CLEMENS LENDS SILANUS THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Clemens waited patiently for me to resume our conversation. Soon it
occurred to me that I had been unreasonable in my expectations if the
circumstances were as he had described them. Suppose this new gospel
to have originated from the reminiscences of John the son of Zebedee,
a fisherman of Galilee, and the aged author of such a book as the
Apocalypse. How could such traditions, if set down exactly as they came
from the old man’s lips, fail to abound in Jewish phrases and thoughts
such as I had met with in the apocalyptic work? But these would have
made the gospel very unsuitable for Greeks and Romans and indeed for
almost all except Jews. It was therefore natural, and indeed almost
necessary, that the old man’s recollections, after being imparted to his
friends, who would probably be the elders of Ephesus, should be freely
interpreted, or perhaps paraphrased, in a form fit for all readers. Such
interpreters, or such an interpreter, might not always be perfectly
successful.
It was foolish of me not to have foreseen this. But still I was
disappointed. “This,” said I, “adds a new element of uncertainty, if John
has sometimes preserved traditions of Christ’s words translated from
the Jewish tongue.” “It does,” said Clemens, “and so does another fact
that applies both to Greek and to Hebrew or Aramaic. You know that, in
Greek, ‘he _said_’ or ‘_used to say_,’ or ‘it _says_,’ often signifies
‘he _meant_’ or ‘it _means_.’ The same is true in Hebrew. Hence if an
evangelist or scribe, after giving Christ’s actual words, for example,
‘_Do righteousness_,’ were to add ‘But he meant, _Do alms_’—because,
in Hebrew, ‘righteousness’ often means ‘alms’—it would be possible to
misinterpret the addition as meaning ‘But he [also] _said_ (or, _used to
say_) _Do alms_,’ thus erroneously creating a second precept. For these
and other reasons I cannot feel sure that the saying ‘I thirst,’ about
which we were just now conversing, may not be a paraphrase of the Lord’s
words about being ‘forsaken.’ John the son of Zebedee may have known
that the latter words were misunderstood from the first by the soldiers,
and also that they were misinterpreted by some Christians. Hence I think
the aged apostle may have prayed for a revelation as to the true meaning
of the words, and it may have been revealed to him, ‘The Lord said—that
is, He really said, His real meaning was—that He “_thirsted_”.’ This
indeed would be a surprise or paradox compared with what the gospel says
elsewhere. But the scriptures are full of such paradoxes.”
“But how ‘elsewhere’?” said I. “Do you mean that here Christ feels thirst
whereas ‘elsewhere’ He quenches thirst? I do not remember that.” “I
forgot,” replied Clemens, “that you had not read the new gospel. That
gospel represents Christ as saying to a sinful woman, ‘Give me to drink,’
and afterwards, to the same woman, ‘He that believeth on me shall never
thirst,’ and, after that, to the Jews, ‘If any one be athirst, let him
come unto me and drink.’ This same gospel says that the ‘food’ of the Son
is to do the will of the Father. This, then, may be described as His meat
and drink. If, therefore, He ‘thirsts,’ He is athirst to do the Father’s
will, so that He hungers and thirsts for righteousness in the souls of
sinful men and women, thirsting to free them from thirst by giving them
the water of life. All through His life He has not thirsted because the
living water has been passing freely from the Father to Him and from
Him to others. But now, on the point of death, the Giver of the water
of life is Himself caused to thirst for it! The Father, in His infinite
love, causes the Son Himself to thirst for that love! Instead of helping
others, the Son is constrained to ask as it were to be helped—in order
that He may help others better. This is perhaps the deepest and most
wonderful of all the Lord’s deep sayings—‘I thirst for the righteousness
and love of God, that I and mine may be in the Father, and that the
Father may be in me and mine.’ In the end, this will be one of the Lord’s
words that ‘will never pass away.’ But what was its effect at the time?
When Socrates uttered his last wishes, Crito was at hand to say, ‘This
shall be done.’ But when Christ cried ‘I thirst,’ no friend was at hand
to satisfy that thirst, and the cry was taken by the soldiers as meaning,
‘I thirst for a little of your sour wine’!”
“It seems to me,” said I, “that you regard this gospel, not exactly as
history, but as history mingled with poetry or with vision?” “Not quite
so,” said Clemens. “I should prefer to say, ‘as history _interpreted_
through spiritual insight or poetic vision.’ I take the historical fact
to be that there came into the world, as man, a divine Being, endowed
with a power of drawing man and God into one, by drawing the hearts of
men towards Himself, and, through Himself, to the Father. Making men one
with Himself, He also made them one with each other in Himself. This is
the great historical fact, the fact of facts, foreordained before the
foundation of the world. This, then, is the fact that needs to be brought
out clearly in the history of Christ—not the facts (though they are
facts) that the Pharisees often washed their hands and that the daughter
of Herodias danced before John the Baptist was beheaded. Well, then, put
yourself in the position of—whoever it was that wrote this fourth gospel,
say, ‘the Elder.’ Imagine him returning fresh from an interview with the
old man John, the son of Zebedee, who will not allow himself to be called
a ‘son of thunder’⸺.”
