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UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 


LOS  r:\QELES 
LIBRARY 


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THE 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL. 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO  ASCERTAIN 


THE   CHARACTER   OF 


THE   FOIJIITH   GOSPEL 


ESPECIALLY  IN  ITS   RELATION   TO 


THE    THREE    FIRST. 


JOHN   JAMES   TAYLER,  B.A., 

MliMBliK    OF   THE    HISTOUICO-THEOLOGICAL   SOCIETY  OF  LEIPSIC,    AND   PRINCIPAL  OF 
MANCHESTER   NEW   COLLEGE,    LONDON. 


4>iAt]  KOI  TrpoTifj.uTa.Tr]  TrdfTwy  i]  aKrideia'  iizaivuv  re  xpV  i^o-i  (Tuvatvelv  a<pd6i'Ci>s, 
(I  Tj  opdws  \iyoiTO,  i^eTa^tif  Be  koI  SLtvOweiv.  ei  ti  (Ut;  (pdivoiTo  vytais  avayeypaix/xivov 
— Dionys.  Alexaudrin.  ap.  Euseb.  11.  P].  vii.  24. 


;  \  " 


WILLIAMS    AND    NORGATE, 

14,    HENKIETTA    STREET,    COVENT    GARDEN,    LONDON 
AND   20,  SOUTH   FREDERICK  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 

1867. 

^)  8  5  3  ? 


HERTFORIl  : 
PRINTKD   B1'    STEPHKN    AV9T1W. 


^ ':' 


_3S 


THE  RKY.  JOHN  KENRICK,  M.A.,  F.S.A., 

ETC., 

FOR     MORE     THAN     THIRTY    YEARS     CLASSICAL    AND     HISTORICAL    TUTOR    IN 

MANCHESTER    NEW   COLLEGE,    YORK; 

KNOWN   TO   THE    LEARNED     BY    HIS    ACUTE   AND    THOROUGH    RESEARCHES 

INTO   THE    HISTORY   AND    MYTHOLOGY  OF  THE   ANCIENT   WORLD  : 

NOT   AS   CLAIMING    HIS   ASSENT 

TO   CONCLUSIONS   WHICH    HE    MAY    NOT  ACCEPT, 

BUT   AS   A   FEEBLE   THOUGH    SINCERE    EXPRESSION    OF  THE   LOVE   OF    SCHOLARLY 

HONESTY"   IN    THE    PURSUIT   OF   TRUTH, 

WHICH    IT   WAS    THE   CONSTANT   AIM    OF   HIS    INSTRUCTIONS   TO    INSPIRE 

THIS     ATTEMPT 

TO    ELUCIDATE    AN    IMPORTANT   CRITICAL   QUESTION, 

IS, 

WITH   EVERY   SENTIMENT   OF   RESPECT  AND  GRATITUDE, 

INSCRIBED 

BY'   HIS    FRIEND   AND    FORMER    PUPIL, 

THE     AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 


The  conclusion  which  I  have  undertaken  to  maintain  in 
the  ensuing  pages,  has  not  been  hastily  adopted.  It  is  a 
result  of  the  gradual  triumph  of  what  has  seemed  to  me 
preponderant  evidence  over  an  earlier  belief.  For  years 
I  clung  tenaciously  to  the  opinion,  that  the  most  spiritual 
of  the  gospels  must  be  of  apostolic  origin.  Twice  I  read 
through  the  "  Probabilia "  of  Bretschneider,  and  the  con- 
viction still  remained  that,  in  the  choice  of  difficulties  which 
he  has  so  forcibly  stated,  more  truth  would  be  lost  by 
the  admission  than  by  the  rejection  of  his  theory.  On 
investigating,  however,  more  thoroughly  the  origin  of  the 
contents  of  our  New  Testament,  I  found  how  impossible 
it  was,  in  every  case  but  that  of  Paul,  to  establish  satis- 
factory evidence  of  direct  personal  authorship :  and  I  came 
at  length  to  the  full  persuasion,  that  the  one  point  of 
importance  to  ascertain  respecting  any  particular  book,  was 
simply  this; — that,  whoever  might  have  written  it,  it  be- 
longed to  the  first  age,  while  the  primitive  inspiration  was 
still  clear  and  strong, — and  that  it  could  be  regarded  as  a 
genuine  expression  of  the  faith  and  feeling  which  then 
prevailed.  Not  till  I  had  decidedly  embraced  this  view, 
was  my   mind   open   to   admit   the  just   inference   from   un- 


Till  PREFACE. 

deniable  premises,  and  prepared  to  accept  a  legitimate  result 
of  honest  criticism,  without  feeling  that  I  had  thereby  re- 
linquished what  the  distinctest  voice  of  my  inward  being 
assured  me  must  still  be  spiritual  truth.  I  rested  therefore 
in  the  general  conclusion,  that  evidence  of  the  immediate 
and  powerful  action  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  the  apostolic 
age,  was  a  matter  of  infinitely  greater  moment  than  the 
question  of  the  personality  of  any  of  its  human  agents. 

The  literature  of  this  controversy  respecting  the  Fourth 
Gospel  has  already  become  voluminous,  especially  in  Ger- 
many. I  do  not  profess  to  have  made  myself  master  of  the 
whole  of  it ;  though  it  wiH  be  seen,  that  I  am  not  un- 
acquainted with  what  has  been  contributed  by  some  of  the 
most  eminent  scholars  to  its  elucidation.  In  particular  I 
have  derived  great  assistance  from  the  learned  researches  of 
HUgenfeld  on  the  Paschal  question.  But  what  I  wished, 
without  attempting  to  compare  and  combine  the  divergent 
theories  of  others,  was  to  examine  anew  for  myself  the  ancient 
testimonies  on  which  they  have  founded  them  ;  in  order  to 
arrive,  if  possible,  from  personal  investigation,  at  an  in- 
dependent conclusion.  While  engaged  in  this  inquiry,  I 
was  unwilling  to  distract  my  attention  by  taking  into  view 
the  bearing  of  contemporary  researches  in  the  same  field ; 
and  this  must  plead  my  excuse  for  omitting  to  notice  some 
works  which  have  recently  appeared,  both  in  this  country 
and  on  the  continent,  by  men  whose  names  entitle  what- 
ever they  write  to  respectful  consideration.  If  our  con- 
clusions should   prove  substantially  identical,  they  will  have 


PREFACE.  IX 


more  weight,  as  coming  from  independent  witnesses.  If 
they  differ,  they  will  help  to  correct  and  modify  each  other. 

From  the  nature  of  the  present  investigation,  I  have 
to  ask  the  reader's  indulgence  for  a  frequent  citation  of 
original  authorities  which  may  be  felt  wearisome,  and  even 
look  pedantic.  But  the  question  is  one  which  can  only  be 
settled  by  a  direct  appeal  to  the  statements  of  ancient 
writers ;  and  if  those  writers  are  quoted  at  all,  they  must  be 
quoted  in  the  language  in  which  they  wrote,  as  the  appli- 
cability of  a  citation  to  the  point  at  issue  will  often  depend 
on  the  rendering  of  words,  and  the  construction  of  phrases, 
which  the  supporter  of  a  theory  is  always  liable  to  the  sus- 
picion, and  even  open  unconsciously  to  the  temptation,  of 
attempting  to  wrest  from  their  proper  meaning  to  his  own 
purpose.  Those  who  are  best  qualified  to  form  a  judgment 
on  the  case,  will  wish  to  have  the  whole  evidence  set  before 
them  at  once.  Mere  references,  however  exact,  would  have 
subjected  them  to  an  unreasonable  expenditure  of  time  and 
trouble  in  hunting  through  different  books  not  always  at 
hand,  to  ascertain  whether  the  authorities  have  been  rightly 
used  or  not.  I  have  confined  the  citations  for  the  most 
part  to  the  foot-notes.  When,  for  special  reasons,  I  have 
thought  it  necessary  in  a  few  instances  to  introduce  them 
into  the  text,  an  English  translation  is  always  subjoined. 

To  some,  perhaps,  an  apology  may  seem  due  for  having 
appended  to  a  purely  critical  disquisition,  the  practical  and 
spiritual  bearings  of  the  question,  which  I  have  considered 
at   some  length,  and   traced  to  their  probable  consequences, 


PREFACE. 


in  the  concluding  section  of  the  Essay.  It  will  be  objected 
possibly,  that  I  have  mixed  up  in  one  inquiry,  matters 
which  are  essentially  distinct — the  strictly  critical  and  the 
properly  religious.  I  think,  however,  that  the  artificial  re- 
lation in  which  theology  has  been  unhappily  placed  towards 
general  science,  has  led  to  the  drawing  of  too  sharp  and 
absolute  a  line  of  distinction  between  different  spheres  of 
mental  activity.  Our  nature  is  a  whole,  all  the  elements 
of  which  should  work  together  in  harmony.  I  do  not 
believe,  that  the  most  rigid  demands  of  the  intellect  and 
the  clearest  intuitions  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  sense,  when 
both  are  rightly  understood,  wiU  ever  be  found  at  variance. 
I  know  from  personal  experience,  that  it  was  an  apprehen- 
sion of  spiritual  loss,  which  kept  me  for  a  long  time  from 
accepting  the  plain  dictate  of  unbiassed  scholarship.  Not  till 
I  was  aware  of  the  gratuitous  assumption  on  which  that 
apprehension  was  based,  did  I  become  capable  of  admitting 
the  full  force  of  critical  evidence.  What  I  have  found  a 
relief  to  my  own  mind,  I  wished  to  suggest  as  possibly 
available  for  others  also. 

After  all,  there  are  excellent  men  who  will  regret,  I  am  well 
aware,  that  I  should  have  ever  raised  the  question  mooted  in 
these  pages.  Constantly  engaged  in  the  noble  work  of  prac- 
tical Christianity,  and  grounding  their  benevolent  ministry 
on  the  authority  of  the  New  Testament,  such  men  look — not 
unnaturally,  perhaps,  from  their  point  of  view — on  every 
attempt  to  invalidate  the  old  traditional  foimdations  of  our 
Protestant    theology,   as   an  encroachment    on    the    province 


PREFACE.  XI 

of  religion  itself,  as  some  weakening  of  the  blessed  power, 
which  they  conceive  the  popular  system  specially  carries 
with  it,  of  sustaining,  warning,  and  comforting  our  weak, 
sinful  and  suflPering  humanity.  Words  cannot  express  the 
reverence  in  which  I  hold  the  labours  of  such  men  as 
these.  The  chief  value  which  I  attach  to  critical  studies 
arises  from  my  belief,  that  they  will  ultimately  procure  a 
firmer  standing  point,  a  clearer  vision,  and  a  director  spiritual 
action  for  the  preachers  of  the  pure  and  everlasting  Gospel 
of  Christ.  Men  who  are  engaged  in  the  practical  adminis- 
tration of  Christianity,  draw  out  of  its  sacred  books,  by  a 
sort  of  elective  affinity,  all  those  elements  of  a  diviner  life 
which  belong  to  the  essence  of  our  spiritual  being,  which 
are  imperishable  and  eternal, — and  which  qualify,  at  least, 
if  they  cannot  wholly  neutralize,  the  less  pure  and  defensible 
adjuncts  historically  attached  to  them  in  the  great  tradition 
of  the  ages.  With  such  men,  the  practical  influence  of 
Christianity  is  so  overpoweringly  strong,  that  it  reduces  all 
speculative  difficulties  to  zero.  Their  disregard  of  these  diffi- 
culties, which  they  do  not  pretend  to  deny, — arises  from  no 
want  of  sincerity,  but  from  their  entire  absorption  for  the 
time  in  a  higher  interest.  The  scholar's  position  is  of  quite 
another  kind ;  and  it  is  difficult  for  men  so  very  differently 
placed,  fully  to  imderstand  each  other.  The  scholar,  as  a 
scholar,  lives  aloof  from  the  practical  interests  of  the  world, 
and  dwells  in  a  clear  and  quiet  atmosphere  of  thought, 
where  his  mind  cannot  fail  to  discern  the  mingled  elements 
of  truth  and  falsehood  that  enter  into  the  composite  mass  of 


xii  PREFACE. 

tradition  and  arbitrary  interpretation,  constituting  the  popular 
theology — its  groundless  assumptions,  its  illogical  inferences, 
and  its  perverse  apprehension  of  many  statements  of  fact, 
which  meant  one  thing  to  the  simple  age  which  first  wrote 
them  down,  and  mean  quite  another,  with  all  the  theories 
which  have  gathered  round  them,  now.  Yet  he  may  feel 
as  strongly  as  ever  the  deep  beauty  and  intrinsic  truth  of 
the  fundamental  convictions  and  trusts  which  are  imbedded 
in  these  old  traditions,  and  which  were  infused  into  them 
at  first,  as  they  are  still  kept  alive,  by  the  Spirit  of  the 
Omnipresent  God.  "What,  then,  is  the  scholar  to  do,  when 
he  has  girded  up  his  loins  like  a  man  to  search  for  truth 
at  all  cost,  and  the  demands  of  his  intellectual  and  spiritual 
nature  attack  him  with  forces  which  he  cannot  at  once  bring 
into  harmony ;  when  he  feels  that  there  is  truth  on  both 
sides  of  his  being,  which  he  cannot  as  yet  make  one  ?  He 
can  only  go  on  trustingly  and  reverently,  in  the  full  beKef 
that  truth,  wherever  it  leads  him,  is  the  voice  of  God; 
and  that  although  the  way  for  the  moment  may  be  per- 
plexed and  difficult,  if  that  voice  be  honestly  hearkened  to, 
it  will  certainly  conduct  him  to  rest  and  refreshment  at 
last.  He  can  only  say,  in  a  far  higher  sense  than  blind 
old  Samson,  to  the  Ie  visible  Power  on  which  he  leans — 

"A  little  onward  lend  thy  guiding  hand 
To  these  dark  steps,  a  little  further  on  ; 
For  yonder  bank  hath  choice  of  sun  or  shade." 

The  true  principle  of  Protestantism,  carried  to  its  legi- 
timate extent,  not  only  justifies  but  demands  the  fullest  and 
most  fearless  investigation  of  the  origin,  authorship,  and  com- 


PREFACE.  Xin 

position  of  the  books  which  form  our  sacred  Canon.  Pro- 
testantism was  avowedly  a  transference  of  authority  from 
human  councils  to  the  direct  utterances  of  the  voice  of  God. 
But  how  are  we  to  know  what  is  the  voice  of  God,  except 
by  exploring  the  sources  through  which  it  is  declared  to 
have  come  to  us,  and  clearly  understanding  the  conditions 
under  which  alone  it  can  be  credibly  conveyed?  One  thing 
is  certain,  a  true  religion  can  never  rest  on  false  history. 
We  must  first  test  the  historical  foundations,  before  any 
system,  however  fair  and  well-proportioned,  can  be  securely 
built  on  them.  A  Scripture  utterance  of  divine  truth  cannot 
be  interpreted  like  a  legal  instrument,  merely  by  a  literal 
acceptance  of  the  words  M'hich  it  contains.  We  must  go 
through  the  words  to  the  Spirit  which  fills  them  from  the 
Highest  Mind,  and  which  can  only  be  interpreted  by  a 
kindred  spirit  within  our  own.  The  old  Protestant  con- 
fessions, broader  than  the  theology  which  grew  out  of  them, 
appeal  to  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  the  last  instance  as 
the  consummating  evidence  of  divine  authority.  Luther, 
with  a  rough  boldness  of  speech,  which  would  have  made 
our  modern  scripturalists  stand  aghast,  maintained  that  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  was  the  only  decisive  test  of  the  apostolic 
origin :  "  Whatever  does  not  teach  Christ,  cannot  be  apostolic, 
though  it  were  taught  by  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul;  and  again, 
whatever  preaches  Christ,  will  be  apostolic,  though  it  were 
preached  by  Judas,  Ananias,  Pilate  and  Herod."  ^ 

1  Was  Christum  nicht  lehrt,  das  ist  noch  nicht  apostolisch,  wenn  es  gleich  S. 
Petms  oder  Paulus  lehrte ;  wiederum  was  Christum  predigt,  das  ware  apostolisch, 
wenns  gleich  Judas,  Hannas,  Pilatus  und  Herodes  that  ? 


xiv  PREFACE. 

If  the  essence  of  Christianity  be  the  self-consecration  of 
the  individual  soul  to  God  in  the  spirit  of  Christ,  then  the 
Spirit,  as  the  living  power  which  effectuates  that  union,  must 
be  above  every  written  record  of  its  utterance  and  working. 
It  wrought  with  marvellous  strength  in  Christ  and  his  apostles ; 
and  it  works  to  this  day  in  all  who  have  any  participation  in 
their  faith  and  love,  and  strive  to  prolong  their  mission  to  the 
world ;  and  thus  it  makes  the  true  people  of  God  one  from  age 
to  age  and  over  all  the  earth.  But  the  Scriptures  are  invaluable 
from  the  witness  which  they  bear  to  its  earliest  effusion  and 
freshest  operation.  It  is  this  consideration  which  has  enabled 
me  to  reconcile  an  undiminished  reverence  for  the  religious 
teaching  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  with  the  entertainment  of  views 
very  different  from  those  usually  held,  respecting  its  date  and 
authorship.  Should  my  conclusion  find  acceptance,  I  shall 
feel  satisfaction  in  the  thought  of  having  made  a  small  con- 
tribution to  that  advancing  tide  of  liberal  opinion  which  is 
irresistibly  bearing  onward  men's  minds  to  a  more  spiritual 
conception  of  Christianity,  and  to  wider  and  nobler  views 
of  human  duty  and  destination.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
should  appear  that  I  have  missed  the  truth,  the  copiousness, 
and,  as  I  believe,  the  fidelity  with  which  I  have  adduced 
the  premises  for  my  conclusions,  will  afford  the  readier 
means  of  my  refutation. 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  I. 

FAOK 

Statement  of  the  Question 1 

SECTION  II. 
The  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse  9 

SECTION  III. 
Historical  Notices  of  the  Apostle  John    15 

SECTION  IV. 
Comparison  of  foregoing  notices  mth  the  Works  ascribed  to  John  2o 

SECTION  V. 
Testimonies  to  the  Apocalypse   '. 28 

SECTION  VI. 
Eeaction  against  the  Apocalypse    42 

SECTION  VII. 
Testimonies  to  the  Fourth  Gospel 54 

SECTION  VIII. 
Internal  Indications  of  Age    88 

SECTION   IX. 
The  Paschal  Controversy 99 

SECTION  X. 
Chronology  of  the  Paschal  Question 124 

SECTION  XI. 
Eecapitulation  and  Result  143 

SECTION  XII. 
The  Religious  Bearing  of  the  Question    157 


ERRATA. 


For  part  read  past,  p.  11,  note  1,  1.  12. 

„  6\rie-l)s  read  aK-nOiji,  p.  21,  uote  1, 1.  2. 

„  |«o-rjj  read  C'^a-ns,  p.  28,  note  2,  1.  2. 

„  Athenagorus  read  Athenagoras,  p.  64,  1.  25. 

■    „  Ko\  read  Kal,  p.  HO,  note  1, 1.  1. 

„  TtpiaKovra  read  Tpio/corTa,  p.  139,  1.  23. 

„  intelligent  read  intelligible,  p.  148,  3rd  1.  from  bottom. 


THE 

CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL. 


SECTION    I. 

Statement  of  the  Question. 

"  MAN  KANN  MIT  RECHT  BEHAUPTEN,  ALLE  DAS  URCHRISTENTHTJM  BETREFFENDEN 
FRAGEN  HABEN  IHREN  EIGENTLICHEN  MITTELPUNKT  IN  DER  EINEN  FRAGE  :  WIE 
DER  TIEF-EINGREIFENDB  WIDERSPRUCH  ZU  LOS  EN  1ST,  WELCHER  IN  DEN  EVAN- 
GELIEN   SELBST   UNLAUGBAR   ZU    TAGE    LIEGT.' — F.  C.  BAUR, 

"how  the  UNDENIABLE  CONTRADICTIONS  OF  THE  EVANGELISTS  ARE  TO  BE  SOLVED, 
IS  THE  ONE  QUESTION  WHEREIN  CENTRES  EVERY  OTHER  RELATING  TO  PRIMITIVE 
CHRISTIANITY." 

Although  the  superstitious  feeling  with  which  the  mere 
letter  of  Scripture  is  often  regarded,  hinders  people  from  per- 
ceiving as  readily  as  they  otherwise  would,  the  distinctive 
character  of  its  several  books,  yet,  I  presume,  no  reader  of 
ordinary  attention  can  have  failed  to  discover  a  marked  dif- 
ference between  our  Three  First  Gospels,  or  as  they  are  now 
conveniently  designated,  from  the  common  view  which  they 
take  of  Christ's  ministry,  the  Synoptical  Gospels — and  the 
Fourth,  which  bears  the  name  of  John.  This  difference  goes 
much  deeper  than  mere  diversity  of  style  or  individuality  of 
conception — the  mere  omission,  or  insertion,  or  simple  re- 
arrangement of  particular  facts  and  particular  sayings ;  for  in 
these  more  superficial  aspects,  the  Three  First  Gospels  also 
differ  very  considerably  from  each  other.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  other  three  affects  the  whole 
conception  of  the  person  and  teaching  of  Christ,  and  the  funda- 
mental distribution  of  the  events  of  his  public  ministry.     The 


2  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Synoptical  Gospels,  notwithstanding  their  frequent  divergency 
on  collateral  points,  agree  generally  in  their  representation  of 
that  ministry  as  a  whole ;  often  coincide  to  the  very  letter  for 
entire  sentences  together,  especially  in  their  report  of  the  words 
of  Christ  himself;  and  evidently  contain  at  bottom  the  common 
Palestinian  tradition  respecting  him.  They  describe  him  as 
undergoing  with  many  of  his  countrjTnen  the  initiatory  baptism 
of  John,^  and  not  commencing  his  own  public  ministry  till  that 
of  the  Baptist  was  concluded-;  confining  his  labours,  in  the 
first  instance,  exclusively  to  Galilee  and  the  surrounding  dis- 
tricts ;  appealing  with  great  effect  to  the  Messianic  expectations 
of  his  time,  and  gathering  round  him  vast  multitudes  to  listen 
to  his  teachings  and  witness  his  wonderful  works,  as  he  journeyed 
from  town  to  town  and  from  village  to  village  to  the  extreme 
verge  of  northern  Palestine ;  gradually  unfolding  to  the  more 
devoted  and  confidential  of  his  disciples  both  the  height  of  his 
claims  and  the  destiny  which  awaited  him,  as  the  consciousness 
of  his  divine  mission  grew  and  deepened  in  his  own  "mind ;  and 
only  at  the  very  close  of  his  ministry,  coming  into  direct  colli- 
sion with  the  sacerdotal  and  rabbinical  party  at  Jerusalem 
which  procured  his  execution  by  the  Roman  government. 

If  we  except  what  is  called  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which 
contains  apparently  the  substance  of  discourses  delivered  at 
various  times  on  a  hill- side  near  Capernaum,  and  that  con- 
tinuous series  of  parables  occurring  between  the  9th  and  19th 
chapters  of  Luke's  Gospel,  where  we  have  probably  the  insertion 
of  a  similar  collection,^ — the  teachings  of  Christ,  as  preserved  in 
the  Sjmoptical  Gospels,  are  remarkable  for  their  occasional 
character  and  aphoristic  form,  always  called  forth  by  some 
casual  incident  or  encounter  in  the  course  of  his  missionary 

1  Matth.  iii.  15  ;  Marki.  9  ;    Luke  iii.  21. 

-  Matth.  iv.  12,  17  ;  Mark  i.  14.  The  same  fact  is  indicated,  though  not  so  dis- 
tinctly, by  I.uke.     CoiEpare  iii.  20  with  v.  33  and  vii.  18. 

3  The  limits  of  this  series,  Bishop  Marsh,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Origin  of  the  Three 
First  Gospels  (ch.  xvii.)  has  fixed  more  definitely  between  ix.  51  and  xviii.  14.  He 
supposed  it  to  contain  the  substance  of  a  yvccf^oXoyia  or  "collection  of  sayings,"  pre- 
viously in  existence.    We  find  here  some  most  beautiful  parables  peculiar  to  Luke. 


STATEMENT   OF   THE    QUESTION.  O 

wanderings,  and  never  expanding  into  any  connected  and 
lengthened  argumentation.  His  first  appeal  was  made,  as  he 
himself  says  (Matth.  x.  6  ;  xv.  24),  "to  the  lost  sheep  of  the 
house  of  Israel ;"  and  although  in  the  narrative  of  Luke,  which 
was  written  imder  Pauline  influence,  we  discern  already  the 
working  of  a  broader  and  more  cosmopolitan  principle,  yet 
generally  we  may  say,  that  throughout  the  Sjiioptical  Gospels 
the  teachings  of  Christ  assume  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  as 
their  basis,  and  are  intended  to  bring  out  the  deep  spiritual 
significance  that  was  hidden  in  them.^  The  Three  First  Gospels 
divide  the  public  ministry  of  Christ  into  two  distinctly  marked 
and  broadly^^^pafated  periods, — that  which  was  passed  in 
Galilee,  and  that  which  was  passed  in  Jerusalem.  The  first  of 
these  periods  is  introduced  by  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  on  Jesus 
at  his  baptism  by  John ;  the  second,  by  the  transfiguration, 
which  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  a  renewal  and  a  re- 
enforcement  of  the  original  consecration  at  baptism.^  This  dis- 
tribution of  events  into  two  periods,  with  the  initiations  of  the 

^  In  Matthew  (x.  5)  Christ  says  expressly  to  the  twelve  :  "  Go  not  into  the  way 
of  the  Gentiles,  and  into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans  enter  ye  not."  Luke,  notwith- 
standing his  mention  of  the  refusal  of  some  Samaritans  to  receive  him  into  their 
village,  "because  his  face  was  set  to  go  to  Jerusalem"  (ix.  53),  does  not,  however, 
represent  him  as  limiting  his  instructions  to  the  seventy  by  any  such  prohibition  as 
Matthew  puts  into  the  commission  of  the  twelve,  and  even  tells  us  that,  on  his  way  to 
Jerusalem,  "he  passed  through  the  midst  of  Samaria  and  Galilee"  (xvii.  11).  It  is 
observable,  moreover,  that  in  the  sections  peculiar  to  Luke,  the  great  lessons  of  human 
brotherhood  and  devout  thankfulness  are  enforced  by  the  example  of  a  Samaritan 
(x.  33  ;  xvii.  6).  Yet  Luke  says,  as  distinctly  as  Matthew  himself:  "It is  easier  for 
heaven  and  earth  to  pass,  than  one  tittle  of  the  law  to  fail"  (xvi.  17).  Nowhere  iu 
Luke  do  we  meet  with  such  strong  and  apparently  such  exclusive  language  as  occurs 
in  John  :  iy<Ii  itfj,t  t)  6upa  tSiv  ■npo^a.TuV  wavres  oaoi  ii\6ov  irp6  ffiov,  KKi-mai.  ha\p 
Koi  Kriarcu.  (x.  7,  8). 

•  The  words  on  the  two  occasions  are  nearly  identical  in  all  three  Evangelists : 
Matth.  iii.  17,  and  xvii.  5 ;  Mark  i.  11,  and  ix.  7 ;  Luke  iii.  22,  and  ix.  35.  The 
transflguration  marks  the  turning  point  of  the  synoptical  narrative,  and  divides  it 
into  two  sections  which  differ  perceptibly  in  character  and  significance  from  each 
other.  Only  Simon  Peter  and  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee  are  admitted  to  the  ti'ans- 
figuration,  as  best  qualified  of  all  the  twelve  to  enter  into  the  higher  meaning  and 
inevitable  conditions  of  the  Messianic  office,  which  Jesus  was  now  beginning  more 
undisguisedly  to  assume.  About  this  period  of  his  ministry,  we  find  him  for  the  first 
time  speaking  quite  openly  of  his  death  and  resurrection.  Compare  Matth.  xvi.  21 ; 
xvii.  12,  22,  23 ;  Mark  ix.  9-12  ;  x,  33,  34  ;  Luke  ix.  31,  44,  45. 


4  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

baptism  and  the  transfiguration  severally  prefixed  to  each, 
marks  with  the  strongest  characters  the  common  type  of  the 
synoptical  conception  of  the  public  ministry  of  Christ. 

In  all  these  respects  the  Fourth  Gospel  stands  out  in  decided 
contrast  and  contradiction  to  the  Three  First.  It  omits  all 
mention  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  by  John.  It  represents  John 
as  saying  at  once,  on  seeing  the  Spirit  descend  on  Jesus,  "  Be- 
hold the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world"  ^ 
(i.  29,  comp.  31-34) ;  and  Andrew,  after  his  first  interview 
with  Jesus,  declaring  to  his  brother  Peter,  "  we  have  found  the 
Messias"  (i.  41) ;  a  declaration  shortly  afterwards  repeated  more 
at  full  by  Philip  to  Nathaniel,  "  We  have  found  him,  of  whom 
Moses  in  the  law  and  the  prophets  did  write,  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
the  son  of  Joseph"  (i.  45).  Instead  of  postponing  the  com- 
mencement of  Christ's  ministry  till  John  was  cast  into  prison, 
the  Fourth  Evangelist  describes  it  as  subsisting  for  some  time 
side  by  side  with  that  of  John, — the  two  preachers  baptizing 
together  in  the  same  neighbourhood  (John  iii.  22,  23).  Instead 
of  cautiously  advancing  his  claims,  and  only  towards  the  close 
of  his  ministry  distinctly  announcing  himself  as  the  Christ — 
Jesus,  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  from  the  very  first  reveals  his  high 
character  and  office  by  an  mireserved  disclosure  of  the  Divine 
Word  that  was  incarnate  in  him,  and  engaged  in  oj)en  discussion 
respecting  his  claims  to  authority  with  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem 
and  elsewhere^  (John  i.  ii..  iii.).  In  no  instance  is  the  difierence 
between  the  sjnioptical  and  the  Johannine  narrative  more  strik- 
ingly exemplified,  than  in  the  position  which  they  respectively 
assign  to  the  expulsion  of  the  money-changers  from  the  Temple. 
The  Fourth  Gospel  puts  it  at  the  opening  of  Christ's  ministry, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  first  Passover, — with  a  view,  no  doubt, 
to  establish  his  prophetic  authority  from  the  first  in  the  face  of 
the  Jews,  and  to  give  him  at  once  the  vantage-ground  which 

^  This  is  irreconcileable  with  the  later  inquiry  of  the  Baptist,  recorded  by  Matth. 
li.  3,  and  Luke  vii.  19,—"  Art  thou  he  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another  ?" 
'  Compare  Matthew  xvi.  20. 


STATEMENT   OF   THE   QUESTIOX.  O 

he  is  described  as  occupying  in  his  subsequent  controversy  with 
them  through  the  sequel  of  the  history.  The  only  wonder  is, 
how  at  such  a  time,  after  such  an  act,  he  should  have  escaped 
alive  out  of  the  hands  of  his  enemies ;  especially  when  we  re- 
member what   befel   him  for  not   strongrer  lanoruaffe  or  more 

o  Do 

violent  proceedings  during  his  last  visit  to  Jerusalem.  The 
Synoptists,^  with  certainly  far  more  semblance  of  probability, 
place  this  transaction  at  the  end  of  his  public  life,  after  his 
triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem,  when  he  had  already  acquired 
a  wide-spread  prophetic  fame,  and  numbers  believed  in  him, 
and  he  had  an  enthusiastic  multitude  at  his  back  to  support  his 
claims.  In  the  Three  First  Gospels  we  have  the  picture,  exceed- 
ingly vivid  and  natural,  of  a  great  moral  and  religious  reformer, 
cautiously  making  his  way  through  the  prejudices  and  miscon- 
ceptions of  his  contemporaries,  gradually  obtaining  their  confi- 
dence and  changing  the  direction  of  their  hopes,  and  onl}?" 
reaching  the  full  climax  of  his  personal  influence  in  the  period 
immediately  preceding  his  death.  In  the  Fourth,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  unclouded  glory  of  the  Son  of  God  shines  out  com- 
plete from  the  first,  and  is  sustained  imdiminished  till  the  words 
"It  is  finished"  announce  its  withdrawal  from  earth — saved 
through  the  whole  intervening  period  from  the  extinction  which 
seema  every  moment  to  threaten  it,  by  the  mysterious  protection 
indicated  in  the  significant  phrase  peculiar  to  this  gospel,  "  My 
hour  is  not  yet  come."  Interwrought  inextricably  with  the 
texture  of  the  synoptical  narrative  we  meet  with  records  of 
healing  and  restorative  agency,  which  forms  a  large  part  of  the 
.  daily  work  of  the  prophet  of  Nazareth ;  and  amidst  which  the 
casting  out  of  demons  and  unclean  spirits  holds  a  conspicuous 
place.  Instead  of  this,  the  Fourth  Gospel  presents  us  with  a 
selection  of  just  seven  miracles,-  intended  apparently  to  furnish. 

^  The  Germans  use  the  word  Rynopiiker.  But  s!/noptic  (awoTrriKos)  more  pro- 
perly deuotes  the  work  than  the  author.  There  is-  sufficient  authority  for  the  Greek, 
verb  oTTTi'^w  (see  Liddell  and  Scott's  Lexicon)  to  justify  the  adoption  of  so  convenient 
a  derivative  as  Sijnoptist,  to  express  the  collective  writers  of  the  Three  First  Gospels. 
2  (1)  ii.  6-11 ;  (2)  iv.  46-54 ;  (3)  v.  5-9 ;  (4)  vi.  11-14 ;  (o)  vi.  19-21 ;'  (6)  ix. 
1-12  ;  (7)  xi.  1-46. 


6  CHARACTER    OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

a  specimen  of  tlie  various  modes  and  occasions  of  Christ's  mira- 
culous working,  and  closing  with  the  greatest  instance  of  all — 
the  raising  of  Lazarus  from  the  dead.  Among  these  miracles 
not  one  case  occurs  of  the  cure  of  a  demoniac,  though  cures  of 
this  description  might  almost  be  described  as  the  characteristic 
feature  of  the  miraculous  element  of  the  Synoptists.  For  the 
pithy  sayings  and  popular  parables  of  the  Three  First  Gospels, 
the  Fourth  substitutes  long  argumentative  discourses,  reiterating 
incessantly  (as  if  the  writer  was  labouring  with  the  weight  of 
thoughts  which  he  could  not  at  once  adequately  express),  in 
words  but  slightly  varied,  the  same  absorbing  idea  ;  at  times 
apparently  encountering  forms  of  error  and  anticipating  objec- 
tions which,  if  the  sjmoptic  narration  be  true,  could  hardly  yet 
have  come  into  existence.  We  have  not  here  the  varied,  inter- 
woven miscellany  of  history  and  doctrine,  of  miracle  and  para- 
ble, which  the  Three  First  Gospels  so  graphically  present,  but 
one  smooth,  continuous  flow  of  exhortation  and  disputation 
poured  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  book,  with  a  few 
most  exquisite  narratives  interspersed,  standing  out  like  islets 
of  rare  beauty  in  the  broad  expanse  of  some  quiet  lake.  Instead 
of  confining  the  earlier  part  of  Christ's  ministry,  with  the 
Synoptists,  exclusively  to  Galilee,  and  bringing  him  up  for  only 
one  Passover  to  Jerusalem,  when  he  met  his  fate, — the  Fourth 
Gospel  represents  him  as  dividing  his  time  almost  equally  from 
the  first  between  Galilee  and  Jerusalem,  and  attending  two  if 
not  three  Passovers  in  the  Holy  City.^ 

It  must  be  obvious,  I  think,  to  every  one  who  has  carefully 
gone  through  the  foregoing  comparison,  that  the  old  theory 
which  so  long  found  favour  in  the  Church,  of  John's  having 
written  his  gospel  to  fill  up  and  complete  the  earlier  three,  does 
not  meet  the  actual  conditions  of  the  case.^     John's  is  not  so 

'  There  is  no  uncertainty  about  two  Passovers — those  mentioned  ii.  13,  and 
xiii.  1.  From  comparing  vi.  4  with  vii.  2,  we  know  that  a  Passover  must  have  inter- 
vened, which  vii.  1  renders  it  probable  Jesus  had  attended. 

*  This  theory  was  first  broached  "by  Eusebius  (H.E.  iii.  24),  who  says,  "  that  John 
was  induced  to  write,  having  previously  confined  himself  aypdcp(f>  Krtpvynan,  by  ob- 


STATEMENT   OF   THE    QUESTION.  / 

mucli  another,  as  in  one  sense  a  diflferent  gospel.^  It  is  im- 
possible to  harmonize  the  two  forms  of  the  narrative.  One 
excludes  the  other.  '  If  the  Three  First  Gospels  represent 
Christ's  public  ministry  truly,  the  Fourth  cannot  be  accepted  as 
simple,  reliable  history.  If  we  assume  the  truth  of  the  Fourth, 
we  must  reject  on  some  fundamental  points  the  evidence  of  the 
Three  Firsti  The  question  is,  which  of  these  two  narratives 
are  we  to  take  as  our  guide,  and  accept  as  authentic  for  the 
main  facts  of  the  life  of  Jesus  ?  Must  we  control  the  state- 
ments of  the  Synoptists  by  those  of  John,  or  those  of  John  by 
the  Synoptists  ?  The  decision  of  this  question  will  be  followed 
by  consequences  of  some  moment.  It  will  affect  our  whole  con- 
ception of  the  person  and  doctrine  of  Christ ;  modify  to  some 
extent  our  view  of  the  religion  originally  taught  by  himself ; 
and  must  doubtless  contribute  to  the  settlement  of  some  contro- 

serving  that  the  Three  First  Evangelists —the  correctness  of  whose  actual  narrative  he 
confirmed— had  omitted  all  notice  of  Christ's  public  ministry  previous  to  the  imprison- 
ment of  the  Baptist,  and  had  thus  made  it  last  but  one  year.  It  was  this  omission  which 
he  specially  proposed  to  supply ;  and  the  simple  ret;ognition  of  this  fact  Eusebius  thought 
sufficient  to  bring  the  Four  Gospels  into  perfect  harmony :  oh  /col  iiTLar-r^aavTi  ovk^t 
&v  5(i|ai  ^la^o^viLV  'a\\7]\ois  to,  evayyeAia,  t£  rh  fxev  Kara  'Icvavvrip  to  irpipTa  rwv 
Tov  XpiCTTOv  TTpd^ewv  Trepie'xeij',  to,  5e  \oLTa  TrjV  eVi  Te\6J  rov  xpovov  a.vr^  -yeyivqixevriy 
icTTopiav.  How  superficial  and  inadequate  this  solution  of  the  difiiculty  is,  the  foregoing 
comparison  will  show.  Jerome  (de  Vir.  111.  i.  9)  has  copied  this  explanation  of 
Eusebius,  with  still  looser  application  to  the  facts  of  the  case.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
(cited  by  Eusebius,  H.E.  vi.  14)  has  suggested  another  theory,  viz.,  "That  whereat 
the  three  earlier  gospels  contained  the  corporeal  side  of  the  history  {to.  crufMaTiKa), 
John,  at  the  earnest  request  of  his  friends,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  Spirit,  pro- 
duced a  spiritual  gospel."  This  theory,  rightly  understood,  is  nearer  the  truth  than 
that  of  Eusebius.  When  all  the  four  gospels  got  a  place  in  the  canon,  and  the  differ- 
ence between  the  Fourth  and  the  Three  First  was  still  undeniable,  it  was  thought  neces- 
sary to  devise  some  mode  of  reconciling  them,  which  should  leave  the  historical 
authority  of  each  untouched.  The  assumption  of  this  necessity  prevented,  as  it  still 
prevents,  the  discovery  of  the  true  relation  between  them. 

1  I  do  not  think  this  language  too  strong  for  the  particular  fact  which  it  is  in- 
tended to  express ;  but  I  must  not  be  understood  as  meaning  to  deny  the  ultimate 
ascription  of  all  the  gospels,  the  Fourth  not  less  than  the  Three  First,  to  a  common 
spiritual  source  in  Christ  himself.  Indeed,  apart  from  the  pre-supposition  of  some 
great  spiritual  power  which  had  come  into  the  world,  quickening  into  intenser  life  the 
kindred  elements  of  humanity,  and  diffusing  among  men  a  new  religious  awakening 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  its  own  living  presence  on  earth,  the  origin  of  a  work  like  the 
Fourth  Gospel  would  be  to  me  a  still  more  inexplicable  enigma  than  eyen  the  simpler 
narrative  of  the  Synoptists. 


8  CHARACTER   OF    THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

versles  which  have  long  hopelessly  divided  Christendom.  The 
question,  therefore,  to  the  investigation  of  which  the  following 
pages  are  devoted,  is  not  one  of  mere  speculative  and  critical 
interest  without  obvious  result,  but  carries  with  it  a  grave  and 
practical  import.  To  the  early  existence  of  the  substance,  at 
least,  of  two  of  our  synoptical  gospels — those  of  Matthew  and 
Mark — we  have  direct  and  very  early,  if  not  contemporary, 
testimony  ;  ^  and  Luke's  preface  bears  witness  to  the  care  which 
he  took  in  sifting  and  tracing  to  their  source,  the  various  tradi- 
tions which  he  found  current  respecting  the  life  of  Jesus.  All 
three  agree  in  the  main  outlines  of  their  narrative ;  their  style  is 
marked  with  a  strong  character  of  simplicity  and  naturalness  ; 
and  their  very  differences  attest  the  presence  of  some  great 
underlying  historical  reality,  which  different  traditions  had 
variously  caught  up,  and  transmitted  through  divers  media  of 
conception  and  realization  to  those  who  first  put  the  history 
into  writing.  Against  such  obvious  claims  to  general  trust  on 
the  part  of  the  Synoptical  Gospels,  we  ought  to  possess  the  most 
unanswerable  evidence  of  direct  apostolic  origin,  to  supersede 
them  as  historical  authorities  by  a  book — in  which  all  the  traces 
of  primitive  tradition,  even  the  characteristic  words  of  the 
great  Teacher  himself,  seem  dissolved  and  washed  away  in  the 
sweeping  tide  of  the  writer's  own  thought — where  doctrine, 
not  history,  has  evidently  been  the  animating  impulse. 

I  In  the  fi-agments  of  Papias  preserved  by  Eusebius  (H.E.  iii.  39).  Sec  also 
Rontb's  Eeliquife  Sacroe,  Tom.  i.  p.  7  seq.  Papias  declared,  he  had  conversed  with 
those  who  had  conversed  with  the  apostles. 


SECTION  II. 

On  the  possihiUty  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  ApocaJ ijpse  having 
the  same  author. 

In  the  New  Testament  are  two  books,  each  of  which 
has  been  ascribed  by  tradition,  and  a  certain  amount  of  early 
testimony,  to  the  apostle  John — the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the 
Apocalypse.  Can  both  of  these  have  been  the  production  of 
the  same  mind  ?  The  settlement  of  that  preliminary  question 
has  a  direct  bearing  on  the  determination  of  the  authenticity  of 
either.  It  has  been  urged  by  those  who  affirm  the  identity  of 
authorship,  that  the  difference  of  style  and  manner  and  under- 
lying tone  of  thought,  which  is  perceptible  on  the  most  cursory 
reading,  between  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Fourth  Gospel,  is 
simply  the  difference  between  a  young  and  an  old  mind — 
between  the  sensuous  fire  and  brilliancy  of  a  yet  unsubdued 
imagination,  and  the  serener  light  of  a  spirit  mellowed  by  years 
and  experience.^  This  explanation  seems  plausible,  till  we  look 
more  narrowly  into  the  nature  and  grounds  of  the  difference 
between  the  two  writers.  For  it  is  a  difference  not  resolvable 
into  any  conceivable  amount  of  progressive  development  out  of 
a  common  mental  root,  but  a  difference  so  marked  and  so 
characteristic  as  to  imply  a  radical  distinctness  in  origin.  The 
writer  of  the  Apocalypse  has  a  mind  essentially  objective.  He 
realizes  his  conceptions  through  vision.      He  transports  himself 

1  Longinus  explained  on  this  ground  the  difference  between  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey,  without  doubting  for  a  moment,  that  both  were  the  production  of  Homer. 
The  Iliad  was  the  fruit  of  his  mature  genius  (sV  i/c^u^  iruevfiaros  ypacponevr)),  the 
Odyssey  of  his  age—yripas  S'tJ/xcos  (he  adds  with  graceful  rhetoric)  'Oyu-^pou.  (De 
Sublim.  ix.)     Modem  criticism  has  not,  however,  ratified  his  judgment. 


10  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

into  an  imaginary  world,  and  speaks  as  if  it  were  constantly 
present  to  his  sense — introducing  its  ever-shifting  scenes  by 
"  I  saw,"  "  I  looked,"  "  I  heard,"  "  I  stood."  His  colouring  is 
warm  and  gorgeous,  and  his  lights  and  shadows  are  broadly 
contrasted.  His  whole  book  is  pervaded  with  the  glow,  and 
breathes  the  vehement  and  fierce  spirit,  of  the  old  Hebrew 
prophecy,  painting  vividly  to  the  mental  eye,  but  never  appeal- 
ing directly  to  the  spiritual  perception  of  the  soul.  "When  we 
turn  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  we  find  ourselves  at  once  in  another 
atmosphere  of  thought,  full  of  deep  yearnings  after  the  unseen 
and  eternal,  ever  soaring  into  a  region  which  the  imagery  of 
things  visible  cannot  reach ;  even  in  its  descriptions  marked  by 
a  certain  contemplative  quietness,  as  if  it  looked  at  things 
without  from  the  retired  depths  of  the  soul  within.  It 
exhibits  but  a  slight  tinge  of  Hebraic  objectiveness,  and 
throughout  seems  striving  to  express  its  sense  of  spiritual 
realities  in  the  more  abstract  phraseology  which  the  wide 
difiiision  of  Hellenic  culture  had  rendered  current  in  the  world 
at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era.  It  has  been  said, 
indeed,  that  both  writers  are  distinguished  by  a  remarkable 
power  of  objective  presentation.  In  a  certain  sense,  this  is 
true.  But  in  how  difierent  a  way  is  it  shown  ?  Compare,  for 
instance,  the  awful  description  of  the  efiect  of  opening  the  sixth 
seal,  and  that  ghastly  procession  of  the  horses  which  precedes  it, 
in  the  Apocalypse  (vi.  12-17  and  1-8),  where  every  word 
vibrates,  as  it  were,  with  the  throbbing  pulse  of  an  excited 
imagination, — and  that  marvellously  graphic  story  of  the  man 
born  blind,  or  the  exquisite  pathos  with  which  the  raising  of 
Lazarus  is  narrated,  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  (ix.  and  xi.),  where 
all  is  so  clear  and  yet  so  calm  and  still,  as  if  the  writer  had 
looked  "the  fading  traditions  of  the  past  into  distinctness,  as 
enthusiasts  for  art  have  been  said  by  dint  of  gazing  to  call  back 
into  their  original  vividness  the  decaying  colours  and  crumbling 
outlines  of  the  Last  Supper  of  Da  Vinci  on  the  wall  of  the 
refectory   at  Milan.      We   at   once  recognise  in  the   authors 


FOURTH   GOSPEL   AND    ArOCALYPSE.  11 

of  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Gospel  a  genius  essentially  distinct.^ 
The  language  of  the  two  writers  is  as  different  as  their  cha- 
racteristic modes  of  conception  and  thought.  The  style  of  the 
Apocalypse  is  perfectly  barbarous — Hebrew  done  into  Greek, 
with  a  constant  violation  of  the  most  ordinary  laws  of  con- 
struction.2  The  Greek  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  without  being 
classical,  is  still  fluent,  perspicuous,  and  grammatical.  Some 
diversity  of  style,  it  is  true,  might  be  expected  in  the  two 
works,  owing  to  the  different  subjects  of  which  they  treat, 
even  supposing  them  to  have  come  from  the  same  hand.  But 
there   are   certain   little  peculiarities  of  expression   and   con- 


^  This  power  of  objective  presentation,  by  which  a  scene  is  brought  up  distinctly 
before  the  reader's  mind,  has  been  assumed  too  readily  as  an  evidence  of  autopsy, 
-Unless  supported  by  other  testimony,  it  proves  nothing  but  the  peculiar  genius  of  the 
writer — his  way  of  realizing  to  himself  the  events  which  he  has  to  record.  How  ex- 
tremely vivid,  how  true,  how  real,  are  many  of  the  descriptions  in  the  book  of  Genesis, 
in  Homer,  and  in  Herodotus !  We  seem  to  see  with  our  own  eyes  what  they 
narrate.  The  men  and  women  actually  live  and  speak  before  us.  Yet  we  know,  that 
nothing  but  tradition,  which  lives  through  its  very  vividness,  could  have  furnished  the 
material  of  these  stories.  The  oldest  traditions  in  the  world  are  the  most  picturesque. 
Tradition  naturally  produces  vivid  and  pictui'esque  narration.  It  is  easy  to  per- 
ceive why  it  must  be  so.  When  men  have  a  strong  interest  to  throw  their  thoughts 
backward,  and  try  to  reproduce  the  vanished  part,  imagination  is  the  faculty  by  which 
they  arrest,  and  combine,  and  shape  into  definite  form,  and  animate  with  a  kind  of  second- 
ary reality,  the  vague  and  iloating  rumours  which  dimly  envelope  their  minds.  The 
critical  sifting  of  evidence  is  a  process  as  yet  unknown  and  inconceivable.  The  more 
distinct  the  picture  which  they  can  make  out  of  their  materials,  the  stronger  is  their 
assurance  that  it  represents  the  truth.  They  accept  it  as  a  divine  inspiration.  For 
memory  and  imagination  have  hardly  as  yet  acquired  a  distinct  exercise.  All  early 
tradition  is  poetry.  Mnemosyne  was  the  mother  of  the  Muses.  When  Homer  is 
abont  to  lay  some  unusual  stress  on  his  memory,  as  in  the  recital  of  the  forces  which 
came  to  the  war  of  Troy,  he  invokes  the  Muses. 

"Eo7r€T€  vvv  fjLoi  MoutTOj,  '0\vfj.Tria  5a>;uaT'  €%'""''''"' 

'T/j-fTs  yap  fleai  eVre,  rrdpiffre  re,  tare  re  iravra, 

'H/i?£s  Se  k\4os  Ziov  'aKovofjLiv,  ov5i  ri  "iSniv.  B.  484-6.  Compare  also  A.  218. 
The  power  under  given  circumstances  still  operates  in  the  heart  of  modern  civilization. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  has  thus  described  in  his  own  felicitous  manner  the  marvellously 
reproductive  faculty  of  Old  Mortality.  "  One  would  have  almost  supposed  he  must 
have  been  their  contemporary,  and  have  actually  beheld  the  passages  which  he  related, 
so  much  had  he  identified  his  feelings  and  opinions  with  theirs,  and  so  much  had  his 
narrations  the  circumstantiality  of  an  eye-witness."  Ch.  I.  "  Vetustas  res  scribenti 
nescio  quo  pacto  antiquus  fit  animus,  et  quiedam  religio  tenet."  Liv.  Hist,  xliii.  13  (15). 
-  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  (Euseb.  H.  E.  vii.  25)   describes  it  as  'jSico/iao-t   juef 


12  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

struction,  clinging  to  tlie  inmost  texture  of  an  author's  style, 
and  resulting  from  the  very  make  and  working  of  his  own 
mind,  which  imprint  themselves  on  everything  that  he  writes, 
and  the  presence  or  absence  of  which  supplies  an  unfailing 
criterion  of  authenticity.  Such  peculiarities  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  are,  among  others,  its  constant  use  of  Xva  with  the  con- 
junctive* for  the  ordinary  construction  with  the  infinitive — its 
fondness  for  ovv  as  a  connecting  link  in  narration,  and  its 
employment  of  ovTo<i  and  eKelvo'i  with  a  singular  union  of 
demonstrative  and  relative  force.  These  pecularities  are  wholly 
wanting  in  the  Apocalypse.^  Some  have  insisted  on  the  wide 
interval  that  probably  separated  the  appearance  of  the  two 
works,  as  afibrding  time  sufficient  for  a  gradual  change  of  views 
and  the  acquirement  of  a  more  comj)lete  mastery  of  the  Greek 
language.  The  most  probable  date  for  the  composition  of  the 
Apocaljqjse  must  be  placed  somewhere  between  60  and  70  a.d. 
— the  reign  of  Galba,  and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem."^  Now, 
suj)posing  John  to  have  been  not  more  than  18  or  20  when  he 
joined  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  he  must  have  been  close  upon 
50,  at  the  very  least,  when  the  Apocalypse  was  written — a  time 
of  life  when  men's  views  and  habits  of  thought  and  expression 
are  for  the  most  part  permanently  fixed.  If  he  wrote  his 
Gospel,  as  is  usually  maintained,  in  extreme  old  age,  at  the  very 
close  of  the  century,  this  would  leave  an  interval  of  little  more 
than  thirty  years  between  the  composition  of  the  two  works.  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  so  complete  a  transformation  of  the 
whole  genius  of  a  Avriter  between  mature  life  and  old  age,  as  is 
imj)lied  in  the  supposition  that  John  could  be  the  author  at  once 
of  the  Apocalypse  and  the  GosjdcI,  is  without  a  precedent  in 


1  De  Wctte  lias  given  a  full  recital  of  the  peculiarities  of  expression  which  distinguish 
the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse  from  each  other.  (Einleit.  ins  N,  T.  §  105  c.  b. 
§  189,  b.  c.  d). 

2  Ewald  (Coram,  in  Apocal.  \  7),  De  Wette  (Einl.  N.  T.,  §  187),  LUcke  (Einl. 
§  57),  Bleek  (Beitr.  p.  81)  agree  substantially  in  this  date,  which  carries  internal 
probability  along  with  it.  Newton  put  it  as  far  back  as  the  reign  of  Nero.  Irenajus 
carried  it  forward  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domitian. 


FOURTH   GOSPEL   AND   APOCALYPSE.  13 

the  liistorj'-  of  the  human  mind,  and  seems  to  me  to  involve  a 
psychological  impossibility. 

The  case  may  be  illustrated  to  the  English  reader  from  our 
own  literature.  Two  of  our  greatest  poets  passed  through 
remarkable  mental  changes.  Milton's  earliest  and  latest  poems 
are  separated  by  the  chasm  of  the  civil  wars  ;  and  the  stern 
Puritanism  of  the  Samson  Agonistes  with  the  severity  of  its 
Hellenic  form,  is  strikingly  distinguished  from  the  joyous, 
romantic  spirit  and  the  cavalier-like  appreciation  of  every- 
thing graceful  and  gay,  which  pervade  the  Comus  and  the 
Arcades,  many  of  his  early  sonnets,  and  those  exquisite 
pendents,  L' Allegro  and  II  Penseroso.  Drj^den  underwent 
mutations  more  extraordinary  still.  He  began  life  as  a  Puritan, 
and  passing  through  the  intermediate  stage  of  Anglicanism, 
ended  his  days  in  the  bosom  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The 
Hind  and  Panther,  in  which  he  justified  this  last  change, 
breathes,  as  may  be  supposed,  a  xerj  different  spirit  from  the 
lines  in  which  he  bewailed  the  death  of  Cromwell.  Yet,  if  we 
compare  the  poems  written  at  the  opposite  ends  of  the  lives 
of  these  great  men — notwithstanding  the  revolution  of  thought 
and  feeling  which  came  over  them  in  the  interval — every  mind 
that  has  any  sense  of  mental  characteristics,  will  at  once 
perceive  that  it  is  dealing  at  bottom  with  the  same  individual 
genius  ; — that  it  is  a  case  of  growth  and  development,  not  of 
original  difference  ; — and  will  feel  it  to  be  utterly  impossible 
that,  even  had  they  passed  through  changes  of  opinion  more 
radical  still,  Milton  could  ever  have  written  the  Hind  and 
Panther  or  the  Veni  Creator,  and  Dryden,  the  Paradise  Lost 
or  Samson  Agonistes.  No  living  writer  has  exhibited  a  more 
remarkable  change  of  style  in  the  course  of  his  literary  career 
than  Mr.  Carlyle ;  yet,  if  we  compare  his  Life  of  Schiller  with 
his  French  Revolution  or  his  History  of  Frederic  the  Great 
— notwithstanding  the  great  disparity  of  form — every  reader 
of  ordinary  discernment  will  recognize  the  same  fimdamental 
characteristics  of  his  peculiar  genius  in  his  earlier  and  his  later 


14 


CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 


works.  Apply  this  standard  to  the  two  books  now  under  con- 
sideration ;  and  the  conclusion  will  be  irresistible,  that  if  the 
Apostle  John  be  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  he  cannot  have 
written  the  Gospel :  if  he  wrote  the  Grospel,  he  cannot  be  the 
author  of  the  Apocalypse. — "We  have  next,  then,  to  inquire 
what  is  the  tenour  of  early  testimony  on  this  point.  Does  it 
speak  most  decidedly  in  favour  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
Gospel  or  of  the  Apocalj-pse  ?  Before  adducing  this  testimony, 
it  will  be  well  to  consider,  in  the  first  place,  what  is  the  im- 
pression conveyed  to  us,  by  the  New  Testament  and  the  oldest 
ecclesiastical  traditions,  of  the  spirit  and  character  of  the 
Apostle  John,  and  to  compare  it  with  the  contents  of  the  two 
books  which  bear  his  name.  "We  shall  thus  be  furnished  with 
an  additional  criterion  of  the  probability  of  his  being  the 
author  of  the  one  or  the  other. 


15 


SECTION  III. 

Notices  of  the  Ajwstle  John  in  the  New  Testament  and  the  oldest 
ecclesiastical  traditions. 

In  citing  the  collective  evidence  of  the  New  Testament  on 
the  character  of  the  Apostle  John,  we  must,  of  course,  exclude, 
in  the  first  instance,  such  as  might  be  furnished  by  the  two 
books  which  are  the  subject  of  comparison ;  since  our  purpose 
is  to  decide  on  the  claims  of  each  to  a  specific  authorship,  by 
testimony  which  is  external  to  them  both.  This  is  the  more 
necessary,  as  the  popular  conception  of  the  Apostle,  which  has 
been  invested  with  a  kind  of  halo  by  religious  poetry  and  art, 
and  which  influences  the  mind  almost  unconsciously  in  the 
question  of  authorship,  is  mainly  derived  from  the  Fourth 
Gospel  itself.  We  gather  from  the  sjraoptic  narrative,  that 
John  was  the  younger  of  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee,  a  Galilaean 
fisherman  of  some  substance  on  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret — of 
whom  we  hear  little,  and  who  probably  died  soon  after  the  con- 
version of  his  family.  With  their  mother  Salome,  the  two 
sons,  James  and  John,  appear  to  have  shared  enthusiastically 
in  the  Messianic  hopes  which  were  then  rife  and  stirring 
throughout  Palestine.  It  was  probably  the  ardour  of  their 
religious  temperament  which  attracted  the  notice  of  Jesus, 
drew  him  into  close  intimacy  with  them,  and  induced  him 
to  bestoAv  on  them  the  significant  title  of  Sons  of  Thunder.^ 
Their  nobler  qualities  were  not,  however,  unmingled  with 
the  carnal  and  selfish  aspirings  of  the  popular  Messianic  faith, 
and  with  some  fierceness  of  Jewish  intolerance ;  and  these 
tendencies  were   encouraged   by  their  mother,   who,   on   one 

1  "We  learn  this  fact  from  Mark  alone  (iii.  17),    He  had  it  probahly  direct  from  Peter. 


16 


CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 


occasion,  preferred  a  particular  request  to  our  Lord  that  her 
sons  might  fill  the  two  most  conspicuous  places  in  his  future 
kingdom.  (Matth.  xx.  21 ;  Mark  x.  So.y  It  was  the  same 
two  brothers  who,  on  the  refusal  of  some  Samaritans  to  admit 
Jesus  and  his  followers  into  their  village,  were  for  invoking 
fire  from  heaven,  in  the  spirit  of  Elijah,  to  consume  them, 
and  received  the  significant  rebuke,  that  their  master's  mission 
was  not  to  destroy,  but  to  save.  (Luke  ix.  54-56.)  Of  John 
it  is  specially  remarked  by  two  of  the  evangelists  (Mark  ix. 
38,  39  ;  Luke  ix.  49,  50),  that  about  the  same  time,  when  he 
saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  Christ's  name,  he  forbade  him 
because  he  was  not  of  their  company ;  and  how  he  was  again 
reproved  by  Christ  for  his  exclusiveness.  It  should  be  observed 
that  these  instances  of  intolerance  occur  when  the  brethren 
were  no  longer  recent  converts,  towards  the  close  of  Christ's 
ministry  on  his  last  journey  to  Jerusalem.^  Notwithstanding 
these  infirmities,  which  were,  perhaps,  inseparable  from  their 
mental  constitution,  Jesus  shewed  his  apjDreciation  of  their 
higher  nature  by  admitting  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  with  Simon 
Peter,  into  closer  familiarity  with  his  inmost  thoughts  than 
the  rest  of  the  twelve.  They  were  with  him  during  the 
transfiguration  (Matth.  xvii.  1 ;  Mark  ix.  2 ;  Luke  ix.  28) . 
They,  with  Andrew  and  Peter,  asked  him  privately,  as  he  sate 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  fronting  the  Temple,  when  and  how 
the  destruction  of  the  city  should  be  (Mark  xiii.  3).  John  is 
sent  with  Peter  to  prepare  the  Passover  (Luke  xxii.  8).  The 
same  three  are  again  present  during  the  agony  on  Gethsemane 
(Matth.  xxvi.  37  ;  Mark  xiv.  33).  There  is  no  further  notice 
of  the  sons  of  Zebedee  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels  ;  but  their 
mother,  Salome,  is  mentioned  among  the  women  who  waited  on 
Jesus  to  the  last — ^watching  him  as  he  expired  on  the  cross,  and 
after  his  burial  bringing  sweet  spices  to  the  sepulchre.     (Matth. 

1  Luke  has  omitted  all  notice  of  this  request,  and  of  the  indignation  which  it  ex- 
cited in  the  minds  of  the  ten. 

2  Lucke  has  called  attention  to  this  fact.  (Comment.  Evang.  Johan.  §  2). 


HISTOKTCAL    NOTICES    OF    THE    APOSTLE    JOHN.  17 

xxvii.  56;  Mark  xv.  40,  xvi.  1;  Luke  xxiii.  56,  xxiv.  1.) 
Her  deep  love  and  trust  were  imskaken  by  tlie  great  and  terrible 
catastrophe  wbicb  had  blighted  her  earlier  expectations.  Doubt- 
less, she  had  hoped  with  the  two  disciples  who  walked  to 
Emmaus,  "that  it  had  been  he  who  should  have  redeemed 
IsraeL" 

When  we  get  into  the  apostolic  age,  after  the  death  of  Jesus, 
we  find  John  actively  engaged  with  Peter  in  building  up  the 
primitive  church  in  Jerusalem.  The  two  names  are  con- 
stantly associated  through  the  earlier  chapters  of  the  book  of 
Acts.  How  essentially  Jewish  in  spirit  their  ministry  was, 
we  learn  from  the  question  proposed  to  the  risen  Jesus,  with 
which  they  opened  it :  "  Lord,  wilt  thou  at  this  time  restore 
again  the  kingdom  to  Israel  ?"  (Acts  i.  6)  and  from  the  course 
of  action  by  which  it  was  followed.  "\Yhen  a  persecution  broke 
out  against  the  more  liberal  movement  originated  by  Stephen, 
and  those  who  shared  in  it  were  scattered  abroad,  it  is  remark- 
able that  the  apostles  were  left  undisturbed  in  Jerusalem,  as 
though  it  did  not  affect  them.^  Again,  after  Samaria  had  been 
converted  by  Philip,  one  of  Stephen's  followers,^  it  is  signi- 
ficant, that  Peter  and  John,  induced  probably  by  a  sort  of  con- 
servative precaution,  go  over  the  same  ground,  with  the  view,  as 
it  would  seem,  of  correcting  or  neutralizing  any  mischievous 
eflEects  that  might  have  resulted  from  Philip's  preaching.^  For 
it  deserves  notice,  that,  at  this  period,  numbers  of  the  Pharisees, 
changing  the  tactics  which  they  had  pursued  in  the  life-time 

'  The  exception  in  the  case  of  the  apostles  is  expressed  in  the  most  decided  manner  ; 
TrdvTfs  diecnrd,pT]ffav — ttXtiv  tuv  ^voaroKuv  (Acts  viii.  1).  The  author,  writing  from  a 
later  point  of  view,  and  with  the  evident  purpose,  as  his  whole  book  shows,  of  re- 
conciling the  Petrine  and  Pauline  tendencies  of  the  primitive  church,  is  betrayed  into 
apparent  inconsistency.  He  says  a  great  persecution  attacked  TTjf  eKKXTjaiav  tV  iv 
'IfpoffoKvfxois  (using  the  word  iKKXyjirla  in  its  broader  ultimate  sense),  and  yet  repre- 
sents the  acknowledged  heads  of  that  church  as  untouched  by  it. 

"^  Acts  vi.  5  ;  Comp.  xxi.  8. 

3  Acts  viii.  5-13  (preaching  of  Philip  with  the  baptism  of  Simon);  ibid.  14-25 
(preaching  of  Peter  and  John,  -with  refusal  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  Simon,  for  offering 
money)  ;  Acts  viii.  26-40  (preaching  of  Philip  along  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean) ; 
ix.  32-43  (preaching  of  Peter  through  the  same  district). 


18  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

of  Christ,  appear  to  have  prudently  sided  with  the  new  re- 
ligion, which  was  already  making  way  with  the  multitude,  and 
to  have  now  tried  to  influence  its  counsels  and  imbue  it  with 
their  own  narrow  spirit.^  There  is  not  a  trace  in  the  history  of 
John's  having  ever  taken  any  part  or  shown  any  sympathy 
with  the  liberal  movements  either  of  Stephen  or  of  Paul.  On 
the  contrary,  all  subsisting  evidence  from  the  book  of  Acts 
goes  to  show,  that  John  was  closely  connected  with  the  Jewish 
party,  who  formed,  it  should  be  recollected,  the  original  nucleus 
of  believers  at  Jerusalem.  Of  his  brother  James,  so  constantly 
associated  with  him  in  the  gospel  narrative,  we  hear  nothing, 
except  that  he  was  put  to  death  by  Herod — very  possibly  in 
consequence  of  some  opposition  raised  by  his  Messianic  zeal  to 
the  Hellenizing  tendencies  of  the  king  (xii.  2).^ 

When  Paul  went  up  the  second  time  to  Jerusalem,  to  confer 
with  the  apostles  about  the  treatment  of  heathen  converts,  he 
found  John  there  (as  he  tells  us  himself.  Gal.  ii.  9) — associated 
with  Peter,  whose  irresolution  and  fearfulness  about  the  vexed 
question  of  eating  with  Gentiles  he  so  sharply  reproves — and 
with  James  the  Less,  the  recognised  head  of  the  Jewish  party 
and  their  first  bishop, — enjoying  with  them  the  distinction  of 
being  considered  "  a  pillar  "  of  the  church,  and  not  occupying,  be 
it  observed,  a  neutral  position,  but  thrust  into  conspicuous 
prominence  as  one  of  the  acknowledged  chiefs  of  the  then 
Jewish  Church,  whose  mission  was  exclusively  to  the  circum- 


^  See  especially  Acts  xv.  5,  Comp.  vi.  7,  and  the  part  taken  by  Gamaliel  in  the 
Siinhedrim,  v.  3i-39.  The  Sadducees  were  now  the  great  open  opponents  of 
Christianity. 

2  It  has  been  objected  (National  Review,  No.  ix.  Art.  v.  p.  112)  that  the  subordinate 
position  which  John  occupies  in  relation  to  Peter  throughout  the  earlier  chapters  of 
Acts,  is  inconsistent  with  the  supposition  of  his  being  a  leading  member  of  the  Jewish 
party  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  which  so  vividly  reflects  its 
spirit.  But  the  fact  is  easily  explained,  if  we  keep  in  mind  the  evident  principle  of 
the  construction  of  the  book  of  Acts — that  of  balancing  and  harmonizing  the  rival 
claims  of  Peter  and  Paul — which  made  it  impossible  to  put  any  one  on  the  same  level 
with  Peter  in  the  first  part  of  the  history.  It  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  remark, 
that  everywhere  in  Acts,  John  is  closely  associated  with  the  Jewish  party. 


