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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

GIFT of

Library of
Prof. Benjamin \7. Bacon

THE

CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

AN ATTEMPT TO ASCERTAIN

THE CHARACTER OF

THE FOURTH GOSPEL

ESPECIALLY IN ITS RELATION TO

THE THREE FIRST.

JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A.,
MEMBER OF THE HISTORICO-THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LEIPSIC, AND PRINCIPAL OF
MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE, LONDON.

*£atj Kal TrpoTifuoTaTT] ir&vTtav T) a\ij$€ia' iiraiveii/ t€ XPV Ka^ o-vvatvew a(p86i/as,
ci Ti bpB&s \eyoiro, i^rd^iv 5e Kal Sievdvvetv, et ri ft.)] (ptiivotTO vyi&s ayayey pa^iixevov .
— Dionys. Alexandrin. ap. Euseb. H. E. vii. 24.

WILLIAMS AND NOKGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURG&-
1867.

HERTFORD :
PRINTED B"Y STEPHEN AUSTIN.

THE KEV. JOHN KENRICK, M.A., F.S.A.,
ETC.,
FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS CLASSICAL AND HISTORICAL TUTOR IN
MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE, YORK;
KNOWN TO THE LEARNED BY HIS ACUTE AND THOROUGH RESEARCHES
INTO THE HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD:
NOT AS CLAIMING HIS ASSENT
TO CONCLUSIONS WHICH HE MAY NOT ACCEPT,
BUT AS A FEEBLE THOUGH SINCERE EXPRESSION OF THE LOVE OF SCHOLARLY
HONESTY IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH,
WHICH IT WAS THE CONSTANT AIM OF HIS INSTRUCTIONS TO INSPIRE
THIS ATTEMPT
TO ELUCIDATE AN IMPORTANT CRITICAL QUESTION,
IS,
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF RESPECT AND GRATITUDE,
INSCRIBED
BY HIS FRIEND AND FORMER PUPIL,
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

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

Vlll PREFACE.

deniable premises, and prepared to accept a legitimate result
of honest criticism, without feeling that I had thereby re
linquished what the distinctest voice of my inward being
assured me must still be spiritual truth. I rested therefore
in the general conclusion, that evidence of the immediate
and powerful action of the Divine Spirit in the apostolic
age, was a matter of infinitely greater moment than the
question of the personality of any of its human agents.
The literature of this controversy respecting the Fourth
Gospel has already become voluminous, especially in Ger
many. I do not profess to have made myself master of the
whole of it ; though it will be seen, that I am not un
acquainted with what has been contributed by some of the
most eminent scholars to its elucidation. In particular I
have derived great assistance from the learned researches of
Hilgenfeld on the Paschal question. But what I wished,
without attempting to compare and combine the divergent
theories of others, was to examine anew for myself the ancient
testimonies on which they have founded them ; in order to
arrive, if possible, from personal investigation, at an in
dependent conclusion. While engaged in this inquiry, I
was unwilling to distract my attention by taking into view
. the bearing of contemporary researches in the same field ;
and this must plead my excuse for omitting to notice some
works which have recently appeared, both in this country
and on the continent, by men whose names entitle what
ever they write to respectful consideration. If our con
clusions should prove substantially identical, they will have

PEEFACE. IX

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

PREFACE.

in the concluding section of the Essay. It will be objected
possibly, that I have mixed up in one inquiry, matters
which are essentially distinct — the strictly critical and the
properly religious. I think, however, that the artificial re
lation in which theology has been unhappily placed towards
general science, has led to the drawing of too sharp and
absolute a line of distinction between different spheres of
mental activity. Our nature is a whole, all the elements
of which should work together in harmony. I do not
beheve, that the most rigid demands of the intellect and
the clearest intuitions of the moral and spiritual sense, when
both are rightly understood, will ever be found at variance.
I know from personal experience, that it was an apprehen
sion of spiritual loss, which kept me for a long time from
accepting the plain dictate of unbiassed scholarship. Not till
I was aware of the gratuitous assumption on which that
apprehension was based, did I become capable of admitting
the full force of critical evidence. What I have found a
relief to my own mind, I wished to suggest as possibly
available for others also.
After all, there are excellent men who will regret, I am well
aware, that I should have ever raised the question mooted in
these pages. Constantly engaged in the noble work of prac
tical Christianity, and grounding their benevolent ministry
on the authority of the New Testament, such men look — not
unnaturally, perhaps, from their point of view — on every
attempt to invalidate the old traditional foundations of our
Protestant theology, as an encroachment on the province

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

Xll PREFACE.
tradition and arbitrary interpretation, constituting the popular
theology — its groundless assumptions, its illogical inferences,
and its perverse apprehension of many statements of fact,
which meant one thing to the simple age which first wrote
them down, and mean quite another, with all the theories
which have gathered round them, now. Tet he may feel
as strongly as ever the deep beauty and intrinsic truth of
the fundamental convictions and trusts which are imbedded
in these old traditions, and which were infused into them
at first, as they are still kept alive, by the Spirit of the
Omnipresent God. What, then, is the scholar to do, when
he has girded up his loins like a man to search for truth
at all cost, and the demands of his intellectual and spiritual
nature attack him with forces which he cannot at once bring
into harmony; when he feels that there is truth on both
sides of his being, which he cannot as yet make one ? He
can only go on trustingly and reverently, in the full belief
that truth, wherever it leads him, is the voice of God;
and that although the way for the moment may be per
plexed and difficult, if that voice be honestly hearkened to,
it will certainly conduct him to rest and refreshment at
last. He can only say, in a far higher sense than blind
old Samson, to the Invisible Power on which he leans —
" A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on ;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade."
The true principle of Protestantism, carried to its legi
timate extent, not only justifies but demands the fullest and
most fearless investigation of the origin, authorship, and com-

PREFACE. X1U
position of the books which form our sacred Canon. Pro
testantism was avowedly a transference of authority from
human councils to the direct utterances of the voice of God.
But how are we to know what is the voice of God, except
by exploring the sources through which it is declared to
have come to us, and clearly understanding the conditions
under which alone it can be credibly conveyed? One thing
is certain, a true religion can never rest on false history.
We must first test the historical foundations, before any
system, however fair and well-proportioned, can be securely
built on them. A Scripture utterance of divine truth cannot
be interpreted like a legal instrument, merely by a literal
acceptance of the words which it contains. We must go
through the words to the Spirit which fills them from the
Highest Mind, and which can only be interpreted by a
kindred spirit within our own. The old Protestant con
fessions, broader than the theology which grew out of them,
appeal to the witness of the Spirit in the last instance as
the consummating evidence of divine authority. Luther,
with a rough boldness of speech, which would have made
our modern scripturalists stand aghast, maintained that the
Spirit of Christ was the only decisive test of the apostolic
origin : " Whatever does not teach Christ, cannot be apostolic,
though it were taught by St. Peter and St. Paul; and again,
whatever preaches Christ, will be apostolic, though it were
preached by Judas, Ananias, Pilate and Herod." 1
1 Was Christum nicht lehrt, das ist noch mcht apostolisch, wenn es gleich S.
Petrus oder Paulus lehrte ; wiederum was Christum predigt, das ware apostolisch,
wenns gleich Judas, Hannas, Pilatus und Herodes that ?

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

CONTENTS.

SECTION I. PAQR
Statement of the Question  1
SECTION II.
The Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse  9
SECTION III.
Historical Notices of the Apostle John  .".  15
SECTION IV.
Comparison of foregoing notices with the "Works ascribed to John  25
SECTION V.
Testimonies to the Apocalypse  28
SECTION VI.
Reaction against the Apocalypse  42
SECTION VII.
Testimonies to the Fourth Gospel  54
SECTION VIII.
Internal Indications of Age  88
SECTION IX.
The Paschal Controversy  99
SECTION X.
Chronology of the Paschal Question  124
SECTION XI.
Recapitulation and Result  143
SECTION XII.
The Religious Bearing of the Question  157

ERRATA.

For part reaipast, p. 11, note 1, 1. 12.
o\riBiis read oA7)0<js, p. 21, note 1, 1. 2.
lAa-qs read C^a-qs, p. 28, note 2, 1. 2.
Athmagorus read Athenagoras, p. 64, 1. 25.
ko! read no), p. 110, note 1, 1. 1.
¦xpiaicovTa read Tplaxovra, p. 139, 1. 23.
intelligent read intelligible, p. 148, 3rd 1. from bottom.

THE
CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

SECTION I.
Statement of the Question.
" MAN KANN MIT RECHT BEHAUPTEN, ALLE DAS URCHRISTENTHUM BETREFFENDEN
FRAGEN HABEN IHREN EIGENTLICHEN MITTELPUNXT IN DER EINEN FRAOE : WIE
DER TIEF-EINGREIFENDB WIDERSPRUCH ZU LOSEN 1ST, WELCHER IN DEN EVAN-
GELIEN SELBST UNLAUGBAR ZU TAGE HEGT.' — F. C. BAUR.
" HOW THE UNDENIABLE CONTRADICTIONS OP THE EVANGELISTS ARE TO BE SOLVED,
IS THE ONE QUESTION WHEREIN CENTRES EVERY OTHER RELATING TO PRIMITIVE
CHRISTIANITY."
Although the superstitious feeling with which the mere
letter of Scripture is often regarded, hinders people from per
ceiving as readily as they otherwise would, the distinctive
character of its several books, yet, I presume, no reader of
ordinary attention can have failed to discover a marked dif
ference between our Three First Gospels, or as they are now
conveniently designated, from the common view which they
take of Christ's ministry, the Synoptical Gospels — and the
Fourth, which bears the name of John. This difference goes
much deeper than mere diversity of style or individuaHty of
conception — the mere omission, or insertion, or simple re
arrangement of particular facts and particular sayings ; for in
these more superficial aspects, the Three First Gospels also
differ very considerably from each other. The difference be
tween the Fourth Gospel and the other three affects the whole
conception of the person and teaching of Christ, and the funda
mental distribution of the events of his public ministry. The
l

2 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Synoptical Gospels, notwithstanding their frequent divergency
on collateral points, agree generally in their representation of
that ministry as a whole ; often coincide to the very letter for
entire sentences together,, especially in their report of the words
of Christ himself; and evidently contain at bottom the common
Palestinian tradition respecting him. They describe him as
undergoing with many of his countrymen the initiatory baptism
of John,1 and not commencing his own public ministry till that
of the Baptist was concluded2; confining his labours, in the
first instance, exclusively to Galilee and the surrounding dis
tricts ; appealing with great effect to the Messianic expectations
of his time, and gathering round him vast multitudes to listen
to his teachings and witness his wonderful works, as he journeyed
from town to town and from village to village to the extreme
verge of northern Palestine ; gradually unfolding to the more
devoted and confidential of his disciples both the height of his
claims and the destiny which awaited him, as the consciousness
of his divine mission grew and deepened in his own mind ; and
only at the very close of his ministry, coming into direct colli
sion with the sacerdotal and rabbinical party at Jerusalem
which procured his execution by the Roman government.
If we except what is called the Sermon on the Mount, which
contains apparently the substance of discourses delivered at
various times on a hill-side near Capernaum, and that con
tinuous series of parables occurring between the 9th and 19th
chapters of Luke's Gospel, where we have probably the insertion
of a similar collection,3 — the teachings of Christ, as preserved in
the Synoptical Gospels, are remarkable for their occasional
character and aphoristic form, always called forth by some
casual incident or encounter in the course of his missionary
1 Matth. iii. 15 ; Marki. 9 ; Luke iii. 21.
* Matth. iv. 12, 17 ; Mark i. 14. The same fact is indicated, though not so dis
tinctly, by Luke. Compare iii. 20 with v. 33 and vii. 18.
3 The limits of this series, Bishop Marsh, in his Essay on the Origin of the Three
First Gospels (ch. xvii.) has fixed more definitely between ix. 51 and xviii. 14. He
supposed it to contain the substance of a yva/ioKoyla or " collection of sayings," pre
viously in existence. We find here some most beautiful parables peculiar to Luke.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 6
wanderings, and never expanding into any connected and
lengthened argumentation. His first appeal was made, as he
himself says (Matth. x. 6 ; xv. 24), "to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel ;" and although in the narrative of Luke, which
was written under Pauline influence, we discern already the
working of a broader and more cosmopolitan principle, yet
generally we may say, that throughout the Synoptical Gospels
the teachings of Christ assume the Law and the Prophets as
their basis, and are intended to bring out the deep spiritual
significance that was hidden in them.1 The Three First Gospels
divide the public ministry of Christ into two distinctly marked
and broadly separated periods, — that which was passed in
Galilee, and that which was passed in Jerusalem. The first of
these periods is introduced by the descent of the Spirit on Jesus
at his baptism by John ; the second,, by the transfiguration,
which has all the appearance of being a renewal and a re-
enforcement of the original consecration at baptism.8 This dis
tribution of events into two periods, with the initiations of the
1 In Matthew (x. 5) Christ says expressly to the twelve : " Go not into the way
of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not." Luke, notwith
standing his mention of the refusal of some Samaritans to receive him into their
village, "because his face was set to go to Jerusalem" (ix. 53), does not, however,
represent him as limiting his instructions to the seventy by any such prohibition as
Matthew puts into the commission of the twelve, and even tells us that, on his way to
Jerusalem, "he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee" (xvii. 11). It is
observable, moreover, that in the sections peculiar to Luke, the great lessons of human
brotherhood and devout thankfulness are enforced by the example of a Samaritan
(x. 33 ; xvii. 6). Yet Luke says, as distinctly as Matthew himself: "It is easier for
heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail" (xvi. 17). Nowhere in
Luke do we meet with such strong and apparently such exclusive language as occurs
in John : - iy<& iipi i) 6ipa ray irpofSdraV wdyTes Sffot $\8ov irpd ifiov, /cAeirTOi ha\v
Kal A.7J<ttc£(. (x. 7, 8). ,
2 The; words on the two occasions are nearly identical in all three Evangelists :
Matth. iii. 17, and xvii. 5 ; Mark i. 11, and ix. 7 ; Luke iii. 22, and ix. 35. The
transfiguration marks the turning point of the synoptical narrative, and divides it
into two sections which differ perceptibly in character and significance from each
other. Only Simon Peter and the two sons of Zebedee are admitted to the trans
figuration, as best qualified of all the twelve to enter into the higher meaning and
inevitable conditions of the Messianic office, which Jesus was now beginning more
undisguisedly to assume. About this period of his ministry, we find him for the first
time speaking quite openly of his death and resurrection. Compare Matth. xvi. 21 ;
xvii. 12, 22, 23 ; Mark ix. 9-12 ; x. 33, 34 ; Luke ix. 31, 44, 45.

4 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
baptism and the transfiguration severally prefixed to each,
marks with the strongest characters the common type of the
synoptical conception of the public ministry of Christ.
In all these respects the Fourth Gospel stands out in decided
contrast and contradiction to the Three First. It omits all
mention of the baptism of Jesus by John. It represents John
as saying at once, on seeing the Spirit descend on Jesus, " Be
hold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world"1
(i. 29, comp. 31-34) ; and Andrew, after his first interview
with Jesus, declaring to his brother Peter, " we have found the
Messias" (i. 41) ; a declaration shortly afterwards repeated-more
at full by Philip to Nathaniel, " We have found him, of whom
Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph" (i. 45). Instead of postponing the com
mencement of Christ's ministry till John was cast into prison,
the Fourth Evangelist describes it as subsisting for some time
side by side with that of John, — the two preachers baptizing
together in the same neighbourhood (John iii. 22, 23). Instead
of cautiously advancing his claims, and only towards the close
of his ministry distinctly announcing himself as the Christ —
Jesus, in the Fourth Gospel, from the very first reveals his high
character and office by an unreserved disclosure of the Divine
Word that was incarnate in him, and engaged in open discussion
respecting his claims to authority with the Jews at Jerusalem
and elsewhere2 (John i. ii.. iii.). In no instance is the difference
between the synoptical and the Johannine narrative more strik
ingly exemplified, than in the position which they respectively
assign to the expulsion of the money-changers from the Temple.
The Fourth Gospel puts it at the opening of Christ's ministry,
on the occasion of the first Passover, — with a view, no doubt,
to establish his prophetic authority from the first in the face of
the Jews, and to give him at once the vantage-ground which
1 This is irreconcileable with the later inquiry of the Baptist, recorded by Matth.
xi. 3, and Luke vii. 19,—" Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another i"
2 Compare Matthew xvi. 20.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 5
he is described as occupying in his subsequent controversy with
them through the sequel of the history. The only wonder is,
how at such a time, after such an act, he should have escaped
alive out of the hands of his enemies ; especially when we re
member what befel him for not stronger language or more
violent proceedings during his last visit to Jerusalem. The
Synoptists,1 with certainly far more semblance of probability,
place this transaction at the end of his public life, after his
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when he had already acquired
a wide-spread prophetic fame, and numbers believed in him,
and he had an enthusiastic multitude at his back to support his
claims. In the Three First Gospels we have the picture, exceed
ingly vivid and natural, of a great moral and religious reformer,
cautiously making his way through the prejudices and miscon
ceptions of his contemporaries, gradually obtaining their confi
dence and changing the direction of their hopes, and only
reaching the full climax of his personal influence in the period
immediately preceding his death. In the Fourth, on the con
trary, the unclouded glory of the Son of God shines out com
plete from the first, and is sustained undiminished till the words
"It is finished" announce its withdrawal from earth — saved
through the whole intervening period from the extinction which
seems every moment to threaten it, by the mysterious protection
indicated in the significant phrase peculiar to this gospel, " My
hour is not yet come." Interwrought inextricably with the
texture of the synoptical narrative we meet with records of
healing and restorative agency, which forms a large part of the
daily work of the prophet of Nazareth ; and amidst which the
casting out of demons and unclean spirits holds a conspicuous
place. Instead of this, the Fourth Gospel presents, us with a
selection of just seven miracles,8 intended apparently to furnish
1 The Germans use the word Synoptiker. But synoptic {awo-miitis) more pro
perly denotes the work than the author. There is sufficient authority for the Greek
verb owriCm (see Liddell and Scott's Lexicon) to justify the adoption of so convenient
a derivative as Synoptist, to express the collective writers of the Three First Gospels.
» (1) ii. 6-11 ; (2) iv. 46-54; (3) v. 5-9; (4) vi. 11-14; (5) vi. 19-21; (6) ix.
1-12 ; (7) xi, 1-46.

6 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL".
a specimen of the various modes and occasions of Christ's mira
culous working, and closing with the greatest instance of all —
the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Among these miracles
not one case occurs of the cure of a demoniac, though cures of
this description might almost be described as the characteristic
feature of the miraculous element of the Synoptists. For the
pithy sayings and popular parables of the Three First Gospels,
the Fourth substitutes long argumentative discourses, reiterating
incessantly (as if the writer was labouring with the weight of
thoughts which he could not at once adequately express), in
words but slightly varied, the same absorbing idea ; at times
apparently encountering forms of error and anticipating objec
tions which, if the synoptic narration be true, could hardly yet
have come into existence. We have not here the varied, inter
woven miscellany of history and doctrine, of miracle and para
ble, which the Three First G-ospels so graphically present, but
one smooth, continuous flow of exhortation and disputation
poured through the length and breadth of the book, with a few
most exquisite narratives interspersed, standing out like islets
of rare beauty in the broad expanse of some quiet lake. Instead
of confining the earlier part of Christ's ministry, with the
Synoptists, exclusively to Galilee, and bringing him up for only
one Passover to Jerusalem, when he met his fate, — the Fourth
Gospel represents him as dividing his time almost equally from
the first between Galilee and Jerusalem, and attending two if
not three Passovers in the Holy City.1
It must be obvious, I think, to every one who has carefully
gone through the foregoing comparison, that the old theory
which so long found favour in the Church, of John's having
written his gospel to fill up and complete the earlier three, does
not meet the actual conditions of the case.2 John's is not so
1 There is no uncertainty about two Passovers — those mentioned ii. 13, and
xiii. 1. From comparing vi. i with vii. 2, we know that a Passover must have inter
vened, which vii. 1 renders it probable Jesus had attended.
, , a This theory was first broached by Eusebius (H.E. iii. 24), who says, " that John
was induced to write, having previously confined himself iypitpcp /cripiSy/ttaTi, by ob-

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 7
much another, as in one sense a different gospel.1 It is im
possible to harmonize the two forms of the narrative. One
excludes the other. If the Three First Gospels represent
Christ's public ministry truly, the Fourth cannot be accepted as
simple, reliable history. If we assume the truth of the Fourth,
we must reject on some fundamental points the evidence of the
Three First. The question is, which of these two narratives
are we to take as our guide, and accept as authentic for the
main facts of the life of Jesus ? Must we control the state
ments of the Synoptists by those of John, or those of John by
the Synoptists ? The decision of this question will be followed
by consequences of some moment. It will affect our whole con
ception of the person and doctrine of Christ ; modify to some
extent our view of the religion originally taught by himself ;
and must doubtless contribute to the settlement of some contro-
serving that the Three First Evangelists— the correctness of whose actual narrative he
confirmed— had omitted all notice of Christ's public ministry previous to the imprison
ment of the Baptist, and had thus made it last but one year. It was this omission which
he specially proposed to supply ; and the simple recognition of this fact Eusebius thought
sufficient to bring the Four Gospels into perfect harmony : ols ko! iviiniiaavTi ovkct
&v 8ii|ai Sicupayeiy 'oAA^Aois to evayye\ia, t# ri p\v koto 'la&vvqv to irpipTa ruv
rod XpioroD irpi^eay irepie'xe"', to tie Xomto t^v M tc\« toO xpifvov oi;t$ yeyeviifievTiy
laTopiav. How superficial and inadequate this solution of the difficulty is, the foregoing
comparison will show. Jerome (de Vir. 111. i. 9) has copied this explanation of
Eusebius, with still looser application to the facts of the case. Clement of Alexandria
(cited by Eusebius, H.E. vi. 14) has suggested another theory, viz., " That whereas
the three earlier gospels contained the corporeal side of the history (to trv/tariitcQ,
John, at the earnest request of his friends, and under the influence of the Spirit, pro
duced a spiritual gospel." This theory, rightly understood, is nearer the truth than
that of Eusebius. When all the four gospels got a place in the canon, and the differ
ence between the Fourth and the Three First was still undeniable, it was thought neces
sary lo devise some mode of reconciling them, which should leave the historical
authority of each untouched. The assumption of this necessity prevented, as it still
prevents, the discovery of the true relation between them.
1 I do not think this language too strong for the particular fact which it is in
tended to express ; but I must not he understood as meaning to deny the ultimate
ascription of all the gospels, the Fourth not less than the Three First, to a common
spiritual source in Christ himself. Indeed, apart from the pre-supposition of some
great spiritual power which had come into the world, quickening into intenser life the
kindred elements of humanity, and diffusing among men a new religious awakening
far beyond the limits of its own living presence on earth, the origin of a work like the
Fourth Gospel would be to me a still more inexplicable enigma than even the simpler
narrative of the Synoptists.

8 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
versies which have long hopelessly divided Christendom. The
question, therefore, to the investigation pf which the following
pages are devoted, is not one of mere speculative and critical
interest without obvious result, but carries with it a grave and
practical import. To the early existence of the substance, at
least, of two of our synoptical gospels — those of Matthew and
Mark — we have direct and very early, if not contemporary,
testimony ; l and Luke's preface bears witness to the care which
he took in sifting and tracing to their source, the various tradi
tions which he found current respecting the life of Jesus. All
three agree in the main outlines of their narrative ; their style is
marked with a strong character .of simplicity and naturalness ;
and their very differences attest the presence of some great
underlying historical reality, which different traditions had
variously caught up, and transmitted through divers media of
conception and realization to those who first put the history
into writing. Against such obvious claims to general trust on
the part of the Synoptical Gospels, we ought to possess the most
unanswerable evidence of direct apostolic origin, to supersede
them as historical authorities by a book — in which all the traces
of primitive tradition, even the characteristic words of the
great Teacher himself, seem dissolved and washed away in the
sweeping tide of the writer's own thought — where doctrine,
not history, has evidently been the animating impulse.
1 In the fragments of Papias preserved by Eusebius (H.E. iii. 39). See also
Ronth's Reliquiae Sacraa, Tom. i. p. 7 seq. Papias declared, he had conversed with
those who had conversed with the apostles.

SECTION II.
On the possibility of the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse having
the same author.
In the New Testament are two books, each of which
has been ascribed by tradition, and a certain amount of early
testimony, to the apostle John — the Fourth Gospel and the
Apocalypse. Can both of these have been the production of
the same mind ? The settlement of that preliminary question
has a direct bearing on the determination of the authenticity of
either. It has been urged by those who affirm the identity of
authorship, that the difference of style and manner and under
lying tone of thought, which is perceptible on the most cursory
reading, between the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel, is
simply the difference between a young and an old mind —
between the sensuous fire and brilliancy of a yet unsubdued
imagination, and the serener light of a spirit mellowed by years
and experience.1 This explanation seems plausible, till we look
more narrowly into the nature and grounds of the difference
between the two writers. For it is a difference not resolvable
into any conceivable amount of progressive development out of
a common mental root, but a difference so marked and so
characteristic as to imply a radical distinctness in origin. The
writer of the Apocalypse has a mind essentially objective. He
realizes his conceptions through vision. He transports himself

1 Longinus explained on this ground the difference between the Iliad and the
Odyssey, without doubting for a moment, that both were the production of Homer.
The Iliad was the fruit of his mature genius (Iv oKfip irceiJ/toTos ypcupo/iivri), the
Odyssey of his age — yUpas i'tipus (he adds with graceful rhetoric) 'Ofi-fipov. (De
Sublim. ix.) Modern criticism has not, however, ratified his judgment.

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

FOURTH GOSPEL AND APOCALYPSE. 11
of the Apocalypse and the Gospel a genius essentially distinct.1
The language of the two writers is as different as their cha
racteristic modes of conception and thought. The style of the
Apocalypse is perfectly barbarous — Hebrew done into Greek,
with a constant violation of the most ordinary laws of con
struction.2 The Greek of the Fourth Gospel, without being
classical, is still fluent, perspicuous, and grammatical. Some
diversity of style, it is true, might be expected in the two
works, owing to the different subjects of which they treat,
even supposing them to have come from the same hand. But
there are certain little peculiarities of expression and con-

1 This power of objective presentation, by which a scene is brought up distinctly
before the reader's mind, has been assumed too readily as an evidence of autopsy,
Unless supported by other testimony, it proves nothing but the peculiar genius of the
writer— his way of realizing to himself the events which he has to record. How ex
tremely vivid, how true, how real, are many of the descriptions in the book of Genesis,
in Homer, and in Herodotus ! We seem to see with our own eyes what they
narrate. The men and women actually live and speak before us. Tet we know, that
nothing but tradition, which lives through its very vividness, could have furnished the
material of these stories. The oldest traditions in the world are the most picturesque.
Tradition naturally produces vivid and picturesque narration. It is easy to per
ceive why it must be so. When men have a strong interest to throw their thoughts
backward, and try to reproduce the vanished part, imagination is the faculty by which
they arrest, and combine, and shape into definite form, and animate with a kind of second
ary reality, the vague and floating rumours which dimly envelope their minds. The
critical sifting of evidence is a process as yet unknown and inconceivable. The more
distinct the picture which they can make out of their materials, the stronger is their
assurance that it represents the truth. They accept it as a divine inspiration. For
memory and imagination have hardly as yet acquired a distinct exercise. All early
tradition is poetry. Mnemosyne was the mother of the Muses. When Homer is
about to lay some unusual stress on his memory, as in the recital of the forces which
came to the war of Troy, he invokes the Muses.
"Eo7rere vvv fiot Mot/cot, 'OAi/nryL Su/iot' fy0*"™'
'tfiets yap B&xi iffre, vdpeare re, fore Te irdVro,
'H/ieiy 5e KAeos Ztdv 'amio/iti/, ouSe ti ffifunr. B. 484^6. Compare also A. 218.
The power under given circumstances still operates in the heart of modern civilization.
.Sir Walter Scott has thus described in his own felicitous manner the marvellously
reproductive faculty of Old Mortality. " One would have almost supposed he must
have been their contemporary, and have actually beheld the passages which he related,
so much had he identified his feelings and opinions with theirs, and so much had his
narrations the circumstantiality of an eye-witness." Ch. I. " Vetustas res scribenti
nescio quo pacto antiquus fit animus, et quaedam religio tenet." Liv. Hist, xliii. 13 (15) .
2 Dionysius of Alexandria (Euseb. H. E. vii. 25) describes it as 'ttiuipao-i p.ev
fSapPapucois xjp&pevov, nal irov Kal o-oXomi^ovra.

12 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
struction, clinging to the inmost texture of an author's style,
and resulting from the very make and working of his own
mind, which imprint themselves on everything that he writes,
and the presence or absence of which supplies an unfailing
criterion of authenticity. Such peculiarities in the Fourth
Gospel are, among others, its constant use of "va with the con
junctive for the ordiaary construction with the infinitive— its
fondness for Svv as a connecting link in narration, and its
employment of hvro<; and e/ceo/o? with a singular union of
demonstrative and relative force. These pecularities are wholly
wanting in the Apocalypse.1 Some have insisted on the wide
interval that probably separated the appearance of the two
works, as affording time sufficient for a gradual change of views
and the acquirement of a more complete mastery of the Greek
language. The most probable date for the composition of the
Apocalypse must be placed somewhere between 60 and 70 a.d.
— the reign of Galba, and the destruction of Jerusalem.2 Now,
supposing John to have been not more than 18 or 20 when he
joined the ministry of Jesus, he must have been close upon
50, at the very least, when the Apocalypse was written — a time
of life when men's views and habits of thought and expression
are for the most part permanently fixed. If he wrote his
Gospel, as is usually maintained, in extreme old age, at the very
close of the century, this would leave an interval of little more
than thirty years between the composition of the two works. I
do not hesitate to say, that so complete a transformation of the
whole genius of a writer between mature life and old age, as is
implied in the supposition that Joh* could be the author at once
of the Apocalypse and the Gospel, is without a precedent in
1 De Wette has given a full recital of the peculiarities of expression which distinguish*
the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse from each other. (Einleit. ins Nl.i 105 c. b,
§ 189, b. c. d). *
» Ewald (Coram, in Apocal. § 7), De Wette (Einl. N. T., § 187), Lucke (Einl.
§ 67), Bleek (Beitr. p. 81) agree substantially in this date, which carries internal
probability along with it. Newton put it as far back as the reigu of Nero. Ireuams
carried it forward to the end of the reign qf Domitian,

FOURTH GOSPEL AND APOCALYPSE. 13
the history of the human mind, and seems to me to involve a
psychological impossibility.
The case may be illustrated to the English reader from our
Own literature. Two of our greatest poets passed through
remarkable mental changes. Milton's earliest and latest poems
are separated by the chasm of the civil wars ; and the stern
Puritanism of the Samson Agonistes with the severity of its
Hellenic form, is strikingly distinguished from the joyous,
romantic spirit and the cavalier-like appreciation of every
thing graceful and gay, which pervade the Comus and the
Arcades, many of his early sonnets, and those exquisite
pendents, L' Allegro and II Penseroso. Dryden underwent
mutations more extraordinary still. He began life as a Puritan,
and passing through the intermediate stage of Anglicanism,
ended his days in the bosom of the Catholic Church. The
Hind and Panther, in which he justified this last change,
breathes, as may be supposed, a very different spirit from the
lines in which he bewailed the death of Cromwell. Yet, if we
compare the poems written at the opposite ends of the lives
of these great men — notwithstanding the revolution of thought
and feeling which came over them in the interval — --every mind
that has any sense of mental characteristics, will at once
perceive that it is dealing at bottom with the same individual
genius ; — that it is a case of growth and development, not of
original difference ; — and will feel it to be utterly impossible
that, even had they passed through changes of opinion more
radical still, Milton could ever have written the Hind and
Panther or the Veni Creator, and Dryden, the Paradise Lost
or Samson Agonistes. No living writer has exhibited a more
remarkable change of style in the course of his literary career
than Mr. Carlyle ; yet, if we compare his Life of Schiller with
his French Revolution or his History of Frederic the Great
— notwithstanding the great disparity of form — every reader
of ordinary discernment will recognize the same fundamental
characteristics of his peculiar genius in his earlier and his later

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

15

SECTION III.
Notices of the Apostle John in the New Testament and the oldest
ecclesiastical traditions.
In citing the collective evidence of the New Testament on
the character of the Apostle John, we must, of course, exclude,
in. the first instance, such as might be furnished by the two
books which are the subject of comparison; since our purpose
is to decide on the claims of each to a specific authorship, by
testimony which is external to them both. This is the more
necessary, as the popular conception of the Apostle, which has
been invested with a kind of halo by religious poetry and art,
and which influences the mind almost unconsciously in the
question of authorship, is mainly derived from the Fourth
Gospel itself. We gather from the synoptic narrative, that
John was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a Galilaean
fisherman of some substance on the Lake of Gennesaret — of
whom we hear little, and who probably died soon after the con
version of his family. With their. mother Salome, the two
sons, James and John, appear to have shared enthusiastically
in the Messianic hopes which were then rife and stirring
throughout Palestine. It was probably the ardour of their
religious temperament which attracted the notice of Jesus,
drew him into close intimacy with them, and induced him
to bestow on them the significant title of Sons of Thunder.1
Their nobler qualities were not, however, unmingled with
the carnal and selfish aspirings of the popular Messianic faith,
and with some fierceness of Jewish intolerance; and these
tendencies were encouraged by their mother, who, on one
1 We learn this fact from Mark alone (iii. 17) , He had it probably direct from Peter.

16 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
occasion, preferred a particular request to our Lord that her
sons might fill the two most conspicuous places in his future
kingdom. (Matth. xx. 21 ; Mark x. 35.)1 It was the same
two brothers who, on the refusal of some Samaritans to admit
Jesus and his followers into their village, were for invoking
fire from heaven, in the spirit of Elijah, to consume them,
and received the significant rebuke, that their master's mission
was not to destroy, but to save. (Luke ix. 54-56.) Of John
it is specially remarked by two of the evangelists (Mark ix.
38, 39 ; Luke ix. 49, 50), that about the same time, when he
saw one casting out devils in Christ's name, he forbade him
because he was not of their company ; and how he was again
reproved by Christ for his exclusiveness. It should be observed
that these instances of intolerance occur when the brethren
were no longer recent converts, towards the close of Christ's
ministry on his last journey to Jerusalem.2 Notwithstanding
these infirmities, which were, perhaps, inseparable from their
mental constitution, Jesus shewed his appreciation of their
higher nature by admitting the sons of Zebedee, with Simon
Peter, into closer familiarity with his inmost thoughts than
the rest of the twelve. They were with him during the
transfiguration (Matth. xvii. 1 ; Mark ix. 2 ; Luke ix. 28).
They, with Andrew and Peter, asked him privately, as he sate
on the Mount of Olives, fronting the Temple, when and how
the destruction of the city should be (Mark xiii. 3). John is
sent with Peter to prepare the Passover (Luke xxii. 8). The
same three are again present during the agony on Gethsemane
(Matth. xxvi. 37 ; Mark xiv. 33). There is no further notice
of the sons of Zebedee in the Synoptical Gospels ; but theii
mother, Salome, is mentioned among the women who waited on
Jesus to the last — watching him as he expired on the cross, and
after his burial bringing sweet spices to the sepulchre. (Matth.
1 Luke has omitted all notice of this request, and of the indignation which it ex
cited in the minds of the ten.
2 Lucke has called attention to this fact. (Comment. Evnng. Johan. 5 2).

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE APOSTLE JOHN. 17
xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40, xvi. 1; Luke xxiii. 56, xxiv. 1.)
Her deep love and trust were unshaken by the great and terrible
catastrophe which had blighted her earlier expectations. Doubt
less, she had hoped with the two disciples who walked to
Emmaus, "that it had been he who should have, redeemed
Israel." When we get into the apostolic age, after the death of Jesus,
we find John actively engaged with Peter in building up the
primitive church in Jerusalem. The two names are con
stantly associated through the earlier chapters of the book of
Acts. How essentially Jewish in spirit their ministry was,
we learn from the question proposed to the risen Jesus, with
which they opened it : " Lord, wilt thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel ?" (Acts i. 6) and from the course
of action by which it was followed. When a persecution broke
out against the more liberal movement originated by Stephen,
and those who shared in it were scattered abroad, it is remark
able that the apostles were left undisturbed in Jerusalem, as
though it did not affect them.1 Again, after Samaria had been
converted by Philip, one of Stephen's followers,2 it is signi
ficant, that Peter and John, induced probably by a sort of con
servative precaution, go over the same ground, with the view, as
it would seem, of correcting or neutralizing any mischievous
effects that might have resulted from Philip's preaching.3 For
it deserves notice, that, at this period, numbers of the Pharisees,
changing the tactics which they had pursued in the life-time
" 1 The exception in the case of the apostles is expressed in the most decided manner :
ttoVtes Siea-n-u'prio-av — irXty ruv &iro<rT6\ai> (Acts viii. 1). The author, writing from a
later point of view, and with the evident purpose, as his whole book shows, of re
conciling the Petrine and Pauline tendencies of the primitive church, is betrayed into
apparent inconsistency. He says a great persecution attacked tV iitKKrio-tav t\v 4v
'Upotro\ipois (using the word licnX-nata in its broader ultimate sense), and yet repre
sents the acknowledged heads of that church as untouched by it.
2 Acts vi. 5 ; Comp. xxi. 8.
3 Acts viii. 5-13 (preaching of Philip with the baptism of Simon) ; ibid. 14-25
(preaching of Peter and John, with refusal of the Holy Spirit to Simon, for offering
money) ; Acts viii. 26-40 (preaching of Philip along the coast of the Mediterranean) ;
ix. 32-43 (preaching of Peter through the same district).

18 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
of Christ, appear to have prudently sided with the new re
ligion, which was already making way with the multitude, and
to have now tried to influence its counsels and imbue it with
their own narrow spirit.1 There is not a trace in the history of
John's having ever taken any part or shown any sympathy
with the liberal movements either of Stephen or of Paul. On
the contrary, all subsisting evidence from the book of Acts
goes to show, that John was closely connected with the Jewish
party, who formed, it should be recollected, the original nucleus
of believers at Jerusalem. Of his brother James, so constantly
associated with him in the gospel narrative, we hear nothing,
except that he was put to death by Herod — very possibly in
consequence of some opposition raised by his Messianic zeal to
the Hellenizing tendencies of the king (xii. 2).2
When Paul went up the second time to Jerusalem, to confer
with the apostles about the treatment of heathen converts, he
found John there (as he tells us himself, Gal. ii. 9) — associated
with Peter, whose irresolution and fearfulness about the vexed
question of eating with Gentiles he so sharply reproves — and
with James the Less, the recognised head of the Jewish party
and their first bishop, — enjoying with them the distinction of
being considered " a pillar " of the church, and not occupying, be
it observed, a neutral position, but thrust into conspicuous <;
prominence as one of the acknowledged chiefs of the then
Jewish Church, whose mission was exclusively to the circum-i

1 See especially Acts xv. 5, Comp. vi. 7, and the part taken by Gamaliel in the
Sanhedrim, v. 34-39. The Sadducees were now the great open opponents of
Christianity. 2 It has been objected (National Review, No. ix. Art. v. p. 112) that the subordinate
position which John occupies in relation to Peter throughout the earlier chapters of.
Acts, is inconsistent with the supposition of his being a leading member of the Jewish!
party at Jerusalem, and the author of the Apocalypse, which so vividly reflects its
spirit. But the fact is easily explained, if we keep in mind the evident principle of
the construction of tho book of Acts— that of balancing and harmonizing the rival
claims of Peter and Paul— which made it impossible to put any one on the same level
with Peter in the first part of the history. It is sufficient for our purpose to remark.
that everywhere in Acts, John is closely associated with the Jewish party

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE APOSTLE JOHN. 19
cision.1 So far, then, as the New Testament throws any light
on the character and history of the Apostle John, it exhibits
him as a Jewish Christian. This conclusion is remarkably con
firmed by a passage in Irenseus, referring to this very conference
with Paul at Jerusalem — which may be thus translated : " the
apostles themselves, by raising the question whether disciples
ought still to be circumcised or not, clearly showed that they
still worshipped the God of their fathers " — and, therefore, by
implication still observed the old law.2 The book of Acts
(iv. 13), in speaking of Peter and John, describes them as "un
lettered and unlearned men "3 — that is, as persons who had not,
like Paul, been trained in the higher rabbinical discipline, and
who might thereby have acquired some tincture of Hellenic
culture, but who merely possessed such rudiments of Hebrew
education as could be furnished by an ordinary Galilaean school
attached to the synagogue. John's name never once occurs in
the latter half of Acts. On Paul's last visit to Jerusalem, at
the end of his third missionary journey, not later than 60 a.d.
— both he and Peter would seem to have been away ; as only
James the Less is mentioned (xxi. 18). Had they been in the
1 There is a latent irony in Paul's language, — Si Sokovvtcs o-tSXoi — as though he
did not recognise them as such himself, from their failure to perceive'the breadth of the
foundations of the true gospel.
2 The passage exists only in the Latin version. "Ipsiautem {i.e. the apostles at
Jerusalem, including John) ex co quod qusererent : an oporteret circumcidi adhuc
discipulos neene, manifeste ostenderunt, non habuisse se alterius Dei contempla-
tionem ' ' (Iren. adv. Hser. III. xii. 14). To apprehend the complete force of this
passage, we must notice its place in the argument of Irenaeus. He is replying to the
Gnostics, who contended that the God of the Old Testament was not the God of the
Christians. To refute them, he appeals to the practice of the apostles themselves,
who, after their conversion, still observed the usages of the Jewish law. That this
in his meaning, is clear from what he adds in the next section : " Hi circa Jacobum
apostoli gentibus quidem libere agere permittebant, concedentes nos Spiritui Dei :
ipsi vero eundem scientes Deum, perseverabant in pristinis obsermtionibas." The
sense of the whole passage is well given by Stieren : " Ipsi legis prseceptis satisfacere
anxie studebant, quum iis persuasum esset, Deum legis et evangelii esse unum eun-
demque." Lucke expresses himself more strongly than I have ventured to do : " So
lange Johannes in Jerusalem war, meint Irenseus, habe er mit den iibrigen Apostelu
das mosaische Gesetz noch streng beobachtet" (Comment. § 2, p. 16, 2te Aufl).
3 aypafifiarol kua Idiwrat.

20 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
city, it is hardly conceivable, how persons of such eminence
should not have taken part in the proceedings on so important
an occasion, and how, if they had been present, it should not
have been noticed. When John finally quitted Jerusalem, and
to what place he immediately transferred his residence, there
are no data extant for determining. Dr. Lardner (Works, vi.
p. 170) and De Wette (Einl. N. T. § 108 a. b.) agree in thinking
it not unlikely, that the apostle removed into Asia on the break
ing out of the war in Judea. This in itself would appear not
improbable ; but we have just seen that he could not have been
in Jerusalem as late as 60 a.d. — and connected as he was with
the Jewish party, he could hardly have settled at Ephesus, till
the influence of Paul's ministry there had ceased. On the
other hand, the imprisonment of that apostle for two years at
Caesarea (Acts xxiv. 27), and his subsequent removal to Borne,
may have separated him so completely from the Asiatic churches,
as to leave room for the planting of another church on the
ground originally broken up by him. Some have doubted
whether John ever resided at Ephesus at all. But the tradition
of antiquity seems to me too clear, constant and uniform to
admit of such entire scepticism. Polycrates, bishop of EphesuB,
in the latter half of the second century, in a letter to Victor of
Pome on the paschal controversy, says distinctly that John-
described particularly as 6 ctti to <tt>)#o? tou Kvplov ava-rreamv —
was buried at Ephesus j1 and Eusebius tells us, that in his day
the apostle's tomb still existed in that city.8 It is singular, no
doubt, that neither Polycarp, nor the letters which bear the
name of Ignatius, should anywhere allude to the fact ; but we
must set off, against their silence, the express testimony of
Irenteus, who had been instructed by Polycarp in his youth,
and who speaks of John's living and working at Ephesus as an
universally acknowledged fact.3 In another place he states
1 Eusebius, H. E. iii. 31, v. 24. s Eusebius, iii. 39.
3 Adv. Hoar. II. xxii. 6 ; III. i. 1. Ho appeals to uninterrupted tradition from
the time of those who had conversed with the apostles.

