 366-43 is shown to cut off the conclud
ing words of Jesus In 44-50 from the situation of 35-36a, so
as to leave him without hearers, and I3:i8f. to separate
verse 20 from Its connection with 16 f. Wellhausen finds the
evidences of later change and supplementation so pervasive
as to leave us in doubt whether it Is permissible to speak of a
Grundschrift at all. What he leaves as such is scarcely more
than a. heap of fragments. Instead of a Johannine writer we
should have an Ephesian school, whose writings were cast In
a common mold, but as now agglutinated present scarcely
more than the appearance of consecutive story.
But enough. We are not now concerned with the extent
to which the work of documentary analysis may conceivably
be carried. Sufficient evidence has already been given with
out consideration of the more doubtful cases, to prove that
this Gospel has certainly not escaped the fate of other writ
ings of the kind. It has not retained the form its original
author first gave It, but has experienced revision, recasting,
and supplementation, perhaps repeatedly. As regards in
dividual Instances, especially such as depend exclusively on
the critic's own sense of what "must have been" the author's
intention, unsupported by textual evidence or direct connec
tion with the Appendix, the prospect of agreement In opinion
among the critics themselves is remote. As regards the fact,
redactional revision, connected with the attachment of the
Appendix and to some extent evincing a similar aim and
point of view. Is scarcely any longer open to doubt. The
Analytical School of criticism has won at least Its right to
1 Lehre Jesu, I, pp. 249 f .

496 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
exist. As regards one great structural feature of the Gospel,
the "apparent displacements," It gives promise of new and
helpful light on the history of its composition, and of the
meanings It has been made successively to bear. But for
this phase of the subject a new chapter will be required.

CHAPTER XIX
DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL AND TATIAN'S ORDER !
Reference has already been made to a special phenomenon
of the Fourth Gospel designated by Drummond Its "ap
parent displacements," and variously accounted for by nu
merous observers of the fact. Some of these, such as Holtz
mann and Drummond, account for It by the carelessness
of the author "who cared more for the associations of thought
than for the order of chronology." Others, such as Blass
and Spitta, attribute It to accident, "omission of whole sen
tences" afterwards supplied from the margin, but at the
wrong place, or accidental disarrangement of leaves in the
autograph. Still others find their explanation in the process
of editorial revision whose traces remain in other phe
nomena, notably in the addition of the Appendix.
In the preceding chapter enough of the phenomena have
been adduced to prove the Inadequacy of the two former
explanations. As Wellhausen expresses it
" A writer may be careless and unskihful, and even sometimes a bit
forgetful; but he must understand himself, and cannot all in a
moment have no remaining idea of the content of his own ex
pressions." ^
If, e. ^., Jn. i8: 9 takes 17: 12 in the physical sense when the
spiritual Is meant; or Jn. 18: 24 misunderstands 18: 13 as
Implying two places of detention where only one Is meant,
we have no alternative. It can only be another who commits
1 Based in part upon the article "Tatian's Rearrangement of the Fourth
Gospel," Amer. Journ. of Theol., Oct., 1900.
2 Evang. Joh., p. 4.
Fourth Gospel — 32 497

498 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the blunder. The author cannot have misunderstood him
self. Again the theory of accident Is excluded ahnost at once
by the magnitude of the phenomena, the paucity of remain
ing traces In the manuscripts and versions, and the evidences
of the context. For the material adjoining these "apparent
displacements" shows traces of editorial tinkering if not of
some general plan and system In the rearrangement.
It Is the question of plan and system which we have mainly
to consider in the present chapter; for Its bearing is mani
festly more positive than negative. The phenomena being
admitted, and explanations from the carelessness of the au
thor, or accident in process of the transmission of his work,
being found inadequate, are the evidences of editorial ma
nipulation such as to throw any light upon the earher form
of the material and the nature and motives of the alteration ?
A convenient and comprehensive summary of the various
critical attempts to rectify the apparent disorder, from
Hitzig in 1869 to that of the present writer In 1900 is given
by H. J. Holtzmann, with his characteristic thoroughness.
In the article already referred to.! ^Yhe. most Important In
stances are the following:
1 " Unordnungen und Umordnungen im vierten Evangelium," Zts.f. ntl.
Wiss., Ill (1902), pp. 50-60. The list includes F. Hitzig, Gesch. d. Volkes
Israel, 1869, pp. 579 f.; Norris, Journ. of Philology, III (1871), pp. ro7 f.;
Bertling, "Eine Transposition im Evang. Joh.," St. u. Krit., 18S0, pp. 351-
353; Spitta, Zur Gesch. u. Litt. d. Urchristenthums, I, 1893, pp. 155-204;
Wendt, Das Johannesevang., 1900, pp. 67-101; Burton, "The Purpose and
Place of the Gospel of John," Bibl. World, XIII (1899); Strayer and C. H.
Turner in Journ. of Theol. Studies, 1900, pp. 137-139 and 140-142; and the
present writer's discussions in Journ. of Bibl. Lit., r894, pp. 64-76; .4m.
Journ. of Theol., 1900, pp. 770-795, and in his Introd. to N. T. Lit., 1900,
pp. 272 ff. To these we may add as bearing on the same subject though
based on a different theory, the analysis of H. Delff in Das vierte Evang., etc.,
1890, with its supplement Neue Beitrage, r89o, and Gesch. d. Rabbi Jesus
von Nazareth, 1889. Delff finds the following material (besides chapter 21)
due to later interpolation: i: 1-6, 9-19; 2: i-ii; 4: 46-54; 5: 19-30; 6: 1-30,

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 499
I. Chapter 5 intervenes between two scenes of the Gahlean
ministry. From Cana and Capernaum, the scenes of 4 : 46-
54, one can go "away to the other side of the sea of Gahlee"
(6:1), but not from Jerusalem, the scene of chapter 5. More
over, all attempts to frame a consistent chronology break
down before the juxtaposition of "the feast of the Jews"
(var., "a feast") of 5: i and "the passover the feast of the
Jews" of 6 : 4. If the order of chapters 5 and 6 were inverted
the feast of 5: i might be Pentecost, as the ^ense" requires.
2. Jesus' justification of his h'^ling on the "S^bfeathJ
7: 15-24, continues the discourse gf, chapter 5, as If no in
terruption had occurred. Jesus Is still defending himself
against the charge of 5: 15-18, appealing as in 5: 39-47 to
the spirit of Moses' law against those who are condemning
him to death for a breach of Its letter, although In the mean
time the scene has changed to Galilee (chapter 6), and back
again to Jerusalem (7: 1-13), where the preservation of his
incognito is a condition of safety he feels bound to main
tain (7:1-8).!
3. The denunciation, io:26ff., continues the figure of
the sheep which know their shepherd, 10: 4 f., and the flock
kept and redeemed for the Father, 10: 10-18. Yet, In the
meantime, situation, date, audience, and provocation are
wholly changed (10: 22-25).
37-40, 59; 12: 26-31; 19: 35-38; 20: 11-19. Besides these larger additions
he finds minor supplements in 2: r7, 21, 22; 4: 44; 6: 44, 54; 7: 39; 12: 16,
33; 13: 20-
I This instance was first pointed out by Bertling in the article "Eine
Transpositipn im Evangelium Johannis," Studien und Kritiken, 1880,
pp. 351-353. It was subsequently adopted by Wendt (Lehre Jesu, I,
pp. 228 ff.). Both were unaware of the demonstration by J. P. Norris
(Journal of Philology, III, 187 1, pp. 107 ff.) that it is chapter 5 which has
suffered transposition from before chapter 7, and not vice versa. The result
of the received order is a complete dislocation of the Johannine chronology
through 5: I and an extraordinary interruption of the account of the Galilean
ministry by separating 4: 46-54 from its sequel 6: i ff.

500 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
4. Jesus' answer to the general disbelief, 12:44-50, is
spoken zum Fenster hinaus. We reach a carefully elaborated
ending of the pubhc ministry in i2:T,6b-4i, explaining the
rejection of Jesus by his own people as a whole (cf. i: 11),
as a fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, so constantly ap
pealed to by the Synoptists and by Paul (Isa. 6:9, 10; cf.
Mt. 13: 14 f.; Mk. 4: 12; Lk. 8: 10; Acts 28: 25-28; Rom. 9:
27, 33; 10: 16-21). Jesus, after announcing the impending
withdrawal of his light, has "departed and hid himself from
them" (verse 36^). Yet he resumes again as if still continu
ing the discourse of 12: 20-36, although the changed situa
tion now makes it a "voice crying in the wilderness."
5. Chapter 14 Is manifestly a farewell discourse; verses 25-
31 explicitly give the parting benediction and declare that
the opportunity for extended speech is over (verse 30);
verse 31 summons the company to rise ready for departure.
In an article, "The Displacement of John xiv," In the
Journal of Biblical Literature, 1894, the present writer un
dertook to show, in ignorance of Spitta's substantially Identi
cal arguments of slightly earlier date, that the "high-priestly
prayer," chapter 17, must have originally followed, while
the group is standing (the attitude of prayer, Mk. 11:25)
In readiness for the departure, 18: i. The Interruption of
chapters 15, 16 seriously injures, not only tbjs connection,
but Its own connection with chapter 13 (cf. 15: 3 with 13: 10;
15: 12, 17 with 13: 12-15, 34^-) 15:16-16: 3 with 13: 20; but
contrast 16: 5 with 13: 36; 14: 5 ff.).
6. The story of Peter's denial, 18: 14-18, is continued in
verses 256-27, necessitating the repetition of verse 18 'in
verse 25a. But In the meantime (verse 24) the situation has
changed from the house of Annas to the palace of Caiaphas,
with the result that Peter, who was standing among a group
of servants gathered at a fire of coals in the court of the
former. Is now In precisely the same situation. In the same

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 501
group, and apparently at the same fire, but at the door, not
of Annas, but of Caiaphas, before whom the examination of
Jesus has been proceeding In verses 19-23.
All but the first two of these Incongruities of order have been
already touched upon because of their apparent connection
with editorial Insertions of synoptic material. Others, per
haps not less serious to the critic, though less easy to de
scribe, have been noted In other parts of the Gospel, and are
very properly brought by Wendt into relation with the dis
crepancy in point of view and religious feeling between the
evangelist and his material, which we may illustrate In the
following passages: 2: 21 f.; 4:43-45; 7: i, 14; 10: 7, Sb, 9;
12: 29 f., 33; 13: 16, 20; 18: 9, and chapter 21 as a whole.!
We need not wonder that none of the critics who have
pointed out these Incongruities of order or have attempted
rearrangements, should have bethought himself to search for
external evidence. But the experience which one after the
other has gone through is too singular to be esteemed the
result of accident. Bertling, Wendt, and Spitta all argued
for the connection of 7 : 15 ff. with chapter 5, but In manifest
Ignorance of Norris' much earlier argument for the trans
position of chapter 5 after chapter 6, on largely identical
groimds, though principally because of the chronological
difficulties of the present order. The present writer, after
arguing for the transposition of chapter 14, had the mingled
pleasure and mortification of finding himself anticipated In
ahnost every detail by Spitta. Such things must be expected
where there Is a prima facie case. But the anticipations are
earlier still. Norris appends a paragraph to his article ex
pressing his surprise to find himself forestalled by Ludolphus
1 Professor Wendt has restated his views on the problem in his volume.
Das J ohannesevangelium, 1900. The analytical demonstration of com
posite origin is clearer and stronger than ever. One cannot say as much of
the synthesis. The Apostle as author of' the Epistles and the discourses of
the Gospel is as improbable a character ,as ever.

