CHAPTER II.
ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS WITH THE FOURTH.
WE might have shown many other differences between the Synoptics and
Jn. But it will be better to notice them at a later stage. We shall
therefore pause here to deal with a question which must have occurred
to many of our readers long before this: Are the accounts in the four
Gospels really so fundamentally different? Is there no way of
reconciling them?
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1. EARLIER ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THEM COMPLETELY.
This question was quite urgent in the days when people felt obliged to
cherish the belief that every letter in Holy Scripture was dictated by
the Holy Spirit. In those days it had to be answered in the affirmative
at any cost. And, as a matter of fact, the cost was not light--it did
not involve merely effort and ingenuity, but meant giving up what seems
obvious when the Bible is understood in a natural and unsophisticated
way. And yet the attempt to establish complete harmony between the four
Gospels (or, as was thought, simply the art of exhibiting this
harmony), the nature of which suggested the name "Harmonics," was for
many centuries one of the chief pursuits of theological science.
Strictly speaking, there are only two courses open to us, If one and
the same event seems to be reported in more Gospels than one, but in a
more or less different way, we must either show that the difference in
the statement is only apparent, or we must say that each account treats
of a distinct event. The more seriously we regard the language, the
more frequently will the second course be the one we shall have to
take. Strict Harmonics, too, with quite special frequency arrives at
this result by starting with the presupposition that each Evangelist
not only tells us a story correct in every word, but also gives each
particular event and utterance in the life of Jesus in its right order,
though--and this could not be denied under any circumstances--he omits
many things which are preserved in the other Gospels.
Thus, for example, it was necessary to show in each of the first three
Gospels at what point each of those journeys of Jesus to a feast
reported only in Jn. could be fitted in. In Jesus' walking on the sea,
Jn. (vi. 16-21), we are told, has not in mind the same event as the
Synoptists have, for in the Synoptics Jesus is taken into the boat in
the middle of the Lake (Mk. vi. 51), but in Jn. is not (see above, p.
19 f .). Again, the Feeding of the Five Thousand reported by Jn. (vi.
1-13) must be a different event from the Feeding spoken of by the
Synoptics (Mk. vi. 35-44) for in all the Gospels we are told that such
a feeding took place on the day preceding the night on which Jesus
walked on the sea (with the exception of Lk. who does not report the
walking on the sea). But how? It is not permissible even to regard the
Feeding reported in all three Synoptics as one and the same event; for
in Mt. (xiv. 21) those who are fed are more numerous--besides the 5000
men there are women and children the number of whom is not given.
Consequently, there are three Feedings instead of one, in which the
number 5000 figures: one in Mk. = Lk., another in Mt., a third in Jn.
On each occasion there are only five loaves and two fishes ^ on each
occasion twelve baskets full of fragments are gathered up; each event
is followed by a night-journey across the sea; yet each Evangelist
relates only one of these three events, and Mk. and Mt., though each
knows of another Feeding, do not report more than one of these three;
but the two between them tell of a fourth and a fifth--one according to
Mk. (viii. 1-9) in which 4000 men, and another according to Mt. (xv.
32-38) in which 4000 men besides an indefinite number of women and
children, were satisfied; but on both occasions this happens after the
people have wandered about with Jesus for three days, on both occasions
there are seven loaves and a few fishes, and on both occasions seven
baskets full of fragments are gathered up afterwards.
But enough! The perseverance with which people have pursued all these
suggestions--which from the outset are such as we cannot accept--to
their utmost limit, and have put faith in them out of respect for the
Holy Spirit, who is supposed to have inspired every letter of the
Bible, certainly deserves to be fully recognised. Only one question is
forbidden. How often may Jesus be supposed to have been born, baptized,
crucified, and raised from the dead?
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2. MODERN ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THEM APPROXIMATELY.