“But why,” said I, “should he not have allowed himself to be called
John the son of Zebedee? And why should he object to be called one of
the sons of thunder, if Jesus called him so?” “As to the latter name,”
replied Clemens, “I very much doubt whether Mark has translated the term
correctly; I will tell you why, another time: but assuredly he was not a
noisy ‘son of thunder’ as we should understand the phrase in the west.
“As to the former name, you will find in this gospel that ‘Simon son of
John’ is thrice mentioned as Peter’s name, in a passage where Peter is
rebuked for having denied his Master. It is, so to speak, his name after
the flesh, his unregenerate name. ‘Peter,’ or ‘stone,’ is his regenerate
name. So, ‘_John son of Zebedee_’ would be this disciple’s unregenerate
name. The fourth gospel never uses that name except once, in the phrase
‘the sons of Zebedee,’ on the same occasion on which Peter is rebuked
as ‘_Simon son of John_.’ For the most part John the son of Zebedee is
described (in this gospel) as ‘the other disciple’—that is, the one as
yet unheard, the one whose testimony is still to be given. Or else, the
name is connected with Christ’s love—‘the disciple that Jesus loved.’
He feels that he owes all that he has, his very being, to the fact that
Jesus _loved him_, that Jesus made him what he now is. Moreover Jesus
gave him, by perpetual visions after His death, an insight into the
meanings of His words uttered before death. Hence he might feel that
Christ’s words, once dark sayings, have now become clear. From being old,
they have become quite new, so as to require an altogether new record.”
“I am not sure,” said I, “that I understand your meaning. Do you hold
that the fourth gospel differs from the three because of the special
character of John the son of Zebedee, or because of the special
interpretation of ‘the Elder’?” “Because of both,” said Clemens. “Then,”
said I, “you think that John the son of Zebedee, far from being a
‘son of thunder’ in the sense in which Pericles might be so called by
Aristophanes, was a man of a retiring and vision-seeing nature, who
merged himself in Christ; and that his namesake, the Elder, believed
that the aged apostle was as it were a mirror, in whom, and in whose
traditions, it was possible to discern more of Christ’s real expression
than in the ancient document of Mark.”
“That comes near the truth, I think,” replied Clemens. “And yet I
should be very far from denying that Mark, and the other early gospels,
are right in several features apparently omitted by John—for example,
Christ’s love of ‘the little ones,’ and His anxiety lest they should
be caused to stumble, and His insistence on the necessity of receiving
the Kingdom of God as little children. But it seems to me that some of
these precepts about ‘little ones’ may have been misunderstood so that
the brethren needed Paul’s warning, ‘Be _not little children_ in your
minds,’ and again, ‘In malice be babes, but _in understanding be men_.’
The root of all these precepts was the divine feeling of ‘littleness,’ or
‘childhood,’ or ‘sonship.’ This is realised in the Son of God doing the
will of the Father. In order to do that will on earth, He must be always
keeping His eyes on the Father in heaven. The earlier gospels represent
Christ with His eyes fixed on the ‘little ones’ on earth, the sick, the
sorrowful, the ignorant, the sinful. That also is true. The new gospel
appears to me to attempt to shew how the two truths are combined.”
“But you surely do not mean to say,” I exclaimed, “that Jesus, in the
new gospel, never makes mention of the ‘little ones’ or the ‘little
children,’ so frequently mentioned by the earlier evangelists!” “I do
indeed,” replied Clemens. “He does not make mention of either term
once, except that, after the resurrection, seeing the disciples engaged
in labour that has lasted through the night and effected nothing, He
calls to them and says ‘Little children!’ But yet, although He does not
elsewhere use the word ‘children,’ He has the thought constantly before
Him. At the beginning of the gospel, He teaches that men must be ‘_born
from above_,’ that is, become little children in the eyes of God. Towards
the end, He uses a mother’s word to them (‘_teknia_,’ ‘darlings’). He
also says, ‘I will not leave you _orphans_,’ and declares that His
disciples are to be in Himself, the Son. Now to be in the Son, means to
be made ‘a little child’ in the perfect sense of Christ’s meaning.”
“Perhaps,” said I, “this explains why Paul seldom mentions the word
‘little children’.” “‘Seldom’,” said Clemens, “is not the right word.
Paul _never_ mentions it, except in the warning I mentioned above.
Moreover John, in his epistle, says, ‘I have written unto you little
children, _because ye have known the Father_.’ That word ‘_known_’
goes to the root of the matter. The essence of ‘little childhood,’ in
Christ’s sense, is _not ignorance, but knowledge_—‘knowing the Father.’
