We must in any case think of John of Ephesus as ‘the aged disciple,’ for
to our modern ears some such double name as that expresses most
adequately the feeling that surrounded him. He called himself by
preference ὁ πρεσβύτερος, but we have unfortunately no sufficient
rendering for this in English. ‘Elder’ and ‘Presbyter’ have both
contracted the associations of office, and of a rather formal kind of
office that has lost too much of its original meaning, for the natural
authority of age was at first always conveyed in it. I suppose that the
Apostle thought of himself most of all as a memory—the last and
strongest link with those wonderful years. It was this especially that
gave him his sense at once of dignity and of responsibility. When his
disciples spoke of ὁ πρεσβύτερος, I imagine that they meant, as we might
say, ‘the Venerable’; they looked up to him with a feeling of awe
tempered with affection.
It was at Ephesus, the capital of Proconsular Asia, that he whom we too
may call ‘the Venerable’ held his modest court, and from thence that he
went on circuit, organizing and visiting the little congregations formed
in the cities and greater towns of the province. We have a glimpse of
these activities in the famous story of the Robber Chief. We are more
concerned with the contemplative side of his life, with that inward
retrospect which occupied his mind. I do not doubt that it is true that
the other Gospels, as they came into circulation among the churches,
were brought to him, and that he expressed his approval of them. The
story makes him speak with unique authority, which has about it however
nothing artificial, but is just the natural deference for one who of all
men living was in the best position to know the things of which he
spoke. His approval of the other Gospels was calm and objective, but
critical. I believe that the precious statements that Papias has
preserved for us about the compositions of St. Mark and St. Matthew are
really fragments of his criticism. I accept also as literally true the
story that it was partly because he felt that there was something
wanting in the older records, and partly because of the urgency of those
around him, that the old man at last was himself impelled to write.
Browning’s ‘Death in the Desert’ presents him at a later stage—at the
last stage of all—but as an imaginative reproduction of the
circumstances and frame of mind in which the Gospel was written, it is
the best that I know.
At Ephesus in Asia the embers of the apostolic age glowed longer
than elsewhere; and we cannot wonder that here the torch should be
lit which was to be handed on to later times. If the devotion of
disciples had to do with the writing of the Gospel, we may be sure
that it also had to do with the commending and spreading of the
Gospel when written. It is possible enough that they were the
first to give it the name of ‘the spiritual Gospel.’ As such it
passed from hand to hand; and again it is not surprising that
those who prided themselves on superior spirituality and insight,
like the Gnostics, showed a special fondness for this Gospel, as
we are told they did[85]. Neither is it any more surprising that
in an opposite quarter, where a spirit like that of our own
Hanoverian Bishops looked with jealousy upon every outbreak of
enthusiasm, there should be a movement of reaction against the
Gospel which seemed to encourage such manifestations (the Alogi).
The catholic Church went calmly on its way, and these partialities
and inequalities soon found their level. By the time of Irenaeus
there is a stable equilibrium; no one of the four Gospels is
either before or after another. And this is really the lesson
taught by the Muratorian Fragment, though the writer has to speak
a little more apologetically—there are, it is true, differences,
but all are inspired by the self-same Spirit.
The last trace in ancient times of the preference which from its birth
had been given to the Fourth Gospel appears, as we might expect, in
Origen. After describing in detail the different purposes which
dominated the other Gospels, Origen explains that Providence reserved
for him who had leaned upon the breast of Jesus the greater and more
mature discourse about Him, for none of the others had set forth His
deity so unreservedly as John.
‘So then we make bold to say that of all the Scriptures the Gospels
are the firstfruits, and the firstfruits of the Gospels is that
according to John the meaning whereof none can apprehend who has not
leaned upon the breast of Jesus, or received at the hands of Jesus
Mary to be his mother too[86].’
This is the kind of history that the extant materials and tradition
sketch for us of the origin and early fortunes of the Fourth Gospel.
From the moment that we leave behind the shade of obscurity which does
just linger over the person of the author, everything seems to me quite
consistent and coherent and natural and probable. Can we say as much of
the opposition to the Gospel, especially in its extremer form, as
represented by Schmiedel or Jean Réville or Loisy? We certainly cannot
give the epithets just used to the theory of these writers, because
there is really nothing to apply to them; the Gospel is for them a great
_ignotum_, and nothing more. Is not this in itself a rather serious
objection? As an _ignotum_ the Gospel is really too great to plant down
in the middle of the history of the second century without creating a
disturbance of all the surrounding conditions which we may be sure would
have lasted for years. Imagine this solid mass suddenly thrust into the
course of events, as Schmiedel would say, somewhere about the year 140,
between Basilides and Valentinus and their disciples, as it were under
the very eyes of Polycarp and Anicetus and Justin and Tatian, without
making so much as a ripple upon the surface. Of course nothing can be
simpler than to say that the author of the Gospel is unknown; but the
moment we come to close quarters with the statement, and realize what it
means, we perceive its difficulty.
