p.29 Chapter II Sources and Influences The Gospel of John is the most individual of the New Testament writings. All the diverse elements of which it is composed have been fused together in the mind of an original thinker, and bear his unmistakable impress. At the same time, the Fourth Evangelist was not, like Paul, a creator and discoverer. He works with only a few ideas, which he is content to reiterate almost in the same words. These ideas have all been given to him, and it would be possible to go over his Gospel in detail and trace its dependence, almost in every verse, on the work of previous thinkers. His originality is one of attitude, of temperament. Through his own inward experience he has arrived at a new conception of the meaning of Christianity, and he assimilates the results of earlier thought to this conception. They enter into new combinations and assume new values; in every case they have something added to them which changes their whole character. Our knowledge of the sources from which John drew affords us, therefore, only a partial clue to his thought, and is sometimes positively misleading. 30. The fact that some term employed by him bears a certain meaning in Paul or in Philo, may signify very little. By reading the original idea into the borrowed term, we often miss the shade of difference which now belongs to its essential import. It may fairly be argued that much of the modern research into the possible influences that have gone o the making of John’s Gospel has served to obscure its real purpose and character. In face of the vast array of analogies and parallel passages, it becomes increasingly difficult to take the book by itself and allow it to create its own impression. This, when all is said, is the only true method of approaching a work of genius; and while examining the debt owed by our evangelist to writers before him, we must always remember that our chief concern is with himself. What he borrowed was for the most part rude material; what he gave was spirit and life. Three main influences are everywhere traceable in the Gospel,—the Synoptic tradition, the writings of Paul, the Alexandrian philosophy. To these may be added two contemporary influences,—those of the Orthodox Church doctrine and of Gnostic speculation. One important question, however, falls to be considered at the outset. May w assume that, besides these known sources, the author drew from some other source now lost to us, in his representation of the life and words of Christ? By the nature of the case no certain answer can be given to this question. Granted that the Gospel was written in the first decade of 31. the second century, we can easily conceive that many authentic traditions of the life of Jesus were still extant. Men were living who had conversed with the Apostles, and we can hardly doubt that the Fourth Evangelist availed himself of their testimony. He would be at east as anxious as Papias “to inquire into the discourses of the elders, what Andrew or Peter said, or what Phillip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord.” In one memorable passage (xix. 35) he appears to make emphatic allusion to evidence received directly from an eye-witness; and in other cases not so carefully specified we may believe that he drew from authentic records, written or unwritten, which find no place in the Synoptics. At the same time, there is no ground for assuming that these other records were more than fragmentary. They may have supplied him with isolated sayings or incidents, but cannot be roved to have constituted a positive independent source. The theory of an original document underlying our present Gospel has recently been defended with vast learning and ingenuity by Wendt. This critic maintains that the discourses of Jesus, practically in the form which we have them, were contained in an early Apostolic work, which was redacted by the later evangelist and thrown into an ordered narrative. The argument, however, makes shipwreck on two insuperable difficulties. In the first place, the Gospel as it stands is an organic unity and cannot be broken up into discourses and narrative, sub- 32. stance and framework; the impression of a single mind and a single hand rests upon every line of it, and a twofold authorship is simply inconceivable. Again, the portions assigned by Wendt to the original document are pervaded, like the rest of the book, with Pauline and Alexandrian influences. The source would thus offer exactly the same problems as the Gospel does, and would compel us to the same conclusions in regards to its date and authorship and intention. On these two grounds alone it seems impossible to accept any such theory as that which has been elaborated by Wendt. It may be freely admitted that John had access to many genuine fragments of Apostolic tradition, and embodied them in his work. Fats and incidents, touches of local colour, here and there a saying that bears the true accent of Jesus, may thus have been given him; but the large features of his picture, the general conception of the Lord’s life and message, cannot with any probability be assigned to a primitive record now lost. We are thrown back on the assumption that the sources still accessible to us are the chief, and practically the only, sources from which the Gospel is derived. Among these the first place must undoubtedly be given to the Synoptics. John would appear to have possessed these Gospels in much he same form as we have them now, and draws feely upon them all. There is little trace of critical discrimination in his use of them. It may be said generally 33. preference to Mark, for separate details to Matthew, while in his larger view of the significance of Christ’s life and work he is most in sympathy with Luke. In the main, however, he uses the three Gospels as a single authoritative source. The dependence on the Synoptics is naturally most apparent in the narrative portion of John’s work. He sets before us the same general picture of Jesus as a teacher, a worker of miracles, a Master surrounded by disciples who only half understood Him. The conception of the character of Jesus, heightened though it is by the dominant idea of the Logos, is yet essentially the same as in the earlier evangelists. These large features of resemblance do not necessarily imply a direct borrowing, but there are further similarities which cannot otherwise be explained. In the first lace, the main divisions under which the Synoptic narrative unfolds itself are carefully imitated by John. The ministry of Jesus is preceded by that of the Baptist. The beginning of miracles takes place in Galilee, under conditions of gladness and bright promise; then follows a period of debate, ever more embittered as time