The Johannine Writings/Part I, Chapter III

CHAPTER III.

DECISION AS TO WHICH IS THE MORE TRUST WORTHY: THE STORY OF THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS OR OF THE FOURTH?

WE have then to make a choice. And from what has already been said we  are not as yet precluded from giving decided preference to Jn. __________________________________________________________________

1. REASONS FOR FAVOURING JN.

Beyond question there are people who think such a picture of Jesus as  the Fourth Gospel gives not merely beautiful in the sense in which even a fairy-tale may be felt to be beautiful, but also more trustworthy than that of the Synoptics. They are not concerned to find Jesus humanly intelligible in his whole character; on the contrary, the less human it is, the truer does it seem to them to be. It is not merely that they want one who can do the greatest miracles, but they really think it a most likely thing that, when the time was fulfilled, God would have caused exactly such a Saviour to appear. They are not disturbed when they find that Jesus' enemies, in spite of all their efforts, never succeeded in overpowering him, and think it quite natural that the attempts did not succeed because God tied their hands. It does not surprise them that Jesus spoke to the people about his coming from heaven in a way that they could not under stand at all; were his teaching intelligible, it seems to them it would not have been so sublime as it must certainly have been. Taking examples from history, we will only add that Clement of Alexandria as early as about A.D. 200 called the Gospel of John the pneumatic Gospel, that Luther called it the true, unique, tender Gospel of Gospels, and that Schleiermacher (ob. 1834) ranked it high above the Synoptics.

We have no idea of arguing with people who feel in this way. We do not wish to destroy their idea; we respect it. One thing, however, they cannot expect us to attribute to them--we mean, the historical sense. Every one who has had much to do with history knows that, to understand events and characters, it is of the first importance to look for such explanations as suggest themselves to us from experience of other human happenings. There will always be points which we cannot clear up in  this way. But every student of history knows that he would be defeating his own purpose if he were to set aside those obvious explanations which hold good again and again in all human experience and were to try to put in place of them indefinite and unusual explanations, such as a  miracle, a direct intervention on the part of God. In other branches of  history, even those people whom we have described above carefully avoid this; it is only in the field of "sacred" history that they prefer the dark to the clear, the inconceivable to the conceivable, the miraculous to the natural. __________________________________________________________________

2. PREFERENCE FOR THE SYNOPTICS ON THE WHOLE.

When we address our question, Do the Synoptics or Jn. deserve the preference? to those who do not care to make such a distinction between "sacred" and ordinary human history, who, though they are quite prepared to find in the history of Jesus and especially in his inmost character much that is unfathomable, would like even here to see as  much that is clear and humanly intelligible as it is possible to see, we are almost inclined to conjecture that the decision has already been made. Much as we have tried, in enumerating the distinctions between the two stories of the life of Jesus, to make the facts alone speak, we  could not help it if these made the scale turn in favour of the Synoptics: and the review of the attempts which have been made to  reconcile the two accounts could hardly fail to strengthen this impression.

Our task is now therefore merely to sum up the matter as briefly as  possible, and then to give a rather more detailed treatment of some further points in which the trustworthiness of Jn. really needs to be  more thoroughly investigated or in which it is still necessary to   explain how it is that Jn. has come to make statements differing so  widely from the truth. When we do this it will be time to say plainly what we think of these statements, whereas so far we have refrained from doing so, and have faithfully followed our purpose of giving in  the first instance only the facts (p. 4). __________________________________________________________________

3. INFLUENCE OF JESUS WITH HIS HEARERS.

Which is more likely--that Jesus came into contact with all sorts and conditions of men amongst his people and achieved successes of every kind, or that he had to deal almost entirely and without distinction with the "Jews" in a body? Which is more likely that he often had an  enthusiastic reception, or that the Jews, in a compact body, refused to   believe in him? It is said in Jn. often enough that "many" believed in  him on this or that occasion (ii. 23; vii. 31; viii. 30; x. 42, &c.). This, however, should not deceive us as to the fact, that as a general result the Jews do not believe. When a certain number believe, this always (apart from x. 42) gives rise to a division among Jesus' hearers, and if that had not happened, Jesus would never have been led to speak such words as "if a man keep my word, he shall never see  death" (viii. 51) and the like, which Jn. is determined to record. But the belief has no permanent result, for when Jesus delivers his farewell discourses (chaps. xiii.-xvii.), only the little band of his intimate disciples is represented as being still true to him; all those who have believed only for a time are referred to in the saying: "But  Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men" (ii.   24); in other words, he knew that in the end these--all of them--would join in the cry, "Crucify him, crucify him" (xix. 6, 15). __________________________________________________________________

4. COURSE OF JESUS' PUBLIC WORK.

But if from the first Jesus really met with so much hostility, how are we to understand why he was so long allowed such freedom? Is it  conceivable that, after driving the dealers from the fore-court of the Temple, and supposing that it took place at the beginning of his visits to Jerusalem, he could have continued to work for two years unmolested? In Galilee, it would be easier to think this; it is not so easy to  imagine that he could have done so under the eyes of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, where, according to Jn., he stayed with few exceptions. The excuse that "his hour was not yet come" (vii. 30; viii.  20), is one which, having regard to all we know from the rest of human history, should be characterised as quite unsatisfactory. __________________________________________________________________

5. JESUS' STYLE OF SPEAKING.

But if Jesus really met with a friendly reception and had a following, especially amongst the humble and oppressed members of his race--and no  one would like to give up the idea that he had--which is the more likely, that this success was due to the style of addresses the Synoptics describe him as giving to the people or to that which Jn. describes? In the Synoptics he really lifts from the people the heavy yoke of the Old Testament law with its thousand impossible precepts, and substitutes the light yoke of a free, childlike obedience to the simple command to love God and one's neighbour; in Jn., instead of  this, we find nothing but an incessant command, supported by bare assurances and awe-inspiring miracles, to believe in him and his coming from heaven. It was really difficult for a soul in anguish to derive any comfort from it. There is certainly nothing more touching to such a  soul known to any one--not even to the worshippers of the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel--than the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk. xv. 11-32), whom the father, in spite of his great fault, goes forth to meet and embrace when he comes back penitent to his old home. This parable, with those of the Good Samaritan (Lk. x. 25-37), of the cruel and wicked servant (Mt. xviii. 23-35), of the Pharisee and the Publican (Lk.  xviii. 9-14), and all the others, so helpful and dear to us as precious and living examples of a simple piety which at once touches the heart, we seek for in vain in the "true, unique, tender Gospel of  Gospels"--and not because they are already found in the Synoptics and must not be repeated, but because they do not illustrate the only matter about which the Jesus of Jn. is permitted to speak, his divine majesty. __________________________________________________________________

6. MISUNDERSTANDINGS AS REGARDS JESUS' DISCOURSES.

We have reached a point at which we may also say that it is not the hearers of Jesus who are to be accused of having seriously misunderstood his discourses, and that it was not Jesus who intentionally provoked the misunderstandings. The author himself inserts in Jesus' discourses, when they have, as a matter of fact, already reached their end, some expression having more meanings than one, in order that he may proceed to tell us how, when the hearers of  Jesus understood him in an external, material sense, he explained his deeper, spiritual meaning, and in so doing brought to light on the one hand a want of intelligence on the part of the people, and even of the disciples, and on the other the unsuspected profundity of his own disclosures. These misunderstandings are not therefore the reminiscences of an eye-witness, but a device employed by the author. __________________________________________________________________

7. REPETITIONS IN JESUS' DISCOURSES.

When we consider further how limited a number of ideas are continually repeated in these discourses in a way which is felt to be quite monotonous and tedious even by very many of those who regard the Fourth Gospel with a kind of awe, we wonder the more how Jesus could have gone on talking in this way for two years without being left with no one at  all to listen to him.

But we have still to add something which has not so far been mentioned: in Jn. Jesus continues a discourse even when in the meantime a series of events have happened, and when of course the audience has changed. He says, for example, at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple (x.  26; cp. 22), "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep," and then proceeds to enlarge upon the idea of the sheep, just as he has done on an earlier and quite different occasion (x. 3, 10 f., 14). On  another occasion, at the Feast of Tabernacles (vii. 23; cp. 2) he says, "are ye wroth with me, because I made a man every whit whole on the  Sabbath? "Now the only act of the kind which has been mentioned so far is the healing of the sick man at Bethesda (v. 1-16) which took place at an earlier, but not definitely distinguished, "feast of the Jews." Since this, according to Jn., Jesus fed the Five Thousand at the Passover Feast in Galilee (vi. 4), and the interval between this and the Feast of Tabernacles would amount to another six months. __________________________________________________________________

8. LEAVES IN JN. WRONGLY ARRANGED

That, in spite of this, he should speak as if the healing at Bethesda had only just happened is so striking as to have given rise to the theory that the page which contained this continuation of the discourse got shifted in Jn.'s manuscript or in one of the oldest copies of it, from its proper place in the book, and was reinserted in a wrong place farther back. This is not in itself impossible; indeed, the existence of this kind of mistake in several ancient books has been made so  probable that there can no longer be any question about it. Of course, if it occurred here, both the first words and the last in the wrongly inserted leaf must have caused some disturbance in the context of the book, and in the place where the leaf originally stood a lacuna in the narrative, as we have it, would be noticeable. But there is nothing of  this in the passage under consideration; and, apart from this, there are very many other passages, in which, because the order of events is  unlikely, or because the order in the Gospel of Jn. does not agree with that of the Synoptics, one would like to suppose that a leaf has been misplaced in some such manner. We wish any one who proposes by such expedients to bring the Fourth Gospel into good order and into agreement with the Synoptics a long life, but his labour is one which will never suffice for his task. __________________________________________________________________

9. CARELESS DESCRIPTION IN JN.

The matter is much simpler. As we found in the case of the misunderstandings, it is not Jesus but the Evangelist who enlarges upon the ideas and spins out the discourses. He imagines Jesus as having always the same hearers, because he has no real recollection of actual cases in which Jesus confronted the people. It is his fault, and not the fault of Jesus, that no account is taken of the intervals which must have elapsed between two of Jesus utterances which could not have been so close together in actual life as they are on paper.

This explains further how it is that the discourses of Jesus and the remarks of the Evangelist himself are often so much alike that the one might be taken for the other--they are even amalgamated with the discourses of the Baptist. In the midst of one of these a number of  utterances begins in iii. 31, of a kind that only Jesus himself makes elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, and yet it is not said that Jesus is  the speaker. The expositors are therefore quite at a loss to know whether to ascribe them to the Baptist or to regard them as remarks of  the Evangelist himself. Even the well-known saying, "And this is life  eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom   thou didst send, even Jesus Christ," is in Jn. (xvii. 3) an utterance made by Jesus himself, though, were it his, he would surely have said, "and know me whom thou hast sent," especially as he is using the words in a prayer addressed to God.

