l.l.I,',l,'.l.'J,',l,U.M,',l.',l,U,',l,',l,l.l,'.l,'il,l.l.'.l.',L!J,M,',l,,',l,'.l,'.l,',t,'.l,',l,T,l,'l|,',Bro YALE UNIVERSITY J Xibrarg of tht ©toinitg School GIFT OF Douglas Qlgde ^Macintosh j DWIGHT PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY f DWIGHT PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 1916-1942 i,,,.|.p,.iv,,|.iu.ivii|.ivivivri'ivivi','i'i'i'iivivi'i'iuuvi'iMviriviviviT|SmB: A Short Introduction to the Gospels By ERNEST DEWITT BURTON professor of new testament interpretation in The University of Chicago tt CHICAGO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 1904 Copyright, 1904 By Ernest D. Burton May, 1904 o 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 0g purpose of the author. Yet few books are so wholly 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. 8 Concerning the variation in the amount of the tax, see Exod. i 30: 13 ; Neh. icf: 32 ; concerning the ratio of the shekel and drachma, and the coins in use in New Testament times, see Madden, Coins of the Jews, pp. 290 f., 294; Benzinger, Hebrdische Archaologie, 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, 1. 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 Tew 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 titlg which the gospel bears in ancient manu scripts. This is uniformly Kara MadSaiov, " According to Matthew," "EvayyeXiov Kara Maddaiov, " Gospel accord ing to Matthew," or equivalent phrase.7 ' The earliest form of the title of the first gospel by which it is named in any extant work is rb Karit Ma08awveiasyy£ktaii, " The Gospel according to Matthew." So in Irenaeus (Possin. Cat. Patr. in Matt., iii, 11, 8; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed., Vol. I, p. 573) and in Euse bius, H.E., v, 10. In the oldest Greek manuscripts .ihe. title, is -siimdy Kara Mttgflatoy. Westcott and Hort and others think that the word eiayy4\tov ("gospel") a^the sammonjitle^ 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 eiayyiXtov Karc)tMa88atbv, ciayyiXtov kot4 ' M&pxov — "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 t6 /card tS.a88aiov dytov eflayyAiop is found oi^ly inflate 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 (Eusebius, H. E., iii, 39). Later writers frequently repeat this assertion that Mat thew wrote in Hebrew, yet accept our 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 Olir Matthew, hut wprp nnt iHpmtiral with jt 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. i . 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 : 1, 2), or his unexplained mention of the Jewish custom of ceremonial cleansing (15:2) with Mark's detailed explanation (y.^i 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 in.) 4. The use of Tewish descriptive titles (see the pas sages cited under 1, 1, d), the reporting of the words of Jesus which emphasized his mission to the Jews ( 10 : 5, 6; 15 : 24), and of o^^d^^c^^J^o^sggg, interest to Jews Q\\ : 14} Wz\% 6 5/17: 24 5^3 : 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 iz THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW 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,1 12 ; fiT: 3!£4?; ^i : 43 S>22 : 1-14J723 : 35A3V Ifc 2} *2y-2ff. 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 1 Cor. 5:1; 10:20; ^2^2^pae '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 " Tews" .(28:,i5) in-the way so common in the fourth gospel 'is not only a mark ii 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, nojvjdjstinguished themselves irtymjhe rest of the nation hy 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 sjx 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 facts were intended to prove. It was assumed that the reader or hearer would be shrewd enough to discover this for himself, and this assumption w~as 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 thoughfi 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 Tesus. 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 j>e received, anTthe way in which the Jews did actually receive it. foreshadowing their rejection of the M<«;siahJ and their own consequent downfall (cf. the analysis under v). The pagsion 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 Tews for their acceptance, with warning of the consequences to them of rejection, and that in the face of such present^irvp 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 Tesus ( 1 : 23, etc.) ;, Jesus himself held to the divine and permanent authority -\ 'of the Old Testament ethical teaching (5 : 17 ff. ; 15: 3 ff/1' etc.), though indirectly criticising the statutory legislation^ ^r.afii^mgits temporary character ( 5_j21zA&. . passim ^ ^1/14-17/ 15^ 10^20/ 19I0) ; neaddressed 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 dffiem^ Qfrffte danger of such tlie words of John 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/ t$), annountedWith increasing distinctness the direful results of such rejection to the nation and to Juda ism itself, even definitely declaring the, rejection of the nationjjy Gfldy^ffi^T j^^^'^!<&iT?i4f^ut^apmally 2 ft%z?