Epilogue on the Principles of Criticism.
And now that we have come to the end of this brief sketch of the history
of the Gospel for the first hundred years or so of its existence, I may
perhaps turn in conclusion to the other object which has been present to
my mind throughout this course of lectures, and attempt to collect and
state, also in the most summary form, some of the underlying principles
of criticism which have from time to time found expression in the
lectures and which I desire to submit for your consideration, more
especially where they differ from much current practice. I consider them
to be self-evident; but their obviousness has at least not prevented
them from being too often disregarded. The main points would, I think,
be as follows:—
1. In judging of the external evidence for any ancient writing, it is
always important to observe not only the details of the evidence itself
(date, genuineness, authority, freedom from ambiguity, the precise point
attested), but also the extent of the area from which it is drawn and
the proportion which it bears to the extant literature of the period
which it covers. The first step should be an attempt to realize by an
effort of the imagination the proportion between (1) the whole of the
extant evidence, (2) the amount of the material that yields this
evidence, (3) the amount of the material, once extant but now no longer
extant, which might have contributed evidence if we had it. In other
words, what we have to consider is not only the actual, positive
evidence available, but the distribution of this evidence and its
relation to the real lie of the facts—no longer accessible to us but as
they may be imaginatively reconstructed.
2. In particular, when use is made of the argument from silence, the
first question to be asked is, What is silent? It may well be that the
literature supposed to be silent is so small that no inference of any
value can be drawn from it.
3. In any further use of the argument from silence full allowance should
be made for common human infirmity in the persons who are silent—for
oversight forgetfulness, limited range of thought. It is always
desirable that the application of the argument from silence should be
checked by comparison with verifiable examples from actual experience,
whether that experience is derived from ancient life or from modern.
4. The presumption is that plain statements of fact may be trusted,
unless there is a distinct and solid reason to the contrary. Even where
there is a considerable interval of time between the fact and the
statement, it may be presumed that the writer who makes the statement
had connecting links of testimony to which he had access and we have
not. In any case it is worth while to ask ourselves whether it is not
probable that such connecting links existed.
5. In such plain statements the presumption further is that the writer
meant what he says, or appears to say. Not until this apparent sense has
proved wholly unworkable is it right to tamper with his express
language, whether by emendation of the text or putting upon his words a
sense that is not obvious and natural.
6. The imputation of conscious deception or fraud is to be strongly
deprecated, except with writers of ascertained bad character, and even
then the imputation should not be made without substantial reason.
7. All imputations of motive, and especially of sinister motive, should
be carefully weighed, and it should in particular be considered whether
the supposed motive is one that was likely to be in operation under the
historical conditions of the time and circumstances of the writer
affected.
8. It should never be forgotten that human nature is a very subtle and
complex thing—usually far more subtle and complex than any picture of it
that we are likely to form for ourselves. Hence it is improbable that
the enumeration of motives by the critical historian will really exhaust
the possibilities of the case. Many seeming inconsistencies, whether of
character or of statement, are really less than they seem, and quite
capable of conjunction in the same person.
9. Where a simple cause suffices to explain a group, especially a large
group, of facts, it is better not to assume a cause that is highly
exceptional and complicated. This rule seems to apply to the indications
of an eye-witness in the Fourth Gospel.
10. Such indications do not in the least exclude the natural effect of
lapse of time and the unconscious action of experience and reflection on
the mind of a writer who sets down late in life a narrative of events
that had happened long before.
11. In studying a narrative of this kind we should bear in mind, as well
as we can, the whole career of the writer: we should divide it into its
successive stages, and we should be constantly asking ourselves which
stage of his experience is reflected in the shape that each portion of
the narrative takes. If the conception which results as a whole appears
to be such as naturally starts from direct contact with the facts, that
will supply us with a much easier explanation than any which involves
the wholesale use of fiction.
12. There are different kinds of portraiture; and it does not at all
follow that a portrait to be real must be full of movement and action.
There are some minds that, from peculiarity of mental habit, although
they preserve what they once saw or heard with great distinctness and
fidelity, nevertheless easily travel away from these recollections of
observed fact and glide into a train of reflection which is almost
soliloquy. The author of the Fourth Gospel appears to be a writer of
this kind.
13. He himself lays so much stress upon ocular testimony that we must
give him credit for such testimony, even where it is not altogether easy
for us to follow him.
14. This applies particularly to his reports of miracle. But in judging
of these reports, we must before all things bear in mind that the
personal disciples of Jesus and the whole first generation of Christians
certainly believed that they were living in the midst of miracle, and
certainly held that belief to be an important constituent in their
conception of Christ.
