A Short Introduction to
the Gospels
PROFESSOR OF
NEW TESTAMENT INTERPRETATION IN
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHICAGO
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
1906
COPYRIGHT 1904 BY
E. D. BURTON
Published June 1904
Second Impression, July 1906
Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A.
PREFACE
THE chief purpose of this little volume is to place
before the student of the gospels those facts concerning
the purpose and point of view of each of them which are
most necessary for an intelligent reading and study of
them. A book of narrative character, containing a record
of facts, has a value independent of the point of view and
purpose of the author. Yet few books are so wholly
objective in character, so devoted to the simple reporting
of facts, so devoid of all aim to use these facts to achieve a
result, that an insight into the mind of the writer does
not contribute to an intelligent reading of them. To us
today the highest value of the gospels is in the testimony
they bring us concerning the deeds, words, and character
of the Lord Jesus. Yet it is by no means idle curiosity
that impels us to discover all that we can concerning the
specific aim with which the several evangelists wrote.
Not only is the discovery of the situation out of which
each gospel arose, and of the end which the writer of each
sought to accomplish, a contribution to the inner history
of the early church, precisely as a knowledge of similar
facts concerning an epistle of Paul constitutes such a con-
tribution, but the discovery of the angle of vision from
which, and the medium through which, the writer looked
at Jesus, assists us to interpret each of the several repre-
sentations of Jesus, and so to relate these one to another
that from them all there may emerge the true historic
figure of Jesus the Christ.
In the endeavor thus to discover the proper point of
iv PREFACE
view from which to study each gospel, it is the gospel
itself that is our most valuable source of information.
All that tradition transmits to us concerning the identity
of the author and his aim in writing is sure to be seized
upon with eagerness, all the greater because of the mea-
gerness of such testimony, and is rightly scrutinized with
the most diligent attention that it may be made to yield
all the information that it can supply. Yet at its best tra-
dition tells us but little, and that little only the record
of ancient opinion. The internal evidence of the gospels
themselves not the few assertions which they contain
concerning authorship and the like, but the constant
reflection on every page of the point of view and aim of
the evangelist comes to us at first hand, and, if we are
able to interpret it correctly, yields us evidence that cannot
be impeached.
It is to this internal evidence that special attention is
directed in the following pages. Of the subjects here
treated, that which is most necessary and useful for the
interpretation of the several gospels is a knowledge of
the purpose, point of view, and plan of the gospel. These
matters are central in the present treatment. As sub-
sidiary to the search for them, the evidence afforded in
the gospels themselves concerning the writer and the
readers for whom he wrote is examined. The brief
quotations of ancient tradition respecting the authorship
of the books fill in the present treatment the place of least
importance, serving only to suggest the relation of the
external evidence to that internal evidence which is here
the almost exclusive subject of study. The full presenta-
tion, scrutiny, and weighing of the external testimony lie
quite beyond the scope of this book, the specific purpose of
PREFACE v
which is to throw upon the gospels the light concerning
their origin and purpose which emanates from these
gospels themselves.
The chapter on "The Relation of the Synoptic Gos-
pels to One Another " is of a somewhat different character
from the others. It is intended to be no more than an
introduction to the subject with which it deals. To have
presented the evidence on this subject with even that
degree of fulness and detail with which the chief topics
of the other chapters have been presented would have
expanded the book beyond the moderate limits within
which it was desired to keep it, and would have made it
less adapted to the use which it is intended to serve, viz.,
as an introduction to the gospels for the use of students
in college or in the first year of a theological course. It
is the hope of the author at a later time to deal more
adequately with this important subject.
Of the several chapters contained in this volume all
except the fourth were originally published in the Biblical
World for 1898, 1899, and 1900. They were subse-
quently reprinted in pamphlet form under the title The
Purpose and Plan of the Four Gospels. They are now
again reprinted, having undergone considerable revision,
but without material change of plan or content.
ERNEST D. BURTON.
CHICAGO, April, 1904.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
MATTHEW . . . 1-26
CHAPTER II. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
MARK .... 27-45
CHAPTER III. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
LUKE .... 46-79
CHAPTER IV. THE RELATION OF THE SYN-
OPTIC GOSPELS TO ONE
ANOTHER . . . 80-98
CHAPTER V. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
JOHN . . . 99-141
INDEX ........ 143* J 44
vii
CHAPTER I
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
I. THE AUTHOR
THE first gospel does not itself name its author. The
title as it stands in extant manuscripts and in modern
editions comes, not from the hand of the author, but from
some later scribe. Nor is the writer's name, as trans-
mitted by tradition, our first concern. What we seek first
and chiefly is not his name or identity, but his character-
istics and point of view ; and for these the gospel itself is
our best, indeed almost our only, source of information.
To this, accordingly, we turn.
i. His nationality as it appears in the book itself.
Several classes of facts bear convergent testimony indicat-
ing that the writer of the gospel is a Palestinian Jew.
a) Thus he shows himself familiar with the geog-
raphy of Palestine. See, for example, 2:1, Bethlehem of
Judea, distinguished from Bethlehem in the tribe of
Zebulun; 2 : 23, "a city called Nazareth," a phrase which
at first suggests that the place is unfamiliar to the writer
and his readers, but is probably intended to call attention
to the name and its relation to the reference about to be
made to the Old Testament; 3:1, "the wilderness of
Judea ; " * 3:5, the circuit of the Jordan (cf. Gen. 13:10);
3:13, Galilee and the Jordan; 4:12, 13, Nazareth and
Capernaum, and the relation of these to the ancient tribal
boundaries; 4:23-25, Galilee and the lands adjacent;
1 Some have found in this expression an inaccurate use of terms,
perhaps betraying ignorance of the region. In Judg. i : 16 the wilder-
2 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
8 : 5, 23, 28, the country of the Gadarenes 2 placed on the
ness of Judah is spoken of as being in the south of Arad. Arad is
located by ROBINSON (Biblical Researches, Vol. II, p. 101 ; cf. SMITH,
Dictionary of the Bible) about sixteen miles south of Hebron. But in
Josh. 15:61 f. Judah's territory is said to include "in the wilderness"
Beth-arabah, Middin, and Secacah. Now Beth-arabah is also mentioned
as belonging to Benjamin (Josh. 18: 22), which indicates that the border
between Judah and Benjamin ran through it. The exact site of Beth-
arabah is unknown, but the location of the border line is approximately
shown by being denned in Josh. 18: 19 as drawn from the head of the
Dead Sea, and as passing through Beth-hoglah, a town which is in the
Jordan valley, about two miles north of the sea. This indicates that
the wilderness of Judah extended as far north as the head of the Dead
Sea, or a little farther. But the region north of this was also desert
(see JOSEPHUS, Jewish War, III, 10, 7, fin.'; cf. IV, 8, 2; cf. also
Mark 1:4, 5, which indicates that the Jordan ran through the wilder-
ness), and when the boundary between Judah and Benjamin was no
longer marked, and the territory of both tribes included in Judea, as
was the case in New Testament times, it is very probable that the term
" wilderness of Judea " would cover both the desolate region west of the
Dead Sea and so much of the barren region north of the sea as lay
within Judea. It must be observed that Matthew does not necessarily
include any portion of the Jordan valley in the wilderness of Judea
(cf. 3:1, 5, 6). His language would be consistent with an intention to
represent John's preaching as beginning in the wilderness of Judea, and
as being transferred to the Jordan valley when he began to baptize
(cf. again Mark 1:4, 5, which uses the term "wilderness" without the
addition of Judea). But it is, perhaps, more probable that he intended
the term " wilderness of Judea " to cover both regions.
2 The phenomena presented by Matt. 8 : 28 and the parallel passages,
Mark 5:1; Luke 8 : 26, have not been explained in a wholly satisfactory
way. In each of the gospels there is manuscript authority for all three
readings Gadarenes, Gerasenes, Gergesenes. The Revisers follow
Westcott and Hort in adopting Gadarenes in Matthew, Gerasenes in
Mark, and Gerasenes (marg. Gergesenes, with Tischendorf) in Luke. The
conditions of the narrative are fulfilled on the eastern shore, near a town
called Khersa or Gersa, situated on the left bank of the Wady Semakh :
the ancient name of this town may have been Gergesa (ORIGEN, appar-
ently referring to this site, gives Gergesa as the name ; cf. Opera, ed.
DE LA RUE, IV, 140, Com. in Joh., i : 28 ; quoted by TISCHENDORF, Matt.
THE AUTHOR 3
opposite side of the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum;
14:34, Gennesaret on the Sea of Galilee; 15:21, Tyre
and Sidon ; 1 5 : 39, Magadan, though this cannot be cer-
tainly identified today; 16:13; 17:1, Caesarea Philippi,
and the high mountain in that vicinity; 19:1, Judea
beyond Jordan; 20:29, Jericho; 21:1, Bethphage (not
certainly identified), and the Mount of Olives (cf. 24:3)
near Jerusalem; 21:17; 26:6, Bethany. It must be
remembered, of course, that these references may be in
part derived from a documentary source employed by the
writer many of them are found also in Mark and
that all of them are possible to one who was not himself a
8:28), or possibly Gerasa (the frequency of the name Jerash today
CONDER in SMITH, Dictionary of the Bible, rev. Eng. ed., I, 1162 sug-
gests that Gerasa was a common name in ancient times). It is doubtless
to this place that the names Gerasenes and Gergesenes refer ; the former
can in any case scarcely refer to the well-known Gerasa, thirty-five miles
distant from the lake. The reading Gadarenes, it should be observed,
does not involve the statement that the event took place at Gadara,
which, lying six miles from the lake and south of the Jarmuk, is an
impossible site, but in the country of the Gadarenes, t. e., in the district
attached to Gadara. This district, called Gadaritis by Josephus (Jewish
War, III, 10, 10 ; cf. Ill, 3, i), is proved by coins to have extended
to the Sea of Galilee (SCHURER, Jewish People, Div. II, Vol. I, p. 104),
but does not seem to have included the site of Khersa, since Hippos with
its district lies between (Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement,
1887, pp. 36 ff. ; SMITH, Historical Geography, p. 459). If, therefore, Mat-
thew wrote Gadarenes, it must have been either with the intention of
assigning the event to the southeastern shore of the sea, where, however,
there is said to be no site fulfilling the conditions (WILSON in SMITH,
Dictionary of the Bible, rev. Eng. ed., I, 1099), or as a loose and general
designation of the country along the southern half of the eastern shore,
although the particular site belonged to the district of Hippos or to
Gaulanitis, rather than to Gadaritis. In either case the reading Gada-
renes, while it may indicate ignorance of the exact location of the
event, shows at least general acquaintance with the geography of the
region adjacent to the Sea of Galilee.
4 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
Palestinian; yet as part of a cumulative argument they
are not without value.
b) The author is familiar with Jewish history, cus-
toms, and classes of people, and with Jewish ideas. Thus
in i : i8f. he shows his acquaintance with the fact that
betrothal could be annulled only by divorce ; 2:4, with
the position of the scribes, as those to whom a question
about the doctrine of the Messiah would be referred ; 2 : i,
with the reign of Herod the Great ; 2 : 22, with the fact
that Archelaus succeeded him in Judea, but not in Galilee,
and with the reputation of Archelaus for cruelty; 3 14: i,
with the title of Herod Antipas, tetrarch 4 of Galilee;
26:3, 57, with the name of the high-priest; 26: 59, with
the existence and character of the Sanhedrin; 27:2, n,
13, with the relation of the Jewish to the Roman author-
ities, and with the name of the Roman procurator. Here
also, though no single item of the evidence is decisive,
the whole is not without significance.
c) The writer is familiar with the Old Testament,
and believes in it as a book containing divinely given
prophecies. The first section of the book, with its title
characterizing Christ as son of David and son of Abra-
3 There is a noticeable difference between Matthew's references to the
political situation in Palestine and Luke's. Luke speaks with the air of
painstaking investigation ; Matthew, with that of easy familiarity, all
the more noteworthy that the frequent and somewhat complicated suc-
cession of rulers would have made error easy.
* Mark 6:14 is less exact, since Herod was not, strictly speaking,
king.
In 14:3, it has been alleged, Matthew wrongly designates the
brother of Herod whose wife he had married as Philip, whereas Philip
was really the husband of Salome ; but it is by no means certain that
there is an error here. Cf. Mark 6:17 and commentaries on both
passages. See also chap, ii, p. 28, n. 4.
THE AUTHOR 5
ham, and the genealogical table, taken in part from the
Old Testament, and designed to prove that Jesus was
descended from David and Abraham, as in accordance
with prophecy the Messiah must be, show both a familiar-
ity with the Old Testament and a thoroughly Jewish way
of looking at it. The structure of this table itself points
in the same direction, showing that it is, to the writer, a
matter of interest, if not also of argument, that the gen-
erations from Abraham to Moses are (by virtue of slight
omissions and double counting) divisible into three
groups of fourteen (twice seven) generations, a fact
which suggests that the Messiah appeared at an appro-
priate time, at the end of three periods the culmination
of each of the two preceding of which had been marked
by a great event of Jewish history. Throughout the gos-
pel, but especially in the early and later parts, he calls
attention to passages of the Old Testament which he
interprets as finding their fulfilment in events of Jesus'
life (1:22 f.; 2:56, 15, 17 f., 23; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:
17-21; 13:35; 2i:4f. ; 27:9). These eleven passages,
most of them introduced by the formula, "that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet,"
sometimes with the insertion of the phrase " by the Lord,"
are a marked feature of this gospel. They are a special
contribution of this evangelist, having no parallel passages
in Mark or Luke. 5 Nor, with the exception of Mark i : 2
and Luke 3:4^., parallel to Matt. 3:3, are there any
similar passages in the other synoptic gospels. They
show in the clearest way the author's special interest in
G Nor in John, save that 21 : 4 f. is paralleled in John 12 : 14 f., and
8:17 partially in John 1:29. Matt. 4:16 has a partial parallel in
Luke i : 79.
6 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament and in
their fulfilment in Jesus. The conception of the Old
Testament and the method of interpreting it which they
reveal, though not impossible to a gentile Christian as an
acquisition from others, were certainly developed on
Jewish soil. That we have, in this particular case, to do
with a mind itself Jewish is placed almost beyond doubt
by the fact that, though the quotations from the Old
Testament which are common to our first three gospels,
nearly all of which occur in the words of Jesus, show a
predominant influence of the Greek version of the Old
Testament, this group of eleven peculiar to the first evan-
gelist clearly shows a predominant influence of the origi-
nal Hebrew. And this is the more significant in view of
the fact that in the one instance in which the three syn-
optists unite in quoting a passage and speak of its fulfil-
ment (Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:2; Luke 3:4^., referring
Isa. 40:3 to John the Baptist) they agree in a form of
the passage which clearly shows the influence of the
Septuagint.
d) In various other ways the writer betrays his Jew-
ish feeling and point of view. He employs descriptive
names derived from the Old Testament which would be
unnatural in the mouth of any but a Jew, and which are,
in fact, found nowhere else in the New Testament, except
for one phrase which occurs also in the book of Revela-
tion. Thus in 2 : 20, 21, land of Israel ; 4:5; 27 : 53, holy
city (cf. Rev. 11:2); 5 : 35, city of the great king; 10 : 6;
1 5 : 24, lost sheep of the house of Israel. He speaks of the
half-shekel tax which every adult male Jew paid annually
for the support of the temple (cf. Exod. 30:13-16),
simply by the name of the coin that paid it, the two-
THE AUTHOR 7
drachma piece, following in this a usage probably common
among the Jews. 6 His tone in speaking of gentiles
(5:47; 6:7, 32; 18:17) is decidedly Jewish, the name
"gentile" being evidently with him not simply a desig-
nation of nationality, but a characterization nearly equiva-
lent to our modern term "heathen." He is particularly
interested in those teachings of Jesus which are of special
significance to the Jew and the Jewish Christian. Thus
it is in this gospel only that we have Jesus' word con-
cerning the permanence of the law (5:17-19); the
sermon on the mount as given here preserves the com-
parison of Jesus' teaching with that of the Pharisees, and,
indirectly, with that of the Old Testament (chaps. 5-7),
an element wholly absent from the similar discourse in
Luke (6:20-49); tms gospel alone tells us that the
personal mission of Jesus, and the work of his apostles on
their first separate mission tour, were limited to the Jews
(10:6; 15:24); it gives special emphasis to Jesus'
denunciation of the Pharisees (15:13!; 21: 28-32 ; chap.
23), and is our only authority for the most striking of his
sayings concerning the impending x doom of the nation
(8: 1 1, 12; 21:43; 22: 7> are found only in Matthew;
cf., also, 12 : 38-45 ; 23 : 35, 36 ; 24 : 2, of which there are
parallels in Mark or Luke, and 27 : 25, peculiar to Mat-
thew). Here are elements which seem at first sight con-
tradictory, but they all bespeak an author especially
concerned with the relations of the gospel to Judaism.
6 Concerning the variation in the amount of the tax, see Exod.
30: 13; Neh. 10:32; concerning the ratio of the shekel and drachma,
and the coins in use in New Testament times, see MADDEN, Coins of
the Jeu's, pp. 290 f., 294 ; BENZINGER, Hebrdische Archdologie, p. 193 ;
SCHURER, Jewish People, Div. II, Vol. I, pp. 38-40, 250 f. ; 3d German
ed., Vol. II, pp. 52-55, 258 f . ; JOSEPHUS, Antiq., iii, 8, 2; xviii, 9, i.
8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
2. The author's religious position. Evident as it is
that our evangelist is a Jew by nationality and education,
it is still more clear that he is a Christian a Jew who,
holding the messianic hope of his people and believing
that there are messianic prophecies in the Old Testament,
finds that hope realized and those prophecies fulfilled in
Jesus. Passages need hardly be cited. The first line of
the gospel shows the author's position, and it appears
throughout the book. The question whether he was also
a Judaizing Christian, believing in the permanent author-
ity of the statute law of the Old Testament for both
Jewish and gentile Christian, or perhaps for the Jewish
Christian but not for his gentile brother, can be answered
only on the basis of a study of the purpose of the book.
(See in.)
3. The testimony of tradition concerning the author-
ship of the book. This comes to us in
a) The title which the gospel bears in ancient manu-
scripts. This is uniformly Kara MaOOaiov, " According
to Matthew," T&vayye\iov Kara Ma60a,Lov, " Gospel accord-
ing to Matthew," or equivalent phrase. 7
7 The earliest form of the title of the first gospel by which it is
named in any extant work is rd fcard Maddcuov fvayyt\iov, " The Gospel
according to Matthew." So in Irenaeus (Possin. Cat. Pair, in Matt.,
iii, ii, 8; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed., Vol. I, p. 573) and in EUSE-
BIUS, H.E., v, 10. In the oldest Greek manuscripts the title is simply
KO.TCI Ma00cuov. Westcott and Hort and others think that the word
etayytXiov (" gospel ") as the common title of the whole group of four
books must be presupposed in order to account for this form of title,
though it does not, in fact, appear in any manuscript. If this is correct,
the title of the several gospels was in effect etayyt\iov KO.T& Maddcuov,
ctayytXiov Kara Mdp/coi/ "Gospel according to Matthew," " Gospel
according to Mark," etc. Later manuscripts prefixed a title after this
form to each of the gospels separately. The form rb (caret Ma00atoi'
&yiov ei>ayy\iov is found only in late manuscripts.
THE AUTHOR 9
b) The statements of the Fathers. These constantly
connect the gospel with Matthew, sometimes expressly
describing him as the publican or the apostle. The earli-
est of these testimonies is that of Papias, quoted by
Eusebius :
Matthew accordingly composed the oracles [sayings] in the
Hebrew dialect, and each one interpreted them as he was able
L ( EUSEBIUS, H. E., iii, 39).
Later writers frequently repeat this assertion that Mat-
thew wrote in Hebrew, yet accept qur Greek gospel as
Matthew's, many of them having apparently no direct
acquaintance with the Hebrew book. In the third century
and later several Hebrew gospels were known, the testi-
mony of those who had seen them showing that they
resembled our Matthew, but were not identical with it.
That any of them was the original Hebrew Matthew is
improbable. The whole evidence, confused though it is,
leaves no room for doubt that our first gospel is connected
with the apostle Matthew, but the precise nature of the
relation must be determined largely by the close compara-
tive study of the first three gospels in the light of the liter-
ary methods of the time. Meantime it is to be observed
that if the apostle was the author of one of the sources of
the book rather than of the book itself, and if the gospel
received its present form from some other author, the
latter also is shown by the evidence of the gospel itself to
be a Jewish Christian, thoroughly imbued alike with
belief in the Old Testament and with faith in Christ as the
Messiah. His religious position, as well as his ability as
an author, will become more clear from the evidence still
to be examined under in, iv, and v.
io THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
II. THE READERS FOR WHOM THE BOOK WAS PRIMARILY
INTENDED
Much of the evidence bearing upon this question is
derived from the same passages which have already been
cited to show the nationality of the writer.
1. Not much stress can be laid on the writer's apparent
assumption that his readers are familiar with Palestinian
geography. The other gospels, which on other grounds
are shown to have been written specially for gentiles,
apparently make the same assumption ; or rather, perhaps,
are equally unconcerned that their readers should under-
stand their geographical references. There are even
some passages in Matthew which seem to assume that his
readers were not acquainted with the smaller Palestinian
towns. In 2 : 23, indeed, the phrase " a city called Naza-
reth " is probably used simply to call attention to the name
in anticipation of the next sentence, and in 4 : 13 a similar
motive leads to the mention of the location of Capernaum ;
but the placing of the healing of the demoniacs in the
country of the Gadarenes, if this be the correct reading,
seems to imply that he could not assume that his readers
would be acquainted with the little town Khersa, and,
therefore, located the event more generally in the country
of the Gadarenes, or else that he himself was unacquainted
with the smaller place (cf. note 2). Beyond this the
geographical evidence is purely negative.
2. Though a general acquaintance with Jewish cus-
toms and institutions on the part of the reader is assumed
in all of the gospels, and hence does not of itself point to
Jewish readers, yet the extent of this in the first gospel is
worthy of notice. Compare, for example, Matthew's
references to the Jewish rulers (2:1, 22; 14:1) with
THE READERS n
Luke's (2 : i, 2; 3 : i, 2), or his unexplained mention of
the Jewish custom of ceremonial cleansing (15:2) with
Mark's detailed explanation (7:3, 4). The seeming
exception in 27: 15 is not properly such. The custom of
releasing a prisoner at the passover season, not otherwise
known to us, was probably not of Jewish but of Roman
origin, and since the government of Judea had changed
several times in the generation or more between the death
of Jesus and the writing of the gospel, it is probable that
the custom had so long ago ceased that even to Jews it
was a matter of unfamiliar history.
3. The number of argumentative quotations from the
Old Testament introduced by the writer, and the almost
total absence of such quotations from Mark and Luke
John has more than Mark and Luke, but fewer than
Matthew suggest also Jewish readers. It is certainly
not decisive evidence, since arguments from Scripture
early became the common property of Christians, both
Jewish and gentile. The extent and prominence of the
Scripture argument count for something, but the decisive
word must be said on the basis of the nature of the argu-
ment which this gospel founds on its quotations. (See
mo
4. The use of Jewish descriptive titles (see the pas-
sages cited under i, i, d), the reporting of the words of
Jesus which emphasized his mission to the Jews ( 10 : 5, 6;
15 : 24), and of other teachings which would be of special
interest to Jews (11:14; 12:5,6; 17:24; 23:16-22
all peculiar to this gospel), and the fact that the great
discourses of Jesus, notably the sermon on the mount
(chaps. 5-7), are reported in a form adapting them to
interest the Jewish mind especially, are of more decisive
significance, and all indicate that the writer has in mind
mainly Jewish readers. Still more significant, though
here also the full significance will appear only in relation
to the purpose of the book, are the passages referred to
above which foreshadow the downfall of Judaism (8 : n,
12; 12:38-45; 21:43; 22:1-14; 23:35, 36; 24:2;
27 : 25) . The use of the term " gentiles " as a designation
of religion rather than of nationality (5 :47, etc.) suggests
the same thing, but is shown by i Cor. 5:1; 10:20;
12:2, to be possible in a writing addressed directly to
gentile Christians ; its occurrence, therefore, tends only to
indicate that the book was not intended for non-Christian
gentiles. The use of the term "Jews" (28:15) in the
way so common in the fourth gospel is not only a mark of
the Christian point of view of the Jewish writer, but tends
in some degree to indicate that he wrote for those who,
though Jews in nationality, now distinguished themselves
from the rest of the nation by their Christianity.
III. THE PURPOSE WITH WHICH THE EVANGELIST WROTE
Alike the material and the general structure of the
book suggest that we have to do here with a work which
is in a sense historical or biographical. The material is
mainly narrative in form, consisting of reports of deeds
done and discourses uttered on certain occasions, not of
discussion or formal argument by the writer of the book.
It is a history, however, which gathers around the person
of Jesus ; only such events and persons as stand in imme-
diate relation to him are spoken of, and these only in so
far as they are related to him. The book falls into six
main parts (cf. the analysis at the end of this chapter),
representing periods of the life of Jesus which are
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITER 13
arranged in chronological order, from his birth to his
resurrection.
Yet before it is decided that, because the material is
of a biographical character and the main structure chrono-
logical, therefore the end of the writer is attained when
he has given an historically correct representation of the
life of Jesus, or even, perhaps, when he has told such facts
about the life of Jesus as are known to him, certain other
considerations must be taken into account. It must be
remembered that it was in accordance with the literary
method of the first Christian century and of the adjacent
periods to employ historical material for argumentative
purposes, and that, too, without casting the material into
the form of an argument, or even stating anywhere in the
course of the narrative what the factvS were intended to
prove. It was assumed that the reader or hearer would
be shrewd enough to discover this for himself, and this
assumption was apparently amply justified.
This use of historical material for argumentative pur-
poses, this clothing of argument in narrative form, finds
several clear illustrations in the New Testament. In the
discourse of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth, as
related in Luke 4:16-30, Jesus replies to the thought
of the Nazarenes, which they have not even openly
expressed, by relating two events from Old Testament
history; he does not state what these events prove, and
modern interpreters are somewhat puzzled to tell pre-
cisely what he intended to prove by them. But there is no
doubt that he intended that they should teach something
not directly expressed in them, and that the Nazarene con-
gregation so understood him. The speeches in the book
of Acts are almost all of them of the same character,
14 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
from the speech of Peter on the day of Pentecost down to
the later speeches of Paul. The two best illustrations are
furnished by the speech of Stephen before the council,
which is very evidently of argumentative purpose, yet
which leaves the purpose so entirely unstated that most
readers today probably entirely fail to perceive it, and
the speech of Paul at Pisidian Antioch, which has the
same characteristics, only less strongly marked. The
fourth gospel furnishes an illustration of a book almost
wholly made up of narrative material (including in that
term conversations and discourses assigned to certain
occasions), yet explicitly stated by the writer to have been
written with the purpose that the readers might believe a
certain doctrinal proposition, this again for the purpose
of producing a certain moral result (20:30, 31). The
book of Acts also, though the writer has not stated a defi-
nite argumentative purpose, is almost universally admitted
to have been written for such a purpose; precisely what
the purpose was interpreters still dispute.
In view of this well-established literary custom, of
which there are abundant examples in the New Testament
literature itself, it is only natural to ask whether our
gospel also gives evidence of such a purpose on the part
of its writer. Such evidence does, in fact, appear the
moment we carry our study of the structure of the book
beyond a division into its six main parts. The first main
division, though including only material pertaining to the
ancestry, birth, and infancy of Jesus, yet makes an eviden-
tial use of every event which it relates, pointing out how
in each of the narrated facts Old Testament prophecy was
fulfilled in Jesus. The Galilean ministry is scarcely less
evidently constructed on a plan which is more logical than
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITER 15
chronological, the whole constituting an exposition of the
nature of the kingdom of heaven, the way in which it must
be received, and the way in which the Jews did actually
receive it, foreshadowing their rejection of the Messiah,
and their own consequent downfall (cf. the analysis
under v). The passion week, though the material is,
with a few significant exceptions, apparently arranged on
a chronological plan, is yet so treated as to present the
evidence for the fact that Christ and his kingdom were
explicitly and clearly presented to the Jews for their
acceptance, .with warning of the consequences to them of
rejection, and that in the face of such presentation and
such warning they definitely rejected Christ and the
kingdom.
But if the book has an argumentative purpose, which
is either the dominant one or one which is co-ordinate
with a more distinctly historical aim, precisely what is it
that the author conceives his narrative to prove, and of
which he wishes to convince his readers? The answer
must be gained by observing on what the writer lays
emphasis. Notice, then, what the passages already cited
have in part shown, the characteristic ideas of this gospel.
The writer believes in the Old Testament, and holds that
its messianic prophecies are fulfilled in Jesus (i 123, etc.) ;
Jesus himself held to the divine and permanent authority
of the Old Testament ethical teaching ( 5 : 1 7 ff . ; 15:3 ff.,
etc.), though indirectly criticising the statutory legislation
or affirming its temporary character (5:21-48 passim;
9:14-17; 15:10-20; 19:8) ; he addressed himself to the
Jews, announced the near approach of the kingdom of
heaven, adapted his instruction to their point of view
(see all the discourses) ; limited his own personal mission
1 6 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
to them (15:24), and instructed his disciples when he
sent them out to do the same ( 10 : 5, 6) ; when, despite the
fact that multitudes followed him and true disciples were
won, it became evident that the leaders of the people
would reject him, he warned them of the danger of such
rejection (8:11, 12; 12:38-45; cf. the words of John
the Baptist, 3:9), and as opposition grew and approached
its culmination in the determination to put him to death,
he scathingly rebuked the Pharisees, under whose influ-
ence the nation was rejecting its Messiah (chap. 23, espe-
cially vs. 13), announced with increasing distinctness the
direful results of such rejection to the nation and to Juda-
ism itself, even definitely declaring the rejection of the
nation by God (see 21:33-46; 22:1-14; but especially
21:42,43; 22:7; 23:36,38; 24:2); and finally, when
the rejection which he had foreseen had come to pass, and
had been succeeded by his death and triumphant resurrec-
tion, he commissioned his disciples, no longer to go to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel only, but to make disciples
of all nations (28 : 19).
These are characteristics which are not common to all
our gospels; they are, in large part, peculiar to Matthew.