502 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
de Saxonica, author of a fourteenth-century Vita Christi,
" who seems to take it for granted that Jn. 6 should precede
Jn. 5." Spitta, as we have seen, scarcely a year after the
pubhcation of his proposed rearrangement of Jn. 18: 12-27,
viz., 18: 12 f., 19-24, 14-18, 25& ff., Is shown by Mrs. Lewis'
fortunate discovery at Sinai to be merely repeating the work
of a second-century translator.
After such a discovery one could not but prolong the
search, to see if the second century had not other writers able
In hke manner with the scribe of Syr. ^'"- to anticipate the
keenness of the nineteenth-century expert, whether by the
critic's method of conjecture based on Internal evidence, or
because possessed of unexplained sources of Information.
Our first thought would be of the work of Tatian in com
bining the four Gospels Into a continuous narrative. Tatian's
Diatessaron, recently brought to light, affords us a text of
the Fourth Gospel, practically complete, descending from a
date as remote as the radical criticism of but a few years ago
was willing to admit for the origin of the Gospel Itself. Does
the order adopted In the Diatessaron throw any light upon
the "apparent displacements" of John?
On the question of the plan adopted by Tatian in arrang
ing the contents of the Diatessaron, we are glad to have the
authority of Zahn, who In his attempt at reconstruction ar
rived at substantially the same order for its contents as we
now find them possessing in the Arabic text. After examin
ing the order with a view to discovering Tatian's method of
procedure, Zahn reached the conclusion that
"in general Tatian has given a decided preference to the first and
fourth gospels over the other two in fixing the order of events men
tioned by more than one evangelist, and this for the obvious reason
that, being of the number of the Twelve, and actively concerned
in the events they were recording, they would be more likely to be
correct in their description of them. Where a choice had to be

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 503
made between the first and fourth, he gave the preference to St.
John's order, probably because that evangelist wrote later, and
with a knowledge of what St. Matthew had already written." !
To this restatement and Indorsement of Zahn's general
conclusions Mr. Hill appends a very careful discussion of
cases of displacement within the limits of an Individual
gospel, supplemented by a table (Appendix II) showing the
disposition made of the entire contents of all the Gospels.
According to Hill: —
" Most of these displacements may be attributed to one or more
of the following causes: (i) Tatian preferred the order of the event
as given by another evangelist; (2) in relating two events which
occurred simultaneously Tatian considered himself free to put
either first, as seemed best to fit with his narrative, since in chang
ing the evangehst's order he was not chronologically wrong; (3) in
the case of short comments by the evangelist himself Tatian in
serted them anywhere where they would fit in conveniently; (4) he
permitted himself to make slight internal transpositions to improve
the order of his narrative; (5) where two discourses of a similar
nature occur in different gospels Tatian has sometimes blended
them together, in spite of the fact that from their respective settings
they appear to have been spoken at different dates or places; (6) in
one or two instances Tatian has grouped together discourses on
kindred subjects — or different aspects of the same subject — as
though they had been spoken in immediate succession, which does
not appear to have been the case; (7) having identified portions of
two gospels, he has inferred that the parts which respectively follow
them must have also happened at the same time and place, and has
interwoven them accordingly." ^
With aU this as describing the method of Tatian "in fixing
the order of events mentioned by more than one evangelist"
we find ourselves In accord, as well as with the inference
1 From The Diatessaron of Tatian, by J. Hamlyn Hill, Introduction, p. 26,
quoting Zahn.
'^ Ibid., p. 31.

504 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
drawn that, with the possible exception of the identification
of the Purging of the Temple in Jn. 2 : 13-22 with that of the
Synoptists, Tatian's changes of order of this kind are not due
to any lingering oral tradition, but are purely harmonistic.
What we have to do with is a totally different class of dis
placements, distinguished (i) as being limited to the Fourth
Gospel, Tatian's principal standard of order; (2) as not due
to adjustment to the Synoptists, (a) because it Is Tatian's
principle to do the reverse of this, (b) because they occur in
passages which for the most part have no synoptic paraUel;
(3) as not due to any of the enumerated causes, such as might
partly cover rearrangements independent of correspondence
with other Gospels. In fact, they are neither "short com
ments," nor "slight," nor mere collocations of "discourses
on kindred subjects," nor have they been carried over with
other transposed material. On the contrary. If we take,
e. g., the conversation with the Samaritan woman, we shall
find its historical framework, viz., the journey, which might
have been brought into harmonistic Identification with some
synoptic account of Jesus' movements, kept In place; while
the Incident Itself is removed to Part III of the Johannine
narrative. More exactly, Tatian leaves Jn. 4: i-3a in its
connection with 3: 22-36, but Instead of continuing, as we
should expect, with the ministry in Samaria, 4:4-450, he
takes out all this and locates It In the journey of Mk. 7: 31,
so that Jesus, after heahng the daughter of the Syrophenlclan
woman, "came unto the sea of Galilee, towards [sic] the
borders of Decapohs (Mk. 7:30-37) . . . and as he
was passing through the land of Samaria he came to a city of
the Samaritans called Sychar (Jn. 4:4-42) . . . and
after the two days Jesus went forth from thence and departed
Into Galilee, and ... the Gahleans received him
(43-450)." ! But the only Incident of this stay in Galilee Is
1 Jn. 4: 456 is utilized a little farther on as an editorial comment.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 505
the Heahng of the Leper, Mk. i : 41-45.! Jesus passes on
immediately to a feast at Jerusalem, viz., that of the fifth
chapter of John, which here follows. Relatively to the Gospel
of John the result is to transpose, not only the Samaritan
ministry, Jn. 4: 4-42, but Jn. 5: 1-47 as weU, whose relation
we have seen to be, not with the Gahlean ministry which it
now Interrupts, but with a subsequent feast In Jn. 7 In con
nection with this very chapter. Is it not possible that we
have here an explanation of the unexplained transposition
which Norris was so surprised to find in Ludolph de Saxonica ?
For Tatian's Diatessaron circulated in an ancient High Ger
man and Latin bihngual translation as early as the ninth cen
tury.^ But neither Jn. 4: 4-42 nor Jn. 5: 1-47 has any synoptic
parallel, In "subject of discourse" or similarity of incident,
close enough to influence Tatian. He could have let either
remain precisely where It stood In position relative to the
Fourth Gospel, so far as the rest of his material was con
cerned. Nor is he influenced by a desire to coordinate the
Heahng of the Centurion's Son, Jn. 4 : 48-54, with its Synop
tic parallel (Mt. 8:4-i3=Lk. 7: i-io); for the two are to
him entirely independent .Incidents.^ Either reflecting on
the early particularism of Jesus, Mt. 10: 5; 15: 24, he was
driven by historico-critical motives to disregard the order of
his supposedly dominant authority, or — he had reason to
think these incidents came later.
1 Embellished by the substitution of Lk. 5: 12 for Mk. i: 40, and Lk. 5:
156, 16 for the last clause of Mk. i: 45. But, although Tatian brings down
this healing of the leper of Mk. i: 40^45 to a date and circumstances almost
identical with those of the leper healing of Lk. 17: 11-19 he makes no identi
fication of the two, for this would of course have involved an alteration of the
text. 2 Cf. Sievers, Tatian, 1872, pp. i ff.
3'He places Jn. 4: 48-54 before Lk. 4: 44; Mt. 4: 13-16, as the first
event of the Galilean ministry. The data of time and place in Jn. 4: 46
compelled this.

5o6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
We need only tabulate Tatian's resultant order for the
Fourth Gospel, underscoring transposed material, to see how
Inadequate are the causes thus far suggested to account for
the changes. The order Is as follows:
(§1) Jn. 1:1-5,! 7-28, 29-31, 32-34, 35-51; 2:i-ii;2
3: 22-4: 30 ("and he left Judea").
(§ ii) 4:46-54 (2: 236-25) ;= 6:i&,* 2&-5a, 56-9, 10, 12-13,
14-18, 190, 21b, 22-71.
(§ hi) 4:4-450 (to "the Galileans received him"); 5: 1-47;
(4:ASb).' ^
(§Iv) 7:1, 2-ioa, 10&-31 (5:10);^ 2:140, ¦L4b-T^S, 16,
17-22; 3: 1-21; 7:31-52;^ 8:12-11:57; 12: if., 9-11, 30,
3&-6, 76, 80, i6,» 12 f., 17 f., 19-360, 42-50, 366-41.
(§ v) 13:1-20, 2ia, 22, 23-29, 30-32, 33-36, 376, 38a;
14:1-310, 316; 15:1-18:2, 40, 46-9, 10 f., 120, 126-17,
180, 186, 19-250, 260, 266, 280, 286, 29 f., 31-380 (to "and
went out again unto the Jews"), 39 f.; 19:2, 36-15, 160,
166, 170, 17c, 23 f., 19-22,9 25-27, 28-290, 300, 306, 31-37,
386, 38(^-42; 20: 2-17, 18-19, 206-21: 24, 25.
In the above table the divisions clearly marked by the
subject-matter of the Fourth Gospel are indicated by §-marks,
1 Jn. i: 6=Lk. 3: 1-3, omitted as duplicate.
22:12 omitted, probably as=Mt. 4: 13-16, which follows Jn. 4:46-54;
2: 13 is purely connective and duplicate.
3 This editorial comment Tatian has adapted to his own uses by omitting
verse 23a. He appends it to the first section of the Galilean ministry before
the sending of the Seventy.
^ 6:10 is combined with Mt. 14: 130. The interruptions and slight omis
sions in 6: 1-2 1 are, of course, due to the closeness of the parallel here inter
woven from the Synoptists.
5 Another editorial comment adapted by Tatian to his own uses, in con
nection with the Feeding of the four thousand.
8 Utilized a second time to introduce Lk. 17: 11 ff.
7 This verse (7: 31) is repeated. See above.
8 The changes of order and omissions in 12: 1-16, including the omission
of 14 f., are to be accounted for as in 6: 1-21.
8 On chapters 18, 19 see the preceding note.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 507
separating the content Into periods: (§ I) the Ministry of
John; (§ h) the Gahlean ministry of Jesus; (§ In) a Journey
through Samaria and Galilee, and visit to Jerusalem (cf.
Lk. 9:51-56; 10:38; and especially 17:11); (§ iv) the
Peraean Ministry; (§ v) the Passion and Resurrection.
These are, of course, entirely broken through by Tatian,
who multiphes journeys between Jerusalem and Galilee In
the Interest of harmonization. But the distinction we have
drawn between transpositions which can be accounted for
on the principles established by Zahn and HiU, and those
which are Impossible to reduce under them. Is unmistakably
apparent. Wherever the synoptic account runs closely
parallel, Tatian In the main reduces it to the order of John,
showing his regard for this Gospel not merely thus, but by
the reverential care with which he has worked In almost
every word of it at the expense of the Synoptists, the only
omitted portions being mere connective material or editorial
comment, and the rare instances where the fuller account of
the Synoptic writers made it impossible to introduce some
word or two of the Johannine story without a degree of
tautology so palpable as to be absurd. The omissions from
John scarcely amount in all to a dozen verses,! and the trans
positions, if we set aside the three great masses of material
underscored In §§ ill and Iv, are practically non-existent,
affecting only the rearrangement of a brief sentence or two,
to adapt it to the composite story.^
1 Of course, we do not include 7 : 53— 8 : 11, the spurious fragment on the
woman taken in adultery, which formed no part of the Fourth Gospel in
Tatian's day.
2 A complete list of these minor transpositions is as follows: (i) Jn. 12: i-r6
(anointing in Bethany and triumphal entry), (a) Jn. 12: 9-11, which de
scribes the circumstances of the anointing, precedes instead of following it,
attaching to the corresponding element of Mk. 14: 3a. This is clearly, as
Mr. Hill has noted, "for the sake of neatness in the combined account."
(b) -Verse 16, the editorial comment on 14 f ., is necessarily attached to the