Present-day defenders of the trustworthiness of all the four Gospels
are far more modest in the claims which they make. They quietly assume
that one and the same event is meant, even where the accounts differ
from one another rather widely; only they would rather not concede too
much, and so they try as far as possible to represent the differences
as being only slight. Naturally it is right for us always to test
whether these are really as great as they seem at first sight to be.
Where, however, this attempt is vain unless we seriously misinterpret
the language, it is not only unfair, but is also nothing better than
illogical. For if we are obliged to admit, and actually do admit, that
there are many contradictions in the Bible, there is no point in
insisting in the case of a limited number of these, that they are not
really contradictions. If we admit--since Jesus was taken captive only
on one occasion--that according to the Synoptics Judas betrayed him by
a kiss, and according to Jn. did not betray him in this way (xviii.
4-6), what is the use, when we turn to the expulsion of the dealers
from the fore-court of the Temple, of denying that either the
Synoptists or Jn. must have made a mistake, and of preferring to
suppose that there were two such acts, one at the beginning of his
ministry (Jn. ii. 13-22), the other at the end of it (Mk. xi. 15-18)?
If this were so, why did Jesus omit to drive the dealers and
money-changers from the temple court on his other visits to Jerusalem
as well? Are we to suppose that they were not stationed there on these
occasions? And why on the first occasion did he escape scot free,
whereas on the second he suffered death in consequence?
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3. USE OF THE SYNOPTICS BY JN.
We may set aside such palpably impossible attempts to deny that there
are contradictions between the Synoptics and Jn., and give attention to
such as are really worth discussing. But before we do this, it should
be said that it is almost universally agreed that the author of the
Fourth Gospel had the other three before him when he wrote.
To prove this we are not of course at liberty to cite at our pleasure
all kinds of things in which Jn. agrees with them, for these he might
himself have noted as an eye witness. We must specify passages which he
would not certainly have written, if he had not derived them from the
Synoptics. Thus, for example, it is very remarkable that Jesus ascends
the mountain before the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Jn. vi. 3) and
ascends the mountain after it (vi. 15), though we have not been told in
the meantime that he came down, or been given any clue that would lead
us to conjecture that he did so. The matter admits of a simple
explanation: when the author was about to relate the beginning of the
Feeding, he had before him the beginning of the second Feeding in Mt.
(xv. 29), "and he went up into the mountain and sat there." He tells us
almost word for word: "And Jesus went up into the mountain, and there
he sat with his disciples." At the second place, however, when he was
about to pass from the Feeding to Jesus' walking on the sea (vi. 15) he
remembered that Mk. and Mt., in their first story of the Feeding, said
that between the two acts Jesus ascended the mountain (his language
agrees very closely with Mt. xiv. 23), and so he added this and
overlooked the fact that he had said nothing about Jesus coming down.
For another example see xx. 2 (chap. iii., 26). In i. 15, in the words,
"This was he of whom I said, `He that cometh after me is become before
me,'" the Baptist actually recalls something he has said about Jesus at
an earlier date, but which is not found in the Fourth Gospel but only
in the Synoptics Mt. iii. 11), though there the language and meaning
are different.
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4. Is JN.'S PURPOSE SIMPLY TO SUPPLEMENT AND CORRECT?
But why does Jn. differ so often from the Synoptics, if he was
acquainted with their books? The most important attempt to explain this
consists in saying that his purpose throughout his book is to
supplement the story of his predecessors and, where in small matters
this was inexact, to correct it. This theory therefore presupposes
further that he was himself present at the events described, and was
entitled to think that wherever he made additions and corrections he
was justified in doing so. Whether this is confirmed is a question we
shall soon have to investigate more closely. We leave it for the
present and simply ask, Can this double purpose, which is ascribed to
him, be discovered at all in his book? As regards this intention to
make corrections, it is certainly not easy to recognise it, for the
author nowhere says: the matter was not thus, but thus. If then he made
corrections, he must have made them quite quietly out of respect for
his predecessors.