HISTORICAL    NOTICES    OF    THE    APOSTLE   JOHN.  19 

cision.^  So  far,  then,  as  the  New  Testament  throws  any  light 
on  the  character  and  history  of  the  Apostle  John,  it  exhibits 
him  as  a  Jewish  Christian.  This  conclusion  is  remarkably  con- 
firmed by  a  passage  in  Irenaeus,  referring  to  this  very  conference 
with  Paul  at  Jerusalem — which  may  be  thus  translated :  "  the 
apostles  themselves,  by  raising  the  C[uestion  whether  disciples 
ought  still  to  be  circumcised  or  not,  clearly  showed  that  they 
still  worshipped  the  God  of  their  fathers  " — and,  therefore,  by 
implication  still  observed  the  old  law.^  The  book  of  Acts 
(iv.  13),  in  speaking  of  Peter  and  John,  describes  them  as  "  un- 
lettered and  unlearned  men  "^ — that  is,  as  persons  who  had  not, 
Like  Paul,  been  trained  in  the  higher  rabbinical  discipline,  and 
who  might  thereby  have  acquired  some  tincture  of  Hellenic 
culture,  but  who  merely  possessed  such  rudiments  of  Hebrew 
education  as  could  be  furnished  by  an  ordinary  Galilaean  school 
attached  to  the  svnagog-ue.  John's  name  never  once  occurs  in 
the  latter  half  of  Acts.  On  Paul's  last  visit  to  Jerusalem,  at 
the  end  of  his  third  missionary  journey,  not  later  than  60  a.d. 
— both  he  and  Peter  would  seem  to  have  been  away  ;  as  only 
James  the  Less  is  mentioned  (xxi.  18).     Had  they  been  in  the 


^  There  is  a  latent  irony  in  Paul's  language, — 6i  So/coCcres  (ttvKoi — as  though  he 
did  not  recognise  them  as  such  himself,  from  their  failure  to  perceive  the  breadth  of  the 
foundations  of  the  true  gospel. 

-  The  passage  exists  only  in  the  Latin  version.  "  Ipsi  autem  {i.e.  the  apostles  at 
Jerusalem,  including  John)  ex  co  quod  qmererent :  an  oporteret  circumcidi  adhuc 
discipulos  neene,  manifeste  ostenderunt,  non  habuisse  se  alterius  Dei  contempla- 
tionem"  (Iren.  adv.  Hser.  III.  xii.  14).  To  apprehend  the  complete  force  of  this 
passage,  we  must  notice  its  place  in  the  argument  of  Irenseus.  He  is  replying  to  the 
Gnostics,  who  contended  that  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  was  not  the  God  of  the 
Christians.  To  refute  them,  he  appeals  to  the  practice  of  the  apostles  themselves, 
who,  after  their  conversion,  still  observed  the  usages  of  the  Jewish  law.  That  this 
in  his  meaning,  is  clear  from  what  he  adds  in  the  next  section  :  "  Hi  circa  Jacobum 
apostoli  gentibus  quidem  libere  agere  permittebant,  concedentes  nos  Spiritui  Dei: 
ipsi  vero  eundem  scientes  Deum,  2}erseverabant  in  pristinis  observationibm.'^  The 
sense  of  the  whole  passage  is  well  given  by  Stieren  :  "  Ipsi  legis  praceptis  satisfacere 
anxie  studebant,  quum  lis  persuasum  esset,  Deum  legis  et  evangelii  esse  unum  eun- 
demque."  Liicke  expresses  himself  more  strongly  than  I  have  ventured  to  do  :  "  So 
lange  Johannes  in  Jerusalem  war,  meint  Irenaeus,  babe  er  rait  den  iibrigen  Apostelu 
dasmosaische  Gesetz  noch  streng  beobachtet"  (Comment.  §  2,  p.  16,  2te  Aufl). 

^  aypafifiarol,  Kat  iBiwrat. 


20  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

city,  it  is  hardly  conceivable,  how  persons  of  such  eminence 
should  not  have  taken  part  in  the  proceedings  on  so  important 
an  occasion,  and  how,  if  they  had  been  present,  it  should  not 
have  been  noticed.  When  John  finally  quitted  Jerusalem,  and 
to  what  place  he  immediately  transferred  his  residence,  there 
are  no  data  extant  for  determining.  Dr.  Lardner  (Works,  vi. 
p.  170)  and  De  Wette  (Einl.  N.  T.  §  108  a.  b.)  agree  in  thinking 
it  not  unlikely,  that  the  apostle  removed  into  Asia  on  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  war  in  Judea.  This  in  itself  would  appear  not 
improbable  ;  but  we  have  just  seen  that  he  could  not  have  been 
in  Jerusalem  as  late  as  60  a.d. — and  connected  as  he  was  with 
the  Jewish  party,  he  could  hardly  have  settled  at  Ephesus,  till 
the  influence  of  Paul's  ministry  there  had  ceased.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  imprisonment  of  that  apostle  for  two  years  at 
Caesarea  (Acts  xxiv.  27),  and  Lis  subsequent  removal  to  Rome, 
may  have  separated  him  so  completely  from  the  Asiatic  churches, 
as  to  leave  room  for  the  planting  of  another  church  on  the 
ground  originally  broken  up  by  him.  Some  have  doubted 
whether  John  ever  resided  at  Ephesus  at  all.  But  the  tradition 
of  antiquity  seems  to  me  too  clear,  constant  and  uniform  to 
admit  of  such  entire  scepticism.  Polycrates,  bishop  of  Ephesus, 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  second  century,  in  a  letter  to  Victor  of 
Eome  on  the  paschal  controversy,  says  distinctly  that  John — 
described  particularly  as  6  eVl  rb  arfjOo^  rov  Kvplov  dvaTreacov — 
was  buried  at  Ephesus  ;^  and  Eusebius  tells  us,  that  in  his  day 
the  apostle's  tomb  still  existed  in  that  city.-  It  is  singular,  no 
doubt,  that  neither  Polycarp,  nor  the  letters  which  bear  the 
name  of  Ignatius,  should  anywhere  allude  to  the  fact ;  but  we 
must  set  off,  against  their  silence,  the  express  testimony  of 
Irenaeus,  who  had  been  instructed  by  Polycarp  in  his  youth, 
and  who  speaks  of  John's  living  and  working  at  Ephesus  as  an 
universally  acknowledged  fact.^      In  another  place  he  states 

1  Eusebius,  H..E.  iii.  31,  v.  24.  2  Eusebius,  iii.  39. 

3  Adv.  Haer.  II.  xxii.  5 ;  III.  i.  1.    He  appeals  to  uninterrupted  tradition  from 
the  time  of  those  who  had  conversed  with  the  apostles. 


HISTORICAL   NOTICES   OF   THE   APOSTLE   JOHN.  21 

that  the  church  which  had  been  founded  by  Paul  in  Ephesus, 
was  a  true  witness  of  the  apostolic  tradition  under  the  ministry 
of  John  till  the  age  of  Trajan.^  That  there  was  a  strong  Jewish 
party  in  Ephesus,  is  plain  from  Paul's  being  obliged  to  abandon 
the  synagogue,  and  discourse  in  the  lecture-room  of  the  sophist 
Tyrannus  (Acts  xix.  9).  According  to  all  appearances,  after 
Paul's  final  separation  from  the  Asiatic  churches,  some  Judaic 
reaction  had  taken  place.^  An  apostle  from  the  mother-church 
of  Jerusalem,  who  had  leaned  on  the  bosom  of  the  Lord  him- 
self, would  be  eagerly  welcomed  in  that  great  centre  of  religious 
life ;  and  the  churches  of  that  district,  as  we  learn  from  later 
history,  long  adhered  to  the  Jewish  usages  of  the  first  gene- 
ration of  Christian  believers. 

Associated  with  this  period  of  the  apostle's  life  at  Ephesus 
some  interesting  traditions  have  been  preserved  by  eccle- 
siastical writers.  Irenoeus  tells  a  story — on  the  authority 
of  Polycarp,  whose  youth  joined  on  to  the  old  age  of  John 
— that  on  the  apostle's  finding  himself  one  day  in  the  same 
bath  at  Ephesus  with  the  notorious  heretic  Cerinthus,  he 
rushed  out,  lest  the  walls  should  fall  in  and  overwhelm 
him  in  a  common  destruction  with  this  enemy  of  the  truth. 
If  this  story  represent  a  fact,  it  furnishes  evidence  of  the  same 
spirit  of  which  we  have  already  had  an  example  in  the  New 
Testament  (Luke  ix.  54-56,.  49,  50  ;  Mark  ix.  38,  39).3     A  far 


^  'H  fv  'E^eer^  eKKXriaia  iirb  TlavXov  fiev  TedffjLehi(i}fj.fpr],  'laidvi/ov  Se  irapafxii- 
vavTos  hvrois  fiexpi  tuv  Tpatavov  xp^^'^^i  f^pTvs  oKrid^s  icrri  rrjs  ai:o(n6Kwv 
iTapaS6<Tews  (Adv.  Hffir.  III.  iii.  4).  Eusebius  has  cited  this  passage  (H.  E.  iii.  23). 
Its  object  is  to  authenticate  the  Christian  tradition  by  tracing  it  through  John  to  Paul. 
It  implies,  therefore,  that  John  was  the  successor  of  Paul. 

2  We  know  from  himself,  what  pains  it  cost  him  to  resist  such  reaction  in  the 
churches  of  Galatia.  The  Christ  party  (1  Cor.  i.  12)  possibly  furnish  another  example 
of  similar  reaction  at  Corinth.  See  F.  L.  Baur,  Da»  Christenthum  der  drei  ersten 
Jahrhunderte,  ii.  (Die  Judaischen  Gegner). 

3  Adv.  Haer.  III.  iii.  4.  Irenaeusdoes  not  say,  that  he  had  the  story  direct  from 
Polycarp,  but  at  second-hand  through  others :  iifflf  &i  ok7jkoo't6s  avrdv.  Partly  on 
this  account,  and  partly  perhaps  from  some  tenderness  for  the  memory  of  the  apostle^ 
Dr.  Lai'dner  treats  the  whole  narrative  as  doubtful  (Credib.  P.  II.  ch.  vi.).  Liicke, 
on  the  other  hand  (Eiul.  Comra.  §  2,  p.  19)  thinks  it  bears  strong  internal  marks  of 


22  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

more  pleasing  tale  is  that  of  tlie  apostle  mounting  his  horse  in 
his  old  age,  and,  with  characteristic  ardour  and  intrepidity, 
riding  into  the  very  centre  of  a  stronghold  of  robbers,  to  rescue 
a  young  man  in  whom  he  took  a  deep  interest,  but  who,  having 
fallen  into  evil  courses,  had  become  the  captain  of  the  band  ; 
and  how  he  succeeded  in  restoring  him  at  last  to  the  church 
which  he  had  forsaken.^  Jerome  narrates,  that  in  extreme  old 
age,  when  no  longer  able  to  make  a  lengthened  and  connected 
discourse,  the  apostle  used  to  be  carried  in  the  arms  of  his 
disciples  into  the  midst  of  the  church,  when  he  would  repeat 
day  after  day  the  simple  words,  "  Little  children,  love  one 
another ;"  and  that,  on  being  asked  why  he  said  this  continually, 
he  repKed,  "  This  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Lord's  teach- 
ing." The  story  rests  on  the  authority  of  Jerome  alone,  some 
three  centuries  after  the  age  of  John ;-  but  it  contains  nothing 
in  itself  incredible.  Polycrates  of  Ephesus,  in  the  letter 
already  cited — enumerating  a  number  of  Asiatic  bishops  who 
adhered  with  himself  to  the  old  Jewish  usage  of  observing  the 
14th  of  Nisan^ — puts  John  second  in  this  list,  immediately 
following  Philip  of  Hierapolis,  one  of  the  twelve  apostles  (rov 
t6)v  ScoheKa  airoGTokaxv),  and  has  this  remarkable  passage  re- 
specting him :  "  John  also,  who  leaned  on  the  bosom  of  the 

probability,  and  compares  it  with  2  John  10.  Eusebius  (H.  E.  iii.  28)  quotes  the  story 
from  Irenieus.  Epiphanius  (Adv.  Haer.  xsx.  24)  has  repeated  it  with  much  amplifi- 
cation— substituting  the  name  of  Ebion  for  that  of  Cerinthus.  This  fact  is  signi- 
ficant, as  suggesting  the  possibility  that  the  story  from  its  origin  may  have  had  some 
connexion  with  a  rumour  of  Jewish  Christianity;  thoTigh,  to  save  the  apostle  himself 
from  the  suspicion  of  any  such  tendency,  the  orthodox  father  makes  the  mythic 
founder  of  Ebionitism  the  special  object  of  his  abhorrence.  This  whole  section  in 
Kpiphanius  deserves  to  be  read,  as  showing  the  complete  change  of  character  and 
object  which  a  story  often  underwent  in  the  course  of  ecclesiastical  tradition. 

'  This  story  is  first  told  in  the  little  treatise  usually  printed  along  with  the  books  of 
Clement  of  Alexandria  :  "  Quis  dives  salvetur  ?"  Thence  it  has  been  copied  by 
Eusebius  (H.  E.  iii.  23).  Lardner  and  Lucke  both  think,  it  probably  contains  sub- 
stantial truth.  Herder  has  pleasingly  worked  it  up  among  his  "  Legends,"  under  the 
title  of  "  The  Rescued  Youth."    (Zur  Litt.  n.  Kunst.  Werke.  VI.  31). 

'^  Comm.  in  Gralat.  c.  6.  He  cites  it,  without  any  introduction,  as  a  tradition  current 
in  his  time. 

3  "  Cum  cfcteris  episcopis  Asia,  qui  juxta  quandam  veterem  consuetudinem  cum 
Judais  decimaquarta  luna  Pascha  celebrabant."     Hieron.  de  Vir.  Illustr.  c.  xlv. 


HISTORICAL   NOTICES   OF   THE   APOSTLE   JOHN.  23 

Lord,  who  was  a  priest  wearing  tlie  pctahn,  both  martyr  and 
teacher."  The  petalon  {irkToCKov)  was  a  gold  plate  in  front  of 
the  high  priests'  turban  or  tiara,  inscribed  with  the  words, 
"  Holy  to  Jehovah."  Various  interpretations  have  been  given 
of  this  passage :  some,  wath  Liicke,  supposing  it  simply  to 
express  the  eminent  episcopacy  of  John  in  Ephesus  and  its 
neighbourhood ;  others  understanding  it,  in  a  figurative  sense, 
of  John's  deep  penetration  into  the  inner  mind  of  Christ ; 
others,  lastly,  with  Baur  and  the  critics  of  the  Tubingen  school, 
of  John's  upholding  the  Jewish  form  of  Christianity,  and  being, 
in  the  hierarchical  sense  of  the  Old  Testament,  a  representative 
of  the  high  priesthood  of  Christ  on  earth.  The  contest,  with 
some  other  considerations  referred  to  in  the  note,  appear  to  me 
to  render  this  altogether  the  most  probable  interpretation.^  The 

Eri  Se  KoX  ^\wh.vvt\s %s  iyevrjdT}  Upfvs  rb  ireraXov  v^popeKws,  Koi   fidprvs 

Kol  SiSd(TKa\os.  (ap.  Euseb.  H.  E.  v.  24.)  ]\[any  commentators,  not  knowing  what 
to  make  of  these  words  in  their  literal  sense,  have  been  disposed  to  understand  theui 
figuratively,  as,  for  instance,  Routh  (Reliquiae  Sacraj  ii.  p.  28). — Le  Moyne  (Var.  Sacr. 
ii.  25),  cited  by  Heinichen  (Euseb.  H.  E.  v.  24),  has  strongly  pressed  the  difficulties 
of  the  literal  interpretation,  and  yet  candidly  admits  that  the  writer  may  be  speaking 
"  de  Joanne  sacerdote  et  lamina  instructo,  dmn  adhuc  viveret  inter  Jtidctos." — Epi- 
phanius,  in  speaking  of  James  the  Less,  the  so-called  brother  of  the  Lord,  tlie  first 
bishop  of  the  Jewish  church  at  Jerusalem,  of  whose  Ebionitish  asceticism  and  piety, 
and  final  martyrdom,  Hegesippus,  himself  a  Jewish  Christian  and  employing  Hebrew 
materials  (Euseb.  H.  E.  iv.  22),  has  given  so  strange  an  account  in  his  Records  of  the 
Apostolic  Age  (comp.  Josephus's  account  of  the  death  of  James,  Antiquit.  XX.  ix.  1.), — 
has  twice  ascribed  to  this  undoubted  head  of  a  Jewish  Christian  church,  the  very  same 
peculiarity  which  we  have  already  seen  given  by  Polycrates  to  John  (xxix.  4  Panariou) 
Th  nfToXov  eVJ  t^j  KitpaXrts  f^rfv  a.vT<f  <pope7v  and  (ibid.  Ixxviii.  14)  irfTaKop  iwl 
rrjs  Ke^oATjs  i<p6pf<T€.  There  is  much,  no  doubt,  that  is  legendary  and  fabulous  in 
the  narratives  of  Hegesippus  and  Epiphanius  ;  but  both  meant  to  describe  a  Jewish 
Christian,  and  they  knew  the  characteristics  that  wouldmarkone.  —  Valesius  quotes  a 
passage  from  a  MS.  treatise  on  the  passion  of  the  Evangelist  Mark,  where  the  same 
expression  is  used  of  him,  and  with  the  same  intent,  i.e-,  to  indicate,  as  I  understand 
the  words,  the  Jewish  type  of  his  Christianity  :  pontificalis  apicis  petalum  in  populo 
gestasse  Judaorum.  That  such  expressions,  however  strong,  did  not  imply  the  exer- 
cise of  any  sacerdotal  function,  properly  so  called,  is  evident  from  a  passage  in  Irenseus. 
He  is  arguing,  against  the  heretics,  for  an  unbroken  continuity  of  religious  privileges 
from  the  Old  dispensation  to  the  New— the  apostles  in  the  spiritual  kingdom  occupying 
the  same  position  with  the  former  priests  under  the  outward  law.  Sacerdotes  sunt 
omnes  Domini  aposioli,  qui  neque  agros  neque  domos  hereditant  hie,  sed  semper  altari  et 
Deo  serviunf.  (Adv.  Haer.  IV.  viii.  3.)  Irenaeus  designates  the  head  of  a  Jewish  com- 
munion, though  it  had  nothing  sacerdotal  in  its  constitution,  by  a  sacerdotal  title.   He 


24  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

same  conclusion  might  be  drawn  from  the  appeal  of  the  Quarto- 
deciman  party  in  the  Asiatic  churches,  to  the  authority  of  the 
apostle  John  traditionally  preserved  among  them,  in  favour  of 
their  own  usage ;  but  as  this  is  a  question  still  open  to  contro- 
versy, which  I  shall  have  to  examine  more  at  length  in  an 
ensuing  section,  I  will  not  enter  on  it  now. 

On  the  whole,  we  gather  from  the  united  testimony  of  the 
^ew  Testament  and  ecclesiastical  tradition,  that  the  apostle 
John,  so  far  as  we  can  trace  his  history  through  the  dimness  of 
the  past,  belonged  to  the  Jewish  section  of  the  primitive 
Christian  Church.  There  is  much  evidence  that  points  directly 
to  that  conclusion,  and  none  that  bears  against  it.  The  few 
distinct  glimpses  that  we  get,  are  just  of  such  a  character  as  we 
should  naturally  expect  to  find  in  the  first  generation  of  Pales- 
tinian converts  to  Christianity — full  of  Messianic  eagerness  and 
zeal,  and  warmly  attached  to  the  person  of  Jesus ;  marked  by 
strong  prejudices  and  bitter  national  antipathies,  but  generous, 
impulsive  and  confiding,  susceptible  of  the  deepest  and  tenderest 
love  where  the  object  seemed  worthy  of  it ; — a  simple,  honest, 
unlettered  Jew,  with  the  better  life  of  Christianity  gradually 
kindling  within  him,  but  incapable  of  breaking  loose  entirely 
from  the  bonds  of  early  prepossession,  and  of  throwing  himself 
with  unreserved  freedom  into  the  broad  catholicity  of  the  spirit 
of  Paul. 

calls  Jairus,  who  was  merely  the  ruler  of  a  synagogue  (Mark  v.  22)  summus  saeerdos 
(adv.  Hser.  V.  xiii.  1).— On  the  whole,  in  spite  of  the  doubts  of  Dr.  Lardner  and 
others  (Credib.  P.  II.  Ch.  cxiv.,  Hist.  Apost.  and  Evaiig.  Ch.  ix.  4),  I  incline  to  think, 
that  the  most  obvious  meaning  of  this  obscure  expression,  is  John's  presidency  over  an 
association  of  Jewish  Christian  churches.  The  early  Protestant  divines  were  averse 
to  admit  any  suppositions  that  dispelled  their  ideal  of  an  apostolic  age,  as  conceived 
from  the  modern  point  of  view,  I  may  further  remark,  that  the  result  of  the  most 
recent  criticism  seems  to  show,  that  the  sacerdotal  element  came  into  the  Catholic 
Church  out  of  the  Jewish  Christianity.  See,  among  others,  Ritschl,  "  Die  Entstehung 
der  altkatholischen  Kirche." 


25 


SECTION    TV. 

Comparison  of  the  foregoing  notices  with  the  ivorhs  ascribed  to 

John. 

If  I  have  drawn  a  fair  inference,  from  the  scattered  notices 
which  have  been  preserved  to  us,  of  the  personal  character  of 
the  apostle  John — of  the  two  works  that  bear  his  name,  which 
must  strike  a  thoughtful  reader  as  most  in  harmony  with  it  ? 
Let  us  briefly  recal  the  salient  features  of  each.  The  Apocalypse 
is  intensely  Jewish  both  in  its  spirit  and  in  its  form.  In  its 
conception  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  Messianic  hope — the  final 
conflict  of  heathenism  with  the  people  of  God,  the  complete 
destruction  of  the  former,  and  the  gathering  of  the  latter  into 
a  glorious  kingdom  under  a  triumphant  Messiah — in  its  re- 
tention of  the  old  prophetic  diction  and  imagery — in  the 
importance  which  it  attaches  to  the  atoning  efiicacy  of  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb  that  was  slain  (vii.  14,  v.  12) — in  its 
doctrine  of  a  first  and  second  resurrection,  with  the  splendid 
vision  of  the  New  Jerusalem — it  represents  the  popular  belief 
of  the  early  Jewish  Christians  more  truly  and  vividly  than 
any  other  book  of  the  New  Testament,  not  excepting  the 
gospel  of  Matthew,  in  which,  as  we  now  possess  it  in  its  later 
Greek  form,  the  original  Jewish  element  is  already  tinged 
and  qualified  by  some  infusion  of  a  Catholic  spirit.  The 
Apocalypse  is  strongly  impregnated  with  the  idea  of  Chiliasm  ; 
and  Chiliasm,  we  know,  was  the  general  belief  of  the  primi- 
tive Church,  and  more  or  less  pervaded  all  sections  of  it,  till 
Catholicism — which  was  a  mixed  result  of  reaction  against 
Gnosticism  and  of  a  compromise  with  the  Pauline  tendency — 
subdued  and  excluded,  in  the  course  of  the  second  and  third 


26  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

centuries,  the  old  Judaic  form  of  Christianity,  and  recognised 
it  only  as  a  lingering  heresy  among  the  Ebionites  and  Nazarenes.' 
When  the  churches  of  Smyrna  and  PhiladeljDhia  are  warned  in 
the  opening  chapters  of  this  book  (ii.  9,  iii.  9)  "  against  the 
synagogue  of  Satan,  which  say  they  are  Jews  and  are  not," — it 
is  difficult  not  to  believe  that  the  allusion  must  be  to  the  same 
liberal  party,  headed  successively  by  Stephen  and  Paul,  who 
were  charged,  as  we  find  it  stated  in  Acts  (vi.  14)  with  a  design 
"  to  change  the  customs  which  Moses  had  delivered  to  the  Jews." 
The  Greek  of  the  Apocalypse  is  just  such  as  we  should  expect 
from  a  man  who  had  never  learned  it  grammatically,  but  had 
picked  it  up  from  mere  intercourse  with  those  who  spoke  it.  It 
is  precisely  the  diction  of  one  who  is  described  in  Acts  as  "  un- 
lettered and  imlearned,"  but  who  had  been  thrown  in  his 
maturer  years  into  the  society  of  Greeks. 

In  all  these  respects  the  Fourth  Gospel  exhibits  a  character 
the  very  opposite  to  that  of  the  Apocalypse.  From  beginning 
to  end,  though  indicating  acquaintance  with  Jewish  history 
and  Jewish  modes  of  thovight,  its  spirit  is  anti-Jewish.  The 
habitual  opponents  of  Christ  are  constantly  distinguished  as 
"  the  Jews."  It  has  all  the  spiritual  breadth  of  the  mind  of  Paul, 
and  is  chiefly  distinguished  from  it  by  a  more  quiet  and  con- 
templative tone,  and  a  pervading  consciousness  of  assured 
superiority,  as  though  it  came  from  one  who  had  passed  beyond 
the  stage  of  controversy,  and  felt  his  faith  to  be  resting  on 
unassailable  foundations.  It  betrays  in  more  than  one  passage 
strong  interest  for  the  conversion  of  the  Greeks  (vii.  35,  36, 
xii.  20-23) ;  and  of  the  Chiliasm,  which  enters  so  largely  into 

'  In  the  first  age  both  Papias  and  the  heretic  Cerinthus  were  strongly  attached  to 
Chiliasm,  Many  eminent  fathers  of  the  second  centurj-,  Justin  Martyr,  Irenfeus,  and 
TertuUian,  undoubtingly  upheld  it ;  and  it  was  an  object  of  enthusiastic  belief  with 
the  Montanists.  The  first  decided  opposition  to  it  came  out  of  the  philosophical 
school  of  Alexandria,  headed  by  Origen.  Yet  down  to  the  opening  of  the  fourth 
century,  we  find  no  less  a  man  than  Lactantius,  the  tutor  of  the  sons  of  the  first 
Constantine,  distinctly  asserting  it,  and  arraying  it  in  all  the  colours  of  his  rhetorical 
eloquence.  (Divin.  Instit.  vii.  19-26,  Epitora.  Ixxi.  ii.)  It  only  became  a  heresy  by 
degrees.  See  Miinscher's  "  Dogmengeschichte  "  (II.  i.  §  25,  26). 


COMPARISON   WITH   THE   WORKS   ASCRIBED   TO   JOHN.  27 

tlie  descriptions  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  formed  so  conspicuous  a 
belief  of  the  early  Jewish  Church,  we  do  not  find  a  trace  in 
this  gospel.  Its  Greek,  though  neither  pure  nor  elegant,  is  that 
of  a  person  who  had  been  long  in  the  habit  of  speaking  and 
writing  it,  and  with  whom  it  had  become  a  ready  instrument 
of  thought. 

Without  some  direct  outward  testimony,  there  is  nothing,  it 
is  true,  in  the  interior  form  and  character  of  the  Apocalypse  to 
link  its  authorship  of  necessity  with  the  apostle  John.  The 
writer's  description  of  himself  as  Bov\o<i  ^(pLcrrov,  is  undecisive. 
But  there  is  certainly  nothing  to  render  it  incredible,  that  John 
might  have  been  the  author  of  the  book ;  for  its  spirit  agrees 
with  what  we  know  of  his  own.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  difficult 
to  conceive  how  the  John,  who  is  exhibited  to  us  by  the  New 
Testament  and  ecclesiastical  history,  could  possibly  have  written 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  without  so  complete  a  transformation  of  his 
deeply  marked  character,  and  so  entire  a  reversal  of  the  power- 
ful influences  of  his  early  life,  as  we  can  find  no  adequate  means 
of  accounting  for  within  the  widest  limits  of  his  later  career. 
But  this  is  a  question  mainly  of  external  testimony,  to  which 
we  must  now  direct  our  attention. 


28  CHARACTER    OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL 


SECTION    Y. 

Direct  Testimony  to  the  Authorship  of  the  Apocalypse. 

The  first  witness  to  be  adduced  is  Papias,  whose  fragments, 
preserved  in  Eusebius,  throw  so  valuable  a  light  on  the  apostolic 
sources  of  our  two  first  gospels,  and  whose  martyrdom  has  been 
placed  on  apparently  good  grounds  in  164  a.d.^  His  testimony, 
therefore,  goes  back  to  the  first  half  of  the  second  centur}^ 
As  Papias  informs  us  what  pains  he  took  to  make  himself 
acquainted,  from  eye  and  ear  witnesses  still  surviving,  with  the 
circumstances  of  the  primitive  church,^  it  is  not  in  itself  im- 
probable that  he  should  have  known  one  of  the  earliest  works 
which  it  produced,  and  that  we  should  have  his  witness  to  the 
existence  in  the  first  age  of  our  two  oldest  gospels  and  of  the 
Apocalypse.  But  this  testimony  is  not  without  its  difiiculties. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  direct,  and  comes  to  us  through  two 
authors  of  a  comparatively  late  date — ^Andreas  and  Arethas, 
who  were  bishops  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia  towards  the  end  of 
the  fifth  century.^  These  writers  cite  Papias  with  other  ancient 
fathers,  of  whom  they  place  him  at  the  head — Irenaeus, 
Methodius,  and  Hippolytus — as  asserting  the  deoirvevarov  and 
a^LOTTLarov  of  the  Apocalypse.  But  they  do  not  state  from  what 

1  See  Eettig  (Tlieologische  Studien  und  Kritiken,  for  1831,  p.  769)  who  cites  the 
Chronicon  Paschale  as  his  authority,  and  notices  the  coincidence  of  this  date  with 
that  of  the  accession  of  his  successor  in  Hierapolis,  furnished  from  an  independent 
source. 

^  'Of  yap  ri  e/c  rwv  0t^\luv  roffodrSv  /xe  axpeXely  vvf\dfi,fiavov,  oaov  to  -napa. 
lili<n)s  (pwvris  koI  fiivovcrrts.     ap.  Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  39. 

3  Eettig  (ubi  supr.)  has  determined  the  limits  of  their  literary  acti\-ity  by  a  very 
exhaustive  process  of  reasoning,  as  falling  somewhere  between  470  a.d.  and  the  ppening 
years  of  the  sixth  century. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE   APOCALYPSE.  29 

book  of  Paj)ias  they  produce  this  testimony,  nor  furnish  any 
evidence  of  his  opinion  respecting  authorship.  AVTien  Papias 
wrote,  inspiration  and  credibility  did  not  necessarily  imply  an 
apostolic  source.  They  simply  intimated  that,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  writer,  the  work  was  imbued  with  an  apostolic  spirit, 
and  felt  to  be  conducive  to  faith  and  edification.  But  re- 
moteness and  indirectness  of  allusion  is  not  the  only  cir- 
cumstance which  detracts  from  the  value  of  this  testimony. 
Eusebius,  who  was  familiar  with  the  writings  of  Papias,  and 
has  quoted  from  them  at  some  length,  never  once  alludes  to 
anything  that  he  had  written  on  the  Apocalypse.  This  is 
the  more  remarkable,  as  he  was  much  interested  in  the  subject, 
and  would  have  been  glad,  it  might  be  thought,  of  some  early 
testimony  to  fix  his  opinions  respecting  it ;  as  he  vacillated,  we 
know,  in  his  views  of  the  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse,  and 
was  half  inclined  to  ascribe  it  to  the  presbyter  John.^  In 
consequence  of  too  much  having  been  made  of  this  slight  and 
indirect  testimony  of  Papias,  and  the  groundless  assumption 
that  he  must  have  written  a  commentary  on  the  Apocalypse, 
which  has  perished, — there  has  been  perhaps  a  not  unnatural 
tendency  on  the  other  side  to  depreciate  it  below  its  actual 
worth.  It  is  not  at  all  imjDrobable,  that  Papias  may  have 
alluded  to  and  cited  the  Apocalypse  in  the  only  Vvork  which 
we  know  him  to  have  written,  his  "  Expositions  of  the  Oracles 
of  the  Lord  "  (Xoylcov  KvptuKcov  efj^Y^^o-et?) ;  nor  does  there  seem 
any  reason  to  reject  the  cautious  inference  of  Rettig,  that 
possibly  Papias  ascribed  the  book  to  a  John,  perhaps  even  John 
the  Divine,  without  our  being  thereby  justified  in  assuming  that 
Papias  claimed  the  apostle  as  its  author.^     To  Papias  we  may, 

1  H.  E.  iii.  39,  p.  283.  Tom.  i.  ed.  Heinichen. 

2  The  whole  question  of  the  value  of  this  testimony  of  Papias,  contained  in  the 
writings  of  the  two  Cappadocian  bishops,  especially  in  its  bearing  on  the  authenticity 
of  tie  Apocalypse,  has  been  discussed  with  great  thoroughness  and  impartiality  by 
Eettig,  in  the  article  abeady  referred  to  in  the  "Theologische  Studien  uud  Kritiken." 
I  think,  however,  he  attaches  too  much  weight  to  the  silence  of  Eusebius.  It  is  quite 
evident,  that  the  historian  thoroughly  disliked  the  chiliastic  notions  of  Papias,  and  did 
not  know  what  to  make  of  their  seeming  to  be  sanctioned  by  a  book  so  old  and  of 


30  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

perhaps,  add  the  still  earlier  testimony  of  Clement  of  Rome, 
who,  in  a  passage  of  his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  appears 
to  me  distinctly  to  allude  to,  if  he  does  not  actually  cite,  the 
Apocalypse.^ 

Our  next  testimony  is  more  direct  and  explicit.  It  is  that  of 
Justin  Martyr,  whose  period  of  literary  activity  occurs  between 
139  and  160  a.d.,  and  the  time  of  whose  death  is  assigned  by 
Semisch,  following  the  Chronicon  Paschale,  to  the  year  166.^ 
He  was  a  contemporary,  therefore,  of  Papias.  Justin  was  born 
a  heathen  at  Flavia  Neapolis,  the  ancient  Sychem,  in  Samaria, 
and  was  converted  to  Christianity,  it  has  been  supposed,  at 
Ephesus,  where  the  scene  of  his  celebrated  dialogue  with  the 
Jew  Trypho  is  laid.  It  is  certain  that  he  passed  the  latter  years 
of  his  life  in  Eome,  where  he  suffered  martyrdom.  From  the 
places  with  which  the  few  notices  of  his  personal  history  are 
associated,  it  is  evident  that  he  must  have  been  familiar  with 
the  traditions  which  were  then  current  among  the  Christians, 
and  at  Ephesus  with  those  more  particularly  which  related  to 
the  apostle  John.      To  him  also  we  are  indebted  for  the  account 

such  higli  traditional  authority  as  the  Apocalypse.  He  was  one  of  that  class  of  philo- 
sophical Christians  (in  his  time  rapidly  increasing  under  the  influence  of  a  court), 
■who,  like  the  Alexandrine  Jews,  under  the  Ptolemies,  had  grown  ashamed  of  the  homely 
and  popular  faith  of  their  forefathers.  I  can  hardly  doubt,  that  he  would  have  taken, 
if  he  could,  from  the  Apocalypse  the  credit  of  an  apostolic  source  :  and  had  he  found 
any  clear  indication  in  Papias,  that  it  had  been  written  by  the  presbyter  John,  or  any 
other  John  than  the  apostle,  it  is  difficult  to  believe,  that  he  would  not  have  mentioned 
it.  If  any  inference  can  be  drawn  from  the  silence  of  Eusebius,  it  seems  to  me  quite  as 
much  in  favour  of  Papias's  attesting  the  apostolic  origin  of  the  book,  as  against  it.  The 
passages  from  Andreas  and  Arethas  about  Papias  are  cited  by  Kirchhofer  (Quellen- 
samralung  zur  Gesch.  d.  N.  T.  Canons  xxxiii.  Papias).  See  his  note  on  them,  p.  300. 

I  The  passage  runs  thus  (I.  ad  Cor.  xxxiv.),  and  has  a  close  verbal  agreement  with 
Apocal.  xxii.  12 :  irpokiyn  Tijxiv  (a  form  of  scriptural  citation)  i5oi/  6  Kvpios,  /col  6 
fiKrOhs  avTOv  irph  wpoffcoirov  avTov,  airoSovvai  eKacrrcp  Kara  rh  tpyov  avrov.  There 
may  in  both  writers  be  a  remoter  reference  to  the  LXX.  Isaiah  xl.  10,  and  Ixii.  11. 
But  it  is  remarkable,  that  Clement  and  the  Apocalypse  much  more  nearly  resemble 
each  other,  especially  in  the  concluding  words  of  the  sentence,  than  either  of  them 
Isaiah.  I  cannot  but  think  this  passage  furnishes  a  proof  that  the  Apocalypse  was 
known  and  read  in  the  time  of  Clement.  The  death  of  Clement  is  usually  placed 
about  100  A.D.  If  my  inference  be  correct,  this  is  the  oldest  witness  to  the  existence 
of  the  Apocah'pse  as  a  part  of  Scripture. 

~  Otto  (de  Justin.  Martyr.  Scriptiset  Doctrina.  p.  6),  following  the  same  authority, 
puts  it  at  165  A.D. 


TESTIMONIES   TO    THE    APOCALYPSE.  31 

— still  circulating  in  Samaria  when  lie  was  young — of  the  kind 
of  rural  industry  in  which  the  early  years  of  Jesus  had  been 
engaged.^  Although,  therefore,  the  testimony  of  Justin  re- 
presents, after  all,  only  a  tradition,  it  was,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, a  fresh  and  living  tradition.  In  the  Dialogue  with 
Trj^ho  (c.  81)  we  find  the  following  passage.  Justin  is  argu- 
ing with  the  Jew  in  support  of  the  evidence  which  his  own 
Scriptures  furnished  —  especially  the  prophets,  Ezekiel  and 
Isaiah — on  behalf  of  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  and  of  the  reign  of  a  thousand  years  on  earth  with 
Christ — and  against  those  false  Christians,  as  he  regarded  them, 
who  denied  that  doctrine,  and  contended  for  the  immediate 
transition  of  the  soul  at  death  into  the  heavenly  world.^  He 
then,  as  it  were,  clenches  his  argument  by  adducing  the  direct 
evidence  of  a  Christian  himself  in  these  words  :  "  Among  us, 
too,  a  certain  man  named  John,  one  of  the  apostles  of  Christ,  in 
a  revelation  made  to  him,  prophesied  that  the  believers  in  our 
Christ  should  fulfil  a  thousand  years  in  Jerusalem — and  that 
after  that,  there  would  be  the  general  and  final  resurrection  and 
judgment  of  all  men  together,"  This  language  is  so  express, 
that  Rettig,  under  the  influence  of  pre-conceived  theory,  was 
disposed  to  reject  the  words,  el?  twv  aTrocnoXwv  tou  Xpiarov,  as 
a  later  interpolation,.  Liicke,  who  agrees  with  Rettig  respecting 
the  authorship  of  the  Apocalj^se,  has  shown  that  such  criticism 
is  indefensible ;  and  Eusebius,  whose  tendencies  run  all  in  the 
same  direction,  admits  that  Justin  distinctly  afiirms  John  the 
apostle  to  have  written  the  Apocalypse.^  This  explicit  testimony 
deserves  the  more  notice,  as  it  is  the  only  passage  in  the  works 
of  Justin,  where  any  book  of  the  New  Testament  is  cited  with 
the  name  of  its  author. 

^  TO,  TiKToviKo.  (pya — &poTpa  Kol  (vyd.     Dial.  c.  Tryph.  c.  88. 

^  afia  Toj  aTrodvTjffKeiv  ras  \puxct.s  auaAanfidfeaOat  els  rhi/  6upav6v.  It  should  be 
noticed  here,  that  Chiliasm  in  the  age  of  Justin  was  orthodoxy  ;  and  that  the  view  of 
the  Future  Life  entertained  in  later  centuries  by  Chanuing  and  others,  was  then  con- 
sidered not  merely  heresy,  but  an  absolute  denial  of  Chi'istianity ;  ^a^  inroAdff-qre 
avTovs  XpKTTiauovs. 

^  H.  E.  iv.  18.     ffacpvs  Tov  airo(TT6\ov  outV  eivai  Xfyooi'. 


32  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Melito,  bishop  of  Sardis  (one  of  the  seven  churches  spoken  to 
by  the  Spirit  in  the  Apocalj^pse),  the  author  of  an  Apology  for 
Christianity,  addressed  to  Marcus  Antoninus,  of  which  a  frag- 
ment has  been  preserved  by  Eusebius  (H.  E.  iv.  26),  wrote,  we 
are  told,  a  work  on  the  Apocalypse  of  John.^  This,  of  itself, 
does  not  prove  much  for  our  immediate  object.  But  there  are 
some  collateral  circumstances  connected  with  the  name  of 
Melito,  which  render  the  allusion  to  him  not  wholly  unim- 
portant. He  belonged  to  the  same  cycle  of  Asiatic  churches 
with  Papias  and  Irenaeus,  in  which  we  know  that  chiliastic 
views  widely  prevailed.  He  appears  to  have  studied  the  Old 
Testament  for  the  same  purpose  as  Justin  in  his  Dialogue  with 
Trypho — viz.,  to  discover  proofs  and  illustrations  of  Christianity ; 
and,  with  this  view,  he  made  a  selection  from  it  in  six  books  for 
the  use  of  a  friend  (e'/cXoya?  e/c  re  rod  vofiov  koX  rwv  7rpo(J37]T(ov 
irepl  Tov  ^(i)Tripo<i  kol  7raar)<;  Ti]<i  7rlaT€(o<;  rjp.oiv.  Euseb.  ibid.) — 
actually  travelling  into  the  East  for  fuller  information,  and  to 
familiarize  himself  with  the  scene  of  the  old  prophetic  action  and 
preaching.  Polycrates,  who  flourished  a  little  later  at  Ephesus, 
speaks  of  him  as  leading  a  singularly  ascetic  and  holy  life  ijov 
ivvov-)(ov,  TOV  iv  ar^/l(p  Trvevfiari  iravra  TroXcTevadfj^evov.  Euseb. 
H.  E.  V.  24).  Putting  all  these  indications  together,  we  may 
perhaps,  not  unreasonably  conclude,  that  Melito  adhered  to  the 
primitive  type  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  was  anti-Pauline  in 
his  tendencies ;  that  he  was  a  Chiliast,  like  most  of  his  con- 
temporaries in  that  part  of  Asia,  and  possibly,  as  we  seem  to 
gather  from  the  description  of  his  asceticism,  inclined  to  the 
Ebionitism,  of  which  James  the  Just,  the  first  bishop  of  Jerusalem, 
is  the  standing  ecclesiastical  type.  He  represents,  therefore,  the 
class  of  minds  among  which  the  Apocalj^se  would  be  sure  to 
find  a  welcome  reception ;  which  cherished  its  peculiar  doctrine, 
and  accepted  it  with  reverence  as  an  authoritative  expression  of 
apostolic  truth.     So  far  as  it  goes,  his  witness  may  be  allowed 

1  It  is  mentioned  in  a  list  of  several  other  works  ascribed  to  Mm  (Euseb.  H.  E. 
iv.  26). 


TESTIMONIES   TO    THE    APOCALYPSE.  33 

to  contribute  its  atom  of  probability  to  the  directer  evidence  of 
the  apostolic  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse.  At  all  events,  it 
throws  no  weight  into  the  opposite  scale. ^ 

"We  learn  from  Eusebius  (H.  E.  iv.  24)  that  Theophilus  of 
Antioch  (author  of  the  treatise  "To  Autolycus ")  in  a  work 
(now  lost)  in  reply  to  the  heresy  of  Hermogenes,  had  cited 
witnesses  from  the  Apocalypse  of  John.^  This  Hermogenes 
appears  to  have  been  an  anti-Montanist ;  if  so,  he  was  opposed 
to  the  doctrines  contained  in  the  Apocalypse.  Theophilus 
must,  therefore,  have  cited  the  book  against  him,  as  a  New 
Testament  authority  already  widely  acknowledged ;  and  this 
justifies  us  in  assuming  that  it  was  at  that  time  received  and 
respected,  not  only  by  Theophilus  himself,  but  in  the  church  of 
Antioch  generally.  Such  is  the  inference  of  Liicke,  no  partial 
witness  (Einl.  Offenb.  Johan.  §  37.  2.),  who  further  thinks  it 
probable  that  Theophilus,  with  Justin  Martyr,  regarded  the 
apostle  John  as  its  author. 

In  the  last  instance,  we  saw  the  Apocalypse  alleged  probably 
against  an  anti-Montanist.  In  the  next,  we  find  it  used 
by  an  anti-Montanist  himself.  Apollonius,  who  flourished 
in  the  reign  of  Commodus  and  Septimius  Severus,  wrote  a 
very  strong  treatise  against  the  Phrygian  or  Montanist  heresy, 
in  which  we  are  told  by  Eusebius  (H.  E.  v.  18)  that  "  he  made 
use  of  witnesses  from  the  Apocalypse  of  John."  As  in  immediate 
connexion  with  this  statement,  we  are  told  that  he  gives  an 
account  of  John's  having  raised,  by  divine  power,  a  person 
from  the  dead  in  Ephesus,  the  probability  is  that  Apollonius 
must  have  meant  by  John,  the  apostle.  Had  he  intended  any 
other  John,  Eusebius  would  certainly  have  noticed  it. 

The  fifth  book  of  Eusebius's  Ecclesiastical  History  (1-3) 
contains  the  celebrated  letter  of  the  Christians  of  Yienne  and 
Lyons  to  their  brethren  in  Asia  and  Phrygia  (whence  they  had 

1  The  subsisting  fragments  of  Melito  have  been  collected  by  Routh,  Reliquiae  Sacrse 
Tom.  I,  p.  113-153. 
*  Theophilus  flourished  in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  161  a.d.-180  a.d. 


34  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

originally  emigrated  to  the  banks  of  the  Ehone),  giving  an 
account  of  the  dreadful  persecution  which  they  had  undergone 
in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  about  177  a.d.  Now,  in  this 
letter  not  only  are  characteristic  phrases  literally  quoted  from 
the  Apocalypse — e.g.,  aKoKovOwv  tm  apvifp  ottov  av  vTrdyrj  (xiv.  4) 
— but  Christ  himself  is  called  Triaro'i  koL  akr}div7]<i  ^dprv^;,  Trpcoro- 
TOKo<;  TMv  veKpcbv  (i.  5,  iii.  14),  and  sentences  are  given,  as  if  from 
memory,  where  the  sense  is  retained,  though  the  expression  is 
slightly  varied — e.g.,  6  avo/jbo<i  dvofir]crdra)  eVt,  koI  6  BcKaLo<i  St- 
Kai,(odr}T(o  €TL  (xxii.  11).  What  is  still  more  remarkable,  this  last 
passage  is  cited  as  a  fulfilled  Scripture  (tW  rj  ypa(f)r}  ifKr^poadfi) — 
showing,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  the  Apocalypse  was  received  at 
that  time  as  authoritative  Scripture,  and  put  on  the  same  level 
with  the  Law  and  the  Prophets — as  well  among  the  Gaulish 
Christians  as  among  their  co-religionists  in.  Asia,  and  attesting, 
therefore,  the  widely  diffused  recognition  of  the  book  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  second  century.  This  renders  it  in  the  highest  degree 
probable,  that  both  the  Gaulish  and  the  Asiatic  Christians  re- 
garded it  as  a  work  of  the  apostle  John ;  and  the  probability 
rises  almost  to  a  moral  certainty,  when  we  bear  in  mind  that 
this,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  was  the  decided  conviction  of 
Irenaeus  himself,  who,  if  not  the  author  of  the  letter,  stood  in 
the  most  intimate  relation  to  the  two  communities  between 
which  it  passed. 

The  author  of  a  MS.,  entitled  "A  Refutation  of  all  Heresies," 
discovered  in  Greece  some  years  ago,  and  now  deposited  in  the 
Imperial  Library  at  Paris,  which  was  first  published  under  the 
name  of  Origen,  but  which  its  last  editors,  Duncker  and  Schnei- 
dewin,  in  accordance  with  the  judgment  of  the  late  Baron 
Bunsen,  have  unhesitatingly  ascribed  to  Hippolytus — bears  the 
following  distinct  testimony  to  the  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse 
by  John,  at  the  opening  of  the  third  century.^     Speaking  of 

^  We  gather  its  date  from  its  allusion  to  Zepliyrinus  and  Callistus  (as  the  author's 
contemporaries)  who  became  bishops  of  Rome  respectively  in  201  a.d.  and  218  a.d, 
(Lib.  ix.  7.) 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE   APQCALYPSE.  35 

the  Nicolaitans,  who  are  referred  to  with  abhorrence  in  the 
Apocalypse  (ii.  6),  he  adds  :  "  the  disciples  of  this  school,  doing 
despite  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  John,  in  the  Apocalypse,  has  charged 
with  fornication  and  eating  meats  offered  to  idols "  (vii.  36). 
It  is  noticeable,  that  this  is  one  of  the  few  passages  in  this 
treatise  where  the  writer  of  any  book  of  the  New  Testament  is 
mentioned  by  name.  Mark's  gospel  is  alluded  to  (vii.  30),  and 
Paul  is  cited  several  times  (v.  7,  8 ;  vii.  30,  31  ;  viii.  20),  and, . 
in  some  places,  is  called  "  the  apostle,"  in  others,  "  the  blessed." 
Whether  Matthew  be  referred  to  is  doubtful,  as  he  is  described 
as  the  author  of  an  apocryphal  work  used  by  the  Basilidians ; 
and  the  recent  editors  read  not  Matthew,  but  Matthias  (vii.  20). 
The  gospels  of  Luke  and  John  are  not  once  quoted  with  the 
names  of  their  authors.  That,  in  the  foregoing  passage,  John 
the  apostle  is  intended  as  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  can 
hardly  be  questioned.^  In  the  year  1551,  there  was  dug  xip  at 
Rome,  a  statue  of  Hippolytus  sitting  in  a  chair,  on  one  side  of 
which  is  inscribed  a  list  of  his  works  ;  and  from  this,  though 
now  imperfect,  we  learn  that  he  wrote  on  the  Gospel  and 
Apocalypse  of  John.^  In  his  treatise  on  "  Christ  and  Anti- 
Christ,"  he  cites  John,  who  was  in  Patmos,  as  the  author  of  the 
Apocalypse,  and  addresses  him  as  an  "  apostle  and  disciple  of 
the  Lord.^ 

1  The  passage  as  now  corrected  runs  thus :  ov  (Nicolai  scil.)  -rovs  fJLaQ7)To.<s  eVu- 
fipi^ovras  t5  br/iov  Truevfia  Sta  Trjs  a.iroKa\v\f/((t)s  'Icoocj'tjs  ij\eyxe  iropvevouTas  ual 
iiSctj\6dvTa  iffGiovras.  Had  the  original  readings  of  the  Paris  MS.  been  retained — 
ivvfipl^ov  TO— and  'Icoavvov — the  assertion  of  apostolic  authorship  would  have  been 
still  more  explicit,  as  the  spirit  would  then  have  been  represented  as  rebuking  the 
Nicolaitans  through  the  revelation  of  John.  But  both  the  first  and  the  later  editors 
have  concurred  in  the  change  of  reading.  'EvyjSpifoj/  is  so  harsh  an  expression,  that 
it  could  hardly  have  been  used  with  reverence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  even  if  the  occur- 
rence of  the  same  word  in  Hebrews  (x.  29)  did  not  sufficiently  show  in  what  sense  it 
must  be  employed  here,  and  fully  justify  the  conversion  of  ov  into  ovras  and  vov  into 
vi)s.  A  passage  in  Irenscus  (Adv.  Hscr.  I.  xxvi.  3)  with  similar  reference  to  the  Nico- 
laitans, which  Hippolytus  must  have  had  in  his  eye,  wjicn  he  wrote  the  words  in 
question,  leaves  no  room  for  doubt,  what  John  is  intended.  For  Irenajus  certainly 
believed  that  John  the  apostle  was  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse. 

-  vTTfp  Tov  KaTo,  'lo)dvur]v  ivayyfKiov  koI  a.noKa\v\pews.  Jerome  (Catal.  61)  says 
only  "  de  Apocalypsi." 

3  Kirchhofer  (Quellensammlung  etc.  p.  310)  gives  the  original  passage  from  the 


36  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

In  Irenfcus  and  Tertullian,  in  whom  first  we  discern  tte 
traces  of  a  recognized  and  authoritative  scripture,  the  refer- 
ences to  John  as  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse  are  so  numerous 
and  so  unquestionable,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  consume 
much  time  in  adducing  them.  In  Irenaeus,  John  is  usually 
described  as  *'  the  disciple  of  the  Lord ;  "  but  in  the  same  way 
he  speaks  of  the  author  of  the  first  epistle  (III.  xvi.  8),  which 
he  unquestionably  regarded  as  apostolic.  If  there  could 
be  any  doubt,  it  is  removed  by  this  statement,  on  citing  the 
Apocalypse  (i.  17,  18),  that  the  John  alluded  to,  as  over- 
powered by  the  vision,  was  he  that  leaned  on  the  bosom  of 
the  Word  at  supj^er  (lY.  xx.  11).  There  is  weight,  too,  in 
the  remark  of  Liicke  (p.  571  and  note),  that,  by  the  mode 
of  citation  frequently  employed  —  "  John  beheld  in  the 
Apocalypse  " — the  identity  of  the  seer  and  the  writer  is  clearly 
indicated. 

Tertullian  abounds  in  citations  from  the  Apocalypse,  as  well 
as  from  the  other  books  of  the  New  Testament,  now  forming,  as 
he  expressed  it,  a  part  of  the  great  instrnmentum  UteraturcB 
(Apologet.  c.  xviii.),  or  body  of  written  documents  on  which, 
furnished  alike  by  the-  Old  and  New  Testament,  he  grounded 
his  proofs  of  the  divine  origin  and  authority  of  the  Christian 
religion.  All  these  writings  he  considered  to  possess,  imme- 
diately or  mediately,  an  apostolic  character.  What  was  his 
opinion  of  the  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse,  the  following 
passages  from  his  writings  place  beyond  a  doubt.  In  his 
treatise,  "  de  Pudicitia"  (c.  xix.),  comparing  the  apparently 
conflicting  opinions  of  Paul  (1  Cor.  v.  9-13)  and  John  (Apocal. 
ii.  18-22)  about  the  re-admission  to  church  communion  of  a 
fornicator,  he  calls  both  of  them  "  apostles,"  and  speaks  of  their 
equally  enjoying  the  Holy  Spirit  (aequalitatem  spiritus  sancti). 

works  of  Hippolytus.  Ebedjesu,  a  Syrian  bishop  at  the  end  of  the  14th  century,  in 
his  catalogue  of  the  different  books  of  Scripture,  mentions  that  Hippolytus  wrote  in 
defence  of  the  Apocalypse  as  a  book  of  the  apostle  and  evangelist  John.  Dr.  Lardner 
Credibility  of  Gospel  History  ("Works,  iv.  p.  442  and  ii.  p.  412). 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE   APOCALYPSE.  37 

Still  more  explicit  is  his  language,  (ad versus  Marcionem  xii.l4) 
— "  Apostolus  Joannes  in  Apocalypsi  ensem  describit  ex  ore  Dei 
prodeuntem  etc"  (Apocal,  i.  16).  It  is  not,  indeed,  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  opinions  of  Ircnoous  and  Tertullian  on  this  point 
were  the  result  of  any  critical  investigation.  They  merely 
represent  the  strong,  unquestioned  tradition  of  their  own  time. 
If  Tertullian's  notorious  leaning  and  final  accession  to  the 
Montanist  heresy,  which  specially  appealed  to  the  Apocalypse  in 
support  of  its  peculiar  views,  may  be  thought  in  some  degree  to 
'affect  the  independence  of  his  judgment ;  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  very  appeal  of  the  Montanists  may  be  taken  as  evidence  of 
the  wide-diffusion  of  the  tradition  in  that  part  of  Asia  where 
they  originated :  while  IrenaDus's  close  connexion  M^th  Ephesus, 
and  his  knowledge  of  the  belief  which  existed  there,  must  be 
allowed  to  give  peculiar  value  to  his  testimony  as  coming  from 
the  fountain-head  of  the  tradition. 

The  witnesses  hitherto  cited  have  been  taken  entirely  from  the 
Asiatic  and  the  Western  Churches.  It  will  be  interesting  to  no- 
tice what  opinion  prevailed  in  the  more  learned  school  of  Alex- 
andria. Clement  of  Alexandria  (Strom.  YI.  xiii.  §  106)  quotes 
the  Apocalypse  of  John,  referring  distinctly  to  iv.  4  and  xi.  16. 
That  he  means  John,  the  apostle^  is  evident  from  the  treatise, 
"  Quis  dives  salvetur  "  (§  42),  where  he  speaks  of  his  exile  in 
Patmos  (Apocal.  i.  9).  In  his  "  Paedagogus  "  (II.  xii.  19)  he 
quotes  Apocalypse  xxi.  as  an  utterance  of  th«  apostolical  voice 
(t?}9  airocTToXiKrj'^  ^(Ovrj<i). 

His  successor  in  the  Catechetical  School,  the  celebrated 
Origen,  is  not  less  explicit.  Eusebius  (H.  E.  vi.  25)  quotes  a 
passage  from  the  fifth  book  of  his  "  Exposition  of  the  Gospel  of 
John,"  in  which  he  says,  that  the  same  John,  he  who  leaned  on 
the  bosom  of  Jesus,  wrote  also  the  Apocalypse ;  and  his  testi- 
mony is  the  more  remarkable,  as  he  speaks  doubtfully  in  the 
same  passage  of  the  second  and  third  epistles.  In  his  Com- 
mentary on  the  book  of  Joshua,  he  asserts  that  John  was  the 
author  of  the  Gospel,  the  Epistles,  and  the  Apocalypse  ;  where 

98557 


38  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

he  must,  of  course,  mean  tlie  apostle.^  Citing  the  Apocalypse 
(xiv.  6,  7),  he  calls  it  the  work  of  John,  the  son  of  Zehedee, 
(Comment,  in  Evangel.  Joann.  Tom.  I.  14).  In  his  Com- 
mentary on  Matthew  (Tom.  xvi.,  quoted  by  Kirchhofer,  p.  309) 
he  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  personality  of  the  author  of  the 
Apocalypse,  who  was  exiled  in  Patmos,  by  describing  him  as 
a  son  of  Zebedee,  and  a  brother  of  the  James  who  was  put  to 
death  by  Herod  (Acts  xii.  2).  Iij  his  Commentary  on  John 
(edit.  Huet.  p.  51  ;  Kirchhofer,  p.  310),  he  calls  the  author  of 
the  Apocalypse  an  apostle  and  evangelist  (eV  ttj  airoKaXvy^et  6 
a7r6crTo\o<i  koX  ivayyeXlcrTr]';).  I  believe  there  is  not  a  passage  in 
the  writings  of  Origen,  in  which  he  expresses  a  doubt  of  the 
apostolic  origin  of  the  Apocalypse.  He  is  said  to  have  medi- 
tated a  commentary  on  the  book.^  Yet  he  was  decidedly  opposed 
to  Chiliasm  and  Montanism,  which  found  a  strong  support  in  the 
Apocalypse.  "Without,  therefore,  supposing  that  either  Clement 
or  Origen  had  critically  investigated  the  authenticity  of  the 
Apocalypse,  their  unhesitating  acceptance  of  it  may  be  taken 
as  an  evidence  of  the  steadiness  and  constancy  of  the  original 
tradition,  the  truth  of  which  they  had  met  with  no  objection  of 
sufficient  weight  to  induce  them  to  doubt. 

Before  I  close  this  list  of  witnesses,  I  must  notice  two  facts, 
which  seem  for  the  first  time  to  indicate  the  awakening  of 
doubt.  In  the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  Muratori  discovered 
in  the  Ambrosian  library  at  Milan — brought  apparently  at  an 
earlier  period  from  the  ancient  convent  of  Bobbio  founded  by 
Columban — a  MS.  which  contained,  in  Latin,  a  mutilated  list  of 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of  some  apocryphal  works 
often  associated  with  them  in  the  first  age  of  the  Church.  This 
fragment  is  referred  by  the  general  consent  of  scholars  to  the 

1  As  this  Commentary  exists  only  in  the  Latin  version  of  Rufinus,  who  often  took 
liberties,  as  he  himself  confesses,  with  the  original  Greek,  it  ^is  only  right  to  observe, 
that  with  respect  to  this  particular  version,  Eufinus  says,  "  simpliciter  expressimus, 
ut  invenimus."  See  Kirchhofer,  Quellensamralung,  etc,  p.  26. 

2  See  Liicke  (Einl.  §  39,  4),  who  refers  to  his  Commentary  on  Matthew.  Oper. 
Tom.  iv.  p.  307.  edit.  Lommatzsch,  and  Huet.  Origen.  III.  ii.  4. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    APOCALYPSE.  39 

latter  part  of  the  second  century,  or,  at  the  latest,  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  third.  It  makes  mention  of  our  book  in  the 
following  terms :  "  There  is  an  Apocalypse  also  of  John  ;  and 
one  of  Peter  we  simply  receive,  which  some  of  our  people  do 
not  like  to  have  read  in  church."^  The  passage  is  somewhat 
obscure,  and  it  has  been  variously  interpreted.  I  do  not  think 
we  can  safely  infer  from  it  more  this ; — that,  at  the  time  of  the 
construction  of  this  canon,  an  Apocalypse  was  in  existence 
which  bore  the  name  of  John  ;  and  that  there  was  then  also 
in  circulation  along  with  it,  another  ascribed  to  Peter,  which 
was  not  universally  received  in  the  Church. 

A  more  remarkable  circumstance  is  the  omission  of  the 
Apocalypse  in  the  oldest  Syriac  version  of  the  New  Testament, 
called  the  Peschito.  When  this  version  was  made,  it  is  im- 
possible to  decide  with  any  approach  to  precision.  The  great 
antiquity  claimed  for  it  by  J.  D.  Michaelis,  who  carried  it  up  to 
the  first  century,  has  been  shown  by  his  translator  and  com- 

1  The  Latin  of  the  whole  fragment  is  exceedingly  corrupt.  I  have  translated  the 
passage  as  it  stands.  With  the  preceding  article  (which  I  give  for  the  sake  of 
a  clearer  view  of  the  context)  it  runs  thus  :  "  Epistola  saue  Judae  et  superscripti  (tse) 
Joannis  duas  (duae)  in  catholica  habentur.  Ut  (et)  Sapientia  ab  araicis  Salomonis  in 
honorem  ipsius  scripta.  Apocalypsis  etiam  Johannis,  et  Petri,  tantum  recipimus,  quam 
quidam  ex  nostris  legi  in  ecclesia  nolunt."  Credner  (Zur  Geschichte  des  Kanons, 
p.  76)  changes  'apocalypsis'  into  'apocalypses,'  and  suppressing  the  points  after 
'Johannis'  and  '  Petri,"  refers  the  words  '  tantum  recipimus  '  to  both  the  apocalypses, 
putting  them  apparently  on  the  same  level :  but  then  that  leaves  the  difficulty  of  the 
singular  '  quam,'  which  we  should  expect  in  this  case  to  be  '  quas.*  Hug.  (Introduction 
to  New  Testament,  Sect.  xix.  "Wait's  Transl.)  thinks  the  difficulty  may  be  partly  got 
over  by  regarding  the  Latin  as  a  barbarous  version  by  some  incompetent  person  of  a 
Greek  original ;  and  to  shovv  the  probability  of  this,  he  renders  back  some  passages 
into  Greek.  He  puts  a  full  stop  at  '  Johannis,'  and  connects  the  sentence  with  the 
preceding  article,  which  speaks  of  the  epistle  of  Jude  and  two  Catholic  epistles  of 
John.  By  assuming  '  tantum '  to  be  a  mistranslation  for  ^uoVtji/,  he  thinks  he  recovers 
an  allusion  to  the  first  epistle  of  Peter;  and  supposing  '  quam'  to  represent  the  Greek 
for  '  alteram,'  he  finds  in  the  concluding  words  a  denial  of  ecclesiastical  authority  to 
the  second.  His  explanation  seems  to  me  far-fetched  and  unsatisfactory.  But  he  is 
perhaps  right  in  affirming  that  the  words  '  Apocalypsis  etiam  Johannis '  belong  in 
their  general  connexion  to  the  preceding  paragraph  of  the  fragment.  Put  a  fuller  stop 
at '  Johannis  ;'  supply  '  Apocalypsin  '  after  '  Petri ;'  and  the  passage  yields  a  tolerable 
sense  without  any  alteration.  This  fragment  is  usually  described  as  "  Fragmentum 
de  Canone  acephalum,"  and  was  first  published  in  the  3rd  vol.  of  Muratori's  Antiquit. 
Itai.  Med.  GEvi.  Milan  :   1740. 


40  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

mentator,  Bishop  Marsh,  to  be  contradicted  by  all  existing 
evidence.^  Nevertheless,  it  must  be  very  old ;  for  it  represents 
a  text  which  harmonizes  with  the  most  ancient  Greek  MSS. 
and  the  oldest  Latin  versions,  and  which  modem  criticism  has 
rendered  it  probable  was  anterior  to  the  fourth  century.  After 
the  middle  of  the  second  century,  Bardesanes  and  his  son, 
Harmonius,  made  a  commencement  of  Syriac  literature ;  and 
as  this  was  altogether  of  ecclesiastical  origin,  and  dated  from 
the  introduction  of  Christianity,  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that 
the  translation  of  the  New  Testament  would  be  deferred  long 
after  the  time  when  Syriac  began  to  be  employed  as  a  written 
language.  This  brings  us  to  the  end  of  the  second  or  the 
opening  of  the  third  century,  the  period  when  we  first  discover 
traces  of  a  recognized  scriptural  canon  throughout  the  Church. 
To  this  date  the  majority  of  recent  scholars  assign  the  Peschito. 
In  this  version,  the  second  epistle  of  Peter,  the  second  and  third 
of  John,  the  epistle  of  Jude,  and  the  Apocalypse,  are  wanting. 
That  Theophilus  of  Antioch  (in  Syria)  should  have  known  and 
cited  the  Apocalypse  before  that  time,  notwithstanding  its 
absence  from  the  Peschito,  is  not,  perhaps,  so  extraordinary,  as 
he  belonged  to  western  Syria,  where  Greek  civilization  pre- 
dominated, and  the  Greek  language  was  universally  spoken. 
But  that  Ephraem  Syrus,  towards  the  end  of  the  fourth  century 
— the  earliest  writer  by  whom  we  find  the  Peschito  used — 
should  constantly  quote  the  Apocalypse  with  the  name  of  its 
author,  is  certainly  not  a  little  surprising,  as  he  belonged  to  a 
district  beyond  the  Euphrates,  where  Syriac  was  the  popular 
dialect;  and  we  know  from  the  distinct  witness  of  contem- 
poraries, that  he  did  not  understand  Greek.^     Eichhorn  and 

'  Michaelis,  Introduction  to  New  Testament.  Part  I.  Cb.  vii.  and  Marsh's  note  on 
sect.  6,  p.  554. 

2  Hug.,  Introduction,  Sect.  Ixv.  vol.  I.  p.  349,  note  c.  Ephraem  was  obliged  to 
employ  an  interpreter  in  his  intercourse  with  Basil  of  Caesarea.  The  late  Cardinal 
Wiseman  states,  that  the  earliest  indication  of  the  existence  of  the  Peschito  occurs  in 
the  writings  of  Ephraem,  though  he  supposes  the  version  to  be  much  older  than  his 
time.  "  Quamvisde  Peschito  testem  nullum  habeamus  Epbraemo  anteriorem,  taraen 
antiquiorem  longe  ipso  fuisse  mihi  certo  constat."  Horse  Syriacte.  II.  ^  v.  p.  139. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE   APOCALYPSE.  41 

Hug  explain  the  fact,  by  supposing  that  the  Apocalypse  did 
originally  form  a  part  of  the  Peschito,  but  was  gradually 
excluded  from  the  later  copies  in  consequence  of  the  growing 
dislike  to  the  book  which  pervaded  the  Eastern  Church  ;  and 
that  our  oldest  MSS.  do  not  go  back  to  the  time  when  this 
aversion  first  began  to  operate.^  Liicke  does  not  go  so  far  as 
this  ;  but,  assuming  that  the  Apocalypse  was  originally  wanting 
in  the  Peschito,  he  accounts  for  its  exclusion,  not  on  historical 
or  dogmatic  grounds,  but  from  the  circumstance  that,  in  the 
MSS.  which  came  into  the  hands  of  the  Syriac  translator, 
whether  derived  from  Antioch  or  Alexandria,  it  was  not  yet 
incorporated  with  the  other  books  of  the  New  Testament.' 

With  the  exception  of  the  two  last  instances,  which  we  may 
be  allowed,  perhaps,  to  leave  in  a  neutral  position,  all  the 
witnesses  that  we  have  so  far  produced,  down  to  the  middle  of 
the  third  century,  speak  distinctly  in  favour  of  the  apostolic 
origin  of  the  Apocalypse,  without  the  occurrence  of  any  positive 
testimony  on  the  other  side.  In  summing  up  their  united 
weight,  the  verdict  of  Kirchhofer  can  scarcely  be  considered  as 
too  strongly  expressed  :  "  Hardly  one  book  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment has  such  a  list  of  historical  witnesses  marked  by  name  on 
its  behalf."^  Soon  after  the  middle  of  the  third  century, 
however,  we  discern  the  rise  of  an  altered  feeling  in  regard  to 
the  Apocalypse,  which  left  a  considerable  impression  on  the 
future  judgment  of  the  Church.  Of  the  nature  and  origin 
of  that  feeling,  I  must  now  give  some  account. 

