There are a number of passages in the Gospel and First Epistle of St.
John which go to show that the author either was, or at least intended
to give the impression that he was, an eye-witness of the Life of
Christ. We will leave it an open question for the present which of these
two alternatives we are to choose. And we will begin by collecting the
passages, and justifying the description that has just been given of
them.
The passages fall into groups; the first small but important, the others
larger but, except in a few cases, more indefinite.
On the principles of criticism on which we are going, we shall assume
that the Gospel and First Epistle that bear the name of St. John are by
the same author, and that, so far as the authorship is concerned, what
holds good for the one will hold good also for the other. The proof is
not absolutely stringent. Identity of style, and close resemblance of
ideas, are compatible with duality of authorship, because one writer may
imitate another. But in practice, unless the reasons for laying stress
upon it are strong and clear, a refinement like this may be left out of
account. Of course there is the distinction which Bacon noted between
the minds that are quick to observe resemblances and those that are
quick to observe differences. This question of the relation of the
Gospel of St. John to the First Epistle is a touchstone by which such
minds may be distinguished. I allow that the two works may be assigned
to different authors[33]. I allow it in the way in which on most
questions, if we attempt a nice enumeration of conditions, there is
usually some remote possibility to be allowed for. The quotation from
Dr. Drummond on the _De Vita Contemplativa_ that I gave in the last
lecture may help us to measure how remote the other possibility is. As a
practical person, dealing with these questions on a practical scale, I
shall venture to assume that the Gospel and the First Epistle are by the
same hand. It is of course open to any one to ignore arguments based on
this assumption, if he prefers to do so.
i. Passages which make a direct claim.
I am treading on very familiar ground, but I must ask you to forgive me
if I begin by quoting the opening words of the First Epistle:
‘That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that
which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our
hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was
manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you
the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was
manifested unto us); that which we have seen and heard declare we
unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and
our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ:
and these things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled’ (1 John i.
1-3).
The _prima facie_ view of this passage undoubtedly is that the writer is
speaking as one of a group of eye-witnesses. But there are two ways in
which this inference is turned aside.
1. Harnack[34] and some others take it as referring not to bodily but to
mystical vision.
2. Others, again, think of the writer as speaking in the name of a whole
generation, or of Christians generally.
In regard to the first of these explanations we note that the word
θεᾶσθαι is used twenty-two times in all the New Testament, including the
present passage; and in every one of bodily and not of mental or
spiritual vision. And whatever sense we may put upon seeing or hearing,
it is difficult to explain such a strong expression as ‘that which ...
our hands have handled,’ where the writer seems to go out of his way to
exclude any ambiguity, in any other sense than of physical handling.
In regard to the second explanation we observe that there is a contrast
between ‘we’ and ‘you,’ between teachers and taught. The teachers are in
any case a small body; and they seem to rest their authority, or at
least the impulse to teach, on the desire to communicate to others what
they had themselves experienced. I have therefore little doubt that the
_prima facie_ view of the passage is the right one. The writer speaks of
himself as a member of a small group, like that of the Apostles, but a
group that may include all who had really seen the Lord and who
afterwards took up the work of witnessing to Him.
The other passage, John i. 14, is more ambiguous: ‘the Word became
flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.’ If this had stood
alone, it might have seemed an open question whether ‘we beheld’ was not
used in a vague sense of Christians generally—or even of the human race,
as ‘tabernacled among us’ just before might mean ‘among men.’ But the
more specific reference would be more pointed; and it is favoured by the
analogy of the passage of which we have just been speaking as well as of
those which follow.
In both the above cases the writer is speaking in his own person. This
is not quite so clear in xix. 35, where, after describing the
lance-thrust and the pierced side, the narrative goes on, ‘And he that
hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true: and he (ἐκεῖνος)
knoweth that he saith true, that ye also may believe.’ Is the writer by
these words objectifying, and as it were looking back upon himself, or
is he pointing to some third person unnamed in the background? Both
views are antecedently possible. Perhaps the latter is more consistent
with the ordinary use of ἐκεῖνος. If we accept it, then I should be
inclined to think with Zahn that ἐκεῖνος points to Christ. It would be
just a formula of strong asseveration, like ‘God knoweth’ in 2 Cor. xi.
