GOSHEN
‘The house of Ram(e)ses’ with a royal residence
and temples of Amon, Suteb, ‘Astart, and Buto,l
evidently not very far E., and P-Atum= Pithom on
the site, of modern Tell el-Masbiita. It is very ques-
tionable whether before Ram(e)ses 11. there were in the
eastern part of the valley any Egyptian settlements
except the fortification mentioned above ; at any rate,
it fully deserved the name that it came to bear in
later times-’ land of Ram(e)ses ’ (this would hardly
apply to the old western district). The position of the
land colonised by Rameses was very advantageous. It
possessed a healthy desert climate and was most fertile
as long as the canal to the Crocodile Lake was kept in
order.2 The extension of the canal of Ram( e)ses to
the Ked Sea by Necho I. increased the commercial im-
portance of the district. Quite recently, the repairing
of the canal has trebled the population, now IZOOO,
of this district, which forms a part of the modern province
esh-Sharkiye. Heroopolis-Patum thus became an im-
portant place 4 for the trade on the Red Sea, where
also the Romans built a fortified camp.
Thus we see that Kesm -Goshen and ‘land of
Ram(e)ses ’ were with the Egyptians
-.. hardly identical.
6. The biblical The ‘ country of Ram(e)ses ’ could be
and the Egyp- only the eighth (eastern) nome. The
tian Goshen. application to that (eastern) district, of
the (obsolete and rare) name Kesm
(vocalise Kosm?) of ihe western (20th dome) ha4 not
yet been shown on the (later) Egyptian monuments.
The Hebrew story (Nu. 33 5 5 ) of the Israelites marching two
days (Rameses to Succoth, Succoth to Etham) through the
whole valley of TumilSt (instead of starting from its eastern
end) might suggest to some a mistake of P, J E placing the
country of the Israelites hetween Bubastus, Belhcs, and Tell Abti
IslZmSn (cp Naville). T h e probabilities, however, of such a
theory are small ; all sources seem to mean the same part of the
country.
Probably Heroopolis had, before the extension of the
canal by Necho I., less importance, and the possibility
that once also the eastern district had P-sapdu as capital
and belonged to the district Ksnz is, therefore, not to be
denied. It must he confessed that the geographical
texts upon which we have to rely date from Ptolemaic
times only. The division of the ‘ Arabian district may
have been different in earlier centuries.
G o S ’ PE L s
CONTENTS
A,-DESCRIPTIVE
A.- INTERNAL EVIDENCE AS T O ORIGIN.
I. THE EARLIEST TRADITION (§ I$). IV. THE I NTRODUCTIONS (Mt. and Lk.),
11. THE TRIPLE TRADITION ($5 3-14).
(i.) The edition of Mk. from which Mt. and Lk. borrowed
( 5 3).
(ii.) Mk. in relation to Mt. and Lk. ($8 4-7).
(iii.) Jn. in relation to the Triple Tradition ($5 8-14).
(a) Instances from the first part of Mk. (5 8). V. THE C ONCLUSIONS (Mt. Lk. and.-the Mk.-Ap-
@).Predictions of the Resurrection ( 5 9).
( y ) Deviations of Lk. from Mk. (or Mk. and Mt.)
caused by obscurity (5 IO).
(6) The Passover and the Lord’s Supper (5 IT).
( e ) The Passion (8 12).
(5) Conclusion and Exceptions (5 135).
111. DOUBLE TRADITIONS (§§ 15-20).
(i.) Mk. and Mt. ; Jn. in relation to Mk. and Mt. (5 15).
11.) Mk. and Lk . Jn. in relation to Mk. and Lk. ($ 16).
&.) Mt. and Li!, or ‘The Double Tradition . (vni.) Jn.’s view (‘signs ’), $ 31f:
(a)
Acts of the Lord’; (6) Words of the Lord (‘5 I;-I~).
(iv.) Jn. in relation to ‘The Double Tradition’ (5 20).
1 A poetic description of the new city is to be found in
rus Anastasi, 4 6.
paf’heglec t of the canal always led immediately to an
encroachment ofthe desert upon the narrow cultivable area.
3 The canal was 50 cubits wide (according to Strabo ; 100 ft.
according to Pliny [6 1651; j o yards according to traces near
Balb5s)and 30 ft. deep (according to Pliny; 16-17 Engl. ft.
according to modern traces).
4 The canal was repaired by Darins, Ptolemy II., Trajan-
whence the name of the province Augustamnica from the
Canalis Trajanus.
1761
GOSPELS
Tradition has been exceptionally fortunate with the name
Goshen Makrizi in particular identified Goshen with the
region detween‘ BAbZs and the Iknd of the Amalekit‘es. The
limitation of Goshen to Sadir, a village N E . of BelbEs by Sa‘adia
(and Abu-sa‘id) is as strange as the limitation to fios@t (Old
Cairo) by Bar Bahld. Modern scholars have, on the contrary
frequently extended Goshen too widely: Ebers, e.g., included i i
it the whole eastern delta between the Tanitic branch (cp Targ.
Jer. which made Goshen ‘the land of Pelusium’), Heliopolis,
and the Bitter Lakes. We can afford to neglect certain
hypotheses which date from the period before the decipherment
of the hieroglyphics ; for the situation erroneously assumed by
Brugscb, see EXODUS, $ 13. W. M. M.
GOSHEN (I@.$ ; rocom [BAFL]; GOSEN). I. A
‘ land ’ mentioned in Deuteronomistic portions of Joshua
among other districts of S. Canaan, Josh. 1041 (@ y.
[AFL]),1116 (yfjv y. [BAFL]). It is strange to find
the name of Goshen outside the limits of Goshen roper.
Hommel ( A H T 2273 237 ; cp Ex?. T.SIj[Ocf ‘96]),
supposes that as the Israelites in Egypt multiplied, the
area allotted to them was extended, and that the strip
of country between Egypt and Judah, which still
belonged to the Pharaoh, was regarded as an integral
part of the land of Goshen. This is obviously a con-
servative hypothesis (see EXODUS i., § z ; M IZRAIM ,
2 a). The text, however, may need criticism. That
the M T sometimes misunderstands, or even fails to
observe, geographical names, is plain ; we have learned
so much from Assyriology. Let us then suppose that
Goshen is wrongly vocalised, and should be it?= i‘f‘u,and
compare the name of the Galilzan town 3 ) ~ csira (‘fat
soil’), the Gischala of Josephus. Other solutions are
open ; we may at any rate presume that this old Hebrew
name had a Semitic origin, see 2.
As they now stand, Josh. 1041 and 1116 do not,convey
the same geographical picture. The words in 11 16, all the
Negeh and all the land of Goshen (jf3F) and the ShGphZlah,
suggest that ‘the Goshen’ lay hetween the Negeb or southern
steppe region and the ShEphZlah or Lowlands. We might hold
that it took in the SW. of the hill-coimtry of Judah. In Josh;
1041, where we read ‘all the land of Goshen as far as Gibeon,
we may ,presume that some words have dropped out after
‘ Goshen. Cp NEGEB, g 4.
2 . A town in the SW. of the hill-country of Judah, mentioned
with Debir, Anab, etc., Josh. 15 j1 [PI. Probably an echo of
the old name of a district in the same region (see I). Cp
Gesham. T. K. C.
AND ANALYTICAL.
(i.) The effect of prophecy ($21).
, 88 -
-- 21-23.
(ii.) Philonian Traditions (3.).
(iii.) Justin and Irenzeus (i6.).
(iv.) Divergence of Mt. and Lk. ($ 22).
(v.) Jn. in relation to the Introductions (8 27).
pendix), I§ 24-33.
(i.)The Evangelists select their evidence (5 24).
(ii.)The Period of Manifestations ($ 25).
(iii Traces of Poetic Tradition ($ 26).
(iv:] .
Discrepancies ( 5 27).
(v.) Lk.’s view (‘proofs ’), 5 28.
(vi.) The Manifestation to the Eleven (TheMk.-Appendix,
Lk. Ignatius) 5 29.
(Uii.) The dstorical eltimate of Lk.’s tradition ($ 30).
(ix.) Contrast between Jn. and the Synoptists (5 33).
(x.) Note on the Testimony of Paul ( 5 33 note).
VI. SINGLE TRADITIONS (§$ 34-63).
( u ) The First Gospel (§§ 34-36).
(i.) Doctrinal and other characteristics (5 343.
(ii.) Evidence as to date ($ 35).
(E.) Jn. in relation to Mt’s. Singlc Tradition (S 36).
1 The Coptic versions which simply transliterate, seem,
however to have lost all &adition. Possibly the vocalisation of
Y E C T F ~ disguised
the Egyptian name to them. A woman pilgrim
of the fourth century places the ‘terra Gesse‘ 16 R. m. from
Herodpolis calling the capital ‘civitas Arabia.’ She believed
Ram(e)ses i o he 4 R. m. to the E. of this capital (see Naville,
Shrine of S. ~ g ) ,meaning apparently $aft.
I
1762
 GOSPELS GOSPELS
( b ) The Third Gospd ($5 37-44). 6v.) Structure ($5 52-63).
(i.) [a] The Dedication, [p] Linguistic characteristics
(5 373).
(ii.) Doctrinal characteristics (5 39).
I f6)
Gospd as a whole ($ 52).
(a) The Gospel
(6) The Details.
(I) The Prologue (0 53).
(2) The Bridegroom ortheDoctrineofWater;
(iii.) A manual for daily conduct (B 40).
(iv.) Evidence as to date (6 LI). (a)
(a) Galilee, @) Jerusalem, (y) Samaria
(y.) Siipmixtiral narrati;cd cR 42). (5 541.
18 54).
of Life (5 55).
&t:) 1.k. 5 position ltisrorically (ri 43).
Jn. in relntiuri tu I.k.’s Single ‘l‘radition (5 44). (3
(3
(5)
The Bread of
The Light (5 56).
The Life (5 57).
( 6 ) The /ohannine Gospel (I§
45-63). (6) The Raising of the Dead ($ 58).
(i.) Hypotheses of authorship (5 45). (7) The Raising of Lazarus (8 59).
(ii.) [a] Names, 5 46, [/31 numbers, I 47, and [y] quotations (8) The Preparation for the Sacrifice (S 60).
60).
(5 48). (9) The ‘Deuteronomy’ (8 61).
(iii.) Style (55 49-51). (IO) The Passion (5 62fi).
B. - EXTERNAL EVI DENCE AS TO ORIGIN.
I. STATEMENTS (83 64-82) (y.) Clement of Rome ($ 87).
(i.) The Third Gospel (0 64). (y. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (e 88).
(ii.) P a ias ($5 65-74). (vi11 Th e Epistle of Barnabas ($5 89-90).
&) His ‘ Exposition ’ (5 65 a). (I Alleged Synoptic Quotations (0 89).
(6) His account of Mk. and Mt. (8 65 b). (21 Anticipations Jn. (5 go).
Great Apophasis (5 91).

I
(6) The system of Eusebius (5 66). (viii. The
(d) The silence of Papias on Lk. and Jn. (5 67). (ix. Ignatius (B 92).
(e) The date of his Exposition ($5 68-73). . (I) Was 4. P o l p r p (5 93).
Papias a hearer of Jn. ? (2) and (7) ‘ Aristion and (5b) Papias Q 94).
Jn. the Elder,’(4) Papias’ ‘Elders,’(g) His list ( 5 : ~The hpistle to Diognetus ($ 95).
of the Apostles (6) His relation to Polycarp. (nii.{ The Shepherd of Hermas (5 96).
)f,( Summary of the kvidence (5 74). (xiv.)Basilides (0 97).
(iii.) Justin Martyr (55 75-77). (xv.)Marcion (5 98).
( a ) His titles of the Gospels (5 75). (xvi.)Valentinus (8 99).
(6) Indications of Lk. as a recent Gospel (S 76). (xyii.)Summary of the Evidence before Justin (5 100).
(6) The origin of Justin’s view of the Memoirs (5 77). (xviii.)Justin Martyr ($5 101-104).
(iv.) The Muratorian Frazment (5 78). (I) Minor apparent Johannine quotations ($ 101).
(y.) Irenzus (5 79). - (2) ‘Except ye be begotten again’ (i6.).
(yi.) Clement of Alexandria ($ 80). (3) Other alleged quotations (ib.).
(vii.) Summary of the Evidence as to Mk. and Mt. (5 81). (4) Abstentions from quotation (0 102).
(viii.) Summary of the Evidence as to Lk. and Jn. (5 82). (5 Inconsistencies with Jn. (R 103).
(6) Summary of the evidence about Justin ($ 104).
11. QUOTATIONS ($5 83-107). ... I\“S TOE).
(xix.) Tatian .__),_

(i.) Paul (5 83). (4 Traces of Jn. as a recent ‘interpretation’

(ii.) ames (5 84). (5 105).
I.
(iii.) assages apparent& quoted from the Gospels ($85).
(iv.) The Oxyrhynchus fragment (5 86).
(b) The Diatessaron ($ 107).

B.-HISTORICAL AND SYNTHETICAL.

I. TENDEKCY IN THE SYNOPTISTS (5s 108-114):
In general (5 108).
I n Lk. (5%IO 111).
I n Mt. (5 I I Z ~
I n Mk. (5 113).
Conclusion (5 114).
11. THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM.
Tradition theory (5 115).
Dependence theory (5 116).
Original gospel (5 117).
Original Mk. (5 118fi)
Logia (5 110).
Two-source theory ($121).
Extent of logia (5 122).
Special Lk. source (5 123).
Smaller sources (5 124).
Theories of combination (5 125).
Review of classes of theory (0 126).
Use of Mt. by Lk. (5 127).
Sources of the sources (5 128).
Critical inferences (5 129).
Semitic basis (5 130).
111. TRUSTWORTHINESS OF SYNOPTISTS.
Fundamental principles ($ 131).
Chronological statements ($ 132).
BibUOgaPhY (5 157).
Suecia1 abbreviations used in this article.
Clem.Alex. (reff. to pp. in Potter’s ed. Ign.=E&sstIcs of Ignatius, ed. Light-
and margin of Klotz).
Clem.Anc.Hom. =the epistle entitled
‘An ancient homily,’ in Lightfoot’s ed.
Clement. = Cl8mentine Homilies, ed.
Schwegler.
Diatess. =The Arabic Harmony com.
monly called Tatian’s Diatessaron.
Ephrem=conzm. ed. Moesinger.
Eus. =Em. HE ed. Schwegler.
GrLtz=Gratz’s G] ET.
Hippol. =Hippol;tus’s Re&tatim of
Heresies ed. Duncker.
Hor.Hebr.’= Lightfoot, ed. Gandell,
1859.
A.-SYNOPTIC GOSPELS.
Order of narratives (5 I 3).
Occasion of ‘ Words ’ .?Jesus ($ 134).
Places and persons ($135).
Later conditions (5 136).
Miracle stories (5 137).
Resurrection of Jesus (8 138).
Absolute trnstworthiness-
( a ) About Jesus generally (5 139).
(b) About Jesus’ miracles (5 140).
Inference regarding the ‘signs ’ (5 141).
Metaphors misinterpreted (5 142).
Influence of O T (5 143).
Miraculous cures (0 144).
Conclusion as to words of Jesus ($ 145).
Iv. AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF SYNOPTICS AND
THEIR SOURCES.
Titles of gospels (9 146).
Statements of Fathers (5 147).
Author of 2nd gospel ($ 148).
Author of 1 s t gospel and the logia (5 149).
Date of logia (5 150).
Date of 1st gospel (5 151) of 2nd gospel (5 152))
author and date of 3rd gd.spel(§ 155).
Conclusion (S 154).
Gospel of Hebrews ($155).
Other extra-canonical gospels (%159.
B.-FOURTH GOSPEL.
See JOHN (APOSTIX).
Mk.-Mt.=Common Tradition of Mk.
foot. and Mt. where it differs from Lk.
Iren.=Irenzeus, Refutation of Heresies Mt.. Lk. =Common Tradition of Mt.
(text of Grabe books and sections of and Lk. (whether in Synoptic or
ET in ‘ante-N’icene Library’). Double Tradition).
Lightf. BE=Bp. Lightfoot, Bib.Essays. 0rig.Cels. =Orig. contra CeLrum.
Lightf. SR=Bp. Lightfoot, Essays on 0rig.Comm. =(ed. Huet, Kouen, 1668).
SupemaluraZ Religion. Philo (Mangey’s vol. and page).
Lucian (ed. Gesner, Amsterdam, 1743, Pseudo-Peter =Gospel of Peter.
ref. to vol. and page). Schottg. =SchGttgen’s Hor. He& 2 vols.
Mk.-App.=Appendix to Mk.-i.e., Mk. %.=The Codex (see TEXT), called
16 9-20. Syrus Sinaiticus.
Mk.-Lk. =the Common Tradition of Tryph. =Justin’s (ed. Otto).
Mk. and Lk. where it differs from Westc - B Westcott’s Conzm. on John.
Mt. Wetst.‘=MPetstein’sConi,~~,on A T ,evo~s.
 GOSPELS GOSPELS
[The aim of the followinp article is to set forth with (IS I-1d7) is relatively full in its account of the contenis
sufficient fulness the facts that have to be taken into of the gospels as a basis for considering their mutual
account in formulating a theory of the genesis of the relations, and in its survey of the external evidence as
gospels, to record and criticise some of the more im- . to origin. The second (I108-158) aims mainly at
portant theories that have been proposed, and to indi- giving zn ordered account of the various questions bear-
cate if possible the present position of the question and ing on (especially) the internal evidence that have be&
the apparent trend of thought. raised by scholars in the long course of the development
Its two parts, as will appear from the prefixed tabular of gospel criticism, and at attempting to find at least a
exhibit of their contents, are partly independent, partly provisional answer.]
complementary. Roughly it may be said that the first

A . INTERNAL EVIDENCE AS T O ORIGIN.

I. T HE E ARLIEST T RADITION.
Roughly it may be said that, of the Synoptists, Mk.
exhibits the Acts and shorter Words of the Lord ; Mt.
1. Earliest a combination of the Acts with Discourses
Tradition. of the Lord, the latter often grouped
together, as in the Sermon on the Mount ;
Lk. a second combination of Acts with Discourses, in
which an attempt is made to arrange the Words and
Discourses chronologically, assigning to each the circum-
stances that occasioned it. A comparison shows that Mt.
and Lk., where Mk. is silent, often agreewith one another.
This doubly-attested account-for the most part con-
fined to Discourses, where the agreement is sometimes
verbatim-may be conveniently called ’ the1 Double
Tradition.’ Where Mk. steps in, the agreement between
Mt. and Lk. is less close ; and a study of what may be
called ‘ the Triple Tradition,’ i.e. the matter common
to Mk., Mt., and Lk., shows that here Mt. and L k . , as
a rule, contain nothing of importance in common. which
is not found aZso i n our Mk. ( o r rather in a n ancient
edition of our M k . containing a f e w verba1,corrections
~ for the barbaric (Mk. 2 4 g TI 12) Kp&,¶arror, mpina‘rar for (MU.
for ckarness [see below, 31). This leads to the
conclusion that, in the Triple Tradition, Mt. and Lk.
borrowed (independent& of each other) either fmm our
Mk. or (more probabg)f r o m some document 2 embedded
~
in our Mk.
Any other hypothesis requires only to he stated in order to
appear untenable. For example : ( I ) that Mt. and Lk. should
agree by accident, would be contrary to all literary experience ;
(2) if Mt. and Lk. borrowed from a common document contain-
ing Mk or (3) differing in important respects from Mk or (4)if
Lk. hor;bwed from Mt or Mt. from Lk tke t w o (i.e ‘ht.and
Lk.)would contain iw&ortanf similar& not /.,unZ in Mk. ;
( 5 ) if Mk. borrowed from Mt. and from Lk., he must have
adapted his narrative so us to insert almost everyphrase and
word common to Mt. and Lk. in the passage before him-a
hard task, even for a literary forger of these days, and an im-
possibility for such a writer as Mk.
The Fourth Gospel (henceforth called Jn.) does nqt contai:
the Synoptic‘ ‘rep,ent, ‘repentance, ‘forgiveness, faith,,
baptism,‘ ‘preack,’ ‘rebuke,’ ‘sinners,
2. John. :publicans ’ ‘disease ‘possessed with a devil,‘
cast oqt ’ devils ’ ‘unclean ‘leper ’ ‘leaven,’
’enemy,’ ‘hypocrisy, ‘divo;ce,’ ‘adultery,’ wbe ’ ‘rich,’
‘riches,’ ‘mighty work ’ ‘parable.’3 Instead of ‘faith’(niurrs) ’
Jn. uses ‘have faith in‘ ( ~ u T E ~ o ) . ’ ‘Faith,’ in Jn. is ‘abiding
:n Christ.’ The Synoptists say that prayer will he g;anted, if we
have faith :’ Jn. says (15 7), ‘ If y e d i d e in me, and my words
a6idf in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto
you. Except in narrating the Crucifixion, Jn. never mentions
cross’ or ‘crucify,’ but he represents Jesus as predicting hi:
being ‘uplifted’ or ‘glorified.’ In Jn. the Synoptic ‘child
rarely occurs ; but the necessity of ‘receiving the kingdom of
God as little children’ is expressed by him in the necessity
(verbally different, hut spiritually the same) of being ‘born from
above.‘
Since the author of the Fourth Gospel must have
1 For the meaning of the emphasised ‘the ’ see helow $ 15.
* The hypothesis of an Oral Tradition, a’s the sole ;rigin of
the similarities in the Synoptists, is contrary both to external
and to internal evidence.
3 ‘The kingdom of God ’ or ‘of heaven,’ occurs in Jn. twice,
in the Synoptists more the& eibhty times.
I765
known. (Eus. iii. 247) the substance of the Three,l it is
antecedently probable that, where the Synoptists differ,
if Jn. favours one, he does so deliberately. Inde-
pendently, therefore, of its intrinsic value, Jn. is im-
portant as being, in effect, the earZiest commentary on
the Synoptists.
11. THE T RIPLE TRADITION.
Here we have to consider : (i.) The edition of Mk.
3. Triple from which Mt. and Lk. borrowed;
Tradition: (ii.) Mk. in relation to Mt. and Lk. ;
Mt.-Lk.,s Mt (iii.) Jn. in relation to Mk., Mt., and
Lk.
(i.) The Edition of M k . from which Ut. and LK.
borrowed differs from Mk. itself merely in a few points
indicating a tendency to correct Mk.’s style.
The most frequent changes are (a)to substitute daw for Ad a 2
and to insert pronouns, etc. for the sake of clearness. But tlei!e
is often apparent (6) a tendency to substitute more definite, or
classical or appropriate words. For example, irXebRaL and
L a 6 M v u h a r are substituted for the single drrohhvdai (Mk. 2 22
applied to wine and wine-skins), ~ A i v q(or some other wordj
29) & r a y s (to’the aralytic) daipIhhsr for the unheard of
(Mk. 2 21) i m p & r a $ Ambikuity is removed-eg., by the
following; bracketed additions : Mk. 4 II ‘)to know] the mystery
of God; (3 18) ‘Andrew [his brother]; (44) ;w T& ursi ELY
[ a 6 r & ] . In Mk. 415 for ‘them Mt. and Lk. substiiute ‘tteir
heart.’ (c) Sometim;s there is’condensation (e.<. [Mk. 4 I O ] oi
m p i a h b w o h TOYS GiGsm [Mt.-Lk.oi p a h r a i a k o 8 1 ) ; or an
unusual word (eg. [432] b V a @ X h [of a plant] is changed to a
more usual one [q&$prc]); or a less reverential phrase (5 27) 705
ipariov to a more reverential one (70s KpauaBou roc rpaTiov).
In Mk.1025, TpupaA& is altered into Tp<paros or rpvmj-
paroc, possihly because rpvpaka’ means in @ (four or five times)
1 This follows from the generally admitted fact that versions
of the Three Synoptic Gospels were welt known in the Church
long before the publication of the Fourth (see helow, ‘External
Evidence’). An interesting testimony to the authority of our
Four Canonical Gospels, and also to the later date of the Fourth
comes from ‘the Jew’ of Celsus, who says that (Orig. Cels. 2 27)
certain believers, ‘as though roused from intoxication to sclf-
control (or to self-judgment, &s& p9qr $ m v r a c sir r b i+sur&vac
gavroir), alter the character of (peraxap&rrfiy) the Gospel from
its first writteqform (&.nip apijn)r yp@<r) in thYeflold3four-
fold and manyWd fashion ( r p ~ x iKa\L r e r p a x i .ai mhAaX<), and
rembuld it ( ~ L C T ~ V A ~ T T G C that
W) they might have wherewith to
gainsay refutations CLv’ C OLFV r p b s ~ 0 3 ihdyxovs
s ipws2uOai).‘
Celsus apparently befeves that there was first an original
Gospel, of such a kind as to render it possihle for enemies to
make a charge of ‘intoxication ’ (perhaps being in Hebrew and
characterised by eastern metaphor and hyperbole), then, that
there were three versions of this Gospel, then four, thus making
an interval between the first three and the fourth, which he, does
not make between any of the first three. The word ‘manifold
ap ears to refer to still later apocryphal Gospels.
$Perhaps EElrsv seemed more appropriate for history. At
all events Lk. never apPIies hi‘yysi (without bwaxpdk’r etc.) fo
Jesus. The only apparent instance is Lk. 2436, ‘And sa’ith
unto them Peace he unto yon. This is expunged by Tischen-
dorf, and blaced in double brackets by WH. Alford condemns
Tischendorf on the ground that ‘the authority is weak.’ But
fhe internal evidence is strong.
3 The deviations of Mt. and Lk. from Mk. are printed in
distinct characters in Mr. Rushbrooke’s Synopticon, which is
indispensable for the critical study of this question. It follows
the order of Mk.
1766
 GOSPELS
‘the cleft of a rock.’ Once at least our Mk. (9 50 : dvahov
y6vvrar)seems to have thenewer traditio;, Mt. and Lk. (pwpavBij)
the older : 6ut there theparallelMt. is outofMk.’s order, and
is fakeizfronz theSernzon on the Mount, indicating that both Mt.
and Lk. derive the saying, not from Mk. but from a different
source, froin which come the portion: common to Mt. and Lk.
above called ‘ The Double Tradition.
An examination of the deviations from Mk. common
to Mt. and Lk. in the Triple Tradition confirms the
view that Mt. did not borrow from L k . , nor Lk. from
Mt. Had either borrowed from the other, they would
have agreed, at least occasionally, against Mk. in more
important details.
(ii.) M k . in relation t o Mt. and LA.-It is a remark-
able fact that-whereas the later Evangelists, and other
4. Primitive writers such as Barnabas and Justin,
appeal largely to detailed fulfilments of
character prophecy-Mk. quotes no prophecies in
^c ~ , -
“I AT‘
*
.
his own person,2 and gives no miraculous
incidents peculiar to himself except (Mk. 8 2 3 ) an ancient
and semi-poetical tradition of the healing of the blind.
H e makes no mention of Christ’s birth or childhood,
and gives no account of the res~rrection.~
Occasionally Mk. repeats the same thing in the formofquestion
and answer. $his may sometimes he a mere peculiarity of style
e.g 2 19 3 33j: : but in many cases (1 32 42 3 22 [compared wit6
3 3J 29 4 15 5 15 12 44 etc ) he seems t o have had before him two
versions of one saying a i d in his ‘anxiety to omit nothing,’4 to
have inserted hoth. Por &nplifications in connection with un-
clean spirits see 1 2 6 3 44 37-12 914-27; for others, relating
to the crowhing of people round Jesus, the publicity of his
work and his desire for solitude, see 1 2 8 3 9 3 7 4 5 2 1-4 15
3 10-i~ 6 3 1 etc. (some paralleled in Lk., but not so fully or
gra hically). Mk. abounds with details as to the manner
loo$ and gestures of Jesus (see 3 5 7 31-37 822-26). I n some ok
these, Aramaic words are given as his very utterances, e.g., 5 41
7 3$ 14 36. Sometimes Mk. gives names mentioned by no other
writer (cp 3 17 8 IO 10 46).
In some circumstances, Mk.‘s elaboration of nnim-
portant detail (and especially the introduction of names),
instances of which abonnd in the Apocryphal Gospels,
would indicate a late writer. But Mk. often emphasises
and elaborates points omitted, or subordinated, by the
other Evangelists, and likely to be omitted in later times,
as not being interesting or edifying.
For example Lk. and Jn. subordinate facts relating to the
ersonal appeLrance influence and execution of John the
gaptist. Now Acts <Q 3 indicatis that several years after Christ’s
death ‘the baptism of John’ was actually overshadowing the
baptism of Christ among certain Christians. This being the
case, it was natural for the later Evangelists to subordinate
references t o the Baptist. Lk., it is true, describes Jn.’s birth
in detail: but the effect is to show that the son of Zachariah was
destined from the womb to be nothing hut a forerunner of the
Messiah. Jn. effects the same ohject, in a different way, by
recording the Baptist’s confessions of Christ’s preexistence and
sacrificial mission. I t is characteristic of Mk.’s early date as
well as of his simplicity and freedom from controversial mothe
that, whether aware or not of this danger of rivalry, he set down:
just as he may have heard them, traditions ahout the Baptist
that must have interested the Galilean Church far more than th;
Churches of the Gentiles.
Another sign of early composition is the rudeness of
Mk.’s Greek.
Mk. uses many words erpressly fqrbidden by
6. Rude Phrynichus, e.g (5 23) euxaTwr e x e c . (24
Greek style. 11 3) rpa‘fiamos‘;, ,(I1 15) KOhhUflLyTajf (541q
Kopdmov; (1465) pamupa; (1025)
as the APostolicaZ Constitutions improves the had o?:
Didaclrd (Taylor’s DidachL, 43), so Lk. always (and sometimes
Mt.) corrects these inelegancies. Such words (which stand on
quite a different footing fromJewish Greek, such as we find in
1 Almost the only addition of importance in this ‘corrected
edition of Mk.’ is (Mt.2668=Lk. 2264) ‘Who is it that,smote
thee?’ added to explain the obscure Mk. 1465 ‘Prophesy.
