Full text of "Diatessarica; [a series dealing with the interpretation of the Gospels]"

Diatrssarira

PART X, SECTION I

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL

INTRODUCTION

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

FETTER LANE, E.G.
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER

100, PRINCES STREET

Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.

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THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL

SECTION I

INTRODUCTION

EDWIN A. ABBOTT

Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge

"What seek ye?"

St John i. 38

(compare Genesis xxxvii. 15)

Cambridge :
at the University Press
1913

(Eambtrtge:

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO UNDERTAKE THE STUDY

OF THE FOUR GOSPELS
AS IMPERFECT DOCUMENTS

IN THE BELIEF THAT THEIR VERY IMPERFECTIONS
WERE PERMITTED OR ORDAINED

TO DRAW US NEARER
THROUGH THE LETTER TO THE SPIRIT

OF THE PERFECT LIFE
WHICH THEY IMPERFECTLY DESCRIBE

PREFACE

PREVIOUS Parts (published in 1900-12) of the
series of which this is the tenth have dealt mostly with
words. This Part will attempt to elucidate thoughts
with the help of the evidence extracted from the
elucidations of words. The earlier volumes might
perhaps be described as a letting down of nets. If so,
this one might be called an attempt to draw them in.

The " nets " were, in fact, footnotes, which, in
former volumes, were very many and very long.
They were also often apparently digressive. The
reason was that I mostly wrote them with a view to
future investigations as well as, or more than, to the
matter in hand. When fishermen let down their nets,
the boats that row round a shoal of fish sometimes
look as though they were rowing away from it ; and
my boats often (I dare say) presented the appearance
of rowing away from that which they were attempting
to surround and capture.

Now I fear that I may incur an opposite charge.
The notes in the present volume may seem too few
and too slight to justify the statements placed in the
text above them. If they do, I must ask the reader to
remember that fishermen cannot draw nets in, and let
them down, at one and the same time.

vii

PREFACE

It will be found (I think) that a brief note of a line
or two in the present volume beside giving references
to original authorities often refers the reader to a
discussion extending to several pages in a previous
Part of Diatessarica, where the earliest authorities on
the point in question are fully and accurately quoted,
with so much of the context as will enable the serious
student to form a judgment of their meaning. Reject
my conclusions he may. Perhaps he often will. But
if he does, it will be because he finds them novel, or
because they seem to him fanciful or mystical, or
because he thinks the evidence I have myself alleged
against my own views stronger than the evidence
I have alleged in support of them not because the
evidence has been unfairly, or carelessly, or inade-
quately collected and classified, or because it can be
convicted of any suppression of inconvenient truth.

Comparing the present volume with my articles on
the Gospels in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1901) and in
the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1880) and with the
earliest Parts of Diatessarica, I find that the Fourth
Gospel, in spite of its poetic nature, is closer to history
than I had supposed. The study of it, and especially
of those passages where it intervenes to explain ex-
pressions in Mark altered or omitted by Luke, appears
to me to throw new light on the words, acts, and
purposes of Christ, and to give increased weight to
His claims on our faith and worship.

Vlll

PREFACE

My thanks are due once more to Mr W. S. Aldis,
Mr H. Candler, and Rev. J. Hunter Smith, for cor-
rections of proof and valuable suggestions. To Mr
Candler I am also indebted for trenchant criticisms of
my refusal to admit that the Fourth Gospel is a mere
poem. These have often been of great service by
directing my attention to features in that Gospel, and
to early authorities, especially in Jewish literature,
which seemed to justify the position I had attributed
to the Evangelist, where, without such justification, it
might have incurred the charge of being " modern."

EDWIN A. ABBOTT.

Wellside, Well Walk,
Hampstead, N. W.

12 May 1913.

CONTENTS

PAGE

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS , xiii xv

CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

I " Fourfold Gospel " implies four witnesses r

2 Luke, sometimes a silent witness 2

3 John, sometimes an indirect or corrective witness . . 4

CHAPTER II
WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND FIRST?

i The need of some fixed order 9

2 Mark should stand first 10

CHAPTER III
WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

i Internal evidence 13

2 External evidence that John " supplied things omitted " . 15
3 John should stand last . . . . . . i?

CHAPTER IV
ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

i The naturalness of such allusions 20

2 An impartial collection of groups of Marcan peculiarities . 20

3 Johannine allusions to some of these 22

4 An instance that seems at first sight not worth noticing . 28

5 The advantage of an inclusive study of such allusions . 33

CONTENTS

CHAPTER V
THE COURSE OF PROCEDURE

PAGE

I The advantages of taking Mark as the starting-point . 37

2 The disadvantage of taking Mark as the starting-point . 39

3 The disadvantage of neglecting Johannine chronology . 42
4 The disadvantage of passing over traditions outside the

threefold Synoptic Tradition 49

5 The advantages outweigh the disadvantages . . . 51

CHAPTER VI

"PARALEIPOMEXA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

I John regarded as a book, like Chronicles, ''supplying

things omitted" 53

2 The historian's right to omit 55

3 Miracles omitted 58

4 Miracles inserted 63

5 The Passover 68

6 The Temple 69

CHAPTER VII
ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES '

i Agreement between Kings and Chronicles 73

2 " After these things " in Hebrew 74

3 "After these things," and "after this," in John . . 75

4 " After these things, n and " after these words," in Luke . 77

5 " After " may sometimes mislead 79

CHAPTER VIII
ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

i Mark "did not write in order," if " order :: includes

"appropriate beginning and end" .... 82

j 2 Mark is vague as to time and place 84

3 Indications of Marcan omission 88

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX
ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

PAGE

i Matthew has an appropriate "beginning" and "end" . 97
2 Matthew " wrote in order," of a kind, but not chronological

"order" 99

3 Matthew's arrangement of evidence 101

CHAPTER X

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

i Luke attempted to write in chronological " order " . . 108
2 Luke wrote as a Greek historian but incorporating Jewish

documents and traditions 114

3 Luke's arrangement, sometimes dependent on " proofs " . 120

4 Luke's view of " the beginning " and " the end " . . 124

CHAPTER XI
ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

i John arranged his narrative by the Jewish Calendar,

interpreted spiritually 130

2 "The beginning" 135

3 The Johannine Genealogy 138

4 The Johannine sequence of events 141

5 The Forgiveness of Sins 144

6 Attraction and recoil, Peter and Judas .... 146
^ 7 John's omission of exorcisms and of most of the pre-
dictions about "betrayal" 150

8 The "self-troubling "of Jesus 153

^ 9 The Raising of Lazarus, one of three stages of "glory" . 155

10 The " end " and the " postscript " 163

II The personal nature of the " postscript " 166

12 Peter "following" and the Beloved Disciple "tarrying" . 170

13 There is no definite " end " 172

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

REFERENCES

(i) Black Arabic numbers refer to paragraphs in the several volumes
of Diatessarica, as to which see p. 178 :

1 272= Clue.

273 552= Corrections of Mark.

553 1149 = From Letter to Spirit.
11501435 = Paradosis.
1436 1885 =Johannine Vocabulary.
\28o'ZI'&=Johannine Grammar.
2800 2999 = Notes on New Testament Criticism.
30003635= The Son of Man.
3636 3999 = Light on the Gospel from an ancient Poet.

(ii) The Books of Scripture are referred to by the ordinary ab-
breviations, except where specified below. But when it is said
that Samuel, Isaiah, Matthew, or any other writer, wrote this or
that, it is to be understood as meaning the -writer, -whoever he may
be, of the words in question, and not as meaning that the actual
writer was Samuel, Isaiah, or Matthew.

(iii) The principal Greek MSS are denoted by J$, A, B, etc. ; the Latin
versions by a, b, etc., as usual. The Syriac version discovered by
Mrs Lewis on Mount Sinai is referred to as SS, i.e. " Sinaitic
Syrian." It is always quoted from Prof. Burkitt's translation.
I regret that in the first three vols. of Diatessarica Mrs Lewis's
name was omitted in connection with this version.

(iv) The text of the Greek Old Testament adopted is that of B, edited
by Prof. Swete ; of the New, that of Westcott and Hort.

(v) Modern works are referred to by the name of the work, or author,
voL, and page, e.g. Levy iii. 343 a, i.e. vol. iii. p. 343, col. I.

ABBREVIATIONS

Aq. = Aquila's version of O.T.

Brederek Brederek's Konkordanz zum Targum Onkelos, Giessen,
1906.

Burk. = Prof. F. C. Burkitt's Evangelion Da-mepharreshe, Cambridge
University Press, 1904.

Chr. = Chronicles.

Clem. Alex. 42 = Clement of Alexandria in Potter's page 42.

Dalman, Words = Words of Jesus, Eng. Transl. 1902; Aram. G.=
Grammatik des Jiidisch-Paldstinischen Aramdisch, 1894.

En. = Enoch ed. Charles, Clarendon Press, 1893.

xiii

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Ency. = Encyclopaedia Biblica.

Ephrem = Ephraemus Syrus, ed. Moesinger.

Etheridge = Etheridge's translations of the Targums on the Pentateuch.

Euseb. = the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.

Field = Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt, Oxford, 1875, a l so
Otium Norvicense, 1881.

Gesen. = the Oxford edition of Gesenius.

Goldschm.=ter Babylonische Talmud, 1897 1912, ed. Goldschmidt.

Hastings = Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Hastings (5 vols.).

Hor. Heb. Horae Hebraicae, by John Lightfoot, 1658 74, ed.
Gandell, Oxf. 1859.

Iren.=the treatise of Irenaeus against Heresies.

Jer. Targ. or Targ. Jer. (abbrev. for Jerusalem Targum), or Jon.
Targ. (i.e. Targum of Jonathan, abbrev. for the Targum of Pseudo-
Jonathan) = the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on the Pentateuch, of
which there are two recensions both quoted (Notes on N. T. Criticism,
Pref. p. viii) by ancient authorities under the name "Jerusalem Targum."
The two recensions are severally denoted by Jer. I and Jer. II. On other
books, the Targum is referred to as simply " Targ."

Jon. Targ., see Jer. Targ.

Justin = Justin Martyr (Apol.=\i\s First Apology, 7Vy//z. = the Dia-
logue with Trypho).

K. = Kings. See also p. 15, n. i.

Krauss = Krauss's Griechische und Lateinische Lehnworter z\.c,, Berlin,
1899.

Levy = Levy's Neuhebraisches und Chalddisches Worterbuch, 4 vols.,
Leipzig, 1889; Levy Ch. = Chalddisches Worterbuch, 2 vols., 1881.

L.S. = Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon.

Mechilta, see Wii(nsche).

Onk. = the Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch.

Origen is referred to variously, e.g. Horn. Exod. ii. 25=lib. ii. ch. 25
of Horn. Exod., but Orig. on Exod. ii. 25 = the commentary adloc. ; Lomm.
iii. 24 = vol. iii. p. 24 of Lommatzsch's edition.

Oxf. Cone. = The Oxford Concordance to the Septuagint.

Pesikta, see Wii(nsche).

Philo is referred to by Mangey's volume and page, e.g. Philo ii. 234,
or, as to Latin treatises, by the Scripture text or Aucher's pages (P. A.).

Pistis = Pistis Sophia, referred to by marginal pages, ed. Petermann.

Ps. So\. = Psatms of Solomon, ed. Ryle and James, Cambr. 1891.

R., after Gen., Exod., Lev. etc. means Rabboth, and refers to Wiinsche's
edition of the Midrash on the Pentateuch, e.g. Gen. r. (on Gen. xii. 2, Wii.
P- 177).

Rashi, sometimes quoted from Breithaupt's translation, 1714.

S. = Samuel; s. = "see."

Schottg. = Schottgen's Horae Hebraicae, Dresden and Leipzig, 1733.

xiv

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Sir.=the work of Ben Sira, i.e. the son of Sira. It is commonly called
Ecclesiasticus (see Clue 20 a). The original Hebrew used in this work is
that which has been edited, in part, by Cowley and Neubauer, Oxf. 1897 ;
in part, by Schechter and Taylor, Cambr. 1899 ; in part, by G. Margoliouth,
Jewish Quart. Rev., Oct. 1899 (also printed in About Hebrew Manu-
scripts (Frowde, 1905) by Mr E. N. Adler, who discovered the missing
chapters).

SS, see (iii) above.

Steph. Thes. = Stephani Thesaurus Graecae Linguae (Didot).

Sym. = Symmachus's version of O.T.

Targ. (by itself) is used where only one Targum is extant on the
passage quoted.

Targ. Jer., Targ. Jon., and Targ. Onk., see Jer. Targ., Jon. Targ., and
Onk., above.

Tehillim = Midrash on Psalms, ed. Wiinsche (2 vols.).

Test. XII Patr. = Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs ed. Charles,
1908 (Gk., Clarendon Press, Eng., A. & C. Black).

Theod. = Theodotion's version of O.T.

Thes. = Payne Smith's Thesaurus Syriacus, Oxf. 1901.

Tromm. = Trommius' Concordance to the Septuagint.

Tryph. = the Dialogue between Justin Martyr and Trypho the Jew.

Walton = Biblia Sacra Polyglot ta, 1657.

Wetst. =Wetstein's Contm. on the New Testament, Amsterdam, 1751.

W.H. = Westcott and Hort's New Testament.

Wii. = \Yiinsche's translation of Rabboth etc., 1880 1909 (including
Mechilta, Pesikta Rab Kahana, Tehillim &c.).

(a) A bracketed Arabic number, following Mk, Mt., etc., indicates
the number of instances in which a word occurs in Mark, Matthew, etc.,
e.g. dydirr) Mk (o), Mt. (i), Lk. (i), Jn (7).

(6) Where verses in Hebrew, Greek, and Revised Version, are
numbered differently, the number of R.V. is given alone.

(c) In transliterating a Hebrew, Aramaic, or Syriac word, preference
has often, but not invariably, been given to that form which best reveals
the connection between the word in question and forms of it familiar to
English readers. Where a word is not transliterated, it is often indicated
(for the sake of experts) by a reference to Gesen., Thes., Levy, or Levy Ch.

CHAPTER I

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

I. "Fourfold Gospel" implies four witnesses

ALTHOUGH this treatise is not a Harmony of the Gospels,
its object may be best explained by reference to the most
ancient of such Harmonies, that of Tatian. Tatian, in the
second century, broke up and intermixed the four gospels so
as to make one continuous and readable gospel " out of," or
"through," the "four." In Greek, "through" is dia, and
" four " is tessaron. Hence the name of the Harmony, Dia-
tessaron.

" Through Four " did not mean that all the new biography
was attested by all the four biographers. Some parts of the
Diatessaron, for example, the Raising of Lazarus, are attested
only " through one." Others are attested only " through
two," as, for example, the Lord's Prayer through Matthew
and Luke, and the Feeding of the Four Thousand through
Matthew and Mark. Others, belonging to the Synoptic 1

1 " Synoptic," applied to the first three gospels, was probably intended
to mean that their contents can be, for the most part, " seen together,"
or " seen at the same time." For example, the descent of the Holy Spirit
on Jesus is described by Mark, Matthew, and Luke, in such a way that
the accounts can be arranged in three parallel columns and "seen to-
gether." But John, though he represents the Baptist as referring to it,
does not describe it in such a way as to make a fourth parallel column
capable of being " seen together :; with the three.

On the quotation of Scripture by the name of the alleged author,
e.g. Samuel, see References (ii) on p. xiii above.

A. i i

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

Tradition including the great mass of what is common to
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are attested " through three."
Only a very few sections of the combined biography such
as the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the Entry into Jeru-
salem, the Crucifixion, and a word or two uttered by John
the Baptist contain narratives or discourses that can be
strictly and exactly described as attested " through four"

Now it is only with the things that are in some sense
attested '" through four" that the present work concerns itself.
Their special importance is obvious and needs no comment.
But some explanation is needed of the reasons for including,
among the things " attested through four," passages in which
one or more of the four witnesses attests indirectly or even
paradoxical though it may seem by verbal omission.

2. Luke, sometimes a silent witness

The following is a good instance of parallelism combined
with " verbal omission" In that part of the Fourfold Gospel
which records the predictions of the Baptist about his successor,
the three columns containing the parallel Matthew, Mark,
and Luke, agree in three statements: (i) He is to be a
" mightier one," (2) He is to " baptize with the Holy Spirit,"
(3) He is to " come." But (4) Matthew and Mark say " come
after me" Luke omits " after me"

Our fourth witness, John, differs very widely indeed from
the three as to the rest of the words of the Baptist. But
as to this particular clause, " after me" he not only inserts it
but also repeats it three times. In two of these instances he
introduces it in an antithesis with "before me" shewing that
" after me," like " before me," may refer to precedence, or may
refer to time, or may refer to both. His reiteration gives the
impression of an attempt to constrain us to perceive that both
the antithetical phrases may have some meaning that lies
beneath the surface.

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

Now are we to exclude all this from our examination of
the Fourfold Gospel, on the ground that "after me" is
attested by only three Evangelists ? Surely such an exclusion
would be a pedant's error. Common sense seems to dictate
inclusion, on the ground that Lukes reticence may be equi-
valent and, if he is the latest of the three Synoptists,
probably is equivalent to a kind of tacit testimony, of the
following nature:

" I do not like this use of after. The word used by
Matthew and Mark more naturally means behind, as though
Jesus 'came behind' in the character of an attendant. When
I come to write about this, in the Acts, writing on my
own responsibility, I will take care to use a different word,
which shall clearly shew what after means 1 . But here I do
not like to seem to be correcting, on trivial grounds, a phrase
of the ancient Evangelists. So I will simply leave it out."

We do not at present affirm though we shall do so later
on in view of further evidence that this is what Luke
actually meant. But we do affirm already that this is what
he may very reasonably and honestly have meant, and that it
will be quite reasonable, as well as highly convenient for our
purpose, to treat him as one of our four witnesses though
only a silent one. Why he was silent, in this and other
similar cases, must form part of our future investigations.

As for the Evangelist whom we call "John," he may be
regarded as saying, "The temporal and temporary 'behind
me' representing Christ's discipleship, is compatible with
a 'before me' that represents not only Christ's spiritual
precedence but also His eternal pre-existence. Instead of
omitting ' behind me', it will be better to explain it, or better
still, not for me to explain it, but to let the Baptist explain
to the reader, that he, the Prophet, always understood the
'behind me' to be merged in a 'before me"'

1 See Son of Man 3519 a, quoting Acts xiii. 25.

3 i2

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

We do not at present affirm that this is what John actually
meant But we do affirm already that this is what he may
be reasonably supposed to have meant ; and we propose,
later on, to return to the passage, equipped with further
cumulative evidence, and to say " This is what John did
mean."

3- John, sometimes an indirect or corrective witness

One more instance will be given, in which our principle of
inclusion will be carried to its extreme limit. It occurs in
the accounts of Christ's visit to what Matthew and Mark call
" his country," but Luke " Nazareth." Mark's account will
be placed first, for reasons that will be given later on 1 :

Mark, " And he was not able to do there any mighty work,
save that on a few sick folk he laid his hands and cured them ;
and he marvelled because of their unbelief."

Matthew, "And he did not there many mighty works
because of their unbelief."

Luke omits the sentence.

This Marcan passage has been selected because it is
printed by the author of Horae Synopticae 2 as one of several
in which the other Synoptists separate themselves from Mark.
It is placed under the heading " Passages seeming to limit
the power of Jesus Christ." The author shews that, in
another passage, a Marcan "was not able" when applied to
Christ, is avoided by Matthew, and again, in another, by
Luke. The Horae makes no reference here to John, whose
gospel, for the most part, lies outside its purlieu. But the
heading, "Passages seeming to limit...," suggests an inquiry

1 Mk vi. 5 6, Mt. xiii. 58, Lk. iv. 24 foil. (om.). It is open to doubt
whether Luke intended to identify the visit he describes with the one
described by Mark and Matthew. But the Diatessaron identifies them.

2 Horae Synopticae, by the Rev. Sir John C. Hawkins, Bart., M.A.
D.D., 2nd ed. p. 118 (Oxford, 1909). It compares also Mk i. 45 and vii.
24 with the parallel Lk. v. 16 and Mt. xv. 21.

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

whether John ever similarly " seems to limit." Does he ever
venture to say about Christ that He " was not able to do " this
or that ? More particularly does he ever venture to say this in
connection with acts of healing!

The answer is in the affirmative. Not indeed that John
describes any visit to Nazareth or performance, or non-
performance, of acts of healing there. But he describes an
act of healing on the sabbath in Jerusalem, after which Jesus
says, " The Son is able to do nothing of himself but what he
seeth the Father doing 1 ."

We do not say that in writing these words John had
directly in view the particular passage of Mark above quoted.
But we do maintain that the whole question of the Lord's
ability to heal, and of His reasons for healing this person and
not healing that one, must have confronted Christians in very
early times, and must have been brought to a head in this
Marcan bluntness of statement, compared with Matthew's
smoother version and Luke's silence.

In such cases especially if we find, as we proceed, many
other passages where Mark raises difficult questions that would
call for answers in the earliest days of the Church we ought
to attempt to put ourselves in the place of the latest of the
Evangelists, and to try to imagine antecedently how he might
supply answers to them, while at the same time closely
examining his gospel in order to ascertain to what extent,
consciously or unconsciously, he has actually supplied them.

Looking, in the first place, from the historical point of
view at this question of Christ's ability or inability to heal,
we may be sure of this at least, that He never publicly failed.
Had He made a single public failure, it is impossible to
doubt that the Pharisees would speedily have heard of and

1 Jn v. 19 (lit.) "unless he be [at the moment] seeing the Father doing
something." See Johannine Grammar 2516, and Johannine Vocabulary
1607, quoting Philo i. 414 concerning "the Eldest Son" whom Philo
describes as "looking towards" the Father's "archetypal patterns."

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

utilised it ; and their consequent attack on Jesus would have
left some trace (in the way of denial, or explanation, or
defence) in some passage or other, in some one at least, of
our four gospels. But there is no such passage. As to the
disciples, the Synoptists do relate that on one occasion they
failed in an attempt to cast out an evil spirit ; but as to Jesus
they all testify that His enemies accused Him not of failure,
but of diabolical success, healing with the aid of the devil.
The Talmudic evidence, scanty though it is, tends in the
same direction 1 .

Accepting this, let us now look at the matter from the
point of view of the Fourth Evangelist, if we may suppose
him to be reviewing all the facts and seeking for an explanation
of them. Jesus did not attempt to heal all that came to Him,
but, if He attempted, He never failed. Why ? Because He
always chose the right cases? If so, on what principle did
He choose ? Was it because He saw something in the patient
faith, for example ? Or was it because He felt something
in Himself compassion, for example ? Or was it a mixture
of these feelings with this insight? Or was it because of
something else beyond all these causes?

Does it not seem as though John, in his concrete and
dramatic fashion, gives us an answer to these questions or
at all events what he thought an answer through the story
of the healing at the pool of Bethesda ? Round that pool lie
crowds of sick folk. Jesus selects one. Was it because of
the man's faith ? The man a sluggish and unsatisfactory
creature, who needs first to be stimulated with a " Dost thou
desire to be healed?" and afterwards to be warned with a
" No longer continue-sinning, lest a worse thing befall thee "
did not know Jesus by name and person even when he had
been healed 2 , and therefore can hardly be said to have had

1 See Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, R. T. Herford, pp. 103 foil.,
loSfoll., on "Healing in the name of Jesus."

2 Jn v. 13 " He that was healed knew not who it was...."

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

" faith " in Jesus as Jesus, that is to say, as the well-known
" Jesus of Nazareth, the Exorcist, and Healer." Was it then
any foreknowledge possessed by Jesus of the man's ultimate
reform ? It is not so said. And, against it, is the fact that
the man, after receiving this warning, actually goes and
informs "the Jews" of the name of his benefactor, whom
they consequently " persecute." Was it then simply the
Lord's compassion for the man's long-continued disease?
That is indeed suggested by the statement that Jesus " knew
that he had been a long time " thus. But it is no more than
suggested. And what about the rest the " multitude of the
sick, blind, halt, withered"? If "compassion" is to be con-
sidered as the motive, had Christ no crumbs of " compassion "
to cast to one or two of them ?

The conclusion to which John seems to desire to lead us
is, that when Jesus healed on earth, it was because He saw
an act of healing ordained for Him from heaven. When He
did not heal and there were multitudes of such cases it
was not because He did not pity, but because He did not
" see " the act revealed to Him from heaven as His appointed
"work." This, of course, does not explain anything to us
unless we believe that Jesus had special promptings from the
Father in heaven which controlled the general impulse of
compassion. But, if we believe this, we can understand how
Jesus may have passed through multitudes of sick and
suffering people, pitying yet not healing, as Elijah passed by
many widows in Israel till he came, under the guidance of
God, to the widow of Sarepta 1 .

" In such cases," John seems to say, " the Son, being in a
divine unity with the Father, 'was not able', as Mark says,
' to perform any mighty-work'. Mark calls it 'a mighty-work'
Matthew and Luke use the same term when describing the
Lord's acts of healing. But I prefer to call them 'signs'

1 Lk. iv. 26.
7

THE OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

For they were 'signs' of the Father's will. Called by that
name, the acts indicate that they could not occur on earth if
they had not counterparts, or what Philo calls ' patterns 1 ,' in
heaven. Mark was justified in saying that at Nazareth Jesus
was not able to do any mighty work ; but the reason was that
He was not able to do anything against tJie will of God, which
always guided His actions."

The arguments for the inclusion of this Marcan tradition
and its Johannine equivalent will apply, mutatis mutandis, to
many other traditions peculiar to Mark, or to Mark and
Matthew. The reasons for not adding "or to Mark and
Ltike" will appear fully as we go on. Here it may be said
briefly that where Luke agrees with Mark, John, as a rule,
does not intervene. The reasons for placing Mark first will
be stated in the next Chapter.

1 See p. 5, n. i.

CHAPTER II

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND FIRST?

I. TJie need of some fixed order

ON the answer to the question that forms the heading of
this Chapter the arrangement of our whole work depends.
This will be best seen from the first passage quoted in
Chapter I, where John the Baptist uses about Jesus the words
" cometh after me" Finding the phrase " after me" omitted
by Luke alone, we there treated Luke as omitting what was
in his predecessors, Matthew and Mark, and John as (so to
speak) rehabilitating it by explanation. Thus we seemed
tacitly to adopt the common order Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John.

But in the second passage, where we quoted Mark as
saying that Jesus " was not able to do there any mighty work,"
we placed Mark first ; Matthew second, as omitting the
italicised words ; Luke third, as omitting the whole of the
sentence; John fourth, as applying the phrase elsewhere to
Jesus in an explanatory context.

The time has now come to decide on some order in which
to discuss the variations of the four Evangelists. If the four
gospels had been written independently about the same time,
it might have been difficult to come to any general and logical
decision. In order to preserve impartiality we might have found
it necessary to lay down no fixed rule but to give the first place
now to one gospel, now to another. Or we might have taken
the briefest account first, as being likely to be the oldest, and

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND FIRST?

the longer accounts afterwards, as being likely to be later
amplifications. Or we might have taken the longest account
first, as being perhaps in some cases the earliest, and the
shorter ones afterwards, as being condensations. Either of
these courses would have introduced inconvenient complexities.
From these we shall be saved if we can prove that one of the
Synoptists should stand before the other two ; for it will not
be difficult to shew that the three Synoptists preceded John.

2. Mark should stand first

The detailed demonstration of the priority of Mark for
it is a demonstration and not a mere establishment of a
probability may be found elsewhere 1 . But the outline of it
can be given here in a form intelligible to the general reader,
and sufficiently full for our present purpose. That purpose
is to shew that the great body of what is called the Synoptic
narrative in Mark is older than the corresponding narratives
in Matthew and Luke 2 . The reader must note the words
" great body." We do riot deny that Mark, like other gospels,
may include traditions varying in date as well as in the
degree of their authenticity or accuracy ; but we assert that
Mark contains a great mass of narrative which must be
earlier than the corresponding narratives in Matthew and
Luke, because it can be shewn that Matthew and Luke have
independently borrowed from it.

This the reader can verify for himself as follows. Let
him take some Synoptic passage in which the three Synoptists
shew considerable agreement, and place their texts in three
parallel columns, writing the parts that are common to all

1 See Corrections of Mark 31430, and the Preface to Rushbrooke's
Synopticon.

2 The reader should note that the Synoptic narrative has nothing
to do with what might be called the Matthew- Luke record containing
the longer discourses of the Lord. See the definition of Synoptic above,
p. i, n. I.

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND FIRST?

three in red. Then let him underline the parts common
(i) to Mark and Matthew alone with one line, (2) to Mark
and Luke alone with two lines, (3) to Matthew and Luke
alone with three lines 1 . He will find that the red portion,
though it may not be copious, is generally sufficient to indicate
the drift of the discourse or narrative. For the rest, (i) the
one-lined portion will often contain much, especially toward
the end of the gospel. (2) The two-lined portion also will
often contain much, especially toward the beginning of the
gospel. But (3) the three-lined portion will contain often
nothing at all, and rarely or never anything of great doctrinal
importance*.

Why is the three-lined, that is, the Matthew-Luke portion,
so insignificant ? Why do we not find Matthew occasionally
agreeing with Luke alone, or Luke with Matthew alone 3 ?
Why do we always find that Matthew, when he agrees with
Luke, agrees with Mark as well; and that Luke, when he
agrees with Matthew, agrees with Mark as welH It is because
Matthew and Luke are in the position of two schoolboys,
Primus and Tertius, seated on the same form, between whom
sits another, Secundus (Mark). All three are writing (we will
suppose) a narrative of the same event, or a translation of the
same passage of a classical author. Primus and Tertius

1 This is done in Rushbrooke's Synopticon (Macmillan), pp. vi vii
where the triple tradition is printed in red, and the purpose of the under-
lining is effected by variations of type.

2 It consists of little more than such grammatical or slight verbal
alterations of Mark's text as might be expected in some edition of Mark
(a little later than ours) from which Matthew and Luke borrowed. See
Diatessarica Part II, which deals with what are there called "The
Corrections of Mark Adopted by Matthew and Luke," and with inferences
that may be derived from them.

3 We do find Luke agreeing with Matthew alone occasionally in
short insertions such as the doctrine of baptizing with fire. But this
(Mt. iii. II, Lk. iii. 16) is quite outside Mark (i. 8) who only speaks of
baptizing with the Spirit. Both the style and the subject-matter indicate
that the insertion belongs to the separate tradition of Matthew and Luke.

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND FIRST?

copy largely from Secundus. Occasionally the two copy the
same words ; then we have the red stream, indicating the
agreement of three writers. At other times Primus (Matthew)
copies what Tertius (Luke) does not ; then we have the
one-lined stream (Mark-Matthew). At others, Tertius (Luke)
copies what Primus (Matthew) does not ; then we have the
two-lined (Mark-Luke). But Primus and Tertius cannot look
over one another s shoulders. Hence a three-lined stream, of
any importance for doctrinal purposes, is non-existent^.

It is tempting to pass on at once to a similar question
about Quartus, that is to say, John : " From whom, if from
any of the three, does he, the last of the four Evangelists,
borrow ? " But we have not yet proved that John is " the
last of the four Evangelists." It will be best to discuss that
subject in the next Chapter, and meanwhile to content our-
selves with the conclusion that Mark must be placed before
Matthew and Luke because they have independently borrowed
from him in those portions of their gospels to which Mark is
parallel.

1 See Corrections of Mark 31430. The object of that treatise is to
shew that the few and unimportant similarities of Matthew and Luke in
the Synoptic Tradition, where there is a parallel Mark which contrast
conspicuously with the many and important close similarities of Matthew
and Luke in the Double Tradition, or Tradition of Doctrine, where there
is no parallel Mark are probably to be explained by the fact that
Matthew and Luke in many cases borrowed from the same corrected
edition of Mark.

CHAPTER III

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

I. Internal evidence

THAT John should be placed after the Synoptists may be
made almost certain by the internal evidence of his subject-
matter and by the language in which he expresses it.

It can be shewn that, in some cases, while omitting
Synoptic narrative, he expressly assumes that his readers
know it, and that, in other cases, he must have made this
assumption although he does not express it. For example,
take the following Synoptic events, ist, the baptism of Jesus
by the Baptist, 2nd, the descent of the Holy Spirit, 3rd, the
Baptist's imprisonment by Herod. About the first he is
silent, but we know that he must have assumed it from what
is in the context. As for the second, he represents the
Baptist as expressly saying, before it happens, " Upon whom-
soever thou sJtalt see tJie Spirit descending and abiding upon
him" As for the third, he expressly says, "John was not yet
cast into prison" without telling us when, or why, or by whom,
the prophet was imprisoned. Obviously he assumes all the
three facts to be so well known that no one will be perplexed
by his silence about the first and by the brevity of his allusions
to the second and the third. All three might justly be
regarded as essential to any treatise that professed to be an
early biography of Jesus ; but they might be omitted in a
supplement to early biographies.

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

The same argument applies to much other Synoptic
matter, as for example, the Institution of the Lord's Supper.
The omission of it indicates, inter alia, that it was too well
known to require attestation of the simple fact (whatever
variations there might be as to details).

So much for the subject-matter. In the next place comes
the evidence from the language. This has been fully dis-
cussed in one of the parts of Diatessarica entitled Johannine
Vocabulary, where it is shewn that John systematically and
deliberately chooses different words from those of the
Synoptists, so that, for example, he never uses the nouns
"faith" or "repentance."

Some one may say, "But might not this be the sign of the
earliest, not of the latest, of the Evangelists ? What if John,
coming first, represents Christ's language exactly, while the
Synoptists, coming afterwards, represent it inexactly?" The
answer is, " That is impossible for the following reason. John
represents Jesus as speaking in precisely the same style and
words as he himself uses when he is writing about Jesus, or
as the Baptist uses when he is speaking about Jesus. The
style and the vocabulary are so uniform that commentators
on the Fourth Gospel, from the earliest times, have been
divided, and still are divided, as to where the words of Jesus
sometimes end and the words of the Evangelist begin."

The deliberateness with which John regularly diverged
from the Synoptic vocabulary may be illustrated by one
instance in particular, his habit of assigning to Jesus, in place
of the Synoptists' simple " verily" a twofold " verily, verily"
In a gospel that abounds in mystical or poetical repetitions,
such a repetition may possibly have a mystical meaning; but
in any case the divergence from the Synoptic language is very
remarkable and must be deliberate 1 .

1 See Johannine Grammar 2611 a " It may be illustrated by the
surprise that would have been felt by readers of Boswell's biography

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

2. External evidence that John "supplied things omitted"

Very ancient external evidence testifies, not only to the
posteriority of John, but also to his attitude toward the
Synoptists, as a supplier of " things omitted " by them.
Eusebius justifies the reasonableness of " the ancients " in
"cataloguing" his gospel as "a fourth part to the other three,"
and gives the ancient view in the words of the ancients
themselves.

It comes very nearly to this, that the Fourth Gospel was,
in one respect, related to the Three as the Book of Chronicles
was related to the Books of Samuel and Kings 1 . In the
LXX, the Book of Chronicles is entitled Paraleifomena,
" Things Passed Over," or, " Things Omitted," that is to
say, things omitted in Kings and added (as a supplement to
Kings) in Chronicles. Somewhat similarly it was supposed
by "the ancients" that John supplemented the Synoptists.
" The ancients " did not indeed mention Kings and Chronicles.
Had they done so, they would doubtless have recognised that
the tone and the spirit of the Evangelist were very different
from the tone and the spirit of the Chronicler. But they said
that the Evangelist supplemented the earlier gospels. And
the title of Chronicles in the LXX implies that the Chronicler
supplemented Kings.

It will be best to give the ancient tradition in its own
words : " John had been all the time confining himself to oral
preaching, when he was finally induced to write for the
following reason. When the circulation of the three previously
written [gospels] had brought them at last to him [i.e. John],

coming upon a new life of Dr Johnson in which ' Sir, Sir' was regularly
substituted for ' Sir '." The uniformity of style is all the more remarkable
because of the individuality of the dramatis personae, John the Baptist,
Nicodemus, the Samaritan Woman, Peter, Philip, &c.

1 For brevity, in the following passages comparing " Chronicles" with
''Samuel and Kings," the latter will be shortened into "Kings." The
LXX regards them as four " Books of the Kings."

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

as also to everyone, he accepted them indeed and testified to
their truth; but [added] that the only thing left out in the
writing [of the three] was the account of Christ's acts at first,
and at the beginning of the preaching [of the gospel]."

Here Eusebius parenthetically justifies this view by pointing
out that Mark and Matthew expressly define the beginning
of Christ's preaching of the gospel and that Luke somewhat
similarly implies the beginning as not occurring till after
the arrest of the Baptist. Then Eusebius resumes the tradition
of " the ancients."

It declared that for these reasons John, by request,
recorded in his gospel what the Synoptists had passed over,
and especially the events before the Baptist's imprisonment.
John himself (so the tradition maintained) attested this very
view. First, at one time, he said " This beginning of his
wonderful works did Jesus " ; secondly, at another time, he
mentioned the Baptist, in the midst of the acts of Jesus, as
still baptizing at Aenon ; and he made the matter absolutely
clear in the following sentence " For John was not yet cast
into prison 1 ."

Eusebius adds that, since Matthew and Luke had previously
given the Saviour's genealogy according to the flesh, it ought
to seem natural that John passed it over in silence and began
from the divine origin of the Logos or Word 2 .

1 Jn ii. 11, iii. 23 4.

2 Euseb. iii. 24. 7 13. Comp. ib. vi. 14. 5 foil., where ra>v fvayyt\i<av ra
TTtpuxovra ras y. should probably not be rendered " of the gospels, those that
contain the genealogies were written first," but " of the gospels, those [parts'}
that contain as their substance (or, have as their contents] (or, consist of
copies of] the genealogies were written first." See instances in Enc. Bibl.
"Gospels" col. 1823, to which add Joseph. Ant. xii. 4. 10, 11, where
(Whiston) " the copy whereof here follows " and " these were the contents
(TOVTOV irtpidxe TOV rpoTrov)" are used about the same epistle. The phrase
recurs in ib. xiii. 4. 9, &c. It was natural that genealogies should be, or
at all events should be supposed to be, committed to writing at an early
date.

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

Later on in his history, Eusebius quotes from Clement
of Alexandria a very early statement as made by " the elders
from the beginning " not only attesting the early date of the
genealogies but also declaring that John, last of the four
Evangelists, " seeing-in-a-general-view that (lit.) the things
according to the body were indicated in the [existing] gospels,
composed a spiritual gospel at the urgent request of the
disciples, and under the divine impulse of the Spirit 1 ."

3- John should stand last

The words of Clement just quoted should guard us against
a modern danger. It is hard for us, Gentiles of the twentieth
century, to realise that a Jewish evangelist or at all events
such a one as the unknown author of the Fourth Gospel whom
we call John might be at one and the same time influenced
by details in written gospels and yet " moved by divine
impulse." But if we are to do justice to the Clementine
tradition, we must endeavour to put ourselves in the position
of a Christian teacher at the end of the first century, imbued
with the Spirit of the Son of God, and receiving somewhat
late so the tradition implies three widely differing docu-
ments about Him, which had been gradually growing into an
authoritative circulation. One of these (Mark) spoke of a
"beginning" without any genealogy of the Saviour. Another
(Matthew) traced His genealogical descent from Abraham
through a "Joseph" begotten by "Jacob" A third (Luke)
traced a different genealogical descent It went up to
Abraham indeed, but also to Adam. And it went up with
a modifying clause, " as was supposed " through a "Joseph

1 Euseb. vi. 14. 5 7. In this context, "the things-according-to-the-
body" probably alludes to the genealogies in particular, as describing
descent after the flesh, but does not exclude a more general meaning.
On "the disciples (TV yvcapi'/ij>) :! see Mayor's note on Clem. Alex.
863 4. But it may mean " friends." It will be seen later on that Jerome
seems to take it as "brethren."

