The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 109

'l'IIE Jgws." It was thus in all the narratives-Matthew especially emphasizes it-- the.t we see how Pile.ta chuckled over the satire which took the edge off the pleasure which the priestly party found as they gloated over their vile revenge. We have the same Pilato in e.11 four Gospels, e.nd the materie.ls in which John perpetuates his portrait, though differently chosen, are consistent with the synoptic delineation. Nay, ndditione.l light is thus cast upon the entire transaction, and the historic outline of Pilate's figure more deeply etched. C. Answer to some objections based on special discrepancies between the synoptists and Jolin. I. Thus Boltzmann (' Einleitung,' p. 429, etc.) refers to the exaggeration in the supernatural elements of the Fourth Gospel; e.g. the transformation of water into wine ; the impotent man had been thirty years in that state; the blind man had heen blind from his birth; and Lazarus had been dearl, buried, and might have been putrid, before his resurrection ; he walks on the sea of Galilee, and is not taken into the boat; the nobleman's son is healed from a distance. These peculiarities are more apparent than real. The transformation of water into wine finds its parallel in the creative multiplication of the bread. The walking on the sea is not more wonderful than the hushing of the storm ; while the healing of leprosy (the incurable disease, and type of the consequences of sin, and the image of death in the Mosaic ritual), is omitted by the Fourth Gospel. The thirty years of the impotent man in eh. v. is paralleled by the woman who had been crippled for eighteen years (Luke xiii. 11). The healing from a distance in eh. iv. 52, etc., finds its exact counter- part in Matt. viii. 5-13. The gathering and growing significance of the resurrection of Lazarus after he had lain in his grave is not denied; but Luke's narrative of the young man carried out to his burial is more memorable and startling than Mattbew's narrative of the resurrection of the maiden daughter of Jairus. There is an affluence of material at the disposal of the earliest tradition out of which this writer has made judicious selection, and from obvious reasons that these particular events proved the occasion and tea;t of very special and related discourse. It is more than evident that •,he Fourth Gospel, though the latest of the narratives, is not the most profuse, nor the most imposing in its enumeration of miracles, and is the one Gospel in which supernatural events are regarded as constituting a lower kind of evidence than the unsustained words of Christ (eh. xiv. 11, 12). In this connection, the omission of the Transfiguration and of the great outbursts of healing power, which are recorded in the synoptic Gospels, deserves special consideration. Moreover, the miraculous accompani- ments of events common to the synoptic and Johannine narrative are positively shorn in the latter of some of their supernatural features; e.g. the current report of the baptism of Jesus is corrected (seep. xcvili., and notes) by a representation which places the miracle in the consciousness of John the Baptist. The stupendous portents attend- ing the Crucifixion are limited to the fulfilment of prophecy in the parting of the garments and in the piercing of the side of Jesus. 2. The synoptists are said to differ from the fourth evangelist in representing the continuous human development of the plan of Jesus, if not of bis character and self- consciousness. 1 Dr. Davidson considers that very grave objections may be taken to Schenkel's method of establishing this contrariety to the Fourth Gospel. The numerous writers (e.g. Hase, Remm) who have repeated the same objection overstate the stages of development as visible in the first three G1Jspels. The Third Gospel (Luke iv. 16-30) sets forth that, at the commencement of his ministry, Jesus, in the synagogue at Nazareth, inaugurated the Messianic kingdom, and declared that Isa. lxi. was fulfilled in his own Person. Mark represents him, at the beginning of hia ministry, as hailed by the daimoniacs who knew him 11s " the Holy One of God," as curing leprosy by his touch, and cl11imin~ the right to forgive sins. He indicates the period-one far earlier than most- harmonists fin_d it convenient to__place th_e ser:mon o!1 the mount (Mark i. 22)-when he must, according to Matt. v.-vn., have 1dent1fied his own cause with that of " righteousness," assumed a position parallel to that of Moses, discriminated himself from the sinful human race, and declared that he had tha destinies of the entire world in his hands. There is not much more room for development after that I Abundant indication is 1 Schenkel, 'Oh11rnotcr of Jesus,' § ii.; but throughout the volume reiterated. CltX lN'l'RODUCTION 'l'O