And they reveal as the motive of this argument in narra-
tive form the purpose to prove that Jesus is the true Mes-
siah of the Jews;' that he announced and founded the
kingdom of God, expounding its true nature, and setting
forth its relation to the Old Testament religion; that he
came, first of all, to the Jewish nation; that, when they
showed signs of a disposition not to receive his message,
he warned them that the consequence of such rejection
would be that the kingdom would be taken from them;
that, in fact, they did in the face of all this warning and
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITER 17
instruction reject Jesus and put him to death; and that,
consequently, the kingdom ceased to be in any distinctive
sense Jewish, and in place of the old national dispensation
there was created by Jesus himself, the true Jewish Mes-
siah, a kingdom of all nations ; thus, universal Chris-
tianity, freed from all national restrictions or peculiarly
Jewish institutions, becomes the true successor of the Old
Testament religion >/ the true Jew must be a follower of
Jesus, and, in consequence, leave Judaism behind.
It is important to perceive clearly all the elements of
this purpose. The author's aim is by no means attained
when he has advanced evidence that Jesus is the Messiah.
He reaches his goal only when, with this as the first step
of his argument, he has shown that Jesus the Messiah
founded a kingdom of universal scope, abolishing all
Jewish limitations.^
IV. OTHER PROBLEMS IN THE LIGHT OF THE PURPOSE
If this is a correct exposition of the specific aim of
the book, it affords help in answering several other
questions. Thus it gives a more definite answer to the
inquiry what readers the writer had especially in mind cf.
ii ). It becomes clear that the book was intended, not for
Jews as such, but especially for Jewish Christians. Were
the book designed simply to prove the messiahship of
Jesus, it might be supposed to be addressed to unconverted
Jews and intended to persuade them to accept Jesus as the
Christ. But if the argument for the messiahship of Jesus
is but the first step of the whole, and if the ultimate pur-
pose is to convince the reader, on historical grounds, that
Christianity is not a national but a universal religion, that
the old limitations of Judaism, though valid in their own
1 8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
time, have, by the Jews' rejection of the Messiah, been
broken down, this is evidently a line of thought which
would be addressed to a Christian, either to persuade him
to abandon his narrow Judaistic type of Christianity, or
to dissuade him from turning back from Christianity to
Judaism itself. Were the book less careful to recognize
the legitimacy of the Old Testament, and the primary
mission of Jesus to the Jews, and, in general, to adapt its
argument to the Jewish point of view, its contention for a
universal Christianity might seem to point to gentile
Christians as the readers whom the writer had in mind.
But faced, as it constantly is, to the thought of the Jew,
such a destination for the book is excluded.
But while intended for Jewish Christian readers, the
book is emphatically not of a Judaistic cast. It is even
more directly opposed to the Judaizing type of Christian-
ity than most of the writings of Paul which deal with that
question. The apostle to the gentiles confined himself for
the most part to defending the right of the gentiles to
believe in Jesus and enter into all the privileges of Chris-
tians without becoming subject to the law. Of course, the
logic of this position involved a like freedom ultimately
for the Jew, and Paul could, on occasion, insist upon this
(Gal. 2: 15-19; Eph. 2: 14-16), yet always for the sake
of the gentile, whose interests he, as the apostle of the
gentiles, was concerned to defend. But this gospel,
addressed to Jewish Christians, shows from the teaching
and conduct of Jesus that for the Jew also the old
regime has ended; the nation that rejected the Messiah
is itself rejected; its temple, the center of ritual and wor-
ship, is overthrown ; its house is left unto it desolate ; the
kingdom of God is taken from it and given unto a nation
MINOR PROBLEMS 19
bringing forth the fruits thereof. The Old Testament
foundation of the kingdom is not for a moment repudi-
ated, but, on the basis of the teaching of the Old Testa-
ment and of the words of Jesus the Christ, the Christian
church, drawn from all nations and having no special
relation to the temple or Judaism, is shown to be the
inheritor of the kingdom.
In the light of this purpose of the book, its unity is
clearly evident. From the assertion in its first verse that
Jesus is the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham,
to the commission which in its closing paragraph this
Christ, now risen from the dead, gives to his apostles to
make disciples of all nations, one thought dominates it.
This is no patchwork put together by several hands work-
ing with different conceptions, or by one editor whose
only thought was to include all the evangelic material
that he possessed. The writer may have employed as
sources of his book other gospel writings ; the resemblance
of some of the material to that which is contained in the
other gospels seems to show that he had such sources;
but, whether so or not, he has wrought all his material
into a real book, with a definite course of thought and a
clearly defined aim.
Nor can it be doubted that the writer had before him
a definite situation, a practical problem to solve, not a
merely theoretical proposition to prove. He is a man of
thought, even of a reflective turn of mind; but his book
is far from being a mere meditative study. Though so
different in form and style, it reminds us by its purpose of
the epistle to the Hebrews, which was written to those
who, having received the knowledge of the truth, were in
danger of drawing back and of not holding fast the con-
20 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
fession of their faith (Heb. 10:19-39). There is much
to suggest that our evangelist wrote, not indeed for the
same persons, but for those who were subject to a similar
clanger. Was it, perhaps, for those who, having till now
held fast to Judaism, only adding to it faith in Jesus as
the Messiah, but now seeing the near approach of the
destruction of Jerusalem, or possibly, having already
witnessed it, were in danger of surrendering their Chris-
tianity under the influence of the blow which had fallen
upon Judaism, and of the argument that he was surely not
the Messiah who could not avert such disaster from his
own people? To save them from this danger it would be
needful to separate Judaism and Christianity in their
minds ; while confirming their faith in Jesus as the Christ
of prophecy, to show them that he had himself announced
precisely that which was now happening, and had in
anticipation of it founded a Christianity which was at the
same time the legitimate successor of the Old Testament
religion and free from its national restrictions. But
whether it was the destruction of Jerusalem, impending or
already past, which furnished the immediate occasion for
the book or not, it seems impossible to doubt that it w r as
written primarily to convince Jewish Christians that the
\f
religion of Jesus was not merely the Judaism of the
temple, plus a belief in Jesus as the Messiah, but a world-
religion, freed from all bounds and restrictions that were
local and national. It carries the doctrine of the apostle
Paul to the conclusion which Paul saw to be involved in
it, but to which he was not wont himself to press it.
THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL 21
V. THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL
The following is an attempt to exhibit the plan of the
book as it lay in the writer's mind :
ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
I. THE BIRTH AND INFANCY OF JESUS. The advent of
the Messiah in accordance with prophecy. chaps. I, 2
1. The genealogy of Jesus, showing his Abrahamic
and Davidic descent. i : 1-17
2. The annunciation to Joseph, and the birth of
Jesus from the virgin, as prophesied. i : 18-25
3. The visit of the magi, giving occasion to the
testimony of the Jewish scribes that Bethlehem
was the prophesied birthplace of the Messiah. 2 : 1-12
4. The flight into Egypt, fulfilling prophecy. 2: 13-15
5. The murder of the children of Bethlehem, ful-
filling prophecy. 2 : 16-18
6. The return from Egypt and removal to Naza-
reth, fulfilling prophecy. 2 : 19-23
II. PREPARATION FOR THE PUBLIC WORK OF JESUS.
Events preparatory to the founding of the king-
dom. 3: i 4: IT
1. The preparatory ministry of John the Baptist, in
accordance with prophecy. 3 : 1-12
2. The baptism of Jesus, accompanied by the
descent of the Spirit and the voice from heaven. 3 : 13-17
3. The temptation in the wilderness, settling the
principles on which his work was to be done. 4: i-n
III. THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE. The kingdom founded
and its fundamental principles set forth. 4 : 12 18 : 35
I. The beginning of Jesus' work in Galilee. 4: 12-25
a) The removal to Capernaum and the begin-
ning of preaching. 4 : 12-17
b) The call of the four to evangelistic work. 4: 18-22
c) Jesus' early work in Galilee ; his widespread
fame. 4 : 23-25
22 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
2. The sermon on the mount ; 8 the ethical prin-
ciples of the kingdom. chaps. 5-7
3. A group of events, each of which either illus-
trates or attests the authority which in the
sermon he has assumed. 8: 1 9: 34
0) A leper cleansed. 8: 1-4
b) The centurion's servant healed. 8:5-13
c) Peter's wife's mother healed. 8: 14-18
d) Answers to disciples about following him. 8:19-22
e) The stilling of the tempest. 8 : 23-27
/) The Gadarene demoniacs. 8 : 28-34
g) A paralytic healed and his sins forgiven.* 9:1-8
h) The call of Matthew. 9: 9-13
1) Answer concerning fasting. 9:14-17
;') A ruler's daughter raised, and a woman
healed. 9 : 18-26
&) Two blind men and a dumb demoniac
healed. 9 : 27-34
4. Discourse to the twelve apostles on sending
them out ; the proclamation of the kingdom. 9 : 35 10 : 42
5. Events showing the attitude of various persons
toward the gospel, and teaching concerning the
spirit in which the gospel must be received. chaps, n, 12
a) Jesus' answer to the message from John the
Baptist. ii : 1-6
b) The captious spirit of the Jews condemned
by Jesus. n : 7-19
c) Woes against the cities which had not re-
pented at the preaching of Jesus. n : 20-24
d} The thanksgiving of Jesus that the gospel
is plain to the simple-minded, and his invita-
tion to the heavy-laden. 1 1 : 25-30
8 It is worthy of notice that each alternate section of this Part III
(see 2, 4, 6, 8) is a discourse of Jesus : all of these discourses treat of
the kingdom of heaven, and together constitute an exposition of the
kingdom in its various phases.
* Note here the relation implied between power and authority.
THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL 23
e) Plucking grain on the sabbath; the bigotry
of the Pharisees rebuked. 12 : 1-8
/) Healing of the withered hand on the sab-
bath; bigotry issuing in murderous pur-
pose. 12 : 9-14
g) Jesus heals many; the gentleness of his
ministry. 12 : 15-21
h) Jesus heals a blind and dumb demoniac ; the
Pharisees charge him with collusion with
Satan, and Jesus warns them of the danger
of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. 12 : 22-37
i ) The Pharisees seek a sign ; Jesus' answer. 12 : 38-42
/) The man from whom the unclean spirit has
gone out ; a parable of the Jewish nation. 12 : 43-45
k) The real basis of relationship to Christ. 12:46-50
6. Discourse of parables, chiefly concerning the
growth of the kingdom. 13 : 1-52
7. The events of the latter part of the Galilean
ministry, illustrating especially the increasing
unbelief and opposition of the Pharisees, and the
instruction of the disciples, particularly from
16 : 21 10 on, in preparation for his death. 13 : 53 17 : 27
10 Chap. 16:21 marks an epoch which is in a sense more important
than that indicated at 19: i, and there is certainly something to be said
for the view that the author meant to mark here the beginning of a new
division of his book and of a new period of the work of Jesus, character-
ized by the preparation of his disciples for his death, as the ministry up
to this time had been mainly devoted to the proclamation of the kingdom
to the people (cf. 4: 17, and notice the similarity of the phrase to that
osed in 16:21). Yet, on the whole, it seems probable that the great
divisions of the book are made on the basis of external characteristics,
mainly geographical. The periods thus made are marked in general by
distinctive internal characteristics also. In the case of the close of the
Galilean ministry, however, the change in internal characteristics ante-
dates somewhat the change of place. At the time denoted by 16:21 it
is already clear that he must die at the hands of the Jews, and in Jeru-
salem ; and, moreover, that the minds of his disciples must be prepared
for this event. From this time on, the evangelist indicates, this pre-
paration fills a prominent place in Jesus' work, and his face is in a
24 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
a) The unbelief of the Nazarenes. 13 : 53-58
b) The death of John the Baptist at the hands
of Herod. 14: 1-12
c) The feeding of the five thousand. 14: 13-22
d) Jesus walking on the water, and Peter's at-
tempt to do so. 14 : 23-36
e) Eating with unwashen hands; the Phari-
sees' criticism, and Jesus' answer. 15 : 1-20
/) The faith of a Canaanitish woman. 15 : 21-28
g) A multitude healed by the sea of Galilee. 15:29-31
h} The feeding of the four thousand. 15:32-39
*') Pharisees and Sadducees demand a sign;
Jesus' answer. 16 : 1-4
;) The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees ;
Jesus' warning and the slowness of the dis-
ciples to understand. 16:5-12
&) Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah. 16: 13-20
/) Jesus begins to instruct his disciples concern-
ing his death and resurrection. 16 : 21-28
m) The transfiguration, wherein Jesus is de-
clared to be the Son of God. 17: 1-13
) The epileptic boy healed. 17 : 14-21
o) Jesus again foretells his death. 17:22,23
/>) The payment of the temple tax and Jesus'
instruction of Peter concerning relation to
the temple worship. 17 : 24-27
8. Discourse on ambition, humility, and forgive-
ness ; the personal relations of the citizens of
the kingdom to one another. chap. 18
IV. JOURNEY THROUGH PEREA TO JERUSALEM. Jesus
continues the instruction of his disciples, especially
in the latter part, concerning his death. chaps. 19, 20
1. The departure from Galilee. 19: 1,2
2. Answer to questions concerning divorce. 19:3-12
sense toward Jerusalem, where he is to die. The change in the character
of his teaching and the change of place both result from the same
cause ; yet it is not unnatural that the former should precede the latter
hy a brief interval.
THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL 25
i
3. Christ blesses little children, and reproves his
disciples. 19 : 13-15
4. Answer to the rich young man concerning
eternal life. 19 : 16-22
5. Instruction to the disciples concerning riches as
an obstacle to entrance into the kingdom. 19 : 23-26
6. Concerning the rewards of discipleship. 19:27 20:16
7. Jesus foretells his crucifixion. 20: 17-19
8. The ambition of James and John, and Jesus'
answer concerning suffering and rewards in his
service. 20 : 20-28
9. The two blind men near Jericho, who hail Jesus
as son of David. 20 : 29-34
V. THE CLOSING MINISTRY IN JERUSALEM. [Passion
week.] Jesus' last offer of himself to the nation as
the Messiah, and his final rejection. chaps. 21-27
1. Symbolic proclamation of himself as the Mes-
siah. 21 : 1-17
a) The triumphal entry. 21 : i-n
b) The cleansing of the temple. 21 : 12-17
2. Symbolic prediction to the disciples of the rejec-
tion of the nation. 21 : 18-22
3. The mutual rejection. The Jews resist the claim
of Jesus ; he reiterates warning and pre-
diction. 21 : 2323 : 39
a) The Jews' challenge of his authority to
cleanse the temple, and his answer to them. 21 : 23-27
b) Three parables of warning. 21:28 22:14
(1) The parable of the two sons. 21 : 28-32
(2) The parable of the husbandmen, pre-
dicting the rejection of the nation. 21 : 33-46
(3) The parable of the marriage of the
king's son. 22 : 1-14
c) Three questions of the Jewish rulers. 22: 15-40
(1) Concerning paying tribute. 22: 15-22
(2) Concerning the resurrection. 22:23-33
(3) Concerning the greatest commandment. 22 : 34-40
26 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
d) Jesus' question concerning the Christ. 22 : 41-46
e) Jesus' great discourse against the Pharisees. chap. 23
4. Prophetic discourse to the disciples concerning
the end of the nation and the end of the age. chaps. 24, 25
5. Preparation for the death of Jesus. 26: 1-46
a) By his enemies; the plot to put him to
death. 26:1-5
b) By his friends; the anointing. 26:6-13
c) By Judas; the bargain to betray him. 26:14-16
d) By Jesus himself. 26 : 17-46
(1) The last supper. 26: 17-30
(2) The warning to the disciples. 26: 31-35
(3) The prayer and the agony. 26: 36-46
6. The consummation of the rejection of Jesus by
the Jews. 26 : 47 27 : 66
a) The arrest. 26:47-56
fc) The trial. 26 : 5727 : 31
c) The crucifixion and the death. 27 : 32-56
d) The burial. 27 : 57-61
e) The watch at the tomb. 27 : 62-66
VI. THE APPEARANCES OF JESUS AFTER THE RESURREC-
TION. The triumph of the Messiah over his ene-
mies and the commission of the disciples to win all
nations to him. chap. 28
1. The appearance on the resurrection morning. 28: i-io
2. The report of the watch; attempt of the Jews
to suppress the evidence. 28: 11-15
3. The appearance in Galilee; the commission of
the disciples. 28 : 16-20
CHAPTER II
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
I. THE AUTHOR
THE second gospel, like the first, contains in itself no
statement of its authorship. Reserving for brief mention
at a later point the testimony of ancient tradition to the
name and identity of the author, we consider first the evi-
dence which the book itself furnishes concerning the char-
acteristics and point of view of its writer.
i. His nationality as it appears in the book itself.
Clear indications of the nationality of the author are
rare and hardly decisive. His references to Jewish
affairs and to Palestinian localities imply a familiarity
with both such as would be most natural in the case of a
Palestinian Jew, but would not be impossible to a gentile,
especially a Christian gentile who had lived in Palestine,
or even to one who had obtained his knowledge of these
things, along with his knowledge of the life of Jesus, from
one who had been a resident of Palestine. In other words,
the evidence suggests a Palestinian author or a Palestinian
source of the narrative.
Thus the book speaks of Judea, Jerusalem, and the
wilderness that was in that vicinity (i 14, 5, 12; 10:32;
1 1 : i ; 1 1 : 27) ; of the river Jordan (1:4, 9) ; of Jericho
(10:46); of Bethany (11:1,. 12) and the Mount of
Olives (11:1; 13:3); of Galilee (1:9, 14, 28, 39;
3:7; 9 : 30) and the Sea of Galilee (1:16; 3:7; 4:1,
35-41; 5:1,21; 6:45, 47 ff.; 7:31); of the cities of
zg THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
Galilee, Nazareth (1:9; cf. 1:24 and 6 : i ) , Capernaum
(1:21; 2:1; 9:33), implying in the connection that
it was on or near the Sea of Galilee (with 1:21 cf. i : 16,
and with 2:1 cf. 2:13), but adding no description of its
location (cf. Matt. 4:13 ff.), and Dalmanutha; 1 of the
tract of Gennesaret (6:53), and of the regions adjacent
to Judea and Galilee ( 3 : 7, 8 ; 5 : i , 2 20 ; 7 : 24, 3 1 ; 8:27;
9:2; 10:1). The author makes occasional incidental
reference to the political status and rulers of Judea and
Galilee (6: I4; 3 6: 17;** 15: i ff. 5 ). He refers somewhat
frequently to the parties and classes of people among the
Jews, as also to Jewish customs and usages, usually with-
out comment or explanation (1:22, 44; 2:6, 18, 24;
3:6, 22; 5:22, 35; 7:i-i3; 6 8:11, 15, 31; io:2ff., 33;
11:15,27; I2:i3ff., 18,28,38-40; 13; i ; 14:1, i2ff., 53
1 The location of Dalmanutha has never been satisfactorily deter-
mined. See HENDERSON in HASTINGS, Dictionary of the Bible.
* Cf. chap, i, p. 2, n. 2.
3 The designation of Herod Antipas as king is inaccurate, but
follows perhaps the popular manner of speech.
* According to JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, xviii, 5, 4, Herodias was the
wife, not of Philip, tetrarch of the northeastern provinces, but of his
half-brother Herod, who lived and died a private person. Mark's state-
ment must be explained either by supposing that this Herod was also
known as Philip (he was the son of a different mother from Philip the
tetrarch) or by attributing it to a confusion between Herod the husband
of Herodias and his brother Philip, husband of her daughter, Salome,
who is also referred to in this passage. See HEADLAM in HASTINGS,
Dictionary of the Bible, art. " Herod," Vol. I, pp. 3590, 3606.
6 Concerning this statement of Pilate's custom, see chap, i, p. 8 ;
but observe also that Mark's language even less than Matthew's intimates
that this was a general custom of the procurators of Judea.
6 In this passage vss. 3, 4 contain an explanation of Jewish custom,
implying, however, not so much a non-Jewish writer as non-Jewish
readers. See also 12:18 and 15:42.
THE AUTHOR 29
ff. ; 15:1, 10, n, 31, 42, 43. In four passages he uses
Aramaic words, in each case explaining them (5:41;
7:11, 34; 15 : 34; cf. 15 .'42, where, though the word is
not Aramaic, but a Greek word used in a technical Jewish
sense, he explains its meaning). To these positive evi-
dences may be added the negative fact of the almost total
absence of quotations from the Old Testament scriptures, 7
which suggests either that the writer was not a Jew or
that he was writing specially for non- Jewish readers.
2. The author's relation to the events. It has fre-
quently been pointed out that the narrative of this gospel
abounds in details of time, place, and circumstances, and
the feelings and manner of Jesus and the other persons of
the narrative (1:13, 20, 41; 3 : 5, 9, 19-21; 4:35-41;
5:3-5, etc.). These details, though sometimes explained
as the work of the writer's fancy, are more justly regarded
as indicating that the writer was an eyewitness of the
events or drew his material from those who were such.
3. His religious position. That the writer, whatever
his nationality, was a Christian is evident from his first
phrase, " The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God," and is confirmed by the tone of the whole
book. Citation of particular passages is unnecessary.
But none of this evidence suffices to locate the author
definitely. We may, then, properly inquire whether there
is any outside evidence that will lead us to some more
definite conclusion. This brings us to
7 The only quotation in this gospel made by the evangelist himself
is that in i : 2, 3 ; the words in the A. V. 15 : 28 do not belong to the
true text, and all the other quotations of Scripture language occur in his
report of the language of others, usually of Jesus. Of these a list of
twenty-three, besides forty-four briefer references to the Old Testament,
is given in SWETE, Gospel according to St. Mark, pp. Ixx ff.
30 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
4. The testimony of tradition concerning the author-
ship of the book. This is conveyed to us in two ways.
a) The ancient manuscripts of this gospel uniformly
bear the title Kara Map/cov, " According to Mark," or
EvayyeXiov Kara Maprcov, " Gospel according to Mark," or
its equivalent. 8
b) Ancient writers, from Papias on, speak of a gospel
of Mark, but almost as constantly represent the apostle
Peter as the chief source of his information. Though the
earliest of these writers do not by description or quotation
definitely identify the book to which they refer with our
present second gospel, yet the testimonies constitute a
continuous series down to the latter part of the second
century, when abundant quotations identify it beyond all
question. The following are some of the most ancient of
these testimonies :
And the presbyter also said this: Mark, having become the
interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately whatever he remembered, not,
however, recording in order the things that were said or done by the
Christ. For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow him;
but afterward, as I said, [he followed] Peter, who adapted his teach-
ing to the need of the occasion, but not as if he were making a sys-
tematic arrangement of the words of the Lord. So that Mark did not
err at all in writing some things as he remembered them. For he
was careful for one thing, not to pass over any of the things that he
had heard or to state anything falsely in them. (EUSEBIUS, H. E.,
iii> 39> quoted from PAPIAS.)
Matthew indeed published a written gospel also among the
Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul in Rome were
preaching the gospel and founding a church. But after the departure
of these, Mark the disciple and interpreter of Peter, he also having
written the things preached by Peter, transmitted them to us. ( EUSE-
BIUS, H. E., v, 8, quoted from IREN^EUS.)
8 See chap, i, p. 8, n. 7.
THE AUTHOR 31
So greatly, however, did the light of piety enlighten the minds
of Peter's hearers that it was not sufficient to hear but once, or to
receive the unwritten teaching of the divine preaching, but with all
manner of entreaties they importuned Mark, whose gospel we have,
and who was a follower of Peter, that he should leave them in writ-
ing a memorial of the teaching which had been orally communicated
to them. Nor did they cease their solicitations until they had pre-
vailed with the man, and thus became the cause of that writing which
is called the gospel according to Mark. They say also that the
apostle [Peter], having learned what had been done, the Spirit having
revealed it to him, was pleased with the zeal of the men and author-
ized the work for use by the churches. This is stated by Clement in
the sixth book of his Institutions, and is corroborated by Papias,
bishop of Hierapolis. (EUSEBIUS, H. E., ii, 15.)
Paul therefore had Titus as his interpreter, as also the blessed
Peter had Mark, whose gospel was composed Peter narrating and he
[Mark] writing. (JEROME, Epistola cxx, ad Hedibiam.Y
Despite the inconsistencies of these statements with
one another as to the extent and character of Peter's
influence on the gospel, it is entirely evident that the early
church both attributed this gospel to Mark and believed
that he was in some way indebted for his facts, in part at
least, to the apostle Peter. The Mark referred to in the
tradition is undoubtedly the John Mark spoken of in the
New Testament in Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5,13; 15:37.39;
Col. 4:10, ii ; Philem. 24; i Pet. 5:13; 2 Tim. 4:11.
From these passages it appears that Mark was a contem-
porary of Jesus, but probably only to a limited extent an
eyewitness of the events of Jesus' life.
These three factors of the evidence the internal
evidence of the book, the testimony of tradition, and the
statements of the New Testament concerning Mark are
self-consistent, and, though not amounting to a demon-
9 For other testimonies of antiquity see CHARTERIS, Canonicity.
32 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
stration, certainly afford reasonable ground for the con-
clusion that we have in the second gospel a work of John
Mark, at different times a companion of Peter and of
Paul ; a work based in considerable part on the discourses
of the apostle Peter to which Mark had listened, and in
which Peter had related many things concerning the life
of Jesus. It is presumably to Peter that the narrative is
indebted for most of those details that suggest an eye-
witness. What other sources Mark may have had it is
impossible now to determine. 10
II. THE READERS FOR WHOM THE BOOK WAS INTENDED
Reference has already been made to the internal indi-
cations that the second gospel was intended, not for
Jewish readers, but for gentiles. The almost total absence
of quotations from or references to the Old Testament in
the words of the evangelist himself, the absence of any
special adaptation of the narrative or of the teachings of
Jesus to the Jewish need or point of view, such as is so
conspicuous in the first gospel, together with the occa-
sional explanation of Jewish customs and modes of
thought (7:2, 3; 12:18), and of Aramaic words or
Jewish technical terms (3:17; 5:41; 7:11,34; 15:34,
42 11 ), all suggest that the author has in mind that his
10 The view of BADHAM, St. Mark's Indebtedness to St. Matthew,
that the picturesque details of Mark's gospel are embellishments added
by the evangelist to narratives taken from an older source, and that of
WENDT, Lehre Jesu, Part I, pp. 9-44, especially pp. 10, 36, 41, 43, that
the sources of Mark to the number of eight can be discovered by literary
analysis, both seem to me wholly improbable.
"Saravas in 1:13, Beefe^oi/X in 3 : 22, 'Pafipovvd in 10:51, are left
without explanation, the first two probably as being proper names which
required no explanation, the latter perhaps as a word sufficiently known,
even among ( non- Jewish Christians, not to require explanation. 'A/S/3d
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITER 33
book will be read by gentiles rather than by Jews. With
this agrees also the incidental testimony of tradition
quoted above. Nor is there anything specially improbable
in the tradition that Mark wrote at Rome and for Romans.
The occurrence of Latin words in the gospel has also been
said to confirm this tradition, but quite clearly without
sufficient ground. Although it contains ten Latin words,
seven of these (modius, 4:21; legio, 5:9, 15; denarius,
6:37; 12:15; *4 : 5 '> census, 12:14; quadrans, 12:42;
flagello, 15:15; praetorium, 15 : 16) are common to one
or more of the other gospels and only three (speculator,
6:27; sextarius, 7:4, 8; centurio, 15:39, 44, 45) are
peculiar to Mark.
Whether the gospel was intended for gentile Chris-
tians or for non-Christian gentiles can be determined, if
at all, only on the basis of the evidence for the purpose of
the book, which is still to be considered.
III. THE PURPOSE WITH WHICH THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN
In the absence of any statement by the author of the
purpose with which he wrote, it is necessary to appeal
solely to the evidence afforded by the content and arrange-
ment of the book, and by the emphasis which it lays upon
certain ideas or elements of the narrative.
At the outset, in the phrase which in effect contains
in 14:36 is explained by the immediately following 6 Tra-r^o, though
this is perhaps not a mere explanatory addition. Cf. SWETE, The Gospel
according to St. Mark, ad loc. On the general subject of Aramaic in the
New Testament see KAUTZSCH, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramdischen,
pp. 7-12; NEUBAUER, "Dialects Spoken in Palestine," in Studia Biblica,
Vol. I, pp. 39 ff., especially p. 56 ; SCHURER, History of the Jewish
People. Div. II, Vol. I, pp. 8-10; 3d German ed., Vol. II, pp. 18-20;
DALMAN, Words of Jesus, pp. 1-42.
34 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
the title of the book, Jesus is characterized as the Christ,
the Son of God, 12 and in the first event in which Jesus
himself appears he heard the voice from heaven saying to
him: 'Thou art my beloved son; in thee I am well
pleased." This naturally raises the question whether the
first line of the gospel does not express the proposition
which it is the purpose of the author in the rest of the
book to prove. But does the book, as a whole, justify an
affirmative answer to this question? Certainly the book
is not in form an argument framed to support this proposi-
tion. Nor is it true that in the narrative Jesus is repre-
sented as affirming this proposition at the outset, and then
devoting his ministry to the advancing of evidence to
sustain it. But neither of these facts quite answers the
question of the author's purpose. It is necessary to dis-
tinguish between the purpose which the writer aimed to
accomplish and the form in which he presented his
material, as well as between the proposition which the
writer puts in the forefront of his book and that which
Jesus put in the forefront of his ministry. What proposi-
tion the writer aimed to prove, or what impression he
aimed to make, or what result he desired to accomplish,
can be answered only by a careful study of the contents
and structure of the book, and to this we must turn.
12 The words " Son of God " (vlov 0eov) are lacking in a very few
ancient authorities. Westcott and Hort place them in the margin,
expressing the opinion that neither reading can be safely rejected. The
strong evidence in their favor, and the early recognition of Jesus as Son
of God in the narrative, seem to justify the treatment of this characteri-
zation as reflecting the author's conception of Jesus. SWETE, The Gospel
according to St. Mark, pp. Ix, i, expresses the opinion that the whole
of this verse is probably due to a later hand. But this is a conjecture
for which there is no external evidence.