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE APOSTLE JOHN. 21
that the church which had been founded by Paul in Ephesus,
was a true witness of the apostolic tradition under the ministry
of John till the age of Trajan.1 That there was a strong Jewish
party in Ephesus, is plain from Paul's being obliged to abandon
the synagogue, and discourse in the lecture-room of the sophist
Tyrannus (Acts xix. 9). According to all appearances, after
Paul's final separation from the Asiatic churches, some Judaic
reaction had taken place.2 An apostle from the mother-church
of Jerusalem, who had leaned on the bosom of the Lord him
self, would be eagerly welcomed in that great centre of religious
life ; and the churches of that district, as we learn from later
history, long adhered to the Jewish usages of the first gene
ration of Christian believers.
Associated with this period of the apostle's life at Ephesus
some interesting traditions have been preserved by eccle
siastical writers. Irenseus tells a story — on the authority
of Polycarp, whose youth joined on to the old age of John
— that on the apostle's finding himself one day in the same
bath at Ephesus with the notorious heretic Cerinthus, he
rushed out, lest the walls should fall in and overwhelm
him in a common destruction with this enemy of the truth.
If this story represent a fact, it furnishes evidence of the same
spirit of which we have already had an example in the New
Testament (Luke ix. 54-56, 49, 50 ; Mark ix. 38, 39).3 A far

1 'H 4v 'E<p4crtp iicK\rio-ia fnro Uaihov jikv Te6ep.e\iafi.4vri, 'ladvvov 84 Trapafiei-
vavros avrois /Jiexpi ruv TpaXavov %p6vmv, ixiprvs oKriBf)s 4<xti ttjs airoffT^JWv
irapafio'o-em (Adv. Hser. III. iii. 4). Eusebius has cited this passage (H. E. iii. 23).
Its object is to authenticate the Christian tradition by tracing it through John to Paul.
It implies, therefore, that John was the successor of Paul.
2 We know from himself, what pains it cost him to resist such reaction in the
churches of Galatia. The Christ party (1 Cor. i. 12) possibly furnish another example
of similar reaction at Corinth. See F. L. Baur, Das Christenthum der drei ersten
Jahrhunderte, ii. (Die Judaischen Gegner).
3 Adv. Hser. III. iii. 4. Irenseus does not say, that he had the story direct from
Polycarp, but at second-hand through others : 4ia\v Si aKi)K.o&Tes avrov. Partly on
this account, and partly perhaps from some tenderness for the memory of the apostle,
Dr. Lardner treats the whole narrative as doubtful (Credib. P. II. ch. vi.). Liicke,
on the other hand (Einl. Comm. § 2, p. 19) thinks it bears strong internal marks of

22 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
more pleasing tale is that of the apostle mounting his horse in
his old age, and, with characteristic ardour and intrepidity,
riding into the very centre of a stronghold of robbers, to rescue
a young man in whom he took a deep interest, but who, having
fallen into evil courses, had become the captain of the band;
and how he succeeded in restoring him at last to the church
which he had forsaken.1 Jerome narrates, that in extreme old
age, when no longer able to make a lengthened and connected
discourse, the apostle used to be carried in the arms of his
disciples into the midst of the church, when he would repeat
day after day the simple words, " Little children, love one
another ;" and that, on being asked why he said this continually,
he replied, " This is the sum and substance of the Lord's teach
ing." The story rests on the authority of Jerome alone, some
three centuries after the age of John ;2 but it contains nothing
in itself incredible. Polycrates of Ephesus, in the letter
already cited — enumerating a number of Asiatic bishops who
adhered with himself to the old Jewish usage of observing the
14th of Nisan3 — puts John second in this list, immediately )
following Philip of Hierapolis, one of the twelve apostles (toi»
tS>v Soioe/ea airocrTokcov), and has this remarkable passage re
specting him : " John also, who leaned on the bosom of the
probability, and compares it with 2 John 10. Eusebius (H. E. iii. 28) quotes the story
from Irenseus. Epiphanius (Adv. Hser. xxx. 24) has repeated it with much amplifi
cation — substituting the name of Ebion for that of Cerinthus. This fact is signi
ficant, as suggesting the possibility that the story from its origin may have had some
connexion with a rumour of Jewish Christianity; though, to save the apostle himself
from the suspicion of any such tendency, the orthodox father makes the mythic
founder of Ebiouitism the special object of his abhorrence. This whole section in
Epiphanius deserves to be read, as showing the complete change of character and
object which a story often underwent in the course of ecclesiastical tradition.
1 This story is first told in the little treatise usually printed along with the books of
Clement of Alexandria : " Quis dives salvetur ?" Thence it has been copied by
Eusebius (H. E. iii. 23). Lardner and LUcke both think, it probably contains sub
stantial truth. Herder has pleasingly worked it up among his " Legends," under the
title of " The Rescued Youth." (Zur Litt. n. Kunst. Werke. VI. 31).
2 Coram, in Galat. c. 6. He cites it, without any introduction, as a tradition current
in his time.
3 " Cum cteteris episcopis Asico, qui juxta quandam veterem consuetudinem cum
Judais decimaquarta luna Pascha celebrabant." Hieron. de Vir. Illustr. o. xlv.

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE APOSTLE JOHN. 23
Lord, who was a priest wearing the petalon, both martyr and
teacher." The petalon (-irerakov) was a gold plate in front of
the high priests' turban or tiara, inscribed with the words,
" Holy to Jehovah." Various interpretations have been given
of this passage : some, with Liicke, supposing it simply to
express the eminent episcopacy of John in Ephesus and its
neighbourhood ; others understanding it, in a figurative sense,
of John's deep penetration into the inner mind of Christ;
others, lastly, with Baur and the critics of the Tubingen school,
of John's upholding the Jewish form of Christianity, and being,
in the hierarchical sense of the Old Testament, a representative
of the high priesthood of Christ on earth. The context, with
some other considerations referred to in the note, appear to me
to render this altogether the most probable interpretation.1 The
Etj Se ko! 'livavvrisl  bs 4yevr)8r) hpevs to ireToAoK v&popeK&is, Kal fidprvs
Kal 8i5dVica\os. (ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 24.) Many commentators, not knowing what
to make of these words in their literal sense, have been disposed to understand them
figuratively, as, for instance, Routh (Reliquiae Sacra ii. p. 28). — Le Moyne (Var. Sacr.
ii. 25), cited by Heinichen (Euseb. H. E. v. 24), has strongly pressed the difficulties
of the literal interpretation, and yet candidly admits that the writer may be speaking
" de Joanne sacerdote et lamina instructo, dum adhuc viveret inter Judteos." — Epi-
phanius, in speaking of James the Less, the so-called brother of the Lord, the first
bishop of the Jewish church at Jerusalem, of whose Ebionitish asceticism and piety,
and final martyrdom, Hegesippus, himself a Jewish Christian and employing Hebrew
materials (Euseb. H. E. iv. 22), has given so strange an account in his Records of the
Apostolic Age (comp. Josephus's account of the death of James, Antiquit. SX. ix. 1.), —
has twice ascribed to this undoubted head of a Jewish Christian church, the very same
peculiarity which we have already seen given by Polycrates to John (xxix. 4 Panarion)
Tb irtToAoy M ttjs Ke<pa\9)s 4£i)i> avrtp (popetv and (ibid. Ixxviii. 14) jtc'toAoc 4irl
Tijr Ke<pa\ijs 4<p6pe<re. There is much, no doubt, that is legendary and fabulous in
the narratives of Hegesippus and Epiphanius ; but both meant to describe a Jewish
Christian, and they knew the characteristics that would mark one.— Valesius quotes a
passage from a MS. treatise on the passion of the Evangelist Mark, where the same
expression is used of him, and with the same intent, i.e., to indicate, as I understand
the words, the Jewish type of his Christianity : pontificalia apieis petalum in populo
gestaase Judaorum. That such expressions, however strong, did not imply the exer
cise of any sacerdotal function, properly so called, is evident from a passage in Irenseus.
He is arguing, against the heretics, for an unbroken continuity of religious privileges
from the Old dispensation to the New— the apostles in the spiritual kingdom occupying
the same position with the former priests under the outward law. Sacerdotes sunt
omnes Domini apostoli, qui neque agros neque domos hereditant hie, sed semper altari et
Deo servimt. ( Adv. Hser. IV. viii. 3.) IrensBus designates the head of a Jewish com
munion, though it had nothing sacerdotal in its constitution, by a sacerdotal title. He

24 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
same conclusion might be drawn from the appeal of the Quarto-
deciman party in the Asiatic churches, to the authority of the
apostle John traditionally preserved among them, in favour of
their own usage ; but as this is a question still open to contro
versy, which I shall have to examine more at length in an
ensuing section, I will not enter on it now.
On the whole, we gather from the united testimony of the
New Testament and ecclesiastical tradition, that the apostle
John, so far as we can trace his history through the dimness of
the past, belonged to the Jewish section of the primitive
Christian Church. There is much evidence that points directly
to that conclusion, and none that bears against it. The few
distinct glimpses, that we get, are just of such a character as we
should naturally expect to find in the first generation of Pales
tinian converts to Christianity — full of Messianic eagerness and
zeal, and warmly attached to the person of Jesus ; marked by
strong prejudices and bitter national antipathies, but generous,
impulsive and confiding, susceptible of the deepest and tenderest
love where the object seemed worthy of it ; — a simple, honest,
unlettered Jew, with the better life of Christianity gradually
kindling within him, but incapable of breaking loose entirely
from the bonds of early prepossession, and of throwing himself
with unreserved freedom into the broad catholicity of the spirit
of Paul.
calls Jairus, who was merely the ruler of a synagogue (Mark v. 22) aummus aacerdot
(adv. Hser. V. xiii. 1). — On the whole, in spite of the doubts of Dr. Lardner and
others (Credib. P. II. Ch. cxiv., Hist. Apost. and Evang. Ch. ix. 4), I incline to think,
that the most obvious meaning of this obscure expression, is John's presidency over an
association of Jewish Christian churches. The early Protestant divines were averss
to admit any suppositions that dispelled their ideal of an apostolic age, as conceived
from the modern point of view. I may further remark, that the result of the most
recent criticism seems to show, that the sacerdotal element came into the Catholic
Church out of the Jewish Christianity. See, among others, Ritschl, " Die Entstehung.
der altkatholischen Kirche."

25

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

26 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
centuries, the old Judaic form of Christianity, and recognised
it only as a lingering heresy among the Ebionites and Nazarenes.1
When the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia are warned in
the opening chapters of this book (ii. 9, iii. 9) " against the
synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not," — it
is difficult not to beheve that the allusion must be to the same
liberal party, headed successively by Stephen and Paul, who
were charged, as we find it stated in Acts (vi. 14) with a design
" to change the customs which Moses had delivered to the Jews."
The Greek of the Apocalypse is just such as we should expect
from a man who had never learned it grammatically, but had
picked it up from mere intercourse with those who spoke it. It
is precisely the diction of one who is described in Acts as " un
lettered and unlearned," but who had been thrown in his
maturer years into the society of Greeks.
In all these respects the Fourth Gospel exhibits a character
the very opposite to that of the Apocalypse. From beginning
to end, though indicating acquaintance with Jewish history
and Jewish modes of thought, its spirit is anti-Jewish. The
habitual opponents of Christ are constantly distinguished as
" the Jews." It has all the spiritual breadth of the mind of Paul,
and is chiefly distinguished from it by a more quiet and con
templative tone; and a pervading consciousness of assured
superiority, as though it came from one who had passed beyond
the stage of controversy, and felt his faith to be resting on
unassailable foundations. It betrays in more than one passage
strong interest for the conversion of the Greeks (vii. 35, 36,
xii. 20-23) ; and of the Chiliasm, which enters so largely into
1 In the first age both Papias and the heretic Cerinthus were strongly attached to
Chiliasm. Many eminent fathers of the second century, Justin Martyr, lrenseus, and
Tertullian, undoubtingly upheld it ; and it was an object of enthusiastic belief with
the Montanists. The first decided opposition to it came out of the philosophical
school of Alexandria, headed by Origen. Yet down to the opening of the fourth
century, we find no less a man than Lactantius, the tutor of the sons of the first
Constantine, distinctly asserting it, and arraying it in all the colours of his rhetorical
eloquence. (Divin. Instit. vii. 19-26, Epitom. lxxi. ii.) It only became a heresy by
degrees. See Miinscher's " Dogmengeschichte " (II. i. § 25, 26).

COMPARISON WITH THE WORKS ASCRIBED TO JOHN. 27
the descriptions of the Apocalypse, and formed so conspicuous a
belief of the early Jewish Church, we do not find a trace in
this gospel. Its Greek, though neither pure nor elegant, is that
of a person who had been long in the habit of speaking and
writing it, and with whom it had become a ready instrument
of thought.
Without some direct outward testimony, there is nothing, it
is true, in the interior form and character of the Apocalypse to
link its authorship of necessity with the apostle John. The
writer's description of himself as SovXof xpiarov, is undecisive.
But there is certainly nothing to render it incredible, that John
might have been the author of the book ; for its spirit agrees
with what we know of his own. On the other hand, it is difficult
to conceive how the John, who is exhibited to us by the New
Testament and ecclesiastical history, could possibly have written
the Fourth Gospel, without so complete a transformation of his
deeply marked character, and so entire a reversal of the power
ful influences of his early life, as we can find no adequate means
of accounting for within the widest limits of his later career.
But this is a question mainly of external testimony, to which
we must now direct our attention.

28 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL

SECTION V.
Direct Testimony to the Authorship of the Apocalypse.
The first witness to be adduced is Papias, whose fragments,
preserved in Eusebius, throw so valuable a light on the apostohc
sources of our two first gospels, and whose martyrdom has been
placed on apparently good grounds in 164 a.d.1 His testimony,
therefore, goes back to the first half of the second century.
As Papias informs us what pains he' took to make himself
acquainted, from eye and ear witnesses still surviving, with the
circumstances of the primitive church,2 it is not in itself im
probable that he should have known one of the earliest works
which it produced, and that we should have his witne» to the
existence in the first age of our two oldest gospels and of the
Apocalypse. But this testimony is not without its difficulties.
In the first place, it is not direct, and comes to us through two
authors of a comparatively late date — Andreas and Arethas,
who were bishops of Caesarea in Cappadocia towards the end of
the fifth century.3 These writers cite Papias with other ancient
fathers, of whom they place him at the head — Irensens,
Methodius, and Hippolytus — as asserting the deoirvevarov and
agioiriorov of the Apocalypse. But they do not state from what
1 See Rettig (Theologische Studien und Kritiken, for 1831, p. 769) who cites tin
Chronicon Paschale as his authority, and notices the coincidence of this date with
that of the accession of his successor in Hierapolis, furnished from an independent
source. 2 'Ou yap to 4k tSv f}t$\twv too-oOtoV pe a>(pe\e7v iirt\afi$avov. Sow rh irofi
(drrris (puvr)s xal /teyoiaris. ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. 39.
3 Rettig (ubi supr.) has determined the limits of their literary activity by a verj
exhaustive process of reasoning, as falling somewhere between 470 a.d. and the opening
years of the sixth century.

TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 29
book of Papias they produce this testimony, nor furnish any
evidence of his opinion respecting authorship. When Papias
wrote, inspiration and credibility did not necessarily imply an
apostohc source. They simply intimated that, in the judgment
of the writer, the work was imbued with an apostolic spirit,
and felt to be conducive to faith and edification. But re
moteness and indirectness of allusion is not the only cir
cumstance which detracts from the value of this testimony.
Eusebius, who was familiar with the writings of Papias, and
has quoted from them at some length, never once alludes to
anything that he had written on the Apocalypse. This is
the more remarkable, as he was much interested in the subject,
and would have been glad, it might be thought, of some early
testimony to fix his opinions respecting it ; as he vacillated, we
know, in his views of the authorship of the Apocalypse, and
was half inclined to ascribe it to the presbyter John.1 In
consequence of too much having been made of this shght and
indirect testimony of Papias, and the groundless assumption
that h# must have written a commentary on the Apocalypse,
which has perished, — theife has been perhaps a not unnatural
tendency on the other side to depreciate it below its actual
worth. It is not at all improbable, that Papias may have
alluded to and cited the Apocalypse in the only work which
we know him to have written, his " Expositions of the Oracles
of the Lord " (Koylcov icvpiaicmv ef^jjcret?) ; nor does there seem
any reason to reject the cautious inference of Bettig, that
possibly Papias ascribed the book to a John, perhaps even John
the Divine, without our being thereby justified in assuming that
Papias claimed the apostle as its author.2 To Papias we may,
1 H. E. iii. 39, p. 283. Tom. i. ed. Heinichen.
2 The whole question of the value of this testimony of Papias, contained in the
writings of the two Cappadocian bishops, especially in its bearing on the authenticity
of the Apocalypse, has been discussed with great thoroughness and impartiality by
Rettig, in the article already referred to in the " Theologische Studien una Kritiken."
I think however, he attaches too much weight to the silence of Eusebius. It is quite
evident, that the historian thoroughly disliked the chiliastic notions of Papias, and did
not know what to make of their seeming to be sanctioned by a book so old and of

30 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
perhaps, add the still earlier testimony of Clement of Rome,
who, in a passage of his first epistle to the Corinthians, appears
to me distinctly to allude to, if he does not actually cite, the
Apocalypse.1 Our next testimony is more direct and explicit. It is that of
Justin Martyr, whose period of literary activity occurs between
139 and 160 a.d., and the time of whose death is assigned by
Semisch, following the Chronicon Paschale, to the year 166.8
He was a contemporary, therefore, of Papias. Justin was born
a heathen at Flavia Neapolis, the ancient Sychem, in Samaria,
and was converted to Christianity, it has been supposed, at
Ephesus, where the scene of his celebrated dialogue with the
Jew Trypho is laid. It is certain that he passed the latter years
of his life in Rome, where he suffered martyrdom. From the
places with which the few notices of his personal history are
associated, it is evident that he must have been familiar with
the traditions which were then current among the Christians,
and at Ephesus with those more particularly which related to
the apostle John. To him also we are indebted for the account
such high traditional authority as the Apocalypse. He was one of that class of philo
sophical Christians (in his time rapidly increasing under the influence of a court),
who, like the Alexandrine Jews, und er the Ptolemies, had grown ashamed of the homely
and popular faith of their forefathers. I can hardly doubt, that he would have taken,
if he could, from the Apocalypse the credit of an apostolic source : and had he found
any clear indication in Papias, that it had been written by the presbyter John, or any
other John than the apostle, it is difficult to believe, that he would not have mentioned
it. If any inference can be drawn from the silence of Eusebius, it seems to me quite as
much in favour of Papias's attesting the apostolic origin of the book, as against it. The
passages from Andreas and Arethas about Papias are cited by Kirchhofer (Quellen-
6ammlung zur Gesch. d. N. T. Canons xxxiii. Papias). See his note on them, p. 300.
1 The passage runs thus (I. ad Cor. xxxiv.), and has a close verbal agreement with
Apocal. xxii. 12: Trpo\4yei v/uv (a form of scriptural citation) ISob S xipios, K<d i
tuo-ebs avrov irpb Trpoailmqv outoC, oiroSoCrai iK&trrtp koto to ipyov outoB. There
may in both writers be a remoter reference to the LXX. Isaiah si. 10, and lxii. 11.
But it is remarkable, that Clement and the Apocalypse much more nearly resemble
each other, especially in the concluding words of the sentence, than cither" of them
Isaiah. I cannot but think this passage furnishes a proof that the Apocalypse was
known and read in the time of Clement. The death of Clement is usually placed
about 100 a.d. If my inference be correct, this is the oldest witness to the existence
of the Apocalypse as a part of Scripture. >
» Otto (de Justin. Martyr. Scriptiset Doctrina. p. 6), following the same authority,
puts it at 165 a.d. -.$'

TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 31
— still circulating in Samaria when he was young — of the kind
of rural industry in which the early years of Jesus had been
engaged.1 Although, therefore, the testimony of Justin re
presents, after all, only a tradition, it was, it must be re
membered, a fresh and living tradition. In the Dialogue with
Trypho (c. 81) we find the following passage. Justin is argu
ing with the Jew in support of the evidence which his own
Scriptures furnished — especially the prophets, Ezekiel and
Isaiah — on behalf of the doctrine of the resurrection of the
body, and of the reign of a thousand years on earth with
Christ — and against those false Christians, as he regarded them,
who denied that doctrine, and contended for the immediate
transition of the soul at death into the heavenly world.2 He
then, as it were, clenches his argument by adducing the direct
evidence of a Christian himself in these words: "Among us,
too, a certain man named John, one of the apostles of Christ, in
a revelation made to him, prophesied that the believers in our
Christ should fulfil a thousand years in Jerusalem — and that
after that, there would be the general and final resurrection and
judgment of all men together." This language is so express,
that Rettig, under the influence of pre-conceived theory, was
disposed to reject the words, eh rwv anroaroXtov tov Xpicrrov, as
a later interpolation. Liicke, who agrees with Rettig respecting
the authorship of the Apocalypse, has shown that such criticism
is indefensible; and Eusebius, whose tendencies run all in the
same direction, admits that Justin distinctly affirms John the
apostle to have written the Apocalypse.3 This exphcit testimony
deserves the more notice, as it is the only passage in the works
of Justin, where any book of the New Testament is cited with
the name of its author.
1 to TeKToyi/co ipya — &porpa /col £u7a. Dial. c. Tryph. c. 88.
2 H/m tS> airo8vr)o-Keu> rets tyvx&s a.va\a/j.$dveo8ai els tov bvpav&v. It should be
noticed here, that Chr^asm in the age of Justin was orthodoxy ; and that the view of
the Future Life enterfened in later centuries by Channing and others, was then con
sidered not merely heresy, but an absolute denial of Christianity : yA] fmoKd^nre
avrobs XpitTTtavovs.
3 H. E. iv. 18. o-atpvs tov airo<rTiSA.ou out^c eivat Xeywv.

32 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Melito, bishop of Sardis (one of the seven churches spoken to
by the Spirit in the Apocalypse), the author of an Apology for
Christianity, addressed to Marcus Antoninus, of which a frag
ment has been preserved by Eusebius (H. E. iv. 26), wrote, we
are told, a work on the Apocalypse of John.1 This, of itself,
does not prove much for our immediate object. But there are
some collateral circumstances connected with the name of
Melito, which render the allusion to him not wholly unim
portant. He belonged to the same cycle of Asiatic churches
with Papias and Irenaeus, in which we know that chiliastic
views widely prevailed. He appears to have studied the Old
Testament for the same purpose as Justin in his Dialogue with
Trypho — viz., to discover proofs and illustrations of Christianity^
and, with this view, he made a selection from it in six books for
the use of a friend (iic\oya<; en re tov vofwv Kal t&v Trpotytfrw:
irepl tov ^coTr/po? Kal Traarji; t»j? wlo-Teas qficov. Euseb. ibid.) —
actually travelling into the East for fuller information, and to
familiarize himself with the scene of the old prophetic action and
preaching. Polycrates, who flourished a little later at Ephesus,
speaks of him as leading a singularly ascetic and holy life {tov
ivvov^pv, tov iv arylq> 7rviv/jtaTi irdvra iroXiTevcrdfievov. Euseb.
H. E. v. 24). Putting all these indications together, we may
perhaps, not unreasonably conclude, that Melito adhered to the
primitive type of the Christian faith, and was anti-Pauline in
i his tendencies ; that he was a Chiliast, like most of his con
temporaries in that part of Asia, and possibly, as we seem to
gather from the description of his asceticism, inclined to the
Ebionitism, of which James the Just, the first bishop of Jerusalem,
is the standing ecclesiastical type. He represents, therefore, the
class of minds among which the Apocalypse would be sure to
find a welcome reception ; which cherished its peculiar doctrine,
and accepted it with reverence as an authoritative expression of
apostolic truth. So far as it goes, his witness may be allowed
1 It is mentioned in a list of several other works ascribed to him (Euseb H E.
iv. 26). v

TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 33
to contribute its atom of probability to the directer evidence of
the apostohc authorship of the Apocalypse. At all events, it
throws no weight into the opposite scale.1
We learn from Eusebius (H. E. iv. 24) that Theophilus of
Antioch (author of the treatise " To Autolycus ") in a work
(now lost) in reply to the heresy of Hermogenes, had cited
witnesses from the Apocalypse of John.8 This Hermogenes
appears to have been an anti-Montanist ; if so, he was opposed
to the doctrines contained in the Apocalypse. Theophilus
must, therefore, have cited the book against him, as a New
Testament authority . already widely acknowledged; and this
justifies us in assuming that it was at that time received and
respected, not only by Theophilus himself, but in the church of
Antioch generally. Such is the inference of Liicke, no partial
witness (Einl. Offenb. Johan. § 37. 2.), who further thinks it
probable that Thepphilus, with Justin Martyr, regarded the
apostle John as its author.
In the last instance, we saw the Apocalypse alleged probably
against an anti-Montanist. In* the next, we find it used
by an anti-Montanist himself. Apollonius, who flourished
in the reign of Commodus and Septimius Severus, wrote a
very strong treatise against the Phrygian or Montanist heresy, ¦
in which we are told by Eusebius (H. E. v. 18) that " he made
use of witnesses from the Apocalypse of John." As in immediate
connexion with this statement, we are told that he gives an
account of John's having raised, by divine power, a person
from the dead in Ephesus, the probability is that Apollonius
must have meant by John, the apostle. Had he intended any
other John, Eusebius would certainly have noticed it.
The fifth book of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History (1-3)
contains the celebrated letter of the Christians of Vienne and
Lyons to their brethren in Asia and Phrygia (whence they had
1 The subsisting fragments of Melito have been collected by Routh, Reliquiae Sacra?
Tom. I. p. 113-153.
2 Theophilus flourished in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, 161 a.d.-180 a.d.

34 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
originally emigrated to the banks of the Rhone), giving an
account of the dreadful persecution which they had undergone
in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, about 177 a.d. Now, in this
letter not only are characteristic phrases literally quoted from
the Apocalypse — e.g., a.Ko\ovda>v t& apvup oirov av warfQ (xiv. 4)
— but Christ himself is called 7twto? Kal aXr)divr)<; (idpTw;, Trpwrb-
toko? t&v veKpiov (i. 5, iii. 14), and sentences are given, as if from
memory, where the sense is retained, though the expression is
slightly varied — e.g., 6 avofws avo/j^rjo'dTco eri, Kal o oiKaw} 8t-
KaLwdrjTco eTt (xxii. 11). What is still more remarkable, this last
passage is cited as a fulfilled Scripture (tie* r) jpaxprj Trkrjpady)-^-
showing, beyond a doubt, that the Apocalypse was received at
that time as authoritative Scripture, and put on the same level
with the Law and the Prophets — as well among the Gaulish
Christians as among their co-religionists in Asia, and attesting,
therefore, the widely diffused recognition of the book in the latter
half of the second century. This renders it in the highest degree
probable, that both the Gaulish and the Asiatic Christians re
garded it as a work of the apostle John ; and the probability
rises almost to a moral certainty, when we bear in mind that
this, as we shall presently see, was the decided conviction of
Irenseus himself, who, if not the author of the letter, stood in
the most intimate relation to the two communities between
which it passed.
The author of a MS., entitled "A Refutation of all Heresies,"
discovered in Greece some years ago, and now deposited in the
Imperial Library at Paris, which was first published under the
name of Origen, but which its last editors, Duncker and Schnei-
dewin, in accordance with the judgment of the late Baron
Bunsen, have unhesitatingly ascribed to Hippolytus — bears the
following distinct testimony to the authorship of the Apocalypse
by John, at the opening of the third century.1 Speaking of
1 "We gather its date from its allusion to Zephyrinus and Callistus (as the author's
contemporaries) who became bishops of Rome respectively in 201 a.d. and 218 a.d,
(Lib. ix. 7.)

TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 35
the Nicolaitans, who are referred to with abhorrence in the
Apocalypse (ii. 6), he adds : " the disciples of this school, doing
despite to the Holy Spirit, John, in the Apocalypse, has charged
with fornication and eating meats offered to idols" (vii. 36).
It is noticeable, that this is one of the few passages in this
treatise where the writer of any book of the New Testament is
mentioned by name. Mark's gospel is alluded to (vii. 30), and
Paul is cited several times (v. 7, 8 ; vii. 30, 31 ; viii. 20), and,
in some places, is called " the apostle," in others, " the blessed."
Whether Matthew be referred to is doubtful, as he is described
as the author of an apocryphal work used by the Basilidians ;
and the recent editors read not Matthew, but Matthias (vii. 20).
The gospels of Luke and John are not once quoted with the
names of their authors. That, in the foregoing passage, John
the apostle is intended as the author of the Apocalypse, can
hardly be questioned.1 In the year 1551, there was dug up at
Rome, a statue of Hippolytus sitting in a chair, on one side of
which is inscribed a hst of his works ; and from this, though
now imperfect, we learn that he wrote on the Gospel and
Apocalypse of John.2 In his treatise on " Christ and Anti-
Christ," he cites John, who was in Patmos, as the author of the
Apocalypse, and addresses him as an " apostle and disciple of
the Lord.3
1 The passage as now corrected runs thus : ov (Nicolai soil.) robs juo0i;tos 4vv-
fip((ovTas rb ayiov m/ev/ta Sick rrjs airoKa\vtpews *Iudmtis ijApyxe iropvetiovras xal
4iSa\66vTa 4<rBlovTas. Had the original readings of the Paris MS. been retained —
iw$pi(op rb— and 'ladvvov — the assertion of apostolic authorship would have been
still more explicit, as the spirit would then have been represented as rebuking the
Nicolaitans through the revelation of John. But both the first and the later editors
have concurred in the change of reading. 'Ewf}pi£ov is so harsh an expression, that
it could hardly have been used with reverence of the Holy Spirit, even if the occur
rence of the same word in Hebrews (x. 29) did not sufficiently show in what sense it
must be employed here, and fully justify the conversion of ov into oyros and vov into
rqs. A passage in Irenseus (Adv. Ha?r. I. xxvi. 3) with similar reference to the Nico
laitans, which Hippolytus must have had in his eye, when he wrote the words in
question, leaves no room for doubt, what John is intended. For Irenaeus certainly
believed that John the apostle was the author of the Apocalypse.
8 inreo rov koto 'lwdvvr)v 4vayye\lov Kal cnroKahtnfiews. Jerome (Catal. 61) says
only " de Apocalypsi."
3 Kirchhofer (Quellensammlung etc. p. 310) gives the original passage from the

36 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
In Irenaeus and Tertulhan, in whom first we discern the
traces of a recognized and authoritative scripture, the refer
ences to John as the author of the Apocalypse are so numerous
and so unquestionable, that it is unnecessary to consume
much time in adducing them. In Irenseus, John is usually
described as " the disciple of the Lord ; " but in the same way
he speaks of the author of the first epistle (III. xvi. 8), which
he unquestionably regarded as apostohc. If there could
be any doubt, it is removed by this statement, on citing the
Apocalypse (i. 17, 18), that the John alluded to, as over
powered by the vision, was he that leaned on the bosom of
the Word at supper (IV. xx. 11). There is weight, too, in
the remark of Liicke (p. 571 and note), that, by the mode
of citation frequently employed — " John beheld in the
Apocalypse " — the identity of the seer and the writer is clearly
indicated. Tertulhan abounds in citations from the Apocalypse, as well
as from the other books of the New Testament, now forming, as
he expressed it, a part of the great instrumentum literatum
(Apologet. c. xviii.), or body of written documents on which,
furnished alike by the Old and New Testament, he grounded
his proofs of the divine origin and authority of the Christian
religion. All these writings he considered to possess, imme
diately or mediately, an apostolic character. What was his
opinion of the authorship of the Apocalypse, the following
passages from his writings place beyond a doubt. In his
treatise, "de Pudicitia" (c. xix.), comparing the apparently
conflicting opinions of Paul (1 Cor. v. 9-13) and John (Apocal.
ii. 18-22) about the re-admission to church communion of a
fornicator, he calls both of them "apostles," and speaks of their
equally enjoying the Holy Spirit (aequalitatem spiritus sancti).
works of Hippolytus. Ebedjesu, a Syrian bishop at the end of the 14th century, in
his catalogue of the different books of Scripture, mentions that Hippolytus wrote it
defence of the Apocalypse as a book of the apostle and evangelist John. Dr. Lardneti!
Credibility of Gospel History (Works, iv. p. 442 and ii. p. 412).

TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 37
Still more exphcit is his language, (adversus Marcionem xii. 14)
— -" Apostolus Joannes in Apocalypsi ensem describit ex ore Dei
prodeuntem etc" (Apocal. i. 16). It is not, indeed, to be sup
posed that the opinions of Irenseus and Tertulhan on this point
were the result of any critical investigation. They merely
represent the strong, unquestioned tradition of their own time.
If Tertulhan's notorious leaning and final accession to the
Montanist heresy, which specially appealed to the Apocalypse in
support of its peculiar views, may be thought in some degree to
affect the independence of his judgment ; yet, on the other hand,
the very appeal of the Montanists may be taken as evidence of
the wide-diffusion of the tradition in that part of Asia where
they originated : while Irenseus's close connexion with Ephesus,
and his knowledge of the behef which existed there, must be
allowed to give peculiar value to his testimony as coming from
the fountain-head of the tradition.
The witnesses hitherto cited have been taken entirely from the
Asiatic and the Western Churches. It will be interesting to no
tice what opinion prevailed in the more learned school of Alex
andria. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. VI. xiii. § 106) quotes
the Apocalypse of John, referring distinctly to iv. 4 and xi. 16.
That he means John, the apostle, is evident from the treatise,
" Quis dives salvetur " (§ 42), where he speaks, of his exile in
Patmos (Apocal. i. 9). In his "Psedagogus" (II. xii. 19) he
quotes Apocalypse xxi. as an utterance of the apostolical voice
(t»j9 a.Troo-To\tKfi<i <f>mvr)<;).
His successor in the Catechetical School, the celebrated
Origen, is not less exphcit. Eusebius (H. E. vi. 25) quotes a
passage from the fifth book of his " Exposition of the Gospel of
John," in which he says, that the same John, he who leaned on
the bosom of Jesus, wrote also the Apocalypse ; and his testi
mony is the more remarkable, as he speaks doubtfully in the
same passage of the second and third epistles. In his Com
mentary on the book of Joshua, he asserts that John was the
author of the Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse ; where

38 ¦ CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
he must, of course, mean the apostle.1 Citing the Apocalypse
(xiv. 6, 7), he caUs it the work of John, the son of Zebedee,
(Comment, in Evangel. Joann. Tom. I. 14). In his Com
mentary on Matthew (Tom. xvi., quoted- by Kirchhofer, p. 309)
he .leaves no doubt as to the personality of the author of the
Apocalypse, who was exiled in Patmos, by describing him as
a son of Zebedee, and a brother of the James who was put to
death by Herod (Acts xii. 2). In his Commentary on John
(edit. Huet. p. 51 ; Kirchhofer, p. 310), he calls the author of
the Apocalypse an apostle and evangelist {iv rfj airoKaXv^ei o
aTroo-To'\o<s Kal ivayyekloTris). I beheve there is not a passage in
the writings of Origen, in which he expresses a doubt of the
apostolic origin of the Apocalypse. He is said to have medi
tated a commentary on the book.2 Yet he was decidedly opposed
to Chiliasm and Montanism, which found a strong support in the
Apocalypse. Without, therefore, supposing that either Clement
or Origen had critically investigated the authenticity of the
Apocalypse, their unhesitating acceptance of it may be taken
as an evidence of the steadiness and constancy of the original
tradition, the truth of which they had met with no objection of
sufficient weight to induce them to doubt.
Before I close this list of witnesses, I must notice two facts,
which seem for the first time to indicate the awakening of
doubt. In the first half of the last century, Muratori discovered
in the Ambrosian library at Milan — brought apparently at an
earlier period from the ancient convent of Bobbio founded by
Columban — a MS. which contained, in Latin, a mutilated list of
the books of the New Testament, and of some apocryphal works
often associated with them in the first age of the Church.. This
fragment is referred by the general consent of scholars to the
1 As this Commentary exists only in the Latin version of Rufinus, who often took
liberties, as he himself confesses, with the original Greek, it [is only right to obsene,
that with respect to this particular version, Rufinus says, " simplioiter expressinuiB,
ut invenimus." See Kirchhofer, Quellensammlung, etc. p. 26.
2 See Liicke (Einl. § 39, 4), who refers to his Commentary on Matthew. Oper.
Tom. iv. p. 307. edit. Lommatzsch, and Huet. Origen. III. ii. 4.

TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 39
latter part of the second century, or, at the latest, to the be
ginning of the third. It makes mention of our book in the
following terms : " There is an Apocalypse also of John ; and
one of Peter we simply receive, which some of our people do
not like to have read in church."1 The passage is somewhat
obscure, and it has been variously interpreted. I do not think
we can safely infer from it more this ; — that, at the time of the
construction of this canon, an Apocalypse was in existence
which bore the name of John ; and that there was then also
in circulation along with it, another ascribed to Peter, which
was not universally received in the Church.
A more remarkable circumstance is the omission of the
Apocalypse in the oldest Syriac version of the New Testament,
called the Peschito. When this version was made, it is im
possible to decide with any approach to precision. The great
antiquity claimed for it by J. D. Michaelis, who carried it up to
the first century, has been shown by his translator and com-
1 The Latin of the whole fragment is exceedingly corrupt. I have translated the
passage as it stands. With the preceding article (which I give for the sake of
a clearer view of the context) it runs thus : " Epistola sane Judae et superscript! (tse)
Joannis duas (duse) in catholica habentur. Ut (et) Sapientia ab amicis Salomonis in
honorem ipsius scripta. Apocalypsis etiam Johannis, et Petri, tantum recipimus, quam
quidam ex nostris legi in ecclesia nolunt." Credner (Zur Geschichte des Kanons,
p. 76) changes 'apocalypsis' into 'apocalypses,' and suppressing the points after
1 Johannis ' and ' Petri,' refers the words ' tantum recipimus ' to both the apocalypses,
putting them apparently on the same level : but then that leaves the difficulty of the
singular ' quam,' which we should expect in this case to be ' quas.' Hug. (Introduction
to New Testament, Sect. xix. Wait's Transl.) thinks the difficulty may be partly got
over by regarding the Latin as a barbarous version by some incompetent person of a
Greek original ; and to show the probability of this, he renders back some passages
into Greek. He puts a full stop at ' Johannis,' and connects the sentence with the
preceding article, which speaks of the epistle of Jude and two Catholic epistles of
John. By assuming 'tantum' to be a mistranslation for fwvnv, he thinks he recovers
an allusion to the first epistle of Peter ; and supposing ' quam' to represent the Greek
fir ' alteram,' he finds in the concluding words a denial of ecclesiastical authority to
the second. His explanation seems to me far-fetched and unsatisfactory. But he is
perhaps right in affirming that the words * Apocalypsis etiam Johannis ' belong in
their general connexion to the preceding paragraph of the fragment. Put a fuller stop
at ' Johannis ;' supply ' Apocalypsin '¦ after ' Petri ;' and the passage yields a tolerable
sense without any alteration. This fragment is usually described as " Fragmentum
de Canone acephalum," and was first published in the 3rd vol. of Muratori's Antiquit.
.Ital, Med. (Evi. Milan : 1740.

40 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
mentator, Bishop Marsh, to be contradicted by all existing
evidence.1 Nevertheless, it must be very old ; for it represents
a text which harmonizes with the most ancient Greek MSS.
and the oldest Latin versions, and which modern criticism has
rendered it probable was anterior to the fourth century. After
the middle of the second century, Bardesanes and his son,
Harmonius, made a commencement of Syriac hterature ; and
as this was altogether of ecclesiastical origin, and dated from
the introduction of Christianity, it can hardly be supposed that
the translation of the New Testament would be deferred long
after the time when Syriac began to be employed as a written
language. This brings us to the end of the second or the
opening of the third century, the period when we first discover
traces of a recognized scriptural canon throughout the Church.
To this date the majority of recent scholars assign the Peschito.
In this version, the second epistle of Peter, the second and third
of John, the epistle of Jude, and the Apocalypse, are wanting.
That Theophilus of Antioch (in Syria) should have known and
cited the Apocalypse before that time, notwithstanding its
absence from the Peschito, is not, perhaps, so extraordinary, as
he belonged to western Syria, where Greek civilization pre
dominated, and the Greek language was universally spoken.
But that Ephraem Syrus, towards the end of the fourth century
— the earliest writer by whom we find the Peschito used—
should constantly quote the Apocalypse with the name of its
author, is certainly not a little surprising, as he belonged to a
district beyond the Euphrates, where Syriac was the popular
dialect; and we know from the distinct witness of contem
poraries, that he did not understand Greek.8 Eichhorn and
1 Miohaelis, Introduction to New Testament. Part I. Ch. vii. and Marsh's note on
sect. 6, p. 664.
1 Hug., Introduction, Sect. lxv. vol. I. p. 349, note o. Ephraem was obliged to
employ an interpreter in his intercourse with Basil of Caesarea. The late Cardinal
Wiseman states, that the earliest indication of the existence of the Peschito occurs in
the writings of Ephraem, though he supposes the version to be much older than his
time. " Quamvis de Pesohito testem nullum habeamus Ephraemo anteriorem, tamen
antiquiorem longe ipso fuisse mihi certo constat." Horas Syriao». II. \ v. p. 139.

TESTIMONIES TO THE APOCALYPSE. 41
Hug explain the fact, by supposing that the Apocalypse did
originally form a part of the Peschito, but was gradually
excluded from the later copies in consequence of the growing
dislike to the book which pervaded the Eastern Church ; and
that our oldest MSS. do not go back to the time when this
aversion first began to operate.1 Liicke does not go so far as
this ; • but, assuming that the Apocalypse was originally wanting
in the Peschito, he accounts for its exclusion, not on historical
or dogmatic grounds, but from the circumstance that, in the
MSS. which came into the hands of the Syriac translator,
whether derived from Antioch or Alexandria, it was not yet
incorporated with the other books of the New Testament.*
With the exception of the two last instances, which we may
be allowed, perhaps, to leave in a neutral position, all the
witnesses that we have so far produced, down to the middle of
the third century, speak distinctly in favour of the apostolic
origin of the Apocalypse, without the occurrence of any positive
testimony on the other side. In summing up their united
weight, the verdict of Kirchhofer can scarcely be considered as
too strongly expressed : " Hardly one book of the New Testa
ment has such a hst of historical witnesses marked by name on
its behalf."3 Soon after the middle of the third century,
however, we discern the rise of an altered feeling in regard to
the Apocalypse, which left a considerable impression on the
future judgment of the Church. Of the nature and origin
of that feeling, I must now give some account.
1 Hug. Sect. Ixv.-lxviii. Eichhorn, Einleit. N. T. § 56, § 195.
" Liicke, Einl. § 39. 7.
3 " Kaum ein Buch des N. T. hat eine solche namhafte Reihe von historischen Tes-
timonien fiir sich." (Quellensammlung etc. p. 296.)