5o8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Entirely different motives must have controlled In the
transposition of (i) the Purging of the Temple and Dialogue
with Nicodemus (2:14-3:21), (2) the Samaritan ministry
(4:4-450), (3) the Feast at Jerusalem (5:1-47), (4) Jesus'
Self -vindication (12:42-50). Of these five masses of ma
terial 2: 14-22 and 3: 1-2 1 are transposed from the period
of the Baptist's ministry to separate occasions of the final
stay in Jerusalem and vicinity; 4:4-450 and 5: 1-47, from
the Galilean ministry to the journey through Samaria and
Perea after the crisis In Galilee; and 12 : 42-50, from after to
before verses 366-41. In only one of these instances Is there
a Synoptic parallel close enough to suggest harmonization
as a motive, and In this (2: 14-22) it is difficult, considering
the ease with which modern harmonists resort to the stand
ard device of two temple-cleansings, to Imagine that Tatian,
who resorts to similar devices to a still higher degree, should
have been actuated by harmonistic motives alone.! The
question remains: Was Tatian a higher critic, reasoning
from Internal evidence and the natural probablhties of the
case; or had he external evidence, oral or written, independ
ent of our Synoptic Gospels? The answer Is to be found
only by careful scrutiny of the transpositions. If the con
text Itself is of a nature easily to suggest the propriety of
their removal, while more profound Investigation shows a
latent suitability to the connection in which we have been
accustomed to read them, they will be due to arbitrary con-
substitute, Mt. 21: 36-5, and thus loses its relative position. (2) The divi
sion of Jesus' garments by the executioners, 19: 23 f., precedes instead of
following the account of the title on the cross, verses 20-22, the order of
Matthew being here followed (exceptionally) in preference to John, obvi
ously because it purports to be chronological, while that of John does not.
(3) In three instances (2: 23J-25; 4:'456; 5: la) Tatian has utilized brief
touches of editorial comment for his own purposes.
1 As we have seen, even Mr. Hill admits this as an exceptional case where
tradition might have had an influence.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 509
jecture on Tatian's part. We may be astonished at the bold
ness and skill of this early precursor of German criticism,
but It wiU be certain that the critic must consent to see him
self both anticipated and outdone In his chosen field. If,
per contra, the context gives no such superficial suggestion
of displacement, but on closer scrutiny reveals a deep-seated
superiority In the order obtained after the transposition,
especially if this phenomenon be accompanied by apparent
lack of appreciation on Tatian's part of the real nature and
effect of the change, we may Infer that he possessed some
source of external evidence Inaccessible to us.
It will be simpler to consider first the removals, and after
ward the new location assigned, and, beginning with the
case most favorable to the idea of unsupported conjecture as
Tatian's motive, we may look first at the fifth Instance, the
removal of 12: 42-50. Wendt and others, as we know, had
pointed out the Incongruity of the situation in i2:44ff.,!
though even this was disputed by so able a scholar as Holtz
mann; but It seems to have needed the superior acumen of
Tatian to perceive that the real break Is after verse 41, all
that follows serving only to weaken the force of the dramatic
conclusion which quotes the prediction of Isaiah.^ Let us
credit Tatian with the eye to perceive this, and return to the
removals from chapters 1-6.
Let It be granted that Tatian removed 2: 14-22 to com
bine it with Mt. 21 : 12 ff., and omitted verse 12 as duphcat-
Ing Mt. 4: 13-16; -we have still to explain why the Passover
visit to Jerusalem, 2: 13, 23-25, is canceled, and the dialogue
with Nicodemus, 3: 1-2 1, removed, in spite of the fact that
the journey from Cana of Galilee (2: 11) to "the Judean
1 Lehre Jesu, I, p. 236.
2 For an independent appreciation of the character of this locus classicus
of the New Testament writers see the review of Jiilicher's Gleichnissreden,
by Sanday, in Journal of Theological Studies, January, 1900.

5X0 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
country" (3: 22) Is retained. Surely we have all read this
entire context many times with the mental removal of the
Incident of the temple-cleansing, 2: 14-22, into the connec
tion of its synoptic parallels, Mt. 21: 12 ff., etc., and felt no
incongruity in the remainder. Yet how extraordinarily
felicitous, for a purely accidental result, Is the connection
which ensues when we pass directly from 2: i-ii to 3: 22-
4: 3, and thence back to Cana and Capernaum In 4: 46-54 1
No longer does the expression "came Into the Judean coun
try" sound strangely, when Gahlee, not Jerusalem, Is the
point of departure. Moreover, the entire period of ministry
before the Imprisonment of John, a unit save for the episode
of the wedding at Cana, 2: i-n,! becomes natural and in
telligible, a prelude to the opening scenes of the synoptic story,
which throws a flood of light upon It Instead of contradict
ing it, and removes the serious difficulties of the chronology.
But the greatest surprise Is the transposition of the Dialogue
with Nicodemus (3: 1-2 1) Into the midst of chapter 7, where
verse 31 is repeated to accommodate Its insertion. With
all their acumen not one of our modern critics had ob
served the anachronistic assumptions of this paragraph In
its present context. But Tatian, If his transposition was based
on critical reflection, observed (a) that It Is not natural that
Nicodemus should speak as In 3:2, when no particular
"sign" done In Jerusalem had been mentioned; (6) that the
dialogue suggests longer and fuller acquaintance with Jesus'
teaching than the assumed circumstances admit; (c) that
Jesus' reference to his Impending rejection and death and
1 Treated by Delff as secondary (Beitrage, p. i8) on the following grounds:
(i) the impossibility of the journey from Bethabara to Cana in the time
assigned (2: i); (2) the impossibility that Jesus' disciples, who had only be
come such a day or two preceding, should have been invited (2: 4); (3) Jesus
appears in a character (2: 5) such as belongs only to the period after 2: 12;
(4) the character of the arip.elov in contrast with all the other Johannine
ar\p,eia.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 511
the judgment to come, 3: 11-15, 18 ff., is incongruous with
3 : 26-30 and the whole period of the early ministry, agreeing
better with Jn. 8: 15; 12: 47 f., and the period when Jesus'
hfe was sought. Similarly it Is not difficult to perceive, when
our attention has been called to the fact, that there are serious
obstacles to placing a Samaritan ministry before the very
beginning of the ministry in Galilee. Jn. 4 : 4-42 becomes
Incongruous at that time in its historical substance. We
should expect the Galileans to raise the cry of Jn. 8 : 48.
And what of the public, unreserved recognition of Jesus as
the Messiah, 4: 26, 42 ? The difficulty Is surely great enough,
even if we place it with Tatian after Caesarea Phllippi, and
the dealings with the Samaritans after the restriction of
Mt. 10: 5 f. had been corrected by the experience of Mt. 15:
24-28, and Jesus' attitude toward Samaritans had altered
(Lk. 9: 51 ff.). A historical critic of the first order might
conceivably have been moved by considerations such as
these to place the Incidents of Jn. 3: 1-2 1 and 4: 4-42 later
on in his " Life of Christ." But was this Tatian's idea ? Ap
parently not, since he retained 4:43-45 (except verse 456),
which he would surely have treated as he does 2 : 23-25 if he
had acted on critical grounds.
Our Matthew, the same that Tatian employs, has no rela
tion to the order of Jn. 2-4. But we need only remove the
portions known to be derived from Mark, viz., Mt. 4: 18 ff.
and 8 : 1-4, inclosing the Sermon on the Mount, which all
critics recognize as prematurely placed, to come upon an
underlying connection in Mt. 4: 12 ff.; 8: 5 ff., which bears a
remarkable resemblance to that of Jn. 3:22-4:3, 46-54-
The correspondence becomes all the stronger when the
editorial comment of Mt. 4: 14-17 is removed, and Jn. 2: 12
brought into the relation with 4: 46-54 which the handling
of Its substitute, Mt. 4: 12 f., by Tatian suggests. Nor does
it stop at this point. Take out the next passage borrowed

512 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
from Mark, viz., 8:14-16 ( = Mk. 1:29-34), with the edi
torial comment, verse 17, and what follows? The verses 18-
22, which form so curious an exception to the chain of ten
miracles common to Mark, in Mt. 8-9, and which begin:
"Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him he gave
commandment to depart unto the other side." Precisely as
in Tatian's order, Jn. 6: i ff. follows upon 4: 46-54! What
can account for these facts more simply than the supposition
that Tatian was Influenced in his arrangement of the order
by some unknown source — let us say the Ev. Hebr. — in
which the order underlying Matthew and Mark still sur
vived unchanged ? If so there will be nothing strange In the
resultant order seeming often to improve upon our John, for,
as Holtzmann has shown,! ^j^^jg (^-ospel has a relation not yet
explained to the Ev. Hebr.
We need not raise Delff's question whether the marriage
In Cana, 2: i-ii, forms part of the original story, for the
"original" story lies farther back than we are now attempt
ing to go. The arguments brought against this episode
would lose much of their force If we removed it to the posi
tion of 4 : 460, in the Interval between the close of the work
of baptizing with John and the opening of that in Capernaum;
cf. 3: 24 (suggesting the omission of a parallel to I\It. 4: 12)
and 4: 54. Such transposition, however. Is a mere possibil
ity, unsupported by. Tatian, who connects 2:1-11 with 3 : 22 ff.
Few competent judges, however, will deny the improved con
nection which results In Jn. 1-4 from the removals made by
Tatian. His resultant order for §§ I-Iil gives the story of
the pre-Gahlean and Galilean ministries as follows:
(§ i) Prologue, i: 1-18; ^ Jes'js and the Baptist, i: 19-51;
[2: i-ii]'' 3: 22-4: ;^a ("and he left Judsa").
1 Einleitung, p. 441.
2 -Verses 6-8 and 15 are assigned by us to R. See above, p. 458.
3 See above, p. 510, note.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 513
(§ u) Jesus begins his Work, 4: 46-54 (Healing of Noble
man's Son in Capernaum); 6: 1-7 1 (Feeding of 5,000, Walk
ing on Sea, Discourse in Capernaum, Confession of Peter).
(§ hi) Samaritan Ministry and First Visit to Jerusalem,
4: 4-450 (to "the Galileans received him"); 5: 1-47.!
It is certainly supposable that Tatian reached this sur
prisingly consistent and reasonable result by mere harmon
istic conjecture. If so, two preliminary Inferences may al
ready be set down: (i) His abilities as a historical critic have
been immensely underrated. (2) He was far less bound
than Zahn and HIU suppose by the assumption of superior
historical accuracy on the part of John the " eye-witness."
It remains for determination hereafter (a) whether this order
really heals the "apparent displacements" of the Johannine
material, and (6) whether it agrees with the relation we have
seen to subsist fundamentally between the order of this Gos
pel as a whole and that of Mark. Meantime we have to con
sider § Iv which covers the period corresponding to the so-
called "Perffian Ministry" of Mk. 9 f.'=Lk. 10-18. For the
section on the final Passover in Jerusalem (§ v) naturally
contains no change of order, the problem here requiring only
the Insertion of the farewell discourse and prayer Into the
Synoptic story.
The transposition of Jn. 12:42-50 from after to before
12: 366-41, unlike that of 2: 14-22 (Purging of the Temple)
which Tatian removes to a position nearer to, though not at
the final Passover,^ is of course quite Independent of Synoptic
influence. Tatian shows the consciousness by his change of
reading In verse 42 (Kal for ofico^ p-evroi) that this verse could
1 By including the descriptive material 4: 43-45 (verse 456 is used for
editorial purposes at the end of chapter 5) Tatian brings Jesus back to
Gahlee before going up to Jerusalem. Cf. Mk. 7:24ff., 9: 30 ff., and
Lk. g: 51 ff.
2 In Tatian's order Jn. 2: 14-22 is followed by Jn. 10: 22, 40 (Dedication);
11: I ff., 54; Lk. 9: 51 ff. and finally Jn. 12: i ff. (final Passover).
Fourth Gospel — 33