In these cases there is certainly a considerable amount of carelessness on the part of the Evangelist. But the most friendly critic cannot deny that there is evidence of it in other places as well. At the beginning of the story of the raising of Lazarus, Jn. mentions (xi. 1 f.) Lazarus sisters Martha and Mary, and adds: "And it was that Mary which anointed  the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair." We ask in  vain where Jn. has already narrated this. There would perhaps be some excuse--though it would still be strange--if he thought he might refer to Mary in this way because the description of the anointing was known to his readers from the older Gospels (cp. i. 15, p. 52). In that case his purpose would be to add, as a new point, that the woman who is  mentioned in the Synoptics but is not named was no other than this same Mary. But we do not find in any of the Synoptics what seems to be  recalled here. According to Mk. (xiv. 3) and Mt. (xxvi. 7), a woman in  Bethany, near Jerusalem, pours the contents of a flask of precious nard, having according to Mk. broken it for the purpose, on Jesus head. According to Lk. (vii. 37 f.), when Jesus was invited in Galilee to sup at the house of a Pharisee, a sinful woman of the town moistened his feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with ointment. Which of these accounts does Jn. wish to  recall to us? Neither meets the case. On the other hand, the puzzle is  solved at once when we reach the 12th chapter of his own Gospel. Here in v. 3 we are told for the first time something which is already referred to in chap. xi. as a past event (see further, below pp.  81-83). Here Jn. tells us distinctly that what is narrated in the 12th chapter happened later than what he has reported in the 11th chapter. If a modern writer were to tell us something like this, we should think ourselves badly treated, and would not easily forgive him. __________________________________________________________________

10. COLOURLESS DESCRIPTIONS IN JN.

Further, in how colourless a way many of the scenes in Jn. are sketched! Certain Greeks come (xii. 20) to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast and wish to see Jesus. They apply to Philip; he tells Andrew, and both inform Jesus. Up to this point every word suggests that we are dealing with an eye-witness, so precise is every statement. And then? "But Jesus answered them" (i.e. the two disciples), "the hour is come  that the Son of Man should be glorified," &c. He makes a reference to  his impending death, to which he cheerfully reconciles himself. Whether the Greeks were admitted to see him, what they said, what Jesus said to  them--about all this we hear nothing. Similarly, the conversation with Nicodemus, to take another example (iii. 1-21), has no conclusion. It  is again clear that the author is not concerned about the persons who come into touch with Jesus, but entirely about Jesus himself. __________________________________________________________________

11. THE PICTURE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Even John the Baptist has suffered the same fate. In the Synoptics he  conies before us a character which of itself would have a claim to   interest us greatly, even if it had never been brought into close touch with Jesus. The purpose of his baptism and preaching of repentance, and their benefit to the people, would have been achieved in any case. It  is not merely his pathetic death (Mk. vi. 17-29) that makes him sure of   winning the sympathy of readers of the Synoptics, but also his uncertainty as to whether he is to regard Jesus as the Messiah (Mt. xi.  2 f.). It shows how truly Jesus speaks when he says that he is greater than any Old Testament figure, and yet least amongst the New Testament believers (Mt. xi. 11). He could call men to repentance, but he had not himself been commissioned to preach the glad tidings. We are told only in Mt. (iii. 14 f.) that he refused to baptize Jesus, and this is  clearly a later touch, for according to the most original account which we can still gather easily from Mk., he did not learn Jesus higher nature even at the baptism itself. Jesus alone in Mk. (i. 10) sees the heavens open and the Holy Spirit coming down upon him like a dove. And this is undoubtedly the correct version, since no one would have invented it, if as Lk. reports (iii. 21 f.), and as regards the heavens Mt. also (iii. 16), the opening of the heavens and the coming down of  the spirit were visible to every one. It is true that Mk. also (like  Mt. and Lk.), as regards the voice from heaven, only says that it   sounded, which seems to imply that it could be heard by every one. But only Mt. says "this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased;" Mk. (and Lk.), on the contrary, "thou art," &c.; and from this we may certainly assume that according to the older account which was used by  Mk., the voice could be heard by Jesus alone, just as he alone saw the heavens open.

In the Fourth Gospel, however, the Baptist knows from the beginning not only of Jesus higher nature, as in Mt., and that he was destined to be  the Redeemer of the whole world (i. 27, 29), but also that he   pre-existed with God in heaven (i. 15, 30). But for this very reason the work of the Baptist is strictly limited: he bears witness to Jesus (i. 6-8, 15, 23). His baptism is never of any importance to those who receive it. John uses it only as a means of testifying to Jesus (i. 26,  31). His preaching of repentance is not even mentioned. It would thus be quite impossible for him to ask later whether Jesus is the Messiah, as in Mt. xi. 2 f., unless we were to explain such a question by  ascribing to him doubts--which would be quite sinful--of all that had been revealed to him at an earlier date by God Himself, According to  the original account of the Synoptics, on the other hand, he had as yet no actual knowledge which would enable him to answer the question. In  short, in place of a character which was full of power, if limited in   its spiritual outlook, and of a person whose tragic death made him an   object of veneration, the Fourth Gospel gives us nothing better than a   lay-figure endowed with supernatural knowledge, but always the same, and devoid of living features--a figure which was only meant to serve the purpose of revealing Jesus majesty. __________________________________________________________________

12. INJUDICIOUS RELIANCE ON THE SYNOPTICS.

How is it that the circumstances of many events are so obscurely sketched in the Fourth Gospel? We can some times explain this quite definitely. It is because the author starts in a careless way from an  account in the Synoptics. Thus we had an instance (p. 51) already in  vi. 3, 15, where Jesus twice ascends the mountain, without in the meantime having come down. This again explains a fact we noted as far back as p. 12, that in vi. 1, Jesus betakes himself to the other shore of the Lake of Galilee, whereas in the whole of the fifth chapter we  have found him in Jerusalem. Without any further explanation, the Synoptics (Mk. vi. 32), and they alone, can represent him as crossing the Lake, because in the Synoptics he is always in Galilee; Jn. has carelessly followed them, without reflecting that he should have told us first how Jesus came from Jerusalem to Galilee--a matter which he  reports quite appropriately in other places (iv. 3, 43).

But the most important example of his following the Synoptics and at  the same time carelessly tacking his story on to theirs, is found in   Jn.'s account (xii. 1-8) of the anointing of Jesus. Several striking features in it we have already noticed (p. 77 f .); we must now explain how these originated. Jn. found an anointing of Jesus reported twice in  the Synoptics j in Mk. (xiv. 3-9) and Mt. (xxvi. 6-13), one in Bethany near Jerusalem shortly before his death, in Lk. (vii. 36-50) one in  Galilee, a long time before it. And yet in both cases the master of the house is called Simon. Moreover, in Mk. and Mt. he is (had been) a  leper; in Lk. he is a Pharisee. But the fact that the names were alike seems to have been sufficient to lead Jn. to believe that in both cases the same event was intended. The woman therefore who anointed Jesus in  this case must have been the same sinful woman who did so in Lk. (Mk.  and Mt. tell us nothing beyond the fact that a woman anointed Jesus). But Jn. is prepared to say that it was that pious Mary who, according to the beautiful story in Lk. (x. 38-42), sat at Jesus' feet and listened to him, while her sister Martha busied herself more than was necessary with the household affairs. How did he obtain this knowledge? Not from Lk. , for in this Gospel the two sisters live in an unnamed village at which Jesus stops on his way through Samaria. We know already from xi. 1 f. that Jn. believed they lived in Bethany near Jerusalem and that Lazarus was their brother. Comparing the account of  Lk., which Jn. drags in here, it suits the circumstances when at the meal Martha undertakes the serving and Mary anoints Jesus; this quite harmonizes with the fact that in Lk.'s Gospel she listens to him so  attentively.

Must we indeed believe that all this was really observed by an  eye-witness John? Or have events which, according to the Synoptics, happened at three different places with quite different persons and in  a quite different way been simply worked up into one in the style of   the writer of Jn.? That may be best decided by a consideration of the last fact which he reports: Mary anointed Jesus' feet and dried them with her hair. She could hardly have done anything more awkward. The ointment was too precious to be used for her hair. On this point Judas, who afterwards betrayed his Lord, was right; the ointment should have been sold and the proceeds (about 240 shillings) given to the poor (xii. 5). No; no such anointing was observed by any eye-witness; it  owes its origin simply to a wrong use of the two accounts in Lk. There the sinful woman moistens Jesus' feet with her tears and then dries them with her hair; she anoints them afterwards, not before. But the tears of a sinful woman do not suit the case of Mary. Jn. therefore omits them. And, having done this, the anointing has to come first; otherwise there would be nothing to wipe away. We see then that there is really no reason to think the Synoptics wrong. We see also that Mary is not the woman who anointed Jesus' feet; the name of the woman will always be unknown to us. The same is true of the dwelling-place of Mary and Martha. That this was Bethany is a fact which existed only in the imagination of the Fourth Evangelist. __________________________________________________________________

13. ASTOUNDING NATURE OF THE MIRACLES IN JN.

The raising of Lazarus, which is supposed to have taken place in  Bethany, suggests that at this point it may be well to say all that remains to be said about the astounding nature of the miracles in the Fourth Gospel. What we shall say applies equally to the turning of  water into wine at Cana, to the healing at the Pool of Bethesda of the man who had been lame for thirty-eight years, to the cure of the man born blind, &c. But it may suffice to explain what we mean, by dealing with the raising of Lazarus, which did not take place until the fourth day after death, when the body would already have become putrid. Martha actually refers to this fact (xi. 39), with the idea of suggesting that Jesus need not trouble to have the stone, which closed the rock-hewn selpulchre, rolled away. There is nothing which so clearly reveals the astounding nature of this miracle as the way in which it is regarded by  scholars who assure us with the greatest earnestness that they do   believe in miracles. They will tell us not only that the utterance of  Martha is based upon a pure conjecture, but also that her conjecture was wrong. Certainly they can never have been inside a mortuary; nor do  they reflect that in the warm climate of Palestine decomposition began much sooner than it does with us (cp. p. 19). Again they will tell us  that, when a man dies, hearing is the last of all his senses to fail; and for this reason we are expressly told (xi. 43) that Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." Indeed, they are able to tell us more. They will tell us that the bands in which, according to xi. 44, Lazarus' feet and hands were wrapped, were not fastened round his feet tightly. That Jesus could raise a man on the fourth day after his death they believe, and they expect every one who does not wish to be  called an unbeliever to believe it too; but that he could give the man power to walk with firmly fastened feet--no, this they do not believe. Can we wonder then that other people refuse to accept as credible not only this narrative, but with it the whole book which produces it, and lays such emphasis on it, as principal evidence for the divine power of  Jesus? __________________________________________________________________

14. ARE MIRACLES POSSIBLE?

We ourselves do not at once assume this attitude, We remember not only that an incredible story may have found its way even into a book which is otherwise credible; we feel bound also to examine more closely the actual manner in which it is demonstrated that this miracle-story as  well as the others in the Fourth Gospel and in the Bible generally do   not deserve to be believed. In the last resort most people, we may be  sure, rely in this matter on the idea that miracles are quite impossible. But the idea is not so firmly established as is commonly supposed. At the outset, it is certainly remarkable that it does not have the slightest influence on one who believes in miracles. Now we  might say that the person who believes in miracles is unable to think correctly. But even his opponent will feel that his own case is not very strong when a miracle-story is brought to his notice which is  attested by people who are worth considering, and when he has nothing better to say against it than, "Ah yes, but there are no such things as  miracles," without being able to show, in this particular occurrence, how what seems miraculous in it can have arisen in a natural way. This reflection may lead us to what--regarding the matter from a strictly scientific standpoint--lies at the root of this question.

If we are to be able to say that a matter has been proved, it is  necessary that it should have been proved by facts. In the case of a  miracle-story, for example, we consider it to have been really proved that nothing miraculous happened, only when we have found the same phenomenon reappearing a second time and are certain that here no other than quite natural causes have operated. We call this kind of proof, proof from experience. The other kind is known as proof from reasoning. Whoever uses the latter in support of the contention that there are no  miracles will say either, that the laws of Nature are unalterable, and a miracle would be no miracle unless one or more of the laws of nature were suspended; or he will say, it would be a contradiction of His character, rightly understood, if God were to suspend the laws of  Nature the operation of which He has made so inviolable.

Let us devote just a few words to the notion--unfortunately very common among theologians--that a miracle is not contrary to the laws of  Nature, but that certain forces come into operation which are quite natural but are not as yet known to us. Of course in earlier times Electricity and quite a short time ago the Roentgen rays were not known to us, and some occurrence due to these forces might easily have seemed miraculous, so that no man, even if he were only half-witted, would think of denying that all the forces of Nature are not as yet known to  us. But what is the use of calling something a miracle which is due to  forces like these which are quite natural, though still unknown to us? These are miracles which no one in the world would regard as  impossible. But the chief aim of those who pride themselves on  believing in miracles is to distinguish themselves in this way--to their own advantage--from those who do not believe in them and for this reason, in the opinion of their opponents, deserve to be called "infidels." That they have no right to make free with these quite natural but unknown forces, and by calling them to their aid to make miracles of as many occurrences as possible, is a fact that we need only mention in passing.

Another favourite contention is that in working a miracle God only makes certain forces, which are natural and known to us, operate in an  extraordinary way, just as a man does when he makes a clock strike before the hour by moving the hand. We refrain from insisting here that such intervention on the part of God would involve a breach in the natural order of things, for this reflection will not trouble those who imagine the natural order of things to be not something unconditionally willed by God, a part of His own nature, but a limitation imposed upon him (by whom?), and who are only satisfied, nay can only see in Him a  living God when (as happens rarely enough) He breaks through this limitation. But of course it is nothing better than a very naive presumption to suppose that a miracle which really deserves to be  called one is prearranged by and adjusted to preconditions in exactly the same way as the premature striking of a clock. To produce bread for five thousand men--supposing that it were prearranged in some such way--flour, leaven, and heat must have been ready at hand. To increase the number of fish for the feeding, spawn and time for growth, or at  least a good catch, and in any case heat, would again have been necessary; to walk upon the sea some quality in the water would have been needed to offer to the feet some power of resistance like that of  a firm body; for a cure there must have been in the body a condition quite different from that which favours the continuance of sickness, though for the most part we cannot exactly define the condition necessary for disease or recovery. We must therefore disregard such statements, and reckon seriously with the fact that a miracle under all circumstances is a violation of the laws of Nature.