42 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

SECTION VI.
On the reaction of feeling against the Apocalypse.
Towards the end of the second, and still more in the course of
the third and fourth centuries, we discover unmistakeable traces
of the change of character that inevitably overtakes every form
of religious behef, which, originating in intense enthusiasm and
demanding at first an almost entire renunciation of the world,
has, nevertheless, acquired a permanent footing in society, and
is compelled to adjust itself to the state of things that actually
exists. No man who reads with unbiassed mind the different
books of the New Testament, not excepting the Fourth Gospel
itself,1 can possibly deny that the great idea which, amidst
many differences, is profoundly imprinted on them all, is the
expectation of an approaching judgment-day and the end of the
world. The gospel in its first, fresh outburst was a solemn
utterance of this expectation, and a protest against the selfish
ness and carnality of an extremely corrupt civilization, gathering
strength and taking shape from the Messianic hope which had
been developed by Hebrew prophecy, and which the diffusion
of Jewish synogogues and Alexandrine hterature through the
Grseco-Roman world, had rendered not . unfamiliar to many
inquisitive minds among the heathen. Its effect was vehement
reaction against the strongest tendencies of the age — its lavish
expenditure on self-indulgence, and its heartless voluptuousness
— its worship of power and worldly success, and its contempt
for the masses — its passion for war, and the mimic slaughters of
the amphitheatre. In the awful shadow of impending doom all
these sensuous splendours grew pale and dim. The future over-
1 See xiv. S.

REACTION AGAINST THE APOCALYPSE. 43
powered the present. The believer walked by "faith, not by
sight," and lost every other hope and fear in the one absorbing
solicitude to " make his calling and election sure " at the great
crisis which would separate for ever the evil and the good. As
described in the opening chapters of the book of Acts, the
earliest Christian Church was based on a principle of religious
communism; for a true disciple was expected to "sell all that he
had and give it to the poor ;" and the Master himself had said, it
was " easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Primitive
Christianity was, therefore, an absolute abandonment of the
world — a forswearing of its pleasures, its hterature, its favourite
occupations, made additionally offensive to a devout and holy
mind by their inextricable involution with the impure associa
tions of heathenism. But such seclusion from living interests de
manded an unnatural strain on the mind, which must ultimately
give way, especially when the expectation which had sustained
it was found not to be literally fulfilled. The great day came
not. It was continually put off further and further into an
uncertain future. Already, in the time of the author of the
second epistle of Peter,1 we read of "scoffers" who asked,
" Where is the promise of his coming ? for, since the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning
of the creation."
The little treatise on the " salvability of rich men," which
is found among the works of Clement of Alexandria, and
which, if not his, belonged to the same period, the begin
ning of the third century, and is worthy of his pen, for its
refined style and philosophic elevation of sentiment — throws an
interesting hght on the transition of opinion which was then
taking place in the minds of thoughtful Christians with respect
to the possession of worldly goods. It takes as a sort of text the
strong saying about the " camel " and " the eye of a needle,8
and argues that this and similar passages must be understood
1 iii. 3, 4. * Matth. xix. 24 ; Mark x. 25 ; Luke xviii. 25.

44 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
mystically or spiritually, and not in a coarse and carnal sense ;
that men may be rich in desire, though poor in actual posses
sion ; and poor in spirit, though abounding in worldly wealth ;
and that riches — things indifferent in themselves — merely di
versified the course of earthly discipline, and might be sanctified
by wise and beneficent use.1 This doctrine 'was not in accord
ance with the letter of the original teaching, though it was
a legitimate inference from its underlying spirit. By the first
Christians any denial of their faith before rulers and magistrates,
was regarded as the height of disloyalty to Christ and God ;
and all who had borne witness to the truth with their blood
were beheved to have acquired a title to immediate admission
into the beatific presence. But, with the spread of philosophical
principles in the Church, and the reaction of the world on the
primitive fervour, men hesitated to sacrifice life and social
position for a profession ; and, in times of persecution, often
stooped to unworthy expedients to secure immunity. One of
the controversies which most sharply divided the Church,
especially in the West, during the third century, related to
the treatment of those who had thus " lapsed." The stricter
party were for excluding them for ever from church commu
nion. The laxer would have reduced them again to the con
dition of the unconverted, and re-admitted them after a due
course of intervening penance.2 Even war became less odious
1 "Here robs irAovcrtovs juuotikws ttKOVoreov, robs 5uo-ko\ws elffeXevcofitvovs els
t V Pao-iKelav, fiy arKaias, ,u7i8e aypotaws, pijSc (rapKlxvs. Ov yap Svtois Xe'AeKTai,
ou8e 4irl to7s 4Krbs r) crwTTjpia, Sore <fi iroAAa, 6vre 4i o\lya towto  oAX' M
Tp ttjs ifivxys apeTJj, ttlarei, nal l\irl5i, Kal ayd-in) etc. etc. wv SdAoy r) o-arripla.
c. 18. Again, wealth is an instrument of good to those who know how to use it:
8Atj tis Kal ipyava irpbs XPV0'"' ayairiv tois ciSoVi rb Spyarov. c. 14. Why should
God have permitted wealth to spring out of the earth, if it only procured death : t1
tie iKus vKovrov ixPV" ^* 7V* avaretAat wore, 4i xoprtybs ko! rtp6£ev6s 4<m Sani-
tou. c. 26. This treatise, though pleading for the right use and enjoyment of the
present world, is pervaded by a deeply spiritual tone, breathing the spirit of love
which fills the Fourth Gospel. We enter into the nature of God, the more we love
him $<rov aya-rrq tis 0e6v, roo-6vrcp Kal irXeov ivtiorlpui tou fleou irapatiierai. C 27.
2 This was the subject of the Novatian controversy, which raged under different
relations at Carthage and Rome.

REACTION AGAINST THE APOCALYPSE. 45
in the eyes of Christians, and councils shut out from commu
nion those who refused to fulfil its obligations.1 Among the
more educated Christians the study of heathen hterature and
philosophy was resumed with ardour ; and many of the apolo
gists, with the great Greek fathers of the fourth century, were
accomplished classical scholars.8
It was precisely at the juncture when this change of sentiment
was beginning to be felt throughout the Church, and the wide
diffusion of philosophical culture was irresistibly modifying the
broad popular conceptions and bold imagery of the primitive
Jewish Christianity, that we hear uttered for the first time
strong doubts of the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse.
Coming out of the very heart of the first circle of behevers,
and representing in the most fervid language the enthusiastic
faith which possessed them, the Apocalypse of all the books of
the New Testament was the best fitted by its pervading idea of
Chihasm, to keep alive in the mind of the multitude, all those
behefs and expectations which were most at variance with the
form and order of the existing civilization, and which it was
the desire of the philosophical professors of Christianity to
soften down and explain away into a merely figurative ex
pression of general and abstract truth. This relaxation of
primeval strictness and fervour was followed by a two -fold effect.
The cultivated and intellectual justified it, and tried to show
that it was a necessity; while those of a more enthusiastic
temperament regarded it as a sure indication of the decline of
the good old faith, which they made feverish efforts to restore
1 This occurred in Gaul. " TJn concile retrancha de la communion des fideles ceux
qui se croyaient le droit de jeter leurs armes." Gaston Boissier : " Le Christianisme
dans la Gaule." Revue des Deux Mondes, Juin, 1866.
2 It became not unusual to adopt the form and the diction of Greek poetry for the
purpose of popular instruction. The histories of the Old Testament were versified in
the language of Homer : and there is still extant a drama on Christ's passion, made
up almost entirely of lines from Euripides, which has been used by modern scholars as
a source of textual criticism. The plays from which it was a cento,, are said to be
the Hippolytus, Medea, Bacchse, Rhesus, Troades, and Orestes. See Valckenaer,
prefat, in Eurip. Hippolytum, p. xi.

46 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
and uphold. The Montanist movement in Phrygia, which,
though it may have been fomented by the traditional influences
of the locality, assumed importance about this period, was in
its essence a reactionary and spasmodic endeavour to bring back
the strong, undoubting faith of the first age ; and it carried away
in its contagion all the excitable spirits of the time, among
them the fiery genius of Tertulhan : just as in the last century
the preaching of the Wesleys was a counteraction to the
rationalistic coldness that was creeping over the Church and
the old Dissenters, or as, at a still later period, what took the
name of Primitive Methodism, was an attempt to restore in its
original power the spirit of early Wesleyanism. The Revivals of
more recent times are another example of the same enthusiastic
spirit.1 Now the Apocalypse was the favourite book of the
Montanists. It encouraged their hopes and nourished their
zeal ; for they had re-animated a faith in the approaching end
of the world, and beheved that the New Jerusalem would
descend from heaven on Pepuza, the centre of their rehgious
community in Phrygia. " After me," said Maximilla, one of
their prophetesses, " comes the end of all things.2
It is not surprising that the first and most decided resistance to
these revivals should proceed from the learned school of Alex
andria. The controversy was begun by Dionysius, bishop of that
city, from 247 to 265 a.d. Eusebius has given a full account of
it in his Ecclesiastical History (vii. 24, 25), from which I have
here abbreviated the most important particulars. Dionysius was
of heathen extraction, but had been a pupil of Origen, and was
1 The " Shepherd of Hermas," which probably belongs to the end of the second cen
tury, is the expression of a parallel endeavour after rivival in a mitigated form within
the limits of the Catholic Church. See a scries of articles by Lipsius, " Der Hirte des
Hermas und der Montanismus in Rom," in Hilgenfeld's " Zeitechrift fur wissenschaft-
liche Theologie," 1866 and 1866. Hermas is quite apocalyptic in its tone, and con
stantly reminds the reader of the allegory of Bunyan, which had its origin in a similar
desire to uphold the primitive fervour of Puritanism, at a time when Latitudinarianism
was spreading in the upper regions of the Church.
2 Met' 4p.e o-wr4\eia. Epiplmn. Pannr. xlviii. We are reminded of Metternich's
celebrated phrase : " apres nioi le deluge."

REACTION AGAINST THE APOCALYPSE. 47
for some time president of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.
The office had been filled by some of the most eminent Alexan
drine divines, including his celebrated master. From this position
he was at length raised to the patriarchate. Origen, as we have
seen, acknowledged the Apocalypse as a work of the apostle John,
getting over the difficulties which the literal acceptance of its
doctrines might have occasioned him, by his favourite system of
allegorical interpretation. But the mass of simple believers
could not be satisfied with these philosophical refinements, and
protested against them. It was in encountering their scruples
that Dionysius was led to apply his superior critical faculty to
a discovery of the signs of distinct authorship in two works
bearing the same name. He is the earliest critical theologian
in the history of the Church.
There had been a former Egyptian bishop, of the name of
Nepos, who taught that the promises of Scripture would be ful
filled in the Jewish sense {Iov8aitcd>Tepov) , and that for believers
there would be a thousand years of bodily enjoyment on earth
{•XtXiaSa Tpvcbfy aafian/cf]?). So at least the doctrine of Nepos
was represented by those who were unfriendly to it. At all
events he was a Chiliast. He justified his own views from the
Apocalypse of John, and set them forth in a treatise which he
entitled, "A Refutation of Allegorizers."1 As this book was
considered by many at that time as an unanswerable plea for
Chiliasm, Dionysius felt himself called upon to reply to it,
which he did in two treatises on " The Fulfilment of the Pro
mises,"8 in the first of which he stated his own opinion, and in
the second subjected the Apocalypse to a critical examination.3
1 "E\eyxos aKKxiyopiaT&v. 2 Tlepl 4irayye\mv.
3 As these treatises were understood to be a general reply to the Chiliasts, of whom
Irenseus (with in fact all the early fathers and apologists) was one, Jerome (Comm.
Esaiam, lib. xviii. praefet.) according to Valesius (Euseb. H. E. vii. 24, 25, n. 1) repre
sented Dionysius as writing against Irenseus. What was Jerome's opinion of the differ
ence between the more recent and the older interpreters of the Apocalypse, appears very
clearly from the following passage : " Apocalypsin Johannis si juxta litteras accipimus,
judaizandum est ; si spiritualiter, ut scripta est, multorum veterum videbimur opinio-
nibus contraire." Cat. 111. Vir. Cited by Heinichen. Euseb. H. E. vii. ibid.

48 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Dionysius held the memory of Nepos himself in great respect,
for his faith and energy and famiharity with Scripture, and his
large contribution to the psalmody of the church "by which,"
he says, " many were still refreshed ; " and he was entitled to
the more reverence, as he was now dead and gone. But truth,
he contended, should prevail over all other considerations, and
we must oppose those whom we most honour, when we think
they are wrong. Had Nepos been still alive, a personal colloquy
might have sufficed. But as the treatise which he had published
was very popular, and believed to unfold some great and hidden
mystery {/ieya ti Kal KeKpvfifievov fivaTi^ptov), and as it tended to
lower the tone of religious sentiment among the multitude, by
holding up to them the future kingdom of God in a mean and
earthly light, like the present state of things (5ta tu vvv) — it
ought not, Dionysius thought, to be left unanswered. These
small indications of personal feeling are not uninstructive, as
showing that the Chiliasts, though gradually sliding down into
the position of heretics, were still very highly respected, probably
with a dim, half-conscious behef that in their fervour and sim
plicity they represented the most ancient type of the Christian
life. They seem also to bring clearly into view the considerations
which led the more cultivated class of behevers to dislike and
resist Chiliastic opinions.
The controversy, as narrated by Dionysius himself, com
menced and terminated in the following way. — Happening to
be in the Arsinoite Nome, where the doctrine of Nepos had long
been ascendant, and had drawn entire churches into schism and
apostasy,1 Dionysius assembled the presbyters and teachers from
the neighbouring villages, and with their full concurrence
entered into a public discussion of the question. The book of
Nepos was produced, as an impregnable defence of Chiliasm.8
For three days Dionysius sate with them from morning to
1 'fls ko! 0-xlo-paTa «al diroorao-i'as ZKwv 4kk\i\o-iZ>v yeyovevat. The question is, "
after all, whether the innovation was on the side of Nepos or of Dionysius.
2 fls ti oVAor Kal TeTxos OKaTal«d'x»;TOi'.

REACTION AGAINST THE. APOCALYPSE. 49
night, discussing the book, section by section, and correcting its
errors.1 Dionysius says he was delighted with the patience and
sobriety, the candour and openness to conviction, of the Arsinoite
brethren. At last Korakion, who had been the chief representative
and supporter of Chiliasm in the district, confessed that he had
been confuted, and declared that he would abandon the doc
trine, and never teach it or allude to it again. The brethren
present rejoiced at the issue of the conference and the mutual
adjustment of opinion which it involved.8
Dionysius's criticism of the Apocalypse is of higher interest
and importance.3 Before his own time, some, he informs us,
had rejected this book and denied it a place in the canon.4
They declared, that it furnished proof in every chapter of an
uncultivated and illogical mind {op/voso-tov Te Kal davWoyio-Tov) •
that it assumed a false title, and was not a work of John ; that
it was not even a revelation, being covered with a thick veil of
ignorance ; that it was not only not the work of an apostle, but
not even of a saint or any member of the church ; that it was
the production of Cerinthus, who wished to give a name of
authority to this fiction of his, — inasmuch as Cerinthus was a
Chiliast, inculcating a very gross and carnal view of the happiness
of Christ's earthly reign. Dionysius himself did not venture
wholly to repudiate this book, as it was held in esteem by many
brethren ; but, assuming that it had a meaning beyond his com
prehension, he left every man to take his own view of its hidden
and marvellous sense. He would not measure it by his own
1 AievBbreiv 4ireipd8riv to yeypafi/ieva.
2 'Eirl ttT KoivoKoyid Kal ry irpbs isdvras avyKarafidaei Kal avvtiiaBeoei. This is
not the only instance in the history of Christianity, of the effect of one powerful mind,
at once decided and conciliatory, in determining the religious profession of an entire
community. 3 The substance of it will be found in Eusebius (H. E. vii. 25).
4 'HSettjo-ov ko! aveo-Keiao-av. This last word Rufinus interprets : (Heinichen in
loc.) " a canone Scripturarum abjiciendum putarunt," i.e. " broke up and removed
from its place in the o-keuos = instrumentum," — as used by Tertullian in the sense of an
authentic document, — hence equivalent to literm sacra. Semler, Index Latin. Tertull.
sub voce. The same verb occurs Acts xv. 24 : dvaaKevd^ovTes tos -i/vxas ipuv, " un
settling your minds."

50 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
reason, but handed it over to faith. He did not deny things
which he had not seen ; but as not having seen them, was only
filled with more wonder.1 — Dionysius admits, that this so-called
prophecy was the work of a John, and of some holy and inspired
man (Oeoirv&vaTov), but not of John, the apostle, son of Zebedee
and brother of James, — author of the 'gospel inscribed with the
name of John, and of the catholic epistle. That these two last
works cannot have come from the same hand as the Apocalypse,
he argues from the marked difference which characterises each
in regard to the pervading tone of feehng {tfOovs) and style (tow
\6ya>v etSov?) and the whole form of the composition (tt)? tou
/3t/3\iou Siegayayfj'i 'Keyofiewq';). The author of the gospel never
mentions his own name nor distinguishes himself from another ;
whereas, the reverse is the case with the author of the Apoca
lypse. The gospel and the epistle begin with the announcement
of the incarnation ; and our Lord (Matth. xvi. 17) calls Simon
Peter blessed for having this higher spiritual revelation im
parted to him. In the second and third epistles John is not
named, but only the Presbyter. Who the John of the Apoca
lypse was, does not appear; but he nowhere, as many times
{iroWa^ov) happens in the gospel, speaks of himself as the
beloved disciple, nor as the brother of James, nor as an eye and
ear- witness of the Lord ; and it might have been thought, that
under one or other of these titles he would have made himself
known.8 Many persons have born the name of John, assuming
it from their love and admiration for the apostle, and their wish
to be equally beloved by the Lord with him ; and for the same
reason many believers have called their children after Peter
or Paul. John Mark, who is mentioned in the Acts of the

1 O&K dTroSoKi/id(a ravra & pi) avveiipaKa, 8av)id(a> tie /uaAAov oti /kJ) koI elSov.
It would appear from this that Dionysius regarded the whole as a vision, which he
wished to leave where he found it, without coming to any decided opinion respecting it.
2 Dionysius has made a slip here. The two last designations nowhere occur, either
in the gospel or in the epistle. He has mixed up expressions in the opening verses
of Luke and Jude, with a vague remembrance of the language in the first verse of the
epistle.

REACTION AGAINST THE APOCALYPSE. 51
Apostles, could not have written the Apocalypse, as he did not
accompany Paul into Asia, but returned to Jerusalem.1 It must
have been some other John hving in Asia. Now there appear
to have been two Johns in Ephesus, as there is a tomb still
existing in that city for each. The whole structure of thought and
language in the Apocalypse is different from that in the gospel
and epistle, which both begin in the same way and lay an
equal stress on the manifestation of Christ in the flesh. This
is the continuous theme of both gospel and epistle. Dionysius
notices words and forms of expression which are peculiar to
the gospel and epistle : such are far], <pa>t;, dkr}deta,ri)(apt,<s, Kplcni,
and others.8 In fine,, the colour of the gospel and epistle is one
and the same. The style of the Apocalypse is different in every
respect, having no affinity with them whatever, not even a syl
lable in common.3 Passing over the gospel, Dionysius remarks
that the epistle never notices the Apocalypse, nor. the Apo
calypse the epistle. The language of the gospel and the epistle
never offends against the laws of the Greek tongue,, but is most
exact in its choice of words and in the dependence and con
nexion of its construction, without a single barbarism or
solEecism, or, generally, one vulgar or provincial expression —
the Lord bestowing on it the double grace both of knowledge
and of utterance.* — "I do not deny," adds Dionysius in con
clusion, " that the author of the Apocalypse saw a revelation
and had knowledge and prophesy conveyed to him. I cannot,
however, overlook the fact, that his dialect and mode of ex
pression are not pure Greek, but disfigured by barbarous idioms,
1 It should be noticed that Acts is here quoted by its proper title, and that the
words are exactly reported from xiii. 18.
2 In this enumeration Dionysius has introduced some words, as vioBeo-ia, which do
not belong to John, but occur in other books of the New Testament, though they are
not found in the Apocalypse.
3 MrjS^ avWafSriv irpbs dvra koiv^v ixov<Ta-
1 This is equivalent to saying, that the language of the gospel and epistle is pure,
correct and perspicuous Greek. In the words knirepov rbv \6yov  rbv re tjjs
y'v&aeus, rbv re rr)s tppdaeus, Valesius discovers a reference to the Philonian doctrine
of the \6yos 4vtiidBeros\Kal irpo<poput6s.

52 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
sometimes falling even into solsecism. Of this it is unnecessary to
produce examples ; for it must not be supposed I have said
this, to ridicule his style, but merely to point out how unlike it
is to that of the gospel and epistle."
With some allowance for the rather exaggerated eulogy of
the pure Greek of the Fourth Gospel and the first epistle, the
foregoing criticism leaves on the mind a very favourable im
pression of the philosophical culture and refinement of the
Alexandrine School in the third century of our era. It is acute
and conclusive, and by all who can appreciate the force of the
considerations on which it rests, must be admitted to establish
unanswerably that the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse
cannot have proceeded from the same hand. But it will be
noticed, that throughout the writer disproves the apostohc
authorship of the Apocalypse by tacitly assuming that of the
gospel. What authority he had for such an assumption, he
nowhere states. The style and sentiments of the gospel cor
responded more to his ideal of an apostle ; and if, in this silence
on his own part, we may form any conjecture as to the probable
grounds of his conclusion, they would appear on this point to
have been rather subjective than critical. We have seen, that
his predecessors in the Catechetical School, Origen and Clement,
acknowledged the Apocalypse, without hesitation, as a work of
the apostle John. What can have occurred in that short inter
val to produce so entire a change of opinion, we are unable to
surmise, except it be the fact, that Chiliastic doctrines were
found increasingly offensive to the philosophical tendencies of
the age, and that the allegorizing interpretation of Origen
proved inadequate to neutralize their disturbing force. Within '
less than a century, from the time of Dionysius, we observe
Eusebius of Csesarea, the historian, betraying the same aliena
tion, and sharing the same doubts.1 But it is remarkable, that
neither Dionysius nor Eusebius ventured beyond the expression
of hesitation and doubt, resulting from a want of mental sym-
1 Hist. Eccles. iii. 24, 26, 39.

REACTION AGAINST THE APOCALYPSE. 53
pathy. They were still sufficiently restrained by the old tra
ditional belief of the Church, to keep them from going the
length of the Alogi (whose opinion was wholly subjective, and
grew out of antipathy to the Montanists l), and repudiating the
book unconditionally as heretical. Free search on such matters
ceased altogether with the reign of Theodosius at the end of the
fourth century. The limits of the Canon had by that time
been authoritatively fixed ; and the gospel and the Apocalypse,
irrespective of any critical scruples, were both embraced as
works of the apostle within them. Neither Greek nor Latin
Church raised any more difficulty; and so the question
slumbered till the Reformation, when Erasmus awakened it
anew. Having disposed of the testimony for and against the
Apocalypse, I must now proceed to that which bears on the
gospel. 1 They used to ask, according to Epiphanius, " What is the use of this book, with
its talk about seven angels and seven trumpets?" Epiphanius, who represents the
feeling of the Catholic Church in the latter part of the fourth century, replied, " That
these things were to be understood spiritually, as revealing the hidden meaning of the
Old Law." Panarion, li. §, 32.)

54 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL

SECTION VII.
Testimony to the Apostolic origin of the Fourth Gospel.
We are told by Eusebius that Papias, whose martyrdom
occurred 164 a.d.,1 " made use of witnesses from the first epistle
of John."8 Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom not earlier than
160 a.d., probably as late as 166 or 167, certainly some time
after the middle of the second century,3 and who in his youth,
according to tradition, had conversed with the apostles,4 has a
passage in his epistle to the Philippians (vii.) which bears a
close resemblance, both in sentiment and in language, to 1 John
iv. 3. It applies the epithet, avnxpkro*;, which is found only
in the epistles of John, to every one who denies that Christ is
come in the flesh. Whoever compares the two passages can
have little doubt left on his mind, that the author of this epistle
to the Philippians was acquainted with the first epistle of John.
These are the earliest witnesses that we are able to cite; and
as there is the highest probability that the Fourth Gospel and
the first epistle were written by the same hand, they prove, so
far as we can rely on them, that the author of the gospel must
have been in existence when Papias and Polycarp cited the
epistle. But the language of Eusebius furnishes no certain proof,
that Papias knew the apostle John to be the author of the epistle.
1 See Section V. n. 1, p. 28.
2 Kexprirai fiaprvplais dirb Tijs 'ltoivvov wporepas ftrioToAfls (H. E. Hi. 39). In
the same passage he is said to have made similar use of the first of Peter.
3 The various dates of this event, with the authorities for them, are given by Hefele
(Patres Apostolioi, Prolegomena, V. p. 66).
? Eusebius H. E. v. 20. Irenreus Adv. Hear. III. iii. 4. There is such a tendency
in ecclesiastical tradition, as it proceeds downwards, to amplify itself, that we cannot
perhaps safely infer more from these passages, than that the youth of Polycarp,
acoording to tho general belief, joined on to the apostolic age.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 55
With regard to Polycarp, many learned men have expressed their
doubts of the genuineness, at least throughout, of the epistle to
the Philippians.1 But without pressing these doubts, and
taking the two witnesses as they come to us, what they establish
is this : that sometime in the first half of the second century,
and before the death of the emperor Antoninus Pius, the first

* It is unfortunate for the early history of Christianity, that so many of the
writings ascribed to the post-apostolic age, lie under the suspicion of spuriousness, or
at all events of large interpolation. This suspicion became almost a morbid feeling
in the minds of the early Protestant scholars. Hence the doubts of Daille, of the
Centuriators of Magdeburg and of Semler respecting the epistle of Polycarp, may be
considered to have originated too much in mere subjective distrust. But these doubts
are shared by critics of more conservative tendency, by Mosheim (De Rebus Christ
§ liii. p. 161) and by Liicke (Comment. Br. Johan. c. i. p. 3), who says of the authen
ticity and integrity of this epistle, that " the former is not provable, and the latter not
yet proved." Many years ago, in carefully reading through the remains of the so-
called Apostolic Fathers — before I was under the bias of any pre-conceived opinion
respecting the authorship of the writings which bear the name of the apostle John— ,
I thus recorded the impression which the alleged epistle of Polycarp left on my mind.
" Polycarp, it is said, had conversed Tnuch in his youth with John and other com
panions of Jesus, and heard from them accounts of our Lord's miracles and discourses
(irepl ruv Svvdfieuv dvrov Kal irepl t5)s Bi8a<ncaAfas (Iren. ad Florin, ap. Euseb. H.E.
v. 20). It is remarkable, then, that we meet with so few indications of this traditionary
information in his epistle. Not one living trait of Jesus Christ is recorded. His name
occurs more as that of a religioua abstraction than of a historical personality. Paul is
introduced once or twice in a far more living way to the reader. The epistle itself is
written without any apparent object. It is a loose string of moral precepts, a cento
from the New Testament, chiefly the epistles, and especially of Peter and Paul— texts
from various parts fused into one phrase, without the mention of any writer by name,
except, twice only, Paul. On the whole, this epistle wants that impress of life and
reality which is so conspicuous in the Pauline letters." On the other hand, the encyclic
epistle of the Church of Smyrna, giving an account of the martyrdom of Polycarp,
which has been inserted by Ruinart in his " Acta Martyrum Sincera," produced a
very different feeling. I thus wrote of it at the time referred to. " With the exception
of the conclusion, and a few insertions in the earlier chapters, this record — from its
particularity, and its avoidance of the vague generalities that occur in the martyrdom
of Ignatius — its specification of names and times and places, and even its special
address to a city, of which we hear so little as Philomelium (a town in Phrygia, half
way between Antioch in Pisidia and Laodicea) — possesses all the internal signs of
genuineness and veracity. It is a vivid, interesting, and impressive narrative, and
well deserves the encomium of Joseph Scaliger : " Nihil unquam in historic ecclesias
tics vidi, a cujus lectione commotior recedam, ut non amplius meus esse videar ? "
(quoted by Hefele, Prologom. vi.) — An important chronological datum is furnished
by this piece. Polycarp says (ix.) that he was eighty-six years old when he suffered
martyrdom ; so that he must have been a youth of at least twenty at the time usually
assigned for the death of the apostle John.

56 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
epistle of John was read and qupted as a book of authority in
the Christian Church ; but how soon in that century, we have
now no means of determining.
Such extreme uncertainty attaches to the origin and author
ship of the so-called epistles of Ignatius, that no reliable use
can be made of them in the present inquiry. They exist, it
is well known, in three distinct forms, the mutual relations of
which are still very obscure. Were they genuine, they would
carry us back to the reign of Trajan, 98-117 a.d. But any one
at all acquainted with the Ignatian controversy, would be
inclined to infer from allusions in these epistles to the Fourth
Gospel, rather the lateness of the epistles than the early origin
of the gospel. In the three epistles to Polycarp, the Ephesians
and the Romans, which have recently been recovered in a very
brief form from the Syriac, and which are considered by Dr.
Cureton, the translator,1 and the late Baron Bunsen, to exhibit
the genuine nucleus of the posterior, amplified edition — there
is no clear and certain reference to the Fourth Gospel.8 The
style far more resembles that of Paul than of John. The
epistles of the former seem evidently to have been the model;
in the same way as the author of the martyrdom of Ignatius
has clearly had in his eye the account of Paul's last journey to
Jerusalem contained in Acts xx. xxi. Peter and Paul are
mentioned by name (Romans, c. 48), but John not once, not
even in the epistle to the Ephesians. The style and sentiment
of these three epistles found in the Syriac MS., which Cureton
and Bunsen regarded as so great a discovery, seem to me very
weak and puerile.
When the work "Against Heresies," now ascribed to Hip-
1 Corpus Tgnatianum, pp. 227-231.
2 Allusions have been traced in the following passages ; but they seem to me to
carry no weight with them : Romans, c. 45, comp. 1 John iii. 18, ibid. c. 47, comp.
John xv. 18, 19, ibid. o. 63, comp. John vi. 63-66. This last instance exhibits the
greatest similitude in its reference to eating the flesh of Jesus as divine bread and
drinking his blood as divine drink. But this would appear to have become a cus
tomary mode of speaking of the eucharist early in the second century. These three
passages occur with some amplification in the two larger forms in Greek.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 57
polytus, first appeared, the then Chevaher Bunsen thought it
furnished conclusive evidence of the authenticity of John's
gospel, as showing that Basilides, who flourished at Alexandria
in the reign of Hadrian, 117-138 a.d., wrote a commentary on
it. In answer to those who argued, that the references in Hip
polytus did not apply to Basihdes himself, but to his followers,
and did not, therefore, establish so early a date, he insisted that
the . constant use in the citations of the singular verb " says "
{(f>r)o-i), was a clear indication that Basihdes and nobody else
could have been meant.1 Should we admit this reasoning, it
would prove, no doubt, that the Fourth Gospel existed between
117 and 138 a.d. ; but we should still be left without any
witness from Hippolytus as to its author. For it is a curious fact
that, throughout his work, notwithstanding numerous and un
questionable references to the Fourth Gospel, the name of John
is never mentioned but once, and then as the author of the
Apocalypse (vii. 36). But if we turn to the passages, where
the use of the singular verb seems to Bunsen to imply an allu
sion to Basihdes alone, they do not, as I read them, bear out the
conclusion which he draws. In vii. 20, Hippolytus mentions
Basihdes and Isidore, his son, and 7ra? 6 tovtcov %0/jo?, and
then cites them collectively through the whole of the following
paragraph by the word tyqo-L Nor is this the only instance.
In vi. 29, speaking of Yalentinus, Heracleon, Ptolemy, Kal iraaa
r) tovtwv ff%o\}?, he quotes the opinion of the school, as before,
by the singular verb <pij<rl. It is surprising that so great a
scholar as Baron Bunsen should have laid all this stress on so
small a matter. " It says " {<pyo-l) is the familiar mode of
citing the doctrines of a particular school, whether represented
by many writers or by one. Scripture, notwithstanding its
multifarious contents and numerous authors, is constantly
quoted by writers of the second century in this form.
The testimony of Justin Martyr is very important. In the
pieces that are undoubtedly his— the two Apologies and the
1 Christianity and Mankind. I. p. 114.

58 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Dialogue with Trypho, which must be dated from the year 138
a.d. and subsequently1 — forms of thought and expression fre
quently occur which bear a considerable affinity to those we
meet with in the Fourth Gospel. I must be allowed, therefore,
to make a tolerably full citation of them. In the Dialogue
(c. 17) Christ is called " the blameless and just Light sent by
God to men." In the gospel, " light " is an epithet constantly
applied to Christ.8 'A\rj0iv6<; is a favourite adjective with
John. It occurs twelve times in the gospel and first epistle.
In the Dialogue (123) we have the expression, " true children
of God."3 But in John Tetcva is never conjoined with dXrjdivd.
Consequently a reference to such passages as John i. 12 and
1 John iii. 1, 2, is not to the point. The Dialogue (c. 63)
speaks of the " blood of Christ, sprung not from human seed,
but from the will of God." This resembles John i. 13 ; but it
is not a citation.4 The following remarkable passage from the
Dialogue (c. 105) it will be necessary to give at length in the
Greek : fj,ovoyevrj<; yap oti rjv to> iraTpl t&v o\g>v ovto<;, tS«»?
e£ avTov \6yo$ Kal Bvvafic; yeyevr)p,kvo<;, Kal vorepov avOpanrm
Bia tt}? irapQkvov yevofievos, a>? airb t&v aTrofj,vr]fj.ovevfidTO)V
i/jLadop,ev. " He was an only-begotten son of the Father of the
universe, sprung from Him by a special act as his word and
1 In the inscription of the first Apology to Antoninus Pius, Verissimus, afterwards
Marcus Aurelius, is associated with him under the simple title of <j>i\oo-'S<pos. Now,
as Marcus was created Caesar in 139, and it is not to be supposed, that this title, if
already conferred, would have been omitted in the dedication, we must conclude that
the Apology was written prior to that date. From an allusion in the Dialogue (c. 120)
it appears that the first Apology was then in existence. The second Apology was
probably written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. As Antoninus Pius succeeded to"
the empire in 1 38 a.d., the first Apology cannot have been written at an earlier period.
The limits of the time of its appearance are thus determined with great exactness.
See Otto (de J. M. Scriptis et Doctrina, P. I. Sect, i.), also on Dial. c. Tryph. c. 120,
n. 17.
2 ToC u,6vov au.tiu.ov koI StKatov <pur6s rots ivBpuitois wen<p84vros irapit tou 6eo5.
Dial. c. Tr. c. 17. Comp. John i. 9, viii. 12, xii. 46, and many other passages.
s 06oC tckko aKnBtvd.
4 It may be convenient to place the two passages in juxta-position : ToD iip.aros
ivrov (scil. Christi) obK 4£ av8pamelov OTrepyuaTos yeyevtyievov, d\\' 4k Be^itaros
fleou. Dial. c. 63 — oJk 4£ aipdrwv ivSi 4k 8eKr)naros o-opKbs 6vtie 4k BeK^/Mros
'vtipbs d\\' 4k Beov 4ytvvi)eriorav. John i. 13.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 59
power, and afterwards born a man through the Yirgin, as we
have learned from the apostohc records." Movoyevfc is an
epithet in this sense, as applied to the primal word — peculiar
to John. It is so used four times in the gospel (i. 14, 18, iii.
16, 18), and once in the first epistle (iv. 9). But the con
junction of irapOevo<; with aTrofivt]iiove.vp,aTa shows, that the
reference must here be to the synoptic narrative; as no
mention is made in the Fourth Gospel of the miraculous con
ception. Movoyevr)*;, so applied, was a word already current
in a certain Christian school. Exclusive of John, it is found
only in Luke, — three times (vii. 12, viii. 42, ix. 38), and once
in Hebrews (xi. 17) ; but in none of these passages is it used
of Christ. There is a description of the baptism of Jesus in
the Dialogue (c. 88) where John is represented as saying, "I
an not the Christ."1 These words are only found in the Fourth
Gospel (i. 20) ; the remainder of the sentence coincides verbally
with Matthew. Justin mentions in this account of the baptism
— from what source he does not state — that when Jesus
descended into the water, " fire was kindled in the Jordan."2
In the first Apology (c. 61) we find this passage : " Christ
said, unless ye be born anew, ye cannot enter into the kingdom
of heaven. Now that it is impossible for those once born to
enter the wombs of them that bare them is obvious to all
men." This is very like John iii. 3-5 ; the difficulty started by
Nicodemus being distinctly alluded to, but only to show what
must have been the real meaning of Christ's words.3 On the
other hand, it should be noticed, that for yevvr/drj avmQev, Justin
uses avayevvr\Qr\T6, a verb which never occurs in John, nor even

1 'Oiix 4tnl 6 Xpifl'Td's. 2 nOp dvr)<p8n ev t$ 'loptidvy.
! I place the two passages side by side : 'O Xpiorbs enrev, hi fiii dvayevvTiBrjre' ov
p.ri eure\Br)re its rrfv /}a<ri\eiav tSiv bvpavmv. "On tie Kal dtiivarov 4is rets /i-firpas
ruv reKovffcov robs oVof yevvcofi' vovs 4fi/3Tjvai tpavepbv nao'tv 4a-ri. -Apol. I (c. 61.) —
'\tiaovs — enrev — 'A/ity, dpfyv h4ya aoi 4av pi) ris yevvi)8fj dvwBev, ov tivvarat itieiv tV
Pao-Aelav rod Beov. Keyet irpbs dvrbv S NiK65riii.os, Has Svvarai &v8pumos yevvnBrjvai
yepav &v ; p-q tiivarai 4is rty Koi\iav ttjs ni\rpbs avrov Sevrepov 4io,e\8eiv Kal yevvn
8rjvai ; etc. John i. 3, 4.

60 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
in the Synoptists, being used twice in the New Testament—
viz., in the participial form, in 1 Peter i. 3, 23.1 Again, Justin
says PacriXiia tvsv ovpavwv, which is the characteristic formula
of Matthew— John (with Mark and Luke) everywhere using
Pao-iKaa tov Oeov. Apol. i. 60, and Dial. c. 94. refer to the
brazen image set up in the wilderness by Moses, as a type of
the cross of Christ ; John iii. 14, 15, has a similar reference; •
but there is no other resemblance between the passages. The
following passage on baptism and the eucharist (Apol. i. 66)
is very remarkable, and must be transcribed in full : r) Tpotjnj
avTrj KaXeiTai Trap' r)p,lv iv^apiaTia, i5s ovBevl aXkxp p,eTao-)(eu>
e^ov io~Tiv fj Tm TTio-TkvovTi aXr)6r} eivat, to, SeBiBay/j,iva vtj)'
r)fiS)V, Kal Xovo-a/j,eva to xnrep a^eo-eoa? d/iapTi&v Kai «? ava-
yevvyaiv Xovrpov, Kal ovtw; fitovvTi e»? 6 XpurTos irapeBoDKev,
'Ov yap &>? Kotvbv apTov ovBe KOivbv iro/ia TavTa Xafifidvofiev
a\X' bv TpoTrov Bid Tuiyov Beov o-apK07roirj6el<; 'Jr/o-ows XpiaTOf
6 a(OTT)p r)/j,£>v Kal adpica Kal dtfia inrep o-a)Tr)pla<i ryiwv eo^ev,
ovto><; xal ttjv 6V evjp}? \6yov tov Trap' dvrov iv^apurrtfieltjav
rpocfyrfv, ig ^9 aifia Kal o-apKes KaTa //.era/SoX^j' Tpe<f>ovrai
rjfifov, ixelvov tov o-apKOTroir)0evTO<s 'Irjo-ov Kal adpKa Kal cupa
eSiSdydtifiev hvai. " This nourishment is called with us eucharist,
and no one is allowed to partake of it unless he beheves that
the things taught by us are true, and has undergone the ablu-
1 The words avayevvda and ivayevvrto-ts are used by the Fathers of spiritual
regeneration. So the author of the treatise, " Quis dives salvetur," c. 23, "Akow
toS aurrjpos' 'Eyii ae dveyevvqaa, kokws Sirb KoV/xo5 irpds Bdvarov yeyevvriukvov. —
'Avayevvr)Brire occurs also in the Clementine Homilies (xi. 26) in a passage which bears
a close resemblance to John iii. 3, 6, mixed up strangely with language peculiar to
Matthew, and with a distinct reference to what is called the baptismal formula
(Matth. xxviii. 19). Under these circumstances, there has been much difference of
opinion whether in such passages there could be any actual reference to John. That
there is, has become additionally probable since the recovery of the wanting
portion of the Homilies by Dressel. The curious phenomena exhibited by these and
similar passages have led Volkraar to the conclusion, that Justin Martyr and the author
of the Homilies must have used an uncanonical gospel which formed a, kind of transi
tion-document between the Synoptists and John. Ritschl more reasonably, as I think,
suggests, that Buch passages were ultimately derived from the Fourth Gospel, but
became known to these writers through oral communication. See Uhlhorn, " Die
Homilien und Recognitionen des Clemens Romanus etc," p. 125.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 61
tion for the remission of sins and for regeneration, and lives as
Christ has enjoined. For we do not take these things as com
mon bread or common drink ; but as Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
incarnate through God's word, assumed flesh and blood for
our salvation, so also this nourishment, blessed by the form of
blessing prescribed by him, from which our blood and flesh are
nourished by conversion — we have been taught is the flesh and
blood of that incarnate Jesus." Justin in this passage is
describing to the Jew Trypho the usages of the early Christian
Church, and the explanation which he gives of the eucharist,
closely resembles the doctrine contained in John vi. 47-58, where
there is an evident allusion to the same rite, and the behef which
had become prevalent, that eating and drinking the flesh and
blood of Jesus Christ was indispensable to the attainment of
" life eternal " {fyo-i) atcovw;) . To those who were not prepared
for this strong symbolism, it might well seem o-K\r]pb<; Xo<yo? ("a
hard saying") It is more harshly expressed in the Fourth
Gospel than in Justin. From both we may infer, that partici
pation in the eucharist was already regarded as the outward
token of Christian communion, after the analogy of heathen
sacrifices, where the persons offering partook of the victim that
had been slain. Justin has evidently reference to the account
of the Last Supper in the Synoptists ; for, in the course of the
chapter, he blends the words of Matthew (xxvi. 26-28) with
those of Luke (xxii. 19.) without any allusion to John. At the
close of it he notices a certain affinity between the eucharist
and the initiations of Mithras, where bread and a cup of water
formed elements in the celebration ; supposing, in accordance
with the usual belief of the early Fathers, that evil demons had
borrowed this usage from the Christian ceremony.
In the Dialogue, c. 69, allusion is made to Christ as a " mis-
leader of the people " {XaoTrXdvos). The same description of
him occurs in John (vii. 12) ; but also in Matthew (xxvii.
63). Apol. I. 33 has these words : " that when it happens, it
may not be disbelieved" (tv otov yevrjTat,, fir) airio-T^Qy)), precisely

6 2 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
corresponding to John (xiii. 19 and xiv. 29). In the first preach
ing of Christianity, things had a religious import given to them
as being a fulfilment of ancient prophecy ; and the objections of
unbelievers to circumstances in the life and death of the founder
of the religion, were met by the answer, that these, however
strange and startling, had been all foretold and predestined.
The remark had grown into a sort of established formula with the
apologists of the time. In the following words of the Dialogue
(c. 110) we are reminded of the beautiful imagery in John xv. :
" As if any one should prune the fruit-bearing parts of a vine,
it sprouts out anew into other flourishing and fruit-bearing
branches, so is it also with us."1 The vine is a favourite image
with Hebrew writers ; and it may have been suggested to Justin
by the prophets andjthe psalms. It should be noticed, that the
vine is notVin this passage, as in John^ Christ, but the people of
Christ planted by him and God.
These are all the passages in the undoubted writings of
Justin Martyr, which, to the best of my knowledge, can be
supposed to contain any reference to the writings which bear
the name of John. If there be reason to beheve, on inde
pendent grounds, that the Fourth Gospel was generally received
as an authoritative and apostolic work before the year 138 a.d.,
it would not be an unfair inference, that familiar acquaintance
with the gospel had occasioned the general similarity of thought
and expression which I have pointed out in several passages
between the Martyr and the Evangehst. But the similarity
in no one instance amounts to a quotation ; and the conformity .
to the presumed original is much less close than what it is in
innumerable passages to the gospels of Matthew and Luke,
which are cited everywhere so copiously and so verbally, that
it has been often remarked, a very complete history of the
life and teachings of Jesus might be made up in the language
' 'Owowv 4av a/nre\ov tis 4Kr4p.ri to KapTrofyopfoavra nepr\, 4is rb ayajSAaorflffai
irepovs K\dtiovs Kal 4v8a\els koI Kapiro(pipovs avati Itiaxri, rbv avrbv rp6irov koI 1$
fl/iiiv yfyeToi.

•TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 63
of the Synoptists from the writings of Justin alone.1 I do not
here lay much stress on the entire omission of the name of John
in all those passages which are supposed to refer to the Fourth
Gospel; because this is a peculiarity common to John with
Matthew and Luke : though it is certainly remarkable, that on
the only occasion in Justin when the name of the apostle John
is mentioned, it should be where he is expressly quoted as the
author of the Apocalypse.
On a subject hke the present, where the data for arriving at
a conclusion are so few and imperfect, it would be presumption
to dogmatize either on the positive or on the negative side ; and
therefore every suggestion must be offered provisionally, subject
to future correction, as new facts are brought to light. The
kind and degree of affinity between the Fourth Gospel and the
writings of Justin would, however, seem to me fully explicable
on the supposition, that both had drawn from a common source,
and expressed the deepening conviction of their age. Already in
the first half of the second century, the theological atmosphere
was impregnated with the fermenting doctrine of the Logos ;
and, under its influence, modes of thought and forms of expres
sion had got into extensive circulation, which were powerfully
though silently modifying the old Palestinian tradition of the
life and teaching of Jesus, and which must of necessity enter
into every work that was written, while this change was taking
place. It is noticeable, that although Justin had fully embraced
the doctrine of the Logos, he still clung on many points to the
original Jewish apprehension of the gospel, as, for instance, in
his retention of Chiliasm ; and that for his history, he in-
1 The narrative followed is principally that of Matthew ; in a somewhat less degree
that of Luke ; though the two texts are often blended together. In only one passage
is reference made to a circumstance (the calling of the sons of Zebedee, Boanerges)
which is mentioned by Mark alone. Dial. u. Tr., c. 106, and Mark iii. 17. — Curiously
enough, the reading of all the MSS. in this passage of Justin would seem most naturally
to ascribe this statement to certain " records of Peter," from whose teaching, accord
ing to the tradition of the Church, confirmed by Papias, Mark derived the materials
of his gospel.

64 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
variably goes to the Synoptists. We do not meet in Justin
with that complete amalgamation of the historical and the
spiritual elements which is so conspicuous in the Fourth
Gospel. I find it difficult to beheve, that Justin could have
been acquainted with the long and mystical discourses there
put into the mouth of Jesus — at least, as accepted on the
authority of an apostle. I cannot reconcile with such a sup
position, the very particular description which he himself
has given (I. Apol. 14) of the character of Christ's teaching.1
In his address to the Antonines, he disclaims, on the part of
the Christian apologists, all the arts of the rhetorician. They '
follow the simplicity of Christ, ftpajfel's Be Kal crvvTOfiot Trap'
avTov \6yot, yeyovaatv. ov yap o-ocpiaTr)^ vTrr\pyev, aXXd Bvva/us
deov 6 Xcvyo? dvTov r)v. " His words were brief and concise ;
for he was no sophist : but his word was a power of God."
Nothing could more exactly describe the condensed wisdom, the
short, aphoristic maxims, which characterize the teachings in
the Synoptists ; and nothing could be more wholly unlike the
protracted argumentation which is so marked a feature in the
gospel ascribed to John. The designation of Christ's words, as
"a power of God," corresponds to what is said in Matthew vii. 29
and in Luke iv. 32.8 The citations which Justin gives in the
sequel of this passage, to justify and illustrate his statement, are
all from the Synoptists — chiefly Matthew and Luke.
In the two treatises of Athenagoras — his "Plea for the
Christians," and that on "the Resurrection of the Dead," —
which belong to the latter part of the second century (for the
former is inscribed to Marcus Aurehus and his son Commodus,
as joint emperors, and is therefore assigned by the best critics
to the year 177 a.d.),3 there is not a trace of any quotation
1 Weisse (Evangelienfrage. Zuzatze I. p. 127) has drawn special attention to this
passage in Justin, with some very good remarks.
2 AitiioKav— iis 4£ovo-lav ix0"' (Matth. vii. 29), 4v ^{ouo-fo Ijv i \6yos outo!
(Luke iv. 32).
3 In this date Mosheim, Schroeckh, Neander, Gieseler, Credner, Semisoh and Otto
concur. See Otto's Prolegomena, p. 74.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 65
from the Fourth Gospel. The citations, as in Justin Martyr,
are from Matthew and Luke. Nevertheless, Athenagoras held
decidedly the doctrine of the Logos ; and some expressions which
marked the common belief of those who held it, occur in his
writings as in the Fourth Gospel. For instance, he speaks of the
One God " who had made all things through the Word proceeding
from Him " {irdvTa Bia tov irap' dvToO Xoyov ireiroiriKOTa. Suppl.
4) ; and with still closer approximation to what we find in John
— " by and through Him were all things made " {wpfc avrov
xal St' dvTov Travra iyeveTO, Suppl. 10) ; and again — " the Son
being in the Father, and Father in the Son, by the unity and
power of the Spirit" {ovto$ tov viov iv irarrpl, Kal iraTpb^ iv
via, evoTTjTi Kal Bvvdp,ei TrvivfiaTOS, ibid.). This is the same
doctrine which we have in John i. 3 and xvii. 21-23. Yet
no one who reads the context, can feel any confidence that there
is even a reference here to the Fourth Gospel. We already
discern in Athenagoras the germ of the doctrine of the Trinity,
as it was soon after developed by Tertulhan. " It was part of
the. faith of Christians," he says, "to understand at once the
union and the distinction of Father, Son, and Spirit " (rt? r) tmv
Toaovrav evcotrK Kal Biaipeais evovp-ivav, tov •7rvevfiaTO<s, tov
TratSoy, tov Trarpos. Suppl. 12).
The first, and probably the original, portion of the beautiful
Epistle to Diognetus, which there is reason to think was written
about the time, or soon after the time, of Justin Martyr,1 is deeply
imbued with Johannine thought ; but only in two passages have
I been able to discover anything like a citation or a reference.
"He sent his son in love, not to judge" (etre^ev eu? dyair&v,
ov Kpivcov, c. 7). The sentiment is the same as in John iii. 17.
Again : " Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the
world " {Xpio-Tiavol iv Koo-p.ro biKovcnv, ovk itcrl Be e/c tov Koafiov,
c. 6) : which closely agrees with John xvii. 16. " They are not
of the world, as I am not of the world." But the author does
> See Otto, De Epist. ad Diognet. Jenae, 1846. c. iii.

66 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
not indicate any particular source from which the sentiment in
either case is taken.
We are now approaching the time, towards the end of the
second century, when the citations from the Fourth Gospel, as a
recognized portion of authoritative scripture, become distinct
and unquestionable. Tatian, a pupil of Justin Martyr, in his
"Address to the Greeks," written after the death of his master,
and therefore subsequent to 165 a.d.,1 has these words: "all
things were made by him, and without him not a thing was
made" (irdvra inr' ovtov Kal %<»/3t5 oajtov yeyovev bvBe kv).
They are, it will be observed, almost literally those of John
i. 3 ; but as they are here affirmed of the one only God, and
not of the Word, and virb, expressive of the primal, is sub
stituted for Boa the instrumental, cause, we might have felt
uncertain of their origin, but for other passages in Tatian
which leave no doubt of his acquaintance with the Fourth
Gospel. The same remark might apply to irvevpu o 0eo? c. 4,
which is identical with John iv. 24, and to debs r)v iv apyt),
Tr)v Be apxhv Xoyov Bvvdfiiv TrapeiKijcf>ati,ev, c. 5 (compare John
i. 1). But the following passage announces itself by the well-
known formula as a citation from Scripture, even if the exact
coincidence of the words did not prove that they came direct
from John i. 5 : " And this is in truth what is said (to iiprjpA-
vov, a constant mode of Scriptural quotation), the darkness com-
prehendeth not the light."
In the work of Theophilus of Antioch, addressed to Autolycus,
which must have been written in the reign of Commodus, and
therefore subsequent to the year 180 a.d.8 — we have for the first
time a citation from the Fourth Gospel, with the name of its
author — John. In explaining the doctrine of the Logos (ii.
22), Theophilus adds : " as the holy scriptures teach us and all
the inspired — of whom John being one, says: In the be-
1 Otto, Prolegom. vi.
2 In his third book, c. 28, Theophilus brings down his chronological computation to
the death, of Marcus Aurelius 180 a.d.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 67
ginning was the Word," etc. (John i. 1). The Fourth Gospel
is here classed among at, aryiat ypatpdi, and its. author is de
scribed as irvevfiaTorp'opos ; which, of course, gives him a place
among canonical or authoritative writers : though even here it
is to be noticed, that he is not called an apostle,1 There are
several other passages in this work which have their counter
part, sometimes to the very words, in the gospel. See, for
instance, ii. 29, on the introduction of death into the world by
Cain's murder of Abel, at the instigation of Satan (comp. John
viii. 44, and 1 John hi. 12) — i. 13, the grain of wheat which
dissolves in the ground before it rises again (comp. John xii. 24,
kokkos ctItov occurs in both passages) — ii. 23, women forget the
pangs of child-birth when they are past (so John xvi. 21) —
i. 14, where we have almost the very words of John xx. 27.
No one can doubt that Theophilus was acquainted with the
Fourth Gospel, and considered it a part of holy scripture ;
but there is only one passage in which he mentions its author by
name. Two works are mentioned in connexion with the names
of Tatian ' and Theophilus, which are significant as showing,
that about ¦ this time, in the latter part of the second century,
four histories of the life and teaching of Jesus had begun to be
accepted by the Church as authoritative, and that attempts were
already being made to reconcile and explain their apparently
discordant statements. These works appear to have corres
ponded in their object to our modern harmonies of the gospel
narrative ; and it should not be overlooked, that they bear the
name of men in whose extant writings we meet for the first
time with citations from the Fourth Gospel as recognised
1 t hat by the holy scriptures, Theophilus understood writings which possessed the
same authority with the books of the Old Testament, as being the work of inspired
men, is evident from the following passage : (ad Autol. iii. 12) wepl tiiKaioaivris —
OKoXovda evpio-Kerai Kal r& r&v irpotpitrav Kal rav 4vayye\iwv fyetv, Sid rb robs
iraWas irvevpar6$opovs evi irveifiaTi Beov \e\a\nKevat. It is noticeable, that the
gospels are here put on the same level as the prophets — a clear indication, that the
idea of a New Testament canon was now in process at least of formation.

68 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
scripture, and with the name of the author. Tatian's work is
lost ; but its title sufficiently explains its design : to Bid
reao-dptov (ivayyeXiov) " the gospel as exhibited by four." It
was probably a compendious, harmonized view of Christ's
ministry, with the omission of those passages in each of the
four evangelists, that were irreconcilably at variance, and did
not subserve the particular purpose of its author. It was put
together, we may not unreasonably suppose, to meet the wants
of the numerous class of believers who were bewildered by the
conflicting accounts of the person and teaching of Christ, as
represented in the Palestinian tradition given by Matthew and
the other Synoptists, or as exhibited, under the strongly modify
ing influence of the doctrine of the Logos, in the more recent
gospel which bore the name of John. The Diatessaron of
Tatian was still used by some in the time of Eusebius {irapd
Tiaiv iio-kn vvv <pepeTai, H. E. iv. 29), who seems to have known
very httle about it.1 In some parts of the world it appears for
a considerable time to have taken the place of the four gospels,
as they exist in our present canon, being used not only by the
foUowers of Tatian, but even by the Cathohcs, as a convenient
and compendious book.2 So, at least, we are informed by
Theodoret, who says that when he took possession of his
bishopric at Cyrus, in the first half of the fifth century, he
found more than two hundred copies of the Diatessaron highly
esteemed in the churches, all of which he collected and
put away, and superseded by the four evangelists.3 We have
1 He describes it vaguely as ovvJupeidv rtva no] o-vvayurftv bvx ZiS* birois T«»
evayyehlav (iv. 29). In the same passage Eusebius tells us, that the party of which
Tatian was regarded as the leader, us^d the law, the prophets, and the evangelists, in
terpreting them in a way of their own (iSfas) ; but that they spoke ill of the apostle
Paul, and rejected his epistles, and did not even admit the Acts of the Apostles.
2 ov juoVoi ii rrjs 4Ke(vov avfipoplas, &AAa Kol ii ro'ts airoaroKiitoTs 4ittiunu
S6yp.aai. 3 irdVos avyayayiiv lmeB4ur)v, Kol to rav rtrrdpvv 4vayye\iaruv avreia^yapit
^uoyy^io. Haeret. Fabul. Compend. I. 20. Theodoret says, that the Diatessaron cut
off the genealogies, and the other passages which represented Jesus as sprung from the
seed of David according to the flesh. It may be supposed, therefore, to have had a
Docetic tendency.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 69
other proofs that the Diatessaron gradually acquired a heretical
character ; in the same degree, no doubt, as the canonical gospels
established their authority. 'Epiphanius, in his loose way,
confounded it with the gospel according to the Hebrews.1 It
penetrated into Syria — of course in a Syriac version. Ephrem
Syrus wrote commentaries on the gospels, following the
order of the Diatessaron. If Abulfaragius (Bar Hebrseus) really
refers, in his " Short Commentaries on Scripture," to the genuine
Diatessaron, we learn from him, that it commenced with the
opening words of the Fourth Gospel — " In the beginning was
the Word."8 It fell at length, however, into disrepute ; and,
to supersede such heretical harmonies, Ammonius of Alexandria
constructed his well-known canons for the comparison of the
four canonical gospels, the nature and use of which have been
described by Eusebius in his letter to Carpianus.3
Theophilus of Antioch is also said to have framed a harmony
of the four evangelists, which, as it meets with the commenda
tion of Jerome, must have escaped the imputation of heresy
incurred by the work of Tatian. We may conclude, however,
that it was written with the same conciliatory view ; and this is
rendered additionally probable by the allegorical mode of inter
pretation which it seems to have adopted.4
With Irenaeus and Tertulhan, who mark the transition from
\eyerat tie rb titd reffffdpuv 4vayye\iov enr* hvrov yeyevyjffBai, Strep koto
'EPpalovs rives KaKovo-i. Panar. xlvi. 1. — There might, however, be some remote
affinity between the two works.
' Assemani Bibliotheca Orientalis, Tom. I. p. 57, from the Syriac of Bar-Salibi,
Jacobite bishop of Amida in Mesopotamia.
3 This letter, with the canons of Ammonius, and Jerome's explanation of them to
Pope Damasus, will be found at the end of the first volume of Lachmann's edition
of the Greek Testament.
1 Quatuor evangelistarum in unum opus dicta compingens, ingenii sui nobis monu-
menta reliquit. Hieron. Epistol. 151, ad Algasiam (quoted by Liicke, Comm. Evang.
Johann. Einleitung, § 4). Jerome in the sequel gives a specimen of Theophilus's
allegorical interpretation of the parable of the unjust steward. If the " Commentary on
the Fourth Gospel," now extant in Latin under the name of Theophilus (which Otto
has printed at the end of his recent edition of the Address to Autolycus) be to any ex
tent based on the original work of Theophilus, it confirms the idea that his style of
interpretation was throughout allegorical.

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

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL 71
which had hitherto; separated the Jewish and Gentile worlds;
and rendered possible that fusion of the elements of distinct
spheres of thought, which laid the basis of a new idea in the
development of humanity, and which yielded as its earliest
positive result, the tendencies that coalesced in a Cathohc
Church. Irenaeus wrote at the crisis when this important
amalgamation was consummating itself, and when it was be
ginning to be strongly felt, that something more fixed and
definite than tradition was needed to sustain the issue. Tradi
tion must now be supplemented by authoritative Scripture.
Men had wandered away into vagu.e speculation; they must
be recalled to the concrete facts of history. One principal
object of Irenasus's controversy with the heretics, was to restore
the authority of the Old Testament as the necessary foundation
of the New. His great aim was to show, that Jehovah and the
God and Father of Jesus Christ are one and the same being,
who made all things and revealed himself to the ages by his
Son, the incarnate Word, and that he is ever acting by his
providence on one plan, and with one view — the final salvation
of them that believe. This, he argues, is the substance of all
reliable tradition and all true Scripture. Scripture is the em
bodiment in a permanent form of apostolic tradition (to t*}?
dXr]9it,a<} Kr\pvyp,a, III. iii. 3), which is ever one and the same
(?7 Bvvafii? tj)s •jrapaBoo-eco'; fila Kal r) dvTrj, I. x. 2), dehvered
in different languages, and carefully guarded by the Church,
which is diffused through the whole world. Even were there
no Scripture, the tradition of the oldest churches would suffice ;
for there are many barbarous nations who beheve in Christ and
yet have no written word to guide, but believe through the
witness of the Spirit in their hearts.1 This apostohc tradition
1 The faith imparted to these barbarous nations is described (III. iv. 2) as a faith —
" in One God, the maker of heaven and earth, and of all things that are therein,
through Christ Jesus, the Son of God ; who, on account of his exceeding love to the
work of his hands, submitted to be born of a virgin, in himself uniting man with God,
both suffering under Pontius Pilate, and rising again and received into glory, who
will come in glory as the Saviour of them that are saved, and the judge of them that

72 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
is preserved by the succession of presbyters in the churches.
Without attempting to trace this succession in all the churches,
Irenaeus deems it sufficient to insist on that of Borne (of which
he enumerates the bishops from Linus, mentioned by Paul
(2 Tim. iv. 21) to Eleutherus, twelfth from the apostles, who
was his own contemporary) as the greatest' and oldest, known to
all men, founded by Peter and Paul — with which, on account of
its commanding eminency and headship, all other churches that
have faithfully kept the apostolic tradition, must of necessity
agree.1 If I rightly interpret th'e reasoning of Irenaeus, contained in
the earlier chapters of his third book, it amounts to this : that
apostolic truth is to be found in the tradition of successive
presbyters, in the churches founded by apostles; that the
test of genuineness in any book claiming to possess apostohc
authority (an inference which is clearly implied,* though not
stated in so many words) must ultimately lie in its conformity
with this apostolical tradition ; and that, consequently, the ad
mission of any work into the canon was not determined by the
critical examination of its credentials in the sense of our modern
scholarship, but was a simple result of its acceptance by the
general consensus ecclesia; — expressed as that consensus was
understood to be, most clearly and authoritatively, owing to the
are judged — sending into eternal fire those who pervert the truth and despise the
Father and his Son." This passage, it should be observed, exists only in the Latin
version. 1 Maxima? et antiquissimae et omnibus cognitce, a gloriosissimis duobus apostolis,
Petro et Paulo, Romae fundatae et constitutes ecclesim, earn quam habet ab apostolis
traditionem et annunciatam hominibus fidem, per successiones episcoporum perveni-
entem usque ad nos indicantes, confundimus omnes etc.. — Ad hane enim ecclesiam
propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire (Thiersch explains
this word by concordare cum ea : in the modern Greek version it is rendered o-u/i-
lidivetv) ecolesiam, hoc est, cos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt
undique, conservata est ca quae est ab apostolis traditio " (III. iii. 2). The old dis
putes of Catholics and Protestants on this celebrated passage, as represented by
Massuetus and Grabe, are now out of date. Those who are still interested in them,
will find what they want in the Apparatus to Stieren's edition of Irenaeus. What is
alone of importance, is to recognize the fact which these words indicate. I have
endeavoured to give the sense as I understand it.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 73
unbroken line of its bishops, in the ascendant Church of Borne.
The value of this ecclesiastical guarantee for Scripture must
depend on our behef, how far this traditional feeling of apostolic
truth might be open to other considerations in favour of admit
ting a book, than such as would determine a strictly critical
judgment to acknowledge its genuineness. That there was a
copious evangelical hterature before the time of Irenaeus, all
the records of that early age seem to indicate. It was, there
fore, a question mainly of selection. In how broad and catholic
a spirit, with how exquisite a spiritual tact (if I may so describe
it), with how fine and discriminating a sense of the essentials of
Christian truth, that selection was finally made — we have con
vincing proof, not only in the precious contents of our actual
New Testament, but in the statement of Irenaeus himself, that
the four gospels, then recognized as canonical, had each been
books of authority with different classes of heretics — Matthew
with the Ebionites, Luke with Marcion and his school, Mark
with some Docetic sect, and John with the Valentinians —
while each of these books contained a sufficiency of apostolic
truth to confute the sectaries who appealed to them (Adv. Haeres.
III. xi. 7).
It has been often said, that the strange reasons assigned by
Irenaeus (III. xi. 8) for there being neither more nor fewer than
four gospels, puerile as they are, do not at all invalidate his
testimony to the fact, that the gospels received by the Catholic
Church as authoritative, were four, and that they bore the
names which he gives them. This is perfectly true : and yet
the very way in which he introduces the mention of this fact,
proves to me that the limitation of number on which he insists
as something final and conclusive, was of comparatively recent
origin. Hence he sought to establish it by analogies which
accorded with the idea of a Catholic Church — viz., that as there
were four quarters of the globe, and four chief winds blowing
from them, — and as there were four great dispensations of
providence, marked by the names of Noah, Abraham, Moses,

74 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
and Christ, so it might be expected from pervading analogy
(e'i«0Ta)? exeiv) that the Gospel, which is the spirit of life, should
be supported by four, pillars. Since these things are so, he goes
on to argue, (tovtcov ovTay; i^ovrav, and observe, he is not argu
ing on the ground of established fact, but on that of assumed
necessity resulting from the physical and moral order of the
world) all those are to be treated as weak, unlearned, and pre
sumptuous, who disregard this analogy, and admit either more
or fewer than four gospels.1 But the most significant illus
tration adopted by Irenaeus — because it is evidently intended
to assimilate the Old and New Testaments and put them on
the same level — is his symbolizing the Four Evangelists under
the form of the creatures that sustained the hving throne of
God in Ezekiel (x. 14-22). This was, no doubt, one of the
considerations that determined him to regard four as a mystic
and pre-ordained number. As God sate between the cherubim,
and those cherubim were TeTpairpbo-ayrra (exhibited in a four
fold shape) typifying the future, four-fold agency of the Son of
God (ewcoVe? r^? 7rpayp,Tela<; tov viov tov Oeov), so the Word,
the artificer of the universe (6 toiv dnrdvTatv Te^/rr/s) dwells
by his Spirit in the Gospel, which he puts forth under four
different forms, symbolized by the Lion, the Calf, the Man, and
the Eagle. This symbohsm was at once an assertion of- the
sanctity of the number four, and (in full accordance with the
leading design of Irenaeus's work) a reply to those who wished
to make the New Dispensation entirely independent of the Old.8

1 Irenaeus clenches his argument, that there can be neither more nor fewer than four
gospels, by the following inference from analogy : " Quum omnia composita et arta
Deus fecerit, oportebat et speciem Evangelii bene compositam et bene compaginatam
esBe." I understand this as a protest against the number of unauthorized gospels
that were in circulation.
* So far as I know, this is the earliest mention of the symbolical representation of the
Four Evangelists, which afterwards became so marked a feature in the poetry and art
of the Christian Church. According to Irenaeus, John is placed at the head of the
four, expressed as the Lion ; then comes Luke, as the Calf; then Matthew, as the
Man ; lastly, Mark, as the Eagle. This is different from the order and distribution
which finally prevailed— viz., Matthew, Manor Angel; Mark, Lion; Luke, Ox;

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 75
There can be no doubt that Irenaeus considered the Fourth
Gospel to be the work of the apostle John ; though he has
nowhere expressly designated its author an apostle. He
simply describes him in general terms as " a disciple of the
Lord " (p,adr)Tr)<; tov Kvplov, III. i. 1) ; but then he speaks
in the same way of the writer of the Apocalypse, whom he
undoubtedly understood to be the apostle John. To exclude
all misapprehension, he further specifies him (III. i. 1) as
o iirl o-rrj0o<; tov xvpiov avanreamv ("he who leaned on the
bosom of the Lord").1
Tertulhan, the contemporary of Irenaeus, in a most decisive
passage of his work against Marcion (iv. 2), speaks of the
gospels as the work of the apostles, or if not of apostles, yet
of apostolic men, who were associated with apostles and suc
ceeded them ; and then signalizes John and Matthew as
apostles.8 It is unnecessary to multiply citations from this
writer, as I have explained so fully, in speaking of Irenaeus,
the circumstances which led to the demand for a canonical
or authoritative Scripture at the end of the second century.
Kirchhofer (Quellensammlung zur Gesch. des Neutestam.
, Canons, p. 154), from whom I have taken the foregoing
quotation, refers also to the following passages of Tertulhan :
De Praescript. Haeret. c. 36 ; Adv. Haer. iv. 2, 5 ; Adv. Prax.
23 ; and adds in a note : "In all these passages, Tertulhan
speaks with unhesitating certainty of the authenticity and
canonicity of the Fourth Gospel; and as he may be con
sidered a representative of the Latin African Church, that
John, Eagle. So they are given in a Latin Commentary on the Four Gospels, which
bears the name of Theophilus of Antioch, and which probably dates from the latter
half of the fifth century; and also in some verses of Sedulius (quoted by Feuardentius
on this passage of Irenaeus) which belong to the same period, where John, the last of
the four, is thus described :
" More volans aquilae verbo petit astra Joannes."
1 S 4irurrf)8ios became from this time forth a perpetual epithet of the apostle John.
1 "Constituimus in primis, evangelicum instrumentum Apostolos autores habere ;—
si et apostolicos, non tamen solos, sed cum apostolis, et post apostolos.— Ex apostolis
Johannes et Matthaeus." His object in this passage is evidently to claim authority of
the highest kind for the "evangelicum instrumentum."

76 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
part of the Christian world must have shared the same con
viction. Moreover, he uses this gospel — not only in the works
which he wrote after he became a Montanist (and might,
therefore, be supposed to have conceived a prejudice in its
favour), but also in those belonging to an earher period of
life — as a work whose claims were uncontested."
Before I quit this part of the subject, I must very briefly
notice one or two writings which have a bearing on the cha
racter of, the Fourth Gospel. In the work " Against Heresies,"
ascribed to Hippolytus, references constantly occur to every part
of that gospel, with the well-known forms of citation — to iiprj-
fievov, eipiyrai, to yeypap,pAvov, to Xeybfievov, etc., which prove
that the book from which such quotations were made was
already recognized as a part of Scripture; although it is
noticeable, that the name of the author, as an apostle, is
never adduced to give weight to them. Perhaps this will
appear less surprising, when it is recollected that it seems to
have been the custom of that age to allege the gospels in the
gross as apostohc memorials, without specifying the names of
the respective writers.1 It is curious that in one or two
passages Hippolytus has blended with his quotations from
John, forms of expression that are peculiar to Matthew and
never occur in John. For instance (v. 8), . in alluding to
Christ's first miracle at Cana in Galilee, for John's words,
after i<pavepa>o-e — ttjv Boija vdvTov, he substitutes the Mattheean

1 The only evangelist mentioned in Hippolytus by name is Mark, and that in a single
passage (vii. 30) where he is described as KoKo&oSdKroKos, " wanting a finger." Ac
cording to a tradition preserved in a Latin preface to Mark's gospel, contained in the
" Codex Amiatinus," Mark is said, after his conversion, to have cut off his thumb,
that he might not be forced into the priesthood. The same story seems to have got
into an Arabic narrative. (See Duncker's note in loc). — In vii. 20, where the first
edition reads Matthew (MotOoTos), we must probably read with the recent editors,
Matthias (MotAIos). The only other writers of the New Testament mentioned by
name are Paul — v. 7, where the epistle to the Romans is cited at some length — vii. 81
and 32, where ho is associated with Peter — and viii. 20, where he is called " the
blessed," and 1 Timothy iv. 1-5 is quoted ;— and, lastly, John — vii. 86, where he is
cited as the author of the Apooalypse.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 77
form, fiao-iXeiav t&v bvpav&v ; and in an almost verbal cita
tion of John vi. 44, he replaces the words of the Fourth Gospel,
o nraTrjp 6 vep.yjra<: fie, by'o iraTrjp fiov 6 ovpdvto's, which is
found nowhere in the New Testament but in Matthew. At
the close of his work, Hippolytus gives an outline of his theo
logical system, as " the true doctrine of the Deity " (o irepl to
deiov dXr)0r)<; X070?). It is based on the doctrine of the Logos,
and is an expansion and development of the idea which under
lies the whole of the Fourth Gospel. In unfolding a theory
of providence and human salvation, so strikingly- coincident,
it is certainly not a little remarkable, that if he received the
Fourth Gospel, with which he was evidently acquainted, as a
work of the apostle John, he should never once have thought
of sanctioning his own views by so very high an authority.1
In the Shepherd of Hermas, which I have already noticed
as a specimen of the apocalyptic literature of the early church,
and which may be regarded as a milder expression of that
same spirit of revival which gave birth to the enthusiastic
movement of Montanus — we find these words : (Lib. III.
Simil. ix. 12) " The gate is the Son of God, who is the only
means of access to God. No man, therefore, will enter into
the presence of God, otherwise than through his Son" (porta
vero Filius Dei est, qui solus est accessus ad Deum. Aliter
ergo nemo intrabit ad Deum, nisi par Filium ejus). This is
clearly the doctrine of the Fourth Gospel: see x. 9, and xiv.
' The exalted language applied in the latter part of this treatise to human nature,
when it has been transformed by faith and obedience, should not be passed over with
out notice: "thou art become a God" (yeyovas 8e6s); "and all that accompanies
deity, God has promised to bestow" [Saa Se irapaKo\ovBe? 8e$, ravra rrapexeiv
'4rlfyye\rai 8e6s) (x. 34). It is when we consider the startling force of such ex
pressions, that we are hardly surprised to find the same writer speak of Christ,
who is the perfection of humanity, as S koto irdvrav Beis ("God over all") ; lan
guage, which appeared so extraordinary to the late Baron Bunsen, that he ventured
on an emendation of the text, which made it refer not to the Son, but to the
Father. The germ, however, of the thought may be found in John's assertion
of the spiritual unity of God and Christ and the disciples (xvii. 21), and in
the remarkable assurance in 2 Peter i. 4, that through faith and obedience, believers
may become " partakers of the divine nature " [Betas koivoivo! (pio-eus).

78 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
6. The writer too holds distinctly the doctrine of the Logos.1
But it can hardly be said that we have a quotation in this
passage ; nor is the source from which it is taken indicated.
There is no other passage in the Shepherd which has the
same affinity with the Fourth Gospel as this. Throughout
the work, the name of John, as the author of an apostohc
book, nowhere occurs.
In what are called the Clementine Homilies, a curious reli
gious romance, which belongs most probably to the latter part
of the second century, and presents us with a form of Jewish
Gnosis, allied to Ebionitish and more remotely to Essenian
tendency, exalting Peter and not obscurely repudiating Paul
(seeHomil. xvii. 19), — it had long been contended, there was no
conclusive evidence of the author's being acquainted with the
Fourth Gospel. But as the work, when first edited by Cote-
lerius near two centuries ago,8 was confessedly imperfect, the
argument was only valid pro tanto. Since then, in the year,
1837, while engaged in examining the literary treasures of the
Vatican Library, Dressel lighted on a MS. of the Homilies,
which contained the wantiiig portions of the work.3 In one of
the recovered sections, the incident of the man born bhnd is
referred to in language so closely agreeing with what occurs in
the Fourth Gospel (ix. 2, 3), that though it is apphed in a very
different way from the original narrative, no one who compares
the two passages, can doubt that the author of the Homilies
must have seen and read the Gospel. But no intimation is
given whence the story was taken. Christ is quoted at once as
" our Teacher," who said so and so, on such an occasion ; and
his words are used with a freedom approaching to license, to
justify a doctrine which, as I understand the passage, is tacitly
1 " Filius quidem Dei antiquior est totius creaturae Dei, ita ut consilio fuerit
patri suo in constituenda tota creatura, quae est in ipso." Ibid. edit. Dressel.
J In 1672, contained in his edition of the " Apostolic Fathers."
3 The entire work consists of twenty Homilies. The only MS. of which Cote-
lerius had the use in preparing his edition (contained in the royal library at Paris)
broke off at Homil. xix. 14. See Dressel's preface prefixed to his edition.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 79
condemned in the gospel. In the gospel our Lord denies, that
the possible sin of the parents can have had anything to do
with the son's being born bhnd ; and the miracle was wrought
"that the works of God might be made manifest in him."
In the homily, on the other hand, the connection of sin, or at
least of ignorance, in one generation with infirmity in the next
is assumed as a fact, and the cure is performed iva Bi dvrov
(j>avepa>9fj r) Bvvafiii tov 0eov, Tr)<s dyvola? ico/xivrj to, dp,apTr\puTa.
{" That through him the power of God should be manifested
in heahng the sins of ignorance.") What occurs to me in
reference to this passage is, that if the author of the Homilies
had regarded the book from which he borrowed this incident .
as an undoubted apostohc production, treating it with only a
portion of the reverence with which we of this day should
certainly receive any statement which we beheved to have
come direct from an apostle, I can hardly understand how he
should have allowed himself to handle it so unceremoniously,
especially in a work the main object of which is to glorify
the apostle Peter, with whom the beloved apostle, according
to the tradition preserved in Acts, was united in the closest
bonds of sympathy and co-operation. On the other side, it
must be admitted, that the verbal reverence for Scripture, such
as it exists amongst us, and which, in its actual form, was a
result of the reaction against sacerdotal authority at the time
of the Beformation, was a feeling wholly unknown in the two
first centuries of our era. Even an approach to it is hardly
discernible till the age of Irenaeus and Tertulhan. The words
of the Master himself were treasured up with the profoundest
veneration ; but the spirit of the gospel teaching was more
regarded than its written form ; and scripture still held a sub
ordinate place to tradition. Uhlhorn, in his very able and
learned essay on the Clementine Homilies and Becognitions,1
has shown that the citations in the Homilies from the Old
1 Die Homilien und Recognitionen des Clemens Romanus nach ihrem TJrsprunge
und Inhalt dargestellt, von Gerhard Uhlhorn. Gbttingen, 1854,

80 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Testament, which was already a recognised Scripture, are made
in a very loose and irregular way, not seldom modifying the
words to suit the sense that was wished to be conveyed. Some
times they agree verbally with the Septuagint ; sometimes they
deviate both from it and from the Hebrew, when an object is
to be gained; and sometimes they mix up two passages to
gether. In p. 130, Uhlhorn has exhibited in juxta-position
a passage in Deuteronomy (xiii. 1-3) and its citation in the
Homilies (xvi. 13) ; and from this it is quite obvious that the
original has been purposely altered, to avert from God the
possible imputation that he could tempt any one to evil. The
words of Christ himself are often quoted, as if they had come
from unwritten sources. I may remark that, in quoting the
gospels, the Homilies, like Justin Martyr, follow chiefly
Matthew, next Luke, last of all Mark and John. Along with
these sources, Uhlhorn thinks (p. 137) they must also have
used an uncanonical gospel, allied to the " gospel according to
the Hebrews."1
1 The Clementines (so called from the name of their supposed author, Clement
of Rome) exist in two forms —one in Greek, en itled the Homilies ; and another, the
Recognitions, which is found only in the Latin version of Rufinus. Both works
have interwrought their peculiar theological system with the frame-work of a nar
rative, which gives to them, especially to the latter, the form of a religious novel.
They differ considerably from each other ; and it has been a question among critics,
which should be considered the earlier form. Uhlhorn considers the Recognitions
to be a later re-casting of the work, for this, among other reasons, — that the quo
tations from the New Testament are more conformable to our canonical text, than
in the Homilies ; and further, that in the Recognitions the narrative is more developed
and forms a more important element in the whole composition. Both these circum
stances may possibly in some degree be due to the translator ; though he says in his
preface to Gaudentius, that he has endeavoured to adhere, not only to the sense, but
to the very phraseology of his author ; and it appears that in his time, there were
two editions in Greek of the Recognitions. Anterior to both these forms— the
Homilies and the Recognitions — Uhlhorn supposes there was a still older writing, as
the nucleus of them, which had its origin among the sect of the Elxaites in Eastern
Syria, where there was a numerous Jewish population, and many Jewish Christian
churches. The existence of the work in different forms of greater or less extent,
is a parallel case to that of the so-called Ignatian epistles. Uhlhorn assigns the
following dates provisionally to these three works : the oldest must have been sub
sequent to 160 a.d. ; the Homilies, to 160 a.d; and the Recognitions, to 170 A.D,
It seems to be certain, that the Recognitions must have been in existence, when Origen
wrote his Commentary on Genesis, which was before 231 a.d. (Uhlhorn, p. 434).

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 81
In the letter addressed by the Christians of Vienne and
Lyons to their brethren in Asia Minor, giving an account of
the persecution which had broken out against them in Gaul,
176 a.d. (preserved by Eusebius, H.E. v. 1), there is a refer
ence, almost verbally coincident, to John xvi. 2, cited as virb
tov Kvplov r)fi6~)v iiprifievov ; and a few sentences before, to the
Paraclete, as a spirit of Christian encouragement ; but here,
as in former instances, without any indication of a written
source, or any mention of the name of the apostle John.
In the oldest canon extant (the fragment discovered by
Muratori in the middle of the last century), now generally
referred by scholars to the end of the second or the opening of
the third century, we have the following account of the origin
of the Fourth Gospel, which it will be as weU to translate at
length, according to the corrections of the deeply corrupted
text, suggested by Credner:1 "The fourth of the gospels origi
nated with the disciples of John (quartum evangeliorum
Johannis ex discipulis). When his fellow-disciples and bishops
had been exhorting him, he said to them : ' Fast with me
three days from this time, and then let us relate to one another
whatever shaU have been revealed to each.' On that same
night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the apostles, that John,
with the consent or recognition of them all (recognoscentibus
cunctis) should write an account of aU things in his own name.
And therefore, though various principles are inculcated (varia
Eastern Syria — where the Clementines had probably their earliest source (the
names mentioned Homil. II. 1, it is noticed by Uhlhorn, are mostly Hebrew or
Syriac) — has ever been the seat of mystic and ascetic, and later of syncretistic
tendencies. Here was the home of Tatian and Bardesanes and Manichseism; and
to this day the Druses and the Jezids exhibit in their religious belief a strange
intermixture of Jewish, Christian, and Mahometan ideas. In the oldest portion
of the Catechism of the Druses, only Matthew, Maris, and John, it is said, are
mentioned, the Pauline Luke being excluded — an indication that the religion of the
Druses grew up originally on a Jewish Christian -basis (Uhlhorn, p. 417, note 96).
Matter (Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme, Tom. ii. p. 329) says of the Druses
and their probable connexion with the Ebionitism represented in the Clementines
—with the eharacteristic vivacity of a French writer—" On dirait les Druses un
reste de ces Ebionites precipites dans le Mahometisme."
1 Zur Geschichte des Kanons, p. 74. 6

82 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
principia doceantur) in the several books of the gospels, this
makes no difference to the faith of behevers, inasmuch as in
all of them all things are set forth in one predominant spirit
(uno ac principali spiritu) concerning the nativity, the passion,
the resurrection, his conversation with his disciples, and his
twofold advent, first, in the lowliness of contempt (which has
been fulfilled), and secondly, in regal power and glory which is
to come. What wonder, then, if John should dwell so con
stantly on particular points even in his epistles, saying, in
reference to himself: "What we have seen with our eyes, and
heard with our ears, and our hands have handled, these things
have we written." For so he professes himself to be not only
a seer and a hearer, but also a writer in order, of all the won
derful things of the Lord."1
This is not very clear ; but two things are sufficiently evi
dent : first, that the writer knew nothing of the actual origin of
the Fourth Gospel, otherwise he would not have ventured on so
purely legendary an account ; and secondly, that behevers were
already disturbed by the apparently conflicting tendency of the
several narratives ; and that to quiet them, and induce them to
acquiesce in this authoritative collection of sacred writings, he
reminds them that on all essential points the four gospels were
one in spirit — those points being, it should be observed, not mat
ters of doctrine, but the great facts of the Messianic agency of
Christ. The distinction between heresy and Catholicism was
1 I give the Latin (as emended) at length : " Quartum Evangeliorum Johannis ex
discipulis. Cohortantibus condiscipulis et episcopis suis dixit : Conjejunate mihi
hodie triduo, et quid cuique fuerit revelatum alterutrum nobis enarremus. Eadem
nocte revelatum Andreas ex apostolis, ut recognoscentibus cunetis Johannes suo
nomine cuncta describeret. — Et ideo, licet varia singulis evangeliorum libris prin
cipia doceantur, nihil tamen differt credentium fidei, cum uno ac principali spiritu
declarata sint in omnibus omnia de nativitate, de passione, de resurrectione, de con-
versatione cum discipulis, et de gemino ejus adventu, primo in humilitate despectus,
quod ratum est, secundo potestate regali prssclaro, quod futurum est, Quid ergo
mirum, si Johannes tam constanter singula etiam in epistolis suis proferat, dicens
in semetipso ; ' quae vidimus oculis nostris, etc., etc., haec scripsimiis.' Sic enim non
solum visorem se et auditorem, sed et scriptorem omnium mirabilium domini per
ordinem profitetur."

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 83
already beginning to be sharply drawn, when the author of this
Canon wrote. In another part of the Fragment (8), alluding to
the rejection by the Church of a work that had been forged in
Paul's name to support the heresy of Marcion, he lays down
the broad principle, that we ought not " to mix gall and honey
together " (Fel cum melle misceri non congruit).
One feature is significant in all the traditions respecting the
Gospel of John — and that is, not only that it was universally re
garded as the latest of the four, but that it was also believed to
have a supplementary character, developing and completing what
was rudimental and defective in the earlier three. Clement
of Alexandria, in a passage of his Hypotyposes, preserved
by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 14.) says, — " that John lastly, observing
that the material or earthly side of the Gospel had been
exhibited by the other evangelists, at the request of his
acquaintance, and through the inspiration of the Spirit,
composed a spiritual Gospel." l A curious extract from
Theodore of Mopsuestia, which Mill has prefixed to the
Gospel of John, in his edition of the Greek Testament, states
that " the Fourth Gospel was written to supply the evidence,
wanting in the three first, of the divinity of Christ, lest men,
familiar only with what they found there, should come at last
to regard Jesus as no more than what he seemed (i.e.. a man".)8
I regret to have taxed the reader's patience by this long
citation and criticism of passages, and by going over some
ground that might seem to have been sufficiently trodden
before; but the importance of the subject demanded as
thorough an investigation as I could give it, and some
passages which have been often quoted, it seemed desirable
to examine anew. It must strike every one, I think, who
compares the testimonies for the Apocalypse, as the work of
1 rbv /levroi 'ladvvr\v iaxarov avviSivra iki to aau.ariKd 4v rots 4vayye\iois
UMffmriu, itporpmrevra iirb r&v yvuplpuiv, lrveiuan 8eo<?opi)8evra, vvevnariKbv
voiriaat 4vdyye\tov.
2 bare p.1) toB xP^ov rrpofrdivovros roirots 4vurBevras tois A.0701S robs avBpw-
tovs rovro jxivov avrbv vopd^eiv, birep 4tpalvero.

