The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 13

Wo shall see tho further proof that JusUn Martyr, a.bout A.o.150, was acquainted with tho Gospel. '!'ho evidence has been sufficient to convince Hilgenfeld (' Das Evangelium uncl clio Uriefo Johannis nach ihrem Lehrbegriffe dargestellt:' 184D; 'Die Evangelien,' 1854, see also hie recently published 'Historisch-Kritische Einleitung in das Nctie Tost. ~' 1875) thnt Ilaur's de.to must be abandoned; but this great scholar labour.i with ve.st learning to show that the Goepel reveals traces of Va.lentinian Gnosticism, which might bo.vo been available to the author between A.D. 136 and 140. In such a controversy as this, forty yeo.rs nearer to apo~t~lic time~ is e. concession of considerable importance. The connection between Valentm1an gnos1s and the Gospel cannot be, need not be, ignored; but a reasono.ble conclusion ill that Valentin us made use of terms found in a revered Christian document, not that the unknown author of such document borrowed the terms" Logos," "Life," "Light,"" Truth," which he uses with didactic simplicity, from the mons and syzygies of the Gnostic. Volkmar and Scholten also abandoned their master's date, fixing it nevertheless at A.D. 150 or 155, one which we believe to be invalidated by the evidence derived from the quotations of Justin, a.swell as from the use made by Valentinus of the Gospel itself. Volkmar, and after him both Reville and Renan, have expressed their wonder that (if the Fourth Gospel had been in existence in A.D. 150), Marcion did not make use of it instead of the Gospel of Luke. The true reply is that John's Gospel afforded no scientific or historic basis for Marcion, and that not even by interpolation or excision could he have utilized this document; so that his silence and neglect must count for nothina in determining the date of the latter. Effort was made to find reference (eh. xvi. 2) to the massacres of Christians in the insurrection of Barchocha.b (A.D.132); but the martyrdom of Stephen, of Ja.mes the JUBt, and others, to say nothing of the Neronian persecution, and the deaths of Peter and Paul, are more than sufficient to justify even a forger between A.D. 80 and 100 in attributing these words to Jesus. Keim, who in 1867 was content, while repudiating the authenticity of the Gospel, to accept the date A.D. 100-115 for its production, yet in 1875, without any apparently sufficient reason, altered his opinion and regarded A.D. 130 as a probable date. Dr. Davidson, mainly on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence for the a.nteriority of the Gospel to the writings of Basileides and his followers, settles down to:the same date. The proof of the earlier date, which was admitted by Keim in 1867, turns 011 the use made of the Gospel by the apostolic Fathers. The powerful eviclence produced by Zahn and by Bishop Lightfoot for the authenticity of the seven epistles of Ignatius and the epistle of Polycarp, does, as we shall see, go far to demonstrate the existence of the Go$pel in the first decade of the second century, as well as to pulverize the entire hypothesis of the great breach in the Church of Christ to heal which mauy critics suggest that this Gospel was composed. If the epistles of Ignatius be genuine, they reveal a state of ecclesiastical government far in advance of the pastoral Epistles of Paul, and certainly throw back the date of those Epistles for a generation behind them. The Pauline Epistles as tbe Acts of the Apostles and the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, recognize no difference of rank or of duty between bishops and elders; whereas about A.D. 110 the Ignatian epistles emphasize the distinction between these Church officers. Ergo these pastoral Epistles cannot well be a birth of a. period subsequent to the Ignatian lettci.1. If so, whether the production of Paul or not, they reveal, towards the close of the first century, the germ of the Gnostio virus which had already distressed the early Church. Even the Epistles to the Corinthians by St. Paul show very forcibly that the Church a.t !Jorinth, between A.D. 57 and 58, had been cursed by the very spirit which tbe First Epistl? of Johu so power fully condemned. Why should we on this account travel into the Illldst of, or towards the end of, the second century to find the "historical situation" when Gnostio Ebionism and Docetic theosophy had emasculated the Christian faith of ~any? and why should we fancy that the Church required the questionable aid of afu.lsa- rius, who must have set himself by immoral means to refute the enemy by inventing pro hac vice the words and works of Jesus? If Valentinus and MRrcion, Barchochab and the followers of Basileides, the Easter controversy, and the enthusiasm of Mon tan us were al~ constit?,ents in the creation of the Gospel; and if the author were, moreover, saturated with :l'aul1ne ideas, e.nd intent on giving practical and concrete illustration to the Loges doctnne of Philo and of Justin, nncl nlso delicately to cbrrect and combine the tendencies  xvi INTRODUC'l'ION TO