%\; ^Z2Tf^/£[?3fyi8 ¦ 24:2); and fyially^wheii the rejection which he nad foreseen pad 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 ofall nations C28 : 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 Tesus is the true Mes- siah_of the Jews ; thathe announced and founded the kingdom of God, expounding its true nature, jand setting- forth its relation to the Old Testament religion ; that he came, first of all, to the Tewish nation: that, when thev^ showed signs of a disposition not to receive his message, hg_ 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 Tesus and put him to Heath,; 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 Tesus himself, the true Jewish Mes siah, a kingdom of all nations; thus, universal Chris tianity, freed from all national restrictions or peculiarly Jewish msTrfattojis^Jiecornes 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 Tewish 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. 11). 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 hnf 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 Indaism 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 Tewish Christian readers, the book is emphatically not, nf ji, Judaistic cast. It is even more directly opposed to the Tudaizing 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 theTew, and EauL 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 bookj 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- zo 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 danger. Was it, perhaps, for those who, having till now held fast to Tudaism. only adding to it faith in Tesus 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 Tudaism. 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 was written primarily to convince Tewish Christians thatthe religion of Jesus was not merely the Tudaism of the temple, plus a belief in Tesus as the Messiah, hut 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 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. $6"»«*wil,#naps. i, 2 1. The genealogy of Jesus, showing his Abrahamic and Davidic descent. ^tli^J^I^UuxutVufM • 1 : i-T7 2. The annunciation to Joseph, and the birth of Jesus from the virgin, as prophesied.' 'feJL^fe^Sji^' 1 T*i8-25 '3. The visit of the magi, giving occasion tothe^J^ aj r- testimony of the Jewish scribes that Bethlehem (r^-e-Tu* ¦wag .the prophesied/birthplace of the Messiah. «¦»- 2 : T"12 & The flight into EgyprNfulfilling prophecy!- *tUt)(itit,?j>J3-1S 5. The murder of the cMMreiTof Bethlehem, full Tr ' *^>«I*. filling prophecy k.\0L»vi^i- u. rX*»*4, W -^.S/.'/J" 2 : 16-18 .6/ The return frornVEgypt and removal to Naza- ,., jeth, fulfilling prophecy, "ol Itf-ia***^*-"? &a*.ftif;&,£: 19-23 II. Preparation for the /Public Work of 'Jesus. Events preparatory to/ the founding of the king dom. / 3:1—4:11 1. The preparatory ministry of John the Baptist, in \^ ^^ 3 accordance Wp^fe^"^;^^^ 2. The baptism of Jesus, \ accompanied by the descent of the Spirit and the voice from heaven. 3 : 13-17 3. The temptation in the wilderness, settIiHg^tlie'W_( ning c* preaching.' 1 . —^ '4: I2ri7 - b) The call of the four to evangelistic work. 4: 18-22 c) Jesus' early work in Galilee ; his widespread fame. 4 : 23-25 22 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW 2. The sermort on trie mount ; " the ethical prin ciples of the kingdom. chaps. 5-7 3. A group of events, each of which either illus trates or attests the authority which in the sermon he has assumed. . , ..,¦¦ 8:1 — 9:34, a) A leper cleansed. ^t^^LudL^V^^u— u^**^^' °:I"4' b) The centuri^Bg^£^al^toy3^/a58 : 5-*3 c) Peter's wife's mother healed. '^g4uix. ^^ P~c*++£, McJ-^$i )d) Answers to disciples about following^ him. j_^,8 : 19-22 e) The stilling of the tempest. 7*MW " ^ g . 23_27 f) The Gadarene demoniacs. 8 : 28-34 g) A paralytic healed and his shi^foraiYeiL*^^ 'Pi^JJ^- h) The call of Matthew. . ^^^^^Kr^*1^^^^ * ) Answer concerning fasting^^ tvi^aJbu^. . 9 : 14-17 ;) A ruler's daughter raised, and a woman Uy^ . healed. 9 : 18-26 healed. -a^*^^*^- ^ 9:27-34 4. Discourse to the twelve apostles on sending 5. Events snowing the attitude of various persons\ u^zzc^eiJS toward the gospel, and teaching concerning the J <«»«^J£J£, spirit in which the gospel must be received. chaps. II, 12 o) Jesus' answet tothe message from Tohn the . — BagJa^^^^^T^A^Tl^S^Sju^rAl^ ** *«*«-"*¦ 2 1 :£6^| b) The captious spirit of the Tews, condemned by jesus. *-3£2jfl£y yfl^, ? *— *^\" = M9 1 c) Woes against +hp "t-"' which had not reyi *c_-v- / pented at the preaching of Jesus.QSSwjuw,-.11 • 20-24J d) The thanksgiving of Jesus that the gospel is plain to the^iflialesiiuiukd, andhis invita tion to the heavv-laden, j^*,~ '^^"^* II : 25-3CV 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. 7^W ^\ ^t-e^B^t 12 : 1-8 f) Healing of the withered hand on the sab bath ; bigotry issuing in murderous pur- Pose. *£££ l^£^e 4- d^G~ 12 : 9-14 , g) Jesus heaj^^y^he^e^e/^^^^^^^ ministry, -i^ /fe^,-^, JU* 14 2_; / ff ¦ 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^ 1f^SwAa of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. . „ . . 12 : 22U7 1) The Pharisees seek a sign; Jesus' answer.fgI>;i2: 38^42 j) The man from whom the unclean spirit has '^ ' r**^ gone out ; a parable of the Tew^hnatiqn. . _ 12 : 43-45 k) The real basis of relationship to Christ. L*l&/fi~^\- 6. Discourse of parables, chiefly concerning the , — —~ul ^rowth_of^h£Jdagdi2m. *tZZ2^&%Z^£M : W 17^/The events of the latter part of the Galilean --^ministry, illustrating especially the increasing unbelief and opposition of the Bhaxisecs, 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 : 1, and there is certainly something to be said lor 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 used in 16:21). Yet, on the whole, it seems probable that the great v 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.