We prefer, therefore, in the first instance, to consider the question:
Does he wish merely to give facts which are supplementary? In the case
of the narratives which are peculiar to him, this would be conceivable,
as well as in the case of the expulsion of the dealers from the
fore-court of the Temple, if such an event really took place at the
beginning of Jesus' ministry. But in Jn. we find again a number of
stories given by the Synoptics, in which the idea cannot possibly be
that the events happened a second time, and not merely on one occasion
as the Synoptics state. We need only mention the Feeding of the Five
Thousand, the walking on the sea and the entrance into Jerusalem (vi.
1-15, 16-21; xii. 12-16). It might really be thought in the case of the
second of these stories that the idea of correcting was the ruling
purpose; Jn., in opposition to the story of the Synoptics which says
that Jesus was taken into the boat in the middle of the sea, wishes, as
an eye witness, to insist that this was not so, since Jesus crossed the
lake from one shore to the other. But it is really hard to discover
what correction he means to make in his description of the entry into
Jerusalem, or, in particular, in that of the Feeding of the Five
Thousand; and this is sufficient to show that the whole idea that Jn.'s
purpose is always either to supplement or correct is untenable. If, on
the other hand, certain concessions are made, and it is claimed that he
only meant to do this now arid then, the whole explanation of the
passages in which he differs from the Synoptics would have no value;
for in the case of a considerable number of sections in his book the
question why he introduced them would still be left unexplained.
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5. JN.'S PURPOSE NOT MERELY TO SUPPLEMENT AND CORRECT.
But let us see rather more exactly how in detail people think of the
author as carrying out his purpose of supplementing and correcting the
Synoptics. Here special importance may be attached to his statement
that some time after Jesus' public appearance John the Baptist was
still baptizing and that Jesus was doing so too, and to the addition,
"for John was not yet imprisoned" (iii. 22-24). In the Synoptics (Mk.
i. 14), Jesus does not come forward publicly until after the
imprisonment of the Baptist. Consequently the remark in Jn. which
contradicts this might easily be due in this instance to his purpose of
making a correction. If this were so, Jn. is aware, as the Synoptics
are not, that Jesus started a public mission while the Baptist was
still at work. And here we should have the explanation of the fact that
he adds so much which these omit: all this really happened before the
arrest of the Baptist, with which in the Synoptics the story of Jesus
work begins.
All? Strictly speaking, as a matter of fact, everything that Jn.
reports; for he never mentions a point at which the Baptist was
imprisoned. But this view of the matter would be quite impossible; for
in the expression "not yet taken" Jn. betrays the fact that he knew
very well of the arrest of the Baptist, and thinks of it as happening
during the public ministry of Jesus. But when? Before v. 35 ("he was
the lamp") and certainly before the Feeding of the Five Thousand and
Jesus' walking on the sea (Jn. vi. 1-21), of which the Synoptics do not
speak until long after the imprisonment of the Baptist--unless we were
to adopt the quite untenable assumption (see p. 48) that Jn. in these
two stories is thinking of two events quite different from those the
Synoptics have in mind. But we find afterwards in Jn. (chap. vii.-xi.)
Jesus appearing in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, the cure of
the man born blind, Jesus appearing at the Feast of the Dedication of
the Temple, and the raising of Lazarus--all things about which the
Synoptics say nothing, and which, nevertheless, are so extremely
important, that their silence about them is quite inexplicable. In all
these cases it does not help us at all to be told that Jn. merely
wished to supply facts as to what happened before the imprisonment of
the Baptist.
At the best, therefore, the assumption could be used for the events
which Jn. narrates in chapters ii.-v. But before we adopt it, we shall
do well once more to examine closely the passage on which it is based.
"Jesus baptized," we are told in Jn. iii. 22 (26; iv. 1). And in iv. 2
we read "and yet Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples." What
would a writer, who was anxious to report nothing false, have done when
he noticed afterwards that this had happened? We may be sure that he
would afterwards have deleted the error in the earlier passage, instead
of allowing it to stand and appending the confession that he had made a
mistake. Here we can see the peculiar character of the Fourth
Evangelist. He is not an author who is anxious to report nothing false;
where it suits his purpose, he reports it.