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

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 85
the wants of more enthusiastic spirits. A6yo<} and Ilvevpa,
Word and Spirit, were not yet recognized as distinct spiritual
entities, but were still employed, with the old Jewish vague
ness, almost indifferently to designate the indwelling power
and impulse of the Almighty. Whatever view of Christianity
gave additional prominence to the doctrine of the Logos, was
embraced with eagerness by all those fervid religionists, who
felt that the World was paralysing the Church, and who
prayed for a new outpouring of the Spirit on men's souls.
Especially in the form of the Paraclete, as a perpetuation of
the personal influence of the incarnate Logos in the world,
was the doctrine eagerly welcomed by the Montanists, whose
movement originated in an enthusiastic effort to bring back
in a still purer and intenser form the Christianity of the first
age. As far as our imperfect notices furnish us with in
formation, it would seem that, of all the books of the New
Testament, the Montanists were most devotedly attached to
the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel. It was the idea of
the Word and the Spirit, so vividly expressed in both, that
attracted them, and made them find in both the evidence of
a common apostohc source. The Montanists were not ori
ginally regarded as heretics. Tertulhan, whose doctrinal
orthodoxy has never been disputed, became one of them.
Even Baronius admitted, that the original views of Montanus
were harmless, and that it was only unreasonable persecution,
mainly fomented by Praxeas, that drove his followers at length
into heretical aberrations.1 Their principles were at one time
widely diffused through Italy and North-west Africa, as well
as through Asia Minor. But at length the literal acceptance
of Chiliastic views led to extravagances which shocked the
judgment of more philosophical behevers, who perceived the
difference between the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel,
and employed the spiritual idealism of the one to temper the
concrete imagery of the other. There seem at this period, in
1 Semler, Index Latinit. Tertullian. sub voce Paraclelua.

86 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
the transition from the second to the third century, to have
been three distinct tendencies working in the Church. First
there were the learned and educated Christians, aiming through
the doctrine of the Logos at the development of a Cathohc
Church. Then there were those who still clung to the primi
tive Jewish type of faith, and shared its traditional expecta
tions, though they accepted the doctrine of the Logos in its
more enthusiastic form. Of this movement Montanism was,
perhaps, the most marked and prominent expression. Lastly,
there are traces of a class of men who appear to have looked on
the doctrine of the Logos, both in its learned and in its popu
lar form, as an innovation on the gospel originally preached
by Christ, and on this ground to have strongly protested
against it.1 We know very httle of these jpersons. Their
leaders were Theodotus and Artemon. They formed a small
secession church for a short time at Borne in the beginning
of the third century. They are described as zealous culti
vators of human learning, and regarded Christ as in nature
a man. They never organized themselves into any permanent
sect or school ; but their numbers and influence must at one
time have been considerable, or Epiphanius would never have
thought it worth while to bestow on them the name, which
he tells he himself invented, of Alogi.8
In such a state of things, a work like the Fourth Gospel became
almost a necessity of the time ; and if any apostohc materials
existed for producing it, they must have been gathered up and
put into shape. We are not yet in a position to offer any opinion
as to the probable date, origin, and authorship of the Fourth
Gospel: but what has struck me through the whole of the
1 They contended, that they held the same views with the apostles themselves, and
that these views had continued in the Church till the time of Victor, Bishop of Rome,
thirteenth in succession from Peter, when the truth began to be perverted. Eusebius
H. E. v. 28.
2 It involves an equivoque (which he intended), and may be rendered either "with
out reason" or "without the Logos." See a monograph by Heinichen, " De
Alogis, Theodotianis atque Artemonitis " (Lips., 1829) ; a work of very laborious
research, which does not, however, throw much light on the subject.

TESTIMONIES TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 87
foregoing inquiry is this ; that we have decided traces of the
doctrine of the book, some time before we find any clear
evidence of the existence of the book itself, and still longer
before we meet with any mention of the name and apostohc
position of its author. The Logos was the doctrine with
which the Apologists of the second century combated Jewish
narrowness on one side, and Gnostic wildness on the other,
and prepared the way for a Cathohc Christianity. It is re
markable, that neither Athenagoras, nor Justin Martyr, nor
Hippolytus, filled as their writings are with the spirit of that
doctrine, should ever once — if the Fourth Gospel were then
generally recognized as a work of the apostle John — have
invoked in favour of their views the sanction of so great a
name.

CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

SECTION VIII.
On the internal indications of a later age in the Fourth Gospel.
When we proceed from external testimonies to the internal /
signs of age and authorship, we enter a field where the mind
of the inquirer is peculiarly exposed to subjective influences, ,
and where, from the force of preconceived opinion, he is almost
unconsciously disposed to assume what under other circum
stances he could not have found. Nevertheless, where there is
a truth at bottom, outward and inward evidence, when really
understood, must be in harmony. Having prepared the way by
a tolerably full exhibition of the former, and put the reader
previously on his guard against a too hasty admission of the
latter, I shall now venture to point out what appear to me very
strong indications of a later age in the gospel ascribed to
the apostle John.
The doctrine of the Logos, modifying the whole conception of
the person and ministry of Christ, which pervades from
beginning to end this remarkable book, could not, I think, have
blended itself so intimately with the popular preaching of
Christianity at a very early age. The facts recorded in the
Synoptists are, it is true, imphed in the mingled narrative and
argumentation of the Fourth Gospel ; but they are kept
subordinate to the leading idea of the writer ; they are
evidently combined and moulded with a view to develop it. As
we read, we find it difficult to resist the impression, that the
simpler and more natural history contained in Matthew or in
Luke must have gone before, and that this was more strictly
conformable to primitive tradition than the idealized vision

INTERNAL INDICATIONS OF AGE. 89
of the incarnate Word held up to us by John. No doubt, the
doctrine of the Logos existed anterior to the apostohc age;
but it was confined to the higher sphere of philosophical
thought, and came into no direct contact with the popular mind.
With a few of the more educated Hellenistic Jews, who had
imbibed a tincture of Alexandrine culture, it might be already
understood and accepted, but to the simple multitudes, to whom
Christ's personal teaching was addressed, and to the unlettered
fishermen of Galilee, who were the earhest missionaries of the
rew faith, such a doctrine would probably have been incompre
hensible, at war with their traditional behefs and expectations,
too abstract and too intellectual to produce any deep spiritual
impression on their souls. As Christianity gradually ascended
from the depths of society to its heights, and disengaged
itself more entirely from Judaism, especially after the second
destruction of Jerusalem, under Hadrian, a.d. 135., when it
ceased to be regarded as a mere Jewish controversy, and ob
tained freer access to that widening border land of syncretistic
feeling which then vaguely separated the old regions of Hellenic
and Oriental thought, — it could no longer remain a stranger
to the philosophical theories that were circulating in the
world ; and of these theories there was none better adapted
for assimilation with it, at once from its partially Jewish origin,
and from its facilitating the conception of the mutual relation
of the Father and the Son, than the Alexandrine doctrine of
the Logos. In the Apologists of the second century, most of
whom were converts from heathenism, we already find this doc
trine fully accepted. It was an intellectual formula, which
enabled them to present, with some approach to scientific pre
cision, and without undue offence to the philosophical fastidi
ousness of the parties whom they addressed, the apparently
discordant representations which the popular tradition conveyed
of the person and work of the founder of the new religion.
As the world was then constituted, Christianity would hardly
have made its way into the better mind of heathenism, without

90 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
this sort of metaphysical bridge to cross the gulph which
separated them. But as the doctrine may be regarded as, in
a certain sense, a necessity from this time forth, so it could
hardly have been such at a much earher period. So far as
we can judge from the very dim and imperfect records of that
remote age, there was neither room nor occasion for a work
like the Fourth Gospel, much before the middle, at least, of
the first half of the second century.
In the epistles of Paul we find ourselves in the very heart
of the controversy which broke out on the first attempt to
carry a Palestinian movement beyond the limits of Judaism.
It was the question of faith and works, as the condition of
admission into the Kingdom of God — a question which, as we
learn from the story of Izates and Ananias in Josephus,1 had
already, in a somewhat different form, been agitated among
the Jews. The Spirit, a more strictly Palestinian idea, per
formed, in the preaching of Paul, the same office of conciliation
which later on was assumed by the Alexandrine Logos. All
who hearkened to the divine call, and walked not after the
flesh but after the spirit, whatever had been their previous
condition, became thereby the children of God and the heirs
of the promises. Of the doctrine of the Logos, as it was sub
sequently developed, I can discover httle beyond an incipient
trace in the Pauline letters. In Colossians, which was pro
bably written during the apostle's captivity in Caesarea, when
the results of his Asiatic experience had taught him the neces
sity of some common point of view for bringing the Hellenic
and the Jewish mind into harmony, we find an approach to
that doctrine — language, at least, apphed to Christ which is
most easily interpreted in reference to it, and on the assump
tion of its truth. I allude particularly to Colossians i. 15, 19
and ii., 3, 9, 10, — where such expressions as iiKmv tov 6eov
tov aopaTOV, irpwTOTOKO? irdo-r)^ KTlaeo><s — irdvra oV dvrov Kal
et? dvTov eKTiGTai — iv dvTm KaToiKel irav to irXriptufia tjjs 0eo-
1 Antiquit. XX. ii. 3. 4.

INTERNAL INDICATIONS OF AGE. 91
ti;to? aafiaTiK&i, and others associated with them — seem to
me significant. But in the larger and most unquestionably
authentic epistles, written before this time, Romans, Corinth
ians, Galatians, and Thessalonians, I cannot call to my remem
brance a single instance of language of this kind. Here, as I
have already remarked, the Spirit, not the Word, is the domi
nating idea. And in these larger epistles, especially Romans
and Galatians, if I rightly interpret them by the collateral
light of the book of Acts, the parties chiefly addressed are not
so much either Jews or Gentiles in their sharply contrasted op
position to each other, as that large intermediate class — much
larger, I am inclined to beheve, than is usually supposed — of
devout Gentiles, who had been heathens, but who had em
braced the grand and noble doctrines of the Hebrew prophets,
and who were, therefore, of all men the best fitted for tran
sition to a new faith, which in its earhest form was exhibited
as a simple spiritualizing of Judaism.1
When we turn to the Fourth Gospel, we find ourselves at once
in another atmosphere. The storm of controversy has passed ; the
air is clear and still. Throughout there is a serene tone of con
scious superiority, as if the first struggle were over, and the
victory had been substantially won. " The Jews," a collective ex
pression for the opponents of Christ pecuhar to this Gospel, are
indeed described as arrayed in habitual hostility against him,
yet kept in check from first to last, and subdued in the midst
of their fiercest assaults (see John xviii. 6,) by the overpower
ing presence of the incarnate Word and manifested Son of God.
On the other hand, the direct access of Greeks ('EXXr/vk
nves) to the very heart of the new religion, and the glorious
prospect of its world-wide dominion which is anticipated from
the coincidence of this event with the ensuing death of Christ,
1 Our Lord, in one of his most authentic utterances, preserved in the Sermon on the
Mount, says : " Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets ; I
am not come to destroy but to fulfil " {ovk faBov Kara\v<rai, o\A.a wKvp&o-ai). Matlh.
r. 17.

92 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
are set forth in the most striking way, as indicative of a new
era in the development of Christianity, in John xii. 19 — 28.
The words ascribed to the Pharisees on this occasion are re
markably significant, (v. 19) — "Perceive ye how ye prevail
nothing? Behold, the world is gone after him," (tBe 6 Koo-fw?
birlaco dvTot dirrjXOev).1 Just before the crucifixion the enemies
of Christ could never have entertained so improbable an ex
pectation. We seem to me to be transported by the feeling
so clearly expressed in this passage, to a time when the Jewish
nationahty was broken up, and the Gospel, released from its
moorings on the narrow strand of Jewish prejudice, had set
out with expanded sails on its boundless voyage of cosmopo
litan conversion. If, in the absence of positive data, one
might venture on a conjecture, when this was, — I should say,
after the suppression of the Jewish revolt under Bar-Cochba,
by Hadrian. It was then that the Jewish Christian church,
which had hitherto subsisted at Jerusalem, was finally dis
persed ; and those who had previously been its members, were
either absorbed into the Gentile church which succeeded it,
or went back into Judaism, or else subsisted for a century
or two longer as a dwindling heresy, under the name of
Ebionites and Nazarenes. During the revolt of Bar-Cochba,
the Christians had been cruelly persecuted by the Jews. His
defeat and the establishment of -351ia Capitolina on the site
of the Holy City, was the day of their deliverance and com
parative peace.2
1 Notice the use of & koVjuos here. It is not introduced without a special meaning,
and signifies a great deal more than S oxaos or S \a6s, which the context seems to
require. Wahl, in his Clavis Nov. Test, gives, among other meanings, under this
word, that of multitudo, omnes ; but the passages, of which this is one, cited in sup
port of his rendering, imply, every one of them, something very different and far more
specific. Comp. John vii. 4 ; xiv. 22 ; xviii. 20 ; 2 Cor. i. 12 ; 2 Peter, ii. 5.
1 Speaking of Hadrian's measures to prevent the Jews, after Bar-Cochba's defeat,
having any access to Jerusalem, Sulpicius Severus, Hist. Sacr. II. 31, (quoted by
Gieseler, Lchrb. der Kirchengesch I. §. 42,) adds : " Quod quidem Christianas fidei
proficiebat, quia turn pene omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione credebant.
Nimirum id Domino dispositum, ut legis servitus a libertate fidei atque ecclesis
tolleretur. Ita turn primum Marcus ex gentilibus apud Hierosolymam episcopui
fuit."

INTERNAL INDICATIONS OF AGE. 93
Other indications offer themselves confirmatory of the date
which I have conjecturally suggested. If I am right, two
destructions of Jerusalem had now taken place, and the last
dream of a spiritual dominion, with Jerusalem for its earthly
centre, was effectually dispelled. Twice had destruction come ;
and twice had the Lord failed to reveal himself as an avenging
Judge from heaven. In conformity with such an experience,
we find the rich concrete imagery associated with the second
coming, which is so strongly marked in Matthew and even in
Luke, softened down and ideahzed into the more general ex
pression of a final conflict, a Kplo-R, between the powers of
good and evil, or more generally still, of "a last day" (17
icrxaTV rjplpa). See John xii. 31 ; xvi. 8 ; vi. 39 ; xii. 48,
and passim. Of the Chihasm, which was so prominent an
article in the faith of the first Christians, and which is so
vividly set forth in the Apocalypse, not one clear trace exists
in, the Fourth Gospel.
Events are long ante-dated in this Gospel, to bring out
from the first the transcendent power of the Son of God.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the familiar instance of its
putting the expulsion of the traffickers from the Tem
ple at the beginning instead of at the end of the minis
try of Christ. A less obvious but equally conclusive ex
ample is furnished by the conversion of Samaria. This is
represented as having been substantially effected quite early
,in the course of Christ's public teaching, during one of his
journeys from Judea to Galilee. (See ch. iv. and especially
yv. 40-42). But such a statement is wholly at variance with
Matthew x. 5, where Christ forbids the twelve to enter any
city of the Samaritans ; with Luke ix. 53, when on his last
journey to Jerusalem, the Samaritans refused to receive him
and his followers into one of their villages ; and still more with
Acts viii. 5, where we learn that Christ was first preached
in Samaria by Philip. Compare Acts viii. 14, which leaves
no doubt as to the meaning of the former passage. There is

94 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
something almost apologetic in the way in which the mention
of Samaria is introduced (John iv. 4) : " he must needs go, etc."
(eBei Be civtov 8iipxeo~0ai). The intrusion, as it were, of
Samaria into the ordinary succession of events, had to be
accounted for. Except in this chapter, Samaria is never once
noticed again throughout the Fourth Gospel. In John x. 8
are some words which, if we call to mind the Jesus of the
synoptical narratives, and the attitude uniformly assumed by
him there towards the law and the prophets, we shall find it
difficult to beheve could ever, in their present unqualified
harshness, have been uttered by him : " All that ever came
before me are thieves and robbers ; but the sheep did not
hear them." De Wette with Tholuck confesses himself
pained and puzzled by them: and what trouble has been
taken in all ages to wrest them from their natural and ob
vious meaning, may be seen in the commentaries of Liicke
and Meyer.1 Christ is asserting, that there is only one sure
entrance into the sheepfold of eternal life — the way by which
he himself enters, the way of which he himself is the door,
He distinctly repudiates the possibility of there being now.
and of there having ever been, any other access. The feeling
of the whole passage is strongly, not to say, narrowly anti-
Jewish. Can any period better suit such an utterance than
the one to which I have already aUuded — when the final and
decisive rupture with Judaism had just taken place, when the
Christians were still smarting from the recent persecutions of
the Jews, and rejoicing at the emancipation which in the
name of Christ opened the whole of the heathen world before
them? The figure of Christ's being the 'gate of life' passed,
probably from this source, into the current theological phrase
ology of the ensuing century. In the Clementine Homilies,
1 There seems no sufficient reason to question the authenticity of this passage.
The oldest MSS. have it, A. B. D. : and it is admitted by Lachmann entire into his
text. The Codex Sinaiticus omits npb 4/xov ; and the corresponding words are want
ing in the Vulgate. This omission is a proof of the difficulty which they early
occasioned.

INTERNAL INDICATIONS OF AGE. 95
some thirty or forty years later, we find almost the identical
words : " I am the gate of life ; he that enters through me,
enters into life" (iya> iifii r) irvXr} tj)? £awj?' 6 Bi' iftov iurep,
Xojievos iiaepxeTai et? Tr/v %wt]v. Hom. iii. 52). The Shepherd
of Hermas at the close of the century, has the same idea in
a passage quoted in a preceding section: "that there is no
access to God, except through his Son, who is ' Porta Dei ' "
(III. ix. 12).
It is curious, that although the Fourth Gospel omits all
mention of the institution of the eucharistic supper with
the forms which subsequently became traditional in the
Church, yet the doctrine of that observance, as it was de
veloped in the course of the second century, we find nowhere
in the New Testament so fully expounded as in the gospel
which is ascribed to John. There is nothing mystical in the
account of the Last Supper given by the three first evangelists,
nor in the almost identical statement of Paul (1 Cor. xi. 23,
25). If anything beyond a a simple memorial is indicated,
it is less the idea of spiritual nourishment mysteriously con
veyed into the soul through participation in the elements,
than a reference to some atoning efficacy attached to the
passion of Christ. Now turn to the description of the early
Christian eucharist in the first Apology of Justin Martyr
(66), already referred to. It is here expressly called Tpo<prj
(nutriment), which the bread and wine through some change
(icaTa fieTafioXriv) effected by the form of benediction, are
rendered capable of furnishing. The words of Justin are
difficult to render exactly. One thing, however, is clear, that
the elements are something more than common bread or
common drink (koivov aprov — koivov 7r6fj,a). The idea of the
passage, as I interpret it, seems to be this : " That as the
divine Logos became flesh and blood for our salvation, so
our flesh and blood — our humanity — by partaking of this
heavenly, nourishment, enters into communion with a higher
spiritual nature." There is descent on one side, and ascent

96 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
on the other, and so mutual approximation. Underneath the
whole conception lies the strong belief of that first age, that
even in the heavenly world the spirit would be clothed with
a glorified body. What is this but the doctrine set forth in
the sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel, which the Jews found
it so hard to receive ? " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son
of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life;
and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him "
(vi. 53-56.) Not less close is the affinity of thought in the
so-called Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans (c. vii), which,
whoever be its author, or whatever be its precise date, certainly
exhibits the ideas of the early Christian Church on this subject :
"I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the. bread
of hfe, which is the flesh of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God,.
who was born in later days of the seed of David and Abra
ham ; and as drink I desire his blood, which is love incor
ruptible and ever-flowing life."1 In another passage, also
ascribed to Ignatius (Epist. ad Smyrnseos, vii), we have the
same idea in a more generahsed form : " They abstain from the
eucharist and prayer, because they do not confess that the
eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suf
fered for our sins." The coincidence of the doctrine in all
these passages with that contained in the sixth chapter of
John's Gospel, must strike every one. But they exhibit the
doctrine in an advanced state of development, as it existed in
the middle of the second century. Does not its presence,
therefore, in the Fourth Gospel, imply such a date as would
leave sufficient time for the growth of the doctrine into that
1 'Aprov Beov BtKa, &prov ivpdviov, Uprov fcris, 8s 4o-n o-d"p{ 'lVtrov Xpurrov
rod itov rod Beov toS yevou.evov 4v io-rlpy 4k o-irtpfiaros AafllS Kal Afyaiu lea!
iro>a Beov B4\a> rb at/xa dvrov, H 4ariv b.ydm\ &(p8apros ko.1 aeWaos fwij.

INTERNAL INDICATIONS OF AGE. 97
maturer form, out of the simple rudiments described by Paul ?
(1 Cor. xi.)1
In the curious passage (John xix. 34) all the attempts to
explain by natural causes the flowing of blood and water
from the wounded side of Jesus (see De . Wette and Meyer
in loc.) appear to me utter failures. Meyer, with his usual
candour and fine exegetical sense, admits that a significant
miracle, a o-i]p,eiov, is here intended, marking the corpse as
that of the Messiah, of whose specific agency blood and water
are the characteristic symbols — the former denoting his ex
piatory death, and the latter, regeneration by baptism. The
passage receives light from a similar one in 1 John v. 6 :
" this is he that came by water and blood, Jesus the Christ "
(BC uSaTo? Kal ai/jMTO<s). In a verse immediately following, the
spirit is united to the two former tokens of Messiahship ;
and of these three, the spirit, the water and the blood, it is
added, that " they are joint witnesses, and issue in one " (e't? to
iv iicriv.) Taken by themselves, these passages do not, perhaps,
prove much either way ; but viewed in connection with the pro
bable indication of the later doctrine of the eucharist in the
sixth chapter of the gospel, they seem to me to furnish some
additional evidence of a time when the new rehgion had
already become an established system of ecclesiastical discipline,
with the expiatory death of Christ for its fundamental idea,
with baptism- as its recognized mode of initiation, and the
spirit as the witness and warrant of its effect.
1 The ancient Fathers, with scarce an exception, interpret John (vi. 53-56) of the
eucharist. See Meyer (in loc), who admits that the passages from Justin Martyr and
Ignatius would be an admirable commentary on the meaning of the evangelist, if his
gospel really belonged to the second century. Liicke (in loc.) calls this passage of
John, the most obscure and difficult in his gospel. How next to impossible it is to
extract any clear, consistent sense out of it, if the reference to an institution of later
date be excluded, is evident from the long, elaborate, and very unsatisfactory exposi
tions attempted by Liicke and Meyer. Compare the very similar language of
Irenffius (Contr. Har. V. ii.), where he argues, that the bread and wine in the euchar
ist are the true body and blood of Christ, who was really not apparently human ;
that these eucharistic elements are our spiritual nourishment, by partaking of which
we imbibe the principle of eternal life, so that after death we rise again with a real
body from the grave.

98 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Before I close this section, I must observe that the choice and
arrangement of miracles is a significant feature of the Fourth
Gospel. They are just seven in number, rising in importance on
the whole ds they proceed, and terminating with the raising of
Lazarus from the dead, after he had lain in the grave four
days, and corruption had already commenced. Of this greatest
of all the miracles ascribed to Jesus, the Synoptists say not
one word ; though the Fourth Gospel represents it as the
chief cause of the triumphal procession that went forth to
meet him and welcome him with palm-branches, as he ap
proached Jerusalem (xii 13, 18.) This procession is expressly
mentioned by the three Synoptists ; and therefore it is diffi
cult to understand, how they should have omitted all allusion
to the extraordinary occurence which, we are told by John,
was its immediate occasion. Without raising here the general
question of the miraculous, so obscure and so mysterious, it
is impossible not to remark, that the miracles recorded in the
three First Gospels, seem to drop into the general narrative
more naturally, and, as it were, undesignedly, and to be more
easily explicable as a spontaneous product of popular tradi
tion, than the symmetrical disposal of them according to the
mystic number seven, in the Fourth.
Other and less obvious traces of late origin will probably
occur to those who read through this gospel without a strong and
deep-fixed bias against the admission of such a conclusion.
I have dwelt only on such as have struck me most forcibly
on repeated and careful perusal. But the most formidable
argument against the decision of the Church, that the Fourth
Gospel is the work of the Apostle John, has yet to be adduced ;
I mean the precedent that was drawn from the Apostle's own
practice, so contrary, apparently, to his reputed words — in
the celebrated Paschal controversy.

99

SECTION IX.
The bearing of the Paschal controversy on the authorship of the
Fourth Gospel.
By far the most extraordinary divergency between the
Three First Gospels and the Fourth, relates to the time and
circumstances of the Last Supper. It is necessary to under
stand distinctly wherein this divergency consists. Each of
the Synoptists, in the most explicit terms, describes Jesus as
partaking of the Jewish passover with his disciples in the
usual manner on the evening of the 14th of the month Nisan ;
and at the conclusion of the supper, in the breaking of bread
and the distribution of wine, instituting a memorial of himself.
Let the following passages be noticed: Matthew xxvi. 17-
29 ; Mark xiv. 12-26 ; Luke xxii. 7-20.— Paul (1 Cor. xi.
23-36), by recording the institution almost in the words of
Luke,, bears indirectly his testimony to the correctness of the
synoptical account. According to this, Jesus was crucified
on the 15th of Nisan, the first entire day of the feast of
Unleavened Bread. The memorial then instituted has con
tinued, with widely- varying significance it is true, as a stand
ing ordinance of the Christian Church to the present day.
Now let us turn to the Fourth Gospel, and see what ac
count it gives of this matter. In the opening verse of chapter
thirteen, we are told, that the Supper was " before the feast of
the Passover ;" and, to exclude ah possibility of mistake, we
are further told (xiii. 29), that at the conclusion of the Supper,
some words spoken by Jesus to Judas were understood to be
an instruction to him, to buy what was necessary for the cele
bration of the feast. In this narrative not a word is said

100 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
of the commemorative institution of breaking bread and dis
tributing wine, but in place of it a synibolical act is intro
duced — the washing of his disciples' feet by Christ — to which
the Synoptists do not once refer, and for which, indeed, they
leave no room. Had we only the Fourth Gospel, we could
never have known, that Christ had instituted any memorial
of himself, like that described in the Synoptists ; and how it
had become an usage in the Church, would have remained
inexplicable. Curiously enough, however, as I have shown in
the preceding section, there are expressions in the body of
this same gospel (vi. 50-56), which seem unintelhgible, except
on the supposition of a tacit allusion to the later conception
of the eucharist.1 According to the Fourth Gospel, then,
this Supper must have taken place not on the 14th but on
the 13th of Nisan, and Christ himself have suffered on the
14th, the same day on the eve of which the Passover was
celebrated. That this was the meaning of the writer, is evi
dent from two passages in the sequel of the narrative: first
(xviii. 28), where we are told that the Jews, when they led
Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate, would not enter the heathen
judgment-haU, lest they should disqualify themselves by defile
ment for eating the Passover ; and, secondly, (xix. 14), where
it is expressly stated, that at the time of the crucifixion "it
was the preparation for the Passover." The two narratives,
therefore, are utterly incapable of reconcilement. I£ the ac
count of the Fourth Gospel be the true one, it is impossible
that Christ should have eaten the Passover with his disciples,
as he was crucified before it could be legally celebrated : and

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

• THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 101
we have thus the three first Evangelists, with the apostle
Paul, convicted of gross mistake as to a matter of historical
fact, which it is hardly conceivable how they could have made,
depositories, as we know they were, of the earliest Palestinian
tradition respecting Christ. The mistake, too, has endured
through aU time as the basis of the most solemn and characteristic
rite of the Christian Church ; for we all refer for the authoriza
tion of the Lord's Supper, not to the strange silence and sub
stitution of the Fourth Gospel, but to the clear, simple, and
self-consistent statements of the three Synoptists and Paul.
But the difficulty does not end here. In a dispute which
broke out in the second century between the Churches of Asia
Minor and that of Rome, respecting the time and mode of
keeping Easter, the authority of the Apostle John was ap
pealed to by the former on behalf of their own usage, in a way
which seems altogether incompatible with his being the author
of the Fourth Gospel, though conservative criticism has done
its utmost to show that he still might be so. This will
require a somewhat fuller exposition.
The word irderxci (pascha) is a rendering into Greek letters
of the Hebrew PlDS, or in the later Aramaean form, from which
the Greek is more immediately derived, NPtpS, which denoted ¦
the lamb that was sacrificed, and sometimes generally the feast
accompanying that sacrifice, at the annual commemoration of
the passing over or sparing of the first-born of the Israelites
on their exodus from Egypt. It comes from a root which
signifies " to move onward," or " pass over." It is well
rendered by our English word, "Passover." It was also the
festival of the vernal equinox, marking the commencement
of the new year.1 In Leviticus (xxiii. 5-7) combined with
1 Gesenius, Hebr. Worterb. sub voc, also Fiirst's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon,
translated from the German by Dr. Davidson. Fiirst observes, that the root l"IDS " may
perhaps have originally denoted the breaking through of the Spring-sun, or the new
sprouting of nature or Spring ; which is justified by analogy. A historical allusion may
have originated with the exodus from Egypt." sub voc. p. 1142. The word irdtrxa
for the Jewish Passover, was first used in the Septuagint ; and thence it came into the
New Testament.

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

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 103
The earhest notice, so far as I am aware, of a difference
of usage in the celebration of the pascha, between the Asiatic
and the Western Churches, occurs in a letter of Irenaeus to
Victor, Bishop of Rome (185 or 189-201 a.d.), which has
been preserved by Eusebius (H. E. v. 24). The circumstances
under which it was written, indicate the effort which the
Roman hierarchy was now making to assert its supremacy
by the establishment of an uniform ecclesiastical system all
over the world. In consequence of the refusal of the churches
of Asia (that is, pro-consular Asia with the adjoining dis
tricts) to conform to the practice of the West, Yictor had
issued a proclamation,1 excluding the Asiatic Christians, on
account of their dissidence, from communion with the Cathohc
Church. Against this intolerant proceeding, Irenaeus, in the
name of the churches on the Rhone, over which he then
presided, respectfully but firmly protested, — showing that the
practice, which had called forth this excommunication, was of
very ancient date, and had never till then occasioned any
division in the Church. "The predecessors of Yictor," he
said, "in the Roman see — Anicetus, Pius, Hyginus, Teles-
phorus and Xystus, up to the very commencement of the
second century — though they had' not observed the usage in
question themselves, had always been on friendly terms with
those who did, and had freely sent them the eucharist." In
proof of this he tells a story of Polycarp visiting Rome in
the time of Anicetus (156-168 a.d.), when the two bishops
had a friendly disputation on this very point. For Anicetus
could not persuade Polycarp to abstain from the observance
(fir) TTjpeiv), inasmuch as he beheved it authorized by the
example of "John, the disciple of our Lord, and the rest of
the apostles " ('ladvvov, tov fia0t]Tov tov Kvplov r)p,wv, Kal twv
Xotirwv diroo-ToXav) ; nor Polycarp induce Anicetus to follow
the observance (rqpelv), for he said he must keep to the
1 arrtXireiei Sid ypa/ipdrav, "placarded" (as we should say) "in public places."
i. H. E. v. 24).

104 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
usage of the presbyters who had preceded him. Notwith
standing their difference, they partook of the communion
together ; and to show his respect, Anicetus allowed Polycarp
to administer the eucharist in his church.1 One thing is
evident from this fragment of Irenaeus: viz., that Anicetus
quoted the precedent of the presbyters who had gone before
him ; while Polycarp appealed to the authority of the apostles,
and especially of John. Still it is not clear from the passage
itself, wherein the T-qpeiv and the fiij Trjpeiv consisted ; especially
as Irenaeus says, that the controversy turned " not only on the
day to be observed, but also on the very form and mode of
the fast."3 Advantage has been taken of this ambiguity to
show, that there is no actual inconsistency between such an
appeal to the alleged practice of John, and the statements of
the gospel which bears his name. ¦ If, however, we turn to a
previous chapter of Eusebius (H. E. v. 23) where he first in
troduces the mention of this controversy, we can have httle
doubt, what the subject of it really was. " The churches of
all Asia," we are there informed, " following an ancient tra
dition, thought it right to keep (aovro Beiv — irapacpvXdTreiv)
for the celebration of the pascha of salvation (toO <ra>Tqpkv
7rdo-xa) the fourteenth day of the month — the day on which
the Jews were enjoined to kill the lamb ; it being absolutely
necessary to close the period of fasting at that celebration, on
whatever day of the week it might chance to fall." This practice,
it is argued, wascontrary to the usage of the churches in all
the rest of the world, who pleaded apostohc tradition' for their
uniform belief down to the present time, that it was unseemly
to terminate the fast before the day commemorative of the
1 This seems to me the meaning of the original, though the commentators differ.
Toirav ilvrois ix^vruv, 4K0ivd>vi\<rav iavrots' Kal 4v Tp 4kk\t)oI<} Tapex^"!0,6" '
'ApbcTjTos rfyv 4vxapi<rrlav rf Tlo\vKdpirn>, kot' 4vrpoir)iv Sri\ov6ri.
1 Sv /livov irtpl T7js iifitpas — aAAa Kal 7repl tow ifiSous outoO ttjs V7joT&as.
9 4 £ airncrToAih-f/s irapaS6ae on. All churches were then in the habit of claiming an
apostolic origin for any ancient usage prevalent in them. The Asiatics, as we have
seen, did the same for the opposite praotioe. Collateral oircumstances must determine
which had the clearest evidence on their side.

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 105
resurrection, which, it should be remembered, was always the
first day of the week. We observe here already a colhsion
of Jewish and Catholic tendency. None who were of Jewish
extraction, could entirely shake off the old reverence for the
time-honoured festival of the Passover : whereas to the Gentile
Christian under the ever-deepening influence of Rome, Hebrew
usages and traditions were of httle moment in comparison with
the glorious memory of the resurrection, which marked a new
era in the prospects of humanity, and promised the reversion
of a spiritual inheritance. This feeling was strengthened into
a deep popular conviction, when Constantine, by an imperial
edict, consecrated the dies solis as 'a day of rest and religious
observance throughout Christendom.1 Towards the end of the
Becond century, in the reign of Commodus, as we gather from
the somewhat vague chronological indications of Eusebius
(comp. v. 22 and 23 sub init.), councils were held on this
question in various parts of the world, — at Caesarea in Pales
tine, at Jerusalem, at Rome, in Pontus, in Gaul, in Osroene,
and at Corinth — which came to the unanimous conclusion, that
the festival of the resurrection should be celebrated on no other
than the Lord's day, and that only on that day should the fore
going fast be terminated.2 The question was a vital one,
whether in fact a Jewish or a Cathohc Christianity should
finally prevail. But the Asiatics were not to be silenced all
at once. A letter from Polycrates of Ephesus to Yictor of
Rome, still extant (Euseb. v. 24), of which the substance is
as follows, clearly explains their views : " We observe the day
with scrupulous exactness, neither adding nor taking away.3
1 t»> o-bttjpiof VHtpav, %v koI 4>o>tos elvai Kal ytiov 4irtivvfwv 0-vp.Patvei (Euseb.
Vit. Const, iv. 18). Constantine's ordinance was issued in 321 a.d. See Guerike
Kirchengesch. § 78.
2 The resolutions of these councils were still extant in the time of Eusebius. He
has preserved a fragment of the synodical circular issued by that of Caesarea.
(H.E. v. 25). It expresses agreement with the church of Alexandria ; and its object
is to enforce uniformity in the observance of the day. Routh has inserted this frag
ment in his Reliquiae Sacra;, II. i.
8 apatiioipynrov Hyo/iev t?> foepaV l>kte rrpoariBevres. p-fre atpaipoipevoi.

106 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
For there are great luminaries sleeping in Asia (pro-consular
Asia, of which Ephesus was the centre) who await the resur
rection of the saints — Philip, one of the twelve apostles, with
his two daughters — John too, who leaned on the Lord's bosom
and was a priest and wore the petalon — further, Polycarp of
Smyrna — Thraseas of Eumenia (a city of Phrygia on the
Cludrus) — Sagaris of Laodicea — Papirius and Mehto of Sardes
— aU of whom have kept the pascha on the fourteenth, ac
cording to the gospel, without any deviation, following the
rule of faith ; lastly, myself Polycrates, least of you all, after
the tradition of my family, some of whom I have succeeded,
for seven of them were bishops, and I am the eighth. This
day my family have uniformly observed, when the people
cleared away the leaven.1 I then, brethren, being now sixty-
five years of age, having conferred with brethren from all
parts of the world, and gone through the whole of holy
Scripture, am not alarmed by threatenings ; for greater than
I have said, ' we ought to obey God rather than man.' I
might mention the names of the bishops who have been
associated with me, whom, as you requested, I appealed to.
They are many ; and though they perceived that I was myself
an insignificant person, they nevertheless approved of this letter
— seeing th.at I have not borne my grey hairs in vain, and that
I have always had my conversation in the Lord Jesus."
We learn from a fragment of Mehto, whose name occurs in
The word apo5ioiSp77jToi' is found in no lexicon or glossary. I believe I have
expressed the sense of it. See Routh, in loc. II., p. 17. There is still an ambiguity
about " the day." We ask, " What day ?" The question on which the whole con
troversy turned was : Which should be considered the great day of commemoration —
the proper irdaxa — the fourteenth of Nisan, or the Sunday f Whioh was the day
that terminated the fast, and opened the festival ?
1 This passage leaves no doubt, that the day observed by the Asiatics, of which
Polycrates is speaking, was a perpetuation of the Jewish Passover (Comp. Exodus xii.
15, 19, 20). ttrav S \abs ijpvve tV Cfy")?. Some MSS. read fyrve, but the best giv«
fipvve, which has the force of jfpe, • took away.' See Valesius and Routh in loc.
Hilgenfeld (Paschastreit. p. 294, note 2) understands Kdos in this passage as equiva
lent to Jews, " the people of the Old Covenant." This may be the meaning ; but the
context does not seem to me to require it.

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 107
the preceding list (Euseb. H. E. iv. 26), that there had been,
at an early period a great discussion (£?;Tr/cns ttoXXij) about
the pascha at Laodicea.1 Mehto himself wrote a work in
two books on the pascha, as well as a treatise on the 'Lord's
day.' From his association with the other Asiatic bishops by
Polycrates, and from the fact that his work on the pascha
gave occasion to a treatise on the same subject by Clement of
Alexandria, we may reasonably conclude that he took the side
of the Quartodecimans : and the inference is confirmed by the
probability that he was a Montanist ; for between the Quarto
decimans and the Montanists there was a very close sympathy.8
In Apollinaris of Hierapolis, a contemporary of Melito, we dis
cern at length, among the Asiatic bishops, clear traces of a
conversion to the Cathohc view, though expressed with a
gentleness • which is in marked contrast with the harshness
of Yictor, and bears an indirect witness to the strength and
wide diffusion of the opinion to which he was opposed. In a
fragment of his work on the pascha, preserved in the Paschal
Chronicle (edit. Du Cange p. 6, Niebuhr p. 13)3 we have these
words : " There are some, then, who through ignorance are
disputatious (<piXoveiKovai) about these thingSj experiencing
a pardonable weakness ; for ignorance does not admit of blame,
but demands instruction. And they say, that on the fourteenth
the Lord ate the lamb with his disciples, and suffered himself
on the great day of Unleavened Bread: and they explain
Matthew as stating the matter in accordance with their own
ideas. Hence their notion is irreconcilable with the law, and
according to their views the gospels seem at variance."4 In
1 It was at the time of the martyrdom of Sagaris, when Servilus Paulus was pro
consul of Asia.
* He is described by Polycrates (Euseb. H. E. v. 24) as rbv 4v aylip wei/ian irdvra
iro\irevo-dnevov ; and Tertullian, himself a Montanist, says of him, as quoted by
Jerome (de Script. Ecclesiast.) " eum a plerisque nostrorum prophetam putari."
3 It is also" given by Routh, I. p. 160.
4 bBev dabiupavos re viucp 77 v6i\ais butSx- koi oraaid&iv tioKei Kar' dvrobs rd 4vay-
yi\ia. Two evils are here said to result from the Quartodeciman theory : first, »
contravention of the Law, which enjoined that the paschal lamb, and hence & fortiori

108 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
another fragment of the same work, (Chron. Pasch. ibid.)
Christ is called "the true pascha, the great sacrifice, that was
offered in place of the lamb, and was buried on the day of the
Passover." Among the other works of Apollinaris, he wrote
one, we are told, against the Montanist heresy, which had then
recently broken out (Euseb. H. E. iv. 27) — a circumstance
which further marks the decided contrariety of his theological
position to that of Mehto.1 But the tendency had now set
in and was gradually spreading, to regard Christ as the one
true pascha; and more effectually to prevent any confusion
with old Jewish usage, his crucifixion was declared to have
taken place on the very day, on the evening of which the
Passover was legally celebrated. The Quartodecimans were
those who adhered to what I beheve to have been the original
and true view, represented by the Synoptists — viz., that Christ
(according to the view of Apollinaris), Christ, the true Passover, should be sacrificed
on the fourteenth day of the month ; and secondly, by the acceptance of Matthew's as
the true account, an introduction of discordance beween the evangelists. The lan
guage of Apollinaris seems to me to imply, that in his time the statement of the
Fourth Evangelist respecting the Last Supper was already received by a portion of
the Church as the true account, which-ought to control the divergent narrative of
the earlier three. It is singular to observe, how the most learned men of a former
generation shrank from fairly encountering the facts of this critical problem. Dr.
Routh (Reliq. Sacr. I. p. 168) fights shy of it, and modestly pleads his own inability
to grapple with it. " Celeberrima est atque difficillima quaestio — cui me virum pusilli
ingenii interponere noluerim."
1 It is surprising, that in the face of such facts, Weitzel (quoted by Hilgenfeld,
Paschastreit, p. 266) should contend, that Melito and Apollinaris, so far from being
dogmatically opposed to each other, joined together in resisting an Ebionitish tendency
in the Council of Laodicea, where the Quartodeciman controversy was agitated. But
the question is, not whether Melito was an Ebionite, but whether he was a Quarto
deciman. The fragments published by Grabe from the Bodleian library, and inserted
by Routh in his ReliquiaB Sacrae (I. p. 122 seq.), prove that he was much given to a
typioal interpretation of the Old Testament, and saw in all its histories a constant
foreshadowing of Christ. They indicate, perhaps, the commencement of a tendency
of mind which might lead, if persisted in, to the conclusion already reached by
Apollinaris. In all the passages now extant, however, Christ is typified, not by the
Passover, but by Isaac or by the ram which redeemed him ; and even had he been
expressly called pascha, this would no more have proved that Melito did not believe
him to have been crucified on the 15th of Nisan, than Paul's saying (1 Cor. v. 7)
" Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us," is any evidence, that he did not accept the
synoptical account of the Last Supper, which we know he did.

THE PASCHAL' controversy. 109
ate the paschal supper with his disciples in the regular way
on the evening of the fourteenth, and suffered on the fifteenth,
the first day of Unleavened Bread. As recent critics have
denied that this was the real subject of the Quartodeciman
controversy, it becomes necessary to specify with some distinct
ness the testimony of ancient writers respecting it.
Origen, on Matthew xxvi. 17, in a passage quoted by Hil-
genfeld (Paschastreit p. 211, note 1), argues, " that it is a kind
of Ebionitism, to infer from the fact, that Jesus celebrated the
Passover in the Jewish way (more Judaico), that we, as imitators
of Christ, should do the same."1 From this observation we may
conclude, that Origen regarded Christ's eating the real Jewish
Passover as an undoubted historical fact, which many Christians
of his day were accustomed literally (corporahter) to copy ;
whereas he, from his spiritual way of interpreting Scripture,
considered such an observance to be in no wise obhgatory.
Tertulhan (adversus Judaeos, c. 10) understands the words of
Moses (Exod. xii. 11) as a foretelling of the passion of Christ,
and then adds : " which prophecy was fulfilled by your putting
Christ to death on the first day of Unleavened Bread :" (prima die
azymorum) which was the day following the Passover, and there
fore the fifteenth day of the month.3 Tertullian, in saying this,
must have accepted the synoptical account of the crucifixion.
From two passages of Athanasius (quoted by Hilgenfeld, Pascha
streit, p. 322) we learn, that down to his time, at the beginning of
the fourth century, "the churches of Syria, Cilicia, and Meso
potamia were at variance with the Cathohc Christians, and
1 " Secundum hasc forsitan aliquis imperitorum requiret, cadens in Ebionismum
ex eo quod Jesus celebravit more Judaico pascha corporaliter, sicut et primam diem azy
morum et pascha, dicens quia convenit et nos imitatores Christi similiter facere." On
which passage, Hilgenfield remarks : " What Origen designates as Ebionitism, was,
originally nothing but the natural eelebration of the Passover after the example of
Jesus." * This is a direct inference from Leviticus xxiii. 6, where the language is express ;
nor is it contradicted by Matt. xxvi. 17 ; Markxiv. 12 ; and Luke xxii. 1. For the
first day of Unleavened Bread began with the Passover on the evening of the 14th ;
in other words, the 15th began with the evening of the 14th.