But if any one who for this reason pronounces miracles to be impossible is asked how he would prove it, he can in reality make no other reply than this: "I have come to that conclusion after using my reason to the  best of my power." But this conclusion is not drawn by every one, whereas a fact of experience is recognised by all. And supposing he  should say: "If the laws of Nature could ever cease to operate, there   could no longer be any such study as Natural Science, we could no   longer construct machines, and reckon on the working of a machine or of   any other force in Nature"; the answer would be somewhat as follows: the point is not whether we can do all this, but how the world is  actually constituted; if there are miracles in it, the fact is that we   cannot do any of these things for certain.

Now it has been proved, and proved by experience, that we can do these things; and whenever things do not work as the natural scientist or the technical worker expected, he regularly finds out afterwards that the fault is not with Nature, but that he himself has made a miscalculation and been the cause of the failure. But, strictly speaking, what this means is only that the number of miracles, if miracles there are, must be very small, and moreover the fact only applies to the present time; as regards the distant past, before every occurrence was observed as  closely as it is now, one may still suppose that miracles happened in   greater number. To try to dispute this with any prospect of success, one should be able to investigate all the miracle-stories of the past which have come down to us, and to show the events to have been perfectly natural; but we are no longer in a position to do this. In  fact, even if we were, it would not help us sufficiently; for miracles might have happened which have not been recorded at all. And were it  possible to trace these also to natural causes, we should be powerless to prevent an event taking place to-morrow which we should be obliged to recognise as a miracle, and nothing would then be gained by the statement that there are no such things as miracles. A scientific caution therefore bids us in no case to make this statement a guiding principle. __________________________________________________________________

15. MUST WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?

But we have only reached this result quite provisionally. It will take us a step further if I may be allowed to recall a personal experience. When I had occasion some years ago to express the above ideas to my  class at the University, as they left the class-room they shook their heads and said, "He believes in miracles." I had certainly given them credit for more intelligence. To hold that it is not right to deny unconditionally that miracles are possible, and to believe that miracles do really happen, are two entirely different things. All that has been said so far only amounts to saying that in forming my opinion about miracles I must not be guided by general ideas, but by  experience. But from experience I know for certain that I have never yet seen a miracle. I know also that pretty well all the miracles which are supposed to have happened in the present age have turned out, upon more careful inquiry, to be perfectly natural occurrences. I know too that the certainty with which the natural scientist and the technical worker reckon has never yet failed them. As regards the miracles of the past, I know that we can find no reason for supposing that miracles could have happened then more easily than to-day. In particular, I know that to say that God was obliged to use miracles for the purpose of  proving Jesus to be the Saviour of the world is a bare assertion and cannot be proved. The Bible tells us that Paul, as well as Jesus, and very many ordinary persons in the Christian communities, and in fact--a still more important point--even the disciples of the Pharisees and other contemporaries of Jesus, possessed the power of working miracles (Rom. xv. 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12; 1 Cor. xii. 9 f., 28; Mt. xii. 27, vii.  22 f.; Mk. ix. 38-40); and yet none of these was ever regarded as the Saviour. Had Jesus worked ever so many miracles, without being at the same time a physician of souls, I know that he would not have been worshipped as the Saviour, and that we of to-day should not be called by his name.

And what is the use of the knowledge we possess of so many other religions if we refuse to use it in order to find out the origin of our own? Works of wonder are ascribed to every founder of a great religion of whose life we possess records, and they are often much more astounding than those attributed to Jesus; and--what is most remarkable here--in the case of each one of them utterances have at the same time been preserved in which he absolutely declines, as Jesus did (see  above, p. 21 f.), to work miracles, and refers to them as matters of   quite minor importance.

In the case of Buddha the utterance is preserved: "I do not teach my  disciples, Do miracles by means of your supernatural power . . .; I say   to them, Live by concealing your good works and making your sins to be   seen." Confucius, the founder of the Chinese religion, or rather of  their political and moral science, is reported to have said: "Investigate what is obscure, do what is wonderful, that later  generations may say of it, I do not like these things." In the case of  Zarathustra, the founder of the Persian religion as committed to   writing in the Zend-Avesta, we read: "God said to me, If the king asks   for a sign, do thou say, Only read the Zend-Avesta, and you will need   no miracles." In the Koran we find God saying to Muhammed: "Thy destiny  is to preach and not to do miracles." Muhammed appeals to God's great miracles, the rising and setting of the sun, the rain, the growth of  the plants, and the birth of souls; these are the true wonders to those who know what faith is. [5] Very much that is told us about these founders of religion is untrustworthy. But these utterances deserve to  be believed without question; for who could have invented them?

To these we may add in conclusion the saying of Kant, the founder of  the newer philosophy: "Wise governments have at all times conceded, in   fact have legally incorporated the notion in the public doctrines of   religion, that in olden times miracles happened, but they have not   allowed new miracles to happen. As regards new wonder-workers, they   must have feared the effects they might have on the public peace and   the established order." It is not difficult in the case of so clear a  thinker to read between the lines: if, he would say, in olden times there had already been a wise government, it would not have allowed miracles to happen even in those days.

From which presupposition then ought we to start, if we wish to decide the question whether miracle-stories deserve belief? Strictly speaking, from none. But that is not possible. We always bring to the consideration of a subject some kind of presupposition. After what has been said, this must not be to the effect that miracles are not possible. But it would be still worse to assume, that miracles may easily happen. One who starts with this presupposition will certainly regard many occurrences as miracles in which everything has been brought about by causes which are quite natural. If then we cannot avoid starting with a presupposition, it can only of course be one that has already stood its trial in other cases, not one which has never yet been tested. In the present case therefore it can only be this, that any miracle-story we propose to examine will, presumably, admit of  exactly the same natural explanation as others which we have so far been able closely to investigate. It is therefore not only permissible, but is our bounden duty, to try with all the means at our disposal to  explain such matters by natural causes. While we do this, we must be  ready to find a miracle if necessary, but only when there are insurmountable obstacles to our regarding a matter otherwise.

Until such obstacles arise, we are entitled to accept the two statements, (1) that the laws of Nature are unchangeable and (2) that God himself does not desire to suspend them by a miracle. Only we must be clear on this point--that they are not matters which have been proved quite sufficiently, but in spite of all that can be advanced in  their favour, are never anything more than a belief.

If we know a miracle-story only from written accounts--which is the case with those of the Bible--the first question we must ask is, Do  these accounts show themselves to be reliable in every detail? For instance, it is not a matter of no importance, whether Jesus healed one blind man before he entered the city of Jericho (so Lk. xviii. 35-43) or healed him after he left it (so Mk. x. 46-52), or whether he healed two blind men (so Mt. xx. 29-34) at the same place. Why should I take it for granted that the Evangelists or their authorities duly informed them selves that it was really a case of blindness, when they are not agreed as to where and in the case of how many per sons the thing was done? Nor is it any more a matter of indifference whether on the evening after Jesus had healed Peter's wife's mother, people brought all the sick to him and he healed many of them (so Mk. i. 32-34), or  whether they brought many and he healed all (so Mt. viii. 16), or   whether they brought all and he healed them all (so Lk. iv. 40). Nor again is it a matter of no importance whether he taught the multitude before the Feeding of the Five Thousand (so Mk. vi. 34), or whether he  healed their sick (so Mt. xiv. 14). We might continue thus for a long time if we wished /to throw light on this aspect of the miracle-stories found in the Synoptics. But the points we have mentioned are only intended to serve as examples of the kind of thing we are obliged to  take note of in the stories of the Fourth Gospel. __________________________________________________________________

[5] Further information on this subject will be found in Seydel, Das Evangelium von Jesu in semen Verhaeltnissen zu Buddha-Sage und Buddha-Lehre, 1882, pp. 239-251. __________________________________________________________________

16. SILENCE OP THE SYNOPTICS AS TO THE MIRACLES IN JN.

As compared with the stories in the Synoptics, the only one in Jn. that can be said to contain an actual contradiction is that of Jesus' walking on the sea, since Jesus crossed not merely a part but the whole of the sea, and is not supposed to have been taken into the boat (see  above, p. 19 f.). In the other miracle stories in this Gospel (apart  from that of the Feeding), contradictions are impossible, because the Synoptics do not include the stories. But this silence on their part is  the very thing that cannot fail to make us feel the most serious doubts. These miracles which are known only to the Fourth Gospel are actually the most stupendous recorded: the turning of the water into wine at Cana, the healing of the man who was thirty-eight years a  paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, the cure of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. (It is difficult to say whether by the cure of  the son of a royal official at Capernaum, iv. 46-54, the same event is   intended as the cure of the son or servant of the centurion at   Capernaum in Mt. viii. 5-13 and Lk. vii., 1-10; see p. 99 f.)

Why these particular miracles should have been passed over by the Synoptics, if they really happened, it is absolutely impossible to  imagine. What real arguments have those scholars who hold them to be  true to offer, in order to explain the fact that there is not a word about them in the Synoptics? Once more it will be sufficient to fix our attention on the Raising of Lazarus.

We are told, for instance, that among the great mass of persons who were raised (!) by Jesus, the Synoptists might easily have forgotten Lazarus; or that they did not think themselves gifted enough to be able to gather up the preeminent importance of the event for the career of  Jesus; or that they did not credit themselves with sufficiently delicate and lively feeling to be able to report it worthily; or that they were silent out of respect for the relatives of Lazarus who were still living (as if the story would not, on the contrary, have  redounded to their honour); or that they did not think themselves to be   sufficiently well instructed as to the details; or that the matter did not come to their ears because it took place before the arrival of the pilgrims from Galilee for the Easter festival (this would be to  disregard xi. 16, where it is expressly said that all the twelve   disciples of Jesus were present); or that it did not come to their ears because, when they arrived in Jerusalem, it was already too well known; or that the plan which they followed in their Gospels, apart from the last week of the life of Jesus, did not allow of their reporting events in Judaea. but only those which happened in Galilee; or that they were already aware that John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, would write his Gospel after them, and they wished to leave him to relate the Raising of Lazarus.

It could not really be shown in a more lamentable way that we cannot discover a single intelligible reason why the Synoptists have not related the Raising of Lazarus. To make such statements is at the same time to pronounce sentence that the event never happened. We see then that to arrive at this conviction it was not necessary to be shy of  miracles; the way in which the story is told is in itself quite sufficient for our conclusion. And this is equally true of the other miracle stories which are found only in Jn. __________________________________________________________________

17. THE MIRACLES IN JN. SYMBOLIC.

But why does Jn. introduce such incredible matters? Is it purely from a  delight in the wonderful? Is it from the idea that Jesus could only in  this way have shown himself to be the Saviour? Certainly he held this idea, and even attached importance to it (see p. 20 f.). But we should be doing him a great wrong, if we were disposed to think this his sole motive for telling us that such miracles were worked by Jesus. The fact that he describes so few in detail is itself an argument against this. But he also makes us realise clearly that each of these miracles has a  deeper sense, a symbolic meaning; that is to say, that it is meant to   express a religious idea in a picture as it were. In the case of the .Raising of Lazarus, he himself has supplied in the clearest manner the legend to the picture. Martha expresses to Jesus clearly, if shyly, her hope that he will raise her brother: "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my  brother had not died. And even now I know that whatsoever thou shalt   ask of God, God will give thee" (xi. 21 f.). Jesus answered, "Thy  brother shall rise again." Martha rejoins, "I know that he shall rise  again in the resurrection at the last day." And thereupon Jesus said to  her, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth on me,   though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on   me shall never die." Here therefore we have the well-known and beautiful idea in the Fourth Gospel of that eternal life, in a deeply spiritual sense, which, through faith in Jesus, begins even during this earthly existence, and not merely after death, and which cannot be  interrupted by the death of the body (cp. further especially v. 24).