And here in fact it suits his purpose very well. It is only the
statement, that Jesus baptized, and did so while John was still at
work, that enables him to represent the interesting situation in which
the number of the followers of the Baptist is becoming smaller and
smaller, and that of the followers of Jesus growing larger and larger.
And this is one of Jn.'s chief aims. "He must increase, but I must
decrease" (iii. 30): with these words the Baptist himself is made to
write the legend to this little picture, which is really sketched very
gracefully. In order to do so, the author adds a touch which, in
reality, as he himself knows, does not at all harmonise with the truth.
Only one? Of course the picture includes that other feature we have
mentioned; John the Baptist is still at large. Must we see in this a
correct addition, a correction made by an eye-witness when the same
"eye-witness" in another verse not far off has told us with equal
precision something which on his own admission is not true? Must we
base upon this our idea of the purpose of correction which he followed
throughout his book? A different idea of his purpose has resulted, with
an incomparably greater amount of probability, from this very example;
he wishes to be not a reporter who is to be taken at his word, but a
painter; a painter of vivid scenes designed to make clear and
impressive a higher truth--in the present instance the truth that John
was only the forerunner of Jesus, and had to take an entirely
subordinate place, in fact does so of his own free will. And if we now
ask again, how long the Evangelist imagines the Baptist to be still at
large while Jesus is at work, the only answer can be: merely for this
particular scene, and not for those that follow. Once his retirement
before Jesus has been described, the Baptist is so unimportant to Jn.
that he does not think his arrest worth reporting. Indeed, even in the
case of preceding events (the marriage at Cana, the expulsion of the
dealers from the fore-court of the Temple, the conversation with
Nicodemus), he seems to have hardly thought that they occurred while
the Baptist was still at large.
But the theory that Jn. wishes to supplement the Synoptics by giving
the earliest events in the public life of Jesus is overthrown by what
we are told as regards the discourses of Jesus, when it is presupposed
that these also served the purpose of supplementing the Synoptics. If
Jesus be supposed to have spoken in both ways--as he is represented as
doing in the Synoptics and as Jn. makes him do--it cannot be imagined
that the style met with in Jn. was the earlier. We are told on the
contrary that Jn. preserves the manner of speech in which Jesus
addressed his disciples in his last days, after he had finished his
ministry amongst the people, which latter is reflected in his
discourses in the Synoptics. This statement might seem worth
considering if the discourses of Jesus preserved to us in Jn. were
solely farewell ad dresses to his disciples during his last days, like
those in chapters xiii.-xvii. But, as a matter of fact, Jn. represents
Jesus as speaking from the very beginning in the same style as in these
farewell discourses. To sum up, in the events which he describes, Jn.
is supposed to take us back to the earliest days, and in the discourses
which Jesus delivered at these, the earliest events in his public
career, this same author Jn. is supposed to preserve the tone in which
Jesus spoke during the last weeks of his life. Both assumptions are
necessary if we are to insist that Jn. wishes to supplement and correct
the Synoptics. And yet one of the two assumptions annuls the other.
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6. ARE SEVERAL JOURNEYS OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM PRESUPPOSED IN MT. xxiii. 37?
But an attempt is made in another way to show that Jn. could not really
be in conflict with his predecessors. Those who make it find in the
Synoptics themselves passages here and there which confirm, as they
think, the story of Jn. In particular, several journeys of Jesus to
Jerusalem, connected with a public appearance there, are, they say,
presupposed when Jesus says in Mt. (xxiii. 37): "Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee,
how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." The
inference really appears to be unavoidable. The only remarkable thing
is that the Synoptists themselves have not drawn it. If they themselves
really suggest that Jesus came forward so often in Jerusalem, why do
they not only tell us nothing about this, but represent things as if
when he made this utterance he had come to Jerusalem for the first time
to counsel and admonish. Thus those who refer to this utterance as a
corroboration of the story of Jn. are producing a greater puzzle as
regards the Synoptists, who likewise claim that their story has a right
to be regarded as correct. So that before we attach such great
importance to the utterance in question, we prefer to examine it again
more closely.
