Part 8 (1/2)

The dialogue interwoven with these seven signs is closely related in subject to them. It does not aim to repeat remembered Sayings, but follows that literary form which since Plato had been the cla.s.sic model for presenting the themes of philosophy. The subject-matter is no longer, as in the Synoptics, the Righteousness required by G.o.d, the Nature and Coming of the Kingdom, Duty to G.o.d and Man. It is the person and function of the speaker himself. Instead of the parables we have allegories: ”seven 'I am's'” of Jesus, in debate with ”the Jews” about the doctrine of his own person as Son of G.o.d.

This uniformity of topic corresponds with a complete absence of any attempt to differentiate in style between utterances of Jesus, or the Baptist, or the evangelist himself, in Gospel or Epistles. Had the writer desired, it is certain that he could have collected sayings of Jesus, and given them a form similar to those of Matthew and Luke. He does not try. The only device he employs to suggest a distinction is an oracular ambiguity at first misunderstood, and so requiring progressive unfolding. The main theme is often introduced by a peculiar and solemn ”Verily, verily.”

As with the 'signs' the lingering Synoptic sense of progress and proportion has disappeared. At the very outset John the Baptist proclaims to his followers that his own baptism has no value in itself.

It is not ”for repentance unto remission of sins.” It is _only_ to make the Christ ”manifest” (i. 19-34). Christ's atonement alone will take away the sin (i. 29), Christ's baptism alone will convey real help (i.

34). Jesus, too, proclaims himself from the outset the Christ, in the full Pauline sense of the word (i. 45-51; iv. 26, etc.). He chooses Judas with the express purpose of the betrayal, and forces on the reluctant agents of his fate (vi. 70 f.; xiii. 26 f.; xviii. 4-8; xix. 8-11).

All this, and much more which we need not cite, makes hardly the pretence of being history. It is frankly theology, or rather apologetics. We have as a framework the general outline of Mark, a Galilean and a Judaean ministry (chh. i.-xii.; xiii.-xx.), with traces of a Perean journey (vii. 1 ff.). This scheme, however, is broken through by another based on the Mosaic festal system, Jesus showing in each case as he visits Jerusalem, the higher symbolism of the ceremonial (ii. 13 ff. Pa.s.sover; v. 1 ff. Pentecost; vii. 1 ff. Tabernacles; x. 22 ff. Dedication; xii. 1 ff. Pa.s.sover). There is in chh. i.-iv. a 'teaching of baptisms' and of endowment with the Spirit corresponding roughly to Mark i. 1-45. There is in ch. v. a teaching of the authority of Jesus against Moses and the Law, corresponding to Mark ii. 1--iii. 6.

There is a teaching of the 'breaking of bread' corresponding to Mark vi.

30--viii. 26 in John vi., though this last has been related not merely to the brotherhood banquet ('love-feast') as in Mark, but antic.i.p.ates and takes the place of the teaching as to the Eucharist (_cf._ John vi.

52-59 with John xiii.). There is a Commission of the Twelve like Matt.

x. 16-42, though placed (with Luke xxii. 35-38) as a second sending on the night of betrayal (xiii. 31--xviii. 26). There is dependence on Petrine Story, and to some extent on Matthaean Sayings. In particular John xii. 1-7 combines the data of Mark xiv. 3-9 with those of Luke vii.

36-50; x. 38-42 in a curious compound, making it certain that the evangelist employed these two--and Matthew as well, if xii. 8 be genuine (it is not found in the ancient Syriac). Yet our Synoptic Gospels are not the only sources, and the material borrowed is handled with sovereign superiority. In short, as even the church fathers recognized, this Gospel is of a new type. It does aim to ”supplement”

the others, as they recognized; but not as one narrative may piece out and complete another. Rather as the unseen and spiritual supplements the external and visible. This Gospel uses the established forms of miracle-story and saying; but it transforms the one into symbol, the other into dialogue and allegory. Then by use of this material (supplemented from unknown, perhaps oral, sources) it constructs a series of interpretations of the person and work of the G.o.d-man.

