elevation of honor. On it the Son of God endures no mortal agony; by it
he is "lifted up" that he may "draw all men" unto him. His crucifixion
is a consummation, a triumph. He mounts, shows himself, and vanishes
away. The suffering is an appearance of suffering. The shame is turned
to glory. The tormentors are agents in accomplishing a transformation.
The god passes, without a groan or an expression of weakness; clear as
ever in his perceptions, seeing his mother and the beloved disciple
standing together, he says: "woman, behold thy son; son, behold thy
mother." Knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the
scripture might be fulfilled, he said "I thirst;" having received the
vinegar, he remarked "it is finished," bowed his head, and gave up the
ghost. From his dead form issue streams of water and blood, a last sign,
as the conversion of water into wine was the first, that the
dispensation of Law, symbolized by John's water baptism, and the
dispensation of the spirit symbolized by wine and by blood, were both
completed in him.
The resurrection of the Christ is not described as the resurrection of
a body, but as the apparition of a spiritual form. It is not recognized
by Mary through any external resemblance to a former self, but through a
spiritual impression; it stands suddenly before her, forbids her touch,
is not palpable, and as suddenly disappears; the Logos ascends "to the
Father;" returns, bringing the spirit that he had promised; enters the
chamber where the disciples are gathered, the door being carefully
closed from fear of the Jews, enters without opening the door, is
visible for an instant, and is no more seen; re-enters for the purpose
of giving palpable demonstration of his reality to the doubting Thomas,
who, however does not accept it, receives the skeptic's homage and again
disappears.
These apparitions and occultations are frequent in the gospel, the
Christ's outward form being only a facade, removable at pleasure. The
numerous comings and goings, hidings, disclosures, presences, absences,
are accounted for on this supposition, better than on any other. He goes
up to the feast at Jerusalem, not openly, but "as it were in secret,"
veiled, disguised. He comes before the crowd many of whom must have been
familiar with his person, but is unrecognized; he discloses himself for
a moment, speaks exciting words that raise a tumult, and then, at the
height of the turmoil, becomes invisible. "They sought to take him; but
no man laid hands on him, _for his hour was not yet come_." On a
subsequent occasion his hearers, intensely aroused by his language,
took up stones to cast at him; but he "_hid himself_, and went out of
the temple, _going through the midst of them_, and so passed by." His
enemies sought to take him, but "he escaped out of their hands." Having
spoken, he departs, and hides himself; but again, without apparently
changing his locality or absenting himself for any period, he is again
heard proclaiming his mission.
There is no history in this book. The incarnate Word can have no
history. His career being theological, the events in it cannot be other
than spectral. He is not in the world of cause and effect. His actions
are phenomenal; the passages of his life do not open into one another,
do not lead anywhere; nothing follows anything else, nothing moves;
there is no progress towards development. The biography is a succession
of scenes, a diorama. There are no sequences or consequences. Stones are
taken up, but never thrown; hands are uplifted to strike, but no blow is
delivered. The movement to arrest is never carried out. The miracles are
not deeds of power or mercy, they are signs, thrown out to attract
popular attention, demonstrations of the divine presence; sometimes
merely symbolical foreshadowings or interpretations of speculative
ideas, as in the case of the turning of water into wine at the "marriage
feast;" the opening of the blind man's eyes, signifying that he was
come a light into the world; the resurrection of Lazarus, a scenic
commentary on the text, "I am the resurrection and the life." These are
pictures not performances. None of them are mentioned in the earlier
traditions, for the probable reason that they never occurred, never were
rumored to have occurred. They were designed by the artist of the fourth
Gospel, for his private gallery of illustrations. The artist was a Greek
Jew who took Hebrew ideals for his models, but he was sometimes obliged
to go far to find them. The hint for the conversion of the water into
wine, may have come from the legends of Israelite sojourn in Egypt,
where Moses, the first deliverer, turned water into blood, the mystical
synonym of wine; Elisha may have furnished a study for the elaborate
picture of the blind man's cure, and Isaiah may have supplied the motive
for it, in his famous prophecy that the eyes of the blind shall be
opened. The studies for the grand cartoon of Lazarus were made possibly
while the artist mused over the stories of Elijah raising the son of the
widow, or of Elisha reviving one already dead by mere contact with his
bones.