514 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
not follow (unchanged) after verse 360. It may well be that
here he is simply trying, as others have since tried, to heal a
manifest dislocation.! At all events this slight Internal trans
position manifestly belongs in a different category from those
of §§ i-Iii., and does not even fully heal the disorder of chap
ter 12. We cannot infer more from It than a perception on
Tatian's part that verses 366-41 containing the explicit state
ment of Jesus' final withdrawal from public teaching, fol
lowed by the evangelist's comment on its result, cannot be
followed by a resumption of the teaching (albeit without
auditors) In verses 44-50. Even this, however. Is significant.
If now we return to the three elements excerpted by Tatian
from the Galilean ministry to insert at a later point, viz.,
Samaritan Woman (4: 4-45), Outbreak of Opposition (chap
ter 5), and Interview with Nicodemus (3: 1-21) it will be in
order to put the following questions: (i) What results from
the new order in the Intrinsic consistency of the Johannine
narrative? (2) Is it brought Into closer relation with syn
optic story? (3) If so, how is the relation to be accounted
for? The Incident of the Samaritan Woman we have already
seen to be the Johannine counterpart of the. synoptic story of
the Syrophenlclan, identically placed by Matthew and Mark
after the material corresponding to Jn. 6. Luke, however,
cancels this Markan ministry to Gentiles, and Inserts in nearly
the same relative position (Lk. 9: 51 ff.) a visit of Jesus with
the Twelve to " a certain village of the Samaritans." So far as
the Intrinsic consistency and logical sequence of the Fourth
1 In the original form of the present chapter it was proposed to further
transpose 12: 1-19 after 20-360 giving the order 11: 47-53, 54-57; 12: 20-
36a, 1-19, 42-50, 366-41. Thus the Greeks of 12: 20 ff. would approach
Jesus in his seclusion at Ephraim (11: 54) through his intimates (12: 20 ff.),
and the scenes of 12: 20 ff. be prepared for in 11: 54-57 as those of the visit
at Tabernacles (5: 2-47; 7: 15-30) in 7: 11-13. Bute/. Wellhausen (Evang.
Joh., pp. 56-58) and see below.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 515
Gospel is concerned, slight fault comparatively can be found
with its present position. True It is not historically conceiv
able that Jesus should engage In such a colloquy on such a
subject under the supposed circumstances; nor that he should
publicly announce himself to the Samaritans as the Messiah,
and "the Savior of the World" (4: 26, 42). But we have no
reason to suppose that the fourth evangelist was In the least
troubled by such reflections. Indeed the evidence of i : 29,
36, 45, 49 is conclusive that he did not. Similarly Mt. 10: 5 f.
Is Inconsistent with this early ministry In Samaria. But this
Is just one of the peculiarities of the Jewish-Christian Gos
pel with which the Ephesian evangelist is completely out of
sympathy. Tatian, then, was certainly not moved by the
lack of consistency of this incident with its context to transfer
it to another.! If he had the sagacity to perceive its sub
tle relation to the Markan Incident of the Syrophenlclan
Woman he may have effected the transfer as the most astute
of harmonists, one who at the same time had the keen eye of
the trained historical critic. The third alternative Is that
some other evangelic writing, accessible to him but not to us,
enabled him to perceive this relation. We have suggested
the Ev. Hebr.
Next in Tatian's revised order of Johannine incidents
comes the Visit to Jerusalem at Pentecost of chapter 5. Here
the context Itself gives evidence of structural dislocation.
Hitzig wished to place this chapter after chapter 3. Norris
after chapter 6. Independently of these, and to some extent
of one another, Bertling, Wendt, and Spitta successively
1 Mr. Hill's statement regarding Tatian's apparently motiveless transfer
of this incident from Jesus' northward journey in Jn. 4: 1-3, to the journey
"from Tyre and Sidon through Decapolis to the sea of Gahlee" of Mk. 7:
24-37 is as follows: "Tatian seems to make this happen on the way from
Galilee to Juda:a, if we connect it with the opening of this chapter; this is
the reverse of John's order (Jn. 4: 3). Yet at the close of this visit (4: 43)
Jesus departs from Sychar to Galilee as in St. John's gospel."

Si6 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
showed that the paragraph 7: 15-24 is the real conclusion of
chapter 5, improperly removed from It. Their remedy was
to move the smaller fragment toward the larger, not con
versely. Burton brought their results into accord with those
of Norris by proposing the order chapter 6; chapter 5; 7: 15-
24, 1-14, 25 ff. He added the further transposition of 7: 45-
52 after verse 36, to avoid the absurdity that the officers sent
to apprehend Jesus do not report to their superiors till several
days after. Here, then, was evidence, "highly probable" In
the judgment even of Blass, of real structural dislocation of
the Gospel.
How comes it that the removal of chapter 5 by Tatian from
between 4 : 46-54 and 6 : i ff . not only results In a connection
as perfect as between 2:11 and t,: 22 S., but also removes at a
stroke many of the inherent difficulties of matter and form
observed by the critics ? What can be more natural than the
connection of 4 : 46-54 with 6 : i ff . ? Jesus has done a mighty
work of healing in Capernaum. He crosses "to the other side
of the sea of Gahlee . . . and a great multitude followed
him, because they beheld the signs which he did on them that
were sick." Intercalate chapter 5, and we have Jesus In
Jerusalem defending his life against the rabbis in a great
dialectic discourse. The occasion, we learn from an editorial
note of the stereotyped form (5 : i), was "a feast of the Jews,"
but to this day the dispute Is unsettled what feast, every possi
ble feast being discordant with what Immediately precedes
(4: 35) and what Immediately follows (6: 4). And now the
discourse against the rabbis in the temple breaks off abruptly,
without a hint of how Jesus escapes, or even whether he did
escape, and (from Jerusalem) he "crossed over to the other
side of (drrrfXOev irepav) the sea of Galilee," etc. One would
almost say In this case Tatian must have seen the Incongruity
of chapter 5 between 4: 46-54 and chapter 6, and removed It
for that reason. And yet readers for eighteen centuries did not

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 517
notice It. Harmonists did not notice It. Critics did not notice
It. Bertling, Wendt, and Spitta, searching the Gospel for this
very matter of dislocations, did not notice It, even after they
had perceived that the close of chapter 5 must connect with
7:152. There is, In short, a partial repair of the dislocation.
The sequence of events up to the end of the Galilean ministry
is restored. The broken parts of chapter 5 and 7: 15-24 are
brought much closer together. But they do not meet. There
Is no indication that Tatian had before him any other form of
the Fourth Gospel than our own.
But was Jn. 5 simply carried over along with Jn. 4 : 4-450,
Into the period of wanderings at the very close of the Galilean
ministry ? Or had Tatian some reason to realize that Its con
tents relate to the same Growth of Opposition which Mark
(prematurely) Introduces In Mk. 2 : 1-3 : 6, and Q presents
as a series of discourses on How they were Stumbled In
Him, Mt. 11: 1-12:45 (except supplements) = Lk. 7: 18-50;
11 : 14-26 ? We have one or two hints that the latter was the
case. (i) Between the incident of the Samaritan Woman (Jn. 4:
4-450) and the Outbreak of Opposition In Jerusalem (Jn. 5)
Tatian inserts the Healing of the Leper (Lk. 5:12; Mk. i : 41-
45a; Lk. 5: 156, 16), the same which immediately precedes
the Markan section on the Growth of Opposition, reflect
ing perhaps the clause of Q "the lepers are cleansed" (Mt.
11: 5 = Lk. 7: 22).
(2) Mark's own narrative continues in 3:7-35 with the
account of how Jesus dealt with the increasing multitude of
his disciples, resisting the mistaken intervention of his mother
and brethren. But the Johannine parallel to this is 7 : 1-14,
which both In Tatian's order and that of our Fourth Gospel
cuts off 7: 15-24, the concluding paragraph of the Outbreak
of Opposition In Jerusalem (chapter 5). Moreover, Indica
tions are not wholly wantmg"in the close correspondence of

5x8 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Mk. 3: 6 with Mk. 12: 13, and the different setting given In
Matthew and Luke to much of the material embodied at this
point of Mark's narrative, that In some other early source It
was Introduced at a later period, perhaps as late as where
Tatian has placed It, between the Journey through Phenicia
and Decapolis (Mt. 15 : 21-28) and the Second Miracle of the
Loaves (Mt. 15: 29-39).
But we must turn our attention finally to Tatian's third
great transposition, the removal of the Interview with Nico
demus (Jn. 3: 1-2 1 ) from a position before the opening of
the Ministry In Gahlee to the middle of that in Peraea. It
Is conceivable again that this section (Diatess. xxxli, 276-47)
was carried over In conjunction with the incident of the
Purging of the Temple (Diatess., xxxil, i-ii), although the
connecting link ( Jn. 2 : 23-25) is employed elsewhere (Diatess.
XV, 12-14). The synoptic journey to Jerusalem through
Peraea and Jericho thus receives as its occasioning feast not
the final Passover, mention of which Is reserved to Diatess.
xxxix, i=Jn. 12:1, but "the feast of Tabernacles" of
Jn. 7: 1 ff. (=Diatess. xxviii, 1-32).! But we are more con
cerned with the effect of the transposition upon the Intrinsic
consistency of the Johannine story, and Its relation to synop
tic, than with Tatian's motive. The effect Is as follows.
Once Insert Jn. 3 : 1-2 1 after 7 : 30 and not only do we have
better connection for the section on Jesus and John (Jn. 1-3),
but both the story of the Visit at Tabernacles (Jn. 7) and the
Interjected Interview with Nicodemus (3:1-21) lose their
inconsistencies and become reciprocally Intelligible. The
mighty works referred to In 3 : 2 no longer require to be sup-
1 Inconsistent with this is the clause, Diatess. x.xx, 31a, "After these
things was the Jews' feast of Unleavened Bread." But these words are not
found in any of our Gospels. They are a mere imitation of Jn. 5: i whiqh
was already employed in xxii, 9. They may have formed no part of the
original Diatessaron.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 519
phed out of nothing. The reference Is to the miracle of
5 : 2 ff. already treated as typical in 7 : 3. Nicodemus' com
ing by night Is no longer a motiveless timidity; real danger
Is involved in open association with the sabbath-breaker of
5: 1-18; 7: 15-24. Nicodemus' hints at the high claims of
Jesus (3:1) have good ground In the discourse on the author
ity of the Son of man exceeding that of Moses (5: 19-47).
Jesus, on his part. Is prepared to take still higher ground,
referring to the unbelief and rejection he has met on the part
of the teachers of Israel (3: 11 f.; cf. 5:38-47), predicting
his violent death (3: 13-15; cf. 5: 18; 7: 19), and declaring
the judgment that will fall on the wilfully unbelieving (3:
16-21; cf. 5: 27, 30 ff., 42-47). How strange all this, If as
yet he has had nothing but acceptance (2: 23; 3:2)! How
incomprehensible the tone of denunciation of the teachers of
Israel as a class, and the assumption of rejection and death
as a foregone conclusion, if in 3 : 26-30 the joy of Jesus'
universal welcome is still as that which surrounds bride
groom and bride! But insert 3:1-21 after 7:30, and the
strange outcome of this first great conflict in Jerusalem Is
Illuminated. After the philippic with which the attempt to
klU him for sabbath-breaking had been met, and the pharl-
salc zealots, though plotting, are cowed for a time (7 : 25-30),
we have the night visit of the rabbi, who goes from it pre
pared to play his part of secret friend (3: 1-21). The behef
of the multitude, wondering at the miracle, provokes a second
half-hearted attempt (7: 31 ff., 45 ff.), but the very boldness
of Jesus' appeal (7 : 33-36) gives him a partial acceptance
with the multitude, while Nicodemus plays the part of
Gamaliel (Acts 5: 33-42) in the Sanhedrin (7: 45-52). The
section winds up ! with a picture of the divided state of opin
ion (7:37-44).
Are we, then, to suppose that Tatian had the critical
1 Adopting Burton's transposition.

