Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/850

Rh 826 art, about .Iark’s detail than about J ohn’s. J ohn's on1is- sions and additions‘ all point to one object, the desire to heighten the Logos and to subordinate the disciples and the crowd. Mark begins by saying that “Jesus had compassion on the multitude;” but the Logos, knowing beforehand “ what He would do,” determines His course at once as soon as He “lifts up His eyes” and discerns the multitude. In Mark, the disciples come to Jesus beg- ging Him to send the multitude away; in John, it is Jesus who first “proves” one of the disciples with the question, “Whence shall we buy bread that they may eat?” Then (giving a picturesque variety to the story) Andrew, as well as Philip, and a servant—lad (7rat8uipwv) are introduced, the latter carrying the vialicum of the apostles. The leaves, a new circumstance not found in the synoptists, are of a11 inferior kind, “barley;” and Andrew bases an expostulation on the smallness of the provision. After the command to “ sit down,” Mark says that they sat “ down on the green grass,” an epithet natural enough for a speaker perhaps, but inartistic, because too prominent, in a written narrative. John, on the other hand, tur11s a defect into an excellence, by judiciously con- necting the “grass ” with the command to sit down, so as to enhance the forethought of the wise .Iaster of the feast, who made provision for the comfort of His guests in the minutest details: “Jesus said, Make the men sit down. .' ow there was much grass in the place.” Lastly, in the synoptic narrative, the gathering of the fragments is the spontaneous act of the disciples; but in John, the feast ends as it began, with the display of the wisdom of the _.faster, even in the smallest matters, “Gather up tl1e fragments that remain, that nothing may be lost.” It is scarcely possible to deny that, in the symmetrical man11er in which the story gathers itself around the Logos as its object and centre, the narrative of the Fourth Gospel is far superior to that of the synoptists, and that many of the a. lditional touches of the former are dictated by what has been happily described by Canon Vestcott as “ an instinct- ive perception of symmetry in thought and expression.”1 The same remark applies to the other miracle which John has in common with Matthew and Mark, viz., the healing of the “noblen1an’s” son.2 Every detail of difference in John heightens the dignity of the Saviour. In the synoptic account, Jesus offers to go to the house to heal the youth; in John, no such offer is made, and the nobleman and his companions are accosted with a rebuke, “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” In the synoptists, the man is represented as living at Capernaum, and Jesus as entering Capernaum, so that the father sends but a short distance ; in John, Jesus is represented as remaining at Cana, while the suppliant father journeys thither in person from Caper- naum, a distance of twenty-ﬁve miles. In the synoptists, the father sends a message, praying Jesus not to trouble ‘wlimself to enter his roof, but to “ speak the word only; ” in John, the father piteously supplicates the Saviour to “Come down, ere my child die.” In the synoptists, it is recorded that Jesus “marvelled” ; in the Fourth Gospel, He simply pronounces the authoritative words, 1 The only points in which this narrative can be illustrated by Philo’s remarks (Alleg., iii. 56-8) on the manna are two or perhaps three:—(l) As Philo says that the soul is fed not by earthly food but lay ‘‘words,’' so the Gospel says that “words” are the source of life (vi. 63); (2) Philo, speaking of the manna, praises those who seek the food for its own sake and not for ulterior advantage; compare John vi. ‘.26 on the “loaves and fishes ;" (3) Philo, speaking of the object of the miracle, quotes Exod. xvi. 4, “ that I may prove them;" this may possibly, but not probably, illustrate John vi. 6. 2 It is here assumed (with Dr Sanday, Fourth Gospel, p. 100) that they are the same. The assumption of their difference involves even greater difficulties than the assumption of their identity. GOSPELS [FOURTH eosrr-:1. “ Go thy way, thy son liveth.” In the synoptists, Jesus avails llimself of this incident to proclaim, almost as if it were (and probably it was) a development of His work suddenly revealed to Him by His Father, that many of the Gentiles shall be admitted into the kingdom_; in the Fourth Gospel, which exhibits no development, these words would necessarily seem out of place, and are "omitted. Contrast could scarcely be more complete; and it is not surprising that many commentators, rather than identify such opposites, prefer to suppose that, about the same time in the life of Jesus, two men, both in high positions, had sons at the point of death, in the same place (Capernaum), both of whom petitioned Jesus to heal their children, and both of whom obtained from Him miraculous cure, performed at a distance from the two patients. To some, however, as to the candid author of The Jl.(((]L0"s](r?_'l) «ml I[is(orz'cal C/mractcr of the I"ourtIL Gospel, it will appear more probable that we l1ave the same event, differently described. But those who accept the theory of identity ought to consider how much is involved in it. For the defenders of the differ- ence of the two miracles are undoubtedly justiﬁed in drawing a contrast between them in almost every point of spiritual importance (Augustine, Ev. Jo/z. Tract, 16). If, therefore, the Fourth Gospel is historically accurate, then (on the supposition of the identity of these two narratives) the three synoptic Gospels are historically inaccurate; but if the synoptic narrative is historically accurate, the narrative of the Fourth Gospel must be considered rather a new dramatic version, than an inde- pendent historical account; and the same remark will necessarily apply to, and affect our estimate of, all the accounts of miracles in the Fourth Gospel. Gaining light thus from the comparison of the Fourth Gospel with the synoptists, wherever they occupy common ground, we shall ﬁnd it useful, before proceeding to the summary of the Fourth Gospel, ﬁrst to touch on the few remaining points wl1icl1 the fourth has in common with one or more of the three. Luke contains most of these. For example. if we accept the passages Lu. xxiv.1:?, xxiv. 40, as being not interpolations, though perhaps additions made by the author to a subsequent edition of his Gospel, it will follow that, in the account of the resur- rection, Luke and John agree identically in adopting the traditions (1) that Peter “beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves in the sepulchre ;” (2) that the Lord showed His disciples, after His resurrection, llis wounded body i11 token of His identity. In both these cases several minute details are added by John; and this also applies to another important incident which Luke and John have in common, viz., the “entering of Satan” into Judas. Luke records it brieﬂy in two words (xxii. 3), and makes the “entrance” occur some time before the last supper; but John, in a far more powerful scene, reserves the “entrance” for the moment when the “sop” is handed to the traitor by the Saviour, and the disciples seated at the last supper. Here again the incident is the same; but the treatment is very different. The agony described by Luke (xxii. 44, and, without Luke’s additions, in Mat. xxvi. 39 and Mk. xiv. 35, 36), when the Lord prayed that “the cup might pass from Him,” and when an “angel ” appeared from heaven strengthening Him, may seem, at ﬁrst sight, to have no counterpart in John. And indeed the synoptic description of the agony in Gethsemane is not adapted for the Fourth Gospel. Inserted in any page of that Gospel it could not fail to jar upon us as being out of harmony with the context. Nevertheless, a remarkable passage in John (xii. 27) appears to bear a striking resemblance to the account in Luke: “Now is My soul troubled.” Thus the Saviour