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THE WORLD -VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
A GENETIC STUDY

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THE WORLD-VIEW
of the FOURTH GOSPEL
A GENETIC STUDY

By
THOMAS WEARING

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Published July 191 8

Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicayo Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Typical pre-Christian Hellenistic World- Views .... i
II. The Johannine Universe: Its Origin, Structure, and Destiny 17
III. Man and the Universe in the Johannine World-View ... 35
IV. New Testament World- Views and Their Influence ¦ • • S3
Selected Bibliography  68
Index  71

CHAPTER I
TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS
The primary purpose of the following investigation is to present
various thought-phenomena which constitute the intellectual universe
inhabited by the writer — or writers — to whom civilization owes that
remarkable Christian literary effort known as the Gospel of John. It
must constantly be borne in mind that the Gospel is literature of a dis
tinctive religious cast. The paramount concern of religion is not so much
the creation as the conservation of such values as best meet the experi
ential test in the life of the individual or the community.1 As a writer
holding a brief for the Christian religion of certain thinkers in the
Mediterranean area of the late first century a.d., the author of the Fourth
Gospel naturally presents the data of that rehgion in such a way as to
conserve the values accepted and approved by that particular group and
apprehensible also to the wider group of prospective Christian converts
from the other Hellenistic religions. It is this which distinguishes the
Fourth Gospel from the rest of the New Testament writings, certainly
from the other three Gospels. The group of Christians represented by
the writer has a different world-view from the groups associated in the
appearance j)f other early Christian writings. The historical figure
standing at the center of religious life and thought is the same for all.
It is the world-view, the point of view of the universe, that is different for
each. Every self-conscious human has a world-view. The unreflective
mind may not relate very cogently the various elements in its cosmos.
Yet in so far as that mind finds religious expression a particular and
characteristic world-view, accepted uncritically through the media of
group-inheritance or modified according to the personal attainments of
the individual, will reveal itself in the rehgion held as satisfying personal
needs. The theology of the average man, as well as that of the erudite
philosopher, is set in molds which are fashioned by his whole view of the
1 "Thus Plato, like every honest philosopher, utilized his own personal experiences
as the key with which to interpret human life, nay, all things in general." — Paulsen,
Ethics (trans.), p. 48.

2 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
universe and his relation to itl, Sanctions administered by group-
authority will to a certain extent retard this remolding of world-view.
Especially is this true with regard to sanctions operating under the aegis
of rehgion. Athens in the name of rehgion puts the cup of poison hem
lock to the lips of Socrates. The zealous churchmen of Italy make life a
burden for Galileo. In the latter connection it is interesting to note that
centuries before Galileo the same heliocentric view pf the universe had
stirred up trouble for its protagonists. It had been put forward tenta
tively by Aristarchus of Samos, and Plutarch quotes Cleanthes the
Stoic to the effect that the Greeks should have put Aristarchus on trial
for his impiety as one who proposed to disturb " the hearth of the uni
verse." The trouble was not so much the matter of giving the sun a
central place in the universe, but rather of considering the earth as
simply one of the attendant planets. This last notion was humiliating
indeed to the Stoic theologian, who felt that human beings inhabiting
the earth held first rank in creation and that the entire universe evi
denced but one purpose, namely, the ministration of welfare to gods and
men. To preserve the dignity of man, therefore, he must maintain at
all hazards his geocentric theory.2
Apart from overt obstruction of the reshaping process by group-
authority there is also the group thought-habit which is ever potent in
even the reflective and well-furnished intellect. The most finished
product in the way of a world- view cannot in the very nature of things
be other than a compromise between the heritage of the past and the
achievements of the present. The mind of the Hellenist moved along
thought-pathways well marked out by earlier intellectual voyageurs.
Intellectual orthodoxy played an important part in the evolution of
Greek speculation. To think correctly made the measure of the man,
for, according to the Socratic doctrine, right knowledge meant virtue.
With the Jew the necessary lay in the realm of practice rather than in
the realm of the intellect. As far as philosophizing belonged to the
Hebrew mind the widest latitude obtained so long as the ritual require
ments of the Torah received due observance. For the Greek, orthodoxy
1 "A man's religion, if it is genuine, contains the summed-up and concentrated
meaning of his life; and indeed it can have no value except as it does so. And it is
even more obvious that the theology of a philosopher is the ultimate outcome of his
whole view of the universe and particularly of his conception of the nature of man.
It is therefore impossible to show the real effect and purport of the former without
exhibiting very carefully and fully its relations to the latter."— Caird, Evolution of
Theology in Greek Philosophy, Preface, p. viii.
2 Arnold, Roman Stoicism, p. 179.

TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS 3
dominated thought; for the Jew, practice. The hatred of the Jewish
leaders toward Jesus was engendered by his attitude on such matters
as Sabbath observance and Temple ritual. Heresy trials in the history
of Christianity are a Greek and not a Hebrew heritage. Yet in spite
of this operation of group-authority for both Jew and Hellene, and some
what apart from it, may be found thought-tendencies associated closely
with the group-habit in both. Evidence bearing on this may be seen in
the movements of thought which came into juxtaposition in the Medi
terranean world of the Hellenistic period.
For the Semite a world-view of a heaven above and a sheol below
the earthly plane, all coming^ into existence at the fiat of a transcendent
heavenly Jjdnjg^constantly dominated_his_ thought::haJML_ For him,
man generally, but particularly the race to which he belonged, possessed
the power of divine communication and fellowship, however ignored or
etiolated, as the earthly representative and image of this transcendent
being. Immemorial story grooved such cosmical ideas deep in the He
brew mind and seriously hampered it in becoming at home in a world of
wider thought. This is seen on the one hand in the prevailing uniformity
of religious philosophy among the Jewish writers, and on the other in their
odd casuistry when they tried, as did Philo, to make some change of
world-view in the light of Hellenistic intellectual achievement.1 The
Greek EadTan entirely different way of looking at things. Homer could
view water or ocean asjjigjjrigjn of all things, gods and men included.
For Hesiod the vague cosmic substance which he called chaos made the
universe possible^ And indeed the atheistic creatjon^theqry of the
fifth-century, Ephesian, materialistic philosopher Herachtus, " Neither
GocTnor man made the cosmos," found many adherents in later Greek
speculation.2 Opposed to the retarding forces of religious sanction, group-authority,
and thought-habit in the reshaping of the world-view is the personal
attainment of the individual in an ever-changing environment. The
progress of religious life lies this way. The ideas of the superearthly,
the supersensible, the superhuman, of God, heaven, hell, the life after
1 The proverb fl JV^&twv <pi\<avtfct 1) $l\wv ir\o.Twvli;ei. illustrates the Philonic method
in relation to Plato as viewed by early interpreters. In his Stromateis, Clement of
Alexandria calls Philo a Pythagorean. Eusebius claims that he follows both Plato
and Pythagoras. Modern interpreters class him sometimes with the Stoics and some
times with the neo-Pythagoreans (cf. E. Schiirer, History of the Jewish People2, III,
365). 2 L. R. Farnell, The Higher Aspects of Greek Religion, p. 121.

4 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
death, the other world — all these spring from the onward urge of the
human spirit and take color from the surroundings in which they find
expression. A glance at the development of rehgious ideas will serve
to confirm this position.
Man comes to find that there is such a thing as controllable reality.
He produces changes in the physical sphere by means of effort. Gradu
ally tools for the task are fashioned and a technique of more or less
successful control comes into existence. Apart from this sphere there
appear to the primitive man forces outside the field of the senses, malig
nant or benignant as the case may be. Deluge and lightning-^mspiring
fear and destroying food and life — disease, physical suffering, death;
such uncontrollable factors in human experience make the individual
dependent upon an unreachable unknown. Having won out in some
measure in the struggle with the outside world of nature man is em
boldened to invent means of coping with this spirit-universe. He
triesto establish relations with _tfiis_ world by means of prayers, gifts,
flattery, and objurgation addressed to its inhabitants^ A technique
ans~esTnthis .field of human endeavor. A distinct class develops in con
nection with the carrying out of it. Tradition makes this class possess
extraordinary powers, and the idea of a higher being comes into play.1
The magical act of the cult gives way to the ordered religious process in
which the inner life of the individual recognizes and obeys a higher divine
will. It is the working force of the invisible that creates, a basic cate
gory for the primitive religious life.2 Then by means of analogy reli
gious thinking creates doctrines of the origin of the world and man
and the whither of all life-processes.3 The interpretation of reality, the
evaluation of life, the recognition of the practical ideal — these enter the
thinking of the individual in his relation to the invisible and create his
world-view. As he "rounds to a separate mind" and lives his own
distinct life each human being discovers the elements of a particular
1 Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, pp. 168-94; Coe, The Psychology
of Religion, pp. 76-118.
2 Foster, Lecture Notes, Psychology of Religion.
s "Without doubt a religion is not primarily a view of the world and of life, a
doctrine of divine and human things. Rather it is the creation of a distinctive world
of reality, the development of a new life under the dominant conception of a higher
sphere. The life that here grows up is conscious of being raised far above mere doc-
'trine, and it will at times stoutly defend its independence of the latter. But it could
not be of an enlightened sort without possessing in itself and developing from itself
convictions respecting the sum total of human existence.'' — Eucken, The Problem
of Human Life, p. 71.

TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS 5
world-view impinging upon his thought in immediate and directive
potency. And in the organization of his hfe as affected by the environ
ment in which it is worked out — as also the new religious experiences
through which he passes — these elements arrange themselves into new
relations modifying inevitably the structure of his world- view.
Two definitions will serve to demonstrate the practical nature of
the world-view. According to August Baur it is —
not a purely theoretical relation to nature, although the theoretic moment is
undeniably contained in it — not a purely disinterested apprehension and
knowledge of the world as a sum of particulars; it includes much more a
practical personal interest in itself; for it is a judgment of worth upon the
world as a whole, as a single given magnitude in space and time in relation to
the life-aim, the hfe-determination of the viewing subject. It is a considera
tion and valuation, of existence in space and time in the light of our own proper
life-aim, which in the most general sense of the word we are able to designate
as a moral one.
Ritschl, applying the adjective "religious" to the word Weltan
schauung, says that it is grounded in the fact that man in some degree
distinguishes himself in worth from the natural appearances surrounding
him. For Ritschl the world- view is "an interpretation of the course
of nature in this sense that the exalted spiritual powers — or spiritual
Power — which rule in and over nature maintain and confirm to the
personal spirit its claims, or its independence against the limitations
arising from nature or from the natural workings of human society."1
Thus it will be seen that the various world-views operating in the shaping
of religious thought are not like so many pearls on a thread, detached
and separate entities. Rather are they expressions of a continuous and
developmental life-process, each assuredly taking form and color accord
ing to the time and place associated with its appearances, yet each vitally
connected with the yesterday and the tomorrow of thought and conduct.
In the early attempts at a correlation of the facts of the universe as
they appeared to the human mind many elements, religious, rational,
ethical, and poetical, were mingled together in such a way as to leave little
basis for classification. From the period inaugurated by the pre-
Socratic thinkers there emerge at intervals world-views more or less
differentiable. That held by Democritus and borrowed from him in
some degree by later schools, such as that of Epicurus, views the universe
as composed of "an indefinite number of indestructible particles acting
1 Orr, Christian View of God and the World, pp. 422 ff ., quotes and discusses these
definitions.

6 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
independently through forces within themselves toward certain deter
mined ends." To use a somewhat clumsy terminology, this may be
called a materialistic, mechanistic view of the world. In modern times
this view has many adherents. A second main class comes under the
name of theistic. It includes monotheism, polytheism, and pantheism,
for all of these predicate a life-principle as fundamental in causation
and only differ in identifying it with a single or plural deific hypothesis
apart from, or at one with, the universe.1 It is within this class that
the Christian world-view as pictured in the Fourth Gospel takes its
place. In order that it may be better understood a discussion of the
different yet related world-views constituting the milieu from which
this Gospel sprang is necessary.
The thought of Hellenistic times, as also the thought of all Western
civilization, derives largely from Plato, and therefore his work may very
well mark the commencement of this survey. In examining this the
difficulty of rightly interpreting his language is immediately apparent.
He is at once the philosopher and the artist. " Didactic statement and
poetic myth in Plato often merge imperceptibly into one another,"
writes Eucken.2 Yet the main energy of Plato is directed toward
finding that which is good and valuable in ennobling the fife-values.
His world-view is dominantly dualistic with the universe of ideas set
over against the phenomenal world. This latter is too disintegrated, too
mutable, for life to be based upon it with any degree of hope. Socrates
with his doctrine of thought and the nature of concepts had opened the
way for the recognition of a higher sphere. Yet he predicated only the
universality of human thought. Plato goes a step farther.3 He avers
that the concept cannot be true unless it operates beyond human thought
and corresponds to a reality in things. To him knowledge is not alto
gether dependent on uncertain opinions, but is produced by permanent
conceptual entities. Thus he rises to the belief that there exists in the
All an invisible immutable world, a realm of thought-existences beyond
this fleeting world of sense. _TMs_ideal world jstands in sharp antithesis
to the world of appearances in which difference "creates conflict and

__conflict leads to the endkis~mutatioh ofTife~a¥<f death.. The world of
appearances is so far real and divine as it is a reflection of the divine
intelligence. Yet being only a reflection it remains undivine and
1 See Hibben, The Problems of Philosophy, chap, ii, pp. 59-77, for a discussion of
speculation on the world-problem.
"Eucken, op. cit., pp. 16, 17.
3 Eucken, The Problems of Philosophy, p. ig.

TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS 7
unreal.1 The visible universe is created by the divine artificer after the
eternal patterns furnished by the invisible, unchanging world of ideas.
The universe is a living creature endowed with soul and intelligence
by the providence of God. The soul is a mediating existence bridging the
gulf between the eternal intelligence, the vdijcris vo^o-ems, and the transi
tory world of sense, between man and God.2 It is an absolutely perma
nent substance; therefore the actual number of souls remains ever the
same. It is of the samejrature as 6ei»g_ancL as such_is_ immortal.
The grosser elements which have attached themselves to it in the
phenomenal universe may be cast aside and thus the soul may be
perfected. .Aristotle's view of the world may be appreciated more readily in
comparison with that of his master, Plato. He agrees with Plato that
human life is to be understood only from the standpoint of the whole
of reality, that human existence finds its source in the cosmos, that
intelligence unites man to the universe and is the essence of human
being.3 Like the Academic he attempts to explain the universe on the
principle of AnaxagoraSj that "all things were in chaos till reason came t£
arrange them,^ and endeavors to overcome the resultant dualism of form
and matter by subjecting the latter to the former, the world of conflict
and change to the unchanging, pure intelligence.4
Farther than this Aristotle will not travel with his teacher. The
ultimate aim of Plato was not only to demonstrate the unity of all
things but to set forth this unity in a comprehensive system of thought
organically connected throughout yet displaying its distinguishable
elements. The dominant purpose of the Peripatetic was to account for
the whole by a detailed examination of its parts, to fix each element in its
place as distinct from the rest.5 For Plato the eternality in truth and
beauty is understood only in the separation of the world of essence from
the world of appearance. For Aristotle this is not necessary. He is
concerned with demonstrating the unity and beauty of all reality,
with seeing the universe as an "empire of reason," and consequently
sets aside the Platonic doctrine of ideas as separating the actual world
1 Caird, op. cit., I, 226.
2 "The soul in its totality has the care of all inanimate and soulless being every
where, and traverses the whole universe appearing in diverse forms." — Plato Phaedrus
xxiv. 63.
3 Eucken, The Problem of .Human Life, p. 46.
* Caird, op. cit., II, 33.
' Ibid., I, 203.

8 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
from the world of real being.' The transcendent deity of Plato is for
Aristotle the source of reason and the origin — although very remote —
of the motion pervading the universe. Eucken goes so far as to say
that Aristotle denies to the deity any activity within the world and thus
shuts out the necessity for religion, for providence, and for the moral order
of the world. Edward Caird, on the other hand, claims that although
at first Aristotle moves away from Plato in many ways, such as repudiat
ing the Platonic idea of souls being made in various degrees of obscuration
and the doctrine of soul-transmigration, yetin the end the Aristotelian
world-view sees the universe as a teleological whole. This purposive
unity finds its principle in the pure nature of mind, or self-consciousness,
a principle realizing itself in every rational being and itself eternally
realized in God.
The advance of Aristotle is seen in this: he repudiates the mystic
tendency of Plato which regarded the connection of the soul and body as
accidental or external, and stresses the idea that human happiness
consists, not in escape from life, but in complete rational activity for the
individual. Virtue for hirn_is not the Platonic liberation from social
bonds, but is to be found by the individual in social relationships where
he may be able to " five well. " JThis is the ev t^v of Aristotle. The ideal
life is that of calm contemplation through an extended period. This is
Aristotle's 6-nwpea.,1 which according to his notion creates a rational
foundation for the e£ tpiv- A new point of view is also observed, in
Aristotle's treatment of the soul as subject to diseases (ira^i/juoTa).3
Here the practical philosopher is given a place to assist in the cure of
souls by the use of reason in the expulsion of the various diseases affect
ing their welfare. Thus for Aristotle the philosopher becomes the
coadjutor of the physician.
In the period following Aristotle it is this practical tendency which
comes to the fore in the thinking of the Mediterranean peoples. The
currents of cosmopolitanism which set in with the Macedonian triumph
continued to flow through the period of Greek and Roman domination
in the life of people brought together for the first time into relationship
with a real world-empire. As the conquered peoples entered into the
1 Eucken, The Problem of Human Life, p. 46.
"'.... Aristotle conceives the life of man as consisting of the exercise of reason,
and as comprising two distinct forms of that exercise, Beupla and Trpafis, the pure
activity of contemplation and the mixed and imperfect activity of the practical life."—
Caird, op. cil., I, 295.
» Arnold, op. cit., p. 61.

TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS 9
wider world-relations national and tribal sanctions tended to retreat or
to take on new forms. This brought greater freedom of thought and
conduct to the individual' and at the same time a feeling that he could
no longer be absolutely sure of the universe which made its influence
potent in his life.2 In connection with this rise of individualism is seen
the growth of such philosophico-religious systems as that of the Stoics,
where each is provided with a guide for the journey of life, where phi
losophy becomes the preceptress of conduct for the individual.
Stoicism has for its object the unifying of man's life in such a way
as to put it beyond the care-creating clutch of external circumstance.
In obeying his own nature the Stoic is conscious that. he js, in. harmony
with the law of thejmiverse, a law which.aU. things obey, butjwhicri it is
conscious rule of UfeJ The Stoic's world-view is monistic and is devel
oped in opposition to the dualism which in Plato separates form and
matter. To the Stoic, matter and form are simply aspects of one sub
stance. All things flow from, and finally return to, the fiery breath,
ro^irvevfm hiaimpov, which is the quintessence of all matter. The Stoic
was the intelTectuai heir of Heraclitus in this thought of the primary
stuff as ever-living fire. All material bodies are interpenetrated by each
other and by the ethereal fire.4 All things came from this fire and ulti
mately all things must be reabsorbed into it. ' ' The . fil^halLone day-
come,, judge all things, and conderrmJJiern," said Heraclitus.5
True happiness for the followers of Zeno, Aristippus, and Cleanthes
is found by following the guidance of the A.oyos, "the universal reason."
Complete union with this will give him arapaiia, "an imperturbable
independence," and an inner mastery over things. His goal of effort is
the irokiTela tov Koo-pov, a world-citizenship created by the union of all
rational beings.6 He is not concerned to seek out the future of soul-
existence so much as to fortify the entire man in the present struggle with
the world. That the Stoic attempt in this direction proved very suc
cessful is noted in the remarkable spread of this religious philosophy and
in its long continuance in ministration to the needs of the Hellenistic
1 "Aber diese freie Entfaltung und starke Eigenart der Personlichkeit in den ober-
sten Schichten der Gesellschaf t ist doch nur das Symptom der allgemeinen stark in-
dividualistischen Richtung der Zeit." — Wendland, Die hellenistisch-romische Kultur,
p. 47- 2 Eucken, The Problem of Human Life, p. 77. « Arnold, op. cit., p. 169.
3 Caird, op. cit., II, 76. s Ibid., p. 35, n. 36.
6 Caird, op. cit., II, 201; cf. also Wendland, op. cit., pp. 43, 45.