goes on, corresponding to the strife with scribes and Pharisees in the Synoptics. The confession of Peter (vi.69) answers to the scene at Caesarea Philippi, and, like it, marks the turning-point in the story. In the closing sections of the book the Synoptic order is closely followed, although at 34. every step its details are skillfully adapted to the Johannine scheme. The evangelist thus keeps himself in line with a sequence of events which in his own reading of the history had lost all its real significance. Jesus, as he conceived Him, came forth at once as the declared messiah; His course was not shaped for Him by outward circumstances; He knew the end from the beginning, and ordered it according to His own will. But in this new reading of the divine life John had to reckon with the tradition already fixed by he written documents. He accepts the fundamental frame-work which they afforded him, and fills it in after his own manner, so that the original lines of history are largely obliterated. The Galilean ministry, with its brightness and hopefulness, is summed up in the opening miracle at the wedding-feast, and then gives place to the more conspicuous work at Jerusalem. The controversy with scribes and Pharisees on definite matters of the moral and religious life becomes a theological polemic against “the Jews.” Peter’s confession loses its true significance as the first acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah. This, in John’s view, had never been open to doubt, and the confession only marks the growing faith of the disciples in contrast to the growing unbelief of the world. So in each case the broad Synoptic divisions are adapted to new purposes, though at the same time they are recognized. The evangelist seeks to base himself as far as possible on the foundations already laid 35. down. He reproduces, feature by feature, the history which was familiar to all Christian readers, while he presents it under a different light, so as to bring out more clearly its inward meaning. In the details of the narrative, no less than in its general sequence, we can distinctly trace the Synoptic ground-work. The incidents are, with a few exceptions, taken over from the earlier evangelists with characteristic Johannine differences. We can easily identify the original sources of the story of John the Baptist, the cleansing of the Temple, the healing of the nobleman’s son, the feeding of the five thousand, the walking on the sea, the anointing at Bethany, the entry into Jerusalem, the main episodes of the Passion and Resurrection. In all these parallels we have traces of a literary dependence which make it certain that the writer was borrowing from our present Synoptic Gospels. It is noticeable, however, that he never fails to modify in some fashion the material given him, sometimes changing its whole character. Compare, for instance, the account of the believing centurion with that of the nobleman whose son was healed. Apart from minor changes—all of them introduced with evidence intention—the purpose of the incident is altered. In the Synoptics the one prominent feature is the faith of the centurion, which secures and immediate answer to his prayer. In John the emphasis is all laid on the greatness of the miracle. Jesus performs it, not at the call of faith, but in order to evoke faith, complaining at the same time that men 36. cannot be persuaded except by signs and wonders. Thus, while he borrows the Synoptic story, John completely changes its meaning; and in other instances he follows a similar method. Setting out from his own conception of the life of Christ, he adapts and modifies hi originals, while still, in the main, adhering to them. A more complicated question presents itself when we pass from these direct borrowings to certain other episodes in the Gospel which cannot be traced so immediately to the Synoptic sources. How did John obtain his knowledge of the marriage at Cana, the second testimony of the Baptist, the meeting with Nicodemus and with the Samaritan woman, the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda and of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus? The presence of these episodes might seem to prove conclusively that the Fourth Gospel embodies an independent tradition. Certainly it is possible, as has been indicated above, that John had sources of information, oral or written, apart from our present Synoptics. Such an incident as the meeting with the Samaritan woman may easily be supposed to rest on some actual fact which the evangelist took over from tradition and elaborated in his own characteristic manner. So, in regard to all the instances given, we are free to assume that he worked on lingering reminiscences that had come down from the Apostolic times. But, in view of his close dependence elsewhere on the Synoptic records, we have to admit that probability that he is drawing upon them, though not so directly, 37. and apparently. As a matter of fact, when we examine these peculiarly Johannine incidents with some attention, we are rarely at a loss to connect them with parallel incidents in the earlier Gospels. Nicodemus has his counterpart in the right your ruler who inquired of Jesus concerning eternal life. The miracle at Cana, obviously symbolic in its character, may well have been suggested by the two sayings of Jesus (Mark ii. 19, 22) about the children of the bride-chamber and the new wine. The second testimony of John seems to correspond with his sending of the embassy from prison, only the witness, instead of wavering, reiterates his faith. The paralytic of Bethesda reminds us of the man who “took up his bed and walked” at Capernaum, and the man born blind of the blind Bartimaeus. Possible the story of Lazarus is likewise to be explained by the working up of different Synoptic suggestions into a single narrative. As it stands, we cannot, with any show of probability, find room for it in an intelligible scheme of the life of Christ. It is inconceivable that a miracle of such magnitude, performed on the very eve of the last momentous week of our Lord’s life, and in presence of crowds of people, in a suburb of Jerusalem—a miracle, moreover, which was the immediate cause, according to John, of the Crucifixion—should have been simply passed over by the other evangelists. We are almost compelled to the conclusion that the narrative is in the main symbolical, gathering up under the form of “earthly things” the supreme doctrine of Christ the Life-giver. At the same 38. time it is woven together out of scattered hints supplied by the Synoptics—the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the youth of Nain, the Lucan account of the two sisters Martha and