A. 17 2

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

the son of Heli" There were also many other points of
difference between the two genealogies 1 .

Some converts might well be perplexed, others might be
divided into conflicting parties, by discrepancies of this kind
(however explained). In their perplexities and controversies,
too many might ignore, for the time, that spiritual descent
of the Son on earth from the Father in heaven which would
seem to the author of the Fourth Gospel to outweigh altogether
the importance of these genealogies after the flesh. Let us
also add some thought of the minor but not slight pain that
would be felt by such a writer whose identity we do not
know but whom we must feel to be honestly and earnestly
writing in the name of "the disciple whom Jesus loved" at
the occasion thereby given to the enemies of the Church for
stopping the present influx of new converts, and for holding
up the preachers of the Truth to lasting ridicule and repro-
bation, as preaching what was demonstrated by the preachers
themselves to be flagrantly inconsistent and false.

Bringing ourselves face to face with these facts, we shall
be better able to see that there is much more antecedent
probability than we might have supposed in Clement's view,
and that the beginnings of the Three Gospels not excluding
that of Mark may have been for days and nights in the
mind of the writer of the prologue of the Fourth Gospel
before he was inspired to utter its opening words. Such an
inspiration as is imputed to him by the Clementine tradition,

1 E.g., the son of David from whom Luke (iii. 31) traces the Messiah's
descent is not, as in Mt. i. 6, " Solomon," whom " David begat of her
[that had been the wife] of Uriah," but Nathan. The author of Luke's
genealogy might very well believe that Nathan placed before Solomon
in 2 S. v. 14, and presumably older than Solomon was not the son of
Bathsheba, whose eldest surviving son (2 S. xii. 24) appears to have been
Solomon. Schottgen (on Lk. iii. 31) quotes a tradition from Sohar that
Hephzibah (Is. Ixii. 4) "the wife of Nathan the son of David" is "the
mother of the Messiah"

This avoids what some in spite of Jerome (on Mt. i. 3 6) might
regard as a stumbling-block.

WHICH GOSPEL SHOULD STAND LAST?

so far from being inconsistent, is admirably accordant, with
the supposition that he was also influenced, or even constrained,
by the entreaties of those who saw the dangers impending on
the Church from " genealogies " of all sorts, arising as rivals
to the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. Jerome expressly
says that John was thus "compelled by the brethren," but
goes on to speak of him as also inspired : " At last," he says,
"saturated with revelation, John burst out with that proem,
coming from heaven, ' In the beginning was tJie Word, and the
Word was with God and the Word was God 1 '"

This is excellently said. But when will Christians begin
to recognise its excellence? How long will it be before
they perceive that it was possible in the first century for one
and the same Christian to see visions and receive revelations
from the Lord and even to be snatched up into the third
heaven to hear words of glory, and yet to give a Roman
Governor the impression of being a crazy pedant, "Thou art mad,
Paul. Thy much book-learning doth turn thee to madness " ?

But to return to the question of chronological order.
The consensus of external and internal evidence makes it
practically certain that John's gospel should be placed
chronologically last. It also revives the interesting question
that has already come before us, " Does John on those
occasions on which he intervenes in Synoptic tradition
favour the earliest of the Synoptists (Mark), or one of the two
later Synoptists (Matthew or Luke)?" The answer must be
reserved for the next Chapter. For the present we are
content to say that, as Mark is the earliest of the Four
Evangelists, in that portion of the biography of Christ which
contains the Synoptic Tradition, so John is the latest.

1 Jerome, Pref. to Comm. on Matthew. "Unde et ecclesiastica narrat
historia, cum a fratribus cogeretur ut scriberet, ita facturum se respondisse,
si indicto jejunio in commune omnes Deum deprecarentur, quo expleto,
revelatione saturatus, illud prooemium e caelo veniens eructavit...."
There is perhaps a play of words on "jejunio" and "saturatus." A similar
tradition is recorded in the Muratorian Tablet, see Enc. Bibl., col. 18212.

19 2 2

CHAPTER IV

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

I. The naturalness of such allusions

THE certainty that Matthew and Luke borrowed from
Mark makes it probable that John also, when supplementing
the Three Gospels, would have Mark specially in view. Not
indeed that he would often borrow from Mark's language
where he agreed with Mark, or contradict Mark's language
where he disagreed from Mark ; for, as we have seen above,
John deliberately deviates from Synoptic language. But we
might expect him occasionally to intervene, using Johannine
language, in some passages where Mark was misleading, or
obscure, or so harsh in expression as to give unnecessary
offence, and where Matthew and Luke had either contented
themselves with omitting the Marcan expression or had
explained it in a manner that might not seem to go quite
to the root of some latent spiritual truth.

2. An impartial collection of groups of
Marcan peculiarities

In order to test this hypothesis of Johannine allusion
to Mark we need an impartial collection of Marcan pecu-
liarities of the kind just described passages for various
reasons likely to be omitted by later evangelists and actually
omitted by Matthew and Luke. It should be impartial,
because the collector ought not to be biassed by any theory
of Johannine allusion to Mark. Moreover, we ought to have,

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

if they could be collected, similar collections of repellent
passages in Matthew and Luke, that we might examine John's
attitude to them also. For such impartial collections we
naturally turn to the section entitled " Statistics and Obser-
vations " on Mark, Matthew and Luke, in Horae Synopticae,
illustrating with detailed quotations or references the
peculiarities of the several Synoptists. This section gives
various groups of Marcan peculiarities to which we find
nothing corresponding under " Matthew " and " Luke." First
come " Passages seeming (a) to limit the power of Jesus
Christ, or (b) to be otherwise derogatory to, or unworthy of,
Him." Of the former there are seven instances ; of the
latter, fifteen. Next come " Passages seeming to disparage
the attainments or character of the Apostles." Of these there
are seven. Then come " Other passages which might cause
offence or difficulty," of which there are seventeen. The total
is forty-six.

Now according to a strict and literal interpretation of
the title " fourfold gospel " we should be excluded from
dealing with any of these forty-six instances. For, even if
John alluded to them, the result would be, literally speaking,
no more than a " twofold gospel." But in the first group
of these instances we find that Marcan passage quoted in
our first Chapter one that appeared well worth including
in our investigation, if we wished to include parallelism of
evangelic thoughts as well as words saying that " Jesus
was not able to do any mighty work."

Continuing, then, to adhere to the principle of inclusive-
ness there laid down, let us make the following experiment,
in which no one will be able to say that we evolved a theory
first, and then selected such instances only as were favourable
to us afterwards. Let us take the first group of seven
instances given in the Horae Synopticae and ask, in each
case, " Has John anything to say about this ? " If he inter-
venes in favour of Mark, we shall not expect close similarity

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

of expression. On the contrary, we shall expect dissimilarity,
because we know by this time that John systematically avoids
Synoptic language. It will be enough for us if John is shewn
to intervene in behalf of the thought in Mark. But of course
any discovery that he intervenes in word as well as thought
will have additional weight in inclining the balance toward
the conclusion that when Mark is departed from by Matthew
and Luke, John intervenes.

If John does not intervene, then we shall admit that, so
far, our theory fails.

3- Johannine allusions to some of these

Of the seven instances (a) above mentioned as being
grouped together in Horae Synopticae two refer to healing by
means of " spittle." In the Talmud, R. Jochanan is said to have
declared that " whispering " over a wound to heal it, when
accompanied with " spitting," deprived a man of eternal life,
since the name of God ought not to be pronounced after
spitting 1 . And it is easy to understand that for other reasons,
including a suggestion of unseemliness, such a detail may
have "given offence" to readers whom the later evangelists
kept in view. The soaring mysticism of the Fourth Gospel
which nowhere mentions such words as leper, unclean, or
even hypocrisy makes the appearance of such a detail there
quite unexpected. Yet there it appears. Moreover it is in a
context that emphasizes the fact and probably connects it
with a mystical suggestion 2 .

One of the two Marcan instances of healing with " spittle "

1 Levy iv. 470 b quoting Sanhedr. 101 a.

2 Jn ix. 6 7 " When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and
made clay of the spittle, and anointed his eyes with the clay, and said
unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is, by interpretation,
Sent)." The blind man is the Gentile world, born again. In the new-
born proselyte, the old eye must be closed before the new one is opened,
see Levy iv. 154 b quoting Lev. r. (on Lev. xii. 2).

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

describes the cure of a blind man, effected not at once but
as it were in two stages. The Johannine instance of the cure
of a man born blind and healed by " spittle " is .of a similar
description, as being effected by two acts, though not, as in
Mark, first partially and then completely 1 . No such instances
either of partial followed by complete cure, or of cure performed
in two stages, are recorded by Matthew or Luke.

Horae Synopticae adds in a note that " perhaps painful
effort might seem to be implied " in the Marcan words
" Looking up to heaven, he sighed" and contrasts the Marcan
" sighing deeply in his spirit" with the parallel Matthew which
omits this detail 2 . With these peculiarities of Mark we may
compare peculiarities of John describing Jesus as (R.V.)
"groaning in tJie spirit" and (R.V.) '"groaning in himself?
just before He "lifted up his eyes" and pronounced the
appeal to the Father which precedes the raising of Lazarus
from the dead 3 .

Another instance in the Horae also referring to healing
was touched on above in our first Chapter, and John was
there shewn to be apparently justifying a Marcan statement
that, in certain circumstances, Jesus " was not able to do any
mighty work," by words of Jesus Himself, " The Son is able
to do nothing of himself." Here it may be added that " not
able " is applied elsewhere to Christ by Matthew, as well as
Mark. But it is from the lips of His enemies, " He saved
others ; he is not able to save himself" There, again, Luke
omits " not abler

In view of all these facts we naturally ask whether there
is any Johannine instance (like that of Matthew) in which
Christ's enemies, whether secret or open, say about Him
and especially about Him as Healer or Lifegiver "he was not
able." According to ordinary interpretation there is none.

1 Mk viii. 226 (a blind man), Jn ix. I 7 (a man blind from birth).
8 Mk vii. 34, and Mk viii. 12 parall. to Mt. xvi. 2.
3 Jn xi. 33, 38, 41. See also R.V. margin.

2 3

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

But take the following comment about Christ's being "not
able" to do what He wished, which John puts into the mouth
of " some " of " the Jews," near the grave of Lazarus : " The
Jews therefore said, See, how he loved him ! But some of
them said, This man, who opened the eyes of the blind [man],
was not able to prevent this man [Lazarus] also from dying ! "
The Revised Version renders this interrogatively, "Was not
this man able?" But there are no grounds for taking the
Greek "not" interrogatively in this passage. It is not so
taken by the earliest authorities. If the early Latin translators
had regarded it as interrogative, they would have rendered
it by " nonne " instead of " non," according to their custom.
But they render it negatively (" non "). Moreover there is an
apparent intention to distinguish, by a " but" the kindly Jews,
who emphasized Christ's love, from the malignant Jews, who
emphasized His (supposed) weakness.

In accordance, then, with grammatical as well as psycho-
logical considerations, the words must be taken as an utterance
of malignity, " throwing doubt " (as ancient authorities say)
on the genuineness of Christ's healing of the man born blind 1 .
It would come under the heading in Horae Synopticae as
" limiting Christ's power." It creates no difficulty in the
Johannine narrative any more than in Mark and Matthew,
because the words are uttered by enemies. But the passages,
taken together, shew that an evangelist might shrink from
using the phrase in his own person, as if he might be supposed
to be using it of the Saviour in a hostile sense.

1 See Cramer (on Jn xi. 36 7) where it is said that they "malignantly
referred to that miracle as though it had not [really] come to pass." The
commentator apparently read the words about opening the eyes of the
blind as meaning " who opened [so it is said]." And there is irony in
"was not able [strange to say]." The early Syriac Version known as
Syro-Sinaitic (SS) inserts a rare word meaning "forsooth" implying
contempt or surprised incredulity, (lit.) " not forsooth was he (or, would
he have been) able to make this [one] that he should not die."

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

We pass to a very different instance. No great principle
is involved in it. It is merely that Mark appears to have
placed in one narrative about a storm a clause that John
transfers to another narrative about a storm. The clause
occurs, in Mark, at the beginning of the threefold Synoptic
narrative of the storm in which Jesus fell asleep. Mark says
that the disciples " take (or, receive) him, as he was, in the
boat, and otJier boats were with him 1 " Horae Synopticae calls
attention to the italicised words, and says " It might be
wondered how the ' other boats ' weathered the storm.
(Perhaps however Mark did not mean to imply that these
also crossed the lake.)" The clause about "other boats"
seems out of place, having no meaning here. Matthew and
Luke, besides omitting it, omit also the words " take (or,
receive) him, as he was, in the boat." It will be shewn in
due course, when we discuss this narrative in its order, that
John inserts both these clauses (slightly changed) but inserts
them elsewhere. There are two storms in the gospels. John,
who omits (what Luke retains) the storm in which Jesus fell
asleep, but inserts (what Luke omits) the storm in which
Jesus walked on the waters, apparently regards the Marcan
clause as placed wrongly in the former, its right place being
in the latter. At all events a clause about " otlier boats*"
finds its place in the context following the Johannine account
of the latter. There it seems better in place, being connected
with the question " How did Jesus come from one side of the
Lake to the other ? " The clause about " taking (or, receiving)'"
Jesus " in the boat " also finds its fit place there, in the words

1 Mk iv. 36.

2 Jn vi. 23 (A.V.) "other boats." The text has many variations.
Some of them are caused by the ambiguity of the Gk unaccented aXXo,
which may mean " others " or " but? SS must be added to the versions
that adopt " other."

3 The Greek word, jrapaXa^ai/w, used by Mk, occurs in Jn i. 11 "his
own received him not," but it often means " take along with oneself."

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

" They therefore desired to take him into the boat, and straight-
way the boat was by the land to which they were going 1 ."

Another instance, of quite a different kind from the one
just quoted, is the statement of Mark when describing how
Joseph came to beg the body of Jesus that " Pilate marvelled
if he were already dead 2 ." Horae Synopticae adds " It might
have been thought at least needless to introduce this question
into ordinary teaching" presumably meaning that it would
lead doubters to say, " And might not Pilate well ( marvel ' ?
Jesus was not really dead. He had merely swooned." Hence
perhaps the Acta Pilati (B) places Pilate's marvel before, not
after, Joseph's entrance, and represents it as being caused by
the report of the centurion concerning all the " great miracles "
(the "earthquake," "darkness," &c.) that had attended the
death of Jesus 8 .

John inserts details (not in any of the Synoptists) which
negative the supposition of a mere swoon. " Soldiers," he
says in effect, " had been sent by Pilate to ensure, by the
regular crurifragium (i.e. breaking the legs), the death of all
those crucified. Jesus had died already, and, to make sure
that He was actually dead, one of the soldiers pierced His
side with a spear, inflicting a wound whence ' there came out
blood and water. And he that hath seen hath borne witness,
and his witness is true 4 '." By these details, without trenching
on the Synoptic narrative 5 , John removes an objection that

1 Jn vi. 21. 2 Mk xv. 44. 3 Acta Pilati (B) 11.

4 Jn xix. 34 5. On the probable symbolism see Light on the Gospel
3999 (iii) 13 a, and on the following words "and he (f'/celi/of) knoweth
that he (unemph.) saith true," see Johannine Grammar 2383 4.

6 Reading the text of Mark after that of John, as it is placed in the
Diatessaron, we see that Joseph may be supposed to have informed Pilate
of the death of Jesus before the centurion had reported the death : "Joseph
asked the body of Jesus [who, he said, had already died]. But Pilate
wondered if he had indeed already died, and he called the centurion to
him and questioned him..." John does not mention Pilate's " wonder-
ing," but he leaves us able to say, with the aid of the Johannine additions,

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

might have been derived from the earliest of the Synoptists
by an opponent of the Christians. And, as in the story of
healing by "spittle," he meets it with an explanation that
apparently has a mystical interpretation.

" But the explanation may not be true." That, though it
will be the main point ultimately, is not the main point at
present. We are considering, at present, not the Evangelist's
veracity, nor his accuracy, but his method in general, and his
allusions to Mark in particular. The reader may feel disposed
to say, " These are small matters. They do not help me."
But they are not " small," and they ought to " help " him, if
they prove that the Evangelist, mystic though he was, and
poet though he was, believed himself to be a historian, too,
and used every particle that he could find of misunderstood
tradition in the oldest of the Gospels, in order to bring out
what he conceived to be the historical truth, while at the same
time tingeing it with a spiritual and symbolical interpretation.

No serious student of the Christianity of the first century
can be ignorant of the probability of the existence of many
" gospels," or " gospel-traditions," besides the Three, some
written, some unwritten ; some of Greek, some of Hebraic,
tendency ; some in the tone and spirit of prose, some in that
of poetry 1 . From the most ancient and most misunderstood
of these, John may be inferred to have probably borrowed
if he can be proved to have borrowed from Mark. Regarded in
this light, the proof of the borrowing from Mark is by no
means a " small matter," and may :< help " us far on the way
toward the historical truth.

In this particular case, it may appear that there are

" Pilate ' wondered' at first, when he heard the news from Joseph, but not
afterwards when he heard the whole news."

The historical fact is not discussed above. The point is merely this,
that the details added by John are adapted to remove the difficulties
raised by Mark.

1 See p. 38.

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

grounds for believing that although the vision of the flow of
the stream of blood and water from Christ's side was sub-
jective, the crurifragium and the piercing of the side were
historical facts.

4. An instance that seems at first sight not worth noticing

The sixth instance in the Horae Synopticae (placed last
of the seven here because of its important bearing on the
following Chapters) contains nothing but a detail, peculiar to
the Marcan story of the Withering of the Fig-tree, and im-
plying that the tree was not withered instantaneously. Small
though this detail is, the examination of it will help us (I
think) to understand why Matthew differs from Mark as to
other parts of the story, and why Luke omits the whole.

Mark says that it was not till the morning after the tree
was cursed that the disciples, "going by, early, saw the fig-tree
withered from its roots 1 ." Matthew writes thus, " He saith
unto it, Let there be no fruit from thee henceforward for ever.
And immediately the fig-tree withered away 2 ." Luke, though
he omits the story of the Withering of the Fig-tree, has a
parable that might be called the Probation of the Fig-tree.
In that, the Fig-tree is at first doomed to an immediate fall
(" Cut it down ") because the Lord of the Orchard has come
"three years 3 " to it and found no fruit. Then the Gardener
intercedes (" Lord, let it alone this year also ") that it may
have one last interval of grace. Both the Withering of the
Fig-tree and the Probation of the Fig-tree would well apply

1 Mk xi. 20. 2 Mt. xxi. 19.

3 Concerning the (Lk. xiii. 7) " three years," Schottgen ii. 548 quotes
two traditions (to which add Pesikt. Wii. p. 150, n. 4) representing the
Shechinah as going out of the City, and " standing three years and a half
on the Mount of Olives," and bidding the men of Jerusalem to "repent"
(Jer. xiii. 16) "before the darkness falls" upon them. The prediction
"three years and a half" is illustrated by Dan. xii. 7 "A time, times, and
half a time."

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

to the barren Church of the Jews 1 . Here, the important
question may suggest itself, " Did Luke omit the Marcan
miracle because he believed Mark to have misunderstood a
parable as fact?" But we must not digress to that. Engaged
as we are in an experimental testing of the rule that " where
Luke omits or alters Marcan tradition, John often intervenes,"
we must confine ourselves to this question, " Does John inter-
vene in any way as to the subject of the tree? Directly,
literally, and verbally, we know he does not. And we do not
expect it. But if we could get to the thought underlying the
Marcan Withering of the Tree, should we find John inter-
vening indirectly and spiritually? If so, where?

For a full discussion of this question the reader is referred
to a previous part of Diatessarica-. But the substance of
it can be given here so far as concerns an illustration from
Jewish metaphor bearing on parallel passages in which Jesus
promises the disciples that they shall cast (Mark and Matthew)
"this mountain," or (Luke) "this sycamine-tree," into the
sea :

Mk xi. 23 Mt. xxi. 21 Lk. xvii. 6
Whosoever shall Not only the [deed] Ye should be say-
say to this mountain... of the fig-tree shall ye ing to this [or, the]
do, but even if ye shall sycamine-tree. . .
say to this mountain . . .

It appears from many quotations that " this plane-tree "
and " this mountain " were terms used contemptuously by the
Jews to denote the Samaritan worship on Mount Gerizim,
where it was supposed that Jacob had buried " strange gods "

1 Origen, on Mt. xxi. 20 (the Withering of the Fig-tree) combines
Lk. xiii. 7 (the Parable of Probation). He does not confuse the two, and
of course he does not deny the miracle ; but he recognises that the
Marcan miracle and the Lucan parable apply to the same thing, the
unfruitful tree of Israel. The Docetae are said by Hippolytus (Haer.
viii. i) to have quoted words from the two Traditions in a confused form.

2 See Son of Man 3364 / q, which contains a separate Note on
"This Sycamine-tree."

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

under a " terebinth tree " called by various names. A great
number of passages describe conversations in which a typical
Samaritan suggests to a typical Jewish Rabbi, on his way
through Samaria to Jerusalem, that it would be better to stay
and worship " in this plane-tree " (paraphrased in some English
translations as " in this mountain ").

These facts recall the Johannine Dialogue between Jesus
and the Samaritan woman, in which the latter suddenly
deviates from the personal question of " five husbands " to the
public and national controversy about this mountain : " Sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped
in this mountain ; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place
where men ought to worship."

There are many indications that, in Christ's days, the
service of the Temple, and the priestly monopolies connected
with it, and the superstitious devotion to the external details
of it, went far to convert what the Jews called the Mountain
of the House of the Lord into a Mountain of Corruption, and
the fruitful tree of Worship into a barren tree of Superstition.
In plain prose Jesus is said by the Synoptists to have de-
nounced the Temple, saying that there should not be left of
it " one stone upon another." He also spoke of it as " a den
of robbers." He included it in His parable of the vineyard of
which the labourers refused to give fruits to the vineyard's
lord. It does not require a great stretch of imagination to
suppose that Jesus also called it " the fig-tree " with " leaves
without fruit," and denounced it as such when He looked on
it from Mount Olivet. If that is the fact, we are justified in
believing that under the perplexing Marcan story of the literal
withering of a fig-tree, a parable is concealed 1 . The parable

1 See Son of Man 3364 / q. Also on " Monopolies " see ib. 3585 c
shewing how " doves at one time were sold in Jerusalem for pence of
gold " and how Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel determined to break down
this extortion so that " doves were sold that very day for two farthings."
A passage in J. Berach. ii. 4 (teeming with quaint and ancient traditions

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

contained a condemnation by Jesus of all religious practices
that .make an appointed place or time or bodily action
appointed by " the commandments of men " an essential of
worship. More especially is this condemnable when these
commandments are issued for their own interests by any class
of professional men (priests, prophets, magicians, ministers,
scribes, elders, or Pharisees) that professes to be intermediary
between God and the non-professional man.

How, if at all, does John intervene as to " this mountain " ?
Not by any denunciations of the old Temple, which, when he
wrote, had long ago passed away. Not by any predictions of
its destruction except so far as they are conveyed in what
may be called the fiat implied in the words " Destroy this
temple." And, even there, destruction is overshadowed by
the thought of the reconstruction immediately predicted,
" In three days I will raise it up." No, in John's days, the
important thing was not to believe that the old Temple was
cast down but that the new Temple was built up, and was
to be kept pure and holy. " Make not my Father's house a
house of mercJiandise" was a precept needed for the Church
of Christ no less than it had been for the Temple of

about the Messiah born in Bethlehem and snatched up " two days after-
wards " to heaven) has (Ps. xxix. 5) " The voice of the Lord breaketh the
cedars. For one day He will destroy those who augment the prices in the
markets.'" Schwab's explanation of this mysterious passage is "They
stood in the markets, whose doors were made of cedar."

But is it not better to explain it from J. Taanith iv. 5 (6), as translated
in Hor. Heb. \. 87, " Two cedars were in the Mount of Olivet, under
one of which were four shops, where all things needful for purifications
were sold : out of the other, they fetched, every month, forty seahs of
pigeons, whence all the women to be purified were supplied "? These three
quotations are all from the Jerusalem Talmud, which would naturally be
more likely than the Babylonian Talmud to retain first-century traditions
of Jerusalemite practice in connection with the Temple. The same kind
of metaphor that explains the Jewish use of "this sycamine-tree" to
mean the abominable worship on Mount Gerizim, appears to be latent in
the grim application of " breaketh the cedars " to the destruction of the
abominable extortions on Mount Olivet.

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

Jehovah in the days of false teachers and false apostles who
had begun already to "make-merchandise" of the faithful 1 .

In the Johannine dialogue on "this mountain" there is
a condemnation of what may be called " the religion of the
barren fig-tree " words without works. What materials the
Evangelist may have had for this dialogue between Jesus and
the Daughter of Samaria obviously symbolical in its mention
of the five husbands 2 and in other details we may not be
able exactly to ascertain ; but it appears to teach with a plain
and simple directness the spiritual truth that was obscured
and made almost entirely unintelligible for Greeks by the
Marcan metaphor of the withering of the fig-tree erroneously
interpreted as literal fact. It teaches us that we are to
worship God with a worship that allows nothing in the
province of the senses to come between us and Him saying
to us " I am necessary to you as a mediator between you and
God." Christians as well as Samaritans may make " this

1 Jn ii. 1 6, 2 Pet. ii. 3 "and in covetousness shall they with feigned
words make-merchandise of you." The spuriousness of the Epistle does
not diminish its value as a testimony to what was going on at the
beginning of the second century. Similar warnings, or implications,
may be found in the Pauline Epistles. Comp. 2 Cor. xii. 18 "Did Titus
take any advantage of you ? "

2 See Enc. Bibl. "Gospels" col. 1801 2 for parallelisms between the
Johannine Dialogue and passages in Philo about Moses sitting at the
well; and about woman as the type of "sense" ; and the " seducer" who
acts through "the five senses" and leads the soul from "the lawful
husband " ; and idolatry as being the sin of " having many husbands " ;
and " believing on the report of a woman " (Jn iv. 42 believed " no longer
owing to the speaking of the woman ").

All these symbolical details do not at all prevent us from believing
that John is here describing, in his own way and words, a journey of
Jesus in the course of which as might be said in Jewish idiom "the
Daughter of Samaria stretched out her hands to receive the living water
from the Lord, after having played the harlot with many husbands and
gone to the waters of Sychar (drunkenness)" (comp. Jer. ii. 13 25).
Such a journey corresponds to the Mark-Matthew journey into the parts
of Tyre and Sidon (omitted by Luke) in the course of which Jesus cast
out a devil from the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman.

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

mountain" some Christian Gerizim a necessity for approach-
ing God. We are warned against it We are to worship Him
" neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem " but " in spirit
and truth 1 ."

5. The advantage of an inclusive study of such allusions

All this language about "fig-trees" (or "sycamines" or
" plane-trees ") and " mountains " is so unlike anything in our
experience that we naturally find difficulty at first in believing
that it could exist 2 . Much less can we believe that it could

1 See Johannine Vocabulary 1647 foil., which suggests that the
original text gave the language of the Samaritan woman thus (Jn iv. 20,
22) " Our fathers [i.e. the Samaritans] worshipped in this mountain, and
ye [Jews] say (that) ' In Jerusalem is the place where it is right to worship;
ye [Samaritans] worship that which ye know not, we [Jews] worship that
which we know because salvation is of the Jews'."

On this Samaritan representation of the arrogant and offensive
language of the Jewish controversialists there follow words of peace
(Jn iv. 21) "Jesus saith unto her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour cometh
when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the
Father'."

Against the ordinary order there are these considerations, (i) It is
(I believe) unique that Jesus should call His countrymen "the Jews";
(2) though it may be rhetorically defended (as it is by Chrysostom)
Nonnus paraphrases "the Jews" by an emphatic "we"; (3) it is doubtful
whether John would assent to the statement " Salvation is of the Jews,"
or (4) would represent Jesus as saying that He "worshipped"; (5) the
language, if assigned to Jesus, is out of tune with the context, but (6) if
assigned to the woman, is suitable to her desire to draw off the con-
versation to a national and controversial topic about which she might
speak as an injured person ; (7) the sentence beginning "Ye worship that
which ye know not " might naturally be transferred from the woman to
Jesus by editors or scribes who did not perceive that the words were
spoken by the woman bitterly and ironically in the character of con-
troversialist " Jews."

2 See, however, Son of Man 3364 d for scriptural personifications of
" mountain " in Jer. li. 25 " I am against thee, O mountain of destruction
(or, corruption}," and Zech. iv. 7 " Who art thou, O great mountain."
Comp. 2 K. xxiii. 13 " mountain of destruction (or, corruption)" Targ.
" mountain of Olives."

The peculiarity underlying the Synoptic use of " mountain " appears

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

give rise to serious error in the first century. But as soon as
its frequency among later Jews is proved, and as soon as we
see also an apparent allusion to it in the Fourth Gospel, then
we perceive that its unlikeness to anything in Gentile litera-
ture would make it all the more likely to cause errors in the
earliest extant attempt at a written gospel in Greek a
gospel that in its very first sentence contains an error that
any educated Jew would immediately expose 1 .

And, in the case of the " fig-tree " or " mountain " in Mark
and Matthew, if we say " We refuse to believe anything so
unlikely as that these terms could have been metaphorically
used," we have to face the reply " Is it not still more
unlikely that Jesus actually withered a fig-tree and promised
His disciples that, in a literal sense, they, too, should ' do this
deed of the fig-tree ' ? " And again, " Is it not also more
unlikely that this extraordinary miracle should be omitted in
Luke's parallel narrative? Does it not also require some
explanation, that no Evangelist but Matthew adds the promise
' Ye shall do the deed of the fig-tree' to the promise which he
and Mark mention about ' this mountain? where the parallel
Luke has nothing but ' this [or, the] sycamine-tree ' ? "

In concluding these remarks on the very difficult narrative
in Mark, we must not forget that the passage does not stand
alone, but as one of seven passages containing Marcan diffi-
culties, in all the rest of which though selected without any
thought of Johannine intervention we have found a strong
probability that John has intervened.

It is not contended that in this last instance John's mention
of " this mountain " has been proved to be alluding to Mark's
particular mention of " this mountain'' where Matthew adds,

to be that it was used alternatively with various forms of " terebinth?
" sycamine? '''fig-tree " derived from post-scriptural tradition.

1 Mk i. 2 " Isaiah" for "Malachi and Isaiah." Jerome (on Mt. iii. 3)
explains it as (i) "an error of scribes," or (2) an error caused by "making
one corpus" out of " diverse testimonies."

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

and Luke has, a mention of a " tree." But it is contended that
even in this instance where, at first sight, we might have
supposed the hypothesis of allusion to be absurd it has been
proved to be not absurd, so far as concerns a general parallelism
between " mountain " and " tree," in a metaphorical sense,
meaning corrupt worship, and bringing out a doctrine of
Chrisfs that had been merged in miracle by Mark. In the
rest of the instances, allusion appears to be either proved or
probable. And in all, even in this last one, the hypothesis of
a possible allusion seems to have been a fruitful one, inasmuch
as it has turned our thoughts in a natural way to the varying
thoughts of Christians in the first century, lifting us above the
level of mere words to an appreciation of the spiritual source
whence the words proceeded.

For these reasons, the results of our experiment should
confirm us in our purpose to make the study of Johannine
allusions to Marcan peculiarities a prominent part of our
study of the Fourfold Gospel. For we have been led on by it,
in an unexpected way, to see that in several instances the
things that Mark has set down so obscurely or harshly as to
induce Luke (and sometimes Matthew also) to alter them,
are just the things in which first-century Christians (including
the later Synoptists) would be greatly but diversely interested
and in need of such help as a fourth evangelist might bestow.
This help, we find, our Fourth Evangelist has in some cases
actually bestowed.

These results justify us in giving special attention to Mark
(rather than Matthew and Luke) in his relations to John.
We will impartially keep our eyes open to John's allusions to
any one of the three Synoptists. But we shall not be unfair if
we give special care and more space to his allusions to Mark.
The reason will be that they will demand more care and
space. But the additional care and space will be devoted,
not to cherishing, but to testing, our hypothesis. As to
Matthew and Luke., if we find John alluding to the

35 32

ALLUSIONS IN JOHN TO MARK

peculiarities of either of them (in the course of the Synoptic
Tradition), we shall put down the fact with ready recognition,
though with surprise. But as to Mark we shall do more.
We shall not only put down, without surprise, each instance
where we find John alluding to him ; but we shall also put
down, subject to certain definite exceptions, every instance
where John does not allude to a Marcan peculiarity omitted or
altered by Luke (with, or without, Matthew).

" In these cases," we shall say, " the theory of Johannine
intervention fails." No one surely can think that a theory
subjected to such tests is inadequately tested.

CHAPTER V

THE COURSE OF PROCEDURE

i. The advantages of taking Mark as tfie starting-point

HAVING to study the Fourfold Gospel with a constant
reference to the likelihood of Johannine allusions to Mark,
shall we take John as our starting-point, and work upwards
to his sources in Mark? Or shall we take Mark as our
starting-point, and work downwards to the three streams
Matthew, Luke and John, streams all amplified from other
than Marcan sources, but all, in some degree, flowing from
Mark?

The latter is the more natural course and seems hardly
to need justification. But it has many small disadvantages,
which must receive careful consideration ; and in view of
these, it may be well here to restate, in two or three sentences,
what are the great and solid reasons for taking Mark as the
starting-point.

First, it has been shewn above that Mark contains a
tradition from which Matthew and Luke borrowed, and in
behalf of which John whether deliberately or not sometimes
intervened. Secondly, it is also an undisputed fact that
although Matthew singly, and Luke singly, may deviate from
Mark's chronology, they never do so jointly. Thirdly, there
are the advantages of Mark's frequent (though not invariable)
brevity, and of his bluntness and freedom from apologetic bias
or softening paraphrase. Lastly, we avoid some dangers
which might result from a Johannine starting-point of

THE COURSE OF PROCEDURE

straying into conjectures as to the "other than Marcan
sources " from which John may have borrowed. A word on
this subject may be in season here, just to explain that, if we
pass it by, it will not be because we ignore it.

That there actually were already in Luke's days other
than Marcan sources (and "many" of them, too) is de-
monstrable not only from the external testimony of Luke's
Preface (" many have taken in hand ") but also from the
internal evidence of Luke's Gospel in which we find traces
of different styles and different shades of thought. This is
also true, to some extent, of Matthew's Gospel.

In the Fourth Gospel the existence of various sources is
not recognisable from internal evidence ; for the whole of it is
written in one style and on one and the same level of mystical
and allusive thought. Nevertheless we may be antecedently
certain that John was not uninfluenced by those "many"
evangelists whom Luke's Preface mentions. Most of them,
probably, John would desire not to borrow from, but to
guard his readers against. But from some he may not have
disdained to borrow a fact, and from some a thought.

The first Epistle to the Corinthians reminds us that others
beside Paul could say "my Gospel 1 ." There was A polios ;
there was Cephas 2 . The Preaching of Peter, or Cephas, is
traditionally said to have been taken down in notes by Mark.
But it must have left other memorials, remaining in the
minds of many till the end of the first century, beside those
inadequate Marcan records, if records they are. As for the
Gospel of Apollos, it is one of the many marvellous silences
of the first century that so successful and ardent a preacher
who, starting in Ephesus from "the baptism of John,"
"mightily confuted the Jews" in Achaia, and whom Paul
mentioned to the Corinthians as on a footing with himself
and Peter so utterly disappeared from all subsequent

1 Rom. ii. 16, xvi. 25 (comp. 2 Tim. ii. 8 and I Cor. xv. I 8).

2 i Cor. i. 12, iii. 4, 22.

THE COURSE OF PROCEDURE

Christian history that not a word remains, from Papias or
any other Christian writer, early or late, to tell us any solid
truth about his subsequent labours or even about the time
of his death 1 .

Apollos was an Alexandrian, and might be expected to
shew traces of Philo's influence. Also, we should expect him
to have dwelt upon "the baptism of John [the Baptist]." In
these two respects the Gospel of Apollos might have had
characteristics also to be found in the Gospel of John. But to
do more than touch on these interesting facts or rather, on
these interesting and provoking absences of fact would lead
us quite away from our subject. We are dealing with the
presence of fact, solid, demonstrated fact: namely, the priority
of Mark ; the indebtedness of Matthew and Luke to Mark ;
and those other undoubted characteristics of Mark above
mentioned, which distinguish him from the later Synoptists.
These things make it desirable that Mark should stand first
on those occasions on which we can construct four parallel
columns of evangelical narrative or discourse, for the purpose
of comparing them together.

2. The disadvantage of taking Mark as the starting-point

Unfortunately Rushbrooke's Synopticon shews us that
the "occasions on which we can construct four parallel
columns of evangelical narrative or discourse," are extremely
rare. The "four-column passages" include little more than
some of the acts and words of John the Baptist, the feeding
of the five thousand, and the riding into Jerusalem. There
are also short parallels in Christ's prediction of Peter's denial
and its fulfilment ; the arrest, trial, execution and burial

1 Origen (on Rom. xvi. 10) asks whether "Apelles" is Apollos.
Deissmann (p. 149) quoting a will dated 238 7 B.C. 'A7roXXa>i/ioi>...6r KCU
2uprri 'la>i>a'0av, says that the former "is a sort of translation" of the
latter.

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of Jesus ; and a vision of angels at the sepulchre. In the
story of the anointing of Jesus by a woman, John steps into
the Synoptic tradition, but Luke steps out of it, giving a
different story 1 . In the story of the walking on the waters,
John intervenes, but Luke is silent 2 .

To the " four-column passages " we might append the
Johannine purification of the temple, and perhaps even the
Johannine healing of an " impotent " man, as corresponding,
in some sense, to narratives in the Synoptists, though not
referring to identical events.

We have seen above that John appeared to intervene in at
least five or six out of a group of seven instances where Mark
contained something that might raise objections or difficulties.
But the Johannine interventions were all very brief. We must
expect them always to be brief. Parallelisms with Synoptic
narrative and phrase in an evangelist who deliberately avoids
Synoptic language and seldom trenches on Synoptic history,
could not possibly extend to any great length. That, of
course, will be disadvantageous to our procedure. It was a
disadvantage, above, to introduce a discussion of so important
a subject as the Withering of the Fig-tree by calling attention
to an apparently insignificant peculiarity of Mark (who says
that the withering was noticed " in the morning " of the next
day, as compared with Matthew, who says that the tree " was
withered immediately"). The same disadvantage will have to
be faced again and again.