10 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
world. The famous hymn of Cleanthes' strikes a note of undoubted
optimism, and in spite of the allusions made by critics to the cold manner
and callous arrogance of the Stoics it is coming to be acknowledged that
in the main their teaching and their kind of life induced real happiness.'
" From the few glimpses we have of their inmost feelings and that atti
tude to the universe which constitutes the essence of rehgion, what is
most clearly distinguishable is joy and gratitude, serene confidence and
unwavering submission," writes R. D. Hicks.
If the Stoic reaches happiness in boldly defying the universe in which
he finds himself the Epicurean is desirous to surrender himself to it as
agreeably as possible. The one strives to rise superior to all the vicissi
tudes of earthly life; the other is determined to make a pleasing use
of the same materials. For the Epicurean the universe is a fortuitous
concourse of atoms,3 this following the teaching of Democritus of Abdera.
Such order and system as may be found in the universe are reflected in
the intrinsic nature of the atoms by virtue of which they seize upon each
other, forming themselves into separate entities. The pla tonic fore
ordained necessity, appapp.hrq, which was taken over by the Stoics is
resolutely denied by the Epicureans, and the divination accompanying
this is dismissed as mere superstition.4 The gods are celestial beings
beyond thought and care for human affairs. Immortality of the soul,
which meant so much to Plato, is nothing but a pleasant fiction. Death
closes all existence as far as human beings are concerned. The present
claims the attention, of the wise man. The summum bonum is the agree
able hfe or, viewed negatively, freedom from mental trouble about
death, the gods, or the future life. The practical outcome of such a
world-view was the avoidance of social burdens such as the marriage
tie5 and civic duties — so carefully performed by the Stoic — and the
cultivation by active missionary propaganda of societies resembling
rehgious communities.6
1 See hymn quoted in Arnold, op. cit., pp. 85-87; cf. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean,
pp. 14-16. 2 Hicks, op. cit., pp. 18, 108.
3 Lucretius De rerum natura ii. 80-140; quoted in Cicero De natura deorum i. 20.
4 Op. cit. i. 20.
5 Eucken, The Problem of Human Life, p. 84; Arnold, op. cit., p. 93.
'"Epicurus and his disciples proselytized, and closely organized their society.
It extended throughout the whole of Greece, a state within a state, having a fixed
constitution and held together, not only by correspondence and itinerant preaching, but
by the interchange of material assistance. Epicurus knew how to create an esprit de
corps which has rightly been likened to that existing in the early Christian communi
ties. — Ivo Bruns, quoted by Eucken, The Problem of Human Ufe, p 84

TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS II
Over against the followers of Zeno and Epicurus in the centuries
from the midst of whose life and thought came the Christian writings
stood the adherents of the later Academy who went by the name of
Skeptics. They called the accidental-concourse theory of the Epi
cureans mere rubbish. They told the Stoic that if, according to his
idea, man received reason from the gods, then the gods are ultimately
responsible for all the good and the ill that follow the exercise of reason.
Stoic and Epicurean alike were strongly individualistic. For both, the
main effort was to make man strong in himself and either independent of,
or tolerant to, the world. To the Skeptic both were wrong in basing the
independence of the individual upon some belief in the nature of the
world as exterior to the thought of man concerning it. He claimed that
no such support is necessary. Knowledge comes only through sense-
perception. Even those sensations and ideas which make knowledge
possible are but states of individual subjectivity. Man cannot know
things as they are, but only as they appear to be. Edward Caird sees
in this purely subjective world-view of the Skeptic the bridge by means
of which religious speculation passed over into neo-Platonism with its
ultimate losing of the subjective consciousness in a non-rational ecstatic
union with the Absolute Being. The individualism of the Stoic and the
Epicurean merged with the subjectivism of the Skerjtic into the neo-
Platonic transcendent Absolute, in whom the highest being might lose
itself and thus experience the summum bonum.1 The Skeptic influence
is also found in the later Stoics. It is seen in Seneca and in Marcus
Aurelius where the earlier Stoic self-confidence has a tendency to recede
before a self-despair. This allows the individual to move through the
loss of self-reliance to the rehgious spirit that loses itself only to find
itself in God. Yet with all this negation in his view of the universe the
Skeptic did not find himself deterred from a conventional acceptance of
popular mythology — rightly interpreted — and an adherence to the
popular forms of religious practice. According to Cicero, in practical
life the Skeptic was even willing to allow that external goods came from
the gods and that the right use of these by the individual constituted
the chief good.2
A species of religious world-view that appears in early Semitic
thought along the Tigris-Euphrates Valley very markedly affected
all speculation of the Mediterranean world. This view accepted the
idea of a dualism, with the heavenly bodies as the mediating agencies v
between the deity and man. It held to an invariability of sidereal
1 Caird, op. cit., II, 172. 2 Cicero op. cit., iii. 26.

12 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
revolutions, which could, none the less, be modified by the exceptional
operation of the will of the deity. Such phenomena as comets and
falling stars readily lent color to this doctrine. The eternity of the
universe was held as a resultant of the theory that the stars moved in
invariable cycles of years.' The principle of life, warming and animating
the body of man, was held to be of the same essence as the fires of heaven.
By patient contemplation and study of the heavenly bodies and their
motions the faithful received from them the revelation of all knowledge,
past, present, and future.
Although the spirit of the Greek rehgion was fundamentally opposed
to the deification of distant potencies, such as the celestial bodies, the
different world-views of the various philosophical schools show patently
the influence of astrological speculation. As East and West commingle
in Hellenistic thought, deity throughout becomes less chthonic and
more astral. The gpds ascend from the hearth and the home and even
from the heights of Olympus to take their places in the celestial regions
far above the earth. Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle all called the
stars visible gods. Chrysippus said that the heavenly bodies, being of
purest ether, must be divine. For him the stars possess highest intelli
gence and move voluntarily of their own consciousness and divinity.2
The ideas of fate, or the inescapable relation between cause and effect,
and the interdependence of the heavens and the earth in connection
with human events, so widespread among the Stoics and represented
indeed in all Hellenistic thought, had their earliest exponents in the
Babylonian plains. The influence of this type of thinking is seen in
the neo-Pythagoreanism of the time of early Christianity, with its doc
trines of the eternity of the universe, the influence of the stars upon the
sublunary world, the belief in airy demons who torture mankind, and
the symbolism of numbers with their mystic power.3 Aurelian, in
274 a.d., officially recognized astral theology by having a splendid temple
built to Sol Invictus, and placing therein images of Bel and Helios which
had been imported from Palmyra. The emperor Julian, who opposed
early Christianity so violently, called the sun his "king-star" and made
himself the champion of the cult, going so far as to consider himself the
spiritual son of Sol Invictus.4 For him as for all who embraced sidereal
1 Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, p. 24.
2 Cicero op. cit. ii. 7-31. 3 Cumont, op. cit., p. 87.
" While allowing himself especial prominence as the offspring of Helios, Julian
claims a like paternity for humanity at large, aim Artfiti^aj Si rairriv, 4js ftubBiiv
airbs irapd. toO Oeov rovSe /iepttos; iv t<? Kparouvrt Kal /WiXeiWi ttjs 7tjs yivei row kot'
ilxavTbv xpbvois yev6/mvos, 6X\' faov/uu, elirep xp^ TreMecrfcu rots votpoh, avavruv &v6pii-
wtov ehat tovtov koivov iraripa. — Julian Oration iv. 131 C.

TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS 13
theology the sun regulated the harmonious movements of the planets,
unified the entire universe, had intelligence, and produced the appearance
upon the earth of the souls of men.
While the influence of astral speculation moved westward permeating
the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans, a strong tide of thought set
eastward from around the Aegean and stirred Oriental thinking. The
flotsam and jetsam of this tide drifted into different reaches of Eastern
reflection and furnished useful material for the earnest minds of the time.
The literature of the Jewish people in the vicinity of Alexandria, such as
the Book of Wisdom, the writings of Philo Judaeus, the Book of the
Secrets of Enoch, and IV Maccabees, all bear witness to the action of
this tide from the West.
Philo adopts the theory of. the universe and its beginnings from
Plato's Timaeus and with religious assiduity distributes its various
details throughout his interpretation of the Jewish sacred writ. By
such an ingenious proceeding the creation stories of Genesis are brought
up to date and made for the Alexandrian Jew really intelligible and satis
fying. Hellenistic Logos ideas and earlier Jewish notions concerning
Wisdom are woven by Philo into a doctrinal texture that for him em
bodies the best features of both. In pictorial language he declares
that his world-view includes God, the Supreme Being, as the Father,
the Logos as the Son, and the physical universe as the grandson.' At
times the Logos takes the -place of deity itself, and Philo displays the
ditheism of the Gnostic. The daemon theory of Socrates reappears
in Philo's belief that every man has a permanent divine Logos attached
to his person. For him matter is eternally and essentially evil. The
implications of this doctrine lead Philo, as also Wisdom and IV Macca
bees, to deny the otherwise prominent Jewish notion of the resurrection
of the body. For Philo the soul is pre-existent. Incorporeal souls
inhabit the air. Purer souls belong to angelic beings, while the less
pure drift earthward to unite with mortal bodies. This is platonic in
its atmosphere. Wisdom disagrees here, for its writer holds that a
child good by nature may have "a good soul fall to his lot." In Philo's
opinion only a few of those souls who descend into mortal bodies are
saved, and that by spiritual philosophy, "meditating, from beginning
to end, on how to die to the life in the body in order to obtain incorporeal
and immortal life in the presence of the uncreated and immortal God."2
For Alexandrian Judaism the soul immediately after death enters on its
final award, whether of bliss or of torment. Here it parts company very
1 Ibid., p. 154.
2 Caird, op. cit., II, 201.

14 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
definitely with the earlier and Palestinian type which held to a sheol,
with a resurrection and a final judgment for all followed by torment
for the wicked and bliss for the righteous. For Philo the idea of the
pre-existence of the soul interferes successfully with a rigid racial solidar
ity and thus the soul, at the dissolution of its prison-house, the body,
does not need to be retarded by racial considerations from reaching
its own particular consummation. R. H. Charles remarks upon the
strangeness of his world- view, which portrays man in this present life as
determined by his ethical conduct when a pre-existent soul, conceiving
the pre-existent state to be ethical and capable of progress upward or
downward, yet leaving the after-life, the post-corporeal existence of the
soul, mechanically fixed for good or evil to all eternity.1 Yet in- Philo
this doctrine is not consistently applied, for we at times find him placing
in the. present life the opportunity for man to make progress from the
higher to the lower. To do this man must despise the flesh, regard
sense-phenomena as unreal, and entirely abandon love of self. This
progressive activity turns in the way of "reverence," and "love," and
" loving knowledge," each phase bringing the individual nearer and nearer
to the divine presence.2 The element of attainment in Philo moves
along with the idea of God as a self-revealing, transcendent deity, and
of the universe and especially man as constituting a revelation of the
divine. The notions of immanence and transcendence in the view of
Philo are woven by him into a weird fabric which nevertheless to him,
with his religious preconceptions inherited from Jewish ancestry and his
cultural acquaintance with Hellenicism, appears eminently comfortable
and satisfactory.
A syncretistic world-view embodying features of all those so far dis
cussed and regnant throughout the Hellenistic life from which the Fourth
Gospel emanated is that which was held by the Gnostics of the first
century a.d. It is agreed today that one of the main interests of the
Gospel is the recognition of early Christian Gnostic influence upon Chris
tian tradition. A description of the pre-Christian Gnostic world-view
will demonstrate the fluctuation of ideas about the deity, the universe,
and man in the environment belonging to the appearance of the Fourth
Gospel. The dualism of Plato and Aristotle, with matter as formless
and unreal in distinction from the world of reality, gives way in Gnosti
cism before a dualism which represents two diverse and real worlds,
both full of energetic activity— the world of good, the spirit, and the
1 Charles, Eschatology, pp. 304-6.
2 Bentwich, op. cit., p. 160.

TYPICAL PRE-CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC WORLD-VIEWS 15
world of evil, matter— each in conflict with the other. The early Persian
dualism had two hostile worlds led by the evil Ahriman and the good
Ormuzd in bitter strife which was ultimately to result in the victory of the
latter. The Gnostic combined the higher and lower dualistic elements
of the Hellenic world-view with the Persic idea of the two hostile worlds
and thus arrived at the conclusion that matter was essentially and
eternally evil, with escape from it to the higher world of the spirit as the
chief aim of human life.'
Mythical figures, such as the "Great Mother" figuring in the Asian
cults as the mother-goddess under such names as Astarte, Beltis, Atar-
gatis, Cybele, and the "Primal Man," the Gayomart of the Persic
stories, and the Son of Man in Jewish Apocalypticism, are introduced to
assist man in his escape from the evil world.2 There are seven angelic
powers transformed from the seven Babylonian planetary deities or from
the seven good spirits or "Angels" of Persism which control the lower
spheres. It is the function of the gnosis to provide the one receiving it
with intimate knowledge about the being, nature, and names of these
seven in order that the soul may ascend through the lower realms
guarded by them and at last reach the radiant realm of the supreme
deity.3 Practically the Gnostic world-view worked out in the creation
of a cultus where the initiate underwent rites of purification from evil
and accepted secret instruction for the safe journey to heaven. In
conduct the idea concerning matter as inherently evil led on the one
hand to the ascetic ignoring of natural functions, or on the other hand
to indulgence in the satisfaction of appetites as being apart from, and
lacking significance for, the welfare of the soul. It is in the assistance
given to the initiate in obtaining salvation that the world-view of the
early Gnostic links up very closely with the thought of primitive Chris
tianity. The Christian writers were able to replace the many and the
1 See W. Bousset, in Enc. Brit, (nth ed.), pp. 153-59. "Gnosticism has combined
the two, the Greek opposition between spirit and matter, and the sharp Zoroastrian
dualism, which, where the Greek mind conceived of a higher and a lower world, saw
instead two hostile worlds standing out in contrast to each other like light and darkness.
And out of the combination of these two dualisms arose the teaching of Gnosticism,
with its thoroughgoing pessimism and fundamental asceticism." — Op. cil., p. 154.
2 Wendland, op. cit., p. 176, holds that Gnostic religions marked a reaction against
astral religion. The Gnostic religions were redemption-rehgions which furnished to
man theurgic instruments by the use of which he might break the fatalistic bonds of
siderealism. Cf. Case, "The Study of Early Christianity," in G. B. Smith, A Guide to
the Study of the Christian Religion, p. 312.
' Case, Evolution of Early Christianity, pp. 327-28.

16 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
mythical salvation-procuring agents of Gnosticism with the one and the
historical person of Jesus. Later Gnostics welcomed this fact and built
up their own world-views about ii; and their own interpretations as to
the nature and the function of the historical figure. In due recognition
of such Gnostic thought the Fourth Gospel is put forward. The varying
interpretations of the same personage in Gnostic speculation has its
counterpart within the Christian group and is due in both instances to
the change of world-view. This phenomenon will be discussed in
detail at the close of the present investigation.

CHAPTER II
THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE: ITS ORIGIN, STRUCTURE, AND DESTINY
It is to be expected that in the Fourth Gospel the practical religious
purpose, dominating as it does the entire structure, would express itself
in language and thought-forms amenable to the popular mind of the
age and locality to which it brought a message. In this the Gospel
is of a piece with the rest of the New Testament literature.' These writ
ings springjrom active participation in the lifgjrf the time rather than
from continuous and profound, reflection, upon J&ejfltirnaie—issues. of
human existence^. In appealing to the people in the various communi
ties verging upon the Levant the Christian evangel took for its vehicle
the modes of expression then operative in these groups. It is not a
matter of surprise, therefore, to find widely disparate elements within
the collection of New Testament writings or even within the limits of a
single book, such as the Fourth Gospel.
In the synoptic productions there is the idea of the Divine Being
similar to the ®i\dv6p<mos, the lover of man, of the Book of Wisdom, the
one who makes beneficent provision both for the just and the unjust.2
Coupled closely with this is the radically different notion of a divine
being who can sweep Sodom and Gomorrah with all their hapless folk
into a terrible conflagration and, worse still, who can calmly prepare
eternal fire with which to torture the wretched souls of his. own creating.3
In the letters of Paul is found the statement that judgment comes after
the cessation of physical activity, with the inference that the earthly
life provides the only opportunity of so acting as to avert the coming
wrath and win eternal happiness. On the other hand Peter allows for
repentance — preaching to those who have passed beyond the confines of
this life, making Christ the bearer of the message.4 In the first three
Gospels the soul and the spirit pf man are practically synonymous. The
soul of man survives the decease of the body and goes to either the blest
or the unblest section of Hades, the intermediate abode of the departed
1 Deissman, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 238-46.
2Wisdomi:6; 7:23,25; Matt. 5:45; Luke6:35.
3 Matt. 11:23, 24; 13:41,42,50; Luke 16:23, 24; 17:19.
< Rom. 2:5-10; IPet.4:i9. 17

