The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 50

Thero can be emnll quostion, 11.nd it is admitted by some of tlie most rationalistic of writers, that the author wishes it to ho supposed that ho w~s no other and no less than John tho son of Zobclleo. 'l'ho 11nth_or, whoever he was, by adopli11g a thin disguise (which was stripped of1: in tho carlie_st ,evangelical tradition), cornpela his readers to con- jecture that Le was himself the d1sc1ple whom Jesus loved; that he was one of the t\-;-el"ve disciples who had eomp1mied with our Lord from his first appearance in Galilee; tbat he was an eye-witness of Christ's greatest deeds, and a creditable r8porter of his weightiest sayings; that he wa_s int.imately familiar with the circle of our L<Jrd's friends; 11ml, in fact, that h!) was no othn than the well-known younger son of Zebedee and Salome. If, however, the author were e.n unknown writer of the second century, he must have haznrde_d much by this delicate fabrication. He could neither have been a disciple nor evcI). a contemporary of J esue. All the subtle indications of the presence o'f the eye-w_itness µiust have b_een ,deliberately forged, to give weight and authority t<J his representation. He, whose _entire portraiture is one which is avowedly designed to promo_te the realization .of truth and to stimulate a Divine love and to nourish the lifo o'f faith, must,ha:ve b~en aware throughout that he was romancing if not falsifying fact, creating for the_ sustenance of a Divine life a series of narrative:s, discourses, and dis- cussions which he knew :were _being originated by his own fertile imagination, and nothing p.1orc. 'l'l;tis is so .h~rsh and unworthy an exhibition of mala fides without ap_paren~. IDo_tive, that jt becomes very difficult to ascribe it to the author of this wonderful biography. ,The eno;1lloue contrast between this work and that of the apo- c_ryphnl _Gospels and Acts forl:!ids, our accepting the hypothesis unless under the pressure o(cogent arguments,wliich d,e1Uqnstrate the non-authenticity of the narrative (see Stanley Lell.thes, 'Witness_ of St. John to Christ,' Boyle Lecture for 1870). e • :Delfft Gruudziige der Ent,... ickelungs-Geschichte der Religion dargestellt,' pp. 266, etc.: 188_3) has propo~d,e_d an ingenious theory, that "the disciple whom Jesus loved" may h~ve be_en_ qne of tile unnamed dispiples who belonged to the upper classes of Jerusalem, all_ intimate friend of Njcoderp,us and Joseph, who penetrated the secret and secured the affection of Jesus, but was not one of the twelve. Delfft supposes that he was the host of01,1r Lord in. Jerusalem, and p~culiarly qualified to deal with the events and discourses there taking place; not the ;,Jqhn of the synoptists or of the Apocalypse, but a veritable friimd aJ1d piographer, whosel:1ame was probably John-a circumstance which led to mist_akep,. identi6catio11 _:wi\h tl!e son of Zebedee. This hypothesis, Professor Delfft thinks, wc>Uld save the _historicity of the narrative, and ride clear of the difficulties which the supposed differences in the character of the John of the synoptists, the John of tr~dition, and ~he Jqhn, of tho Apocalypse have created. The only need of the hypo- thesis, howe'l'.er, tu!"Ils_qn the reality of those supposed difficulties. The formidable objectioll to it" is -~hat there is no trace whatever of so immense a force as such a man woµld have been, in the early history of the New Testament, the Pauline Epistles, or the e,cclesiastical trad~ti_on. , • We must on all gr,:mµds examine the arguments which a.re suppo,ed to invalidate the assumption made. by the writer. They a.re twofold. They are external and internal (1) They consist of the indications which other literature is supposed to supply of the character and life of the presumed author, and which is said to be profoundly diJierent. from the.spirit and character of one who ea.Us hirnsolf"the disciple whom Jesu, loved." (2) Tpey draw a series of contrasts between the contents of the Fourth Gospel and th~$0 of the synoptists, which are sufficiently plausible to arrest attention and provolrn inquiry. •O11-n the author be referring to the personages and to the events described in tbE! synoptic narrative? and can the "Jesus" of Matthew be identical with the "Jesus" of the Fourth Gospel ? 5. A comparison of THE A-UTHOR OF TIIE FoURTII GOSPEL with tlie !Lints given in OTHER LITEllATURE of the character of John the son of Zebedee. (1) The "John" of the synoptists must be compared wit'h the author of the Fourlh Gospel. If we take the synoptic Gospols as our only authorities, wo should coucluclti that a man, by name Zebedaios (Mark i. 19, 20), with his II ife Salo'Tl!e, had two sous, Ja~es 11nd J,ohn; that they were the associates of two others, Simon and A.mlrew, iu a fishi_ng trade upon·the Lake of Gennesareth; and that their home was at th~ towu of Dothsai.Ja, not far from Capcrno.um (cf. Mark i. 29; Luko v. 10). '!'hat the name "S:ilomo" was that of his mother is gathcro,l from Matt. x:s:vii. 56  INTRODUO'l'ION TO - - - - - -------------------------- nnd Mark xv. 40, wbero the women who hovered round the cross or Jesus nro enmne- rated, and where the namo "Salomo" takes the place in Mnrk which " the mother of Zebedoo's cbihlr<'n" occupies in Matthcnv's Gospel. Zebcdee is not described as a poor man, but as possessed of boats, fishing tackle, and hired day labourers (Mark i. 20). Moreornr, Salome (Luke viii. 3; Matt. xxvii. 