110 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
observed the pascha at the same time with the Jews j1 and that
to procure uniformity in this respect, was one reason for con
voking the council of Nice. From their pertinacious adherence
to ancient usage, the Quartodecimans were considered unreason
able and crotchety ; and we notice a certain peevishness in thfl
language used respecting them, as if they were disturbers of the
peace for a fancy of their own. This is very evident from the
words of Athanasius in the fragment of a letter to Epiphanius,
which has been preserved in the Paschal Chronicle (ed. Niebuhr,
p. 9, Ducange, p. 4) : " Cease to find fault, but rather pray that
henceforth the Church may preserve her peace unbroken ; then
will cease those cursed heresies, and those disputatious people
((rpiXoveiKovvTe1}) will also cease, who devise difficult questions for
themselves, under the pretext of zeal for the pascha of salvation,
but. really to gratify their characteristic love of strife (t^? JSto?
epiBo<i x^Ptv)> because seeming to be of us and boasting of the
name of Christian, they are zealous, nevertheless, for the practices
of the Jews, who betrayed our Lord. For what a plausible answer
might be given to them in those words of the Scripture : " on
the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they must needs
kill the Passover."2 "In those days (i.e., the apostohc times)every-
thing went on rightly ; but now, as it is written (Ps. xcv. 10),
"they do always err in their heart." (piXoveiKovvTei is an
epithet constantly apphed to the Quartodecimans by the
Catholic writers of this time. It expresses the feeling with
which an ascendant party always regards contumacious dissi
dents. To the same effect is the very instructive passage of
Hippolytus (Haer. Refutat. viii. 18): "And there are certain
others, disputatious (<piXoveiKoi) by nature, unlearned in then-
views, and of a rather pugnacious turn, who maintain that
they ought to keep the pascha on the fourteenth day of the
1 Sie(p<ivovv irpbs yp.us, Kol t£ Kaipy ev <p iroiovaiv St 'lovSa'tot, 4iroiovv Kal dvrol (de
Synod. Arim. and Seleuc. c. 6, ad. Afr. episcop. Epist. I. p. 842).
1 Athanasius has here blended, in the way so common in that age, the words of
Mark xiv. 12 with Luke xxii. 7, and has availed himself of the loose reckoning of the
Jews (see p. 109, note 2) to justify his own view of the day of the Cruoifiiion.

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. Ill
first month, as required by the Law, on whatever day (of the
week) it may fall — out of reverence for the imprecations pro
nounced in the Law on disobedience — not observing, that this
commandment was given to the Jews, who were destined to
slay the true Passover, which has passed to the Gentiles, and
is apprehended by faith, and is now no longer kept according
to the letter. But in other respects these people accept entirely
the things which have been dehvered to the Church by the
apostles." The Church, in fact, was now experiencing all the
perplexity and conflict which must accompany the transition
of an institution, which had originated in national beliefs and ¦
usages, to a condition of world-wide recognition and ascendancy
— which had undertaken, in other words, to translate a historical
fact into a Catholic idea. The simple-minded, who could not
be convinced, and clung to the tradition of their fathers, had
to be silenced by authority. To other causes of confusion the
difficulty (to which I shall briefly allude bye-and-bye) of
bringing the lunar and solar reckoning of the year into
harmony, was now added.
Latterly the controversy took the more practical form of
a question, when the fast — which we find had already in
. the third century begun uniformly to precede Easter —
should cease, and how long it should last.1 The point,
as we shall see, was not finally settled till the Council of
Nice in 325 a.d. That things were now tending to the
issue, which finally prevailed, and in the Cathohc Church
effectually abohshed the old Jewish usage, we learn from a
letter addressed to Basihdes (" On the Great Sabbath : when
the Fast should cease ") by Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria,
in the middle of the third century, of whose critical ability,
and decided opposition to the Judaic form of Christianity, I
have cited proofs in a former section, when discussing the
1 According to Hilgenfeld (Paschastreit, p. 356, note), Quadragesima, our Lent,
is first mentioned by Origen (Homil. on Levit. x. 2), in Rufinus's translation, and in
the time of Athanasius, extended over six weeks.

112 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
authenticity of the Apocalypse.1 Dionysius had been con
sulted by his friend about the cessation of the fast (if tov
irdo-xa irepiXvcrei) ; some affirming, that "it should commence
from evening, others not till cock-crowing." Dionysius replied,
" that it was difficult to fix the precise time ; but that it would
be .universally admitted" (he must mean of course by the
Cathohc Church, and his strong assertion should be noticed,
as marking the point which the triumph of the Cathohc
principle had already reached) "that the fast should be con
tinued to the hour of Christ's resurrection, and that from
that time the festival with its season of rejoicing should
begin." The Scriptures, he observes, determine nothing as to
the exact time when the resurrection took place. He notices
that the four evangehsts represent the parties, whom they
severally speak of, as coming at different times to the sepulchre
and ah finding the Lord already risen ; no one stating pre
cisely when he rose (iroTe fiev dveo-Trj), but all agreeing sub
stantially that it must have been some time on the night of
the Sabbath, or very early on the first day of the week. In
accordance with this indefiniteness in the Scriptural narrative,
" Some persons," he continues, " anticipate the conclusion
of the fast before midnight ; others lengthen it out to the
farthest point ; and some again pursue a middle course. Each
must be allowed to do as he is moved, or feels, himself capable.
For all cannot stand six days of fasting (the week before
Easter, our Passion week). Some, indeed, go through them
all. Some fast two, some three, some four days; some not
one day." It is quite evident, from this curious passage, that
in the time of Dionysius, the word irdo-xa> in the view which
had then become predominant in the Cathohc Church, had
passed on from its original association with the fourteenth of
Nisan, to a fixed position in the first day of the week, on
1 This epistle occurs among those whioh are called the " Epistolao Canonica," and
will be found in Harduin's "Editio Conciliorum," It is also inserted by Routh in
his Reliquiaa Sacrae, III. p. 223.

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 113
which Christ was believed to have risen, and had acquired a
meaning equivalent to our Easter, as the anniversary of the
resurrection; so that the only controversy remaining among
Catholic Christians was, over what length of time the pre
ceding fast should extend.
The schism, however, would never have healed of itself •
it demanded the intervention of an authority that could
not be gainsaid. Even according to the statement of Euse
bius (Yit. Constant, hi. 5), the strife between the con
tending parties was so nicely balanced (a remarkable ad
mission from no prejudiced quarter of the extreme tenacity
of Quartodeciman resistance), that only the omnipotent God
and Constantine, his sole minister on earth for good, could
put an end to it.1 In other words, the Church could only
be pacified by the State. The letter of Constantine to the
churches, a copy of which was transmitted to every ecclesias
tical province, explains how this was done, and throws light on
the matter really at issue in the Quartodeciman controversy.2
"The object was " — says the imperial missive — " to fix the
celebration of the feast, which assured to men the hopes of
immortality (irap ^s Ta<s tjj? a9avao-la<s iiXijcpafiev iXTrlBa<;) on
one and the same day throughout Christendom, and to break
off a degrading dependence on an usage of the blood-stained
and infatuated Jews, who could so httle calculate the. time of
their own festival, that they sometimes kept it twice in the
same year.3 Nothing could be more unseemly, than that
some should be feasting, and others fasting, on the same day.
The churches of the west, the south and the north, and some
even of the east, had already concurred in one usage ; and it
was hoped that the rest would follow their example." " In
1 ovSels iioare ?}y dvBpdirav Bepaireiav e'vpaaBai rov KaKov laoo-ratriov rris epiSos
tois Sieoriiaiv virapxovo-ws' p.6vtp 5' &pa raj iravroSwdjitp 6ea~> Kal tout' idaBai
pdtiiov %v dyaBSiv 5" \mr\peri)S out^j /idVos rav eV! yrjs Karefaivero Tkavaravrivos.
2 Euseb. Vit. Constant, iii. 17-20. Hilgenfeld has given the greater part of it in
the original (Paschastreit, p. 360-63).
8 The allusion is, probably, to the occurrence of the fourteenth of Nisan, sometimes
before, and sometimes after, the vernal equinox. See Valesius in loc.

114 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
one word," concludes the emperor, "it has seemed good to
the general judgment, that the most holy festival of the pascha
should be celebrated everywhere on the same day; for it is
not fitting, that in so holy a matter there should be any diversity,
but far better to acquiesce in this decision, in which there is no
intermixture of foreign error and sin." The observance was
henceforth to be purely Christian, without a remnant of Jewish
association. Such was practically the solution of the Quartodeciman
question ; though the old usage still hngered in some districts,
and even yet is not entirely extinct.
If we impartiaUy sum up the collective evidence of the
foregoing citations, it seems a legitimate inference from the
original and proper meaning of the word 7racr^a, from the
objections urged by the Catholics against the Quartodeciman
usage, and from the part of the world where that usage most
widely prevailed and was longest retained, — that the Jewish,
who were also the earliest Christians, kept, as the oldest
Christian pascha, the anniversary of the farewell supper on
the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan. They were con
firmed in this observance by their strong Jewish predilections,
as it coincided with the great national festival of the Pass
over, which Jesus himself had always kept ; and it was more
over the traditional behef of the Jews, that Messiah would
appear on the night of the Passover.1 When the old Jewish
1 Jerome, on Matt. xxv. 5, (referred to by Hilgenfeld, p. 306 note 2). Clement
of Alexandria, in a fragment of his work on the Pascha (Chron. Pasch. p. 14
Niebuhr, p. 7 Ducange) tells us, that it was only in the years preceding his crucifixion,
that our Lord ate the Jewish Passover, but that at the last, in place of this, he washed
his disciples' feet after supper on the 13th, and then suffered himself on the 14th
(Autos &v rb irdaxa, KaWiepijBels iirb 'lovSatwv). He quotes the evangelist John
as his authority, and adds, that with his account, rightly understood, the other
gospels agree. I do not, however, think that this passage necessitates any qualification
of the statement in the text. Passages to the same effect occur in Hippolytus (see
Hilgenfeld p. 278). They only prove, that at the time of the transition from the
second to the third century, the doctrine that Christ did not eat, but was himself the
Passover {irdaxa Svk (<payev, 'a\\' HiraBev) had already become the belief of the
Catholic Church, warranted, it was thought, by the Fourth Gospel, with which the
othen must be made to agree.

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 115
Church at Jerusalem was dispersed in the time of Hadrian,
the peculiar type of behef which had distinguished it, still
subsisted in the churches of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia
Minor, especially in the region surrounding Ephesus, where
apostles had early settled, and where churches founded by
them, inheriting their ideas and perpetuating their traditions,
long continued to flourish. In many of these churches, the
pascha appears to have retained its semi-Jewish character
down to the fourth century. It was essentially a commemora
tion of the death of Christ, and of aU that followed it and
was involved in it ; and it admitted, therefore, of a ready
extension to the most important consequence of the death of
Christ — his resurrection. Several circumstances contributed to
promote a transference of the term from the earlier to the
subsequent event. But there was probably an intervening
stage, which merely carried it forward from the evening to
the next day, which, according to the Jewish mode of reckon
ing, was a continuation of it. In this stage pascha denoted
the death of Christ, the anti-type of the Jewish festival, at
once its absolute fulfilment and its abolition — the true Pass
over that was sacrificed for the redemption of the world. We
observe already an approximation to this view in Paul (1 Cor.
xi. 23-26), and also in Luke's account of the Last Supper (xxii) ;
where, though in both cases there is an undoubted allusion to
the ordinary legal Passover, yet, as Hilgenfeld has remarked,
the Jewish accessories of the occasion are designedly kept in
the background, and the Christian elements of faith and feeling
are brought prominently into view. But an obvious contrariety
was soon experienced between the Jewish and the Christian
idea associated with the word pascha. To the Jew it expressed
rejoicing — the memory of deliverance; to the Christian it
suggested, in the first instance, the remembrance of sorrow and
loss, the death of his benefactor and best earthly friend. To
one it was a festival ; to the other it was a fast. The feeling
of this contrariety deepened, as the purely Christian sentimert

116 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
triumphed in the minds of behevers, and a sense of the radical
difference between the Old and the New Dispensation was more
thoroughly developed. In the West the change in the appli
cation of the word was accelerated (as I have already re
marked) by the difficulty of adjusting the lunar to the solar
year, and by the custom of regulating the anniversary of the
Lord's death and resurrection, not by the day of the month,
but by the day of the week. The steps of this change it
is no longer possible to trace with distinctness ; but there are
still indications of there having been a time, when 7rdo-xa was
pecuharly associated with a remembrance of the sufferings of
Christ, — an idea which was fostered in the minds of the Greeks
by their confounding the Hebrew 7racr^a with their own verb
Trdo-xeiv. Mosheim and some others, noticing this, have made
a distinction, for which there appears to be no adequate founda
tion, — between a 7racry;a o-ravpd>o-t.fwv, commemorating the
passion, and a irdaxa dvao-Tacrifiov, commemorating the re
surrection, each of which was observed by the Church — the
former as a fast, the latter as a festival.
At length this migratory name finished its course, and
settled finally in the first day of the week, as the anni
versary of the resurrection: and to prevent any further con
fusion with the old Jewish usage, the account of the last
days of Jesus,- which acquired currency through the Fourth
Gospel, denied that he ever partook of the Passover at all,
but suffered 'on the very day on which alone it could be
legally eaten. Two important consequences resulted from
this fixation of the pascha : it was severed for ever from its
Jewish root ; and it resumed once more its original signifi
cation of a festival instead of a fast. But we have seen with
what difficulty this transition was made ; and how it needed
the interposition of an imperial decree to render it effectual.
The old Jewish churches of Asia Minor and the farther East
still observed the fourteenth of Nisan, not as Jews but as
Christians. It was the Christian, not the Jewish, pascha

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 117
which they kept; and that they could only have kept, in
commemoration of the farewell supper,— associated as it was
with the death of their Lord, and with their sense of all of
which that death was to them the symbol and the pledge.
Their usage was, therefore, in conformity with the account
which the Three First Gospels have transmitted to us of the
closing scenes of the life of Jesus ; and they pleaded on be
half of this usage, as we have seen from the letter of Polycrates
to Yictor, against the newer practice of the West, enforced
mainly by Alexandria and Rome — not only the general pre
cedent of apostolic tradition, but more especially the example
of the greatest celebrity of the Asiatic churches, the apostle
John, whose name had conferred a kind of sanctity on Ephesus
and the whole ecclesiastical circle of which Ephesus was the
centre. This is the more remarkable, as the gospel which we
find in general circulation under the name of John before the
close of the second century, contains statements respecting the
last supper of Jesus with his disciples, so entirely at variance
with the behef on which the Quartodecimans, as their very
name implies, founded their practice, that, had they recognized
it as the work of John, it is impossible they could have- ap
pealed in their defence to his sanction. What is more re
markable still, those who were opposed to Quartodeciman
usage and wished to enforce a Catholic uniformity throughout
the Church, never once thought of appealing in the earlier
stages of the controversy to the statement in the Fourth Gospel,
which was decidedly in their favour. A word from one standing
in so close a relation to Jesus as the beloved apostle, would have
have settled the question for ever. Yet not till quite the end
of the second century, do we find the name of John adduced to
support the Catholic view.
We cannot, it seems to me, form a correct idea of this and
some kindred controversies, without distinctly realizing to
ourselves the immense fermentation of ideas, the vehement
antagonism of principles, which was going on through the

118 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
whole of the second and third centuries, as a condition of the
development of a Cathohc 'Christianity — in other words, of the
evolution of a religion for the world and for futurity, out of
the simple rudiments of Jewish behef and a national move
ment of earnest Jewish reform. Chiliasm, Montanism, Quarto-
decimanism are only different phases of one and the same
strong tendency — the effort to preserve or to revive the faith and
practice of the primitive Galilaean institution, under the changes
that were stealing over it from wider and more unreserved
contact with the world, and the transformation of its simple
beliefs and expectations into abstract formulas in accordance
with the philosophical theories of the day. A constant looking
for the second advent of the Lord, self -surrender to the impulses
of the spirit as the only adequate preparation for meeting him,
and a punctual observance, weekly and annual, of the appointed
memorial, which should " show forth his death till he came,"
and which took the stronger hold of their imagination, from
its coincidence with the most venerable rite of the preceding
dispensation — all this implied a state of mind so opposed to the
ordinary views and feelings of mankind, that only a degree of
enthusiasm amounting at times to fanaticism could perpetuate
it. Yet in certain temperaments this very contrariety to the
world furnished the aliment of a self-supporting activity and
zeal. It bound men by the closest bonds to usage that was
consecrated by the hohest traditions, and stirred them up to
the most strenuous endeavours after spiritual revival. It
generated a heroism, a courage, and a conscientiousness which
worldly blandishment could not seduce, and which persecution
only rendered more intense. Except on their respective points
of difference with the Cathohcs, — Chiliasts, Montanists, and
Quartodecimans, were reputed orthodox.1 Had the authen-
1 Epiphanius's artificial multiplication of the different forms of heresy, has drawn a
sharper line of distinction between these sects than really existed. We should have
understood their significance in relation to the history of their times, more clearly, if
our attention had been drawn rather to the broad principle in which they agreed,

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. • 119
ticity of the Fourth Gospel not been involved, the fore
going explanation of the Quartodeciman controversy would
probably have been accepted as the most natural deduction
from the extant evidence; but the consequence inevitably
flowing from it, was not to be admitted without a resolute
endeavour to evade it. It has, therefore, been argued, — among
others by the late Professor Bleek of Bonn,1 — that the point
at issue was, not whether John was right or the Synoptists,
in the day assigned by them respectively for the Last Supper,
but whether the Jewish Passover should continue to be
observed in the Christian Church. This seems to me a mis
statement of the whole question. No one has ever contended,
than to the minuter points on which they differed. In reading of them we are con
stantly struck with certain features of resemblance to the sectaries of a more recent
date — the Lollards and Puritans of our own country, the Gueux and Huguenots of the
Continent. This is particularly the case with the Donatists of Afiica, who offered the
last and most determined resistance in the West to the encroachments of Catholic ascend
ancy. But the East, from Asia Minor to Mesopotamia and Armenia, ever continued the
great ojjicina hceresium, from which issued the strange, mysterious sects that penetrated
into Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era. Unfortunately we know
little of these opponents of the dominant church, except through the reports of their
enemies. This remark applies to the Montanists and Quartodecimans of the' second and
third centuries. Of the former, Eusebius has preserved some curious notices, though
evidently drawn from a prejudiced source, in the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical His
tory. His authority, Apollonius, (c. 18), charges them with luxurious living, per
sonal vanity, and worldliness. He says that " they die their hair, and tinge their eyes
with stibium, and array themselves in gaudy attire, and play at tables and dice, and put
out money at interest." Such a statement may seem at first view irreconcileable with
the prevalent idea of their principles and practices. But it is not in itself at all incre
dible. Heinichen, in a sensible note on the passage, has shown that it is the natural
tendency of an exaggerated spirituality to break out at times into the opposite
extreme : and I call attention to the circumstance here, for the opportunity it affords me
of noticing a parallel instance in our own religious history. The Independents of the
Commonwealth were the most advanced and spiritual section of the Puritan body. Tet
they scandalized their Presbyterian contemporaries, by their easy conformity to the
manners of the world. "They wear strange long hair," says Edwards in his
Gangraena (p. 63), " go in fine fashionable apparel beyond their places, feast, ride
journeys, and do servile business on fast days." Their ministers were well paid, and
lived in great worldly comfort. John Goodwin, one of the most eminent among
them, did not scruple, any more than Calvin at Geneva, to go to bowls and other
sports on days of public thanksgiving. It must not be supposed, therefore, that in
the controversy between the Quartodecimans and the Catholics, all the fanaticism or
all the worldliness was on one side.
1 Beitrage zur Evangelien-Kritik. II. 6, 7, 8.

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

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 121
ended and the New began , on the 14th of Nisan, the latter
carried forward the separation between them, to the anniversary
of the resurrection on the ensuing Sunday ; otherwise expressed,
that one party fixed the boundary line of the two dispensations
on Good Friday, the other on Easter Sunday.
It is possible, that this theory -of Weitzel may so far have
historical truth on its side, that it represents a stage in the
controversy, when pascha denoted pre-eminently the anniver
sary of the death of Christ, the irdo-xa o-Tavpi>o-ip,ov as it has been
called by some. The modern critics who have gone into the
history of this controversy, have perhaps drawn too absolute a
line of separation between the Quartodecimans and their oppo
nents, without sufficiently recognising the intervening steps of
transition through which primitive Christianity gradually
passed into Catholicism.1 But that this theory does not go to
the bottom of the question, or suggest its true origin, appears to
me quite evident from the following consideration. If the
death-day of Christ was observed on the 14th of Nisan, it must
have been observed as a fast day, and would therefore have been
in harmony with the prolonged course of fasting which pre
ceded the anniversary of the resurrection. But the complaint
1 Epiphanius, speaking of the Quartodecimans (Panar. 1. 2). expresses the idea of
Weitzel in the following passage : iSei rbv Xptarbv 4v rrj reaaapesKaiSeKdrri
yuepq BieaBai Kara rbv v6/iov, Situs A^f?) irap' dvroTs rb <parl(,ov hvrovs tpas
koto rbv v6/iov, rod fiXiov dvarei\avros Kal ffKeirdo-avros tijs o-eX-S\vi)S rb <re\as.
dirb yap reaffapeffKaiSeKdrris Kal Kdra tpBivel rb <paiv6fnevov rrjs <re7<Aivi\s. Sura
xal 4v TijS vip.a dirb ttjs rod Xpiorou irapovfflas Kal irdBovs ^\fiavpi>8r\ r\ 'IouSat/c}/
avvayayi), Karriiyaae S\ rb 4vayye\iov, /iii KaraKvBevros rod vSpov, dAAa
tr\i\puBevros, fi^i KarapyrjBevros rov rvirov, d\\d irapaffr^ffavros r))V d\i\Belavm
" Christ must needs be sacrificed on the 14th day, that among them should cease the
light which lighteneth them according to the law, the sun having arisen and over
powered the brightness of the moon. For, from the 14th and downward the appearance
of the moon waneth. So also in the law, from the time of the presence and passion
of Christ, the Jewish congregation has become dim, and the gospel has shone forth —
the law not having been destroyed but fulfilled, the type not being made void, but
exhibiting the truth."
This, with similar passages, represents the intermediate state of feeling, in which
the Church endeavoured to combine in one system the observance both of the 14th
and of the Sunday, so as to avoid the occurrence of two paschas in one and the same
year.

122 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
against the Quartodecimans, as we have seen, was this : — that by
keeping the 14th of Nisan, they interrupted with a feast, which
the old pascha or Passover properly was, the continuous fasting
of Passion-week, — so that it did not terminate the fast, but
merely broke it for the occasion. Weitzel himself is so im
pressed with this difficulty, and some others attaching to his
theory, that he is obhged to assume the existence of two parties
among the Quartodecimans, a more Catholic party, and one
decidedly Ebionitish. But for such an assumption there is no
ground whatever. All extant evidence goes to show, that the
whole party was imbued with Jewish tendency, and represented
the old Jewish Christianity. The idea of cutting them up into
two sections, would never have occurred' to any one, had it not
been required by the exigencies of a theory. Down into the
Middle Ages, and even, it is said, to this day, in some remote
parts of Asia, traces may be found of the use of unleavened
bread and of the sacrifice of a lamb in the celebration of the
Lord's Supper, which seem clearly to indicate its derivation
from the Jewish Passover, and serve to shew, that the ori
ginal dispute between the Quartodecimans and the Cathohcs
related to something more fundamental than a more reckoning
of days.1 On the whole. I am compelled to believe, by a fair
1 See the evidence of this statement in Mosheim (De Rebus Christ. II., § lxxi.*
1) and Routh (Reliq. Sacr. II. p. 19). According to existing records it would
seem (contrary to what might have been expected from the earlier stages of the con
troversy), that Jewish usage lingered longer in the West than in the East. 'One of
the disputes between the Greek and the Latin Churches, which accelerated the final
schism between them, related to the kind of bread which should be used in the
eucharist, the latter Church insisting on the use of unleavened bread, which was
disapproved by the former. See Riddle's Christian Antiquities (iv. § 7, 1.) Still
more remarkable was the charge brought by the Greek, in the ninth century, against
the Roman Church, of " offering a lamb on the altar, after the manner of the Jews, at
the time of the pascha, and of blessing it along with the Lord's body," (agnum in
pascha, more Judaeorum, super altare pariter cum dominico corpore benedicere et
offerre.) That the charge was not wholly without foundation, is evident from a
passage in Walafrid Strabo (de rebus eccles. c. 18.) There was even a form of bene.
diction appropriate to the occasion, still preserved in some old rituals of the Roman
Church, from one of which it appears, that the Pope and eleven Cardinals had
solemnly partaken of a lamb at Easter. It was eaten on the Sunday. See Gieseler
(Kirch. Gesch. II. i. § 41, m.), who has given the original authorities at full. The

THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 123
interpretation of such evidence as has come within my reach,
that the real struggle in this dispute was between the retention
of Jewish and the -substitution of Catholic usage ; that the
apostle John, if he were, as I have attempted to show, a Jewish
Christian, naturally shared in the Jewish predilections of his
Asiatic brethren, and was therefore quoted by them as an
authority for their own practice ; that the Synoptists have given
the true account of the Last Supper, and the crucifixion ; and
that the author of the Fourth Gospel, by assigning the Passion
to the 14th of Nisan, and holding up Christ himself as the true
Passover, evidently intended to do away with the last pretext for
retaining any semblance to a Jewish rite, and to free Chris
tianity from the swathing-bands of Hebrew thought and
Hebrew usage, which checked its healthy growth and still kept
it in spiritual childhood.
remonstrance of the Greek Church probably put an end to this Jewish practice in the
West. In the latter half of the fourth century, we find Aerius, a heretic of Arian
tendencies, and a contemporary of Epiphanius, protesting against the Jewish usages
with which the Pascha, in his time, continued to be celebrated. He seems indeed to
have objected to the retention of the Pascha in any sense, and to have disregarded
the fasting with which it was accompanied : ov xph T0 ndVxo 4irireXe'iv. (Epiphan.
Panar. ixxv. 3.)
The Armenian Christians are charged by the Patriarch Nikon (Patr. Apost.
Coteler. I., p. 236), with eating a lamb on Easter Sunday, smearing their door-posts
with its blood, and using unleavened bread. To this day, according to Grant (The
Nestorians) the Nestorian Christians in the mountains of Kurdistan, who call them
selves Nazarenes, still celebrate Easter in accordance with the Old Testament regula
tions about the Passover, substituting, however, the elements of the Christian euchar
ist for the pascal lamb. See Hilgenfeld (Paschastreit, p. 399, note 1). All these
instances justify the conclusion, that in the Christian pascha there was a gradual
transition from Jewish to Christian usage.

124 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

SECTION X.
Some points in the Chronology of the Paschal question.
The purely critical issues of the paschal controversy, in
relation to the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, have been
complicated by chronological difficulties, resulting from the
substitution of the solar for the lunar year, which have had the
effect of diverting attention from the real nature and origin of
the subject in dispute. The Hebrew Passover was at once a
festival of nature and a historical anniversary. It marked the
opening of the year, coincident with the vernal equinox ; and it
was also a memorial of national deliverance. But the old
Hebrew year was reckoned by successive lunations, the periods
of which were themselves determined by very imperfect observa
tions, and were only kept in a sort of rough and general har
mony with the annual revolution of the sun, by means of occa
sional intercalations.1 The occurrence of the death of Christ at the
time of the Passover introduced a new historical element into
the yearly celebration, and was the cause of fresh difficulties in
calculating it. The one fixed point for Jews and Christians was
the vernal equinox. When Christianity spread out of Palestine
through the Roman empire, the different usages prevalent in the
ancient populations of Asia and among the more civilized peoples
of the West, led to a contrariety of practice which was the means
under providence of more completely detaching the new religion
from its parent root in Judaism. The Hebrew Passover com
menced on the eve of the 14th of Nisan, without any reference
to the day of the week ; the Christian anniversary of the
1 Ideler, Lehrbuch der Chronologie, p. 204.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 125
resurrection was associated immutably with the first day of
the week, irrespective of the particular day of the month. The
points of departure for the subsequent regulation were different
in the two cases, and collision was the unavoidable result. The
first influence which modified the conception of the Christian
pascha and prepared the way for the later system — was the
disposition, so natural under the circumstances, and favoured by
the typological passion of the day, to regard Christ himself as
the true Passover. This occasioned, almost inevitably, in the
way of reckoning then customary among the Jews (connecting
the evening of one day with the morning of the next as one
continuous day), a throwing back of the day of the crucifixion
from the 15th to the 14th, and a consequent exclusion of the
possibihty of Christ and his foUowers having partaken of a
proper paschal supper on the evening of the 14th. In this
manner the foundation was laid for what was afterwards called
the Holy Week, founded on a parallelism between the Jewish
and the Christian pascha. It began with the selection of the
victim, symbolized by the anointing of Jesus, six days before
the Passover, according to the Fourth Gospel (xii. 1) ; then came
the sacrifice itself, the centre-point of the Great Week (on the
14th, as represented by the Fourth Gospel) ; followed, on the
third day after inclusive (i.e. on the Sunday) by the resur
rection. So conceived and arranged, the week exhibited, ac
cording to the Catholic system, a most entire coincidence of
type and anti-type — of prefiguration and fulfilment. But
although the Catholic pascha, by the practice of dating back
from the Sunday, was freed from a servile dependence on any
particular day of a Jewish month, it was still necessary to keep it
connected generally with the season of the vernal equinox ; and
hence arose the necessity of scientific interposition, to adjust the
relations of the lunar and the solar year. The old Hebrew
names for the months had been superseded by Macedonian, as
a result of the conquests of Alexander. Josephus employs the
altered nomenclature. When these Macedonian months, which

126 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
were lunar, were changed under Roman influence into fixed
solar months, is uncertain. According to Galen (quoted by
Hilgenfeld, p. 236, note) this conversion had taken place among
the peoples of Asia, as early as the middle of the second century
of our era. Soon after, at the beginning of the third century,
we find the first attempt made to construct a cycle for deter
mining the time of Easter, by Hippolytus, (Hilgenfeld, p. 332).
An observation of the variations between the lunar and the solar
year., had early induced the Greek astronomers to try to find out
some period of moderate length, in which the solar years, the
lunar months, and the solar days should each be capable of ex
pression by whole numbers ; so that it might be possible, in any
particular year of the period, to refer the new and full moons
to the days of that year. Such periods were caUed lunar
cycles. The earliest of which we read, consisted of nineteen years,
and bears the name of Meton, who is said to have hved in the
latter part of the fifth century before Christ. The cycle of
Meton was reconstructed by Cahppus, a contemporary of Aris
totle, who substituted in place of it a longer cycle of seventy-six
years. This cycle of Calippus, with the addition of the octaeteris
or space of eight years, making it a cycle of eighty- four, — was
for a time in use in the Western church, with a view to bring
round the new moons not only to the same day of the month
but also to the same day of the week. The old cycle of the
octaeteris, older it is said among the Greeks than the Metonic
cycle of nineteen years, was the element out of which the
earliest pascal cycles of the Christians were evolved. Hippolytus
doubled it, and so framed his cycle of sixteen years, But it was
a rude approximation, which failed of its proposed object, and
was superseded at the beginning of the fourth century among
the Latins, by the cycle of eighty-four years. (Hilgenfeld,
p. 340.)1
1 The canon paschalis of Hippolytus is inscribed on one side of the chair of the
statue, supposed to be that of Hippolytus, which was dug up in the catacombs of
San Lorenzo at Rome, in the yonr 1551.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 127
" The whole ecclesiastical division of the year," was hence
forth, according to Ideler,1 " determined by the festival of Easter,
which from the bommencement of the Christian era had been
always solemnized on the Sunday which followed the vernal full
moon ; and, when this fell on a Sunday, on the Sunday next
following. By the vernal full-moon was understood either
that which coincided with the 21st of March (universally ac
cepted as the commencement of spring) or that which imme
diately followed it. This was called the ' Easter limit,' terminus
paschalis. Two things had therefore to be determined in fixing
Easter ; first, the day of the month, and secondly the day of the
week, of the ' Easter limit.' " " When the new moon has been
found," he continues (p. 347), " the next thing is to deduce from
it the full moon. In all the discussions respecting the celebra
tion of Easter, we find the expression Teo-aapeo-TKaiBeKaTt], Luna
decima quarta (the 14th day of the month) employed by ecclesias
tical writers to denote the full moon.8 The full moon occurs
nearly fifteen days, on the average after the conjunction ; but
the Greeks reckoned the age of the moon from its first appear
ance in the evening sky, and with that they began their month.3
1 Handbuch der Chronologie, p. 345. In a note, Ideler observes: "the old Ger.
man Ostern is of disputed origin. The usual notion is, that it is derived from
urstan, which in the oldest language of Germany, signifies ' to rise again.' Ac
cording to Bede (de temp. rat. u. 13), it comes from the name of an old Anglo-
Saxon goddess, Eostre, whose feast from the remotest antiquity was celebrated about
the time of the Christian Easter. Bede calls April, in which Easter usually falls,
Eoslurmonath, Charlemagne, Oslarmanoth."
2 We have here a curious indication of Jewish origin, in the retention of a mark of
time after it had ceased to have any propriety or even meaning in the Christian
usage, except as a rough general expression for the middle of a month. In like
manner the phrase, o-a&/3drov ji-iya, sabbatum magnum, is used in the Roman Church
to signify the sabbath that occurs in the paschal week, the day when Christ lay in the
grave, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday ; though among the Jews, it seems to
have originally denoted the day which immediately followed the Passover, the first
day of Unleavened Bread, the 15th of Nisan, whether it was an ordinary sabbath or
not ; in accordance with the Jewish practice of calling all their high festival days
sabbaths. See the evidence for this last statement adduced by Hilgenfeld (Pascha-
streit, p. 149, note).
3 The crescent moon, as marking the commencement of another lunation, would
naturally acquire something of a religious character, and might become an object of

128 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
The new moons in the ecclesiastical tables must be understood
in the same sense. As from the first phase to the full moon
thirteen days usually elapae, those who fixed the time of Easter
reckoned 13, or inclusive of the new moon, 14 days onwards, —
from the beginning to the middle of the lunation, and so ascer
tained the ' Easter Limit.' " The days on which this fell, were
marked in the cycle of nineteen years by numbers, from one to
nineteen, which were caUed " the golden numbers," probably
from their having at one time been written in gold.1 The
earliest ' Easter hmit ' was the 21st of March, regarded uni
versally as the first day of spring. Hence the Easter new moon
must fall somewhere between the 8th of March and the 5th of
April inclusive. The new moon on the 8th of March would
give the earhest ' Easter hmit ' — that on the 21st. Should it not
occur till the 5th of April, it would yield the latest ' Easter
hmit, — on the 18th of that month. If the 21st of March should
fall on a Saturday, Easter would be celebrated next day, on the
22nd, and this would be the earhest Easter day possible. If, on
the other hand, the 18th of April should happen to be a Sunday,
then Easter would have to be postponed a week, and fall on the
25th of April, the latest day to which it could be deferred.
These are the extreme limits of the possible period of Easter,
separated by an interval of five weeks.8
The different cycles devised for finding the new and full
moons on which Easter depended, were only approximations to
rigid scientific truth. From time to time they had to be cor
rected ; and when they had run out their course, they must either
be renewed or superseded by others. The altered constitution
of the civil year imposed at length the necessity of making such
calculations, not less on the Jews in fixing the time of the
Passover, than on the Christians in regulating Easter. As the
worship. Relics have been found in the Lake-dwellings built on piles, lately brought
to light in Switzerland and elsewhere, from which it has been conjectured that the
people who inhabited them worshipped the crescent moon. (See Dr. Ferdinand
Keller's work, Engl. Transl.) The new moons were sacred among the Hebrews.
1 Ideler, Handbuch etc, p. 346. » Ideler, p. 348.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 129
learned bishops of Alexandria issued their paschal letters year
by year, which were authorised by imperial decree throughout
the Roman empire ; so the Nasi or Jewish patriarchs at
Tiberias annually put forth their decrees determining the time
of the Passover, which had the force of law in all the syna
gogues of the West. On both sides there was now the greatest
care to avoid any coincidence in the season of celebration,
between the Jewish and the Christian festivals. For a long time
the Jews were so entirely without any certain rule on the
subject, and their calendar had fallen into such a state of con
fusion, that they are said to have observed the first and the last
days of the feast of Unleavened Bread twice over, to diminish
the chance of their having possibly missed the true time. About
the middle of the third century, Dionysius of Alexandria, still
making use of the octaeteris, improved on the imperfect cycle
of Hippolytus ; and so contrived his calculations, that the cele
bration of Easter could not occur till after the vernal equinox .
This was in defiance of the old lunar usage of the Jews, and was
no doubt intended to be so ; a fact which deserves notice, as
indicating the feeling which at that time so powerfully actuated
the Christians in the regulation of their great annual festival.
Towards the end of the third century, Anatolius of Alexandria
introduced the cycle of nineteen years ; and this, in the course of
the fourth century, was superseded in the Latin Church by the
cycle of eighty-four years, to which I have already referred. In
relation to the subject of the present inquiry, it is unnecessary to
pursue the history of these ecclesiastical cycles any further than
to observe, that in the first half of the sixth century, Dionysius
Exiguus constructed a table which brought the Alexandrine and
the Roman usage into harmony. This Dionysian cycle gradually
superseded all others. In the time of Charlemagne it was accepted
universally throughout the West,1 where it continued to be em
ployed until the general reform of the calendar under Gregory
XIII., in the latter half of the 16th century. Uniformity
¦ Ideler, p. 378.

130 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
in the mode of keeping Easter was first attempted to be made
imperative at the Council of Nice, but if any canons were then
framed with this view, they have perished. Practically, as the
result of these long discussions, Easter was fixed on the Lord's
day next after the full moon happening upon, or immediately
following, the vernal equinox ; with a provision, that if the full
moon should fall on a Sunday, then Easter day should be the
Sunday after.1
It appears, then, that the final regulation of this festival,
which had occasioned such vehement disputes between different
sections of the Church in the earher centuries of our era, was
framed, as to the main subject of its celebration — (the anniver
sary of our Lord's passion and resurrection) — in accordance
with the account of the closing scenes of the hfe of Jesus, con
tained in the Fourth Gospel. The Church, in its official termi
nology, significantly designates the "Easter hmit," which
determines Easter Sunday, Tecra-apeo-KaiBeKaTrj " the fourteenth."
The reader will have to consider whether the influences which I
have indicated in previous sections, as operating so powerfully
within the Catholic Church, appear to him of such a nature as
to account satisfactorily for the substitution of the later account
ascribed to John, in place of the earher traditions, — without
compelling us to withdraw our faith from the general historical
trustworthiness of the three first Evangelists. There is, how
ever, one argument on behalf of the superior credibihty of the
day assigned by the Fourth Gospel for the crucifixion of
Jesus, which has been urged with so much plausibility,
especially by the late Professor Bleek, that it cannot
be passed over without a somewhat fuller notice. The argu
ment is this.2 According to the three first Evangehsts,
1 This was, of course, done to avoid coincidence with the Jewish Passover.
Tho chronological details involved in this long paschal controversy, have been dis
cussed with great thoroughness and exuberant learning, by Hilgenfeld, in the work s0
often referred to : " Der Paschastreit der alten Kirche, nach seiner Bedentung fur die
Kirchengeschichte und fur die Evangelienforschung urkundlich dargestellt."
J Bleek's "Beitrage Zur Evangelien-Kritik," II. 6, 7, 8.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 131
Christ was crucified with the two malefactors on the 15th of
Nisan, which was the first day of Unleavened Bread, the great
day of the feast. This had a sabbatical character, and, was
observed with sabbatical strictness. It was a day, therefore,
on which no public execution could lawfully take place. From
this difficulty the narration in John, it is argued, is wholly free-
It represents Jesus to have supped with his disciples, the evening
on which he was betrayed, " before the feast of the Passover "
(71730 777? eopTrj? tov Tracv^a). This must have been on the
13th ; the Passover not commencing till the evening of the next
day ; so that there could have been no legal hindrance to the
crucifixion during the earher hours of the 14th. According to
this statement, Christ was crucified on the same day on which
the paschal lamb was slaughtered ; and this is assumed to be
strictly in accordance with the language of Paul (1 Cor. v. 7)
" Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us." Dr. Bleek contends,
that the word irapao-Kevri (preparation) by which the day of the
crucifixion is designated in ah the four Evangehsts, is not used
of every Friday preceding an ordinary Sabbath, but only of a
Friday falling on the 14th of Nisan, when the Sabbath following
would be a " highday," the first day of " Unleavened Bread."
He even thinks that the Synoptists who confounded the Last
Supper with the Paschal Supper, and therefore carried it forward
from the 13th to the 14th, have unconsciously preserved a trace
of the original and true account, by retaining the word irapa-
o-Kevrj, though they have applied it to a day, viz., the 15th, of
which, as being itself sabbatical, it could not with propriety be
used. Other violations of the sabbatical strictness with which
the 15th of Nisan in the paschal week was required by the law
to be kept, have been noticed by Bleek in the synoptical
narratives : for instance, the coming of Simon of Cyrene " out of
the country " (ipxbpevov air dypov), as if from his labour, on
that holy day (Mark xv. 21 ; Luke xxiii. 26) ; and further*
Matthew's statement (xxvii. 62) that " after the preparation "
QieTa. ttjv ¦jrapaaKevrjv), that is, on the Sabbath itself, the

132 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate, and made ar
rangements with him for setting a watch at the mouth of the
sepulchre. From aU this Bleek concludes, that the SynoptiBts
have related what could not possibly have taken place on a
sabbatical day ; and that consequently the account in the
Fourth Gospel must be received as the true one.
Notwithstanding the plausibility of this theory, it is open to
grave, and, as I think, unanswerable objections. In the first
place, what authority has Dr. Bleek for limiting the apphcation
of ¦n-apao-Kevrj to a Friday coinciding with the 14th of Nisan?
The three first Evangehsts, by his own showing, cannot have
so understood it ; and as they Were either Jews or used Jewish
materials, it is inconceivable how such a misuse of the word
could have got into their text. Moreover, usage is clearly
against him. Mark (xv. 42) explains irapao-Kevr] for his readers
by trpoo-dfiftaTov, which would have been a very inadequate
definition, if it referred specially to a sabbath falling on the
15th,1 Luke's expression (xxiii. 54) is equaUy general : " It
was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was dawning:"
Tjfiepa fjv Trapao-Kevrp, Kal aafSftaTov iire<\>w<7Kev)? John, on
the other hand, who puts the crucifixion on the 14th, seems
purposely to hmit the generahty of the expression by subjoining
— (xix. 14) " of the Passover" — " it was the preparation of the
Passover " (nrapaaKevi) tov irdaxa). Why should he have added
tou Trdcrxa, if TrapaaKevrj meant that of itself? Apparently
with the same view, when the word occurs again, further on,
(v. 31) he adds : " for that Sabbath day was a high day " (fy
p,eydXt] r) r)p,kpa iKeivov tov o-aftfiaTov).3 The same inference,
1 According to Lachmann, the Alexandrine and the Vatican here read irpis
adfifSarov which Meyer treats as a mere clerical error.
2 Tho Alexandrine and some other MSS. read irapaaKevt). But the sense is the same,
rendered in our received version : " that day was the preparation."
3 In speaking of Jewish observances, John has some expressions peculiar to himself.
For instance, he qualifies to irdaxa by adding rS>v 'lovSaltev. See ii. 13; vi. 4 :
xi. 65. This never once occurs in the Synoptists. In like manner Jesus, in the
Fourth Gospel, when addressing the Jews, says, " Tour law," (viii. 17, x. 34) as if he
wished to mark his own separation from them.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 133
that parasceue simply denoted in the Hellenistic Greek of the
Jews, the day before an ordinary Sabbath, seems also fairly de-
ducible from a passage in Irenaeus, where he is speaking generally
of the sixth day of the week (that is, Friday) as parasceue (iv tj)
e/crg t&v r)p,epmv fjTi<: earl trapao-Kevr\ (Adv. Hser. I., xiv. 6) ;
and again : "parasceue, that is the sixth day,, which the Lord
made conspicuous by suffering on it" (ibid- v. xxiii. 2). This
last circumstance, of course, conferred subsequently, and among
Christians, a significance on the term parasceue, which it did
not previously possess.1
The incident of Simon's "coming from the field," and
meeting Jesus on his way to Calvary, is unduly dwelt on by
Dr. Bleek. Nothing is said, which indicates that he had been
engaged in any kind of labour,, and his ' coming ' might be
altogether within the limits of a Sabbath-day's journey. It
does not appear from the citations adduced by Dr. Bleek, that
the Rabbis were altogether agreed among themselves, what
acts were and what were not permissible on a Sabbath day or a
sabbatical festival. One authority says,8 that in case of sacri
lege, the offender might be seized and brought to the Temple^
and there be put to death in the presence of all the people, at
one of the three holy festivals. In the eyes of his enemies the
case of Jesus would have come within the scope of this decision.
He was regarded as a blasphemer, whose death must be an
acceptable offering to offended Deity.3 His crucifixion was a
solemn auto da fe, which rather enhanced- than profaned the
sanctity of a sabbatical day ; and the execution along with him
of two ordinary malefactors, was only intended to augment by
bitterness and contumely the force of this expiatory sacrifice.
1 In the " Gesta Pilati " (A. recently published by Tisohendorf), irapaaKev4\ occurs
in a context, where it cannot mean anything but the day before a sabbath (xv. 5, p. 253).
* Bleek, Beitrage, etc., pp. 145 and 6.
3 It was a doctrine of the Rabbis, cited by Wetstein and Liicke on John xvi. 2;.
" Quisquis effundit sanguinem impii, idem facit ac si sacrificium offerat," This
sentiment involves the seed of all religious persecution. Christ foresaw its applica
tion to his followers.

