Itimay be said that, while these remarks are true of the Syii.i]itii- (iuNpi-ls, they cannot fairly be ap- jilied to the l'.)iiilli ( lospel. A distinction, how- ever, iiui-t I l.-eiM'd. The Synoptic Gospels are
mainly ctliii-il in their aim and method. Onto- logical and theological conclusions are certainly suggested ; but they are not explicitly stated. In the Fourth Gospel these results are avowed in the Prologue, referred to again and again in tlie body of the work, and summarized in the conclu- sion. While thus frankly theological, however, it presents its doctrinal positions as the result of an ethical study, which it also gives. With the cor- rectness of tliese doctrinal inferences we are not concerned. Our sole interest lies in the portrait of Clmst ; and with respect to it two things are cer- tain : it is in complete harmony with th.nt .sivcn liy the Synoptists, it is another jiiituie nf {[„■ ■■.nne person; and it can be regarded, iis littli' :i^ tli:it of the Synoptists, as an invention w liction. For our present nurpose, accordingly, whieli is etliical and not theological, we shall use the materials pre- sented in the Fourtli Gospel, for a study of the cliaracter of Clirist, with the same freedom and confidence with which we turn to the Synoptic narratives.
(2) The second assumption follows naturally upon the first, and maintains the sufficiency of the Gos- pels for knowledge of Christ. It is obvious that they do not aim at extensive completeness. They are not chronicles ; nor are they biographies in the modern .sense. A shorthand report of the sayings of Jesus, a minute record of His life, during even tlie short period covered by the narratives, would have swelled their brief outlines to portentous volumes. It is certain that they do aim at inten- sive or central completeness. 'We do not need to know everything about a man in order to know him. For the purpose of character study, much tliat is interesting, rli;it all'pctionate curiosity would like to know, is i,< r.lNs- .md irrelevant. Tlie materials ofoursluil\ iiiu-l 111. . I ud need only be, such words and derils ,is . \[iii-s the whole man, and are the organic utterance and outcome of his very self. Tliis is one aspect of the uniqueness of the Gospels, one element in the proof that they are memorials, not inventions, that the Christ they represent is a unity. There is not the faintest trace of arti- ficiality, of an ingenious synthesis of heterogeneous elements. No portrait painter, no artist in words, ever invented a figure of such perfect harmony. There are many things about Christ whicli we should like to know ; but such things have liecn told as enable us to know Christ. From the (ios- pels we learn enough to know what manner of man He was. And if He be alive now, and able to influence persons now living on this earth, it is certain that His communications will be simply tlie unfolding and the application of the cliaracter
which was expressed in such words and deeds as the Gospels record.
((■) The relation of a purely ethical study of the character of Christ to the theological consideration of His person is obvious. Tlie one presents the problem with which the other deals. However high we may place Christ as a moral teacher, or even as the founder of a religion, nevertheless, if His moral type remain the same as that recog- nizable in other pure ami lofty souls, if His moral achievement is generii;dly tlir -suin' as theirs, there can be no problem of IJis inr-on. Christology is not merely an iinpo.ssiljility, il is a huge irrele- vancy. Only if a study of the character of Christ raise from within the question of His relation to men on the one side and to God on the other, can there be a theological problem of the constitution of His per.son. Only in that case are the Christo- logieal elements in the NT warranted, and the long controversiesof sulisequent theological development justified. If the Divinity of Christ is not to be a dead dogma, soon to be abandoned by the minds which it perplexes and the religious instincts which it depresses ; if it is to be a living conviction, Sus- taining faith and unifying thought, it must not be treated as though it hung, gaunt and naked, in a metaphysical vacuum ; it must be regarded and expounded in its organic connexion with the char- acter of which it is the necessary presupposition, and from which it derives its intellectual cogency. The only pathway to faith is that trodden by the first disciples. Belief in the Godhead of Christ, if it is to be more than a mere theologoumenon, must be rooted in acquaintance with Him ; and tliat acquaintance is informed and enriched, made close, luminous, and full, through the medium of the por- traiture in which the character of Christ is dis- closed to our reverent gaze.
i. FoEMATiVE INFLUENCES.— In the making of men, three factors are to be distinguished — influ- ences operating from without, the reaction of personality, and the agency of the Divine Spirit. It would be a mistake, in the case of Christ, to concentrate attention wholly upon the second of these, as though He were a mere apparition in the moral universe, standing in no vital or intelligible relation to His visible or invisible surroundings. The other factors are amply recognized in the Gospel narrative. The first of them alone comes into view in our present study. The operations of the Spirit of God belong to the theological inter- pretation of the character of Christ, and can be understood only from the point of \iew of a definite conception of His person, to which our present eftbrt is introductory. We approach our subject, accordingly, by briefly indicating the influ-ences which ojierated on the youth of Jesus.