In the veins of the Logos flows no passionate blood. His language is
vehement, but suggests no corresponding emotion; the words are not
vascular. Certain superficial peculiarities of these discourses are
noticeable at once, their length, their stateliness, their absoluteness,
their loud-voiced, declamatory character, their oracular tone. But
little scrutiny is required to discover that they are monotones; that
their theme is always the same, namely, the claims of the Christ; that
they unfold no system of moral or spiritual teaching, proceed in no
rational order, arrive at no conclusions; that they contain no
arguments, answer no questions, meet no inquiring states of mind; that
they resemble orations more than discourses of any other kind, but are
unlike orations, in having neither beginning middle nor end, in quite
lacking point and application, in proceeding no whither, in simply
standing still and reiterating the same sublime abstractions, without
regard to logical or rhetorical proprieties.
This being discovered, the conclusion follows swiftly, that the divine
Logos could not discourse otherwise. His addresses, like his deeds, are
designed to be revelations of himself; expressions, not of his thoughts,
but of his being, not of his character, but of his nature. They are the
Word made articulate, as his wonders are the Word made mighty, as his
form is the Word made visible. A human being, seeking to convince,
persuade, instruct mankind, will from necessity pursue a different
course from the divine Reason presenting itself to "the world." Its very
audiences are impersonal, consisting not of individuals or of parties,
but of abstractions labelled "Jews," who come like shadows, so depart.
So unhuman is the Christ, so entirely without near relations with
mankind, that when he has left the world, a substitute may be provided
for him, in the shape of the Holy Spirit, another personality proceeding
from him and his Father, and appointed to complete his work; to reprove
the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; to guide the
disciples into all truth; to bring to their remembrance all that had
been said to them; to comfort them, and abide with them for ever. The
idea loses itself in vagueness at times, now being identified with the
Christ, now appearing as a Spirit of Truth, now being an indwelling
presence, now an effluence from the Logos. But all the while something
like an individual consciousness is preserved; the spirit is as palpable
as the Logos himself was. Here is already the germ of a trinity maturing
within the bosom of the Hebrew monotheism. The process has been simple;
the consecutive steps have been inevitable. But in the process the solid
ground of Judaism has been left; the massive substance of the ancient
faith has been melted into cloud.
How entirely nebulous it has become under the action of speculative mind
is strikingly apparent on examination of the ethical characteristics of
the fourth gospel. The concrete virtues of the ancient race, the honest
human righteousness and charity have disappeared, and in their place are
certain spectral "graces" which have quality of a technical, but little
of a human sort. That, according to the Logos doctrine men are saved,
not by natural goodness or piety but by faith in the Christ, is written
all over the book. But this is not the point. It is not enough that
character has no saving power, it is dispensed with; and instead of it,
something is set up which possesses none of the elements of character.
The compact principles of human duty which hold so large a place in the
Old Testament scriptures, and are so essential in the earliest Messianic
conception, are not found here, at all. The sermon on the mount is
omitted. The beatitudes are unmentioned. The parables are not
remembered. There is no chapter in the book that bears comparison in
point of moral vigor or nobleness with the twelfth chapter of Romans, or
the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians. Humanity has shrunk to the
dimensions of an incipient Christendom. The men and women whom the Jesus
of Matthew addresses, to whom Paul makes appeal, are men and women no
more; not even Jews by race, not even a knot of radical Jews; they are
"disciples," "believers," "brethren." Christians, not fellow men, are to
love one another. "So shall ye be my disciples, if ye have love one for
another." "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples." Of the
broad human love, the recognition of brotherhood on the human ground,
duty to love those who are _not_ disciples, there is not a word. The
common _faith_, not the common _nature_, is the bond. The promises in
the fourteenth chapter, the warnings in the fifteenth, the counsel in
the sixteenth, the consecration in the seventeenth are all for the
believers, not for the doers; for the doers only so far as they are
believers, and within the limits of the believing community. The tender
word "love" shrinks to ecclesiastical proportions. "If a man love me he
will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come to
him, and make our abode with him;" but the words are not words of
exhortation to practical righteousness, they are words of admonition
against unbelief. "If ye love me, keep my commandments;" but the
commandments are not the wholesome enactments of the Hebrew decalogue,
but a bidding to "walk by the light while ye have the light," "to do the
will of Him that sent me," which is "to believe on him whom He hath
sent." "He that believeth not is condemned already in his not believing
in the only begotten Son of God." There is no sweeter word than "love;"
there is no more comprehensive law than the law of love; but when love
is changed from a virtue to a sentiment, and when the duty of practising
it is limited to members of a doctrinal communion, the practical issue
is more likely to be sectarian narrowness than human fellowship.