134 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Independently, however, of these considerations, I cannot
believe, that either the original provisions of the Mosaic Law,
or the later decisions of the Rabbis, who interpreted their
ancient Scriptures with a superstitious servility to the letter, are
applicable in all their strictures to the disordered times in
which Christ hved, when the old Hebrew theocracy was break
ing down under heathen influence, and the factions which
disposed of the priesthood and raged in the Synedrium, rendered
it difficult to exercise any regular Jewish jurisdiction at all
The fear which Matthew (xxvi. 5) and Mark (xiv. 2) ascribe to
the rulers, of rousing the people, if they should apprehend Jesus
" on the feast day " — implies, that they would have felt no
scruple in doing so on account of the day itself.1 One consider
ation to which I have already alluded, seems to me to deprive of
all weight the argument on which so much stress has been laid
by Professor Bleek. There can be no reasonable doubt, that
the Synoptists have transmitted to us the earhest Palestinian
tradition respecting the life and death of Jesus ; and two of
1 I took this view, when I first became acquainted with Bleek's argument some
years ago. I have since found it confirmed by the judgment of the learned Jewish
historian, Jost, in his recent work, " Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten"
(III. iii. 12. Yol. I. p. 402, seq.). He says, that all the proceedings against Jesus
were irregular, arranged probably by some secret understanding between Caiaphas and
Herod ; and that there is no trace of a formal judicial investigation, still less of a duly
assembled meeting of the Sanhedrim. This is indicated, he thinks, by the unseemly
haste and precipitation which marked the whole transaction. Their assembling at so
early an hour on the Friday morning betrays the perplexity of the chief priests and
rulers of the people. He notices the absence of Gamaliel, one of the Sanhedrim, from
all their deliberations, as significant ; and adds, in language most remarkable, as
coming from a Jew : " here was no trial ; it was a private murder. It was not the
Jews who crucified Jesus, but a number, not more particularly specified, of determined
enemies, who took the responsibility on themselves." (p. 408.)
I ought to observe that, according to Jost, the Rabbis accept it as a fact, that Jesus
was crucified on the day before the first day of the Passover, that is on the 14th Nisan,
They agree, therefore, in this with the statement of the Fourth Gospel. But Jost
shows clearly, in the same plaee, that net the slightest reliance can be placed on these
rabbinical statements, whioh rested on vague traditions, and discover the greatest ignor
ance of historical faets. The same motive which induced the Christians to put the
crucifixion on the day of the Passover, viz., to prevent auy possible confusion of the
Jewish and Christian paschas, would have equal weight with the Jews, from the
time when the hostility between the two religions became marked and irreconcilable.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 135
them, Matthew and Mark, were themselves Jews. Now, admh-
ing for the sake of argument, that the materials left by them
were subsequently worked up into their present form by other
hands, still those materials were Jewish, and the Jewish im
press remains on them most distinctly to this day. If, then, it
had been impossible in the actual state of Judea, for the cruci
fixion to have taken place on the 15th of Nisan, the writers of
those gospels must have known, that it was so ; and it is to me
perfectly incredible how they should have admitted into their
narrative a statement which was so flagrantly at variance with
the estabhshed usage of their country, and which must have
carried on its face the plainest evidence of falsehood.

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

136 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
sequently the next day was the 1st of Nisan (coincident with
the first appearance of the new moon). Thirteen days later
was the full moon, on the 14th of Nisan, which, according
to this reckoning, must have fallen on Saturday, April 16th
(the Sabbath). On the evening of this Saturday (the 14th
of Nisan) the Passover was eaten ; and the following day
(our Sunday), the 15th of Nisan, was the first day of the
feast of Unleavened Bread. In this manner, S. S., fol
lowing the determinations of the astronomers, distributes the
events of the Paschal or Passion week ; and the arrange
ment, he contends, is more in accordance with the statements
of the Fourth Gospel than with those of the three first.
Upon this I have first to remark in general, that the appli
cation of scientific tests to a subject hke the present, is often
fallacious. It may have the appearance of establishing a pre
cise truth ; while, in fact, it is only confirming an error. Given
the year, we can, of course, determine by the help of science on
what day of that year any particular astronomical phenomena
would occur. But we must first determine from independent
evidence the year itself; and that is the very point in dis
pute. Considering the nature of the documents with which
we have to deal, I do not think it possible to get beyond
proximate chronological results ; such, for instance, as that
sometime about the middle of the reign of Tiberius, a great
religious movement, associated with the names of John the
Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, broke out in Palestine.
Within the New Testament itself, I find no certain data for
determining the duration of Christ's public ministry. We
know that it must have terminated while Pontius Pilate was
Procurator of Judaea ; and therefore could not have extended
beyond 36 a.d., when Pilate was removed from his office. I
am strengthened in my persuasion of the great uncertainty
accompanying all attempts to fix the precise year of Christ's
death, by observing how widely the conclusions of the most
learned men have been at variance respecting it, — varying

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 137
from 29 A.D., through all the intermediate dates, to 35 a.d.
(see the Comparative Table, appended to Wieseler's "Chrono-
logische Synopse der vier Evangelien ").
S. S. affirms that all foreign testimony confirms his view of the
year of Christ's death ; alluding, I presume, to the general agree
ment among early Christian writers, to place that event in the
consulship of the two Gemini, C. Rubellius and C. Rufius, which
is referred by Zumpt (Annales veter. Regn. et Popul.) and
by Clinton (Fasti Romani) to 29 a.d. It becomes necessary,
therefore, to examine the grounds on which this agreement
appears ultimately to rest. It is quite evident to me, that
the point of departure for all these testimonies on which my
friend lays so much stress, is the one only definite chrono-
gical datum which is to be found in the gospels — viz., Luke
iii. 1, 2 (comp. iii. 23) ; and that they have simply followed
one another, with the shghtest possible variation, in adopting
it. We probably detect the earliest use of this date in the
"Acta Pilati," which, from Justin Martyr downwards, were
constantly cited by Christian writers as a historical authority.1
If for the reasons so clearly stated by Thilo (Cod. Apocr.
Prolegom. p. cxviii) and Tischendorf (Evangel. Apocr. Pro-
legom. p. lxiii. lxv.), we may asssume the first part of what
is called the "Gospel of Nicodemus" to contain the sub
stance of the original "Acta Pilati "—those Acts introduced
the account of our Lord's cross and passion with the fol
lowing date: "in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius
Caesar, King of the Romans, and in the 19th year of the
reign of Herod, King of Galilee, on the 8th day before the
Calends of April, which is the 25th of March, in the consul
ship of Rufus and Rubelho, in the 4th year of 202nd Olym
piad, when Joseph, son of Caiaphas, was high priest of the
Jews." This chronological determination, it will be observed,
is not associated with the baptism, but with the crucifixion of
Jesus, and must correspond, therefore, not to 27 a.d., assigned by
1 See Tischendorf, " De Orig. et Usu Evangel. Apocryph.," p. 95.

138 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
S. S. to the 15th of Tiberius, but to 29 a.d., on his theory the
assumed year of Christ's death. It seems to have been found
by the very obvious process of looking into the Fasti Romani
for the synchronism to the 15th of Tiberius, and can only be
reconciled with Luke, on the supposition that the baptism
and the crucifixion occurred within the limits of one year.
We find Epiphanius at the end of the fourth century, when
the paschal controversy had led to great differences among
Christians as to the proper time of celebrating Easter, still
referring to the " Acta Pilati " as a chronological authority,
and remarking that several copies of them which he had
seen, varied, in assigning the anniversary of the Passion, be
tween the 8th, the 13th, and the 10th before the Calends of
April ; though it is significant that, according to Epiphanius,
the Quartodecimans, who probably preserved the original
tradition, appear to have agreed with the date given above, in
observing the 8th (Epiphan. Panar. L. 1.).
What I have said about the probable origin of the date of
the passion, traditionally accepted by Christian writers, is
rendered additionally clear by the more unexceptionable testi-
' mony of Tertullian (adv. Judaeos, c. vih.). At the close of
an investigation of the numbers in Daniel, he adds : " Tiberii
Caesaris quintodecimo anno imperii passus est Christus, annos
habens quasi xxx. cum pateretur." — " Quae passio — perfecta est
sub Tiberio Caesare, Coss. Rubellio Gemino et Rufio Gemino,
mense Martio, temporibus paschae, die vih. Calend. April, die
prima azymorum, quo agnum ut occiderent ad vesperem, a
Moyse fuerat praeceptum." This date agrees with the one
probably assigned by the "Acta Pilati;" and though Tertul
lian does not here quote the "Acta " as its immediate source
yet it appears from Apologet. c. 21, that he was acquainted
with them, and appealed to them as an authority. That he
included the baptism in the same year with the passion, is
evident from another passage (adv. Marcionem, c. 19): "Anno
xv. Tiberii, Christus Jesus de caelo manare dignatus est, spiritus

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 139
salutaris." Tertulhan, then, does not seem to lend any warrant
to S. S.'s distribution of time, which assigns the 15th of Tiberius
with the baptism to 27 a.d., and carries on the passion to 29 a.d.
If we proceed to the next witness in the series, Clement of
Alexandria, we find him, hke Tertullian, anxious to make out
arithmetical symmetries from the mystic numbers in Daniel;
and this does not dispose us a priori to look with much con
fidence to his chronological determinations. Nevertheless, he
refers distinctly to Luke iii. 1 (Strom. I. cxxi. § 145) for the
15th of Tiberius as the date of the baptism, when Jesus was
about thirty years of age; and he quotes Luke iv. 19, to
prove that Christ's ministry could not have lasted more than
a year : on iviavTov pJxvov eBei dvrov Krjpvtjai Kal tovto 767-
pairrai ovtox; k. t. X. In the following section (146), he
mentions some who, aiming at more precision (aKpifioXoyov-
pevoi), put the passion in the 16th year of Tiberius ; but
that he himself accepted the 15th, is quite clear from his own
reasoning, — that between the birth and the death of Christ, the
15th of Augustus and 15th of Tiberius, the thirty years were
completed, which had been announced by the prophet and the
gospel : towto Kal 6 ¦7rpo<f>i]Tri'; enrev Kal rb ivayyiXiov, irevre-
KaiBeKaTa ovv erei Tifieplov Kal irevTeKaiBeKaTtp 'AvyovaTov,
ovtco irXr)povTai to, irplaKovTa errj ea>? ov eira0ev. From the
passion to the fall of Jerusalem he further reckons forty-two
years three months. Origen (Contra Cels. IY. 22) probably
following Clement, who had been his teacher, says forty-two
years elapsed between the crucifixion and the destruction of
Jerusalem; and assuming this last event, as is generally ad
mitted, to have occurred in 70 a.d.— by deducting in round
numbers forty-two, we get a proximate date for the passion,
28 a.d. But then, it must be kept in mind that Clement
reckons, as we have just seen, from the 15th of Tiberius,
which S. S. identifies with 27 a.d., putting the crucifixion
in 29 a.d. All this seems to show, how impossible it is, with
our existing data of time, to get beyond a rough approxima-

140 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
tion. Scaliger (quoted by Spencer in Orig. c. Cels. 1. c.) and
Clinton (Fasti Romani) repudiate the numbers of both Clement
and Origen as wrong. Chnton says, "the true interval from
the Passover of the 15th of Tiberius, 29 a.d., to the fall of
Jerusalem, was forty-one years six months." Juhus Africanus
(Chron. Y. Fragm. apud Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, ii. 301, 302)
verifies dates from numbers in Daniel, iirl to Tifiepiov Kal-
o~apo<; iKKaiBeKaTov eVo?, postponing the date of the crucifixion
a year : but Jerome, his interpreter, as if in obedience to the
received tradition, renders his words, " usque ad annum quintum
decimum Tiberii Caesaris, quando passus est Christus." Juhus
Africanus identifies his date of the 16th of Tiberius with Olym
piad 202. 2. The " Acta Pilati," as we have seen, give
Olympiad 202. 4. Lastly, Lactantius (Div. Instit. IY. x.)
adheres to the date in Luke, with its further traditional
specifications, varying only as to the day of the month:
" Tiberii Caesaris anno quintodecimo, id est, duobus Geminis
Consulibus, a. d. 10 Calend. April. Judaei Christum cruci
affixerunt." After this enumeration, I cannot admit, that "all
foreign testimony" is in favour of S. S.'s distribution
of the events of Christ's public ministry. An internal in
dication of time which S. S. adduces as confirmatory of his
view, is furnished by John ii. 20 : " forty-and-six years was
this temple in building." Herod the Great came to the
throne 39 B.C., and commenced the third rebuilding of the
temple in the eighteenth year of his reign (Joseph. Antiquit.
XY. xi. 1), which coincides, according to the usual calcula
tions (see Meyer, on John ii. 20) with 20 or 19 b.c. Assume
the former date as most favourable to S. S.'s theory : then,
46 — 20 =26 a.d., one year before the time assigned by S. S. for the
baptism ; and this, on the supposition, that the expulsion of the
money-changers from the temple, which gave occasion to these
words, is left where it occurs in the Fourth Gospel — i.e., at the
opening of Christ's ministry. Carried forward, as S. S. contends

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 141
the event ought to be, to the later period assigned to it by the
Synoptists, — we find it two years at least in excess beyond the
point of time to which the calculation so obtained conducts
us. How little ground there is, and was early felt to be, for
chronological exactness in this matter, beyond the one date
in Luke, which the Fathers for the three first centuries blindly
followed and arbitrarily interpreted, is evident from the example
of Irenaeus (adv. Haeres. II. xxii. 4, 5, 6), not the least intel
ligent or instructed of their number, who, influenced partly by
a feeling of inherent probabihty, partly by his understanding
of a passage in John (vih. 56, 57), and partly, it would seem,
by what he accepted as the testimony of the presbyters, — main
tained that Jesus only began his ministry when he was about
thirty years, but must have prolonged it till he was between
forty and fifty.
But the most serious objection to the reckoning which S. S.
has founded on the determinations of the astronomers, is, that
it is as much at variance, if I understand it rightly, with the
chronology of the Fourth Gospel itself as with that of the three
first. The difference between them is this : that whereas the
Synoptists represent Jesus as eating the Passover with his
disciples on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, and suffering on
the 15th ; the Fourth Gospel, substituting the supper with the
feet-washing on the evening of the 13th, puts the passion on
the 14th (Friday), and makes the following day (the Sabbath),
the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread. All four
agree as to the days of the week ; but, in reckoning the days
of the month, the Fourth Gospel is one day behind the Synop
tists. The chronology of the Fourth Gospel ultimately de
termined the practice of the Catholic Church, which assumed,
on the alleged authority of the apostle John, that the death
of Christ, as the true Passover, and the slaughter of the
paschal lamb, occurred on one and the same day — viz., the
14th of Nisan. I can find nothing in the Fourth Gospel,
to given even plausibility to S. S.'s assertion, that the 14th

142 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
of Nisan in the year of the crucifixion fell on a Satur
day. The Saturday, according to every indication that I can
disoover in that gospel, was the 15th. If we appeal to astro
nomical determinations at all, we are at hberty to select for
their apphcation the year which, on independent grounds,
combines the largest amount of probabilities in its favour.
Wieseler, in his very elaborate inquiry into the chronology
of the gospels, taking his stand on the narrative of the
Synoptists, has given strong reasons for considering this
to be the case with 30 a.d. as the year of the crucifixion;
and he further states, that Wurm, a German astronomer of
high reputation, has ascertained, by calculations made quite
irrespective of any theory about the Gospels, that in the year
30, the 15th of Nisan might fall on a Friday — a possibility
which I believe S. S. himself would not deny.
In reply to the objection raised by S. S. against the proba
bility of the synoptical account of the Last Supper, — that it
represents the company as' reclining, after the Roman fashion,
on couches, whereas, according to the Law (Exodus xii. 11),
they were required to eat the Passover standing, as in haste,
like men prepared for a journey — I can adduce the high
authority of Otho (Lexicon Rabbinicum), who not only affirms
generaUy (p. 440), " tempore salvatoris nostri Pascha non
amphus omnibus illis ritibus celebrabant, quibus celebrabatur ab
initio," — but has shown particularly, in the following passages
of his work (pp. 5, 6, 447, 454) that reclining (accubitus)
was the mode observed in the celebration of the Passover in
the time of our Lord and subsequently.
For the reasons now stated, I am unable to give up the
chronological and historical statement of the Synoptists, re
commended as it is by its internal probability and self-con
sistency, for the ingenious theory of my friend, which seems to
me as irreconcilable with the Fourth Gospel as with the three
first.

143

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

144 character of the fourth gospel.
indicates a long habitude of speaking and thinking in that
language. Now, compare with this striking difference between
the two works, all that we know from the New Testament and
from ecclesiastical tradition, of the personal character of the
apostle John. From the former source we learn, that with his
mother and elder brother he ardently shared in the Messianic
hopes of his age and country ; that in him those hopes were
profoundly Jewish, tinged with a narrowness and national
prejudice which all his love and reverence for the Great Master
but imperfectly kept in check. After the death of Christ we
find him actively engaged with Peter in establishing the
earliest church at Jerusalem, which we know was Jewish, — and,
as we not obscurely gather from Acts and the Epistles, iden
tified with the party that opposed itself to the more liberal
movement set on foot by Stephen and Paul. Drawing our
inferences from the New Testament alone, exclusive of the
Fourth Gospel, we should say that John, the son of Zebedee,
as there exhibited, was a complete specimen of the primitive
Jewish Christian, warm-hearted, honest and devoted, full of
zeal for his Master's service, but withal unlettered und unculti
vated, and wanting the breadth of mind which only culture can
give. The few and vague traditions which have come down
from the ancient church of Ephesus, are on the whole — certainly
the oldest and most reliable amongst them — in harmony with
this description of the apostle John. Upon such evidence,
then, as now lies before us, if we had to decide which of the two
works under considertaion best corresponded with the character
of their reputed author, we could hardly hesitate in replying —
the Apocalypse.
The direct testimony of antiquity, so far as we can now
recover it, is in favour of the same conclusion. Not to in
sist on the doubtful witness of Papias and Clement of Rome,
the earliest distinct citations of the Apocalypse in Justin
Martyr and Hippolytus refer it by name to the apostle John
as its author ; a specification the more remarkable, as it is not

RECAPITULATION AND RESULT. 145
attached by these writers to their general citations, numerous
as they are, from the other books of the New Testament.1 In
the great writers at the end of the second, and in the first half
of the third century, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexan
dria, and Origen, who are our chief authorities for the books
constituting our present canon, the Apocalypse is certainly
quoted or alluded to in the most express terms, as an undoubted
work of the apostle John. Not till the middle of the third and
the beginning of the fourth century, in the time of Dionysius
of Alexandria, and Eusebius the historian, do we find doubts
beginning to be intimated ; and we can pretty clearly point to
their source in the growing aversion to the old popular Chih
asm, and the conviction that such a doctrine could never have
had the sanction of an apostohc name. The superior critical
discernment cultivated in the learned school of Alexandria, and
displayed to such advantage by Dionysius, had led to the con
clusion, that the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel could not be
by the same hand ; while, in adjudicating between them, the
strong subjective feeling of what was and must be Christian
truth — which in those days mainly decided in the last instance
the question of apostolic authorship — gave the preference to the
Gospel. So long as learning and intelligence had free play, the
question remained an open one ; till criticism was suppressed by
authority, and the Church decreed, that the Apocalypse and the
Gospel were both to be accepted as the work of the apostle
John. In the line of testimony on behalf of the Gospel, we are
struck with a singular contrast to that alleged for the Apoca-
'lypse. It begins to be express and full about the time that the
latter becomes faint and wavering, in the period of transition
from the second to the third century, when the feeling first
clearly manifests itself, which ultimately separated the Cathohc
Church from the primitive Judaic Christianity. The earhest
notice of the Fourth Gospel with the name of the apostle, occurs
1 The only exception that I can call to mind, is a passage in Hippolytus (vii. 32),
where Mark's gospel is referred to. 10

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

RECAPITULATION AND RESULT. 147
is a phenomenon which can only be explained on the supposition,
that a sufficient length of time had now elapsed to allow of the
new religion emerging from the sphere of popular sympathies
and expectations, where it had its source, into those higher
regions of thought which brought it into contact; with the
speculative theories of the age. Its indications, too, of the
relations of Christianity with the outward world, and its signi
ficant glances — the more significant that they are but glances —
at the mystical behef already associated with the eucharist,
furnish another and equal proof of a time when the doctrine and
ritual of the church had undergone a development which it
could have taken little less than a century from the death of
Christ to effect. Any one who keeps in view what apostolic
Christianity originally was, and compares it with the features
which I have just noticed as marking the Fourth Gospel, — -will
hardly persuade himself that a work which bears on it such
distinct traces of later thought and later usage could have been
produced within the limits of the apostolic age, even if we
extend that period to the close of the first century.
It is remarkable, that in searching for the evidence of the
Fourth Gospel through the second century, we first come upon
traces of the doctrine which it contains ; then we discover
proofs, more or less distinct, of the existence of the book ;
lastly, but not till quite towards the end of the century, do
we find the apostle John mentioned by name as its author.
The doctrine of the Logos, which had already been rendered
familiar to the more educated Jewish mind through the influence
of Philo and other Alexandrine teachers, supphed the grand
metaphysical formula, as I have endeavoured to explain in a
former section, for reconciling philosophical heathens to the
idea of a revelation of God in man. It was the controversial
weapon with which the apologists of the second century com
bated the polytheistic tendencies of the Hellenic world on the
one hand, and the monotheistic narrowness of the Jews on the
other. We might almost say, that it was evoked out of pre-

148 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
existing elements as an intellectual necessity of the age. As
Catholicism predominated over the conflicting tendencies which,
in the earher part of the second century, had shaken the Church.
to its foundations, the doctrine of the Logos became the bind
ing and consolidating principle of the whole ecclesiastical fabric,
which not only recommended itself to the syncretistic spirit
that brought the most advanced minds of heathenism and
Christianity into vital proximity, but was now urged on the
acceptance of the great mass of traditional behevers by the
authority of the most distinguished of the apostles.
On the subject of the Last Supper the Fourth Gospel and
the Synoptists are irreconcilably at variance ; and in the
Quartodeciman controversy, the Asiatics of Ephesus and its
neighbourhood, who must have known from tradition what
was the usage of the great apostohc head of their Church,
appealed to the example of John in favour of their own
practice of keeping the pascha on the 14th of Nisan. The
most intelligible explanation of this practice, and of the whole
controversy that sprang out of it, is to be found in the as
sumption, that it was at first an annual commemoration on
the same day of the month, in obedience to Christ's own com
mand, of the farewell supper, of which he partook with his
disciples at the regular celebration of the Jewish Passover;
and that this usage became offensive to the Cathohcs, as per
petuating Jewish ideas, when the Church finally broke with
Judaism and transferred the pascha, as an essentially Christian
observance, from the 14th of Nisan to the Sunday following
the full moon on or next after the vernal equinox. The con
troversy, therefore, though itself occasional, involved the
deeper principle on which the whole future of Christianity
turned, whether the new religion should henceforth be Judaic
or Catholic in tendency. Of the origin of this Quartodeciman
practice the Synoptists give a plain and intelligent account;
whereas the statement in the Fourth Gospel is not only in
consistent with that account, but makes the usage itself, in the

RECAPITULATION AND RESULT. 149
Christian sense, absolutely impossible. Nothing can appear
more strange, than that the author of a book so strongly
anti-Judaic as the Fourth Gospel, should be quoted as the
authority for a custom which was one of the last relics of
Judaism that lingered in the Christian church : — and the legi
timate inference is, that the apostle John, whose ways were
well known and long remembered at Ephesus, cannot have
written the gospel which bears his name. Considered as histori
cal documents, the Synoptical Gospels carry in them much
stronger indications of internal probability than the Fourth.
They clearly embody the original Palestinian tradition respect
ing Jesus, which is simple and self-consistent ; and in their
description of the closing scenes of his life, they furnish the
only extant explanation of the origin of the most expressive
rite of Christendom, which in its characteristic features still
corresponds to that description, and finds in it its Scriptural war
rant and justification. That the crucifixion, according to their
narrative, should have fallen on a sabbatical day is not, when
we consider both the disordered state of the times and the
conflict of Rabbinical testimony on the subject,, any indication
of contrariety to historical fact. At ah events, the Synoptists
were Jews, who were acquainted with the actual usages of
their country at the time, and would never have ventured to
introduce into their history what they knew was impossible
or absurd. The absence from the Fourth Gospel of the
particulars recorded by the Synoptists, and its identifying
the time of the crucifixion with that of the Passover on the
evening of the 14th, so as to exclude the possibility of Christ
himself having legally celebrated it — are remarkable and signi
ficant instances of the contrariety between the two accounts,
which cannot on either side have been the result of mere chro
nological oversight, but must on one side or the other have
proceeded from design.1 It is inconceivable, that the synoptical
1 The feet-washing in the Fourth Gospel takes the place of the paschal supper in
the Synoptists. In the fifth century the Lord's Supper and the ceremony of feet-

1-50 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
narratives, even that of Matthew, could have been written to
subserve the interests of a Jewish Christianity as opposed to
Catholicism. What is still Jewish in their tone, is the natural
reflexion of a living and genuine tradition. But when we
observe how the arrangement of events at the end of the
Fourth Gospel coincides with the doctrinal aim of the whole
work, how, instead of Christ's eating the Passover, it puts his
own death in its place — we can hardly fail to see in these dis
tinguishing peculiarities of the Johannine narrative, the evidence
of a time, when doctrinal considerations had begun to control and
modify the simple statements of the primitive tradition ; when
the Church wished to beheve, that it had been purely Christian,
in other words, wholly un -Jewish, from the first, and with
that view conceived and presented the fundamental fact, on
which the gospel proclamation of pardon and eternal life was
based, in such a light as to mark it for ever as the final abo
lition of a covenant which God had decreed should now pass
away. In every critical inquiry of this kind it is more easy to obtain
a negative than a positive result. The evidence of which I
have just exhibited a summary, will not allow me to regard the
Fourth Gospel as of apostolic origin in the strict historical
sense. But if I am asked, who was its author, and when it was
written, I confess I am unable to give a categorical answer. Ii
Papias, as Eusebius informs us, cited testimonies from the first
epistle of John — as I can have little doubt that the author of
that epistle and of the gospel were one and the same person —
the author must have been living, and both works probably
written, before the middle of the second century. The death
of Papias is usually assigned to 163 a.d. We find thus a
washing, or, as it was then called, tho pedilaviwn, were both celebrated on the Thurs
day immediately preceding Good Friday,— what, in later times, has been known under
Iho name of Maunday Thursday (probably dies Mandati). But we have the authority
nf Augustine (Epist. 118 nd Januarium) for saying, that the Lord's Supper was the
more ancient and general custom, and the pedilarium of later introduction and more
partial observance. (See Riddle's Christian Antiquities, Book V. ch. iii. p. 632.)

RECAPITULATION AND RESULT. 151
probable terminus ad quern. Can we suggest a terminus
a quo ? It has occurred to me (as I have already inti
mated), in studying the internal indications of the Fourth
Gospel, and comparing them with the known course of his
torical events, that they point to a time when the Church had
finally emancipated itself from Jewish bondage, and Jerusalem
had ceased to be its centre of religious interest and rever
ence.1 Such a time I find most clearly indicated in the results]
of the suppression of the Jewish revolt under Bar Cochba, sub
sequent to 135 a.d. This is, of course, nothing more than
conjecture, supported by no direct evidence. Nevertheless,
between these two events — the substitution of .ZElia Capitolina
for Jerusalem by Hadrian, and the death of Papias — I seem to
find a period within which the origin of the Fourth Gospel
might, without improbability, be placed. I look upon the final
disengagement of Christianity from Judaism, which occurred in
the reign of Hadrian, as the first decided impulse given by out
ward events to that great Cathohc movement, which Paul com
menced, but in his hfe-time could not effectually sustain against
Judaic opposition, and of which we can distinctly trace the
influence in the tone of the Fourth Gospel, betraying the same
movement at a more advanced stage and in a more comprehen
sive form. Most providentially the different books of the New
Testament reveal to us the successive steps of the internal
self-development which the new hfe imparted to the world
by Christ went through, while the religion was yet a free,
spontaneous energy of popular conviction and zeal, unfettered
by the canons of councils and imperial decrees, tiU it reached
its amplest phase of spiritual expansion in the Fourth Gospel.
1 " The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem,
worship the Father " (John iv. 21). To which may be added the significant passage
(John xi. 43) : " If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him : and the
Itomans shall come and take away both our place and nation :" which seems to me to
have a more apposite reference to the destruction of Jerusalem under Hadrian,. than
to that under Titus ; for it was not till the former event, that the Jewish nationality
was totally destroyed.

152 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
It is of less importance to be able to say precisely, by whom
it was written, than to feel sure that we possess in it a genuine
record of the progressive, self-consistent working of a new and
higher truth, by which God was preparing a way for the
spiritual renovation of mankind. If from the more elevated
position which we now occupy, we are sometimes tempted to
regret that the reign of a hving faith should have come to
an end so soon, only to be followed by the servile worship of
a dead letter, — we should recollect the circumstances under
which this change took place. In view of the future that was
impending, it was fortunate for the world that the spirit of
primitive Christianity, in its most diversified manifestations,
should have been encased, as it were, in such a body of writings
as our present canonical scriptures. The great truths involved
in it, were thus preserved from mutilation and corruption by
the reverence of superstition itself, ere the storms came on
which swept away the ancient civilization, and deformed or
destroyed every doctrine and institution, which had no surer
vehicle of transmission to posterity than tradition. The ark
was now built, and the Gospel was shut up safe within it.
Though the rains descended and the floods came, it rode
securely on the bosom of the deep, while the earth lay
buried under a deluge of ignorance and barbarism ; till it
rested at length on the tops of the re-appearing mountains,
and its windows were opened again, and a free spirit went
forth from its sacred enclosure and brought back to it the
tokens of a reviving humanity.
F. C. Baur has given it as his opinion, that the Fourth
Gospel must be of Alexandrine origin ; and if this only means,
that it was evidently conceived under the influence of Alex
andrine ideas, he is no doubt right. But the tradition of the
Church from the first seems to me too steady and uniform, to
admit of our looking for any other place, as the immediate seat
of its production, than^phesus. If anything can be accepted
as a fact on mere traditional evidence, it is that the Fourth

RECAPITULATION AND RESULT. 153
Gospel came out of that circle of religious influences of which
Ephesus was the centre. The intercourse between the great
cities of the Levant and of Egypt was in that age so ready and
frequent, and the diffusion of ideas under Roman centraliza
tion so rapid and easy, that Alexandrine philosophy may well
be conceived to have exerted as much influence at 'Ephesus
as in Alexandria itself. Irenaeus, who was a native of that
part of Asia, distinctly connects the origin of the Fourth
Gospel with Ephesus. It may be thought perhaps, that the
testimony of Irenaeus proves too much for our present argu
ment ; and that if we accept it as sufficient to establish the
locality of the origin, we ought also to accept it for the person
of the author, which can, in that case, be no other than the
apostle John. But the distinction is obvious. A person of
ordinary knowledge and intercourse with mankind, might be
well assured from what quarter a certain production had come,
and yet not possess the critical faculty — especially after years
of absence in a remote part of the world (as was the case with
Irenasus in Gaul) — for deciding on the more difficult question of
personal authenticity. Besides, we of the present day hardly
familiarize to ourselves sufficiently the loose way of thinking
on such subjects, which prevailed in ancient times, and more
particularly among the ancient Christians. With all the
great centres of Christian activity, the name of some dis
tinguished apostle was associated, as of James the Less with
Jerusalem, of Peter with Rome, and of John with Ephesus.
Whatever sprang out of the spiritual impulse originally
imparted by such an apostle, and might be regarded as the
natural growth of the faith planted by him in that place, was
referred to him by the general sentiment as its immediate
source. There is evidence, I think, of two successive
rehgious movements, each associated with the name of the
apostle John, in the two works which have been the subject
of comparison in the present inquiry ;— an earlier one, closely
connected with the Jewish Christianity of Palestine, in the

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

RECAPITULATION AND RESULT. 155
clearly underwent a great change of form in passing through
the deep subjective working of his own mind. If he has
dehvered to us (as I believe he has), whether through an
apostohc medium or not, the 'consummate flower' of the
faith which was planted in the world by Christ, he certainly
has not presented it in the words of the great Teacher
himself. The language in which the Fourth Gospel conveys
to us the discourses of Christ, is cast in the same mould with
that of the epistle and of those portions of the gospel where
the writer speaks in his own person. We are impressively
taught by this fact, — which is equally certain, on every theory
of authorship, — not to put our trust in a verbal Christianity,
"in the letter which killeth," — but to surrender our whole
souls to "the spirit which giveth life." To me there is
something far less objectionable and offensive in the supposi
tion, that we have in this gospel the free and genuine utter
ances of one who gives us his own deep personal conception
of the truth which he had imbibed in the heart of the
Johannine Church, than in admitting — which we must do, if
the apostle John were the author — that one who had leaned
on Jesus' bosom and caught the very accents that fell from,
his hps, instead of treasuring them up with reverent exacti
tude, has unscrupulously transformed them into his own!
language, and invested them with a form and colour which J
did not originally belong to them.
Eusebius informs us, there were two Johns whose names
were associated with the traditions of the church at Ephesus :
one, the Apostle ; the other, known as the Presbyter. When
the latter hved, we are not told ; but Eusebius says, that in
his day their two graves were shown at Ephesus. With
his undisguised aversion to the Chihastic doctrines of the
Apocalypse, it was not unnatural for Eusebius to suggest,
whether the Presbyter rather than the Apostle might not have
been the author of that book. It may occur to some — and
the inference would be favoured by the result of the fore-

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

157

SECTION XII.
The Bearing of this Question on the general conception of
Christianity.
" Si Ton veut rendre justice %. l'orthodoxie, et donner une explication satisfaisante de
sa force et de sa duree, it faut — -constater ce d£sir de communication reelle avec
Dieu, cette peur de perdre de vue le Dieu vivant, le Lieu reel et accessible, le Dieu
adorable, digne d' amour secourable. On peut tenir pour certain, que si les cceurs
6taint rassures a. cet egard, les esprits secoueraint bien vite ces miserables sophis-
mes historiques et speculatifs auxquels ils ont tant de peine a donner creance, mais
qu'ils n'osent abandonner de peur de sacrifier un plus grand bien." — Felix Pecaut,
— De l'Avenir du Protestantisme, p. 19.
It will be considered by many an' insuperable objection to
the views which I have here ventured to maintain, that they
exhibit the evangelists as irreconcilably at variance on some
fundamental particulars of the gospel history, and that they
deprive of direct apostohc authority, what has been usually
regarded as the most complete and authentic display of the
person and teaching of Christ, and the truest expression of
the eternal relation of the human and the divine. There is
also something exceedingly repulsive to our modern feeling
of reverence for a holy book, that it should seem to lie under
the imputation of professing to be what it is not, and should
assume an apostohc name, where the hand of an apostle, it
is affirmed, has never been. These, as they strike the mind
on a first view, are doubtless grave objections, and are en
titled to a grave and thoughtful reply. Nevertheless, what
the historical critic has alone to consider, when he embarks
in an inquiry of this description, is the evidence of facts.
To evade the conclusion to which that evidence legitimately
leads, from the apprehension- of assumed consequences, is

158 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
really to distrust God, and to interfere with the possible
order of his Providence. His truth may have a way and
method of its own, which we have no right with our limited
field of vision to prejudge. The proper answer to any theory
to which we may feel ourselves strongly averse, is to shew that
the facts on which it is based are incorrectly stated, and the
inferences from them illogically drawn.
(1.) I may here remark, that some of the most plausible
objections to the natural and obvious issue of the present in
vestigation, have acquired an exaggerated importance from
the artificial ground assumed by Protestantism, to set up an
adequate counterpoise in the popular behef to the authori
tative claims of the Church of Rome. It was felt, in the first
great struggle of the Reformation, that the pure Word of
God must be produced to encounter the arbitrary decrees of
man. Hence the main effort of Protestant learning was two
fold : first, to prove that the contents of our New Testament
Canon — especially the four gospels — came directly or mediately
from an apostolic source, and carried with them an absolute
apostolic sanction ; secondly, to deduce from their contents a
complete and definite system of doctrinal behef, which could
be made imperative on the conscience of every individual, as
the true Gospel of Christ. It is not my present object to
show that neither of these objects has ever been successfully
accomplished, as the incurable disagreement among Protestant
sects, so forcibly urged by Bossuet and Mohler, unanswerably
demonstrates ; nor, further, that this intellectual conception of
faith, commenced by the Fathers, elaborated by the Schoolmen,
and inherited from them by the great divines of the Reforma
tion, who fixed the type of Protestantism, — is wholly at
variance with the essential genius of Christianity. I simply
mean to assert, that the fundamental assumption of this
system lays a burden of responsibility on the several books
of the New Testament which there is no internal indication
of their having ever assumed, and the gratuitous exaction of

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 159
which throws unnecessary difficulties in the way of establish
ing the divine origin and influence of the great spiritual
renovation introduced into our planet by the prophet of
Nazareth. Books, in our sense of the word, had nothing to
do with the earliest propagation of Christianity. A change
was wrought in the individual soul, by awakening it to a deeper
sense of the Living God, and the need of reconciliation with
Him, in expectation of the solemn judgment which He was
about to execute on a guilty world. All this was effected
by the words of the preacher, thrilling with faith and love,
and carrying with them the spirit of God into the hearts
of his hearers. A parallel phenomenon in modern times,
throwing much light on the earliest history of Christianity,
may be found in the extraordinary effects which resulted
from the missionary labours of the two Wesleys. The grand
three-fold impression produced by such preaching was this :
personal devotedness to the crucified and risen Christ, who
had brought a new life into the world; earnest craving for
redemption from the sinfulness of men's actual condition;
enthusiastic belief in a future approaching state of righteous
retribution, which took so strong a hold on many minds,
that it became to them a greater and nearer reality than
the present world. Such was primitive Christianity. It
floated from land to land and sank into the lowest depths of
society, with the tide of a living tradition, kept pure in its
essential elements by the sincerity and holiness of those who
sustained and diffused it. When at length it began to deposit
itself in a written form, it was at first probably nothing
more than a private record or memorandum, made without
any reference to posterity — for the world was believed to be
on the eve of dissolution. As such record was communicated
through the ordinary occasions of intercourse, from hand to
hand, and church to church, it became by degrees a sort of
common property for the whole body of believers, which every
one felt himself at liberty to enlarge or modify, according

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

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 161
faith and practice for the mass of behevers, that a movement
commenced throughout the Church towards the close of the
second century, for collecting a body of trustworthy writings
which might be appealed to as a criterion to discriminate
heretical error from Catholic truth. The principle - of
selection was in no sense critical. Books were admitted
or rejected or considered doubtful, according as they were
warranted or not by general tradition, or as they were felt
in their spirit and contents to correspond or be at variance
with the standard of faith and practice which had been
upheld from the beginning in the most ancient churches.
The reason of the difference which every one feels on
comparing the canonical with the apocryphal gospels, be
tween the sober, practical wisdom, and sweet natural pathos
of the one, and the coarseness and wild extravagance of the
other — is to be found in the fact, that the framers of the
Canon kept close to the primitive tradition, which had been
handed down in the churches from the earhest times by
devout and simple-minded men, and which concentrated the
thoughts of believers on the one essential point of preparing
themselves by repentance and faith for the great retribution
to come; while they excluded from their collection, as it
were unconsciously and by a sort of spiritual tact, aU such
writings as were felt by them to be extraneous to the purely
rehgious tradition, and were mainly of an intellectual or
imaginative character. The distinction is a vital one ; for it
proves that from the first, Christianity was regarded by those
who were mainly instrumental in founding it, not as a philo
sophical speculation, but as a moral and spiritual work.
To return to the Fourth Gospel, the origin of which, who
ever was its author, belongs to the primitive age of the
Church, and cannot be brought lower than the first half of the
second century ; — it is clear, that we must apply to the problem
of its authorship, not the principles of our modern hterary
code, but the looser notions, — not consciously involving any
n

162 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
question of moral right or wrong, — which were notoriously
current among the Christians of the earhest period, and long
retained their influence on the minds of their more cultivated
successors.1 If we keep this in view, — and consider further,
that theologians, in their apologetic zeal, have laid an undue
stress on the supposed imphcations of apostohc origin in the
book itself — we are in a position to weigh dispassionately
evidence for and against a simple historical fact, without finding
ourselves reduced to the painful alternative of authenticity or
imposture. For in this offensive light some have not scrupled
to set the present question. Even a man so large-minded as
the late Baron Bunsen, and usually so free and fearless in
his criticism, has been driven by his predilection for a fore
gone conclusion, to the incredible hardihood of asserting, that
if John's gospel is not authentic, there can be no historical
Christ, and no Christian Church.2 So long as such strong
1 Of the freedom with which a common material was used, and the loose, un
certain grounds on which authorship was assigned, we have a signal evidence in the
different forms of the Clementines, the so-called Ignatian Epistles, and the Aposto
lical Canons and Constitutions. Kindred phenomena, with perhaps a distincter
consciousness and purpose of fraud, occur at a still earlier period among the Alex
andrine Jews and the Greeks; as, for instance, in the Sibylline verses and the
poems circulated under the title of " Orphica." See generally on this subject:
Valckenaer, " De Aristobulo Judseo ;" Wesseling, " De Fragmento Orphei, de Aris-
tobulo, etc. ;" and Lobeck, " Aglaophamus," Lib. II. ; " Orphica," I. iv. In the
earliest movements of religious enthusiasm, the fervour of men's feelings over
powers the clearness of their ideas. The elements of truth and falsehood are often
strangely commingled in a sort of spiritual chaos ; so that it takes centuries to separate
them, and make men sensible of their distinction. Welcker, who has devoted an
entire life to the study of this side of human nature, makes the following sug
gestive remark : " Es gehb'rt zu den Mysterien der Geschichte, wie Gottes Geist,
heilige und ehrwiirdige Satzungen, Ueberzeugungen und Vorurtheile, und andrerseits
Schwache, Menschenwerk, kiinstliche durch die Menge getragene Systeme und Dupli-
citat, nach don Zeiten und Umstanden, gegen einander stehen, herrschen oder vorherr-
schen." (Griechischo Gbtterlehre ii. p. 27.)
2 " Hippolytus and his Age," I. p. 115. Dr. Bleek, on the whole, perhaps, the
ablest defender of the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, with more judgment ad
mits that, Bhould the question be finally decided against him, this would not affect
" the genuine historical truth of Christianity." With regard to the alleged im
morality implied in the circulation of a book under an assumed name, he observes
that Buch a fact (supposing it to be established) must not be tried by the standard
of our times, and that Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and the Psalms, as usually cited, are

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 163
prejudices prevail, which stake the existence of Christianity
itself on the issue of a critical inquiry, it is impossible that
this question should be impartially discussed. Let us see,
then, what the Fourth Gospel actually says of itself. Must
an honest admission of the result of preponderant evidence,
necessitate the conclusion, that the most spiritual and sub
lime of all the books of the New Testament had an immoral
origin ? I do not believe, that so startling a contrariety
could occur in the order of Providence rightly understood.
The semblance of it is occasioned by the gratuitous assumptions
and unreasonable demands of an artificial theology.
In the gospel itself we meet with no allusion to the apostle
John, till we come to the closing scenes of the history (xiii.
23), where he is introduced (though without being named) as a
disciple "whom Jesus loved," and as "leaning on his bosom."
That John was meant in this passage, there can be no doubt
from the uniform tradition of the Church, which constantly
distinguished the apostle by the epithet i7ri&Trj0io<;. A further
reference equally indirect, yet still not to be doubted, occurs
in ch. xviii. v. 15, where he is coupled with Simon Peter
as ' another disciple,' and represented as entering with Jesus
into the palace of the high-priest. His being allowed to remain
there unquestioned, while Peter was roughly interrogated, is
ascribed to his previous acquaintance with the high-priest.
The same disciple is evidently meant, still without being
named, in the beautiful passage where the dying Jesus com
mends his mother to the care of his bosom friend (xix. 25-
27). Not till we come to ch. xix. 35, where mention is made
of blood and water issuing from the pierced side of Christ,
does a single expression occur, which can by any possible
construction be made to imply, that the apostle spoken of was
the author of the gospel ; and even here the inference is by no
means unambiguous. The words are these : " He that saw
open to the same imputation, without having forfeited their title to be received into
the Canon of the Old Testament. (See Beitrage zur Evangelien-Kritik, p. 263.)