«Hifcrf/*»*^»«^ii: §3^ b) The death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod.* ¦£££££ f" "**¦ *4 = ™ j c) The feeding of the five thousand. «-**¦ '*- 14:13-22 d) Jesus walking on the water, and Peter's at tempt to do so* **-*- ¦* v **~ f <~J * 14:23-36 e) Eating with unwashen hands; the^jPhjirij-^.^^ ^._ sees' criticism, and Jesuslja^er. Ju^CS^^Isii^Q^. g) A murtitudehealed^bv th£sea^^igh^ee.j5>a]-c^i5 : 29-31 , h) The feeding^of^four7thou^sajirl^^,*^,^5^32-39 i) Pharisees and Sadducees demand a sign; Jesus] answer. A-*-2*- - f<~~* . 16 : 1-4 /) The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees ; Jesus' warning and the slowness glt^e dis ciples to understand.-sSjy.rcy. /tS%Z~*4J~f"**-.\6: 5-12 A) Peter's confes^^ofjeijjs^s^the^es^ak^^:^^^ TPJesus begins to iiistoici_his_das«ples TOncem-^^ ing ^^^^S^J^S^m£^}^ «*t- m) The transfiguration, wherein Jesus is de^<2"«^,. A^juZ1 ' I2_I7 2. Symbolic prediction to the disciples of the rejec tion of the nation. t*r&£i^jjLLs4~ aWt ***-**«g2 : 15-22 (2) Concerning the resurrection, t&^a^. tnuc£:.j3£ '¦ 23-33 (3) Concerning the greatest commandment. 22:34-40 26 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW d) Jesus' question concerning the Christ. f% fre:, 22: 41-46 e) Jesus' great discourse against the Pharisees. 4t/&<,chaa. 23 4. Prophetic discourse to the disciples concerning yU^j jt/,' ^_ 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. >»+*-iv^f^f*~*S~: 26:1-5 6) By his friends j^hg^ngmting./Wg^, 26:6-13 c) By Judas; the bargaftito betray mrnT^^^. 26:14-16 d) By Jesus himself. j^,^, 26:17-46 (1) The last supper. ^g^tTtt^T^lL 26:17-30 (2) The warning to the disciples. Mjfrt B£r± SO^T, 3. The appearance in Galilee; the commission of the disciples. 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 — ' The only quotation in this gospel made by the evangelist himself is that in 1 : 2, 3 ; the words in the A. V. 1 s : 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. lxx 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 Mapicov, " According to Mark," or EvayyeXiov Kara Mapicov, " 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- ingMr^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 I 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 Irenaeus.) ~~~ 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 P_gter narrating and he [Mark] writing. (Jerome, Epistola exx, ad Hedibiam.)' 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; I5:37>39; Col. 4:10, 11; Philem. 24; 1 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- ¦ 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; 5 141 ; 7 : 11, 34; 15 : 34, 4211), 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. "SotokSs in 1:13, Beefe/SoiiX in 3 : 22, 'Pappovvel 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 sufficient1 ground. Although it contains ten Latin words, seven of these ( modius, 4:21; legio, 5:9, 15; denarius, 6:37; 12:15; I4:5J census, 12:14; quadrans, 12:42; flagello, 15 : 15; praetorium, 15 : 16) are common to one or more of the other gospels and only_thrg£ (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 oi the book, which is still to be considered. IH. 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 irar-tip, 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 Bibhsch-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 Beov) 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. lx, 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 the 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 not 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 tlie 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- lestamentlichen Kanons, Vol. II, pp. 910 if.; 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 nf its fnrrn. and possibly with no rnnsriong argnpientative 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. 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. As 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. a 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 I argumentative purposes, leads us to think of it as a book written for Christians-jather 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 edification, 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. i : 1-13 1. Preaching of John the Baptist. 1 : 1-8 2. Baptism of Jesus. 1 : 9-n 3. Temptation in the wilderness. 1 : 12, 13 II. The Galilean Ministry. i : 14 — 9 : 50 1. The work begun and favorably received. 1 : 14-45 o) 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. o) A paralytic healed and his sins forgiven. b) Call of Levi, and the feast in his house. c) Jesus' answer to a question concerning fast ing. d) Plucking grain on the sabbath. e) A withered hand healed on the sabbath. 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. o) The widespread fame of Jesus. b) The choosing of the Twelve. c) Concerning eternal sin. d) Natural and spiritual kinsmen. 4. The parables of the kingdom's growth, in which is also illustrated its separating power. 4: 1-34 2 : 1—3 : 6 2: 1-12 2:13-172 : 18-22 2 : 23-28 3: 1-6 3 :#-35 3 : 7-12 3 : T3-i9 3 : 20-30 3 : 31-35 THE PLAN OF THE BOOK 43 5. Sundry manifestations of his powef, 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 6) The Gerasene demoniac. 