2 The parenthesis in Mk. 1 2 is the only exception. This was
probably an insertion in the original Gospel (see 5 8).
3 For proof that Mk.’s Gospel terminates at 168, see WH
on Mk. 16 9-20, which is there pronounced to he ‘a narrative
of Christ’s appearances after the Resurrection,’ found by ‘ a
scribe or editor ’ ‘in some secondary record then surviving from
a preceding gdneration:’ ‘its authorship and its precise date
must remain unknown ; it is, however apparently older than the
time when the Canonical Gospels we;e generally received : for
though it has points of contact with them all, it contains u i
attempt t? harmonise their various representations of the course
of events.
4 So Papias, quoted by Eus. (3 39) : ‘For he (Mk.) took great
care about one matter, VIZ., io omit nothing of what he heard.’
1767
GOSPELS
Lk.’s Introduction) might naturally find their place in the
dialect of the slaves and freedmen who formed the first congrega-
tions of the Church in Rome ; but in the more prosperous days
of the Church they would be corrected.
Again, a very early Evangelist, not having much
experience of other written Gospels, and not knowing
6. Vividness. exactly what \;odd most edify t h i
L ~.
Church, might naturallv lav stress on
vivid expressions and striking words, or reproduce
anacolutha, which, though not objectionable in discourse,
are unsuitable for written composition.
Many such words are inserted by Mk. and avoided by Mt. or
Lk. or by both-e.g. (1x0) u ~ ~ ~ < o p b o u(221)
s dlyvaQo9, (13s)
~opolr6hsrs. For irregular constructions :ee 12 40 oi K a & d o v w s
(altered by Lk.): 5 z? ~ V Q&Ofis. Note also the kurious change
of construction from i v a to the infinitive in 315, as compared with
3 1 4 and the use of 876 to ask a question (2x6 9x1 28). The
Latinisms of Mk. are \;ell known; see 627 7 4 15x5 39. Those
in 1214 1516, and 4paychhoiv in 15rj, Mk. shares with Mt.
Less noticed but more noteworthy, are the uses of rare, poetic,
or prophetic’ words (7 32 poyiha‘hov 8 23 BppaTa 25 n l h a u y i s )
which may indicate a Christian ps&n or hymn ’asthe basis d
Mk.‘s tradition.1
also contains ‘ stumbling-blocks ’ in the way of
., Mk.
Candour. weak believers, omitted in later Gospels,
and not likely to have been tolerated,
except in a Gospel of extreme antiquity.
Fo: example (G 5 3 ) ‘ H e was not a6Ze to do there any mighty
.
work (132 34) all d e sick are brought to Jesus, hut he heals
only dany whereas Mt. (816) says that he healed all, and Lk.
(440) that he healed each one (;vi &&my) ; (320.21) his mother
and brethren attempt to lay hands on him, on the ground that
he was insane. (1035) an ambitious petition is imputed to
James and Johh, instead of (as Mt.) t o their mother; (1544)
Pilate ‘marvels’ at the speedy death of Jesus which might
have been used to support the view (still maintained by a few
modern critics) that Jesus had not really died : Mk. omits (6 7)
the statement that Jesus gave power (as Mt. 101 Lk. 91) to his
apostles to heal diseases;2 (824) he enumerates the different
stages by which Jesus effected a cure, and describes the cure
as at first, only partial ; (1120) the fig-tree, instead of being
w&hered up ‘immediately’ (as Mt. 2119 r a p a x p i p a ) , is not
observed to he withered till after the interval of a day.
(iii.) /a. in Relation io the Triple3 Tma‘ition.-(a)
Instances from the first part of Mk.-The following
8. Jn. and comparisons will elucidate Jn.’s relation
Tryg&
~- .-,-
to the Triple Tradition. (It will be found
that Jn. generally supports a combination
of Mk. and Mt., and often Mk. alone,
1n NlK. L-0.
against Lk. ; the exceptions being in those
passages which describe the relation of John the Baptist
to Ch‘rist. There Jn. goes beyond Lk. )
Mk. 1 z j : , ‘As it is written in Isaiah, etc.’ If these prophecies,
wrongly assigned to Isaiah are not an early interpolation, they
are the only ones quoted b; the Evangelist inperson. Mt. and
Lk. assign one of these prophecies to]eszis; Jn. assigns hoth to
the Baptist, so as to emphasise the willing subordination of the
latter (‘ I am [but] the voice’).
Mk. ( 1 6 3 ) mentions no suspicion among the Jews that the
Baptist might be the Messiah. Lk. mentions (315) a silent
‘questioning‘ (that does not elicit a direct denial). Jn. adds a
pu6Zic question (1 19) ‘Who, art thou?’ followed by a p746lic
denid, ‘ I a? not the‘christ.
Mk.17: a f i r me.’ Rejected by Lk. (possibly as being
liable to an interpretation derogatory to Jesus), but. thrice
repeated by Jn. (115 27 30) in such a context as to tcstlfy to
Christ’sprecedence andpre-exirtence.
Mk.18: ‘shall baptize you with fhe Holy Spirit,’omitting
‘andwithpre,:which is added by, Mt. and Lk. Jn. goes with
Mk. (Jn. 133) : He it is that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.’
Mk 1 mentions ‘Jordan in connection with the baptism of
Jesus: I !k. does not (though he does afterwards in his preface
to the Temptation). Jn. (1 2s) does, with details of the place.
(Note that Lk. never mentions the Synoptic ‘beyond ]ordun ;
1 I t is beside the mark to reply that these words are used,
occasionally, by classical prose writers. The point is, that 6 p p a
occurs in N T only here a n d in a iliik.-like account o f 6 l i ~ d -
healing in Mt. 2034, whereas b48ahp.d.s occurs i n N T a6out
ninety times! In the canonical books of OT, 8ppa occurs only
in Proverbs. Tqhaum’s occurs only here in NT, and only twice
(apart from a leper’s ‘ 6right scab ’) in OT, and there in poetical
passages. May~ha’hos(practically non-occurrent in Greek litera-
ture, see Thayer) is found nowhere in the Bible, except in CBi of
Is. 356, and in Mk.’s account of the man who had (Mk. 732)
‘an impediment in his speech.’
2 I t IS omitted also in 3 15 (where D and Ss. add it).
3 The Darallel Dassaees of hft. and Lk. to Mk. will be found
by referince to’Rusrbrooke’s Synopticon. I t may he a5-
sumed that in this section, Mt. agrees with htk., except
where otherhse indicated.
1768
 GOSPELS
Jn, has it thrice.) Lk. (322)) in describing the descent of the
Spirit adds ‘ in a bodily shape.‘ Jn. implies that the descent
ofthdspirit was (133) a sign to the Baptist alone and States
that itpemranent& abode on Jesus. Thus he exc1;des ‘bodily
shape,’-at all events in the ordinary sense. Lk. alone (136)
had stated that the Baptist was connected with Jesus through
family ties; Jy represents the Baptist a s saying (133), ‘And I
knew hiHx not.
Mk. 1 qf:(possibly also &It.)leaves room for a n interval after
the Temptation, in which the reader may place Christ’s early
teaching in Jerusalem before ‘John was betrayed. Lk. 414,
omitting the mention of John, appears to leave m o interval. Jn.
repeatedly says, or imphes, that the early teaching took place
(324 4 I 3) defpre the Zaptist was imprisoned.
bIk.,Sr7: I have not come to, call the righteous, but the
sinful. Lk. adds ‘to reDentance. Jn. # m e r zses the word
‘repentance.’ 1
hsk. 3 z r puts into the mouths of Christ’s household or friends
the words (Yzr), ‘ H e is beside A i n z s e l f ~ [ / u q ) ’Mt.
; and Lk.
seem to transfer this to the multitudes. They render it ‘were
astonished (?&rravro),’ or ‘marueZied (;eaipauav).’ Jn. goes
with Mk. in mentioning a charge of ‘madness’ ! [ p & m a ~ )and ,
connecting it with the charge of possession (1020: ‘He hath a
devil and is mad’). Mk.322-10 reueats the charee of the
Pharisees, ( a ) in thd form (3.z) ‘;Ye Lath Beelzebul,’&d (3 30)
‘ N e h t h an unclean spirit ’ while adding (6) a milder for?
(322): ‘ In the prince of the‘devils he casteth out the (devils.
Mt. and Lk. reject (a) and adopt (a), defining ‘prince’ by
‘Beelzebnl. In. aoes with Mk (In. lOzoX ‘ H e hath a devil.’
Mk. 4~6.29 t h e parable of th; seed that springeth up *he
sower ‘ knoweth not how ’ is omitted by PvIt and Lk. Jn. &yes
the essence of this in hiskescription of the birth from the Spirit,
as to which, we (38) ‘know not whence if romcth and whithe?
it goeik ’ apparently modelled on Eccles. 11 5A : ‘ A s dhou
kmwest‘not what is ~ J Mway ~f the wind (Tis i ir~br70s
~ v & p a r o s ) ,norhow the donesgrow in the wowzb of her ihat is
with child, even so thou knowest not the work of God who’doeth
all. In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withhold
not thine hand :for thou knows; not which shall prosper, this
or that.’ 2
Mk. 6 1-6:‘A prophet in his own country.’ Lk. alone connects
this proverb with a visit to Nazareth, in which the Nazarenes
try to ‘castjesus down aprecipice’. Jn. (444)connects it with
a visit in which the Galileans ‘rcceivh’Jesus. Cp N AZARE TH.
hfk. 8 27-29. Here Lk., alone of the evangelists, represents
Jesus as (91s) ‘praying (rrpouavj&lrsvov),’ and he does the Same
in four other passages where Mk. and hlt. omit it. Jn. never
uses the word 1rpouei?yeu8ar throughout his Gospel.
(p) Predictions of the Resurrection.--ils to these Mk.
and Lk. give us a choice between two difficulties.
(a) Mk. 9 TO (comp. also 9 32) says, that ‘ the disciples ques-
tioned among themselves whaf was the meaning of rising from
the dead Yet what could he clearer? I n
9. In predicting Lk. Cirist’s predictions of death and
Resurrection. resirrection hegin with fulness of detail,
which diriinishes US the Gospel proceeds;
and the last prediction of death c o n t a F a statement that (9 45)
‘it was as it were veiled froin them. so whereas Mk.
1428 (and Mt.) contains the predictiod6)‘i;te: I have been
raised up, I will go before you t o GaZilee,’ Lk. omits this; and
subsequently, where Mk. (16 7) and Mt. repeat or refer to this
promise, Lk. alters the words ‘ to GaZiZee’ into ‘ whiZe he was
yet in Galilee.’
Jn.’s relation to ( a ) and (6) is as follows in (a’)
and (b‘).
(a’) Jn. makes it obvious why the disciples conld not
understand Christ’s predictions.
Take the following :-(2 19) ‘Destroy this temple and in three
days I will raise it up (:yep&)’ ; (3 14) ‘The Son ’of man must
be Zifted up ( 6 q o B j v a ~ ) ; (1223) ‘The hour is come that the
man deengZor~ed(bso~duB?):~
.
Son of man should be giorz$ed’ (13 31) ‘ Now hath the Son of
aAd God hath been glur@ed in
him, and Gqd wiZZgZorify him in himself and wiZlstrai‘htway
&4Yy him. Who was to conjecture that, when Jesus spoke of
being ‘lzffcd zCp from the earth,’ he said this (12 33), ‘ signifying
( q p a l v w v ) 4 by what death he was (ijpshhcv) to die’? or that
1 ‘Call,’ used by ,Lk. 41 times Mt. 26, Mk. only 4, is used
by Jn. only twice. Righteous ($lmLor)’-frequent in Mt. and
Lk. (but only twice in Mk.), to describe ‘one who observes the
law’-is used but thrice in Jn. and then in the higher Platonic
sense (1’125 ‘ 0 righteous Fathe;,’ and see 5 30 724). ‘ A p a p r w M ~ ,
17 times in Lk., only II times in hft. and Mk. together, occurs
only 4 tiTes in Jn., and nene7 except in the conversation of
‘tAeJews. Jn. differs in expression from Mk. and Rlt. ; but
he differsf a r ~ l z o r e ~ Lu k~. t
2 Similarly, :i the Logiaof Behnesa(see&86), ‘Raise thestone
cleave the tree, Je?us-while mainly referring to the Baptist’;
doctrine about raising UD stones as children to Abraham. and
about cutting down tge barren tree of Jewish formalism-may
possibly have had in his mind Eccles. 109.
3 The aorist cannot be exactly expressed in English : ‘ hath
been’ is nearer to the meaning than ‘ was.’
4 ‘Signifying ‘-i.e., representingunderafigure or ‘sign’(-w&4
n o one understoodat the time). In 21 18 the cross is ‘signified’
more clearly by the ‘stretching out ’ of the ‘hands ’ ; but no
1749
GOSPELS
<glorify’meant ‘glorifying’ the Father, and hence the Son, by
the supreme sacrifice on the Cross? No one can d e y that these
were what Jesus calls ‘ dark sayings (~aroi;~tiui).‘l’rue, the
disciples contradicted him : (16 29) ‘ Behold at this iifuinent( v h )
speakest thou clearly and utterest no dark saying. But they
were wrong.
Jn. seems to say, therefore, not that Christ’s teaching,
thoughclear, was ‘concealed’ (Lk. 945) from the disciples
supernaturally, but rather that it was necessnrily nZtogelJier
beyond thein till the Spirit was given. Imbued with the
popular belief that resurrection must imply resurrection
in a fleshly form, visible to friends and enemies alike.
how could they at present apprehend a spiritual resurrcc-
tion, wherein the risen Christ must be shaped forth by
the Spirit, and brought forth after sorrow like that of
(1621) ‘the woman when she is in travail?’
Mk. and Mt. seem to have read into the utterances
of Jesus detnib harrowed from subsepuent facts o r con-
trouzysies. Towards these, Lk. and Jn. take different
attitudes
Lk.,starting a t first in accord with the Synopt!c Tradition,
gradually drops more and more of the definite prcdictioiis ; and
a t last, when confronted with the words, ‘ After I am raised, I
will go before you into Galilee,’ omits the promise altogether.
Jn., on the contrary, recognises that the predictions of Christ
were of a general nature, though expressed in Scriptural types.
Jn.,and Lk. differ also in their attitudes towards Scripture a s
‘proving’ the Resurrection. Lk. represents the two travellers
a s blind to the risen Saviour, till he (2427) ‘interpreted to tkctrr
iir uZZ the Scriptures the things concerning himself.’ Jn.
expressly says that the belief of the beloved disciple precede4
the knowledge of the Scriptures: (208) ‘And he saw and
believed ; for not even y e t did they know the Scripture, how
that he must needs rise from the dead.
In the light of Jn., returning to Mk.’s statement that the
disciples discussed together ‘what the ri&Kfrons the dead
might mean,’ we have only to suhstitute ‘this’ for ‘the,’ and i t
becomes intelligible. Every one knew what ‘rising from the
dead’ meant. But they did not know the meaning of this kind
of rising from the dead -Le., what Christ said about his
reszwuection.
(6’) The promise (Mk.1428 and Mt.), ‘ I will go
before you to GaGZee,’ occurs in close connection with
Peter’s profession that he will not desert Jesus. Jn. has,
in the same connection ( 1 4 ~ ) ’, I go to prepare apZace
for you.’
This leads us to lpok elsewhere for a confusion between
‘Galilee’ and ‘place. Comparing l‘Ik.118 with Lk. 437, we
find that Lk. has, instead of ‘The whole mppl,ppor of Galilee,’
the words ‘ every place of the repi,yopoc’ (so also in Lk. 7 17,
?ra‘ug rfim p ~ & p y stands where we should expect w a ‘ q rc Fah.:
so Chajes [Markus-studies, 131, who also independently offers
the same theory [double meaning of h!$ to account for Lk. 4 37).
In Mk. 3 7, Lk. omits ‘Galilee.’ The question, then, arises,
whether, the original, may have been some word signifying
‘region, or ‘place which (I) lWk.-Mt. interpreted to
mean ‘Galilee,’ ( 2 ) Jn. ‘the place (of my Father)’ or ‘the
(holy) piace,’ while (3) Lk. found the tradition so obscure
that he omitted it altogether. Now the word n$$;, a longer
form of %; (‘Galilee’), is used to mean (Josh. 22 1 .3)‘region.’
Again, Mt. 2s 16,‘to Galilee to the nzonntain where he ajjoided
for them,’ suggests two trjditions, (I) ‘Galilee,’ (2) ‘appointed
mountaim’l Lastly, hesidrs many passages (Acts1 2 5 . Ign.
M a p . 5 . Barn. 19 I ; Clem.Rom. § 5 , rbv b ( ~ ~ h 6 p ek ~~ oo ~v ,
and also ; b y Zyiov r6rov) where Jn.’s word ~ 6 a o ris used, with
a n attribute, to mean ‘place (in the next world),’ Clem.Alex.
(p. 978, r a p & r 6 r w K ~ T E ~ X O Y T D )uses
, the word absolutely of
Paradise. 8 1 1 thi; leads to the inference [which is highly
probable as regards ‘Galilee,’ and which further knowledge
might render equally probable as regards ‘place’] that an expres-
sion, misunderstood by Mk. and Mt. as meaning ‘Galilee,’ and
omitted by Lk. because he could not understand it at all, was
understood by Jn. to mean [my Father’s ‘place,’i.e.l ‘Paradise.’
In any case we have here a tradition of Mk. and hlt., rejected
by Lk., but’spiritualised by Jn. in such a way as to throw light
on the different views taken by Lk. and Jn. of Christ’s sayings
about his resurrection.
one is said to have understood the ‘stretching out,’ and the
context almost compels us to suppose that it was not understood.
1 In I Sam. 2020, where MSS of d have a corrupt reproduc-
tion of maf?ZrZh, Sym. has uuv.rerayp$vov (r6irov) ‘appointed
place.’ Also compare Mt. 28 10, ‘Go tell my brethren to
depart to Galilee,’ with Jn. 20 17, ‘GOto my brethren and say
unto them I ascend U n t o my Fathcr. Does not this indicate
that what ’Mt. understood as meaning ‘Galilee’ or ‘appointed
mountain ‘ Jn. understood as meaning ‘heaven’? This points
to some briginal capahle of being expressed by ‘the place,’
‘the holy place,’ ‘ thy (place) of the Father,’ ‘the Mountain,’
‘the Holy Mountain.
I770
 GOSPELS
(y) Deviations of Lk. from Mk. (or Mk.-Mt.) caused
lo. In correcting by obscurity, appear to be corrected,
Lk.,s deviations. or omissions supplied, by Jn., in
the followine instances :-
0
Mk. (117 &a‘@iuw)and Mt. say that Jesus ‘ s a t on the ass’.
Lk. first coAfused <~a‘@iusv with ;ndOiuav,l and then substituted
for the latter the unambiguousirrcSiBauav ‘they put him thereon.’
Jn. (12 14, < K ~ @ L U ~goes
Y) with Mk. The Synoptists all mention
‘garments,’ pl,aced on the ass and strewn in the road. But Mk.
and Mt. mention also the ‘strewing’ of branches (Mt. KA&SOUS)
-Mk., however, calling them mi@bSas, a word that mostly
means ‘ litter,’ or ‘grass and straw used for 6edding or for
the stufing of 7 mattress. This Lk. omits. J o h i inserts
:palm-branches (without mentioning ‘garments ’), but in a
ifferent context: (1213) ‘They took (in their hands) the
dranches of the palm trees (TA Bata TGV ~ O L V ~ K ~ Vand ) , went
forth to meet him.’z
Whether Jn. or Mk. was right or whether both were right
is not now the question. The p&nt is that where Lk. omits
tradition of Mk. possibly as being difficult, Jn. modifies it, or
substitutes a kindred one.
Mk.’s (143-9) account of the anointing of Jesus by a woman
is either omitted by Lk. (736-50), or placed much earlier and
greatly modified the woman being called ‘ a sinner,’ and the
host being descdbed as ‘Simon ’ a ‘Pharisee.’ Mk. and Mt.,
however, call him ‘Simon the ieper,’ and Jn. (12 1-7) suggests
that the house belonged to Lazarus and his sisters. I t is
not impossible that the difference may be caused by some clerical
error. Chajes, oj. cit. 74J, accounts for ‘Simon the leper’ by
aconfusion between yijsn, ‘the pious’=‘the Essene,’andyiiXn,
the leper.’ May there have heensome further confusion between
yiign and iiys ‘Lazarus’? Jn. apparently guards the reader
against supposing the woman to he a sinner, by telling us (11I J )
that it WAS Mary, the sister of Lazarus.3
(6) The Passover and the Lord’s Supper.-The
Synoptists and especially Lk seem to represent the Cruci-
fixion as dccurrinp after. In. & occurrine before. the Paschal
-meal.‘ ?here are traces of a.confusion in
11. In the Lk. between the Day of Preparation and
Last Supper. the Day of Passozw. I t was one thing to
(Mk. 14 12 and Mt.) ‘prepare to eat the Pass-
over,’ and another to (Lk. 228) ‘prepare the Passover that we
may eat it,’ which Lk. substitutes for the former. Also Mk.
14 17, b+ap yevopivqr (which Mt. adjusts to a different context,
and Lk. omits) indicates that Mk.’s original tradition may have
agreed with Jn.’s view: for no one would have been abroad a t
or after sunset when the Passovermealwas to be eaten. Thougd
Mk. a i d Mt. ’in parts unquestionably sanction Lk.’s view. they
do not express it so decidedly as Lk., and they contain slight
traces of an older tradition indicating that the Last Supper
was on the Day of Preparation.
I . Mk. 14 18 ‘ One of you shall betray me, he that eat&
(&+w) with Le ’ was perhaps a shock to some believers, as
indicating that JLdas partook of the bread. Mt. omi,ts the
italicised words, retaining Mk.’s more general phrase, while
they were eating.’ Lk. omits ‘eating,’ having simply, ‘the
(13 18) quotes Ps.419 ‘ H e thaf eateth my bread ...
hand of him that is to betray me is with me on the table.’ Jn.
,’and
-
sfiecialZv mentions 7;das as receivine the (1326)
Christ’gown hands.
. . ‘SOD’ _ from
2. Mk. 1420 (and Mt.) ‘ H e that dippeth his hand in the dish
with me’ will be the iraitor, is omitted by Lk. Jn. com-
bines a modification of this with the foregoing; Jesus (1326)
‘ dips the sop’ and gives it to Judas.
3. Lk. differs from Mk. pnd Mt. in (;) mentioning the
meal (apparently) as (228). the Passover ; ( 2 ) mentioning
a ‘cup’ which Jesus(ib. 17) ‘received’ befyre the meal, and
bade the disciples ‘distribute to one another Q3) inserting the
words (i6. ~g), ‘ D o this a s a memorial of me ’ (4) mentioning
a second cup, that was (i6. zo), ‘after sup e r ’ f 4 (5) speaking of
the CUD as (i6. 20) ‘the new covenant. 1
I n all these points
1 Or thc confusion may have arisen from a Hebrew original,
in uhich the active voize was mihtaken for the causative, a
coinnio11 error in Qi5, and one that may explain several deviations
of‘Lk. from RIk.-hlt.
2 Sume havc explained ‘the’ as meaning ‘the branches of the
(well-kriown) palm t r e e (of the ncighbourliuod). More pro.
balJy JII. mcant ‘ thz p;ilin-hranchea, used in processions of
wclcome and religious triumph,’ as when Simoii (I hlacc. 13 5 1 )
entered ‘the tower in Jerusalem’ in triumph ‘with raise atid
palm-branches (nlvdurws Kai @ a h ) , ’ and as wils t i e regular
custom a t the feait of TaLernaclrs (Lev. 2340). in which the
‘buridlci ’ of palm-branches and other twigs were ([for. H e h .
on 111. 21 9 ) .haken formally during the recit;ition of certain
parts of :1’ I18 and su closely associited with (1%. l l h z j )
Husanna, tha; the bundle itself was sometimes called a
‘Hosanna.‘ But cp HUSASYA.
3 U k . says that Jesus said (146) i+rc a;&, ‘ Let her alone.’
A very slight change (.E being often -01 in MSS) would alter
this to a+(t)cTa( ai+ -;.e., dCpisvrat or d+c;rar a 6 r i (‘[her
sins] are forgiven her,’ or ‘she is forgiven ’), which is what Lk.
1 4 8 has it1 the form dgiwrrat.
...
4 As regards(r), Lk. 22 15, ‘ I ha~L.d~sirmd(lrrTeiJ11u(I) to
eat this passo7w-,’ might have beeu originally used (however
interpreted by 1.k.) of desire not dcstieed t o befulfiiled’ (as in
1771
GOSPELS
Lk. amplifies and dignifies while Jn. appears to subordinate,
the circumstances of the LAst Supper. What Jn. had to say
about the feeding on the flesh and blood of the Saviour, he
pla,ced earlier, in the synagogue at Capernaum. There Jesus
insists, (663) ‘the words YripaTa) that I have spoken to $ou are
spirit and are life ’ and, theflesh profiteth nothing.’ Now he
reiterates this d o c h e (13 IO), ‘ye are clean (KaBapoi), but not
aZZ.’ This, when compared with (15 3), ‘ye are clean ( n d a p o i )
decause of the word that (have spoken untoyou,’ indicates that
participating in the bread and wine and washing of fcet was
useless except so far as it went with spiritual participation in
‘the h‘ojord’ himself. A climax of warning is attained by
making Judas receive the devil when he receives the bread
dipped in wine by the hand of Jesus.
4,. Jn. avoids the ambiguous Synoptic word ‘covenant’
‘will,’ or ‘testament (SLaS<q),’ and makes it clear, throughodt
the final discourse, that he regards the Spirit as a pyt (or
legacy) that implies nothing of the nature of a bargain or
compact.
5. Mk. 14 27 (and Mt.; but Lk. om.) ‘All ye shall be caused to
stumble; for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the
sheep shall be scattered abroad,’ was likely to cause a ‘scandal
-as though God could ‘smite’ his son. This may be seen
from Barnabas, who gives the prophecy thus : (5 IT A) ‘ I\hen
they [i.e. the Jews] shall smife,theiv own shepherd, then shall
perish the sheep of the flock. Jn. while retaining Christ’s
prediction that the disciples shouid be (ltigz) ‘scattered ’
effectively destroys the ‘scandal’ by adding that, even wheh
abandoned by them he would not be abandoned by the Father
@.), ‘And yet I am’not alone, because the Father is with me.’
( e ) The Passion.-The facts seem to be as follows :-
I. Mk.1442 and Mt. place the words, ‘Arise let us go’ at
the arrival of Judas. Lk. omits all that intervenks between ( a )
Mk. 14 38 Watch and pray. .. temptation,’
12. In the and (6) Mk. 1442 ‘Arise, let us go,’ having
Passion. merely (2246) ‘Stand u j and pray
temptation.’ Now ‘to stand (lay)’ was
...
‘nothing else than to pray’ (Hor. Helr. 2 142). But ‘stand
might also mean ‘watch ’ cp Neh. 73. Lk. may have considered
(6) a duplicate of (a), &king the meaning to he ‘stand fast and
pray.‘ Jn. places the words ‘Arise, let us go,’ at the moment
when Jesus feels the approach, not of Judas, hut of (14 30J) ‘ the
’i.
rznce ofthe world who liasjlrst takenpossession ofJudas.
Lk. omits all) mention of the ‘binding’ of Jesus. Ye1
early Christian writers (e.g. Melito) regarded it as a symbolical
act, being performed in the case of the intended sacrifice of
Isaac, the prototype of Christ (Gen. 22 9). Jn. inserts it (18 IZ),
as does Mk. 15 I (and Mt.).
3. Lk. speaks of (PZ52) ‘generals (UT aTqyo6s) of the temple.’
Jn. says (18 IZ), ‘The chiliarch and &e officers of the Jew?’
Lk. has loosely (3 2 ) ‘Annas aAd Caiaphas ’ as ‘high priests :
Jn. say; that (lk13) Caiaphas was high priest, and Annas his
father-in-law.
4. According to Mk. 14 55-60 false witnesses asserted that
Jesus had declared that he’would destroy the temple.
Mt. alters ‘would’ into was &le, and implies that, though
what had been previously testified was false this may have been
true.1 Lk. omits the whole. I n his timk the destruction of
the temple by the Romans was accepted by Christians as a
divine retaliation. which mieht he reearded as inflicted bv
Jesus himself, so’thaf he might wish avoid saying that thk
testimony was ‘false. ,J”.says in effect, ‘Some words about
destroying “the temple had been uttered by Jesus (2 19); but
they referred to “the temple of his body.” And the /ews were
the-“destroyers.”’
5. Mk. 15 6 (and Mt.) says that it was the custom to
release a malefactor a t the feast. Lk. omits this. Jn. not
only inserts it, but adds that Pilate himself (1839)reminded the
Jews of it.
6. Mk.1516-io (and Mt.) mentipns the (purple or scarlet)
‘robe and the ‘crown of thorns. Lk. omits these striking
incidgnts-for what reason, it is difficult to s a y 2 Jn. inserts
both of them.
7. Mk 1465 alone of the Synoptists mentions ‘blows with
the flat ‘hand” ((;arrlupaTa ; in Qi5, oniy in Is. 506). Jn. also
mentions them19 3 (and cpl8zz).
(0 Conclusion and Exceptions.-The instances above
enumerated might be largely supplemented. The
13. Conclusion. conclusion from them is that-setting
aside ( I ) descriptions of possession,
and other subjects excluded from the Johannine pro-
vince,3 ( 2 ) allusions to John the Baptist, ( 3 ) a few
passages where Jn., accepting Lk.’s development,
Mt.13 17 Lk. 17 12). Also (3) and (4) and (5) may be interpola-
tions (but more probably early additions, made in a later edition
of the work) frox I Cor. 1123-25, or (more probably) from
tradition.