Mary, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, with its significant closing words, “Neither will they believe though one be raised from the dead.” In no other instance does the evangelist depart so daringly from the historical tradition, yet he bases throughout on Synoptic reminiscences. He deals with them freely, and so combines and rearranges them as to form an entirely new narrative, but all the while he is careful to build with material given him. This is in accordance with his whole method and intention. He does not aim at writing a new life of Christ, but at re-stating the traditional facts in the light of what he regards as their inward meaning. The material is all borrowed from sources already familiar, and only the “truth,” the higher spiritual interpretation, is new. When we pass from the narrative to the discourses, which form the larger and more important section of the Gospel, we can still trace a continual dependence on the Synoptic records. Here, however, it is almost wholly a question of indirect influence. Two or three isolated sayings are taken literally from the Synoptics, but for the most part Jesus speaks in a language that seems entirely different. He no longer uses parables, or studies to express Himself in the simplest, directest words. His favorite mode of utterance is in dark sentences, which are often capable of several mean- 39. ings and are not intended to be fully understood. In substance even more than in form the Johannine discourses appear to stand in complete contrast to the Synoptic teaching. The message of the kingdom of God is barely alluded to, and in place of it Jesus is occupied almost exclusively with the doctrine of His own Person. In view of the marked differences, it seems hard to establish any connection between John’s account of our Lord’s teaching and that of the other evangelists; the discourses are either the product of free invention, or they are based on an independent tradition now lost to us. But there is a third alternative which commends itself on closer examination as the most probable. In the discourses, as in the narrative, John draws from the Synoptics; but he uses his sources freely, expanding, compressing, changing the emphasis, re-stating the actual words to bring out more fully the inward idea. There are few Johannine utterances to which we cannot find some parallel in the other Gospels. The resemblance may not be immediately apparent and is often little more than a vague echo, but in almost every case the thought is derivable from some authentic saying of Christ preserved in our Synoptics. Examples might easily be multiplied, but we need only refer to one, which illustrates in a very striking manner the evangelist’s method. The doctrine of the New Birth as set forth in the dialogue with Nicodemus is peculiar to the Fourth Gospel, and can be traced back to a variety of sources. Ideas that had grown up around the Mysteries are blended 40. in the mind of John with Pauline reminiscences, with theological reflections on the meaning of the Church rite of Baptism. Thus far the whole passage may be explained as a later addition, which has little to do with the recorded teaching of Jesus. Nevertheless the ultimate suggestion of the doctrine may be discovered in the earlier Gospels. The answer to Nicodemus: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," takes us back to the familiar verse, "Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." In both sayings we have the same essential thought of a new life taking its departure from an entire break with the past. In both, likewise, the image is primarily the same. John has merely developed in its full implication the idea of "becoming like a little child," and sought to interpret it in line with his own conception. Most of the passages in which he appears at first sight to vary most widely from the other evangelists, might be analysed in similar fashion with a like result. Working as he does in a spirit of freedom, he yet draws throughout from the Synoptic sources. To him, as to us, those earliest records of the words of Christ were authoritative, and he is careful to use them as his ground-work, while at the same time he modifies and interprets them. It may be granted that in the separate discourses John avails himself thus of suggestions given him by the Synoptic records; but how are we to explain his new presentation of the whole tenor and context of our Lord's teaching? In the Sermon 41. on the Mount and the Parables the Speaker says little about His own Person. All the stress is laid on the moral truths to which He bore witness, and on God's kingdom and Fatherhood. In the Fourth Gospel the revelation of Jesus centres wholly upon Himself. His actions and words alike have no other purpose than to assert the worth of His Person, and to compel belief in Him as the Son of God. This change in the whole subject of the Gospel message marks the most serious difference between John and the Synoptics; but here also he is simply interpreting his sources, with a true insight into their real import. Jesus, indeed, says little in the earlier Gospels about Himself. None the less we are made to feel in every sentence that the authority of the Person is behind the teaching. His "Verily I say" is the ultimate sanction of each new commandment; His own life and character give meaning to His revelation of God. His words are recorded, not so much for their own sake as for the knowledge they afford us of His mind and spirit. He Himself in His living Person was infinitely more than His message, and it was a message of truth and power because He spoke it. Thus the chief purpose of the Synoptic writers is to reproduce in some faint measure the impression which Christ Himself made on men; and in the Fourth Gospel this underlying purpose becomes explicit. Jesus is not only the messenger, but is Himself the subject of the message. Instead of proclaiming the kingdom and witnessing to God's love and providence, He dwells on the significance 42. of His own Person. "I am the Light of the world." "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." These sayings, and a hundred others like them, have no direct parallels in the Synoptic Gospels, but they express the latent intention of those Gospels. Jesus revealed the Father, and opened up the way to eternal life, by the manifestation of Himself. Thus far we have sought to prove that John works on the material given him by the earlier evangelists. His dependence on their record is so marked and constant, that we are the more struck by his omission of certain elements in it which are evidently of the first importance. He tells us, indeed, that he does not propose to write a complete life of Christ, but only to select the incidents