5^ l~20 c) Jairus's daughter raised to life. 5 : 21-43 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 o) 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 o) The Syrophcenician woman's daughter. 7 : 24-30 6) 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 : 1-10 b) Pharisees demanding a sign from heaven. 8:11-21 c) A blind man healed near Bethsaida. 8 : 22-26 [O. 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 a) Peter's confession of Jesus' messiahship. 8:27-30 b) Jesus' prediction of his own death and resur rection. 8:31 — 9:1 c) The transfiguration. 9:2-13 44 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK d) The demoniac boy healed. 9 : T4-29 e) Jesus again foretells his death and resurrec tion. 9 : 30-32 f) The ambition and jealousy of the disciples reproved. 9 : 33-5° 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. 10 : 17-31 5. Announcement of his crucifixion. 10 : 32-34 6. Ambition of James and John reproved. 10 : 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. 11 : 1-11 2. The cursing of the fig tree. 11: 12-14 3. The cleansing of the temple. 11 : 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 b) 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 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. 1 ) . 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. 46 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 1. His nationality as it appears in the gospel itself. — There are numerous references in all parts of the gospel to Palestinian localities (1 : 5, 26, 39; 2 : 4, 39, 41 ; 3 : 1, 3; 4:16; 5:1, 17; 6:17; 7:11; 8:26; 10:13, 15; 17:11; 18:35; 19:1,29,37,41; 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. *, u. *. s 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. 48 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE 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, 18). 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 (1:5, 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, 8-1 1, 21-23 > 3:2; 5:14; 6:4; 10:31 (cf. 32); 17:14; 19:45-47; 20:1, 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, 11; 19:39; scribes or lawyers, in 5:17; 10:25; ii:45-545 14:3; T-9-47\ 20:1, 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; n: 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 1 : 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, 11, 13, 15; syna gogues and their officers, in 4 : 1 5, 16-30, 33, 38, 44 ; 7:5; 8:41, 49; 13:10, 14; 20:46; current opinions and expectations, in 3 : 1 5 ; 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:I9> 20; 7:2; 8:3; 13:1; 19:12 (?); 20: 22-24; 23 '¦ I_24 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 : 23.6 The expression " in the high- 4 To this there should perhaps be added three passages in which Westcott and Hort recognize the use of Old Testament language (23 :3s, 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. 5 See Plummer, Commentary on Luke, p. xxxv. 0 See Appended Note I, p. 67. THE AUTHOR 51 priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas " ( eVt a/o^te/seW "Avva Kal Kaida — 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; I3:25i T-7-Z1', 22:11; various household utensils are mentioned in 1 :63; 5 : 18; 8: 16 ii--7,33; i5:8;i7--34; clothing, in 9:3; 10:4; 22 :3s 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 JI, p. 68. 5z THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE 46; articles of food, in 6 : 44 ; 9:13; 11:5, 11, 12; 13: 21; 15:23; 17:35; 22:19; 24:30, 42; beverages, in I:I5; 5:37; 7:33; 23:36; 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, I4'>&'-52'> exigencies of travel, in 9:3-5; 10:4-6, 10, 11, 34, 35; 11:5-7. Men of various occupations are mentioned : shep herds, in2:8; 15:4; 17:7; swineherds, in 8 : 34 ; 1 5 : 1 5 ; plowmen, in 17:7; fishermen, in 5:2-11; corngrinders, in 17:35; spinning, in 12 : 27; c/\ also 14: 17; 15:17; ser vants and their duties, in 12 : 35 ff., 42 ff. ; 13 : 6-9.® 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 tv (a classical idiom found in the New Testament only in Luke and Acts), the frequent employment of iv 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 .ty^ero 84 and Kal rk 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 tlie two-document theory. Wernje finds the two chief sources of our Matthew iand 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 instance&_Qi 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 fonnrl 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 jmooinf^lhe 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). 5 4. Luke has a number of narratives and a consider able amount of discourse material peculiar to himself. The great Perean-seetion (9:57 — 18:14; 19:1-28), practically made up of discourses with brief narrative 5 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 jb j^ttheH-,differ- ently located, the two elements being closely interwoven. 5. The__rgsemblances 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. Thesejatter 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 snhstantially— .their present form While Tatian's resemblance to' his sources perhaps exceeds that of the gospels irLsomej-jespects, for which there are special reasons, in other respects he has used his sources with greater_jreedom 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. 