As the speculation rises the spectral character of the morality becomes
more startling. The so-called epistles of John carry the Logos idea
considerably further than the gospel does. The mission of the Logos is
more sharply discriminated. He is described as a sin offering. "He is
the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the
sins of the whole world." "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin." "He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no
sin." The word "manifested" is the key to the doctrine. "The Son of God
was _manifested_ that He might destroy the works of the devil." It is
the same conception as in the gospel; the Prince of Light confronting
the Prince of Darkness, shaming him and _attracting_ away his subjects.
The anti-Christ now comes into view; the sin unto death is named; the
second advent is announced, though not according to the millennial
anticipations of a former day. "He that denieth that Jesus is the Christ
is a liar." "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh is of God." "Every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." Belief or unbelief in the
incarnation of the Logos is made the test of one's spiritual
relationship, marking him as a candidate for eternal felicity in the
realm of the blessed, or as a victim of endless misery in the realm of
Satan. Thus the very heart of natural goodness is eaten out. Of virtue
there remains small trace. A great deal of very strong language is used
about sin, but _sins_ are not particularized. Sin, as an abstraction, a
principle, a power, a force, a deep seated taint in the nature,
ineradicable except by the infusion of a new spirit of life, is
represented as the dreadful thing; and Love, another abstraction, is
raised to honor as a spiritual grace, equally unconnected with the human
will. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every
one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God, for God is Love." The words have a deep and tender
sound. But the consideration that "the beloved" are those only who
confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, that all others are the
reverse of "beloved," causes that neither the depth nor the sweetness
remains. The love does not mean compassion, or pity, or good-will, or
helpfulness; it has no reference to the poor, the needy, the sick,
sorrowful, wicked; it has no downward look, is destitute of humility, is
as far as can well be from the love described by Paul in his perfect
lyric. It is, we may say, the opposite of that, being a quality that
distinguishes the elect from the non-elect, and makes their special
election the more sure.
The literary character of the fourth gospel must be remarked on as a
peculiar indication of the mental exhaustion that accompanies the last
stages of an intellectual movement. The literature of the century
preceding Jesus fairly throbs with personal vitality. It is scarcely
more than an expression of individual energies. The earliest writings of
the New Testament, the genuine letters of Paul, are animated in every
line by his own vehement personality; the speculative portions of them
stir the blood, so real are the issues presented, so vital are the
interests at stake. Shapeless, and sometimes incoherent, the thoughts
tumble out of the writer's overcharged heart. The Christ is an ideal
personage, but his mission is tremendously real; we are moved by a
battle cry as the apostle's ideas burst upon us.
The literature of the succeeding period, though more elaborate and
self-conscious, bearing traces of reflection, and even artifice in
composition, is yet warm with the presence of a real purpose. But the
fourth gospel is a purely literary work; a composition, the production
of an artist in language. Its author, perhaps because he was simply an
artist in language, is unknown. Trace of an historical Jesus in it there
is none. No breath from the world of living men blows through it; no
stir of social existence, no movement of human affairs ruffles its calm
surface. The people are not real people, the issues are not real issues,
the conflict is not a real conflict. We have a book, not a gospel.
The writer formally announces the subject of his spiritual drama, and
then proceeds to develop it, according to approved rules of literary
art. First comes the prologue, setting forth in a few sententious
passages the cardinal idea of the piece. This occupies eighteen verses
of the first chapter, and is followed by the introduction of John the
Baptist and his testimony. This occupies eighteen verses more. The
manifestation of the Logos to the first company of disciples is
described with due circumstance in the remainder of the chapter. The
symbolical opening of the public ministry, at Cana, the first open
"manifestation of the glory" in the miracle of turning water into wine,
by which is signified the calling to substitute a spiritual for a
natural order, occupies the first ten verses of the second chapter. Then
the ministry of revelation begins, with signs and demonstrations. The
city of Jerusalem is chosen as the scene of it; and the scene never
changes for longer than a moment, and then it changes without
historical, or biographical motive. The cleansing of the temple is
placed at the beginning, with undisguised purpose to announce his claim,
and the dialectical contest is opened. Nicodemus, "a ruler of the Jews,"
seeks a nocturnal interview, betrays the ignorance of the kingdom which
characterizes all save the regenerate, even the wisest, and gives
occasion to the Christ to declare the intrinsic superiority of the Son
of God, and the conditions of salvation through him; Nicodemus
furnishing the starting point for a lofty declamation which soars beyond
him into the region of transcendental ideas. The Baptist, instead of
doubting, as in Matthew, and sending an embassy to the Christ to
ascertain the reasons of his not disclosing himself, is himself
questioned by skeptical disciples, and re-assures them by words that are
an echo of the Christ's own.