1  Hug.  Sect.  Ixv.-lxviii.      Eichhorn,  Einleit.  N.  T.  §  56,  §  195. 
3  Liicke,  Einl.  §  39.  7. 

3  "  Kaum  ein  Buch  des  N.  T.  hat  eine  solche  namLafte  Ileihe  von  historisclien  Tes- 
timonien  fiir  sicli."  (Quellensammlung  etc.  p.  296.) 


42  CHAEACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 


SECTION  VI. 

Oil  the  reaction  of  feeling  against  the  Apocalypse. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  second,  and  still  more  in  the  course  of 
the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  we  discover  unmistakeable  traces 
of  the  change  of  character  that  inevitably  overtakes  every  form 
of  religious  belief,  which,  originating  in  intense  enthusiasm  and 
demanding  at  first  an  almost  entire  renunciation  of  the  world, 
has,  nevertheless,  acquired  a  permanent  footing  in  society,  and 
is  compelled  to  adjust  itself  to  the  state  of  things  that  actually 
exists.  No  man  who  reads  with  unbiassed  mind  the  different 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  not  excepting  the  Fourth  Gospel 
itself,^  can  possibly  deny  that  the  great  idea  which,  amidst 
many  differences,  is  profoundly  imprinted  on  them  all,  is  the 
expectation  of  an  approaching  judgment-day  and  the  end  of  the 
world.  The  gospel  in  its  first,  fresh  outburst  was  a  solemn 
utterance  of  this  expectation,  and  a  protest  against  the  selfish- 
ness and  carnality  of  an  extremely  corrupt  civilization,  gathering 
strength  and  taking  shape  from  the  Messianic  hope  which  had 
been  developed  by  Hebrew  prophecy,  and  which  the  diffusion 
of  Jewish  synogogues  and  Alexandrine  literature  through  the 
Grseco-Roman  world,  had  rendered  not  unfamiliar  to  many 
inquisitive  minds  among  the  heathen.  Its  effect  was  vehement 
reaction  against  the  strongest  tendencies  of  the  age — its  lavish 
expenditure  on  self-indulgence,  and  its  heartless  voluptuousness 
— its  worship  of  power  and  worldly  success,  and  its  contempt 
for  the  masses — its  passion  for  war,  and  the  mimic  slaughters  of 
the  amphitheatre.  In  the  awful  shadow  of  impending  doom  all 
these  sensuous  splendours  grew  pale  and  dim.     The  future  over- 

1  See  xiv.  3. 


REACTION   AGAINST   THE    APOCALYPSE.  43 

powered  the  present.  The  believer  walked  by  "faith,  not  by 
sight,"  and  lost  every  other  hope  and  fear  in  tlie  one  absorbing 
solicitude  to  "  make  his  calling  and  election  sure  "  at  the  great 
crisis  which  would  separate  for  ever  the  evil  and  the  good.  As 
described  in  the  opening  chapters  of  the  book  of  Acts,  the 
earliest  Christian  Church  was  based  on  a  principle  of  religious 
communism;  for  a  true  disciple  was  expected  to  "sell  aU  that  he 
had  and  give  it  to  the  poor ;"  and  the  Master  himself  had  said,  it 
was  "  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  than 
for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Primitive 
Christianity  was,  therefore,  an  absolute  abandonment  of  the 
world — a  forswearing  of  its  pleasures,  its  literature,  its  favourite 
occupations,  made  additionally  offensive  to  a  devout  and  holy 
mind  by  their  inextricable  involution  with  the  impure  associa- 
tions of  heathenism.  But  such  seclusion  from  living  interests  de- 
manded an  unnatural  strain  on  the  mind,  which  must  idtimately 
give  way,  especially  when  the  expectation  which  had  sustained 
it  was  found  not  to  be  literally  fulfilled.  The  great  day  came 
not.  It  was  continually  put  off  further  and  further  into  an 
uncertain  future.  Already,  in  the  time  of  the  author  of  the 
second  epistle  of  Peter,^  we  read  of  "scoffers"  who  asked, 
"  Where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming  ?  for,  since  the  fathers 
fell  asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning 
of  the  creation." 

The  little  treatise  on  the  "  salvability  of  rich  men,"  which 
is  found  among  the  works  of  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and 
which,  if  not  his,  belonged  to  the  same  period,  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  century,  and  is  worthy  of  his  pen,  for  its 
refined  style  and  philosophic  elevation  of  sentiment — throws  an 
interesting  light  on  the  transition  of  opinion  which  was  then 
taking  place  in  the  minds  of  thoughtful  Christians  with  respect 
to  the  possession  of  worldly  goods.  It  takes  as  a  sort  of  text  the 
strong  saying  about  the  "  camel "  and  "  the  eye  of  a  needle,^ 
and  argues  that  this  and  similar  passages  must  be  understood 
1  iii.  3,  4.  2  Matth.  xix.  24  ;  Mark  i.  25 ;  Luke  xviii.  25. 


44  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

mystically  or  spiritually,  and  not  in  a  coarse  and  carnal  sense ; 
that  men  may  be  rich  in  desire,  though  poor  in  actual  posses- 
sion ;  and  poor  in  spirit,  though  abounding  in  worldly  wealth  ; 
and  that  riches — things  indifferent  in  themselves — merely  di- 
versified the  course  of  earthly  discipline,  and  might  be  sanctified 
by  wise  and  beneficent  use.^  This  doctrine  was  not  in  accord- 
ance with  the  letter  of  the  original  teaching,  though  it  was 
a  legitimate  inference  from  its  underlying  spirit.  By  the  first 
Christians  any  denial  of  their  faith  before  rulers  and  magistrates, 
was  regarded  as  the  height  of  disloj^alty  to  Christ  and  God ; 
and  all  who  had  borne  witness  to  the  truth  with  their  blood 
were  beKeved  to  have  acquired  a  title  to  immediate  admission 
into  the  beatific  presence.  But,  with  the  spread  of  philosophical 
principles  in  the  Church,  and  the  reaction  of  the  world  on  the 
primitive  fervour,  men  hesitated  to  sacrifice  life  and  social 
position  for  a  profession ;  and,  in  times  of  persecution,  often 
stooped  to  unworthy  expedients  to  secure  immunity.  One  of 
the  controversies  which  most  sharply  divided  the  Church, 
especially  in  the  West,  during  the  third  century,  related  to 
the  treatment  of  those  who  had  thus  "  lapsed."  The  stricter 
party  were  for  excluding  them  for  ever  from  church  commu- 
nion. The  laxer  would  have  reduced  them  again  to  the  con- 
dition of  the  unconverted,  and  re-admitted  them  after  a  due 
course  of  intervening  penance.-     Even  war  became  less  odious 

'  "ntrre  rovs  irXovaiovs  p-vcttlkcos  aicovrrreov,  rovs  SvaKoXooi  tlffeXtvaofiiVOvs  els 
TTjv  fiaaiKilav,  /xi]  ffKoiois,  /J-v^^  aypoiKais,  /UTjSe  aapKiKws.     Ov  yap  ovtws  \e\fKrat, 

ovSf  €Trl  rots  eKrhs    7}   ffWTrjpia,   ovre    e'l  ttoAAo,  ovre  it  6\iya  Tavra oAA.'  iwl 

TTJ  Trjs  ^vxfis  apfT-p,  irlcTTei,  Ka]  iKirlSi,  Kol  aydini  etc.  etc.  S>v  aQXov  tj  awrrjpia. 
c.  18.  Again,  wealth  is  an  instrument  of  good  to  those  who  know  how  to  use  it : 
S\t]  Tis  Kol  opyava,  irphs  xp'jf"'  o.ya9)]V  rols  iiS6(n  rh  opyavov.  C.  14.  Why  should 
God  have  permitted  wealth  to  spring  out  of  the  earth,  if  it  only  procured  death  :  tI 
8e  '6\u>s  irKovrov  ixpV''  ^k  yijs  avareTXal  irore,  ^t  x^PVy^s  /col  Trp6^fi'6s  t(TTi  6aya,- 
rov.  c.  26.  This  treatise,  though  pleading  for  the  right  use  and  enjoyment  of  the 
present  world,  is  pervaded  by  a  deeply  spiritual  tone,  breathing  the  spirit  of  love 
which  fills  the  Fourth  Gospel.  We  enter  into  the  nature  of  God,  the  more  we  love 
him     '6aov  ayair^  tis  6e6v,  roffSvTO)  koI  irKfov  ivSorepo)  rod  6edv  irapaSuerai.  C.  27. 

2  This  was  the  subject  of  the  Novatian  controversy,  which  raged  under  different 
relations  at  Carthage  and  Eome. 


REACTION   AGAINST   THE    APOCALYPSE.  45 

in  the  eyes  of  Christians,  and  councils  shut  out  from  commu- 
nion those  who  refused  to  fulfil  its  obligations.^  Among  the 
more  educated  Christians  the  study  of  heathen  literature  and 
philosophy  was  resumed  with  ardour ;  and  many  of  the  apolo- 
gists, with  the  great  Greek  fathers  of  the  fourth  century,  were 
accomplished  classical  scholars.^ 

It  was  precisely  at  the  juncture  when  this  change  of  sentiment 
was  beginning  to  be  felt  throughout  the  Church,  and  the  wide 
diffusion  of  philosophical  culture  was  irresistibly  modifying  the 
broad  popular  conceptions  and  bold  imagery  of  the  primitive 
Jewish  Christianity,  that  we  hear  uttered  for  the  first  time 
strong  doubts  of  the  apostolic  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse. 
Coming  out  of  the  very  heart  of  the  first  circle  of  believers, 
and  representing  in  the  most  fervid  language  the  enthusiastic 
faith  which  possessed  them,  the  Apocalypse  of  all  the  books  of 
the  New  Testament  was  the  best  fitted  by  its  pervading  idea  of 
Chiliasm,  to  keep  alive  in  the  mind  of  the  multitude,  all  those 
beliefs  and  expectations  which  were  most  at  variance  with  the 
form  and  order  of  the  existing  civilization,  and  which  it  was 
the  desire  of  the  philosophical  professors  of  Christianity  to 
soften  down  and  explain  away  into  a  merely  figurative  ex- 
pression of  general  and  abstract  truth.  This  relaxation  of 
primeval  strictness  and  fervour  was  followed  by  a  two -fold  effect. 
The  cultivated  and  intellectual  justified  it,  and  tried  to  show 
that  it  was  a  necessity ;  while  those  of  a  more  enthusiastic 
temperament  regarded  it  as  a  sure  indication  of  the  decline  of 
the  good  old  faith,  which  they  made  feverish  efforts  to  restore 

'  This  occurred  in  Gaul.  "  Un  concile  retraiicha  de  la  communion  des  fideles  ceux 
qui  se  croyaient  le  droit  de  jeter  leurs  armes."  Gaston  Boissier  :  "  Le  Christianisme 
dans  la  Gaule."  Revjie  des  Deux  Mondes,  Juin,  1866. 

2  It  became  not  unusual  to  adopt  the  form  and  the  diction  of  Greek  poetry  for  the 
purpose  of  popular  instruction.  The  histories  of  the  Old  Testament  were  versified  in 
the  language  of  Homer :  and  there  is  still  extant  a  drama  on  Christ's  passion,  made 
up  almost  entirely  of  lines  from  Euripides,  which  has  been  used  by  modern  scholars  as 
a  source  of  textual  criticism.  The  plays  from  which  it  was  a  cento,  are  said  to  be 
the  Hippolytus,  Medea,  Bacchoe,  Rhesus,  Troades,  and  Orestes.  See  Valckenaer, 
prefat.  in  Eurip.  Hippolytum,  p.  xi. 


46  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

and  uphold.  Tlie  Montanist  movement  in  Phrygia,  whicli, 
though  it  may  have  been  fomented  by  the  traditional  influences 
of  the  locality,  assumed  importance  about  this  period,  was  in 
its  essence  a  reactionary  and  spasmodic  endeavour  to  bring  back 
the  strong,  undoubting  faith  of  the  first  age  ;  and  it  carried  away 
in  its  contagion  all  the  excitable  spirits  of  the  time,  among 
them  the  fiery  genius  of  Tertullian  :  just  as  in  the  last  century 
the  preaching  of  the  Wgsleys  was  a  counteraction  to  the 
rationalistic  coldness  that  was  creeping  over  the  Church  and 
the  old  Dissenters,  or  as,  at  a  still  later  period,  what  took  the 
name  of  Primitive  Methodism,  was  an  attempt  to  restore  in  its 
original  power  the  spirit  of  early  "Wesley anism.  The  Revivals  of 
more  recent  times  are  another  example  of  the  same  enthusiastic 
spirit.^  Now  the  Apocalypse  was  the  favourite  book  of  the 
Montanists.  It  encouraged  their  hopes  and  nourished  their 
zeal ;  for  they  had  re-animated  a  faith  in  the  approaching  end 
of  the  world,  and  believed  that  the  New  Jerusalem  would 
descend  from  heaven  on  Pepuza,  the  centre  of  their  religious 
community  in  Phrygia.  "After  me,"  said  Maximilla,  one  of 
their  prophetesses,  "  comes  the  end  of  all  things.^ 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  first  and  most  decided  resistance  to 
these  revivals  should  proceed  from  the  learned  school  of  Alex- 
andria. The  controversy  was  begun  by  Dionysius,  bishop  of  that 
city,  from  247  to  265  a.d.  Eusebius  has  given  a  fidl  account  of 
it  in  his  Ecclesiastical  History  (vii.  24,  25),  from  which  I  have 
here  abbreviated  the  most  important  particulars.  Dionysius  was 
of  heathen  extraction,  but  had  been  a  pupil  of  Origen,  and  was 

1  The  "  Shepherd  of  Hermas,"  which  probahlj-  belongs  to  the  end  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, is  the  expression  of  a  parallel  endeavour  after  rivival  in  a  mitigated  form  within 
the  limits  of  the  Catliolic  Church.  See  a  scries  of  articles  hy  Lipsius,  "  Der  Ilirte  des 
Hernias  und  der  Wontanismus  in  Eom,"  in  Hilgcnfeld's  "  Zeitschrift  fiir  wissenschaft- 
liche  Theologie,"  1865  and  1866.  Hermas  is  quite  apocah-ptic  in  its  tone,  and  con- 
stantly reminds  the  reader  of  the  allegory  of  Bunyan,  which  had  its  origin  in  a  similar 
desire  to  uphold  the  primitive  fervour  of  Puritanism,  at  a  time  when  Laiitudinarianism 
was  spreading  in  the  upper  regions  of  the  Church. 

2  Mer'  €>€  avvrfXeia.  Epiphau.  Panar.  xlyiii.  We  are  reminded  of  Mettemich's 
celebrated  phrase  :  "  apres  moi  le  deluge." 


REACTION    AGAIlSiST   THE    APOCALYPSE.  47 

for  some  timp  president  of  the  Catechetical  School  of  Alexandria. 
The  office  had  been  filled  by  some  of  the  most  eminent  Alexan- 
drine divines,  including  his  celebrated  master.  From  this  position 
he  was  at  length  raised  to  the  patriarchate.  Origen,  as  we  have 
seen,  acknowledged  the  Apocalypse  as  a  work  of  the  apostle  John, 
getting  over  the  difficulties  which  the  literal  acceptance  of  its 
doctrines  might  have  occasioned  him,  by  his  favourite  system  of 
allegorical  interpretation.  But  the  mass  of  simple  believers 
could  not  be  satisfied  with  these  philosophical  refinements,  and 
protested  against  them.  It  was  in  encountering  their  scruples 
that  Dionysius  was  led  to  apply  his  superior  critical  faculty  to 
a  discovery  of  the  signs  of  distinct  authorship  in  two  works 
bearing  the  same  name.  He  is  the  earliest  critical  theologian 
in  the  history  of  the  Church. 

There  had  been  a  former  Egyptian  bishop,  of  the  name  of 
Nepos,  who  taught  that  the  promises  of  Scripture  would  be  ful- 
filled in  the  Jewish  sense  {lovBaiKdorepov) ,  and  that  for  believers 
there  would  be  a  thousand  years  of  bodily  enjoyment  on  earth 
{')(i\idBa  rpvd)r]<i  aw[xaTiKy)^).  So  at  least  the  doctrine  of  Nepos 
was  represented  by  those  who  were  unfriendly  to  it.  At  all 
events  he  was  a  Chiliast.  He  justified  his  own  views  from  the 
Apocalypse  of  John,  and  set  them  forth  in  a  treatise  which  he 
entitled,  "  A  Refutation  of  AUegorizers."^  As  this  book  was 
considered  by  many  at  that  time  as  an  unanswerable  plea  for 
Chiliasm,  Dionysius  felt  himself  called  upon  to  reply  to  it, 
which  he  did  in  two  treatises  on  "  The  Fulfilment  of  the  Pro- 
mises,"- in  the  first  of  which  he  stated  his  own  opinion,  and  in 
the  second  subjected  the  Apocalj^se  to  a  critical  examination.^ 

'  'EAeYxos  aWriyopKXTUv.  ^  Tlepl  iirayyiXiwv. 

3  As  these  treatises  were  understood  to  be  a  general  reply  to  the  Chiliasts,  of  whom 
Irenseus  (with  in  fact  all  the  early  fathers  and  apologists)  was  one,  Jerome  (Comm. 
Esaiam,  lib.  xviii.  praefat.)  according  to  Valesius  (Euseb.  H.  E.  vii.  24,  25,  n.  1)  repre- 
sented Dionysius  as  writing  against  Irenseus.  What  was  Jerome's  opinion  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  more  recent  and  the  older  interpreters  of  the  Apocalypse,  appears  very 
clearly  from  the  following  passage :  "  Apocalypsin  Johannis  si  juxta  litteras  accipimus, 
judaizandum  est;  si  spiritualiter,  ut  scripta  est,  multorum  veterum  videbimur  opinio- 
nibits  contraire."  Cat.  111.  Vir.     Cited  by  Heinichen,  Euseb.  H.  E.  vii.  ibid. 


48  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

Dionysiiis  held  the  memory  of  Nepos  himself  in  great  respect, 
for  his  faith  and  energy  and  familiarity  with  Scripture,  and  his 
large  contribution  to  the  psalmody  of  the  church  "by  which," 
he  says,  "  many  were  still  refreshed  ; "  and  he  was  entitled  to 
the  more  reverence,  as  he  was  now  dead  and  gone.  But  truth, 
he  contended,  should  prevail  over  all  other  considerations,  and 
we  must  oppose  those  whom  we  most  honour,  when  we  think 
they  are  wrong.  Had  Nepos  been  still  alive,  a  personal  colloquy 
might  have  sufficed.  But  as  the  treatise  which  he  had  published 
was  very  popular,  and  believed  to  unfold  some  great  and  hidden 
mystery  {fieya  tl  koI  KeKpvfi^evov  fjbvarrjpvov),  and  as  it  tended  to 
lower  the  tone  of  religious  sentiment  among  the  multitude,  by 
holding  up  to  them  the  future  kingdom  of  God  in  a  mean  and 
earthly  light,  like  the  present  state  of  things  [oia  ra  vvv) — it 
ought  not,  Dionysius  thought,  to  be  left  unanswered.  These 
small  indications  of  personal  feeling  are  not  uninstructive,  as 
showing  that  the  Chiliasts,  though  gradually  sliding  down  into 
the  position  of  heretics,  were  still  very  highly  respected,  probably 
with  a  dim,  half-conscious  belief  that  in  their  fervour  and  sim- 
plicity they  represented  the  most  ancient  type  of  the  Christian 
life.  They  seem  also  to  bring  clearly  into  view  the  considerations 
which  led  the  more  cultivated  class  of  believers  to  dislike  and 
resist  Chiliastic  opinions. 

The  controversy,  as  narrated  by  Dionysius  himself,  com- 
menced and  terminated  in  the  following  way. — Happening  to 
be  in  the  Arsinoite  Nome,  where  the  doctrine  of  Nepos  had  long 
been  ascendant,  and  had  drawn  entire  churches  into  schism  and 
apostasy,^  Dionysius  assembled  the  presbyters  and  teachers  from 
the  neighbouring  villages,  and  with  their  full  concurrence 
entered  into  a  public  discussion  of  the  question.  The  book  of 
Nepos  was  produced,  as  an  impregnable  defence  of  Chiliasm.^ 
For  three  days    Dionysius  sate  with    them  from  morning  to 

'£ls  Ka\  <rxi(rnara  koI  diro(TTa.(Tlas  okuv  iKK\r)ffi.oiiv  -ytyovfvai.     The  question  is, 
after  all,  whether  the  innovatioa  was  on  the  side  of  Ncpos  or  of  Dionysius. 
*    Ilr  Ti  oirKov  /col  t€?xos  o/cara^axTjTov. 


REACTION    AGAINST    THE    APOCALYPSE.  49 

night,  discussing  the  book,  section  by  section,  and  correcting  its 
errors.^  Dionysius  says  he  was  delighted  with  the  patience  and 
sobriety,  the  candour  and  openness  to  conviction,  of  the  Arsinoite 
brethren.  At  last  Korakion,  who  had  been  the  chief  representative 
and  supporter  of  Chiliasm  in  the  district,  confessed  that  he  had 
been  confuted,  and  declared  that  he  would  abandon  the  doc- 
trine, and  never  teach  it  or  allude  to  it  again.  The  brethren 
present  rejoiced  at  the  issue  of  the  conference  and  the  mutual 
adjustment  of  opinion  which  it  involved.^ 

Dionysius's  criticism  of  the  Apocalypse  is  of  higher  interest 
and  importance.^  Before  his  own  time,  some,  he  informs  us, 
had  rejected  this  book  and  denied  it  a  place  in  the  canon.* 
They  declared,  that  it  furnished  proof  in  every  chapter  of  an 
uncultivated  and  illogical  mind  {w^vwcttov  re  /cat  aavWoryKXTov) ; 
that  it  assumed  a  false  title,  and  was  not  a  work  of  John  ;  that 
it  was  not  even  a  revelation,  being  covered  with  a  thick  veil  of 
ignorance ;  that  it  was  not  only  not  the  work  of  an  apostle,  but 
not  even  of  a  saint  or  any  member  of  the  church  ;  that  it  was 
the  production  of  Cerinthus,  who  wished  to  give  a  name  of 
authority  to  this  fiction  of  his, — inasmuch  as  Cerinthus  was  a 
Chiliast,  inculcating  a  very  gross  and  carnal  view  of  the  happiness 
of  Christ's  earthly  reign.  Dionysius  himself  did  not  venture 
wholly  to  repudiate  this  book,  as  it  was  held  in  esteem  by  many 
brethren  ;  but,  assuming  that  it  had  a  meaning  beyond  his  com- 
prehension, he  left  every  man  to  take  his  own  view  of  its  hidden 
and  marvellous  sense.     He  would  not  measure  it  by  his  own 

'  AievQvvnv  iTretpddr]V  to  yeypafifitva. 

2  'EttI  TrT  KotvoAoyi^  Kal  rrj  rrpos  iravras  avyKara^aaei  koX  ffvvStadecrei.  This  is 
not  the  only  instance  iu  the  history  of  Christianity,  of  the  effect  of  one  powerful  mind, 
at  once  decided  and  conciliatory,  in  determining  the  religious  profession  of  an  entire 
community. 

3  The  substance  of  it  -will  be  found  in  EusebiUs  (H.  E.  vii.  25). 

*  'Hderrjcrav  Kal  avea-Kevaaray.  This  last  word  Rufiuus  interprets  :  (Heinichen  in 
loc.)  "  a  canone  Scripturarum  abjiciendum  putarunt,"  i.e.  "  broke  up  and  removed 
from  its  place  in  the  aKivos  =  instruinentum," — as  used  by  Tertullian  in  the  sense  of  an 
authentic  document, — hence  equivalent  to  literm  sacra.  Semler,  Index  Latin.  TertuU. 
sub  voce.  The  same  verb  occurs  Acts  xv.  24 :  dvaaKfvd^oyTes  ras  <|/i/x«J  ii/xicv,  "  un- 
settling your  minds." 


50  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

reason,  but  handed  it  over  to  faith.  He  did  not  deny  things 
which  he  had  not  seen  ;  but  as  not  having  seen  them,  was  only 
filled  with  more  wonder.^ — Dionysius  admits,  that  this  so-called 
prophecy  was  the  work  of  a  John,  and  of  some  holy  and  inspired 
man  {Oeoirvevarov),  but  not  of  John,  the  apostle,  son  of  Zebedee 
and  brother  of  James, — author  of  the  gospel  inscribed  with  the 
name  of  John,  and  of  the  catholic  epistle.  That  these  two  last 
works  cannot  have  come  from  the  same  hand  aa  the  Apocalypse, 
he  argues  from  the  marked  difference  which  characterises  each 
in  regard  to  the  pervading  tone  of  feeling  {ijOov^)  and  style  (rwy 
Xoycov  eiSof?)  and  the  whole  form  of  the  composition  (t^9  tov 
^ifiXiov  Sie^aywyT]';  Xeyo/jiivT]^).  The  author  of  the  gospel  never 
mentions  his  own  name  nor  distinguishes  himself  from  another  ; 
whereas,  the  reverse  is  the  case  with  the  author  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse. The  gospel  and  the  epistie  begin  with  the  announcement 
of  the  incarnation ;  and  our  Lord  (Matth.  xvi.  17)  calls  Simon 
Peter  blessed  for  having  this  higher  spiritual  revelation  im- 
parted to  him.  In  the  second  and  third  epistles  John  is  not 
named,  but  only  the  Presbyter,  Who  the  John  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse was,  does  not  appear;  but  he  nowhere,  as  many  times 
(iroXkaxov)  happens  in  the  gospel,  speaks  of  himself  as  the 
beloved  disciple,  nor  as  the  brother  of  James,  nor  as  an  eye  and 
ear- witness  of  the  Lord ;  and  it  might  have  been  thought,  that 
imder  one  or  other  of  these  titles  he  would  have  made  himself 
known.-^  Many  persons  have  born  the  name  of  John,  assuming 
it  from  their  love  and  admiration  for  the  apostle,  and  their  wish 
to  be  equally  beloved  by  the  Lord  with  him  ;  and  for  the  same 
reason  many  believers  have  called  their  children  after  Peter 
or  Paul.     John  Mark,  who  is  mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  the 


1  OvK  diroBoKiixdCw  ravra  ft  fiij  (rvvecopaKa,  6avfid.((o  Si  f^aWov  hn  ju^  koI  tlSov. 
It  -would  appear  from  this  that  Dionysius  regarded  the  whole  as  a  vision,  which  he 
wished  to  leave  where  he  found  it,  without  coming  to  any  decided  opinion  respecting  it. 

'  Dionysius  has  made  a  slip  here.  The  two  last  designations  nowhere  occur,  either 
in  the  gospel  or  in  the  epistle.  He  has  mixed  up  expressions  in  the  opening  verses 
of  Luke  and  Jude,  with  a  vague  remembrance  of  the  language  in  the  first  verse  of  the 
epistle. 


REACTION    AGAINST   THE   APOCALYPSE.  51 

Apostles,  could  not  have  written  the  Apocalypse,  as  he  did  not 
accompany  Paul  into  Asia,,  but  returned  to  Jerusalem.^  It  must 
have  been  some  other  John  living  in  Asia.  Now  there  appear 
to  have  been  two  Johns  in  Ephesus,  as  there  is  a  tomb  still 
existing  in  that  city  for  each.  The  whole  structure  of  thought  and 
language  in  the  Apocalypse  is  different  from  that  in  the  gospel 
and  epistle,  which  both  begin  in  the  same  way  and  lay  an 
equal  stress  on  the  manifestation  of  Christ  in  the  flesh.  This 
is  the  continuous  theme  of  both  gospel  and  epistle.  Dionysius 
notices  words  and  forms  of  expression  which  are  peculiar  to 
the  gospel  and  epistle :  such  are  ^wr],  ^w?,  a\rjdeLa'')(api,<i,  Kpia-i% 
and  others.^  In  fine,  the  colour  of  the  gospel  and  epistle  is  one 
and  the  same.  The  style  of  the  Apocalypse  is  different  in  every 
respect,  haAdng  no  affinity  with  them  whatever,  not  even  a  syl- 
lable in  common.^  Passing  over  the  gospel,  Dionysius  remarks 
that  the  epistle  never  notices  the  Apocalypse,  nor  the  Apo- 
calypse the  epistle.  The  language  of  the  gospel  and  the  epistle 
never  offends  against  the  laws  of  the  Greek  tongue,  but  \s,  most 
exact  in  its  choice  of  words  and  in  the  dependence  and  con- 
nexion of  its  construction,  without  a  single  barbarism  or 
solaecism,  or,  generally,  one  vulgar  or  provincial  expression — 
the  Lord  bestowing  on  it  the  double  grace  both  of  knowledge 
and  of  utterance.* — "I  do  not  deny,"  adds  Dionysius  in  con- 
clusion, "  that  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse  saw  a  revelation 
and  had  knowledge  and  prophesy  conveyed  to  him.  I  cannot, 
however,  overlook  the  fact,  that  his  dialect  and  mode  of  ex- 
pression are  not  pure  Greek,  but  disfigured  by  barbarous  idioms, 

1  It  should  be  noticed  that  Acts  is  here  quoted  by  its  proper  title,  and  that  the 
words  are  exactly  reported  from  xiii.  13. 

2  In  this  enumeration  Dionysius  has  introduced  some  words,  as  vlodeffia,  which  do 
not  belong  to  John,  but  occur  in  other  books  of  the  New  Testament,  though  they  are 
not  found  in  the  Apocalypse. 

'  MtjSc  avWa^^v  irphs  avra  Kotv^v  exofftt- 

*  This  is  equivalent  to  saying,  that  the  language  of  the  gospel  and  epistle  is  pure, 

correct  and  perspicuous  Greek.      In  the  words  eKarepov  Toy  K6yov tov  t€  ttjs 

•yvwa^bis,  rhv  t6  Trjs  (ppdcreus,  Valesius  discovers  a  reference  to  the  Philonian  doctrine 
of  the  \6yos  ipSiddeTos  Kol  irporpopiKos. 


52  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

sometimes  falling  even  into  solaecism.  Of  this  it  is  unnecessary  to 
produce  examples  ;  for  it  must  not  be  supposed  I  have  said 
this,  to  ridicule  his  style,  but  merely  to  point  out  how  unlike  it 
is  to  that  of  the  gospel  and  epistle." 

With  some  allowance  for  the  rather  exaggerated  eulogy  of 
the  pure  Greek  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  first  epistle,  the 
foregoing  criticism  leaves  on  the  mind  a  very  favourable  im- 
pression of  the  philosophical  culture  and  refinement  of  the 
Alexandrine  School  in  the  third  century  of  our  era.  It  is  acute 
and  conclusive,  and  by  all  who  can  appreciate  the  force  of  the 
considerations  on  which  it  rests,  must  be  admitted  to  establish 
unanswerably  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse 
cannot  have  proceeded  from  the  same  hand.  But  it  will  be 
noticed,  that  throughout  the  writer  disproves  the  apostolic 
authorship  of  the  Apocalypse  by  tacitly  assuming  that  of  the 
gospel.  What  authority  he  had  for  such  an  assumption,  he 
nowhere  states.  The  style  and  sentiments  of  the  gospel  cor- 
responded more  to  his  ideal  of  an  apostle  ;  and  if,  in  this  silence 
on  his  own  part,  we  may  form  any  conjecture  as  to  the  probable 
grounds  of  his  conclusion,  they  would  appear  on  this  point  to 
have  been  rather  subjective  than  critical.  We  have  seen,  that 
his  predecessors  in  the  Catechetical  School,  Origen  and  Clement, 
acknowledged  the  Apocalypse,  without  hesitation,  as  a  work  of 
the  apostle  John.  What  can  have  occurred  in  that  short  inter- 
val to  produce  so  entire  a  change  of  opinion,  we  are  unable  to 
surmise,  except  it  be  the  fact,  that  Chiliastic  doctrines  were 
found  increasingly  ofiensive  to  the  philosophical  tendencies  of 
the  age,  and  that  the  allegorizing  interpretation  of  Origen 
proved  inadequate  to  neutralize  their  disturbing  force.  Within 
less  than  a  century,  from  the  time  of  Dionysius,  we  observe 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  the  historian,  betraying  the  same  aliena- 
tion, and  sharing  the  same  doubts.^  But  it  is  remarkable,  that 
neither  Dionysius  nor  Eusebius  ventured  beyond  the  expression 
of  hesitation  and  doubt,  resulting  from  a  want  of  mental  sym- 
1  Hist.  Eccles.  iii.  24,  25,  39. 


EEACTION   AGAINST    THE    APOCALYPSE.  53 

pathy.  They  were  still  sufficiently  restrained  by  the  old  tra- 
ditional belief  of  the  Church,  to  keep  them  from  going  the 
length  of  the  Alogi  (whose  opinion  was  wholly  subjective,  and 
grew  out  of  antipathy  to  the  Montanists  ^),  and  repudiating  the 
book  unconditionally  as  heretical.  Free  search  on  such  matters 
ceased  altogether  with  the  reign  of  Theodosius  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century.  The  limits  of  the  Canon  had  by  that  time 
been  authoritatively  fixed  ;  and  the  gospel  and  the  Apocalypse, 
irrespective  of  any  critical  scruples,  were  both  embraced  as 
works  of  the  apostle  within  them.  Neither  Greek  nor  Latin 
Church  raised  any  more  difficulty ;  and  so  the  question 
slumbered  till  the  Reformation,  when  Erasmus  awakened  it 
anew.  Having  disposed  of  the  testimony  for  and  against  the 
Apocalypse,  I  must  now  proceed  to  that'  which  bears  on  the 
gospel. 

1  They  used  to  ask,  according  to  Epiphanius,  "  What  is  the  use  of  this  book,  with 
its  talk  about  seven  angels  and  seven  trumpets?"  Epiphanius,  who  represents  the 
feeling  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  centuiy,  replied,  "  That 
these  things  were  to  be  understood  spiritually,  as  revealing  the  hidden  meaning  of  the 
Old  Law."     Panarion,  li.  §  32.) 


■§4  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL 


SECTION    YII. 

'Testimony  to  the  Apostolic  origin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

"We  are  told  by  Eusebius  that  Papias,  whose  martyrdom 
occurred  164  a.d./  "  made  use  of  witnesses  from  the  first  epistle 
of  John.  "2  Polycarp,  who  sufiered  martyrdom  not  earlier  than 
160  A.D.,  probably  as  late  as  166  or  167,  certainly  some  time 
after  the  middle  of  the  second  century,^  and  who  in  his  youth, 
according  to  tradition,  had  conversed  with  the  apostles,'*  has  a 
passage  in  his  epistle  to  the  Philippians  (vii.)  which  bears  a 
close  resemblance,  both  in  sentiment  and  in  language,  to  1  John 
iv.  3.  It  applies  the  epithet,  avrL')(pi<iTO<i,  which  is  found  only 
in  the  epistles  of  John,  to  every  one  who  denies  that  Christ  is 
come  in  the  flesh.  Whoever  compares  the  two  passages  can 
have  little  doubt  left  on  his  mind,  that  the  author  of  this  epistle 
to  the  Philippians  was  acquainted  with  the  first  epistle  of  John. 
These  "are  the  earliest  witnesses  that  we  are  able  to  cite ;  and 
as  there  is  the  highest  probability  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  and 
the  first  epistle  were  written  by  the  same  hand,  they  prove,  so 
far  as  we  can  rely  on  them,  that  the  author  of  the  gospel  must 
have  been  in  existence  when  Papias  and  Polycarp  cited  the 
epistle.  But  the  language  of  Eusebius  furnishes  no  certain  proof, 
that  Papias  knew  the  apostle  John  to  be  the  author  of  the  epistle. 

1  See  Section  V.  n.  1,  p.  28. 

^  Ke'xp'jTat  fjiaprvpiais  dirh  rrjs  'laidvvov  trpoTtpus  iirierroKrjs  (H.  E.  iii.  39).  In 
the  same  passage  he  is  said  to  have  made  similar  use  of  the  first  of  Peter. 

3  The  various  dates  of  this  event,  with  the  authorities  for  them,  are  given  by  Hefele 
(Patres  Apostolici,  Prolegomena,  V.  p.  66) . 

*  Eusebius  H.  E.  v.  20.  Irenseus  Adv.  Hsr.  III.  iii.  4.  There  is  such  a  tendency 
in  ecclesiastical  tradition,  as  it  proceeds  downwards,  to  amplify  itself,  that  we  cannot 
perhaps  safely  infer  more  from  these  passages,  than  that  the  youth  of  Polycarp, 
according  to  the  general  belief,  joined  on  to  the  apostolic  age. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  55 

Witli  regard  to  Polycarp,  many  learned  men  have  expressed  their 
doubts  of  the  genuineness,  at  least  throughout,  of  the  epistle  to 
the  Philippians.^  But  without  pressing  these  doubts,  and 
taking  the  two  witnesses  as  they  come  to  us,  what  they  establish 
is  this  :  that  sometime  in  the  first  half  of  the  second  century, 
and  before  the  death  of  the  emperor  Antoninus  Pius,  the  first 


'  It  is  unfortunate  for  the  early  history  of  Christianit}',  that  so  many  of  the 
writings  ascribed  to  the  post-apostolic  age,  lie  under  the  suspicion  of  spuriousness,  or 
at  all  events  of  large  interpolation.  This  suspicion  became  almost  a  morbid  feeling 
in  the  minds  of  the  early  Protestant  scholars.  Hence  the  doubts  of  Daille,  of  the 
Centuriators  of  Magdeburg  and  of  Semler  respecting  the  epistle  of  Polycarp,  may  be 
considered  to  have  originated  too  much  in  mere  subjective  distrust.  But  these  doubts 
are  shared  by  critics  of  more  conservative  tendency,  by  Mosheim  (De  Rebus  Christ 
§  liii.  p.  161)  and  by  Liicke  (Comment.  Br.  Johan.  c.  i.  p.  3),  who  says  of  the  authen- 
ticity and  integrity  of  this  epistle,  that  "  the  former  is  not  provable,  and  the  latter  not 
yet  proved."  Many  years  ago,  in  carefully  reading  through  the  remains  of  the  so- 
called  Apostolic  Fathers  —  before  I  was  under  the  bias  of  any  pre-conceived  opinion 
respecting  the  authorship  of  the  writings  which  bear  the  name  of  the  apostle  John — 
I  thus  recorded  the  impression  which  the  alleged  epistle  of  Polycarp  left  on  ray  mind. 
"  Polycarp,  it  is  said,  had  conversed  much  in  his  youth  with  John  and  other  com- 
panions of  Jesus,  and  heard  from  them  accounts  of  our  Lord's  miracles  and  discourses 
{TTtpl  Tuy  Svva.fjt.e(iii/  dvTov  koI  irepl  rrjs  SiSaffKaKias  (Iren.  ad  Florin,  ap.  Euseb.  H.E. 
V.  20).  It  is  remarkable,  then,  that  we  meet  with  so  few  indications  of  this  traditionary 
information  in  his  epistle.  Not  one  living  trait  of  Jesus  Christ  is  recorded.  His  name 
occurs  more  as  that  of  a  religious  abstraction  than  of  a  historical  personality.  Paul  is 
introduced  once  or  twice  in  a  far  more  living  way  to  the  reader.  The  epistle  itself  is 
written  without  any  apparent  object.  It  is  a  loose  string  of  moral  precepts,  a  cento 
from  the  New  Testament,  chiefly  the  epistles,  and  especially  of  Peter  and  Paul  —texts 
from  various  parts  fused  into  one  phrase,  without  the  mention  of  any  writer  by  name, 
except,  twice  only,  Paul.  On  the  whole,  this  epistle  wants  that  impress  of  life  and 
reality  which  is  so  conspicuous  in  the  Pauline  letters."  On  the  other  hand,  the  encyclic 
epistle  of  the  Church  of  SrajTna,  giving  an  account  of  the  martyrdom  of  Polycarp, 
which  has  been  inserted  by  Euinart  in  his  "  Acta  MartjTum  Sincera,"  produced  a 
very  different  feeling.  I  thus  wrote  of  it  at  the  time  referred  to.  "With  the  exception 
of  the  conclusion,  and  a  few  insertions  in  the  earlier  chapters,  this  record — from  its 
particularity,  and  its  avoidance  of  the  vague  generalities  that  occur  in  the  martyrdom 
of  Ignatius — its  specification  of  names  and  times  and  places,  and  even  its  special 
address  to  a  city,  of  which  we  hear  so  little  as  Philomelium  (a  town  in  Phrygia,  half 
way  between  Antioch  in  Pisidia  and  Laodicea) — possesses  all  the  internal  signs  of 
genuineness  and  veracity.  It  is  a  vivid,  interesting,  and  impressive  narrative,  and 
well  deserves  the  encomium  of  Joseph  Scaliger :  "  Nihil  unquam  in  historia  ecclesias- 
tica  vidi,  a  cujus  lectione  commotior  recedam,  ut  non  amplius  mens  e^se  videar .' " 
(quoted  by  Hefele,  Prologom.  vi.) — An  important  chronological  datum  is  furnished 
by  this  piece.  Polycarp  says  (ix.)  that  he  was  eighty-six  years  old  when  he  suffered 
martyrdom ;  so  that  he  must  have  been  a  youth  of  at  least  twenty  at  tho  time  usually 
assigned  for  the  death  of  the  apostle  John. 


56  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

epistle  of  Jolin  was  read  and  quoted  as  a  book  of  authority  in 
the  Christian  Church ;  but  how  soon  in  that  century,  we  have 
now  no  means  of  determining. 

Such  extreme  uncertainty  attaches  to  the  origin  and  author- 
ship of  the  so-called  epistles  of  Ignatius,  that  no  reliable  use 
can  be  made  of  them  in  the  present  inquiry.  They  exist,  it 
is  well  known,  in  three  distinct  forms,  the  mutual  relations  of 
which  are  still  very  obscure.  "Were  they  genuine,  they  would 
carry  us  back  to  the  reign  of  Trajan,  98-117  a.d.  But  any  one 
at  all  acquainted  with  the  Ignatian  controversy,  would  be 
inclined  to  infer  from  allusions  in  these  epistles  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  rather  the  lateness  of  the  epistles  than  the  early  origin 
of  the  gospel.  In  the  three  epistles  to  Polycarp,  the  Ephesians 
and  the  Romans,  which  have  recently  been  recovered  in  a  very 
brief  form  from  the  Syriac,  and  which  are  considered  by  Dr. 
Cureton,  the  translator,^  and  the  late  Baron  Bunsen,  to  exhibit 
the  genuine  nucleus  of  the  posterior,  amplified  edition — there 
is  no  clear  and  certain  reference  to  the  Fourth  Gosj^el.^  The 
style  far  more  resembles  that  of  Paul  than  of  John.  The 
epistles  of  the  former  seem  evidently  to  have  been  the  model ; 
in  the  same  way  as  the  author  of  the  martyrdom  of  Ignatius 
has  clearly  had  in  his  eye  the  account  of  Paul's  last  journey  to 
Jerusalem  contained  in  Acts  xx.  xxi.  Peter  and  Paul  are 
mentioned  by  name  (Romans,  c.  48),  but  John  not  once,  not 
even  in  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians.  The  style  and  sentiment 
of  these  three  epistles  found  in  the  Syriac  MS.,  which  Cureton 
and  Bunsen  regarded  as  so  great  a  discovery,  seem  to  me  very 
weak  and  puerile. 

When  the  work  "  Against  Heresies,"  now  ascribed  to  Hip- 

^  Corpus  Tgnatianum,  pp.  227-231. 

'  Allusions  have  been  traced  in  the  following  passages ;  hut  they  seem  to  me  to 
carry  no  weight  with  them  :  Eomans,  c.  45,  comp.  1  John  iii.  18,  ibid.  c.  47,  comp. 
John  XV.  18,  19,  ibid.  c.  63,  comp.  John  vi.  53-66.  This  last  instance  exhibits  the 
greatest  similitude  in  its  reference  to  eating  the  flesh  of  Jesus  as  divine  bread  and 
drinking  his  blood  as  divine  drink.  But  this  would  appear  to  have  become  a  cus- 
tomary mode  of  speaking  of  the  eucharist  early  in  the  second  century.  These  three 
piissages  occur  with  some  amplification  in  the  two  larger  forms  in  Greek. 


TESTIMONIES    TO   THE    FOUTITH    GOSPEL.  57 

polytus,  first  appeared,  the  tlien  Cbeyalier  Bunsen  thought  it 
furnished  conclusive  evidence  of  the  authenticity  of  John's 
gospel,  as  showing  that  Basilides,  who  flourished  at  Alexandria 
in  the  reign  of  Hadrian,  117-138  a.d.,  wrote  a  commentary  on 
it.  In  answer  to  those  who  argued,  that  the  references  in  Hip- 
polytus  did  not  apply  to  Basilides  himself,  but  to  his  followers, 
and  did  not,  therefore,  establish  so  early  a  date,  he  insisted  that 
the  constant  use  in  the  citations  of  the  singular  verb  "  says  " 
{(f>r)<Tl),  was  a  clear  indication  that  Basilides  and  nobody  else 
could  have  been  meant.^  Should  we  admit  this  reasoning,  it 
would  prove,  no  doubt,  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  existed  between 
117  and  138  a.d.  ;  but  we  should  still  be  left  without  any 
witness  from  Hippolytus  as  to  its  author.  For  it  is  a  curious  fact 
that,  throughout  his  work,  notwithstanding  numerous  and  un- 
questionable references  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  name  of  John 
is  never  mentioned  but  once,  and  then  as  the  author  of  the 
Apocalypse  (vii.  36).  But  if  we  turn  to  the  passages,  where 
the  use  of  the  singular  verb  seems  to  Bunsen  to  imply  an  allu- 
sion to  Basilides  alone,  they  do  not,  as  I  read  them,  bear  out  the 
conclusion  which  he  draws.  In  vii.  20,  Hippolytus  mentions 
Basilides  and  Isidore,  his  son,  and  vra?  6  tovtcov  %o/)o9,  and 
then  cites  them  collectively  through  the  whole  of  the  following 
paragraph  by  the  word  (f)r](rL  Nor  is  this  the  only  instance. 
In  vi.  29,  speaking  of  Valentinus,  Heracleon,  Ptolemy,  Kal  iraaa 
r]  Tovroyv  cr^oXvy  ^^  quotes  the  opinion  of  the  school,  as  before, 
by  the  singular  verb  (}>r]aL  It  is  surprising  that  so  great  a 
scholar  as  Baron  Bunsen  should  have  laid  all  this  stress  on  so 
small  a  matter.  "  It  says  "  ((/)T7cr/)  is  the  familiar  mode  of 
citing  the  doctrines  of  a  particular  school,  whether  represented 
by  many  writers  or  by  one.  Scripture,  notwithstanding  its 
multifarious  contents  and  numerous  authors,  is  constantly 
quoted  by  writers  of  the  second  century  in  this  form. 

The  testimony  of  Justin  Martyr  is  very  important.     In  the 
pieces  that  are  undoubtedly  his — the  two  Apologies  and  the 
1  Cliristiaiiity  and  Mankind.  I.  p.  114. 


58  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Dialogue  with  Tryplio,  which  must  be  dated  from  the  year  138 
A.D.  and  subsequently^ — forms  of  thought  and  expression  fre- 
quently occur  which  bear  a  considerable  affinity  to  those  we 
meet  with  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  I  must  be  allowed,  therefore, 
to  make  a  tolerably  full  citation  of  them.  In  the  Dialogue 
(c.  17)  Christ  is  called  "  the  blameless  and  just  Light  sent  by 
Grod  to  men."  In  the  gospel,  "light"  is  an  epithet  constantly 
applied  to  Christ.^  'A\7}6i,v6<i  is  a  favourite  adjective  with 
John.  It  occurs  twelve  times  in  the  gospel  and  first  epistle. 
In  the  Dialogue  (123)  we  have  the  expression,  "  true  children 
of  God."^  But  in  John  reKva  is  never  conjoined  with  aXrjOivd. 
Consequently  a  reference  to  such  passages  as  John  i.  12  and 
1  John  iii.  1,  2,  is  not  to  the  point.  The  Dialogue  (c.  C3) 
speaks  of  the  "  blood  of  Christ,  sprung  not  from  human  seed, 
but  from  the  will  of  God."  This  resembles  John  i.  13  ;  but  it 
is  not  a  citation.*  The  following  remarkable  passage  from  the 
Dialogue  (c.  105)  it  will  be  necessary  to  give  at  length  in  the 
Greek  :  fiovo'yevrj^  <yap  otl  rjv  tm  jrarpl  tmv  oXcov  6vto<;,  i8t&)9 
e^  avTov  \6yo<i  koI  Bvvafjii<?  jeyevrjfievo';,  koX  varepov  avOpcoTro^ 
Bia  rrj<i  Trapdivov  yev6p,evo^,  oi?  airo  rcov  aTrofivrj/xovevfidrayv 
efiddofieu.  "  He  was  an  only-begotten  son  of  the  Father  of  the 
universe,  sprung  from  Him  by  a  special  act  as  his  word  and 

1  In  the  inscription  of  the  first  Apology  to  Antoninus  Pius,  Verissimus,  afterwards 
Marcus  Aurelius,  is  associated  with  him  under  the  simple  title  of  <pi\o<r6<t)os.  Now, 
as  Marcus  was  created  Caesar  in  139,  and  it  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  this  title,  if 
ali-eady  conferred,  would  have  been  omitted  in  the  dedication,  we  must  conclude  that 
the  Apology  was  written  prior  to  that  date.  From  an  allusion  in  the  Dialogue  (c.  120) 
it  appears  that  the  first  Apology  was  then  in  existence.  The  second  Apology  was 
probably  written  in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  As  Antoninus  Pius  succeeded  to 
the  empire  in  1 38  a.d.,  the  first  Apology  cannot  have  been  written  at  an  earlier  period. 
The  limits  of  the  time  of  its  appearance  are  thus  determined  with  great  exactness. 
See  Otto  (de  J.  M.  Scriptis  et  Doctrina,  P.  I.  Sect,  i.),  also  on  Dial.  c.  Tryph.  c.  120, 
n.  17. 

*  Tov  ix6vov  afjiJifiov  koX  ZikoIov  <Put6s  rots  avBpdirois  trtfitpQivros  irapJt  tov  0eoC. 
Dial.  c.  Tr.  c.  17.  Comp.  John  i.  9,  viii.  12,  xii.  46,  and  many  other  passages. 

'  06oS  TfKva  aXijOivd. 

*  It  may  be  convenient  to  place  the  two  passages  in  jnxta-position :  ToD  Etfiaros 
avTov  (scil.  Christi)  ovk  e{  avdpuwfiov  (Tirfp/xaTOs  yfyfVTJixfvov,  dW'  ^k  BeT^-fifiaTos 
OeoD.  Dial.  c.  63. — ovk  €|  ainaruv  ouSe  in  OeA'^^oTos  aapKbs  oi/5«  *k  fleA.'^/toTos 
VSpbj  ihX  tK  d(ov  fytvvr\dn(Tav,     John  i.  13. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  59 

power,  and  afterwards  born  a  man  tlirougli  the  Virgin,  as  we 
have  learned  from  the  apostolic  records."  Movo<yev^<;  is  an 
epithet  in  this  sense,  as  applied  to  the  primal  word — peculiar 
to  John.  It  is  so  used  four  times  in  the  gospel  (i.  14,  18,  iii. 
16,  18),  and  once  in  the  first  epistle  (iv.  9).  But  the  con- 
junction of  Trap^eVo?  with  aTrofJLvrjfiovevnara  shows,  that  the 
reference  must  here  be  to  the  synoptic  narrative ;  as  no 
mention  is  made  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  of  the  miraculous  con- 
ception. Movo<yevri<i,  so  applied,  was  a  word  already  current 
in  a  certain  Christian  school.  Exclusive  of  John,  it  is  found 
only  in  Luke, — three  times  (vii.  12,  viii.  42,  ix.  38),  and  once 
in  Hebrews  (xi.  17) ;  but  in  none  of  these  passages  is  it  used 
of  Christ.  There  is  a  description  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  in 
the  Dialogue  (c.  88)  where  John  is  represented  as  saying,  "I 
an  not  the  Christ."^  These  words  are  only  found  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  (i.  20) ;  the  remainder  of  the  sentence  coincides  verbally 
with  Matthew.  Justin  mentions  in  this  account  of  the  baptism 
— from  what  source  he  does  not  state — that  when  Jesus 
descended  into  the  water,  "  fire  was  kindled  in  the  Jordan."^ 

In  the  first  Apology  (c.  61)  we  find  this  passage :  "  Christ 
said,  unless  ye  be  born  anew,  ye  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Now  that  it  is  impossible  for  those  once  born  to 
enter  the  wombs  of  them  that  bare  them  is  obvious  to  all 
men."  This  is  very  like  John  iii.  3-5  ;  the  difficulty  started  by 
Nicodemus  being  distinctly  alluded  to,  but  only  to  show  what 
must  have  been  the  real  meaning  of  Christ's  words.^  On  the 
other  hand,  it  should  be  noticed,  that  for  yevvrjdy  avcoOev,  Justin 
uses  dvcvyevv7]6rJT€,  a  verb  which  never  occurs  in  John,  nor  even 


^  'OvK  hfi\  6  XpKTT^s.  *  ndp  dvrjcpdri  eV  T<p  'lopSdvp, 

2  I  place  the  two  passages  side  by  side :  'O  Xpia-rhi  tiirfv,  &v  yu^  dyayevyr]drJT€  ov 
(IT)  kiaixQriTi  eis  rrjv  ffaaiXelau  raiv  ovpavSiv.  "On  Sh  koI  dSvyarov  its  ras  fxi\Tpa.s 
rwv  TSKOvawv  rovs  aira^  yevfufipovs  i/xPr/fai  (pavephv  iraffiu  iffrt.  Apol.  I  (c.  61.) — 
'lijaovs — liirev — 'Afiiiy,  d/xrji'  A^ycD  ffoi  fa,Vfjii\ris  yewTjOp  dvudiv,  6v  SvyaTui  I5e7v  t^i/ 
PacriXelav  rod  Ofov.  \^y(i  irphs  durhv  6  N»/c(iS7};uos,  Xlus  Svyarai  &ydpuiros  yevvr)$fjvai 
yipwv  Up  ;  /XT]  Swarat  hs  rr)v  Koihiav  ri)i  fxii)Tphs  duToiJ  Zivnpov  ii(re\6uv  Koi  yivvij 
Orjvai ;  etc.     John  i.  3,  4. 


60  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

in  the  Synoptists,  being  used  twice  in  the  New  Testament — 
viz.,  in  the  participial  form,  in  1  Peter  i.  3,  23.^  Again,  Justin 
says  fiaatkka  tmv  oupavcov,  which  is  the  characteristic  formula 
of  Matthew— John  (with  Mark  and  Luke)  everywhere  using 
^aa-Ckka  tov  deov.  Apol.  i.  60,  and  Dial.  c.  94.  refer  to.  the 
brazen  image  set  up  in  the  wilderness  by  Moses,  as  a  type  of 
the  cross  of  Christ;  John  iii.  14,  15,  has  a  similar  reference; 
but  there  is  no  other  resemblance  between  the  passages.  The 
following  passage  on  baptism  and  the  eucharist  (Apol.  i.  66) 
is  very  remarkable,  and  must  be  transcribed  in  full :  »;  rpoj)ii 
avTT}  KaXelrai  Trap'  r/fuv  iv^apcarla,  rj<;  ovhevl  aXk(p  fieraa^etv 
i^ov  eariv  rj  tm  TTKrrevovTt  akrqdrj  eivat  ra  oeBtSay/xeva  v(f)' 
TjfiMV,  Kol  Xovaafjuevo)  to  vTrep  d(f)eaeci}<;  afxapTLOdV  Kol  et?  ava- 
jivvrfaiv  Xovrpov,  koI  6vt(o<;  /Slovvti  &)?  o  XptaTO<;  TrapeScoKCV. 
^Ov  jap  ft)?  KOLVov  apTOV  ovhe  kocvov  Tro/io.  ravra  Xafi/Sdvofjiev' 
dW  ov  TpoTTov  Bia  Xoyov  deov  a-apKOiroi'qOei'i  'Itjaov^  XpiaTo<i 
6  acorrip  rjixoiv  Kal  adpKa  koX  ai/xa  virep  acoTTjpia^  ij/jiwp  ecy^ev, 
oyT&)9  /cat  Tr]V  St'  iv)(r]<;  \6yov  tov  Trap'  dvTOV  iv)(apLaTr]6elaav 
rpoijyrjv,  i^  ^9  acfia  koI  adpKe<;  KaTo,  fi,€Ta/3o\r]v  Tpe(f)ovTat 
'^fjbcov,  eKelvov  tov  aapKoiroLTjOevTO^;  'Irjaou  Kal  crdpKa  Kal  ai/xa 
iBi8d'x^di]/jt,6v  eivat.  "■  This  nourishment  is  called  with  us  eucharist, 
and  no  one  is  allowed  to  partake  of  it  unless  he  believes  that 
the  things  taught  by  us  are  true,  and  has  undergone  the  ablu- 

'  The  words  ava-Yivvda  and  ava-yivvr](ns  are  used  by  tbe  Fathers  of  spiritual 
regeneration.  So  the  author  of  the  treatise,  "  Quis  dives  salvctur,"  c.  23,  "A/cowf 
rov  awrrjpos'  'E^w  ae  dviyevuricra,  KaKws  iinh  K6(Tfii.ov  irpos  ddyaTov  yfyevvTjfieyov. — 
'AvayeyvrieriTe  occurs  also  in  the  Clementine  Homilies  (xi.  26)  in  a  passage  which  bears 
a  close  resemblance  to  John  iii.  3,  5,  mixed  up  strangely  with  language  peculiar  to 
Matthew,  and  with  a  distinct  reference  to  what  is  called  the  baptismal  formula 
(Matth.  xxviii.  19).  Under  these  circumstances,  there  has  been  much  difference  of 
opinion  whether  in  such  passages  there  could  be  any  actual  reference  to  John.  That 
there  is,  has  become  additionally  probable  since  the  recovery  of  the  wanting 
portion  of  the  Homilies  by  Dressel.  The  curious  phenomena  exhibited  by  these  and 
similar  passages  have  led  Volkmar  to  the  conclusion,  that  Justin  Martyr  and  the  author 
of  the  Homilies  must  have  used  an  uncanonical  gospel  which  formed  a.  kind  of  transi- 
tion-document between  the  Synoptists  and  John.  Eitschl  more  reasonably,  as  I  think, 
suggests,  that  such  passages  were  ultimately  derived  from  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but 
became  known  to  these  writers  through  oral  communication.  See  Uhlhorn,  "  Die 
Homilien  und  Eecognitionen  des  Clemens  Romanus  etc,"  p.  125. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL.  61 

tion  for  the  remission  of  sins  and  for  regeneration,  and  lives  as 
Christ  has  enjoined.  For  we  do  not  take  these  things  as  com- 
mon bread  or  common  drink  ;  but  as  Jesus  Christ,  our  Saviour, 
incarnate  through  God's  word,  assumed  flesh  and  blood  for 
our  salvation,  so  also  this  nourishment,  blessed  by  the  form  of 
blessing  prescribed  by  him,  from  which  our  blood  and  flesh  are 
nourished  by  conversion — we  have  been  taught  is  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  that  incarnate  Jesus."  Justin  in  this  passage  is 
describing  to  the  Jew  Trypho  the  usages  of  the  early  Christian 
Church,  and  the  explanation  which  he  gives  of  the  eucharist, 
closely  resembles  the  doctrine  contained  in  John  vi.  47-58,  where 
there  is  an  evident  allusion  to  the  same  rite,  and  the  belief  which 
had  become  prevalent,  that  eating  and  drinking  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ  was  indispensable  to  the  attainment  of 
"  life  eternal  "  {^corj  atcovwi) .  To  those  who  were  not  prepared 
for  this  strong  symbolism,  it  might  well  seem  aKXrjpo'i  X0709  ("  a 
hard  saying")  It  is  more  harshly  expressed  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  than  in  Justin,  From  both  we  may  infer,  that  partici- 
pation in  the  eucharist  was  already  regarded  as  the  outward 
token  of  Christian  communion,  after  the  analogy  of  heathen 
sacrifices,  where  the  persons  offering  partook  of  the  victim  that 
.had  been  slain.  Justin  has  evidently  reference  to  the  account 
of  the  Last  Supper  in  the  Synoptists ;  for,  in  the  course  of  the 
chapter,  he  blends  the  words  of  Matthew  (xxvi.  26-28)  with 
those  of  Luke  (xxii.  19.)  without  any  allusion  to  John.  At  the 
close  of  it  he  notices  a  certain  affinity  between  the  eucharist 
and  the  initiations  of  Mithras,  where  bread  and  a  cup  of  water 
formed  elements  in  the  celebration ;  supposing,  in  accordance 
with  the  usual  belief  of  the  early  Fathers,  that  evil  demons  had 
borrowed  this  usage  from  the  Christian  ceremony. 

In  the  Dialogue,  c.  69,  allusion  is  made  to  Christ  as  a  "  mis- 
leader  of  the  people  "  {XaoirXdvo'i).  The  same  description  of 
him  occurs  in  John  (vii.  12)  ;  but  also  in  Matthew  (xxvii. 
63).  Apol.  I.  33  has  these  words  :  "  that  when  it  happens,  it 
may  not  be  disbelieved"  (?!»'  orav  yivTjrai,  fxr]  aTnarr^dri),  precisely 


62  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

corresponding  to  John  (xiii.  19  and  xiv.  29).  In  the  first  preach- 
ing of  Christianity,  things  had  a  religious  import  given  to  them 
as  being  a  fulfilment  of  ancient  prophecy  ;  and  the  objections  of 
unbelievers  to  circumstances  in  the  life  and  death  of  the  founder 
of  the  religion,  were  met  by  the  answer,  that  these,  however 
strange  and  startling,  had  been  all  foretold  and  predestined. 
The  remark  had  grown  into  a  sort  of  established  formula  with  the 
apologists  of  the  time.  In  the  following  words  of  the  Dialogue 
(c.  110)  we  are  reminded  of  the  beautiful  imagery  in  John  xv. : 
"  As  if  any  one  should  prune  the  fruit-bearing  parts  of  a  vine, 
it.  sprouts  out  anew  into  other  flourishing  and  fruit-bearing 
branches,  so  is  it  also  with  us."^  The  vine  is  a  favourite  image 
with  Hebrew  writers ;  and  it  may  have  been  suggested  to  Justin 
by  the  prophets  and  the  psalms.  It  should  be  noticed,  that  the 
vine  is  not  in  this  passage,  as  in  John,  Christ,  but  the  people  of 
Christ  planted  by  him  and  God. 

These  are  all  the  passages  in  the  undoubted  writings  of 
Justin  Martyr,  which,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  can  be 
supposed  to  contain  any  reference  to  the  writings  which  bear 
the  name  of  John.  If  there  be  reason  to  believe,  on  inde- 
pendent grounds,  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  generally  received 
as  an  authoritative  and  apostolic  work  before  the  year  138  a.d., 
it  would  not  be  an  unfair  inference,  that  familiar  acquaintance 
with  the  gospel  had  occasioned  the  general  similarity  of  thought 
and  expression  which  I  have  pointed  out  in  several  passages 
between  the  Martyr  and  the  Evangelist.  But  the  similarity 
in  no  one  instance  amounts  to  a  quotation  ;  and  the  conformity 
to  the  presumed  original  is  much  less  close  than  what  it  is  in 
innumerable  passages  to  the  gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke, 
which  are  cited  everywhere  so  copiously  and  so  verbally,  that 
it  has  been  often  remarked,  a  very  complete  history  of  the 
life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  might  be  made  up  in  the  language 

'  'Ottolov  Vav  a/j.Tre\ov  ris  iKTe^t)  to  Kap-wo(popi}(ravra  fispri,  e'lj  rh  ava^KaaTricrai 
(Tfpovs  KXdSovs  Koi   (v9a\e7s   Kal  Kapiro(p6povs  ayaSi5u<n,  rbv  avrhv  rpSirov  koI   i(p' 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  63 

of  the  Synoptists  from  tlie  writings  of  Justin  alone.^  I  do  not 
here  lay  much  stress  on  the  entire  omission  of  the  name  of  John 
in  all  those  passages  which  are  supposed  to  refer  to  the  Fourth 
Grospel;  because  this  is  a  peculiarity  common  to  John  with 
Matthew  and  Luke  :  though  it  is  certainly  remarkable,  that  on 
the  only  occasion  in  Justin  when  the  name  of  the  apostle  John 
is  mentioned,  it  should  be  where  he  is  expressly  quoted  as  the 
author  of  the  Apocalypse. 

On  a  subject  like  the  present,  where  the  data  for  arriving  at 
a  conclusion  are  so  few  and  imperfect,  it^  would  be  presumption 
to  dogmatize  either  on  the  positive  or  on  the  negative  side ;  and 
therefore  every  suggestion  must  be  offered  provisionally,  subject 
'to  future  correction,  as  new  facts  are  brought  to  light.  The 
kind  and  degree  of  affinity  between  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the 
writings  of  Justin  would,  however,  seem  to  me  fully  explicable 
on  the  supposition,  that  both  had  drawn  from  a  common  source, 
and  expressed  the  deepening  conviction  of  their  age.  Already  in 
the  first  half  of  the  second  century,  the  theological  atmosphere 
was  impregnated  with  the  fermenting  doctrine  of  the  Logos  ; 
and,  under  its  influence,  modes  of  thought  and  forms  of  expres- 
sion had  got  into  extensive  circulation,  which  were  powerfully 
though  silently  modifying  the  old  Palestinian  tradition  of  the 
life  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  which  must  of  necessity  enter 
into  every  work  that  was  written,  while  this  change  was  taking 
place.  It  is  noticeable,  that  although  Justin  had  fully  embraced 
the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  he  still  clung  on  many  points  to  the 
original  Jewish  apprehension  of  the  gospel,  as,  for  instance,  in 
his  retention  of   Chiliasm  ;    and  that  for  his  history,  he  in- 


1  The  narrative  followed  is  principally  that  of  Matthew  ;  in  a  somewhat  less  degree 
that  of  Luke ;  though  the  two  texts  are  often  blended  together.  In  only  one  passage 
is  reference  made  to  a  circumstance  (the  calling  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  Boanerges) 
which  is  mentioned  hy  Mark  alone.  Dial.  c.  Tr.,  c.  106,  and  Mark  iii.  17. — Curiously 
enouo'h,  the  reading  of  all  the  MSS.  in  this  passage  of  Justin  would  seem  most  naturally 
to  ascribe  this  statement  to  certain  "  records  of  Peter,"  from  whose  teaching,  accord- 
ing to  the  tradition  of  the  Church,  confirmed  by  Papias,  Mark  derived  the  materials 
of  his  gospel. 


64  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Tariably  goes  to  the  Synoptists.  We  do  not  meet  in  Justin 
with  that  complete  amalgamation  of  the  historical  and  the 
spiritual  elements  which  is  so  conspicuous  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  I  find  it  difiicult  to  believe,  that  Justin  could  have 
been  acquainted  with  the  long  and  mystical  discourses  there 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus — at  least,  as  accepted  on  the 
authority  of  an  apostle.  I  cannot  reconcile  with  such  a  sup- 
position, the  very  particular  description  which  he  himself 
has  given  (I.  Apol.  14)  of  the  character  of  Christ's  teaching.^ 
In  his  address  to  the  Antonines,  he  disclaims,  on  the  part  of 
the  Christian  apologists,  all  the  arts  of  the  rhetorician.  They 
follow  the  simplicity  of  Christ.  /3pa^e49  Be  koX  crvvTOfjioi  irap'' 
avTov  \6<yoi  jeySvacnv.  6u  yap  ao(f>i,aTr]<;  {nrrjp'^ev,  aXKa  hvvafit<i 
Oeov  6  X0709  dvTov  rjv.  "  His  words  were  brief  and  concise  ; 
for  he  was  no  sophist :  but  his  word  was  a  power  of  God." 
Nothing  could  more  exactly  describe  the  condensed  wisdom,  the 
short,  aphoristic  maxims,  which  characterize  the  teachings  in 
the  Synoptists;  and  nothing  could  be  more  wholly  unlike  the 
protracted  argumentation  which  is  so  marked  a  feature  in  the 
gospel  ascribed  to  John.  The  designation  of  Christ's  words,  as 
"a  power  of  God,"  corresponds  to  what  is  said  in  Matthew  vii.  29 
and  in  Luke  iv.  32.^  The  citations  which  Justin  gives  in  the 
sequel  of  this  passage,  to  justify  and  illustrate  his  statement,  are 
all  from  the  Synoptists — chiefly  Matthew  and  Luke. 