18 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
spirits.' In Paul the .spuljs ^ the ^ yitel rjrinciple .pialLflgshj^o^^^nd^is
never conceived by him as the bearer of a higher spiritual Ufe. It is the
spirit (irveufw), renewed, recreated, which makes man spiritual (wrev/xan-
#cos), and which, with the death of the body, departs "to be forever with
the Lord." The apostle Paul could describe the imminent new age and
its inception in such graphic language as that in his first letter to the
converts to Christianity at Thessalonica: "For the Lord himself shall
descend frofn heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we
that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we be ever with the
Lord." In the Synoptic Gospels these pictures of an imminent cata
clysmic world-end and world-renewal are very frequent. Yet along
with these are put forward suggestions that link up very closely with the
Gospel of a new order which slowly and gradually develops out of the
work inaugurated by the first Christian group.
Similar phenomena are met in an examination of the set of ideas func
tioning in the Fourth Gospel. The rich variety investing popular
parlance would appear to be reflected in the many meanings for kovims
throughout the book. The use of this word to denote the "world-
order" or "universe," terms entirely alien to the Jewish mind3 as such
while common property of the Greeks from Pythagoras down to the
later Stoics,4 finds some place here.5 Another meaning for it is the
"earth," this occurring rarely.6 Many times "cosmos" is applied to
the human race..7 The flexibility of this term renders TFaHe to describe ~
a large group of people,8 or to suggest what in modern nomenclature
is called "the public."' The prevailing function of the word "cosmos"
"Mark 9:47; Matt. 5:22, 29 f.; 10:28; Luke 12:5; 16:23; cf. I Enoch 22
(Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, II, 202).
2 Full discussion by E. D. Burton, American Journal of Theology, July, 1916.
3 The LXX of the Old Testament has the word, but only in its earlier meaning of
"adornment," or as a rendering of SIS "host," (Gen. 4: 1; Deut. 4: 19, etc.) : while'
fj* and 52ft are there translated by yv and SiKov/iivv. In Wisdom and II Macca
bees it frequently occurs as a name for the material universe. Stanton, HBD, IV,
p. 938. 4 Arnold, op. cit., p. 170, notes; cf. Plutarch De plac. philos. iii. 1.
3 John 17:5, 24.
6 John 11:9; 21:25.
'John 1:10, 29; 3:16 f.; 6:33, 51; 8:26; 12:47; 13:1; 14:31; 16:28; 17:6, 21, 23.
8Johni2:i9. 'John 7:4; 18:20.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE 19
in the Fourth Gospel, while cognate with those so far listed, moves out
from these into the realm of religious speculation which dominates
the entire message. It is in this connection that the bias of the writer
appears. The cosmos signifies for him as a Christian preacher mainly
the universe built up of ideas or personal attitudes visited vainly by the
reyelationof the Logos so miraculously exhibited in thejperspn of Jesus.1
Although the various connotations of the word "cosmos" in the
Fourth Gospel show the freedom with which the term comes into play,
as also the danger of giving loose rein to a theory attached to its function,2
there exist throughout the book references suggesting a general view of
the universe, its origin, structure, and destiny. The cosmos in this
sense had a definite beginning, as the introductory passajgjhows._ The
same event is hinted at in the description of the "father" of evil as a
manslayer "from the beginning." In the argument of the erstwhile
blind man the expression Ik tou euivos seems to indicate the earliest
stage of the present world-order, 'although in agreement with a common
New Testament use of 6 alto? it may merely express duration ofjtim&3
The termination of the universe plays a minor part in the message of the
book. A.last day appears rarely and then only in close connection with
material reflecting Jewish4 or Jewish-Christian5 ideas. Even this the
author overlays with a mystical representation utterly devoid of temporal
or somatic significance.6 The Logos appears in the prologue as the
agent through whose activity the whole world comes into being. The
atmosphere of such Jewish creation stories as are recorded in the Old
Testament is absent from this representation.7 In the Wisdom of
Solomon and in Philo8 the divine being employs Wisdom or Logos in
creative operations, but maintains a more or less predominant place
throughout. The author of the Wisdom of Solomon is able to see in
Wisdom the "artificer of all things," and a like function is accorded the
'John 1 : n; 7:7; 14:22-24; 15:18-25; 16:8,20; 17:14-18.
2 Westcott avers that the Attic notion of "order" in the word "cosmos" colors
thoroughly its appearance in the Fourth Gospel (Westcott, St. John, I, 64). Stanton
as against this states that the world as viewed by the New Testament writers generally
is a realm, not of order, but of grave disorder (HBD, IV, 939).
3 John 1:1; 8:44; 9:32. Cf. E. D. Burton, Lecture notes, unpublished.
?John 5:21; 11:24.
sjohn 5:25, 28; 6:39.
6 John 8:51; 5:24.
' The J and E narratives in Gen. chaps. 1 and 2.
"Wisdom 1:14; 6:7; 9:1; 9 = 9; cf. 8:4, 5; 7 = 22. Philo Laws iii. 73.

20 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Logos by the Fourth Gospel. In the prologue at least the divine being
is only remotely related to the world enterprise. It is the Logos as the
creator, -the bearer of "life" and "light," that commands the author's
attention. The language in this part of the book betrays the genetic sources from
which the author derived his creational concepts. Writing a half-century
prior to the appearance of the Fourth Gospel a representative, of later
Stoicism discusses the beginnings of the universe.in a style closely allied
to that of the evangelist.' In a similar inquiry Aristotle had outlined
four causes of the world's existence, namely, efficient, material, modal,
and final. In the last analysis the creator embodies for Aristotle the
efficient, modal, and final causes in his own nature, leaving the material
cause or "substance" (v\.rf) as matter inherently capable of receiving
the form imposed upon it by the creator. In criticism of this view
Seneca argues that the multiplicity or duality of causes introduced by
the Stagirite do not form a series of independent causes, but are all
variations of a single cause which can be called "the maker."2 The
first cause of the earlier philosophy, upon which both Plato and Aristotle
had been in virtual agreement, and the Logos of Heraclitean ancestry
are in this later Stoicism identified and, as such, minister to first-century
creation theories such as that in the Fourth Gospel.3 These formed
the common property of thinkers in Hellenistic circles and must have
been familiar to those who first received the message of the evangelist.
| Expressions like £0)17, <£a>s, and /uovoyei/ijs4 figure frequently in those repre-
! sentations which embody features familiar both to the Hellenistic
philosopher and to the unlettered, rustic initiate of a mystery religion.
In the religious societies (thiasi or orgeones), to whose life the Orphic
hymns ministered in pre-Christian times, the descriptive epithets
/*owoy«veia5 and <f>oo<p6po<s are applied to Persephone, the female appear-
1 Seneca Ep. 65. 4-6, 11, 12.
2 See Arnold, op. cit., pp. 60, 162, for discussion.
3 The Aristotelian "matter" is repudiated by the Stoics, and in its place is postu
lated "body" (corpus) which does not have the passivity of "matter," but is of the
same essential stuff as the first cause, or the creator. " cui tanta vis est, ut impellat et
cogat et retineat et iubeat, corpus est." — Sen. Ep. 106. 9. Arnold, op. cit., p. 157, note.
4 John 1:4 ff., 14.
3 "The epithet cannot imply that she (Persephone) was his (Zeus's) only daughter,
as he had other daughters among the Homeric gods, such as Athena and Aphrodite,
but rather that she was 'unique,' or one of a kind. The mistaking of the word Mow>-
yevis for /wvoyiwriTos by Jewish and Christian writers has led to much confusion."—
Legge. Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, I, 124, note.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE 21
ance of the bisexual Dionysos to whom these pre-Christian Gnostics
attributed the creation of the universe. The Jewish writers of this
period are fond of using similar terms. The Apocalyptists equate
"life" with "hght" and "darkness" with "death," giving them the
religious significance which attaches to their appearance in the Fourth
Gospel.1 These are favorite categories in the Synoptic Gospels, where
"light" is constantly set over against "darkness" in a religious sense.2
In the Pauline letters is found a hke usage.3 The early Christian
teaching with respect to the "two ways" which came into such promi
nence in extra New Testament literature produced by the leaders of that
time embody elements exhibiting this tradition.4 The Johannine
representation is of the same texture as all this Hellenistic creation
material. In it the categories of "light" and "darkness," "life" and
"death," "truth" and "error," assume a place perhaps more prominent
than is granted to them in any other section of early Christian literature.5
The statement has been made that in the doctrine of beginnings
according to the Fourth Gospel the earher Jewish predominance of the
"Father" as the one creative being tends to recede before the activity
of the Logos. The first movement of this is seen in Philo, IV Maccabees,
and the Wisdom of Solomon.6 Within the New Testament the tendency
shows itself plainly. In the Pauline letters of the earlier period God
is the First Cause, from whom all things come and to whom all things
ultimately return.7 In the Apocalypse of John, God occupies the entire
stage in the creation of the universe. In the letter to the Colossians
the " Son " is included in the category of things created. He is jt/joitotokos
irdo-qs ktiWos.8 Although he is not identified with God,9 as in the Pro
logue of the Fourth Gospel, there is the same dominant function accorded
1 Secrets of Enoch 30: 15; cf.7:i; 8:8; 10:2; Apoc. of Baruch (Syriac) 18:1-12;
IV Ezra 7:48, 126.
2 Matt. 4:16; 5:14-16; 6:22,23; Luke 2:32; 16:8; Mark 9:3.
3ICor.4.-5; IICor.4:4-6; IThess. 5:5-8; Rom. 13:12, et al.
* 'OSol Sio elrrt, pia ttjs Jfcrijs Kal fila rov Bavdrov, Sia<popi. Si iroWi) peral-i ribv Sio
oSwv. — Didache 1:1. 'O60! Sio elo-lv SiSaxys Kal i^ovaias, ij re tov <pwr&f Kal <j tou
o-k6tovs. $ia<fioira Si voWt) tuv Sio iSwv. — Epistle of Barnabas 18:16.
s John 1:4, 7-9; 3:10-21; 5:35; 8:12; 9:5; 11:9; 12:35ft.
6 In extra-Palestinian Judaism the Logos idea was "a modification of intuitive
and naive monotheism." — Bentwich, op. cit., p. 145.
'I Cor. 8:1; Eph. 3:9.
8 Col. 1:15,16.
« Stated baldly, the Logos is declared to be of "God-stuff."

22 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
him in the creating of the world. In Hebrews the "Son" is the one
"through whom" God "made the worlds," and by whose power "all
things are upheld," but,' unlike the thought of Colossians, it is God the
Father "for whom are all things and through whom are all things."2
Here too the language of the Genesis narratives and of the later Jewish
creation stories is brought into the description of the creative act, the
worlds being "framed by the spoken word of God."3 Jewish- Christian
theories of the place of Jesus in a pre- worldly divine economy on the one
hand and Stoic creational teachings on the other mark the path by which
the Christianity represented by the Fourth Gospel arrived at its view of
the beginnings of the universe. Paulrefers to "Christ Jesus" as having
in his existence prior to the earthly life a place on equal terms with God,
and as appearing in the world of men in the guise of a "wisdom from
God."4 The evangelist unites the " Christ Jesus " of the Christian tradi
tion to which Paul had access with the then widespread Logos theories
of the Stoics, and is able to state emphatically that the Logos was in the
beginning of the same nature as God, creating the universe, and at last
issued in unique plenitude in " Jesus Christ." The " Father-God " of the
Jew assumes the function of the Stoic ' ' world-soul "5 and Jesus Christ, the
Logos-filled person, commands the entire attention as the one medium
through which all things came into being.6 That such is the true char
acter of the Johannine cosmic theories is evident from the attitude of
the Christian writers succeeding the first Hellenistic propagandists of
the new religion. They regarded the Stoic Logos doctrine as anticipa
tory of Christian teaching, and Justin was persuaded that all Logos
behevers were intrinsically adherents of Christianity.7
The structure of the universe reflected in the Fourth Gospel is de
scribed in popular language and falls into three sections, "things above,"
things existent upon the earth and within temporal limitations, and
"things below." The "Spirit" descends from heaven at the baptism
of Jesus.8 Nathanael is promised a sight of heaven opened and "the
1 Heb. 1:2, 3, 10.
2Heb. 2:10.
3 Heb. 11:3, i>r)p-aTi Beov.
'Phil. 2:6; I Cor. 1:30.
s John 6:44; cf. Arnold, op. cit., pp. 218, 219, 240.
6 John 1:3,9, 10, 14, 18.
' o! fieri. Uyov pubo-avres XR^Tiavol el<n k&v ttBeoi ivopXaB^cav.— Justin Martyr
Apol. i. 46; cf. Arnold, op. cit., pp. 432, note; cf. pp. 149 ff.
8 John 1:32.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE^ 23
angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man."' The
author has Jesus assure Nicodemus that "no man has ascended to
heaven but he that came down from heaven."2 At the conclusion of this
episode, in material closely resembling editorial comment, the phrases
"from heaven" and "from above" are given identical meaning.3 In
answer to the prayer of Jesus on the day of the entry into Jerusalem a
voice came from heaven. This was explained by some bystanders as
thunder, by others as the utterance of an angel, but by the author of the
Gospel as the voice of God.4 In the record of the last extended conversa
tion which Jesus had with his close followers the popular representation
of " things above " stands out unmistakably. Jesus is reported as saying
that there are many dwelling-places in the house of "the Father," and
that in leaving the earth his object is to see that one of these is set apart
for each of his disciples.5 This higher realm in its relation to the lower
and earthly region exercises supreme authority, for the author sees in
the representative of the most powerful political organization a mere
instrument in the carrying out of purposes initiated above in the heavenly
counsels.6 The close of the earthly ministry of Jesus is explained suffi
ciently for the author in the statement that he has ascended to assume a
permanent place in the higher realm with God, the " Father."7 Accord
ing to the world-view of the Fourth Gospel it is this higher sphere — far
above all limitations of space and time, remote from evil earthly associa
tions, and dominating all things else, which for a time expressed itself
completely in the person and work of "Jesus Christ," whose life was
Logos-filled — to whose eternal and divine economy became united all
who received a like influx of the Logos through belief in the miraculous
endowment of the Man of Nazareth.8
Beneath the upper heavenly territory of the Johannine universe
stretches the lower earthly sphere. This material world with all its
inhabitants is the result of the primal creative activity. It is under
stood as resting on definite foundations.9 From the beginning, accord
ing to the author, the Logos, unperceived by mankind, permeated the
world. Only when it issued in striking individual quantity and quality
in the person of Jesus did recognition come. Even then such recogni
tion was far from universal.10 As the light of the sun to the physical
'John 1:51. 'John 19:11.
2 John 3:13. 'John 20:17.
3 John 3:31. 8 John 1:18; 3 = 3>6> 31-36; 5:24; 6:54, el al.
< John 12:28. "John 17:24.
s John 14: 2. I0 John 1:4-12.

24 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
universe, so was the entrance of the Logos in the earthly work of Jesus
among men.' The purpose of his coming was to " save the world."2 He
left the earthly existence in order that the Logos might enjoy a wider
sweep in the spreading of the disciples with their new message.3 With
the history of the limited success of this message behind him and in acute
awareness of bitter enmity toward it, especially on the part of the Jews,
the writer of the Fourth Gospel acknowledges that the "salvation"
brought by Jesus has not reached and commanded universal attention
and allegiance. This carries him out into a view of the present order
as ephemeral, corrupt, and hostile to divine activity with which he identi
fies all who oppose the preaching of Jesus as the bearer of the new life.
This classification obliterates all others. Although through the Jewish
race came the Logos,4 members of that race refusing the claims of Jesus
remain lost in the world-darkness.5 Blood brothers of Jesus occupy
this sphere of hostility because they do not "believe in him.'" The
disciples learn that they are to be hated by " the world " even as had been
their Master.7 It is in this connection that Christians are denied the
evil nature which joins those who are non-Christians by choice with
the present temporal order. The disciples are not to be removed from
the world, but to be protected from the malign influence which it exercises
upon its inhabitants.8 So real even within the sphere of the temporal and
physical does this universe of unbelief become for the writer that he can
speak of Jesus as having severed himself from, and having overcome, its
presence and its power even prior to his casting off the earthly body.'
This operation of the Logos is to be even more successful through the
work of the disciples in telling of its appearance in the life of their
Lord.10 In spite of this gleam of hope in the-wider and more efficient activity
of the Logos, or the "spirit," in the fives of the scattered disciples the
thought of the Johannine writer concerning the earth and its occupants
is shrouded for the most part in deepest gloom. The phrase "this
world" imphes darkness and defeat and death for all who belong to it,
namely, all who deny the Logos doctrine embodied in the author's view
of Jesus' career." What Paul classifies as "sarcical"'2 and attached to
'John 8: 12; 9:5; 12:46. . 'John 15:18; 17:14.
2 John 12:47. 'John 17:7, 12.
3 John 14:12. 'John 17:11 ff.
4 John 4: 22. I0 John 14:12.
3 John 12:35,36. "10^3:16-19,36.
6 John 7:8. "I Cor. 10:3.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE 25
this "age"' this writer puts in the category of "things in the world" or
in "this world," giving to the term a moral significance rare in the other
Gospels, but found more frequently in the Pauline letters.2 According
to the Fourth Gospel the paramount interest of Jesus and his followers
is to impart a new gnosis, possessing power to release humanity from
the obsession of present temporal conditions even while remaining in
contact with them. This imparted knowledge will save all who receive
and utilize it from the destruction attendant upon those whose hfe is
dominated by the sphere of temporal affairs.3
If the upper and heavenly, as over against the lower and earthly,
areas appear clearly in the ethical world-view of the evangelist, no less
so stands out the sphere of the subterrene. From above descend
"light," "truth," and "life." From below rise "darkness," "error"
and " death."4 Direct reference to the three distinct areas is made where
Jesus is recorded as saying to the hostile Pharisees, "Ye are from beneath;
I am from above; ye are of this world; I am not of this world."5 In
the same discourse those who are deaf to the new message learn
that they are of their "father, the devil."6 The "Father of love"
inhabits the higher realm, dispatching his messengers to earth in order
that humanity may know a hfe of spiritual unity with him through his
all-pervasive Logos, or "spirit of truth." The "Father of hate"
inhabits the lower realm, sending his messengers to lead men into a
Ufe apast from unity with God through his all-pervasive spirit of error.7
So potent is the influence of the latter in his mahgnant activity that he
wears a title signifying domination over the affairs of "this world."8
In the view of the Johannine writer there is a constant clashing of forces
between the spirit of the overworld and the spirit of the underworld. In
this conflict there can be no truce. It is evident to the author that the
sinister sway of the subterrene spirit extends over the entire structure
of the earthly interuniverse, darkening the minds of men everywhere,
arousing opposition on every side to the beneficent enterprises of a
loving God, and overshadowing human hfe on all sides with a pessimistic
'Rom. 12:2; I Cor. 1:20; 2:6; 8:3,18; II Cor. 4:4; Gal. 1:4.
2Only in Matt. 5:14; 13:38; 18:7; 26:13; Rom.3:i9; I Cor. 1:21, et al.
3John8:23ff.; 14:23s.; 16:13ft.; 17:8ft.
"John 1:5; 3:19; 5:24-26; 6:50-58; 8:12ft.; 9:39.
3 John 8:23.
6 John 8:44.
'John 15:18, 19. ,
8 0 S.px<>>v tov koV/kou; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11.

