e. The diction of our Lord and of His biographer. There are peculiarities of diction, vocabulary, and structure which are certMnlv adopted by this writer — Gr. words are u.sed by him and by no other, some of which are somewhat uncommon, such as &vT\rjfLa, dxaffwiyitryoi, ^i^puxTKeiv, yXuaird- Ko^ov, SaKpvety, dldvfj.0^^ ^inxpifiv, 0'^K'rj, dp^^fj^ara^ K^p^ucL, KoXXu^ttrn^j, viTrHjp, irpoaaiT-rj^. But in respect of special vocabulary Jn does not differ from other writers of NT. Again, tlu:re is a peculiar fond- ness manifested in Gospel and Epistle for certain special and almost technical words, — which by frequent repetition acquire a deeper meaning, — such as 0U5 (23 times), Wfa (42), ndc/iot (78), trnprvpla (47), yi'iianrip (55), irurreOuv (98), <r-nu.fioii (17 times). It is also clear that the writer adopted a Semitic connotation for i in the Koi which he makes do amjile duty for the various connective particles of the Gr. tongue. A common pheno- menon in the Johannine writings is simple juxta- position of sentences, often producing by the meie use of Kal, and in fact sometimes without it, an ad-
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
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versative, concessive, or jieculiar fniphasis (1* 15" 3" 5""). The vlT3' common antithesis of fUv and 5^ is almost dropped, and /ta( repeatedly made to represent 5^. It is curious that the writer, after nsing \iyoi in ch. 1, subsequently drops it and n€iier puts it into the lips of Jesus. It recurs in the 1 Ep. (ch. 1) and in tlie Apocalypse. It there- fore bec(jines clear by this and many other passaj;i's and peculiarities that the author had a Greek diction somewhat peculiar to himself, which he used when following his own lines of medit.ation or narrative. Attention may also be called to the remarkable fact, that he puts into the lips of our Lord no fewer than 145 words which he never uses in his own person. Thirtj'-eiglit of these are found also in the oynop. account of our Lord's discourses. A similar peculiarity of expression or construction is reserved by the writer for Jesus, but never adopted by himself. There are nine peculiarities of our Lord's diction, such as the reduplicated ' Amen,' which are peculiar to .In and never found elsewhere. There are 500 words which are freely used by him in his own portions of the Gospel or in the words of one or other of the interlocutors, which he never attributes to our Lord, so that the phenomena of translation still leave some problems to be solved by closer investigation. That lliere was a certain amount of translation is obvious, and some strong subjective element in the selection and arrangement of material cannot be ignored ; but an ett'ort must have been made to conserve the sacred words of the Lord Jesus in a phraseology which was supposed especially adapted to represent and enshrine the original titterances of the Master. This becomes more obvious when the evangelist frequently comes into direct communication with his reader : when he speaks in proprid persond occasionally he oilers a commentary on the words of our Lord, perhajis even an expansion along certain lines of his own, of the words of Jesus which, though he caught them (and even transferred them into Gr.), he had not fully comprehended. These contrasts between the writer's memories and hisexjilanations, both of the narrative and of the discourse, deserve far more attention than they have received.
The surpassing majesty of the Prologue (I''") Indicates that the nimd of the writer was inter- penetrated, overwhelmed with the ellect produced Dy his contact with the Lord Jesus Christ. Clearly, he could think of Him as nothing less than ' the only-begotten of the Father,' as the Agi'nt by whom tlie fulness of grace and tnith broke upon the world, — and yet he drew a dis- tinction between 4 SeAi and the Xiyot as divine element in Jesus, although in the same breath declaring an identity between them. The Word, said he, waa ' in the beginning,' and ' with God,' and yet ' was God.' It was ' the Word ' by whom ' all things ' came into being. The Word was botli the source and the sphere of life, of that life which was light. All the light which had ever flashed into the darkness, and which the darkness wan too gross to admit, was the beaming of His face. Tliis conllict with the darkness resulted in most tragical issues. Nevertheless, this Word at length came into the world, and did so along fresh lines, not merely as eminent in all life and light, but OS a fully constituted humanity — 'flesh.' From this point onward he proceeded to show how the soliloquies and words of Jesus fell upon his sensitive and suseeplihle soul, as belonging rather to eternity than to time, aa voices which ha<l in them an iiilinity of meaning and of truth. He selected a few only of these for ile.seription and comment, and they grew in weight and w<inder till he laid down the pen. At the same time, we feel that the Lord did not write, and could not
have written, the Prologue. The logical exordium the sublime climax, were neither in our Lord's ow.. manner nor in His own phrase, as afterwards re- ported by the evangelist. A full discussion of this comparison must be reserved for some other place, but a brief treatment of a few of the most salient passages may be attempted.