In  the  two  treatises  of  Athenagorus — his  "Plea  for  the 
Christians,"  and  that  on  "the  Resurrection  of  the  Dead," — 
which  belong  to  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century  (for  the 
former  is  inscribed  to  Marcus  Aurelius  and  his  son  Commodus, 
as  joint  emperors,  and  is  thei'cfore  assigned  by  the  best  critics 
to  the  year  177  a.d.),^  there  is  not  a  trace  of  any  quotation 

1  Weisse  (Evangelienfrage.  Zuzatze  I.  p.  127)  has  drawn  special  attention  to  this 
passage  in  Justin,  with  some  very  good  remarks. 

-  AiSacr/fcoj/ — ws  e^ovffiav  ex^^v  (Matth.  vii.  29),  iv  i^ovaia  ijv  6  \6yos  avrov 
(Luke  iv.  32). 

'  In  this  date  Mosheim,  Schroeckh,  Neander,  Gieseler,  Credner,  Semisch  and  Otto 
concur.    See  Otto's  Prolegomena,  p.  74. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL.  65 

from  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  citations,  as  in  Justin  Martyr, 
are  from  Matthew  and  Luke.  Nevertheless,  Athenagoras  held 
decidedly  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  ;  and  some  expressions  which 
marked  the  common  belief  of  those  who  held  it,  occur  in  his 
writings  as  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  For  instance,  he  speaks  of  the 
One  God  "  who  had  made  all  things  through  the  Word  proceeding 
from  Him  "  {iravra  Bia  tov  irap*  avrov  Xoyov  ireiroLriKOTa.  Suppl. 
4) ;  and  with  still  closer  approximation  to  what  we  find  in  John 
— "  by  and  through  Him  were  all  things  made  "  (Trpo?  avrov 
Kol  8t'  avTov  Tvavra  iyeveTo,  Suppl.  10) ;  and  again — "  the  Son 
being  in  the  Father,  and  Father  in  the  Son,  by  the  unity  and 
power  of  the  Spirit"  (6W09  rov  vlov  iv  iraTpi,  Koi  Trarpos  ev 
vLco,  evoTTjri  koI  Bvvd/x€c  7rv6VfxaT0<;,  ibid.).  This  is  the  same 
doctrine  which  we  have  in  John  i.  3  and  xvii.  21-23.  Yet 
no  one  who  reads  the  context,  can  feel  any  confidence  that  there 
is  even  a  reference  here  to  the  Fourth  Gospel.  "We  already 
discern  in  Athenagoras  the  germ  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
as  it  was  soon  after  developed  by  TertuUian.  "  It  was  part  of 
the  faith  of  Christians,"  he  says,  "to  understand  at  once  the 
union  and  the  distinction  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit "  (Ti9  v  rcbv 
TocTOVTcov  €vai(Tt<i  Kol  Scdtpecn<;  evovp^ivcov,  tov  Trvev/xaro'i,  tov 
7rai8o9,  TOV  irarpo'?.     Suppl.  12). 

The  first,  and  probably  the  original,  portion  of  the  beautiful 
Epistle  to  Diognetus,  which  there  is  reason  to  think  was  written 
about  the  time,  or  soon  after  the  time,  of  Justin  Martyr,^  is  deeply 
imbued  with  Johannine  thought ;  but  only  in  two  passages  have 
I  been  able  to  discover  anything  like  a  citation  or  a  reference. 
"  He  sent  his  son  in  love,  not  to  judge  "  {eirefi-^ev  co?  dyanrwv, 
ov  Kplvcov,  c.  7).  The  sentiment  is  the  same  as  in  John  iii.  17. 
Affain  :  "  Christians  dwell  in  the  world,  but  are  not  of  the 
world  "  {XpicTTiavol  iv  Koapifp  oiKovaiv,  ovk  iial  Be  i/c  tov  Kocr/nov, 
c.  6) :  which  closely  agrees  with  John  xvii.  16.  "  They  are  not 
of  the  world,  as  I  am  not  of  the  world."     But  the  author  does 

1  See  Otto,  De  Epist.  ad  Diognet.  Jense,  1815.  c.  iii. 


66  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOLRTH    GOSPEL. 

not  indicate  any  particular  source  from  which  the  sentiment  in 
either  case  is  taken. 

We  are  now  approaching  the  time,  towards  the  end  of  the 
second  centur}',  when  the  citations  from  the  Fourth  Gospel,  as  a 
recognized  portion  of  authoritative  scripture,  become  distinct 
and  unquestionable.  Tatian,  a  pupil  of  Justin  Martyr,  in  his 
"Address  to  the  Greeks,"  written  after  the  death  of  his  master, 
and  therefore  subsequent  to  165  a.d.,^  has  these  words:  "all 
things  were  made  by  him,  and  without  him  not  a  thing  was 
made"  (iravTa  vtt'  avrov  koI  %&)pW  avrou  jejovev  ovhe  ev). 
They  are,  it  will  be  observed,  almost  literally  those  of  John 
i.  3  ;  but  as  they  are  here  affirmed  of  the  one  only  God,  and 
not  of  the  Word,  and  v-tto,  expressive  of  the  primal,  is  sub- 
stituted for  Sia  the  instrumental,  cause,  we  might  have  felt 
uncertain  of  their  origin,  but  for  other  passages  in  Tatian 
which  leave  no  doubt  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  The  same  remark  might  apply  to  irvevfia  6  6e6<i  c.  4, 
which  is  identical  with  John  iv.  24,  and  to  ^eo?  rjv  iv  ap')(^, 
rrjv  Be  ap-)(i]v  \6yov  hwdfiLV  wapeL\i](})a/j,ev,  c.  5  (compare  John 
i.  1).  But  the  following  passage  announces  itself  by  the  well- 
known  formula  as  a  citation  from  Scripture,  even  if  the  exact 
coincidence  of  the  words  did  not  prove  that  they  came  direct 
from  John  i.  5  :  "  And  this  is  in  truth  what  is  said  (rb  iipTjfie- 
vov,  a  constant  mode  of  Scriptural  quotation),  the  darkness  com- 
prehendeth  not  the  light." 

In  the  work  of  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  addressed  to  Autolycus, 
which  must  have  been  written  in  the  reign  of  Commodus,  and 
therefore  subsequent  to  the  year  180  a.d.^ — we  have /or  the  first 
time  a  citation  from  the  Fourth  Gospel,  with  the  name  of  its 
author — John.  In  explaining  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  (ii. 
22),  Theophilus  adds  :  "  as  the  holy  scriptures  teach  us  and  all 
the    inspired — of   whom   John   being   one,    says :    In  the  be- 

1  Otto,  Prolegom.  vi. 

2  In  his  third  hook,  c.  28,  Theophilus  brings  down  his  chronological  computation  to 
the  death  of  Marcus  Aurelius  180  a.d. 


I 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL.  67 

ginning  was  the  "Word/'  etc.  (John  i.  1).  The  Fourth  Gospel 
18  here  classed  among  at  ar^iai  ypa(f)dc,  and  its  author  is  de- 
scribed as  'Trv6Vfiar6(^opo<; ;  which,  of  course,  gives  him  a  place 
among  canonical  or  authoritative  writers  :  though  even  here  it 
is  to  be  noticed,  that  he  is  not  called  an  apostle,^  There  are 
several  other  passages  in  this  work  which  have  their  counter- 
part, sometimes  to  the  very  words,  in  the  gospel.  See,  for 
instance,  ii.  29,  on  the  introduction  of  death  into  the  world  by 
Cain*8  murder  of  Abel,  at  the  instigation  of  Satan  (comp.  John 
viii.  44,  and  1  John  iii.  12) — i.  13,  the  grain  of  wheat  which 
dissolves  in  the  ground  before  it  rises  again  (comp.  John  xii.  24, 
/coa;/co9  gLtov  occurs  in  both  passages) — ii.  23,  women  forget  the 
pangs  of  child-birth  when  they  are  past  (so  John  xvi.  21) — 
i.  14,  where  we  have  almost  the  very  words  of  John  xx.  27. 
No  one  can  doubt  that  Theophilus  was  acquainted  with  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  and  considered  it  a  part  of  holy  scripture; 
but  there  is  only  one  passage  in  which  he  mentions  its  author  by 
name. 

Two  works  are  mentioned  in  connexion  with  the  names 
of  Tatian  and  Theophilus,  which  are  significant  as  showing, 
that  about  this  time,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century, 
four  histories  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  had  begun  to  be 
accepted  by  the  Church  as  authoritative,  and  that  attempts  were 
already  being  made  to  reconcile  and  explain  their  apparently 
discordant  statements.  These  works  appear  to  have  corres- 
ponded in  their  object  to  our  modern  harmonies  of  the  gospel 
narrative ;  and  it  should  not  be  overlooked,  that  they  bear  the 
name  of  men  in  whose  extant  writings  we  meet  for  the  first 
time   with  citations   from   the    Fourth   Gospel  as   recognised 

^  That  by  the  holy  scriptures,  Theophilus  understood  writings  which  possessed  the 
same  authority  with  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  being  the  work  of  inspired 

men,  is  evident  from  the  following  passage :    (ad  Autol.  iii.  12)  ir^pl  ZiKaioavvns 

aKo\ov9a  evpidKirai  koI  ra  t&v  TrpocpTiTwu  Kol  twv  evayyfXicov  Ixf'J',  Sia  rb  roi/s 
iravras  irvevfiaTSfpopovs  ^vt  Trviv/xari  6eov  \e\a\riKfvat.  It  is  noticeable,  that  the 
gospels  are  here  put  on  the  same  level  as  the  prophets— a  clear  indication,  that  the 
idea  of  a  New  Testament  canon  was  now  in  process  at  least  of  formation. 


68  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

scripture,  and  with  the  name  of  the  author.     Tatian's  work  is 
lost ;    but   its   title    sufficiently    explains   its  design :    to   Bid 
reaadpcov    {ivevyyeKiov)   "  the  gospel  as  exhibited  by  four."    It 
"was  probably  a   compendious,   harmonized  view    of    Christ's 
ministry,  with  the  omission  of  those  passages   in  each  of  the 
four  evangelists,  that  were  irreconcilably  at  variance,  and  did 
not  subserve  the  particular  purpose  of  its  author.       It  was  put 
together,  we  may  not  unreasonably  suppose,  to  meet  the  wants 
of  the  numerous  class  of  believers  who  were  bewildered  by  the 
conflicting  accounts  of  the  person  and  teaching  of  Christ,  as 
represented  in  the  Palestinian  tradition  given  by  Matthew  and 
the  other  Synoptists,  or  as  exhibited,  under  the  strongly  modify- 
ing influence  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  in  the  more  recent 
gospel  which  bore  the  name  of  John.     The  Diatessaron   of 
Tatian  was  still  used  by  some  in  the  time  of  Eusebius  (Trapd 
Ticriv  ii(Teri  vvv  ^epeTai,  H.  E.  iv.  29),  who  seems  to  have  known 
very  little  about  it.^     In  some  parts  of  the  world  it  appears  for 
a  considerable  time  to  have  taken  the  place  of  the  four  gospels, 
as  they  exist  in  our  present  canon,  being  used  not  only  by  the 
followers  of  Tatian,  but  even  by  the  Catholics,  as  a  convenient 
and   compendious  book.^      So,    at  least,  we  are   informed  by 
Theodoret,  who   says   that    when   he   took  possession    of    his 
bishopric  at  Cyrus,  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century,  he 
found  more  than  two  hundred  copies  of  the  Diatessaron  highly 
esteemed    in    the    churches,    all   of    which    he   collected    and 
put  away,  and  superseded  by  the  four  evangelists.^     We  have 

^  He  describes  it  vaguely  as  <n>vd(peidy  riva  koI  avvaywfyv  ovk  3i5'  tirwt  ruv 
ivayyeXiosv  (iv.  29).  In  the  same  passage  Eusebius  tells  us,  that  the  party  of  which 
Tatian  was  regarded  as  the  leader,  used  the  law,  the  prophets,  and  the  evangelists,  in- 
terpreting them  in  a  way  of  their  own  {iSiws) ;  but  that  they  spoke  ill  of  the  apostle 
Paul,  and  rejected  his  epistles,  and  did  not  even  admit  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

^  ov  iJ.6voi  di  TTJy  fKflvov  ffvfjLfjLoplas,  aWh,  Ka\  6i  rois  airo(rTo\iKo7s  inSfievoi 
iSyfiaffi. 

Tratray  criryayaywp  aireOe'/iTjj',  ko.)  to  twv  rtTTapwv  ivayyiXiffrtiiv  avrtiffiiyayov 
ivayyeXia.  Hseret.  Fabul.  Conipend.  I.  20.  Theodoret  says,  that  the  Diatessaron  cut 
off  the  genealogies,  and  the  other  passages  which  represented  Jesus  as  sprung  from  the 
seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh.  It  may  be  supposed,  therefore,  to  have  had  a 
Docetic  tendency. 


I 
I 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  69 

otlier  proofs  that  the  Diatessaron  gradually  acquired  a  heretical 
character ;  in  the  same  degree,  no  doubt,  as  the  canonical  gospels 
established  their  authority.  Epiphanius,  in  his  loose  way, 
confounded  it  with  the  gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews.^  It 
penetrated  into  Syria — of  course  in  a  Syriac  version.  Ephrem 
Syrus  wrote  commentaries  on  the  gospels,  following  the 
order  of  the  Diatessaron.  If  Abulfaragius  (Bar  Hebrocus)  really 
refers,  in  his  "  Short  Commentaries  on  Scripture,"  to  the  genuine 
Diatessaron,  we  learn  from  him,  that  it  commenced  with  the 
opening  words  of  the  Fourth  Gospel — "  In  the  beginning  was 
the  Word,'"^  It  fell  at  length,  however,  into  disrepute  ;  and, 
to  supersede  such  heretical  harmonies,  Ammonius  of  Alexandria 
constructed  his  well-known  canons  for  the  comparison  of  the 
four  canonical  gospels,  the  nature  and  use  of  which  have  been 
described  by  Eusebius  in  his  letter  to  Carpianus.^ 

Theophilus  of  Antioch  is  also  said  to  have  framed  a  harmony 
of  the  four  evangelists,  which,  as  it  meets  with  the  commenda- 
tion of  Jerome,  must  have  escaped  the  imputation  of  heresy 
incurred  by  the  work  of  Tatian.  We  may  conclude,  however, 
that  it  was  written  with  the  same  conciliatory  view ;  and  this  is 
rendered  additionally  probable  by  the  allegorical  mode  of  inter- 
pretation which  it  seems  to  have  adopted.* 

With  Irenasus  and  Tertidlian,  who  mark  the  transition  from 

^  \4yeTat  Ze  rh  Sia  Tiacrdpwv  ivayyeMov  av'  avrov  yiyfvrjaBai.,  (iwep  Kara. 
'Efipaiovs  Tivfs  KaXova-i.  Panar.  xlvi.  1. — There  might,  however,  be  some  remote 
affinity  between  the  two  works. 

«  Assemani  Bibliotheca  Orientalis,  Tom.  I.  p.  57,  from  the  Syriac  of  Bar-Salibi, 
Jacobite  bishop  of  Amida  in  Mesopotamia. 

3  This  letter,  with  the  canons  of  Ammonius,  and  Jerome's  explanation  of  them  to 
Pope  Damasus,  will  be  found  at  the  end  of  the  first  volume  of  Lachmann's  edition 
of  the  Greek  Testament. 

*  Quatuor  evangelistarum  in  unum  opus  dicta  compingens,  ingenii  sui  nobis  monu- 
menta  reliquit.  Hieron.  Epistol.  151,  ad  Algasiam  (quoted  by  Liicke,  Comni.  Evang. 
Johann.  Einleitung,  §  4).  Jerome  in  the  sequel  gives  a  specimen  of  Theophilus's 
allegorical  interpretation  of  the  parable  of  the  unjust  steward.  If  the  "  Commentary  on 
the  Fourth  Gospel,"  now  extant  in  Latin  under  the  name  of  Theophilus  (which  Otto 
has  printed  at  the  end  of  his  recent  edition  of  the  Address  to  Autolycus)  be  to  any  ex- 
tent based  on  the  original  work  of  Theophilus,  it  confirms  the  idea  that  his  style  of 
interpretation  was  throughout  allegorical. 


70  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

the  second  to  the  third  century,  the  testimony  to  the  apostolic 
origin  and  authority  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  becomes  so  clear, 
express  and  full,  and  the  verdict  of  the  Catholic  Church 
respecting  it  is  so  decisive,  that  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to 
pursue  the  line  of  witnesses  any  further.  Nevertheless,  it 
may  be  useful  to  dwell  for  a  moment  on  the  form  in  which 
these  writers  present  this  judgment  to  us,  and  on  the  in- 
fluences under  which  it  was  apparently  formed.  Irenseus's 
work  ''Against  Heretics"  throws  a  most  instructive  light  on 
the  state  of  opinion  in  the  Church  at  the  close  of  the  second 
century.  In  the  course  of  that  century  it  had  been  almost  rent 
asunder  by  the  fierce  antagonism  of  opposing  parties  ; — by  the 
Jewish  zealots  on  the  one  hand,  who  took  their  stand  on  the 
Old  Law,  and  accepted  as  historical  truth  the  concrete  imagery 
of  the  prophets, — and  by  the  extreme  Paulinists  on  the  other, 
who,  under  one  or  other  of  the  many  phases  of  Gnosticism, 
repudiated  all  connexion  between  the  Old  dispensation  and 
the  New,  substituted  a  higher  and  imknown  God  for  Jehovah, 
reduced  the  historical  Jesus  to  a  phantom,  and  transformed 
his  ministry  into  a  metaphysical  theory  of  the  universe. 
While  these  systems,  which  seemed  actuated  by  wholly  irre- 
concilable tendencies,  were  at  the  height  of  their  conflict  with 
each  other,  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  was  gradually  developing 
itself  as  an  element  of  possible  mediation  between  them.  Itself 
a  product  of  mingling  Jewish  and  Hellenic  influences,  conceived 
in  the  prolific  womb  of  Alexandrine  thought,  it  took  up,  and 
moulded  into  a  more  scientific  form,  the  new  elements  of  moral 
and  spiritual  life  that  were  being  difiused  through  the  world  by 
the  earnest  missionaries  of  the  Galiltean  prophet  and  martyr. 
It  furnished  a  terminology,  by  which  the  Jew  could  penetrate 
into  the  mind  of  heathenism,  and  by  which  the  heathen  could 
appropriate  the  great  truths  of  Judaism.  The  converts  from 
heathenism,  who  were  the  great  apologists  of  the  new  faith  in 
the  second  century,  had,  without  an  exception,  embraced  the 
doctrine  of  the  Logos.     It  bridged  over,  in  fact,  the  chasm 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL  71 

whicli  had  hitherto  separated  the  Jewish  and  Gentile  worlds ; 
and  rendered  possible  that  fusion  of  the  elements  of  distinct 
spheres  of  thought,  which  laid  the  basis  of  a  new  idea  in  the 
development  of  humanity,  and  which  yielded  as  its  earliest 
positive  result,  the  tendencies  that  coalesced  in  a  Catholic 
Church.  Irenoeus  wrote  at  the  crisis  when  this  important 
amalgamation  was  consummating  itself,  and  when  it  was  be- 
ginning to  be  strongly  felt,  that  something  more  fixed  and 
definite  than  tradition  was  needed  to  sustain  the  issue.  Tradi- 
tion must  now  be  supplemented  by  authoritative  Scripture. 
Men  had  wandered  away  into  vague  speculation ;  they  must 
be  recalled  to  the  concrete  facts  of  history.  One  principal 
object  of  Irenaeus's  controversy  with  the  heretics,  was  to  restore 
the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament  as  the  necessary  foundation 
of  the  New.  His  great  aim  was  to  show,  that  Jehovah  and  the 
God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ  are  one  and  the  same  being, 
who  made  all  things  and  revealed  himself  to  the  ages  by  his 
Son,  the  incarnate  Word,  and  that  he  is  ever  acting  by  his 
providence  on  one  plan,  and  with  one  view — the  final  salvation 
of  them  that  believe.  This,  he  argues,  is  the  substance  of  all 
reliable  tradition  and  all  true  Scripture.  Scripture  is  the  em- 
bodiment in  a  permanent  form  of  apostolic  tradition  (ro  rijq 
aXijdiia'i  Krjpuy/jLa,  III.  iii.  3),  which  is  ever  one  and  the  same 
(97  BvvafiL^  T?}?  7rapaS6(TeQ)<;  fiia  koI  tj  avrrj,  I.  x.  2),  delivered 
in  difierent  languages,  and  carefully  guarded  by  the  Church, 
which  is  difiused  through  the  whole  world.  Even  were  there 
no  Scripture,  the  tradition  of  the  oldest  churches  would  suffice  ; 
for  there  are  many  barbarous  nations  who  believe  in  Christ  and 
yet  have  no  written  word  to  guide,  but  believe  through  the 
witness  of  the  Spirit  in  their  hearts.^     This  apostolic  tradition 

1  The  faith  imparted  to  these  barbarous  nations  is  described  (IIT.  iv.  2)  as  a  faith — 
"  in  One  God,  the  maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  of  all  things  that  are  therein, 
through  Christ  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God  ;  who,  on  account  of  his  exceeding  love  to  the 
work  of  his  hands,  submitted  to  be  born  of  a  virgin,  in  himself  uniting  man  with  God, 
both  suffering  under  Pontius  Pilate,  and  rising  again  and  received  into  glory,  who 
will  come  in  glory  as  the  Saviour  of  them  that  are  saved,  and  the  judge  of  them  that 


72  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

is  preserved  by  the  succession  of  presbyters  in  the  churclies. 
"Without  attempting  to  trace  this  succession  in  all  the  churches, 
Irensous  deems  it  sufficient  to  insist  on  that  of  Rome  (of  which 
he  enumerates  the  bishops  from  Linus,  mentioned  by  Paul 
(2  Tim.  iv.  21)  to  Eleutherus,  twelfth  from  the  apostles,  who 
was  his  own  contemporary)  as  the  greatest  and  oldest,  known  to 
all  men,  founded  by  Peter  and  Paul — with  which,  on  account  of 
its  commanding  eminency  and  headship,  all  other  churches  that 
have  faithfully  kept  the  apostolic  tradition,  must  of  necessity 
agree.  ^ 

If  I  rightly  interpret  the  reasoning  of  Irenaeus,  contained  in 
the  earlier  chapters  of  his  third  book,  it  amounts  to  this  :  that 
apostolic  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the  tradition  of  successive 
presbyters,  in  the  churches  founded  by  apostles;  that  the 
test  of  genuineness  in  any  book  claiming  to  possess  apostolic 
authoiity  (an  inference  which  is  clearly  implied,  though  not 
stated  in  so  many  words)  must  ultimately  lie  in  its  conformity 
with  this  a^jostolical  tradition  ;  and  that,  consequently,  the  ad- 
mission of  any  work  into  the  canon  was  not  determined  by  the 
critical  examination  of  its  credentials  in  the  sense  of  our  modern 
scholarship,  but  was  a  simple  result  of  its  acceptance  by  the 
general  consensus  eccksice — expressed  as  that  consensus  was 
imderstood  to  be,  most  clearly  and  authoritatively,  owing  to  the 

are  judged — sending  into  eternal  fire  those  who  pervert  the  truth  and  despise  the 
Father  and  his  Son."  This  passage,  it  should  be  observed,  exists  only  in  the  Latin 
version. 

1  Maxima?  et  antiquissimse  et  omnibus  cognitse,  a  gloriosissimis  duobus  apostolis, 
Petro  et  Paulo,  Eomae  fundatoe  et  constitutse  ecclesiae,  earn  quam  habet  ab  apostolis 
traditionem  et  annunciatam  hominibus  fidem,  per  successiones  episcoporum  perveni- 
entem  usque  ad  nos  indicantes,  confundimus  omnes  etc. — Ad  banc  enim  ecclesiam 
propter  potentiorem  principalitatem  necesse  est  omnem  convenire  (Thiersch  explains 
this  word  by  concordare  cum  ea :  in  the  modern  Greek  version  it  is  rendered  avji- 
$dtveii/)  ecclesiam,  hoc  est,  cos  qui  sunt  undique  fideles,  in  qua  semper  ab  his,  qui  sunt 
undique,  conservata  est  ca  quae  est  ab  apostolis  traditio  "  (III.  iii.  2).  The  old  dis- 
putes of  Catholics  and  Protestants  on  this  celebrated  passage,  as  represented  by 
Massuetus  and  Grabe,  are  now  out  of  date.  Those  who  are  still  interested  in  them, 
will  find  what  they  want  in  the  Apparatus  to  Stieren's  edition  of  Irenaeus.  What  is 
alone  of  importance,  is  to  recognize  the  fact  which  these  words  indicate.  I  have 
endeavoured  to  give  the  sense  as  I  understand  it. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL.  73 

unbroken  line  of  its  bishops,  in  the  ascendant  Church  of  E,ome. 
The  value  of  this  ecclesiastical  guarantee  for  Scripture  must 
depend  on  our  belief,  how  far  this  traditional  feeling  of  apostolic 
truth  might  be  open  to  other  considerations  in  favour  of  admit- 
ting a  book,  than  such  as  would  determine  a  strictly  critical 
judgment  to  acknowledge  its  genuineness.  That  there  was  a 
copious  evangelical  literature  before  the  time  of  Irenseus,  all 
the  records  of  that  early  age  seem  to  indicate.  It  was,  there- 
fore, a  question  mainly  of  selection.  In  how  broad  and  catholic 
a  spirit,  with  how  exquisite  a  spiritual  tact  (if  I  may  so  describe 
it),  with  how  fine  and  discriminating  a  sense  of  the  essentials  of 
Christian  truth,  that  selection  was  finally  made — we  have  con- 
vincing proof,  not  only  in  the  precious  contents  of  our  actual 
New  Testament,  but  in  the  statement  of  Irenaeus  himself,  that 
the  four  gospels,  then  recognized  as  canonical,  had  each  been 
books  of  authority  with  difierent  classes  of  heretics — Matthew 
with  the  Ebionites,  Luke  with  Marcion  and  his  school,  Mark 
with  some  Docetic  sect,  and  John  with  the  Yalentinians — 
while  each  of  these  books  contained  a  sufficiency  of  apostolic 
truth  to  confute  the  sectaries  who  appealed  to  them  (Adv.  Hseres. 
III.  xi.  7). 

It  has  been  often  said,  that  the  strange  reasons  assigned  by 
Irenseus  (III.  xi.  8)  for  there  being  neither  more  nor  fewer  than 
four  gospels,  puerile  as  they  are,  do  not  at  all  invalidate  his 
testimony  to  the  fact,  that  the  gospels  received  by  the  Catholic 
Church  as  authoritative,  were  four,  and  that  they  bore  the 
names  which  he  gives  them.  This  is  perfectly  true  :  and  yet 
the  very  way  in  which  he  introduces  the  mention  of  this  fact, 
proves  to  me  that  the  limitation  of  number  on  which  he  insists 
as  something  final  and  conclusive,  was  of  comparatively  recent 
origin.  Hence  he  sought  to  establish  it  by  analogies  which 
accorded  with  the  idea  of  a  Catholic  Church — viz.,  that  as  there 
were  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  and  four  chief  winds  blowing 
from  them, — and  as  there  were  four  great  dispensations  of 
providence,  marked  by  the  names  of  Noah,  Abraham,  Moses, 


74  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

and  Christ,  so  it  might  be  expected  from  pervading  analogy 
(e'i/cora)?  e%etz^)  that  the  Gospel,  whicli  is  the  spirit  of  life,  should 
be  supported  by  four  pillars.  Since  these  things  are  so,  he  goes 
on  to  argue,  {jovrwv  ovtw^  i-^ouToiv,  and  observe,  he  is  not  argu- 
ing on  the  ground  of  established  fact,  but  on  that  of  assumed 
necessity  resulting  from  the  physical  and  moral  order  of  the 
world)  all  those  are  to  be  treated  as  weak,  unlearned,  and  pre- 
sumptuous, who  disregard  this  analogy,  and  admit  either  more 
or  fewer  than  four  gospels.^  But  the  most  significant  illus- 
tration adopted  by  Irenajus — because  it  is  evidently  intended 
to  assimilate  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  and  put  them  on 
the  same  level — is  his  symbolizing  the  Four  Evangelists  under 
the  form  of  the  creatures  that  sustained  the  living  throne  of 
God  in  Ezekiel  (x.  14-22).  This  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the 
considerations  that  determined  him  to  regard  four  as  a  mvstic 
and  pre-ordained  number.  As  God  sate  between  the  cherubim, 
and  those  cherubim  were  reTpaTrpoacoira  (exhibited  in  a  four- 
fold shape)  typifying  the  future,  four- fold  agency  of  the  Son  of 
God  (ei/cow?  T?}?  7rpa7/iTe/a9  rov  viov  rod  6eou),  so  the  Word, 
the  artificer  of  the  universe  (6  rwv  a-rravTuiv  Te^^viTrj^;)  dwells 
by  his  Spirit  in  the  Gospel,  which  he  puts  forth  under  four 
difierent  forms,  symbolized  by  the  Lion,  the  Calf,  the  Man,  and 
the  Eagle.  This  symbolism  was  at  once  an  assertion  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  number  four,  and  (in  full  accordance  with  the 
leading  design  of  Irenseus's  work)  a  reply  to  those  who  wished 
to  make  the  New  Dispensation  entirely  independent  of  the  Old.^ 


'  Irenaeus  clenches  his  argument,  that  there  can  be  neither  more  nor  fewer  than  four 
gospels,  by  the  following  inference  from  analogy :  "  Quum  omnia  composita  et  arta 
Deus  fecerit,  oportebat  et  speciem  Evangelii  bene  compositam  et  bene  compaginatam 
esse."  I  understand  this  as  a  protest  against  the  number  of  unauthorized  gospels 
that  were  in  circulation. 

*  So  far  as  I  know,  this  is  the  earliest  mention  of  the  symbolical  representation  of  the 
Four  Evangelists,  which  afterwards  became  so  marked  a  feature  in  the  poetry  and  art 
of  the  Christian  Church.  According  to  Irenoeus,  John  is  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
four,  expressed  as  the  Lion ;  then  comes  Luke,  as  the  Calf;  then  Matthew,  as  the 
Man;  lastly,  Mark,  as  the  Eagle.  This  is  different  from  the  order  and  distribution 
which  finally  prevailed— viz.,  Matthew,  Man  or  Angel ;  Mark,  Lion ;    Luke,  Ox ; 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL.  75 

There  can  be  no  doubt  tbat  Irenaeus  considered  tbe  Fourth 
Gospel  to  be  the  work  of  the  apostle  John ;  though  he  has 
nowhere  expressly  designated  its  author  an  apostle.  He 
simply  describes  him  in  general  terms  as  "  a  disciple  of  the 
Lord "  (fiaOrjrrj'i  tou  Kvpiov,  III.  i.  1) ;  but  then  he  speaks 
in  the  same  way  of  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse,  whom  he 
undoubtedly  understood  to  be  the  apostle  John.  To  exclude 
all  misapprehension,  he  further  specifies  him  (III.  i.  1)  as 
6  eVi  crrrjOof;  tov  Kvpiov  dvaTrecrcov  ("he  who  leaned  on  the 
bosom  of  the  Lord'O-^ 

TertuUian,  the  contemporary  of  Irenseus,  in  a  most  decisive 
passage  of  his  work  against  Marcion  (iv.  2),  speaks  of  the 
gospels  as  the  work  of  the  apostles,  or  if  not  of  apostles,  yet 
of  apostolic  men,  who  were  associated  with  apostles  and  suc- 
ceeded them ;  and  then  signalizes  John  and  Matthew  as 
apostles.^  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  citations  from  this 
writer,  as  I  have  explained  so  fully,  in  speaking  of  Irenasus, 
the  circumstances  which  led  to  the  demand  for  a  canonical 
or  authoritative  Scripture  at  the  end  of  the  second  century. 
Kirchhofer  (Quellensammlung  zur  Gesch.  des  Neutestam. 
Canons,  p.  154),  from  whom  I  have  taken  the  foregoing 
quotation,  refers  also  to  the  following  passages  of  Tertullian  : 
De  Prsescript.  Haeret.  c.  36 ;  Adv.  Hoer.  iv.  2,  5 ;  Adv.  Prax. 
23 ;  and  adds  in  a  note  :  "In  all  these  passages,  Tertullian 
speaks  with  unhesitating  certainty  of  the  authenticity  and 
canonicity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel ;  and  as  he  may  be  con- 
sidered a  representative  of   the  Latin  African    Church,  that 

John,  Eagle.  So  they  are  given  in  a  Latin  Commentary  on  the  Four  Gospels,  which 
bears  the  name  of  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  and  which  probably  dates  from  the  latter 
half  of  the  fifth  century;  and  also  in  some  verses  of  Sedulius  (quoted  by  Feuardentius 
on  this  passage  of  Irenaeus)  which  belong  to  the  same  period,  where  John,  the  last  of 
the  four,  is  thus  described  : 

"  More  volans  aquilse  verbo  petit  astra  Joannes." 

1  6  iiriffT-fiOios  became  from  this  time  forth  a  perpetual  epithet  of  the  apostle  John. 

2  "  Constituimus  in  primis,  evangelicum  instruraentum  Apostolos  autores  habere  ; — 
si  et  apostolicos,  non  tamen  solos,  sed  cum  apostolis,  et  post  apostolos.— Ex  apostolis 
Johannes  et  Matthseus."  His  object  in  this  passage  is  evidently  to  claim  authority  of 
the  highest  kind  for  the  "evangelicum  instrumentum." 


76  CHAKACTER    OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

part  of  the  Christian  world  must  have  shared  the  same  con- 
viction. Moreover,  he  uses  this  gospel — not  only  in  the  works 
which  he  wrote  after  he  became  a  Montanist  (and  might, 
therefore,  be  supposed  to  have  conceived  a  prejudice  in  its 
favour),  but  also  in  those  belonging  to  an  earlier  period  of 
life — as  a  work  whose    claims   were   uncontested." 

Before  I  quit  this  part  of  the  subject,  I  must  very  briefly 
notice  one  or  two  writings  which  haye  a  bearing  on  the  cha- 
racter of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  In  the  work  "  Against  Heresies," 
ascribed  to  Hippolvtus,  references  constantly  occur  to  every  part 
of  that  gospel,  with  the  well-known  forms  of  citation — to  iip-q- 
jxevov,  €tpT]Tai,  to  ye^/pafjifiivov,  to  Xe'/ofievov,  etc.,  which  prove 
that  the  book  from  which  such  quotations  were  made  was 
already  recognized  as  a  part  of  Scripture ;  although  it  is 
noticeable,  that  the  name  of  the  author,  as  an  apostle,  is 
never  adduced  to  give  weight  to  them.  Perhaps  this  will 
appear  less  surprising,  when  it  is  recollected  that  it  seems  to 
have  been  the  custom  of  that  age  to  allege  the  gospels  in  the 
gross  as  apostolic  memorials,  without  specifying  the  names  of 
the  respective  writers.^  It  is  curious  that  in  one  or  two 
passages  Hippolytus  has  blended  with  his  quotations  from 
John,  forms  of  expression  that  are  peculiar  to  Matthew  and 
never  occur  in  John.  For  instance  (v.  8),  in  alluding  to 
Christ's  first  miracle  at  Cana  in  Galilee,  for  John's  words, 
after  icj^avepooa-e — rr/y  So^a  vdvTov,  he  substitutes  the  Matthaean 


'  The  only  evangelist  mentioned  in  Hippolytos  by  name  is  Mark,  and  that  in  a  single 
passage  (vii.  30)  where  he  is  described  as  KoXo^oSaKToXos,  "  -wanting  a  finger."  Ac- 
cording to  a  tradition  preserved  in  a  Latin  preface  to  Mark's  gospel,  contained  in  the 
"  Codex  Amiatinus,"  Mark  is  said,  after  his  conversion,  to  have  cut  off  his  thumb, 
that  he  might  not  be  forced  into  the  priesthood.  The  same  story  seems  to  have  got 
into  an  Arabic  narrative.  (See  Duncker's  note  in  loc). — In  \-ii.  20,  where  the  first 
edition  reads  Matthew  (MaTOatos),  we  must  probably  read  with  the  recent  editors, 
Matthias  {Mar Bias).  The  only  other  writers  of  the  J^ew  Testament  mentioned  by 
name  are  Paul — v.  7,  where  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  is  cited  at  some  length — vii.  31 
and  32,  where  he  is  associated  with  Peter — and  viii.  20,  where  he  is  called  "  the 
blessed,"  and  1  Timothy  iv.  1-5  is  quoted ;— and,  lastly,  John — vii.  36,  where  he  is 
cited  as  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse. 


TESTIMONIES   TO    THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL.  77 

form,  ^acTLkeiav  rcov  ovpavoiv ;  and  in  an  almost  verbal  cita- 
tion of  John  vi.  44,  he  replaces  the  words  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
0  TraTTjp  6  7re/j,ylra<;  fie,  bj''  o  7raT7]p  fiov  6  6vpdvio<;,  which  is 
found  nowhere  in  the  Xew  Testament  but  in  Matthew.  At 
the  close  of  his  work,  Hippolytus  gives  an  outline  of  his  theo- 
logical system,  as  "  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Deity  "  (6  nepl  to 
delov  akr)6ii^  \6yo<;).  It  is  based  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos, 
and  is  an  expansion  and  development  of  the  idea  which  under- 
lies the  whole  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  In  ujifolding  a  theory 
of  providence  and  human  salvation,  so  strikingly  coincident, 
it  is  certainly  not  a  little  remarkable,  that  if  he  received  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  with  which  he  was  evidently  acquainted,  as  a 
work  of  the  apostle  John,  he  should  never  once  have  thought 
of  sanctioning  his  own  views  by  so  very  high  an  authority. ' 
In  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  which  I  have  already  noticed 
as  a  specimen  of  the  apocah^ptic  literature  of  the  early  church, 
and  which  may  be  regarded  as  a  milder  expression  of  that 
same  spirit  of  revival  which  gave  birth  to  the  enthusiastic 
movement  of  Montanus — we  find  these  words :  (Lib.  III. 
Simil.  ix.  12)  "  The  gate  is  the  Son  of  God,  who  is  the  only 
means  of  access  to  God.  Ko  man,  therefore,  will  enter  into 
the  presence  of  God,  otherwise  than  through  his  Son"  (porta 
vero  Filius  Dei  est,  qui  solus  est  accessus  ad  Deum.  Alitor 
ergo  nemo  intrabit  ad  Deum,  nisi  par  Filium  ejus).  This  is 
clearly  the  doctrine  of  the  Fourth  Gospel:  see  x.  9,  and  xiv, 

•  The  exalted  language  applied  in  the  latter  part  of  this  treatise  to  human  nature, 
when  it  has  been  transformed  by  faith  and  obedience,  should  not  be  passed  OTer  with- 
out notice:  "thou  art  become  a  God"  {yeyovas  Oeo's) ;  "and  all  that  accompanies 
deity,  God  has  promised  to  bestow"  (Scro  5e  vapuKoXovOe?  Geif,  ravra  vapexeiy 
iv-fjyyeKrai  Of 6s)  (x.  34).  It  is  when  we  consider  the  startling  force  of  such  ex- 
pressions, that  we  are  hardly  surprised  to  find  the  same  writer  speak  of  Christ, 
who  is  the  perfection  of  humanity,  as  6  Kara  •KavTuiv  Beos  ("God  over  all") ;  lan- 
guage, which  appeared  so  extraordinary  to  the  late  Baron  Bunsen,  that  he  ventured 
on  an  emendation  of  the  text,  which  made  it  refer  not  to  the  Son,  but  to  the 
Father.  The  germ,  however,  of  the  thought  may  be  found  in  John's  assertion 
of  the  spiritual  unity  of  God  and  Christ  and  the  disciples  (xvii.  21),  and  in 
the  remarkable  assurance  in  2  Peter  i.  4,  that  through  faith  and  obedience,  believers 
may  become  "  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  "  {Belas  Koipwyol  cpvaews). 


78  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

6.  The  writer  too  holds  distinctly  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos.^ 
But  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  we  have  a  quotation  in  this 
passage ;  nor  is  the  source  from  which  it  is  taken  indicated. 
There  is  no  other  passage  in  the  Shepherd  which  has  the 
same  aflSnity  with  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  this.  Throughout 
the  work,  the  name  of  John,  as  the  author  of  an  apostolic 
book,  nowhere  occurs. 

In  what  are  called  the  Clementine  Homilies,  a  curious  reli- 
gious romance,  which  belongs  most  probably  to  the  latter  part 
of  the  second  century,  and  presents  us  with  a  form  of  Jewish 
Gnosis,  allied  to  Ebionitish  and  more  remotely  to  Essenian 
tendency,  exalting  Peter  and  not  obscurely  repudiating  Paul 
(seeHomil.  xvii.  19), — it  had  long  been  contended,  there  was  no 
conclusive  evidence  of  the  author's  being  acquainted  with  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  But  as  the  work,  when  first  edited  by  Cote- 
lerius  near  two  centuries  ago,^  was  confessedly  imperfect,  the 
argument  was  only  valid  pro  tanto.  Since  then,  in  the  year, 
1837,  while  engaged  in  examining  the  literary  treasures  of  the 
Vatican  Library,  Dressel  lighted  on  a  MS.  of  the  Homilies, 
which  contained  the  wanting  portions  of  the  work.^  In  one  of 
the  recovered  sections,  the  incident  of  the  man  born  blind  is 
referred  to  in  language  so  closely  agreeing  with  what  occurs  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel  fix.  2,  3),  that  though  it  is  applied  in  a  very 
different  way  from  the  original  narrative,  no  one  who  compares 
the  two  passages,  can  doubt  that  the  author  of  the  Homilies 
must  have  seen  and  read  the  Gospel.  But  no  intimation  is 
given  whence  the  story  was  taken.  Christ  is  quoted  at  once  as 
"  our  Teacher,"  who  said  so  and  so,  on  such  an  occasion ;  and 
his  words  are  used  with  a  freedom  approaching  to  license,  to 
justify  a  doctrine  which,  as  I  understand  the  passage,  is  tacitly 

1  "Filius  quidem  Dei  antiquior  est  totius  creaturae  Dei,  ita  ut  consilio  fuerit 
patri  suo  in  constituenda  tota  crcatura,  quae  est  in  ipso."  Ibid.  edit.  Dressel. 

2  In  1672,  contained  in  his  edition  of  the  "  Apostolic  Fathers." 

3  The  entire  work  consists  of  twenty  Homilies.  The  only  MS.  of  which  Cote- 
lerius  had  the  use  in  preparing  his  edition  (contained  in  the  royal  library  at  Paris) 
broke  off  at  Homil.  xix.  14.    See  Dressel's  preface  prefixed  to  his  edition. 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL.  79 

condemned  in  the  gospel.  In  the  gospel  our  Lord  denies,  that 
the  possible  sin  of  the  parents  can  have  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  son's  being  born  blind ;  and  the  miracle  was  wrought 
"that  the  works  of  God  might  be  made  manifest  in  him." 
In  the  homily,  on  the  other  hand,  the  connection  of  sin,  or  at 
least  of  ignorance,  in  one  generation  with  infirmity  in  the  next 
is  assumed  as  a  fact,  and  the  cure  is  performed  'Iva  Be  avrov 
(f)avepQ)6^  Tj  Suuafjii<;  rov  6eov,  tt}?  dyvola'i  Itofjuivr]  to,  dfiapr'^fiaTa. 
("  That  through  him  the  power  of  God  should  be  manifested 
in  healing  the  sins  of  ignorance.")  What  occurs  to  me  in 
reference  to  this  passage  is,  that  if  the  author  of  the  Homilies 
had  regarded  the  book  from  which  he  borrowed  this  incident 
as  an  undoubted  apostolic  production,  treating  it  with  only  a 
portion  of  the  reverence  with  which  we  of  this  day  should 
certainly  receive  any  statement  which  we  believed  to  have 
come  direct  from  an  apostle,  I  can  hardly  understand  how  he 
should  have  allowed  himself  to  handle  it  so  unceremoniously, 
especially  in  a  work  the  main  object  of  which  is  to  glorify 
the  apostle  Peter,  with  whom  the  beloved  apostle,  according 
to  the  tradition  preserved  in  Acts,  was  united  in  the  closest 
bonds  of  sympathy  and  co-operation.  On  the  other  side,  it 
must  be  admitted,  that  the  verbal  reverence  for  Scripture,  such 
as  it  exists  amongst  us,  and  which,  in  its  actual  form,  was  a 
result  of  the  reaction  against  sacerdotal  authority  at  the  time 
of  the  Reformation,  was  a  feeling  wholly  unknown  in  the  two 
first  centuries  of  our  era.  Even  an  approach  to  it  is  hardly 
discernible  till  the  age  of  Irenseus  and  Tertullian.  The  words 
of  the  Master  himself  were  treasured  up  with  the  profoundest 
veneration  ;  but  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  teaching  was  more 
regarded  than  its  written  form ;  and  scripture  still  held  a  sub- 
ordinate place  to  tradition.  TJhlhorn,  in  his  very  able  and 
learned  essay  on  the  Clementine  Homilies  and  Recognitions,^ 
has  shown  that  the  citations   in  the  Homilies  from  the  Old 

^  Die  Homilien  und  Eecognitionen  des  Clemens  Romanus  nacli  ihrem  TJrsprunge 
und  Inhalt  dargestellt,  you  Gerhard  Ulilliorn.     Gottingen,  1854. 


80  CHARAOTER   OF   THK    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Testament,  which  was  already  a  recognised  Scripture,  are  made 
in  a  very  loose  and  irregular  way,  not  seldom  modifying  the 
words  to  suit  the  sense  that  was  wished  to  be  conveyed.  Some 
times  they  agree  verbally  with  the  Septuagint ;  sometimes  they 
deviate  both  from  it  and  from  the  Hebrew,  when  an  object  is 
to  be  gained ;  and  sometimes  they  mix  up  two  passages  to- 
gether. In  p.  130,  TJhlhorn  has  exhibited  in  juxta-position 
a  passage  in  Deuteronomy  (xiii.  1-3)  and  its  citation  in  the 
Homilies  (xvi.  13)  ;  and  from  this  it  is  quite  obvious  that  the 
original  has  been  purposely  altered,  to  avert  from  God  the 
possible  imputation  that  he  could  tempt  any  one  to  evil.  The 
words  of  Christ  himself  are  often  quoted,  as  if  they  had  come 
from  unwritten  sources.  I  may  remark  that,  in  quoting  the 
gospels,  the  Homilies,  like  Justin  Martyr,  follow  chiefly 
Matthew,  next  Luke,  last  of  all  Mark  and  John.  Along  with 
these  sources,  Uhlhorn  thinks  (p.  137)  they  must  also  have 
used  an  uncanonical  gospel,  allied  to  the  "  gospel  according  to 
the  Hebrews."^ 

^  The  Clementines  (so  called  from  the  name  of  their  supposed  author,  Clement 
of  Rome)  exist  in  two  forms — one  in  Greek,  entitled  the  Ilomilies;  and  another,  the 
Eecognitions,  which  is  found  only  in  the  Latin  version  of  Rufinus.  Both  works 
have  interwrought  their  peculiar  theological  system  with  the  frame -work  of  a  nar- 
rative, which  gives  to  them,  especially  to  the  latter,  the  form  of  a  religious  novel. 
They  diifer  considerably  from  each  other ;  and  it  has  been  a  question  among  critics, 
which  should  be  considered  the  earlier  form.  Uhlhorn  considers  the  Recognitions 
to  be  a  later  re-casting  of  the  work,  for  this,  among  other  reasons, — that  the  quo- 
tations from  the  New  Testament  are  more  conformable  to  our  canonical  text,  than 
in  the  Homilies ;  and  further,  that  in  the  Recognitions  the  narrative  is  more  developed 
and  forms  a  more  important  element  in  the  whole  composition.  Both  these  circum- 
stances may  possibly  in  some  degree  be  due  to  the  translator ;  though  he  says  in  his 
preface  to  Gaudentius,  that  he  has  endeavoured  to  adhere,  not  only  to  the  sense,  but 
to  the  very  phraseology  of  his  author ;  and  it  appears  that  in  his  time,  there  were 
two  editions  in  Greek  of  the  Recognitions.  Anterior  to  both  these  forms— the 
Homilies  and  the  Recognitions — Uhlhorn  supposes  there  was  a  still  older  writing,  as 
the  nucleus  of  them,  which  had  its  origin  among  the  sect  of  the  El.xaites  in  Eastern 
Syria,  where  there  was  a  numerous  Jewish  population,  and  many  Jewish  Christian 
churches.  The  existence  of  the  work  in  different  forms  of  greater  or  less  extent, 
is  a  parallel  case  to  that  of  the  so-called  Ignatian  epistles.  Uhlhorn  assigns  the 
following  dates  provisionally  to  these  three  works :  the  oldest  must  have  been  sub- 
sequent to  150  A.D. ;  the  Homilies,  to  160  a.d;  and  the  Recognitions,  to  170  a.d. 
It  seems  to  be  certain,  that  the  Recognitions  must  have  been  in  existence,  when  Origen 
wrote  his  Commentary  on  Genesis,  which  was  before  231  a.d.  (Ulilhorn,  p.  434). 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  81 

In  the  letter  addressed  by  the  Christians  of  Vienne  and 
Lyons  to  their  brethren  in  Asia  Minor,  giving  an  account  of 
the  persecution  which  had  broken  out  against  them  in  Gaul, 
176  A.D.  (preserved  by  Eusebius,  H.E.  v.  1),  there  is  a  refer- 
ence, almost  verbally  coincident,  to  John  xvi.  2,  cited  as  viro 
Tov  Kvplov  TjfXMV  hprjixevov ;  and  a  few  sentences  before,  to  the 
Paraclete,  as  a  spirit  of  Christian  encouragement ;  but  here, 
as  in  former  instances,  without  any  indication  of  a  written 
source,  or  any  mention  of  the  name  of  the  apostle  John. 

In  the  oldest  canon  extant  (the  fragment  discovered  by 
Muratori  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century),  now  generally 
referred  by  scholars  to  the  end  of  the  second  or  the  opening  of 
the  third  century,  we  have  the  following  account  of  the  origin 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  which  it  wiU  be  as  well  to  translate  at 
length,  according  to  the  corrections  of  the  deeply  corrupted 
text,  suggested  by  Credner:^  "The  fourth  of  the  gospels  origi- 
nated with  the  disciples  of  John  (quartum  evangeliorum 
Johannis  ex  discipulis).  When  his  feUow-disciples  and  bishops 
had  been  exhorting  him,  he  said  to  them :  '  Fast  with  me 
three  days  from  this  time,  and  then  let  us  relate  to  one  another 
whatever  shall  have  been  revealed  to  each.'  On  that  same 
night  it  was  revealed  to  Andrew,  one  of  the  apostles,  that  John, 
with  the  consent  or  recognition  of  them  aU  (recognoscentibus 
cunctis)  should  write  an  account  of  all  things  in  his  own  name. 
And  therefore,  though  various  principles  are  inculcated  (varia 

Eastern  Syria — -where  the  Clementines  had  probably  their  earliest  source  (the 
names  mentioned  Homil.  II.  1,  it  is  noticed  by  Uhlhorn,  are  mostly  Hebrew  or 
Syriac) — has  ever  been  the  seat  of  mystic  and  ascetic,  and  later  of  syncretistic 
tendencies.  Here  was  the  home  of  Tatian  and  Bardesanes  and  Mauichajism;  and 
to  this  day  the  Druses  and  the  Jczids  exhibit  in  their  religious  belief  a  strange 
intermixture  of  Jewish,  Christian,  and  Mahometan  ideas.  In  the  oldest  portion 
of  the  Catechism  of  the  Druses,  only  Matthew,  Mark,  and  John,  it  is  said,  are 
mentioned,  the  Pauline  Luke  being  excluded— an  indication  that  the  religion  of  the 
Druses  grew  up  originally  on  a  Jewish  Christian  basis  (Uhlhorn,  p.  417,  note  96). 
Matter  (Histoire  Critique  du  Gnosticisme,  Tom.  ii.  p  329)  says  of  the  Druses 
and  their  probable  connexion  with  the  Ebionitism  represented  in  the  Clementines 
—with  the  characteristic  vivacity  of  a  French  writer—"  On  dirait  les  Druses  un 
reste  de  ces  Ebionites  precipites  dans  le  Mahometisme." 
^  Zur  Geschichte  des  Kanons,  p.  74. 

6 


82  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

principia  doceantur)  in  the  several  books  of  the  gospels,  this 
makes  no  difference  to  the  faith  of  believers,  inasmuch  as  in 
all  of  them  all  things  are  set  forth  in  one  predominant  spirit 
(uno  ac  principali  spiritu)  concerning  the  nativity,  the  passion, 
the  resurrection,  his  conversation  with  his  disciples,  and  his 
twofold  advent,  first,  in  the  lowliness  of  contempt  (which  has 
been  fulfilled),  and  secondly,  in  regal  power  and  glory  which  is 
to  come.  What  wonder,  then,  if  John  should  dwell  so  con- 
stantly on  particular  points  even  in  his  epistles,  saying,  in 
reference  to  himself:  "What  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  and 
heard  with  our  ears,  and  our  hands  have  handled,  these  things 
have  we  written."  For  so  he  professes  himself  to  be  not  only 
a  seer  and  a  hearer,  but  also  a  writer  in  order,  of  all  the  won- 
derful things  of  the  Lord."^ 

This  is  not  very  clear ;  but  two  things  are  sufiiciently  evi- 
dent :  first,  that  the  writer  knew  nothing  of  the  actual  origin  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  otherwise  he  would  not  have  ventured  on  so 
purely  legendary  an  account ;  and  secondly,  that  believers  were 
already  disturbed  by  the  apparently  conflicting  tendency  of  the 
several  narratives  ;  and  that  to  quiet  them,  and  induce  them  to 
acquiesce  in  this  authoritative  collection  of  sacred  writings,  he 
reminds  them  that  on  all  essential  points  the  four  gospels  were 
one  in  spirit — those  points  being,  it  should  be  observed,  not  mat- 
ters of  doctrine,  but  the  great  facts  of  the  Messianic  agency  of 
Christ.     The  distinction  between  heresy  and    Catholicism  was 

1  I  give  the  Latin  (as  emended)  at  length  :  "  Quartum  Evangeliorum  Johannis  ex 
discipulis.  Coliortautibus  condiscipulis  et  episcopis  suis  dixit :  Conjejuuate  mihi 
hodie  triduo,  et  quid  ciiique  fuerit  revelatuni  alterutrum  nobis  enaiTcmus.  Eadem 
nocte  revelatum  Andreas  ex  apostolis,  ut  recognoscentibus  cunetis  Johannes  sue 
nomine  cuncta  describeret. — Et  ideo,  licet  varia  singulis  evangeliorum  libris  prin- 
cipia doceantur,  nihil  tamcn  differt  credentium  fidei,  cum  uno  ac  principali  spiritu 
declarata  sint  in  omnibus  omnia  de  nativitate,  de  passione,  de  resurrectione,  de  con- 
versatione  cum  discipulis,  et  de  gemino  ejus  adventu,  primo  in  humilitate  despectus. 
quod  ratum  est,  secundo  potestate  regali  pracclaro,  quod  futurum  est.  Quid  ergo 
mirum,  si  Johannes  tarn  constanter  singula  etiam  in  epistolis  suis  proferat,  dicens 
in  semetipso ;  '  qua)  vidimus  oculis  nostris,  etc.,  etc.,  ha;c  scripsimus.'  Sic  enim  non 
solum  visorem  se  et  auditorem,  sed  et  scriptorem  omnium  mirabilium  domini  per 
ordinem  profitetur." 


TESTIMONIES   TO   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  83^ 

already  beginning  to  be  sharply  drawn,  when  the  author  of  this 
Canon  wrote.  In  another  part  of  the  Fragment  (8),  alluding  to 
the  rejection  by  the  Church  of  a  work  that  had  been  forged  in 
Paid's  name  to  support  the  heresy  of  Marcion,  he  lays  down 
the  broad  principle,  that  we  ought  not  "  to  mix  gall  and  honey 
together  "  (Fel  cum  melle  misceri  non  congruit). 

One  feature  is  significant  in  all  the  traditions  respecting  the 
Gospel  of  John — and  that  is,  not  only  that  it  was  universally  re- 
garded as  the  latest  of  the  four,  but  that  it  was  also  believed  to 
have  a  supplementary  character,  developing  and  completing  what 
was  rudimental  and  defective  in  the  earlier  three.  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  in  a  passage  of  his  Hypotyposes,  preserved 
by  Eusebius  (H.  E.  vi.  14.)  says, — "  that  John  lastly,  observing 
that  the  material  or  earthly  side  of  the  Gospel  had  been 
exhibited  by  the  other  evangelists,  at  the  request  of  his 
acquaintance,  and  through  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit, 
composed  a  spiritual  Gospel."  ^  A  curious  extract  from 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  which  Mill  has  prefixed  to  the 
Gospel  of  John,  in  his  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament,  states 
that  "  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  written  to  supply  the  evidence, 
wanting  in  the  three  first,  of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  lest  men, 
familiar  only  with  what  they  found  there,  should  come  at  last 
to  regard  Jesus  as  no  more  than  what  he  seemed  (i.e.  a  man".)^ 

I  regret  to  have  taxed  the  reader's  patience  by  this  long 
citation  and  criticism  of  j)assages,  and  by  going  over  some 
ground  that  might  seem  to  have  been  sufficiently  trodden 
before ;  but  the  importance  of  the  subject  demanded  as 
thorough  an  investigation  as  I  could  give  it,  and  some 
passages  which  have  been  often  quoted,  it  seemed  desirable 
to  examine  anew.  It  must  strike  every  one,  I  think,  who 
compares  the  testimonies  for  the  Apocalypse,  as  the  work  of 

^  rhu  /levToi  'laidvvr]!'  e<rx«TO«'  arvviSSi'Ta  otl  to,  awfiariKo.  eV  rols  ivayyeAiots 
SeSriKwrai,  irpoTpa.irivra  virh  tcHu  yuupificay,  irpivfiari  0€O(popr]BevTa,  irvfufxaTiKhr 
iroirja'ai  ivayytKiov. 

^  &)(TTe  fii}  Tov  xP^^ov  trpo^divovTos  tovtois  ivKrdkvrai  Tois  \6yois  rovs  avQpdt- 
Tfovs  rovTo  fi6i'oi'  avrhv  vofii^nv,  tirep  f<paiviTo. 


84  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

the  apostle  Jolm,  with  those  that  have  been  produced  for 
the  same  object  on  behalf  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, — that  while 
the  former  are  distinct  and  express  as  early  as  the  middle  or 
even  the  first  half  of  the  second  century,  none  appear  for 
the  gospel  that  can  be  adduced  with  any  certainty,  till  Theo- 
philus  of  Antioch,  178  a.d.  ;  and  that  by  a  curious  exchange 
of  position,  the  Fourth  Gospel  should  then  first  obtain  the 
full  and  undoubting  sufirage  of  the  Catholic  Church  as  the 
production  of  an  apostle,  when  the  Apocalypse  is  beginning 
to  fall  in  reputation,  and  doubts  are  already  insinuated  against 
its  authenticity — that  is  to  say,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
third  century.  "Whatever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  these 
two  works,  the  difierence  of  their  character  will  partly  account 
for  the  altered  feeling  respecting  them.  It  took  place  when 
that  change  was  coming  over  the  educated  members  of  the 
Church  in  respect  to  their  relations  to  the  existing  state  of 
civilization,  to  which  I  have  adverted  in  a  preceding  section, 
and  which,  as  I  have  there  shown,  was  followed  by  a  two- 
fold efiect.  It  introduced,  on  the  one  hand,  a  conformity  to 
the  usages  of  the  world,  which  was  regarded  by  stricter 
Christians  as  a  culpable  surrender  of  principle,  and  did  pro- 
bably in  some  cases  lead  to  laxity  and  scepticism ;  and  it 
awakened,  on  the  other,  as  a  counteraction,  a  spirit  of  earnest 
and  enthusiastic  revival.  AYhile  this  change  was  in  progress, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  was  assuming  an  increased  im- 
portance, and  undergoing  a  more  scientific  development  in  aU 
the  great  Christian  writers  of  the  period.  It  furnished  a 
means  of  reconciling  the  Petrine  and  Pauline  tendencies,  and 
was  the  grand  instrument  for  reducing  the  rigidity  of  the  old 
Judaic  Christianity  and  moulding  it  into  a  more  genial  and 
catholic  form.  "We  see  in  the  writings  of  TertuUian,  how 
it  contributed  to  develop  the  earliest  phase  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  and  laid  the  first  stone  of  that  vast  edifice  of 
orthodoxy  which  ensuing  centuries  reared  up  and  consum- 
mated.     But  it  was  equally  suited  to  meet,  in  another  way, 


TESTIMONIES    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  85 

the  wants  of  more  enthusiastic  spirits.  ^6709  and  Uvevfia, 
Word  and  Spirit,  were  not  yei  recognized  as  distinct  spiritual 
entities,  but  were  still  employed,  with  the  old  Jewish  vague- 
ness, almost  indifferently  to  designate  the  indwelHng  power 
and  impulse  of  the  Almighty.  Whatever  view  of  Christianity 
gave  additional  prominence  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  was 
embraced  with  eagerness  by  all  those  fervid  religionists,  who 
felt  that  the  World  was  paralysing  the  Church,  and  who 
prayed  for  a  new  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  on  men's  souls. 
Especially  in  the  form  of  the  Paraclete,  as  a  perpetuation  of 
the  personal  influence  of  the  incarnate  Logos  in  the  world, 
was  the  doctrine  eagerly  welcomed  by  the  Montanists,  whose 
movement  originated  in  an  enthusiastic  effort  to  bring  back 
in  a  still  purer  and  intenser  form  the  Christianity  of  the  first 
age.  As  far  as  our  imperfect  notices  furnish  us  with  in- 
formation, it  would  seem  that,  of  all  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  Montanists  were  most  devotedly  attached  to 
the  Apocalypse  and  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It  was  the  idea  of 
the  Word  and  the  Spirit,  so  vividly  expressed  in  both,  that 
attracted  them,  and  made  them  find  in  both  the  evidence  of 
a  common  apostolic  source.  The  Montanists  were  not  ori- 
ginally regarded  as  heretics.  Tertullian,  whose  doctrinal 
orthodoxy  has  never  been  disputed,  became  one  of  them. 
Even  Baronius  admitted,  that  the  original  views  of  Montanus 
were  harmless,  and  that  it  was  only  unreasonable  persecution, 
mainly  fomented  by  Praxeas,  that  drove  his  followers  at  length 
into  heretical  aberrations.^  Their  principles  were  at  one  time 
widely  diffused  through  Italy  and  North-west  Africa,  as  well 
as  through  Asia  Minor.  But  at  length  the  literal  acceptance 
of  ChiHastic  views  led  to  extravagances  which  shocked  the 
judgment  of  more  philosophical  believers,  who  perceived  the 
difference  between  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
and  employed  the  spiritual  idealism  of  the  one  to  temper  the 
concrete  imagery  of  the  other.  There  seem  at  this  period,  in 
1  Semler,  Index  Latiiiit.  Tertullian.  sub  voce  Faracktus. 


86  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

the  transition  from  the  second  to  the  third  century,  to  have 
been  three  distinct  tendencies  working  in  the  Church.  First 
there  were  the  learned  and  educated  Christians,  aiming  through 
the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  at  the  development  of  a  Catholic 
Church.  Then  there  were  those  who  still  clung  to  the  primi- 
tive Jewish  type  of  faith,  and  shared  its  traditional  expecta- 
tions, though  they  accepted  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  in  its 
more  enthusiastic  form.  Of  this  movement  Montanism  was, 
perhaps,  the  most  marked  and  prominent  expression.  Lastly, 
there  are  traces  of  a  class  of  men  who  appear  to  have  looked  on 
the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  both  in  its  learned  and  in  its  popu- 
lar form,  as  an  innovation  on  the  gospel  originally  preached 
by  Christ,  and  on  this  ground  to  have  strongly  protested 
against  it.^  "We  know  very  little  of  these  persons.  Their 
leaders  were  Theodotus  and  Artemon.  They  formed  a  small 
secession  church  for  a  short  time  at  Rome  in  the  beginning 
of  the  third  century.  They  are  described  as  zealous  culti- 
vators of  human  learning,  and  regarded  Christ  as  in  nature 
a  man.  They  never  organized  themselves  into  any  permanent 
sect  or  school ;  but  their  numbers  and  influence  must  at  one 
time  have  been  considerable,  or  Epiphanius  would  never  have 
thought  it  worth  while  to  bestow  on  them  the  name,  which 
he  tells  he  himself  invented,  of  Alogi.^ 

In  such  a  state  of  things,  a  work  like  the  Fourth  Gospel  became 
almost  a  necessity  of  the  time ;  and  if  any  apostolic  materials 
existed  for  producing  it,  they  must  have  been  gathered  up  and 
put  into  shape.  We  are  not  yet  in  a  position  to  ofier  any  opinion 
as  to  the  probable  date,  origin,  and  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel :    but  what  has  struck  me  through  the  whole  of  the 

'  They  contended,  that  they  held  the  same  views  with  the  apostles  themselves,  and 
that  these  views  had  continued  in  the  Church  till  the  time  of  Victor,  Bishop  of  Eome, 
thirteenth  in  succession  from  Peter,  when  the  truth  began  to  be  perverted.  Eusebius 
H.  E.  V.  28. 

2  It  involves  an  equivoque  (which  he  intended),  and  may  be  rendered  either  "  with- 
out reason"  or  "without  the  Logos."  See  a  monograph  by  Heinichen,  "  De 
Alogis,  Theodotianis  atque  Artemonitis"  (Lips.,  1829);  a  work  of  very  laborious 
research,  which  does  not,  however,  throw  much  light  on  the  subject. 


TESTIMONIES    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL.  87 

foregoing  inquiry  is  this ;  that  we  have  decided  traces  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  book,  some  time  before  we  find  any  clear 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  book  itself,  and  still  longer 
before  we  meet  with  any  mention  of  the  name  and  apostolic 
position  of  its  author.  The  Logos  was  the  doctrine  with 
which  the  Apologists  of  the  second  century  combated  Jewish 
narrowness  on  one  side,  and  Gnostic  wildness  on  the  other, 
and  prepared  the  way  for  a  Catholic  Christianity.  It  is  re- 
markable, that  neither  Athenagoras,  nor  Justin  Martyr,  nor 
Hippolytus,  filled  as  their  writings  are  with  the  spirit  of  that 
doctrine,  should  ever  once — if  the  Fourth  Gospel  were  then 
generally  recognized  as  a  work  of  the  apostle  John — have 
invoked  in  favour  of  their  views  the  sanction  of  so  great  a 
name. 