1 D and Ss. destroy this possibility by reading ‘two fa&
witnesses.’
2 Barnabas (7) connects them with the scapegoat. Possibly
this connection may have seemed to Lk. objectionable.
8 The miracle (Mk. 1113 Mt. 21 19) of the Withered Fig Tree
may come under this head. It has a close resemblance to Lk.’s
(136) parable of the Fig Tree. Cp FIG.
I772
 GOSPELS
carries it a stage further, Jn. scarce& ever agrees with
L k . , as azainst h f k . , whilst he veryfreguently steps in to
support, or explain by modifying, some obscure o r harsh
statement of Mk., omitted by Lk.
Two important exceptions demand mention :-
(a) Mk.1525, ‘ I t was the third hour and they crucified
him,’ is omitted by Mt. and Lk
14. Exceptions. tradicted indirectly by Jn. 19 14: and con-
‘ I t was
about the sixth1 hour’ (when Pilate pro.
nounced sentence). Mk. may have confused F (‘sixth’) wit?
r (‘third’). [In I Macc. 637 the impossible ‘twoand thirty
may be due to a similar confusion.] Or the sentence may be out
of place and should come later, describing the death of Jesus
a s occurring when :it was the Uird hourfrom the lime when
they crucified him. How easily confusion might spring up,
may be seen from the Acts of John (12) ‘when he was hanged
on the bush of the cross i n the sixth Lou? of the day (&pas ;K;(~vc
+prvijs)darkness was over all the land. First, ~ K T W , ‘sixth
might be mistaken for BK Gs ‘from the’ (or vice versa); then
a numeral would have to be’supplied. Or d~ Gs might be
repeated (or dropped) before & T ~ s . In Mk. 15 33, D, which
elsewhere gives ~ K T O Sin full, has an unusual symbol L.
The conclusion is that Mk. seemed to Mt. Lk., and Jn.
t o be in error, and that Jn. corrected by inseAion what Mt.
and Lk. corrected by omission.
(6) Mk. 14 30, f Before the cock crow twice thrice thou shalt
deny me,’ is given by Mt. and Lk. with t ) e omission of
‘twice. This is remarkable because ‘ twice enhances the
miraculousness of the predidtion. May not Mk. be based on
a Semitic original, which gave the saying thus, ‘ Before the cock
crow, twice and thrice’ (=repeatedly, see Job 3329 405)? Jn.
(1338) accepts Lk.’s modification of Mt., but with aslight varia-
tion-‘the cock shall not crow, until such time as thou deny
me thrice (&os 03 dpvijq p e rpis).’
Here Jn. accepts, but‘ improves on, the Synoptic correction of
Mk., who, though perhaps literally correct, does not represent
the spirit of what Jesus said.
111. DOUBLE TRADITIONS.
The Double Traditions include what is common to
(i. ) Mk. and Mt., (ii. ) Mk. and Lk., (iii. )
~ : ~ ~ ~ ~ f : Mt. and Lk. . The last of these is so much
than (i.) or (E.) that it may be con-
Mk.-Mt. fuller
veniently called ‘ The Double Tradition.’
(i.) iMR. and Mt. ;3n. in rebtion to Mk. and Mt.-
Much of this has been incidentally discussed above,
under the head of the Triple Tradition : and what has
been said there will explain why Lk. and Jn. omit Mk.
1 6 a and 624-29 (accounts of the Baptist), 913 (‘Elias
is come already’), 1534-36 (‘ He calleth for Elias’).S
Lk.’s omission of a long and continuous section of Mk.
(645-8z1)-including (a),Christ’s walking on the Sea,
(6),the doctrine about ‘ things that defile,’ and (c), about
‘the children’s crumbs,’ (d), the feeding of the Four
‘Thousand, ( e ) ,acomparison between this and the feeding
of the Five Thousand, and (f), the dialogue (see § 39 n. )
following the doctrine of ‘ leaven ’ - may indicate
that Lk. knew this section as existing in a separate
tradition, which, for some reason, he did not wish
t o include in his Gospel. Most of it may be said
t o belong to ‘the Doctrine of Bread,’ as taught
in Galilee. Jn. also devotes a section of his Gospel to
.a‘ doctrine of Bread ’ (but of quite a different kind from
Mk.’s), concentrating attention on Christ as the Bread.
Lk. also omits (Mk. 943-47) ‘ the cutting off of hand and
foot,’ and (Mk. 102-9)the discussion of the enactments
of Moses concerning divorce-the former, perhaps, as
being liable to literal interpretation, the latter, as being
.out of date. The ambitious petition (Mk. 1035-40)
.of the sons of Zebedee, Christ’s rebuke (Mk. 832J) of
Peter as Satan, and the quotation (Mk. 14z7), ‘ I will
smite the shepherd,’ Lk. may have omitted, as not
tending to edification. In the discourse on ‘the last
day’ Lk. omits a great deal that prevents attention
from being concentrated on the destruction of Jerusalem
as exactly fulfiling the predictions of Christ; but
especially he omits (Mk. 133z), ‘of this hour the Son
knoweth not.’
1 Attempts have been made, but in vain (see Classical Review,
18 4, p. z43), to prove that Jn.’s ‘sixth hour’ meant 6 A.M.
8 The parallel a$sages in Mt. can be ascertained by refer-
ence to Rushbroofe’s Synopiicon.
3 For the Withering of the Fig-Tree (Mk. 11I ~ O see ) 0 13 n.
I773
GOSPELS
It must be added that, both in this Double Tradition
and (to a less extent) in those parts of the Triple
Tradition where Lk. makes omissions, Mk. and Mt.
generally agree more closely than where Lk. intervenes.
The phenomena point to a common document occasion-
ally used by Mk. and Mt., and, where thus used,
avoided by Lk. and also by Jn. The Walking on the
Water is an exception to Jn.’s general omission. The
Anointing of Jesus (since Lk. has a version of it) has
been treated above as part of the Triple Tradition.’
(ii.) Mk. and Lk.; Jn. in relation to Mk. and Lk.
Mk.-Lk. is very brief. The larger portion of it relates
16. Mk.-Lk. to exorcism, Mk. I 21-25 938-40 (and note
the close agreement between Mk. and
Lk. as to the exorcism of the Legion,’ a name omitted
by Mt. in his account of it). There are also accounts
of Jesus (Mk. 135-38 45) retiring to solitude, and of
people flocking to him from (38) Tyre and Sidon. A
section of some length attacks the Pharisees, as (Mk. 12
38-40) ‘ devourers of widows’ houses,’ and prepares the
(Mk. 1239=Mt. 236) way for (Mk. 1241-44) the story of
the widow’s mite. In the later portions of the Gospel,
Lk. deviates from Mk. (as Mt. approximates to Mk.),
returning to similarity in the Preparation for the Pass-
over (Mk. 14 12-16), but from this point deviating more
and more.
Lk.’s insertion of what may be called the ‘widow-
section,’ is consistent with the prominence given by him
to women and to poverty (see below, § 39).
(iii.) Mt. and L k 2 or, ‘ The Double Tradition’ ; (a)
17. The double the Acts of the Lord, ( b ) the Words of
th7$%e Acts of the Lord are con-
its ‘Acts.’ fined to ( u ) the details of the Tempta-
tion and ( p ) the healing of the Centurion’s servant.
(a),Mk. gives no detailed account of a Temptation, hut just
nientions it adding (113) ‘and the angels were ministering
(6s.dvovv);ohim’-i.e., apparentlyduring the Temptation ; Mt.
says that after the departure of the devil ‘ angels approxhed
and 6ezaA to minister (r oc+jhOov ai GLVK~VOUV) unto him ;Lk.
mentions no ‘angels.’ fn. omits all temptation of Jesus, but
suggests (1 51) that ‘angels were always ascending and descend-
ing on the Son of man,’ and that, in course of time, the eyes of
the disciples would be opened todiscern them.
(6) As regards the healing, some assert that Jn. (446-53) does
not refer to the event described by Mt.(8913)and Lk.(7r-g).
But if so it can hardly be denied that he, knowinx their
accdzmt, d m in$uenced6y it in inserting in his Gospel another
case of healing, resembling the former in being performed ( I ) a t
a distance, (2) on the child (apparently) of a foreigner, and (3)
near Capernaum. Mt. and Lk. differ irreconcileably.3 Jn.,
_______ ~ ___
1 Space hardly admits mention of the possiblereasons for Lk.’s
several omissions. Some of these passages (e.g., the practical
abrogation of the Levitical Law of meats in Mk. 724-30) may
have seemed to him to point to a later period, such as that in
Actslog-16, where Christ abrogated the Law by a special
utterance to Peter. Again in the Doctrine of Bread, while
(Mk. 7 28) ‘ crumbs ’ and (ML. 8 15) ‘ leaven ’ are used spiritually
loaves’ and (Mk. 8 14) ‘one loaf’ are used literally ; and thi;
mixture of the literal and metaphorical may have perplexed Lk
especially if he interpreted the miracle of the Fig-Tree met;:
phorically, and was in doubt as to the literal or metaphorical
meaning of the Walking on the Water. Some passages he may
also have omitted a5 du licates, eg., the Feeding of the Four
lhousand. As regards ‘leaven,’ Lk.’s insertion (121 ‘which is
hypocrisy’), if authentic, is fatal to the authenticityof Mk. 817.20.
Perhaps the original was simply ‘ Beware of leaven,’ and the ex-
planation, ,-&en ajfer the nrisunderstanding,, was ‘ Beware of
,the leaven of the Pharisees-Le., hypocrisy. The rest was
evangelistic teaching (‘ How could Jesus mean real leaven and
real bread when he could feed his flock with the leaven of heaven
at his pleasure?’) inserted first as a parenthesis (perhaps about
the Son of man or the Son of God), and then transferred to the
text in the first person. The variation of Mt. 169-12 ftom Mk.
suggests that the words were not Christ’s.
Jn. i?serts thenarrative of Jesus walking on the Sea but adds
expressions (6 16 21) borrowed from Ps. 10723 ‘go dtwn to the
sea ’ and (2.30) ‘t h i haven where they would ie,’ which increase
the symbolism of a story describing the helplessness of the
Twelve, when, for a short time, they had left their master. Jn.
omits the statement (Mk. and Mt.) that Jesus constrained the
disciples to leave him.
2 The passages referred to in this section will be found in
Rushhrooke’s Synopticon, arranged in Mt.’s order.
3 D and Diatess. omit Lk. 7 7a ‘Wherefore neither thought I
myself worthy to come unto thee,’ thus harmonising Lk. with
Mt., who says that the man did come to Jesus. .
I774
 GOSPELS
while correcting both Evangelists in some respects, and especially
in tacitly (448) denying that Jesus ‘marvelled,’ corrects Lk.
more particularly by stating ( I ) that the man came to Jesus ( 2 )
that Jesus pronoLnced a word, or promise of healing (3) ;hat
the child was healed ‘ in t h a t hour,’ and (i)
~
by makin; it clear
that the patient was not a servant but a son.1 In the first tbree
points, Jn. agrees with Mt. ; in the fourth, he interprets Mt. ;
in all, he differs from Lk.
(a) The Words of the Lord are differently arranged
by Mt. and Lk. Mt. groups sayings according to
18.Its,Words., their subject matter. Lk. avows in
his preface ( 1 3 ) an intention to write
‘ in (chronological) order,’ and he often supplies for a
saying a framework indicating the causes and circum-
stances .that called it forth. Sometimes, however, he is
manifestly wrong in his chronological arrangement, e.2. ,
whenheplaces Christ’s mourning over Jerusalem (1334 35)
early, and in Galilee, whereas Mt. (2337-39) places it in
the Temple at the close of Christ’s teaching2
The Lord‘s Prayer (Mt. 69-13 Lk. 112-4). It was
perhaps on the principle of ‘ grouping ’ that Mt. added
to the shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer the words,
‘ thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth,’ as having
been in part used by Jesus on another occasion (Mt.
2 6 4 ~ ) . Mt.’s
~ other addition, ‘ Deliver us from the evil
one,’ is not indeed recorded as having been used by
Jesus elsewhere, but it resembles the prayer of Jesus for
his disciples in Jn. 17 15 : ‘ keep them from the evil
one’ (and cp z Tim. 418). On Lk.’s changes, see
LORD’S P RAYER ; they adapt the prayer for daily use,
and indicate that Lk. follows a later version of the
prayer in his alterations, but an earlier version in his
omissions.4 ;,
Tk.e exactly simiZarpussases in the Double Tradition
are for the most part of a prophetic or historical char-
acter. Some describe the relations between John the
Baptist and Christ ; another calls down woe on Chorazin ;
another, in language that reminds us of the thoughts,
though not of the words of Jn., thanks God for revealing
to babes what He has hidden from the wise and
prudent ; another pours forth lamentations over doomed
Jerusalem. Others, such as, ‘But know this, that if
the goodman,’ etc., and ‘ W h o then is the faithful and
just steward,’ etc., appear to have an ecclesiastical
rather than an individual reference, at all events in their
primary application. All these passages were especially
fitted for reading in the services of the Church, and
consequently more likely to have been soon committed
to writing. On the other hand, those sayings which
have most gone home to men’s hearts and have been
most on their lips, as being of individual application,
seem to have been so early modified by oral tradition
as to deviate from exact agreement. Such are, ‘ T h e
mote and the beam ’ ; ‘ Ask and it shall be given unto
you ’ : ‘ Take no thought for the morrow ’ ; ‘ Fear not
them that kill the body’ ; ‘Whosoever shall confess,’
etc. ; ‘ He that loveth father or mother more than me,’
etc. ; and note, above all, the differences in the Lord’s
Prayer. As Lk. approaches the later period of Christ’s
work, he deviates more and more both from Mt. and
1 Mt. 86 mentions r a E , which may mean ‘child,’ but more
‘
often means servant’ in such a phrase as b rrak gou, avrou
etc. See (RV) Mt. 121s ‘my servant’; Acts3 13,’ his Sprvant
(marg. or ‘ Child ’). Lk: mentions (7 z) SoSAos ‘ servant.
has repeatedly (446 47 50) vlds ‘son,’ but finally recurs to Mt.J:. s
word (4 51), ‘his child (nais) liveth ’ (the only instance in which
Jn. uses =a%).
2 The reason for Lk.’s transposition is probably to be fpund in
the last words of the passage, ‘Ye shall not see me, until ye
shall say, BZessed is he t h a t cometh in the name of the Lord,’
words uttered by the crowd (Lk. 19 38) welcoming Jesus on his
entrance into ]erusalcm. Lk. probably assumed that the
prediction referred to thispavticuZar utterance, and must, there-
fore, have been made sometime before it-ie., before the entrance
into Jerusalem.
3 Cp I Macc.360 RV: ‘As may be the will in heaven, so
shall he do.’
4 Cp Lk. 9 23 : ‘If any one wishes to come (i‘pxdar) after
me, ... let him take up his cross daily,’ where Lk. substitutes
the present infin. for Mk.’s and Mt.’s dhSeiv, and inserts ‘daily.
in order to adapt the precept to the inculcation of the dairy dgty
of a Chuistian.
1775
GOSPELS
from Mk.. perhaps because there was a Judsean as well as
a Galilean tradition of the life of Jesus, and Lk., towards
the close of his history, depended mainly on the former.
The PuradZes, owing to their length and number
(and perhaps their frequent repetition in varied shapes
by Jesus himself, and by the apostles after
19 Its the resurrection), would naturally contain
par&les.
more variations than are found in the
shorter Words of the Lord. The parable of the Sower,
coming first in order, and having appended to it a
short discourse of Jesus (Mk. 4 r r J ) that might
seem intended to explain the motive of the parabolic
teaching,l might naturally find a place in the Triple
Tradition. But this privilege was accorded to no other
parable except that of the Vineyard, which partakes of
the natwe of prophecy.
. T h e longer discourses of the Double Tradition show traces o f
a Greek document, often in rhythmical and almost poetic style.
Changes of words such as ‘6dA uav for &eOdpvuav, pauLhs;s
for BiKaLoL, & h a h a r e for ?Kd$au&, u~rop&p~ov for rpo+ljv,
daiurov for h o ~ p r ~ i rmay
v , indicate merely an attempt to render
more exactly a word in the original; but such substitutions as
(Lk. 1327)&8~~iafor(Mt. 723)bvopia, and(Lk.1113) ‘[theIHoly
Spirit’ for (Mt. 711) ‘good things,’may indicate doctrinal pur-
pose. The original of Lk. 1113 was perhaps (i) lrav ayaeov (as
Ja. 117),(ii)niZaya8ov, (iii)nZayLou(asinPs. 14310‘thyspiritis
good,’ rb dyrov [Kc.a R T ] d - p h ) . Lk. appears to have the older
version when he retains (L 1426) ‘hate his father,’ Mt. (1037)
‘love more than me.
Other variations indicate a corruption or various interpretation
of a Greek original (not, of course, precluding a still earlier
Hebrewsone): e.g., Mt. lOz9Sdo upov0iabuuapiauwas probably
in Lk.‘s text mpav@ia3, auuapLou which he read as 6auuaprtj i e.,
‘for two farthings,’ and then he added F (‘five ’) before urp&ia
to complete the sense. Perhaps a desire to make straightforward
sense as well as some variation in the MS., may have led Lk. to
substitute 76 ;vdvra for .rb 6 ~ ~ in 6 s Mt. 2323.29 Lk. 1137-52.4
This last passage exhibits Lk. as apparently misunderstanding
a tradition more correctly given by Mt. In Mt. it is part of a
late and public denunciation of the Pharisees in Jerusalem : in
Lk. it is an early utterance, and in the house of a Pharisee
Christ’s host. Probably the use of the singular (Mt.232:.
‘Thou blind Pharisee’), together with the metaphor of the ‘cup
and platter,’ caused Lk. to infer that the speech was delivered
to a Pharisee, in whose house Jesus was dining. The use
of (Lk. 1139) i, r~?pros(see below, B 38) makes it Probable
that Lk.’s is a late tradition. Other instances of Lk. s altera-
tions are his change of the original and Judaean (Mt.2334)
ua+o+s Kai ypa+pareis into the Christian (Lk. 1149) baourdhous.
Lk. also omits the difficult (Mt.2334) urauphuwe. In Mt.
2334, Jesus is represented as saying ‘Wherefore behold I
send unto you prophets
. ... and s o d e of them sdall ye slay
andcrucify,’ etc. In Lk. 1149, ‘Wherefore also the Wisdom oj.
God said, I will’send unto them rophets ... and some of
them shall they slay ’ etc., omitting ‘crucify.’ Here Lk. seems
to have preserwd, alleast in some respects, the original tradition
whereas Mt. interpreting ‘ the Wisdom of God (cp I Cor. 12;
‘Christ the lbisdom of God ’) to mean Jesus, substitutedfor it
‘1.’ Also Mt. retains a n a arently erroneou: tradition (2335)
which made ‘Zachariah’ ’%n of Barachiah ; Lk. omits the
error.
I n the ‘parables of exclusion’-e.g the Wedding
Feast, the Talents, and the Hundred Sheep-it may be
said that Mt. lays more stress on the exclusion of those
who might have been expected to be fit, Lk. on the
inclusion of those who might have been expected to b e
unfit.
Thus in the Wedding Feast, Lk. adds (1415-24) the invitation
of ‘the ’,,or, the maimed,’ etc. ; Mt. adds (221.14) the rejection
1 Cp P ARABLES.
2 Mk. 129 (also Mt. and. Lk.) ‘he will destroy the husband-
men’-{.e., the Jewish nation. The parable of the Sower may
also be said to predict the history of the Church, its successes
and failures.
3 ‘Hebrew ‘when used in the present article concerning the
original tradiiion of the Gospels, means ‘ Hebrew or Aramaic,’
leaving that question open. But see Clue, A. and C. Black, 1900.
4 Other instances are (Mt.2521) 6lrc lrohhwv ‘over many
things,’ which might easily be corrupted into ET‘ L rroheov ‘over
ten cities’ (see Lk. 1917, and comp. Mk. 520 Aeranohar, perhaps
written L rrahsr, parallel to Lk. 839 adhrv). Also, in the Mission
of the Seventy (Lk. lO4J), g+ j3aura‘&.re ... &roB<paTa KaL
pySdva Karb r;lv b8bv buna’uqu6’e.elc $v s’ kv c1udhhSvr~O k h , is
almost certainly (Abbott and Rushbrooke’s Common Tradition
of the Synoptirts, p. xxxvii.) a confusion of two details in the
Mission of the Twelve (I) ‘ Take nothing for the journey,’ ( 2 )
(Mt. 1012) ‘Salute the house. The corruption of a Greek
original is perhaps sufficient to explain this ; but it is more easily
explicable on the hypothesis of a Greek Tradition corrected b y
reference to a Hebrew original.
1776
 GOSPELS
of a guest who has no wedding garment and, in the Talents
(2530), the casting out of the ‘unprofitadle servant. In Mt.
22 IO 13 47 the inclusion of r o v q p o ~prepares for an ultimate ex-
clusion. The conclusion of the Hundred Sheep is, in Mt. 18 IZ-
14, ‘ I t is not the will of my Father in heaven that one of these
little ones should perish’; in Lk.157, ‘There shall be joy in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth.’ The Single Traditions
of Mt. and Lk., when examined, will he found severally to
reveal the same tendency to dwell on exclusion and inclusion ;
and this will confirm the inference, in itself prohahle, that the
hand of each Evangelist is apparent in thevarying characteristics
of the parables of the Double Tradition.
(iv.) 3n. in reZation to ‘ The Doudb Tradition.’=
The discourses in Jn. have almost for their sole subject
the Father as revealed through the Son,
20’ Jn’and and lie outside the province of the precepts,
Mt’-”’’: parables, and discourses of the Double
IWords* Tradition. In the Synoptists, Jesus is a
teacher of truth ; in Jn., Truth itself.
The word ‘light’(not used by Mk.) is employed by Mt. and
Lk. (Mt. 516 623 Lk. 816 11 33-36) to signify the light given by
the teachers of the Gospel, or else the conscience. The Disciples
themselves are called by Mt. (514) ‘the light of the world.’
Jn;
introduces Christ as saying (8 TZ) ‘ I am the Light of the World.
Again Mt. 7 13 14 and Lk. 13 24 declare that the ‘gate’ is narrow ;
Jn. ikplies that it is n o t objectively narrow, but only to those
who make it so 2 being no other than (107) Christ himself,
through,whom thLsheep (109) ‘go in andgo out,’ and ‘shall find
pasture. Mt. 7 23 speaks of sinners as being excluded by bvopia
(breaking the lawof Moses) Lk. 1327 substitutes b8cKia (hreak-
ing the law of justice): Jn.: not in his Gospel hut in his Epistle
( I Jn. 34, cp with 517), appears to refer to some controversy
about these words when he pronounces that b p u p r i a is dvopia
in the true sense, and that all b 8 ~ r i ais &papria.
Though Jn. never mentions ‘praying’ but always
‘ asking ’ or ‘ requesting,’ he nevertheless introduces
Jesus as uttering, in his last words ( 1 7 1 - 1 5 ) , a kind of
parallel to the Lords Prayer, of such a nature as to
imply that what the disciples were to pray to God for- as
future, Jesus thanked Godf u r , as past.
I t is true that prayer and praise are combined, and the words
are wholly different : for example (171) ‘the hour is come’ has
no counterpart in the Lord’s prayer. But (a) ‘the hour ’ in Jn.
means (1223-27) ‘the hour of glorifying the Father thrdngh th;
Son,’ that is fo say ‘the hour of doing his will and establishing
his kingdom . so’that in essence, ‘the hour is come’ means
‘Thy kingdoh is alriady come.’ So, too (6) (17% ‘I havq
manifested thy name to the men whom thou hast given me
means, in effect ‘Thy name hath been hallowed.’ (c) The
prayer that, as t i e Son has glorified the Father on earth, so the
Father mayglorify the Son in heaven (17 j r a p & ueavrc2) with the
glory which he ‘had before the world was,’ means,‘ in effect
‘Thy will hat,%heen done on earth; so may it now be done i;
heaven a s it was from the heginning.’ (4 Also, remembering
fhat ‘the words’ of God are the ‘bread’ of man, we find in 1’78
(‘the words thou gavest me Z h a m fiben them’) an equivalent
to ‘ I have given thein day hy day their dai@ bread.’ (e) The
declaration (1711-15) that he has kept all except the son of
perdition ‘in the name’ given him by the Father seems to
mean ‘ I have prevented them hitherto from being led into
temptation.’ If) Last comes the one prayer not yet realised
(17 I j), ‘keep them safefiom the evilone (&TOP rovqpoii)’ which
seems to allude to the clause in Mt.’s version ‘Deliver us from
tAe evil one (brrb 705 m v ~ p o i i ) . ’ 3
Possibly there is also an allusion to Mt. 1034 Lk. 1251 < I
have not come to bring peace ’ (not as though denying the t h h
of Mt. and Lk., hut as though supplementing what, by itself,
would he a superficial statement), in Jn. 1427 ‘Peace I leave with
you, my$eme I give nnto you,’and (1633) These things I have
spoken ... that in me ye may havepeace.
Jn.’s agreement with Lk. 1426 ‘hatetk ... his own souZ (or
life),’ against Mt. 10 37 ‘ loveth more than me ’ (omitting ‘ soul ’)
in Jn. 1225 ‘he that hatefh his soul in this world,’ indicate;
Jn.’s pelief that Lk. has preserved the older tradition. But Jn.’s
addition shows his sense of the obscurity of Lk., who did not
make it clear that ‘father’ ‘mother’ and ‘soul’ are to he
‘hated ’ only so far.as they a;e ‘in this ;uorld’-i.e.,’instruments
of temptation.
More conjectural must he the theory of an allusion to the
Douhle Tradition in Jn. 1930 K ~ ~ U C LT$U V K€$ah$V, used of Jesus
on the Cross. I t is commonly rendered ‘hawing’ his head, hut
no authority is alleged for this.4 The expression is not found
1 The relation of Jn. to the Double Tradition of the Acts of
the Lord has been considered above 5 17. This section deals
with his relation to the Double Trahition of the Words of the
Lord.
2 Comp. Cleni.Alex. p. 79 : mevil B d 76s h ~ p o p o p b q r, h a d a
Bu ocpauois ~ ~ O U K ~ V O U ~ & +
3 Even in this last clause Jn. implies partial fulfilment already:
‘ Thev have been delivered: now let them he hefit in a state of
deliverance.’
4 When Lk. means ‘howing,’ he uses 245 K ~ ~ U B LT& V rp6uwaa
cis +v yfv. And the word ‘bow’ is so common in the Bible
I777 1 1778
GOSPELS
in the LXX, and occurs in N T only in ?St. 8 20 Lk. 9 j 8 , ‘ The Son 7
of man hath not where to rest his head. But there is pathos and
power in the thought that the one place on earth where the Son
of man ‘rested his head’ was the Cross and the one moment
was when he had accomplished the F a t h e k will.
IV. INTRODUCTIONS (Mt. and Lk. ).
(i.) The efect ofprophecy in these is very manifest.
The agreement of Mt. and Lk. in the introductions
describing the birth and childhood of
21. Intra-: Jesus consists in little more than fragments
ductions
IyIt. and Lk. from Is. 7 1 4 , which, in the Hebrew, is,
‘ A young woman shall conceive and hear
a (or, the) son and shah‘ calZ his name Immanuel,’
but in 6 ,‘ The virgin ( v s 2 v ~ rshall ) be with child and
bring forth a son, and thou ( L e . , the husband) shaZt caZZ
his name Immanuel.’ This was regarded as having
been fulfilled, not by the birth of Isaiah‘s son recorded
in Is. 83f: (but cp IMMANIJEL) but by the birth of the
Messiah. In the earliest days of the Jewish Church of
Christ, the Messiah would naturally be described in
hymns and poetic imagery as the Son of the Virgin the
Daughter of Sion. In Rev. 121-6 ‘ the Man Child ’ is
born of a woman ‘ clothed with the sun,’ who evidently
represents the spiritual Israel. Eusebius ( H E v. 1 4 5 )
quotes a very early letter from the church of Lyons.
where the ‘Virgin Mother’ means ‘ the Church,’ and
other instances are frequent.1
(ii. ) PhiZunian Traditions about every diZd ofpromise.
would tend in the same direction : (i. 131) ‘the Lord
begat Isaac’ ; Isaac (i. 215) ‘is to be thought not the
result of generation but the shaping ( ~ X d u p uof ) the
unbegotten.’ The real husband of Leah is (i. 147) ‘ the
Unnoticed (6 + ~ u ~ u ~ b p ~ f vthough o s ) , ’ Jacob is the father
of her children. Zipporah is found by Moses (i. 147).
‘pregnant, (but) by no mortal.’ Tamar is (i. 598-9)
‘pregnant through divine seed.’ Samuel is (i. 273)
born of a human mother’ who ’ became pregnant after-
receiving divine seed.’ Concerning the birth of Isaac,
Philo says (i. 148) : ‘ It is most fitting that God should
converse, in a manner opposite to that of man, with a
nature wonderful and unpolluted and pure.’ If such
language as this could be used by educated Jewish
writers about the parentage of those who were merely
inspired by G o d s Word, how much more would even
stronger language be used about the origin of one who
was regarded as being3ZZed with the Word, or the
Word himseqf/
(iii.) Justin and Zrmczus confirm the view that pro-
phecy has contributed to shape the belief in a miraculous
conception. Justin admits that some did not accept it,
but bases his dissent from them on (Tryph. 48) ‘ the.
proclamations made by the Hessed prophets and taught
by him ( i . e . , Christ).’ Irenzeus says that the Ebionites
declared Jesus to have been the son of Joseph (iii. 21 I )
‘ following ( K U T U K O X O U B ? ~ U U ~ T E S )those
,’ who interpreted
‘ virgin ’ in Is. 7 14 as ‘ young woman (ve&ur).’ Pro-
phecy will also explain the divergence between Mt. and
Lk. Some, following the Hebrew, might say that the
divine message came to &fury, the mother of the Lord,
others (following @) might assert that the message
came to.Joseph, Mary’s husband. Lk. has taken the
former course, Mt. (though inconsistently) the latter.