Is it the same thing when Lazarus is immediately after wards summoned to come forth from the grave? By no means. Lazarus receives back the life of the body; but that spiritually eternal life of which we have spoken is a treasure which is stored in the depth of one's heart. To  call Lazarus back to life, one of the greatest miraculous interventions in the laws of Nature was required; to bring to birth the spiritually eternal life of which we have spoken, only faith was needed. Lazarus can do nothing to help himself to come forth from the grave; whoever wishes to have the spiritually eternal life, must himself do his best within his own heart to call forth faith. Sooner or later Lazarus must die again; the spiritually eternal life, once gained, can never again be lost. Finally, Lazarus is only one man, and though we are certain that Jesus loved all other men, yet he is obliged to leave them all in  the grave; but the spiritually eternal life is to be denied to no one. In brief, the thought of that eternal life which Jesus here speaks of  as the essence of his message to Martha rises high as the heavens above the work which he afterwards per forms on Lazarus; so high that it has even been thought that the two things were not originally connected, and that the Raising of Lazarus was inserted in the original book of  Jn. by a later writer. That is of course a great mistake. Both belong together very well, but only in the same way as a deeply spiritual thought belongs to the picture which gives it clear, if inadequate, expression in a visible occurrence.

Imagine a painter who wishes by means of his art to represent the thought: "Whosoever believes on me will live, even though he dies, and  whosoever lives and believes on me will never die." Can he represent the feeling of his heart on canvas? What better symbol will he choose than the summoning of Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, from the grave? And is he obliged to make it real to our eyes in an obscure and indistinct way, because he does not suppose that the event really happened, but only wishes to awaken an idea in the soul of the beholder? We shall call him nothing better than a bungler, if he fails to represent, in a  stirring way, how Jesus, while the onlookers are nervously expectant, stands in front of the sepulchre and cries out with arm upraised, "Lazarus, come forth," while behind the stone door, which has been rolled aside from the hollow vault, is seen the figure of the dead man wrapped in bands. And are we ready to reproach the author of the Fourth Gospel for using his art with equal vigour and effectiveness--the art of painting with words, instead of with the brush? Are we ready to  reproach him, because we do not believe that what he paints on his canvas really happened, and because perhaps he also did not believe it?

Did he also not believe it? That would certainly be the most noteworthy aspect of the matter. Before we enter more closely into the question whether we ought to think this, we must take a wider survey. Clearly, the Raising of Lazarus is by no means the only instance in which a  miracle is used to represent an idea. On the contrary, this point of  view can be applied very easily to all the miracle-stories of the Fourth Gospel; and for the most part the Evangelist himself supplies us  with a very clear clue. The legend which should be inscribed under the picture of the healing of the man born blind is found in viii. 12: "I  am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the   darkness, but shall have the light of life" (cp. ix. 5, 39). The Feeding of the Five Thousand is explained in the discourses attached to  it, vi. 26-35a, 36-5la, as a spiritual enjoyment of the person of  Jesus, he being described as the true bread that comes from heaven: people must take his whole nature into themselves, or in other words, must believe in him (vi. 28 f.). At the same time the Feeding is here meant to represent the Supper; if this were not so, there could not be  mention in vi. 51b-58 of the eating of Jesus flesh and at the same time of the drinking (cp. what is already said in vi. 35b) of his blood, not a word having been said in the Feeding of the Five Thousand to the effect that Jesus handed a cup to the disciples. Here indeed emerges the quite remarkable fact that Jesus, about the time of the second Passover feast, which occurred during his public ministry (vi. 4), gives his disciples an explanation of the meaning of the Supper, which, according to the same Gospel, he did not celebrate with them at all, and according to the Synoptics not until a year later; yet the discourses in chapter vi. do not permit of the least doubt that the Supper is really alluded to.

But if this is once assured, it is no longer difficult to recognise also the deeper meaning of Jesus' Walking on the Sea, which is linked to the Feeding of the Five Thousand as an event of the same evening. True, it might be thought that it has simply been taken over from the Synoptics, where also it follows the Feeding. But, as a matter of fact, Jn. does not repeat other miracle-stories found in the Synoptics. His repetition of this one, however, fits in very well with his purpose. When the Supper is celebrated at one and the same time in the most diverse places throughout the whole of Christendom, it is presupposed everywhere that Jesus is present at the celebration. Yet this could not be, if he were subject to the laws by which man is confined to the limits of space. Now, no single story in the Synoptics better expresses the idea that he was not so limited than that of the walking on the sea; consequently, it is certainly meant to serve to support the belief that at every celebration of the Supper Jesus is really near to his followers.

In the case of the sick man at the Pool of Bethesda we have a clue as  to how we are to understand his sickness, as regards the time it had lasted. For thirty-eight years the people of Israel had been obliged, as a punishment for their disobedience to God, to wander in the wilderness, without being permitted to set foot on the promised land of  Canaan (Deut. i. 34 f., ii. 14). The sick man thus represents the Jewish people, and in the five porticoes of the house in which he has so long hoped for a cure (Jn. v. 2) we may easily recognise the five books of Moses, obedience to which had been no help to the people. Jesus was the first to be able to bring to an end the period of their banishment from the land of peace and quiet; but since the people had opposed the will of God, he was obliged to say first, "Wilt thou be  whole?" (v. 6).

The wine into which Jesus changed the water at Cana is then, of course, the new, glowing and inspiring religion which Jesus puts in the place of a weak Judaism. With this is grouped--and not without intention--the expulsion of the dealers and moneychangers from the fore-court of the Temple (ii. 1-11, 13-22). It was this act that showed most clearly how necessary it was to displace the old religion.

Again, with the healing at the Pool of Bethesda is connected that of  the son of the royal official at Capernaum (iv. 46-54; v. 1-18). In  order also to understand this miracle-story, the last that remains in   Jn., we must take note of the points in which it differs from that concerning the Centurion at Capernaum in Mt. (viii. 5-13) and Lk. (vii.  1-10), a story which so manifestly lies at the root of it that perhaps the same event may be supposed to be intended in both cases. This centurion is a Gentile, who by his faith excels and puts the Jews to  shame. In Jn., however, there appears in his place an officer of the king (so we read in Jn. as in Mk. vi. 14; Mt. xiv. 9 inexactly instead  of "of the prince"; see Mt. xiv. 1; Lk. iii. 1, 19), Herod Antipas of   Galilee, and we must take him to be a Jew, since, if he were not, the contrary would have been expressly stated. By his faith he also distinguishes himself, though not like the centurion by excelling all Jews, but only those who wish to see signs and wonders before they will believe in Jesus divine power. At first, no doubt in order to prove him, Jesus assumes that he shares the same disposition (iv. 48), but the man frees himself from this suspicion by taking Jesus at his word, when he says that he will make his son whole. We must, therefore, see in him a picture of that better section of the Jewish people which intercedes for the sick section; that is to say, for those who do not believe in Jesus. The latter is represented by the son of the official, just as in the other case it is by the sick man at Bethesda. Just because the sick man of the first story, like the sound official who makes petition for him, represents a section of the Jewish people, he  must be described as his son and not as his servant, as in the case of   the centurion of Capernaum according to Lk., and perhaps also according to Mt. Though the Greek word in Mt. (pais) may mean, not merely servant, but, equally well, son, and Jn. might keep this second meaning because it suited him better. __________________________________________________________________

18. THE FEEDING A FACT FOR JN. IN SPITE OF ALL?

Thus in all the miracle-stories of the Fourth Gospel, a deeper thought can be recognised which they present vividly to us as in a picture. Now, as regards the problem suggested above (p. 97), when we were dealing with the Raising of Lazarus, whether in spite of all that has been said, the author held them to be actual occurrences, for the present this at least is clear, that the interest in the question whether a miracle really happened becomes secondary at once, if the miracle is used to represent nothing more than an idea. And so we  discover in these stories some discord in the thought of the Fourth Evangelist. Side by side with the absolute value that he attaches to  Jesus' works of wonder being recognised as real occurrences (p. 21), we   note a certain indifference to the matter. Nor is it necessary to base this conclusion entirely upon our present examination; he has given even more definite expression to this indifference in other places. When many in Jerusalem believed on Jesus on account of his works of  wonder, he did not trust himself unto them (ii. 23 f.), and Thomas, who would not believe on Jesus resurrection until lie had touched his wounds, was told, "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have  believed" (xx. 27-29). If we felt ourselves absolutely bound to go  farther and to conjecture that Jn. first conceived his pictures in his own brain, just as a modern painter does, it would hardly be thinkable that afterwards he could have believed what he had depicted to be real events. What then is the truth?

Something more certain from which to start in this matter is found in  the Synoptics. According to Mk. (viii. 14-21) the disciples, when they journeyed across the Lake of Galilee, had forgotten to take bread. Jesus then says to them: "Take heed, beware of the leaven of the  Pharisees and the leaven of Herod" (or according to Mt. xvi. 6, "and   the leaven of the Sadducees"). They imagine that he wishes to warn them against procuring loaves from the Pharisees and the others. Jesus notes this and says, "Do ye not perceive nor understand? . . . and do ye not  remember? When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand, how   many baskets (full of broken pieces) took ye up? . . . And when the   seven among the four thousand, how many baskets took ye up?" (so  according to Mt.). "Do ye not yet understand?" Mt. fittingly completes Jesus utterance thus: "that I spake not to you concerning bread? But  beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Then understood   they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of   the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

Shortly before, Mk. and Mt. have recounted the Feeding of the Five Thousand and that of the Four Thousand as actual occurrences. When Jesus now reminds the disciples of these, they must have been confirmed in their first thought, that by the leaven of which they were to beware he meant real loaves, and must have believed that, to make up for the omission, he would procure them loaves in as wonderful a way as he had done in the case of the two Feedings. Now, it would in itself be very surprising that Jesus should have offered to repair a piece of  forgetfulness on the part of the disciples by exercising his miraculous power. In such a case, we certainly could not speak of a higher divine purpose for which he used this miraculous power, and say that he was actuated by love and compassion. But such reflections are not really necessary. The result of Jesus calling to mind the two Feedings is  this: the disciples see that he does not wish to speak of loaves; and this is simply impossible. Have the Evangelists, then, told us  something that is meaningless? That would be equally inconceivable. How can they have come to say the contrary of what is as clear as daylight?

The solution of the riddle is, however, not so difficult after all; we  must only have the courage to think out the ideas of the story to the end. If the disciples by that of which Jesus reminds them are made to  see that by leaven Jesus did not mean loaves but teaching, then in   those earlier cases they cannot have seen and eaten loaves, but must simply have heard about loaves--and have heard too that the loaves meant teaching. In other words, the things of which they were reminded (and rightly reminded), when they thought of the Feedings, were not events in the life of Jesus, but discourses, in which he had compared his teaching with bread, by which the soul is satisfied. Now it  suddenly dawns upon us also why more bread is said to have remained over than there was at first. Had the bread been real, this would have been a pure miracle. On the other hand, when Jesus propounds his teaching, it is quite natural that it should arouse new ideas in the minds of his hearers, and awaken new impulses; and that they them selves, enriching what they had heard by their own experiences and feelings, should carry it farther.

It is not enough, therefore, to see that the two miracle stories were certainly one at the beginning, and only came to be regarded as two distinct events at a later date when through the carelessness of the narrators the number of the partakers, of the loaves, and of the baskets of broken pieces, was changed. We must go farther and declare, in all seriousness, that no miraculous feeding took place, nor even a  feeding which merely appeared miraculous. It would be tempting to us to  explain the matter by sup posing that very many persons in the crowd were provided with more provisions than Jesus and his disciples, and that Jesus example simply induced them to place these at his disposal. But had this been the case, the disciples could just as little, by  being reminded of it, have been led to understand that by leaven Jesus meant teaching, as they could by being reminded of a real miracle of  feeding.

The only miraculous feature in the stories of the Feedings is therefore this: that by the side of them the story of the leaven of the Pharisees should also have found a place in the Gospels. Certainly Mk. and Mt.  have not proved themselves very careful here; the words "Do ye not   perceive?" apply to them also. But we have no reason to complain of  them. If they had noticed the contradiction, they would certainly not have omitted the stories of the Feedings, but, rather, the narrative under consideration; and it would then have been much harder for us to  recognise the real situation. In reality, they have faithfully preserved the narrative, because it had been transmitted to them. And we must recognise this with the greater satisfaction, because in other places in their Gospels we have been obliged to note many arbitrary alterations in the accounts, and because, again, it has not been possible for them to preserve correctly other matter, they themselves having become acquainted with it in a distorted form. Thus, for example, exactly what was narrated about Jesus' discourse concerning that remarkable bread (the teaching) which, when it was divided and partaken of, did not decrease but increased, will certainly at a very early date have been misunderstood by people who were not present, just as the Synoptists have misunderstood it, by including it in their books as a miraculous event.