88  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 


SECTION   YIII. 
On  the  internal  indications  of  a  later  age  in  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

When  we  proceed  from  external  testimonies  to  the  internal 
signs  of  age  and  authorship,  we  enter  a  field  where  the  mind 
of  the  inquirer  is  pecidiarly  exposed  to  subjective  influences, 
and  where,  from  the  force  of  preconceived  opinion,  he  is  almost 
unconsciously  disposed  to  assume  what  under  other  circum- 
stances he  could  not  have  found.  Nevertheless,  where  there  is 
a  truth  at  bottom,  outward  and  inward  evidence,  when  really 
understood,  must  be  in  harmony.  Having  prepared  the  way  by 
a  tolerably  full  exhibition  of  the  former,  and  put  the  reader 
previously  on  his  guard  against  a  too  hasty  admission  of  the 
latter,  I  shall  now  venture  to  point  out  what  appear  to  me  very 
strong  indications  of  a  later  age  in  the  gospel  ascribed  to 
the  apostle  John. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  modifying  the  whole  conception  of 
the  person  and  ministry  of  Christ,  which  pervades  from 
beginning  to  end  this  remarkable  book,  could  not,  I  think,  have 
blended  itself  so  intimately  with  the  popular  preaching  of 
Christianity  at  a  very  early  age.  The  facts  recorded  in  the 
Synoptists  are,  it  is  true,  implied  in  the  mingled  narrative  and 
argumentation  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  ;  but  they  are  kept 
subordinate  to  the  leading  idea  of  the  writer  ;  they  are 
evidently  combined  and  moulded  with  a  view  to  develop  it.  As 
we  read,  we  find  it  difiicidt  to  resist  the  impression,  that  the 
simpler  and  more  natural  history  contained  in  Matthew  or  in 
Luke  must  have  gone  before,  and  that  this  was  more  strictly 
conformable   to  primitive  tradition  than  the  idealized  vision 


INTERNAL   INDICATIONS   OF    AGE.  89 

of  the  incarnate  Word  held  up  to  us  by  John.  No  doubt,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Logos  existed  anterior  to  the  apostolic  age; 
but  it  was  confined  to  the  higher  sphere  of  philosophical 
thought,  and  came  into  no  direct  contact  with  the  popular  mind. 
With  a  few  of  the  more  educated  Hellenistic  Jews,  who  had 
imbibed  a  tincture  of  Alexandrine  culture,  it  might  be  already 
understood  and  accepted,  but  to  the  simple  multitudes,  to  whom 
Christ's  personal  teaching  was  addressed,  and  to  the  unlettered 
fishermen  of  Galilee,  who  were  the  earliest  missionaries  of  the 
new  faith,  such  a  doctrine  would  probably  have  been  incompre- 
hensible, at  war  with  their  traditional  beliefs  and  expectations, 
too  abstract  and  too  intellectual  to  produce  any  deep  spiritual 
impression  on  their  souls.  As  Christianity  gradually  ascended 
from  the  depths  of  society  to  its  heights,  and  disengaged 
itself  more  entirely  from  Judaism,  especially  after  the  second 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  under  Hadrian,  a.d.  135.,  when  it 
ceased  to  be  regarded  as  a  mere  Jewish  controversy,  and  ob- 
tained freer  access  to  that  widening  border  land  of  syncretistic 
feeling  which  then  vaguely  separated  the  old  regions  of  Hellenic 
and  Oriental  thought, — it  could  no  longer  remain  a  stranger 
to  the  philosophical  theories  that  were  circulating  in  the 
world ;  and  of  these  theories  there  was  none  better  adapted 
for  assimilation  with  it,  at  once  from  its  partially  Jewish  origin, 
and  from  its  facilitating  the  conception  of  the  mutual  relation 
of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  than  the  Alexandrine  doctrine  of 
the  Logos.  In  the  Apologists  of  the  second  century,  most  of 
whom  were  converts  from  heathenism,  we  already  find  this  doc- 
trine fully  accepted.  It  was  an  intellectual  formula,  which 
enabled  them  to  present,  with  some  approach  to  scientific  pre- 
cision, and  without  undue  ofience  to  the  philosophical  fastidi- 
ousness of  the  parties  whom  they  addressed,  the  apparently 
discordant  representations  which  the  popular  tradition  conveyed 
of  the  person  and  work  of  the  founder  of  the  new  religion. 
As  the  world  was  then  constituted,  Christianity  would  hardly 
have  made  its  way  into  the  better  mind  of  heathenism,  without 


90  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

this  sort  of  metaphysical  bridge  to  cross  the  gulph  which 
separated  them.  But  as  the  doctrine  may  be  regarded  as,  in 
a  certain  sense,  a  necessity  from  this  time  forth,  so  it  could 
hardly  have  been  such  at  a  much  earlier  period.  So  far  as 
we  can  judge  from  the  very  dim  and  imperfect  records  of  that 
remote  age,  there  was  neither  room  nor  occasion  for  a  work 
like  the  Fourth  Gospel,  much  before  the  middle,  at  least,  of 
the  first  half  of  the  second  century. 

In  the  epistles  of  Paul  we  find  ourselves  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  controversy  which  broke  out  on  the  first  attempt  to 
carry  a  Palestinian  movement  beyond  the  limits  of  Judaism. 
It  was  the  question  of  faith  and  works,  as  the  condition  of 
admission  into  the  Kingdom  of  God — a  question  which,  as  we 
learn  from  the  story  of  Izates  and  Ananias  in  Josephus,^  had 
already,  in  a  somewhat  difierent  form,  been  agitated  among 
the  Jews.  The  Spirit,  a  more  strictly  Palestinian  idea,  per- 
formed, in  the  preaching  of  Paid,  the  same  office  of  conciliation 
which  later  on  was  assumed  by  the  Alexandrine  Logos.  All 
who  hearkened  to  the  divine  call,  and  walked  not  after  the 
flesh  but  after  the  spirit,  whatever  had  been  their  previous 
condition,  became  thereby  the  children  of  God  and  the  heirs 
of  the  promises.  Of  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  as  it  was  sub- 
sequently developed,  I  can  discover  little  beyond  an  incipient 
trace  in  the  Pauline  letters.  In  Colossians,  which  was  pro- 
bably written  during  the  apostle's  captivity  in  Caesarea,  when 
the  results  of  his  Asiatic  experience  had  taught  him  the  neces- 
sity of  some  common  point  of  view  for  bringing  the  Hellenic 
and  the  Jewish  mind  into  harmony,  we  find  an  approach  to 
that  doctrine — language,  at  least,  applied  to  Christ  which  is 
most  easily  interpreted  in  reference,  to  it,  and  on  the  assump- 
tion of  its  truth.  I  allude  particularly  to  Colossians  i.  15,  19 
and  ii.,  3,  9,  10, — where  such  expressions  as  iiKOiv  rov  Oeov 
Tov  aopdrov,  TrpoiTOTOKO^  Trdcrrj'i  Krlaeco^ — iravra  8i  dvrov  Kol 
€t9  dvTov  eKTLarai — eV  dvru)  KaroiKel  irav  to  TrX^pco/ia  ry'i  6e6- 
1  Antiquit.  XX.  ii.  3.  4. 


INTERNAL    INDICATIONS   OF    AGE.  91 

Ti]TO<i  (TQ}/jLaTiK(t)<;,  and  others  associated  with  them — seem  to 
me  significant.  But  in  the  larger  and  most  unquestionablj' 
authentic  epistles,  written  before  this  time,  Romans,  Corinth- 
ians, Galatians,  and  Thessalonians,  I  cannot  call  to  my  remem- 
brance a  single  instance  of  language  of  this  kind.  Here,  as  I 
have  already  remarked,  the  Spirit,  not  the  Word,  is  the  domi- 
nating idea.  And  in  these  larger  epistles,  especially  Romans 
and  Galatians,  if  I  rightly  interpret  them  by  the  collateral 
light  of  the  book  of  Acts,  the  parties  chiefly  addressed  are  not 
so  much  either  Jews  or  Gentiles  in  their  sharply  contrasted  op- 
position to  each  other,  as  that  large  intermediate  class — much 
larger,  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  than  is  usually  supposed — of 
devout  Gentiles,  who  had  been  heathens,  but  who  had  em- 
braced the  grand  and  noble  doctrines  of  the  Hebrew  prophets, 
and  who  were,  therefore,  of  all  men  the  best  fitted  for  tran- 
sition to  a  new  faith,  which  in  its  earliest  form  was  exhibited 
as  a  simple  spiritualizing  of  Judaism.^ 

AVlien  we  turn  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  we  find  ourselves  at  once 
in  another  atmosjahere.  The  storm  of  controversy  has  passed ;  the 
air  is  clear  and  still.  Throughout  there  is  a  serene  tone  of  con- 
scious superiority,  as  if  the  first  struggle  were  over,  and  the 
victory  had  been  substantially  won.  "  The  Jews,"  a  collective  ex- 
pression for  the  opponents  of  Christ  peculiar  to  this  Gospel,  are 
indeed  described  as  arrayed  in  habitual  hostility  against  him, 
yet  kept  in  check  from  first  to  last,  and  subdued  in  the  midst 
of  their  fiercest  assaults  (see  John  xviii.  6,)  by  the  overpower- 
ing presence  of  the  incarnate  Word  and  manifested  Son  of  God. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  direct  access  of  Greeks  ('EXkrjvi'i 
Tivef;)  to  the  very  heart  of  the  new  religion,  and  the  glorious 
prospect  of  its  world-wide  dominion  which  is  anticipated  from 
the  coincidence  of  this  event  with  the  ensuing  death  of  Christ, 


'  Our  Lord,  in  one  of  his  most  authentic  utterances,  preserved  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  says :  "  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  ;  I 
am  not  come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil  "  {6vk  ?\\Qov  KaraKvrai,  aWci  irXrjpuaai).  Matth. 
V.  17. 


92  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

are  set  forth  in  the  most  striking  way,  as  indicative  of  a  new 
era  in  the  development  of  Christianity,  in  John  xii.  19 — 28. 
The  words  ascribed  to  the  Pharisees  on  this  occasion  are  re- 
markably significant,  (v.  19) — "Perceive  ye  how  ye  prevail 
nothing  ?  Behold,  the  world  is  gone  after  him,"  (I'Se  o  Koa-jxo'i 
oTrlaw  dvToC  dirriXdev)}  Just  before  the  crucifixion  the  enemies 
of  Christ  could  never  have  entertained  so  improbable  an  ex- 
pectation. We  seem  to  me  to  be  transported  by  the  feeling 
80  clearly  expressed  in  this  passage,  to  a  time  when  the  Jewish 
nationality  was  broken  up,  and  the  Gospel,  released  from  its 
moorings  on  the  narrow  strand  of  Jewish  prejudice,  had  set 
out  with  expanded  sails  on  its  boundless  voyage  of  cosmopo- 
litan conversion.  If,  in  the  absence  of  positive  data,  one 
might  venture  on  a  conjecture,  when  this  was, — I  should  say, 
after  the  suppression  of  the  Jewish  revolt  under  Bar-Cochba, 
by  Hadrian.  It  was  then  that  the  Jewish  Christian  church, 
which  had  hitherto  subsisted  at  Jerusalem,  was  finally  dis- 
persed ;  and  those  who  had  previously  been  its  members,  were 
either  absorbed  into  the  Gentile  church  which  succeeded  it,, 
or  went  back  into  Judaism,  or  else  subsisted  for  a  century 
or  two  longer  as  a  dwindling  heresy,  under  the  name  of 
Ebionites  and  Nazarenes.  During  the  revolt  of  Bar-Cochba, 
the  Christians  had  been  cruelly  persecuted  by  the  Jews.  His 
defeat  and  the  establishment  of  ^lia  Capitolina  on  the  site 
of  the  Holy  City,  was  the  day  of  their  deliverance  and  com- 
parative peace.- 

^  Notice  the  use  of  6  kSctjxos  here.  It  is  not  introduced  without  a  special  meaning, 
and  signifies  a  great  deal  more  than  6  ox^-os  or  &  \a6s,  which  the  context  seems  to 
require.  Wahl,  in  his  Clavis  Nov.  Test,  gives,  among  other  meanings,  under  this 
word,  that  of  niultitudo,  omnes  ;  but  the  passages,  of  which  this  is  one,  cited  in  sup- 
port of  his  rendering,  imply,  every  one  of  them,  something  very  different  and  far  more 
specific.     Comp.  John  vii.  4  ;  xiv.  22 ;  xviii.  20  ;  2  Cor.  i.  12  ;  2  Peter,  ii.  5. 

'  Speaking  of  Hadrian's  measures  to  prevent  the  Jews,  after  Bar-Cochba's  defeat, 
having  any  access  to  Jerusalem,  Sulpicius  Severus,  Hist.  Saer.  II.  31,  (quoted  by 
Gieseler,  Lchrb.  der  Kirchengesch  I.  §.  42,)  adds  :  "  Quod  quidem  Christianas  fidei 
proficiebat,  quia  tum  pene  omnes  Christum  Deum  sub  legis  obscrvatione  credebant. 
Nimirum  id  Domino  dispositum,  ut  legis  servitus  a  libcrtatc  fidei  atque  ecclesiae 
tolleretur.  Ita  tum  primum  Marcus  ex  gentilibus  apud  Hierosolymam  episcopus 
fuit." 


INTERNAL    INDICATIONS   OF    AGE.  93 

Other  indications  offer  themselves  confirmatory  of  the  date 
which  I  have  conjecturally  suggested.  If  I  am  right,  two 
destructions  of  Jerusalem  had  now  taken  place,  and  the  last 
dream  of  a  spiritual  dominion,  with  Jerusalem  for  its  earthly 
centre,  was  effectually  dispelled.  Twice  had  destruction  come; 
and  twice  had  the  Lord  failed  to  reveal  himself  as  an  avenging 
Judge  from  heaven.  In  conformity  with  such  an  experience, 
we  find  the  rich  concrete  imagery  associated  with  the  second 
coming,  which  is  so  strongly  marked  in  Matthew  and  even  in 
Luke,  softened  down  and  idealized  into  the  more  general  ex- 
pression of  a  final  conflict,  a  Kplac^i,  between  the  powers  of 
good  and  evil,  or  more  generally  still,  of  "a  last  day"  (^ 
ia-'xaT')]  rjfMepa).  See  John  xii.  31  ;  xvi.  8 ;  vi.  39  ;  xii.  48, 
and  passim.  Of  the  Chiliasm,  which  was  so  prominent  an 
article  in  the  faith  of  the  first  Christians,  and  which  is  so 
vividly  set  forth  in  the  Apocalypse,  not  one  clear  trace  exists 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

Events  are  long  ante-dated  in  this  Gospel,  to  bring  out 
from  the  first  the  transcendent  power  of  the  Son  of  God. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  the  familiar  instance  of  its 
putting  the  expulsion  of  the  traffickers  from  the  Tem- 
ple at  the  beginning  instead  of  at  the  end  of  the  minis- 
try of  Christ.  A  less  obvious  but  equally  conclusive  ex- 
ample is  furnished  by  the  conversion  of  Samaria.  This  is 
represented  as  having  been  substantially  effected  quite  early 
in  the  course  of  Christ's  public  teaching,  during  one  of  his 
journeys  from  Judea  to  Galilee.  (See  ch.  iv.  and  especially 
vv.  40-42).  But  such  a  statement  is  wholly  at  variance  with 
Matthew  x.  5,  where  Christ  forbids  the  twelve  to  enter  any 
city  of  the  Samaritans ;  w^ith  Luke  ix.  53,  when  on  his  last 
journey  to  Jerusalem,  the  Samaritans  refused  to  receive  him 
and  his  followers  into  one  of  their  villages ;  and  still  more  with 
Acts  viii.  5,  where  we  learn  that  Christ  was  first  preached 
in  Samaria  by  Philip.  Compare  Acts  viii.  14,  which  leaves 
no  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  former  passage.     There  is 


94  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

sometliing  almost  apologetic  in  the  way  in  whicli  the  mention 
of  Samaria  is  introduced  (John  iv.  4)  :  "  he  must  needs  go,  etc." 
(eSet   Se    avrov    Btep'^eadac).      The    intrusion,    as    it    were,    of 
Samaria  into   the   ordinary   succession   of  events,  had    to   be 
accounted  for.     Except  in  this  chapter,  Samaria  is  never  once 
noticed  again  throughout  the  Fourth  Gospel.      In  John  x.  8 
are  some  words  which,  if  we  call  to  mind  the   Jesus   of  the 
synoptical  narratives,    and  the  attitude  uniformly  assumed  by 
him  there  towards  the  law  and  the  prophets,  we  shall  find  it 
diflB.cult  to  believe    coidd  ever,   in    their    present    unqualified 
harshness,  have  been  uttered  by  him :    "  All  that  ever  came 
before  me  are  thieves  and  robbers ;    but   the   sheep   did  not 
hear    them."      De    Wette    with    Tholuck    confesses    himself 
pained  and  puzzled   by  them :    and   what    trouble   has   been 
taken  in  all  ages  to  wrest  them  from  their  natural  and  ob- 
vious meaning,  may  be  seen  in  the  commentaries   of  Liicke 
and  Meyer.^     Christ  is  asserting,  that  there  is  only  one  sure 
entrance  into  the  sheepfold  of  eternal  life — the  way  by  which 
he  himself  enters,  the  waj^  of  which  he  himself  is  the  door. 
He  distinctly  repudiates   the  possibility  of  there  being  now. 
and  of  there  having  ever  been,  any  other  access.     The  feeling 
of  the  whole  passage  is  strongly,  not  to  say,  narrowly  anti- 
Jewish.      Can  any  period  better  suit  such  an  utterance  than 
the  one  to  which  I  have  already  alluded — when  the  final  and 
decisive  rupture  with  Judaism  had  just  taken  place,  when  the 
Christians  were  still  smarting  from  the  recent  persecutions  of 
the   Jews,   and   rejoicing   at   the  emancipation   which   in    the 
name  of  Christ  opened  the  whole  of  the  heathen  world  before 
them?     The  figure  of  Christ's  being  the  'gate  of  life'  passed, 
probably  from  this  source,  into  the  current  theological  phrase- 
ology of  the  ensuing  century.       In  the  Clementine  Homilies, 

1  There  seems  no  sufficient  reason  to  question  the  authenticity  of  this  passage. 
The  oldest  MSS.  have  it,  A.  B.  D.  :  and  it  is  admitted  by  Lachmann  entire  into  his 
text.  The  Codex  Sinaiticus  omits  Trph  tfxov  ;  and  the  corresponding  words  are  want- 
ing in  the  Vulgate.  This  omission  is  a  proof  of  the  difficulty  which  they  early 
occasioned. 


INTERNAL   INDICATIONS   OF    AGE.  95 

some  thirty  or  forty  years  later,  we  find  almost  tlie  identical 
words:  "I  am  the  gate  of  life;  he  that  enters  through  me, 
enters  into  life"  {i^co  iifii  rj  irvXr]  Tr]<i  ^cor}<i-  6  3t'  ifiov  kaep, 
■XPfievo^  itaepx^rac  et?  rrjv  ^dorjv.  Horn.  iii.  52).  The  Shepherd 
of  Hermas  at  the  close  of.  the  century,  has  the  same  idea  in 
a  passage  quoted  in  a  preceding  section:  "that  there  is  no 
access  to  God,  except  through  his  Son,  who  is  *  Porta  Dei 
(III.  ix.  12). 

It  is  curious,  that   although  the   Fourth   Gospel  omits   all 
mention    of    the   institution  of   the    eucharistic    supper   with 
the    forms    which    subsequently    became    traditional    in    the 
Church,  yet  the  doctrine  of  that  observance,  as  it  was  de- 
veloped in  the  course  of  the  second  century,  we  find  nowhere 
in  the  New  Testament  so  fully  expounded  as  in  the    gospel 
which  is  ascribed  to  John.     There  is  nothing  mystical  in  the 
account  of  the  Last  Supper  given  by  the  three  first  evangelists, 
nor  in  the  almost  identical  statement  of  Paul  (1  Cor.   xi.  23, 
25).      If  anything  beyond  a  a  simple  memorial  is  indicated, 
it  is  less  the  idea  of  spiritual  nourishment  mysteriously  con- 
veyed  into   the  soul  through  participation   in    the    elements, 
than  a  reference   to   some   atoning   efficacy    attached    to   the 
passion  of  Christ.      Now  turn  to  the  description  of  the  early 
Christian  eucharist   in    the   first   Apology    of   Justin   Martyr 
(66),  already  referred  to.     It  is  here  expressly  called   Tpo(f)r) 
(nutriment),  which  the  bread  and  wine  through  some  change 
{Kara    fieTa^oXrjv)   efiected    by  the   form  of  benediction,    are 
rendered  capable   of  furnishing.       The  words   of    Justin    are 
difiicult  to  render  exactly.    One  thing,  however,  is  clear,  that 
the  elements    are    something    more    than   common   bread   or 
common  drink  {kolvov  aprov — kolvov  irdyia).     The  idea  of  the 
passage,  as  I  interpret  it,  seems  to   be  this  :     "  That   as   the 
divine   Logos   became   flesh   and   blood   for   our  salvation,   so 
our   flesh   and   blood — our   humanity — by    partaking   of    this 
heavenly  nourishment,  enters  into  communion  with  a  higher 
spiritual  nature."     There   is  descent  on  one  side,  and  ascent 


96  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

on  the  other,  and  so  mutual  approximation.  Underneath  the 
whole  conception  lies  the  strong  belief  of  that  first  age,  that 
even  in  the  heavenly  world  the  spirit  would  be  clothed  with 
a  glorified  body.  What  is  this  but  the  doctrine  set  forth  in 
the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  which  the  Jews  found 
it  so  hard  to  receive  ?  "  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son 
of  man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you.  Whoso 
eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  ray  blood,  hath  eternal  life ; 
and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day.  For  my  flesh  is 
meat  indeed,  and  my  blood  is  drink  indeed.  He  that  eateth 
my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood,  dwelleth  in  me  and  I  in  him  " 
(vi.  53-56.)  Not  less  close  is  the  affinity  of  thought  in  the 
so-called  Epistle  of  Ignatius  to  the  Romans  (c.  vii),  which, 
whoever  be  its  author,  or  whatever  be  its  precise  date,  certainly 
exhibits  the  ideas  of  the  early  Christian  Church  on  this  subject : 
"I  desire  the  bread  of  God,  the  heavenly  bread,  the  bread 
of  life,  which  is  the  flesh  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
who  was  born  in  later  days  of  the  seed  of  David  and  Abra- 
ham ;  and  as  drink  I  desire  his  blood,  which  is  love  incor- 
ruptible and  ever-flowing  life."^  In  another  passage,  also 
ascribed  to  Ignatius  (Epist.  ad  SmyrnsBOS,  vii),  we  have  the 
same  idea  in  a  more  generalised  form :  "  They  abstain  from  the 
eucharist  and  prayer,  because  they  do  not  confess  that  the 
eucharist  is  the  flesh  of  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  which  suf- 
fered for  our  sins."  The  coincidence  of  the  doctrine  in  all 
these  passages  with  that  contained  in  the  sixth  chapter  of 
John's  Gospel,  must  strike  every  one.  But  they  exhibit  the 
doctrine  in  an  advanced  state  of  development,  as  it  existed  in 
the  middle  of  the  second  century.  Does  not  its  presence, 
therefore,  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  imply  such  a  date  as  would 
leave  sufficient  time  for  the  growth  of  the  doctrine  into  that 


'  "Aprou  6eov  6e\a),  &prov  ovpdviov,  &pTov  C^rjS,  oy  icrri  rrdp^  'lijcrov  XpiiTTOv 
rod  vinv  Tov  6eov  rov  yivofievov  if  vtmpw  ere  aTrtpfiaTos  AafilS  Kol  Afipadfi  Kol 
irdfia  deov  6eAw  rh  oT/ta  dvTov,  '6  icrriv  h.'ya-n-ri  &(p6apTos  koI  aivvaos  ^wi). 


INTERNAL   INDICATIONS   OF   AGE.  97 

maturer  form,  out  of  the  simple  rudiments  described  by  Paul  ? 
(1  Cor.  xi.)i 

In  tbe  curious  passage  (John  xix.  34)  all  the  attempts  to 
explain  by  natural  causes  the  flowing  of  blood  and  water 
from  the  wounded  side  of  Jesus  (see  De  "Wette  and  Meyer 
in  loc.)  appear  to  me  utter  failures.  Meyer,  with  his  usual 
candour  and  fine  exegetical  sense,  admits  that  a  significant 
miracle,  a  aTj/uueiov,  is  here  intended,  marking  the  corpse  as 
that  of  the  Messiah,  of  whose  specific  agency  blood  and  water 
are  the  characteristic  symbols — the  former  denoting  his  ex- 
piatory death,  and  the  latter,  regeneration  by  baptism.  The 
passage  receives  light  from  a  similar  one  in  1  John  v.  6 : 
"  this  is  he  that  came  by  water  and  blood,  Jesus  the  Christ " 
(Si,'  vBaTo<;  Kol  aLfMUTO^i).  In  a  verse  immediately  following,  the 
spirit  is  united  to  the  two  former  tokens  of  Messiahship ; 
and  of  these  three,  the  spirit,  the  water  and  the  blood,  it  is 
added,  that  "they  are  joint  witnesses,  and  issue  in  one"  (it^rb 
€V  eiCTLV.)  Taken  by  themselves,  these  passages  do  not,  perhaps, 
prove  much  either  way  ;  but  viewed  in  connection  with  the  pro- 
bable indication  of  the  later  doctrine  of  the  eiicharist  in  the 
sixth  chapter  of  the  gospel,  they  seem  to  me  to  furnish  some 
additional  evidence  of  a  time  when  the  new  religion  had 
already  become  an  established  system  of  ecclesiastical  discipline, 
with  the  expiatory  death  of  Christ  for  its  fundamental  idea, 
with  baptism  as  its  recognized  mode  of  initiation,  and  the 
spirit  as  the  witness  and  warrant  of  its  efiect. 

*  The  ancient  Fathers,  with  scarce  an  exception,  interpret  John  (vi.  53-56)  of  the 
eucbarist.  See  Meyer  (in  loc),  who  admits  that  the  passages  from  Justin  Martyr  and 
Ignatius  would  be  an  admirable  commentary  on  the  meaning  of  the  evangelist,  if  his 
gospel  really  belonged  to  the  second  century.  Liicke  (in  loc.)  calls  this  passage  of 
John,  the  most  obscure  and  difficult  in  his  gospel.  How  next  to  impossible  it  is  to 
extract  any  clear,  consistent  sense  out  of  it,  if  the  refei-ence  to  an  institution  of  later 
date  be  excluded,  is  evident  from  the  long,  elaborate,  and  very  unsatisfactory  exposi- 
tions attempted  by  Liicke  and  Meyer,  Compare  the  very  similar  language  of 
Irenaeus  (Contr.  Hser.  V.  ii.),  where  he  argues,  that  the  bread  and  wine  in  the  eucbar- 
ist are  the  true  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  who  was  really  not  apparently  human ; 
that  these  eucharistic  elements  are  our  spiritual  nourishment,  by  partaking  of  which 
we  imbibe  the  principle  of  eternal  life,  so  that  after  death  we  rise  again  with  a  real 
body  from  the  grave. 

7 


98  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Before  I  close  this  section,  I  must  observe  that  the  choice  and 
arrangement  of  miracles  is  a  significant  feature  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  They  are  just  seven  in  number,  rising  in  importance  on 
the  whole  as  they  proceed,  and  terminating  with  the  raising  of 
Lazarus  from  the  dead,  after  he  had  lain  in  the  grave  four 
days,  and  corruption  had  already  commenced.  Of  this  greatest 
of  all  the  miracles  ascribed  to  Jesus,  the  Synoptists  say  not 
one  word  ;  though  the  Fourth  Gospel  represents  it  as  the 
chief  cause  of  the  triimiphal  procession  that  went  forth  to 
meet  him  and  welcome  him  with  palm-branches,  as  he  ap- 
proached Jerusalem  (xii  13,  18.)  This  procession  is  expressly 
mentioned  by  the  three  SjTioptists  ;  and  therefore  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand,  how  they  should  have  omitted  all  allusion 
to  the  extraordinary  occurence  which,  we  are  told  by  John, 
was  its  immediate  occasion.  AVithout  raising  here  the  general 
question  of  the  miraculous,  so  obscure  and  so  mysterious,  it 
is  impossible  not  to  remark,  that  the  miracles  recorded  in  the 
three  First  Gospels,  seem  to  drop  into  the  general  narrative 
more  naturally,  and,  as  it  were,  undesignedly,  and  to  be  more 
easily  explicable  as  a  spontaneous  product  of  popular  tradi- 
tion, than  the  symmetrical  disposal  of  them  according  to  the 
mystic  number  seven,  in  the  Fourth. 

Other  and  less  obvious  traces  of  late  origin  will  probably 
occur  to  those  who  read  through  this  gospel  without  a  strong  and 
deejs-fixed  bias  against  the  admission  of  such  a  conclusion. 
I  have  dwelt  only  on  such  as  have  struck  me  most  forcibly 
on  repeated  and  careful  perusal.  But  the  most  formidable 
argument  against  the  decision  of  the  Church,  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  the  work  of  the  Apostle  John,  has  yet  to  be  adduced  ; 
I  mean  the  precedent  that  was  drawn  from  the  Apostle's  own 
practice,  so  contrary,  apparently,  to  his  reputed  words — in 
the  celebrated  Paschal  controversy. 


99 


SECTION   IX, 

The  hearing  of  the  Paschal  controversy  on  the  authorship  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel. 

By  far  tlie  most  extraordinary  divergency  between  the 
Three  First  Gospels  and  tlie  Fourth,  relates  to  the  time  and 
circumstances  of  the  Last  Supper.  It  is  necessary  to  under- 
stand distinctly  wherein  this  divergency  consists.  Each  of 
the  Synoptists,  in  the  most  explicit  terms,  describes  Jesus  as 
partaking  of  the  Jewish  passover  with  his  disciples  in  the 
usual  manner  on  the  evening  of  the  14th  of  the  month  Nisan; 
and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  supper,  in  the  breaking  of  bread 
and  the  distribution  of  wine,  instituting  a  memorial  of  himself. 
Let  the  following  passages  be  noticed :  Matthew  xxvi.  17- 
29  ;  Mark  xiv.  12-26  ;  Luke  xxii.  7-20.— Paul  (1  Cor.  xi. 
23-36),  by  recording  the  institution  almost  in  the  words  of 
Luke,  bears  indirectly  his  testimony  to  the  correctness  of  the 
synoptical  account.  According  to  this,  Jesus  was  crucified 
on  the  15th  of  Nisan,  the  first  entire  day  of  the  feast  of 
Unleavened  Bread.  The  memorial  then  instituted  has  .con- 
tinued, with  widely- varjdng  significance  it  is  true,  as  a  stand- 
ing ordinance  of  the  Christian  Church  to  the  present  day. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  see  what  ac- 
count it  gives  of  this  matter.  In  the  opening  verse  of  chapter 
thirteen,  we  are  told,  that  the  Supper  was  "  before  the  feast  of 
the  Passover ;"  and,  to  exclude  all  possibility  of  mistake,  we 
are  further  told  (xiii.  29),  that  at  the  conclusion  of  the  Supper, 
some  words  spoken  by  Jesus  to  Judas  were  understood  to  be 
an  instruction  to  him,  to  buy  what  was  necessary  for  the  cele- 
bration of  the  feast-      In  this  narrative  not  a  word  is  said 


100  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

of  the  commemorative  institution  of  breaking  bread  and  dis- 
tributing wine,  but  in  place  of  it  a  symbolical  act  is  intro- 
duced— the  washing  of  his  disciples'  feet  by  Christ — to  which 
the  Synoptists  do  not  once  refer,  and  for  which,  indeed,  they 
leave  no  room.  Had  we  only  the  Fourth  Gospel,  we  could 
never  have  known,  that  Christ  had  instituted  any  memorial 
of  himself,  like  that  described  in  the  Synoptists ;  and  how  it 
had  become  an  usage  in  the  Church,  would  have  remained 
inexplicable.  Curiously  enough,  however,  as  I  have  shown  in 
the  precediag  section,  there  are  expressions  in  the  body  of 
this  same  gospel  (vi.  50-56),  which  seem  unintelligible,  except 
on  the  supposition  of  a  tacit  allusion  to  the  later  conception . 
of  the  eucharist.^  According  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  then, 
this  Supper  must  have  taken  place  not  on  the  14th  but  on 
the  13th  of  Nisan,  and  Christ  himself  have  suffered  on  the 
14th,  the  same  day  on  the  eve  of  which  the  Passover  was 
celebrated.  That  this  was  the  meaning  of  the  writer,  is  evi- 
dent from  two  passages  in  the  sequel  of  the  narrative :  first 
(xviii.  28),  where  we  are  told  that  the  Jews,  when  they  led 
Jesus  from  Caiaphas  to  Pilate,  would  not  enter  the  heathen 
judgment-hall,  lest  they  should  disqualify  themselves  by  defile- 
ment for  eating  the  Passover ;  and,  secondly,  (xix.  14),  where 
it  is  expressly  stated,  that  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion  "  it 
was  the  preparation  for  the  Passover."  The  two  narratives, 
therefore,  are  utterly  incapable  of  reconcilement.  If  the  ac- 
count of  the  Fourth  Gospel  be  the  true  one,  it  is  impossible 
that  Christ  should  have  eaten  the  Passover  with  his  disciples, 
as  he  was  crucified  before  it  could  be  legally  celebrated :  and 


'  That  the  essential  form  of  the  eucharist  in  all  existing  sections  of  the  Christian 
Church  (in  the  use,  for  instance,  of  the  bread  and  wine)  should  correspond  to  the 
description  of  its  origin  in  the  synoptical  gospels,  is  a  proof  that  it  must  have  taken 
firm  and  deep  root  in  ecclesiastical  usage,  before  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  the  authority 
of  an  apostle,  and  above  all  of  the  beloved  apostle,  could  have  had  time  to  modify  it. 
And  it  must  have  so  modified  it,  at  least  in  some  part  of  the  Church,  had  it  been 
publicly  recognized  as  the  work  of  John  within  the  limits  of  the  apostolic  age.  This 
fact  alone  seems  to  me  to  imply  a  comparatively  late  date  for  the  Fourth  Gospel. 


THE   PASCHAL   CONTROVERSY.  101 

we  have  thus  the  three  first  Evangelists,  with  the  apostle 
Paul,  convicted  of  gross  mistake  as  to  a  matter  of  historical 
fact,  which  it  is  hardly  conceivable  how  they  could  have  made, 
depositories,  as  we  know  they  were,  of  the  earliest  Palestinian 
tradition  respecting  Christ.  The  mistake,  too,  has  endured 
through  all  time  as  the  basis  of  the  most  solemn  and  characteristic 
rite  of  the  Christian  Church ;  for  we  all  refer  for  the  authoriza- 
tion of  the  Lord's  Supper,  not  to  the  strange  silence  and  sub- 
stitution of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but  to  the  clear,  simple,  and 
self-consistent  statements  of  the  three  Synoptists  and  Paul. 
But  the  difficulty  does  not  end  here.  In  a  dispute  which 
broke  out  in  the  second  century  between  the  Churches  of  Asia 
Minor  and  that  of  Rome,  respecting  the  time  and  mode  of 
keeping  Easter,  the  authority  of  the  Apostle  John  was  ap- 
pealed to  by  the  former  on  behalf  of  their  own  usage,  in  a  way 
which  seems  altogether  incompatible  with  his  being  the  author 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  though  conservative  criticism  has  done 
its  utmost  to  show  that  he  still  might  be  so.  This  will 
require  a  somewhat  fuller  exposition. 

The  word  iraa^^a  (pascha)  is  a  rendering  into  Greek  letters 
of  the  Hebrew  HpS,  or  in  the  later  Aramsean  form,  from  which 
the  Greek  is  more  immediately  derived,  ^i^p5J  which  denoted 
the  lamb  that  was  sacrificed,  and  sometimes  generally  the  feast 
accompanying  that  sacrifice,  at  the  annual  commemoration  of 
the  passing  over  or  sparing  of  the  first-born  of  the  Israelites 
on  their  exodus  from  Egypt.  It  comes  from  a  root  which 
signifies  "  to  move  onward,"  or  "  pass  over."  It  is  well 
rendered  by  our  English  word,  "  Passover."  It  was  also  the 
festival  of  the  vernal  equinox,  marking  the  commencement 
of  the  new  year.^      In   Leviticus  (xxiii.  5-7)  combined  with 

1  Gesenius,  Hebr.  "Worterb.  sub  voc,  also  Fiirst's  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  Lexicon, 
translated  from  the  German  by  Dr.  Davidson.  Fiirst  observes,  that  the  root  PIDD  "  may 
perhaps  have  originally  denoted  the  breaking  through  of  the  Spring-sun,  or  the  new 
sprouting  of  nature  or  Spring  ;  which  is  justified  by  analogy.  A  historical  allusion  may 
have  originated  with  the  exodus  from  Egypt."  sub  voc.  p.  1142.  The  word  Trairxa 
for  the  Jewish  Passover,  was  first  used  in  the  Septuagint ;  and  thence  it  came  into  the 
New  Testament. 


102  CHABACrrER   OF   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

Exodus  (xii.  3 — 11),  we  have  a  full  and  particular  account  of 
the  institution  of  the  rite.  The  lamb  was  to  be  selected  on 
the  tenth  day  of  the  first  month  (Nisan)  and  kept  till  the 
fourteenth,  on  the  evening  of  which  day  it  was  to  be  killed  and 
roasted,  and  eaten  whole  with  bitter  herbs.  On  the  fifteenth 
was  to  commence  the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread,  lasting  seven 
days,  the  first  and  last  to  be  kept  as  specially  holy,  on  which 
no  servile  work  was  to  be  done.  The  pascha,  then,  in  its 
origin  and  primitive  meaning,  was  essentially  a  Jewish  observ- 
ance, embodying  Jewish  ideas,  and  wrought  up  with  the  tra- 
ditions of  Jewish  history.  But  at  the  commencement  of  the 
fourth  century,  subsequent  to  the  Council  of  Nice,  we  find  that 
the  word  had  acquired  a  permanent  meaning  of  quite  another 
kind ;  and  that  it  had  come  now  to  signify  the  annual  Chris- 
tian commemoration  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ — what  we 
call  Easter.  To  efiect  so  complete  a  transition  from  a  Jewish 
to  a  Christian  meaning,  requiring,  as  we  shall  see  it  did,  a  sur- 
render of  th€  old  lunar  for  the  more  modem  solar  reckoning 
the  year,  and  the  substitution,  in  the  fixation  of  fasts  and  festivals, 
of  the  days  of  the  week  for  the  days  of  the  month — a  long 
intervening  period  of  strife  and  controversy  was  inevitable, 
embittered  by  the  concurrent  effort  of  Catholic  Christianity 
to  shake  itself  entirely  free  from  its  original  Judaic  trammels. 
The  successive  steps  of  this  transition  it  is  drfficult  to  trace, 
not  only  from  the  imperfect  nature  of  the  evidence  which 
we  can  now  command,  but  also  from  the  party  spirit  in  which 
that  evidence,  defective  as  it  is,  has  been  manipulated.  Never- 
theless, the  Quartodeciman  controversy,  as  it  is  called,  will  become 
more  intelligible,  if  we  keep  constantly  in  view  the  transforma- 
tion which  Christianity  was  silently  undergoing  in  the  course  of 
the  second  and  third  centuries.  The  use  that  was  made 
of  the  name  of  the  Apostle  John  by  the  partisans  on  one  side 
of  this  dispute,  combined  with  the  remarkable  silence  of 
their  adversaries,  will  be  found  to  have  a  very  decided  bearing 
on  the  immediate  object  of  the  present  inquiry. 


THE   PASCHAL   CONTROVERSY.  103 

The  earliest  notice,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  of  a  difference 
of  usage  in  the  celebration  of  the  pascha,  between  the  Asiatic 
and  the  Western  Churches,  occurs  in  a  letter  of  Irenseus  to 
Victor,  Bishop  of  Rome  (185  or  189-201  a.d.),  which  has 
been  preserved  by  Eusebius  (H.  E.  v.  24).  The  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  written,  indicate  the  effort  which  the 
Roman  hierarchy  was  now  making  to  assert  its  supremacy 
by  the  establishment  of  an  uniform  ecclesiastical  system  all 
over  the  world.  In  consequence  of  the  refusal  of  the  churches 
of  Asia  (that  is,  pro -consular  Asia  with  the  adjoining  dis- 
tricts) to  conform  to  the  practice  of  the  West,  Victor  had 
issued  a  proclamation,^  excluding  the  Asiatic  Christians,  on 
account  of  their  dissidence,  from  communion  with  the  Catholic 
Church.  Against  this  intolerant  proceeding,  Irenaeus,  in  the 
name  of  the  churches  on  the  Rhone,  over  which  he  then 
presided,  respectfully  but  firmly  protested, — showing  that  the 
practice,  which  had  called  forth  this  excommunication,  was  of 
very  ancient  date,  and  had  never  till  then  occasioned  any 
division  in  the  Church.  "The  predecessors  of  Victor,"  he 
said,  "  in  the  Roman  see — Anicetus,  Pius,  Hyginus,  Teles- 
phorus  and  Xystus,  up  to  the  very  commencement  of  the 
second  century — though  they  had  not  observed  the  usage  in 
question  themselves,  had  always  been  on  friendly  terms  with 
those  who  did,  and  had  freely  sent  them  the  eucharist."  In 
proof  of  this  he  teUs  a  story  of  Polycarp  visiting  Rome  in 
the  time  of  Anicetus  (156-168  a.d.),  when  the  two  bishops 
had  a  friendly  disputation  on  this  very  point.  For  Anicetus 
could  not  persuade  Polycarp  to  abstain  from  the  observance 
{{irj  rrjpelv),  inasmuch  as  he  believed  it  authorized  by  the 
example  of  "John,  the  disciple  of  our  Lord,  and  the  rest  of 
the  apostles  "  ('Icodvvov,  tov  ^aOiqrov  rod  Kvplov  tj/mcov,  koI  twv 
XotTTwv  airoa-Tokwv) ;  nor  Polycarp  induce  Anicetus  to  follow 
the    observance    {rrjpelv),  for   he   said   he   must   keep   to    the 

*  (TTr]\iTevei  dia.  ypafi/xaTui/,  "placarded"  (as  we  should  say)  "in  public  places." 
(Euseb.  H.  E.  y.  24). 


104  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

usage  of  tlie  presbyters  who  had  preceded  him.  Notwith- 
standing their  difference,  they  partook  of  the  communion 
together ;  and  to  show  his  respect,  Anicetus  allowed  Polycarp 
to  administer  the  eucharist  in  his  church.^  One  thing  is 
evident  from  this  fragment  of  Irenaeus :  viz.,  that  Anicetus 
quoted  the  precedent  of  the  presbyters  who  had  gone  before 
him ;  while  Polycarp  appealed  to  the  authority  of  the  apostles, 
and  especially  of  John.  StiU  it  is  not  clear  from  the  passage 
itself,  wherein  the  TTjpeiv  and  the  /*>)  rrjpelv  consisted ;  especially 
as  Irenaeus  says,  that  the  controversy  turned  "  not  only  on  the 
day  to  be  observed,  but  also  on  the  very  form  and  mode  of 
the  fast. "2  Advantage  has  been  taken  of  this  ambiguity  to 
show,  that  there  is  no  actual  inconsistency  between  such  an 
appeal  to  the  alleged  practice  of  John,  and  the  statements  of 
the  gospel  which  bears  his  name.  If,  however,  we  turn  to  a 
previous  chapter  of  Eusebius  (H.  E.  v.  23)  where  he  first  in- 
troduces the  mention  of  this  controversy,  we  can  have  little 
doubt,  what  the  subject  of  it  really  was.  "  The  churches  of 
all  Asia,"  we  are  there  informed,  "  following  an  ancient  tra- 
dition, thought  it  right  to  keep  {coovto  Belv — 7rapa(f)v\aTT€Lv) 
for  the  celebration  of  the  pascha  of  salvation  (toO  a-ayTrjpiov 
iraa'xa)  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month — the  day  on  which 
the  Jews  were  enjoined  to  kill  the  lamb ;  it  being  absolutely 
necessary  to  close  the  period  of  fasting  at  that  celebration,  on 
whatever  day  of  the  week  it  might  chance  to  fall."  This  practice, 
it  is  argued,  wascontrary  to  the  usage  of  the  churches  in  all 
the  rest  of  the  world,  who  pleaded  apostolic  tradition'  for  their 
uniform  belief  down  to  the  present  time,  that  it  was  unseemly 
to   terminate  the  fast  before  the  day  commemorative  of  the 

'  This  seems  to  me  the  meaning  of  the  original,  though  the  commentators  diflFer. 
Tovroiv  SwTws  exivTuv,  iKOivdv-r^ffav  eavrols'  Kol  iv  Trj  iKK\r)(rla  vap^x^P^^^^  ^ 
'AvIktitos  Ti]V   ivxapto-riav   Tf  Tlo\vKdpirci>,  Kar'  tvrpoTT^v  S7]\oy6Ti. 

*  iv  ix6vov  irepl  rrjS  rjfxepas — aWa  kolI  irepl  tov  eiSoux  avTov  t^j  vrjaretas. 

'  €|  airocrToAiKrjs  irapaSSffews.  All  churches  were  then  in  the  habit  of  claiming  an 
apostolic  origin  for  any  ancient  usage  prevalent  in  them.  The  Asiatics,  as  we  have 
seen,  did  the  same  for  the  opposite  practice.  Collateral  circumstances  must  determine 
which  had  the  clearest  evidence  on  their  side. 


THE   PASCHAL   CONTROVERSY.  105 

resurrection,  wliicli,  it  should  be  remembered,  was  always  the 
first  day  of  the  week.  We  observe  here  already  a  colKsion 
of  Jewish  and  Catholic  tendency.  None  who  were  of  Jewish 
extraction,  could  entirely  shake  off  the  old  reverence  for  the 
time-honoured  festival  of  the  Passover  :  whereas  to  the  Gentile 
Christian  under  the  ever- deepening  influence  of  Rome,  Hebrew 
usages  and  traditions  were  of  little  moment  in  comparison  with 
the  glorious  memory  of  the  resurrection,  which  marked  a  new 
era  in  the  prospects  of  humanity,  and  promised  the  reversion 
of  a  spiritual  inheritance.  This  feeling  was  strengthened  into 
a  deep  popular  conviction,  when  Constantino,  by  an  imperial 
edict,  consecrated  the  dies  solis  as 'a  day  of  rest  and  religious 
observance  throughout  Christendom.^  Towards  the  end  of  the 
second  century,  in  the  reign  of  Commodus,  as  we  gather  from 
the  somewhat  vague  chronological  indications  of  Eusebius 
(comp.  V.  22  and  23  sub  init.),  councils  were  held  on  this 
question  in  various  parts  of  the  world, — at  Caosarea  in  Pales- 
tine, at  Jerusalem,  at  Pome,  in  Pontus,  in  Gaul,  in  Osroene, 
and  at  Corinth — which  came  to  the  unanimous  conclusion,  that 
the  festival  of  the  resurrection  should  be  celebrated  on  no  other 
than  the  Lord's  day,  and  that  only  on  that  day  should  the  fore- 
going fast  be  terminated.^  The  question  was  a  vital  one, 
whether  in  fact  a  Jewish  or  a  Catholic  Christianity  should 
finally  prevail.  But  the  Asiatics  were  not  to  be  silenced  all 
at  once.  A  letter  from  Polycrates  of  Ephesus  to  Victor  of 
Pome,  still  extant  (Euseb.  v.  24),  of  which  the  substance  is 
as  follows,  clearly  explains  their  views :  "  "We  observe  the  day 
with  scrupulous  exactness,  neither  adding  nor  taking  away.^ 

^  rifv  ffUT-fipioy  ri^Jpav,  ?iv  koI  (punhs  elvai  koI  tjKIov  iirduv/xov  uvu^aluti  (Euseb. 
Vit.  Const,  iv.  18).  Constantine's  ordinance  was  issued  in  321  a.d.  See  Guerike 
Kirchengesch.  §  78. 

*  The  resolutions  of  these  councils  were  still  extant  in  the  time  of  Eusebius.  He 
has  preserved  a  fragment  of  the  synodical  circular  issued  by  that  of  Caesarea. 
(H.E.  V.  25).  It  expresses  agreement  with  the  church  of  Alexandria;  and  its  object 
is  to  enforce  uniformity  in  the  obseryance  of  the  day.  Eouth  has  inserted  this  frag- 
ment in  his  Reliquiae  Sacrse,  II.  i. 

'  apa5iovp77jTo;'   i/yoyi.tv    tV    ■^M'P""''    M^T€    TrpoanOiVTis.     H'ijre    acpaipov/xevoi. 


106  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

For  there  are  great  luminaries  sleeping  in  Asia  (pro-consular 
Asia,  of  which  Ephesus  was  the  centre)  who  await  the  resur- 
rection of  the  saints — Philip,  one  of  the  twelve  apostles,  with 
his  two  daughters — John  too,  who  leaned  on  the  Lord's  bosom 
and  was  a  priest  and  wore  the  petalon — further,  Polycarp  of 
Smyrna — Thraseas  of  Eumenia  (a  city  of  Phrygia  on  the 
Cludrus) — Sagaris  of  Laodicea — Papirius  and  Melito  of  Sardes 
— all  of  whom  have  kept  the  pascha  on  the  fourteenth,  ac- 
cording to  the  gospel,  without  any  deviation,  following  the 
rule  of  faith ;  lastly,  myself  Polycrates,  least  of  you  all,  after 
the  tradition  of  my  family,  some  of  whom  I  have  succeeded, 
for  seven  of  them  were  bishops,  and  I  am  the  eighth.  This 
day  my  family  have  uniformly  observed,  when  the  people 
cleared  away  the  leaven.^  I  then,  brethren,  being  now  sixty- 
five  years  of  age,  having  conferred  with  brethren  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  and  gone  through  the  whole  of  holy 
Scripture,  am  not  alarmed  by  threatenings ;  for  greater  than 
I  have  said,  'we  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  man.'  I 
might  mention  the  names  of  the  bishops  who  have  been 
associated  with  me,  whom,  as  you  requested,  I  appealed  to. 
They  are  many ;  and  though  they  perceived  that  I  was  myself 
an  insignificant  person,  they  nevertheless  approved  of  this  letter 
— seeing  that  I  have  not  borne  my  grey  hairs  in  vain,  and  that 
I  have  always  had  my  conversation  in  the  Lord  Jesus." 

We  learn  from  a  fragment  of  Melito,  whose  name  occurs  in 

The  word  a.pa5iovpyr)Tov  is  found  in  no  lexicon  or  glossary.  I  believe  I  have 
expressed  the  sense  of  it.  See  Routh,  in  loc.  II.,  p.  17.  There  is  still  an  ambiguitj 
about  "the  day."  We  ask,  "What  day  ?"  The  question  on  which  the  whole  con- 
troversy turned  was :  Which  should  be  considered  the  great  day  of  commemoration — 
the  proper  -ndaxa — the  fourteenth  of  Nisan,  or  the  Sunday  ?  Which  was  the  day 
that  terminated  the  fast,  and  opened  the  festival } 

'  This  passage  leaves  no  doubt,  that  the  day  observed  by  the  Asiatics,  of  which 
Polycrates  is  speaking,  was  a  perpetuation  of  the  Jewish  Passover  (Comp.  Exodus  xii. 
15,  19,  20).  Stov  6  \ahs  ^pvve  tV  (v/xriv.  Some  MSS.  read  ilprve,  but  the  best  give 
ijpvve,  which  has  the  force  of  ppe,  '  took  away.'  See  Valesius  and  Routh  in  loc 
Hilgenfeld  (Paschastreit.  p.  294,  note  2)  understands  Aaoj  in  this  passage  as  equiva- 
lent to  Jews,  •'  the  people  of  the  Old  Covenant."  This  may  be  the  meaning  ;  but  the 
context  does  not  seem  to  me  to  require  it. 


' 


THE   PASCHAL    CONTROVERSY.  107 

the  preceding  list  (Euseb.  H.  E.  iv.  26),  that  there  had  been 
at  an  early  period  a  great  discussion  (^^^V^/crt?  iroXki])  about 
the  pascha  at  Laodicea.^  Melito  himself  wrote  a  work  in 
two  books  on  the  pascha,  as  well  as  a  treatise  on  the  '  Lord's 
day.'  From  his  association  with  the  other  Asiatic  bishops  by 
Polycrates,  and  from  the  fact  that  his  work  on  the  pascha 
gave  occasion  to  a  treatise  on  the  same  subject  by  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  we  may  reasonably  conclude  that  he  took  the  side 
of  the  Quartodecimans  :  and  the  inference  is  confirmed  by  the 
probability  that  he  was  a  Montanist ;  for  between  the  Quarto- 
decimans and  the  Montanists  there  was  a  very  close  sympathy.- 
In  Apollinaris  of  Hierapolis,  a  contemporary  of  Melito,  we  dis- 
cern at  length,  among  the  Asiatic  bishops,  clear  traces  of  a 
conversion  to  the  Catholic  view,  though  expressed  with  a 
gentleness  which  is  in  marked  contrast  with  the  harshness 
of  Yictor,  and  bears  an  indirect  witness  to  the  strength  and 
wide  difiusion  of  the  opinion  to  which  he  was  opposed.  In  a 
fragment  of  his  work  on  the  pascha,  preserved  in  the  Paschal 
Chronicle  (edit.  Du  Cange  p.  6,  Niebuhr  p.  13)^  we  have  these 
words :  "  There  are  some,  then,  who  through  ignorance  are 
disputatious  ((j^tXoveiKovac)  about  these  things,  experiencing 
a  pardonable  weakness  ;  for  ignorance  does  not  admit  of  blame, 
but  demands  instruction.  And  they  say,  that  on  the  fourteenth 
the  Lord  ate  the  lamb  with  his  disciples,  and  sufiered  himself 
on  the  great  day  of  Unleavened  Bread:  and  they  explain 
Matthew  as  stating  the  matter  in  accordance  with  their  own 
ideas.  Hence  their  notion  is  irreconcilable  with  the  law,  and 
according  to  their  views  the  gospels  seem  at  variance."'*      In 

1  It  was  at  the  time  of  the  martyrdom  of  Sagaris,  when  Servilus  Paulus  was  pro- 
consul of  Asia. 

2  He  is  described  by  Polycrates  (Euseb.  H.  E.  v.  24)  as  rhv  iv  a.'yio}  TTVivjxaTi  -Kavra 
iroKn^vffAnevov;  and  Tertullian,  himself  a  Montanist,  says  of  him,  as  quoted  by 
Jerome  (de  Script.  Ecclesiast.)  "  eum  a  plerisque  nostrorum  prophetam  putari." 

'  It  is  also  given  by  Routh,  I.  p.  160. 

*  %Q(V  acrvfxcjxevos  re  v6fj.<fi  rj  vSrjcris  kvTuW  Kai  ffrafftd^tiv  Sokh  Kar'  avTovs  to,  ivay- 
y€\ia.  Two  evils  are  here  said  to  result  from  the  Quartodeciraan  theory  :  first,  a 
contravention  of  the  Law,  which  enjoined  that  the  paschal  lamb,  and  hence  &  fortiori 


108  CHARACTER   OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

another  fragment  of  the  same  work,  (Chron.  Pasch.  ibid.) 
Christ  is  called  "the  true  pascha,  the  great  sacrifice,  that  was 
offered  in  place  of  the  lamb,  and  was  buried  on  the  day  of  the 
Passover."  Among  the  other  works  of  Apollinaris,  he  wrote 
one,  we  are  told,  against  the  Montanist  heresy,  which  had  then 
recently  broken  out  (Euseb.  H.  E.  iv.  27) — a  circumstance 
which  further  marks  the  decided  contrariety  of  his  theological 
position  to  that  of  Melito.^  But  the  tendency  had  now  set 
in  and  was  gradually  spreading,  to  regard  Christ  as  the  one 
true  pascha  ;  and  more  effectually  to  prevent  any  confusion 
with  old  Jewish  usage,  his  crucifixion  was  declared  to  have 
taken  place  on  the  very  day,  on  the  evening  of  which  the 
Passover  was  legally  celebrated.  The  Quartodecimans  were 
those  who  adhered  to  what  I  believe  to  have  been  the  original 
and  true  view,  represented  by  the  Sjoioptists — viz.,  that  Christ 


(according  to  tlie  view  of  Apollinaris),  Clirist,  the  true  Passover,  should  be  sacrificed 
on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month  ;  and  secondly,  by  the  acceptance  of  Matthew's  as 
the  true  account,  an  introduction  of  discordance  beween  the  evangelists.  The  lan- 
guage of  Apollinaris  seems  to  me  to  imply,  that  in  his  time  the  statement  of  the 
Fourth  Evangelist  respecting  the  Last  Supper  was  already  received  by  a  portion  of 
the  Church  as  the  true  account,  which  ought  to  control  the  divergent  narrative  of 
the  earlier  three.  It  is  singular  to  observe,  how  the  most  learned  meu  of  a  former 
generation  shrank  from  fairly  encountering  the  facts  of  this  critical  problem.  Dr. 
Routh  (Reliq.  Sacr.  I.  p.  168)  fights  shy  of  it,  and  modestly  pleads  his  own  inability 
to  grapple  with  it.  "  Celeberriraa  est  atque  diflicillima  qux'stio — cui  me  virum  pusilli 
ingenii  interponere  noluerim." 

1  It  is  surprising,  that  in  the  face  of  such  facts,  Weitzel  (quoted  by  Hilgenfeld, 
Paschastreit,  p.  266)  should  contend,  that  Melito  and  Apollinaris,  so  far  from  being 
dogmatically  opposed  to  each  other,  joined  together  in  resisting  an  Ebionitish  tendency 
in  the  Council  of  Laodicea,  where  the  Quartodeciman  controversy  was  agitated.  But 
the  question  is,  not  whether  Melito  was  an  Ebionite,  but  whether  he  was  a  Quarto- 
deciman. The  fragments  published  by  Grabe  from  the  Bodleiau  library,  and  inserted 
by  Routh  in  his  Reliquiae  Sacraj  (I.  p.  122  seq.),  prove  that  he  was  much  given  to  a 
typical  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  saw  in  all  its  histories  a  constant 
foreshadowing  of  Christ.  They  indicate,  perhaps,  the  commencement  of  a  tendency 
of  mind  which  might  lead,  if  persisted  in,  to  the  conclusion  already  reached  by 
Apollinaris.  In  all  the  passages  now  extant,  however,  Christ  is  typified,  not  by  the 
Passover,  but  by  Isaac  or  by  the  ram  which  redeemed  him  ;  and  even  had  he  been 
expressly  called  pascha,  this  would  no  more  have  proved  that  Melito  did  not  believe 
him  to  have  been  crucified  on  the  15th  of  Nisan,  than  Paul's  saying  (1  Cor.  v.  7) 
"  Christ  our  Passover  is  sacrificed  for  us,"  is  any  evidence,  that  he  did  not  accept  the 
synoptical  account  of  the  Last  Supper,  which  we  know  he  did. 


THE   PASCHAL   CONTROVERSY.  109 

ate  the  paschal  supper  with  his  disciples  in  the  regular  way 
on  the  evening  of  the  fourteenth,  and  suffered  on  the  fifteenth, 
the  first  day  of  Unleavened  Bread.  As  recent  critics  have 
denied  that  this  was  the  real  subject  of  the  Quartodeciraan 
controversy,  it  becomes  necessary  to  specify  with  some  distinct- 
ness the  testimony  of  ancient  writers  respecting  it. 

Origen,  on  Matthew  xxvi.  17,  in  a  passage  quoted  by  Hil- 
genfeld  (Paschastreit  p.  211,  note  1),  argues,  "  that  it  is  a  kind 
of  Ebionitism,  to  infer  from  the  fact,  that  Jesus  celebrated  the 
Passover  in  the  Jewish  way  (more  Judaico),  that  we,  as  imitators 
of  Christ,  should  do  the  same."^  From  this  observation  we  may 
conclude,  that  Origen  regarded  Christ's  eating  the  real  Jewish 
Passover  as  an  undoubted  historical  fact,  which  many  Christians 
of  his  day  were  accustomed  literally  (corporaliter)  to  copy ; 
whereas  he,  from  his  spiritual  way  of  interpreting  Scripture, 
considered  such  an  observance  to  be  in  no  wise  obligatory. 
TertuUian  (ad versus  Judseos,  c.  10)  understands  the  words  of 
Moses  (Exod.  xii.  11)  as  a  foretelling  of  the  passion  of  Christ, 
and  then  adds  :  "  which  prophecy  was  fulfilled  by  your  putting 
Christ  to  death  on  the  ^rs^  day  of  Unleavened  Bread ;"  (prima  die 
azymorum)  which  was  the  day  following  the  Passover,  and  there- 
fore the  fifteenth  day  of  the  month.^  TertuUian,  in  saying  this, 
must  have  accepted  the  synoptical  account  of  the  crucifixion. 
From  two  passages  of  Athanasius  (quoted  by  Hilgenfeld,  Pascha- 
streit, p.  322)  we  learn,  that  down  to  his  time,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  fourth  century,  "the  churches  of  Syria,  Cilicia,  and  Meso- 
potamia were  at  variance   with  the  Catholic  Christians,   and 

^  "  Secundum  hsec  forsitan  aliquis  imperitorum  requiret,  cadens  in  Ebionismum 
ex  eo  quod  Jesus  celebravit  more  Judaico  pasclia  corporaliter,  sicut  et  primam  diem  azy- 
morum et  pascha,  dicens  quia  couvenit  et  nos  imitatores  Christi  similiter  facere."  Ou 
which  passage,  Hilgenfield  remarks :  "  "What  Origen  designates  as  Ebionitism,  was, 
originally  nothing  but  the  natural  celebration  of  the  Passover  after  the  example  of 
Jesus." 

*  This  is  a  direct  inference  from  Leviticus  xxiii.  6,  where  the  language  is  express ; 
nor  is  it  contradicted  by  Matt.  xxvi.  17  ;  Markxiv.  12  ;  and  Luke  xxii.  1.  For  the 
first  day  of  Unleavened  Bread  began  with  the  Passover  on  the  evening  of  the  14th  ; 
in  other  words,  the  15th  began  with  the  evening  of  the  14th. 


110  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

observed  the  pascha  at  the  same  time  with  the  Jews  ;^  and  that 
to  procure  uniformity  in  this  respect,  was  one  reason  for  con- 
voking the  council  of  Nice.  From  their  pertinacious  adherence 
to  ancient  usage,  the  Quartodecimans  were  considered  unreason- 
able and  crotchety ;  and  we  notice  a  certain  peevishness  in  the 
language  used  respecting  them,  as  if  they  were  disturbers  of  the 
peace  for  a  fancy  of  their  own.  This  is  very  evident  from  the 
words  of  Athanasius  in  the  fragment  of  a  letter  to  Epiphanius, 
which  has  been  preserved' in  the  Paschal  Chronicle  (ed.  JSTiebuhr, 
p.  9,  Ducange,  p.  4)  :  "  Cease  to  find  fault,  but  rather  pray  that 
henceforth  the  Church  may  preserve  her  peace  unbroken  ;  then 
will  cease  those  cursed  heresies,  and  those  disputatious  people 
(((ptkoveiKovvre^)  will  also  cease,  who  devise  diflBcult  questions  for 
themselves,  under  the  pretext  of  zeal  for  the  pascha  of  salvation, 
but  really  to  gratify  their  characteristic  love  of  strife  (t^9  tSta? 
epiBo<;  ')(apiv),  because  seeming  to  be  of  us  and  boasting  of  the 
name  of  Christian,  they  are  zealous,  nevertheless,  for  the  practices 
of  the  Jews,  who  betrayed  our  Lord.  For  what  a  plausible  answer 
might  be  given  to  them  in  those  words  of  the  Scripture  :  "  on 
the  first  day  of  Unleavened  Bread,  when  they  must  needs 
kni  the  Passover."-  "In  those  days  {i.e.,  the  apostolic  times)every- 
thing  went  on  rightly  ;  but  now,  as  it  is  written  (Ps.  xcv.  10), 
*'  they  do  always  err  in  their  heart."  i^L\oveLKovvTe<;  is  an 
epithet  constantly  applied  to  the  Quartodecimans  by  the 
Catholic  writers  of  this  time.  It  expresses  the  feeling  with 
which  an  ascendant  party  always  regards  contumacious  dissi- 
dents. •  To  the  same  effect  is  the  very  instructive  passage  of 
Hippolytus  (Hoer.  Refutat.  viii.  18):  "And  there  are  certain 
others,  disputatious  (^iXoveoKot)  by  nature,  unlearned  in  their 
views,  and  of  a  rather  pugnacious  turn,  who  maintain  that 
they  ought  to  keep  the  pascha  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the 

1  dii(pii)VOvv  irpos  Tjixas,  Ko\  T(f  Kaip^  kp  f  voLovcriv  &i  'louSoToi,  inolovv  Kol  avTol  (de 
Synod.  Arim.  and  Seleuc.  c.  5,  ad.  Afr.  episcop.  Epist.  I.  p.  842). 

*  Athanasius  has  here  blended,  in  the  way  so  common  in  that  age,  the  words  of 
Mark  xiv.  12  with  Luke  xxii.  7,  and  has  availed  himself  of  the  loose  reckoning  of  the 
Jews  (see  p.  109,  note  2)  to  justify  his  own  view  of  the  day  of  the  Crucifixion. 


THE    PASCHAL    CONTROVERSY.  Ill 

first  month,  as  required  by  tlie  Law,  on  whatever  day  (of  the 
week)  it  may  fall — out  of  reverence  for  the  imprecations  pro- 
nounced in  the  Law  on  disobedience — not  observing,  that  this 
commandment  was  given  to  the  Jews,  who  were  destined  to 
slay  the  true  Passover,  which  has  passed  to  the  Gentiles,  and 
is  apprehended  by  faith,  and  is  now  no  longer  kept  according 
to  the  letter.  But  in  other  respects  these  people  accept  entirely 
the  things  which  have  been  delivered  to  the  Church  by  the 
apostles."  The  Church,  in  fact,  was  now  experiencing  all  the 
perplexity  and  conflict  which  must  accompany  the  transition 
of  an  institution,  which  had  originated  in  national  beliefs  and 
usages,  to  a  condition  of  world-wide  recognition  and  ascendancy 
— which  had  undertaken,  in  other  words,  to  translate  a  historical 
fact  into  a  Catholic  idea.  The  simple-minded,  who  could  not 
be  convinced,  and  clung  to  the  tradition  of  their  fathers,  had 
to  be  silenced  by  authority.  To  other  causes  of  confusion  the 
difficulty  (to  which  I  shall  briefly  allude  bye-and-bye)  of 
bringing  the  lunar  and  solar  reckoning  of  the  year  into 
harmony,  was  now  added. 

Latterly  the  controversy  took  the  more  practical  form  of 
a  question,  when  the  fast — which  we  find  had  already  in 
the  third  century  begun  uniformly  to  precede  Easter — 
should  cease,  and  how  long  it  shoiJd  last.^  The  point, 
as  we  shall  see,  was  not  finally  settled  till  the  Council  of 
Nice  in  325  a.d.  That  things  were  now  tending  to  the 
issue,  which  finally  prevailed,  and  in  the  Catholic  Church 
efiectually  abolished  the  old  Jewish  usage,  we  learn  from  a 
letter  addressed  to  Basilides  ("  On  the  Great  Sabbath  :  when 
the  Fast  should  cease  ")  by  Dionysius,  bishop  of  Alexandria, 
in  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  of  whose  critical  ability, 
and  decided  opposition  to  the  Judaic  form  of  Christianity,  I 
have  cited  proofs  in  a  former   section,   when   discussing  the 

1  According  to  Hilgenfeld  (Pascliastreit,  p.  356,  note),  Quadragesima,  our  Lent, 
is  first  mentioned  by  Origen  (Homil.  on  Levit.  x.  2),  iu  Eufiuus's  translation,  and  in 
the  time  of  Athanasius,  extended  over  six  weeks. 


112  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

authenticity  of  the  Apocalypse.^  Dionysius  had  been  con- 
sulted by  his  friend  about  the  cessation  of  the  fast  (t^  tov 
irdcT'xci  irepCkvcrei) ;  some  affirming,  that  "it  should  commence 
from  evening,  others  not  till  cock-crowing."  Dionysius  replied, 
"  that  it  was  difficult  to  fix  the  precise  time  ;  but  that  it  would 
be  universally  admitted "  (he  must  mean  of  course  by  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  his  strong  assertion  should  be  noticed, 
as  marking  the  point  which  the  triumph  of  the  Catholic 
principle  had  already  reached)  "that  the  fast  should  be  con- 
tinued to  the  hour  of  Christ's  resurrection,  and  that  from 
that  time  the  festival  with  its  season  of  rejoicing  should 
begin."  The  Scriptures,  he  observes,  determine  nothing  as  to 
the  exact  time  when  the  resurrection  took  place.  He  notices 
that  the  four  evangelists  represent  the  parties,  whom  they 
severally  speak  of,  as  coming  at  different  times  to  the  sepulchre 
and  all  finding  the  Lord  already  risen ;  no  one  stating  pre- 
cisely when  he  rose  (ttotc  ^ev  avia-TTj),  but  all  agreeing  sub- 
stantially that  it  must  have  been  some  time  on  the  night  of 
the  Sabbath,  or  very  early  on  the  first  day  of  the  week.  In 
accordance  with  this  indefiniteness  in  the  Scriptural  narrative, 
"  Some  persons,"  he  continues,  "  anticipate  the  conclusion 
of  the  fast  before  midnight ;  others  lengthen  it  out  to  the 
farthest  point ;  and  some  again  pursue  a  middle  course.  Each 
must  be  allowed  to  do  as  he  is  moved,  or  feels  himself  capable. 
For  all  cannot  stand  six  days  of  fasting  (the  week  before 
Easter,  our  Passion  week).  Some,  indeed,  go  through  them 
all.  Some  fast  two,  some  three,  some  four  days;  some  not 
one  day."  It  is  quite  evident,  from  this  curious  passage,  that 
in  the  time  of  Dionysius,  the  word  irda'xa,  in  the  view  which 
had  then  become  predominant  in  the  Catholic  Church,  had 
passed  on  from  its  original  association  with  the  fourteenth  of 
Nisan,  to  a  fixed  position  in  the  first  day  of  the  week,  on 

*  This  epistle  occurs  among  those  which  are  called  the  "  Epistolae  Canonicse,"  and 
will  be  found  in  Harduin's  "Editio  Conciliorum."  It  is  also  inserted  by  Routh  in 
his  Reliquiee  Sacrae,  III.  p.  223. 


THE    PASCHAL    CONTROVERSY.  113 

which  Christ  was  believed  to  liave  risen,  and  had  acquired  a 
meaning  equivalent  to  our  Easter,  as  the  anniversary  of  the 
resurrection ;  so  that  the  only  controversy  remaining  among 
Catholic  Christians  was,  over  what  length  of  time  the  pre- 
ceding fast  should  extend. 