26 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
antisocial gloom.' Yet in the historical moment represented by the life
and work of Jesus the forces of light and truth win such a victory that
for his followers hope is born. Jesus can hearten them with the sursum
corda: "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world." The struggle still continues. The
temporal existence remains under the control of the lower evil spirit.
A battle is won by the heaven-sent Logos-equipped champion, but the
war continues with unabated energy, victory coming only to those who
in accepting the Logos doctrine as taught by his followers receive on
their part a similar Logos armature.
The triple division of the universe in the Fourth Gospel is the com
mon property of the Hellenistic peoples to which the book brought its
appeal.2 The crude imagery of many of their world-pictures fails to find
a place in its Christian philosophy, yet the underlying tripartite implica
tions remain unchanged. For the Hebrews, cosmological speculation
moved forward out of the mythology of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley.
The popular Semite myths tell how Marduk, the chieftain of the gods,'
after long and doubtful battle marshaled the sevenfold wind and con
quered Tiamat, the raging spirit of the abyss. This done, he split up the
fallen foe, making a covering for heaven to hold up the waters of the sky
and a covering for earth to restrain the waters of the great abyss.3 In
Hebrew mythology as reflected in the Old Testament are found the same
elements. The firmament is extended throughout the spaces of the
upper air and rests upon pillars.4 Above it the waters are held up by the
clouds.5 This firmament is provided with windows (or doors) by means
of which the rain is allowed to descend upon the earth.6 Beneath the
sky and over the sea or abyss is stretched the earth as a place of habita
tion for man and other living creatures.7 Below the earth is the abyss,
'John 1:5; 3:198.; 12:35ft. In the Johannine letters generally ascribed
to the author of the Fourth Gospel, the pessimistic note respecting the present order
of things is struck even more sharply (I John 2: n, 15-17; 3:14 ft.; 5:19).
2 In the Paris Magical Papyrus of 300 a.d. and in Attic magical texts of the
third and fourth century b.c. reference is made to "binding" a human being "in
fellowship with" Hecate, or the Erinyes, or Hermes, who are said to be "below the
earth." This shows the wide sweep in popular usage of subterrene malignity (cf.
A. Deissman, op. cit., pp. 254, 305, 307).
3 "Enuma EliS."— A. Beimel (trans, by C. W. King, Tablets of Creation, IV, 42 ff.).
See also Cuneiform Parallels to Old Testament, R. W. Rogers.
^ Job 26:11; 37:18. 5 job. 26:8.
6 Gen. 7:11; II Kings 7:2, 19; Ps. 78:23; Mai. 3:10.
'Gen. 7:11; 49:25; Deut. 33:13; Pss. 42:7; 78:15.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE 27
wherein monsters still exist to threaten the safety of mankind. These
only God can hold in subjection.'
In the Mediterranean world of early Christianity similar myths
still obtained. The popular mind conceived the earth as set between
the upper and the lower spheres with man in the central plane, the
constant recipient of influences benignant from above and malignant
from below. On the part of Jewish thinkers there is a tendency to
speculate upon the upper region and divide it into various sections, each
with its characteristic features and inhabitants, some of which latter
entertain evil designs toward man. The seven heavens of the first-
century Secrets of Enoch and the earher Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs are witnesses to this movement.2 In the Letter to the
Ephesians is found a world-view suggesting the threefold division with
which is included a plurality of heavens. There Christ is declared to
have "descended into the lower parts of the earth" and afterward
to have "ascended far above all the heavens."3 In this letter also the
leader of evil spirits is called "the prince of the power of the air," and
the hosts under his control are "world-rulers of this darkness" whose
dwelling is in the "heavenly" regions.4 Certainly Paul knew of a third
heaven, and when alluding to this in the Corinthian letter he uses lan
guage that finks the conception with the "Paradise" located in the third
heaven by the writers of II Enoch and the Assumption of Moses.5 The
"tree of life" in the paradise sketched by the writer of the New Testa
ment Apocalypse is exactly paralleled in the Enoch Apocalypse,6 while
the "river of Ufe" which the writer of Revelation saw "proceeding out
of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the midst of the street thereof"
is divided by the Enoch author into its four streams mentioned in the Eden
picture of the Genesis cosmogony.7 Indeed the New Testament Apoca-
lyptist himself can also speak of the "fountains of waters of life" toward
which "the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne" shall lead those
"that came out of the great tribulation."8
'Isa. 27:1; Job. 26:13.
2 R. H. Charles, Apoc. and Pseud., pp. 282-367, 425-569-
3Eph. 4:9, 10.
«Eph. 6:12.
3 II Cor. 12:4. See also H. St. J. Thackeray, Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary
Jewish Thought, p. 173.
6 Rev. 2:7; 22:1,2; II Enoch 8:3.
'Rev. 22:1, 2; II Enoch 9: 2; Gen. 2:10 ff.
8 Rev. 7:14-17.

28 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Paul is very definite with respect to the control of the present order
by the forces of evil, and their leader is a dark and terrible reaUty in aU
his thinking. He is the "god of this world" who bUnds men to the Ught
of the gospel.' He sets snares for the unwary in sexual relations. Paul
appears to go so far as to regard procreative activities and race per
petuation as a special province of Satanic ordering to be avoided as
far as possible by those who had received the "Christ-spirit."2 The
apostle himseK confesses to being harassed by an "angel of Satan."3
Yet for Paul as for the writer of the Fourth Gospel the outlook, gloomy as
it is for man in the present "evil age," is made tolerable to aU who
through the influx of the divine spirit of Christ receive power to resist
the influence of the lower world and the promise of final victory over
Satan and his satellites.
Although Seneca and the later Stoics, unlike the New Testament
writers and the Jewish Apocalyptists, give no place in the world-view
to a mahgnant spirit of the underworld opposing the spirit of God in
the life of man upon the earthly plane, behind their thinking lies
the philosophical presupposition of the plane of human life situated
between the lower darkness and the upper hght. With their own early
poet Cleanthes they can assert that evil comes from the heart of man
apart from exterior influence. With their first philosophers they can
see a single substance throughout all the universe. Yet in spite of this
they can have the deity creating the cosmos out of chaos, and Seneca
can write of the whole frame of nature as in danger of being swallowed
up in the "dark abyss."4 He calls philosophy the "art of divine con
templation," for it "surmounts that darkness which we are wrapped up
in, and carries us up to the fountain of light itself."5 In the thought of
the later Stoicism represented in Seneca it is nevertheless the dualistic
world-view of mind and matter, inheritance of Platonic speculation,
which occurs most frequently. In striving for guidance in the practical
affairs of life the mqnistic hypothesis is not brought into the forefront.
Seneca is a debtor to the successors of Plato when he declares that
"matter is dull and passive, impotent of itself, and moulded at pleasure
by the dominant and ever-active mind."6 Where Paul and the Johan.-
nine writer regard the present life as overcast by evil shadows, with the
"Christ-spirit" or the "Jesus-Logos" as the only medium by which
these shadows may be dispelled, Seneca sees evil only in the attitude of
' II Cor. 4:4. 4 Seneca Dial. 11. 1, 2; Benefits 8.
2 1 Cor. 7 : 1, 29, 40. 5 Seneca Ep. 28.
3 H Cor. 12:7. 6 Seneca Ep. 26.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE 29
the individual toward life, and the power in man himself of overcoming
this and living serenely in accordance with nature. The philosophic
attitude of "divine contemplation" will make the mind of man "at
peace with itself." If the " soul is taken up with divine thoughts it is in
heaven even while it is in the flesh."1
In the cosmogony utilized by Gnostic contemporaries of the Johan
nine author the temporal and earthly plane is called the "lower" world.
The plurality of heavens so prominent in the Jewish Apocalyptists and
hinted at in the New Testament writings plays a conspicuous part in the
world-scheme of Gnosticism. Matter, viewed by the later Stoics
as nondescript and passive, is held by the Gnostics to be active and
malevolent. The material world and the material body are intrinsically
evil and the creation of evil spirits. The generative process commended.
by the Stoics and condemned by Paul becomes utterly abhorrent to
many of the Gnostics.2 The main object of man is to rid his soul of
material and fleshly entanglements in order that it may win its way
through the hostile ranks of the' various aerial and heavenly spheres
to the ultimate goal, the abode of light from whence the soul originally
fell. As in the Fourth Gospel it is the true gnosis which opens the way.
With the destiny of the universe the Fourth Gospel has little con
cern. One form of the messianic hope within the Jewish group from
which the first Christians derived their cosmical theories attached
itself tenaciously to the thought of a near-by consummation of the
present age, a renovation of the existing world-order, and a coming
of the Messiah upon the clouds to rule over his own people in a new
heaven and a new earth. Paul, at the commencement of his apostohc
activity at least, exultingly shared in this view.3 He could portray
the return of Jesus as the Messiah in terms of the most materiahstic
Jewish type. The features exhibited in his treatment of the messianic
hope conform closely to those at the forefront of the national quietism of
the Pharisee party. It is true that here the messianic kingdom includes
both Jews and Gentiles who have received the "spirit of Christ." Yet
elsewhere in the epistles of his early ministry Paul gives token of believing
firmly that the Jewish race could look forward to enjoying the premier
place in the coming new regime. Further than this " all Israel" is to be
saved from the destruction of the present order.4 Not that the messianic
' Seneca Ep. 18; Ben. 9.
1 2 Arnold, op. cit., p. 426; cf. Case in A Guide to Study of Christian Religion,
PP- 3°7. 3i°> 311; ci- Legge, op. cit., I, 153, on the Essenes.
3lThess. 4:13-18. "Rom. 11: if., 12, 26.

30 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
age is to be of the same character as the order which it has succeeded.
Paul distinctly states his conviction that when " the trumpet shall sound
at the last day" it will presage the utter disappearance of all things
material. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."1 His
scorn of the physical, with the activities incident to its continuance, set
alongside of his keen anticipation of an imminent cataclysmic end to the
present scheme of things, carries him at times to the verge of frenzy.
Such seems to be the atmosphere surrounding his strenuous and notable
appeal to the Corinthian Christians: "But this I say, brethren, the time
is shortened, that henceforth both those that have wives may be as though
they had none; and those that weep as though they wept not; and
those that buy as though they possessed not; and those that use the
world as not using it to the full: for the fashion of this world passeth
away."2 In the later New Testament letters Paul's expectancy respect
ing the near end of the world is not so compelling. He writes of his own
death and sees in it an escape from the "evil age" into a "far better"
existence "with Christ."3 It may be too that a change in Paul's escha-
tology created a different attitude toward earthly and physical con
siderations. In the letter to the Ephesians the position outlined with
respect to the marriage relation marks a wide remove from that of
Paul in I Corinthians.4
The opinions ,of Paul respecting marriage in the letter to the Cor
inthians strike a note common among the Cynic-Stoics, who in the very
nature of things moved in the same sphere of popular religious propa-
gandism as did the leaders of early Christianity in its appeal to the
Hellenistic world. Epictetus is a champion of celibacy and expresses
himself in language very similar to that of Paul.5 On the other hand,
Seneca and Musonius Rufus treat marriage and family life in the same
'I Cor. 15:50.
2 1 Cor. 7:26, 29-31.
3 Phil. 1 : 23.
"Eph. 5:22-33.
s "In the present state of things, which is like that of an army placed in battle
order, is it not fit that the cynic should without any distraction be employed only on
the ministration of God? To say nothing of other things, a father must have a
heating apparatus for the baby; wool for his wife when she is delivered, oil, a bed, a
cup; and so the furniture of the house is increased. Where then now is that king
who devotes himself to the public interests . . . . ? Consider what we are bringing
the cynic down to, how we are taking his royalty from him!"— Epict. Disc. iii. 22.
69-75; cf. Arnold, op. cit., p. 368; cit.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSE 31
dignified fashion as does the writer of the Ephesian letter.' In writing
of his wKe Seneca sets aside his Stoic restraint and permits himseK the
use of most affectionate terms. He also describes the "wise and good
man" as one "who does not so much consider the pleasure of his life
as the need that the world has of him; and who does not weary of this
fife so long as he is able to serve his wife or his friends." Musonius in
opposing the celibate ideal of Epictetus declares that marriage was no
hindrance to Pythagoras, Socrates, or Crates, the princes of philosophy,
and that since marriage is natural philosophers should set the example
of it.2 In the later writings of the New Testament, such as Hebrews and
the catholic epistles, a like attitude is found.3 In the letter called
II Peter the Stoic world-end by fire is contemplated. The heavens and
the earth are "stored up for fire," and in the "day of the Lord" the
"heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be
dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein
shall be burned up."4 In the Corinthian letters Paul teaches the Stoic
eschatology. For him the day (the last day of judgment) is to be
"revealed in fire."5 The difference between Paul and II Peter is that
while the former feels that the end of the age is imminent — perilously so
for many of the Corinthian schismatics — the latter is earnestly seeking
to explain to people of Paul's earlier persuasion the tardiness of the
"day's" appearing. In this the writer of II Peter is nearer Stoic escha
tology than is Paul, although both agree as to the manner of the con
summation. In the Fourth Gospel the same extended view of the future as
regards the present world is found. There is no eager waiting for the
end of the material universe and the ushering in of a new era. The
relationships that belong to the earthly plane do not evoke the author's
commendation or his censure. He does not evidence contempt for the
physical as such. For him the Logos could dwell in real flesh.6 The
human parentage of his hero appears to detract in no whit from the
reality of that hero's kinship with God the Father. Illustrative material
containing immemorial tradition among Jewish women concerning
childbirth is made use of in evident approval of race perpetuation.7 For
' Seneca Ep. 4. 25, 105.
2 Stobaeus iv. 22. 20; cf. Arnold, op. cit., pp. 368 ff.
3 Heb. 13:4; I Pet. 3:1-8.
"II Pet. 3:6-13. "John 1:14; 19:34; 20:24-29.
si Cor. 3:13-15. 'John 16:21.

32 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the Johannine writer the values of Life do not depend upon a cessation
of the present order. He does not need to look forward to a last day
with the resurrection of the physical body as did the Jewish Pharisees,
or of a glorified body as did Paul. The destiny of the universe in the
material sense is so far off as to be neglible in the preaching of his gospel.
The destiny of mankind is not associated with a coming cataclysmic
world-end. There are three instances of eschatological reference in the Johannine
writings. These will bear quotation. In the first Jesus is represented
as saying to the Jews in Jerusalem, "Marvel not at this: for the hour
cometh in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall
come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of hfe;
and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment."1 In the
second, the "bread of life" discourse, Jesus declares, "This is the will of
him that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have
eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."2 In the account of
the raising of Lazarus, Martha gives utterance to the popular Jewish
resurrection hope: "Martha saith unto him, I know that he [her brother]
shall rise again on the last day." In all three instances these Jewish
eschatological views occur in conjunction with material that deprives
them of future significance. In the first, the reader is advised that those
who believe on Jesus as the divine messenger have "eternal hfe" and
will not come into judgment, but have passed "from death unto hfe."
"The hour now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God,
and they that hear shall live." In the second, Jesus is put forward as the
"living bread which came down from heaven that a man may eat thereof
and not die," and it is argued that eternal life is wrapped up in the words
of Jesus, which K received aright "are spirit and Ufe."3 In the third,
the author has Jesus expressly combat the Jewish idea of the physical
resurrection at the last day: "Jesus saith unto her [Martha], I am the
resurrection and the life: he that believeth on me though he die, yet shall
he live: and he that liveth and believeth oil me shall never die."4 In
the thought of the Johannine writer the Jewish elements appear, only to
be overcast by the spiritual teaching of the context. A prominent New
'John 5:28, 29.
2 John 6:39, 40.
3 John 6:50, 63.
4 John 11:25.

THE JOHANNINE UNIVERSK
Testament scholar in commenting upon the foregoing pas^ages-wiiteVa's"' "
follows: It is impossible to reconcile such utterances with the view of judgment
which we must regard as the distinctive Johannine view. They serve only
to remind us that John, with all his originality of thought, was still partly
bound to the past. Along with his own conception he strove to make room for
the belief that had impressed itself on the Church at large, of which he was a
member. In this instance .... he found elements in the current theology
which were not wholly tractable to his method of reinterpretation, and instead
of discarding them he simply incorporated them as they were. Their presence
must be acknowledged, but it need not confuse us in our estimate of his own
characteristic thought.'
The second coming of Jesus, which was so closely connected by the
early Christians with the last day and the general judgment, does not
figure in the Fourth Gospel at all. The reference to it in the twenty-
first chapter is generally conceded to belong to the hand of an editor
rather than that of the compiler and author of the main book. The
dominant thesis of the Johannine treatment makes the second coming
of Jesus a work of supererogation entirely. For the early Christian
eternal hfe was to begin in the new dispensation. For the Fourth Gospel
eternal hfe begins in the present for all who beheve in Jesus. As
Schmiedel writes:
It was generally expected by the early Christians that Jesus' second
coming from heaven would be the signal for a bodily resurrection and for the
judgment to be held before the throne of God upon all mankind; and that
eternal life would then begin. In John, on the other hand, the judgment takes
place during life, when a distinction is drawn between men, and the one section
turns toward Jesus, the hght which streams upon the world, while the other
turns away from him (3: 19-21). This very moment marks the beginning of
eternal hfe for such as believe in him or acknowledge God and Jesus; and it is a
life which can never be interrupted by a resurrection of the body.2
Thus in the Fourth Gospel is perceived a view of the future from which
imminent cataclysmic elements are on the verge of disappearance. In
this the author provided a method that has been adopted by leaders of
thought throughout the Christian movement.3
' E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel; Its Purpose and Theology, pp. 216, 217.
2 P. W. Schmiedel, The Johannine Writings, p. 254.
3 In his Philosophy of Religion, Hoffding writes thus concerning the attitude of
Augustine: "The primitive conceptions of the second coming and the last judgment
are now relegated to a distant and twilight background where they appear like blue
mountains on a distant horizon" (p. 369).

34 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
The Johannine ideas with regard to the universe have now been
brought under review. Its triple character has been noted. Its origin
and its destiny and their interest or lack of interest for the author have
been discussed.' His world-view also exhibits the thought entertained
by him respecting man in his relation to the universe. How does man
make himseK at home in the world ? How does he overcome the condi
tions of the temporal existence? What is the correct attitude, in the
writer's opinion, for man to assume toward the world? These and
similar matters will be dealt with in the following chapter.

