John, moreover, claims to be not only a chronicler but a witness.
He declares that he is "the disciple whom Jesus loved," and that he
actually leaned on the bosom of Jesus at the last supper and asked in
a whisper which of them it was that should betray him. Jesus whispered
that he would give a sop to the traitor, and thereupon handed one to
Judas, who ate it and immediately became possessed by the devil. This
is more natural than the other accounts, in which Jesus openly indicates
Judas without eliciting any protest or exciting any comment. It also
implies that Jesus deliberately bewitched Judas in order to bring about
his own betrayal. Later on John claims that Jesus said to Peter "If I
will that John tarry til I come, what is that to thee?"; and John,
with a rather obvious mock modesty, adds that he must not claim to
be immortal, as the disciples concluded; for Christ did not use that
expression, but merely remarked "If I will that he tarry till I come."
No other evangelist claims personal intimacy with Christ, or even
pretends to be his contemporary (there is no ground for identifying
Matthew the publican with Matthew the Evangelist); and John is the only
evangelist whose account of Christ's career and character is hopelessly
irreconcilable with Matthew's. He is almost as bad as Matthew, by the
way, in his repeated explanations of Christ's actions as having no
other purpose than to fulfil the old prophecies. The impression is more
unpleasant, because, as John, unlike Matthew, is educated, subtle, and
obsessed with artificial intellectual mystifications, the discovery
that he is stupid or superficial in so simple a matter strikes one
with distrust and dislike, in spite of his great literary charm, a good
example of which is his transfiguration of the harsh episode of the
Syrophenician woman into the pleasant story of the woman of Samaria.
This perhaps is why his claim to be John the disciple, or to be a
contemporary of Christ or even of any survivor of Christ's generation,
has been disputed, and finally, it seems, disallowed. But I repeat,
I take no note here of the disputes of experts as to the date of the
gospels, not because I am not acquainted with them, but because, as the
earliest codices are Greek manuscripts of the fourth century A.D., and
the Syrian ones are translations from the Greek, the paleographic expert
has no difficulty in arriving at whatever conclusion happens to suit
his beliefs or disbeliefs; and he never succeeds in convincing the other
experts except when they believe or disbelieve exactly as he does.
Hence I conclude that the dates of the original narratives cannot be
ascertained, and that we must make the best of the evangelists' own
accounts of themselves. There is, as we have seen, a very marked
difference between them, leaving no doubt that we are dealing with four
authors of well-marked diversity; but they all end in an attitude of
expectancy of the Second Coming which they agree in declaring Jesus to
have positively and unequivocally promised within the lifetime of his
contemporaries. Any believer compiling a gospel after the last of
these contemporaries had passed away, would either reject and omit the
tradition of that promise on the ground that since it was not fulfilled,
and could never now be fulfilled, it could not have been made, or else
have had to confess to the Jews, who were the keenest critics of
the Christians, that Jesus was either an impostor or the victim of
a delusion. Now all the evangelists except Matthew expressly declare
themselves to be believers; and Matthew's narrative is obviously not
that of a sceptic. I therefore assume as a matter of common sense that,
interpolations apart, the gospels are derived from narratives written in
the first century A.D. I include John, because though it may be claimed
that he hedged his position by claiming that Christ, who specially loved
him, endowed him with a miraculous life until the Second Coming, the
conclusion being that John is alive at this moment, I cannot believe
that a literary forger could hope to save the situation by so outrageous
a pretension. Also, John's narrative is in many passages nearer to the
realities of public life than the simple chronicle of Matthew or the
sentimental romance of Luke. This may be because John was obviously more
a man of the world than the others, and knew, as mere chroniclers and
romancers never know, what actually happens away from books and desks.
But it may also be because he saw and heard what happened instead of
collecting traditions about it. The paleographers and daters of first
quotations may say what they please: John's claim to give evidence as an
eyewitness whilst the others are only compiling history is supported by
a certain verisimilitude which appeals to me as one who has preached
a new doctrine and argued about it, as well as written stories. This
verisimilitude may be dramatic art backed by knowledge of public life;
but even at that we must not forget that the best dramatic art is the
operation of a divinatory instinct for truth. Be that as it may, John
was certainly not the man to believe in the Second Coming and yet give
a date for it after that date had passed. There is really no escape
from the conclusion that the originals of all the gospels date from the
period within which there was still a possibility of the Second Coming
occurring at the promised time.