Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/276

JOHN. per on the l.'ith of Nisan. Polycarp niiglit easily have made )iif uppeal to .John and also ccinsidcicd him the author of the Gosijel. The third argu- ment presents a possibility, hut not a probability. It may be said with eonlidence that such a con- fusion of ideas among men who had jiersonal knowledge of Ihc facts is altogether unlikely. It does not appear to have been noticed l)y the ad- vocates of this theorj- that the confusion of John the Presbyter and .John the .Vpostle must then have antedated the Gospel itself; for not only xxi. 23, but the whole book, rests on the supposition or claim that the Apostle John is its authority. But this involves improbabilities that are fatal to the supposition. There must have been sub- stantial reasons for the claim of the Gospel to be Johannine and for the readv' acceptance of it as such by the leaders of the Church in Asia Jlinor. In other words, the activity of John in Asia Jlinor and the conviction that the Gospel rests on him as its authority is the only reasonable explanation of its history as known to us. If the external attestation and the claim of the book itself point unmistakal)ly to the above conclusion, just as certainly do the contents appear to lead another way. How can a book so different from the Synoptic Gospels and with such advanced theological ideas be ascribed to John, the Galilean fisherman? We have here a problem with several elements. There is the question of fact — what is the actual relation of the fourth to the first three Gospels? There is also the element of authorship — to what extent does the book claim to be by .lohn himself — alto- gether, or only in part? Ant} finally, there is the question of the personal qualifications and capaci- ties of .Tohn — what he was able to produce. To say that the theology or philosophy of the book is such that John could not have written it, is to take a purely hypothetical and even arbitrary position. We do not know, and have no means of knowing, what .John could have produced. Some one wrote the book and he was a gifted man. He may as well have been John as any other Christian Jew. That the book marks a stage of th night supplementary to the primitive Apostolic aitd Pauline developments is not to be denied. The existence of such further develop- ment is largely due to this book. The book created, did not result from it. Tf it was by John it simply reflects the growth df his own religious experience. He had lived close to the Master, he had seen the origin and progress of the Church, he had known Paul, and at last had lived for some time in the speculative atmosphere of Ephesus. This book gives his final judgments, his memory of Jesus, his impressions of Him after these years of experience. It may not be necessary to hold that .John wrote the hook as it lies before us. Prof. H. H. Wendt, of .Tena, strongly advocates the view that the Gospel was written by a discijile of .John, who quoted largely from memoranda by the Apostle. By this hypothesis many minor difTieulties in the interpretation are solved, especially of passages where the opinion of the Evangelist seems not altogether in harmony with the words of .Jesus he is reporting. However this may be. the question of the relation of the fourth Gospel to the first three demands very careful consideration. There can be no doubt of the fact that it was written on the supposition that its readers were acquainted with a Gospel history substantially identical with that in the Synoptics. Its own recin-d is frag- mentary, and |iresupi)oses many tilings as well known. At the same time its attUude toward this already current history is one of inde])endeiuc. It follows neither the chronological outline nor the table of contents of the older record. That was occupied mainly with Jesus' ministry in Galilee; this devotes large space to Judea. That gave the record of .Jesus' work among the people; this is largely concerned with His relations to the Jews or to His own disciples. In this the speeches and conversations of Jesus hold the supreme place, and their phraseology and general content are quite diflerent from what we have in the other record. And when the fourth Gospel crosses the path of the others, as it does at certain points, there are marked differences in the details presented. In the one, the conscious ness of His divine origin, the open declaration ot His Jlessiahship (at least to certain individuals and circles), and the insistence on the cteniil value of His personality and of the truth He proclaimed were characteristic of .Jesus' ministry from first to last; in the other these matters were held in reserve until the later portion of His ministry or not expressed in the terminology of the fourth Gospel. Yet the difference is, after all, one more of form than of substance. It must be admitted that the words and teachings of .Jesus in the fourth (iosjicl passed thrcmgh the mental and spiritual laboratorv of the Evangelist before he set them down. In form, they may savor more of the disciple than of the Master; in substance, they reveal the living and abiding impression made by personal contact with .Jesus on one of the ric'hest spiritual natures the world has known. If .John gives us an overstatement, with equal truth it may be said that the Synoptics may give us an understatement: the cold historical truth lies midway between both delineations. III. General CoNci.rsioxs. In view of all the facts of the case, the fourth Gospel may be said to be the work, in substance at least, of the Apostle .John, written toward the end of his life at Ephesus primarily for Christian circles, to give them an adequate conception of Jesus. The work was written when speculation was rife. Gnosti- cism was beginning to manifest itself. Terms such as "Logos," adapted from Alexandrian Jewish philosophy, were being used in Christian circles. The central truths of Jesus' unique personal sig- nificanee were in danger of being obscured. To counteract such teachings .Tohn wrote his Gospel, prefacing it with the prologue in which be stated his conviction that the one truth that gave life and reality to ideas and speculation concerning the Logos was this, that Jesus Christ was the Logos incarnate, in whom grace and truth, the fullness of the knowledge of God w'as manifest and placed within man's reach. The Gospel so written concluded with xx. .'51, and may have been known for .a time to a limited circle without the con- cluding chapter. But later, possibly not long before John's death or very soon after the work was published, and in order to correct a wrong impression concerning Jesus' words to Peter in reference to .John, the last chapter was added, concluding with the guarantee of the Apostle's authorship of the entire work. Xo sooner was the work known than it met with acceptance, copies quickly finding their way all over the Cliristian world. A small sect, later called the