For example, Mark's opening words are "the beginning
of the gospel," but he does not tell us what " the gospel "
means, nor does he explain clearly and unambiguously
what "the beginning" is. John's opening words are " In the
beginning was the Word," and, though he never uses the word
" gospel " from first to last, he goes on to teach us a gospel,
or good tidings, of light and life, as proceeding from the

1 Jn xii. 18, Lk. vii. 36 50. 2 Jn vi. 1521.

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Word. A little later on, according to Mark, the Baptist
uses concerning Jesus the words " coming behind me? Luke
omits "behind me? John represents the Baptist as not
only using but repeating "behind me" and playing on it
antithetically. This has been pointed out in Chapter I, and
the reader is here asked to prepare himself not to reject the
suggestion that John alluded to Mark's "beginning of the
gospel " till he has considered the much stronger evidence
indicating that John does allude to Mark's " coming behind
me." At the outset of the study of the Fourfold Gospel we
are to keep our minds open to a cumulative demonstration
that in a great number of instances (of which "the beginning"
may be the first) John is trying (so to speak) to rehabilitate
Mark, by putting new life and spiritual meaning into some
of his obscure or prosaic expressions.

Many of these alleged rehabilitations, if they were taken
singly, would seem so far-fetched as not to deserve considera-
tion. For example, Mark, using the present tense, tells us
that, at the Baptism of Jesus, the heavens were seen " in the
act of being rent asunder"; but Matthew and Luke, using the
past tense and a different verb, say that the heavens " were
opened" John does not mention this at the time, as he does
not describe the Baptism of Jesus. But, a little afterwards,
he represents Jesus as saying to His newly-formed band of
disciples " Ye shall see the heaven [permanently] opened and
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son
of Man." In this, as in other cases, we must consider not
only the words but the thought beneath the words ; and if the
hypothesis of allusion to Mark brings out an appropriate
meaning in John, not seen before a meaning appropriate to
his context and to his Gospel as a whole, and appropriate
to an evangelist supplementing earlier evangelists we may
reasonably add it to the instances of probable Johannine
intervention.

If the criticism suggests itself, " Are you not evolving

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something- very subtle (your Johannine ' permanently open ')
out of something that is comparatively commonplace hyper-
bole (the Marcan ' being rent asunder ') ? " it will be a fair
rejoinder to say, " Mark is often comparatively ' common-
place ' and John is often comparatively ' subtle ' ; so that,
if John interpreted Mark, this is just what might have
been expected."

3. The disadvantage of neglecting Johannine chronology

Another disadvantage of starting from Mark (or from any
of the Synoptists) is that we may lose hold of the Johannine
thought by giving up the Johannine, for the Synoptic, chrono-
logy. For example, John tells us that at the very beginning
of His public work not later on, after many conflicts with
the rulers of the Jews, but in His very first collision with
them Jesus said to the Jews in the Temple, " Destroy this
temple and in three days I will raise it up." At the same
time John plainly warns us that the words were not literal
but metaphorical and referred to His resurrection.

Now Mark, followed by Matthew, places similar words
in the mouth of " false witnesses " at Christ's trial. Luke
omits them altogether. This, then, is one of the clearest
cases that can be alleged for the theory of Johannine inter-
vention. But in what order are we to place it ? If we delay
to mention it till we come to it in Mark, we pass over one
of the most important characteristics of the Johannine Gospel,
namely, its recognition that Jesus, from the beginning,
preached in some form the doctrine of " resurrection in three
days " or " on the third day'' This the Synoptists take
literally, prefixing to the phrase " raised up in three days "
predictions about being " killed " (or even " crucified ").
These predictions they place at a comparatively late period
in Christ's career.

It would seem that the Johannine tradition about " three
days" ought to come before us at least twice. It must come

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along with the Synoptic tradition about being killed and
" raised up in three days " or " on the third day!' There \ve
shall compare both traditions with Hosea's prophecy, de-
scribing Israel as "smitten," but destined to be "raised up
on the third day" and to "live" in the sight of the Lord 1 .
But it ought also to come before us along with the Synoptic
accounts of Christ's trial and crucifixion. For there, in Mark
and Matthew, the charge of planning to destroy the Temple
and to raise up another, is twice mentioned once in the trial
before the chief priests, and once as uttered by the servants of
the chief priests, when Jesus is hanging on the Cross. On
both occasions, the charge contains the clause " in three days"

Luke, on both occasions, omits it. Possibly he regards
the omission as justified because the chief priests themselves
regarded the words as so obviously metaphorical that they
based no charge upon them when they brought Jesus before
Pilate. Possibly, remembering how the Christians had
suffered under Nero, on the false charge of incendiarism,
Luke saw a disadvantage in repeating such baseless charges
against Christ baseless, indeed, but nevertheless likely to be
caught up and repeated by the multitudes in the cities of the
Gentiles. For they could easily understand the accusation.
But they could not easily understand how the Christians ex-
plained it (or, as their enemies would say, explained it away).

John takes an opposite course. Instead of suppressing
a fabrication, or perversion, or misinterpretation preserved
by Mark and Matthew but omitted by Luke of words

1 Hos. vi. 2 on which see Paradosis 1218. 1297, and especially 1306 :
" As regards the meaning of the ' two days ' and ' third day ! in Hosea,
Jewish criticism is divided. Rashi refers it to the destructions of the
two temples and the future rebuilding of a third ; others to the two
captivities ; others to the interval between death and decomposition.
But Ibn Ezra, one of the most trustworthy critics on verbal points, says,
' He will make us to live means He -will heal us : In two days means In
a short time! This suggests a parallelism with a saying of our Lord
recorded by John alone, (xvi. 16) ' A little -while and ye shall see me'."

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alleged to }iave been uttered by Jesus, without any mention of
words like them actually uttered by Jesus, he gives us actual
words, and dramatically represents them as being misinter-
preted at the very moment of their utterance. To these he
gives a prominent place at the very outset of his Gospel, as if
saying to us " Observe from the beginning how the Lord set
His thoughts on things above, on the spiritual Jerusalem, not
on things below, not on the earthly Jerusalem, and how He
merged Himself in the Church or Congregation or Temple of
His Father, and how, in consequence, His gospel was mis-
understood."

This mention of Christ's " gospel " suggests the propriety
of yet another reference to the Johannine doctrine of the
" three days'" Ought we not to mention it at the outset along
with our sketch of what the four Evangelists meant by the
" gospel " ? Mark mentions " gospel " in his first verse, and
often again, but never directly defines it. John never mentions
it but is always leading us to think of it. In Mark, the context
implies that the " gospel " is the good tidings prophesied by
Isaiah, the return of the captives to Zion, ransomed, and healed
from all their diseases fulfilled more especially at first in the
casting out of devils, but afterwards, rather unexpectedly, in
the forgiveness of sins. In John, it is the restoration of
Man to that likeness from which he fell after being created
by the Father through the Son, so that men receive " authority
to become children of God 1 ." But in John it is also the
fulfilment of the Promise to Abraham ratified by sacrifice,
the Father sacrificing the Son. the Lamb of God. The water
and the wine of Cana, at the beginning, predict, as it were,
the shedding of the blood of that Lamb ; and the water and
the blood from the Crucified, at the end, fulfil the prediction.

The same plan of iteration must be adopted as to other
important subjects, and, in particular, the Eucharist. This

1 Jn i. 12.
44

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will not come before us, directly, in Mark's order, till the
night of the Last Supper. But it will come before us in-
directly through the eucharistic sign of the Feeding of the
Five Thousand, in the following way. John agrees with
Mark and Matthew in describing, immediately after that
miracle, a storm (omitted by Luke) from which the disciples
on their way to Gennesaret or Capernaum in a boat are
delivered by Jesus who appears to them walking on the sea.
At the end of this narrative Mark and Matthew and John
say severally :

Mt. xiv. 32-3
And when they
went up into the
boat the wind abated.
But those in the
boat worshipped him,
saying, Truly, thou
art God's Son.

Jn vi. 21

They were desirous
therefore to take him
into the boat. And
immediately the boat
was by the land to
which they were
going.

Mk vi. 51-2
And he went up to
them into the boat.
And the wind abated.
And they were ex-
ceedingly amazed in
themselves. For they
understood not con-
cerning the loaves, but
their heart was (or,
had been) hardened.

This remarkable Marcan insertion about " the hardening
of the heart'' in connection with the Feeding of the Five
Thousand, must be compared with another, referring to, and
placed almost immediately after, the Feeding of the Four
Thousand, an event not narrated by Luke and John. As
before, the " hardening," which Matthew again omits, is
connected with " loaves " :

Mk viii. 17-18
Why reason ye because ye
have no loaves ? Do ye not
yet perceive neither understand ?
Have ye your heart hardened!
Having eyes see ye not, and
having ears hear ye not ? And
do ye not remember...?

Mt. xvi. 89

Why reason ye among your-
selves, O ye of little faith, because
ye have no loaves ? Do ye not
yet perceive neither remember...?

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In the first of these two Marcan passages, the usual
explanation of " understood not concerning the loaves " is
given by Prof. Swete thus : " Their amazement would have
been less had they realised the wonder of the preceding
miracle: 'debuerant a pane ad mare concludere' (Bengel).
Somehow the miracles connected with the multiplication of
food failed to impress the Twelve (cf. viii. 17 ff.) ; perhaps
their administration of the food diverted their thoughts from
the work wrought by the Lord."

But it is difficult to imagine how men of ordinary in-
telligence, knowing that they had but a supply of " five
loaves " in one case and " seven " in another, could allow their
"administration of the food" to "five thousand" and "four
thousand" men respectively ("besides women and children")
to "divert their thoughts from the work wrought by the Lord."

It is perhaps conceivable that, among the five thousand
and more who partook of the loaves, some never knew and
never asked whence the loaves came ; but even as to these,
the five thousand recipients, John says that " the men, seeing
the signs that he had wrought, began to say, This is truly the
Prophet that is to come into the world." And if even these
men were so impressed by it, how could it " fail to impress "
the disciples, who (according to John) must have heard Andrew
and Philip bluntly expressing their sense of the impossibility
of feeding such a multitude in the wilderness, and who
(according to the Synoptists) had themselves expressed the
same opinion ?

Moreover, against this popular view there are the following
objections, some of a critical nature, but some moral. First,
the context of the second Marcan instance though certainly
confused and apparently halting between two interpretations
appears to blame the disciples, not for failing to understand that
Jesus could at any time make five loaves feed five thousand
people, or, in other words, that He could do what He liked but
for failing to understand that, when He said " beware of leaven"

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He was not thinking of material, but of immaterial, " leaven"
namely, hypocrisy.

It does not obviously seem a sign of a " hardened heart "
if the disciples of the Lord Jesus failed as Bengel puts it
to " infer from the bread to the sea." For did not their Master
Himself say, later on, " If it be possible" and does not Mark
say that, on a certain occasion, He " was not able to do any
mighty work"? But it might seem to a spiritual Messiah
a sign of " a hardened heart," if His disciples interpreted His
Eucharistic doctrine of self-sacrifice, taught in the Feeding
of the Five Thousand, as meaning " a doctrine of loaves and
fishes." After all that Jesus had done and taught, might it not
seem to Him a hard thing that even the Twelve should so mis-
understand Him as to suppose that His mission was merely
to bring peace and plenty and political freedom to His
countrymen giving up the hopes of that new Commonwealth
in which the citizens were to see the " heaven " always " open,"
and " the angels of God ascending and descending on the
Son of Man " ?

Xow this misunderstanding, according to John, did actually
possess the great mass of the Jews who partook of the
mystery of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. They entirely
missed its meaning. John alone describes the failure that
followed, and the attempt to make Christ a king, and His
consequent withdrawal from the multitude. We shall have
to consider whether John is not right, and all the Synoptists
wrong Mark being the only one of them who retains a
vestige of the truth. If we decide in favour of John, we shall
have to go further and reject the Marcan and Synoptic view
or at all events the view that would naturally be attributed
to the Synoptists, if John had not written that Jesus never
spoke of the mystical bread of the brethren till the night on
which He was delivered up.

Not indeed that we must consequently accept, as coming
from the lips of the historical Jesus, every word of that long

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discourse about the mystical Bread which John puts into His
mouth as being uttered in the synagogue at Capernaum, almost
immediately after the Sign of the Five Thousand. But
though we reject the words, we shall be prepared to accept
the thought. Piecing together Marcan scraps of tradition
with the aid of what we may call John's Targumistic ex-
position of it, we shall (I believe) arrive at the conclusion
that a Eucharistic doctrine expressed in a Eucharistic practice
was inculcated by Jesus at an early period 1 , and only repeated
with special emphasis not introduced as a quite novel thing
on the night of the Last Supper 2 .

1 Nothing in this section is intended to suggest that John regarded
the Feeding of the Five Thousand as being a mere metaphor treated as
literal fact. The consensus of the Four Gospels does not permit us to
place this narrative on the same level as that of the Withering of the
Fig-tree, omitted by Luke and John. John (doubtless) accepted the
Feeding as what is called a miracle. He differs from the Synoptists
merely in insisting that it is a moral or spiritual miracle, a " sign."

This is not the place to discuss what, if any, material action that is
to say, what, if any, actual feeding of a multitude may have accompanied
what Mark (vi. 34) and Luke (ix. u) severally call Christ's "teaching
many things" and "speaking concerning the kingdom of God." This
must be discussed hereafter when we come to the subject in its Synoptic
order.

2 Comp. Acts of John 8, which says that, when Jesus was invited
by a Pharisee to a meal, the disciples went with Him ; then Jesus "used
to receive one loaf" (as also did the other guests) "and blessing His own
loaf He used to distribute it to us, and from this slight [nourishment]
each was filled." This quaint materialisation may indicate an early and
habitual use of the sign of "one /oaf." This will come before us in
considering Mk viii. 14 "and they forgot to take loaves and had but one
loaf with them in the boat." Matthew omits the italicised words and
Luke omits the whole, so that, according to our rule, John should inter-
vene. John nowhere mentions "one loaf." But he describes "a fish" and
"a loaf" as prepared for the disciples in the course of Christ's final
manifestation, during which " Jesus cometh, and taketh the loaf, and
giveth to them, and the fish likewise." See Jn xxi. 9 foil., where R.V.
text has "bread? but R.V. marg. "a loaf." The latter rendering is
favoured by the parallelism between it and " a fish." See Son of Man
3422 /.

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These instances must suffice to shew both the disadvantage
and also the means by which we may hope to minimise the
disadvantage of subordinating the chronology of John to
that of Mark.

4. The disadvantage of passing over traditions outside
the threefold Synoptic Tradition

Near the opening of Mark, where he represents the
Baptist as saying about the Messiah " He shall baptize you
with the Holy Spirit," Matthew continues, and Luke, too,
almost identically, with an insertion of some length : " and
ivith fire, luJwse ivinnowing-fan is in his Jiand...unquenc}table
fire" Mark omits this double tradition of Matthew and Luke.
John, too, omits it. And the question arises whether we are,
or are not, to include in our investigation passages of this
kind, where John agrees with Mark in omitting what is in
Matthew and Luke. May we say that we have here four
evangelists two of whom agree in inserting, and two in omitting,
an important clause in John the Baptist's description of his
successor's baptism ? And should this clause be treated as
a part, though a disputed part, of the Fourfold Gospel ?

On the whole, we shall decide in the affirmative here, for
including the passage 1 . But it will only be on the ground
that it is so closely connected with the Marcan tradition that
it may be regarded as completing a sentence in Mark. If
it had not this close connection, we should have to treat it
like the Lord's Prayer, and the Beatitudes, and other passages
collected by Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount and
dispersed by Luke throughout his Gospel in various settings
that is to say, as part of that Double Tradition of Matthew
and Luke which lies altogether outside Mark, and which is

1 If we did not include it here, we might include it in later comment
on Mk ix. 49 ''salted with fire," omitted by the parall. Matthew, and also
by Luke.

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commonly called " Q," and recognised by many as a separate
book 1 . This mass of tradition lies beyond our present scope
and requires examination in a separate treatise. In such a
separation we may acquiesce all the more readily because
John very rarely borrows from, or alludes to, the Double
Tradition of Matthew and Luke 2 .

It will often be found, however, that the germ of some
finely and fully expressed doctrine in the Double Tradition
of Matthew and Luke lies buried in one of the short and
obscure sayings in Mark. Wherever this is the case, we shall
prefer to err on the side of insertion rather than that of
omission. To take an extreme case, when we come to the
Mark-Matthew narrative about the healing of the daughter
of a Syrophoenician woman at a distance, through the
mother's faith in the course of a northern journey of Jesus
wholly omitted by Luke we shall compare it, not only with
the Johannine narrative of a " nobleman's " son healed at
a distance through the father's faith, but also with the
narrative, in the Double Tradition, of the healing, at a
distance, of a centurion's servant (or, boy) through the
centurion's faith. We shall also compare and contrast the
Synoptic cure of the paralysed man, whose sins are remitted,
with the Johannine cure of the " impotent " man who, after
being cured, receives the warning " Continue no longer in sin."

Again, in discussing the Marcan account of the calling
of the earliest Apostles, while pointing out the very different
aspect of the Johannine account, we shall also call attention
to the Lucan narrative of a miraculous draught of fishes,

1 On " Q," or the Double Tradition of Matthew and Luke, see Son of
Man 3333 a d.

2 See Son of Man 3432 b on Lk. xiv. 26, "one of the very few passages
where John takes up a phrase peculiar to Luke," namely, " hateth...his
own soul." It is rightly printed in Rushbrooke's Synopticon as part of
the Double Tradition, though the harshness of " hate " has been softened
in the parallel Mt. x. 37.

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which Luke alone connects with the calling of Peter, and
shall note its similarity to a Johannine narrative of a
miraculous draught of fishes, in which Peter plays a prominent
part, after the Resurrection. And when we discuss the brief
Marcan statement about the naming of Peter ("and Simon
he surnamed Peter") we shall refer not only to John's
tradition " thou shalt be called Cephas" but also to Matthew's
much fuller tradition about " Peter " and the " building " of
the " Church."

5. Tlte advantages outweigh the disadvantages

Thus we shall try to minimise in practice the disadvantages
of taking Mark as our starting-point. The disadvantages are
numerous and obvious. But on the other side we shall have
(as was stated at the beginning of this Chapter) the great gain
of a simple, compendious, definite, and impartial standard
by which to test the theory of Johannine intervention in
behalf of Mark. The adoption of the Marcan order, Mark
being accompanied by the parallel Luke, will bring before
us regularly and inevitably every instance where Luke omits
or alters a Marcan tradition. In each case we shall be bound
to find, either some Johannine intervention, or some reason
for non-intervention. By degrees the reasons for non-
intervention will in some cases make themselves clear. For
example, we shall find that John never mentions exorcism,
or leprosy, or Herodianism, or any of the Herods, or passages
favouring the identification of the Baptist with Elijah.

About Marcan passages bearing on these subjects the
reader will be prepared to find that, even though Luke differs
from Mark, John is silent. Other instances of Johannine
silence will occur, some of them only poorly explicable,
others not at all. These will be called failures. Against
the failures the reader will be able to reckon up the successes
and to strike a balance. The constant presence of a simple

5 1 42

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standard, ensured by starting from so unsophisticated a writer
as Mark, appears to be an advantage for our purpose of
dispassionate investigation into the relation between the
Three Synoptists and so subtle and perplexing a writer as
the Fourth Evangelist quite great enough to outweigh all
the above-mentioned disadvantages.

CHAPTER VI

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

I. John regarded as a book, like Chronicles, "supplying
things omitted^"

WE have seen that internal evidence supports external
evidence in the conclusion that John supplements the Syn-
optists ; and any one can verify for himself the conclusion
that Chronicles supplements Kings. John, therefore, in sup-
plementing, had before him a precedent of scriptural authority.
Are there reasons for thinking that he was influenced by it ?
If so, in what direction would the influence tend ? Or how
does it appear to have actually tended ?

The answer is, that John and the Chronicler, though alike
in much that they do, are utterly unlike in their way of doing
it. Both of them supplement ; both of them omit ; both of
them comment, and occasionally (we may venture to say) both
of them correct. But their supplements, their omissions,
their comments, and their corrections, are of a different kind.
Nevertheless their likeness, in respect of occasional correction,
ought to teach us so much as this, that if the Old Testament
writer allowed himself to alter the language of the ancient
scriptures known as the Books of the Kings 2 , in order to
make it here and there more edifying (as it seemed to him),
New Testament evangelists might be expected to do this

1 On " Paraleipomena," Things Omitted, as the title of Chronicles in
LXX, see above, p. 15.

2 See p. 15, n. i.

" PARALEIPOMENA " OR "THINGS OMITTED"

with much more freedom, as long as " the gospel " was fluid
(being largely oral) and before a few written gospels had
achieved a pre-eminent position that had begun to give them
the same kind of authority among Christians that the Old
Testament possessed among Jews in the first century.

In the Old Testament, the Chronicler largely retains the
language of Kings, but freely corrects phrases, and sometimes
statistics, apparently with a view to exaltation of his subject.
Similarly, in the New Testament, Matthew and Luke often
freely patch, so to speak correcting a phrase or two of their
predecessor Mark, but retaining his verbal context. John
does not patch in this way. On the occasions when he
appears to be intervening, he for the most part avoids the
language of all his predecessors. Often he seems to be ex-
plaining Mark rather than correcting either Mark, or Matthew,
or Luke.

This is what might be expected, if we take into con-
sideration the difference between the Chronicler's and the
Evangelist's environments (not to speak of the difference
between their characters). The Chronicler probably had
little reason to fear serious criticism if he exalted the majesty
of God by a few alterations of the text of Kings. But John
appears to have written at a time when sharp criticism might
be apprehended from those inside, as well as from those
outside, the Church, if he favoured one Evangelist so far as
to put others in the wrong. Outside, there loomed on the
horizon the prospect of attacks (such as were made later on
by Celsus and, later still, by Porphyry) on evangelic incon-
sistencies. Inside, there were those who said, in a contentious
way, " I am of Paul," and " I of Apollos," and " I of Cephas."
Each preached "the Christ," but on lines of his own. And
superficial Christians, of a sectarian turn, who did not go down
to " the Christ " that was at the root of these apostolic or
quasi-apostolic " gospels," would be always on the alert to
fasten on some external Pauline, Apollonian, or Petrine

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

difference of phrase, or of arrangement, or of emphasis, which
seemed to them to distinguish from all others the evangelist
whom they preferred, and to make him the unique depository
of the truth. Hence would arise a greater need for caution
so far as concerned the avoidance of discrepancies from early
traditions in the Fourth Evangelist than in the Three ; and
hence even in one of the points in which the Chronicler and
John resembled each other both being correctors of old
traditions there might naturally be a great difference in
the execution of the task.

2. The historian's right to omit

The very first words of Chronicles are worth a volume of
evidence as to Jewish canons of the right of a historian to
omit. " Adam, Seth, Enosh " why is Cain omitted ? No
doubt because none of his posterity survived the deluge, so
that his descendants could play no part, either as friends or
as enemies, in the history of Israel. Again, Elijah occurs in
Chronicles only as the author of " a writing " that came to
Jehoram. the son of Jehoshaphat, prophesying his chastise-
ment 1 . One might have supposed that if this was worth
chronicling, space might have been found for the mention of
Elijah's ascent to heaven, or for the vision that brought the
"still small voice." But the author probably felt that the
Law, and not the Prophets, must occupy his attention. It
was his object to point a national moral : " When Israel
obeyed the Law, there was prosperity ; when Israel disobeyed,
there was punishment." He has little to do with personal
morality. The name of Uriah occurs in Chronicles only
as one of David's " mighty men." Absalom mentioned in
Samuel and Kings more than a hundred times occurs in
the Chronicler's history of David only once 2 . But thus,

1 2 Chr. xxi. 12.

s i Chr. xi. 41 " Uriah the Hittite," i Chr. iii. 2 "the third, Absalom
the son of Maacah."

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

in ignoring everything that is personal, and not directly
conducive to the exaltation of the Law, the author, himself
by nature prosaic, omits almost everything that is poetic,
dramatic, and picturesquely typical. About the building of
the material Temple he is as full and detailed as is the author
of Kings, but about many of the most beautiful and personal
histories that went far toward building up the national
literature, and, through the literature, the nation itself, the
Chronicler is silent.

John, too, omits much that is personal in the Synoptists,
including the calling of what may be called the minor Apostles,
with their several names 1 . He omits also all accounts of
exorcism, including the story of the " Legion," and that of
the father who cried, " I believe, help thou mine unbelief."
No "publican," no "sinner," is mentioned as experiencing
Christ's forgiving influence 2 . The identification of the Baptist
with Elijah is denied at the beginning of the Gospel and
never referred to afterwards. All the Herods are absent.
And about the picturesque story of the sacrifice of the Baptist
to the dancing of the daughter of Herodias John is no less
silent and perhaps no less contemptuously sceptical of the
genuineness of the tetrarch's prearranged "oath" than is
(apparently) Josephus 3 .

The result, however, of many of these omissions of Marcan
personal detail and in particular those that concern Herod
Antipas is not to make the Fourth Gospel impersonal, but
to concentrate the interest on one Person. The Chronicler
omits everything that does not point toward the Law ; the
Evangelist, everything that does not point toward the Son,
who is the Light, and the Life, of the world. The Chronicler

1 But he refers to it (Jn vi. 70, " Have not I chosen you, the Twelve ?").

2 John does not mention "publicans" at all. And "sinner" is only
mentioned (Jn ix. 16, 24, 25, 31) in the charge of being "a sinner," brought
against Christ Himself!

3 Mk vi. 1726, Mt. xiv. 3 9, see Son of Man 3338 b.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

omits " Cain," because Cain does not point toward the Law.
But the Evangelist, being a poet (that is, a "maker 1 "), and in
harmony with the Maker of the world, knows that the light
shines in darkness, and that darkness must not be omitted in
the opening words of his Gospel, describing the second genesis
of Man, or the building of the New Temple. The " darkness "
increases the glory of the victorious light : " The light shineth
in the darkness and the darkness overcame it not." The
Evangelist does not omit the name of Judas but emphasizes
it. And although he does not repeat the lengthy Marcan
details about John the Baptist's imprisonment and death, he
does not leave his readers in ignorance of the fact that he is
passing over them (" John was not yet cast into prison ").

As regards the personal element, nowhere in the Synoptists
are new characters introduced so freely in places, sometimes,
where the Synoptists have mutes or unnamed speakers or
a blank : Mary Magdalene, Mary the sister of Martha,
Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, Nicodemus, Jude, and Thomas,
not to speak of the unnamed woman of Samaria ; and yet
all these new characters, instead of distracting, attract and
concentrate our attention on the central character, the Son,
the Life, and the Light.

1 Compare Wordsworth's Prelude v. 595 foil, on :

"the great Nature that exists in works
Of mighty Poets. Visionary power
Attends the motions of the viewless winds,
Embodied in the mystery of words."

If we bear in mind that one and the same word in Hebrew means "spirit,"
and "breath," and (often) "wind," we shall perceive in this passage a
sympathy (perhaps unconscious) with the Johannine doctrine about
(Jn iii. 8) the " wind," or " spirit," which, though " viewless," is heard as it
" bloweth " (or " breatheth ") where it " listeth." " The mystery of words"
suggests the mystery of " the Word," and the mystery of the connection
between the Word and the Spirit. And " visionary power " is a tide that
might be given to the whole of the Fourth Gospel.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

3. Miracles omitted

Both the Chronicler and John omit almost all the miracles
described by their predecessors. But the reason seems to be,
not that the miracles appeared to them incredible or doubtful,
but that they occupied a position too spacious and prominent
in the ancient books to allow of their insertion in a supple-
mentary book. Often, too, the contexts of the miracles fell
outside the province of the later writer. For example, the
Chronicler occupies himself mostly with Judah, not with
Israel. Hence he omits the seven miracles of Elijah and the
fourteen miracles of Elisha wrought during the reigns of Ahab
and his successor. But when Jehoshaphat king of Judah
comes and allies himself with Ahab king of Israel, then the
Chronicler does not omit the prophecy uttered in the presence
of both kings by Micaiah the son of Imlah concerning
the defeat and death of Ahab. In the conclusion of the
story, however, where the older writer says that " the dogs
licked up his [i.e. Ahab's] blood... according to the word of
the Lord which he spake " (referring to a previously recorded
prophecy of Elijah " In the place where dogs licked the blood
of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood ") the later writer omits
this, while he inserts the comparatively uninteresting fulfilment
of Micaiah's prophecy. So also does he omit the miraculous
element contained in the older history of Jeroboam, the first
king of schismatic Israel. He deals as little as possible with
schismatic Israel and as much as possible with Judah.

In one instance, where he omits a miracle in connection
with the healing of Hezekiah, he at all events states that a
miracle did take place 1 ; but he subordinates God's prophet

1 2 Kings xx. I II. 2 Chr. xxxii. 24.

In those days was Hezekiah In those days was Hezekiah

sick unto death. ..(8) And Hezekiah sick even unto death ; and he prayed

said unto Isaiah, What shall be the unto the Lord ; and he spake unto

sign that the Lord will heal me... him and [he] gave him a sign (or,

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

to God Himself, and omits all the picturesque details of the
healing and of the " sign," hastening on to explain that
Hezekiah " rendered not again according to the benefit done
unto him," and giving an erroneous impression that God
revealed His will directly to Hezekiah by some voice or
vision, and not through Isaiah.

John omits all the acts of exorcism, and all the miracles
of healing, described by the Synoptists. But, with two ex-
ceptions, we may say that he does not omit any miracle,
recorded by any predecessor, in such circumstances and with
such similarity of context as to force us to the conclusion that
he rejected it. The two exceptions are, 1st, Peter's walking on
the waves, recorded by Matthew alone, 2nd, the healing of the
ear of the High Priest's servant, recorded by Luke alone.

In the former, the following parallels will shew the simi-
larity of context in Matthew and John, and the incompatibility
of the Petrine episode with the Johannine account :
Mt. xiv. 27 32 Jn vi. 20 21

But straightway Jesus spake But he saith unto them, It is
unto therr, saying, Be of good I, fear not. They desired therefore
cheer, It is I, fear not... But Peter to take him into the boat, and
answering him...(3i) O thou of immediately the boat was by (///.
little faith, why didst thou doubt ? on) the land to which they were
(32) And when they (i.e. Jesus going.
and Peter} went up into the boat,
the wind abated.

Now that it is difficult or impossible in any reasonable
way to reconcile Matthew's " when tJiey went up into the boat"

(n) And Isaiah the prophet cried wonder). But Hezekiah rendered
unto the Lord; and he brought not...
the shadow ten steps backward, by
which it had gone down on the dial
of Ahaz.

Who in Chronicles "spake :! unto whom? Most English readers
would probably reply " God spake to Hezekiah? But Rashi takes it as
meaning "'Hezekiah spake unto God [saying, What shall be the sign?]
And the Lord gave him a sign" interpreting Chronicles by Kings.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

with the Johannine " they desired t/ierefore to take him into the
boat " may be inferred from the fact that even the ingenuity of
the Diatessaron finds itself unable to insert the latter, though it
does insert the following words " and immediately the boat, . ,
they were going? It has been mentioned elsewhere 1 that the
phrase about "taking him into the boat" appears to be a
form of a Marcan tradition placed by Mark in the Stilling of
the Storm but by John in the Walking on the Waters. It
should also be noted that John would have, in favour of the
omission of the Petrine episode, the direct testimony of
Mark, who not only omits it but also writes "And he
(i.e. Jesus) went up to them into the boat, and the wind
abated " not, as Matthew, " they went up." It is reasonable
to conclude that John rejected this miracle, not as being
incredible in itself, but as being at all events out of place here
and contradicted directly as well as indirectly by Mark.

In the second instance, the healing of the High Priest's
servant 2 , it is worth considering whether mystical reasons
may not have united with textual ones to induce John to
omit the miracle. The Synoptic contexts exhibit an unusual
degree of similarity in describing how one of those near Jesus,
in the moment of His arrest, struck off the ear of the servant
of the High Priest. Luke calls it " the right ear 3 ," and adds
" But Jesus answering said, Suffer ye thus far, and having
touched the ear he healed him."

In place of this miracle, Mark has a blank. But Matthew
has "Then saith Jesus to him, Put tip thy sword into its
place... ."

Turning now to John we find, first, that he agrees with
Luke in the mention of the " right ear " an agreement with
Lucan narrative (as distinct from that of Mark and Matthew)

1 See pp. 256.

2 Lk. xxii. 5051, comp. Mk xiv. 47, Mt. xxvi. 51 2, Jn xviii. 10 n.

3 On " the right ear " mentioned in the consecration of priests, see
Exod. xxix. 20 (twice), Lev. viii. 23, 24 &c.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

rare or non-existent elsewJiere injohannine narrative 1 . Secondly,
John agrees with Matthew as to the command to sheathe the
sword, though expressed in slightly different language (" put
the sword into the sheath";. He is also the first to tell us
that the unnamed disciple was " Simon Peter," and that the
High Priest's servant was named " Malchus." But, about a
miracle of healing, not a word : " Simon Peter therefore having
a sword, drew it, and struck the servant of the high priest and
cut off his right ear (now the servant's name was Malchus) ;
Jesus therefore said to Peter, Put tJte sword into ttie sJuath..."
A detailed explanation of these parallelisms must be
deferred till we come to the passage in its Marcan order, but
an outline may be given here.

(1) The words were simply a command to the disciples
to desist either " Thus far" by itself, or " Thus far" preceded
by " Let be ! ", meaning " Let be ! Thus far [and no further]."

(2) This, in effect, meant ''Enough of this-!" Of this,
Luke gives another version a little before, " Here are two
swords. But he said to them, It is enough 3 "

(3) Compare Kings and Chronicles, identical as to the
words " // is enough : now stay thine hand," but divergent in
the sequel thus :

Kings Chronicles

So the Lord was intreated for And the Lord commanded

the land, and the plague was the angel; &c\& he put up his sword

stayed from Israel. again into the sheath thereof*.

1 Agreement as to the words of Jesus (e.g. Jn xii. 25, Lk. xiv. 26, see
p. 50, n. 2) is to be distinguished from agreement in narrative.

* In Lk. xxii. 51, the Syro-Sinaitic version has (Burkitt) "Enough.
As far as this [man] >: ; Walton has Syr. " satis est ad hanc usque rem
[processisse], Arab. " cohibe te," Aethiop. " sine hunc," Pers. " usque ad
hunc terminum " ; codex b has " dimitte eum " before the miracle, and
'' sine usque hoc :: after it.

3 Lk. xxii. 38. The Hebrew in Kings and Chron. (" enough^ stay
now thy hand") is the same as that used by Delitzsch ^enough for you")
to render " As far as this " in Lk. xxii. 51.

4 2 S. xxiv. 16, 25, i Chr. xxi. 15, 27.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

(4) Matthew, followed by John, interpreted the obscure
words as a command about the sword, like that in Chronicles,
" Restore it \i.e. the sword] to its sheath." Then they added,
severally, traditions about the reason for the command-
Matthew, "they that take... by the sword "; John, "the cup...
shall I not surely drink it?"

(5) But Matthew, instead of "sheath" or "scabbard,"
has "place" This shews how an original command in the
form " Be it restored to its place \ " meaning " Back with the
sword to its place ! " might be misunderstood as meaning
" Let the ear be restored to its place 1 ."

(6) Luke takes it thus, and clears away (as he supposed)
the obscurity, saying, in effect, " Jesus not only said Let [me
go\ as far as this [man], but also went up to the man and
touched him. And the consequence of the touch was an act
of healing 2 ."

Why does John follow Luke in the little detail of " the
right ear," while rejecting Luke's miracle ? Probably because
he is preparing his readers for the trial of Christ before that
Caiaphas who said to the chief priests " It is expedient that
one man should die for the people." " These Jewish High
Priests," John seems to say, " were wicked in the worst
sense, far worse than Pilate. They were given over by God
to pronounce a verdict in accordance with their ingrained
injustice externally High Priests of the Lord but internally
ministers of Satan, ' the ruler of this world.' Most appro-
priately therefore was their servant and representative called
' Malchus ' or ' King 3 .' And, when this servant of theirs went
forth to lay hands on Jesus, most appropriately was his 'right'

1 Compare Jer. xlvii. 6 with Ezek. xxi. 30 Heb. " Cause it to return
into its sheath," LXX diroorpffa, see context.

2 Ephrem (pp. 236 7) says that the ear, as well as the sword, was
" restored," i.e. brought back into its place.

3 See Gesen. 573 foil, for many instances of names derived from the
root of the Heb. " king."

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

ear cut off by the sword so that he lost that symbol of
' righteous hearing ' which was bestowed by the Law of
anointing on Aaron and his successors."

If the explanation outlined above is reasonable, it enables
us to understand that John may have omitted this miracle,
not only as a historian but also as a spiritual evangelist. He
might conceivably have disguised his omission of it, by entirely
passing over the circumstances of Christ's arrest. But this
could not have been done without sacrificing important events
in the Johannine context. And if John felt obliged to
mention the wounding, and to leave out the healing, he seems
to have done the best thing possible by suggesting that
the healing, in the circumstances of the case, would have been
spiritually and symbolically inappropriate.

4. Miracles inserted

In Chronicles there are perhaps only two insertions of
miracles in a context closely similar to the parallel context
in Kings. Both of these refer to prayer " answered by fire 1 ."

2 S. xxiv. 25. I Chr. xxi. 26 7.

(i) And David built there an And David built there an altar

altar unto the Lord, and offered unto the Lord, and offered burnt
burnt offerings and peace offerings. offerings and peace offerings, and
So the Lord was intreated for the called upon the Lord ; and he
land, and the piague was stayed answered him from heaven by fire
from Israel. upon the altar of burnt offering.

And the Lord commanded the
angel ; and he put up his sword
again into the sheath thereof.

i K. viii. 54 5. 2 Chr. vii. I 3.

(ii) And it was so, that when Now when Solomon had made

Solomon had made an end of pray- an end of praying, the fire came

ing all this prayer and supplication down from heaven and consumed

unto the Lord, he arose from before the burnt offering and the sacrifices ;

the altar of the Lord from kneeling and the glory of the Lord filled the

on his knees with his hands spread house. And the priests could not

forth toward heaven. And he stood enter into the house of the Lord,

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

It is probable that the Chronicler deliberately, but not
dishonestly (from his point of view) added this because the
consumption of sacrifice by fire from heaven was a part of
the theophany in the dedication of the Tabernacle, and he
could not bring himself to believe that it was not also a part
in the dedication of the Temple. In Leviticus, it is mentioned
along with, and as being distinct from, the appearance of
" the glory of the Lord," as follows : " The glory of the Lord
appeared unto all the people. And there came forth fire from
before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering
and the fat : and when all the people saw it, they shouted,
and fell on their faces 1 ."

If the author of the book of Kings knew of this Levitical
description of " the glory of the Lord " and of " fire from
before the Lord " in the Tabernacle, could he have omitted
the latter, in his description of the dedication of the Temple,
without some sense of the natural inference, namely, that the
sanctity of the Temple was inferior to that of the Tabernacle ?
Such a thought of inferiority present to the minds of some
at the laying of the foundations of the second Temple, into
which no "glory of the Lord" entered at its dedication,

and blessed all the congregation of because the glory of the Lord filled
Israel with a loud voice, saying the Lord's house. And all the
Blessed be the Lord... children of Israel looked on, when

the fire came down, and the glory
of the Lord was upon the house ;
and they bowed themselves with
their faces to the ground upon the
pavement, and worshipped, and
gave thanks unto the Lord, [saying]
For he is good; for his mercy
[endureth] for ever.

