The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 11

friend" LUcko that he fears his scepticism may be grievous to him, touching the literary vindication of the authenticity of this "tender, unique, veritably supreme Goepel." Yet before this preface was written, an event of consummate influence had occurred, viz. the publication, in 1835, of Strauss's 'Leben Jeeu,' which endeavoured to account for the synoptic Gospels by an oral tradition, which, with the ~d of popular expectations of the Messiah, gradually accumulated around it a mythical enlargement and lustre. He proceeded, mainly by a drastic criticism of the Gospels, to reveal their discrepBncies, and to account for them by the growth of legend and the accretion of non- historical elements. For ll time he seemed to waver as to the possible authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, but relinquished it in subsequent editions of bis notorious work, seeing that the whole of his mythical theory would have been broken to pieces if he allowed that a disciple of Jesus had produced a chronicle of bis deeds and words which violated the physical and psychological laws which he regarded as irreversible. Strauss's temporary vacillation was intensified by the powerful effect produced upon him by the appearance of Neander's 'Life of Christ,' which was an attempt to show that unques- tionable facts existed and could not be disproved, out of which the entire evangelic narrative might have arisen. C. H. Weisse ('Die Evangeliuche Geschichte kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitet:' 1838) propounded a specious theory, which has been not unfreqnently adopted by some later critics, that there is an apostolic foundation for the fourth evangelist, which con- sisted of "studies" of the mind of Christ expanded in the old age of the evangelist, -when his memory grew dim-into the discourses of the Gospel, and that, at a later date, these were woven into a fictitious narrative. Fromm.an refuted the hypothesis with ability in 1849. Bruno Bauer (1840) pursued an attack on different lines. He recognized, what bas ever since been felt more and more, that the Fourth Gospel is not a spontaneous evolution of mythical tendency, but the work of" a poet conscious of his procedure," and capable of initiating a philosophical romance. Doubtless the plan, the growth, the gathering solemnity, the climax of the Gospel, with its prologue and epilogue, show that it is the work of one mind, not the elaboration or crystallization of many minds. It bears from end to end the impress of a most original and masterly thinker, and, if it were not the work of the apostle, it must have been the creation of a deliberate forger. The moral revulsion which such a theory excites has led to many and varied replies. Notably Ebrard distinguished himself in 1843 (' Wissenschaftliche Kriti.k der EvangeL Gesch.'), by demolishing the rival theories of Strauss and Bruno Bauer. An English tran.slatio11 of the second edition was published in 1863. Bo.t all previous assailants do, in one sense, fall back into insignificance by the side of the epoch-making arguments of Ferdinand Christian Baur, of 'l'iibingen, who, by articles first published in Zeller's Theolog. Jahrbikher, and afterwards brought together in his 'Kritische Untersuchungen iiber die canonischen Evangelien' (184'7), and 'Das Christenthum und die Christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhun- derte' (1853) [the latter translated into English in two vols., London] endeavoured to establish such a view of the Christian Churches and of the creation of the 'Catholic Church' io. the second century as would provide at that period a platform and "historical situation" on which the grand edifice of the Fourth Gospel could have been erected. He supposed that it reveals traces throughout of the activity and various speculations of the Gnostic schools, which characterized the second half of the century. He held that the Churches were split into two hostile camps: (1) those which clung to the ancient Jewish observances, the vitality of the Law, the restriction of the highest Messianic privileges to the house of Israel, headed and guided by the representatives of the Jerusalem apostles-Peter, James the Just, and John the son of Zebedee; and (2) those which were largely composed of Gentiles who reverted to the authority of Paul. The four uncontested Epistles are so expounded as to reveal a permanent breach between Paul and the original apostles. These two tendencies in the Church were aggravated by Marcionite antagonism to Judaism on the one side, and by Moutanistic extravagances and reaction 11gainst the episcopate on the other. Baur further held that, towards the second half of the century, these two parties in the Church were dis- 11o~ed to o-Jme into closer relationship with each other. At or before this time he sup- poses unrocrous forgeries to have 9ccl'.rreJ.. for instance, the Act~ of the .Ap.;1..~tle::i haq  xiv INTRODUCTION TO