CHAPTER III
MAN AND THE UNIVERSE IN THE JOHANNINE WORLD-VIEW
An examination of the world-view functioning in the thought of the
Johannine writer reveals the fact that for him man is an occupant of
the inter-world with good and evil influences playing upon him from
above and below the earthly order. The author is not seriously con
cerned with the purpose of the universe and its relation to man. In
common with the ancient Hebrew the Stoic felt that man was the center
of providential purpose. The chief end of "nature" in the Stoic view
was the wise and good man, the "citizen of the universe." The later
Hellenistic writers, affected by Oriental astral speculation, turned
aside occasionally from admiration of human possibilities to appreciate
the beauty of the physical universe. Seneca looks back with envy
to the saeculum aureum, when in the silence of the night men took their
ease stretched out upon mother-earth and gazed enraptured at the myriad
glories of the star-lit skies.' The religious literature of the Jewish
people is replete with admiring recognition of natural phenomena,
while ever ready to view man as the being to whose sustenance and
delight all created existences are set to minister. The locus classicus,
in which both attitudes appear, is a religious hymn that has left its
mark upon many minds in the course of Christian history.2 The
opinion of Jewish Apocalyptists writing at the same time as the Johan
nine author was that "by no means was man made on account of the
world, but the world on account of man."3
In the teaching of the Fourth Gospel all such suggestion fails of a
place. The introduction of natural phenomena occurs, only to have their
significance for man immediately displaced by the main mystic doctrine
imparted by the author. The stirring of the evening breeze with its
mystery of whence and whither speaks to him only of the entrance of
' Seneca Ep. 90. 42.
2 "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars,
which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the
son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him but little lower than
God, and crownedst him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion
over all the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet."— Ps. 8:3-6;
cf. Pss. 96, 97, 107, 147,, 148.
3 II Baruch 14:8; cf. 8:44- 35

36 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
the Logos or "spirit" into the life of man.' A refreshing draught
of water from the cool, dark depths of Jacob's well is ignored even by the
tired and thirsty traveler while he discourses to the Samaritan woman of
"the hving water springing up into eternal life."2 Those who follow
Jesus because of the "loaves and fishes" are admonished to "work not
for the meat which perisheth, but for that which abideth unto eternal
hfe."3 The gKt of God's sunshine with its blessings for man is forgotten
in the presence of Jesus, the "light of the world," following whom man
"shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of Ufe."4
In the Fourth Gospel racial or poUtical considerations play little or
no part whatever. For earlier religious writers this has been a serious
problem^ First-century Jewish authors concurred heartily in the ancient
national notion that God had created the world and all it contained in
strict view of their own racial continuance and welfare.5 Others of their
contemporaries claimed this distinction only for the "righteous"- in the
nation.6 This developing exclusiveness on the part of a section of the
Jewish race, along with its unswerving fidelity to the Torah, is a well-
known feature of early Christian times.7 It has already been noted
that in spite of the gentile parish of Paul and along with his universal
tendencies there is the adherence to a view of the paramount place of
"Israel" in the world-prospect of the Christian apostle.8 In early
extra-canonical literary productions of Christianity this national exclu
siveness is taken over and transformed into ecclesiastical rigor under
the dominance of which all things are said to be created for the especial
glory of the "church."' It is only just to the author of the " Shepherd "
to recognize the wider tendency in his world-view, a tendency traceable
in the later Old Testament prophets and prominent in the hterature of
early Christianity.10
Interests of this kind do not occupy the attention of the Johannine
author. The Jewish race claims his notice only because the historical
'John 3:8. 3 John 6:27.
2 John 4: 14. "John 3:12.
'Assumption of Moses 1:12; IV Ezra 6:55, 59; 7:11.
°II Baruch 14:19; 15:7; 21:24.
'"Interroge' sur le moment oil il convenait d'enseigner aux enfants la sagesse
grecque, un savant rabbin avait repondu: 'A l'heure qui n'est ni le journi la nuit
puisqu'il est ecrit de la Loi:— Tu l'6tudieras jour et nuit'."— E. Renan, Vie de Jesus.
8 P. 29 of this thesis.
'Shepherd Vis. 1:1, 6; 2:4; 4:5.
10 Justin Martyr op. cit. i. 10; cf. Charles, Apoc. and Pseud, II, 415.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 37
associations of his rehgion derive from the Jews and because protagonists
of Judaism menace the origin and perpetuation of that rehgion.' Roman
authority is perforce referred to in the account of the death of Chris
tianity's founder.2 Hints of the spread of the new religion among the Sa
maritans and the Greek-speaking Jews are not so much evidences of the
author's struggle with a problem of universalizing a national cult as the
precipitate of early Christian history introduced by him into his own
presentation of the teachings necessary to the propagation of the Chris
tian religion in his own day.3
The practical interest of the Johannine writer turns in an altogether
different direction from that of physical need or mundane comfort or
racial predilection. His attitude is dominantly mystical, and in order
that his position may stand out more clearly it may be well to discuss
briefly mysticism in its general aspects. A present-day exponent of
functional psychology defines the mystic as "one who accepts the
existence or reality of God as it is understood by his time and social
milieu without question and concentrates all the energy of his being
upon the attainment of communion with God."4 The philosophic
aspect of mysticism appears when the human mind essays to deal with
the divine essence or ultimate reality of things. It is the " conviction of
direct and immediate communication, independent of any sensuous
perception, with intelfigence not bound by the conditions of the sensible
universe."5 On its religious side mysticism is the endeavor of the
human being to enjoy the blessedness of actual communion with highest
being, with God. Edward Caird describes this kind of mysticism as
"rehgion in its most concentrated form." "It is," he writes, "that
attitude of mind in which all other relations are swallowed up in the
relation of the soul to God." In the discussion of man and the uni
verse the Johannine writer displays mysticism in both the philosophic
and the rehgious aspects, the latter occupying for him the wider field
of interest. The author of the Fourth Gospel is obsessed with the unreality, the
transitoriness, and the evil character of the environment in which he has
found himself. This is native to all mystic speculation. The present
'John 7:1 f.
'John 18:29 !•> I9:i f-
3 John 4:4 f.; 7:35; i2:2of.
4 Edward Scribner Ames, American Journal of Theology, April, 1915.
5 Sir Frederick Pollock, Hibbert Journal, October, 1913.

38 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
'world is ever a means to an end rather than an end in itseK. LKe's
activities have significance only in relation to an "inner" unseen Ufe.
The world of common experiences loses its color and its attraction for
the mystic' He is a stranger in a strange land, and the traveling is
through a wilderness of dust and darkness. The various sense-
phenomena of his earthly experience become but types or symbols
by means of which the mind discerns the eternal reahty and the life of
the mystic merges into the Ufe of deity itseK. The vital things are the
eternal and the invisible. He views all history sub specie aetemitatis
and ignores local and temporal partitions. The primary and absolute
nature of the unseen and eternal, the secondary and relative character of
the visible and temporal, these are the fundamental and directive
presuppositions of the true mystic.
Although the mystic holds it possible in this present existence to know
God, he does not admit that this knowledge is an ordinary cognitive
phenomenon. It is, in his opinion, unique in itseK and achieved through
no process of perception, reasoning, or scientific experiment. These
methods involve effort and at best lead to provisional and relative con
clusions. They are necessarily held in leash by the premises first laid
down, and moreover they point beyond immediate results to still newer
problems. If the mystic employs such methods he does so only to
"scorn the base degrees by which he did ascend." The paramount
purpose for him is to move beyond the relative and partial and "arrive
at the blessed goal ' ' of the absolute. In the acquisition of the knowledge
of God he is anxious to eliminate as far as possible activity requiring
direct effort. Dionysius the Areopagite overcame this difficulty by
positing a via negativa in which he "left behind all things both in the
sensible and in the intelligible worlds and entered into the darkness of
ignorance, or rather an excess of light that is truly mystical." Leading
back from this ineffable light Dionysius had a via affirmativa bringing
him, through abstraction and analysis to God.2 This writer constantly
caUs for a cultivation of passionless passivity through which the soul may
1 "Is it any wonder that a Bernard of Clairvaux should traverse the passes of the
Alps surrounded by scenes of the most marvellous beauty and grandeur without utter
ing a single word that would indicate that these things made any lasting impression on
his mind ? For his eye was turned inward to contemplate those vaster scenes, of which
the grandest natural scenery could be only a sensuous reflection, in which he stood
nearer to the ultimate Sublime and Beautiful in the presence of which all things of
sense shrank away abashed."— G. Cross, Biblical World (February, 191 7), p. 97.
2 W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, pp. 108, 114. W. M. Scott, Aspects of Chris
tian Mysticism, p. 45.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 39
realize the divine. A similar attitude is evinced by the leader of a
school of mysticism profoundly affecting Christian thinkers of the
fifth century and onward.1 Plotinus places a low estimate upon the
historical process and upon human relations. Social and civic duties
as well as intellectual activities must be superseded by the isolated
detachment of the soul in metaphysical union with the One. He
refers to the mystic attitude in this way:
He will not behold this hght, who attempts to ascend to the vision of the
supreme while he is drawn downwards by those things which are an impediment
to the vision. ' He will likewise not ascend by himself alone, but will be accom
panied by that which will divulse him from the One, or rather he will not be
himself collected into a one  He, therefore, who has not yet arrived
thither, but either on account of the above-mentioned obstacle is deprived of
this vision, or through the want of reason which may conduct him to it, and
impart faith respecting it; such a one may consider himself as the cause of his
disappointment through these impediments, and should endeavour by separat
ing himself from all things to be alone.2
In trying to bridge the chasm between man and the world, between
subject and object, Plotinus finally transfers reahty altogether to an
inner hfe of the spirit, living which, man loses all sense of social values
in divine communion.3 So remote from ordinary human experience does
this mystic ecstasy become that for the followers of Plotinus it is all but
unattainable in the earthly existence. The first great disciple of Plotinus
records four such experiences of his master, but only one for himself, even
at the age of sixty-eight and after long years of endeavor.4
Writers in the field of psychology have attempted to investigate the
mystic mind and to discover, on the basis of his own introspection, some
traces of the journey through which he comes to his own. Delacroix
finds three stages in the development of the mystic life.5 In the first
the mystic has attained to the desired union with God and is entirely
wrapped up in the strange new elevation of life-interests created by this
experience of his. The second stage is called in mystic phrase "the
dark night of the soul." In this clouds gather to obscure the vision of
God and obstacles intervene to prevent continued union with the divine.
' Plotinus (205-279) a.d.
2 Plotinus Ennead vi. 9. 4.
3 R. Eucken, The Problem of Human Life, p. 104.
4 T. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists, p. 101.
sh. Delacroix, Etudes de I'histoire et de psychologic du mysticisme, p. 415. See
discussion in M. B. Dawkins; Mysticism an Epistemological Problem, pp. 12 ff.

40 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
The last stage is characterized by "serene and powerful activity" where
the mystic enjoys continued communion and at the same time appre
ciates and makes use of life's ethical values. From the same point of
view Boutroux is able to distinguish five different stages of the mystical
way: (i) a semi-unconscious grip upon the God-idea, the desire period;
(2) the coming of the idea into clear consciousness and the ascetic
purKying of the soul to bring it into likeness to the idea; (3) the full
realization of union, the ecstasy period; (4) the reshaping of the indi
vidual's concepts and ethical ideals in conformity with the mystical
knowledge so far acquired; and (5) the full and permanent development
of the life and thought when the mystic in knowing and loving God also
knows and loves the entire creation.'
Such considerations as these in connection with mysticism as a
distinguishable phenomenon of human Ufe will serve to introduce the
atmosphere necessary to a correct view of the Fourth Gospel. The
emphasis of mysticism in any and all of its forms is upon immediate
awareness of God, upon a direct and intimate fellowship with the
divine. The tendency of mysticism is to neglect natural phenomena,
human affairs, and social considerations. The urge of the mystic
results in a revaluation of all fife from the point of view of his new and
satisfying intimacy with spiritual potencies. All these features come
plainly to the forefront in the Johannine hterature. Man "overcomes
the world " by entering into divine fellowship. The existence and reaUty
of God are never questioned. Over against the evil order is a spiritual
order in which God is ever regnant. The religious experience of the
author has given him a place in the spiritual order through right knowl
edge of God. This has ushered him into a freedom that breaks the bonds
of sin, disturbs the control of an evil world, and brings a tranquillity
untroubled by earthly vicissitude, untouched even by the terrors of
death.2 For the Johannine writer "the whole world" is under the
dominance of evil3 It is in a state of "darkness" or "death." Yet
those who have the true knowledge of God are passed "from death unto
Ufe" and possess a "peace" and a "joy" that is complete. Their
fellowship is not with the dark and dying world, but with the eternal,
ever-present God.4 This knowledge of God with its concomitant soul-
serenity does not depend upon the future course of events. It is not a
promised possession stored up in another world. It is a present blessing
to be achieved and enjoyed by all who come in the right way. The
' E. M. M. Boutroux, The Psychology of Mysticism, pp. 183 ff.
'John 8:36. 3i j0hn 5:18. "John 14:28; 15:11; 16:24.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 41
epithet "eternal Ufe" is appUed to a state almost wholly dissevered
from temporal and spatial relations. Man makes his escape from the
world, not by the vestibule of death, in the physical sense, but by the
path of knowledge which leads out of the death of error and darkness
into the Ufe of truth and hght. The significance of the cosmic order
is lost in the reality of the spiritual order. "LKe eternal is to know
the only true God." "He that beUeves has eternal Ufe." God has
given to believers "eternal Ufe."1
A glance at Christian hterature earUer than the Fourth Gospel will
serve to show the development of the mystic world-view up to its all-
pervading power in the Johannine writings. Scattered mystical utter
ances are found in the Synoptic Gospels. The "vision of God" is for
the "pure in heart."2 Intimate feUowship with the divine comes
through such knowledge of God as Jesus reveals to his disciple.3 After
the confession of Peter concerning the messiahship of Jesus at Caesarea
PhiUppi, Matthew's record introduces a clear mystic note in the saying,
"Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."4 Another
such note is struck by the author of Matthew where he represents Jesus
as affirming that where two or three are come together in his name there
in the midst of them will be his presence.5 Yet these are but slight and
inconsequent mystic strains which do not affect the main movement of
thought in the pre- Johannine Christian literature. In the non-Markan
material common to Matthew and Luke, Jesus is the teacher uttering
parables and aphorisms after the fashion of the Jewish rabbi. The
bond between him and the believer is expressed in terms of current
relations between the rabbi and his disciple. In Mark, Jesus is the
ideal Christian receiving at baptism an outpouring of divine power
similar to the spirit-manKestations exhibited by earlier Hebrew heroes
and prophets. This spirit is expressed not so much in teaching his fol
lowers spiritual truths as in works of healing and exorcism which
resembled, yet greatly excelled, the activities of the ordinary Hellenistic
miracle worker or Jewish messianic claimant. Matthew and Luke
follow Mark largely in this representation, although they introduce
elements of a more mystical character.
'John 17:13; 3:36; I John 5:11. 2Matt. 5:8.
3 Matt. 11:25-27; Luke 10:21-24.
4 Matt. 16: 13-20; cf. Mark 8: 27-30; Luke 9: 18-21.
s Matt. 18:20.

42 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
In all three of these earher Christian writings the imminent fact of a
coming spiritual regime dominates the entire message. The disciples
are messianic emissaries heralding the approaching kingdom, preaching
repentance and the new righteousness, and preparing men for the future.
The emphasis everywhere is upon the active expression of the spirit
through the Christian propaganda in order that the promised era may be
the more speedily realized. There is no passive acceptance of the
divine IKe and a beatific experience of super-worldy realities here and
now. The message for man is that he must repent of sin, be baptized into
spirit-endowment, live according to the dictates of the new righteousness,
and seek followers for his master in earnest desire that by so doing the
coming of the kingdom will be the more quickly brought to pass.
It is in the writings of Paul where Christian mysticism enters to
dispute the field with the natural and non-mystic elements of the new
religion. Here the idea1 of the divine in the human comes into play for
the first time in early Christian hterature. This mystic item Paul
received from his Hellenistic environment. The conception of God
dwelling in a human body did not arise in his Jewish thinking. It is
common knowledge that such a notion did not live happily among the
Jewish people. The history of the relations between the Jews and their
Seleucid overlords indicates very distinctly the utter revolt of the Jewish
mind against the thought of connecting a human being with deity or of
identifying any man, howsoever exalted, with divinity.' Yet Paul, in
spite of his Jewish antecedents, has enough Hellenism to express his
idea of the Christian life in terms of divine and human interpenetration.
"I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me" is a statement which is very
comforting to him.2 He reminds the Corinthian Christians that his
preaching among them had been the proclamation of "the mystery of
God." His message reveals " God's wisdom in a mystery," and to the
one who receives this message are displayed "things which eye saw not,
and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man; what
soever things God prepared for them that love him."3 Paul's letters
constantly bear witness to his having achieved the third stage of the
mystic life described by Delacroix as that "of serene and potent activ
ity." In the midst of all his mental and bodily vexations the great
apostle enjoys continued communion with God "in Christ" and yet
makes full use of life's ethical values in his teaching.4
1 S. J. Case, The Evolution of Early Christianity, p. 211.
2 Gal. 2:20. 3ICor. 2:7, 9.
"Gal. 5:13-26; II Cor. 4:7-11; 11:16-30; Rom., chaps. 12, 13.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 43
Paul was fond of talking as the mystics do of the illumination which
came to him when he received his new message and became an exponent
of Christianity. He assures the Galatians that he received his gospel,
"not from man or from man's teaching, but by the revelation of Jesus
Christ in him." This, he is anxious to assure them, has nothing to do
with "flesh and blood," but is the result of the direct and immediate
revelation in the "good pleasure of God.'" The author of the Acts
narrative quotes Paul to the effect that he was guided all through his
career by a "heavenly vision" received at, and responsible for, its incep
tion.3 In writing to the Corinthians, Paul darkly hints of ecstasy, of
seeing heavenly mysteries, and of hearing words too ineffable for the
utterance of earthly lips.3 The core of his teaching is that the behever is
a " new creation in Christ Jesus."4 For him Christ dwells in the disciple
and the same spirit is operative in both. This is the language of real
mysticism. At the same time it is evident that to Paul's way of think
ing the new Ufe is meager in comparison with the hfe to be enjoyed
in the future kingdom. The present, however potent, is only a promise
of the coming abundant hfe. He can endure the physical afflictions
incident to life in the body by looking upward and onward to a " far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The "methodical ele
vation of the soul toward God," so frequently stressed in mysticism,
becomes Paul's daily habit. He looks "not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen," for to him "the things which are
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Here
also Paul gives evidence of treasuring a hope still wrapped with the
cerements of Jewish bodily resurrection ideas. He desires to know
the fellowship of Christ's suffering to the end that he may enter into the
glory of the resurrection. His citizenship is heaven, a place whence
Christ is to come to earth to transform Paul's earthly form, "the body
of his humiliation," and to fashion it like unto the body of the glorified
Christ.5 The mystic use of symbols is seen in the apostle's teaching.
His body of believers in Christ is the "wild olive" grafted into the
"good olive tree" of true Judaism.6 The metaphor of the body with its
head and its several members occupies an important place in his view
of the early Christian community.7
'Gal. 1:15-17. s phil. 3:11, 20.
2 Acts 26: 19. ° Rom. 11: 17-24.
3 II Cor. 12:1-4. 'I Cor. 12:12-27.
"II Cor. 5:17.