Both writers (i K. viii. 10 11, 2 Chr. v. 1114) have previously
described " the cloud," or " the glory of the Lord," as " filling the house."
But the peculiarity in the second narrative (ii) in Chronicles is this, that
besides the "glory " of a visible " cloud," it speaks of a fire of a material
kind, capable of consuming sacrifices.
1 Lev. ix. 23 4.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

nor was there any " fire from heaven 1 " was assuredly not
present to the mind of the Chronicler in comparing the
Temple with the Tabernacle. This may be seen all through
his work, but more especially in his version of the words of
Solomon immediately preceding the passage under con-
sideration. The ancient prayer of Solomon concludes with
a mention of Moses and the deliverance from Egypt. For
Moses, the Chronicler's version substitutes David. It concludes
with a quotation of three verses from the Psalm that describes
how David sought to " find a place for the Lord," and its last
words are " Remember the mercies of David thy servant 2 ."

Before we pass to miracles inserted in the Fourth Gospel
it is natural to ask, " What did the Jews say, the Talmudists

1 Ezra iii. 12, vi. 16. But 2 Mace. i. 18 36 contains a long account
of a continuation of the fire from the first Temple, by the agency of
Xehemiah.

Other apocryphal narratives shew the importance attached to the
continuation of the sacred fire, as to which note the variation in :

Ezra vi. 3. i Esdr. vi. 24.

In the first year of Cyrus the In the first year of the reign of

king, Cyrus the king made a decree : Cyrus, king Cyrus commanded that

Concerning the house of God at the house of the Lord at Jerusalem

Jerusalem, let the house be builded, should be built again, where they

the place where they offer sacrifices, do sacrifice with continual fire ;

and let the foundations thereof be whose height shall be sixty cubits

strongly laid ; the height thereof and the breadth sixty cubits...
threescore cubits and the breadth
thereof threescore cubits...

i K. viii. 523. 2 Chr. vi. 412.

That thine eyes may be open Now therefore arise, O Lord

unto the supplication of thy servant, God, into thy resting place, thou,

and unto the supplication of thy and the ark of thy strength : let thy

people Israel, to hearken unto them priests, O Lord God, be clothed

whensoever they cry unto thee. with salvation, and let thy saints

For thou didst separate them from rejoice in goodness. O Lord God,

among all the peoples of the earth, turn not away the face of thine

to be thine inheritance, as thou anointed : remember the mercies of

spakest by the hand of Moses thy David thy servant (see Ps. cxxxii.

servant, when thou broughtest aur \ foil., 8 10).
fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.

A - 65 5

PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

and Midrashists, about the omission, in Kings, of the descent
of fire mentioned in Chronicles ? " The answer is noteworthy.
There are several references in the Midrash to the narrative
in Chronicles ; but I have not been able to find a single one
that calls attention to the omission in Kings. In the whole
of the Jerusalem Talmud there is no reference to the verses
describing the descent of fire in Chronicles except for the
purpose of defining the length of time necessary to constitute
a religious act of prostration ; and in the Babylonian Talmud
the only reference in the volumes hitherto (Jan. 1913) published
by Goldschmidt repeats the same tradition though under the
names of different Rabbis.

As regards miracles, then, our conclusion must be that
the Jewish mind, so far as it is represented by the Chronicler,
makes a marked distinction in favour of one that follows
precedent and tends to edification.

Passing to John, we may say that with one exception,
and that a slight one, John never inserts a new miracle in
a Johannine passage that is parallel to Synoptic passages 1 .
John introduces new miracles. But the Johannine miracles
or, as John calls them, " signs " stand in a Johannine frame.
They will therefore not be discussed here.

The one exception occurs in the Walking on the Waters,
thus :

Mt. xiv. 27-32
It is I, fear not.

But Peter. . . why didst

thou doubt? And

when they had gone

up into the boat the

wind abated.

Mk vi. 5051

It is I, fear not.

And he went up to

them into the boat.

And the wind abated.

Jn vi. 20-21

It is I, fear not;
They therefore de-
sired to take him
into the boat, and
straightway the boat
was by tfie land to
which they were going.

1 On Jn xviii. 6, which I have not included, because some would not
call it a miracle, see Son of Man 3326 a, which interprets it as a mis-
understanding of an original tradition referring to the disciples (not the
soldiers) who "fell back" and abandoned their Master.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

What John inserts ( u straightway the boat was by the
land ") is either hyperbole or miracle, and, as he is not given
to hyperbole, the hypothesis of miracle is more probable.
So regarded, it may be explained as a Johannine interpretation
of a phrase in an obscure narrative, the whole of which is
(i) omitted by Luke, (2) amplified with a Petrine insertion by
Matthew, and therefore, we may reasonably infer, (3) much
discussed in the first century.

It has been shewn in Johannine Grammar that the phrase
" on the sea " may mean " by tJie sea" and that it has that
meaning later on, where it is said that "Jesus manifested
himself again to the disciples on (i.e. by) the sea 1 " In the
present passage John uses the same preposition about " the
land," clearly meaning, that the vessel was " by " (not " on ")
the land. And instead of saying that Jesus (or Jesus and
Peter) " came into " the boat, he says simply that the disciples
<! desired to take Jesus into the boat"

We have seen above that a clause of this kind is placed
by. Mark in another narrative. Some uncertainty about the
arrangement of traditions at this point may have seemed
to justify conjectural or probable alterations favourable to
symbolism. John still retains the words " they behold Jesus. . .
becoming near the boat]' but he uses them perhaps as we use
language about " the land receding from our view " or " the
land coming in sight." On this hypothesis, the meaning
of the Johannine alterations may be something of this kind,
" The disciples thought that the Lord was drawing near to
them, but in fact He was drawing them to Himself. It was
not needful that He should come up to them into the boat.
It was not even needful that they should (as the Psalmist
says) ' cry unto Him in their distress.' All that was needed
was that they should ' desire ' Him, as ' the haven where they

1 Johannine Grammar 2340 6. To the instances there given add
Numb. xx. 24 (LXX) "on (i.e. by or at} the water," where another transl.
has "/."

67 52

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

desired to be.' That done, all was done, and the boat was
safe by the shore 1 ."

If this explanation is right, John shapes his account out
of doubtful and variably reported traditions not with a view
to inserting, or to rejecting, the miraculous, but with a desire
to tell a true story so as to bring out the depth and beauty of
its truth.

5. The Passover

Chronicles is one of the most prosaic works in the Old
Testament, the Johannine Gospel is one of the most poetic
works in the New. Yet the essential poetry in the shaping
of Israel's history has constrained the Chronicler to give
the same prominence as is given by the Evangelist to the
same two great national symbols of the redeeming presence
of the Lord and Saviour of the nation. These are the
Passover and the Temple.

Of the first of these symbols, the Passover, the only
express mention in Kings is in a brief edict of King Josiah,
" Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written
in this book of the covenant 2 ," followed by a statement that
" such a passover " had never before been celebrated, under
"the judges," or "the kings of Israel," or "the kings of
Judah 3 ." Chronicles amplifies this with a detailed description
of the actual celebration, but it omits the mention of " the
kings of Judah 4 ." Why is this ? It is because Chronicles has
already inserted a still fuller account of a celebration in the
reign of Hezekiah, in which the voice of the Levites blessing

1 Comp. Ps. cvii. 30 " So he bringeth them unto the haven where they
desired to be," on which Jerome says that He who stills the storm, and to
whom they desire to be led, is "the true haven."

- 2 K. xxiii. 21. 3 2 K. xxiii. 22.

4 2 Chr. xxxv. 1 8. It mentions " the days of Samuel " and " the kings
of Israel," but not "the kings of Judah."

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

God's people " came up to his holy habitation, even unto
heaven 1 ."

Turning to the Gospels, we find that the Three, with the
exception of a Lucan account of Jesus as a child of twelve
going up to the Feast in Jerusalem, do not mention the Pass-
over till their narratives bring them near the evening before
the Crucifixion. But the Fourth Gospel places a Passover
at an early period, and repeats a mention of it. It also
prepares us, so to speak, for Paschal thoughts, even before
Jesus has uttered a word, by introducing Him to us in the
words " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin
of the world."

6. TJte Temple

Next, as to the Temple. It is true that the details in
Chronicles about the construction, ritual, and sacrifices of
the Temple are prosaic and alien from Johannine thought.
But toward the close of the book, the Chronicler is led by
a sense of pathos into something like poetry. The Jews
themselves, he says, " polluted the house of the Lord, which
he had hallowed in Jerusalem " ; they scoffed at the prophets,
though the Lord had sent them " because he had compassion
on his people and on his dwelling place*" The Lord's "com-
passion" for His "dwelling place" suggests a quasi-personi-
fication of the Temple which is brought out more clearly in
the Fourth Gospel. Luke nowhere suggests such a thing.
Mark and Matthew do indeed suggest the thought of a temple
not made with hands, but only vaguely and in connection with
what are called " false witnesses 3 ". John expressly declares
that Jesus, as one of His first acts, condemned the Jews for

1 2 Chr. xxx. I 27. The whole of 2 Chr. xxix. 3 xxxi. 21 is devoted
to Hezekiah's religious reformation, and there is no parallel to it in Kings
(exc. a brief statement, about "high places c.", in 2 K. xviii. 4).

- 2 Chr. xxxvi. 14 15.

3 Mk xiv. 58, Mt. xxvi. 61, Lk. xxii. 66 foil. om.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

making His Father's House " a house of merchandise," and
predicted a New Temple, which He identified with "the
temple of his body 1 ."

Chronicles begins with "Adam" and ends with a royal
proclamation about " building a house " for God : " All the
kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord, the God of heaven,
given me, and he hath charged me to build him an house
in Jerusalem... Whosoever there is among you of all his people,
the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up 2 ."

Interpreted by a spiritual poet not necessarily a Christian
poet but a poet of the spiritual Israel the opening as
well as the closing words might point to the building up
of Man as God's Temple. The first Adam was like Solomon's
Temple, destined to fall, smitten by God's retributive wrath,
but to be raised up again in a new Jerusalem, of which the
name was to be " the Lord is there 3 ."

Who was to rebuild the Temple in this new form ?
According to Chronicles, it was to be Cyrus. But spiritual
Jews would recognise that in the first place, Cyrus was but
an instrument in the hands of God, and, in the second place,
such a temple as the Lord desired could be built by no mortal
king, or king of the kingdoms of the earth. It was to be
identified in some sense with Israel's Messiah or Anointed
King. It was also to be " the meeting-place " of Jehovah
and His purified Israel, the Bridegroom and the Bride, God
and Man. Interpreted by spiritual Jews who were also
Christians, this " temple " was no other than Jesus of Nazareth,
who was at once the typical Son of Adam and the incarnate
Son of God.

This essentially Hebrew and Jewish thought of the Temple
as the centre of the national life, is wanting in Mark, except
so far as it may be implied in some sayings about " disciples"
(who may be regarded as the new Temple, Congregation,

1 Jn ii. 21. 2 i Chr. i. i, 2 Chr. xxxvi. 23. 3 Ezek. xlviii. 35.

"PARALEIPOMENA" OR "THINGS OMITTED"

Ecclesia, or Church a word used by Matthew alone of the
Evangelists). It is assumed, rather than expressed, by
Matthew in the precept " tell it to the Church " and in the
promise " Upon this rock will I build my Church 1 ." Both
in Matthew and in Mark Jesus does not go to the Temple till
He goes to it before the last Passover which issues in His
death.

In Luke, Jesus goes to the Temple, in some sense, thrice ;
first, as a babe, to be " presented to the Lord " ; secondly, as
a boy of twelve, to the Passover ; thirdly, in manhood, as in
Mark and Matthew, to the final Passover. The mention of
these three visits undoubtedly has the effect of bringing before
the Gentile reader the centralising influence of the Jewish
Temple. But the picture of the second visft presents diffi-
culties. It represents Jesus as "sitting in the midst of the
doctors 2 ." " Sitting" as the marginal reference shews, be-
tokened a teacher. How incompatible such a posture with
the thoughts called up in many of us by Holman Hunt's
picture of " The Finding of Christ in the Temple " ! That
artist may be wrong. But at least some will feel his standing
Jesus to be divinely natural. Doubtless, other artists have
depicted the "sitting" Jesus of twelve years old in pictures of
beauty beauty in line and colour but are they, and could
they be, pictures of beauty in nature ? The moral or spiritual
difficulty raises the question whether Luke may not have
confused this visit with one made in later years 3 .

John, at all events, gives an entirely different impression
in his account of Christ's first visit to the Temple. It differs,
in tone, both from Luke and from Chronicles. It is not a visit
of peace, but of war. Jesus goes up to the Passover, but
it is not " the Passover of the Lord," but " the Passover of
the Jews 4 . 1 ' And He goes up " as a refiner's fire 5 ." " The

1 Mt xviii. 17, xvi. 1 8. 2 Lk. ii. 46, comp. Mt. xxvi. 55.

3 See pp. 94 5. * Jn ii. 13. 6 Mai. iii. 2.

" PARALEIPOMENA " OR "THINGS OMITTED"

Jews," with their polluted " Passover," are " destroying " the
Temple, and Jesus bids them persist in their evil course if
they wish to destroy it : " Destroy this temple and in three
days I will raise it up 1 ."

Summing up the comparison of the Chronicler with the
Evangelist, we may say that their attitudes, severally, to the
Passover and the Temple, would suffice to indicate the deep
gulf that divides the hyperbolic prosaist from the poet, the
literal legalist from the disciple of the Spirit. But neither
this nor other differences ought to make us forget that these
two authors were probably alike, not only in being Jews, but
also in conceiving it to be part of their duty to supply
" omissions," severally, in writings that already had among
Jews, and in writings that were soon to have among Christians,
the authority of Scripture.

1 Jn ii. 19. On the imperative SQQ fohannine Grammar 2439 (iii) (v).

CHAPTER VII

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

i. Agreement between Kings and Chronicles

THE last four Chapters of this Introduction will be devoted
to an examination of the order and arrangement in the Four
Gospels severally. This Chapter will prepare the way for
them by inquiring into the order and arrangement in the
Hebrew Historical Books, more particularly Kings 1 and
Chronicles, just so far as to ask whether it can teach us
anything about the very great differences in the order and
arrangement adopted by some of the Evangelists.

Chronicles differs very slightly from Kings in its arrange-
ment of parallel text Its very large occasional insertions,
and still larger and much more frequent omissions, do not
prevent the Chronicler from retaining the same sequence as
in the older work, that is to say, from following the order
of the kings of Judah and Israel, reign by reign, but often
condensing, or omitting, things relating to Israel as distinct
from Judah. As for the order of things happening in each
reign, where an important event is to be introduced, it is
often marked off from what precedes by an introductory
clause, such as " after these things." Only now and then
are there slight deviations. The list of David's " mighty
men " and their achievements is placed in the older work

1 "Kings" includes "Samuel," see p. 15, n. i.
73

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

as an appendix, after "the last words of David 1 ," whereas
Chronicles gives them a place nearer to that which would
be appropriate for the account of their achievements 2 . But
such changes are rare. Almost invariably the Chronicler
adopts the old chronology.

Passing to the Gospels we recognise at once this great
difference, that in them there is as it were only one epoch,
or " reign " that of Jesus ; so that the only questions for
us are these two. First, do the Evangelists ever date the
birth and acts of the Messiah by the dates of any of the
" princes of this world," such as the Herods, or the Emperors
of Rome ? Secondly, within the Messianic life, or " reign,"
do they use the Hebrew chronological linking clauses, " after
this " or " after these things," or do they by any other means
indicate short or long, definite or indefinite, intervals of
time?

These questions will come before us again, when we study
the order and arrangement in the several Gospels, but here
it will be convenient to make a few remarks on Hebrew
usage in Kings and Chronicles, and to shew how it might
affect the interpretation of our Gospels.

2. " After these things " in Hebrew

The Hebrew for " after these things " when " things "
is expressed by a separate noun is literally " after these
words." When used for the first time, it introduces the
Promise to Abraham ; when for the second, the Sacrifice
of Isaac 3 . In the second case the Jerusalem Targum supplies
some words, previously uttered, so as to make "after these
words" literally true. The ambiguity occasionable by the

1 See 2 S. xxiii. 8 foil., following xxiii. I foil, "these be the last
words..."

2 See I Chr. xi. 10 foil.

3 Gen. xv. i, xxii, i.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN* HEBREW HISTORIES

twofold Hebrew meaning may be illustrated by such an
expression as " By t/i last words of David the sons of Levi
were numbered," where the margin has " In the last acts 1 ."
Of the thirteen instances in which the phrase is fully expressed,
six are in Genesis 2 .

Chronicles, with one exception (which concerns Hezekiah's
reforms) 3 never writes " after these things " fully. Yet, under
cover of the rendering " acts" the book is continually using
the Hebrew " words'' mentioning, at the close of each reign,
the acts of David, Solomon, Rehoboam, etc. Indeed the
Hebrew title of the Book of Chronicles is "The Acts (lit.
Words) of the Days," meaning "the acts of the king for
the time being from day to day." In such a book, the
natural course is to reserve the use of the word " acts " till
the conclusion of each reign, and to denote the sequence
of events during each reign by "after this," except in a
special case such as the religious reformation of Hezekiah.

3. " After these things" and " after this" in John

In John, "after these things" and "after this" occur
more frequently than in any other book of the New
Testament. For the most part, " after this " implies only
a short interval 4 . But the radical distinction between the
two is, perhaps, sometimes this, that "after these things"
whether the interval of time be short or long implies a
changed or new state of things, as in "After these things
Joseph asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of

1 i Chr. xxiii. 27.

2 See Gesen. 183 b. In all these, "words" is expressed, but the form
of the preposition sometimes slightly differs.

3 Gesen. 183 b referring to 2 Chr. xxxii. i "after these acts (lit. words}
and [deeds of] faithfulness" (where the parall. 2 K. xviii. 13 has "now in
the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah "). Chron. has previously inserted
two long chapters describing Hezekiah's acts of religious reformation.
To these it refers as "acts.''-

4 See Johannitu Grammar 2394 and 2349 a.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

Jesus 1 ." Here " these things " were quite recently accomplished.
But what great " things " !

Some thought of this kind that is, of a changed condition
of things, when the Jews entered on a course of " persecuting "
Jesus may perhaps explain another very difficult instance.
It occurs in some of John's observations (about the in-
gratitude of the man healed by Jesus at the pool) which
we may perhaps paraphrase thus : " [Some time] after these
things Jesus findeth him in the temple [Now, though he had
gone into the temple to pray with his lips, he had never
turned in his heart to Jesus, his Healer, but had returned
to his old sins]. And Jesus said unto him, Behold, thou art
made whole : no longer continue-sinning, lest a worse thing
befall thee. The man went away and told the Jews that it
was Jesus that had made him whole. And for this cause
the Jews began-to-persecute Jesus, because he did these
things on the sabbath 2 ."

In Chronicles, the course of events, and the writer's feeling
that he is describing the decline and fall of the House of Judah,
ending in the destruction of the Temple, give a sad tone to
the repetition of " after this." And that is the impression left
by the last instance of the phrase, where there is a pathetic
emphasis on "allt/its," describing the unhappy end of the last of
the reformers : " After all this, when Josiah had prepared the
temple, Neco king of Egypt went up... and Josiah went out
against him... and hearkened not unto the words of Neco,
from the mouth of God 3 ." It is implied that there was a
fatal blindness upon Josiah, even on this, the best of the
later kings. Like the wicked Ahab and with the same
result the pious Josiah "disguised himself... and hearkened
not unto the words of Neco, from the mouth of God." Thus,
dying, " lamented " by " all the singing men and singing
women unto this day," he carried with him to the grave

1 Jn xix. 38. 2 Jn v. 14 16. 3 2 Chr. xxxv. 20.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

Judah's last hope. And why ? Because they had despised the
words of God "until the wrath of the Lord arose against
his people and there was no remedy 1 ."

In the Gospel, owing to an opposite course of events, and
an opposite feeling in the writer, there is a note of joy and
advance, not of sorrow and relapse, in the last use of the
phrase under consideration : "After tJiese things Jesus mani-
fested himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias 2 ."
A new condition of things is introduced wherein the disciples,
refreshed by a morning meal (" come, break your fast ") are
to go forth to do the day's work for the Master, whether
it be by " following " Him on the Way of the Cross or by
" waiting " till He come.

4. " After these things" and " after these words,"
in Luke

The only case where Luke uses " after these things " in
Synoptic narrative 3 is as follows :

Mk ii. 13-14 Mt. ix. 9 Lk. v. 27

And he went forth And Jesus, passing And after these

(or, out) again by the by thence, saw a man things he went forth

sea... and passing by called Matthew... (or, out) and beheld

he saw Levi the son ...by name Levi...
of Alphaeus...

Now what has just preceded is the healing of the paralysed
man in the synagogue, so that Mark's " ^vent forth" or " came
out" without addition, might be explained, in the light of
Matthew's " thence" as meaning " came out of the synagogue?
But " after tliese things " (or, as the Diatessaron has it, " after
that"}, if interpreted as usual, would imply an interval (of
long or short duration). The Diatessaron repeats this story

1 2 Chr. xxxv. 22 5, xxxvi. 16. 2 Jn xxi. i foil.

3 Luke uses it also in x. i " Now after these things the Lord appointed
seventy others. 1 ' But that is a tradition, not " Synoptic,'" but peculiar to

Luke.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

thrice, as referring to three distinct persons. In the first of
these, to shew that the action followed immediately on the
action in the synagogue, it inserts " [out] of the synagogue"
In the second, it inserts nothing. In the third and last, it
retains a form of the Lucan phrase, " after that " :

(i) Diatess. vi. 46 And when Jesus came out of the
synagogue he saw a man sitting among the publicans named
Matthew....

(ii) Diatess. vii. 9 And when he passed by [
he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting among the tax-
gatherers....

(iii) Diatess. vii. 25 And after that, Jesus went forth (or,
came out) and saw a publican named Levi sitting among the
publicans....

The Diatessaron apparently takes " after that " to denote
an interval inconsistent with the supposition that the event to
be described was identical with the one described by Mark as
occurring when Jesus "came out" which it takes to mean
" came out of the synagogue'.'

There is other evidence of early confusion between the
narratives of the calling of Levi, Matthew, Zacchaeus, and
Nathanael 1 . Probably Luke intended, by this unique use of
"after these things" whether inserting it for clearness, or
retaining it, contrary to his custom, for clearness to imply
an interval of some duration between what he had just related
and what he goes on to relate. Diatessaron indirectly in-
creases that probability.

This view might be supposed to be confirmed by a Lucan
insertion in the Synoptic parallels in the Transfiguration,
following Christ's words about " not tasting death " till the
vision of " the Kingdom " :

1 See Son of Man 3375 k.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

Mk ix. 2 Mt. xvii. i Lk. ix. 28

And after six days And after six days Now it came to
Jesus taketh with him Jesus taketh with him pass, after these
Peter... Peter... words, about eight

days, taking with him
Peter...

But, as the number of i days " is expressed by all the
Synoptists, Luke may have inserted i( after these words " in
order to shew that what he emphatically means is not " after
the events I have been relating," but " after tJiese express
' 1,,'ords ' about a ' vision ' words that the reader will now
find fulfilled 1 ." In this instance, then, it cannot be inferred
with certainty that Luke himself intends to suggest a revo-
lutionising event, or a new condition of things, though perhaps
that was in the mind of the author from whom he derives
some of the features peculiar to his account of the Trans-
figuration.

5. "After" may sometimes mislead

Mark says that "after John [the Baptist] was delivered
up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching*." We naturally infer
that He came soon " after." But take two parallel passages
from Chronicles and the second Book of Samuel describing
what happened after " David and all the people returned to
Jerusalem." The reader will see below that the Chronicler
jumps over the estrangement, revolt, and death, of Absalom.
He covers about nine chapters of Samuel, in a single verse, and

1 As regards Lk. "about eight days," it may be noted that Mark has
a f)fji(pas but Matthew ped' fjnepas, and fifd* in N.T. with accus. occurs

elsewhere only in Jn xx. 26 " after eight days." " Eight" indicated by H,
may have dropped out before the H in Mark's fjpfpas, and "fir" may be
an error of Mark's followed by Matthew.

2 Mk i. 14.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

in the smoothest possible way, with the aid of the formula
" after this\"

The Chronicler is deliberately omitting. May not the
Evangelist (or the authority that he followed) be also de-
liberately omitting not from a desire to curtail, but from
a want of special knowledge about anything except that part
of the gospel which Jesus preached at a particular time and
place ? That is a question that will at all events have to be
considered.

Again, beside the danger of omission that might fail to
be noticed (arising from the free use of this chronological
formula) there is also that of transposition. In a history
written in episodes, many of which begin with "after these
things (///. words)," some editors or translators might feel
less compunction (than in histories otherwise written) about
shifting the place of an episode, especially if "after these
words''' occurred where no "words" had been mentioned.
Take, for example, " The king of Israel went to his house
heavy and displeased, and came to Samaria. And it came
to pass after these words that Naboth the Jezreelite had
a vineyard 2 ." The LXX omits "after these words" and
places the twenty-first chapter (which is about Naboth's
vineyard) after the nineteenth chapter (which describes the
calling of Elisha by Elijah).

The reason for troubling the reader with this apparently
very unimportant detail is, that it may bear on a question

I Chr. xx. 3 4. 2 S. xii. 31, xiii. I, xv. I, xxi. 18.

...Jerusalem. And it came to ...Jerusalem. And it came to

pass after this that there arose war pass after this that [Absalom had
at Gezer with the Philistines. a fair sister (xii. 31, xiii. \)...And

it came to pass after this that
Absalom prepared (xv. i)... And it
came to pass after this that} there
was again war with the Philistines
at Gob (xxi. 18).
2 I K. xx. 43, xxi. i.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN HEBREW HISTORIES

by no means unimportant, the alleged disarrangement of
some of the chapters of the Fourth Gospel. " After these
things" comes at the beginning of its fifth, sixth, and seventh
chapters. As long ago as the fourteenth century, a rearrange-
ment of these chapters was suggested so as to place the sixth
before the fifth 1 . And the Diatessaron places the sixth
chapter, and almost all the fifth, before the greater part of
the fourth. The facts alleged above appear so far as concerns
these chapters to favour this arrangement, which must not
be forgotten when we come to discuss passages taken from
that portion of the Fourth Gospel.

1 See Disarrangements in the Fourth Gospel p. 3, by F. Warburton
Lewis B.A. (Cambridge : at the University Press, 1910). Some of his
conclusions extend beyond the chapters above mentioned and do not seem
to me so strong as the rest. The treatise does not (I think) refer to the
use of the formula in Kings and Chronicles.

CHAPTER VIII

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

I. Mark '''did not write in order" if "order" includes
"appropriate beginning and end"

PAPIAS makes the following statement : " As for Mark, he
was Peter's interpreter and wrote accurately,...^/ 1 not in order,
the things that were either said or done by Christ 1 ." Perhaps
by the somewhat emphatic phrase " either said or done "
(instead of " said or done ") Papias means that Mark wrote
down either Christ's acts or else His words, whichever hap-
pened to come before him in Peter's teaching or preaching
from day to day, without separating words from deeds in such
a way as to give a clear view of a progress of events, or a
progress in doctrine 2 . If so, we might freely paraphrase him
thus : " Mark might conceivably have now and then grouped
the words into a discourse, or a dialogue, of some length, but
he did not do so." This clause, whatever may be its precise
shade of meaning, need not detain us.

" Not in order," on the other hand, is at first sight
perplexing, especially in view of the fact that Matthew (whose
" order" Papias does not censure) generally follows the order
of Mark. It can be explained, however, from the accusations
(probably well known to Papias) brought against the history

1 See Enc. Bibl. col. 1811 "Gospels."

2 The same phrase, without " either," is used by Josephus Contr.
Apion. \. 10 (see below, p. 116, n. 2).

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

of Thucydides as being deficient in " order." They are
recorded thus, by Dionysius of Halicarnassus early in the
first century : " Now some find fault also with his order, since
he has neither taken for his history the beginning that he
ought to have taken, nor adjusted to it the end [that would
have been] suitable ; and they say that no small part of good
arrangement consists in taking such a beginning as that
nothing can [well] come before it, and in rounding off the
action with such an end that nothing shall seem deficient
in it 1 ." In Dionysius, as in Papias, "order" is represented
by the Greek taxis. It might mean " marshalling " or
"arranging" of all the parts or members^of a host. But it
is technically applied to literary composition ; and, in this
sense, it appears to be used in the above-quoted criticism of
Thucydides, with special reference, not to gradual develop-
ment or ascent, nor to distinctions of subject-matter, but to
Tightness of " beginning " and of " end 2 ."

Judged by this test, no well-known author fails so con-
spicuously as Mark. The " beginning " of his Gospel is
according to very early interpretations of Mark's ambiguous
text "John," who "came" and "baptized." Even if "John"
were, when explained, a good beginning, it would hardly be so
in a Gospel that does not explain who John was, and whence
John came. This the Evangelist does not tell us. Indeed,
he himself suggests though the suggestion is only indirect
an earlier " beginning " than John, in the shape of a prophecy
about John, by saying " even as it is written in Isaiah the
prophet. Behold, I send... thy way." These words are not in
Isaiah, but in Malachi. Mark's " beginning," then, is erroneous
in its context as well as unsatisfactory in itself. The Greek
critic would assuredly condemn it and ask how any advocate
of Mark could say " Nothing could well come before ' John.' "

1 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Judic. de Thucyd. 10.

2 On the technical meaning of rd| see Steph. Thes., vol. vii, col. 1822.

83 62

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

Again, as to Mark's " end " : no doubt if Papias could
have been induced to accept as the genuine conclusion of
Mark's Gospel the words in the spurious Mark- Appendix :
" So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was
received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of
God. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the
Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the
signs that followed. Amen " he would have had to drop
one half of his accusation. But a book of " good-tidings "
that ends with "they were afraid" cannot be said to end
appropriately. And if, as was almost certainly the case, his
text of Mark ended with the words " And they went out and
fled from the tomb... and they said nothing to any one, for
they were afraid" then we can wonder no longer that having
the Greek literary sense of the word " order " in view he
declared that " Mark wrote accurately but not in order''

2. Mark is vague as to time and place

Mark's first chronological phrase follows the Baptist's
prediction, "he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit,"
without any interval, thus : " And it came to pass in those days
there came Jesus from {or, of) Nazareth of Galilee, and was
baptized... 1 ." This is a type of Mark's general chronological
vagueness. When we come to consider this passage in its order,
we shall find that the parallel Matthew (" came to be baptized ")
suggests that Jesus may have come to JoJin (perhaps to hear
his teaching) some time before coming to John to be baptized,
Also the parallel Luke implies that John, before the arrival
of Jesus, had baptized great multitudes (" when all the people
had been baptized, Jesus also having been baptized and being
[now] in the act of praying..."). But Mark does not suggest
or imply anything of the kind.

1 Mk i. 9, parallel to Mt. iii. 13, Lk. iii. 21.
84

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

Mark's topography is equally vague. He tells us indeed
that John was baptizing "in the wilderness." But in what
wilderness ? Not assuredly in " the wilderness " mentioned
in his preceding sentence " the voice of one crying in the
wilderness" ; for that refers to the " wilderness " travelled over
by the Israelites returning from Babylon to their native land.
Matthew defines John's wilderness as " the wilderness of
Judaea? But, as far as Mark is concerned, we are left in
ignorance. And, as we shall see, Luke does not appear to
accept Matthew's definition. The same charge of vagueness
as to locality extends to the words "from (or, of) Nazareth."
We do not know and it will be shewn hereafter that we
have no means of knowing with absolute certainty whether
it means that Jesus of Nazareth, wherever He might happen
to be, came and was baptized by John, or that Jesus came to
John straight from Nazareth.

It has been shewn, above, that one instance of Mark's
use of " went out," when applied to Jesus, caused ambiguity,
because he did not tell us whence Jesus " went out 1 ." We
were left in doubt about time as well as about place, not
knowing whether Jesus " went out " at once from the place
last mentioned, namely, the synagogue, or " went out [of
doors] " later on, upon some new journey. Ambiguity might
also arise from a doubt whether the " going out " was
customary, or a single act perhaps a final act.

Thus, in the only passage where the three Synoptists
agree in saying that Jesus, or Jesus and His disciples, " went
out to t/ie Mount of Olives" Luke adds " he went-his-way
according to the custom 2 ." On the other hand in a narrative
in which Mark and Luke make it clear that Jesus used
regularly to go outside the City to Bethany, or to the Mount
of Olives, Matthew says "Abandoning t/iem, he went out of

1 See pp. 77 8.

2 Mk xiv. 26, Mt. xxvi. 30 '''they went out" Lk. xxii. 39 "and having
gone out (({-(\0iv) he went-his-way (eVopev&j) according to the custom"

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

the city " using language that would naturally mean a final
departure from the City 1 .

Perhaps the most interesting instance of varying tradition
about Christ " going out " is connected with the following,
where Luke omits the word :

Mk xiii. 1-2

And as he was
going-out- on-his-way 2
out of the temple,
one of his disciples
saith unto him,
Teacher, see ! What
stones ! And what
buildings! And Jesus
said to him, Seest
thou...

Mt. xxiv. 1-2
And Jesus, having
gone-out z away-from
the temple, was going-
on-his-way, and his
disciples came-to him
to shew him the
buildings of the
temple. But he an-
swered and said unto

Lk. xxi. 5-6
And as some were
saying concerning the
temple (lit.) that 'It
is adorned with
beautiful stones and
offerings,' he said,
These things, which
ye behold...

them, See ye not...

Here follows, in all the Synoptists, the prediction " There
shall not be left stone upon stone." Then, in Mark and
Matthew, it is said that Jesus was " sitting on the Mount of
Olives " and was " privately " questioned, " When shall these
things be ? " Mark says the questioners were Peter, James,
John and Andrew. Matthew says they were " the disciples."
Luke, who mentions " questioning," but omits " Mount of
Olives " and " privately," has " they-questioned," no pronoun
being added. Hence Luke's "they" may refer to Luke's
preceding " some."

These small details deserve the closest attention in view
of the exaggerated importance attached by many modern
critics to the Synoptic reports of Christ's sayings, at this point,
concerning the Last Days. They are attributed indeed by all

1 See Origen (Lomm. iv. 71 foil.) and Jerome, on Mt. xxi. 17 naTa\ura>v,
parall. to Mk xi. 19, Lk. xxi. 37. The context shews that Matthew does
not attach this meaning to " abandon." But he may have taken it from
some narrative where it referred either (i) to a final departure, or (2) to
a departure with a sense of reprobation ("giving them up [as hopeless]").

2 Mk (Kiropfvopfvov *..., Mt. ((\6a>v ano...

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

the Synoptists to Jesus, but, as the reader perceives, amid
different audiences, and in different circumstances. In the
predictions themselves also Luke deviates widely from Mark
and Matthew. Later on they will claim discussion in their
place. But it may be well to note here at once, that, by the
rule of Johannine intervention, since Luke is silent, John is
bound to intervene.

It can be shewn (I believe) that he does intervene. And
surely the occasion was one that called on the latest Evangelist
to tell the Church all that he knew. It could not but be a
most interesting question in the first century, and especially
shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, " What were the precise
words of Jesus about the destruction of the Temple, and
when, and where, and to whom, were they uttered ? When
precisely did Jesus for the very last time go-out-from, or
abandon, the Temple, or the City, and leave it to its fate?
With what utterance did He depart ? Are we to regard Him
as going out only once and in the literal sense ? Or did He
go out as a martyr 1 ? Or as a mediator ? Or in all these
senses?" It will appear (I believe) that John answers, in
effect, "In all these senses 2 ."

On one or two occasions the Marcan " going out " is said,
or implied, to be from a " boat." And this leads us to observe
that Mark, in describing the acts of Jesus, mentions " the sea,"
in his short Gospel, sixteen or seventeen times, as compared
with ten or eleven times in Matthew and none in Luke 3 . The
reason may lie partly perhaps in early Petrine reminiscences
of Peter's boat. These, peculiarly interesting once in the
primitive Galilaean gospel, may have remained in the earliest

1 Comp. Heb. xiii. 13 "Let us go-out to him, outside the camp."

2 Jn xviii. I literally ; xviii. 4 to intercede for the disciples (ib. 8) " let
these depart," and xix. 5 as the mediating Man of Sorrows; xix. 17
as the Martyr, " bearing his own cross."

3 On Luke's avoidance of the word "sea," applied to what he calls
the "lake of Gennesaret," see Johannine Grammar 2045.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

of the now extant written gospels, beyond the days when such
details had lost much of their interest lost it, at least, except
so far as they had passed into poetic history and gained a
new interest by becoming symbolically attractive, when the
boat symbolized the Church.

But this raises the question, " How soon did some of these
things pass into poetry ? " The first two verses of Mark's
Gospel, quoting prophecy, warn us that he may have
prophecies in view later on, even when he does not quote
them. There can hardly be a doubt, for example, that in
mentioning the early gospel in Galilee, he would think,
though he does not actually speak, about that prophecy
concerning " Galilee''' and "the way of the sea" which Matthew
quotes in full just before the words " From that time Jesus
began to preach 1 ."

If the primitive traditions followed by Mark, when they
mentioned " Galilee," had prophecy about Galilee in view,
although they did not quote prophecies, then it becomes
more easy to understand that those same primitive traditions,
when they spoke about the " boat " and the " sea," may some-
times have had Christian hymns in view, although they do
not quote hymns 2 .

3. Indications of Marcan omission

Mark's vagueness in chronology leaves it open to believe
that, like the Chronicler 3 , he may have made deliberate
omissions. The Chronicler makes them in order to sub-
ordinate Israel to Judah. The Evangelist may make them
because he prefers to say nothing at all about things in
Judaea of which he has no detailed information. We have
seen above that he says " After John was delivered-up,

1 Mt. iv. 15 17, quoting Is. ix. I.

2 E.g. Jn vi. 21 suggests a Christian application of Ps. cvii. 30 "and
so he bringeth them unto the haven of their desire."

3 See pp. 55 foil., 58 foil., 79 foil.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

Jesus came into Galilee 1 ,"' but he does not say how long
"after" nor whence Jesus came. Later on, he says, using
a phrase unique in the New Testament, " he entered into
Capernaum after-an-interval-of days*? When this expression
occurs in Hebrew, " days " is rendered by the Targum " an
appointed-time of days," and there the context implies at
all events more than two or three days 3 . Still later, Mark
says simply " he went forth again." where, as has been said,
Luke implies an interval of some duration by inserting " after
tJiese things*."

A little later and again without mention of interval
Mark describes Jesus as going on the sabbath " through the
cornfields." This phrase, taken with its context, gives us
at last something approaching to a date. For the mention
of " cornfields " in which the disciples " pluck the ears of corn "
indicates a date not very long after the Passover. The
beginning of the harvest season was celebrated during the
feast of unleavened bread, by waving before the Lord a sheaf
of the firstfruits of the harvest ; and the Feast of Weeks,
celebrating the conclusion of the wheat harvest, fell on the
fiftieth day after the waving. These facts lead us to ask
where, in Mark's Gospel, we are to place the Passover that
preceded this "plucking the ears of corn." (i) Did that
Passover fall between Christ's Temptation and His coming
"into Galilee preaching the gospel of God 5 ," and has Mark
omitted it without warning us of the omission ? Or (2) did

1 Mk i. 14.

- Mk ii. i 81' rjiitpvv. Note the parall. Lk. v. 17 "and it came to pass
in one of the days."

3 Judg. xi. 4, xiv. 8, xv. i. In the last two instances, the interval is
long enough to allow (i) the deposit of a honeycomb in the body of a
slaughtered lion, (2) the re-marriage of Samson's wife.

4 See above, p. 78.

5 This, as will be seen later on, resembles John's view. In that case
there must be a long interval between Mk i. 13 "and the angels ministered
unto him" and Mk i. 14 " Now after John was delivered up, Jesus came..."