When we do this, it is clear in the very first instance that it does
not read as people think it does, and in the way in which we have
rendered it above, intentionally following the general practice, in
order to show what mistakes one is liable to make when one follows a
popular custom. In reality--and in Lk. (xiii. 34) exactly as in Mt.--it
reads: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets and stones them
that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children,"
&c. Jerusalem is therefore apostrophised only in the second half of the
sentence; in the first something is said about the city without the
city itself being addressed. No one who has a thought clearly in his
mind, and intends to write it down in an equally simple sentence, would
express himself in this way.
On the other hand, the remarkable form of the sentence would be quite
intelligible if our Evangelists, Mt. and Lk., or rather the earlier
writer from whom they both draw, [3] used a book in which the sentence
about Jerusalem appeared without any apostrophe; and if they or he
proceeded to introduce the apostrophe without noticing that, having
made this alteration, the sentence should have been made to read
differently at the beginning. And this is not a mere conjecture; we
have, in addition, a clue which indicates the kind of book it may have
been. In Mt., that is to say, the utterance immediately follows another
(xxiii. 34-36) to this effect: "Therefore, behold, I send unto you
prophets, and wise men, and scribes; some of them shall ye kill and
crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and
persecute from city to city," &c. Lk. gives this utterance in xi.
49-51, keeping the continuation about Jerusalem--quoted above--for
chap. xiii. of his book. But this earlier utterance in Lk. not only
dispenses with the apostrophe, as the beginning of the continuation
about Jerusalem does--"I will send unto them prophets and apostles, and
some of them they shall kill and persecute," &c.--but--and this is the
chief point it is preceded by the introductory words: u There fore also
said the wisdom of God."
The Wisdom of God is represented in several books of the Old Testament
as a person who takes up the word (Prov. viii. f., Ecclus. xxiv.), or
is found as the title of a book (Wisdom of Solomon; Wisdom of Jesus,
son of Sirach). The saying under consideration is not found in any of
these books. But it is clear that it cannot have been framed for the
first time by Jesus. In what precedes Jesus is addressing the
Pharisees. He could not, therefore, as he does in Lk., suddenly
continue, "therefore also said the wisdom of God," unless what now
follows is a saying which was already well known. But this is clear
from the version in Mt. as well, though here the introductory formula
is wanting. Jesus cannot have said of himself, as Mt. makes him say, "I
send to you prophets and wise men and Scribes," for he never did this,
and at least would never have sent Scribes, whose attitude towards him
was so unfriendly. Lk. knew very well what he was doing, when he
substituted "Prophets and Apostles"; for Jesus could really send
Apostles and (New Testament) Prophets. In this description of the
persons sent, Mt. therefore has, we may be sure, preserved the more
original version, but in the introductory formula it is Lk. who has
done so. In Mt. the only remaining clue to the fact that his
predecessor had before him a book in which this introductory formula
stood is the word "therefore."
But what kind of book was it? If the Scribes were mentioned amongst
those men who were sent by God to the people, it was the work of a
pious Jew who reproached his people for being stiff-necked, and was
anxious to induce them to repent. Whether it had the title
"Wisdom"--perhaps with some addition--or whether Wisdom was simply
represented as speaking in it, we do not know. From this book,
according to the story of the predecessor of our Mt. and Lk., Jesus
quoted a passage in support of his own words in which he warned the
Pharisees that they would be punished. In this way it is still used in
Lk. Mt., on the other hand, has wrongly understood it and introduced it
in such a way that Jesus uses the words as his own, and Lk. also, as
regards the utterance about Jerusalem, shares the misunderstanding.
Thus it was the Wisdom of God which said that it had often wished to
gather together Jerusalem's children, as a hen gathers her chickens.