How does what has been said help us to answer the question, In spite of  the fact that to Jn. the Feeding was in part a representation of the spiritual appropriation of the nature of Jesus, and in part a  representation of the Supper, did he regard it as a real event? In any case, we know at least that if he did so, he was wrong. But since there was a time when it was known that it was not a real event, it is not altogether inconceivable that Jn. too derived this knowledge from that time. On the other hand, this again is hardly likely, for the Synoptists themselves no longer possessed the knowledge, and Jn. did not write until after them and drew upon them. Such reflections therefore will hardly clear up our question. Nor is there any other way of fathoming the inmost thought of the Fourth Evangelist: and if we  could dig deeper perhaps we might not find harmony and clearness, but simply a struggle between two points of view, the literal and the purely figurative.

But it is quite sufficient that to Jn. the story of the Feeding, regarded from one of these two points of view, serves merely to  represent something spiritual. In this way he has in fact approached quite near, though perhaps in a very roundabout way (if he regards the  Feeding as an actual event), to what we know from the Synoptists to   have been the most original version--namely, that Jesus himself referred to the Feeding with bread simply as a figure-of-speech for the satisfaction of the soul by his teaching. The point of view in Jn. does not, it is true, agree with this quite exactly; but very much is gained already when we find him attaching no decisive value to the miracle as  such. And the relatively slight divergence from the ideas of Jesus is  at the same time characteristic of the general spirit of the Fourth Gospel. What, in Jesus' opinion, is offered to men to satisfy their souls is his teaching; what is offered them in Jn. is his person. To  Jn. everything centres round his person; and even when he finds the Supper represented in the story of the Feeding, he imagines that when it is celebrated, it is the person of Jesus that in some mysterious way the partaker receives into himself. __________________________________________________________________

19. ARE THE OTHER MIRACLES FACTS FOR JN.?

We must quote yet another passage from the Synoptics to elucidate the question as to what opinion the Fourth Evangelist held with regard to  the miracle-stories. When John the Baptist was in prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask whether he was the promised Saviour, or  whether they must look for another. We must remember here that, from the time of the baptism of Jesus, John could not have been clear on  this matter (see p. 79 f.). The answer of Jesus is almost verbally identical in Mt. (xi. 4-6) and in Lk. (vii. 22 f.): "Go your way and  tell John the things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their   sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and   the dead are raised up and the poor have good tidings preached to them.   And blessed is he whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in   me." Could Jesus have done anything more calculated to destroy the effect of his words than, in his list of works of wonder which reaches a climax in the awakening from the dead, to specify at the end of them preaching to the poor, that is to say, something quite ordinary, something not at all wonderful, something which could not make the slightest impression on the disciples of John as an answer to their question whether he was the promised Saviour, their ideas of his superhuman power being what they were. Or may we suppose that the Evangelists have inappropriately added this from clumsiness? Assuredly not. They have taken the greatest possible care that we should read in  their books of all the five classes of wonders which Jesus enumerates before this answer to the Baptist.

Now, in both consistently (Mk. omits the whole story of the Baptist's  messengers) there appear before this date only the healing of a leper (Mt. viii. 1-4 = Lk, v. 12-14) and of palsied men (Mt. viii. 5-13 = Lk.  vii. 1-10; Mt. ix. l-8 = Lk. v. 17-26); and in Mt. (ix. 18-26), besides these, in agreement with the order of events in Mk. (v. 21-43), the awakening of the daughter of Jairus. This Lk. introduces too late for the answer to the Baptist's question (not until viii. 40-56). But, instead of it he has introduced earlier (vii. 11-17) the awakening of  the young man at Nain, about which Mt. and even Mk. say nothing at all. On the other hand, Mt. ix. 27-34 introduces the healing of two blind men and a dumb man, about which Lk. and even Mk. are silent. In Jesus enumeration there is no dumb man, but mention is made of the deaf; since, however, both are described by the same Greek word (kophos), there do, as a matter of fact, appear in Mt. before chapter xi. all the ailments mentioned by Jesus. In Lk. the blind and the deaf are omitted. Instead of this, Lk. tells us in vii. 21 that in the presence of the messengers of the Baptist Jesus healed many blind and other ailing persons, about whom there is not a word in Mt.

Both Evangelists, therefore, although in complete disagreement with each other, have been at pains to make Jesus enumeration appear literally true; and, this being so, could they have deprived it of its whole force by making so unsuitable an addition (concerning the  preaching to the poor)? Or was it perhaps later copyists who did this? But even in their case, the matter would be equally inexplicable.

There is here again, as in the question of Jesus utterance about leaven, only one solution: the most striking and seemingly the most embarrassing version must be the most original. Jesus himself must have added, "and the poor have the gospel preached to them." But he could only have done so if all the previously mentioned persons are on the same level, that is to say, if he meant spiritually blind, spiritually lame, spiritually leprous, spiritually deaf, and spiritually dead. And here again, just as in the case of the stories of feeding, the concluding words are intelligible only on this understanding. "Blessed  is he whosoever finds none occasion of stumbling in me": this means that the Baptist should not take offence at Jesus for coming forward in  such simple guise, as a mere teacher and prophet, and should recognise him as the promised Saviour, in spite of his humble appearance. This, in truth, was why John had had doubts on the matter. In thinking of the promised Messiah, he thought, as his whole race did, of a person who would come forward with superhuman power, drive the Romans from the land and set up a mighty kingdom, in which the Jews would reign.

Here then we have a new instance how utterances of Jesus have often been faithfully preserved in the Synoptics. In this saying we may depend upon it that we have the words of Jesus in all essentials, particularly in their conclusion, just as he spoke them (the question  whether he enumerated at the beginning one ailment more or less need   not detain us); and this is the more noteworthy, since the Evangelists have entirely misunderstood it, and have made great efforts to show that their misunderstanding is right. At the same time, we have in it a  new example of the way in which Jesus availed himself of figurative language which might easily be misunderstood, and which actually was understood in such a manner that objective works of wonder were supposed to be intended when he had spoken merely of spiritual experiences unaccompanied by any miracle.

For the Fourth Gospel, therefore, we have here a foundation upon which to build if we would assume that not only the feeding of the five thousand, but also the healing of the man born blind, of the man paralysed for thirty-eight years, of the son of the royal official, and the awakening of Lazarus, were from the first meant to describe merely the healing of souls. It makes no difference, of course, if the son of  the royal official is described as suffering, not from one of the ailments enumerated in Mt. xi. 5, but from a fever. In fact, by  recognising this figurative style of speech, we may also venture to   seek such an explanation of the last remaining miracles of the Fourth Gospel, the turning of water into wine at Cana, and Jesus' walking on  the sea, even though these are not miracles of healing.

We may not, of course, in any case go as far as to sup pose that all these stories, in their figurative meaning, actually came from Jesus himself. Had they done so it would be inconceivable that about most of  them the Synoptics should know nothing. What we gather, therefore, is  at most this, that the author of the Fourth Gospel still had correct information as to the metaphorical style in which Jesus delighted to  express himself, and that he copied this in the spirit of his master. At the same time, it is true, we must reckon fully with the possibility that he did not gain this by first-hand knowledge of Jesus style of  speech, but in the roundabout way described above: he believed that in   all his miracle-stories he had to do with real events; not until later did they become to him figures for mere ideas, and the question whether they really happened become of but secondary importance. Not even now are we able to come to a decision upon these two points of view; perhaps indeed, as already intimated, Jn. could not himself have said which of them he had finally adopted. __________________________________________________________________

20. TRADITIONS KNOWN ONLY TO JN.?

In any case we must be quite clear that at the root of each of the two points of view there are quite distinct presuppositions. If Jn. from the first gave forth his miracle-stories merely as the figurative clothing of religious ideas, then we may be all the more certain that he invented them himself; he could not have had them from the lips of  Jesus, for had that been their source the Synoptics also would have given them. If, on the other hand, Jn. regarded them as real events, then they must have come to him from some authorities in whom he had confidence. Is it possible perhaps to decide now which of the two suppositions is right? In other words, is there a tradition concerning the Life of Jesus which was known only to Jn. and remained unknown to  the Synoptics?

The far-reaching importance of this question can be realised at once. If Jn. was acquainted with such a tradition, he may have derived from it all that he has in addition to what the Synoptics tell us; and in  this much else is included besides the miracle narratives we have been considering. On this basis very many people immediately think they may assume that all these additional matters are also historical. But the pleasure which they thus give themselves is premature. Supposing that Jn. drew from a tradition--for the time being we are willing to assume that he did--have we then disposed of the question, Why do the Synoptics know nothing about this tradition? Who was the first to know of it? Was it the Apostle John? Could he really, in Jesus' lifetime, have noted certain things of which Peter and the other apostles had no  experience? And yet the Synoptists themselves drew from the communications of the Apostles or of their disciples! We might acquiesce, if the things which appear only in the Fourth Gospel were all minor matters, In that case, we might think that to the other Apostles or to the Synoptics they seemed to be unimportant. But the healing of the man born blind, the healing of the man palsied for thirty-eight years, the raising of Lazarus, the farewell discourses of  Jesus, the washing of the disciples' feet on the last evening of his life, etc.!

Or can we believe that some worshipper of Jesus--not further known to  us--outside the circle of his twelve apostles, observed all these things, one, for instance, as people of late have been fond of  suggesting, who lived in Judaea, and, having nothing to tell us about Galilee, had all the more to tell us about what Jesus did in Judaea? Of  such an one it would be equally true to say that he could have observed nothing which the apostles did not also know of. Does not the Fourth Gospel say continually that they were all present on all these occasions?

It is thus, besides, quite immaterial whether we assume the eye-witness in question (whether we think of him as the apostle John or as one who  was not an apostle) to have written the Fourth Gospel himself or only to have given information to the author. In no case can what this person alone tells us be derived from actual observation of the events; for, if it were, we should read of it in the Synoptics as well.

It may, nevertheless, have come to the Fourth Evangelist by tradition. The idea that a tradition must in all circumstances be correct is a  very curious one. He to whom it is delivered may hold it to be correct; but before it reached him an error may have crept in. In view of what has been said, only on this presupposition is it worth while to speak of a tradition known only to the Fourth Evangelist. If we call it a  "Johannine tradition," we must not be understood to mean that it   started from the apostle John, but simply that it came by tradition to   the Fourth Evangelist whom we, depending again upon a tradition, call John. __________________________________________________________________

21. AMPLIFICATION OF THE STORY OF LAZARUS ON THE BASIS OF LK.

But instead of instituting general inquiries into such a tradition, we  will at once show by examples how we may very easily think of the matter. We do not by any means assert that it must really have so  happened; it is quite sufficient if it may have so happened. We will start again with the most instructive story in the Fourth Gospel, that of the Raising of Lazarus. His name reminds us of the parable in Lk. (xvi. 19-31), in which a Lazarus appears by the side of a rich man. At  first sight the two narratives seem to be radically different: in Lk. we have before us a figure in a parable, in Jn. a real person; in Lk. a  poor and sick man who after his death is compensated for his sufferings, in Jn. a man for whom neither sufferings nor compensation come in question. But the two figures have at any rate one point of  contact. The rich man in Lk. (xvi. 27-31) in his torment wishes Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to warn the brethren of the rich man. Abraham answers, "they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear  them." The rich man objects: "Nay, father Abraham, but if one go to  them from the dead, they will repent." Abraham, however, decides that "if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be  persuaded if one rise from the dead."

Let us now imagine this parable to have been discussed in a sermon. It  is not difficult to conjecture what may have been said. The brothers of  the rich man who have Moses and the prophets are, of course, the Jews. The preacher had thus a most excellent opportunity of proving the truth of Abraham's concluding words, to the effect that even one who had risen from the dead would not induce them to repent. Jesus had actually risen, and, notwithstanding, the Jews, with trifling exceptions, had rejected his preaching, though so many heathen had accepted it. Now if  Lazarus, in answer to the request of the rich man, had been sent back to earth to preach to his brethren, he would have been made to do in  the parable what, according to the belief of Christians, Jesus in   reality did by his resurrection. If the preacher reckoned on his hearers possessing some intelligence, he may perhaps, with raised finger, have continued the parable thus: "as a matter of fact, Lazarus  has risen, and the brethren of the rich man have not listened to him." Some hearer who had not understood the delicate meaning of this turn it  may even have been a woman hearer--then went home, we may further imagine, and said: "To-day the preacher said that Lazarus has arisen." "Really, such a thing I have never heard." "But he said so without a  doubt." "Who awakened him then?" "He did not say that. But who should  have awakened him, if it was not Jesus himself?"