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

it fall just before Christ's baptism, so that it just escaped
coming within the whole of the period included in Mark's
Gospel which period would then be almost exactly one year,
beginning a day or two after a first Passover, and ending on a
second Passover, the day of, or the day before, the Crucifixion ?

Of these two views, the second appears incompatible with
Mark's own subsequent mention of" cornfields." For suppose
a Passover to have just preceded Christ's Baptism. After
the Baptism follow forty days of the Temptation, making
six weeks at the very least from the Passover. Then comes
the first preaching in Galilee, and the call of the fishermen,
and the exorcism in the synagogue of Capernaum, followed by
acts of healing 1 ; then, a journey " throughout all Galilee,"
during which the crowds, drawn by His " preaching and
casting out devils," prevented Him from openly " entering
into a city 2 ." The interval between the beginning of this
journey and the return to Capernaum is the one and, accord-
ing to Old Testament precedent, not a short one implied in
the phrase " after an interval of days*" For these two courses
of preaching we can hardly allow less than a month. Probably
much more should be allowed ; but a month, added to the
above-mentioned six weeks and odd days, makes at least
ten or eleven weeks from our initial Passover. Long before
this the harvest wheat as well as barley would have been
gathered in, and there would have been no " ears of corn " for
the disciples to " pluck."

These facts indicate that there is more to be said than
appears on the surface, for the first of the two views above
mentioned. That view would be compatible with the
Johannine Gospel, which inserts an early visit of Jesus to
the Temple during a Passover, and before the Baptist's
imprisonment.

Here it is natural to pause and ask whether we can find

1 Mk i. 1438. 2 Mk i. 3945- 3 See p. 89, n. 3.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

in Mark, or in any of the Synoptists, any trace whatever
of a second visit of Christ's to the Temple, so that we might
say " There is some evidence to shew that there were more
visits than one. John has recorded them in detail. The
Synoptists have omitted all but the last ; but, in their records of
the last, they have left discrepancies, and perhaps duplications,
which may be faint reminiscences not understood by the
Synoptists themselves of a second visit (or perhaps a third,
too) of which as being outside his province, and not well
known to him Mark has recorded nothing, except in such
a form as to escape notice " ?

We may exclaim, " How could the Evangelists fail to
know ? Was it not their duty to know ? " Such a question
would betoken our own ignorance ignorance of that which
the Evangelists would consider their " duty " in the first years
of the Church, up to the time, say, of the fall of Jerusalem.
The Christians of those days were highly practical men, and
were mainly concerned with Christ in three aspects, first, as
the Giver of promises of salvation which could be obtained by
"belief" and by the performance of His precepts; secondly,
as the Lord from heaven, who might " come " at any moment
to establish His Kingdom on earth ; thirdly, as the Fulfiller
of prophecies in such a way that He not only enabled them
to believe, but also gave them power to " mightily confute "
their adversaries 1 . Mere anecdotes about Christ's journeyings
and actions would find little place in early and compendious
handbooks of the first Christian missionaries. They might be
looked down upon as treating of Christ " in the flesh " or even
" after the flesh 2 ," until Luke came to broaden the conception of
evangelistic " duty." In a Galilaean compendium dealing with
the gospel in Galilee and the north, it is conceivable that two or
three visits of warning to Jerusalem might be at first grouped
together for convenience and afterwards confused as one.

1 Acts xviii. 28. 2 2 Cor. v. 16.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

If there has been such confusion, the place in which traces
of it are to be first looked for is manifestly the Synoptic
account of the Purification of the Temple, in which we must
search for signs of duplication suggesting two visits such as
might be described in two documents, each beginning with
the words " And Jesus went to Jerusalem. And he entered
into the Temple and...." There are no such traces in
Matthew, except that, following Mark, he inserts in one
passage the statement " went into Jerusalem " where the
parallel Luke omits it 1 . But Mark, in the same passage,
adds several words : " And he went into Jerusalem, into the
Temple, and, having looked-round-on all things, the hour being
now late, he went-forth to Bethany with the twelve? This
seems to oscillate between two meanings. Mark might have
described something like a visit of inspection in which Jesus
might have delayed resorting to extreme measures because
He wished to consider what should be done, or because He
wished to give the offenders time to mend their ways. But
" the hour being now late " suggests something quite different :
" He would have done more, but He could not. He was pre-
vented by the sunset." It is not surprising that Luke omits
this, and that the parallel Matthew has something quite
different 2 .

At this point, in weighing the evidence, there comes in
for consideration the question how much or how little im-
portance we are to attach to the rule of Johannine Inter-
vention. For according to that rule, John is bound to intervene,
since Mark has a perplexing insertion, which Matthew
completely alters, and Luke altogether omits. We cannot
explain the alteration or the omission on the ground that
the context has to do with the Baptist or Elijah, or with

1 Mk xi. ii, Mt. xxi. 10, om. by Lk. xix. 38 foil.

2 Mt. xxi. 10 ii "And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the
city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the multitudes said, This is
the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee."

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

Herods or lepers, or with any other subject excluded from
the Johannine Gospel. There is no way of escaping one of
two conclusions. Either (i) the rule of Johannine Intervention
fails here, or (2) John somewhere intervenes to describe some-
thing that corresponds to what Mark here inserts and Matthew
and Luke alter or omit.

Many readers will probably prefer the former conclusion.
Not unnaturally at present Yet, when the whole of the
Marcan narrative is examined in its order, some of them will
perhaps change their minds. The additional instances that
will have come before them of Johannine Intervention, and
the further internal evidence of the Marcan story of the
Purification of the Temple, as compared with that of Matthew
shewing curious Marcan insertions and apparent trans-
positions will produce in many (I believe) a conviction,
beyond that which can be expected to be produced by the
evidence at present before them, that Mark, in his Withering
of the Fig-tree and its context, has preserved a confused and
futile account of a preliminary visit to the Temple, about
which, knowing no details as to what was done, he inferred
that nothing was done. He inferred also that, since Jesus
must have seen what was going on, and did nothing, the visit
was to be regarded as, in effect, one of inspection, " looking
round 1 ." Then he added another inference, that the reason

1 Mk xi. ii. "Looking round," irfpi3\t\lrdfjL(vos, in the traditions of
which Mark took notes, might mean (i) literally, a turning round of the
whole body, such as was ascribed (Buddhist Suttas, p. 64) to the Buddha ;
(2) a mystical act of the Saviour, who " looked round" like Moses (Exod.
ii. 12 7!-epi3Xr\^afi>or, on which see Philo, and comp. Is. lix. 16) and saw
none but Himself to save Israel. The Greek word had many meanings
and was liable to confusion. Comp. Epictet. iii. 14. 3 Trfpi^Xc^eu, eWei-
oBnfn. Also note Mk xi. 1 1 n fpiSXt ^d/ie vos parall. to Mt. xxi. 10 eo-fwr&j,
and Mk xv. 1 1 avta-furav (v.r. fireurav) parall. to Mt. xxvii. 2O eirfurav,
and comp. Lk. xxiii. 5 avaaeiti all betokening conflicting Greek traditions.
Mark's use of irfptftXtironai will come before us in its order. It occurs
nowhere in X.T. except Mark, six times (and Lk. vi. 10 copying Mk iii. 5).

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

for doing nothing was that " it was late" All this Matthew
alters, and Luke omits 1 .

But Luke may be said to compensate in some sort else-
where. Like John, he relates an earlier visit of Jesus to the
Temple, but unlike John, a visit of peace not of war. In this,
Luke represents Jesus as saying to His parents, " What \is it]
that ye sought me [for] " ? and then, " Knew ye not that I must
needs be in the {business, or, place'] of my Father 2 ? " After
this Jesus "goes down" with them to Nazareth. Much of
this has a Johannine sound, (i) The first words of Jesus
in Luke are almost identical with His first words in John
"What seek ye 9 ?" (2) In Luke, Jesus very seldom speaks
of God as " my Father*" but in John the phrase is frequent.
(3) In the Johannine account of the Purification of the Temple,
Jesus calls it " my Father's house 5 " (4) In John, just before
(not after) the first visit to the Temple, it is said that
Jesus " went doivn " with His mother and His brethren to
Capernaum 6 .

If there has been here any borrowing on the part of Luke
or John from a common source, it seems more probable that
Luke, than that John, gave the traditions a wrong inter-
pretation. If Luke was wrong, the explanation would seem
to be that he found in existence an undated Marcan tradition
that Jesus on some occasion preceding the actual Purification
of the Temple came to Jerusalem 7 , and went into the Temple,

1 Mk xi. II, Mt. xxi. 10 n, Lk. xix. 38 foil.

2 Lk. ii. 49. 3 Jn i. 38.

4 It occurs in Lk. x. 22 (parall. to Mt. xi. 27) and xxii. 29, xxiv. 49, both
peculiar to Luke. The question of the original Aramaic expressions for
Christ's appellations of God is a very complicated one (see Son of Man,
Index, "Father").

5 Jn ii. 16. 6 Jn ii. 12.

7 Mk xi. 15 "and they come to Jerusalem" xi. 27 "and they come again
to Jerusalem" have no parallels in Matthew or Luke. Taken with xi. ii
" and he entered into Jerusalem" they constitute a threefold Marcan
mention of visiting Jerusalem, which is perhaps to be regarded as in-
tentional and allusive, representing a threefold warning. See p. 28, n. 3.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

and " looked round " without doing anything. This or parts
of this he may have blended with another tradition, that
Jesus, in quite early days, held a discussion with the Jews
in the Temple, and that He called the Temple " my Father's
[house]."

In concluding these observations about Mark we may do
well to note that, as he thrice mentions " coming to Jerusalem"
so also he thrice mentions "coming to Capernaum^"; and
perhaps, as regards both places, it was intended, in the
original poetic tradition, to convey that both cities received
a threefold warning from the Messiah. Also we must remark
that either Jesus was very lax in attending the three Feasts
at Jerusalem, as enjoined by the Law, or else the Synoptists
have been very reticent. Even though they were silent as to
the details of the two other Feasts, we might have expected
that they would mention the fact that He went up to Jerusalem
on two other occasions before His last visit. But there is no
such mention unless we can extract one, as suggested above,
from Mark.

It must be confessed that if we accept as historical the
Johannine account of an early purification of the Temple,
occurring before John the Baptist was imprisoned, we raise
two new and difficult questions. First, why was not John
the Baptist found standing by the side of Jesus, at the first
Passover, encouraging and aiding Him in His attempt to
purify the Temple? Was it because, for some reason or
other, the Baptist deliberately absented himself from the
Paschal sacrifice ? Surely it could not be that, though
present, he took no share in the attempt to purify the
House of God 2 . Secondly, why does the Fourth Gospel

1 Mk i. 21, ii. i, ix. 33, with two or three parallels in Matthew, but
not in Luke except as to the first (Lk. iv. 31).

- See Son of Man 3584 b on the " incompatibility (Sw^oponjs) "
between the purificatory rites of the Essenes and those of the Temple,
to which they sent offerings, but which they did not attend, "performing

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MARK

make no mention of subsequent attempts of Jesus to
purify the Temple, either at the last Passover (when the
Synoptists mention such attempts) or at any intervening one
between the first and the last ? Is it because the Evangelist
assumes that at each visit these attempts of Jesus were
renewed ? To neither of these questions do I know any
satisfactory answer.

These difficult hypotheses, however, are not so startling "
as the facts not hypotheses but facts which stare us in the
face in Mark's erroneous beginning, and truncated end. Who
could have supposed that this error and this truncation would
be so far tolerated in the first written Christian Gospel that
they have actually come down to our days, instead of being
amended so completely and universally as to be buried in
oblivion before the first century was over ?

Some of this difficulty would be diminished if we could
confirm by evidence the antecedent probability that Mark,
like Thucydides, left his history unfinished. He may have
written under pressure, and away from books, in prison,
perhaps, with nothing but rough notes and memory to rely
on. Perhaps the ink was not dry in the final words " for they
were afraid," when he was summoned to execution. Never-
theless, suppose what we will, it must always remain one of
the most painful paradoxes of literature to say nothing of
religion that a work of such worldwide importance should
have been composed by an author who so manifestly did not
write, arid did not try to write, in what an educated Greek
would describe as " order."

their sacrifices by their own selves ('$' e'aimoi/)." Was John an Essene?
If so, how could he, at first, have been favoured by the Pharisees?
Perhaps John was an instance of the latitude often allowed to a prophet
spontaneously by the people, and unwillingly by their rulers, who were
constrained for a time to follow the popular mood.

CHAPTER IX

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

i. Matthew has an appropriate "beginning" and "end"

PASSING to the subject of the "order" in Matthew, we
will consider it first from the point of view of those critics,
above referred to, who declared that " order " required an ap-
propriate beginning and end. Matthew begins with Abraham :
"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of
David, the son of AbraJiam" He ends with the saying of
Jesus, "/ am with you alway, even unto the consummation
of the age (lit aeon)" The son and the grandson of Abraham
to whom God had promised Himself in the words " I am
thy shield and thy exceeding great reward 1 " were the special
recipients of a promise to be "with" tJiem. Both to Isaac,
and to Jacob, He had said " / am with t/iee\" Matthew (and
Matthew alone) records, as a title of the Messiah, " Immanuel,"
" God with us 3 ." Matthew also alone contains the words
" Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
tJiere am I in the midst of them*'"

Abraham, according to Isaiah, was the "rock" from which
the nation of Israel was hewn. A Jewish tradition declared
that, until he came, the Lord could not begin to build up a
people for Himself 5 . All was swamp. When Abraham came,
then God, Himself the Rock of Salvation, discerned in him

1 Gen. xv. i. 2 Gen. xxvi. 24, xxviii. 15.

3 Mt. i. 23 quoting Is. vii. 14. 4 Mt. xviii. 20.

5 See Son of Man 35956.

A. 97 7

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

something of His own divine steadfastness and truth, and
made Himself the Patriarch's " exceeding great reward," and
became an " Immanuel " to his descendants : that is Matthew's
theory, and it pervades his Gospel. He alone mentions the
" church " or " congregation 1 ." He alone mentions the " rock "
on which it is to be built 2 .

These thoughts, if pursued, would lead us on to the
middle of Matthew's Gospel. But our present business is
rather with its beginning and its end ; and we maintain that,
from Matthew's point of view, they are appropriate. He writes
about an " aeon." Its " consummation " is mentioned in his
last verse. Its beginning is implied in his first verse, " the
son of Abraham," meaning the spiritual Son of Abraham, the
Son of God's Promise to Abraham, in whom " all the nations
of the world " were to be " blessed." For Abraham the Lord
was able to " raise up sons," even " from stones 3 ." The
gathering or raising up of these " stones " is to be the work of
Christ through His apostles that "building up" on which
Paul constantly insists (though we sometimes miss it because
it hides itself in our Authorised Version under the mask
of "edifying"), and on which the Petrine Epistle with its
emphasis on the " living stones " is still more directly insistent.
Matthew does not write about those further aeons into which
the reign of the Messiah will extend 4 . He limits his Gospel
to that particular aeon which began with the coming of the
promised Messiah. He came to build up that Church which
the Pharisees "daubers of the wall 5 ," not "builders of the
wall" had failed to build. His Gospel ends with the sending
forth of the builders to build in the name of " Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham 6 ," and to build on that

1 Mt. xvi. 18, xviii. 17. 2 Mt. xvi. 18. 3 Mt. iii. 9, Lk. iii. 8.

4 For the plural use of aeon, compare Lk. i. 33 " he shall reign over
the house of Jacob unto the aeons."

6 " Daubers of the Wall," a name given to the Pharisees in a Zadokite
Fragment, on which see Light on the Gospel 3996 a foil.

6 Mt. i. i.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

Rock of which Abraham was the type and Jesus was the
fulfilment. Building on that Rock they would have His
presence always with them " unto the consummation of tJie
aeon\"

2. Matt/tew " wrote in order" of a kind, but not
chronological "order"

At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew
says "And it came to pass, when Jesus made-an-end-of these
words, the multitudes were astonished..."; and at the con-
clusion of the precepts to the Twelve, Matthew says " And it
came to pass, w/ien Jesus made-an-end-of giving commandments
to his twelve disciples, he passed-away thence to teach and
preach in their cities 1 ." Now in the Sermon on the Mount
Matthew has collected a multitude of precepts, all bearing on
the New Law. Internal evidence indicates that these were
not all uttered at one time or at so early a time. External
evidence to the same effect comes from Luke, who places
several of these sayings much later, adding the occasions on
which they were uttered. Again, in the Precepts to the
Twelve, Matthew combines, along with a version of Mark's
Precepts to the Twelve, several precepts not in Mark. Many
of these shew internal signs of a later date. And once more
the evidence of Luke confirms the internal evidence. Luke
places them in a separate document, the Precepts to the
Seventy.

These two instances suggest that the use of the clause
" and it came to pass when Jesus had made-an-end" may
resemble that of the clause " after these things," which, as we
found above, served in Kings and Chronicles to close one
epoch or one important narrative, so as to introduce another.
Somewhat similarly, " made-an-end" is used in Genesis to
conclude (i) God's promise to Abraham, of a covenant with

1 Mt xxviii. 20. * ML vii. 28, xi. I.

99 72

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

Isaac, (2) Isaac's blessing of Jacob, (3) Jacob's blessing of the
twelve patriarchs 1 .

Matthew's long formula, or refrain, is used five times in
all, often preceding a mention of change of place as well
as of subject 2 . The refrain thrice mentions " words," once
" parables," and once " giving-precepts." " Words " applies
to the Sermon on the Mount, which, besides being a blessing
(beginning " Blessed are the poor ") is also a Law like that
of which it is said that Moses " made-an-end-of speaking all
these words to all Israel 3 ."

There is evidence indicating that this refrain did not
proceed from the author whoever he may have been
of the Greek text of our Matthew. For, as has been
acutely observed, " There is nothing distinctively Matthaean
in it-came-to-pass " ; on the contrary, " followed by a finite
verb, it is only found in these five places in Matthew, while
it occurs twenty-two times in Luke (also twice in Mark
and nowhere else in N.T.) 4 ." Moreover an arrangement in
five books is found in the Psalms as well as in the Penta-
teuch, in the Aboth, and in other writings of Jewish origin
before, or shortly after, the Christian era 5 . This points
to the conclusion that Matthew's Gospel is of a composite
character. But we are concerned rather with the order of
the Gospel as it stands, than with the nature and the sources
of its contents. Examining the present text, we conclude
that the ultimate author or editor has handed down to us a
history in which order of time has been subordinated to order
of subject.

1 Gen. xvii. 22, xxvii. 30 (but not after xxvii. 40 at the conclusion of
the blessing of Esau), xlix. 33. It is also used of God in Gen. ii. 2 (ending
work) and xviii. 33 "made-an-end-of communing with Abraham" ; and of
Moses in Deut. xxxii. 45 "made-an-end-of speaking all these words to
all Israel." See Mandelkern, pp. 5601.

2 The five instances are in vii. 28, xi. i, xiii. 53, xix. i, xxvi. i.

3 Deut. xxxii. 45.

4 See Horae Synopticae, p. 165 for details. 5 Ib. p. 164.

100

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

Where the system of grouping does not stand in the way,
and especially near the end of the Gospel where " words "
fall into the background and long discourses are non-existent
Matthew follows Mark's order, as regards the acts of Christ.
But in the earlier part he sacrifices Mark's chronology (as
in the case of the above-mentioned breach of the sabbath in
the cornfields) for the sake of grouping sayings together in
accordance with their subject-matter. In defence of Matthew
it may be urged that we find something like his system practised
on one occasion in Exodus, where nothing is recorded except
a law inflicting death for labouring on the sabbath, whereas
Numbers, along with the law, records the facts that gave rise
to the law 1 . What Exodus is to Numbers, that (it may be
argued) Matthew is, in some cases, to Luke, as regards the
utterances of Christ. But it will be shewn in the next section
that Matthew sometimes does more than omit circumstances
and transpose utterances.

3. Mattlteufs arrangement of evidence

Of all the evidence for the Messianic claims of Jesus the
most powerful after the power of the personality of Jesus
Himself had ceased to be exerted on earth appears to have
been that which was derived from prophecy. By " evidence "
we here mean appeal to the reason, not to the heart. And
we infer the strength of the appeal to prophecy, partly from
what may be implied as to the earliest traditions of Christian
preaching and controversy from the writings of Barnabas and
Justin, but principally from the first-century evidence as to the
cogency of the arguments of Peter, Paul, and Apollos, con-
tained in the Epistles as well as in the Acts 2 . How Matthew

' Numb. xv. 32 6, Exod. xxxv. i 3, xxxi. 14 15.
2 Comp. Acts xviii. 28 on Apollos, " He mightily confuted the Jews,
publicly shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ."

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

dealt with prophecy we may better consider after a word or
two on Mark's employment of it.

Perhaps we ought rather to say " Mark's non-employment
of it." For after quoting, in his own person, and in the first
two verses of his Gospel, a prophecy from Malachi, and
another from Isaiah, both of which he attributes to Isaiah,
Mark never quotes prophecy again. When he uses the
expressions " came into Galilee " and " by the sea of Galilee "
at the beginning of Christ's preaching, we may think it
probable that he is alluding to Isaiah's prophecy "by the
way of the sea, Galilee " ; and when he describes Jesus as
"riding on an ass," we may feel it to be absolutely certain
that he has " it was prophesied " in his mind; but he does
not write the formula with his pen 1 . Jesus, in Mark, quotes
" scripture," but even Jesus (in Mark) never quotes it formally
as from a " prophet." Mark, in his own person after his
introductory error about the prophet Isaiah never mentions
either " scripture " or " prophet."

Very different is the course adopted by Matthew. He, when
he sees fulfilments of Scripture in the acts of Christ, frankly
quotes the very words, and often tells us that the act came to
pass " in order that " they " might be fulfilled" Thus, in the
parallels to the instances of Marcan silence just mentioned
("came into Galilee" and the "riding on an ass") where
Mark narrates the events without the prophecy, Matthew
narrates the events as coming to pass " in order that " the
prophecy "might be fulfilled*"

In these two instances we owe Matthew nothing but
thanks for supplying what Mark apparently implies. But
when Matthew on his own account that is to say, without a
parallel either in Mark or Luke introduces a detail or event
that (he says) " came to pass in order that so-and-so might be
fulfilled" a doubt arises. And that this doubt was utilised

1 Mk i. 14, 16, xi. 7. 2 Mt. iv. 12 16, xxi. 3 7.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

by hostile critics of Matthew's Gospel at an early date is
indicated by Jerome 1 , who, after quoting several passages
from the New Testament almost all from Matthew says
that he refers to them and to their different renderings simply
to defend his own method of translating, and " not to convict
the evangelists of falsification a charge worthy only of im-
pious men like Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian."

This, taken with the context, indicates that some critics
had accused Matthew of error in connection with some of
these prophecies. For example, in connection with the
prophecy about the "ass," Mark and Luke, not quoting any
propliecy, speak of only one animal ; Matthew, quoting the
prophecy about " an ass, and a colt t/te foal of an ass," mentions
two animals ; John, quoting only part of the prophecy, a part
that mentions only one animal, himself mentions only one.
It is difficult to doubt that Matthew, in quoting the prophecy
about the two animals, has assumed the existence of two,
and that the assumption was incorrect 2 .

Now it has always been a historical difficulty for those
who desire to take the most favourable view of the accuracy
of Matthew's Gospel, that no other Evangelist mentions some
of the events which he alone introduces, and introduces as
" fulfilling " Scripture. Among these are the flight of Christ's
parents into Egypt, and the subsequent recall from Egypt,
"fulfilling" Hosea's prophecy "out of Egypt have I called
my son 3 ." Another is the massacre of the innocents, recorded

1 See Jerome's Letters Ivii. (transl. p. 115 foil.) quoting Mt. xxvi. 31,
ii. 13 15, ii. 23,1. 223.

2 In his commentary on Mt. xxi. 4, Jerome admitted that "according
to the letter, in so short a journey, He could not have sat on both animals
...Therefore since [the literal] history implies something impossible or
unbecoming, we are transported [by it] to higher things," that is, to
allegory. Mt. xxi. 2 and 7 are both so adapted as to refer to two animals,
differing therein from the closely parallel Mark.

3 Hos. xi. i. The Pharisaic Ebionites, in their version of Matthew,
which they termed " the Gospel according to the Hebrews,'"' omitted the
first two chapters.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

by Matthew alone and connected by him with the weeping
of Rachel for her children mentioned by Jeremiah 1 .

Josephus makes no mention of such a massacre. Nor
does Luke. No reason can be given why Luke should have
omitted it if he had believed it to be historical. It would
have magnified God's Providence. Nor would it have
interfered with his view, namely, that Jesus was born at
Bethlehem by a kind of providential accident, instead of
being born at Nazareth. No historian, outside the Christian
Church, mentions the massacre, till the fifth century ; and
Matthew's general habit of quoting prophecy, when he records
traditions of fulfilment mentioned by no other Evangelist,
necessarily throws doubt on the authenticity of all of them 2 .

Matthew's attitude and indeed the Jewish attitude
generally toward historical evidence may be illustrated by
his refrain of " fourteen generations " in the genealogy of
Jesus, concerning which Horae Hebraicae says, " Although all
things do not square exactly in this threefold number of
fourteen generations, yet there is no reason why this should
be charged as a fault upon Matthew, when in the Jewish
schools themselves it obtained for a custom, yea, almost for
an axiom, to reduce things and numbers to the very same,
when they were near alike 3 ." The author then quotes, from
" a hundred examples," a statement in the Mishna that five
things happened " on the ninth day of the month Ab," and adds
" Not that they believed all these things fell out precisely the
same day of the month ; but, as the Babylonian Gemara notes
upon it, that they might reduce a fortunate thing to a holy
day, and an unfortunate to an unlucky day." These remarks
must be borne in mind hereafter whenever we have to

1 Jer. xxxi. 15.

2 The "habit" is "general" but not invariable. There are a few
exceptional cases where Matthew (Horae Synopticae, p. 158, referring
to Mt. xxvii. 34, 43, 57) alludes to prophecy without quoting it.

3 Hor. Hebr. on Mt. i. 17.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

compare a rough and unsymmetrical tradition in Mark with
one that is smooth and symmetrical in Matthew. Matthew-
will be found sometimes to have " reduced things to the very
same when they were near alike."

In concluding these remarks about Matthew's arrangement
of evidence, we ought to note that what may hold good about
the main body of his Gospel may not hold about the last
verses in which he supplies what Mark omits some mention
of the post-resurrectional appearances of Jesus to women and
others. In describing the first of these it is said about the
women, " They came to [him] and took hold of his feet " ; and,
in the second, about the eleven, " And when they saw him,
they worshipped, but some doubted. And Jesus, having
come to [them] spake unto them...." The prominence here
given to the testimony of women is remarkable, considering
that, according to Josephus and the Talmud 1 , a woman's
evidence was not to be received in a court of justice, and Paul
makes no mention of an)- appearances to women.

If these narratives proceeded from the same pen that
wrote the Sermon on the Mount, in apparent defiance of
chronological order, we might have expected the manifestation
to the disciples to come first, as being the more important,
even though it was later in point of time. But there are
many indications in Matthew's context that parts of it proceed
from an editor, later than the compiler of the great mass
of the Gospel, and freer from Jewish tendencies. The context
speaks of a " saying " spread abroad " among Jews unto this
day 2 " the only use of the word "Jews" in Matthew, outside
the phrase " King of the Jews." It contains also a precept

1 Joseph. Ant. iv. 8. 15, Shebuoth 30 , comp. Ada Pilati 7 (A and
B) "We have a law that a woman's evidence is not to be received."
This exclusion of women is not sanctioned by any Biblical express state-
ment. But the Law may assume it. The Greek and Roman custom
would also probably be against the admission of such evidence.

2 Mt. xxviii. 15.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

to " baptize all nations into the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The last words of all, " I am
with you... unto the consummation of the aeon," come much
more suitably here than this baptismal precept, which (if the
text is genuine) appears to be ante-dated.

Why does not Matthew mention the manifestation to
Peter a character so prominent in his Gospel which Paul,
in his list of the manifestations, places first of all ? The
explanation may be as follows. The author of these Matthaean
traditions of the Resurrection is not moved by the objection
(by which Paul appears to have been influenced 1 ) that "the
evidence of a woman is not to be received," so much as by
the objection that the evidence of a single witness is not to be
received. This objection is forcibly stated by an assailant of
the Christian religion, Celsus, in the second century. His
exact words have been preserved by Origen : " When he
[i.e. Jesus] was in the body and disbelieved in, he used to
preach freely to all ; but when [by continuing to do this] he
would have created a strong belief, having [as you Christians
say] risen from the dead, he [merely] appeared-by-glimpses
to one weak-woman by herself, and to his own mad-worshippers,
[and that,] secretly 2 ."

Celsus appears to have had before him the very early
tradition preserved in the Mark- Appendix : " He appeared
first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven
devils*." Origen replies to him by quoting Matthew to shew
that "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary 4 " went to the
grave and that Jesus appeared, not " to one alone," but to
them, in the plural, "that is, clearly, the above-mentioned
Marys" Looking back to the preceding text in Matthew, we

1 In i Cor. xv. 5 8, Paul omits all mention of manifestations to women,
but mentions three to single witnesses (i) Cephas, (2) James, (3) himself.

2 Origen Cels. ii. 7 '"' /xovw yvvaiw *cai rols eauroO ^latrtorais 1
Trapf)aiv(To. We have no one word in English to express yvvalov.

3 Mk xvi. 9. * Mt. xxviii. I.

1 06

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN MATTHEW

find two Marys and a third woman mentioned as present
at Christ's death, with others ; and the Synoptic passages
parallel to the passage of Matthew quoted by Origen mention
three women' 1 . Possibly, therefore, the tradition followed by
Matthew was intended to mean, as the Diatessaron expresses
it, blending Matthew and Luke, "Mary Magdalene and the
other Mary and other women." If that could be proved, we
should be able to say that, out of the three manifestations in
the Mark-Appendix, the Matthaean tradition took those which
were received by more than two witnesses*. In any case, Matthew
seems to emphasize the necessity of more than one.

The last words of all those with which Matthew's
Gospel closes concentrate the reader's thought, not as
does that Mark- Appendix on the promise of mighty and
miraculous powers of healing to be given to the disciples 3 ,
but on the promise of Christ's perpetual presence with them
in their preaching of His gospel, "till the consummation of
the aeon 4 ."

1 Mt. xxvii. 56 (comp. Mk xv. 40), abbreviated in Mt. xxvii. 61 (comp.
Mk xv. 47) and in Mt. xxviii. i (but three persons are mentioned in the
parallel Mk xvi. I and comp. Lk. xxiv. 10).

2 Comp. Deut. xvii. 6 "at the mouth of two witnesses or three
witnesses" and see Johannine Grammar 2589 quoting Philo i. 243 " now
a holy matter is approved through three 'witnesses!'' Matthew omits the
manifestation to the "two," mentioned in Mk xvi. 12 (detailed in Lk. xxiv.
13 foil.).

3 Mk xvi. 17 18. * Mt. xxviii. 20.

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CHAPTER X

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

I. Luke attempted to write in chronological "order"

LUKE'S intention to write in chronological order is definitely
expressed in his Preface: "Forasmuch as many have attempted 1
to draw up a narrative concerning those facts [ for facts
they are, not phantasms ] 2 which have been solidly-and-
convincingly-fulfilled among us, even as they were delivered
unto us by those who were from the beginning eyewitnesses
and attendant-ministers of the Word [of the Gospel], it seemed
good to me also, having followed [them] up all from the first
with-exact-care, to write [them] unto thee consecutively, most
excellent Theophilus, that thou mayest recognise, concerning
the words [of-the-doctrine] in which thou wast schooled,
[their] unshakable-truth 3 ."

1 " Attempted," with sense of futility or evil purpose, both in Acts ix.
29, xix. 13 (not elsewhere used in N.T.) and also in LXX, see p. 1 16, n. 2.

2 Comp. Origen Fragm. on Lk. (Lomm. v. 86, 237) which contrasts
"facts" with the <pai>Tacria into which the Incarnation was converted by
heretics.

3 On this Preface see Notes on N. T. Criticism 29804. Add Origen's
remark on "all " ("having followed [them] up all"} off run rStv flprj^eveav,
dXXa irda-tv. Luke probably used it with reference to the preceding
Trpaypdrcav (which signifies the words and the deeds of the real, non-
phantasmal, incarnate Lord). "A.ira<ri is used similarly, in the neuter, by
Demosthenes, xix. 257 " knowing his villainies most exactly and having

followed \thent\ all ttp."

" Consecutively " Kadf&s (not in LXX or N.T. exc. Lk. and Acts) lit.
''''exactly in order" is much rarer in literary Greek than (fagfjf (not in

1 08

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

It will be observed that Luke applies the word " following-
up 1 ," not to "teaching," as the Epistles to Timothy do, but to
" facts," as handed down to the believers of his day by those
who Jtad been eyewitnesses or attendant-ministers. This language
prepares us to find, in his Gospel, traces of traditions, docu-
mentary or oral, from various apostles or disciples, and
certainly from more than two. Also this " following-up with-
exact-care" suggests, in this context, the existence of some
degree of intricacy or obscurity in the evidence so that it was
necessary to " follow up " the track, as it were, like a patient
hunter, distinguishing tracks that led wrong from the track
that led right.

For example, in dealing with the precepts to the Twelve,
we shall find that Luke, apparently " following up the facts,"
came to the conclusion that Matthew, in his version of them,
had combined two accounts, one by Mark, but one by another
author the former relating to the Twelve, but the latter
relating to "other" Apostles, whom Luke calls "seventy."
How Luke detected this we have no direct evidence to shew.
But he tells us that " the Lord" not " Jesus," but " the Lord"
sent out these " other " Apostles. Now it is very unusual
for Jesus to be called "the Lord" in Gospel narrative. But it
is easily intelligible that Luke may have had access to a
collection of traditions like that which Paul has handed down
concerning the Eucharist, of which Paul says " I received

LXX or N.T.) "following in order." The former does not occur in the
Concordances to Aristotle, Epictetus, and Plutarch (except once) ; the
latter occurs in them often. Good Attic Greek would have been content
with jjr as in Lucian (Hermotim. 43, i. 785) " You speak as though in
every case (navTuts) letters were written in order ()f), first A, secondly
B...." But Luke always uses ef-rjs (not in N.T. except Lk. vii. n, ix. 37,
Acts xxi. i, xxv. 17, xxvii. 18) with the article, to mean "the day (or t time)
following." For that reason, perhaps, among others, he prefers the
emphatic <adf^fjs for which Steph. Thes. quotes one passage from
Plutarch and one from ^tlian.

1 UapaKo\ovdf<a occurs in N.T. elsewhere, only in i Tim. iv. 6, 2 Tim.
iii. 10 and Mk-App. xvi. 17 W. H. marg.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

from the Lord that which also I delivered unto you 1 ." In
such a collection, " the Lord" may have been regularly used
for "Jesus." We shall presently come to other instances of
" the Lord" in Luke almost alone of the Evangelists
introducing narratives peculiar to his Gospel. These facts
point to the conclusion which is supported by other evidence
that Luke found a non-Marcan as well as a Marcan account
of the Sending of Apostles, that the former was in a collection
where Jesus was regularly called " the Lord," and that Luke,
in the true spirit of an exact historian " following up " per-
plexing tracks, determined to leave the stamp of its origin on
this other narrative, by retaining "the Lord" thus, "After
these things the Lord appointed other seventy 2 ."

We have seen, above 3 , that " after these things " is an
unsafe guide in chronology. Luke may have been misled here,
in placing the Sending of the Seventy so soon after the
Sending of the Twelve. Perhaps indeed the Sending of
the Seventy or some of its precepts, such as " eat those
things that are set before you 4 " refers to a period after the

1 i Cor. xi. 23. In the Pauline Epistles, and in the Acts, Kvpios, with
the article, would mean " the Lord Jesus " (except in very special contexts
such as 6 ayyeXos TOV nvpiov) in accordance with i Cor. viii. 6, " To us
there is one God, the Father... and one Lord, Jesus Christ? so that Rom.
xii. 1 1 " serving the Lord" (on which Origen Lat. quotes i Cor. viii. 6)
would mean "serving the Lord Jesus." For the most part, " the Lord"
and " the Christ" would not be used in gospels, until He had been (Rom.
i. 4) "denned" by "the resurrection of the dead," to be, in a unique
sense, the Son and Lord and Christ. The originators of the reading
Lk. xxiv. 3 "the body of the Lord Jesus" (comp. Mk-App. xvi. 19, 20)
were perhaps influenced by the feeling that Jesus had been thus "de-
nned."

2 Lk. x. i. 3 See pp. 74 foil., 80 foil.

4 Lk. X. 8 tardier* ra irapariBf^tva vfuv, comp. I Cor. x. 27 nav TO irapa-
ri6fp.fvov vp.lv fo-dierf, i.e. eat, without regard to Jewish distinctions. No
doubt, the context shews that Luke placed the precepts before Christ's
resurrection, e.g. (x. i) "The Lord sent them. ..into every city and place
where he himself purposed to come." But might not this be used, in
poetic tradition, of "the Lord sending His Apostles," e.g. Paul, to the

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

Resurrection. But at all events Luke might say " I did my
best. I copied the document exactly. And I ascertained it
was ' after' I could not ascertain " how long ' after' "

Again, take the Lucan context of the words of Jesus, " the
dead are raised 1 ." If they are to be taken literally, as Luke
appears to take them, we require some narrative of an act of
raising from the dead to justify them. Both Matthew and
Luke report the words ; but Luke alone inserts an account of
the raising of a widow's son at Nain, from the bier on which
he was being carried to the grave. This, if we overlook the
plural (" are raised ") as hyperbole, would justify the literal
interpretation. Without this, there would be nothing in Luke
to justify the literal appeal to facts. For, although Matthew
has previously made mention of the raising of Jairus' daughter,
Luke has not. He puts it much later 2 ; and indeed, since Jesus
said, in that instance, " She is not dead but sleepeth 3 ," it is not
a strong case. The case supplied by Luke is much stronger.
Matthew, however, though he agrees with Luke as to " the
dead are raised," and as to the context and circumstances
in which the words were uttered, has no record of any act
of revivifying except that which concerns the daughter of
Jairus.

As regards the source of Luke's insertion, we should note
that, here again, " the Lord" is used for " Jesus," not in speech
but in narrative (" And when the Lord saw her 4 "). It is
probable that Luke has inserted the story from the document
above mentioned, attempting to fix its chronological place

cities of the Greeks, e.g. Corinth, as to which He said to Paul (Acts
xviii. 10) "I have much people in this city"? On the Mission of the
Seventy see Clue 233 foil., From Letter to Spirit 1015 a foil.
1 Mt. xi. 5, Lk. vii. 22. 2 Mt. ix. 23 5, Lk. viii. 52 5.

3 This is in all the Synoptists Mk v. 39, Mt. ix. 24, Lk. viii. 52 3.
They all add " they mocked him." But Luke alone adds " knowing that
she had died."

4 Lk. vii. 13. Comp. 2 Esdr. x. I foil, on the mother mourning for
her son, z.e. Zion mourning for the Temple and the City.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

by reference to the words of Jesus in the Double Tradition,
which he has taken in a literal sense " the dead are raised."