The  schism,  however,  would  never  have  healed  of  itself  •' 
it  demanded  the  intervention  of  an  authority  that  could 
not  be  gainsaid.  Even  according  to  the  statement  of  Euse- 
bius  (Yit.  Constant,  iii.  5),  the  strife  between  the  con- 
tending parties  was  so  nicely  balanced  (a  remarkable  ad- 
mission fz'om  no  prejudiced  quarter  of  the  extreme  tenacity 
of  Quartodeciman  resistance),  that  only  the  omnipotent  God 
and  Constantino,  his  sole  minister  on  earth  for  good,  could 
put  an  end  to  it.^  In  other  words,  the  Church  could  only 
be  pacified  by  the  State.  The  letter  of  Constantino  to  the 
churches,  a  copy  of  which  was  transmitted  to  every  ecclesias- 
tical province,  explains  how  this  was  done,  and  throws  light  on 
the  matter  really  at  issue  in  the  Quartodeciman  controversy.' 
"The  object  was" — saj's  the  imperial  missive — "  to  fix  the 
celebration  of  the  feast,  which  assured  to  men  the  hopes  of 
immortality  (Trap'  -^9  ra^  r?}?  adavaa-lwi  eiXrjf^ajxev  eKirlha^)  on 
one  and  the  same  day  throughout  Christendom,  and  to  break 
ofi"  a  degrading  dependence  on  an  usage  of  the  blood-stained 
and  infatuated  Jews,  who  could  so  little  calculate  the  time  of 
their  own  festival,  that  they  sometimes  kept  it  twice  in  the 
same  year,^  Nothing  could  be  more  unseemly,  than  that 
some  should  be  feasting,  and  others  fasting,  on  the  same  day. 
The  churches  of  the  west,  the  south  and  the  north,  and  some 
even  of  the  east,  had  already  concurred  in  one  usage ;  and  it 
was  hoped  that  the  rest  would  follow  their  example."      "  In 

^  ouSeis  oiotrre  i]v  avOpwiroov  depaireiay  evpaaOat  tou  kukov  taocnaalov  rris  epi5o$ 
To7j  SieaTHaiy  virapxoi'CTrjs'  fj,6v(f>  5'  &pa  To?  TravToSuvdixo)  Bew  Koi  ravr'  laadai 
l>d5tov  ^y   ayadaiv  5'   vnrjpfTrjs  aury  fiSi/os  tuu  e'lrl  yris  KaTe(paiviro  KocfaravTivos- 

2  Euseb.  Vit.  Constant,  iii.  17-20.  Hilgenfeld  has  given  the  greater  part  of  it  in 
the  original  (Paschastreit,  p.  360-63). 

'  The  allusion  is,  probably,  to  the  occurrence  of  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan,  sometimes 
before,  and  sometimes  after,  the  vernal  equinox.     See  Valesius  in  loc. 


114  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

one  word,"  concludes  the  emperor,  "it  has  seemed  good  to 
the  general  judgment,  that  the  most  holy  festival  of  the  pascha 
should  be  celebrated  everywhere  on  the  same  day ;  for  it  is 
not  fitting,  that  in  so  holy  a  matter  there  should  be  any  diversity, 
but  far  better  to  acquiesce  in  this  decision,  in  which  there  is  no 
intermixture  of  foreign  error  and  sin."  The  observance  was 
henceforth  to  be  purely  Christian,  without  a  remnant  of  Jewish 
association. 

Such  was  practically  the  solution  of  the  Quartodeciman 
question ;  though  the  old  usage  still  lingered  in  some  districts, 
and  even  yet  is  not  entirely  extinct. 

If  we  impartially  sum  up  the  collective  evidence  of  the 
foregoing  citations,  it  seems  a  legitimate  inference  from  the 
original  and  proper  meaning  of  the  word  iraa-y^a,  from  the 
objections  urged  by  the  Catholics  against  the  Quartodeciman 
usage,  and  from  the  part  of  the  world  where  that  usage  most 
widely  prevailed  and  was  longest  retained, — that  the  Jewish, 
who  were  also  the  earliest  Christians,  kept,  as  the  oldest 
Christian  pascha,  the  anniversary  of  the  farewell  supper  on 
the  evening  of  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan.  They  were  con- 
firmed in  this  observance  by  their  strong  Jewish  predilections, 
as  it  coincided  with  the  great  national  festival  of  the  Pass- 
over, which  Jesus  himself  had  always  kept ;  and  it  was  more- 
over the  traditional  belief  of  the  Jews,  that  Messiah  would 
appear  on  the  night  of  the  Passover.^     When  the  old  Jewish 

'  Jerome,  on  Matt.  xxv.  5,  (referred  to  by  Hilgenfeld,  p.  306  note  2).  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  in  a  fragment  of  his  work  on  the  Pascha  (Chron.  Pasch.  p.  14 
Niebuhr,  p.  7  Ducange)  tells  us,  that  it  was  only  in  the  years  preceding  his  crucifixion, 
that  our  Lord  ate  the  Jewish  Passover,  but  that  at  the  last,  in  place  of  this,  he  washed 
his  disciples'  feet  after  supper  on  the  13th,  and  then  suffered  himself  on  the  I4th 
(curbs  &v  rh  Traffxa,  Ka\\iepr]9f\s  virh  'lovdalaiv).  He  quotes  the  evangelist  John 
as  his  authority,  and  adds,  that  with  his  account,  rightly  understood,  the  other 
gospels  agree.  I  do  not,  however,  think  that  this  passage  necessitates  any  qualification 
of  the  statement  in  the  text.  Passages  to  the  same  effect  occur  in  Hippolytus  (see 
Hilgenfeld  p.  278).  They  only  prove,  that  at  the  time  of  the  transition  from  the 
second  to  the  third  century,  the  doctrine  that  Christ  did  not  eat,  but  was  himself  the 
Passover  {irdax^^  ^^x  ^<p<^yf>',  'aW  eTraOev)  had  already  become  the  belief  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  warranted,  it  was  thought,  by  the  Fourth  Gospel,  with  which  the 
others  must  be  made  to  agree. 


THE    PASCHAL    CONTROVERSY.  115 

Church  at  Jerusalem  was  dispersed  in  the  time  of  Hadrian, 
the  peculiar  type  of  belief  which  had  distinguished  it,  still 
subsisted  in  the  churches  of  Syria,  Mesopotamia,  and  Asia 
Minor,  especially  in  the  region  surrounding  Ephesus,  where 
apostles  had  early  settled,  and  where  churches  founded  by 
them,  inheriting  their  ideas  and  perpetuating  their  traditions, 
long  continued  to  flourish.  In  many  of  these  churches,  the 
pascha  appears  to  have  retained  its  semi-Jewish  character 
down  to  the  fourth  century.  It  was  essentially  a  commemora- 
tion of  the  death  of  Christ,  and  of  all  that  followed  it  and 
was  involved  in  it ;  and  it  admitted,  therefore,  of  a  ready 
extension  to  the  most  important  consequence  of  the  death  of 
Christ — his  resurrection.  Several  circumstances  contributed  to 
promote  a  transference  of  the  term  from  the  earlier  to  the 
subsequent  event.  But  there  was  probably  an  intervening 
stage,  which  merely  carried  it  forw^ard  from  the  evening  to 
the  next  day,  which,  according  to  the  Jewish  mode  of  reckon- 
ing, was  a  continuation  of  it.  In  this  stage  pascha  denoted 
the  death  of  Christ,  the  anti-type  of  the  Jewish  festival,  at 
once  its  absolute  fulfilment  and  its  abolition — the  true  Pass- 
over that  was  sacrificed  for  the  redemption  of  the  world.  "We 
observe  already  an  approximation  to  this  view  in  Paul  (1  Cor. 
xi.  23-26),  and  also  in  Luke's  account  of  the  Last  Supper  (xxii) ; 
where,  though  in  both  cases  there  is  an  undoubted  allusion  to 
the  ordinary  legal  Passover,  yet,  as  Hilgenfeld  has  remarked, 
the  Jewish  accessories  of  the  occasion  are  designedly  kept  in 
the  background,  and  the  Christian  elements  of  faith  and  feeling 
are  brought  prominently  into  view.  But  an  obvious  contrariety 
was  soon  experienced  between  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian 
idea  associated  with  the  word  pascha.  To  the  Jew  it  expressed 
rejoicing — the  memory  of  deliverance ;  to  the  Christian  it 
suggested,  in  the  first  instance,  the  remembrance  of  sorrow  and 
loss,  the  death  of  his  benefactor  and  best  earthly  friend.  To 
one  it  was  a  festival ;  to  the  other  it  was  a  fast.  The  feeling 
of  this  contrariety  deepened,  as  the  purely  Christian  sentiment 


116  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

triumplied  in  the  minds  of  believers,  and  a  sense  of  the  radical 
difference  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Dispensation  was  more 
thoroughly  developed.  In  the  West  the  change  in  the  appli- 
cation of  the  word  was  accelerated  (as  I  have  already  re- 
marked) by  the  difficulty  of  adjusting  the  lunar  to  the  solar 
year,  and  by  the  custom  of  regulating  the  anniversary  of  the 
Lord's  death  and  resurrection,  not  by  the  day  of  the  month, 
but  by  the  day  of  the  week.  The  steps  of  this  change  it 
is  no  longer  possible  to  trace  with  distinctness ;  but  there  are 
still  indications  of  there  having  been  a  time,  when  iradya  was 
peculiarly  associated  with  a  remembrance  of  the  sufferings  of 
Christ, — an  idea  which  was  fostered  in  the  minds  of  the  Greeks 
by  their  confounding  the  Hebrew  iraaya  with  their  own  verb 
irda-'xeLv.  Mosheim  and  some  others,  noticing  this,  have  made 
a  distinction,  for  which  there  appears  to  be  no  adequate  foimda- 
tion, — between  a  7racr;)^a  crravpcocrifiov,  commemorating  the 
passion,  and  a  Tracr^a  dvaaTdaifj.ov,  commemorating  the  re- 
surrection, each  of  which  was  observed  by  the  Church — the 
former  as  a  fast,  the  latter  as  a  festival. 

At  length  this  migratory  name  finished  its  course,  and 
settled  finally  in  the  first  day  of  the  week,  as  the  anni- 
versary of  the  resurrection :  and  to  prevent  any  further  con- 
fusion with  the  old  Jewish  usage,  the  account  of  the  last 
days  of  Jesus,  which  acquired  currency  through  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  denied  that  he  ever  partook  of  the  Passover  at  all, 
but  suffered  on  the  ver}'  day  on  which  alone  it  could  be 
legally  eaten.  Two  important  consequences  resulted  from 
this  fixation  of  the  pascha :  it  was  severed  for  ever  from  its 
Jewish  root ;  and  it  resumed  once  more  its  original  signifi- 
cation of  a  festival  instead  of  a  fast.  But  we  have  seen  with 
what  difficidty  this  transition  was  made  ;  and  how  it  needed 
the  interposition  of  an  imperial  decree  to  render  it  effectual. 
The  old  Jewish  churches  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  farther  East 
still  observed  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan,  not  as  Jews  but  as 
Christians.       It   was   the   Christian,   not   the   Jewish,  pascha 


THE    PASCHAL    CONTROVERSY.  117 

which  they  kept ;   and   that   they   could   only  have   kept,    in 
commemoration  of  the  farewell  supper, — associated  as  it  was 
with  the  death  of  their  Lord,  and  with  their  sense  of  all  of 
which   that  death   was  to  them  the  symbol  and  the  pledge. 
Their  usage  was,  therefore,    in   conformity   with   the  account 
which  the  Three  First  Gospels  have  transmitted  to  us  of  the 
closing  scenes  of  the  life  of  Jesus  ;    and  they  pleaded  on  be- 
half of  this  usage,  as  we  have  seen  from  the  letter  of  Polycrates 
to  Victor,  against  the   newer  practice  of  the  West,  enforced 
mainly  by  Alexandria   and  Rome — not  only  the  general  pre- 
cedent of  apostolic  tradition,  but  more  especially  the  example 
of   the  greatest  celebrity  of  the  Asiatic  churches,  the  apostle 
John,  whose  name  had  conferred  a  kind  of  sanctity  on  Ephesus 
and  the  whole  ecclesiastical  circle  of  which  Ephesus   was  the 
centre.     This  is  the  more  remarkable,  as  the  gospel  which  we 
find  in  general  circulation  under  the  name  of  John  before  the 
close  of  the  second  century,  contains  statements  respecting  the 
last  supper  of  Jesus  with  his  disciples,  so  entirely  at  variance 
with   the   belief  on  which  the  Quartodecimans,  as  their  very 
name  implies,  founded  their  practice,  that,  had  they  recognized 
it  as  the  work  of  John,  it  is  impossible  they  could  have  ap- 
pealed in  their  defence  to  his  sanction.      What  is  more   re- 
markable   still,    those   who    were   opposed    to    Quartodeciman 
usage  and  wished  to  enforce  a  Catholic  uniformity  throughout 
the  Church,  never  once  thought  of  appealing  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  the  controversy  to  the  statement  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
which  was  decidedly  in  their  favour.    A  word  from  one  standing 
in  so  close  a  relation  to  Jesus  as  the  beloved  apostle,  would  have 
have  settled  the  question  for  ever.     Yet  not  till  quite  the  end 
of  the  second  century,  do  we  find  the  name  of  John  adduced  to 
support  the  Catholic  view. 

We  cannot,  it  seems  to  me,  form  a  correct  idea  of  this  and 
some  kindred  controversies,  without  distinctly  realizing  to 
ourselves  the  immense  fermentation  of  ideas,  the  vehement 
antagonism  of  principles,  which  was  going  on    through   the 


118  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

whole  of  the  second  and  third  centuries,  as  a  condition  of  the 
development  of  a  Catholic  Christianity — in  other  words,  of  the 
evolution  of  a  religion  for  the  world  and  for  futurity,  out  of 
the  simple  rudiments  of  Jewish  belief  and  a  national  move- 
ment of  earnest  Jewish  reform.  Chiliasm,  Montanism,  Quarto- 
decimanism  are  only  different  phases  of  one  and  the  same 
strong  tendency — the  effort  to  preserve  or  to  revive  the  faith  and 
practice  of  the  primitive  Galilsean  institution,  under  the  changes 
that  were  stealing  over  it  from  wider  and  more  unreserved 
contact  with  the  world,  and  the  transformation  of  its  simple 
beliefs  and  expectations  into  abstract  formulas  in  accordance 
with  the  philosophical  theories  of  the  day.  A  constant  looking 
for  the  second  advent  of  the  Lord,  self-surrender  to  the  impulses 
of  the  spirit  as  the  only  adequate  preparation  for  meeting  him, 
and  a  punctual  observance,  weekly  and  annual,  of  the  appointed 
memorial,  which  should  "  show  forth  his  death  till  he  came," 
and  which  took  the  stronger  hold  of  their  imagination,  from 
its  coincidence  with  the  most  venerable  rite  of  the  preceding 
dispensation — all  this  implied  a  state  of  mind  so  opposed  to  the 
ordinary  views  and  feelings  of  mankind,  that  only  a  degree  of 
enthusiasm  amounting  at  times  to  fanaticism  could  perpetuate 
it.  Yet  in  certain  temperaments  this  very  contrariety  to  the 
world  furnished  the  aliment  of  a  self-supporting  activity  and 
zeal.  It  bound  men  by  the  closest  bonds  to  usage  that  was 
consecrated  by  the  holiest  traditions,  and  stirred  them  up  to 
the  most  strenuous  •  endeavours  after  spiritual  revival.  It 
generated  a  heroism,  a  courage,  and  a  conscientiousness  which 
worldly  blandishment  could  not  seduce,  and  which  persecution 
only  rendered  more  intense.  Except  on  their  respective  points 
of  difference  with  the  Catholics, — Chiliasts,  Montanists,  and 
Quartodecimans,  were  reputed  orthodox.^      Had  the   authen- 

•  Epiplianius's  artificial  multiplication  of  the  different  forms  of  heresy,  has  drawn  a 
sharper  line  of  distinction  between  these  sects  than  really  existed.  "We  should  have 
understood  their  significance  in  relation  to  tlie  history  of  their  times,  more  clearly,  if 
our  attention  had  been  drawn  rather  to  the  broad  principle  in  which  they  agreed, 


THE    PASCHAL    CONTROVERSY.  119 

ticity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  not  been  involved,  the  fore- 
going explanation  of  the  Quartodeciman  controversy  would 
probably  have  been  accepted  as  the  most  natural  deduction 
from  the  extant  evidence ;  but  the  consequence  iaevitably 
flowing  from  it,  was  not  to  be  admitted  without  a  resolute 
endeavour  to  evade  it.  It  has,  therefore,  been  argued, — among 
others  by  the  late  Professor  Bleek  of  Bonn,i — that  the  point 
at  issue  was,  not  whether  John  was  right  or  the  Synoptists, 
in  the  day  assigned  by  them  respectively  for  the  Last  Supper, 
but  whether  the  Jewish  Passover  should  continue  to  be 
observed  in  the  Christian  Church.  This  seems  to  me  a  mis- 
statement of  the  whole  question.     No  one  has  ever  contended, 

than  to  the  minuter  points  on  which  they  differed.  In  reading  of  them  we  are  con- 
stantly struck  with  certain  features  of  resenibLance  to  the  sectaries  of  a  more  recent 
date — the  Lollards  and  Puritans  of  our  own  country,  the  Gueux  and  Huguenots  of  the 
Continent.  This  is  2)articularly  the  case  with  the  Donatists  of  Afiica,  who  offered  the 
last  and  most  determined  resistance  in  the  West  to  the  encroachments  of  Catholic  ascend- 
ancy. But  the  East,  from  Asia  Minor  to  Mesopotamia  and  Armenia,  ever  continued  the 
great  officina  hceresium,  from  which  issued  the  strange,  mysterious  sects  that  penetrated 
into  Europe  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  of  our  era.  Unfortunately  we  know 
little  of  these  opponents  of  the  dominant  church,  except  through  the  reports  of  their 
enemies.  This  remark  applies  to  the  Montanists  and  Quartodecimans  of  the  second  and 
third  centuries.  Of  the  former,  Eusebius  has  preserved  some  curious  notices,  though 
evidently  drawn  from  a  prejudiced  source,  in  the  fifth  book  of  his  Ecclesiastical  His- 
tory. His  authority,  Apollonius,  (c.  18),  charges  them  with  luxurious  living,  per- 
sonal vanity,  and  worldliness.  He  says  that  "  they  die  their  hair,  and  tinge  their  eyes 
with  stibium,  and  array  themselves  in  gaudy  attire,  and  play  at  tables  and  dice,  and  put 
out  money  at  interest."  Such  a  statement  may  seem  at  first  view  irreconcileable  with 
the  prevalent  idea  of  their  principles  and  practices.  But  it  is  not  in  itself  at  all  incre- 
dible. Heinichen,  in  a  sensible  note  on  the  passage,  has  shown  that  it  is  the  natural 
tendency  of  an  exaggerated  spirituality  to  break  out  at  times  into  the  opposite 
extreme :  and  I  call  attention  to  the  circumstance  here,  for  the  opportunity  it  affords  me 
of  noticing  a  parallel  instance  in  our  own  religious  history.  The  Independents  of  the 
Commonwealth  were  the  most  advanced  and  spiritual  section  of  the  Puritan  body.  Yet 
they  scandalized  their  Presbyterian  contemporaries,  by  their  easy  conformity  to  the 
manners  of  the  world.  "  They  wear  strange  long  hair,"  says  Edwards  in  his 
Gangraina  (p.  63),  "  go  in  fine  fashionable  apparel  beyond  their  places,  feast,  ride 
journeys,  and  do  servile  business  on  fast  days."  Their  ministers  were  well  paid,  and 
lived  in  great  worldly  comfort.  John  Goodwin,  one  of  the  most  eminent  among 
them,  did  not  scruple,  any  more  than  Calvin  at  Geneva,  to  go  to  bowls  and  other 
sports  on  days  of  public  thanksgiving.  It  must  not  be  supposed,  therefore,  that  in 
the  controversy  between  the  Quartodecimans  and  the  Catholics,  all  the  fanaticism  or 
all  the  worldliness  was  on  one  side. 

^  Beitrage  zur  Evangelien-Kritik.  II.  6,  7,  8. 


120  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

that  the  great  dispute  of  the  second  and  third  centuries  turned 
on  the  superior  claim  of  the  three  First  Gospels   or   of  the 
Fourth,  to  chronological  accuracy  in  the  date  of  Christ's  passion. 
Such  a  discussion  was  not  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  those 
times,  at  least  among  those  who  commenced  the  controversy. 
If  the  only  matter  to  be  settled  were,  whether  a  strictly  Jewish 
festival  should  be  perj)etuated  among  a  Christian  people,  this 
would  of  course  leave  it  possible,   that  John  might   be  right 
in  putting  the  Supper  on  the  ISth,  and  have  also   kept   the 
Jewish  Passover,  and   been  quoted  as  an  authority  for  doing 
so  by  a  later  generation  of  Christians.     But  not  to  insist  on 
the    extreme    improbability,    that    the  author    of  the    Fourth 
Gospel  could  have  remained  a  Jew  in  this  more  rigid  sense ; 
— not  to  press  the  unquestionable  fact,  to  which  I  have  before 
adverted,  that  the  usage  of  the  Christian  Eucharist  in  all  ages 
has  been  founded  on  statements  contained  in  the  Synoptical 
Gospels,  and  has  no  warrant  whatever  in  the  Fourth : — if  one 
thing  is   clearer   than   another    in   the    language   of  ancient 
writers,  it  is,  that   the   question  related  not   to  a  Jewish  but 
to  a  Christian  observance,  or  rather,  as  the  word  pascha  itself 
implies,  to  a  commemoration   which   had  bfeen   originally  as- 
sociated with  Jewish  usage,  but  which  had  become  in  process  of 
time    exclusively    Christian.      More   recently,   Weitzel,   whose 
theory  has  been  fully  detailed    by   Hilgenfeld    (Paschastreit, 
passim)  has  suggested,   with  much  ingenuity,  that  the  Asiatic 
mode  of  keeping  the  14tli  of  Nisan,  was  founded  on  a  combina- 
tion of  the  Pauline  and  Johannine  conceptions  of  the  death  of 
Christ,    as   the   true    Passover,  abolishing  the   shadow   in   the 
substance ;  that   instead   of  repudiating,    the    Quartodecimans 
really  accepted  the  chronology  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  putting 
the  supper  on  the  13th,  and  the  crucifixion  on  the  14th  of  the 
month ;  and    that   they  could,    therefore,    properly   claim   the 
authority  of  the  apostle  for  their   usage  ; — that,   in  fact,   the 
only  difference  between  the  Asiatics  and  the  Catholics  amounted 
to  this — that,  whereas  the  former  thought  the  Old  Dispensation 


THE    PASCHAL    CONTEOVERSY.  121 

ended  and  the  'New  began  on  the  Hth  of  Nisan,  the  latter 
carried  forward  the  separation  between  them,  to  the  anniversary 
of  the  resurrection  on  the  ensuing  Sunday ;  otherwise  expressed, 
that  one  party  fixed  the  boundary  line  of  the  two  dispensations 
on  Good  Friday,  the  other  on  Easter  Sunday. 

It  is  possible,  that  this  theory  of  "Weitzel  may  so  far  have 
historical  truth  on  its  side,  that  it  represents  a  stage  in  the 
controversy,  when  pascha  denoted  pre-eminently  the  anniver- 
sary of  the  death  of  Christ,  the  irda'^a  a-ravpooaifMov  as  it  has  been 
called  by  some.  The  modern  critics  who  have  gone  into  the 
history  of  this  controversy,  have  perhaps  drawn  too  absolute  a 
Kne  of  separation  between  the  Quartodecimans  and  their  oppo- 
nents, without  sufficiently  recognising  the  intervening  steps  of 
transition  through  which  primitive  Christianity  gradually 
passed  into  Catholicism.^  But  that  this  theory  does  not  go  to 
the  bottom  of  the  question,  or  suggest  its  true  origin,  appears  to 
me  quite  evident  from  the  following  consideration.  If  the 
death-day  of  Christ  was  observed  on  the  14th  of  Nisan,  it  must 
have  been  observed  as  a  fast  day,  and  would  therefore  have  been 
in  harmony  with  the  prolonged  course  of  fasting  which  pre- 
ceded the  anniversary  of  the  resurrection.     But  the  complaint 

^  Epiphanius,  speaking  of  the  Quartodecimans  (Panar.  1.  2).  expresses  the  idea  of 
"Weitzel  in  the  following  passage:  eSei  rhv  Xptarhv  eV  ttj  Teo-o-apes/caiSe/cctTj? 
rj/jLepa,  duecrdat  Kara  rhv  v6)xov,  Zirtiis  Xtj^t]  trap'  di/Tots  ti)  (pwTi^ov  avTovs  (poiis 
KaTO,  rhv  vS/xov,  tov  tjXIov  avareiKavTos  Ka\  (TKeirdcrauTos  rris  treArjj'rjy  rh  (T(\as. 
dirh  yap  TicrffapiffKaihiKarris  Kol  ko/tui  cpdivei  rh  (paivo/xeuou  t»js  creA^vris.  '6vtw 
Kai  iv  T(f  vdjxi^  dtrb  r-qs  rov  XpicTTOv  irapovcias  Kol  Trddovs  i]fj.avpw6r]  7]  'lovSaiK^ 
(Tvvayaiyi],  Karrivyaae  5e  rh  ivayyiXiov,  jx))  KaraKvQivros  tov  vSjxov,  dwh 
irKrjpaidfi'TOs,  fxi]  Ka.Tapyy\Q4vTOs  tov  tuwov,  dWa  Trapci.(TT7](ravTos  r^v  dKrjdeiav^ 
"  Christ  must  needs  be  sacrificed  on  the  14th  day,  that  among  them  should  cease  the 
light  which  lighteneth  them  according  to  the  law,  the  sun  having  arisen  and  over, 
powered  the  brightness  of  the  moon.  For,  from  the  1 4th  and  downward  the  appearance 
of  the  moon  waneth.  So  also  in  the  law,  from  the  time  of  the  presence  and  passion 
of  Christ,  the  Jewish  congregation  has  become  dim,  and  the  gospel  has  shone  forth — 
the  law  not  having  been  destroyed  but  fulfilled,  the  type  njt  being  made  void,  but 
exhibiting  the  truth." 

This,  with  similar  passages,  represents  the  intermediate  state  of  feeling,  in  which 
the  Church  endeavoured  to  combine  in  one  system  the  observance  both  of  the  14th 
and  of  the  Sunday,  so  as  to  avoid  the  occurrence  of  two  paschas  in  one  and  the  same 
year. 


122  CHAEACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

against  the  Quartodecimans,  as  we  have  seen,  was  this  : — that  by 
keeping  the  14th  of  Nisan,  they  interrupted  with  a  feast,  which 
the  old  pascha  or  Passover  properly  was,  the  continuous  fasting 
of  Passion-week, — so  that  it  did  not  terminate  the  fast,  but 
merely  broke  it  for  the  occasion.  Weitzel  himself  is  so  im- 
pressed with  this  difficulty,  and  some  others  attaching  to  his 
theory,  that  he  is  obliged  to  assume  the  existence  of  two  parties 
among  the  Quartodecimans,  a  more  Catholic  party,  and  one 
decidedly  Ebionitish.  But  for  such  an  assumption  there  is  no 
ground  whatever.  All  extant  evidence  goes  to  show,  that  the 
whole  party  was  imbued  with  Jewish  tendency,  and  represented 
the  old  Jewish  Christianity.  The  idea  of  cutting  them  up  into 
two  sections,  would  never  have  occurred  to  any  one,  had  it  not 
been  required  by  the  exigencies  of  a  theory.  Down  into  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  even,  it  is  said,  to  this  day,  in  some  remote 
parts  of  Asia,  traces  may  be  found  of  the  use  of  imleavened 
bread  and  of  the  sacrifice  of  a  lamb  in  the  celebration  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  which  seem  clearly  to  indicate  its  derivation 
from  the  Jewish  Passover,  and  serve  to  shew,  that  the  ori- 
ginal dispute  between  the  Quartodecimans  and  the  Catholics 
related  to  something  more  fundamental  than  a  more  reckoning 
of  days.^     On  the  whole,  I  am  compelled  to  believe,  by  a  fair 

'  See  the  evidence  of  this  statement  in  Mosheini  (De  Eebus  Christ.  II.,  J  Ixxi.* 
1)  and  Routh  (Reliq.  Sacr.  II.  p.  19).  According  to  existing  records  it  would 
seem  (contrary  to  what  might  have  been  expected  from  the  earlier  stages  of  the  con- 
troversy), that  Jewish  usage  lingered  longer  in  the  West  than  in  the  East.  One  of 
the  disputes  between  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  Churches,  which  accelerated  the  final 
schism  between  them,  related  to  the  kind  of  bread  which  should  be  used  in  the 
eucharist,  the  latter  Church  insisting  on  the  \ise  of  unleavened  bread,  which  was 
disapproved  by  the  former.  See  Eiddle's  Christian  Antiquities  (iv.  §  7,  1.)  Still 
more  remarkable  was  the  charge  brought  by  the  Greek,  in  the  ninth  century,  against 
the  Koman  Church,  of  "  offering  a  lamb  on  the  altar,  after  the  manner  of  the  Jews,  at 
the  time  of  the  pascha,  and  of  blessing  it  along  with  the  Lord's  body,"  (agnum  in 
pascha,  more  Judajorum,  super  altare  pariter  cum  dominico  corpore  benedicere  et 
offerre.)  That  the  charge  was  not  wholly  without  foundation,  is  evident  from  a 
passage  inWalafrid  Strabo  (de  rebus  eccles.  c.  18.)  There  was  even  a  form  of  bene, 
diction  appropriate  to  the  occasion,  still  preserved  in  some  old  rituals  of  the  Eoman 
Church,  from  one  of  which  it  appears,  that  the  Pope  and  eleven  Cardinals  had 
solemnly  partaken  of  a  lamb  at  Easter.  It  was  eaten  on  the  Sunday.  See  Gieseler 
(Kirch.  Gesch.  II.  i.  §  41,  m.),  who  has  given  the  original  authorities  at  full.     The 


THE    PASCHAL    CONTROVERSY.  123 

interpretation  of  such  evidence  as  lias  come  within  my  reach, 
that  the  real  struggle  in  this  dispute  was  between  the  retention 
of  Jewish  and  the  substitution  of  Catholic  usage ;  that  the 
apostle  John,  if  he  were,  as  I  have  attempted  to  show,  a  Jewish 
Christian,  naturally  shared  in  the  Jewish  predilections  of  his 
Asiatic  brethren,  and  was  therefore  quoted  by  them  as  an 
authority  for  their  own  practice ;  that  the  Synoptists  have  given 
the  true  account  of  the  Last  Supper,  and  the  crucifixion  ;  and 
that  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  by  assigning  the  Passion 
to  the  14th  of  Nisan,  and  holding  up  Christ  himself  as  the  true 
Passover,  evidently  intended  to  do  away  with  the  last  pretext  for 
retaining  any  semblance  to  a  Jewish  rite,  and  to  free  Chris- 
tianity from  the  swathing-bands  of  Hebrew  thought  and 
Hebrew  usage,  which  checked  its  healthy  growth  and  still  kept 
it  in  spiritual  childhood. 

remonstrance  of  the  Greek  Churcli  probably  put  an  end  to  this  Jewish  practice  in  the 
West.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  fourth  century,  we  find  Aerius,  a  heretic  of  Arian 
tendencies,  and  a  contemporary  of  Epiphanius,  protesting  against  the  Jewish  usages 
with  which  the  Pascha,  in  his  time,  continued  to  be  celebrated.  He  seems  indeed  to 
have  objected  to  the  retention  of  the  Pascha  in  any  sense,  and  to  have  disregarded 
the  fasting  with  which  it  was  accompanied  :  6v  xp^  '''^  Tldaxa  eirmKuv.  (Epiphan. 
Panar.  Ixxv.  3.) 

The  Armenian  Christians  are  charged  by  the  Patriarch  Nikon  (Patr.  Apost. 
Coteler.  I.,  p.  236),  with  eating  a  lamb  on  Easter  Sunday,  smearing  their  door-posts 
with  its  blood,  and  using  unleavened  bread.  To  this  day,  according  to  Grant  (The 
Nestorians)  the  Nestorian  Christians  in  the  mountains  of  Kurdistan,  who  call  them- 
selves Nazarenes,  still  celebrate  Easter  in  accordance  with  the  Old  Testament  regula- 
tions about  the  Passover,  substituting,  however,  the  elements  of  the  Christian  euchar- 
ist  for  the  pascal  lamb.  See  Hilgenfeld  (Paschastreit,  p.  399,  note  1).  All  these 
instances  justify  the  conclusion,  that  in  the  Chiistian  pascha  there  was  a  gradual 
transition  from  Jewish  to  Christian  usage. 


124  CHARACfER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 


SECTION  X. 

Some  points  in  the  Chronology  of  the  Paschal  question. 

The  purely  critical  issues  of  the  paschal  controversy,  in 
relation  to  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  have  been 
complicated  by  chronological  difficulties,  resulting  from  the 
substitution  of  the  solar  for  the  lunar  year,  which  have  had  the 
effect  of  diverting  attention  from  the  real  nature  and  origin  of 
the  subject  in  dispute.  The  Hebrew  Passover  was  at  once  a 
festival  of  nature  and  a  historical  anniversary.  It  marked  the 
opening  of  the  jeox,  coincident  with  the  vernal  equinox  ;  and  it 
was  also  a  memorial  of  national  deliverance.  But  the  old 
Hebrew  year  was  reckoned  by  successive  lunations,  the  periods 
of  which  were  themselves  determined  by  very  imperfect  observa- 
tions, and  were  only  kept  in  a  sort  of  rough  and  general  har- 
mony with  the  annual  revolution  of  the  sun,  by  means  of  occa- 
sional intercalations.^  The  occurrence  of  the  death  of  Christ  at  the 
time  of  the  Passover  introduced  a  new  historical  element  into 
the  yearly  celebration,  and  was  the  cause  of  fresh  difficulties  in 
calculating  it.  The  one  fixed  point  for  Jews  and  Christians  was 
the  vernal  equinox.  AVhen  Christianity  spread  out  of  Palestine 
through  the  Roman  empire,  the  different  usages  prevalent  in  the 
ancient  populations  of  Asia  and  among  the  more  civilized  peoples 
of  the  West,  led  to  a  contrariety  of  practice  which  was  the  means 
under  providence  of  more  completely  detaching  the  new  religion 
from  its  parent  root  in  Judaism.  The  Hebrew  Passover  com- 
menced on  the  eve  of  the  14th  of  Nisan,  without  any  reference 
to  the  day  of  the  week  ;  the   Christian   anniversary   of  the 

1  Ideler,  Lehrbuch  der  Chronologie,  p.  204. 


CHRONOLOGY   OF    THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION.  125 

resurrection  was  associated  immutably  with  the  first  day  of 
the  week,  irrespective  of  the  particular  day  of  the  month.  The 
points  of  departure  for  the  subsequent  regulation  were  different 
in  the  two  cases,  and  collision  was  the  unavoidable  result.  The 
first  influence  which  modified  the  conception  of  the  Christian 
pascha  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  later  system — was  the 
disposition,  so  natural  under  the  circumstances,  and  favoured  by 
the  typological  passion  of  the  day,  to  regard  Christ  himself  as 
the  true  Passover.  This  occasioned,  almost  inevitably,  in  the 
way  of  reckoning  then  customary  among  the  Jews  (connecting 
the  evening  of  one  day  with  the  morning  of  the  next  as  one 
continuous  day),  a  throwing  back  of  the  day  of  the  crucifixion 
from  the  loth  to  the  14th,  and  a  consequent  exclusion  of  the 
possibility  of  Christ  and  his  followers  having  partaken  of  a 
proper  paschal  supper  on  the  evening  of  the  14th.  In  this 
manner  the  foundation  was  laid  for  what  was  afterwards  called 
the  Holy  Week,  founded  on  a  parallelism  between  the  Jewish 
and  the  Christian  pascha.  It  began  with  the  selection  of  the 
victim,  symbolized  by  the  anointing  of  Jesus,  six  days  before 
the  Passover,  according  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  (xii.  1) ;  then  came 
the  sacrifice  itself,  the  centre-point  of  the  Great  Week  (on  the 
14th,  as  represented  by  the  Fourth  Gospel) ;  followed,  on  the 
third  day  after  inclusive  {i.e.  on  the  Sunday)  by  the  resur- 
rection. So  conceived  and  arranged,  the  week  exhibited,  ac- 
cording to  the  Catholic  system,  a  most  entire  coincidence  of 
type  and  anti-type — of  prefiguration  and  fulfilment.  But 
although  the  Catholic  pascha,  by  the  practice  of  dating  back 
from  the  Sunday,  was  freed  from  a  servile  dependence  on  any 
particular  day  of  a  Jewish  month,  it  was  still  necessary  to  keep  it 
connected  generally  with  the  season  of  the  vernal  equinox ;  and 
hence  arose  the  necessity  of  scientific  interposition,  to  adjust  the 
relations  of  the  lunar  and  the  solar  year.  The  old  Hebrew 
names  for  the  months  had  been  superseded  by  Macedonian,  as 
a  result  of  the  conquests  of  Alexander.  Josephus  emjoloys  the 
altered  nomenclature.     When  these  Macedonian  months,  which 


126  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

were  lunar,  were  clianged  under  Roman  influence  into  fixed 
solar  months,  is  uncertain.  According  to  Galen  (quoted  by 
Hilgenfeld,  p.  236,  note)  this  conversion  had  taken  place  among 
the  peoples  of  Asia,  as  early  as  the  middle  of  the  second  century 
of  our  era.  Soon  after,  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century, 
we  find  the  first  attempt  made  to  construct  a  cycle  for  deter- 
mining the  time  of  Easter,  by  Hippolytus,  (Hilgenfeld,  p.  332). 
An  observation  of  the  variations  between  the  lunar  and  the  solar 
year,  had  early  induced  the  Greek  astronomers  to  try  to  find  out 
some  period  of  moderate  length,  in  which  the  solar  years,  the 
lunar  months,  and  the  solar  days  should  each  be  capable  of  ex- 
pression by  whole  numbers  ;  so  that  it  might  be  possible,  in  any 
particular  year  of  the  period,  to  refer  the  new  and  full  moons 
to  the  days  of  that  year.  Sijch  periods  were  called  lunar 
cycles.  The  earliest  of  which  we  read,  consisted  of  nineteen  years, 
and  bears  the  name  of  Meton,  who  is  said  to  have  lived  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ.  The  cycle  of 
Meton  was  reconstructed  by  Calippus,  a  contemporary  of  Aris- 
totle, who  substituted  in  place  of  it  a  longer  cycle  of  seventy-six 
years.  This  cycle  of  Calippus,  with  the  addition  of  the  octaeteris 
or  space  of  eight  years,  making  it  a  cycle  of  eighty- four, — wag 
for  a  time  in  use  in  the  Western  church,  with  a  view  to  bring 
round  the  new  moons  not  only  to  the  same  day  of  the  month 
but  also  to  the  same  day  of  the  week.  The  old  cycle  of  the 
octaeteris,  older  it  is  said  among  the  Greeks  than  the  Metonic 
cycle  of  nineteen  years,  was  the  element  out  of  which  the 
earliest  pascal  cycles  of  the  Christians  were  evolved.  Hippolytus 
doubled  it,  and  so  framed  his  cycle  of  sixteen  years.  But  it  was 
a  rude  approximation,  which  failed  of  its  proposed  object,  and 
was  superseded  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  among 
the  Latins,  by  the  cycle  of  eighty-four  years.  (Hilgenfeld, 
p.  340.)i 

1  The  canon  paschalis  of  Hippolytus  is  inscribed  on  one  side  of  the  chair  of  the 
statue,  supposed  to  be  that  of  Hippolytus,  which  was  dug  up  in  the  catacombs  of 
San  Lorenzo  at  Rome,  in  the  year  1551. 


CHRONOLOGY   OF   THE   PASCHAL    QUESTION.  127 

"  The  whole  ecclesiastical  division  of  the  year,"  was  hence- 
forth, according  to  Ideler,^  "  determined  by  the  festival  of  Easter, 
which  from  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era  had  been 
always  solemnized  on  the  Sunday  which  followed  the  vernal  full 
moon ;  and,  when  this  fell  on  a  Sunday,  on  the  Sunday  next 
following.  By  the  vernal  full-moon  was  understood  either 
that  which  coincided  with  the  21st  of  March  (universally  ac- 
cepted as  the  commencement  of  spring)  or  that  which  imme- 
diately followed  it.  This  was  called  the  '  Easter  limit,'  tenninus 
jMSchalis.  Two  things  had  therefore  to  be  determined  in  fixing 
Easter ;  first,  the  day  of  the  month,  and  secondly  the  day  of  the 
week,  of  the  '  Easter  limit.' "  "  When  the  new  moon  has  been 
found,"  he  continues  (p.  347),  "  the  next  thing  is  to  deduce  from 
it  the  full  moon.  In  all  the  discussions  respecting  the  celebra- 
tion of  Easter,  we  find  the  expression  TeaaapearKaiBeKdrr},  Luna 
clecima  quarta  (the  14th  day  of  the  month)  employed  by  ecclesias- 
tical writers  to  denote  the  fidl  moon.-  The  full  moon  occurs 
nearly  fifteen  days,  on  the  average  after  the  conjunction  ;  but 
the  Greeks  reckoned  the  age  of  the  moon  from  its  first  appear- 
ance in  the  evening  sky,  and  with  that  they  began  their  month. ^ 

1  Handbuch  der  Chronologie,  p.  345.  In  a  note,  Ideler  observes:  "the  old  Ger. 
man  Ostem  is  of  disputed  origin.  Tbe  usual  notion  is,  that  it  is  derived  from 
urstan,  which  in  the  oldest  language  of  Germany,  signifies  '  to  rise  again.'  Ac- 
cording to  Bede- (de  temp.  rat.  c.  13),  it  comes  from  the  name  of  an  old  Anglo- 
Saxon  goddess,  Eostrc,  whose  feast  from  the  remotest  antiquity  was  celebrated  about 
the  time  of  the  Christian  Easter.  Bede  calls  ^Vpril,  in  which  Easter  usually  falls, 
Eosturmonath,  Charlemagne,  Ostarmanoth." 

2  We  have  here  a  curious  indication  of  Jewish  origin,  in  the  retention  of  a  mark  of 
time  after  it  had  ceased  to  have  any  propriety  or  even  meaning  in  the  Christian 
usage,  except  as  a  rough  general  expression  for  the  middle  of  a  mouth.  In  like 
manner  the  phrase,  (ra^fiarov  ixeya,  sahhatum  magnum,  is  used  in  the  Roman  Church 
to  signify  the  sabbath  that  occurs  in  the  paschal  week,  the  day  when  Christ  lay  in  the 
grave,  between  Good  Friday  and  Easter  Sunday  ;  though  among  the  Jews,  it  seems  to 
have  originally  denoted  the  day  which  immediately  followed  the  Passover,  the  first 
day  of  Unleavened  Bread,  the  15th  of  Nisan,  whether  it  was  an  ordinary  sabbath  or 
not ;  in  accordance  with  the  Jewish  practice  of  calling  all  their  high  festival  days 
sabbaths.  See  the  evidence  for  this  last  statement  adduced  by  Hilgenfeld  (Pascha- 
streit,  p.  149,  note). 

3  The  crescent  moon,  as  marking  the  commencement  of  another  lunation,  would 
naturally  acquire  something  of  a  religious  character,  and  might  become  an  object  of 


128  CHARACTER    OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

The  new  moons  in  the  ecclesiastical  tables  must  be  understood 
in  the  same  sense.  As  from  the  first  phase  to  the  Ml  moon 
thirteen  days  usually  elapse,  those  who  fixed  the  time  of  Easter 
reckoned  13,  or  inclusive  of  the  new  moon,  14  days  onwards, — 
from  the  beginning  to  the  middle  of  the  lunation,  and  so  ascer- 
tained the  'Easter  Limit.'  "  The  days  on  which  this  fell,  were 
marked  in  the  cycle  of  nineteen  years  by  numbers,  from  one  to 
nineteen,  which  were  called  "the  golden  numbers,"  probably 
from  their  having  at  one  time  been  written  in  gold.^  The 
earliest  *  Easter  limit '  was  the  21st  of  March,  regarded  uni- 
versally as  the  first  day  of  spring.  Hence  the  Easter  new  moon 
must  fall  somewhere  between  the  8th  of  March  and  the  5th  of 
April  inclusive.  The  new  moon  on  the  8th  of  March  would 
give  the  earliest '  Easter  limit ' — that  on  the  21st.  Should  it  not 
occur  till  the  5th  of  April,  it  would  yield  the  latest  'Easter 
limit, — on  the  18th  of  that  month.  If  the  21st  of  March  should 
fall  on  a  Saturday,  Easter  would  be  celebrated  next  day,  on  the 
22nd,  and  this  would  be  the  earliest  Easter  day  possible.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  18th  of  April  should  happen  to  be  a  Sunday, 
then  Easter  would  have  to  be  postponed  a  week,  and  fall  on  the 
25th  of  April,  the  latest  day  to  which  it  could  be  deferred. 
These  are  the  extreme  limits  of  the  possible  period  of  Easter, 
separated  by  an  interval  of  five  weeks.^ 

The  different  cycles  devised  for  finding  the  new  and  full 
moons  on  which  Easter  depended,  were  only  approximations  to 
rigid  scientific  truth.  From  time  to  time  they  had  to  be  cor- 
rected ;  and  when  they  had  run  out  their  course,  they  must  either 
be  renewed  or  superseded  by  others.  The  altered  constitution 
of  the  civil  year  imposed  at  length  the  necessity  of  making  such 
calculations,  not  less  on  the  Jews  in  fixing  the  time  of  the 
Passover,  than  on  the  Christians  in  regulating  Easter.     As  the 

■worship.    Relics  have  been  found  in  the  Lake -dwellings  built  on  pQes,  lately  brought 
to  light  in  Switzerland  and  elsewhere,  from  which  it  has  been  conjectured  that  the 
people  who  inhabited  them  worshipped  the  crescent  moon.      (See    Dr.    Ferdinand 
Keller's  work,  Engl.  Trausl.)     The  new  moons  were  sacred  among  the  Hebrews. 
1  Ideler,  Handbuch  etc,  p.  346.  «  Idclcr,  p.  318. 


CHRONOLOGY   OF   THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION.  129 

learned  bishops  of  Alexandria  issued  their  paschal  letters  year 
by  year,  which  were  authorised  by  imperial  decree  throughout 
the  Homan  empire  ;  so  the  Nasi  or  Jewish  patriarchs  at 
Tiberias  annually  put  forth  their  decrees  determining  the  time 
of  the  Passover,  which  had  the  force  of  law  in  all  the  syna- 
gogues of  the  West.  On  both  sides  there  was  now  the  greatest 
care  to  avoid  any  coincidence  in  the  season  of  celebration, 
between  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  festivals.  For  a  long  time 
the  Jews  were  so  entirely  without  any  certain  rule  on  the 
subject,  and  their  calendar  had  fallen  into  such  a  state  of  con- 
fusion, that  they  are  said  to  have  observed  the  first  and  the  last 
days  of  the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread  twice  over,  to  diminish 
the  chance  of  their  having  possibly  missed  the  true  time.  About 
the  middle  of  the  third  century,  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  still 
making  use  of  the  octaeteris,  improved  on  the  imperfect  cycle 
of  Hij)polytus  ;  and  so  contrived  his  calculations,  that  the  cele- 
bration of  Easter  could  not  occur  till  after  the  vernal  equinox. 
This  was  in  defiance  of  the  old  lunar  usage  of  the  Jews,  and  was 
no  doubt  intended  to  be  so ;  a  fact  which  deserves  notice,  as 
indicating  the  feeling  which  at  that  time  so  powerfully  actuated 
the  Christians  in  the  regulation  of  their  great  annual  festival. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  third  century,  Anatolius  of  Alexandria 
introduced  the  cycle  of  nineteen  years ;  and  this,  in  the  course  of 
the  fourth  century,  was  superseded  in  the  Latin  Church  by  the 
cycle  of  eighty- four  years,  to  which  I  have  already  referred.  In 
relation  to  the  subject  of  the  present  inquiry,  it  is  imnecessary  to 
pursue  the  history  of  these  ecclesiastical  cycles  any  further  than 
to  observe,  that  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century,  Dionysius 
Exiguus  constructed  a  table  which  brought  the  Alexandrine  and 
the  Roman  usage  into  harmony.  This  Dionysian  cycle  gradually 
superseded  all  others.  In  the  time  of  Charlemagne  it  was  accepted 
universally  throughout  the  West,^  where  it  continued  to  be  em- 
ployed until  the  general  reform  of  the  calendar  under  Gregory 
XIIL,  in  the    latter  half  of  the    16th   century.     Uniformity 

1  Ideler,  p.  378. 


130  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

in  the  mode  of  keeping  Easter  was  first  attempted  to  be  made 
imperative  at  the  Council  of  Nice,  but  if  any  canons  were  then 
framed  with  this  view,  they  have  perished.  Practically,  as  the 
result  of  these  long  discussions,  Easter  was  fixed  on  the  Lord's 
day  next  after  the  full  moon  happening  upon,  or  immediately 
following,  the  vernal  equinox ;  with  a  provision,  that  if  the  full 
moon  should  fall  on  a  Sunday,  then  Easter  day  should  be  the 
Sunday  after.  ^ 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  final  regulation  of  this  festival, 
which  had  occasioned  such  vehement  disputes  between  different 
sections  of  the  Church  in  the  earlier  centuries  of  our  era,  was 
framed,  as  to  the  main  subject  of  its  celebration — (the  anniver- 
sary of  our  Lord's  passion  and  resurrection) — in  accordance 
with  the  account  of  the  closing  scenes  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  con- 
tained in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  Church,  in  its  official  termi- 
nology, significantly  designates  the  "  Easter  limit,"  which 
determines  Easter  Sunday,  Teaa-apea-KaiSeKciTT]  "  the  fourteenth." 
The  reader  will  have  to  consider  whether  the  influences  which  I 
have  indicated  in  previous  sections,  as  operating  so  powerfully 
within  the  Catholic  Church,  appear  to  him  of  such  a  nature  as 
to  account  satisfactorily  for  the  substitution  of  the  later  account 
ascribed  to  John,  in  place  of  the  earlier  traditions, — without 
compelling  us  to  withdraw  our  faith  from  the  general  historical 
trustworthiness  of  the  three  first  Evangelists.  There  is,  how- 
ever, one  argument  on  behalf  of  the  superior  credibility  of  the 
day  assigned  by  the  Fourth  Gospel  for  the  crucifixion  of 
Jesus,  which  has  been  urged  with  so  much  plausibility, 
especially  by  the  late  Professor  Bleek,  that  it  cannot 
be  passed  over  without  a  somewhat  fuller  notice.  The  argu- 
ment  is   this.2       According    to    the    three   first    Evangelists, 

^  This  was,  of  course,  done  to  avoid  coincidence  with  the  Jewish  Passover. 

The  chronological  details  involved  in  this  long  paschal  controversy,  have  been  dis- 
cussed with  great  thoroughness  and  exuberant  learning,  by  Hilgenfeld,  in  the  work  So 
often  referred  to  :  "  Der  Paschastreit  der  alten  Kirche,  nach  seiner  Bedentung  fiir  die 
Kii'chengeschichte  und  fiir  die  Evangelienforschung  urkundlich  dargestellt." 

2  Bleek's  "Beitrage  Zur  Evangelien-Kritik,"  II.  6,  7,  8. 


CHRONOLOGY    OF    THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION.  131 

Christ  was  crucified  with  the  two  malefactors  on  the  15th  of 
Nisan,  which  was  the  first  day  of  Unleavened  Bread,,  the  great 
day  of  the  feast.  This  had  a  sabbatical  character,  and  was 
observed  with  sabbatical  strictness.  It  was  a  day,  therefore, 
on  which  no  public  execution  could  lawfully  take  place.  From 
this  difiiculty  the  narration  in  John,  it  is  argued,  is  wholly  free- 
It  represents  Jesus  to  have  supped  with  his  disciples,  the  evening 
on  which  he  was  betrayed,  "  before  the  feast  of  the  Passover  " 
(tt/jo  Tfj<i  koprrj^  tov  irdcr^a).  This  must  have  been  on  the 
13th ;  the  Passover  not  commencing  till  the  evening  of  the  next 
day ;  so  that  there  could  have  been  no  legal  hindrance  to  the 
crucifixion  during  the  earlier  hours  of  the  14th,  According  to 
this  statement,  Christ  was  crucified  on  the  same  day  on  which 
the  paschal  lamb  was  slaughtered  ;  and  this  is  assumed  to  be 
strictly  in  accordance  with  the  language  of  Paul  (1  Cor.  v.  7) 
"  Christ,  our  Passover,  is  sacrificed  for  us."  Dr.  Bleek  contends, 
that  the  word  Trapaa-Kevij  (preparation)  by  which  the  day  of  the 
crucifixion  is  designated  in  all  the  four  Evangelists,  is  not  used 
of  every  Friday  preceding  an  ordinary  Sabbath,  but  only  of  a 
Friday  falling  on  the  14th  of  Nisan^  when  the  Sabbath  following 
would  be  a  "  highday,"  the  first  day  of  "  Unleavened  Bread." 
He  even  thinks  that  the  Synoptists  who  confounded  the  Last 
Supper  with  the  Paschal  Supper,  and  therefore  carried  it  forward 
from  the  13th  to  the  14th,  have  unconsciously  preserved  a  trace 
of  the  original  and  true  account,  by  retaining  the  word  irapa- 
(TKevrj,  though  they  have  applied  it  to  a  day,  viz.,  the  15th,  of 
which,  as  being  itself  sabbatical,  it  could  not  with  propriety  be 
used.  Other  violations  of  the  sabbatical  strictness-  with  which 
the  15th  of  Nisan  in  the  paschal  week  was  required  by  the  law 
to  be  kept,  have  been  noticed  by  Bleek  in  the  synoptical 
narratives  :  for  instance,  the  coming  of  Simon  of  Cyrene  "  out  of 
the  country  "  {ip-^oixevov  air'  aypov),  as  if  from  liis  labour,  on 
that  holy  day  (Mark  xv.  21  ;  Luke  xxiii.  26) ;  and  further* 
Matthew's  statement  (xxvii.  62)  that  "  after  the  prei^aration  " 
(fieTo,   rrjv   TTapao-Kevrjv),    that    is,    on    the  Sabbath   itself,  the 


132  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

chief  priests  and  Pharisees  went  to  Pilate,  and  made  ar- 
rangements with  him  for  setting  a  watch  at  the  mouth  of  the 
sepulchre.  From  all  this  Bleek  concludes,  that  the  Sjiioptists 
have  related  what  could  not  possibly  have  taken  place  on  a 
sabbatical  day  ;  and  that  consequently  the  account  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  must  be  received  as  the  true  one. 

Notwithstanding  the  plausibility  of  this  theory,  it  is  open  to 
grave,  and,  as  I  think,  unanswerable  objections.  In  the  first 
place,  what  authority  has  Dr.  Bleek  for  limiting  the  application 
of  irapacTKevrj  to  a  Friday  coinciding  with  the  14th  of  Nisan  ? 
The  three  first  Evangelists,  by  his  own  showing,  cannot  have 
so  understood  it ;  and  as  they  were  either  Jews  or  used  Jewish 
materials,  it  is  inconceivable  how  such  a  misuse  of  the  word 
could  have  got  into  their  text*.  Moreover,  usage  is  clearly 
against  him.  Mark  (xv.  42)  explains  'rrapaaKevrj  for  his  readers 
by  irpoad^^arov,  which  would  have  been  a  very  inadequate 
definition,  if  it  referred  specially  to  a  sabbath  falling  on  the 
15th,^  Luke's  expression  (xxiii.  54)  is  equally  general :  "  It 
was  the  day  of  preparation  and  the  Sabbath  was  dawning :" 
•fj/jiepa  Tjv  7rapaaK€Vi]<i,  koX  o-d/S^arov  eire^waKev)?  John,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  puts  the  crucifixion  on  the  14th,  seems 
purposely  to  limit  the  generality  of  the  expression  by  subjoining 
— (xix.  14)  "  of  the  Passover" — "  it  was  the  preiDaration  of  the 
Passover  "  (Trapacr/ceu?)  tov  Trda'x^a).  Why  should  he  have  added 
Tov  irda-'x^a,  if  irapaaKevi)  meant  that  of  itself?  Apparently 
with  the  same  view,  when  the  word  occurs  again,  further  on, 
(v.  31)  he  adds :  "  for  that  Sabbath  day  was  a  high  day  "  {rjv 
fiejdXr]  rj  rj/xipa  eKeivov  tov  aa^/Sdrov).^     The  same  inference, 

1  According  to  Lachmaiin,  the  Alexandrine  and  the  Vatican  here  read  rrpbs 
(TajSiSaTOj'  which  Meyer  treats  as  a  mere  clerical  eiTor. 

2  The  Alexandrine  and  some  other  MSS.  read  irapaaKivf].  But  the  sense  is  the  same 
rendered  in  our  received  version  :  "  that  day  was  the  preparation." 

3  In  speaking  of  Jewish  observances,  John  has  some  expressions  peculiar  to  himself. 
For  instance,  he  qualifies  rh  wdaxa  by  adding  ray  'lovSalwv.  See  ii.  13;  vi.  4  : 
xi.  55.  This  never  once  occurs  in  the  S}Tio])tist>!.  In  like  manner  Jesus,  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  when  addressing  the  Jews,  says,  "  Tour  law,"  (viii.  17,  x.  34)  as  if  he 
wished  to  mark  his  own  separation  from  them. 


CHRONOLOGY   OF   THE    PASCHAL   QUESTION.  133 

that  parasceue  simply  denoted  in  tlie  Hellenistic  Greek  of  the 
Jews,  the  day  before  an  ordinary  Sabbath,  seems  also  fairly  de- 
dueible  from  a  passage  in  Irenoeus,  where  he  is  speaking  generally 
of  the  sixth  day  of  the  week  (that  is,  Friday)  as  parasceue  {ev  rfj 
CKTrj  roiv  rjfiepcov  rjrt'i  earl  irapaaKevt]  (Adv.  Haer.  I.,  xiv.  6)  ; 
and  again :  ^^ parasceue,  that  is  the  sixth  day,  which  the  Lord 
made  conspicuous  by  suffering  on  it"  (ibid,  v.  xxiii.  2).  This 
last  circumstance,  of  course,  conferred  subsequently,  and  among 
Christians,  a  significance  on  the  term  parasceue,  which  it  did 
not  previously  possess.^ 

The  incident  of  Simon's  "coming  from  the  field,"  and 
meeting  Jesus  on  his  way  to  Calvary,  is  unduly  dwelt  on  by 
Dr.  Bleek.  Nothing  is  said,  which  indicates-  that  he  had  been 
engaged  in  any  kind  of  labour,  and  his  '  coming '  might  be 
altogether  within  the  limits  of  a  Sabbath-day's  journey.  It 
does  not  appear  from  the  citations  adduced  by  Dr.  Bleek,  that 
the  Rabbis  were  altogether  agreed  among  themselves,  what 
acts  were  and  what  were  not  permissible  on  a  Sabbath  day  or  u 
sabbatical  festival.  One  authority  says,^  that  in  case  of  sacri- 
lege, the  offender  might  be  seized  and  brought  to  the  Temple 
and  there  be  put  to  death  in  the  presence  of  all  the  people,  at 
one  of  the  three  holy  festivals.  In  the  eyes  of  his  enemies  the 
case  of  Jesus  would  have  come  within  the  scope  of  this  decision. 
He  was  regarded  as  a  blasphemer,  whose  death  must  be  an 
acceptable  offering  to  offended  Deity .^  His  crucifixion  was  a 
solemn  auto  da  fe,  which  rather  enhanced  than  profaned  the 
sanctity  of  a  sabbatical  day ;  and  the  execution  along  with  him 
of  two  ordinary  malefactors,,  was  only  intended  to  augment  b}' 
bitterness  and  contumely  the  force  of  this  expiatory  sacrifice. 

1  In  the  "Gesta  Pilati  "  (A.  recently  published  by  Tischenclorf),  irapaffKevn  occurs 
in  a  context,  where  it  cannot  mean  anything  but  the  day  before  a  sabbath  (xv.  5,  p.  253). 

2  Bleek,  Beitrage,  etc.,  pp.  145  and  6. 

3  It  was  a  doctrine  of  the  Rabbis,  cited  by  "Wetstein  and  Liicke  on  John  xvi.  2 ; 
"  Quisquis  effundit  sanguinera  impii,  idem  facit  ac  si  sacrificium  offerat."  This 
sentiment  involves  the  seed  of  all  religious  persecution.  Christ  foresaw  its  applica- 
tion to  his  followers. 


134  CHARACTER    OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Independently,  however,  of  these  considerations,  I  cannot 
believe,  that  either  the  original  provisions  of  the  Mosaic  Law, 
or  the  later  decisions  of  the  Rabbis,  who  interpreted  their 
ancient  Scriptures  with  a  superstitious  servility  to  the  letter,  are 
applicable  in  all  their  strictures  to  the  disordered  times  in 
which  Christ  lived,  when  the  old  Hebrew  theocracy  was  break- 
ing down  under  heathen  influence,  and  the  factions  which 
disposed  of  the  priesthood  and  raged  in  the  Synedrium,  rendered 
it  difficult  to  exercise  any  regular  Jewish  jurisdiction  at  all 
The  fear  which  Matthew  (xxvi.  5)  and  Mark  (xiv.  2)  ascribe  to 
the  rulers,  of  rousing  the  people,  if  they  should  apprehend  Jesus 
"  on  the  feast  day " — implies,  that  they  would  have  felt  no 
scruple  in  doing  so  on  account  of  the  day  itself.^  One  consider- 
ation to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  seems  to  me  to  deprive  of 
all  weight  the  argument  on  which  so  much  stress  has  been  laid 
by  Professor  Bleek.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  that 
the  Synoptists  have  transmitted  to  us  the  earliest  Palestinian 
tradition  respecting   the  life  and  deatli  of  Jesus  ^  and  two  of 

'  I  took  this  view,  when  I  first  became  acquainted  with  Bleek's  argument  some 
years  ago.  I  have  since  found  it  confirmed  by  the  judgment  of  the  learned  Jewish 
historian,  Jost,  in  his  recent  work,  "  Geschichte  des  Judenthums  und  seiner  Secten" 
(III.  iii.  12.  Vol.  I.  p.  402,  seq.).  He  says,  that  all  the  proceedings  against  Jesus 
were  irregular,  arranged  probably  by  some  secret  understanding  between  Caiaphas  aud 
Herod  ;  and  that  there  is  no  trace  of  a  formal  judicial  investigation,  still  less  of  a  duly 
assembled  meeting  of  the  Sanhedrim.  This  is  indicated,  he  thinks,  by  the  unseemly 
haste  and  precipitation  which  marked  the  whole  transaction.  Their  assembling  at  so 
early  an  hour  on  the  Friday  morning  betrays  the  perplexity  of  the  chief  priests  and 
rulers  of  the  people.  He  notices  the  absence  of  Gamaliel,  one  of  the  Sanhedrim,  from 
all  their  deliberations,  as  significant ;  and  adds,  in  language  most  remarkable,  as 
coming  from  a  Jew  :  "  here  was  no  trial  ;  it  was  a  private  murder.  It  was  not  the 
Jews  who  crucified  Jesus,  but  a  number,  not  more  particularly  specified,  of  determined 
enemies,  who  took  the  responsibility  on  themselves."  (p,  408.) 

I  ought  to  observe  that,  according  to  Jost,  the  Rabbis  accept  it  as  a  fact,  that  Jesus 
was  crucified  on  the  day  before  the  first  day  of  the  Passover,  that  is  on  the  14th  Nisan, 
They  agree,  therefore,  in  this  with  the  statement  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  But  Jost 
shows  clearly,  in  the  same  place,  ithat  not  the  slightest  reliance  can  be  placed  on  these 
rabbinical  statements,  which  rested  on  vague  traditions,  and  discover  the  greatest  ignor- 
ance of  historical  facts.  The  same  motive  which  induced  the  Christians  to  put  the 
crucifixion  on  the  day  of  the  Passover,  viz.,  to  prevent  any  possible  confusion  of  the 
Jewish  and  Christian  paschas,  would  have  equal  weight  with  the  Jews,  from  the 
time  when  the  hostility  between  the  two  religions  became  marked  and  irreconcilable. 


CHRONOLOGY    OF    THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION,  135 

them,  Matthew  and  Mark,  were  themselves  Jews.  Now,  admit - 
ing  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  materials  left  by  them 
were  subsequently  worked  up  into  their  present  form  by  other 
hands,  still  those  materials  were  Jewish,  and  the  Jewish  im- 
press remains  on  them  most  distinctly  to  this  day.  If,  then,  it 
had  been  impossible  in  the  actual  state  of  Judea,  for  the  cruci- 
fixion to  have  taken  place  on  the  15th  of  Nisan,  the  writers  of 
those  gospels  must  have  known,  that  it  was  so  ;  and  it  is  to  me 
perfectly  incredible  how  they  should  have  admitted  into  their 
narrative  a  statement  which  was  so  flagrantly  at  variance  with 
the  established  usage  of  their  country,  and  which  must  have 
carried  on  its  face  the  plainest  evidence  of  falsehood. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE. 

A  learned  friend,  S.S.,  in  some  "  Biblical  Notes "  com- 
municated to  the  "  Truth-Seeker "  (March,  1864),  has  taken 
up  the  defence  of  the  chronology  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  re- 
lative to  the  time  of  the  crucifixion,  against  that  of  the 
Synoptists.  His  conclusion  is  mainly  an  inference  from  the 
abbreviation  of  time  obtained  by  his  mode  of  reckoning  the 
years  of  reigns,  supported,  as  he  thinks,  by  the  concurrence 
of  ancient  testimony.  According  to  the  civil  reckoning,  he 
tells  us,  of  Egypt,  Syria,  Babylon  and  Asia,  the  fragment  of 
a  year,  though  it  should  amount  to  only  a  few  days,  was 
always  reckoned  as  the  first  year  of  a  sovereign's  reign.  By 
applying  this  princij)le  to  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  he  saves  a 
year,  making  the  15th  of  that  reign  begin  August  29th,  a.d. 
27.  Allowing  one  year  and  a  part  of  two  others  for  the 
public  ministry  of  Christ — including  the  autumn  of  27  a.d., 
the  whole  of  28  a.d.,  and  the  spring  of  29  a.d. — we  get  29 
A.D.  as  the  year  of  the  crucifixion.  According  to  the  calcu- 
lations of  Adams  and  Airy,  it  was  new  moon  at  Jerusalem 
that  year  one  hour  after  sunset  on  Saturday,  April  2nd ;  con- 


136  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

sequently  tlie  next  day  was  the  1st  of  Nisan  (coincident  witli 
the  first  appearance  of  the  new  moon).  Thirteen  days  later 
was  the  full  moon,  on  the  14th  of  Nisan,  which,  according 
to  this  reckoning,  must  have  fallen  on  Saturday,  April  16th 
(the  Sabbath).  On  the  evening  of  this  Saturday  (the  14th 
of  Nisan)  the  Passover  was  eaten ;  and  the  following  day 
(our  Sunday),  the  15th  of  Nisan,  was  the  first  day  of  the 
feast  of  Unleavened  Bread.  In  this  manner,  S.  S.,  fol- 
lowing the  determinations  of  the  astronomers,  distributes  the 
events  of  the  Paschal  or  Passion  week ;  and  the  arrange- 
ment, he  contends,  is  more  in  accordance  with  the  statements 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  than  with  those  of  the  three  first. 

Upon  this  I  have  first  to  remark  in  general,  that  the  appli- 
cation of  scientific  tests  to  a  subject  like  the  present,  is  often 
fallacious.  It  may  have  the  appearance  of  establishing  a  pre- 
cise truth ;  while,  in  fact,  it  is  only  confirming  an  error.  Given 
the  year,  we  can,  of  course,  determine  by  the  help  of  science  on 
what  day  of  that  year  any  particidar  astronomical  phenomena 
would  occur.  But  we  must  first  determine  from  independent 
evidence  the  year  itself;  and  that  is  the  very  point  in  dis- 
pute. Considering  the  nature  of  the  documents  with  which 
we  have  to  deal,  I  do  not  think  it  possible  to  get  beyond 
proximate  chronological  results ;  such,  for  instance,  as  that 
sometime  about  the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  a  great 
religious  movement,  associated  with  the  names  of  John  the 
Baptist  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  broke  out  in  Palestine. 
Within  the  New  Testament  itself,  I  find  no  certain  data  for 
determining  the  duration  of  Christ's  public  ministry.  We 
know  that  it  must  have  terminated  while  Pontius  Pilate  was 
Procurator  of  Judaea ;  and  therefore  could  not  have  extended 
beyond  36  a.d.,  when  Pilate  was  removed  from  his  office.  I 
am  strengthened  in  my  persuasion  of  the  great  uncertainty 
accompanying  all  attempts  to  fix  the  precise  year  of  Christ's 
death,  by  observing  how  widely  the  conclusions  of  the  most 
learned   men  have  been  at  variance    respecting  it, — varying 


CHRONOLOGY   OF   THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION.  137 

from  29  a.d,,  through  all  the  intermediate  dates,  to  35  a.d. 
(see  the  Comparative  Table,  appended  to  Wieseler's  "Chrono- 
logische  Synopse  der  vier  Evangelien  "). 