that fit in with his practical religious aim. This accounts for the omission of many minor incidents; but it does not explain why a whole series of episodes, cardinal to the Synoptic story, is simply passed over. Nothing is said, for instance, about the genealogy and the Virgin Birth, the Baptism, the Temptation, the Transfiguration, the institution of the Supper, the agony in Gethsemane, the Ascension. Although the discourses of Jesus occupy the larger part of the Gospel, it contains not a single parable (the so-called parables of the Good Shepherd and the True Vine being pure allegories, which have nothing in common with the Synoptic parables). These remarkable omissions, which alter the whole character of the history, cannot be due to oversight or to the leav- 43. ing out of what was non-essential. Without doubt they have been made deliberately, in view of certain theories and pre-suppositions with which the writer approached his subject. Indeed, in most of the instances it is not difficult to read the intention that was in his mind. His conception of Jesus as the Son of God did not admit of the apparent humbling of Him to human level, implied in the Baptism or the Temptation or the Agony. The scene of the Transfiguration became unnecessary, since Jesus was invested always with a divine glory, which shone out, not once by a special miracle, but in all His words and actions. The Virgin Birth was replaced by the doctrine of the incarnation of the Word; before His birth in time Christ was the eternal Son of God, and came into the world as man by His own voluntary act. The Ascension disappears from the narrative for a similar reason. Jesus had never ceased to be the eternal Son, and required no special act of exaltation to restore Him to His place with the Father. In all these instances the divergence from the Synoptics is immediately due to the influence of the Logos idea; the discarded elements either conflicted with that idea, or seemed to fall beneath it, or served a theological interest which it already supplied. The omission of the parables and of the institution of the Supper must be accounted for on other grounds. The question of the Supper, which is peculiarly difficult and complicated, will be examined later. With regard to the parables, the evangelist himself indicates the reason why he passed them over. 44. He apparently shared the view, of which we have traces in the Synoptic writers themselves, that they were intended by Jesus to veil His true teaching. They were addressed to the unthinking multitude, " that seeing they might not perceive, and hearing they might not understand;" and John wrote his Gospel in order to disclose the "truth" which Jesus Himself had half indicated and half concealed. "These things have I spoken unto you in parables, but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in parables, but I shall show you plainly of the Father" (xvi. 25). In its omissions, then, as much as in its correspondences, the Fourth Gospel can be understood only by the light of the Synoptics. What John contributes is his new conception of the inward meaning of Christ's message. So long as the material given him can be harmonised with this conception, he accepts it, while at the same time re-moulding it freely. When he discards any important element in the Synoptic record, his reason invariably is that it will not blend with his own theological view. It is noticeable, also, that even when he omits, he shows a desire to conserve at least some vestige of the original tradition. The scene of Gethsemane could not be related without doing violence to the Logos hypothesis, yet there is a faint reminiscence of it (xii. 27-29) when Jesus trembles for a moment on the verge of His week of Passion. Here we can trace, however dimly, the several details of the Agony, in the trouble of Jesus under the shadow of death, His prayer, His 45. submission to God's will, the divine help that strengthens Him. So the Ascension, although not recorded, is darkly alluded to in the words of the risen Christ to Mary (xx. 17). It would be possible to illustrate in like manner how the missing elements in the story are all replaced by something equivalent—as when the prologue is substituted for the account of the miraculous birth, or the frequent allusions to Christ's manifest "glory" for the single scene of the Transfiguration. Throughout his Gospel the evangelist bases himself, consciously and deliberately, on the Synoptic writers. He accepts their narrative as the authentic record of the life of Jesus, and endeavours to keep in line with it even when it cannot be wholly reconciled with his own conception. At the same time he is more concerned with the "truth" of the original narrative, with its inward drift and significance, than with its literal content. "Having observed," says Clement of Alexandria, "that the bodily things had been exhibited in the other Gospels, John, inspired by the Spirit, produced a spiritual Gospel." This earliest criticism reveals a true insight into the purpose and method of John. He takes over from the Synoptic record the "bodily things," the actual facts of the Christian history, and makes it his special task to supply the interpretation. The Spirit guided him into all truth, yet the Spirit did not speak of Himself, but took of the things of Christ, as they were treasured in the familiar story, and unfolded them in their deeper meaning. 46. II. A second influence, only less powerful than that of the Synoptic tradition has left its impress on the Gospel. Nearly half a century had passed since the death of Paul, and the mind of the Church had become impregnated with Pauline ideas. More especially in Ephesus, which had been one of the chief centres of the Apostle's activity, the theological development had followed the lines marked out by him. Much, indeed, that was primary in the Pauline system had now fallen into the background. The Church had long since broken with Judaism, and the controversy concerning the relations of Law and Gospel possessed a merely historical interest. With this change in the outward situation the key to Paul's theology had been in great measure lost. Moreover, the Christianity of Paul was so much the product of his individual mind and experience, that it could not pass in its entirety into the common life of the Church. It was gradually broken up into its various component elements, which were thrown into new combinations and invested with new values. All this must be borne in mind as we approach the question of the Pauline influence on the Fourth Gospel. The evangelist is everywhere indebted to Paul, yet we are not to look for any literal reproduction of the Pauline theology. Some of the Apostle's main conceptions