Prophecy also explains Mt.’s and Lk.’s attitude toward
that the non-use of K ~ & L V K + ~ $ v to represent it throughout
l
5 and N T makes it improbable that it would represent ‘bowing’
here.
1 The name ‘virein’ is sometimes amhiamus. Thus. when
Ahercius (A.D. ahoiz ‘go) writes that ‘the&re Vir@ grasped
the Fish’ (the FisP meaning Christ), Lightfoot (Ign. i. 481)
hesitates between the Virgin Mary’ and ‘the Church,’ hut
apparently inclines to the latter. Marcion is accused by
Epiphanius of ‘seducing a virgin’ and being consequently ex-
communicated. But (I) neither Tertullian (an earlier hut not
less implacahle enemy of Marcion) nor the still earlier Irenaeus,
makes mention of any such charge. ( 2 ) Hegesippns (Eus. iii. 32 7)
says that ‘the Church remained a >%re and u n c o m j t e d vir&
till the days of Symeon hisho of Jerusalem, when heresies
began. Marcion must dlearly {e acquitted : cp Diognct. ad
f i n . 0482 E b a @ ~ P ~ ~ E Tahhi
U L rap6’Cvos (the Church) mvr&raL.
 GOSPELS
the Messianic name ‘ Immanuel.’ Jesus was not (any
more than Isaiah‘s son) called by this name, and Lk.
omits all reference to it. Mt. (or the author of Mt.’s
Introduction),l though he represents Joseph as receiving
the Annunciation, representspeopk ingeneral as destiued
to give Jesus this name, and alters the prophecy ac-
cordingly (Mt.121-23), ‘ Thou shalt call his name
Jesus . . . that it might be fulfilled . , They shall.
XalZ his name Immanuel.’
(iv.) Divergence of M f . and Lk.-For the rest, Mt.
a n d Lk. altogether diverge. Both the genealogies of
22. Their -Jesus (according to all reasonable inter-
trace his descent through
div9rgence.pretation)
Joseph, not through Mary,2 and there
survive even ndw traces of a disloc&on between them and
the Gospels in which they are i n ~ o r p o r a t e d . ~The
Genealogies (for an account and analysis of which see
G ENEALOGIES ii.) appear to have denied, the Gospels
certainly affirm, a Miraculous Conception.
( a ) Mt. 116. in its nresent text. has ’I. Sa ;Y&IIUEY rbv ‘Io&d
& h p a M a p i a s d$ 3s dyevv$%q ’IquoQsb ’hcy&avos X ~ L L T T ~ ; . representing the extreme south ; and Elizabeth and
But Ss. has ‘J. higat Joseph; Joseph to whom was e5qouse:
Mary the Virgin, begat Jesus, whd is called the Lhrist.
‘Begat’ is also retained by a, 6, Bohb. and S. Germanensis
even though they make ‘ Mary ’ the subject.4 This indicates thai
the original had simply (a) ‘James begat Joseph, and Joseph
hegat Jesus.’ Then, when the belief in the Miraculous Con-
ception arose, various corrections were made such as (6) ‘ to
whom was espoused or betrothed Mary the’Virgin ’ or ‘the
husband of Mary,’ rb indicate thai the ‘begetting’ &as to he
taken in a putative sense, or to refer the reader to what followed
as a corrective of the formal genealogical statement. Then (c)
‘Mary’ was repeated as the subject of a new clause in thk
genealogy, hut with the repetition of the now misplaced ‘hegat.’
Then (4 some altered ‘begat’ into ‘brought forth, others
into ‘fro& whom was begotten.’
(p) Lk. 323 (WH) has K a i a&& $v ’Iquo3s & p x d p ~ v o&~m i
6rGv rp&oura, & V U & , &s dvopi<wo, ‘Iomj$. But Ss has, ‘And
Jesus, when he was about thirty years old as he was called the
son of, Joseph son of Heli ‘ ,etc.; whi:h is not a complete and Joseph, by admitting the apparent historical fact
sentence. D ias 4v 8; ~ q u o 5 s ; s d r ~ vTpLiKovra ipx+cvos ~s
&orc&ro &ab vlbc’IwmM. etc.. and iust before. has (3 22) dvB
~ $ C - O Y ~ E ~ C V u~e : K’ &
k t~ hdth Cl;m.Alex. 607) and ‘Irin.
11.2 5) read dpx6pwos (for &px6pevos), and interpret it as
‘ c o i n g to baptism.’ D mayhe interpreted tomean that Jesus
a t the beginning of his thirtieth year, was (really), as he w d
supposed to be the son of Joseph hut that in the moment of
baptism, he wa(s heGotten again dy the H i l y Spirit. Ss will
have the same meaning if we insert ‘ was’ as the missin verb,
’Jesus . .. [was], as he was called, the son of Joseph.’ f The
Acta PiZati throw light on almost forgotten Jewish charges
against Jesus that may have influenced some Evangelists
inducing them to lay stress on the fact that Jesus was reall;
‘the son of Joseph,’ or a t all events that Mary, at the time of
the birth of her first-born, was ‘ espoused to Toseph.’G
1 I t is highly probahle, on grounds of style, that the author
of the Introduction is not the author of the whole of Mt.’s
Gospel.
2 D rewrites the earliest part of Lk.’s genealogy, partially
conforming it to Mt.
3 This is all the more important if the tradition recorded by
Clem.Alex. is correctly interpreted to mean that ‘ thosepodions
of the Gospels which consist of the genealogies were written
first ’ (see below 5 So).
4 Codex a (aid sim. Bobb.) has ‘J. autem genu;.? Joseph cui
desponsata Virgo Maria genuit Jesum’ ; 6 has I Joseph,’ cui
desponsata erat V.M., V. autem Mariagenlrit Jesum.’ Later,
d and Bohh. (a is missing) use ‘pariet’ and ‘peperit’ of
Mary, showing that ‘genuit’ is not an error here, hut is a
retention of the old true reading, inconsistent with the altera-
tions adopted. Codex d (D is missing) alters ‘genuit’ into
‘peperit,‘ but in other respects agrees with a. Corh. and
Brix. agree with the Greek text. The Vat. MS. of the Diafess.
gives Mt. 116 thus : ‘Jacob hegat Joseph, the husband of Mary,
who of her hegat Jesus, the Messiah. See the English trausla-
tion by Hogg (Ante-Nicene Christian Library add. vol.
1897, p. 45, n. 6), who points ont the possihility’of confusion
between ‘who of her begat,’ and ‘from whom was begotten,’
in assing from Syriac to Arabic.
~ S S however,
, hasahove(not ‘This day Ihave hegotte: thee,’
hut) (Lk.322), ‘Thou art my Son and my beloved. But
this may have been take? as equivalent to ‘ I have begotten
thee to-day as my Son. Codex I has ‘quod videbatur et
.
dicehatur esse filius Josenh ’ d follows D.
6 I n Acta P.(A and B) 2 ;f the ‘elders of the Jews’ say to
Jesus ‘Thou art born of fornication ’ (B ‘of sin ’) to which
other’pious Jews reply (I) (A), ‘we kdow h a t Joseph espoused
(or betrothed [ ; p q u r R i u a ~ o ] Mary,
) and that he is not born of
fornication ’ ; (2) (B) ‘we know that Joseph received Mary his
mother in the way &espousals, toguardher,’ of which another
version is (3), ‘His mother Mary was given to Joseph for
I779
GOSPELS
As regards the childhood of Jesus, Mt. looks on
Bethlehem (21)as the predicted home of Joseph and
Mary, and mentions their going to Nazareth as a thing
unexpected and (223) a fulfilment of prophecy. H e
also mentions (as fulfilments of prophecy) a flight into,
and return from, Egypt, and a massacre in Bethlehem.
Neither of these is mentioned by Lk., and the latter is
not mentioned by any hist0rian.l But a typical meaning
is also obvious in both Mt.’s narratives ; Jesus is the vine
of Israel brought out of Egypt.’ He is the antitype of
Moses, who was saved from the slaughter of the children
under Pharaoh. Lk. treads the safer ground of private
and personal narrative, except so far as he has given
trouble to apologists by his statement about an enrol-
ment that took place under Quirinius, which was the
cause why Joseph and Mary left their home in Nazareth
in order to be enrolled at Bethlehem, the home of their
ancestors2 Instead of prophetic there is contemporary
and typical testimony :-Anna, the prophetess of Asher,
representing the extreme north; the aged Simeon
Zachariah, of the tribe of Levi.
As regards the Baptist, while omitting some points
that liken him to Elijah, Lk. inserts details showing
that, from the first, John was foreordained to go before
the Messiah, not really as Elijah, but (117).‘ i n the spirit
andpower of Elijah.’
( v . ) f n . in reZafion to the Introductions is apparently,
but not really, ncgative. In his own person he mal;es
23. John,s no mention of Nazareth or Bethlehem. He
takes us back to the cradle (Jn. 1I ) ‘ in the
method. beginning,’ as though heaven were the only
true ‘ Bethlehem (House of [the] Bread [of life]).’ T h e
fervent, faith of the first disciples defies past prophecies
about Bethlehem, and present objections as to Nazareth
to be^ fact, and yet believing (145 f: ) : ‘ W e have found
him of. whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did
write, fesus, the son of foseph, the m a n of A-azarefh.’
When the objection is urged against (146) ‘ Nazareth,’
faith in the personality of Jesus overwhelms the objector
with the mystical reply (146), ‘Come and see.’3 In Mt.
espousaZ, not irr actual wedlpck but to p a r d (els pvqursiaw
0; yapwaju, &Ah’ cls njpqutv). +he first of these three version;
defends Jesus against the Jewish charge hut surrenders the
Miraculous Conception. The second is ’obscure. The third
sacrifices the defence, but retains the miracle.
1 Some attempt to explain the omission by other omissions of
the crimes of kings by theirpanegyrists; but Josephusdwells on
the history of Herod and his family in order to show (Ant.
xviii. 5 3) the YetnZution ofProuiden&.
2 Quirinius was governor of Syria, A.D. 6, fen years a f t ?
this time. The most plausible explanation suggested is
perhaps, that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria; hui
there is no direct, and scarcely any indirect, evidence to justify
the belief. There is also no proof that Mary’s presence was
ohligatory. That Lk. invented such an ‘enrolment’ is im-
possible; hut that he antedated it is highly probable. Making
(or reyising) a compilation toward the close of the 1st century,
he might naturally consider that the ‘enrolment’ supplied an
answer to the difficult question ‘How came the parents of
Jesus to Bethlehem at the time of ;he birth?’ See CHRDAOLOGY,
S 5 9 3 ; also QUIRINIUS.
3 For the meaning of this Rabbinical formula, see Schattg.
and Nor. Hebr., nd Zoc and Wetst. (on Jn. 140) who quotes
amone other illustratioii. Rev. 61. I t introduces the exulanac
tion gf a mystery. Ndte also a similar contrast be‘tween
personal belief and pedantical unbelief in 7 40 8.: ‘ Some
.. ...
...
when they heard these words said This is the prophet
hut some said, What d o 6 thekhrist come out OfGaZiCec.1
Hath not the Scripture s&d that th,e Christ cometh o f i h e seed
o j David and fro% BethZehem? And compare the sub-
ordinate ‘ officers ’ (7 46, ‘ Never man so spake ’) with ‘the chief
priests and Pharisees’ (7 52, ‘Out ojGaZiZee ariseth no prophet ’).
Westcott says on Jn. 742, ‘There is a tragic irony in the fact
that the condhion which the objectors iFnorantly assumed to he
unsatisfied ’ i.e. birth in Bethlehem was actually satisfied.:
But are d e to, believe that Jesus <new that the ‘condition
was ‘satisfied and yet left the ohjectors in their ignor-
ance, so as ;t keep back from them the fulfilment of God’s
word, making himself responsible for the ‘tragic’ consequences?
And in the face of such an objection, publicly and ersistently
made, is it credible that a conspiracy of silence sEould have
been maintained by Christ’s relations, friends, and neighbours 7
This, a t all events, cannot be disputed, that Jn. represents the
1780
 GOSPELS
it is the fulfilment of prophecy ; in Lk. it is the testimony
of visions and voices pointing to John as the messenger
of the Messiah, and to the Messiah himself; in Jn. it is
(114), ‘ the glory as of the only begotten of.the Father ’
-that constitutes the true testimony to Christ.
V. THE CONCLUSIONS.
The conclusions (Mt. Lk. and Mk.-App.) - - . in
24. ,~ Conclu- effect treat of Christ’s resurrection.
’ This the genuine Mk. does not
method’ describe, breaking- off abruptly at
(16E), ’ for they were afraid. ’
_ _
1. The EvangeZists seZect their evidence. -Mt.
mentions two appearances. In the first, Christ
appears to women who ‘held his feet’ ; in the
second, to the Eleven ; but it is added that ‘some
doubted.’ I n Lk. Christ never appears to women.
Indeed, Lk. almost excludes such an appearance by
speaking of (2423) ‘ a vision of angeh,‘ which the
women are reported to have seen, without any mention
of Christ’s appearing to them. I n this omission he
resembles Paul, who enumerates several appearances
to men but none to women.’ Now, in giving a list of
the ‘appearances’ on which he had laid stress, an
apostle might write thus in a letter to his own converts.
But Lk. writes as a historian, giving Theophilus evi-
dence that he might know ‘the exact truth.’ Him,
therefore, we might reasonably expect not to omit any
important testimony, known to him, concerning Christ’s
resurrection. His omission, in itself, disposes of the
theory that the differences of Lk. from Mt. arise from
mere haste or carelessness of observation, like those
with which we are familiar in a court of justice. Like
a glacier-worn rock, Lk. exhibits the signs of attempts
to smooth away points of objection. Not, of course,
that he invents. But while adopting old traditions, he
accepts adaptations suggested in the course of new con-
troversies. H e shows a desire to prove, improve,
edify, reconcile, select-motives natural, but not adapted
to elicit ‘ the exact truth.’
(ii. ) The Period of Manifestations.-Even for the
coolest and most judicial historian, the difficulty of
25. Duration reconciling and selectingmust have been
of Manifestamvery great. Jn., though he mentions
only three manifestations, implies (2030)
LIIULW.
that there were many more. ‘ Not
improbably the period of appearances and voices was
much longer than is commonly supposed. Mt. tells us,
concerning the only manifestation that he records as
made to the Eleven, that (28 17) ‘some doubted,’ while
disciples as believing in a ‘Jesus of Nazareth ’ whilst the un-
believing Pharisees demand a ‘Jesus of Bethlehkm.’
1 For the evidence of spuriousness (lately increased by the
discovery of the Sinaitic Codex of the Syriac Gospels) see
WH 2 (notes), pp. ~9-51.
a Cp Acta Pilati (7) (A and sim. B), ‘We have, a law that a
woman is not to come forward to give evidence. Doubtless
such an objection was often heard by Christians from thei;
adversaries.
3 The only evidence is Acts13 6‘’ $pepi)v T e u u a p l o v T a ,
where D reads, in different order, T F U U . $p. without 6rd. In
Hebrew ‘days’ sometimes means ‘some, or several, days,’ as in
Cen. 404, ‘ They continued [for some] days (@ $pipas) in ward.’
By corruption, or tradition, M (Le. ‘forty’) might easily be
added to HMEPClN (or HMEPB) before or after it * and the
number would suit OT traditions about Israel, Mbses and
Elijah. The Valentinians supposed Christ to have redained
with his disciples eighteen months: Pistis Sophia ch. 1
mentions eleven years. Lk. indicates that the discip1es)wereto
remain (Acts 14J) in Jerusalem till the descent of the Spirit, ?.e.,
two or three days. Apollonius indicates (Eus. v. 18 14) ‘ frym
tradition ‘ a period of twelve years : Clem.Alex. (764) says In
the Prekhing OfPeter, the Lord says to the disciples aft& the
Resurrection, ‘ I have chosenyozr twelve disciples, judging you
worthy of me ... that those who disbelieve may hear and
testify, not being able to say in excuse I ‘ We did not hear ” ’ ;
but, just before, (762) ‘Peter says tha; the Lord said to the
apostles. ... After fweZve years,go forth to the world, lest
any should say, We did not hear. Perhaps there was a con-
fusion between ‘twelve years ’ and ‘twelve (really eleven)
ujostles.’ See below ($3 Ey), for the evidence that Barnabas and
Jn. disagreed with Lk. as to the day of the Ascension.
1781
GOSPELS
others ‘worshipped.’ If other manifestations were of
the same kind, different observers might record them
differently. To testify to the resurrection was the
special duty of an apostle, and such testimony was
oral. The two earliest Gospels (even if we include
Mk.-App. as genuine) contain very much less about
the resurrection than the two latest. When at last
the apostles passed away, and it became needful to
write something about Christ’s rising from the dead,
and to add it to the already existing manuals of his
teaching, the writers might find themselves forced to
choose a few typical instances that seemed to them
most ‘according to the Scriptures,’ and best adapted
for edifying the Church. At first, they might be cdn-
tent (as Paul was) with bare enumerations ; but, when
the time came to fill in details, the narrators might
supply them, partly from prose traditions, partly from
the most ancient and popular of those hymns, which, as
Pliny testifies, they sang to Christ as to a god, on the
day on which they celebrated his resurrection, partly
from the Scriptures on which the earliest witnesses for
Christ’s resurrection lay so emphatic a stress.
(iii. ) Traces of poetic tradition. -In the more ancient
traditions of Mk. and Mt., some details appear to arise
26. poetic from hymnal traditi0ns.l Later accounts
tradition. indicate an intention to convey either (as
Lk.) ‘proofs’ of a historical fact, or
(as Jn. ) ‘ signs ’ indicative of the real though spiritual
converse held with the disciples by the risen Saviour.
(iv. ) Discrepancies.-Mt.’s account appears to have
been (in parts at all events) the earliest. The testimony
27. Discrep- of the soldiers to the Resurrection (where
note the words (2815) ‘ to this day’) was
dropped in subsequent gospels, perhaps
owing to the unlikelihood that Roman soldiers would
risk their lives by a falsehood such as Mt. describes2
Henceforth there was (Mk., Lk., Jn.) no ‘guard’,; the stone
.
was not ‘sealed there was no ‘great earthquake ; an angel
did not descend f;om heaven ; the women came, not ‘to look at
the tomb’(for they had carefully ‘looked at’ it before (Mk.
1 It is impossible here to do more than indicate one or two
traces of this. The earthouake. which Mt. alone remrts. might
naturally spring from P’ss. 46f: ‘God is goFe’up Litho a
shout ’ and ‘The earth melted ’ (@ 2uahniSq was shaken ’).
Mt.’<account of the resurrection of(2752) ‘ mhny bodies of the
saints’-a miracle if authentic more startling than the Raising
of Lazarus, but o&itted by the bther Evangelists-was probably
derived from some hymn describing how Christ went down to
Hades and brought np to light the saints detained there.
Mk.162 says that the women came to the sepulchre when ‘the
sun had nken,’ inconsistently with his own ‘very early ’ Lk.’s
‘deep dawn ’ and Jn.’s ‘dark.’ This becomes intelliiible if
tradition wls variously influenced by hymns describing how
(Mal.42) ‘the sun (of righteousness) had risen,’ or by the
prophecy (Ps. 465) ‘ God shall help her and that at the dawn
of the morning.’ It is difficult for us’to realise the probable
extent and influence of metaphor in the earliest traditions of
the Christian Church,.. The Logion of Behnesa ‘Raise the
stone, cleave the tree, IS taken by many in a literai sense. But
it probably means, ‘ Raise up stones to he childry of Abraham ;
cut down and cleave the tree of Pharisaeism. Christ never
used such words as ‘sowing’ and ‘ploughing’in a literal seine.
If his own disciples miaunderstoud, for example, h i i use of
the word ‘lcavcn,’ it i i highly probilblc that the hymns of tlic
first Christian generation might be so misunderstood as to affect
the historical traditions of the second.
2 Later writers modify Mt.’s account so as to soften some of
its improbabilities. Pseudo-Peter makes the soldiers tell the
whole truth to Pilate, who (at the instance of the Jews) enjoins
silence. In some MSS of Acta Pilati (A) the soldiers try to
deny the truth, but are supernaturally forced to affirm it. The
retention of Mt.’s story, with modifications, in apocryphal books
of the second century that delighted in the icturesque, does not
prove a late origin. Some have thought &at Mt.’s tradition is
proved to be late by the excess of ‘prophetic gnosis’ in it.
But that alone is not a sure criterion. The difficultiespre-
sented b; Mt.’s’accoyt of the ‘dead bodies of saints arising,’
and of the women grasping the feet of Jesus and the
bald statement that ‘some doubted,’ all suggest e h y origin.
The use of ‘prophetic gnosis’ depends in large measure not on
the date but on the personal characteristics of the writer. For
:xample, there is more in Mt. than in Jn. But the existence of
stumblingbZocks’ is a sure sign of an ear& date. In course
of time! sce tics and enemies detected and exposed ‘stumbling-
blocks, an{ subsequent evangelists adopted traditions that
sprang up to remove or diminish them.
1782
 GOSPELS
1547 Lk. 2 3 5 ~ )hut
~ to ‘bring ,spices’for the purpose of em-
balming the body. But when did the women buy them? When
the Sabbath was ‘quite passed (6rayevopivau)’ says Mk. (16 I).
Not so, says Lk. (2356)i they bought them first, and then
‘rested on the Sabbath. Again what was the use of the
‘spices’if the ‘great stone’was’in the way? Mk. gkes no
reply. Lk. ohviares the objection by not asserting that the
stone was ‘great. Pseudo-Peter, who has committed himself’
to a ‘very huge stone,’ replies, ‘the women determined, if they
could not enter, to Zeave fhe spices outside the door.’ Ju. says
in effect ‘The women brought no spices. The body had
received ’this honour already from Nicodemus. From thi5
point, inconipatihilities constitute almost the whole narrative.
The women (I) came to the tomb (Mk. 162 [a]Mt., Lk., Jn.)
vevy ear& before dawn or while it was yet dark, yet (Mk.
162 [61)afer sunrise; (25 theysaid(Mk.)nothilrgtoanyone, yet
(Lk.) they toldthe Eleven eveything; (3) they (Mk., Mt.), were
to hid the Eleven go ‘ to Galilee,’ yet (Lk.) they were merely
to remind the Eleven of what Jesus had said ‘in Galilee ’ or
Un.) they (or rather Mary) brought no message a t all hom
angels, but subsequently,a message from Jesus that he was on
the point of ‘ascending .(4) they (Lk., and perhaps Mk.)l
entered the tomb, yet (Jn.: proh. Mt.) they did not enter it ; (5)
the angel was (Mk., Mt.) m e , yet (Lk. Jn.) two; (6) the angel
(or angels) (Mt.) qiicouraged the women 6ecanse they sought
JesusJMt.2Sg): Do not ye2 fear, for I know that ye seek
Jesus, and yet (Lk.) blamed them for so doing (Lk. 24 5 :
‘Why seek ye the living among the dead?’3) ; (7) The Eleven
(Mk Mt.) were to g o to GaliZee to see Jesus, yet (Lk., Jn.)
they’saw him in Jerusalem and were (Acts) not t o depart
fro? ~’emsalem(apparently Lot having left it since the resur-
rection) ; (8) Peter (Lk. 24 12, y1.4) looked into the tomb and
then went home without entering, yet (Jn.) Peter entered the
tomb ; (9) Mary (Jn.) was not to touch Jesus because he had
not yet ascended, yet (Mt.) the women held f a s t his feet
though he had not yet ascended; (IO) when the two disciples
from Emmaus reported that the Lord had appeared to them
the Eleven (Mk.-App. 16 13) did not believe, yet (Lk.) the;
replied ‘the Lord is risen indeed’: (11) the Lord (Mt. Jn.)
appeared to the disciples in Galilee yet (so far as we can judge
from Lk. and Acts) no manifestaiions in Galilee could have
occurred.
(v. ) Lk.‘s v i m (’proofs’).-Lk. concentrates himself
on the accumulation of (Acts13) ‘proofs,’ by ( I )
rigidly defining the time when Jesus
4’’r Lk’’s: ascended and left his disciples, (2) re-
oo
p f
’ presenting Jesus as appearing merely
in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, so as to omit all
appearances in Galilee where ‘ some doubted,’ (3) giving
the impression that the women saw nothing but (2423)
‘a vision of angels,’ (4)recording no apparition that
was not attested by at least ‘two [male] witnesses,’ (5)
introducing Jesus as eating 5 in the presence of his
disciples.
Yet even Lk. shows loopholes for detecting possihle misunder-
standing of metaphor. Compare, for example, Lk.’s narrative of
the Lord’s drawing ;>ear, and conversing with the two disciples
on their way to Emmaus, with the Martyrdom ofPo@carp (ii.)
‘the Lord was standing near and conversing with them
(napauiuc d K J p ~ o s
A p l A e ~a h O k ) . ’ I n the latter the ‘standing
near‘ is spiritual; and so may have been (bri inally) the
‘drawing near ’ and the ‘conversing,’ in the formerj
The difficuliies that befell Lk. in his attempt to ascertain the
facts may be illustrated by the probable explanation of his
omission of the appearance of Christ to Peter. I n reality, Peter
was probably one of the two disciples journeying to Emmaus, as
is repeatedly assumed by Origen. But Lk.’s tradition confused
the story, by attri6uting t o the Eleven the words rear& uttered
6y the two traveZLers. Lk. 2433f: should have run (as in D),
the travellers ‘found the Eleven and those with them, and said
1 B (;AfJoCuaL) favours the supposition that they did not
enter. This is not inconsistent with Z&AfJeiv, which some-
times means ‘depart,’ nor with Mk.168, &#wyov &b 708
p t q p ~ i o v ,which may meaii that they ‘fled’ awayfrom (not
‘out of’) the tomb.
2 ‘Ye’is emphatic. The soldiers might well be afraid, but
the women were not to he afraid.
3 This is still mort obvious in Pseudo-Peter, ‘But 77ye 6elieve
not stoop and look.
4’Though probably not a part of the original Lk.,this insertion
represents a very early tradition, and perhaps formed a part of
a later edition of the Gospel. I t can hardly he a condensation
o i n.203-10.
JSee Tobitl21g (and cp. Philo on Gen. 188) for the estab-
lished belief that an angel or spirit might live familiarly with
men for a long period but could not eat.
6 Also2431, ‘their ;yes were opened(8qvolXhuav)’ may be a
metaphor meaning that ‘their eyes were opened to discern
Christ in tlte Scriptures’ (cp. Lk. 2445 Acts 16 14 where it is
used of opening the mind or heart) ; dnd their ionstraining
the Lord‘s presence (nap:&&avm) a t the breaking of hrend!
reminds the reader of the implied precept to resort to ‘violence
in prayer (Lk.16 16, and cp. 18 1-5).
I783
GOSPELS
(lit. ‘sa)’ing,’ AiyovTfS, not hiyovTas) ‘the Lord is risen indeed
and hath appeared to Simon.’l This is consistent with Mk.-
App who says of the two travellers ‘they went away and
it ,;to
tal<-
the rest ( i e . , to the Eleven), &either 6elieved they them.
(vi.) The Munz;festution to the Ekzwz (Mk. -App.,
Ignatius), occurring i n Mk. -App.
29* ITh: %erwards,’ but in Lk. while the two
travellers are telling their tale, is described
by the latter as follows (2439) : ‘See my hands and
my feet that it is I myself: handle me and see
(+7$ar$dua~k,UE K U ~Y8em) ; for (an) a spirit hath not flesh
and bones as ye see me having. [And when he had
said this, he shewed them his hands and his feet.2]
And while they still disbelieved for joy and wondered,
he said unto them : Have ye anything to eat here (trOci&)?
And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish [and a
honeycomb.] And he took it and did eat before them.’
Cp Ignatius, S m y m . 3 : ‘ For I know and believe that
he was in the flesh even after the resurrection; and
when he came to Peter and his company ( T O ~ S r e p 1
, said to them: “Take ( X d p ~ m ) handle
I I k ~ p o v ) he ,
me ($~Xar$$uadpe) and see that (&TE 117~)~ I am
not a bodiless demon.” And straightway they touched
him and believed, being mixed with ( K P U B ~ Y T E S )his
Pesh and his Spirit (or, v.L, 62ood).& For this cause
also they despised death, and were found superior to
death. And after his resurrection he ate with them
and drank with them-as being in the flesh (hs uupKiK6s)
although spiritually united with the Father.’ The word
X ~ ~ E T(as E in Mk. 1422 Mt. 2626 X d p u e [ r $ d ~ e 7 e ] is.
)
grammatically, as well as traditionally, adapted to
express a Eucharistic meaning,5 and the words, mixed
1 Ss is confused ‘They found the Eleven gathered together
and them that we;e with them. And he hath appeared. A n 2
they ... saying, Our Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared
unto Simon. An! they also told them what ihings had happened
in the way. ... I n direct speech thy two travellers would
say, ‘The Lord ha:h appeared nnto us. In repo:ted speech,
this would become the Lordappeared unto them. The next
stage of the tradiiion would define ‘them’ as ‘Simon and a
companion.’ Lastly, Simon, as being the more important, would
be alone mentioned.
9 W H regard the bracketed words as an insertioy ‘at a
period when forms of the oral Gospel were still current.
3 ‘See tkat’ is proh. the rendering of &m 9 n here (so
Lightf.), though in the corresponding passage in Lk. it means.
‘see 6ecause.
4 )The best MSS are in favour of I W C ~ ~ ~ T L .
6 N o instance has been all:ged of the yse of hhgfra in the
sense of the middle, A ~ ; B E U ~ < take hold of.
