alone in Christian literature, as its author stands alone among Christian teachers; the work of one who for threescore years and ten laboured as an Apostle. Called to follow the Baptist when only a lad, and by him soon transferred to the Christ, he may be said to have been the first who from his youth up was a Christian. Who, therefore, could so fitly grasp and state in their true proportions and with fitting impressiveness the great verities of the Christian faith? He had had no deep-seated prejudices to uproot, like his friend S. Peter and others who were called late in life. He had had no sudden wrench to make from the past, like S. Paul. He had not had the trying excitement of wandering abroad over the face of the earth, like most of the Twelve. He had remained at his post at Ephesus, directing, teaching, meditating; until at last when the fruit was ripe it was given to the Church in the fulness of beauty which it is still our privilege to possess and learn to love.

CHAPTER VI.

ITS RELATION TO THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS.

the Evan

The Fourth Gospel presupposes the other three; gelist assumes that the contents of his predecessors' Gospels are known to his readers. The details of Christ's birth are summed up in 'the Word became flesh.' His subjection to His parents is implied by contrast in His reply to His mother at Cana. The Baptism is involved in the Baptist's declaration, 'I have seen (the Spirit descending and abiding on Him) and have borne witness' (i. 34). The Ascension is promised through Mary Magdalene to the Apostles (xx. 17), but left unrecorded. Christian Baptism is assumed in the discourse with Nicodemus, and the Eucharist in that on the Bread of Life; but the reference in each case is left to speak for itself to Christians familiar with both those rites. S. John passes over their institution in silence.

ST JOHN

d

The differences between the Fourth Gospel and the three first are real and very marked but it is easy to exaggerate them. They are conveniently grouped under two heads; (1) differences as to the scene and extent of Christ's ministry; (2) differences as to the view given of His Person.

(1) With regard to the first, it is urged that the Synoptists represent our Lord's ministry as lasting for one year only, including only one Passover and one visit to Jerusalem, with which the ministry closes. S. John, however, describes the ministry as extending over three or possibly more years, including at least three Passovers and several visits to Jerusalem.

In considering this difficulty, if it be one, we must remember two things: (a) that all four Gospels are very incomplete and contain only a series of fragments; (b) that the date and duration of Christ's ministry remain and are likely to remain uncertain. (a) In the gaps in the Synoptic narrative there is plenty of room for all that is peculiar to S. John. In the spaces deliberately left by S. John between his carefully-arranged scenes there is plenty of room for all that is peculiar to the Synoptists. When all have been pieced together there still remain large interstices which it would require at least four more Gospels to fill (xxi. 25). Therefore it can be no serious difficulty that so much of the Fourth Gospel has nothing parallel to it in the other three. (b) The additional fact of the uncertainty as to the date and duration of the Lord's public ministry is a further explanation of the apparent difference in the amount of time covered by the Synoptic narrative and that covered by the narrative of S. John. There is no contradiction between the two. The Synoptists nowhere say that the ministry lasted for only one year, although some commentators from very early times have proposed to understand 'the acceptable year of the Lord' (Luke iv. 19) literally. The three Passovers of S. John (ii. 13, vi. 4, xi. 55; v. 1 being omitted as very doubtful) compel us to give at least a little over two years to Christ's ministry. But S. John also nowhere implies that he has mentioned all the Passovers within the period; and the startling statement of Irenaeus (Haer. II. xxii. 5) must be borne in mind, that our

Lord fulfilled the office of a Teacher until He was over forty years old, “even as the Gospel and all the elders bear witness, who consorted with John the disciple of the Lord in Asia, (stating) that John had handed this down to them." Irenaeus makes the ministry begin when Christ was nearly thirty years of age (Luke iii. 23); so that he gives it a duration of more than ten years on what seems to be very high authority. All that can be affirmed with certainty is that the ministry cannot have begun earlier than A.D. 28 (the earlier alternative for the fifteenth year of Tiberius; Luke iii. 1) and cannot have ended later than A.D. 37, when Pilate was recalled by Tiberius shortly before his death. Indeed as Tiberius died in March, and Pilate found him already dead when he reached Rome, the recall probably took place in A.D. 36; and the Passover of A.D. 36 is the latest date possible for the Crucifixion. Chronology is not what the Evangelists aimed at giving us; and the fact that S. John spreads his narrative over a longer period than the Synoptists will cause a difficulty to those only who have mistaken the purpose of the Gospels.