And ‘knowing the Father’ implies loving the Father, or desiring the
Father. There are cases where ‘desire’ may perhaps be well substituted
for ‘love,’ so as to indicate that kind of love which leads one onwards
to the object desired. This gospel seems to me to attempt to express—if
I may so speak in accordance with the prophets of Israel—a desire of God
for man, producing a desire of man for God. The work of the Son of God is
to unite these two desires. This is a great mystery, a mystery past mere
logic, that God, the Creator, should ‘desire.’ Yet I accept it—as it has
been expressed by a certain holy woman of Athens, whom I verily believe
to have been inspired by God, ‘The Son of God chose to be lifted up upon
the tree of the Cross that we might receive the food of angels. And what
is this food of angels? It is the desire of God, which draws to itself
the desire that is in the depths of the soul and they make one thing
together’.”
This saying was beyond me at the time. But I felt that it contained
truth, and that I should grow into some apprehension of it. And what
Clemens had said, though very strange at first, had been gradually
growing to seem possible and even reasonable, if one may use the word
concerning that which accords with the spiritual Logos—namely, that the
Son of God, being human, was caused to feel forsaken by God, and to
desire God, and to ask why this strange feeling of forsakenness, this
unwonted, unsatisfied desire, was brought upon Him by the Father. Then,
according to the saying of this holy woman of Athens, the answer of
the Father was, “In receiving this forsakenness and this desire for my
presence, thou art receiving from me my desire, which draws up to me thy
desire, and they two make one together.”
But to return to Clemens, whom I began to trust all the more because I
felt that he was keeping back nothing from me. “What I am attempting,”
said he, “to express, but expressing very feebly, is this. I am trying
to put myself in the position of the Elder, preaching the gospel for
John the son of Zebedee in Ephesus, some time after the aged apostle
returned from his martyrdom in Patmos, when he was quite decrepit and no
longer able to be carried into the midst of the congregation, to utter
even a few words. If I came into that old man’s presence and heard
from him traditions about the Master, whom he loved and who loved him,
I might say, ‘Here indeed is a revelation of Christ. Here I feel Christ
Himself.’ Nevertheless, on going out, I might find it very hard to make
a chronological and consecutive history out of his utterances. Sometimes
he might be describing past fact; sometimes he might be prophesying the
future; sometimes he might speak of the past as if still present—as
though he were even now with his Master in Cana or Jerusalem; sometimes
he might be rapt in a present ecstasy; sometimes he might be describing
ecstatic visions of the past; sometimes he might speak in poetic
metaphor, sometimes in literal prose; but always he would be penetrated
and imbued with the love of Christ. The result—for me, I confess it—would
be that I should go out, thinking, ‘This is not history in the common
sense of the term. But it is something, I will not say better, but more
needed by the church, than a mere history of facts such as a writer like
Mark could have given with fuller information. It gives glimpses into a
divine and human personality that includes in itself a real history—a
history of a great invisible war of good against evil, a great invisible
redemption, God coming down to earth to lift man up to heaven’.”
“But,” said I, “do not Matthew and Luke give these glimpses in their
description of the incarnation?” “I should rather have said,” replied
Clemens, “that, instead of giving glimpses, they attempt to describe a
spiritual fact in the language of material history. John, you will find,
does not make this attempt. He simply says that ‘the Logos became flesh.’
Then he introduces disciples believing in their Master as Messiah,
undeterred by their supposition that He is ‘the son of Joseph’ and ‘from
Nazareth.’ John assumes all through his gospel that Jesus came down from
heaven and is to go up thither again. He refuses to recognise that this
coming down and this going up are impossible for the Son of God incarnate
as the son of Joseph. All this appears to me true. And in many respects
I admire this little book more than I can find time or words to express.
Yet I must deal frankly with you and confess that this new gospel, like
the rest, appears to me inadequate. What gospel would be otherwise?
All the written records of Christ’s words and acts seem to me to have,
as their main use, the awakening in us of a want of something more, a
sense of something insufficient and imperfect and unjust to the reality,
so that we cry vehemently to God for the reality, the living truth, the
spiritual light—such light as no words or books can give us. The Spirit
alone can bestow it, crying within us Abba, Father. Some interpreters,
however, seem in a special degree to have ‘the mind of Christ.’ Among the
foremost of these seems to me to stand ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’.”
“I understand,” said I, “at least I think I do, a little. You mean that
the written biographies must first make the reader feel that they are
dead in comparison with the living person. Then the reader is to feel
drawn towards his ideal of the living person, and more and more drawn,
so that in the end⸺.” “In the end,” said Clemens, “assuredly the living
Person will come to him, or draw him to Himself, if he will but be
patient in waiting, walking according to the light he already has.” On
this he rose to depart. “One word more,” said I. “You told me that John
gives nearly a quarter of his gospel to the doctrine of the Lord on the
night on which He was delivered over. Does he give much space to the
period after the resurrection? And what does he say about that? Does he
agree with Matthew and Luke?”