There are several signs of karly variations as to this tradition
both in Ignatius and in Lk. The words ‘and see that I am not
a bodiless demon’ dislocate the sentence, which begins with an
appeal to touch, not to sight. W e know from Origen (see
Lightf. adloc.) that these words were in the Preaching ofPeter
which he rejected, and we have reason to believe that they were
not in the Gospelof the F?e6rezus, as known to him and Euse6irs;
Lightf. suggests that they were added in the recension of that
Gospel known to Jerome. Cancelling them, we should have, a s
the original, in thz Gospel of the F?e6rewf, ‘Take me; and
they straightway handled him and believed. As regards Lk.,
Irenreus (iii. 14 3), when quoting passages from Lk. accepted
by Marcion and Valentinus, omits this passage though Tertullian
inserts it as part of Marcion’s Gospel. Posiihly Irenaeus con-
sidered that Marcion was quoting it from some apocryphal
sonrce (though Tertullian does not say so, hut merely accuses
Marcion of perverting the passage). Irenreus himself nowhere
quotes this passage, hut alludes to the assumption about
‘spirits’ expressed in it, in v. 2 ? ‘For tke Spirit. ( ~ ykp
b IrvaCpa)
hath neither hones nor flesh. Tertullian ([a]Marcion 4 4 3 ,
[a] De C a m e Christi 5 ) quo& the words twice, omitting the
appeal t o handliug, and also omitting ‘JZesh.’ Even in (a),
the context shows that he is not quoting a mutilated text of
Marcion’s; hut (6) makes it certain that the omission is
TertuZlian’s own. H e quotes thus, (a) ‘,See my hands and
feet that it is I myself,’ (6) ‘See that it is I ; and in hpth cases
adds ‘for a spirit hath not bones as ye see me having. In the
cont&t of (6) he asserts t F t a spirit has ‘flah,’ but has not
‘bones ’ ‘hank,’ and ‘feet. Marcion (according to Tertullian)
interpreted the passage thus : (Marcion 4 43) ‘ A spirir hath not
hones, as,’i.e. and so, ‘ y e see me having [*to bones] : and he
remarks that Marcion might as well have cancelled the passage
as interpret it thus. [In (6) Clark has, by error, ‘hath notxesh
and hones’ instead of ‘hath not bones.’] A fragment of
Hippolytus from Theodoret (Trans]. Clark, p. ,95) has : ‘ For
H e having risen . .. when His disciples were iu douht, called
ThAmas to Him and said, “Reach hither; handle me, and see :
for a Spirit hath not hones and flesh, as ye see me have.”’
D (differing from d) has (Lk. 2 4 3 9 ) h A a + q u a T o ral
1784
 GOSPELS
with his flesh and spirit (or blood),’ implying a close
union such as binds each member of the Church to Christ
in the one Body or one Bread, may very well be a part of
the tradition (or of some comment on it) from which
Ignatius is quoting. If so, the original (though not the
Ignatian) meaning may be correctly expressed by the
Armenian paraphrastic version, ‘ they believed, who
(or, and they) were participators of the Eucharist (lit.
communicated), and who (?) feasted before on his body
and blood.’ In other words, the disciples not only
received a vision and an utterance of the Lord, but
also were made one with the body and spirit (or bZood)
of Christ and were raised about the f e a r of deafh by
partic@ating i i z the Eucharist and therein handling his
&sh. These facts, being literalised in later narratives,
may have given rise to the statements, made in good
faith, that they had ‘ handled’ Christ’s ‘ body,’ or that
Christ had given them his ‘ body’ to handle.’
(vii. ) The historical estimate of Lk’s Tradition must
be lowered, ( I ) by evidence of his other errors and
misunderstandings given above, ( 2 )
30. Historical
estimate of Lk. by the variations in the corresponding
tradition quoted by Ignatius and
’Tertullian, ( 3 ) by the fact that, about^ A . D . 110,
Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (of which city Luke [Eus.
34 61 is said to have been a native), wishing to attest
the reality of the bodily resurrection of Christ, quotes
from an unknown authority a passage that omits all
mention of ‘ eating,’ and neither here nor elsewhere
refers to the testimony of Lk. This certainly leads to
the inference that Lk. had not, in the mind of Igna-
tius, that preponderant authority which a ‘ canonical ’
or even authoritative Gospel might be expected to
have.’
Lk.’s evidence must not be disniissed without a reference t?
Acts 14, uuvahic&cvos, which really meant ‘assemhling with,
h u t was probably interpreted by Lk. (as by patristic com-
mentators e g . Clement, Epist. to Janres and Hom. 15 13)
‘eatingwi;h,’cpActslO41: ‘Nottoallthepeople, but towitnesses
to those foreordained by God, namely ourselves, who ( O Y T W F S ~
.ate and drank with him after the resurrection from the dead.’
This, when combined with Acts 1 4 Lk. 2443 and Lk. 13 26 (‘we
have eaten and drunk in thy presence ; not in parallel Mt. 722)
indicates a consistent interpretation of sucha nature as (possibly)
to convert metaphorical accounts of spiritual intrrcourse and
revelation into literal accounts of historical ‘proofs.
(viii.) /n.’s vie78 (signs). I n Jn., ‘ proof’ is entirely
subordinated to ‘signs’-i.e., spiritual symbolisms. The
31. Jn.,s first manifestation of Jesus is to a woman,
(2016) does not recognise him till called
‘signs.’ whoy name. The Ascension is mentioned as
-impending and as (apparently) preliminary to being
(20 17) ‘ touched.’ In the second manifestation, Jesus
conveys to ’ the disciples‘ the Holy Spirit which (739)
cou2d not be conveyed ti22 afteer the Ascension- a fact
indicating that, in the interval between the two, Jesus
had ascended. In a third (making the second to ‘ t h e
.discipZes’), he offers himself to the ‘handling’ of the
incredulous Thomas, and pronounces a blessing on
those who have not seen yet have believed. In a fourth,
( 2 1 1 4 ‘the third’ t o ‘ t h e a‘iscdpZes’), he is in Galilee,
directing the seven fishermen in their task of catching
&re TO w x o c r . r a O U K 6 , y a K a L uapaao K a h s ewe j3hsweTs
c p v r a . Codex a has ‘ Handle me yozwselves’ (reading a h l
for a$& in what precedes). In Ss the passage, which has been
(142) scraped with a knife, runs thus, ‘Behold, see my hands
and my feet, a n d f i d and see that it is I ; for a spirit
. .
flesh and hones. . a s . .see m e . .. When. .. . .. ..
not.
were. Again he said unto them ‘Have ye here anything to
e a t 7’ Codices a 6 d and Brix. 0 t h ‘ me ’ after ‘handle.
The emphasis laid on ‘bones’ may have arisen from an
allusion to Is. 6614 ( ‘ S B N A Q ) : ‘Your hones shall spring up.’
‘Blood’ was omitted, perhaps in accordance with a sense that
it could not appeal either to sight or to touch. (Justin [Tvyph.
761 indicates something specially non-human about the blood of
Christ.)
1 Apologists usually depreciate what they call ‘a mere
argument from silence’; but it has weight varying with cir-
cumstances. Here it isextremelyweighty. The evidence is almosf
as strong as if Ignatius said expressly, ‘ I did not know Lk.,
or else, ‘ I knew Lk., hut did not believe i t to he so authori-
tative as the tradition from which I quoted.
55 1785
GOSPELS
the one hundred and fifty-three fish in the nCt of the
Church, and feeding them with the One Bread and the
One Fish before they go forth to preach the Gospel to
the world. Then, without definite demarcation of the
period of manifestations and voices, the Gospel ends.
1In all this, the difference between Jn. and Lk. is obvious.
Take, for example, the first manifestation to the disciples., In
Jn., the disciples are not (Lk. 24 37) terrified
32. Contrast and affrighted ’ ;they have received the message
between from Mary in which Jesus calls them his
‘signs ’ and ‘brethren,’ and when Jesus ‘stood in the midst ’
of them,z they ‘rejoice’ as soon as they see
aproofs.v
‘the hands and the side.’3 They do not (as in
Lk.) suppose Jesus to be a ‘spirit’ (or, as D, ‘phantasm’);
they require no appeal to sight or touch ; nor does Jesus eat in
their presence. The object of the first manifestation in Jn. is
apparently not to prove the Resurrection hut to convey the
Splrit to the disciples. There is no explanation of prophecy’
the Spirit is conveyed at once, not promised as a future gift:
The appeal to touch comes afterwards. The incredulity of
Thomas (absent on the first occasion) makes Jesus reproachfully
suggest on a second occasion that the incredulous disciple may
touch the wounds in his hands and side ; hut it is not indicated
that Thomas does this. The words that follow suggest that it
was not done: (2029) ‘Because thou hast seen thou hast
believed’ : (it is not said, ‘ Because thou hast touched’).!
The same spiritual (as distinct from Lk.’s logical)
purpose pervaded Jn.’s sign of the ‘seven’-who, if
‘ proof’ and not a ‘sign’ had been intended, should
have been ‘ the Eleven.’ There is indeed some
similarity between the words of Jesus in Jn. 215 :
‘ Children, have ye any meat? ’ and those in Lk.(2441) :
‘Have ye here anything to eat?‘ But how great a
difference in reality! I n the latter case the Messiah
deigns to take food from the disciples in order to meet
their (Lk. 2438) ‘reasonings’ ; in the former, the
Saviour gives himself to the ‘children’ to strengthen
them for the work of the Gospel.
(ix. ) Contrast betweez Jn. and the Synoptisfs.-There
1 For the symbolism of this qee helow, B 47.
2 This ‘standing in the niidst,’ however, is from prophetic
ponosis: see Ps. 22 22, quoted by Heb. 2 I T 3 and by Justin
[ T&h. 106) : also cp Lk. 24 36.
3 Not, as Lk., ‘the hands and the fief.’ I n Jn., as in
__
Pseudo-Peter. the feet are avvarentlv
nailed to thgcross.
-
. reearded as hound. not
4 In’ Jn., the first manifestation to the disciples seems to
include a new and spiritual Genesis or Creation of man. The
old Genesis (2 7) described how God ‘breathed (;v+duquev)
into the face (of man) the heath of iifi, and man became n
riving soul.’
The rarity of ;p+v&v, which occurs in NT nowhereexcept i n
Jn. 2022, suffices to make the reference to Gen. 2 7 certain.
Philo also frequently quotes Gen. 2 7 (with Bp+vcrG.v) to contrast
the ‘earthy’or ‘first‘ man with the ‘spiritual’or ‘second’man.
Not improbably Jn. also has in mind that Ignatian tradition
which ,described the apostles as ‘mixed with his flesh and his
spivit. ( F f u l analysis of all the passages where Ignatius
combines flesh and spirit’ and ‘flesh and blood’ makes it
probable that ‘spirit’ (not ‘blood’) is the correct reading. At
the same time, if both traditions were prevalent, Jn.’s first
manifestation to the disciples would express the ‘being mixed
with his spirit,’ and the second (that to Thomas) the ‘being
mixed with his 6Zood’).
In any case, Jn. takes this historically sacred word, tradition.
ally associated with the creation of man, and represents it as
ilramatised in aniact in which the Logos remakes man in the
Divine image hriathing into’ him that Spirit of himself
which (as Pauisays, I Cor. 1545)was not only ‘living (&)’ hut
ilso life-giving (<ooaoro0v),’ so as to enahle the disciples to
transmit life to others.
5 I t is interesting to note here (in the light of Mk. 116-20) the
iifference between Lk.’s and Jn.’s Draught of Fish, which
Lk. connects with the calling of Peter to be a Fisher of
Men, but Jn. with an imparting of the One Fish and the
?ne Bread to the ‘seven’ disciples-apparently as a preparation
or their apostolic work. I t will he found that Lk. differs from
Mk. and Mt. in seven points :-(I) the boats are ‘standing’ by
he lake; ( 2 ) there are two boats (the Jewish and Gentile
Zhurches), not one; (3) all (Peter included) have given up
ishing in despair ; (4) Jesus enters one of the vessels ; (5) the
lets are ‘rent asunder’; (6) Peter fears and bids Jesus depart ;
7) Jesus does not expressly b;d any of the fishers ‘follow’ him.
In. differs from Lk. i n aN these details: ( I ) I t is Jesus (not the
,oats) who is standing by the sea ; (2) there is hnt one vessel ;
3 ) Peter has not given up fishing ; (4) Jesus does not enter the
;esse1 ; (5) io spite of the multitude of the fishes (21 11) ‘the net
#as mt rent’ ; (6) Peter leapt into the sea and hastened toward
lesus; (7) Peter is hidden, after the Sacramental Feast, nQt
mly to feed Christ’s sheep, hut also to ‘follow’ him.
17%
 GOSPELS
is a curious contrast between the personal and as it
were private nature of Christ’s last
, w o ~ ~ s ~ ~utterances
a a , in Jn. and the public or
ecclesiastical utterances recorded by
Lk., Mk. -App,, and the last verses of Mt.
In Jn., ’ Hither, break your fast,’ ’ Lovest thou me? ’
‘ Feed my sheep,’ ‘ If I will that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee?’ In the Synoptists, either (Mk.-
App. ) the injunction to preach the Gospel, the prediction
of condemnation for those who will not believe and be
baptized, and the promise of signs such as the ‘ casting
out of devils,’ ‘ tongues,’ lifting up serpents,” drinking
poison, etc., and healing the sick ; or else (Mt.) ‘ bap-
tizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all things as
many as I commanded you,’ and a farewell in Galilee,
with an assertion that Jesus possesses all power, and
a promise that he will be always present with the
disciples; or, lastly (Lk.), an ’opening’ of the dis-
ciples’ minds to understand the Scriptures, and a long
statement that the Scriptures ‘ must needs have been
thus fulfilled, ’ and that there must be the preaching of
repentance in his name ‘ with a view to the remission
of sins to all the nations-beginning from Jerusalem,’ a
and then a promise, and a warning that they must
remain in the city till the promise is fulfilled :-concern-
ing all which utterances we are warned by our knowledge
of the various accounts of Christ’s revelations to Paul
that we must accept none of them as necessarily repre-
senting the actual words of Christ himself, though (in
various degrees, and subject to various qualifications)
they may be regarded as revelations to the Early Church,
conveyed, during the period of manifestations, to this
or that disciple, in the same way in which the vision
and the voice were conveyed to Paul at his conver-
sion.
the gift of ‘ tongues ‘-as we infer from Paul‘s Epistles-was a
phenomenon remarkable, hut not supernatural ; ( 3 ) the ‘taking
up,’ or, more probably, ‘ destroying (dpoiruw) of serpents ’ was
probably a lireralising of the promise in Lk. 10 19 that the
disciples should ‘trample upon serpents and scorpions and all
the Dower of the enemv.’
2 ‘The text is doubtGI.
3 The Testintony of Part, in any full discussion of the Re-
surrection, would come first and claim a detailed consideration.
Here we can onlv observe on I Cor. 15 1-8 that (I). amone the
earliest traditions communicated to coiverts was a doctrine
(probably oral, I r a p S w K a ) on the Resurrectio; of Christ. (2) in
this tradition ‘accordance with the Scriptures’ played aprominent
part : (3) th; manifestations of Christ were described by the
word ‘appeared (&+Sq) ’ a word regularly denoting visions [the
on& instance in which’it is used in N T of the appearance of a
material body is Acts 7 261 ; (4) Pan1 places first an appearance
to Cephas, and last hut one an appearance to James, neither
of which is recorded in our canonical Gospels ; (5) he excludes
all appearances to women; (6) he places the appearance of
Christ to himself on the same footing as those witnessed by the
apostles: (7) he speaks of the risen body as ‘a spiritual body’
(on which, note that Clem.Alex. (970-972) says that every spirit
has a ‘body,’ and that demons are called ‘bodiless’ on/y in
comparison with the spirits that are destined t o 6e saved) and
as being (8) the same in kind, for Christ as’ for the fakhful
after death-i.e., as wg should infer not L tangisb 60dy. (9)
The latest of Paul’s speeches on Lis vision repeats, as from
esus a long discourse (Acts26 14-18). It then continues (i6. rg)
JWhireupon ... I was not disobedient unto the heaven@
vision.’ But Paul’s earlier speech (22) assigns to Jesus merely
a portion of this discourse, while another portion (mentioning
‘ a witness’ and ‘sins’) occurs (22 15 J )in the report of a speech
of Ananias t o Saul, and another (mentioning ‘the Gentiles’)
is uttered by Jesus indeed, but onanzuch Zateroccasion (22 18-21)
when the apostk was in a ‘trance. On the other hand, in
the earliest account of the vision, the mention of Saul’s mission
to ‘the Gentiles’ is made by Jesus (915) not to Saul, 61rt t o
dnanias; and Jesus is represented as saying
than occurs in 22.
~- to Saul no more
These facts lead to the following general conclusions :- (a)
Words recorded as havinp. Been uttered 6v lesus niav r e d v
have heen heard in the c m k e ofa ‘vision.’ -(g) Words &cordid
as utterfd in a ‘vision’ ncay have h e n heard in the course of a
trance. (c) The aZZeged occasion of utterance may real@ 6e
a confusion of t w o o r even more occasions. (d) Sotne of the
words may h a v e p r o c e e d e d ~ t d ~ ~ ~ r o ~ n ~ idirect&,
6ut esus,
fhrough an inspired speaker.
I787
GOSPELS
VI. SINGLE TRADITIONS.
(u)THE FIRST GOSPEL.-(i.)DoctrinaZandotherchn~-.
acteristics. -That Mt. was Drimarilv intended for lewish
readers is suggested by the stress laid
34. Single
tradition : Mt, on prophecy; the tracing of genealogy
back to Abraham (not. as in Lk.. to
Adam; cp GENEALOGIES
I ,
ii.); the Sermon on the
Mount corresponding to the Law given on Mount
Sinai ; the contrast between what had been said ‘ of old
time’ and what the new Lawgiver prescribed ; the word
‘ lawlessness ’ (altered in Lk. 1327 to ‘ iniquity ’), used
by Mt. alone, and the strong condemnation of him
who (Mt. 5 19) breaks, or tenches others to break, ‘ one
of the least of the commandments.’
Mt.‘s parables point less to the inclusion of the Gentiles than
to the exclusion of unworthy Jews. H e alone has the saying
(22 14) : ‘Many are called but few chosen. H e seems to move
amid a race of backsliders, among dogs and swine unworthy of
the pearls of truth, aniong the tares sown by the enemy among
fishermen who must cast hack again many of the fish caught i n
the net of the Gospel. ‘The broad way’ is mentioned by him
alone and the multitude of those that go thereby, and the guest
withdut the wedding garment, and the foolish virgins, and the
goats and those who even ‘cast out devils’ in the name of the
Lord’and yet are rejected by him because they ‘work lawless-.
ness.’ H e alone introduces into the Lord’s Prayer the words
‘ Deliver us from the evil (one).’ Elsewhere he alone gives as a
reason for not being distracted, ‘sufficient for the day is the.
evil thereof.’ The wavering or retrogression of many Jewish
converts when the breach between Jews and Gentiles widened,
about the time of the siege of Jerusalem, may well explain t h e
emphasis laid by Mt. on backsliding ’ and the Condemnation
of ‘lawlessness’ might refer to Hel1eni;ing Jews who considered
that the new law set them free from all restraint, and who, in
casting aside every vestige of nationality, wished to cast aside
morality as well. Yet Mt. prefers (12 33) even open and con-
sistent wickedness to the sin of the ‘ hypocrites’ whom his Gospel
continually denounced (the word occurs in Mt. 13 times, in Mk.
I , in Lk. 3, in Jn. 0); and he dwells more than the rest on t h e
blessings of the meek, the merciful, and the little ones whose
angels behold the face of the Father.
Besides the fulfilments of prophecy or type mentioned
in his Introduction, Mt. sees several others not men-.
tbned in the Triple Tradition.
Some of these e.<. that relating to the (212-5) <ass and the
colt ’ (27 9) ‘the botter’siield ’ (1240) the ‘three days and three
n i g l k in the belly of the whale’ as representing the time o f
Christ’s remaining in the tomb and the (2335) apparently in-
accurate reference to ZachariaL the son of Barachiah, contain
such obvious difficulties tbat.they may he regarded as evidences
of early, not of late composition,a and the same applies to c2 z j )
‘ He shall be called a Nazarene,‘ which is found in no existing
book of prophecy. See N AZARE TH.
Apart from his account of the Resurrection, few new miracles
are introduced by Mt. Two of these consist of acts of healing.
Two are connected with Peter (I) Mt. 1428-33, the walling on
the water (2) Mt. 1724 the cbin in the fish‘s mouth. As t o
these, the’omission of the former by Mk. and Jn., who record
what precedes and follows, points to the conclusion that it is a
poetic symbolism of Peter’s lapse and restoration. Ametaphorical
explanation probably applies also to the latter.3
1 CD also Proceedinm o f the Sociefv o f Historical TheoZopv
(‘97) >6$, as to these& beatitudGs-on character (omitch
or jltered by Lk.), the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer
(where Lk. probably retains the original and shorter form), tha
seven parables in Mt. 15’ the genealogy compressed into a triad
offourteen, and other humerical groupings that show Jewish
influence.
2 An authoritative and widely circulated Gospel stands in this
respect on quite a different footing from an apocryphal and non-
authoritative book. The former would be attacked by con-
troversialists, and any dificnlties contained in it would he
exposed. Christians could not cancel the difficult passages
without giving up the authority of the book. Consequently
the difficult passages would remain in that Gospel, but would be
quietly dropped by subsequent evangelists. Hence, as defzaeen
our canonical Gospels, the presence of difficulties is a mark of
early date. But this criterion does not apply to comparatively
obscure works not so liable to attack.
3 See an extraordinary comment in Ephraem (p. 161) ‘So
when Simon ... took his net and went to cast it into the sea,
they also went 7uith him’ (cp Jn. 21 3, ‘ I go a-fishing. They
say unto him, We also come with thee ’). Also cp Philo (1499)
on ‘the holy didrachm,’ and Clem.Alex. (y47), where he says
that ‘the fish‘ hints a t (alviweL)God-given food, and that the
stater might admit ‘other solutions not unknown (O&K dyuoou-
p&as)’-which implies a tradition of symbolism on this incident.
For other traces of Philonian symbolism in the Synoptic Gospels,
cp Mt. 13 33 and Lk. 13 21 on the ‘leaven‘ which a woman ‘hid
(auCKpu+eu, I p u + u ) in fhree wzeasuyes ( ~ d ~ ofa meal,’
) with
1788
 GOSPELS
(ii. ) Evidenceus to dutc-When Mt. recorded the pre-
diction that the apostles ( 1 0 2 3 ) would not ’ accomplish
35. Its date. the cities of Israel’ until the Son of man
had ‘ come,’ must he not have assumed
that, in some sense, he had ‘come’ aZoreudy 9 If so, this
will explain the difficult expression in 2 6 6 4 , ‘ye shall
hencefoorth, or imrnediuieel‘y( d ~i p’ n ) , see the Son of man,
etc.’l It would seem that, as Jn. saw at least a primary
fulfilment of Zech. 1210 (‘They shall look on him whom
they pierced’) in the moment when the spectators of
the Cross gazed on the pierced side of Jesus, so Mt.
regarded the ’ coming of Christ with power ’ as com-
mencing from the time of the sacrifice on the Cross,
or of the Resurrection. But, whatever he the inter-
pretation, the difficulty of this and some other passages
leads to the belief that Mt. has in some cases preserved
the earliest tradition. Other passages point to a very
much later date-e.g. , the name of the ‘ Field of Blood ‘
borne ( 2 7 8 ) ‘ to this day,’ the charge of stealing Christ’s
body repeated ( 2 8 1 5 ) ‘ to this day,’ and the mention of
a the Jews ’ in the same passage as an alien race ; also
the recognition of ( 7 1 5 ) ‘the false prophets ‘as a definite
class to be avoided, and of (1817) ‘ the church’ as the
arbiter in quarrels. Perhaps, too,when viewed in the light
of the Didacht?, the precepts (5 24) to be reconciled with
a brother before ‘ bringing one’s gift to the altar,’ and
( 7 6 ) to avoid casting pearls before swine, indicate a time
uThen the Eucharist had so long been celebrated in the
Church as materially to influence the general traditions
of the doctrine of Christ.
(iii. ) Jn. i n reZuation i o d4at.’s SingZe Torudition.-Jn.
often agrees with, but intensifies, the doctrine of Mt.
Mt.’s depreciation of(521-48) the teachers of old time is more
strongly expressed in Jn.’s (108) ‘thieves and robbers’; Mt.’s
(1130) ‘easy yoke’ is less strong than Jn.
36. Its 831 f:, which implies that Christ’s service
relation to Jn. shall deliver from every yoke ; Mt. 125-7
‘the priests profane the Sabbath’ is not so
clear as Jn. 1 2 2 ‘on the Sabbath ye drcumcise a man ’ . and
Mt.’s (1234 23 33) ‘ offspring of vipers ’ and ‘serpents ’ (Satan
being ‘the segyknt’) is less forcible than Un. 844) ‘ye are of
your father the deviZ.’ Mt., alone of the Synoptists, describes
the Pharisees as (15 14) ‘ blipd,’and mentions (1513) the ‘rooting
up of Pharisaism, and (16 2 7 ) the rewarding of men according
to their works ; and similar thoughts will he found in Jn. 939-41
15.4-6 5-29. In a very few cases does Jn. appear to be tacitly
correcting Mt.’s Single .Tradition. Perhaps Mt.’s doctrine o t
‘little children’ and the stress laid by him on ‘meekness
appeared to Jn. liable to be perverted into a confession that
Christianity was a religion of weakness and puerility.% At all
events, though he alone of the Evangelists supports Mt. 21 5 in
quoting Zech. 9 9 ‘Behold thy king cometh,’ he omits ‘meek
(npads)’ on which the Rabbis (Schottg. 2 139 171, etc.) laid
emphasis ; and, whereas Mt. immediately afterwards (2.l I ~ J ?
describes the testimony to Jesus as that of ‘babes and children
Jn. (1242$) states that ‘even of the rulers many believed on
him.’ Inafew otherpassages (Mt. 2 6 2 2 25 Jn. 1324f:’ Mt. 26
52 Jn. 18 TI) though partly correcting Mt.’, Jn. appeais to be
rather s u p p k i n g him against omissions or statements of Mk.
and Lk.
( b ) THE THIRD GOSPEL.-(i.) Liteoruryform.-(a)
The Dedication of Lk.-The dedication (1 1-4) shows
that we have passed into a new’literary
37. single The Muratorian fragment
tradition : Lk.province.
calls attention to the fact that the
author writes ‘ in his own name,’ a novelty among evan-
gelists. H e also dedicates his work to some one who,
if- not an imaginary ‘ G~d-beloved,’~ would appear to be
Philo (1 173) on ‘the three measures (pkrpa) of the soul ’ that
are to be ‘kneaded’ like cakes ($yKpV+iaL) wherein the sacred
doctrine ’ must he hidden ( K E K &$Oai).’ After the destruction of
the Temple Vespasian compefied Jews in all parts of the Empire
to pay the &drachm to the Roman Treasury. Among Christian
Tews there mav have arisen the ouestion whether thev. heinp
I, I
ho longer ‘Jews ’ were liable to pa; it.
1 Mk. 1462 ohits ‘immediately,’ Lk. 2264 substitutes ‘shall
be’ for ‘ye shall see.’ Cp also Mt. 16 2s ‘ till they see the Son
o f man comina in his kingdom,’ Mk. 9 I ‘the kinfdom of God
having.come,’ Lk. 9 27 ‘ the-kingdom of God.’
~
2 Cp I Cor, 1420 ‘be not chiidren ( n a ~ S i a in
) mind: how-
beit in malice be ye babes, but in mind be men’ (see also I Cor.
3 I 13 I).
3 There may have been, however, controversial reasons for
omitting that epithet.
.I Cp Lightf. BE ,197 ‘Theophilus, if a real person and
not a nom de guerre. $heophilus, in itself, is not an unlikely
1789
GOSPELS
a patron, a man of rank. The apostles-the ( 1z ) ‘ eye-
witnesses and ministers of the word ’-appear to have
‘ delivered ’ their testimony by oral tradition ( a a p t 8 o a a v )
and to have passed away. T o supply their places (1I )
‘many ’ had ‘ attempted to draw up a formal narrative
( b v a ~ c i ~ a u f6:fiyp~rv)
fa~ ’ concerning the matters fully
established in the Church. These writers had clearly
not been eye-witnesses, nor were they, in Lk.’s judgment,
so successful as to make unnecessary any further
attempts. Apparently they had failed in the three
points in which he hopes to excel : they had not ( I )
‘ traced everything up to its source ( r a p ~ K a X a u f f & n
drw8ev m%uw),’and this ( 2 ) ’ accurately ( c k p i p j s ) , ’ and
( 3 ) they had not written ‘in order (Kaffe@js).’
All this affords an interesting parallel to the description of the
Follection of the Mishna by R. Judah (Hor. Hebr. 1161).
When he saw the captivity was (sic) prolonged and the scholars
tohecomefaint-hearted, and thestrengthofwisd& and the cabala
to fail, and the oral law t o be much diminished-he gathered and
scraped UT together all the decrees, statutes, and sayings of the
wise men. For ‘the captivity was prolonged,’ substitute ‘the
Lord delayed his coming,’ for ‘ sayings of wise men’ substitute
‘traditions (rrapa86ueisy and ‘narratives (S~q-pjuecs),’ some of
which were probably based on the Psalms of Israel and the
hymns of the first generation of Christians-and we have the
same phenomena introducing themselves. Catechumens were
disturbed by the diversity of traditions ; catechists and evangel-
ists themselves found it hard to distinguish the genuine from,
the spurious; it was time to ‘gather and scrape up together
the traditions-especially those upon the Resurrection and the
Incarnation and to do this with such exactness (&p~@Bs) that
the catechi& might know the certainty (bu$dhsLav)’ about the
points of Christian faith.