520 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
acumen to see the Incongruity of 3 : 1-2 1 In its present setting,
and its appropriateness after 7 : 30? Hardly; for In that case
he would not have Introduced the section one verse too far
along, viz., after verse 31, so that, having thus broken the
unmistakable connection of verse 31 with 32, he Is obliged
to repeat verse 31 before going on with verses 32 ff.!
On the other hand, we have observed in other connection^
that the Interview with Nicodemus is in reality the Johannine
counterpart to the synoptic story of the Rich Ruler (Mk. 10:
17-22 and paraUels), in its inclosing lessons on becoming as
"httle children" (verses 13-16) and entering Into the king
dom of God along Jesus' way of martyrdom and by his "bap
tism" (verses 23-45). May it be, perhaps, that Tatian In
giving Jn. 3: 1-2 1 the position of this synoptic story as the
central Incident of the Perasan ministry had hght which we
do not have, from evangelic sources that stood between the
Johannine and the synoptic?
As we have seen, the transpositions of Tatian do not
wholly restore the "apparent displacements" of the Fourth
Gospel. Both In ancient and modern times careful readers
have found these structural faultings, and In -\-arious ways
have attempted to restore the logical order. Tatian himseff,
at least In the transposition of Jn. 12:42-50 from after
366-41 to before it, would seem to have been following
the same conjectural road pursued by Syr.,^'''- Ludolf de
Saxonica, Luther and Beza, Hitzig, Norris, Berthng, Spitta,
Wendt, Burton and the rest. The most we can reasonably
infer from this largely independent consensus is that the
dislocations are not merely "apparent" but real. Were it
otherwise transposition would not effect Improvement of
1 Cf. the repetition of 5: la, and the division of 4: 45. Perhaps Tatian
was influenced by the resemblance of 2: 23-25 (which he utilizes elsewhere)
to this verse.
2 Above, p. 382.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 521
order and consistency, but confusion worse confounded on
both sides. Nor can we hope to reconstruct a Grundschrift
by all our conjectural restorations, even supported, as they
have sometimes turned out to be, by the unexpected testi
mony of authorities as ancient as Tatian or Syr.^'"- We
cannot reasonably expect more than to obtain a fleeting
glimpse at simpler forms and conditions of the Johannine
material, hints of a time when men knew it not altogether
and exclusively as It is known to us. Critical restorations
will hardly secure unanimous consent. Nevertheless the at
tempt to go behind the canonical Is not fruitless. Internal
Indications have already sufficed In several of the Instances
first enumerated to explain the disorder. They may conduct
us further still. In particular the apparent dislocations of
Jn. 8-10, for which some ten years ago we ourselves sought a
remedy In the transposition first of 10: 22-25 to stand at the
head of a section devoted to Jesus' doings and sayings at
the feast of Dedication,! then of subordinate parts as in
ternal evidence seemed to Indicate, are capable of a much
simpler explanation. It is true that the interruption of
10: 22 f., cutting off the colloquy of 10: 1-21 from Its sequel
In 24-42 Is intolerable. Not only could a colloquy not be
thus resumed In fact after an Interval of three months. It is
not even probable that It could be so resumed in conception.
"An author must understand himself. He cannot all at once
have no further idea of the Import of his own expressions."
The date 10: 23 f. Is therefore in all probability a later in
sertion. In Its present context, as we have noted, ^ It falls
' Bacon, Am. Journ. of Theol., October, 1900, pp. 790 ff. The Rev. Mr.
Strayer's proposal to transpose Jn. 10: 22 f. to the same position, published
on the same date in Journ. of Theol. Studies (ii, pp. 137 ff.), is not a genuine
instance of coincidence in results by independent investigators, Mr. Strayer
having been a member of Professor Bacon's seminar on the Johannine
Literature in the preceding year.
2 Above, p. 409. Wellhausen extends this verdict to 6: 4 also. But the

522 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
outside what seems to be the festal scheme of the evangehst.
Nor Is It required to explain the symbolism of the discourses
of chapters 8-9, beginning "I am the Light of the world,"
and the sign of the healing of the man born bhnd. Dedica
tion was indeed known as "the Feast of Lights" because of
the Illumination which then as now formed the distinctive
feature of Its celebration. But Tabernacles also had its
"lights" of the golden candelabra in the court of the women,
where Jesus stands in 8: 20, "by the treasury." The trans
position accordingly Is not really required. Standing in its
present order 8 : 1 2 ff . would form as appropriate a sequel to
7:31-52 as to 10:22-25. We simply find the Johannine
counterpart of the synoptic healings of the blind (Mk. 8:
22-26; 10:46-52 and parallels) and connected discourse
(Mt. 12: 22-45 =Lk. II : 14-36; 12: 10) forming the opening
scene (an interjected visit to Jerusalem at Tabernacles) of
the Peraean ministry.
Professor Burton's transposition of 7:45-52 before 37-44
becomes equally needless If verses 37-39 be recognized as an
editorial supplement. And such was Scholten's verdict on
at least verse 39 nearly half a century ago.! Wellhausen
calls for the excision of the whole paragraph 37-44 on the
ground that it duplicates 25-30, reaching an identical con
clusion. Some editorial revision or supplementation seems
to be Indicated, though we have only internal data to guide
us In determining its nature.
Slightly more indication of the derivation of the disturbing
element is found in 12: 44-50, whose untenable position
Tatian has sought to Improve. Verse 36 already reaches a
conclusion, verses 37-41 give the narrator's comment upon
the close. They form a favorite citation, as we have seen,
case is different. The miracle and discourse of chapter 6 are intimately re
lated to the ritual and symbolism of Passover.
1 Op. cit., p. 64.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 523
wherewith to express the hopelessness of efforts spent upon
the stiff-necked people. Verses 42 f . come thus already
pretty late for admission to standing with the authentic
material. They show a redactional character In the attempt
to make room for Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, re
peating 5: 44 In an undeservedly harsh application; they are
also characterized by expressions unexampled in the Gospel
(o/M}<;, rjTrep), or found only in late passages (fievroi).^ After
42 f. the attachment of 44-50 is Impossible. Either It must
be transposed to some point before "Jesus departed and hid
himself from them," or else it is pure editorial supplement.
The loose stringing together of generalities mostly repeating
utterances given elsewhere points to the latter as the true
derivation.^ The case Is somewhat different with the greater "apparent
displacements," whose relation to their intrinsic context on
the one side, on the other to synoptic story, and In some of
the most Important cases to Tatian's Diatessaron, we have
now examined. Here we have strong internal reason, sup
ported In most cases both by synoptic affinities and by the
deliberate transpositions of Tatian, for believing that the
material once stood In the revised order, though not neces
sarily in what we should recognize as a form of the Fourth
Gospel. It is not only a confirmation of the fact, but some
thing approaching an explanation of Its cause, to discover
that In every case these displacements occur In conjunction
with passages which by their direct connection with the
Appendix or otherwise give Independent evidence of having
been Introduced by R.
Conspicuously is this the case with the Interview with
Nicodemus, which Tatian's order, synoptic affinity, and the
1 Wellhausen, Evang. Joh., p. 58.
2 Cf. 14: 7-9; i: 5, 18; 3: 17 f.; 5: 24> 4S; 8: 12, 19, 51. s^; g- s; 1°: 30, 38;
12:35!

524 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Intrinsic consistency of the Fourth Gospel alike require
should stand after 7 : 30. This scene Is linked by the edi
torial comment 2: 23-25 to the incident of the Purging of
the Temple, 2: 13-22, a passage which over and over again
we have found evincing its alien origin. There was indeed
nothing in the content of 3 : 1-2 1 to connect it with Passover;
but It dealt with the doctrine of baptism, and this. It would
seem, was enough for an editor In search of material for the
additional Passover he had interjected into the section on
Jesus and the Baptist.!
No less conspicuously does this relation appear In the case
of the noted displacement of chapter 14. This chapter now
enters Immediately after the synoptic element of Peter's
offer to follow Jesus to martyrdom (13: 36-38), an Insertion
Inseparable, as we have seen, from the Appendix.
The same is true of the displacement in 18: 12-27 which
we have traced with convincing evidence to Its origin in the
process of editorial supplementation of John from the synop
tic story of Peter's Denial.
The greatest of all the structural disturbances centers in
the chapter which of all in the Gospel stands in nearest con
nection with synoptic story, chapter 6, with Its cycle of in
cidents related to the Agape. According to Wellhausen:
" The verses 7:3,4 are fundamental for literary criticism of the
Fourth Gospel. Jesus is called upon to go to Judasa, because
Galilee is a mere corner; in Judasa nothing has yet been seen of his
miracles. This is a slap in the face to what we read in chapters i-
6; for according to these he has long since and repeatedly come
publicly forward in Judasa, and has a group of disciples there."
Wellhausen regards the words "thy disciples" (ol fiaOi^ral
1 We must also attribute to R the supplement to the Baptist's discourse
in 3: 31-36. This paragraph, of similar composition and style to 12: 44-50,
reiterates the thoughts and expressions of Jesus' discourse to Nicodemus,
placing them now in the mouth of the Baptist!

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 525
aov) In 7 : 3 as mistakenly supplying the subject of the verb
("falsches exphchum"). " That they may see " to his mind
must originally have referred to the Inhabitants of Judsa
generally. In agreement with Schwartz he regards the rest of
7 : 1-14 as later, confusing the original sense. Certainly
verse i is singularly Inapposite after chapter 6. We should
expect it after chapter 5. Moreover, even in ancient times the
Incongruity of the statement "I go not up" in verse 8 with
verses 10 ff. was so keenly felt as to lead to the corrected read
ing "I go not yet up." We may not altogether Indorse the
drastic analysis of Schwartz and Wellhausen, but It Is difficult
to avoid the conclusion that some sort of editorial readjust
ment has been attempted In 7 : 1-14.
The case seems nearly analogous to 10: 22 f., which cuts off
the sequel to the colloquy of 10: 1-21, or to 18: 15-18, which
cuts off the sequel to 12-14, or to 13: 36-38 which (with the
displaced chapter 14) cuts off the sequel to 13: 12-35; except
that In chapter 6 we have a large element of synoptic material •
not directly borrowed, whereas in 13:36-38 and 18: 15-18
and 25-27 we have small extracts repeating almost verbally
the synoptic story. Tatian's order implies that the Samaritan
ministry (chapter 4) and the Outbreak of Opposition (chap
ter 5) once occupied the same relative position toward the
Departure from Gahlee (7: 2 ff.) as their synoptic counter
parts, the Journey to Phenicia (Mk. 7 : 24 ff.) and the ac
count of How they were Stumbled In Jesus (Mk. 2:1-3: 6)
may be supposed to have occupied to the corresponding
chronological mUestone (Mk. 10: i ff.). This seems also to
be Implied by the chronological relation of Pentecost (the
feast of 5: 1 ff.) to Passover (6:4) and Tabernacles (7:2),
and by the connection In Mk. 2:1-3: 35 of the synoptic
equivalents of chapter 5 and 7 : 3 ff. respectively. But If this
order once obtained how came it to be broken by the removal
to this point of chapter 6 ?

526 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
We may possibly find some approach to an answer to this
question when we observe that chapter 6 combines In itself
the equivalents of two leading synoptic themes, one of which
precedes Jesus' departure Into "the borders of Tyre and
Sidon," the other his final departure from Galilee. These are
(i) the Feeding of the Five Thousand, Walking on the Sea,
and Colhsion with the Scribes In Capernaum (Mk. 6 : 30-
7 : 23 and parallels = Jn. 6 : 1-59) ; (2) the Confession of Peter
and Its sequelae (Mk. 8:27-9:50 and parallels = Jn. 6:60-
71). If, then, Jn. 6, which could not well be divided, was
located before the Samaritan ministry (Jn. 4:4-45), as it
should be to correspond with the position of (i) before
Mk. 7 : 24 ff., (2) would be drawn away from its very manifest
connection with the final Departure from Galilee, Mk. 10: i ff.
It was simpler to put the whole before 7 : 2 ff . ; ! but evidences
of redactional readjustment In such a context, especially at
the points of juncture, should not excite our wonderment.
The structural history of the Fourth Gospel is a problem
too intricate for a general treatise, too uncertain and debat
able as regards details to warrant unsupported statements of
opinion. One result, however, the partitionists and revision
ists may congratulate themselves upon as already estabhshed.
The once almost uncontradicted doctrine of the structural
unity of the Fourth Gospel no longer stands unchallenged.
On the contrary, the superficial Impression of a work "aus
einem Guss" produced by the uniform, easily imitated,
oracular style Is seen to be delusive. Closer Inspection both
of textual history and inner consistency confirms the proba
bihty raised by the admitted later attachment of an "after
thought." Gaps and seams abound everywhere. Par
ticularly unmistakable are additions Intimately related to the
Appendix, and aiming hke it to adjust the "spiritual gospel"
to the more widely prevalent synoptic type. Whether the
1 7 : I is clearly out of place.