are passed over or barely recognised; others are so blended with foreign ideas as to lose their original meaning; in all cases there is something added or discarded. According to an ingenious conjecture, which 47. has found acceptance with several recent critics, Paul is actually introduced into the Gospel under the figure of Nathanael. This mysterious disciple, who is nowhere mentioned in the Synoptic narratives, and whose call is yet described with peculiar fullness and solemnity, has always been one of the riddles of the book. It is impossible to identify him with any of the familiar Twelve, and we must regard him either as a purely ideal figure or as the symbolical counterpart of a real personage. If the latter alternative is adopted, there seems to be no other than Paul, who fulfils all the conditions. He was not of the Twelve, and yet ranked with them in the Apostleship, and received his call from Christ Himself. Like Nathanael, he was the last to enter the Apostolic band—"as one born out of due time." He was at first adverse and contemptuous in his attitude, and was won over, not by the persuasion of the disciples, but by the immediate voice of Christ. "When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee," describes in a graphic image his predestination to Christian service while still under the shadow of the Law. "Behold an Israelite indeed" suggests more than one passage of Paul's own writings, in which he speaks of the "true Israel," the "Jew who is one inwardly," the spiritual seed of Abraham. The great promise to Nathanael ("Thou shalt see heaven opened," etc.) finds its truest fulfillment in the career of Paul, who had moments of ecstatic vision when he was rapt up to the third heaven, while in his ever-deepening faith and spiritual insight he beheld the Son of 48. man, more and more clearly revealed to him. On all these grounds it may be considered at least possible that in the story of Nathanael the evangelist alludes symbolically to Paul, and claims for him his rightful place among the very chiefest of the Apostles. Whatever be the worth of this conjecture, it is certain that John owes an incalculable debt to his great predecessor. In the course of the following chapters we shall have constant occasion to recognise his dependence on Pauline thought, and here it will be enough to touch more generally on the main points of contact. Reference may be made, in the first place, to particular verses and passages which appear to have been suggested by parallel sayings in the epistles. These reminiscences are for the most part vague and inconclusive, but here and there the Pauline original is unmistakable. For example, the answer of Jesus (vi. 29): "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent," reminds us at once of Paul's teaching on faith and works; it may be said, indeed, to sum up the Pauline position in a sort of epigram. In another controversial passage (viii. 33-39) we meet with a whole series of ideas obviously derived from Paul. "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin;" " The servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth for ever;" "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed;"—each of these sayings has its almost verbal parallel in the epistles (cf. Rom. vi. 16-23; Gal. iv. 30, v i). The claim of the Jews to special privilege in virtue of 49. their descent from Abraham is answered on the familiar lines of Pauline polemic. So the later verse (viii. 56), "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day," repeats, with an added touch of Johannine mysticism, the idea of Paul that the new dispensation of faith was implicit in the promise made to Abraham. Such instances of separate Pauline thoughts reappearing in the Gospel might easily be multiplied; but we pass to a much more important manifestation of the influence. For almost all his larger doctrines the evangelist is indebted, more or less immediately, to Paul. The nature and extent of the borrowing will concern us more particularly, when we come to examine his teaching on the several aspects of the Saviour's work, and on Life, the Holy Spirit, union with Christ, the Lord's Return to His people. The doctrines that fall to be included under these heads are cardinal to the Gospel, and in each case the main conception is either derived from Paul or is combined with distinctively Pauline ideas. In some respects the Johannine theology may be considered as little more than the natural development, along one particular line, of Paulinism; although here again we must keep in view the essential originality of the later thinker. He deals with Paul as we have already found him dealing with the Synoptics. He seeks to penetrate through the outward form of the Apostle's teaching to what appeals to him as its real and abiding import, and in so doing he profoundly modifies the Pauline ideas. Even when he seems to borrow most directly, his thought is 50. never that of Paul, but something individual and new. But apart from special doctrines, John is influenced by Paul in his whole attitude to the Christian revelation. It was Paul who first conceived of the glorified Christ as the real object of faith. The Lord whom he knew was the ascended Lord, who had been revealed to him, not in the intercourse of friend with friend, but in an inward spiritual experience. He claimed that this knowledge was as valid as that of the actual disciples, and even more real and intimate. John accepts this Pauline view with all its implications. To him also Jesus has become a heavenly being, whose life on earth had been only the beginning of an endless life, in which He is still present to those who believe in Him and love Him. In two directions, however, the Fourth Gospel advances on the thought of Paul. In the first place, the divine glory of Jesus is expressed under a yet higher category. Paul speaks of Jesus constantly as the Son of God, but the name as he uses it does not possess a definite theological value. It is partly associated with apocalyptic ideas of the Messiah, and partly runs back to a purely religious judgment on the relation of Christ to God. Paul nowhere attempts to define that relation. He is content to think of Christ vaguely as a higher being, "the Man from Heaven," who had taken on Himself the form of a servant, and was now declared to be the Son of God with power. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus is the Son of God in a 51. strict and literal sense. He is identified with the Logos who was with God from the beginning, and partakes of the attributes and the essential nature of God. Again, the glory which Paul ascribes to the exalted Christ is thrown back by John on the actual life on earth. When the Apostle wrote, the historical figure of Jesus was still too near, too much entangled with petty realities, to disclose itself in its full majesty. It was difficult for those who had known Christ after the flesh to think of Him as a divine being, and Paul turned his eyes from the earthly appearance to the ascended Lord, whose glory had now become manifest. In the second century, however, the life of Jesus had receded into the past. The veil of trivial circumstance had fallen away, and the life could stand out in its true proportions, as an authentic revelation of God. It was now possible to reflect the ideal conception of Jesus on the facts of His earthly history. The Lord who revealed Himself to Paul in the experience of faith is to the evangelist one with Jesus Christ, who had lived and taught and suffered. Even then, while He still dwelt among us, "we beheld His glory as of the only-begotten of the Father." The Fourth Gospel is thus built on foundations which had already been laid by Paul; but there are certain all-important differences between the two types of teaching. Three of the most significant may here be briefly indicated, although they will demand a closer attention in subsequent chapters, (1) The idea of Sin, which lies at the centre of all 52. Paul's thinking is reduced to a subordinate place. Salvation is regarded in its positive aspect as the entrance into a higher life, and the need of a deliverance from sin hardly appears to be realised. (2) The death of Christ no longer occupies the position which is assigned to it by Paul. Apart from one or two allusions of quite secondary importance, the Pauline doctrine of an Atonement has disappeared. The emphasis is removed from the death of Christ to His coming in the flesh; and so far as the death is theologically interpreted the theory of Paul gives place to another and wholly different one. (3) The word "faith"—the keyword of Paul's theology—is absent from the Gospel. Instead of it we have a continual repetition of the verb "believe" in all its various forms; but this believing has little in common with the Pauline "faith." In itself it only signifies an intellectual assent, and has to be filled out and supplemented before it can be made to connote the larger meaning. These are the salient differences between the theology of Paul and that of John, and to some extent, doubtless, they are capable of reconciliation. The evangelist does not insist on the explicit Pauline doctrines, because he presents them, in what he considers their essential purport, under other forms. The death of Christ, to take no other example, sums up for Paul the whole result and character of the Saviour's life. He isolates the one crowning act as the revelation of the divine love; while John takes account of the whole life and dis- 53. covers in it the same significance as Paul had ascribed to the Cross. But the difference can only be reconciled in part. We have to admit that John's development of Paulinism resulted in a new type of doctrine, new in substance as well as in outward form. The divergence was due in great measure to the changed conditions under which the Gospel was written. Paulinism could not be set free from what appeared its temporary and accidental elements without a loss of many things that belonged to its very essence. Much more, the difference between the two thinkers arose from a personal difference, in temperament and in religious experience. In his relation to his great predecessor we have perhaps the most striking evidence of the originality of John in his interpretation of the Christian message. Working throughout under the Pauline influence, he never allows himself to be mastered by it, but subordinates whatever is given him to his own conception of the truth. III. We have now to consider a third influence which is all-pervasive in the Fourth Gospel. From an early time the Pauline tradition, more especially in the region of Ephesus, was crossed with the Alexandrian philosophy. The book of Acts (xviii. 24) tells of Apollos, "a Jew born at Alexandria,' who came to Ephesus and spoke and taught the things of the Lord. All the allusions to him appear to mark him out as an adept in the allegorical method of Philo, which he pressed into the service of the Christian mission. The fact, however, of an 54. early intersection of Paulinism and Alexandrianism is placed beyond doubt by the presence of certain books in the New Testament, most notably the Epistle to the Hebrews, and, to a less degree, the Epistles to Ephesians and Colossians. In the first of these writings we find a thorough-going application of the method of Philo, together with some of his most characteristic phrases and ideas. In the two others his grand conception of the Logos, though not expressly mentioned, is clearly indicated and transferred to the Person of Christ. The main theology of these two epistles is strongly Pauline, and is not modified in any vital respect by the new conception; but none the less it is apparent that Paulinism has definitely allied itself with the philosophy of Alexandria. The development which had thus begun in Paul's lifetime, or in any case shortly after his death, comes to its full maturity in the Fourth Gospel. The prologue consists of a succinct statement of the Philonic doctrine of the Logos, which is forthwith identified with Jesus Christ. And although the term "Logos" as applied to Christ does not occur again, the idea is everywhere present, as the inseparable co-efficient to every portion of the history. The evangelist has set himself consciously to re-write the life of Christ from the point of view afforded him by Philo's doctrine. He seeks to apply in its whole extent, and to work out into all its bearings and issues, the idea which previous Christian thinkers had only adopted partially. 