( p ) Linguistic characteristics.-As a corrector, in
the Triple Tradition, Lk. has been shown above to b e
38. Its style. a linguistic purist, and his insertions
often indicate a love of sonorous and
compound words (18221 7 3 3 ) . But in his Introduction,
%-hen describing the days before the Nativity (as also
when describing the first days of the church in Acts),
the narrative takes an archaic and Hebraic turn.
The vocahularyof Lk. is largely borrowed from the LXX, and in
particular from the Apocrypha-e+, &i@?e$ov, brrourrauOE‘vrwv,
errrgdhher (in the sense of ‘belonging’) raiursiup6s the use of
i i ~ i u r o sfor God, urcyp4, bvr~pdhhe~;,eGOeros, n:prurr2uOa~,
~ a ~ &pi mbo G~s , So,-& and huuirde?. Cp Lk.’s story of the
rich fool (1219) with Ecclus. 11:s’ Lk.187 (‘Though he bear
long with them [pu~poOvpe;] . .. ) kith Eccluc. 22 22 ; Lk. 142
(‘Blessed art thou among women’) with Judith 1318. Often
there is an allusive use of L X X words. Cp Lk. 8851 (about
Joseph of Arimathrea who had not ‘conseuted to’ the decision
of the Pharisees) with Ex; 23 I ‘Thou shalt not consent with
( m y r u r a f i u q ) the unjust ; Lk. 2349 with Ps. 888 ‘Thou hast
Put mine acduaintances (yvou~o6s)far from me’ . and Lk. 20 20
eyraOhous with Job 19 12, 31 g ; also Lk. 1 7 rrpo&ydrec 2v rais
$pipars with Gen. 1811 ?rpopcpqK6res $pfp&v. It 1s difficult to
decide whether those portions of Lk. which approach the L X X in
name for a Jew. And the omission of K &cure in Acts
11 might he explained on the ground that f.k. thinks it i n
bad taste to be-noble a young catechumen too much Gust as
Dion. Halic. Orat. Antip. [Reiske, 5 4451 begins and. ends
[6 11281 a treatise with Kpdrrure ‘ d p p a i c , but intersperses
[?19] r i +rhrdry and [722] pkhrwrf). T o use the term ohtrn-
sively is characteristic of ‘the obsequious man’ in Theophr.
Cha?.act. 5, i;v8parpdrr~.rovelrr&vuebb, ‘after a IargedisjZayf
res$+ ’).
KpaTiure certainly cannot refer to nzooral qualities alone.
This is proved ( I ) hy Lk.’s use of the vocative in Acts243 2625
(and cp 2326); (2) by 2 Mac.412, Jos. Ant. iv. 2 8 (in the
latter, vocatively), where it is applied to ‘young men of distinc-
tion or nobility,‘and cp Lucian 2272 Kpqr&v O L K P ~ T L U T O L ,...
ob$ ol /6i&rar p6vov, bhhh rai oi flauLhLKi)mpw K ~ rrL wrrtisrv
d.$roilvres). (3) Dion. Halic. seems (as quoted above$ t? dis-
tinguish between KpdTLUTf and pdhrrure. (4) I t seems highly
robahle that the author of the first part of the Epistle to
biognetus has Lk. in view when writing (B I ) &E&J bpp9,
apdnure Ardyvqrc, where ‘Diognetus ’ represents not a Christian,
hut an inquirer, and is probably a fictitious name. If so, this
tends to show that he regarded Lk.’s ‘ Theophilus’ as represent-
ing a typical catechumen, just as his own ‘ Diognetus’ repre-
sented a typical inquirer. On the whole, the impression left hy
the use of the name is that it is typical of one who might be
addressed ina twofoldsenseas(Hamlet, i. 538)‘thounobleyouth.’
Philo underiakes a treatise on the Creation (1I ) ‘for the sake of
the God-beloved (roil BFO$LAOBS).’ And does not Lk.’s (Acts 1I)
T ~ ph.
V n p B ~ o vh6yov 2aorqua‘pqv m p i rdurov, 0 Bs6+che, sound
like an echo of Philo 2 444 b pPv rrp6reppos h6yos $v?p;v, & BdBore,
.
m p p ~ r o i l . . ? Tatian speaks of (12) ‘interpretations (of
Scripture) which being published in writing make those who
give heed to them *Teat@ 6el~vedof God (O~O$C~E;S).‘
I790
 GOSPELS
rhythm and vocabulary are translations from Hebrew documents,
or imitations, conscious or unconscious of the books of the LXX.
But the use of b KdpLos,l ‘the Lord’Ain(713) the raising of the
widow’s son at Nain, (10 I) the appointment of the Seventy, (11
39) the rebuke of the Pharisees, (1242) the preface to the
parable of the faithful and just steward, (1315) the healing of
the daughter of Abraham bound by Satan (1753) the parable
of the sycamore tree (156) the parable of ;he unjust judge (19
8) the story of Zacch)aeus, (2261) Christ’s looking on Peter,’and
the verse (243) where it is said that ‘they found not the body of
the Lord Jesus’-confirms the theory (which is also supported
by internal evidence) that these passages in Lk. are translations.
Another test-word is ‘Ieppouuahljy. Lk. uses ‘IcpouuaAljp about
twenty-six times, ‘ I q m u d h p a only three times (222 192s 237).
T h e latter form is sometimes used geographically by writers
who use the former rhetorically or historically; but it is remark-
ahle that in 2 22 and 41 the two forms should be used apparently
in the same sense, bvljyayov air& FLS ‘IcpoudAvia and :TO-
...
~ ~ O V T O EES ‘Iepovuahjp.2 Cp JERUSALEM, B T.
(ii. ) Doctrinal Characteristics.-Thekey-noteofLk.’s
doctrine is touched in the song of Zacharias over the
39. Its spirit. Baptist, and struck more clearly in the
song of Simeon over the child Jesus ;
proclaiming, in the first case, redemption for (177)
‘God‘s people,’ in the second, for ( 2 3 1 J ) ‘aZZ the
peopZes, a light for revelation of the GentiZes.’
The implied (416-30) rejection of the Jews in favour of the
Gentiles at the outset of Christ’s public life in Nazareth is a
chronological error; but it indicates the tendency of the Gospel.
When (Mt.632) ‘the Gentiles’ are condemned as seeking
pleasures, Lk. is careful toadd (1230) ‘the Gentiles offhewodd,
%.e. those who are spiritually Gentiles; and Lk.’s ‘seventy’
midsionaries are emblematic of the Gospel to ‘ the nations.’ Mk.
makes no mention of the Samaritans. Mt. has merely (105)
‘Go not into any city of the Samaritais’ ; but in Lk. the sons
of Zehedee are rebuked for desiring to call down fire on a
Samaritan village ; a just Samaritan shames both priest and
Levite; and a grateful Samaritan puts nine Jewish lepers to the
blush. As for the law, it is valid as long as Jesus is a child or
( 2 5 1 ) ‘subject to’ his parents; but as soon as he has been
baptized, it is regarded as (41s 1016) superseded because
fulfilled.
Lk.’s Gospel is abundant in contrasts. It couples
‘ blessings ’ with (Lk. 6 24-26) ‘ woes. ’
It proclaims a
conflict pending-between God and Satan, forgiveness
and sin, self-renunciation and worldliness-which is to
culminate in the triumph of mercy imparting to the
Gentiles (2447) a message of ‘repentance and remission
of sins.’
When Satan departs from Jesus it is only (413) ‘for a time’;
Satan binds a daughter of Abrahim, is beheld by Jesus ‘fallen
from heaven,’ enters into Judas, and demands the Twelve that
he may ‘sift’ them. There is a sharp demarcation between
rich and poor. I t is ‘the, poor,’ not (as Mt. 53) ‘the poor in
spirit,’ that are ‘blessed. In Lk., Christ pronounces a woe
upon them that are rich, rebukes the ‘cumbered’ Martha,
exhorts the rich to entertain the poor and dooms the rich fool
t o a sudden death, while Dives is ’consigned to unalterable
torment. But above all Lk. contrasts ‘repentance’ with
r i d e . I f Laiarus is contrasted with Dives, the grateful
amaritan with the ungrateful Jewish lepers the merciful
Samaritan with the heartless priest and Levite, knd the trivial
anxieties of Martha with the simple devotion of Mary, much
more does the publican find his foil in the Pharisee who prays
by his side ; the woman ‘which was a sinner’ and ‘ loved much ’
in Simon the churlish host who loved little; the prodigal
younger son in the envious elder son; and the penitent thief on
the right in the impenitent thief on the left. All these stories,
as well as that of Zacchaeiis, and the lost piece of silver, must
have appealed with great force to many who applied to them-
selves the words of Epbes. 2 I : ‘And you did h; quicken when
ye were dead through your trespasses and sins ; they magnify
the power of forgiveness-contrasting the instantaneous and
complete victories of faith (for the most part ‘without works’)
with the inferior results of a long life of ordinary and prudent
respectability.
(iii. ) A nzanual for daib conduct.-The insertion of
1 The Gospel of the Hebrew always uses the form b I G p r o ~ ,
never b ’Iquoirs.
2 Another test-phrase is d m v SEI, frequent in Genesis and the
early part of Exodus but rare or non-existent in later books.
I t does not occur in Mk. or Mt. In Jn. it occurs only (a) in
the interpolated811 the woman taken in adultery’ (6) in126
[where D transpose; SEI and Ss omits &rev 6EI ( ‘ h o w Judas
did not care’), the o;iginal probably being simply ‘Not
that Judas cared’]; (c) in2123 O ~ K&rev 86, where dQ’is sup-
ported by NBC and is perhaps genuine, meaning ‘ however.’
In Lk. (as also in Acts) it is frequent, mostly in his Single
Tradition, but sometimes in the Double or Triple when he
infroduces words o r aruangements o.f his o u m I n view of
these facts, Mt. 1247, bracketed by Tischendorf and placed by
W H in marg., should be rejected as an interpolation.
1791
GOSPELS
‘day by day,’ both in the Lord‘s Prayer and in the
40. it^ aim. precept to ‘ take up the cross,’ indicates
a purpose in the writer to produce a
practical Gospel. LG. seems to see, as the ma& obstacles
~
to the Faith, not ‘ hypocrisies ’ nor Jewish backsliding,
but the temptations of wealth and social position acticg
upon half-hearted converts ; and his sayings abcut
‘ building the tower,’ ‘putting the hand to the plough,’
‘ renouncing all one’s possessions,’ and ‘ hating ’ fathcr
and mother, are pathetic indications of what must have
been going on in the divided household of many a
young ‘ Theophilus.’ The important part played
by ‘devout women’ in Acts prepares the reader for
finding prominence assigned to them here. Lk. alone
gives us the songs of Mary and of Elisabeth, and the
testimony of Anna. The mother of the Lord (not
Joseph) ponders in her heart the words of her Son, and
her sufferings are made ( 2 35) the subject of prophecy;
Lk. alone mentions the domestic anxieties of Martha
and the devoted faith of her sister, the cure of the
afflicted ‘ daughter of Abraham,’ the woman who
invoked a blessing upon the womb that bare Jesus, the
story of her who ‘ loved much,’ and the parable of the
woman rejoicing over the lost piece of silver. Lot’s
wife is mentioned by him alone ; nor do we find in any
other Gospel the utterance of Jesus to the ‘ daughters of
Jerusalem.’ Mk. and Mt. concur with Lk. in pro-
nouncing a blessing on the man who gives up father or
mother or lands or houses for Christ’s sake; bnt Lk.
alone adds ‘ wife. ’
Strangely incongruous with these sayings and with the great
body of Synoptic doctrine, are the parables of the unjust steward
the unjust judge, and the friend persuaded by importunity:
The moral of t h e y appears to be ‘Copy the world, only in a n
unworldly fashion. Yet the thought thestyle and the language
make it difficult to believe that Jes& uttered’ these parables i i
their present shape ; and the last two (as they stand) seem at
variance with his command to remember that the Father
knoweth what things we need before we ask for them. Every-
thing points to the conclusion that we have here and probably
elsewhere in Lk., discourses, based indeed on Christ’s doctrine
hut not containing his words or modelled after his methods and
style. Else, why in the parable of the Shepherd, do we find the
dramatic element’in Lk. ldewhilst it is absent in Mt. 18131 and
why do Lk.’sfa~ac%es alone introduce U e solilopuy-e.g., in the
case of the rich fool, the prodigal son, the unjust steward, the
unjust judge?
(iv.) Evidence as t o date..-Lk., more clearly than
Mk.-Mt., describes the fall of Jerusalem as the result
41.Its date. of a siege and capture. H e also more
definitely sets a term for all troubles.
Lk. alone has the exhortation to (2128) ‘look up.’
Omitting the remarkable saying of Mk. and Mt. that
the Son himself knoweth not ‘the hour,’ he declares
that the trampling down of Jerusalem will be only till
‘ the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.’ Then will come
a time of ‘ distress ’-not, however, now for Israel, but
for the Gentiles-and amidst convulsions of nature the
Son of man will come. In the hope of this coming,
the disciples are to lift up their heads, remembering
that, although some of them will be ‘ slain,’ not a hair
of their heads will be injured. The comparatively
cheerful discourse on the Coming, combined with the
joyful and triumphant tone of the Introduction, accords
with the general tenor of Lk. when compared with Mt.,
and indicates as the author a Christian Gentile to whom
(as to Barnabas) the fall of Jerusalem was an accepted
and not unwelcome fact. Writing with recollection,
but not under the present pressure, of persecution,
when the Church was making rapid progress in the
conversion, not only of the slaves, the poor, and the
‘devout women,’ but also of the higher and more
educated classes in the Roman Empire, the Evangelist
seems to be looking forward to the moment when ’ the
times of the Gentiles ’ would be ‘ fulfilled,’ and the Son
of man would suddenly ‘ come.’ Such a date might be
reasonably fixed at the close of Vespasiau’s or the
beginning of Nerva’s reign1 See ESCHATOLOGY, S4f:
1 Acts 25 30(‘ And he (Paul) ahode two whole years [in Rome]’)
suggests, a t first sight, that Acts-and, a fwtiori. (Acts 1I )
1792
 GOSPELS
, (v. ) S7ipe&zturaZ Narratives peculiar to Lk., apart
from the Introduction and the Conclusion, are : ( I ) the
miraculous draught of fishes ; ( 2 ) the raising
42’ Its of the widow’s son at.Nain ; (3) the healing
of the woman bound’ by Satan; (4) the
cure of the dropsical m a n ; (5) the appearance of the
angel strengthening Jesus, and (6) the healing of the
severed ear.l
As regards (6), its omission by all the other Evangelists is, in
itself, almost fatal to its authenticity, and it is probably t o be
explained as the result of a literary misunderstanding, There
was probably some tradition -ambiguous, or obscure, and
omitted by Mk.-that Jesus said (a) ‘let it (Le. the sword) be re-
stored t o its place. This was misunderstood by Lk. as meaning
(6) ‘let it (;.e. the ear) be restored.’ He therefore substituted
(6) for (f),and amplified his narrative in such words as to leave
no ambiguity.2
(vi. ) Lk.’s.$ositionAistoricaZ(v.-We are led to the
conclusion that, although Lk. attempted to write
‘ accurately’ and ’ in order,’ yet he
43. Its relative could not always succeed. When
trustworthiness,
decidingbetweenan earlier and a later
date, between this and that place or occasion, between
metaphor and literalism, between what Jesus himself
said and what he said through his disciples, he had to’
be guided by evidence which sometimes led him right,
but not always.
I n regarding the story of the fig-tree as a metaphor and the
promise about treading on scorpions as a spiritual prolhise, and
i n %lacing the home of the infant Jesus a t Nazareth, not a t
Bet lehem, he was probably right. The Feeding of the Four
Thousand he may have rightly rejected as a duplicate of the
tradition about the Five Thousand. But be himself seems to
give in his Mission of the Seventy a duplicate of the Mission of
the Twelve.3 His two-fold description of Jesus as mourning
.over Jerusalem onc,e ( 1 3 3 4 ) in Galilee and once (1941) near the
city itself, seexks an error of an infe,fe;entialcharacter (like his
inference from the expressions ‘cnp’and ‘platter,’ that a certain
discourse of Jesus was uttered at the table of a Pharisee).4
Again, Mk. and Mt. show traces of duplicate traditions concern-
ing the insults offered to Jesus in the Passion; and these
(combined with the Psalmists predictions about (Acts426) ‘The
kinas of the earth’) may have led Lk. to adopt a tradition-not
m e h o n e d by the other Evangelists-that Herod joined with
Pilate to persecuteChrist. .In the journey to Emmaus and the
Manifestation to the Eleven, it has been shown ( p z S J ) that he
seems to take metaphor for literal statement. Some textual
ambiguity may have induced him to believe that the Nazarenes,,
instead of (as Mk. and Mt.) ‘being caused to stumble in Jesus
tried to ‘cause Jesus tof a l l s (down a precipice) ’ and that thk
words uttered to the woman at the anoi:ting6 ‘were not ‘Let
her alone,’ but ‘ Her sins are forgiven her.
Lk. ‘s absolute omission of some genuine and valuable
traditions-especially in connection with Christ’s ap-
pearing to women after the Resurrection and with
Christ’s promise to go to ‘ Galilee ‘-though it may be
in part extenuated on the ground of the need of selection,
and in part almost justified on the ground of the obscurity
.of the original, nevertheless seriously diminishes the
-.__ ______represents
‘the former treatise,‘ i.e., Lk.-was completed during the apostle’s
life. But although Acts may incorporate documents written while
Paul was living and left unaltered by the compiler, the compila-
tion may have been made many years after the apostle’s death.
1 Of these (3) and (4) demand no special mention ; ( I ) must be
classed (5 32 and § 47) with Jn.’s draught of 153 fishes, which is
symbolical ; (2) will be discussed with the Raising of Lazarus
(see below, $ 58). AS to ( 5 ) (described by WH as not a part
of Lk.’s gospel, but as one of ‘the yost precious among the
remains of’ an ‘evangelical tradition locally current beside
the Canonical Gospels,’ and as being ’rescued from oblivion by
the scribes of the second century’) see 5 6 2 (4).
2 The same word b r o r a 0 ~ w ~ d v means
a~ ‘restore’ a sword in (iv. ) structure.
Jer. 29 (Heb. 47) 6, and a liinb in Lk. 610. The solution is
unconsciously suggested by Ephrem (236-7) : ‘Justitiam (i.e.
gladium) in Iocum suum reduxit
restituii.’
... Aurem in Iocum suunt
3 Cp Lk.’s accounts of the two Missions (a) 93-5 (6) 101-rz
with Mt.’s account of the single Mission(Mt. 1 0 7 - ~ 5 )a, d it will
be foCnd that (6) is almost entirely made up of that portion of
Mt. which does not occur in (a).
4 See above 19.
Confusio; between a verb and its causal form produces
manyvariations in the L X X (Gen. 32 23 Nuin. 2027 Jer. 15 16etc.),
and probably explains many Synopticvariations; cp Mk. 2 19 Mt.
9 1 5 ~ 8 h a v r a cV V ~ T ~ F L(Mt.
V ...
a s v b i v ) with Lk. 534 6Jvaub’e
~ O L ~ W R z qL w m h a i : Mk. 91 Lk. 928 Mk. 1 1 7 Lk. 193s. A great
many instances occur in Theodotion’s and the LXX version of.
Daniel (15 [ W T ~ W ~ w L ,~ r j v a r ]IT 213 16, etc.).
6 See above, $ IO n.
‘793
GOSPELS
value of his work. Every page of it shows signs of
pains, literary labour, and good taste. It is by far the
most beautiful, picturesque, and pathetic of all the
Gospels, and probably the best adapted for making
converts, especially among those who have to do w-ith
the life of the household. But, if bald bare facts are in
question, it is probably the least’ authoritative of the
Four.
Jn. often intervenes to descrilje facts mentioned by
Mk.-Mt. and omitted by Lk. But, as regards facts
mentioned by Lk. alone, Jn. is either silent or gives so
different.a version of them (as in the case of the Draught
of Fishes) that many would fail to recognise an intention
to describe the same event. On this point, see the next
section.
(vii. ) Jn. in reZation tu LR.’s SingZe Trkdition.-It
is only where Lk. alters, or omits, some Synoptic
44.Its relation Tradition, or where he attempts to
describe the phenomena that followed
to Jn, the Resurrection, that Jn. (as a rule)
steps in to correct Lk. The Fourth Gospel lies outside
that large and beaatiful province, peculiar to the Third,
which deals with the welcome of repentant sinners ; and
some of the words most in use with Lk.-‘repentance,’
‘ faith,’ rich,’ ‘ riches,’ ’ divorce,’ publican,’ and (in
the words of Jesus) sinner ‘-are altogether absent
from Jn.
Perhaps the only important point of doctrine in which n.
may be thought tacitly to contradict the Single Tradition of i k .
i s j r u y a r as to which Lk. encourages something approaching to
importunlty, while Jn. so far discourages i t , that he’avoids the
very use of the word, preferring ‘ask’ or ‘request,’and every-
where implies that the essential thing is, not that the petitioner
should be importunate, but that he should be ‘in Christ,’ in
which case his petition inust be granted.
Lk. aims at chronological order. Jn. while giving a new
chronology, gToups his history accorddg to symbolical and
spiritual principles. Lk. often removes from the old Tradition
such words as Atticists might condemn ; Jn. seems sometimes
to prefer them,l and always uses a vocabulary simple even to
monotony, Lk. writes what ‘eye-wifnesses’ have delivered,’
Jn. (not here dissenting, but indicating superiority) writes in
the name of eye-witnesses concqrning (Jn. 114) that which ‘ we
have Contemplated (&lcari@Ja).
So far, Jii. may be said to differ, without correcting ; but on
one or two points of Lk.’s Single Tradition he seems to write
corrertivelv. For examnle :’ Lk. 32 mentions ‘ Annas and
e.--~
aiaphas’ ’ ‘high I&cst;~’ L u t J n . 1 x 1 3 dcicrihes Annas a i die
- as
father-in-law of the highlprivst Cni;ipl.a, ; Lk. 2252 meniions
‘gcnernls of the temple, but J I I . l J i n ‘the chilinrch.’ l.k.,
aione of the Synoptists mentions Martha and Mary together.
Mary, he says w a s :eared a t Christ’s feet; Martha was
‘troubled’ (@opi@i<2,Lk. 1041) ‘about much serving. Jn.
does not contradict this. but he presents us with a different
aspect of Martha. Mar;, he says, was sitting a t home with the
Je,ws. Martha went to meet Jesus, and made a confession of
faith ’in him, and induced Mary to come forth also to meet
him.
I n two or three instances, Jn. represents as an act what Lk.
as a word. E.g., Lk. 22 27 (‘I am in the midst of
you as ,he that serveth’) IS arallel to Jn. 131-5, where Jesus
‘serves ; Lk. 2232 (‘I have [sought for thee’) seems parallel
to the prayer to the Father in Jn.1715 (‘keep them from the
evil one’). Perhaps we may add Lk.2346 (‘I commend my
spirit’) and Jn. 1930 (‘he delivered np [Irap8wKC] his spirit ’).
(6)THE J OHANNINE GOSPEL. -The FourthGospel has
been the subject of various (i.) hypotheses
45. Jn. :
authorship. of authorship. The internal evidence for,
these (apart from direct statements) is
derivable from (ii. ) names, allusions, etc. ; (iii.) style ;
(i. ) Hypotheses opauthonhip.-The Gospel states that
(2120 24) ‘ the disciple whom Tesus loved ’ is the witness
and writer2 of ‘these things,’ adding ‘and we know
that his witness is true.’ A comparison of several
other passages leads (by a process of elimination) to the
inference that the author-writing perhaps with some
co-operation or attestation of others-was John the son
of Zebedee. But the belief that the apostle originated
the Gospel is compatible with a conviction that he did
not comDose I . or write it in its Dresent sham.
1 E.<. K P ~ ; B W T O S , K O A A U ~ L W V ~TSL, U T L K ~(as
S used in Mk. 143).
2 The text is uncertain. There may have been ,originally a
distinction between ‘the.witness’ and ‘the writer : 2031 has
simply ‘ hath been written,’ and 1 9 3 5 simply ‘hath witnessed.’
1794
 GGSPELS
For example the teaching of the aged apostle may have been
taken up by disciple or ‘interpreter,’ and may have been
ultimately published by the latter, as Peter’s is said to have
been recorded and, circulated by Mark (see below, 65)
Peter’s ‘interpreter. If, as Irenzus says John the apostl;
wrote the Apocalypse about A . D . 96, the’difference of style
between that and the Gospel would necessitate a very Ion
interval to admit even a possibility that he wrote the latter5
Suppose the apostle to have been ninety, or, say, only eighty-
five, when he wrote the Apoc., and concede an interval of only
ten years to allow him to learn a new kind of Greek, change his
vocabulary, and adopt a new style, new thoughts, and a new
tone, yet this brings us to 106 A.n. and the apostle to the age of
a hundred or ninety-five. Is it probable that one so aged could
retain powers of memory and expression sufficient for the mental
construction, or even the literary expression, of a work in which
as will he shown, every word is weighed and every detaii
adapted to a spiritual purpose? The improbability is increased
by the tradition (reported by Jerome) that towards the close of
his life the venerable apostle bad to he carried into the midst of
the congregation and could do no more thqn repeat over and
over again the injunction ‘Love one another.
If this was so, John’s Gospel would nevertheless continue to
be preached, probably by one or more of his ‘ elders,’ preaching
in his name, say from A.D. 98 to A.D. 1 x 0 or A.D. 115. Then it
becomes easy to understand how the individuality of an
‘interpreter’ may have combined with the force of new cir-
cumstances-attacks from philosophers without conflicts with
incipient Docetism within-to mould the oral Johannine Gospel
into its present shape, first without an appendix, and then, when
the nominal author had passed away (say A.D. 1o8), with the
additional chapter that, in effect, alludes (21 23) to his death.
Who this ‘Elder’ or ‘interpreter’may have been we cannot now
discuss.2 For the present it must suffice to point out that, as
the Muratorian Fragment enrolls among the canonical books
the Wisdom of SoZomon, though admitting it to have been
written not by Solomon but by Solomon’s friends ‘in his honour,’
so a pupil and ‘interpreter’ of John, committing to writing a
Johannine Gospel, might deem it a merit to ignore his own part
in the composition, and to impute it as a whole to his master
and teacher. The alternative was to do as Lk. had done : to
use ‘ I ’ and ‘ me in the preface, and to explain that the writer
had received his doctrine from the aoostle. That. however. was an
in:iovatiou. ~ ~ first i two
c (;orpeIs’Iiad given 11; signs of‘iiutliar.
ship. The Fourth Goapcl differs from the Third in rneth~d,
arimgeuicnt, and systcui, as well as in matters of fact a i d & \ v i
offact. Lk.’s novel precedent might even stimulate the Johannine
‘interpreter’ to merge his own authorship in that of the apostle
or, rather, in that of ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ and whod
he perhaps regards as a pattern and type of true discipleship.
Some of these points will be more fitly discussed
under External Evidence. What has been said above
is intended to guard the reader against assumptions
fatal to unprejudiced criticism.
For example it is commonly assumed ( I ) that the author
must be an ey;-witness or a forger ; (2) that if he knows some
things not known to the Synoptists he must know everything
known to an apostle and must de a n apostle; (3) that the
minute details with which the narrative abounds are signs of an
eye-witness with a taste for the picturesque, and ofan ear-witness
with a keen sense of the dramatic.3 On the contrary, ( I ) if the
writer is a disciple regarding himself as the pen of a teacher, he
is not to he regarded as a forger ; (2) if the writer received from
John the apostle some things not known to the Synoptists, it
does not follow that he received everything, still less that he
must himself be an apostle ; (3) if, among a vast store of details
of name and number (such as might naturally drop from the lips
of a very old man in oral accounts of reminiscences) he selected
those which lent themselves to a symbolical meaning, it does
not follow that he was an eye-witness or ear-witness; and it
may even be that he would have regarded picturesqueness as
an impertinence approximating to profanity in one who was
attempting to write a Gospel that should be a New Testament
‘Scripture’
(ii. ) Evidence from Names, etc.-Here we consider
(a)Names, ( p )Numbers,a n d ( y )Quot~ations.~-(a) Names
1 The Apocalypse contains much internal evidence e . g . the
reference to cheap wine and dear corn in Rev. 66) for placing a t
least part of the work in the reign of Domitian. The ancient
external evidence for the Domitian date is singularly strong. Cp
APOCALYPSE.
See JOHN S O N OF ZEBEDEE ....If it was John the Elder-a
contemporary)who as Eusebius (in. 396) tells us, was confused
with the apostleLthe imputation of the Gospel to John the
apostle might he more easily explained.
3 Some critics actually extend this last inference to the
dialogue with the Samaritan woman a t which no discipZe was
present !
4 In order to appreciate what follows the reader mnst re-
member ( I ) that every name number, deiail, and even syllable
in Scripture was generally sdpposed in Rabbinical tradition to
have some Bpiritual significance ; (2) that this significance or
symbolism was reduced to a system by the Alexandrian Jews
(see Siegfried and Drummond on Philo); (3) that Jn. (as will
he shown in foot-notes to this section) was familiar with the
Philonian teaching.
I795
GOSPELS
of places in Tn. divide themselves into two classes :
first, the well known ; second, the ob-
*& Jn.‘s proper scure and contested. Concerning the
names* former. Tn. mav be shown to write
~~.~ ~ ~ . .
. I
mostly from biblical, or literary, not from local, know-
ledge. The latter he mentions only when they are
adapted for symbolism.