S.  S.  affirms  that  all  foreign  testimony  confirms  his  view  of  the 
year  of  Christ's  death ;  alluding,  I  presume,  to  the  general  agree- 
ment among  early  Christian  writers,  to  place  that  event  in  the 
consulship  of  the  two  Gemini,  C.  Rubellius  and  C.  Rufius,  which 
is  referred  by  Zumpt  (Annales  voter.  Eegn.  et  Popul.)  and 
by  Clinton  (Fasti  Romani)  to  29  a.d.  It  becomes  necessary, 
therefore,  to  examine  the  grounds  on  which  this  agreement 
appears  ultimately  to  rest.  It  is  quite  evident  to  me,  that 
the  point  of  departure  for  all  these  testimonies  on  which  my 
friend  lays  so  much  stress,  is  the  one  only  definite  chrono- 
gical  datum  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  gospels — viz.,  Luke 
iii.  I,  2  (comp.  iii.  23)  ;  and  that  they  have  simply  followed 
one  another,  with  the  slightest  possible  variation,  in  adopting 
it.  We  probably  detect  the  earliest  use  of  this  date  in  the 
"  Acta  Pilati,"  which,  from  Justin  Martyr  downwards,  were 
constantly  cited  by  Christian  writers  as  a  historical  authority.^ 
If  for  the  reasons  so  clearly  stated  by  Thilo  {Cod.  Apocr. 
Prolegom.  p.  cxviii)  and  Tischendorf  (Evangel.  Apocr.  Pro- 
legom.  p.  Ixiii.  Ixv,),  we  may  asssume  the  first  part  of  what 
is  called  the  "  Gospel  of  Nicodemus "  to  contain  the  sub- 
stance of  the  original  "Acta  Pilati" — those  Acts  introduced 
the  account  of  our  Lord's  cross  and  passion  with  the  fol- 
lowing date:  "in  the  15th  year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius 
Caesar,  King  of  the  Romans,  and  in  the  19th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Herod,  King  of  Galilee,  on  the  8th  day  before  the 
Calends  of  April,  which  is  the  25th  of  March,  in  the  consul- 
ship of  Rufus  and  RubelHo,  in  the  4th  year  of  202nd  Olym- 
piad, when  Joseph,  son  of  Caiaphas,  was  high  priest  of  the 
Jews."  This  chronological  determination,  it  will  be  observed, 
is  not  associated  with  the  baptism,  but  with  the  crucifixion  of 
Jesus,  and  must  correspond,  therefore,  not  to  27  a.d.,  assigned  by 
1  See  Tischendorf,  "  De  Orig.  et  Usu  Evangel.  Apocryph.,"  p.  95. 


138  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

S.  S.  to  the  15th  of  Tiberius,  but  to  29  a.d.,  on  his  theory  the 
assumed  year  of  Christ's  death.  It  seems  to  have  been  found 
by  the  very  obvious  process  of  looking  into  the  Fasti  Romani 
for  the  synchronism  to  the  15th  of  Tiberius,  and  can  only  be 
reconciled  with  Luke,  on  the  supposition  that  the  baptism 
and  the  crucifixion  occurred  within  the  limits  of  one  year. 
"We  find  Epiphanius  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  when 
the  paschal  controversy  had  led  to  great  difierences  among 
Christians  as  to  the  proper  time  of  celebrating  Easter,  still 
referring  to  the  "Acta  Pilati "  as  a  chronological  authority, 
and  remarking  that  several  copies  of  them  which  he  had 
seen,  varied,  in  assigning  the  anniversary  of  the  Passion,  be- 
tween the  8th,  the  13th,  and  the  10th  before  the  Calends  of 
April ;  though  it  is  significant  that,  according  to  Epiphanius, 
the  Quartodecimans,  who  probably  preserved  the  original 
tradition,  appear  to  have  agreed  with  the  date  given  above,  in 
observing  the  8th  (Epiphan.  Panar.  L.  1.). 

What  I  have  said  about  the  probable  origin  of  the  date  of 
the  passion,  traditionally  accepted  by  Christian  writers,  is 
rendered  additionally  clear  by  the  more  unexceptionable  testi- 
mony of  TertuUian  (adv.  Juda30S,  c.  viii.).  At  the  close  of 
an  investigation  of  the  numbers  in  Daniel,  he  adds :  *'  Tiberii 
Caesaris  quintodecimo  anno  imperii  passus  est  Christus,  annos 
habens  quasi  xxx.  cum  j)ateretur." — "  Quae  passio — perfecta  est 
sub  Tiberio  Cassare,  Coss.  Pubellio  Gemino  et  E-ufio  Gemino, 
mense  Martio,  temporibus  paschae,  die  viii.  Calend.  April,  die 
prima  azymorum,  quo  agnum  ut  occiderent  ad  vesperem,  a 
Moyse  fuerat  praeceptum."  This  date  agrees  with  the  one 
probably  assigned  by  the  "  Acta  Pilati ;"  and  though  Tertul- 
lian  does  not  here  quote  the  "Acta  "  as  its  immediate  source 
yet  it  appears  from  Apologet.  c.  21,  that  he  was  acquainted 
with  them,  and  appealed  to  them  as  an  authority.  That  he 
included  the  baptism  in  the  same  year  with  the  passion,  is 
evident  from  another  passage  (adv.  Marcionem,  c.  19):  "Anno 
XV.  Tiberii,  Christus  Jesus  de  caelo  manare  dignatus  est,  spiritus 


CHRONOLOGY   OF    THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION.  139 

salutaris."  Tertullian,  then,  does  not  seem  to  lend  any  warrant 
to  S.  S.'s  distribution  of  time,  which  assigns  the  15th  of  Tiberius 
with  the  baptism  to  27  a.d.,  and  carries  on  the  passion  to  29  a.d. 
If  we  proceed  to  the  next  witness  in  the  series,  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  we  find  him,  like  Tertullian,  anxious  to  make  out 
arithmetical  symmetries  from  the  mystic  numbers  in  Daniel ; 
and  this  does  not  dispose  us  a  priori  to  look  with  much  con- 
fidence to  his  chronological  determinations.  Nevertheless,  he 
refers  distinctly  to  Luke  iii.  1  (Strom.  I.  cxxi.  §  145)  for  the 
15th  of  Tiberius  as  the  date  of  the  baptism,  when  Jesus  was 
about  thirty  years  of  age;  and  he  quotes  Luke  iv.  19,  to 
prove  that  Christ's  ministry  could  not  have  lasted  more  than 
a  year  :  ort  iviavrbv  jjlovov  eSei,  avrov  Krjpv^ac  Kai  rovro  767- 
pairrai  ouro)?  k.  t,  X.  In  the  following  section  (146),  he 
mentions  some  who,  aiming  at  more  precision  (aKpi/3o\o<yov- 
fjb€voi),  put  the  passion  in  the  16th  year  of  Tiberius  ;  but 
that  he  himself  accepted  the  15th,  is  quite  clear  from  his  own 
reasoning, — that  between  the  birth  and  the  death  of  Christ,  the 
15th  of  Augustus  and  15th  of  Tiberius,  the  thirty  years  were 
completed,  which  had  been  announced  by  the  prophet  and  the 
gospel :  TOVTO  koI  6  7rpo(f»]r7)<i  h^rev  koX  to  ivayyeXiov,  irevre- 
KacSeKaro)  ovv  erei  Tt^eplov  koX  TrevTeKacSeKarw  'Avyovarov, 
ovTQ)  TrXrjpovTai  ra  irpiaicovTa  err]  ecos  ov  eiraOev.  From  the 
passion  to  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  he  further  reckons  forty-two 
years  three  months.  Origen  (Contra  Cels.  IV.  22)  probably 
following  Clement,  who  had  been  his  teacher,  says  forty-two 
years  elapsed  between  the  crucifixion  and  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem ;  and  assuming  this  last  event,  as  is  generally  ad- 
mitted, to  have  occurred  in  70  a.d. — by  deducting  in  round 
numbers  forty-two,  we  get  a  proximate  date  for  the  passion, 
28  A.D.  But  then,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  Clement 
reckons,  as  we  have  just  seen,  from  the  15th  of-  Tiberius, 
which  S.  S.  identifies  with  27  a.d.,  putting  the  crucifixion 
in  29  a.d.  All  this  seems  to  show,  how  impossible  it  is,  with 
our  existing  data  of  time,  to  get  beyond  a  rough  approxima- 


140  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

tion.  Scaliger  (quoted  by  Spencer  in  Orig.  c.  Cels.  1.  c.)  and 
Clinton  (Fasti  Romani)  repudiate  the  numbers  of  both  Clement 
and  Origen  as  wrong.  Clinton  says,  "  the  true  interval  from 
the  Passover  of  the  15th  of  Tiberius,  29  a.d,,  to  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem,  was  forty-one  years  six  months."  Julius  Africanus 
(Chron.  Y.  Fragm.  apud  Routh,  Reliquiae  Sacrae,  ii.  301,  802) 
verifies  dates  from  numbers  in  Daniel,  eVt  to  Tt^epiov  kuI- 
aapo'i  eKfcatBeKaTov  eTo<i,  postponing  the  date  of  the  crucifixion 
a  year:  but  Jerome,  his  interpreter,  as  if  in  obedience  to  the 
received  tradition,  renders  his  words,  "  usque  ad  annum  quintum 
decimmn  Tiberii  Caesaris,  quando  passus  est  Christus."  Julius 
Africanus  identifies  his  date  of  the  16th  of  Tiberius  with  Olym- 
piad 202.  2.  The  "  Acta  Pilati,"  as  we  have  seen,  give 
Olympiad  202.  4.  Lastly,  Lactantius  (Div.  Instit.  IV.  x.) 
adheres  to  the  date  in  Luke,  with  its  further  traditional 
specifications,  varying  only  as  to  the  day  of  the  month : 
"  Tiberii  Caesaris  anno  quintodecimo,  id  est,  duobus  Geminis 
Consulibus,  a.  d.  10  Calend.  April.  Judaei  Christum  cruci 
affixerunt." 

After  this  enumeration,  I  cannot  admit,  that  "  all 
foreign  testimony"  is  in  favour  of  S.  S.'s  distribution 
of  the  events  of  Christ's  public  ministry.  An  internal  in- 
dication of  time  which  S.  S.  adduces  as  confirmatory  of  his 
view,  is  furnished  by  John  ii.  20 :  "  forty-and-six  years  was 
this  temple  in  building."  Herod  the  Great  came  to  the 
throne  39  b.c,  and  commenced  the  third  rebuilding  of  the 
temple  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  his  reign  (Joseph.  Antiquit. 
XY.  xi.  1),  which  coincides,  according  to  the  usual  calcula- 
tions (see  Meyer,  on  John  ii.  20)  with  20  or  19  b.c.  Assume 
the  former  date  as  most  favourable  to  S.  S.'s  theory :  then, 
46 — 20=26  A.D.,  one  year  before  the  time  assigned  by  S.  S.  for  the 
baptism  ;  and  this,  on  the  supposition,  that  the  expulsion  of  the 
money-changers  from  the  temple,  which  gave  occasion  to  these 
words,  is  left  where  it  occurs  in  the  Fourth  Gospel — i.e.,  at  the 
opening  of  Christ's  ministry.    Carried  forward,  as  S.  S.  contends 


CHRONOLOGY   OF   THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION.  141 

the  event  ought  to  be,  to  the  later  period  assigned  to  it  by  the 
Synoptists, — we  find  it  two  years  at  least  in  excess  beyond  the 
point  of  time  to  which  the  calculation  so  obtained  conducts 
us.  How  little  ground  there  is,  and  was  early  felt  to  be,  for 
chronological  exactness  in  this  matter,  beyond  the  one  date 
in  Luke,  which  the  Fathers  for  the  three  first  centuries  blindly 
followed  and  arbitrarily  interpreted,  is  evident  from  the  example 
of  Irenaeus  (adv.  Haeres.  II.  xxii.  4,  5,  6),  not  the  least  intel- 
ligent or  instructed  of  their  number,  who,  influenced  partly  by 
a  feeling  of  inherent  probability,  partly  by  his  understanding 
of  a  passage  in  John  (viii.  56,  57j,  and  partly,  it  would  seem, 
by  what  he  accepted  as  the  testimony  of  the  presbyters, — main- 
tained that  Jesus  only  began  his  ministry  when  he  was  about 
thirty  years,  but  must  have  prolonged  it  till  he  was  between 
forty  and  fifty. 

But  the  most  serious  objection  to  the  reckoning  which  S.  S. 
has  founded  on  the  determinations  of  the  astronomers,  is,  that 
it  is  as  much  at  variance,  if  I  understand  it  riglitly,  with  the 
chronology  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  itself  as  with  that  of  the  three 
first.  The  diSerence  between  them  is  this  :  that  whereas  the 
Synoptists  represent  Jesus  as  eating  the  Passover  with  his 
disciples  on  the  evening  of  the  14th  of  Nisan,  and  sufiering  on 
the  15th  ;  the  Fourth  Gospel,  substituting  the  supper  with  the 
feet-washing  on  the  evening  of  the  13th,  puts  the  passion  on 
the  14th  (Friday),  and  makes  the  following  day  (the  Sabbath), 
the  first  day  of  the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread.  All  four 
agree  as  to  the  days  of  the  week ;  but,  in  reckoning  the  days 
of  the  month,  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  one  day  behind  the  Synop- 
tists. The  chronology  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  ultimately  de- 
termined the  practice  of  the  Catholic  Church,  which  assumed, 
on  the  alleged  authority  of  the  apostle  John,  that  the  death 
of  Christ,  as  the  true  Passover,  and  the  slaughter  of  the 
paschal  lamb,  occurred  on  one  and  the  same  day — viz.,  the 
14th  of  Nisan.  I  can  find  nothing  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
to  giveil  even  plausibility  to  S.  S.'s  assertion,  that  the  14th 


142  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

of  Nisan  in  the  year  of  the  crucifixion  fell  on  a  Satur- 
day. The  Saturday,  according  to  every  indication  that  I  can 
discover  in  that  gospel,  was  the  15th.  If  we  appeal  to  astro- 
nomical determinations  at  all,  we  are  at  liberty  to  select-  for 
their  application  the  year  which,  on  independent  grounds, 
combines  the  largest  amount  of  probabiKties  in  its  favour. 
Wieseler,  in  his  very  elaborate  inquiry  into  the  chronology 
of  the  gospels,  taking  his  stand  on  the  narrative  of  the 
Synoptists,  has  given  strong  reasons  for  considering  this 
to  be  the  case  with  30  a.d.  as  the  year  of  the  crucifixion ; 
and  he  further  states,  that  "Wurm,  a  German  astronomer  of 
high  reputation,  has  ascertained,  by  calculations  made  quite 
irrespective  of  any  theory  about  the  Gospels,  that  in  the  year 
30,  the  15th  of  Nisan  might  fall  on  a  Friday — a  possibility 
which  I  believe  S.  S.  himself  would  not  deny. 

In  reply  to  the  objection  raised  by  S.  S.  against  the  proba- 
bility of  the  synoptical  account  of  the  Last  Supper, — that  it 
represents  the  company  as  reclining,  after  the  Roman  fashion, 
on  couches,  whereas,  according  to  the  Law  (Exodus  xii.  11), 
they  were  required  to  eat  the  Passover  standing,  as  in  haste, 
like  men  prepared  for  a  journey — I-  can  adduce  the  high 
authority  of  Otho  (Lexicon  Rabbinicum),  who  not  only  affirms 
generally  (p.  440),  "  tempore  salvatoris  nostri  Pascha  non 
ampKus  omnibus  illis  ritibus  celebrabant,  quibus  celebrabatur  ab 
initio," — but  has  shown  particularly,  in  the  following  passages 
of  his  work  (pp.  5,  6,  447,  454)  that  reclining  (accubitus) 
was  the  mode  observed  in  the  celebration  of  the  Passover  in 
the  time  of  ovir  Lord  and  subsequently. 

For  the  reasons  now  stated,  I  am  unable  to  give  up  the 
chronological  and  historical  statement  of  the  Synoptists,  re- 
commended as  it  is  by  its  internal  probability  and  self-con- 
sistency, for  the  ingenious  theory  of  my  friend,  which  seems  to 
me  as  irreconcilable  with  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  with  the  three 
first. 


143 


SECTION    XI. 

Recapitulation    and   Result. 

It  is  time  to  collect  into  one  view  theejvidence  that  has  heen 
exhibited  in  the  preceding  sections,  and  to  inquire  what  is  the 
result  to  which  it  points.  It  will  be  difficult,  I  think,  after 
an  unbiassed  comparison  of  the  matter  contained  in  the  Apo- 
calypse and  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  of  the  very  different  form 
into  which  it  has  been  cast  by  each — to  believe  that  both 
books  are  the  production  of  the  same  author.  Nothing,  pro- 
bably, but  a  sort  of  religious  reverence  for  the  traditions  of 
the  Church,  could  ever  have  allowed  a  critical  mind  to  acquiesce 
in  such  a  conclusion.  As  both  works  have  been  ascribed  to 
the  apostle  John,  the  first  and  most  obvious  method  which 
su2:ofests  itself  for  determinino:  the  claim  of  either  to  such  a 
parentage,  is  to  compare  the  tone  of  thought  and  sentiment 
which  they  respectively  exhibit,  with  the  character  of  its 
reputed  author.  No  two  works  can  possibly  be  more  strongly 
contrasted  in  their  form  and  underlying  type  of  mind,  than  the 
Apocalypse  and  the  Fourth  Grospel.  The  former  is  intensely 
Jewish  in  its  spirit ;  abounds  in  rich,  concrete  imagery  ;  and  is 
pervaded  by  a  vivid  Chiliasm  from  beginning  to  end.  Its 
language  is  so  broken  and  rough,  so  ungrammatical  and  sole- 
cistic,  as  to  be  absolutely  barbarous.  The  latter,  on  the 
contrary,  bears  traces  throughout  of  a  marked  antipathy  to 
Judaism  ;  is  free  from  every  vestige  of  Chiliasm ;  deals  rather 
in  the  mystic  abstractions  of  the  later  Alexandrine  schools,  than 
in  the  sensuous  pictures  of  the  old  prophets  ;  and  like  the  bed  of 
some  deep  river,  is  filled  to  the  brim  with  a  continuous  flow,  if 
not  of  pure,  at  least  of  such  smooth  and  persj)icuou8  Greek  as 


144  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

indicates  a  long  habitude  of  speaking  and  thinking  in  that 
language.  ^N'ovr,  compare  with  this  striking  diiierence  between 
the  tvro  works,  all  that  we  know  from  the  Xew  Testament  and 
from  ecclesiastical  tradition,  of  the  personal  character  of  the 
apostle  John.  From  the  former  source  we  leam,  that  with  his 
mother  and  elder  brother  he  ardently  shared  in  the  Messianic 
hopes  of  his  age  and  country ;  that  in  him  those  hopes  were 
profoundly  Jewish,  tinged  with  a  narrowness  and  national 
prejudice  which  all  his  loye  and  reyerence  for  the  Great  Master 
but  imperfectly  kept  in  check.  After  the  death  of  Christ  we 
find  him  actiyely  engaged  with  Peter  in  establishing  the 
earliest  church  at  Jerusalem,  which  we  know  was  Jewish, — and, 
as  we  not  obscurely  gather  from.  Acts  and  the  Epistles,  iden- 
tified with  the  party  that  opposed  itself  to  the  more  liberal 
moyement  set  on  foot  by  Stephen  and  Paul.  Drawing  our 
inferences  from  the  ^Xew  Testament  alone,  exclusiye  of  the 
Fourth  Grospel,  we  should  say  that  John,  the  son  of  Zebedee, 
as  there  exhibited,  was  a  complete  specimen  of  the  primitiye 
Jewish  Christian,  warm-hearted,  honest  and  deyoted,  full  of 
zeal  for  his  Master's  service,  but  withal  imlettered  und  unculti- 
yated,  and  wanting  the  breadth  of  mind  which  only  culture  can 
OTye.  The  few  and  yasrue  traditions  which  haye  come  down 
from  the  ancient  church  of  Ephesus,  are  on  the  whole — certainly 
the  oldest  and  most  reliable  amongst  them — ia  harmony  with 
this  description  of  the  apostle  John.  Upon  such  eyidence, 
then,  as  now  lies  before  us,  if  we  had  to  decide  which  of  the  two 
works  imder  considertaion  best  corresponded  with  the  character 
of  their  reputed  author,  we  could  hardly  hesitate  in  replying — 
the  Apocalypse. 

The  direct  testimony  of  antiquity,  so  far  as  we  can  now 
recover  it,  is  in  fayour  of  the  same  conclusion.  Xot  to  in- 
sist on  the  doubtful  witness  of  Papias  and  Clement  of  Pome, 
the  earliest  distinct  citations  of  the  Apocalypse  in  Justin 
Martyr  and  Hippolytus  refer  it  by  name  to  the  apostle  John 
as  its  author  ;  a  specification  the  more  remarkable,  as  it  ia  not 


RECAPITULATION    AND    RESULT.  145 

attached  by  tliese  writers  to  their  general  citations,  numerous 
as  they  are,  from  the  other  books  of  the  New  Testament.^  In 
the  great  writers  at  the  end  of  the  second,  and  in  the  first  half 
of  the  third  century,  Irenasus,  Tertullian,  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria, and  Origen,  who  are  our  chief  authorities  for  the  books 
constituting  our  present  canon,  the  Apocalypse  is  certainly 
quoted  or  alluded  to  in  the  most  express  terms,  as  an  undoubted 
work  of  the  apostle  John.  Not  till  the  middle  of  the  third  and 
the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  in  the  time  of  Dionysius 
of  Alexandria,  and  Eusebius  the  historian,  do  we  find  doubts 
beginning  to  be  intimated ;  and  we  can  pretty  clearly  point  to 
their  source  in  the  growing  aversion  to  the  old  popular  Chili- 
asm,  and  the  conviction  that  such  a  doctrine  could  never  have 
had  the  sanction  of  an  apostolic  name.  The  superior  critical 
discernment  cultivated  in  the  learned  school  of  Alexandria,  and 
displayed  to  such  advantage  by  Dionysius,  had  led  to  the  con- 
clusion, that  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  could  not  be 
by  the  same  hand;  while,  in  adjudicating  between  them,  the 
strong  subjective  feeling  of  what  was  and  must  be  Christian 
truth — which  in  those  days  mainly  decided  in  the  last  instance 
the  question  of  apostolic  authorship — gave  the  preference  to  the 
Gospel.  So  long  as  learning  and  intelligence  had  free  play,  the 
question  remained  an  open  one  ;  till  criticism  Avas  suppressed  by 
authority,  and  the  Church  decreed,  that  the  ApocaljqDse  and  the 
Gospel  were  both  to  be  accepted  as  the  work  of  the  apostle 
John.  In  the  line  of  testimony  on  behalf  of  the  Gos]3el,  we  are 
struck  with  a  singular  contrast  to  that  alleged  for  the  Apoca- 
lypse. It  begins  to  be  express  and  fall  about  the  time  tliat  the 
latter  becomes  faint  and  wavering,  in  the  period  of  transition 
from  the  second  to  the  third  century,  when  the  feeling  first 
clearly  manifests  itself,  which  ultimately  separated  the  Catholic 
Church  from  the  primitive  Judaic  Christianity.  The  earliest 
notice  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  the  name  of  the  aiJostle,  occurs 

1  The  only  exception  that  I  can  call  to  mind,  is  a  passage  in  Hippolytus  (vii.  32), 
where  Mark's  gospel  is  referred  to. 

10 


146  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

in  a  work  of  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  178,  a.c.  That  gospel 
expressed  distinctly  and  decidedly  the  principles  which  now 
grew  into  ascendancy  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  contained  the 
germ  of  all  the  doctrines  that  were  gradually  elaborated  by 
successive  councils  into  the  scientific  formulas  of  orthodoxy. 
From  the  third  century  downwards  its  authority  in  the  Catho- 
lic Church  was  undisputed  and  supreme.  Of  the  ineffectual 
protests  of  the  Alogi  we  catch  only  obscure  and  uncertain 
rumours.  Already  in  the  third  century  we  perceive  a  tendency 
on  the  part  of  the  Fathers — in  the  case  of  variations  between  the 
evangelical  narratives, — to  appeal  to  the  authority  of  John  as 
decisive — as  something  normal,  to  which  the  statements  of  the 
Synoptists  must  be  made  to  conform.  But  this,  it  is  obvious, 
was  a  dogmatic  resource,  not  a  critical  judgment.  If  we 
compare  the  contents  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  those  of  the 
Apocalypse,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  numerous  internal 
indications  of  the  later  date  of  the  former.  The  Apocalypse  is 
deeply  impregnated  with  the  Jewish  spirit,  which  entered,  we 
know,  so  largely  into  the  earliest  form  of  Christian  belief,  and 
with  the  strong  colouring  of  which  the  original  teachings  of 
Jesus  himself,  as  represented  by  Matthew,  were  decidedly 
tinged.  Chiliasm  was  a  sure  mark  of  primitive  Palestinian 
Christianity  ;  and  the  Apocalypse  is  steeped  in  the  very  essence 
of  Chiliasm.  That  this  Chiliastic  clement  should  be  so  entirely 
wanting  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  must  be  regarded  as  a  sure 
indication  of  subsequent  origin.  Moreover  the  calm,  elevated 
tone  of  conscious  superiority  which  pervades  it,  implies  that  the 
first  fierce  stage  of  controversy  had  been  triumphantly  termi- 
nated, and  that  the  Jews,  the  oldest  and  bitterest  opponents  of 
the  Gospel,  who  stand  here  in  a  very  different  relation  to  Christ 
from  that  which  is  disclosed  by  the  Synoptists,  had  been  already 
reduced  to  a  condition  of  comparative  weakness  and  subjection. 
We  all  feel  as  we  read,  that  it  is  not  the  same  social  atmosphere 
which  we  breathe  in  the  epistles  of  Paul.  The  unmistakeable 
influence  of  philosophical  ideas  on  the  language  of  this  gospel, 


RECAPITULATION    AND    RESULT.  147 

is  a  phenomenon  whicli  can  only  be  explained  on  the  supposition, 
that  a  sufficient  length  of  time  had  now  elapsed  to  allow  of  the 
new  religion  emerging  from  the  sphere  of  popular  sympathies 
and  expectations,  where  it  had  its  source,  into  those  higher 
regions  of  thought  which  brought  it  into  contact  with  the 
speculative  theories  of  the  age.  Its  indications,  too,  of  the 
relations  of  Christianity  with  the  outward  world,  and  its  signi- 
ficant glances — the  more  significant  that  they  are  but  glances — 
at  the  mystical  belief  already  associated  with  the  eucharist, 
furnish  another  and  equal  proof  of  a  time  when  the  doctrine  and 
ritual  of  the  church  had  undergone  a  development  which  it 
could  have  taken  little  less  than  a  century  from  the  death  of 
Christ  to  efiect.  Any  one  who  keeps  in  view  what  apostolic 
Christianity  originally  was,  and  compares  it  with  the  features 
which  I  have  just  noticed  as  marking  the  Fourth  Gospel, — will 
hardly  persuade  himself  that  a  work  which  bears  on  it  such 
distinct  traces  of  later  thought  and  later  usage  could  have  been 
produced  within  the  limits  of  the  apostolic  age,  even  if  we 
extend  that  period  to  the  close  of  the  first  century. 

It  is  remarkable,  that  in  searching  for  the  evidence  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  through  the  second  century,  we  first  come  upon 
traces  of  the  doctrine  which  it  contains ;  then  we  discover 
proofs,  more  or  less  distinct,  of  the  existence  of  the  book ; 
lastly,  but  not  till  quite  towards  the  end  of  the  century,  do 
we  find  the  apostle  John  mentioned  by  name  as  its  author. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  which  had  already  been  rendered 
familiar  to  the  more  educated  Jewish  mind  through  the  influence 
of  Philo  and  other  Alexandrine  teachers,  supplied  the  grand 
metaphysical  formula,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  explain  in  a 
former  section,  for  reconciling  philosophical  heathens  to  the 
idea  of  a  revelation  of  God  in  man.  It  was  the  controversial 
weapon  with  which  the  apologists  of  the  second  century  com- 
bated the  polytheistic  tendencies  of  the  Hellenic  world  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  monotheistic  narrowness  of  the  Jews  on  the 
other.     We  might  almost  say,  that  it  was  evoked  out  of  pre- 


148 


CHARACTER   OP   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 


existing  elements  as  an  intellectual  necessity  of  the  age.  As 
Catholicism  predominated  over  the  conflicting  tendencies  which, 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  second  century,  had  shaken  the  Church 
to  its  foundations,  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  became  the  bind- 
ing and  consolidating  principle  of  the  whole  ecclesiastical  fabric, 
which  not  only  recommended  itself  to  the  syncretistic  spirit 
that  brought  the  most  advanced  minds  of  heathenism  and 
Christianity  into  vital  proximity,  but  was  now  urged  on  the 
acceptance  of  the  great  mass  of  traditional  believers  by  the 
authority  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  apostles. 

On  the  subject  of  the  Last  Supper  the  Fourth  Gospel  and 
the  Synoptists  are  irreconcilably  at  variance ;  and  in  the 
Quartodeciman  controversy,  the  Asiatics  of  Ephesus  and  its 
neighbourhood,  who  must  have  known  from  tradition  what 
was  the  usage  of  the  great  apostolic  head  of  their  Church, 
appealed  to  the  example  of  John  in  favour  of  their  own 
practice  of  keeping  the  inischa  on  the  14th  of  Nisan.  The 
most  intelligible  explanation  of  this  practice,  and  of  the  whole 
controversy  that  sprang  out  of  it,  is  to  be  found  in  the  as- 
sumption, that  it  was  at  first  an  anniial  commemoration  on 
the  same  day  of  the  month,  in  obedience  to  Christ's  own  com- 
mand, of  the  farewell  suj)per,  of  which  he  partook  with  his 
disciples  at  the  regular  celebration  of  the  Jewish  Passover ; 
and  that  this  usage  became  ofiensive  to  the  Catholics,  as  per- 
petuating Jewish  ideas,  when  the  Chvirch  finally  broke  with 
Judaism  and  transferred  the  pascha,  as  an  essentially  Christian 
observance,  from  the  14th  of  Nisan  to  the  Sunday  following 
the  full  moon  on  or  next  after  the  vernal  equinox.  The  con- 
troversy, therefore,  though  itself  occasional,  involved  the 
deeper  principle  on  which  the  whole  future  of  Christianity 
turned,  whether  the  new  religion  should  henceforth  be  Judaic 
or  Catholic  in  tendency.  Of  the  origin  of  this  Quartodeciman 
practice  the  Synoptists  give  a  plain  and  intelligent  account ; 
whereas  the  statement  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  not  only  in- 
consistent with  that  account,  but  makes  the  usage  itself,  in  the 


RECAPITULATION    AND    RESULT.  149 

Christian  sense,  absolutely  impossible.  Nothing  can  appear 
more  strange,  than  that  the  author  of  a  book  so  strongly 
anti- Judaic  as  the  Fourth  Gospel,  should  be  quoted  as  the 
authority  for  a  custom  which  was  one  of  the  last  relics  of 
Judaism  that  lingered  in  the  Christian  church  : — and  the  legi- 
timate inference  is,  that  the  apostle  John,  whose  ways  were 
well  known  and  long  remembered  at  Ephesus,  cannot  have 
written  the  gospel  which  bears  his  name.  Considered  as  histori- 
cal documents,  the  Sj^noptical  Gospels  carry  in  them  much 
stronger  indications  of  internal  probability  than  the  Fourth. 
They  clearly  embody  the  original  Palestinian  tradition  respect- 
ing Jesus,  which  is  simple  and  self-consistent ;  and  in  their 
description  of  the  closing  scenes  of  his  life,  they  furnish  the 
only  extant  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  most  expressive 
rite  of  Christendom,  which  in  its  characteristic  features  still 
corresponds  to  that  description,  and  finds  in  it  its  Scriptural  war- 
rant and  justification.  That  the  crucifixion,  according  to  their 
narrative,  should  have  fallen  on  a  sabbatical  day  is  not,  when 
we  consider  both  the  disordered  state  of  the  times  and  the 
conflict  of  Rabbinical  testimony  on  the  subject,  any  indication 
of  contrariety  to  historical  fact.  At  all  events,  the  Synoptists 
were  Jews,  who  were  acquainted  with  the  actual  usages  of 
their  country  at  the  time,  and  would  never  have  ventured  to 
introduce  into  their  history  what  they  knew  was  impossible 
or  absurd.  The  absence  from  the  Fourth  Gospel  of  the 
particulars  recorded  by  the  Synoptists,  and  its  identifying 
the  time  of  the  crucifixion  with  that  of  the  Passover  on  the; 
evening  of  the  14th,  so  as  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  Christ 
himself  having  legally  celebrated  it — are  remarkable  and  signi- 
ficant instances  of  the  contrariety  between  the  two  accounts, 
which  cannot  on  either  side  have  been  the  result  of  mere  chro- 
nological oversight,  but  must  on  one  side  or  the  other  have 
proceeded  from  design.^    It  is  inconceivable,  that  the  synoptical 

'  The  feet-washing  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  takes  the  place  of  the  paschal  supper  iu 
the  Synoptists.     In  the  fifth  century  the  Lord's  Supper  and  the  ceremony  of  feet- 


150  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

narratives,  even  ttat  of  Matthew,  could  have  been  written  to 
subserve  the  interests  of  a  Jewish  Christianity  as  opposed  to 
Catholicism.  What  is  still  Jewish  in  their  tone,  is  the  natural 
reflexion  of  a  living  and  genuine  tradition.  But  when  we 
observe  how  the  arrangement  of  events  at  the  end  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  coincides  with  the  doctrinal  aim  of  the  whole 
work,  how,  instead  of  Christ's  eating  the  Passover,  it  puts  his 
own  death  in  its  place — we  can  hardly  fail  to  see  in  these  dis- 
tinguishing peculiarities  of  the  Johannine  narrative,  the  evidence 
of  a  time,  when  doctrinal  considerations  had  begun  to  control  and 
modify  the  simple  statements  of  the  primitive  tradition ;  when 
the  Church  wished  to  believe,  that  it  had  been  purely  Christian, 
in  other  words,  wholly  un -Jewish,  from  the  first,  and  with 
that  view  conceived  and  presented  the  fundamental  fact,  on 
which  the  gospel  proclamation  of  pardon  and  eternal  life  was 
based,  in  such  a  light  as  to  mark  it  for  ever  as  the  final  abo- 
lition of  a  covenant  which  God  had  decreed  should  now  pass 
away. 

In  every  critical  inquiry  of  this  kind  it  is  more  easy  to  obtain 
a  negative  than  a  positive  result.  The  evidence  of  which  I 
have  just  exhibited  a  summary,  will  not  allow  me  to  regard  the 
Fourth  Gospel  as  of  apostolic  origin  in  the  strict  historical 
sense.  But  if  I  am  asked,  who  was  its  author,  and  when  it  was 
written,  I  confess  I  am  unable  to  give  a  categorical  answer.  If 
Papias,  as  Eusebius  informs  us,  cited  testimonies  from  the  first 
f^pistle  of  John — as  I  can  have  little  doubt  that  the  author  of 
that  epistle  and  of  the  gospel  were  one  and  the  same  person — 
the  author  must  have  been  living,  and  both  works  probably 
written,  before  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  The  death 
of  Papias  is  usually  assigned   to    163  a.d.     "We  find  thus  a 

washing,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  the  pcdilavium,  were  both  celebrated  on  the  Thurs- 
day immediately  preceding  Good  Friday, — what,  in  later  times,  has  been  known  under 
the  name  of  Maunday  Thursday  (probably  dies  Mandati),  But  we  have  the  authority 
of  Augustine  (Epist.  118  ad  Januarium)  for  saying,  that  the  Lord's  Supper  was  the 
more  ancient  and  general  custom,  and  the  pedilavium  of  later  introduction  and  more 
partial  obserrance.      (See  Riddle's  Christian  Antiquities,  Book  V.  ch.  iii.  p.  632.) 


RECAPITULATION    AND    RESULT.  151 

probable  terminus  ad  quern.  Can  we  suggest  a  terminus 
a  quo  ?  It  has  occurred  to  me  (as  I  have  already  inti- 
mated), in  studying  the  internal  indications  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  and  comparing  them  with  the  known  course  of  his- 
torical events,  that  they  point  to  a  time  when  the  Church  had 
finally  emancipated  itself  from  Jewish  bondage,  and  Jerusalem 
had  ceased  to  be  its  centre  of  religious  interest  and  rever- 
ence.^ Such  a  time  I  find  most  clearly  indicated  in  the  results 
of  the  suppression  of  the  Jewish  revolt  under  Bar  Cochba,  sub- 
sequent to  135  A.D.  This  is,  of  course,  nothing  more  than 
conjecture,  supported  by  no  direct  evidence.  Nevertheless, 
between  these  two  events — the  substitution  of  ^lia  Capitolina 
for  Jerusalem  by  Hadrian,  and  the  death  of  Papias — I  seem  to 
find  a  period  within  which  the  origin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
might,  without  improbability,  be  placed.  I  look  upon  the  final 
disengagement  of  Christianity  from  Judaism,  which  occurred  in 
the  reign  of  Hadrian,  as  the  first  decided  impulse  given  by  out- 
ward events  to  that  great  Catholic  movement,  which  Paul  com- 
menced, but  in  his  life-time  could  not  efiectually  sustain  against 
Judaic  opposition,  and  of  which  we  can  distinctly  trace  the 
influence  in  the  tone  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  betraying  the  same 
movement  at  a  more  advanced  stage  and  in  a  more  comprehen- 
sive form.  Most  providentially  the  difierent  books  of  the  New 
Testament  reveal  to  us  the  successive  steps  of  the  internal 
self-development  which  the  new  life  imparted  to  the  world 
by  Christ  went  through,  while  the  religion  was  yet  a  free, 
spontaneous  energy  of  popular  conviction  and  zeal,  unfettered 
by  the  canons  of  councils  and  imperial  decrees,  till  it  reached 
its  amplest  phase  of  spiritual  expansion  in  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

*  "  The  hour  cometh,  when  ye  shall  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor  yet  at  Jerusalem, 
worship  the  Father"  (John  iv.  21).  To  which  may  be  added  the  significant  passage 
(John  xi.  43) :  "  If  we  let  him  tlius  alone,  all  men  will  believe  on  him :  and  the 
Romans  shall  come  and  take  away  both  our  place  and  nation  :"  which  seems  to  me  to 
have  a  more  apposite  reference  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  under  Hadrian,  than 
to  that  under  Titus ;  for  it  was  not  till  the  former  event,  that  the  Jewish  nationality 
was  totally  destroyed. 


152  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

It  is  of  less  importance  to  be  able  to  say  precisely,  by  whom 
it  was  written,  than  to  feel  sure  that  we  possess  in  it  a  genuine 
record  of  the  progressive,  self-consistent  working  of  a  new  and 
higher  truth,  by  which  God  was  preparing  a  way  for  the 
spiritual  renovation  of  mankind.  If  from  the  more  elevated 
position  which  we  now  occupy,  we  are  sometimes  tempted  to 
regret  that  the  reign  of  a  living  faith  should  have  come  to 
an  end  so  soon,  only  to  be  followed  by  the  servile  worship  of 
a  dead  letter, — we  should  recollect  the  circumstances  under 
which  this  change  took  place.  In  view  of  the  future  that  was 
impending,  it  was  fortunate  for  the  world  that  the  spirit  of 
primitive  Christianity,  in  its  most  diversified  manifestations, 
should  have  been  encased,  as  it  were,  in  such  a  body  of  writings 
as  our  present  canonical  scriptures.  The  great  truths  involved 
in  it,  were  thus  preserved  from  mutilation  and  corruption  by 
the  reverence  of  superstition  itself,  ere  the  storms  came  on 
which  swept  away  the  ancient  civilization,  and  deformed  or 
destroyed  every  doctrine  and  institution,  which  had  no  surer 
vehicle  of  transmission  to  posterity  than  tradition.  The  ark 
was  now  built,  and  the  Gospel  was  shut  up  safe  within  it. 
Though  the  rains  descended  and  the  floods  came,  it  rode 
securely  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep,  while  the  earth  lay 
buried  imder  a  deluge  of  ignorance  and  barbarism ;  till  it 
rested  at  length  on  the  tops  of  the  re-appearing  mountains, 
and  its  windoAvs  were  opened  again,  and  a  free  spirit  went 
forth  from  its  sacred  enclosure  and  brought  back  to  it  the 
tokens  of  a  reviving  humanity. 

F.  C.  Baur  has  given  it  as  his  opinion,  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel  must  be  of  Alexandrine  origin ;  and  if  this  only  means, 
that  it  was  evidently  conceived  under  the  influence  of  Alex- 
andrine ideas,  he  is  no  doubt  right.  But  the  tradition  of  the 
Church  from  the  first  seems  to  me  too  steady  and  uniform,  to 
admit  of  our  looking  for  any  other  place,  as  the  immediate  seat 
of  its  production,  than  Ephesus.  If  anything  can  be  accepted 
as  a  fact  on  mere  traditional  evidence,  it  is  that  the  Fourth 


RECAPITULATION    AND    RESULT.  153 

Gospel  came  out  of  that  circle  of  religious  influences  of  which 
Ephesus  was  the  centre.  The  intercourse  between  the  g:5:eat 
cities  of  the  Levant  and  of  Egypt  was  in  that  age  so  ready  and 
frequent,  and  the  diffusion  of  ideas  under  Roman  centraliza- 
tion so  rapid  and  easy,  that  Alexandrine  philosophy  may  well 
be  conceived  to  have  exerted  as  much  influence  at  Ephesus 
as  in  Alexandria  itself.  Irenaeus,  who  was  a  native  of  that 
part  of  Asia,  distinctly  connects  the  origin  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  with  Ephesus.  It  may  be  thought  perhaps,  that  the 
testimony  of  Irenajus  proves  too  much  for  our  present  argu- 
ment ;  and  that  if  we  accept  it  as  sufiicient  to  establish  the 
locality  of  the  origin,  we  ought  also  to  accept  it  for  the  person 
of  the  author,  which  can,  in  that  case,  be  no  other  than  the 
apostle  John.  But  the  distinction  is  obvious.  A  person  of 
ordinary  knowledge  and  intercourse  w^ith  mankind,  might  be 
well  assured  from  what  quarter  a  certain  production  had  come, 
and  yet  not  possess  the  critical  faculty — especially  after  years 
of  absence  in  a  remote  part  of  the  world  (as  was  the  case  with 
Irenaeus  in  Gaul) — for  deciding  on  the  more  difiicult  question  of 
personal  authenticity.  Besides,  we  of  the  present  day  hardly 
familiarize  to  ourselves  sufiiciently  the  loose  way  of  thinking 
on  such  subjects,  which  prevailed  in  ancient  times,  and  more 
particularly  among  the  ancient  Christians.  With  all  the 
great  centres  of  Christian  activity,  the  name  of  some  dis- 
tinguished apostle  was  associated,  as  of  James  the  Less  with 
Jerusalem,  of  Peter  with  Rome,  and  of  John  with  Ephesus. 
Whatever  sprang  out  of  the  spiritual  impulse  originally 
imparted  by  such  an  apostle,  and  might  be  regarded  as  the 
natural  growth  of  the  faith  planted  by  him  in  that  place,  was 
referred  to  him  by  the  general  sentiment  as  its  immediate 
source.  There  is  evidence,  I  think,  of  two  successive 
reliffious  movements,  each  associated  with  the  name  of  the 
apostle  John,  in  the  two  works  which  have  been  the  subject 
of  comparison  in  the  present  inquiry ;— an  earlier  one,  closely 
connected  with  the  Jewish  Christianity  of  Palestine,  in  the 


154  CHAHACTER    OF   THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Apocalypse, — and  a  later,  the  fruit  of  more  advanced  develop- 
ment, in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  We  find  possibly  the  hidden 
link  of  mental  connexion  between  these  two  works  in  the 
doctrine  of  an  hypostatized  or  impersonated  Logos,  which 
appears  distinctly  in  a  remarkable  passage  of  the  Apocalypse 
(xix.  11-16),  and  which  runs,  as  we  have  seen,  though  every 
part  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It  might  be  a  doctrine  which 
distinguished  the  teaching  of  the  Church  founded  at  Ephesus 
by  John,  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  may  be  said  to  cha- 
racterize the  theology  of  Paul.  But  the  doctrine  of  the 
Logos  was  one  peculiarly  susceptible  of  development,  and  open 
to  fresh  construction  and  ever-widening  application  with  the 
new  intellectual  demands  of  the  age.  This  part  of  Asia  was 
the  special  seat  of  the  sharpest  conflicts  of  tendency  which 
marked  the  second  century.  The  retrogressive  movement 
which  aimed  at  a  revival  of  the  primitive  faith  and  zeal, 
and  the  movement  in  the  opposite  direction  which  sought 
to  bring  Christianity  into  closer  harmony  with  the  civilization 
and  philosophy  of  the  age — here  found  their  battle-field.  It 
was  the  country  of  Chiliasm  and  Montanism,  as  well  as  of  the 
efibrts  that  were  made  to  suppress  them.  Polycarp  and  Poly- 
crates,  the  most  zealous  upholders  of  Quartodeciman  usage,  and 
A.pollinaris,  its  decided  opponent,  were  all  from  this  district. 
The  two  works  which  bear  the  name  of  John,  furnish  another 
example  from  the  same  part  of  the  world,  of  productions  of 
divergent  tendency,  announcing  distinct  stages  of  spiritual 
growth,  which,  nevertheless,  by  their  common  reference  to  the 
great  apostolic  head  of  the  church  at  Ephesus,  excluded  the 
idea  of  direct  antagonism,  and  seem  to  indicate  a  continuous 
unfolding  of  organic  self-development  from  a  common  root. 
Whether  and  how  far  the  immediate  author  of  the  gospel  may 
have  had  personal  intercourse  with  the  apostle,  and  to  what  ex- 
tent he  may  have  introduced  into  his  work  ideas  ultimately 
derived  from  him,  we  have  no  present  means  of  determining. 
Whatever  the  writer  may  have  derived  from  that  source,  it 


RECAPITULATION  AND  RESULT.  155 

clearly  underwent  a  great  change  of  form  in  passing  through 
the  deep  subjective  working  of  his  own  mind.  If  he  has 
delivered  to  us  (as  I  believe  he  has),  whether  through  an 
apostolic  medium  or  not,  the  '  consummate  flower '  of  the 
faith  which  was  planted  in  the  world  by  Christ,  he  certainly 
has  not  presented  it  in  the  words  of  the  great  Teacher 
himself.  The  language  in  which  the  Fourth  Gospel  conveys 
to  us  the  discourses  of  Christ,  is  cast  in  the  same  mould  with 
that  of  the  epistle  and  of  those  portions  of  the  gospel  where 
the  writer  speaks  in  his  own  person.  We  are  impressively 
taught  by  this  fact, — which  is  equally  certain,  on  every  theory 
of  authorship, — not  to  put  our  trust  in  a  verbal  Christianity, 
"in  the  letter  which  killeth," — but  to  surrender  our  whole 
souls  to  "  the  spirit  which  giveth  life."  To  me  there  is 
something  far  less  objectionable  and  offensive  in  the  supposi- 
tion, that  we  have  in  this  gospel  the  free  and  genuine  utter- 
ances of  one  who  gives  us  his  own  deep  personal  conception 
of  the  truth  which  he  had  imbibed  in  the  heart  of  the 
Johannine  Church,  than  in  admitting — which  we  must  do,  if 
the  apostle  John  were  the  author — that  one  who  had  leaned 
on  Jesus'  bosom  and  caught  the  very  accents  that  fell  from 
his  lips,  instead  of  treasuring  them  up  with  reverent  exacti- 
tude, has  unscrupidously  transformed  them  into  his  own 
language,  and  invested  them  with  a  form  and  colour  which 
did  not  originally  belong  to  them. 

Eusebius  informs  us,  there  were  two  Johns  whose  names 
were  associated  with  the  traditions  of  the  church  at  Ephesus : 
one,  the  Apostle ;  the  other,  known  as  the  Presbyter.  When 
the  latter  lived,  we  are  not  told ;  but  Eusebius  says,  that  in 
his  day  their  two  graves  were  shown  at  Ephesus.  With 
his  undisguised  aversion  to  the  Chiliastic  doctrines  of  the 
Apocalypse,  it  was  not  unnatural  for  Eusebius  to  suggest, 
whether  the  Presbyter  rather  than  the  Apostle  might  not  have 
been  the  author  of  that  book.  It  may  occur  to  some — and 
the  inference  would  be  favoured    by  the  result  of  the  fore- 


156  CHARACnteR   OF    THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

going  examination — that  the  other  alternative  may  possibly 
represent  the  truth.  It  is  certainly  remarkable,  that  the 
Second  and  Third  Epistles,  which  in  their  language  and 
manner  closely  resemble  the  First,  have  both  of  them  m. 
their  heading  the  title  '  Presbyter '  (6  irpea^vTepo^) — a  fact, 
which  our  version  conceals  by  rendering  the  word,  '  Elder.' 
If  this  John  were  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  we  can 
account  for  its  being  so  uniformly  referred  to  Ephesus;  and 
we  can  also  understand  how,  in  process  of  time,  when  early 
traditions  were  easily  confounded,  the  Apostle  should  be  sub- 
stituted for  the  Presbyter  as  the  author  of  the  gospel — 
especially  where  there  was  so  much  readiness  to  claim  an 
apostolic  origin  for  every  work  of  high  ecclesiastical  authority 
and  influence,  and  where  the  two  Johns  appear  each  of  them  to 
have  stood  in  such  close  connexion  with  the  church  of  Ephesus. 


157 


SECTION    XII. 

The  Bearing  of  this  Question  on  the  general  conception  of 
Christianity. 

"  Si  Ton  veut  rendre  justice  a  I'orthodoxie,  et  donner  une  explication  satisfaisante  de 
sa  force  et  de  sa  duree,  il  faut — -constater  ce  desir  de  communication  reelle  avec 
Dieu,  cette  peur  de  perdre  de  vue  le  Dieu  vivant,  le  Dieu  reel  et  accessible,  le  Dieu 
adorable,  digne  d' amour  secourable.  On  peut  tenir  pour  certain,  que  si  les  cceurs 
^taint  rassures  a  cet  egard,  les  esprits  secoueraint  bien  vite  ccs  miserables  sophis- 
mes  liistoriques  et  speculatifs  auxquels  ils  ont  tant  de  peine  a  donner  creance,  mais 
qu'ils  n'osent  abandonner  de  peur  de  sacrifier  un  plus  grand  bien." — Felix  Pecaut, 
— De  I'Avenir  du  Protestantisme,  p.  19. 

It  will  be  considered  by  many  an  insuperable  objection  to 
the  views  which  I  have  here  ventured  to  maintain,  that  they 
exhibit  the  evangelists  as  irreconcilably  at  variance  on  some 
fundamental  particulars  of  the  gospel  history,  and  that  they 
deprive  of  direct  apostolic  authority,  what  has  been  usually 
regarded  as  the  most  complete  and  authentic  display  of  the 
person  and  teaching  of  Christ,  and  the  truest  expression  of 
the  eternal  relation  of  the  human  and  the  divine.  There  is 
also  something  exceedingly  repulsive  to  our  modern  feeling 
of  reverence  for  a  holy  book,  that  it  should  seem  to  lie  under 
the  imputation  of  professing  to  be  what  it  is  not,  and  should 
assume  an  apostolic  name,  where  the  hand  of  an  apostle,  it 
is  afl&rmed,  has  never  been.  These,  as  they  strike  the  mind 
on  a  first  view,  are  doubtless  grave  objections,  and  are  en- 
titled to  a  grave  and  thoughtful  reply.  Nevertheless,  what 
the  historical  critic  has  alone  to  consider,  when  he  embarks 
in  an  inquiry  of  this  description,  is  the  evidence  of  facts. 
To  evade  the  conclusion  to  which  that  evidence  legitimately 
leads,    from    the    apprehension    of   assumed   consequences,   is 


158  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

really  to  distrust  God,  and  to  interfere  with  the  possible 
order  of  his  Providence.  His  truth  may  have  a  way  and 
method  of  its  own,  which  we  have  no  right  with  our  limited 
field  of  vision  to  prejudge.  The  proper  answer  to  any  theory 
to  which  we  may  feel  ourselves  strongly  averse,  is  to  shew  that 
the  facts  on  which  it  is  based  are  incorrectly  stated,  and  the 
inferences  from  them  illogically  drawn. 

(1.)  I  may  here  remark,  that  some  of  the  most   plausible 
objections  to  the  natural  and  obvious  issue  of  the  present  in- 
vestigation,  have   acquired  an   exaggerated   importance   from 
the  artificial  ground  assumed  by  Protestantism,  to  set  up  an 
adequate  counterpoise   in   the   popular  belief  to  the  authori- 
tative claims  of  the  Church  of  Rome.     It  was  felt,  in  the  first 
great  struggle   of   the  Reformation,  that   the   pure  Word  of 
God  must  be  produced  to  encounter  the  arbitrary  decrees  of 
man.     Hence  the  main  effort  of  Protestant  learning  was  two- 
fold :  first,  to  prove  that  the  contents  of  our  New  Testament 
Canon — especially  the  four  gospels — came  directly  or  mediately 
from  an  apostolic  source,  and  carried  with  them   an  absolute 
apostolic  sanction  ;  secondly,  to  deduce  from  their  contents  a 
complete  and  definite  system  of  doctrinal  belief,  which  could 
be  made  imperative  on  the  conscience  of  every  individual,  as 
the   true  Gospel  of  Christ.     It  is   not  my  present  object  to 
show  that  neither  of  these  objects  has  ever  been  successfully 
accomplished,  as  the  incurable  disagreement  among  Protestant 
sects,  so  forcibly  urged  by  Bossuet  and  Mohler,  unanswerably 
demonstrates ;  nor,  further,  that  this  intellectual  conception  of 
faith,  commenced  by  the  Fathers,  elaborated  by  the  Schoolmen, 
and  inherited  from  them  by  the  great  divines  of  the  Reforma- 
tion,   who   fixed    the   type   of   Protestantism,  —  is  wholly   at 
variance  with  the  essential  genius  of  Christianity.      I  simply 
mean    to    assert,    that    the    fundamental    assumption    of    this 
system  lays  a  burden  of  responsibility  on  the  several  books 
of  the  New  Testament  which  there  is  no  internal  indication 
of  their  having  ever  assumed,  and  the  gratuitous  exaction  of 


I 


THE   RELIGIOUS   BEARING   OF   THE   QUESTION.  159 

which  throws  unnecessary  difficulties  in  the  way  of  establish- 
ing the  divine  origin  and  influence  of  the  great  spiritual 
renovation  introduced  into  our  planet  by  the  prophet  of 
Nazareth.  Books,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  earliest  ^propagation  of  Christianity.  A  change 
was  wrought  in  the  individual  soul,  by  awakening  it  to  a  deeper 
sense  of  the  Living  God,  and  the  need  of  reconciliation  with 
Him,  in  expectation  of  the  solemn  judgment  which  He  was 
about  to  execute  on  a  guilty  world.  All  this  was  efiected 
by  the  words  of  the  preacher,  thrilling  with  faith  and  love, 
and  carrying  with  them  the  spirit  of  God  into  the  hearts 
of  his  hearers.  A  parallel  phenomenon  in  modern  times, 
throwing  much  light  on  the  earliest  history  of  Christianity, 
may  be  found  in  the  extraordinary  effects  which  resulted 
from  the  missionary  labours  of  the  two  Wesleys.  Tlie  grand 
three-fold  impression  produced  by  such  preaching  was  this : 
personal  devotedness  to  the  crucified  and  risen  Christ,  who 
had  brought  a  new  life  into  the  world ;  earnest  craving  for 
redemption  from  the  sinfulness  of  men's  actual  condition ; 
enthusiastic  belief  in  a  future  approaching  state  of  righteous 
retribution,  which  took  so  strong  a  hold  on  many  minds, 
that  it  became  to  them  a  greater  and  nearer  reality  than 
the  present  world.  Such  was  primitive  Christianity.  It 
floated  from  land  to  land  and  sank  into  the  lowest  depths  of 
society,  with  the  tide  of  a  living  tradition,  kept  pure  in  its 
essential  elements  by  the  sincerity  and  holiness  of  tliose  who 
sustained  and  difi'used  it.  When  at  length  it  began  to  deposit 
itself  in  a  written  form,  it  was  at  first  probably  nothing 
more  than  a  private  record  or  memorandum,  made  without 
any  reference  to  posterity — for  the  world  was  believed  to  be 
on  the  eve  of  dissolution.  As  such  record  was  communicated 
through  the  ordinary  occasions  of  intercourse,  from  hand  to 
hand,  and  church  to  church,  it  became  by  degrees  a  sort  of 
common  property  for  the  whole  body  of  believers,  wliich  every 
one   felt  himself  at   liberty  to  enlarge  or  modify,   according 


J  60  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

as  he  believed  lie  was  in  possession  of  additional  or  more  ac- 
curate knowledge.  The  letters  of  the  apostle  Paul  are,  it  is 
true,  an  exception  to  this  general  description  of  the  earliest 
writings  that  circulated  in  the  Church.  They  were  not,  like 
the  evangelical  narratives,  composed  of  divers  materials, 
gradually  collected  and  accumulated — the  fruit  of  a  spreading 
and  diversified  tradition.  They  were  called  forth  by  parti- 
cular occasions,  and  addressed  to  particular  communities. 
They  were  definite,  therefore,  and  complete  in  their  form 
from  the  first ;  and  were  naturally  preserved  with  great  care 
and  reverence  by  the  churches  to  which  they  had  been  ori- 
ginally directed.  On  this  account  we  must  regard  the  Pauline 
letters  as  the  most  authentic  documents  now  extant  on  primi- 
tive Christianity.  With  this  exception,  I  believe  the  earliest 
Christian  literature  to  have  originated  in  the  manner  which 
I  have  described ;  and  to  any  one  who  will  distinctly  realize 
to  himself  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  it  must  be  obvious, 
how  wholly  inapplicable  to  such  a  state  of  things,  are  all  our 
modern  notions  of  literary  property  and  the  claims  of  author- 
ship. Such  notions  never  entered  the  heads  of  the  good  and 
simple  people  among  whom  the  message  of  glad  tidings 
found  its  earliest  welcome.  When,  indeed,  in  the  course  of 
the  second  and  third  centuries,  the  teaching  and  defence  of 
Christianity  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  literary  class,  the  case 
was  somewhat  altered.  Room  and  motive  were  now  given  for 
the  production  of  writings  of  a  properly  fictitious  character, 
conceived  in  the  interests  of  a  party,  or  designed  to  meet  the 
demands  of  an  impatient  curiosity,  which  the  original  tradi- 
tion did  not  adequately  satisfy.  Of  this  kind  were  most  of 
what  are  called  the  Apocryphal  Gospels ;  although  such  of 
them  as  bear  this  character  most  strongly,  belong,  I  am  in- 
clined to  believe,  to  a  later  period.^  It  was  to  counteract 
incipient  tendencies  of  this  kind,  especially  in  the  speculative 
schools  of  Gnosticism,  and  to  furnish  an  authoritative  rule  of 
1  Tiscliendorf,  de  Evangeliorum  Apocryphorum  Origine  et  Usu,  P.  I.  §  3. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF    THE    QUESTION.  161 

faith  and  practice  for  the  mass  of  believers,  that  a  movement 
commenced  throughout  the  Church  towards  the  close  of  the 
second  century,  for  collecting  a  body  of  trustworthy  writings 
which  might  be  appealed  to  as  a  criterion  to  discriminate 
heretical  error  from  Catholic  truth.  The  principle  of 
selection  was  in  no  sense  critical.  Books  were  admitted 
or  rejected  or  considered  doubtful,  according  as  they  were 
warranted  or  not  by  general  tradition,  or  as  they  were  felt 
in  their  spirit  and  contents  to  correspond  or  be  at  variance 
with  the  standard  of  faith  and  practice  which  had  been 
upheld  from  the  beginning  in  the  most  ancient  churches. 
The  reason  of  the  difference  which  every  one  feels  on 
comparing  the  canonical  with  the  apocryphal  gospels,  be- 
tween the  sober,  practical  wisdom,  and  sweet  natural  pathos 
of  the  one,  and  the  coarseness  and  wild  extravagance  of  the 
other — is  to  be  found  in  the  fact,  that  the  framers  of  the 
Canon  kept  close  to  the  primitive  tradition,  which  had  been 
handed  down  in  the  churches  from  the  earliest  times  by 
devout  and  simple-minded  men,  and  which  concentrated  the 
thoughts  of  believers  on  the  one  essential  point  of  preparing 
themselves  by  repentance  and  faith  for  the  great  retribution 
to  come ;  while  they  excluded  from  their  collection,  as  it 
were  unconsciously  and  by  a  sort  of  spiritual  tact,  all  such 
writings  as  were  felt  by  them  to  be  extraneous  to  the  purely 
religious  tradition,  and  were  mainly  of  an  intellectual  or 
imaginative  character.  The  distinction  is  a  vital  one  ;  for  it 
proves  that  from  the  first,  Christianity  was  regarded  by  those 
who  were  mainly  instrumental  in  founding  it,  not  as  a  philo- 
sophical speculation,  but  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  work. 

To  return  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  origin  of  which,  who- 
ever was  its  author,  belongs  to  the  primitive  age  of  the 
Church,  and  cannot  be  brought  lower  than  the  first  half  of  the 
second  century ; — it  is  clear,  that  we  must  apply  to  the  problem 
of  its  authorship,  not  the  principles  of  our  modern  literary 
code,  but   the  looser  notions, — not  consciously  involving  any 

11 


162  CHARACTER    OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

question  of  moral  right  or  wrong, — which  were  notoriously 
current  among  the  Christians  of  the  earliest  period,  and  long 
retained  their  influence  on  the  minds  of  their  more  cultivated 
successors.^  If  we  keep  this  in  view, — and  consider  further, 
that  theologians,  in  their  apologetic  zeal,  have  laid  an  undue 
stress  on  the  supposed  implications  of  apostolic  origin  in  the 
book  itself — we  are  in  a  position  to  weigh  dispassionately 
evidence  for  and  against  a  simple  historical  fact,  vrithout  finding 
ourselves  reduced  to  the  painful  alternative  of  authenticity  or 
imposture.  For  in  this  offensive  light  some  have  not  scrupled 
to  set  the  present  question.  Even  a  man  so  large-minded  as 
the  late  Baron  Bunsen,  and  usually  so  free  and  fearless  in 
his  criticism,  has  been  driven  by  his  predilection  for  a  fore- 
gone conclusion,  to  the  incredible  hardihood  of  asserting,  that 
if  John's  gospel  is  not  authentic,  there  can  be  no  historical 
Christ,  and   no   Christian    Church."^     So  long  as  such  strong 

1  Of  tlie  freedom  with  -which  a  common  material  was  used,  and  the  loose,  un- 
certain grounds  on  which  authorship  was  assigned,  we  have  a  signal  evidence  in  the 
different  forms  of  the  Clementines,  the  so-called  Ignatian  Epistles,  and  the  Aposto- 
lical Canons  and  Constitutions.  Kindred  phenomena,  with  perhaps  a  distincter 
consciousness  and  purpose  of  fraud,  occur  at  a  still  earlier  period  among  the  Alex- 
andrine Jews  and  the  Greeks;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  Sibylline  verses  and  the 
poems  circulated  under  the  title  of  "Orphica."  See  generally  on  this  subject: 
Valckenaer,  "  De  Aristobulo  Judaeo  ;"  "Wesseling,  "  De  Fragment©  Orphei,  de  Aris- 
tobulo,  etc. ;"  and  Lobeck,  "  Aglaophamus,"  Lib.  II. ;  "  Orphica,"  I.  iv.  In  the 
earliest  movements  of  religious  enthusiasm,  the  fervour  of  men's  feelings  over- 
powers the  clearness  of  their  ideas.  The  elements  of  truth  and  falsehood  are  often 
strangely  commingled  in  a  sort  of  spiritual  chaos ;  so  that  it  takes  centuries  to  separate 
them,  and  make  men  sensible  of  their  distinction.  Welcker,  who  has  devoted  an 
entire  life  to  the  study  of  this  side  of  human  nature,  makes  the  following  sug- 
gestive remark  :  "  Es  gehort  zu  den  Mysterien  der  Geschichte,  wie  Gottes  Geist, 
heilige  und  ehrwiirdige  Satzungen,  Ueberzeugungen  und  Vorurtheile,  und  andrerseits 
Schwache,  Menschenwerk,  kiinstliche  durch  die  Menge  getragene  Systeme  und  Dupli- 
citat,  nach  den  Zeiten  und  Umstanden,  gegen  einander  stehen,  herrschen  oder  vorherr- 
schen."     (Griechische  Gotterlehre  ii.  p.  27.) 

2  "  Hippolytus  and  his  Age,"  I.  p.  115,  Dr.  Bleek,  on  the  whole,  perhaps,  the 
ablest  defender  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  with  more  judgment  ad- 
mits that,  should  the  question  be  finally  decided  against  him,  this  would  not  affect 
"  the  genuine  historical  truth  of  Christianity."  With  regard  to  the  alleged  im- 
morality implied  in  the  circulation  of  a  book  under  an  assumed  name,  he  observes 
that  such  a  fact  (supposing  it  to  be  established)  must  not  be  tried  by  the  standard 
of  our  times,  and  that  Ecclesiastes,  Daniel,  and  the  Psalms,  as  usually  cited,  are 


THE    RELIGIOUS   BEARIJJG    OF    THE    QUESTION.  163 

prejudices  prevail,  which  stake  the  existence  of  Christianity 
itself  on  the  issue  of  a  critical  inquiry,  it  is  impossible  that 
this  question  should  be  impartially  discussed.  Let  us  see, 
then,  what  the  Fourth  Gospel  afctually  says  of  itself.  Must 
an  honest  admission  of  the  result  of  preponderant  evidence, 
necessitate  the  conclusion,  that  the  most  spiritual  and  sub- 
lime of  all  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  had  an  immoral 
origin  ?  I  do  not  believe,  that  so  startling  a  contrariety 
could  occur  in  the  order  of  Providence  rightly  understood. 
The  semblance  of  it  is  occasioned  by  the  gratuitous  assumptions 
and  unreasonable  demands  of  an  artificial  theology. 

In  the  gospel  itself  we  meet  with  no  allusion  to  the  apostle 
John,  till  we  come  to  the  closing  scenes  of  the  history  (xiii. 
23),  where  he  is  introduced  (though  without  being  named)  as  a 
disciple  "whom  Jesus  loved,"  and  as  "leaning  on  his  bosom." 
That  John  was  meant  in  this  passage,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
from  the  uniform  tradition  of  the  Church,  which  constantly 
distinguished  the  apostle  by  the  epithet  iiriaTrjOio^.  A  further 
reference  equally  indirect,  yet  still  not  to  be  doubted,  occurs 
in  ch.  xviii.  v.  15,  where  he  is  coupled  with  Simon  Peter 
as  'another  disciple,'  and  represented  as  entering  with  Jesus 
into  the  palace  of  the  high-priest.  His  being  allowed  to  remain 
there  unquestioned,  while  Peter  was  roughly  interrogated,  is 
ascribed  to  his  previous  acquaintance  with  the  high-priest. 
The  same  disciple  is  evidently  meant,  still  without  being 
named,  in  the  beautiful  passage  where  the  dying  Jesus  com- 
mends his  mother  to  the  care  of  his  bosom  friend  (xix.  25- 
27).  Not  till  we  come  to  ch.  xix.  35,  where  mention  is  made 
of  blood  and  water  issuing  from  the  pierced  side  of  Christ, 
does  a  single  expression  occur,  which  can  by  any  possible 
construction  be  made  to  imply,  that  the  apostle  spoken  of  was 
the  author  of  the  gospel ;  and  even  here  the  inference  is  by  no 
means  unambiguous.     The   words  are   these  :    "  He   that  saw 

open  to  the  same  imputation,  without  having  forfeited  their  title  to  be  received  into 
the  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.      (See  Beitrage  zur  Evangelien-Kritik,  p.  263.) 