One more instance must suffice. The Diatessaron, giving
Matthew's account of the calling of the four fishermen, who
" forsook " their " nets " or " their ship " and " followed " Jesus,
places immediately after it 1 a narrative of Luke describing
how Jesus " saw two boats," one of which belonged to Simon,
who had " toiled all night and caught nothing " ; and how
at His command, Simon cast the net again and caught a
multitude of fishes ; and how he and his companions " left
everything and followed Jesus." Possibly Luke meant to
suggest that Simon, after first being called with the words
" I will make you fishers of men 2 ," neglected the call till he
was summoned a second time in a command addressed to
him alone, " Fear [thou] not, henceforth thou shalt be a fisher
of men unto life 3 ." But Luke does not say this. He gives
his readers the impression that Simon had not been called
before, and that the Lucan narrative is to be substituted for
(not placed after) that of Mark and Matthew 4 .

There are grounds for thinking that Luke may have been
misled by following some Hebrew document in which the
Call of Peter the Fisherman, and the Return (i.e. the Repen-
tance) of Peter the Fisherman, were connected together.
Luke's narrative begins with a form of words that is a sign
of translation from Hebrew 5 . John has preserved some such

1 Diatess. v. 48 9. 2 Mt. iv. 19. 3 Lk. v. 10.

4 The narratives, as they stand in the Diatessaron, may be illustrated
by the much more difficult sequence in i S. xvi. 22 "And Saul sent to
Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me ; for he hath found
favour in my sight...," followed by xvii. 55 8 "And when Saul saw David
go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner... Whose son is this
youth?... Inquire thou whose son the stripling is... And Saul said to him
(David), Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David answered, I
am the son of thy servant Jesse..."

6 Lk. v. i tv TO) iiriKtlffOai. On this use of tv T see Son of Man 3333 e.
In due course, as part of the examination of Lucan parallels to Mark, the

112

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

a tradition about Peter the Fisherman 1 . This he places after
the Resurrection. It mentions one boat instead of two.
Indeed it seems expressly to contradict one detail of Luke by
saying that the net " was not rent 3 ." Also it says that Peter
swims to Christ instead of bidding Christ depart from him 3 .
Nevertheless it agrees with Luke in making Peter the most
prominent of the disciples in a story about a miraculous
draught of fishes. This counts for a great deal in two gospels
that agree so seldom.

Moreover, there are further similarities of detail. Luke
first represents Jesus as "standing by the lake Gennesaret"
and subsequently as bidding Peter let down the nets, to which
Peter replies " Master, we toiled all night and took nothing,
but at thy word I will let down the nets." John says that
Peter and six other disciples went fishing, and " in that night
they took nothing, but when day was now breaking Jesus stood
on the shore" unrecognised ; then Jesus says " Cast tlie net
on the right side of the boat, and ye shall find," and now,
at last when they have " found " Jesus is recognised as
the Lord : " That disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter,
' It is the Lord,' " and Peter " threw himself into the sea,"
while the rest came in the boat.

In addition to these similarities it must be said that, in
Luke, whereas Peter, before the miracle, calls Jesus " Master,"
or Epistates a word used by no Evangelist except Luke, and
probably always representing "Rabbi'" after the miracle
Peter calls Him " Lord " (" depart from me, Lord"). This
is not the place to discuss Luke's use of the vocative Epistata
and its motive, and the fact that it mostly belongs to Petrine

facts given in 3333 e will be more fully illustrated, and it will be shewn
that even in the Acts, where the form is comparatively rare, Hebraic
influence may be traced.

1 Jn xxi. 6 ii.

2 Lk. V. 6 Sitpijo-o-ero, Jn xxi. 1 1 ov< eo-^io-^ij.

3 Lk. v. 8, Jn xxi. 7.

A. 113 8

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

or Hebraic traditions 1 . The point for us, at this moment,
is one of thought, not of words. The Lucan thought is,
" Peter called Jesus Master until he was converted by the
proof of a miracle. Then he called Him Lord'' The
Johannine thought is, " No miracle proved to Peter, at all
events, on this occasion, that he saw his Lord before him ;
he did not guess it till ' the disciple whom Jesus loved ' said
to him ' It is the Lord.' The miracle was only an instrument.
Love was the agent."

It is possible that John intended, not to deny Luke's
narrative, but to supplement it. But the omission of the
Lucan miracle by Mark and Matthew, in the place where
Luke inserts it, and the difficulty of reconciling the Lucan
position with the narrative of Mark and Matthew, favour the
conclusion that Luke's chronology is here in fault, and that
John has preserved the truer tradition.

2. Luke wrote as a Greek historian but incorporating
Jewish documents and traditions

The only direct evidence as to Luke's purpose and plan
is to be found in the Preface to the Gospel, supplemented
by the Preface to the Acts. The former has been quoted
above. The latter runs as follows : " The first 2 discourse

1 On firia-TaTrjs (alw. voc.) see Dalman Words, p. 336 foil. Lk. v. i
begins with the Hebraisms (i) eyevero, (2) eV TO>, on the latter of which see
Son of Man 3333 e. There is also an fyevero eV T< in the Lucan story of
the ten lepers (Lk. xvii. n 13) where firivrara occurs. Petrine passages
containing eVKrrdra are Lk. v. 5, viii. 45, ix. 33. John the son of Zebedee
utters it in Lk. ix. 49. The other Synoptists present interesting variations,
e.g. Mk iv. 38 StSao-KaXe, Mt. viii. 25 Kvpif, parall. to Lk. viii. 24 tirurrdra
(where the speakers are all the disciples in the boat).

2 "First (Trpwrov)." Why not "former (frporepov)," as in Philo ii. 444
6 ptv irpoTepos \6yos %v w'iv, <w Geo&ore, Trept TOV...? Possibly because
Luke does not mean, as Philo does, "former [of two]," but "first [of
three, or more]." Luke may have planned a third discourse filling up the
lacuna left in Acts xxviii. 30 31 "two whole years." See Expositor,
March 1913, p. 284.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

{lit, word) on-the-one-hand I composed about all things,
O Theophilus, that Jesus began 1 both to do and to teach, up
to the day when, having-given-commandment to the apostles
through the Holy Spirit 3 [those apostles] whom he [had]
chosen 3 he was taken-up [to heaven]. To whom he [had]
also presented himself, living (after he [had] suffered [on the
Cross]) by many proofs... 4 ."

This second extract would deserve attention if only for
the emphasis laid by it on the " beginning to do and to teach,"
as contrasted with the end implied in " the day " when " he
was taken up." But our attention ought also to be given
to another point an apparent resemblance, here, between
Luke's two Prefaces and a passage of Josephus.

The passage of Josephus occurs in a defence of the
antiquity of the Jewish nation. Addressing " Epaphroditus,
most excellent of men," he begins by saying that, since he
sees multitudes of people accepting, as a " proof" of the
recent origin of the Jews, the silence of Gentile historians
concerning their antiquity, he thought it his duty to write

1 " Began," i.e. before His death, and before the Holy Spirit was given
(see below, p. 128).

2 " Through the Holy Spirit." Perhaps Luke implies that there was
some gift of the Holy Spirit when He appeared to the Apostles and
(Lk. xxiv. 45 foil.) "opened their mind" and gave them their commission
to preach in His name. Jn xx. 19 23 expressly describes such a gift.

3 " Whom he had chosen." Something seems to be implied, e.g.
"whom, after the defection of Judas, he had finally chosen," or, "whom,
after death, he chose again" (comp. Jn vi. 70 " Did not I choose you, the
twelve, and one of you is a devil ?").

4 "Proofs" TfKprjpiots, does not recur in the whole of the canonical Greek
Testament. It is a favourite word with Thucydides, who says, early in
his history (i. 20 i) that though his readers may find it difficult to accept
from him " e^'ery proof \taken singly] in consecutive order (iravrl et-TJs
TtKp.rjpia>) " they will nevertheless not go wrong if they accept the general
results of '' the above-mentioned proofs" Both eijr and reic/xijpioi/ re-
present the lines on which Luke writes a history of consecutive facts
resulting in proofs.

115 82

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

on the subject, so as to teach all that desire to know the
" truth 1 ."

So far, there is no great verbal similarity. " Truth " and
" proof" are words that any writer, Jew or Gentile, was
obliged to use if he wished to begin a historical treatise with
a preface in the style of Thucydides. Also, any literary
patron might be called " most excellent." But there is much
more in the following sentences. They include some of the
words or phrases used in the Lucan Prefaces, either exactly
or nearly reproduced, such as " attempting," " delivering "
(i.e. handing down tradition), "with-exact-care," "following-up,"
and " eyewitnesses." They also lay the same stress on " facts "
and their " truth " :

" Certain vile fellows have attempted to slander my history
...But they ought to know that whosoever promises to hand-
down [a history of] actions in-their-true-form should himself
first learn them with-exact-care, either having-followed-up the
occurrences, or inquiring about them from those that know...
Now when writing the history of the war [of the Jews with
the Romans] I had been the personal originator of many
actions, and eyewitness of very-many ; and, to-speak-of-the-
whole, there was nothing whatever of the {things'} said or done
of which I was ignorant 2 ."

1 Joseph. Contr. Apion. i. i " Most excellent " is, as in Luke, ^parterre.
But that was probably a common word in dedications, so that not much
stress must be laid on that similarity. "Proof" (or "token") is rfn^piov.

* Joseph. Contr. Apion. i. 10. All the italicised words are identical, in
Greek, with the Lucan words above mentioned, except (i) "actions,"
TTpd^fts, Lk. TTpdyfjiaruy and (2) "said or done" TU>V \tx6f vr<av fj irpaxGfVTmv,
Lk. (Acts) iroifiv re Kal 8i8da-iceiv. On (2), note that Papias (above, p. 82)
has the same phrase, but with the repeated fj.

That the Lucan "attempt," eVt^eipe'w, was used by Luke in a bad
sense, is indicated by its use in LXX, in Acts, and in the present
passage of Josephus. See also Mayor's note on Clem. Alex. 889 t-m-
Xpi7pzo-t, "sophisms," quoting Dion. H. p. 723 1. IO \^v\pav Kai airidavov
(mxfipw iv - Versions of a fragment attributed to Origen (Cramer ad
loc., and Lomm. vol. XX, pp. viii ix) assert as (i) probable (ra^a) or

116

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

Of course, allowance must be made for the fact that all
writers of history in the first century, if they wrote in Greek
and in the high historical style, used Thucydides and Demos-
thenes as their quarries, common to all Thucydides for
phrases in narrative, and Demosthenes for phrases in inter-
vening speeches ; and it is in that style that Josephus and
Luke both write in the passages we are considering 1 . Never-
theless the similarity in thought as well as in language
between Josephus in addressing the " most excellent Epaphro-
ditus," and Luke in addressing the "most excellent Theophilus"
will (I believe) make it appear probable to many readers that
Luke had read the treatise of Josephus against the mis-
representations of the " facts " of Jewish history, and adopted
his language in his own treatise against those who (as he
believed) had " attempted " to represent, in such a way as
to misrepresent, the " facts " of the life of the King of the
Jews 2 .

Before passing from this subject we must add that Dionysius
of Halicarnassus and Cicero, writing before the beginning
of the Christian era, testify to the widespread imitation of
Thucydides by writers of history. The general conclusion
reached by Dionysius, in giving advice to writers, is that
" the narrative passages are, with few exceptions, altogether
admirable and adapted for every kind of service, whereas
the speeches are not all suitable for imitation*." For speeches,

(2} certain (xtf voetv) that it is used in a bad sense here. Origen might
be induced by his natural moderation, and by the Aristotelian use of the
word in a good sense, to suggest that there may be a doubt of the bad
sense here. But the whole of his context indicates that he inclined to
believe that Luke included "false prophets" in his "many."

1 Josephus says (Contr. Apion. \. 9) that in writing his history he
" used some assistants for the Greek (xpij<rdp.( vos TKTI irpos TTJV 'E\\rjvl8a

<^wvr]v <rvv(pyois). a

- The Contr. Apion. of Josephus (Diet. Christ. Biogr. iii. 449 a) was
probably written after A.D. 93. The Preface to the Acts must therefore
have been written later still, if it alludes to that treatise.

3 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, The Three Literary Letters, by Professor

117

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

Dionysius preferred Demosthenes as a model for imitators.
That Luke, in the Acts, imitated Thucydides in certain parts
of his narrative and Demosthenes in certain of the speeches,
was (in my opinion) demonstrated, by a multitude of instances,
in a book printed for private circulation thirty years ago.
Its author, searching the Acts for Thucydidean words or
phrases rare or non-occurrent in N. T., except in Lucan
writings, found no less than 82 in the 2/th chapter which
contains 44 verses, but only 4 in the yth chapter which
contains 60 verses. The latter contains the speech of Stephen
where Thucydides would be quite out of place ; the former
contains Luke's account of Paul's shipwreck. The author
came to the conclusion, inter alia, that Luke " had studied
with great care the whole of the Sixth Book of Thucydides,
perhaps in consequence of the visit to Syracuse," and that
" he had read a large portion of the Eighth Book, probably
in connexion with his voyage along the coast of Asia 1 ."

W. Rhys Roberts, Litt.D. (Cambridge: at the University Press), pp. 32
and 29.

1 A Short Account of some Coincidences of Expression in Thucy-
dides and the Acts of the Apostles, by J. Hamblin Smith, M.A. (for
private circulation; Cambridge, 1883), p. 68. As the book may be
difficult to procure, I add a few of the similarities. On p. 2, Acts xxvii.

13 18 apavTfs. . . n-gptXfyovTO TTJV KpT]TT]v...crvvap'trao'6fVTOs 8f rov TrXot'ou...

ro> avfp.(o...f(pfp6p.e6a...-xfip.a^ofj,fv(i)Vj is compared with Thuc. vi. 104
a pas TrapeVXet Trjv 'iraXtai/.-.d/sTracr^fis 1 VTT' avf/j.ov.,.dTro<p(pfTai ts TO Tre'Xayoy
...Xft/xaq-flftf (where note that irl\ayos is used in Acts xxvii. 5 to mean the
open sea and occurs nowhere else in N.T. exc. Mt. xviii. 6 T irt\ayei rtjs
$nXa<r<n7f). Note also (ib. p. n) the similarity of rhythm between Acts xvi.
12 fls 4>tXt7T7rouy, ffns fcrrlv Trpwrr; TTJS ptpifios MaKfdovias TroXtr AcoXoxna, and
Thuc. vi. 62 (S 'Ip-tpav, rjirfp fiovT) tv TOVTW TW pipd TTJS 2t<cXt'ar 'EXXa?
TToXts f'ort'. The whole book deserves careful study. Part of it is devoted
to a comparison of the language of the Acts with that in two of the most
celebrated orations of Demosthenes. The conclusion seems to me to be
that Luke, like most other educated Greeks, agreed with Dionysius of
Halicarnassus that Thucydides and Demosthenes were good authors for
him to follow when writing in the historical style with narrative and
speeches intermixed.

118

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

One passage in this valuable little treatise calls attention
to some Thucydidean phrases in Luke's version of the
Discourse on the Last Days. In this, Mark and Matthew
mention merely limoi "famines " ; but Luke says "loimoi and
limoi" that is, "plagues and famines." Now this recalls a
well-known interchange of the two words in a prophecy
mentioned by Thucydides in connection with the plague at
Athens, " There shall come a Dorian war and a famine with
it." Some said it was famine, some said it was plague. But,
when the plague came, says Thucydides, men decided that
loimos, not limos, had been the right version. Luke's text
says that not merely limoi, but also loimoi were to come 1 .

But Luke also adds " terrors and great signs from heaven."
And, later on, he repeats " signs," saying " signs in the sun
and moon and stars-" He also expresses the impending
distress in language like that of a speech of Nicias in
Thucydides and quite unlike that of the parallel Synoptists*.
Now the speech in Thucydides is followed not long after-
wards, in point of time, though several chapters intervene
by an account of an eclipse of the moon, which so alarmed
the Athenians that they delayed their purposed retreat for
twenty-seven days, thereby ensuring their total discomfiture
at the hands of the Syracusans 4 . It does not seem fanciful

1 Mk xiii. 8, Mt xxiv. 7, Lk. xxi. 1 1, see Thuc. ii. 54. The noun
\oip.6s occurs in Canon. LXX only in I K. viii. 37, Ezek. xxxvi. 29, as
a various reading and error for \tp.6s. In the MSS of Lk. xxi. n, the
order of the two nouns varies.

2 Lk. xxi. 25. This is parall. to a mention of the sun and moon and
stars in Mk-Mt., but the preceding mention of " signs from heaven " has
no Synoptic parallel.

3 See A Short Account &c. pp. 55 6, which calls attention to the de-
pressing speech of Xicias in Thuc. vi. 68, and to some similarities in the
Acts, and others in the Gospel, Lk. xxi. 19 26 <rrparoire8ov = " army" (only
here in N.T.), Krf]<rfa-0(, di/dycr; = " distress" (Pauline), diropia "desperate-
condition" (only here in N.T.). All these are in one short chapter of
Thucydides. There is also Lk. xxi. 26 diro-^vx VT<av " gasping " (only
here in N.T.), used for " expiring," as in Thuc. i. 134.

4 Thuc. vii. 50.

119

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

to see in these Lucan deviations from Mark and Matthew
some trace of the influence of Thucydides on a writer who
had himself spent " three days 1 " at Syracuse on his way to
Rome with Paul.

No doubt, if Luke had been recording words of Jesus
Himself, handed down with the authority of His direct
utterance, he would not thus have deviated from Mark into
the style of Greek history, any more than he does in recording
the speech of the martyr Stephen. But this adds greatly to
the importance of Luke's deviation. It indicates Luke's
belief that much of the predictive part of the Discourse on
the Last Days was not Christ's language in the ordinary
sense. It was perhaps of the nature of what Eusebius calls
an "oracle" given "to those of approved reputation" in
Jerusalem 2 .

Our conclusion is, that Luke wrote in the Greek literary
style not only, as a rule, when recording what he had himself
observed, but also, on rare occasions, wJien he amplified a
tradition inferentially for the purpose of clearness, vividness,
or inclusiveness. On other occasions he would, as far as
possible, employ the language, written or oral, of those from
whom he derived his information.

3. Lukes arrangement, sometimes dependent on "proofs"

If we compare Matthew's Sermon on the Mount with
Luke's parallels, we shall find the first dozen verses of the
former placed (in a condensed form) at an early date by Luke.

1 Acts xxviii. 12.

2 See Notes on N. T Criticism 2837 (iii) a and Son of Man 3281 a b.
The SoKifioi mentioned by Eusebius might be variously interpreted, e.g.
as (Mk xiiu 3) "Peter and James and John and Andrew." Comp. Gal.
ii. 6 SoKovvTfs and the context, referring to "James [i.e. the Lord's brother]
and Cephas and John." The deviation of the parallel Matthew and Luke
from Mk xiii. 3 shews that the names did not rest on the highest
authority.

120

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

But the thirteenth verse (about " salt " that loses its savour)
is placed by Luke some eight chapters later, after some Lucan
traditions about "counting the cost" of a " tower," and '' taking
counsel" about a "war." Turning to Mark, we perceive that
Mark, too, puts a tradition about "saltless" salt at a much
later period 1 . In this case, then, we see that Luke may have
depended, not merely or at all on " proofs," but on Mark's
testimony in favour of postponing this utterance.

In another instance, where Matthew introduces the Lord's
Prayer, as part of a continuous discourse, with " Thus there-
fore pray ye," the Lucan context itself seems to acknowledge
doubt as to date and place : " And it came to pass in the
[time of] his being in a certain place praying, when he ceased,
a certain one of his disciples said unto him, ' Lord, teach us
to pray, as also John taught his disciples.' And he said unto
them, When ye pray, say... 2 ." Here, then, we have to ask,
" Was this vague introduction written by Luke himself in
his own person, or copied by him as part of the traditional
framework in which he received this version of the Prayer?"

This is one of the many occasions where the Hebraic
construction ("in the [time of] his being") is of very great
value in the attempt to analyse Luke's Gospel. For it shews
us that he is not introducing the Prayer in his own Greek-
history style, but that he is copying the whole Introduction
as well as Prayer from a literal translation of some Hebrew
document 3 . This document left the time and place vague,
and Luke retains unaltered the phrases implying vagueness.

1 Mt. v. i 12 parall. to Lk. vi. 20 23, but Mt v. 13 parall. to Lk. xiv.
34 5 (comp. Mk ix. 50).

- Lk. xi. i (comp. Mt. vi. 9). "In the [time of] his being" is an
attempt to render eV TO> en/at, which (see Son of Man 3333 e) is a sign of
translation from Hebrew.

3 It may be objected that Biblical Hebrew does not use the vocative
" Father? which Luke here uses, but only " my Father" But in later
Hebrew as well as in Aramaic, Abba is used to mean either " Father '
or "my Father." so that Lk. xi. 2 "Father," parall. to Mt. vi. 9 "Our

121

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

This is honest, and we ought to be grateful. But it
follows that in dealing with this tradition (and others like it)
Luke would be guided only by inference as to the position
in which he should place it. The place he gives it is appro-
priate. We know from Berachoth 1 that some celebrated
Rabbis gave short prayers to their several pupils to be used
on occasions where brevity was needed. Missionaries would
be in special need of brevity. Jesus had just appointed His
missionaries, not only the Twelve, but also, according to
Luke, the Seventy. Luke therefore places the Prayer after the
appointment of the Seventy, and just before traditions
(peculiar to his Gospel) concerning the power of "im-
portunity" in prayer 2 .

All this trouble, taken to get as near as possible to " facts"
through " proofs," is worthy of a disciple of Thucydides 8 .
But on the other hand Luke's desire for proofs and definite
facts appears sometimes to lead him beyond the limits
imposed by the older Evangelists. His preference for definite
evidence may perhaps be illustrated by his difference from
Matthew in the history of the birth of Jesus, where Matthew
describes an unnamed angel as speaking to Joseph by night
in a dream, but Luke describes the angel Gabriel as speaking
to Mary in what is clearly not a dream 4 . These two traditions
however, not being parallel, are not so instructive as the
Synoptic parallels in the description of Christ's Baptism.
There Mark and Matthew use the word " saw " in connection

Father that is in heaven" does not constitute any objection to the
hypothesis that Luke is copying a literal translation of a Hebrew version
of the Lord's Prayer (see Levy i. 3 b}.

1 Berachoth 29 b foil. 2 Lk. xi. 58.

3 See Thuc. i. 20, 21 (and comp. ii. 39, 50) for references to the
"proofs" from which, at an early stage of his History, he infers the facts
of antiquity.

4 Mt. i. 20 "in a dream," compared with ib. 24 "arose from his sleep,"
implies night. Lk. i. 268 "the angel Gabriel was sent... and, having
come in unto her, said " is more definite.

122

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

with the descent of the Spirit as a dove, but Luke dispenses
with "saw" and adds that the Spirit descended "in a bodily
shape 1 ." We have also seen how Luke appears to have been
led, by a desire to find a proof of the truth of the words " the
dead are raised," not only to insert in his Gospel, but also
to insert just before those words, an account of a literal
raising of the widow's son at Nain 2 . Even Peter, according
to Luke, would seem to have been led to attach himself to
Jesus, at the outset of the Gospel, not by His personality and
doctrine, but by a miraculous draught of fish 3 .

No doubt, the word " proofs " is never used by Luke in
his Gospel and only once in the Acts ; but the atmosphere
of what one may call " proof-seeking " may be felt in many
portions of the former where neither the word, nor any word
like it, is employed. The Spirit itself is described by Luke
in his Gospel as " a mouth and wisdom " which " adversaries "
will not be able to l< withstand or to gainsay " a true aspect,
but not the deepest or most essential 4 . And in the description
of the manifestations of the Resurrection, Luke insists, as it
were, on the possession of " flesh and bones " by the risen
Saviour, and also on His power to "eat" ; which He does, in
the presence of the Eleven 5 . This indeed, from a Greek point
of view, is the most cogent of the " many proofs " spoken of
in the Preface to the Acts*. But it strangely differs from the

1 Mk i. 10, Mt. iii. 16, Lk. iii. 22.

2 See p. 1 1 1. 3 Lk. v. 8 9.

4 Lk. xxi. 15.

5 Lk. xxiv. 39 43. In Jn xx. 249, Thomas insists on proof by
touch, and it is offered to him. But he is gently rebuked, and it is not
stated that he availed himself of the offer. It is said, " Because thou hast
seen me, thou hast believed." It is not said, " Because thou hast touched
me."

6 Acts i. 3. In Lk. xxiv. 22 3 (speaking of "women" and " a vision
of angels") it may be implied that the speakers were not at that time
aware of the subsequent manifestation to the women who (Mt. xxviii. 9)
clasped Christ's feet. But the intention of the context appears to be to
shew that the Evangelist like Paul, see p. 106 does not appeal for

123

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

Johannine answer to the question, " Lord, what is come to
pass that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not unto the
world ? " and also from any reasonable interpretation of the
words in Revelation, "If any man hear my voice and open
the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he
with me 1 ."

4. Lukes view of " the beginning " and " the end "

The Preface to Luke's Gospel acknowledges the source
of his traditions to have been " those who from the beginning
were eyewitnesses and attendant-ministers of the word" Later
on, giving us the only numerical date in his Gospel, he says
" In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius
Pilate being governor of Judaea... the [utterance of the] word
of God came upon John tJie son of Zacharias...*" Is that to
be regarded as the "beginning"? Ought we not rather to
go back to the first words of his Gospel (as distinct from the
Preface) ? These are " There was in the days of Herod, king
of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias." The "beginning"
may be the promise of a son to Zacharias and his wife
Elisabeth. Afterwards there follows the Annunciation to
Mary with the words " This is the sixth month with her that
was called barren 3 ." Then the hymn of Zacharias says to the
child " Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord [i.e. Jehovah]
to make ready his ways ; to give knowledge of salvation unto
his people in the remission of their sins*."

These last words do not clearly define the limits of John's
mission. They may be intended to mean that he was not
to be himself Jehovah's agent in giving " the knowledge of

" proof" to women's evidence, which would not be accepted in a law-court
either by Jews or by Greeks.

1 Jn xiv. 22, Rev. iii. 20.

2 Lk. i. 2, iii. I 2. " Word" = Xdyoj, which may also mean "reason,"
&c. " [Utterance of the] word " = pfjna.

3 Lk. i. 5, 36. 4 Lk. i. 767.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

salvation " or " the remission of sins," but that he was only
to prepare " the way of Jelwvah " with a view to these gifts
(the earthly agent, or giver, being left unmentioned). But
at all events it seems clear that Luke regards John, in a
twofold sense, as a " beginning." The promise of his birth
begins the book. Zacharias is the " eyewitness " of that
promise. John's beginning to preach is introduced with an
exactness of dating that we should expect from none but
a historian introducing a new epoch. Also we have been
invited to date the birth of Jesus Himself from that of John,
inferentially, by some words of Gabriel to Mary about "the
sixth month with her that was called barren 1 ." This would
lead us to the conclusion that Jesus was six months younger
than John. And we are told subsequently that Jesus was
thirty years old when He " began 2 ."

Out of all these data one might have supposed that we
could surely extract the date of Christ's birth. But we
cannot. There is a fatal defect in the facts. We are told
the exact date of John's beginning to preach, but not the
date of his birth. It is left unstated in the vagueness of the
Hebraic phrase "in the days of Herod." Also we are not
informed whether John began to preach as a youth (like
Jeremiah) or as a mature man (like Ezekiel). Luke's chron-
ology is a mixture of solid historical facts some of them
quite superfluous with fatal inexactness. Who wants to
know that, as Luke tells us, " Lysanias was tetrarch of
Abilene " in " the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar " ? What
we want to know is the interval between John's beginning to
preach and Christ's beginning to preach. And this we are
not told. It may have been ten months. It may have been
ten years.

The most reasonable supposition is that Luke himself did
not know the interval. It is hardly conceivable that, if he did

1 Lk i. 36. 2 Lk. iii. 23.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

know it, he should have failed to state it. How easy to have

said about John's birth, " In the year of Herod the

king," or "In the year of Augustus Caesar 1 "! But

Luke's language gives us internal evidence indicating that
his original authority, and not he himself, is to blame. The
first sentence of his Gospel, introducing the birth of John,
closely resembles the first sentence of the book of Samuel,
introducing the birth of Samuel, and has like the greater
part of the Lucan Introduction a Hebraic and poetic sound 2 .
Moreover this Introduction has no less than five instances of
that Hebraic construction (the article with the infinitive)
almost confined to Luke among the Evangelists, which
indicates Hebraic origin in a Lucan tradition*.

The right inference, then, from these omissions the
reasonable as well as charitable inference is not that Luke
was incapable, but that he was honest. Mixing Hebrew
traditions with Greek traditions, he left the signs of the
mixture. We ought to be most thankful that he did so.
He might have rendered the whole into one uniform history
imitative of Thucydidean Greek. Then indeed he might
have deceived us. As it is, he has left us ignorant but
not more ignorant than he probably was himself 4 . Luke's

1 Lk. iii. i.

2 Comp. Lk. i. 5 "There was.. .a certain priest...," with i S. i. I "Now
there was a certain man..." introducing Elkanah, and his wives, byname.

3 See above, p. 112, n. 5, as to ev rw with inf. ; it occurs in Lk. i. 8, 21,
ii. 6, 27, 43-

4 Lk. ii. 2 (R.V.) "This was the first enrolment made when Quirinius
was governor of Syria" is a pathetic attempt of Luke to supply, as far as
possible, data for determining chronology by piling fact on fact. The
sentence is not clear, and volumes have been written about it. The most
reasonable supposition is that Luke took the words down just as he heard
them, or read them.

The hypothesis of the incorporation of documents may best explain
the similarity between Josephus Ant. xx. 5. i foil, and Acts v. 35 foil,
(a speech assigned to Gamaliel addressing the Sanhedrin). The subject
is theomachy, and the Greek word (or rather its adjective) is used in
a manner that would appeal to Greeks rather than to Jews.

126

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

ignorance, however, does not alter his view which is what
we are considering. And the view he took as a historian
appears to be that, according to the above-mentioned rules
of taxis or "order," in Greek history, "nothing could well
come before " the Baptist, in a treatise on the Gospel 1 .

But the view taken in the Lucan Messianic genealogy
appears to be inconsistent with the view taken in the whole
of the Lucan Introduction, and especially in the Songs of
Zacharias and Mary about the Messiah. For to whom would
Simeon and Anna, and all the characters mentioned in that
Introduction, have looked as the Messiah's progenitor, except
to the patriarch called by Zacharias " Abraham our father 1 " ?
And in the hymn of Mary, the Mother of the Lord, are not
the last words " Abraham and his seed for ever* " ? Was not
Matthew also content to trace the genealogy from Abraham ?
Why then does Luke carry it up to the first man, " the [son]
of Seth, the [son] of Adam "and then, " the [son] of God 4 " ?
Since every human being is a " son of Adam," must there not
be some hidden meaning in these words, if they are to escape
the charge of platitude ?

The composite nature of Luke's Gospel makes it impossible
to answer this question with any confidence. The carrying
up of the genealogy to Adam may have been the result of
more causes than one. First, there would certainly be the
desire for a new genealogy, caused by dissatisfaction with
Matthew's genealogy for reasons above mentioned 5 . Secondly,
there might naturally be a feeling that this new genealogy
of the Messiah should make it its main object to answer the
question natural to Greeks as well as to Jews on the intro-
duction of a new personage to their notice " Who, and whose
son ultimately ? " Thirdly, there might be a desire that the
answer to the question " Whose son ? " should include some
allusion to the Lord's own self-appellation, " the Son of Man."

1 See above, p. 83. 8 Lk. i. 73.

3 Lk. i. 55. * Lk. iii. 38. 5 See p. 104.

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Taking this title in its Hebrew form, that is, " Son of
Adam," a mystical Pauline genealogist might despise the
jibe "Are we not all sons of Adam?" by replying, "Yes,
but to ' Son of Adam,' I add ' Son of God ' ; that means ' The
Adam that is conformed to God's image.' " Moreover, there
might be the influence of another Pauline doctrine, namely,
that " God made of one every nation of men 1 ," so that all
being sons of Adam, the " nations " of the Gentiles as well
as " the chosen people " of Israel it was fit that the Saviour
of all should share, in some sense, the parentage of all.

Of all these possible causes one alone is certain, namely,
that Luke, as being a painstaking historian, must have been
dissatisfied with such a genealogy as Matthew's. The new
one, which he substituted, he may have adopted as being at
all events less unsatisfactory than Matthew's, copying it, just
as it stood, without any intention to suggest that Adam, or
Man (rather than John) was " the beginning " of the Gospel.

Turning from the " beginning " of the Gospel to Luke's
conception of the " end," we find him, in the Acts, apparently
dating it from the day of Ascension : " The first discourse "
he says, meaning the Gospel deals with " all that Jesus
began to do and to teach until the day in which he was
taken-up [to heaven]" " Begin " which, coming in a Preface
written in literary Greek, cannot well be regarded as Hebra-
istically or pleonastically used has been interpreted here
in two ways, as meaning either " from beginning to end,"
or "began initially and rudimentarily so that the Apostles
might complete the work." But in any case the day of
Ascension is regarded as " the end," because nothing can be
done by the Apostles in the way of preaching the gospel
till they receive " power from on high 2 ."

Hence the Gospel does not conclude with the completeness
of a whole drama, but rather as the first of two acts in a

1 Acts xvii. 26. 2 Lk. xxiv. 49.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN LUKE

drama. In the conclusion of Matthew, and also in the Mark-
Appendix, the Apostles are sent forth with the words " Go
ye 1 ." In Luke the command is "Tarry ye 2 ." It is true that
the Gospel ends with a note of joy, " And they were continually
in the temple blessing God." But there is also a subdued
undertone of expectation. They are " blessing God " for a
promise not yet fulfilled a promise of " power " to conquer
in a battle not yet begun.

1 Mt xxviii. 19, Mk xvi. 15. z Lk. xxiv. 49.

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CHAPTER XI

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

I. John arranged his narrative by the Jewish Calendar,
interpreted spiritually

THE Jewish Calendar was most clearly distinguished from
that of the Greeks and the Romans by the continually recurring
six days of work followed by the sacred seventh day of rest.
With such a six days, implied, this Gospel begins 1 . It is the
period in which the little band of the first six 2 disciples is
created a creation of the Church in miniature. We shall
also find that with another six days, not implied but expressed
(" six days before the Passover 3 ") the work of Jesus on earth
is brought to an end.

The Jewish Calendar is also distinguished by its three
great Feasts, the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the
Feast of Tabernacles. Of these, the first besides its primary
purpose to commemorate the historical Deliverance from
Egypt was connected with the agricultural year in this
respect, that, on the morrow after the sabbath in that Feast,
the sheaf of the firstfruits of the harvest was to be " waved "
before the Lord*. The second Feast, the Feast of Weeks
beginning on the fiftieth day from that " waving 6 ," and hence
called, in Greek, Pentecost, i.e. Fiftieth [Day] celebrated

1 See Johannine Grammar 2624, and comp. Westcott (on Jn xii. i)
" The Gospel begins and closes with a sacred week."

2 For "six" disciples, not mentioned but implied, see the comment in
Son of Man 3374 c on Jn i. 4041.

3 Jn xii. i. 4 Lev. xxiii. n. 5 Lev. xxiii. 15 16.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

the conclusion of the wheat harvest, which was long after
the beginning of the barley harvest. The third and last of
the great Feasts, that of Tabernacles, commemorating the
" tabernacling " of Israel in the desert, coincided with the
time of the ingathering of fruits and the vintage. In addition
to these scriptural Feasts, there was that of the Dedication
of the Temple, called by the Jews " Lights," and established
to commemorate the cleansing and repairing of the Temple
by Judas Maccabaeus 1 .

Not one of these four Feasts is mentioned by the Synoptists
except the Passover. That is mentioned twice by Luke, once
when Jesus went up to it as a boy of twelve, once when He
went up to die on the Cross. But Mark and Matthew mention
it only on the latter occasion. From the Synoptic Gospels,
taken alone, we should infer, either that Christ's public life
did not cover more than an exact year, or else that, if it
included two or more Passovers, Jesus attended none of them
but the last. John, on the other hand, mentions all the four
Feasts above mentioned except the Feast of Weeks.

Unfortunately, some doubts about textual readings, and
also doubts about transpositions of long passages, make it
difficult to say, as to some Johannine mentions of " feasts,"
what Feast is meant. Still the fact remains that he expressly
mentions the three that suggest spring, autumn, and winter 2 ,

1 i Mace. iv. 59. See Light on the Gospel 3999 (iii) 7.

2 Jn x. 22 3 "And it was the feast of dedication at Jerusalem. It
was winter. And Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon's porch."
Why does John add " it was winter"! Partly, perhaps, because some
readers might not know the time of this Feast, since it is not mentioned
in scripture ; but partly, too, for a reason similar to that which made him
write about Judas (Jn xiii. 30) " He, then, having received the sop, went
out straightway : and it was night" The language may be, as it were,
sympathetic with the subject. The Gospel has recently introduced (Jn
viii. 1 2) the subject of the revelation of Christ as the Light of the world,
and the Evangelist may wish to suggest to his readers that the Light is
fast sinking towards the horizon at least, for those unbelieving Jews who
regard Him as a blasphemer.

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giving them their Jewish names. Also, in describing the
Feeding of the Five Thousand, John, alone of the Evangelists,
speaks of the loaves as being of " barley," and he previously
describes Jesus as saying to the disciples, " Say ye not, Yet
four months and the harvest cometh 1 ?"

The precise significance of the " barley " and the " four
months" cannot be discussed here 2 ; but they combine with
many other expressions to shew that John regarded his
Gospel as the history of a growth, a spiritual genesis, comprised
in a revolving spiritual year. This is not a physical year of
twelve solar months, but what Philo calls an "age" or aeon,
in which there is a harrowing, and a sowing, and a watering,
and a gathering in. Not that this is the one and only line
of thought running right through the Gospel. There is also,
as we shall see, intermixed with the thought of the annual
cycle of the seed the " grain of wheat," which, " if it die,
beareth much fruit 3 " the thought of the birth of Man, the
ideal Man, Man shaped in the image of God, not without
some mention of the " sorrow " that must needs be, till this
" Man " is " born into the world 4 ."

Further remarks on details in these aspects of Johannine
arrangement must be deferred till they come before us in
the regular course of our study of the Fourfold Gospel.
Meantime we must note that John makes not the slightest
attempt to rescue us from the chronological quagmire in

1 Jn vi. 9, iv. 35.

2 See Son of Man 3420, and Johannine Grammar 2230 (ii) foil.

3 Jn xii. 24.

4 Jn xvi. 21 "The woman, when she is bringing forth, hath sorrow."
This corresponds to Mk xiii. 8, Mt. xxiv. 8 " These things are the beginning
of travail-pangs? which the parallel Luke omits. In Gal. iv. 19, there is
perhaps a confusion of metaphor, under the influence of passionate sorrow,
in which the apostle says " My little children, of whom I am again in
travail until Christ be formed in you." The Socratic word fiaitvriKos
would not have adequately described the complex relation between the
apostle and his "little children."

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which Luke has left his record of Christ's life. Not a single
date is given that refers to Emperor, King, Tetrarch, or
Governor.