In this way the kernel of the narrative in Jn. was provided: Lazarus has been awakened by Jesus. And without any idea of deception or  forgery, without even any censurable indulgence in phantasies, but purely from a very excusable misunderstanding! We need not go on  describing further how one little feature after another may have, now and again, been added. Let it suffice that this may very well have happened; and again without any idea of deception, but purely with the idea that the thing cannot well have happened in any other way. For instance, what was more natural than that Lazarus, before his death, should have been ill, and that Jesus should have been informed of this? If we only imagine a sufficient number of people contributing to the story, and adding one detail after another, the Fourth Evangelist in  the end need only have dotted the i's, so to say, in order to get the story in due form into his book.

This consideration is by no means unimportant. It relieves him of the charge of having himself invented the whole narrative. Certainly we  could not shrink from making this charge, if the attempt we have made above, to explain the matter differently, might not be considered successful; for the fact that Lazarus was not awakened, we do not now, after all that has been said, need to prove. In fact, we should have to  ask ourselves whether this reproach of having invented the whole narrative would really be a reproach, since quite certainly we could not reproach the preacher in question with it, if, relying on the intelligence of his hearers, he carried the parable of Lk. a step further and said, Lazarus has arisen. But we have preferred our own theory because it has enabled us to assume that the raising of Lazarus was "delivered" to the Fourth Evangelist as a real miracle, and because we can understand better how, at least in many passages of his book, he  could attach so much importance to the fact of this and the other miracles having really happened (p. 20 f.). __________________________________________________________________

22. OTHER AMPLIFICATIONS IN JN.

Taking next the narrative of the healing of the man born blind, its origin could easily be understood on the sup position that some preacher discussed a story of the healing of another blind man taken from the Synoptics, and held the Jewish people to be meant by the man. In that case, it was very natural for him to say that this blind man was so from his birth. In a quite similar way, indeed, the discourse of  Stephen (Acts vii.) aims at showing that the Jewish people had mistaken the will of God from the first. Some hearer who was not too attentive might easily have gathered from the discourse that Jesus had really healed a man who was blind from birth. In this particular case, however, we are in a position to say further how some of the details in  the narrative in Jn. may have arisen. In Mk. viii. 22-25 we read that a  blind man was made to see by Jesus, not at once but by degrees. If a  preacher enlarged upon this, he might easily reach the thought: the spiritually blind only succeed gradually in recognising Jesus, the person who makes them whole. The thought is in Jn. ix. 17, 31-33, 38  expressed in such a way that the healed man at first regards Jesus only as a prophet and a devout man sent by God, and only in the end comes to  perceive that he is the Son of man, in other words, the Saviour of the world. Further, from the same passage in Mk. the point in Jn. ix. 6 is  borrowed, that Jesus' spittle served as the remedy. The only new features are the way in which this is used, and the washing of the eyes in the Pool of Shiloah.

For the story of the marriage-feast at Cana also (ii. 1-11) there were starting-points in the New Testament. In the future kingdom of eternal happiness people drink wine (Mk. xiv. 25). Figuratively, the new religion which Jesus introduces has already (in Mk. ii. 22) been compared with new wine which ought not to be poured into old skins; and the time during which Jesus is with his friends, whether in the present or in the future, is here (Mk. ii. 19) and elsewhere (Rev. xix. 7; Jn.  iii. 29) described as a marriage festival. If we may believe that the Fourth Evangelist built his narrative upon these foundation stones, some one who was familiar with the figurative style of speech, or a  number of such people, before Jn. may easily have done the same; and in  that case the whole account would have been handed on to Jn. as a real miracle.

The origin of the story of the healing at the Pool of Bethesda we may suppose to have been rather different (v. 1-16). Here a preacher may not have started with some parable which had been handed down as coming from the mouth of Jesus. But he might certainly have taken the story in  the Old Testament (Deut. ii. 14) as his starting-point, according to   which the people of Israel, in punishment of its disobedience, was obliged to wander in the wilderness for thirty-eight years. Thus, in a  figurative discourse, having in view all the while the people's whole history down to his own time, he might have described the nation as a  sick person, who for thirty-eight years had been bed-ridden. Five porticoes--thus he went on per haps to recall the five books of Moses, by obedience to which the Jews hoped to be made blessed--had the house in which he lay, but he did not become well; often as the water was stirred, which held out to him the hope of a cure, there was never any one there to help him to step in, until Jesus came and asked him, Wilt thou be whole?

In this way the explanation may be applied to all the miracle-stories in Jn. which have not been taken directly from the Synoptics, like the feeding of the multitudes and the walking on the sea. Of other narratives, it perhaps suits best that of the washing of the disciples' feet. According to Lk. xxii. 26 f., immediately after the last occasion in his life on which he supped with his disciples, Jesus said, "I am in  the midst of you as one that serveth." Now, washing the feet was one of  the duties of the humblest servants. It may perhaps seem to us rather bold, but it is not unthinkable, that a preacher, wishing to describe very vividly Jesus condescension in serving his followers, may perhaps have said: "Jesus ministered to his disciples like the humblest slave;  he compared himself with the servant who washes the feet of the guests   at meal-time." Of course, he meant this only as a figure of speech; but it is very conceivable that it was understood as a real event which actually happened on the last evening of Jesus' life.

But enough. We do not press the application of this method of  explanation to other accounts in the Fourth Gospel; for we by no means wish to derive all accounts not included in the Synoptics from a  "tradition" only known to Jn., but only those in which this can be done naturally; and so we leave every reader to judge in how many cases the method is appropriate. __________________________________________________________________

23. DIVERGENCE AS TO JESUS DEATH.

We must look all the more closely now into the one, but very important, point in which, with much plausibility, people may find in Jn. a  correct tradition based upon faithful recollection, a tradition by   which the story of the Synoptics is shown to be faulty. It concerns the day of Jesus' death. According to all four Gospels, Jesus died on a  Friday. This was, according to the Synoptics (Mk. xiv. 12, 14; xv. 1), the 15th of the month Nisan (corresponding almost to our April), but according to Jn. (xiii. 1, 29; xviii. 28; xix. 14, 31) the 14th. This means an extremely serious difference. On the afternoon of the 14th Nisan the lambs were slain in the fore-court of the Temple at  Jerusalem, and then after sunset, at the meal of the Passover festival (the place of which is taken by our Easter festival), were eaten. The 15th Nisan was the first of the seven days of the festival, and in  sanctity and the strictness with which all work was refrained from, was almost equivalent to a Sabbath. It is important to remember that this is true also of the night between the 14th and the 15th of Nisan, because amongst the Jews the day began with sunset.

The difference between Jn. and the other Gospels is seen, therefore, particularly in two points. According to the Synoptics, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal, together with his disciples, on his last evening. But not according to Jn.; according to his account, Jesus' last supper was, rather, on the preceding day, which was not a  feast-day; and when the Jews ate the Paschal lamb twenty-four hours later, he already lay in the grave. Consequently his arrest, condemnation, crucifixion, and burial, which according to both accounts were compressed into less than twenty-four hours (to the next sunset  after his last supper), also followed, according to Jn., on the working-day before the festival; but according to the Synoptics on the first feast day which involved strict suspension of all work.

The following table will serve to make this clear. The days of the month Nisan, placed in the middle, are common to the Synoptics and Jn. The /- denotes the crucifixion of Jesus.

SYNOPTICS. JOHN. Wednesday. 13 Thursday. Thursday. 14  Evening Passover meal. /-Friday. Friday./- 15 (1st feast-day). Saturday. __________________________________________________________________

24. DAY OF JESUS DEATH ACCORDING TO THE SYNOPTICS CONCEIVABLE.

Was Jesus trial possible on the feast-day? It would seem not. And if  Jn. is right, this point is so decisive that we may seek the truth in  this Gospel everywhere else as well. He would, in that case, appear as  the eye-witness whose purpose in his story is tacitly to correct the Synoptics (see above, pp. 52-57).

But consider what this means. Hitherto, as compared with the Synoptics, the Fourth Gospel has always proved less correct, and often quite untrustworthy. Is this discovery to be all at once reversed? May we  believe that the Synoptists have made a mistake like this even on this one point (the day of Jesus' death)? Can we, if we do so, believe anything else at all in their books on any one point? What took place in these last hours of the life of Jesus must have stamped itself indelibly on the minds of the disciples. How could they have told, or  merely through an obscure recital have suggested to their hearers, that their Lord was present to partake with them of the Jewish paschal meal, if this was not the case at all? How can they have wrongly stated, or  only suggested, that he was arrested, condemned, crucified, and buried on the feast-day, when all this seems to be made impossible by the sanctity of the day itself? Of course, up to the present it seems an  equally great riddle that Jn. should have been led by some mistake to  relate the contrary. But, in any case, we have the most .pressing occasion to see exactly whether the statement of the Synoptics is  really unacceptable.

According to Jewish law, as committed to writing in the Mishnah, the oldest part of the Talmud, about 200 A.D., in order to pass a death sentence two sittings of the High Council--that is to say, of the highest judicial court--were necessary, and a night must intervene between them. Now, since no judicial proceedings might be held on the Sabbath, a trial which might end in a death-sentence could not commence on the day before (and therefore also, we may be sure, on the day  before the first day of the Feast of the Passover). On this view of the matter, the story of the Synoptics seems in all circumstances to be  excluded; for, according to this, the first sitting took place in the night which to the Jews already formed part of the feast-day, and the second actually on the morning of this first feast-day (Mk. xiv. 17,  53-64; xv. 1). But--and this is a point which is not usually noted--even the Johannine account would be impossible. Even if we  assume that a trial of Jesus took place in the palace of Caiaphas (xviii. 24-28), as it had already done (xviii. 13-23) in the palace of  Annas (Jn. does not tell us at all what happened before Caiaphas), we   must still insist that between the two trials there intervened not a   night, but only a few hours of one and the same night. If in conformity with the regulations a night was to be allowed to intervene between the two sittings, the trial, even according to Jn., could not have commenced; for, according to his account, the 14th of Nisan had already begun when Jesus was arrested, so that the second trial could not have fallen before the 15th Nisan, which would mean the great feast-day. Accordingly, as regards both stories, we cannot avoid devoting space to  the following consideration.

At this time the Jews were no longer allowed to execute a sentence of  death; that could be done only by the Roman governor, and so at that time by Pontius Pilate, who was present in Jerusalem throughout the Passover feast with a force of soldiers which had been increased on  account of the immense throng of people. But, this being so, it was of  no importance to the Jews to pass the death-sentence formally, since they had to ask Pilate to confirm and execute it. They could achieve their purpose equally well by simply making their charge against Jesus before Pilate without previously condemning him. The high-priest, who always presided, required in the first instance, therefore, simply to  declare that no judicial court would be held, but only a charge be   prepared to bring before Pilate; in that case, the law we have mentioned would have proved no obstacle. We may well believe that the High Council had shrewdness enough to hit upon this expedient.

Only consider, as regards the whole subject, how urgent the matter was! If, during the festival, the people were to declare for Jesus, recognising him as the Messiah, towards which recognition they had a  few days before at Jesus entry into Jerusalem already made a very suspicious beginning (Mk. xi. 1-11), it would be too late to take action. The original determination to remove him had been formed even before the beginning of the festival (Mk. xiv. 1 f.). After the festival had started and Jesus had been arrested, not another hour was to be lost. The Christians heard nothing at all of that purely juristic observation of the high-priest, which we have conjectured; or they paid no attention to it for they saw in it, unquestionably and quite correctly, a mere excuse, and they held fast, in a way that we can very easily understand, to the familiar idea that the High Council was the highest judicial Court in their nation.

Simon, who was compelled to bear Jesus cross, was coming at the time "from the country" (Mk. xv. 21). But who can say that he had been working there? He belonged, in truth, to Cyrene in North Africa, and therefore clearly was one of the number of pilgrims who had come to  Jerusalem solely in order to keep the feast. At such a feast two million men may easily have assembled; for we know that about 65 A.D.  256,500 paschal lambs were counted at the slaughter in the fore-court of the Temple, and no part of their flesh might be left over until the next morning (Ex. xii. 4, 10). Beyond question very many of those who had come to the feast must have passed the night outside the city, so  that Simon may very well have returned to it before nine o'clock in the morning (Mk. xv. 25). The Greek words may mean not only "from the  field," but equally well "from the country."