164  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

it,  bare  record,  and  his  record  is  true  :  and  he  knowetli  that  he 
saith  true,  that  ye  might  believe."^  They  do  not  seem  to  me 
to  mean  more  than  this  :  that  the  writer,  whoever  he  was^ 
firmly  believed  in  the  recorded  occurrence  on  the  authority 
of  an  eye-witness  ;  but  he  does  not  say,  that  he  was  himself 
that  eye-witness.  On  the  contrary,  had  he  rutended  that, 
he  would  have  used  another  tense,  and  said  ^aprvpel,  not 
fiaprvprjKev.  The  adoption  of  the  present  tense  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  sentence — iK6iyo<;  oiSev,  etc. — is  no  objection  to 
this  interpretation.  Having  cited  his  witness,  the  writer  by 
a  form  of  sj)eech  which  constantly  occurs  in  historical  narrative, 
throws  himself  back  into  the  time  of  his  authority,  in  order  to 
give  greater  weight  to  the  a«!sertion  of  his  trustworthiness. 
The  same  disciple,  still  unnamed,  is  next  described  as  going 
with  Simon  Peter  to  visit  the  abandoned  sepulchre,  and  as 
believing  in  consequence  of  what  he  saw.  These  are  all  the 
indications  that  we  have  of  John  in  the  first  twenty  chapters 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel ;  and  here  I  believe  the  gospel  to  have 
originally  ended  ;  for  no  words  can  more  clearly  mark  the 
termination  of  an  entire  work  than  ch.  xx.  30,  31 :  "  many 
other  signs  also  wi'ought  Jesus  in  the  presence  of  his  dis- 
ciples, which  are  not  written  in  this  book :  but  these  are 
written,  that  ye  may  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God,  and  that  by  believing  ye  may  have  life  through  his 
name." 

Chapter  xxi.  has  all  the  signs  of  being  a  subsequent  addition. 
The  appearances  of  Christ  after  the  resurrection,  which  in  the 
twentieth  chapter,  as  in  Luke's  account  (xxiv.  49 ;  Acts 
i.  4),  are  confined  to  Jerusalem,  are  here  transferred,  as  in 
Matthew  (xxviii.  10,  16)  to  Galilee.  Peter  is  here  brought 
prominently  forward,  as  if  to  counterbalance  the  claims  of 
the  beloved  disciple,  so  distinctly  asserted  in  the  previous 
•chapters  ;  and  there  is  an  evident  attempt  to  meet  the  diffi- 

1  Kol    6   fa>paK&)$   fiiixaprvpriKiv,  kol  qAT^Bivij  ayrov  iarlv  r)  fxapTvpia,  Koi  iKelvos 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF    THE    QUESTIOX,  165 

culty  occasioned  by  the  non-fulfUment  of  the  traditional 
expectation,  that  that  disciple  would  survive  till  the  second 
coming  of  Christ.^  In  this  supplementary  chapter,  we  meet 
for  the  first  time  with  the  assertion,  that  the  beloved  disciple 
was  the  author  of  the  gospel  (xxi.  24)  :  "  this  is  the  disciple 
which  testifieth  of  these  things,  and  wrote  these  things ;  and 
we  know  that  his  witness  is  true."^  We  may,  therefore,  con- 
clude that  this  addition  could  not  have  been  made  to  the  ori- 
ginal work,  before  the  belief  had  become  confirmed  and  general 
among  the  heads  of  the  Church  (the  eKKXtja-iaa-TiKot,  as  they 
are  called  by  Eusebius,  who  were  the  reliable  transmitters  of 
the  primitive  tradition,  and  the  earliest  framers  of  a  canon), 
that  the  gospel  was  the  production  of  the  apostle  John ; 
and  of  this  we  have  no  clear  evidence  till  the  latter  part  of 
the  second  century.  If  I  am  right  in  this  inference,  the 
original  gospel  and  the  appendix  may  possibly  have  been 
separated  from  each  other  by  the  interval  of  about  half  a 
century.^ 

'  The  expectation  had  probably  its  origin  in  the  words  of  our  Lord,  preserved 
by  Matthew  (xvi.  28)  :  "  there  be  some  standing  here,  which  shall  not  taste  of 
death,  till  they  see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  his  kingdom."  As  John  outlived 
all  the  other  apostles,  these  words,  it  was  naturally  supposed,  would  have  their 
fulfilment  in  him.  When  he  died,  and  expectation  was  again  disappointed,  a  new 
meaning  had  to  be  found  for  them ;  and  to  this  there  is  distinct  allusion  in  this 
twenty  first  chapter,  v.  23.  The  same  circumstance  gave  rise  to  the  fable  widely 
current  in  the  Middle  Ages,  which  has  associated  a  superstitious  awe  with  the  eve 
of  St.  John — that  the  apostle  is  not  actually  dead,  but  lies  slumbering  in  his  grave 
till  the  last  day.  We  have  other  evidence  of  the  feelings  produced  by  this  frustra- 
tion of  the  popular  hope  in  2  Peter  iii.  4. 

^  ovTos  effTtv  6  fj.adr]Ti)s  o  /xapTvpoov  irep!  tovtwv  koI  6  ypd^f/as  ravra,  kuI  oidafx^y 
hri  aXri6i]s  ecmv  r)  fiaprvpia  avrov.  This  is  a  repetition  in  another  form  of  what 
has  already  been  stated  (ch.  xx.  35),  with  the  substitution  (which  should  be  noticed) 
of  the  present  (laprvpwv  for  the  past  ixefiaprvpriKe,  and  the  further  assertion  of 
authorship.     Verse  25  is  an  amplification  of  ch.  xx.  30. 

^  Our  oldest  MSS.  do  not  go  back  to  the  time,  when  this  appendix  (if  it  be  one) 
must  have  been  added  to  the  original  termination  of  the  gospel :  so  it  is  found 
in  all  of  them.  But  it  is  remarkable,  that  of  the  passages  which  are  supposed  to 
refer  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  the  Apostolic  Fatliers,  in  Justin  Martyr,  in  Tatian, 
in  Athenagoras,  in  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  in  Hippolytus,  and  in  Ircnteus,  not 
one  corresponds  to  anything  contained  in  ch.  xxi. ;  though  most  of  them  allude 
apparently  to  ch.  xx.  The  earliest  trace  of  any  such  allusion  I  find  in  Ter- 
tuUian,  De  Anima  c.  1.  (Semler's  Index  Loc.  S.  S.  ex  Joanne),  where,  however, 


166  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

Undoubtedly,  in  the  first  twenty  chapters,  which  I  suppose 
to  have  constituted  the  original  work,  it  is  the  design  of  the 
writer  to  place  the  relation  of  the  beloved  disciple  to  Christ 
in  a  very  solemn  and  mysterious  light,  as  an  eye-witness  and 
close  observer  of  the  trial  before  the  high-priest  and  of  the 
death  on  the  cross,  and  as  the  receiver  of  the  last  commands  of 
his  Lord.  The  studious  avoidance  of  his  name  heightens  the 
effect ;  and  the  exclusion  of  all  mention  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee, 
so  prominent  in  the  synoptical  narrative,  is  very  significant. 
They  are  alluded  to  once  in  the  supplementary  chapter  (v. 
2),  but  without  any  distinction,  limiped  up,  as  it  were,  in  a 
general  enumeration  of  the  disciples  assembled  in  Galilee 
after  the  resurrection.  It  may  be  suspected,  that  their  tradi- 
tional reputation  was  too  closely  associated  with  a  Jewish 
Christianity  to  admit  of  either  of  them  being  put  con- 
spicuously forward  in  their  original  characters  as  the  authority 
for  a  new  and  higher  phase  of  gospel  truth.  At  the  same 
time,  John  was  reverenced  as  the  founder  of  the  Asiatic 
Church,  where  his  name  had  eclipsed  that  of  Paul  who  pre- 
ceded him.  It  was  further  well  known,  that  he  was  honoured 
vrith  strong  marks  of  personal  confidence  and  affection  by 
Jesus  during  his  life- time  ;  and  there  was  also  a  vivid  tradi- 
tion current  among  the  early  Christians,  that  at  the  last 
supper  he  had  been  assigned  the  place  of  honour,  and  lay 
with  his  head  on  the  bosom  of  his  Master.  On  the  whole, 
therefore,  I  do  not  doubt,  that  this  gospel  was  accepted  from 
the  first  as  an  expression  of  the  faith  that  had  triumphed  in 
the  church  of  which  John  was  regarded  as  the  head,  and 
that,  in  this  way,  it  claimed  for  itself  indirectly  the  sanction 
of  his  name.  This,  we  know,  was  in  full  accordance  with 
the  usage  of  those  early  Christian  times  ;  just  as  any  doctrine 
or  usage  emanating  from  Rome,  would  have  been  conceived  to 

the  gospel  is  not  mentioned  at  all,  but  only  the  fact  stated,  that  John  died, 
though  he  had  expected  to  live  to  the  second  coming  (ch.  xxi.  23).  TertuUian 
may  have  reeived  the  story  through  tradition  as  well  as  from  a  written  source. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF   THE    QUESTION.  167 

carry  with  it  the  authority  of  Peter.  The  tradition  per- 
petuated in  these  ancient  churches,  notwithstanding  the  modi- 
fications which  it  constantly  underwent,  was  still  supposed 
to  maintain  an  unbroken  connexion  with  the  apostolic  source 
from  which  it  flowed.  I  venture,  however,  to  think,  that 
within  the  limits  of  the  original  work,  there  is  not  one  passage 
which  clearly  affirms  the  beloved  discij)le  to  have  been  its 
author ;  and  that  such  an  interpretation  would  never  have 
occurred  to  any  one,  had  it  not  been  suggested  by  an  ex- 
ternal tradition  which  grew  up  by  the  side  of  the  gospel, 
and  gathered  strength  with  its  difl'usion  and  acceptance.  The 
historical  value  of  that  tradition  I  have  attempted  to  estimate 
in  a  previous  section  of  this  essay.  Although  a  careful  sift- 
ing of  such  evidence  as  lies  within  our  present  reach,  has 
made  me  feel  all  but  morally  certain,  that  the  apostle  John 
could  not  have  written  the  Fourth  Gospel,  yet  an  exami- 
nation of  its  contents,  exclusive  of  what  I  believe  to  be  a 
later  addition,  fully  relieves  me  from  the  painful  alternative, 
so  strongly  urged  by  the  advocates  of  the  old  theory,  of  a 
single  choice  between  authenticity  and  imposture. 

(2).  Another  objection  to  the  conclusion  at  which  I  have 
arrived,  will  to  many  minds  seem  still  more  formidable — 
viz.,  that  it  unsettles  the  habitual  reliance  on  a  directly 
divine  authority,  and  substitutes  for  words  which  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  cherish  as  those  of  Christ  himself,  the 
language  and,  to  some  extent,  even  the  ideas  of  one  unknown. 
I  deeply  sympathize  with  this  objection;  for  it  is  one  that 
will  be  felt  by  the  most  religious  natures.  It  is  a  cold  and 
heartless  reply  to  say, — "such  is  the  evidence  of  facts;  they 
dispel  a  groundless  dream," — and  then  leave  the  disenchanted 
to  find  their  consolation  where  best  they  may.  For  myself  I 
am  convinced,  that  we  are  not  reduced  to  this  hard  necessity ; 
for  there  is  a  higher  view  of  Scripture  than  the  popular  theory 
admits,  which  instead  of  annihilating  faith,  only  gives  it  new 
impulse  and  wider  range. 


168  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL, 

Words  at  best,  even  from  the  most  gifted  lips  or  pen,  are 
a  very  inadequate  exponent  of  tlie  power  of  a  life  and  the 
working  of  a  spiritual  principle.  Their  full  meaning  can  only 
be  pressed  into  them  by  the  responsive  consciousness  of  the 
mind  to  which  they  come.  Even  were  they  inspired  by 
absolute  truth,  their  apprehension  and  effect  must  be  measured 
by  the  capacity  of  the  recipient  soul.  The  same  truth,  ex- 
pressed with  the  same  fullness  and  precision,  cannot  be  grasped 
and  retained  in  the  same  way  by  all  the  different  minds  in 
which  it  finds  a  home.  In  regard  to  spiritual  truth,  which  is  in- 
capable of  subjection  to  the  definite  test  of  the  outward  sense,  it 
is  of  its  very  nature,  that  it  should  multiply  itself  into  an  end- 
less variety  of  intellectual  and  imaginative  forms.  The  greater 
and  richer  the  truth,  the  deeper  it  penetrates  into  the  heart  of 
humanity, — the  more  diversified  and  apparently  irreconcilable 
will  the  modes  of  its  utterance  and  representation  become.  If 
it  be  a  living  truth  which  has  struck  root  in  the  heart  and 
conscience  of  man,  it  will  grow  with  the  humanity  which  it  in- 
spires. I  believe  this  view  to  be  fully  borne  out  by  the  general 
experience  of  human  nature.  Let  us  see  how  it  applies  to  the 
the  case  of  Christianity. 

The  new  life  infused  into  our  race  by  the  gospel,  consisted 
mainly  in  a  quickened  sense  of  the  reality  of  "  things  unseen 
and  eternal,"  and  of  man's  personal  relation  to  them  and 
interest  in  them.  As  a  necessary  consequence,  it  brought  with 
it  a  stronger  conviction  of  the  degrading  bondage  of  selfishness 
and  carnality,  and  an  earnest  longing  for  deliverance  into  a 
higher  state  of  freedom,  purity  and  love.  This  in  its  essence 
was  primitive  Christianity  :  and  the  wonderful  change  which 
it  wrought  in  multitudes,  was  not  the  efiect  of  any  formal 
system  of  positive  doctrine — of  lectures  and  disputations,  after 
the  manner  of  the  old  philosophical  schools — but  of  the  simple 
working  among  men  of  a  profoundly  spiritual  nature,  filled  to 
its  inmost  depths  with  the  consciousness  of  a  divine  presence, 
and  obeying  with  single-minded  faithfulness  the  call  which  it 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF   THE    QUESTION.  169 

had  received  from  above,  to  go  forth  and  bring  back  mankind 
to  a  forgotten  Father  in  heaven,  and  prepare  them  for  their 
everlasting  inheritance  in  Him.  The  grand  trusts  which  this 
spiritual  influence  awakened,  and  which  are  ever  latent  in  the 
interior  of  our  humanity,  Jesus  set  forth  in  language  and  with 
illustrations  the  most  homely  and  popular,  suggested  by  the 
present  wants  and  level  to  the  actual  capacity  of  those  whom 
he  addressed,  and  therefore  clothed  in  the  prevalent  beliefs 
and  expectations  of  his  age  and  country.  He  spoke  with 
authority,  because  he  spoke  from  intense  conviction.  He  saw 
his  ultimate  object  with  a  clearness,  and  grasped  it  with  a 
tenacity,  which  nothing  could  dim  or  shake,  though  he  did  not 
always  discern  how  God  would  bring  it  to  pass ;  and  of  the 
future  he  knew  nothing  but  what  lay  immediately  before  him. 
Still  he  held  on  his  way  with  deep  trust  in  the  final  issue 
of  the  divine  purposes,  in  spite  of  disappointment,  treachery, 
and  abandonment.  "With  the  dauntless  courage  which  only 
religious  faith  can  inspire,  he  waged  unsparing  war  on  the 
hypocrisy  and  hardheartedness  and  spiritual  deadness  of  the 
professed  teachers  and  guides  of  the  people,  till  the  malignity 
of  his  enemies  cut  short  his  brief  career  by  a  hurried  and 
violent  death.  Thus  the  seed  was  sown.  Gradually  it  absorbed 
into  its  inner  life  all  the  kindred  elements  that  had  for  cen- 
turies been  silently  fermenting  in  the  heart  of  the  old  civili- 
zation. The  simplicity  of  the  means  employed  stands  out  in 
marvellous  contrast  with  the  greatness  of  the  effects  which 
ensued.  But  so  God  works.  This  very  contrast  is,  to  me,  an 
indication  of  his  presence  in  the  movement,  God,  who  is  a 
Spirit,  can  only  reveal  himself  through  the  kindred  spirit  of 
man ;  and  the  fullness  of  the  revelation  must  always,  there- 
fore, be  in  proportion  to  the  purity,  the  elevation,  and  the 
spiritual  discernment  of  the  human  media  through  which  it 
makes  its  way.  There  is  this  peculiarity  in  the  manifesta- 
tion of  spiritual  truth  through  a  human  personality, — that  its 
influence  is  contagious.     It  spreads  to  other  minds,  and  stirs 


170  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

up  a  kindred  consciousness  in  them.  For  a  deep,  mysterious 
sympathy  binds  together  all  spiritual  natures.  Those  to 
whom  that  higher  message  comes,  turn  instinctively  to  its 
source.  They  concentrate  their  trust  and  reverence  on  one 
who  seems  to  belong  to  a  loftier  order  of  being ;  —  who 
brings  down  the  divine  into  the  midst  of  the  human, — and 
holds  up  before  them  in  vivid,  concrete  embodiment,  that  of 
which  they  had  possessed  already  in  their  better  moments  a 
dim  and  vague  presentiment,  but  had  never  before  beheld 
the  actual  realization.  A  great  truth  now  flashes  on  them  for 
the  first  time  in  all  its  clearness,  and  brings  with  it  its  own 
warrant  of  a  divine  source ; — the  sense  of  their  personal  rela- 
tion to  a  living  God,  and  of  their  need  of  moral  regeneration 
to  become  the  objects  of  his  complacency,  and  the  sharers  of 
his  richest  blessing.  They  pass  into  the  consciousness  of 
another  and  a  purer  world  than  that  in  which  they  have 
hitherto  lived,  haunted  wherever  they  turn  by  an  awful 
sense  of  the  divine  presence — 

"  With  glimpses  of  the  mighty  God  delighted  and  afraid."  ^ 
A  true  revelation,  therefore,  in  its  first  stage  is  a  spiritual 
influence  emanating  from  some  eminently  devout  and  holy 
personality — in  other  words,  it  is  the  Spirit  of  God  working 
through  a  human  soul.  One  in  essence,  the  new  life  so 
difliised  takes  a  different  outward  mould  in  every  mind  which 
it  thoroughly  penetrates ;  though  in  all  it  is  referred  to  the 
common  persdnal  source,  which  first  brought  it  into  view 
and  exhibited  it  as  a  human  possibility.  The  characteristic 
of  primitive  Christianity  was  devotion  to  the  person  of  Christ. 
It  had  this  in  common  with  all  earnest  religious  movements 
that  have  sprung  up  either  outside  it  or  within  it ; — that  the 
bond  of  union  was  attachment  to  the  person  of  a  founder.  But 
it  had  two  features  peculiar  to  itself:  first,  that  instead  of 
kindling  zeal  about  some  insulated  point  of  doctrine  or  ab- 
stract speculation,  it  took  its  stand  on  the  fundamental  moral 

*  Charles  Wesley. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF   THE    QUESTION.  171 

consciousness  of  humanity,  and  laid  the  whole  stress  of  its 
teaching  and  example  on  purity  of  heart  and  uprightness  of 
life,  on  the  hope  of  a  better  future  after  death,  and  an  un- 
.  questioning  self-surrender  to  the  will  of  God ;  secondly,  that 
the  death  of  its  founder,  though  seeming  at  first  to  blight 
for  ever  the  fondest  hopes  of  his  followers,  only  rendered 
more  intense  and  elevating  his  personal  influence,  gathered 
up,  as  it  were,  his  personality  into  a  diviner  form  of  life,  and 
brought  it  through  faith  and  prayer  into  closer  spiritual  in- 
tercourse than  ever  with  the  souls  of  believers  on  earth,  as  a 
mediator  and  intercessor  between  them  and  God. 

I  have  long  felt  unable  to  accept  as  literally  true,  the  con- 
flicting accounts  contained  in  our  four  gospels,  of  the  bodily 
manifestation  of  Christ  to  his  disciples  after  the  crucifixion. 
The  real  fact,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  seems  to  me  dis- 
solved and  lost  beyond  the  possibility  of  distinct  recovery,  in 
a  confluence  of  difierent  streams  of  popular  tradition.  Never- 
theless, I  fully  hold  with  the  late  F.  C.  Baur — one  of  the  freest 
and  most  fearless  of  modern  Scriptural  critics — that  the  belief 
in  a  risen  Christ  is  the  corner-stone  of  the  Christian  dispen- 
sation;  that  apart  from  that  belief,  its  origin  and  history  are 
an  inexplicable  enigma.^  A  belief  so  firm,  constant,  and  strong, 
as  that  of  the  first  generation  of  Christians  in  the  perpetuated 
spiritual  existence  of  their  lost  Teacher  and  Guide,  with  the 
deep  and  lasting  impression  which  it  left  on  the  subsequent 
history  of  our  race,  could  not  possibly,  it  seems  to  me,  have  been 
a  simple  delusion,  but  must  have  been  based  on  some  evidence 
which  brought  it  home  to  their  minds  as  a  reality,  though  it 
is  hidden  from  us  in  a  mystery  which  I  do  not  expect  the 
utmost  resources  of  science  and  criticism  will  ever  be  able  to 
dispel.  Whatever  the  reality  was,  it  was  grasped  by  faith  ;  and 
the  sense  of  it  weakened  and  lost  by  the  decline  and  failure  of 
faith.2     I  only  notice  the  circumstance  here,  to  bring  out  more 

'  Das  Christenthum  und  die  Cliristliche  Kircbe  der  drei  ersten  Jahrhunderte,  I.  p.  39. 
2  Faith,  be  it  remembered,  is   an  essential    constituent    of    human   nature.    As 


172  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

distinctly  the  fact,  that  as  well  after  as  before  tlie  deatli  of 
Jesus,  the  animating  principle  of  his  religion  was  attachment 
to  his  person  and  sympathy  with  his  spirit.  His  person,  in- 
deed, acquired  a  new  beauty  and  grandeur,  and  became  en- 
circled with  a  diviner  halo,  b}^  its  transference  to  an  unseen 
world.  All  the  broken  memories  and  floating  traditions  of  a 
love  and  goodness  more  than  human,  which  had  passed  in  brief 
transit  across  this  earthly  scene,  and  left  behind  them  the 
warm  lustre  of  their  spirit  on  a  world  of  sin  and  woe,  migrated 
with  death  into  a  higher  and  invisible  world.  Disjoined  for 
ever  there  from  the  disturbing  associations  of  mortal  weakness, 
sorrow,  and  pain,  they  combined  harmoniously  into  the  most 
perfect  form  of  human  excellence  which  the  believer  was  able 
to  conceive,  and  after  which  he  felt  himself  drawn  upward  to 
aspire,  as  the  condition  of  a  final  imion  hereafter  with  Christ 
and  God.^  The  feeling  easihT-  lapsed,  especially  with  the  co- 
existing associations  of  polytheism,  into  a  secondary  worship ; 
but  in  its  origin  it  was  essentially  a  reverence  for  the  highest 
conceivable  form  of  human  goodness,  suggested  and  inspired  by 

Novalis  lias  finely  said:  " "Wisscnschaft  ist  nur  eine  Hiilfte,  Glauben  ist  die 
andere ;"  and  again,  with  equal  truth:  ""Wii-  sind  mit  dem  Unsichtbaren  naher 
als  mit  deni  Sichtbaren  verbunden." 

-  The  same  enhanced  and  spiritualized  conception  of  departed  goodness  we  still 
feel  disposed  to  associate,  though  in  an  inferior  degree,  with  the  memory  of  all  the 
virtuous  whom  we  think  of  as  having  passed  through  death  into  a  more  glorious  state 
of  existence.  And  this  may  be  no  groundless  fancy  raised  by  the  weak  breath  of 
human  regret,  but  the  dawning  perception  of  a  more  perfect  reality  to  come.  A  sort 
of  saintly  halo  invests  their  cherished  remembrance,  which  elevates  while  it  consoles 
survivors.  Such  a  feeling  was  particularly  strong  among  the  first  Chi'istians ;  and 
it  was  due  to  the  directness  and  simplicity  of  their  faith.  The  two  worlds  had  au 
equal  reality  in  their  eyes;  and  at  times,  when  faith  was  stimulated  into  un- 
common fervour  by  persecution,  the  unseen  overpowered  the  seen, — literally  they 
'  walked  by  faith  not  by  sight.'  The  rude  inscriptions  on  their  graves,  their  com- 
memorative rejoicings  on  the  death-day  of  deceased  friends,  and  their  earliest 
poetry- — attest  the  extreme  vividness  of  their  faith  in  immortality.  Where  the 
gone  and  the  left  were  thus  felt  to  be  so  completely  one  great  spiritual  family  in 
God,  prayers  for  the  dead,  and  even  the  ^dsh  for  their  prayers  in  return— though 
a  usage  liable  to  abuse  when  artificially  upheld  as  part  of  a  sacerdotal  system  — 
do  not  seem  to  me,  as  they  were  oifered  and  desired  in  the  simplicity  of  the  primi- 
tive faith,  to  spring  from  an  unnatural,  still  less,  as  often  represented  by  a  narrow 
Protestantism,  from  a  perverted  state  of  mind. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF   THE    QUESTION.  173 

the  life  of  Christ.  Had  it  been  left  pure,  uncorrupted  by  tlie 
philosophical  dogmatism  of  a  declining  civilization,  it  might 
have  proved — as  it  may  yet  prove  with  the  return  to  a  simple, 
genuine  Christianity — of  inestimable  service  to  the  maintenance 
of  a  high  moral  standard  and  of  a  devotional  spirit  at  once 
fervent  and  sober,  by  interposing  the  interpretation  of  our 
highest  human  conceptions  between  the  infinite  and  unsearch- 
able God  and  the  religious  wants  of  our  own  souls.  It  is  the 
feeling  of  having  access  to  God  through  Christ, — through  the 
purest  human  to  the  highest  divine.  The  New  Testament  ex- 
presses it  by  the  significant  word,  eTriKakeladai ;  and  it  finds 
constant  utterance  in  the  early  Christian  hymns.^ 

To  sum  up  and  apply  what  I  have  now  said.  Christianity, 
in  its  origin  and  essence,  was  a  kindling  in  men's  souls  of  the 
dormant  consciousness  of  their  personal  relation  to  a  living 
God,  a  deepening  of  their  moral  sense,  a  quickening  of  their 
spiritual  insight :  and  this  change  was  wrought  through  the 
influence  of  one  profoundly  religious  nature  on  its  contempo- 
raries.^ It  was  an  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  through 
the  soul  of  Jesus,  on  humanity.  It  was  difiused  by  the  living 
Yoice,  and  circulated  through  the  world  in  streams  of  living 
tradition.  The  work  was  progressive.  The  whole  truth  did 
not  evolve  itself  out  of  the  primitive  germ  all  at  once,  nor  in 
all  men's  minds  in  the  same  way.  Time  and  reflection  were 
required  to  bring  out  its  full  significance,  and  to  unfold  it  into 

' '"  Te,  Cliriste,  solum  novimiis, 
Te  mente  pura  et  simplici, 
Te  voce,  te  cantu  pio 
Rogare  curvato  genu 
Fleudo  et  canendo  discimus." 

Prudentius,  Hymn.  Matutin.  Catliemer  II. 
2  "When  I  speak  of  deepening  the  moral  sense,  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that 
any  revelation  could  bestow  a  new  power  of  discriminating  right  and  wrong.  That 
belongs  to  the  reflective  reason  on  ,a  comparison  of  the  relative  value  of  actions.  I 
refer  to  the  instinctive  feeling  of  approval  or  disapproval  on  the  perception  of  an 
action  as  right  or  wrong,  without  regard  to  personal  consequences, — which  nothing 
so  directly  contributes  to  deepen  as  the  cpnsciousness  of  responsibility  to  an  absolute 
Moral  Excellence, 


174  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

all  its  applications.  So  long  as  faith  was  fresh  and  strong, 
and  not  overpowered  by  the  artificial  subtlety  of  dogmatizing 
theologians,  the  great  seminal  principles  infused  by  Christ  into 
the  souls  of  men,  underwent  a  natural  and  healthy  develop- 
ment, the  successive  stages  of  which  have  been  providentially 
recorded  for  us  in  the  different  books  of  the  New  Testament. 
The  synoptical  gospels  have  preserved  the  oldest  Palestinian 
traditions  of  the  person  and  public  ministry  of  Jesus.  In 
the  epistles  of  Paul  we  get  an  insight  into  the  heart  of  the 
earliest  controversy  to  which  the  new  religion  gave  rise.  The 
Fourth  Gospel  contains  the  reflections  of  a  profoundly  devout 
and  meditative  spirit  (probably  of  the  church  of  Ephesus), 
on  a  survey  of  the  ministry  of  Christ,  interpreting  it  from  his 
own  lofty  point  of  view,  and  giving  it  the  comprehensive  ap- 
plication which  to  that  wider  ken  it  seemed  at  once  to  yield. 
Briefly  we  may  say,  the  Synoptists  record  the  original  facts; 
Paul  and  John  exhibit  the  results  of  a  later  reflection  on 
those  facts.  Now,  this  vivid  and  varied  exhibition  of  the 
growth  and  expansion  of  a  great  seminal  principle  is  far  more 
instructive  and  refreshing,  far  more  stimulative  of  the  kindred 
action  of  our  own  spiritual  faculties,  than  the  presentment  of 
any  positive  doctrinal  system,  however  precise  and  complete. 
This  might  have  satisfied  the  understanding,  and  rested  there. 
Here  we  are  continually  roused  and  interested,  and  allowed 
momentary  glimpses  into  the  deepest  mysteries  of  our  being, 
as  we  follow  the  course  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  its  diversified 
dealing  with  the  souls  of  men.  It  is,  therefore,  of  less  im- 
portance to  be  able  to  pronounce  with  certainty  of  such  and  such 
a  book,  that  it  came  from  such  and  such  a  particular  hand, 
than  to  feel  sure  that  it  issued  from  the  original  circle  of  apos- 
tolic faith  and  zeal,  and  that,  whoever  be  its  author,  it  brings 
with  it  a  true  expression  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Living  God. 
Christianity  carries  us  back  through  the  souls  of  holy  men, 
even  of  the  holiest,  that  of  Christ  himself — to  God,  who  is 
the  sole  ultimate  fountain  of  all  holiness  and  aU  truth.     This 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF    THE    QUESTION.  175 

consideration,  pursued  to  its  consequences,  involves  a  deeper 
and  broader  view  of  the  essence  of  Christianity.  It  makes 
its  acceptance,  as  a  truth  for  the  soul,  independent  of  all  those 
obscure  and  difficult  critical  questions  on  which  the  learning 
of  Protestantism  has  so  precariously  based  it.  It  enables  us, 
through  faith  and  sympathy  with  the  person  and  work  of 
Christ,  to  renounce  the  perplexing  conception  of  it  as  an  ab- 
normal phenomenon  of  the  past,  breaking  the  continuity  of 
the  divine  plans,  and  virtually  denying  the  constancy  of  God's 
parental  presence  with  his  human  family, — and  to  grasp  it  now 
and  ever  as  a  present  and  eternal  reality — a  KTrjiJja  e?  ait — 
for  the  soul  of  man.  This  is  not  to  take  it  out  of  God's  hands, 
and  make  it  a  work  of  man.  On  the  contrary,  it  exalts  instead 
of  lowering  its  true  divinity.  For  it  recognizes  the  great 
Father  Spirit  as  dwelling  constantly  in  the  midst  of  his 
children,  using  alL  pure  souls,  that  are  prepared  for  their  re- 
ception, as  the  media  of  his  revelations  ;  Christ,  the  purest  of 
all,  as  the  medium  of  the  greatest — that  which  has  become, 
from  the  absolute  depth  and  fullness  of  its  communications, 
the  rule  and  measure  of  all  others.  It  is  through  the  upward 
tendency  and  aspiration  of  what  is  highest  in  our  own  hu- 
manity, that  we  rise  to  the  least  inadequate  conception  of  the 
Infinite  God,  and,  through  the  sympathy  of  a  kindred  spiritual 
nature,  enter  into  that  filial  communion  with  Him  which  is 
the  final  end  of  Christianity,  and  the  condition  of  our  immortal 
happiness.  Faith  in  Christ  is  trust  in,  reverence  for,  aspiration 
after,  a  glorified  humanity  in  its  ultimate  union  with  God. 
This  is  the  idea — the  final  result  of  the  organic  operation  and 
natural  growth  of  the  spirit  brought  into  the  world  by  Christ — 
which  is  developed  with  such  wonderful  power  and  beauty  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  In  relation  to  time  it  lies,  it  is  true,  at  a 
greater  distance  from  the  living  root  in  Christ,  than  the  simple, 
fragmentary  traditions  of  the  Synoptists.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a 
more  complete  and  perfect  expression  of  the  new  spiritual  life 
breathed  into  humanity  by  Christ,  than  mere  historical  details 


170  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

could  possibly  convey  :  just  as  the  .expanded  flower  and  ripened 
fruit  of  a  plant  reveal  to  us  more  of  the  hidden  vitality  of 
the  root,  than  the  rigid  stalk  which  grows  out  of  the  one 
and  sustains  the  other.  The  early  Quakers  had  got  hold  of 
a  great  truth,  when  they  maintained  that  the  Spirit  was  above 
the  Scripture  ;  that  the  Scripture  had,  indeed,  a  high  secon- 
dary value,  but  only  in  proportion  as  it  was  a  true  vehicle 
of  the  Spirit.^  The  Spirit,  which  had  its  richest  opening  and 
fullest  manifestation  in  Christ,  is  still  flowing  from  its  In- 
finite Source  into  the  hearts  and  lives  of  those  who  truly 
believe  in  him.  It  is  this  alone  which  makes  them  really 
his,  and  unites  them  through  him  with  God.  Through  the 
Spirit  alone,  the  Church  proves  its  identity  from  age  to  age, 
and  the  Scriptures  ripen  into  meaning  and  yield  their  fruit. 

(3.)  It  will  be  urged,  doubtless,  by  many,  that  the  term 
"  Spirit  of  God  "  is  very  vague,  and  that  all  our  notions  of  its 
action  on  the  human  soul  are  extremely  obscure.  On  this  subject 
the  final  appeal  must,  of  course,  be  made  to  the  consciousness 
of  the  individual  soul.  But  if  any  sure  inference  can  be  drawn 
from  its  distinctest  utterances — in  literature,  in  the  words  and 
actions  of  men,  and  in  our  own  dee-p  personal  exjjerience — we 
certainly  do  possess  convictions  and  trusts,  which  are  given, 
not  acquired, — which  are  not  the  product  of  reasoning,  but  the 
basis  of  it, — apart  from  which  it  would  have  nothing  to  rest 
upon,  and  could  find  no  test  of  ultimate  truth.  Such  intuitive 
states  of  mind  I  seem  to  discover,  in  out  sense  of  the  unefiace- 
able  distinction  of  right  and  wrong,  of  liberty  to  choose  either 


'  "  From  the  revelations  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  the  Saints  have  proceeded  the 
Scriptures  of  Truth ;"  but  "  because  they  are  only  a  declaration  of  the  Fountain, 
and  not  the  Fountain  itself,  therefore  they  are  not  to  be  esteemed  the  principal 
ground  of  all  Truth  and  Knowledge,  nor  yet  the  adequate,  primary  rule  of  Faith  anfl 
Manners.  They  are  a  secondary  rule,  subordinate  to  the  Spirit,  from  which  they 
have  all  their  excellency  and  certainty."  (Barclay's  Apology:  Proposition  III.  p.  67.) 
• — In  another  place  (pp.  69,  70),  Barclay  shows,  that  Calvin,  the  French  chui-ches, 
and  the  Dutch  represented  at  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  even  the  "Westminster  Divines, 
appeal  in  the  last  resort  to  the  witness  and  persuasion  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  proof  of 
the  truth  and  divinity  of  the  Scriptures. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF    THE    QUESTION.  177 

one  or  the  other,  of  dependence  on  something  higher  than  our- 
selves, of  responsibility  and  subjection — in  all  the  workings  of 
conscience,  and  in  that  dimmer  feeling  of  a  perpetuity  of  exis- 
tence in  God,  which  involves  the  germ  of  a  belief  in  immor- 
tality. These  trusts  and  convictions  lie  close  to  the  soul  and 
are  ever  dormant  in  it.  At  times  they  come  forth  with  un- 
wonted freshness  and  force,  and  carry  with  them  an  implicit 
obligation  to  accomplish  some  work,  or  enforce  some  truth  in 
relation  to  them,  which  is  recognized  as  a  commission  from  on 
high.  Whether  viewed  in  their  latent  permanence,  or  in  their 
occasional  revival,  we  refer  them  to  the  inspiration  of  God, 
because  we  are  conscious  we  did  not  create  them  by  any  act  of 
reasoning,  and  because  we  feel  that  they  exist  and  work  in  us  in- 
dependent of  our  volition.  Above  and  beyond  them  is  the  wide 
field,  left  open  to  observation  and  inference,  where  knowledge 
and  opinion  may  properly  be  regarded  as  products  of  our  own, 
limited  by  the  extent  of  our  opportunities,  and  by  our  diligence 
and  acuteness  in  using  them.  But  underneath  all  these  sub- 
sequent acquisitions,  lie  undisturbed  and  indestructible  those 
deeper  convictions  and  holier  trusts  by  which  we  morally  live 
and  through  which  we  hold  communion  with  God.^  Within 
these  primary  convictions  and  trusts  lies  the  region  of  faith ; 
while  the  operations  of  the  free  intellect  occupy  the  field  of 
science.  The  two  regions  are  conterminous ;  but  as  they  belong 
to  difierent  sides  of  our  nature,  though  both  are  embraced  by 

'  The  general  action  of  the  Divine  Spirit  we  all  feel  to  be  regulated  by  the  moral 
condition  of  the  percipient  mind.  But  at  times  it  breaks  into  the  current  of  thought 
with  a  directness  and  a  force,  wliich  leave  no  doubt  of  its  source,  where  the  impulse  is 
in  harmony  with  and  strengthens  the  clearest  perceptions  of  reason  and  the  moral 
sense.  To  most  men  of  a  meditative  turn,  seasons  probably  come  and  go,  few  and  far 
between,  which  flash,  as  if  from  on  high,  a  momentary  light  on  the  soul.  Could  such 
moments  be  arrested  and  detained,  and  made  permanently  to  influence  our  thoughts 
and  aims,  they  would  invest  our  words  and  actions  with  a  prophetic  significance. 
But  they  pass ;  and  we  cannot  recall  them. 

"  Sponte  sua,  dura  forte  etiam  nil  tale  putamus. 
In  mentem  quaidara  veniunt,  quse  forsitan  ultro, 
Si  semel  exciderint,  nunquam  revocata  redibunt, 
Atque  eadem  studio  frustra  expectabis  inani." 

Vida.  Poet.  Lib.  I. 

12 


178  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

the  highest  reason,  they  must  be  kept  distinct,  and  one  must 
not  invade  or  encroach  on  the  other.  The  men  who  possess 
these  fundamental  intuitions  in  the  greatest  force,  and  culti- 
vate them  by  faith  and  a  holy  life,  we  call  prophets.  They 
are  messengers  from  God,  the  bearers  of  his  revelations  to 
men — more  truly  such,  as  they  awaken  in  other  souls  a  sense 
of  their  relation  to  a  Divine  Power,  and  deepen  the  awe  and 
enforce  the  obligation  of  the  moral  law  emanating  from  it. 
The  spirit  which  such  men  introduce  into  the  world,  is  pro- 
gressive in  its  working,  and  becomes  richer  of  results  as  the 
capacity  of  humanity  expands  with  its  growth  to  receive 
them.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  there  is  anything  arbi- 
trary or  capricious  in  these  operations  of  the  Divine  Spirit. 
They  are  doubtless  governed  by  laws  of  the  highest  wisdom ; 
though,  as  belonging  to  an  invisible  scene  of  things,  they  are 
often  beyond  our  present  grasp.  Their  sudden  illapses  seem 
to  us  at  times  strange  and  imaccountable.  "  The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst 
not  tell  whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth :  so  is  every 
one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit."  But  this  is  the  impression 
of  our  ignorance,  not  the  effect  of  any  arbitrary  change  in 
God.  Generally,  we  may  observe,  that  it  is  the  pure,  simple 
and  earnest  mind  which  is  most  susceptible  of  these  divine 
influences ;  and  that  these  for  the  most  part  remain  constant, 
so  long  as  their  suggestions  are  listened  to  and  obeyed.  We 
ourselves  are  most  conscious  of  their  power  in  our  holiest 
moods ;  when  the  world  and  the  senses  have  least  dominion 
over  us ;  when  faith  and  prayer  keep  them  in  check,  and  lift 
us  into  a  higher  region  of  thought  and  feeling.  Nevertheless 
perfect  sinlessness  is  not  the  condition  even  of  their  most  vivid 
experience.  Otherwise  our  humanity  would  be  shut  out  from 
all  communion  with  the  heavenly  world.  Sometimes  an  un- 
guarded lapse  into  sin  will  be  the  means  of  bringing  them  back 
in  all  their  strength,  and  of  intensifying  the  consciousness  of 
our  personal  relation  to  God.     Preservation  of  the  sensitive- 


THE   RELIGIOUS    BEARING   OF    THE   QUESTION.  179 

ness  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  sense,  is  tlie  chief  condition  of 
the  perpetuity  of  their  power.  This  is  more  completely  de- 
stroyed by  the  silent  corrosion  of  worldly  selfishness  and  hard- 
heartedness,  than  by  the  passing  storm  of  strong  passions  and 
appetites,  which  are  acknowledged  and  deplored  even  while  im- 
perfectly resisted.  The  soul  feels  its  degradation,  and  yearns 
to  be  delivered  from  it :  and  this  protects  it  against  absolute 
moral  perdition.  In  full  accordance  with  this  view,  Christ  de- 
clares, that  the  publicans  and  harlots,  sinners  as  they  are,  will 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  before  the  selfish  and  hypocritical 
Scribes  and  Pharisees. 

Nor,  again,  does  it  follow,  that  a  true  revelation  may  not, 
even  as  regards  its  moral  and  spiritual  contents,  be  associated 
with  many  false  ideas  on  its  first  outward  announcement  to  the 
world.  Some  correspondence,  indeed,  to  existing  beliefs  and 
the  actual  condition  of  human  intelligence,  is  indispensable  as 
a  medium  of  communication  between  the  truth  offered  and  the 
mind  accepting  it.  But  such  things  are  the  mere  historical 
surroundings  of  the  central  truth  which  they  serve  to  introduce. 
They  drop  off  when  they  have  done  their  work,  and  leave  room 
for  another  and  more  suitable  investment,  like  the  husk  which  may 
be  shattered  without  affecting  the  kernel.  No  doubt  it  does  not 
become  the  men  of  a  particular  period,  to  declare  absolutely  of  any 
statement  in  a  revealed  message,  that  it  cannot  be  true,  because 
they  cannot  at  present  comprehend  it,  provided  always  it  does 
not  offend  their  moral  sense  and  contradict  the  first  principles 
of  reason.  Some  mystery  is  the  inevitable  adjunct  of  whatever 
comes  to  us  from  a  higher  sphere.  There  is  a  healthy  reverence 
for  the  utterances  of  a  holy  mind  that  stands  nearer  to  God 
than  ourselves,  and  may  have  glimpses  of  truth  as  yet  withheld 
from  us,  because  incapable  or  unworthy  of  them — which  should 
hold  us  back  from  saying,  in  purely  spiritual  matters,  "This 
cannot  be,  because  I  do  not  understand  it."  Our  religious  trust, 
in  Christ  for  instance,  would  not  on  this  ground  be  the  less, 
although  we  should  plainly  see,  that  in  matters  not  spiritual, 


180  CHARACTER    OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

he  thought  and  spoke  like  the  men  of  his  own  age  and  nation. 
The  final  test  and  consummating  evidence  of  a  divine  revelation 
is  the  tendency  of  its  special  influence  to  unfold  and  develope 
into  higher  perfection  the  moral  and  spiritual  elements  of  our 
nature,  and  the  subsistence,  with  unimpaired  authority  over  the 
human  heart  and  conscience,  of  its  great  fundamental  principles, 
amid  the  ceaseless  growth  and  decay  from  generation  to  gene- 
ration of  the  various  speculative  theories  which  have  succes- 
sively gathered  round  them.  The  well-known  words  of  Cicero 
have  a  deep  truth  which  finds  its  eminent  application  here : 
"  Opinionum  commenta  delet  dies,  naturae  judicia  confirmat."  ^ 

If  these  views  are  correct,  we  cannot  take  Christianity  out  of 
the  general  circle  of  divine  providence.  It  is  the  utterance  of 
God's  spirit  in  the  heart  of  our  humanity  :  but  it  is  a  typical,  not 
an  exceptional,  utterance.  This  conception  of  it  rescues  it  from 
the  hands  of  archaeologists  and  critics,  where  it  was  exposed  to 
all  their  doubts  and  harassed  by  their  controversies,  and  gives 
it  back  in  perpetuity  to  the  religious  consciousness  of  our  race. 
It  is  the  highest  function  of  a  true  learning,  to  set  it  once  more 
free,  and  restore  it  to  its  original  freshness  and  simplicity,  that 
it  may  abide  with  us  for  ever. 

(4.)  The  views  which  I  have  now  stated  simplify  the  question 
of  the  historical  origin  of  our  religion,  and  spare  us  several  dif- 
ficulties which  attach  to  the  ordinary  Protestant  theory.  The 
new  life  given  to  the  world  by  Christ  was,  as  I  have  already 
said,  a  fresh  outburst  of  the  Divine  Spirit ;  and  the  books  com- 
prised within  our  New  Testament  are  a  record  of  its  diversified 
efiects  and  successive  developments,  as  they  were  conceived  and 
transmitted  by  popular  tradition,  or  reflected  by  minds  of  higher 
culture  and  more  philosophic  comprehension.  We  must  look 
for  the  apostolic  root  of  the  whole  movement  in  the  synoptical 
gospels,  and  more  especially  in  those  of  Matthew  and  Mark, — 
for  Luke  already  betrays  an  approach  to  the  catholic  tendencies 
of  Paul.  Here  we  get  the  truest  idea  of  Christ  and  his  work  as 
'  De  Natura  Deorum,  II. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF   THE    QUESTION.  181 

historical  realities.  The  decision  of  the  question  respecting 
his  person,  whether  it  was  properly  human,  or  something  out- 
side and  beyond  the  circle  of  humanity,  hangs  on  the  decision 
of  a  previous  question — whether  we  are  to  appeal  to  the  Three 
First  Gospels  or  the  Fourth,  as  our  highest  historical  authority. 
It  is  the  collocation  of  both  these  sources,  as  partaking  of  the 
same  character,  within  the  limits  of"  the  same  authoritative  book, 
that  has  created  the  difficulty.  Had  we  only  the  Synoptists, 
though  undoubtedly  they  invest  the  person  of  Christ  with  very 
extraordinary  powers,  and  place  him  in  a  most  intimate  relation 
to  God,  we  should  hardly  have  claimed  for  him  a  nature  higher 
than  the  human,  however  wonderfully  endowed.  On  the  other 
hand,  did  we  know  him  through  the  Fourth  Gospel  alone,  we 
could  not  doubt,  that  the  author  of  that  work  regarded  him  as 
something  more  than  human — an  incarnation  of  the  Eternal 
Word.  This  idea  is  so  clearly  expressed  throughout,  that 
nothing  but  a  foregone  conclusion  and  doctrinal  prepossession 
could  have  blinded  anyone  to  the  perception  of  it.  That  gospel 
is  regarded — and  rightly,  by  those  who  admit  its  authenticity — 
as  a  completion,  from  an  apostolic  source,  of  the  inadequate  con- 
ceptions of  the  person  of  Christ  conveyed  by  the  synoptical  nar- 
ratives. On  a  point  so  vital  as  this,  no  authority  could  equal  that 
of  the  beloved  disciple,  who  leaned  on  the  bosom  of  the  Lord, 
and  was  admitted  to  his  inmost  privacy  of  thought.  The  in- 
terweaving into  a  narrative  so  simple  and  natural,  in  its  main 
features,  as  the  original  Palestinian  tradition  respecting  Christ, 
— of  the  idea  of  the  incarnation  of  a  divine  person,  co-existing 
with  God  from  the  beginning,  has  something  so  novel  and  start- 
ling, that  nothing  short  of  an  authority  like  that  of  John  coidd 
make  it  credible  as  a  fact.  But  the  question  assumes  another 
character,  when  we  find  the  evidence  for  the  authorship  of  John 
decidedly  defective ; — coupled  as  it  is  with  another  considera- 
tion, that  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  was  an  attempted  solution 
of  the  old  problem  of  the  mutual  relation  of  matter  and  spirit, 
already  widely  current  among   abstract  thinkers,  which  soon 


182  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

blended  itself  with  the  profound  intuitions  of  Christianity  as 
they  rose  into  the  region  of  philosophical  thought.  It  was 
a  typical  example  of  the  hypostatizing  tendency  which  dis- 
tinguished the  later  Platonic  schools,  and  a  not  unnatural  ex- 
aggeration of  their  hereditary  doctrine  of  Ideas. 

Originally,  X6709  and  Trvevfia,  word  and  spirit,  were  only 
different  modes  of  expressing  one  and  the  same  conception, — 
that  of  God's  action  on  created  things.  The  former  was  the 
Alexandrine  mode ;  the  latter  (Rucich),  the  Palestinian.  It  was 
Philo  who  developed  the  doctrine  of  the  \cr/o<;  into  a  system. 
Where  a  type  of  thought  more  strictly  Hebraic  prevailed, 
the  idea  of  irvevfia  maintained  the  ascendancy.  For  instance, 
it  holds  a  prominent  place  in  the  teachings  of  Paul.  But 
the  distinction  which  the  Church  subsequently  made  between 
the  two  ideas,  we  do  not  find,  as  yet,  clearly  recognized  in 
the  New  Testament.  Even  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  it  is  only 
just  beginning  to  show  itself.  For  the  two  formulas — 'the 
word  made  flesh,'  and  '  the  spirit  given  without  measure ' — 
are  nearly  equivalent  in  meaning.  The  decided  transference, 
in  that  gospel,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  to  the  conception 
of  Christ,  accelerated  the  hypostatizing  process  by  which  an 
idea  was  gradually  converted  into  a  person,  and  led  finally 
to  a  complete  separation  of  the  meanings  attached  to  "Word 
and  Spirit — the  former  denoting  a  divine  person,  the  latter  a 
divine  influence.  At  length,  the  idea  of  the  Spirit  also 
yielded  to  the  hypostatizing  tendencies  of  the  age ;  and  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  at  the  time  of  the  Council 
of  Constantinople,  the  Spirit  had  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  a 
mere  influence,  and  had  become  a  person.  Of  this  second 
hypostasis  I  can  find  no  clear  trace  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Perhaps  the  promise  of  the  Paraclete,  and  the  use 
of  the  pronoun  iic€ivo<i  in  reference  to  it  (John  xvi.  7  and 
seq.),  mark  the  commencement  of  the  tendency.  But  of  the 
personality  of  the  "Word  and  of  its  incarnation  in  the  man 
Jesus,  there  is,  I  think,  no  indistinct  assertion  in  the  Fourth 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF   THE    QUESTION.  183 

Gospel.  The  doctrine,  as  I  apprehend  it,  was  a  metaphysi- 
cal formula  of  the  time,  into  which  the  highest  thought  of 
Christianity  passed  and  embodied  itself,  and  which  doubt- 
less facilitated  the  access  of  the  new  religion  to  the  minds 
of  philosophical  heathens.  The  difference  between  this  and 
the  orthodox  view  is  an  important  and  an  obvious  one. 
The  latter  regards  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  of  the 
Eternal  Logos  in  Jesus,  as  an  essential  part  of  the  Christian 
revelation — a  great  fact  in  the  spiritual  economy  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  the  disclosure  of  which  completes  and,  as  it  were,  ex- 
hausts the  spiritual  discoveries  of  the  gospel.  The  other 
view  looks  on  the  doctrine  simply  as  the  interpretation  by  a 
reflective  mind,  through  the  aid  of  a  conception  which  the 
philosophy  of  the  age  supplied — of  the  great  ultimate  design 
of  Christianity ; — the  intellectual  vehicle,  so  to  speak,  through 
which  the  mind  penetrated  to,  appropriated,  and  conveyed  to 
others,  its  sense  of  the  highest  of  all  truths — the  possibility 
of  the  union  of  the  soul  of  man  with  God.  While,  therefore, 
I  am  unable  to  admit,  either  on  critical  or  on  philosophical 
grounds,  the  authoritative  character  of  the  doctrine  of  an  in- 
carnate Logos  as  a  part  of  divine  revelation,  since  it  wants, 
in  my  belief,  direct  apostolic  warrant,  and  is  capable,  more- 
over, of  being  traced  to  its  source  in  an  old  and  now  defunct 
school  of  philosophy ; — I  still  acknowledge  with  reverence  the 
relative  value  of  this  doctrine,  as  an  important  link,  assigned 
its  place  by  providence,  in  the  grand  chain  of  mental  develop- 
ment— if  not  a  truth  itself,  a  provisional  means  of  approach 
to  the  greatest;  an  attempt,  corresponding  to  the  intellectual 
resources  of  the  age,  to  render  that  truth  distinct  and  in- 
telligible by  a  concrete  presentment  of  it  to  the  mind.  It 
covered  the  place,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  where  a  truth 
lay  hid,  and  would  ultimately  be  found :  the  truth,  that 
humanity  in  its  highest  form  supplies  the  most  perfect  in- 
terpretation that  we  can  apprehend,  of  the  person  and  will 
of  God ; — and   that   this   ideal,  as   it   is  conceived  by  every 


184  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

pure  and  earnest  mind,  must  be  constantly  aspired  after,  as 
the  medium  of  present  communion  witli  the  Father  of  our 
spirits,  and  the  condition  of  future,  endless  approximation  to 
his  unattainable  perfection.  In  this  great  thought  lies  the 
meaning  of  those  wonderful  expressions  of  Paul :  "  the  un- 
searchable riches  of  Christ ;"  "  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in 
God ;"  and  of  the  whole  of  that  glorious  chapter,  the  eighth 
of  Romans. 

We  must  not  be  repelled  from  this  view  by  the  objection, 
that  an  imperfect  and  exploded  intellectual  formula — in  plain 
words,  an  intellectual  error — is  thus  assumed  to  have  been 
employed  by  Providence  as  a  means  of  introducing  and 
familiarizing  to  the  human  mind  a  great  spiritual  truth. 
For  this  is  one  of  those  fixed  conditions  of  progressive 
mental  development,  which  the  history  of  religion  discloses 
to  us  at  every  step.  We  constantly  observe  a  central  truth 
bursting  the  intellectual  shell,  in  which  it  had  been  tem- 
porarily encased,  to  adapt  it  to  the  period  of  its  earliest  com- 
mimication  to  the  world;  and  then  putting  on  one  after 
another,  broader  and  more  comprehensive  forms  of  expression, 
as  the  intellectual  advance  of  mankind  requires  them ;  but 
attesting  at  the  same  time  its  own  intrinsic  divinity,  by  sur- 
viving, in  undiminished  force  and  clearness,  all  the  doctrinal 
forms  through  which  it  has  successively  passed.  The  great 
fundamental  truths  of  Christianity — those  which  constitute  its 
eternal  and  unchangeable  essence — may  be  reduced  to  three  : 
first,  a  life  to  come  of  just  retribution  and  endless  progress . 
secondly,  the  mercy  and  forgiveness  of  God  freely  offered  to 
the  believing  and  repentant ;  thirdly,  the  communion  of  man 
with  God,  as  of  a  child  with  its  parent — of  the  finite  in  its 
earnest  striving  upward,  with  the  all-righteous  will  and  the 
all-loving  heart  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  of  the  universe.  Now,  it 
is  to  be  noticed,  that  each  of  these  great  truths  was  introduced 
at  first  as  a  living  element  into  the  popidar  consciousness,  by 
the  help  of  some  belief  or  conception  which  belonged  to  the 


THE    EELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF    THE    QUESTION.  185 

time  of  its   birth — some   form   of    thouglit   wliicli   was   itself 
temporary,  though  the  truth  which  it  conveyed,  was  destined 
to  endure  for  ever.     Take,  for  instance,  that  grand  and  con- 
solatory doctrine  of  a  future  life.      It  was  brought  home  to 
the  Jewish  mind,   and  passed   thence  to  the  heathen,  under 
the  Hebrew  imagery  of  a  kingdom  of  heaven,  which  was  to 
come  with  the  dissolution  of  the  present  state  of  things,  before 
the  existing  generation  had  passed  away.    It  was  conceived, 
at  first,  in  the  concrete,  sensuous  form  of  a  theocracy  on  earth, 
with  Christ,   as    God's   vice-gerent,  at  its  head.     It  took,  in 
other  words,  the  form  of  Chiliasm,  which  adhered  so  closely 
to    the   primitive    Jewish    Christianity.      That    form    did    not 
last,  for  it  was  condemned  and  confuted  by  the  unanswerable 
evidence  of  facts.     Already  in  the  Fourth  Gospel   there  is  a 
perceptible  approach   to  a  more  spiritual    conception    of   the 
future  life.    Other  forms  succeeded,  not  wholly  purged  in  the 
first  instance  from  the  original  conception,  and  therefore  not 
perfectly  self-consistent,  but  shaped  to  the  needs  of  the  time 
by  the  speculations  of  philosophical  minds,  and  the  progressive 
doctrinal  development  of  the  Church  ;    till  at  last,  in  the  re- 
fined and  elevated  anticipations  of  a  Cappe,  a  Channing,  and 
a  Parker,   the    hope   took  a  shape  which  the  Christianity  of 
the  first  ages,  as   I  have   pointed  out  in  a  previous   section, 
would  have  repudiated  as  unbelief.     The  history  of  this  doc- 
trine is  singularly  instructive   and   significant.      Through  all 
the  changes  of  form  under  which,   from  age  to  age,  it  had 
been  apprehended  and  realized  to  the  mind,  the  fundamental 
trust   endured    essentially  the   same.       Once  clearly  and   dis- 
tinctly announced,  it   found  a  welcome  and  response   in   the 
popular  heart,  which  ensured  its  continuance  for  ever.     Once 
definitely  lodged  amidst  the  deepest  moral  convictions  of  the 
soul,  it  was  not  to  be  displaced  by  merely  intellectual  doubts, 
but  rested  as  a  quiet  trust  within,  safe  and  unassailable — borne 
witness  to  by  the  light  of  conscience  and  holy  love,  which  it 
helped  itself  to  keep  alive. 


186  CHARACTER   OF    THE    FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

So  with  tlie  promise  of  divine  forgiveness  to  the  penitent. 
The  great  thing  was  to  produce  the  assurance  of  being  par- 
doned, and  so  take  away  that  despairing  sense  of  moral  help- 
lessness, which  the  consciousness  of  unforgiven  sin  leaves  on  the 
soul.  Forgiveness  was  made  contingent  on  change  of  mind 
(ficTavoia)  springing  out  of  faith, — that  is,  of  sj^mpathy  with 
the  spirit  of  Christ  himself;  and  God's  absolute  forgiveness 
of  the  believing  and  repentant  sinner,  was  brought  home  to 
the  mind  by  the  contemplation  of  Christ's  great  act  of  self- 
surrender  to  God  on  the  cross.  Now  this  effect  was  deepened, 
and  perhaps  could  alone  have  been  rendered  operative  in  the 
popular  consciousness  of  that  time,  by  the  inevitable  association  of 
the  act  with  those  notions  of  expiation  and  atonement  which  were 
then  universally  current,  alike  among  the  Gentiles  and  the  Jews. 
The  cotitroversial  portions  of  Paul's  epistles  are  deeply  tinged 
with  such  notions,  which  had  evidently  a  sincere  and  earnest, 
though  perhaps  an  indistinct  hold  on  the  belief  of  the  apostle 
himself.  The  expository  vehicle  belonged  to  that  age  ;  though 
the  truth  which  it  sheltered,  has  remained  a  permanent  treasure 
to  mankind ;  and  it  is  this :  that  the  only  possible  atonement 
for  sin,  is  with  Christ  to  surrender  the  whole  soul  to  the  will  of 
God  and  to  the  service  and  sacrifice  which  it  demands.  I  have 
already  shown  how  the  same  principle  applies^to  the  introduction 
of  the  doctrine  of  human  communion  with  God,  as  it  is  presented 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  So  that  the  three  parts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, which  respectively  mark  three  stages  in  the  development 
of  Christian  truth — the  Synoptical  Gospels,  the  Epistles  of  Paul, 
and  the  Fourth  Gospel — have  each  contributed  their  share  to 
that  development,  by  the  help  of  some  belief  or  dogma  which 
belonged  to  the  poj)ular  or  philosophical  opinion  of  the  time, 
and  can,  therefore,  possess  no  doctrinal  authority  for  us  :  the 
Synoptists  clothing  the  expectation  of  a  future  life  in  the  garb 
of  Jewish  Chiliasm ;  Paul  rendering  clear  and  impressive  the 
doctrine  of  reconciliation  with  God,  through  the  popular  notions 
of  atonement ;  the  Fourth  Gospel  familiarizing  to  the  mind  the 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BEARING    OF    THE    QUESTION.  187 

possibility  of  a  spiritual  union  between  God  and  man,  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  Logos. 

Form  and  essence  are,  indeed,  closely  mixed  up  with  each 
other  in  the  representation  given  by  the  New  Testament  of 
these  great  truths ;  for  they  were  blended  together  in  the  minds 
of  the  writers,  as  they  must  have  been,  to  justify  our  rever- 
ence for  them  as  honest  and  genuine  men.  Any  supposition 
is  less  offensive  to  the  moral  sense,  than  the  old  rationalistic 
theory  of  conscious  and  deliberate  accommodation  on  the  part 
of  our  Lord  and  his  apostles  to  errors  and  prejudices  which  they 
knew  to  be  such.  A  vain  effort  was  thus  made  to  spare  their 
intellectual  infallibility  at  the  cost  of  their  moral  integrity.  "We, 
who  in  the  order  of  providence  have  outlived  their  limited  and 
mistaken  ideas,  must  separate  the  two  elements  which,  in  their 
honest  belief,  were  combined  in  one  :  and  the  test  that  we  apply, 
must  be  a  moral  and  spiritual  one.  The  Spirit  of  Christ  must 
itself  help  us  to  disengage  it  from  the  historical  forms,  through 
which  it  has  been  brought  to  us.  We  must  extricate  the  human 
from  the  divine,  the  temporal  from  the  eternal,  by  putting  our 
minds  spiritually  into  the  same  frame  towards  God  and  man  as 
we  discern  in  the  authors  of  our  religion, — by  cultivating  that 
deep  inward  principle  of  faith  and  holiness  and  love,  which  under- 
lies, as  an  eternal  substratum,  these  ancient  forms  of  thought,  and 
which  they  were  used  by  Providence  as  a  media  for  infusing  into 
the  heart  of  humanity.  The  failure  to  recognize  this  distinction 
between  the  form  and  the  substance  of  spiritual  truth,  which  I 
have  attempted  to  exemplify  in  three  of  its  most  important  mani- 
festations— has  been  the  ceaseless  occasion  of  heresies  and  sects, 
of  interminable  controversy  and  unfruitful  speculation.  If  we 
review  the  history  of  doctrine,  we  shall  find  that,  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, the  questions  which  have  most  fiercely  divided  man- 
kind, have  turned  on  matters  that  were  either  beyond  the  reach 
of  human  determination  or  did  not  touch  at  a  single  point  the 
heart  of  a  saving  faith.  A  verbal  theology  has  been  the  death 
of  spiritual  religion.     Till  divines  have  settled  among  them- 


188  CHARACTER   OF   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

selves  what  the  Scriptures  really  are,  and  how  they  are  to  be 
interpreted — in  other  words,  till  they  have  determined  the 
premisses  of  their  argument — controversy  can  only  breed  con- 
troversy, and  lead  to  no  pacific  issue.  On  the  grounds  usually 
assumed  by  Protestants,  controversy  stands  pretty  much  where 
it  did  three  hundred  years  ago. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  pain  and  apprehension  with  which 
many  good  and  religious  minds  regard  the  present  tendencies 
of  biblical  criticism,  as  if  they  were  simply  destructive.  They 
look  upon  them  as  a  thinly  disguised  form  of  deism,  or  even  of 
absolute  unbelief.  In  the  foregoing  Essay  I  have  endeavoured 
to  show,  in  relation  to  a  particular  point,  very  imperfectly,  I 
am  aware,  but  honestly  and  with  strong  conviction,  that  this  is 
not,  at  least  is  not  necessarily,  the  case.  On  the  contrary,  my 
firm  persuasion  is,  that  criticism  is  performing,  unconsciously  it 
may  be  in  some  cases,  a  great  reparatory  and  conservative  work. 
It  is  sweeping  away  an  accumulation  of  antiquated  beliefs  and 
gratuitous  assumptions,  which  obstruct  the  access  to  the  pure 
teachings  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  crush  with  their  needless  weight 
the  free  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  When  criticism  shall 
have  accomplished  its  needful,  but  for  the  time  painful  and  in- 
vidious task,  I  feel  as  sure  as  I  can  be  of  anything  not  capable 
of  scientific  demonstration,  that  it  will  be  followed  by  a  fresh 
outburst  of  spiritual  religion,  counteracting,  as  nothing  else 
can,  the  mercenary  and  materialistic  tendencies  which  now 
absorb  so  large  a  portion  of  the  thought  and  energy  of  man- 
kind, and  form  the  chief  ground  of  apprehension  for  the  future 
of  the  wonderful  times  in  which  we  live.  There  are  indications 
that  a  new  and  more  searching  reformation  is  preparing  for 
the  Church  of  Christ ;  and  it  will  then,  perhaps,  be  seen,  that 
the  critics,  wherever  they  have  been  honest  and  serious,  much 
as  they  may  now  be  distrusted  and  dreaded  by  those  who  do 
not  perceive  the  ultimate  aim  of  their  labours,  have  been 
among  not  the  least  safe  and  efiective  agents  in  accelerating 
its  advent.     We  complain  of  the  decay  of  religious  zeal ;    of 


THE    RELIGIOUS  BEARING    OF   THE    QUESTION.  189 

the  alienation  of  the  masses  from  any  form  of  Christian  faith  ; 
and  of  the  little  interest  which  some  of  the  most  cultivated 
intellects  exhibit  in  the  highest  questions  of  humanity.  Is  not 
our  cold,  hard,  pugnacious  theology,  which  fights  about  de- 
funct abstractions,  and  keeps  us  away  from  the  living  soul  of 
the  Gospel, — chiefly  to  blame  for  all  this  ?  When  men  truly . 
believe  in  a  Living  Grod,  ever-present  to  the  individual  soul ; 
when  the  Unseen  Future  becomes  a  reality  to  them ;  when  love 
and  purity  and  inward  peace,  conjoined  with  free  thought  and 
ever-increasing  knowledge,  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  true 
wealth  and  nobleness  of  human  life, — there  will  be  some  chance 
of  the  world's  returning  to  simpler  manners,  more  rational  tastes, 
and  a  more  refined  enjoyment  of  our  present  existence.  Higher 
objects  will  engage  the  general  interest  and  activity,  than  the 
ceaseless  accumulation  of  riches,  the  restless  struggle  for  social 
position,  or  the  enervating  pursuit  of  indolent  and  voluptuous 
excitement.  It  may  be  hoped,  that  then,  at  length,  Christianity 
will  begin  to  exercise  some  influence  on  politics,  and  that 
Church  and  State  will  acknowledge  a  reciprocal  relation  fraught 
with  some  benefit  to  mankind.  But  this  cannot  be,  till  politics, 
under  a  higher  influence,  mean  something  nobler  than  the  in- 
terested strife  of  factions,  or  the  audacious  schemes  of  un- 
scrupulous dynastic  ambition,  without  any  reference  to  the 
well-being  and  contentment  of  millions  ;  not  till  the  Church, 
ceasing  to  be  an  arena  for  the  contentions  of  "  envy,  hatred, 
malice,  and  all  uncharitableness,"  shall  strive  througli  all  its 
sections,  though  still  marked  by  honest  and  invincible  difier- 
ences  of  opinion,  to  realize  the  beautiful  idea  of  Catholic  unity 
in  one  wide  brotherhood  of  mutual  service  and  reciprocal  good- 
will,— and  the  old  exclamation  of  an  admiring  heathenism  shall 
no  longer  sound  as  a  mockery  and  a  sarcasm, — "  See  how  these 
Christians  love  one  another  !" 


By  the  same  author, 

A    RETROSPECT 

OF 

THE  RELIGIOrS  LIFE  OF  ENGLAND; 

OB, 

THE  CHURCH,  PURITANISM,  AND  FREE  INQUIRY. 

Second  Edition,  revised. 
TEtJBNER  AND    CO.,    60,    PATERNOSTER   ROW. 


CHRISTIAN  ASPECTS  OF  FAITH  AND  DUTY. 

Second  (English)  Edition. 
LONGMAN,  GREEN,  LONGMAN,  AND  CO.,  LONDON. 


Also,  edited  by  the  same,  icith  Preface  and  Notes, 

THE    PENTATEUCH: 

AND 

ITS  RELATION  TO   THE  JEWISH  AND   CHRISTIAN 
DISPENSATIONS. 

By  Andrews  Xorton,  late  Professor  of  Sacred  History,  Harvard  University, 

Mass.  U.S. 


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