For example : ( I ) that Jesns(8zo) ‘spake in the Treasury ’is an
error (so far as we know) arising from a supposition that what
held in the days of Nehemiah (1037.39 and cp Neh. 135) held
also in the time of Christ ;1 that the temple was built in ( 2 2 0 )
‘forty and six years’ was a false inference2 from Ezra1 I about
the second temple. (2) That Jesus (18 I ) crossed the Kidron may
very well have happened; but the fact appears to he introduced
as a parallel to David who similarly ( z S. 1523) crossed the
Kidron in mourning to ;,turn in triumph. (3) The mention of
the cornfields of Sychar, or Shechem, far from implying an eye-
witness, might have been made by any reader of Philo (1471)
familiar with Gen. 4915. (4) Dialogues between a Samaritan
and a Jew about ‘this mountain’ (Gerizim) as compared with
Mount Sion, existed among the Talmudists, and It was the
custom to place the scene a t the foot of the former near Shecheni.3
SYCHAR (T.v.) appears to have been an opprobrious name for
Shechem (sey 8 54 ). it adapted itself to the dialogue on ‘the
living water. (>)’Js ;or the alleged familiarity with Capernaum
and its ‘sea,’ it reduces itself to this, that the writer knew
Capernaum to he on the sea-shore, so that people would ‘go
down’ to it, and knew that the sea was large enough to allow
men to row-under stress of weather and not necessarily in a
straight direction-for (6 19) ‘twenty-five or thirty furlongs.’
Passing to ‘obscure and conteste:’ places we find (6) in (323)
‘Bnon near to Salim ’ [the var. loc. Salem’k cited] (i.e., Foun.
taiks near to Peace’), a reference to the Baptist’s urification by
water as a preparation for the higher purification oFMelchizedek,
king of Salem (or Pew+i.e., Christ. Cp SALIM. As for (7)
the corrupt passage4 relating to Bethesda, Bethzatha, or Beth-
saida, the most probable supposition is that Jn. wished to
describe some place of bathing or purification in Jerusalem
that the Jews themselves (Wetst. ad Zoc.) called a bath&
place by the Greek-derived name pro6at6 (‘ sheep-pool ’), and
that a kindred name appeared to he applied to a pool in Jeru-
salem by Nehemiah.5 Lastly (8) the pool of Siloam, and its
spiritual interpretation-which Jd introduces in the healing of
the man horn blind, the type of the converted Gentile world-
would he known to every reader of Is. 86.
( p ) Numbers-If the man at Bethesda represents
sinful Israel, his 38 years of waiting might correspond to the 38
years that elapsed before Israel (Deut. 2 14) ‘went
47. Its over the Brook Zered.’G The 153 fish, according
numbers. to Philonian principles,‘?would mean (as explained
by Augustine) the Church as evolved from the
Law and the Spirit. The 6 water-pots ‘containing 2 or 3 firkins
apiece’ (after the Jews’ manner of purifying) represent the
inferior dispensation of the week-days-i.e., the Law-preparing
Further, how little security there is that names would he
accurately preserved in passing from Hebrew to Greek (not to
speak of the gulf dividing an oral tradition from Gospels written
say, A.n. 65.110) may be seen by comparing two books of
in the circumstances most favourahle to accuracy, viz., where
60th lransZate fhe same Hebrew originaZ 69 which errors
might de corrected. Cp ( a ) z Ch. 35815 with (6) I Esd. 18
15 : (a) I e ~ q h(6) Huu?lAas, u.8 : (a) ALpav, ISaLBwp (6) Z a p p a s ,
ESSa~vouso 15. Similar discrepanciesahound in I Esd. andz Esd.
I t was indviiable that variations in obscure Gospel names should
abound a t the beginning of the second century, leaving it open
to the writer to choose that form which seemed most suitable.
1 Neh. 1039 might give the impression that ‘the children of
Israel ’ when bringing their offerings into ‘the Chambers,’ were
allowdd to enter the treasure-house. Mk. 1241 (‘ovev against
the Treasury’) is correct, and so is Josephns (b’3v. 5 2 , Axt.
xix. 61). But no unofficial person was, in Christ’s time, allowed
‘ in the Treasury.‘
2 See the Cine<
of Eusehius
built his part of the
tempie ‘in eight years.’
3 Mor. He6r. on Jn, 420.
4 The RV rendering ‘by the sheep (gate)’ 1s unsupported by
any instance of a similar ellipse in Greek literature, and 1s in-
directly condemned by ,Eusehins and Jerome.
5 See Neb. 3‘15 6 the pooZ of thefleeces for the,she?ring
of the king. Sheel;’ in Philo (I 170) represent the irrational
passions. The sick man in Jn. typifies sinful Tsrae! (Jn. 514
sin no more’) waiting for the intermittent purification of the
Law (typified by the intermittent pool).
6 ‘Thirty-eight ’ does not occurin the whob of the Bi6le except
in these twoplaces.
7 The Law=ro (the ten commandments): the Spirit (Rev. 14
31 etc.)=7. According to Philo (1 IO), the fulfilment of any
potentiality, say 3, is 1+2+3 ; the fulfilment of 4 is 1+z+3+4.
The fulfilment of 1o+7 (or 17) is I + z + ? . .
. +17. Le. I < ? : -
absurd of course to mbdirn ;;aders; hu<a system& res& of
Philonian interpretation, and not thought absurd by Augustine.
1796
 GOSPELS
the way for the perfect dispensation of the Sabbath-i.e., the
Gospell-of which the wedding feast at Cana is a type. Peter
(21s) swims over zoo cubits,2 a number that represents (Philo
on Gen.522) repentance. The ‘five porches’ in Bethesda
represent the five senses of unredeemed humanity-i.e., the
unregenerate passions-and so the ‘five husbands’ of the Woman
of Samaria represent what Philo calls ’the five seducers,’ who
lead the soul from its union with God.
(7)Quotations.-Quotations from OT (rare in the
Gospel, and non-existent in the Epistle) are condensed
48. Its OT and adapted’to the context. Almost all
quotations, differ both from the Hebrew and from the
LXX, even where these agree. For the
most part, Jn. quotes the OT as illustrating funda-
mental tendencies or pointing to types3
The words (1034) ‘ I said ye are gods’ are taken to indicate
that all men who have received the Word of God’ are in some
sense divine. (8 17) ‘The testimony of two men is true’ means
that in the spiritual world, as in the material, experience is the
test of truth ; so that he who can produce the results he aims at
is proved to he-so far as the province of the action extends-in
the region of truth having the testimony of ‘ t w o ’ (himself and
God, or himself ahd Nature). From first to last this Gospel
ahounds in allusions to the OT and is permeated with Jewish
tradition, but the author seems to have shared in the growing
dissatisfaction felt by Jews with the L X X a t the beginning of
the second century, and to have been largely influenced by
Christian traditions of free quotation.4
(iii.) Styk-The Fourth Gospel abonnds in iteration
-sometimes( a )double, sometimes (0) triple, sometimes
49. Its style.’ (r)
of the same statement expressed
positively and negatively-quite different
- . .
from anything-in the Synoptists.
(1 2 0 )‘ H e confessed, and ( y ) denied not, but (a) confessed ’ ;
f“. .‘
ZOJ) ‘everyone that doeth ill ... cometh not to the>light
hut he that doeth the truth (y) cometh to the Ii4ht ; (10
7 9) I am the door of the sheep. .. I am ( a ) the door. (a) I n
the Baptist’s testimony, and at the heginning of the Gospel, the
iteration (with or without slight variation) is often twofold-e.g.,
131 33 ‘ I knew him not ’ (twice), and cp 3 31 4 23J 6 3 9 5 6 35 48
etc. (p) But not infrequently-with the aid ofquestionandanswer,
or other slight variations which have a meaning besides break-
ing the sense of monotody-the effect of a threefold iteration is
produced, as when Jesus is predicting his Resurrection (1616-
19). where the words ‘ A little while and ye shall see me,’ are
repeated thrice, and ‘a little while’ seven times. So the words
of Mk. and Mt. ‘(cometh) after me’-rejected by Lk.-are
converted by Jn. (1 152730) into a triple testimony from the
Baptist to the pre-existence of Christ.
Westcott rightly calls attention to the triple repetition of
‘these things’ in 12 16, where the allusion is to an unconscious
fulfilment of prophecy; hut in fact the Gospel ahounds with such
instances (33-7 654-57 8 5 5 10 15-18 16 13-16 1334J); and some-
times the repetition refers not to words hut t o acts. Thrice did
Je:us(72837 1244)‘cryaloud (&p&v)’: thrice(65 1141 171)
raise his eyes to heaven, and always as a prelude to some
sublime mystery of act or utterance. The writer implies that
lesus manifested himself to the discinles after the Resurrection
6 y many signs ; but he selects three; and, of the last, he says
(21 I +)‘ This is now the third time .. .’
Numerical groupings, in threes, fives, sevens, etc., are frequent
1 For this mention of 6, in connection with 2 and 3, cp Philo
2 281 : ‘The nuniher 6 . .. composed of 2 x 3 , having the odd
as male, and the even as female, whence originate those things
which are according to the fixed laws of nature. . . What the
number 6,generated, that the number 7 exhibited in full
perfection.
2 The number zoo occurs again (67) in the old tradition
derived from Mk. 6 37 : ‘two hundred peunyworth of bread.’
This is a good instance to show how Jn. may (as often elsewhere)
have retained a n old tradition that adapted itserf t o spiritual
interpretation, as if to say, ‘Not all the repentance in the world
could suffice to 6uy bread to feed, the Church; it must be
received as the free g;fr of God. On the other hand in
mentioning (125) ‘three hundred pence’ (see Philo on Gen. 6’151,
Judas Iscariot unconsFionsly (like Caiaphas, 11 49), testifies to
the comnleteness of the offerins of sweet savour which
represents (as 300 does i n Ph%) th; harmonybetween God~and
man, or the symmetrical body of Humanity, so that it is here
appropriate to the perfect sacrifice of Christ, and the consequent
unity of the Church in his body.
3 Jn. 1924 appears a t first sight to resemble Mt.’s quotations
in being an instance of minute and exact fulfilment. But the
‘vesture’ is the Church, which is not to he ‘rent,’ and there is
also a reference to the Logos, which keeps the Church together
(Phil. 1562) ‘Nor shall he rend his g a m e n f s (Lev. 21 IO), for
the Lo,gos of the spiritual Universe , ..
keeps all its parts in
union.
4 Perhaps also he did not know Hehrew enough to render
the OT with that exact accuracy which was attempted soon
after his days in the version of Aquila. That a writer might be
familiar with Hehrew traditionhut not with the Hebrew language,
is proved by the example of Philo.
1797
GOSPELS
in the Talmudists ; and something similar has been indicated
( 5 34 n.) as present in Mt. But in Jn. we find
60. Jn. a repetition rather than grouping. Now Jn. differs
‘witness.’ from the Synoptists (and shows some resemblance
to the Apocalypse) in being from fiist to last a
‘witness,’ whether from the Evangelist, or the Baptist, or the
Son, or the Father ‘ and it expressly distinguishes between
(3 12) ‘earthly things” and ‘heavenly things,’ to both of which
Christ ‘hears witness.’ Hence we are led to ask whether Jn.’s
twofold iteration may not he a kind of verbal image of the
principle that ‘The testimony of two men is true’ (referring to
the earthly witness of the Son attested by the co-operation of
the Father). Again, the occurrence of threefold iteration in
references to the Resurrection and other mysteries, recalls the
mention (in the Epistle) of the ‘ Three that bear witness OIL
earth ’ ( I Jn. 5 7J) ‘the Spirit pnd the Water, and the Blood,’
whici three ‘make up the on:. Here the witness though ‘ on
earth,’ yet testifies to a ‘heavenly’ mystery, nakely, to the
essence and redeeming powers of Christ. Thus once more, we
are led to ask whether this juxtaposition of tw;fold and three-
fold iteration may be neither accident nor tautological blemish,
hut the result, partly of a style formed in the schools of Jewish
thought, partly of a deliberate purpose to direct the spiritual
reader to distinguish between the things of earth and those of
heaven. And the question is almost changed into an affirmative
inference, when we find Philo commenting on the distinction
(12843) between the Lord’s speakink ‘once’ or ‘twice, and
declaring-in allusion to Dent. 19 15 ( t w o witnesses or three’)
-that (1 243) ‘ A holy matter is proved by three mitnesses.’l
Probably, also, the combination of positive and negative was
based on principles of Midrash.2
It may be objected that such a style would be highly
artificial, whereas Jn.’s style is simplicity itself. Rut,
61. Its
in the first place, -what might seem
ambiguities. artificial for us might be a second
nature for those bred amid Jewish and
Alexandrian traditions of the interpretation of the OT ;
and, in the second, though Jn.’s words are as simple a s
those of Tennysop’s In Memoriam, his styb is not
simple.
There are more ambiguities m Jn. than in all the rest of the
Gospels put together 3 so that sometimes it might almost seem
as if he intended to Lave his readers to choose between several
p,ossible meanings, or even to decide according to their impres-
sions, whether the Evangelist or ’some other is speaking.
Moreover he abounds in subtle variations-impossible to render
in English, and wholly wanting in the Synoptists-hetween
Greek words such as : (21 15 sq.) @ A i r and hyani, ( I Simon,...
1 Cp HOT. Hear. 1 8 4 for a quaint illustration of the ‘twice ’
and ‘thrice’ (the ‘twice’ apparently denoting earthly confirm;
ation, and the ‘thrice’ the ‘holy matter’). Siegfried (p. 168)
gives as a Philonian rule, that ‘Scripture points to a deeper
meaning by doubling pn expuexsion,’ and adds that this is ‘ a
principle of Midrash. It might he a mere accident that Jn,
rejects the Synoptic ‘(Jesus) answering said ’ and always prefers
‘answered and said.’ But note that in the Synoptists! Christ
always says ‘Verily’; in Jn., alwa$s ‘Verily, Verily. Both
can hardly be right ; for who can believe that Christ used
sometimes one, sometimes the other, and that the Synoptists
by a mere accidental coincidence, rejected all the sayings that
contained the latter, whilst Jn. rejected all that contained the
former’? Yet, if Jii. added the second ‘verily’without additional
meaning, he was guilty of tautology, which Philo calls (1 529)
the vilest kind of ‘macrology ’ (paxpohoyias r b +auhd.rarau
dBosI ravrohoylav), denying its existence in the OT. Moderns
may think this a trifle ; hut the question is, not what they think
put what was thought by a Jew A . D . 95.115. To him, no word
i n ‘ Scripture ’ could be trifling.
This distinction between the heavenly and the earthly, repre-
sented by threefold and twofold rhythms, is perceptible at the
very outset (1rJ), where the three clauses about the Logos,
followed by their summary in one clause-suggesting the Three
‘heavenly’ Witnesses, who are One-are followed by the
account of the ‘man, named John,’ of whom it is twice said
that he (1 7$) ‘came to hear witness of the light.’
2 On the Positive and Negative, see the Canon of Sohar, a
treatise of suspicious origin hut containing very ancient elements
-(Gratz, Hist. 416), ‘All laws of the Torah . . resolve .
themselves into the mysteries of the masculine and the feminine
principle (positive and negative). Only when both parts meet
together does the higher unity arise.’ As regards what may be
called the Can:n of the Twofold witness, see Schattg. (2362)
(on Ex. 31 16): It (the Sabbath) ismentioned twice because of
the Shechinah d o v e and below,’ Le., in Johannine language. tfi
attest it in the name of the Son and of the Father : and see the
comment on Gen. 5 I (ib. 1671) : ‘Behold t w o Adams are named
in this section : one is the mystical ceZesfia2, the other is the
mystical terrestrial’ So Philo (on Ex. 25,13 14) speaks of ‘duo
verba divina’ or ‘dupZicis ntnndi rationes.
3 The first chapter alone suffices to prove this ( 1 3 5 9 1 5 1 6
50). Especially difficult is it to decide whether his verbs are
used affirmatively, interrogatively, or imperatively (5 39 12 19
I 15 18 27 16 31 20 29) : and his ZTL may often mean ‘ that ’ or
ftecanse (3 21 5 28 7 ga etc.).
2
1798
 GOSPELS
bvest [byaaalsl thou me?’ followed by ‘Simon , .. art thou
wyfriend ‘rhrkl ? ’) and (2.)oZSa and ~ L U O U K(‘WThou knowest
?
[oZSa~lthat am thy friend [$rhGI ’ followed by ‘ Thou knowest
(02Sasl all things thou understandest [~LU&TKELS] that I am thy
frien4 [+ihQl’). ’ Similar distinctions are drawn between the
meanings of a 0 4 and ap&uuw, between Bewpsiu, &+u8ar, 1Sr;u
a n d Bhdmcv and between the aorist and present and subjunc-
tive.1 All d e s e are natural in an Adxandrian J e k familiar with
Shilonian philosophy and so long habituated to Greek as to
be able t o play on its words and ntilise to the Utmost its minute
differences of grammatical expression.
(iv. ) Strzcctzwe.-( a ) The GospeZ, as a whoZe.-The
Fourth Gospel (Westc. on Ju. 121)‘begins and closes
62. Its with a sacred week.’ The (week’ has
systematic to be deduced from a careful reading of
structure. the context. But this is a characteristic
of the Gospel, distinguishing it from the
Apocalypse. In the latter, symbolism is on the sur-
face : in the former,. latent. The word ‘ seven ’ occurs
about .fifty-five times in the Apocalypse (e.g., ‘seven
spirits,’ ‘ stars,’ ‘ angels,’ ‘ vials,’ etc. ) : in the Gospel
never. None the less, as might be expected in a work
that opens with the words ‘ i n the beginning,’ so as to
suggest a parallel with the seven days of Creation and
Rest, the thought of the perfect ‘seven’ pervades all
Jn. ‘s highest revelations of the divine glory.2
There are seven miracles or ‘signs.’ There is a sevenfold
witness (West. xlv.) of ( I ) the Father, (2) the Son, (2) the Son’s
works, (4) Scripture, (5) the Forerunner, (6) the Spirit, (7) the
Disciples. In the final discourse-a Deuteronomy in which
Jesus reviews his ‘testimony,’ the clause T a k a AehdAqKa 6pTv
(which occurs nowhere else in the Gospels) is repeated seven
times. So is the noun ‘love ’ (which the Epistle mentions as
the very Name of God).3 Lastly the sacred words, I AM
used (8 58) absolutely to represent ;he eternal being of the Son:
are combined with seven predicates to represent seven revela-
tions : ( I ) the Bread, (2) the Light ’(3) the Door, (4) the Good
Shepherd, ( 5 ) the Resurrection anh the Life, (6) the Way, the
Truth, and the Life, and (7) the true Vine.
(6) The D e t a i b . - ( ~ ) The Prologue is based on
ancient traditions, describing Wisdom as having taken
63. Prologue. part with God from the beginning in the
creation, and predicting the accomplish-
ment of God’s ‘ truth and grace,’ and the ‘ tabernacling ’
of his glory among men.5 These traditions Jn. con-
centrates on Christ. Only, instead of calling hiin
Wisdom, he prefers the term Word,Gmore commonly
used in the OT.
The Synoptists begin their Gospels b y saying in effect (Mk.)
‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ . ..was John7
(g ~ E T O’IW&UV~S)),’
or by tracing the descent of Jesus to (Mt.)
Axraham or (Lk.) Adam. Jn. goes farther hack, saying that
. .
the Word ‘ w a s (3.) in the beginning, and , was God ’ and
that the ‘man’ John merely (Westc. on Jn. 16) ‘arose, or’came
into existence (EY~UETO).’ H e then turns to nature and history.
‘What has been ( Y ~ ~ O YinEthe
Y ) Word,’ he says, ‘was (qv) Life,
1 E.g. 10 38 : b a yv&f K a k yrv6ucqse ‘that ye may know and
grow in knowledge.’ A difference isalso kept between T L U T ~ W U L
and murduwui.
2 There are indications that Jn., in writing his Gospel ahont
the New Genesis or regeneration of man had in view the
Great Announcement of Simon Magus, whd (see below, $ g ~ ) ,
allegorising the Pentateuch, discerned in the five books a refer-
ence to the five senses and in the whole a description of the
second creation. If so,’it is to the point to remember that the
Talmudists (Schattg. ii. 363) found a mystical meaning in the
sevenfold repetition of ‘the cloud’-i.e., the Shechinah-in the
Pentateuch.
3 Owing to the variation of MSS, it is impossible t o speak
with certainty as to the repetition of b Os& as the subject, repre-
senting the divine Creator. There is fair evidence, however,
for its sevenfold repetition, and still better for that of 8v in the
words of Jesus, e.xpr.ess?ngthe divine unity.
4 Prov. 81-36 Job 2812.28. The latter declares that God
alone ‘hath seen and declared (&sv mi &y+uaTo)’ wisdom.
6 Mic. 7 20 Ps. 85 9-11.
6 Thus he leaves it an open question-to be answered in what
follows concerning the person of Christ-as to the nature of the
Word. ‘Wisdom’ would have closed the question by giving it
a too narrow answer. Note that Jn., alone of the Evangelists,
never uses the word ‘ WiSd07n,’ though it is found (four times)
in the Apocalypse. H e regards God as a Spirit, permeating,
attracting, and harmonising all that is, and especially all that
is in the sphere of righteousness. To call such a beiyg
‘Wisdom’ would be bathos. In the Epistle he prefers ‘Love.
7 W H vol. ii., on Mk. 1 I , say that ‘several fathers’
connected the words thus, and this is by far the least harsh con.
nection, whether the parenthesis (1 2J) be considered genuine
or not.
I799
GOSPELS
and the Life was (&) the Light of men.’l Alluding to the
name bv which the Tews called the Messiah..(the Comer h ;nv&
p ~ v o ? ) j, n .
~ ~ ~~~~
tells us ;hat the Light bas beede&-f%m‘thirg;-
ginning (19) ‘coming’ to the world, but that at last, as the
Psalmist had predicted, the Word ‘tabernacled amonp men,
and they beheld his ‘glory.’ But what ‘glory’? Not t h a t of
material splendour hut that of ‘grace and truth.’z These words
introduce a paralfelism with the OT.3 The same Logos wbo
has given light and life to men has also given ‘grace’and ‘truth’
t o Israel; (1 17) ‘The Law was given through Moses, thegrace
(thereof) and the trrrth (thereof) were through Jesus Christ.’4
See TRUTH.
Having prepared us by a parenthesis (1 14, ‘the glory as of
an only-begotten’) to conceive of an ‘only-begotten,’ and of a
‘glory’ in the unity of divine love, exceeding all Hebraic notions
of the splendour of prophetic signs or visions and all Hellenic
notions of wisdom, he now concludes by saying that it is not
(as Job had said) God who has ‘declared ’ Wisdom, it is (1 18)
the Only-begotten in the bosom of the Father who has ‘declared
(&$qy$uaTo)’ God.
( 2 ) The Bridegroom. - This section contains the
Doctrine of Water : Ist, the Water of the Law super-
54, Doctrine of seded by the Wine of the Gospel ;
znd, the Water of Purification ’ from
water’ above’ ; grd, the Water of Life that
quenches the soul‘s thirst. The three scenes of these sub-
sections arc severally Galilee, Jerusalem, and Samaria.
(u)Galilee. After a period of ( 1 2 9 3 5 4 3 2 r j six
days comes the wedding-feast at Cana 6 where Jesus the un-
acknowledged Bridegroom of the Chnrci, after first doiAg justice
t o the ‘purification of the Jews,’ bids his ministers draw forth
from the well 6 the water which the Governor of the Feast pro-
nounces the best wine.7
( p ) Jerusalem. The next act of the Bridegroom
1 For the connection, cp Ps. 36 g, ‘y t b thee is the fountain
of life: in thv ZiPht shall we see licht. Also note the distinction
betwein t h a i which ‘ha5 been aGd is (yiyoucv)’ in the Logos
and that which ‘came into being (2yiuero)’ throzgh the Logos:
The former is permanent, the latter transient. This distinction
is lost in the punctuation of the AV, ‘was not anything .~ made
that was made?
2 Ps. 859.11 after mentioning ‘glory,’ ‘tabernacle,’ ‘mercy’
or ‘grace,’ a n d ‘ truth ’ goes on to personify these virtues and to
describe Truth as ‘rfsing up’ from the earth, and Righteous-
ness as ‘lookin5 down’ from heaven. This enables us to under-
stand the spiritual meaning of (Jn.151) ‘ f k e angeZs of God
ascending and descending on the Son of man.’ They are ‘grace
and truth,’ ‘peace and righteousness,’ looking down from heaven
and rising <p from earth. Thus was fnlfilled the promise im-
plied in (Gen. 28 12) the vision of Bethel when Jacob rested on
the stone which was afterwards ‘anointed ( ~ ~ L u T ~ the s ) , ’type
(Just. Tvph. 86) of, Christ. Proljably 86ta &S (for So.$&
WS) should he read with the Valentinians (Iren. l85), cp Orig.
Cels. 668, where the context necessitates S6.$a, though the text
has been conformed to T.R.
3 Light, corresponds to ‘truth,’ as every Jew would feel who
thought of the high priest’s Urim and Thuminim (‘light’ an{
i truth ’), and of Ps. 43 3 ‘Send out thy light and thy truth.
Again, the life of man: says the Psalmist (305), is in God’s
‘favour (BcA+mn, more often x&pp~s).’ Hence what from the
point of view of nature may be called ‘light And lifk,’ will be
from the point of view of the Law, ‘truth, and favour, or g r a d
‘?&. Byu. ‘the prophets having fheir grace from h i h
56
ie., Christ. Fo; the curious expression (1 ‘grace for grace’
16)
-;.e., apparently ‘grace following grace,’ i.e., one ‘grace’ or
‘favour,’ after another-cp PhiZo, 1 3 4 2 , ‘constantly bestowing
his graces one after another (: opiuas bhA+Awv)’ (possibly
based on some Jewish tradition atout the repetitipn of :gface
in connection with [Zech.471 ‘the head stone, @ iuorqra
x & p ~ r o sX&pwa a h + . )
6 Orieen takes Candh) to mean ‘vurchased uossessions’:
hut it &ght mean (Kj$ ‘jealous’ or ‘;ealous ’ a &ord applied
only to Yahwb as the husband of Israel. The Leaning ‘zeal’ or
‘jealousy’ suits the context, and also (2 17), ‘The zeal of thine
house ’ etc.
6 ‘ krom the well not from the vessels.’ So Westc. ad Zoc.
7 Philo, 1296 : ‘hb that hath received from God, directly (or
indirectly, through an algel), draughts of wine (&K~&Tou),will
not drink out of a cistern. See also his comment on Gen. 16 7,
and his description of the Therapeutae as (2 485) ‘intoxicated
(ps8uuBe‘ur~~)’ with the wine of the divine love of God. Add
also (1 103) ‘ Melchizedek’ bringing forth bread and wine
instead of water,’ and (1 683) the truly great High Priest, the
Cupbearer of God, who, having received the draughts of grace,
gives them in turn, pouring forth the libation in its fulness,
namely himself.’ For the ‘six’ vessels and the ‘two or
three firkins ‘see above $ 47. According to Westcott‘s new,
adopted ab&e, the wder in the vessels ‘remained water,’ but
the water aftemuards drawn from the weZZ became wine ; so
that the filling of the vessels was a purely emblematic act.
This fact, the context, the structure of the Gospel, and the
traditions. of Philo, combine to indicate that the whole of the
narrative is spiritual and emblematic.
1800
 GOSPELS
is to a t t e m p t to win back a n d purify the unfaithful
d a u g h t e r of Jerusalem, typified by t h e temple. The
Synoptists, f r o m the h u m a n standpoint, describe t h e
temple as ’ a d e n of robbers ’ ; Jn. 2 1 6 , as a ‘ placg of
merchandise ( < p d p ~ o v )’ .
Herein Jn. seenu to be following the prophets, who called
Tyre (Ez. 27 3 Is. 23 17) ‘ a place of merchandise ( Q ~ T ~ ~ L O’ of
the nations-ie., as the Hqbrew in the latter passage expresses
it, she ‘played the havZd. T o Jn. the greedy ‘merchandise
of the priestly monopolists in the temple appeared a kind of
‘idolatry’ (cp. Col. 3 +;.e., unfaithfulness to the Bridegroom
-and he represents Jesus as devoured by ‘jealousy (<$has)' for
the House of God--i.e., for the true Church (his bride and his
body)-and as predicting that, even thoygh men might destroy
it, it should be raised up in ‘three days.
Closely connected with this attempt to purify Jerusalem
(Ezek. l(iI5-35), ‘the harlot,’ comes the mention of a new birth
by ‘water and the Spirit.’l It is introduced as a doctrine of
‘earthly things’-i.e., as a rudimentary one-and ininculcating it
Jn. seems to he assuming baptism with water, and insisting on
baptism with the Spirit also. The full purification, which
requires ‘blood’ (I Jn. 5 8 ‘the Spirit and the water and the
blood’) is yet to come; but it is faintly suggested by the(Z4)
‘hour,’ and (3 14) ‘the (brazen) serpent.’Z
(y) Samaria. F r o m unfaithful ’ Jerusalem the
Bridegroom passes to unfaithful Saniaria (the w o m a n
with t h e ’ five h u s b a n d s ’). S h e , too, like t h e H o u s e of
J a c o b of old (Jer. 213-25). h a d played t h e harlot ‘ w i t h
many husbands,’ a n d h a d g o n e t o t h e waters of Shihor
to slake her thirst, h a v i n g forsaken the L o r d , ‘the
fountain of living waters.‘
T h e dialogue takes place near Jacob’s well. I n Philo the
‘well and the ‘ fountain ’ represent different stages of kAow-
ledge. The well of Agar represents a lower stage than that of
Rebecca; Rebecca (1249-5j) supplies the camels from the
‘well,’ but the servant ,from the ‘fountain,’ because the .latter is
(1255) ‘ the holy word. The highest and best well of all is the
Father of all, the Fountain of life ez,er-~owing(~8vaoi).5In
Jn. we find a place called (4 5 ) Sychnr or ‘drunkenness,’ prph-
ably an opprobrious name for Shechem (see $ 46a), alluding
to (Is. 28 1-7) ‘the drunkenness of Ephraim,’ 6ut in any case
suited to the moral of the dialogpe. It is (45) ‘near the place
that Jacobgave to Joseph his son. This is explained by Philo.