(2) As to the second great difference between S. John and the Synoptists, it is said that, while they represent Jesus as a great Teacher and Reformer, with the powers and authority of a Prophet, who exasperates His countrymen by denouncing their immoral traditions, S. John gives us instead a mysterious Personage, invested with Divine attributes, who infuriates the hierarchy by claiming to be one with the Supreme God. It is urged, moreover, that there is a corresponding difference in the teaching attributed to Jesus in each case. The discourses in the Synoptic Gospels are simple, direct, and easily intelligible, inculcating for the most part high moral principles, which are enforced and illustrated by numerous parables and proverbs. Whereas the discourses in the Fourth Gospel are many and intricate, inculcating for the most part deep mystical truths, which are enforced by a ceaseless reiteration tending to obscure the exact line of the argument, and illustrated by not a single parable properly so called.

These important differences may be to a very great extent

explained by two considerations: (a) the peculiarities of S. John's own temperament; (b) the circumstances under which he wrote. (a) The main features of S. John's character, so far as we can gather them from history and tradition, have been stated above (chapter 1. ii.), and we cannot doubt that they have affected not only his choice of the incidents and discourses selected for narration, but also his mode of narrating them. No doubt in both he was under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (xiv. 26): but we have every reason for supposing that such guidance would work with, rather than against, the mental endowments of the person guided. To what extent the substance and form of his Gospel has been influenced by the intensity of his own nature we cannot tell; but the intensity is there, both in thought and language, both in its devotion and in its' sternness; and the difference from the Synoptists shews that some influence has been at work. (b) The circumstances under which S. John wrote will carry us still further. They are very different from those under which the first Gospels were written. Christianity had grown from infancy to manhood and believed itself to be near the great consummation of the Lord's return. It was 'the last time.' Antichrist, who, as Jesus had foretold, was to precede His return, was already present in manifold shapes in the world (1 John ii. 18). In the bold speculations which had mingled themselves with Christianity, the Divine Government of the Father and the Incarnation of the Son were being explained away or denied (1 John ii. 22, iv. 3). The opposition, shewn from the first by 'the Jews' to the disciples of the Teacher whom they had crucified, had settled down into a relentless hostility. And while the gulf between Christianity and Judaism had thus widened, that between the Church and the world had also become more evident. The more the Christian realised the meaning of being 'born of God,' the more manifest became the truth, that 'the whole world lieth in the evil one' (1 John v. 18, 19). A Gospel that was to meet the needs of a society so changed both in its internal and external relations must obviously be very different from those which had suited its infancy. And a reverent mind will here trace the

Providence of God, in that an Apostle, and he the Apostle S. John, was preserved for this crisis. It is scarcely too much to say that, had a Gospel, claiming to have been written by him near the close of the first century, greatly resembled the other three in matter and form, we should have had reasonable grounds for doubting its authenticity. (The special difficulty with regard to the discourses as reported by the Synoptists and by S. John is discussed in the introductory note to chap. iii.)

It must be remarked on the other side that, along with these important differences as regards the things narrated and the mode of narrating them, there are coincidences less conspicuous, but not less real or important.

Among the most remarkable of these are the characters of the Lord, of S. Peter, of Mary and Martha, and of Judas. The similarity in most cases is too subtle for the picture in the Fourth Gospel to have been drawn from that in the Synoptic account. It is very much easier to believe that the two pictures agree because both are taken from life.

The invariable use by the Synoptists of the expression 'Son of Man' is rigidly observed by S. John. It is always used by Christ of Himself; never by, or of, any one else. See notes on i. 51; and also on ii. 19 and xviii. 11 for two other striking coincidences.

The student will find tabulated lists of minor coincidences in Dr Westcott's Introduction, pp. lxxxii., lxxxiii. He sums up thus: "The general conclusion stands firm. The Synoptists offer not only historical but also spiritual points of connexion between the teaching which they record and the teaching in the Fourth Gospel; and S. John himself in the Apocalypse completes the passage from the one to the other."