Why is this? Isaiah gives the date of his vision of
Jehovah ; the book of Ezekiel opens with a precise date ;
Luke had given a precedent for a Gospel with dates though
dates not so uniformly arranged as to be satisfactory 1 ; why
did not John follow Luke's precedent, but to better purpose ?
Was it because he would not date the coming of the Messiah
by the years of a Caiaphas, or a Pilate, or any ruler of this
world? Or was it because he desired to avoid, as far as
possible, flagrant contradiction of the Synoptists, whom he
believed to be wrong in saying or at least in giving the
impression that they meant to say " On such and such a
day John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod Antipas, and
on that day, or a few days afterwards, the Messiah began to
preach the gospel of salvation " ? The first of these questions
we cannot confidently answer, though we may feel that "the
fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar" would seem strangely
out of its element in Johannine atmosphere. But we can
safely say that the second of these considerations the desire
to avoid open and direct contradictions of previous Evangelists
is apparent in many parts of the Fourth Gospel.

Even if John shrinks from secular dates, we might still
expect that he would have given us some information about
the age of Jesus when He began to preach. But the only hint
on this subject is contained in the saying of the Jews " Thou
art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham*?"
Possibly this merely refers to the age at which Levites were
relieved from laborious service. Yet so early a writer as
Irenaeus not only takes it as meaning that Jesus approached
the age of fifty, but also appeals, in favour of this interpretation,

1 Is. vi. i " In the year that king Uzziah died," Ezek. i. 2 " the fifth
year of king Jehoiachin's captivity," Lk. i. 5, ii. i, iii. i 2.

Jn viii. 57 on which see Notes on N.T. Criticism 2989-90.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

to " the elders that were conversant in Asia with John the
disciple of the Lord 1 ." This startling statement has been
(I believe) the sole early result of what Irenaeus regards as
a Johannine contribution to Gospel chronology.

These facts may not suffice to shew that John did not
know the exact details of the chronology of the life of Christ.
But they shew at all events that he made no attempt whatever
to impart such knowledge to his readers ; whereas he seems
to have taken considerable pains to shew them how Christ's
movements were influenced by the course of the Feasts, and
how His doctrines and revelations might mystically correspond
to a course, or cycle, of spiritual seasons. According to
Irenaeus, those who maintained that Christ preached for no
more than one year, alleged the words of Isaiah : " to
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord... 2 ." Luke places
these words at the close of a passage of Isaiah read by
Jesus in the Lord's first public appearance that he describes
in detail. Having regard to other instances where John
appears to substitute, for some tradition peculiar to Luke,
another, externally similar but different in essence, we may
fairly keep before our minds the probability that, in this case
also, John had in view the Lucan chronology, and Luke's
method of dating, and the inferences derived by many from
" the acceptable year of the Lord " mentioned in his Gospel.

Luke's tradition if it was his about the literal inter-
pretation of "the acceptable year" was one around which

1 Iren. ii. 22. 5 6. Chrysostom (on Jn viii. 57) reads "forty" for
" fifty," both in text and in comment. Early mystics, who agreed with
Irenaeus, might perhaps say that the age of Jesus was about (Jn ii. 20)
" forty-six years," the alleged duration of the period of building " the
temple," which was "his body" (see Johannine Grammar 2021 4).

2 Iren. ii. 22. i "They endeavour to establish this out of the prophet,
for it is written (Is. Ixi. 2) ' To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and
the day of retribution ' being truly blind, inasmuch as they affirm they
have found out the mysteries of Bythus, yet they do not understand..."
No evangelist quotes Is. Ixi. 2 except Luke (iv. 19), who stops at "the
Lord."

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

Gnostic errors were soon to cluster. Not improbably, the
germs of these errors were already shooting when the Fourth
Gospel was published published perhaps, for the purpose
(among other purposes) of guarding against such errors.
John at all events would have agreed with what Irenaeus
says about Isaiah, " The prophet speaks neither of a day that
includes the space of twelve hours, nor of a year of which the
length is twelve months 1 ." That is the Johannine view.
On the only occasions when John uses the word "year" in
the singular, he speaks of Caiaphas as being " High Priest for
that year'.' But he does not mean it in the sense in which
the Romans would say " consul for tfiat year" He means,
as Origen repeatedly implies, High Priest in that crisis, tltat
period of judgment for the rulers of the Jews^ when Jesus was
destined to suffer death*.

That points, in brief, to the difference between Lucan and
Johannine dating. Luke dates the coming of " the word of
God " about Jesus from (inter alia) " Annas and Caiaphas 3 ."
John dates Caiaphas from Jesus.

2. " The beginning"

About the Johannine " beginning " we shall have to speak
in detail when we discuss the opening words of the Marcan
Gospel, " [The] beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ"
Here we may note that John deviates from Mark and returns
to the language of Genesis in his opening clause : " In [the]
beginning..." This prepares us for the hexaemeron that

1 Iren. ib.

* Comp. Origen Comm. Joann. xxviii. 15. ^Evutvros, not eros, is
the word here used for year. It does not occur in the Gospels except
in Lk. iv. 19 (Is. bd. 2) " the acceptable year of the Lord," and Jn xi.
49, 51, xviii. 13 (always about "Caiaphas, high priest for that year' 1 }.
In Heb. ix. 7, 25, x. I, 3, it refers to the official acts of the High Priest
" once in the year " or " year by year."

3 Lk. iii. 2 "...in the highpriesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word
of God came...."

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

follows. This also avoids some metaphysical speculations
that might have arisen out of a personification of the Arche',
or Beginning, if he had written, " The beginning was." In
the next place, by saying "In [the] beginning was the Logos,
or Word" he calls up thoughts both of the creative Word
(" by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made "), and
also of the prophetic Word, which every reader of the LXX
would find at the beginning of the books of the prophets
^ the Word of the Lord\haA. came unto Hosea 1 "). In Greek,
too, Word, when expressed by Logos, etymologically implies
orderly arrangement of thoughts, sometimes expressed in
words, but sometimes not.

Thus John satisfies the canon of Dionysius 2 by giving us " a
beginning before which nothing could well come." And if
we reply " No, for God must come before everything, even
before the Logos," he answers, " But there never was a time
when God ' came before the Logos." There never was a time
when it could not be said, ' The Logos was with God.' For
the Logos was in the beginning ^vith God"

After this, in two or three short sentences, John stimulates
us to free ourselves from slavery to conventional metaphor by
giving us two metaphors, both true. In the creative Word,
he says, " there was life." Every living thing owed its life to
the Logos. Yes, but in men the debt was deeper than in
other living things : " The life was the light of men" Was it
not also " the light " of animals ? Have not animals eyes ?
The Evangelist would of course reply " You know I mean the
light of reason and the spirit." We are therefore to think of
the Logos sometimes as spiritual life, sometimes as spiritual
light, while not forgetting that through the Logos there were
also made the material types of these spiritual things.

That is one of the steps by which the Prologue leads us

1 In the LXX the minor prophets come first, and Hosea first of all.

2 See above, p. 83.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

up to a point of view whence we can contemplate the pre-
paration for the Incarnation of the Word. The next step is
to put on one side as insoluble the problem of God's permission
of evil. While always regarding evil as evil, we are to regard
it also as, in some mysterious way, subserving good, and the
evil as a foil to the good. John does not say this. But he
suggests it to us, as it were, through Nature, by reminding us
that the darkness is a foil to the light : " The light shineth in
the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not"

Why " the darkness " ? We can understand " the " in " the
light," for light has been mentioned before. But what is the
meaning of " the darkness," since " darkness " has not been
mentioned before ? The first Biblical instance of " darkness "
and the first of " light " are without the article " Darkness
was upon the face of the deep " and " Let there be light."
Not till afterwards is it said that "God saw the light... zn&
God divided the light from the darkness? But in the very
first instance in the Johannine prologue it appears to be
assumed that " darkness " is one of tJie recognised elements
(like "the air," "the sea," "the earth"). The first Genesis
speaks of it for the first time as " darkness " (not " the dark-
ness") and as existing, not as created. In the second Genesis
it is perhaps to be regarded as " the darkness " because of the
aeons during which it has been striving to " overcome," and
has not " overcome," the light that " shines in it"

But whence, and why, any "darkness"? Does not the
Johannine Epistle imply that it would have been more like
"God" to have given us "light" and "no darkness at all 1 "?
John brings us face to face with this question and then leaves
us to answer it, so far as it can be answered at present, through
his gospel of the Incarnation. In this, he says, in effect : " It
is true that the mind of man cannot conceive that an Almighty
Goodness should permit evil. But I do not call on you to

1 Comp. I Jn i. 5 " God is light , and in him is no darkness at all"

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

conceive at present of God as Almighty, but rather as Light
contending against Darkness, and as the Father sending His
Son, surely not without a divine sacrifice on the Father's part,
to die for ' the light ' in order that it may not be ' overcome ' by
' the darkness.' Put aside therefore anxious questionings about
' the darkness.' It will be found, when it has been utterly
' overcome,' that ' the light has been shining in it '."

3. The Johannine Genealogy

After these brief and pregnant utterances of a positive
nature about what was " in the beginning," the Evangelist
proceeds to negations. In these, he is apparently alluding to
the three Synoptic traditions about "the beginning." Mark
might be interpreted as saying "John the Baptist was the
beginning " ; Matthew's Genealogy as saying " Abraham was
the beginning " ; Luke's Genealogy as saying " Adam the son
of God was the beginning."

Supplementing, or correcting, these three interpretations,
the Fourth Gospel says, in effect, "John was not the Light
but a mere witness to the Light. He was also a mere ' human
being.' He merely ' came into existence! The Logos eternally
'was' No mere human being and therefore neither John,
nor Abraham, nor Adam could have been ' the beginning of
the gospel.' But the Logos was the Light that is continually
coming into the world and illuminating every human being.
And in this Gospel the Logos will soon be heard declaring,
' Before Abraham came into existence I AM.' "

" As to the genealogy of the incarnate Logos " so the
Prologue seems to say "there is no need to trace it here
according to the flesh in particular detail. Enough to say
here that He ' became flesh ' that is, became flesh, not from
this or that parentage, nor for this or that nation, but for all
helpless flesh and blood in every nation and in all time. All

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

were His own, but His own received Him not into their hearts.
Yet to those that received Him, that is, those who believed in
His name, He gave authority to become children of God,
'begotten from God.'"

Human beings to become "begotten from God"! We
are naturally led on to ask " What Being, save God Himself,
could bestow on humanity this divine ' authority ' ? Surely
this Bestower, this Logos, must have been Himself essentially
and uniquely God-begotten" Having led us to frame this
question, and to answer it for ourselves in the term " God-
begotten," the Evangelist now, as it were, sanctions our
answer by his description of the beginning of Genesis on earth
corresponding to the beginning of the Genesis in heaven :
" The Word became flesh, and tabernacled in [the midst of]
us and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from
the Father full of grace and truth."

If this view of the Johannine Prologue is justified we may
say that the Evangelist writes it in a twofold spirit, revealing
new truth and correcting new distortions of old truth. As
the author of a separate Gospel, in which he records his own
vision of the glory of the Only Begotten, he frames the
beginning of his work, as a poet frames the beginning of his
poem, so that it may accord with its sequel and with its close.
But, as being the writer of a Gospel that is in some sense not
separate, but the latest of many, and as one knowing the
difficulties and sympathizing with the distractions that arose
in the Church from a multitude of gospel-writers, he does not
reject all reference or allusion to the doctrines taught by the
most authoritative of his predecessors, where such reference or
allusion rose naturally to his mind in the attempt to express
his own thought with brevity and force in a consistent and
harmonious completeness.

Take, for example, John's introduction of the term " the
Only Begotten from the Father " following the statement
that "as many as received " the Logos "were begotten... from

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

God 1 ." If anyone were to say that John wrote this simply
to meet objections arising out of the Genealogies of Matthew
and of Luke, where Matthew mentions "begotten " and Luke
does not, he would justly be condemned as a pedant. But
let us put the matter in a fairer and fuller way before our
minds, trying to realise the anxious discussions in the Church
about the two Genealogies, and the attacks brought against
them by unbelievers. Against Luke, for example, an argu-
ment, not altogether without force, though relying mainly
on our sense of the ridiculous, might be brought as follows :

" Matthew in his genealogy has a perpetually recurring
' begat ' ; beginning with ' Abraham begat Isaac ' and ending
with 'Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary....' Luke
dexterously avoids inconvenient questions about 'begetting,'
by using the form ' son of ' and turning the genealogy upside
down so as to begin ' the son (as was supposed) of Joseph,
the [son] of Heli &c.' But of course Luke must admit that
'the [son] of means 'begotten by.' That being the case,
it is fair to substitute ' begotten by ' as we ascend in the
genealogy. And now mark the result at the summit :
'begotten by Seth, begotten by Adam, begotten by God'
Adam is supposed to be, not created by God, but begotten
by God\ This is new doctrine indeed."

If such attacks were made and it is hardly possible that
they should not have been made at an early date it is no dis-
paragement to John that he should have borne them in mind,
perhaps for many years, while developing his simple and
spiritual view of the essential genealogy that connected God
and Man. Seeing the truth in this immaterial aspect John
says, in effect, " Luke's text, though bald and liable to mis-
construction, contains a truth. God did purpose from the
beginning to ' beget ' Man. ' Beget,' not ' create,' does express
God's purpose about Man. The creation of the first Adam,

1 Jn i. 13 (R.V. marg.). The sense is spoiled, in this particular context,
by substituting " were born " for " were begotten."

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

after the flesh, was but the type of the begetting of the second
Adam, after the Spirit. It is a paradox, but a truth, that
the Logos is ' the Only Begotten,' and yet that men also,
so far as they receive the Logos, are ' begotten from God.' "

4. The Johannine sequence of events

It is perhaps in the introduction of the doctrine of the
forgiveness of sins that the Synoptic sequence of events seems
most abrupt. There is nothing that explains, and very little
that suggests, by what stages Jesus prepared His disciples,
and much less the outside world, for that critical moment
when He said to the paralysed man, " Thy sins are forgiven
thee." It is true that, in Mark, " belief " has been previously
mentioned in Christ's first precept, " Repent ye and believe
in the gospel? But this, coming at the outset of the Gospel,
might lead some readers to protest, "We are only just
beginning to read what you have written, beginning with
the words ' the gospel of Jesus Christ ' ; and you tell us that
the first precept of Jesus Christ was ' Repent and believe in
tJie gospel! How could they, his hearers, believe in it till they
had heard it ? And how can we, your readers, believe in it
till we have read it ? " Perhaps Matthew and Luke felt this
difficulty. At all events Matthew omits the difficult words,
and Luke substitutes something quite different 1 .

The Fourth Gospel, in its Prologue, goes at once to the
root of the difficulty by shewing this " belief " to be not really
" belief in the words contained in a Gospel" but belief in the
incarnate Word, belief in God's incarnate " only begotten "
Son, " full of grace and truth." " As many as received him "
these and only these could be helped by Him. They
'received" Him by " believing " in His "name 8 ," that is, by

1 Mk i. 15 parall. to Mt. iv. 17 "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand." Luke iv. 1415 gives no precept of any kind.
8 Jn i. 12.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

accepting Him in their heart of hearts as the supreme Word
representing the supreme Mind, the Son representing the
Father. Receiving this leavening belief into their hearts
they found their inmost nature transformed by the Spirit of
Sonship.

After the Prologue comes the testimony of John the
Baptist, culminating in the words " Behold the Lamb of God."
These words are twice repeated. And now the herald
prophet, having delivered this twofold attestation, retires
into the background while the Son comes forward, and the
history of the Church begins. It opens with the introduction
of the first two of those faithful ones, those lovers of righteous-
ness and truth, through whom it was destined that the world
should realise that " the life was the light of men " the first
to " receive " by " believing." These prospective disciples
are described as " following " Jesus. To them He utters His
first words as recorded in this Gospel. And whereas Mark
makes them a warning and a command x , " The season is
fulfilled... Repent ye...," John makes them a question, "What
seek ye ? " Greeks would say that this way of beginning to
teach was more Socratic ; psychologists, that it was more
attractive and educative ; Philo and the Jews, that it had
a precedent in the first Biblical utterance of " What seekest
thou ? " proceeding from Conscience, or from the Angel
Gabriel 2 .

To this question the future converts one of them Andrew,
introduced as " Andrew, Simon Peter's brother 3 " reply with

1 In Mk i. 14 15 "preaching the gospel of God (?) and saying ([<al
Xe'ywi/]) that (OTI) the season is fulfilled and the kingdom of God hath
drawn near. Repent and believe...," the text is doubtful ; but in any case
OTI probably means "that" (not "because").

2 See Son of Man 3380 quoting Gen. xxxvii. 15 "What seekest thou?"
with the comments of Philo and the Targum, who severally describe the
question as proceeding from (i) the Man, Elenchus, i.e. the Convictor or
Reprover, or (2) Gabriel, comp. Jn xvi. 8.

3 This suggests the first thought, "Andrew, known best as the brother

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

another question, " Rabbi, where abidest thou ? " and receive
the promise " Come, and ye shall see." That, in itself, is a
teacher's triumph, to induce the learner to ask questions.
And the nature of the question should be noted. They do
not say " Master, what shall we do to inherit eternal life ? "
or " What shall we do to be saved 1 ? " They are drawn
toward Jesus as steel to the magnet. A Jew might also say
that, if turning to God's prophet means turning to God, then
these two converts are, in the Jewish sense, " repenting." For
repentance is denoted, always in thought, and often in
language, by such " turning " or " returning."

But, for the purpose of illustrating the present context,
the attraction of the magnet is a more suitable metaphor,
because the two converts are themselves magnetized and
receive a portion of their Master's magnetic power to draw
souls. Both of the converts it is not said that either is
converted, but conversion is assumed draw their brothers
severally to Jesus 2 . How much is here left to the imagination !
Of all that Jesus said during this momentous sowing of the
seed nothing is recorded except " What seek ye ? ", " Come,
and ye shall see," and " Thou art Simon, son of John, thou
shalt be called Cephas 3 ."

The author of the Fourth Gospel habitually represents
Jesus, and all the numerous characters that he introduces
to us, as speaking in one style, and that the Evangelist's own,
quite different from the language attributed to Jesus by the
three Synoptists in passages where they all agree. We
cannot therefore be sure that any of these brief sayings are
exactly historical. The writer may have been influenced by

of the much more famous Simon Peter," and then the second thought,
"Yes, but after all, he was before Peter in coming to Jesus, and he brought
Peter to Jesus. We should not have guessed this from Mark, Matthew,
and Luke."

1 Comp. Mk x. 17, Acts ii. 37, xvi. 30.

- See Son of Man 3626 a. 3 j n i 42

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

a desire to neutralise a tendency to magnify the position of
Simon Peter as "first'" of the Twelve 1 . And a desire to
magnify Christ's insight and foreknowledge, and to shew
that He "knew what was in man 2 ," may have also led him
to antedate the saying about Peter's name.

Nevertheless many will feel that on spiritual lines this
narrative leads us to the essence of historical truth. Historic-
ally, we may say that it is more likely that Peter was con-
verted by Christ's personal influence than by a miraculous
draught of fishes narrated by Luke, and by no other Evan-
gelist. Many things recorded by Mark in a cold abridgment
were probably, in their original shape, dramatic and often
repeated utterances, susceptible of variations of meaning in
various circumstances and contexts. And spiritually, this
vivid description of converts drawing converts to the source
whence they themselves had received life, after " abiding
with" Jesus, gives us (I think) a view of Jesus more in
accordance with fact than that which describes Him as
calling the fishermen, without any such preparation, and
with a mere " follow me."

5. The Forgiveness of Sins

Now, with the view of illustrating, by contrast, the Johan-
nine method, let us touch on the first Synoptic account of
a forgiveness of sins. When Jesus says to the paralysed man,
" Thy sins are forgiven thee," if we ask, " Why did Jesus
select this man as the first to be forgiven ? " the Synoptists
all reply, in effect, " He saw their faith*" No doubt, this is

1 Mt. x. 2 "First, Simon...." "First" is omitted in the parall. Mk iii. 16,
Lk. vi. 14. Jn i. 41 "He (i.e. Andrew) findeth first... Simon" suggests that
" Simon " might have been originally connected with " first," without any
notion of primacy. And it expressly asserts that Andrew, rather than
Peter, was "first " in priority of calling.

2 Jn ii. 25.

3 Mk ii. 5, Mt. ix. 2, Lk v. 20. On this see Son of Man 315868. The
abruptness and anacoluthon of the words in Mk ii. 10 and parall. which

144

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

a true explanation, if "faith " is rightly interpreted. But of
what kind was this "faith " ? Was it a faith in Jesus as
being merely a man of such a nature or maybe a prophet
of such a nature that He could heal " anyone whom He
liked " to heal, if only one could induce Him to " like " to
do it? If it had been nothing more than this, and if this
paralysed sufferer had been a rich rascal, who had paid four
other men all sharing the same " faith," a very strong faith,
of its kind to get the start, so to speak, of the other wretched
sufferers that could not force their way through the door, by
taking off the roof and letting him down through the opening,
can we suppose for a moment that Jesus would have said to
him " Thy rascalities are forgiven thee " ?

No, we may be quite sure that the faith, both of this
paralysed man and of his bearers, was of a higher kind than
this. We do not know the special circumstances of the case ;
but John leads us to the conclusion that in every such case
special circumstances must have existed, and that Jesus, on
this occasion, whether He knew them or not, knew the man's
heart, and knew that here was a case for His healing inter-
vention. Luke has taught us the same lesson in his story
peculiar to his Gospel of Christ's forgiving the sins of a
woman who " was a sinner." The reason there given is not
mere repentance, though there was repentance, but "she
loved much 1 ."

These facts help to explain why John never uses the noun
"faith " a chameleon word that takes its colour from its
atmosphere. Yet he lays stress all the more on " kaving-faith"
or " believing" provided that one believes in the right way
and in the right object fixing one's eyes on the Suffering

have caused some to doubt their historical character appear to me life-
like and reminiscent of fact. And the disagreements of the Synoptists as
to circumstance enhance the force of their evidence as to that about which
they all agree, namely, that Jesus did pronounce a forgiveness of sins.
1 Lk. vii. 47.

A. 145 10

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

Physician, the Living Antidote of Sin, so strangely typified by
the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness ; on " Him whom they
pierced" on the Cross ; on the sacrificed Son, as one with the
sacrificing Father 1 . Among John's views of forgiveness, one
is that it is a "giving forth," from the Father through the
Son, of spiritual health to the spiritually diseased ; and it is
also sometimes suggested that the Son, while He " gives forth "
this divine righteousness, also takes away the human sin
taking it as it were on Himself, as Jesus took on Himself
the defilements of His disciples on His last night with them,
when He " began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe
them with the towel wherewith he was girded," thus signifying
how He " loved them to the end 2 ."

6. Attraction and recoil, Peter and Judas

It is this doctrine of Messianic forgiving by Messianic
self-imparting, that, according to John, alienated many of
Christ's disciples as well as the multitude. The alienation
follows the Feeding of the Five Thousand and indeed is a
consequence of it, though not the first consequence. The
first consequence was a quite opposite one : " They said, This
is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world " ; and
they " were about to come and take him by force, to make
him king 3 ." But when Jesus developed His doctrine He
found Himself deserted by so many of His disciples that He
said to the Twelve " Can it be that ye too desire to go away?"
Then followed Peter's confession, " Lord, to whom shall we

1 This thought of the Son as being " delivered over," or " given," by
the Father, to suffer for men, is lost in our rendering of the Synoptic
passages where the English uses "betrayed? that is, "betrayed by Judas."
The Greek is " delivered over " That may mean "delivered over by God"
i.e. to die for mankind. See pp. 1 51 2, and Paradosis 1150 foil, andpassim.

2 Jn xiii. I foil. On the " wiping," and its spiritual significance, see
Origen adloc. (Lomm. ii. 401).

3 Jn vi. 1415-

146

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

go ? Thou hast words of eternal life. And we have believed
and know that thou art the Holy One of God 1 ."

The corresponding confession of Peter in the Synoptists
is placed by Luke immediately after the Feeding of the Five
Thousand 2 , and by Mark and Matthew not long after the
Feeding of the Four Thousand 3 . In all the Gospels, the
circumstances appear to show that the confession took place
in a crisis, when Jesus was unpopular and almost deserted.
But the Synoptists give us no hint as to the cause of the
unpopularity. The Fourth Gospel gives more than a hint.
It records first the murmuring of " the Jews," and then that
of "his disciples." They themselves say about His doctrine,
" This is a hard saying ; who can hear it 1 ? " This is
historically probable, and it throws light upon the Institution
of the Lord's Supper. John omits the Institution probably
as being recorded by all three Synoptists, and as being acted
on in all Christian Churches with such a degree of uniformity
that it was not well to introduce a fourth tradition but he
alone inserts the doctrine that seems to have prepared the
way for it.

The Johannine form also of Peter's confession should be
noted as pointing to the secret of Christ's influence and to
the recognition of that secret in the Fourth Gospel. The
confession in the Synoptists is, at its fullest, " Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God 5 ." But in John it is less
conventional : " We entirely believe and entirely know that
thou art the Holy One of God 6 ." And this is preceded by

1 Jn vi. 68. 2 Lk . i x . I7 _!8 foil.

3 Mk viii. 9, 27 9, Mt xv. 39, xvi. 13 16.

4 Jn vi. 41, 60.

5 Mt. xvi. 16. Lk. ix. 20 omits " the Son " and " living," Mk viii. 29
omits "the Son. ..God."

6 Jn vi. 69 ir(irurre\)K.aiJi(v K.a\ eyv<aicap.ev. The R.V. " we have
believed " would naturally mean " we have believed up to this time, or,
at times, but we do not now believe." The Greek perfect here denotes
completeness.

147 10 2

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

" Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast words of eternal
life." These preceding words indicate the source of the
confession. The Spirit of Jesus had already to some extent
passed into Simon the son of John, preparing to convert him
into Cephas, or Peter, a rock of faith. Jesus had already so
far made Himself King in the apostle's heart as to make
Himself necessary, deposing 1 , so to speak, even for the future,
all other powers that might claim to rule there.

The more one reflects on these facts, the more improbable
will it appear (I think) that at this crisis, or near this crisis,
Jesus should have said to Peter " Go behind me, Satan," as
Mark and Matthew say. It will be shewn, in its order, that
the narratives of Mark and Matthew shew possibilities of
misunderstanding. They point to an original that mentioned
" Peter " and " Satan " but not as they understood it. And it
is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of the fact
that the parallel Luke agreeing closely, for the rest, with
Mark and Matthew omits the rebuke to Peter*. It would be
most discreditable to Luke's knowledge, if he was ignorant of
this tradition ; or to his honesty, if he knew of it,, and knew
it to be true, and yet suppressed it. But it is not discreditable
to him if he omitted it, knowing that there was some mis-
understanding, but not knowing exactly what the misunder-
standing was.

This is a clear case for Johannine intervention. And
it will be shewn, I think, that there are good grounds for
believing that John not only intervenes, but also indicates
what he considers to be the truth at the bottom of the error.
There were actually sayings of Jesus at this time, about "going"
and "behind" (or "back") and "Satan" (or "devil"). Also,

1 Comp. Richard 77, v. i. 28 " Hath Bolingbroke depos'd thine in-
tellect? hath he been in thy heart?"

2 Lk. ix. 22 3 closely follows Mk viii. 31, 34, Mt. xvi. 21, 24, but has
no parallel to Mk viii. 32 3 and Mt. xvi. 22 3, which contain the rebuke
of Peter as " Satan."

148

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

one of these sayings was addressed to "Simon Peter" But
the " devil" -was not " Simon Peter" but "Judas the son of
Simon Iscariot 1 "

Antecedently there is much to be said for this interpreta-
tion. It is easily credible that a disciple of worldly ambition,
who followed Jesus for what he hoped to get, saw his hopes
collapse, one by one, when, in the first place, Jesus withdrew
from the multitude that would have made Him king, and
then rebuked them for seeking " loaves and fishes," and finally-
explained away His Messianic promises into what seems even
now to some modern Christians, and with much more reason
must have seemed to Christ's disciples then, " a hard saying 1 ."
When many of His disciples " went back" and when the Lord
said to the Twelve " Do ye also desire to go ?" Judas did not
indeed "go" at that time; but he was at work among the
Twelve so John appears to suggest as the Adversary or
Satan, urging them to constrain the Master, for the Master's
good, to become " king " ; and Jesus detected his attempts to
lead the Twelve in this direction. It was for this reason that,
in reply to Simon Peter's confession " Thou art the Holy One
of God," He said, " Was it not I that chose [all of] you, the
Twelve, and one of you is a devil*? "

Reading between the lines of what follows, and reading
in the light of the Mark-Matthew tradition, we ought to be
able to keep our minds open to a demonstration that the
Evangelist is really explaining that there was no reference at
all to Simon Peter. It was Judas the son of Simon : " But he
was speaking of Judas [the son] of Simon-Iscariot ; for he [*>.
Judas, not Simon] was destined to deliver him up, being [also]
one of the Twelve."

1 Jn vi. 71. John, alone of the Evangelists, says (thrice) that Judas
(Iscariot) was "son of Simon." "The son of Simon," meaning "Judas,"
might in some circumstances particularly in Greek, "son" being omitted
be confused with " Simon."

2 Jn vi. 60. 3 Jn vi. 70.

149

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

If Jesus said to Peter, as the faithful representative of the
Twelve, in contrast with Judas the incipient traitor, " Goest
thou behind Satan ? " that is, " Wouldst thou too follow
Judas?" the alteration of a single letter would convert the
pathetic but obscure question into a bitter, but perfectly
clear, rebuke " Go back, Satan \ " Such a rebuke Mark has
recorded, and Matthew has followed him, though faintly
attempting to dull the sharp point of the rebuke by adding
an explanation, " Thou art my stumbling-block." But Luke's
omission, and John's explanation, should go far to convince
us that there is some misunderstanding, and that Peter, with
all his faults, never received the name of " Satan " from the
lips of his Master 1 .

7. Johris omission of exorcisms and of most of
the predictions about " betrayal"

No one can reasonably doubt that Mark, followed by
Luke, is right in declaring that Jesus came at first before
the multitudes in the character of an exorcizing as well as
healing Prophet, one to whom the devils cried out " We
know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God 2 ." John's
omission of Christ's acts of exorcism can be explained from
a feeling that they were but superficial manifestations of His
power and that enough had been said about them. He tells
us himself that when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the first
Passover, " many believed on his name, beholding his signs "
presumably acts of healing and that Nicodemus inferred

1 On this passage, and on the Biblical use of OTTIO-W, and virdyetv, and
corresponding Hebrew words, see Son of Man 3528 b, From Letter to
Spirit 891 b. It should have been added in the former that " Go, Satan*
is inserted by Matthew, but omitted by Luke, in that one of the three
temptations (relating to " the kingdoms of the earth ") which is most
closely connected with the Johannine tradition that the multitude sought
to " snatch " Jesus away " that they might make him a king"

2 Comp. Mk i. 24, Lk. iv. 34.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

from them that He was " a teacher come from God." But
he adds that Jesus did not " trust himself " to those who thus
"believed," and that He rebuked Nicodemus for what was,
in effect, incapacity to grasp the nature of the conditions for
entering into the kingdom of God 1 .

Yet these and other Johannine disparagements of belief
based on " signs " must not lead us to suppose that John
regards Mark as historically wrong. John himself says that
Jesus, before the first visit to the Passover, " went down to
Capernaum... and abode there not many days 2 ." Now the
Synoptists all say, or assume, that Capernaum was the
principal scene of Christ's " mighty works." We may there-
fore suppose that the first outburst of popular amazement
at Christ's " mighty works at Capernaum " took place during
that early visit, and that John, so to speak, clears away these
rudimentary manifestations of power, in a brief mention of
a brief stay in that city, before he brings Jesus up to Jerusalem.
It is not in Capernaum but in Jerusalem, and in the Temple,
that the great battle begins. According to Mark and Luke,
the battle began in a synagogue, between Jesus the Exorcist
and a demoniac, or the devils that possessed him 3 . But
according to John, it began in the Temple. And Jesus,
the representative of the true Temple, is seen contending
against the ruler of this world ; who sets up his throne in the
House of the Lord, among them that " sold oxen and sheep
and doves," making the Father's House " a house of mer-
chandise."

As regards the predictions of" betrayal," or (more correctly)
of " being delivered over," it is much more probable that Jesus

1 Jn ii. 23 foil.

2 Jn ii. 12. Comp. Lk. iv. 23 " Whatsoever we have heard done at
Capernaum/' Luke has not yet mentioned any mighty works as " done
at Capernaum." But he assumes that they had been done, and were well
known in Nazareth.

3 Mk i. 23 foil., Lk. iv. 33 foil. Matthew omits this, though closely
agreeing (vii. 29) with Mk i. 22.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

associated them with the prophecy of Hosea about " the third
day " than with any expectation of being " betrayed " by
Judas. Hosea prophesied concerning the spiritual Israel that
although " smitten " it would be restored to life : " On the
third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight."
This prophecy, in a form that identifies Jesus Himself with
the spiritual Israel, the Temple of the Lord, John places in
the forefront of Christ's preaching of the gospel : " Destroy
this temple and in three days I will raise it up." This will
have to be considered with other Johannine passages in which
to be " lifted up," or " glorified," appears to be used where the
Synoptists would have said " killed " or "crucified." Allowance
must be made for Johannine optimism as well as for Synoptic
literalism. When the comparison is finished, our conclusion
will be (I think) that, although the Synoptists are closer to the
letter of Christ's words, they have sometimes misunderstood
it, while John, though departing entirely from the letter, does
not seem to have misunderstood the spirit.

As regards some other important matters, the Johannine
Targum if we may so call it seems closer to Christ's
meaning than is anything that we can find in the Synoptists.
For example, though they all mention a baptism with the
Holy Spirit, they do not explain what it is. They say that
Jesus taught His disciples to become as little children in some
way or ways ; but the way or ways they do not clearly define.
And they nowhere connect this doctrine with baptism. John
does connect the two. He says that Jesus or rather, as he
is careful to add, not Jesus but His disciples continued the
Baptist's practice of baptizing with water. But he introduces
one of the leading Jewish teachers, Nicodemus, in a dialogue
with Jesus by night, in which it is implied that the true
baptism is a process of being " born from above" Reading
this in the light of the Prologue (" begotten from God" " Only
Begotten"} we are led to infer that each disciple of Christ is
to take into himself a sonship like that of Christ.

152

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

Lastly, the Synoptists describe Jesus as unexpectedly and
abruptly giving Himself to His disciples at the Last Supper.
John declares that He was doing this in some sense from the
first, and that it was a fundamental doctrine with Him that,
as the Father gives Himself to and for the Son, so does the
Son give Himself to, and for, the brethren.

8. TJie " self -troubling" of Jesus

In hazarding the remark that it is " more natural " to
suppose this or that about Christ's teaching, as, for example,
about the Eucharistic doctrine mentioned at the end of the
last section, one has to meet the objection that, about a Person
of two natures, human and divine, it is a contradiction in
terms to say "That He should do this is more natural than
that He should do that"

" The Johannine Christ," some may say, " is not, and
cannot be, ' natural ' in any ordinary sense of the word."
And, in support of their view, they may allege the passage
in which Jesus is said to have " troubled himself" at the grave
of Lazarus 1 . Indirectly, this self-troubling of Jesus bears on
the question of Johannine arrangement, so that it may receive
consideration here.

I am unable to deny that there is some truth in this charge
of Johannine non-naturalness. To me the author of the
Fourth Gospel seems here to be attempting the impossible.
In describing Christ as " troubling himself," he is trying to
express something that neither he nor anyone else can express ;
and he fails. But it is still possible that we ought to praise
the failure as being no less helpful, in its way, than Mark's

1 Jn xi. 33 (see R.V. marg.). 'ETdpagev eavrov, in Greek, could mean
nothing but " troubled himself." When John means " was troubled," he
writes (xiii. 21) (rapdxfy. Westcott (on Jn xi. 33) quotes the Vulg.
"turbavit se ipsum" and Augustine's comment "turbatus est Christus
quia voluit," see Johannine Grammar 2614 c.

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

absolute success in describing Christ's exorcism wrought for
the child of the father who cried, " I believe, help thou mine
unbelief."

From one point of view, this doctrine of "self-troubling"
may be in part explained as a Johannine intervention to
prevent a misunderstanding of some words of Jesus in Mark
and Matthew, omitted by Luke, " Exceeding sorrowful is my
soul, unto death 1 ." These words might give the impression
that Jesus was troubled on His own account, and not for
the disciples, not for the world, not for the Darkness striving
to overcome the Light 2 . They might also give rise to
discussions of an unprofitable kind about the " soul " of Jesus 3 .
Perhaps it is for this reason that Luke omits them 4 .

Apart from arguments derived from Luke's omission
of these words, it is easy to see that they might be used
against the Christian faith. This would be all the more
likely toward the end of the first century because of the
prevalence of the Stoic doctrine of the duty of preserving
"freedom from trouble" popularised by Epictetus. The
substance of the Manual of Epictetus was circulated, we may
be sure, long before Arrian published his notes of his master's
lectures ; and it would find readers just in those classes where
Christianity might look for some of its best converts. The
Manual tells us that when we "see anyone weeping for the
death of a child," we are not to be hurried away by our
sympathy into the vain thought that the sufferer is really
" in evil" for (according to Epictetus) nothing external is
really evil to anyone; it is only the man's fancying it to
be evil that makes it evil to him : " Nevertheless, as far as
concerns [sympathetic] talk, do not hesitate to make yourself

1 Mk xiv. 34, Mt. xxvi. 38.

2 See Jerome on Mt. xxvi. 38.

3 See Origen Cels, ii. 9. In De Princip. n. viii. 4, IV. i. 31, Origen
quotes Mt. xxvi. 38 along with Jn xii. 27 " Now is my soul troubled."

4 See From Letter to Spirit 919 foil.

154

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

his partner ; yes, and maybe even to share a sigh [outwardly]
with him. Yet take good care not to sigh within*?

What John, in effect, replies to Epictetus indirectly
through several passages of his Gospel, but especially and
most directly through the story of the Raising of Lazarus
appears to be something of this kind, " Our Master ivhen He
' saw ' tfiose whom He loved ' weeping' for tJie death of one whom
tJiey, and He too, had ' loved*' did not disdain to be ' troubled '
along with them. He, too, ' wept.' He did not confine
Himself to sympathetic ' talk' He ' troubled Himself? That
is, He welcomed trouble and gave it harbourage in His heart,
so that it was veritably ' in Himself' In Himself He felt
a sympathy with the sufferers, and not in a mere external
expression, not in a superficial self that was not His real
self 3 . And by reason of this ' self-troubling] He wrought
His greatest work of healing, restoring to life one who had
been four days dead. Thus the ' love ' and the ' tears ' and the
' trouble] of the Messiah's friends and of the Messiah Himself,
combined to fulfil His promise to the dead man's sister, that
she should ' see the glory of God.' "

9. The Raising of Lazarus, one of three stages
of "glory"

At this point it becomes necessary to say a few words
at once about a subject of which a fuller consideration must
be reserved till we reach the fourfold tradition of the Riding
into Jerusalem. The Johannine account of that triumphant
Entry makes the Raising of Lazarus the central cause, as

1 Epict. Ench. xvi. Comp. Ench. i. where the promise is made, in
effect, " You will never be troubled? and ib. iii. " when he [i.e. your child]
dies you will not be troubled:'

2 The "love" of Jesus for Lazarus or his sisters is mentioned in
Jn xi. 3, 5, 36.

3 Jn xi. 33, on which see Son of Man 3547, or Johannine Vocabulary
1713 f , 1811 a-c.

155

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

it were, of the triumph, thus : " The multitude therefore
that was with him when he called Lazarus out of tJte tomb
and raised him from tlte dead, bare witness. For this cause
also the multitude went and met him, for that they had heard
that he had done this sign 1 ." It was said above that John
very seldom plainly and openly contradicts the Synoptists ;
but this insertion closely approaches a contradiction. For
it is almost as if he said to his predecessors : " You describe
the crowd as welcoming Jesus with cries of ' Hosanna ' or
' king 2 .' And so they did. But you do not tell your readers
for what cause they did it. There is no sequence in your
story. It was a procession of the Prince of Life. You paint
the procession and a Prince, but not the Prince of Life."