Shechem (‘shoulder’) has two meanings; in connection wit$
Gen. 40 1.5, w!,,,, ‘a certain athlete’ becomes a ‘husbandman,
it indicates labour ’; but when it is mentioned as given lo
.Joseph, it means (1 92) ‘the bodily things which are’the o6jects
of the senses; .Jesus (Jn. 46), ‘wearied of his journey, sat fhas
ai the weU. So Philo (18g.fi) says that Moses ‘sat a t the
rueZl’-not in a cowardly retreat, but ‘like an athlete recover.
ing breath’ for a new attack-an ‘interesting parallel to the
position of Jesus before his attack on Samaritan unbelief. I t
was (46) ‘about the sixth hour -the hour described by Philo
(on Gen.181) as fittest for the revelation of divine truth.
The woman of Samaria, coming to draw water from Jacob’s
well, received the rebuke from Jesus (418) ‘Thou hast had
five ?ybands, and he whom thou now hakt is not thy hus-
Philo says (on Gen.36) that woman is symbolically
Fthe
d .sense (sensus),’ and (1 131) ’ There are two husbands of the
senses one lawful, one a seducer’ ; but he proceeds to’say that
‘the &ducer’ acts through f h e f i v e senses; he also (1 563) con-
nects ‘having wany Itcrsbands’ (cp Jer. 223, rrohvav8piq) with
‘having many gods,’ and speaks of (1 609) those ‘ enamoured of
many gods,’ who know not the one Husband, namely God.6
1 Cp the introductory words in the same passage of E z , l F 3f.,
.
‘Thus saith the LorJ thy God unto Jerusalem. . neither was!
thou washed in w a f e v to cleanse thee; thou wast not snr’ted.
‘Salt’is symbol of the Spirit. Mk.949 speaks of ‘salting’
with ‘fire. , , . a For(jn. 4 46-54)the healing of the nobleman s son compared
a See Philo, 180, on ‘the brazen serpent’ (the enemy of the
serpenf that came to Eve); it is (ib. 315, 377) ‘the strongest
virtue. For the apparently abrupt transition that ensues from
‘the serpent’ to ‘the living water,‘ see Philo, 1 8 2 ; ‘The one
is healed by the Braeen serpenf, the other is caused to drink
that most excellent draught, Wisdom, from the fotcntain which
he brought forth from his own wisdom.
3 The statement, that ‘(Westc. Jn. p. Ix) ‘there can be no
question as to the individuality of the discourse with the woman
of Samaria,’ is perfectly true, if ‘individuality’ means unity of
style and purpose. It is practically certain, however, that the
dialogue did not actually occur in the exact words recorded by Jn.
For ( I ) no disciple (48) was present; and, even if we assnme that
the Evangelist received an account of the dialogue from.Jesus
himself, ( 2 ) both Jesus and the Woman of Samaria talk in Johan-
nine style. The sa,me applies to the dialogue with Nicodemus.
4 I.e., ‘the Nile.
5 Cp a tradition on Joel 3 [4118 Schattg. 1361 : ‘ A s the first
Gael caused a well to spring up, SA
shall a second cause waters
to spring up’
6 What IS the sixth husband (Jn. 4 r8), ‘he whom thou now
hast’? Philo speaks (26) of the ‘six powers’ of turbulence,
y m e l y , the five senses and uttered speech,’ of which the last
prates with unbridled mouth of countless things that should not
1801
GOSPELS
The woman (Jn. 428) ‘left her water-pot (SSpiav) and departed’
to carry news of the Messiah. Pliilo differs here but in such a
way as to show that the ‘ water-pot ’ is not a mere picturesque
detail. H e says’that Rebecca (1 252) did not, like Agar, need
the &K&, leather skin-Le. the body-to hold the water, but only
the 68 la ‘ water-pot,’ which is a symbol of a heart that can
hold t i e ;upreme draught. Jn.’s view may be that, as Rebecca
V )
needed not the Bu&, so the woman of Samaria, .who had,riseii
.a stage higher, needed not the 66pIa, having received the iu-
dwelling spring of living water.
The seed of the Gospel having been sowii in Sbechem, the
associations of the place are changed. .It is connected no longer
with Jacob but with Jesus (or with Jacob in his higher stage, as
a type of Jesus); no longer with ‘the things of the senses,’ but
with ‘the Husbandman.’l ‘Jesus bids the disciples ‘lift up their
eyes’ to look 011 the fields white already’ with the results of
his husbandry. Immediately the harvest begins. The Samari-
tans come from the city. Some of them had believed, in Jesus
(437) on the testimony of the woman. But Philo saps that it is
characteristic of a false god to exist only ‘by report and con-
vention, and the report moreovey of a woman (1 258; &{,
K a i T& v o p ~ < d a L K, a i &KO$ p&qb yvvarrdq).’ Here it is added
‘that ifterwards the SamaGitans (442) believed ‘no longer owing
to the speaking (hahtdv) of the woman,’ but owing to the ‘word
(A6you)’ of Christ.
’ Jesus returns to Galilee a n d Cana. Thus t h e , cycle
of t h e Bridegroom e n d s i n t h e place where it began,
m a k i n g way for t h e doctrine of Bread.
( 3 ) The Rrea? of Life.2-The healing of t h e sick m a n
at Bethesda o n the S a b b a t h , which represents t h e heal-
56. The Bread i n g of Israel- not unaccompanied wlth
(5 14) warning t h a t t h e work might be
of Life. undone-1s followed b y a statement
t h a t the S o n does nothing b u t n h a t h e sees the F a t h e r
do. H e n c e , when he ‘lifts his e y e s ’ 4 before the
eucharistic sign of the giving of t h e bread, w e a r e
prepared to hear t h a t w h a t he gives, t h e F a t h e r is really
giving. It IS t h e b r e a d f r o m heaven.
By placing the giving of Christ’s flecb and blood early in the
Gospel, and by introducing, much later, the one commandment
of love, fulfilled by Christ on the Cross, Jn gives the impressio I
of a desire to discourage materialistic views of the Eucharht :
(663) ‘The spirit it IS that giveth life, the flesh profiteth
nothing; the words that I habe spoken unto you, they are
spirit and they are life. 5
( 4 ) The L i g h t -The doctrine of Light, t h o u g h
enilnciated in t c e Prologue, a n d touched o n ( a p p a r e n a y
66, The Light. not by Jesns b u t by t h e Evangelist) in
3 19-21, is not definitely set forth b y
Jesus till near t h e m i d d l e of the Gospel (8 I,), ‘ I am
the light of t h e world.’
This revelation is desciibed as being followed by a more active
hostility in the enemies who now (8 37-44) seek to destroy bun,
revealing themselves as the children of the Destroyer. The
depth of darkness (848: ‘thou hast a devil’) draws ont the
fullest light: (858 ‘BeforeAbraham was, I AM’). Then, upon
be uttered.’ I f Jn. wrote in part with a view to contemporary
heresies, he might very well include that of Slmon Magus, who
is said in Acts (8x1) to have held the Samaritans at a very
early period bound in hls enchantments. Justin Martyr testifies
to his mfluepce in Samaria in the first half of the second century.
More probably, however, it means, primarily, religious pride and
ambition (leading to hatred of truth and moral goodness), Rev.
13 5 a mouth speaking great things,’ wbich some mlght Identify
with Simon Magus.
1 Philo i. 92471,quoted above.
with Mt.-Lk.’s healing of the centurion’s servant, see above
(5 17). &%UrhLK,& may mean either ‘king’s servant * or ‘king-
like,’ ‘princely. Origen (perhaps reading @auihiu:or with D),
regards the noblemad as representing Abraham, and the raising
of the son as representing the action of the Logos in raising up
Isaac, as if from the dead. If that is so, the three miracles of
healipg represent the action of the Logos (I) before the Law, (2)
under the Law, 3) outside the L a y This ‘sign’ is wrought
at Cana and is {4 54) ‘the second. It terminates the section
of the dridegroom, and introduces that of health and food, 6r
healing and the Bread of Life.
3 Philo savs that (1 ara) the First.born imitates the Father’s
ways ‘lookiig to his‘archktypal patterns.’
4 Jesus thrice lifts his eyes (G5 1141 17 I ) : when he ( I )
gives the Bread, (2) raises Lazarus, (3)offers the final sacrifice of
praise and prayer to the Father.
5 Words-hut words recei7,ed into the heart-not acts,. nor
miracles, are the climax of Christ’s life among his DiscipJes
before the crucifixion. IIe washes their feet ; but Judas, like
the rest, is washed, and Judas is also expressly said by Jn. (not
by the Synoptists) to have received ‘the sop.’ Neither act
makes them (1,3 11) ‘aUclean. They are ‘clean’ (15 3) ‘ becasse
of the word that he has spoken and they have received;
Judas is not ‘clean’ because he has not received It.
1802
 GOSPELS
an attempt to stone Jesus! he ‘was hidden (&p6pq),l and
went forth from the temple. This and a second (12 36) eclipse
are ‘two witnesses’ against ‘the darkness’ that will not (1 5 )
‘apprehend the light.
Next comes the healing of the Gentile world, typified
by the man who was blind from his birth.
As Naaman was sent to Jordan, so the blind man is sent to
(97) the Pool of Siloam which represents (Is. 86J) the
worship of the true God as distinct from the worship of
false gods (see also Is. 7 3 22 g I I 36 2 ; Nor. He&. 1365
3 292). The Jiidaising inference that the Gentile world must h;
purified by Jewish waters-i.e by the Law-is obviated by the
statement-probably im lying‘ihe supersession of the Law by
(Gem 49 IO) ‘Shiloh’-tEat Siloam means ‘sent.’2 This sign is
altogether different from the healing of the man a t Bethesda
(Israel) who is never said to believe, and who is threatened with
penalti in case of relapse. The Gentile world (9 38) ‘ believes
so that this sign includes the creation of spiritual, as well i s
material, light.
T h e section terminates with a denunciation of the
‘ abiding ’ sin of ‘ the blind ’ who profess to lead others
and who say ‘ we see.’
( 5 ) T h e Life.-The mention of the ‘blind leaders’ John in Ephesns raised a dead man. How, we ask, did this
leads to the mention of the ideal Leader who ‘ knows ’
8,. The Life. ( i e . loves) all that are his, and that,
too, individually(l03 +wvei~a~’Bvopa), about a young convert receives the answer H e is dead.’
so that they are drawn towards him as the Good
Shepherd who does not drive, but leads4
All the shepherds and deliverers of the world that ‘came’
before the Logos are described as (10s) ‘thieves and robbers,’6
1 Westcott has no note here. but the second ‘hiding
(&pd&)’ in 12 36 he translates ‘wa; hidden’ (not ‘hid himself’)
and declares it to be ‘the result of the want of faith’ of Christ’;
adversaries ; and he there refers to the present passage (8 591,
the Shiloh of Gen. 49 IO ; cp SHILOH.
’ 3 Cp Philo (1 382) on the two kinds of ignorance, of which the sorrowing
second fancies that it knows what it does not know, puffed u p
‘with a false notion of its own wisdo,m : this ‘generates deZiberaie
:svil-doing(& lrpovoias b8rmjpara). I t is this proud, complacent,
‘anddeliberate evil-doing(imp1yinghatred and scorn ofgoodness),
.that is, in the Synoptists, unpardonable, and, in Jn., the sin
that ‘abideth &&eL)’-i.e., cannot be effaced. (For p&ei cp Jn.
15 16 I Cor. 13 13.)
4 The true Shepherd and the trne Husbandman (or Vine-
dresser) are connected by Philo (1 300-305) in a discourse about
the husbandry or tendance of the soul. H e distinguishes
between the mire tiller of thk ground (who is [ih. 3011 a ‘hire-
ling’) and the real husbandman (who prunes, or encourages
grawth, as the case may require). So ({P. 304) the ‘shepherd
1s distinguished from the mere ‘keeper. Poets he says (iZ. Apostles’) may imply, according to context, an emphasis laid
3?6), call kings the shepherds,of their people, b;t the title is
rightly reserved for ‘the wise. The difference between Philo
and In. is that the former makes no mention of ‘laying down
life f& the sheep.’
5 If the text IS correct. ‘came (8AOov)’ means(with allusion to
the Come:, or Delivere;) ‘came’in the character of the ideal
. Deliverer. Of Gideon,’?arak, David, as of Abraham, Jn. they had lived for some time, none were living when k e wrote
would say that they (8 56) saw Christ’s day’-Le., they did not
’ claim to be independent, but depended on the id,eal Deliverer.
But this does not explain lrpb epoJ ‘before me. We s p u l d
expect ‘ajartfrom me,’ or ‘setting themselves above me.
A Hebrew qriginal may have caused confusion between ‘be;
fore (in time). ‘before (in estimation).’ and ‘in the d a c e of.
Cp-Ex.-ZO3 ‘before me’‘(mg., Lbeside’me’)~Arjv,1 0 6 3 2 4 419
‘before’ (mg., ‘like’). Or an original Gr. tradition, 66Eav
~ X O V T B P PP)(FLV r p b ;poi3 (cp Mk. 1042 80~0i)vrcs, P p p v with them with the followine (ib. 11-12) ‘mvthical.’ ‘not oerceivine
parall.) might mean ‘before me,’ or ‘above me. Cp Justin,
AjoZ. 12 (Zpxovrap l r p b r f i s b A q O ~ i a s 8 6 [ a vr~p6vres). Since
Christ is ‘the Truth,’ lrpb vjs bA@oias in Justin may represent
a traditional version of the lrp‘pb ;poJ in Jn. Many authorities
omit wn‘o ;a.oP owing to thenerversion of the words bv heretics.
them as “robber:
Gospel, or he did not, a t the time of writing, recognise the
1803
GOSPELS
because they did not understand that ruling implies serving
and even dying. The Shepherd (10 11) ‘layeih down his lif:
for the sheep’ (10 17) ‘ i norder that it may be receiverlagain.
In other words, the Resurrection, or attainment of life through
death, is a law of the spiritual world a part of the Father’s will.
Thus Jn. anticipates the objection that if the Shepherd dies in
conflict with ‘the wolf,’ the wolf is victkous.
Later, the law is restated as the law of the Harvest :
(1224) ‘Except it (the grain) die, it abideth alone, but
if it perish it bringeth forth much fruit ; ’ meantime,
Jesus says (1018) that he has power to take np his
life as well as to lay it down, and these words naturally
prepare us for a ‘sign’ of this particular ‘power.’
Such a sign is afforded by the Resurrection of Lazarus.
(6) The Raising of the Dead.-That marvellous cures (and
not improbably, revivifications) were wrought by the earlies;
Christians is indicated by the Pauline
58. Raising Epistles, by indirect Talmudic testimony
Of dead in and bv earlv Christian traditions. Theri
Gospels. are si&, hdwever, of very early exaggera-
tion arising from misunderstood metaphor.
For example, Apollonius (Eus. v. 18 14) alleges (170 A.D.) that
escape eariier writers-Papias for example -who records such
an act of Philip but not of Jbhn? The arkwer is to he found
in Clem.Alex. (gko), where the apostle, questioping an Elder
‘What death?’ ‘ H e hds died fo God.’ The apostk reconverts
the youth, who becomes ‘ a trophy of resurrection. Similarly,
whereas the churches of Gaul speak of reconverted apostates as
(Eus. v. 145) ‘the dead brought to ire' by the prayers of
martyrs, Irengus (ii. 81 2 ) says that, ere now, in the brotherhood,
‘owing to sore need,’ many have been raised by the prayers of
the Chukh, and this, literally; and it seems highly probable
that he has confused some metaphorical tradition1 The question
arises, how early did such misunderstandings occur ? ‘ The
wicked,’ says a Jewish tradition 2 ‘though living, are termed
dead.’ ‘Let the dead: says OUT) Lord ‘bury their dead.’ In
Chrisf’s commission to the Twelve, Mt. (108) alone has ‘raise the
dead,’ and afterwards (11 5) ‘the dead are raised.’ Yet Mt. de-
scribes Jesus himself as revivifying no one except the daughter of
Jairus, concerning whom Mt. has written (9 24) ‘she is not dead
but sleepeth.’ See JAIRUS. It is probable that Mt. has here
given the actual words of Jesus, or the closest approximation
to them; they were perhaps omitted by Mk.-Lk. owing to their
being first literalised and then regarded as difficult or erroneous.
Lk. as well as Mk. records it is true (7 22) ‘the dead are raised *
but he meets the possible bbjection,”No dead have been raised,’
by inserting the raising of a widow’s son (7 11-r7) immediately
before. Including Jairus’s daughter, he might now plead that
the raising of iwo persons justified the plural ‘are.’ But-
besides the suspicion attaching to the absence of this narrative
not only from Mk. but also from the parallel Mt. which closely
agrees with Lk.-the story snggests a misunderstanding of
metaphor. I n 2 Esd. 9 43p. there is a vision of a woman (Sion)
for the death of her ‘only son’ (the City or Temple).
Christians would assert that Christ (Jn. 2 19) ‘raised up the
Temple,’ or, in the language of Christian psalms and hymns
that he *raised up the only son of the sorrowing widow.’$
Thus the possible influence of symbolism combines with other
causes4 to oblige us to reject as non-historical Lk.’s account of
the raising of the widow’s son. See NAIN.
Gospel as authoritative. The saying has affinities to the Greek
notion that the only lawful kingaom is that of the wise man (see
Philo 2 38).
1 (I) Eusebius, in quoting these words of Ikenzws, prefixes to
them (v. 7 I) ?hi 86, ‘that, (rs he says,’ which (though in ii. 17 6
it introduces a statement attested bv ‘the canonical Acts of the
on the subjectiveness and doubtfulness of what is alleged (see
iv.1546 v.18613); (2) the words ‘owing to sore need ( 6 ~ h~b
b a y i a h v ) ‘ a ply very well to apostasy, hut less well to literal
death ; (3) su%sequently, Irenzsus (ii. 32 4) implies that, whilst
healing of the sick still went on (LGwai), the raising of the dead
was a thing of the past ( $ 8 ~ ... vyipBquav), and that though
( r a o h e r v a v d v huiv &emv laavois). For the date of the
ea[li&in letter, &enteenrh year of ‘kitus Antoninus Pius (not
Jlnrcun Aureliui zhtoniiluz), sce E.qhosilor, 1896 (p. I I I 8).
The carlicr date (by Iengihetiiirg the intcrvnl between Ireiixus
and the Gallican letter) facilitates the theory that Irenzus mis-
understood the metaphor. When Papias records similar acts,
Eusebius by the words (iii. 39 9) Bpvpauiav and rapd8oEov,
appears tb indicate his disbelief in them, a t least if we combine
wh:it wan figurative an~n;ystical,“‘ of \:cry liii;itcd inielligenw:’
a ‘ HErSkh~th,’18, ‘P,ErCshith R;ibh3,’ E. 30. Tlrc npplira-
tion is derived froin E d . ’21 z j , ‘ A n d thou, 0 dcad/u woandm!
wicked one, prince of Israel.’ The interpretation is applied to
?3ccl.9 5 ‘The dead know not anything.’ See an article on
The Rksine of the Dead in the SvnoDtic GosDels’ in The
1804
 GOSPELS
(7)Reserving the historical question for special treat-
ment (see LAZARUS) it may be said here that : in spite
69. Raising of Martha’s inferential statement in 1 1 3 9
the words of Jesus at the tomb (11 41),
of ‘ Father, I thank thee that thou heardest
me,’ imply that the ‘ hearing’ was already past, and the
life of Lazarus was in effect already granted to his prayers.
W e must, however, suppose that the narrative-though
possibly based on one or more of Christ’s actual works-
is mainly allegorical. The great negative reason is the
silence of the Synoptists about Christ’s greatest miracle,
which was, according to Jn., the chief cause of both
( a ) the applause that greeted his entry into Jerusalem,
and (6) the resolution of the priests to slay him.2
The positive reasons are : (I) Jn., adopting Philonian tradi-
tions of style and expression, and writing on the lines of the OT,
might naturally subordinate the literal to the synibolical. For
:xample, Philo calls ,the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib (1 70)
mythical (rruOPGes). If such was Jn.’s view, he might well
think himself justified in composing a single symbolical story
that might sum up a hundred floating traditions about Christ’s
revivifying acts in such a form as to point to him as the Consoler
of Israel and the Resurrection and the Life of the world. ( 2 )
The na&e of Lazarus suggests symbolism. Another form of
it is Eliezer, who is, in Philo (1 481), the type of a being ‘ Ziabb
to dissozution and (indeed) a corpse,’ but ‘held together and
kidzed into Zzye (<wolrup&ai) by the rovidence of God.’ (3)
Lk. and Jn. alone mention Martha ancfher sister Mary. They
appear to differ in their views of the sisters; possibly they
differ as to the brother Lazarus.3 Some early writers took Lk.’s
L a u r n s to he a real person ;4 and it is easy to see that traditions
about the Lazarus of Lk. may have prepared the way for the
Lazarus of Jn. ‘Jesus ’ it might he said raised many from the
dead. hut concerning &e, Lazarus by &me he said (Lk. 1631) :
“ If h e y believe not Moses and the propheis, neither will they
believe though one rise from the dead.”’ The next step would
he to say that this prediction was fulfilled : ‘ Lazarus was raised
from the dead; yet the Jews did not helieve.’5
(8) The Preparation for the Sacrifice.-We pass to
the beginning of (121)the week before the Passover.
The anointing of Christ (12 1-8) is a kind of preparation of the
lamb for the sacrifice, and the coming of the ‘Greeks’ to the
New Temple is hailed by Jesus as a sign
60. Preparation that (122 ) ‘the hour’ of ‘glory’ has ar-
for sacrifice. rived. T i e Voice from heaven, which the
Synoptists place a t the Baptism (where
it), and also a t the Transfiguration, IS mentioned
alone in this Gospel,G as ratifying the act of Jesus
coffin,’( 2 ) ‘the dead man sat up’ (3) ‘he began to speak ’ (4
Jesus ‘gave him to his mother. Similar details are found in
(@) 2 K. 1321 and I K. 1722 $, which describe miracles of
revivification performed by Elisha and Elijah.
1 Those who regard the speeches in Acts as historical would
also have to explain how Paul, in mentioning the Resurrection
omits (1731) the raising of any dead people by Christ and stili
more, how Peter (10 38) when emphasising his acts o i 6heaiing,’
makes no mention of rehvification.
a This has never been explained. Some have suggested that
the Synoptists kept silence to screen Lazarus. But how could
they hope to ‘screen’ one who was known to all Jerusalem, not
to speak of the multitude of pilgrims?
3 As regards the different delineations of the sisters see $ 4 4 .
I n Lk. (1038) Martha comes first as entertaining J e d s , appar-
ently (or certainly, see v. 1.) in her house; then Mary is men-
tioned hut Laearns not a t all. Jn. (11 I ) mentions in order
Lazaris, Mary, Martha. I n Jn. Mary is (6efoore the anointing
is narrated) ‘she who anointed the Lord,’ which implies knowledge
of only one anointer. But ‘1 Lk. (7 37) the only woman that
anoints the Lord is ‘a sinner. Agai:, in Lk. the anointing is
in the hoyse of ‘Simon the Pharisee ; in Jn! in the house of
‘Lazarus. Lk.’s mention (1623) of a Lazarus in connection
with the life after death in ‘Abraham’s bosom’ suggests that
there is some confusion of tradition latent under these differences
and similarities in Lk. and Jn. On the name Lazarus, see
above 5 IO and cp LAZARUS.
4 Iien. .;i 2 4 (see Grabe’s note), Tertull. De Anim. 7 and
the Fathers generally, regard the story as history. Lazahs is
placed by Constif. Apost. vii. 8 7 in the same category as Job.
But those who took this view, no doubt, distinguished the
Lazarus of Lk. from the. Lazarus of Jn.
5 A literal interpretation of the narrative is accompanied by
many minor difficulties, such as the question why Jesus, after
he had been informed of the si,ckness of Lazarus, remained
beyond Jordan (116) ‘two days. From this and from 11 17
Lightfoot infers (BE178) ‘ a journey which occupies three
days,’ Westcott (on Jn. 116) ‘The journey would occupy about
a day.’ There is no solid basis for either conclusion. A full
discussion of the subject would show the mystical meaning
underlying these and other details.
8 Jn. takes pains to show that the Voice was not, in thq
popular and modern sense of the term, ‘objective.’ A ‘multitude
1805
GOSPELS
when he puts and answers negatively the questiqn ‘What shall
I say? [Shah I say] save me from’this hour? By this act,
he virtually fulfills tde Law of Sacrifice, or the Law of the
Harvest, which he has (1224) just enunciated. 1.f (Hor. He6r.
ad Zoc.) ‘the prince of this world ’ is, in Jewish Tradition,
the prince of the ‘seventy’ nations of the Gentiles, there is
eculiar point in the words that follow the introduction of the
‘Greeks : (1231) ‘ Now is the judgment of this world, now shall
the pnnce of fhis world1 he ,cast out ; and I, if I he lifted up,
will draw aZ2 7nen unto me. But as hefore (859), with this
second manifestation of light comes (1236) a second and final
eclipse (&pJ,Bq).
The unstable B ~ h o sor ‘multitude’ of the Jews is now
mentioned for the last time, quitting the stage as the devout
Gentile world enters; and its last words are (1234): ‘Who is
this Son of man?‘
( 9 ) The Deuteronomy. -The public doctrine of Jesus
61. Last ends when he ‘cries aloud’ for the third
Charge. time (see above, 49), saying that his
word will judge the world and that (1250)
his word is the word of the Father.
W e are now transported to a higher sphere, to the
inner teaching of Christ, the revision and summary of
his doctrine, the giving of the One commandment, the
promise of the Paraclete, and the prayer to the Father.
It is a Deuteronomy, full of mystical allusions in which a
numerical symbolism-sometimes veiled, sometimes manifest, as
in the seven times repeated refrain ‘These things have I spoken
unto you’-is prevalent throughout. As Abraham (Gen. 184)
washed the feet of the Three Persons and gave them food, so
now the Son or Messiah (Schottg. 2 61$) repays the debt to
Abraham’s c h d r e n . The Talmudists, spiaking in the spirit of
the prophets, describe (Schottg. 2 370) the ‘mansions and
habitations’ of God as coming to man and Philo speaks of the
Divine word and Powers (i. 249 158i ‘making .their home in,’
and ‘sharing their table with ’ the devout soul, and of (i. 643)
God himself as ‘walking in ’ the souls of the perfectly purified;
So Jn. teaches that the Father and the Son will (1423) ‘make
their ‘mansion’in the heart of the faithful.2 As Philo, agreeing
with the Talmudists warns us that (1 457) ‘place ( 7 6 ~ ~ )does
’
not mean a region’filled with matter, hut God himself, the
refuge of the Universe, so Jn., by his context, teaches us that
the (142) ‘place (&TOP)’ which Jesus will ‘prepare’ for his
disciples is a home in the bosom of the Father.
All these allusive iterations of ancient traditions, and
all the lines of various doctrine, converge towards
Christ in his threefold character of ( 1 4 6 ) ‘the way, the
truth, and the life.’
First, in the doctrine of the Way the disciples are taught to
ray in his name-a clause seven’times repeated.3 Then the
’Truth,’ or the ‘ Spirit of Truth ’ introduced before becomes
the predominant element, leadingio the threefold (lG8)~onviction
of the Spirit.4 The two sections of the Way (or Son) and the
Truth (or Spirit) terminate with a prediction of victory because
the Father is with the Son; so tha: the latter has, in effect,
already (1633) ‘conquered the world. Last comes the doctrine
of the Father himself (the Life), called (171) ‘Father,’ (2‘6. 11)
‘holy Father,’ and finally (8. 25) ‘just ’ or ‘righteous3 Father.
Here ‘my name’ ceases and ‘ t h y ,a&’ is introduc<d. Finally
-with repeated references to the Church as being (172 6 7 IO,
etc.) ‘that which’or ‘those whom’ the Father hath ‘given’to
the Son-the Last Words terminate in an outpouring of the Son’s
devotion to the ‘rightqous Father,’ wherein his ‘name’ is, in
effect revealed as ‘love : (1726) ‘ I have made known unto them
thy Lame, and will make it known, that the <me wherewith
thou Zovedst nte may be in them, and1 ik then:.
was present. Those who heard anything dit! not hear the true
thing. They heard ‘thunder’ or ‘an angel. See Griitz, 2 341,
for the decline of the authority of the Bath-Kol.
1 Cp Lk. 1018 ‘ I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from
heaven.’ uttered i n the return of ‘ the Seventv.’
2 Cp’IS. 5115.
3 14 13 14 26 15 16 1623 24 26 (15 21 is obviously to be excluded).
4 The Paraclete or ‘friend called in to help,’ is connected by
Philo sometimes (ii. 247) with the Elenchos, or Convicting
Power, sometimes (ii. 155, 227) with the high priest entering
God‘s presence to represent the Cosmos, but perhaps more often
with the Spirit of the ideal Cosmos (the name Logos being given
to the High Priest, see i. 501). Sometimes (ii. 227) the Priest
appears as interceding with the Father of the Cosmos hut
calling to his aid the Son of the Father. Philo does not)bind
himself to one form of ex ression. The Elenchos is called (ii.
247) Paraclete ’ (i. 219) god‘s own Logos ; (i. 195) the ideal
Man or Man kcording to Truth (6 lrpbs bh;rOsrav dv0 W ~ O S ) .
The ’whole of Jn.’s last discourse shows Philonian iniuence ;
but (as usual), whereas Philo regards the intellect, Jn. regards
the heart-aconseauenceofthe belief of the latter in the incarnate
Logos.
5 Gkacos in Jn. and I Jn. 1 9 2 I , etc.-instead of having the
narrow legal meaning implied in the Synoptists Mt. 119 Lk. 1 6
Mk. 2 17, etc.-means ‘just’ in the Platonic sense, and is f h
dimax of the aftri6utes of God and Christ.
1806