11, 31, &c. There would be a near parallel in 3 John 12, ‘Demetrius hath
the witness of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, we also bear
witness; and thou knowest that our witness is true.’ This view is the
more attractive because it is in keeping with the habit of thought
disclosed in the Gospel. As the Son appeals to the witness of the
Father, as it were dimly seen in the background, so also it would I
think be natural for the beloved disciple to appeal to the Master who is
no longer at his side in bodily presence, but who is present with him
and with the Church in spirit: ‘he who saw the sight has set it down in
writing ... and there is one above who knows that he is telling the
truth.’
This is the view that, after giving to it the best consideration I can,
I am on the whole inclined to accept. I could not, however, agree that
there is anything really untenable in what may be called the common
view, that the asseveration is of a lower kind, and that the author is
simply turning back upon himself and protesting his own veracity. The
use of ἐκεῖνος to take up the subject of a sentence is specially
frequent and specially characteristic of this Gospel; and as the author
systematically speaks of himself in the third person, it seems to me
that the word may also naturally refer to himself so objectified: ‘he
who saw the sight has set it down ... and _he_ is well assured that what
he says is true.’
In any case, however, I must needs think that the bearing witness is
that of the written Gospel, and that the author of the Gospel is the
same as he who saw the sight. The identity is, it seems to me, clenched
by xxi. 24, to which I shall come back in a moment.
At this point I may be permitted to interject a speculation—shall I call
it a pious speculation? it certainly does not profess to be more—as to
the origin of the peculiar way the Fourth Evangelist has of referring to
himself. The idea can only be entertained by those who think that the
writer was really a companion of the Lord, either an Apostle or one very
near to the Apostles. Is it not possible that such a one may have been
influenced by the way in which the Master referred to Himself? It is
characteristic of the Synoptic Christ that He constantly speaks of
Himself objectively as ‘the Son of Man.’ May we not suppose that the
Evangelist, through long and familiar intercourse, came insensibly and
instinctively to adopt for himself a similar method of oblique and
allusive reference? It is of course not quite the same thing; but there
seems to be enough resemblance for the one usage to suggest the other.
The beloved disciple had a special reason for not wishing to obtrude his
own personality. He was conscious of a great privilege, of a privilege
that would single him out for all time among the children of men. He
could not resist the temptation to speak of this privilege. The impulse
of affection responding to affection prompted him to claim it. But the
consciousness that he was doing so, and the reaction of modesty led him
at the same moment to suppress, what a vulgar egotism might have
accentuated, the lower plane of his own individuality. The son of
Zebedee (if it was he) desired to be merged and lost in ‘the disciple
whom Jesus loved.’
There is nothing in the least unnatural in this; it is a little complex
perhaps, but only with the complexity of life, when different motives
clash in a fine nature. The delicacy of attitude corresponds to an
innate delicacy of mind. When one reads some of the criticisms on this
attitude, one is reminded of a sentence in an English classic, Cowper’s
indignant remonstrance at Johnson’s treatment of Milton.
‘As a poet, he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked
one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his Muse’s wing,
and trampled them under his great foot[35].’
Samuel Johnson, excellent person as he was, is not the only critic who
has had the misfortune to be born (metaphorically, if not physically)
with a ‘great foot’ and a heavy hand.
The Gospel closes with a scene in which the writer refers in his usual
oblique way to himself. I cannot think that there is any real reason for
the assumption, which is so often and so confidently made, that the last
chapter is an appendix written after the author was dead. On this point,
again, I entirely agree with Dr. Drummond, ‘It is surely conceivable
that the aged disciple, feeling death stealing upon him, might point out
that no words of Jesus justified the expectation which had arisen among
some of his devoted friends[36].’ The complete identity of thought and
style, and the way in which this last chapter is dovetailed into the
preceding (‘This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the
disciples’; compare at the beginning of the Gospel the counting up of
the first Galilean miracles, ii. 11, iv. 54), seem to prove that the
last chapter is by the same hand as the rest of the Gospel[37].
But at the very end another hand does take up the pen; and this time the
writer speaks in the name of a plurality; ‘This is the disciple which
beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know
that his witness is true’ (xxi. 24). The critics who assert that the
Gospel is not the work of an eye-witness, and even those who say that
the last chapter was not written by the author of the whole, wantonly
accuse these last words of untruth. That is another of the methods of
modern criticism that seem to me sorely in need of reforming. I hope
that a time may come when it will be considered as wrong to libel the
dead as it is to libel the living.
I accept, then, this last verse as weighty testimony to the autoptic
character of the Gospel. It is easy to see that the two concluding
verses are added on the occasion of its publication by those who
published it. They, as it were, endorse the witness which it had borne
to itself.
ii. Passages in which the impression conveyed is indirect.