44 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
In the Epistle to Hebrews the combination of the mystic and the
prosaic, the rapturous and the stolid displayed in the writings of Paul
is readily observable. The writer is engaged in the task of making the
Christian rubrics more amenable to the conservative Jewish mind.
He suffuses the cherished traditions of Judaism — the work of Moses, Sinai,
the Torah, the Temple cultus, the angelology— with a mystic aura which
reveals them as types and symbols of the "good things to come" in the
Christian religion.' Indeed all the things of earth are but "copies of
the things in the heavens."2 Christ is the high priest in "a greater and
more perfect tabernacle not made with hands."3 The heroes of the
Hebrew nation, according to this interpretation, were possessed of the
illumination which enabled them to see the "city whose builder and
maker is God." Moses endured as seeing him who is invisible. The
Christian is one who has entered into this spiritual order, who is aware
of the "cloud of heavenly witnesses," who discerns clearly the heavenly
realities of which earthly objects and historical events are only a faint
adumbration.4 Yet in Hebrews as in Paul the look is mainly a forward
one. God is accessible in the present through Christ to those who have
become "enlightened" and have "tasted of the heavenly gKt."5 The
present, nevertheless, in comparison with the glorious future is tenuous
and insufficient. Only after the resurrection and the final judgment,
pictured with all the realism of Hebrew prophetism regarding the Yom
Yahweh or of later Jewish Apocalypticism concerning the last things,
can the believer be perfected in holiness.6 As in Paul and the writers
of the Synoptic Gospels, the relation of the Christian evangel to ordinary
human existence with its moral implications suffers no obscurement
in the treatment of Hebrews. Here as in the earher Christian literature
the ethical coloring is distinctly Jewish.7
Thus in these writings of the New Testament are seen elements
mystical and non-mystical, the tendency being favorable to a recession
of the severely ethical or grossly material before a growing super-
ethicism which "is in the world yet not of the world."8 Mysticism
moves from its appearance in the sparsely scattered hints in the earUer
'Heb. 10:1; 9:11. 2 Heb. 9:23; 8:5.
3Heb.4:i4; 5:5-10; 7:24-28; 8:1,2; 9:11.
4 Heb., chap, n; 12:1,2. s Heb. 6:4.
"Heb. 6:2, 8; 9:27; 10:26-31,35-39; 12:25-29.. 'Heb. 13:1-6.
8E. F. Scott, in "The Hellenistic Mysticism of the Fourth Gospel," American
Journal of Theology, July, 1916, derives perhaps more ethical significance from the
discourses than the author intended to convey.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 45
representations to its complete subjugation of all other elements in the
Fourth Gospel. The aggressive preparedness of the disciple for a
coming order so prominent in the Synoptic Gospels and in Paul dis
appears, and in its place is found a passive acceptance and enjoyment
of a present spiritual order already replete with the "abundant IKe."
Messianic expectations grounded in racial or political or even religious
arrangement of human events yield place to a plane of satisfaction
created by a revelation already completed and entirely independent of
the course of human history and the racial demarcations incident to
IKe upon the earth. The sordid details which a rugged Jewish morality
did not hesitate to discuss gradually become less conspicuous and at
last in the Johannine writings fail to gain any attention whatever. The
reinterpretatipn of the Christian evangel is carried out by the writer
upon such- a level of transcendence that no provenance is afforded
matters so inevitably connected with ordinary earthly activity. Chris
tian mysticism comes here to full fruition.
It has been seen that the religious experience lying behind the pro
duction of the Fourth Gospel is understood only in the light of its mystic
affiliations. Escape from the evil world comes through enlightenment
which furnishes fellowship with God. The author overcomes the world
by mystic knowledge. Communion with God makes the behever
free and happy in this present life. It is in the search for the author's
method of maintaining this communion that evidence of his Hellenistic
associations comes to view. Here the writer attempts — at times with
but indifferent success — to knit together threads of thought and life in
his environment. His conceptual world contains elements of Eastern
and Western thinking which the author uses without caring so much
about their antecedent congruity as about their present efficacy in
promoting what to him is the highest religious IKe.
The Johannine writer had before him a social product expressed in
terms of personal faith in a historical figure, namely, Jesus, a Jew of the
Palestinian type. He saw this faith lived out in the experience of people
who probably ha,d themselves felt the touch of Jesus' personal presence.
In his own life a like faith had brought about a consciousness of victory
over the evil forces so rife in his world-view. Also this writer had the
Greek language as a vehicle of thought-expression, and along with this
language the inheritance of ideas concerning the interpenetration of the
human and the divine. To him the all-absorbing fact of religious IKe
is that the pure divine element, the Logos, had come into man in the
person of Jesus in astonishing measure. Knowledge that saves from the

46 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
evil world is mediated through perception of the miraculous manifesta
tion of God-lKe in humanity presented in the historical Jesus. Usages in
the rehgious societies of his day likewise affected the author. Along
with the recognition of the new Logos endowment through faith in
Jesus is the physical act of baptism. There is a "sheepfold" with a
door to it.1 The doorway is the baptismal rite.2 The believer must be
born of water as well as of the spirit. This act of baptism is associated
in some mystic way with the incoming of the Logos and its gKt of
"eternal life" for the recipient.
The sustaining of the mystic IKe is represented by the Johannine
author as coming through a steady allegiance to the proposition that
Jesus is the Son of God, with unique replenishment of the Logos element.
Exterior assistance is rendered by partaking of a sacred meal. The
inner result of this meal is continued communion with God; the outward
expression is love for the Christian community. The author describes
the sustenance of the mystic IKe in terms that approximate a grossly
materialistic union of mankind with deity and in the same breath
repudiates such a notion by explaining that after all it is the spirit that
is of value. The "flesh and blood," or bread and wine, of the sacred meal
are but material tokens of a mystical unity with God in Christ.3 The
Christian community is set forth in the symbolic language enfiguring the
"vine and the branches."4 Paul in his allegory of the body alludes to a
like feature of early Christianity.5 In both these writers the pre
eminence of Christ is unquestionably stressed, as is also the union of the
believer with the Divine Father through the "Son." The gradations
that appear in Paul's community are absent from that of the Johannine
author.6 For him there is no disparity in the gifts of the spirit and no
degrees of efficiency in its operation among the pneumatikoi. All
believers enjqy a common gift of eternal life and are bound in a common
tie to each other and- to God by the Logos element. The reference
to the "beloved disciple" is the only hint, and this is a very vague one,
of superior privileges in the Christian brotherhood as pictured by the
author of the Fourth Gospel.7
The bringing together of Jewish and Hellenistic ideas in a sort of
misalliance is achieved by the author when he introduces witnesses to the
authenticity of the Logos-revelation made through Jesus. As evidence
1 John 10: 1-3. 4 John 15: 1-6.
2 John 3:5, 22-26. si Cor. 12:12-26.
3 John 6:48-51, 53-58, 63. «l Cor. 12:27-30.
'John 13:22; 20:2; 21:20,21.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 47
for a bona fide theory of the Greek philosophers, features of early Chris
tian tradition in widest remove from this theory and affected strongly
by Jewish Uneage are brought to the forefront with apparently no recog
nition of inherent, racial inappositeness.' Three main kinds of testi
mony to Jesus as the bearer of the Logos and the Logos message appear:
(1) that of John the Baptist, who "came to bear witness of the hght";2
(2) that of the extraordinary power possessed by Jesus, displaying itseK in
knowledge of the thoughts of others, of things that lie outside the realm
of ordinary individuals, of the mind of God, and in miraculous deeds,
such as turning water into wine, feeding thousands with the contents of
an ordinary scrip carried by a boy, walking on the waves of Lake Gen
nesaret, bringing sight to the blind, and even raising people from the
dead;3 and (3) that of the sacred writings of Judaism, so appeahng to
the Jews of the Dispersion.4 The synoptic writers go a long way in
their appeal to the Jewish sacred writ. The Johannine writer outpaces
them completely. To the seeker after victory over the world these
three forms of testimony to Jesus as the bearer of the secret are pre
sented. The validity of this evidence is assumed to be unassailable.
The necessity of accepting it as even more important than tactual
acquaintance with the earthly Jesus is accentuated by the story of
doubting Thomas. "Because thou hast seen, hast thou believed?"
says the risen Jesus to this once skeptical disciple, after a demonstration
of the risen body's reality, "blessed are they which have not seen and
yet have beheved."5
Such considerations as the foregoing serve to show the mystic use
which the Johannine author made of material held in common with other
Christian writers in his treatment of man and the universe.6 It has been
made patent that Hellenistic influences also entered largely into his
re-working of the early traditions of the new religion. To be fully
' E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, p. 27. 2 John 1 : 8, 34.
3 John 2:25; 2:20; 13:1; 17:25; 2:1-11; 6:1-14,16-21; 9:1ft.; 11: iff.
"John 5:30,46; 12:38-40; 19:28. s John 20:29.
6 "The mystic use of numbers found in the Gospel of Matthew comes into view
in the Johannine choice and arrangement of material. John the Baptist three times is
made to testify concerning Jesus. Three journeys are recorded of Jesus to Galilee, as
also three to Jerusalem. The author takes account of three Passovers and three other
Jewish feasts. Jesus is condemned three times and utters three sayings from the cross.
The number seven, so common in Matthew, is also found. There are seven miracles
and seven references to 'the hour.' The formula 'I am' occurs seven times. Jesus
in the last discourse repeats seven times the phrase, 'These things have I spoken
unto you.'"— E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, pp. 21, 22.

48 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
understood and appreciated the Fourth Gospel must .be seen in the light
of its non- Jewish as well as its Jewish heritage. The more clearly its
affiliations with the thought and conduct of the peoples in the locality of
Ephesus as they met their hfeTproblems in the end of the first century
are discerned, the better will the author's problem and his way of
solving it be grasped by the student of Christian origins.
When the traveling Christian preacher, as the author of the Johan
nine literature would appear to have been, was carrying on his whole-
souled propaganda as the exponent of a new religion, he met at every
turn of the road the competition of the Cynic-Stoic enthusiast. This
religious rival had a monistic world-view. His message was that all
men were brothers of a like substance with deity. Man's body was the
deity-substance, the Logos-element, in its coarser form. Man's intelli
gence was composed of the same substance in finer texture. God was this
Logos in the most rarefied form. Each man had the capacity within
himseK, by refusing to be disturbed in the fluctuations of Ufe's varying
fortunes and by encouraging others to do likewise, of approaching nearer
and nearer to that perfection found in God himseK. In the main these
preachers brought to their followers what has been called a reUgion of
"attainment."1 The emphasis which the Johannine writer placed upon
the seK-possession of Jesus, his independent voUtion, his seK-contained
power, his absolute authority in action, his superiority to the pressure of ,
earthly events, may possibly have been due to the author's desire to
present the founder of his reUgion to the best advantage among people
whose ears had been attuned to the utterances of the Cynic-Stoic
preacher. In the same environment could be found that mysticism in the mys
tery rehgions which involved a duahstic world-view. The brotherhood of
behevers was a common factor in the life of the Roman Empire at the
time of the appearance of the Fourth Gospel. The common IKe with
the deity and with each other, the rite of baptism, and the sacred meal,
phenomena frequently claimed as indigenous to the Christian religion
or derived from Jewish antecedents, are now acknowledged as the com
mon property of religious societies known all over the Mediterranean
world. These mystery cults were powerful in molding and conserving
the religious IKe of the Hellenistic peoples. Especially is this true of
Asia Minor, the early home of the Johannine writer.2 To this locaUty
had come from the Far East the Babylonian "Ishtar and Tammuz,"
' S. J. Case, The Evolution of Early Christianity, pp. 279-83.
2 Percy Gardner, The Ephesian Gospel.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 49
from the South the Egyptian "Isis and Serapis," from the nearer East
the Syrian "Aphrodite and Adonis," the Phoenician "Astart and
Eshmun," and the Cilician "Atargatis." From Greece across the
Aegaean had come " Demeter and Dionysus." These various immigrant
cults with their ritual and their mystagogues vied with the native cult
of "Cybele and Attis" and with each other in striving to meet the reh
gious needs of the people.'
The rite of baptism stands at the doorway of the mystic fold repre
sented by these religious societies. It cannot be said the Fourth Gospel,
along with the other Christian literature of the early period, is entirely
dependent upon Jewish usages for the inclusion of baptism among the
rites of the Christian confraternity. In earher times in Greece, Demos
thenes when engaged in a tirade against his rival Aeschines accused him
of assisting his mother, a priestess of the Phrygian-cult deity Sabazius,
when he "nightly gave the initiates the fawnskin and baptized them and
purified them."2 In later times Tertullian is very definite regarding
baptism among the pagan cults. In his treatise on the subject of bap
tism he writes in the following strain:
Washing is the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred
rites — of some notorious Isis or Mithras. The gods themselves likewise they
honor by washings. Moreover, by carrying water around, and sprinkling it,
they everywhere expiate [purify] countryseats, houses, temples, and whole
cities: at all events at the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they are bap
tized; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is their regeneration
and the remission of the penalties due to their perjuries.3
In a Mithra liturgy from a time not far from the issuance of the
Fourth Gospel expressions occur which show the significance of this rite
and which also depend upon identical imagery with that so common to
readers of the Johannine literature. This will bear quotation in full:
If it hath pleased you to grant me the birth to immortality that I, after the
present distress which sore afflicts me, may gaze upon the immortal First Cause
with the immortal Spirit and the immortal Water, that I through the spirit
may be born again, and that in me purified by the sacred rite and delivered
from guilt the Holy Spirit may five and move. Since this man born from a
mortal womb is this day newly begotten by thee, since by the counsel of God,
' S. J. Case, The Evolution of Early Christianity, pp. 285-330.
2 Demosthenes De corona. See F. Legge, op. cit., 1, 138, for citation and discussion
of Orphic societies.
3 On Baptism s; Anlf-Nicene Fathers, III, 671.

SO THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
marveUous in goodness, he, but one of many thousands, has been born to
immortahty, he aspires, he yearns, to adore thee with all the faculties that he,
but a man, possesses. Hail to thee, Lord of Water, Founder of the Earth, Ruler
of the Spirit ! Born again, I expire, in that I am being exalted, and as I am
exalted, I die; born with the birth that begets life I am delivered to death and
go the way that thou hast instituted, as thou hast ordained and constituted
the sacrament.1 In these cults contemporaneous with the beginnings of Christianity
are also found devices calculated to induce an experience on the part of
the initiate in which he finds himseK in actual communion with the god.
The sacred meal plays an important part in this connection. One of the
few liturgical formulas from this period refers to a Phrygian ritual in
which the neophyte exclaims, "I have eaten from the tambourine, I have
drunk from the cymbal, I have become a mystic of Attis." Cumont in
commenting upon this Uturgy writes, "Through this meal the neophyte
becomes a brother among brothers, having common unity with a saving
deity. The religious bond of these thiasoi took the place of the natural
relationship of the family, the gens, or the clan."2 Similarly in the
Fourth Gospel there is a sodahty which transcends all ties of natural
kinship. The initiate into this circle enters into a communion with the
deity expressed in language readily understood by people acquainted
with the mystery religions and their practices.
The open sesame into the Aladdin's cave where the mystery cults
guarded their treasures of rehgious satisfaction is the secret word. The
reason so little is known of the inner IKe of these societies is found in
this fact. In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Lucius declares that he dare
not recount his initiatory experiences and dismisses the subject in the
words, "I have told you of things which, though you hear them, you
cannot understand."3 Similarly in the Fourth Gospel is found the
"word" mysterious and baffling to the outsider, but replete with marvel
ous meaning to the one who has entered the charmed circle of Christ's
foUowers. Jesus says to his disciples that his words are spirit and hfe.
If the disciples continue in his word they are true followers. They shaU
know the truth and the truth shall make them free. They have become
purified through the word which he has spoken to them. Those to
whom this mystic knowledge has been revealed stand out in the Fourth
Gospel as a select society possessed of esoteric rehgious treasures. The
' Otto Pfleiderer, The Early Christian Conception of Christ, p. 21.
2 Franz Cumont, Oriental Religions in the Roman Paganism.
3 Percy Gardner, The Religious Experience of St. Paul, p. 65.

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 51
"Paraclete" is to interpret the meaning of the secret word to the mem
bers of the Christian group. All outside the mystic ring is under the
dominion of Satan, and the uninitiated are in his power with eyes sealed
to the glory of the new Ufe in Christ. Entrance into the circle breaks the
power of Satan, dissevers the bonds of "the world," and insures to the
behever eternal life.
In the union with God and in the possession of blessed knowledge
the behever in the Johannine sense and the initiate in the mystery cults
enjoyed experiences which betokened, not only a victory over the present
environment, but a future of continued bhssful existence. The secret
word brought a guaranty of happiness which physical death enhanced
rather than destroyed. The statement has been made that the emphasis
in the Fourth Gospel is more on the present than on the future. As
regards its relation to the other writings of the New Testament with
their use of contemporary messianic speculation this is undoubtedly
true. Yet it must not be inferred that the present scheme of things
incloses all the meaning of eternal IKe for the Johannine writer. His
mysticism carries him to a far higher level. For him eternal IKe is a
beatific state untouched by the "slings and arrows of outrageous for
tune," and death — the end of earthly existence — can mean only a closer
union with the divine spirit. "The world passeth away and the lust
thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." After like
manner, in the desire for a blessed immortahty, the devotee of the
mystery cult sets earthly comfort and material weKare in the background
of his hfe-interests. As surely as he enters into mystic union with the
god, so surely will he with the god face a future of unending happiness.
In many instances the seeker after this blessedness severed himseK
from all natural functioning in connection with the continuance of the
race. Such startling facts of cult history serve to demonstrate the
terrific earnestness with which the quest of eternal life was pursued.
The provision for the present and continued well-being of the soul
demands such a sacrifice that physical integrity and continuance are
ignored or outraged. Nothing of so gross a character is found in the
Johannine writings. Nevertheless it must be admitted that in their
world-view it is always the spiritual life, the inner experience, the eternal
aloofness from ordinary features of human activity that are stressed;
so much indeed as to leave the physical in a very insignificant Ught.
Not that the physical is made, as in the Orphic communities, the basis
of evil and corruption. The writer makes himseK plain enough on this
point. It is not evil except as it is held in the clutch of the mahgn spirit.

52 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Yet it is only a shadow in comparison with the spiritual existence
afforded by belief in Christ. Its needs, its significance, and its persist
ence are forgotten altogether in the rapt vision of eternal Ufe in God.
Thus it has been shown that the problem of man and the world was
approached by the author of the Fourth Gospel not merely through the
inheritance of thought and IKe represented by the earUer records of
Christianity. The language, the thought-forms, and the creative
impulse which produced this literature belong in a very vital way to the
wider reach of IKe in the Hellenistic world. His environment is at
once the home and the product of Graeco-Roman civilization on the
crest of the first century a.d. The widely scattered peoples of the Near
East moved gradually into a unity of relationship with a world-empire
under the rule, first of Persia, then of Greece, and finaUy of Rome.
Under the mild imperial yoke the conquered races learned to think in
terms which overreached tribal and national prejudices. For a couple
of centuries or so the peoples clustered about the shores of the Mediter
ranean Sea mingled their races and religions, their manners and morals,
in a crucible of Oriental symbohsm, Greek philosophy, and Latin state
craft from which emerged through the medium of the Greek language
that remarkable syncretism known to historical students as Hellenistic
culture. From Asia Minor, the very center of this crucible, where the
ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Hebrew, and Egyptian
cultures strove with their Greek and Roman younger rivals to express
the rehgious IKe of the people, the Johannine writings came forth into
the stream of the world's literature. To appreciate the success with
which their author interpreted the Christian message in terms of con
temporary philosophical thought and rehgious IKe the student of his
tory has but to remember how large a place these writings quickly won
in the early church. The salvation that was "of the Jews" had to be
presented in a way highly normal in the Ufe of the time in order to be
appraised and accepted. If the Christian message had failed of an
exponent who could express it in the thought- and life-currency of the
syncretistic culture the Hellenistic world would willingly have ignored
and speedily have forgotten it. The supreme achievement in this regard
may be accredited to the Johannine writer.

