Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/848

Rh 824 Imagine the early Christian teachers and preaeliers, in the cities which wei'e earliest influenced b_v .lexandri:i, brought into contact with the .h-xaiidrian theory of the Logos, or possilnly in some cases (as in that of .-pollos perhaps) themselves trained up in the .‘lexa'idrian tlicor_v, and now superadding to it the belief in an incarnate Son of God—and what would be the consequence? Not, surely, that they would east the Logos theory aside as baseless; for how eoiihl they deny that “ by the Word of the Lord were the lieavciis made”! or how cancel the words of 'isdom in the book of Proverbs (viii. ‘.2‘.’.—30), “ The Lord possesse-l Me in the hegiiiiiiiig of His wa_v, before llis works of old. . . . When He prepared the heavens I was there. . . . I was by Iliin as one brought up _with Him; and I was daily Ilis delight, rejoicing always before Him”? l‘aul might possibly eschew the actual use of the word Logos, as savouring of men's philosophy. and alter the 1rpw'r6'yovos, “ First- begotten," of Philo into -rrpw-r6-roxos, “ First-born," to prevent the inference‘ derivable from the former title, that the Lord, being First-begotten, was not “Only-begotten;" but how could he, or any Christian who believed Christ to be the Redeemer of all inaii- kind and the Eternal Son of God, do other than adopt the Old Testament theory about the Vord of God, and at the same time l’hilo's language, so far as it was personal. while discarding all that was impersonal? If Christ was not identical with the Word of God and the Wisdom of God, then there seemed to follow the intolerable inference that He must be inferior to it; but if H c was identical with it, then the introduction of Philo’s felieitous lan- giiagc into Christian thought was simply a matter of time. The introduction would be a very easy process, requiring nothing but a few omissions of expressions implying passive instrumentality (»..g., the instrumental dative), and the addition of an emphatic protest that the manifestation of the Supreme as Lo'e, even though it were through visible ob_jects,—ycs, even though it were through the Voril of God becoming “ flesh,"—-nevertlieless constituted not an inferior but a superior revelation, the highest revelation of all. To the Logos theory of Philo, which stated that all men were made in the image of the Vord, the Christians could add that, through forgiveness and by faith, fallen mankind was destined also to be raised up and conformed to that Word, so that He was the goal as well as the starting-point, the .0. as well as the A; or, as Paul expresses it, “All things are not only created in Ilim," but “to Him (:1: at’:-r¢$v),” Col. i. 16 (Lightfoot). This is accordingly ex- pressed emphatically in the Fourth Gospel. Although “ no man hath seen God at any time," yet “the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared lliin” (Jo. i. 18); and again, “Have I been so long with you, and hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (Jo. xiv. 9). This is the full Christian development of Pliilo’s doctrine, as applied to the “ First-born” becoming “tlesh." But there is not only no evidence that Justin quotes from any written document exhibiting this development, but rather evidence to the coiitrarv, that his doctrine of the Logos, though affected by the teaching of the Ephesian school, had not yet been imbued with it. For, in speaking of baptism, he calls attention to the fact that, in that rite, God is mentioned only by the name of “ God the Father and Lord of the Universe; for," he continues, “ no man can utter the name of the inctfable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name he is incurably mad" (First Apology, lxi.). Looked at in the light of the context, this vord dppn-ros, “ inetfable," implies a conception of the revelation of God through Christ hardly reaching the level of the Ephesian doctrine, which teaches that, though God hacl never been seen, He had been drclarcd by the only begotten S in, so that whoso had seen Him had seen the Father. lint it is in harmony with what Justin says soon afterwards (Ib. lxiii.), that Jesus is also called “ Angel" and “ Apostle" (compare also lleb. iii. 1); and it harmonizcs well too with the doctrine of Philo, that “ no mortal thing could have been framed in the siniilitude of the supreme Father of the universe, but only after the pattern of the i;e;:ond Deity, who is the Word of the Supreme Being‘ (Solu.tio2is, )'.. . It appears therefore that, although Justin knew certain traditions embodied in the Fourth Gospel, yet 1) it was not real in the church services