15. If we would form an adequate idea of what we call ‘the supernatural’
in the dealings of God with men, we must not begin by ruling out all
that transcends our common experience. We must keep it in our minds even
where we feel that there are features of it that we do but imperfectly
understand. More light may be given to us by degrees.
16. All our Gospels together present us with a view of the life and
words of Christ to which, if we did but know it, there would be much to
be added. The first Christians were acquainted with many particulars
under both heads which to us are entirely lost. These particulars
contributed in an important degree to the total impression which they
formed of the Person of Christ.
17. The conception was naturally fullest and most adequate in the Mother
Church, i. e. in the Church in which the immediate followers of Christ
were for the longest time collected. It was here, and nowhere else, that
that conception of His Person was formed which dominated all parts of
the Church, and which carried with it certain corollaries as to the
nature of God and his dealings with men that became a permanent body of
belief.
18. St. Paul no doubt developed certain portions and aspects of this
body of belief, but it is quite impossible and contrary to the evidence
that he can have invented its main propositions.
19. We may be sure that St. John did not draw directly from St. Paul,
but, firstly, from his own recollections, and in the second place, from
the store of common memories and common doctrine that was the possession
of all Christians and especially of those who had been nearest to the
Master.
20. If we attempt a reconstruction of the main lines of the progress of
the Church in the early and in subsequent centuries, such reconstruction
ought to be worthy of its subject. In other words, it ought to be one in
which we can really see the finger of God.
21. The workings of Divine Providence, as we have experience of them, do
not indeed always correspond to what we should antecedently expect. They
are such as belong to a world, not of perfect, but of imperfect beings.
The Divine purpose as we see it, does not take effect at once, but by
slow and gradually expanding degrees.
22. In a world so mixed and chequered progress also has been mixed and
chequered; it has not been exactly what we, with our limited faculties,
could at once recognize as ideal. It has been progress by tentative
experiment, by gradual formulation, by description, at first rough and
approximate, but improved little by little as time went on. Any
reconstruction of Christian history which agrees with these broad
conditions is legitimate, I mean, any reconstruction which recognizes
the tentative, experimental, imperfect but gradually improved
formulation of Christian belief. It is incumbent upon us, in our own
day, to take our part in the attempt to formulate our conceptions of
truth, whether historical or doctrinal, with all the accuracy in our
power; and we may be quite sure that future generations will improve
upon anything that we leave behind us.
23. Any method of reconstructing history on these lines is, as I have
stated, legitimate and worthy of a Christian who is loyal to his faith.
But a view of history that cannot be expressed in terms fit to describe
the operation of Divine Providence; that sees in it nothing but huge
blunders and gross deteriorations; that regards the Church of Christ as
built on fundamental untruth, which only becomes worse and not better as
the centuries advance; such a view seems to me to be not loyal and not
really Christian.
Footnote 74:
See, however, the Oxford Society of Hist. Theol., _N. T. in Apost.
Fathers_ (1905), p. 84.
Footnote 75:
Ibid., pp. 64, 67, 69; on the use of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 81-83 (a
judicious estimate).
Footnote 76:
_Ignatius von Antiochien_, pp. 46 ff.
Footnote 77:
Strangely enough, the Oxford Society’s committee do not mention this
phrase, though it presents a stronger case than any of those on p. 31.
Footnote 78:
_Hibbert Journal_ i. 529.
Footnote 79:
_Character, &c._ 157.
Footnote 80:
_Hibbert Journal_ ii. 610.
Footnote 81:
_Chronologie_, p. 675.
Footnote 82:
_Die Offenbarung Johannis_, p. 208.
Footnote 83:
It is pointed out to me by Dr. V. Bartlet that the sentence in the
Fragment about the dead raised to life is really a new statement not
connected with the sentences preceding which are referred to Papias. I
am inclined to think that this is right, and that the authority may be
Quadratus.
Footnote 84:
Since this was written I have had the advantage of seeing in
manuscript an argument by Dom John Chapman, presenting in a more
attractive shape than I have ever yet seen the view that the only John
of Ephesus was the son of Zebedee. All depends upon the truth of the
story of this Apostle’s death. It is one of those statements that we
can neither wholly trust, nor wholly distrust. There is a real chance
that it may be right, and there is an equally real chance that it may
be wrong; the evidence, as it seems to me, does not warrant a positive
assertion either way. I should be much inclined to think that, if the
statement is true, there was but one John at Ephesus, the beloved
disciple who was also the Presbyter; and, if the statement is false,
there was still but one John, who was both Presbyter and Apostle. But
then there comes in the problem of the Apocalypse, which _may_ require
two Johns!
Footnote 85:
Iren. _adv. Haer._ iii. 11. 7.
Footnote 86:
_Comm. in Joan._ i. 6.