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITER 35
After a brief account of trie ministry of John the Bap-
tist, and an equally condensed narrative of the baptism
and temptation of Jesus, the narrative passes at once into
his Galilean ministry. This ministry begins with the
announcement of the approach of the kingdom and a
command to the people to repent. Jesus teaches the
people, heals the sick, casts out demons, forgives sin,
gathers disciples, makes for himself enemies. Yet, so
far as the record shows, he gave no name to his office,
and claimed for himself no title but "Son of man," 13
accepted none but " Sir " or " Master/'
The effect of this evangelistic and healing work of
Jesus was twofold. On the one hand, multitudes followed
him, chiefly to be healed; a few disciples attached them-
selves to him, and from these he selected, after a time, the
Twelve whom he instructed and sent out to do the same
kind of work that he himself was doing. From these
Twelve he called forth at length on the journey to Caesarea
Philippi what was apparently their first explicit and intel-
13 Into the much-disputed question what the term " Son of man "
meant, as used by Jesus of himself, there is not space to enter here. It
it perhaps sufficient to observe that in view of the reticence concerning
his messiahship which, according to this gospel, Jesus observed almost
to the end of his ministry, it is impossible to suppose that the evangelist
regarded the term " Son of man," by which Jesus is said publicly and
almost from the beginning of his ministry to have designated himself,
as a recognized equivalent of " Messiah." That the possibility that he
was the Messiah was early discussed among the people (cf. the statement
of Luke 3:15 concerning John the Baptist, and the titles with which,
according to all the synoptists, the demoniacs addressed Jesus, Mark
3:11, etc.) is not intrinsically improbable. But this does not imply
that Jesus had declared himself to be the Messiah, and it is worthy of
note that those who address him as Messiah never employ the term
" Son of man."
36 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
ligent acknowledgment of his messiahship. 14 Then, for-
bidding his disciples to speak to others of him as the
Messiah, he went on to instruct them further concerning
his mission, telling them, what was entirely out of char-
acter with their conception of the Messiah, that he must
suffer and die, rejected by his nation, and that they, as his
disciples, must be ready, with like devotion to the interests
of their fellow-men, to suffer a like fate. From this time
on he continued his instruction of the disciples, partly in
specific preparation of them for his death, partly in the
way of more general instruction concerning the things of
the kingdom.
On the other hand, Jesus met with opposition. His
own family thought him beside himself; his fellow-
townsmen had little faith in him; the scribes and Phari-
sees opposed him, at first not pronouncedly, but with
increasing bitterness. This contrariety of result was in
accordance with Jesus' own teaching that the sowing of
the seed of the kingdom would be followed, not by uni-
form harvests of good, but by diverse results and division
of households. His assumption of authority in the temple,
14 This does not imply that the disciples had not from the first sus-
pected, or even believed, that Jesus was the Christ ; still less that Jesus
had not from the first known himself to be the Messiah. The representa-
tion of this gospel is rather that Jesus did not thrust his messianic claim
into the foreground ; did hot make recognition of it a test and condition
of discipleship ; did not, so to speak, conduct his campaign on the basis
of it; but, on the contrary, kept it in the background, both with his
disciples and with the people at large, until each had had the opportunity
to gain from Jesus' own conduct and character a conception of messiah-
ship somewhat akin to his own. He did not define himself by the term
" Messiah," but he defined " Messiah " by himself. Thus this term
represented for the disciples, as they grew in knowledge of their Master,
an ever-changing and enlarging conception.
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITER 37
following close upon his triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
in which he had for the first time encouraged and planned
the public declaration of him as the Messiah, fanned into
flame the opposition of his enemies. The Pharisees, who
were his earliest opponents, joined now by the Sadducees
and chief priests, determined upon his death. His trial
gave occasion to a distinct avowal on his part that he was
the Christ, the Son of God, and it was for this that he was
condemned to death by the Jewish authorities.
His death, in which the opposition to him culminates,
was speedily followed by his resurrection, 15 verifying his
prediction and vindicating his claims.
Thus the book gives a picture of the public career of
Jesus which, taken as a whole, has a clearly defined char-
acter and great verisimilitude. Possessing, from the
moment of his baptism, the first event in which he appears
in the gospel, a clear definition of his own mission, he
moves steadily on in the work of proclaiming the kingdom
15 Mark's story of the resurrection is incomplete in the gospel as we
have it. Chap. 16 : 8 is the end of that which we have reason to believe
came from the hand of Mark. Yet it cannot be that this is all that he
wrote. He certainly did not intend to close his gospel with the words,
" They were afraid," and with no account at all of an appearance of
Jesus after his resurrection. But the remainder of what he wrote, or
intended to write, has in some way failed of transmission to us.
Instead of it we have in vss. 9-20 a narrative of the appearance of Jesus
after his resurrection, from another hand, and based, perhaps, on the
accounts of the other gospels. For fuller discussion of the genuineness
and authorship of this passage see WESTCOTT AND HORT, Greek Testa-
ment, II, Appendix, pp. 28-51 ; BURGON, The Last Twelve Verses of St.
Mark; SALMON, Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 144-51;
GOULD, Commentary on Mark, pp. 301-4; CONYBEARE, in Expositor, IV,
viii, p. 241 ; IV, x, p. 219 ; V, ii, p. 401 ; ZAHN, Geschichte des neu-
testamentlichen Kanons, Vol. II, pp. 910 ff. ; ROHRBACH, Der Schluss
des Markusevangeliums.
38 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
and revealing himself to men who, in the nature of the
case, could receive that revelation only little by little. Not
by argument, not chiefly by assertion, but by his life he
reveals himself and his conception of the kingdom and the
Messiah. Winning, by this revelation, both followers and
foes, he teaches his disciples, as they are able to receive it, '
what his work and fate are to be, and what theirs, too,
must be, and moves on, with clear foresight both of death
and of triumph over death, to the culmination of his self-
revelation in crucifixion and resurrection.
It is thus with Jesus in his public career that this book
has to do. There is no story of the infancy. There is no
genealogical table linking Jesus with the past and proving
his Abrahamic and Davidic descent. The background of
the life is Palestinian and Jewish, as it must have been to
be true to the facts, but there is no emphasis upon the
relations of Jesus to Judaism or the Old Testament. Quo-
tations of Jesus from the Old Testament are reported, but
the evangelist's own use of it is limited to his first sen-
tence. The distinctly Jewish point of view, so clearly
manifest in Matthew, for example, is wholly lacking. It
is not Jesus in relation to the past, or the prophecies of the
Messiah, but Jesus as he appeared to his contemporaries, *
a figure in, and a factor of, the history of his own times,
that this gospel presents to us. The narrative is confined
wholly to the most active period of Jesus' life, chiefly to
the busy Galilean ministry and the still more crowded
passion week. It is rapid, condensed, abrupt. It reminds
one of the words of Peter: "Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders
and signs which God did by him in the midst of you"
(Acts 2:22), and "Jesus of Nazareth, how that God
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITER
39
anointed him with Holy Spirit and power, who went
about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of
the devil ; for God was with him " (Acts 10 : 38).
Such a presentation of Jesus has all the value of an
argument, with little of its form, and possibly with no
conscious argumentative aim. The structure of the book
seems almost wholly unaffected by a purpose of the writer
to convince his readers of any defined proposition. Not
only is there lacking,, as also in Matthew, the strictly argu-
mentative structure, but there is little indication even of
the arrangement of material in a certain order to facilitate
the production of a certain impression (cf. n. 16, p. 41).
Even in respect to the plan and method of Jesus, of which
the book gives so distinct an impression, it does not appear
that the book was written to prove that such was Jesus'
method, but rather that it was written as it was because
such was, in fact, the career of Jesus, v This element is in
the book, we are constrained to believe, because it was in
the life. The writer tells the story of the life of Jesus as
he knows it, naturally emphasizing the things which have
impressed him.- Because it has impressed him it will im-
press other men of like minds, and because of this fact it
possesses argumentative value. But the argument is latent
rather than explicit. There are men today to whom
closely wrought argument, presenting a proposition and
sustaining it by a series of reasons, means little, but to
whom deeds of power still more, a career of power
mean much. Such men are impressionable rather than
reflective, emotional rather than logical. Such a man the
New Testament leads us to believe Peter was, and there
is not lacking a suggestion that John Mark was a man
of the same character. Such a man, at any rate, we judge
40 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
the writer of this gospel to have been, and to such men
especially would it appeal. It is adapted to lead them to
share the author's conviction, announced in his first line,
that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God; or, if they
already hold it, to hold it more firmly and intelligently.
The book makes its appeal to the reader as it records that
Jesus made his appeal to his contemporaries, not by argu-
ment adduced to prove his messiahship, but by the simple
presentation of the life itself, leaving this life to make its
own impression. -<A.s Jesus, believing from the beginning
in his own messiahship and divine sonship, convinced his
followers of it, not by affirmation or by argument, but by
living, so the evangelist, holding at the outset to the
messiahship of Jesus, depends, not on formulated argu-
ment, but on the story of the life to carry this conviction
to his readers. The book differs in this respect from the
life only in the incidental announcement of its thesis in its
first line.
Is such a book intended to convince unbelievers or to
instruct those who already believe ? Certainly it could be
used for either purpose. But the absence of anything like
a controversial tone, the simple straightforwardness of
the story, without comment, or even arrangement for
argumentative purposes, leads us to think of it as a book
written for Christians rather than for unbelievers, and
chiefly for instruction rather than for conviction. That it
was intended, as it has been maintained in chap, i, that
Matthew was, to play a part in the controversies of the
apostolic age of which we learn from Acts and the epistles,
there is no evidence. The writer is certainly not a Juda-
istic Christian, but neither does he show any distinctly
anti-Judaistic interest. He writes in an atmosphere, or
THE PLAN OF THE BOOK 41
from a point of view, unaffected by these controversies.
Its aim is undoubtedly edificaJtion, but it seeks this, not so
much by convincing its readers of something they did not
believe, or even by setting itself to confirm a conviction
already held, as by informing them of facts which are use-
ful to them to know. The book has argumentative value
for believers and unbelievers, but it must be doubted
whether its author thought of it as argumentative in any
sense.
IV. THE PLAN OF THE BOOK
The following analysis is an attempt to show the
contents and structure of the book as it lay in the mind
of the writer, though the simplicity of the plan of the
book renders such an analysis in part scarcely more than
an enumeration of sections. Though we cannot affirm
that Mark has in all cases given events in their chrono-
logical order, there is little or nothing to show that he
ever intentionally varied from the order. 16 And the rela-
16 At one point only in the gospel is there any considerable indication
of arrangement upon a topical plan involving a departure from chrono-
logical order, viz., in 2:1 3:6. This group of five short narratives
certainly does exhibit the growth of the hostility of the scribes and
Pharisees to Jesus, and this seems to be clearly the link of connection
joining them. That they should have occurred thus in rapid succession
seems somewhat improbable, and the plot to put him to death (3:6)
strikes one as strange so early in the ministry. It is possible that the
grouping here was that of one of Peter's discourses, and that 3 : 1-6, or
at least vs. 6, is anachronistically narrated. Even this, however, must
remain only a conjecture, and the general order of events in Mark
remains, if not chronological, yet apparently the nearest approximation
to such an arrangement that we possess. Cf. SWETE, St. Mark, pp.
liii ff. ; BRUCE, in the Expositor's Greek Testament, Vol. I, pp. 27-32.
For an attempt to discover the true order of the events of Jesus'
ministry on the basis of intrinsic probability and in large part inde-
pendently of the order of any of the evangelists, see BRIGGS, New Light
on the Life of Jesus.
42 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
tions of events to one another the causal dependence of
later events upon earlier ones constrains us to believe
that not only is the succession of the several periods of the
record that also of the life, but that within these periods
the order is, in the main, that of the events themselves.
ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPEL
I. INTRODUCTION : PREPARATION FOR THE PUBLIC WORK
OF JESUS. 1 : 1-13
1. Preaching of John the Baptist. 1 : 1-8
2. Baptism of Jesus. 1:9-11
3. Temptation in the wilderness. 1 : 12, 13
II. THE GALILEAN MINISTRY. 1 : 14 9 : 50
1. The work begun and favorably received. 1 : 14-45
a) Jesus begins preaching in Galilee. 1 : 14, 15
b) Call of the four fishermen. 1 : 16-20
c) A sabbath in Capernaum. 1:21-34
d) A preaching tour in Galilee. 1 : 35-45
2. The opposition of the scribes and Pharisees ex-
cited and rapidly developed. 2 : I 3 : 6
o) A paralytic healed and his sins forgiven. 2: 1-12
fc) Call of Levi, and the feast in his house. 2: 13-17
c) Jesus' answer to a question concerning fast-
ing. 2 : 18-22
d) Plucking grain on the sabbath. 2:23-28
e) A withered hand healed on the sabbath. 3 : 1-6
3. The beginnings of the separation between the
followers of Christ and the rest of the com-
munity; the organization of the band of twelve
personal attendants and helpers. 3 : 7-35
o) The widespread fame of Jesus. 3 : 7-12
b} The choosing of the Twelve. 3: 13-19
c) Concerning eternal sin. 3:20-30
d} Natural and spiritual kinsmen. 3 : 3 x -35
4. The parables of the kingdom's growth, in which
is also illustrated its separating power. 4: 1-34
THE PLAN OF THE BOOK 43
5. Sundry manifestations of his power, which meet
with varied reception, some believing, some un-
believing, some slow to believe. 4 : 35 6 : 6
o) Stilling of the tempest. 4 : 35-41
b) The Gerasene demoniac. 5 : 1-20
c) Jairus's daughter raised to life. S' 2I -43
d) The rejection at Nazareth. 6: 1-6
6. The sending out of the Twelve to engage in
work like that of Jesus himself. 6 : 7-29
7. The continuance of Jesus' work in Galilee, with
the reappearance of the same features ; he heals
and feeds the multitudes ; his disciples are slow
of understanding; the multitudes follow him;
the Pharisees oppose him. 6 : 30 7 : 23
a) The feeding of the five thousand. 6 : 30-46
b) Jesus walking on the sea. 6: 47-52
c) Many healed in Galilee. 6 : 53-56
d) On eating with unwashen hands. ... 7: 1-23
8. A withdrawal from Galilee into gentile territory,
and the ready faith which Jesus finds there. 7 : 24-37
a) The Syrophoenician woman's daughter. 7:24-30
b) The deaf and dumb man healed. 7 : 31-37
9. Further experiences in Galilee in which the same
features as before appear. 8 : 1-26
a) The feeding of the four thousand. 8 : i-io
b} Pharisees demanding a sign from heaven. 8: 11-21
c) A blind man healed near Bethsaida. 8:22-26
10. A second withdrawal from Galilee: tour to
Caesarea Philippi and return to the sea. Jesus
draws out from Peter the confession of him as
the Christ, and begins to teach his disciples con-
cerning his own sufferings, and the conditions of
discipleship to him. 8 : 27 9 : 50
o) Peter's confession of Jesus' messiahship. 8 : 27-30
b) Jesus' prediction of his own death and resur-
rection. 8: 31 9' i
c} The transfiguration. 9 :2-I 3
44 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
rf) The demoniac boy healed. 9: 14-29
e) Jesus again foretells his death and resurrec-
tion. 9 : 30-32
/) The ambition and jealousy of the disciples
reproved. 9 : 33-50
III. THE JOURNEY FROM GALILEE TO JUDEA, and instruc-
tions on the way; on nearing Jerusalem Jesus is
publicly saluted as son of David. chap. 10
1. Departure from Galilee into Perea. 10 : 1
2. Concerning divorce. 10:2-12
3. Blessing little children. 10: 13-16
4. The rich young ruler. io: 17-31
5. Announcement of his crucifixion. io : 32-34
6. Ambition of James and John reproved. io : 35-45
7. The blind man near Jericho healed. 10:46-52
IV. THE MINISTRY IN JERUSALEM : Jesus causes him-
self to be announced as Messiah; comes into con-
flict with the leaders of the people; predicts the
downfall of the Jewish temple and capital. chaps. 11-13
1. The triumphal entry; Jesus is saluted as Mes-
siah. ii:i-n
2. The cursing of the fig tree. n : 12-14
3. The cleansing of the temple. II : 15-19
4. Comment on the withered fig tree. 11:20-25
5. Conflict with the Jewish leaders. 11:27 12:40
a) Christ's authority challenged. 11:27-33
fc) The parable of the vineyard. 12 : 1-12
c) Three questions by the Jewish rulers. 12 : 13-34
d) Jesus' question concerning David's son. 12 : 35-37
e) Warning against the scribes. 12 : 39, 40
6. The widow's two mites. 12:41-44
7. The prophetic discourse concerning the down-
fall of the temple and city. chap. 13
V. THE PASSION HISTORY. chaps. 14, 15
1. The plot of the Jews. 14:1,2
2. The anointing in the house of Simon the leper. 14 : 3-9
3. The bargain of Judas with the Jewish leaders. 14:10,11
THE PLAN OF THE BOOK 45
* j
4. The last passover of Jesus and his disciples. 14: 12-26
5. Prediction of Peter's denial. 14:27-31
6. The agony in Gethsemane. 14 : 32-42
7. The betrayal and arrest. 14 : 43-52
8. The trial before the Jewish authorities. 14 : 53-65
9. The denials of Peter. 14 : 66-72
10. The trial before Pilate. 15 : 1-20
11. The crucifixion and the death of Jesus. 15:21-41
12. The burial. 15 : 42-47
VI. THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS, attested by the empty
tomb and the word of the young man. 16 : 1-8
Appendix : Summary of the appearances of Jesus. 16 : 9-20
CHAPTER III
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
i. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
IN dealing with the gospel of Luke we have an
advantage, which we do not possess in the case of either
Matthew or Mark, that the author opens his book with a
preface which is rich in information concerning the liter-
ary and historical situation out of which the book arose :
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative
concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even
as they delivered them unto us which from the beginning were eye-
witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also,
having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to
write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou might-
est know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast
instructed.
Postponing to a later chapter the fuller discussion of
the significance of the preface in its bearing upon the
general problem of the origin of our gospels, we may
notice here its clear indication that this gospel was by no
means the earliest attempt to publish a narrative of the
life of Jesus. When the author wrote, not only was that
life the subject of instruction in the church (vs. 4), but
many persons had already undertaken to compose a narra-
tive of its events (vs. i ) . The author of this gospel, while
recognizing the value of these efforts, conceives also that
they leave something still to be desired, and writes, after
careful investigation, that the reader, already instructed
in the facts of the life of Jesus, may have certain knowl-
edge of these things wherein he had received instruction.^
4 6
THE AUTHOR 47
It is evident, not only that the statements of this pref-
ace have a direct bearing upon the question for whom
and with what purpose the gospel was written, but that
its distinct intimation that the author possessed, and per-
haps used, older gospel writings must be taken into
account in interpreting the indications of the gospel itself
as to who the author was. We must be prepared to con-
sider whether there are diverse indications of authorship,
and to determine, as far as we may, whether any given
feature of the narrative is traceable to the final author who
wrote the preface, or to those earlier authors of whose
writings he made use. Yet first of all we must examine
the gospel as it stands for the evidence which it yields
respecting its author, intended readers, and purpose.
II. THE AUTHOR
i. His nationality as it appears in the gospel itself.
There are numerous references in all parts of the gospel to
Palestinian localities (i : 5, 26, 39; 2 14, 39, 41 ; 3 : i, 3;
4:16; 5:1, 17; 6:17; 7:11; 8:26; 10:13, 15; 17:11;
18:35; !9* 1,29, 37,41; 23:5-7; 24:13). One or two
of the localities referred to cannot be certainly identified, 1
but in every case in which the location of the place is
known the reference of the gospel to it corresponds to its
locality, and in some cases the correspondence of the nar-
ratives to the local conditions is somewhat striking. 2
1 On Bethphage, 19:29, and Emmaus, 24: 13, see the Bible diction-
aries. On " the country of the Gerasenes," 8 : 26, see chap, i, p. 2, n. 2.
2 On 4:31, "down to Capernaum," observe that Nazareth is 1,144
feet above sea-level, while Capernaum is on the shore of the Sea of
Galilee, whch is 682 feet below sea-level. On the route of the triumphal
entry as described by Luke in 19:37, 41 (these details are peculiar to
him) see STANLEY, Sinai and Palestine, pp. 186-90.
4 8
Observe also the reference to climate in 12:54 ff. To
these may be added occasional references to the different
elements of the population of the country and to their
relations to one another (7:2; 17:16, 1 8).
A considerable number of the geographical references
occur in passages which have closely parallel narratives in
Matthew or Mark, suggesting the possibility that the
author's geographical knowledge is second-hand. Yet in
some of these cases Luke contains a definition of locality
not found in the other gospels (4:31; 8 : 26), or an alter-
native name (5:1), and there are a number of correctly
used geographical terms in passages of which there are no
parallels in the other gospels (i : 5, 26, 39; 2:4, 39, 41,
etc.), including one which seems very clearly of an edi-
torial character from the pen of the final author (3:1).
Taken altogether, the evidence suggests at least such a
general knowledge of the country as enabled the author
intelligently to use and edit his sources.
The gospel frequently speaks, and always, so far as we
are able to test it, correctly, of Jewish history, parties,
institutions, usages, 3 and current opinions. Thus the
priests and the temple are spoken of in 1 : 5, 8-n, 21-23;
3:2; 5:14; 6:4; 10:31 (cf. 32); 17:14; I9-45-47;
20 : i, 19; 21 : i, 5; 22:4, 52, 54, 66; 23:13; the Phari-
sees, their usages, opinions, and characteristics, in 5:17,
21, 30, 33; 6:2, 7; 7:30, 36ff.; 11:37-44; 12:1;
14:1,3; 15:2; 16:14; 18:10, ii ; 19:39; scribes or
lawyers, in 5:17; 10:25; 11:45-54; 14:3; 19:47;
20: i, 19, 46; 22:2, 66; the Sadducees, in 20:27; the
Sanhedrin, in 9 : 22 ; 20:19; 22:2,66; 23:13; 24:20;
3 Concerning a possible exception to this statement in 2 : 22-24, see
Appended Note III, p. 74.
THE AUTHOR
49
the publicans, in 3:12; 5:27-30; 7:29; 18:10-13;
19:2, 8; the Jewish Scriptures, in 2:23; 3:4; 4:4, 8,
10,12,17-21; 7:27; 18:20,31; 20:28,37,42; 24:27;
characters and events of the Old Testament narrative, in
4:25-27; 6:3, 4, 23; 9:8, 19, 30, 33; 10:12-14; ii :
29-32, 51; 13:28; 16:29-31; 17:26-29, 32; recent
events, in 13:1-4; probably in 19 : 12 ; the custom of cir-
cumcision, in i : 59-63; 2:21; the ceremonies in connec-
tion with the birth of a child, in 2 : 22-27, 39 > tne feast of
the passover, in 2:41-46; 22:1, 7, n, 13, 15; syna-
gogues and their officers, in 4 : 15, 16-30, 33, 38, 44; 7:5;
8:41, 49; 13:10, 14; 20:46; current opinions and
expectations, in 3 : 15; 9:8,30; 13:28; 16:22; 18:38,
39; 20:17-33.
The facts respecting the use of Old Testament Scrip-
ture in this gospel are somewhat peculiar. The first two
chapters, the infancy section, are full of language mani-
festly derived from the Old Testament. This is especially
true of the utterances of the angel, of Mary, of Zacharias,
and of Simeon. But the narrative also contains Old
Testament language, and even explicit quotations (2:23,
24). The genealogical table in chap. 3, though the fact
that it is carried back, not as in Matthew to Abraham, the
ancestor of the Jewish nation, but to Adam, the progenitor
of the human race, shows a wider horizon than that of
the Jewish nation, is yet, of course, derived from Jewish
sources, partly biblical, partly post-biblical. In the rest of
the gospels, on the other hand, the use of Scripture lan-
guage is much less frequent. Like Mark, this gospel also
records the use of Scripture language by Jesus and others,
the passages being in the majority of cases parallel to
those in Mark or Matthew, but including also a number
50 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
not reported in the other gospels. But outside the first
two chapters and the genealogical table there is but one
explicit quotation (Luke 3:4 ff.) by the evangelist, and
this is parallel to the one passage in which the second
gospel quotes the Old Testament. There is also one pas-
sage (23:34) in which Old Testament language is used
in a narrative passage without reference to its Old Testa-
ment origin ; this passage likewise being parallel to one in
Mark and Matthew. 4 The quotations as a whole show the
influence of the Septuagint, and no clear evidence that the
author of the gospel knew Hebrew. 5
References to the political situation in Palestine are
explicit and important. Incidental references occur in
1:5; 3:19, 20; 7:2; 8:3; 13:1; 19:12 (?); 20:
22-24; 2 3 : 1 ~ 2 4 passim, 52. In all these cases some of
them paralleled in the other gospels, others peculiar to
Luke the references are true to the situation as we
know it from other sources. There are also two passages
peculiar to Luke which are evidently careful editorial
notes : 2 : 1-3 ; 3:1,2. The latter of these is an entirely
correct statement of the political situation in Judea in
the fifteenth year of Tiberius; but there is some diffi-
culty in combining into a consistent chronology the state-
ment that John the Baptist began his ministry in the fif-
teenth year of Tiberius and the data yielded respectively
by Luke 2:1-3 and 3 : 23. The expression " in the high-
* To this there should perhaps be added three passages in which
Westcott and Hort recognize the use of Old Testament language (23 135,
36, 49), but the resemblance to the Old Testament is so slight and
incidental, extending in two cases to a single word only, that they afford
little evidence.
B See PLUMMER, Commentary on Luke, p. xxxv.
B See Appended Note I, p. 67.
THE AUTHOR 51
priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas " ( eirl apx^peax; "Awa
ical KaLafa observe the use of the singular), reflects
not very distinctly, yet not incorrectly, the peculiar situa-
tion of the time in respect to the office of high priest. 7
The other passage, 2:1-3, creates more difficulty, and has
given rise to prolonged discussion. Of the many solutions
that have been proposed none is altogether satisfactory,
in the sense of furnishing conclusive evidence that Luke's
statement is wholly accurate; yet its erroneousness is not
proved, and it is at least possible that it is itself an impor-
tant datum for the determination of the facts respecting
enrolments in the Roman empire. 8 In any case, it remains
that these two passages show an interest of the evangelist
in the relations of the life of Jesus to the affairs of the
Roman empire at large, such as appears in none of the
other gospels, and indicate a writer who had sought by
investigation of the facts to connect the events he was
narrating with the history of the land and the empire,
rather than one who with easy familiarity with the facts
mentioned them incidentally without effort or special
intention.
References to social life, everyday occupations, and
articles of common use are very frequent, so much so as
to constitute a characteristic of this gospel as compared
with the other gospels. Thus the house is spoken of in
5:19; 11:7; 12:39; 13:25; 17:31; 22:11; various
household utensils are mentioned in 1:63; 5:18; 8:16;
11:7.33; IS' 8 ; 1 ?^; clothing, in 9: 3; 10:4; 22: 35 f.;
the meals of the day, in 7:36; 11:37; 14:1,7,8; 20:
7 See chap, v, p. 99, n. 2 ; LIGHTFOOT, Biblical Essays, p. 163 ; PLUM-
MER, ad loc.
8 See Appended Note II, p. 68.
52 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
46; articles of food, in 6 : 44 ; 9:13; 11:5, n, 12; 13:
21 ; 15:23; 17:35; 22:19; 24:30, 42; beverages, in
I:I 5; 5 : 37; 7 : 33; 2 3 : 3 6 ; oil and ointment, in 7 : 37,
38, 46; feasts and similar social customs, in 7:44-46;
14:7-10; 15 : 22-25; funeral customs, in 7: 12, 14; 8:52;
exigencies of travel, in 9:3-5; 10:4-6, 10, n, 34, 35;
11:5-7. M en f various occupations are mentioned : shep-
herds, in 2: 8; 15:4; 17:7; swineherds, in 8: 34; 15:15;
plowmen, in 17:7; fishermen, in 5:2-11; corngrinders, in
17:35; spinning, in 12:27; cf. also 14: 17; 15:17; ser-
vants and their duties, in 12 : 35 ff., 42 ff. ; 13 : 6~9. 9 Most
of these references have little or no evidential value in
respect to the question of authorship, yet, taken together,
they show a notable conformity to the conditions of life in
Palestine.
The Greek of the gospel is of three somewhat distinct
types. The preface is in excellent idiomatic Greek, with
no suggestion of Hebraistic influence. The infancy sec-
tion is very distinctly and strongly Hebraistic in character.
The remainder of the gospel is less markedly Hebraic,
resembling in general the gospels of Mark and Matthew,
yet having some peculiarities of its own. 10
" See Article by SHAILER MATHEWS, in Biblical World, June, 1895,
pp. 450 ff., of which free use has been made in this list.
10 Especially noteworthy are the use of the optative with Hv (a
classical idiom found in the New Testament only in Luke and Acts),
the frequent employment of tv with the infinitive (a construction very
common in the Septuagint, and found in all parts of Luke except the
preface, and occurring six times as often as in Matthew and Mark
together), the frequent occurrence of tytvero 84 and Kal tytvero (about
four times as often as in Matthew and Mark together), and prevailingly
with the Hebraistic construction following (indicative alone, or Kal with
an indicative ; in Acts, on the other hand, usually with the infinitive
THE AUTHOR
53
All these facts, considered together, point to the con-
clusion that the author certainly employed Jewish sources,
and was familiar with Jewish affairs, but may .not have
been himself a Jew. The story of the infancy is of a
strongly Jewish cast; the sources of the remainder of
the book are quite similar in this respect to the gospel of
Mark, and are presumably of Jewish origin, though not so
pronouncedly Jewish in character as the infancy story or
as the gospel of Matthew. The references to affairs of the
Roman empire, and the extension of the genealogical
table, are suggestive of a man who was not a Jew, or who
was at least somewhat decidedly cosmopolitan in his feel-
ing. He shows too much sympathy with the Jewish point
of view to have been a gentile who repudiated the Old
Testament religion, and too broad an outlook to have been
a Jew who held a narrow Jewish view of the world and
God's relation to it. He might be a Jew of cosmopolitan
feeling, or a gentile proselyte to Judaism.
2. His religious position. Of this there is no room
for doubt. Like the writers of the other gospels, the third
evangelist is a Christian in his belief. The subject of his
book is Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and the things
" which have been fulfilled among us," and concerning
which he desires his readers to "know the certainty," are
the deeds and teachings of Jesus. As respects the par-
ticular type of Christianity which he represented, it is
evident that his sympathies would be with the Pauline
rather than with the Judaistic party. Evidence of this
following). See J. H. MOULTON, Expositor, January, 1904, p. 74. Thus
the peculiarities of Luke's style are in part Hebraistic, in part distinctly
non-Hebraistic. See a detailed discussion of Luke's style in PLUMMER'S
Commentary, pp. li ff. and 45. HAWKINS, Horae Synopticae, pp. 140-61,
54 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
will appear in connection with the consideration of the
purpose of the book.