CHAPTER IV
NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS AND THEIR INFLUENCE
In the foregoing chapters attention has been called to the impor
tance of the world-view for a correct appreciation of the task accom
plished so successfully by the Johannine writer. The reaching out after
ways in which man may overcome the limitations of IKe in a temporal
order, the assertion of mastery over the natural forces, the discovery
of agencies whereby the world may in some measure be refashioned,
the constant interaction of inherited and personal tendencies — these
common phenomena have been observed in the various world-views
which contributed directly or indirectly to the religious IKe of the Hellen
istic peoples in the first century of Christendom. Man's view of the
universe and his relation to it appear to contribute in an important
manner to the expression of his personal faith. The differences in
world-view lead to changes in the religious attitude. In order that
such conclusions may stand out more clearly a study of one phase of the
situation affecting the writers of early Christianity will now be made.
To aU who became vitally concerned in the first propaganda of the
new rehgion, Jesus had achieved distinction as a Savior through whom
real religious satisfaction could be adequately furnished. In this
historical fact is found the raison d'ttre of the New Testament.' Yet
a change of world-view created different representations of the work
and worth of this historical personage even within the narrow compass
of the Christian literary canon.
One of the earhest independent witnesses upon this question is the
apostle Paul. To him Jesus was a heavenly being, enjoying in his pre-
earthly existence equality with God himself. This being had forsaken
heaven, lived an exemplary earthly Ufe, and by his death on the cross
abrogated the ritualistic aspects of the Jewish Torah.2 For this he had
received exaltation to a supreme place in the triune sphere of heaven,
earth, and the lower regions. The actual earthly ministry of Jesus
appears to Paul as an almost negligible interim between his heavenly
existence and his death. Paul no doubt must have learned of the facts
' See S. J. Case, The Historicity of Jesus, and T. J. Thorburn, The Mythical
Interpretation of the Gospels, for discussions.
2 Phil. 2:6-11. 53

54 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
of Jesus' IKe from the Palestinian disciples. That such facts did not
come to narration in any definite form in the numerous writings of Paul
must surely be significant.' The object of his interest and devotion is
not the humble Jesus but the exalted Christ. This heavenly being is
able to communicate his spirit to all who confess him as Lord and Savior.
The outward marks of the reception of this spirit are displays of miracle-
working,2 and the fruits of the spirit-filled IKe are again and again
expressed in values of a high ethical character.3
The inference is perhaps valid that had Paul received any definite
data regarding the earthly ministry of Jesus he would have recorded of
his Master similar miracle-activity to that which he had realized in his
own personal experiences and looked for in the lives of his Christian
contemporaries. That such an opinion was held in the early group
known to Paul is evidenced by the tradition embodied in the Acts
narrative.4 If this came within Paul's purview its vitality for him was
not strong enough to bespeak for it a place in the message of the apostle
to the men of his time. His Gospel as given to the people at Corinth
begins strikingly with the death of Jesus.5 It is the risen and glorified
Christ who demands his adoration and obedience. Paul's absorbing
interest is in a heavenly Lord who produces wonder-working in the Uves
of his adherents and promises them victory over all demonic powers.6
This superearthly being is also to visit the earth in the very near future,
riding upon the clouds to fulfil the Jewish apocalyptic messianic expec
tations in the inauguration of a regime of true righteousness upon a
renovated earth,7 the Jewish Christians to constitute, as it were, an
inner circle of highly privileged, participants in the largesse of the
Messiah-King.8 Features of the supernatural personality and operation
of a savior-deity such as obtained in connection with the worship of
the "Lord Mithra" of the Persian, the "Lord Serapis" of the Egyptian,
and the "Lord Augustus" of the Roman cults — famihar enough to the
Hellenistic hearers and readers of Paul's messages — were blended by this
early Christian preacher with elements of Jewish legalism and Messianism
from which, as a product of the Hebrew race and religion, he did not
find it either convenient or necessary to free himseK.
A companion picture to that of Paul, and one which may be taken
as dating from the same primitive period of Christian thought, is found
'Gal. 4:4. si Cor. 15:3-8.
2Gal. 3:5; I Cor. 12:4-11. 'Gal. 1:4.
3 Gal. 5:19-26; Rom. 12:3-21, etal. ' I Thess. 4: 13-18; IIThess. 2\2,etal.
"Acts 2:22. 8 Rom. 11:24.

NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS 55
in the source material used by the Gospel writers and designated by
some New Testament scholars as "Q" or the "Logia." While in Paul
and in the Acts tradition dynamic mamfestations are held to be of
highest importance— in the former on the part of Christians and in the
latter on the part of Jesus himseK— an investigation of these narra
tives leads to the conclusion that in the group of Jesus' followers to whose
reUgious IKe these records ministered the emphasis was laid upon the
prophetic rather than upon the dynamic aspects of Jesus' personahty
and work. In these sources miracle-working is conspicuous by its
almost entire absence. The first appearance of Jesus discovers him
returning "full of the spirit"1 or "led by the spirit"2 and proceeding
into the wilderness. In the temptation following,3 Jesus is represented
as distinctly refusing to use miracle display in the prosecution of his
enterprise. The style of address put into the mouth of the adversary
"Satan" gives proof that to the group using this tradition Jesus could
wear with acceptance such titles as " Son of God." Yet it is to be noted
in this connection that the miraculous, as such, is eliminated from the
functioning of that personality.
This neglect of the patently miraculous is characteristic throughout
the entire range of these early sources. Dynamic mamfestations of
supernatural personality are everywhere either entirely absent or rele
gated to the shadowy background, while in the foreground of the picture
stands Jesus as the incarnation of all that was highest and best in the
prophetic tradition so dear to the truly reUgious Hebrew.4 The miracle
narrative of the centurion's servant turns aside for a brief moment from
the otherwise purely Jewish cast of the document and addresses itseK
to gentile interests.5 In the other remaining record of miracle-activity
there is a close likeness to the tradition in Acts. Jesus casts out demons
"by the finger of God."6 Here and in Acts7 it is God working through
Jesus that accompfishes the wonder, and not the personahty of Jesus
functioning alone in a supernatural fashion. Also, according to Luke's
source, the sons of those who criticized Jesus stood on the same footing
with him in the realm of exorcism.8 It must be inferred, therefore, that
here at least no importance whatever can be attached to the miracle
narrative as witnessing to the supernatural character of Jesus' worth and
¦Luke4:i. 2Luke4:i; Matt.4:i.
3 Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13.
"Matt. 11:7-19; Luke 7:24-35; Matt. 12:38-42; Luke 11:24-36.
s Matt. 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10. 'Acts 2:22.
'Luke 11:20. 8Luke 11:19.

56 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
work. It is the preaching of Jesus as the inheritor of the best Jewish
traditions that gives token of his superior personality in these fragments
of primitive Christian thought. Therein are displayed his prophetic
credentials and the verity of his claims to leadership. That is the evi
dent sign, ignored by the many, according to the synoptists,1 but wel
comed as the harbinger of a new day by those from whose hands have
come these early records of Jesus' life and work.
Remarkable also in this early witness to the ministry of Jesus as
conceived by the people of that day is the meager reference to his death.
This fact and its import, so alluring to the rehgious reflection of the
apostle Paul, have in these sources practically no place whatever. Only
vague hints are found that can be associated with the passing of the
Master.2 These may merely refer to the kind of death any outstanding
opponent of wrongdoing and wrong thinking may look for at the hands
of those who have become wedded to their evil ways. In the woes
pronounced upon the Jewish religionists there is a saying of similar
pattern which bears out this interpretation.3 In the latter portion of
these sources there are eschatological teachings which portray the com
ing of "a Son of Man," "as the lightning comes from the East,"4 or "as
the coming of the deluge in the days of Noah."5 From such sayings as
these may be deduced a strong supposition, albeit no definite proof, that
the supernatural personality of Jesus was expressed to these early
Jewish Christians in terms of the then current apocalyptic Messianism.
In this connection it may be of service to note that, according to the
Q temptation narrative, the other kind of messianic hope, the national
type so fiercely espoused by the Zealots, is utterly repudiated by the
members of this group. The demands of this early community with
respect to the character of Jesus appear to be satisfied by presenting
him as the preacher of a new individual and social righteousness and
the herald of a new kingdom soon to be established upon the earth with
himself as the chief executive.
Another source apparently independent of the two that have just
been considered and generally accepted as springing from the same
early period in the development of Christian thought concerning the
character of Jesus' ministry is that furnished by the Gospel bearing the
name of Mark. The religious needs of the primitive Christian group,
for which or by which this Gospel was evoked, created a representation
'Matt. 12:38-42; Luke 11: 29-32. 4 Matt. 24: 26-27; Luke 17: 23-24.
2 Matt. 10:38; Luke 14:27. 3Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27.
3 Matt. 23:34-46; Luke 11:49-51.

NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS 57
of Jesus as a dynamic personaUty of the first rank. According to Mark
the supernatural equipment with which to carry on the work came to
Jesus at his baptism by John straight from the sky as the "Holy Spirit"
in the form of a dove and as a voice of deity evidencing to Jesus his
divine sonship.' Mark does not in so many words state that Jesus
won the victory over Satan in the wilderness encounter which foUowed.
He leaves this to be inferred by reason of the fact that shortly afterward
Jesus meets one of Satan's satellites who evidently has received a warn
ing as to the superior power of the newcomer. At the meeting in the
synagogue, according to the Markan statement, this malevolent spirit
is ignominiously cast out of the man within whom he had been opera
tive.2 The extraordinary character of Jesus is also revealed in the
record that he was with the wild animals in the wilderness and remained
unhurt, receiving there the ministrations of angelic visitants.3
Throughout the Gospel of Mark the characteristic activity of his
hero is that of miracle-working, especially in the realms of healing and
exorcism. As is well known, there were other wonder-workers in the
period from which this record takes its color, each with his own curative
modus operandi. The significance of Jesus for Mark is not so much that
wonders were wrought, but that these were of such a notable character.
The efficiency with which Jesus worked set him as one far above the com
mon crowd of miracle mongers.4 All the manifestations of the Holy
Spirit which Paul realized in his own Christian experience and eagerly
expected in the experience of all who unquestioningly accepted his
message concerning the lordship of Jesus are produced by the Gospel of
Mark as an integral part of the Master's own mission while on the earth.
Jesus is represented as sending forth disciples to carry on the work which
he has inaugurated, " to preach, to have power to heal sickness, and to
cast out demons."5 Here are set forth the main features of Jesus'
ministry according to the Markan picture. The connection of Jesus
with any form of the zealotic messianic hope is in Mark, as in Q, dis
tinctly disavowed, as instanced in the messianic ascription of Peter at
Caesarea Philippi and its immediate correction by Jesus himseK.6
The main body of opinion anent the person and worth of Jesus set
forth in the Gospel of Mark may be summed up as foUows: From his
baptism Jesus gave indubitable evidence of possessing supernatural
' Mark 1 : 9-11. 4 Mark 1 : 27, 28.
2 Mark 1 : 23-26. s Mark 3 : 14, 15.
3 Mark 1 : 13. 6 Mark 8: 27-33.

58 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
power.' This power came to expression in his unique control of evil
forces — Satan, the demon-possessed — and of natural processes. Such
extraordinary effectiveness in dealing with demonic powers denoted
Jesus as representative of a new earthly regime. The ministry in
Palestine was prehminary, opening the way for the coming completeness
of the kingdom upon a miraculously renovated earth subsequent to a
day of judgment for aU people.2 Jesus in the nature of things died in
order to leave the earth, go to heaven, and there hold himseK in readiness
to come to earth again at the divinely appointed time. The supernatural
significance of Jesus in this program of events was clear to him during his
earthly Ufe arid also evident to the demons whose power he opposed and
dispelled.3 Jesus time and again endeavored to make this known to his
intimate associates, but was unsuccessful owing to their astonishing
Obtuseness.4 On the other hand Jesus guarded this knowledge from
the Jews generaUy for fear that their non-apocalyptic Messianism might
fix on him for its focus and thus spoil the apocalyptic program.5 Jesus
went willingly to his death that he might have his place in the future
appearance from heaven of the complete messianic world-order.6 The
resurrection experiences of the close friends of Jesus fully revealed to them
the real worth of their Master as the Messiah whose earthly supernatural
activity had been preparatory — as also should be their own — to the
establishment of a heavenly regime coming from above in a miraculous
fashion to assume its sway upon the earth.7
In the sources that have been examined so far the early Christian
conceptions with respect to the career of Jesus have been observed to
undergo certain modifications due to the needs of different communities
utilizing these writings, or to the particular interests of the narrator. In
these modifications may be discovered a movement away from the
presentation of Jesus as a strictly superearthly character because of his
death and resurrection, to that which pictures his work on earth subse
quent to the baptism episode as displaying a supernatural stamp. This
earthly activity is in the Logia prevailingly Jewish in interest and out
look, and in the Gospel of Mark prevaihngly Hellenistic, with Paul
occupying a middle place between these two.
'Mark 1:13, 27. 3 Mark 1:24, 34; 3:11; 5:7.
2 Mark 10:35-40; 13:24-27. "Mark 9:10, 31, 32.
5Marki:34; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26,30; 9:9.
'Mark 9:31; 10:32-34; 13:26,27; 13:28-32.
'Mark 14:61, 62; Mark 13:9, 10.

NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS 59
Coming now to the Gospels bearing the names of Matthew and
Luke it is at once remarked that the Jewish and Hellenistic phenomena
of the earher sources are taken over and harmonized. The presenta
tion of the person and work of Jesus in both of these documents is sub
stantially the same. To both the unique character of the Christian's
Lord comes to view in teaching— or preaching— and in miracle-activity.
In both, the traits which in the earher writings mark the humanity of
the subject are eUminated, and fresh, clear colors are introduced to por
tray him as supernatural, not merely from the baptism at the Jordan,
but from a human-divine miscegenation. It is not enough for these
Christian writers that their Master receive the Holy Spirit at the time of
submitting to the rite performed by John the Baptist; he must appear as
a distinct superearthly being even at his birth.' The importance of the
divine voice at the baptism as marking out for Jesus his extraordinary
prerogatives is considerably lessened or altogether neglected.2 Matthew
can furnish heavenly voices to Joseph and to the wise men.3 Luke can
teU of angel communications to the parents of John and Jesus and to
the Bethlehem shepherds.4 From such sources both writers are satisfied
that the evidence points to the supernatural character of the babe and
the singularity of the career upon which he emerges. Matthew and Luke
include in their writings certain early traditions5 showing an interest in
tracing the genealogy of Jesus back through Hebrew connections to
David and thence to Abraham — in the tradition copied by Luke reaching
as far back as Adam, who is caUed " son of God." Such traditions appear
to have risen from Palestinian interests, certainly from Jewish interest
whether of Palestine or of the Diaspora, and originally belong to a period
when the conception of the work of Jesus is stiU satisfied with his earthly
parentage and in this case is somewhat concerned to retain elements
appertaining to the Davidic national messianic hope, a hope so comforting
to many devout Jews of that time. Matthew includes this material with
out appearing to notice that it is rendered unnecessary by his fuU dis
cussion of the miraculous conception and birth. Luke, conscious to
some extent of the incongruity of the included tradition, salves his
'Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:34, 35.
2 In Mark 1 : 11 the voice of witnessing at the baptism is addressed to Jesus, while
in Matt. 3: 17 to the bystanders. For Matthew there is no need of the testimony on
the part of Jesus. He is conscious of messianic mission from the first. Only the people
needed the witness.
3Matt. 1:18-25; 2:1-23.
«Luke i:nff.; 2:8-20. s Matt. 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-28.

60 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
hterary and historical conscience by prefacing this note to the genea
logical table copied by him, "And Jesus himself began to be about
thirty years of age, being as was supposed the son of Joseph.'"
There is much evidence to support the contention that in Matthew
and Luke the references of earlier traditions to purely human traits
in the personahty of Jesus are either modified or omitted under the
influence of the conception held by these later Christian writers of their
Master as a truly divine being through all of his ministry upon the
earth, indeed through his entire earthly existence. The Logia is content
to say of the preaching of Jesus that it was greater than that of Jonah,
and of his wisdom that it exceeded Solomon's.2 Matthew goes much
farther than this. He makes Jesus tower above Moses, the traditional
father of the Jewish Law. Indeed he goes so far as to represent Jesus
on his own responsibility putting such an interpretation upon the leading
rubrics of the Mosaic legislation as would constitute the interpreter a
creator of an entirely new ethic far transcending all previous pronounce
ments in the realm of religion or of morals.3
Of course all this is done without any suggestion of a breaking away
from Jewish religious antecedents in the words and work of Jesus.4 Mat
thew is very careful to have the incidents in the IKe of his Lord fulfil in
the most meticulous manner various sayings culled from the Jewish sacred
writings. Instances of this are found in Matt. 2: 15, where the words of
Hos. 11: 1 create in the writer's mind the necessity for a sojourn in
Egypt of Joseph and Mary with their child, and notably in Matt. 21:1-
11, where the rhetorical pleonasm of Zech. 9:9 leads the New Testament
writer to change his Markan source (Mark 11:1-10) and introduce two
animals into the account of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The
Matthaean sublimation of the personality of Jesus comes into clear
perspective in the change from Mark 10: 17, 18, "Why callest thou me
good?" to Matt. 19:16, "Why askest thou me concerning the good?"
The Markan record that Jesus refused to accept deific terms of address
does not at all meet with the approval of the later author. Matthew
changes Mark "6:3, "Is not this the carpenter?" to "Is not this the
carpenter's son?" Matt. 13:55, for he is unwilling to allow that Jesus
was ever designated as a carpenter by his contemporaries. An unmis
takable instance of this tendency is found in the change from Mark 1:32,
33, "They brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that
were possessed with devils .... and he healed many that were sick of
'Luke 3: 23. 3 Matt. 5:1 ft.; 19:7-9,16-22.
2 Matt. 12:38-42; Luke 11:29-32. "Matt. 5:17-19.

NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS 61
divers diseases, and cast out many devils . ..." to Matt. 8:16,
". . . . they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils,
and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all that were sick."
Matthew cannot endure the limitation of the healer's power so frankly
admitted in the Markan narrative.
The saying of Jesus' relatives and friends reflecting on the sanity of
the GaUlean preacher is omitted by both Matthew and Luke when
foUowing the Markan source.1 References in Mark that portray
Jesus in the exhibition of human emotion are also strictly avoided.2
In Mark, Jesus acknowledges his own ignorance of the time when the
great day of judgment is to arrive, while Matthew, by dropping out the
words "neither the Son," rather neatly avoids what to him would have
been an impossible admission on tjie part of Jesus.3
In all the foregoing there is an agreement between Matthew and Luke
that earlier presentations such as that of Mark must be relieved of ele
ments which properly inhere in a personage operating, albeit super-
naturally, within distinctly human limits. By both of these writers the
supernatural features of the earher pictures are brought into clearer hght
and the human elements are allowed to disappear. The comparison of
these with the more primitive sources reveals the Christian interest in the
supernatural personahty and work of Jesus in the process of development
from a conception of him as a prophetic functionary or a worker of
wonders to that of him as possessing the power of a god. The earUer
portrait of a mere human person operating by word or by deed in a
supernatural fashion is transformed into a representation of one whose
attitude, despite his human form and speech, is that of deity itseK through
out the entire earthly career on record. Whether the author of the
statement in Matt. 28: 16 is or is not the author of the Gospel, it gives
evidence of the perfection toward which this development steadily
moved in, the early years of the rise of Christianity as a world-reUgion.
There the Lord of the Christians, in the white light that beats upon a
solitary throne, is represented as being able to say, "All authority is
given unto me in heaven and upon earth."
So far the sources being examined have shown elements mainly of a
Hebraic cast with reference to the career of Jesus. From Paul to
Matthew and Luke, although the Hellenistic environment never
'Mark 3: 21; cf. Matt. 12:22 ff.; and Luke 11:14 ff-
2 Mark 3:5; cf. Matt. 12 f. Mark 1:43; cf. Matt. 8:4. Mark 10:21; cf.
Matt. i9:2of.
'Mark 13:32; cf. Matt. 24:36.