Of one peculiarly distinctive feature we have still to speak. Where the reader has special need of an interpreter to attest and interpret a specially vital fact, such as the scenes of the night of the betrayal, or the reality of Jesus' propitiatory death (denied by the Doketists), or the beginning of the resurrection faith, Peter's testimony is supplemented and transcended by that of a hitherto unknown figure, who antic.i.p.ates all that Peter only slowly attains. This is the mysterious, unnamed ”disciple whom Jesus loved” (xiii. 23 ff.; xviii. 15 f.; xix. 25-37; xx. 1-10; _cf._ Gal. xx. 20), a Paul present in the spirit, to see things with the eye of spiritual insight. There is no transfiguration-scene and no prayer of Gethsemane in this Gospel--Transfiguration is needless where the glory s.h.i.+nes uninterrupted through the whole career. Prayer itself is impossible where oneness with the G.o.d-head makes difference of thought or purpose inconceivable. Hence the prayers of Jesus are often only ”for the sake of those that stand by” (xi. 41 f.). The same is true of the Voice from heaven at the scene which takes the place of Transfiguration and Gethsemane in one (xii. 27-33). Jesus will not ask for deliverance from that hour, because he had sought it from the beginning. His prayer is ”Father, glorify thy name.” The Voice, which some take to be an angel speaking to him (_cf._ Luke ix. 35; xxii. 43) is for the sake of the bystanders. The Voice at his baptism likewise is not addressed to him (the incarnate Logos does not need a revelation of his own ident.i.ty) but to the Baptist.

So again and again Synoptic scenes are retouched and new scenes are added in a way to present a consistent picture of the ”tabernacling” of the pre-existent Son of G.o.d in human flesh. As we review the whole, and ask ourselves, What is the occasion of this strange new presentation of the evangelic message? we begin to realize how indispensable is the key which the evangelist has himself hung before the door. Many and complex are the problems which confront us as we move through this heaped-up tangle of anecdote, dialogue, and allegory. There is room for the keenest scrutiny of criticism to determine, if possible, when, and how, and from what sources these meditations were put together. But nothing that critical insight, a.n.a.lysis, and comparison can furnish avails so much to throw real light upon the work as what the evangelist himself has done, by setting forth in a prologue (i. 1-18) the fundamental principles of his conception.

In a word evangelic tradition as it had hitherto found currency still lacked the fundamental thing in the Christology of Paul--the Incarnation doctrine. Paul conceived the story of Jesus as a supernal drama, beginning and ending in heaven at G.o.d's right hand. Even Matthew and Luke, carrying back the adoption to Son s.h.i.+p from the baptism to the birth of Jesus, had not essentially changed the pre-Pauline point of view. Still there was no pre-existence. Jesus was not yet shown as the Wisdom of G.o.d, through whom all things were created, the ”heavenly man,”

the second Adam, taking upon him the form of a servant, humbling himself and becoming obedient unto death, rich, and for our sakes becoming poor.

He was still, even in Mark, just the prophet mighty in deed and word, raised up by G.o.d from among his brethren, and for his obedience exalted to the messianic throne of glory. How _could_ this satisfy churches trained in the doctrine of Paul? We should almost rather marvel that the Synoptic narratives ever found lodgment at all, where Paul had preached from the beginning a doctrine of the eternal Christ.

And the transformation is not one whit more radical than we ought to antic.i.p.ate. The Transfiguration story had been a halting attempt to embody Pauline doctrine in Petrine story. But apart from the obvious hold afforded to mere Doketism, how inadequate to Paul's conception of the ”Man from heaven”! The Fourth evangelist depicts the person of Jesus consistently and throughout, despite his meagre and refractory material, along the lines of Pauline Christology. There is no concession to Doketism, for in spite of all, and designedly (iv. 6; xix. 28, 34), Jesus is still no phantasm, but true man among men. There is no hesitation to override, where needful, on vital points the great and growing authority of 'apostolic' tradition. Tacitly, but uncompromisingly, Petrine tradition is set aside. The ”disciple whom Jesus loved” sees the matter otherwise. In particular, apocalyptic eschatology is firmly repressed in favour of a doctrine of eternal life in the Spirit. The second Coming is not to be a manifestation ”to the world.” It will be an inward indwelling of G.o.d and Christ in the heart of the believer (xiv. 22 f.).[30] The place of future reward is not a glorified Palestine and transfigured, rebuilt Jerusalem. The disciple, like Paul, will ”depart to be with Christ.” The Father's house is wider than the Holy Land. It has ”many mansions,” and the servant must be content to know that his Master will receive him where he dwells himself (xiv. 1-3; xvii. 24).