We have been through the few salient passages which, in spite of the
criticism to which they have been exposed, still proclaim in no
uncertain terms the first-hand character of the work to which they
belong. I now go on to collect a number of passages which are more
indirect in their evidence, and just because of this indirectness have a
special value, because the evidence which they afford is unconscious and
undesigned. For the present I shall speak only of two groups: first, a
series of passages in which the author seems to write as though from the
inner circle of the disciples and companions of Jesus; and, secondly,
another series in which he refers to the way in which impressions
received at the time were corrected or interpreted by subsequent
experience and reflection.
The Gospel has not long opened before we begin to receive that subtle
impression which is given when one who has himself taken part in a scene
reproduces it as history. I know that this kind of effect may be
produced by imagination; and I will not assume as yet that it may not be
so produced in this instance; I content myself for the present with
pointing out that it exists.
When we take the last two paragraphs of the first chapter of the Gospel
(i. 35-51), I think we shall feel as though we were being introduced to
a little circle of neighbours and acquaintances. Two friends, one of
whom is called Andrew, and the other is unnamed, are interested in what
they have seen of Jesus and in what the Baptist had said about Him, and
they ask leave to join Him. They remain for some hours in His company;
and it is clear that their interest is not diminished. Andrew finds his
brother Simon, and he too is brought up and introduced. Jesus Himself
takes the initiative in inviting a fourth, Philip. We are told expressly
that Philip was from the same city as the two before named; and he in
turn finds and introduces his friend Nathanael. There is just one of the
five whose name is not given. He is the silent spectator in the
background. What if it were he to whom we owe the story? In any case
there is this little group, all apparently from the same locality, who
naturally enough find themselves together, drawn at first by the
preacher of repentance, but leaving him to join one greater than he.
We pass over to the next chapter; but that will give us more to say
under the next head. There are many points upon which we might pause,
but I will pass on to the middle of chap. iii (vers. 22-6). There we
have the description of what have now become two groups, the disciples
of Jesus and the disciples of John, in near proximity to each other, and
with easy intercourse between them. The narrative seems to be written
from the standpoint of the disciples. The two principals are in the
background, but we follow the events of the day among their _entourage_.
There is a little discussion between some of John’s disciples and a
stranger (R. V.) about a question naturally connected with baptism. Such
a discussion might have interested at the time one who was near at hand
and in friendly relation with those who took part in it. But it would be
hard to find any other motive that could suggest it to a Christian at
the end of the first century.
It is indeed quite possible and perhaps probable that Baldensperger
(_Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums, Freiburg_ i. B., 1898) is right in
supposing that among the motives present to the mind of the Evangelist
was that of marking the subordinate position of the Baptist as compared
with the Messiah, to whom he bore witness. We can quite believe that at
Ephesus, at the time when the Gospel was written, there still remained
some who had only been baptized into the baptism of John, like the
disciples mentioned in Acts xix. 1-7. There may be a certain amount of
polemical or apologetic reference to such a sect as this. The latter
part of chap. iii (‘he must increase, but I must decrease’) may be of
this character; but the purely historical statements in vers. 22-6 have
in them nothing polemical; they have far more the appearance of personal
reminiscences, introduced only because they came back to the memory of
the writer. It is a curious fact that the Gospel contains several
references to ‘purifying’: e. g. ii. 6 (the waterpots at Cana ‘set there
after the Jews’ manner of purifying’), the present passage, iii. 22; the
description, in xi. 55, of the Jews going up to purify themselves before
the Passover, and the statement (xviii. 28) that the accusers of our
Lord did not enter the praetorium ‘that they might not be defiled, but
might eat the Passover.’ Nothing is made of these allusions; no argument
is based upon them; but they would be very natural if the Evangelist
began life as a disciple of the Baptist and had been early interested in
such questions.
Turning to the discourse with the woman of Samaria we observe how it is
framed as it were in the movements of the disciples: in ver. 8 they go
into the city to buy provisions; in ver. 27 they return, and are
surprised to find their Master engaged in conversation with a
woman—contrary to the practice and maxims of the Rabbis. They are
surprised, but they do not venture upon any remonstrance. They had left
their Master weary and way-worn, and they find Him refreshed. They do
not understand how refreshment of the mind carries with it that of the
body; and they speculate as to whether food had not been brought to Him
during their absence. This is another scene in which the point of view
seems to be that of the disciples, and in which we, as it were, overhear
their comments.