The interview with the woman of Samaria is introduced for the purpose of
extracting another confession of the Christ's supremacy from a different
order of mind. Nicodemus represented Judaism in its pride of authority
and learning. The woman of Samaria represents the ignorant,
superstitious, yet stubborn idolatry reckoned by the Jews as no better
than heathenism; her "five husbands" are the five sects into which
Judaism was divided. She too is pictured to us as sitting by a well and
_drawing water_. The conversation begins with the Christ's declaration
of his power to create perennial springs of water in the heart, and
leads immediately up to the great disclosure of himself. Superstition,
like superciliousness, listens and is persuaded. The mention of Galilee
is necessary to account for the episode in Samaria, but nothing occurs
there. The next scene is laid again in Jerusalem. The _water_ of
Bethesda is brought into competition with the quickening spirit of the
Christ; the cure of the sick man introduces a mystical discourse on the
spiritual sufficiency of the Son of God.
Another scene is presented, and once more in Jerusalem. Another series
of tableaux is arranged. This time the Christ is pictured as breaking
bread and _walking on water_, whence occasion is taken to descant on the
bread of life. For the purpose of making a fresh appearance in
Jerusalem, and presenting his claim under a new aspect, Galilee is
called into requisition again, but as usual, the drama is enacted in
Jerusalem, which is the centre of the opposition. This time, the Christ,
having declined to go up in his own character to meet his critics, goes
up in disguise, incognito, and amazes the congregated multitude by his
superb assumptions of authority, and his overwhelming denunciations of
all who do not receive him; denunciations so uncompromising, that
dissensions are created. "Some would have taken him, but none laid hands
on him." As always, the demonstration results in bringing out his
friends and enemies, in showing who were and who were not his own, which
is the aim and end of every manifestation. The Logos presents himself,
makes his statement, asserts his prerogative, offers the alternative of
spiritual life or death, and retires, leaving the result to the
spiritual laws.
The story of the woman taken in adultery which immediately follows this
passage, probably made no part of the original gospel, as it appears out
of all connection. It is pronounced by some of the best critics to be
ungenuine. The obvious improbability of its incidents, the locality of
it,--the Mount of Olives,--the Christ's mysterious proceeding of writing
on the ground, and his unaccountable verdict, deprive the tale of all
but literary interest. It is interesting in a literary point of view, or
would be if it were set in literary relations; for it illustrates the
Christ's supremacy, his supernatural power of rebuke and insight, his
authority to grant absolution on purely theological grounds. The
doctrine that none but the guiltless are entitled to pronounce sentence
on guilt would put an end to censorship of every kind, but is quite in
accordance with the ethical tone of the book. The author however, turns
the incident to no account, but proceeds with new scenes in his
speculative drama. "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life;" the
Christ enters once more into the old debate, once more the claim is
challenged, once more the angry discussion flows on, becoming, at this
juncture more violent than ever; terrible denunciations leap from the
divine lips; the adversaries are called a devil's brood, liars,
murderers at heart. At the close of the final outburst, the unseen hands
raise the visionary stones, but "Jesus hid himself, went out of the
temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by."
The speech however is continued; the main doctrine of it, namely that
the Christ is the Light of the World, being illustrated by the miracle
of giving sight to a man "blind from his birth,"--the story being told
at great length and with exceedingly minute detail, so as to cover every
point of circumstance. This seems to be a critical moment in the
development of the idea. The vehemence subsides for a time, and the
light of the world shines gently as a shepherd's lantern showing
wandering sheep the way to the true fold. But the softest word stirs up
anger; the "Jews" take up stones, not to throw them, but to exhibit
temper, and the act closes tranquilly like those that preceded it.
The resurrection of Lazarus prepares the way for the closing scenes.
That such a story, so artificially constructed, so evidently introduced
for effect, told by one writer and not as much as alluded to by the
others, told with so much circumstance and with so little regard for
biographical probability, told for a dogmatical purpose, and fitted into
the narrative at the precise juncture where a turning point was wanted,
should be accepted as history by any unfettered mind; that a critic like
Renan, professing a profound reverence for the character of Jesus,
should have admitted it as in some sense true, and should have been
driven in explanation of it to a theory utterly fatal to the moral
character of the "colossal" man he celebrates, thus sacrificing the
moral greatness of Jesus to a perverse sense of historical truth, proves
the obstinacy of traditional prejudice. The narrative is too evidently
a literary device, one would think, to deceive anybody of awakened
discernment. Its manifest artifice is such that it alone would be enough
to cast suspicion on all the miraculous narrations of the book.