8 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, ot 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 firsts evangelist had aj>eculiarj3ource, 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. f 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 Tewish history, cus toms, and ideas. Thus he speaks of the l^w as given by Moses (1:17); of the piece of ground which Jacob gave to Joseph (4:5, 6; cf. Gen. 48 -.221) ; oi the priests and Levites in Jerusalem (1 : 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, 51; !8:i32). He is familiar with the 1 The Septuagint reads in Gen. 48 : 22, iytb Si StStofd crot ctIkciw. "I give thee Sheehem" (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; (6) 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., Antiq., Ill, 10, 4 — 10:22; 11:55; I2:I); 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; 11 155) ; 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. 3 129) ; 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, 11; xx, 9, 1 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; (f) 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. t(Cf. B. Weiss, ad loc.) THE AUTHOR 101 Jews' manner of burying (11:44; :9:39, 4°)- 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, ii, 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 1 to Nisan 1, 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 1, 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. Sanh., i, 1, fol. 18a; vii, 2, fol. 24b) 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 : 51 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. G, which is 26 A. P. 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. G, which is 27 A. P. 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 ff.). The calculation of Wieseler, Chronology of the Four Gospels, p. 165, by which he reaches the year 781 (and in which he is followed by Schurer, 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 <#KoSop.-ti8-i\ i vabs oBtos of John 2 : 20 with 4*, 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 (1 123, 29, 45, 51; 6:45, 49; 7: 19, 22, 38; 8:17; 10:34 f.; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12)/ 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 bglieves in the authority of the Old Testa nTgTt^mjjts 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) . 'Cf. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 154; Cowley, in the Expositor, March, 1895. * 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 TTebrew names (1:38, 41, 42; 5:2; 9:7; 19:13, 17; 20: 16) ; 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 Terusalem. 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 ( 1 : 28 ; cf. 11 : 1, 18; 12 : 1 9) ; of Bethsaida as the city of Andrew 8 See Schlatter, Die Sprache und Heimat des vierten Evangelisten (Gutersloh, 1902), whose argument, even if it includes items that are of little weight, is, as a whole, weighty. '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 :2i, 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 yEnon near to Salim10 (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 ; 1X of the Sea of Galilee (6:1), and the location of Capernaum and Tiberias in relation to it (6:17, 24, 25) ; of the treasury in the temple (8 :2o; 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. 1. 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 70.14 b) The same thing is indicated by the writer's appar ently intimate acquaintance with the events of the pro- curatorship of Pilate, ( 1 1 : 40 : 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- 3°5 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. 108 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; 5:1,10,15,16; 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; 1 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 ail 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 I09 "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 I 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 I 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, aChristianis so evident throughout the book as to call for no detailed proof. The prologue ( 1 : 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 reAected 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 ji he were an eyewitness of the events he narrates. The passage 1 : 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 1 129, 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 : 33) 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 ff.) which the synoptists alone relate, and 1 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, i iz 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 would 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 to1 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). 10 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 1 : 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-6cefi'os im 4ten Evange lium,'' Studien und Kritiken, 1859, pp. 497 ff- 10 So substantially Holtzmann, ad loc, and Wendt, The Gospel According to John, pp. 211-13; Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Vol. II, pp. 209 ff. 114 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 was an eyewitness of the event there narrated, not who he was nor what was his name. > 2° Cf. the two instances of iniiv in Luke 1:1 f., which is, however, not a precisely parallel case. 21 Cf. Godet, ad loc THE AUTHOR •«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 testimony, or when it was added 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 :20, 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 not improbable suggestion see p. 126. 