55. At the same time it is easy to exaggerate the influence of Alexandria on Johannine thought. The attempt has been made by more than one recent writer to explain the Gospel wholly as an Alexandrian work, and the influence of Philo has been discovered, not only in the central conception, but in almost every idea and sentence. To such a view it may be objected that there are at least two other influences, quite distinct from the Alexandrian, which contribute, as we have seen, to the making of the Gospel. Its dependence on the Synoptics and Paul is everywhere apparent, and when the largest allowance is made for all other influences, these two must still be regarded as primary. Again, we have found that in his employment of New Testament sources John works in a spirit of freedom. He borrows continually, but adapts whatever he borrows to his own purposes. We naturally expect that his attitude to the Alexandrian sources will be of similar character. He will not simply reproduce, but will select and modify and interpret; assigning a new value to each idea that he seems to borrow. There can be little doubt that this has indeed been his method. It may be granted (for this appears to be more than probable) that he had some direct acquaintance with the works of Philo, and frequently draws from them, but it does not follow that his thought is dependent, in more than a very partial sense, on that of Philo. The borrowed ideas have all become different, and sometimes essentially so, in the process of transference. Once more, the attempt to resolve the Gospel into a mere echo or 56. adaptation of Philonism, breaks down when we compare the two theologies in their wider context and purpose. It is easy to single out a number of detached passages from Philo and set them side by side with passages in John to which they bear a strong resemblance. Turn, however, to Philo as a. whole. His work is a dreary chaos, in which science, metaphysic, history, philology, moral reflection are all heaped together without plan or motive. The underlying ideas of his system have to be disengaged from a huge bulk of heterogeneous material, and are still obscure in spite of the labours of many able expositors. The contrast between Philo's rambling allegory and the Fourth Gospel is infinitely more striking than the occasional likeness. Something, no doubt, is borrowed, as certain parts of the Sermon on the Mount are borrowed from the Rabbinical teaching. But in the one case as in the other, we have always to lay the chief emphasis on what has been omitted. The dependence of John on Philo appears mainly in three directions: (1) In the use of the allegorical method; (2) In special passages, scattered up and down the Gospel, which can be paralleled from the writings of Philo; (3) In the dominant conception of the Logos. (1) It can hardly be questioned that the allegorical character of the Gospel is due to Alexandrian influence. In their effort to discover Greek philosophy in the Old Testament, the Alexandrian thinkers were driven to adopt a new system of exposition, whereby the letter of Scripture became 57. indicative of a deeper sense. Allegory had indeed long been employed in the Rabbinical schools for the explanation of certain difficult texts, but in Alexandria it was accepted as the sole method of interpretation. The Bible history was nothing but a series of symbolical images, in which, to the enlightened mind, a higher esoteric teaching was shadowed forth. Persons became the types of spiritual qualities, incidents were figurative of the various phases in the life of the soul; places, names, numbers had all a mystical import. By the help of this method, applied in a perfectly arbitrary manner, Philo transforms the book of Genesis into an elaborate statement of his Hellenised theology. In the Fourth Gospel, likewise, outward facts are symbolical of an inward spiritual meaning. The events of the history have all a deeper reference. The persons described (Nicodemus, Thomas, Philip, the Beloved Disciple) are not so much individuals as religious types. Places (e.g. Bethesda, Siloam), numbers, dates have all their secret significance. In view of this pervading use of the allegorical method, it has been maintained by some critics that John simply deals with the Synoptic narrative as Philo dealt with the Old Testament. The historical record dissolves under his touch into a pure allegory, in which the apparent fact is nothing but a symbol or parable. This, however, is to overlook the obvious differences between the evangelist's method and that of Philo. It is noticeable; in the first place, that John's use of allegory is never merely arbitrary; the higher meaning is not forced into the symbol, 58. but grows out of it naturally and inevitably. The feeding of the five thousand leads of its own accord to the great discourse in which Jesus declares Himself the bread of life. The miracle at Cana reveals its symbolic meaning with perfect transparency. So in every part of the history the spiritual significance, as John seeks to unfold it, is the real interpretation of the facts. Again (and this is the crucial difference), the material fact has no value to Philo except as a dim suggestion of some abstract idea. The history is allegorical to him in the strict sense—an adumbration under sensible forms of higher realities. John, on the other hand, attaches a supreme importance to the fact. The Gospel rests on the grand assumption that the Word has become flesh, the higher truth has embodied itself in the actual life of humanity; and this assumption involves at every point a profound departure from Alexandrian modes of thought. The whole interest of Philo is to break away from the material symbol and resolve it entirely into its ideal meaning, while John is concerned for the fact as much as for the idea. He seeks to show how the spiritual things have become concrete realities in the historical appearance and work of Jesus Christ. (2) The Gospel contains a number of passages in which we can trace coincidences, more or less close, with passages in the Philonic writings. It is possible, by a little ingenuity, to multiply these parallels almost indefinitely. In the vast extent of Philo's work there are necessarily many scattered sentences which offer a certain resemblance to 59. Johannine sayings; and this is the more unavoidable, as the Logos conception is the same, generally speaking, in both writers, and cannot be set forth without many analogies in thought and language. For example, when Philo describes the Logos as "eternal,"1 "uniting all things,"2 "incapable of evil,"3 "imparting joy and peace,"4 we need not infer that the corresponding Johannine ideas are immediately derived from him. Even when he speaks of the Logos under definite images as "leader on the way,"5 "shepherd,"6 "sustenance of the soul,"7 "well of fair deeds,"8 "healer,"9 "high-priest,"10 we are still within the region of natural coincidence. These images may well have offered themselves independently to both writers as the simplest and most expressive. They are part of the common religious language of all times. By far the greater number of the parallels to John which may be collected out of the Alexandrian writings may be set aside, in like manner, as at least inconclusive. There are passages in the Gospel, however, which seem to point to a definite reminiscence. One striking instance is the defence of Jesus for His breaking of the Sabbath—"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (v. 17). Here we have a thought which is several times insisted on by Philo,11 that God never ceases the work of creation which He accomplishes through the agency of the 1Conf .lingu. II. 2Qu.rer.div.38 3Prof.21 4Somm.ii.37 5Migr.Abr.31. 