3. Evidence concerning the identity of the author
from outside the gospel. This is of three kinds:
a) That which is derived from the book of Acts,
combined with the evident relation of the gospel and the
Acts. That these two books are from the same author is
so evident that it has been affirmed by critics of every
school, and very rarely questioned. 11 To determine the
authorship of Acts would then be to determine that of the
third gospel. The former problem, however, is scarcely
less difficult than the latter. In certain portions of Acts,
known as the " we-sections " ( 16 : 10-40; 20 : 6 21 : 18 ;
27:1 28:16 or 31), the narrative is told in the first
person, implying that it is from the pen of an eyewitness
of the events. That this implication is in accordance with
the facts, and that the author of these sections was in fact
a companion of the apostle Paul on some of his missionary
journeys, is one of the assured results of historical criti-
cism. It is natural to suppose that the author of these
we-sections is at the same time the author of the whole
book, the absence of the first-person pronoun in the other
portions of it reflecting the fact that he is here, in part at
least, relating what he had learned from others. There
is, moreover, considerable evidence for this opinion in the
prevalence throughout the book of certain peculiarities of
style, as well as in the very fact of the retention of the
11 See, for example, PLUMMER, Commentary on Luke, p. xi ; HEAD-
LAM, art. " Acts " in HASTINGS, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I, p. 29 ;
SCHMIEDEL, art. " Acts " in Encyclopaedia Biblica, Vol. I, p. 48 ; STAN-
TON, in Expositor, May, 1893, pp. 336-53 ; FRIEDRICH, Das Lukasevange-
lium und die Apostelgeschichte Werke desselben Verfassers, Halle, 1890.
THE AUTHOR 55
"we" in these sections themselves. Yet there is by no
means the same agreement on this point as on the autoptic
character of the we-sections, and a certain conclusion con-
cerning the authorship of the gospel can be drawn from
the relation of it to Acts only when the Acts problem itself
is definitely settled. 12
b) The ancient manuscripts of the gospel uniformly
bear the title Kara Aovicav, " According to Luke," or
EvayYeXiov Kara A.ov(cav, " Gospel according to Luke," or
its equivalent. 13
c) From the earliest times at which ancient writers
mention any author of our gospel they ascribe it to Luke.
The following are some of these testimonies :
For in the memoirs which I say were composed by his apostles
and those who followed them, it is written that his sweat fell down
like drops of blood, while he was praying and saying, " Let this cup,
if it be possible, pass from me." u (JusxiN MARTYR, Dialogue with
Trypho, chap. 103.)
12 PLUMMER, Commentary on Luke, p. xii, says, " It is perhaps no
exaggeration to say that nothing in biblical criticism is more certain than
this statement," viz., that the author of Acts (not simply of the " we-
sections ") was a companion of Paul. With this statement agree also
LIGHTFOOT, art. " Acts " in SMITH, Dictionary of the Bible, 2d Eng. ed. ;
HEADLAM, art. "Acts" in HASTINGS, Dictionary of the Bible; RAMSAY,
BLASS, and many others. On the other hand, McGiFFERT, Apostolic Age,
pp. 237 f., 433 f. ; SCHMIEDEL, art. " Acts " in Encyclopedia Biblica,
Vol. I ; WENDT, Kommentar ilber die Apostelgeschichte, 8th ed., and
JULICHER, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, p. 268, distinguish between
the author of the " we-sections " and the author of the book.
13 See chap, i, p. 8, n. 7.
14 Cf. Luke 22 : 44. The mention of the blood-like sweat being
found in Luke only of our gospels, the statement of Justin is naturally
understood as ascribing the gospel to an apostle or one of the com-
panions of the apostles.
56 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
Irenseus, naming the four gospels in the order in
which they stand in modern versions, says:
Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel
preached by him. (Adv. Haer., iii, i.)
Thirdly, the gospel-book according to Luke. Luke the physician,
after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken him as it were
as a follower zealous of the right, wrote it in his own name, as is
believed. The Lord, nevertheless, he had not himself seen in the
flesh, and accordingly, going back as far as he could obtain informa-
tion, he began his narrative with the birth of John. ( The Muratorian
Fragment.)
These testimonies, dating from the middle and end of
the second century the Muratorian fragment is perhaps
from the beginning of the third century show what
was believed in the church at the earliest period from
which we have definite testimony. There is nothing in
the gospel itself to contradict this belief, except as con-
cerns the statement of Irenaeus with reference to the rela-
tion of Paul to this gospel. That Paul exerted some
influence upon the mind of the evangelist, and even upon
the gospel itself, need not be questioned, 15 but that Luke
drew his material to any considerable extent from Paul
is excluded alike by Luke's own preface, in which he
names as the source of his information " those who from
the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the
word" a phrase which would not include Paul and
the internal evidence of the relation of the gospels to one
another.
15 Could the common text of Luke 22: 19-21 be accepted as genuine,
this would be an almost indubitable instance of dependence either of
Luke upon Paul i Cor. n : 23-25) or of Paul upon Luke. But on this
passage see WESTCOTT AND HORT, New Testament in Greek, Vol. II,
App., pp. 63 f.
THE READERS 57
The Luke to whom tradition ascribed the gospel is
without question the one named in the New Testament as
a companion of Paul, and referred to in Philem., vs. 24;
Col. 4: 14; 2 Tim. 4:11. The second of these passages
describes him as a physician, and the gospel itself yields
some indication of having been written by one who was
familiar with medical matters. 16 The same passage com-
pared with vs. 1 1 implies that he was of gentile birth, and
with this agree the internal indications of the gospel itself.
(See p. 53.) If he was the author of the " we-passages "
of the Acts, the journeys in which he accompanied Paul
gave him ample opportunity to meet and consult with
those who' were companions and ministers of Jesus. If
there is any reason to doubt that he was in fact the author
of our gospel, such reason is to be found, not in the gospel,
but in the book of Acts. For our present purpose it is of
more importance to observe that, whatever the name or
personality of the evangelist, he was, according to the
evidence of the gospel itself, substantially such a man as
Luke ; not a personal follower of Jesus, but one who had
access to the testimony of the eyewitnesses of Jesus' life;
a man of Jewish sympathies, but of cosmopolitan inter-
ests; a Christian whose affiliations were with the more
liberal party in the early church.
III. THE READERS FOR WHOM THE BOOK WAS INTENDED
Reference has already been made to the evidence in
the preface to the gospel that it was written for Christian
readers. Theophilus, to whom the book is addressed or
dedicated, was probably a real person, but certainly also
18 See HOBART, Medical Language of Luke; PLUMMER, Commentary
on Luke, pp. Ixiii ff.
58 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
the representative of the class for whom especially the
book was written. It is not probable either that the book
was intended solely for his private reading, or that the
other persons whom the author had in mind belonged to
a distinctly different class from Theophilus. The only
question, then, is whether the Christians for whom Luke
wrote were predominantly Jews or gentiles. The name
Theophilus, though suggesting gentile readers, would not
be decisive, since so many Hebrews bore Greek names.
But the content of the gospel leaves no room for doubt
that the author has gentile readers specially in mind.
There is a notable absence of Hebrew words, such as
occur in Mark accompanied by an explanation, and in
Matthew without explanation. There are a few geo-
graphical notes which suggest that the readers were not
Palestinians (2:4; 8:26; 19:29). In a number of
instances this gospel employs terms which would be intel-
ligible to gentiles in place of Jewish terms used in parallel
or similar passages in the other synoptic gospels. 17 The
sermon of Jesus in 6 : 20-49 conspicuously lacks that refer-
ence to the needs and point of view of the Jews which is
so distinctly marked in the parallel discourse in Matt.,
chaps. 5, 6, 7. There are, as already noted (p. 50), but
two references by the evangelist (as distinguished from
Jesus and others whose words he records) to the fulfil-
17 See, e. g., 5 : 19, " through the tiles," in place of expressions in
Matthew and Mark which suggest a thatch roof ; ^irLcrraT^ 8 : 24 (Mark
5t5dcr/caXos, Matthew /ctf/uos); 5 = 55 9 : 33. 49 J 17:13; pa/3e never occurs
in Luke; dX^cDs (9:27; 12:44; 21:3) instead of a^v which Luke
uses, but much less frequently than Matthew; vofJHK6s (7 ' 3 > 10:25;
ii : 45, 46, 52 ; 14: 3) instead of 7/>a/A/zareiys, which Matthew and Mark
usually employ. (See also MATHEWS, in Biblical World, May, 1895, pp.
340 f. ; PLUMMER, Commentary on Luke, p. xxxiv.)
PURPOSE AND POINT OF VIEW 59
ment of Old Testament Scripture, and both of these give
evidence of being derived from the sources of the gospel.
This author alone of the evangelists makes mention of the
Roman emperor in whose reign the events recorded took
place (3:1), and more explicitly than the others defines
the political status of Palestine at the time. The familiar-
ity with Jewish affairs which he assumes on the part of his
readers, especially in chaps, i, 2, at first sight suggests
Jewish readers, but is in reality sufficiently explained by
the fact that he wrote for Christians who had already
heard the story of Jesus' life by word of mouth (1:4).
It must, moreover, be remembered, as the epistles of Paul
already clearly show, that even gentile Christians early
acquired a knowledge of the Old Testament.
IV. THE PURPOSE AND POINT OF VIEW OF THE GOSPEL
In this matter, as in respect to the readers, we have the
great advantage of possessing a statement from the author
himself. He wrote, he says, after careful investigation,
in order that his reader might know the certainty con-
cerning the things wherein he had been instructed, i. e. }
that he might have accurate knowledge concerning the
events of Jesus' life. We are prepared, therefore, not to
find any such definite argumentative aim as characterizes
the gospel of Matthew, but, on the other hand, to discover
a somewhat more definite and conscious historical purpose
than appears in Mark. Nor are these expectations dis-
appointed in the book. Though written chiefly for gen-
tiles, there is as little evidence of intention to enter into
the controversies of the apostolic age with reference to the
relations of Jews and gentiles in the kingdom as appears
in Mark. Both John and Jesus are intimately associated
60 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
with the temple in their birth, and the first event in which
Jesus is recorded as taking active part occurs also in the
temple. That Jesus was opposed by the Pharisees appears
as clearly as in the other synoptic gospels, and there are
not a few passages in which Jesus sharply reproves them.
But most of the passages which in the gospel of Matthew
emphasize the special opportunity of the Jews, and dis-
tinctly set forth the rejection of the kingdom by the Jews,
and of the nation by Jesus, are absent from Luke. Inti-
mations of the universal scope" of the gospel occur, some
of them peculiar to this gospel (2:31 f. ; 3:6; 4: 24-27 ;
9:52), but, on the other hand, some which are found in
the other gospels (e. g., Matt. 15 122-28; Mark 7:25-30;
Matt. 8 : 1 1 ) are lacking in Luke. The book is consider-
ably longer than Mark, and shows more indications of
conscious literary construction than appear in Mark. But
of the influence of an argumentative aim on the structure
it is impossible to discover any trace. The author seems
to have aimed at an orderly account of the life of Jesus, as
complete as his sources enabled him to make it without
duplication of material or the use of matter which he
regarded as untrustworthy.
Yet the book is not, after all, devoid of a color and
character of its own. While the material is in large part
the same that is found in Matthew and Mark, and while it
presents Jesus from much the same point of view as the
other synoptists, especially as compared with the fourth
gospel, yet the portrait is not identical with theirs. Luke's
picture of Jesus is in a sense less provincial, more cosmo-
politan, than that of Matthew or that of Mark. While
Mark's attention is absorbed with the majestic figure of
Jesus in his public career, teaching, working, suffering,
PURPOSE AND POINT OF VIEW 61
dying, rising again; while Matthew sees in him the
promised Messiah, fulfilling Old Testament prophecy and
his own prediction that, if his own nation rejected him,
the kingdom of God should be taken from them and given
to the nations, this gospel presents him to us in his inti-
mate, and yet his universal, relationship to men, the
mediator between the one God and all men.*'' Divine in
origin, yet born into a human family, and subject to the
ordinances of the law under which he was born and to
parental authority, he is by his genealogy (traced back,
not, as in Matthew, to David and Abraham, but to Adam,
son of God) set forth as a member of the universal human
family, itself the offspring of God. A man who by con-
stant prayer took hold on God, "while he devoted his life
to helping and saving the lost, he is at the same time the
friend of the publican and the sinner, and the expression
of God's love for a lost world (see especially chap. 15).
But this conception of the mission of Jesus is naturally
accompanied by an emphasis upon the intimacy and uni-
versality of men's relations to one another. The parables
that teach the duties of men to one another, intimate not
indistinctly that these obligations are not limited by social
or national lines (6:27 ff . ; 10:30-37; 16:19-31). It is
not so much, however, the barrier between Jew and gen-
tile against which the teaching of Jesus reported in this
gospel is directed, as that which pride had set up between
Pharisee and publican, rich and poor, man and woman,
Jew and Samaritan. And of these various barriers separ-
ating men into classes it is the one between rich and poor
which more frequently perhaps than any other is inveighed
against in this gospel. The facts of Jesus' life which
associate him with the poor, and his teachings which
62 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
express sympathy with the poor or point out the danger
of riches, are represented, not in this gospel alone, but in
this more than in any of the others. 18
Thus, if we are to point out anything which is dis-
tinctive of the point of view of this gospel as compared
with the other synoptic gospels, it will be the emphasis
upon the two conceptions of universality and relationship,
applied both as between Christ, as representative of God's
attitude, and men, and between man and man. Jesus, as
this gospel presents him to us, reveals to us the compas-
sion of God for all, and teaches that men ought in humility
and love to seek out and help all the needy and the lost,
ignoring all the artificial barriers which pride and selfish-
ness have set up.
Yet it is not less necessary to remember that our gos-
pels, especially the synoptic gospels, resemble one another
in purpose, as in scope and content, by more than they
differ the one from the other. Like Matthew and Mark,
Luke wrote for the edification of the church, and used the
materials which he possessed. With less definite argu-
mentative purpose, and probably with less selection and
exclusion of material at his hand than Matthew, the dis-
tinctive character of his book may be due quite as much
to the character of his sources, or to unconscious selection,
as to definite intention. The only conscious purpose
which we can with confidence attribute to the evangelist is
that which he has himself expressed in his preface, viz.,
on the basis of trustworthy sources and careful investiga-
18 See, e. g., 2 : 7, 16, 24 ; 6 : 20, 21, 24, 25 ; 8:3; 9 : 58 ; 12 : 13-34 ;
14:12-14; 16:14, 15, 19-31; 18:22-30; 19:8; cf. MATHEWS, Social
Teaching of Jesus, pp. 141 f . ; PLUMMER, Commentary on Luke, p. xxv,
especially as against an overemphasis on this element of the third gospeL
PLAN OF THE GOSPEL 63
tion to give an orderly and historically true narrative of
the events connected with the life of Jesus, i/
V. THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL
The book is simple in structure, following the main
outlines which appear also in Mark, but prefixing the sec-
tions on the infancy and youth, and greatly enlarging the
narrative of the journey to Jerusalem. The following
analysis is an attempt to exhibit the author's plan; but
little significance, however, can be attached to the divi-
sions of the Galilean ministry :
ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
I. PREFACE. 1:1-4
II. BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH OF JOHN THE BAP-
TIST AND OF JESUS. i : 5 2 : 52
1. The birth of John the Baptist promised. i : 5-25
2. Annunciation of the birth of Jesus. i : 26-38
3. Mary's visit to Elizabeth. 1 : 39-56
4. Birth and youth of John. i : 57-80
5. The birth of Jesus. 2 : 1-7
6. The angels and the shepherds. 2 : 8-20
7. The circumcision of Jesus. 2 : 21
8. The presentation in the temple. 2 : 22-39
9. Childhood and youth of Jesus in Nazareth. 2 : 40-52
III. PREPARATION FOR CHRIST'S PUBLIC WORK. 3:1 4:13
1. The early ministry of John the Baptist. 3 : 1-20
2. The baptism of Jesus. 3 : 21, 22
3. Genealogy of Jesus. v 3 : 23-38
4. The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. 4 : 1-13
IV. THE GALILEAN MINISTRY. 4 : 14 9 : 50
i. Early events at Nazareth and Capernaum. 4:14-44
o) Beginning of the ministry in Galilee. 4 : 14, 15
b) The rejection at Nazareth. 4: 16-30
c) A sabbath at Capernaum. 4:31-41
d} Leaves Capernaum and preaches in Galilee. 4 : 42-44
64 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
2. From the call of the Four to the choosing of
the Twelve. 5 : i 6: n
o) Call of the Four. 5:1-11
b) A leper healed. 5 : 12-16
c) A paralytic healed. 5 : 17-26
d) The call of Levi and the feast in his house. 5 : 27-32
e) Question about fasting. 5 : 33-39
/) Plucking grain on the sabbath. 6 : 1-5
g) A withered hand healed on the sabbath. 6: 6-n
3. From the choosing of the Twelve to the send-
ing of them out. 6 : 12 8 : 56
0) Choosing of the Twelve. 6:12-16
fr) Sermon on the Mountain. 6: 17-49
c) The centurion's servant healed. 7 : i-io
d) Widow's son at Nain. 7:11-17
e) Message from John the Baptist. 7 : 18-35
/) Jesus anointed in the house of Simon the
Pharisee. 7 : 36-50
g) Tour in Galilee continued. 8: 1-3
h) Teaching in parables. 8: 4-18
1) Natural and spiritual kinsmen. 8: 19-21
/) Stilling of the tempest. 8 : 22-25
&) The Gerasene demoniac. 8:26-39
/) The daughter of Jairus raised to life. 8 : 40-56
4. From the sending out of the Twelve to the
departure from Galilee. 9 : 1-50
a) Sending out of the Twelve. 9: 1-9
b) Feeding of the five thousand. 9: 10-17
c) Peter's confession and Christ's prediction
of his death and resurrection. 9:18-27
d) The transfiguration. 9 : 28-36
e) The demoniac boy. 9 : 37-42
/") Jesus again predicts his death and resur-
rection. 9 : 43-45
g) The ambition and jealousy of the disciples
reproved. 9 : 46-50
PLAN OF THE GOSPEL 65
V. THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM THROUGH SAMARIA
(AND PEREA). 9:51 19:28
1. The final departure from Galilee. 9-51-56
2. Answers to three disciples. 9 : 57-62
3. Mission of the Seventy. 10 : 1-24
4. Parable of the good Samaritan. 10 : 25-37
5. In the house of Martha and Mary. 10 : 38-42
6. Teaching about prayer. n : 1-13
7. Casting out demons. n : 14-28
8. The sign of Jonah; the lamp of the body. n : 29-36
9. Woes against the Pharisees uttered at a Phari-
see's table. ii : 37-54
10. Warnings against hypocrisy and covetousness ;
injunctions to be watchful. chap. 12
11. The Galileans slain by Pilate: Repentance
enjoined. 13 : 1-9
12. The woman healed on a sabbath. 13 : 10-21
13. Are there few that be saved? 13 : 22-30
14. Reply to the warning against Herod. 13 : 31-35
15. Teachings at a Pharisee's table. 14: 1-24
16. On counting the cost. 14 : 25-35
17. Three parables of grace. chap. 15
18. Two parables of warning. chap. 16
19. Concerning offenses, forgiveness, and faith. 17 : i-io
20. The ten lepers. 17:11-19
21. The coming of the kingdom. 17 : 20 18 : 8
22. The Pharisee and the publican. 18: 9-14
23. Christ blessing little children. 18: 15-17
24. The rich young ruler. 18: 18-30
25. Jesus predicts his crucifixion. 18 : 31-34
26. The blind man near Jericho. 18 : 35-43
27. Visit to Zaccheu*. 19 : i-io
28. The parable of the minae. 19: 11-28
VI. PASSION WEEK. 19 : 29 23 : 56
1. The triumphal entry. 19:29-44
2. The cleansing of the temple. 19 : 45, 46
3. Conflict with the Jewish leaders. 19 : 47 20 : 47
66 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
4. Commendation of the widow's gift. 21 : 1-4
5. Discourse concerning the destruction of Jeru-
salem. 21 : 5-38
6. The plot of the Jews and the treachery of
Judas. 22 : 1-6
7. The last supper. 22 : 7-23
8. Discourse to the disciples. 22 : 24-38
9. The agony in Gethsemane. 22 : 39-46
10. The arrest. 22 : 47-54
11. Peter's denials. 22:55-62
12. The trial Jesus before the Jewish authorities. 22 : 63-71
13. The trial before Pilate. 23 : 1-25
14. The crucifixion and death. 23 : 26-49
15. The burial. 23 : 50-56
VII. FROM THE RESURRECTION TO THE ASCENSION. chap. 24
1. The empty tomb. 24:1-12
2. The appearance to the two on the road to
Emmaus. 24 : 13-35
3. The appearance to the eleven at Jerusalem. 24 : 36-49
4. The ascension. 24 : 50-53
APPENDED NOTE T
THE FIFTEENTH YEAR OF TIBERIUS
In Luke 3:1 we are told that John the Baptist began his min-
istry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. In 3 : 23 the evangelist speaks
of Jesus as being about thirty years old. The latter statement prob-
ably refers to the time when Jesus began his public ministry, and this
event, it is evidently implied, occurred not many months after the
beginning of John the Baptist's ministry already dated as in the
fifteenth year of Tiberius. Reckoning the reign of Tiberius, in the
usual way, from the death of Augustus in August of 767 A. U. C.
14 A. D., his fifteenth year would begin in September, 27, January,
28, April, 28, or August, 28, according to the method of reckoning
which Luke employed (see RAMSAY, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem?
p. 221), and the beginning of the ministry of John would fall in the
year 28, possibly at tjie end of 27. If some months later, say in the
middle of the year 28, Jesus began to teach, being then about thirty
years of age, his birth would fall about 3 B. C. From Matt., chap. 2,
on the other hand, we learn that the birth of Jesus preceded the
death of Herod (cf, also Luke 1:5), and since Herod died in March,
4 B. C, the birth of Jesus would on this basis fall in 5 B. C., or, at
the latest, in the beginning of 4 B. C. The gap between this result
and that reached on the basis of Luke 3 : 1 and 3 : 23 may be bridged
over if " about thirty years " in 3 : 23 may in fact cover thirty-one or
thirty-two years, and so 4 or 5 B. C. be substituted for 3 B. C. But
Luke himself furnishes a most serious difficulty by his statement in
2 : 3, which seems to assign the birth of Jesus to a year not later than
7 B. C. See the next note. The gap of four years or more thus
created between the prima facie result from 3 : 1 and 3 : 23, and that
derived from 2:3, is rather long to be covered by " about " of 3 : 23.
In view of this difficulty, appeal has been made to the possibility
of a different reckoning of the years of Tiberius. About the end of
764 A. U. C. = 11 A. D. Tiberius began, by decree of the senate, to
exercise in the provinces authority equal to that of the emperor.
(VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, II, 121, "Et [cum] senatus populusque
67
68 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
Romanus, postulante patre, ut aequum ei jus in omnibus provinciis
exercitibusque esset decreto complexus esset ....") It has been
suggested that Luke, writing in the provinces where Tiberius exer-
cised this authority, might have reckoned his years from the begin-
ning of its exercise in u or 12 A. D. No conclusive proof of such
a reckoning has been brought forward; for the coin of Antioch on
which Wieseler relied is not now regarded as genuine, and other
coins of Antioch reckon the years of Tiberius from the death of
Augustus. But it is known that there was considerable variety in the
methods of reckoning the years of the emperors, and it seems at
least possible that Luke reckoned the years of Tiberius from n or 12
instead of 14 A. D. This is all the more possible in view of the fact,
to which Ramsay calls attention, that the years of Titus, in or soon
after whose reign Luke probably wrote, were in fact reckoned from
his coregency with Vespasian. According to his reckoning, the
fifteenth year of Tiberius would begin in 25 A. D. If, then, in 25 or
26 John began to preach, and if Jesus began his work a few months
later, being then about thirty years old, he was born about 6-4 B. C,
a result in entire harmony with the data given by Matthew. For its
relation to Luke 2 : 3 compare the next note.
WIESELER, Chronological Synopsis of the Four Gospels, pp.
i7 J -73; WIESELER, Beitrdge zur Wurdigung der Evangelien, pp.
190 ff. ; WOOLSEY, Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1870, pp. 332-36;
ANDREWS, Life of Our Lord, pp. 22-29; TURNER, in HASTINGS, Dic-
tionary of the Bible., Vol. I, p. 405; PLUMMER, Commentary on
Luke, p. 82; RAMSAY, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? pp. 199 ff.;
VON SODEN, in Encyclopedia Biblica, Vol. I, col. 804.
APPENDED NOTE II
THE ENROLMENT IN THE GOVERNORSHIP OF QUIRINIUS
The questions concerning the statement in Luke 2 : 1-5 are five :
i. Did Augustus order a census of the empire? The probabilities
respecting the correctness of the statement of Luke to this effect have
been set in an entirely new light by the evidence of papyri recently
discovered in Egypt. From these it is entirely clear that from 8 B. C.
to 202 A. D. the Roman census, usually at least disconnected from the
listing of property for taxation, was taken in Egypt at intervals of
APPENDED NOTES 69
fourteen years. The fourteen-year cycle can be traced back to the
census of 9-8 B C, and the evidence renders it probable that, though
there were census enrolments in a much earlier time, the fourteen-
year cycle originated with Augustus. Luke's statement that the
census covered the whole world, that is, the Roman empire, is not
directly established by the papyri, but neither is it disproved by them.
Augustus is known to have instituted a valuation of property
throughout the provinces, but of a general census we have no direct
evidence other than the statement of Luke. Whether this census was
in Palestine accompanied by a listing of property for taxation, or was,
like those in Egypt, separated from such listing, is also a matter not
made clear by the evidence. See KENYON, Classical Review, 1895,
p. no; RAMSAY, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? chaps, vii, viii;
but especially GRENFELL AND HUNT, O.vyrhynchus Papyri, Part I
(London, 1899), pp. 207-14.
2. Would the kingdom of Herod have been included in such an
order, supposing it to have been issued? There are several reasons
to believe that this would have been the case. The kingdom of
Herod was by no means an independent state, but differed from a
Roman province more in name and appearance than in fact. Herod
belonged to the large class of reges socii. He received his authority
by the consent of the Romans (Jos., Antiq., xiv, 13, i; xiv, 14, 4).
His transmission of it to his sons and their retention of it were sub-
ject to the approval of the emperor (Jos., Antiq., xvii, 8, I ; xvii, II,
4; xvii, 13, 2; xviii, 7, 2). He paid tribute to Rome (AppiAN,
De bell, civil., v, 75) and his sons, if they did not themselves pay
tribute, were at least obliged to defer to Rome in the matter of the
taxes which they collected (Jos., Antiq., xvii, n, 4; cf. also xix, 8, 2;
xv, 4, 4; APPIAN, De reb. Syr., 50). A Roman legion guarded Jeru-
salem in the beginning of Herod's reign (Jos., Antiq., xv, 3, 7).
Herod was not allowed to make war without the consent of the
emperor or of his representatives (Jos., Antiq., xvi, 9, 3; xvi, 10, 8).
He could not execute his own sentence of death against his sons
without the consent of the emperor (Jos., Antiq., xvi, n, i; xvii, 5,
8). His subjects were required to take the oath of allegiance to
Rome, and for refusing to do so six thousand Pharisees were fined
(Jos., Antiq., xvii, 2, 4; cf. xviii, 5, 3). The statement of Marquardt
(Romische Staatsverwaltung, Vol. I, p. 408) that " Herod is to be
70 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
looked upon as a procurator with the title of king" seems to be
strictly correct.
It has been further pointed out and urged by Ramsay, as an
additional reason for supposing that Herod's kingdom would be
included in a general plan of enrolment of the empire, that in the
latter part of his life Herod fell into disfavor with Augustus (Jos.,
Antiq., xvi, 9, 3). But Josephus also relates that Herod was after
no long time restored to favor with Augustus (Antiq., xvi, 10, 9,
and n, i). Unless, therefore, this restoration was but partial, or the
order of enrolment was given while Herod was in disfavor, it would
seem to have no special relation to the census. The more general facts,
however, go far toward removing any improbability in the assertion
of Luke that the enrolment included Judea. It is not necessary to
suppose that the census was carried out simultaneously in all parts
of the empire, or that in practice it covered absolutely every part of it.
3. Would such a census have been conducted as Luke implies
that the one of which he speaks was conducted, each family going to
its ancestral city? What interest had the Roman authorities in
Jewish tribal lines and family connections? If the census was con-
ducted by imperial officers, it probably would not have been made
after this fashion. The census of 6 or 7 A. D. (Acts 5 : 37) was
conducted by Roman officers in Roman fashion, and caused great
disturbance (Jos., Antiq., xviii, I, i). But if the enumeration was
made by Herod at the request or command of Augustus, it might be,
probably would be, conformed as nearly as possible to Jewish ideas
(cf. RAMSAY, pp. 185 f., and SCHURER, Geschichte des judischen
Volkes, 3d ed., Vol. I, pp. 396 ff.). Luke does not say that the
enumeration was made by the governor of Syria ; he merely dates it
by the term of office of Quirinius.
But it is also possible, as suggested by GRENFELL AND HUNT
(of>. cit., p. 211 ), that "his own city" in Luke 2:3 means, not his
ancestral city, but the city of his permanent residence. In this case
the implication of the statement would be that Bethlehem was the
real home of the family, and that, whatever the occasion or length
of the stay in Nazareth, it was the intention of Joseph and Mary to
make Bethlehem their future home. This would, of course, corre-
spond with the implication of Matthew's narrative (Matt. 2:22, 23),
and the statement of fact in Luke 2 : 3 may well be correct, even if the
APPENDED NOTES 71
reason assigned for the journey in Luke 2 : 4 reflects a misapprehen-
sion on his part, or refers to the ground of Joseph's preference for
taking up or resuming residence in Bethlehem rather than to a
requirement imposed by the rules of the census.
4. Can the census referred to by Luke and supported by the
evidence of Egyptian papyri have fallen in the year of Jesus' birth as
established by other evidence? The only census year that can be
considered is that which, in accordance with the fourteen-year cycle,
fell in 9-8 B. C. The next succeeding census, 6-7 A. D. (referred to
in Acts 5:37 and Jos., Antiq., xviii, I, i), is out of the question,
being wholly irreconcilable with the other data (see the preceding
note). But is the census of 9-8 B. C. a possibility? The other data,
as shown in the preceding note, place the date of the birth of Jesus
somewhere between 6 and 3 B. C. Can the gap between this result
and 9-8 B. C. be bridged? Ramsay has endeavored to show that a
census ordered for 9-8 B. C. might, not improbably, be actually taken
in the year 6 B. C. ( Was Christ Bom at Bethlehem? pp. 130 ff., 174 ff.) .
