(c) In the Third Gospel we come at last to a pro- fessed biography or history of a life. It is best treated when taken as the first part of a great his- torical work of which Acts is the second volume, and some of the following features characterize both works: (1) if in the First Gospel Jesus is ' He who fulfils' and in the Second He is the one having authority and power, in the Third He is the Divine Healer ; (2) there is a strong universal- is tic note. Jesus is the Second Adam, and His gospel is for all peoples (cf. 2"- ^^ 3") ; (3) promi- nence is given to women in both Gospel and Acts ; (4) there is considerable emphasis upon prayer, the inftuence of the Holy Spirit, and upon Chris-
GOSPELS
GOSPELS
477
tianity as being a religion marked by thanks- giving, joy, and peace.
Out of his many sources St. Luke has composed a wonderful book. About the first part of the Gospel hangs the peace of God, clothing it like a soft garment. Into the world has entered the Prince of Peace, bringing healing to the souls and bodies of men — not of Jews only but of all man- kind, not for the rich and privileged classes but for the poor and the outcast, not for men alone but for women also. To those who are Christ's disciples the gates of prayer are ever open, and they live in an atmosphere where praise is upon their lips and joy in their hearts. About the second part hangs still the feeling of the joy and peace which Christianity brings with it. But there is now a new note of triumph. The Chris- tian Church as St. Luke describes it in the Acts marches victoriously through the Roman world from conquest to conquest. Harnack somewhere fitly quotes as a keynote to the work the words of the old Latin hymn 'The Royal banners forward go-'
II. The Fourth Gospel.— The Fourth Gospel is dated by many modern writers in the early part of the 2nd cent, (so recently Clemen * and Bacon t). This of course precludes its apostolic authorship. The line of argument which leads up to this posi- tion is as follows, {a) The Fourth Gospel con- flicts with the first three in facts such as the date of the Crucifixion, the cleansing of the Temple, and the account of John the Baptist ; it is there- fore hopelessly unhistorical, and cannot have been written by an apostle, (b) It conflicts with them in its presentation of the Person of Christ. The Christology is so difl'erent from that of the Synoptic Gospels that the sayings put into the mouth of Christ must be mainly the work of an author {not an apostle) who is writing under the influence of Jewish Alexandrian Philosophy and of Stoicism. J (fi) What then of the 2nd cent, attribution of the Gospel to the Apostle? This is hopelessly mis- leading. Irenaeus misunderstood Polycarp and attributed the Gospel to John the Apostle when he ought to have assigned it to John the Elder. Irenaeus is wrong again when he said that John the Apostle lived to a good age and spent the last part of his life at Ephesus. As a matter of fact, he sufiered early martyrdom at the hands of the Jews.§
We may consider further some points in this argument, {a) Tlie historical inaccuracy in matters of fact needs at least considerable qualification. In many respects the writer is remarkably accu- rate in his representation of Palestine as it was before the Fallof Jerusalem, e.g. in geographi- cal and topographical detail, in his knowledge of Jewish custom, the relationship between Jewish
Earties, their religious beliefs. Moreover, the ynoptic tradition is too one-sided to be taken as a measure or gauge.
(b) The contrast drawn between the Christology of the Synoptic Gospels and that of the Fourth Gospel is open to the same criticism. What right have we to regard the first three Gospels as an adequate presentation of the Person of Christ, and not as three slightly varying forms of a tradition which represented a very meagre part of a life which was many-sided? For hints in the Synoptic Gospels of a Judaean ministry see Mott'att, LNT, p. 541. AVith respect to the teaching of Christ, the Synoptic Gospels give us a significant hint that there were sides of this teaching which they have left almost wholly unrecorded. The saying Mt 1 1^ = Lk 10-^
* Die Entstehung des Johannesevangeliums, Halle, 1912. t The Making of the NT.
X See Moffatt, LNT, p. 522 ; Scott, Fourth Gospel, p. 29 fl. § Moffatt, LJST, p. 602 fl.
with its emphasis upon the unique Sonship of Christ, implies the whole Johannine Christology, and is no doubt a fragment from a whole cycle of teaching such as that which has survived in the Fourth Gospel. And St. Mark has another allusion to this teaching in 13=*^ (' the Son'). The modern critic fashions out of the first three Gospels a Jesus after his liking, and then denies that the Christ of the Fourth Gospel is compatible with this Jesus whom his literary criticism has created. But is it not more likely to be the case that the Jesus of history was One too lofty in personality, too many- sided in character, to be understood by His contem- poraries ? The Synoptic tradition has given to us one impression as it was left upon some of His followers (though even here there are many aspects of character — teacher of virtue, critic of Pharisaic religion, mystic, doer of miracles, apocalyptic seer, etc. ) ; the Fourth Gospel has preserved another side of His character. It may well be that, had others set themselves to describe the life, we should have had information which would have given us quite a fresh conception of Him. It is, moreover, easy to draw quite false antitheses between tlie Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. It is, e.g., true that the writer of the Fourth Gospel dwells by preference upon the teaching as to the present possession of Christian privileges rather than upon that as to their future consummation (the apoca- lyptic teaching of the Synoptic Gospels). But the whole cycle of this apocalyptic teaching is pre- supposed. There is to be a general resurrection (5-"*). Eternal life involves a resurrection at the last day (6^"). The very conception of eternal life is apocalyptic, involving the thought of the per- manence oi the individual life and its future entry into a Kingdom which will be a fulfilment of the partial manifestation of the kingdom in the present. The retention of these passages in the Gospel is not a deliberate departure from the writer's view of life as present, and a falling back on a primitive eschatological view (Scott, Fotirth Gospel, p. 249). Rather they are a hint that there is another side of the doctrine of eternal life which the author knows to have been taught by Christ, and which he will not altogether omit because it is the necessary corollary of such teaching on eternal life as he records. They who have eternal life cannot die for ever, and there must be a sphere in which their life will be manifested. That is pure apoca- lyptic.