“No,” said Clemens, “he differs greatly, and, as it appears to me,
deliberately, intending to correct them. For example, Matthew represents
certain women as taking hold of Christ’s feet, before He sends them
to carry word to His ‘brethren.’ John says that Jesus said to Mary
Magdalene, ‘Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father,’ and
then sends her to His ‘brethren.’ Luke says that Christ said to all the
disciples, ‘Handle me,’ to shew that He was not a bodiless spirit. John
says that an offer of this nature was made to Thomas, but mentions no
such offer to any other disciple. Luke says that the disciples gave Jesus
food and He ate. John says that Jesus gave food to the disciples. In all
these points John appears to me to be nearer than Matthew and Luke to the
truth. And sometimes I think that the touching of Christ’s body by the
disciples in the Eucharist, that is to say, the touching of the bread and
tasting of the wine in our sacred meal, has been taken by Luke (if not by
Matthew) in a literal sense”—here Clemens agreed with Scaurus—“whereas
John understood the meaning correctly. But at the same time I think that
the Saviour may have been visibly present at the Eucharist, shewing the
wounds in His body, though it was not a body that could be touched.”
“Does it not seem to you,” I asked, “that this agrees better with Paul’s
descriptions of the manifestations of Jesus after death?” “Yes,” said
Clemens, “and in other respects John seems to me to be nearer the truth.
For he apparently represents Christ as having ascended to the Father
before He could be ‘touched,’ that is to say, before His spiritual body
and blood could be imparted to the disciples. Moreover, whereas Matthew
places before the Resurrection a tradition relating how Christ imparts to
the disciples authority to bind and to loose i.e. to forgive sins, John
places it afterwards. And John also describes Peter as plunging into the
water and coming to Jesus after the Resurrection,—which seems to me a
symbol of Peter passing through the waters of temptation to the Saviour
whom he had denied. But Matthew places it before the Resurrection and
takes it literally, as though Peter tried to walk on literal water and
was nearly drowned, but for the Lord’s help.”
“Then,” said I, after a long pause—for I was not prepared to find Clemens
so far in agreement with Scaurus, an unbeliever, concerning the facts
of the Christian histories—“you are very far indeed from saying, ‘I
believe in every word of the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, as being
historically accurate.’ Nay, I can hardly think you would say that, even
about the gospel of John?” “Assuredly,” he replied, “I would not say that
about any of the gospels. Indeed, dear friend, do you yourself think you
would venture to say as much as that, even about the history of your
favourite Thucydides? And does it not seem to you that, in any book that
describes the life of a man, the greater the man, and the more living the
life, the greater must be the failure of the book, and the deadness of
the book, as compared with the inexpressible spirit, not to be expressed
in any book, no, not in a universe of books?”
Then, rising, and pointing seaward, “Look!” he said, “the moon is up
already! Now indeed I must stay with you no longer. I have done my best
to deal fairly with you, even to the point perhaps of being not quite
fair to this little book, which I now hold in my hand, and am about to
place in yours, if you desire it. But are you sure that you do still
desire it? If you do indeed, I shall most gladly lend it, and you can
return it to me, this time to-morrow, at the house of Justus. But be
honest with me as I have tried to be with you. Do not take it as yet
if you are not prepared to read it as a book that comes from the east
through a western medium; a book that mingles, so as not always to be
clearly distinguished, words of the Lord with words of the evangelist,
facts and visions, histories and prophecies, metaphors that may be
misunderstood, and poems that may be taken as literal prose. It will make
you feel perhaps irritated, certainly unsatisfied. Perhaps you may end
in saying, ‘I want much more, I want to see the person to whom this book
points, but whom no book can make me feel.’ Then it will have done you
good. But perhaps you will put it aside and say, ‘I want no more’.”
He paused, and looked anxiously at me. “In that case,” continued he,
“I shall have done you harm. But what say you? After this warning, do
you—a Roman with Greek training, a reader of Homer and Thucydides—do you
still desire to see this little volume that is neither a true poem nor
a true history, a biography that hardly professes to draw the life of
Jesus as He was, but only to make us feel that it must be felt, if at
all, through ‘a disciple whom Jesus loved’?” I assured him that I greatly
desired to read it and thanked him with all my heart for the loan, and
for the frankness of his warning. “Farewell,” said he, placing the book
in my hand, “my friend, my brother—brother in the search after truth,
farewell!” “Your help,” said I, as he turned away from me, “has been more
like that of a father.” He stopped and looked round at me for a moment.
“Would indeed,” said he, “that it might prove so! Farewell!”