This it had actually done by sending prophets and wise men and Scribes.
It is not Jesus who says he has done this. Thus the whole confirmation
of Jn.'s story of many visits of Jesus to Jerusalem rests solely on the
fact that an utterance put into the mouth of the Wisdom of God by a
Jewish author has been wrongly regarded as a saying of Jesus. And now
we understand also why the Synoptics, in spite of this "saying of
Jesus" in which he says how often he has concerned himself about
Jerusalem, had no information about these labours.
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[3] The truth of the theory that they had the work of an earlier writer
before them has been fully demonstrated. Cp. Wernle, Die Quellen des
Lelens Jesu, pp. 70-7-4 (in the Religionsgeschichtlichen Volksbuecher;
Engl. trans, pp. 131-139).
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7. IS JESUS' RELATIONSHIP TO GOD IN MT. xi. 27 THE SAME AS IN JN.?
It would be still more important if we could find a second passage in
the Synoptics fitted to confirm the story of Jn. We mean such
confirmation as would relate not merely to one particular point, such
as the journeys of Jesus to Jerusalem, but to the whole character of
Jesus' discourses. We have in mind Mt. xi. 27: "All things have been
delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son, save the
Father; neither (doth any know) the Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him." These words seem certainly
to be spoken quite in the spirit of the Fourth Gospel, which in x. 14
f., for instance, says ("I am the good shepherd; and I know mine own,
and mine own know me), even as the Father knoweth me, and I know the
Father." In Jn. this mutual knowledge must be understood in the sense
that Jesus had from eternity existed with God in heaven before he came
down to earth.
Now it is certainly remarkable that in the Synoptics only this one
saying can be found which gives expression to this thought, and might
be compared to the discourses of Jesus in Jn. If, as is claimed, it
really implies confirmation of these, again all that we get is a new
puzzle as regards the Synoptics: why in these does Jesus not speak in
this way more often, instead of talking everywhere else in such an
entirely different way? This consideration obliges us to re-examine the
utterance more closely.
This also originally read quite differently. All ecclesiastical and
heretical writers of the second century, who give us any information
about this passage, entirely or in part support the following version:
"All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one hath
known the Father, save the Son, neither the Son save the Father, and he
to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him."
Even the Church Father, Irenaeus, about A.D. 185, who warmly upbraids a
Christian sect for making use of this version, follows it several times
in his writings; it must therefore have really been found in his own
Bible. As compared with it, the version which we now have in the Bible
cannot under any circumstances claim the preference. It is true that
our oldest copies of the Bible contain it, but they are about two
centuries later than the authorities we have mentioned. And no
plausible reason can be given why the version current in the second
century should be due to a deliberate change on the part of a Christian
sect; on the other hand, since the one form must have arisen through an
alteration of the other, it is very conceivable that it is the text in
our present Bible which has resulted from a change, because, we may
suppose, the writer was anxious to make the language resemble more
closely Jesus style of preaching in Jn.
Is the difference so great then? At first sight it might seem slight.
But that is a very wrong impression. While we read, "No one knoweth the
Son . . . the Father," a mutual knowledge from eternity may be meant,
and, as we said just now, this is one of the ideas of the Fourth
Gospel. When, however, we read, "no one hath known," a definite point
of time is fixed at which the knowledge first began; and when Jesus
goes on to say of himself, "no one has known the Father but the Son,"
it is clear that the knowledge of the Father cannot have commenced
before some definite date in his earthly life, since the Synoptics are
not aware that Jesus existed in heaven before he lived on earth.
Nevertheless, if the words in the first place were, "no one hath known
the Son save the Father," it would still be possible that at any rate
the knowledge on the part of God was present from eternity, and this
would be in agreement with the style of thought in the Fourth Gospel.