164 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
it, bare record, and his record is true : and he knoweth that he
saith true, that ye might beheve."1 They do not seem to me
to mean more than this : that the writer, whoever he was^
firmly beheved in the recorded occurrence on the authority
of an eye-witness ; but he does not say, that he was himself
that eye-witness. On the contrary, had he intended that,
he would have used another tense, and said p.apTvpei,, not
papTvprjKev. The adoption of the present tense in the latter
part of the sentence — eKelvos oiBev, etc. — is no objection to
this interpretation. Having cited his witness, the writer by
a form of speech which constantly occurs in historical narrative,
throws himself back into the time of his authority, in order to
give greater weight to the assertion of his trustworthiness.
The same disciple, still unnamed, is next described as going
with Simon Peter to visit the abandoned sepulchre, and as
believing in consequence of what he saw. These are ah the
indications that we have of John in the first twenty chapters
of the Fourth Gospel ; and here I believe the gospel to have
originally ended; for no words can more clearly mark the
termination of an entire work than ch. xx. 30, 31 : " many
other signs also wrought Jesus in the presence of his dis
ciples, which are not written in this book: but these are
written, that ye may beheve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God, and that by beheving ye may have life through his
name." Chapter xxi. has all the signs of being a subsequent addition.
The appearances of Christ after the resurrection, which in the
twentieth chapter, as in Luke's account (xxiv. 49 ; Acts
i. 4), are confined to Jerusalem, are here transferred, as in
Matthew (xxviii. 10, 16) to Galilee. Peter is here brought
prominently forward, as if to counterbalance the claims" of
the- beloved disciple, so distinctly asserted in the previous
chapters ; and- there is an evident attempt to meet the diffi-
1 Kal i iapaK&is /ie/iapripriKev, Kal ^l""^ ayroD 4arlv 7) fiaprvpla, Kal 4Kel>OS
JiSey 8ti a\7)6ij Xiyei, tva Kal Ojueis mareva7ire.

' THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 165
culty occasioned by the non-fulfilment of the traditional
expectation, that that disciple would survive till the second
coming of Christ.1 In this supplementary chapter, we meet
for the first time with the assertion, that the beloved disciple
was the author of the gospel (xxi. 24) : " this is the disciple
which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things ; and
we know that his witness is true."3 We may, therefore, con
clude that this addition could not have been made to the ori
ginal work, before the behef had become confirmed and general
among the heads of the Church (the iKKXr/criao-TiKoi, as they
are called by Eusebius, who were the reliable transmitters of
the primitive tradition, and the earhest framers of a canon),
that the gospel was the production of the apostle John ;
and of this we have no clear evidence till the latter part of
the second century. If I am right in this inference, the
original gospel and the appendix may possibly have been
separated from each other by the interval of about half a
century.3 1 The expectation had probably its origin in the words of our Lord, preserved
by Matthew (xvi. 28): "there be some standing here, which shall not taste of
death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." As John outlived
all the other apostles, these words, it was naturally supposed, would have their
fulfilment in him. When he died, and expectation was again disappointed, a new
meaning had to be found for them ; and to this there is distinct allusion in this
twenty first chapter, v. 23. The same circumstance gave rise to the fable widely
current in the Middle Ages, which has associated a superstitious awe with the eve
of St. John— that the apostle is not actually dead, but lies slumbering in his grave
till the last day. We have other evidence of the feelings produced by this frustra
tion of the popular hope in 2 Peter iii. 4.
2 o&ros 4anv S iiaBv^s S piaprvpSiv irepl rovrmi Kal S ypdtyas ravra, Kal ottiap.ev
bn axtffc 4anv i, paprvpla outoS. This is a repetition in another form of what
has already been stated (ch. xx. 35), with the substitution, (which should be noticed)
of the present paprvpuv for the past uep.aprvpi,Ke, and the further assertion of
authorship. Verse 25 is an amplification of ch. xx. 30.
a Our oldest MSS. do not go back to the time, when this appendix (if it be one)
must, have been added to the original termination of the gospel : so it is found
in all of them. But it is remarkable, that of the passages which are supposed to
refer to the Fourth Gospel in the Apostolic Fathers, in Justin Martyr, in Tatian,
in Athenagoras, in Theophilus of Antioch, in Hippolytus, and in Irenaeus, not
one corresponds to anything contained in ch. xxi. ; though most of them allude
apparently to ch. xx. The earliest trace of any such allusion I find in Ter
tullian, De Anima c. 1. (Sender's Index Loc. S. S. ex Joanne), where, however,

166 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Undoubtedly, in the first twenty chapters, which I suppose
to have constituted the original work, it is the design of the
writer to place the relation of the beloved disciple to Christ
in a very solemn and mysterious hght, as an eye-witness and
close observer of the trial before the high-priest and of the
death on the cross, and as the receiver of the last commands of
his Lord. The studious avoidance of his name heightens the
effect ; and the exclusion of all mention of the sons of Zebedee,
so prominent in the synoptical narrative, is very significant.
They are alluded to once in the supplementary chapter (v.
2), but without any distinction, lumped up, as it were, in a
general enumeration of the disciples assembled in Galilee
after the resurrection. It may be suspected, that their tradi
tional reputation was too closely associated with a Jewish
Christianity to admit of either of them being put con
spicuously forward in their original characters as the authority
for a new and higher phase of gospel truth. At the same
time, John was reverenced as the founder of the Asiatie
Church, where his name had echpsed that of Paul who pre
ceded him. It was further well known, that he was honoured
with strong marks of personal confidence and affection by
Jesus during his life-time ; and there was also a vivid tradi
tion current among the early Christians, that at the last
supper he had been assigned the place of honour, and lay
with his head on the bosom of his Master. On the whole,
therefore, I do not doubt, that this gospel was accepted from
the first as an expression of the faith that had triumphed in
the church of which John was regarded as the head, and
that, in this way, it claimed for itself indirectly the sanction
of his name. This, we know, was in full accordance with
the usage of those early Christian times ; just as any doctrine
or usage emanating from Rome, would have been conceived to
the gospel is not mentioned at all, but only the fact stated, that John died,
though he had expected to live to the second coming (ch. xxi. 23). Tertullian
may have rceivod the story through tradition as well as from a written source.

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 167
carry with it the authority of Peter. The tradition per
petuated in these ancient churches, notwithstanding the modi
fications which it constantly underwent, was stiU supposed
to maintain an unbroken connexion with the apostohc source
from which it flowed. I venture, however, to think, that
within the limits of the original work, there is not one passage
which clearly affirms the beloved disciple to have been its
author ; and that such an interpretation would never have
occurred to any one, had it not been suggested by an ex
ternal tradition which grew up by the side of the gospel,
and gathered strength with its diffusion and acceptance. The
historical value of that tradition I have attempted to estimate
in a previous section of this essay. Although a careful sift
ing of such evidence as hes within our present reach, has
made me feel all but morally certain, that the apostle John
could not have written the Fourth Gospel, yet an exami
nation of its contents, exclusive of what I beheve to be a
later addition, fully reheves me from the painful alternative,
so strongly urged by the advocates of the old theory, of a
single choice between authenticity and imposture.
(2). Another objection to the conclusion at which I have
arrived, will to many minds seem still more formidable —
viz., that it unsettles the habitual reliance on a directly
divine authority, and substitutes for words which we have
been accustomed to cherish as those of Christ himself, the
language and, to some extent, even the ideas of one unknown.
I deeply sympathize with this objection; for it is one that
will be felt by the most religious natures. It is a cold and
heartless reply to say, — "such is the evidence of facts; they
dispel a groundless dream," — and then leave the disenchanted
to find their consolation where best they may. For myself I
am convinced, that we are not reduced to this hard necessity ;
for there is a higher view of Scripture than the popular theory
admits, which instead of annihilating faith, only gives it new
impulse and wider range.

168 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Words at best, even from the most gifted lips or pen, are
a very inadequate exponent of the power of a life and the
working of a spiritual principle. Their full meaning can only
be pressed into them by the responsive consciousness of the
mind to which they come. Even were they inspired by
absolute truth, their apprehension and effect must be measured
by the capacity of the recipient soul. The same truth, ex
pressed with the same fullness and precision, cannot be grasped
and retained in the same way by all the different minds in
which it finds a home. In regard to spiritual truth, which is in
capable of subjection to the definite test of the outward sense, it
is of its very nature, that it should multiply itself into an end
less variety of inteUectual and imaginative forms. The greater
and richer the truth, the deeper it penetrates into the heart of
humanity, — the more diversified and apparently irreconcilable
will the modes of its utterance and representation become. If
it be a hving truth which has struck root in the heart and
conscience of man, it will grow with the humanity which it in
spires. I believe this view to be fully borne out by the general
experience of human nature. Let us see how it applies to the
the case of Christianity.
The new life infused into our race by the gospel, consisted
mainly in a quickened sense of the reahty of " things unseen
and eternal," and of man's personal relation to them and
interest in them. As a necessary consequence, it brought with
it a stronger conviction of the degrading bondage of selfishness
and carnality, and an earnest longing for deliverance into a
higher state of freedom, purity and love. This in its essence
was primitive Christianity : and the wonderful change which
it wrought in multitudes, was not the effect of any formal
system of positive doctrine — of lectures and disputations, after
the manner of the old philosophical schools — but of the simple
working among men of a profoundly spiritual nature, filled to
its inmost depths with the consciousness of a divine presence,
and obeying with single-minded faithfulness the call which it

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 169
had received from above, to go forth and bring back mankind
to a forgotten Father in heaven, and prepare, them for their
everlasting inheritance in Him. The grand trusts which this
spiritual influence awakened, and which are ever latent in the
interior of our humanity, Jesus set forth in language and with
illustrations the most homely and popular, suggested by the
present wants and level to the actual capacity of those whom
he addressed, and therefore clothed in the prevalent behefs
and expectations of his age and country. He spoke with
authority, because he spoke from intense conviction. He saw
his ultimate object with a clearness, and grasped it with a
tenacity, which nothing could dim or shake, though he did not
always discern how God would bring it to pass ; and of the
future he knew nothing but what lay immediately before him.
Still he held on his way with deep trust in the final issue
of the divine purposes, in spite of disappointment, treachery,
and abandonment. With the dauntless courage which only
rehgious faith can inspire, he waged unsparing war on the
hypocrisy and hardheartedness and spiritual deadness of the
professed teachers and guides of the people, till the malignity
of his enemies cut short his brief career by a hurried and
violent death. Thus the seed was sown. Gradually it absorbed
into its inner life all the kindred elements that had for cen
turies been silently fermenting in the heart of the old civili
zation. The simphcity of the means employed stands out in
marvellous contrast with the greatness of the effects which
ensued. But so God works. This very contrast is, to me, an
indication of his presence in the movement. God, who is a
Spirit, can only reveal himseK through the kindred spirit of
man ; and the fullness of the revelation must always, there
fore, be in proportion to the purity, the elevation, and the
spiritual discernment of the human media through which it
makes its way: There is this peculiarity in the manifesta
tion of spiritual truth through a human personality,— that its
influence is contagious. It spreads to other minds, and stirs

170 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
up a kindred consciousness in them. For a deep, mysterious
sympathy binds together all spiritual natures. Those to
whom that higher message comes, turn instinctively to its
source. They concentrate their trust and reverence on one
who seems to belong to a loftier order of being; — who
brings down the divine into the midst of the human, — and
holds up before them in vivid, concrete embodiment, that of
which they had possessed already in their better moments a
dim and vague presentiment, but had never before beheld
the actual reahzation. A great truth now flashes on them for
the first time in ah its clearness, and brings with it its own
warrant of a divine source ; — the sense of their personal rela
tion to a living God, and of their need of moral regeneration
to become the objects of his complacency, and the sharers of
his richest blessing. They pass into the consciousness of
another and a purer world than that in which they have
hitherto lived, haunted wherever they turn by an awful
sense of the divine presence —
" With glimpses of the mighty God delighted and afraid." '
A true revelation, therefore, in its first stage is a spiritual
influence emanating from sbme eminently devout and holy
personality — in other words, it is the Spirit of God working
through a human soul. One in essence, the new life so
diffused takes a different outward mould in every mind which
it thoroughly penetrates ; though in all it is referred to the
common personal source, which first brought it into view
and exhibited it as a human possibility. The characteristic
of primitive Christianity was devotion to the person of Christ.
It had this in common with all earnest religious movements
that have sprung up either outside it or within it ; — that the
bond of union was attachment to the person of a founder. But
it had two features pecuhar to itself: first, that instead of
kindling zeal about some insulated point of doctrine or ab
stract speculation, it took its stand on the fundamental moral
1 Charles Wesley.

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 171
consciousness of humanity, and laid the whole stress of its
teaching and example on purity of heart and uprightness of
life, on the hope of a better future after death, and an un
questioning self-surrender to the will of God ; secondly, that
the death of its founder, though seeming at first to bhght
for ever the fondest hopes of his followers, only rendered
more intense and elevating his personal influence, gathered
up, as it were, his personality into a diviner form of life, and
brought it through faith and prayer into closer spiritual in
tercourse than ever with the souls of believers on earth, as a
mediator and intercessor between them and God.
I have long felt unable to accept as literally true, the con
flicting accounts contained in our four gospels, of the bodily
manifestation of Christ to his disciples after the crucifixion.
The real fact, whatever it may have been, seems to me dis
solved and lost beyond the possibihty of distinct recovery, in
a confluence of different streams of popular tradition. Never
theless, I fully hold with the late F. C. Baur — one of the freest
and most fearless of modern Scriptural critics — that the belief
in a risen Christ is the corner-stone of the Christian dispen
sation ; that apart from that behef, its origin and history are
an inexplicable enigma.1 A behef so firm, constant, and strong,
as that of the first generation of Christians in the perpetuated
spiritual existence of their lost Teacher and Guide, with the
deep and lasting impression which it left on the subsequent
history of our race, could not possibly, it seems to me, have been
a simple delusion, but must have been based on some evidence
which brought it home to their minds as a reality, though it
is hidden from us in a mystery which I do not expect the
utmost resources of science and criticism will ever be able to
dispel. Whatever the reality was, it was grasped by faith ; and
the sense of it weakened and lost by the decline and failure of
faith.8 I only notice the circumstance here, to bring out more
1 Das Christenthum und die Christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, I. p. 39.
2 Faith, be it remembered, is an essential constituent of human nature. As

172 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
distinctly the fact, that as well after as before the death of
Jesus, the animating principle of his religion was attachment
to his person and sympathy with his spirit. His person, in
deed, acquired a new beauty and grandeur, and became en
circled with a diviner halo, by its transference to an unseen
world. AU the broken memories and floating traditions of a
love and goodness more than human, which had passed in brief
transit across this earthly scene, and left behind them the
warm lustre of their spirit on a world of sin and woe, migrated
with death into a higher and invisible world. Disjoined for
ever there from the disturbing associations of mortal weakness,
sorrow, and pain, they combined harmoniously into the most
perfect form of human excellence which the behever was able
to conceive, and after which he felt himself drawn upward to
aspire, as the condition of a final union hereafter with Christ
and God.1 The feeling easily lapsed, especially with the co
existing associations of polytheism, into a secondary worship ;
but in its origin it was essentially a reverence for the highest
conceivable form of human goodness, suggested and inspired by
Novalis has finely said: " Wissenschaft ist nur eine H'alfte, Glauben ist die
andere ;" and again, with equal truth : " Wir sind mit dem Unsichtbaren naher
als mit dem Sichtbaren verbunden."
1 The same enhanced and spiritualized conception of departed goodness we still
feel disposed to associate, though in an inferior degree, with the memory of all the
virtuous whom we think of as having passed through death into a more glorious state
of existence. And this may be no groundless fancy raised by the weak breath of
human regret, hut the dawning perception of a more perfect reality to come. A sort
of saintly halo invests their cherished remembrance, which elevates while it consoles
survivors. Such a feeling was particularly strong among the first Christians ; and
it was due to the directness and simplicity of their faith. The two worlds had an
equal reality in their eyes; and at times, when faith was stimulated into un
common fervour by persecution, the unseen overpowered the seen, — literally they
' walked by faith not by sight.' The rude inscriptions on their graves, their com
memorative rejoicings on the death-day of deceased friends, and their earliest
poetry — attest the extreme vividness of their faith in immortality. Where the
gone and the left were thus felt to be so completely one great spiritual family in
God, prayers for the dead, and even the wish for their prayers in return— though
a usage liable to abuse when artificially upheld as part of a sacerdotal system —
do not seem to me, as they were offered and desired in the simplicity of the primi
tive faith, to spring from an unnatural, still less, as often represented by a narrow
Protestantism, from a perverted state of mind.

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 173
the hfe of Christ. Had it been left pure, uncorrupted by the
philosophical dogmatism of a dechning civilization, it might
have proved — as it may yet prove with the return to a simple,
genuine Christianity — of inestimable service to the maintenance
of a high moral standard and of a devotional spirit at once
fervent and sober, by interposing the interpretation of our
highest human conceptions between the infinite and unsearch
able God and the religious wants of our own souls. It is the
feeling of having access to God through Christ, — through the
purest human to the highest divine. The New Testament ex
presses it by the significant word, iiriKaXeio-0ai ; and it finds
constant utterance in the early Christian hymns.1
To sum up .and apply what I have now said. Christianity,
in its origin and essence, was a kindling in men's souls of the
dormant consciousness of theif personal relation to a hving
God, a deepening of their moral sense, a quickening of their
spiritual insight : and this change was wrought through the
influence of one profoundly religious nature on its contempo
raries.8 It was an outpouring of the Spirit of. God, through
the soul of Jesus, on humanity. It was diffused by the hving
voice, and circulated through the world in streams of hving
tradition. The work was progressive. The whole truth did
not evolve itself out of the primitive germ all at once, nor in
all men's minds in the same way. Time and reflection were
required to bring out its full significance, and to unfold it into
1 '" Te, Christe, solum novimus,
Te mente pura et' simplici,
Te voce, te cantu pio
Rogare curvato genu
Flendo et canendo discimus."
Prudentius, Hymn. Matutin. Cathemer II.
2 When I speak of deepening the moral sense, I do not, of course, mean that
any revelation could bestow a new power of discriminating right and wrong. That
belongs to the reflective reason on a comparison of the relative value of actions. I
refer to the instinctive feeling pf approval or disapproval on the perception of an
action as right pr wrong, without regard to personal consequences,— which nothing
so directly contributes to deepen as the cpnsciousness of responsibility to an absolute
Moral Excellence.

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

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 175
consideration, pursued to its consequences, involves a deeper
and broader view of the essence of Christianity. It makes
its acceptance, as a truth for the soul, independent of ah those
obscure and difficult critical questions on which the learning
of Protestantism has so precariously based it. It enables us,
through faith and sympathy with the person and work of
Christ, to renounce the perplexing conception of it as an ab
normal phenomenon of the past, breaking the continuity of
the divine plans, and virtually denying the constancy of God's
parental presence with his human family,— and to grasp it now
and ever as a present and eternal reahty — a KTr)p,a e? dii —
for the soul of man. This is not to take it out of God's hands,
and make it a work of man. On the contrary, it exalts instead
of lowering its true divinity. For it recognizes the great
Father Spirit as dwelling constantly in the midst of his
children, using aU pure souls, that are prepared for their re
ception, as the media of his revelations ; Christ, the purest of
all, as the medium of the greatest — that which has become,
from the absolute depth and fullness of its communications,
the rule and measure of ah others. It is through the upward
tendency and aspiration of what is highest in our own hu
manity, that we rise to the least inadequate conception of the
Infinite God, and, through the sympathy of a kindred spiritual
nature, enter into that filial communion with Him which is
the final end of Christianity, and the condition of our immortal
happiness. Faith in Christ is trust in, reverence for, aspiration
after, a glorified humanity in its ultimate union with God.
This is the idea — the final result of the organic operation and
natural growth of the spirit brought into the world by Christ —
which is developed with such wonderful power and beauty in
the Fourth Gospel. In relation to time it lies, it is true, at a
greater distance from the hving root in Christ, than the simple,
fragmentary traditions of the Synoptists. Nevertheless, it is a
more complete and perfect expression of the new spiritual life
breathed into humanity by Christ, than mere historical details

176 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
could possibly convey : just as the expanded flower and ripened
fruit of a plant reveal to us more of the hidden vitality of
the root, than the rigid stalk which grows out of the one
and sustains the other. The early Quakers had got hold of
a great truth, when they maintained that the Spirit was above
the Scripture ; that the Scripture had, indeed, a high secon
dary value, but only in proportion as it was a true vehicle
of the Spirit.1 The Spirit, which had its richest opening and
fullest manifestation in Christ, is stiU flowing from its In
finite Source into the hearts and lives of those who truly
believe in him. It is this alone which makes them really
his, and unites them through him with God. Through the
Spirit alone, the Church proves its identity from age to age,
and the Scriptures ripen into meaning and yield their fruit.
(3.) It will be urged, doubtless, by many, that the term
" Spirit of God " is very vague, and that aU our notions of its
action on the human soul are extremely obscure. On this subject
the final appeal must, of course, be made to the consciousness
of the individual soul. But if any sure inference can be drawn
from its distinctest utterances — in hterature, in the words and
actions of men, and in our own deep personal experience — we
certainly do possess convictions and trusts, which are given,
not acquired, — which are not the product of reasoning, but the
basis of it, — apart from which it would have nothing to rest
upon, and could find no test of ultimate truth. Such intuitive
states of mind I seem to discover, in our sense of the unefface-
able distinction of right and wrong, of liberty to choose either

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

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 177
one or the other, of dependence on something higher than our
selves, of responsibility and subjection — in all the workings of
conscience, and in that dimmer feeling of a perpetuity of exis
tence in God, which involves the germ of a behef in immor
tality. These trusts and convictions lie close to the, soul and
are ever dormant in it. At times they come forth with un
wonted freshness and force, and carry with them an implicit
obligation to accomplish some work, or enforce some truth in
relation to them, which is recognized as a commission from on
high. Whether viewed in their latent permanence, or in their
occasional revival, we refer them to the inspiration of God,
because we are conscious we did not create them by any act of
reasoning, and because we feel that they exist and work in us in
dependent of our volition. Above and beyond them is the wide
field, left open to observation and inference, where knowledge
and opinion may properly be regarded as products of our own,
limited by the extent of our opportunities, and by our diligence
and acuteness in using them. But underneath all these sub
sequent acquisitions, he undisturbed and indestructible those
deeper convictions and holier trusts by which we morally live
and through which we hold communion with God.1 Within
these primary convictions and trusts hes the region of faith ;
while the operations of the free inteUect occupy the field of
science. The two regions are conterminous ; but as they belong
to different sides of our nature, though both are embraced by
1 The general action of the Divine Spirit we all feel to be regulated by the moral
condition of the percipient mind. But at times it breaks into the current of thought
with a directness and a force, which leave no doubt of its source, where the impulse is
in harmony with and strengthens the clearest perceptions of reason and the moral
sense. To most men of a meditative turn, seasons probably come and go, few and far
between, which flash, as if from on high, a momentary light on the soul. Could such
moments be arrested and detained, and made permanently to influence our thoughts
and aims, they would invest our words and actions with a prophetic significance.
But they pass ; and we cannot recall them.
" Sponte sua, dum forte etiam nil tale putamus,
In mentem qusedam veniunt, quae forsitan ultro,
Si semel exciderint, nunquam revocata redibunt,
Atque eadem studio frustra expectabis inani.' '
Vida. Poet. Lib. I.

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

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 179
ness of the moral and spiritual sense, is the chief condition of
the perpetuity of their power. This is more completely de
stroyed by the silent corrosion of worldly selfishness and hard-
heartedness, than by the passing storm of strong passions and
appetites, which are acknowledged and deplored even while im
perfectly resisted. The soul feels its degradation, and yearns
to be delivered from it: and this protects it against absolute
moral perdition. In fuU accordance with this view, Christ de
clares, that the publicans and harlots, sinners as they are,, will
enter the kingdom of heaven before the selfish and hypocritical
Scribes and Pharisees.
Nor, again, does it follow, that a true revelation may not,
even as regards its moral and spiritual contents>. be associated
with many false ideas on its first outward announcement to the
world. Some correspondence, indeed, to existing beliefs and
the actual condition of human intelligence, is indispensable as
a medium of communication between the truth offered and the
mind accepting it. But such things are the mere historical
surroundings of the central truth which they serve to introduce.
They drop off when they have done their work, and leave room
for another and more suitable investment, like the husk which may
be shattered without affecting the kernel. No doubt it does not
become the men of a particular period, to declare absolutely of any
statement in a revealed message, that it cannot be true, because
they cannot at present comprehend it, provided always it does
not offend their moral sense and contradict the first principles
of reason. Some mystery is the inevitable adjunct of whatever
comes to us from a higher sphere. There is a healthy reverence
for the utterances of a holy mind that stands nearer to God
than ourselves, and may have glimpses of truth as yet withheld
from us, because incapable or unworthy of them — which should
hold us back from saying, in purely spiritual matters, "This
cannot be, because I do not understand it." Our religious trust,
in Christ for instance, would not on this ground be the less,
although we should plainly see, that in matters not spiritual,

180 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
he thought and spoke hke the men of his own age and nation.
The final test and consummating evidence of a divine revelation
is the tendency of its special influence to unfold and develope
into higher perfection the moral and spiritual elements of our
nature, and the subsistence, with unimpaired authority over the
human heart and conscience, of its great fundamental principles,
amid the ceaseless growth and decay from generation to gene
ration of the various speculative theories which have succes
sively gathered round them. The well-known words of Cicero
have a deep truth which finds its eminent application here :
" Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturse judicia confirmat." l
If these views are correct, we cannot take Christianity out of
the general circle of divine providence. It is the utterance of
God's spirit in the heart of our humanity : but it is a typical, not
an exceptional, utterance. This conception of it rescues it from
the hands of archaeologists and critics, where it was exposed to
all their doubts and harassed by their controversies, and gives
it back in perpetuity to the rehgious consciousness of our race.
It is the highest function of a true learning, to set it once more
free, and restore it to its original freshness and simplicity, that
it may abide with us for ever.
(4.*) The views which I have now stated simplify the question
of the historical origin of our religion, and spare us several dif
ficulties which attach to the ordinary Protestant theory. The
new life given to the world by Christ was, as I have aheady
said, a fresh outburst of the Divine Spirit ; and the books com
prised within our New Testament are a record of its diversified
effects and successive developments, as they were conceived and
transmitted by popular tradition, or reflected by minds of higher
culture and more philosophic comprehension. We must look
for the apostolic root of the whole movement in the synoptical
gospels, and more especially in those of Matthew, and Mark, —
for Luke already betrays an approach to the catholic tendencies
of Paul. Here we get the truest idea of Christ and his work as
1 De Natura Deorum, II.

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 181
historical reahties. The decision of the question respecting
his person, whether it was properly human, or something out
side and beyond the circle of humanity, hangs on the decision
of a previous question— whether we are to appeal to the Three
First Gospels or the Fourth, as our highest historical authority.
It is the collocation of both these sources, as partaking of the
same character, within the limits of the same authoritative book,
that has created the difficulty. Had we only the Synoptists,,
though undoubtedly they invest the person of Christ with very
extraordinary powers, and place him in a most intimate relation
to God, we should hardly have claimed for him a nature higher
than the human, however wonderfully endowed. On the other
hand, did we know him through the Fourth Gospel alone, we
could not doubt, that the author of that work regarded him as
something more than human — an incarnation of the Eternal
Word. This idea is so clearly expressed throughout, that
nothing but a foregone conclusion and doctrinal prepossession
could have bhnded anyone to the perception of it. That gospel
is regarded — and rightly, by those who admit its authenticity —
as a completion, from an apostohc source, of the inadequate con
ceptions of the person of Christ conveyed by the synoptical nar
ratives. On a point so vital as this, no authority could equal that
of the beloved disciple, who leaned on the bosom of the Lord,
and was admitted to his inmost privacy of thought. The in
terweaving into a narrative so simple and natural, in its main
features, as the original Palestinian tradition respecting Christ,
— of the idea of the incarnation of a divine person, co-existing
with God from the beginning, has something so novel and start
ling, that nothing short of an authority like that of John could
make it credible as a fact. But the question assumes another
character, when we find the evidence for the authorship of John
decidedly defective ; — coupled as it is with another considera
tion, that the doctrine of the Logos was an attempted solution
of the old problem of the mutual relation of matter and spirit,
aheady widely current among abstract thinkers, which soon

182 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
blended itself with the profound intuitions of Christianity as
they rose into the region of philosophical thought. It was
a typical example of the hypostatizing tendency which dis
tinguished the later Platonic schools, and a not unnatural ex
aggeration of their hereditary doctrine of Ideas.
Originally, \o<yo? and Trvevpia, word and spirit, were only
different modes of expressing one and the same conception, —
that of God's action on created things. The former was the
Alexandrine mode ; the latter (RuacK), the Palestinian. It was
Philo who developed the doctrine of the \0709 into a system.
Where a type of thought more strictly Hebraic prevailed,
the idea of irvevpa maintained the ascendancy. For instance,
it holds a prominent place in the teachings of Paul. But
the distinction which the Church subsequently made between
the two ideas, we do not find, as yet, clearly recognized in
the New Testament. Even in the Fourth Gospel it is only
just beginning to show itself. For the two formulas — 'the
word made flesh,' and ' the spirit given without measure ' —
are nearly equivalent in meaning. The decided transference,
in that gospel, of the doctrine of the Logos to the conception
of Christ, accelerated the hypostatizing process by which an
idea was gradually converted into a person, and led finally
to a complete separation of the meanings attached to Word
and Spirit — the former denoting a divine person, the latter a
divine influence. At length, the idea of the Spirit also
yielded to the hypostatizing tendencies of the age ; and be
fore the end of the fourth century, at the time of the Council
of Constantinople, the Spirit had ceased to be regarded as a
mere influence, and had become a person. Of this second
hypostasis I can find no clear trace in the New Testa
ment. Perhaps the promise of the Paraclete, and the use
of the pronoun eVcetKo? in reference to it (John xvi. 7 and
seq.), mark the commencement of the tendency. But of the
personality of the Word and of its incarnation in the man
Jesus, there is, I think, no indistinct assertion in the Fourth

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 183
Gospel. The doctrine, as I apprehend it, was a metaphysi
cal formula of the time, into which the highest thought of
Christianity passed and embodied itself, and which doubt
less facilitated the access of the new religion to the minds
of philosophical heathens. The difference between this and
the orthodox view is an important and an obvious one.
The latter regards the doctrine of the incarnation of the
Eternal Logos in Jesus, as an essential part of the Christian
revelation — a great fact in the spiritual economy of the uni
verse ; the disclosure of which completes and, as it were, ex
hausts the spiritual discoveries of the gospel. The other
view looks on the doctrine simply as the interpretation by a
reflective mind, through the aid of a conception which the
philosophy of the age supplied — of the great ultimate design
of Christianity ; — the intellectual vehicle, so to speak, through
which the mind penetrated to, appropriated, and conveyed to
others, its sense of the highest of all truths — the possibility
of the union of the soul of man with God. While, therefore,
I am unable to admit, either on critical or on philosophical
grounds, the authoritative character of the doctrine of an in
carnate Logos as a part of divine revelation, since it wants,
in my behef, direct apostolic warrant, and is capable, more
over, of being traced to its source in an old and now defunct
school of philosophy ; — I still acknowledge with reverence the
relative value of this doctrine, as an important hnk, assigned
its place by providence, in the grand chain of mental develop
ment — if not a truth itself, a provisional means of approach
to the greatest; an attempt, corresponding to the intellectual
resources of the age, to render that truth distinct and in
telligible by a concrete presentment of it to the mind. It
coveredHhe place, if I may so express myself, where a truth
lay hid, and would ultimately be found: the truth, that
humanity in its highest form supplies the most perfect in
terpretation that we can apprehend, of the person and will
of God ; — and that this ideal, as it is conceived by every

184 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
pure and earnest mind, must be constantly aspired after, as
the medium of present communion with the Father of our
spirits, and the condition of future, endless approximation to
his unattainable perfection. In this great thought lies the
meaning of those wonderful expressions of Paul : " the un
searchable riches of Christ ;" " your hfe is hid with Christ in
God ;" and of the whole of that glorious chapter, the eighth
of Bomans.
We must not be repelled from this view by the objection,
that an imperfect and exploded inteUectual formula — in plain
words, an intellectual error — is thu3 assumed to have been
employed by Providence as a means of introducing and
familiarizing to the human mind a great spiritual truth.
For this is one of those fixed conditions of progressive
mental development, which the history of rehgion discloses
to us at every step. We constantly observe a central truth
bursting the intellectual shell, in which it had been tem
porarily encased, to adapt it to the period of its earhest com
munication to the world; and then putting on one after
another, broader and more comprehensive forms of expression,
as the inteUectual advance of mankind requires them ; but
attesting at the same time its own intrinsic divinity, by sur
viving, in undiminished force and clearness, aU the doctrinal
forms through which it has successively passed. The great
fundamental truths of Christianity — those which constitute its
eternal and unchangeable essence — may be reduced to three :
first, a life to come of just retribution and endless progress.
secondly, the mercy and forgiveness of God freely offered to
the believing and repentant ; thirdly, the communion of man
with God, as of a child with its parent — of the finite in its
earnest striving upward, with the all-righteous wiU and the
all-loving heart of the Infinite Spirit of the universe. Now, it
is to be noticed, that each of these great truths was introduced
at first as a hving element into the popular consciousness, by
the help of some belief or conception which belonged to the

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 185
time of its birth — some form of thought which was itself
temporary, though the truth which it conveyed, was destined
to endure for ever. Take, for instance, that grand and con
solatory doctrine of a future hfe. It was brought home to
the Jewish mind, and passed thence to the heathen, under
the Hebrew imagery of a kingdom of heaven, which was to
come with the dissolution of the present state of things, before
the existing generation had passed away. It was conceived,
at first, in the concrete, sensuous form of a theocracy on earth,
with Christ, as God's vice-gerent, at its head. It took, in
other words, the form of Chiliasm, which adhered so closely
to the primitive Jewish Christianity. That form did not
last, for it was condemned and confuted by the unanswerable
evidence of facts. Already in the Fourth Gospel there is a
perceptible approach to a more spiritual conception of the
future life. Other forms succeeded, not wholly purged in the
first instance from the original conception, and therefore not
perfectly self-consistent, but shaped to the needs of the time
by the speculations of philosophical minds, and the progressive
doctrinal development of the Church ; tiU at last, in the re
fined and elevated anticipations of a Cappe, a Channing, and
a Parker, the hope took a shape which the Christianity of
the first ages, as I have pointed out in a previous section,
would have repudiated as unbelief. The history of this doc
trine is singularly instructive and significant. Through all
the changes of form under which, from age to age, it had
been apprehended and reahzed to the mind, the fundamental
trust endured essentially the same. Once clearly and dis
tinctly announced, it found a welcome and response in the
popular heart, which ensured its continuance for ever. Once
definitely lodged amidst the deepest moral convictions of the
soul, it was not to be displaced by merely inteUectual doubts,
but rested as a quiet trust within, safe and unassailable— borne
witness to by the hght of conscience and holy love, which it
helped itself to keep ahve.

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

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 187
possibility of a spiritual union between God and man, by the
doctrine of the Logos.
Form and essence are, indeed, closely mixed up with each
other in the representation given by the New Testament of
these great truths ; for they were blended together in the minds
of the writers, as they must have been, to justify our rever
ence for them as honest and genuine men. Any supposition
is less offensive to the moral sense, than the old rationahstic
theory of conscious and dehberate accommodation on the part
of our Lord and his apostles to errors and prejudices which they
knew to be such. A vain effort was thus made to spare their
inteUectual infalhbUity at the cost of their moral integrity. We,
who in the order of providence have outlived their limited and
mistaken ideas, must separate the two elements which, in their
honest behef, were combined in one : and the test that we apply,
must be a moral and spiritual one. The Spirit of Christ must
itself help us to disengage it from the historical forms, through
which it has been brought to us. We must extricate the human
from the divine, the temporal from the eternal, by putting our
minds spirituaUy into the same frame towards God and man as
we discern in the authors of our rehgion, — by cultivating that
deep inward principle of faith and holiness and love, which under
lies, as an eternal substratum, these ancient forms of thought, and
which they were used by Providence as a media for infusing into
the heart of humanity. The faUure to recognize this distinction
between the form and the substance of spiritual truth, which I
have attempted to exemplify in three of its most important mani
festations — has been the ceaseless occasion of heresies and sects,
of interminable controversy and unfruitful speculation. If we
review the history of doctrine, we shaU find that, with few ex
ceptions, the questions which have most fiercely divided man
kind, have turned on matters that were either beyond the reach
of human determination or did not touch at a single point the
heart of a saving faith. A verbal theology has been the death
of spiritual rehgion. TiU divines have settled among them-

188 CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
selves what the Scriptures really are, and how they are to be
interpreted — in other words, tUl they have determined the
premisses of their argument — controversy can only breed con
troversy, and lead to no pacific issue. On the grounds usuaUy
assumed by Protestants, controversy stands pretty much where
it did three hundred years ago.
I have aUuded to the pain and apprehension with which
many good and religious minds regard the present tendencies
of biblical criticism, as if they were simply destructive. They
look upon them as a thinly disguised form of deism," or even of
absolute unbelief. In the foregoing Essay I have endeavoured
to show, in relation to a particular point, very imperfectly, I
am aware, but honestly and with strong conviction, that this is
not, at least is not necessarily, the case. On the contrary, my
firm persuasion is, that criticism is performing, unconsciously it
may be in some cases, a great reparatory and conservative work.
It is sweeping away an accumulation of antiquated behefs and
gratuitous assumptions, which obstruct the access to the pure
teachings of Jesus Christ, and crush with their needless weight
the free working of the Spirit of God. When criticism shaU
have accomplished its needful, but for the time painful and in
vidious task, I feel as sure as I can be of anything not capable
of scientific demonstration, that it wiU be followed by a fresh
outburst of spiritual religion, counteracting, as nothing else
can, the mercenary and materialistic tendencies which now
absorb so large a portion of the thought and energy of man
kind, and form the chief ground of apprehension for the future
of the wonderful times in which we live. There are indications
that a new and more searching reformation is preparing for
the Church of Christ ; and it wiU then, perhaps, be seen, that
the critics, wherever they have been honest and serious, much
as they may now be distrusted and dreaded by those who do
not perceive the ultimate aim of their labours, have been
among not the least safe and effective agents in accelerating
its advent. We complain of the decay of religious zeal; of

THE RELIGIOUS BEARING OF THE QUESTION. 189
the alienation of the masses from any form of Christian faith ;
and of the little interest which some of the most cultivated
intellects exhibit in the highest questions of humanity. Is not
our cold, hard, pugnacious theology, which fights about de
funct abstractions, and keeps us away from the hving soul of
the Gospel, — chiefly to blame for aU this ? When men truly
beheve in a Living God, ever-present to the individual soul ;
when the Unseen Future becomes a reality to them ; when love
and purity and inward peace, conjoined with free thought and
ever-increasing knowledge, come to be regarded as the true
wealth and nobleness of human hfe, — there will be some chance
of the world's returning to simpler manners, more rational tastes,
and a more refined enjoyment of our present existence. Higher
objects wiU engage the general interest and activity, than the
ceaseless accumulation of riches, the restless struggle for social
position, or the enervating pursuit of indolent and voluptuous
excitement. It may be hoped, that then, at length, Christianity
wiU begin to exercise some influence on politics, and that
Church and State wUl acknowledge a reciprocal relation fraught
with some benefit to mankind. But this cannot be, till politics,
under a higher influence, mean something nobler than the in
terested strife of factions, or the audacious schemes of un
scrupulous dynastic ambition, without any reference to the
weU-being and contentment of mUlions ; not till the Church,
ceasing to be an arena for the contentions of " envy, hatred,
mahce, and all uncharitableness," shall strive through all its
sections, though stUl marked by honest and invincible differ
ences of opinion, to realize the beautiful idea of Catholic unity
in one wide brotherhood of mutual service and reciprocal good
will, — and the old exclamation of an admiring heathenism shall
no longer sound as a mockery and a sarcasm, — " See how these
Christians love one another !"

By the same author,
A RETROSPECT OF
THE EELMOUS LIFE OF ENGLAND;
OK,
THE CHURCH, PURITANISM, AND FREE INQUIRY.
Second Edition, revised.
TRUBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.

CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY.
Second (English) Edition.
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND CO., LONDON.

Also, edited by the same, with Preface and Notes,
THE PENTATEUCH: AND
ITS BELATION TO THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN
DISPENSATIONS.
By Andrews Xokton, late Professor of Sacred History, Harvard University,
Mass. U.S.

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