LECTURE VII.

THE FOURTH GOSPEL

THE student of the Gospels is soon confronted by the differences between the First Three and the Fourth. That Synoptic view which unites Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is dissolved into new glories under the hand of John. Herder, as we have seen, was keenly conscious of the change, and described the Fourth Gospel as the 'echo of the older Gospels in a higher key.'1 Even in the third century its peculiar character so impressed some of the teachers of the Church that they called it the 'pneumatic' or 'spiritual' Gospel. What is the secret of this character ? In what manner does it express itself? What value is to be attached to the new forms of thought which it presents? How far can the record be connected with an actual follower of the Master? These are questions with which the investigations of the last decades have been closely occupied. Every lover of the Gospel desires answers to them. What answers are possible in the light of our present

1 Lect. V., ante, p. 234.

knowledge? To expound them fully would require a treatise. But an attempt must be made, however inadequately, to indicate the movements of thought on this difficult and complicated theme.

I.

At the outset it must be observed that the whole story of the ministry of Jesus is set in a new frame both of time and place. The First Three Gospels apparently distribute his public activity into two unequal periods, the earlier occupied by his preaching in Galilee, the later by his journey to Jerusalem, the last days of teaching in the temple, his arrest and execution. The crisis. dividing the two occurs in the retreat at Cæsarea Philippi beneath the slopes of Hermon. There Peter formally acknowledges Jesus as Messiah, and he, in his turn, announces to the disciples his purpose to make the great venture and proceed to the capital (Mark 827-33, Matt. 1613-23, Luke 918-22). The passover at which he suffers is thus the only feast which he publicly attends. Assuming that if the Evangelists had known of earlier visits to Jerusalem at previous festivals, they would have recorded them, we may infer that they conceived his active career to have been embraced in the interval between the passover at which he suffered and the same feast twelve months before. It was thus all brought within a year, and this period was sometimes identified by

early Christian writers with 'the acceptable year of the Lord' (Isai. 612, Luke 41o).

But the Fourth Gospel more than doubles this duration. Its chronological scheme appears to include at least three passovers (John 313 23, 6, and 131), so that the ministry of Jesus extends over more than two years. An unnamed feast, 51, has even been identified with the passover by both ancient and modern scholars; and four passovers would thus include three years.1

The greater length thus assigned to Messiah's career naturally requires more incidents to fill it; and the scene of his teaching shifts time after time. from south to north and back again. From the Jordan bank, 128, where Andrew already announces to Simon 'We have found the Messiah,' and Simon receives the name Cephas (or Peter), he passes (on the third day) to Cana of Galilee, 21; thence to Jerusalem for the passover, 213, and afterwards again to the neighbourhood of the Jordan, 322, where he, like John, baptized. From there he travels through Samaria to Galilee, 434 43, and once more, 51, goes up to Jerusalem. The 'persecution' which follows the cure of the impotent man on the Sabbath, 516, apparently drives him from the metropolis, and

1 This view is now, however, generally abandoned. Westcott adopts the new year's festival of trumpets, in September; Weiss prefers Purim in March; and so H. Holtzmann under reserve; Dods, Expositor's Greek Test., does not decide. The difficulty is significant.

2 This is afterwards corrected, 42; but it is already implied in the language of Jesus to Nicodemus, 35, concerning birth 'of water and the spirit.' Wendt, The Gospel according to St. John (1902), p. 120, perceiving the incongruity, supposes that the words 'water and' have been editorially added.

BB

after he has vindicated himself in a prolonged discourse, 519-47, he withdraws to 'the other side of the Sea of Galilee,' 6'. A passover follows, which he does not attend, 6, sojourning in Galilee till the September festival of Tabernacles, 71-2, when he presents himself in the temple in the middle of the feast and teaches 14. No return to Galilee is recorded; colloquy after colloquy follows in the capital; the next note of time is in December, three months later, at the feast of the Dedication, 1022. Once more the hostility of the Jews compels his retirement, and he finds a refuge beyond Jordan in the scene of the first days where John had baptized, 100. The death of Lazarus brings him to Bethany, and the Sanhedrîn already determines on his death, 1145-53 Again, therefore, he leaves the scene of danger, this time for the upland country near Bethel, north of Jerusalem.1 The passover is once more at hand. But Jesus does not travel by the eastern route with a crowd of disciples (as in Matt. and Mark). There is no passage through Jericho; no Bartimæus sits by the wayside calling for mercy to the Son of David; no Zaccheus climbs a tree to see him pass. He reappears in the home of Mary and Martha at Bethany, and when Mary pours forth the precious ointment on him, he recognises it as a funeral rite, 127. The next day he rides in to Jerusalem and receives the welcome of the populace as 'king of Israel.' The story here coalesces with the Synoptic narrative, and the last days have arrived.

11154; on the identification of Ephraim see Holtzmann in loco.

In a scheme so different it is inevitable that incidents which are common to the two types should be lodged at different places on the way. The anointing, for instance, is placed by Mark and Matthew in the house not of Lazarus but of Simon the leper, immediately before the passover, some days after his first appearance in the city. Two more conspicuous departures from prior records of tradition may be noted. The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is followed in the First Three Gospels (either on the same day, Matt., Luke, or the next day, Mark) by the expulsion of the traffickers from the temple. The daring act concentrates on him the hatred of the authorities, and is one of the prime causes of his subsequent arrest. The Fourth Gospel, however, assigns it to the first Passover, 313-16, two years before, without, however, any of the aids of popular enthusiasm to support the Teacher who (as in the Synoptics) has just arrived with a large concourse of followers. Strangely enough, it rouses no opposition. No consequences ensue; and the act which in the earlier narratives really costs him his life, excites no notice which the biographer thinks it worth while to report. No student will now believe, with the elder harmonists, that the incident was really repeated. Those who accept the apostolic authorship may, with Prof. Sanday,' prefer the earlier date. Historical probability, however, pleads strongly for the later.2

1 In Hastings' Dict. of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 613.

"Bacon, Introd. to the N.T. (1900), supposes that the narrative in John has