The evidence to which he appeals does, indeed, show that the returns
made by the householders to the officer conducting the enumeration
were sometimes received by the officers in a year following that to
which they referred, this latter being the census year proper. He has
also cited an example of delay in a similar matter in the province of
Galatia during the years 6-3 B. C., in which an interval of about two
years elapsed between the decree that the inhabitants of Paphlagonia
should take the oath of allegiance to Augustus (in consequence of the
incorporation of their country in the province of Galatia following
the death of the king of Paphlagonia) and the actual administration
of the oath (Expositor, 1901, Vol. IV, pp. 321-23). Grenfell and
Hunt, however, call attention to the fact that the instances of a
year's interval between the date to which the returns referred and the
presentation of them to the officers pertain to a later period, and that
the indications do not favor the supposition that such an interval was
usual as early as the end of the first century B. C. And they question
whether, with all reasonable allowance for delay in the taking of the
census, from whatever cause, it can be supposed to have taken place
later than 7 B. C. Between this result and Matthew's statement
that Jesus was born before Herod died there is, of course, no con-
flict. With Luke's own statements in 3 : I and 3 : 23 this result can
72 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
be harmonized only by supposing that when Jesus was, as Luke says,
" about thirty years old," he was in fact thirty-two, or, if the years of
Tiberius were reckoned from the death of Augustus, thirty-four. Of
these suppositions the former, at least, is not improbable.
5. But if the census referred to by Luke is that of 9-8 B. C, and
if this census was actually taken in 7 B. C., can Quirinius have been
governor of Syria at that time? The only governorship of Quirinius
over Syria of which we have direct evidence, outside this statement
of Luke, is that which began in 6 A. D. (Jos., Antiq., xviii, 2, i).
But that he was governor of Syria also at some previous time, and as
such conquered the Homonadenses, is established by indirect evidence
which is accepted as convincing by the best historians ( MOM M SEN,
Res Gestae divi Augusti, pp. 172 ff. ; ZUMPT, Das Geburtsjahr Christi,
pp. 43-62; SCHURER, Jewish People, Div. I, Vol. I, pp. 351-56; 3d
German ed., Vol. I, pp. 322-24; RAMSAY, Was Christ Born at Bethle-
hem? chap, xi, and other authorities there given).
Respecting the date of this earlier governorship there is differ-
ence of opinion. Mommsen, Zumpt, Schiirer, and others place it in
3-2 B. C. In this case it would have begun after Herod's death
(March, 4 B. C.). Zahn, on the basis of a criticism and amendment
of the statements of Josephus, holds that Quirinius was governor of
Syria but once, viz., in 4-3 B. C. (see ZAHN, in Neue kirchliche Zeit-
schrift, 1893, pp. 633-54, and criticism of Zahn's view in SCHURER,
Geschichte des judischen Volkcs, 3d ed., Vol. I, pp. 541 ff.). In this
case the governorship of Quirinius would coincide in part with the
reign of Herod. But, aside from the fact of the doubtful character of
Zahn's argument, which has not gained the assent of other scholars,
it is to be observed that Luke does not say that the events which he
records took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, but that
they occurred in the course of an enrolment, which enrolment was
enrolment first, or the first held when Quirinius was governor. He
seems distinctly to have in mind the well-known enrolment under
Quirinius (Acts 5:37) and to date this as a previous one or the
first of a series; cf. the evidence in i above that the census of
9-8 B. C. was the first of the series established on a fourteen-year
cycle also occurring while Quirinius was governor. The conditions
of his statement are met if the enrolment was begun by Herod during
the governorship of a predecessor of Quirinius and completed in the
APPENDED NOTES 73
term of office of Quirinius. Ramsay has endeavored to establish the
probability that the campaign in which, as governor (legatus) of
Syria, Quirinius subdued the Homonadenses fell in the year 6 B. C,
including also the preceding or the following year. We know, indeed,
that Quinctilius Varus was governor of Syria in 6-4 B. C. But
Ramsay points to other instances in which, in addition to the regu-
lar proconsul or propraetor, a special lieutenant was appointed to have
charge of the military operations and foreign policy of a province.
The necessity of subduing the Homonadenses and the inexperience of
Varus in military affairs would give occasion to such an arrangement
at this time. Both officers would bear in Greek the title yyefidv which
Luke applies to Quirinius.
Can it then be said that the data coincide in the assignment of
the governorship of Qnirinius and the enrolment recorded by Luke
to the years 7-6 B. C. ? The facts from which Ramsay argues seem to
show that Quirinius may possibly have been legatus in the years
named, being charged with a special military task while another was
governor in general charge of the province. Luke's statement is not
then clearly disproved by the other evidence, and may even furnish
an important additional datum. But it must be admitted that Ram-
say's argument involves conjectures and improbable assumptions, and
does not go beyond showing that his thesis is a somewhat improbable
possibility. Such a solution cannot be regarded as finally satisfactory.
The suspicion remains that there is some error or incompleteness in
the data.
But may the error lie in the substitution of one proper name for
another? The statement of TERTULLIAN (adv. Marc., iv, 19) which
connects the birth of Jesus with a census held by Sentius Saturninus,
governor of Syria 9-7 B. C., has usually been set aside because of its
conflict with the statement of Luke. But the very fact that it is not
derived from the New Testament suggests that it perhaps rested on
independent evidence; and when we find the other data given by
Luke pressing the census back into the very years of the governorship
of Saturninus, it is obvious to inquire whether Luke has not con-
fused the names of Saturninus and Quirinius. Let it be noted that
there were two enrolments, one falling in 6-7 A. D. and one about
9-8 B. C., both apparently known to Luke; that there were two
governorships of Quirinius ; that the second of these enrolments fel!
74 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
in the second governorship of Quirinius ; and, finally, that the names
Quirinius and Saturninus are at least slightly alike. Is it not pos-
sible that, associating the two governorships of Quirinius and the
two enrolments, one of them under Quirinius, he may have fallen
into the error of two enrolments, each in a governorship of
Quirinius? If so, the mistake is in the name of Quirinius, not in
the fact or date of the enrolment. (Cf. GRENFELL AND HUNT, op.
cit.}
It must be evident that confident decision of the question here
raised would be rash. Important new data have come to light within
the last four or five years. Still other facts may yet be discovered
and may set the whole matter in still clearer light. At present it is
necessary to rest in the conclusion that, while the chronological
statements of Luke are in the main confirmed by archaeological evi-
dence, it must remain somewhat uncertain from what event he
reckoned the years of Tiberius, how wide a margin is covered by the
word " about " in 3 : 23, and whether he or Tertullian is right in the
name of the governor in whose term of office the first enrolment
under Augustus took place in Palestine. The date of the birth of
Jesus must apparently be provisionally assigned to 7 B. C.
See, in addition to the writers and passages cited above, ZUMPT,
Das Geburtsjahr Christi, pp. 20-224; WIESELER, Chronological Syn-
opsis, pp. 71-117, 143-50; ANDREWS, Life of Our Lord, pp. 71-82;
WOOLSEY, in New Englander, October, 1869, and Bibliotheca Sacra,
April, 1870 ; SCHURER, History of Jewish People, Div. I, Vol. II, pp.
105-43, 3d German ed., Vol. I, pp. 508-43 ; PLUMMER, Commentary on
Luke; SANDAY in HASTINGS, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, pp. 645 f .
APPENDED NOTE III
REFERENCES TO THE OLD TESTAMENT LAW IN LUKE 2 I 22-24
The problem suggested by this passage can be best presented by
an analysis of it into four parts, as follows :
22 And when the days of their } The purification of the mother
purification according to the law \. (and child) forty days after the
of Moses were fulfilled, \ birth (Lev. 12:2-6).
they brought him up to Jerusalem, ) Not required in the Old Testa-
to present him to the Lord ( ment.
APPENDED NOTES 75
23 (as it is written in the law ^ Devotion of the first-born to Je-
of the Lord, every male that open- I hovah, calling for redemption by
eth the womb shall be called holy f money payment, thirty days after
to the Lord), [ birth (Exod. 13:2).
24 and to offer a sacrifice ac- ~j The sacrifice for the purifica-
cording to that which is said in I tion of the mother, forty days
the law of the Lord, a pair of f after the birth of the child (Lev.
turtledoves, or two young pigeons. I 12: 8).
It will be seen that vss. 220, and 24 refer to the ceremony of
purification. Now, according to the law, this pertained to the mother.
Vss. 22b, 23, on the other hand, interrupting the reference to purifica-
tion, refer to a presentation of the child to the Lord in Jerusalem.
Each portion of the passage has its difficulties, and the relation of
the two gives rise to further questions.
1. The word "their," avr&v, in vs. 22 is in apparent conflict
with the law, which speaks only of the purification of the mother.
2. The bringing of the child to Jerusalem mentioned in 22b was
not required by the law or any known usage ; neither the redemption
of the child nor the sacrifice for the purification of the mother
required the presence of either mother or child in the temple.
3. There is no mention in the Old Testament of a ceremony of
presentation of the child to the Lord. What the law requires is the
devotion of the child to the Lord, and the redemption of him by the
payment of five shekels. The quotation in vs. 23 of a portion of the
law respecting redemption, joined by "as it is written" to vs. 22,
seems to imply that vs. 22b referred, in the writer's mind, to redemp-
tion. Apparently, therefore, the writer has either converted redemp-
tion into presentation, or has introduced a ceremony of presentation,
and has referred to it a passage which in the Old Testament refers to
the devotion of the child to the Lord that in its turn necessitated the
redemption of it.
4. The ceremony of purification took place forty days after the
birth of the child. Redemption took place "from a month old"
(Numb. 18: 16).
For the plural "their" of vs. 22 there is no direct basis in the
Old Testament law. Yet it may (a) reflect the thought of the first
century respecting the meaning of the ceremony. If it refers to
76 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
the mother and child, the basis for the inclusion of the child with the
mother may have been furnished in the implication of circumcision
that the child was unclean at birth, or in the necessary contact of a
nursing child with its mother; and because of one or both of these
the thought may have arisen that the child shared in the uncleanness
of the mother until her purification, and that the ceremony of purifi-
cation pertained to them both. Purely grammatical considerations
would suggest that the word " their " refers to the father and mother,
since it is to them that the plural subject of the verb of the sentence
refers. Nor it is entirely improbable that, from considerations similar
to those which pertain to the child, the notion should have arisen that
the father shared with the mother in the uncleanness, and in the
ceremony of purification. It is even in favor of this that the language
of vs. 24, though agreeing in substance with Lev. 12 : 8, which refers
to the sacrifice to be offered by a woman after child-birth, agrees
verbally and exactly, not with the Greek version of this passage, but
with that of Lev. 5:11, which relates to the offering to be made by a
man who by contact (among possible causes) may have become
unclean. Yet, on the whole, the reference of the pronoun is more
probably to the mother and child. The suggestion of Edersheim that
it refers to the Jews in general seems wholly improbable. (&) A
different explanation is suggested by the general Hebraistic character
of the first two chapters of Luke, which, quite aside from these verses
in particular, renders it probable that Luke is here translating from
a Hebrew or Aramaic original. In that case, especially if the original
was in Hebrew, the word " their " may have arisen from a mis-
reading of the possessive suffix in the original. This explanation
would involve the conclusion that the evangelist was unfamiliar with
the details of the Jewish law, hence was doubtless a gentile an
inference not in itself improbable.
Of the .visit to Jerusalem and the presentation of the child to
the Lord in the temple there are likewise two possible explanations,
(a) Though it was not required by law that either the mother or the
child should go to Jerusalem in connection either with the redemption
of the child or with the purification of the mother, and though it is
very unlikely that it was customary for mothers all over Palestine to
make such a journey, yet it is by no means improbable that, when
proximity to Jerusalem made it easy, the mother would go in person
APPENDED NOTES 77
with her child at the time of one or both of these ceremonies. And
it is perhaps especially likely that the parents of Jesus would be
impelled thus to go to Jerusalem by their exceptional feeling about
the child Jesus. It is to be observed that the narrative does not
say that the journey was required by law or custom, but only states
the fact that it was made. There is, therefore, in any case no con-
tradiction between Luke's statement and the law. The case is much
the same respecting presentation of the child to the Lord. Of a
ceremony of presentation we know nothing expressly from the law or
from Jewish custom. But that such an act was sometimes voluntarily
performed, in this case perhaps exceptionally, as an outward expres-
sion of the devotion of the child to the Lord, which devotion the law
required, is by no means improbable. Indeed, if it be true, as
Edersheim states (Life of Jesus, Vol. I, p. 194, apparently supported
by the Mishna, Bechoroth, vii, i ; cf. vi, 12), that only a child without
blemish could be redeemed, it would seem almost a matter of neces-
sity that the child should be taken before the priest, and so naturally,
in the case of all those living near to Jerusalem, to the temple.
Such a presentation could hardly have followed the payment of the
redemption price, but must have preceded or accompanied it. Cf.
vs. 27. (&) The expression "to present him to the Lord" may be
the evangelist's interpretation of Exod. 13 : 12, " thou shalt set apart
to the Lord" (Hebrew, rPQ^n "thou shalt cause to pass over; "
T ; : ~
Greek, ayidfas, " thou shalt consecrate " ) , or of the words which
stood in his Hebrew source at this point. In the former case we
should suppose that the evangelist added "to present him to the
Lord," and the quotation of vs. 23, as his own explanation of the
visit to Jerusalem, the source having contained only vss. 22a and 24;
in the latter case the whole matter stood in his Hebrew source, the
Greek expression being Luke's translation of it.
Respecting the apparent discrepancy between redemption thirty
days, and purification forty days, after the birth of the child, both
spoken of as occurring on the same visit to Jerusalem, it is to be
observed that, although the law of Numb. 16 : 18 names a month after
the birth of the child as the approximate time at which the redemp-
tion price was due (on the force of the preposition ^53 in such a case
see BROWN, DRIVER, and BRIGGS, Hebrew Lexicon, s. v., 2, b), yet in
78 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
usage a certain leeway was allowed. This seems to be clearly indi-
cated in the Mishna, Bechoroth, viii, 6 (cf. also viii, 5), in which it is
prescribed that " if a first-born son dies within thirty days, the
priest must return the money which has been paid for his redemption,
if it has already been received ; but if the son dies after thirty days,
the father must still pay the money to the priest, if he has not already
given it If the father dies inside of thirty days the son rests
under the presumption that the redemption price has not been paid,
unless he is able to produce proof of its payment. If the father dies
after thirty days, the presumption is that the redemption price has
been paid, unless the contrary can be proved." From this passage
it appears that, though the redemption price was properly payable at
the end of a month, it might be paid even earlier or later; and this
renders it probable that, especially if the parents intended to go to the
temple at the time of the ceremony of the purification, they would
thus delay a few days the payment of the redemption price. Indeed,
in a country where travel and transportation of money were less easy
than in modern times, some leeway would be almost a matter of
necessity. For other and extreme instances of delay in the cere-
monies appointed for a definite time, see Bechoroth, viii, 5, and
Kherithoth, i, 7.
Against the supposition that the whole passage is simply the
work of one who knew neither the facts nor Jewish law and custom,
and in favor of an explanation that finds, either in the passage as it
stands, or in the original of which it is a translation, an account
consistent with the law or the usage of the first century, there are
two considerations which are at least of some weight: (a) It is
probable that a writer who knew neither the facts nor Jewish usage,
but who had access, as this writer evidently had, to the Old Testa-
ment scriptures would have made his references to these more
exact, if not even verbally so. The very departures from the letter
of the law imply that behind this narrative there lies something
besides the bare prescriptions of the law and the imagination of the
writer, (fr) The quotation of Lev. 12: 8 in vs. 24 does not bear the
marks of having been introduced by an inventor who was unfamiliar
with Jewish law and custom. Such a writer, adding a specific state-
ment of what sacrifice was offered, could hardly have done so except
to emphasize the fact that the offering was that which the law per-
APPENDED NOTES 79
mitted to the poor, and in that case would surely not have failed to
call atention to this by some comment. This sentence must then
reflect either acquaintance with the facts or familiarity with Jewish
usage, if not also an assumption of such familiarity on the part of
his readers. In either case it is not the invention of one unfamiliar
with Jewish usage. But vs. 22, as far as the word "Jerusalem,"
must come from the same hand as 24 (i. e., cannot be the addition of
a later hand), and "their" must in that case be either an error of
translation or reflect correctly the thought of that time. But if
vss. 22a and 24 are, at least in their original form, from the hand,
not of an ignorant inventor, but of one who knew either the facts or
Jewish usage or both, it is improbable that vss. 22^, 23 are an inter-
polation of one who therein betrays his ignorance. For it is improb-
able that one ignorant enough to insert " their " in vs. 22 incorrectly
(as is the case on the supposition that the errors of the passage are
due to one who translated the Hebrew original and inserted vss. 22b,
23) would feel any occasion to add a presentation ceremony to that
of purification narrated in this document. And if " their " is not an
error of translation, but a correct reflection of custom or thought not
otherwise known to us, then it is gratuitous to assume that the
reflections in vss. 22&, 23 of custom likewise unknown to us, but not
contradictory to the law, are the invention of ignorance.
Apparently, therefore, probability lies between the possibilities
that "their" afrruiv in vs. 22 and "to present" irapaffrijffai in vs. 23
are errors of translation, and, on the other hand, that the whole
account as it stands correctly reflects the Jewish usage and thought
of the first century, to whose divergencies from the letter of the law,
not otherwise known to us, we have testimony in this passage.
CHAPTER IV
THE RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS TO ONE
ANOTHER
IN the previous chapters the first three gospels have
been separately examined, with only brief and incidental
reference to their relation to one another. But no atten-
tive reader of these gospels can have failed to observe that
they are in many respects alike, and even a cursory com-
parison of them on the one side, with one another and, on
the other, with the fourth gospel will serve to set this fact
of the mutual resemblance of the first three gospels in
clearer light. The fact is by no means a modern dis-
covery. Tatian's treatment of the several gospels in the
construction of his Diatessaron in the latter part of the
second century, shows clearly that he had observed the
practical equivalence of many of the narratives in the
several gospels; and Augustine, at the beginning of the
fifth century, proposed a theory to account for a part of
the facts.
In modern times, the fact that the first three gospels
present to so large a degree the same view of the facts of
the life of Jesus has led to the common application to
them of the title the " Synoptic Gospels," and the problem
of discovering how this resemblance came about, which
soon resolves itself into the problem how these gospels
arose, is called the " Synoptic Problem."
I. THE ELEMENTS OF THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM
The chief elements of the problem are five:
i. The similarity of these gospels to one another.
(a) They are all built upon the same general historical
80
ELEMENTS OF THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 81
framework. Thus they all contain, after an account of the
preaching of John the Baptist, and of the baptism and
temptation of Jesus, a narrative of Jesus' Galilean min-
istry, of a journey to Jerusalem, of the last week in Jeru-
salem, and of the post-resurrection story, all omitting the
early Judean ministry of which the fourth gospel contains
an account, (b) They record in considerable part the
same events in these periods, a fact the significance of
which will be better appreciated if it be remembered how
small a fraction of the events of Jesus' ministry must be
included in the narratives, and if it be noticed to how
large an extent the fourth gospel records a different series
of events, (c) They resemble one another in the order
of events, the resemblance between Mark and Luke being
especially close, (d) Finally, there is very close verbal
resemblance in the record of the events narrated in com-
mon by two or by all three of the synoptists. This verbal
resemblance, though of differing degrees, is unlike the
resemblance in order, in that it is apparently unaffected by
the particular combination of authorities at the point at
which it appears. The nature and extent of this resem-
blance may be seen in the following examples :
MATT. 12 : 1-8 MARK 2 : 23-28 LUKE 6 : 1-5
At that season Je- And it came to pass, Now it came to pass
sus went on the sab- that he was going on on a sabbath, that he
bath day through the the sabbath day was going through the
cornfields; and his through the corn- cornfields; and his
disciples were an fields; and his dis- disciples plucked the
hungred, and began ciples began, as they ears of corn, and did
to pluck ears of corn, went, to pluck the eat, rubbing them in
and to eat. But the ears of corn. And their hands. But cer-
Pharisees, when they the Pharisees said tain of the Pharisees
saw it, said unto him, unto him, Behold, said, Why do ye that
82 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
MATT. 12 : 1-8 MARK 2 : 23-28 LUKE 6 : 1-5
Behold, thy disciples why do they on the which it is not lawful
do that which it is sabbath day that to do on the sabbath
not lawful to do upon which is not lawful? day? And Jesus an-
the sabbath. But he And he said unto swering them said,
said unto them, Have them, Did ye never Have ye not read even
ye not read what Da- read what David did, this, what David did,
vid did, when he was when he had need, when he was an hun-
an hungred, and and was an hungred, gred, he, and they
they that were with he, and they that were that were with him ;
him; how he entered with him? How he how he entered into
into the house of entered into the house the house of God,
God, and did eat the of God when Abiathar and did take and eat
shewbread, which it was high priest, and the shewbread, and
was not lawful for did eat the shew- gave also to them that
him to eat, neither bread, which it is not were with him; which
for them that were lawful to eat save for it is not lawful to eat
with him, but only the priests, and gave save for the priests
for the priests ? Or also to them that were alone ?
have ye not read in with him?
the law, how that on
the sabbath day the
priests in the temple
profane the sabbath
and are guiltless?
But I say unto you,
that one greater than
the temple is here.
But if ye had known
what this meaneth, I
desire mercy, and not
sacrifice, ye would not
have condemned the
guiltless.
And he And he said
said unto them, The unto them,
sabbath was made for
man, and not man for
ELEMENTS OF THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 83
MATT. 12 : 1-8 MARK 2 : 23-28 LUKE 6 : 1-5
the sabbath: so that
For the Son of man is The Son of man is
the Son of man is lord even of the sab- lord of the sabbath,
lord of the sabbath, bath.
MATT. 4 : 18-22
And walking by the sea of
Galilee, he saw two brethren,
Simon who is called Peter, and
Andrew his brother, casting a
net into the sea; for they were
fishers. And he saith unto them,
Come ye after me, and I will
make you fishers of men. And
they straightway left the nets,
and followed him. And going
on from thence he saw other two
brethren, James the son of Zebe-
dee, and John his brother, in the
boat with Zebedee their father,
mending their nets ; and he called
them. And they straightway left
the boat and their father, and
followed him.
MATT. 3:7-10
But when he saw many of the
Pharisees and Sadducees coming
to his baptism, he said unto them,
Ye offspring of vipers, who
warned you to flee from the
wrath to come? Bring forth
therefore fruit worthy of repent-
ance: and think not to say
within yourselves, We have
Abraham to our father : for I say
unto you, that God is able of
MARK i : 16-20
And passing along by the sea
of Galilee, he saw Simon and
Andrew the brother of Simon
casting a net in the sea : for they
were fishers. And Jesus said
unto them, Come ye after me,
and I will make you to become
fishers of men. And straightway
they left the nets, and followed
him. And going on a little fur-
ther, he saw James the son of
Zebedee, and John his brother,
who also were in the boat mend-
ing the nets. And straightway
he called them: and they left
their father Zebedee in the boat
with the hired servants, and went
after him.
LUKE 3:7-9
He said therefore to the multi-
tudes that went out to be bap-
tized of him,
Ye offspring of vipers, who
warned you to flee from the
wrath to come? Bring forth
therefore fruits worthy of re-
pentance, and begin not to say
within yourselves, We have
Abraham to our father : for I say
unto you, that God is able of
8 4
RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
MATT. 3 : 7-10
these stones to raise up children
unto Abraham. And even now
is the axe laid unto the root of
the trees: every tree therefore
that bringeth not forth good
fruit is hewn down, and cast into
the fire.
MARK i : 21-28
And they go into Capernaum;
and straightway on the sabbath
day he entered into the syna-
gogue and taught. And they
were astonished at his teaching:
for he taught them as having
authority, and not as the scribes.
And straightway there was in
their synagogue a man with an
unclean spirit ; and he cried out,
saying, What have we to do with
thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?
art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee who thou art, the
Holy One of God. And Jesus
rebuked him, saying, Hold thy
peace, and come out of him.
And the unclean spirit, tearing
him and crying with a loud voice,
came out of him. And they were
all amazed, insomuch that they
questioned among themselves,
saying, What is this? a new
teaching ! with authority he com-
mandeth even the unclean spirits,
and they obey him. And the re-
port of him went out straightway
everywhere into all the region of
Galilee round about.
LUKE 3 : 7-9
these stones to raise up children
unto Abraham. And even now
is the axe also laid unto the root
of the trees : every tree therefore
that bringeth not forth good
fruit is hewn down, and cast into
the fire.
LUKE 4 : 31-37
And he came down to Caper-
naum, a city of Galilee. And
he was teaching them on the sab-
bath day : and they were aston-
ished at his teaching; for his
word was with authority. And
in the synagogue there was a
man, which had a spirit of an
unclean devil; and he cried out
with a loud voice, Ah! what
have we to do with thee, thou
Jesus of Nazareth? art thou
come to destroy us? I know
thee who thou art, the Holy One
of God. And Jesus rebuked him,
saying, Hold thy peace, and come
out of him. And when the devil
had thrown him down in the
midst, he came out of him, hav-
ing done him no hurt. And
amazement came upon all, and
they spake together, one with an-
other, saying, What is this word ?
for with authority and power
he commandeth the unclean
spirits, and they come out. And
there went forth a rumour con-
cerning him into every place of
the region round about.
ELEMENTS OF THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 85
It will be observed that in the first instance the resem-
blance of all three is shown ; in the second, that of Mat-
thew and Mark; in the third, that of Matthew and Luke;
and in the fourth, that of Mark and Luke.
Such verbal similarity as is indicated above extends
also to the quotations from the Old Testament, even
where the quotation departs both from the Hebrew and
the Septuagint version. Illustration of this may be seen in
Matt. 3 : 3 compared with Mark i : 3 and Luke 3 : 4, and
in Matt. 1 1 : 10 compared with Mark i : 2 and Luke 7 : 27.
2. The differences between these gospels. ( a) Despite
the marked resemblances enumerated above, each gospel
has its own distinct motive, as has been pointed out in the
preceding chapters, (b) Events recorded by two or all
three of the gospels are treated differently in the several
gospels in accordance with the specific purpose of each.
Thus the healing of the paralytic stands in Mark (2 :
1-12) as one of a series of events illustrating the growing
hostility of the scribes and Pharisees to Jesus. In Mat-
thew (9:1-8) it is recorded in nearly the same words, but
is one of a series of events which either illustrate or attest
the authority which Jesus has assumed in the sermon on
the mount, to which the whole group is appended. This
particular incident seems clearly intended to serve as an
instance of a deed of power attesting the authority of a
word, and the evangelist adds the comment, "when the
multitudes saw it, they were afraid, and glorified God
which had given such authority to men." (c) In a few
cases there are wholly independent accounts of what is
evidently the same event. Thus of the call of the four
fishermen, Matthew and Mark have practically the same
account (Matt. 4: 18-22; Mark i : 16-20), but Luke quite
86 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
a different one (Luke 5:1-11). (d) Each evangelist
narrates some events not recorded by the others, and omits
some recorded by the others. Thus Luke has in 9:51
1 8 : 34, constituting nearly one-third of his gospel, a series
of events and discourses for which there is no parallel at
the corresponding place in the other gospels, and most of
which do not appear in the other gospels at all. To the
story of the public ministry of Jesus, which Mark also
records, Matthew and Luke each prefix a story of the
birth and infancy of Jesus, yet not at all the same story.
3. The preface of Luke. This as already pointed out
in chap, iii, furnishes most important data for determining
in general how written gospels arose, and in particular
what material, both oral and written, was in existence
when Luke was written. It demands careful attention, as
unquestionably the oldest and most valuable testimony on
these points that we have received from antiquity. It
reads as follows :
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative
concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as
they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-
witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also,
having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to
write unto thee in order, mo'st excellent Theophilus ; that thou might-
est know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast
instructed.
From this statement we are enabled to glean the fol-
lowing facts of interest and significance: (a) When the
evangelist wrote there were already in existence several
narratives of the life of Jesus, more or less complete. ( b)
These narratives were based, at least in the intention of
their writers, on the oral narratives of the life of Jesus
which proceeded from the personal companions of Jesus,
ELEMENTS OF THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 87
men who had witnessed the events from the beginning,
and from the beginning had been ministers of the word,
servants of the gospel. It is suggested at least that there
was a somewhat definite body of such oral narrative, (c)
In its scope this oral gospel was coincident with the public
life of Jesus. 'They who from the beginning were eye-
witnesses and ministers of the word" are one class, not
two; this phrase cannot mean, "those who from the
beginning were eyewitnesses " and " those who were min-
isters of the word." From the beginning must therefore
mean from the beginning of Jesus' ministry, not of his
life, and the implication is that that which these trans-
mitted was that which they knew. 1 (d) These previous
gospels nevertheless left something to be desired in respect
of completeness or accuracy ; our author recognizes a need
for a book different from those of his predecessors, (e)
Our evangelist does not himself belong to the circle of eye-
witnesses, but to those to whom the eyewitnesses trans-
mitted their testimony (vs. 2). (/) Yet neither is he far
1 Incidentally, therefore, this preface reflects the same conception of
the limits of the gospel narrative that appears in Mark and is expressed
in Acts i : 21, 22, " Of the men therefore which have companied with
us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John, unto the day that he was received
up from us, of these must one become a witness with us of his resur-
rection." This agreement with Mark and Acts in reference to the
limits of the gospel story is all the more interesting that it occurs in a
book which includes a narrative of the birth and its associated events.
The phrase " from the first " in vs. 3 seems to go back of what the evan-
gelist here calls the beginning, to the source of the stream of events, so
to speak, in the facts that led up to the ministry of Jesus. It is, in any
case, notable that by his inclusion of a narrative of events preceding
the public ministry of Jesus, the evangelist exceeds the limits which he
implies to have been those of that tradition and those written works
which preceded his.
88 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
removed from them ; though others have preceded him in
writing, he classes himself with those to whom the testi-
mony of the eyewitnesses was delivered, and even asso-
ciates himself under the pronoun "us" (vs. i) with those
among whom the events of Jesus' life occurred, thus inti-
mating that these events fell within his own time, (g)
He had access, therefore, not only to these other writings,
but to that living oral testimony from which these other
writers drew, (h) He had made painstaking investigation
respecting the material of his narrative, having searched
all things out from the beginning, (i) He had in view
in writing, not those to whom the history of Jesus was
unknown, but those who had already been taught orally.
Observe the significant testimony thus indirectly borne
that it was the habit of the church, even at this early day,
to teach the life of Christ, and the clear indication that this
gospel at least was not for unbelievers, but for believers.
(/) His object in writing is to furnish his reader an
entirely trustworthy record of the life of Jesus, an his-
torical basis of faith.