But a second important peculiarity in the oldest version is found in
this very fact that the first place is assigned to the clause, "No one
hath known the Father save the Son," and that the other clause follows,
"No one hath known the Son, save the Father." And since the knowledge
spoken of first was not gained earlier than during the earthly life of
Jesus, we cannot suppose that the knowledge referred to in the second
clause belongs to an earlier date.
The meaning is really quite simple: Jesus alone has acquired the
knowledge that God is not a Lord who is jealous for his own honour, and
cannot be approached by men, but is a loving Father. This of itself
means that he can feel himself to be a son of God. It is a feeling of
his own, however, which no one so far has realised--none of his
hearers, but God alone. This second part of the thought is very well
expressed in Lk. (x. 22) by the clause: "no one knows (more correctly,
has known) who the son is," that is to say, that I am he. Finally, with
this agrees very well the conclusion in Mt. and Lk., "and to whom the
son will reveal it." In the usual version of the saying, the
immediately preceding words are: "no one knows the Father, but the
son." What the latter will reveal is thus the deeper nature of God,
and, understood in the spirit of the Fourth Gospel, the meaning might
be that Jesus acquired the knowledge during his pre-existence in
heaven. But, according to the correct version, the immediately
preceding words are, "no one has known the son, but the Father," and
here the following words mean, "and he to whom I myself am willing to
reveal that I am that son; you have all failed as yet to recognise
this, I myself must tell you of it."
Strictly speaking, when the knowledge that God is the Father dawns upon
any man, he can feel that he himself is His son; this knowledge Jesus
wished to bring to all, and said, "blessed are the peace-makers, for
they shall be called the sons of God," "love your enemies, and pray for
them that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father which is in
heaven" (Mt. v. 9, 44 f.). He used the expression "sons of God," and so
the same expression as he applied to himself. Instead of this, Jn.
continually uses of men--and he is the first to do so--the phrase
"children of God," reserving the expression "Son of God" for Jesus
alone, and Luther, without any justification, has used it also in Mt.
and in other places where the original has "sons." [4] It is quite
clear that, in view of what we have said, Jesus cannot have called
himself Son of God in a sense that only applies to himself, on the
ground, for instance, that he proceeded from God in a manner different
from that in which human beings come into existence at their birth; he
can only have done so in a sense in which all men can become what he
was, that is to say, sons of God who are equally ready to obey
absolutely the Father in heaven, but at the same time rely upon His
love, just as a human son relies upon the love of his human father. If
we of to-day wish to express the sense in which Jesus called himself
Son of God in a way that cannot be misunderstood, we must do the
reverse of what Jn. has done--use the other expression and say that
Jesus felt himself to be a child of God.
Turning again to Mt. xi. 27, we must remember that at this time Jesus
alone possessed the knowledge that God is a loving Father. This made
him singular and raised him above other men. Thus the thought of being
God's son made him feel in addition that he was sent by God to reveal
this knowledge to his brethren. This is the meaning of the initial
words of the saying: "all things have been delivered to me of my
Father." It does not imply any super human power, as in the saying
(which, it is almost generally agreed, was not spoken by Jesus), "all
power is given to me in heaven and upon earth" (Mt. xxviii. 18). Here
the word "power" does occur in the passage, but not in the text under
consideration. What is delivered to Jesus, in our passage, we must
gather simply from the context; on the evidence of the saying itself,
it is the knowledge that we can regard God as our Father. In agreement
with this is the fact that according to xi. 25 it must be something
which was hidden from the wise and revealed to the simple, and
according to xi. 28-30 something which was quite different from the
yoke of the Jewish Law under which the weary and heavy-laden groaned,
while Jesus yoke was easy and his burden light, and was able to refresh
the soul because it consisted simply in doing the will of God gladly
and in relying upon His love.