Similarly, from the fact that the Synoptics call the day of Jesus' death "the day of preparation" we may not conclude that they support Jn. when he tells us in his gospel that it was a working-day. "Day of  preparation," that is to say, day for making preparations, was in fact the name of every Friday, because people prepared for the Sabbath by  doing the works which were forbidden on the Sabbath itself. And this would be equally appropriate if the Friday were a feast-day; for some kinds of activity forbidden on the Sabbath were allowed then, particularly (see Ex. xii. 16) the cooking of foods, which were kept warm from every Friday evening to be used on the Sabbath when there could be no fire. Mk. expressly says (Mk. xv. 42) that the day of  preparation was "the day before the Sabbath"; cp. Lk. xxiii. 54; Mt. xxvii. 62.

Jesus execution would not have been possible on the feast-day if the Jews themselves had had to carry it out. But as a matter of fact this was the business of Pilate; and what he did the Jewish authorities would not of course regard as a violation of the feast-day for which they could be held responsible. Nor was there any need to fear a rising among the people in favour of Jesus after Pilate had pronounced his sentence; it might be taken for granted that he would suppress anything of the kind with the utmost rigour.

Still less does the burial of Jesus, which according to all four Gospels (Mk. xv. 42-46; Jn. xix. 38-42) was carried out before sunset on the very day of Jesus' death, prove that the first feast-day had not begun before this sunset, as Jn. would have us believe (according to  the Jewish division of the day). All four accounts agree that Jesus died on a Friday. If then the time of burial had been delayed because this (according to the Synoptics) was a feast-day, it would have fallen on a Sabbath, a day on which it must have been still more strictly excluded. Moreover, the burial on the day of death itself is not merely a custom (see above, p. 19), but in the case of one who has been hanged, is expressly commanded in the Law (Deut. xxi. 22 f.).

It was really forbidden in the Law (Exod. xii. 22) to leave the house in which the Passover meal had been eaten before the next morning. But this prohibition in view of the multitude of pilgrims, to which we have referred above, could certainly at this time no longer be obeyed. Even the custom enjoined in the same verse as well as in verse seven, of  smearing the door-posts with the blood of the paschal lamb, was dispensed with. It seemed helpful to suppose that the practice had been ordained solely for the first celebration of the Passover before the Exodus from Egypt, and not for its later repetition (see v. 12 f.), though, as a matter of fact, in vv. 24 f. it is ordained "for ever." Jesus therefore may very well have gone to the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples on the night which was included in the feast-day.

So far then we have not discovered a single point in which anything that the Synoptics tell us would have been really impossible on the feast-day to which they refer it. The case seems to be different when we read in Lk. (xxiii. 56) that the women prepared ointments, and in  Mk. (xv. 46) that Joseph of Arimathea bought a linen cloth in which to  wrap the body of Jesus. True, we do not know whether these two things would be as strictly forbidden on such a feast-day as they were on the Sabbath. But if they were, the further question must always arise, Were the Synoptics really guilty of the great mistake of placing Jesus' death on a wrong day, or only of the small slip of recording on a  side-issue something which the sanctity of the day made impossible? Would it not be quite excusable if they have pictured to themselves in  a way that is not quite correct a matter which they did not witness themselves, and if they did so through not having a very accurate knowledge of Jewish regulations? Moreover, Mk. (xvi. 1), at any rate, says, in conformity with these, that the women did not buy the ointments until the Sabbath was over.

Similarly, the Synoptics may have been led astray by a pardonable error, when they suppose that the band of men sent by the Jewish authorities to capture Jesus were armed with swords (Mk. xiv. 43, 48). To carry a sword on the Sabbath, and therefore probably also on the night which, according to the Synoptics, was part of the feast-day, was forbidden. But this at any rate is certain, that the use of police on  days when there was an immense throng of people could in no case be   rendered impossible by a command which prohibited the carrying of any weapon. In the Mishnah, in fact, only the following weapons are for bidden; cuirasses, helmets, greaves, swords, bows, shields, slings (?), and spears. We may well believe that the Jews were sharp-witted enough to hit upon something which could not be included amongst these, and yet was a weapon all the same. Perhaps the Synoptics give us a real clue here, when they say that those who were sent by the Jewish authorities were armed with staves as well as with swords.

There is no reason to doubt that Jesus disciples had swords with them (Mk. xiv. 47). But they had themselves long given up the habit of  painfully adhering to commands about such things as these. They had, of  course, armed themselves on the preceding working-days, in order to be   prepared against a sudden attack; and certainly on the night when they were exposed to greatest danger they would not have laid aside their swords, even though, strictly speaking, they were forbidden to carry them on the feast-day.

Let us draw the conclusion! Apart from unimportant side-issues, in  which we can easily believe that mistakes may have been made, the Synoptists tell us nothing that might not have happened on the feast-day. The account in Jn., according to which the whole thing took place on a working-day is, it is true, easier to understand, but it  does not by any means provide the only explanation. And it cannot surely be postulated that an event must have transpired in a way that can be understood easily. If that were so, how many events would have to be struck out of the pages of history! It is not necessary to reject an account, unless it is thoroughly inconceivable. But, as we have shown, that is by no means the case with that of the Synoptists. Consequently, we are fully justified in accepting it, seeing that on  other points we have always been able to give more credit to the Synoptics than to Jn. __________________________________________________________________

25. THE DAY OF JESUS DEATH ARTIFICIALLY FIXED IN JN.

True, it always remains a riddle how Jn. can have been led to give us  his account, which, in view of what we have said, is necessarily wrong. But the riddle can be solved, and even Jn. himself expressly indicates how this may be done. According to xix. 31-36, Pilate, at the instigation of the Jews, gives command for the thighs of Jesus and of  the two men who were crucified with him to be broken, that their death might be hastened, and that they might be buried before the sunset with which in Jn. the feast begins. But the soldiers find Jesus already dead, and therefore in his case do not carry out the command. Jn. then tells us that this happened in order that the passage in the Old Testament might be fulfilled: "a bone of him shall not be broken." Of  whom? The paschal lamb (Ex. xii. 46). Consequently, Jn. regards Jesus as the true paschal lamb, and thinks that in him what is said of the paschal lamb in the Old Testament must be fulfilled. Paul had expressed the thought: "for our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ" (1 Cor. v. 7); Jn. elaborates it more exactly, and tells of the sufferings and death of Jesus as they must have happened if they were in precise agreement with the injunctions about the paschal lamb.

He does this, it should be noted, not merely in the matter we have mentioned, where he tells us that Jesus bones were not broken, but in  every case where there are injunctions in the Old Testament about the lamb which might have been fulfilled in Jesus as well. The lamb had to  be slain in the afternoon (Ex. xii. 6; Deut. xvi. 6: towards evening,   but in Jesus time as early as from one or two o'clock). In accordance with this, Jesus is still standing before Pilate (Jn. xix. 14) at  midday, though, according to the Synoptics (Mk. xv. 25), he was crucified at nine o'clock in the morning. This, however, makes it the more difficult to understand why Jn. should represent that Jesus was already dead towards five o'clock in the afternoon, for we know that, by no means seldom, crucified men have continued to live on the cross for several days. Further, the lamb had to be chosen on the 10th of  Nisan (Exod. xii. 3); in harmony with this, the anointing of Jesus in   Bethany, which, according to the Synoptics (Mk. xiv. 8) as well as Jn. (xii. 7), is of the nature of a consecration for his death, is  represented in Jn. xii. 1 as taking place on the sixth day before the feast, though Mk. xiv. 1 tells us that it happened on the second day before it (the first and the last day being included; reckoning  backwards, therefore, from 15th Nisan as the first day of the feast,   this gives us really the 10th Nisan). But, in particular, the day on  which the lamb had to be slain was the 14th Nisan (Ex. xii. 6), and this now explains the whole dislocation which Jn. has introduced into the last events of Jesus' life. In the interest of an idea, to Jn. an  idea of some importance, Jesus has been made to carry out to the exact letter, in his own person, the whole fate of the paschal lamb, in order to show that all the injunctions concerning it have now been fulfilled and so abolished for ever, and with them all the commands of the religion of the Old Testament.

It might be doubted whether that Evangelist whose work Clement of  Alexandria called--and certainly not unjustly--the pneumatic, or the spiritually-centred, gospel, can have attached such importance to this verbal fulfilment of the Old Testament. Yet Jn. has expressly drawn attention to the fact that when Jesus thighs were not broken, an Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled. And in like manner, it is only he who gives Jesus cry on the cross, "I thirst" (xix. 28), and adds that it  was made in fulfilment of a passage in the Old Testament (Ps. xxii.   16). It is only he who tells us (xix. 23 f.) that after Jesus crucifixion his cloak and his tunic were differently disposed of, and who adds here also that this was done in fulfilment of a passage in the Bible, the 19th verse of this same 22nd Psalm: "they divided my raiment  among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." The Synoptics introduce from this Psalm (besides the cry undoubtedly made by Jesus,  "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?") other matter that might serve to embellish the story of Jesus passion (Mt. xxvii. 39, 43); but they have rightly understood verse 19 to imply only one action (Mk. xv.  24). Jn., in understanding it of two actions, shows, on the one hand, that he has no idea how often, times without number, in the Old Testament one idea is expressed by two clauses slightly differing from each other, and, on the other hand, how anxious he is to demonstrate in  the history of Jesus the literal fulfilment of the Old Testament. Much as he felt himself to be exalted above it, so far as it contains injunctions as to life, yet in so far as the prophecies are concerned, he held fast very tenaciously, just as the apostle Paul did, to the thesis that "the scripture cannot be broken" (x. 35). Jesus says to the Jews in this Gospel (v. 39), "Ye search the Scriptures because ye think  that in them ye have eternal life" (that is to say, have received   assurance of eternal life), "and these are they which "in reality "bear   witness of me" Compare further the quotations in xiii. 18 (compared  with xvii. 12), xv. 25, xix. 37, xii. 38, and the reference to the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness as being a symbol of the lifting up of Jesus on the cross in iii. 14 f.; also ii. 17, vi. 31,  45, x. 34.

The matter may therefore be summed up as follows. The Synoptics report that the arrest, condemnation, execution, and burial of Jesus took place on a day on which all these things would be associated with difficulties, but would by no means be impossible; and as to how they could have arrived at this, by mistake or of set purpose, if the day were really another one, no one has yet been able to offer a suggestion which is even remotely probable. In the case of Jn., on the other hand, we can tell point by point how he must have come to fix upon another day, supposing the Synoptics were right. As soon as we have perceived this, the question ought to be decided, Are we obliged to believe Jn. on this one point, even though in everything else we have been able to  put so little faith in him?

But if any one persists in giving the preference to Jn. here, we must ask him one more question in conclusion; to what are we to trace the agreement between the last acts in the closing day of Jesus' life and those associated with the paschal lamb? Is it chance? Chance in no less than four points? Any one who has not the courage to say this, should realise that only one supposition remains, and one which has been put forward only by the very strictest believers: God so arranged the course of the Passion that everything in it agreed exactly with the injunctions concerning the paschal lamb, purposing in this way to make men realise that Jesus died as the true paschal lamb, and thus did away with the Jewish feast of the Passover and the whole Jewish religion. This view may be found wholly unacceptable, and yet no defender of the statement of the days as given in Jn. can refuse to accept it, unless he is prepared to see here a really very remarkable accident. __________________________________________________________________

26. THE STORY OF JESUS RESURRECTION.

As to the occurrences after Jesus resurrection, especially as to what transpired at the empty grave, the Fourth Evangelist tells us so much that is not found in the other Gospels that it might easily be supposed we have here the words of an eye-witness. The more so because amongst these statements we find also one to the effect that the disciple whom Jesus loved--and whom to all appearance we might sup pose to be the author of the Gospel--hastened with Peter to the tomb. But if that were so, the story of Mk. (xvi. 1-8) and of Mt. (xxviii. 1-8) would be quite inconceivable.