4. Statements of early Christian writers concerning
the authorship of the several gospels. These reflect the
opinions held by Christians in the early part of the second
century. Some of the most important of these statements
have already been quoted in the preceding chapters. Of
special significance for the problem with which this chap-
ter deals are the statements of Papias concerning Matthew
and Mark, transmitted by Eusebius.
But now we must add to the words of his which we have already
quoted the tradition which he [Papias] gives in regard to Mark
the author of the gospel. It is in ..the following words: "This also
the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter,
ELEMENTS OF THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 89
wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he
remembered of the things said or done by Christ For he neither
heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he fol-
lowed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers,
but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord's
discourses [\6ywv or \oyUav], so that Mark committed no error
while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he
was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had
heard, and not to state any of them falsely. These things are
related by Papias concerning Mark. But concerning Matthew he
writes as follows : " So then Matthew wrote the oracles [or sayings,
\6ryia~] in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them
as he was able." 1 (EUSEBIUS, H. E., iii, 39.)
Though these statements directly prove what was
believed in the second century rather than what took place
in the first, and though they are subject to correction by
internal evidence, they furnish when confirmed by internal
evidence, a much stronger basis of judgment than is
given by either alone.
5. The literary method of the age. This furnishes an
important datum for the solution of our problem. There
is a strong presumption that the methods by which the
gospels were produced were not radically different from
those which were common in that age, and that, if the
phenomena which are discovered by a careful comparison
of the gospels are paralleled in other literature of that age,
the processes by which they were produced were also
similar. That such literary methods are or are not in
vogue today is of little significance. It is the common
methods of the time in which the gospels arose with which
we are concerned. In this connection two facts are
important to observe.
a) Narratives and teachings were often preserved and
2 McGiFFERx's translation.
90 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
transmitted for a considerable period in oral form before
being put into writing. The Targums i. e., para-
phrases of the Old Testament books in the vernacular
existed orally for a century or more before assuming
definite written form. The " tradition of the elders " was
in the time of Jesus already somewhat definitely fixed, but
it was not till the second century that it was put into fixed
written form. The epistles of Paul and the preface of
Luke's gospel bear witness that the story of the life of
Jesus was told by word of mouth and made the subject of
instruction before the rise of written gospels, at least of
any written gospels of which we have definite knowledge.
b) The construction of a book by the piecing together
of other books already written and published was a com-
mon practice of that day. The book of Enoch, as we pos-
sess it in the Ethiopic text, is composed of smaller books
by different authors, and of different dates, perhaps three
in number. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles contains
imbedded in it the "Two Ways," which appears in a
similar form in the ecclesiastical canons and in an inde-
pendent Latin translation. But the most instructive
example in its bearing upon the problem of the rise of our
gospels is the Diatessaron of Tatian, prepared by an
Assyrian Christian about 175 A. D. From our four gos-
pels, substantially as we now have them, Tatian with scis-
sors and paste constructed a new gospel, to which either
he or others after him gave the name Diatessaron, " com-
posed of four." This composite gospel came into common
use in the churches of Syria, and largely displaced the
separate gospels, till Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, in
the fifth century, removed them from some two hundred
churches, putting in their place the separate gospels.
SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM 91
The inference from these facts is, of course, neither
that the gospels were necessarily the product of oral tra-
dition, nor that they were certainly produced from older
written gospels, but that both the reduction to writing of
matter for a time transmitted orally, and the employment
of written w r orks in the composition of new books being
common phenomena of that time, neither is to be denied
as a priori impossible in the case of the gospels, and either
is to be readily admitted, if suitable evidence of it appears.
II. THEORIES PROPOSED FOR THE SOLUTION OF THE
PROBLEM
As long ago as Augustine, as already mentioned, the
resemblances of the gospels were noticed, and the sug-
gestion was put forth by him that Mark had condensed his
narrative from Matthew. Jerome discussed the question
of the relation between the original Hebrew Matthew and
the Greek Matthew then and now current in the church.
Serious and thorough investigation of the whole problem,
however, dates from the latter part of the eighteenth cen-
tury, since which time many theories have been proposed.
To set forth these theories in detail lies beyond the scope
of this short introduction to the gospels. It will, however,
be useful to indicate in broad outline the classes of theories
which have been proposed.
i . The theory of a common document from which all
three of our synoptic gospels drew was proposed by
Eichhorn in 1794, and for a time commended itself to
many scholars. But to account for the differences of the
gospels as well as the resemblances, it was necessary to
suppose that this document existed in several recensions.
Of these Eichhorn made four, which number Bishop
92 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
Marsh found it necessary to raise to eight. And when it
was pointed out that even this large number of documents,
for none of which there was definite objective evidence,
failed fully to account for the facts, the theory broke down
under its own weight and complexity, and today probably
has no advocates.
2. The theory of an oral gospel regards the oral teach-
ing and preaching of the apostles and early missionaries
and catechists as the direct source of our synoptic gospels.
This teaching, it is held, naturally assumed, while the
apostles were still living, a somewhat fixed and definite
form, or perhaps several such forms resembling one
another, yet having each its own peculiarities. The differ-
ences between the several synoptic gospels are due to the
flexible character of this living oral tradition, or to the
variant forms which it assumed; the resemblances to its
fixed element. Gieseler gave definite form to this view
in his work, Entstehung der Evangelien, 1818, and it still
has zealous defenders. Like the tradition in which it finds
the source of our gospels, it is very flexible and has taken
on many variant forms. Thus Edwin A. Abbott, making
the oral gospel to contain only what is strictly common to
all three synoptists, reduced it to little more than a series
of detached and fragmentary notes. 3 Arthur Wright, on
the other hand, making large use of the intimations that
there existed in the early church a class of catechetical
evangelists, constructs several cycles of tradition out of
which by varied combination he supposes our gospels to
have arisen. 4
3 See ABBOTT, The Common Tradition.
* See WRIGHT, Composition of the Gospels and Synopsis of the
Gospels in Greek.
SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM
93
The serious question concerning this general theory is
not whether an oral gospel in fact existed, nor whether
it is the source of our gospels both these things are
generally admitted, and are almost directly affirmed in
Luke's preface but whether it is the direct source of the
present gospels. The close resemblances of the gospels to
one another in certain parts and respects, as well as the
peculiar and uneven distribution of these resemblances,
lead many scholars to believe that between the oral gospel
and the present gospels there must have been written gos-
pels, and also that there must have been some direct
dependence of our present gospels on one another. Thus
there has arisen another class of theories, which admit the
existence and influence of the oral gospel, but do not find
in it the immediate and sole source of our present gospels.
They may be grouped under the head of
3. The theory of an original document or documents
supplemented by that of the interdependence of our pres-
ent gospels. It is evident that this view naturally takes on
many forms according to the document or documents
assumed to be original and the order of dependence which
is predicated. It must suffice to mention the views of a
few well-known scholars.
Meyer regarded the original Hebrew gospel of Mat-
thew, the oracles spoken of by Papias, as the oldest docu-
ment. This was used by Mark, who had as his other
chief source his personal recollection of the preaching of
Peter. Our present gospel of Matthew grew out of the
original Hebrew gospel of Matthew largely under the
influence of Mark, and under this influence was translated
into Greek. Luke used Mark and the Greek Matthew as
we still have it.
94 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
Bernhard Weiss holds a similar view, differing most
conspicuously in holding that Luke used, not our present
Matthew, but a Greek translation of the original Matthew.
Holtzmann, Bruce, Wendt, and others while recogniz-
ing the use both of Mark and of the original Matthew by
the first and third evangelists, regard Mark itself as an
independent work. According to this view, there lie at
the basis of our gospels two original and independent
documents, the original Matthew and Mark, the latter
identical, or nearly so, with our present second gospel.
This is known as the two-document theory.
Wernle finds the two chief sources of our Matthew
and Luke in the gospel of Mark and a collection of dis-
courses, but supposes that each of them had besides these
two another source or sources, that of Matthew consisting
of discourse material only, that of Luke containing both
narrative and discourse material.
It is beyond the scope of this brief chapter to under-
take a full exposition either of the principles by which the
solution of the problem must be reached, or of the facts
which an attentive study of the gospels discovers, or of the
conclusions to which an interpretation of these facts lead.
It must suffice to state a little more fully than has been
done under the " Elements of the Problem " some of the
more important facts, and to indicate very briefly the
limits within which the solution probably lies.
III. FACTS RESPECTING THE RELATION OF THE GOSPELS
TO ONE ANOTHER
I . In material common to all three gospels Mark's
gospel resembles each of the others, both in order of
events and in content of sections, much more closely than
RELATION OF GOSPELS TO ONE ANOTHER 95
these two resemble each other. Indeed, there are no
instances of Matthew and Luke agreeing in order against
Mark, and their agreements against Mark in content
of sections common to all three are confined to an occa-
sional brief phrase and the occasional common omission
of material found in Mark. This indicates that Mark
is in some sense the middle term between Matthew and
Luke, but does not determine in precisely what sense it is
such.
2. Matthew and Luke have in common a considerable
amount of material not found in Mark. The verbal
resemblance of this material in the two gospels is often
very close; but in its location there is scarcely any agree-
ment between them. This marked difference between the
treatment of the material which both share with Mark and
that which they share with one another but not with Mark,
must evidently be taken into account in explaining their
method of procedure.
3. Matthew has a considerable amount of discourse
material peculiar to himself. This material is mainly con-
tained in long discourses in which, with the exception of
the sermon on the mount, the narrative introduction and
the beginning of the discourse are found in Mark. Mat-
thew has no narratives peculiar to himself, except in the
infancy sections, and the story of the guards at the sepul-
cher of Jesus (27: 62-66). 6
4. Luke has a number of narratives and a consider-
able amount of discourse material peculiar to himself.
The great Perean section (9:57 18:14; 19:1-28),
practically made up of discourses with brief narrative
6 To these should perhaps be added 9:27-31, a variant account of
20: 29-34, as 9: 32-34 is clearly a duplicate of 12: 22-24.
96 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
introductions, has no parallel at this point in either of the
other gospels. Of the discourse material proper, a part is
peculiar to Luke, a part is found also in Matthew differ-
ently located, the two elements being closely interwoven.
5. The resemblances of parallel passages in the gos-
pels, especially in discourse material, are often very close ;
closer, e. g., than is usual in quotations of the New Testa-
ment from the Old Testament. These latter were made,
of course, from a written source, but usually, no doubt,
from memory. The relation of the synoptic gospels to
one another and to the sources which, as we must in view
of their resemblances infer, lay behind them, closely
resemble those which are discovered between Tatian and
his sources ; these latter being our four gospels, which he
possessed in substantially their present form. While
Tatian's resemblance to his sources perhaps exceeds that
of the gospels in some respects, for which there are special
reasons, in other respects he has used his sources with
greater freedom than the evangelists have apparently
allowed themselves in reference to theirs. 6
IV. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
While the above statement of facts is very far from
complete, it is perhaps sufficient to prepare the way for a
tentative statement of conclusions for which a high degree
of probability may be claimed.
1. The gospels are not independent documents, but
have some literary relationship.
2. That relationship is documentary, i. e. } due not
solely to the use of a common tradition, but mediated in
part by written gospels.
6 See HOBSON, The Synoptic Problem in the Light of Tatian's Diates-
saron (Chicago, 1904).
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 97
3. Mark's gospel, or a nearly equivalent document,
was used by both the others, furnishing them their general
framework and the material common to all three.
4. There was another source, or other sources, also
written, which Matthew and Luke possessed in common,
but which one or both of them used in a very different way
from that in which they used Mark ; in particular, in that
this source or these sources did not control the arrange-
ment and order of material.
5. Since the first and third gospels each have a con-
siderable amount of material in common, yet each has also
much that is not used by the other, it Is evident, either that
neither of them used all that was in their common source,
or that one at least of them had also a source not possessed
by the other. If they had only a common source, that
source was in all probability the Logia of Matthew men-
tioned by Papias. If in addition to this common source
the first evangelist had a peculiar source, this latter was
probably the Logia spoken of by Papias. The hypothesis
of a source or sources used in common by both, plus a
source peculiar to Matthew, seems better to account for
the facts than that of a common source only. Even the
common source must have been used quite differently by
the two evangelists.
6. Behind all our present gospels and their written
sources there doubtless lay, as Luke's preface indicates, an
oral tradition ultimately derived from the eyewitnesses.
Being, as Luke's preface also suggests, still in existence
when he wrote, this tradition was not only a probable
source of the oldest documents, but probably contributed
something directly also to the latest gospels.
7. Our present gospels of Matthew and Luke exceed
98 RELATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
somewhat, as Luke's preface indicates, the scope of this
tradition and of the documents based directly on it.
Alike the comparison of our gospels and the testimony of
Luke's preface indicate that for the infancy narratives,
and probably for some other portions of the gospels,
minor sources additional to those named above must be
supposed.
8. There is nothing in the facts respecting the relation
of the gospels to one another to disprove the earliest state-
ments of tradition respecting the authorship of these gos-
pels. But the statement of Papias respecting the Logia of
Matthew must be supposed to refer, not to our present
first gospel, but to one of its sources.
CHAPTER V
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
I. THE AUTHOR
i. His nationality as it appears in the book itself.
On this point several classes of facts bear convergent
testimony.
a) The author is familiar with Jewish history, cus-
toms, and ideas. Thus he speaks of the law as given by
Moses (i : 17) ; of the piece of ground which Jacob gave
to Joseph (4:5, 6; cf. Gen. 48:22 1 ) ; of the priests and
Levites in Jerusalem (i : 19) ; of Caiaphas as high-priest
that year, reflecting the frequent changes in the high-
priestly office made by the Roman and Herodian authori-
ties (11:49, 5 1 ; I 8:i3 2 ). He is familiar with the
1 The Septuagint reads in Gen. 48 : 22, yd> 8 8i8<*)/j.t aoi <rtKifjta
"I give thee Shechem " (for this form of the name see Josh. 24:32
and Jos., Antiq., iv, 8, 44), which probably represents Jewish tradition.
The statement of the evangelist is particularly significant as indicating
an acquaintance both with the region spoken of and with the passage or
the tradition based on it.
2 These statements are, indeed, alleged to betray ignorance on the
writer's part, implying that the high-priest was appointed annually. But
it is to be observed (a) that in 18: 13-24 the writer shows himself well
acquainted with the relations of Annas and Caiaphas, and gives to
Annas the title of high-priest in immediate connection with his mention
of Caiaphas as high- priest that year; (&) that the office of high-priest
was, according to Jewish law, one of life-tenure, but that the Roman
and Herodian authorities made frequent changes for their own ends ;
there were three high-priests between Annas and Caiaphas ; (c) that
from the Jewish point of view an ex-high-priest still living, at least the
oldest living high-priest, would be most legitimately entitled to the
name, while, of course, the de facto condition would necessarily be recog-
99
ioo THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
Jewish cycle of feasts (2:13; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2, 37 cf.
Lev. 23:35, 36; 2 Mace. 10:6; Jos v Antiq. f III, 10, 4
10:22; 11:55; 12:1); with the time at which they
occurred (6:4, 10; 10:22); with the custom of attend-
ing them in Jerusalem (7:2-13) ; with the habit of the
Galileans in particular (4:45; cf. Luke 2:41 and abund-
ant outside evidence; n :55) ; and with the practice of
selling in the temple at the feast time (2:14-16; cf.
Edersheim, Life of Jesus, Vol. I, p. 369). He represents
correctly the Jewish usage and feeling respecting the
sabbath and the "preparation" (5:10 ff.; 19:31, 42;
cf. 7:23). He is acquainted with the marriage customs
of the Jews (2:1 ff. ; cf. 3 :29) ; with the Jewish ideas
about defilement and the custom of purification (2:6;
3:25; 11:55; 18:28; cf. Mark 7:3 ff.) ; and with the
nized also ; (d) that these facts actually led to the designation of two
different men as high-priest at the same time, as, e. g., in Luke 3 : 2,
where Annas and Caiaphas are said to have been high-priests at a cer-
tain time (cf. Acts 4:6, where Annas is called high-priest,), and in
Jos., Antiq., xx, 8, 8 ; xx, 8, 1 1 ; xx, 9, i and 2, especially the last
passage, where Ananus and Jesus are both called high-priests in the
same sentence ; see also SCHURER, History of the Jewish People, Div. II,
Vol. I, pp. 202-6, especially the passages cited by him on p. 203 ;
also 3d German edition, Vol. II, pp. 221-24; JOSEPHUS, Jewish War,
II, 12, 6; IV, 3, 7, 9 ; IV, 4, 3; Vit., 38; (e) that the evangelist, who
evidently knows the personal relations of Annas and Caiaphas, and,
with an unstudied carelessness to explain the apparent contradiction,
represents two men as high-priest at the same time, yet who in this
follows usage illustrated also in Luke and Josephus, can hardly have
been so ignorant of the situation as to suppose that Caiaphas held office
for one year only (he was, in fact, high-priest for a number of years,
though his three predecessors must each have been in office a very short
time), or that the high-priestly office was an annual one; (/) that
accordingly " that year " is probably to be understood, not of the year
of Caiaphas's high-priesthood, but that year that dreadful year (in
the high-priesthood of Caiaphas) in which Jesus died. Cf. B. WEISS,
ad loc.)
THE AUTHOR 101
Jews' manner of burying ( 1 1 : 44 ; 19:39, 40). His
statements in 8 : 59 ; 10 : 31, 33 are in accordance with the
Jewish penalty for blasphemy (cf. Lev. 24:10-16), yet
are wholly devoid of any studied attempt to be thus true
to Jewish custom. He knows the feeling of the Jews
toward Samaritans (4:9); the relations of the Jewish
and Roman authorities in the trial of a prisoner, and the
function of the high-priest in the matter ; and gives a very
vivid account of the trial of Jesus in precise conformity to
the then existing political situation (chaps. 18, 19).
To these passages may be added certain references to
Jewish affairs which occur, not in the language of the
author himself, but in that of Jesus and the other char-
acters of the story. If these be supposed to owe their
form to the author, then of course they are equally valu-
able as evidence of nationality with those already named.
If they are to be attributed wholly and directly to the
characters of the history, then they bear witness to the
accuracy of the report, which would lead to the same con-
clusion respecting the author of the book, or of his sources
if such he had.
Thus, as respects matters of external history, in 2 : 20
the Jews refer to the forty-six years which the rebuilding
of the temple begun by Herod had occupied ; 3 and, in
3 According to Jos., Antiq., xv, n, i, the rebuilding of the temple
began in the eighteenth year of Herod, that is, between Nisan 734 and
735 A. U. C. From other statements of Josephus it is rendered prob-
able that the building of the temple was begun in December or January.
Combining these data, the end of 734 or beginning of 735 is given as
the date of the beginning of the temple. Reckoning by the usual Jewish
method from Nisan i to Nisan i, and counting any portion of the year
at either end of the period as a year, the forty-fifth year of the building
of the temple would end, and the forty-sixth year would begin, Nisan i,
779. If, then, we assume that the period of forty-six years, John 2 : 20,
102 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
18:31, to the unlawfulness of their putting a man to
death, in precise accordance with the statement of the Tal-
mud (Jer. Sank., i, i, fol. i8a; vii, 2, fol. 246) that the
Jews lost the power to enforce sentence of death forty
years before the destruction of Jerusalem, viz., about 30
A. D. The language of Nicodemus in 7 : 5 1 is in accord-
is reckoned strictly according to the above-mentioned Jewish method,
even the two weeks from Nisan i to Nisan 15 being counted as a year,
the time of the utterance would be the passover, Nisan 15, of the year
779 A. U. C, which is 26 A. D. If, however, it be supposed that so
brief a period as two weeks would be ignored in reckoning, then the
utterance would date from the passover of 780 A. U. C., which is 27
A. D. The same result is reached if it be supposed that Josephus used
the Roman reckoning from January to January (cf. LEWIN, Chronology
of the New Testament, pp. 22 tf.).
The calculation of WIESELER, Chronology of the Four Gospels, p.
J 6s, by which he reaches the year 781 (and in which he is followed by
SCHUER, Div. I, Vol. I, p. 410, n. 12; 3d German ed., Vol. I, p. 369,
n. 12), is directly contrary to his own statement of the Jewish method
of reckoning, and the examples which he himself cites on pp. 51-56.
The only way of reaching a later date is that adopted by Lewin,
who, comparing (fKobo^Q^ 6 va&s o&ros of John 2 : 20 with (pKodo.j.Tj&r) dt
6 va6s of Jos., Antiq., xv, n, 3, infers that the evangelist is speaking of
the building of the sanctuary exclusive of the foundations, which Jose-
phus has mentioned previously. But it is improbable that one speaking
after the lapse of nearly fifty years would make such a discrimination.
That the forty-six years refer to the period which at the time of
speaking had elapsed since the beginning of the rebuilding of the temple,
is evident from the fact that the temple was, on the one hand, practically
completed within nine and a half years (Jos., Antiq., xv, u, 5, 6), and,
on the other hand, not wholly completed until a short time before its
destruction by the Romans in the war of 66-70 (Jos., Antiq., xx, 9, 7).
Now, the mention of this precise period, not a round number, can be
accounted for only on the supposition that the author possessed very
accurate sources of information as to the words of Jesus on this occa
sion, or else that he had a very definite theory as to the chronology of
Jesus' life, and also an accurate knowledge of Jewish history. In either
case the author i. e., the author of this section, and presumably, until
there is evidence to distinguish them, the author of the book was in
THE AUTHOR
J03
ance with Jewish law (Deut. 1:16; 19:15), and that of
Pilate in 18:39 is in harmony with the statement of the
Jewish author of Matt. 27:15, on which, however, it may
of course be based. In 3 : 14 Jesus speaks of Moses lifting
up the serpent in the wilderness; in 6:31 the Jews refer
to the manna with which the children of Israel were fed ; 4
in 7 : 42 the Jews refer to Bethlehem as the village where
David was. In the matters of Jewish usage and feeling,
the language of John in 3 : 29 is true to the marriage cus-
toms of Judea, 5 that of the Samaritan woman in 4 : 20 to
the Samaritan ideas about place of worship, as are those
of the Jews in 8:48 to the Jewish feeling toward the
Samaritans. In 7:23 Jesus refers to the practice of cir-
cumcising a child even on a sabbath.
In i : 29 John the Baptist points out Jesus as the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world, an evident
all probability a Jew. These facts must also be taken into account in
deciding whether the cleansing of the temple narrated in this section is
identical with that related by the synoptists, and if so, whether it is
wrongly placed by the fourth evangelist. Prima facie, at least, they make
against the latter supposition, since the year 27 A. D., which they yield
for the events recorded by John, antedates by three years that of the
passion history. Cf. n. 26, p. 119.
* The references in this connection to Old Testament history are
particularly significant. The feeding of the five thousand, reminding
the people of Moses's feeding of the children of Israel and his promise
that a prophet like unto himself should the Lord God raise up unto
them (vs. 14; cf. Deut. 18: 15), and the demand of the people for a
continuous feeding which should show Jesus to be the prophet like
Moses (vss. 30, 31), together with the wholly unstudied reference to
these things, can hardly be accounted for save as either a very accurate
report of the actual event or as coming from one who was thoroughly
familiar with the Jewish scriptures and the Jewish way of interpreting
them.
6 Cf. EDERSHEIM, Social Life, p. 152.
104 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
echo of Isa., chap. 53. In 1 141, 45, 49; 7:27, 41, 42;
10:24; 12:34 there are repeated reflections of the cur-
rent Jewish conceptions of the Messiah. In 1:21, 25;
6:14; 7:40-43 appear similar echoes of Jewish ideas
about Elijah and "the prophet;" in 4:27, of the Jewish
feeling about a rabbi talking with a woman ; in 4 : 25, 29,
42, of the Samaritan expectation of the Messiah ; 6 in 8 :
33, 37, of the Jewish conception of the value of Abra-
hamic descent; in 9:28, of the Pharisees' claim to be
Moses's disciples (cf. Matt. 23:2); in 7:41, 52, of the
prejudice of the Judeans against the Galileans; in 7:49,
of the contempt of the Pharisees for the common people,
the Am-haaretz ; and in 9:2, of the general Jewish feel-
ing about the cause of misfortunes.
b) The author is acquainted with the Old Testament,
not only reporting the use of it, or reference to it, by Jesus
and others (1:23, 29, 45, 51; 6:45, 49; 7:19, 22, 38;
8:17; 10:34 f.; 13:18; 15:25; 17 : 12), 7 but, like the
first evangelist, frequently quoting or referring to it
himself and pointing out the fulfilment of its prophecies
in the life of Jesus (2 : 17, 22; 12:14,38-41; 19:24,28,
36, 37; 20:9). These quotations, moreover, and the
remarks by which he accompanies them, show clearly that
he believes in the authority of the Old Testament and its
divinely given prophecies. He evidently holds with Jesus
that, as compared with gentiles or Samaritans, the Jews
know the true way of salvation (4 : 22).
6 Cf. LIGHTFOOT, Biblical Essays, p. 154; COWLEY, in the Expositor,
March, 1895.
7 It is impossible to say with certainty precisely how many of these
quotations are intended to be attributed to others, and for how many
the writer makes himself responsible. Quite likely some of this list
should be placed in the next one. Both groups indicate the author's
attitude toward the Old Testament.
THE AUTHOR 105
c) He is, moreover, familiar with the Hebrew lan-
guage, as is indicated by his use and interpretation of
Hebrew names (1:38,41,42; 5:2; 9:7; 19:13, 17;
20 : 1 6) ; by the fact that some of his quotations from the
Old Testament are not made from the Septuagint, but are
apparently his own translation of the Hebrew (13:18;
19:37; to which may, perhaps, be added 12:40); and
by the Greek in which the book is written, which is
throughout Hebraistic in its style, especially in its use of
non-periodic sentences, and the frequent employment of
the less distinctive conjunctions. 8
When all this evidence is taken together, it strongly
tends to the conclusion that our gospel is of Jewish origin.
Some of the facts are quite consistent with gentile-
Christian authorship; some might be explained by the
assumption of the use of Jewish sources ; but the obvious
meaning of them all, to be accepted unless overbalanced
and set aside by counter-evidence, is that the material of
the book is from the hand of a man who is of Jewish birth,
and, in a sense, a Jew in religion.
2. The author's residence. On this matter there is
a diversity of evidence.
a) He is familiar with the geography of Palestine
and the topography of Jerusalem, and in particular with
things as they were before the fall of Jerusalem in 70
A. D. He knows of the Bethany beyond Jordan, as dis-
tinguished from the Bethany near Jerusalem ( i : 28 ; cf.
ii : i, 18; 12 : i 9 ) ; of Bethsaida as the city of Andrew
8 See SCHLATTER, Die Sprache und Heimat des vierten Evangelisten
(Giitersloh, 1902), whose argument, even if it includes items that are of
little weight, is, as a whole, weighty.
8 Here, also, it is alleged, and even by so recent a writer as
MARTINEAU (Seat of Authority in Religion, p. 212), that the evangelist
106 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
and Peter ( i : 44, apparently a more accurate statement
than the implication of the synoptists that they came
from Capernaum; see Mark 1 121, 29) ; of Cana of Gali-
lee and its relation to Capernaum (2:1, 12; 4:46, 47;
Capernaum lies about 1,500 feet lower than Cana) ; of
ynon near to Salim 10 (3:23); of Sychar, and Jacob's
Well, the former of which modern exploration has identi-
fied with 'Askar, half a mile across the valley from the
unquestionably identified Jacob's Well; of the Pool of
Bethesda in Jerusalem, with its five porches (5:2), con-
cerning which, again, most interesting discoveries have
been made in recent times ; ll of the Sea of Galilee (6 : i ),
and the location of Capernaum and Tiberias in relation
to it (6 : 17, 24, 25) ; of the treasury in the temple (8 : 20;
cf. Edersheim, Temple, pp. 26, 27) ; of the Pool of
Siloam (9:7), easily identified today with 'Ain Silwan, 12
southeast of Jerusalem, but within the limits of the wall
betrays ignorance. But, surely, in view of his evident discrimination of
the two places, and of the recently discovered and probable evidence that
there was a Bethany beyond Jordan, such an objection is feeble, if not
self-refuting. See CONDER, art. " Bethabara " in HASTINGS'S Dictionary
of the Bible, Vol. I, p. 76; SMITH, Historical Geography, p. 496, n. i.
10 On the identification of this place see W. A. STEVENS, in Journal
of Biblical Literature, 1883, and HENDERSON, art. " Aenon " in HAS-
TINGS'S Dictionary of the Bible; cf. art. "Salim" in the Encyclopedia
Biblica, Vol. IV, col. 4248.
11 See Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, 1888, pp.
115-34; 1890, pp. 118-20; CONDER, art. "Bethesda" in HASTINGS'S
Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I, p. 279.
12 See ROBINSON, Biblical Researches, Vol. II, pp. 333-42 ; Palestine
Exploration Fund, Memoirs, volume on Jerusalem, pp. 345 ff. ; Quarterly
Statements, 1886, 1897 ; LEWIS, Holy Places of Jerusalem, pp. 188 ff.
THE AUTHOR 107
recently discovered ; 13 of Solomon's porch ( 10 : 23) ; of a
city called Ephraim ( 1 1 : 54), probably the Ephron of the
Old Testament (see Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible) ;
of the brook Kidron (18:1, 2; cf. Lightfoot, Biblical
Essays, pp. 171 ff.) ; of the pretorium of the procurator
(18:28), and the pavement in the pretorium (19:13);
of Golgotha, the place of crucifixion ( 19 : 17) ; and of the
garden in which Jesus was buried (19:41). It is
specially worthy of notice that several of these references
are to places which must have been wholly destroyed or
obscured in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D., and
knowledge of which could with difficulty have been pos-
sessed except by one who had lived in Palestine and been
familiar with Jerusalem before 7O. 14
b) The same thing is indicated by the writer's appar-
ently intimate acquaintance with the events of the pro-
curatorship of Pilate (11:49; 18: 12, 13, 31, 39).
c) Of like significance is his familiarity with those
Jewish ideas and expectations which prevailed among the
Jews of the first century, but were not shared by the Chris-
tians of the second century (1:21; 7:27, 40, 41; the
distinction here indicated between the prophet and the
Christ was early given up by Christians, the passage in
Deut. 18:15 being referred to the Christ, as in Acts 3 : 22 ;
7:37; cf. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 25), as well as
13 MITCHELL, " The Wall of Jerusalem According to the Book of
Nehemiah," Journal of Biblical Literature, 1903, pp. 85-163, especially
pp. 152 ff . ; BLISS, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement,
1895, pp. 305 ff.
