Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/855

Rh irst DI lion ng ANALYSIS.] (2) The second point is the error of Philip in saying, “We have found Him, of whom Moses in the lav, and the pro- phets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (i. 4:3). Philip introduced with this slightly pompous and erroneous stateinent——in a kind of irony highly character- istic of our evangclist—seems intended as a contrast to the humiliated and wiser Philip of the fourteenth chapter: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?” The next chapter (ii.) opens with a " sign,” of which the symbolism is obvious} The water changed into wine evidently typiﬁes the substitution of grace for the law. It was a common mctaphor among the Jews to express the superiority of the oral tradition to the written law by saying that “the law is water, but the words of the scribes are wii1e”——a metaphor that exactly recalls the words of Origen about this very sign : “ Before Jesus the Scripture was vater, but from the time of Jesus it has been made wine for us” (Comm. in Ev. Jocum, xiii. 60). A somewhat similar comparison of old wine and new wine had been adopted by Jesus Himself to illustrate the differ- ence between His teaching a11d the law of Moses. The identity between the purifying blood of Christ’s sacriﬁce and the nourishing blood of His sacrament is understood even by Justin independently of the Fourth Gospel, and would be a natural inference from the Messianic prophecy (Gen. xlix. 11), which identified the cleansing stream that was to purify the robe of the Messiah with the blood of the grape, declaring that He should “ wash His robe (z'.e., as Just-in explains it, His church) in the blood of the grape.” Therefore, in changing water into wine, the Messiah is, by His first sign, striking the key—note of all that is to come, indicating the object and nature of His work, viz., the supersession of the law by the gospel, and the introduction of a new spiritual nutriment and puri- fication, which shall at once cleanse and strengthen and gladden the soul-all this to be effected by and in Himself through His blood? The prediction here made of “the hour” when the “blood of the grape” should stream from His wounded side is at once followed by a second similar prophecy. After leaving Cana for the passover in Jerusalem (where He puriﬁes the temple by expulsion of the money—changers ; 1 It is true that the symbolism of this “sign” is not indicated in the text in the same clear manner in which the symbolism of the feed- ing of the 5000 is avowed (vi. 32, 33) ; but there is a clear reference to it in the words (ii. 4) “Mine hour is not yet come,” which seem to look forward to the hour when the “blood of the grape ” should stream from the wounded side of Jesus. It may be necessary to point out, at the outset of this analysis, that the language of the Gospel may naturally have been aﬂected, 11ot only by the thought and lan- guage of Philo, but also by what was called the “Asiatic” style, which was prone to metaphor and symbolismi see Lightfoot's Gala- tz'ruzs, p. 362, where we find that Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus (born or converted about 130 A.D.) described John (probably metaphorically) as a priest, wearing the -ire’-ra2ou or high priest’s mitre, and speaks of Melito as a “eunuch,” meaning merely that Melito devoted him- self to Christ (“ propter regnum Dei eunuchum ”). It is noteworthy in this context, that the Epistle to the Ephesians is the only Epistle that appears to contain an extract from one of those early hymns which, as Pliny says, the Christians used to “ sing to Christ as a god,” and this hymn, as is natural, deals in metaphor : “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. v. 14). Probablyfrom some such Asiatic metaphor (that “John, though dead, still breathed in the church”) arose the tradition, of which mention is made by Augustine, that the earth over the apostle’s body still rose and fell with his breath. 