62 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
disappears, the bolder outlines of the picture of the early Christian's Lord
stand out in distinctly Jewish colors. The urge of the messianic hopes
cherished by the Jewish race is seen behind all the hterature of the first
beginnings of Christianity. Not that Messianism as such had no
existence in the Hellenistic consciousness.1 The Latin poet Virgil is
only one among many who in this period gave Uterary expression to a
longing that played no minor part in the life of the Mediterranean
peoples. This poet in the Aeneid vi. 788 ff. refers to the emperor, his
royal patron, as follows, "This is the man whom you have often heard
promised to you, Augustus Caesar, offspring of a god, who shall estabUsh
again the golden age of Latium." From what has been discovered of the
tendency among the inhabitants of Greece and Asia Minor to attach
rehgious significance and heavenly hopes to the person of a Roman
overlord2 it is but natural to feel that literature such as that in the New
Testament, coming to birth in more or less near contact with this kind
of an environment, cannot have derived its eudaemonistic future exclu
sively from current Judaism. Yet it is not until early Christianity takes
upon itseK features similar to those found in the Fourth Gospel that
the Jewish elements lose their paramount importance for the foUowers of
Jesus. As the writer of this remarkable work contemplated the career
of the founder of Christianity, the messianic concepts which had been so
vigorous in the thinking of those Christians to whose reUgion the earher
literature had ministered, although present in the spoken or written
tradition to which he had access, were by this time and in this locahty
so etiolated and weak that he was unable to use them in the corporate
structure of his argument. His message has undoubtedly elements that
are futuristic and of Jewish messianic lineage. Yet these have such a
separateness from the author's main treatment of the supernatural
personality and work of Jesus as to appear almost as extraneous and
functionless as barnacles on the hull of a ship.
If the Jewish elements of the primitive Christian tradition have
lost their charm for the author of the Fourth Gospel it is only that the
Hellenistic elements, which operated in the early tradition with increasing
' The early literature of the Assyrio-Babylonian peoples as well as that of the
Hellenes and the people of Latium is full of reference to a coming age whose happy
character makes possible the patient endurance of present hardship in the anticipation
of permanent future satisfaction.
2 rbv dvrb Apeois Kal ' A0po5e(t)T7js Bebv iirupavr) xal xoivbv toO avBpuirlvov /3/ov
o-urijpa. An Ephesian inscription to Julius Caesar. Deissman, op. cit. (trans.),
p. 348, n. 4.

NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS 63
success to subhmate the character of Jesus and his work, may come into
fuU prominence. The developmental process comes at this point to
complete fruitage. The Lord of the Christian is become "very God of
very God," and the present regnancy of his eternal kingdom permits
scant importance to be attached to apocalyptic and future programs.
The common Hellenistic notion that the divine and the human are in
essence the same made it easy for the author of this Gospel to put the
finishing touches to the picture of Jesus as a truly deific personality,
while at the same time allowing that personality to express itseK in a
form undeniably human in every particular.
To the writer of this later document every human being has the
Logos element.1 In pre-Christian times this element was in more note
worthy diffusion among the Jewish race in preparation for the coming of
Logos fully in the person of Jesus. The Jews, racially considered, had
refused to accept Jesus as God; that is, as the completest expression in
human form of the Logos. By such an attitude they stood shorn of all
place in the new kingdom. Where the writers of Mark or of Matthew
introduce sects of Judaism, such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, or,
with a Uttle wider scope, the scribes, the author of the Fourth Gospel
almost invariably makes use of the national term "the Jews," thereby
accusing the nation as a whole of the unpardonable sin, namely, the
refusal to see in Jesus one whose earthly being was fully contained by the
divine essence.2
On the one side of the evangehst's shield there are somber shadows
surrounding the repudiation of Jesus by the Jewish race. The other side
of the shield is radiant with hope, for the Hellenistic peoples under the
sway of Rome. The message of Jesus may have been an enigma to
Nicodemus,3 the rabbi of Jerusalem, but its terms are the common
property of the humblest folk of the Ephesian locality, acquainted as they
are with the various mystery cults of the Empire. The phrase "born
again," so famihar to us from our acquaintance with the Nicodemus
narrative, was in widest 'use among the votaries of the Hellenistic
mystery reUgions.4 Thus the significance of Jesus is turned away from
the somewhat circumscribed Jewish racial circle of the earlier sources
and interpreted in terms that are calculated to appeal urgently to the
entire Hellenistic civilization of that period.
In the Logia the figure of Jesus is that of the Jewish prophet. His
work is highly ethical, calling the people to more exalted standards of
'John 1:3, 9. 3 John 3:1-15.
'John 2:18; 5:10 ft.; 6:41 ff- «pfleiderer, op. cit., p. 21.

64 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
human relationship; truly reUgious, stressing the possibilities of closer
fellowship with God, the great Father of all; eminently practical,
expressing itseK in the removal of individual and social disabilities;
self-renunciatory, demanding on the part of both teacher and disciple
entire relinquishment of home comforts and even family obUgations;
inerrantly Jewish, linking itseK up with the prophetism of John the
Baptist, albeit heralding a new and more revolutionary order of things;
and in its later stages markedly eschatological, presenting the repentance
preacher as one who was to come again "in the name of the Lord'" to sit
in judgment, along with his close followers, upon the faithless and the
unrepentant. In the Fourth Gospel the discourse material is not so
much ethical as theological and apologetic. Here the practical gives
way to the philosophic treatment. The miracles are wrought not so
much for the amelioration of human conditions as for the settled purpose
of producing faith in Jesus as the heaven-sent Logos.2
Paul could conceive of greater exaltation coming to his Lord because
of the humihty of his coming to earth and the covenantal efficacy of his
death. In the Fourth Gospel there is no diminution at any time of
divine power on the part of Jesus. He maintains all through his career
the attitude of deity, knowing every event in the womb of the future.
As for the death of Jesus, instead of associating it with the setting aside
of the Jewish Law or with speculation regarding the righteousness of
God, the author of this Hellenistic-Christian message thinks of it as
being solely for the purpose of making possible a wider spreading of the
Logos than could obtain so long as it was confined in the earthly body
of Jesus. The cross, which had such doctrinal significance for the
thought of Paul, figures for the evangelist simply as an instrument for
the elevation of the earthly Jesus, that all may see in him the divine
essence and in acknowledging this fact may receive the same for them
selves.3 Mark could believe that the supernatural character of Jesus' person
and work dated from his baptism experience. Matthew and Luke
could go farther and find this pecuhar phenomenon attached to the birth.
It remained for the writer of the Fourth Gospel to carry the significance
back into eternity itself. To him the Logos was "in the beginning with
God" and in fact was identical with God.4 For him Jesus, the human
embodiment of this Logos, was able to say to his Jewish compatriots,
'Luke 13:35; Matt. 19:28. 3John3:i4.
"John 9:3; 11:4. "John 1:1. The Logos was " God-stuff ."

NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS 65
"Before Abraham was, I am.'" Matthew could find in the Jewish
Scriptures various references to the career of Jesus, especially with
regard to its messianic aspects.2 The evangelist makes Moses himseK a
specific witness to Jesus.3 The very Scriptures themselves testify of the
eternal IKe which Jesus mediates. In mystic fashion Abraham, the
progenitor of the Hebrew people, had communion with Jesus and
"rejoiced to see his day."4 The evangelist goes even farther than the
earher Gospel writers in demonstrating the way in which Scripture was
fulfilled in the events of Jesus' ministry. An example of this is found
in John 19: 28, where the writer represents Jesus in the last moments on
the cross as crying out, " I thirst," not because of dire physical need, but
in order " that the Scripture be fulfilled." This last reference is in com
plete accord with the dominant motif throughout the Fourth Gospel.
The result of its operation is seen in the fact that all the earthly incidents
and all the human features in the ministry of Jesus appear to have been
prearranged perfectly in a scheme having for its main object the revela
tion of the god or Logos element through every word and act of Jesus.
The miracle narratives almost without exception are set forth by the
writer, not in the natural and historical sequence observed more or less
clearly in the synoptic sources, but in order to serve as introductions to
long discourses in which Jesus teaches, in terms coined in a Hellenistic,
philosophic mint, doctrines having to do with the uniqueness of his
Logos-filled person and with the all-embracing significance of his mis
sion upon the earth. That this procedure does violence in any way to
historical credence or to the psychology of the Jewish mind creates no
problem for the author of the Fourth Gospel, although it has done this
for his interpreters almost ever since the appearance and first use of the
document in both Christian and non-Christian circles.
All the sources preceding the Fourth Gospel agree in making the
earthly career of Jesus preliminary to a future inauguration of a messianic
order. The official position of Jesus while upon earth is thought by their
compilers to be somewhat inferior to that which he gained through his
death and which is to be revealed in all its plenitude at the inception of
the apocalyptic regime. Throughout all these writings there is a forward
look. In the Fourth Gospel this forward look has to all intents and pur
poses entirely disappeared. Messianic hopes are no longer needed.
The coming of the spirit upon the first followers of Jesus— given by
the Evangehst as dating from the day of the resurrection experiences
'John 9: 58. 3 John 5:46.
2 Matt. 2:5, 6, 15, 23; 4:15; 21:5; 26:54; 27:9. <John9:56.

66 THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
and not from Pentecost' as stated by the other writers^-actually intro
duced the new order of things. This obviated all necessity for desiring a
future apocalyptic kingdom. In the view of the Johannine writer the
day of judgment is not a future necessity but a present and dark reality.2
It is not so much universal as individual, coming to each as he assumes
a definite attitude to Jesus as the heaven-sent Logos-Savior. In this
scheme no congruous place is left for Jewish national hopes attached to
the return of a messianic ruler. Jesus can face Pilate with the assertion
that he is king in a realm of truth standing aloof from all national or
poUtical affiliations and yet embracing every earthly and human rela
tion in a spiritual suzerainty.3 The emphasis in the earUer sources is
placed on the zeal and faithfulness of the Christian in preparation for
the imminent appearance of a new age.4 The emphasis in the Fourth
Gospel finds itseK coupled with passive acceptance of the Logos element
by faith in Jesus as the pre-eminent Logos-filled personage, and with
the enjoyment of a mystic union with the deity here and now.5 For
those who possess this experience an eternal spiritual order interpene
trating and glorifying all human affairs has become a satisfying rehgious
reality.6 This sketch of the development in early reflection upon the character
and work of Jesus gives a hint of the importance of viewing the New
Testament, not as a book whose parts dovetail into each other like
the chapters of a modern novel, but as a collection of writings each
with its own historical, political, social, and even topographical affilia
tions. To be rightly understood, the different messages of these various
documents must be related to the milieu of Ufe and thought from which
they emerged. To be correctly appreciated, the writers must be aUowed
to speak for themselves, each in his own tongue and each according to
the time and locaUty of his own rehgious experience. The dominating
idea throughout the New Testament is inseparably associated with the
one whose IKe and teaching are accepted as contributing in a singularly
unique fashion to the reUgious satisfaction of different individuals and
different communities. Each particular group creates an interpretation
of the hero's career in terms of its own religious achievements and ideals.
Each writer presents his Savior in relation to his own world-view.7 Thus
'John 20: 22. 3 John 19:38. 3 John 3:16, 36, etc.
2 John 3:18; 4:25. 4Matt. 24:14. 'John 6:41 ff.; 8:51; 12:36; 15:1ft.
' "The human mind is a structure which has grown up under certain conditions,
and the thoughts which it forms and the criticisms which it passes on its thoughts
depend upon that structure. Not only the thought but the experience which they
are to interpret is, again, conditioned." — L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, II, 267.

NEW TESTAMENT WORLD-VIEWS 67
can be traced in the New Testament various pictures of Jesus differing in
detail according to the world-views of the different groups, yet all agreeing
happily in the treatment of but one personahty, who was to them " the
Lord Jesus Christ."
Christianity of the so-called dogmatic type, whether CathoUc or
Protestant, building as it does its structure of religious concepts upon
foundations furnished by formularies of the first few centuries of our
era, has been satisfied, nay jealous, to guard a composite representation
of Jesus. On close examination this is found to assume an identical
plane, emotional, mental, and temporal, for the whole of the New Testa
ment literature. With the rapid progress of educational development
in present-day civilization there is growing, pari passu, an increasingly
intelligent demand for a reinterpretation of the hterary remains so
closely interwoven with the sources of the Christian religion; this in
order that the genetic connections and environmental affinities of such a
remarkable world-phenomenon may be more correctly observed and
appraised. If modern life in all its phases is to feel more potently the
impact of Christianity as a religious movement of supreme worth, this
reUgion must be loosed from the bondage, ecclesiastical or otherwise,
which inevitably prevents its being regarded as an integral part of
human development. Only as this is effected can Christianity with its
' many rich and varied elements come into true perspective as marking
out a pathway of vital reUgious experience trod by Jesus and his followers.
Such a procedure "calls for a restoration of the whole thought- world"
in which the New Testament writers and their first readers Uved and
worked.' The actual complex Ufe-conditions surrounding these men
of faith must be studied and interpreted in order that the triumphant
spirit which is the "prime original" of Christianity may come to its
own in the Ufe of men today.
' E. D. Burton in A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion, p. 177-

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INDEX

INDEX

Abraham, 59, 65
Academy, later, 11
Acts, Book of, 43, 55
Adonis, consort of Aphrodite in Syrian
cult, 49
Aeschines, 49
Ahriman, evil spirit of Persism, 15
Alexandria: literature of, 13; Judaism
in, 14
Anaxagoras, his principle of creation, 7
Aphrodite, 49
Apocalypse, 21
Apocalyptists, zjl, 28, 29, 35, 44
Apollinarian games, 49
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 50.
Aristarchus of Samos, 2
Aristippus, 9
Aristotle, 7, 8, 12, 14, 20
Asia Minor, 62
Assumption of Moses, 27
Astarte, 15, 49
Atargatis, 15, 49
Athens, 2
Attis, 49, 50
Augustus, 54, 62
Aurelian, 12
Baur, August, definition of Weltanschau
ung, 5
Bel, 12
Bel tis, 15
Bethlehem, 59
Boutroux, E. M. M., five stages of mystic
life, 40
Caesarea-Philippi, 41
Caird, Edward: compares Plato and
Aristotle, 8; Skeptics, n; mysticism,
37
Charles, R. H., on Philo's world-view, 14
Chrysippus, 12
Cicero, on the Skeptics, n
Cleanthes the Stoic, 2, 10, 28
Clement of Alexandria, 3, n. 1

Colossians, creation theory of, 21, 22
Corinthians, Epistle to, 27, 30, 31, 54
Crates, 31
Cumont, Franz, on rehgious societies, 50
Cybele, 49
Cynic-Stoics, 30, 48
David, 59
Delacroix Henri, three stages in mystic
life, 39, 42.
Demeter, 49
Democritus, 5
Demosthenes, 49
Dionysius the Areopagite, 38
Dionysus, 21, 49
Eleusinian games, 49
Enoch, Book of, 13, 27
Ephesians, Epistle to, 27, 30
Ephesus, 48, 63
Epictetus, 30
Epicurus, 5
Eshmun, 49
Eucken, Rudolf: on Plato, 6; on Aris
totle, 8
Galileo, 2
Gayomart, 15
Genesis: narratives, 22; cosmogony, 27
Gnostic, 13, 14, 15, 16, 29
Gomorrah, 18
Greece, 62
Hades, 17
Hebrews, Epistle to, 22, 31, 44
Helios, 12
Hellene, 3
Heraclitus, 3
Hesiod, 3
Hicks, R. D., concerning Stoic attitude
toward life, 10
Homer, his physics, 3
Ishtar, 48
Isis, 49

73

74

THE WORLD-VIEW OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL

Jerusalem, 63
John the Baptist, 57, 59, 64
Jonah, 60
Joseph, 59, 60
Latium, 62
Lazarus, 32
Levant, 17
Logia, 55, 58, 60
Logos: Stoic, 9; Philonic, 13; Johannine,
19, 20, 22 ff.t 28, 31, 36, 45 ff., 63 ff.
Lucius, 50
Maccabees, Fourth Book of, 13, 21
Marcus Aurelius, 11
Marduk, 26
Mark, Gospel of, 41, 57, 63 ff.
Martha, 32
Matthew, 41, 59 ft., 63 ff.
Messianism: Jewish, 54, 56, 58., 59;
Hellenistic, 62
Metamorphoses of Apuleius, 50
Mithras, 49, 54, 58
Moses, 44, 60
Musonius Rufus, 30, 31
Nathanael, 22
New Testament, 1, 17, 21
Nicodemus, 63
Noah, 56
Ormuzd, good spirit of Persism, 15
Orphic: hymns, 20; communities, 51
Palestine, 59
Palmyra, 12
Paul, 17 ff., 18, 28 ff., 42 ff., S3 ff-, 64
Pentecost, 66
Persephone, 21
Persian: its dualism, 15; world-empire,
52
Peter, 17; Second Epistle, 31
Pharisees, 63
Philo, 3; theology, 13; logos, 19, 21
Pilate, 66

Plato, 1, n. 1; world-view, 6 ff.; sidereal
ism, 12; Timaeus, 13, 20, 28
Plotinus, 39
Revelation, Book of, 27
Ritschl, definition of Weltanschauung, 5
Rome, 63
Sabazius, 49
Sadducees, 63
Samos, 2
Seneca, n, 28, 30, 31
Serapis, 49, 54
Sheol, 3
Shepherd of Hermas, 36
Sinai, 44
Skeptics, 11
Socrates, 2, 31
Sodom, 17
Sol Invictus, 12
Solomon, 60
Stoics: world-view, monistic, 9, 18;
world-soul, 22, 28, 29
Tammuz, 48
Temple, Jewish, 44
Tertullian, 49
Testaments of Twelve Patriarchs, 27
Thessalonica, 18
Thomas, 47
Tiamat, 26
Tigris-Euphrates, n, 26
Torah, 2, 36, 44, 53
Virgil, 62
Weltanschauung, definitions of, 5 ff.
Wisdom, Book of, 13, 17, 19, 21
Yom Yahweh, in Hebrew prophetism, 44
Zealots, 56
Zeno, 9
Zoroastrianism, 15

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