6 Agric.12 7Leg.alleg.iii.59 8Poster.Caini.37 9Leg.alleg.iii 10Somm.i.37 11Leg.alleg.1.7;1.3 60. Logos. This Philonic idea takes the place of the simple Synoptic argument that "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." Again, the saying (v. 19), "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but only what He sees the Father do," has an almost literal equivalent in Philo: "The Father of the universe has brought Him [the Logos] into being as His eldest Son, whom elsewhere He calls His first-born; and He who was begotten, imitating the ways of His Father, and looking to His archetypal patterns, kept forming the separate species."1 A resemblance like this, in which the thought and the image are both so peculiar, can hardly be explained on any theory of chance. A third parallel, in some respects the most notable of all, is found in the great discourse on the bread of life in the sixth chapter. Philo in several places dwells on the significance of the manna, and in each instance his thought anticipates that of John. "The Logos distributes to all the heavenly food of the soul, which is called manna."2 "You see, then, what the food of the soul consists in—in the Word of God, given continually like the dew’s."3 “They who have inquired what it is that nourishes the soul, have found it to be the Word of God and divine wisdom, from which all kinds of instruction and wisdom for ever flow. This is the heavenly food, and it is indicated in the sacred Scriptures, where the cause of all things says, Behold, I rain on you bread from heaven."4 The Johannine discourse appears to bear distinct traces 1 Conf. lingu. 14.. 2 Qu. rer. div. 39. 3 Leg. alleg. iii. 59 4 Profug. 25. 61. of the idea expressed in these and similar passages, that the Logos is the true manna, the bread from heaven, the food of the soul. At the same time we can observe in this typical instance how the Philonic thought changes its character. In the first place it is brought into relation with a peculiar order of ideas suggested by the Lord's Supper. Then the "nourishment of the soul" is understood mystically and religiously;—it does not consist merely in "all kinds of wisdom and instruction," but in a real communication of the divine life. Lastly, the whole force of the Johannine argument depends on the identification of the Logos with Jesus Christ. He, as He reveals Himself in the gospel history and in the inward Christian experience, is "the bread of life." The one condition of true life is to enter into personal union with Him, to incorporate, as it were, His spirit and nature into our own. It might be demonstrated in the same manner, that there is always an essential difference between John's thought and that of Philo, even when the apparent resemblance is closest. (3) The Alexandrian influence is most evident in the Logos doctrine, which is expressly formulated in the prologue, and everywhere pre-supposed in the body of the Gospel. John does not, however, adopt the Philonic doctrine without subjecting it to certain profound modifications, which will be discussed in their due place in a later chapter. For the present it need only be indicated that the purely philosophical conception of Philo assumes an entirely new value when it is brought into relation 62. with the historical Person of Christ. It has indeed been argued that Philo also conceived of his Logos as a personal being, and his language in many places might seem to bear out this contention. Admitting, however, that he ascribes a real, and not merely a figurative, personality to the Logos, it still remains certain that he keeps within the limits of abstract speculation. He is thinking all the while of the divine reason and activity, which he personifies as the intermediate agent between God and the world. John, on the other hand, starts from an actual knowledge of the earthly life of Jesus, and the conception of the Logos is always blended in his mind with the impression left on him by the Person. Even in the prologue, when he speaks of the pre-existent Word in language purely Alexandrian, he looks forward to the subsequent revelation, when this Word became flesh. For this reason alone it is impossible to regard the Logos of the Fourth Gospel as merely equivalent to that of Philo. John accepts the Alexandrian idea, and is largely determined by it in his treatment of the history, but the history likewise reacts on the idea. The speculative view of Christ's Person merges itself at every point in the simple religious view. To sum up, the influence of Alexandrianism in the Gospel is a real influence which must constantly be borne in mind. The evangelist had passed through the discipline of the Alexandrian school, had learned its methods and assimilated many of its ideas—above all its central idea of the Logos. Nevertheless the Alexandrian influence is not to be 63. recognised as primary, like that of the Synoptics or Paul. It does not affect the substance of the Johannine thought so much as the forms under which it is presented. The task of the Fourth Evangelist, it must be remembered, was somewhat similar to that attempted by Philo. Like the Alexandrian thinker, he sought to transplant into the world of Hellenic culture a revelation originally given through Judaism. By this similarity of aim he was constrained to follow, up to a certain point, the path marked out by Philo. He availed himself of the method of allegory as a means of penetrating through the facts to their deeper import. He expressed the Christian message in terms of the metaphysical conception of the Logos. The form in which his thought is embodied has thus been given him by Philo, and the thought itself is necessarily moulded, in some measure, by the form. But the vital and permanent elements in the Gospel are quite apart from the Alexandrian influence. They are derived immediately from the Christian tradition, as interpreted by the writer's inward and personal experience of the truth of Christ. Thus far we have sought to determine the relation of the Fourth Evangelist to his three main sources—the Synoptic narratives, Paulinism, Alexandrian philosophy. The problem is a comparatively simple one, since in each case he availed himself of certain written documents which are still preserved to us. With regard to the two remaining influences—the orthodox Church doctrine and Gnostic specu- 64. lation,—which have left their impress on the thought of the Gospel, the question is much more complicated. In order to arrive at some approximate conclusion, it will be necessary, in the two following chapters, to examine the book more closely in its bearing on the particular religious interests of its age.