14 Cf. on the general subject of the geographical references in this
gospel, FURRER in Zeitschrift fur neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1902,
pp. 257-65, who suggests identifications for all the sites named in this
gospel, in a number of cases differing from those suggested above.
io8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
with those which, though not repudiated by the Christians,
were no longer held in the precise form in which they
prevailed among the Jews of the first century ( i : 49 ; 12 :
13 ; cf. Psalms of Solomon, 17) .
d) But, on the other hand, there are indications
scarcely less clear that the author no longer counts him-
self with the Jews, and that he has come into contact with
a type of thought by which he would be much more likely
to be affected outside than inside Palestine. Thus he con-
stantly speaks of the Jews in the third person, as if they
were quite distinct from himself (2:6, 13, 18; 3:1; 4:9;
5: i, 10, 15, 16; 6:41 ; 7:15; 8:22, etc.). This is, no
doubt, in part the reflection of the fact that his position
as a Christian quite overshadows his merely national
character as a Jew. Yet, many of the Jewish Christians
who remained in Palestine continued for some time to
feel themselves as truly Jews as ever. And the constant
employment of this phraseology, so much more fre-
quent than in Matthew or Paul (Matt. 28: 15; i Thess.
2 : 14, etc.), implies that the author wrote at considerable
distance of place or time, or both, from his home in Pales-
tine and his life in Judaism.
Positive indications of residence outside of Palestine
and an intimation of where his home was are conveyed in
the frequent use of the terms and forms of thought which
prevailed in regions affected by the Jewish-Greek phi-
losophy represented to us by Philo Judeus, and reflected
in the opposition to it in Paul's epistle to the Colossians.
Such words as "Word," 15 "only-begotten," "life,"
15 The basis of this usage is, of course, to be found in the Old
Testament, remotely perhaps in such passages as Gen. i : 3, and more
directly in such as Pss. 33:6; 107:20; 147:15; 148:5; Isa. 55:11.
Some writers Westcott, Godet, Reynolds, et al. think that John's
THE AUTHOR 109
"light," "darkness/' "truth," "paraclete," are common
to Philo and John, though conspicuously absent from, or
employed in a different way in, the synoptic vocabulary.
Account must also be taken of the indescribable, but per-
fectly evident, air of philosophical or abstract thought, so
different from the intensely practical ethics and religion
of the other gospels, and allying this book with Paul's
letters to the Colossians and Ephesians more closely than
with any other New Testament book. By this is not
meant that the fourth gospel is more like Philo, either in
style or substance, than it is like the other gospels. On
the contrary, the resemblance to Philo is accompanied
by even more marked differences, and the resemblances
between John and the synoptic gospels in real spirit and
doctrine are far closer than any between John and Philo.
The influence to which the writer of the fourth gospel has
been subjected is one of atmosphere, affecting his style
and vocabulary, but leaving his doctrine essentially
unchanged. As Paul in Colossians joins a translation of
his thought into the terms of so-called philosophy with
out-and-out opposition to the errors of that philosophy,
so the fourth evangelist apparently avails himself of a
vocabulary which is acquired rather than native to him,
without thereby accepting the doctrines commonly asso-
ciated with this vocabulary.
These two antithetical lines of evidence lead us to
think of the author as one who had lived in Palestine in
the first part of the first century, but who, before he wrote
usage is derived directly from the Old Testament. But Siegfried, San-
day, Weizsacker, Holtzmann, Harnack, Wendt, et al., hold and rightly,
it would seem, in view of the evidence that, while the author of the
gospel does not hold the doctrine of Philo, his usage of the term reflects
the influence of the type of thought seen in Philo.
no THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
this book, had been for some time in non- Jewish lands,
and in an intellectual atmosphere largely affected by the
Alexandrian or Judeo-Hellenic type of thought; or else
point to some form of double authorship. The simpler
explanation is, however, of course, to be preferred, and is
apparently adequate to account for the facts we have
thus far examined. The theory of divided authorship is
not excluded, but it must be sustained by further evidence
before it can demand acceptance.
3. His religious position. That the author, though
a Jew in nationality and one who had been somewhat
affected by Judeo-Hellenic philosophy, was yet, above
everything else, a Christian is so evident throughout the
book as to call for no detailed proof. The prologue ( i :
1-18), the writer's statement of his purpose in writing
(20:30, 31), and, indeed, every paragraph of the gospel
(see, e. g., 3:16-21; 31-36; 12:35-43), is penetrated
with a conception of Jesus, and of the significance of his
life and work, which is possible only to a Christian.
4. The relation of the author to Jesus, and to the
events which he narrates, as reflected in his narrative.
We refer now not to direct assertions of such relation,
but to the indirect indications furnished in the way in
which the story is told.
a) The author constantly speaks as if he were an
eyewitness of the events he narrates. The passage i :
19-51, e. g., while in some respects parallel to the synoptic
story, adds also materially to that story, and especially
such details as only an eyewitness could have added truth-
fully (see especially i :2Q, 35, 39-42, 43). He alone of
the evangelists tells us of the numerous but untrustworthy
disciples that turned to Jesus in Jerusalem (2:23-25).
THE AUTHOR 1 1 1
He alone tells us of Nicodemus, and setches him in few
words, but with remarkable verisimilitude. He alone
informs us that Jesus for a time baptized (by the hands
of his disciples, 3:22; 4:1, 2); the synoptic gospels
would leave us with the impression that the baptism with
the Holy Spirit (of which this writer also knows, 1 133)
was Jesus' only baptism. The story of Jesus and the
woman of Samaria (chap. 4) is full of lifelike touches,
suggesting that it is from the pen or lips of one who was
present. The account of the events that followed the
feeding of the five thousand (chap. 6), so wholly unsug-
gested in the synoptic narrative, while at the same time
helping to explain the withdrawal into northern Galilee
(Mark 7:24 fT.) which the synoptists alone relate, and
so wholly true to probability in its representation of popu-
lar interpretation of the Old Testament and popular views
of the Messiah, is also told with a minuteness of detail at
certain points that suggests again an eyewitness author.
The account of events connected with the raising of Laza-
rus is full of similar details, relating what the several
persons said to one another, where they stood, etc. So
also the story of the Greeks who sought Jesus relates the
precise part which the several disciples took in the matter.
And the account of Jesus' last interview with his dis-
ciples (chaps. 13-17) likewise tells what Peter, Philip,
Thomas, and Judas said. The account of the arrest, trial,
and crucifixion of Jesus, while clearly parallel, and in
part identical, with that of the synoptists, adds many
graphic but incidental details, each of which, where it can
be tested, conforms to existing conditions, or to proba-
bility (see, e. g., 18:1, 2, 10, 15 ff., 26, 29-38; 19:4-16,
112 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
20, 23, 39 ). 16 The representation of the book respecting
repeated visits of Jesus to Jerusalem is different from that
of the synoptists, but corresponds with probability, and
is indeed demanded, as the explanation of that which
occurred on that last visit. 17
b) An eyewitness one to whom facts of this char-
acter were known of personal knowledge could hardly
have been other than one of the Twelve. It is improbable
that one outside that circle w r ould have possessed the
detailed knowledge of so many events, of several of which
the Twelve were the only witnesses. Certainly no other
could have known the thoughts of Jesus and his dis-
ciples which this evangelist records (2:11, 17, 22; 4:6,
27; 13:22, etc.). Only by assuming that the gospel
contains a very large imaginative and fictitious element
can one avoid the conclusion that the material of it pro-
ceeded from an eyewitness, presumably one of the twelve
apostles. But the hypothesis of such an element of fiction
is rendered improbable by the historic accuracy of the
gospel in matters in which it is possible to put its accuracy
to the test.
c) The gospel, as we possess it, contains direct asser-
tions that the author of the narrative, or at least of certain
portions of it, was an eyewitness of the events narrated
(1:14; 19:35; 21:24). Of these passages, however,
the last is clearly not a statement of the author, and
belongs therefore to external testimonies (see p. 115).
16 See the evidence that this author is an eyewitness much more
fully stated by WATKINS in SMITH, Dictionary of the Bible, revised
Eng. ed., Vol. I, pp. 1753 f., where, however, some things are cited
which are rather evidences of an editor's hand.
17 See STANTON in HASTINGS'S Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, p.
2440.
THE AUTHOR 113
The second may also be so regarded, but the evidence is
not decisive. It is almost equally possible that it is a
statement of the author concerning himself, 18 and that it
is, on the other hand, a statement of one who therein dis-
tinguishes himself from the person who is the source of
the information, the author of the statement being either
the final author of the book, who distinguishes him-
self from the author of the sources, 19 or an editor who
thus comments on the work of the author. In the for-
mer case, it is a direct affirmation by the writer that he
was present at the crucifixion of Jesus, and as such of
the highest significance. In the latter case, since it is the
person here spoken of, not the one who speaks, to whom
our previous evidence applies, it becomes a testimony of
some early, but to us unidentified, scribe or editor or com-
piler that the author or source of the narrative was thus
present. It is important to observe that in this case it is
the testimony of a contemporary of the witness to whom
it refers, the tense and person of the verbs in the expres-
sion "he knoweth that he saith true" implying that the
author of the narrative was still living. It is thus only
less significant on this interpretation than if taken as a
statement of the author about himself. In i : 14 there is
nothing to suggest editorial addition it is clearly the
author who is speaking for himself and his associates.
Though the first person plural, " we," may be interpreted
to mean "we Christians," the author using it so loosely
18 So MEYER, ALFORD, WEISS, DODS, et al., ad loc. ; see especially
STEITZ, " Ueber den Gebrauch des pronom-^tetws im 4ten Evange-
lium," Studien und Kritiken, 1859, pp. 497 ff.
19 So substantially HOLTZMANN, ad loc., and WENDT, The Gospel
According to John, pp. 211-13; WEIZSACKER, Apostolic Age, Vol. II,
pp. 209 ff.
H4 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
as to include himself with the eyewitnesses, even though
he himself was not such, 20 it is more probable that the
writer uses it in its obvious sense, as implying that he
himself was of the eyewitnesses. 21 The indirect evidence
of the gospel is therefore confirmed by the direct testi-
mony of the author that he had seen Jesus and had
beheld his glory.
With this result we might for our present purpose be
content, since, though the writer is not by this evidence
personally identified, the knowledge of the author which
we most need to assist us in the interpretation of the book
is not his name, but his historical situation, his relation to
Jesus and to the facts that he relates. Knowing these,
it is of less moment that we should identify him indi-
vidually. Yet, even his name is not without its helpful-
ness in the interpretation of the book ; and, as an appendix
at least to the evidence which the book itself furnishes in
its disclosures of its author's characteristics, point of
view, knowledge of facts, and relation to them, it will be
well to consider briefly the external testimonies to his
personal identity.
5. Statements of ancient writers concerning the
authorship of the book. The testimony contained in
19:35 has already been spoken of. If it is an editorial
statement, it is undoubtedly the earliest testimony we
possess from another than the author himself. But it
does not in any case identify the writer any more defi-
nitely than has been done by internal evidence. It affirms
only that the writer w r as an eyewitness of the event there
narrated, not who he was nor what was his name.
20 Cf. the two instances of TJ/JUV in Luke i : i ., which is, however,
not a precisely parallel case.
21 Cf. GODET, ad loc.
THE AUTHOR 1 1 5
The first clearly external testimony is that of 21 124
of the gospel :
This is the disciple who beareth witness of these things, and
wrote these things : and we know that his witness is true.
Chap. 21 is clearly an appendix to the gospel added to it
after it had once been completed at the end of the twenti-
eth chapter (cf. iv, "Plan of the Gospel"). The chap-
ter as a whole is by no means certainly of different
authorship from the rest of the gospel. But vs. 24 is by
its very terms not a statement of the author respecting
himself, but the testimony of others affirming who he is.
Though imbedded in the gospel itself, as we now possess
it, having been inserted when the rest of the chapter was
added, or perhaps even later, it is, strictly speaking,
external testimony, not internal evidence. Who is the
author or authors of this testimonv, or when it was added
* 7
to the gospel, cannot be definitely stated. 22 In all docu-
mentary evidence, even the oldest, the gospel contains the
twenty-first chapter including this verse.
The testimony of this verse is distinctly to the effect
that the gospel is from the hand of an eyewitness of the
events; that he was one of seven, five of whom are
named and are of the Twelve (21 :2) ; and, more specifi-
cally, that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved, who
leaned on Jesus' bosom at the supper (21 120, 24). The
internal evidence of the book, and the statement of 19:35,
therefore, are confirmed and made more definite by this
testimony of unknown persons inserted in the appendix
to the gospel.
Not even yet, however, is the writer spoken of by
22 Concerning Weizsacker's interesting and certainly hot improbable
suggestion see p. 126.
n6 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
name. If it might be reasonably assumed that the dis-
ciple repeatedly in the gospel designated otherwise than
by his name ( 1 140, 41 ; 13:23; 18:15,16; 19:26,27,
35 ; 21 : 20) is always the same, then the person to whom
this testimony refers could with probability be identified.
For the testimony itself refers to 21 : 20, in which the dis-
ciple that Jesus loved is spoken of, and by implication
identifies him with the disciple spoken of in 19:35. Now,
one to whom these passages referred could hardly have
been other than one of the inner circle of Jesus' disciples
James, John, Peter, Andrew (a presumption confirmed
by 1 140, 41 ; 21 :2) ; and of these Andrew is excluded
by i : 40, Peter by 2 1 : 20, and James by 2 1 : 24, coupled
with the fact of his early death (Acts 12:2), making it
impossible for him to have written a gospel unquestion-
ably the latest of our four. But the chain of argument by
which we thus conclude that the disciple whom Jesus
loved, and to whom the witnesses of 21:24. referred, was
John the son of Zebedee, while probably leading to a
right interpretation of this testimony, contains several
links not irrefutably strong. For the name of the author
to whom antiquity ascribed this gospel we must look to
still later testimony.
Definite testimony that the fourth gospel is from the
hand of John comes to us not earlier than from the third
quarter of the second century. 23 The following are some
of the earliest and most striking passages in which the
gospel is ascribed to John :
Whence also the Holy Scriptures and all those who bear the
23 Evidence for the existence of the gospel is much earlier, quite
clearly as early as 130 A. D. But it is beyond the purpose of this book
to discuss the complicated problem of the external evidence.
EDITORIAL WORK IN THE GOSPEL 117
spirit teach us, of whom John (being one) says: In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, pointing out that at
first only God was, and in him the Word. Then, he says, And the
Word was God, through him all things were made and without
him nothing was made. (THEOPHILUS, Ad. Autolycum, II, 22.)
Irenaeus, having previously spoken of the three gospels
and their authors proceeds :
Afterwards John the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon
his breast, did himself publish a gospel during his residence at
Ephesus in Asia. (Adv. Haer., iii, i.)
In another passage he says :
John the disciple of the Lord .... thus commenced his teach-
ing in the gospel: In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God, etc. (Adv. Haer., iii, n.)
II. INDICATIONS OF EDITORIAL WORK IN THE GOSPEL
The evidence that the fourth gospel came from one of
the Twelve is then full and strong; and tradition at least
clearly points to John as the author. Yet it is necessary
also to consider certain facts which seem to make against
the theory of apostolic authorship in the strictest and
fullest sense of the term, evidence suggesting the possi-
bility that, though an .apostle, presumably John, was not
only the source, but in a sense the writer, of this book, yet
the book perhaps does not owe its present form to him.
In connection with this must also be considered certain
evidence which may either make against the strict Johan-
nine authorship, or tend to show that the material of the
book underwent a process of recasting in the mind of the
apostle himself.
i . Reference has already been made to the clear indi-
cation that 21 :24 is from the hand of persons who defi-
nitely distinguish themselves from the author of the book,
n8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
standing as sponsors to the readers for his trustworthi-
ness, and to the possibility that 19 : 35 is of the same char-
acter. 24 The former clearly, the latter possibly, show
a hand other than that of the author of the material con-
tained in the book. The evidence furnished by the fact
of the addition of chap. 21, after the gospel was complete,
will be discussed in a later paragraph.
2. The use of the title, "the disciple whom Jesus
loved" (19:26; 21:20), for the author of the book
points, at least slightly, in the same direction. That asso-
ciates of John in the latter part of his life should know
from himself or from others that he was the special object
of the Master's affection, and that they should call him
" the disciple whom Jesus loved," is not at all improbable.
But that he, writing with his own pen or by dictation a
book whose authorship was to be no secret, should refer
to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved," is an
improbable immodesty, strangely at variance with the
modesty which on this supposition led him never to men-
tion himself by name.
3. In several particulars this gospel gives a different
representation of facts connected with the life of Jesus
from that which the synoptic gospels present. Thus John
the Baptist's characterization of Jesus as the Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world is so wholly
different from his prediction, recorded in Matthew and
Luke, of the Greater One coming to swift and irremedi-
24 Probably not, however, in any case from the same hand. The
third person and the present tense in 19 : 35, " he knoweth that he saith
true," imply that the witness is still living; while the past tense in
21 : 24, " that wrote these things," and the use of the first person in the
statement, " we know that his witness is true," suggest that the witness-
author is no longer living.
EDITORIAL WORK IN THE GOSPEL 119
able judgment that it cannot but lead us to inquire whether
the idea expressed by the Baptist is not at least slightly
modified in this expression of it. Again, the representa-
tion of this gospel concerning the announcement of Jesus'
messiahship is sufficiently different from that of the syn-
optic gospels to raise the question whether there has not
been in this matter some transformation of the material,
some projection backward into the early portion of the
ministry of what really belongs to the latter part, or a
substitution for one another of terms which, when the
gospel was written, had long been looked upon as prac-
tically synonymous, but which, when Jesus lived, had not
yet become so. The difficulties at this point have often
been exaggerated, especially in respect to the confession
of Nathanael, 25 but it remains true that there are differ-
ences which demand explanation. Cf. John 3 : 28 ; 4 : 26,
with Matt. 16: 13-18. In minor matters, also, there is an
occasional editorial remark which it is difficult to account
for as coming from an apostle of Jesus. See, e. g., 4 : 44,
which by its position seems to imply that Judea was Jesus'
own country, though, indeed, this is not the only possible
interpretation of it. 26
25 Cf. the very useful discussion of this matter by PROFESSOR
RHEES in the Journal of Biblical Literature, 1898, pp. 21 ff.
28 It is a tempting suggestion that the last clause of 18:28, "but
that they might eat the passover," which implies that the passover had
not yet been eaten, whereas the synoptists clearly put the passover on
the preceding night, is an editorial comment from a later hand, the dis-
crepancy of which with the chronology of the synoptic narrative is due
to the editor's ignorance of the exact facts. But the evidence, which
apparently grows clearer with fuller investigation, that the Johannine
chronology of the passion week is alone consistent with the testimony
of all the gospels respecting the day of the week on which Jesus died
and the evidence concerning the Jewish calendar in the first century,
120 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
4. The style of the gospel is uniform throughout,
alike in narrative, discourse of Jesus, discourse of John,
and prologue or comment of the evangelist. This style
is, moreover, quite different from that which the synoptic
gospels attribute to Jesus or John. Whose style is this?
Is it that of John the apostle, or that of the men whose
hand appears in the " we know " of 21 : 24? Or is it, per-
haps, the style of Jesus himself which John has learned
from him? From the gospel itself we could perhaps
hardly answer the question. But a comparison of the
book, on the one hand, with the style which the synoptic
gospels all but uniformly attribute to Jesus, and, on the
other, with the first epistle of John, seems to point the
way to an answer. In i John we have a letter which,
tends rather to the conclusion that, whether the words " but that they
might eat the passover " are from author or editor, they are at least in
harmony with the facts respecting the relation of Jesus' death to the
celebration of the Jewish passover. See PREUSCHEN in Zeitschrift fur
neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, January, 1904; BRIGGS, New Light
on the Life of Jesus, pp. 56 ff. Another difference between this
gospel and the synoptists concerns the chronological position of the
cleansing of the temple. But here also the evidence tends to sustain
the accuracy of the fourth gospel. By the expression in John 2 : 20,
" forty and six years was this temple in building," the event there
referred to is assigned to the year 26 or 27, barely possibly to 28 A. D.
(cf. n. 3). This fact, combined with the increasingly clear evidence that
Jesus was crucified in the year 30, tends to the conclusion that the
cleansing narrated in this gospel is correctly placed as it stands, and
that, if there was but one cleansing of the temple, it is the synoptists
that have misplaced the account. On the evidence of the year of Jesus'
death see PREUSCHEN as above. The argument by which TURNER in the
article " Chronology of the New Testament " in HASTINGS'S Dictionary
of the Bible, pp. 411, 412, seeks to establish 29 A. D. as the year of
Jesus' death, rests upon a misinterpretation of the evidence of the
Mishna as to the method by which the beginning of the Jewish year was
fixed in the first Christian century.
EDITORIAL WORK IN THE GOSPEL 121
though it uses the pronoun "we" in the first paragraph,
as Paul also frequently does, because he includes in his
thought other persons than himself of whom his state-
ment is true, 27 yet is evidently the letter of one person
(2:1, 12; 5:13, etc.). This person, moreover, is an
eyewitness of the life of Jesus (1:1-4). Now, the
vocabulary, doctrine, and style of this letter are very
similar to that of the fourth gospel, including also chap.
21. The obvious inference from these facts is that the
gospel throughout not necessarily every word, but in
the main and the epistle are in subject-matter and style
from one hand, and that that hand is the hand of an
eyewitness of the life of Jesus, the disciple of Jesus who
in the epistle writes in the first person singular, who in
the gospel discloses his knowledge of the things with
which he deals, and to whom the authors of 21:24 refer.
It follows that the style is neither that of editors who
have put the book together, 28 nor, in view of the evidence
27 It is not meant that Paul's " we " always has this force ; it is
probably sometimes used simply for " I." See DICK, Die Schrift-
stellcrische Plural bei Pauius (Halle, 1900) ; cf. LIGHTFOOT, Notes on
Epistles of Paul, p. 22. This is perhaps also the case in i John.
28 The only escape from the conclusion that the style of the book
is that of the eyewitness author of the gospel and the epistle would be
in the contention that such similarity of style does not prove identity of
authorship, but only shows that the various writings exhibiting it are
from the same school, and the theory that, while the epistle was written
by a member of that school who was an eyewitness of the life of Jesus,
in the gospel we must distinguish between the eyewitness source of the
facts and the non-eyewitness writer, ascribing to the latter the style.
Even in that case the writing of the book would be carried back into
a school some members of which were eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus.
But, in fact, there is little to recommend such a view. If there was
an eyewitness who could write the first epistle of John, there seems 'no
obvious reason why he may not be the author as well as the source of
the gospel. Only in respect to chap. 21 do the facts seem to furnish
122 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
of the synoptists respecting Jesus' manner of speech,
that of Jesus. From this again follow two conclusions :
First, the apostle is not simply in a remote sense the source
of the facts, which the editors have wholly worked over
into their style, but he is in some true sense the author
of the book, the one who, as the authors of 21 124 say,
"wrote these things." Second, in view of the uniformity
of the style of this book, covering the discourses of Jesus
as well as the rest, in view of the difference between this
style and that of Jesus in the synoptists, and, on the other
hand, its identity with that of i John, there is no room to
doubt that John has thoroughly worked over into his own
style perhaps the style of his later years his remem-
brance of the deeds and words of Jesus. That this style
was learned from Jesus is a theory which could hardly be
absolutely disproved, but which is not suggested by any
convincing evidence. That the synoptic gospels contain
a sentence or two in the style of the fourth gospel (see
Matt, ii 127; Luke 10:22), is more easily explained on
the supposition that the synoptic gospels were to a limited
extent affected by the same influence that created the
fourth gospel than that these few words discover to us the
style of Jesus and account for that of the fourth gospel.
5. There are numerous indications that the arrange-
ment of the material of which this book is composed is
not wholly from the hand of the author himself. These
any support for such a theory. The evident fact that this chapter was
added to the gospel already regarded as complete at 20 : 21, and doubtless
after the death of the author to whom 21 : 24 ascribes the preceding
chapters, does, indeed, suggest that it is from a different hand from the
rest of the gospel. See further in n. 35, p. 127.
EDITORIAL WORK IN THE GOSPEL 123
apparent displacements attracted attention long ago, 29 and
of recent years have been the subject of careful study.
Among the most obvious of them is the position of 7:
15-24. This is manifestly connected in thought with
chap. 5. The Jews apparently take up in 7:15 a state-
ment of Jesus in 5 : 47, and the whole paragraph 1 5-24
unquestionably carries forward the controversy related in
chap. 5. But as the material now stands, months of time
and an extended absence of Jesus from Jerusalem fall
between the two parts of this continuous conversation.
The attachment of these verses to the end of chap. 5 gives
them a far more natural and probable position. Inde-
pendently of this case, 6 : i and 7 : i present an obvious
chronological difficulty. In 6 : i Jesus goes away to the
other side of the Sea of Galilee, though chap. 5 leaves him
not in Galilee at all, but in Jerusalem. And 7 : i states
that after these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for he
would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to' kill
him; though in chap. 6 he was already in Galilee. The
transposition of chaps. 5 and 6 would give a far more
intelligible order of events. Even the latter part of chap.
7 would read much more smoothly if vss. 45-52 stood
between 36 and 37, thus making the officers return the
same day that they were sent, rather than, as it now
stands, several days later, as well as yielding in other
respects a more probable order of thought. Combining
these suggestions, we should arrange these chapters in this
order (after chap. 4, which leaves him in Galilee) : 6:
1-71; 5:1-47; 7 :I 5- 2 4; 7 :I ' I 3> 2 5-3 6 > 45~5 2 > 37-44-
29 Some of them are spoken of in a work of the fourteenth century :
LUDOLPHUS DE SAXONiA, Vita Christi, referred to by J. P. NORRIS,
Journal of Philology, Vol. Ill (1871), pp. 107 ff.
i2 4 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
That 7 : 53 8 : 1 1 is from some outside source is gener-
ally admitted, being established by external testimony as
well as by internal evidence. The insertion of this pas-
sage is, of course, not editorial transposition, but scribal
interpolation. 30
The difficulties of arrangement in chaps. 13-16 have
long been noticed, and one of them, the interposition of
the long discourse of chaps. 15-16 after the words, " Arise,
let us go hence," in 14:31, is obvious to the most casual
reader. Others have been observed by more attentive
students, such as the evidence in 14:25-31, especially in
27, " Peace I leave with you/' that these are intended to
be the closing words of the discourse; and that 16 : 5 can
scarcely have been spoken after the question of 14: 5, but
would itself naturally give rise to that question. These
difficulties are greatly relieved by supposing chaps. 15, 16
30 If, on the basis of the clearer cases mentioned above, it should be
established that the material of the gospel has suffered displacement,
then it would be reasonable to interpret the less clear indications in
chaps. 8-1 o as showing that here also there has been some disarrange-
ment. Thus chap. 8 (omitting vss. i-n) begins without narrative intro-
duction with the words, " Again, therefore, Jesus spake to them," as if
this were a continuation of the discourse in chap. 7. But the theme
of 8: 12 ff. is Jesus as the Light of the World, which is suggested by
nothing in the preceding chapter, and is clearly related to chap. 9. The
paragraphs 10:19-21 and 10:22-29 also occupy a position difficult to
account for. A rearrangement of this material that will at once com-
mend itself as the original arrangement can hardly be offered. But the
following is possible: 7:37-44; 8:21-59, the discourse of Jesus
on the last day of the feast, discussing the question already raised in
7:25-36, whence he is, whither he goes, and who he is; 9:1-41;
10: 19-21 ; 8: 12-20, on the theme Jesus the Light of the World; 10:
22-29, 1-18, 30-42, a chapter on the one theme: Jesus the good Shep-
herd, and his relation to the Father, having the typical structure of a
Johannine chapter, viz., narrative introduction, discourse of Jesus, dis-
cussion with the Jews, narrative conclusion.
EDITORIAL WORK IN THE GOSPEL 125
to have stood originally either after the words "Jesus
saith," in 13:31, or after 13:20. It has been further
pointed out that the recognized difficulties in 18:12-28
are considerably relieved by supposing that vss. 19-24
belong properly after vs. 13, the beginning of vs. 25 being
a repetition of the end of vs. 18. The order of the
Sinaitic manuscript of the Syriac Version (verses 12, 13,
24, 14, 15, 19-23, 16-18, 25-31), suggests either that the
present order was not the original, or that the difficulty of
the present order made itself felt very early.
Spitta accounted for these transpositions on the
theory that the book was originally written on papyrus
sheets, each containing approximately eighteen and one-
half lines of the length of those of the Westcott and Hort
text, or about eight hundred Greek letters, and that by
pure accident some of these sheets were displaced and
then copied as transposed. It is certainly remarkable how
many of the pieces which are out of place are either about
eight hundred letters long or multiples of this number. 31
Professor Bacon, recognizing in large part the same dis-
placements, thinks they are the result of editorial arrange-
ment. 32 Without undertaking to decide which, if either,
of these two theories is correct neither one of them
seems to account for all the facts or whether all the
alleged displacements are really such, we are constrained
31 See SPITTA, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur des Urchristentums,
Vol. I, pp. 157-204.
82 Journal of Biblical Literature, 1894, pp. 64-76; cf. also his article
" Tatian's Rearrangement of the Fourth Gospel," in American Journal of
Theology, 1900, pp. 770-95, in which he endeavors to show that Tatian
had a gospel differently arranged from our present gospel. In criticism
of this latter article see HOBSON, The Synoptic Problem in the Light of
the Diatessaron of Tatian (Chicago, 1904).
iz6 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
to admit that the evidence of some displacement is almost
irresistible. But, if so, then it follows that some other
hand has been at work upon the gospel than that of the
original author.
6. But chap. 21 furnishes at once a problem of itself
and a hint for the solution of the whole matter. This
chapter seems clearly, and is generally admitted to be, an
appendix added after the gospel was felt to be completed
in 20:30, 31. Now Weizsacker has pointed out in his
Apostolic Age (Vol. II, pp. 209, 212) that the motive
for this addition is to be seen in 21 123, viz., in the fact
that the death of John seemed at once to discredit both the
apostle and his Lord, since, as was generally supposed,
Jesus had predicted that his beloved disciple should not
die, but should survive till his coming. To obviate this
discrediting of Jesus and John, this chapter is published,
pointing out that Jesus did not so predict. The motive
for such a publication would, as Weizsacker says, exist
most strongly immediately after the death of John. From
this fact he draws a conclusion in favor of the early date
of the gospel. For our present purpose its significance
lies in the fact that this chapter was added after the death
of John. But if, as already argued, the style of this chap-
ter is the style of the author of the epistle and the gospel,
not that of the editors who speak in 21 : 24, then it follows
that this chapter existed before its incorporation into the
gospel. And this in turn suggests both that the apostle,
while still alive, composed chapters of a gospel- "book-
lets," if you please 33 and that he left them in this form,
not organized into a gospel. If now we turn back to
33 Cf. the use of the word /3/^SXos in Matt, i : i, referring to vss.
1-17.
