Authorship of John's gospel. S. The first three gospels, as I have pointed out, are evidently to some extent based upon a prior common record. This feature does not belong to John's gospel. He, at a later day, and as dogmatic teaching had advanced, has formed his own idea of the being and character of Jesus, and he has shaped his incidents and statements to accord with his conception. The Rev. J. J. Tayler is one of those who has made a close study of this subject. He notices that in the earlier gospels Jesus figures as one instructing by parables, arresting attention by a constant succession of miracles, and seizing on passing incidents to enforce his doctrines; while in the fourth gospel he is put forward, prominently, as the incarnate word of God, and Messiah of the Jews, prone to disputation, and disseminating his views in formal sustained discourses maintained in continuous flow. The first three are, in fact, commonly distinguished from the fourth by the term synoptical, which means that they consist of historic details forming together a comprehensive narrative, while the character of the fourth is that it is dogmatic, or composed with a view to doctrinal instruction. Mr Tayler also adverts to the numerous points wherein the fourth gospel is at issue with the other three in its statements, and says, "John's is not so much another, as in one sense a different gospel. is impossible to harmonise the two forms of the narrative: one excludes the other. If the three first gospels represent Christ's public ministry truly, the fourth cannot be accepted as simple, reliable history. If we assume the truth of the fourth, we must reject, on some fundamental points, the evidence of the three first."1 It P. Certainly the number of the witnesses does not seem to add to the weight of the evidence. You have shown that we have not Matthew's gospel, as that was written in Hebrew, nor Mark's, as what he wrote was a collection of unconnected anecdotes and sayings, and that Luke got his statements at second hand. Supposing the apostle John to be the author of the fourth gospel, would not his testimony, though standing singly, be more worthy of acceptance than the statements appearing in the writings of the other three who are unknown? What, then, is the title of the author of the fourth gospel to be considered the apostle John? 1 On the Fourth Gospel, 1-7. "1 S. This gospel professes to have been written by one of the apostles. The writer is described therein as "the disciple whom Jesus loved, which also leaned on his breast at supper;" and, according to tradition, this favoured disciple was John. But his pretension to be the apostle does not stand the test of examination. Papias says, "If I met with any one who had been a follower of the elders anywhere, I made it a point to inquire what were the declarations of the elders. What was said by Andrew, Peter, or Philip; what by Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the disciples of our Lord. What was said by Aristion, and by the Presbyter John, disciples of the Lord; for I do not think that I derived so much benefit from books as from the living voice of those that are still surviving." The books to which Papias refers had declaredly less influence over him than the sayings of the apostles as repeated to him by those who said they had heard them. Necessarily, these writings could not have been oracles accepted as inspired. Neither, it is presumable, could they have been matured and well arranged productions, by credible persons, demanding attention, of the form of the gospels we now have. What Matthew and Mark wrote, Papias has mentioned, but he says nothing of any writing by John, though John is one of those named by him with whose sayings he sought to become acquainted. He refers, it will be observed, to two Johns, one as "a disciple of our Lord," and the other as a "presbyter," or elder. We have three sets of writings bearing the name of John, that is the gospel, certain epistles, and the Apocalypse. The 2d and 3d of the epistles profess to be by an "elder," but their genuineness is much disputed. Most critics agree that the other writings cannot be by the same hand. "The writer of the Apocalypse," observes Tayler, "has a mind essentially objective. He realises his conceptions through vision. He transports himself into an imaginary world, and speaks as if it were constantly present to his sense. His whole book is pervaded with the glow, and breathes the vehement and fierce spirit of the old Hebrew prophecy, painting vividly to the mental eye, but never appealing directly to the spiritual perception of the soul. When we turn to the fourth Gospel, we find ourselves at once in another atmosphere of thought, full 1 Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. iii. 39. of deep yearnings after the unseen and eternal, ever soaring into a region which the imagery of things visible cannot reach; even in its descriptions marked by a certain contemplative quietness, as if it looked at things without from the retired depths of the soul within."1 "But little of the genuine mind of Jesus," observes Strauss, "is to be met with in his book (the Apocalypse). It is written throughout in the fiery and vengeful spirit of Elijah, repudiated by Jesus as foreign to him?" It might be consistently ascribed to him who was accounted" a son of thunder" (Mark iii. 17), and who wished to have fire called down from heaven to avenge a mere inhospitality (Luke ix. 54), but clearly belongs not to the loving character on which the writer of the fourth gospel and the epistles of John prided himself. In judging of correspondence of style, Tayler comes to the conclusion that "there is the highest probability that the fourth Gospel and the first Epistle were written by the same hand." But it is far otherwise when the Apocalypse enters into the comparison. "The language of the two writers," he observes, "is as