Their chief variation from Jn.--though in this feature Lk. agrees with him--is found, that is to say, in the statement that the women who find the tomb of Jesus empty are commissioned by an angel to bid the disciples go to Galilee, for there they would see their risen Lord. According to Mt. the latter event afterwards happened, and it must have been narrated by Mk. as well; but the original conclusion to his Gospel has been lost, and a much later supplement (xvi. 9-20) substituted for it. In Lk. and Jn., on the other hand, all the appearances of the risen Lord take place in or near Jerusalem. And this too seems really to be  the only natural course. All the Gospels agree that Jerusalem was the place in which Jesus rose, and that the disciples were still staying there on Easter morning. Why, then, should the disciples be advised to  go to Galilee in order that they might see Jesus?

But for this very reason Mk. and Mt. could never have been led to tell us of this advice to the disciples to go to Galilee, if they had ever heard that Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem. In no case, therefore, can this account in Lk. and Jn. be the original one; for, if  it had been, Mk. and Mt. would unquestionably have heard and accepted it. On the contrary, they must have known of only one account, to wit, that the appearances of the risen Lord had taken place in Galilee.

Even in their case, however, it is remarkable enough that an angel should have to commission the women at the tomb to bid the disciples go  to Galilee; and, as a matter of fact, judged by all that we may suppose to have happened, this story is not plausible. Only, the truth is not to be looked for in Lk. and Jn., but in quite a different quarter. In  Mk. (xiv. 50) and Mt., that is to say, we read that when Jesus was arrested all the disciples forsook him and fled. Whither? Hardly to  Jerusalem; for there what happened to Peter might only too easily happen to them: they might be identified as followers of Jesus. Mk. (xiv. 27 f.) and Mt., however, give us a further clue. When, shortly before his arrest, Jesus prophesied to the disciples that they would all forsake him, he added, "Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go  before you into Galilee." The idea that he would reach Galilee before them agrees with the account of the angel's advice to the women; but it  is really too obvious to see in this statement merely a veiled indication that the disciples made their escape to their native place, Galilee, and that Jesus appeared to them there, simply because they took up their abode there from the day of his resurrection or a little later (the distance is two or three days journey). Peter, too, after his denial of Jesus, would certainly have followed the rest.

The mistake in Mk. and Mt., therefore, is not that they assume the appearances of the risen Lord to have taken place in Galilee, but that they suppose the disciples to have been still in Jerusalem on Easter morning. But it was this very mistake that must have suggested to Lk. and Jn. the necessity of making a change. If the disciples were still in Jerusalem after Jesus resurrection, these two Evangelists could not but suppose that here also Jesus must have appeared to them. But what to their mind, of course, was the correction of an error, in reality simply added to the -first mistake a second which was much greater.

If, however, in view of this, Jn. does not by any means give us the truth on the main point, it is clear that in the details also we cannot expect to find it. For instance, in the story of Thomas, which is so  beautiful in itself, but of which the Synoptics know nothing, and the scene of which, moreover, is likewise Jerusalem. In the case of the story of Mary Magdalene, attractive and affecting though it is to  persons of delicate feeling, we can detect from a particular expression that it is not original, but a reconstruction of a story told in the Synoptics. In Jn. Mary Magdalene came to the sepulchre alone, and yet she says (xx. 2), "we know not where they have laid him." The plural here is only appropriate if there were several women, as in the Synoptics. In xx. 13, the mistake is avoided; Mary Magdalene says here: "I know not where they have laid him."

And, lastly, the race of Peter and the beloved disciple to the sepulchre! This cannot have happened if the disciples were no longer in  Jerusalem. But even if they were still there, we must still insist that the Synoptists never had any knowledge of this race; for, had they had any, who could believe that they would have been silent about it? Moreover, we can see here quite clearly step by step how the statements of the Evangelists developed. Although Mk. and Mt. presuppose that the disciples were still present in Jerusalem, they are quite unaware that any of them has visited the sepulchre (and this will be an echo of the  truth that they were no longer in Jerusalem). Lk. already knows something about it, but only in the quite indefinite form (xxiv. 24): "and certain of them that were with us went to the tomb, and found it  even so as the women had said, but him they saw not." [6] Jn. already knows the names of the disciples and all the details of their visit to  the grave.

And how are these details told? The beloved disciple ran faster than Peter, came first to the grave, and saw the linen cloths lying in it, but did not go in. Peter went in and saw, in addition to the linen cloths, the napkin as well. Afterwards the beloved disciple went in  too, saw and believed, that is to say, gained the faith that Jesus had risen. Thus, alternately the one gets an advantage over the other; but, first and last, the beloved disciple appears as the greater. __________________________________________________________________

[6] Lk. xxiv. 12, according to which Peter ran to the tomb, saw the linen cloths lying, and departed to his home, wondering, certainly did not originally find a place in the Third Gospel but was only added to  it subsequently as an abstract from the Fourth. Only, in Lk. the beloved disciple was ignored, because he was not known at all to the readers of the Third Gospel. __________________________________________________________________

27. INTRODUCTION OF CONDITIONS OF A LATER PERIOD.

In proportion as it becomes less likely that this could have happened at the tomb of Jesus, the question becomes more pressing, Did it not happen in the later careers of the two disciples? We are reluctant to  believe it, and yet it can hardly be otherwise: expression is here given to that later struggle for precedence between the two apostles. Peter excelled the beloved disciple by being bolder and observing more closely the details--of, we may now perhaps say without further ado, the life of Jesus; but in faith, that is to say, in the deeper understanding, the beloved disciple had the advantage.

If any one should still have any scruples about seeing here so bold an  introduction of the conditions of a later period into the story of   Jesus' life, he will dismiss them, we should think, when he takes into consideration another passage of a similar kind. We refer to the words spoken by Jesus, iv. 35-38, on an occasion when there seemed to be a  possibility of winning over the men belonging to the city of the woman of Samaria. The idea with which the author starts, that the fields (that is to say, the field of his operations among the Samaritans) are white already unto harvest, seems appropriate to the situation. But not a single word in the concluding sentence (iv. 38) is suitable. It is  not true that, before the disciples, others laboured to win the Samaritans, or that the disciples themselves did so (cp. p. 13)--to say nothing of the idea that they afterwards entered into the labour of  their predecessors. On the other hand, all these sentences are seen at  once to be true, if we suppose that Jesus is here speaking of the Christian Mission, and in the way in which some one who was looking back upon the progress of this work during a number of decades would be  obliged to speak of it. Then, and then only, is it appropriate to say that the one set of missionaries took the place of the other, and that the later only reaped what the earlier had sown (iv. 37 f.). Here then we can note clearly the careless way in which the author makes Jesus express views which could not have been formed until the much later period in which the author himself lived. But at the same time we can see further that such views do not apply to the Samaritans alone, nor even to them in a special sense, but to all the Gentiles. The author regards the Samaritans--who, as a matter of fact, were not recognised as fellow-countrymen by the Jews (iv. 9; Lk. xvii. 18)--simply as  representatives of the whole Gentile world; it is in this that he finds the fields white already unto harvest.

Again, the strange metaphor by which Jesus represents himself as the door through which a rightful shepherd comes to his sheep (p. 36) can be understood if we seek the explanation in the circumstances of a  later period. And we can easily do this if we follow the clue provided in 1 Jn. iv. 1-3. The shepherds and the robbers contrasted with them, stand for two classes of Christian teacher; the former acknowledge the true faith in Christ, the latter disavow it. Strictly speaking, then, not Jesus himself, but faith in him is the door by which a true teacher seeks admission to the members of the Christian communities, as  compared with false teachers who seek to force an entrance into the communities without any such passport, and so in an unlawful way, and try to capture the leadership of them. In the lifetime of Jesus of  course these two classes of teacher were not in existence; they did not arise until a much later period. In x. 8, it is true, Jesus says that all teachers who came forward before him were thieves and robbers; but this is an entirely new thought, and the interpretation of the adjoining verses (x. 1-7, 9, 10a) cannot be made to depend upon it. In  these verses teachers who came forward before Jesus cannot be meant, simply because they could never have been in a position to use him as a  door. __________________________________________________________________

28. PRECISE STATEMENTS OF TIME IN JN.

The last thing which is made to tell in favour of the accuracy and fidelity of the Fourth Gospel consists of a number of passages in which the day, and even the hour, in which something happened is stated much more carefully than in the Synoptics. Thus i. 29, 35, 43; vi. 22; xii. 12 commence "on the following day"; ii. 1 "on the third day"; in i. 39 it is four o'clock in the afternoon when the two first disciples, Andrew and one who is unnamed, join Jesus; in iv. 6 it is twelve o'clock midday, when Jesus sits by Jacob's well in Samaria. The inhabitants of the town of Sychar having invited him to stay with them, he remains two days (iv. 40, 43).

If these passages were shown to any one before he knew the rest of the contents of the Fourth Gospel, he would certainly form the opinion that the author must have been a companion of Jesus and deserves to be  absolutely trusted even down to the smallest details. But after what has been said in the preceding paragraphs, it is no longer possible to  think this. We have actually found that after Jn. has made a statement which is equally precise in form, namely, that Jesus baptised (iii. 22,  26), a few verses later (iv. 2) he himself withdraws it (p. 55 f.). And what is it that happens on each occasion "on the following day"? In i.  29, 35 f. the Baptist is said to have declared Jesus to be the Lamb of   God which will take away the sins of the world; in i. 35-42 Andrew and an unnamed disciple are said to have been the first to become disciples of Jesus, and after them Simon, Andrew's brother, and he is said to  have received from Jesus at once, without having given any further proof of his fidelity, the name of honour, Peter, that is to say, "rock." All this is diametrically opposed to the account of the Synoptics (p. 79 f.; Mk. i. 16-20), and has no likelihood in itself; in  fact, if the Baptist had already called Jesus the Lamb of God, and Andrew (i. 41) had described him as the Saviour, it is quite impossible that Jesus should not have been recognised to be the Saviour until a  relatively late date (see p. 33). But what is the use of the precise statement, that a matter happened "on the following day," if it cannot have happened at all?

The only further question that we can ask is, how can Jn. have come to  make such precise statements of time? And to this no other answer is  possible but that he wished by this device to indicate more clearly the progress made in his story, or intended the words to introduce another important suggestion. When in chap. i. he has arrived at a new stage in  the increase in the number of Jesus' disciples, he says that a new day is beginning. We cannot really be surprised at this in a man who is so  little concerned about literal accuracy. It helps to make his story decidedly more vivid and impressive; and it is actually his purpose to  paint pictures which will make an impression (see pp. 55 f. and 96 f.). The question whether the statements about Jesus journeys to the feasts (p. 9 f.) have arisen in the same way, or were actually "delivered" to  Jn., we must leave undecided.

The hours of the day in i. 39, iv. 6, which we mentioned above, may perhaps have a hidden meaning. If we cannot define it, it does not in  the least follow that we have before us the account of an eye-witness. We have quite clearly a hidden meaning of the kind in vi. 4, when we  are told that at the time of the feeding of the five thousand "the   feast of the Passover was near." The discourses which follow are an  explanation of the Supper (see p. 98). No one, however, could have known this, since the Supper does not take place in Jn., and in the Synoptics not until a year later. It must, therefore, have been hinted at in a hidden, though intelligible, way. With this, however, agrees the statement, that the Passover was near; for it was at a Passover festival that Jesus celebrated the Supper with his disciples. If this be correct, there would no longer be any occasion to consider seriously the idea that Jesus' ministry lasted for two years; for this is based entirely upon the statement about this feast of the Passover (p. 9 f  .). But the idea also that it began shortly before a (preceding) feast of the Passover is simply founded on the fact that the expulsion of the dealers from the fore-court of the Temple, which Jn. transfers from the end to the beginning of the public work of Jesus, according to the account of the Synoptics happened at a Passover feast. The short space of two days, for which, according to iv. 40, 43, Jesus accepted the invitation to stay in the Samaritan town agrees with the time beyond which in the second century a travelling preacher was not allowed to  stay as a guest and receive board. __________________________________________________________________

CONCLUSION.

But enough. A book in which Jesus gives the explanation of the Supper a  year before its celebration; in which 500, if not 1000, soldiers, when he whom they are sent to take prisoner says "I am he," recoil and fall to the ground (xviii. 3-6); in which one hundred pounds of spices are used to embalm his body (xix. 39), ought, at the outset, to be safe from the misunderstanding that it recounts real events. These three points are enough to show that it is dominated by complete indifference as to the faithfulness of a record; that importance is attached only to  giving as impressive a representation as possible of certain ideas; and that the whole is sustained by a reverence of Jesus which has lost every standard for measuring what can really happen. __________________________________________________________________    __________________________________________________________________