DISLOCATIONS OF MATERIAL 527
special phenomena of "apparent displacements," attested
not merely by Internal inconsistencies but by the relation of
the material to synoptic equivalents and by efforts at adjust
ment dating from the very first appearance of the Gospel,
can, or cannot, be brought into connection with that process
of accommodation which the external evidence has led us to
date at Rome ca. 130-150 a. d., the main principle Is already
far on the way toward acceptance, that the latest of the Gos
pels has not escaped the vicissitudes common to its kind and
most to be expected in those of latest date. It has a history of
growth and development, of revision, recasting, cancelation
and supplementation. Proofs of this process rightly viewed
can make this Gospel of all the greater value to the true
student of Christian origins, because like the varied "scrip
tures of the prophets" given "by divers portions and In
divers manners" It will be seen to epitomize, as no mere indi
vidual's work could do, the Inner hfe of one of the greatest
branches of the Church.

CHAPTER XX

CONCLUSION

Closer scrutiny of the evidences, external and Internal, di
rect and Indirect, bearing on the origin and history of the
Fourth Gospel has brought us to a conclusion adverse to the
tradition. From the latter half of the second century to the
beginning of the nineteenth that tradition remained domi
nant. At its beginnings it met opposition and overcame It,
not so much on critical and historical grounds as because of
doctrinal interest and practical expediency. For about one
hundred years ! modern criticism has brought all its resources
to bear upon the question, fully realizing that our whole con
ception of the origins of Christianity hinges upon it. The
testimony of antiquity has been reinvestigated. It is found
to fall Into two easily separable classes: (i) References recog
nizable as envisaging our Fourth Gospel inclusive of the
Appendix, in some cases explicitly attributing It to "John";
(2) echoes and influences more or less resembhng passages
embodied in our Fourth Gospel. Of the former class (i)
there are none earher than ca. 170 a. d., the period marked by
rapid dissemination on the one side, vigorous opposition on
the other to the Gospel's claims to apostolic authorship. Of
the latter class (2) there are none to indicate acquaintance
with the X literature outside proconsular Asia until shght
traces are found at Rome ca. 150 a. d. None suggest the idea
that the literature was regarded as apostolic in origin by those
who show acquaintance with it. There Is not, even In the
1 Brelschneider's Probabilia, the first serious critical argument against the
traditional authorship, appeared in 1S20. 528

CONCLUSION 529
quarters where we have a right to expect it, appeal to the au
thority of John, or reference to his residence In Asia. Paul
alone is the apostolic authority In matters of doctrine, though
with an increasing tendency to appeal to the evangelic tra
dition of the Sayings of the Lord handed down by "the
apostles and elders." The seat of this historic tradition,
however, is not Ephesus, but Jerusalem. The conception
of John as a resident of Asia, and a writer to "the churches"
there, appears first In the editorial envelope of the Palestin
ian apocalypse, which owes to this envelope Its designation
the Revelation of John. This book attains to authoritative
standing both In Asia and at Rome long before the Gospel and
Epistles current In the same region. Thus classified Into evi
dences bearing upon the period before and after Tatian the ex
ternal testimony ceases to wear the aspect it had long assumed
In the eyes of defenders. It Indicates rather a process of
growth In Asia from midrashic expositions of evangelic tradi
tion expounded In the Pauline sense. These were embodied
In a form adapted for local circulation and were perhaps com
mended to the churches by the addition of the three Epistles.
The turning point in the history of the Gospel will have come
with the addition of the Appendix. But the Influence of the
Appendix is not reflected until a full half-century after we find
distinct traces of the First Epistle in Asia. The process of dis
semination of the Gospel as an apostolic writing seems to
begin from Rome at about the period of Tatian (175 A. D.).
This Involves the spread of traditions conceming John In
Asia. These, however, make the stay in Patmos their start
ing point, a highly unreliable foundation in view of the
known methods of the apocalyptic writers. The testimony
of Asia in 1 10-150 a. d., albeit necessarily a witness of si
lence, must here again be distinguished from the witness of
Gaul in 186 a. d.
Under the head of Direct Internal Evidence we have
Fourth Gospel — 34

S30 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
classified those elements of all the writings attributed to
John on which the early testimonies to Johannine author
ship are based. Such passages are sometimes explicitly
quoted, sometimes merely reflected in their phraseology.
Among passages which make a direct claim Rev. 1:1-4;
22: 8 are preeminent. But the inner contents of the Apoca
lypse are seen to give no warrant for these editorial Imputa
tions of the visions to " John." At all events the visions have
no relation to Patmos or to the churches of Asia, as the
prologue and epilogue aim to make It appear. The Epistles
again are quite improperly represented as embodying a
profession on the part of their author to be
" himself not only an eye-witness, but a hearer, yea, and a -writer
as well, of all the wonders done by the Lord in their order." !
The exegesis which thus interprets I Jn. i : 1-3 is forced, and
perverts the real meaning in the Interest of a theory of au
thorship. This theory itself, plainly declared in the Ap
pendix to the Gospel and the connected passage Jn. 19:35,
rests on equally violent exegesis, while the additions them
selves are in the one case an admitted "afterthought," in
the other textually doubtful. In fact rejected as spurious by
one of the best textual critics among the "defenders." Other
passages adduced from the Gospel as "making a direct
claim" are found upon examination to stand In the same
category as those from the Epistle. In particular the figure
of the Beloved Disciple will not bear the concrete sense put
upon It by the author of the Appendix. This Interpretation
shows on the contrary every mark of originating and attain
ing to supremacy In the course of the Montanistic and
Paschal controversies In Asia and at Rome.
The direct claims caUed "Internal" by virtue of the fact
that ancient editors combined their supplements with the
1 Muratorianum.

CONCLUSION 531
text, lead us back thus, by their clear dependence upon the
documents edited, to an examination for ourselves of the
indications of authorship; and these, aside from editorial
supplements and "parenthetic additions," are exclusively
indirect. Once the compositions themselves, i. e., the three
Epistles and the main body of the Gospel, are examined as
purely anonymous products, corresponding In this respect
to most writings of their kind, their date and general char
acter become apparent from their purpose and structure.
Their aim Is an interpretation of the common evangehc
tradition In the "spiritual" sense, i. e., In the light of the
Pauhne doctrine of Incarnation and eternal life by mystical
union of behevers . through Impartatlon of the Spirit of
Christ with God the Father. The material employed is
mainly synoptic. This material is sometimes wrongly com
bined and usuaUy exaggerated. It is systematically sub
ordinated to the doctrinal purpose of presenting the career
of Jesus as a redemptive incarnation of the divine Logos.
Its "pragmatism" Is midrashic, though evidences of ac
quaintance with western Palestine, and with Jewish Ideas
and literature frequently appear. Superiority from the
historian's standpoint to the synoptic tradition appears
mainly in the author's resistance, in common with "all the
churches of Asia" in the second century, to the occidental
disposition to abolish "the feasts of the Jews" in particular
the commemoration of the spiritual Redemption on the an
niversary (by Jewish lunar reckoning) of the crucifixion and
resurrection. At Rome the celebration of the Lord's day
next succeeding the Friday of Passover, as an anniversary
of the Issuance of Jesus' resurrected body from the sepulcher,
was rapidly superseding the more spiritual, Pauline ritual
of a Christian Passover and Firstfruits, or Passover alone,
marking the redemption of the Israel of God from the bond
age of sin and death, but quite without reference to the later

532 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
story of the Women at the Sepulcher. Our author is loyal
to the Asiatic practice, though anxious to combine both
elements of the tradition, the physical and the spiritual.
Back of the indirect evidences pointing to authorship at
Ephesus by some such Pauhnlst of Jewish origin and philo
sophic training as we might Imagine ApoUos to have been,
lie certain others affecting the structure of the Gospel. The
period of its principal circulation In Asia would seem to have
been one when the danger to the Church was more from
heretical perversion of its doctrine than from persecution by
the state, i. e., the period of Hadrian or slightly earher.
Back of this lies an obscurer period. A long series of dis
connected observations Indicates that the material of our
Fourth Gospel, so far from being from one casting, has been
altered, cut and supplemented, revised and remolded, per
haps repeatedly. Matters here are still sub judice, but al
leged uniformity of style is no longer accepted as an answer
to the phenomena exhibited both by textual and higher
critics. With the evidences of unseen forces working out the
"spiritual" Gospel as we know it, not all at once, but by
divers portions and In divers manners, after Paul's death.
In the great headquarters of his missionary activity, we stand
in the midst of the critic's problem of to-day. As one of the
noblest leaders of rehgious thought in our times has written :
" There is the religious belief that things eternal are seen through
things temporal, that space and time in all their rich variety, color,
and movements are servants of the Highest. This belief leads to
the expectation that a correct version of the temporal, in respect
to any rehgion, would prepare the way for a new and more in
fluential conception of the Eternal. Here is a new fountain of
enthusiasm for the devout scholar. In his textual criticism, his
analysis and rearrangement of documents, his assignment of books
to their proper place in the process of human development, he is
preparing the way for a closer vision of the coming of the kingdom

CONCLUSION 533
of God. It is the hope of serving this ultimate end that turns the
detail and drudgery of his work into poetry; that end shines
through the entire world in which he works — a world of confusion,
sorrow, and contradiction — and that, like the sun, fills it with
splendor and hfe." !
We have not minimized the revolutionary effect to be
anticipated from the acceptance of the critical as against
the traditional view of the origin of the Fourth Gospel. We
are even conscious that to a certain order of minds it may
be more welcome In its destructive than In its constructive
results. It will be heralded as a triumph of the "opponents
of revealed religion" Instead of a triumph of Its friends over
the dead hand of ecclesiastical tradition. And yet how evan
escent, how relatively trifling are its destructive as compared
with its constructive effects.
To the assailants of this long dominant tradition, made
sacrosanct by the dependence on it of such masses of theol
ogy, the Fourth Gospel marks not the beginning, but the
end of the evangelic revelation. Its Interpretation of the
person and career of Jesus sub specie aeternitatis is the ma-
turest expression of the great effort of Paul to know him
"not after the flesh, but after the spirit." Hegel has taught
us that it Is far from being all of Christianity, or even
Its greatest factor, to lay hold of the teaching of Jesus as
the condition of human welfare. We must also — yes, su
premely — contemplate him in his personahty, a phenom
enon of the hfe of God In man, of the hfe of man In God,
having permanent significance for the race. For the re
ligious thinker It is Impossible not to contemplate Jesus ob
jectively, in his earthly story, in the subsequent effect upon
humanity of his life, past or present, as "a representation
of the divine Idea." ^
1 G. A. Gordon, Religion and Miracle, 1909, p. 174.
2 Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, vol. iii, p. 85 (Engl, transl.).

534 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
In all the field of history there Is no problem for the re
ligious thinker comparable in Importance to this. The great
ness of Paul above all the other apostles hes In the fact that
he saw this truth, and applied himself to the task of inter
preting Jesus to the world as "a representation of the divine
Idea." In the nature of the case the Interpretation of one age will
Inevitably require adaptation to the new conceptions, new
modes of thought of another. First attempts, however great,
must very soon require restatement. In the chapter on
The Evangelist's Task we have tried to show the supreme
and cr5dng need of the Pauline evangel, as it would appear
to the Greek churches a generation after their great apostle
had won his "crown of righteousness." Paul had Inter
preted the Christ of his own experience, the crucified Gah
lean "manifested as the Son of God with power by the
resurrection"; but he had not applied his doctrine of God
In man "metamorphosing" into the Image of his glory, trans
forming by the renewing of our mind Into the likeness of the
Creator, to the earthly career of Jesus. Mark's Gospel is
the first attempt we know to depict the life of Jesus in the
light of Paul's doctrine of the Spirit of Adoption, imparting
all "gifts of the Spirit" here on earth and effecting even the
"redemption of our body" by a "quickening through his
Spirit that dweUeth In you." It was not adequate. Mark's
representation fell far short of doing justice to the Pauline
Idea. We know not the hand which attempted the greater
task. In Antioch and in Palestine others had attempted
something of the sort. It was reserved to Ephesus to pro
duce a truly "spiritual" gospel, interpreting the synoptic tra
dition of Jesus' hfe and teaching from the standpoint of
Paul's doctrine of the redeeming Spirit.
To do this the Ephesian evangelist had no other recourse
than the philosophic conceptions of his time. We study the

