The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 4

Clemene Aloxo.ndrinus preserved a story which he declares i~ no fiction, hut a verihhlo foct (Eusebius, 'Hist. Eccl.,' iii. 23), which blends the apostle of love with the enthUBiasm o.go.inst wrong, 11nd helps one to feel the reality of the nature, composite though it might be, which could have produced the two most wonderful books in the world. 5. For sixteen hundred years every sentence attributed to him was searched and comp11red with every other sentence or trait which had floated down the ages, and these had fitted themselves each to each, so that one of the sublimest ideals of human life sat upon the verge of time, and held in hand the veil which hides the deepest things of God nnd of eternity from mortal gaze. Devotion and insight felt that because John had seen the family at Bethany, and hnd witnessed the beginnings of faith in Sa.maria., he was not unlikely to wish to call down fire from heaven upon those Samaritans who would not receive the Christ-whom himself loved with silent passion-when he came on earth to claim his own. Historic imagination realized that he who had seen the Lamb in the midst of the throne was not unlikely to have recorded among his earliest memories the trumpet-cry of the Baptist, or the adoring exclamations of Nathanael, of Peter, and of Thomas. The synoptic Gospels as well as the Fourth Gospel are all alike pervaded by the august but silent presence of the disciple whom Jesus loved. During sixteen hundred years the Apocalyptist and the author of the Fourth Gospel were believed mutually to explain and complement one another. The eagle flew through the expanse of heaven on double pinion borne. "Sed Joannes, alil. binll. Ca.rite.tie, e.quilinll. Formil. fertur in divins. Puriori lumine," said Adam of St. Victor; and in still more striking words, blending the two lines of John's experience and character, he sang in memorable words- " Volat avis sine metil. Quo nee ve.tes nee prophete. Evolavit e.Itius; Tam implenda, quam impleta, Nunquam vidit tot secrete. Porns homo purius." 6. The incompatibilities of tradition and of authorship were easily solved by the uniqna experiences of this mighty spirit. If it were true that John listened to the heart of ,Jesus and heard the pulsations of eternal love, looked also into the unseen and s::i.w the visious of God, theoretical difficulties vanish. Concede the fact:! as they stand, and there is no psychological or historical problem awaiting our anxious solution. But, on the other hand, if, as many modern critics tell us, the supernatural be incredible ; if the Incarnation be a delusion; if inspiration and the vision of unseen things be unthink- able ; if Christ did not raise Lazarus from the dead, nor offer the intercessory prayer, but was only supposed to have done so; if the Transfiguration were a dream, and the agony in the garden a nightmare; if the Syrian sun still looks on the unknown grave of the Crucified; if no new commencement of our humanity began ou that Eastet· morning; if the entire story of the Resurrection, of Pentecost, and Patmos be pure fiction of even pious minds; then I am free to confess the literary problem is most per- plexing. If the Fourth Gospel be a theological romance, or a poetical prose drama of a philosophical mind intent on pressing certain conclusions on a hostile school of thought; if the Epistles are ecclesiastical treatises, and are arranged to produce some carefully calculated results entirely different from their prima.far:ie significance; and if the Apocalypse be a rhetorical manifesto, a political cryptogram, a poem of one who deliberately chose this apocalyptic method of presenting his ideas ;-then the critics may be right. The same mind, out of the depths of its own moral self-consciousness, with- out any facts to rest upon or any visions to help it, never did produce the two documents. Then the few references in the synoptic Gospels to the supposed writer need not refer either to the author of the Fourth Gospel or to the author of the Apocalypse. Tho problem is then insoluble. "\Ve should have nothing wherewith to account for the llbvious literary phenomen11 except tb.e unfathomable couscionsness of au unknow11  INTRODUOTION TO ''