the Greek metaphysical conception of the Divine Sonship, and, on the basis of his acquaintance with the Alexandrian Logos doctrine, even makes Jesus apply to Himself the Greek speculative conception of pre-existence. The writer is aware of an already existing danger from the side of a Gnostic docetism, and has himself an apologetic Christology to propound, thus fighting the Gnostics as a Gnostic of another kind. That he is free from eschatological conceptions is not, from the historical point of view, an advantage, but very much the reverse. He is not unacquainted with eschatology, but deliberately transforms it, endeavouring to substitute for the expectation of the Second Coming of Christ, as an external event of the future, the thought of His inward presence.
The most decisive evidence of all is found in the farewell discourses-and in the absence of all mention of the spiritual struggle in Gethsemane. The intention here is to show that Jesus not only had a foreknowledge of His death, but had long overcome it in anticipation, and went to meet His tragic fate with perfect inward serenity. That, however, is no historical narrative, but the final stage of reverent idealisation.
The question is decided. The Gospel of John is inferior to the Synoptics as a historical source just in proportion as it is more strongly dominated than they by theological and apologetic interests. It is true that the assignment of the dominant motives for Strauss's criticism mainly a matter of conjecture. He cannot define in detail the attitude and tendency of this Gospel, because the development of dogma in the second century was still to a great extent obscure. He himself admits- that it was only subsequently, through the labours of Baur, that the posi- tions which he had taken up in 1835 were rendered impregnable. And yet it is true to say that Johannine study has added in principle nothing new to what was said by Strauss. He recognised the decisive point. With critical acumen he resigned the attempt to base a decision on a comparison of the historical data, and allowed the theological character of the two lines of tradition to determine the question. Unless this is done the debate is endless, for an able man who has sworn allegiance to John will always find a thousand ways in which the Johannine data can be reconciled with those of the Synoptists, and is finally prepared to stake his life upon the exact point at which the missing account of the institution of the Lord's Supper must be inserted into the narrative.
This changed estimate of John carries with it a reversal of the order in which the Gospels are supposed to have originated. Instead of John, Luke, Matthew, we have Matthew, Luke, and John�the first is last, and the last first. Strauss's unsophisticated instinct freed Matthew from the humiliating vassalage to which