Whatever may be the ultimate result of research into that
most difficult of Gospel problems, the story of the Raising
of Lazarus, three conclusions must be admitted by all :
ist, the omission of the act, if the act is historical, by the
Synoptists, implies an astounding ignorance, or an astounding
suppression of fact (a suppression that has never yet been
explained except by hypotheses of a far-fetched and almost
absurd nature) ; 2nd, John's pathetic narrative of it, taken by
itself, makes it extremely difficult and, when combined with
the above-quoted "for this cause" makes it almost impossible
to believe that he recorded it as a mere parable or poem
about Jesus as the Saviour of helpless humanity bound in
the bands of sin 3 ; 3rd, it is almost incredible that such a

1 Jn xii. 1718.

2 Mk xi. 10, Mt. xxi. 9 have "Hosanna," Lk. xix. 38 has "King,"
Jn xii. 13 has both.

3 It is of course quite true that picturesque details are often the mark
of a late form of a tradition of which the early form did not contain such
details. See From Letter to Spirit 1069 (i) foil., and Notes on N.T.
Criticism 2837 foil., 294951 and Preface. One of the most pathetic and
poetic descriptions in Hebrew poetry may be found in the Targumistic
detailed account of Abraham's binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah. But
the Targumist does not invent anything that is fundamental. When he

156

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

researcher as Luke, who (alone of the Synoptists) mentions
Martha and her sister Mary, should have been ignorant of
the fact if it was a fact that their brother was called
Lazarus and had been raised from the dead after lying four
days in the grave.

In an article on Lazarus in the Encyclopaedia Biblica,
published in 1902, I endeavoured to shew how John's narrative
might have been based in part on misunderstandings arising
out of Luke. But that article did not take into account the
following considerations, which, in my judgment, should some-
what modify the conclusion, there arrived at, that the Raising
of Lazarus is a " poem." True, it was explained that " poem "
did not mean " invention." But that explanation did not go
far enough. I should now like to submit to the reader four
facts omitted in that article.

(1) The Riding of Jesus into Jerusalem was really the
termination of a long triumphal procession of disciples,
acclaiming Jesus as the Son of David. It began from
Jericho, where He had healed one or two blind men who had
appealed to Him by that title. Other passages in the Gospels
indicate that this was the title by which Jesus was popularly
hailed as the Healer of those dominated by Satan and
especially of those afflicted with blindness 1 .

(2) During the whole of this procession Mark mentions
the healing of only one blind man. But the parallel Matthew

appears to do so, as in the story of Abraham's being cast into a "furnace"
by Nimrod, it will often be found that the apparent invention is simply a
new interpretation of the old Scripture (e.g. " Ur of the Chaldees " inter-
preted as "furnace of the Chaldees," s. Son of Man 3369 i>, 3501/folL).
The Targumist often illustrates, and sometimes vivifies and illuminates
by his amplifications ; but, as a rule, he does not invent The same
statement applies (I believe) to much Johannine matter that is regarded
by some modern critics as " mere poetry," often meaning " mere fiction."
1 One of the most remarkable is peculiar to Matthew, who says that
when Jesus healed a man " possessed with a devil, blind and dumb," all
the multitudes (xii. 23) "were amazed and said, Is this the son of David ?"

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

mentions two 1 ; and it is antecedently probable that in a
crowd of pilgrims and disciples, raised to a high pitch of
excitement by one or two acts of faith-healing near the gates
of Jericho, many more such acts would follow before the
procession had passed into the gates of the Temple in
Jerusalem.

(3) Accordingly Luke says that as Jesus " was now draw-
ing nigh, [even] at the descent of the mount of Olives, the
whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise
God with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they
were seeing (or, had been seeing) 2 ."

(4) Matthew expressly says that, as soon as Jesus had
purified the Temple, " the blind and the lame came to him in
the temple and he healed them 8 ."

(5) Mark mentions no act of faith-healing except the
one near Jericho. Nor is there any direct or clear reference
to such acts on the part of the crowd. If there is any such
allusion it is perhaps to be found in the words " Blessed is
the kingdom that cometh, [the kingdom] of our father David,"
which may refer to the recent triumph of Jesus, as Son of
David, over the powers of darkness in the healing of
Bartimaeus. Those who shouted in the crowd might under-
stand this, and indeed might assume it as a matter of course.
But very few readers of Mark would understand it.

(6) According to the Rule of Johannine Intervention,
we should expect John if he believed Jesus to have worked

1 Mt. xx. 30. Mt. ix. 27 "two blind men...thou son of David" is a
separate narrative, peculiar to Matthew, but noticeable as containing the
appeal to the " son of David."

2 Lk. xix. 37 fidov would naturally refer to miracles going on, if not
before their eyes, at all events during the course of the procession, so as
to include the healing of the blind near Jericho.

3 Mt. xxi. 14. See Origen (on 2 S. v. 6 8) "though they [i.e. the
blind and the lame on the walls of Jerusalem] hated David's soul, yet
they obtained compassion." But I have not found any links connecting
Mt. xxi. 14 with 2 S. v. 6 in early Christian thought.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

such a sign as the Raising of Lazarus to introduce a mention
of it at this stage and to explain thereby both the excitement
of the people, and also what they meant by their shouts of
" David." John would say, in effect, " ' The kingdom of our
father David ' was the multitude's way of expressing God's
Covenant of Life, as set forth by Isaiah, saying, ' Come unto
me ; hear and your soul sJiall live ; and I will make an ever-
lasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David 1 .'
The multitude believed that God had made this covenant
with Jesus, as the Prince of Life, because they had seen all
His signs. And of all these signs the greatest was that which
He had worked on Lazarus, whom He raised from the
dead."

In any case, no study of the order and arrangement of
the Fourth Gospel can be otherwise than misleading, unless
it frankly recognises that John, whether right or wrong
historically, regards the Raising of Lazarus as one of three
definite stages of glory through pain, by which the Son is to
return on His path of ascension to the bosom of the Father.
The first mention of " glory " (after the Prologue) occurs in
the sign at Cana, the feast of the new wine of the gospel
of life and light. This is accompanied by no suggestion of
trouble or conflict though even here there is a hint of
divergence that may prepare the way for trouble (" woman,
what have I to do with thee?"), and the contrast between
"the good wine" and that which is "worse" seems to
prepare the way for a resistance of the "worse" to
the "good" 2 ." But from the moment when Jesus said,
"Destroy this temple," there begins the process of the
destruction of the old, and the preparation for the erection
of the new. This conflict is at its height when Lazarus is

1 Is. lv. 3, quoted in Acts xiii. 34 "And as concerning that he raised
him from the dead... he hath spoken on this wise, I will give you the holy
and sure [blessings] of David."

J Jn ii. ii "Jesus... manifested his glory," and see Jn ii. 4, 10.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

raised by the Messiah "weeping 1 " and "rebuking 2 in the
spirit." In that moment a triumph is achieved over Death,
and the sisters of Lazarus " see the glory of God." That is
the first stage of "trouble" with its accompanying "glory."

The second stage is when the " Greeks " who may be
called " the wise men from the west " corresponding, in their
attitude, to "the wise men from the east" in Matthew, and
yet how different ! come forward to " see Jesus," while in the
background the Pharisees, with thoughts of murder, are mur-
muring to one another " Behold how ye prevail nothing : lo,
the world is gone after him 3 ." Jesus recognises that the time
has come "that the Son of Man should be glorified" and that
" the grain of wheat " should " die " that it may " bear much
fruit." For the second time " trouble " falls upon Him. " Now
hath my soul been troubled." But He refuses to say to the
Father " Save me from this hour 4 ." He cries, " Father, glorify
thy name," and receives the answer " I have both glorified it
and will glorify it again." Upon this Jesus exclaims " Now is
there judgment of this world. Now shall the ruler of this
world be cast out" This is the second stage of " trouble "
trouble because of the hostility of the rulers of His own
people, who have given themselves over to " the ruler of this
world," trouble at the prospect of death at the hands of His
countrymen ; but " glory " and victory and " fruit " in the
coming of " the Greeks " and in the advent of " judgment."
Thus a second time "glory" comes hand in hand with

1 Jn xi. 35 (8anpv<a). Luke also (xix. 41 nXaia) represents Jesus as
"weeping." But He achieves no victory by it. It is a weeping over
an irrevocable past, over sins that have already resulted in an unalterable
present darkness, behind which lies imminent destruction (Lk. xix. 42)
" If thou hadst known.. .but now they are hid from thine eyes."

2 See Son of Man 3547, and Jotianm'ne Vocabulary 1811 a c.

8 Jn xii. 20 " Now there were certain Greeks. .."is immediately pre-
ceded by the words of the Pharisees "Behold how ye prevail nothing...",
meaning, in effect, " Nothing but death can stop it."

4 Jn xii. 27, on which see Johannine Grammar 2512 b.

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ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

"trouble," and, perhaps, a deeper trouble than before not
self-trouble now, but " trouble " of the " soul " from a cause
that the Saviour feels to be outside Himself.

The third and last stage of trouble and glory is reached
when Jesus is " troubled in tJie spirit V " One of you," He says
to His disciples, " will betray me." To the disciple whom
He loves He reveals the future traitor by a sign, giving the
bread dipped in wine to Judas. Are we to suppose that this
was a last attempt of Jesus acting against His own knowledge
of the fruitlessness of the attempt to reclaim Judas and to
prove Himself a false prophet ? Or was it done merely for
the sake of the Eleven that they might not say afterwards,
with shaken faith, " Our Master was good, but too good, too
trustful ; He did not know what it would have been well
that He should know : He could not discern the false metal
from the true " ? Or was it done from mingled motives by
the Son, looking to the Father, and leaving the matter in
His hands ?

That we shall never know nor even know, for certain,
what the Evangelist intended us precisely to infer. But he
certainly testifies that once more, for the third and last time,
trouble went hand in hand with glory : " When, therefore,
he was gone out, Jesus saith, Now is the Son of Man glorified,
and God is glorified in him. And God shall glorify him in
himself, and straightway shall he glorify him V

As compared with the Mark-Matthew tradition, " My soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," this Johannine
saying may seem superior in its exalted rapture. But is it
not almost too superior, too exalted, too calm, and too cold ?
Coming at the moment when Judas, the lost soul, has " gone
out straightway," is not this threefold emphasis on " being
glorified " a little out of place ? " And it was night," adds
the Evangelist. "Night" indeed ! Is it a time to think of
" being glorified " ?

1 Jn xiii. 21. - Jn xiii. 31 2.

A. 161 ii

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

No, it is not a time to think of " being glorified " in the
ordinary sense of the term. But what if " being glorified "
means here what a man of the world would call " being
crucified " ? Do we feel disposed to complain that Jesus does
not weep over Judas as He wept at the grave of Lazarus ?
If we do, is it not because we have failed to realise that
Jesus has done more for Judas than mere weeping? He has
been " troubled in the spirit? Not now in the " soul" but
in the " spirit" Are we not intended by the Evangelist to
perceive herein the deepest of all the " troubles " of Jesus ?
And does he not also wish us to try to imagine, however
faintly, how profound and piercing must have been that stab
of sin which penetrated that infinite calm of the Lord's inmost
being through the treachery of His " familiar friend " ?

Perhaps also, in reply to our remonstrance as to the in-
congruity of " glory " here, the Evangelist might say " Satan
had just pierced the Lord Jesus with the cruellest of his
arrows, and was it fit that He should weep as one incurably
wounded or utterly defeated ? Could He do more for Judas
than be crucified for him, as also for the whole of the world
of sinners lying under Satan's rule ? Was it not right that
in thus accepting the Cross, in this bitterest of trials, as
coming to Him from the Father, through Satan, and through
Judas who had made himself Satan's servant, He should bless
God for this supreme 'glory' in which sin was made subservient
to salvation ? "

Whatever may be our conclusion as to the degree of
John's spiritual or moral success in this instance, we ought
not to reject the evidence of the three instances, taken
together, of concomitant " trouble " and " glory." These
indicate a definite Johannine intention, namely, to shew
that the kind of " trouble " felt by Jesus, and handed down
by Him to be felt by His disciples, was a better, a nobler,
and a more blessed possession than that untroubled calm
which a cold philosophy might impart to some, if they could

162

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

carry out the Epictetian precept of never " sharing a sigh "
with those whom they loved, except on condition of not
" sighing within"

10. The "end" and the "postscript"

" The end," in a biography of a great man, a doer of great
deeds, may be regarded in two senses. It may denote the
appropriate and artistic termination of the writer's book, the
book being regarded as a work of art ; or it may denote
the record of the last days of the man's life. If the life
contains the elements of a drama, it will end with something
done. What is done may be glorious victory ; or it may
be disastrous defeat ; or it may be, as is the case with most
men, a mixture of much defeat with a little victory. But in
any case a dramatic biography of a great man, a man of
action as well as utterance, not a mere man of letters or
man of words is commonly expected to end in some visible
and splendid result. It may be the building of an empire,
or it may be the conflagration of an empire. Either will
seem an appropriate end. But that a biography should as
it were fizzle out in vapour or smoke, with a correction of
some misunderstanding or misreport of one particular saying
of the great man to one particular friend, or with a complaint
on the part of the biographer that he has attempted a task too
large for his pen this, we should mostly say, is inappropriate.

Judging the Fourth Gospel by this standard, we should
most of us feel constrained to say at first sight, that, whether
regarded as a drama or as a chronological biography, it has
no appropriate "end." Yet we must also admit that this
absence of end, so far from being inartistic, is almost too
artistic. It risks the charge of artificiality in its apparent
artlessness.

But, before going further, we must observe that the book
has two terminations, first, what we should like to call " the

163 ii 2

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

real end," and secondly, what we should like to call " the
postscript." The real end comes at the end of the last
chapter but one, as follows : " Many other signs therefore did
Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which have not been
written in this book ; but these have been written that ye
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that, believing, ye may have life in his name 1 ." This, though
not vividly dramatic, at all events states the object of the
book as a whole, and gives it a kind of unity by carrying our
thoughts back to the "life" and the "believing" and the
" Only begotten " in the Prologue.

There, speaking in his own person, the Evangelist tells
the world that whatsoever was in the Logos " was life " ; and
that " the life was the light of men " ; and that " John came
to bear witness about the light that all men might believe
through it 2 " ; because the light, coming into the world, and
lighting every man, came at last in such a way that "the
Logos became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we
beheld his glory, glory as of the Only begotten from the
Father." So now, turning to his readers and addressing
them in the second person before he leaves them, he speaks
about the " signs " wrought by the incarnate Logos, and more
especially about those wrought by Him " in the presence of
the disciples," and, apparently, after His resurrection. Con-
cerning these he says, in effect, " There were many others
of the same kind. But I have written these alone, in full,
that ye may believe in Him, as being the Life of men, 'not
overcome ' by Death, and as being the Light of men, ' not
overcome' by Darkness. And thus, receiving the Only
begotten of the Father, you will receive that life which exists
in the divine Sonship"

If this had been the end of the Gospel, though it would
not have been so picturesque an end as either Matthew's

1 Jn xx. 30 31. 2 See Johannine Gram mar 2303 4.

164

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

or Luke's, it would have been appropriate to the tone of
the whole work and correspondent with its beginning.

Why, then, is the Evangelist not contented with this ? Why
does he go on to add a postscript as if to say : " In speaking
of the ' many other signs that Jesus did in the presence of
the disciples,' I ought perhaps to have mentioned one, in
which He gave bread and fish to seven of them, by the
shore of the sea of Tiberias. This \being\ now [added, makes]
the third [manifestation in which} Jesus was manifested to the
disciples having been raised from the dead 1 " ?

Before trying to answer this question we ought to ascertain
what precisely is meant by " the third'" Does he mean " the
third in the whole number of the actual appearances " ? If
so, how are we to reconcile it with " He appeared to Cephas ;
then to the twelve ; then he appeared to above five hundred
brethren at once. ..then he appeared to James; then to all
the apostles,... and last of all. ..he appeared unto me 8 "?

Probably John means " third in the list of the appearances
to disciples collectively, not to disciples singly and not to the
women." For this exclusive distinction he prepared us in
the preceding clause, "many other signs... in tJie presence of
the disciples" and now he repeats it in " the third [manifestation
in which] Jesus was manifested to tJie disciples? Looking at
the appearances to " the disciples " as arranged in the Diates-
saron, we find, first, a blending of Luke and John, including
according to Luke, but not according to John the statement
that Jesus "ate before them 3 ." Secondly comes a Johannine

1 Jn xxi. i 14. * I Cor. xv. 5 8.

3 Diatess. liv. i foil., combining Lk. xxiv. 36 foil, with Jn xx. 19 foil. It
will be found that the Diatessaron, in spite of its skill, does not quite
succeed in combining Luke and John. For it begins by saying that (Lk.
xxiv. 33) " the eleven " were " gathered " and that Jesus " came and stood
among them," and yet goes on to say (Jn xx. 24) " But Thomas, one of the
twelve.. .was not there with the disciples when Jesus came." Strictly
speaking, the Harmonist should have said " the eleven with the exception
of Thomas" ; but he prefers to retain the Lucan "eleven? and to shew, by

165

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

(but not Lucan) account of a manifestation to the disciples
including Thomas. Thirdly and we must note that it is
third in the Diatessaron, comes this Johannine account of
a manifestation at the Sea of Tiberias to seven disciples. In
this, He is not said to "eat." But He causes to eat, giving
food " bread " and " fish " to the disciples. Coming thus
third in the Diatessaron the manifestation is perceived to be
one that might naturally be called " third " by John.

It will be observed that in the second manifestation John
does not deny that Jesus "ate." He merely refrains from
inserting it, and passes on to say, " There was a third mani-
festation in which Jesus is not said to have eaten, but is said
to have caused the disciples to eat." There is a great difference
here between Luke and John, in spirit, though no contra-
dictions in letter. In Luke, the " eating " is one of those
external " many proofs 1 " on which he lays stress; but in John
the invitation of the Lord to "breakfast" is of the nature
of a mystery, a spiritual viaticum preparing the disciples to
go forth on the way of the Cross. They feed, not on " five
loaves," and these of "barley," but on the one loaf and
the one fish, i.e. the One Body 2 . The "disciples" include
Nathanael, so that they are not confined to those who are
ordinarily known as the members of the Twelve. In fact,
they are probably identical with the six that were called
at the beginning of the Gospel, before the feast of Cana, with
the addition of Thomas the Doubter.

11. The personal nature of the "postscript "

Is there any other reason, beside this initial call, for the
selection of these six ? Let us look at the list. Peter, the
Denier, comes first ; Thomas, the Doubter, second ; Nathanael

what follows, that " the eleven " is loosely used for " a meeting of the
Apostles?

1 Acts i. 3. 2 See Son of Man 3422 /.

1 66

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

who began by decrying a Messiah that could come from
Nazareth comes third. In these, we may see a reason.
Also, if we adopt the general belief that "two other of his
disciples 1 " means Andrew and Philip, we can perhaps find
a reason for their presence, too. In the rudimentary mystery
of the Feeding of the Five Thousand on the loaves of barley,
Philip said " Two hundred pennyworth would not suffice,"
and Andrew said of the five loaves " What are these among
so many ? " utterances that might be described as, in some
sense, those of " doubters." From a poetic or mystical point
of view, there would be a kind of fitness in their being selected
to take part in a higher mystery that shall bring them to
a closer knowledge of the true Bread.

But there remain " the sons of Zebedee." What are they
recorded to have done (in any of the Four Gospels) that would
secure for them a place in this little band of imperfect souls
friends all the more dear to Jesus perhaps because of their
imperfections, and perhaps to be regarded as all selected for this
privileged meal in order to have their imperfections cleansed
away ? If we can find anything of such a kind recorded by
Mark, but omitted by Luke, John (according to the rule
so far ascertained) is bound to intervene, and here, perhaps,
is a place where we might look for such an intervention.

According to Mark, " the sons of Zebedee " came to Jesus,
saying, " Grant that we may sit, one on thy right hand and
one on thy left hand in thy glory," where Matthew says that
the request was made by their mother, and Luke omits the
whole 2 . Jesus replies, according to Mark, that, although the
two brothers shall drink the cup that He will drink, and be

1 Jn xxi. 2. Comp. Evang. Petr. 14 "But I, Simon Peter, and
Andrew my brother, having taken our nets, departed to the sea, and there
was with us Levi the son of Alpheus, whom the Lord...." Here the MS
breaks off. Some might identify this " Levi " (Son of Man 3375 k) with
Nathanael. Evang. Petr. appears to be on the point of describing a
manifestation of the risen Saviour parallel to the one in Jn xxi. I foil.

2 Mk x. 35, Mt. xx. 20, Lk. om.

167

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

baptized with the baptism with which He will be baptized,
yet to sit by the side of the throne is only "for those for
whom it is prepared." Matthew also has this, but with the
omission of the words about " baptism." Luke omits, of
course, the reply as well as the question.

An obvious reason for Luke's omission is this, that the
words appear to refer to martyrdom, and that, according to
ancient tradition, John the son of Zebedee did not die as
a martyr. Here, then, appears a case where the Johannine
Gospel, if it intervenes, might naturally try to shew that John
the son of Zebedee, martyr or not, was not below the level
of the martyrs. That the subject was discussed in writing
long before Jerome's days appears from his comment on
the passage of Matthew : " If we read the ecclesiastical histories
in which it is said that he too [i.e. John], as well as James,
was cast, for the sake of martyrdom, into a vessel of boiling
oil, and came-forth 1 thence as an athlete to receive the crown
of Christ, and was straightway relegated to the isle of Patmos,
we shall see that his mind fell not short of martyrdom, and
that he drank the cup of confession as also did the Three
Youths in the fiery furnace, although the persecutor did not
shed their blood 2 ." Some distinction was perhaps drawn

1 " Came-forth." Comp. Clem. Alex. p. 595 (quoting Heracleon)
ou yap TruvTfs ot trcofo/iei'ot <op.o\6yT)(ra.v..,Ka\ f^ffkdov. 'E^r/X^of, in such
cases, would generally mean " departed from life." But it might some-
times mean " went forth to receive execution of the sentence pronounced
from the tribunal." Heracleon says that Matthew, Philip, Thomas, and
Levi, belonged to this negative list. Jerome asserts, in effect, that John
did not belong to this list. It is a pity that Jerome does not quote, or
enable us to identify, the "ecclesiastical histories." The history of
Eusebius does not mention the " burning oil." But Tertullian De Prae-
script. Haer. 36 mentions it, while connecting Peter, Paul, and John, as
the three pre-eminent martyrs in Rome. See Notes on N.T. Criticism
2939.

2 Origen (Lomm. iv. 15, 18) on Mt. xx. 22 says that most people refer
both the "cup " and the " baptism" to martyrdom without distinguishing
the shades of meaning, and he quotes Rev. i. 9 to shew that John, as well

1 68

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

between " baptism " and " cup," when applied to martyrs.
"Baptism" implied baptism in one's own blood, poured forth
for Christ in death ; " cup " might imply anguish, but not
death. These facts perhaps explain why Matthew omitted
" baptism " since it did not technically apply to John. They
may also explain why Luke (not being quite sure about the
exact words or their exact meaning) omitted the whole.

Now in the Manifestation to the Seven there is a perfectly
clear allusion to the martyrdom of Peter and a fairly clear
allusion to what we may call the non-martyrdom of John.
After predicting Peter's death 1 , the Lord says to him "Follow
me," that is, as the context shews, " Follow me on the way
to martyrdom on the Cross." Peter obeys the command.
But, " turning round," he sees the beloved disciple also
" following," although the latter had received no command.
Then Peter puts the question, " But Lord, what of him ? "
He receives the answer, " If I will that he abide till I come,
what is that to thee ? Follow thou me." It is added, " There
went forth therefore among the brethren this saying, ' That
disciple is not to die.' Yet Jesus said not unto him 2 'He is

as James, was a martyr, At8d<rcet 8e TO. irtp\ TOV paprvpiov eavrou 'icodwrjs...
(frda-KW (Rev. i. 9) " 'E-yo) 'la>dvvT]s..,oia TOV \6yov TOV 0ov" nal ra e^r, just
stopping short of the words KOI (810) TTJV paprvpiav 'irjo-ov. This passage,
and that from Jerome, should be added to those collected in Notes on
N.T. Criticism 293541, on "The Modern Hypothesis of the Early
Death of John the son of Zebedee."

1 Jn xxi. 18 19.

2 Jn xxi. 23 " Unto him," i.e. unto Peter. But why is " unto him " added ?
Is it intended to emphasize the fact that the words were part of a revela-
tion to Peter, and to him alone, and imparted by him to the beloved
disciple ? D has " There went-forth this saying to the brethren and they
supposed (f8ot-av) that that disciple was not to die (OVK diro6vf]a-Kfi) ;
and [yet] Jesus said not precisely-that (ouro) (d, illud) 'Thou art not to
die (OIK diroffvfja-Ktis'),' but...." SS is rendered by Prof. Burkitt "But
Jesus not for that he was not to die said he [it], but...." Codex a,
Chrysostom, and Xonnus, omit "unto him." Codex e has "Thou shalt
not die."

169 II 5

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

not to die,' but 'If I will &c....' This is the disciple that
beareth-witness of these things... and we know that his witness
is true."

12 Peter "following" and the Beloved Disciple "tarrying"

We shall not understand the full force of this contrast
between Peter and John unless we remember that the same
Greek word means both " martyr " and " bearer-of-witness."
Jesus says, in effect, to Peter, " Follow me to the Cross and
be my witness (or martyr) there," and, concerning John, " It
may be he shall abide till I come and be my witness (or,
martyr) here," meaning " Whether following, or abiding, both
are my martyrs" Origen, quoting the words of John about
Patmos, " I, John, your brother and partaker with you in the
tribulation and kingdom and hopeful-endurance in Jesus, was
in the island called Patmos for the sake of the word of God"
stops short there (with " and so on "), omitting the following
words " and for the sake of the bearing-witness \imarturia\ of
Christ" But he adds that in these words John " informs us
about his own bearing-witness (marttirion), not saying who
condemned him" This clause " not saying who condemned
him " clearly assumes that the marturid here implied
marturion, and that the deportation to Patmos was the
punishment of one who was, in effect, a " martyr 1 ."

We have therefore to put ourselves (as the author of the
Fourth Gospel does) in the position of John the son of
Zebedee, regarded as a would-be and indeed an actual
" martyr " in the strict sense of the term, but not (so to speak)
a " blood-martyr." He is a drinker of the " cup," but not
a partaker of the " baptism " of his Master. We have also

1 Steph. Thes. mentions, as a meaning of paprvpiov, " place of martyr-
dom," but not "death-by-martyrdom." But Lightfoot on Clem. Rom. Cor.
5 quotes Euseb. Mart. Pal. 1 1 rrpb rov paprvpiov Sta Kavrripav v-rrofiovfjs
TOP TTJS 6/xoXoyt'af SiadXfivas ay&va, and Origen (Comni. Matth. xvi. 6) uses
it thus several times.

170

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

to remember that this same John had been one of three to
whom it had been said, in effect (according to Matthew),
" Ye shall not taste death till ye see me come in my kingdom " ;
but Mark spoke of the " coming " of " the kingdom of God " ;
Luke omitted " coming 1 ."

What did it all mean ? And what did it mean for John
in particular ? Was it all fulfilled for him when he and
James, with Peter, went up with the Master to the Mount
of Transfiguration ? On that day, not only Peter but also
he and his brother James, had been privileged to hear the
Voice from the overshadowing cloud. The Voice from
heaven would naturally be connected with the thought of
thunder ; and he and his brother had been specially called
by their Master, Boanerges, that is, " Sons of Thunder 2 ." Not,
of course, that they were to thunder, as if aping God, with
mimic thunder of human contrivance 3 . Rather, as Origen
says, they were to send forth to men the utterances of the
divine thunder, being indeed, not thunders, but Sons of
Thunder, " begotten from the mightyvoicedness of God, who
thunders and shouts mightily from heaven to those who have
ears and are wise 4 ." Since that day, his brother James had
"tasted death," the first of the apostles to bear witness as
a martyr. Then Peter had done the same. Why had not
he, too, the lingering survivor of the three, been allowed to

1 Mk ix. i, ML xvi. 28, Lk. ix. 27.

2 On " thunder" and " voice" see From Letter to Spirit 7279 &c.

3 Comp. Virgil Aeneid vi. 585 foil., on the thunders of Salmoneus.

4 Origen Comtn. Matth. xii. 32. On " Boanerges :I see Son of Man
3468 a <$, and note that Mark (iii. 17) John (xii. 29) and Revelation
(iv. 5, vi. I &c.) are the only N.T. books that mention "thunder." In
Jn xii. 29, "the multitude" gives the name of "thunder" to that which
John records as an articulate " voice from heaven/' Rev. x. 4 " seal up
the utterances of the seven thunders " must not be taken to represent the
general characteristic of " the sons of thunder." Their general task
would be as Origen says, not to "seal up, :3 but to "have ears, and be
wise/' and to transmit the heaven-sent revelation, as far as possible, to
others.

171

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

bear witness in the same way, the blessed and honourable
way of the Cross, and to " taste death " for his Master ?

To this question the Evangelist, writing in the name of
the beloved disciple, offers no reply derived directly from that
disciple. But, as we have seen above, a mysterious answer
came indirectly through Peter after the latter had received
the command " follow me," and had " turned round," or
"returned 1 ," and had seen "the disciple whom Jesus loved,
following." The Lord had said to Peter concerning that
disciple " If I will that he abide till I come, what is that to
thee?" There was an "if." Nothing was certain. Yet the
saying had " gone forth to the brethren," in a definite form,
that he was " not to die " till the Lord's coming. The disciple
wished to deprecate this. Such a saying like some sayings
in the Epistles and the Acts, might lead the brethren to restless
expectations of the Lord's immediate "coming " in catastrophic
fashion, with fires of wrath and armies of avenging angels,
judging and executing vengeance on the unbelieving world.

13. There is no definite "end"

That was not the kind of " coming " that this Gospel
depicts or suggests. Doubtless, John regarded it as one

1 See Notes on N.T. Criticism 2936 a on Westcott's suggestion of
" some symbolic action," and on firicrrpf^o) (R.V. " turn about") :

" If the narrative refers to a vision, to be taken separately from what
precedes, then 'following' may denote literal symbolic 'following,' seen
by Peter in that vision. After hearing and beginning to obey the call
' Follow me [to the cross] ' Peter ' turns round,' in his vision, and sees the
beloved disciple also 'following' as indeed he did, according to tradition,
to the very brink of death by martyrdom. Then he asks for a revelation
of the future in store for his brother-apostle.

" Compare, however, Lk. xxii. 32. There, eiriorpfyas (preceding (mvpto-oi/
roils aSeX^ovj trov), applied to Peter, might indeed possibly be taken, as
in Lk. i. 16, transitively ; but it is much more probably intransitive, 'having
turned again,' and it suggests that there may have been various versions
of an ambiguous tradition about Peter's ' turning again ' after Christ's
resurrection."

172

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

aspect of the truth. But he writes as if he believed that
more than enough had been written about that aspect. He
seems to be impatient of materialistic details and especially
of any that bordered on the theatrical about the Lord's
coming in a conquering, or royal, or imperial character, pre-
ferring to think of Him as entering into the heart of each
believer, as into a friendly guest-chamber, so that the friend
shall " sup" with Him and He with the friend 1 .

Not even about the Ascension does John write in any
definite way, or suggest a definite time when much less
a place where it came to pass. " Touch me not," says
the risen Saviour to Mary, " for I am not yet ascended to the
Father." That is all, except a repetition implying that the
Ascension is immediately impending : " Go unto my brethren
and say to them I am [on the point of] ascending unto my
Father and your Father." No subsequent mention of
" ascending " is made in the rest of the Gospel. But some
data appear, at first sight, given for inference. For whereas
Jesus says here, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended,"
He says, eight days afterwards, to Thomas, " Put thy hand
into my side." Is not the natural inference this, that since
He could not be touched before by Mary because He had
not ascended, but can be touched now by Thomas, therefore
He is to be regarded as having ascended immediately after
He spoke to Mary- ?

1 Comp. Rev. iii. 20.

2 The earlier Christian Commentators explain that Mary was not
worthy to "touch" Jesus because she did not " worship" Him as did the
other women (ML xxviii. 9), who " took-hold-of ((Kpa-nja-av) his feet.''
Westcott (on Jn xx. 17) says that "the exact form (^ an-rov) implies
further that she was already clinging to Him when He spoke," and that
it implies " the desire to retain." But does not Mt. xxviii. 9 " they took-
hold-of his feet" imply "desire to retain"? Comp. Ignat. Smyrn. 3
" Straightway they grasped (ij^avro} Him and believed."

It seems impossible to arrive at any safe conclusion about John's
purpose except this, that he desires, without contradicting early and

173

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

But to say this, would have brought the Evangelist into
direct contradiction of Luke, and perhaps of other traditions
about the Ascension. Such a contradiction he avoids by not
mentioning the subject again, and by bringing his Gospel
to an end in such a way as to imply that there was no gulf
of separation, scarcely even a line of demarcation, between
the life of the risen Saviour with His disciples when He was
on earth and when He was in heaven. Whether He is on
earth or in heaven, He loves the disciples, and of His love
there is no end.

This thought suggests a contrast between John and
Matthew, whose last words do mention, if not an " end "
exactly, at all events something like it, " I am with you
alway, even unto tfie accomplishment of the aeon 1 " And this
again suggests the question, " What has the Fourth Gospel
to tell us elsewhere since it tells us nothing here about
that end of the world, or consummation of the aeon, which
Matthew speaks of, and which is alleged by some to have
been a prominent subject of discourse with Jesus ? " The
answer may be given in two short statements about the verb,
and the noun, " end." The verb is used twice, but only to
denote what is " ended " on the Cross 2 . The noun is used
only once and that one instance how unsatisfactory to those
who crave eschatological detail " Having loved his own that
were in the world, he loved them unto the end 3 ."

This is the only " end " that John recognises, an end that
is no end but rather a continuation of what always is and
must be the same, the never-ending love of the Father. As

definite traditions concerning the time and place of Ascension, to leave
room for a spiritual and indefinite belief in it.

1 Mt. xxviii. 20 R. V. and A.V. " the end of the world." But R.V.
marg. has " or, the consummation of the age?

2 Jn xix. 28 " knowing that all things are now ended (rfrAforat)," ib.
30 " it is ended (TfTeXtorai)." Comp. Lk. xxii. 37 " that which [is] con-
cerning me hath an end (rAos ex 61 )-"

3 Jn xiii. I R.V. marg. "or, to the uttermost"

174

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

for what seems to be the " end," the temporary departure
of the Lord, it is only, John seems to say, " a little " difference
just as the Saviour Himself spoke of only " a little while "
when He said, " A little while and ye behold me not, and
again a little while and ye shall see me." Whether the
Saviour is on earth or in heaven, He is henceforth in the
heart of each beloved disciple, who can remember no more
the sorrow " for the joy that a man is born into the world."

It is to " bear witness " to this " joy " and to this " birth,"
that the beloved disciple is called. Hence it is that he cannot
be allowed to bear witness with his blood, like Peter following
the Lord gloriously and rapidly to heaven. Slow and less
glorious (as some count glory) is to be his martyrdom,
lingering on that he may bear witness, in the last of the
Gospels, with what is called in the Johannine Epistles mere
" ink and pen 1 ."

And now that his work is finished, what is it after all ?
Nothing but a mere addition to the multitude of " books."
Thus, in a deliberate bathos, " books," this Gospel terminates.
It began in the infinite altitude of the Logos the Word,
through which the world was made. It has tried to describe
that Word Incarnate, living, breathing, heard and handled
by His disciples, the Lord in whose bosom the beloved
disciple had once lain. It ends, as it were, in no end, letting
the witnessing pen drop from the writer's hand as he finishes
his book and reflects on its inadequacy. His friends come
round him, encouraging him with an attestation of its truth.
" We know that his witness is true." " Yes, true as far as
it goes," he seems to reply, " but how far does it go ? What
avails a universe of 'books' in comparison with the Spirit

1 It is interesting to note that the only books in the Bible that use the
phrases "ink and pen" or "paper and ink :; are Johannine Epistles
(2 Jn 12, 3 Jn 13) and in both the thought is "I am unwilling to use
these things unless I am obliged. How much better is it to speak 'face
to face'!"

175

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

of the Word ? If all the true things about the Word could
be written down in ' books,' book after book, they would go
on being written till ( the world itself would not hold them.' "

But whom do we mean by " the writer " from whose hands
we speak of the " pen " as " dropping " ? If he is not the aged
Apostle, but only the Apostle's representative or interpreter,
is not this expression quite out of place ?

Not quite, if we may suppose some special circumstances,
which appear to accord with the special character of the text.
It would be natural and necessary that, during the last years
of the preaching of the Johannine gospel by the Johannine
interpreter, there would be rarer and rarer interchanges of
vigorous and continuous thought between the old man and
his disciple. Among such interchanges, a saying like the
one we are considering reiterated perhaps even to monotony
toward the conclusion of the Apostle's life might naturally
be treasured up by his interpreter and appended, after his
death, to the work published in his name. For indeed the
words sound like a reflection that might be repeated over and
over again by a very old man at the close of a life crowded
with experiences of strange unutterable things, visible and
invisible, things of this world, and things of the world to
come comparing his mingled recollections of the whole with
present inadequate attempts to describe this or that particular
part or particular aspect, and harping on their inadequacy.

Jerome tells us that when John had scarcely strength
enough to be carried into the church at Ephesus and say
a few words, he repeated " Little children, love one another "
so often that " the disciples and brethren " were " a little tired
of it (taedio affecti) 1 ." Somewhat similarly we may suppose
that when the aged Apostle had passed even beyond that stage
of weakness, and when the gospel, long preached in his name,
and now at last committed to writing, was brought to him on

1 Jerome (on Gal. vi. 10).
176

ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT IN JOHN

his deathbed to receive his blessing, he once more repeated his
disparaging criticism of books. Most appropriately would it
be set down here by the Apostle's disciple and representative,
the actual author of the Gospel after his Master's death, or
during the last days of his extreme and decrepit old age as
expressing both what John himself was in the habit of saying
about books in general, and what John's disciple now felt
about his own book in particular (though he had done his
utmost to make it spiritually faithful) when sending it forth
to the world as the Gospel of the Disciple whom Jesus loved 1 .

1 For a somewhat similar saying of Papias, mentioning "books," but
using "voice" where the Johannine writer would probably use "word,"
see Euseb. iii. 39. 4 ov yap Ta ft ra>v fii&Xiaiv rotroiroj/ pe u>(J>f\(iv VTreAa/i-
fiavov 6<rov TO. irapa faxnjr (fxavfjs Kai pfvovoTjs. Also Irenaeus (iii. 2. l)
quotes a saying of heretics about " scriptures,"' that the truth cannot be
extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition, " non enim
per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem.' 1

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