The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 83

astounding aeeumptione of being the Light, the Life, the Bread, the Salvation, of the world. He speakH of intimate, organic, eternal identification of disciples with himself, o[ccted by Apirit,ml processes, and of the grace of the Comforter as abundantly satis- fying all the needs of the soul and of humanity. He declares that the Comforter would prove to be none other than the Spirit, which he who was one with the Father would send for the conviction of the world and the consummation of the Church. The manner of the Lord Jesus does ap11ear nt first sight to he very different in the two narratives; e.g. we hear nothing in the Fourth Gospel of mothers bringing their little ones, or of any sacred contact of the Master with little children. They do not even shout "Hosanna I" in the triumphal entry-which event is one of the points of connec- tion with the synoptics-although the disciples themselves are treated as the "little children" of his love. The parabolic method of instruction seems almost entirely dropped, The inimitable apologues, which never once degenerate into fables, and never once go out of the region of the purely natural and human, are absent from the Fourth Gospel; or, at least, only appear in the form of symbolic terms and phrases, or mount into pure, lofty, and self-interpreting allegory. It is said by eome, with perhaps pardonable exaggeration, that while in the synoptic narrative the character of Christ ripens, the tragedy comes on gradually, and the conflict between the claims of Jesus and the wishes of the people is delayed till the final catastrophe, and that a period of great and perilous popularity is followed by rejection, misunderstanding, and violent reaction; yet in the Johannine Gospel the criticism, the repudiation by" the Jews," is obvious from the first, that the mysteiious and Divine Personage steps fully aureoled out upon the scene, that be is as complete a Messiah, an embodied revealed Son of God, in the valley of the Jordan as in the vale- dictory discourse, as much so with the woman of Samaria as with the adoring disciples after his resurrection. The synoptic Gospels move along three different, yet broadly consentient, lines, and events and sayings are arranged, so far as order is concerned, without cle3.!" purpose on the part of their narrators. The distinct unity of authorship is in their case open to much analysis and criticism; yet the Fourth Gospel is a work of consummate art, and constitutes an organized and marvellous unity. It is conceded that the whole of it has issued from one mind, and that a constructive force and powerful argument are evinced in the composition; that it reveals the workmanship of an accomplished thinker; that it is in no sense a growth, but a distinct, powerful, and beautiful creation. The sty le of the composition is far less Hebraic than that of the three Gospels, and the words attributed to our Lord are in a different style from those elsewhere by multifarious tradition assigned to him, and_correspond with the style of the evangelist himself as evinced in his own First Epistle. This argument is rendered more telling by the assumption that all the characters, John the Baptist, Martha, and even Caiaphas and Pilate, nsti the same vocabulary. In this very concession another is involved, viz. that a subjective element is more conspicuous in the Fourth Gospel than in either of the synoptists. The writer on several occasions introduces his own reflections in propria persona; and is, by those who admit the historicity of his narrative, supposed to have even interwoven them into his record of the discourses of the Lord. Admitting that these prima facie discordances exist, we will submit them to examination, with the view of determining whether the Johannine and synoptist narra- tives do in any way exclud,e one another, or whether, assuming the trustworthiness of the latter, they proclaim the unhistorical character of the former. 1. The scene of 011,r Lord's ministry. The synoptic narratives, after describing the baptism and temptation in the wilderness of Judaia, pass at once to the Galilaian ministry, and, EO far as Matthew and Mark are concerned, do not bring our Lord to Jerusalem until the last Passover, in the midst of which he suffered. The most impres- sive appearance after the Resurrection is also in a mountain of Galilee, appointed as a rendezvous. "John," on the other hand, brin!!ll our Lord to Jerusalem before the Baptist was cast into prison (eh. ii.-iii. 24; iv. l-3). In the last passage Jesus is said to have '' departed again into Galilee,'' so that the evangelist, wqen alive to the fact that he was describing a visit to Galilee, synchronizing wit~ the first ministry there of current  lNTRODUC'l'lON TO