CONCLUSION 535
history of Ionic philosophy, we trace the development of the
Logos idea In Stoic and Jewish application, in Alexandria
and In Ephesus, in order to appreciate in what sense the
fourth evangehst employs It to body forth his Pauhne thought.
But we do scant justice to his example, still less to the ex
ample and precept of the great apostle whose thought he
loyally seeks to carry on, if we make his interpretation final.
Who is Paul, and who is ApoUos, but ministers through
whom we beheve ? True loyalty to them is shown not in
adopting ready made the system of thought with all Its local
and temporal limitations by which they endeavored to set
forth their conception of the life of man in God, the life of
God in man. The revelation lies In the fact, not In the
particular interpretation by which men seek to fit it into their
systems of thought. There may be harm and loss to the
cause of revealed religion to-day; but far more by those who
seek to Identify the revelation with the mere Interpretation,
whether that of Paul, or that of John, or of any other, how
ever great, than by those who with humble and reverent,
though unfettered hand seek to understand these ancient in
terpretations under the real conditions of their time, in order
the better to reach an Interpretation for our own.
True loyalty to Paul and the fourth evangelist demands
that we apply the categories of a modern philosophy and
psychology to the life of the great Elder Brother — yes and
to that of his lowliest follower — as well and as fearlessly as
Paul and the fourth evangelist applied the Logos doctrine
of Ephesus and Alexandria.
Acceptance of the critical view of the Fourth Gospel in
volves a great challenge and a great responsibility. There
wIU be no longer the apostolic authority of an eye-witness, a
confidant of Jesus' inmost consciousness. Still less will It
be possible to present the Christology of the fourth evan
gehst as the personal testimony of Jesus to himself. Having

536 THE FOURTH GOSPEL
treated the Pauline incarnation doctrine as representing
only Paul's attempt to Interpret the eternal significance of
this supreme example of the life of man In God, the hfe of
God In man — having treated the fourth evangehst's also as
only a further development by unknown hands a full gen
eration later of Paul's deepest thought, we are brought face
to face with the problem In our own independent thinking:
What significance for the human race has the person and
career of Jesus ? What rational account shall our philosophy
make to itself of the life which first made the filial relation
to God actual in Itself, and Is to-day making of it a reahty
for multitudes of "brethren"? What the Church of the
second century did for its generation should be done again
for ours. The story of God in Christ, "changing the rela
tion of the world to himself" should be so told by modem
historical research, so Interpreted by modern philosophic
thought, that men "may believe that Jesus is the Christ the
Son of God, and In beheving may have hfe through his
name."

INDEX

Aall, 437-
Abbott, E. A., on date of John, 22;
on Elders, 117.
Abbott, Ezra, 18.
Acts, on heresy in Ephesus, 163; its
references to John, 164.
Acts of John, 82, 91, 26r, 280, 424.
Acts of Pilate, 41, 391, 400.
/Enon, 387.
Aerius, 414.
Agape Narrative, 343.
Alexander of Jerusalem, 398.
Alogi, 90, 227, 266.
Anachronisms, 324.
Analytical School, 472, 495.
Annianus, 397.
Anointing of Jesus, 335, 421, 427,
432-
Anti-Docetism in I John, 322.
Apocalypse, 529, 530; prologue and
epilogue, 160, 176; use by Papias,
104; on witnesses of Messiah, 135;
on spirit of prophecy, 152; claims
of authorship, 157; date of, 173;
author of, 175; a composite work,
179; Palestinian origin, 180; first
current in Asia, 268.
Apocalypse of Thomas, 397.
Apollinaris of Hierapohs, 228, 258,
262, 422.
Apollonius, 401.
ApoUos in Ephesus, 282.
Apostles' Creed, 430.
Apostles and Elders, 470.
Apostolic Fathers, use of John, 57,94.
Apostolic Tradition, 172.

Appendix of John, 86, 129, 445, 446,
450, 482, 529; source of tradition,
86; object, 99; on authorship, 161;
on martyrdom of apostles, 133;
relation to parenthetic addition's, ;
205; date of, 210, 219, 224; pur
pose of, 221; on sons of Zebedee,
307. k'\%
Appendix of Mark, 198, 219; rela
tion to John, 200; reference to
Jn. 20: II, 213.
Aristion, 70, 112.
Argument from Silence, 73.
Argumentum (Latin), 75.
Ascension in Luke and John, 424.
Asterius Urbanus, 243.
Augustine, 396.
Balaam (mask for Jesus), 406.
Baldensperger, 290, 437.
Baptism, 290.
Barnabas, Epistle of, 356, 424.
Bar-Cocheba, 219, 264.
Basilides, 52, 408; opposed in Jn. 9,
294.
Baur, 19, 479.
Beginning of Miracles, 376.
Beloved Disciple, 301, 530; at the
Supper, 310; at the Cross, 317;
at the Tomb, 318, 319; as in
terpreter of Petrine tradition, 321;
a composite, 325; and Paul, 326;
intended for John, 330.
Bertling, 499.
Bethany (by Jerusalem), 335; be
yond Jordan, 335, 387.

S37

538

INDEX

Bethesda, 386.
Bethsaida, 388.
Betrayal of Jesus, 314.
Bigg, 417-
Blass, 472; on Papias' use of Reve
lation, 105; on Jn. 19: 35, 461; on
text of John, 473, 494; on Jn. 18:
13 f-. 483.
Blastus, 247.
Blau, 358.
Blind healed, 382.
Boanerges, 140.
Bousset, 449, 481.
Box, G. H., 428, 433. _^ i'
Breaking of bread, 380, 432, 433.
Bretschneider, 528.
Briggs, 452.
Burton, E. D., 498, 516, 522.
Caius (see Gaius).
Call of Disciples, 374, 375.
Cana, miracle, 377, 493.
Canon of Asia, 29.
Cappadocian Calendar, 399, 413.
Celsus, 483.
Centurion's Servant, 373.
Cerinthus, 8, 232, 262, 465.
Chapman, Dom, 398.
Christology, 9; of John's Gospel,
12.
Chronology, 389, 490.
Chwolson, 358.
Clement of Alexandria, on Basilides,
53; on authority, 87; against
Melito, 257; Hypotyposes, 276.
Clement of Rome, Epistle of, on
Apostles, 166; a disciple of Apos
tles, 253.
Composite characters in John, 280,
322; 336, 36S.
Constantine, 429.
Conybeare, 114.
Corssen, 400, 402, 405; on Papias,
112.

Defense, 443 ff.
Delff, 450, 480, 488; on Jn. 2: i-ii.
Destructive Criticism, 443.
Diatessaron (see Tatian).
Didaskalia, 249.
Dionysius of Alexandria, 103, 231;
on John in Asia, 106.
Dionysius Bar-Salibi, 231.
Disciple ("another"), 307.
Disciple whom, etc. (see Beloved
Disciple).
Displacement, 488, 495, 520; of
ch. 5, 499, 516; of ch. 6, 526; of
7: 15-24, 499; of chh. 8-10, 521;
of 10: 26 £f., 499; of 12: 44-50,
500, 513; of ch. 14, 500, 524; of
18: 14-18, 500; of 18: 12-27, 524'
Division of Ministry, 371.
Dobschiitz, 399.
Docetists, 458, 465.
Drummond, J., on external evi
dence, 17; on modern question,
35; his use of term "quotation,"
39; on Basilides, 55; on Jn. 21:
23, 211; on Apollinaris, 258, 423;
his demands met, 269; on internal
evidence, 273; on pragmatism,
337; on Quartodeciman harmon
ization, 415; on Paschal contro
versy, 416; on raising of Lazarus,
446; on Appendix, 473; on dis
placements, 475.
Echoes and Influences, 30, 43.
Elders (of Jerusalem), loi; their use
of Matthew and Mark, 97.
Eleutherus, 245.
Elias as " Forerunner," 138.
Ephesus, 530; seat of Paulinism,
292; school of, 471.
Epiphanius, on James, 148; on
death of John the Elder, 150; on
Alogi, 227-233; on Cappadocian

INDEX

539

Quartodecimanism, 391, 413; on
Cappadocian calendar, 400.
Epistles to churches of Asia, 173.
Epistles of John, 184; on Antichrist,
206.
Equinox celebrated, 425.
Eucharist transposed, 434.
Eusebius, his purposes in writing,
83; his chronology, 108; Syriac
version, 109; on John the Elder,
117; on Gospel order, 226; on
Caius, 227; on order of John, 234;
on Montanism, 241.
Evangelist's personality, 464.
Evang. Hebraeorum, 223, 474, 512,
SIS-
Evang. Petri, 50 f., 98, ig6, 215,
424 f., 430; and John, 40.
Exorcism, 354, 376.
External Evidence, 17 ff.
Ezekiel in Jn. 10, 293.
Farewell Discourse, 369.
Fast preceding Easter, 419.
Feasts of Jews, 409, 435; Passover,
409; Pentecost, 409; Tabernacles,
409; Dedication, 492.
Firstfruits, 421, 423, 429.
Florinus, 251.
Fotheringham, 390.
Fourfold Gospel, 96.
Fourth Gospel (see John, Gospel
of).
Frick, 397.
Furrer, 216.
Gabbatha, 386.
Gaius, 100, 414; Heads against, 230 f.
Dialogue with Proclus, 102, 230,
236; Disputation (see Dialogue);
of Asia, 186.
Gelasius, Decree of, 261.
Gemini (Year of), 390, 392.
Gethsemane in John, 312.

Gordon, G. A., 532.
Gutjahr, 267; on Syriac Eusebius,
107; on Irensean tradition, 119.
Grill, J., 437.
Hanina of Sepphoris, 406.
Harnack, 29, 399, 437; on Alogi,
240; on date of Apocalypse, 174.
Harris, J. R., 232.
Hegel, 533.
Hegesippus, 47, 452; on martyrdom
of James, 145; Memoirs on Jer
usalem succession, 145.
Heitmiiller, 333.
Hemerobaptists, 290.
Herford, 406.
Hermas, Shepherd of, 238.
Hill, J. H., 515; on Tatian's order,
503-
Hilgenfeld, 491.
Hippolytus, 100, 230, 391, 398, 401;
his Defense of the Gospel, 235; a
disciple of apostles, 253.
Historicity, 438.
Hitzig, 491, 498, 515.
Holtzman, H. J., 333, 476.
Holtzman, O., 333.
"Hour" of Jesus, 346.
Ignatius, 469; neglect of John, 31,
168.
Intercession of Christ, 298 f.
Interpolations in John, of i: 15, 477;
of 2: 1-12, 493, 512; of 2: 14-22,
489; of 10: 22 f., 492; of 13: 36-
38, 483, 487; of 18: 15-18, 25-27
483; of 19: 35, 482; of 20: 24-29,
494-
Irenaeus, on Papias, 76; on apostles
in Asia, loi, 106; on Elders of
Papias, 121; on Alogi, 240; on
Montanists, 241; sent to Rome,
245; against Blastus, 247; to -Vic
tor, 248; his recollections of Poly-

540

INDEX

carp, 250; on ordination of Poly
carp, 252; on Cerinthus' encoun
ter with John, 262; his ecclesias
tical position, 265; his relation
to Proclus, 265; as scholar and
churchman, 266; on Jesus' age,
405-
Jacob's -Well, 388.
James (Epistle of), on seat of apos
tolic tradition, 165.
James, martyrdom of, 129.
James and John, 306; their martyr
dom predicted, 129, 132; show
spirit of Elias, 140; as "sons of
thunder," 141; martyrdom, 145;
in Luke, 329.
Jason and Papiscus (Dialogue of),
220.
Jerome's legend of John, 306.
Jerusalem, 529.
Jesus (Synoptic Story of), 11; be
trayal of, 353; visits to Jerusalem,
410.
Jewish Ideas and Dialectic, 359.-
Johannine Pragmatism, 332.
John (the Apostle) in Asia, 127;
his martyrdom, 147, 217, 449;
in Patmos, 181; metastasis of, 218;
in synoptic story, 327; in Gal. 2:
9, 329; in first-century tradition,
33°-
John (the Baptist), 290; in Mark,
349; in Q, 350; in John, 351; does
not precede Jesus, 351.
John (the Elder), 77, 105, 112, 122,
151, 188, 256, 452; paradosis of,
78; in Syriac Eusebius, 115; as au
thor of Apocalypse, 178; on au
thorship of I John, 444.
John (Epistles of), 187; authorship,
189; anti-docetic, 292.
John (Gospel of), 28; dale of, 22, 25;
reserve of, 201; gaps in, 202,

