Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/854

Rh 830 and gave up His breath” (or spirit). Thus the meaning both in the Gospel and in the Epistle appears to be the same. (1) Jesus took unto llimself not only (a) the dead ileshly nature of man, typiﬁed by water, but also (L) the life and passions of man, typified by blood, and (P) that higher life of man (in virtue of which he is described as madein the image of God), typiﬁed by the spirit. (2) In these three departments of existence He made three several sacrifices, pouring forth (a) water and (6) blood from His side, and giving up (c) Ilis breath as the last sacriﬁce of all.‘ (3) Thus these three sacrifices betoken three several puri- ﬁcations:—(a) the purification, by water, of the body in baptism; (b) the puriﬁcation of the soul by the death of the lower nature (what Paul calls “ the old man”), which partakes in the death of Christ; (c) the puriﬁed life of the soul rising from the (lead through the Spirit, and living with, and in, the risen Saviour. The two latter puriﬁcations are two phases of the same (the former im- plying dying in the blood of Christ, the latter rising again and living in His Spirit) ; but there is suflicient diﬁ'erence_ to warrant a distinction. (4) These three puriﬁcations go to make up the one perfectly pure and ideal purification and sacrifice for sin, which is the Lamb of God, the lVord (sis 16 Ev <io'w).9' Stress has been laid upon this important passage in the Epistle because it appears to be a key to much that we shall ﬁnd in the Gospel. It reveals an exaggerated notion of the importance of baptism with water, against which the author feels compelled to contend; “not by water only, but by water and blood.” Somewhat in the same way Paul uses not water but earth (Philo using water and earth) to con- trast the natural man, the mere “living soul,” with the “lifegiving breath, or spirit” (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47). But that which distinguishes John from Paul is the use of mystical imagery, arranged with a certain numerical sym- metry. Sometimes the imagery is dual, when it describes incompleteness, such as the conflict between the world and the children of God, between light and darkness, between God and the devil. But in other cases it is triple: he appeals to three classes, the children, the young men, the fathers; contending against three enemies, the lust of the ﬂesh, the lust of the eyes, the imposture (axagovcza) of life, and strengthened in their faith by three witnesses on earth, the water, the blood, and the spirit——all of which dimly tends towards that other triple witness which _has been inserted in the Epistle by later scribes (v. 7), the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. If we could be sure that the Second Epistle was from the same pen as the First, then the very great probability that the “elect lady” a11d the “elect sister” (2 John 1 ; 2'12. 13) represent two churches might prepare us for similar per- soniﬁcations in the Gospel ; yet as this personiﬁcation is disputed by some, we must not lay much stress on it.3 Nevertheless we have seen enough of the nature of the Epistle to be prepared (in passing to the larger work by the same author) for a Gospel of types and symbols, 9. Gospel of selection rather than of continuous narrative, a Gospel in which principles on a large scale rather than indi- vidual characters shall be represented, and in which light 1 A somewhat similar compound sacriﬁce of “ blood" and “ mind" is described by Philo (Allqr/., ii. 15), who represents the High Priest as “' having put off the robe of opinion and fancy, and as coming dis- robed into (the Holy of Ilolies) to make an offering of the blood of life (a'1reTa’aL -rb xpuxucbv alpa) and to offer up as incense all his mind to the God of salvation." 2 No doubt these three sacriﬁces are also connected, in the author's mind, with the three gifts: (1) the water springing up into everlasting life; (2) the wine of the Lord's blood; (3) the spirit which He breathed into the souls of His disciples. 3 Dr Lightfoot (Col. iii. 12) accepts the personiﬁcation in 1 Pet. v. 13 as “ probably " intended. GOSPELS [FOURTH GOSPEL. and d.1r1~:ness, death and life, the word and the world, the water and the spirit, and the spirit and the blood, shall play no inconsiderable part.4 .ln(zlg/.5-is of the Fourth Gospel. As was to be expected from a writer conversant with the system and thought which, for brevity, we call the school of Philo, the prologue of the Gospel opens with a protest against I’hilo’s doctrine of an impersonal or quasi—impersonal Logos. The Logos or Word is at once declared to be (i. 1), not the mere instrument by which the world was made, but the companion of God, and God ; a Light, from the beginning shining in darkness, received by some, to whom power was given to be born of God, but rejected by others who were the children of the ﬂesh. John the Baptist is introduced, in marked distinction from the Word, as a “man ;” not the Light, but a witness to the Light; and the Baptist declares at the very outset of the public life of Jesus (i. 16) that, though the law was given by Moses, the gifts of divine grace and truth came through Jesus, and that He, being the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, has manifested the invisible God to men. The baptism of Jesus by John is omitted ; but John bears witness to the visible descent of the Spirit upon Jesus, adding that it “abode upon Him,” and he hears record that his own baptism with water is but to prepare the way for Him who will baptize with the Holy Spirit ; and that He on whom the Spirit thus descended is the Son of God, the Lamb of God that is to take away the sins of the world. Here, then, at the very outset, we see the thoughts, and one may almost say the (lramatis personcc, of the Epistle re- introduced in the Gospel——light and darkness, the word and the world, the law and grace, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son. The three grades of puriﬁcation are not as yet mentioned ,- yet there is perhaps a side-reference to them in the three grades of the world, z'.e., of impure existence, which are alluded to in the contrast between those who are born “of God” (i. 13) and those who are born (1) of blood, of the will of the ﬂesh, (3) of the will of 1113!]. The narrative of the calling of the disciples implies un- C-allir f lll( l1.-sci} mista.kably that this book is not to follow the common 0 tradition, nor to be a complete narrative, but rather a selec- ‘ tion ; for it only narrates the calling of six of the twelve, and one of these, Nathanael (signiﬁcantly described as a man of Cana, where two out of the eight miracles in this Gospel are to take place), is so far from being universally identiﬁed with one of the twelve that Augustine excluded him from the number. The earlier names are mentioned in the same order as in Papias (see above, p. 820), and suggest the inference that some of these apostles, or their disciples, dwelling in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, furnished some of the materials of which the Fourth Gospel is composed. Two points are further to be noted in this narrative. (1) In order to enhance the dignity of the central character, the writer causes the inferior characters to revolve around Jesus, conversing with and questioning one another, doubt- ing and erring, before venturing to obtrude themselves upon Him (see, besides this passage, iv. 27, iv. 33, vii. ‘27, 40- 43, xi. 16, xi. 37, xii. 20-22, xiii. 24, xvi. 17; and note how, both in xvi. 19 and in other passages, Jesus, after the manner of a king, takes the initiative in addressing His dis- ciples, instead of their bringing their difficulties to Him un- bidden, as they do for the most part in the synoptists). 4 The numerical symmetry that pervades this Gospel is fully recog- nized by Canon Vestcott, who sees “three pairs of ideas” running through the work, and “ seven witnesses ” corresponding to the seven times repeated “I am” (vi. 35; viii. 12; x. 7; x. 11; xi. 25; xiv. 6; xv. 1), and to the seven “signs” of Christ’s ministry on earth, followed by one “sign” of the risen_Christ.