of the district in the same way as the “memoirs of the apostles”; he did not use the Gospel as an authoritative document; (3) his teaching exhibits less of development than the teaching of the Fourth Gospel. An inevitable inference follows that, if he knew of the existence of the Fourth Gospel as a document, he dil not believe it to be the work of the apostle John. I Paul nowhere uses the word Logos to denote (‘hi-ist; lnit he iises the expression In A6109 'roi3 Xpmroiz in one place (Col. iii. 16) to denote what is more eoinin0nl_v denoted by the Spirit of Christ, the indwelling presence of Christ in the heart manifesting itself in word; cf. Ln. xxi. l5, o'r6)ua Kai a'o',‘>iau. GOSPISLS [rovarii G051‘!-IL. The general conclusion to which we are thus led by the sum external evidence of quotations is that, although some ofci from of the (loch-inc of the Fourth Gospel, expressed in words similar to the words of the Fourth Gospel, was probably current in the Ephesian church towards the end of the first half of the second century, yet it was not by that time widely used, if at all, as an authoritative document; nor have we proof that it was so used till the times of Ircnieus, i.e., towards the end of the second century, by which time the Gospel was authoritativelyquoted as a work of John; and those who so quoted it probably meant by “John” John, the son of Zebedce, the apostle. Internal Evicleizcc. The FOZlI‘l]l Gospel compared wit/a. t/re S5/2io}.li'c .'urrut[i'e. ——In estimating the Fourth Gospel as a history, we must necessarily attach a special importance to those portions. in it which cover the synoptic ground; for these will aﬂbrtl us the best means of judging how far the facts of the life of Christ, as well as the language of Christ, may have been traiisniuted by the author. “'0 will therefore first consider those parts of the Fourth Gospel which afford us an opportunity of comparing it with the Gospels of the synoptists. The first point of comparison is the greater scope of the Fourth Gospel as compared with the other three. It includes all past time in its prologue, and exhibits the ineariiatiou of the divine Word as but one act in the drama of the universe. Nor is its scope in space narrower than in time. The limited scenery of the synoptic stage—Galilce, Samaria, J ud-.ea,—is (in spirit, though not in letter) exchanged here for “the world.” As Philo tells us that the tabernacle ﬁgured the universe, and that the robes of the high priest represented (.l[oses, iii. 12) the ditierent parts of the world, so the High Priest of the Fourth Gospel, though speaking or working in a narrow province of Syria, is always regarded as officiating at the altar steps of the universe, and bearing with Him the destinies of humanity. “The world” is continually on His lips; and John the Baptist is made to proclaim, even at the very outset of the .lessiah’s career, that the Lamb of God will take away the sins, not of “ the Jews,” but of “the world.” It is true that Judaism is not ignored. Prophecy is constantly appealed to ; and the motive. of the Gospel is undoubtedly to show that Jesus is “ the Christ ” (xx. 31), as well as in show that lie is the Son of God. Yet nowhere in the Fourth Gospel is found any marked distinction between the Gentiles and Samaritans on the one side and the Jews on the other, -as if the former imist be neglected for a time (.latt. x. 5; Lu. ix. 52), and as if the latter were entitled to priority in the offer of salvation; on the con- trary, Christ is described, early iii the narrative, as preach- ing to the Samaritans, and the Samaritan faith (far more general than the isolated case of the Sainaritan leper in Luke) serves as a foil to the Jewish iiiibclief. “The Jews,” so far as they are distinguished from others, appear throughout as a nation with whom the writer has no sympathy, as the emblem of rebellious, uiispiritual sceptic- i.~;m.'-’ Viewing the drama at a greater distance of time - than the synoptists, and purposely witlidrawing himself to a still more subjectively distant point of view, for the purpose of unity and compression, the author almost 9 The passages iv. 22; x. 16; xi. 52, though they give a kind of precedence to the Jews, yet treat of the passing of salvation from the Jews to the Gentiles, in the way of climax; and these two or three passages (which occur in dialogue and not in narrative) cannot count for anything against the forty or ﬁfty passages wherein the author, in his own person, speaks of “the Jews” as “inurmuring," “seeking to slay Jesus," “ taking up stones to stone Him," and always syste- matically opposing themselves to Jesus. quot