EDITORIAL WORK IN THE GOSPEL 127
examine the gospel itself, it is easy to imagine, to say the
least, that we can discern, approximately, the lines of
cleavage which distinguish these booklets from one
another, somewhat as follows: 34 Book I, i : 1-18; Book
II, i : 19 2 : 12 ; Book III, 2 : 13 3 : 36; Book IV, chap.
4; Book V, 5:1-47; 7:15-24; Book VI, chap. 6; Book
VII, chaps. 7, 8 (with omissions and transpositions as
suggested on p. 123 and in n. 30) ; Book VIII, chaps. 9, 10
(with changes suggested in n. 30) ; Book IX, 10:22-29,
i -i 8, 30-42; Book X, chap, n; Book XI, chap. 12;
Book XII, chaps. 13-17 (as arranged above) ; Book
XIII, chaps. 18-20; Book XIV, chap. 2i. 35
34 The book numbers are not intended to indicate the original order
of the books, since, according to the suggestion here made, they existed
originally as separate books, not as a connected series. It is to be
supposed, also, that the introductory phrases, " After these things," 5:1;
6: i, etc., were editorial notes, not parts of the original books.
35 If it should be made clear by ancient examples that such similarity
of style as exists between chap. 21 and the rest of the gospel indicate?
no more than that the writings exhibiting it emanated from the san.
school of writers, then the inference to be drawn from chap. 21 respect-
ing the original form of the rest of the gospel would certainly be less
obvious. But if chap. 21 may be from a different hand from the rest
of the gospel, it can hardly be maintained that the rest of the gospel
must certainly have been throughout from the same pen, literally from
the same writer. Instead, there is suggested to us the possibility that
various writers of the same school, all eyewitnesses of the events or in
touch with such an eyewitness a company, e. g., of John's disciples
put into writing different portions of what John had reported and taught
about Jesus, and that the gospel was made up of these various writings,
completed with chap. 20 before the death of the apostle, and receiving
the addition of chap. 21 from the same general source after his death.
And if with such a possibility in mind we examine the structure of the
gospel itself, the probability that it existed originally in separate books
will seem scarcely less than on the supposition of unity of authorship
throughout. But until it has been rendered less improbable than it now
seems that the writings even of writers of the same school would resemble
iz8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
If now we attempt to combine and interpret all this
evidence, it seems to point to the following conclusion:
The narrative of the life and discourses of Jesus proceeds
from an eyewitness of the events, a personal disciple of
Jesus, in all probability John the son of Zebedee. The
whole material has, however, been melted and recast in
the mind of the author. Lapse of time, change of sur-
roundings, contact with a new type of thought, desire to
make Jesus and his teaching intelligible to the men with
whom, now at the end of the first century, he has to deal,
have all operated to make the book, not merely a narrative
of the life of Jesus, but a series of historical sermons
shaped to meet the needs of living readers. This material
left the hand of the author, moreover, not in the form of
the book which we have, but in a number of smaller books.
In its spirit the book is far more the work of a preacher
seeking to develop spiritual life, than of an historian
seeking to produce an accurate record of past events.
The gospel as we possess it shows the hand of an editor
one another as closely as chap. 21 resembles the rest of the gospel, it is
reasonable to abide by the conclusion that substantially all the material
of the gospel is from the same author. That he wrote it with his own
pen, or dictated it to an amanuensis need not be maintained. It may
well be composed mainly of uttered discourses, written down by hearers.
The similarity of style implies only identity of authorship but of
authorship, not simply of ultimate and remote source.
PROFESSOR BACON, "The Johannine Problem," Hibbert Journal, Janu-
ary, 1904, p. 344, has expressed the opinion that " The similarity of
style and language between the appendix and the gospel is not too
great to be fully accounted for by simple imitation, plus a revision of
the gospel itself by the supplementing hand," and separates the com-
position of this chapter from the rest of the gospel by a considerable
interval of time, thus apparently excluding the hypothesis that it pro-
ceeds even from the same school of writers as the rest of the gospel.
This opinion has not yet run the gauntlet of criticism.
THE READERS 129
or editors in the arrangement of the material which he or
they had, and possibly of a careless copyist or binder in
the disarrangement of it. The precise extent of the
editorial work, and the exact nature of the causes which
have given the book its present form, are as yet unsolved
problems. But the evidence seems to show that the bulk
of the material exists in the form which the apostle gave
it, even the style being his.
These facts, if facts they are, do not disprove the
essential unity of the book, nor do they show it to be
based upon "sources" in the usual sense of that term.
They indicate that the book is mainly from one hand, but
they imply also that we may expect to- find four strata of
material, or rather evidences of four influences at work :
first, the actual deeds and words of Jesus; second, the
apostle melting over and recasting these in his own mind,
and adding prologue and occasional comment or summary
(1:1-18; 3 :l6 ' 2I > 3 I -3 6 ; 12:36^-43 or 5 36 ); third >
the work of an editor in the preparation of the book for
publication ; and fourth, possibly, the blundering work of
a copyist or binder.
III. THE READERS FOR WHOM THE GOSPEL WAS
INTENDED
Internal evidence tends to show that the readers for
whom the fourth gospel was primarily written and pub-
lished were not Jews, but gentiles. A Christian writer
36 The following passages, to which still others, chiefly portions of
a verse, might be added, are also of the nature of interpretative comment
on the history, some of them undoubtedly from the hand of the author,
others possibly added by the editors: 2:11, 21, 22, 25; 4:2, 9, 44;
6:646, 71; 7:39; ":5i, 52; 12: 146-16, 33J 18:32; 19:24, 35,
36, 37-
130 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
writing for Christian Jews might, indeed, occasionally
speak of "the Jews" as this gospel does (cf. Matt. 28:
15), but a Jewish writer writing for Jews, even Christian
Jews, is not likely to have felt his and their distinctness
from the Jewish nation so strongly as to have used this
form of expression with the frequency with which it
occurs in this gospel. The explanation of Hebrew terms
when they occur (1:41,42; 4:25; 19:13, 17; 20:16),
and the manner of referring to Jewish customs and senti-
ments (2:6; 4:9; 7:2; 19:40), point in the same
direction. This evidence does not exclude Jewish readers,
but it certainly tends to show that the readers were not
wholly, or even chiefly, Jews. To this must be added the
statement of 20:31, which by its use of the words
"believe" and "have" in the present tense, denoting
action in progress and most naturally referring to the
continuance of action already in progress, implies that the
readers are Christians, in whom the writer desires, not to
beget faith, but to nourish and confirm a faith that already
exists. The book seems, therefore, to have been intended
chiefly for gentile Christians.
IV. THE PURPOSE WITH WHICH THE EVANGELIST WROTE
But what did it aim to accomplish for these Chris-
tians? The verse just referred to contains an explicit
statement of aim, viz., by the narration of facts respecting
the life of Jesus to lead men (presumably already believ-
ers) to believe (i. e., continue to believe) that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, to the end that thus believing they
may (continue to) have life in his name. 37 Doubtless it
37 The theory already suggested respecting the method of composition
of this book raises the question whether 20: 30, 31 is from the hand of
THE PURPOSE 131
would be an over-pressing of the force of the tenses in this
sentence to insist that the book was written solely for the
maintenance of existing faith against adversaries; but
that this was a part of its purpose is certainly more than
hinted. If, then, we turn back to the prologue, i : 1-18,
in which we may naturally expect to discover indication
of the purpose of the book, three things attract our atten-
tion. First, the term "Word" is here employed in a
peculiar way, not paralleled in the other portions of the
gospel or in the first epistle of John, 38 and yet introduced
as if it were familiar to those who would read the book. 39
the author, being intended by him as the conclusion of this particular
book k (chaps. 18-20), or from the hand of the editors, and intended as the
conclusion of the whole work. It is an objection to the former supposi-
tion that no such conclusion is attached to any other of the " books," and
that in chaps. 18-20 " signs," in the sense of the word in this gospel, are
by no means prominent ; indeed, there are none in the usual sense of the
term. It is against both this supposition and the view that the author
wrote these words as a conclusion of the whole series of books, or
(setting aside the particular theory here advocated) of the work as a
whole, that the gospel itself does not put upon the signs quite the
emphasis which this verse seems to give them (cf. 2:23-25; 3:1-3).
It is, therefore, most probable that these verses are from the editors,
though it may well be that, except in the use of the word " sign," they
have correctly expressed the purpose which the apostle had in view in
the delivery of the discourses or writing of the books which they have
here published.
38 The use of the phrase " Word of life " in i John i : i, the " pro-
logue " of the epistle, is approximately parallel, and in view of the usage
of the prologue of the gospel is probably to be traced to the same
influence which produced this ; yet it is only approximately parallel,
involving by no means so clear a hypostatizing of the Word as that of
John i : i ff. The mode of speech of the letter even is doubtless an
acquired one, but it has apparently become a natural one for the apostle.
This can hardly be said of the phraseology of the prologue of the gospel.
se See HARNACK, Zeitschrift fiir Theologie und Kirche, Vol. II, pp.
189-231 ; WENDT, The Gospel According to John, pp. 223-34.
132 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
The purpose of the writer in the prologue is evidently not
to introduce to readers hitherto unacquainted with them
either the conception of the "Word" as the expression
and revelation of God, or the person Jesus Christ, but
rather to predicate the former of the latter. These facts
indicate that the writer desires to avail himself of a con-
ception more congenial to the thought of his readers than
to his own, in order to set forth in words familiar to his
readers the doctrine he wishes to teach, viz., the unique-
ness, finality, and all-sufficiency of the revelation of God
made in the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, he
translates into a current vocabulary and mode of th6ught
his own thought about Jesus, in order by such translation
to render this thought more intelligible and more accept-
able. This reminds us of the evidence afforded by the
letter of Paul to the Colossians, and in a less degree by
Ephesians, that the gentile Christianity of Asia Minor
was subject in the first century to the influence of a certain
type of philosophy which tended to dethrone Christ from
his place of supremacy, and that Paul was led in opposing
it strongly to affirm the priority, supremacy, and all-
sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God and
the mediator between God and man (Col. 1:15-20; 2:
8 ff., 1 6 ff.). The epistle to the Colossians gives evidence,
also, that this philosophy was affected by the same con-
ception of the intrinsic evil of matter which later appeared
in the gnosticism of the second century a conception
which led to the predication of numerous intermediary
beings between God and the world in order to avoid
attributing to God the evil involved in creating an evil
world. This tendency is triply opposed in the prologue.
The world is made the product of divine activity through
THE PURPOSE 133
the " Word ; " the " Word " is the only mediator between
God and the world ; the Word is himself divine. In place,
therefore, of the long series of intermediary beings, of
whom the last and remotest from God brings the world
into being, it is the doctrine of the prologue that all things
became through the Word, who was in the beginning with
God and who was God.
In the second place, we discern in the prologue, in
immediate connection with the employment of the Philo-
nean term "Word," a denial of Philo's doctrine. 40 To
Philo the Word was a philosophic conception rather than
a reality objectively known, the joint product of a theory
about God and the hard fact of the existence of the world.
Whether objective existence was predicated of this prod-
uct of reflection does not seem to be wholly clear; per-
haps Philo himself scarcely knew. But at best the Philo-
nean conception of the Word, instead of bringing God
near and making him more real to men, only put him
farther away; the Word himself, through whom alone
God could be known, was only an inference, a product of
thought. No man had ever seen him at any time, or ever
could see him. Philosophically he might bridge the chasm
between God and man; practically he only widened it.
Over against this conception, the prologue of our gospel,
availing itself of the familiar term, but converting it to
the uses of a wholly different doctrine, affirms that Jesus
Christ, the historic person, is the God-revealing Word,
and that all that philosophy vainly dreamed of as accom-
plished in the unknown and unknowable Word has, in
fact, been wrought in that the eternal, self- revealing God
has incarnated himself, having become flesh in the person
40 Cf. McGiFFERT, Apostolic Age, p. 488.
134 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
of Jesus; and we beheld his glory, the glory of one who
reveals God as an only-begotten son reveals his father.
In the third place, we cannot fail to see in vss. 6-9 and
15 an intention to oppose the doctrine, evidently held by
some, that John the Baptist is the true Messiah and revela-
tion of God. Of the existence of a John the Baptist sect
there is a hint in Acts 19:3, and further evidence in the
Clem. Recogn., I, 54. 41
Thus against a tendency, essentially gnostic in char-
acter, to separate God from the world by the intervention
of one or more intermediary beings, against the Philonean
notion of the "Word" of God as a mere philosophic
conception, only rhetorically personified and never for a
moment identified with the Messiah or conceived of as
incarnate, against the assertion that John the Baptist is
the true Messiah, the prologue affirms the eternal exist-
ence of the " Word " as the one medium of God's relation
to the world, his incarnation in Jesus Christ, and his
messiahship. 42
41 Here Peter is represented as saying : " Yea even some of the
disciples of John .... have separated themselves from the people, and
proclaimed their own master as the Christ." This bears witness to the
existence of such a sect in the latter part of the second century. But
such a sect could not have sprung into existence so long after the death
of John. It must have its roots in a much earlier time, as Acts 19: 3,
indeed, bears witness that it did have. Cf. HACKETT, Acts, ad. loc.;
WILKINSON, A Johannine Document in the First Chapter of Luke, pp.
21 ff. See on this whole subject NEANDER, Church History, Vol. I, p.
376, and the commentaries of Godet and Westcott ; contra, Weiss. In
his monograph, Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums, 1898, BALDEN-
SPERGER has maintained that opposition to the John-cult is the central
purpose of the gospel. See review by RHEES in the American Journal of
Theology, April, 1899.
42 GODET {Commentary on John, Vol. I, p. 284) finds the chief
polemic of the prologue in its opposition to the docetic distinction
THE PURPOSE 135
But this is not all. The prologue not only affirms
certain propositions about Jesus which are denied by the
contemporaries of the writer ; it is in entire harmony with
20 : 30, 31, in emphasizing faith in Jesus Christ as the con-
dition of true life, here represented also as true sonship to
God (i : 12, 13).
If now we examine the body of the gospel, we find no
further reference to the philosophical heresies contro-
verted in the prologue, but a controlling emphasis upon
the simpler and more positive ideas of vss. 12, 13.
Indeed, the gospel may almost be said to be summarized
in the words of vss. 11-13: "He came unto his own, and
they that were his own received him not. But to as many
as received him, to them gave he the right to become
children of God, even to them that believe on his name:
which were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God." We are told of his
appearance among his own people, the Jews, of their
rejection of him, first tentative, then growing more and
more decisive; of his acceptance by a few who believed
on him, and the Master's reception of them into an inti-
mate fellowship with himself and with God ; and through
all of Jesus' constant insistence that in him is life, that it
is imparted to those who believe in him, while they who
reject remain in death. We cannot, indeed, overlook the
fact that in the early part of the gospel there are repeated
between Jesus and the Christ, according to which the latter descended
into Jesus at his baptism, but left him and reascended into heaven
before the passion. HARNACK also (Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche,
Vol. II, p. 217) includes this anti-docetic polemic in the purpose of the
prologue. That the first epistle is distinctly anti-docetic in its aim there
is no reason to question (see especially i John 5:6 ff., though Godet
interprets vs. 6 as directed against the messiahship of the Baptist). But
the traces of such polemic in the gospel are slight.
136 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
references to John the Baptist, in every one of which he is
represented as bearing testimony to Jesus or refusing to
make any claim for himself, declaring that Jesus must
increase, but he himself decrease (1:19-35; 3:22-30);
nor can we fail to connect these passages with the refer-
ences to John in the prologue, or to see in both an opposi-
tion to the John the Baptist cult. Yet these passages dc
scarcely more than bring into clearer relief the otherwise
constant emphasis on the life-giving power of faith in
Jesus Christ, the supreme revelation and only-begotten
Son of God.
While, therefore, we discern in the prologue evidence
that it is rather a bridge from the gospel to the readers
than a summary of the book from the author's own point
of view, and while, as we compare the prologue, the body
of the book, and the statement of purpose in 20:30, 31,
we perceive that each differs somewhat from the other
in emphasis or minor conceptions; while we may observe
that the references to John are sufficiently distinct from
the rest of the matter to constitute possibly a distinct
stratum of the book; yet we discern also that the book
reflects a situation which, if complex, is nevertheless self-
consistent, and a unity of purpose that implies the domi-
nance of one mind or of a group of minds holding sub-
stantially the same doctrine and seeking the same ends.
If we seek a definition of that purpose, the evidence
leads us to say that negatively the gospel was intended to
oppose certain conceptions of God and the world, akin at
least to those of Philo and the Gnostics conceptions
which belittled or excluded the work of Christ and
incidentally to controvert the doctrine of the messiahship
of John the Baptist ; but that this negative aim was itself
THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL 137
subordinate to the positive object of so presenting Jesus
in his deeds and words as to show the danger of unbelief
and the blessed issue of faith, to the end that the faith of
believers might be confirmed and they continuing in faith
might increasingly possess life in his name.
It is greatly to be desired that, however remote we
may feel ourselves to be from the particular errors which
this gospel originally opposed, it may still attain in respect
to us all its positive and dominant purpose, and that we,
as we study it afresh, may believe that Jesus is the Christ
the Son of God, and believing may have life in his name.
IV. THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL
The structure of the gospel as it stands seems to be
the result of three facts : the purpose which the evangelist
had in mind in writing and the editors in publishing the
book; the existence of the material as it came to the
editors in the form of isolated chapters or books ; and the
influences already referred to as tending in some unknown
way to disarrange the material. But these latter influ-
ences do not seem to have obscured the plan of the book
beyond the possibility of easy recognition. The purpose
of the author and the editors to set forth the evidence that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and to show the con-
trasted effects of faith and unbelief, is clearly discernible
and affects both material and structure. The following
is an attempt, on the basis of the book as it stands, to show
its original plan as nearly as possible, but with suggestions
in the footnotes of possible restorations of the original
order.
i 3 8
ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPEL
I. THE PROLOGUE OF THE GOSPEL: The central doc-
trines of the book so expressed in terms of current
thought as to relate the former to the latter and
facilitate the transition from the latter to the
former. 1 : 1-18
II. THE PERIOD OF BEGINNINGS : John bears his testi-
mony; Jesus begins to reveal himself; faith is
begotten in some, and the first signs of opposition
appear. 1 : 194 : 54
1. The testimony of John and the beginnings of
faith in Jesus. 1 : 19 2 : 12
o) The testimony of John to the representa-
tives of the Jews. 1 : 19-28
b) John points out Jesus as the Lamb of God
and the one whom he had come to announce. i : 29-34
c) John points out Jesus to his own disciples,
and two of them follow Jesus. 1 : 35-42
rf) Jesus gains two other followers. 1 : 43-51
e} In Cana of Galilee Jesus first manifests his
glory in a sign and strengthens the faith of
his disciples. 2 : 1-12
2. Jesus in Jerusalem and Judea: opposition and
imperfect faith. 2 : 13 3 : 36
o) The cleansing of the temple: opposition
manifested. 2:13-22
b) Unintelligent faith, based on signs, in Jeru-
salem. 2 : 23-25
c) In particular, Nicodemus is reproved and
instructed. 3 : 1-15
d) The motive and effect of divine revelation
in the Son. 3 : 16-21 *"
e) The further testimony of John the Baptist
to his own inferiority and Jesus' superiority 3 : 22-30
/) The supreme character of the revelation in
the Son. 3: 31-36 * 8
43 Concerning these sections, see p. 129.
ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPEL 139
3. Jesus in Samaria, and the beginnings of work
in Galilee. chap. 4
o) Jesus' self-revelation to the Samaritan
woman, and the simple faith of the Samari-
tans. 4 : 1-42
&) The reception of Jesus in Galilee, for the
most part on the basis of signs seen, but in
one case without waiting for such evidence. 4 : 43-54
III. THE CENTRAL PERIOD OF JESUS' MINISTRY, to the
end of his public teaching : Jesus declares himself
more and more fully, many believe on him, and
the faith of his disciples is strengthened, but the
leaders of the nation reject him and resolve upon
his death. chaps. 5-12
1. The healing of the impotent man at the pool of
Bethesda, raising the sabbath question, and
then the question of Jesus' relation to his
Father, God. chap. 5**
2. The feeding of the five thousand and attendant
events leading to the discourse on Jesus as the
Bread of Life, in consequence of which many
leave him, but the Twelve believe in him more
firmly. chap. 6.
3. The journey to the feast of Tabernacles, and
discussion concerning who Jesus is, whence he
is, and whither he goes. chaps. 7, 8* 8
4. The healing of the man born blind, and the
teaching of Jesus concerning himself as the
"With this chapter, 7:15-24 was probably originally connected.
On this question and the relation of chaps. 5 and 6, see p. 123.
45 But these chapters, as they stand, apparently include three sections
that do not properly belong to them: 7: 15-24, which belongs with the
fifth chapter; 7:53 8:11, which does not properly belong to this
gospel, though doubtless historical and probably as old as the rest of the
gospel; 8: 12-20, which seems to belong to chap. 9. Chap. 7: 25-52 has
also apparently suffered some transposition. See pp. 123, 124, and n. 30.
140 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
Light of the World and concerning spiritual
blindness. chap. 9*"
5. Discourse of Jesus at the feast of Dedication
concerning himself as the Good Shepherd and
the Door of the Fold. chap. 10 "
6. The raising of Lazarus, and the teaching of
Jesus concerning himself as the Resurrection
and the Life. chap, n
7. Jesus' last presentation of himself to the Jews
of Jerusalem. chap. 12
o) Jesus anointed by Mary at Bethany. 12: i-n
fc) The triumphal entry. 12:12-19
c) The coming of the gentiles to see Jesus:
Jesus' announcement of his death and its
results. 12 : 20-360
d) The rejection of Jesus by the Jews; Its
nature and explanation. 48 12 : 36^-50
IV. THE FULLER REVELATION OF JESUS TO His BELIEV-
ING DISCIPLES. chaps. 13-17
1. The washing of the disciples' feet by Jesus, and
the lesson of humility and service. 13 : 1-20
2. The prediction of the betrayal, and the with-
drawal of the betrayer. 13 : 21-310
3. The farewell discourses of Jesus. 13:31^ 16:33**
4. The prayer of Jesus for his disciples. chap. 17
48 With which, however, 10:19-21 and 8:12-20 are so evidently
connected in subject as to suggest that they originally belonged to this
chapter. See n. 30, p. 124.
" Originally, perhaps, arranged 10:22-29; 1-18; 30-42. See n. 30,
p. 124. Concerning 10: 19-21, see previous note.
* 8 Vss. 36^-43 are evidently a comment of the evangelist on the
meaning of the events that precede. Vss. 44-50 are probably his summary
of Jesus' whole teaching to the nation. The character of the whole
passage 36&-5O indicates that it is felt to mark the conclusion of the
history of Jesus' offer of himself to the nation.
49 Concerning possible restorations of the original order here, see
pp. 124, 125.
ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPEL 141
V. THE CULMINATION AND APPARENT TRIUMPH OF
HOSTILE UNBELIEF. chaps. 18, 19
1. The arrest of Jesus. 18: 1-14
2. The trial before the Jewish authorities, and
Peter's denial. 18 : 15-27 w
3. The trial before Pilate. 18 : 2819 : 16
4. The crucifixion. 19 : 17-30
5. The burial. 19 : 31-42
VI. THE TRIUMPH OF JESUS OVER DEATH AND His
ENEMIES : The restoration and confirmation of
faith. chap. 20
1. The empty tomb. 20: i-io
2. The appearance of Jesus to Mary. 20: 11-18
3. The appearance to the disciples, Thomas being
absent. 20 : 19-25
4. The appearance to Thomas with the other dis-
ciples. 20 : 26-29
5. Conclusion of the gospel, stating the purpose
for which it was written. 20 : 30, 31
VII. APPENDIX. chap. 21
1. Appearance of Jesus to the seven by the Sea of
Galilee, and his words concerning the tarrying
of the beloved disciple. 21 : 1-24
2. Second conclusion of the gospel. 21 : 25
10 See p. 125.
INDEX
ACTS, authorship of, 54 f.
ANCIENT TESTIMONIES, 8 f., 30 f.,
55 f., 88 f., 114 ff.
ARAMAIC WORDS : in Mark 29 ;
in the New Testament, 32 f.
AUGUSTINE, theory concerning the
relation of the synoptic gospels,
91.
AUGUSTUS, system of enrolments
instituted by, 68 f.
BETHANY beyond Jordan, 105.
BETHESDA, pool of, 106.
CENSUS : in Egypt, 68 f. ; in the
governorship of Quirinius, 70 ff.
CHRONOLOGY: of John, 101, 119 f . ;
date of Jesus' birth, 67 f., 73 f.
DIATESSARON of Tatian, 80, 90, 125.
DISPLACEMENTS in John, 122 ff.
ENROLMENT : see Census.
EUSEBIUS, quotations from, 9,
30 f., 88 f.
GADARENES, country of, 2 f., 10.
GERASENES, country of, 2 f.
GOSPELS, titles of, in ancient manu-
scripts, 8.
HEBREW LANGUAGE : known to
author of first gospel, 6 ; known
to author of fourth gospel, 105.
HERODIAS, 28.
HEROD THE GREAT, nature of his
authority, 69 f.
HIGH-PRIESTHOOD, references to,
in the gospels, 99 f.
HISTORICAL MATERIAL used for
argumentative purpose, 13 f.,
39 f-
IREN/EUS, statements concerning
the gospels, 30, 56, 117.
JACOB'S WELL, 106.
JEROME, testimony concerning
Mark, 31 ; discussion of relation
between Hebrew Matthew and
Greek Matthew, 91.
JOHN, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO : na-
tionality of the author, 99 ff. ;
his knowledge of Hebrew, 105 ;
character of his Greek, 105 ; his
residence, 105 ff. ; his religious
position, no; relation to events
narrated, no ff. ; indications of
his identity, 112 ff . ; ancient
testimonies, 114 ff. ; indications
of editorial work in the gospel,
117 ff. ; relation to the synoptic
gospels, 118; uniformity of
style, 120 ff., 127 f . ; arrange-
ment and possible displacements,
122 ff. ; chapter 21 an appendix,
126; constituent "booklets,"
1 27 ; unity, 1 29 ; intended read-
ers, 129 f . ; purpose of the gos-
pel, 130 ff. ; purpose of the pro-
logue, 132 ff. ; plan of the gos-
pel, 137 ff. ; influence of Philo
upon the gospel, 108 f., 133;
discussion of 2 : 20, 101 ff. ; dis-
cussion of 20:30, 31, 130 f.
JOHN THE BAPTIST, sect of, 134.
JUSTIN MARTYR, testimony con-
cerning the gospel of Luke, 55.
LATIN WORDS in Mark, 33.
LITERARY METHODS of the early
Christian period, 89 f.
LUKE, GOSPEL OF : author's pre-
face, 46, 86 ff. ; nationality of
the author, 47 ff. ; character of
his Greek, 52 ; use of sources,
53 (cf. 86), 97 f . ; his religious
position, 53 ; evidence of his
identity derived from relation of
the gospel to Acts, 54 ; testi-
mony of tradition, 55 f . ; in-
tended readers, 57 ff. ; purpose
and point of view, 59 ff. ; plan
of the book, 63 ff. ; relation to
Matthew and Mark, 95, 97 f . ;
discusion of 2 : 1-5, 68 ff. ; of
I 4 4
INDEX
2 : 22-24, 74 ff- J of 3 : i, 67 f. ;
of 3 : 23, 67, 74.
LUKE, New Testament statements
concerning, 57.
MARK, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO : na-
tionality of the author, 27 ff. ;
his relation to the events, 29 ;
his religious position, 29 ; testi-
mony of tradition, 30 f. ; in-
tended readers, 32 f., 40 ; pur-
pose of the writer, 33 ff. ; plan
of the book, 41 ff. ; arrangement,
chronological or topical, 39, 41 ;
last twelve verses of, 37 ; rela-
tion to Matthew and Luke, 94 f.,
97-
MARK, New Testament statements
concerning, 31.
MATTHEW, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO :
nationality of the author, i ff. ;
his religious position, 8 ; testi-
mony of tradition, 8 f. ; in-
tended readers, 10 ff., 17; pur-
pose of the writer, 12 ff., 20;
not a Judaistic gospel, 18 ; unity,
19 ; intended to meet a definite
situation, 19; plan of the book,
21 ff. ; sources and relation to
Mark and Luke, 95, 97 f.
MISHNA, cited, 77, 78.
MURATORIAN FRAGMENT, testimony
concerning the gospel of Luke,
56.
OLD TESTAMENT : use of, by Mat-
thew, 4 ff., ii, 15; use of, by
Mark, 29 ; use of, by Luke, 49 f. ;
reference to, in Luke 2 : 22-24,
74 f. ; use of, by John, 104.
ORAL GOSPEL, 92 f.
PAPIAS, his statements concerning
the gospels, 9, 30, 88 f., 97 f-
PHILIP, son of Herod the Great,
4, 28.
PHILO, influence upon the fourth
gospel, 108 f., 133.
PHILOSOPHY : opposed by Paul,
109, 132 ; attitude of John
toward, 109, 132 ff.
PRESENTATION in the Temple, 75.
PURIFICATION, law of, 74 ff.
QUIRINIUS : date of governorship,
72 f . ; enrolment under, 68 ff.
QUOTATIONS from the Old Testa-
ment occurring in the gospels,
5, ii, 29, 49 f., 75, 104.
QUOTATIONS from ancient writers
concerning the gospels : from
Eusebius, 9, 30 f., 88 f. ; from
Irenaeus, 30, 56, 117; from
Jerome, 31 ; from the Murator-
ian fragment, 56 ; from Theophi-
lus, 117.
SATURNINUS, 73.
SILOAM, Pool of, 1 06.
SON OF MAN, 35.
SYNOPTIC GOSPELS : resemblances
of, 8 1 ff. ; differences, 85; facts
respecting relation to one an-
other, 82 ff., 94 ff. ; theories of
origin and interrelation, 91 ff . ;
relation to fourth gospel, in f.,
119.
TATIAN'S DIATESSARON, 80, 90, 125.
TEMPLE, rebuilding of, 101 ff.
TESTIMONY of ancient writers con-
cerning the gospels, 9, 30 f., 88
f., 114 ff.
THEOPHILUS, reference to the gos-
pel of John, 117.
TIBERIUS, fifteenth year of, 50,
67 f.
WILDERNESS OF JUDEA, i.
" WORD," doctrine of the, 108 f.,
131 ff-
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