Footnote 30: Some few pa.s.sages inconsistent with this are found in the body of the Gospel. Like that of the appendix (xxi. 22) they are later modifications of a doctrine too h.e.l.lenic for the majority.

To realize what it meant to produce the 'spiritual' Gospel that comes to us from Ephesus shortly after the close of the first century we must place ourselves side by side with men who had learnt the gospel of Paul _about_ Jesus, the drama of the eternal, pre-existent, ”heavenly Man,”

incarnate, triumphant through the cross over the Prince of this world and powers of darkness. We must realize how they found it needful to impregnate the 'apostolic' material of Petrine and Matthaean tradition with this deeper significance, preserving the concrete, historic fact, and the real manhood, and yet supplementing the disproportionately external story with a wealth of transcendental meaning. The spirit of Paul was, indeed, not dead. Neither Gnostic heresy could dissipate it, nor reactionary Christianized legalism absorb it. It had been reborn in splendid authority and power. In due time it would prove itself the very mould of 'catholic' doctrine. The Fourth gospel, as its Prologue forewarns, is an application to the story of Jesus as tradition reported it of the Pauline incarnation doctrine formulated under the Stoic Logos theory. It represents a study in the psychology of religion applied to the person of Christ. Poor as Paul himself in knowledge of the outward Jesus, unfamiliar with really historical words and deeds, its doctrine _about_ Jesus became, nevertheless, like that of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, the truest exposition of 'the heart of Christ.'

CHAPTER X

EPILOGUES AND CONCLUSIONS

Few of the great writings cherished and transmitted by the early church have escaped the natural tendency to attachments at beginning and end.

In the later period such attachments took the form of prefixed _argumenta_, _i. e._ prefatory descriptions of author and contents, and affixed _subscriptions_, devoted to a similar purpose. These, like the t.i.tles, were clearly distinguished from the text itself, and in modern editions are usually not printed, though examples of 'subscriptions' may be seen in the King James version after the Pauline Epistles. Before the time when canonization had made such a process seem sacrilege they were attached to the text itself, with greater or less attempt to weld the parts together. We need not add to what has been already said as to certain superscriptions of the later epistolary literature, such as James and Jude, where the relation to the text impresses us as closer than is sometimes admitted; nor need we delay with the preamble to Revelation (Rev. i. 1-3). That which has been added at the close, in cases where real evidence exists of such later supplementation, is of special significance to our study, inasmuch as it tends to throw light where light is most required. For that is an obscure period, early in the second century, when not only the churches themselves were drawing together toward catholic unity under the double pressure of inward and outward peril, but were bringing with them their treasured writings, sometimes a collection of Epistles, sometimes a Gospel, or a book of Prophecy, sometimes, as in the groups of writings attributed to John and Peter, a full canon of Gospel, Epistles and Apocalypse, followed but little later by 'Acts' as well.

The most ancient list of books authorized to be publicly read that we possess is that of the church of Rome _c._ 185, called after its discoverer the Canon of Muratori. From this fragment, mutilated at beginning and end, we learn that Paul's letters to the churches were arranged in a group of seven[31] of which Romans stood last. It is probably due to its position at the end that Romans has been supplemented by the addition of Pauline fragments, which did not appear in some early editions of the text. The letter proper ends with ch. xv.

though xvi. 21-23 probably followed, perhaps concluding with ver. 24, which some texts insert after ver. 19. Ver. 25-27 is another fragment omitted in some texts.

Footnote 31: The personal letters formed a separate group. Two letters to the same church (1st Cor., 2nd Cor.) were counted as one.

Marcion (140) counted ten in all, and had a different order.

We have seen above (p. 200) how Revelation has received conclusion after conclusion, so that the relation of personalities has become almost unintelligible. We have very meagre textual material for Revelation, and can scarcely judge whether any of the process represented in Rev. xxii.

6-21 belongs to the period of transmission, after the publication of the book in its present form. Until the discovery of new textual evidence the phenomena in Revelation must be treated by principles of the higher criticism, as pertaining to its history before publication. At all events we know that the attribution to ”John” (ver. 8 f.) was current as early as Justin's _Apology_ (153).