THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ogotic. That his arrangement of the Logia satisfied a deep need is proved by the fact that the Matthean text of our Lord's words is the text generally followed in the Apostolic Fathers, beginning with Clement. The likeliest place of publication is North Syria, possibly Damascus.
The building and publishing of the Gospels was a process inherent in the growth of the Apostolic Church. It was wider than our canonical Gospels. There is one Gospel, the Gospel ac- 10. Gospel cording to the Hebrews, which prob- According ably falls within the first century. The to the scanty fragments of it remaining make Hebrews, a constructive hypothesis of any sort extremely hazardous. In its account of the conversion of James it places itself on solid ground (cf. I Cor. xv. 7). The silence of the canonical Gospels and of Acts forcibly recall their limitations as histories. But it would seem that the story of James had already become a Jewish-Christian legend. And possibly the Gospel according to the Hebrews at this point indicates the beginning of the Clementine legend. There are other elements (account of the temptation, " My Mother the Holy Spirit took me by one of the hairs of my head and carried me off to the great mountain, Thabor ") that suggest a movement toward extravagant mysticism. This may have been a growing tendency in the depressed and disheartened congregation of Jerusalem, which in the last years of the first century had lost its hold on great affairs. The possible relations of this Gospel to the canonical Matthew or to the Logia are questions upon which no opinion may safely be ventured. The hazy and heterogeneous opinions of the Fathers yield no solid data.
The foregoing discussion shows that the Gospels were not written as scientific histories were written, but that they constitute a religious literature springing from corporate religious need. The choice and presentation of the saving words of Jesus was determined, by practical, ii. Back- not by systematic or historical, moground of tives (John xx. 30-31). In Matthew Fourth there are clear indications that inter- Gospel, pretation has to some extent fused with the Logia held in the living memory and applied to imperious practical needs. The habit of quotation has a long history. Nothing like the modern standard of quotation was reached in antiquity, not even in Greek learning, and most certainly not in first-century Christianity, where the corporate need of law gave the main motive for gospel-building. Christians did not dream that they were guilty of irreverence when they adapted the words of Jesus even as they adapted the saving words of the Old Testament (cf. Paul in Rom. x. 6 sqq.). This study of the Gospels illumines the problem of the Fourth Gospel. To place the book fairly, the history of Christian prophetism must be remembered. The Apostolic, or more concretely the prophetic, age of Christianity was the creative and constructive period of our religion. It founded a new type of community and, as a part of that work, created a new literary type, the Gospels. By the year 100 Christian prophetism was in rapid decline. The Pastoral Epistles, II Peter, I Clement,
and the Didache are convincing evidence. The period of decline lasted till near the middle of the second century. The labored apocalypse of Hernias indicates its close. The publication of the Diatessaron (see Harmony of the Gospels, I., §§ 2-4) proclaims its close. Then follows quickly the attempted revival of Christian prophetism in Montanism, and the period of the Catholic Church. Much hasty work has been done in the field of the Fourth Gospel through a disregard of certain fundamental facts involved in this history of Christian prophetism.
The quality of thought in the Fourth Gospel is not metaphysical but prophetic. The absence of the pictured parousia has been given excessive weight. The quality of the thought is the real criterion. The Gospel is inseparable from I John where there is a lively expectation of 12. Charac- the " last times." There is no emoter of tional gulf between the eschatologies. Fourth The " last day " plays a not inconsid- Gospel. erable part in the Gospel (vi. 39, 40, 44, xi. 23, xii. 48). The monotheism is intense. The conception of the " world " (kosmos) has been cast in the apocalyptic mold. It is true that the presence of the word Logos (i. 1, 14) carries great weight. But i. 1-5, by its brevity, indicates the author's eagerness to get into history, his indisposition for metaphysics. The fundamental quality of thought is intensely prophetic and of itself places the core of the book well within the first century. The parallel with Matthew may be pressed. Here as there the opposition of Christ to Judaism is the determining element (the displacing of the purification of the Temple from the end of the ministry to the beginning to indicate the irrepressible conflict between Jesus and Judaism; the dialogue with Nicodemus, iii. 1-10; the important part taken by the Sabbath questions; the constant phrase " your law "; the title " the Jews " constantly used to describe the dark figures in the picture). Here as there, though far more decisively, the self -consciousness of Christ stands out in opposition to Judaism. The self-consciousness of the Savior is the Gospel (the " kingdom of God " is absorbed into the person of the king, the phrase occurs only in iii. 3, 5; the parabolic form of teaching disappears with the " kingdom of God "; the style of Jesus in the Synoptics is in striking contrast). It is evident that the mold of the Gospel was shaped in the mind of a first century Jewish Christian.
The occasioning cause of publication is found in Gnosticism in its first period of development. There is a truth in the legend that connects the author of the Gospel with Cerinthus. The substance of the Fourth Gospel was shaped 13. Author- by the same causes that shaped the ship, Date, Synoptists, the corporate need of the and Place of Christian community, fighting at close Fourth quarters with the world. The per- Gospel. spective and emphasis and main terms of the Fourth Gospel are found also in the First Epistle. The person of Christ becomes the outstanding and all-controlling principle. The conception of the Logos is used to lay in consciousness the final foundation for the fact and mystery