Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/196

180 acts attributed to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, and the emblematic conceptions of the Alexandrine philosopher Philo, who flourished some sixty or seventy years before that Gospel was written. Dealing, for instance, with the dialogue between Jesus and the woman of Samaria near the well at Sychem, the writer of that article shews that, in the works of Philo, the well is an emblem of the search after knowledge; Sychem is an emblem of materialism; the "five husbands,"—or, as Philo calls them, "five seducers"—represent the five senses; so that the whole dialogue appears to contain a poetic appeal to the heathen world, to turn from the materialistic knowledge which can never satisfy, to the knowledge of the Word of God which is the "living water." Still more remarkable is Philo's emblematic use of Lazarus (or Eleazar, for the words are the same) as a type of dead humanity, helpless and lifeless till it has been raised up by the help of the Lord. But into this I have no space to enter. If you care to pursue the subject, I must refer you to the article above mentioned. Canon Westcott has pointed out that in arrangement and structure the Fourth Gospel has some distinct poetic features. I should go further and say that, in this Gospel, History is subordinated to poetic purpose, and that its narratives of incidents, resting sometimes on a basis of fact, but more often on a basis of metaphor, are intended not so much to describe incidents as to lead the reader to spiritual conclusions.

We have no account of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel till the year 170 A.D., and this we find to be "already legendary." It is there said that, being requested by his fellow-disciples and bishops to write a Gospel, John desired them to fast for three days and then to relate to one another what revelation each had