Are all these thoughts similar to those found in the Fourth Gospel? Far
from it. On the contrary, no utterance harmonises with the spirit of
Jesus' discourses in the Synoptics so well as the one we have been
considering if we hold fast to its original language. In fact, it is
precisely this that enables us for the first time to under stand fully
how Jesus came to be what he was according to the Synoptics; at first
he was quite simply a man who in the course of his mental development
realised that he had a Father in heaven; next he became one who felt
himself called by this Father of his to be a leader, sent to the
people, because he found that he stood quite alone in having this
knowledge, and yet could not be silent about it; and from this it was
easy to take a further step and to feel obliged to regard himself as
that highest messenger sent by God, whom his people and his age thought
of as the one who had been long promised, as the Messiah.
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[4] Paul interchanges "sons" and "children" without any distinction.
Luther renders only the Singular by "son" (Heb. xii. 5-7; Rev. xxi. 7),
the Plural by "sons" only in the phrase "sons and daughters" (2 Cor.
vi. 18). In Gal. iv. 7 he arbitrarily changes the Singular into the
Plural in order to be able to use the term "children." The Authorised
English Version has, like Luther, son for the Singular, but also in
Gal. iv. 7. For the Plural it has in half the cases sons (Rom. viii.
14, 19; Gal. iv. 6; Heb. ii. 10, xii. 7 f.; besides 2 Cor. vi. 18), but
in the other half, like Luther, children (Mt. v. 9, 45; Lk. vi. 35, xx.
36; Rom. ix. 26; Gal. iii. 26; Heb. xii. 5). The Revised Version
everywhere translates correctly son or sons.
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8. INACCURATE RECOLLECTION ON THE PART OF THE APOSTLE JOHN?
What remains, if we still wish to maintain that the Fourth Gospel is in
agreement with the first three? If we disregard various other
expedients, which are far less likely to be satisfactory than those we
have already discussed, there is only one left. We are told by the
Church Fathers that at the end of the first century the Apostle John
was still living. This being so, it is eagerly assumed that he did not
write his gospel until shortly before his death. And whereas his great
age obscured his recollection of many matters in the life of Jesus, he
remembered other things quite correctly. This explains, it is said, how
it is that his book, apart from much that is incorrect, contains much
that serves to correct the story of the Synoptics.
In itself this assumption has nothing impossible about it; if indeed it
could be accepted that the Gospel was composed by the apostle and in
his old age, this theory might be deemed fairly probable. Since,
however, we must first examine the two presuppositions on which it is
based, let us at the outset put the simple question, What would the
result be? At least not this--that Jn., as compared with the Synoptics,
must always be regarded as everywhere right. This particular idea
therefore is abandoned as being untenable. To what extent is he right
then? To suit the real desire of those who put forward this theory, he
is right on as many points as possible. For the main purpose of these
people is to support the idea that we have in Jn. the work of an
eye-witness of the life of Jesus. But when we examine the matter more
closely, his trustworthiness is abandoned on one point after another,
because, however much we may wish to believe in it, it cannot be
maintained.
In particular, as regards the discourses of Jesus, it is more and more
generally conceded that it was the aged John who first conceived them
in the style in which they appear in the Fourth Gospel. His conception
of Jesus changed in the course of his long life, and as these new ideas
took shape his recollection of the discourses of Jesus altered as well.
If this were assumed to a moderate extent, it might seem conceivable;
but people would never have jumped at so doubtful an expedient, unless
the difference between Jn.'s style of discourse and the other style,
which may really be accepted as original, were very marked indeed.
Thus the result of emphasising the great age of John is really the
opposite of what was intended. The desire was simply to defend the
trustworthiness of the Fourth Gospel as against the Synoptics, and yet
the would-be defenders are obliged in a clear, if rather veiled, manner
to admit that on most points he is untrustworthy.
We have now come to the end of the attempts to reconcile the accounts
of the life of Jesus in the Synoptics and in Jn. In conclusion, we can
only say that we sincerely pity any one who engages in this labour. If
on many particular points his efforts seem to be really satisfactory to
him, he can never rejoice at his success; for he has no sooner shown
that it is not absolutely impossible to reconcile some new little
circumstance in Jn. with the Synoptics than a whole series of others
come to light which defy every attempt at reconciliation.
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