116 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 ( i : 40, 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 2 1 : 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 :40, 41 ; 21:2); and of these Andrew is excluded by 1 : 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 2 1 : 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 tlie 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.) Irenseus, 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, 1.) 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, 11.) 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 thennnd_flLthg apostle himself. 1. 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, 118 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 theHauTnoF of The took 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 thai; 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 1 8 : 28, " but that they might eat the passover," which implies that the passover had not 'yet: been eaten, whereas1 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 1 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 fiir 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 2 1 : 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- stellerische Plural bei Paulus (Halle, 1900) ; cf. Lightfoot, Notes on Epistles of Paul, p. 22. This is perhaps also the case in 1 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 2 1 : 24 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 1 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. 11 :27; 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 15-24 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 : 1 and 7 : 1 present an obvious chronological difficulty. In 6 : 1 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 : 1 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:I5"24; 7-1-l3, 25-36> 45"52. 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. Norsis, Journal of Philology, Vol. Ill (1871), pp. 107 ff. 124 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. 8-10 as showing that bere also there has been some disarrange ment. Thus chap. 8 (omitting vss. i-ii) 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 a'so 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. J?he order of the Sinaitie manuscript of the Syriac Version (verses 12, 13, 24. 14, IS. 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. "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). 126 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- j lets," if you please 33 — and that he left them in this form, not organized into a gospel. If now we turn back to 83 Cf. the use of the word /3i/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 whicli distinguish these booklets from one another, somewhat as follows : 34 Book I, 1 : 1-18; Book II, 1 : 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, 1-18, 30-42; Book X, chap. 11; Book XI, chap. 12; Book XIIj chaps. 13-17 (as arranged above) ; Book XIII, chaps. 18-20; Book XIV, chap. 21. 35 M 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 : 1, 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 indicates no more than that the writings exhibiting it emanated from the same 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 128 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 HJtW*«"*«"X 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," Hibbcrt 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 theyhad, 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 act^jdeei£j|j^^Qrds _ 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; 3:16-21, 31-36; 12:36^-43 °'r 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; 11:51, 52; 12:146-16, 33; 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 gentileChristians. 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 J^rolo^ue, 1 : 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 (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 1 John 1 : 1, 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 1 : 1 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. 39 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 jperson Jesj^-C-rrrTsTTlbut rather to predicate/the former cjt thelatter. 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^FGbd made in the jperspn of Jesus Christ. In other words, he translates into a current vocabulary and mode of thought 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. i : 1 5-20 ; 2 : 8 ff., 16 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 1 world. This tendency is triply opposed in the prologue. j The world is made the product of divine activity through. THE PURPOSE I33 ^e. "Word; " the " Wordl'.is tl^e.^y mediator between God and the world ; the Wot^LisJaujiadLdiyine^ In place, therefore, of the long series of intermediary beings, of whom tlie 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 oij^^s^ogfeins.*0 To Philo the Word was a phitos'6phfc"c6ncepti oh 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. 1 34 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 1 5 an intention to oppose the doctrine, evidently held by some, thatjohn the Baptist isih&true Messiah and rey.ela- tion^of God. "OF the existence of a John the Baptist sect tnere"Ts 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 1 35 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 emphasizingJ^iftj4SaS,(^istaaj^