It has often been objected that there were no witnesses of the discourse
with the woman, and therefore that the narrative of it must be
imaginary. It is full of touches, as we shall see presently, which are
so appropriate to the circumstances that I find it difficult to think of
them as imaginary. But how do we know that there were no witnesses of
the discourse? It would certainly be too much to assume that every
allusion to the disciples in a body meant of necessity the whole number
of the Twelve. We must remember by the way that the Twelve were not yet
chosen; but in any case we must expect language to be rough and
approximate. If we are really to think of the author of the Gospel as
‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ we should doubtless be right in
assuming that the love was ardently returned. We may think of the
Apostle as a youth, only just out of boyhood, and with something of the
fidelity of a dog for his master, who does not like to be long out of
his sight. ‘_Sicut oculi servorum in manibus dominorum suorum, sicut
oculi ancillae in manibus dominae suae_‘: we may picture to ourselves
this gentle youth seated a pace or two away, and not wishing to obtrude
his presence, but eagerly drinking in all that passed.
In chap. v, the disciples are not prominent; but in chap. vi, before the
feeding of the multitude, we have one of those little dialogues which
are so characteristic of this Gospel, bringing in two of the disciples
who are both mentioned by name (vi. 5-10). At the end of the chapter
(vers. 60-71) we are again taken into the midst of the circle of the
disciples. We see some perplexed, and some falling away, and an echo
reaches us of St. Peter’s confession. At the same time we have a
premonitory hint, such as we may be sure that other members of the
Twelve recalled after the fact, that one of their number was a traitor.
About chap. vii I shall have occasion to speak later. I will only now
point to the discussion with which it begins between Jesus and His
brethren (vers. 3-8). This again—if it is not pure invention—is only
likely to have been reported by one who was in the closest intimacy, not
only with the disciples of Jesus but with His domestic circle. And again
we have to ask, what motive there could be for invention. If the Gospel
gives examples of belief, and tries to promote belief, it does not on
that account suppress examples of unbelief, even among the nearest
relations. This episode is St. John’s counterpart to Mark iii. 21: ‘His
friends (οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ) ... went out to lay hold on him: for they said,
He is beside himself.’
The next occasion on which we are reminded of the intimate personal side
of our Lord’s ministry is the story of Lazarus. Here we have two groups,
into the interior of which we are allowed some glimpses. The family at
Bethany is one, the company of the Twelve is the other. Here once more
we see what passed from within. The passage, vers. 7-16, is full of
delicate portraiture. We have the remonstrances of the Twelve as a body;
moving in a higher plane than these, we have the divine insight which
sees what they cannot see, and knows what it will do; and lastly, we
have the impulsive, despondent, faithful Thomas—a figure so clearly
drawn in the few strokes that are allotted to it—fully recognizing and
perhaps exaggerating the dangers, and yet not letting its loyalty yield
to them: ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Him.’
Parallel to this description of what passed among the Twelve is the
description further on of the interior of the household, the different
behaviour of the two sisters and their Jewish sympathizers. If this is
not a picture constructed wholly by art, it represents the recollections
of one who had himself been present at the events of the day, and who
had moved freely to and fro, and very probably talked them over after
the day was done.
A natural sequel to this scene is the supper in the same house six days
before the Passover. And, as we might expect, the attitude and
standpoint of the narrator are still the same. He shows the same
intimacy with the members of the household and with his own companions.
He remembers the ungenerous short-sighted speech of Judas Iscariot, to
whom, with natural antipathy, he attributes the worst motives.
The incident of the coming of the Greeks, with its accurate singling out
of the two friends Philip and Andrew and the account of the part played
by them, also reflects the standpoint of a bystander who is near the
centre.
Still more does this come out in the whole narrative of the Last Supper.
One or two episodes stand out as specially graphic and life-like. The
first is the whole description of the Feet-washing (vers. 3-12). The
other is the indication of the traitor (vers. 21-30).
Bishop Lightfoot noticed long ago the careful use of terms in this last
passage. In the book by which he prepared the way for the undertaking of
a Revised Version of the New Testament, happily accomplished ten years
later, he called attention to the defects of the Authorized Version of
John xiii. 23, 25:
‘[It] makes no distinction between the reclining position of the
beloved disciple throughout the meal, described by ἀνακείμενος, and
the sudden change of posture at this moment, introduced by ἀναπεσών.
This distinction is further enforced in the original by a change in
both the prepositions and the nouns, from ἐν to ἐπί, and from τῷ
κόλπῳ to τὸ στῆθος. St. John was reclining on the bosom of his
Master and he suddenly threw back his head upon his breast to ask a
question.’