55) is probably amongst the group of women who followed Je8us on some of his journeyings, and who ministered to him and to the twelve of their substance. The whole of this representation is remarkably con- firmed by the strong reason which the exegesis or eh. xix. (see Exposition) supplies that Salome was t.he sister of the mother of Jesus, 0.11d was closely related to the Lord. We know that considerable profit accrued from the trade of fishing, nnd there was a large sale at Jerusalem of the fish tnken in the Sea or Galilee for transport thither and consumption during the principal feasts. Every Israelite, says 'Ilaba Kama' (fol. 80. 2, ref~rred to by Cas1,ari, 'Chrou. Introduction to Life.of Christ,' Eng. trnns., p. 142), had a nght to engage m the fishery of the Lake of Galilee, and leaders in the trade would certainly be present in Jerusalem more frequently than others (cf. Godet vol. i. 31 • Lucke, ' Komm.,' p. 2). The mother of Ja rues and J olm was a zealous and ~nthusiasti~ follower of her Lord, and in Matt. xx. 20 she preferred a request, in which we dare not ~ay that the two brothers did not sympathize, viz. that they might sit on the right and left of the King "heu he should come in his kingdom. It must be admitted that this- revealed certain carnal, earthly views of Messiah's kingdom, and was expressive of the- fierce and cager palriolism of the times. 'fhe near relationship of Salome, James, and John to the Lord may have greatly stimulated the desire on her part. That she should have entertained ideas of a temporal triumph is no more than the mother of Jesus herself- indicated on more than one occasion. But if so, we learn that she was at once rebuked, and they were shown that the conditions of such honour were readiness to drink the cup and be baptized with the baptism of the Sou of man. They who knew not at this- moment "what they asked," learned nt once a lesson which must have taught them (long before the Fourth Gospel could have been written) that which Jesus regarded u the first place in his kingdom. Moreover, the moment when Salome presented this request was immediately after Christ's most solemn announcement of his approaching death. 'l'ha rebuke which he administered to the angry spirit of the remaining ten disciples, and his lesson on the royalty of service, breathes the deepest spirit of the· symbolic act which so soon took place, i.e. if eh. xiii. 1, etc., be an authentic narrative. A woman who could liave acted as Salome did must from the first have exercised a- powerful influence on her sous, and we see that they were, in accordance with Matthew, Mark, Luke, end Acts, reckoned in the very first rank and innermost circle of the- twelve apostles (Matt. L 2; Luke vi. 4; Mark iii. 7; Acts i. 13). "Peter, James, and John" were the favoured three who were admitted to the death-chamber in the- house of Jairus (Mark: v. 37; Luke viii. 51), as witnesses of this great sign of his power over death. 'fhe same three were taken by the Lord into the cloud of his glory on the- Mountain of Transfi;'.uration (Matt. xvii. 1; Luke ix. 28; Mark ix. 2), and thus they received an overwhelming evidence of the majesty of Christ _and his relation to the umeen world and the heavenly Father. They are selected, with Andrew, to hear the- prophecy of the last things concerning Jerusalem and the kingdom (Mark xiii. 3), and t.o accompany the Lord into the mvstery of his deep agony and bloody sweat in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. ·37). So far there is nothing incompatible with a word written by the author of the Fourth Gospel, though we may reasonably wonder why he should have omitted these events from his narrative. Ilut there aro hints of ~haracter recorded iu the synoptic narrative which are more difficult to reconcile with the spirit of him whom Jesus loved. Jesus cram, accordin" to Mark's Gospel, a name to the two brethren of peculiar force. H~ called them ,f'noanerges," i.e. "Sons of Thunder" (Mark iii. 17), probably in refereace to the zeal, intensity, and fervour of thc,ir character, as displayed on sundry occasions. 'l'he cllthusiasm which led them to seek by baptism into death their place at the riaht hand of power may be one illustration d the name assigned to them; the e!oquen~ and fervour of their speech has little historic fact to sustain it, nor is the- supposition sufficiently specific. There must have been something in the character of ,Tames the brother of John which ma,le his cruel martyrdom by Herod Agrippa plc::as- ini:; to the Jews (Acts xiii. 2); and it is possible that he, as the elder of the two brothers,  'l'llE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOirn. !vii