473 f., 493, 526; choosing of first
disciples, 204; geography of, 216,
338; growth of traditional au
thorship of, 268; a spiritual gospel,
277; its symbohsm, 279; its design,
281, 291; its task, 288; anti-docetic,
294; its doctrine of hardening of
Israel, 303; unreality of, 354; its
changes from synoptic ideas, 366;
its prologue, 373; its epilogue
(see Appendix); its structural his
tory, 526.
John (Mark), 308.
Jonah (sign of), 350.
Josephus, 396, 404; on death of
James, 145.
Jubilees (reckoning), 397.
Judas in John, 311, 313.
Justin Martyr, his neglect of John,
23, 37, 92; on Apocalypse, 38; dia
logue with Trypho, 66; use of Paul,
94; on John the Baptist as Elias,
137; on Revelation, 159; colloquy
with Elder, 207; on John the Bap
tist, 350; his conversion, 464.
Keim, 20; on Epistle of Barnabas,
45; on Hermas, 46.
Kerygma Petri, 40.
Khopper, 217.
Lazarus, raising of, 345.
Leucius Charinus, 261.
Lightfoot, 449; Essays on Super
natural Religion, 273; on motive
of John, 21; on Papias as aman
uensis of John, 75; on Eusebius,
79; on I Jn. 160, 185; on rela
tion of Epistles to Gospel, 190;
on Jn. 21: 25, 191, 211; on con
versational comments, 194, 222;
on Tiberias, 216.
Loaves, miracle of, 431;
Logos doctrine, 282, 535; of Hera-

INDEX

541

clitus, 4; of Philo, 5; of Paul, 5, 8;
Johannine, 7; of Justin Martyr, 7;
of Stoicism, 289.
Logos (Stoic) unmoved, 346.
Loisy, A., 333; on Jn. 2: 20, 342.
Lord's Supper, 312, 415, 417, 431.
Ludolphus de Saxonica, 501.
Luke-Acts, 98.
Luke (Gospel of); on Elias as
"forerunner," 139; on seat of
apostolic tradition, 165; in John,
368; chronology, 393.
Mark (Gospel of), 534; appendix to,
70, 71; date of, 72; on Peter,
James and John, 142; against
Quartodecimanism, 260; contents,
286; its inadequacy, 287; on spir
itual gifts, 328; in John, 368; out
line of passion, 370; outline fol
lowed in John, 371; on Passover,
412, 426; story of resurrection,
430; on Peter's denial, 485.
Martyria in Jn. 21, 194.
Mary Magdalen, 349.
Matthew (Gospel of) on spiritual
gifts, 328; in John, 367.
McGiffert, A. C, on Christian Po
lemics, 357.
Messiah, witnesses of, 134, 151;
Moses and Elias as witnesses of,
136; Apocalypse as witness of,
13s-
Melito, 258, 414.
Meyer, A., 481.
Midrash, 278, 340.
Miltiades, 242.
Ministry of Jesus (Duration of), 408.
Mishkan, 477.
Mommsen (on Papias), 112.
Montanism, 238.
Montanus, 235, 243.
Moses (prototype of Christ), 404.
Muratorianum, 81, 88, 454, 530;

on Apocalypse, 177; on prove
nance of John, 222; on apologetic
interest, 222; date, 239.
Nativity (date of), in Luke, 402;
with census of Quirinius, 407.
Nicodemus, 344, 491, 519, 523.
Norris, J. P., 498 L, 501, 515.
Notes of time, 341.
Oppianus Cilix, 196.
Opposition, 377.
Origen (on Basilides), 56.
Oxford Committee, on Hermas, 49;
on Apology of Aristides, 50; on
Didache, 50.
Pacianus, 248, 261.
Palestinian Gospel, 283.
Papias, 61, 402, 470; neglect of
John, 31; quotes Revelation, 32;
use of John, 44; tradition from
Elders, 58; use of Revelation, 85,
159; groups John with Matthew,
91; the fragment, no; on the
Elders, 116, 124, 474; date, 120;
on words of Elders, 125; De Boor
fragment, 132, 143; aim of writ
ing, 158; on Apocalypse, 176; on
Matthew vs. Mark, 171.
Parables, 369.
Paraclete, 296.
Paradoses (of John the Elder), 405.
Parenthetic additions, 198, 531.
Partitionists, 480.
Paschal Chronicle, 260.
Paschal Settlement, 420.
Patmos, 529.
Paul, 439; his incarnation doctrine,
365, 536; in John, 370; celebrates
Passover, 426; his Logos doctrine,
467 ; as interpreter of divine idea,
S34.
Pauline Gospel, 284.

542

INDEX

Paulinism in John, 295, 438; in
Ephesus, 468.
Penitent harlot (in Luke), 378.
Pentecost, 436.
Peraean ministry, 382.
Petalon, worn by James and John,
148, 256.
Peter, martyrdom predicted, 129;
trial predicted, 130; First Epistle
of, 163; martyrdom of, in Jn. 21,
195, 217; commission of, 218;
sponsor of Mark, 302; corrected
in John, 304; his denial, 308; ap
pearance to, 429; denial in John,
484-
Peter and John in the Appendix,
197.
PhiUp (the evangelist), 260.
Philo, on spiritual sense, 277.
Pliny, Epistle to Trajan, 428.
Polycarp, colloquy with Anicetus,
249; martyrdom of, 251, 254;
Vita, 255; date of birth, 255; in
letter to -Victor, 256.
Polycarp, Epistle of, use of John,
60; on the Oracles, 115; on heresy,
469.
Polycrates, 229; uses Jn. 21, 263;
neglect of John, 264.
Pragmatism, 531; of Apocalypse,
337; haggadic, 339, 342.
Praxeas, 244.
Precise details (see Pragmatism).
Proclus, Disputation of, 228 f.
Prologues and epilogues, 82.
Purging of Temple, 383, 394, 489.
Qiddush of Passover, 428.
Quadratus, 120.
Quartodecimanism, 247, 391, 412 ff.;
of Apollinaris, 259.
Quirinius (census of), 403.
Ramadan, 419.

Redactor, 193, 454, 466, 498, $21, 1.;
style in appendix, 200; on "Be
loved disciple" 204, 320, 326, 462;
on Jn. 19: 35, 309; adjusts tradi
tions, 327; uses I-III Jn. 452;
his direct claims, 463.
Redemption, 425, 531; celebrated
by Quartodecimans, 418.
Renan, 446, 479.
Return from underworld, 422.
Revelation (see Apocalypse).
Revelation of Messiahship, 352.

Sabbath controversy, 380, 435.
Sabbath of Passover, 415.
Sacrament of Judgment, 310, 316.
Salmon, on Alogi, 238.
Samaritan gods, 344.
Samaritan ministry, 372.
Samaritan woman, 343.
Sanday, 18, 32, 189; on Jn. 21: 24,
305, 446; on date of John, 22; on
Clement's testimony, 276; on prag
matism, 336; on fidelity of John,
344; on internal evidence, 356;
on Jewish pilgrimages, 357; on
disuse of ceremonial, 356; on
Christology of John, 360; on syn
optic Christology, 361; on Matt.
11:27, 5^y< against -Wernle on
originality of Paul, 364; on Drum
mond, 447; on I Jn. i: 1-3, 456;
on Jn. 19: 35, 459.
Sanday and Schurer on John, 95.
Scattering of apostles, 196.
Schmiedel, 25, 416, 437; on Jo
hannine use of Synoptists, 332;
on Jn. 12: 1-6, 334; on miracle of
loaves, 434.
Scholten, 472, 481, 489, 495, 522;
on "Beloved disciple," 320.
Schiirer, 413; on paschal controversy,
424.

INDEX

543

Schwartz, E., 450, 481, 525; on
martyrdom of John, 128.
Schweitzer, A., 479, 488.
Scott, E. F., 274, 437; authorship of
I Jn. 289; on sacrament in John,
315; on essence of the Gospel, 320;
on Johannine use of Synoptists,
332-
Scripture fulfilments, 339.
Second Coming, 297.
Sects and parties, 359.
Self-witness of author, 323.
Sign from heaven, 395.
Sign of Jonah, 361, 490.
Sinaitic Syriac, 484, 502; its cor
rection of Jn. 18: 35 f., 484; its
changes of order, 486.
Smith, David, 415.
Sonship in Synoptists, 362.
Soter, on Montanists, 241.
Spirit as "Intercessor," 299.
Spirit, gift of, 424.
Spitta, F., 403, 473, 485, 498.
Spoiling of strong man, 428.
Stanton, on external evidence, 19;
on date of John, 33; on Hermas,
47; on Apostolic Fathers, 61; on
Justin, 65; on the Appendix, 67;
on silence of post-apostolic age,
67 f., 162, 169; on silence of
Clement of Rome, 168; on silence
of Ignatius, 168: on Justin's view
of authorship, 212; on Hippoly
tus' Defense, 233; on John in Asia,
267.
Star of Magi, 220.
Strayer, P. M., 493, 521.
Stumbling in Synoptists and John,
379-
Style, 437.
Sychar, 386.
Symbolism of John, 340.
Symeon of Jerusalem, 150.
Sympathy of Jesus (in John), 34S *-

Synchronisms of John, 394.
Synoptic material (treatment in
John), 356.
Synoptists, corrections of, 332; idea
of John, 138, 164.
Syrophcenician woman, 372, 381.
Tabernacles, 436, 522.
Talmud, 448.
Tatian, 29, 99, 497, 508; his or
der for Jn. 4f., 504; resultant or
der, 506; omissions, 507; motive
for transpositions, 508; location
of Jn. 12: 42-56, 509; location of
Jn. 2: 14-22, 509; location of
Jn. 3: 1-21, 510, 518; connection
of 3:22!. with 4:46f., 511; re
sultant order for i: 5, 512; loca
tion of 3:5, 514; location of
Mark 1:41-45. Si7-
Taylor, J. J., 419-
TertuUian, on principle of the canon,
84; on Proclus, 244, 246.
Themiso, 230, 242.
Theologos, 453, 4S6, 463-
Theophilus, 29.
Theophilus of Antioch, 90.
Tiberias, 216.
Tischendorf, 472; on Jn. 21: 25, 191.
Topography and chronology, 385.
Traditions (of Elders), 405.
Traits of the eye-witness, 333.
Trecentlus, 418.
Turner, 390, 392 f., 408, 491.
Tyrannus, 468.
Unforgivable sin, 381.
-Valentinians, 393.
-Valentinus, 51.
-Van Bebber, 491.
-Victor, attempt to suppress Montan
ism, 263.

544

INDEX

-Victorinus fragment, 398, 400.
-Vigil (the), 341; of Passover, 420-
424.
-Vischer, on Apocalypse, 174.
Von der Goltz, on Ignatius, 64.
-Weiss, B., 374.
Weiss, J., 291.
Weisse, C. H., 479.
Wellhausen, 25, 481, 495, 497, 521,
522; on Jn. 20: 24-29, 318; dis
placements, 477; on Jn. 1:51.,
478; on duplicates, 494; on Jn. 7:
3 f-. S24.
Wendt, H., 473, 479, 481, 495, 501.
Windisch, on Basilides, 54.
Wisdom of God (quoted in Q), 410.
Wisdom of Solomon, 5, 6.

Witness of the Church, in John, 323;
in I Jn. 324, 457.
Witness of Jn. i: 11-17, 458.
Witness of the Spirit, 455.
Wonders of faith, 369.
Worsley, F. W., 304; on Matt. 20:
20, 392; on Mark 2: 1-12, 363; on
Synoptics in John, 366.
Wrede (atomistic method), 274, 437.
Wright, W., 220.
Zahn, on Eusebius, 105; on death
of John, 132; on Papias' use of
I Peter, 185; onjn. 19:35, 192;
on Jn. 21: 23, 211; on Alogi, 236;
on Muratorianum, 237; on Mon
tanism, 242; on Appendix, 451;
on Tatian's order, 502.

YALE UNIVERSITY 1

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