718
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
JOHN. GOSPEL OF
walk to Emmaus. HUgenfeld has laid stress on a translation his thuorj' has demanded, that in 8"- "our Lord is supposed to refer to ' the father of the devil,' and so to the origination of the devil by some inferior god, like the Jehovah of OT lus iniagineu by the Ophites. The wliole of this contention has been taken up favourably by the advocates of the 2nd cent. date. It proceeds from nnwillingness to recognize that the Gospel places the dillerence between the children of God and the children of the devil, not in primordial diller- ence of essence, but in the will of man (see Godet's Introd. vol. i. 182 ff.).
S. The phenomena of the Johan. discourses un- questionably introduce us to a new atmosiihere, and to a place and audience dillerent from those of the Synoptics. This is not linally explained by the frequent suggestion that the Synoptics repre- sent our Lord as addressing the multitudes in Galilee, and that the Fourth Gosjiel is almost ex- clusively occupied with indii-iduals, or with small groups of His disciples, — because, on the one liaud, we see that the great controversy of ch. 6 was con- ducted in the synagogue of Capernaum, and those of chs. 6 and 10 were held ^vith large and excited groups in the temple courts. On the other hand, the great Synoptic discourse on the last things was addressed to only four of the twelve disciples. Moreover, the comparison of Mt 5-7 with Lk 6 ■hows tliat the Sermon on the Mount was a selec- tion of tlie most recondite instructions addressed at the first — and in the main — to the inner circle of the disciples. The same features are observed in the sjiecial discourse to the twelve disciples in Mt 10, and correspond with much similar instruction given to the seventy disciples in Lk 10'"". We cannot account for these ditler- ences of style and subject-matter on such easy terms. A considerable element of subjective choice is distinctly claimed by the author on two occa- sions. He selected his materials from copious accumulations, out of a wide range of memory and of tradition. The reporter put them together ■with the hope and belief that they would evoke confidence in the Messiah-functions and divine Sonship of Jesus (20" and 21"). Some of the most ' Johannine ' utterances are likewise to be found in Mt 11^, Lk lO""'. Moreover, every great claim made by our Lord in the Fourth Gospel is antici- pated by the direct or implied teaching of the re- ported sayings, and the miracles and parables of the Synoptics. The diction of these sayings is different rrom that of the earlier narratives, though it is easy to exaggerate the difference, and to ignore a very fundamental element of the problem. We have already seen how much common matter there is in these four documents. Many proverbial sayings or startling apothegms, found in the Three, are not absent from the Fourth, though they are given in fresh connexions. The strain of the ieli-consciousness of Jesus appears frequently in the Synoptic narrative, though given there when our Lord was concerned with the judgment of men, tuud foreboding the consummation of all things. Whatever may be the ultimate solution of this great problem, tnis at least is shown to be
Srobable, that there was from the first a twofold, ouble-sided strain in our Lord's discourse, on which minds of congenial and susceptible charac- teristics would and did lay hold, with verbal tenacity, when brought into intimate relation with Him. This corresponds with analogous pheno- mena in other regions of biojjraphical record. Only by blending these and some dissimilar elements can we obtain the approximate portraiture. We need to combine the commoniilace representa- tion of the man Socrates by the matter-of-fact Xenophon, and even the lampoon of the Sophists
in the comic satire of Aristophanes, with Plato'i ideal of the great teacher, martyr, citizen, and philosopher, before we have the historic Socrates on our canvas. In like manner we are bound to take account of the Pauline Christ and that of the Ep. to the Hebrews, the ' un«Titten words,' the threefold type of the Synoptists, and above all, that representation which in this Gosptj presses most near to that portion of His conscious ness wherein He communes with the Father anc with Himself. In these con ver.sat ions and soli loquies the subjective element of the reporter if more conspicuous than elsewhere. The prince of biographers is he who is able to gather up the spirit and gist of a long convers.ation or discourse, and present it in the words of the Master Himself. This is exactly what John seems to have done, and thus he brings us nearer than any other to the preat historic reality — ' historic,' i.e. not, as often implied, on purely non-supernatural lines, but in the sense of objective fact.
The opponents of the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel urge that the writer, alike in his prologue and in the report of the Lord's words in the ei>ili)gue, and in the hrst Ep., adopts a style of expression which he puts into the mouth of Nathanael and Nicodemus, Mary and Martha, Caiaplms and Pilate, the blind man and John the Baptist, corresponding in diction so closely with the phraseologj' of Jesus, as to suggest that the Greek words of all the speakers, including the Lord Himself, are nothin^r else than St. John's own strongly characterized vocabulary and diction. Some of the most acute and learned defenders of the authenticity of the document have not hesitated practically to admit this contention. Watkins(in his Bampton Lectures, and in his article on the same theme in Smith's DJi') has maintained the possibility of which we have spoken, and has endeavoured to account for the phenomena by the simple theory of translation from an Aramaic oriianal. It is probable that some of the discourses liave undergone this process of translation. There is a distinct tradition to a similar effect with reference to the Gospel of Matthew. The same peculiarity must be held equally possible in Mk and Lk. And many of the difficulties are surmounted in the present case by the theory of the translation of words uttered in Aramaic into the Greek of .In, which, haWng been built up through long years, enabled him to make use of it in representing the words of others, and then he may have adopted the same favourite terms, and a somewhat similar construction of sentences on all occasions. But we cannot admit that this hypothesis completely satisfies the facts of the case.