2 This narrative may be abundantly illustrated from Philo. (1) He speaks of “ the veritable High Priest," who pours forth a libation of “ pure wine, namely himself” (De Somnﬁs, ii. 27) ; (2) he connects this High Priest with the Logos by describing the Logos as a priest having for 111s inheritance the Eternal (1-bu ¢’iV'ra), a priest of the most high God (see also De Sommiis, i. 37); (3) he speaks of this priest (under the type of_ Melchisedek) as substituting wine for water: “ Melchisedck shall bring forward wine instead of water, and give your souls to drink” (A llegories, iii. 26). GOSPELS 831 see above, p. 827), Jesus answers the request of the Jews fora sign with these words, “ Destroy this temple, and in three (lays I will raise it up.” It is added that He “spake of the temple of His body.”3 It is interesting to note four diﬁ'erent stages of development in the expression of this prediction. The synoptists Matthew and Mark de- clare that a very similar charge (differing only in “I will destroy” and “I am able to destroy,” Mat. xxvi. 61 ; Mk. xiv. 58) was brought against Jesus by false witnesses ; and they give us no hint that the witnesses erred by a simple and natural misunderstanding. Luke, however, who not only wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem (when it would be a common saying that the Lord Jesus had destroyed the temple), but also modified his Gospel in many respects to suit it to the requirements of the changed times, makes no mention of any false accusation. In his subsequent treatise of the Acts he goes a step further ; for there the accusation is repeated (Acts vi. 14), and not denied. Now, lastly, the author of the Fourth Gospel adopts the charge as in the main a true one, or at all events as an inevitable misunderstanding in which His disciples, as well as His enemies, participated. At the same time, this prophecy, like the symbol of the wine, prepares the way for Christ’s subsequent doctrine (xiv. 23) that every man is a temple of God, and that He Himself is that Temple in the highest sense. This doctrine had been taught even before Paul by Philo, who scouts the thought of preparing for the Supreme a “house of stone or wood,” and declares (C'ai7z. and leis Birth, 20) that the invisible soul is the terrestrial habitation of the invisible God. Yet though Philo’s language may have inﬂuenced the language of the Fourth Gospel in such passages as xiv. 23, it is most certain that this doctrine is a necessary inference from the teaching of Christ Himself, who taught us that the body must be “full of light.” There is therefore no essential misrepresentation in this intro- duction of the Pauline doctrine of Christ the Temple or Church. 3 An inference has been drawn from the words Tecrcrepdxoy-ra Kai E5 E’-recrw q3Ko5op.'/101) 6 Val): o5-ros (ii. 20), that because the year so indi- cated would be the same year as that assigned by Luke to our Lord's commencement of His public work, therefore, by their coincidence, the two Gospels mutually support each other. But it seems natural that the writer of this Gospel, an educated Jew, should know both the (late of the commencement of the temple and the date as given by Luke of the commencement of our Lord’s ministry; and it seems characteristic of the author, by details of this kind (and especially by numbers), to add picturesqueness and realism to his narrative: cf. the 200 pence (vi. 7), the 200 cubits (xxi. 8), &c. However, it must 11ot be forgotten that Origen (Comm. in Ev. Jo(mn., x. 22) throughout his long discussion of this passage assumes that the meaning is “in ” 11ot “ during ” forty-six years. And this seems to be the natural trans- lation of the words——“ the temple was built in forty-six years ” (although the dative may be used for duration of time, the aorist hardly permits the English version); and if so, the author is under a mistake in sup- posing that the temple was completed. Yet from this passage (ii. 20), and from other indications of a knowledge of Jewish customs, Mes- sianic expectations, aud the geography of Palestine, it has been in- ferred that the author was a Palestinian Jew. A stronger argument is the author's preference of the Hebrew rather than the LXX. version of the Old Testament (Canon Vestcott quotes vi. 45 ; xiii. 18 ; xix. 37), which certainly shows either that he used the Hebrew version himself, or that the Ephesian doctrine was based upon that version. The knowledge of the country does not seem to exceed what might be attained by any Alexandrian Jew who had spent one or two passovers in Jerusalem and had travelled for a short time in Palestine; and the geographical argument has been unduly strained by such suggestions as that a “ minute knowledge ” of the relative positions of Cana and Capernaum is implied in the expression “ He went down” (ii. 12). The same argument would show that the author of the book of Jonah had a “ minute knowledge ” of the position of Joppa (Jonah i. 3), or that the author of the Acts of the Apostles had a “ minute knowledge ” of the places from which he or Pa11l “went down ” to Attalia, Troas, or Antioch (xiv. 25; xvi. 8; xviii. 22). Any traveller might know that Capemaum was i11 the low-lying basin of the Jordan, down on the edge of the sea of Galilee, without having a “minute knowledge” of its position relatively to the inland villages of Galilee.