different as their characteristic modes of conception and thought. The style of the Apocalypse is perfectly barbarous Hebrew done into Greek, with a constant violation of the most ordinary laws of construction. The Greek of the Fourth Gospel, without being classical, is still fluent, perspicuous, and grammatical."4 The discussion is traceable so far back as the time of Dionysius, in the year 260 to 268. He says, "To attentive observers, it will be obvious that there is one and the same complexion and character in the Gospel and Epistle." Adding, that "we may notice how the phraseology of the Gospel and the Epistle differs from the Apocalypse. For the former are written not only irreprehensibly, as it regards the Greek language, but are most elegant in diction in the arguments and the whole structure of the style. It would require much to discover any barbarism or solecism, or any odd peculiarity of expression at all in them." And then, adverting to the writer of the Apocalypse, he says, "But I perceive that his dialect and language is not very accurate Greek; but that he uses barbarous idioms, and in some places solecisms."5 And 1 The Fourth Gospel, 9, 10. The Fourth Gospel, 54. * Idem, 11. 2 The New Life of Jesus, I. 380. Eusebius, Ec. Hist., vii. 25. such has been the opinion of qualified critics to this day. The gospel and the epistle may be by the same author, but the gospel and the Apocalypse cannot be so, unless the writer so changed his style and dialect as to make it no longer recognizable, as what he once used. The Apocalypse purports to be the work of John, and in the absence of a specification to the contrary, the natural presumption would be that thereby the apostle John was intended. Such certainly was the judgment of the early Christians. Justin Martyr says, "Among us, too, a certain man named John, one of the apostles of Christ, in a revelation made to him, prophesied that the believers in our Christ should fulfil a thousand years in Jerusalem, and that after that there would be the general and final resurrection and judgment of all men together," a passage referred to by Eusebius, where he speaks of Justin, "plainly calling" the Apocalypse "the work of the apostle." Irenæus, Tertullian, and Origen, Tayler informs us, held the same view, therein representing "the strong unquestioned tradition of their own time," Irenæus and Origen, however, recognising the apostle as equally the author of the gospel. "Hardly," says Tayler, referring to the Apocalypse, "one book of the New Testament has such a list of historical witnesses marked by name on its behalf." 4 So far, then, from having any solid assurance whereupon to accept the fourth gospel as the work of the apostle John, the evidence preponderates the other way. If the apostle wrote such a gospel, Papias should have known thereof, and should have spoken thereof, when he spoke of the writings of Matthew and Mark; and if the Apocalypse is to be attributed to the apostle, then, by the laws of criticism, the gospel cannot also have been his production. chal controversy. tho What is called the paschal controversy affords further The Pasevidence against this gospel being the production of the apostle John. The question was whether the easter festival should be kept on the day of the Jewish passover, that is, the 14th Nisan, when, pursuant to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus held with his disciples the last supper, on which occurrence the Christian ordinance of the eucharist is founded, or on the succeeding sunday when he rose from the dead. The 2 Ec. Hist., iv. 18. 1 Tayler's Fourth Gospel, 31. * Idem, 41. Evidences of late Asiatic christians, including the early Jewish converts, contended for the first position, and the Romish church for the second. Polycarp, between A.D. 156 and 168, visited Rome, and, on behalf of the Asiatics, had a friendly disputation on the subject with Anicetus, the bishop of Rome, and relied, as authorities on his side, on the example of "John, the disciple of our Lord, and the rest of the apostles." Now, in the gospel attributed to John, the last supper is stated to have been held before the passover, namely, on the 13th Nisan, and it contains no account of that distribution of bread and wine by Jesus to his disciples, on which the eucharist is based; and had this gospel been then extant, and received as the work of the apostle John, it is impossible but that the bishop of Rome should have referred thereto as overthrowing the support from John, depended upon by the Asiatic representative. The incident is related in a letter by Irenæus, from the Asiatic side, addressed to Victor, the then bishop of Rome, as preserved by Eusebius. The gospel of John, in effect, is considered to have been got up at a later day, after the disputation between Polycarp and Anicetus, in view, among other matters, of sustaining the Romish side in this controversy.1 It is apparent from his speaking of Caiaphas, as the "high priest that same year" (xi. 49; xviii. 13), as if the office were one filled annually, that the writer, whoever he may have been, was not one in contact with Jewish institutions, or familiar therewith. P. Are there indications in the gospels themselves of their authorship having been written at times removed from those of the events recorded in them? of gospels. S. There are some such indications. (1.) According to Matthew xi. 2, 3, John the Baptist, when in prison, sends two of his disciples to ascertain whether Jesus was the expected Messiah. On this Jesus holds a discourse, in which (v. 12) he is made to say, "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." This involves a lapse of time from the days of John, of which Jesus, who was of the same period, could not have been sensible; nor had there been any opening for the display of a strenuous desire to 1 Strauss' New Life of Jesus, I. 97, 98; Tayler on 4th Gospel, 100-104. |